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 τοις, 
 
THE BOOK 
 
 Or 
 
 THE PROPHET ISAIAH, 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL HEBREW ; 
 
 WITH A 
 
 COMMENTARY, 
 
 CRITICAL, PHILOLOGICAL, AND EXEGETICAL: 
 
 TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION 
 
 ON 
 
 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE PROPHET; 
 THE CHARACTER OF HIS STYLE; THE AUTHENTICITY AND INTEGRITY OF THE 
 BOOK; AND THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. Ε΄ HENDERSON, D.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF ‘‘LECTURES ON DIVINE INSPIRATION,” ‘‘ BIBLICAL RESEARCHES AND 
 TRAVELS IN RUSSIA,” “ICELAND,” ETC. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Nobis propositum est Esaiam per nos intelligi, et nequaquam sub Esaize 
 occasione nostra verba laudari.—H1iERon. ap Eustocu. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
 
 33, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 M DCCC LVII. 
 
LONDON: 
 R, CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREUT AIL. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Ir is not without considerable diffidence that I publish 
 to the world the result of my critical labours on the 
 prophet Isaiah. The pre-eminent position which Bishop 
 Lowth has occupied for more than half a century in this 
 department of sacred literature, may by some be thought 
 sufficient to justify the charge of presumption against any 
 attempt to improve upon the elegant production of his 
 superior mind. Yet, who that has examined the serious 
 discrepancies which exist between the renderings of his 
 translation and those of our common version, or that 
 adverts to the opinion, which has been delivered by the 
 best judges, that these discrepancies are principally to be 
 ascribed to the fondness for conjectural emendation in which 
 the learned prelate so freely indulged, but must admit, that 
 the study of the subject cannot justly be regarded as 
 foreclosed, and that further efforts are required to satisfy 
 the claims of a numerous class of readers, on whose minds 
 it must press with no ordinary degree of interest. 
 
 That labours of this kind are still wanted is also apparent 
 from the new impulse which has been given to the study 
 of Scripture criticism and interpretation; the advances 
 recently made im Oriental literature generally, and. parti- 
 cularly in the scientific treatment of Hebrew philology ; 
 and the multiplied sources of illustration which have been 
 supplied by books of ‘Travel, describing the geography, 
 manners, customs, &c., of the regions contiguous to, or 
 
 , 
 
1V PREFACE. 
 
 forming the scenes of the transactions and objects to which 
 allusions are made in the Bible. 
 
 While, in this country, our prophet has been compara- 
 tively neglected, the critics of Germany have subjected his 
 book to rigid processes of philological and exegetical in- 
 vestigation. ‘The ‘Scholia’ of the younger Rosenmiiler, 
 and the Commentaries of Gesenius, Hitzig, and Hendewerk, 
 though lamentably abounding with imfidel sentiments, far 
 surpass any thing of the kind hitherto published, viewed 
 as works of pure criticism, and sources of materials for 
 successful interpretation. This remark applies particularly 
 to the two first:—to Rosenmiiller, on account of the 
 copiousness with which he exhibits the views of ancient 
 and modern writers, and the acumen which he generally 
 displays in arriving at his conclusions; and to Gesenius, 
 on account of his accurate knowledge of the etymological 
 and syntactical niceties of the Hebrew language, his judi- 
 cious use of the cognate dialects, his profound historical 
 and geographical research, and his careful investigation of 
 the difficulties which lay in his path. 
 
 Not finding that any attempt was likely soon to be made 
 to supply a desideratum painfully felt to exist m our theo- 
 logical literature, I was mduced to undertake the present 
 work." Having, during a period of thirty years, endeavoured 
 
 τ It was not till after the greater part of this work had been carried through 
 the press that the Commentary of the Rev. Albert Barnes made its appear- 
 ance in America. Such readers, however, as may compare the two will find 
 that they occupy altogether independent ground. [I would, in this Second 
 Edition, recommend to the attention of my readers the Commentary of Dr. 
 J. A. Alexander, Professor in Princeton College, New Jersey, as a work of 
 very superior merit, although containing very free strictures on the views 
 advocated in the present volume relating to the future restoration of the Jews 
 to Palestine,—views, however, which my continued studies of the prophetic 
 record have not induced me to retract.] 
 
PREFACE. Vv 
 
 to render myself familar with the language in which Isaiah 
 wrote, and with the kindred dialects, whence so much help 
 is to be derived; having perused the principal Biblical 
 and Oriental productions which have appeared both in this 
 country and on the Continent; and having for some time 
 past more largely taken up Scripture exegesis as part of 
 my official duty, I trust I shall not be deemed obtrusive 
 in thus offering my contributions on the altar of sacred 
 truth. 
 
 In executing the task which I prescribed for myself, it 
 has been my aim to fix the reading of the text; to clear 
 up philological and other difficulties; to mark the pecu- 
 liarities of the style; to trace the logical connexion ; to 
 catch the spirit, and ascertain the meaning of the prophet ; 
 and, as far as possible, to express that meaning in language 
 true to the original, yet not ungrateful to an English ear. 
 
 With the view of more clearly exhibiting the elevated 
 character of the composition, and especially the paral- 
 lelisms, which so materially assist im determining the sense, 
 I have adopted the more approved method of throwing the 
 translation into a poetic or rhythmical form. In doing 
 this, I have been regulated chiefly by the divisions marked 
 out by the Hebrew accents, which will, on the whole, be 
 found to be correct. 
 
 Some may be disappointed on finding that I have not 
 combined doctrinal and practical observations with my 
 exegesis ; but the union of the two I perceived, from the 
 first, would be incompatible with the limits within which 
 I should be obliged to confine my labours. Nor could 
 I discover any pressing necessity for their introduction. 
 There is no lack of commentaries adapted for general 
 edification ; while it must be allowed we are still greatly 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 deficient im such works as have for their definite object 
 the eliciting of “the mind of the Spirit,” upon which all 
 genuine Christian edification must be based. Besides, the 
 intermixture of spiritual matter with critical and philo- 
 logical questions, must have appeared nearly as much out 
 of place, as it would be to interlard a work of general 
 exposition with such topics. The departments are quite 
 distinct, and ought to be separately occupied. 
 
 I must apologize to the Oriental scholar for having printed 
 the Arabic without points :—a course which I was under the 
 necessity of pursuing, in order to prevent the awkward 
 appearance which the greater increase of space between the 
 lines must have produced, had they been inserted. It may 
 also be proper to state, that the references to passages in the 
 Old Testament are made according to the numeration in 
 the Hebrew Bible, when the original is in question; when 
 the sentiment only is involved, our own version has been 
 followed ; in some few cases, both are cited. 
 
 On one point, it is necessary specially to bespeak the in- 
 dulgent consideration of my readers,—the position which 1 
 have taken respecting the future restoration of the Jews to 
 Palestine. That such a restoration is taught im Scripture, I 
 had been accustomed to regard as more than questionable, 
 how firmly soever I believed in their future conversion to the 
 faith of Jesus. On examining, however, the different pro- 
 phecies of the Old Testament, which treat of a return of 
 that people, I have had the conviction forced upon my mind, 
 that while the greater number decidedly apply to the restora- 
 tion which took place on the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, 
 there are others which cannot, without violence, be thus 
 applied; but which, being, upon any just principle of inter- 
 pretation, equally incapable of application to the affairs of the 
 
PREFACE. vil 
 
 Gentile Church, must be referred to events yet future in 
 Jewish history. In this class I particularly include the last 
 seven chapters of Isaiah, which immediately follow the re- 
 - markable prediction respecting the future conversion of the 
 Jews, at the close of the fifty-ninth. Not the most distant 
 allusion is made throughout these chapters to any circum- 
 stances connected with the deliverance from Babylon; while, 
 on the other hand, they contain a distinct recognition: of 
 various things belonging to the New Dispensation,—such as 
 the Divine Mission of the Messiah, the abolition of the 
 Jewish worship, the calling of the Gentiles, the rejection of 
 the Jews, and certain features of their present dispersion. 
 At the same time, there is such a marked distinction uni- 
 formly kept up between the persons spoken of and_ the 
 Gentiles; such an appropriation to their condition of lan- 
 guage elsewhere only used of the natural posterity of Abra- 
 ham; such an obvious description of the desolation of 
 Palestine ; and such express mention of a restored land, 
 mountains, vineyards, fields, houses, flocks, &c. which cannot 
 be figuratively understood, that; with no hermeneutical pro- 
 priety, can the scene be placed in the Gentile world, or 
 regarded as exhibiting the state of Gentile Christianity. 
 
 That the Jews shall cease to exist as a distinct race on 
 their incorporation into the Christian Church, the Bible no- 
 where teaches ; nor is such an event probable in the nature 
 of things. But, if they shall exist as believing Jews, on 
 what principle can it be maintained that they may not live in 
 Palestine, just as believing Britons do in Britain, believing 
 Americans in America, &c.? Christianity does not destroy 
 nationality, nor require an amalgamation of the different 
 races of mankind, however it may insist that, in a spiritual 
 point of view, all its subjects constitute but one nation and 
 
vill PREFACE. 
 
 one people, holy and peculiar—the sons and daughters of the 
 Lord God Almighty. If the Jews had received the Messiah, 
 when preached to them by the Apostles, there is no reason to 
 suppose that they would have been expelled from their own 
 land; so that whatever admissions of Gentiles there might 
 have been into their community, it would still, nm the main, 
 have been made up of Jews, as in fact “the churches of 
 God ” were, ‘“ which in Judea were in Christ Jesus.” 
 
 Nor is there any thing, in what I conceive to be the doctrine 
 of Scripture on this subject, at all at variance with its repre: 
 sentations respecting the spiritual nature of the kingdom of 
 Christ. The Jews, when converted, will be required to con- 
 form in every point to the laws of that kingdom, precisely as 
 the Gentiles are on their becoming subject to its Head and 
 Lord. Not the slightest hint is given that any forms of eccle- 
 siastical polity, or any modes of worship, will obtain among 
 the restored Jewish converts, different from those instituted 
 by the Apostles. 
 
 As to the degree of temporal prosperity promised to them, 
 it appears to have special respect to the long-continued cir- 
 cumstances of adversity in which they have lived; and may 
 perhaps, after all, differ but little from that which will be 
 enjoyed by the members of the Dive kingdom generally, 
 during the happy period of the Millennium. 
 
 ἜΝ On finding that a Second Kdition of this Commentary was in request, I havé 
 subjected it to careful revision. The work, as a whole, remains substantially 
 the same, though it contains a few additions derived from more modern research, 
 and such slight alterations as I have deemed absolutely needful. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ISAIAH. 
 
 Noruine is known with historical certainty respecting the pro- 
 phet Isaiah, beyond what is furnished by his own book, and a few 
 scattered notices in the books of Kings and Chronicles. 
 
 His name, "7%, YESHAIAHU, signifies “The Salvation of Jeho- 
 vah,” being compounded of 7%, deliverance or salvation, and ὙΠ, an 
 apocopated form of 7. That this name perfectly accords with 
 the leading themes of his book cannot be doubted; but whether it 
 was given him by Divine direction, on the foreknowledge of the 
 fact that he was to be employed in propounding such themes, it 15 
 impossible to determine. 
 
 The only positive information which we possess respecting his 
 descent is, that he was the son of Amoz, (Heb. ¥8)—a person 
 whom some of the Fathers, from their ignorance of Hebrew, con- 
 founded with Amos, (Heb. ™¥,) the prophet who flourished in the 
 reign of Jeroboam 11. Many of the Jews likewise ascribe to him 
 a prophetical pedigree, but merely on the gratuitous assumption, 
 that in all cases in which the father of a prophet is mentioned by 
 name, he must have filled the same office. Others have attempted 
 to vindicate to him a royal parentage, maintaining that Amoz was 
 brother to King Amaziah; but rabbinical tradition is all they can 
 allege in support of their position. That he was a native of Judah, 
 there can be little doubt; and, that he resided at Jerusalem is evi- 
 dent from chap. vii. 3, vill. 2, xxii. 15, xxxvii. 2, 5, 21, ἄκουα but 
 whether he lived in the middle or lower division of the city, is not 
 
 : b 
 
x INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 so certain, though some have gathered as much from the textual 
 reading of 2 Kings xx. 4. No circumstances of a domestic charac- 
 ter are mentioned, excepting that he was married, and that he had 
 two sons in the reign of Ahaz, to both of whom were given names 
 symbolical of important events in the Jewish history. The opinion 
 that he was twice married has merely been advanced in order to 
 give something like plausibility to a false interpretation of chap. 
 vu. 14. 
 
 Though it is extremely probable that he was first solemnly called 
 to the public discharge of his prophetical functions in the last year 
 of Uzziah, 7.e. B.c. 759, yet there is reason to conclude that he 
 had been occupied with public affairs long before: it being ex- 
 pressly stated 2 Chron. xxvi. 22, that he composed the complete 
 memoirs of that prince. At all events, he must have reached some 
 maturity of age by that time; and if, as is exceedingly probable, 
 he lived some time during the reign of Manasseh, it will follow, 
 that he filled the prophetical office during a period of about fifty 
 years, and must have been about eighty at the time of his death. 
 According to a very ancient Jewish tradition, he was sawn in two 
 by order of Manasseh, whom he had boldly reproved for his wicked- 
 ness.' To this the Apostle is supposed to allude, Heb. xi. 37. 
 
 As the exact position of our prophet, and the peculiar circum- 
 stances of the times in which he flourished, must necessarily either 
 have called forth, or given a distinctive colouring to the predictions 
 which he was commissioned to deliver, it is manifest, that an accu- 
 rate knowledge of his times is indispensable to a right interpretation 
 of his book. Now it so happens, that not only does a considerable 
 portion of the book itself abound with historical statements and 
 allusions, but full and circumstantial accounts of the principal 
 events which transpired in his days, and the relations of the sur- 
 rounding nations to the Jews, and to each other, are found in 
 several books of the Old Testament which treat of that period. 
 
 Two hundred and forty years before Isaiah entered upon his 
 prophetical office, the revolt under Rehoboam took place, by which 
 
 1 Gemara Jebam. iv. 13; Sanhed. fol. 103; Just. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. 
 p. 349; Origen in Ps. xxxvii; Tertullian de Patientia; Jerome in Isa. lvii; 
 Augustine, Civ. Dei. xviii. 24; Chronicon Pasch. p. 155. See also Ascensio Jesaiz 
 Vatis, published by Dr. Lawrence in Ethiopic and Latin, Oxford, 1819, the 
 areek original of which is quoted by Epiphanius de Heres. xl. 2. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. ΧΙ 
 
 the Hebrew kingdom was divided into two separate states, which 
 not only made war on each other, but were subject to harassing in- 
 vasions by foreign enemies. During the first eighty years of this 
 period, the kingdom of Judah greatly prospered, especially under 
 the pious kings, Asa and Jehoshaphat; but the idolatries which they 
 had succeeded in suppressing having been revived, Jehovah visited 
 it with heavy calamities; and, in the last days of Amaziah it lay 
 prostrate at the feet of Jehoash, king of Israel. 
 
 Though only sixteen years of age when raised to the throne, 
 Uzziah soon discovered a spirit of energy and enterprise; not only 
 restoring the administration of public affairs from the state to which 
 it had been reduced, and promoting the agricultural interests of the 
 country, but organizing an immense army, fortifying the principal 
 cities, and carrying his victorious arms into the territories of the 
 Philistines, the Ammonites, and the Arabs. He also took the 
 Port of Elath on the eastern gulf of the Red Sea, and thus re- 
 opened the lucrative maritime trade of the East. Though, on the 
 whole, obedient to the Divine laws, yet this monarch suffered the 
 idolatrous altars to remain, and was ultimately smitten with leprosy 
 for presuming to invade the sacred office of the priesthood. 
 
 Although temporal prosperity appears to have continued during 
 the reign of Jotham, yet, owing to the increase of luxury and 
 sensual indulgence, true piety greatly declined; and the alliance 
 was formed between Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of 
 Syria, which was brought to bear against the kingdom the year 
 after his death, which took place B.c. 743. He was succeeded by 
 Ahaz, the most abandoned monarch that had yet ascended the 
 Jewish throne. During his reign every thing was thrown into con- 
 fusion; the law of God was violated in the most reckless manner ; 
 superstition and idolatry were openly practised; a Syrian altar and 
 Syrian gods were introduced; and the temple was not only greatly 
 defaced, but at last entirely closed against the worship of the true 
 God.? Having been repulsed with great loss by the confederate 
 powers of Israel and Syria, and suffering from the Edomites and 
 the Philistines, Ahaz applied to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, 
 for assistance, for which he paid him a subsidy, raised from the 
 treasures of the temple, the nobility, and the royal palace. It 
 
 1 2 Kings xv. 1—7; 2 Chron. xxvi. 
 2 Isa. 11. 6—8; 2 Kings xv. 32—88, xvi. 1—4; 2 Chron. xxvii. xxviil. 
 
xi INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 would appear, however, that, though the Assyrian monarch pos- 
 sessed himself of Damascus and some of the cities belonging to 
 Israel, the inhabitants of which he carried into exile, he afforded 
 no real succour to Ahaz, but, on the contrary, greatly harassed and 
 perplexed him as his tributary.’ 
 
 On the death of Ahaz, B.c. 728, he was succeeded by Hezekiah, 
 a pious and zealous prince, who abolished idolatry, and all the 
 objects that had been perverted to its use; restored the temple 
 and worship of Jehovah; improved the fortifications and water- 
 works around Jerusalem; reduced the Philistines; and shook off 
 the Assyrian yoke. In the fourteenth year of his reign, however, 
 t.e. B.C. 714, he was menaced by Sennacherib, who was advancing 
 with a large army through Judea, with a view to the conquest of 
 Egypt. To avert the threatened calamity, Hezekiah paid to the 
 king of Assyria the stipulated sum of three hundred talents of 
 silver, and thirty talents of gold, to raise which he was obliged to 
 appropriate all the treasures in the temple and the palace; but that 
 monarch, deeming it unsafe to leave so strong a power in his rear, 
 reduced most of the cities of Judah, and ordered a numerous body 
 of his troops to invest and subdue Jerusalem. Summoned in lan- 
 guage of the most insolent description to surrender, Hezekiah 
 applied by earnest prayer for Divine protection and deliverance ; 
 and by the miraculous destruction of the Assyrian army the city 
 was relieved. On his recovery from a dangerous sickness, which 
 had been pre-signified by a miraculous phenomenon, he was 
 honoured with an embassy from the court of Babylon; but giving 
 way to a spirit of ostentation, he received a severe rebuke in the 
 announcement of the Babylonish captivity.’ 
 
 In the succeeding reign of Manasseh, idolatry, with all its accom- 
 panying evils, was publicly established, and maintained in the most 
 daring and outrageous manner by that apostate king; in conse- 
 quence of which, notwithstanding the penitent efforts which he 
 afterwards made to regain the ground he had lost, and the zealous 
 reformation effected by Josiah, the Jewish affairs continued gra- 
 dually to decline, till at last, partly by internal broils, partly by the 
 invasion of Pharaoh Necho, and finally by the imposition of the 
 Babylonish yoke, they were reduced to the lowest possible state ; 
 
 1 2 Kings xvi.; 2 Chron. xxviii.; 1 Chron. v. 26. i 
 2 2 Kings xviiiim—xx.; 2 Chron. xxix.—xxxii; Isa, xxxvii—xxxix, 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. Xill 
 
 the city of Jerusalem was destroyed; the temple burnt with fire ; 
 and the principal inhabitants were carried away captive to Babylon.' 
 Though Isaiah can have lived only during a very limited period of 
 this last section of the history of his people, yet no inconsiderable 
 portion of his predictions relate to their condition as located in the 
 midst of idolaters during the captivity, and their happy restoration 
 to their own land through the instrumentality of Cyrus.? 
 
 During the space of time occupied by the ministry of the 
 prophet, the Jews were more or less affected by the influence of 
 foreign states, some of which were the most powerful empires of 
 antiquity. In their immediate vicinity were the rival kingdom of 
 Israel, the Syrian and Tyrian powers, the Philistines, Moabites, 
 Edomites, and Arabians, by whose warlike demonstrations, sudden 
 incursions, and victorious enterprises, they were greatly annoyed, 
 and frequently brought to the verge of ruin. In the ancient 
 kingdom of the Pharaohs, at this time successively under the rule 
 of the nineteenth of Manetho’s dynasties, the Dodecharchy, and 
 the dynasty of Psammeticus, they had a powerful neighbour, to 
 the shield of whose protection they constantly looked for safety 
 when threatened by the most formidable of their assailants— 
 Assyria.’ This empire, the capital of which was Nineveh, was, so 
 far as Jewish affairs are concerned, not the ancient power of that 
 name, supposed to have been founded by Nimrod, but that founded 
 on the death of Sardanapalus, by Arbaces the Mede, about the 
 seventh year of Uzziah, B.c. 804. The Assyrian monarchs men- 
 tioned in Scripture as having invaded Palestine, are Pul, Tiglath- 
 pileser, Shalmaneser, Sargon, Sennacherib, and LEzar-haddon. 
 Their sceptre was one of almost unlimited sway, being wielded 
 from Persia to the Mediterranean, and from the Caspian Sea to 
 the Persian Gulf. Yet, not satisfied with this extensive empire, 
 Sargon and Sennacherib projected the conquest of Egypt, the 
 mighty expedition undertaken with a view to effect which occupies 
 a conspicuous place on the pages of our prophet, both on account 
 of its threatening aspect, and the Divine interposition by which it 
 was terminated. The Chaldean power in Babylon, by which, in 
 conjunction with the Medes, the Assyrian empire was overthrown, 
 now began to raise its head, and for a time exerted a mighty 
 
 1 9 Kings xxi. 1—18, xxii—xxv.; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 1—10, xxxiii—xxxvi. 
 ? Chapters xl—lii. 12, 3 Isa, xxx, 1—17, xxxk 
 
ΧΙΥ INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 influence over the countries of hither Asia, and, among the rest, 
 on Judea. To this empire, however, and to that of Persia, by 
 “which, in its turn, it was subverted, no purely historical reference 
 is made by Isaiah, excepting in chap. xxiii. 13. In like manner, 
 Rome, which was founded in his days, is only recognized in the 
 way of prophetical anticipation, in so far as her history was to have 
 a bearing on the church of God; and is presented to our view 
 under the indefinite and general names of “‘ The West,” and “ The 
 Maritime Lands” in that direction. From the mount of inspired 
 vision the prophet surveys the surrounding nations; and, like a 
 faithful watchman, gives warning of each, describes some of their 
 more striking characteristics, and predicts their final destruction. 
 
 Contemporaneously with Isaiah flourished the prophets Hosea, 
 and Micah, between which last and him there are some remarkable 
 points of resemblance. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 OF THE AUTHENTICITY AND INTEGRITY OF THE TEXT. 
 
 WHEN we speak of the integrity of any writing, we understand 
 by the term an immunity from corruption, whether consisting in 
 the removal from the text of any thing which it originally con- 
 tained, or the introduction of matter into it by a foreign hand. 
 That an absolute literal identity exists between the present copies 
 of the Bible and the autographs whence they have mediately been 
 derived, will not be maintained by any who are at all acquainted 
 with the history of literature generally, or with that of sacred 
 literature in particular. The existence of various readings is 
 matter of ocular demonstration. Its prevention could only have 
 been effected by a continued series of miraculous interventions, 
 which God hath not been pleased to employ. He hath committed 
 to fallible and erring men the custody and transmission of the 
 sacred oracles. 
 
 Against the supposition, however, that they have been wilfully 
 corrupted, or that their integrity has been in any way materially 
 affected by the errors of transcription, there exist the strongest 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. XV 
 
 possible reasons. The sacredness of their claims; the scrupulous 
 regard which has ever been paid to them by those in whose hands 
 they have been deposited; their having been a common public 
 property, and not the monopoly of a privileged caste, or of any 
 influential individual; the check which one copy and one portion 
 has had upon another; their constant use in the church of God; 
 together with the absence of any adequate motive ;—all go satis- 
 factorily to shew the improbability of attempts having been made 
 to alter them, and the impossibility that any such attempts, sup- 
 posing them to have been made, would escape detection and 
 merited reprobation. With respect to the Hebrew Scriptures 
 especially, nothing is more susceptible of demonstration than the 
 fact, that those entrusted with the care of them have in all ages 
 regarded them with sacred, and even with superstitious veneration, 
 and have watched over their purity with the utmost vigilance.* 
 They have regarded them not only as their national charter, but as 
 the foundation of their religious belief, and the source of their 
 religious hopes. They have received them as the productions of 
 men who were the subjects of a supernatural Divine influence, 
 specially exerted upon them for the purpose of enabling them 
 correctly to register the communications of the will of God, and 
 those events the knowledge of which was calculated to be useful 
 to posterity. These men were not obscure and unknown indi- 
 viduals, but public and official characters, whose credentials had 
 been tested and approved as genuine by the community in which 
 they lived, as well as by those more immediately called upon to 
 judge of such matters. No book was received into the Jewish 
 canon that could not be proved to have been written or sanctioned 
 by one who was accredited as a Divine messenger; and after the 
 canon was completed, no one dared to add to or detract from its 
 sacred contents.” To suppose, under such circumstances, the 
 existence of deliberate or fraudulent corruptions, would be to 
 advance a position utterly at variance with historical fact. 
 
 It is matter of notoriety that, although the authenticity and 
 integrity of the prophecies of Isaiah have, in all past ages since 
 
 1 For an account of the rigidity of the laws by which Jewish copyists are 
 tied down in performing their task, see my Biblical Researches and Travels in 
 Russia, pp. 208—211. 
 
 ἢ See my Lectures on Divine Inspiration, Lect, ix. 
 
Xvi INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 the period of their composition, been above suspicion,—the book 
 having been firmly believed both by Jews and Christians to be his 
 throughout,—they have of late years been assailed by certain critics 
 in Germany, who have expended upon the discussion of the 
 subject all that their powers of invention, and their stores of 
 philological and critical learning could supply. It is, however, not 
 a little remarkable that these attacks obviously sprang out of, and 
 have, for the most part, been conducted in the spirit of those 
 investigations respecting the authenticity of the works of Homer, 
 Cicero, and other authors of classic celebrity which were carried on 
 by Wolf, Heyne, Ilgen, and other distinguished literati of the 
 day. It having become fashionable to break up the writings of an 
 ancient author into distinct parts, and to dwell upon the differences 
 in point of style, &c. which appeared to exist between one part 
 and another, the same process was resorted to in the treatment of 
 the Sacred Authors, more especially in that of Isaiah, whose book, 
 being of greater extent, and comprising a greater variety of 
 subjects than that of any other prophet, afforded more enlarged 
 scope for the exercise of critical acumen. ΤῸ this must be added 
 the sceptical spirit originally generated by Spinoza, and afterwards 
 propagated by our English deists, the influence of which has been 
 extensively felt on the Continent, and nowhere more powerfully 
 than in the land of the Reformation. 
 
 Doubts respecting the authenticity of certain parts of the book 
 of Isaiah were first started by Koppe and Déderlein; the former of 
 whom was the translator of Lowth into German, with additional 
 Notes and Observations; and the latter, the author of a New Trans- 
 lation of the prophet, with brief Motdscs in Latin, The subject has 
 since been tale up and discussed by Justi, Eichhorn, Rosen- 
 miiller, Paulus, Bauer, Bertholdt, De Wette, Gesenius, Hitzig, and 
 Hendewerk ; and not only have chapters xl.—lxvi. been abstracted 
 from our prophet, and ascribed to some writer supposed to have 
 flourished about the time of the return from Babylon, to whom, 
 for the sake of distinction, have been given the names of “ Doniato: 
 Isaiah” and “ Pseudo-Isaiah,” but the following portions of the 
 book have likewise been attributed to the same, or to some other 
 author: chap. 11. 2—4, xi. xi, xii. 1—xiv. 23, xv. xvi. xix. 
 18—25, xxi. xxil. 1—14, xxiii. xxiv.—xxvii. xxxiv. 
 
 These writers insist that the state of things set forth in these 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. XVil 
 
 portions is described in the style of history, not of prophecy ; that 
 no distinet intimations of the captivity are previously furnished ; 
 that the statements contained in them would have been unintelli- 
 gible to the contemporaries of Isaiah; that, as predictions, the details 
 would be too circumstantial; that no appeals are made to them by 
 Jeremiah ; and that the style is not identical with that employed 
 in the rest of the book. To attempt a formal or elaborate refuta- 
 tion of these several objections would be actwm agere. They have 
 been more or less fully met by Piper,’ Uhland,’ Beckhaus,’® van der 
 Palm,‘ Dereser,’ Greve,’ Moller,’ Arndt,’ Jahn,’ Kleinert,!° Heng- 
 stenberg,'’ Professor Lee,’? and Dr. J. Pye Smith,’* who have 
 shewn, that they have totally failed in establishing the hypotheses 
 in support of which they have been brought forward. I shall, 
 therefore, confine what observations I have to make to some of the 
 leading points in the controversy, and refer such of my readers 
 as may wish to pursue the subject farther, to the writers just 
 specified. 
 
 It must be obvious to all who peruse the antagonist articles, that 
 the πρώτον ψεῦδος to which they are chiefly to be ascribed, is a 
 total disbelief of prophetic inspiration. In most of them this is 
 distinctly avowed; and the different positions that have been 
 presented in the form of argument, are merely taken, in order, if 
 
 ' Integritas Iesaize, a recentiorum conatibus vindicata. Gryphsw. 1792. 4to. 
 
 2 Vaticinium Iesaiz, cap. xiii. Tub. 1798. 4to. 
 
 3 Ueber die Integritat der Proph. Schriften des. A. B. Halle, 1798. 
 
 4 Jesaia vertaald en opgehelderd. Amsterd. 1805. 3 Deel. 8vo. 
 
 5 In Brentano’s Bibelwerk. Frankf. 1808. 
 
 6 Vaticiniorum Iesaiz pars continens Carminaa cap. xl. usque adlvi.9. Am- 
 stelod. 1810. 4to. 
 
 7 De Authentia oraculorum Esai, cap. xl—Ixvi. Haynie, 1825. 4to. 
 
 8 De loco, qui extat apud Iesaiam, cap. xxiv.—xxvii., vindicando et explicando 
 ‘ccommentatio. Hamb. 1826. 4to. J 
 
 9 In his Einleitung, Th. 11. 2 Abtheil. pp. 458—494; and in Horne’s Introd. 
 vol. iv. pp. 165—175. 
 
 0 Kleinert tber die Echtheit sammtlicher in dem Buche Iesaia enthaltenen 
 Weissagungen. Berlin, 1829. 8vo. 
 
 1 Christologie des Alten Testaments, &c. Berlin, 1829—1835. I Th. 2 Ab- 
 theil. pp. 168—206. American Translation by Dr. Keith. Alexandria, 1836— 
 1839. Vol. i. pp. 395—423. 
 
 ® Sermons and Dissertations. London, 1830, 8vo. pp. 157—208. 
 
 18 The Principles of Interpretation as applied to the Prophecies. 2d Edit. 
 London, 1831. Supplementary Note G. p. 67. 
 
 Ὁ 
 
XVlli INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 possible, to sustain the infidel principle. According to Eichhorn,’ the 
 prophets were men gifted with extraordinary intellectual powers, 
 and rich in the experience of human affairs, by which they were 
 raised far above their contemporaries, and enabled to extend their 
 penetrating views into futurity. In the preface to his ‘ Commen- 
 tary on Isaiah,’* Gesenius expressly avows, that he “can find no 
 supernatural or definite prediction in the Hebrew prophets ;” and 
 in the course of his work, whenever he is pressed by any thing in 
 the shape of such prediction, he exerts his ingenuity in attempting 
 to lower it down to a lucky conjecture, founded upon existing 
 aspects of the political horizon, or other circumstances of the times. 
 Hitzig* believes prophecy to have been nothing more than the 
 effect of physical ecstasy, moral illumination, poetic inspiration, and 
 a shrewd calculating on the future from present events and circum- 
 stances. And Hendewerk,* the latest writer on the book, agrees 
 with him in the main, investing the prophets with “a poetical 
 spirit of divination,” which he thinks is sufficient to account for the 
 foresayings contained in their writings. Ἢ 
 
 In diametrical opposition to all such statements of speculative 
 critics stands the inspired testimony of the Apostle Peter:* ‘“ PRo- 
 PHECY CAME NOT IN OLD TIME BY THE WILL OF MAN, BUT HOLY 
 MEN OF GOD SPAKE AS THEY WERE MOVED BY THE HOLy GHost.” 
 It is impossible for words more strongly to deny the origination of 
 the predictions of the Hebrew seers in the simple operation of their 
 mental faculties, or more positively to vindicate for it that super- 
 natural influence by which the Spirit of God revealed to them 
 things to come. They merely gave utterance to what they were 
 borne onward by a Divine impulse to announce. And the same 
 Apostle distinctly recognizes such influence as enabling the pro- 
 phets to predict the distant sufferigs and glory of the Messiah: 
 “Searching what, or what manner of time THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST 
 WHICH WAS IN THEM DID SIGNIFY, WHEN IT TESTIFIED BEFORE- 
 HAND the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” ° 
 Our Lord himself likewise declares, that “the prophets” had 
 ““ WRITTEN concerning ” him’—a declaration which most especially 
 
 1 Einleitung in das A. Τὶ, Band. iv. καὶ 39. 2 P. πεν: 
 
 % Der Prophet Iesaja. Heidelb. 1833. 8vo. Pref. xxv. pp. 463, 464. 
 
 * Des Propheten lesaja Weissagungen. Kéonigsb. 1838. 8vo. Einleitung. 
 5 2d Epist. 1. 21. 6 ] Epist. i. 11. 7 Luke xxiv. 44. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. x1x 
 
 applies to Isaiah, whose writings, according to the same Divine 
 authority, contain express prophecies of Him and his kingdom. 
 
 But, if these holy men were the subjects of an influence exerted 
 upon their minds by the Omniscient Spirit, to whose eye the whole 
 of the future, in the most minute of its existences and modifica- 
 tions, was equally present with the entire range of then existent 
 being, what incongruity is there in believing, that the passages in 
 our prophet which contain detailed descriptions of events that were 
 to transpire in the history of the Jewish nation long after his time, 
 actually proceeded from his pen? What greater impediment can 
 there be in the way of exercising such belief, than in believing that 
 he “saw the glory of Christ and spake of him?”’? So long as we 
 confine our ideas of prophecy within the sphere of purely human 
 activity, we must necessarily deny, as contrary to all experience, 
 the ability to descry and predict contingent future events,—such as 
 those described in the disputed portions of Isaiah must have been 
 to him and all who lived in his time; but no sooner do we candidly 
 yield our minds to the authoritative claims of the Scripture doc- 
 trine of prophetic inspiration, than the absurdity vanishes, and all is 
 plain, consistent with itself, and, in every respect, worthy of God.’ 
 It then becomes manifest, that, to announce the conquest of 
 Babylon, and the consequent deliverance of the captive Jews by 
 Cyrus, at a period when the Assyrian power was yet dominant, 
 when the Babylonian state was only in its germ, and the Median 
 empire had no existence; to foretell the destruction of Tyre by 
 Nebuchadnezzar one hundred and fifty years prior to the event ; 
 to point out the birth, character, sufferings, death, resurrection, and 
 glorious reign of our Saviour, with the utmost minuteness, seven 
 centuries beforehand; and to describe events which are still future 
 in the history of the Jewish people, were all equally possible and 
 equally easy. In every case the prophet spoke as the Spirit gave 
 him utterance. 
 
 It deserves special notice, that in the very portion of the book 
 which has been most violently attacked, there occur passages in 
 which the Divine origin of prophecy is the subject of direct and 
 unanswerable appeal. or instance : 
 
 1 John xii. 41. 
 3. See my Lectures, wf sup. pp. 253, 254, 315—319, 
 
ΧΧ INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 ‘Who published this of OLD? 
 Who declared it FROM ANCIENT TIMES ? 
 Was it not I, Jehovah ὁ" 
 And again :— 
 “1 am God, and there is none like me, 
 Declaring the end FROM THE BEGINNING, 
 From ANCIENT TIMES things not yet done.”’ * 
 
 With which may be compared the appeal made in the book of 
 Ezekiel: * “Thus saith the Lord God, Art thou he of whom I 
 have spoken OF OLD TIME by my servants the prophets of Israel, 
 which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee 
 against them ?” 
 
 That the predictions respecting the Baga state of Judea, and 
 the return from the captivity, should be couched in language 
 descriptive of the present, or rather of the past, is perfectly in 
 accordance with the animated picturesque character of the pro- 
 phetic style. So vividly were the circumstances exhibited to the 
 view of Isaiah in prophetic vision, and so powerful was the im- 
 pression produced upon his mind, that no language which did not 
 invest them with present reality, could give adequate expression to 
 his feelings. The scenes are thus brought out more boldly, and 
 placed in a much stronger light before our eyes. They strike us 
 more forcibly than they could have done had they been depicted in 
 the simple language of the future. This feature of the more 
 animated prophetic style was not unobserved by the Fathers: 
 Both Justin Martyr,* and Eusebius,’ distinctly recognize it. And 
 in later times its existence has justly been regarded by most as a 
 settled point in the interpretation of the prophecies.® It is, indeed, 
 no unusual thing for the other prophets as well as Isaiah to take 
 their position in the future, and then describe events as actually 
 happening in their presence, or as possessing all the certainty of 
 
 1 Chap. xlv. 21. 2 Chap. xlvi. 10. 3 Chap. xxxviii. 17. 
 
 4 Ὅταν δὲ προφητικὸν πνεῦμα τὰ μέλλοντα γίνεσθαι ὡς ἤδη γενόμενα λέγῃ» ὡς 
 καὶ ἐν τοῖς προειρημένοις δοξάσαι ἔστιν. Apol. p. 81. 
 
 ἢ Κατά τινα δὲ συνήθειαν προφητικὴν, τὸ μέλλον ὁ προφήτης ὡς παρῴχηκος 
 ἀναφωνεῖ, καὶ ὡς περὶ ἑαυτοῦ τοῦ προφετεύοντος δηλοῖ. Demonst. Evangel. 
 lib. iv. cap. 30. 
 
 5 Clericus ad Deut. xxx1i, 80, 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. XXi 
 
 ~ 
 
 past transactions. The circumstances, that our prophet assumes 
 this position, and that the design of his predictions relative to the 
 captivity being to promote the recovery of his people from idolatry 
 and other sins, and to encourage them by repeated announcements 
 of their deliverance, and of still more important deliverances future 
 to their return, sufficiently account for the absence of definite 
 denunciations of that calamity as the subject of future infliction. 
 He takes it for granted as sufficiently known, from his own positive 
 prophecy of it, chap. xxxix. 5—7, and from the predictions of 
 other prophets. 
 
 From the whole structure of chapters x1—lxvi. it would appear, 
 that they formed no part of the instructions publicly delivered by 
 the prophet in the course of his personal ministry, and were, 
 therefore, not so much designed for the use of those who lived in 
 his own day, as to be preserved for the benefit of those who should 
 live in aftertimes. They were, in all probability, composed in the 
 reign of Manasseh, when he was under the necessity of laying 
 aside his prophetic trumpet, and restricting his service to the use 
 of the pen. At the same time, there can be little doubt that 
 copies of these inspired compositions would be eagerly sought after 
 by those in whose minds there still reigned a supreme regard for 
 the God of Israel, and whose tenderest sympathies were called 
 into exercise by the present and prospective condition of their 
 nation. And whatever obscurity might have attached to their 
 contents, by which such as perused them would be prevented from 
 obtaining that full and clear insight into their meaning which was 
 to be the privilege of those who should live in succeeding ages, yet 
 they could not but discover much in their general bearing, and also 
 in many of their particular announcements, to inspire them with 
 the brightest hopes, excite them to persevering confidence in 
 Jehovah, and instruct them to walk and worship so as to please 
 him. Though, like other prophetic Scripture, they might be 
 unintelligible to the wicked, yet such as were endowed with spiritual 
 wisdom, would derive from them rich practical information.' 
 
 As it regards the objection taken to the circumstantiality with 
 which many things are described by the prophet, it may only 
 be necessary to remark, that it will lie against other prophecies 
 
 1 Dan, xi1..9,, 10. 
 
XX INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 equally as against those in question. With what particularity, for 
 instance, do Jeremiah and Ezekiel describe the countries and cities 
 on which Divine judgments were to be inflicted, and specify by 
 name the instruments by whom their destruction was to be 
 effected! With what minuteness of detail does Daniel set forth 
 the time of the Messiah’s appearance; the manner and nature of 
 his death; and the fates of the great monarchies with which those 
 of the church of God were, to a certain extent, to be mixed up! 
 Does not Micah specify the birth-place of the Saviour? and 
 Zechariah his humble entrance, as a spiritual king, into Jeru- 
 salem? And as to the express mention of Cyrus by name, have 
 we not a parallel in the designation of Josiah upwards of three 
 centuries before he was born ?1 
 
 Were it necessary to enter into the Mlulévteal part of the 
 question, it might easily be shewn, that the arguments employed 
 on this ground against the authenticity of the disputed passages are 
 of the slenderest possible character; and that, were any degree of 
 validity to be allowed them, they would not only go to cancel large 
 portions of every book in the Bible, but to bastardize important 
 sections in the most celebrated human productions. Let any one 
 apply the same critical pruning knife to Shakespeare, or Walter 
 Scott, or Milton, or Hume, and he may produce equally satis- 
 factory proofs of the spuriousness of much that has been ascribed 
 to these writers. Though with respect to general style and 
 phraseology there is a striking conformity running throughout 
 our prophet, yet because he employs a few terms and modes of 
 expression in one part of his book, which are not found in the 
 other, it is seriously argued, that he could not have written 
 it all! 
 
 On the whole, it must be concluded, not only that the denial of 
 original authorship as it respects these chapters rests upon no 
 external evidence whatever, and upon none internal beyond what 
 is brought out by the ingenuity of speculation, but that the entire 
 stream of external evidence is directly and broadly against it, 
 while there is no lack of internal characteristics which go to identify 
 the writer with Isaiah. 
 
 11 Kings xiii. 2. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. XXill 
 
 It is now time to inquire what judgment we are to entertain 
 respecting the text in its more minute forms, or the degree of 
 immunity from verbal errors which may justly be claimed for it. 
 If we are to receive without qualification the assertion of Bishop 
 Lowth,’ in reference to the Hebrew Text in general, “ that 
 mistakes are frequent, and of various kinds; of letters, words, and 
 sentences; by variation, omission, transposition; such as often 
 injure the beauty and elegance, embarrass the construction, alter 
 or obscure the sense, and sometimes render it quite unintelligible ;” 
 or that which he has advanced respecting the text of Isaiah in 
 particular, that “it is considerably injured, and stands in need of 
 frequent emendation,”* then it is manifest it must require no 
 small effort to recover it from the corruptions to which it has 
 been subject. In accordance with such views of the case, the 
 learned prelate proceeded fearlessly to adopt those measures which 
 he deemed necessary for effecting such recovery. All who are 
 conversant with his notes must be aware, that a considerable 
 portion of them is occupied with attempts to emend the text, 
 partly with the aid of MSS. and of the Ancient Versions, and 
 partly by conjecture; the result of which has been, that not only 
 has the original text become in a great measure unsettled, but 
 occasion has been taken by other critics, inferior in taste, though 
 not in boldness, as Blayney, Newcome, Horsley, and Boothroyd, 
 to deal in the same way with other sacred writers, to the no 
 small disparagement of their integrity. If the bishop had confined 
 himself to the collation of MSS., and a rigid examination of the 
 renderings in the Ancient Versions; and, after carefully weighing 
 the evidence which they furnished in favour or otherwise of any 
 particular reading, and minutely investigating the Hebrew usage 
 and that of the cognate dialects, had presented us with the result 
 of his labours, they would doubtless have merited the unqualified 
 approval of every competent judge: but, indulging as he has done, 
 after the example of Houbigant, in unnecessary and groundless 
 conjectures, partly original, and partly adopted from that author, 
 and from Drs. Secker, Durell, and Jubb, and altering the text 
 agreeably to such conjectures, he has laid himself open to the just 
 censure of all sober and judicious critics. His rash and unwar- 
 
 ? Prelim, Dissert. p. lxiv. 2 Tbid. p. Ixiv. 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 ranted emendations were, indeed, speedily exposed by Professor 
 D. Kocher, a learned Swiss divine,! who, though he did not treat 
 the bishop with that urbanity to which he was otherwise entitled, 
 and carried his notions of the literal perfection of the Hebrew text 
 to an unjustifiable length, certainly did succeed in convincing the 
 learned that our prophet deserved a very different treatment from 
 that to which he had been so unceremoniously subjected. Since 
 that time, whatever commendations have been passed upon Lowth 
 for his fine poetic taste, his classical elegance, and his merits as a 
 writer on Hebrew poetry, and these have not been few, there is 
 but one opinion among Continental critics in reference to his 
 emendatorial conjectures. Gesenius has demonstrated, that they 
 are, in most instances, altogether uncalled for; in others, without 
 any solid foundation ; and that, had the bishop been more familiar 
 with the comparative philology of the Hebrew text, and the 
 Oriental dialects, and more deeply versed in the minutiz of the 
 Hebrew syntax, he would have been under no temptation to 
 tax his ingenuity, or to have recourse to the desperate remedy 
 which he has so freely applied in the exercise of therapeutic 
 criticism. 
 
 In the following commentary, I have suffered no instance to 
 pass unnoticed, in which I have judged that unwarrantable 
 liberties have been taken with the text, though I have not always 
 deemed it necessary to mention thei authors. It has, I trust, 
 been made apparent to the satisfaction of the reader, that it is by 
 no means in that corrupt state in which it has been represented ; 
 and that, carefully and accurately examined by all the lights which 
 the present improved state of Oriental philology and Biblical 
 criticism supplies, it justly demands our undiminished confidence 
 and respect. The errors of transcription which have crept into 
 it, are, in general, of little or no consequence as affecting the 
 sense, and may easily be rectified by a judicious use of the various 
 readings exhibited in the MSS.; by comparing the renderings 
 given in the Ancient Versions; by consulting the testimonies of 
 Jewish and Christian writers ; and by due attention to the context, 
 and to the scope of the writer. 
 
 1 Vindiciew 5. textus Hebreei Esais adversus Ὁ. Roberti Lowthi criticam. 
 Bernx, 1786, 8vo. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 'XXKV 
 
 SECTION III. 
 OF THE STYLE. 
 
 Tovey the prophets were the subjects of Divine Inspiration, 
 there is no reason to conclude that they were bereft of the mental 
 peculiarities which constituted their individuality of character, or 
 that they employed any other style or manner of writing than 
 what was natural to them.’ It cannot, therefore, be improper to 
 inquire into these peculiarities, or to treat of the respective diction 
 of each, as we should that of merely human authors, only care be 
 taken to cherish due and becoming reverence of the Holy Spirit, 
 to whose infallible regulation and control it was constantly subject. 
 
 While Isaiah possesses much in common with the other prophets, 
 there are many peculiar features by which his compositions are 
 distinguished. In character he is energetic, bold, and uncom- 
 promising ; of a lively and fertile imagination, yet full of serious 
 feeling and deep thought; zealous for the honour of the Divine 
 perfections, the spirituality of worship, and the purity of the 
 theocracy ; the undaunted reprover of sin, of every kind, and in 
 whomsoever found; the tender-hearted patriot, who took the 
 deepest interest in the circumstances and prospects of his people ; 
 and the compassionate friend of the Gentile world. 
 
 His language is uniformly adapted to the subjects of which he 
 treats. In narrative he exhibits the utmost simplicity and perspi- 
 cuity; in announcing the divine oracles, his tones are marked by 
 a singular degree of solemnity; in his descriptions, he is minute, 
 discriminating, frequently cumulative, and highly graphic; in 
 menacing foreign enemies, and the wicked among the Jews, he 
 is full of vehemence and force. His expostulations are urgent and 
 pathetic; his hortatory addresses, earnest and powerful. Nothing 
 can surpass the sublimity of those passages in which the sovereignty 
 and infinite majesty of Jehovah are set forth, or the severe irony 
 and satire with which he attacks the worshippers of idols. Nor is 
 he equalled by any of the other prophets in the magnificence, 
 variety, and choice of the images which he employs, especially 
 
 1 See my Lectures on Divine Inspiration, pp. 391—895. 
 
 d 
 
ΧΧΥῚ INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 when predicting the reign of the Messiah, and the future happimess 
 of the church. 
 
 The poetical structure of his sentences is exquisitely graceful 
 and elegant. Their flow is, in most instances, soft and pleasing: 
 at times they roll onward like the majestic billows of the ocean. 
 He not only abounds in the simpler or cognate parallelism of 
 members, which constitutes one of the most prominent features of 
 Hebrew poetry, but in the varied forms of the antithetic, 
 synthetic, and introverted parallelism. Many of his sentences are 
 highly artificial, and so rhythmically combined as to produce the 
 happiest effect. He is fond of paronomasias, apostrophes, com- 
 parisons, emphatic forms of words, and iterations of the same 
 word. His images are dignified and appropriate. They are, 
 likewise, greatly diversified, and very often of the boldest and 
 most sublime description. Not unfrequently he proceeds with a 
 rapidity which leads the reader to suppose that he intends to carry 
 out the subject to a much greater length ; when, all at once, by an 
 abrupt transition, he takes up a fresh subject, which he again as 
 suddenly drops. ‘This is specially observable in cases in which 
 there is some idea or expression in the discourse which leads his 
 thoughts to the future Redeemer. Grotius compares him to 
 Demosthenes, of whom, in point of time, he had the precedence 
 by nearly four centuries; and by men of taste in every country, 
 who have been capable of relishing his beauties, he has had 
 awarded to him the highest meed of praise. 
 
 For finished specimens of his style, the reader may consult the 
 description of Jewish female dress, chap. iil. 16—24; the parable 
 of the vineyard, chap. v.; the approach of the Assyrian army 
 towards Jerusalem, chap. x. 28—32; the ode on the king of 
 Babylon, chap. xiv.; the sentence of Egypt, chap. xix.; the 
 threatening against Shebna, chap. xxii. 16—18 ; the calamities of 
 Jerusalem, chap. xxiv.; the transcendent superiority of Jehovah, 
 chap. xl. 12—31,; the absurdity of idol-worship, chap. xliv.; the 
 corruptions prevalent among the Jews in the time of our Lord, 
 chap. lix.; and their happy condition when restored in the latter 
 day, chap. Ix. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. XXVIli 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 OF THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION. 
 
 It is manifest from the widely different, and even contradictory 
 interpretations which have been, and still are given of the pro- 
 phetic records, that we are far from having arrived at any settled, 
 solid, or satisfactory principles on which to rest their exegesis. 
 Many causes might doubtless be assigned for this want of agree- 
 ment, but the following, there is reason to believe, are some of the 
 principal :— 
 
 First, the want of a familiar acquaintance with the distinctive 
 characteristics of prophetical language. Instead of making proper 
 allowance for the highly poetical character of the tropes and figures 
 with which it abounds, by which objects are frequently magnified 
 or diminished beyond the reality, and carefully endeavouring to 
 ascertain the exact meaning of its symbols, interpreters have too 
 much treated it as if it were plain or ordinary prose composition. 
 Figurative terms and phrases have been taken in their literal 
 import, and applied to the objects which they primarily designate ; 
 while others, which are introduced merely for the sake of embellish- 
 ing the style, vividly delineating the objects, and thus heightening 
 the effect, have had separate and important meanings attached to 
 them, as if each had been designed to convey a distinct portion of 
 prophetical truth. All conceivable aspects of a particular image 
 have been brought out, and invested with a corresponding circum- 
 stantial detail of meaning in their supposed bearing upon the 
 subject of the prophecy. And few, even of those who admit the 
 principle, that the writings of the prophets are to be interpreted 
 with due regard to the claims of poetic diction, are found to carry 
 it out with any thing like uniform consistency. 
 
 Another cause of lax and unstable interpretation, is a proneness 
 to regard prophecies as strictly parallel in point of subject, in 
 which the same particular terms or modes of expression are em- 
 ployed. Important as verbal parallels must ever be viewed, still it 
 is chiefly with respect to their_subserviency to the purposes of 
 philological elucidation that their value is to be appreciated. In 
 innumerable instances the identical words are used, while the 
 subjects treated of have no affinity whatever with each other. To 
 
XXVili INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 transfer, therefore, what is said in one passage to the matter con- 
 tained in another, simply on the ground of some degree of verbal 
 identity, without at all inquiring whether there be any real agree- 
 ment as to persons, nations, events, &c., must necessarily be pro- 
 ductive of the grossest perversion of Divine truth. By jumbling pro- 
 phecies together which ought to have been kept perfectly distinct, the 
 Spirit of God is forced to put a construction upon his own words 
 totally different from that which he intended they should bear. 
 
 The meaning of prophecy has likewise been greatly obscured, by 
 the propensity of most commentators to indulge in mystical, or 
 spiritual modes of interpretation.’ Not satisfied with the obvious 
 literal application, they endeavour to elicit more recondite or 
 spiritual senses. ΤῸ abide by the simple import of a passage, if 
 that import be temporal or earthly in its aspect, is deemed not only 
 meagre and confined, but carnal, and unworthy of the Spirit of 
 inspiration. Accordingly another construction is superinduced 
 upon it, which is supposed to be richer and more dignified in itself, 
 and better fitted to promote edification. If these writers had 
 merely deduced spiritual inferences from such temporal predictions, 
 or made observations upon them for purposes of godly improve- 
 ment, they would have conferred a benefit upon their readers ; but 
 the effect of their applying them in such a way as to convey the 
 idea, that they are giving the mind of the Spirit, is to destroy all 
 certainty of interpretation, to throw open the Scriptures to the 
 inroads of imagination and caprice, and, by invalidating a very 
 considerable portion of the evidence which prophecy furnishes of 
 the Divine authority of the Bible, to pave the way for the spread 
 of scepticism and infidelity. 'Tosuch a mode of interpretation may 
 justly be applied the admirable remark of Hooker, “ There is 
 nothing more dangerous than this licentious and deluding art, 
 which changeth the meaning of words, as alchymy doth or would 
 do the substance of metals, maketh of any thing what it listeth, 
 and bringeth in the end all truth to nothing.” 
 
 Nearly allied to this method is the theory of a double sense of 
 prophecy, which has also been very extensively adopted. While 
 
 1 “God knows, what a multitude of meanings the wit of man imagineth to 
 himself in the Scriptures, which neither Moses, the Prophets, nor the Apostles 
 ever conceived,”—Raleigh’s Hist. of the World, chap. ii. § 1. 
 
 > Ecclesiastical Polity, Book v. sect. 59. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION, XXIX 
 
 it is granted by those who advocate this theory, that many of the 
 predictions of the Hebrew seers have a lower or temporal sense, 
 z.e. that they treat of persons and circumstances in the history of 
 the Jews and the surrounding nations, it is maintained that, over 
 and above this, they were intended to teach certain truths respecting 
 the person, people, kingdom, and enemies of Christ. According to 
 this view of the subject, in interpreting prophecy we are to look for 
 a two-fold accomplishment: first, one that is temporal, and then 
 another corresponding to it that is spiritual. We may primarily 
 interpret of the inferior object whatever in the prediction is found 
 susceptible of being applied to it; but having done this, we are, by 
 means of analogy, to find out some higher object which it is 
 supposed to resemble or prefigure, and to this we are to apply it in 
 its secondary and plenary sense. 
 
 To this theory it may justly be objected, that it is unnecessary, 
 unsatisfactory, and unwarranted. It is wnnecessary, because there 
 is really no prophecy which may not consistently \be restricted to 
 one sense—such a sense as fully meets all the exigencies of the 
 connexion in which it occurs. It is unsatisfactory, because on the 
 same principle that a second sense is brought out, it may be 
 maintained that a third, and even a fourth is couched under the 
 language; and some expositors have actually gone this length. 
 Beyond the meaning which is elicited by a due examination of the 
 language, and all the circumstances of the context, every thing 
 must necessarily be indeterminate and arbitrary.t. In all other 
 writings we expect to find one definite sense in which the authors 
 have designed to be understood; unless, indeed, like the heathen 
 oracles, what they wrote was expressly intended to be equivocal 
 and deceptive. And we should naturally come to the Bible under 
 the influence of a similar impression, were it not that we have 
 been taught to look for a greater fulness of meaning than the 
 primary interpretation seems to supply. We should expect that, 
 
 1 Potest alius aliud, et argutius fingere, et veri cum similitudine suspicari. 
 Potest aliud tertius ; potest aliud quartus: atque, ut se tulerint ingeniorum 
 opinantium qualitates, ita singule res possunt infinitis interpretationibus expli- 
 cari, Cum enim e rebus occlusis omnis ista, quee dicitur Allegoria, sumatur, nec 
 habeat finem certam, in quo rei, que dicitur, sit fixa atque immota sententia, uni- 
 cuique liberum est in id, quo velit, attrahere lectionum, et affirmare id positum, 
 a i eum sua suspicio, et conjectura opinabilis duxerit—Arnobius adversus 
 
 eves. 
 
XXX INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 in revealing his will to us, God has spoken, as men speak, in a fixed 
 and determinate manner, and not left lis meaning to be dependent 
 upon the fertility or the freaks of human imagination." What is 
 literal we should, at once, interpret literally; and what is figurative 
 we should, without hesitation, interpret figuratively. To language 
 which describes affairs belonging to the Jews, or to other nations, 
 we should not scruple to give a direct historical interpretation : 
 whereas that which sets forth our Saviour and his kingdom, we 
 should confine to these sublime subjects, as the sphere to which it 
 exclusively belongs. It is only by such distinctive explication of 
 the several prophecies of Scripture, that we can shew, in a satis- 
 factory and convincing manner, when and how they have been 
 fulfilled. And the theory of a double sense is wnwarranted, there 
 being no Scripture authority in its favour. Whatever applications 
 are made by one of the Sacred Writers of what had been published 
 by another, whether it be for the purpose of illustration, of excite- 
 ment, or of confirmation, from no single passage can it be shewn 
 that the words, as they stand in the original author, were designed 
 to be taken in more meanings than one.’ 
 
 One additional source of divarication in the interpretation of 
 prophecy to which reference must be made, is the adoption of 
 favourite hypotheses or systems, to which every thing is made to 
 bend, how far-fetched soever may be the exposition. Certain aspects 
 of the times; political, ecclesiastical, or party views; peculiar notions 
 respecting the whole scheme of prophecy, or some insulated part of 
 it; in short, any opinions that strongly bias the mind, and lead it 
 to regard all subjects only in the supposed relation in which they 
 stand to them, must necessarily exert a pernicious influence on pro- 
 phetical exegesis. 
 
 On the neologian mode of interpretation, which entirely sets 
 aside all prophecy strictly so called, it would be superfluous to 
 remark, since it can only be approved by those whose minds are 
 
 τ Absit a nobis, ut Deum faciamus δίγλωττον, aut multiplices sensus affinga- 
 mus ipsius verbo, in quo potius, tanquam in speculo limpidissimo, sui autoris 
 simplicitatem contemplari debemus. Ps. xii.7, xix.9. Unicus ergo sensus scripture, 
 nempe grammaticus, est admittendus, quibus demum terminis, vel propriis vel 
 tropicis et figuratis exprimatur.—Maresius in his Anti-Tirinus. 
 
 2 Non enim est nisi unicus Scripture sensus, a Deo illius auctore intentus, 
 constans, et fecundus, planus, lectorique attento, quantum ad dicendum libera- 
 tionis medium sufficit, obvius.—Gurtleri Instit, Theolog. pp. 16, 17. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. XXXl 
 
 under the unhappy influence of the same infidel principles by which 
 it is engendered. 
 
 Examples might have been given in illustration of the different 
 methods just adverted to, but they would occupy more space than 
 can here be afforded. The reader will find them in abundance in 
 almost every commentary, and in other works on prophecy. 
 
 In proceeding to interpret any prophetical book of Scripture, it 
 is first of all requisite to obtain a general idea of its contents: in 
 the abstract, in order, with greater facility, to determine the mutual 
 relations and bearings of its different parts. This may be done 
 with complete certainty, whatever obscurity may appear to rest 
 upon particular subjects of which it treats. Just as the traveller 
 from some distant position takes a survey of the region which he is 
 about to explore; observes its mountains, valleys, forests, rivers, &c. ; 
 and so determines its grand outlines, that, though many of the 
 objects may only be dimly seen, and he may be able to form no 
 proper or adequate idea of their more minute or peculiar features, 
 yet he gains a general notion of the country, and is prepared for the 
 more special investigations which he may institute in the course of 
 his future progress. 
 
 As few of the prophets handle only one subject, it should next 
 be matter of inquiry, What divisions of the book obviously present 
 themselves? in other words, Where are the points of transition by 
 which the writer passes from one subject to another? And, 
 whether these transitions be arbitrary; or, whether they form a 
 logical nexus, indicating the relation in which the subjects stand to 
 each other? In the latter case, the nature of the relation should be 
 carefully examined, and the degree of influence which may reason- 
 ably be assigned to it definitely ascertained. 
 
 These observations admit, indeed, of application to all the books 
 of Scripture, whether prophetical or otherwise; but, as those pos- 
 sessing the former character are confessedly the most difficult, their 
 special importance as bearing upon them must be apparent. 
 
 Since the style and mode of representation employed by a prophet, 
 as well as the selection of the subjects of which he treats, may be 
 expected to be more or less influenced by the circumstances in which 
 he was placed, the condition and relations of the people to whom 
 his messages were addressed, and the part which he took in the 
 
XXxXii INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 direction of public affairs, an interpreter ought to make himself 
 well acquainted with the history of the times in which he flou- 
 rished. A mere glance at the references made by Isaiah to the 
 corruptions which abounded in the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, 
 the invasions of Pekah and Rezin, of 'Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, 
 and Sennacherib, and the alliances of the Jews with Egypt, is 
 sufficient to shew, that a knowledge of the periods in question, 
 and the circumstances connected with the political events which 
 then transpired, is indispensable to a just and full understanding of 
 his book.’ 
 
 In examining the contents of the prophetical books, care must 
 be taken to distinguish between those parts which are simply pre- 
 dictive, and such as are doctrinal, or corrective of degenerate morals. 
 These books, and especially that of our prophet, contain not only 
 prophecies both of a more general and a more special nature, 
 but a vast variety of didactic matter, arising out of, or connected 
 with them, as well as numerous important practical lessons 
 altogether independent in their character. The prophets were 
 commissioned not merely to foretell the future destinies of their 
 nation, and of other states in their relations to it; the advent, 
 character, and work of the Messiah, and the establishment and 
 aspects of his kingdom; but to act in the capacity of extraordinary 
 public instructors of the people. It devolved upon them to vindi- 
 cate the attributes, claims, and government of Jehovah, and to 
 inculcate the various duties which are incumbent upon his intel- 
 ligent creatures, both in reference to Him and to one another. 
 Nowhere, except in the New Testament, is there such a fulness of 
 instruction on all these points as in Isaiah. In no book of Scripture 
 are they more distinctly or energetically enforced. 
 
 The prophecies, strictly so called, relate, some to a nearer, and 
 some to a more remote futurity ; some to what was to transpire in 
 the prophet’s own time, and some to events that were to happen 
 ages afterwards. Some refer to individual persons, others to par- 
 ticular cities, and a third class to whole nations. ΤῸ certain 
 subjects only a single prophecy is devoted; while others, more 
 important in their character, are taken up in several distinct pre- 
 dictions. Some are special; others are altogether general. It is 
 
 ’ Dr. J. Pye Smith on the Interpretation of Prophecy, pp. 17—23, 33—39. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. XXXill 
 
 the duty of an interpreter to allow to each of these points of view 
 the degree of influence which it may claim on his attention, and 
 his application of the principles of exegesis. 
 
 The greatest pains should ever be taken to determine the precise 
 subject of a prophecy. With a view to this, its several characteris- 
 tic attributes should be diligently studied; the force and bearing of 
 the language patiently examined ; and any apparently parallel pro- 
 phecies carefully compared. Inattention to this rule must funda- 
 mentally affect the interpretation; and its neglect has, more than 
 any thing besides, been productive of perversion and confusion in 
 the exposition of prophecy. 
 
 Those predictions which relate to the Jews as a people, or to 
 other nations, as Babylon, Egypt, Tyre, &c., are to be restricted 
 in their interpretation to such nations, and are not to be applied to 
 the Christian church, either in her pure, or her corrupt state, nor 
 to the enemies of the faith and kingdom of Christ. It has, indeed, 
 been contended, that, as in the New Testament we find the terms 
 “ Jew” and “Israel” applied to the spiritual seed of Abraham, 
 whether naturally descended from him or not; and, as in the 
 Apocalypse, “Sodom,” “Egypt,” and “ Babylon,” are employed to 
 denote the apostate and idolatrous church of Rome, we are at full 
 liberty to appropriate to the times of the Christian dispensation, 
 whatever we may find associated with such names in the prophecies 
 of the Old Testament,—it being assumed, that the former were 
 constituted types of the latter. But it is only necessary to state in 
 reply, that in no part of the gospels, or the apostolical writings, is 
 the slightest intimation ever given, that these terms as used in the 
 Old Testament are to be thus taken. When applied to Christian 
 affairs in the New, there is always some qualifying epithet accom- 
 panying their use; and they are merely appropriated, in order to 
 bring before the mind of the reader-some points of analogy, which 
 might serve as apt illustrations of the subject in hand. When, for 
 instance, the writer of the Apocalypse employs language in appli- 
 cation to the spiritual Babylon which the prophets, Isaiah and 
 Jeremiah, apply to the literal, no hint is given that these 
 writers actually predicted the character and fate of the former. 
 He simply adopts their phraseology, and some of their modes of 
 representation, as well adapted to express what he had to deliver 
 respecting the idolatrous community, which occupies so conspicuous 
 a place in his book. Want of attention to this principle has, more 
 
 6 
 
XXXIV INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 or less, proved a source of great error in the interpretation of Old 
 Testament prophecy. 
 
 This rule may be viewed as specially bearing upon such prophe- 
 cies, as refer to the past and future restoration of the Jews. Ex- 
 positors in general, without scruple or hesitation, interpret literally 
 those predictions which involve the punishment of that people, 
 such as the destruction of their city and polity, their captivity, dis- 
 persion, &c.; but whenever they come to those which hold out the 
 prospect of their conversion, re-establishment in Canaan, &c., they 
 almost uniformly apply them to the conversion of sinners generally, 
 or to the prosperity of the Christian church. But not only is such 
 a mode of interpretation at once unfair and inconsistent; it also 
 breaks up the continuity and antithetical character of many of the 
 prophecies, does violence to the established usage of the language, 
 and forces the expositor to gloss over, or to leave untouched what- 
 ever is opposed to his system. It is utterly subversive of all settled, 
 consistent, and thorough-going exposition. 
 
 In the assured conviction, based upon the testimony of Jesus.and 
 his inspired Apostles,! that the Jewish prophets actually predicted 
 his manifestation, character, work, and kingdom, every Christian 
 interpreter will diligently mark and investigate those portions of 
 the prophecies which are obviously designed to be thus applied. 
 While some have found Christ almost every where in the propheti- 
 cal and other books of the Old Testament, and others have mani- 
 fested a reluctance to find him any where, the enlightened and 
 conscientious believer is anxious to discover him precisely with that 
 degree of frequency with which the Holy Spirit has really pre- 
 sented him to the view. While he rejoices at every thing which 
 reminds him of Him who ‘is the end of the law for righteousness 
 to every one that believeth,” his mind instinctively revolts from the 
 idea of laying violent hands upon a single passage of Scripture, in 
 order to force it to give testimony to him. Numerous are those 
 passages which admit of no consistent application to any merely 
 human king or deliverer, or to the affairs of any temporal and 
 earthly kingdom, but point out a Divine Saviour, and the establish- 
 ment of an order of things purely spiritual and heavenly. Of 
 these, Isaiah vii. 14—16, ix. 6, 7, xi. 1—10, xxxii. 1, &e., xlil. 
 xlix. 1—9, lii. 13, liii. xi. 1—3, are illustrious specimens. If we 
 
 1 Luke xxiv. 25—27, 44—47; John xii. 87—41; Acts viii. 30—35, x. 43, 
 EXvi, 22, 28; Rom: iii. 21; 22; 1 Pet. i, 11; 12; Rev. xix. 10. 
 
INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. XXXV 
 
 have not, in every case, the infallible support of New Testament 
 authority, we nevertheless meet with certain intimations and cha- 
 racteristics in the predictions themselves, or in their immediate 
 connexion, which compel us to refer them immediately and directly 
 to the New Dispensation. 
 
 The language of prophecy, being in many respects peculiar, 
 requires to be studied with great care, and to be interpreted with 
 the utmost sobriety and caution. Besides much that is simple and 
 plain, it exhibits most of the characteristics belonging to .the 
 highest species of Oriental poetry: abounding in pictorial, figura- 
 tive, metaphorical, symbolical, and parabolical modes of representa- 
 tion. Its imagery is luxuriant, bold, sublime, glowing, and highly 
 coloured. Its figures are of every variety. Its metaphors, elegant 
 and beautiful, are borrowed from almost every object within the 
 compass of the visible and invisible worlds. Its symbols are 
 splendid, striking, and sometimes terrific. Its personifications are 
 daring and majestic. Its whole strain is admirably adapted to 
 excite attention, create and keep alive an interest in the subjects, 
 and to produce those impressions which are in harmony with its 
 nature and design. It is likewise remarkable for its concinnity, 
 terseness, and brevity, its bold ellipses, and the frequent abrupt 
 changes of person, gender, and tense. With all these particulars, 
 the interpreter must render himself familiar, He must not only 
 investigate the primary and secondary significations of words, deter- 
 mine the meaning of the phrases, the nature of the syntax, and the 
 development of the entire sense, but distinguish between the plain 
 and the figurative in the style,—divesting what is figurative of the 
 imagery with which it is adorned, and thus bringing out the simple 
 ideas designed to be conveyed; yet, withal, paying due attention to 
 the emphasis or force given to them by such figurative diction. 
 And, in order that he may do this with the greater certainty, he 
 must take his position in the midst of the same world of poetic 
 images in which the prophets lived, and make himself master of the 
 entire system of prophetic imagery which they have employed. 
 
 It is a principle satisfactorily brought out by a careful examina- 
 tion of the prophecies, that an interpreter is not, on the one hand, 
 to expect every thing to be expressed with the utmost clearness, 
 nor, on the other, to regard it as involved in dense obscurity, 
 Unhappily they have too often been viewed in one or other of 
 these extremes. ΤῸ some minds, they body forth, in clear and 
 
XXXVI INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION. 
 
 living forms, all the minute details of modern history, as well as 
 develop, without the slightest trace of a cloud, the entire horizon 
 of antiquity; while to others they are shrouded in impenetrable 
 mystery,—to be approached with no hopes of the successful dis- 
 covery of truth; or, at best, only to catch a dim and momentary 
 glance of it, amidst the shadowy figures by which it is surrounded. 
 
 Much of the obscurity which has been ascribed to prophecy is 
 purely subjective. It exists, not in the predictions themselves, 
 but in those who come to the study of them. If we have not ren- 
 dered ourselves familiar with the characteristics of the prophetic 
 style, the history of the times, the manners, customs, and modes of 
 thinking of Oriental nations, and a variety of other topics which 
 such study requires, it is vain to expect that all should be per- 
 spicuous and plain. Numerous terms, phrases, and allusions, which 
 must have been perfectly intelligible to those whom the prophets 
 addressed, will necessarily appear obscure to us. Nor can it be 
 denied, that such prophecies as still remain to be fulfilled, must, in 
 the nature of things, be more or less indistinct, as it respects the 
 objects of which they treat, how clear or plain soever may be the 
 language in which they are expressed. Take, for instance, the 
 fifty-third of Isaiah. To us who have the advantage of studying it 
 by the light of the evangelic pages, all possesses the perspicuity of 
 history ; but in the view of those who lived before the birth of our 
 Lord, there must have attached to some parts of it a want of that 
 definiteness of meaning which we so readily discover. Thus also as 
 it regards certain portions of the Apocalypse. How far, or satis- 
 factorily soever we may succeed in determining the import of the 
 language, or however clearly we may perceive the design of the 
 writer, just as we may conclude from the sketch of a drawing, what 
 it is intended to represent, yet the absence of the actual persons or 
 events leaves our minds in uncertainty with respect to the positive 
 application. Let only those persons or events present themselves 
 in the reality of historical existence, and we fully discover the 
 import of the prophecy. 
 
 Finally: no person should attempt the interpretation of these 
 hallowed records, who is not imbued with a supreme love of truth, 
 and who is not habituated to the exercise of humble dependence 
 upon the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit, whose it is to 
 remove those moral obstacles which prevent the entrance of spiritual 
 light into the mind. 
 
ΣΎ ΟΝ ot ck. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 This chapter contains an historical introduction, 1; a heavy charge of ingrati- 
 tude, corruption, and rebellion, 2—4; a description of the consequent 
 punishment, 5—9; an exposure of the vanity of trusting in mere external 
 worship, 10—15 ; exhortations and encouragements to repentance, 16—19 ; 
 with denunciations of wrath against the impenitent, mixed with promises 
 
 to the penitent, 20—31. 
 
 1 THE vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw, con- 
 cerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, 
 Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 
 
 1. The substantive jin, like its cog- 
 nates Mit, ni, nw, WT, MM, and the 
 Chald. 3, 817, is derived from the root 
 _ m7, which, in poetic style, is used to 
 denote seeing or vision generally, but 
 more especially that which is super- 
 natural, or the result of Divine inspira- 
 tion. It corresponds to the prosaic 783, 
 which equally denotes both kinds of 
 vision : hence the easy transition from 
 mi, the name anciently given to the 
 prophets, 1 Sam. ix. 9, to 717, 1 Chron. 
 xxix. 29, where both names are evi- 
 dently synonymous with &2}. x7, and 
 my, the LXX. render by ὀπτασία, 
 ὅραμα, ὅρασις ; and the former by προ- 
 φητεία, 2 Chron. xxxii. 32 ; to which 
 correspond 781123 of the Targum, and a 
 similar rendering in the Syr. Arab. 
 and several modern versions. The 
 
 Arab. usy> > divinavit, hariolatus 
 
 fuit, especially by observing the flight 
 of birds, yzarus fuit rei, occulta indi- 
 cavit, are unquestionably related to 
 the Hebrew, and their significations 
 are probably derived from it; but 
 though they may be applied in illus- 
 tration, they cannot take precedence 
 
 of the Hebrew root. Nothing can be 
 more obvious than the reason of the 
 appropriation of such terms in de- 
 scriptions of supernatural or prophe- 
 tic revelation. It is founded on the 
 fact, that, in imparting his will to his 
 messengers, Jehovah impressed vividly 
 upon their minds, the images of the 
 things which they were to divulge. 
 Their mental vision had presented to 
 it matters invisible to the eye of sense, 
 but possessing all the reality and dis- 
 tinctness of outward objects. The 
 term is here employed to denote, not 
 the act of seeing on the part of the 
 prophet, but the things which he saw 
 —the prophetic matter revealed to 
 him, together with all the other 
 inspired matter contained in the 
 book. 
 
 Whether ji is here to be taken 
 strictly in the singular, and limited to 
 the first division or chapter of the 
 book, or, whether it is to be viewed as 
 a collective noun marking the contents 
 of the whole, depends on the light in 
 which we are to regard the entire in- 
 scription. Jarchiand Abarbanel, by a 
 forced construction of x with ww, 
 
2 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 2 Hear, O heavens, and hearken, O earth! 
 
 For Jehovah speaketh ; 
 
 I have nourished and brought up children, 
 But as for them—they have rebelled against me. 
 
 instead of referring it to ὑπ, to which 
 it properly belongs, suppose it to de- 
 signate only the first chapter ; but it 
 is quite incongruous to imagine that 
 so small a portion required the reigns 
 of four kings for its delivery. Vitringa, 
 Eichhorn, Rosenmiiller, and Maurer, 
 are of opinion that the original in- 
 scription ended with the word o7d™ ; 
 that it had relation only to the first 
 chapter ; that after the death of the 
 prophet, when his oracles were col- 
 lected, this one was placed first to 
 serve as a title and introduction to the 
 whole book; and that the specification 
 of the kings was then added to com- 
 plete the inscription, by assigning the 
 period of the prophet’s ministry. This 
 solution Lowth pronounces to be judi- 
 cious ; and Gesenius allows it to be 
 ingenious, though he is not quite 
 satisfied with it. Le Clerc, Michaelis, 
 Hitzig, Scholz, J. A. Alexander, and 
 Schroeder, in MS., consider it to be 
 the original inscription to the whole. 
 That it was thus understood by the 
 author of the second book of Chro- 
 nicles is beyond all doubt. His words 
 are, “Now the rest of the acts of 
 Hezekiah, and his goodness, behold 
 they are written in the vision of 
 Isaiah, the son of Amoz,” ch. xxxii. 
 32,—the identical terms of our text. 
 Rosenmiiller, Eichhorn, and Koppe, 
 endeavour, indeed, to enervate this 
 proof by rendering ja “ together with 
 the vision,” &c., and confining it to 
 the portion contained in ch. xxxvi— 
 xxxix.; but Gesenius has shewn, that 
 their argument founded on the use of 
 2” after 1n2 is groundless, since this 
 verb is also frequently construed with 
 a, and that it is more natural to under- 
 stand the reference to be to a definite 
 collection of prophecies, in which, as 
 well as in the book of Kings, the 
 accounts of Hezekiah were to be found. 
 I accede, therefore, to the opinion of 
 the interpreters mentioned above, who 
 view the words as the inscription of 
 the whole collection. 
 
 Isaiah, the son of Amoz. See Introd. 
 
 Dwr», LXX. and Theodion 
 kara, Symm. περὶ, as the LXX. have © 
 rendered this preposition, chap. ii. 1, 
 where Symmachus employs ὑπὲρ ; Je- 
 rome szper. Were the denunciations 
 immediately following, alone intended, 
 the adverse meaning would be proper ; 
 butif reference is had to the contents 
 of the book generally, the preposition 
 must be rendered concerning ; and it is 
 thus given by the best interpreters. 
 The circumstance, that predictions 
 affecting other nations besides the 
 Jews are found in the book, forms no 
 valid objection against such construc- 
 tion: whatever relates to them being 
 introduced on account of its intimate 
 bearing upon the interests of that 
 people. By Judah and Jerusalem are 
 meant the Jewish state, or the two 
 tribes of Judah and Benjamin, usually 
 comprehended under the former name; 
 and the inhabitants of the metropolis 
 in particular—the centre of the king- 
 dom, and the great source of religious 
 and political influence. Sometimes we 
 find the inverse order of the words: 
 mM) ow, as chap. iii. 1 ; v.3; Ezra 
 11. 1, ὅσο, ; but both forms are opposed 
 to Hphraim and Samaria. 
 
 mim %272—32. See Introd. 
 
 2. PIN—DY, τὰ πάντα, the universe. 
 A splendid instance of poetical apo- 
 strophe. All created beings, whether 
 rational or irrational, are summoned 
 to listen to the charge to be preferred 
 by Jehovah against his rebellious and 
 ungrateful people. The words of the 
 prophet, and those of Moses, Deut. 
 xxxii. 1, are strikingly parallel. Nor is 
 the parallelism of the subjects less 
 complete—the manifestation of the 
 Divine goodness, and the ingratitude 
 of the Hebrews, its recipients ; and it 
 is not without reason Calvin conjec- 
 tures, that there is an imitation of the 
 celebrated song of theJewish legislator, 
 whom all the prophets took for their 
 model. ‘Tesaias hic Mosen imitatus 
 est, sicuti mos est omnibus prophetis.” 
 
CHAP. 1.] 
 
 3 The ox knoweth his owner, 
 And the ass his master’s erib : 
 But Israel doth not know ; 
 My people doth not consider! 
 
 The position of Vitringa, which has 
 been adopted by Lowth, Gesenius, and 
 others, that God here institutes a 
 judicial proceeding, and that heaven 
 and earth are addressed as judges in 
 the cause, is scarcely in keeping with 
 the point and vehemence of the per- 
 sonification. The spirit of the passage 
 is more in accordance with that of 
 Jer. ii. 12,13. To supply 75 sic before 
 727, as some propose, would, in such 
 connexion, detract from the dignity of 
 the style, and be quite abhorrent from 
 the wsus loquendi which connects 75 
 with Vox, never with 127. The change 
 of 127 into 735 is equally unjustifiable. 
 Comp. Ps. 1.1. Coverdale renders it 
 in the present tense, which ought to 
 have been retained in our common 
 version.—0’2a, The Hebrews are fre- 
 quently spoken of as the sons of God, 
 partly to indicate the relation in which 
 they stood to him in virtue of the 
 Sinaic covenant, by which the nation 
 solemnly acknowledged him to be her 
 husband ; and partly to suggest the 
 idea of paternal and filial love. Comp. 
 Exod. iv. 22; Deut. xxxii. 5, 6 ; Hos. 
 xi. 1; Mal.i. 2, 6. This relationship 
 is recognised by Paul, Rom. ix. 4, 
 where he ascribes υἱοθεσία to the Is- 
 raelites. While other nations were 
 ou, ver. 7, the former stood in this 
 near relation to Jehovah, and were 
 treated accordingly, both in the way 
 of kindness and of chastisement. The 
 verbs *‘mN27) ἘΣ are thus joined, chap. 
 xxiil. 4; Ezek. xxxi.4; and, what is 
 remarkable, they occur in the same 
 order, as the proper names (M772 
 ἜΣ ΠΌΤ) of two of the sons of Heman, 
 1 Chron. xxv. 4, 29, 31. Such occur- 
 rence confirms the opinion of Kimchi, 
 that they are perfectly synonymous, 
 and shews the fallacy of Vitringa’s 
 interpretation, according to which the 
 former verb signifies to educate, and 
 the latter fo evalt; as if they referred 
 to certain distinct periods in the his- 
 tory of the Hebrews. Such synonymic 
 combinations are common in the lan- 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 Oo 
 
 guage, and are employed for the sake 
 of intensity. God had exercised the 
 greatest care over his people; he had 
 conferred upon them a profusion of 
 benefits. No father could have con- 
 ducted himself so attentively -and 
 kindly in the education of his children. 
 —1 wee, they have rebelled against me, 
 may be extended so as to comprehend 
 idolatry, and very often has this mean- 
 ing; but it also expresses defection 
 from Jehovah in any way, only that 
 it be atrocious in degree. In this con- 
 nexion, it naturally suggests the idea 
 of filial disobedience : though, in a theo- 
 cratic point of view, it was strictly 
 
 rebellion. Like its cognates ee 
 : ᾽ 
 abscidit, dirupit ; ἜΣ a Deo pre- 
 
 seriptum agendi modum reliquit, et a vero 
 
 et justo defecit, as pl we es? or 
 
 a) improbus, nequam, it signifies ¢o 
 
 break, break up a connexion, break off 
 Jrom any one ; hence the form N77) ws, 
 2 Kings viii. 20, 22, to revolt from 
 under the power of another ; and with 
 3, and ὅν, when the idea of hostility is 
 designed to be marked. From the 
 violence which it implies, Y¢® is one 
 of the strongest terms employed in 
 Heb. to denote sin. 
 
 3. To aggravate the stupidity of the 
 Hebrews, two of the tame animals are 
 introduced, which, though proverbial 
 for their dulness and inattention, 
 nevertheless discover an instinctive 
 regard for their master, and the place 
 where they are fed. Comp. Jer, viii. 7. 
 Dix some render sfa//; but it rather 
 denotes the crib in which the fodder 
 is placed, being derived from D:2x, to 
 feed ; Arab. ual collegit rem ; cl , 
 qui ornat atrium, instruitque cibo suo et 
 potu. Thus Kimchi ; nvana7 2x0 O19 ; 
 LXX. φάτνη ; Vulg. presepe. Lowth 
 attempts unsuccessfully to shew, that 
 ‘mix, me, has been lost out of the text 
 
4 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 4 Wo to the sinful nation! the people laden with guilt! 
 The race of evil-doers! corrupt children ! 
 
 They have forsaken Jehovah ; 
 
 One of Israel; 
 They have wholly gone back. 
 
 after ‘xt. The word is, indeed, 
 supplied in the LXX. and Vulg., and 
 pov in Aquila and Theodion ; but these 
 versions merely fill up what was 
 deemed an ellipsis. The insertion of 
 1 before the same word is equally with- 
 out authority from Heb. MSS., though 
 found in the LXX., Syr., Aq., Theod., 
 and Vulg. It is found before ‘sy in 
 about thirty MSS., but this also may 
 be merely the result of emendation. 
 The history of the Hebrew text 
 evinces that this conjunction was 
 more likely to be added than omitted 
 —owing chiefly to inattention to one 
 of the distinctive features of poetry, 
 the frequent ellipsis of conjunctions, 
 &c. in the second member of a paral- 
 lelism. 421277 heightens the idea ex- 
 pressed in the preceding clause, and 
 is designed to develop more clearly 
 the guilty want of discrimination on 
 the part of the Hebrews. That "τὴ" 
 is to be understood of the whole 
 people, and not, as some would limit 
 it, of the Jews only, appears from the 
 fact, that it is never used in this 
 limited sense by any prophet who 
 wrote before the captivity. 
 
 4, Τὴ ἦλ %7 Gesenius discovers a pa- 
 ronomasia which he imitates in— 
 Schande dem siindigen Lande; but the 
 assonance is perhaps purely acci- 
 dental. The interjection is most com- 
 monly used in comminations, and is 
 evidently to be so taken here, som, 
 The participle expresses habit : s¢xning 
 nation ; a nation addicted to deviation 
 from the path of rectitude. 732 is not 
 a segolate noun, as Jarchi takes it, but 
 a construct form of the adjective 729, 
 as is proved by the analogy of 7px, Jy. 
 The LXX. change the figure of a bur- 
 den, which most naturally conveys the 
 notion of the oppressive property of 
 guilt, and the unsupportable punish- 
 ment which it entails, into that of an 
 element with which the subjects of 
 iniquity are filled: λαὸς πληρὴς apap- 
 
 they have contemned the Holy 
 
 τιῶν. They also weaken the force of 
 Py, though they render it by the plural 
 of ἁμαρτία, the term more appropri- 
 ately expressive of 78en. Both signify 
 the missing of a mark, deviation from the 
 right way: whereas 2 denotes perver- 
 sity, that which is distorted, crooked, 
 or turned away from its proper posi- 
 tion or direction. Root my; Arab. 
 
 use in latus inflexit rem, torsit, dis- 
 
 torsit, &c., to twist, bend, make crooked, 
 distort,—OYY2 YY, is not to be under- 
 stood with any reference to the pro- 
 genitors of the Hebrews, though the 
 character too aptly applies to the great 
 body of the nation, in almost every 
 period of its history, but marks that 
 of those who lived in the time of 
 Isaiah. Thus, as to sense, the LXX. 
 σπέρμα πονηρόν. The phrase, as Theo- 
 doret remarks, has its parallel in 
 γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν, Matt. 111, 7, and in 
 sense, though not in form, in γενεὰ 
 πονηρὰ καὶ μοιχαλὶς, Matt. xii. 39. 
 oy Hiph. part. of ȴ3, to crash, break, 
 hurt, do evil, commit injury. Hence YYD, 
 an injurious person, an evil-doer.—There 
 is no necessity, with Lowth, to con- 
 vert DTW into MNT, the part. of 
 Hoph. The difference of pronuncia- 
 tion is too great, and the circumstance, 
 that five MSS. omit the ’ is of no con- 
 sequence, as this apocopated form of 
 the conjugation is of frequent oc- 
 currence. Comp. 2 Chron, xxvii. 2. 
 Zwinglius: “corrumpere facientes, 
 ponuntur pro tam corruptis ut alios 
 corrumpere possint, hoc est pro per- 
 ditissimis et corruptissimis.” The 
 active participle may be understood 
 either in a transitive or intransitive 
 sense, according as we take it abso- 
 lutely, or supply 592, or 037], after it. 
 If the former, the passage may be 
 rendered corrupting, or destructive 
 children ; if the latter, vicious chil- 
 dren, 7.e. such as act corruptly, or 
 viciously, The LXX. ἄνομοι; the 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 Or 
 
 5 Why will ye be further smitten ? 
 
 Why will ye increase revolt ? 
 The whole head is sick, 
 And the whole heart faint. 
 
 others, διαφθείροντες. Y, Arab Sad 
 
 procul fuit, abfuit, procul evagatus fuit 
 pascendo camelus, vesperi non revertens : 
 to run away, as camels, horses, &c. from 
 their master. The Heb. verb also sig- 
 nifies to loosen the bands or cords by 
 which beasts of burden are fastened. 
 See Exod. xxiii. 5, and Gesen. in loc. 
 It is frequently used of a dereliction 
 of Jehovah. fs}, in addition to the 
 idea of leaving, conveyed by XY, ex- 
 presses the contemptuous feeling in 
 which it originated, and an obstinate 
 determination to persevere in a course 
 of disobedience— x7 wip, the Holy 
 One of Israel, i.e. the Sacred Object of 
 their veneration and love ; the infinite 
 source of purity; the hater and 
 avenger of all moral pollution. The 
 genitive is that of simple relationship, 
 not strictly that of subject ; for, while 
 the Jews in the time of the prophet 
 professed to serve Jehovah, or to have 
 him for their God, they were, for the 
 most part, destitute of the feelings 
 which his character was calculated to 
 inspire. If they had truly regarded 
 him as “the Holy One,” they could 
 not have acted the part here ascribed 
 to them. The use of this epithet is 
 almost exclusively confined to Isaiah ; 
 occurring nearly thirty times in the 
 course of his prophecies, but only five 
 times besides in the whole Bible. It 
 thus forms one of the distinguishing 
 characteristics of his style, and fur- 
 nishes strong evidence in favour of 
 the genuineness of the entire book.— 
 1432, Niph. of 13, a synonyme of 0 
 and »D, the latter of which likewise 
 takes We after it. All three verbs 
 signify to turn away, recede, or depart 
 Jrom, and are especially employed to 
 designate apostasy from God. Ps. liii. 
 43; xiv.3; xliv.19; Zeph. i. 6. Niph. 
 is frequently reciprocal, and seems to 
 have this force in the present instance. 
 The addition of mx gives emphasis to 
 the declaration. Aq. and Theod. 
 
 render: ἀπηλλοτριώθησαν εἰς τὰ ὀπί- 
 
 ow; but ™ has the signification of 
 “ strange ” only in the _ participial 
 forms %and WW». In reference to the 
 peculiar character of the prophet’s 
 style in this verse, Zwinglius asks: 
 “ Quis oro Demosthenes aut Cicero 
 tam brevibus omnia perfecit et adpa- 
 ravit, ut ad summam rei cum tanta 
 opportunitate tantoque decoro perve- 
 nerit Ῥ’ Comment. in loc. 
 
 5. πιο-ποῦν, Misled by a false 
 construction of the following context, 
 Jerome, Lowth, Gesenius, and many 
 moderns, translate “on what part,” 
 and fortify their rendering by the 
 classical parallels :— 
 
 Vix habet in vobis jam nova plaga locum. 
 Ovip. 
 Γέμω κακῶν δὴ κ᾽ οὐκέτ᾽ ἐσθ᾽ ὅπη τιθῇ. 
 Evrip. 
 But, such construction, however ap- 
 propriately it may seem to agree with 
 the totally diseased state of the body, 
 spoken of immediately afterwards, ill 
 accords with the introduction of the 
 verb ἘΠ, which requires the repe- 
 tition of ποῦν, of which there is an 
 evident ellipsis. The phrase has doubt- 
 less the local meaning, Job xxxviii. 6, 
 and 2 Chron. xxxii. 10; but every- 
 where else, that of why? wherefore ? 
 The interpretation of Lowth, “on 
 what part will ye smite again ; will ye 
 add correction ?”—applying the lan- 
 guage to the persons who were the 
 instruments of God’s vengeance, is a 
 complete failure, and spoils the force 
 of the original, in which there is a 
 sudden and spirited transition from 
 the third person to the second, for 
 the purpose of producing poignant 
 conviction by a direct address. No- 
 thing, indeed, can be more tame than 
 the introduction of a third party.— 
 m7D, as a fem. noun, from “0, occurs 
 in the sense of defection from Jeho- 
 vah, Deut. xiii. 6; Jer. xxviii. 16, 
 xxix. 32; Isa. xxxi. 6, lix. 13; in the 
 two last of which passages, the Bishop 
 himself renders it “revolt ;” so that 
 
 A 
 
6 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, 
 
 There is no soundness in it ; 
 
 But wounds, and stripes, and fresh sores ; 
 They have not been pressed, nor bound up, 
 
 Nor softened with oil. 
 
 7 As for your country—it is desolate ; 
 
 Your cities are burnt with fire ; 
 
 As for your land—foreigners devour it in your presence ; 
 It is desolate—a land overthrown by foreigners. 
 
 his attempt to trace it analogically to 
 1D’, was unnecessary. Besides, there 
 is no such derivation from this root 
 in Hebrew usage, its only derivative 
 being 1019, which frequently occurs. 
 The address is not without irony ; 
 proceeding on the principle, that the 
 Jews had revolted, in order that they 
 might be punished: while it is strongly 
 implied, that their continuance in sin 
 would only increase their punishment. 
 Winer and Hitzig render %, distribu- 
 tively, —“ every head” and “ every 
 heart,’—on the ground that it is 
 anarthrous; but the omission of the 
 article is not unfrequent in poetic and 
 prophetic composition. See Gesen. 
 Lehrg. ὃ 168, 3, «β. The 2 in such con- 
 struction, denotes state or condition. 
 The two noblest parts of the human 
 body are here selected to represent 
 the body politic; and the extreme 
 danger to which it was exposed is sig- 
 nificantly set forth under the image of 
 universal sickness and languor. There 
 was no part which did not suffer from 
 the calamities which sin had entailed. 
 The allegation of this passage, in 
 proof of the doctrine of original sin, 
 or of the total depravity of human 
 nature, is totally unwarranted by any 
 just principle of Biblical interpreta- 
 tion. It does not, as Calvin ably 
 shews, refer to sin at all, but to its 
 punishment. 
 
 6. An affecting amplification of the 
 preceding description. ‘3 ἐμ if, i.e. 
 ἡ nation, or DY people, understood from 
 ver. 4—the subject of which the figu- 
 rative language is used being thus 
 graphically pointed at. Not only was 
 the body covered with different kinds 
 of wounds, but some of them were 
 
 quite fresh, and no means had been 
 applied to heal them. The verbs here 
 employed are not designed to corre- 
 spond to the preceding nouns taken 
 singly—as if they described different 
 modes of treatment appropriate to 
 the different wounds: yet, as 7% and 
 wa are in the plural, and 723 is in 
 the singular, it properly belongs to 
 m7 72, while the former refer to P33 
 and 7yaT in common. 1 is the plural 
 of τ, to press, press out, as blood and 
 other matter from wounds. The pro- 
 cess in healing a wound was first to 
 mollify or soften it with oil, or other 
 ointment; then to press out the 
 matter which had collected in it ; and 
 finally, to bind it with a bandage 
 steeped in oiland wine. Comp. Luke 
 x. 34; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxi. 47; 
 Columella, vii. 5, 18. 
 
 7. The prophet now proceeds to 
 announce in plain and express terms, 
 what he had just delivered in figura- 
 tive language. This most graphic de- 
 scription of the desolations occasioned 
 by hostile invaders. applies to the 
 state of the Jewish affairs, when the 
 country was overrun by the Israelites 
 and Syrians on the one hand, and the 
 Edomites and Philistines on the other, 
 —a calamity that threatened the en- 
 tire subversion of the kingdom, in the 
 reign of Ahaz. See 2 Kings xvi. 5, 6; 
 2 Chron, xxvii. 5—8, 17, 18 ; Isa. vii. 
 1,2. Lowth and De Wette refer the 
 invasion here described to the reign 
 of Jotham ; Rosenmiiller, after Abar- 
 banel, Cocceius, and Grotius, to that 
 of Uzziah ; while Jarchi, Vitringa, and 
 Eichhorn, consider the events to have 
 taken place in the days of Hezekiah. 
 The historical circumstances, how- 
 
CHAP. 1.] 
 
 ISATAH. 7 
 
 8 And the daughter of Zion is left, 
 
 Like a shed in a vineyard, 
 
 Like a booth in a cucumber field, 
 
 Like a besieged city. 
 
 ever, more or less militate against an 
 
 other interpretation than that whic 
 
 places this extreme national distress 
 in the time of Ahaz,—the most cor- 
 rupt monarch that had yet ascended 
 the throne of David. See Gesen. i. p. 
 147. 7 78 is used in this place, both 
 for the cultivated land and its pro- 
 duce, or the fruits which grew upon it. 
 Hence it is said to be eaten by the 
 invaders, and to be burnt with fire. 
 According to Kimchi, it signifies 
 DNR AVI nw, “sown fields and 
 the trees belonging to them.” For 03, 
 “barbarians,” Lowth proposes to read, 
 Du, “an inundation,”’—a translation 
 which is countenanced by Saadias, 
 
 ἜΝ keh , schultens, who com- 
 
 pares the Arab. Sad » Michaelis, Dee- 
 
 derlein, Hensler, and others ; but itis 
 otherwise unsupported, unnecessary, 
 and, as Calvin calls it, coactum. 1s 
 the participle of 1, ¢o be strange, to act 
 hostilely, and signifies a barbarian, or 
 a foreign enemy. The 3 prefixed to 
 n2B79, is the Caph veritatis, or of inten- 
 siveness, Which marks the reality or 
 superlative degree of the quality pre- 
 dicated. The words, therefore, contain 
 no comparison ; but express the great- 
 ness of the catastrophe :—an over- 
 throw, such as only barbarians could 
 effect. The LXX. render properly: 
 kal ἠρήμωται κατεστραμμένη ὑπὸ λαῶν 
 ἀλλοτρίων. 
 
 8. ΤῈ 73, daughter of Zion ; a poetic 
 Hebraism for Zion herself. m3, like 
 023, sons, is sometimes used to denote 
 the inhabitants of a city or country, 
 as wun na, chap. xxiii. 10; 17a, Ps, 
 xly. 13; O78 na. Lam. iv. 22; but it 
 is also often transferred to designate 
 the city or country itself. “ Prosopo- 
 peice idiotismus est Hebreeorum, quo 
 urbes et municipia foeminarum, aut 
 filiarum periphrasi adpellant.” Zwin- 
 hus, . Thus, 73 ma, Ps, cxxxvil. 8. 
 This idiom, under various modifica- 
 tions, is exceedingly common in Ara- 
 
 maic. Comp. the use of Wo), el wh 
 and «wy, in Arab. ; and of 3, ox, 
 
 and 73,in Heb. In poetry, Zion is fre- 
 quently put for Jerusalem, of which 
 it formed the most ancient part, and 
 formed the southernmost and highest 
 of the hills on which the city was 
 built. The name is derived from ΠΗ͂Σ, 
 to be bright, sunny, dry; and seems 
 rather to have obtained the designa- 
 tion from its shining aspect, than from 
 any supposed barrenness or aridity. 
 At all events, in the present day, it is 
 not unfruitful; for Dr. Richardson 
 found one part of it supporting a crop 
 of barley, and another undergoing the 
 labour of the plough; and Mr. Carne 
 mentions a crop of corn as growing on 
 its sides. See Horne’s Introd. vol. iii. 
 p. 19, note. To depict the exact posi- 
 tion of the metropolis, as standing 
 alone in the midst of surrounding ruin 
 and desolation, the prophet employs 
 three appropriate comparisons. The 
 first is that of a single booth or hut, 
 constructed of the boughs and small 
 branches of trees, usually erected in a 
 vineyard for the shelter of persons 
 stationed to protect the grapes from 
 the attacks of thieves, foxes, &c. The 
 second refers to a similar hut or lodge 
 in the midst of a field appropriated to 
 the growing of cucumbers, which is 
 the only object visible at any distance, 
 and is often attached to the highest 
 part of a pole or tree, in order to 
 afford security from the wild beasts by 
 night. See chap. xxiv. 20. πῦρ, for 
 
 mapa, Arab. $a, a place of cucum- 
 bers,—properly, the Egyptian melon ; 
 owe, Numb. xi.5; Arab. (is, rasvt, 
 decorticavit. Comp.(43, idem. They 
 
 are longer than the common cucum- 
 ber, of a deeper green, a softer and 
 smoother skin, sweeter, and more easy 
 of digestion ; being very cooling, they 
 
8 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. 1. 
 
 9 Except Jehovah of Hosts had left us a very small remnant, 
 We should have been like Sodom, 
 We should have resembled Gomorrah. 
 
 are greatly in request. Hitzig. The 
 third object of comparison is 712} TY, 
 which has been variously interpreted. 
 Not satisfied with the ordinary signi- 
 fication of YY, Scheid. and Tingstadius 
 derive it from VY, to watch, and render, 
 “a tower” or “ watch-tower in a gar- 
 
 den ;” (yd in Arab. signifying hortum.) 
 
 This interpretation is partly adopted 
 by Hitzig ; only he considers the YY to 
 be a place of shelter, and supposes a 
 tower to be meant, such as is common 
 in oriental villages, from which a view 
 is commanded of the surrounding 
 country, and into which the inha- 
 bitants retreat on the approach of 
 enemies. 7932 he takes to be a noun, 
 formed like 7y128, Ayw, ὅσο. This would 
 be philologically unobjectionable, were 
 it supported by usage ; and his trans- 
 lation, “as a tower of observation,” 
 well suits the connexion, The inter- 
 pretation, however, which derives 712} 
 from 12}, in the acceptation of hostile 
 watching or besieging, (it being then 
 the regular past part,) is to be pre- 
 ferred, not only to the above modes of 
 elucidation, but also to that of “a 
 preserved” or “delivered city,” pro- 
 posed by Michaelis, and adopted by 
 Koppe, Rosenmiiller, J. Moller, and 
 approved by Gesenius in his Com- 
 ment. but abandoned in his Lex. Man. 
 in which he renders, wrbs obsessa. With 
 this last interpretation agree the LXX. 
 Chal. and Syr. and it is fully sup- 
 ported by the Ben. part. O23, being 
 used to denote desiegers, Jer. iv. 16. 
 The version of Lowth, “taken by 
 siege,’ has no other countenance than 
 the rendering of the Vulg. ; the πολιορ- 
 κουμένη of the LXX. to which the 
 Bishop appeals, expressing simply the 
 fact, that the siege was being carried 
 on, not that the city had been taken, 
 which would have ill accorded with 
 the idea of the prophet. Jerusalem 
 itself not having been actually be- 
 sieged on the occasion here referred 
 to, however threatened with such a 
 calamity by the surrounding enemies, 
 
 might well be compared to a city in 
 such circumstances. 
 
 9. 2, except, compounded of %, i/, 
 and Ὁ, for οἷ, zof—msiz Tim, Jehovah 
 of hosts. This divine appellation ap- 
 pears first to have come into use in 
 the time of Samuel, in whose books it 
 frequently occurs, as it does also in 
 those of Kings, the Psalms, and most 
 of the minor prophets, but with un- 
 usual frequency in Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
 and Zechariah. See Buxt. Concord. 
 The position of Lowth, Hitzig, and 
 
 others, that 5 mm is an ellipsis for 
 ΓΊΝΩ ox m7, is overturned by the 
 simple fact, that Ov7>x itself, as a pro- 
 per name, is likewise exhibited in the 
 absolute, and not in the construct 
 form, which we should otherwise have 
 expected: Ps. lix. 6; Ixxx. 5,8, 15, 20; 
 Ixxxiv. 9. To elude the difficulty, in 
 this case, it has been proposed to sup- 
 
 of the form 8 m7, together with the 
 circumstance, that other instances of 
 proper names in a state of construc- 
 tion occur, it is preferable to regard 
 such forms as relics of a ruder and 
 more primitive usage, as 123 DPX, 2 
 Kings iii. 4; yo) ov, Isa. xxx. 20; 
 nox oor, Jer. x. 10. (Ewald, § 515.) 
 
 ff 
 The combination, $ wx TIM, occurs 
 only once in Isaiah, and a few times in 
 Jeremiah. A still fuller form, how- 
 ever, is employed by Amos, iii. 13 ; 
 MNT ox AP 2. Aq. κύριος στρα- 
 recov ; Symm. δυνάμεων. The LXX. 
 in Isaiah uniformly render, κύριος 
 σαβαώθ; in the other books, κύριος 
 παντοκράτωρ, is the phrase chiefly em- 
 ployed. Both forms are copied in the 
 N. T. The title imports the supre- 
 macy of Jehovah over the angels and 
 all the planetary systems, and seems 
 to have been designed to vindicate to 
 him the honours which were idola- 
 trously paid to the heavenly bodies, 
 by those, who on this account, were 
 
 called by the Arabs, we Sabii, 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 9 
 
 10 Hear the word of Jehovah, ye judges of Sodom! 
 Hearken to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah ! 
 11 What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? saith Jehovah. 
 I am satiated with burnt-offerings of rams, 
 And with the fat of fed beasts : 
 And in the blood of bullocks, and of lambs, and of goats, 
 
 I take no delight. 
 
 12 When ye come to appear before me, 
 Who hath required you to tread my courts ? 
 
 i.e. worshippers of the celestial hosts. 
 Michaelis, Suppl. ad Lex. Heb. No. 
 2107. The >in OY) is intensive. 
 
 10. The prophet having finished his 
 picture of the deplorably reduced cir- 
 cumstances of the Jews, avails himself 
 of the allusion which he had made to 
 Sodom and Gomorrah in the preceding 
 verse in order to apply the subject 
 with more point to his auditors. By 
 a spirited apostrophe, he invests them 
 with the character which they had 
 been accustomed to regard as peculiar 
 to the abandoned inhabitants of those 
 cities. Their guilt was great, and 
 merited condign punishment. Comp. 
 Jer, xxiii. 14 - Matt. xi. 23, 24; Ezek. 
 xvi. 48; Rey. xi. 8.—7z?, a magistrate 
 
 or judge. Arab. oh, kadi. Gesenius 
 
 appropriately quotes here the Arabic 
 proverb :— 
 
 pre 28 ure ye 
 “More unjust than a judge of Sodom.” 
 
 721 and ΠῚ occur often, as here, for 
 divine doctrine or instruction in 
 general. The latter word is derived 
 from ΠῚ), to throw, throw out the hand ; 
 in Hiph. to point, guide, direct. 
 
 11. From this verse, to the 15th 
 inclusive, the Jews are taught the 
 spiritual import of the ™in, daw, to 
 which their attention had just been 
 called, ver. 10 ; and the inconsistency, 
 inutility, and guilt of occupying them- 
 selves with external forms of religion, 
 while they evinced no true penitence, 
 or moral reformation, are strikingly 
 pressed upon them. Comp. 1 Sam. 
 xv. 22; Ps. 1. 7—15; Amos v. 21—24, 
 The reference in 0273ry) is not so 
 
 much, perhaps, to the numerous sacri- 
 fices prescribed in the Mosaic insti- 
 tute, as to the voluntary multiplication 
 of them by the Jews, in the time of 
 the prophet, with a view to avert the 
 Divine wrath. According to Josephus, 
 the number of lambs of one year old, 
 sacrificed at the Passover only, under 
 Cestius, amounted to 256,500. The 
 mas. gender is observed throughout 
 the enumeration, in strict accordance 
 with the command, that the animals 
 for sacrifice should all be males. 
 Levit. i. 3, 10. 
 
 12. 22 τιν, contracted for*227ny Γῆν τ᾽, 
 to present or make one s-self visible before 
 God ; i.e. in the temple, the residence " 
 of his glory. The naked form, *3, is 
 precisely that which occurs Exod. xxiii. 
 15 ; where it is first ordained that the 
 Israelites should present themselves 
 with gifts and sacrifices at the three 
 great festivals, and is that used by 
 David, in reference to his appearing 
 in the temple, Ps. xlii. 3. 2578 and 
 Ox are otherwise employed. One 
 MS. reads nis}, ¢o see, but erroneously, 
 though not on the ground assigned by 
 Gesenius, that the phrase, seeing God, 
 as Ps. xi. 7; xvii. 15, cannot well be 
 understood, except of the beatific 
 vision ; for the Psalmist indisputably 
 uses it, when speaking of his beholding 
 the glory of God in the temple, Ps. 
 lxili, 2—o3, lit. from your hand, a 
 common Hebraism after verbs of de- 
 manding, to express from you: the 
 
 -pronoun here is emphatic.—0d), fo 
 
 tread,—a term of contempt purposely 
 borrowed from the action of the cattle 
 brought into the outer court for sacri- 
 fice. The attendance of the Jews in 
 the other court was, in a spiritual 
 point of view, no better. 
 
10 
 
 18 Bring no more vain oblation ; 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 Incense is an abomination to me, 
 The new-moon also, the sabbath, and the calling of assemblies ; 
 I cannot endure wickedness, and days of restraint. 
 
 14 
 They are a burden upon me ; 
 I am weary of bearing them. 
 15 
 
 Your new-moons and your stated festivals my soul hateth ; 
 
 When also ye spread open your hands, 
 
 I will hide mine eyes from you ; 
 
 13. XY in ΝΥ ΤΠ) may refer either 
 to the worthlessness and inutility of 
 the oblations presented, or to the in- 
 sincerity of the worshippers. The 
 one is indeed included in the other ; 
 but the latter idea seems better to 
 accord with the spirit of the passage. 
 — 78 is supposed by some to be an 
 ellipsis of nev? °nx ; but >, related as 
 it is to 3, to hold, contain, signifies 
 by itself, to dear or endure, Ps. ci. 5. 
 xq NP, lit. fo call a convocation, not 
 “to read the Scripture,” as some have 
 thought. The form, however, is the 
 infin. constr. and must be rendered 
 by the calling of. The phrase is founded 
 on the circumstance of certain solemn 
 feasts having been ushered in by public 
 proclamation. Though 8772, and the 
 two preceding substantives, are masc., 
 they are nevertheless to be understood 
 as referred to in the predicate 89 ΠΕΡῚ, 
 which could not be repeated. 27x? 
 are properly separated by the Zakeph- 
 katon from the preceding words, and 
 stand in immediate connexion with 
 the following M21 }}8, which emphati- 
 cally teaches the impossibility of any 
 religious services being acceptable to 
 God, while iniquity is not hated and 
 forsaken. The impenitent Jews sought 
 to combine both ; just as men in all 
 ages, and in connexion with every 
 system of religion, have been prone 
 to imagine that the observance of 
 outward rites would atone for the 
 guilt of sin. Comp. Jer. vii. 8—10. 
 My? signifies restraint or abstinence from 
 labour, in order to keep a festival, and 
 metonymically an assemb/y met under 
 such circumstances. Comp. the Arab. 
 
 ye cohibuit, retinuit, &c. Gesenius 
 
 attempts in vain to make it primarily 
 
 mean an assembly. Nothing can be 
 more forced than his reference to 
 1 Sam. xxi. 8, in proof of his signif. 
 No. 3, in Niph. ps the LXX. render 
 νηστεῖα, as if OY had stood in their 
 copy, but it is unsupported by any 
 other authority. Lowth’s reasons in 
 its favour are precisely those which 
 render it critically suspicious. 
 
 14. By 0-77 we are not to under- 
 stand any monthly festivals different 
 from that of the new-moon, expressed 
 in the singular form 77 in the fore- 
 going verse ; just as DPI compre- 
 hends all the other feasts there distri- 
 butively mentioned. The commence- 
 ment of this verse is nothing more 
 than an epanalepsis, or resumption of 
 what had been there introduced, in 
 order to expatiate upon it, and give it 
 greater effect—m9, which occurs as a 
 noun only here and Deut. i. 12, the 
 cognate verb once, Job xxxvii. 11, 
 seems chosen in order forcibly to ex- 
 press what causes fatigue or molesta- 
 tion, as a weight, burden, &c.; but the 
 emphasis of the passage is greatly in- 
 creased by the prep. 7%, xpox, which 
 indicates the continued pressure of 
 the painful annoyance. The idea is 
 beautifully carried out in the con- 
 cluding words of the verse, where the 
 
 _reciprocal form of the verb indicates 
 
 self-exhaustion in the effort to perform 
 any action. The whole passage is 
 strongly anthropopathical. 
 
 15. The extension of the hands to- 
 wards heaven was a very usual and a 
 most appropriate gesture in prayer. 
 See 1 Kings viii. 38, 54; 1 Tim. ii. 8; 
 and Wets. or Bloomf. Synop. on the 
 latter passage. The Heb. phrase Ὁ: 
 02, however, refers rather to the 
 spreading open of the palms of the 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 11 
 
 Even though ye multiply prayers, I will not hear : 
 
 - Your hands are full of blood. 
 16 Wash ye; purify yourselves ; 
 
 Remove your wicked practices from before my eyes ; 
 
 Cease to do evil: 
 17 Learn to do well; 
 
 Seek justice ; right the oppressed ; 
 Maintain the cause of the orphan; plead for the widow. 
 
 hands when extended, than to the 
 extension of the hands themselves, 
 though this is necessarily included. 
 
 “Tngemit, et duplices tendens ad sidera 
 palmas.’—VirG. 4neid. lib. 1. 1. 98. 
 
 —In 7%n 1am may be included the 
 Barrodoyia which our Lord condemns, 
 and for which the Jews appear ever 
 to have been notorious. Nothing 
 could be more incongruous than to 
 spread open to the view of Holy 
 Omniscience, hands which had been 
 stained by acts of atrocious wicked- 
 ness. Hence the practice, to which 
 allusion is made in the following verse, 
 of washing the hands before engaging 
 in prayer—an illusion which also holds 
 in regard to ὁσίους χεῖρας, 1 Tim. ii. 8. 
 The last clause of the verse is a prosa- 
 podosis, in which the reason isassigned 
 why their services were rejected. It 
 is noticeable that while the other 
 verbs in this verse are future in signi- 
 fication, the last, 1899, is in the prete- 
 rite, to indicate the habitual cruelty in 
 which the Jews of that age indulged. 
 Gesen. Lehrg. § 205. 3.6. 027 in the 
 plural, 4loods, is generally used of 
 murders to express the aggravated 
 atrocity of the crime. 
 
 The specification of the entire ser- 
 vice of the Jews, ver. 12—15, was 
 intended to produce the conviction, 
 that no part of it was acceptable to 
 God, whatever relative importance 
 they might attach to it, while they 
 persevered in a course of transgres- 
 sion,—a great moral truth applicable 
 to mankind in all ages. 
 
 16, 17. Though divided both in the 
 original, and in the versions, these 
 verses are most intimately connected 
 by the identity of the forms, and the 
 directness of the contrast: Ὁ Ὑ7---- 
 
 ΔΙΌ ὑπο, They introduce a series of 
 appropriate expostulations, couched 
 partly in figurative, partly in literal 
 terms.— 217, Gesenius and Hendewerk 
 take for the Hithp. 3377, the n being 
 suppressed before the sibilant, which 
 makes the compensation by the Dagesh 
 forte. Hitzig considers it to be the 
 Niph. of 73, which is preferable, as 
 the proper Hithp. of 733 would be 
 mam. The remark of this writer, that 
 there are no instances of Hithp. in 
 verbs having 1 for their first radical 
 is important.—yioy nex. Gesenius, 
 Winer, Ewald, Hitzig, and other 
 moderns, render yi07 actively, consi- 
 dering it to be equivalent to the 
 Benon. part. y27; though Gesenius 
 allows, in his later works, that the 
 form here employed being intransitive, 
 the word may be taken in a passive 
 sense, which, indeed, the connexion 
 absolutely requires. LXX. ῥύσασθε 
 ἀδικούμενον, and so the Chal., Syr., 
 Vulg.,Saad., and Jewish Span. Kimchi 
 also renders it 319, not %3,as Gesenius 
 represents it in his Comment. The 
 Rabbi explains the meaning by re- 
 ferring to Ps. xxi. 4; but he gives the 
 sense of the passage thus: NTH Ὁ Nw 
 ws nv dn, “Direct him who is 
 robhed and wronged in his judgment.” 
 Though the root primarily signifies to 
 be sour, acid, the idea of corrupt, 
 suggested by Bochart, and adopted by 
 Lowth, Dathe, (emendate quod cor- 
 ruptum est,) and others, does not suit, 
 as indeed Lowth himself felt; but 
 that of violence, which, in common 
 with its cognate Ddq, it obviously 
 conveys, is fully warranted ws wy, 
 to be erect, straight, right, has, in Piel, 
 the causative signification, ¢o make or 
 place erect, to cause to walk right ; hence 
 to lead, guide. It here specifically 
 
12 
 
 18 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 Come now, let us reason with each other, saith Jehovah : 
 
 Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as snow ; 
 Though they be red as crimson, they shall be like wool. 
 
 19 If ye be willing and obey, 
 
 Ye shall consume the best of the land ; 
 
 20 But if ye refuse and rebel, 
 
 Ye shall be utterly consumed by the sword. 
 For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. 
 
 signifies to raise the afflicted from his 
 state of depression under the violent 
 hand of his enemy, to see him righted 
 as to his place in society, to restore 
 him to circumstances of prosperity. 
 The uncommon frequency with which 
 the cases of the orphan and widow 
 are taken up in the Old Testament, 
 evinces the high degree of importance 
 attached to this branch of Hebrew 
 ethics. 
 
 18. A remarkable instance of gracious 
 condescension on the part of Jehovah, 
 designed to afford the utmost en- 
 couragement to penitent and return- 
 ing sinners. Gesenius, after Michaelis, 
 Koppe, and Eichhorn, supposes that 
 the passage refers not to pardon, but 
 to judgment, though he construes it 
 differently ; but the passages which 
 he adduces are by no means parallel, 
 and the verbs employed are ™ and 
 wp, not m2, which the prophet here 
 uses, and which signifies to argue a 
 point, reason, a8 well as to punish. It 
 is used in a kind sense, as the con- 
 nexion shews. Comp. the beautiful 
 parallel, chap. xliii. 26, where even 
 ὭΒ occurs in the same signification. 
 Jewish Span. contrastemonos. — 7%, 
 prop. garments of scarlet colour, from 
 γῦ, a colour obtained from the coccus 
 licis of Linnzeus—an insect which 
 deposits its eggs in the leaves of the 
 quercus cocciferus, found in Spain, and 
 other countries bordering on the 
 Mediterranean. It was greatly in 
 request by the ancients, who prepared 
 from it a deep scarlet, or beautiful 
 crimson dye, somewhat resembling 
 that which is now obtained from the 
 coccus cacti, or the cochineal insect. 
 
 It is called by the Arabs Leys 
 kermes; (in the Jewish Span. οἱ car- 
 
 mesi;) hence our “crimson.” From 
 the similarity of the word to ποῦ, 
 which signifies fo repeat, or do a thing 
 a second time, some have supposed, that 
 double-dyed crimsons or purples are 
 meant: a supposition which derives 
 some support from the dis tincta, and 
 dibapha of the Roman writers ; and 
 from the διπλοῦν of the LXX. Exod. 
 xxv. 4; and the δίβαφον of Symm. 
 Exod. xxviii. 8, where the Vulg. has 
 bistinctum. In the present passage, 
 the LXX. render it φοινικοῦν, which 
 Hesych. interprets πυῤῥὸν, κόκκινον, 
 αἱματώδες ; but which is properly to 
 be explained from the circumstance, 
 that it formed a celebrated article of 
 Phenician commerce. The  corre- 
 sponding term YA signifies a worm, 
 and denotes the insect itself, from 
 which the colour was obtained. It is 
 here used merely for variety of ex- 
 pression. The two words are found 
 together : ‘20 nyAn, Exod. xxv. 4: and 
 nyain 20, Lev. xiv. 4. With the Jews 
 white was the symbol of purity ; red, 
 of crime, especially of cruelty and 
 murder. 
 
 19, 20. The rhythmus and antithesis 
 in these verses are exquisite. ὮΝ 
 might, in the former instance, be 
 rendered enjoy, as Luther gives it; 
 but as it is employed in the latter 
 with evident reference to its previous 
 occurrence, consume is more appro- 
 priate. 28m is intensively, and not 
 causatively passive, as Gesenius would 
 have it. Supply ἃ before 7. The 
 interpretation of Hitzig: “ye shall 
 be compelled to devour the sword,” 
 i.e. by receiving it into your vitals, 
 is violent, and quite repugnant to 
 Scripture usage. See Deut, xxxii. 42; 
 2 Sam. 11. 26, 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 13 
 
 21 Ah! how is she become an harlot—the faithful city ! 
 
 She that was full of justice ! 
 
 Righteousness dwelt in her, but now murderers ! 
 
 22 Thy silver is become dross ; 
 
 Thy liquor is weakened with water ; 
 
 23 Thy princes are rebellious, and associates of thieves ; 
 Every one of them loveth a bribe, and pursueth rewards ; 
 They maintain not the cause of the orphan ; 
 
 And the cause of the widow reacheth them not. 
 
 24 Hence the announcement of the Lord, 
 
 21. The prophet again depicts the 
 corrupt state of the metropolis ; con- 
 trasts its present moral degradation 
 with the high and honourable character 
 which it had formerly sustained ; and 
 denounces the wrath of God against 
 the finally impenitent. 77982 has 
 special reference to fidelity in the 
 worship and service of the true God, 
 and 7 to the idolatrous practices 
 which obtained in the days of Ahaz. 
 Such practices were a breach of the 
 matrimonial bond into which the 
 nation had symbolically entered with 
 Jehovah. The Jod in ‘D8? is usually 
 called paragogic, but seems rather to 
 be the relic of an ancient mode of 
 expressing the status constructus, or, as 
 Ewald. § 406, terms it, a union-vowel. 
 It occurs very rarely in prose, and 
 then only in the first four books of 
 the Pentateuch; but it is more fre- 
 quent in poetry, and vefy common in 
 proper names, as P1Z7379, 27T3Y, Ke. 
 
 22. oD, the recedanea, or scorie 
 which separates from metal in a state 
 of fusion, or the baser metal thus 
 detached from it when smelted. The 
 metallurgic art appears to have been 
 cultivated at a very early period. 
 Numerous traces of it occur in the 
 Scriptures—many of them indicating 
 a considerable degree of proficiency.— 
 820, the LXX. and Symm. οἶνός ; Aq. 
 συμπόσιον. ‘This substantive, and the 
 verb from which it is derived, are 
 only used in poetical or prophetical 
 composition, and unequivocally convey 
 the idea of inebriating liquor, or liquor, 
 the drinking of which freely in its 
 pure state would produce intoxication. 
 It is used in this place, to express the 
 
 idea of purity or genuineness, in which 
 alone its potency lay; though, per- 
 haps, not exclusive of an implied 
 reference to the abuse of it.—79, lit. 
 cut, wounded, killed with water. The 
 word occurs only in this place ; but 
 is quite in keeping with similar modes 
 of expression among the Arabs, as 
 may be seen in Gesen. Comment. in 
 loc. “Vinum aqua secare est phrasis 
 orientalis, vinum aqua miscere indi- 
 cans.” —Dathe. The lexicographers 
 compare it with 0, to circumcise ; 
 with which the German weiz taufen, 
 to baptize wine, is singularly parallel 
 as it respects the religious rites from 
 which the phraseology is borrowed. 
 Both members of the verse express 
 the deterioration which had taken 
 place in the state and character of 
 the Jews. 
 
 23, DMD PW, a paronomasia, which 
 also occurs Hos. ix.15; and in sound, 
 though not in sense, Jer. vi. 28.— 
 Ὁ is not used elsewhere, but is 
 introduced as a parallel to Mw, LXX. 
 ἀνταπόδημα ; Symm. ἀμοιβάς. 
 
 24, NT ON? A solemn and em- 
 phatic mode of expression, admirably 
 adapted, in connexion with the follow- 
 ing accumulation of Divine appella- 
 tives, to excite attention to the decla- 
 ration they were intended to introduce. 
 ἘΝ, cognate with 0m}, to ery aloud, 
 roar, as the lion, the sea, &c., is the 
 Pah. construct, and signifies what has 
 been solemnly or oracularly announced. - 
 Hence the idiomatic phrase, Jer. xxiil. 
 31, Dx? wR, “and solemnly pro- 
 nounce: the oracle of,” where there 
 is a singular beauty in the suppression 
 of the Divine name, since what the 
 
 B 
 
14 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. I, 
 
 Jehovah of Hosts, the Protector of Israel: 
 Ha! I will be relieved from my adversaries ; 
 I will be avenged of my enemies. 
 
 25 But I will again turn my hand towards thee, 
 And will smelt away thy dross as with potash, 
 
 And take away all thine alloy. 
 
 false prophets pretended to deliver 
 had not proceeded from Jehovah, but 
 was the mere invention of their own 
 brain.—ji7x. Some regard the subst. 
 Ts, @ base or pedestal, as the root of 
 this word; but the more natural 
 derivation is that adopted by the most 
 distinguished Heb. scholars for the 
 last century, which refers it to p7 or 
 T7, to exercise power or authority, subju- 
 gate, judge. When used, as here, 
 with the article, as also without it in 
 elevated poetry, Ps. cxiv. 7, the word 
 is taken absolutely to designate Jeho- 
 vah as the Supreme Judge or Universal 
 Governor. It is applied in the same 
 sense to the Messiah, Mal. iii. 1. 25x, 
 the plural form absolute, is likewise 
 used exclusively of God. Gen. xix. 
 18, forms no exception: the pause 
 accent there requiring the Patach to 
 be changed into Kametz; so that, 
 though the form of the Divine name 
 is exhibited, which led the Masoretes 
 to mark it 7p, it is in reality the 
 simple plural, with the pronominal 
 affix, as in ver. 2. To further distin- 
 guish Jehovah from all other rulers, 
 he is styled yw jx. VIX occurs 
 only here in construction with os, 
 and five times besides in construction 
 with apm. It is derived from 72x, an 
 intransitive verb, not in use, but cog- 
 nate with 732Y, to pass over, 152, to be 
 over, cover, and signifying to cover, 
 protect, defend ; hence 738, and πὰς, 
 wing Or pinion, from the protection 
 which it affords. The meaning of the 
 phrase 2 & Vis is, therefore, the Pro- 
 tector of Israel—omw. This is one 
 of those Heb. verbs which are so 
 pregnant with meaning as to convey 
 even contrary ideas. It is properly 
 expressive of strong emotion, and the 
 mental relief or enjoyment which 
 results from an effort to give vent to 
 it. With respect to one’s own actions, 
 it signifies to grieve or repent ; with 
 
 respect to those of others, to inflict 
 punishment, avenge one’s self upon 
 them. In both cases the mind is 
 eased of the annoyance which blame- 
 worthy conduct has occasioned to it. 
 It also signifies to exercise pity or 
 compassion towards suffering, because 
 of the effect of such exercise upon 
 one’s own mind. God is here repre- 
 sented anthropopathically as deter- 
 mined no longer to be vexed, or 
 offended by the conduct of his enemies, 
 but to obtain relief from the burden 
 which it imposed, by removing them 
 from the scene of action ; or so affect- 
 ing them by his judgments, as to 
 deprive them of the opportunity of 
 insulting him. See the beautiful note 
 of Lowth on the passage.—The 7 in 
 mp is the sign of the elongated 
 Future, indicating a fixed determina- 
 tion to effect the action expressed. 
 25. by VY ΠΤ is used in a hostile 
 sense, Ps. Ixxxi. 15; Amos i. 8; but 
 the connexion shews that the phrase 
 is here to be taken in a good sense, 
 as pointing out the return of the 
 divine favour—though that favour 
 could only be restored by an exertion 
 of power in removing the causes of 
 indignation,—33, as with potash: Jew- 
 ish Span.-como wabon. 3 for 33, as freq. 
 1a, a vegetable salt obtained from the 
 ashes of the /ali, or soap-plant, of 
 which Forskal found several kinds in 
 Egypt and Arabia: hence the Arabic, 
 
 \all, Alkali, adopted into our west- 
 
 ern languages. It is the same article, 
 otherwise called ™3, and was used, 
 not only in cleansing cloth, or washing 
 the body, but also, as appears from 
 this passage, in purifying metals; 
 causing the different parts to separate 
 more readily from each other. Thus 
 the Chald.; but the other ancient 
 versions simply express the idea of 
 purity—the effect for the cause. Bo- 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 15 
 
 26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, 
 And thy counsellors as at the beginning ; 
 
 After this, they shall call thee, 
 
 The city of righteousness, the faithful state. 
 
 27 Zion shallbe delivered through justice, 
 And her converts through righteousness. 
 
 28 But the destruction of the rebels and the sinners shall be together ; 
 And those who forsake Jehovah shall perish. ‘ 
 
 29 For ye shall be ashamed of the terebinths in which ye delighted, 
 And blush for the gardens which ye had chosen. . 
 
 chart. ii. 43.—>y72, any base admixture 
 of lead, tin, or other impure metal’ 
 found in silver ore. It derives its 
 name from its being separated (513) 
 from it in the process of smelting. 
 26. The restoration of righteous 
 judges and counsellors was to be ef- 
 fected by the removal of those who 
 were corrupt, and the creation of such 
 as answered to the character originally 
 prescribed in the law. ΠΡ, which is 
 seldom used, except in the poetical or 
 prophetical books of Scripture, is 
 synonymous with vy, It is derived 
 from MR, 82, to fall in with, meet ; Arab. 
 
 VB, collegit, hospitium excepit, in urbe 
 urbs, Heb. and 
 
 Punic, ΠΣ; and properly signifies a 
 place of meeting, where there is an 
 assemblage of persons, and where 
 strangers may expect to meet with 
 hospitality, Gen. xix. 1,2, In 72 ΝῊ, 
 is a common Hebraism, according to 
 which, a person is said fo be called 
 what he really 7s; so that, “thou shalt 
 be called” is equivalent to, “thou shalt 
 be.” This idiom, though more fre- 
 quently occurring in Isaiah, is not 
 peculiar to him. See the parallel pas- 
 sage, Zech. vi. 3. In all such cases, 
 the name specified is not a xomen 
 proprium, but a predicate of certain 
 properties or qualities distinguishing 
 the object named. 
 
 27. Since the inhabitants of Zion 
 are not described in this chapter, as 
 having been carried into exile, 72% is 
 not to be translated, ἡ αἰχμαλωσία 
 αὐτῆς, her captives, as in the LXX., but 
 as Jarchi gives it; T2wn wv, “those 
 
 vivit; hence, 9,3, 
 
 who repent.” 2% signifies, in such 
 connexion, to turn to God in the way 
 of genuine conversion. The converts 
 of Zion were her inhabitants, con- 
 sidered as recovered to the true wor- 
 ship and service of God. 
 
 28, 29. DxwM OYE denote the oppo- 
 site characters to 72, in the preceding 
 verse—impenitent and obstinate trans- 
 gressors. The change of person in 
 Hebrew poetry is very common; so 
 that, though Kennicott’s Codices, 150, 
 182, and De Rossi’s 226, originally, 
 together with Munster’s printed edi- 
 tion of 1536, the Chaldee Paraphrase, 
 and the version of Saadias, read 717, 
 “ Ye shall be ashamed,” it is not at all 
 improbable that x, the reading of 
 the Textus Receptus, is genuine; and 
 to alter it simply on such authorities 
 as those just mentioned, would be 
 unwarrantable. At the same time, 
 since the third persons of verbs are 
 often used impersonally, this verb may 
 be considered as subordinated to those 
 which follow, and translated accord- 
 ingly, as I have done in the version. 
 To avoid the harshness, the LXX. and 
 Syr. throw onyer into the third person, 
 —o’?x, to correspond to ni:7, in the 
 second member of the verse, must be 
 interpreted, ¢erebinth, or oak - groves; 
 which places, as well as gardens, while 
 they afforded shelter from the burning 
 heat of the sun, were peculiarly favour- 
 able to the obscene practices connected 
 with idolatrous worship. They were 
 accordingly selected for the purpose, 
 not only by the ancient idolaters in 
 Pheenicia, Syria, and other parts of the 
 East, but in Germafiy, Britain, &c. 
 though the superstitions in the colder 
 
10 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 30 For ye shall be as a terebinth whose leaves wither ; 
 And as a garden in which is no water. 
 31 The powerful man shall become tow, 
 
 And his work a spark of fire ; 
 
 They shall both burn together, 
 And no one shall quench them. 
 
 climates of Europe may not have been 
 marked by the same degrees of licen- 
 tiousness.—It has been contested, 
 whether by the 7x,is to be understood 
 the ¢erebinth, or turpentine-tree, or the 
 oak, It takes its name from its strength 
 and hardness. The LXX. render it 
 τερέβινθος, Gen. xiv. 6; but Aq.,Symm., 
 and Theod. have δρῦς, which the LXX. 
 frequently employ as a translation of 
 the kindred word 7x, substituted for 
 it in the next verse. According to 
 Gesenius--Aristotle, Theophrastus, and 
 Pliny, describe the Terebinth as an 
 evergreen—a quality which would suit 
 ver. 30; but the fact is denied by 
 modern botanists. Lowth, unable to 
 make up his mind, either to terebinth 
 or oak, renders the words by ‘lez, 
 which is a species of the latter. The 
 truth of the matter seems to be, that 
 the Hebrews used it to designate the 
 Pistacia Terebinthus of Linn.; while 
 they appropriated js and 7x to the 
 oak, in supporting whichappropriation, 
 all the ancient versions agree: though, 
 in the present case, Aq., Symm., and 
 
 Theod. have εἰδώλων : taking the word 
 to be >8, which is used both of the 
 true God, and of any false divinity. 
 The Arabs call it the Butm-tree. For 
 a description of it, see Dr. Robinson’s 
 Biblical Researches, vol. iii. p. 15. 
 
 30. Nothing could more strikingly 
 typify the destitute and forlorn con- 
 dition of the ungodly, in their circum- 
 stances of destruction, than the faded 
 terebinth, and gardens without any 
 supply of water.—For 79, the singular, 
 nearly fifty MSS. and eight editions 
 read in the plural 7%. 
 
 31. OD, powerful, great in might or 
 riches. Some interpret this of τοί, 
 and their worshippers, but less aptly. 
 The word seems to be used to denote 
 the influential characters in the Jewish 
 state, whose wicked deeds had plunged 
 it into such dire calamities. Both they 
 and the objects of their idolatrous 
 worship should now be consumed 
 together. ‘9b, dis work, is here equi- 
 valent to "7 Mwy, the work of his hands, 
 i.e. his idols, ch, ii, 8; xxxvil. 19, 
 
 ——— 
 
 CHAPTERS .——IV. 
 
 That these chapters form one connected whole, has been admitted by most 
 expositors. It was reserved for Koppe, Eichhorn, and Bertholdt, to break 
 them up into minute fractions; but the unsuccessful results of their efforts 
 have cured the mania for critical operations of this description, which raged 
 for a time in Germany. Jahn, Déderlein, and Hitzig, inciude also the fifth 
 chapter in the discourse; yet, with the exception of Déderlein, they consider 
 it to be so far distinct, as claiming to be regarded in the light of a second 
 division of it. Gesenius treats them as altogether separate discourses. 
 
 The time when this discourse was delivered seems plainly determinable, by the 
 political and moral traits which it exhibits, 'The flourishing state of com- 
 merce; the importation of the precious metals from the East; their great 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 17 
 abundance; the introduction of foreign manners, especially idolatry; and 
 the luxury and finery which prevailed ; seem all to agree with the commence- 
 ment of the reign of Ahaz. For the conducting of these several items to 
 the pitch which they then reached, ample provision had been made, by the 
 reopening of the port of Elath, under Uzziah, 2 Kings xiv. 22; his increase 
 of military prowess, and his success, 2 Chron. xxvi. 6—15; and the prospe- 
 rous eareer of Jotham, 2 Chron. xxvii.3—6. The strong features of idolatry 
 which the prophet exhibits, entirely militate against the hypothesis of this 
 section having been delivered in the time of Uzziah. In part of that of 
 Jotham, matters greatly deteriorated ; but it was not till Ahaz ascended the 
 throne, that the door was opened for the entrance of all kinds of wickedness 
 and abomination, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The prophet commences with a lucid prediction of the establishment of 
 
 Messiah’s kingdom, and its happy results, 1—5; he then depicts the awful 
 apostasy and idolatry of the Jews in the times immediately following his 
 own, 6—9; denounces the divine judgment against the different classes of 
 the people, 10—17; predicts the utter abolition of idolatry, 18—21; and 
 
 closes with an exhortation to withhold all confidence in man, 22. 
 
 1 THe things which Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw, concerning 
 
 Judah and Jerusalem. 
 
 2 In the last of the days, the mountain of Jehovah’s house 
 Shall be established on the summit of the mountains, 
 
 1, 127 has the signification of thing 
 or matter, as well as that of word, and 
 especially, in such connexion, a thing 
 or things forming the subject matter 
 of divinely oracular communication. Ver- 
 bum pro divino responso et oraculo. 
 4winglius. Most modern translators 
 render the term, by prophecy ; but then 
 they are obliged to give m1, by was re- 
 vealed, which is an unnecessary liberty. 
 Every difficulty is removed by the lite- 
 ral translation given in the version. 
 More things than one being intended, 
 127 may be regarded as a collective 
 noun. 
 
 2—4, This passage, with a few 
 verbal differences, being also found 
 Micah iv. 1—3, it has been matter of 
 dispute, to which of the two prophets 
 belongs the claim of originality; and 
 
 some have even maintained, that it 
 contains the words of a third and more 
 ancient prophet, which both Isaiah and 
 Micah adopted on different occasions. 
 This hypothesis, however, is quite un- 
 necessary : nor is it of any consequence 
 which of the prophets first delivered 
 the prediction. They were contem- 
 poraries, and the one may have heard 
 the other,—a supposition which will 
 account for the discrepancies between 
 them, in point of phraseology, much 
 better than the theory, that one of 
 them copied the passage from the 
 written prophecy of the other. τ 
 2. The phrase, 027 M7¥, which, in 
 itself signifies, remote future time inde- 
 finitely, has, in the prophets, a more 
 determinate reference; viz. to the last 
 period of the divine dispensations, the 
 
18 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. 11. 
 
 And shall be elevated above the hills, 
 And all the nations shall flow to it. 
 3 Yea, many people shall go and say ; 
 Come, let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, 
 To the house of the God of Jacob; 
 That he may teach us his ways; 
 And that we may walk in his paths. 
 For out of Zion shall go forth the law, 
 And the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. 
 
 time of the Christian economy. Comp. 
 Jer. xxii. 20; xxx. 24; Dan, x. 14; 
 Hos. iii. 5. Hence the current Jewish 
 interpretation: way nim, the days of 
 Messiah,—the time when he should 
 appear, and during which his kingdom 
 should endure; of which, Kimchi and 
 other rabbins consider the present 
 passage to be clearly predictive. Abar- 
 banel says expressly, ΤΡ NVI? PHD 1 N'7, 
 “it belongs without doubt to the days 
 of the Messiah.” Mashm. Hayeshuah, 
 fol. 8. col 1. LUXX. ἐν ταῖς ἐσχάταις 
 ἡμέραις, Which is either adopted or 
 imitated in the N. T. Acts 11.17; Heb. 
 i. 1; 1 Pet. i. 20. The mountains and 
 hills cannot here be literally under- 
 stood of Zion, Lebanon, Tabor, Gilead, 
 &c. since the elevation of the former 
 of these mountains above the others, 
 or rather its transposition to be firmly 
 based upon their summits, would argue 
 a physical convulsion too violent and 
 absurd in its phenomena to be for a 
 moment admitted. In the symbolical 
 diction of prophecy, mountains betoken 
 commanding or governing powers, or 
 governments and systems, political and 
 ecclesiastical. In a religious point of 
 view, the phraseology may be based 
 upon the fact, that altars and temples, 
 the central points of idolatrous wor- 
 ship, were constructed on elevated 
 localities. The establishment, there- 
 fore, of Zion upon the tops of the 
 mountains, and its paramount eleva- 
 tion, refer to the superior position 
 which the church of God was to 
 assume, in relation to the different 
 systems of false religion; the influ- 
 ence which she was to exert upon 
 them, and her permanent duration, 
 chap. xi. 9; Dan. ii. 35; Rev. xvi. 20. 
 —, to flow as a river, is beautifully 
 
 descriptive of a long and continuous 
 mass of human beings collected from 
 different quarters, and moving forward 
 in procession towards some point of 
 common interest.—Instead of YX, 
 Micah has YY, which is the more 
 definite, and, on this account, more 
 probably the later in its composition. 
 —oinr2 points out the universal 
 character of the Christian dispensa- 
 tion. Instead of the Jewish males 
 going up thrice in the year to Jerusa- 
 lem, andindividual proselytes repairing 
 thither from thesurrounding countries, 
 the great mass of the population of the 
 globe would abandon their supersti- 
 tions, and enter the church of God. 
 3. The same idea of universality is 
 prosecuted in this verse, with a decla- 
 ration of the object which the converts 
 would have in view, in repairing to the 
 church, and the means by which their 
 conversion should be effected. The 
 prefixed to the futures, 7223, 1%, and 
 7272 occurring after 3°), a verb in the 
 imperative mood, is not merely copu- 
 lative, but marks the ends or events 
 to which the action expressed by that 
 verb was to be introductory. 727, when 
 used as here in the imperative, is a 
 formula of exhortation or excitement, 
 and though strictly meaning to go, 
 proceed in any direction, is more 
 appropriately rendered into English 
 by come. Gesen. Lehrgeb. p. 873.— 
 The synonymes JJ, and Mk, like odds, 
 Acts ix. 2; xix. 9, 23; 2 Pet. ii. 2; and 
 
 the Arab. al Cow, Cow, in the 
 
 Koran, signify religion, religious prin- 
 ciples, worship, and conduct.—» is not 
 partitive here, as if only partial in- 
 struction were to be obtained; but, 
 after verbs of teaching, it indicates 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 19 
 
 4 And he shall arbitrate among the nations, 
 And give decision to many people ; 
 So that they shall beat their swords into coulters, 
 And their spears into pruning-knives : 
 Nation shall not raise a sword against nation, 
 Neither shall they learn war any more. 
 
 5 O house of Jacob! 
 
 Come and let us walk in the light of Jehovah. 
 6 Surely thou hast cast off thy people, the house of Jacob, 
 
 the matter or subject, which the 
 teaching has for its object.—If mn 
 may be taken in its appropriated 
 sense for the Old Testament revela- 
 tion; the im 127 in the following 
 hemistich will then signify the gospel, 
 or the announcements of the New 
 Testament, which are repeatedly called 
 ὁ λόγος Tod κυρίου, as in Acts xix. 10; 
 2 Thess. iii. 1. Both terms, however, 
 may be descriptive of divine doctrine 
 generally. This part of the prophecy 
 received a literal fulfilment, when the 
 apostles executed our Lord’s commis- 
 sion, to go and teach “all nations, 
 beginning at Jerusalem,” Luke xxiv. 47 ; 
 but consistency of interpretation re- 
 quires the term to be applied to the 
 church, of which, at the time the 
 prediction was uttered, and also in the 
 apostolic age, Jerusalem was the cen- 
 tral locality. It was from the church, 
 and by the church, that the truth was 
 to be propagated throughout the 
 world; and to that church, in her 
 universality, the nations were to come 
 for instruction. 
 
 4, Here the scene of Messiah’s reign 
 is distinctly laid in the Gentile world ; 
 where its influence was to be exten- 
 sively felt, in the abolition of war, 
 and the security enjoyed in cultivating 
 the peaceful arts. To the description 
 given by our prophet, Micah adds :— 
 
 “And they shall sit, each under his 
 vine, and under his fig-tree, 
 And none shall make them afraid : 
 For the mouth of Jehovah of hosts 
 hath spoken it.”—Chap. iv. 4. 
 
 Compare Martial, Epigr. xiv. 34; and 
 for the reverse of the picture, Joel iv. 
 10; Virg. Georg. i. 507 ; Ovid, Fast, 
 
 i.699. The fulfilment of this predic- 
 tion has hitherto only been partial, in 
 consequence of the partial prevalence 
 of the genuine spirit of the gospel ; 
 but it is undeniable, that Christianity 
 has greatly contributed to ameliorate 
 the political condition of mankind, by 
 diminishing the horrors of war, pro- 
 moting useful intercourse, and ad- 
 vancing the useful arts. Its plenary 
 accomplishment is reserved for a 
 period yet future, of the tranquillity 
 and prosperity of which, the prophetic 
 pages abound with the most glowing 
 descriptions. The nominative to ew, 
 &e. Kimchi and other rabbins admit 
 to be the King Messiah. —DPx, on 
 comparing 1 Sam. xiii. 20, obviously 
 signify agricultural implementsofiron, 
 and most probably the cow/fer, as there 
 distinguished from 7772 and nv, 
 implements similarly employed. The 
 Jewish interpreters render the word 
 by mattocks, which is supported by 
 the version of Symmachus. Comp. 
 
 however, the Arab. (#3), molle fuit 
 
 (ferrum) ; (Ὁ, Οἱ» molle Serrum. 
 
 5. Contains a spirited address to 
 the Jews forthwith to avail themselves 
 of the privileges which they enjoyed, 
 lest, while these privileges were ex- 
 tended to other nations, they might 
 be deprived of them. iT ἦν, che light 
 of Jehovah, is the instruction or know- 
 ledge which he imparts. See ver. 3. 
 
 6. The exigency of the place requires 
 9 to be rendered surely or assuredly,— 
 not for, which is quite foreign to the 
 connexion. Contrasting the happiness 
 which his people might enjoy, by 
 walking in the paths of obedience, 
 with their foreseen forlorn condition, 
 
20 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. IL. 
 
 Because they are full of the East; 
 
 They practise magic, like the 
 
 Philistines, 
 
 And strike hands with the sons of foreigners. 
 
 Their land also is full of silver and gold ; 
 
 And there is no end to their treasures. 
 Yea, their land is full of horses, 
 And there is no end to their chariots. 
 
 the prophet abruptly changes the 
 object of address, and appeals directly 
 to Jehovah, who had brought his 
 judgments upon them; and proceeds 
 to point out the causes which had 
 procured them. Nothing can be more 
 violent than the interpretation of the 
 Targum, Saadias, Michaelis, and Hitzig, 
 according to which 37%" ΓΞ is to be 
 considered as the vocative case, thus : 
 “For thou hast left thy people, O 
 house of Jacob!” Besides there being 
 no parallel instance of such construc- 
 tion, the frequent use of 2), the verb 
 here employed, in connexion with m7, 
 to express his abandonment of his 
 people, shews, that it is to Him the 
 address is directed. The 7 in πηι Ὁ), 
 is not a contraction of ™, as Houbi- 
 gant conjectures, but the fuller, though 
 rarer form of the pronominal afforma- 
 tive of the second pers. sing. mas. 
 See Gen. ili. 12; Mal. 11. 14.--- 
 
 meant, who taught the superstitions, 
 and practised the sorceries of Syria 
 and Babylon. The contrast, in point 
 of locality, which is effected by this 
 construction, evinces the impropriety 
 of taking ἘΠῚ in the temporal sense, 
 as the ancient versions do, as well as 
 the conjecture of Brentius, adopted 
 by several moderns, which would sub- 
 stitute DDp2 for DIP. Lowth would 
 unite both, and render, “ with divina- 
 tion from the east :” but this is quite 
 uncritical. The Hexaplar Syr. has 
 
 La3Qe, Syria. For the Philistines, see 
 
 chap. xiv. 29. That they were addicted 
 to augury we learn 1 Sam. vi. 2. 
 Whether 022% be descriptive of those 
 who divined by observing the pheno- 
 mena of the clouds (12%, @ cloud), or of 
 those who employed ocular fascination, 
 
 (ty, the eye,) we have no sufficient 
 data according to which to determine. 
 LXX. κληδονίζομαι, but also ὀρνιθο- 
 
 σκοπέω, Ley, xix. 26. Syr. wah asd SO 3 
 
 Vul. augures in general. Luth. Zage- 
 wihler. Gesenius gives to the verb 
 pe the signification of covering, and 
 interprets the noun as denoting those 
 who act covertly, who use covert arts. 
 m723 "12, commonly 122 323, foreiguers, 
 whom the Jews hired to divine for 
 them, after the manner of the heathen. 
 a pews, to make a bargain, or enter 
 into an agreement by striking hands— 
 a mode of contracting common in the 
 . East, as it is in most nations. Hence 
 
 the Arab. 432.0, complosio manuum, 
 
 venditio, contractus, a settled bargain, 
 effected in this way. The verb is 
 nearly related to p20, frequently used 
 for striking the hands together in 
 token of joy, &c. and is found in this 
 sense in thirty-one codices, Job xxvii. 
 23. The Ὁ occurs in the present case 
 in some MSS. and in the Soncin. 
 edition. | 
 
 7. This description of opulence and 
 prowess would agree with the time of 
 Uzziah, who had an army of 307,500 
 men; but there is no reason to suppose 
 that they diminished in the days of 
 his son; and by the time Ahaz as- 
 cended the throne, the evils which 
 usually follow in their train, had 
 greatly increased. The multiplication 
 of horses, riches, &c. was expressly 
 prohibited to the king, Deut. xvii. 16, 
 17,—a prohibition, not, as Gesenius 
 insinuates, of an equally late date with 
 the practice of the Jewish monarchs, 
 in procuring horses from Egypt, but 
 originally inserted in the Jewish law 
 by Moses, and prophetically indicative 
 of their propensity to indulge in what 
 had a natural tendency to alienate 
 
CHAP. 11] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 21 
 
 8 Their land is full even of idols; 
 They bow down to the work of their hands, 
 To that which their fingers have made. 
 
 9 The man of low condition is bowed down, 
 And the man of rank is brought low ; 
 And thou wilt by no means forgive them. 
 
 10 
 
 Enter the rock, and hide thee in the dust, 
 
 From the fear of Jehovah, and from his glorious majesty. 
 
 11 
 
 The haughty eyes of man shall be brought low, 
 
 And the loftiness of men shall be humbled, 
 And Jehovah alone shall be exalted in that day. 
 
 12 
 
 For there is a day of Jehovah of hosts, 
 
 Against every thing that is proud and lofty, 
 
 their trust from God. As camels and 
 asses were the animals used by the 
 Hebrews for riding, horses were pro- 
 cured for purposes of war. Comp. 
 Proy. xxi. 31; Job xxxix. 19—25; 
 Zech. x. 3. The mi33,2 were war- 
 chariots, These were very common 
 among the Canaanites and other neigh- 
 bouring nations; and some of them 
 being armed with iron scythes or 
 hooks, currus fulcati, made terrible 
 havoc among the ranks of the enemy. 
 
 8. DYN, non-entities, 1. 6. idols, ficti- 
 tious beings, destitute of all life and 
 power, from x, xihili esse: most pro- 
 bably in this case, as Vitringa remarks, 
 teraphim, or household gods, whose 
 idolatrous rites were celebrated in 
 private, but not publicly tolerated 
 till the accession of Ahaz. 
 
 9. Though D078 and Wx are some- 
 times mere synonymes, yet in passa- 
 ges such as this, where the design of 
 the writer is to describe different 
 ranks of men, they are used by way 
 of antithesis. Comp. Ps. xlix. 3; Is. 
 v.15. lLuth. very expressively: “Da 
 biickt sich der Pébel, da demiithigen 
 sich die Junker.’ As all classes were 
 addicted to false worship, the judg- 
 ments of God would be universal. 
 Considering that the idolaters had 
 been accustomed to bow down before 
 the objects of their adoration, there is 
 @ singular propriety in the selection 
 of the verbs here employed to express 
 their punishment. They are repeated 
 in verses 11, 12, and 17.--- τ xwn by) 
 
 marks the strong conviction in the 
 prophet’s mind, that merited punish- 
 ment would be inflicted upon them. 
 ‘x, like the Greek μή, is used in sub- 
 jective propositions to express the 
 certainty of the negation, as it respects 
 the person by whom it is uttered. 
 ‘Ewald’s Gram. § 573, Eng. Trans. 
 The meaning is: that, how much 
 soever the Jews were depressed by 
 external calamities, these calamities 
 should not be removed, but should 
 still continue to weigh them down, as 
 subjects of the divine indignation. 
 
 10. Ὅν, lit. dust, but used here, as 
 frequently in the poetical books, for 
 yr. mim ap, the fear which the 
 coming judgments of Jehovah inspire. 
 One MS. supported by the LXX. and 
 Arab. versions, adds, as in verses 19 
 and 21: yyx2 yw? mp3, but it is evi- 
 dently an emendation, and does not 
 suit the present connexion. 
 
 11. ‘90 should properly be in the 
 plural, to agree with Ὁ, but it 15 in- 
 fluenced by the attraction of the 
 nearer noun Ὁ, as similar instances 
 evince, The contrast between O78, 
 Dx, and mim, is marked and striking. 
 
 12, mi) dy, In the prophetical 
 writings, the term oY is frequently 
 employed to denote a period of divine 
 judgment, Ezek. vii. 10; Joel i. 15; 
 just as ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου is used in the 
 N. T. for the day of judgment. 120 
 and ny are similarly used. Hence the 
 emphasis attaching to i777 DW, ver. 11. 
 Ἐκείνη ἡ ἡμέρα, 2 Thess. 1. 10, ἕο. The 
 
 σ 
 
22 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 {[CHAP. II. 
 
 And against every thing that is elevated, 
 
 And it shall be brought low. 
 13 
 That are lofty and elevated ; 
 
 Against all the cedars of Lebanon, 
 
 And against all the oaks of Bashan. 
 
 14 
 
 Against all the high mountains 
 8 Ξ ᾽ 
 
 And against all the elevated hills. 
 
 15 Against every high tower, 
 
 And against every fortified wall. 
 
 ? refers the judgment to Jehovah, as 
 the author of its infliction. 
 
 13—16, contain a specification of 
 several of the most distinguished 
 objects of nature and art, in order, 
 metaphorically, to represent the dif- 
 ferent persons or orders of men, 
 elevated by the dignity of office, or 
 rendered notable by their riches, or 
 the elegance and luxury of their 
 establishments, whom the judgments 
 of God would, in a more remarkable 
 manner, hurl into ruin. “They afford,” 
 Lowth elegantly observes, “a striking 
 example of that peculiar way of writing, 
 which makes a principal characteristic 
 of the parabolical or poetical style of 
 the Hebrews, and in which their poets 
 deal so largely; namely, their manner 
 of exhibiting things divine, spiritual, 
 moral, and political, by a set of images 
 taken from things natural, artificial, 
 ‘religious, historical; in the way of 
 metaphor, or allegory.” He proceeds 
 to shew, that most of these are 
 borrowed from nature, and that the 
 Hebrew poetry is distinguished from 
 all other poetry by its regular appro- 
 priation of a certain set of such 
 images to the explication of certain 
 subjects; as the cedars of Lebanon, 
 the oaks of Bashan, for kings, princes, 
 &e.; mountains for kingdoms; towers 
 for protectors, ἕο. Compare chap. x. 
 33, 34; xiv. 8; xxx.25. The whole 
 passage in the prophet is in the high- 
 est degree figurative. 
 
 13. No objects of natural history 
 mentioned in Scripture, have been 
 more celebrated than the cedars of 
 Lebanon. The cedar tree, the Pinus 
 cedrus of Linneus, is found on some 
 of the mountains in Asia Minor, and 
 in different parts of the Levant ; but 
 
 nowhere so stately, beautiful, and 
 fragrant, as on Lebanon, Notwith- 
 standing all the ravages made in its 
 famous forests, by the building of such 
 palaces as those of Jerusalem, Perse- 
 polis, Tadmor, and others, in ancient 
 times ; the exportation of immense 
 quantities from Tyre to different parts 
 of the Mediterranean, and the constant 
 use of it for wainscotting the houses 
 in the surrounding country, down to 
 the present time, there still remains 
 a remnant sufficient to call forth the 
 admiration of travellers. The number 
 of the trees is different, as estimated 
 by different persons who have visited 
 the spot since they were first de- 
 scribed by Bellonius in 1550. Dr. 
 Richardson, who saw them in 1818, 
 states :—“They are large, tall, and 
 beautiful, the most picturesque pro- 
 ductions of the vegetable world we 
 had seen. There are in this clump 
 two generations of trees; the oldest 
 are large and massy, rearing their heads 
 to an enormous height, and spreading their 
 branches afar, We measured one of 
 them, which we afterwards saw was not 
 the largest in the clump, and found 
 it thirty-two feet in circumference. 
 Seven of these trees have a particu- 
 larly ancient appearance; the rest are 
 younger, but equally tall, though 
 for want of space, their branches 
 are not so spreading.” Some of 
 them are stated by the Rey. Mr. Fisk, 
 who visited them in 1823, to be about 
 ninety feet high. Besides this forest, 
 Seetzen discovered two others which 
 surpassed it in extent. Rosenm. Bib. 
 Geog. ii. p. 216. For Lebanon, see on 
 chap. x. 34.—Next to the cedars of 
 Lebanon, ranked ¢he oaks of Bashan, a 
 mountainous, but exceedingly fertile 
 
CHAP. 11.} 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 23 
 
 16 And against all the ships of Tarshish, 
 And all the vessels of delightful appearance. 
 
 17 
 
 And the pride of men shall be brought low, 
 
 The loftiness of men shall be humbled, 
 And Jehovah alone shall be exalted in that day. 
 
 18 
 19 
 And the caves of the earth, 
 
 And the idols shall wholly pass away. 
 And men shall enter the caverns of the rocks, 
 
 From the fear of Jehovah and from his glorious majesty, 
 When he riseth to shake terribly the land. 
 
 20 
 
 Τὰ that day shall men cast their silver idols and their golden idols 
 
 Which they have made for themselves to worship 
 
 To the moles and to the bats: 
 
 region beyond the Jordan: still, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Buckingham, clothed 
 with forests, among the trees of which 
 oaks are frequently seen. Robinson 
 describes part of his route in these 
 parts as lying for nearly an hour and 
 a half through a thick forest of fine 
 oak-trees: and again speaks of the 
 crests and sides of the hills being 
 clothed with magnificent oaks, for 
 which, he adds, this district, the an- 
 cient Bashan, is still, as of old, justly 
 celebrated, ii. pp. 209, 211. They 
 were used by the Phenicians for oars, 
 Ezek. xxvii. 6. 
 
 16. ww nv, ships of Turshish; see 
 on chap. xxiii, 10.—a7aN7 ΠΡ Ὁ cannot, 
 on account of the parallelism, which 
 exactly corresponds to that in the 
 preceding verses, be extended, as 
 Gesenius proposes, so as to compre- 
 hend all the objects which had just 
 been mentioned separately. Various 
 interpretations have been given ; but 
 that of ships delightful to look upon, 
 suggested by the rendering of the 
 LXX. πᾶσαν θέαν πλοίων κάλλους, best 
 accords with the spirit of the passage. 
 
 17. πὸ, in the masculine, with the 
 fem. n1723, may either be used for the 
 sake of uniformity with verses 9 and 
 11; or, it may be accounted for on the 
 principle, that when the predicate is 
 mentioned before the subject is named, 
 or its gender thought of, it may natu- 
 rally assume the simplest form, which 
 is that of the masculine singular. See 
 Ewald, § 567. 
 
 18. There is a peculiar beauty in 
 the brevity of this verse, which in 
 the original consists only of three 
 words: AM OPN, in which the 
 letter Lamed predominates. The sin- 
 gular verb is used, to intimate that 
 not one of the idols should remain. 
 No language could more graphically 
 describe the entire disappearance of 
 idolatry. 
 
 19. Judea, and the neighbouring 
 regions, abound in caverns, some of 
 them of an enormous size, to which 
 the inhabitants were accustomed to 
 flee for refuge, when attacked by 
 enemies. Judg. vi. 2; xv. 8; 1 Sam. 
 ΧΙ. 6; xiv. 11; xxiv. 3, 7, 8—}INT Por, 
 another instance of paronomasia. 
 
 20. This verse is connected with 
 ver. 18, and shews how the idols 
 were to pass away. However valuable 
 they were, they should be rejected 
 with contempt. ὃ is wanting in one 
 of Kennicott’s MSS.; at first hand 
 in one of De Rossi’s; and is erased 
 from another; but, standing for 072, 
 it is the common Dativus commodi. 
 —nine 167? is found in five MSS. as 
 one word, nmmen, and thus all the 
 ancient versions (Theod. ἀφαρφερώθ), 
 though they differ in their interpreta- 
 tions. Taken separately, the words 
 might signify, to the digging or burrow- 
 ing, i.e. the holes of rats—nv®, corre- 
 
 sponding to the Arab. x,l8, rats ; but 
 
 as animals are mentioned immediately 
 after, it is more natural to suppose 
 
24 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 21 When they go into the clefts of the rocks, 
 And into the fissures of the cliffs : 
 From the fear of Jehovah, and from his glorious majesty, 
 When he riseth to shake terribly the land. 
 
 22 Cease from man 
 
 In whose nostrils is a breath ; 
 
 For in what is he to be regarded ? 
 
 that a simple reference to another 
 species is made here. Besides, the 
 quadrilateral form of the following 
 noun makes the Kefa/fa/, or reduplicate 
 form in this case the more probable. 
 Both Gesenius and Hitzig object to 
 rendering the word by mo/es, on the 
 ground that these animals are found 
 in the fields, and do not frequent old 
 or ruinous buildings, like the bat ; and 
 the latter commentator, following 
 Abenezra, proposes sparrows; but the 
 consideration, that persons fleeing for 
 safety not only throw away what they 
 may have accounted valuable before 
 abandoning their houses, but also in 
 their flight through the open country, 
 renders it more likely that precisely 
 moles are meant. Since the verb ἜΠ 
 signifies fo dig, its geminated deriva- 
 tive must denote some animal parti- 
 cularly noted for perforation, than 
 which none rivals the mole. See on 
 
 the word, Bochart, Hierozo. vol. ii. p. 
 1031. The fondness of both moles 
 and bats for darkness, rendered them 
 fit companions for the idols which 
 were consigned to oblivion. 
 
 21. The 9 in 82) denotes in such 
 connexion, the time of doing any 
 action. See Gesen. Lex. ὁ. 7. 
 
 22. A very appropriate exhortation, 
 arising out of the predicted destruction 
 of all human glory. This verse is 
 entirely omitted by the LXX.; but is 
 found in the Targ. and both the 
 Syriac versions, in Jerome and Αα., 
 and is not known ever to have been 
 wanting in the Hebrew text. Origen, 
 Jerome, and after them Lyranus, 
 Menochius, Luther, C&colampadius, 
 and many others, strangely interpret 
 the words of Christ—an interpreta- 
 tion of which the Jews have not failed 
 to avail themselves to reproach our 
 Redeemer ! 
 
 CHAPTER LiL 
 
 The prophet now announces, in plain language, the severe privations to which 
 the Jews would be subject, when the predicted judgments should be 
 
 inflicted upon them. 
 
 The cutting off of the necessaries of life; the removal 
 
 of those in whose hands were the reins of government; the assumption of 
 rule by totally incompetent persons ; the anarchy and perplexity consequent 
 upon it ; and the causes of these evils; are all set forth in strong colours, 
 verses 1—15. The remaining part of the chapter is chiefly occupied with 
 a picture of female luxury, and the change that would take place in the 
 appearance of the daughters of Zion, and that of the state generally, as the 
 result of the visitations of Divine Providence. 
 
΄ 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 25 
 
 1 For behold! the Lord Jehovah of Hosts 
 
 Shall remove from Jerusalem and from Judah, 
 
 The stay and the support; 
 
 The whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water :— 
 
 2 The hero and the warrior; 
 The judge and the prophet ; 
 The diviner and the elder; 
 
 3 The commander of fifty and the honourable ; 
 The counsellor, the skilful in magic, and the expert enchanter. 
 
 1. There is an intimate connexion 
 between this verse and that with 
 which the preceding chapter concludes. 
 yoo, like other participles following 
 737, 15. indicative of the future, yo, 
 mon lit. the male and the female support, 
 for every kind of support. Another 
 instance of this idiom, which is com- 
 mon in the Arabic, occurs Nah. ii. 13, 
 where the mas. 170, and the fem. 7579, 
 signify different kinds of prey. Comp. 
 
 Lariall, Vail, Harir. Cons. i. p. 
 
 36. It cannot be imitated in our 
 language, but in the Syr. Ver. we have 
 
 {Asascm0 
 
 Syr. {Dea DSO la ΠΩ ΒΆΡΗ Ξ the 
 
 LXX. ἰσχύοντα καὶ ἰσχύουσαν; Aq. 
 ἔρεισμα καὶ ἐρεισμὸν; Symm. στήριγμα 
 καὶ στηριγμόν; and in the Jewish 
 Span. sustentador y  sustentadora. — 
 Though the idea of stay or support is 
 more naturally connected with that 
 of bread; hence ony7w2, the staff of 
 bread, Lev. xxvi 26; Ps. cv. 16; and 
 coincides with the use of the phrase 
 22 Wd, to prop up, or support the heart, 
 1:6. by taking food; yet it may not 
 inappropriately be also employed in 
 reference to water, on account of the 
 strength obtained from its refreshing 
 influence. The opinion of Gesenius 
 and Hitzig, that the words 0»—5, 
 after 7277W2, are an exegetical gloss, 
 cannot be sustained, since they are 
 required to complete the hemistich, 
 and are otherwise quite in the style of 
 the prophet. 
 
 2, 3. In this enumeration, the 
 different office-bearers and persons of 
 influence are grouped in pairs—a mode 
 
 {oasem; in the Hexap. 
 
 of combination not unusual with our 
 prophet. See chap. xi. 2; xix. 3, 6—9; 
 xxl. 12, 13; xlii. 19. The coupling 
 of DD? with δ), shews that the latter 
 word is here used in a bad sense, to 
 denote idolatrous prophets, or such as 
 merely pretended to a divine commis- 
 sion. See Micah ui.6,7. The oop 
 were those who professed to interpret 
 dreams and tell fortunes by the use of 
 lots, observing the revolutions of the 
 stars, the flight of birds, arrows, &c. 
 Augurs have been found in all nations, 
 but in none more plentifully than in 
 the ancient nations of Asia, where 
 they were attached to the court, and 
 exerted a very great influence on the 
 affairs of state. They were also 
 introduced into Rome, and had a 
 chief called the swmmus aruspex, or 
 magister publicus. Comp. Ezek. xxi. 
 21, 22; Dan. ii. 2, &c. own oon, if 
 occurring alone, would signify one 
 skilled iz the arts, a skilful artificer, 
 which is the interpretation given in 
 the LXX., Syr., Vulg., and Saad.; but 
 its combination with wy 7.22 imme- 
 diately following, determines the sense 
 to that of magic arts, which is sup- 
 ported by the Targ., and is the signi- 
 
 fication of the Aramaic τ and La; eae. 
 
 009, from n>, which, like ὙΠ, signifies 
 to give a low, whispering, muttering 
 sound, in the manner of sorcerers or 
 enchanters, is descriptive of the art 
 of incantation, and cannot, without 
 doing violence to the native force of 
 the term, be applied to oratory, or 
 human eloquence Comp. ver. 20. 
 The true meaning was more or less 
 perceived by Aq. “ψιθυρισμῷ, Symm. 
 ὁμιλίᾳ μυστίκῃ, and Theod. ἐπωδῇ. 
 
26 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 4 And I will make boys their rulers, 
 And children shall govern them. 
 
 or 
 
 Every one his neighbour ; 
 
 And the people shall oppress each other, 
 
 The youth shall outrage the aged, 
 And the despicable him who is honoured. 
 6 Should any one take hold of another 
 That is at home with his father, and say, 
 Thou hast raiment ; be thou our ruler ; 
 And let this ruin be under thy hand: 
 7 In that day, he will protest, saying, 
 
 (7 will not be a healer: 
 
 For in my house is neither bread nor raiment, 
 Make me not aruler of the people.” 
 
 4, There is here a change of person, 
 by which Jehovah is introduced as 
 speaking ; which is not unfrequently 
 the case in Isaiah. O'>°Yn is synony- 
 mous with 04Y2, only it more forcibly 
 expresses the petulance of boys in the 
 exercise of assumed authority. LXX. 
 ἐμπαίκται ; Luth. Aindische, childish 
 
 persons. The abstract saucinesscs, 15 
 used for the concrete, Comp. Eccles. 
 x. 16. 
 
 5. Instead of 32, eight MSS., fifteen 
 printed editions, and among these, 
 three of the earliest, read 32 ; but all 
 the ancient versions have read as the 
 Textus Receptus. The verb is here 
 used in a reciprocal sense. The fol- 
 lowing clauses are exegetical, and fur- 
 nish a striking delineation of a state 
 of anarchy. 
 
 6. 3 is sometimes employed to ex- 
 press what is conditional—a meaning 
 which the connexion in this place re- 
 quires. Wx and mx, are used idioma- 
 tically, and not in the relative, or 
 more confined sense of family con- 
 nexion, Y28™3 is literally “the house 
 of his father,” in which the person 
 referred to lived in a state of retire- 
 ment from public life ; but it is used 
 elliptically for ™23, “in the house,” as 
 Gen. xii. 15 ; 2 Kings xxii. 9, (5 Keri.) 
 This interpretation of m2 supersedes 
 the necessity of Lowth's conjecture, 
 that tx has been dropped out of the 
 text. After V8, two of Kennicott’s 
 
 Codd. and the Babyl. Tal. add 7x2, 
 which the LXX. and Chald. support. 
 The Syr. and Arab. also supply V2") ; 
 but the ellipsis of 7583, in poetry, 
 is too common to warrant, on such 
 slender authority, our adopting the 
 reading, which is virtually implied in 
 the preceding verb t=m, though it may 
 be admitted into translations, That 
 this person possessed some respecta- 
 bility is evident from the special 
 mention of 722%; properly a garment, 
 which was worn immediately over the 
 tunic, differing in size, but generally 
 nine or ten feet in length, and five or 
 six in breadth, but here obviously used 
 for an abundant wardrobe, which 
 would yield a supply sufficient to sup- 
 port the dignity of office. Ps?, which, 
 like the Arab. ol, kadi, signifies 
 
 a magistrate or judge, is not much in 
 use.—Instead of ἡ, thirty-five MSS., 
 two printed editions, and the Babyl. 
 Tal. read 72 in the plural. To be 
 under the hand of any one, is to be 
 subject to his power and management. 
 
 7. After x, supply ἢν, or PP; a 
 much more naturai filling up of the 
 ellipsis than 7, since swearing seems 
 here to be out of the question. Viewed 
 in connexion withthe description of the 
 diseased condition of the Jewish po- 
 lity, chap. i. 6, in which the same verb 
 (am) occurs, VIA, ὦ healer, is appro- 
 priately used of one who binds up the 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 8 For Jerusalem stumbleth, and Judah falleth ; 
 
 Because their languge and their actions 
 Have been against Jehovah— 
 To provoke the eyes of his glory. 
 
 The shew of their countenance testifies against them ; 
 
 Their sin they announce like Sodom; they hide it not; 
 
 Wo to them, 
 
 For they bring calamity upon themselves. 
 
 10 
 
 Say ye to the righteous: It shall be well; 
 
 For they shall eat the fruit of their actions: 
 
 11 
 
 Wo to the wicked: It shall be ill; 
 
 . For the desert of their hands shall be rendered them. 
 
 wounds of a state by the judicious use 
 of authority. The LXX. resolve the 
 figure by rendering it dpxnyos. A 
 plentiful supply of dress and_ pro- 
 visions being required, among the 
 Orientals, in all who would assume 
 the reins of government, or fill any 
 public station, the individual applied 
 to earnestly protests against any fur- 
 ther proposals being made to him, on 
 the ground that his resources would 
 not meet the exigencies of the case. 
 8. From this verse, to the 15th, the 
 mora, or ruined state of things, de- 
 scribed in the preceding verses, is ac- 
 counted for, by its being traced to the 
 fact, that the people had procured it 
 by their base and wicked conduct, 
 which Jehovah further threatens sig- 
 nally to punish ; while, at the same 
 time, he would make a due discrimi- 
 nation in favour of the righteous.— 
 τύ), the contracted form of niv97, the 
 Infin. in Hiph. as Ps. Ixxviii. 17. This 
 verb is usually followed by 75, the 
 mouth ; ™, the spirit, also occurs Ps, 
 cvi. 33; but Ὁ, as here, is very ex- 
 pressive—the eye being that organ of 
 the body which is most easily and 
 keenly sensitive of pain. The absence 
 of the former Jod in 2), which is 
 borne out by most of the MSS., has 
 occasioned considerable diversity of 
 rendering. Michaelis, after the LXX., 
 proposes to read "2%, humilis; and 
 Lowth, 3232, cloud, as the Syr. does, 
 (probably by a mistake of transcrip- 
 tion,) supposing an allusion to be 
 _tmade to the Shekinah in the wilder- 
 
 ness ; but the very frequent omission 
 of Jod fully justifies the Masoretic 
 punctuation. The pronunciation is 
 much the same in both readings. 
 
 9. The Chald., Syr., Le Clerc, and 
 Hitzig, render O28 M37, their partiality, 
 or respect of persons. 1t cannot be de- 
 nied that the phrase 0°22 T37 signifies 
 to shew such partiality, Deut. 1. 17 ; 
 xvi. 19, &c. ; and there can be no doubt 
 that this sin obtained to a very great 
 extent among the Jews at the time. 
 Still, the use of 1737 and 377) N35, in the 
 other member of the parallelism, 
 evinces the propriety of the common 
 rendering, which is defended by Ro- 
 senmiiller, Gesenius, and Winer. 137 
 is a verbal noun, from the Infin. in 
 Hiph. ; in Kal. 723, fo be strange ; in 
 Piel, fo estrange; but in Hiph. to look 
 at, know: hence, look, shew, appearance, 
 as the signification of the noun. The 
 repeated comparison of the conduct of 
 the Jews to that of the inhabitants of 
 Sodom, shews at once how much the 
 latter was professedly abominated, 
 and how great were the aggravations 
 of the former. An unblushing reck- 
 lessness of character is here specially 
 intended. D%92) x, lit. wo 10 their souls : 
 51, however, in innumerable passages, 
 signifies, as in the present instance, 
 themselves. See the Lexicons.—23 is 
 to be taken simply in the sense of 
 doing or bringing evil, and not in that 
 of maturing, as Michaelis proposes in 
 his Suppl. ad Lexx. Heb. 
 
 10, 11. As the text now stands, we 
 are almost tempted to adopt the Anti- 
 
28 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 12 As for my people, children are their oppressors, 
 
 And women lord it over them. 
 
 O my people! thy leaders cause thee to err, 
 They destroy the way of thy travellers. 
 
 13 Jehovah hath set himself to contend, 
 He standeth to judge the people. 
 
 14 Jehovah will enter into judgment 
 
 ptosis of Kocher, and render: Say ye 
 that it shall be well with the righteous ; 
 or, as Luther and Hitzig give it, Suy ye 
 of the righteous, &c.; but there is no 
 real difficulty in supposing, with the 
 Chald. and Syr., an ellipsis of > before 
 PIE, Just as °2 must be supplied before 
 v1, in the following line. A similar 
 ellipsis of ) occurs before 77M, Jer. ix. 
 2; and of Ὁ before 01x, Job xxxiii. 17. 
 Δήσωμεν, the reading of the LXX. has 
 arisen from the 9 in 12x, having been 
 mistaken for Ὁ, The words δήσωμεν 
 τὸν δίκαιον, ὅτι δύσχρηστος ἡμῖν ἐστι, 
 let us bind the Righteous One, for he 
 as tnconvenient to us: or, as Justin Mar- 
 tyr, Hegesippus, and Eusebius read, 
 ἄρωμεν τὸν δίκαιον, let us destroy the 
 Righteous One, are considered by many 
 of the fathers as a prophecy of Christ, 
 and the same view Dodson lamely 
 attempts to vindicate—The suffix in 
 > and v7, referring to PS, a collective 
 noun, is to be rendered in the plural, 
 to make it correspond with the plural 
 forms in the 10th verse, which are ex- 
 pletive of the corresponding collective. 
 So Luther.—These two verses furnish 
 a beautiful example of antithetic pa- 
 rallelism, in which the contraries of 
 persons, characters, actions, awards, 
 &c. are opposed to each other. The 
 pious are graciously assured, that in 
 the worst of times, and under the 
 most trying circumstances, God will 
 be their friend and rewarder; while 
 the ungodly are equally assured that 
 they shall suffer merited punishment. 
 
 12. rd is a collective, and thus 
 agrees with the plur. part. yiv2i—a, 
 more natural mode of construction 
 than to consider the latter as a plural 
 of excellence. The verb Y signifies 
 to return, to do any thing a second time, 
 thoroughly, or fully, to indulge one’s self 
 at the expense of another, to behave 
 
 hence DYN, 
 
 petulantly or saucily ; 
 For »2, comp. 
 
 petulant boys, ver. 4. 
 the Eth. 1.11}. Rex, Tyrannus, and 
 the Arab. ty , excitavit, compulit et 
 
 congregavit dispersos camelos, ἕο. In- 
 stead of Ὁ), women, the LXX., Aq., 
 Theod., Chald., and Arab. read D3, 
 usurers, Which agrees well with vw2 ; 
 but the position of the word requires 
 it to correspond to 52», which the 
 former signification exactly suits. The 
 entire verse contains a further descrip- 
 tion of the extreme imbecility of the 
 government, at the time here predicted 
 —a description fully realized after the 
 death of Jotham. The two participles 
 ow and ON, are forcibly opposed 
 to each other: the former signifying, 
 to lead or direct forward in a straight 
 course ; the latter, to cause to wander 
 from the right way, into devious 
 courses, or into a trackless desert, 
 where nothing but destruction can 
 be expected, After DYN, supply 7q's, 
 and comp. Micah iii. 5. The way of 
 thy paths, 15 scarcely intelligible, except 
 it mean the direction which paths 
 take ; but there is no necessity for 
 rendering it in this manner, since 
 nim is used to denote caravans, or 
 companies of travellers, as well as the 
 paths which they pursue through the 
 desert. See Job vi. 18, 19; Isa. xxi. 
 13. Instead of conducting the people 
 in the right course, as the guide of 
 a caravan would do, the Jewish leaders 
 not only turned the people aside, but 
 effaced all traces of the way in which 
 they should have walked. 
 
 13, 14. ov do not here denote 
 foreign nations, but the tribes of 
 Israel, as Deut. xxxii. 8 ; xxxili. 3, 19; 
 Ps. xlvii. 10; Hos. x. 14; as the con- 
 text shews. Lowth supposes iY to 
 
CHAP. III.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 29 
 
 With the elders of his people, and their rulers. 
 For ye have eaten up the vineyard, 
 The spoil of the poor is in your houses. 
 15 What mean ye that ye crush my people, 
 And grind the persons of the poor ? 
 Saith the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts. 
 
 16 Moreover saith Jehovah : 
 
 be the true reading; yet, though 
 countenanced by the LXX. and Syr. 
 it is critically indefensible. 0337 is 
 used collectively of the vineyards. 
 That it is not to be altered to "23, my 
 vineyard, meaning the people, as the 
 Chald. renders it, appears from the 
 following words: 277 973, what has been 
 plundered from the poor. Jehovah, as 
 judge, calls the rulers to account for 
 the oppression and robbery of which 
 they had been guilty; to express 
 which summons, there is a sudden 
 turn in the composition from the pre- 
 dictive style to that of direct personal 
 address. The Yau in ON) is causal, 
 and the use of the separate pronoun 
 before the verb is, in such instances, 
 _ emphatic. 
 
 15. 0299, by contraction, for 02577, 
 as in the Keri, which a number of 
 Kenn. and De Rossi’s MSS. exhibit in 
 the text. Supply >. oy 25 denotes 
 not merely the faces, but the persons 
 of the poor, the poor themselves. 
 Luther die Person der Elenden. To 
 grind a person is expressive of the 
 greatest oppression, and corresponds 
 to thecomminution or crushing spoken 
 of immediately before. For an ampli- 
 fication of the subject, see Micah iii. 
 1—3. 
 
 16. The following eight verses con- 
 tain the most complete description of 
 Oriental female attire to be met with 
 in any ancient writing. It has been 
 thought by some, that, owing to the 
 change of fashion, and especially the 
 difference between ancient and modern 
 fashions in dress, every attempt to 
 explain the several items in this 
 inventory, must prove in a” great 
 measure fruitless.. The more, how- 
 ever, the fact of the immutability 
 of Eastern manners and customs is 
 established, by a comparison of their 
 present features with those described 
 
 as existing in former times; the more 
 minute the accounts furnished by mo- 
 dern travellers; and the greater the 
 progress which has been made in the 
 comparative philology of the Hebrew 
 and its kindred dialects; the more 
 definite and satisfactory have been the 
 results of the investigations that have 
 been instituted with a view to deter- 
 mine the meaning of the words here 
 employed. A very elaborate work on 
 the passage, was published by Nicol. 
 Guil. Schroeder, with a preface by the 
 celebrated Albert Schultens, intituled : 
 Commentarius Philologico - Criticus, de 
 Festitu Mulierum Hebrearum, ad Isaia, 
 iii. vers. 16—24, Lugd. Batav. 1745, 
 4to; which, so far as philology is 
 concerned, may be said to have 
 exhausted the subject. 
 
 Having at the outset charged the 
 Hebrew females with pride in general, 
 (1723,) Jehovah proceeds to specify the 
 external indications of it in their dress 
 and deportment.—ni3, for nv), as 
 the Keri reads, like τον, for ny, 1 
 Sam. xxv. 18. 3 is properly the 
 throat, but is here used for the fore- 
 part of the neck, which stretches and 
 becomes more visible when an effort 
 is made to toss up the head, or to 
 throw it back into the attitude of 
 haughtiness or pride. Instead of 
 nape, ogling, forty-two printed edi- 
 tions, and among them some of the 
 most accurate, eight of De Rossi’s 
 MSS., and one at first hand, read nyPw?, 
 lying or “acting falsely with their eyes ;” 
 but most MSS., the celebrated Spanish 
 codices, all the ancient editions, and 
 all the ancient versions, support the 
 common reading, which has also the 
 suffrages of Kimchi, Abarbanel, and 
 several of the ancient rabbins. ‘Three 
 of Kennicott’s MSS. have m7, with 
 Samech instead of Sin, which also goes 
 to increase the authority of the Textus 
 
 D 
 
30 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, 
 And walk with outstretched necks and ogling eyes, 
 Mincing always as they walk, and tinkling with their feet: 
 17 The Lord will make bald the crown of the daughters of Zion, 
 Yea, Jehovah will expose their shame. 
 18 In that day the Lord will remove 
 
 Receptus. Lowth, approving of the 
 reading which exhibits Siz, renders 
 freely: “falsely setting off their eyes 
 with paint,” and supposes reference to 
 be made to the custom, so universal in 
 the East, of tinging the hair and 
 edges of the eyelids with stibium or 
 alkohol, in order to give a more impos- 
 ing appearance to the white of the 
 eye :—a practice, in deseribing which, 
 Ezek. employs the very word, "ΠΡ, 
 kéhal: F297, lit. “Thou soholest 
 thine eyes,” 1.6. paintest them with 
 kohol, xxiii. 40. This interpretation, 
 however, does not suit the other parts 
 of the verse, all of which describe 
 some action of the members of the 
 body, and not any action performed 
 upon them. The meaning is, therefore, 
 
 rightly given by Abulwalid: laces 
 sil, Lay> οἱ LeBp Ἰο] 
 
 lay, pel moist, Who ogle 
 with the eyes. The word is used of a 
 woman who flashes and flames with her 
 eyes; and the meaning is, she darts her 
 
 loots in a@ bold and lascivious manner. 
 
 Both the Chald. 779 and the Arab. 
 ys in the second Conj. express an 
 
 action of the eyes. 
 
 77, the Infin. absol. expresses con- 
 tinued or unceasing action. "PY, a 
 ἅπαξ hey. signifies, according to the 
 
 force of the Arab. ab and 8), fo 
 
 move nimbly or softly: hence, ἢ, a child, 
 from its short and light steps. It is 
 here descriptive of affected delicacy 
 in walking. The mas. suff. in 077927 is 
 not without effect; indicating, that 
 the noise which the women made with 
 their ankle-chains was totally at vari- 
 ance with the modestly retiring cha- 
 racter of the sex. One of De Rossi’s 
 
 Codd. reads 71, doubtless by correction. 
 For the obviously designed use of 
 masculine pronouns, to intimate the 
 incongruity of certain actions in refer- 
 euce to female character, see Judges 
 xix. 24; Ezek. xiii. 90.---ῦϑν, to make 
 a tinkling noise with the rings which 
 were worn round the ankles. See 
 ver. 18. 
 
 17. Many MSS., the Soncin. Bible, 
 and Soncin. Proph. of 1486, read 7™ 
 instead of πὸ, both in this and the 
 following verse. That, in consequence 
 of the superstitious veneration of Jew- 
 ish transcribers for the sacred name, 
 the latter word has crept into many 
 passages which originally exhibited 
 mm, is now universally admitted among 
 Hebrew scholars. 722, causative, ‘to 
 make to full off. Compare nne0, the 
 scab or mange. The latter clause of 
 the verse describes the entire destitu- 
 tion of clothing, to which the gaudy 
 Hebrew females should be reduced, in 
 allusion to the ancient custom of 
 stripping captives naked, and driving 
 them in that state before their con- 
 querors. See Lowth, and comp. chap. 
 xlvii. 3; Nah. iii. 5, 6. 
 
 18. Dow, sing. D2Y, Arab. (ple, a 
 rope or string for binding the foot of a 
 rk, to twist, tie round. 
 
 It is used, Prov. vii. 22, of a ring or 
 fetter put upon the leg of a delinquent, 
 by way of punishment ; and here, of 
 the ornamental rings of gold, silver, 
 brass, ivory, &c. which, to this day, 
 Eastern females wear about their legs 
 and ankles. They are frequently 
 numerous, one above another; and, 
 slipping up and down, from the motion 
 made in walking, produce a tinkling 
 noise. Little bells are even attached 
 to them, or into such of them as are 
 hollow are put small pebbles, which 
 make the same tinkling sound. Cal- 
 met, Art. Periscelides; Parkhurst in 
 
 camel, from 
 
CHAP. II. ] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 The ornaments of the ankle-bands, 
 And the tasselled tresses and the crescents ; 
 19 The ear-pendents, and the bracelets, and the small veils; 
 20 'The turbans, and the stepping chains, and the girdles, 
 And the smelling-bottles and the amulets ; 
 
 voc. DY; Harmer’s Obser. chap. xi. 
 Obser. xlvii. That they were also 
 used by the Grecian and Roman ladies, 
 see Schroeder, pp. 14—17. Comp. 
 ver. 16. 
 
 oo, The apparently violent 
 transition from the leg or ankle rings 
 to the head-dress, at once disappears, 
 if we explain this word of braided 
 tresses of hair, such as those which 
 Pitts describes the loose women at 
 Cairo as wearing down to their very 
 heels, with little bells attached to 
 them at the end, which made a tink- 
 ling sound as they walked. D2 is 
 synonymous with 20 and wiv, 70 
 interweave, plait. The LXX. render 
 it κοσύμβους, which, besides other 
 significations, is used to denote tassels 
 hanging to the hem, or to the lower 
 part of a garment, and may have been 
 employed by them, in application to 
 the ends of the tresses resembling 
 such tassels. Schroeder's interpreta- 
 tion, soliculi, however ingeniously and 
 elaborately supported, is now generally 
 regarded to be untenable.—That the 
 following term, D7, means /unule, 
 crescents, or ornaments in the shape of 
 little moons, hung upon the neck, is as 
 generally admitted. These ornaments 
 were not peculiar to the women, but 
 were also worn by men and camels, 
 Jud. viii. 21, 26. 
 
 19. MDD), pendants or ear-drops, from 
 703, to drop,—peculiarly descriptive of 
 ornaments of pearl, gold, &c. hanging 
 from the ears in the shape of drops.— 
 These also were worn by men of rank, 
 Jud. viii. 26 —nin}, bracelets, or small 
 chains of gold or silver worn on the 
 arms, and perhaps in nothing differing 
 | from those called ony, Gen. xxiv. 22. 
 The word is derived from WW, fo twist 
 
 or bind about.—™My), Arab. ele cy ὃ par- 
 
 ticular kind of smadl thin veil, consist- 
 ing of two pieces, which were united 
 with clasps, near the eyes, and hung 
 down over the face to preserve it from 
 
 the sun. The name seems to be 
 derived from the tremulous motion 
 which they exhibited ; but the term 
 being closely connected with the pre- 
 ceding, more regard may be had. to 
 the elegance of the clasps, than to the 
 veils themselves. 
 
 20. DNNE, tiaras or turbans, a Species 
 of ornamental head-dress, to which 
 Eastern females are still very partial, 
 and which they generally arrange in 
 the most elegant manner—Mmv3, Arab, 
 
 eae, from Wy, fo march or walk in 
 
 a stately and measured manner, and 
 signifying walking or stepping chains. 
 Catena, qua captiworum pedes constrin- 
 guntur, ne amplos passus facient; catena 
 in pedibus mulierum, que ornamento tn- 
 servit. Freytag. They were fastened 
 to the legs, and were designed to 
 prevent long steps, and compel those 
 who used them to walk in the manner 
 described, ver. 16. From the cireum- 
 stance, that 77yzx, from the same root, 
 is used of a male ornament, worn on 
 the arm, 2 Sam. i. 10, (comp. Num. 
 xxxi. 50,) it has been supposed that 
 some such female ornament is meant: 
 and, indeed, by a slight change of the 
 
 letters in Arabic, Nae, Brachiale, 
 
 brachii vinculum vel ornamentum, 
 Gol. the same idea is brought out ; 
 yet still the meaning assigned above, 
 seems entitled to the preference. So 
 Schroeder, Gesenius, Rosenmiiller, and 
 Hitzig.— That op, signify female 
 girdles, is beyond dispute. The word 
 occurs only once besides ; viz. Jer. 1. 
 32, where, however, it is used, less 
 specifically, of such parts of female 
 dress as required binding. Comp. for 
 the use of the verb in Piel, Is. xlix. 
 18.—wen ona, lit, “houses of the 
 breath:” 1.6. smelling bottles, or boxes of 
 perfume, the eftect of which, when 
 inhaled, is to assist respiration. They 
 were suspended to a lace or belt, tied 
 round the waist. ™3, in Heb. signifies 
 
32 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 21 The finger-rings and the jewels of the nose. 
 22 The dress-vestments and the tunics ; 
 
 And the cloaks and the purses ; 
 23 The mirrors and the linen shifts ; 
 
 And the ribands and the large veils. 
 
 whatever contains any thing. oD»n, 
 from 72, in Piel, to mutter, use en- 
 chantments, denote amulets, consisting 
 of precious stones, plates of gold, 
 silver, &c. which were chiefly sus- 
 pended by chains round the neck, and 
 were supposed to possess the power 
 of preserving against diseases, witch- 
 craft, and all kinds of mischief. 
 Many of them were in the shape of 
 serpents. Such talismans are still 
 very common all over the East, and 
 form an indispensable part of female 
 attire. 
 
 21. nv20, a ring worn on one of the 
 fingers of the right hand, and contain- 
 ing a seal or signet with the name of 
 the possessor engraved on it. The 
 sub. 1s derived from 29, fo sink, or 
 cause to sink into a soft substance, to 
 impress With a seal, Esth. 111. 10. It 
 is equivalent to onin, Jer. xxii. 24; but 
 may here be taken to signify rings in 
 general, for wearing on the fingers. 
 —hx7 Ὁ). Some, after the LXX. τὸν 
 κόσμον Tov προσώπου, interpret this 
 of any kind of ornaments for the face; 
 but, as 032 signifies in the Arabic, Zo 
 perforate, and #8 strictly and properly 
 denotes the nose, there can be no 
 doubt, that nose-jewels or nose-rings are 
 meant, Comp. Ezek. xvi. 12; and 
 Prov. xi. 22. “It is the custom,” 
 says Sir John Chardin, “in almost all 
 the East, for the women to wear rings 
 in their noses, in the left nostril, 
 which is bored low down in the 
 middle. These rings are of gold, and 
 have commonly two pearls and one 
 ruby between, placed in the ring.” 
 See also Lowth’s Note. From the 
 perforating of the ears, 012 is likewise 
 used of earrings, Gen. xxxv. 4. 
 
 22, ΤΙΣ, splendid and pompous vest- 
 ments, gala dresses, worn only on special 
 occasions, and so called from their 
 being put off the moment such occa- 
 sions were over, in order to keep them 
 from being tarnished: yy, Arab. ws, 
 
 signifying, to pull or put off a garment. 
 Comp. Zech. iii. 4, where the word 
 denotes the costly and splendid robes 
 of the high-priest.—nipar, s/oles, or 
 wide tunics, worn over the common 
 ones, furnished with sleeves, and 
 reaching to the ankles. Root, 7, 70 
 
 cover, or clothe, Arab. wahee, Symm., 
 
 ἀναβόλαια. ---- ΒΟ, ample cloaks, or 
 wide upper garments, worn at home 
 and on ordinary occasions. They 
 
 corresponded to the WKS, hyle, of 
 
 the Arabs, made of wool, commonly 
 about seven ells in length, by three in 
 breadth, and thrown loosely round the 
 body. Such was the large garment of 
 Ruth, which contained six measures of 
 barley; and Dr. Shaw informs us, 
 that finer sorts are still worn by the 
 ladies and persons of distinction 
 among the Arabs. Travels, p. 225.— 
 Don, pockets, or purses for holding 
 money and other small articles, 2 
 
 Kings v. 23; Arab. dey >, —conical 
 
 in form, of satin or velvet, and richly 
 ornamented with gold. 
 
 23. ™2*%3, Interpreters are here 
 chiefly divided between the significa- 
 tions mirrors, and transparent garments. 
 The latter is supported by the render- 
 ing of the LXX. διαφανῆ Λακωνικὰ, 1.6. 
 garments that might be seen through, 
 such as were worn by the indecent 
 Lacedemonian females ; and it might 
 appear very appropriate in application 
 to the dress of the wanton Hebrew 
 females in the time of Isaiah ; but, as 
 "2, in the singular, signifies a smooth, 
 polished tablet, chap. viii. 1, the 
 former interpretation is preferable. 
 The mirrors of the Hebrews were 
 round in form, provided with a handle, 
 and made of brass or mixed metal, 
 highly polished; and the females 
 doubtless carried them about with 
 them, as do the dancing girls in Jndia, 
 and as the females used to do in Egypt 
 
CHAP. 111.} 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 33 
 
 24 And instead of perfume shall be putridity ; 
 And instead of a girdle, a rope ; 
 And instead of braided hair, baldness ; 
 And instead of the wide-flowing mantle, a wrapper of sackcloth ; 
 
 A brand instead of beauty. 
 
 25 Thy men shall fall by the sword ; 
 
 And thy forces in war. 
 
 26 Her gates shall lament and mourn, 
 
 and Greece, at certain idolatrous festi- 
 vals. Comp. Exod. xxxviii. 8.—o'y70, 
 under-garments or shifts of fine linen, 
 cotton, or gauze, worn next the body ; 
 
 from 710, Arab. 
 
 1D, wo laxavit, demisit 
 vestem suum, to let the garment hang 
 loose.—Mb22, ribands, chiefly used for 
 binding the braided tresses of the 
 hair round the head, or sashes of fine 
 linen bound round the bottom of the 
 tiara.—_OTN), large veils, thrown over 
 the head, and descending over the 
 other garments to the feet. They 
 were worn when the females went 
 abroad, and were more exposed to the 
 gaze of spectators. Comp. Song v. 
 7. Root, ™, to bring down, subdue: 
 hence, the idea of power, subjection to 
 power ; and the veil, as the mark of 
 such subjection, expressed by the 
 much contested term, ἐξουσία, 1 Cor. 
 xi. 10. See Bloomfield in loc. 
 
 24. There is here a sudden turn in 
 the address ; but instead of dropping 
 the subject, it is presented under a 
 new and aggravating form. Not only 
 were all the articles of finery to be 
 removed, but every thing that was 
 coarse, vulgar, and disgusting, was 
 to supply their place. p92 or ῬῸ, rotten- 
 ness, or a fetid smell—the very opposite 
 of the 0a contained in the smelling 
 bottles, ver. 20.—7873, from ἢ), fo sur- 
 round, bind round, a cord or rope tied 
 round the waist.—tv7o Ww», braided 
 work, i.e. hair artificially made up into 
 braids, and interwoven and stiffened 
 with ribands and other materials. 
 See ver. 18. Root, πῦρ, fo stiffen, 
 make hard.—?7n2 occurs only here, 
 and is of uncertain derivation. The 
 most probable is that which regards 
 it as compounded of ‘78, from 72, to 
 be wide, eapanded, and 72, to be or move 
 
 round; a full mantle, flowing all round 
 the body.—7v, coarse haircloth, used 
 for sacks, and worn in time of mourn- 
 ing, or by the very poorest, in lieu of 
 other clothing —® nqn72, There is a 
 peculiar beauty in the terseness with 
 which the whole description thus con- 
 cludes. 3, though only found in this 
 place as a noun, is evidently used to 
 signify brand or burnt mark, being 
 regularly formed from ΠῚ, fo burn, as 
 
 +t) 
 
 Ἢ from my, Ἢ from mm, το. pe 
 } }.adt}. ultimum morbi remedium 
 Ip lol) 
 
 cauter est. Meidan.. Proverb. iv. 
 sil us εν} Lisl, et morbum ad 
 
 cauterium pervenisse. Hariri Con- 
 sen. xxix. As the whole verse de- 
 scribes the deplorable condition of 
 female captives led away by their 
 conquerors, the brand is to be under- 
 stood of the στίγματα, or marks which 
 it was customary to burn into the 
 foreheads of prisoners and slaves. 
 
 25, 26. Here Jerusalem is first 
 directly addressed, and then her deso- 
 late condition is aptly depicted. By 
 an unexpected transition, the destruc- 
 tion of the males becomes the subject 
 of a brief, but affecting notice. 2, 
 military force, used collectively for 
 mighty warriors. The gates being 
 entirely deserted, are represented bya 
 prosopopeeia, as indulging in grief, the 
 intensity of which is expressed by 
 the synonymes, 738 and %28.—TDp, 
 cleared, i.e. completely emptied of 
 inhabitants. Nothing could be more 
 expressive than the metaphorical re- 
 presentation of Jerusalem, sitting like 
 a disconsolate female on the ground: 
 and it is very remarkable, that on 
 Roman medals, struck by order of 
 
94 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 And, emptied, she shall sit on the ground. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1 And seven women shall lay hold on one man in that day, saying : 
 We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel : 
 Only let us be called by thy name, 
 
 To take away our reproach. 
 
 Titus, in commemoration of his con- 
 quest of Jerusalem, and the entire 
 destruction of the Jewish polity, 
 Judea actually appears in the posture 
 of a female sitting on the ground, 
 under a palm tree, and giving way to 
 inconsolable grief. See Horne’s Introd. 
 vol. i. pp. 215, 216. The prophecy 
 doubtless received its accomplishment 
 in the Babylonish captivity ; though 
 the language is equally applicable to 
 that inflicted by the Romans. Comp. 
 Ps ΟΣ ΧΙ 1: am, iy 1: 
 
 CuapteR IV.—1. This verse is so 
 intimately connected with the pre- 
 
 ceding, that the division of thechapters 
 here is most unhappy. Such should 
 be the carnage of the war, ver. 25, 
 that there would be no proportion of 
 men left ; and as the Hebrews regarded 
 celibacy as a reproach, rather than 
 incur such reproach, a number of 
 females are here described as immo- 
 destly importuning one man to marry 
 them, that they might have the honour 
 of standing in the relation of wives to 
 him, though they renounced all claim 
 upon him for support. That it was 
 customary for the wife to be named 
 after the husband, see Gen. xii. 17; 
 zlyiwl93 2:Samaat. 3; 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Having depicted the wickedness of the Jews, and the awful judgments with 
 which it would be punished, the prophet devotes this short chapter to an 
 announcement of the glory and felicity of the church in the time of 
 
 Messiah. 
 
 2 In that day the Branch of Jehovah 
 Shall be beautiful and glorious ; 
 
 2. samy DV3, af or after that period; 
 viz. of universal desolation. The pre- 
 position 2 does not always. strictly 
 express what is contained within any 
 given time or space; it also points out 
 nearness, society, or accompaniment, 
 that which is in connexion with, or 
 which follows upon something else. 
 In prophetic vision, the two states of 
 adversity and prosperity were so closely 
 
 connected, that one period might be 
 said to comprehend them both. See 
 chap. x. 20, and Zech. xii. xiii. xiv. 
 where the phrase is used of events 
 partly coeval, and partly successive. 
 mm ΤΌΣ, according to all the other 
 passages in which a Mx, Branch, is 
 promised, must be taken in a personal 
 sense. See Jer. xxiii. 5; xxxili. 15; 
 Zech. 111. 8; vi. 12; and comp. Is. xi. 
 
CHAP. IV.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 And the Fruit of the earth, excellent and splendid 
 
 To the escaped of Israel. 
 3 And he that is left in Zion, 
 And remaineth in Jerusalem, 
 
 Shall be called holy : 
 
 Every one who is enrolled to life in Jerusalem. 
 
 1; ln. 2; Ezek: xxxiv. 29. Nor is it 
 possible for any one impartially to 
 examine the connexion and bearing 
 of these passages without perceiving, 
 that the person therein predicted or 
 promised is no other thanthe Mrssrau. 
 Thus, the Targ. "7 xmwo, Kimchi, 
 Vitringa, Lowth, Rosenmiller, and 
 Hengstenberg in his Christol. That 
 mim ΤΌΣ means the same as ON 13, the 
 Son of God, receives confirmation from 
 the Oriental appropriation of the term 
 Branch, to signify descent. Thus, 
 Silvestre de Sacy, in his “Mémoires 
 sur Diverses Antiquités de la Perse,’ 
 p. 94:—“This expression, branch of, 
 denoting ‘of the race of, is very 
 common in the books of the Persians. 
 Zoroaster is there called the Branch 
 of Minochehr; Yezdejerd, the Branch 
 of Sassan; Gustasp, the Branch of 
 Kéan,’ &c. The occurrence of ma? 
 own, “to the escaped Israelites,” pre- 
 sents an insuperable objection to the 
 interpretation of Grotius, Michaelis, 
 Gesenius, Hitzig, and others, that the 
 pious remnant of the Jews are meant. 
 Since it is expressly predicted, that to 
 this very remnant, the Branch was to 
 be beautiful and glorious, it is manifest 
 they cannot be identical. It has been 
 thought, however, that to explain “2 
 yus7, “the Fruit of the earth,” of the 
 Messiah, would be intolerably harsh. 
 Yet, if we understand jx to stand, by 
 synecdoche, for the inhabitants of the 
 earth, i.e. men, which is a figure not 
 unusual in Scripture, the harshness is 
 at once removed, and the same anti- 
 thetical view of the origin of the 
 Messiah’s person is given, which we 
 find Rom. ix. 5. The passage thus 
 contains a prediction of the divine and 
 human natures of our Lord, similar to 
 what we find in chap. vii. 14 ; ix. 5. (6.) 
 John the Baptist likewise employs the 
 phrase, ὁ ὧν ἐκ τῆς γῆς, John iii. 31, to 
 denote one who is simply a partaker 
 
 of humanity, while he describes the 
 Messiah, whose human nature he takes 
 for granted, as 6 ἄνωθεν ἐρχόμενος. 
 Comp. Luke i. 78, where our Saviour 
 is called ἀνατολὴ ἐξ ὕψους, 1.6. MX, 
 which the LXX. have rendered ἀνα- 
 τολὴ, Jer, xxiii. 5; Zech. iii. 8; vi. 12. 
 —While all human pride was to be 
 stained, and all human ornaments to 
 be removed, every true Israelite would 
 find in the Messiah a plenitude of 
 glory and splendour. 72%», “The 
 escaped,” seems to refer rather to 
 those who should be delivered from 
 the corrupt body of the nation, τὸ 
 κατάλειμμα of the Apostle, Rom. ix. 
 27, than to such as either remained in 
 Judea, or returned from captivity. 
 Comp. Zeph. iii. 11, 12. The 2 before 
 the four first nouns converts them 
 into adjectives, as Lam. iv. 3. ‘293 
 wy), “the daughter of my people is Zo 
 ὦ cruel one; 1.6. is cruel.” 
 
 3. WEN and WT are collective par- 
 ticiples, and form the nom. absol.; 
 and agree with 70% in the foregoing 
 verse, which is also a collective. i? 
 is to be taken in the N. T. sense of 
 dyos,—reference being made to the 
 times of the Messiah. ‘2x has here 
 the idiomatic sense of 83}, fo call, i.e. 
 to be what one is called. 227 52 is 
 in apposition with the preceding par- 
 ticiples ; and O17? 22 corresponds to 
 τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, Acts xiii. 
 48; and γέγραπται ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς 
 ζωῆς, Rey. xiii. 8; but not to Exod. 
 Xxxil. 32, though this last passage no 
 doubt furnished the type both of the 
 idea and the phraseology. Dan. xii. 
 1, is perfectly parallel with this text 
 in Isaiah. The verse describes the 
 exalted character for moral purity, 
 which should distinguish those whom 
 God would acknowledge as his future 
 people, and on whom he would confer 
 salvation. 
 
90 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Jerusalem from the midst of her, 
 
 4 When the Lord washeth away the filth of the daughters of Zion, 
 And cleanseth out the blood of 
 With the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning ; 
 5 Then shall Jehovah create 
 Upon every station of Mount Zion, 
 And upon her places of convocation, 
 A cloud and a smoke by day ; 
 And the brightness of a flaming fire by night ; 
 Which shall be over all the glory for protection : 
 6 And a tabernacle shall be for shade by day from the heat ; 
 
 And for a refuge and a covert, 
 From storm and from rain. 
 
 4, 5, —Ox, when—then: pointing out 
 the connexion between the spiritual 
 purification that Jehovah would effect, 
 and the Divine protection which he 
 graciously promises.— Kz is the most 
 expressive term that could have been 
 employed to denote the loathsomeness 
 of moral pollution. 27123, as a geo- 
 graphical phrase, would signify towns 
 and villages lying round and depend- 
 ent on Zion, and so Rosenmiiller and 
 Hengstenberg understand it in this 
 passage ; but it is clearly to be taken, 
 as in chap. 111. 16, for the female inha- 
 bitants. In like manner, 074 stands 
 for “723, ‘the sons of Jerusalem,’ 7.¢. 
 the male inhabitants, who are more 
 appropriately charged with the shed- 
 ding of blood. The LXX. supply 
 freely: τῶν υἱῶν καὶ τῶν θυγατέρων 
 Σιών. ™, in this passage, is almost 
 pleonastic, only it gives force to the 
 words with which it is in construction, 
 just as %22 and oxy do, The judgment 
 and the burning would be of the 
 severest kind. Comp. Mal. iii. 1—4. 
 qva is the Infin. nomin. in Piel. 2 is 
 omitted before }22 in six MSS., but it 
 is expressed in all the ancient versions ; 
 and instead of πο in the sing. up- 
 wards of forty MSS. and nearly fifty 
 printed editions read πο. in the 
 plur. The language is universal in its 
 character, and is inapplicable to any 
 period except that of the gospel dis- 
 pensation. The earthly Jerusalem was 
 
 no longer to be the station to which 
 men should repair for worship; but to 
 all places where the true worshippers 
 of Jehovah should meet in holy con- 
 vocation, he promises to vouchsafe his 
 presence and protection. Mal. i, 10, 
 11; John iv. 21—23; Matt. xviil. 20; 
 1 Cor. i. 2. The figurative reference 
 is to the pillar of cloud, and the pillar 
 of fire, in which the Lord went before 
 the Israelites in the wilderness, and to 
 the glory which rested upon the taber- 
 nacle, Exod. xiii. 21, 22; xl. 38. 3 is 
 used here as a relative pronoun. 
 Gesen. Lex. Man.—87 is properly the 
 canopy of the nuptial couch, but is 
 here employed in the sense of protec- 
 tion, from the Pual of 759, fo cover, 
 hence ἕο protect, like #7. By 22 is 
 meant the transcendently glorious 
 state of the church under the Messiah, 
 as contrasted with her condition under 
 Moses—a glory which is not to be 
 done away, but is to remain, 2 Cor. 
 iii. 7—11, as the result of Divine pro- 
 tection. The omission of % before 
 22 in a few MSS. is not entitled to 
 any consideration. 
 
 6. So great was to be the care of 
 God over his people, that every ad- 
 vantage should be afforded them in 
 the way of constant defence from the 
 inconveniences and dangers to which 
 they might be exposed. Comp. Zech. 
 ii, 5. 
 
CHAP. V.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 This chapter contains a parabolic reprehension of the Jews for their irreligious 
 and wicked conduct, 1—7 ; a specification of particular sins which abounded 
 at the time, such as avarice, inebriety, perversion of right and wrong, self- 
 conceit, and injustice, 8—23; a denunciation of Divine judgments, 24, 25 ; 
 and a description of the agents by whom these judgments would be inflicted, 
 
 26—30. 
 
 1 Come, I will sing to my Beloved 
 A song of my Love touching his vineyard ; 
 
 My Beloved had a vineyard 
 Upon a fertile peak. 
 
 2 He dug it theroughly and cleared it of stones, 
 And planted it with the vine of Sorek ; 
 And he built a tower in the midst of it, 
 And also hewed out a wine-vat in it: 
 
 1. The prophet commences with a 
 beautiful parable of a vineyard, most 
 advantageously situated, with which 
 every pains had been taken by the 
 owner ; but which totally disappointed 
 his expectations, and was in conse- 
 quence abandoned to desolation.—va 
 after §2,in one of Kennicott’s Codd. 
 is an emendation. The form, “ 77x, 
 is that used elsewhere, and the whole 
 sentence is equally elegant without 
 the emendation, of which Lowth ap- 
 proves. The same usage shews, that 
 ? is simply the sign of the dative, and 
 not the preposition signifying ἐμ refer- 
 ence to, respecting, &c. which is the 
 construction of many interpreters. 
 The 4 paragogic in 77s forcibly ex- 
 presses the desire of the speaker 
 towards the action predicated. Be- 
 tween PT and °7\7 there is no difference 
 of signification in this place. Both 
 designate Jehovah, who was the object 
 of the song, inasmuch as it was designed 
 to vindicate his conduct towards his 
 people; and, at the same time, its 
 author, inasmuch as it was dictated 
 by his Spirit. 2, properly ὦ horn, but 
 applied metaphorically, as the term is 
 in many other languages, to a pointed 
 hill or mountain, especially such as 
 juts out so as to form a promontory. 
 See Lowth, who supposes the image to 
 
 be taken from Mount Tabor; and 
 comp. .the Arab. olyss vertex montis, 
 
 wy? 5)» parvus mons, aliis pars 
 
 montis cetera parte separata. We 
 are not, however, to imagine that the 
 whole hill was covered with vines ; 
 probably only that part of it was 
 thus occupied, which was most shel- 
 tered from the wind, and exposed to 
 the sun. To express the great fertility 
 of the hill, it is called ΚΟ, @ soz of 
 oil or fatness, i.e. fat, fertile, according 
 to a common idiom in Heb. by which 
 a thing is said to be the son of what- 
 ever quality it possesses. 
 
 2. The digging expressed by Γῆν, is 
 that which was necessary in order to 
 loosen the stones that were afterwards 
 to be cleared away, to make room for 
 the vines. 7D, to gather and cast stones 
 out of a field. Several interpreters, 
 after the LXX. understand both this 
 and the preceding verb to refer to the 
 forming of a trench, and a wall round 
 the vineyard, but contrary to the 
 force of the terms. Pi, Sorel, the 
 name of a valley between Askelon and 
 Gaza, probably so called, because of 
 its abounding in vines: 77%, signifying, 
 to intertwine as the shoots or tendrils 
 of the vine, and pw, shoots or tendrils 
 
 Ε 
 
38 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. V. 
 
 And then expected it to produce grapes, 
 
 But it produced bad grapes. 
 
 3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, 
 Judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. 
 4 What more could have been done to my vineyard 
 
 Than I have done to it ? 
 
 Why, when I expected it to produce grapes, 
 
 Did it produce bad grapes ? 
 Well now, I will tell you 
 
 or 
 
 What I will do to my vineyard: 
 ‘I will remove its fence, and it shall become a pasture ; 
 I will demolish its wall, and it shall be trodden down ; 
 
 thus intertwined, Gen. xlix.11. The 
 word is used by Jeremiah to denote a 
 vine of noble or excellent quality, 
 chap. 1]. 21, which is not without reason 
 
 supposed to be the «9 »"» Sherki, 
 
 which Hést found in “Morocco, the 
 grapes of which the Persiansand Turks 
 
 call οὐδ Kishmish. They are 
 
 ’ 
 small in size, reddish in colour, with 
 small or scarcely any stones, and have 
 
 a very sweet taste. Comp. a dye 
 vitis generosa, Gol.; (Ὁ) dy which Abul- 
 
 walid describes as the noblest vine, 
 growing in Syria, Gesenius zz Joe.; 
 
 and ae of the Arab. ver. Gen. 
 
 xlix. 11. The LXX. Aq. and Theod. 
 retain the word σωρήκ;; but Symm. 
 renders it ἐκλεκτήν, choice, excellent. 
 The 2329, fower, was built for the pur- 
 pose, not only of watching the vine- 
 yard, but also of accommodating the 
 owner during the vintage,and contained 
 the various implements used in culti- 
 vating the vine, and preparing the 
 wine. By 37 is properly meant the 
 lower vat or trough, situated near the 
 wine-press, in which the grapes were 
 trodden, and into which the juice 
 flowed as it was pressed out. It was 
 called Anvos by the Greeks ; and from 
 its inferior position to the n3, or wine- 
 press, the LXX. commonly render it 
 ὑπολήνιον. From the circumstance, 
 however, that no mention is here made 
 of the latter, the 37 may include both, 
 
 as it certainly does in the plural, Job 
 xxiv. 11. It is said to have been hewn 
 out, because a subterraneous cistern or 
 vat was necessary for the coolness of 
 the situation. Such cisterns were 
 sometimes so large, that the term 
 λάκκος, lacus, lake, came to be applied 
 to them. The words of our Lord’s 
 parable, ὥρυξεν ὑπολήνιον kal ὠκοδόμησε 
 πύργον, Mark xii. 1, are parallel in 
 sense to those employed by Isaiah.— 
 ora has been variously rendered. 
 The LXX. and Theod. ἀκάνθας ; Symm. 
 Serie 
 
 ἀτελῆ; Aq. σαπριαὶ. Syr. 1>Q}a0, 
 coroobs, the ceratonia siliqua of Lin- 
 neeus. Jerome: dabruscas, wild vines. 
 The idea of bad or worthless grapes 
 seems that which is best supported. 
 The root, tx3, signifies to give an 
 offensive smell, be odious, bad, &c. 
 
 3. In the true style of parable, the 
 application is reserved for the close ; 
 so that the call made in this verse for 
 a decision from the very people whose 
 conduct it was designed to expose, is 
 introduced with great effect and beauty. 
 They are virtually called upon to con- 
 demn themselves. Comp. 2 Sam. xii. 
 1—6; Matt. xxi. 40.—20Y and Wx are 
 collectives. 
 
 5. No mention is made of ΠΡ or 
 ὙΠ in the account of the formation of 
 the vineyard ; but they are introduced 
 here for the sake of immediate effect. 
 The latter word denotes a wall of 
 stones or clay; the former, a thorn 
 hedge, planted outside the other, for 
 the sake of greater protection. The 
 finite form of the verbs is understood 
 
 ME, eee 
 
CHAP. V.| 
 
 6 1 will lay it entirely waste ; 
 
 ISATAH. 39 
 
 It shall neither be pruned nor weeded, 
 But thorns and briers shall grow up in it; 
 
 And 1 will charge the clouds 
 Not to pour any rain upon it. 
 
 7 For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel ; 
 And the men of Judah are his pleasant plantation. 
 He expected justice, but behold! bloodshed! 
 Righteousness, but behold! outery! 
 
 8 Wo to them that join house to house, 
 
 That add field to field, 
 
 Till no place remains, 
 
 And ye are left to dwell by yourselves in the land. 
 9 In my ears Jehovah of Hosts hath revealed it: 
 
 after the infin. 32 is the Infin. nomin. 
 and is to be rendered as a noun. 
 
 6. 703, from nna, to cut off, make an 
 end of, desolate, destroy, means complete 
 desolation. It should have been pointed 
 with a Dagesh compensative, in the n, 
 as we find the plural nin3q 52, valleys 
 completely desolate, chap. vi. 19.— 
 The Ὁ in ὙΠῸ has the force of a 
 negative. 
 
 7. The prophet now makes a direct 
 application of the parable—introducing 
 it by the particle 33, which expresses 
 the certainty of the thing declared. 
 Though the ten tribes originally be- 
 longed to the vineyard of Jehovah, 
 yet, as they had cut themselves off 
 from it by revolt and idolatry, it is 
 not likely that the phrase x1 ΤΡ, is 
 here used in application to them. It 
 seems rather to be employed as a 
 poetic parallel to the following 1777 wx, 
 —hboth signifying the inhabitants of 
 the kingdom of Judah. 073, in con- 
 nexion with the following rrwyw, has 
 
 all the force of the Arab. ys to 
 
 possess generosity of nature, be noble, 
 excellent. The latter Hebrew word, 
 being reduplicate in form, is expres- 
 sive of the highest degree of delight. 
 ἜΞΩ and ΠΕ; MPI and NAVs, are 
 instances of studied paronomasia, or 
 play upon words, in which our prophet 
 abounds; see particularly chap. xxiv. 
 —but they can seldom be successfully 
 imitated in a translation—newn, from 
 
 ΤΡ τ ΠΕΡ, Arab, 
 blood. 
 
 8. Having stated in general terms 
 the atrocious wickedness of the Jews, 
 which corresponded to the bad grapes 
 in the parable, the prophet proceeds 
 to denounce Divine judgments against 
 particular sins. In 17—’y22 is an 
 instance of a proposition commencing 
 with a participle, and being continued 
 in the future of a finite verb,—a mode 
 of construction not uncommon in 
 Hebrew. See Gesen. Lehrgeb. p. 802.— 
 For opr, seven Codd. prim. one, and 
 now one, the early Edd. of Soncin. and 
 Brix. and fifteen other Edd. read dara 
 in Hiphil; but the Hophal conjugation 
 alone suits the connexion. It is found 
 in the best Codd. and in most of the 
 old Edd. The change of person, for 
 the purpose of direct address, however 
 abrupt, is not unusual with our pro- 
 phet.—The monopoly of houses and 
 landed property was diametrically 
 opposed to the spirit of the Mosaic 
 law, and a virtual infraction of the 
 enactment relative to the year of 
 jubilee ; but such was the perversion 
 of justice, that the rich, if they were 
 not aided by those who should have 
 administered it, were, at least, suffered 
 quietly to dispossess the poor, and 
 accumulate property in the most un- 
 righteous manner. 
 
 “9. For -ns3, in my ears, three of De 
 Rossi’s MSS. one at first hand, and 
 
 ems to pour out, shed 
 
40 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAR vy. 
 
 Verily, the numerous houses shall become a desolation, 
 The large and fine ones shall be without inhabitants. 
 
 10 
 
 For ten acres of vineyard shall produce only one bath, 
 
 And a homer of seed shall produce but an ephah. 
 
 il 
 
 Wo to them who, early in the morning, run after strong drink : 
 
 Who, late at night, inflame themselves with wine. 
 
 12 
 
 And the lyre and the harp, the tabret and the pipe, 
 
 And wine compose their feasts ; 
 But the operation of Jehovah they do not consider, 
 Nor do they regard the work of his hands. 
 
 apparently another, Munster’s Edd. of 
 1534 and 1546, the Basel Polyglott of 
 Isaiah, read "2183, iz the ears of Jehovah 
 of hosts; and this is the rendering of 
 the LXX.and Arab. That the true 
 pointing is that of the Textus Recep- 
 tus, appears from chap. xxii. 14, where 
 the ellipsis of 732) is supplied, and a 
 sense produced, which is at once easy 
 and appropriate. If the word ever 
 existed in this passage, it must have 
 dropped out at a very early period, 
 since the LXX. could not possibly 
 have rendered it ἠκούσθη ; a rendering, 
 however, which several translators 
 have adopted, from not adverting to 
 the parallel passage above quoted.— 
 ΜΌΝ is a formula of swearing ; but 
 instead of a negative, it has a strongly 
 affirmative meaning. See chap. xiv. 
 24; Numb. xiv. 28; Josh. xiv. 9.—In 
 yse, the is used τελικῶς, in the 
 signification: “so that there shall 
 not be.” 
 
 10. Here the causes of the desolation 
 are assigned—a complete failure of the 
 vintage and harvest, and consequent 
 famine. 12% was properly the yoke, 
 by which two oxen were bound to- 
 gether ; but it came to be used meta- 
 phorically of the quantity of ground 
 which they could plough in a day; 
 and, as in the present instance, of 
 such a quantity altogether irrespective 
 of ploughing.—na, the bath, was a 
 liquid measure, and, according to 
 Josephus, Antiq. viii. 2, 9, contained 
 seventy-two sextarii, or about seven 
 gallons four pints of our measure. 
 The ὙΠ, homer, was a dry measure 
 equal to ten ephahs, Ezek. xlv. 11, and 
 is not to be confounded with the 79%, 
 
 omer, which was only the tenth part of 
 an ephah. The 728 was likewise a dry 
 measure, and according to Josephus, 
 Antiq. xv. 9,2, was equal to the 
 Attic medimnus, or about six pecks, 
 corresponding to the bath in liquids. 
 A succession of such seasons as that 
 here threatened, must have produced 
 universal ruin. 
 
 11,12. The participles, 7202 and. 
 “ms, are used adverbially. For the 
 prefixing of 2 before the second of two 
 nouns in construction, see chap. 1x. 2; 
 xxi, 13. From this passage, and 
 Eccles. x. 16, 17, we see that early 
 drinking was considered by the Jews, 
 as it was by the Romans, a mark of 
 the most depraved sensuality. Bet- 
 ween 12% and 1" there is this difference, 
 that while the latter is never used of 
 any other liquor than the produce of 
 the grape, the former is employed to 
 denote any kind of inebriating liquor, 
 whether prepared from grapes, or from 
 dates, barley, or honey. It is, how- 
 ever, the stronger of the two terms, 
 and seems purposely placed in con- 
 nexion with the morning, in order to 
 aggravate the abandoned character of 
 the drunkards here described. The 
 Targum renders it: PY Von, old wine. 
 As 2 signifies the morning as well as 
 the evening ¢wilight, some interpreters 
 adopt the former signification ; but 
 from the contrast here presented, it is 
 better to understand it of the evening, 
 —only carrying forward the idea to 
 that of night, as chap. xxi. 4; lix. 10. 
 
 LXX. τὸ ὀψέ. Syr. PCE vesper. 
 
 Comp. Prov. xxiii. 30, and the quota- 
 tion in Gesenius from the Book of 
 
CHAP. V.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 41 
 
 13 Therefore my people are led captive at unawares ; 
 
 Their nobility are starvelings, 
 
 And their multitude are parched with thirst. 
 14 Therefore Sheol enlarges its appetite, 
 And gapes immeasurably with its mouth ; 
 And down go her nobility and her multitude, 
 Her noisy throng, and whoever was in her that exulted. 
 
 Adam, ver. 20, where the same Syriac 
 word, |#S03, occurs. The ellipsis of 
 
 a must be supplied. For the use of 
 musical instruments at feasts, see Job 
 xxi. 12, and Amos vi. 3—6, a passage 
 strikingly parallel with the present, 
 and beautifully illustrated in a drawing 
 taken from a tomb at Thebes, in Wil- 
 kinson’s Ancient Egyptians, vol. 1. p. 
 222. The sensual Jews, in the time 
 of the prophet, appear to have em- 
 ployed musicians, and all kinds of 
 merry-makers, as dancers, mimics, 
 buffoons, &c. such as are still common 
 all over the East. Sensual indulgences 
 steel the heart against religious im- 
 pressions, and cause their victims to 
 sport on the very brink of ruin. This 
 is implied in the last clause of the 
 verse, in which its effect is stated to 
 be inattention to alarming dispensa- 
 tions of Divine Providence. 
 
 13. To describe the certainty of the 
 event, the prophet represents the Jews 
 as already carried away into captivity ; 
 and to express the suddenness of the 
 calamity, and its overtaking them 
 while carelessly occupied with their 
 festive enjoyments, he employs the 
 phrase, ΠΟΥ 30, It is true this phrase 
 means ignorance as the cause of cala- 
 mity, Hos. iv. 6; but there the article 
 is inserted, and the connexion obvi- 
 ously requires this construction ;— 
 whereas in the present case, the cause 
 being referred to by the use of 723, at 
 the beginning of the verse, the idea 
 of suddenness or unexpectedness is 
 more appropriate. Comp. Ps. xxxv. 
 8; Jud. xx. 34; Jer. 1. 24.—113, glory, 
 abstr. for concrete; zobility, nobles, 
 Comp. chap. viii. 7; x. 3. IPN, men 
 of starvation, for starvelings, as X)O°T7, 
 men of falsehood, for false or deceitful ; 
 “Boon, men of number, for few, το. 
 This noun has no singular, except in 
 
 compound names, in which it is also 
 
 Comp. GBT, 
 
 maritus, in the Ethiopic version of the 
 Polyg. Matt.i.19. The punctuation 
 Ὁ, dead, of famine, adopted by Mi- 
 chaelis and some others, after the 
 Targ. is to be rejected on account of 
 its not agreeing so well with the 
 phrase, 822 az, in the following 
 hemistich. The reading 793, instead 
 of xo, found in the Heb. Bible of Van 
 der Hooght, and in that of Forster, 
 which follows it, is not in any MS. nor 
 in any other printed editions. 
 
 14, 3x0. Various derivations have 
 been offered of this word. Some 
 propose 988, fo ask, demand, comparing 
 Prov. xxx. 15,16, with oreusrapaz, Catull. 
 11. 28, 29, and ἁρπακτὴρ, Callim. ep. ii. 
 6; others derive it from the Arab. 
 
 Ls, or ο) ὦ, to sink down, descend; 
 
 and appeal for support to the Chald. 
 m0, fundum, imum ret. Gesenius thinks 
 it is put for ἦν, which he renders 
 cavity, a hollow subterranean place, and 
 invests both ‘x, and %, with the 
 signification of being hollow, though 
 he is unable to produce any instances 
 of actual usage in support of it. See 
 on the subject, Scheid’s very learned 
 Dissert. in Canticum Hiskize, pp. 20— 
 43. But whatever difficulty there may 
 be in settling the derivation of the 
 term, there is little in determining its 
 application in the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 in which it is used with the same 
 latitude of signification as the Greek 
 “Adns—designating the invisible place or 
 abode of the dead, the locality or condi- 
 tion to which all are removed on 
 leaving this world. As it includes 
 the grave to which the body is re- 
 moved at death, it came to be con- 
 ceived and spoken of as situateddn or 
 below the earth, ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς, Rev. 
 
 found in the Punic, 
 
42 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. Y. 
 
 The man of mean condition is bowed down, 
 
 And the man of rank is brought low; 
 And the eyes of the haughty are humbled. 
 
 But Jehovah of Hosts is exalted through justice, 
 
 And the Holy God is sanctified through righteousness. 
 
 The lambs shall feed wherever they are driven, 
 
 And the waste fields of the rich, strange flocks shall consume. 
 
 Wo to them that draw calamity with cords of iniquity, 
 
 And punishment as with the ropes of a cart. 
 
 19 
 may sce it ; 
 
 v. 3; and such as inhabit it are called 
 καταχθονίοι, those who inhabit the under- 
 world, Phil. ii, 10. It was regarded as 
 a vast and profound subterranean 
 region, the entrance to which was 
 furnished with gates and bars, into 
 which men went down, and from 
 which there was no return to the 
 present world. In this verse, Sheol 
 (which I have retained in the transla- 
 tion, it being the original term, and 
 quite as intelligible as the exotic 
 Greek, Hades) is represented by one 
 of the boldest prosopopeias as a 
 hideous monster, with an immense 
 mouth and insatiableappetite, swallow- 
 ing down greedily a whole nation, and 
 all that pertained to it. For other 
 sublime poetical representations of 
 Sheol, see chap. xiv. 9—20; Ezek. 
 xxvi. 20; xxxi. 14—18; xxxii. 18—32. 
 The prediction received its fulfilment 
 when Nebuchadnezzar carried the 
 Jews into captivity in Babylon, and 
 left none but the poor of the people, 
 that had nothing, in the land. 2 Chron. 
 xxxvi. 20; Jer. xxxix. 10. Between the 
 description of the sin, the punishment 
 ‘of which is here threatened, and the 
 language describing the punishment 
 itself, there exists a striking analogy. 
 Those who indulged in feasting, drink- 
 ing, and jollity, were to be subject to 
 famineand thirst,and to become food for 
 the rapacious enemy. The fem. suff. 5, 
 in the last instances, refers to Zion 
 understood. Before ty, subaud. Wx. 
 15, 16. The language of these verses 
 is nearly parallel with that of chap. 
 ii. 9,11, 17. The humiliation of the 
 wicked by the infliction of Divine 
 
 That say: Let him be quick, let him hasten his work that we 
 
 judgments, and the glory accruing to 
 Jehovah from the same, is the subject 
 common to both—ti72. God is said 
 to be sanctified when the holiness of 
 his character is displayed, acknow- 
 ledged, or proclaimed. Such is emi- 
 nently the result of the just punish- 
 ment of his enemies. 
 
 17. This verse describes the con- 
 sumption of the deserted estates of 
 the wealthy Jews, by the flocks of the 
 nomadic tribes, for whose entrance 
 into the country way should be made 
 by the removal of the inhabitants.— 
 D779, the regular infin., with suffix, of 
 Wy, to drive flocks or herds out to pasture. 
 Comp. Micah ii. 12. Much the same 
 meaning is expressed by Lowth, who 
 renders “without restraint,’ but his 
 version does not give the exact force 
 of the Hebrew.—The conjectural em- 
 endation of 093 into Ὁ 3, which the 
 Bishop adopts, after Durell and 
 Secker, is quite unwarranted: the 
 plural of 73 being 0773, and not 073, 
 There can be little doubt that ἄρνες, 
 of the LXX., was suggested by Ὁ Ὁ39 
 occurring immediately before. Symm. 
 
 mar oO 
 
 has πάροικοι; the Syr. [okos, pere- 
 grint; and the Vulg. advene; but 072 
 being parallel with 029, it must be 
 interpreted of flocks, and not of per- 
 sons.—D'M9, fat ones,i. e. rich persons, 
 like yyw 2t3, the fat of the earth, Ps. 
 XXxli. 30. 
 
 18, 19. In Heb. the words ΤῊΝ, 7837, 
 neon, iv, ὅσο. signify not only szz, iné- 
 quity, &c. but also punishment, calamity, 
 misery, a8 the consequences of moral 
 evil. Ps. xxxi. 11; Prov. xxii. 8 ; Isa. 
 
CHAP. Υγ.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 43 
 
 And let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and 
 
 come, that we may know it. 
 
 20 Wo to those that call evil good, and good evil, 
 That put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; 
 That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. 
 
 21 Wo to them that are wise in their own eyes, 
 
 And prudent in their own estimation. 
 
 xl. 2; Lam. 111. 39; Zech. xiv. 19; and 
 such would seem to be the signification 
 of ἣν, and πρῖθττ, in this passage. The 
 idea of drawing out, or continuing in 
 the practice of sin, and thereby accu- 
 mulating it, like a rope-maker, who 
 continually adds to his materials, first 
 suggested by Houbigant, and approved 
 by Lowth, is quite forced :—having no 
 other ground than the simple occur- 
 rence of the terms cords and ropes; 
 which are manifestly spoken of as 
 implements, by the use of which the 
 action was performed, and not them- 
 selves the subjects of the operation. 
 Besides, it is at variance with the 
 following context. The meaning is, 
 that the persons described were not 
 satisfied with ordinary modes of pro- 
 voking the Diety, and the consequent 
 ordinary approach of his vengeance, 
 but, as it were, yoked themselves in 
 the harness of iniquity, and putting 
 forth all their strength, drew down 
 upon themselves with accelerated speed 
 the load of punishment which their 
 sins deserved.—Instead of "2273, ove of 
 De Rossi’s MSS., the LXX., Arab., Aq., 
 Symm., Theod., and the Syr. read 
 “m3; and, on the contrary, instead of 
 maya, fourteen MSS., and probably two 
 others, and the printed edit. of Soncin. 
 have ni1¥2; but the change makes little 
 or no difference in the sense, and the 
 one preposition is very frequently 
 understood in connexion with the 
 other. Were it not that it is wholly 
 unsupported by critical evidence, the 
 conjecture might be hazarded, that in 
 nov, the 1 has taken the place of }, (a 
 mistake very easily made by a tran- 
 scriber,) and that the word originally 
 read ADP, wickedness—in which case 
 the passage would stand thus :— 
 
 NUT wana PPT wa A 
 ΤΉΝΕ TW MAY?) 
 
 “Wo to them who draw calamity with 
 cords of iniquity, 
 
 And punishment with ropes of wick- 
 
 kedness.” 
 
 There would thus be a perfection in 
 the parallelism, which is at present 
 wanting; but the same sense is 
 brought out by the present reading of 
 the text, which is that of all the MSS. 
 and versions.—The language of the 
 19th verse is. the only construction 
 that could be put upon the conduct 
 of the wicked Jews, spoken of in that 
 which precedes it. They scoffingly 
 dared the Holy One to carry his 
 threatenings into execution. Comp. 
 chap. xxviil. 14, 15; Jer. xvii. 15. The 
 7 in TOTP, is a rare instance of the 
 Optative mood in the third person 
 of a verb. 
 
 20, 21. The Article is understood as 
 repeated before Dnw. Gesen. in his 
 Commentary, refers to a passage re- 
 markably parallel in the Zabian Book 
 of Adam, published by Prof. Norberg. 
 of Lund, 1815. The following is a 
 translation ; “‘ Wo to them that are self- 
 wise, and, in their own view, men of pru- 
 dence. Wo to them who say, We belong to 
 the light, but the light is not with them, 
 and whose heart he hath abandoned, cut 
 off, and taken away! Wo to them that 
 turn sweet to bitter, and bitter to sweet / 
 Wo to them that say of good, tt 15 evil, 
 and place evil on a par with good! Wo 
 to them who turn darkness into light, and 
 light into darkness! Wo to them who 
 early drink new wine, and in the evening 
 drink that which is old, and are capti- 
 vated with the song, the lyre, and the 
 pipe.” The agreement of the passage 
 with verses 20, 21, and 11, of this 
 chapter, is too glaring to admit of a 
 doubt that it was partly copied from 
 it, and partly an imitation. 
 
22 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. V. 
 
 Wo to them that are valiant to drink wine, 
 
 And men of might to mix strong drink. 
 
 24 
 
 That justify the guilty for a reward, 
 And deprive the just of their 
 Therefore as the flame of fire consumeth the stubble, 
 
 right. 
 
 And as the burning hay falleth in ; 
 So shall their root be as rottenness, 
 And their blossom shat go up like dust: 
 Because they have despised the law of Jehovah of Hosts, 
 And contemned the word of the Holy One of Israel. 
 25 Wherefore the anger of Jehovah burneth against his people, 
 
 commonly applied to military men, 
 and indicate extraordinary power and 
 heroism.—20 702?. When the He- 
 brews speak of mixing wine, the mean- 
 ing is not that it was diluted with 
 water, and thus made weaker, but 
 that it had spices and strong drugs 
 added to it, by which it was rendered 
 more potent and stupifying. Comp. 
 J22, spiced wine, Ps, xxv. 9; the synony- 
 mous 332, Song vil. 3; JO22, Prov. 
 xxiii. 30; κεκεράσμενον ἄκρατον, Rey. 
 xiv. 10; and Lowth’s note on chap. i. 
 22. 
 
 93. For oI, one of De Rossi’s 
 MSS., two printed editions, the LXX., 
 Syr., Arab., and Vulg. read p32; and 
 an accurate Span. Cod. of De Rossi, 
 ΒΞ, but obviously emendations, in- 
 troduced for the purpose of making 
 the word agree with 3239, in the sin- 
 gular, at the end of the verse. It is 
 not unusual, however, for a sentence 
 first to have a plural, and then to 
 exhibit a singular, for the sake of 
 emphatically stating, that what is pre- 
 dicated affects each of the persons or 
 things included in the whole multitude. 
 The verse describes the corruption of 
 the judges by bribery, and the injustice 
 consequent upon it. 
 
 24. Now commences a specification 
 of the punishment to be inflicted on 
 the profligate and abandoned charac- 
 ters that had just been described. 
 Hitzig properly remarks, that this and 
 the following verse run parallel with 
 verses 13 and 14, as the use of }2¥, 
 and yy, sufficiently shows.—'Xsx jw), 
 “tongue of fire,” used metaphorically 
 
 for flame, on account of its lambent 
 
 and pointed appearance. Arab. οἷον 
 
 Je » Flamma, pec. fumi expers. Castel 
 
 and Gol. Comp. Acts ii. 3.—Contrary 
 to the usual construction, Ὁ is intro- 
 duced between the verb and its nomi- 
 native; which Kimchi accounts for 
 on the principle, that where the sub- 
 ject of discourse is so self-evident that 
 there can be no mistake, the object 
 may be placed before the agent. 
 Similar instances occur of a word 
 interposed between the Infin. Const. 
 and its genitive, as chap. xx. 1; lxiv. 
 1. ww occurs only here and chap. 
 Comp. the Arab. Un we 
 hay or dry grass. The radical idea 
 conveyed by ΠΕΡῚ seems to be that of 
 falling off, or down, failing, sinking 
 through imbecility. It is here used 
 to express the falling together, or 
 sinking down of bundles of dry hay 
 by the action of fire upon them.—?9, 
 rottenness, for ‘rotten wood,’ which, 
 when mouldered and dry, is blown 
 away like dust. All the images here 
 employed, forcibly represent the sud- 
 denness, ease, and completeness with 
 which God effects the destruction of 
 the wicked. How firmly soever they 
 may be established, and how great 
 soever their splendour, they at once 
 come to nothing when his judgments 
 are let loose upon them. Comp. Amos 
 ii. 9; Hosea ix. 16. 
 
 25. Some refer the agitation of the 
 mountains to the earthquake which 
 happened in the days of Uzziah, Amos 
 
 Xxxiii. 1]. 
 
CHAP V.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 45 
 
 He hath stretched out his hand against them and smitten them: 
 So that the mountains tremble, 
 
 And their carcases are as filth in the midst of the streets. 
 Nevertheless his anger is not turned back, 
 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 26 
 
 For he raiseth a banner to the distant nations, 
 
 And whistleth for them from the end of the earth; 
 And, behold, speedily and fleetly they come. 
 27 None is faint, and none among them stumbleth ; 
 
 i. 1; Zech. xiv. 5; but it is nothing 
 more than a strong poetical image, of 
 frequent occurrence. Comp. Ps. xviii. 
 7; Joel ii. 10—2 in 03 is not radical, 
 as Kimchi and others have supposed, 
 but the Caph of comparison. The 
 root is πῦρ, the same as M0, fo sweep 
 away filth; hence HD, ND, sweepings, 
 filth; Chald. snd, ordure. 'The scene 
 here depicted is that which is wit- 
 nessed when the plague is raging in a 
 city, or immediately after a siege 
 which has made awful havoc of the 
 inhabitants.— The verse concludes 
 with a formula which is thrice re- 
 peated in the ninth, and once in the 
 tenth chapter, to intimate the continu- 
 ance of Divine judgments, and prepare 
 the reader for what follows. 
 
 26. Without naming the Assyrian 
 army, the prophet proceeds to de- 
 scribe its appearance, which he repre- 
 sents to be most formidable and terri- 
 fic—d) is properly ὦ signal flay or 
 banner, but is used also for the stand- 
 ard from which it was displayed. 
 Reference is made to the military 
 custom of planting a pole with a flag 
 on a high mountain; either to serve 
 as a signal of rendezvous, or to point 
 out the direction in which an army is 
 to proceed, The latter is here in- 
 tended. See Cesar de Bel. Gal. lib. 
 ii. cap. 10; Ammian. in Hist. Valentin. 
 lib. xxvii. cap. 10.—In the use of 7p 
 is a metaphor borrowed from the 
 practice of those who keep bees in 
 the East, and in some countries of 
 Europe ; calling them out, and again 
 gathering them and bringing them 
 back to the hive by the blast of a 
 whistle. Thus Cyril: Δέχεται δὲ καὶ 
 τούτο πάλιν, ὡς ἀπό γε THs συνεθείας τῆς 
 ἐπὶ τῶν μυιῶν. Ἔν ἔθει γάρ πώς ἐστι 
 
 τοῖς μελισσοκόμοις συρίζειν αὐταῖς" 
 οὕτω τε τῶν σίΐίμβλων ἀποφέρειν εἰς 
 ἄνθη, καὶ πόας, καὶ μὴν καὶ ἀνακομίζειν 
 ἐξ ἀγρὼν οἰκοί τε αὐτὰς ἐναυλίζεσθαι 
 ποιεῖν. The same metaphor is em- 
 ployed chap. vii. 18, and Zech. x. 8. 
 The word is onomatopoetic.—pinjn, 
 απ m7. Though the former of these 
 two descriptions of distance may, 
 without any violence, be viewed as 
 applicable to the Assyrians, it has 
 been thought that the latter is alto- 
 gether forced, if thus applied. But 
 the objection loses its validity when 
 it is recollected that the geographical 
 knowledge of the Hebrews was com- 
 paratively very limited, and that when 
 they spoke of “the ends of the earth,” 
 it was the earth as known to them. 
 Yet such a mode of describing distant 
 regions was not peculiar to the He- 
 brews. Thucydides, writing of the 
 Medes, the very people here referred 
 to, employs phraseology identical with 
 that used by Isaiah : τόν re yap Μῆδον 
 αὐτοὶ ἴσμεν ἐκ περάτων γῆς πρότερον 
 ἐπὶ τὴν Πελοπόννησον ἐλθόντα, κ. τ. λ. 
 i. 22, And Livy says of the Gauls: 
 “ab oceano fterrarum ultimis oris bel- 
 lum ciente,” v. 37. See Gesenius iz 
 loc—%. It is not unusual in Heb. to 
 introduce a person or thing in the way 
 of pronominal reference, without any 
 previous mention of the person or 
 thing specifically. The singular form 
 may be explained as referring to each 
 of the 03, taken singly; or it may 
 point them out as a congregated mass, 
 marching forward under the command 
 of their leader. The velocity with 
 which the enemy was to approach 
 exactly meets the challenge of the 
 scofters, ver. 19. 
 
 27, rs iw, By this is not meant 
 
 Ἐ 
 
46 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. Y. 
 
 They neither slumber nor sleep ; 
 The girdle of their loins is not loosed, 
 Nor is the latchet of their shoes untied. 
 
 28 Their arrows are sharpened, 
 
 And all their bows are bent; 
 
 The hoofs of their horses are counted as flint, 
 And their wheels as the whirlwind. 
 
 29 
 
 Their roar is like that of the lioness ; 
 
 They roar like the young lions ; 
 
 the girdle usually worn by the Orientals 
 round the waist for the purpose of 
 keeping their clothes close together 
 about the body, when they are at 
 work, or ona journey; but the ζωστὴρ, 
 or military belt with which soldiers 
 were accoutred. It was tightly girded 
 round the loins, for the sake of sup- 
 porting and strengthening the person, 
 and had attached to it the sheath 
 which contained the sword. Gesenius 
 would refer the loosing of the girdles, 
 and the untying of the latchet, to the 
 removal of obstacles which present 
 themselves in the way of an army ; 
 but it seems much more natural to 
 regard them as applying to the neces- 
 sary preparation for enjoying the 
 repose mentioned in the words imme- 
 diately preceding. The meaning is, 
 that the Assyrians would march for- 
 ward without any intermission. : 
 
 28. The bow and arrow were very 
 ancient weapons of offence. Gen. xxi. 
 20; xlix. 23. The bow was made of 
 wood, reeds, horn, and other materials ; 
 and was often so strong, that it re- 
 quired to be trodden upon in order to 
 make it bend. Hence the phrase 71 
 mop, to tread the bow; the Pah. Part. of 
 which verb is used, with such refer- 
 ence, in the present verse. The fol- 
 lowing quotation from Arrian will 
 furnish a sufficient description of this 
 custom. Speaking of the Indian in- 
 fantry, he says: ᾿Αλλ᾽ οἱ μὲν πεζοὶ 
 αὐτοῖσι τόξον τε ἔχουσιν ἰσόμηκες τῷ 
 φορέοντι τὸ τόξον" καὶ τοῦτο κάτω ἐπὶ 
 τὴν γῆν θέντες, καὶ τῷ ποδὶ τῷ ἀριστερῷ 
 ἀντιβάντες, οὕτως ἐκτοξευουσι τὴν νευρὴν 
 ἐπὶ μέγα ὀπίσω ἀπαγαγόντες. Hist, 
 Ind. xvi. Comp. also Diod. Sic. iii. 8; 
 Curt. viii. 14, 19; Ovid. Metam. v. 
 ‘883; Xenoph, Anab. iv. 2, 28.— 2, the 
 
 same as WY, a stone—so called from its 
 compactness and solidity; but, as all 
 stones are not possessed of this qua- 
 lity, the spirit of the passage requires 
 that it should be rendered flint or 
 adamant; UXX. στερεὰ πέτρα.---- τι, 
 to reckon, count, estimate, is here used 
 idiomatically, and is equivalent to the 
 substantive verb. As the ancients did 
 not shoe their horses, as we do, hard- 
 ness of hoof was considered to be a 
 primary quality of a good horse. 
 Hence the Homeric χαλκόποδ᾽ ἵππω, 
 Tliad, 6. 41; and κρατερώνυχες ἵπποι; ᾿ 
 and the following passage, quoted by 
 Gesenius from Montanabbi, shews 
 that, at a later period, the same 
 Tapes was attached to it in the 
 ast : 
 
 ep lal) esl, LS ah ths 
 Lh all oo be 
 
 “ They rise with the hoofs of their forefeet, 
 
 So that as often as they strike against the 
 rocks, 
 
 They impress upon them the breast of the 
 falcon ; 
 
 Though they go barefoot.” 
 
 mmo2, The rapidity with which the 
 Assyrians advanced is beautifully ex- 
 pressed, by comparing the revolution 
 of the wheels of their war-chariots to 
 that of the sudden whirlwind, which 
 seizes upon all within its reach, and, 
 rolling it up with indescribable velo- 
 city, bears it into the air. 
 
 29. Here the enemy is described 
 under the metaphor of a lioness, 
 accompanied by her young ones, first 
 roaring on reaching the prey, then 
 seizing it, and carrying it safely away 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 41 
 
 They both growl and seize the prey ; 
 They bear it safely away, and there is none to rescue. 
 30 And they shall roar at them in that day, like the roaring of the 
 
 sea ; 
 
 So that if one look to the land, behold there is afflictive darkness, 
 And the light is darkened by its clouds. 
 
 to her den. 28% is properly used of 
 the full-grown, and ἘΠῚ of the young 
 lion—the one signifying ¢o roar, and 
 the other, ¢o growl; though they are 
 sometimes interchanged. 
 
 30. To enhance the terrors of the 
 description given of the attack of the 
 invader, a sea-storm on the west coast 
 of Palestine is introduced. The trans- 
 ition from the roaring or growling of 
 the lions, to that of the sea, was quite 
 natural. Comp. Jer. 1.42. Nor were 
 the phenomena on such occasions 
 confined to the Mediterranean: the 
 storm, sweeping over the land, the 
 entire horizon would be involved in 
 the densest gloom. A striking picture 
 of the political horizon of the Jews, 
 on the Assyrian invasion.—Consider- 
 able diversity has obtained in the 
 interpretation of the latter half of 
 this verse. There is no sufficient 
 reason to suppose, with Lowth, a 
 
 rendering in the LXX., and the Coptic 
 made from it, being in all probability 
 an emendation, which owed its origin 
 to an attempt to produce complete 
 ‘uniformity between this, and the 
 parallel passage, chap. vill. 22. 817%, 
 Gesenius renders zow terror, now light, 
 but quite at variance with the spirit of 
 the text, which requires a state of 
 profound darkness, without any reliev- 
 ing glimpses of light. The preferable 
 construction is that, which, setting 
 aside the authority of the accents, 
 connects W with 7, immediately 
 preceding, and then makes ix the 
 nominative to the verb 7%, which 
 follows it. 1 TS, will thus be aflictive 
 darkness —By x, light, is meant the 
 sun, as the source of light. Comp. 
 Job xxxi. 26; Hab. ii. 4. The 7 in 
 mony, refers to YIs—the clouds here 
 mentioned being those by which the 
 land was covered during the storm, 
 
 corruption of the text: the different 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Interpreters have been much divided respecting the occasion of this vision: 
 some referring it to what they consider to have been the solemn inaugura- 
 tion of Isaiah to his prophetical office ; while others are of opinion, that it 
 was vouchsafed to him when about to receive a new and special commission. 
 In support of the former hypothesis, which seems best sustained, it is alleged, 
 that the specification of the date, “in the year in which King Uzziah died,” 
 which must mean Jefore, and not after that event, exactly coincides with the 
 date, chap. i. 1; that all the circumstances of the vision were specially 
 adapted to impress the mind of the prophet with feelings suitable to be 
 cherished when entering on the functions of his office ; that if he had been 
 previously invested with it, there does not appear to have been anything so 
 peculiar in a new commission as to require such extraordinary interposition ; 
 
 - that commissions of a similarly express nature were given to the prophets 
 
48 
 
 ISAIAH. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 Jeremiah and Ezekiel, at the commencement of their prophetical career ; 
 and, especially, that the latter of these two prophets was likewise favoured 
 with a sublime and august vision on the important occasion. The circum- 
 stance of the account of Isaiah’s vision not standing at the beginning of the 
 book, is of no consequence; it being admitted, that many portions of the 
 prophetical books are not placed in the exact order of time. 
 
 This chapter contains the description of a sublime vision, with which the 
 prophet was favoured, 1—4; the effect which it produced upon him, 5; the 
 supernatural relief afforded to his mind, 6, 7; his commissicn to announce 
 the obstinacy of the Jews, notwithstanding their continued enjoyment of 
 the means of instruction, 8—10; their dispersion in consequence of such 
 conduct, 11, 12; and the merciful reservation of a remnant to serve as the 
 stock of a new race, whose history would furnish fresh displays of the 
 
 Divine glory, 13. 
 
 1 In the year in which Uzziah the king died, I saw Jehovah, sitting 
 upon a high and elevated throne, and his train filled the temple. 
 
 1. way—ninnmwa. In the year of the 
 death, το. Comp. chap. xiv. 28, where 
 the same phraseology occurs. That in 
 both cases reference is made to what 
 transpired previous to the death of the 
 king, 15 obvious—since it would other- 
 wise have been said, that it happened 
 in the first year of his successor. We 
 are not informed during how many 
 months of the concluding year of 
 Uzziah’s reign Isaiah prophesied. It 
 is quite sufficient to justify the state- 
 ment, chap. i. 1, if he commenced the 
 functions of his office before the de- 
 cease of that monarch. In order, 
 indeed, to afford a wider scope for 
 his labours, several interpreters, both 
 Jewish and Christian, have supposed, 
 that the death here spoken of was not 
 the zxatural, but the civil death of 
 Uzziah, when he was smitten with the 
 leprosy, and laid aside from public 
 duty; but such an idea would pro- 
 bably never have been started, but for 
 a mistaken rendering of the verb 
 0272, in the fifth verse. Instead of 
 translating it, I am undone, or I perish, 
 they give it, I was reduced to silence, 
 and imagine the meaning to be, that 
 Isaiah had been compelled to suspend 
 his prophecy during the whole period 
 of the king’s seclusion. Some have 
 even maintained that his silence was 
 a punishment inflicted on him for not 
 reproving Uzziah: but who does not 
 
 perceive that all this is mere fancy, 
 and totally unworthy of scriptural 
 interpretation ἢ The } in 77x}, has 
 more of a temporal than a conjunctive 
 power. It is equivalent to 3s, then it 
 was that, το. ΤΣ is to be taken in 
 the prophetic acceptation, denoting a 
 supernatural perception of the objects 
 specified. The things constituting the 
 symbols of the vision, the prophet 
 did not behold with his bodily eyes. 
 He was in a state of ecstatic inspira- 
 tion, and had the things signified by 
 such symbols vividly impressed upon 
 his mind. See my Lectures on 
 “Divine Inspiration,’ pp. 157—165. 
 ——rs. There can be little doubt 
 that this Divine name has been 
 substituted in the present verse, and 
 in verses 8th and 11th, for 77. The 
 latter name is found here in ninety-four 
 of Kennicott and De Rossi’s MSS., 
 and has originally stood in zize more; 
 it is found in eighty, and has originally 
 stood in ¢ex more, ver. 8th; and it is 
 in nearly as many in the third in- 
 stance. It is besides found in some 
 of the early printed editions. The 
 rendering of the Targum is "187M, 
 the glory of the Lord; of which the 
 Evangelist John clearly avails himself, 
 when, speaking of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, he says, “These things said 
 Esaias, when he saw τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, 
 HIS GLORY, and spake of HIM,” chap. 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 49 
 
 2 Seraphs stood beside him: each had six wings; with two he 
 covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he 
 
 y_ > did fiz: 
 
 xii. 41. The person who appeared 
 to the prophet was the Divine Logos, 
 the Brightness of the Father’s glory, 
 and the Express Image of his Person, 
 Heb. i. 2.——-8w7) 0] may be referred 
 to ‘8 as their antecedent, and they 
 are thus used chap. lvii. 15; but the 
 more natural mode of construction in 
 this place requires us to connect them 
 with x2, the immediate antecedent. 
 Thus the Targ., LXX., Symm., Cover- 
 dale, and most moderns.—As 527 is 
 used poetically for heaven, Ps. xi. 4; 
 xviii. 7, Michaelis and others have 
 supposed, that the scene of the pro- 
 phet’s vision was the celestial world. 
 It seems more appropriate, however, 
 to take it in its ordinary acceptation, 
 as designating the temple of Jerusa- 
 lem, especially since express mention 
 is made of the altar, 72927, ver. 6, as 
 something familiarly known. The 
 term properly signifies ὦ capacious and 
 magnificent building, and is used_of the 
 royal palace at Babylon, chap. xxxix. 
 
 7; Dan. i. 4; Arab. Ji, from 
 Ji, to be great, immense in size; 
 
 Φ » 
 Ethiop. USA; Syr. flasn. It 
 commonly denotes the temple at Je- 
 rusalem in general; but sometimes it 
 is employed to designate the body or 
 large middle part of the building, 
 usually called the Holy place, in con- 
 tradistinction from V2], the oracle, or 
 Holy of Holies, and Dax, the vestibule 
 or porch erected at the entrance; 
 the space between which it occupied, 
 and contained the golden candlestick, 
 the altar of incense, and the table of 
 shew-bread. Between it and the 
 Holy of Holies was a double veil, 
 which was never drawn aside except 
 once a year, to admit the high priest, 
 who alone enjoyed the privilege of 
 appearing before the mercy-seat.— 
 Though we never find x03, throne, 
 employed to designate the mercy- 
 seat, yet it may be regarded as applied 
 to it in this place, inasmuch as the 
 phrase DIT IW, dwelling or sitting 
 
 enthroned between the cherubim, 1 
 Sam. iv. 4,15 descriptive of the visible 
 glory of Jehovah, as displayed from 
 it, above the ark of the covenant, 
 which the two cherubim overshadowed 
 with their wings, Exod. xxv. 20—22. 
 —While God vouchsafed to this spot 
 the peculiar symbol of his presence, 
 his glory filled the great body of the 
 temple, 1 Kings viii. 11. This glory 
 Isaiah calls Yaw, his train, or the long 
 flowing skirts of his royal robe, in 
 allusion to the ample robes of state 
 in which Oriental monarchs appeared 
 on great occasions. 
 
 2, DY. The scenery of the vision 
 being taken from the temple, it is 
 manifest, the Seraphs, or living beings 
 here described, can be no other than 
 the antitypes of the golden o’n3, 
 cherubs, which were stationed, one on 
 either end of the mercy-seat, covering 
 it with their wings. They correspond 
 to the four living creatures in the 
 vision of Ezekiel, between which and 
 that of Isaiah, are several striking 
 points of coincidence: only the former 
 is fuller, and contains many more par- 
 ticulars. A somewhat similar vision 
 was accorded to the apostle John, 
 Rey. iv.; but the four ζῶα, or living 
 creatures, there described, are an 
 appropriation of the symbols spoken 
 of by Ezekiel, to the Christian minis- 
 try, agreeably to the special scope of 
 the Apocalypse. There is, therefore, 
 no necessity, with Michaelis, Gesenius, 
 and others, to derive mv from the 
 
 Arab. pth, to be noble, whence 
 
 . 
 
 «-ο ὃ, a noble or prince; plur. 
 tne, those who have descended 
 
 from Mohammed ; and so to interpret 
 the term as designating the celestial 
 nobility, or the angels viewed as princes 
 of state, attendant upon Jehovah. 
 As the symbolical figures in the Holy 
 of Holies were called 0293, cherubin, 
 from their proximity to THE DIVINE 
 PRESENCE—1}), from which the name 
 is derived, being, as Hyde supposed, 
 
50 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 3 And the one called to the other, and said: 
 Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts ; 
 The whole earth is full of his glory. 
 
 and as Gesenius now thinks not 
 improbable, equivalent to 27, Ζο 
 approach, draw near—so Isaiah appro- 
 priates to the beings whom they re- 
 presented, the name of D5qv, Seraphin, 
 to denote their burning, or dazzling 
 appearance. This idea was naturally 
 suggested by the splendid effulgence 
 of the golden cherubs, when they 
 reflected the glory of the Lord. We 
 are told, indeed, by Gesenius, that 
 AW signifies fo burn, burn up, and not 
 to shine, which holds true of the 
 English verb ¢o burn, as well as of the 
 Hebrew, if respect be simply had to 
 the primary signification ; but it was 
 just as natural for the Hebrews to 
 apply the word in a secondary or 
 translated sense, as it is for us to 
 express by our word the excessive 
 brightness proceeding from any lumi- 
 nous object. Thus, also, in Scripture 
 gems are called tx 22x, stones of fire, 
 from their glittering appearance. 
 What confirms this derivation of the 
 term, is the description of the living 
 creatures in the vision of Ezekiel: 
 “their appearance was like durning 
 coals of fire, and like the appearance 
 of damps—and the fire was bright, and 
 out of the fire went forth lightning,” 
 chap. i. 13. The interpretation, there- 
 fore, of Kimchi: Ὃν 28%, and Abul- 
 
 walid: & yb Ko, angels of fire, or 
 
 fiery angels, is not so far from the 
 mark. To maintain, as Gesenius 
 attempts to do, that the cherubim 
 presented any thing of the appearance 
 of serpents, and that an analogy is to 
 be traced between them and the 
 sacred serpents in the temple of 
 Jupiter, at Thebes, is perfectly to 
 degrade the subject. 
 
 If the above interpretation be 
 correct, it will be seen, that there is 
 no foundation in Scripture for the 
 opinion that Cherubim and Seraphim 
 are distinct orders of angels. The 
 two names are merely distinctive of 
 two attributes attaching to the same 
 order of beings—their zcarness to 
 Jehovah, and the glorious effulgence of 
 
 their celestial nature. Comp. Dan. 
 vii. 10; Matt. xviii. 10; Luke x. 20. 
 
 The Seraphim are represented as 
 standing, to intimate their readiness 
 to execute the Divine behests. That 
 Syn is to be rendered Jeside, and not 
 above, or before, comp. 1 Kings xxii. 
 19, where Y22 is explained by its being 
 added, at his right hand and at his left. 
 The two passages are parallel, both in 
 scene and phraseology—Though 0°33 
 is pointed as a dual, it is not meant 
 that each seraph had six pair of wings. 
 In Hebrew things that naturally exist 
 in pairs are expressed in the dual even 
 when more than two are intended, 
 See Zech. iii. 9. The repetition of the 
 number of wings indicates distribution. 
 To express the deep sense which the 
 Seraphim cherished of their unworthi- 
 ness to behold the Divine Majesty, 
 they covered their faces, comp. Exod. 
 lili. 6; and to mark their reverential 
 respect, they also covered their feet, 
 or the whole of the lower part of the 
 body—a practice which obtains in the 
 East, when persons approach the 
 presence of a monarch: the attribu- 
 tion to them of wings, and flying, 
 teaches the velocity with which they 
 execute their commissions; and to 
 intimate that what is here ascribed to 
 them is habitual and constant, the 
 verbs are put in the future tense. 
 See Gesen. Lehrgeb. p. 774. 
 
 3. DIT wi wi. That these words 
 were sung responsively by the Sera- 
 phim is undeniable: whether one 
 choir took up the first, another the 
 second, and both joined in the third 
 wiz, as Rosenmiiller supposes, cannot 
 be determined. The triple use of the 
 term has been considered as intended 
 to intimate a Trinity in the Godhead. 
 Thus Rabbi Joseph, in 7x “yx, fol. 
 94. ἃ. 1. 24. Primam  sanctitatem 
 respiscere e decem sephiris Coroxam 
 Supremum; alteram Sapientiam; et 
 tertiam Intelligentiam. It was also 
 appealed to by the Fathers in proof 
 of the Scripture doctrine of the 
 Trinity ; and there are many who still 
 view it in this light: but the trinary 
 
CHAP. VI.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 51 
 
 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook by reason of the 
 voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 
 5 Then I said: Alas for me! surely I am undone; for [am aman 
 
 repetition of words in other passages, 
 simply to express intensity, or superla- 
 tiveness of degree, satisfactorily shews, 
 that, according to the wsus loquendi, 
 this is the meaning in the present in- 
 stance. See Jer. vil. 4; xxil. 29; Ezek. 
 xxi. 27 (Hebr.) 82. Musculus observes 
 here: “Hee est doxologia angelica 
 paucissimis verbis absoluta. Ardens 
 est animus Deum veré laudantium, 
 non multiloquus, multo minus batto- 
 logus. Nec Deus ipse multiloquio, 
 sed ardore fidei ac spiritus delectatur.” 
 This angelic hymn is repeated, with 
 certain variations, by the four living 
 creatures, Rev. iv. 8. See Suicer, 
 Thes. in voc. Tpicay. The primary 
 idea conveyed by the term np, is 
 that of separation, especially from 
 what is common or profane to a special 
 and sacred purpose. Hence the no- 
 tions of sanctity, moral purity, infinite 
 excellence and perfection. Τῦ 1s in this 
 last and most exalted acceptation 
 that it is used by the Seraphim. 
 Ὑ123-- ἰδ, lit. the fulness of the whole 
 earth is his glory; but the meaning is, 
 that the earth is entirely filled with 
 it; there being no object within its 
 compass which does not proclaim the 
 perfections of God. Ps. xix. 2, 3. 
 The words appear to bear upon the 
 scene described ver. 1, in which the 
 train of Jehovah is said to have filled 
 the temple. Comp. Hab. iii. 3; and 
 for the phrase YIN? 87, Hamas., as 
 quoted by Schultens, ad Conses. 
 Harir. vi. p. 181. 
 
 le οὐδ! sho kel elf 
 sae 
 
 “Fuit Chezaa plenitudo terre, qua late 
 patet.” 
 
 4. niax, bases, foundations. The 
 most probable etymology of this word 
 is that which refers it to the Arab, 
 
 eet], Principia, radices, the plur. of 
 
 ε mater, radix, principium, Gol.; in 
 
 architecture, the solid stones, stretch- 
 ing across the foot of a doorway, and 
 supporting the 0D, sz//s or thresholds, 
 which were based upon them. The 
 LXX. take both terms together, and 
 render, τὸ ὑπέρθυρον; the Vulg. super- 
 liminaria cardinum; Vitringa, superli- 
 minaria postium. The agreement in 
 gender of the verb ὋΣ with D807, and 
 not with nipx, the nearer noun, to 
 which it otherwise properly belongs, 
 is owing to the prominence which is 
 given to the former, by its having 
 the article prefixed, and its denoting 
 the specia] objects in which the effects 
 of the earthquake were visible.—m39, 
 the same as 9277, ver. 1. Both were 
 used of the tabernacle before the 
 temple was built. See Joshua vi. 24; 
 1 Sam. i. 7, 9; iii. 3. On the filling of 
 the temple with smoke, comp. 1 Kings 
 vili. 10,11; Ezek. x. 4, with Rev. xv. 8. 
 5. 1273, the reading of the Textus 
 Receptus, can only be derived from 
 793, which, though in Kal it primarily 
 signifies fo be still, silent, reduce to 
 silence, is only used in Niphal in the 
 sense of being destroyed, or perishing. 
 From the circumstance, however, that 
 sizty-two MSS. and originally siz more, 
 the Brixian Bible, the Proph. of Son- 
 cin. 1486, and seven other editions, 
 omit the former of the two Yods, some 
 refer it to D4 or 003, and render: 
 1 am struck dumb, or, [ am silent. In 
 support of this interpretation, they 
 allege the rendering of the LXX. (in 
 some copies,) Aquila, Theodotion, 
 Symm., the Syr. and Vulg., and the 
 authority of some of the rabbins. 
 But it so happens that 077 is not at all 
 in use ; and that, in Niphal, 023 never 
 signifies to be silent, but always, to be 
 destroyed, cut off, perish. Add to which, 
 that °n273, pointed ‘7273, is pronounced 
 precisely as ‘N’272, and is only one 
 of the numerous instances of the 
 scriptio defectiva. 'The prophet, ap- 
 palled by the display which he saw 
 of the Divine glory, the theme and 
 loud peals of the seraphim, the con- 
 cussions of the earthquake, and a sense 
 of his own sinfulness, and that of his 
 
δ2 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips ; 
 
 6 for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of Hosts. 
 
 And one 
 
 of the seraphs flew to me, with a burning coal in his hand, 
 7 which he had taken with tongs from off the altar; and he 
 touched my mouth, and said: Behold, this hath touched thy 
 lips: therefore thine iniquity is removed, and thy sin is forgiven. 
 8 And I heard the voice of Jehovah, saying: Whom shall I 
 send, and who will go for us? And I said: Here am I; 
 
 nation, apprehended instant destruc- 
 tion. This was quite inaccordance with 
 the feelings of the ancient Hebrews, 
 who were taught to expect immediate 
 death, as the result of a vision of 
 Jehovah. See Gen. xxxii. 30; Judges 
 vi, 22, 23, 24; xiii. 22; and comp. 
 Exod. xxxili. 20, the difference be- 
 tween which and chap. xxiv. 10, 11, is 
 not such as to warrant the conclusion 
 of Gesenius, that the two chapters 
 were written by different authors. In 
 the one case, a perception of the Di- 
 vine Hssence is meant, which is ex- 
 pressly declared to be incompatible 
 with the laws of mortal existence ; in 
 the other, such a view of the external 
 effulgence which accompanied the 
 Divine manifestations, as was enjoyed 
 by Moses, the patriarchs, and pro- 
 phets of old, and by John under the 
 new dispensation. The specification 
 of the dips as the seat of impurity, 
 appears to have arisen from the im- 
 pression produced upon the mind of 
 Isaiah by the celestial anthem, which 
 he had just heard, and in which he felt 
 he was totally unworthy to join; 
 though the seraph who addresses him, 
 ver. 7, would rather seem to adapt 
 the phrase to the unfitness of the 
 prophet to be engaged as a Divine 
 messenger, till he had experienced the 
 purifying influence there described. 
 
 6. ΠΕΞῚ is properly a coal, or burning 
 stone, ἃ χὰ δ, ‘ such as the Arabs use 
 
 at this day for the purpose of baking 
 their bread, or roasting, to which use 
 reference is made in the phrase, Τὴν 
 mes, a cake baked on glowing stones. 
 1 Kings xix.6. Vulg. calculus ; but 
 the LXX., Aquila., Symm., and Theod., 
 ἄνθραξ, coal. From what follows, we 
 learn that such stones were laid upon 
 
 the altar in order to burn the sacri- 
 fices. Before 722 supply Wx. 
 
 7. The use of fire as the most 
 powerful of all purifying agents, is 
 adopted in Scripture as a symbol of 
 the more important process of moral 
 purification. Mal. iii. 2,3; Matt.iii. 11. 
 The } in 1%) at once connects the 
 words, and marks the izstantaneousness 
 of the effect produced by the applica- 
 tion of the symbol to the mouth 
 
 of the prophet. 153, Arab. ,9$, eapi- 
 avit crimen, signifies not only to expiate 
 or atone for sin, by covering it with the 
 matter of the atonement from the 
 view of Him whose prerogative it is to 
 punish it, but also, ¢o grant pardon for 
 the sake of, and as the result of such 
 atonement, 
 
 8. Ὁ, The ancient versions of this 
 word, with the exception of the Vulg., 
 evince that their translators were per- 
 plexed by it. The Syriac omits it alto- 
 gether ; the LXX. has πρὸς τὸν λαὸν 
 τοῦτον; and the Targ. TEN», fo teach ; 
 though no Heb. MS. exhibits any 
 various reading. The remark of Gese- 
 nius, that Jerome is quite consistent 
 in interpreting this plural form, as he 
 does Gen. i. 26, xi. 7, of the Trinity, 
 rather redounds to the honour, than 
 reflects discredit on that father. In 
 no other way has it ever been consist- 
 ently interpreted. The hypothesis of 
 a plural of majesty or excellence has 
 never been satisfactorily established. 
 It is neither in accordance with Scrip- 
 ture, nor with general Oriental usage. 
 No passage can be adduced from the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, from which it can 
 be proved that it was the practice of 
 kings to speak of themselves indi- 
 vidually in the plural number. See 
 Ewald’s Heb, Gram, English Transl, 
 
GHAP. VI. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 53 
 
 9 send me. And he said: Go, and say to this people : 
 Go on hearing, but understand not ; 
 And go on seeing, but perceive not. 
 10 Make the heart of this people fat ; 
 And make heavy their ears, and close up their eyes ; 
 Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, 
 
 And perceive with their heart, 
 
 p. 231, where that profound scholar 
 gives it as his deliberate opinion, that 
 rt is a great error to suppose that the 
 Heb. language, as we find it, has any 
 feeling for a so-called plur. majestaticus. 
 The idea of a consultation with other 
 beings, Gen. i. 26, iii. 22, xi. 7, and 
 in this verse, which Kimchi, Le Clerc, 
 and others, advance in explanation, is 
 rejected by Gesenius, Lehrgeb. p. 800; 
 and both theories are decidedly repu- 
 diated by Hitzig, who, unwilling, how- 
 ever, to admit the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, asserts, without any attempt 
 at proof, that it is a mode of speech 
 borrowed from common life. For an 
 able discussion of the whole subject of 
 plural attributions to the Deity, 1 refer 
 the reader to the Rev. Dr. J. Pye 
 Smith’s Script. Testimony to the Mes- 
 siah, vol. i. pp. 464—495. Third Edit. 
 9. viow wow, ὅσο. The construction 
 of a finite verb with its infinitive fol- 
 lowing, denotes continuity of action, 
 The LXX. resolve the imperatives into 
 futures, and their version is adopted 
 Matt. xiii. 14, 15; Acts xxviii. 27. 
 The use of 58, however, and not δ, 
 shows that the following verbs, ὍΣ} 
 and win, are not simply future, but 
 are subject to the influence of the im- 
 perative mood of those which precede ; 
 yet so that the commands involve no 
 external objective necessity. The lan- 
 guage is not strictly and properly jus- 
 sive, but proverbial in its character, 
 and savours strongly of sacred irony, 
 of which we have a decided instance, 
 Matt. xxiil. 32. See also chap. xxix. 9. 
 Similar proverbial forms, and some of 
 them almost identical, are adduced in 
 abundance by Wetstein ad Matt. xiii. 
 13. 181, here, and Gen. xxvi. 28, for 
 mx}, which is found in thirteen MSS. 
 10. The imperatives, jot, 7207, 
 yun, are declaratory in their import, 
 agreeably to the language of the 
 
 and turn, and be healed. 
 
 Hebrew prophets, in which a person 
 is often said to do or effect what he 
 merely announces would take place. 
 Comp. Gen. xxvii. 37 (comp 28) ; Jer. i. 
 10; Ezek. xliii. 3; Hos. vi 5. The pas- 
 sage, in effect, contains nothing more 
 than a prediction of the obduracy of 
 the Jews, and the consequences by 
 which it would be followed: only it is 
 expressed in a form which indicates 
 strong feeling on the part of the 
 speaker, and a persuasion that such 
 would infallibly be their condition. 
 This mode of speech is not uncommon 
 even in modern languages, when a per- 
 son in a state of excitement, wishing 
 to intimate his conviction of the cer- 
 tainty of any action of which he dis- 
 approves, gives a peremptory order 
 that it should be performed. There 
 can be no doubt that the words were 
 designed to apply to the Jews in the 
 days of the prophet ; yet the descrip- 
 tion being equally appropriate in its 
 application to their character as a 
 people, from that time forward, we 
 find the prophecy quoted or referred 
 to both by our Lord, and by Paul, as 
 receiving its accomplishment in their 
 days. Comp. Matt. xiii. 14, 15; Mark 
 iv. 12; Luke viii.10; John xi. 40; 
 Acts xxvill. 25—27.—207, to make fat ; 
 so to surround with fat, as to render 
 insensible to external influence: meta- 
 phor. ¢o make stupid, unfeeling, and stub- 
 born. See for the use of the verb in 
 Kal. Deut. xxxii. 15 ; Jer. v. 28.—1334, 
 likewise metaphor. applied, denotes 
 heaviness or dulness of perception, a want 
 of susceptibility and attention to 
 instruction —vw7, fo smear over with 
 viscous matter, close up; Root, rv, 
 Aram. vy, «70 smear, blind; LUXX. 
 ἐκάμμυσαν; Vulg. claude— indicates 
 the most obstinate determination to 
 shut out the light of truth from the 
 mind, Comp. Lucian, Nig. 19: μηδὲ 
 
 G 
 
δ4 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 11 Then I said, How long, O Jehovah? And he said, 
 Till the cities be made desolate, without an inhabitant, 
 And the houses without a man, 
 
 And the land become utterly desolate, 
 
 12 And Jehovah have removed men afar off, 
 
 And the forsaking be great in the midst of the land. 
 
 13 And though there should still be in it a tenth part, 
 Even it shall again be burnt up; 
 
 τὰ ὦτα κηρῷ φραξάμενον, add ἀκούοντα, 
 καὶ AeAvpevov.—Before 122 subaud. 3, 
 which is supplied in upwards of 
 twenty MSS. and two of the earliest 
 printed editions. Its being expressed, 
 however, inthe LXX., Syr., Chald. and 
 Vulg., is no proof of its having been 
 in the text from which they were 
 made, as the translators might, in 
 common with others, have found it 
 necessary to supply it in their ver- 
 sions. In like manner, δ is under- 
 stood after 30.—‘) ΝΘ is to be taken 
 impersonally : ad there should be heal- 
 ing to them. he healing referred to is 
 the entire moral recovery which sin- 
 ners experience on their conversion to 
 God; and, as pardon is essential to 
 such recovery, healing and forgiveness 
 of sins came to be regarded by the 
 Hebrews as synonymous. Hence, after 
 the Targum, 727%, the words are thus 
 paraphrased, Mark iv. 12, καὶ ἀφεθῇ 
 αὐτοὶς τὰ ἁμαρτήματα, though in the 
 parallel passages, ἐάσομαι of the LXX. 
 is retained. 
 
 11. Os WrRow, This accumulation 
 is designed to give intensity to the 
 statement, and thereby to intimate, in 
 such connexion, the great length of 
 time during which the obstinacy of 
 the Jews should be evinced. Comp. 
 Gen. xxviii. 15; Numb. xxxii. 17.— 
 προ ANN, lit. be laid waste, a desola- 
 tion, for “be utterly wasted.” 
 
 12. The Babylonish captivity is 
 evidently predicted in this verse.— 
 mad, that which is forsaken ; 1. 6. the 
 portion of the land, with whatever 
 pertained to it, which the inhabitants 
 were compelled to leave on their trans- 
 portation. That the LXX. and Vulg. 
 which have been followed by Lowth, 
 have quite mistaken the meaning of 
 the term, will be seen on comparing 
 
 chap. xvii. 2; Jer. iv. 29; Zeph. ii. 43 
 where it is employed precisely as it is 
 in this place. 
 
 13. HM) 7IW— 39, in such connexion, 
 is used adverbially, to indicate a repe- 
 tition of the action expressed by the 
 following verb. Thus the LXX. καὶ 
 πάλιν ἔσται εἰς προνομὴν : and Symm. 
 καὶ πάλιν ἔσται εἰς καταβοσκήσιν.--- ΠῚ 
 wid, lit. fo be for burning, shall be 
 burnt, or laid waste by burning. See, 
 for the phrase, Numb, xxiv. 22; Is. 
 xliv. 15.—n2>0, a felling or throwing 
 down, from 28, to cast, cast down, over- 
 throw. 232 and ΠΣ, from 323, Zo set, 
 place, plant, remain stationary in a place : 
 hence the signification of stock or 
 trunk attaching to the noun, from its 
 continuing in the ground. The fem. 
 pron. affix in ΠΩΣ, refers to ™Yty, 
 the tenth part; and 03 (for which 
 upwards of a hundred MSS. read, or 
 have read, 72,) belongs to iis) 7x. 
 The meaning of the whole verse seems 
 to be this: So severe shall be the 
 punishment inflicted upon the nation, 
 that should only a small part recover 
 itself, that part shall likewise in its 
 turn be punished. Nevertheless, it 
 shall not be entirely annihilated ; but 
 like the trunk of the most durable of 
 trees, which sends forth a fresh shoot, 
 it shall produce a holy race to adorn 
 the church of God. For the terebinth 
 and the oak, see on chap. i. 29. On 
 account of their obstinacy, the Jews 
 were first carried away to Babylon ; 
 after the short respite which followed 
 the restoration, during which they 
 might be said never to have regained 
 more than a tenth part of their former 
 strength and influence, they were 
 finally and completely overthrown by 
 the Romans; but, though nearly eight- 
 een centuries have elapsed since that 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 δῦ 
 
 Yet, like the terebinth and the oak, 
 Of which, when felled, there is a stock, 
 The stock thereof shall be a holy seed. 
 
 event, they still radically exist, and we 
 anticipate the period, when, as a peo- 
 ple, their motto shall be, “ Holiness 
 unto the Lord.” The best commen- 
 tary upon the latter half of this 
 verse is furnished by Paul, Rom. xi., in 
 which he treats of the fall and present 
 rejection of the Jews, and their future 
 
 restoration. The metaphor of the 
 root and its branches somewhat differs 
 from that here employed; but the 
 subject is the same, and is introduced 
 in a similar way, by a recognition of 
 the blindness and obstinacy of the 
 Jewish people, verses 7—10. 
 
 oe 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The grand section of the Prophet’s writings which commences with this 
 chapter, extends to the fourth verse of Chapter X. The leading subjects are 
 the invasion of Judah by the Syro-Israelitish army, and by that of Senna- 
 cherib ; but repeated occasion is taken, from the disastrous aspect of the 
 times, to announce the certainty of the Messiah’s advent, and the happiness 
 to be enjoyed under his reign. Several difficulties occur in this portion of 
 the book: but some of them have been unnecessarily magnified, in con- 
 sequence of the prejudices under the influence of which many have laboured 
 who have attempted its interpretation. The historical circumstances are 
 specially narrated, 2 Kings xvi. 5—18, and 2 Chron. xxviii. 
 
 The seventh chapter begins with a brief statement of the circumstances which 
 led to the delivery of the prophecies which it contains, 1, 2; it then gives 
 an account of the message with which Isaiah was sent to Ahaz, whose mind 
 and that of his courtiers had been struck with a panic by the threatened 
 invasion, 3—9; we have next, his second message to the unbelieving 
 monarch, requiring him to ask for a miracle from Jehovah, in attestation of 
 his prophetic commission, 10—12; the celebrated announcement of the 
 miraculous conception of the Messiah, with a view to support the faith of 
 the pious, whose fears respecting the total extinction of the house of David 
 had been excited, 13—16 ; and a prediction of the calamities to which the 
 Jewish people should be subjected by the very power to which Ahaz looked 
 for succour, 17—25. 
 
 1 AND it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, 
 
 1. An attempt was made on the part of that of Ahaz, B. c. 743.—"y. This 
 
 of the kings of Syria and Samaria to 
 invade Judah towards the close of the 
 reign of Jotham, 2 Kings xv. 37, but 
 it was only a prelude to the actual in- 
 vasion of the land by the joint forces 
 of these kings at the commencement 
 
 verb, like the corresponding verbs in 
 most languages, is used of an approach 
 towards a metropolis or chief city, 
 altogether irrespective of the elevation 
 of its position, or of its direction, in a 
 geographical point of view. None of 
 
ISATAH. - 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of 
 Syria, with Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came 
 up to Jerusalem to fight against it, but he was not able to take 
 
 ΠΡ 
 
 And it was told to the house of David, saying, Syria 
 
 leadeth forward with Ephraim ; and his heart and the heart of 
 his people shook, as the trees of the forest shake before the 
 3 wind. And Jehovah said to Isaiah: Go out now to meet 
 
 the instances adduced by Rosenmiiller, 
 Bib, Geog. vol. i. p. 8, in support of the 
 all refer to local elevation, or the 
 latter idea, can be sustained, since they 
 contrary. The military acceptation, 
 which, after Vitringa, the same author 
 assigns to the term in his Scholia on 
 this verse, is equally untenable. In 
 application to Jerusalem,as the central 
 point of the Theocracy, it is peculiarly 
 appropriate—Ow. Aramea—not Syria 
 in the largest extent of its signifi- 
 cation, comprehending the vast tract 
 of country between Phenicia, Pales- 
 tine, Arabia, the Tigris, and Mount 
 Taurus ; but one of the minor 
 divisions, called pret ON, Syria of 
 Damascus, 2 Sam. viii. 6, comp. Amos 
 i. 5, from Damascus being the capital. 
 Its limits varied according to the 
 power of the princes who reigned over 
 it. It was subdued by David, 1 Chron. 
 xviii. 6, but afterwards regained its 
 freedom, and proved a source of re- 
 peated annoyance to the neighbouring 
 kingdom of Israel. Though Rezin, its 
 king, failed in his attempt upon Jeru- 
 ‘salem, he succeeded in taking Elath, 
 the important sea-port on the eastern 
 arm of the Arabian gulf, which it does 
 not appear the Jews ever recovered. 
 mama), lit. to the war, the substantive 
 instead of the Infinitive 0797, as in 
 Deut. x. 12; Jud. xvi. 23. In refer- 
 ence to a city, 00% followed by °Y or 3 
 signifies to besiege; but here it ex- 
 presses the superadded,idea of, Jde- 
 sieging so as to take-—°%X, for which we 
 have 555 in the plural, 2 Kings xvi. 5, 
 may either be taken distributively, or 
 which is preferable, it may refer to 
 Rezin, the head of the hostile expe- 
 dition, and so agree with 72 in the 
 singular. In the last clause of the 
 verse, the event is inserted by pro- 
 lepsis, 
 
 2. ima, “the house of David,” sig- 
 
 nifies the royal family of which Ahaz 
 was the representative, which suf- 
 ficiently accounts for the ‘in 4329 and 
 sor.—oIw mm). Here Aramea is used for 
 the Arameans, or the Syrian army 
 which was advancing towards Jerusa- 
 lem. 72 is not the third person 
 feminine of ™, ¢o vest, but a different 
 verb, signifying, fo lead forth, or forward, 
 
 conduct troops, &c.; Arab. lL, tetendit, 
 
 contendit aliquem versus; Eth. 42% = 
 in longum se produxit ; in the fourth 
 
 Conjug. AVE: produzit, prolongavit, 
 
 extendit. The word is also used in a 
 military sense, Ps. lx. 11, D118 272 Ὁ, 
 “Who will /ead me to Edom?” It 
 thus agrees in gender with 03x, the 
 masculine antecedent; and the ne- 
 cessity of forcing upon ™) the idea of 
 encamping is superseded—an accep- 
 tation in which it never occurs. The 
 accentuation of the Masorites is of no 
 weight in such a case.—¥ has fre- 
 quently the signification of with, in 
 reference to what follows another ; as 
 Exod. xxxv. 22, Drd3xroy OWT WIN ; 
 Amos iii. 15, PRIS ὃν FAT m3; and 
 with this very verb, Job xxxviii. 32, 
 DMN ΠΝ y wv, or canst thou lead out 
 Aish with her sons ? lit. or Aish with her 
 sons, canst thou lead them out ? but the 
 Ὁ is pleonastic. Agreeably also to 
 this interpretation, D8 corresponds 
 to Ds ; both being used ina personal, 
 not in ἃ territorial sense. . See 
 Michaelis’s Supp. ad Lexx. Heb. p. 
 1625. The news of the combined 
 armies approaching might well alarm 
 the Jewish monarch. 
 
 3. As no reason is assigned why 
 Isaiah was to take his son with 
 him, some interpreters have sup- 
 posed, that it was in order that 
 he might point to him when giving 
 
CHAP. VII.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 57 
 
 Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the aque- 
 duct of the upper pool, at the highway of the fuller’s field ; 
 4 and say to him: Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither let 
 
 the assurance, verses 15 and 16; 
 but that this position cannot be 
 philologically sustained, will be shewn 
 in the proper place—The name 180 
 awe, SHEAR-JASHUB, a Remnant shall 
 return, is symbolical. It occurs again 
 chap x. 21, 1132 OY ἌΡ) INW Iw We, 
 A remnant shall return, a remnant γ' 
 Jacob to the Mighty God; not, indeed, 
 as a proper name, but as giving the 
 import of the name, and shewing 
 that the return spoken of was not a 
 mere return from external captivity, 
 but true conversion to God. Such 
 was the significancy of the name 
 which Isaiah had prophetically given 
 to his son; and as this could not but 
 be known to Ahaz and the court, his 
 accompanying his parent on this 
 special occasion was highly calculated 
 to excite attention, and inspire the 
 confidence, that how much soever the 
 Jews might be chastised by foreign 
 enemies, in punishment of their sins, 
 a portion of them should still turn to 
 God and enjoy his favour.—The exact 
 spot where the prophet was to meet 
 Ahaz has been and still is much dis- 
 puted, owing to the difficulty which 
 is found in determining to which of 
 the collections of water about Jeru- 
 
 salem the 7373, Arab. as > 15 piscina, here 
 
 specified, is to be referred. Rosen- 
 miller and Olshausen concur in the 
 opinion that Gihon and Si/oah, in con- 
 nexion with which almost all the 
 commentators place the locality, were 
 on the South-East side of the city ; 
 but they are placed on the South-West, 
 close to Mount Gihon, and at no great 
 distance from the gate at which 
 the road from Joppa terminates, by 
 Jerome, Reland, Wells, Vitringa, Bas- 
 chienne, Ritter, Hamelsfeld, Schroeder 
 (MS.), Hendewerk, Tholuck, Gesenius, 
 Hengstenberg, and Weiland in his 
 Bibel-Atlas. Lightfoot and Hitzig 
 stand almost alone in supposing that 
 the place spoken of lay on the North- 
 East of Jerusalem. A careful col- 
 lation of 2 Kings xviii. 17; 2 Chron. 
 Xxxii. 4, 30 ; Neh. ii. 13—15; iii. 13— 
 
 16 ; decidedly favours the second 
 opinion, and especially 2 Chron. xxxii. 
 30, where the meaning is not that 
 Hezekiah brought the waters of Gihon 
 westward, but that he prevented their 
 flowing directly south from the foun- 
 tain, by conducting them eastward, 
 across the narrow intervening valley, 
 to the west side of the city of David. 
 The whole locality seems accurately 
 laid down by Wells in his plan fronting 
 p. 238, vol. ii, Edit. Oxford, 1809. 
 Stloah, or Siloam, was the upper of two 
 pools or reservoirs, MP7 72327; it 
 received its water from the adjacent 
 fountain ἡ, Gihon, (so called from 
 the sudden or violent bursting forth 
 of the water,) and again sent it 
 forth by the vn, aqueduct, which 
 stretched across to Mount Zion. 
 Between this and the field used for 
 fulling or bleaching clothes, was the 
 mon, a raised road, running ina south- 
 erly direction, towards the /ower pool. 
 It appears to have been at the point 
 of convergence between these two 
 raised works, close to the gate below 
 the royal palace, that the meeting 
 took place. The monarch had in all 
 probability repaired thither for the 
 purpose of taking measures to prevent 
 the water falling into the power of the 
 invaders, whose first attack on the 
 city would likely be made in that 
 quarter. Such a step was actually 
 taken by Hezekiah on the invasion of 
 Sennacherib, 2 Chron. xxxii. 4, 30. 
 The present well of Siloam, on the 
 S. E. of Mount Moriah, may have 
 received its name from its water 
 having been conveyed thither by a 
 subterranean aqueduct from the pool 
 of the same name above described. 
 
 4, opwm yr, properly, take heed to 
 thyself so as to be quiet, or remain tran- 
 quil ; suffer not thyself to be hurried 
 away by unbelieving fear, to adopt any 
 measures of safety that would imply 
 want of confidence in God. ‘The 
 former of these verbs is often used in 
 the Imper. of Niphal for the purpose 
 of strengthening the idea conveyed by 
 that which follows it.—m32, ¢ai/s, pur- 
 
58 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP, VII. 
 
 thy heart be faint, on account of these two tails of smoking 
 fire-brands, the burning anger of Rezin, and Syria, and the son 
 5 of Remaliah. Because Syria hath purposed evil against thee, 
 Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, saying: 
 6 Let us go up against Judah, and entirely subvert it; 
 And let us break it completely up for ourselves, 
 And establish a king in it—the son of Tabeal: 
 
 7 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: 
 
 It shall not stand; neither shall it be. 
 8 For the head of Syria shall be Damascus ; 
 
 posely chosen, instead of nizp, ends, to 
 express centempt ; Rezin and Pekah 
 resembled two pieces of wood, which 
 the fire had consumed all but the 
 extreme points, #nd even these had 
 been so reduced by the burning 
 element, that they could no longer 
 feed it, but only feebly emitted smoke. 
 What then had Ahaz to fear? They 
 had kindled the war, (comp. the Arab. 
 
 Lo] "ἢ but the eye οἵ Omni- 
 
 science beheld them reduced to the 
 very last extremity by the Assyrian 
 power.—Ow), dud Syria, at which 
 some translators and critics have 
 stumbled, is very appropriately added 
 to the name of the king, for the sake 
 of emphasis ; just as both m2, Pekah, 
 and Dmx, Ephraim, are omitted in 
 what follows, to express the idea of 
 the weakness of the Israelites apart 
 from their foreign ally, and the con- 
 tempt in which their regicide king 
 deserved to be held. In like manner, 
 and for the same reason, the name of 
 the projected king of Jerusalem is 
 suppressed, ver. 6, and he is merely 
 called the son of Tabeal :—a mode of 
 speech not without example among 
 the Arabs. Comp. also 1 Sam. xx. 
 27, 30, 31; xxii. 9, 12; for other 
 examples of a similar Hebrew usage. 
 
 5. 3 155 connect with Vox 7) at the 
 beginning of ver. 7,and not with the 
 preceding verse. Here the name of 
 the Syrian king is omitted, and that 
 of Ephraim is inserted ; probably with 
 a view to give prominence to the con- 
 federate armies. The son of Rema- 
 liah is again mentioned, to expose 
 him to further contempt. 
 
 6. The Suff. in ΤΡῚΣ refers to TH, 
 
 the Subst. immediately preceding, and 
 not, as Gesenius and Rosenmiiller 
 would have it, to O23 understood. 
 The Nun epenthetic is inserted in this 
 and the following verb, to express the 
 completeness ofthe anticipated actions, 
 
 yr, Root pp, Arab. sk, diruit, dis- 
 
 solvit tentorium. This derivation, pro- 
 posed by Michaelis, and approved by 
 Schroeder, (j7?, pp. rwmpere, rumpendo 
 dissolvere—translata est ad notanda 
 regni et Reipub. destructionem, MS. 
 in loc.) is preferable to that adopted 
 by Gesenius: viz. fo put in fear, 
 which he violently explains of esieg- 
 ing! It has the support of the 
 
 Syriac masa, let us root it up, sub- 
 
 vert it; and agrees better with the 
 parallel 7:y723, which expresses the 
 idea of cleaving, breaking through, up, 
 &c. The objects at which the con- 
 federates aimed, were the entire de- 
 struction of the house of David, and 
 the placing of a foreigner upon the 
 throne.—82%, ‘apart from the pause, 
 2x20, Tabeal, is a Syriac name, and cor- 
 responds to the Heb. ™21%, Tobiah. 
 In all probability, the person whom it 
 designates belonged to Syria. The 
 contemptuous suppression of the son’s 
 name is, of course, to be ascribed to 
 the prophet, and not to the hostile 
 kings. 
 
 7. The declaration of Jehovah in 
 this verse is sublimely peremptory— 
 quite in the style of HR MM, 
 Gen. i. 3. Comp. Ps. xxxiii, 9—11 ; 
 Is. vii. 10; xiv. 24. 
 
 8, 9, contain an assurance, that the 
 two threatening powers should be con- 
 fined within their own limits. Their 
 
CHAP. Υ11.} 
 
 . ISATAH. 
 
 59 
 
 And the head of Damascus, Rezin ; 
 
 And within sixty-five years, 
 
 Ephraim shall be broken, so as to be no more a people. 
 9 'The head also of Ephraim shall be Samaria; 
 
 residences should be, before subdued 
 by Assyria, what they had been, the re- 
 spective capitals of Syria and Ephraim 
 only ; they should exert no influence 
 over Judah. In addition to which, the 
 prophet delivers a specific prediction 
 respecting the destruction of Ephraim, 
 and a warning against disbelief of the 
 Divine declaration. 33 at the begin- 
 ning of ver. 8, is equivalent to ON7?, 
 but, but on the contrary. Comp. Ps. i. 
 2, and freq.—nm Am won) ow Tiyn 
 Dyp oOneN, And within sixty-five years 
 Ephraim shall be broken, so as not to be 
 a people. This has generally been con- 
 sidered a locus veratissimus, both on 
 account of the position of the words, 
 and the chronological difficulty con- 
 nected with the specified number of 
 years. As the two verses consist of 
 three distichs, the first and last of 
 which form a perfect parallel, the two 
 middle lines have been regarded as 
 disturbing the order, and are by some 
 restored to what is thought to have 
 been their original position at the 
 conclusion ; while by others they are 
 entirely rejected as a gloss. Those 
 who consider their occupying the 
 place they now fill, to be the effect 
 of inadvertent transposition on the 
 part of some copyist, base their 
 judgment on a principle of taste ; 
 those who consider them to be spu- 
 rious, are influenced partly by this 
 principle, and partly by the pressure 
 of a supposed difficulty in their inter- 
 pretation. Others, who are disposed 
 to receive the distich either as it 
 now stands, or as it may be trans- 
 posed, are still dissatisfied with the 
 number of the years, and propose, 
 some one alteration, and some another. 
 To these various theories, however, 
 stands opposed the unanimous testi- 
 mony of all the MSS. versions, and 
 other sources of evidence which prove 
 the integrity of the text. As to the 
 alleged perfection of parallelism, nu- 
 merous instances occur, in which it is 
 broken in upon by the insertion of 
 
 some sentence or sentences, which 
 had so taken possession of the writer, 
 that he would sacrifice taste rather 
 than suppress them, or postpone their 
 introduction. The present case is 
 precisely one of these. Isaiah had 
 the utter extinction of the ten tribes, 
 as a people inhabiting the Holy Land, 
 so powerfully impressed upon his 
 mind, that before proceeding to an- 
 nounce, that, in the mean time, they 
 too should not make further encroach- 
 ments upon the Jewish territory, he 
 predicts their ultimate doom. The 
 words are, therefore, quite in their 
 place. 
 
 With respect to the computation of 
 the prophetic period here specified, 
 the only one which is at all satis- 
 factory is that of the more recent 
 Jewish chronologers, approved in the 
 main by Archbishop Usher, Sir Isaac 
 Newton, Vignolles, Jubb, Lowth, 
 Doderlein, Hengstenberg, Hoffman, 
 Drechsler, and others, according to 
 which, it extends from the second 
 year of Ahaz, when the prediction 
 was delivered, to the twenty-second 
 year of the reign of Manasseh, which 
 was exactly sixty-five years. In the 
 last-mentioned year Esarhaddon com- 
 pleted the depopulation of Ephraim, 
 by making room for the colonists 
 whom he transplanted thither from 
 various regions of the East ; or, at all 
 events, so intermingled the new in- 
 habitants with them, that they had 
 no longer any distinct existence in 
 the land. See Ezra iv. 2; and comp. 
 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 ; and 2 Kings xvii. 
 23, 24. They had ceased to exist poli- 
 tically when Shalmaneser took Sa- 
 maria, and carried away the flower of 
 the nation ; but they now, in the full- 
 est sense of the phrase, were cut off 
 Dyn, ὃ. 6. DY MM, from being a people νι 
 the country granted to their fathers. 
 Another people henceforward occupied 
 it: this took place B. ο. 722. The ob- 
 jections of Gesenius, Hitzig, and 
 others, are fully met by Hengstenberg 
 
00 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 And the head of Samaria, Remaliah’s son. 
 If ye believe not, surely ye shall not remain. 
 
 10 
 11 
 
 And Jehovah spake again to Ahaz, saying: 
 Ask for thyself a sign from Jehovah thy God, 
 
 Ask it below, or in the height above. 
 
 12 
 
 in his Christologie, so that further 
 notice of them is unnecessary. 
 
 The prophet, observing indications 
 of impatience and unbelief in the 
 conduct of Ahaz and his attendants, 
 adds the important warning, 8? ON 
 waNn No -pavorn, If ye will not believe, 
 surely ye shall not be continued, i. 6. in 
 the regal station. The Jewish state 
 shall be subverted, as was that of 
 Israel, if its members persevere in un- 
 belief. The use of the different con- 
 jugations of the same verb forms a 
 beautiful instance of antanaclasis com- 
 bined with paronomasia ; the latter of 
 which has been successfully imitated 
 by Theod. ἐὰν μὴ πιστεύσητε, οὐδ᾽ ov 
 μὴ πιστευθείητε; and in part by 
 Luther, Glaubet thr nicht, so bleibet 
 ihr nicht. The same variation in a 
 positive proposition occurs 2 Chron. 
 xx. 20. 
 
 10, 11. These and the following 
 verses to the end of the chapter, 
 contain a separate and distinct pro- 
 phecy, arising, indeed, out of the cir- 
 cumstances connected with the Syrian 
 invasion, but relating to a different 
 subject, viz. the punishment to be in- 
 flicted upon the Jewish state by the 
 Assyrians. The important prophecy 
 respecting the Messiah, ver. 14, &c. is 
 introduced as a sure basis upon which 
 the hopes of the pious might still 
 rest. It does not appear to have been 
 delivered at the same juncture of time 
 with the preceding prophecy. The 
 words, 122 7 FON, rather shew that 
 an interval had elapsed, and that 
 another or additional prophetic an- 
 nouncement is here made.—nix, LXX. 
 
 σημεῖον, Syr. 2] ᾿ Arab. δ] , from mx 
 
 in Hithp. to mark, mark out, determine, 
 Numb. xxxiv. 10: hence the noun 
 came to signify that which serves as 
 a token or proof of anything, (argumen- 
 tum, ratio rerum,) and especially a 
 
 But Ahaz said: I will not ask, 
 
 miracle, a3 the most convincing proof 
 of the truth and certainty of the 
 Divine declarations. It is also used, 
 as will be shewn ver. 14, to denote 
 some future miraculous event, the 
 prediction of which is designed to 
 produce a present effect on the minds 
 of those to whom it is delivered.— 
 Instead of xd, Aq., Symm., and 
 Theod. appear to have read πον ; ren- 
 dering βάθυνον eis ἅδην, “ Go deep into 
 Hades.” In this they have been fol- 
 lowed by Jerome, Michaelis, Lowth, 
 and some other moderns ; but the idea 
 of evoking the dead, or obtaining a mi- 
 racle from the abodes of the departed, 
 is so repugnant to the whole tenour of 
 Scripture, that we are compelled at 
 once to reject this interpretation. 
 In fact, nothing more seems to be 
 meant than what might take place 
 miraculously upon earth, as contrasted 
 with a miraculous sign in the heavens ; 
 just as our Lord contrasts τὰ ἐπίγεια 
 with ra ἐπουράνια, John iii. 12; or as 
 the Jews demanded a σημεῖον ἐκ τοῦ 
 ovpavod, in contradistinction from the 
 miracles which he was performing on 
 the earth, Matt. xvi.1. Thus Origen, 
 in Matt. understands the words, eis 
 βάθος, ἢ eis ὕψος ; and explains, καὶ ἀπὸ 
 γῆς καὶ ἀπὸ οὐρανοῦ. Thus also Calvin, 
 “vel sursum, vel deorsum: permittet 
 ei liberam electionem miraculi, ut vel 
 terrestre, vel celeste postulet.” 2» sig- 
 nifies not only ἕο be deep, in reference 
 to what is in the earth, water, &c., but 
 also to be low or inferior, in reference 
 to any thing higher in position. 
 Hence P22, a valley, or low ground, con- 
 trasted with mountains, hills, ἕο. As 
 to the form of the word, 780 is the 
 Imperative with a paragogic 7, and is 
 understood after 7227. 
 
 12, 13. Ahaz hypocritically pretends 
 that there is no necessity for any 
 Divine interference, and professes to 
 regard as sin what God had graciously 
 
.- 
 
 CHAP. VII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 61 
 
 13 Neither will I put Jehovah to the proof. Then Isaiah said: 
 
 Hear now, O house of David : 
 
 Ts it too small a matter for you to weary out men ? 
 Ye must also forsooth weary out my God! 
 14 Nevertheless, the Lord himself will give you a sign: 
 
 accorded to him; for which he is 
 sharply reproved by the prophet.— 
 Dan ὌΨΙ, lit. cs it little from, or in com- 
 parison of you? i.e. do ye account it 
 an act not sufficiently indicative of 
 your depravity ? Though this reproof 
 also affected the princes of the house 
 of David, in virtue of their relation 
 to the incredulous monarch, yet, as 
 God had made a covenant of royalty 
 with the head of that house, that it 
 should not be cut off, notwithstanding 
 the wickedness of individual kings, 
 but should continue till the appear- 
 ance of the Rod from the stem of 
 Jesse, he now, by his messenger, gives 
 them, and such of the Jews as were 
 expecting the fulfilment of the ancient 
 prophecies, an explicit assurance, that, 
 whatever judgments might be brought 
 upon the nation forits wickedness, (and 
 such he was just about to denounce,) 
 they should not interfere with the ac- 
 complishment of the promise, 1 Chron, 
 xvii. 11. This assurance is contained 
 in the following verse, in which the 
 certainty of the birth of the promised 
 Seed is set forth as the ground of 
 continued confidence in God. 
 
 14, This verse has long been a 
 subject of dispute both between Jews 
 and professedly Christian writers, and 
 among the latter mutually. While 
 the former reject its application to 
 the Messiah altogether,—the earlier 
 rabbins explaining it of the queen of 
 Ahaz, and the birth of his son Heze- 
 kiah ; and the later, as Kimchi and 
 
 7 Abarbanel, of the prophet’s own wife, 
 
 —the great body of Christian inter- 
 preters have held it to be directly 
 and exclusively a prophecy of our 
 Saviour, and have considered them- 
 selves fully borne out by the inspired 
 authority of the Evangelist Matthew, 
 chap. i. 22, 23. Others, however, 
 have dissented from this construction 
 of the passage, and have invented, or 
 adopted various hypotheses in support 
 of such dissent. Grotius, Faber, 
 
 Isenbiehl, Hezel, Bolten, Fritsche, 
 Pluschke, Gesenius,and Hitzig, suppose 
 either the then present, or a future 
 wife of Isaiah to be meant by the 
 mov referred to. Eichhorn, Paulus, 
 Hensler, and Ammon, are of opinion, 
 that the prophet had nothing more in 
 view than an ideal virgin, and that 
 both she and her son were merely 
 
 om aseauts 
 
 king and his courtiers. 
 class, among whom are Richard Simon, 
 Le Clerc, Lowth, Koppe, Dathe, Wil- 
 liams, Von Meyer, Olshausen, and Dr. 
 J. Pye Smith, adopt the hypothesis of 
 a double sense: one, in which the 
 words applyprimarily either to some 
 female living in the time of the pro- 
 phet, and her giving birth to a son 
 according to the ordinary laws of 
 nature; or, aS Dathe holds, to some 
 virgin who at that time should mira- 
 culously conceive; and the gther, in 
 which they received a secondary and 
 plenary fulfilment in the miraculous 
 conception and birth of Christ. 
 Kleinert assumes that the whole pas- 
 sage relates to a vision which was 
 vouchsafed to the prophet. To at- 
 tempt a refutation of each of these 
 theories would require more space 
 than can here be spared. And, indeed, 
 it is rendered in a great measure 
 superfluous, by the self-contradictory 
 and mutually subversive bearings by 
 which they are distinguished ; while 
 some of them are so manifestly 
 formed to serve the hypotheses, as to 
 be totally unworthy of notice. I shall, 
 therefore, confine myself to the simple 
 philology and exegesis of the passage. 
 
 722, like the Arab. ws possesses 
 
 here a strongly exceptive force, and 
 expresses the introduction of a pro- 
 position the reverse of what might 
 
 i 
 
62 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son ; 
 
 have been expected. It is best ren- 
 dered into English by xotwithstanding, 
 nevertheless, or the like. x7 28, THE 
 LORD HIMSELF, is emphatic. The sign 
 was to be given immediately or mira- 
 culously, and not through human in- 
 tervention. The verb 112 being put in 
 the strictly future tense, shews that 
 the sign, or miracle, was not one 
 given or wrought at the time, but 
 belonging to some future period. To 
 the application of the miracle to the 
 birth of Christ, it has been objected, 
 that a future event, and especially one 
 so very remote, could not possibly 
 have affected the minds of those to 
 whom the prophet addressed himself, 
 and cannot, indeed, be said, with any 
 propriety, to be a sign at all. To this 
 it is only necessary to reply, that no 
 intimation whatever is given either of 
 remoteness or proximity in point of 
 time. So far as the language is con- 
 cerned, the prophecy might have 
 received its fulfilment within a few 
 years, or even months, as well as at 
 the distant period of seven centuries. 
 Nothing can, therefore, be more unfair, 
 than to allege as a difficulty what has 
 no real existence. The uncertainty in 
 regard to time was calculated to exert 
 a salutary influence upon the minds 
 of believers, by keeping up in them 
 a constant expectation of the event, 
 just as the uncertainty of the time 
 of our Lord’s second advent has 
 always been found to operate favour- 
 ably upon the minds of his people. 
 As to that part of the objection 
 which denies the relevancy of the 
 term Mix, sigv, in application to some 
 future event, the simple preannounce- 
 ment of which was designed to induce 
 to present action, it is satisfactorily 
 met by the fact that the word is 
 clearly thus applied Exod. iii. 12, and 
 Jer. xliv. 29, 30. In both these 
 instances it is employed precisely as 
 in the present text, in reference to 
 what was afterwards to take place. 
 Comp. also 1 Sam. ii. 34. The accom- 
 pe it is granted, was earlier ; 
 
 ut this does not in the least affect 
 the question, and ought not to be 
 urged as an objection. Till the events 
 took place, they were as entirely 
 
 foreign to the experience of those to 
 whom they were predicted, as the 
 birth of our Saviour was to O. T. 
 believers.—27 is frequently used by 
 the prophets to excite attention to 
 the subject which they are about to 
 announce. When followed by a Ben. 
 participle, as it is in the present 
 instance by ΠῚ, it indicates the futu- 
 rity of the action specified—The 
 article in YT is so far definite, that gy 
 it marks out a particular person whom 
 the prophet had in his mental view ; 
 but it cannot, without violence, be 
 invested with any thing like a demon- 
 strative power, so as to intimate, that, 
 in using it, he pointed to a young 
 female then present, as some have 
 contended. That it should stand for 
 the pronominal affix ?, as 22%, which 
 Gesenius thinks probable, is perfectly 
 inadmissible: such a form, according 
 to Hebrew usage, and, indeed, accord- 
 ing to the wsus loguendi in all lan- 
 guages, would signify my daughter, or 
 my female servant, not my wife, or my 
 intended wife, which that author takes 
 to be the meaning. Comp. ἡ παρθένος 
 αὐτοῦ, 1 Cor. vii. 36. Precisely the 
 same degree of definiteness attaches 
 to mv, She who is to bear, employed 
 by Micah, (chap. v. 2,) who was con- 
 temporary with Isaiah; on which 
 Hitzig remarks, “Though Micah gives 
 expression to obscure and mysterious 
 matters, yet by ‘She that is to bear’ 
 he can only mean the mother of 
 Messiah, to whom the suffix in YTS 
 refers.” Comment. iz Joc. 
 
 Respecting the etymology and sig- 
 nification of πρῦν, considerable differ- 
 ence of opinion obtains. Gesenius 
 and others have recourse to the Arab. 
 
 $, coéundi cupidus, libidinosus, eoque 
 velut furibundus fuit; whence are derived 
 wie, ee , adolescens, and kel, pics 
 adolescentula; and they endeavour to 
 derive support to their opinion from 
 
 the mas. 099 being used to signify ὦ 
 young man, 1 Sam. xvii. 56, xx. 22 ; and 
 
 2 =x Vv 
 from the cognates x32, JASquSS, 
 
 which, in the Aramaic dialects, signify 
 a young woman. It looks suspicious, 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 63 
 
 And shall call his name IMMANUEL. 
 
 however, to have recourse to other 
 dialects in order to determine the 
 primary signification of a word, while 
 no reference whatever is made to an 
 indigenous root in common use. 
 Now it is beyond dispute, that τὸν 
 occurs frequently in the acceptation 
 to hide, be concealed, unrevealed, un- 
 known; and it was natural, from this 
 common acceptation of the verb, to 
 apply the nouns D7, and ποῦν, to 
 persons of youthful age, who were as 
 yet unknown to the world, and espe- 
 cially who were destitute of the know- 
 ledge which springs from sexual inter- 
 course. Thus Aq. renders 72%, Gen. 
 xxiv. 43, by ἀπόκρυφος, the LXX., as 
 in our present text, by παρθένος. In 
 the former of the two passages above 
 quoted from 1 Sam. it is undeniable 
 that extreme youth is the idea attaching 
 to the mas. noun; and on comparing 
 Gen. xxiv. 43; Exod. ii. 8; Ps. Ixviii. 
 26; Prov. xxx. 19; Song i. 3, vi. 8; 
 the only other instances in which the 
 fem. noun occurs, that of a young 
 unmarried female, and, by implication, 
 virgo intacta, is the most natural and 
 unforced. So evidently, indeed, does 
 this signification attach to ninwy, Song 
 vi. 8, where those to whom the term 
 is applied are distinguished both from 
 the 002, concubines, with whom the 
 king is supposed to have cohabited, 
 and the mi229, his royal cousorts, that it 
 is surprising how any other meaning 
 could ever have been palmed upon it. 
 In his animadversions prefixed to the 
 second vol. of Rosenmuller’s Scholia 
 in Comp. redacta, the learned Rabbi 
 5. Ὁ. Luzzatto, is obliged to acknow- 
 ledge respecting the two former words: 
 “Je ne sais pas quels caractéres distin- 
 guaient une ΠΡ» d’une 8298: cependant 
 ce texte de la Cantique suppose swus 
 doute que ce fussent deux conditions 
 différentes.” In like manner, 179%, 
 Prov. xxx. 19, manifestly signifies one 
 who is a virgin, either actually or by 
 reputation, up to the time of her 
 ceasing to be so by the successful 
 attempt made to corrupt her ; and so 
 far is the term from being synony- 
 mous with npx72 Tx, in the following 
 verse, as the Jews would have it, that 
 the latter is merely added for the sake 
 
 of furnishing a parallel instance of 
 concealment on the part of a married 
 female, corresponding to that em- 
 ployed in the former instance by the 
 man, to prevent his exposure to the 
 punishment annexed in the law of 
 Moses to the seduction of a virgin. 
 Exod. xxii. 16; Deut. xxii. 23, 24. 
 
 With respect to the text before us, 
 it must be considered strongly corro- 
 borative of the view commonly taken 
 of the signification of the word, that 
 it was rendered παρθένος by the Greek 
 translator at a time when no polemical 
 grounds existed to bias his mind ; and 
 that it was not till after the time of 
 our Lord, when Jews and Christians 
 had engaged in controversy respecting 
 the meaning of the O. T. prophecies, 
 that this term was changed by Aquila 
 and Symmachus, into νεᾶνις, a damsel. 
 Add to whichthe testimony of Jerome, 
 that in the Punic, which was a dialect 
 of equal antiquity with the Hebrew, 
 alma signified a virgin: a testimony 
 which is entitled to all credit, not 
 being in the slightest degree affected 
 by the attempt of Gesenius to invali- 
 date its authority. To the objection, 
 that, if the prophet had intended to 
 convey the idea of proper virginity, 
 he would have employed the word 
 mana, it is only necessary to reply, 
 that although this term appears in 
 some instances to have been employed 
 as a more definite synonyme, yet 
 there are others in which its use is 
 perfectly identical with that of 7», 
 such, as Deut. xxxii. 25, ΠΡ ΓΞΓῺΞ WIT ; 
 2 Chron, xxxvi. 17, ΠΡ Way. Comp. 
 also Ps. cxlviii. 12 ; Jer. li. 22 ; in all 
 which passages 77na is obviously dis- 
 tinctive of age, and not expressly of 
 virginity, though it may be implied. 
 It is even used of a married female, 
 Joel i. 8, which is more than can be 
 affirmed of 72%y. In this instance the 
 LXX. has νύμφη. 
 
 The express design of the allegation 
 of the prophecy by the inspired Evan- 
 gelist, requires ποῦν to be taken in the 
 sense of virgin ; for on the assumption 
 that he merely accommodated the 
 passage, he could not have drawn a 
 lamer or more absurd conclusion, than 
 to have affirmed, that as Isaiah had 
 
64 
 
 15 Butter and honey shall he eat, 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 When he shall know to reject what is evil, 
 
 declared that a young married female 
 should bear a son after the usual 
 period of gestation, so the Saviour of 
 the world had been miraculously born 
 of a virgin! But that there is no 
 accommodation, but a strict and 
 proper application of the prophecy as 
 receiving its real fulfilment in our 
 Lord’s miraculous conception and 
 birth, the peculiar force of the lan- 
 guage sufficiently shows: TOYTO AE 
 ὍΛΟΝ γέγονεν, k.T.X. 
 
 Finally, the very circumstances of 
 the context in Isaiah render it im- 
 possible to put any other consistent 
 construction upon the term, since it 
 would be a flagrant violation of her- 
 meneutical propriety to maintain that 
 Mx, ὦ sign, 15. used ver. 14 in a sense 
 different from that of miracle, to 
 designate which it is employed ver. 
 11. 
 
 m7 is the fem. of the verb. adj. 7, 
 preguant, though as occurring in con- 
 nexion with n7} 727, it has the force 
 of a participle, and a future signi- 
 fication. It occurs in a similar con- 
 nexion, Gen. xvi. 11; Judges xii. 5; 
 only ΠῚ is there pointed m7, as if 
 contracted for AX n>, Comp. on Awa, 
 Ezek. viii. 16.—nxy. Three of De 
 Rossi’s MSS., and another originally, 
 two or three of the earliest editions, 
 the LXX., Aquila, Symmachus, and 
 Theod., read ΠΝ in the second 
 person; but the n is merely a sub- 
 stitute for 1, as in Deut. xxxi. 29; 
 Jer. xliv. 23. Comp. also Lev. xxv. 
 21; Ps. cxviii. 23. As it was cus- 
 tomary, sometimes for the father, and 
 sometimes for the mother, to give the 
 name to the child, it is not unworthy 
 of notice, that in the present case it 
 is ascribed to the virgin ; and that the 
 angel Gabriel charged Mary to name 
 the child whom she was to bear. 
 Καλέσουσι, Matt. i. 23, stands for the 
 passive κληθήσεται, aS in numerous 
 other instances.—In forty-three MSS., 
 and thirty-nine printed editions, 22 
 is given in the separate form of 
 3222 ; but in the orthography of all 
 compound names, the MSS. and 
 editions widely differ. This name, 
 
 which signifies GOD WITH US, is a 
 descriptive, or characteristic title, not 
 a proper name. According toa Hebrew 
 idiom, referred to chap. i. 26, it in- 
 dicates, that the child to be born 
 should be in reality what the name 
 imports—OcavOparos, or, as Theodoret 
 explains, τὸν ἐνανθρωπήσαντα θεὸν, τὸν 
 τὴν ἀνθρωπείαν φύσιν ἀνειληφότα θεὸν ; 
 not, certainly, to the exclusion of the 
 idea of Divine protection and de- 
 liverance, but connecting these im- 
 mediately with the Person to whom 
 the name was given. Rosenmiiller ap- 
 positely remarks : “ Eum vero divine 
 futurum esse nature θεάνθρωπον mani- 
 festum est inde, quod in eodem hoc 
 vaticinio infra 9. 5, puer ille nasciturus 
 diserte dicitur appellandus inter alia 
 esse 133 ὅδ, Deus fortis.” Comment. 
 in loc. 
 
 15, 16. By some, the former of 
 these verses is referred to Immanuel, 
 and the latter to Shear-jashub ; but 
 the latter reference is founded ona 
 supposed demonstrative force of the 
 article in 29, which it does not possess. 
 Definitely to mark a child pointed to, 
 which, it has been said, the prophet 
 here did, the phrase must have been 
 ma qw23, “ This child,” as all who are 
 familiar with the language must per- 
 ceive. Wi, ver. 16, can, therefore, 
 refer to no other than Immanuel, 
 ver. 14, just as 2, chap. vill. 4, is 
 Maher-shalal-Hash-baz, spoken of ver. 
 3. Equally untenable is the con- 
 struction which regards Shear-jashub 
 as referred to by anticipation, ver. 15, 
 and then more definitely pointed out 
 ver. 16; and no interpretation com- 
 mends itself as consistent, but that 
 which applies both verses to Im- 
 manuel, the immediate antecedent. 
 This interpretation would doubtless 
 have long since been universally 
 adopted, had the connexion of these 
 verses with that immediately follow- 
 ing been perceived, or had a proper 
 translation been given of the latter 
 part of ver. 16.—The prophet, having 
 announced the miraculous fact of the 
 incarnation of the Messiah, next ad- 
 yerts to the sustenance by which he 
 
CHAP. VII.] 
 
 And to choose what is good. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 65 
 
 16 But before the youth shall have knowledge 
 To reject what is evil and to choose what is good, 
 The land, which thou destroyest, shall be forsaken by both its 
 
 kings. 
 
 should be nourished during the period 
 of his .youth ; in order, partly to in- 
 timate that, though his human nature 
 should be miraculously produced, and 
 sustain a most intimate union to the 
 Divine, yet it should not be physically 
 supported in a way different from that 
 of other children ; but chiefly to draw 
 attention to the period when he should 
 reach the years of discretion, as that 
 of the final cessation of the temporal 
 power of the Jews. “Noris, properly, 
 not butter, but thick or curdled milk ; 
 
 Arab. (4, n. a. pe» Turum, spissum 
 fuit lac. It is called in the modern 
 
 Arabic uy leben, in Turkish 24), 
 
 yugurt, and is still a favourite article 
 of food in Syria, Arabia, and the 
 neighbouring countries. Mixed with 
 honey, it is exceedingly agreeable to 
 the taste. The 2 in inyT?, is used in 
 its temporal acceptation, “at, or about 
 the time of his knowing,” or the like, 
 as Gen. xxiv. 63. 1 ΓΒ), 2 Sam. 
 XViii, 29, ΠΑΡ ΤΙΝῚ ANY PIT Tay NN Mw? 
 The Messiah’s “ knowing to reject evil 
 and to choose good” denotes more 
 than a single development of the 
 mental and moral faculties: it im- 
 plies that he would decidedly abhor 
 the one and approve the other; which 
 cannot be predicted of children gene- 
 rally, nor, indeed, of any one naturally 
 but him ; and the words seem further 
 to intimate, that he would give proofs 
 of such moral discrimination by sanc- 
 tioning what was right, and condemn- 
 ing what was wrong. 
 
 Αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ θυμῷ νοέω καὶ οἶδα ἕκαστα, 
 Ἔσθλά τε, καὶ τὰ χέρα᾽ (πάρος δ᾽ ἔτι 
 
 νήπιος ἤα.)---Οἰἶγδ5. xviii. 227. 
 
 TI 9—7INT yA. These words have 
 usually been referred to Syria and 
 Ephraim, and are supposed to be in- 
 tended for comfort to Ahaz; but the 
 close connexion in which they stand 
 with the following verse, presents a 
 
 formidable objection to such exegesis ; 
 not to insist on the incongruity of as- 
 signing two kings to either of those 
 countries. By 72787 is meant the land, 
 by way of eminence—the land of Ca- 
 naan, called iT ΓΟ, Jehovah's land, 
 xiv. 2, and Immanuel’s land, Vili. 8. 
 Though divided into two kingdoms 
 after the revolt of the ten tribes, it 
 still formed the possession which God 
 claimed as his peculiar inheritance. 
 This interpretation is confirmed by 
 the distinct reference made to the re- 
 volt, ver. 17. The two kings, there- 
 fore, were not those of Israel and 
 Syria ; but those of Israel and Judah. 
 The punishment of the former had 
 been predicted, ver. 8; that of the 
 latter is explicitly denounced in this 
 and the following verses.— 229 is to be 
 construed with 12m, not with yz. The 
 latter verb is followed, indeed, by this 
 adverbial form, Exod. 1. 12 ; Numb. 
 xxii. 3; but it is also used after the 
 verb xv, Isaiah xvii. 9, and appears, 
 in such connexion, to have no more 
 force than 72, as in Lev. xxvi. 43, 
 Dap IA YwM.—y7p has here the sense 
 of cutting, breaking up, disturbing, &c. 
 just as Hiph. is used, ver. 6. The 
 prophet pointedly accuses Ahaz of 
 breaking up or destroying the peace 
 of the whole land—his sins being the 
 cause of the Syrian invasion, which 
 not only disturbed the tranquillity of 
 Judah, but also that of Israel, through 
 which the foreign army passed on its 
 way. 0222 kings, stands here, as in 
 Dan. vii. 17; Rev. xvii. 10, for hing- 
 doms or dominions, in which a sove- 
 reign and independent authority was 
 exercised. As it respected Judah, 
 the prophecy received its accomplish- 
 ment when Archelaus was banished, 
 and Judea reduced to a Roman pro- 
 vince. This took place in the twelfth 
 year of our Lord—the very year in 
 which he evinced his wonderful dis- 
 crimination by disputing with the 
 doctors in the temple, Luke ii. 42, 46. 
 
66 
 
 17 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 For Jehovah shall bring upon thee, 
 
 And upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, 
 
 Days, such as have not come, 
 
 From the day that Ephraim revolted from Judah : 
 
 —The king of Assyria. 
 18 
 
 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 Jehovah shall whistle for the fly 
 Which is at the end of the streams of Egypt; 
 And for the bee which is in the land of Assyria; 
 
 19 
 
 And they shall all of them come, and rest 
 
 In the desolate valleys and the fissures of the rocks, 
 
 17. The words, 1x ¥? ms, the hing 
 
 of Assyria, Houbigant, Secker, Lowth, 
 Gesenius, Hitzig, and Hendewerk, con- 
 sider to have been originally a mar- 
 ginal gloss, and they accordingly either 
 cancel them, or put them in Italics, 
 They appear, however, to have been 
 rendered necessary as an epexegesis 
 to the somewhat indefinite announce- 
 ment which had just been made ; and, 
 as the Assyrian power was to be a 
 more destructive instrument in the 
 hand of God against the Jews than 
 the Egyptians, and was doubtless pro- 
 minently in the mind of the prophet, 
 I should rather conclude, with Scholz, 
 that the words are genuine. At all 
 events, they are found in all the MSS. 
 and versions, and ought not to be ex- 
 punged from the text. Under Wx, 
 Assyria, is also comprehended Babylon, 
 as 2 Kings xxiii. 29 ; Lam. v. 6; comp. 
 Ezra vi. 22; in which last cited pas- 
 sage even Darius, the king of Persia, 
 is called the king of Assyria; so that 
 the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar is 
 predicted, as well as the incursions of 
 the Assyrian kings, strictly so called. 
 The punishment began to be inflicted 
 by Tiglath-pileser, 2 Chron. xxviii. 16 
 —21, and was renewed by Sennacherib, 
 and succeeding monarchs. 
 
 18. For the meaning of 7%, see chap. 
 v.26. By »i) are meant not only flies, 
 but musquitoes, gnats, &c. which are 
 found in immense swarms in the 
 marshes adjacent to the mouths of the 
 Nile. Some idea may be formed of 
 their formidable character, from the 
 description given by Spencer of the 
 poisonous flies which annoyed him on 
 
 his voyage down the Danube. They 
 make their appearance, he says, during 
 the first great heat of summer, in 
 such numbers, as to seem like large 
 volumes of smoke ; their attacks are 
 directed against every species of quad- 
 ruped; they cover simultaneously 
 every vulnerable part of the animal, 
 and torture him so that he dies in a 
 few hours. A more apt metaphor 
 could not have been employed, by 
 which to set forth the numerous army 
 of the Egyptians under Pharaoh 
 Necho, who slew Josiah, and exacted 
 a tribute from the land of Judah of 
 an hundred talents of silver and a 
 talent of gold, 2 Kings xxiii. 29—35. 
 —nonyn “Rk, the streams of Egypt, i.e. 
 the arms of the Delta, with the sub- 
 ordinate branches into which the Nile 
 is divided below Cairo, chap. xi. 15.— 
 m1, used collectively like the pre- 
 ceding noun, for dees, and likewise 
 metaphorically employed to denote 
 numerous and dangerous enemies. 
 Comp. Deut. i. 44; Ps. exviii. 12. 
 
 The latter noun is the plural of πῇ, 
 chap. v. 6; from nn3, Arab. 2H, 40 
 
 cut, cut off, lay entirely waste.—7??72 sig- 
 nifies a rent or fissure in a rock ; ΥἾΞΨΣ, 
 the thorn bush, which Gesenius conjec- 
 tures to be the lotus spinosa; Chald. 
 y22 fo prick, make punctures; and 7, 
 pasture ground, from 773, to guide, con- 
 duct, lead out cattle, as 1272, from 131. 
 The two latter nouns are intensive in 
 form, the third radical being doubled. 
 The design of the particular specifi- 
 
CHAP. VII. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 67 
 
 And on all the thorn-bushes, and on all the pastures. 
 20 In that day shall the Lord shave with the hired razor, 
 From beyond the river—the king of Assyria— 
 The head, and the hair of the feet ; 
 And it shall also scrape off the beard. 
 21 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 That a man shall keep a young heifer and two sheep ; 
 
 22 And it shall be, 
 
 cation of places in this verse, was to 
 intimate that the number of the in- 
 vading foes would be so great, and 
 that they would so completely over- 
 run the country, that not even the 
 most remote uninhabited parts would 
 be free from them. . 
 
 20. A further description of the As- 
 syrian army which Jehovah would 
 employ against the Jews.—77207 “wn. 
 This noun is feminine with a mascu- 
 line termination, as the 7 in 772%, and 
 the femin. preformant in 720A shew; 
 so that there is no necessity, with 
 some, to transfer the article from the 
 adjective, and read myn. Such a form 
 nowhere occurs. The article is here 
 used instead of the relative pronoun, 
 on account of the following 772 3, 
 with which the adjective is closely 
 connected. The LXX., as their ren- 
 dering is exhibited in the Alex. Codex, 
 ἐν τῷ ξυρῷ τῷ μεμεθυσμένῳ, and after 
 them the Syriac, must have read, 
 ΠΥ  , most probably deeming such 
 pareeo Oey parallel to that of Moses, 
 
 eut. xxxll. 42, O72 ἘΠ YaUx. In the 
 idea of the king of Assyria being 
 hired, there is obviously a reference to 
 the sum paid by Ahaz to that king 
 for his assistance, 2 Kings xvi. 7, 8 ; 
 though the hire here spoken of con- 
 sisted in the booty derived from sub- 
 sequent spoliations of Judea by the 
 Assyrian power. Comp. Ezek. xxix. 
 20.—73, in the prophetic style, signi- 
 fies κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν, the Huphrates,and does 
 not require the article, which Lowth, 
 on the authority of only two MSS. 
 would supply. See Jer. ii. 18. That 
 the plural 3¥ cannot be understood 
 of the people inhabiting the regions 
 beyond the Euphrates, but must sig- 
 nify the regions themselves, is manifest 
 from the epexegesis, Wx 7723.—D277, 
 
 the feet, an euphemistic mode of ex- 
 pression. Comp. Gen. xlix. 10; Deut. 
 xxvul. 57; Isaiah xxxvi. 12, in the 
 Keri.—729 properly signifies ¢o scrape, 
 scrape off, and is selected for the pur- 
 pose of increasing the idea of igno- 
 miny, conveyed by the removal of 
 the hair from the different parts of 
 the body. The proper term to ex- 
 press shaving is that used in the 
 beginning of the verse. The import 
 of this highly figurative language is, 
 that, by means of the Assyrians, 
 Jehovah would despoil the country 
 of whatever was held in honour and 
 esteem. 
 
 21. The prophet now describes the 
 state of the country after its having 
 been depopulated. Owing to the want 
 of men and cattle, the land would re- 
 main uncultivated. Instead of nume- 
 rous flocks and herds, a single cow 
 and a couple of sheep would be all 
 that any one would have left to him, 
 Valuable vineyards would be so over- 
 run with thickets, that it would be 
 dangerous to enter them unarmed, on 
 account of the wild beasts that made 
 them their haunts; and the only 
 places to which it would be found 
 possible to turn out cattle, would be 
 the sides of the hills, which would 
 furnish abundance of pasturage for 
 the few that might remain. The 
 result would be, that the chief sus- 
 tenance would be milk and wild honey. 
 wa nay, lit. a calf of the herd, but used 
 as a diminutive for a heifer, instead of 
 ™M2.—JN2 may either mean sheep or 
 goats, being used as a generic term for 
 small cattle. i 
 
 22. After ™N subaud. x77 013, 
 in niwy, lit. the making of milk: to pro- 
 duce milk, like “2 τῶν, to produce fruit. 
 For N97, see on ver. 15. Though at 
 
68 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 That, from the abundant production of milk, they shall eat 
 
 butter ; 
 
 Yea, butter and honey shall every one eat, 
 
 That is left in the land. 
 23 
 
 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 That, in every place, where there were a thousand vines, 
 
 At a thousand pieces of silver, 
 
 There shall be thorns and briers. 
 
 24 
 
 With the arrows and the bow shall men enter it; 
 
 For the whole land shall be thorns and briers. 
 
 25 
 hoe, 
 
 But to none of the mountains, which may be cleared with the 
 
 Shalt thou go, afraid of thorns and briers ; 
 It shall be a place to which to send the cattle; 
 And where the sheep may range. 
 
 first view, what is here specified might 
 appear to be a promise of good, it is 
 in effect a denunciation of evil: the 
 abundance being limited to the two 
 articles mentioned, instead of being 
 extended to the great variety result- 
 ing from a state of agricultural pros- 
 perity. The 3 has no reference what- 
 ever to ver. 15, as Hendewerk would 
 construe it. It merely asserts that 
 the articles of food would be such as 
 an uncultivated state of the country 
 would afford. There having been a 
 diminution of the inhabitants, the 
 land would lie waste, and be occupied 
 only by nomades. The bees also, un- 
 molested, would have an opportunity 
 of gathering abundance of honey. 
 
 23. FDI ANZ 183 AWN is descriptive of 
 large and productive vineyards. The 
 vines are supposed to have been of so 
 excellent a kind, that they were esti- 
 mated at a silver shekel a piece. D2 
 stands for 72970, the fuller form. 
 Burkhardt mentions, that on Mount 
 Lebanon, in 1811, the vines were sold 
 at the price of a piastre each, 7. ὁ. 
 about one shilling and seven pence 
 sterling. The silver shekel was equal 
 to two shillings three pence farthing 
 and a half. That the estimate of 
 the prophet refers to the sale, and not 
 
 to the annual rent of the vines, seems 
 beyond dispute; for though it is 
 stated, Song viii. 11, that each of the 
 keepers of Solomon’s vineyard at Ba- 
 alhamon was to pay ADD FRX, a thou- 
 sand shekels, yet it is expressly said to 
 be the produce of the fruit, and no 
 mention is made of the number of 
 the vines. 
 
 24, 25. The occurrence of ΠΕ, fear, 
 in connexion with the briers and 
 thorns in the latter of these verses, 
 shews that the employment of the 
 bow and arrows was not for the pur- 
 pose of hunting the wild beasts, but 
 for self-protection. i872 signifies 
 all the low and level parts of the 
 country that had been cultivated ; 
 with which are contrasted 0777 %, 
 the hilly or mountainous regions men- 
 tioned in the following verse. A new 
 beginning might be made to cultivate 
 the ground, yet not with oxen, as in 
 prosperous times, but only with hand 
 implements. 
 
 NNY—NiINN? has occasioned con- 
 siderable difficulty, but entirely owing 
 to the verb having been taken in the 
 third person feminine. If read as the 
 second masculine all is plain, Supply 
 y2 before πεν, 
 
CHAP. VIII.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 69 
 
 CHAPTER ὙΠ]. 
 
 Isaiah reverts in this chapter to the subject of the overthrow of the confede- 
 
 rate powers of Israel and Syria by the king of Assyria. 
 
 He relates the 
 
 measures which he was directed to employ for notifying the certainty and 
 proximity of the event, 1—4 ; denounces the Divine judgments against the 
 ten tribes for their rebellious conduct, 5—8; gives assurances that the 
 machinations and attempts which were directed against Judah, should prove 
 abortive, 9, 10; exhorts to persevering confidence in God, and his revela- 
 
 tions, 11—20 ; and describes the calamitous condition of the inhabitants of 
 Ephraim, in consequence of the Assyrian invasion, 21, 22. 
 
 1 Anp Jehovah commanded me: Take thee a large tablet, and 
 write upon it with a man’s writing instrument, For MAunEr- 
 
 1. The prophet first receives a com- 
 mand to exhibit, in large characters, 
 words prognostic of the sudden attack 
 of the Assyrian army; and then 
 another, to give them as a symbolical 
 name to a son that was to be born to 
 him, 73, not ὦ roll, as if derived 
 from 2, ¢o roll, roll up; but a tablet, 
 or smooth plate, from 133, to make bare ; 
 
 mW 
 
 Arab. uss to polish. The Hebrews 
 
 not only used m2, rolls of linen, skin, 
 &c., but likewise ¢adlets of polished 
 brass, stone, or wood, for the purposes 
 of writing, which last were either 
 simple, or covered with wax. Among 
 the ancients, the materials on which 
 it was customary to write, differed 
 according to the different purposes of 
 the writing. Stone, brass, lead, wood, 
 and the like, were employed when the 
 design was to promulgate public de- 
 crees, or record memorable events for 
 posterity. For common or private 
 purposes, the more usual materials 
 were leaves, the inner bark of trees, 
 wooden tablets covered with wax, 
 ivory, linen cloth and papyrus, or 
 Egyptian paper. The laws of Solon 
 were inscribed on tablets of wood, 
 called ἄξονες. To such tablets the 
 Greeks also gave the name of κύρβεις. 
 See Eschenburg’s Man. of Class. Lit. 
 These tablets were likewise called in 
 
 Hebrew nim, and were employed by 
 the prophets for the purpose of pub- 
 licly exhibiting such portions of their 
 communications as had some imme- 
 diate object in view. Chap. xxx. 8; 
 Hab. ii. 2. Isaiah was commanded, 
 on the present occasion, to take a /arge 
 tablet, in order that there might be 
 ample space for the words being writ- 
 ten in large characters, that, when 
 exposed in public, they might be 
 easily legible by all. For the same 
 reason, Habakkuk was ordered to make 
 the words of his vision plain by dig- 
 ging them deep into the material 
 which he employed, chap. 11, 2.— 
 Wx OM, lit. the pen of man, but used 
 idiomatically for a common pen, just as 
 ἀριθμὸς ἀνθρώπου, Rey. xii. 18, means 
 an ordinary wamber ; and μέτρον ἀν- 
 θρώπου, Rev. xxi. 17,a measure common 
 among men. Thus, also, in the N, Τὶ 
 a thing is said to be κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον 
 when it is in accordance with the | 
 usual views, dispositions, or practices 
 
 of men. lLowth’s version, “a work- 
 mans graving tool,’ is not borne out 
 by Hebrew usage. The 01) was pro- 
 perly the style, στύλος, γραφεῖον, yAv- 
 φεῖον, employed for writing on harder 
 materials, It was made of iron or 
 ivory, pointed at the one end, and 
 broad at the other for the purpose of 
 erasing letters, especially when they 
 
 I 
 
70 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 2 sHALAL-Hasn-BaAz; and that I should take unto me faithful 
 witnesses, Urijah the priest, and Zechariah theson of Jeberechiah. 
 3 And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bare a 
 son; and Jehovah said to me: Call his name MAHER-SHALAL- 
 
 4 Hasn-Baz. For before the 
 
 child shall know to ery “My 
 
 Father” and “My Mother,” the wealth of Damascus, and the 
 
 were written on tablets covered with 
 wax. The word, however, is not to 
 be taken literally in this passage, but 
 metonymically, for characters, or the 
 letters formed by the pen; as we say: 
 a person writes a good hand, his style 
 is excellent, &. Thus the Targ. 
 oH 202, a clear writing. Some sup- 
 pose that ordinary writing is here 
 opposed to hierotic characters ; but 
 there is no reason to suppose that the 
 Jewish priests employed a peculiar 
 alphabet, except, indeed, we assume, 
 that in the time of the prophet the 
 ancient Phoenician forms of the letters 
 were confined to the sacred Scriptures, 
 and that others, more approximating 
 to the square letters now in use, had 
 come to be employed for ordinary 
 writings, which is not altogether des- 
 titute of probability. The Arabs have 
 their Kufic and Neshi characters ; the 
 Syrians their Estrangelo and Peshito ; 
 and the Persians, their Neshki, Taalic, 
 and Shekesteh.—The writing was to 
 consist of the four words, 12 OT 978 379. 
 The > belongs to the entire inscription, 
 and is used like the Greek τό, prefixed 
 to a clause. Though the former of 
 the two words is in the infinitive, yet 
 the latter, being the third person of 
 the Preterite, shews that they are 
 both to be rendered as finite forms : 
 He hastes to the spoil, he speeds to the 
 prey. The nominative is the Assyrian 
 monarch understood. 
 
 2. τον, The paragogic 7 evinces 
 that this verb is not to be construed 
 as a converted future, but as a future 
 subjunctive, prosecuting in indirect 
 language what had been commenced 
 in the direct form. The persons to 
 be selected as witnesses to the fact, 
 that the prophet had written the 
 words in question at the time, were 
 two of distinguished notoriety at 
 Jerusalem; the one, the High Priest, 
 who, though he afterwards humoured 
 
 the king in the matter of the Syrian 
 altar, 2 Kings xvi. 10—16, was at the 
 time possessed of great weight and 
 authority ; and the other, in all proba- 
 bility, filled the prophetical office. 
 They were both 09283, persons worthy 
 of credit, whose testimony in reference 
 to the matter might be relied on. 
 
 3. 298) begins a new paragraph, 
 and describes what took place subse- 
 quent to the performance of what was 
 enjoined in the preceding verses. 
 The term is euphemistic. Comp. 
 
 Gen. xx. 4; the Arab. Ley 35 35, ne 
 ergo approvimetis illis, Koran. Sur. ii. 
 183; and the Eth TPAM, as 
 A tT PN: Ne accedas ad eam,i.e. 
 
 ne concumbas cum ea. Hom. Marize.— 
 The name 1), prophetess, does not 
 imply that she was such officially, 
 but merely indicates her relation to 
 Isaiah. There is no ground whatever 
 for supposing that she was any other 
 than the mother of Shear-jashub ; 
 and every attempt to identify her 
 with the 2%, chap. vii. 14, has failed. 
 —The words which had been inscribed 
 on the tablet are appropriated as a 
 symbolical name of the new-born son 
 of the prophet. It is the longest of 
 any of the Scripture names; but has 
 its parallels in this respect in other 
 languages, especially in our own at the 
 time of the Commonwealth. 
 
 4, 8 and ἘΝ are onomatopoética, 
 and are found in numerous languages ; 
 only in most the consonants precede 
 the vowels. ‘Thus the Turkish and 
 
 Persic bb ; the Greek πάπας, πάππας, 
 
 hence παππάζειν; μάμα, pappa, μάμμη 5 
 and our own papa, mamma, contracted 
 pa, ma. The reason of the transfer of 
 the mysterious words to the child is 
 assigned, and the meaning is, that in 
 
CHAP. VIII. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 71 
 
 spoil of Samaria, shall be carried away before the king of 
 
 Assyria. 
 
 5 And Jehovah further spake to me, saying: 
 
 6 Because this people despiseth 
 
 The waters of Shiloah, which flow softly, 
 
 And have their joy in Rezin, the son of Remaliah ; 
 7 Therefore, behold, the Lord will bring up upon them 
 
 The strong and mighty waters of the river— 
 
 The king of Assyria and all his glory :— 
 
 little more than a year, both Syria and 
 Ephraim should be conquered.—xw, 
 impersonally, oxe shall carry away, for 
 shall be carried away.—VWs 0 ἜΡ, 
 “before the king of Assyria.’ There 
 is here an allusion to the ancient 
 custom of carrying in triumph before 
 the victor the spoils taken from the 
 enemy. For the fulfiment, see 2 
 Kings xv. 29, xvi. 9. 
 
 5, 6. Gesenius and others endeavour 
 to shew, that the people referred to 
 in these verses are the Jews, and not 
 the ten tribes; but the assumption of 
 defection from Ahaz, on the part of 
 the great body of the nation who had 
 joined the enemy, which is necessary 
 to support the hypothesis, is entirely 
 without foundation. 37 Dy7, though 
 spoken by Isaiah in Judah, refers to 
 the foreigners who were the subject 
 of the preceding prediction, and who 
 are further described as exulting in 
 the valour and prowess of their kings. 
 Self-confident, they treated with con- 
 tempt the Jewish state—WD Ὁ, the 
 water of Shiloah, flowed from M7 N2}3, 
 the pool of Shelah, Neh. iii. 15, and was 
 conveyed by an aqueduct to the royal 
 residence. See note on chap. vii. 3. 
 Owing, perhaps, to this latter circum- 
 stance, or to that of the king’s being 
 anointed in the vicinity, 1 Kings i. 
 32—40, it was employed as an image 
 of the house of David. Considering 
 its noiseless flow and diminutive size, 
 it formed a most appropriate emblem 
 of the state of that house at the time, 
 in reference to its enemies; and was 
 selected by the prophet in order to 
 contrast with it the large and resistless 
 Euphrates, vers. 7 and 8, the emblem 
 of the king of Assyria. win, Hitzig 
 takes to be the Infinitive Construct of 
 
 wp, which, though not in use, he 
 considers to be the same as 002, fo 
 melt, be afraid of ; and renders, “And 
 are afraid of Rezin and the son of 
 Remaliah;” but it is better, with 
 Gesenius, Rosenmiiller, and Hende- 
 werk, to regard it as the noun v9, 
 in the Construct state, only used for 
 the Infinitive. The Construct is thus 
 the genitive of object, not of pos- 
 Session. 
 
 7. That by "027 Ὁ, as opposed to 
 ria Ὁ, ver. 6, we are to understand 
 the Zuphrates, is beyond dispute. 
 This noble river, so frequently referred 
 to in Scripture, has its source in the 
 mountains of Armenia, and running 
 in a south and south-easterly direction, 
 and, uniting with the Tigris below 
 Babylon, flows into the Persian gulf, 
 As far as Bir it is impetuous in its 
 course; after this it flows more or 
 less gently through the plains of 
 Mesopotamia ; but, like the Nile, has 
 its annual inundations, in consequence 
 of the melting of the snow in Ar- 
 menia, during which it often covers 
 great part of the adjacent country. 
 To prevent, as much as possible, the 
 injury committed by these inunda- 
 tions, and to divert the water so as 
 profitably to irrigate the fields, nume- 
 rous canals were dug, and embank- 
 ments were raised, some of which 
 were of considerable strength. These 
 canals the prophet calls D758, which 
 is used both of pipes or tubes, Job xl. 
 18, and of the beds or channels of 
 streams, Ezek. xxxii. 6, and by me- 
 tonymy of brooks, and the valleys 
 through which they flow, Ps. xlii. 2; 
 Job vi. 15.—3, a bank or embankment ; 
 
 Chald. ὅτ», a wall; Arab. d=, ὦ shore, 
 
72 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 And it shall rise over all its channels, 
 
 And pass over all its banks, 
 And shall flow into Judah, 
 
 Overflowing and passing through ; 
 
 It shall reach to the neck ; 
 
 And the spreadings of his wings 
 
 Shall cover the entire breadth 
 
 or coast.—iH13°%3) VOX 772 Mx, the king 
 of Assyria and all his glory, Gesenius, 
 and some other German writers, con- 
 sider to be a gloss; but the style is 
 quite in keeping with chap. vii. 17, 20, 
 and the frequent use of such epexe- 
 gesis was necessary, that the Jews 
 might have no excuse for their un- 
 belief in the alleged obscurity of 
 figurative language. By the 123, glory, 
 of the king of Assyria, is to be under- 
 stood his zoble warriors. Nothing 
 could more fitly represent the incur- 
 sion of a large and powerful army, 
 than the inundation of a river, which 
 breaks through every barrier that is 
 thrown in its way, and sweeps all 
 before it. 
 
 8. Though the Assyrian power was 
 first to invade the land of Israel, and 
 carry away its spoils, it is here added, 
 that Judah also should suffer. The 
 prophecy was fulfilled in the days of 
 Hezekiah, when Sennacherib spread 
 his troops over the whole country, 
 and might figuratively be said to 
 “reach even to the neck,” when he 
 besieged Jerusalem. The metropolis 
 alone held its head above the water. 
 The verbs *7, ow, and 73¥, are chiefly 
 employed to increase the effect of the 
 description; yet there is the most 
 exact propriety in the order in which 
 they occur ; 420, signifying to pass out 
 of one condition into another, indi- 
 cates the commencement of the inun- 
 dation; 2, the overwhelming rush 
 of the waters into the country; and 
 12Y, their progress across its surface. 
 Comp. the Iliad, E. 87, &c: 
 
 Θῦνε yap ἀμπεδίον, ποταμῷ πλήθοντι 
 
 ἐοικὼς, 
 
 Χειμάῤῥῳ, dor’ ὦκα ῥέων. 
 
 D232. The prophet here drops the 
 figure of an overflowing river, and 
 employs that of the extended wings of 
 a bird, which, in various languages, are 
 
 of thy land, O IMMANUEL! 
 
 applied to the flanks or side-bodies of 
 an army, because of their stretching 
 out from the centre, and covering the 
 ground which they occupy. See chap. 
 xvili.l. In the same acceptation, D228 
 is used, Ezek, xii. 14; xvii. 21; xxxviii. 
 6. Chald. 73, @ wing.—ni®2 is a verbal 
 noun from the Hophal of 3, fo extend. 
 —ywoy aw. That the latter word 
 is here to be regarded as the name to 
 be given to the child whose birth is 
 predicted, chap. vii. 14, and that he is 
 personally addressed, is the construc- 
 tion put upon the passage in the 
 Syriac version and that of Saadias, 
 and is admitted both by Gesenius and 
 Hitzig. On the principle of the former 
 of these commentators, it cannot be 
 denied that Judea might be ealled the 
 land of Immanuel, because it was his 
 native country; but if by Immanuel 
 we are to understand, not the son of 
 the prophet, nor any child then born, 
 or shortly to be born, but the promised 
 Messiah: then, though it will hold 
 true that Judea was his country in 
 that sense, it must also be maintained 
 that it was his in a still higher sense, 
 —namely, that in which it is called 
 mm mow, chap. xiv. 2; 77 YX, Hos. 
 ix. 3; τὰ ἴδια, John i. 11,—not so 
 much the country to which he be- 
 longed, as that which belonged to 
 him; his own peculiar property. The 
 suddenness of the apostrophe requires 
 this interpretation, since it would be 
 utterly pointless were we to assume 
 that any ordinary person was meant. 
 “Plena igitur sententia est: copiz 
 hostiles pervadent et replebunt terram 
 tuam, O Immanuel! Ergo si terra hac 
 sit terra tua, si id es vere quod tuum 
 nomen significat, miserere populi tui 
 et fer opem. Immanuelem futurum 
 Deum ipsum natura humana induen- 
 dum, vidimus, supra ad vil. 14.” 
 Rosenm. ἐμ Joc. 
 
CHAP. ΥὙ111.]} 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 73 
 
 9 Be enraged, O ye people, yet ye shall be broken in pieces— 
 And hear it, all ye distant parts of the earth: 
 Gird you, yet ye shall be broken in pieces ; 
 Gird you, yet ye shall be broken in pieces. 
 
 10 
 
 Form a purpose, yet it shall be defeated ; 
 
 Speak the word, yet it shall not stand ; 
 
 - For Gop IS WITH US. 
 
 For thus said Jehovah to me, 
 
 with a mighty impulse, 
 
 And warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, 
 
 12 
 
 Ye shall not say, There is a confederacy, 
 
 Of any thing whereof this people may say, There is a confederacy : 
 
 9. The prophet now turns abruptly 
 to the immediate enemies of Judah ; 
 and while he summons distant nations 
 to listen to his prediction, he ironically 
 commands the former to put forth 
 their utmost energies, with the assur- 
 ance that it would only issue in their 
 own destruction.—™, Secker and 
 Lowth, on no other authority than 
 that of the LXX., would read ©, 
 γνώτε, know ye; but they have not 
 even the support of a parallelism, to 
 which the Bishop appeals; for the 
 next clause of the verse is manifestly 
 parenthetical. Some would derive 
 the verb from πρὶ, to be friendly, asso- 
 ciate, &c. and refer to Prov. xviii. 24 
 for a confirmation of such derivation ; 
 but that passage requires »yn7 to be 
 rendered, destroyeth himself—the result 
 of his propensity to be always in 
 company. It can only properly be 
 taken here as the Imper. of YY}, in the 
 signification of raging, giving tumul- 
 tuous vent to an evil disposition. The 
 repetitions which follow are for the 
 sake of emphasis. For xn, Hitzig 
 aptly compares the full form x78 
 Psa ὍΣ, Job xxxviil. 3. When two 
 imperatives occur, as in this verse, 
 the former is ironically concessive, 
 and the latter declarative or minatory. 
 
 10, A continuation of the preceding, 
 both as to form and meaning, The 
 form 12» likewise occurs, Jud. xix. 30, 
 and in a similar combination, 27) 92». 
 It is contracted from ἸΞῚν".--- τ 721 
 refers to the issuing of orders to carry 
 into effect the purposes formed in the 
 council of the enemy.—8 9Y is here 
 to be taken, not as the name of 
 
 IMMANUEL, but as an appropriation of 
 its import ; not, however, without a 
 recognition of Him to whom the name 
 belonged. Jerome resolves it thus: 
 “nobiscum est Deus, id est, Emmanuel.” 
 Except we put this construction upon 
 the words, we must suppose the pro- 
 phet simply to introduce the name of 
 the Great Deliverer, “For IMMANUEL,” 
 —and then leave the conclusion to be 
 drawn from its signification: but such 
 an instance of abrupt ἀτελείωσις is, I 
 believe, without example in the He- 
 brew Scriptures. 
 
 11. WI np, lit. with the strength of 
 the hand, or his hand, meaning ὦ mighty 
 impulse. Tis frequently used to denote 
 the Divine impulse experienced by the 
 prophets in a state of inspiration; 
 hence it is said to be upon them, come, 
 fall upon them, Ezek. i. 3; 2 Kings iii. 
 15; Ezek. vii. 1. In Ezek. iii. 14, we 
 have ΠῚ myn V, the hand of Jehovah 
 was strong upon me, which is equivalent 
 to the Infinitive form here employed. 
 Thus the Targ. 8ns12) ApNNa, iz the 
 power of prophecy. “Taking me by 
 the hand,” which is Lowth’s rendering, 
 is, therefore, erroneous; as is his 
 substitution of 3 for 3, though upwards 
 of forty MSS., eight printed Editions, 
 the Syriac, and Symmachus in Pro- 
 copius, have the former reading. 
 
 12. Wp, from Wp, ἐο bind, may either 
 signify ὦ conspiracy within a state, or 
 a confederacy against it from without. 
 It is used here in the latter accepta- 
 tion, to denote the league between 
 the kings of Israel and Syria. Σκληρὸν 
 of the LXX. has arisen from their 
 erroneously reading πῦρ, instead of 
 
 T's) 
 
74 ISAIAH. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Be not ye afraid with their fear ; 
 
 Neither do ye dread. 
 
 18. Jehovah of Hosts himself ye shall sanctify ; 
 He shall be your fear, and he your dread. 
 14 For he shall become a Sanctuary ; 
 But a stone to strike against, and a rock of stumbling 
 
 To both the houses of Israel ; 
 
 A snare and a trap to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 
 τας And: many shall stumble at them, and fall, and be broken, 
 
 wp, a mistake easily made. The 
 idea of idolatrous objects of wor- 
 ship, which Lowth introduces, as a 
 conjecture of Secker’s, altering and 
 transposing the letters of the word 
 into τ, is not borne out by usage, 
 and is quite foreign to the passage. 
 While the Israelites might boast of 
 the confederacy as formidable, and the 
 unbelieving Jews might view it in the 
 same light, the prophet was strictly 
 charged not to imitate them, (n2% 
 7273,) since, in the Divine estimation, 
 it was undeserving of the name ; and 
 would, by the instrumentality em- 
 ployed by God, speedily be broken 
 up.— nw, the genitive of object, that 
 of which they are afraid. 
 
 18. DKW and dz WwW are likewise 
 genitives of object. The addition of 
 ink, Hr, to the preceding accusative, 
 gives peculiar emphasis in such con- 
 nexion. ΤῸ sanctify God, means here 
 to cherish and evince a due sense of 
 his character, as worthy of entire 
 confidence, being able to defeat all 
 the enemies of his people, and faith- 
 ful to fulfil his promises of protection 
 and deliverance. Comp. 1 Pet. iii. 14, 
 15, where the words are quoted ad 
 sensum ; and, according to the reading 
 Κύριον τὸν Χριστὸν, found in the MSS. 
 A BC 7, 13, 33 in Marg. 69, 137, and 
 others ; both the Syriac versions ; the 
 Arab. of Erpen., the Coptic, Sahidic, 
 Armenian, Vulgate, Clement, and 
 Fulgentius, are applied expressly to 
 our Saviour, in whom Christians are 
 commanded to place the same reli- 
 gious confidence which the prophet 
 challenges for Jehovah of Hosts. 
 
 14, 15, way, suggested by Ww pH, 
 ver. 13: ὦ sanctuary in the sense of 
 asylum or refuge, to which persons fled 
 
 from those who would deprive them 
 of life. Among the ancients, altars, 
 temples, and other sacred places, 
 afforded such protection, no person 
 daring to shed blood, or do violence 
 to any who had placed themselves in 
 immediate contact with the deities 
 supposed to be there resident. Pollux. 
 Onomast. lib. i, cap. 1.  Pausan. 
 Corinth. lib. ii. cap. 19, Calmet, Asy- 
 lum. That the same privilege was 
 claimed and enjoyed by the Hebrews 
 appears from Exod. xxi. 13, 14; 1 
 Kings i. 50, 51 ; ii. 28; though in the 
 latter instance, in accordance with the 
 Mosaic enactment, it was withheld 
 from a notorious murderer. Though 
 wp is the term otherwise employed 
 for refuge, that here used occurs again 
 in the same acceptation, Ezek. xi. 16. 
 The LXX., in which it is more com- 
 monly rendered ἅγιον and ἁγιάσμα, 
 has ἁγιάσμον in the present instance, 
 which has given rise to iz sanctifica- 
 tionem of the Vulg. and a similar 
 rendering in versions derived from 
 the same source. What shews that 
 it is to be understood in the sense of 
 asylum, is the antithesis in which it 
 stands to the following words, 422 }28 
 and 22 wz: in the use of which 
 there is an evident rise in the idea, 
 —a rock being more than a stone, 
 and stumbling so as completely to fall, 
 more than sfriking one’s foot against 
 a stone. Both combinations, however, 
 are intended to express the occasion 
 of injury and ruin to those who are 
 the subjects of such fall. The cir- 
 cumstance, that both the houses of 
 Israel, and especially the inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem, are particularly specified, 
 together with the distinction made, 
 verses 15 and 16, between the many . 
 
Ἂ 
 
 CHAP. VIII. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 75 
 
 And shall be ensnared and taken. 
 
 16 Bind up the testimony ; 
 Seal the law for my disciples. 
 17 I also will wait for Jehovah, 
 
 who should “be ensnared,” &c. and 
 “the disciples of the Lord,’ evinces 
 that something very different from 
 the Babylonish captivity must be 
 meant. The true interpretation is 
 furnished in the inspired prediction 
 of Simeon, Luke ii. 34, and the equally 
 inspired application of the passage by 
 Paul, Rom. ix. 32, 33; and by Peter, 
 1 Epist. 11. 8. That it was also re- 
 garded by the more ancient Rabbins 
 to refer to the Messiah, is manifest 
 from a passage in the book of the 
 Talmud, entitled Sanhedrin, in which 
 it is expressly applied to him as the 
 Son of David, who was to come after 
 the subversion of the two divisions 
 of the Hebrew people ; see Raymundi 
 Pug. Fid. Edit. Carpzov. p. 405. The 
 accomplishment we find in the salva- 
 tion enjoyed by believers in the 
 Redeemer, and the aggravated and 
 still continuing ruin of the Jews— 
 D2 is not to be rendered “among 
 them,” as in our common version : 
 the pron. suff. belonging to 13 and 
 wz; and the 3 being required after 
 782, to indicate that against which any 
 one stumbles. This verb is here a 
 vox pregnans, and includes 423, ¢o 
 strike, strike the foot against any object. 
 For the idea of ensnarement, comp. 
 Prov. vi. 2; Isaiah xxvii. 13; Rom. 
 χη 9: 
 
 16. TPA occurs only here, and Ruth 
 iv. 7, where it is used to denote an 
 established testimony. It 15. equi- 
 valent to nv, both being derived from 
 ἬΝ, to bear witness, testify.—D 2) is 
 employed twice besides by our pro- 
 phet, chap. 1. 4, and liv. 13, and by 
 him alone; and here denotes those 
 who were taught by the Messiah to 
 make him their 37), sanctuary, im 
 contradistinction from those who 
 stumbled at him to their utter ruin, 
 ver. 15. The LXX, have strangely 
 
 misunderstood this verse, rendering. 
 
 it, τότε φανεροὶ ἔσονται οἱ σφραγιζόμενοι 
 τὸν νόμον τοῦ μὴ μαθεῖν ; but Aquila 
 has given it rightly, ἔνδησον μαρτύριον" 
 
 σφράγισαι νόμον ἐν τοῖς διδακτοῖς pov. 
 Gesenius takes much pains to prove 
 that the reference is to verses 1, 2; 
 but Hitzig shews that the position is 
 utterly untenable. The verb 1 can 
 only properly apply to the wrapping 
 up of a ἜΘ, or volume, and cannot 
 without violence be used in reference 
 to a large tablet. Besides, the tablet 
 was designed to be hung up in public, 
 and not be handed down to posterity. 
 The words apply to the prophetic 
 testimonies which had just been borne 
 to the Messiah, and other prophetic 
 matter then in existence, together 
 with the law, in its more extended 
 signification, as comprising the rest of 
 the Jewish Scriptures. These might 
 be unheeded, or misconstrued, as in- 
 deed they were, by the great body of 
 the nation ; but they would minister 
 needful instruction and comfort to 
 the disciples of Christ. For their 
 benefit, they were carefully to be 
 preserved. 3 denotes the relation of 
 effect, as Ps. Ixviii, 19, D2 ΤῊΣ ANP, 
 “thou hast received gifts for men,” 
 i.e. with a view to their benefit, 
 Vitringa’s construction, which takes 
 3in the sense of zz, is founded upon 
 an interpretation of 2, which he 
 supposes to be the root of the verb, 
 altogether unwarranted by Hebrew 
 usage. The passages he adduces yield 
 it no support.—The speaker is not 
 the prophet, but the Messiah whom 
 the Jews were to reject, but who here 
 evinces his care for those who should 
 not be offended in him, but who 
 should humbly receive his doctrines. 
 17, 18. The same person who speaks 
 in the preceding verse continues his 
 discourse in these. To apply them to 
 Isaiah would disturb the unity of the 
 passage, and subject it to the operation 
 of principles which would unsettle the 
 foundations of all consistent inter- 
 pretation. The words have no reference 
 to the symbolical names given to two 
 of his children, as the connexion 
 clearly evinces ; and to view them as 
 
76 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Who hideth his face from the house of Jacob, 
 
 And I will expect him. 
 
 18 Behold I and the children whom Jehovah hath given me, 
 Are for signs and wonders in Israel ; 
 
 From Jehovah of Hosts, 
 
 Who dwelleth in mount Zion. 
 
 19 And when they shall say to you, 
 Apply to the necromancers and the wizards, 
 
 typical in their import, it must be 
 shewn, on solid scriptural grounds, in 
 what respects the prophet was a type 
 of Christ, and how Shear-jashub and 
 Maher-shalal-Hash-baz were types of 
 the apostles, or of Christians gene- 
 rally. Isaiah was, indeed, constituted 
 nao nix, a sign and a wonder, on occa- 
 sion of the expedition of Tartan, but 
 he continued to be such only for three 
 years ; and then he was not a type of 
 the Messiah, but of the denuded 
 Egyptians and Ethiopians whom that 
 general was to carry into captivity, 
 chap. xx. Thus also Ezekiel is said 
 to have been nin, a wonder, chap. 
 xxiv. 24, because his appearance and 
 conduct on a particular occasion were 
 designed to excite astonishment, and 
 draw the attention of the Jews to 
 their approaching desolate and un- 
 happy condition. The associates of 
 Joshua the high priest are called ‘tix 
 nin, men of wonder, or, as Le Clerc 
 translates, viri portentost. Nor can it 
 be shewn that, in accordance with 
 Scripture usage, the two sons of the 
 prophet were siyus and wonders, merely 
 because they bore symbolical names. 
 The terms are always used of persons 
 or other visible objects, never of ap- 
 pellations, and cannot, without the 
 utmost harshness, be otherwise inter- 
 preted. 
 
 That the words are those of the 
 Messiah may be safely maintained on 
 the authority of Heb. ii. 13, where 
 they are quoted precisely in the same 
 unqualified style in which in the pre- 
 ceding verse a quotation is made from 
 the twenty-second Psalm, the whole 
 of which is strictly and exclusively 
 prophetical of Christ. The object of 
 the apostle is not to give prominence 
 to the latter half of the 18th verse 
 
 in Isaiah, but simply to prove a joint 
 participation in human nature between 
 the Saviour and those whom he came 
 to redeem. He therefore stops at 
 θεός, with the LXX., who divide the 
 sentence, and introduce the latter 
 part of it with καὶ ἔσται. The senti- 
 ment of ver. 17 is precisely that found 
 in Ps.’ xl. 1,‘ Txix’'33 Isa? ἘΠῚ 3 Ga 
 which the Messiah expresses his trust 
 in God, and employs other language 
 appropriate to his state of humiliation. 
 Every attempt to relieve the supposed 
 difficulty in the quotation by having 
 recourse to the argument ea concessis, 
 the double sense, or simple accommo- 
 dation, must fail to afford satisfaction 
 to persons of inquiring mind, See 
 Pierce, Macknight, and M’Lean, on 
 Heb. ii. 13.—The sense in which 
 Christ and his disciples were to be 
 signs and wonders is determined by the 
 inspired construction put upon the 
 prophecy by Simeon, σημεῖον ἀντιλεγό- 
 μενον, “a sign to be spoken against.” 
 Though miraculous in their character, 
 mission, and operations, and though 
 they should excite feelings of astonish- 
 ment in their contemporaries, they 
 should nevertheless meet with the 
 most determined opposition. This 
 view quite accords with the context, 
 ver. 14, and with fact, Heb. xii. 3; 
 1 Cor. iv. 9; Acts xiii. 45, xxviii. 22, 
 The compound proposition Dy, indi- 
 cates that the character, &c. of Messiah 
 and his disciples was not formed by 
 any pre-existent causes, but was the 
 result of new causes immediately in- 
 troduced by Divine volition. See 
 chap. vii. 11; xxix. 6. 
 
 19. The prophet returns to his own 
 times, and warns the nation against 
 the superstition and imposture to 
 which they were exposed during the 
 
CHAP.. VIII. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 rig 
 
 Who chirp and mutter, ask ye: 
 
 Should not a people apply to their God ? 
 
 Should they apply for the living to the dead ? 
 20 To the law and to the testimony ! 
 
 period of calamity before predicted. 
 In the early history of the Hebrew 
 people, these evils appear to have 
 had more or less influence, not- 
 withstanding the strict prohibitions 
 of the law, Deut. xviii. 9—12; but 
 as we proceed in the history they 
 greatly increase upon us. In the 
 reign of such an idolatrous king as 
 Ahaz, their prevalence was particu- 
 larly to be expected.—01 primarily 
 signifies to tread, frequent, &c.; with 
 x, to go, apply to, for assistance, direc- 
 tion, &e., to consult God, an oracle, 
 idols, &. Comp. 8 2x, Deut. xviii. 
 11.—ninx, mas. with a fem. termina- 
 
 tion: from 3s, or x, Arab. wil, 
 
 reverlitur, to return, come to one’s senses ; 
 necromancers OY sorcerers, who pretend 
 to recall the dead from the invisible 
 world by means of incantations ; and 
 the spirits themselves thus supposed to be 
 evoked, as occupying or possessing the 
 bodies of such conjurers. On this 
 latter account, such necromancers 
 were called UN7Mi7Y3, Hix "Wa, i.e. possessed 
 of the Οὐ, or spirit, called back for 
 purposes of divination ; and as these 
 impostors assumed an inflated appear- 
 ance, that it might be believed they 
 were filled with the spirit, and gave 
 forth unaccountable utterances while 
 in that state, the LXX. render the 
 word by ἐγγαστρίμυθοι, ventriloquists. 
 
 In Coptic O¥ HA, ov, signifies an 
 
 Egyptian priest who occupies himself 
 with divinations; and in Africa and 
 the West Indies a species of witch- 
 craft, called Obeah, is practised among 
 the negroes, which operates power- 
 fully on their fears, and often issues 
 in death.—02n, wizards, (from wise,) 
 
 comp. the Arab. k, Limon ; ᾿Ελύμας 
 
 opayos, Acts xiii. 8, knowing ones; Rabbin. 
 PIM, πύθωνες, hence πνεῦμα πύθωνος, 
 a spirit of Python, or divination, Acts 
 xvi. 16, ‘The term is employed in con- 
 nexion with nix, to denote persons who 
 professed to have intercourse with the 
 
 world of spirits, and were supposed to 
 have the power of revealing secrets ; 
 and, likewise, the spirits with whom it 
 was thought they communicated. See 
 Lev. xix. 31, xx. 27; Deut. xviii. 11; 1 
 Sam xxviii. 3—11.—o»px5u07, lit. the 
 chirpers, from ΒΞ, which occurs only 
 
 in Pilpel, Arab. a.ar0, passer, and 
 
 is onomatopoétic, expressing the chirp- 
 ing or piping of young birds, especially 
 swallows. Chap. x. 14, xxix. 4, xxxviil. 
 14. It beautifully expresses the small 
 distant sounds produced by the necro- 
 mancers.—O'3797, the mutterers; root 
 70, to murmur, mutter, utter inarticulate 
 sounds, to speak in a low, hollow man- 
 ner, aS if the voice came from the 
 earth. See chap. xxix. 4.— va is used 
 here, not in its substitutionary accep- 
 tation, but as signifying ἐμ behalf of, 
 720» the benefit of, as Gen. xx. 7; Ps. 
 Ixxii. 15; Jer. xxi. 2. The interroga- 
 tive 7 dropping the δ", and the verb, 
 are to be supplied from the preceding 
 hemistich. The absurdity of demon- 
 ology is forcibly pointed out in this 
 appeal. 
 
 20. This verse directs to the only 
 source whence certain religious infor- 
 mation is to be obtained, The law and 
 the testimony ; by which, with reference 
 to ver. 16, we are obviously to under- 
 stand, the will of God revealed in his 
 word. For the use of 2 here, compare 
 Judg. vii. 18, putz mid. The clause 
 amo px Wx, has greatly perplexed 
 interpreters. The LXX., who render 
 the whole verse oddly, have περὶ οὗ 
 οὐκ ἔστι δῶρα δοῦναι περὶ αὐτοῦ, in 
 which they are followed by the Syr. 
 and other versions derived from them ; 
 mistaking WW for 118, a gift, or present. 
 In every other passage in which this 
 word occurs, it signifies either fhe 
 aurora, Or morning dawn; or, meta- 
 phorically, the commencement of a 
 state of prosperity after a period of 
 affliction, See espec. chap. xlvii. 11. 
 
 i= in the Arab. has the same signi- 
 fication, which is also that best suited 
 K 
 
78 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 If they speak not according to this word, 
 There shall be no dawn to them: 
 
 21 
 
 But they shall pass through the land, distressed and famished ; 
 
 And it shall be, when they are famished, 
 They shall be inwardly vexed, and shall curse 
 Their king and their God; and shall look upward. 
 
 22 
 
 They shall also fix their eyes on the earth ; 
 
 But behold! affliction and darkness ; 
 They shall be darkened with distress, 
 
 Driven into gloom. 
 
 to the following context. The idea 
 conveyed by the words is this: Those 
 who teach differently from the Scrip- 
 tures, and all who listen to such 
 teachers, shall continue under the 
 judgment of God: they can expect no 
 prosperity. Lowth’s rendering, ‘‘in 
 which is no obscurity,’ cannot be 
 justified from usage. Joel ii. 2, the 
 only passage to which he appeals in 
 support of it, is decidedly against him. 
 The prophet there drops the idea of 
 affliction, which he had employed 
 different appropriate terms to express, 
 and proceeds to describe the cause of 
 the affiction—the invading army, 
 which he compares to the Aurora, or 
 the rays of light quickly breaking in 
 upon the horizon, and widely diffusing 
 themselves upon the mountains.— ex, 
 which has presented considerable 
 difficulty, is merely the sign of the 
 apodosis, then, in that case, and in 
 translation may be omitted as redun- 
 dant. See Gesen. Lex. Man. iz voc. Ὁ. 
 8,.—*) stands collectively for 075, which 
 is found in one of Kennicott’s MSS., 
 and is the rendering of the Vulg., 
 “non erit es matutina lux;” or DY, 
 people, may be understood: either will 
 account for the sing. which is carried 
 forward in the following verse. 
 
 21, 22. The prophet here describes 
 in strong language the desperate con- 
 dition of those who reject the Divine 
 word and adhere to their own devices, 
 or to thesinfulinventionsand practices 
 of men.—i73, 7.e. $83, ἐμ the land, which, 
 though not occurring in the preceding 
 context, is understood. This idiom is 
 
 not uncommon in Hebrew, see Ps. 
 Ixviii. 15, Ixxxvii. 1, where the noun 
 which follows is anticipated, just as 
 yas is here from ver. 22. Schroeder, 
 however, takes the 7 in a zeufer sense, 
 and supposes it to refer to the state 
 or circumstances of those just spoken 
 of: but_see Gesenius, Lehrg. p. 740.— 
 mop, hardly circumstanced, in a state of 
 great distress.—227n7 In Hithp. is 
 more expressive than the simple form 
 of Kal would have been. It denotes 
 the inward workings of rage before it 
 is vented against its object.—v7s) 1572 
 are in apposition: their king, who is 
 their God; or their king, even their God. 
 When God as the head of the Theo- 
 cracy, and the king as his vicegerent, 
 are spoken of, the order is always, 
 “God and the king,” 1 Kings xxi. 13; 
 1 Chron. xxix. 20.—7bya? 72D, They 
 shall look upward, does not mean 
 turning to God in the exercise of 
 confidence, but presenting a sullen 
 aspect—the genuine expression of an 
 unsubdued and desperate spirit.—To 
 whatever quarter the unbelieving Jews 
 might turn, no indication of deliver- 
 ance appeared. ΤῚΣ AyD, usually ren- 
 dered darkness of distress; but since 
 FAY corresponds in position to M772 in 
 the following clause, just as 772% does 
 to Mex, it seems requisite to invest it 
 with the same participial power, and 
 render the words thus: covered, or 
 overwhelmed with trouble. The regular 
 participial form in Hophal is 729, as 
 occurring ver. 23, where it agrees with 
 psy, For ΠῚ} 75x, comp. Jer. xxiii. 
 12. 
 
CHAP. ὙΠ11.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 79 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 23.—IX. 6. 
 
 Having depicted the wretched condition to which the Jews would be reduced 
 by the Assyrians, the prophet again anticipates the appearance of Immanuel, 
 by graphically describing the principal scene of his public ministry, 23; 
 congratulates the Church on the deliverance which he was to effect, in terms 
 borrowed from that which had been experienced from the intervening 
 captivity, and the destruction of Babylon, ix. 1—5; and then introduces, in 
 the most animated strains, a description of Messiah’s character, and the 
 
 happy nature of his reign, 5, 6. 
 
 23 Bur darkness shall not remain, where once was distress : 
 As formerly he rendered contemptible 
 The land of Zebulon, and the land of Naphtali ; 
 So he shall afterwards confer honour upon them— 
 
 23. In this verse there is a marked 
 transition from the period of affliction 
 to the joyful times of the Messiah, now 
 to be described. In the first clause 
 the subst. verb is twice understood ; 
 first in the future tense, with the 
 superadded idea of continuance; and 
 then in the preterite. Such ellipses 
 are common.—» is adversative ; TOx>, 
 and πῆ, connect with 28 in the pre- 
 ceding verse. The 7 in 7278 is neither 
 local, nor a less frequent termination 
 of γι, but simply paragogic, as Job 
 xxxiv. 13, xxxvii. 12, and frequently 
 in poetry. nya stands for nya W232; 
 and nya 72 would have been supplied 
 before }77N7, but for the }, which, as 
 the logical copula, is there equivalent 
 to it—To make ny? the nomin. to the 
 verbs ὙΠ and 337, and render, as 
 Michaelis, Rosenmiller, and Hengsten- 
 berg do, with the approbation of 
 
 Gesenius, As the former time brought, ' 
 
 &c., into contempt, so shall futurity 
 honour, &c., is unwarranted by usage. 
 Day or night is, indeed, freq. employed 
 as an active subject, but not ny simply, 
 _ either in Heb. or in any of the dialects. 
 The verbs may be regarded as imper- 
 ' sonal, and rendered passively ; or ΠῚ 
 " may be understood, which seems pre- 
 ferable, as the writers of Scripture 
 always resolve events into the will or 
 
 operations of God.—The regions occu- 
 pied by the tribes of Zebulon and 
 Naphtali were, with the exception of 
 the land of Asher, the most northerly 
 parts of Canaan, and consequently the 
 most distant from Jerusalem. Zebulon 
 stretched across from the Mediterra- 
 nean Sea at Mount Carmel to the sea 
 of Tiberias; and Naphtali, from the 
 northern boundary of Zebulon, be- 
 tween that Sea and Lebanon.—od™1 777, 
 the tract of or about the sea. OT com- 
 monly signifies κατ᾽ ἐξόχην the Medi- 
 terranean; but it is also used of the 
 Red Sea, chap. x. 26, the Dead Sea, 
 chap. xvi. 8, and here obviously of the 
 sea of Tiberias, called ™:3°0, the sea of 
 Cinnereth, Num. xxxiv. 11,—j7P7 ὭΣ, 
 τὸ πέραν τοῦ “lopdavov, Perea, the 
 country beyond Jordan; more espe- 
 cially that on the east, and to the 
 north of the above-mentioned sea. 
 The attempts of Grotius, Vitringa, 
 and Hengstenberg, to interpret the 
 phrase of a cis-Jordanic region, are 
 unsuccessful, though it cannot be 
 denied, that in passages such as Josh. 
 ix. 1, it must signify the west side.— 
 oad 3, the circle or circuit of the 
 nutions, from 553, to roll, roll round, be 
 round, circular, &c.: so called from its 
 geographical figure, and its proximity 
 to the Pheenician and other heathen 
 
80 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 The tract by the sea, the region beyond Jordan, 
 
 Galilee of the nations. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1 The people that walked in darkness, 
 
 Behold a great light ; 
 
 Upon the inhabitants of the land of death-shade 
 
 The light shineth. 
 2 Thou enlargest the nation, 
 
 regions, and partly, perhaps, from the 
 circumstance that twenty small cities 
 within its limits were inhabited, for 
 the most part, by Gentiles. Strabo 
 mentions Phenicians, Syrians, and Ara- 
 bians, as dwelling here; and Josephus 
 adds Greeks. Comp. 1 Kings ix. 11; 
 Josh. xx. 7, xxi. 32; and see Bloomfield, 
 on Matt. iv. 15, 16, where, with 
 scarcely any variation, this and the 
 following verse are quoted in applica- 
 tion to our Lord’s ministry in those 
 parts. In the N. T., Galilee, ἡ Γαλιλαία, 
 includes all the regions here geogra- 
 phically described, except Perea. 
 
 The points of contrast in this pas- 
 sage, are the contemptuous light in 
 which the inhabitants of that part of 
 the Holy Land had been regarded, on 
 account of their greater intercourse 
 with pagans, and the ignorance and 
 deterioration in a religious point of 
 view which resulted from it, Matt. 
 xxvi. 69; John i. 46, vii. 52; and the 
 high honour conferred upon them by 
 our Saviour’s commencing his minis- 
 try among them, and making their 
 country the scene of the most illus- 
 trious displays of his Messiahship. 
 Comp. for the sentiment, Mic. v. 2,(Heb. 
 1,)and for the expectation of the earlier 
 Rabbins, the book Zohar, part i. fol. 
 119. Amst. 527 ΠΡῚΝ NWO NID “IM, 
 Messiah the King shall be revealed in the 
 land of Galilee. The transition was 
 easy from a description of temporal to 
 that of spiritual degradation and 
 misery; especially as the image of 
 darkness, which the prophet had just 
 been employing, is in Scripture fre- 
 quently used of both. That he should 
 ‘precisely have selected Zebulon and 
 
 Naphtali on this occasion, may be ac- 
 counted for, on the ground that these 
 tribes were the first that suffered 
 from the invasion of the Assyrians, 
 2 Kings xv. 29. 
 
 Cuapter 1X.—1. 029, that walked ; 
 727 signifies tropically, fo live, or have 
 one’s conversation. Comp. Eph. i. 2; 
 1 John i. 6.—*s, Light, the Messiah as 
 the Sun of righteousness. Mal. iv. 2; 
 Is. xlix. 6; τὸ φῶς, τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν, 
 John i. 5, 9, τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου, Vili. 12, 
 the author not only of true knowledge, 
 but of the true and permanent happi- 
 ness connected with it.—ny22z, Geier, 
 De Dieu, Michaelis and some others, 
 take to be simply a derivative from 
 
 nos, Arab. 
 
 but it seems preferable, with the 
 ancient versions, to regard it as com- 
 pounded of 58, @ shadow, and nyo, 
 death, like MYNEN, the court of death, 
 Gen. x. 26, nwo, strength of death, 2 
 Sam. xxiii. 31. It is employed to 
 denote the densest gloom, or the most 
 awful darkness—ideas which are very 
 naturally associated with that of 
 death, independently of those which 
 the region of sepulchral cells might 
 suggest. See Job iii. 4, 5, x. 21, 22; 
 Ps. xxiii. 4. Hitzig thinks there may 
 have been some place so called, in the 
 valley Achor, Hos. ii. 15 (Heb. 17) ; 
 but this is mere conjecture. 
 
 2. Instead of the Chethib δ, of, 
 which has the support of Aquila, 
 Theod., Symm., the Vulg., and in 
 all probability the LXX. originally: 
 the ov κατήγαγες having easily been 
 changed into ὁ κατήγαγες ; see Middel- 
 
 2, to be dark, shady, &e.; 
 
— 
 
 CHAP. IX.]| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 Whose joy thou didst not increase ; 
 They rejoice before thee as with the joy of harvest, 
 As men rejoice when dividing the spoil. 
 
 3 For the yoke of their burden, 
 
 And the staff of their shoulder, 
 
 The rod of their oppressor, 
 
 Thou hast broken, as in the day of Midian. 
 4 For every sandal of the sandalled in battle, 
 
 And the garment rolled in blood, 
 
 Shall be burned ; it shall be food for the fire. 
 
 dorpf’s Codex Syriaco-Hexap. p. 474; 
 , to it, the Keri, is found in thirteen 
 MSS., was originally in four more, and 
 perhaps in three, and is the reading 
 followed in the Syr., the Targ., and 
 Saadias. The word is wanting alto- 
 gether in three MSS. Both readings 
 being pronounced alike may have 
 occasioned the difference; but the 
 Chethib being the more difficult of 
 the two, and being so respectably 
 supported, is entitled to the preference. 
 Considering ™72vT as standing for 
 int, and rendering 4727 in the past 
 indefinite time, the whole may conyve- 
 niently be translated, Thou hast en- 
 larged the nation; its, or rather, whose 
 joy thou didst not increase: (but now) 
 they rejoice, &c.; reflecting on the joy- 
 less period which immediately pre- 
 ceded the coming of the Messiah, and 
 contrasting it with that here predicted. 
 There is properly a /ifotes in the lan- 
 guage: the meaning being, whose joy 
 thou didst take away—The 3 in ὙΞΒΞ 
 Lowth rejects, on the ground of the 
 preceding noun being in construction ; 
 but this form frequently occurs. See 
 2 Sam. i. 21; Ps. ii. 12, ix. 10; Isaiah 
 v. 11, xxi. 138.—In 22», before thee, 7 
 is understood, as it likewise is in the 
 second person of the verbs. 
 
 3. The subject to which the prono- 
 minal affixes belong is "30, the nation 
 mentioned in the preceding verse. 
 Yad is the burden laid upon it, and 722 
 3020, the rod applied to its shoulder or 
 back, in the way of punishment. The 
 Dagesh in 3 is euphonic.—p72 DY, ¢he 
 day of Midian, comp. chap. x. 26; a 
 mode of speech by which the Orientals 
 express a battle fought at any place. 
 
 φ 
 
 Thus the Arab. yy 65» prelium Bed- 
 
 rense 3 | gis eo» Dies prelii 
 Thaghlebitarum. Freytag. The refer- 
 ence is to Judges vii. 19—23; and the 
 comparison is the more apt, as the 
 victory there described took place in 
 the regions specified at the beginning 
 of the present chapter. The grand 
 point of comparison, however, consists 
 in thedeliverance having beeneffected, 
 not by human means, but by the im- 
 mediate interposition of Divine power. 
 
 .Such was the nature of the redemp- 
 
 tion to be effected by Immanuel. 
 The language of the verse is figurative, 
 and applies to the victory of the 
 Messiah over Satan, and the rescue of 
 his people from spiritual oppression. 
 See Rosenmiller and Hengstenberg, 
 in loc. 
 
 4. This verse describes the sure in- 
 dications of a state of lasting peace, 
 in language borrowed from an ancient 
 custom of burning implements of war 
 that had been taken from the enemy. 
 This custom is distinctly recognised, 
 Ps. xlvi. 9 ; Micah v. 10; Ezek. xxxix. 
 8—10 ; in the last of which passages 
 the image is beautifully amplified. By 
 PRO is meant the military shoe or sandal, 
 strongly shod with nails or spikes, 
 and reaching about mid-leg. It thus 
 differed from the greave, which came 
 
 vy 
 higher up. Comp. aaj, Be ye shod, 
 in the Peshito, Eph. vi.15 ; the Chald. 
 
 xvD, and the Eth. AULA'S, shoe.— 
 
 JNO is the participle, formed from the 
 Same noun. wv} signifies baffle, from 
 
82 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP.. IX. 
 
 5 For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given; 
 And the government shall be upon his shoulder ; 
 
 And his name shall be called, 
 
 WoNDERFUL, COUNSELLOR, 
 
 Micutry Gop, Farner or Erernity, Prince or PEACE. 
 6 Of the increase of his government and its peace, there shall be 
 
 no end, 
 
 the noise and tumult connected with it; 
 and nv is appropriated to denote 
 the sagum or cloak worn by soldiers in 
 war. Both it, however, and the san- 
 dal are here employed synecdochically 
 for all kinds of military accoutrements. 
 The ) in 77 marks the apodosis. 
 The interpretation here given of }ixo, 
 &c. was first suggested by Joseph 
 Kimchi, and is now generally ap- 
 proved. 
 
 5, 6. Of the exclusive application of 
 this prophecy to the Messiah, no doubt 
 was entertained by the earlier Rabbins. 
 The Targum renders it: }2 720 "pM 
 nrpuin Nysme?) DP NID NTN Tey HO DTP, 
 “ara NwY wD NOR, “And his name 
 was called of old, Wonderful, Counsel, 
 the Mighty God, He who continueth for 
 ever, The Messiah, in whose days peace 
 shall be multiplied upon us.” Similar 
 applications are made in the Bere- 
 shith Rabba on Gen. xli. 44, in the 
 Echa Rabbitha on Lamentations ; and 
 Ben Sira includes, “Wonderful, Coun- 
 sellor, Mighty God, and Prince of 
 Peace,” in his list of the eight names 
 of the Messiah. The modern foreign 
 writers who have adopted or defended 
 this interpretation, are Cube, Dathe, 
 Michaelis, Doderlein, Koppe, Plischke, 
 Kuinoel, Herder, Duchman, V. D. Palm, 
 Rosenmiiller, Umbreit, and Hengsten- 
 berg. On the other hand, Hezel, 
 Hensler, Paulus, Hendewerk, and even 
 Jahn, after Kimchi, Jarchi, Abenezra, 
 and Grotius, refer the passage to 
 Hezekiah ; which interpretation Gese- 
 nius attempts to sustain in his Com- 
 ment., though he is obliged to confess, 
 that “it may still be considered Mes- 
 sianic, inasmuch as the description is 
 ideal, and may or may not be applied 
 to any real subject ;” and in his Lex. 
 Man. he renders 8%, 2. Coner. admira- 
 bilis, evimius, (de rege Messize,) Is. ix. 6. 
 Hitzig views the passage as an ex- 
 aggerated description of some future 
 king of the house of David; which, 
 
 in the main, is the opinion adopted 
 by Bauer, Eichhorn, and Vogel. 
 
 The assertion of Gesenius, that the 
 words are not applied to our Lord in 
 the N. T. (an objection which we 
 should not have expected from such 
 a quarter) is contrary to fact; for 
 though they are not expressly or ver- 
 bally quoted, it is evident the angel 
 Gabriel thus applies them in his an- 
 nunciation to Mary, Luke i. 32, 33. 
 First, her child was to be “ the Son of 
 the Highest,” in reference to that part 
 of the prophecy, “To us ὦ Son is 
 given.” Secondly, he was to be “great,” 
 which the assemblage of exalted and 
 distinguished names in the prediction 
 sufficiently indicates. Thirdly, he was 
 to have given to him “the throne of . 
 his father David,’ which corresponds 
 to “his government upon the throne 
 of David” in the prophecy ; and his 
 “reigning over the house of Jacob,’ 
 to his being “over the kingdom of 
 David” in the following clause. 
 Fourthly, the words, “Of his king- 
 dom there shall be no end,” are almost 
 a literal quotation of the words, “ Of 
 the increase of his government— 
 there shall be no end.” 
 
 That neither Hezekiah, norany other 
 temporal king of the Jews after his 
 time, can be possibly intended, appears 
 from the fact, that none of them ever 
 did or could exert a beneficial influence © 
 over Galilee, since it lay entirely be- | 
 yond their jurisdiction ; and also from 
 the peculiar terms of the description, 
 which admit of no appropriate inter- 
 pretation except they be applied toa 
 Divine Person. ‘ Nobis,” says Rosen- 
 miiller, “omnino haud est credibile, 
 vatem ullum Hebreum de solito aliquo 
 sue gentis rege spes adeo magnificas, 
 quales hic expressas legimus, concipere 
 potuisse.” Schol. Edit. 1835. And 
 Schroeder in MS.: “de solo Messi 
 hune locum accipiendum esse, ex in- 
 signibus titulis atque divinis honori- 
 
CHAP. IX.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 83 
 
 Upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom ; 
 To establish it, and strengthen it, with justice and equity, 
 
 bus, qui ipsi dantur tam evidens est, 
 ut in dubium vocari non _possit.” 
 Still stronger is the language of Chry- 
 sostom, tom. i. p. 560: ὅτι δὲ περὶ dv- 
 θρώπου, οὐκ ἄν τις εἴποι τοῦτο ψιλοῦ, 
 εὔδηλον, καὶ τοῖς σφόδρα φιλονικεῖν 
 ἐθέλουσι: θεὸς γὰρ ἰσχυρὸς οὐδεὶς ἀν- 
 θρώπων ἐλέχθη ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος, οὐδὲ 
 ἄρχων εἰρήνης τοιαύτης" τῆς γὰρ εἰρήνης 
 αὐτοῦ, φῆσιν, οὐκ ἔστιν ὅριον. 
 ἈΠ) 72 wT Wwe. The concinnity 
 and emphasis of these words evince 
 the high state of exultation to which 
 the mind of the prophet was raised, 
 when he delivered them. The verbs 
 are put in the preterite, to indicate 
 the certainty of the event which they 
 predict. ὋΣ is used per κοίνωσιν.--- 
 jody MIwAT IA. The former of these 
 nouns is derived from 7, an obsolete 
 verb, equivalent to WY and WW, like 
 _ ΠΌΤ. from 9); and signifies absolute 
 vule, dominion, empire. It occurs 
 only here and ver. 6. The resting of 
 this empire upon the shoulder of the 
 prince, indicates the weight of public 
 affairs which he would have to sustain. 
 Comp. Plin. Panegyr. ὁ. 10; Cicero, 
 Orat. pro Flacco, § 95. For the cus- 
 tom of placing the badge of office on 
 the shoulder, see xxii. 22. 
 
 xq? is to be taken impersonally, but 
 is best rendered passively. The later 
 Jews, in order to get rid of the Chris- 
 tian interpretation of the verse, main- 
 tain that all the names, as far as 
 ἼΣΩΝ, form the nominative, and that 
 Οὐχ Ww alone is the object to the verb; 
 
 but such an accumulation of names 
 forming a nominative is without ex- 
 ample, and in Hebrew usage, the 
 name given uniformly follows im- 
 mediately after 2¥, and not that of 
 the person who gives it.—N, lit. ὦ 
 wonder, miracle, from 2, to separate, 
 distinguish by some remarkable quali- 
 ties ; that which, from its not com- 
 ing within the compass of natural 
 events, is the cause of wonder and ad- 
 miration. The abstract is used for the 
 concrete: Wonderful, worthy of ad- 
 miration. Thus Aquila, θαυμαστός ; 
 
 [2 » 
 Symm., παραδοξασμός; the Syr. | 0002, 
 
 admiratio; Jerome, admirabilis. ty 
 825, effecting miracles, is one of the 
 peculiar characteristics of Jehovah, 
 Exod. xv. 11; and nix: the Niphal 
 part. is freq. used of the miracles that 
 were wrought in behalf of the He- 
 brews. As the Uncreated Angel, the 
 same glorious person here predicted, 
 appropriates the title to himself, Jud. 
 xiii. 18, where, though the Keri reads 
 %e, the Chethib is ‘B.—yyY, Coun- 
 sellor; Aquila, σύμβουλος; Symm. 
 βουλευτικός ; Theod. βουλεύων. Some 
 wouid join this and the preceding title 
 together, and render, Wonderful Coun- 
 sellor, on the specious ground, that all 
 the other titles are in pairs; but what- 
 ever uniformity in point of construc- 
 tion might thus be introduced into 
 the passage, it is completely at vari- 
 ance with Hebrew construction. To 
 admit of this rendering, the form 
 must be 7EY 82, and not yyy x. For 
 the import of this title, comp. chap. 
 xa. 9. John. ds: Matt. τὶ 27) ine 
 111. 18.—)32 Ox, The Mighty God. The 
 occurrence of these words in conjunc- 
 tion, chap. x. 21, in application to 
 Jehovah as revealed in the person of 
 the Messiah, irrefragably proves that 
 they are so to be combined in the pre- 
 sent instance ; as also, that 98 is to be 
 taken in its usual acceptation, as one 
 of the Divine names, and not in that 
 of Hero, which Gesenius assigns to it. 
 Hitzig defends the rendering, starher 
 Gott, “Mighty God ;” and thus the 
 Targ. Syr., Jerome, Ignat. in Epist.ad 
 Antioch., Tren. adv. Heres. lib. iv. 
 cap. 66; Euseb. in Demon. Evang. 
 libb. vii. and ix.; Clemens, Peedag. lib. 
 i.; Severian. in Combes. Auctar. Non. 
 P.P.tom.i. Comp. Deut. x. 17; Jer. 
 xxxii. 18. 58 never occurs as an ad- 
 jective. Theodoret, animadverting 
 upon the translation of Aquila, ἰσχυ- 
 pos δυνατός, observes: κεῖται δὲ παρὰ 
 τὸ Ἕβρ. ἢλ γεββώρ᾽ τὸ δὲ HA, θεός ; 
 “ But in the Hebrew it is Μὲ gibbor: 
 now Hi signifies God.” The combina- 
 tion, aa by γον, the Consulter of the 
 Mighty God, as Grotius renders it ; or 
 the Counsellor of God, Mighty, proposed 
 by Dr. L. Carpenter; no Hebrew 
 
84 
 
 Henceforth and for ever :-- 
 
 scholar can, for a moment, admit.— 
 wos, lit. the Father of perpetuity, 
 eternity, from the root 1, fo advance, 
 go forward, endure, Gesenius translates, 
 pater sempiternus, which agrees with 
 our common version, and most modern 
 translations, and ascribes the attri- 
 bute of eternity to the Messiah. Yet, 
 as TY is specially used to denote future 
 duration, the LXX. seem to have hit 
 the true meaning when they render, 
 as in the Ald. and Complut. editions : 
 Πατὴρ τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, Father of 
 the future age; Only the age is not to 
 be restricted to the present dispensa- 
 tion, but is to be extended to the state 
 of eternal blessedness after death. 
 ax signifies not only father, but also 
 author, provider, benefactor, Gen. iv. 21 ; 
 Job xxix. 16; Ps. Ixvili. 6; and 
 especially, Is. xxii. 21, and Gen. xlv. 
 8, where Joseph is said to have been 
 made @ father to Pharaoh,—not his 
 Vizier or prime minister as Gesenius 
 explains it, but ἃ provider, with special 
 reference to the famine. Comp. also 
 2 Cor.i.3; Jamesi.17. The Turkish, 
 
 ELL, Atabeh, to which the same 
 
 author refers in illustration, is not ap- 
 plied to the Vizier in the sense of 
 Sather of the prince, but is simply a 
 title of respect, Dominus Pater, and is 
 given both to ministers and to the 
 prince himself. The corresponding 
 
 Arabic, yl, is in use among the 
 
 Diyabi Bedoweens of Oman. Well- 
 sted, in his travels among them, men- 
 tions that each of the seven divisions 
 of that peculiar people is governed 
 by a chief called Ad, who exercises 
 what may be termed a patriarchal 
 authority over them. This office is 
 filled by individuals whose superior 
 Sagacity, experience, and courage, en- 
 title them to the distinction. The 
 Messiah may appropriately be styled, 
 The father of the future eternal state, in- 
 asmuch as he is the author and 
 bestower of its blessings ; and in this 
 point of view, W728 exactly corres- 
 ponds to αἴτιος σωτηρίας αἰωνίου, Heb. 
 v. 9. The rendering, Futher of prey, 
 proposed by Abarbanel, and adopted 
 by Lgen and Hitzig, is quite out of 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 place here ; though it cannot be de- 
 nied, that Ἣν is also used to denote 
 prey. Dwr, Zhe Prince of Peace 
 answers to 1%, Shiloh, The Pacificator, 
 Gen. xlix. 10; οὐ» Zhe Peace, Micah 
 v. 4. Comp. Eph. ii. 14, 17: Col. i. 
 20. 
 
 The state of the LXX. text in this 
 place is so unsettled, that little use 
 can be made of it for the purpose of 
 throwing light upon the terms em- 
 ployed. See Stroth’s Beytrige zur 
 Kritik der LXX. in Eichhorn’s Reper- 
 torium, part 111. p.252. It is exhibited 
 at greater length in the Alex. and 
 Ald. copies, than in that of the Vat. ; 
 but all three have the remarkable 
 rendering, μεγάλης βουλῆς ἄγγελος, The 
 Angel of the great Counsel, which they 
 are supposed to have found in the 
 words > yy? X%—taking ἢ in the ac- 
 ceptation of azgel, which they have 
 certainly done Job xx. 15. Whether 
 they had in view 7 32x92, The Angel of 
 Jehovah, of celebrated occurrence, can- 
 not be determined. 
 
 73709 (7372). That Christian editors 
 of the Hebrew Bible should still con- 
 form to the Masoretic absurdity of 
 exhibiting a final Mem at the begin- 
 ning of a word, is passing strange ; as 
 it must likewise be considered, that 
 any interpreters should imitate the 
 Rabbins in attempting to find mys- 
 teries in it. The only edition in 
 which I have seen it corrected is that 
 of Hahn, Lips. 1834, 12mo., which 
 contains other emendations of a simi- 
 lar kind. There is no ground for sup- 
 posing that the text originally read 
 mm 02, the former of these words 
 standing for 07?—though this division 
 is actually found in two or three MSS. 
 In what sense the Messiah occupies 
 the throne of David, see Dan. ii. 44 ; 
 vii. 14, 27; Luke 1. 31—33; Acts ii, 
 34—36 ; Rom. xiv.9; 1 Cor. xv. 24— 
 28; Heb. xii. 27, 28; and those pas- 
 sages of the N.T. in which the dis- 
 pensation of the Messiah is designated 
 7 βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, τῶν οὐρανῶν, το. 
 His reign is not earthly and temporal, 
 but spiritual and eternal.—This illus- 
 trious prophecy beautifully concludes 
 with the words, ΓΝ Tim ΠΡ} 
 ΠΤ ΤΟΣ, with respect to which itisonly 
 
 =r 
 
ISAIAH. 
 The zeal of Jehovah of Hosts shall effect this. 
 
 CHAP, IX.] 85 
 
 necessary to remark, that 7p, zeal, is evinced by vigilant attention and in- 
 here used in the acceptation of strong defatigable effort in regard to it, 
 affection, or ardent love for an object, Song vili. 6; Zech, viii. 2. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 7—X. 4. 
 
 This section is clearly distinguishable from those which precede and follow it, 
 by the peculiar features of the composition, and the subject-matter which 
 it contains, The 7th verse forms the title or introduction: then follow 
 four regular stanzas, to each of which is added a distich, consisting of 
 a refrain, or repetition of the same words. The prophecy is directed against 
 the kingdom or people of Israel, and threatens them with Divine judgments 
 in punishment of their pride, 7—12; their obstinate rebellion against the 
 Lord, 13—16 ; their flagrant wickedness, 17—20 ; and their perversion of 
 
 justice, x, 1—4, 
 
 7 JEHOVAH sent a word against Jacob, 
 And it came down against Israel ; 
 8 And all the people shall know it— 
 Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria— 
 Who say in pride and arrogance of heart : 
 9 The bricks have fallen, but we will build with hewn stones ; 
 The sycamores are cut down, but we will substitute cedars. 
 
 7. Asynonymous parallelism. For 
 ‘yx, thirty-three of Kennicott’s MSS. 
 and three of the earliest printed edi- 
 tions, read T17,—3, fo come down, in the 
 sense in which %3 52 is used Dan. iv. 28, 
 
 and ων 31, in the Koran, to in- 
 
 dicate the communication of oracular 
 matter, or revelations from heaven. 
 Jacob and Israel are identical, designat- 
 ing the kingdom of the ten tribes. 
 
 8. Ὁ signifies here ¢o feel, know from 
 suffering experimentally, as Num. xiv. 
 34; ‘nsanny OMYT), Ye shall know, 1. e. 
 feel my opposition, the hostility which 
 you have provoked ; very improperly 
 rendered in the common version, 
 “My breach of promise.” See also 
 Job xxi. 19; Hos. ix. 7. “Ephraim 
 and the inhabitants of Samaria” is 
 -added by way of explanation to 59 oya, 
 
 to exclude the idea of Judah from 
 being involved in the threatening. The 
 Yin 18%) is emphatic: “ and especially 
 the inhabitants of the metropolis.” 
 
 9. The 0°22) were bricks made of a 
 white, or chalky clay, (122, to be white,) 
 and dried in the sun, but not burnt. 
 To give them coherence they were 
 mixed with straw, Exod. v. 7, but 
 they possessed little durability. Such 
 bricks were in common use, as they 
 are at this day, all over the East. 
 When edifices of large dimensions 
 were to be built, the bricks were 
 burnt, Gen. xi. 3.—™2 for ™2 228, 
 hewn stones, from ™3 to cut, form by hew- 
 ing. The term is specially used of 
 large stones made square by hewing, 
 1 Kings v. 31.—op7d, LXX. συκάμι- 
 vous, sycamores, a kind of fig-tree, 
 resembling in its leaves and fruit the 
 
 L 
 
80 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 10 Therefore Jehovah will raise up the hostile bands of Rezin 
 
 against them, 
 
 And will equip their enemies ; 
 
 11 Syria on the east, and the Philistines on the west ; 
 And they shall devour Israel with open mouth. 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 12 For the people have not returned to him who smote them ; 
 And Jehovah of Hosts they have not sought. 
 13 Therefore Jehovah will cut off from Israel, 
 The head and the tail, the branch and the rush, 
 
 mulberry-tree, and called by Pliny 
 jicus Aigyptia, from its being frequent 
 in that country. It also abounded, 
 and still abounds in the level parts of 
 Palestine. It is durable, but slender, 
 and coarse in the grain, and is used by 
 the inhabitants for ordinary purposes. 
 i Kings x. 27; 1 Chron. xxvii. 28); 
 Amos vii. 14.—o"ny, cedars. See note 
 on chap. ii. 13. While the sycamore 
 was of little worth, the cedar was 
 held in the highest estimation, and is 
 the most celebrated of all the trees 
 mentioned in Scripture. The impeni- 
 tent Ephraimites treat with contempt 
 the results of Tiglath-pileser’s inva- 
 sion, and boast that they will speedily 
 place their affairs in a far more pro- 
 sperous condition than before. 
 
 10, 11. 23%, used here instead of 
 oy, (see Micah v. 4;) only the idea 
 of superiority in prowess is expressed 
 by the former term. Instead of "8 
 TS), the enemies of Rezin, thirteen MSS., 
 originally seventeen more, now three, 
 and the Keri of one of De Rossi’s, 
 read Y2) ‘Ww, the princes of Rezin; 
 whichisadopted by Houbigant, Lowth, 
 Déderlein, Dathe, and Hensler. Mi- 
 chaelis, following the LXX., rods ἐπα- 
 νισταμένους ἐπὶ ὄρος Σιὼν, conjectures 
 72% to have been the original reading, 
 and renders, die Widersacher des Berges 
 Zion, “the adversaries of Mount Zion,” 
 but he is quite uncertain respecting 
 the application of the words. There 
 is, however, no real difficulty in the 
 common reading, which is corrobo- 
 rated by ΣΝ in the second member of 
 the parallelism. By the enemies of 
 Rezin the Assyrians are meant, by 
 
 ‘engage 
 
 whom, under Tiglath-Pileser, Rezin 
 was slain, his capital taken, and the 
 population and that of a portion of 
 Israel carried away into Media. These 
 were to come a second time against 
 Israel; and to aggravate the evil, both 
 the Arameans and the Philistines 
 would, under the conqueror, rush into 
 the country, and pillage it at pleasure. 
 This took place when Shalmaneser 
 reduced the kingdom of Israel to an 
 Assyrian province, about the year B.c. 
 730 or 720.—J20, the Pilpel of 729, 
 to interweave, fence, cover, or furnish with 
 armour, With an original reference to 
 the large shields, which often consisted 
 of osiers intertwined, and covered with 
 
 bull’s hide, Comp. the Arab. sls, 
 spinis munivit parietem ; ἀκ, ὦ, δρίμα; 
 
 hence arma eorumve acumen.—%X, 
 freq. used of the consumption effected 
 by war; hence 727%, war, from the 
 synonymous root 01), fo eat, devour,— 
 D0, the Niphal of which signifies to 
 in battle. Comp. πολέμοιο 
 μέγα στόμα. Iliad. x. 8. 
 
 12. 2 is more commonly followed 
 by > and ὅν, but it is also in other 
 passages construed with 7¥, chap. xix. 
 22; Amos iv. 6. In 17397 the refer- 
 ence is to Jehovah as the inflicter of 
 the punishment. 
 
 13. περ, the palm-branch; from its 
 curved, hand-like shape; but employed 
 here on account of its elevated position 
 on the tree, which is itself one of the 
 most beautiful in the vegetable king- 
 dom.—jiaxx, the reed or rush, whieh 
 grows in low marshy tracts, and 
 
° 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 In a single day. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 87 
 
 14 The elder, even the honourable, he is the head ; 
 And the prophet, the teacher of falsehood, he is the tail. 
 15 For the leaders of this people cause them to err ; 
 And those who are led by them are destroyed. 
 16 Wherefore the Lord shall not rejoice over their young men, 
 Nor will he pity their orphans and widows ; 
 For every one of them is profane and wicked, 
 And every mouth speaketh folly. 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, 
 But his hand is stretched out still: 
 17 For wickedness burneth like fire, 
 
 attains to the height of eight or ten 
 feet. The different terms here em- 
 ployed are appropriate images of 
 persons in high and inferior stations 
 of life. Thus the LXX. μέγαν καὶ 
 μικρόν. Eleven MSS., and originally 
 three more, prefix 3 to OY, as chap. x. 
 17, where, likewise, the phrase denotes 
 quickly, within the shortest period. 
 
 14. This verse Koppe, Cube, Eich- 
 horn, Gesenius, and Hitzig, maintain 
 to be a gloss; principally on the 
 ground, that the contrast so strikingly 
 made in the preceding verse is not 
 kept up in the exegesis here given. 
 But it is obvious from ver. 15, that it 
 was specially the design of Isaiah to 
 degrade and expose the false prophets, 
 which he could not have done more 
 effectually than by comparing them 
 to the tail; thus assigning to them 
 the most contemptible position in 
 society. The verse is, therefore, quite 
 in its place, as Hendewerk has ably 
 shewn. Comp. for the other terms, 
 chap. iii. 2, 3. 
 
 15. Comp. chap. iii. 12. By oqvx0 
 are meant the lying teachers men- 
 tioned in the preceding verse.— 23, in 
 Kal, to swallow, devour eagerly; in Piel, 
 to destroy, exterminate. 
 
 16. onm3, the delectus, young, choice 
 warriors, from 3, fo choose, select the 
 best of any thing. Comp. chap. xxxi. 
 8, Jer. xviii. 21; and Ps. cx. 3, where 
 nny, youth, likewise signifies youthful 
 warriors.—*, on impious, Or profane 
 
 person; Syr. 3.1.» one who is morally 
 impure, ὦ heathen; Eth. f€4qQ.: a 
 
 heretic. The word has generally been 
 rendered fypocrite, but apparently 
 without foundation in the Hebrew, or 
 any other of the dialects. It denotes 
 an atrocious, unprincipled character, 
 one who is uninfluenced by regard 
 either to God or man. See Job viii. 
 13, xiii. 16, xvii. 8.—YY2, see chap. 1. 4. 
 
 17. AY) signifies in this place, not 
 wickedness in general, but idolatry, 
 the fruitful parent of all manner of 
 evil. Comp. Zech. v. 8: Tyt 7 NN, 
 This is wickedness, i.e. idolatry, which 
 was removed from the land of Israel 
 at the captivity, and set down in 
 Babylon, its own appropriate place, 
 vers. 9—11. Its prevalence is com- 
 pared to a raging fire, which spreads 
 devastation wherever it comes, espe- 
 cially in a forest; and those who in- 
 dulge in it are compared to briers and 
 thorns, which are easily ignited and 
 speedily consumed. This image is 
 frequently used in the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures. See Ps. lviii. 10, cxviii. 12; 
 Isa. x. 16, 17, xxxiii. 12; Micah vii. 
 4; Nah. i. 10.--᾿ὴῖν Mx WANN, And 
 they roll upward in a column of smoke. 
 The verb. 728 is a ἅπαξ λεγ., but is 
 obviously related to pix, whirling dust ; 
 
 Arab. (jl, JE%, Arab. EAS), to turns 
 
 in Hith. fo turn oneself about; and 
 expresses the winding or revolving 
 action of a body of smoke rising into 
 the air. Some compare the Arab. 
 
 SI, carnosus fuit, and the Syr. 
 
 ov 
 las} > gallus gallinaceus, superbo gradu 
 
88 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 It consumeth the thorns and briers ; 
 And it kindleth the thickets of the forest, 
 And they roll upward—a column of smoke. 
 
 18 
 
 By the wrath of Jehovah of Hosts the land is burned up, 
 
 And the people are as food for the fire ; 
 They have no pity for each other. 
 
 19 
 
 And one cutteth down on the right, yet starveth ; 
 
 And eateth on the left, but is not satisfied ; 
 They each devour the flesh of his arm: 
 
 20 
 
 Manasseh, Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh ; 
 
 And these together are against Judah! 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1 Wo to the enactors of iniquitous statutes, 
 
 incedens, and, after Castel., render the 
 word superbient, fastuose se gerent— 
 referring the comparison to the szell- 
 iny of the volumes of smoke; but the 
 former etymology is preferable, and 
 
 has the support of the Syr. casogsda : 
 and the Vulg. convolvetur. ΤΌΝΔ is used 
 adverbially to denote the proud direc- 
 tion of the smoke as thus rolling itself 
 upwards. Hendewerk thinks there 
 is purposely an omission of the Cuph 
 veritatis before this substantive. 
 
 18. The flames are now described 
 as extending from the forest to the 
 whole country ; only instead of being 
 further represented as resulting from 
 wickedness, the conflagration is re- 
 solved into the anger of God as the 
 avenger of sin. The idea of civil dis- 
 cord and mutual destruction was also 
 naturally suggested by that of fire, 
 which consumes on every hand.—ony 
 occurs only here, but appears from 
 the connexion, and from its affinity 
 
 with the Arab. εἰς » to be darkened, 
 
 ἃς, estus ingens et suffocans, suffocating 
 
 heat, to have the signification of durn- 
 ing, burning up, burning so as to leave 
 the ground completely black ; LXX. 
 
 συγκέκαυται; Alex, συγκαυθήσεται ; 
 
 Targ. m2, adusta est. YX being of 
 common gender, occasions no diffi- 
 culty in construing it with the mas, 
 of the verb. 
 
 19. 12, Arab. =, ¢o hill, cut up, 
 
 dissect, prepare for food. Secker’s con- 
 jecture, which Lowth adopts, that we 
 are to read 1X, his companion, instead 
 of Dt, his arm, appears, at first sight, 
 to derive support from the parallel 
 passage, Jer. xix. 9; but as yim is 
 used tropically to denote strength, aid, 
 &c., there is no occasion to alter the 
 text. The word is here used, like the 
 
 Arab, jae ; brachium, adjutor, socius, 
 
 one who employs his arm in behalf of 
 another, a helper, friend, ὅθ. Comp. 
 Ps. Ixxxiii. 9; Is. xxxiii,2; Jer. xvii. 
 5. The following verse clearly shews 
 that this is the meaning. It was 
 natural for those who were related to 
 each other, to render mutual assist- 
 ance ; but in civil broils, every tie of 
 the kind is disregarded, and those 
 who are most closely connected often 
 become the greatest foes. 
 
 20. An epexegesis of the preced- 
 ing, in which the figurative language 
 is literally explained, 
 
 CHAPTER X.—1, Before ov, subaud. 
 WR, 
 
ὃ 
 
 CHAP. Χ.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 89 
 
 And the writers who register evil : 
 
 To turn away the poor from judgment, 
 
 And deprive of their right the afflicted of my people ; 
 That the widows may be their prey, 
 And that they may plunder the orphans. 
 
 3 And what will ye do in the day of visitation, 
 And of desolation which cometh from afar ? 
 To whom will ye flee for help ? 
 
 And where will ye leave your nobility ? 
 
 4 Except they crouch among the prisoners, 
 They shall fall among the slain. 
 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 2. pr. eT differs in signification, 
 as in form, from bb022 737, and 77 
 ved. The latter phrases signify to 
 pervert justice, to give a wrong ver- 
 dict ; the former means (/o turn away 
 @ cause, 80 as to prevent its being 
 brought to trial—%3 conveys the 
 idea of taking away by fraud and 
 violence.—At the close of the verse, 
 the verb assumes the finite form. 
 
 3. DY, day, is understood as repeated 
 before 781M; and 72x is to be supplied 
 before pv; which term refers to 
 the Assyrians, who, though distant, 
 are spoken of as already on their 
 march.—72. LXX. ἐπισκοπή, in this 
 and several other passages, but also 
 ἐπίσκεψις, ἐκδίκησις. The root signi- 
 fies, in such connexion, to come to 
 any one in a hostile sense, to visit so 
 as to punish. Comp. Job xxxi. 14; 
 Jer, xxiii. 12; and the Greek, 1 Pet. 
 ii. 12. 722 is to be taken here, as 
 chap. v. 13, viii. 7, in the sense of 
 nobility. It was to be expected that 
 they might safely be left in their castles 
 and fastnesses ; but the prophet de- 
 clares that they should form no ex- 
 ception, but be treated like the rest 
 of the nation. Hendewerk is of 
 opinion, that zdols, the boast and 
 glory of the apostate Israelites, are 
 meant. 
 
 4. The Rabbins, Moses, and Kimchi, 
 Abendanus, Noldius, Tremellius, Vi- 
 
 tringa, Lowth, Gesenius in his Lex. 
 Man., and others, regard the Yod in 
 ὙΠ as the pronominal suffix, and ren- 
 der, without me, in the sense of, aban- 
 doned by me, and consider Jehovah to 
 be the speaker ; but, though the word 
 is unquestionably thus used Hos. xiii. 
 4, such an interpretation ill suits the 
 present connexion. It is rather to be 
 taken in the acceptation of ewcept, 7 
 not, as Gen, xliii, 3, and with D8 added, 
 
 Amos, iii. 4, Thus the Syr. 3», and 
 
 Schmid. who supplies x. Being pro- 
 perly the noun 023, signifying aznihi- 
 lation, from 193, to consume, bring or 
 come to nothing, it is simply a nega- 
 tive particle with the Yod paragogic, 
 The nobles must either crouch among 
 the prisoners, under the chains with 
 which they are to be loaded, or they 
 must share the fate of the slain— 
 nom occurs nowhere else in the sense 
 of among; yet it seems to be purposely 
 adopted here instead of 3 or 73, to in- 
 dicate the low or prostrate condition 
 of the persons described. It may, 
 however, be rendered, iz the place of 
 the prisoners; 7. e. where they are. 
 Thus Kimchi, 01701; though Abenezra 
 prefers ~3.—22, though singular, agree- 
 ing with 733, ver. 3, is to be rendered 
 in the plural, in accordance with = 
 following. Such enallage is common 
 in Hebrew poetry. 
 
90 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. X: 
 
 CHAPTER X. 5—34. 
 
 The remainder of this chapter contains a prophecy respecting the invasion of 
 Juda by Sennacherib, and the destruction of his army. The purpose of 
 God in sending him against the Jews is distinctly stated, 5,6; his proud 
 boastings in reference to his conquests, and his intentions against Jerusalem 
 are described, 6—11,; the Divine punishment to be inflicted upon him and 
 his army, when they had finished their work, is denounced, 12—19 ; pro- 
 mises of mercy are made to the small remnant of the Jews, 20—23 ; and 
 they are assured of the signal interposition of God on their behalf, 24—27 ; 
 the rapid approach of the Assyrian army to Jerusalem, and the consterna- 
 tion of the neighbouring cities are then admirably depicted, 28—32; and 
 the section closes with an abrupt description of its entire discomfiture, 
 
 From ver. 11, it would appear that this prophecy was delivered subsequent to 
 the capture of Samaria, which took place in the sixth year of Hezekiah, but 
 earlier than the fourteenth year, in the course of which the threatened 
 
 invasion happened. 
 
 5 Wo to the Assyrian! the rod of mine anger! 
 The staff in whose hand is that of my wrath. 
 6 Against an impious nation I will send him, 
 And against the people of my indignation will I give him a 
 
 charge ; 
 
 To seize the spoil; and to take the prey ; 
 And to tread them down like the mire of the streets. 
 
 5. Wx, to correspond with 073 fol- 
 lowing, must here be regarded as 
 denoting the Assyrians ; but as the 
 king of Assyria is introduced imme- 
 diately after, it is better to render it 
 in the singular. Instead of xm, 
 eight MSS., another at first hand, and 
 one in the margin, read 778; but the 
 reading seems to have originated in 
 an attempt to get over the difficulty 
 occasioned by 8, which after all is 
 only the usual substitute for the sub- 
 stantive verb. Hitzig violently ex- 
 scinds D073, and Secker proposes to 
 read DY instead of it. The sentence 
 is elliptical ; requiring Wx to be sup- 
 plied after 87, and 7 to be repeated 
 before Ὅν, It will then literally read 
 thus: And the rod which is in their 
 hand is the rod of my indignation, The 
 Assyrians are first represented as the 
 
 instrument of Divine punishment, 
 and then as themselves employing 
 their military weapons in inflicting it, 
 
 6. For 27, see note on chap. ix. 16, 
 The people against which he was to 
 be sent was that of Judah. They 
 were now to experience the evils 
 which they had seen inflicted upon 
 others, without taking warning. Ge- 
 senius, Hitzig, and others, suppose 
 Ephraim to be meant ; but the refe- 
 rence to the taking of Samaria, vers. 
 9, 10, 11, is decidedly opposed to this 
 view of the subject. ‘uy ov is the 
 genitive of object ; the people on whom 
 my wrath is to be inflicted —ODo Ὁ inv», 
 according to the Keri: lit. fo place it 
 a treading: i.e.to tread them, or cause 
 them to be trodden upon. The usual 
 term for mire, in such connexion, is 
 not 9, but 797, which properly signi- 
 
CHAP. X.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 91 
 
 7 But as for him, he thinketh not so, 
 Neither doth his heart so intend ; 
 
 But to destroy is in his heart, 
 
 And to cut off nations not a few. 
 8 For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings? 
 
 Is not Calno as Carchemish ? 
 Is not Hamath as Arpad? 
 Is not Samaria as Damascus ? 
 
 fies clay, and is also thus employed, 
 Job xxx. 19. 
 
 7. 3 for D8 33, but, on the contrary. 
 ur 2, not a few, a litotes for many. 
 
 ~ ¥ ~ v 
 Thus the Syr. Hee |SeS88, many 
 people. 
 
 8. The Assyrian monarch is here, 
 with great effect, introduced as boast- 
 ing of the number of his conquests ; 
 asserting, that there were not any of 
 his princes who had not had the regal 
 dignity conferred upon them. Of 
 course, by 0220 we are to understand, 
 not absolute sovereigns, but satraps or 
 viceroys, each having his separate 
 kingdom or province, which he go- 
 verned, subject to the supreme ruler, 
 who, in reference to his dominion over 
 them, is styled 0°22 722, Ling of kings, 
 Ezek. xxvi. 7; 82370 729, Dan. ii. 37. 
 Compare the title anciently assumed 
 by the king of Persia, Ezra vii. 12, 
 and still retained in the formula, 
 
 aitals, Shahinshah, “the Shah of 
 Shabs ;” | jl lala, “the Sultan 
 
 of Sultans,’ which is given to the 
 
 Grand Seignor ; the Egypt. ΟΟ ΩΤ ΕἸ 
 \ τ δὲν! 
 MN COY'TENIOY'; and the Ethiopic 
 
 “SRW: £'724'b: which have 
 the same signification. Comp. also 
 ἄναξ ἀνάκτων, Aschyl. Suppl. 533. 
 
 9. 1273, Calno, written 7352, Calneh, 
 Gen. x. 10 ; 7222, Amos vi. 2; and, by 
 dropping the 5, 723, Ezek. xxvii. 23. 
 LXX. Χαλάνη, Ctesiphon, avery ancient, 
 large, and celebrated city, on the 
 eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite 
 to Seleucia. It was afterwards the 
 winter residence of the Persian kings, 
 till about the time of Mohammed ; 
 
 and together with Seleucia, obtained 
 from the Arabs, in later times, the 
 
 name of rl, El-Madain, “the 
 
 Two Cities;” but all that now 
 remains are the ruins of a palace, 
 and numerous mounds of rubbish.— 
 
 wns, Arab. Kaas δ, Κιρκήσιον, Cer- 
 The word is 
 OF 
 compounded of ΤΆ, Syr. log, acastle, 
 and 2, a proper name. It was a 
 strongly fortified town, on the eastern 
 bank of the Euphrates, at the point 
 where it is joined by the Chaboras, 
 and thus possessed the advantages of 
 an insular position. It was taken by 
 Necho, king of Egypt, and retaken by 
 Nebuchadnezzar, 2 Chron. xxxv. 20; 
 2 Kings xxiii. 29 ; Jer. xlvi. 2. The 
 conquest mentioned by Isaiah is sup- 
 posed to have been made by Tiglath- 
 pileser. This city was celebrated in 
 the time of the Romans, and formed 
 their last fortress in the direction of 
 Persia. No notice is taken of its 
 ruins by modern travellers.—non, still 
 
 called ae, Hamath, by the Arabs; 
 
 LXX. Ἔμάθ, Αἰμάθ, Ἣμάθ; a large 
 city of Syria, pleasantly situated on 
 both sides of the Orontes, near the 
 northern confines of Palestine. It 
 was originally peopled by the Pheni- 
 cians, Gen. x. 18, and in course of 
 time became the capital of a kingdom 
 or principality of the same name, the 
 king of which was one of David's 
 allies, 2 Sam. viii. 9. It is the cele- 
 brated city to which the Greeks gave 
 the name of Epiphania, and continues 
 to be a place of great note, containing 
 upwards of thirty thousand inhabit- 
 ants, and its government comprising 
 
 cusium or Cuircessum. 
 
92 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 10 As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, 
 
 And their graven images— 
 
 That were superior to those of Jerusalem and Samaria— 
 11 As I have done to Samaria and her idols, 
 Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her images ? 
 12 But it shall come to pass when the Lord hath finished the whole 
 
 of his work 
 
 On mount Zion and Jerusalem, 
 
 about one hundred and twenty small 
 towns or villages—T 1, Syr. = 3 
 
 Arpad, another city of Syria, at a 
 short distance from Hamath, with 
 which, for this reason, it is usually 
 associated, 2 Kings xvili. 34, xix. 13 ; 
 Jer. xlix. 23. Déderlein and others 
 suppose it to have been the same with 
 ™ys, drvad, Gen. x. 18; Ezek. xxvii. 
 8,11; but this was a Pheenician city, 
 situated on a rock on the coast of 
 the Mediterranean, now called Ruad. 
 No traces of Arpad have been found 
 in later times.—The boast of the As- 
 syrian monarch is, that none of these 
 cities, however strongly fortified, had 
 been able to resist his arms; they had 
 all equally fallen before him. 
 
 10, 11. 87 is a collective noun, 
 which usually takes the article. Ἢ 7832 
 signifies fo reach, attain to, acquire, 10. 
 reference to the putting forth of the 
 hand in order to find or seize any 
 thing ; with > following, ¢o reach in the 
 way of punishment, Ps. xxi. 9.—n329 
 xa. The different nations of anti- 
 quity had their tutelary gods, under 
 whose patronage they placed them- 
 selves, and to whom they considered 
 themselves as belonging. That the 
 king of Assyria, who was himself a 
 worshipper of 0°? 2x, zon-entities, should 
 speak of them in this light, has ap- 
 peared to some to be out of place 
 here ; and they have endeavoured to 
 account for the language, on the prin- 
 ciple, that Isaiah, by whom all pagan 
 deities were thus regarded, puts the 
 term into the mouth of the monarch, 
 The supposition, however, is unneces- 
 sary, Since it is obvious that though 
 he did not entertain the enlightened 
 views of the Hebrews, he must have 
 regarded foreign gods as impotent 
 
 and worthless, especially after having, 
 with so much ease, conquered the 
 cities and countries of which they were 
 the professed protectors. Whether 
 ἹῸ be here designed to express supe- 
 riority in zumber or in power is some- 
 what doubtful; yet the latter idea 
 seems the more natural under the 
 circumstances of the case; the king 
 of Assyria having had an opportunity 
 of ascertaining the weakness of both 
 kingdoms by subjugating Ephraim, 
 and by his being called to assist Judah 
 against her enemies,—D3zY is not in 
 reality different in sense from Ox 
 preceding, but is used synonymously 
 with it, and with Ὁ ῸΕ, for the sake of 
 variety. At the same time, as derived 
 from 32, to work, labour, be in pain, it 
 conveys at once the ideas of human 
 origin, and the grief and pain consequent 
 upon idol-worship. Comp. Ps. xvi. 4. 
 There is a want of strict corre- 
 spondence between the protasis and 
 the apodosis in these two verses, 
 occasioned by the comparison made 
 between the foreign images and those 
 of Samaria and Jerusalem. To per- 
 fectly agree, the proposition must 
 have run thus: As my hand hath 
 found the kingdoms of the idols, and 
 their images that were superior to 
 those of Jerusalem and Samaria, so 
 shall it find, ἕο, But as Samaria had 
 already been taken, the proposition 
 required to be modified, which has 
 been done by transferring the com- 
 parison to these two cities; and by 
 introducing a new protasis in the 
 form of an interrogation, an apodosis 
 perfectly corresponding to it is brought 
 out. The agreement is marked by 
 the correlatives Wx) and }2. 
 
 12. Having allowed the king of As- 
 syria to carry forward his vaunting to 
 
CHAP. X.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 93 
 
 Then [saith he] I will punish the fruit of the proud heart of 
 
 Assyria’s king, 
 
 And the arrogance of his lofty looks. 
 
 13 
 
 For he saith, By the power of my hand I have done it, 
 
 And by my wisdom; for I am skilful. 
 
 Yea, I have removed the boundaries of the nations, 
 And plundered their treasures ; 
 
 And as an hero, I have brought down the enthroned. 
 
 14 
 
 Yea, my hand hath found, as a nest, the riches of the people; 
 
 And as men gather eggs that are left, 
 So have I gathered all the earth ; 
 
 the very point at which he was to be 
 arrested in his proud career, Jehovah 
 states the reason why he was per- 
 mitted to proceed so far, and then 
 declares he will punish him for his 
 
 pride. Y¥3, 6s S49, has usually 
 
 the signification of cutting, amputating ; 
 but as it is specially used of a weaver, 
 cutting off his web when he has 
 finished it, the idea of finishing or com- 
 pleting came to be attached to it, Isa. 
 XxXxvlii. 12; Lam. ii. 17; Zech. iv. 9. 
 Seventeen of Kennicott’s MSS. read 
 m7; one has this reading in the mar- 
 gin; and another reads 773m. Ac- 
 cording to Lowth, the former is also 
 found in three printed editions. In 
 wx 772 327 728, four nouns succes- 
 sively occur in construction ; three 
 frequently thus occur, as Gen. xlvii. 
 9; Job xii. 24; Isa. xili. 4; and in 
 1 Chron. ix. 13, not fewer than jive ; 
 though, strictly speaking, some of 
 them express only one compound 
 idea. Between ®, and ΓΝ there is 
 a slight paronomasia, just as there is 
 an obvious connexion between the 
 meaning of the words—myxen being 
 used here in the acceptation of glory 
 or beauty as applicable to a stately 
 tree, covered with the richest foliage. 
 Comp. s®, ver. 33. The heart being 
 regarded as the root of our actions, 
 the looks correspond to the leaves, 
 and the actions themselves to the 
 fruit. A finer picture of an arrogant 
 and insolent conqueror than that 
 drawn in this passage cannot be 
 imagined. 
 
 13. mrny, according to the Keri 
 
 many, but correctly nivny, lit. things 
 prepared, kept in readiness, laid up, 1. 6. 
 
 goods, treasures, riches, from WY, Mc, 
 paratus fuit, reposuit ; ΣᾺ tic, discus, 
 
 in quo reponuntur adornamenta, &c., 
 and by meton, the precious things con- 
 ἊΝ ¥ “ 
 
 tained in such vessel; Syr. (Osa), 
 
 their treasures. — NW, or, as it is spelt 
 in a great number of MSS. ‘no, in 
 many ‘YO; in others ‘now: the Poél 
 of ποῦ, to plunder, take as spoil —Kimchi 
 thinks that in Y2x2 either the Aleph is 
 epenthetic, or the word is a dictio 
 composita, formed of V3) and 3s, 
 which have both the same significa- 
 tion, but combined, tend to augment 
 the idea. There can be little doubt, 
 however, that the true pointing is 
 vax, like a mighty one, or hero. The 3, 
 Gesenius and Hendewerk take to be 
 the Caph veritatis. See on chap. 1. 7.— 
 DIB, sitting, is elliptical for nixod °2187, 
 those who sit on thrones, i. 6. kings and 
 judges. Comp. ἔς a throne, and 
 
 Ps. xxix. 10. The boast of the con- 
 queror is, that, solely in virtue of his 
 own native power and policy, he had 
 put down the distinctions which sepa- 
 rated one nation from another, de- 
 throned their kings, and enriched 
 himself with their treasures. 
 
 14. Describes the completeness of 
 the Assyrian conquests, as well as the 
 facility with which they had been 
 effected. No resistance was offered, 
 nor did any dare to complain. The 
 reference to the taking of eggs, or 
 
 M 
 
94 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. X, 
 
 There was none that moved the wing, 
 Or opened the beak, or chirped! 
 15 Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth with it? 
 Shall the saw magnify itself against him that moveth it ? 
 As if the rod should wave them that raise it: 
 As if the staff should raise him who is not wood. 
 16 Wherefore the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts, shall send upon his fat 
 
 ones leanness, 
 
 And under his nobility shall he kindle a burning, like the 
 
 burning of fire. 
 
 young birds, out of a nest, is exqui- 
 site; and no language could more 
 appropriately have expressed the in- 
 satiable rapacity of an invading foe, 
 and the feebleness of those whom he 
 attacked. By yp, west, is meant the 
 contents of the nest. 
 
 15. Again the boastful monarch is 
 abruptly checked by Him who had 
 employed him as his instrument, and 
 to whose control he was in absolute 
 subjection. The absurdity of his 
 vaunting is forcibly depicted by sup- 
 posing the case of an inanimate tool 
 disengaging itself from the power of 
 the intelligent agent by whom it is 
 used, and treating him as if they had 
 exchanged places with each other. 
 m2 signifies fo wave any thing up and 
 down, and in Hiph. as here, to cause 
 any thing thus to move, such as the 
 saw, or the axe. The change of the 
 singular to the plural in 72%, is to be 
 ascribed to the introduction of the 
 term ©0323, rod, which Jehovah had 
 employed of the king of Assyria, ver. 
 5, and which is thus again applied 
 here with great effect. Comp. for 
 similar plural designations of God, Ps. 
 exlix.‘2; Hecles. x1i:71;-Isa. xxii. 11, 
 liv. 5; and see Dr. J. Pye Smith on 
 the Person of Christ, vol. i. p. 468. 
 With respect to the passage itself, the 
 MSS. exhibit considerable discrepancy 
 in their readings. Sixty-six MSS, 
 seven more originally, seven now, and 
 upwards of twenty printed editions, 
 read, ὙΌΣ nx) oI HpI73, As if the rod 
 should wave itself AND those who raise it. 
 Eight MSS., originally one, and now 
 another, have the singular 122, HIM 
 that raiseth it, which is supported by 
 the Syr. and Vulg. Four or five 
 
 codices read WY) ὅν, but both these 
 latter appear evidently to be emenda- 
 tions. The former yields an admirable 
 sense; but as it wants the suffrages 
 of the ancient versions, it may also be 
 the result of conjecture—a conjecture 
 more ingenious than most of those 
 supplied by the Masoretic school.— 
 yr). By a Hebrew idiom the nega- 
 tive particle δ, prefixed to nouns, often 
 gives them a directly contrary mean- 
 ing. Thus 2s, “that which is xoé 
 God,” i.e. an idol, Deut. xxxii. 21; 
 Jer. v. 7; Ws 8), and DIN 8°, Him who is 
 not man, i.e. God, Isa, xxxi. 8; and so 
 in the present instance by him who is 
 not wood, is rweant God, who is of a 
 nature altogether different. 
 
 16. A resumption of the threaten- 
 ing briefly introduced ver. 12, but 
 dropped to leave room for a further 
 exhibition of the haughty boastings 
 of the Assyrian. It is now specially 
 taken up, and enlarged upon to ver. 
 19.—There can be no doubt that, in 
 consequence of Jewish superstition, 
 the Divine name has here been tam- 
 pered with by some copyist. ‘18 iNT 
 mixiz occurs nowhere else in the He- 
 brew Bible: but isis Ti PWT occurs 
 chap. i. 24, i. 1, x. 33, xix. 4; and it) 
 is the reading of the present verse in 
 upwards of fifty MSS. and more than 
 twelve printed editions.—r22u and 
 4739, correspond to and elucidate each 
 other. They are both abstract nouns 
 expressive of the robust and stately 
 appearance of the Assyrian captains. 
 Comp. Ps. lxxviii. 31; Judg. 11. 29, 
 where the adjective yov is similarly 
 used; and Isa. xvii. 4, where both 
 terms occur as here. Targ. 4222), Ais 
 princes or great ones, by explanation. 
 
CHAP. X.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 95 
 
 17 Yea, the Light of Israel shall become a fire, 
 
 And his Holy One a flame ; 
 
 And it shall burn and consume 
 His thorns and his briers in a day. 
 18 And the glory of his forest and of his plantation, 
 Both soul and body shall it consume ; 
 And he shall faint as an invalid. 
 
 —In WP? WW. is a paronomasia; 
 comp. chap. xxii. 17; and the figure is 
 derived from the custom of collecting 
 heaps of thorns, &c., and then setting 
 fire to them from below. The passage 
 predicts the sudden and miraculous 
 destruction of the Assyrian army 
 recorded 2 Chron. xxxii. 21; Isa. 
 XXXVI. 36. 
 
 17. °xTwX, Jehovah is called the 
 Light of Israel, because he was the 
 author of their prosperity and happi- 
 ness; so that the phrase contains a 
 double metaphor. Zhorns and briers 
 stand here for the common soldiers, 
 not so much perhaps in contempt, as 
 in reference to the spears and lances 
 with which they were armed, and in 
 illustration of the figure introduced 
 ver. 16. 
 
 18. To express still more strongly 
 the greatness of the destruction with 
 which the hostile army was to be 
 visited, it is compared to the con- 
 sumption of a forest and a plantation 
 by fire—22, properly the name of a 
 celebrated mountain in Palestine, but 
 also used of other localities resembling 
 it in scenery and fertility, Josh. xv. 
 55; Isa. xxix. 17; or rather, perhaps, 
 it took the name from them, as thus 
 distinguished. Gesenius considers the 
 word to be a derivative from 02, an 
 orchard, garden, vineyard, and 5 used as 
 a diminutive; but this appropriation 
 of > is not fully established. Lowth 
 proposes 8, which is also uncertain. 
 Wwarty) wa, from the soul even to the 
 Jlesh, a proverbial mode of expression, 
 denoting the entire person, and so used 
 adverbially for altogether, entirely. v3, 
 opposed to 93, signifies body, Job xiv. 
 22; Prov. xiv. 30.— Ὁ and 1, connected 
 as here, mean izclusive of, and compre- 
 hend the whole of what is specified, 
 as in Jonah 11]. 5—tp3 Ddn2,  Lowth 
 conjectures that the LXX. must have 
 
 read 0d) wNn2; but this is highly im- 
 probable, since their duplicate form, ὁ 
 φεύγων as ὁ φεύγων, exactly tallies 
 with that of the present text, only 
 attaching the signification of flight to 
 both words. To neither, however, 
 does such signification attach, except 
 we were to regard 003 as the Pilel of 
 Ὁ"), which its position forbids. The 
 following words of the LXX. ἀπὸ φλο- 
 γὸς καιομένης, are merely added for the 
 purpose of completing the meaning, 
 and have no reference to 0093. The 
 assonance of the words, which is quite 
 in the style of Isaiah, and of the 
 Orientals generally, affords satisfactory 
 evidence that the reading is genuine. 
 We have, therefore, no choice but to 
 select one or other of the two ideas 
 conveyed by 0D2: fo elevate or carry a 
 standard; or, to be an invalid, sick, &e. 
 The former is that of the rabbins, and 
 from them, of most of the received 
 versions, of Dathe, and others; the 
 latter is adopted by Hezel, Schelling, 
 Rosenmiuller, Gesenius, Hitzig, and 
 
 Hendewerk. Comp. the Syr. Ἰρλ 9 
 sick; the Arab. (yw, Fut. O. and I. 
 siccus fuit ; sitabunda fuit ; 
 Uren’ extremum vite spiritus; YA 
 
 mm mI, ferme mortuus fuit. Castel. 
 Comp. note on chap. lix. 19. The 
 meaning is, that the king himself, 
 overwhelmed by the miraculous over- 
 throw of his army, should be so com- 
 pletely dispirited as to resemble a 
 wretched invalid, sinking through 
 weakness and want of sustenance. 
 The supposition of an ensign or stand- 
 ard-bearer being referred to, proceeds 
 upon the principle that the army 
 should be affected by his giving way, 
 whereas the connexion requires that 
 the action specified should be conse- 
 
 sitivit, 
 
90 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, x. 
 
 19 And the remnant of the trees of his forest shall be few; 
 So that a child may count them. 
 
 20 And it shall be in that day, 
 
 That the remnant of Israel, and the escaped of the house of 
 
 Jacob, 
 
 Shall no more stay themselves upon him that smote them, 
 But they shall truly stay themselves upon Jehovah, the Holy 
 
 One of Israel. 
 
 21 Yet only a remnant shall return, a remnant of Jacob 
 
 To tHe Miauty Gop; 
 
 22 For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, 
 Only a remnant shall turn to him. 
 
 quent upon the destruction of the 
 army. 
 
 19. ἜΘ is not, according to the 
 usage of the language, a xwmber, in the 
 sense of xumerous, but few in number, 
 which the following clause also shews. 
 Comp. 7802 ’n, Gen. xxxiv. 30; Deut. 
 iv. 27; and 7209, by itself, as here, 
 Deut. xxxiii. 6. The number of men 
 smitten in the camp of the Assyrians 
 amounted to a hundred and eighty-five 
 thousand. Isa, Xxxvii. 36. 
 
 20, si Oa, ἐμ that day, is not to be 
 restricted to the precise day of the 
 fall of the enemy, but includes also 
 the future. See note, chap. iv. 1. 
 The prophet might have employed 
 the verb yj sy, as chap. vii. 9, to 
 express the exercise of trust in God; 
 but the idea of 79, staff, being 
 suggested by 1132, him that smote him, 
 it was more natural to employ the 
 Niphal of jv, Zo lean, as one does 
 upon a staff, for support. Such of the 
 Jews as survived the calamity would 
 be convinced of the folly of dependence 
 on Assyria, and henceforth put their 
 trust in Jehovah alone, from whom 
 their confidence ought never to have 
 been transferred. 283, in truth, truly, 
 i.e. sincerely—the meaning being, 
 that when attacked by external ene- 
 mies in future, they should not profess 
 to make God their confidence, and yet 
 call in a foreign king to protect them, 
 as they had lately done when threat- 
 ened by the confederated forces of 
 their neighbours. The prediction was 
 fulfilled in the subsequent history of 
 the Jews. 
 
 21—23. Having spoken of ww, ¢he 
 remnant, Isaiah repeats the term with 
 emphasis in this verse, to shew that 
 how sincere soever might be the 
 general trust of the Jews in God, as 
 it respected temporal deliverances, 
 comparatively few of them would be 
 converted to 122 ὅν, Taz Migury Gop, 
 i.e. the Messiah, predicted under this 
 title, chap. ix. 5. The language is 
 exceedingly abrupt and elliptical. Be- 
 fore the former δῦ, supply Js, yet 
 only. This the 22d verse shews to be 
 absolutely requisite in order to com- 
 plete the sense; as does also the 
 reasoning of the Apostle, Rom. ix. 27, 
 28, where the passage, quoted in appli- 
 cation to the rejection of Christ by 
 the great mass of the Jewish nation, 
 would lose its point, were the words 
 not to be rendered, “only a remnant 
 shall be saved.” See Stuart and Hodge. 
 —ia, is usually referred to *2¥, as its 
 subject; but this construction, consi- 
 dering the position of the word, is 
 harsh. It seems much more natural 
 to connect it with the verb imme- 
 diately before it, and regard 71228 as 
 the antecedent. That 3 is also fol- 
 lowed by 3, when true conversion is 
 meant, see Hos. xii. 7, PWD 7PNa THN). 
 —j", completion, consumption, consum- 
 mation, entire destruction, from the 
 Piel of 723, ἐο be completed, spent, wasted. 
 you, decided, determined, not with- 
 out primary reference to the incision 
 of the sentence pronounced by a judge, 
 in some tablet, or other hard sub- 
 stance: ~17 signifying ¢o cut, cut into. 
 It was hence considered to be fived and 
 
CHAP. X.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 97 
 
 A consummation is determined, 
 Overflowing with righteousness ; 
 
 23 
 
 Surely a consummation, even that which is determined, 
 
 Shall the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts, effect in the midst of all the 
 
 land. 
 94 
 
 Nevertheless thus saith the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts: 
 
 Fear not, O my people! that inhabitest Zion, 
 
 Because of the Assyrian ; 
 
 He may smite thee with the rod, 
 And raise his staff against thee, 
 
 In the manner of Egypt; 
 
 25 But yet a very little while, and the indignation shall be 
 
 completed, 
 
 irreversible, which is the idea in the 
 
 is expletive-—Seventy-three MSS. at 
 least, originally four more, now five, 
 and one in the margin, together with 
 seven printed editions, omit 73, as does 
 also the Targ.; but it was more likely 
 to be omitted than inserted by a 
 copyist: the usual forms being /8773, 
 or YT. That the plenary form 
 exhibited in the textus receptus is 
 not without a parallel, comp. 73 
 metro, Deut. xi, 6; LXX. ἐν τῇ 
 οἰκουμένῃ ὅλῃ. The phrase is emphatic. 
 —The entire bearing of these verses, 
 viewed in connexion with the applica- 
 tion of part of the language by Daniel 
 to the final destruction of Jerusalem, 
 and the use made of them by Paul as 
 above referred to, leaves no room for 
 doubt that they were designed by the 
 Spirit of God to describe the awful 
 punishment to be inflicted on the 
 Jewish nation for their rejection of 
 the Messiah, and the comparatively 
 small number by whom he would be 
 received, 
 
 24. The prophet returns to his 
 immediate subject—the Assyrian in- 
 vasion, and exhorts the people in 
 Zion not to be intimidated by the 
 event.—}22 has an adversative rather 
 than a causal power in this connexion: 
 
 notwithstanding, nevertheless.—O 2 ΤΥῚΒ 
 is to be rendered, neither “in the 
 way to Egypt,” nor “in the way from 
 Egypt,” but, ἐμ the manner of Egypt, i.e. 
 as Egypt, or, the Egyptians did—the 
 manner in which they acted towards 
 the children of Israel. Comp. for this 
 use of V3, Ezek. xx. 30. In ver. 26, 
 the phrase is similarly used, only with 
 this difference, that Egypt, instead of 
 being used in the active, is taken in 
 the passive acceptation of the term: 
 as he did against Egypt. Comp. for 
 the passive, Amos. iv. 10. There is 
 thus a beautiful contrast between the 
 two verses. 
 
 25, ΤΌ OY) occurs again chap. xvi. 
 14, xxix. 17; and is appropriately 
 given in German, eiz klein wenig. Sy- 
 nonymes are frequently used in Heb, 
 to express intensity.—oV, ixdiguation, 
 signifies here the punishment inflicted 
 by Jehovah upon the Jews. When 
 that punishment should be completed, 
 the Divine displeasure (28) would be 
 turned against their enemies, and 
 effect their destruction, 023, without 
 either the article, or the pronom. affix, 
 is quite in the style of Isaiah. See 
 chap. xxvi. 20, so that the alteration 
 made by Lowth cannot be sustained. 
 For oman, their destruction, five MSS., 
 three others originally, and seven 
 printed editions, read on, their 
 perfection, i.e. perfect or complete end: 
 but the former, according to usage, is 
 the. more appropriate, and has the 
 suffrage of most of the ancient ver- 
 
98 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 And my anger in their destruction. 
 
 26 For Jehovah of Hosts shall raise up a scourge against him, 
 As the slaughter of Midian, at the rock Oreb. 
 His rod shall be upon the sea; he shall raise it 
 
 In the manner of Egypt. 
 27 And it shall be in that day, 
 
 That his burden shall be removed from thy shoulder, 
 
 sions. It is derived from 193, Arab. 
 «οὖ to grow old, be worn out, come to 
 
 nothing ; hence dy, affictio; "3, failure, 
 
 destruction. 'The letters 3 and 3 being 
 very similar, have often been mistaken 
 for each other. The prepos. 2? marks 
 the object on which the Divine anger 
 rests. 
 
 26.) is here equivalent to 33, and in- 
 troduces the cause of the destruction 
 predicted at the end of the preceding 
 
 ni, Arab. baw, ὦ whip or 
 
 verse. 
 
 scourge, used figuratively to denote 
 any hostile invader, or any awful 
 plague or calamity which God inflicts 
 upon a people. For the reference, see 
 Judges vii. 25. As Oreb, one of the 
 two kings of Midian, after escaping 
 the slaughter of his troops, was taken 
 and slain at a rock of the same name, 
 so Sennacherib should escape from the 
 calamity which destroyed his army, 
 but he also should afterwards be 
 killed. By 095, the sea, is meant the 
 Euphrates, the symbol of the Assyrian 
 power. Comp. chap. xix. 5; Nah. iii. 8; 
 where it is used of the Nile. For the 
 fulfilment, see chap. xxxvil. 36—38. 
 The second reference is to the un- 
 expected and complete overthrow of 
 Pharaoh in the Rea Sea, Exod, xiv. 
 26, 27. 
 
 27. This verse shews that the dis- 
 comfiture of Sennacherib should be 
 followed by the immediate liberation 
 of the Jews from the oppressive 
 tribute that had been imposed upon 
 them, The concluding words > 73ΠῚ 
 y2w72Bp, present no difficulty as to 
 construction, or in regard to their sig- 
 nification, taken separately ; but few 
 sentences have more perplexed inter- 
 preters, as it respects the sense. Vi- 
 tringa fancifully labours to establish 
 
 an identity in meaning between 20 
 and χρίσμα, 1 John ii. 27. Secker and 
 Lowth indulge as usual in conjecture, 
 but very unsatisfactorily. Gesenius 
 strongly, but justly, calls the word, 
 ὉΠ ὩΣ, which Lowth proposes, an 
 Unding, a thing that has no existence 
 in the Hebrew language: and with 
 Hitzig, Maurer, and others, takes the 
 term in the ordinary acceptation of 
 fatness, and supposes the prophet to 
 be comparing Israel to a fat and wan- 
 ton bullock which shakes off the yoke. 
 But to this exegesisit must be objected, 
 that it neither gives the proper force 
 of the verb 719, which signifies ¢o spoil 
 or destroy, nor does it suit the con- 
 nexion, in which no intimation is 
 given of the Jews themselves break- 
 ing the yoke that had been imposed 
 upon them. Besides, there would 
 scarcely be any propriety in intro- 
 ducing a clause with this sense, after 
 the statement already made in the 
 verse, distinctly announcing the re- 
 moval of the yoke. I am, therefore, 
 inclined with the Targ., Jarchi, 
 Kimchi, Munster, Vatablus, Castalio, 
 Grotius, and others, to consider }2W 
 as denoting the oi/ with which the 
 Jewish Kings were anointed, and 
 hence by common figure, ¢he persons 
 thus anointed. Most of those who 
 adopt this acceptation of the word, 
 apply the passage to Hezekiah, and 
 suppose the meaning to be that, 2 
 yoo, for his sake, as the anointed king 
 of the Jews, the Lord had broken the 
 Assyrian yoke. But may we not with 
 Munster ask: “Quid si Propheta hic 
 respexerit ad Christum Domini?” 
 Thus the Targ. 8d 077,779 NY IAN}, 
 and the nations shall be broken before the 
 Messiah. This interpretation well 
 agrees with the manner and design δῇ 
 the prophet, who ever and anon re- 
 verts to the promised Deliverer, and 
 
CHAP. iX.] 
 
 And his yoke from thy neck : 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 99 
 
 And the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing. 
 28 He hath arrived at Aiyath; he hath passed through Migron ; 
 At Michmash he hath laid up his baggage. 
 29 They have gone through the pass ; 
 Geba they have made their night-quarters. 
 
 frequently, as here, most abruptly, in 
 consequence of some temporal cir- 
 cumstance or event which the Holy 
 Spirit employed, in order to suggest 
 Him and the great salvation to his 
 mind. What strongly corroborates 
 this view of the passage, is the close 
 connexion between the words in ques- 
 tion and chap. xi., which is undeniably 
 predictive of the Messiah, and must 
 have followed immediately but for 
 the intervening description of Senna- 
 cherib’s impending march against 
 Jerusalem. In the Translation, how- 
 ever, 1 have not felt authorized to 
 employ the term Azointed, but have 
 retained the word already existing in 
 our common English version, which 
 is at once true to the original as a 
 translation, and yet furnishes an index 
 to the just exegesis of the words. 
 
 28. From this verse to the thirty- 
 second inclusive, we have a minute 
 and animated graphic description of 
 the approach of the Assyrians to- 
 wards Jerusalem, and the conster- 
 nation into which it threw the 
 inhabitants of those towns which lay 
 in their route. That it is an historical 
 description of the past, Hitzig, and 
 those who think with him, can only 
 maintain on a settled principle of un- 
 belief with respect to prophetic inspi- 
 ration. Even Gesenius is constrained 
 to admit that it is zdeal; which would 
 be true, if thereby were meant that 
 the circumstances existed at the time 
 only in the mind of the prophet, and 
 in that of Him by whom he was in- 
 spired : but what he intends is, that 
 it was merely matter of imagination 
 and poetical colouring. Consistency 
 of interpretation, however, compels 
 to the conclusion, that, whatever 
 there may be of singular poetic beauty 
 in the passage, it is strictly propheti- 
 cal, and was historically fulfilled. 
 What decides it to relate to the 
 
 future is the occurrence of Impera- 
 tives, ver. 30, which we never find in 
 descriptions of the past.—nv, Aiyath, 
 LXX. Tai, ’Ayyai, occurs only here 
 under this form, but is called ~Y, Aiya, 
 Neh. xi. 31, and doubtless is the same 
 as Y, ‘YT, 47, a royal city of the Canaan- 
 ites, situated on an elevation, within 
 the northern confines of Benjamin, at 
 a short distance to the east of Bethel, 
 Gen. xii. 8, and nearly due north-east 
 from Jerusalem. It was taken and de- 
 stroyed by Joshua, chap. viii., but was 
 afterwards, to some extent, rebuilt, 
 Ezra ii. 28. In the time of Eusebius 
 and Jerome, only a few inconsiderable 
 ruins remained.—j122, Migron, the LXX. 
 by mistake, Mayyed#, is described, 
 1 Sam. xiv. 2, as situated at the north- 
 ern extremity of the hilly country 
 of Gibeah, at some distance to the 
 south-east of Bethel—wn20, Ezra ii. 
 27, D222, LXX. Maypas, Josephus, 
 Maxpa; a town still farther in ad- 
 vance, towards the south-west, but 
 east of Bethaven, 1 Sam. xiii. 5; and, 
 according to Eusebius, near Ramah, 
 about nine miles from Jerusalem. In 
 his time it was a place of some note. 
 It was chiefly important in a military 
 point of view, on account of the pass 
 in its vicinity, mentioned in the fol- 
 lowing verse. This place the As- 
 syrians chose as the depét of their 
 baggage, considering it a fit place to 
 fall back upon in case of a repulse. 
 29. Special notice is taken of the 
 pass at Michmash presenting no ob- 
 stacle to Sennacherib. This pass was 
 confined by two sharp cliffs, called 
 Bozez and Seneh: the one facing 
 Michmash on the north, and the other 
 Gibeah on the south. In the time of 
 Saul it was defended by a garrison of 
 Philistines, 1 Sam. xiv. 4, 5, and is 
 represented as exceedingly steep, ver. 
 13. From the term occurring in the 
 plural, nn3r2, 1 Sam. xiv. 4, it appears 
 
100 
 
 Ramah trembleth ; 
 Gibeah of Saul fleeth. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP.. xX. 
 
 30 Give a shrill cry, O daughter of Gallim! 
 
 Listen, Laish ! 
 Aniyah! Anathoth! 
 31 Madmenah is fled; 
 
 The inhabitants of Gebim have taken to flight. 
 
 to have consisted of more than one 
 gorge or defile: probably there was 
 one main opening, in which were 
 two or more divisions, formed by 
 remaining portions of the rock.—?1, 
 Geba, LXX. by mistake, from ver. 28, 
 ᾿Αγγαί, elsewhere, Γαβαά, a city of the 
 Levites on the northern limit of the 
 tribe of Judah, but in that of Ben- 
 jamin ; hence called Geba of Benjamin, 
 1 Kings xv. 22.—%9 179 922 is not to be 
 rendered, Geba is their quarters ; but, 
 they have taken up quarters at Geba: 1. 6. 
 for the night. Lowth, and after him, 
 Déderlein, Dathe, and others, taking 
 222 to be the pronoun of the first per- 
 son plural, and not finding it to agree 
 in construction, change the reading 
 into 192, to them; whereas it is the 
 third singular of the verb 13), fo remain 
 over night, to tarry for a night. For the 
 form 712 752, comp. 1309 120, 2 Sam, iv. 
 5, where nx, the sign of the Accus. is 
 expressed.— 1294, Ramah, lit. the high 
 place, so called from its elevated situa- 
 tion. It also lay in the tribe of Ben- 
 jamin, about six miles north from 
 Jerusalem, in the direction of Bethel. 
 Its site is now occupied by a village 
 named Nebi Sahamiel, and it is not 
 to be confounded with another town 
 of the same name, now called Ramla, 
 on the road from Jerusalem to Joppa, 
 which was first built in the eighth 
 century.—™Kxv nvi3, Gibeah of Saul, 
 LXX. πόλιν Σαούλ, so called to distin- 
 guish it from a town of the same 
 name in Judah, Josh. xv. 57, and 
 from its having been the birth-place, 
 and afterwards the residence of Saul, 
 1 Sam. x. 26, xv. 34. An Arab village 
 
 called Liste, Jib, is now supposed 
 
 to Sie ck its site. 
 
 30. 03, Gallim, occurs elsewhere 
 only 1 Sam. xxv. 44, and in connexion 
 with ὧδ, Zaish, as here ; only the lat- 
 
 ter is there the name of a man, and 
 not of a place. Though we have no 
 other notice of a Laish in Judah, it is 
 clear from the present passage, that a 
 place of that name must have existed ; 
 for the construction that would sup- 
 pose a reference to the celebrated city 
 so called, near the sources of the Jor- 
 dan, is too violent to be admitted. 
 The 7 is paragogic.—™» Aniyah, has 
 unnecessarily perplexed interpreters. 
 It is neither an adjective nor a verb, 
 but the proper name of a place, most 
 probably Bethania, or Bethany, i. 8. 
 mya, the ma being dropped, as freq. 
 in proper names. Comp. Beth-As- 
 maveth, and Asmaveth ; Beth-Baal-meon, 
 and Baal-meon. Hitzig suggests 7229, 
 Ananiah, which occurs Neh. xi. 32, in 
 connexion with Nob and Anathoth as 
 in Isaiah, and is probably only another 
 form of ™2¥, the Nun being dropped, 
 and compensation being made by 
 Dagesh inserted in the Yod; as jpx 
 for 28. What supports this opinion, 
 is the proximity of Bethany to Ana- 
 thoth ; the former being two, and the 
 latter three miles from Jerusalem, in 
 the direction of Jericho. The in- 
 habitants of Gallim were /o raise a 
 shrill ery, ἜΣ, and thus give the alarm 
 to the three neighbouring towns of 
 Laish, Aniyah, and Anathoth, the 
 situation of which being more towards 
 the east, would afford their inhabitants 
 time to escape before the enemy ad- 
 vanced.—niniy, <Anathoth was one of 
 the cities of Benjamin given to the 
 priests, and was the birth-place of 
 Jeremiah, Jer.i.1. It is still known 
 by the name of Andta. 
 
 31, 32. Of Madmenah and Gebim we 
 have no further notices : 72212, Mad- 
 mannah, Josh. xv. 31, lying too far 
 south to suit the present connexion,— 
 
 wy7, the Hiph. of ny, Arab. dle, cor- 
 / 
 
CHAP. X.| 
 
 32 A day more, to halt at Nob, 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 101 
 
 And then he will shake his hand 
 Against the mountain of the daughter of Zion, 
 
 Against the hill of Jerusalem. 
 
 33 Behold! the Lord Jehovah of Hosts 
 Shall cut off the branches with a tremendous blow; 
 The high of stature shall be cut down, 
 And the lofty shall be brought low. 
 
 34 And he shall hew the thickets of the forest with iron, 
 
 fugit ad aliquem, to flee for refuge, but 
 used intransitively to agree with 7772, 
 —ni, Nob, LXX. Νόμβα, (though here 
 reading 1, they have rendered it τῇ 
 χειρί,) a sacerdotal city, so near to 
 Jerusalem that the latter was visible 
 from it, though surrounded by moun- 
 tains. It hada sanctuary, in which a 
 regular religious service was performed, 
 1 Sam. xxi. 4, 6, 9, xxii. 13—The 
 article in ΟἿ has little or no force, 
 and may best be rendered indefinitely. 
 The meaning is, that Sennacherib 
 would only spend a day at Nob, in 
 order to reconnoitre the city of Jeru- 
 salem, muster his troops, and prepare 
 for the attack—vT 55, like 5y πὸ Fp, 
 means to shake the hand as a gesture 
 of threatening—— For m3, in the 
 phrase j}?z27~3, the Keri proposes m3, 
 which is the textual reading of a vast 
 number of MSS., and several of the 
 earliest and best editions, and is 
 adopted in that of Hahn. None of the 
 ancient versions have read™3, house. 
 ory nyu, the hill of Jerusalem, occurs 
 only in this place. 
 
 33. Having conducted the proud 
 Assyrian within view of Jerusalem, 
 and allowed him and his forces a day 
 to rest in the vicinity, the prophet at 
 once changes his tone, summons at- 
 tention to the sudden and unexpected 
 prevention of the attack by a miracu- 
 lous intervention of Divine power, and 
 describes, in language similar to that 
 which he had employed vers. 17—19, 
 the tremendous overthrow that would 
 ensue. That the subject of the de- 
 struction here predicted is the king of 
 Assyria and his army, and not that of 
 Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, which 
 Michaelis, Koppe, Déderlein, and 
 others, suppose to be meant, cannot, 
 
 I think, be fairly called in question.— 
 ΘΟ, ς αὐ, dissecutt, to divide, sepa- 
 
 rate one thing from another, break 
 or lop off branches from a tree. The 
 verb occurs nowhere else.—7}82 = 7188 
 signifies beautiful branches, the orna- 
 ment of trees; and, metaphorically, 
 the most showy and imposing parts 
 of an army. Forty MSS. read 77», 
 which signifies a wine-press; and thus 
 the Targ., Symm., and Theod., but 
 erroneously. See Gesenius ἐκ Joc. 
 
 34, The metaphor of cutting down 
 a wood is continued, only a promi- 
 nence is given to the instrument; and 
 the metaphor is amplified by a com- 
 parison of the closely-united bands of 
 the army to intertwined thickets of 
 underwood, and of the whole mass of 
 which it was composed, to Lebanon, 
 the largest and most majestic moun- 
 tain in the vicinity of Judea, This 
 celebrated mountain, in Heb. 7522), the 
 
 White Mountain, Arab. el A>, 
 
 the Snow Mountain, from the perpetual 
 snows which cover its summits, con- 
 sists of two parallel ridges, stretching 
 in a northerly direction between Phoe- 
 nicia and Damascus, and intersected 
 
 by Lani], the Bekaa, or valley, 
 
 otherwise known by the name of 
 Coeelosyria. The more easterly goes 
 by the name of Anti-Libanus, and is 
 upwards of 9,000 feet high. The 
 Arabs say of it, that it carries winter 
 on its head, spring on its shoulders, 
 harvest in its bosom, while summer 
 sleeps at its feet. Its terraces are 
 covered with gardens and cultivated 
 fields, and present the most enchant- 
 ing prospects to the eye of the tra- 
 
 N 
 
102 ISAIAH. [CHAP, ΧΙ: 
 
 And by a mighty one shall Lebanon fall. 
 
 veller. By ‘m3, izstruments made of angel by whom the catastrophe was to 
 iron, Such as axes and hatchets, are be effected. Thus Kimchi. 
 meant; and Ὑπὸ denotes the mighty 
 
 CHAPTER ΧΙ. 
 
 By an easy transition, the prophet here introduces the person, character, and 
 kingdom of the Messiah, 1—10; describes the extension of the Gospel 
 among the nations of the earth; and predicts the restoration of the 
 Hebrews from the Babylonish captivity, and from their various minor 
 dispersions, and their happy union in their own land, 11—16. That it is 
 to a past and not to any future restoration of the Jews reference is here 
 made, is manifest from the mention made, ver. 14, of the Philistines, &c., 
 who no longer exist, but whom we are compelled to understand as being 
 literally meant, on the same principle that Judah, Ephraim, Assyria, Egypt, 
 &c., are to be interpreted literally, 11—13. 
 
 With respect to the application of this prophecy to the Messiah, a greater 
 degree of unanimity obtains among interpreters than in reference to almost 
 any other. The exposition given of the first verse, in the Targ. 8372 pm’ 
 ra TMI2 23 NW wT Ta, “And the king shall come forth from the sons 
 of Jesse, and THE ΜΕΒΒΙΔῊ shall grow up from his sons’ sons,” has been 
 sustained and defended by Jarchi, Abarbanel, and Kimchi; by the best 
 biblical scholars since the Reformation; especially, among the moderns, by 
 Michaelis, Déderlein, Lowth, Koppe, Beckhaus, Reinhard, v. ἃ. Palm, De- 
 reser, Jahn, Rosenmiiller, and Hengstenberg; and even Hichhorn, Gesenius, 
 and Hitzig, are forced to fall in with such application, though, as might be 
 expected, they only recognise their ¢dea/ Messiah in the chapter. It appears 
 from Theodoret, that, in his time, some of the Jews considered Zerubbabel 
 to be meant; Ephraim Syrus, Abenezra, v.d. Hardt, White, Bardt, Hezel, 
 Paulus, and some others, refer it to Hezekiah; Barhebreeus, Grotius, and 
 Dathe, to Hezekiah primarily, and secondarily to Christ. Its application, 
 however, to our Saviour is clearly sanctioned by the N. T. Not to insist on 
 our Lord’s declaring that he is the Roor and the Orrsprine of David, Rev. 
 xxii. 16, (comp. chap. v. 5,) we find ver. 10 expressly quoted, Rom. xv. 12, 
 to prove his dominion over the believing Gentiles. On 2 Thess. ii. 8, see 
 ver, 4, 
 
 1 Buta Shoot shall come forth from the stem of Jesse; 
 
 1. The 1 at once closely “connects —Nx. is used of the coming forth, or 
 the chapters, and intimates the con- springing up of plants, 1 Kings v. 13 ; 
 trast between the king of Assyria, Gen.1, 12, 24; Isa. lxi. 11; but also 
 and the Messiah, about to be described, tropically of descendants, Gen. xvii. 
 
CHAP. XI.] 
 
 ISATAH, 
 
 103 
 
 And a fruitful Sprout shall grow up from his roots. 
 2 And the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him ; 
 The Spirit of wisdom and discernment ; 
 
 6; and, as here, specially of the Re- 
 deemer, Micah v. 1. ™2¥, Branch, is 
 the term by which he is more usually 
 designated, comp. chap. iv. 2; but 19h, 
 and 71%}, better suit the present con- 
 nexion. The former is related to the 
 
 Arab, poh Syr. poms, a slender, 
 
 flexible shoot or twig; from js, to 
 
 wave, swing to and fro; the latter is 
 derived from 12), fo view with attention, 
 _ attract notice by the display of verdure, 
 be verdant, like a young branch, or 
 
 sprout. Comp. the Arab. Ὁ, germina 
 
 sua ostendit terra; and 3» lete viruit 
 
 arbor. Aquila ἀκρέμονα ; Theod. and 
 Symm. βλαστός ; the LXX. ἄνθος .--- 
 232 is properly what remains in the 
 earth of the trunk of a tree that has 
 
 been felled. Comp. ξ to cut off; 
 go> a stump, or the remaining part 
 
 of apalm tree. Aquila., Theod., Symm. 
 κορμός. The parallel rey proves it to 
 mean the part which remains, and not 
 that which is cut off with its branches. 
 Comp. Job xiv. 8; Isa. xl. 24. The 
 idea of a hewn tree having been 
 suggested by the use of the terms 
 py7a and FP, at the conclusion of the 
 preceding chapter, the image is em- 
 ployed to set forth the reduced and 
 lowly condition of the house of David 
 at the time of Messiah’s birth. The 
 tree had been cut down in a political 
 point of view, but it had not been 
 rooted up; the family had not become 
 extinct. Further to indicate its mean 
 condition, the name of David, which 
 would have suggested notions of dig- 
 nity and splendour, is suppressed, and 
 that of his father Jesse is employed, 
 which conveys the ideas of rustic 
 simplicity and obscurity. The last 
 historical notices which we have of 
 this family are from the time of 
 Domitian, who, jealous of the king 
 whom the Jews still expected to arise 
 from it, ordered all that belonged to it 
 
 to be put to death. Euseb. Hist. 
 Eccles. lib. iii. c. 19, 20. 
 2. This verse contains a description 
 of the supernatural endowments to be 
 -conferred upon-the human nature of 
 our Lord, by the agency of the Holy 
 Spirit —y7r 7, elsewhere OX 1, 7 
 wp, and κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν Mm, the Great, 
 Preeminent, Uncreated Spirit, whose 
 energy, like that of the wind, is invi- 
 sible, John iii. 8; who cherished, and 
 gave motion and order to the chaotic 
 mass at the creation, and still vivifies 
 the universe, Gen. i. 2; Ps. civ. 30; 
 the author of all that is holy, good, or 
 excellent in man, ΡΒ. li. 12, exliii. 10. 
 To him is specially ascribed the im- 
 partation of extraordinary gifts and 
 influences, by which men were qualified 
 for performing what they never could 
 have effected by mere natural power, 
 Exod, xxxi. 3, xxxy. 31; Judg. iii. 10, 
 vi. 34, &c.; Numb. xxiv. 2; 1 Sam. x. 
 10. He is here represented as the 
 author of that plenitude of Divine 
 influence by which the Messiah was 
 fitted for discharging the duties of 
 his great undertaking. Comp. Luke 
 iv. 1, Ἰησοῦς δὲ πνεῦματος ἁγίου πλήρης 5 
 John ili. 34, οὐ γὰρ ἐκ μέτρου δίδωσιν 
 6 Θεὸς τὸ πνεῦμα.---ἰ 12, from ™3, fo 
 come down upon a person, or place, so as 
 to remain, to rest, continue. Thus the 
 
 Syr. }7a20 «03222; and to this 
 
 force of the verb pointed reference 
 seems to be had John i. 33, τὸ 
 πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον καὶ pevov.— 
 nmomom, &c. is in apposition with 
 mmm, and does not mean a wise, 
 prudent spirit, &c., but the Spirit by 
 whom the qualities of wisdom, pru- 
 dence, &c., were to be imparted. The 
 genitive is that of cause, not of pos- 
 session; and 1 is used throughout in 
 a personal sense, The qualities speci- 
 fied are grouped in pairs, which, 
 though not susceptible of perfect dis- 
 tinction, nevertheless sufficiently vary 
 in point of general signification, to 
 admit of distinct consideration. Ac- 
 cording to Hebrew usage, 7927, wisdom, 
 is most extensive in its import, com- 
 
104 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XI. 
 
 The Spirit of counsel and might ; 
 The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah. 
 3 So that he shall be of quick perception in regard to the fear of 
 
 Jehovah ; 
 
 prehending the whole circle of mental 
 endowments and moral excellences by 
 which it is possible for intelligent 
 beings to be distinguished. The 
 primary idea conveyed by the root 
 
 Don » is that of solid, practical 
 
 =v) 
 
 knowledge—to be possessed of clear, 
 definite, adequate, and influential con- 
 ceptions relative to the nature of 
 objects, and so capable of judging and 
 pronouncing rightly concerning them. 
 In Arab. the idea of giving judgment 
 as the result of such knowledge, is 
 
 predominant; hence rs a judges 
 
 phe decision, sentence; though este 
 
 signifies gui res solide, et cum judicio 
 agit, and is particularly used of a 
 physician, on account of his skill in 
 judging of diseases, and knowing what 
 to apply for their removal. Comp. 
 Sob xin, 12913, V6; xi. 5, v.98, +9; 
 XXVili. 28, xxxii. 7,9. “72 differs from 
 the preceding only as it conveys the 
 idea of discernment, or discrimination ; 
 judgment formed by the comparison 
 of things which differ, and a just ap- 
 preciation of the points of difference. 
 It is derived from 73, ¢o separate, dis- 
 
 tinguish; Avab. we med. Je. fo be 
 
 distinct, separate. The two terms are 
 frequently coupled together ; Job 
 evan 12, 20,28; Prov.d. 2, iv.5, 7; 
 viii. 12, 14; as are 927, and MIA, 
 another derivative from the same 
 root.—Tz¥, counsel, (comp. FP", chap. ix. 
 5,) plan, scheme, purpose, and, by impli- 
 cation, the faculty of wisely and ad- 
 visedly laying a foundation for future 
 action. It is combined with ΤᾺΣ, 
 might, the power adequate for carry- 
 ing purposes into execution. Viewed 
 merely as a physical quality, wisdom 
 is preferred to it, Eccles. ix. 16; but 
 regarded as a moral quality they are 
 equal. In exercise it gives effect to 
 the decisions of wisdom. ‘The idea of 
 military prowess is rejected by Gese- 
 nius and Hengstenberg, as totally un- 
 
 suitable to the peaceable character of 
 the Messiah ; but as he is also repre- 
 sented in the character of a mighty 
 warrior, Ps. xlv. 3, 4, ex. 1—3; Isa. 
 lxiii. 1—6 ; it is not wholly to be ex- 
 cluded.—nv1, knowledge, equally with 
 nxy, fear, is in construction with 77. 
 Both qualities ere so closely related to 
 each other, that where only one of 
 them is mentioned the other is under- 
 stood. By the former is meant a 
 practical acquaintance with the cha- 
 racter and will of God; by the latter, 
 the exercise of all those feelings and 
 dispositions which right views of the 
 Divinecharacter and will are calculated 
 to produce. It is very often put for 
 the whole of true religion; Job iv. 6, 
 xv. 4; Ps. xix. 9 (Hebr. 10), cxxviii.1,435 
 Proy. xiv. 26; and 7zdoc. The charismata 
 here enumerated are for the most part 
 similarly classified, Prov. vill. 12—14. 
 
 3. wmm the LXX. render ἐμπλήσει 
 ἀυτὸν πνεῦμα φόβου Θεοῦ; the Vulg. 
 replebit eum spiritus timoris Domini $ 
 Saad. aay re inspirabit euit, which 
 
 Michaelis and others adopt ; but no in- 
 stance can be adduced in support of 
 this rendering. Gesenius and Hitzig 
 translate, His delight shall be, which 
 gives a good sense, but is lable to the 
 same objection ; none of the examplés 
 appealed to being fairly in point. 
 Besides, it does not so well agree with 
 the following clauses of the verse, as 
 that which retains the idea of smelling. 
 
 Arab. εὺν captare auram, naribus 
 
 attrahere, odorem, preesertim gratum. 
 Schultens, Comm. in Job xxxix. 25, 
 where it is said of the war-horse, 
 many My PTV, he smelleth the battle 
 from far,’”’ in reference to the instine- 
 tive sense which he has of its approach. 
 As none of the senses in animals is 
 more acute than that of smell, and in 
 the ruder states of human existence 
 it is almost incredibly so in man, it 
 came metaphorically to denote acute- 
 ness of perception, clear mental apprehen- 
 sion and intuitive sagacity. Literally 
 
= 
 
 CHAP. XI. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 105 
 
 And he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes, 
 Nor decide by the hearing of his ears: 
 4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, 
 And decide with equity for the meek of the earth ; 
 And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, 
 And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. 
 
 ' the passage would read, He shall be 
 _-guick-scented in reference to the fear of 
 
 Jehovah, i.e. Thus richly endowed with 
 supernatural gifts, he shall not need 
 to form his judgments respecting 
 matters of religion, as others do, by 
 observation or report, but shall possess 
 an acute and perfect discernment, by 
 which he shall intuitively perceive 
 their nature and relations, and give 
 his decisions accordingly. For the 
 fulfilment, see Matt. ix. 4, xi. 27, xxii. 
 18; Mark ii. 8 ; John ii. 24, 25; Rev. 
 li. 2, 9, 13, 23, &c.—The 1 is used 
 ἐκβατικῶς, and points out the result 
 of the conferment of the spiritual 
 gifts. 
 
 4, The parallelisms in this verse are 
 most complete: each part correspond- 
 ing to each. Between 020 and m3, 
 little difference exists ; only the latter, 
 followed by %, implies carrying the 
 sentence into execution for the benefit 
 of those in whose favour it has been 
 given. Lowth’s version, He shall work 
 conviction in the meek, even were it 
 borne out on grammatical principles, 
 destroys the unity of the sense. In 
 oy, respect is had more to external 
 circumstances, or to a state of spiritual 
 destitution ; in FI8°LY, to disposition 
 of mind—the result of sanctified 
 affliction. Comp. Ps. Ixxii. 4, 12, 13; 
 Is.1xi. 1 ; Zech. x1. 7; of πτωχοί, Luke vi. 
 20 ; οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεῦματι, Matt. v. 3; 
 οἱ πρᾳεῖς, Υ. δ ; comp. ΧΙ. ὃ ; James ii. 5. 
 The attention of our Saviour was 
 particularly directed to the condition 
 of the poor, both in spirit and outward 
 circumstances ; and such chiefly, in 
 every age, have reaped the glorious 
 benefits of the Gospel—Houbigant’s 
 conjecture, that for 02%, rod, we should 
 read ni, blast, which Lowth adopts, 
 is to be rejected, not only on the 
 ground that no such word exists in 
 the Hebrew language, but also on 
 account of the adaptation of 12%, rod, 
 
 to express, in the usual style of Isaiah, 
 the severity of the punishment to be 
 inflicted. Its being referred to the 
 mouth, ὙΒ 33, is founded on the idea 
 of the punishment being ordered or 
 denounced, just as the command to slay 
 the wicked is, in the other member of 
 the parallelism, called ynav 1, {6 
 breath of his lips. Thus also the Arab. 
 
 lac , Zaculus, the Kamoos explains by 
 wal, castigation, and ων» tongue. 
 
 Comp. Job xv. 30. The idea of blast, 
 or wind, is totally foreign to the pas- 
 sage, as is also that of the preaching 
 of the Gospel, which some commen- 
 tators have introduced into it. Comp. 
 Heb. iv. 12 ; Rev. i. 16, xix. 15, where 
 the sword, as an instrument of punish- 
 ment, is likewise spoken of in con- 
 nexion with the mouth.—f, parallel 
 with »w, is put by metonymy for ¢he 
 inhabitants of the earth, and by impli- 
 cation, the ungodly, as κόσμος frequently 
 signifies in the N. T.—vv7 is a collec- 
 tive noun, like 6 dvopos, 2 Thess. ii. 8, 
 where the words of Isaiah are supposed 
 to be alluded to. What confirms this 
 supposition, is the construction put 
 upon the prophecy in the Targ. : m2 
 xy Dinar, he will slay the wicked Ar- 
 milus. This name is given by the 
 Jews to a notoriously flagitious cha- 
 racter who, according to the state- 
 ments of their writers, is to appear 
 at Rome, and kill Messiah, the son of 
 Joseph, but is to be himself slain by 
 Messiah, the son of David. See Bux- 
 torf. Lex. Chald. iz voc. and Eisen- 
 menger’s Entdecktes Judenthum, Th. 
 ii. pp. 705—715. The text in Isaiah 
 obviously implies, that preeminence 
 in wickedness should characterise 
 those on whom, as his enemies, Christ 
 would execute extreme punishment. 
 This also is the import of the empha- 
 tic terms, 6 ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἁμαρτίας, ὁ 
 
106 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XI. 
 
 5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, 
 And faithfulness the girdle of his reins. 
 6 Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb, 
 And the leopard lie down with the kid ; 
 The calf also, and the young lion, and the fatling shall be together, 
 And a little child shall lead them. 
 
 vids τῆς ἀπωλείας, 2 Thess. ii. 3, and 
 of the whole description contaimed in 
 the following verses. 
 
 5. 772 relates to the claims of justice, 
 as bearing upon actions; 722x7 to 
 those of ¢ruth in keeping promises. 
 The two terms, or their synonymes, 
 frequently occur together, Deut. xxxii. 
 4; Ps..cxix. 75, 138; Prov. xii: 17.— 
 Lowth, misled by the LXX.and other 
 ancient versions, which frequently 
 introduce variations where there is 
 none in the original, alters the second 
 ny into Wn, Gesenius has shewn, by 
 a great number of instances, that in 
 the book of Isaiah the same word is 
 repeated in the second member of a 
 parallelism. Symm. has περίζωμα in 
 both cases. To be girded, denotes 
 strength and readiness for action. See 
 chap. v. 27; Job. xxxviii. 3. 
 
 6. From this verse to the ninth in- 
 clusive, the prophet furnishes a de- 
 scription of the peace and happiness 
 to be enjoyed under the reign of Mes- 
 siah, which, for boldness and exquisite 
 choice of imagery, far surpasses the 
 sublimest passages in which the clas- 
 sical poets celebrate the renewal of 
 the golden age; indeed, nothing can 
 exceed in beauty the scene here 
 depicted. Numerous passages δά- 
 duced by Lowth and Gesenius from 
 Virgil, Horace, Theocritus, Ferdoosi, 
 Ibn Onein, as also from the Zenda- 
 vesta, and the Sibylline Oracles, clearly 
 establish the fact of the prevalence of 
 such figurative language ; and render 
 in the highest degree improbable the 
 interpretation of Hengstenberg, and 
 some other expositors, who consider 
 Isaiah to be literally predicting an 
 entire change in the nature of the 
 brute creation, and its restoration to 
 its primeval state before the fall. Of 
 the different passages that occur in 
 heathen poets, the most apposite is 
 that of Claudian :— 
 
 “Securum blandi leporem fovere mo- 
 lossi 
 Vicinumquelupo prebuitagna latus. 
 Concordes varia ludunt cum tigride 
 dame 
 Marsalam cervi non timuere jubam.” 
 Prol. 11. de Rapt. Proserp. 
 
 By the animals specified are meant 
 persons reserabling them in their 
 natural dispositions and habits; and 
 by their living and feeding together 
 in peace and harmony is adumbrated 
 that state of true union, fellowship, 
 and peace, which those enjoy who 
 submit to the reign of the Redeemer, 
 and conform to the laws of his king- 
 dom. To look for the accomplishment 
 of the prophecy in the experience and 
 conduct of such as possess merely the 
 name of Christians, or to refer its ful- 
 filment to some future day, because so 
 many wars, bickerings, and conten- 
 tions, have hitherto more or less 
 obtained among nations or commu- 
 nities professedly Christian, would be 
 to torture the passage in order to 
 make it speak a language foreign to 
 its spirit and design. It has been 
 verified in every age, in proportion to 
 the extent in which genuine Christi- 
 anity has exerted its influence. Cha- 
 racters the most ferocious have been 
 subdued; and those who had been 
 living in malice and envy, hateful and 
 hating one another, have “ put en as 
 the elect of God, holy and beloved, 
 bowels of mercies, kindness, humble- 
 ness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, 
 forbearing one another, and forgiving 
 one another,” Col. iii. 12,13. For the 
 exhibition of contrary tempers and 
 dispositions, the religion of the Son of 
 God is in nowise answerable. So far 
 as any indulge in them, they afford 
 melancholy evidence, that they are 
 influenced by principles uncongenial 
 with the spirit of the Divine kingdom. 
 
CHAP. XI.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 107 
 
 7 The heifer also, and the she-bear shall feed ; 
 
 Their young ones shall lie down together ; 
 
 And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 
 8 Yea, the suckling shall play at the hole of the asp; 
 
 And the weanling shall lay his hand on the den of the basilisk. 
 9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; 
 
 For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, 
 
 As the waters cover the sea. 
 
 10 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 —The Ὑ in 1} connects in point of 
 time, what follows with the preceding 
 context. There is a singular beauty 
 in the manner in which the young lion 
 is introduced into the group between 
 the calf and the futling. ὙΠ is em- 
 phatic. 
 
 7, 8. 315 an epicenic noun.— 17? is 
 understood after 4ry17, and would 
 have been expressed, but for its form- 
 ing the first word of the following 
 clause.—ruvy, the Pilp. of yyw, to 
 stroke, to rub gently with the hand; then 
 as here, generally, ¢o caress, play 
 with the hand, find delight in thus play- 
 
 ing.—p2, Arab. Ba Coluber Beten, an 
 
 asp, or kind of serpent, whose poison 
 kills almost instantaneously; in all 
 probability, the species found by Has- 
 selquist on the island of Cyprus, and 
 called dom by the modern Greeks. 
 It is seldom more than a foot in 
 length, but in thickness resembles 
 the arm of a man. Bochart, tom. iii. 
 Ῥ. 380, &c. ; Michaelis, Supplem. No, 
 2100. The Greek Πύθων, Python, is 
 doubtless a derivative from this root. 
 --ἰ τυ Ὁ, ὦ light-hole, or hole for the ad- 
 mission of light, from ix, dight— 753, 
 Aq. βασιλίσκος, Vulg. regulus, the 
 basilisk; according to Michaelis, the 
 Cerast or horned serpent—a small 
 viper, little more than a foot in length; 
 so called from the feelers which are 
 protruded from its head, while it lies 
 hid in the sand. It is exceedingly 
 venomous. Comp. chap. lix. 5; Jer. 
 viii. 17 ; Prov. xxiii. 32; and Is. xiv. 
 29, where the cognate ΘῈΣ occurs. In 
 most of these passages, U2 is used 
 along with it.—79, a ἅπαξ Ney. Arab. 
 
 uss to lead or shew the way, by point- 
 
 ing with the hand; hence in Heb. ¢o 
 stretch forth the hand. 
 
 9. What was obviously implied in the 
 preceding description is now expressly 
 stated, and the cause of the wonderful 
 change specified : the extension of the 
 knowledge of Jehovah. This latter 
 circumstance further shews that the 
 language of the description is figura- 
 tive. From the correlative terms, 
 OT? W752 and jw, it is manifest, the 
 latter cannot be interpreted of the 
 land of Canaan, but must be taken in 
 its full latitude of signification. LXX. 
 ἡ σύμπασα. Kimchi himself felt that 
 by mountain, more was meant than the 
 literal Zion, and he accordingly ex- 
 plains it of the whole land of Israel; 
 but the phrase here employed denotes, 
 in reference to the period of the New 
 Covenant, the Church of God as exist- 
 ing throughout the earth; the locality, 
 so to speak, in which the scene just 
 described should be realized. See 
 chap. ii. 3; Ps. lxxxvii. 1 ; Is. lvi. 7.— 
 Mmny WI is equivalent to my ny7, 
 As an Infinitive, it more definitely 
 marks the subjective nature of the 
 knowledge intended, and the activity 
 of mind with which it is cherished. 
 Comp. for the form, Hab. iii. 13 ; and 
 for the sense, Jer. ix. 24, xxxi. 34; 
 Dan. xii. 4; John xvii. 3; 2 Pet. i. 2, 
 3.—Dd, the sea, by metonymy for the 
 bed of the sea; ὃ very expressive 
 figure, denoting not only that no por- 
 tion of the inhabited globe shall be 
 destitute of the true knowledge of 
 God, but that this knowledge shall 
 be extensive and profound. 
 
 10. The benefits of Messiah’s reign 
 were not to be restricted to the Jews, 
 but to be extended among the Gen- 
 tiles, by whom they would be em- 
 
108 ISATAH. 
 
 That to the Root of Jesse, who shall stand as a banner to the 
 
 people, 
 Shall the nations repair ; 
 
 And the place of his rest shall be glorious. 
 11 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 That Jehovah shall stretch forth his hand the second time, 
 
 braced, and their glorious results 
 exhibited.» and 0%3 are not here 
 identical as to subject. By the former, 
 the ¢ribes of God’s ancient people are 
 meant; by the latter, the zations that 
 had been strangers from the common- 
 wealth of Israel. That the plural, as 
 well as the singular form of ody, has 
 this restrictive acceptation, see chap. 
 ili. 13, and the passages there referred 
 to. For the contrast, comp. chap. 
 xlix. 6; Luke xxiv. 47; John x. 16; 
 Acts iii. 25, 26.—% ww, the Nomin. 
 absol.— aw, Root, is here equivalent 
 to ὙΠ and 182, ver. 1, denoting, not 
 that which strikes downward into the 
 ground, but that which sprouts up or 
 springs from the root, comp. Is. liii. 2 ; 
 Rey. v. 5, xxii. 16.—03, a signal of 
 rendezvous, see chap. v. 26.—>8 01, 
 signifies to go or repair to for advice, 
 protection, and assistance. See chap. 
 viii. 19. It is never used in reference 
 to application to men for aid; but 
 always respects religious application, 
 either to the true God, to an idol sup- 
 posed to be a god, or to those who 
 pretended to give the responses of 
 false deities. According to the uni- 
 form doctrine of Scripture, Jehovah 
 alone is the legitimate object of such 
 application: so that the present use 
 of the phrase identifies the Messiah 
 with Jehovah. The meaning of the 
 prophet is, that the heathen would 
 turn away from every idol and every 
 false ground of confidence, and apply 
 to the Messiah alone for salvation. 
 The version of the LXX. ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ 
 ἔθνη ἐλπιοῦσι, gives the sense, and is 
 therefore quoted by Paul, Rom. xv. 12, 
 in proof of the doctrine, that the 
 Gentiles were to be converted to 
 Christ.—22 ingy2 AMM, lit. and the 
 place of his rest shall be glory; but the 
 substantive, 733, stands adjectively 
 for glorious,—an idiom not uncommon 
 in Hebrew, The pronominal reference 
 
 in in) is BW, personally considered. 
 mm denotes not merely rest, quiet, 
 tranquillity, but also the locality in 
 which such rest is enjoyed, see Numb. 
 x. 33; Ps. exxxii. 14, where the term 
 is synonymous with 2019, dwelling, or 
 habitation, ver.13. Prefixed as forma- 
 tive of verbal nouns, Ὁ very frequently 
 expresses the place where the import 
 of the verb is realized, as Ν 2, 1279, 
 xzia, m1, &e. The place of Messiah’s 
 rest is his Church, those among whom 
 he dwells, and to whom he vouchsafes 
 the experience of his presence, Matt. 
 xviii. 20. Michaelis points the word, 
 inqy2, which is found in one of De 
 Rossi’s MSS., and has been in another 
 originally, and renders, Ais gifts > wn- 
 derstanding thereby the presents that 
 should be brought to him; but the 
 other interpretation is best supported. 
 Jerome’s translation : e¢ erit sepulcrum 
 ejus gloriosum, which he certainly did 
 not adopt from his Jewish teacher, is 
 founded on a complete misconception 
 of the meaning of the passage, but 
 has furnished a famous text from 
 which to expatiate on the merits of 
 going on pilgrimage to what is called 
 the Holy Sepulchre.—With respect to 
 the glorious condition of the Church, 
 at the period here referred to, see 
 chap. iv. 5. 
 
 11. The commencement of a distinct 
 prophecy relative to the restoration 
 of the Jews. Isaiah, having in pro- 
 phetic vision contemplated the future 
 Deliverer, and the wide extension of 
 the glorious blessings of his reign, has 
 his thoughts directed to other events 
 that were closely connected with the 
 period which he had just described, 
 but were to precede it, and conse- 
 quently, interposed between it and 
 that at which he lived. Previous to 
 the appearance of the Messiah, the 
 Jews were to be carried into captivity, 
 not only into Babylon, but also into 
 
 [CHAP. XI. 
 
CHAP. XI.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 109 
 
 To recover the remnant of his people, that remaineth, 
 From Assyria and from Egypt, 
 
 other countries, and their land was to 
 be left in a state of desolation. But 
 in order that they might be in a con- 
 dition either to receive or reject him, 
 agreeably to ancient prophecy, it was 
 necessary that they should again in- 
 habit Judea ; that their temple should 
 be rebuilt ; and their ecclesiastical 
 polity re-established. That it is this, 
 and not any restoration still future, 
 the prophet here describes appears: 
 First, because such is the more natural 
 construction of the passage, and is 
 unencumbered with any of the diffi- 
 culties which necessarily clog the 
 other interpretations: Secondly, be- 
 cause not only have Ephraim and Judah 
 amalgamated, but all hostility between 
 the tribes has long since ceased: 
 Thirdly, becausethe nationsmentioned 
 in the prophecy no longer exist; and 
 to expound them allegorically, or to 
 subject to such a mode of exposition 
 the entire prediction, is utterly at 
 variance with sound and consistent 
 principles of prophetical exegesis. 
 
 To the proposed interpretation no 
 valid objection can be derived from 
 the formula x77 O13, [nz that day; since 
 it is often used with great latitude of 
 meaning. As employed in ver. 10, it 
 is not to be restricted to the con- 
 cluding words of the previous pro- 
 phecy, but must be understood as 
 connecting with ver. 1, and thus mark- 
 ing a period which was to succeed the 
 Assyrian catastrophe. Jn or during 
 this period, the predicted restoration 
 was to be effectedBefore 1” supply 
 τύ πὴ} signifies to set upright ; to 
 raise from circumstances of captivity 
 or depression ; fo redeem, and so bring 
 the persons thus liberated into a 
 peculiar relation to their deliverer, 
 whom they are bound to love and 
 serve.—™2, the second time, is not 
 connected with 722, to recover, but 
 with 11 18, ¢o stretch forth his hand ; 
 and refers not to any previous recovery 
 of the Hebrews from the various 
 countries here specified, but to the 
 illustrious deliverance of their an- 
 cestors from Egypt in the time of 
 Moses. To this event 732 is applied, 
 
 Exod. xv. 16; Deut. xxxii. 6, and 
 freq. Comp. ver. 16.— x, Assyria, and 
 D0, Lgypt, are first mentioned be- 
 cause they were the most powerful 
 states known to the Jews; and perhaps 
 also because the greatest number of 
 captives would be found within their 
 geographical boundaries. From the 
 former of these countries the de- 
 scendants both of Israel and Judah 
 returned under Cyrus. Many have, 
 indeed, endeavoured to shew, that 
 only those of the latter were restored, 
 and that the ten tribes still separately 
 exist somewhere on the face of the 
 globe: but their attempts have failed, 
 as every attempt must that would 
 contravene the meaning of such scrip- 
 tures as the following: Jer. xxxi. 31 
 —34, compared with Heb. viii. 6—13, 
 Xxxill. 7—16; Ezek. xxxvii. 11—28. 
 Into Egypt the Jews were first carried 
 as slaves in the reign of Rehoboam, 
 2 Chron. xii. 8; others no doubt ac- 
 companied Jehoahaz when conveyed 
 thither by Pharaoh-Necho, 2 Chron. 
 xxxvi. 4; great numbers fled thither 
 after the invasion by Nebuchadnezzar, 
 2 Kings xxv. 26 ; Jer. xli. 16, xliv. 1; 
 and in the time of the Ptolemies many 
 thousands were resident there, either 
 as slaves, or in a state of voluntary 
 exile, sometimes well treated, and 
 sometimes treated with the utmost 
 cruelty. After the establishment of 
 Jewish independence, B.c. 143, and 
 especially during the civil commotions 
 which ensued in Egypt, many of them 
 embraced the opportunity afforded 
 them to return to Palestine ; and to 
 this period we are to refer the ful- 
 filment of the prediction in the text — 
 bine, Pathros, follows after Egypt, 
 being the southern or upper part of 
 that country, called by the Greeks and 
 Romans Thebais, and by the Arabs 
 
 δάσο, Said. The name in the native 
 
 Coptic is TIEGO¥ PHC, Pethoures, 
 
 or without the article, ΘΟ PHC; 
 
 Thoures, “the South” The LXX. 
 have here Βαβυλωνία; but in Jer. 
 
 ἂν 
 
110 
 
 ΙΒΑΤΙΑΗ. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 And from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, 
 And from Shinar, and from Hamath, 
 And from the regions of the sea. 
 12 Yea, he shall raise a banner to the nations, 
 And shall gather the outcasts of Israel, 
 
 xliv. 1, Παθοῦρης, and Ezek. xxix. 14, 
 Παθωρῆς, in both of which the original 
 word is preserved. It was the primi- 
 tive country of the Egyptians, Ezek. 
 xxix. 14, and is mentioned as distinct 
 from Egypt by Greek and Roman 
 writers, as it is by Isaiah and Jeremiah. 
 In the Genealogical Table of nations, 
 Gen. x., under the Mitzraim division 
 of the Hamites, are DO NB, by whom 
 are meant the inhabitants of the 
 same territory.—3, Cush, or Ethiopia, 
 
 Ambar. Tiff: lay to the south of 
 
 Pathros, and, according to Diod. Sic. 
 111. 3, was peopled from the latter 
 country—see on chap. xvill. 1; and 
 partly on the east side of the Red 
 Sea. It appears to be employed here 
 in its most comprehensive acceptation. 
 The Targum has 117, Hodu, “ India,” 
 which embraced the southern and 
 eastern parts of Arabia, and, as it 
 would seem, anciently stretched across 
 towards the Caspian Sea, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of which we find a Cusf, 
 Gen. 11.13. Comp. the prop. name of 
 Cushan Rishathaim, a king of Mesopo- 
 tamia, Judg. 111. 8, 10, and Cuth, Cuthah, 
 2 Kings xvii. 24, 30.—Next to the 
 Oriental Cush, Isaiah takes up the 
 adjacent country of Ory, Ham, or 
 Elymais, which was properly a pro- 
 vince of Persia, lying along the Persian 
 Gulf, but most probably including 
 here Susiana, if not the whole of 
 Persia, since we find it mentioned by 
 the prophets in connexion with Baby- 
 lonia, Assyria, and Media.—To the 
 west of Elam lay w2, Shinar, which 
 comprehended Babylonia and Mesopo- 
 tamia, and thus connected Elam and 
 Assyria, already mentioned, with nn, 
 Hamath, the last of the countries 
 specifically named. For this country, 
 see chap. x. 9.—D°7 "x, and frequently 
 Dex, not strictly or exclusively islands, 
 but maritime regions, whether islands, 
 sea-coasts, or countries circumscribed, 
 or bounded by the sea. In some 
 
 instances the term has necessarily the 
 former signification, as Esth. x.1; Jer. 
 xlvii. 4; but most frequently it is 
 employed to denote the maritime 
 countries situated on the Mediter- 
 ranean, including Greece, Italy, and 
 other regions in the remote west from 
 Palestine, Gen. x. 5; Ps. lxxii. 10; Is. 
 xxiv. 15, xli. 5; Jer. xxv. 22. The 
 
 word is derived from ™x, Arab. uss! : 
 
 to dwell, lodge, costes dwelling, habita- 
 
 tion. Comp. m2 ™3, the same.— 
 Owing to the proximity of most of 
 the countries specified by the prophet, 
 it is extremely probable that the Jews 
 who were carried away captive, would 
 be sold as slaves from one to another 
 of them, or become subject to future 
 migrations, according as the inhabit- 
 ants were disturbed by hostile in- 
 vasions. ΑΒ it respects the west, we 
 learn from Joel iii. 4—6, that the 
 Pheenicians sold them to the Greeks ; 
 and to this slave trade further refer- 
 ence is distinctly made, Ezek. xvii. 13. 
 During the Macedonian and Roman 
 conquests, Divine Providence opened 
 a way for the return of the Jews in 
 the west to their own land ; and the 
 close relations in which their state 
 afterwards stood to Rome still more 
 favoured such return. Comp. Zech. 
 x. 9—12. 
 
 12, 039 Ὁ2 XD) isnot to be explained 
 by 02? 129, ver. 10, but by the use of 
 the identical phrase, chap. v. 26, where 
 it is employed in its military import 
 of summoning armies to certain points 
 ofattack. While the different nations 
 were engaged in mutual conflict, God 
 would afford his people opportunities 
 of making their escape. This verse 
 only expresses in different language 
 the prediction contained in the pre- 
 ceding. The repetition indicates 
 certainty. O17) and niz2, though of 
 different genders, are not intended to 
 mark the male and female portion of 
 
CHAP. ΧΙ.]} 
 
 ISATAH, 
 
 111 
 
 And collect the dispersed of Judah, 
 From the four extremities of the earth. 
 13 Then shall the jealousy of Ephraim depart, 
 And the hostile in Judah be cut off ; 
 Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, 
 And Judah shall not be hostile to Ephraim. 
 14 But they shall pounce upon the shoulders of the Philistines on 
 
 the west; 
 
 Together shall they plunder the sons of the east ; 
 
 the population, but merely express 
 totality. Jsrael and Judah are used 
 distinctively of the descendants of 
 those who composed the two king- 
 doms.—ni523, lit. wings, but as the 
 
 Arab. Wi 9 signifies fo surround, 
 bound, and 33S ; KAS > Latus, and 
 
 tractus rei ; Plaga regionis ; it 1s evi- 
 dently employed to express the idea 
 of boundaries, or extreme and distant 
 regions. Comp. Job xxxvil. 3, Xxxviil. 
 13, and Ezek. vii. 2, in which last 
 passage and the present, the numeral 
 Dax, four, is applied to the cardinal 
 points whence come the four winds, 
 Ezek. xxxvil. 9; Matt. xxiv. 31; and 
 to which correspond ai τέσσαρες γωνίαι 
 τῆς γῆς, Rev. vil. 1, xx, 8. 
 
 13. THT YS is the genitive of pos- 
 session, not of object; and the mean- 
 ing is, “those iz Judah,” or “those 
 Jews, who are hostile to Ephraim.” 
 There is thus a complete correspond- 
 ence between the two members of 
 the parallelism, which ig destroyed by 
 the common mode of rendering the 
 words. Comp. for similar instances 
 of this mode of construction, 078 ‘73, 
 Hos, xiii. 2; Die 228, Isa. xxix. 19 ; 
 Gesen. Lehrg. p. 678; and for the 
 sentiment, Ezek. xxxvii. 15—19. The 
 two names of Zphraim and Judah 
 stand, as in ver. 12, for the descend- 
 ants of the ten tribes and the two 
 tribes and a half respectively. From 
 the time of the revolt a perpetual 
 hatred and jealousy existed between 
 these divisions; but on the return 
 from the various captivities, they 
 entirely ceased, and the tribal dis- 
 tinction having since become entirely 
 
 extinct, their revival is rendered im- 
 possible. 
 
 14, AND, Arab. nS > humerus, pro- 
 
 perly a shoulder, but here used geogra- 
 phically to denote the gradual rising 
 or upper part of a country; or the 
 heights and elevations along a sea 
 coast. Comp. Numb. xxxiv. 11; Josh. 
 xv. 8, 10, 11; where one of these 
 heights is called JPY 793, “the shoulder 
 of Ekron.” Saadias renders the word 
 
 by 1b] , regions. For the Philistines, 
 
 see chap. xiv. 29. These regions of 
 the Philistines the recovered Hebrews 
 would attack with the velocity with 
 which a ravenous bird darts on its 
 prey. Comp. Hab. i. 8—o77 2, the 
 sons of the East, i. e. the inhabitants of 
 Arabia Deserta, which stretched along 
 the east of Palestine, and was, as it 
 still is, inhabited by Bedoweens 
 
 ( kal!) or Nomades, who lived in 
 
 tents, hence called Σκηνῆται, Scenites, 
 and wandered over that large extent 
 of country, according as pasturage was 
 required for their cattle. Job i. 3. 
 They often made predatory incursions 
 into the adjacent countries, especially 
 into Palestine, to the great annoyance 
 of the inhabitants. See Judg. vi. 3; 
 Job i. 15,17; Jer. xlix. 28, 29 ; Ezek. 
 xxv. 4. For Edom, see chap. xxx1v, ; 
 and for Moab, chap. xv.—o7 1789, lit. 
 a sending or putting forth of their hand, 
 but meaning, “the object of their at- 
 tack.” —jray 23, the sons of Ammon, 1.6, 
 the Ammonites, were descended from 
 Lot, Gen. xix. 38, and inhabited the 
 tract of country between the Jabbok 
 and the Arnon, and extending a con- 
 
112 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XI, 
 
 Edom and Moab shall be the object of their attack ; 
 And the sons of Ammon shall obey them. 
 15 Then shall Jehovah utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian 
 
 sea, 
 
 And shake his hand at the river, with his terrible wind, 
 And smite it into seven streams, 
 And cause them to go over dryshod. 
 
 siderable way into Arabia. Rabbath, or 
 Rabbath-Ammon, their capital city, 
 afterwards called Philadelphia, and 
 now Amman, was situated near the 
 ‘source of the Arnon. They were not 
 attacked by the Hebrews on their way 
 to Palestine ; but they ill repaid this 
 indulgence by afterwards engaging in 
 numerous hostile enterprises against 
 them, on which account they were 
 visited with Divine judgments, Ezek. 
 xxv. 3, 10.—onynwn, their obedience, 
 abstr. for coner. their subjects, i. 6. sub- 
 ject to them. Root 2%, to hear, hearken 
 so as to obey, to obey. 'The prophecy 
 was fulfilled, as it regards the Philis- 
 tines, when, after the persecution of 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, the Asmoneans 
 subjected several of their cities, and 
 Jonathan acquired the government of 
 the whole coast from Tyre to Egypt. 
 Diod. Sic. Frag. xxxii. 16; Joseph. 
 Antiq. xiii. 4. (4) ; 1 Macc. x. 69—89 ; 
 and it received its accomplishment 
 with respect to the other nations 
 specified in this verse, in the time of 
 Judas Maccabeeus, 1 Macc. v. 6—45, 
 and Alexander Janneus, Joseph. Antiq. 
 xiii. 13, (5) ; 14, &c. Jahn’s Heb. Com- 
 mon. § 106. 
 
 15. om, LXX. ἐρημώσει, Targ. BB, 
 —as if they had read 79, fo eccicate; 
 but Aq, Symm., and Theod., dvade- 
 ματίσει, shall curse, or devote to de- 
 struction, which is one of the signi- 
 fications of the verb, The primary 
 
 idea of DIN 
 
 “τὸ 
 
 Arab. a> prohibuit, pri- 
 
 vatus fuit re; is to shut up, separate 
 Jrom common use; hence, in Hiphil, ¢o 
 consecrate, devote, devote to destruction, 
 
 destroy utterly, Corp. the Arab. arm 
 v. vill. perdidit, omnino perdidit, extir- 
 pavit gentem, It is frequently used 
 
 with respect to the entire destruction 
 of the Canaanitish cities by the 
 
 Hebrews.— ji, a tongue ; geographi- 
 cally, like the Arab. oes a bay or 
 
 gulf, from its resemblance to that 
 member of the body ; just as, for the 
 same reason, we speak of a tongue of 
 land. Comp. Josh. xv. 2, 5, xviii. 19. 
 -- ΟΞ Ὁ, otherwise called "Om, the 
 sea of weeds, is the Red Sea, or Arabian 
 
 Gulf, now called by the Arabs, = 
 Adil, Bahr-el-Kolzum, and celebrated 
 
 in the history of the Israelites, on 
 account of their miraculous passage 
 through its western or Herodpolitan 
 branch. To that event allusion is 
 here made ; but the language of the 
 prophet being figurative, it is obvious 
 we are not to understand him as 
 pointing to any similar desiccation of 
 the sea, but as predicting the removal 
 of the most formidable barrier, which 
 might lie in the way of the return of 
 the Jews from Egypt. The destruction, 
 which was begun by Nebuchadnezzar, 
 was carried forward by the Persians ; 
 by the Greeks under Alexander ; and 
 was completed by the Romans after 
 the battle of Actium, B.c. 30. Egypt 
 then ceased to be an independent 
 state—T "27, see chap. x. 32.—B 
 
 120, the River, some understand the 
 Nile ; but the appropriation of this 
 term in common usage, to denote the 
 Euphrates, decides in favour of the 
 latter river.—inn Ova, LXX. ἐν πνεύ- 
 ματι βιαίῳ, Vulg. in fortitudine spiritus 
 
 ar oo Νὰ 
 
 sui. Syriac, Mand} 9 13 pac l> by the 
 strength of his wind. ὋΝ isa ἅπαξ dey. 
 which some consider to be cognate 
 with the Arab. ,lc, med. Je. sitivit ; 
 but the preferable derivation is that 
 
 of Abulwalid, who compares it with 
 DN, /o be terrible: the Y and the δὶ being 
 
 ry 
 
CHAP. XII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 113 
 
 16 And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people, 
 Which shall remain—from Assyria— 
 
 As there was unto Israel, 
 
 In the day when he came up from the land of Egypt. 
 
 interchanged. This interpretation Ge- 
 
 senius and Rosenmiiller approve.— :° 
 
 DT AID seven streams, i.e. completely 
 into rivulets or torrents, and so dry 
 up the Euphrates; the number seven 
 being employed to express perfection 
 or completeness. The appropriateness 
 of the figure lies in the multitude of 
 canals into which the Euphrates was 
 divided ; and the meaning is, that the 
 Babylonian power should be destroyed 
 in order that the Jewish captives 
 might return to their own land, 
 Compare Rev. xvi. 12, where the same 
 symbol is employed to denote the 
 destruction of the Turkish power. 
 The story related by Herodotus, that 
 
 Cyrus caused the Gyndes, a river 
 which falls into the Tigris, to be 
 diverted into three hundred and sixty 
 canals, and thus completely drained 
 off its waters, though noticeable, has 
 no real bearing upon the prophecy. 
 
 16. The greatest number of the He- 
 brews being in Babylon and the coun- 
 tries about the Euphrates, the prophet 
 concludes his description of the de- 
 liverance, by comparing the facilities 
 afforded for their return to 7D, a 
 causey, or road, raised and properly 
 made, so as to afford every conve- 
 nience for public passage. For the 
 fulfilment, see the books of Ezra and 
 Nehemiah. 
 
 --.----- 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 This chapter contains a hymn: of praise to be sung by the church on her 
 
 restoration from captivity. 
 
 It recognises the power and goodness of Jeho- 
 
 vah, 1,2; the means of grace to be enjoyed under the new dispensation, 
 3; the announcement of the Divine character and works to the Gentiles, 
 4,5; and the special obligations of the Jews to gratitude and praise, 6. That 
 this triumphal ode was suggested by that which Moses composed on 
 occasion of the deliverance at the Red Sea, appears certain, from its close 
 connexion with the concluding words of the previous chapter, and from the 
 circumstance, that part of that song is expressly adopted, ver, 2, 
 
 1 ΑΝΡ in that day thou shalt say: 
 
 I will praise thee, O Jehovah. 
 
 Though thou hast been angry with me, 
 Thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me. 
 2 Behold! God is my salvation ; 
 
 1. The Divine anger had been 
 poured out upon the Hebrews during 
 their banishment, but, on their resto- 
 ration, gave place to favour and con- 
 solation, -Comp., chap. xl, 1, 2. 
 
 2. ™ nyo Ἢ occurs precisely as 
 here, Exod. xv. 2, and Ps. exviii. 14 ; 
 as do also the following words, with 
 the exception of m7; and there can 
 be no doubt, that both in the Psalm 
 
114 ISATAH. 
 
 I will trust, and not be afraid: 
 
 [CHAP,. XII. 
 
 For Jah [Jehovah] is my glory and song; 
 He has even become my salvation. 
 3 And ye shall draw water with joy from the fountains of salva- 
 
 tion. 
 4 And ye shall say in that day : 
 Praise Jehovah; celebrate his 
 
 and in Isaiah, they are borrowed from 
 the Mosaic ode. n}21is properly the 
 construct of 773, only retaining the 
 Kametz, as in nny, mom, &c.; and 
 would have been expressed in full, 
 οι, but for the ’ in ™ following, with 
 which it might easily have coalesced 
 so as to form ™n73, which is indeed 
 the reading of three MSS. One MS. 
 reads NY}; two, and perhaps a third, 
 with ten Samaritan MSS. exhibit it, 
 Exod. xv. 2; and one, Ps. exvili. 14 ; 
 and this is the reading of all the ver- 
 sions in the present instance.—™, 
 JAH, one of the peculiar names given 
 to the Divine Being in the O. T., espe- 
 cially in the Psalms. Cocceius and 
 others derive it from 7%, to be comely, 
 beautiful, excellent; but that it is an 
 abbreviated ferm of the Tetragram- 
 maton im seems certain from its 
 varying with 17, (another abbreviated 
 form of the same name,) at the end 
 of compound proper names, as TY 
 and wrt; only, in such cases, the 
 Mappik is dropped. It also occurs in 
 the formula 777, rendered by Theod. 
 αἰνεῖτε τὸ ὄν. Some have considered 
 it to be of Egyptian origin, and to 
 correspond to ’Iaé, a8 occurring in 
 some ancient writers; but Prof. Tho- 
 luck has convincingly shewn, Bib. 
 Repos. Jan. 1834, that in the authors 
 referred to, the God of the Jews, and 
 not any Egyptian deity, is the subject 
 of discourse, and that there is no proof 
 that the word Jao ever existed in the 
 Egyptian language.—The word is want- 
 ing in two MSS.; and 7\7 is omitted 
 in eleven, originally in nine more, in 
 two copies of the earliest printed 
 Machzor, in two MSS. of the Targum ; 
 and has nothing corresponding to it 
 in the ancient versions. On these 
 grounds, and as it does not occur in 
 Exod. and the Ps., it is supposed to be 
 
 name ; 
 
 an interpolation from chap. xxvi. 4. 
 It is, however, worthy of notice, that 
 while Procopius places ΠῚΠῚ on the 
 left margin of the text, he has on the 
 right, Π ta κύριος, which probably 
 stands for πάντες ta Κύριος, and in- 
 dicates that all the MSS. consulted by 
 Origen read JAH JEHOVAH. 
 
 3. Whatever reference there is in 
 this hymn to the temporal salvation 
 which the Jews experienced, it cannot 
 be doubted, that it was designed to 
 excite in their minds an ardent desire 
 after the greater deliverance to be 
 wrought out by the Messiah. In this 
 verse, the prophet interrupts the song 
 in order to announce the happiness of 
 those who should avail themselves of 
 the privileges of the New Dispensa- 
 tion. These privileges, and the bless- 
 ings which they are intended to 
 secure, are termed 7ywT ‘py, foun- 
 tains of salvation. It is not at all 
 improbable that there is here an 
 allusion to the water miraculously 
 supplied to the Israelites in the wil- 
 derness ; which event was afterwards 
 celebrated with great pomp, by golden 
 vessels full of water being brought to 
 the temple from the pool of Siloam, 
 on the last day of the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles. The blessings of salvation 
 are frequently compared to “ water,” 
 “ living water,” or “the water of life ;” 
 Is. lv. 1; John iv. 10; Rev. xxii. 1, 17; 
 on which account, our Saviour, on 
 occasion of the festival just referred 
 to, ‘“‘stood and cried, saying, If any 
 man thirst, let him come unto me, 
 and drink,” John vii.37. See Bloom- 
 field on the passage. 
 
 4, DWI ΝῊ not only signifies fo call 
 upon, invoke the name of, but also, to 
 laud or celebrate, give celebrity to any 
 one by publishing his deeds, Ps. xlix. 
 12; Is. xliv. 5. The most of this 
 
CHAP. ΣῈ: ISAIAH. 115 
 
 Make known his deeds among the people ; 
 Announce that his name is exalted! 
 5 Sing to Jehovah, for he hath done a splendid deed ; 
 It is made known through all the earth. 
 6 Cry aloud, and shout, O inhabitress of Zion! 
 For great in the midst of thee is the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 verse is found verbatim in 1 Chron. has nvr, the Part. of Hoph. The 
 xvi. 8; Ps. cv. 1. sense is the same ; and the connexion 
 
 5. The Chethib, nv», pointed, ny, requires the word to be understood 
 would be the Pual Part.; but the Keri optatively. 
 
 ~ 
 
 CHAPTER XIII.—XIV. 23. 
 
 Chapter xili.—xiv. 23, contains an entire prophecy respecting the destruction 
 of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, which forms the first of a series of 
 special predictions directed against foreign nations. So particular is this 
 prophecy, and so exactly do its specifications tally with the circumstances 
 connected with the fall of the Chaldean monarchy, that Rosenmiiller, Eich- 
 horn, Bertholdt, Gesenius, Hitzig, and others, maintain it to be the pro- 
 duction of some writer who lived during the captivity, when the hostility 
 of the Medes, and the splendid successes of Cyrus, inspired the Jews with 
 a conviction that their oppressor would soon be subdued; or, who lived 
 after the return from Babylon, and, consequently, wrote after the events had 
 taken place. It must, however, be evident to every one who coolly peruses 
 what they have severally written in defence of these hypotheses, that their 
 views are principally to be traced to disbelief of prophetic inspiration. 
 They reason entirely κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον. Because human sagacity could not by 
 any possibility have anticipated, by nearly two hundred years, the par- 
 ticular events in question, it follows, according to them, that the author 
 must have flourished about the time they took place, if not indeed after 
 they had happened. But who does not perceive the total repugnance of 
 such a mode of argumentation to the doctrine of the Bible, relative to the 
 supernatural influence which Isaiah and the other prophets enjoyed? The 
 objections derived from supposed peculiarity of style, trains of ideas, &c. 
 are trifling, and have for the most part been satisfactorily removed by 
 Uhland, “ Vaticinium Jesaiz, cap. xiii. de excidio urbis et regni Babylonici, 
 Jesaice prophet vindicatum.’”’ Tubing. 1798, 4to; Jahn in his Intro- 
 duction ; Beckhaus in a work entitled, Ueber die Integritit der Prophe- 
 tischen Schriften des Alten Bundes, Halle, 1796. The remarks of Michaelis, 
 who lived to witness the commencement of the infidel attacks that have 
 
116 ISATAH. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 been made upon this portion of the book of Isaiah, are too valuable to be 
 omitted in this place. Adverting to the views just noticed, he observes :— 
 Those who have read Isaiah in Hebrew will not easily entertain such ideas, 
 His style is so elegant, so magnificent, and so different from anything 
 written about the time of the termination of the Babylonish captivity ; it 
 is likewise so exempt from foreign words, which we so frequently meet 
 with in the later writers; that to suppose his prophecies respecting 
 Babylon to have been concocted in the first year of Cyrus must appear just 
 as improbable as the hypothesis of Harduin, which he could not prevail 
 upon the world to adopt, that the most beautiful of the Odes of Horace 
 were the productions of barbarous monks in the Middle Ages. In the 
 Babylonish captivity the grace and magnificence of the Hebrew language 
 were entirely lost ; even Ezekiel, who lived during the captivity on the 
 Chaboras, cannot be called graceful, any more than the courtier Daniel. 
 Besides, in the former we discover a number of Chaldzisms in grammar ; 
 and in the latter, foreign terms which never occur before his time. Ezra and 
 Nehemiah wrote Hebrew ina style still vastly inferior ; while of the prophets 
 Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, there is not one who, in point of style, has 
 the power of pleasing, notwithstanding the beautiful imagery which occurs 
 in Zechariah. The prophecies of Isaiah, on the contrary, are, next to Job 
 and the odes of Moses, the most splendid Hebrew monuments in existence ; 
 they far surpass Jeremiah, the latest good writer which the Hebrews in- 
 herited from happier times, and who lived during the captivity—a quality 
 which is more obvious on perusing the original than it can possibly be made 
 by any translation. Besides, the prophecies of Isaiah against Babylon are 
 completely in the style of his other prophecies,—all of which it will not be 
 maintained are supposititious,—and, indeed, may be said to form, with little 
 abatement, the most splendid portions of his book. Another consideration 
 must be taken into the account. The prophecy is of such a character that 
 it could not have been forged in the year in which Cyrus took Babylon; for 
 though Babylon was conquered, it was not destroyed, but continued to be 
 a large and powerful city, which once and again rebelled against the 
 Persians, under Darius Hystaspes, and Xerxes ; was chosen by Alexander 
 the Great as his residence, and thus would almost have become the capital 
 of the world, if that monarch had not abandoned himself to intoxication, 
 to which he fell a victim. But it is predicted in this chapter (Isaiah xiii.) 
 that the place where Babylon stood should be converted into a complete 
 desert—a prophecy which received its fulfilment, indeed, but not till after 
 the birth of Christ ; for it was only by slow degrees that this city reached 
 the point of degradation to which it is now reduced. Certainly no person who 
 might have forged a prediction in the first year of Cyrus would have 
 introduced what we find vers. 19—22. Nor would a deceiver, even at the 
 time when the Greek translation of Isaiah was executed, have predicted the 
 complete desolation of Babylon ; for it still stood, though it had diminished 
 from year to year.” —Deutsche Uebersetzung des Alten Testamentes, mit Anmer- 
 kungen fiir Ungelehrte. 
 
 The prophecy opens with the command of God to assemble the armies 
 
CHAP. XIII. ] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 117 
 
 destined to attack Babylon, 2, 3; a description is given of their number, 
 tumultuous noise, and actual approach, 4, 5 ; the consternation and destruc- 
 tion which should follow are forcibly portrayed, 6—10 ; and Jehovah him- 
 self is introduced denouncing the evils which he was to bring upon the city, 
 and its ultimate and signal desolation, 11—22. 
 
 1 THE SENTENCE OF BABYLON, which Isaiah the son of Amoz 
 
 saw. 
 
 1. kwo. The Targ. Aq., Syr., Je- 
 rome, and most of the modern versions, 
 derive this word from x3, in the sense 
 of bearing a load, and render it onus, 
 a burden; but Cocceius, Vitringa, 
 Aurivillius, Michaelis, Rosenmiiller, 
 Schroeder, Gesenius, Winer, and Hit- 
 zig, following the LXX., ὅραμα, ὅρασις, 
 ῥῆμα, λῆμμα, prefer the sense of efatum, 
 oracle, sentence, frora δ), to raise the 
 voice, to take up or utter any thing with 
 the voice, Isa. iii. 7, xlii. 2, 11. This 
 interpretation is confirmed by the 
 occurrence of the phrase 711727 Nw, 
 Zech. ix. 1, xii. 1; Mal. 1. 1; and the 
 statement 77 xweaT m7, Is. xiv. 28. 
 What has seemed to favour the former 
 of these interpretations is the circum- 
 stance that the term is commonly 
 used in the titles of prophecies which 
 are comminatory in their import, as 
 ix, ae 1) xiv. 26) xv. 1, xvii: 1, xix. 1; 
 xxi. 1, &c.; and Hengstenberg attempts 
 to prove that it is never employed, 
 either by Isaiah, or by any other of 
 the sacred writers, in a different ac- 
 ceptation, Christol. Zech. ix. 1; but it 
 is clear from Proy, xxxi. 1, Zech. xii, 
 1, that it is also used in a good sense. 
 As, however, it is undeniably designed 
 in prophetical inscriptions to convey 
 the idea of a judicial declaration, the 
 term sentence appears the best by 
 which in most instances to render it, 
 Prov. xxxi. 1 may also be translated, 
 “ the sentences which his mother taught 
 him ;” xt. being there used collec- 
 tively for moral instructions, conveyed 
 in the shape of sententious and pithy 
 maxims,— 23, BABEL, BABYLON, some 
 
 would derive from the Arab. Cols 
 ub, Bab Bel, “the Gate” or “Court 
 
 of Bel,” and compare the modern 
 
 phrase, “Ottoman Porte;” but, ac- 
 cording to Gen. xi. 9, it is to be referred 
 to the root 723, ¢o confound, and is a 
 contracted form of 3323, the second 
 letter being dropped. See Gesen. 
 Lehrg. p. 134, 869, and Lex. ἐμ voc. 
 nionin, It was the celebrated capital 
 of the Babylonian monarchy, and 
 situated on the Euphrates, which 
 divided it into two halves, near to the 
 present village of Hillah, 32° 28’ N. 
 latitude. By some its foundation is 
 ascribed to Nimrod; by others, to 
 Belus, to Semiramis, and even to 
 Nebuchadnezzar; but there can be no 
 doubt that the later monarchs only 
 enlarged it. All the ancient accounts 
 concur in supporting the propriety of 
 the epithet Great, which we find 
 applied to it, Dan. iv. 30. Bibl. Repos. 
 vol. vii. p. 364. According to Hero- 
 dotus, its walls were 480 stadia in 
 circumference. Pliny and Solinus 
 give it at sixty Roman miles, which, 
 reckoning eight stadia to a mile, 
 amounts to the same. Strabo’s esti- 
 mate is 385 stadia; that of Diodorus, 
 taken from Ctesias, 360, which is only 
 five less than the estimate given by 
 Clitarchus, who was there with Alex- 
 ander the Great. Curtius gives it at 
 368. These different accounts may be 
 harmonized by supposing the first- 
 mentioned writers to have included 
 some outer enclosures of smaller 
 moment, which the others have omit- 
 ted. At the very lowest estimate, 
 however, its size must have been 
 enormous; and had it been densely 
 built, its dimensions must have ex- 
 ceeded all rational belief. But it 
 appears from the statements of Cur- 
 tius, and other writers, that the 
 houses did not join each other, but 
 that large spaces were left contiguous 
 
 Ῥ 
 
118 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 2 On the bare mountain erect the standard ; 
 
 to the walls; while other spaces were 
 appropriated to immense palaces, 
 squares, gardens, &c. The walls, 
 which consisted of burnt brick, 
 cemented together by asphaltus, are 
 said to have been 350 feet in height, 
 and 87 in thickness ; and to have had 
 250 towers and 100 gates of brass. 
 Among the most remarkable buildings 
 was the celebrated tower or temple of 
 Belus, which is supposed to have been 
 constructed on the ruins of that at- 
 tempted to be built 120 years after 
 the deluge, the remains of which, 
 according to some, are still visible in 
 
 the sre ays Birs Nimrood, described 
 
 by modern travellers. It is 2,286 feet 
 in circumference ; but all that remains 
 in height, to the summit of the present 
 tower, is only 235 feet. Babylon was 
 the seat of science, especially astro- 
 nomy; the centre of ancient idolatry ; 
 the storehouse of wealth and magnifi- 
 cence; and the asylum of all that was 
 revolting in licentiousness and immo- 
 rality. It attaimed its highest pitch 
 of grandeur, soon after the year 8.6. 
 623, when Nabopolassar destroyed the 
 Assyrian, and founded the Chaldee- 
 Babylonian empire. Under Nabonni- 
 dus, B.c. 5388 or 539, agreeably to the 
 prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and 
 Daniel, it was taken, after a siege of 
 two years, by Cyrus the Mede. In 
 consequence of a rebellion of the 
 Babylonians in the fourth or fifth year 
 of Darius Hystaspes, that monarch 
 ordered its hundred gates of brass to 
 be taken away, and its walls to be 
 lowered by two hundred cubits. 8.6, 
 477, Xerxes plundered and destroyed 
 the temple of Belus, and carried away 
 the golden table and statues, which 
 Darius had not ventured to touch, 
 Alexander attempted in vain to restore 
 the city to its former magnificence. 
 From its conquest by Seleucus Ni- 
 canor, B.C. 312, it fell still further 
 into decay, especially in consequence 
 of the erection of Seleucia on the 
 Tigris, which that king made his 
 residence. In the days of Strabo and 
 Diodorus Siculus, it was little else 
 than a desert; and Pausanias, who 
 flourished in the first half of the 
 
 second century, states that in his 
 time nothing remained but the walls. 
 In the fourth century these were 
 partially repaired, in order to render 
 it a park, in which the Persian Court 
 might amuse itself in hunting wild 
 beasts ; since which time little notice 
 was comparatively taken of it, till 
 Niebuhr, Rich, Ker Porter, Keppel, 
 Buckingham, Mignan, and other mo- 
 dern travellers who visited the region, 
 furnished detailed accounts, all of 
 which concur in representing its site 
 as covered with nothing but heaps 
 and traces of ruins—the horror of the 
 surrounding Arabs, and frequented 
 only by wild beasts, and birds of the 
 most hateful description. A more 
 extensive, or a more complete scene of 
 devastation is nowhere to be seen. As 
 he proceeded across it to visit the Birs 
 Nimrood, Sir Robert Ker Porter re- 
 marks, “ My eyes ranged on all sides, 
 while crossing this vast barren tract, 
 which assuredly had of old been 
 covered, if not by closely compacted 
 streets, at least with the parks and 
 gardens attached to distinct mansions 
 or divisions of this once imperial city ; 
 but all was withered and gone, and 
 comparatively level to the very hori- 
 zon, till the object of my expedition 
 presented itself, standing alone in the 
 solitary waste, like the awful figure 
 of Prophecy herself, pointing to the 
 fulfilment of her word.”—Tyavels, vol. 
 11. Ὁ. 306. See Robinson’s Calmet, and 
 Winer’s Real-Worterbuch, articles, 
 Babel, Babylon, Babylonia; Universal 
 Hist. vol. iv. pp. 404—411; Rosen- 
 miiller’s Biblical Geography, chap. viii. 
 
 2.780) ὙΠ A bare mountain was 
 best adapted for the erection of a 
 standard, there being no trees to hide 
 it from the view. ΠΕΣ is the Niph. 
 participle of 758, fo scrape off, make 
 naked, remove. Comp. ¥, a bare or 
 naked hill, Is. xli. 18, xlix. 9. For the 
 custom here referred to, see chap. v. 
 26. Such a standard, or ensign, was 
 designed to attract the attention of 
 those who were at a distance; to col- 
 lect troops that were in the immediate 
 vicinity, the sound of the trumpet 
 (Pp, for "EW Sp, comp. Jer. iv. 21) and 
 a sign with the hand were sufficient. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 119 
 
 Raise the sound to them; wave the hand; 
 That they may enter the gates of the nobles. 
 
 3 I have given charge to my consecrated warriors ; 
 I have also called my heroes to execute my anger, 
 
 My proud exulters ! 
 4 The noise of a multitude on 
 
 people ; 
 
 —o7) is anticipative, and refers to the 
 warriors under Cyrus, not named, but 
 further described ver. 3, and expressly 
 stated, ver. 17, to be the Medes. For 
 this idiom, see chap. viii. 21.—The 1 
 before the Future, after an Imperative 
 is to be rendered ἐλαί.---- 3) ‘108, the 
 gates of the nobles, may either signify 
 the gates of the city, or those of the 
 palace in which the princes were as- 
 sembled. The latter is more probably 
 meant. When the troops of Cyrus 
 had turned off the waters of the 
 Euphrates into the large ditch which 
 he had caused to be dug, and the 
 Babylonians, in the midst of their 
 revelry, had neglected to shut the 
 gates at the entrance and the outlet 
 of the river, the Persians rushed into 
 the city; and assembling in vast num- 
 bers round the royal palace, gave a 
 shout, which the king of Babylon 
 mistook for the clamour of the drunken 
 mob, and ordered his guards to open 
 the palace gates, when the enemy 
 entered and put all to the sword, 
 - Herod, i. 191; Xenoph. Cyroped. 
 vil. 5. 
 
 3. WIND, my consecrated warriors. ΑΒ 
 WIP signities fo separate, destine, appoint 
 to any special purpose, hence consecrate ; 
 the nature of the consecration must 
 be determined by that of the subject. 
 When war, as here, is spoken of, the 
 reference is to the selection of the 
 troops; not, however, without respect 
 to the religious rites that were per- 
 formed upon the occasion, 1 Sam. vii. 
 5, 6, 9. Comp. Gen. xiv. 14, where 
 Dy seems to be used in the same 
 acceptation, 729, from which this 
 adjective is derived, like Wy signifies 
 to consecrate, dedicate, as a house, temple, 
 &e., before using it. In the parallel 
 -passage, Jer. li. 27, 28, the same verb 
 is employed, and the subject presented 
 -withconsiderableamplification. Comp. 
 
 the mountains, as that of much 
 
 also Jer. xxii. 7; Zeph. i. 7; in which 
 last passage it is in Hiphil.— x) is 
 elliptical. The entire phrase would be, 
 ἜΝ niwy, fo execute my wrath; or ney? 
 ἘΝ, to execute my fierce wrath; see 1 
 Sam. xxviii, 18.—mwa ordy, lit. the 
 evulters of my pride. According to a 
 common idiom, when of two nouns in 
 construction, the latter is used adject- 
 ively, it has affixed to it the possessive 
 pronoun, which belongs to the former, 
 as, OW ὙΠ, the mountain of my holiness, 
 for my holy mountain ; Wor ἸΏ, the fat 
 of his flesh, for his fat flesh. So here, 
 mwsa, pride, is to be construed as an 
 adjective, and the phrase to be ren- 
 dered, my proud exulters. Comp. ii. 11. 
 Gesenius thinks 9, which signifies /o 
 triumph, exult, has a primary reference 
 to a cry or shout of exultation, like 
 the Greek ἀλαλάζω. The native inso- 
 lence of the Persians is roundly as- 
 serted by Croesus: Πέρσαι φύσιν ἔοντες 
 ὑβρισταί, Herod. i. 89. Herodotus 
 likewise describes them as esteeming 
 themselves vastly superior in all points 
 to other men: Nopifovres ἑαυτοὺς εἶναι 
 ἀνθρώπων μακρῷ τὰ πάντα ἀρίστους, 1. 
 134; and Ammianus, xxiii. 6, charac- 
 terises them as magnidici—superli. 
 The LXX. render the words by a term 
 cognate with that employed by Croesus: 
 χαίροντες ἅμα καὶ ὑβρίζοντες. 
 
 4, 5. The mountains to which the 
 prophet refers are doubtless the ele- 
 vated regions from which the warriors 
 came who served in the Persian army: 
 such as those of Media, Armenia, 
 Koordistan, as well as the mountains 
 of Sanjar in the more immediate 
 vicinity of Babylon. The description 
 is truly graphical. First, a tumul- 
 tuous noise is heard, but not so dis- 
 tinctly as to discover the cause: then 
 the appearance of a vast army pre- 
 sents itself ; the din becomes louder 
 and louder ; and, at last, the hostile 
 
120 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 The noise of the tumult of kingdoms, of assembled nations ; 
 Jehovah of Hosts mustereth the army for battle. 
 
 5 They come from a distant land, from the end of heaven, 
 Jehovah, and the instruments of his indignation, 
 To destroy the whole of the land. 
 
 6 Howl ye, for the day of Jehovah is near! 
 
 army is found to be so numerous, that 
 it appears as if entire kingdoms had 
 transferred their population, and were 
 assembled for battle. To crown the 
 whole, Jehovah is introduced as in- 
 specting the troops previous to the 
 engagement. In Jer. li. 27, Γῆ) 
 WON} 37D UMS, the kingdoms of Ararat, 
 Minni, and Ashkenaz, are specifically 
 mentioned ; and in. ver. 28, Ὁ 390, 
 the kings of the Medes, are noticed as 
 those which furnished the expedition, 
 According to Jerome, on Isaiah xxxvii. 
 38, Ararat was not a mountain, but a 
 region in the low country of Armenia, 
 through which the Araxes flowed, and 
 which was, as it still is, exceedingly 
 fertile. The mountain commonly called 
 by that name, on which the ark 
 rested, lay contiguous on the S. W. 
 and took its name from the country, 
 Gen. vill. 4. The kingdom so named, 
 in all probability, extended as far 
 north as the river Cyrus, and com- 
 prised a considerable portion of the 
 country between the lakes Oormiah 
 and Van. Minni, the same as Minyas, 
 a mountainous region to the west of 
 Ararat, the original kingdom of 4;»- 
 menia, Which is supposed to be 
 compounded of 2070, Har-mini, the 
 mountain-land of Minyas. It included 
 the whole of the country from the 
 seas just mentioned, westward to 
 Mount Taurus, and from the shores of 
 the Pontus to Mesopotamia on the 
 south. Ashhkenaz, Bochart places on 
 the Propontis, in the north-west part 
 of Asia Minor, on the ground that 
 there existed in that quarter a lake, 
 river, and gulf, called Ascanius. Other 
 places towards the south have also 
 been named, as have others on the 
 Tanais and in Bactria; but it was 
 probably some region bordering on 
 the Caucasus, and the Black Sea. For 
 the received Jewish application of the 
 term to Germany, there is no suffi- 
 
 cient foundation. Media compre- 
 hended the extensive tract of country 
 lying along the west and south of the 
 Caspian Sea; and stretching south- 
 ward along the east of Armenia, com- 
 prised the provinces now known by 
 the names of Shirvan, Azerbijan, Ghilan, 
 Mazanderan, and Irak Ajemi. All 
 these countries were celebrated for 
 the number and bravery of their 
 warriors: Azerbijan alone furnishing, 
 according to Strabo, ten thousand 
 horsemen, and forty thousand foot. 
 By “the kings of the Medes,” in Jere- 
 miah, are meant the satraps or vice- 
 roys ruling in the larger divisions of 
 Media and Persia, who put themselves 
 at the head of the quota of men which 
 they severally brought into the field. 
 
 When the troops collected from all 
 these different parts, and those which 
 Cyrus had brought with him from 
 Lydia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, to- 
 gether with the auxiliaries of Creesus, 
 are taken into the account, it must be 
 obvious no description could have 
 been more appropriate than that 
 given by Isaiah.—As to sense, JX 
 pr) and Dw TYP are identical : the 
 latter, which is otherwise equivalent 
 to SINT TEP, is added for the sake of 
 intensive parallelism. The reading, 
 γα Tz79, found in three MSS. and 
 originally in another, is in all proba- 
 bility an imitation of the Targ.—y x 
 might be regarded as a collective noun, 
 including all the countries whence the 
 armies came to attack Babylon; but 
 as the Medo-Persian forces occupied 
 the most prominent place, and the 
 whole was under the command of 
 Cyrus, the term has a special reference 
 to Media. Comp. chap. v. 26, xlvi. 
 11; Jer. 1. 9, 26, 41.) For ‘nz %, 
 comp. Jer. 1. 25. yox7 2 is the same 
 as 72m, ver. 11, the Babylonian em- 
 pire. 
 
 6, oo stands for 79, like pou for 
 
CHAP. XIII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 121 
 
 As a mighty destruction from the Almighty it shall come! 
 7 Because of this all hands shall be slackened, 
 And every heart of man shall be dissolved ; 
 8 And they shall tremble; pangs and sorrows shall seize them ; 
 As a woman in labour shall they writhe ; 
 They shall look-at each other with amazement ; 
 Their faces shall be faces of flames. 
 9 Behold! the day of Jehovah cometh! 
 Cruel, with fury, and with burning anger ; 
 To make the land a desolation, 
 
 And exterminate its sinners. 
 
 10 For the stars of the heavens, and their constellations, 
 
 Shall not emit their light ; 
 
 you, 2 Sam. xiv. 19. "τὸ, suggested 
 by the use of τ, the LXX. render 
 variously, but most frequently by 
 Παντοκράτωρ, THE AumicHTy. It is 
 
 derived from 77%, Arab. \i, fo be 
 
 strong, powerful ; SiS, fortis, strenuus. 
 
 According to Exod. vi. 3, it was, com- 
 bined with δ, the name by which 
 Jehovah peculiarly made himself 
 known to the patriarchs. The form 
 Ἢ is that of an obsolete plural, like 
 2x, only in the latter word, the Patach 
 is changed into Kametz, to distinguish 
 it from the form in which the same 
 word is used when applied in the 
 plural to human masters.—The 3 
 in Wis the Caph veritatis, see chap. 
 i. 7; and comp. Joel i. 15, where the 
 same form occurs. ‘12 TW in both 
 passages form an elegant parono- 
 masia. 
 
 7, 8, contain a description of the 
 dismay, consternation, and perplexity, 
 into which the inhabitants of Babylon 
 should be thrown on the capture of 
 the city. The metaphors are taken 
 from the physical effects produced up- 
 on the human system by fear, alarm, 
 or pain. Comp. Jer. 1. 43; Josh. vii. 
 5 Psi πα 14iseiiizel.oxxiy 7-—In 
 yw, the jis the intensive paragogic, 
 as in the following verb. The nomi- 
 native is the Babylonians, understood. 
 The Hebrews say that a person fakes 
 hold on fear, or what occasions fear, just 
 as we say, to take fright ; see Job xviii. 
 
 20, xxi. 6 ; as well as fear takes hold on, 
 Exod. xv. 14, 15; so that, however 
 the LXX., Syr., and Targ., might be 
 justified in rendering the phrase agree- 
 ably to the more common mode of 
 construction, we should not be war- 
 ranted to adopt D77N’,—the emenda- 
 tion proposed by Lowth.—m327) °2, 
 faces of flames, i.e. red, flushed, the 
 result of agitation or violent commo- 
 tion. 
 
 9. "HR the same as Wx, erzvel, only 
 with the’ of excess or intensity.—2P) 
 ANTM are further expletive of DY, the 
 nominative to the gerund 013, and to 
 row following. 
 
 10. A fine specimen of the figura- 
 tive manner in which the Hebrew 
 prophets depict the horrors of national 
 calamity. The metaphors of light 
 and darkness, to express prosperity 
 and adversity, are quite common ; but 
 when the effect is to be heightened, 
 the writer represents the sources of 
 light as being themselves affected, and 
 their splendour as either increased or 
 completely obscured. See Isaiah xxiv. 
 23, xxxiv. 4; Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8 ; Joel 
 ἢ. 10, 01.15; Amos viii. 9; Matt. 
 xxiv. 29.—omos, lit. their Orions, 1. 68. 
 Orion, and similar constellations, or 
 remarkable groups of fixed stars, the 
 science of which appears to be of 
 great antiquity, since they are dis- 
 tinctly recognised in Job, the most 
 ancient book in existence, chap. ix. 9, 
 “XXXVili. 31. See also Amos v.8. The 
 name 7D) properly signifies @ fool, an 
 
122 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XIII. 
 
 The sun shall be dark at his going forth, 
 And the moon shall not cause her light to shine. 
 11 And I will punish the world for its wickedness, 
 And the wicked for their iniquity. 
 Yea, I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, 
 And lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. 
 12 I will make men scarcer than gold, 
 
 And human beings than the gold of Ophir. 
 
 impious person; or, according to an- 
 other acceptation, confident, insolent, 
 refractory. In the Persian mythology, 
 Orion is Vimrod, the founder of Babel, 
 who was translated from earth to the 
 position which he now occupies in 
 the starry heavens. A similar belief 
 appears to have been popular among 
 other ancient nations. The name by 
 which the Arabs designate this con- 
 
 stellation is ps the Giant, a title 
 
 corresponding to the term 7133, which 
 we find applied to Nimrod, Gen. x. 8, 
 9. They also give him Sirius as a 
 dog for his companion, which fur- 
 nishes another point of coincidence 
 with the Scripture account of Nim- 
 rod’s favourite pursuit. The same 
 combination occurs also in Greek 
 writers. Thus, Homer: 
 ἀρίζηλοι δέ οἱ αὐγαὶ 
 
 Φαίνονται πολλοῖσι μετ᾽ ἄστρασι νυκ- 
 
 τὸς ἀμολγῷ" 
 Ὅν τε κύν᾽ ‘Qpiwvos ἐπίκλησιν καλέ- 
 
 ovat.” Iliad. x. 27—30. 
 
 66. 
 
 He is represented as having been 
 greatly addicted to the chase, a giant 
 in size, and distinguished for heroic 
 exploits. On the supposition that 
 similar ideas obtained among the 
 Chaldeans, and were from them 
 adopted by the Hebrews, of which 
 there is no reason to doubt, the em- 
 ployment of the term D°7D3, by Isaiah, 
 was singularly appropriate. See Dr. 
 Lee on Job ix, 9, and Gesenius on the 
 present verse. The Targ. has ji», 
 their Giants. Jerome’s Jewish precep- 
 tor gave Arcturus as the signification 
 of 909. 
 
 11. 929, commonly signifies the hali- 
 table globe, or world, but is here used, 
 
 in arestricted sense, of the Babylonian 
 world, just as οἰκουμένη, the term by 
 which the LXX. render it, is employed 
 to denote the Roman empire, orbis 
 Romanus, Joseph. Antig. xii. 3, 1; 
 Herod. v. 2, 5; and Palestine, Acts xi. 
 28. Thus also the Turkish poet 
 
 Uweissi uses wl mundus, ἴῃ appli- 
 
 cation to the Turkish empire in the 
 line, phydy)s $ObuS ake dy 3 sees 
 Ye have, by various innovations, brought 
 ruin upon the empire. Warning to 
 Islamboul, p. 6; see also page 12. 
 
 12. YIN expresses the extreme pau- 
 city to which the population would 
 be reduced ; being used in the sense 
 of rare, scarce, and not in that of valu- 
 able, given in our common version. 
 No interpretation can be more false 
 than that which supposes the passage 
 to refer either to Cyrus or to Christ ; 
 or, as some others would have it, to 
 the Jews in Babylon. That of Grotius 
 is also forced; viz. that the Medes 
 would not for money be induced to 
 spare any one.—%8, and 03, are fre- 
 quently used of the purest or best 
 gold. The former is derived from 18, 
 found only in Hoph. 1 Kings x. 18, 
 but according to the reading 179 3m, 
 2 Chron, ix. 17, it signifies pure or 
 
 purified gold. Comp. Arab. 2.48, to 
 
 separate. OD3 properly signifies hidden 
 gold, gold which is so pure, that it is 
 laid up in a secure place, on account 
 of its value. Comp. 10D 133, 1 Kings 
 vi. 20,21. In the present place the 
 idea intended to be conveyed by both 
 terms is that of extreme rarity.—The 
 relative position of YIN and VpixX, and 
 the occurrence elsewhere of the com- 
 bination V5 ὉΠ, sufficiently shew, 
 
CHAP. XIII. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 123 
 
 13 Because I will cause the heavens to tremble, 
 And the earth shall be shaken out of her place ; 
 In the fury of Jehovah of Hosts, 
 And in the day of his burning anger. 
 
 14 And they shall be like a chased gazelle, 
 And like sheep, without any one to collect them ; 
 
 that how perfect soever their agree- 
 ment in form, no paronomasia was 
 designed. As to the geographical sit- 
 uation of VHX, Ophir, various opinions 
 are entertained. From the term being 
 rendered Σουφίρ, Σουφείρ, Σωφείρ, Σω- 
 hip, Σωφηρά, Σωφαρά, τὰ the LXX., 
 and there having been a region called 
 Sofala somewhere about Zanguebar, or 
 Mozambique, on the eastern coast of 
 Africa, now named Afura, some have 
 been disposed to identify them ; but 
 the place seems more probably to 
 have existed either in Arabia or in 
 India. In favour of the latter country 
 it has been alleged, that Arrian men- 
 tions a place by the name of Οὔππαρα, 
 situated near the present Goa, called 
 by Ptolemy and Ammianus Σουπάρα, 
 
 doubtless the sw, Sofara, of Abul- 
 
 feda; and that India abounded in 
 gold, precious stones, and the other 
 articles of merchandise specified as 
 brought from Ophir, 1 Kings ix. 28, x. 
 11 ; 2 Chron. viii. 18,ix.10. To which 
 add, that in Kings and Chronicles, and 
 in the present instance, the Arabic 
 
 translator renders the word by Nil, 
 
 India. Others after Bochart, have 
 imagined they found it in Ceylon, 
 supposed to be the Taprobane of Pliny, 
 vi. 24. But the opinion best sup- 
 ported is that which refers it to 
 Arabia. “5x, Ophir, is employed, Gen. 
 x. 29, to designate a portion of the 
 descendants of Joktan ; and, to judge 
 from the other names occurring in 
 connexion with it in that geographical 
 table, they must have inhabited some 
 region in the present Oman, on the 
 west coast of the Persian gulf, just 
 below the straits of Ormuz; where 
 Ibn Batuta describesacity of the name 
 
 of jee , Zafar, a month’s journey from 
 Aden, and sixteen days’ from Hadra- 
 
 maut. In this district there is still a 
 town called H/-Ophir, in all probability 
 the pe of Edrisi. The Scriptures, 2 
 
 Chron. ix. 14; Ps. lxxii. 15 ; Isa. lx. 6 ; 
 speak of Arabia as a country abound- 
 ing in gold ; and the same testimony is 
 borne by Diod. Sic. 11. 50, iti. 44, 47 ; 
 Strabo, xvi. 777. It is not, however, 
 necessary to suppose that the gold and 
 other articles were native productions 
 of the region about Ophir: they may 
 have been conveyed thither by coast- 
 ing vessels from India, or even the 
 Indian archipelago, and laid up there, 
 as in a great emporium, to be re- 
 shipped, or conveyed in caravans, 
 according to the demand. See Ge- 
 senius zz loc. and Heb. Lex. iz voc.; 
 Robinson’s Calmet, and Winer’s Real- 
 Worterb. 
 
 13. To give sublimity and force to 
 the prophetic description of the awful 
 political catastrophe, the entire system 
 of the universe is represented as un- 
 dergoing a revolution—a figure fre- 
 quently employed in the higher kinds 
 of Hebrew composition. Comp. Ps. 
 XVill. 7—15, xlvi. 2, 3; Isa. xxiv. 19, 
 xxxiv. 4; Joel iii. 15, 16. 
 
 14—16. These verses are closely 
 connected with the preceding, and 
 describe the effects of the visitation 
 on the inhabitants of Babylon, espe- 
 cially such strangers as happened to 
 be in the city at the time of the 
 attack. Being a place of great con- 
 course, as the seat of a mighty em- 
 pire, and of extensive and flourishing 
 commerce, vast numbers from all 
 quarters would be found collected 
 within its walls, Jer. 1. 37. On the 
 approach of the enemy these would 
 take to flight, and each, if possible, 
 direct his course towards his native 
 place. Comp. Jer. 1. 16. 33, the 
 gazelle, is selected on account of its 
 timidity, and the lightness with 
 
124 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 They shall turn, each to his own people, 
 And they shall flee, each to his own land. 
 
 15 
 
 Every one that is found shall be stabbed, 
 
 And every one that betakes himself to flight shall fall by the 
 
 sword. 
 16 
 
 And their infants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes ; 
 
 Their houses shall be plundered, and their wives ravished. 
 
 17 
 Who regard not silver, 
 And have no delight in gold. 
 
 which it bounds across the plains, to 
 express the haste with which the 
 alarmed foreigners wouldattempt their 
 escape. After JN2, repeat N72 in the 
 plural, and supply ons after y322.— 
 ΤΙΒΌΞΙΤ 5, every one that betaketh himself 
 to flight. Most interpreters consider 
 720 as synonymous with "Ox, or FD, 
 and give the sense of gathering, assem- 
 bling together, joining, or such like. It 
 is clear, however, that none of these 
 senses accords with Xz'D3, in the corre- 
 sponding part of the parallelism. As 
 this verb signifies in Niphal, fo ezis¢, 
 be present any where, the only suitable 
 sense to attach to 78D), is that of not 
 being found, having removed, taken one’ s- 
 self off: a sense of which it admits— 
 md, in Kal, signifying ¢o take off, re- 
 
 move ; Arab. (sme, agilis ac velox fuit 
 
 eundo vel volando. The description 
 comprehends those who should re- 
 main in the city, and those who should 
 take to flight. No class, age, sex, or 
 property, should be spared by the 
 enemy, but all should be subject to 
 the calamities incident to war. Comp. 
 2 Kings vili. 12; Zech. xiv. 2; Ps. 
 exxxvil. 9. The fulfilment of this 
 prophecy is recorded by Xenophon, 
 who informs us, that on the taking of 
 the city, Cyrus sent his cavalry by 
 detachments into the roads, with 
 orders to put to death all that were 
 found without the palace. ‘O δὲ Κῦρος 
 διέπεμπε τὰς τῶν ἱππέων τάξεις κατὰ 
 τὰς ὁδούς" καὶ προεῖπεν οὺς μὲν ἔξω λαμ- 
 βάνοιεν κατακαίνειν, τοὺς δ᾽ ἐν ταῖς 
 οἰκίαις κηρύττειν τοὺς Συριστὶ ἐπιστα- 
 μένους ἔνδον μένειν. εἰ δέ τις ἔξω λη- 
 φθείη, ὅτι θανατώσοιτο. Οἱ μὲν δὴ ταῦτα 
 ἐποίουν. Cyroped. v. 11—For the 
 
 Behold, I will stir up against them the Medes, 
 
 verb 523, in this and other places 
 where it occurs, the Masorites have 
 substituted 120 in the Keri, but 
 merely from a principle of taste. 
 
 17. For the country of the Medes, 
 see note ver. 5. From the earliest 
 times they formed one of the largest 
 and most civilized kingdoms of Asia. 
 They were, however, conquered by 
 Ninus, and bore the Assyrian yoke 
 for a period of five hundred and 
 twenty years; but revolted during 
 the expeditions of Tiglath - pileser 
 and Shalmaneser into Western Asia. 
 About the year B.c. 700, Dejoces 
 was elected king. In the reign of 
 his son and successor Phraortes, the 
 Persian empire was added to that of 
 the Medes: the combined forces of 
 which were soon employed for extend- 
 ing his conquests. Having, after a 
 struggle of twenty years, expelled the 
 Scythians, who had invaded the king- 
 dom during his renewal of the siege 
 of Nineveh, Cyaxares I., with the 
 assistance of Nabopolassar, king of 
 Babylon, took that city, and made 
 Assyria a province of the Median 
 empire. Under Cyaxares II. hostilities 
 broke out between the Medes and 
 Babylonians, when Cyrus his nephew 
 was sent to assist him, at the head of 
 thirty thousand men. The Babylonians 
 having been dispersed, the war was 
 carried into Asia Minor; Creesus king 
 of Lydia was defeated; Sardis his 
 capital taken ; and his army added to 
 that of the conqueror. It was now 
 that Cyrus, in the plenitude of power 
 and success, returned to lay siege to 
 Babylon.—We read of the Medes and 
 Persians, Esth. x. 2; Isa. xxi. 2; Dan. 
 v. 28; and, in reversed order, the 
 
CHAP. XIII.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 125 
 
 18 Their bows also shall dash in pieces the young men ; 
 And on the fruit of the womb they shall have no compassion ; 
 Their eye shall not pity the children. 
 
 19 
 
 And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, 
 
 The glorious ornament of the Chaldeans, 
 Shall be like Sodom and Gomorrah, overthrown by God. 
 
 20 
 
 She shall never more be inhabited, 
 
 Nor dwelt in through successive generations : 
 
 The Arab shall not pitch his tent there, 
 
 Neither shall the shepherds make their flocks to lie there. 
 21 But the wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, 
 
 Persians and Medes, Esth. i. 18, 19; 
 but the term Medes is here used, as it 
 often is by Greek writers, to compre- 
 hend both.—Their disregard of money 
 is attested by Xenophon, who repre- 
 sents Cyrus as complimenting them 
 on their not having been induced to 
 engage in the war from mercenary 
 motives: Ἄνδρες Μῆδοι, καὶ πάντες οἱ 
 παρόντες, ἐγὼ ὑμᾶς οἶδα σαφῶς, ὅτι οὔτε 
 χρημάτων δεόμενοι σὺν ἐμοὶ ἐξήλθετε. 
 Cyroped. v. 3. See Keith’s Evidence 
 from Prophecy, 14th edit. p. 260. 
 
 18. ning. The dows of the Per- 
 sians, which formed their principal 
 weapon, were only exceeded in size 
 and strength by those of the Ethio- 
 pians, and were well fitted to be used 
 as clubs. They measured about three 
 cubits in length.—yo2® and 023 are 
 synonymous. To the cruelty of the 
 invading foe decided testimony is 
 borne by Ammianus: “ magnidici, et 
 graves, ac tetri, minaces juxta in 
 adversis rebus ac prosperis, callidi, 
 superbi, CRUDELES.” And Diod. Sic. 
 lib. viii. attributes the destruction of 
 the empire of the Medes to their 
 cruelty towards inferiors: Ti καθεῖλε 
 τὴν Μήδων ἀρχήν; ἡ πρὸς τοὺς ταπεινο- 
 TEPOVS ὠμότης. 
 
 19. ΟΞ, the Chaldeans, see note on 
 chap. xxiii. 13. 7289, being a verbal 
 noun, is construed like the Infin. from 
 which it is derived. The comparison 
 of the destruction of any place with that 
 of Sodom and Gomorrah, for the sake 
 of aggravation, is very common, See 
 Deut. xxix. 22; Jer.].40; Amos iv. 11. 
 
 20. A prediction of the final and 
 
 utter desolation of Babylon.—7%n, and 
 aun, though active, are used passively, 
 —7, by an elision of the & for 7s, 
 like ἢ: for ἢ, Job xxxv. 11; 1m for 
 wn, 2 Sam. xx. 9; "2m for ‘MNM, 2 
 Sam. xxii. 40. This elision is occa- 
 sioned by the very slight consonantal 
 power of the Aleph, in virtue of which 
 it easily becomes lost in the vowel 
 attached to it. Nordheimer, Crit. 
 Heb. Gram. § 88. 3. Hitzig would 
 rather refer it to 73, as the root, 
 
 Arab, del, to lead to water, and ex- 
 
 plains it as meaning, that no Arab 
 should be found conducting his flocks 
 to drink; but he fails in his attempt 
 to prove its Hiphilic form. 
 
 21. Having employed the verb yn 
 at the end of the preceding verse, the 
 prophet with great force repeats it 
 when about to depict the only inha- 
 bitants that would in the course of 
 time be found in Babylon. oy de- 
 note such wild beasts generally as are 
 found in steppes, or arid deserts ; from 
 
 mY, or Mm, obsolete roots, Arab. | 0, 
 
 τε 
 exaruit, signifying to be exposed to the 
 sun, to be dry, desert, ἕο. 'The noun is 
 used of human beings inhabiting un- 
 cultivated regions, Ps. Ixxii. 9, lxxiv. 
 14; but the connexion in the present 
 case determines the sense to be that 
 of irrational animals. Comp. chap. 
 xxxiv. 14; Jer. 1. 39; in which last 
 passage the language applied to the 
 same subject as here, is partly identi- 
 calin terms. By ἘΠῚ are meant such 
 of the ruins of their houses as might 
 
 Q 
 
126 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XIII. 
 
 And the owls shall fill their houses ; 
 The ostriches also shall dwell there, 
 And the wild goats shall skip there. 
 22 And the jackals shall ery in their palaces, 
 
 remain.—Onk is an onomatopoetiec, 
 like the Arab. ce, to repeat the 
 
 doleful exclamation ah/ lit. the how- 
 lers, i.e. owls, noted for their frequent- 
 ing old ruins, or uninhabited buildings, 
 and giving forth a doleful ery when 
 taking wing. According to the com- 
 mon reading of the text of Aq., he 
 translated the word by τυφώνων, Ty- 
 phons; but the first syllable is in all 
 probability an addition: the original 
 φωνῶν being found in Procopius. 
 Symm. retains the Hebrew ὠχείμ ; 
 LXX. and Theod. 7xo0v.—my niva, lit. 
 daughters of greediness, a name given to 
 ostriches, on account of their voracious 
 appetite; and frequently used both of 
 the males and the females. Some 
 derive the latter noun from Τῶν, fo 
 respond, ery, &c., but less properly, 
 though they are also notorious for the 
 doleful and hideous noise which they 
 make, particularly at night. The 
 LXX. in other places render στρουθοὶ 
 or στρουθία ; but here σειρῆνες, which 
 they give as a translation of 03m, when 
 it occurs before my n22; Symm. and 
 Theod. orpovOoxdpyndou.—orry, LXX. 
 
 δαιμόνια, Targ. pT, Syr. ees ; hence 
 
 Luther’s Feldgeister, field-spirits, and 
 the Waldteufel, “devils,” or “demons 
 of the wood,” of Gesenius and Hitzig. 
 Thus also our common version, satyrs, 
 and the French /utins, “ hobgoblins.” 
 All these, and other translators who 
 render similarly, have regarded the 
 term as designed to convey the idea of 
 a species of beings approaching more 
 or less to the nature and shape of 
 brute animals, most probably that of 
 the goat, yet at the same time exhi- 
 biting in part the human form. They 
 abound in the Greek mythology, along 
 with Stleni, Fauns, &c. That notions 
 of the existence of such creatures 
 prevailed in the East, and that they 
 still prevail there, is matter of noto- 
 riety. The Arabic, Persian, and 
 
 Turkish books are full of them. It 
 is more than questionable, however, 
 whether any reference is here made to 
 such superstitious belief. Popular 
 ideas are sometimes introduced into 
 the Scriptures for the sake of illustra- 
 tion; but it is contrary to the usage 
 of the sacred writers, as it is in- 
 compatible with their design, so to 
 introduce them as even seemingly to 
 give them the sanction of Divine 
 authority. It is most natural to 
 suppose that real animals are in- 
 tended; and as Ὁ Ὁ elsewhere signify 
 goats, there seems no reason why this 
 sense should be departed from in the 
 present instance. It is true the term 
 is employed to denote odjects of ido- 
 latrous worship, Lev. xvii. 7; 2 Chron. 
 xi. 15; but there the actual figures or 
 images of the animal are meant, which 
 were employed in the service of the 
 Egyptian idol, (Herod ii. 42,) and is, 
 therefore, improperly rendered devils 
 in our common version. The proposed 
 interpretation has the support of 
 τριχιῶνται, of Aq., and ὀρθοτριχοῦνται, 
 of Theod., by which they obviously 
 meant hairy, shaggy animals, such as 
 goats. Thus also the Vulg. pilosi, and 
 
 Saadias expressly csr Sa wild goats. 
 
 Some suppose the ourang-outang to 
 be meant; and Coverdale has apes; 
 but the term by which these animals 
 are designated in Hebrew is ἢν, 1 
 Kings x. 22.—Rev. xviii. 2, is an appro- 
 priation of the translation given of 
 the present text by the LXX. to 
 describe figuratively the desolation of 
 the great antichristian establishment, 
 and cannot be viewed as vouching for 
 the correctness of that version, any 
 more than numerous other quotations 
 made from it in the N.T., in which it 
 undeniably differs from the literal 
 meaning of the Hebrew text. 
 
 22. The verb 7» is in the singular, 
 because it precedes the noun, the 
 number of which had not been deter- 
 mined in the prophet’s mind when he 
 
CHAP. XIV.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 127 
 
 And the wolves in the temples of pleasure :— 
 Yea, her time is near in its approach, 
 
 And her days shall not be prolonged. 
 
 began the sentence. This idiom fre- 
 quently occurs.—o™x, contracted for 
 ox, Aq., Symm., and Theod., retain 
 in their versions, ietv. LXX. ὀνοκέν- 
 tavpot, asinine centaurs, fabulous beings 
 or hobgoblins, which the ancients 
 imagined were wont to appear with 
 legs and feet like those of an ass, or, 
 with one brazen and the other like 
 that of an ass. They were otherwise, 
 from this circumstance, called ἐμπού- 
 oa. The Heb. word being derived 
 from 7s, seems quite to correspond to 
 
 i) oss Ibn Awi, the son of howling, 
 
 by which name the Arabs designate 
 the jackal: an animal noted for its 
 melancholy scream at night, like the 
 crying of a child, as I had occasion to 
 observe, when travelling in the Cau- 
 casus.—nin2>x stands for nv, palaces, 
 —the Ἢ being as frequently softened 
 into > That palaces, and not lonely, 
 Sorsaken places, are meant, the corre- 
 sponding 23 227 sufficiently shews.— 
 ἋΣ gives prominence to the luxury 
 and voluptuousness in which the 
 Babylonians indulged, and greatly 
 adds to the force of the contrast. δ 
 suffixed is to be taken collectively.— 
 min, LXX. ἐχῖνοι, mistaking the word 
 for O34, serpents. Aq., Symm., Theod., 
 and all the other Greek versions, 
 σειρῆνες; Vulg. sirenes. Rabbi Tan- 
 
 chum interprets the word as signifying 
 ss! ω» Ibn Awi; see Pococke’s ela- 
 
 borate note on Micah i. 8; but this 
 phrase corresponds, as we have seen, 
 to o»x, and must, therefore, designate 
 some other species of animal. On com- 
 paring the Hebrew of Ps. xliv. 20; Is. 
 xlii. 20; Jer. ix. 10, x. 22, xlix. 33; itis 
 evident that the 024 were wild beasts 
 of the desert ; but no hint is given that 
 would lead us to refer them to the 
 race of serpents, as some have done. 
 They seem rather to be wolves: comp. 
 
 the Arab. ws lupus,—these animals 
 
 and the jackals resembling each other 
 in several respects, particularly in the 
 disagreeable whine, or cry, which they 
 make in the night. For the exact 
 fulfilment of the prophecy, see Keith’s 
 Evidence, pp. 238—325. 
 
 The concluding words of the verse 
 seem at first view to militate against 
 their having been delivered by Isaiah ; 
 but the Divine judgments are fre- 
 quently, in the prophetic style, said 
 to be at hand, or to approach, though 
 a long period intervene between their 
 announcement and their execution. 
 See Ezek. xxx. 3; Joel i. 15, 1. 1; 
 Rom. xiii, 12; 1 Pet. iv. 7; Rev. 1. 3, 
 xxii. 10. 
 
 — 4... 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 This chapter, to the 23d verse, prosecutes the subject to the fall of Babylon. 
 After a cheering promise to the Jews, assuring them of their deliverance 
 from captivity, in consequence of the conquest of their enemy, 1—3, the 
 prophet introduces a magnificent ode of triumph to be employed by them 
 on the occasion, 4—21; and, to complete the prophecy, Jehovah is repre- 
 sented, 22, 23, as repeating the announcement of the entire destruction of 
 
 Babylon and its inhabitants. 
 
 Verses 24—27 contain a brief prediction of 
 
 the discomfiture of Sennacherib’s army, which connects with chap. x. in 
 point of subject, but occupies its proper place in this connexion ; and the 
 chapter concludes with a distinct prediction of the punishment of the 
 
 Philistines, 28—32. _ 
 
128 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 1 For Jehovah will take pity on Jacob, 
 Yea, he will again make choice of Israel, 
 And settle them in their own land ; 
 And strangers shall join themselves to them, 
 They shall attach themselves to the house of Jacob. 
 2 And the people shall take them, and bring them to their own 
 
 place. 
 
 And the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of Jehovah, 
 As servants and as handmaids ; 
 For they shall take captive their captors, 
 And shall rule over their oppressors. 
 3,4 And it shall be in the day, when Jehovah shall have given thee 
 rest from thine affliction, and thy disquiet, and from the hard 
 labour which was forcedly done by thee, that thou shalt 
 
 1. o7y 3. The conjunction here 
 forcibly introduces the ultimate cause 
 of the downfal of Babylon—the pity 
 of Jehovah towards his people, and 
 their restoration to their own land. 
 ΠΕΡ is quite synonymous with ΠῚ): 
 both signify to join oneself to another, 
 so as to make a common cause with 
 him. ὅν, in such connexion, conveys 
 the idea of inclination towards, or 
 dependence upon the following sub- 
 ject. The Jews formed, as it were, 
 the substratum on which the foreigner 
 rested. 21s a collective noun, which 
 accounts for one of the verbs being 
 in the singular, and the other in the 
 plural. 
 
 2. For the fulfilment of this and the 
 preceding verse, see Ezra ii. 65, where 
 it is expressly stated, that seven thou- 
 sand three hundred thirty and seven 
 servants and maids accompanied the 
 exiles on their» return. That these 
 were foreigners and not Israelites, is 
 evident from their not being reckoned 
 in the total number of the congrega- 
 tion. Their taking them along with 
 them as servants, is compared to their 
 having themselves been carried into 
 captivity into Babylon. That they 
 took them away as slaves is not at all 
 improbable. 
 
 3, Instead of Hiric under Ὁ in 732Y2 
 77>, a vast number of MSS. and 
 printed editions read 7'2éré, which is 
 the regular punctuation. J273Y Ws, 
 which was forcedly done by or through thee. 
 
 The verb being in Pua/ has an inten- 
 sive signification ; and, construed with 
 3, conveys the idea of foreign influence 
 exerted upon the persons spoken of. 
 That it should be of the Mas. and not 
 the Fem. gender, to agree with 773», 
 the nominative, is to be accounted for 
 by an implied reference to the king of 
 Babylon, by whom the hard servitude 
 had been imposed. 
 
 4, Here commences the ode of 
 triumph on the fall of the Babylonian 
 monarch, which has called forth ex- 
 pressions of the highest admiration 
 from those best qualified to judge in 
 matters of poetic beauty andsublimity. 
 Bishop Lowth declares, that he “knows 
 not a single instance in the whole 
 compass of Greek and Roman poetry, 
 which, in every excellence of compo- 
 sition, can be said to equal, or even to 
 approach it ;” and, “that it may with 
 truth be affirmed, that there is no 
 poem of its kind extant in any lan- 
 guage, in which the subject is so well 
 laid out, and so happily conducted, 
 with such a richness of invention, 
 with such variety of images, persons, 
 and distinct actions, with such rapidity 
 and ease of transition, in so small a 
 compass, aS in this ode of Isaiah. 
 For beauty of disposition, strength of 
 colouring, greatness of sentiment, 
 brevity, perspicuity, and force of ex- 
 pression, it stands among all the 
 monuments of antiquity unrivalled.” 
 Notes on Isaiah, and Lect. xiii, on 
 
CHAP. XIV.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 129 
 
 give utterance to this Ode respecting the king of Babylon, 
 
 and say : 
 
 How hath the oppressor ceased ! 
 
 The exactress of gold ceased ! 
 
 5 Jehovah hath broken the staff of the wicked, 
 
 The rod of the tyrants, 
 6 That smote the people in fury 
 
 Heb. Poetry. 502, Mashal, the term 
 by which it is designated, is singularly 
 appropriate, since it signifies not 
 merely similitude, parable, figurative 
 composition, but also, what is peculiarly 
 sublime and energetic, what is calculated 
 by its boldness and force to strike and 
 influence the mind. 'The signification of 
 the root 29, is fo assimilate, and also 
 to rule or have dominion, to exert an in- 
 fluence over others. Comp, the Arab. 
 he, similis fuit; prestans fuit; Qdd, 
 prestantissimus; Eth. GUPTA : com- 
 paravit, evistimavit. 02 xv? means to 
 give utterance to such sublime com- 
 position iz au elevated tone of voice. 
 Comp. Numb. xxiii. 7, 18, xxiv. 3,15; 
 Micah ii. 4—The Mashal opens with 
 a sudden exclamation of joy on the 
 part of the Jews. The oppressed 
 world and its inhabitants are then 
 introduced as participating in the ex- 
 ultation. The forests of Lebanon join 
 in the song; Hades personified, rouses 
 departed kings and princes to receive 
 the king of Babylon on his entrance 
 into their gloomy abode. These give 
 expression to no words of condolence, 
 but merely to a brief sentence of 
 surprise, not unmingled with satisfac- 
 tion at his reverse of fortune. The 
 Jews then tauntingly resume the song 
 in which they confirm at some length 
 the sentiment just uttered in Sheol; 
 and introduce the monarch boasting 
 of his power and the vastness of his 
 purposes, while they contrast with 
 these, his present state of utter pros- 
 tration and ignominy; concluding 
 with an execration on his offspring 
 and memory.—72712, which only 
 occurs in this verse, has been vari- 
 ously translated. Michaelis, Doder- 
 lein, Dereser, Gesenius, and Hitzig, 
 adopt the reading, 72799, which is 
 found in an edition of Isaiah printed 
 
 at Thessalonica in 1600, and render, 
 oppression; considering it to be a deri- 
 vative from 17, ἐο press, urge strongly. 
 There does not, however, appear sufti- 
 cient reason why 2772 should be 
 rejected. It is a Chaldee word: (3m, 
 gold, corresponding to 43 in Hebrew,) 
 and was probably one of the epithets 
 employed by the Babylonians in praise 
 of their city—“ the golden one,” or 
 “the golden city,” vy being under- 
 
 stood. Comp. the Arab. Lerrde, 
 
 auratus. Whether they thus desig- 
 nated her on account of the gilded 
 domes and turrets which abounded, 
 
 Oo vy Φ v 
 (comp. ἰξσι, Ἰξσι,ξο; in the Phi- 
 
 lox. Syr. Version of Rev. xvii. 4,) or 
 to convey the idea of the immense 
 quantities of gold in her treasuries, 
 temples, &c., cannot be determined ; 
 but to judge from the exactness of the 
 parallelism in this ode, it seems to be 
 certain, that the prophet used the 
 word in the Aphel sense of making, 
 procuring, raising gold by exaction or 
 tribute. Thus the LXX. ἐπισπουδαστής, 
 
 00 Υ 
 Syr. fagiaaado, evactor, leaving out 
 the idea of gold. Vulg. ¢ributum. 
 The above-interpretation is adopted 
 by Lowth and Winer. 
 
 5, 6. 72 and 029 are not to be un- 
 derstood in the sense of sceptre, but 
 in that of an instrument of oppression 
 and affliction. Oo being parallel to 
 myth, implies the idea of unjust, 
 tyrannical rulers. 132 is an instance 
 of the construct being used for the 
 absolute, as in many other passages. 
 See chap. xxxiii. 6, xxxv. 2; Lam. ii. 18. 
 Instead of 772, which is the reading 
 of all the Heb. MSS., Déderlein pro- 
 poses we should read N77, there being, 
 as Gesenius observes, often scarcely 
 
180 ISATAL. 
 
 With an unremitting stroke ; 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 That ruled over the nations in anger, 
 
 With unsparing tyranny. 
 
 7 The whole earth resteth, it is quiet ; 
 
 They burst into song. 
 
 8 Even the cypress trees exult over thee, 
 
 And the cedars of Lebanon [saying]: 
 
 Since thou art fallen, 
 
 No feller hath come up against us. 
 9 Sheol beneath is in commotion for thee, 
 
 any perceptible difference between 
 the letters ἢ and Π in the Eastern and 
 German codices. The passage would 
 then read, with unrestrained dominion. 
 This ingenious conjecture is adopted 
 by Gesenius and Hitzig, who specially 
 urge in its favour the completeness of 
 the parallelism, which they conceive 
 to be infringed by the present reading. 
 That a difficulty is created by the 
 passive form, το, cannot be denied ; 
 yet this may be removed by supposing 
 it to have been the design of the 
 prophet to give prominence to the 
 persecution or tyranny, as experienced 
 by those who were the subjects of it. 
 It was an evil of which they were zof 
 permitted to feel any alleviation. The 
 meaning of 77) and 7, in such con- 
 nexion, being almost the same, the 
 verbs are more parallel than 770 and 
 qo. Besides FLT occurs in con- 
 nexion with 41, 2 Sam. xviii. 16. The 
 LXX., Targ., Syr., and Vulg., appear 
 to have read το, the participle in 
 Piel. The rendering of our common 
 version, which makes the king of 
 Babylon the nominative, cannot be 
 sustained, being a direct violation of 
 the parallelism. 
 
 7. 732) 738, to burst into song, is a 
 favourite phrase of Isaiah in those 
 chapters which Gesenius treats as 
 spurious. Its occurrence in this 
 chapter furnishes a corroborative 
 proof of their genuineness. The no- 
 minative to WE is WIV, her inhabit- 
 ants, understood. They were now 
 allowed peaceably to pursue their 
 avocations, and loudly rejoiced in the 
 change that had taken place. 
 
 8. The objects of inanimate nature 
 
 here personified, are to be understood 
 figuratively as denoting those princes 
 and kings whom the monarch of 
 Babylon had subdued. Comp. chap. 
 ii, 13; Ezek. xxxi., where the same 
 metaphor isused, That any reference 
 should be had to that monarch’s 
 having cut down the forests of 
 Lebanon, to beautify his capital, is 
 very improbable. The particle, 23, a/so 
 or even, on which Gesenius and Hitzig 
 lay considerable stress, as favouring 
 the literal interpretation, possesses 
 quite as much force, if we take the 
 meaning of the passage to be figura- 
 tive. Not only the inferior inhabit- 
 ants of the countries subject to 
 Babylonian tyranny, but even the 
 most exalted and powerful of their 
 rulers who felt the effects of its 
 exercise, participate in the common 
 joy. Since its extinction, they had 
 occupied, unmolested, their stations 
 of dignity and honour. Comp. chap. 
 ii. 12, 13. 
 
 9. The boldest instance of prosopo- 
 peia to be met with in any language. 
 On Sheol, see chap. v.14. The Arab. 
 
 version has ease Gehim, the same as 
 “ 
 
 (M>> ree, Gehenna, the place of 
 
 eternal fire ; though in the popular 
 Mohammedan theology, gts?-, is as- 
 
 signed to the Jews, who falsely ac- 
 cused and killed their own prophets ; 
 while ,ig>, is reserved for such 
 Mohammedans as die without repent- 
 
 ance, under the guilt of capital sins. 
 ——ngm2 is improperly rendered /om 
 
 ϑ 
 
 _ 
 
ΟΗΑ͂Ρ.ΣΙΥ.] 
 
 To meet thine entrance ; 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 151. 
 
 It rouseth for thee the deceased, all the leaders of the earth ; 
 
 It causeth to rise from their thrones all the kings of the nations. 
 10 They all commence, and say to thee: 
 
 Art thou too become weak as we are ? 
 
 Art thou become like unto us ? 
 
 beneath: the Ὁ retaining no more of 
 the prepositive power in such case, 
 than in 129, 2, pov, &e., in which it 
 simply expresses locality. So the 
 
 Arab. Quis wr) Koran, Sur. 11. 23, 
 
 vi. 65.— xv is of common gender, and 
 may be construed, as in 2) and 1, 
 op, with either ; so that there is no 
 ground for the exegesis of Jackson and 
 others, that in one of the instances 
 the prince of the lower regions is 
 meant: an idea which, as has been 
 remarked, is quite foreign to the 
 theology of the Hebrews.—oyn, Aq. 
 and Theod. ῥαφαείμ; LXX., Targ., Syr., 
 Vulg., Giants. Because this word is 
 identical with that employed to denote 
 a tribe of gigantic Canaanites, Gen. 
 xiv. 5, and others of uncommon sta- 
 ture, some imagine that these ancient 
 giants are here specifically meant ; but 
 the frequent occurrence of the term 
 in connexions where simply the notion 
 of the departed is conveyed, without 
 any regard to bodily stature, proves, 
 that it is to be derived, not from ΝΒ, 
 which signifies to heal, make sound, 
 robust, &c., but from 75), to fall, fall 
 away, relax, become faint, and so to be 
 powerless as it regards every thing in 
 the present state. We have examples 
 of similar derivation in oxo, from 
 
 77; OND, from 722. Comp. &y, com- 
 mode quieteque vizxit, and (5 quietavit, 
 
 quietum reddidit. In reference to the 
 turmoils and annoyances of this life, 
 as well as to its active concerns, there 
 is a total cessation at death. See Job 
 11. 13, 17—Yrwopny, lit. the he-goats of 
 the earth, but used metaphorically of 
 leaders, kings, or princes. Comp. 
 Zech. x. 3. The LXX., Syr, Vulg., 
 Arab., resolve the figure, and render 
 rulers, princes. 'The Targ. appears to 
 have read ")ry, or FIX ‘PHY, “ the rich 
 
 of the earth,” mistaking 1 for 71—In 
 this verse the state of the dead is 
 represented as thrown into great 
 agitation, on its being announced 
 that the mighty king of Babylon is 
 about to enter. Personages of the 
 same rank, as the fittest to conduct 
 the ceremony of his reception, and 
 the most likely to sympathise with 
 him, are selected to present them- 
 selves, and address him on the occasion. 
 They rise from their thrones of state 
 on which they had been sitting—per- 
 petuating in mock majesty the pageant 
 which they had exhibited while on 
 earth ; (just as Ezekiel describes the 
 departed warriors with their weapons 
 of war and their swords laid under 
 their head in Sheol, chap. xxxii. 27 ;) 
 but instead of condoling with him, 
 they merely give utterance to the few 
 words contained in the 10th verse, 
 which rather aggravate his downfal, 
 by reminding him of his deprivation 
 of power and pomp, and his reduction 
 to a state of equality with themselves, 
 many of whom he had subdued or slain. 
 
 10, 7», Arab. uss voluit, intendit 
 
 aliquid dictis suis ; protulit, respondit ; 
 like ἀποκρίνεσθαι, in the LXX. and N. 
 T., usually signifies ¢o answer, or respond, 
 but also ¢o commence speaking; and 
 preceding the verb 72x, it increases 
 its force. Gesenius considers the lat- 
 ter acceptation to be more recent 
 Hebrew. It occurs, however, Job iii. 
 2, the antiquity of which book has 
 lately been ably vindicated by Dr. 
 Lee ; and is also found, Deut. xxi. 7, 
 xxvi. 5. Comp. Zech. i. 10, iii. 4, 
 iv. 11, 12.—There is uncommon beauty 
 in the brevity of this address. It is 
 precisely such as might be expected 
 from those by whom it is delivered. 
 To extend it, so as to make it com- 
 prehend one or more of the following 
 verses, or, as some have done, the 
 
ISATAH. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 132 
 
 11 Thy pomp is brought down to Sheol, 
 And the sounding of thy harps ; 
 Under thee is spread putridity, 
 
 And the worms are thy covering. 
 
 12 How thou art fallen from heaven, 
 
 Illustrious Son of the Morning! 
 
 whole of the remaining part of the 
 Mashal, would quite spoil the effect. 
 
 11. The Jews here continue their 
 taunting Mashal.—xw, for 780, the 
 local 7 being omitted. Instead of 
 oN, sixty-five MSS., originally one 
 more, and now two, twelve printed 
 editions, some of them the earliest, 
 with the LXX., Syr., Arab., and Vulg., 
 read O22 in the singular; but as 
 there appears to be a studied accor- 
 dance between 7AIA and Fer, the 
 true reading is more probably that of 
 the Textus Receptus. The latter half 
 of the verse clearly shews, that the 
 Hebrews were accustomed to consider 
 the grave as forming part of Sheol. 
 Instead, however, of the royal body 
 being embalmed, or inwrapped with 
 splendid sepulchral attire, and placed 
 in a magnificent mausoleum, it was 
 to become a mass of putridity and 
 worms. What is thus briefly antici- 
 pated, is expressly and fully stated 
 ver. 19. 
 
 19. Ὑτυ 3 57, Llustrious Son of the 
 Morning! The form 7 occurring 
 Ezek. xxi. 17, and Zech, xi. 2, (9777,) 
 as the Hiph. Imper. of %, to howl, 
 lament, some take it in the same ac- 
 ceptation here, and render lament, Son 
 of the Morning, a.sense not in itself to 
 be rejected. Thus Aq,, the Syr., and 
 Jerome in his Commentary, though in 
 his version this father has Lucifer, as 
 that which is to be preferred. To this 
 rendering, however, the structure of 
 the verse is decidedly opposed ; the 
 parallelism requiring Wwy32 377 to 
 describe the person before his having 
 fallen from heaven, just as D}%y win 
 describes him previous to his having 
 been felled to the ground, Any Im- 
 
 erative interjected would spoil the 
 pean and impair the force of the 
 language. We must, therefore, with 
 the LXX., Targ., Jerome, Saadias, 
 Abenezra, Jarchi, Kimchi, Vitringa, 
 Leo Juda, the Jewish Spanish, Lowth, 
 
 Gesenius, Rosenmiiller, and Hitzig, 
 refer 7 to the root 5, fo shine; 
 and consider it as a verbal noun, 
 formed with 72éré and Yod, instead of 
 27, the regular Piel form, and so de- 
 signed to be intensive in signification, 
 
 The Arabic Jl», which is derived 
 from ον, to shine, be resplendent, and 
 
 designates the new moon, may be 
 compared for the sake of illustration. 
 Hitzig is of opinion that 977 was used 
 exclusively for the Morning-star; LXX. 
 
 ὁ ἑωσφόρος; Hexap. Syr. wasaa 
 Ἰσι 2; Arab. Pol. eval ahs 
 Ciptndl. This star the Rabbins also 
 call 8722 2253, and the Arabs. δ) Ὁ δ)» the 
 
 Shining Star, or the Shiner. Comp. 
 ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ λαμπρὸς ὁ πρωϊνός, Rey. xxi. 
 16, and φωσφόρος, 2 Pet. i. 19.—The 
 idiomatic ὙΠ 3, son of the morning, de- 
 noting that which belongs to, or 
 appears at that time, the LXX. render 
 ὁ πρωὶ ἀνατέλλων. The application of 
 this passage to Satan, and to the fall 
 of the apostate angels, is one of those 
 gross perversions of Sacred Writ 
 which so extensively obtain, and 
 which are to be traced to a proneness 
 to seek for more in any given passage 
 than it really contains, a disposition 
 to be influenced by sound rather than 
 by sense, and an implicit faith in 
 received interpretations. “ Quum,” 
 says Calvin, “temere arripiuntur 
 Scripturze loci, nec attenditur con- 
 textus, hos errores passim oboriri 
 mirum non est.” Comm. iz loc. The 
 scope and connexion shew that none 
 but the king of Babylon is meant. In 
 the figurative language of the Hebrews, 
 
 3312, a star, like LS, with the Arabs, 
 
 signifies an illustrious prince or king. 
 
CHAP. XIV.]| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 133 
 
 How thou art felled to the ground, 
 That didst discomfit the nations ! 
 13 Thou saidst in thine heart, I will scale the heavens ; 
 Above the stars of God I will raise my throne ; 
 Yea, I will sit on the mount of the assembly, in the recesses of 
 
 the north ; 
 
 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; 
 
 See Numb. xxiv. 17; and comp., for 
 this acceptation, Rev. ii. 28, and xxii. 
 16. The monarch here referred to, 
 having outshone all other kings in 
 royal splendour, is compared to the 
 harbinger of day, whose _brilliancy 
 surpasses that of the surrounding 
 stars. Falling from heaven denotes 
 a sudden political overthrow—a re- 
 moval from the position of high 
 and conspicuous dignity formerly 
 occupied. Comp. Rey. vi. 13, viii. 10. 
 
 In the latter half of the verse the 
 metaphor is changed, and that of a tall 
 majestic tree is introduced, which, on 
 being felled, lies prostrate on the 
 ground. Comp. Ezek. xxxi. and Dan. 
 iv. 10O—15, Diaty win Hitzig ren- 
 ders, Who didst extend thy branches over 
 the pecople—a sense which would 
 admirably agree with the metaphor 
 of a tree affording shelter to all who 
 are under its branches; but this in- 
 terpretation cannot be philologically 
 sustained. The Jewish interpretation 
 of casting lots over the nations is 
 won, Arab. Uri, 
 rapuit, abripuit, signifies to throw down, 
 lay or spread on the ground, &c. ; hence 
 to overthrow or discompt an enemy. Fol- 
 lowed by %, it indicates the state of 
 subjection in which the prostrate 
 nations were held by the Babylonian 
 sway, or the triumphant manner in 
 which that sway had been established 
 and maintained. Comp. Exod. xvii. 
 13, only Ὁ is there properly omitted, 
 the verb being employed by Moses to 
 express a simple victory, and not con- 
 tinued mastery. 
 
 13, 14. In order to aggravate the 
 downfal of the Babylonian monarch, 
 the Jews, not content with depicting 
 the elevated political position which 
 he had occupied, proceed to describe 
 
 equally untendble. 
 
 the pride and arrogance of his heart, 
 which had led him to aspire to an 
 equality with the Deity himself. By 
 most interpreters the language is 
 taken figuratively in application to the 
 Jewish state, with its principal offi- 
 cers, the temple, and its Lord: but, 
 how suitable soever such expressions 
 might be in the mouth of a Jew, or of 
 one intimately acquainted with He- 
 brew modes of speech, they seem 
 quite inappropriate if used in the 
 same sense by the king of Babylon. 
 Before this triumphant ode is sup- 
 posed to be sung, that monarch had 
 not only purposed to go up against 
 Jerusalem, but had actually carried 
 his purpose into effect, dethroning 
 the king, subverting the temple, and 
 carrying the people away into cap- 
 tivity. The obvious bearing of the 
 language, however, implies, that the 
 proud and haughty purposes couched 
 in it had not been attained, and were, 
 indeed, such as to be utterly unattain- 
 able. We are, therefore, compelled 
 to relinquish the common interpreta- 
 tion, which has been supported by 
 none more ably than by Vitringa, and 
 adopt that which was first obscurely 
 hinted at by the LXX., was rendered 
 more definite by Theodoret, and has 
 been more fully brought out by 
 Michaelis in his Supplem. ad Lexx. 
 Heb. No. 1009, and by Rosenmiller, 
 Gesenius, and Hitzig, in their com- 
 mentaries on the place ; viz. that the 
 monarch of Babylon gives utterance 
 to sentiments founded on the re- 
 presentations of Asiatic mythology. 
 While the Greeks had their Olympus, 
 and the Hindoos their Meru, the 
 
 ancient Persians had their ays), Llburs, 
 or on 9 Hlborj, ἃ name still given 
 R 
 
184 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 I will make myself like the Most High. 
 
 to the highest mountain in the Cau- 
 casian range. which is upwards of 
 13,000 feet above the level of the 
 Black Sea. According to the Bunde- 
 sheh, one of the books of the Parsees, 
 this mountain rose, by the will of 
 Ormuzd, when the world was created, 
 during the first two hundred years, to 
 the starry heavens; during the next 
 two, to the sphere of the moon ; during 
 the third two, to that of the sun ; 
 and during the fourth two, to the 
 region of primeval light. Here is ¢he 
 throne of Ormuzd, the congregation of 
 the living, the pure region of light, 
 where there is neither enemy, dark- 
 ness, nor death. Thither, it is said, 
 the enemy dares not ascend as the domi- 
 neering lord, for there walks the great 
 king, the Sun, who is appointed Am- 
 shaspand over all things, &c. 
 
 The Babylonians, being much ad- 
 dicted to the cultivation of astronomy, 
 could not but have been familiar with 
 those mythological fables which were 
 mixed up with the cosmogonies of the 
 ancients ; and doubtless the monarchs 
 who maintained at their courts those 
 who were skilled in such matters, 
 Dan. ii. 2, 10, 27, v. 7, must have like- 
 wise been more or less acquainted 
 with them. It was, therefore, per- 
 fectly natural for them, when arro- 
 gantly aftecting divine honours, to 
 form the purpose of scaling the Cau- 
 casus; and, rising above the region of 
 the clouds and stars, of taking pos- 
 session of the throne of Deity, which 
 they imagined to be on the summit of 
 its highest mountain.—97233, stars of 
 God, the Genitive of cause; stars 
 which God hath made: as ΠΝ, 
 cedars which God hath planted, 7.e. 
 of natural growth, Ps. Ixxx. 11; 8°17, 
 mountains which God hath made, Ps. 
 XXXvi. 7. δ, from ‘x, fo be strong, 
 powerful, is used in poetry and sub- 
 lime prophetic style in the same way 
 as OW; but never in prose, except it 
 be followed either by a pronominal 
 suffix, an adjective, or some qualifying 
 epithet. According to Sanchoniathon, 
 il or Ii was the name by which the 
 Pheenicians designated Saturn ; and 
 Damasc. apud Photium informs us, 
 that they and the Syriazs called him 
 
 Hil, Bel, and Bolathon. Gesen. Thes. 
 in voc. It might, therefore, be appro- 
 priately used by the king of Babylon, 
 —wwio, the mount of assembly, is Al- 
 borj, considered as the place where 
 the living, i.e. the blessed, are congre- 
 gated —jer ney, the recesses, ovr the re- 
 mote regions of the North; UXX. ra 
 ὄρη τὰ ὑψηλὰ τὰ πρὸς Boppav, which 
 Theodoret explains, ὄρος δὲ ὑψηλὸν 
 εἶναι λέγεται βοῤῥάθεν ᾽᾿ΑΔσσυρίων καὶ 
 Μήδων, ἀπὸ τούτων τὰ Σκυθικὰ διορίζον 
 ἔθνη, πάντων τῶν κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην 
 ὄρων ὑψηλότατον ; language which, in 
 such connexion, can only apply to the 
 mountains of the Caucasus. 9% sig- 
 nifies the thigh or haunch, and figura- 
 tively the hinder, innermost, remotest 
 parts of any thing. As thus used of 
 inanimate objects. it is almost always 
 in the dual, as in the present instance. 
 Comp. for the geographical use of the 
 term, Judg. xix. 1, 18; Isa. xxxvii. 
 24; Jer. vi. 22, xxv. 32; and for the 
 application of other members of the 
 human body in a geographical sense, 
 the words tk, P, 902, &e.—yrv) Wa. 
 The Dagesh in 7 is compensative for 
 the of the Hithpael Conjug., in 
 which the verb is aptly put to express 
 the self-sufficient pride of the am- 
 bitious monarch. ἡ ν, the Highest, 
 Most High, is another of those Divine 
 names common to the Hebrews. Sy- 
 rians, and Pheenicians. Thus San- 
 choniathon in Euseb., Κατὰ τούτους 
 γίνεται τὶς ᾿Ελιοὺν καλούμενους ὕψιστος. 
 The name is sometimes used by itself 
 in Hebrew ; but more commonly it is 
 coupled with °8, ΘΠ, and 77. The 
 designation ΚΣ 98 occurs thrice in the 
 brief notice of Melchizedek, Gen. xiv. 
 17—23. The term being here em- 
 ployed in the singular, and not in the 
 plural as in the <Alonim valonoth, the 
 highest gods and goddesses of Plautus, 
 Peen. v. 1. 1, does not imply that the 
 king of Babylon was a monotheist. 
 In all the modifications of Polytheism, 
 one god has been regarded as superior 
 to the rest. Not satisfied with making 
 himself equal to any of the inferior 
 deities, his ambition led him to aspire 
 after an equality with the Supreme. 
 Compare as parallels, Ezek. xxviii. 2; 
 2 Thess. ii. 4. 
 
CHAP. XIV.] 
 
 15 
 To the recesses of the pit. 
 16 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 135 
 
 But thou art brought down to Sheol, 
 
 Those that see thee shall gaze at thee, 
 
 They shall view thee attentively, [and say :] 
 Is this the man that made the earth to tremble ? 
 
 That shook the kingdoms ? 
 17 
 And laid waste its cities, 
 
 That made the world a wilderness, 
 
 And sent not his prisoners home ? 
 
 18 
 
 All the kings of the nations, all of them, 
 
 Lie in state, each in his own sepulchre ; 
 
 15. Here %x% contrasts with the 
 different phrases employed in the 
 preceding verse to express the highest 
 elevation, just as 2727 does with 
 pes ney. Comp. Matt. xi. 23. wWaoensy 
 means ¢he deepest recesses of Sheol, into 
 which the king is represented as 
 having been precipitated. 
 
 16. He is now exhibited as an 
 object of astonishment. Spectators 
 crowd around him; and, after con- 
 templating his prostrate condition, 
 add to his misery by adverting in 
 pointed terms to his former power 
 over the nations of the earth.—At 
 the Athnach, Wx?, is understood, but 
 could not with any propriety have 
 been expressed in the text.—m2v is 
 not much in use, but signifies, in 
 Hiphil, ¢o ixspect narrowly, to look at 
 any object with intense interest. The 
 Hithpa. 2} 3) is also peculiarly em- 
 phatic. It signifies, 4o consider and 
 reconsider ; and implies that the per- 
 sons spoken of had some difficulty in 
 persuading themselves that the de- 
 graded object before them could really 
 be the king of Babylon. 
 
 17. The pronom. suffix in ™, and 
 yyox, belongs to different antecedents: 
 the former to 3m, and the latter to 
 the king, understood. The local 7 in 
 m3, shews that the word is to be 
 taken in the sense of homewards, and 
 does not refer to a prison, as our 
 translators, after Jerome and others, 
 have supposed. Thus, however, Cover- 
 dale, which let not his prisoners go home. 
 mamma 8? ig strongly elliptical. In 
 full the sentence would be nn x) 
 ma one Sy orp. It has ever been 
 
 regarded as indicating the utmost 
 cruelty, to refuse the exchange or 
 return of prisoners taken in war. 
 18,19. A fresh contrast, affording 
 another cutting ground of insult to 
 degraded majesty. In accordance to 
 the Oriental custom οἵ erecting 
 splendid mausoleums for kings and 
 other great men, in the sides of which 
 were subordinate apartments or ceils 
 fitted for the reception of the dead 
 bodies, and of depositing them in 
 these apartments, after the previous 
 funeral solemnities had been com- 
 pleted, all the other kings of the earth 
 are represented as occupying in silent 
 state the chambers allotted to them ; 
 whereas to the king of Babylon the 
 rites of sepulture are denied; no 
 royal mausoleum receives his dead 
 body; nor is it committed to a com- 
 mon grave, but is left to putrefy on 
 the ground. For an illustration of 
 the sepulchres of the ancients, see 
 note on chap. xxii. 16.—— FD? ANI 
 does not imply that the king had 
 been buried and afterwards thrown 
 out of his sepulchre, that he might 
 be exposed as here described. The Ὁ 
 is used absolutely, signifying iz a state 
 of separation from, at a distance from, 
 without, or destitute of, and is quite 
 independent of the verb. Without 
 thy grave, means, without being de- 
 posited in the sepulchre which thou 
 hadst prepared for thyself, or which 
 was destined for thee. Comp. Jer. 
 xxii. 19.—a2yn) ἼΞ2) is a branch which 
 has been cut down, and left to rot on 
 the ground, and, in its corrupt state, 
 is loathed by all who approach it.— 
 
136 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 19 But thou art cast away, deprived of thy grave, 
 
 Like a detested branch ; 
 
 Covered with the slain, the pierced by the sword, 
 Who go down to the stones of the pit ; 
 Like a carcase, trodden under foot. 
 
 20 'Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, 
 Because thou hast destroyed thy country, 
 
 And slain thy people: 
 
 The race of evil doers shall never be named. 
 21 Prepare slaughter for his children, 
 
 2) our translators, with some others, 
 consider to be a construct noun, and 
 supply a 2 before it; but it is the 
 Pah. Part. in construction, and refers 
 to the dead body of the king lying in 
 the mass of the slain, by whom it 
 
 as, the Part. in Pual 
 
 of yo, Arab. wr to pierce through, 
 
 thrust.a sword into any one. It occurs 
 only here, and Gen. χὶν. 17, in which 
 latter passage Parkhurst thinks it 
 should be rendered goad, egg on by 
 pricking the animals; but the Ara- 
 maic sense of /oading seems prefer- 
 able.—Vaaw, the stones of the pit, the 
 LXX. render ἅδου, Symm. θεμέλια 
 λάκκου, Vulg. fundamenta laci, Luth. 
 den Steinhaufen der Holle; whereas 
 some explain the phrase to mean 
 such heaps of stones as are raised 
 over dead bodies in the open field. 
 There can scarcely be a doubt that it 
 refers to the sarcophagi, or stone coffins, 
 in which persons of distinction were 
 buried, and which, from their size, 
 and their being placed in the cham- 
 bers built in, or dug out of, the 
 sides of the mausoleum, might, with 
 the strictest propriety, be called its 
 stones, See a representation of them 
 in Calmet, 8vo. edit. art, Sepulchre. 
 Splendid specimens are exhibited in 
 the British Museum. Such sarcophagi 
 have been found containing human 
 skeletons, in the immense northerly 
 mass of ruins near Babylon, called the 
 Mujelibé. osenm. in Bib. Cab, vol. 11. 
 p- 18. Warn, those who go down to the 
 pit, is in frequent use to denote mor- 
 tal men generally, such as must soon 
 descend into the grave: comp. x8 TY, 
 Job vii. 93 MMH nN, Job xxxiii. 24; 
 
 but W323 5x "NY describes a particular 
 class of mortals—princes and nobles, 
 for whom a more honourable sepulture 
 was prepared. While the bodies of 
 the slain courtiers and captains, with 
 which that of the king of Babylon was 
 covered, should be sought out, and 
 after having been embalmed, placed, 
 each in its sarcophagus, in the sub- 
 terranean chambers, his would be left, 
 no one being able to recognise it, from 
 the mangled state to which it had 
 been reduced, and the disfiguration it 
 had undergone by being trampled 
 upon by the multitude. D2 735) con- 
 nects closely with 2m? 1223, only the 
 prepositive 2 is the Cuph veritatis. 
 This prophecy was minutely fulfilled. 
 On entering the city, the army of Cyrus 
 marched straight to the palace; and 
 meeting the king, who was coming out 
 sword in hand, they slew him, and 
 put all who followed him to the sword; 
 and, though Xenophon specially no- 
 tices the permission given to bury 
 the dead, he takes no notice whatever 
 of the royal corpse. He only speaks 
 of him as τὸν ἀνόσιον βασιλέα. Cyro- 
 peed. lib. vii. ch. v. 29, 32, 34. 
 
 20. Before quitting the subject, the 
 Jews once more exult over the desti- 
 tute condition of the fallen monarch, 
 by reminding him that he should not 
 participate in the rites of sepulture 
 performed upon those who had been 
 slain in his presence, and that no 
 monument should perpetuate his 
 memory, or that of his family. δ 
 DY? NI, shall not be called, named, 
 read, implying that no inscription 
 should tell where he lay. 
 
 21. The ode concludes with the de- 
 nouncement of a curse on the children 
 
 Se ee 
 
CHAP. XIV. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 137 
 
 For the iniquity of their fathers ; 
 That they may not rise, and possess the land, 
 And fill the face of the world with cities. 
 
 22 
 
 For I will arise against them, saith Jehovah of Hosts ; 
 
 And I will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, 
 Progeny and offspring, saith Jehovah. 
 
 of water ; 
 
 And I will make her the possession of the porcupine, and pools 
 
 And will sweep her completely out with the besom of de- 
 
 struction, 
 
 Saith Jehovah of Hosts. 
 
 of the Babylonian king. They should 
 reap the fruit of their ancestors’ guilt : 
 the dynasty would be entirely set 
 aside by the Persian rule. To prevent 
 the revival of an ancient dynasty, 
 it has very often been the practice 
 to make away with all who possessed 
 hereditary claims to the throne.— 
 or, Hitzig takes to be a false reading 
 for DY, heaps, ruins, the result of fresh 
 wars ; but it is a mere conjecture. 
 The LXX., Targ., Syr., Rosenmiiller, 
 and Gesenius, render it exemies; but 
 Aquila, Symm., Theod., Vulg. and 
 Saadias, have cities, which Kimchi 
 considers to be the more natural of 
 the two interpretations. Reference 
 is had to the founding of new cities 
 and colonies, which a revival of the 
 ancient power might soon have en- 
 abled them to do. 
 
 22, 23. These two verses contain a 
 solemn declaration on the part of 
 Jehovah, that he would make an end 
 not only of the royal family, but of 
 the entire population, and convert the 
 city into an uninhabitable marsh. 
 The former took place on its capture 
 by Cyrus ; the latter progressively in 
 the course of ages. See chap. xiil. 1. 
 —The nouns, 732) 72) wh DW, are ac- 
 cumulated for the sake of effect, 
 order to express the completeness of 
 the extinction. The alliteration also 
 deserves notice. For 733, Gesenius 
 very properly compares the Ethiop. 
 
 WE: gens, cognatio. Pi, the root 
 from which 72 is derived, occurs Ps. 
 
 Ixxii. 17, in connexion with Dw, in the 
 sense of being celebrated through the 
 
 medium of a numerous posterity— 
 
 Hep, Arab. Xs, Eth. PtH: pro- 
 
 nounced, according to Hést and Fors- 
 kal, ganfud : the porcupine, or the sea- 
 ur chins which is said to abound about 
 the mouths of the Euphrates.— 
 REND PONOND, an exquisite finish to 
 this unparalleled piece of prophetic 
 composition. It is one of those in- 
 stances in which the apparent mean- 
 ness of the image is so compensated 
 by the peculiar form of the expression, 
 as to give it the character of the sub- 
 lime. Twenty-two MSS., originally 
 nine more, now by correction two, the 
 Brixian, and another ancient edition, 
 read ‘23023 in the plural: but the sin- 
 gular is ‘decidedly preferable. What 
 the words mean, Kimchi tells us the 
 Rabbins could not make out till they 
 heard an Arab female call to her com- 
 panion, Oskoli tatithan, watati baithan, 
 z.e. take the besom, and sweep the 
 house. The Pilpel, or reduplicate 
 form, both of the verb and the noun, 
 gives great intensiveness to the mean- 
 
 ing. Comp. lblb, in Kosegarten’s 
 
 Annals of Taberist, i. p. 60. Ewald’s 
 Gramm. § 235. Eng. translation. As to 
 the root, Gesenius hesitates between 
 nm or xm, and oO, The latter he 
 adopts in his Thesaurus; but the 
 former, of which he approves in his 
 other Lexicons, and in his Commen- 
 tary, seems preferable. It is approved 
 by Winer and Lee. The LXX. render; 
 
 θήσω αὐτὴν πηλοῦ βάραθρον cis ἀπώ- 
 Aecay; from which it appears, that 
 they derived the words from 0, 
 
198 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 24 Jehovah of Hosts hath sworn, saying, 
 Verily as I have thought, so shall it be, 
 And as I have purposed, so shall it stand. 
 25 ΤῸ crush the Assyrian in my land, 
 And to trample him on my mountains ; 
 Then shall his yoke depart from them, 
 And his burden be removed from their shoulder. 
 26 This is the purpose that is formed concerning all the earth, 
 And this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. 
 27 For Jehovah of Hosts hath purposed, and who can disannul it ? 
 It is his hand that is stretched out, and who can turn it back ? 
 
 28 In the year in which Ahaz the king died, this sentence was 
 
 pronounced. 
 
 24—27. From his celebrated pre- 
 diction respecting the more distant 
 future, the prophet returns once more 
 to the Assyrian invasion, the subject 
 which most pressed upon his contem- 
 poraries, being the calamity with 
 which they were immediately threat- 
 ened. Jehovah now declares by the 
 mouth of Isaiah, in plain and explicit, 
 but peremptory and forcible language, 
 that it was his unalterable purpose to 
 overthrow that foreign power in the 
 Holy Land. lLowth attempts to iden- 
 tify the Assyrian with the Baby- 
 lonian foe; but though what he 
 alleges is true, that in profane authors 
 the names are interchangeable, yet 
 the circumstance of the discomfiture 
 taking place in Judea, ver. 25, suffi- 
 ciently proves that the Assyrians pro- 
 per are those to whom the prophet 
 refers. These three verses obviously 
 connect in application with chapters 
 X.—xli.; yet not as a fragment that 
 has been torn off from them, since 
 there is no place in that portion which 
 it can claim as its position. It is an 
 independent oracle, pronounced on 
 occasion of the delivery of the pro- 
 pheey concerning Babylon; and its 
 actual position furnishes an additional 
 argument in favour of the genuineness 
 of that prophecy. 
 
 yaw), The verb fo swear, in Hebrew, 
 is always used in the passive, in re- 
 ference to the person who takes an 
 
 oath, which would seem to intimate 
 his being laid under the obligation which 
 such an act involves—On ον, see 
 note, chap. v. 9. Before D770 87 is an 
 ellipsis of 3. The purposes of God 
 are, like himself, immutable. See 
 chap. xlvi. 10; Heb. vi. 17. For ‘ss, 
 my land, comp. ver. 2 ; Hos. ix. 3; and 
 for ‘1, my mountains, Ezek. xxxviii. 21, 
 with xxxix, 2/4. Zech. xiv. 5. The 
 mountains immediately about Jerusa- 
 lem are specifically meant. See chap. 
 xxxvi.2. The latter half of ver. 25 is 
 almost a verbal repetition of chap. x. 
 27: the meaning is the same.—In 
 verses 26 and 27 it is declared that 
 Jehovah’s purpose to punish the ene- 
 mies of his people was not restricted 
 to the Assyrians, but had for its 
 object every nation throughout the 
 earth which might set itself to afilict 
 or oppress them. 
 
 28. The section, from this verse to 
 the end of the chapter, contains a dis- 
 tinct prophecy against the PHILISTINES. 
 This people were not aborigines of 
 the country which they occupied, but, 
 
 aan: to emigrate; UXX. generally 
 
 ἀλλόφυλοι.) foreigners, who, according 
 to Amos ix. 7, Jer. xlvii. 4, came from 
 the island of Caphtor, or Crete, hence 
 called On, Cherethites, or Cretans, 
 
 EE ΒΟ 0 «0 «. σαν “ΘΒ ΌΨΟΨΌΩΝΙ 
 
CHAP. XIV.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 139 
 
 29 Let not any part of thee rejoice, Ὁ Puiiisrra! 
 Because the rod which smote thee is broken ; 
 
 Ezek. xxv. 16; Zeph. ii. 5; 1 Sam. 
 xxx.14,16. Both those who remained 
 upon the island, and those who emi- 
 grated, are stated, Gen. x. 14, to have 
 descended from the Casluhim, an 
 Egyptian colony. Having driven away 
 the Avites, they took possession of the 
 south-east coast of the Mediterranean, 
 and had cities and kings as early as 
 the days of Abraham. Though nomi- 
 nally subdued by Joshua, they had in 
 the time of Samuel five small king- 
 doms or satrapies, and were first 
 really brought into subjection by 
 David, 2 Sam. viii. 1. They were, 
 however, continually prone to revolt. 
 In the reign of Jehoram, they, and 
 their allies, the Arabs, made an in- 
 cursion into Judah, and even plun- 
 dered the royal palace; but during 
 the reign of Uzziah they were kept 
 quiet, in consequence of his having 
 demolished the walls of their princi- 
 pal cities, and built fortresses in dif- 
 ferent parts of their country, 2 Chron. 
 xxvi. 6,7. Asa chastisement of the 
 wicked Ahaz, they were permitted 
 again to invade the land ; and they 
 appear so to have gloried in the ad- 
 vantages they had gained, and in the 
 prostrate condition of Jewish affairs, 
 that the prophet was commissioned, 
 a little before that king’s death, to 
 deliver this prophecy against them. 
 
 In our common version, the para- 
 graph mark is placed at ver. 29, by 
 which the present verse is made to 
 assign the date of the preceding pro- 
 phecy against Babylon ; but the cir- 
 cumstance that the announcement of 
 a xwd, or sentence, is always made at 
 the commencement of a prophecy, 
 shews that it here belongs to what 
 follows. Instead of πὸ, “λας, Ken- 
 nicott’s Cod. 351, reads ww, Uzziah, 
 whom several commentators suppose 
 to be intended, on account of the 
 yoke which he imposed upon the 
 Philistines. It is, however, altogether 
 destitute of critical support, and the 
 hypothesis that he is _ specifically 
 meant, cannot be sustained. That 
 the prophecy was delivered before the 
 death of Ahaz, see chap. vi. 1. 
 
 29. mB is called by Josephus, 
 Antiq. i. 6, 2, Παλαιστίνη, in strict 
 application to the country occupied 
 by the Philistines: but viii. 10, 3, he 
 extends to the whole country of the 
 Israelites the name of Palestine, by 
 which it has been known to the pre- 
 sent time.—By the ‘‘rod which smote” 
 the Philistines, is meant the Jewish 
 power, which had, as noticed above, 
 punished them in the days of Uzziah, 
 but was now broken in those of Ahaz, 
 partly by the Syrians and Israelites, 
 partly by the inroads of the Edomites 
 and Philistines, and partly by Tiglath- 
 pileser, 2 Chron. xxviii. To repress 
 their joy at these disastrous events, 
 the prophet tells them. in highly figu- 
 rative language, that from the royal 
 house of Judah, a prince should arise, 
 who would prove more formidable and 
 destructive to them than his prede- 
 cessors. This prince was Hezekiah, 
 who “smote the Philistines even unto 
 Gaza, and the borders thereof, from 
 the tower of the watchmen to the 
 fenced city,” 2 Kings xviii. 8 —With 
 respect to the figures employed, as 
 Calvin well remarks, there is nothing 
 ignominious in them, since all they 
 are intended to convey, is the idea of 
 the injury to be inflicted on the 
 enemy. On YD, see note on chap. xi. 
 7.— FEIN Ww, LXX. ὄφεις werapevor, 
 is of more difficult interpretation. 
 Michaelis in his Orient. Biblioth. v. 
 164, thinks it is only another name 
 for the basilisk, just mentioned ; but 
 his opinion is faucifully supported. 
 That a species of serpent is meant, is 
 clear from Numb. xxi. 6, 8, where we 
 read of DEWwI DWN, fiery serpents. 
 They appear to have had this name 
 given to them on account of their v/vid 
 Jiery colour, being somewhat like the 
 copper-coloured snake in appearance ; 
 on which account, a serpent of copper 
 or brass was set up, to which the bit- 
 ten Israelites were to look, in order to 
 be healed. Gott. Hein. von Schubert, 
 in his Travels in the East, Zweit. 
 Band. Seit. 406, Erlangen, 1839, de- 
 scribes a large serpent which he saw, 
 and which the Arabs aftirmed abounded 
 
140 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 For out of the root of the serpent shall come forth a basilisk, 
 And his fruit shall be a flymg serpent. 
 
 30 
 
 Then shall the first-born of the poor feed, 
 
 And the needy shall lie down in security ; 
 But 1 will kill thy root with famine, 
 And thy remnant shall be slain. 
 
 91 
 
 Howl, O gate! ery aloud, O city! 
 
 O Philistia! thou art entirely dissolved ; 
 
 in this region, as full of fiery red spots 
 and undulating stripes, and, judging 
 from the structure of its teeth, one of 
 the most poisonous of its species. The 
 most remarkable circumstance con- 
 nected with those described here and 
 chap. xxx. 6, is that of their flying: 
 no serpents now in existence being 
 known to naturalists to have wings, 
 from which it is inferred that they 
 never did exist. There can, however, 
 be no doubt that some of the most 
 respectable authorities among the 
 ancients speak of winged or flying 
 serpents, on occasions which would 
 lead us to suppose that they are not 
 treating of the fabulous, but of facts 
 known to themselves and their con- 
 temporaries. See Herod. lib. 1]. 75, 
 iii. 107 ; lian, Hist. Animal. lib. 1]. 
 cap. 28; Joseph. Antiq. lib. 11. 10, 2; 
 Cicero de Nat. Deor. i. 36; Mela, 
 11. 9; Amm. Marcellin. xxii. Some 
 of these writers refer them _ to 
 the great Arabian desert, as does 
 Isaiah, chap. xxx. 6; and we must 
 conclude either that a species is de- 
 scribed which has become extinct, or 
 that the kind is meant which Niebuhr 
 mentions in his Description of Arabia, 
 which, instead of descending from a 
 tree, in order to ascend another, make 
 a sudden spring from the one to the 
 other, and on this account are called 
 Jing serpents by the modern Arabs. 
 So much is certain, that by 7b Ay, 
 the prophet intended a serpent whose 
 appearance was formidable, and its 
 bite peculiarly nocuous. The whole 
 passage is applied in the Targ. to 
 the Messiah, which Rosenmiiller ap- 
 proves ! 
 
 30. In consequence of the effectual 
 subjugation of the Philistines by 
 Hezekiah, the very poorest of the 
 inhabitants of Judah should live in 
 
 security: whereas, the power of the 
 Philistines should be annihilated. As 
 "123 signifies figuratively what is the 
 chief or most eminent in degree, D7 "133, 
 the first-born of the poor, raeans the 
 very poorest. Comp. ny2 23, the 
 Jirst-bora of death, i.e. the most terrible 
 death, Job xviii. 13. The Arabs call 
 
 fevers, ree 8} wooly, the daughters of 
 
 fate, thereby meaning death, which 
 somewhat approximates to this idiom. 
 —w, root, in this verse, corresponds 
 in meaning to the same word as 
 occurring ver. 29; only it is there 
 applied to the royal house of Judah ; 
 whereas here it applies to that of the 
 Philistines. The metaphor is taken 
 from the vegetable kingdom.—17 is 
 to be taken impersonally, and rendered 
 passively. 
 
 31. Vitringa and Gesenius are of 
 opinion, that an Assyrian invasion of 
 Philistia is here predicted. There is 
 no necessity, however, for abandoning 
 the idea of the Jewish army marching 
 against the Philistines under Heze- 
 kiah. Considering the geographical 
 position of their country in relation 
 to that of Judah, there is precisely 
 the same propriety in describing the 
 Jews as coming from the North, as 
 there is in describing the Assyrians 
 and Babylonians as coming from that 
 quarter against Jerusalem. The pro- 
 phet repeats with much effect, mo. 
 722, which he had employed in the 
 introduction of the prophecy, ver. 29. 
 —By smoke ave meant the clouds of 
 dust resembling smoke, produced by 
 the march of an army. 
 
 “Ac simul Aineas fumantes pulvere 
 Campos 
 
 Prospexit longé, Laurentiaque agmina 
 vidit.”—Aneid, lib, xi. 908. 
 
CHAP. ΧΥ͂.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 141 
 
 For out of the North cometh a smoke, 
 And there is no straggler among his hosts. 
 32 What answer shall then be given to the messengers of the 
 
 nations ? 
 
 That Jehovah hath founded Zion, 
 And in her the afflicted of his people find refuge. 
 
 —riyina ὙΠ} psi, There shall be no strag- 
 gler in his hosts. TB, Arab. do, ¢o 
 
 separate, be alone, expresses, in the 
 participle, one who is disjoined from 
 others, a straggling soldier, one who 
 from infirmity or weariness is obliged 
 to quit the ranks and lag behind. 
 wid, being derived from Ὁ), ¢o fix 
 a place or time of meeting, signifies 
 such time, or the assembly then and 
 there convened. In no other passage 
 is the term applied to congregated 
 hosts, but such seems clearly to be its 
 meaning in this place. The suff. in 
 yin refers to the 72, and Apia AWD, 
 ver, 29. 
 
 32. 132 is taken collectively by the 
 LXX., Aq., Symm., Theod., Targ., 
 Syr., Saad.; and Kennicott’s Cod. 
 145, reads 0%3, which is right as to 
 the meaning. It was customary for 
 foreign powers to send. messengers to 
 any state with which they were at 
 peace, but which was carrying on war 
 
 in some other direction, to ascertain 
 the success of its arms. In the true 
 spirit of the theocracy, the reply to 
 such ambassadors, in the present case, 
 is, not that their arms were success- 
 ful, but that Jehovah was the Founder 
 of their state, and afforded them the 
 surest ground of confidence. Gesenius 
 and some others suppose Philistine 
 ambassadors to be intended, but this 
 seems less probable. —Instead of "N79, 
 messengers, the LXX., and the other 
 early Greek versions, ” read 20, kings ; 
 
 my, however, better agrees with the 
 former. The sentiment conveyed at 
 the end of the verse is, in such con- 
 nexion, quite compatible with trust 
 in God: trusting in what God has 
 done, or in what is his work, and 
 sufficient for the ends which he de- 
 signs by it, is virtually trusting in 
 himself. Very different was the false 
 confidence of the hypocritical Jews, 
 Jer, vil. 4, 
 
 CHAPTERS XV. XVI. 
 
 THE SENTENCE OF MOAB. 
 
 These two chapters contain one connected prophecy against Moan. The 
 Moabites, who were descended from Lot, occupied the region on the east of 
 the Dead Sea and the river Jordan, which had originally been inhabited by 
 the gigantic Emim. Previous, however, to the occupation of Canaan by 
 the Israelites, they were driven southward over the Arnon, which river 
 henceforth became their northern boundary. The Israelites spared them 
 on their march from the Arabian desert; and, for some time, they appear 
 to have lived on peaceable terms with each other; but in the days of the 
 
 5 
 
142 ISAIAH. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 Judges hostilities broke out, in consequence of which the Hebrew tribes 
 beyond Jordan, and in the south of Palestine, were subjugated by the 
 Moabites eighteen years, Judg. iii. 14. The latter were then expelled from 
 the Hebrew territory; and were ultimately themselves brought into subjec- 
 tion by David ;. in which state they continued till they revolted along with 
 the ten tribes, and attached themselves to the house of Israel. Soon after 
 the death of Ahab, they refused the annual tribute, and succeeded in main- 
 taining their independence till the time of the Babylonian invasion, when, 
 in all probability, the prophecies contained in these chapters were fulfilled. 
 See Jer. xlvii.; Joseph. Antiq. x. 9. 7. They were idolaters, and worshipped 
 Chemosh and Baal-peor. Their idolatry was a mixture of sensuality and 
 cruelty, Numb. xxv. 1, &c.; 2 Kings iii. 27. 
 
 Several recent German writers ascribe the prophecy to Jeremiah. This Gese- 
 nius considers to be utterly inadmissible; yet, unwilling to allow that it 
 was written by Isaiah, he attributes it to some contemporary or earlier 
 prophet. At the same time he is obliged to grant, that it can hardly be 
 satisfactorily proved’ not to have been written by Isaiah. Comm. p. 509. 
 Hitzig is of opinion that it is the prophecy of Jonah, mentioned 2 Kings 
 xiv. 25. 
 
 The parallel portions of Jeremiah’s prophecy (chap. xlviii.) are in part verbally 
 the same with that contained in these chapters of Isaiah, and partly an 
 altered and amplified edition of it. 
 
 The subjects of the prediction are: the sudden attack and destruction of the 
 two principal cities of Moab, xv. 1; the universal distress and mourning 
 which ensue, 2—5; and the destitute and fugitive condition to which the 
 inhabitants of the country are reduced, 6—9. To procure admission, for 
 safety, into Judah, they are exhorted to pay the tribute which had been 
 withheld, xvi. 1; they then implore protection, assuring the Jews that their 
 extending it to them would meet with its reward in the perpetuity of the 
 kingdom, 2—5; on which the prophet reminds them of their former 
 treacheries, and utters lamentations over them of the most pitiable descrip- 
 tion, 6—11. The prophecy concludes with a declaration of the fruitless 
 application which the Moabites would make to their gods to deliver them, 
 12. The last two verses of the chapter contain a postscript, added; by some 
 unknown hand, only three years before the accomplishment of the pre- 
 dictions took place. 
 
 1 ASSUREDLY in the night of assault Ar-Moab is destroyed; 
 
 1. There is nothing answering to 5 
 in the LXX. and Syr., but this con- 
 junction frequently occurs at the com- 
 mencement of a prediction, in order 
 to express the certainty of its fulfil- 
 ment. See chap. xxv. 10. Calmet 
 conjectured, that in 72 the 3 has taken 
 
 the place of 3, so that the word may 
 originally have read 3, entirely ; and 
 this conjecture has been adopted by 
 Boothroyd and Jenour. There is, 
 however, no necessity for altering the 
 text. 2 is the less usual form of 72%, 
 night, in construction with 11, which 
 
CHAP. XV. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 143 
 
 Assuredly in the night of assault Kir-Moab is destroyed. 
 2 They go up to the temple, and to Dibon, to the high places, to 
 
 weep ; 
 
 Upon Nebo and upon Medeba, Moab howleth : 
 
 is a verbal noun, from the Infin. of 
 Pual. The verb, in the intensive con- 
 jugations, conveys the idea of violent 
 assault and destruction; yet is less 
 strong in signification than 7273, which 
 denotes utter extinction. Doderlein and 
 Dathe translate, wa nocte, supposing 
 the facility with which the destruction 
 was effected to be meant.—On 727, 
 see chap. vi. 5.——axinw, Ar-Moad. 
 Aq. and Symm. render 1, by πόλις, 
 which is its proper meaning ; but as it 
 is never used, in the singular, of any 
 city, but the metropolis of Moab, it is, 
 with Theod., to be retained as a proper 
 name. See Numb. xxi. 15 ; Deut. ii. 
 9 ; where it occurs without 18>. The 
 Greeks gave it the name of ’ApeozoNts, 
 in which its original Hebrew designa- 
 tion appears, though they seem to 
 have understood by the term uris 
 Martis. It was known by this name 
 as late as the sixth century, and was 
 then the seat of a bishop. It was 
 also called, on account of its size, 
 “Ῥαβαθμώμ and “Ῥαβαθμώμα, a corrup- 
 tion of asi2 N32, to which correspond 
 ἀν, Rabbah, and Le, Mab, of the 
 
 modern Arabs. It was situated at 
 some distance to the south of the 
 river Arnon. Its ruins were dis- 
 covered by Seetzen, among which he 
 found the remains of an ancient tem- 
 ple, consisting of portions of the wall 
 and pillars—asiavp, Kir-Moub, was 
 another Moabitish city, six or eight 
 miles south of Ar, the same as Dy V7, 
 chap. xvi. 11; Jer. xlviii. 31, 36; and 
 nw v?, chap. xvi. 7; 2 Kings 111. 25. 
 It was, as the name imports, the wall 
 or fortress of Moab ; LXX. τὸ τεῖχος ; 
 situated in the south of the country, 
 on a very steep, and, in many places, 
 perpendicular limestone hill, at the 
 commencement of a deep valley, called 
 
 Wady Karrak, Τὸ is now called 2) 0), 
 
 Karrak, or Kerek, and was known by 
 the same name to the Greek and 
 Roman writers of the later age. 
 
 Comp. Κάρακα, 2 Mace. xii. 17; and 
 Χαρακμῶβα, in Ptolemy and Stephen 
 of Byzant. It was a place of great 
 strength, and was occupied with ad- 
 vantage during the Crusades. Abul- 
 feda, in the fourteenth century, speaks 
 of it as impregnable. It is distant 
 from Ar-Moab about twenty miles ; 
 and, when visited by Burckhardt in 
 1812, was inhabited by about four 
 hundred Turkish, and one hundred 
 and fifty Christian families.—The two 
 principal cities being taken and de- 
 stroyed, all further resistance on the 
 part of the Moabites was hopeless ; 
 on which account no mention is made 
 of the destruction of any of the other 
 cities. 
 
 2. This and the following verses de- 
 scribe the universal mourning to which 
 the inhabitants of Moab abggoned 
 themselves ; and here, as at chap. xvi. 
 12, their application to their idols for 
 help is distinctly recognised.—After 
 the Targ. and Syr., Lowth rejects the 
 copulative 1 in 2), and connecting 
 }2rTMa3, so as to form one name, ren- 
 ders: “He goeth up to Beth-dibon.” 
 As we are not at liberty, however, on 
 such slender authority, to cancel the 
 4, and as the article in ™37 forms an 
 insuperable objection to such construc- 
 tion, this word must be taken by itself, 
 as indicating the place whither the 
 Moabites are said to have gone up. 
 Nor can there be any doubt that it 
 denotes the chief temple, or that of 
 Chemosh; the article distinguishing 
 it as that which was eminent. It is 
 called προ, the sanctuary or temple, 
 chap. xvi. 12. Comp. for such use of 
 ma, 1 Sam. v. 2, 5; Isa. xxxvil. 38. 
 What corroborates this view, is the 
 occurrence of nin39, the high places, in 
 the following clause ; which places of 
 idolatrous worship were common 1n 
 Moab and the surrounding countries. 
 Thus Balak first took Balaam up to 
 “the high places of Baal ;” then “to 
 the top of Pisgah ;” and afterwards 
 “to the top of Peor,” evidently on the 
 
144 
 
 On all their heads is baldness ; 
 
 Every beard is cut off. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 3 In his streets they gird on sackcloth ; 
 
 principle of their being peculiarly ac- 
 ceptable as religious localities.—The 
 nomin. to πον, is Moab, understood, or, 
 the inhabitants taken collectively.— 
 prt, Dibon, spelt po, ver. 9, now called 
 Diban, was a town situated at some 
 distance to the north of the Arnon, in 
 a magnificent plain, and close to two 
 elevated hills, on which, in all proba- 
 bility, the nina here mentioned had 
 been constructed. It was built by the 
 Gadites, Numb. xxxii. 34, hence called 
 apm, Numb. xxxiii. 45, 46; it was 
 afterwards assigned to the Reubenites, 
 Josh. xiii. 17; but finally reverted to 
 the Moabites. By a common figure, 
 Dibon is here put for its inhabitants. 
 The 5 in ‘22? expresses state or con- 
 dition.—in, Nebo, was a mountain be- 
 longing to the chain of Abarim, near 
 the northern extremity of the Dead 
 Sea ; and x2?9, Medeba, a conical hill, 
 with afown of the same name built 
 upon its crest, at a short distance to 
 the south of Heshbon. Its present 
 ruins are about two miles in circum- 
 ference. The former mountain ap- 
 pears to have derived its name from 
 the Babylonian idol of that name, see 
 chap. xlvi. 1, and most probably was 
 the site of one of his temples.—D6der- 
 lein, Dathe, and Rosenmiiller, render 
 %, de, propter, and suppose the meaning 
 to be, that Moab howled on account of 
 the destruction of the cities so called ; 
 but there seems rather to be a refer- 
 ence to the inhabitants of the north- 
 ern plains having gone up to these 
 places for religious purposes, where 
 they mingled the most pitiable wail- 
 ings with their rites. The entire 
 ‘structure of the verse favours this in- 
 terpretation.—”, here and ver. 3, a 
 peculiar punctuation of Hiphil, which 
 has not yet been satisfactorily ac- 
 counted for. The most probable rea- 
 son is, that it is a contraction of >>, 
 occurring chap. 111. 5, in which the 
 characteristic 7 is retained. Comp. 
 puim, for yw, 1 Sam. xvii. 47; 2778 
 for 2hx, Ps. xxviii. 7. Comp. also 
 ror, Job xxiv. 21, and »™, in Kal, Ps. 
 
 CXXxvili. 6; and see Gesen. Lehrg. pp. 
 388, 389, and Ewald’s Heb. Gram. § 
 284, Eng. trans.—Instead of ves, 
 three of Kennicott’s MSS. and two of 
 De Rossi’s, read Ux, but this is in all 
 probability a correction from Jer. xlviii. 
 37. One of De Rossi’s has om, 
 The punctuation is otherwise irregular 
 for 1s1.—Before %, twenty-two MSS., 
 originally seven more, and now one ; 
 the Soncin. Ed. of the whole Bible, 
 and also that of the Prophets; and 
 the Targ., Syr., and Vulg., supply 1.— 
 Instead of 7173, the reading 273, which 
 is that of Jer. xlviii. 37, is found in 
 forty-nine MSS. and upwards of thirty 
 printed editions: while in Jer., 7273 
 is found in ten MSS., originally in six 
 more, and apparently in another. The 
 difference consists merely in the in- 
 terchange of the similar letters 7 and 5. 
 In YB, which signifies fo fell, cut down, 
 or hew, as a tree, there is something 
 violent as applied to the beard; where- 
 as, D2 signifying ¢o scrape or shave off 
 the hair, is the more appropriate term: 
 but as Gesenius remarks, the former 
 seems to have been purposely selected 
 by Isaiah, in order strongly to indicate 
 the harsh and barbarous manner in 
 which the operation would, under the 
 peculiar circumstances, be performed, 
 in opposition to slow and careful shav- 
 ing. The LXX. and Saad. decidedly 
 support the common reading. Cut- 
 ting off the hair, and removing the 
 beard, have been customary among 
 most nations as tokens of mourning. 
 Comp. Jer. xvi. 6; Amos vill. 10; 
 Micah i. 16. 
 
 3. γ᾽ Ὄπ, lit. fo bind a piece of sack- 
 cloth round the loins, but used, in a 
 more extended sense, for putting it 
 on the body generally. pv, a word 
 found in most languages, signifying a 
 coarse kind of cloth,commonly made of 
 hair, and used for sacks, but also for 
 garments, as indicative of humiliation, 
 self-denial, and especially of deep 
 mourning. It was worn on the death 
 of any relative, or person of conse- 
 quence, 2 Sam. iii, 31, and on occasion 
 
CHAP. ΧΥ.ὕ 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 145 
 
 On his house-tops and in his broad places they all howl; 
 They come down again weeping. 
 4 And Heshbon crieth out, and Elealeh ; 
 As far as Jahaz their voice is heard ; 
 Wherefore the warriors of Moab shriek ; 
 His soul trembleth within him. 
 
 of public calamities, Esth. iv. 1. So 
 great was to be the mourning in Moab, 
 that it would be everywhere visible— 
 on the flat roofs of the houses, and in 
 the broad streets and open places of 
 the cities, where the inhabitants would 
 be collected, mutually to bewail the 
 disastrous events.—There is in this 
 verse, as in verses 5 and 8,a change of 
 gender in the suffixes, which cannot 
 well be ‘expressed in a translation, 
 except by making them neuters, or 
 occasionally omitting them, when they 
 are not essential to the sense. The }, 
 however, in Ynz17, clearly connects the 
 word with 289; while the 7 may have 
 a reference to the land, or to each 
 particular city,— TY or y8 being un- 
 derstood. “The idiom of our language 
 being opposed to such changes of gen- 
 der, it would be proper uniformly to 
 employ the feminine, as we do when 
 speaking of Britain, France, &c.; only, 
 in such cases as the present, in which 
 the names of countries are those of 
 male ancestors, it would be obviously 
 improper to adopt it.—222 τ, Le 
 Clerc, Gesenius, and Hitzig, render, 
 flowing down in tears ; but as it is only 
 of the eye that the Hebrews say, 772 
 my, ἐξ lets down tears, Jer. ix. 17, xiii. 
 17, xiv. 17, it is better to regard the 
 words as placed in opposition to 227722, 
 at the beginning of ver. 2. The in- 
 habitants found no relief from their 
 idols: no favourable oracle alleviated 
 their distress, 
 
 4, jaw, Heshbon, the ancient resi- 
 dence of the Amoritish kings, Numb. 
 xxi, 26. It was given successively to 
 the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the 
 Levites, but was taken by the Moab- 
 ites after the removal of the ten tribes. 
 
 Its remains, now called ones ass 
 ban, cover the side of a considerable 
 
 insulated hill, at the distance of seven 
 or eight miles to the north of Medeba. 
 
 Close by, there is an uncommonly fine 
 tank,—doubtless one of the pools of 
 Heshbon, Song vii. 4.—720?x, Hiealeh, 
 a town which also lay upon a hill, at 
 the distance of a few miles from Hesh- 
 
 bon, now called by the Arabs, (sl, 
 
 Ll-Aal—¥%, Yahatz, Jahaz, also 737, 
 Vahtza, UXX. Ἰασσά, Euseb. Ἴεσσά, 
 appears to have lain on the confines 
 of the desert, to the east of the two 
 cities just described, and north of 
 Bezer. See Deut. ii. 32; Josh. xxi. 
 36; 1 Chron. vi. 78 (Heb. 63). The form 
 yr τὸ marks it as being at the extre- 
 mity of the country.—ax%9 '29T; in Jer. 
 xlviii. 41, ΔΝ)» 133, the heroes, or warriors 
 
 of Moab. Ym, Arab. vals, bonus et 
 
 exquisitus fuit, bene se habet; to be ex- 
 pert, ready, active: here the Pahul part. 
 ready for war, prepared, armed; soldiers 
 girded with the military belt, and 
 otherwise fully accoutred. The LXX. 
 have ὀσφύς, by which Lowth appears 
 to have been misled to translate, the 
 very loins of Moab; but elsewhere they 
 render the word by ἐνωπλισμένος, 
 ὁπλίτης, πολεμιστής, μάχιμος, ἕο. See 
 
 Gesen., Thesaur. p. 482. Ἰμδω occurs 
 
 in Barhebreeus, in the same accepta- 
 tion. Some derive the meaning from 
 yu, in the acceptation of putting off 
 garments, &c.; and suppose that sol- 
 diers were so called, because they laid 
 aside everything that would impede 
 their activity in battle. The warriors 
 of Moab retain the name, though no 
 longer prepared for action—There is 
 a paronomasia in WY and mY, The 
 former is the Hiph. fut. of »m=vy, 
 to shout, make aloud noise; here, to utter 
 ashrick of despair : the latter agrees with 
 
 the Arab. ξ rp ey» to tremble, to be 
 
 in great agitation from fear. It occurs 
 only here in this acceptation; but is 
 
140 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 5 My heart crieth out for Moab; 
 Her fugitives wander to Zoar—to Eglath-Shelishiyah— 
 Yea, they go up the ascent of Luhith, weeping ; 
 In the way to Horonaim, they raise the cry of destruction. 
 
 elsewhere frequently used in the future, 
 signifying to be evil, sorrowful, vexed, 
 &e. 
 
 5. Before proceeding with his de- 
 scription of the universal lamentation, 
 Isaiah gives expression to his com- 
 passionate feelings on the occasion. 
 Comp. chap. xvi. 11, xxi. 3, 4, xxii. 4; 
 Jer. xxiii. 9. Lowth renders, Zhe heart 
 of Moab crieth within her; but for the 
 readings, 22 or 122, there is no MSS. 
 authority; and 777 is equally desti- 
 tute of the same support.—? 7¥3 would 
 most naturally be construed to mean, 
 cry out ¢o a person for help, as 1 
 Chron. v. 20; but > is frequently used 
 in the sense of, with regard to, on ac- 
 count of, and must be so taken here.— 
 For 773, which is defective, upwards 
 of sixty MSS., the Soncin. Bible and 
 Prophets, the Brix. and Complut. 
 texts, and that of the Basil Polyglott 
 of Isaiah, read in full, 773. As 
 ma signifies ὦ Jar, some render it thus 
 in the present instance, and explain it 
 of the princes, or protectors of Moab ; 
 but fugitives is a more appropriate 
 acceptation in this place—w¥®, Zoar; 
 Joseph. and Ptol. Ζωάρα, LXX. Σηγώρ, 
 under which name it is mentioned in 
 the time of the Crusades, was situated 
 near the southern extremity of the 
 Dead Sea, in the mouth of Wady 
 Kerak, and beyond the frontier of 
 Moab, in that direction. Its ruins 
 are described by Irby and Mangles, 
 Travels, p. 447. It was one of the 
 five cities destined to be destroyed by 
 fire and brimstone, Gen. xix. 22, 90, 
 Comp. chap. xiv. 2.—mPptn2, or, as 
 two of Kennicott’s Codices, and one 
 of De Rossi’s read, 8? Ty, has much 
 perplexed interpreters. It occurs only 
 here, and in the parallel passage, Jer. 
 xlviii. 834, where the LXX. appear to 
 have retained it as a proper name: 
 ᾿Αγγελίαν Sadacia. Here they render 
 it, Δάμαλις yap ἐστι τριετῆς, Mor she ts 
 a heifer of three years old, and in some 
 such rendering, the Targ., Syr., and 
 Vulg., and most modern versions, con- 
 
 cur. Those expositors who adopt this 
 translation supply the verb ¢o Jow or 
 bellow, and refer it either to the fugi- 
 tives, or to the prophet. Hitzig refers 
 it to Zoar, with which he considers it 
 to be in apposition ; and is of opinion 
 that it received this name on account 
 of its diminutive size. He accordingly 
 translates, the cow of the third rank! 
 The natural position of the words cer- 
 tainly requires us to regard them as 
 forming a proper name—Lglath Sheli- 
 shiyah, or Eglah the third ; but, in all 
 probability, so called to distinguish it 
 from two other places named Lylah. 
 Gesenius compares Νέκλα of Etol, 
 
 ”Ayanka of Joseph., and ὠὐξὸ . Πλείμη, 
 
 of Abulfeda. His objection to the 
 last being situated beyond the nor- 
 thern limit of Moab has no weight, 
 since it might have been the design of 
 the prophet to describe the Moabites 
 as fleeing both in a southerly and a 
 northerly direction. Indeed, the fords 
 of Arnon, and the waters of Nimrim, 
 which lay still further north, are spe- 
 cifically mentioned, ver. 6, and xvi. 2. 
 —Before mo nov, repeat 1, as ver. 
 8, or supply 1, in which case, 7Y will 
 be understood.—nm™, Lwhith, lying, 
 according to Eusebius and Jerome, 
 between Areopolis and Zoar, where 
 the region is mountainous, the phrase 
 mma my, the ascent of Luhith, is quite 
 appropriate. The article in m7 be- 
 longs properly to 72, which required 
 it, as a nominative absolute, to render 
 it more definite, see Ewald’s Gram. 
 § 511.—Of oxnh, Horonaim, we know 
 nothing ; but, from its signifying 
 two caverns, it probably lay in the 
 same region with Luhith, which 
 abounds in caverns.—The anomalous 
 form vs is the fut. in Piel of the 
 root \Y, to wake up, raise, instead of 
 myw,—the harsh consonant 1 being 
 resolved or softened into a vowel, see 
 Ewald’s Gram. § 237. Such suppres- 
 sion of a repeated consonant is very 
 common in Aramaic. Gesenius thinks 
 
CHAP, ΧΥ͂.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 147 
 
 6 Because the water of Nimrim is wasted ; 
 Because the grass is withered, the herbage is consumed. 
 
 The tender plant is no more, 
 
 7 Wherefore the remainder of what they have acquired, and their 
 
 store, 
 
 Are carried beyond the brook of the willows. 
 8 For the-shout goeth round the borders of Moab ; 
 
 To Eglaim his wailing: 
 
 the original reading, 7%, may first 
 have been changed by mistake into 
 myi~’, whence the defective m2. Hahn 
 has received 72 into the text.—The 
 second 5 is pleonastic, and is omitted 
 by Jeremiah. 
 
 6. O22 "2, the waters of Nimrim, in 
 all probability the Nahr Nimrin, or 
 Wady Shoaib, which flows into the Jor- 
 dan, between the brooks Jazer and 
 Jabbok. Near its source was the city 
 called Nimrah, Numb. xxxii. 3, and 
 Beth-nimrah, ver. 36 ; the Βεθναβρὶς of 
 Eusebius. Gesenius comparesthe Arab. 
 pes shes clear, healthy, flowing water, 
 and justly concludes, that the luxuri- 
 ance of the meadows in the vicinity 
 was owing to its fertilizing influence. 
 On its desiccation by the enemy, comp. 
 2 Kings ii. 25, sterility must neces- 
 sarily have ensued.—nv20n, desolations, 
 in the abstract : nowhere else applied 
 to water; but as the verb ΘΟ signifies 
 to waste away or perish, a8 the conse- 
 quence of making desolate, the terms 
 here used with effect. The conjunc- 
 tion 3 repeated, introduces the causes 
 of the flight described in the preced- 
 ing verse. The naked accumulation 
 and brevity of the concluding triplet 
 is exquisite, 
 
 7. Before tvy, supply Wx.—D WA oT 
 has been variously rendered. The 
 LXX., Syr., Saad., Doéder., the brook 
 of the Arabs; the Vulg., with most 
 modern versions, and approved by 
 Gesenius and Winer, the brook of the 
 willows ; Hitzig, the brook of the plains: 
 but the word is never thus applied, 
 except in the feminine. Some of the 
 Rabbins, Le Clerc, Lowth, and Dathe, 
 comparing Ps. cxxxvil. 2, suppose 
 Babylon to be meant, and make the 
 enemies of Moab the nominative to 
 
 DX”, which seems forced. The river 
 or brook intended, is most probably 
 
 that of Zered, called [ως] ols, 
 
 Wady el-Ahsa, by Burckhardt, which 
 he describes as dividing the district 
 of Kerek from that of Djebal, and 
 flowing into the Dead Sea near Zoar, 
 at the commencement of the wide 
 valley called H/-Ghor. As it formed 
 the proper boundary between Moab 
 and Edom, it lay in the way of the 
 inhabitants who fled southward, in 
 order to take refuge in that country 
 or in Judah. Whatever they could 
 rescue, both of their flocks and herds, 
 and of other moveable property, they 
 conveyed across that river, beyond 
 which they might hope the Babylo- 
 nians would not proceed. , for 
 which two MSS. and Vulg. read 79, 
 has here the signification of beyond, 
 with respect to place. In oN, the 
 Mem is the original intensive form of 
 the third person plural; but as it was 
 also used as the suffix, it came to be 
 changed into Vwz, and then commonly 
 rejected. 
 
 8. A reason is here assigned for the 
 removal: the cry of distress was not 
 confined to one part of the country, 
 but went round the entire boundary. 
 -ὐὐϑν, Eylaim, and Ὁ ΩΣ, Beer-elim, 
 appear to have been situated the one 
 to the south, and the other to the 
 north, of the Moabitish territory. 
 The former is doubtless the same as 
 DY pr, Ln-eglaim, Ezek. xlvii. 10, which 
 must have lain at the southern termi- 
 nation of the Dead Sea, since Engeddi 
 lay pretty far north on its western 
 margin. The change of 8 and ¥ is too 
 frequent to create any difficulty. Beer- 
 elim has, with some shew of reason, 
 been referred to 3, Beer, mentioned 
 
148 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI’ 
 
 And to Beer-Elim his lamentation. 
 
 9 ‘Though the waters of Dimon are full of blood, 
 Yet will I bring additional evils upon Dimon ; 
 Upon the escaped of Moab I will send a lion, 
 Even upon those who are left in the land. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1 Send ye the lambs of the Ruler of the land, 
 
 Numb. xxi. 16, as one of the Hebrew 
 stations to the north-east of Moab. 
 Before OX w3, subaud. τὸ, as in ver. 
 5.—It is doubted whether the 7 in 
 ny” be the pron. suffix. The Mappik 
 is wanting in fourteen of De Rossi’s 
 MSS., in the Soncin. Edit. of 1488, and 
 two other printed editions. Aurivillius 
 thinks the form is that of the inten- 
 sive paragogic, as ny, Ps. 111. 3; 
 my, cxxv. 3; but it seems preferable 
 to adopt the construction of the 
 ancient versions, and refer it, as a 
 suffix, to the land of Moab.—The 
 repetition of 72” has a very different 
 effect in Hebrew from that of the 
 same word repeated in English; on 
 which account I have employed a 
 synonyme in the second instance. 
 
 9. Jehovah declares that fresh cala- 
 mities awaited those who had made 
 their escape. It is generally agreed, 
 that by ji", Dimon, the same place is 
 meant which is called ji24, Didon, ver. 
 2; but it would be unwarrantable, 
 with Déderlein, to alter the text, as 
 the present reading is supported by 
 all the collated MSS. except two, and 
 by the ancient Greek versions. Je- 
 rome mentions that the name was 
 pronounced both ways in his time; 
 and the frequent change of the B and 
 M by the Arabs, in pronunciation, 
 renders more than doubtful the con- 
 jecture of Vitringa, that the word 
 was purposely written fio in this 
 place, in order to form a paronomasia 
 with 01 following. I should rather 
 imagine it was produced by the occur- 
 rence of Ὃ immediately before.—n1ppi3, 
 Vulg. additamenta, i.e. evils, calamities, 
 as the connexion sufficiently shews.— 
 Supply mtx before 72 %2).—Z ion, or 
 collectively lions, is to be taken figu- 
 ratively of powerful and destructive 
 warriors. Déderlein is of opinion that 
 
 Alexander the Great is meant. The 
 renderings of 78 and 7978, by ᾿Αριὴλ 
 and “Adaya, which we find in the 
 LXX., and which Lowth adopts, can- 
 not be defended. The position and 
 connexion of the words evince that 
 they cannot, with propriety, be thus 
 construed. 
 
 Cuap. xvi. 1. Anticipating an appli- 
 cation to the Hebrews on the part of 
 Moab, the prophet, to bring the inha- 
 bitants of the latter country to a 
 sense of their failure in fulfilling their 
 
 former engagements, calls upon them 
 
 to pay the tribute which was due. 
 From 2 Kings iii. 4, 5, it appears 
 that, till the death of Ahab, the king 
 of Moab rendered to the king of 
 Israel an annual tribute of a hundred 
 thousand lambs, and a hundred thou- 
 sand rams, with the wool. It is, in 
 all probability, to some such tribute, 
 which had been withheld, that refer- 
 ence is here made: 23, damb, being 
 used collectively for lambs. Comp. 2 
 Chron. xvii. 11, where we read of the 
 Arabians sending large flocks to Jeho- 
 shaphat; and 2 Sam. viii. 2. On the 
 slender authority of the Syrian version, 
 and a couple of MSS., Lowth reads 73, 
 son; and changing the tense of the 
 verb, on that of the LXX. and Syr., 
 renders, [ will send forth the son of the 
 ruler of the land. He is followed by 
 Michaelis, Déderlein, Hensler, and, in 
 part, by Dathe; but still, though 73 
 has since been found in two or three 
 additional MSS., it is not entitled to 
 adoption. “The lambs of” means, 
 the lambs dwe fo the ruler of the land, 
 i.e. of Judah. They were originally 
 sent to the king of Israel; but Isaiah 
 knew of only one legitimate king of 
 the Hebrews, whose residence was, as 
 here expressed, on Mount Zion. 
 
 By v0, Sela, “the Rock,’ LXX. 
 
CHAP, XVI.] 
 
 From Sela into the desert, 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 149 
 
 To the mountain of the daughter of Zion. 
 2 For as a fugitive bird, banished from its nest, 
 So shall the daughters of Moab be at the fords of Arnon, 
 
 [saying,] 
 
 Πέτρα, it is now generally agreed, is 
 meant the city of Petra, afterwards so 
 celebrated, anciently the metropolis 
 of Arabia Petrza, but in the posses- 
 sion of Moab at the time referred to 
 by Isaiah. Its magnificent ruins have 
 recently been discovered by Burck- 
 hardt, by whom, and by Legh, Irby, 
 and Mangles, it has been described, 
 but still more minutely by Laborde 
 and Linant, whose work contains 
 splendid engravings of the ruins. 
 Dr. Robinson has also given a very 
 minute and interesting account of it 
 in his Biblical Researches, vol. 11. pp. 
 518—534. It is situated in the Wady 
 Mousa—a valley with a stream, in the 
 mountainous district called Djebal 
 Shera, (Seir,) two long days’ journey 
 north-east of Akaba, and nearly the 
 same distance from the southern 
 extremity of the Dead Sea. Here, in 
 an area enclosed by red sandstone 
 rocks, are found mausoleums, temples, 
 statues, colonnades, obelisks, a trium- 
 phal arch, an amphitheatre, &c., all of 
 the most gigantic and imposing dimen- 
 sions. The rocks on all sides are full 
 of excavated sepulchres; and on every 
 hand are marks of ancient magnifi- 
 cence. To no place could the name of 
 Sela, or Petra, with greater propriety 
 have been applied: the foundations 
 and ruins of the houses are found on 
 both sides of the brook which flows 
 through the Wady, covering an area 
 of nearly two miles in circumference. 
 According to Burckhardt, every thing 
 indicates that a large city once existed 
 here. ‘Travels, p. 437. Besides the 
 present passage, it occurs. 2 Kings 
 xiv. 7, and, not improbably, Isa. xlii. 
 11. It is mentioned, or partly de- 
 scribed, by Diodorus Siculus, xix. 95; 
 Strabo, xvi. 4, 21; Pliny, vi. 28 or 32, 
 and freq. by Josephus. It also occurs 
 in the Acts of Councils as the see of 
 a bishop, but appears to have been 
 in ruins before the time of the Cru- 
 sades; since which period it remained 
 
 totally unnoticed till discovered by 
 Burckhardt, on his route from Damas- 
 cus to Egypt, in 1812. 
 
 The 7 in 7379 being local, has by 
 some been thought to present a diffi- 
 culty, in regard to the application of 
 the passage to the country between 
 Petra and Jerusalem; but Strabo 
 expressly states, that, beyond the 
 mountainous enclosure in which the 
 former city is situated, the whole region 
 ts a desert, and particularly that towards 
 Judea; ἔρημος ἡ πλείστη, καὶ μάλιστα 
 ἡ πρὸς ᾿Ιουδαίᾳ. Ut sup. Into and 
 through this desert it was necessary 
 to send the flocks before they could 
 reach Jerusalem. Comp. 2 Kings 
 111. 8. 
 
 2. Before j2 supply 2; thus connect- 
 ing the word with 1 ἢν, and not 
 taking M2 jp by itself, which does 
 not yield so good a sense; and the 
 adverb 13 must be understood before 
 mm. It was most likely omitted on 
 account of its agreement in sound 
 with ἢ, which occurs immediately 
 before.—axi9 ΓΞ means the Moabitish 
 females, and not the towns or villages 
 of Moab, as some interpret. In a 
 geographical description of a country, 
 and in connexion with the names of 
 towns, 123, daughters, denote the sub- 
 urban villages, or smaller towns de- 
 pendent upon them; but never in 
 connexion with the names of nations. 
 See Judg. xi. 40; Gen. xxviii. 8; 2 
 Sam.i.20. To render the case more 
 affecting, the women are represented 
 as having fled to the rightful boundary 
 of the country, and applying to the 
 Jews for protection.—pns? nN2y2, Mi- 
 chaelis improperly renders, auf’ Leiden 
 Sviten des Arnons, as if the Moabitish 
 females had taken their station on 
 both sides of the river. The formative 
 conveys here, as usual, the idea of 
 the locality in which the action ex- 
 pressed by the verb takes place, from 
 which the substantive is derived; i.e. 
 the passages, or fording places; and ths 
 
 π' 
 
150 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 3 Furnish counsel ; give decision ; 
 Yield thy shade, like that of night at mid-day ; 
 
 Conceal the outcasts ; 
 Betray not the fugitives. 
 
 connexion shews, that only the south- 
 ern bank of the Arnon is meant. 
 This river takes its rise in the moun- 
 tains of Arabia Deserta, and flows in 
 a westerly direction into the Dead 
 Sea. Its banksare described by Seetzen 
 and Burckhardt as consisting of preci- 
 pitous and barren rocks, which give it 
 a most romantic appearance. It formed 
 the northern boundary of Moab; and 
 at present, under the name of Wady 
 Mujeb, τὸ divides the province of Belka 
 from that of Karrak. The 5 in 
 yw? marks the dative of possession, 
 and is to be resolved by supplying x 
 before it. Comp. 1 Sam. xiv. 16; Job 
 xil. 6, 8—At the close of the verse, 
 ax?, saying, is omitted. See on chap. 
 111. 6. 
 
 3. This and the two following verses 
 are usually considered to bea hortatory 
 address to the Moabites, in reference 
 to their conduct towards those Jews 
 who might take refuge with them 
 during intervening periods of calamity. 
 Such exegesis is gone into at large by 
 Vitringa. It was also formerly adopted 
 by Rosenmiiller, but he has abandoned 
 it in the last edition of his Commen- 
 tary for that first suggested by Theo- 
 doret, which is advocated by Lowth, 
 Michaelis, Déderlein, Dathe, Gesenius, 
 and Hitzig; viz. that the passage con- 
 tains an application, on the part of 
 the Moabites, to the Jews for shelter 
 and protection. This interpretation 
 alone gives consistency to the passage. 
 The principal objection to it is drawn 
 from the term ‘7, ver. 4, which, 
 according to the punctuation and 
 accent, must be rendered, “ My out- 
 casts,’—a phrase which can only 
 properly apply to the Jews. Agree- 
 ably, however, to the construction 
 found in the LXX., Targ., and Syr., 
 the word is to be connected with the 
 following, thus, 28'9 ‘173, ‘he outcasts 
 of Moab. Gesenius, who, with the 
 other authorities just mentioned, 
 adopts this construction, compares a 
 similar instance of erroneous division 
 
 by the punctators, Gen. xlix. 26, where 
 we read τὸ 7, instead of 17 for WY ὙΠ. 
 
 Coverdale has, the persecuted Moabites. 
 
 The phrase 722 3837, furnish or bring 
 counsel, implies that the Moabites 
 could no longer contrive any means of 
 escape, on which account, in their 
 last extremity, they apply to the Jews 
 for advice. Comp. 2 Sam. xvi. 20.— 
 m5 is a ἅπαξ rey. Hitzig, in accord- 
 ance with the primary idea of the 
 root % 8, fo divide, renders, evercise 
 intervention, and explains the phrase 
 of the interposition of the Jews 
 between the Moabites and their ene- 
 mies; but though this interpretation 
 may seem at first view to be borne 
 out by the connexion, it is totally 
 inadmissible, on the ground of the 
 intimate relation in which 7% Wy 
 stands to 7zy wit, of the leading 
 idea conveyed by which, it is only a 
 more emphatic mode of expression. 
 The term is properly judicial; and as 
 the decisions of a judge are commonly 
 the result of wisdom and discernment, 
 and so to be depended on, the Moabit- 
 ish fugitives wished to have a decision 
 on which they might rely, advice 
 which they might safely follow.—— 
 myo md, Though $3 is placed before 
 bz, it is to be construed with what 
 follows. The protection yielded by 
 the Jews to the suppliants would be 
 as the coolness of night, if it could be 
 enjoyed during the intensity of meri- 
 dian heat. War and persecution are, 
 in Scripture, frequently compared to 
 fire or heat. No emphasis is to be 
 sought for in 7\n3; it is merely in this 
 and similar cases a synonyme for 3.— 
 Instead of 3727 and Wy, the Keri 
 reads, ἜΣ and ‘wy in the fem. singular, 
 which is the gender and number of 
 the other verbs in the verse. Though 
 at first view they might seem to be a 
 correction of some editor or copyist, 
 for the purpose of producing uni- 
 formity ; yet, as they are respectably 
 supported, there is reason to believe 
 
CHAP. XVI.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 151 
 
 4 Let the outcasts of Moab dwell with thee ; 
 Be to them a shelter from the destroyer : 
 
 For the oppressors shall fail, 
 
 And the destruction shall be finished, 
 And those who trod us down consumed from the land. 
 5 Thus shall the throne be established in mercy, 
 And there shall sit thereon in truth, in the tabernacle of David, 
 A Judge, who will attend to justice, 
 
 And be prompt in equity. 
 
 6 We have heard of the haughtiness of Moab—he is very 
 
 haughty— 
 
 His haughtiness and his pride and his insolence : 
 
 False are his pretensions. 
 
 they exhibit the original reading. 
 27, found in nine MSS., and originally 
 in two more, and the reading of the 
 Complut. Bible, has the suftrages of 
 the LXX., Targ., Syr., Vulg., and Arab. ; 
 ‘vy is the reading of fifty-five MSS., 
 and originally of one more; the an- 
 cient, and a number of subsequent 
 editions, and is borne out by the 
 LXX., Syr., Targ., and Vulg. The 
 sense is the same according to both 
 readings. 
 
 4, For 189 ὙΠῚ), see on the pre- 
 ceding verse.—The rest of the verse 
 anticipates the destruction of the 
 Babylonian invader, and the return of 
 the Moabites to their own land, here 
 called yIN7. Υ is the part. of jy", Zo 
 press, oppress. Comp. Ὁ, Prov. xxx. 
 33.—DD is a particip. noun collective, 
 and so agreeing with 79m in the plural. 
 
 5. The ) at the beginning of the 
 sentence is inferential, and introduces 
 the apodosis to the appeal made in 
 the two preceding verses. “ Render 
 us the protection we solicit, and your 
 doing so will, iz consequence, tarn to 
 your own benefit; the exercise of 
 kindness will secure the prosperity 
 and perpetuity of the Davidic throne, 
 and the happiness of all the subjects 
 of the Jewish state.” The fugitives 
 urge this consequence as an induce- 
 ment to the Jews to afford them 
 shelter.—1 57k is the same as ΤῊ 20, 
 Amos ix, 11, and 1 ™3, Isa. vii. 2, 13. 
 —That 707, éinduess, is used of human 
 clemency, as well as of the Divine, 
 
 requires no proof. Comp. 2 Sam. x. 
 2; Hos. vi. 6; Micah vi. 8.’ The retri- 
 butive influence of its exercise upon 
 the throne is taught by Solomon, 
 Prov. xx. 28. Though 707 and nox 
 frequently occur in connexion with 
 each other, and both terms are em- 
 ployed in the present verse, and the 
 one may have been suggested by the 
 other, yet they are too far apart to 
 admit of the usual construction. ΤῸΝ, 
 truth, is to be construed along with 
 avy, and is expressive of perpetuity. 
 Comp. D728) and 7283, Deut. xxviii. 
 
 59.—017, in such connexion, signifies 
 to be assiduous in application, to be occu- 
 pied with, attend to, any thing—?Ts V2 
 is to be quick or ready in matters of 
 equity, prompt in giving a righteous 
 decision. 
 
 6, This verse contains the grounds 
 of the refusal which the Moabites 
 should meet with from the Jews: the 
 proud rebellious spirit which the 
 nation of Moab had cherished, and 
 the hollowness of its pretensions, 
 with respect to its future relation to 
 the Jewish state,—Four different 
 forms of the same word are here 
 employed, the more emphatically to 
 express the overbearing pride of the 
 Moabites. With the use of the 
 adopted French word haufeur, it may 
 be imitated thus: “We have heard 
 of the haughtiness of Moab; (he is 
 very haughty;) his high-mindedness, 
 and. his hauteur, and his insolence.”— 
 Ὁ is not here a particle of comparison, 
 
152 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 7 Therefore Moab may howl for Moab, 
 
 The whole of it may howl; 
 
 For the ruins of Kir-Hareseth ye may moan, 
 
 Wholly afflicted. 
 
 8 For the fields of Heshbon are withered ; 
 
 As for the vine of Sibmah, 
 
 but a participial adjective, signifying 
 Jirm, right, true: 8, unstable, untrue, 
 Jilse. O73, mere talk, pretensions, boast- 
 ings, from 113, to talk idly, babble, Arab. 
 
 AY or ad, to originate, produce some- 
 
 thing new, and by an easy transition, 
 to speak falsely, feignedly, &c. Comp. 
 Job xi. 3; and for parallels, Jer. xlviii. 
 29; Zeph. ii. 8—10. 
 
 7. 122, therefore, i.e. on account of the 
 refusal of the Jews to give an asylum 
 to the Moabites, the latter would 
 abandon themselves to renewed lamen- 
 tation, nop, Air-hareseth, another 
 name for Avr-Moab, chap. xv. 1, and 
 written, WV, Kir-heres, ver. 11. It 
 is mentioned 2 Kings iii. 25; and, 
 from its being there stated, that the 
 Hebrews “left the stones thereof,” 
 when they subdued it, it is clear that 
 wy 15 adopted into the name on 
 account of the baked bricks with 
 which the wall was built. The word 
 otherwise signifies an earthen vessel, 
 or fragments of the same.— Dx, 
 Joundations, is changed, Jer. xlviii. 31, 
 into "28, men, which Lowth, Dathe, 
 and Boothroyd, adopt. The LXX., 
 too, have τοῖς κατοικοῦσι; but it is 
 evident that the difference of reading 
 is to be traced to the derivation of 
 ower, from wx, and its being consi- 
 dered as a reduplicate form of Dx, 
 for which was substituted the more 
 common form ox. As, however, 
 there is no various reading in the 
 text of Isaiah, the laws of criticism 
 require that we endeavour to ascertain 
 the meaning of the word; and, if it 
 can be ascertained, to translate and 
 interpret it accordingly. Now it so 
 happens, that the Syriac version, in 
 preserving, in a great measure, the 
 form of the original term, has likewise 
 
 preserved its signification. Δα] 
 9 
 
 to which corresponds the Chald. inwR, 
 
 Ezra iv. 12, v. 16, and the Heb. nite, 
 Jer. 1. 15, signifies foundations, and 
 thus harmonizes with the Arab. 
 
 Ll, Lele, Jundamentum  struc- 
 ture, &e. Gol. κἱ, in the 2d conj. 
 
 signifies, fo make firm, found, ἕο. 'To 
 this interpretation Rosenmiller re- 
 turns in his last edition, and it is 
 adopted by Winer, Gesenius, and Hit- 
 zig. The meaning of the prophet, 
 therefore, is, that the Moabites would 
 specially mourn on account of the 
 destruction of their principal fortress, 
 —nothing being left but the fownda- 
 tions, or 7uins.—O'ND) FX is to be referred, 
 not to Dwwx, immediately preceding, 
 —the verb 823=12), to smite, beat down, 
 being inapplicable to foundations,— 
 but to the Moabites, the nominative 
 to the verb 77. The particle x, 
 before adjectives, signifies, only, wholly, 
 entirely, as Deut. xvi. 15. 
 
 8. 3 introduces a statement which 
 contains additional reasons for the 
 lamentation.—— ox — ΠΟΘ, a fem. 
 plural construed with a mascul. sing. 
 verb; forming one of those instances 
 in which, as Ewald expresses it, the 
 sense predominates over the external 
 grammatical form. Comp. Hab. iii. 
 17. 78 occurs only in the plural, 
 and but seldom. It is not found in 
 any of the cognate dialects; but the 
 connexions in which it is used suffi- 
 ciently vouch for the meaning of fields, 
 occupied either with grain or vines. 
 That the latter are here intended, is 
 clear from what follows.—722¥, S7d- 
 mah, according to Jerome, was only 
 half a Roman mile distant from Hesh- 
 bon, and is mentioned on account of 
 the superior excellence of its grapes. 
 Seetzen found the vine still cultivated 
 in those parts.—As the verb 027 is 
 unquestionably used metaphorically 
 in reference to intoxication, chap. 
 
CHAP. XVI.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 153 
 
 The lords of the nations have broken down its noble branches ; 
 They reached unto Jazer; they strayed into the desert ; 
 Its tendrils spread themselves out, 
 
 They passed over to the sea. 
 
 9 Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of 
 
 Sibmah ; 
 
 I will make thee wet with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh ; 
 For upon thy summer and thy harvest falleth the battle-shout. 
 10 Joy and exultation are taken away from the fruitful field ; 
 
 xm. os) Prov, xxii ao; Lowth, 
 Jenour, and others, suppose it to be 
 employed in the same acceptation 
 here, and render, “ overpowered,” or 
 “made drunk, the lords of the nations ;” 
 but such a construction cannot be 
 justified from the context, which re- 
 quires something to be expressed in 
 this clause, to correspond to the 
 withering of the fields in the preceding. 
 The word properly signifies, to deat or 
 strike with a hammer; hence ΠΡΌΣ, a 
 hammer; and well expresses in this 
 place the havoc made by the Babylo- 
 nians, who were at the time, D2 °2P3, 
 the holders of all but universal empire. 
 —The rest of the verse describes in 
 highly poetic language the luxuriant 
 growth of the vines. In order to their 
 propagation, they needed no props, 
 but stretched spontaneously in the 
 direction of Jazer and the Arabian 
 desert, towards the east, and in that 
 of the Dead Sea, towards the west. 
 um, Jazer, is placed by Eusebius ten 
 Roman miles westward of Philadelphia, 
 the ancient capital of the Ammonites, 
 and fifteen from Heshbon. Its re- 
 mains are supposed to be those men- 
 tioned by Seetzen, under the name of 
 
 hes Ssir. The 0, sea, spoken of, is 
 
 by some interpreted of a lake or sea in 
 the vicinity of Jazer; but as there is 
 no appearance of any in that region, it 
 seems preferable to refer it to the 
 Dead Sea, the only water which, in 
 such connexion, deserves the name. 
 It is true, the reading in Jer. xlviii. 
 32 is, WOW Ὁ HI, they pass over the 
 sea; to the sea Jazer, &c.; but there is 
 reason to believe the second = is an 
 interpolation. It is omitted in two of 
 Kennicott’s MSS., and was not read by 
 
 the LXX.—The phrase 129 does 
 not mean that the vines actually shot 
 across the sea; that scions were con- 
 veyed thither for plantation; or that 
 the wine was transported thither for 
 use: but simply indicates that they 
 passed on fo it .as their limit. That 
 av may signify, fo pass over an interven- 
 ing space, before reaching what is 
 pointed out by the following accusa- 
 tive, is clear, from chap. xxxi. 9; Jer. 
 ii. 10; Amos vi. 2; and that such 
 must be the meaning here, is equally 
 clear, from the use of the adverb ἽΡ in 
 the preceding line. The LXX., under- 
 standing the word in this sense, ren- 
 der: διέβησαν yap πρὸς τὴν θάλασσαν. 
 
 9. The weeping of Jazer, means the 
 great distress of the inhabitants of 
 that city, on account of the destruc- 
 tion of the vines by which they were 
 plentifully supplied with grapes and 
 wine. It is not unlikely that their 
 means of subsistence were chiefly 
 derived from this source.— "8 is the 
 Piel of ™, to drink, satiate; by trans- 
 position, for ΣΝ, fo saturate with 
 moisture.—1T0 is used in two different 
 senses in this and the following verse. 
 Here it signifies the victorious shout of 
 the enemy; but in ver. 10, the joyful 
 shout or acclamation of the vintagers 
 treading the grapes. The former had 
 taken the place of the latter. Rosen- 
 
 miller compares the Arab. Xs, which _ 
 is chiefly used of the noise made by 
 the sea upon the shore; hence ἕω, 
 thunder. Lowth’s emendation of V3? 
 and 7 into v2 and 77% cannot be 
 sustained. 
 
 10. "92, see chap. x. 18. YY, not 
 from Yy3, but the Palel of 24, which in 
 
 Ξ- τὸ 
 
ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 And in the vineyard is no joyful cry, no shouting ; 
 The treader treadeth not the wine in the vats; 
 The vintage-shout I have made to ¢ease. 
 
 11 
 
 Therefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab ; 
 
 My inward parts for Kir-Hares. 
 
 12 And it shall come to pass that though Moab present himself, 
 Though he weary himself upon the high place, 
 And enter into his sanctuary to pray, 
 
 Yet he shall not prevail. 
 13 
 14 
 
 This is the word which Jehovah spake concerning Moab of 
 .old; but now Jehovah speaketh, saying, 
 
 Within three years, as the years of a hireling, 
 The nobility of Moab shall be diminished, 
 With the whole of the great multitude ; 
 
 Hiphil, Palel, and Hithpalel, is em- 
 ployed in the sense of shouting, making 
 a loud or joyful noise. On 3x, see chap. 
 v.2. In Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyp- 
 tians, vol. 11. p. 152, and Rosellini’s 
 Monuments of Egypt, are representa- 
 tions of persons treading out the 
 grapes. Some six or seven, holding by 
 as many ropes suspended from a com- 
 mon hook in the ceiling, stamp in the 
 press or upper trough, and thus press 
 out the juice, which flows into the 
 troughs below. 
 
 11. Comp. Jer. iv. 19, xxxi. 20. In 
 Hebrew, Oy? is often used in cases in 
 which we should say, breast, bosom, 
 &e.; but it is quite the language of 
 nature. 
 
 12. Gesenius observes a parono- 
 masia in 793, and m872,—the simple 
 variation in sound being produced by 
 the different liquids Ἢ and >. In the 
 combination, however, of the two 
 terms, there is nothing of that draw- 
 ling with which he charges the con- 
 struction; for, as he himself shews, 
 the former is the appropriate word by 
 which to express the appearance of 
 men before their God for the purpose 
 of worship, &c.; and the latter ex- 
 presses the fruitless fatigue and trouble 
 to which idolaters submit in worship- 
 ping a deity from which no aid can be 
 obtained. Comp. 1 Kings xviii. 26, 
 ὅθ. For the same reason, we must 
 reject Secker’s conjecture, that 72% 
 is an interpolation. 
 
 13, 14. That these verses refer to 
 two distinct prophecies cannot be 
 disputed. The only difficulty respects 
 the time of their delivery. Hither the 
 words are those of Isaiah, in which 
 case he specifies two different periods 
 at which he received oracular an- 
 nouncements to deliver against Moab, 
 or, as Hitzig supposes, a prophecy 
 delivered by some more ancient pro- 
 phet, which Isaiah quotes, and then 
 adds the definite specification of time 
 with respect to its fulfilment; or they 
 are those of a later prophet, whom 
 the Lord employed to repeat the 
 words of Isaiah three years before the 
 completion of the prophecy. That 
 the latter is the more probable bypo- 
 thesis, appears from the use of the 
 word w», from that time, which never 
 stands absolutely, as here, except to 
 denote anciently, at some remote former 
 time. Considering, indeed, the long 
 period during which Isaiah prophe- 
 sied, it is quite possible that he may 
 have received the two predictions, 
 with a long interval between ; but the 
 expression would be more appropriate 
 in the mouth of a prophet who 
 flourished upwards of a hundred years 
 after his death. Besides, we know of 
 no invasion of Moab, or destruction 
 of its cities, in the time of Isaiah; 
 and the appropriation of his prophecy 
 by Jeremiah to what was still future 
 at the time the latter prophet wrote, 
 affords convincing proof that the 
 
CHAP. XVII.| 
 
 And the remnant shall be very small and powerless. 
 
 same events are predicted by both. 
 It may, therefore, be concluded, that 
 the words were added, by Divine 
 inspiration, through the instrument- 
 ality of some prophet who lived within 
 three years of the Babylonian invasion, 
 
 —VId 120, the years of an hireling, denote 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 φ 
 
 which the hired labourer is to perform 
 his work, and beyond which it will not 
 be protracted—22, which commonly 
 signifies glory, is here, as contrasted 
 with 7129, the multitude, to be taken in 
 the sense of nobility, or honourable men. 
 Comp. chap. v. 14. 
 
 the pertain, Jjived, or definite time in 
 ---- 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 THE SENTENCE OF DAMASCUS. 
 
 Chapters xvii. and xviii. form another connected prophecy, but contain matter 
 relating to several nations. The whole is entitled, “The Sentence of 
 Damascus,” because it commences with denunciations against that power, 
 1—3; but the fate of Ephraim is almost insensibly mixed up with it, on 
 account of the confederacy which existed between them, 3—6. The bene- 
 ficial effects of the Divine judgments upon the remaining Israelites are 
 described, 7, 8; and then, 9—11, a more affecting description is given of 
 these judgments, and their cause expressly stated. We have next, 12—14, 
 an exhibition of the Assyrian army rushing forward against Jerusalem, and 
 its sudden and miraculous destruction. To this wonderful intervention of 
 Jehovah for the deliverance of his people, the attention of the nations, and 
 especially of Egypt and Ethiopia, is summoned, xviii. 1—3; a highly 
 wrought metaphorical description of the discomfiture of Sennacherib, with 
 whom the Ethiopians were at war, is then presented, 4—6 ; and the section 
 concludes with a prediction of presents which that people would, in conse- 
 quence, forward to Jerusalem, in honour of the true God, 7. 
 
 The different parts of the prophecy cohere both in point of subjects and 
 chronology. The destruction of Damascus was effected by Tiglath-pileser, 
 B. C. 736, who immediately thereon invaded the kingdom of Israel, and 
 carried away many of the inhabitants into Media and Assyria. The punish- 
 ment of the latter kingdom was still further inflicted by the Assyrian 
 power, under Shalmaneser, B.c. 722; and within twenty years afterwards, 
 Sennacherib undertook his celebrated expedition against Tirhakah, king of 
 Ethiopia, and Hezekiah, king of Judah, when, as here predicted, his army 
 was completely overthrown by the miraculous power of Jehovah, and he 
 returned to Nineveh, See chap. xxxvii. 36, 37. 
 
 1 Bexoip, Damascus shall be removed from being a city ; 
 
 1. pw97, in the Books of Chronicles now commonly Las), Damascus, the 
 
 poo, Syr. econo}, Arab. ened, metropolis of Western Arama, or 
 
156 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XVII. 
 
 And shall become a heap of ruins. 
 2 The cities of Aroer shall be deserted ; 
 
 They shall be for flocks, 
 
 Which shall lie down, and none shall alarm them. 
 3 And the fortress shall cease from Ephraim, 
 And the kingdom from Damascus and the rest of Syria; 
 
 As the glory of the children of Israel shall they be, 
 
 Saith Jehovah of Hosts. 
 
 Syria. It was a city in the days of 
 Abraham, Gen. xiv. 15, xv. 2. Its 
 kings, after the time of Solomon, were 
 frequently engaged in hostilities with 
 the Jewish and Israelitish monarchs ; 
 and at length, in the reign of Pekah, 
 entered into a confederacy with that 
 usurper against Judah. It suffered 
 most severely during the invasion of 
 Tiglath-pileser, by whom the popula- 
 tion were removed beyond the river 
 Kur, in the north of Media. After 
 this, its fates have been various, in 
 the time of the Greeks, Romans, Ara- 
 bians, Saracens, Crusaders, and Turks, 
 by whom it has been successively con- 
 quered. It is now in the hands of the 
 Egyptians, and is the capital of a 
 pashalic of the same name. It is situ- 
 ated on the Chrysorrhoas, now called 
 Barady, in a large and beautiful plain, 
 atthe foot of Antilibanus, and is one 
 of the most opulent cities of hither 
 Asia. The population amounts to 
 upwards of 100,000.—12, before the 
 participle 197%, indicates futurity ; see 
 chap. vii. 14; Gen. 1. 5; 2 Sam. xx. 
 21; Jer. xxvii. 16, xxxvili. 22. 
 yyp= Ty nvm, from being a city, 1.6. 50 
 as not to be what it had been; but on 
 the contrary, Ὁ, a heap. This latter 
 word, which occurs only here, is equi- 
 valent to, a heap of ruins, and both are 
 derived from τῆν, /o overthrow, destroy. 
 The peculiar form ‘?9 is purposely 
 chosen, to make it correspond to Vy», 
 and so to produce a paronomasia. 
 
 2, wv ~w the LXX. render εἰς τὸν 
 αἰῶνα, as if their copy had read 1772y. 
 This rendering Lowth adopts, on the 
 grounds, that neither of the two cities 
 called Aroer, in the tribe of Gad, and 
 on the Arnon, can have anything to 
 do with Damascus; and that “the 
 cities of Aroer,” if Aroer is itself a 
 
 city, makes no good sense. It is clear, 
 however, from 1 Kings xxii. 3, and 2 
 Kings x. 33, that the Syrians of 
 Damascus smote the Israelites in the 
 whole of the mountainous tract be- 
 tween the Arnon and Bashan; and 
 they may have been in possession of 
 the principal towns at the time Isaiah 
 prophesied, But it is not necessary 
 to connect what is contained in this 
 verse with Damascus. It rather refers 
 to the removal of the Israelites who 
 occupied the country beyond the Jor- 
 dan by ‘Tiglath-pileser, recorded 2 
 Kings xv. 29; where, it is obvious, 
 Gilead is to be taken in its most ex- 
 tensive sense, as comprehending all 
 the territory just mentioned. This 
 depopulation the prophet foretells, 
 after having predicted the destruction 
 of Damascus, and then proceeds, in 
 the third verse, to combine the two 
 confederate states in the same over- 
 throw. The phrase Wi "2, the cities of 
 Aroer, is just as intelligible as ji2e7 
 Ww, Heshbon and all her cities, Josh. 
 xiil. 17; reference being had in both 
 cases to other towns in the vicinity 
 connected with, or dependent upon 
 them. 
 
 3. By the fortress of Ephraim, some 
 understand Damascus, on account of 
 the aid which that city afforded to the 
 ten tribes ; but the juxta-position in 
 which it stands with the kingdom 
 of Damascus, immediately following, 
 shews that Samaria and other fortified 
 places must be meant. Comp. Hos. 
 x. 14.—The most natural division of 
 the verse is that made by the Maso- 
 rites, and adopted in our common 
 version, by placing the Athnach under 
 daw. This of course renders altogether 
 nugatory the conjecture of Houbigant, 
 which Lowth follows, by which πὸ is 
 
CHAP. XVII. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 157 
 
 4 And it shall come to pass in that day: 
 The glory of Jacob shall be brought low ; 
 And the fatness of his flesh become lean, 
 5 And it shall be as when a harvest-man gathereth the standing 
 
 corn, 
 
 And reapeth the ears with his arm ; 
 It shall even be as the gleaning of ears, 
 
 In the valley of Rephaim. 
 
 For gleanings shall be left in it, as in the olive-harvest ; 
 
 Two or three berries on the top of a high tree; 
 
 Four or five on the branches of one that is fruitful ; 
 Saith Jehovah, the God of Israel. 
 
 to be changed into nxv. “The glory 
 of the children of Israel” means, not 
 their glory in the plenitude of its pos- 
 session, but in its diminished and, 
 reduced state, as described in the 
 following verse. Both kingdoms were 
 to share the same fate. 
 
 4, apy, Jacob, is here used in a re- 
 stricted sense, in application to the 
 ten tribes. Comp. Hos. xii. 2; Micah 
 i.5. For the rest of the verse, com- 
 pare chap. x. 16; only, in the present 
 case, the metaphor is not to be con- 
 fined to the captains of the Israelitish 
 army, but comprehends the rich and 
 prosperous portion of the community. 
 
 5. ὍΣ, harvest, may stand for Ux 
 Y32, a harvestman, or it may be taken 
 as a noun adjective with the same sig- 
 nification, like ΘῈΣ, 122, ΤΌΤ, &c. Before 
 yt supply 3. Comp. 3, Ps. xxiii. 2. 
 The different actions of the reaper 
 and gleaner are designed to convey 
 the idea of total consumption. Such 
 metaphorical allusions to the harvest, 
 in reference to the destruction of the 
 inhabitants of a country, are frequent 
 in Scripture—The valley of Rephaim 
 lay to the south-west of Jerusalem, 
 but near it, on the confines of Judah 
 and Benjamin. It was about fifteen 
 stadia in extent, and of great fertility. 
 Its name appears to have been de- 
 rived from its having been originally 
 occupied by a section of the ancient 
 Canaanitish giants. Comp. Josh. xv. 
 8; 2Sam. v. 18, 22, xxiii. 13, 
 
 6. In order still farther to set forth 
 the extent of the devastation, but yet 
 
 to intimate, that, in the sparing mercy 
 of God, some few of the inhabitants 
 should be left, the prophet borrows 
 an image from the olive-harvest.—i3 
 refers to 27%, ver. 4.—ni%¥, gleanings, 
 from Ὧν, to do any thing a second time, 
 
 to do it thoroughly ; Arab. Je, biben- 
 
 dum dedit secunda vice, post priorem 
 haustum, 2d ΟΠ]. ; bibit iterum ite- 
 rumque, ef ita carpsit fructus, Gol. For 
 the enallage generis, see chap. xvi. 8. 
 —™1 Fp, lit. the beating of the olive-tree, 
 in allusion to the mode of reaping the 
 olives, by beating the branches with a 
 stick, and thus causing the berries to 
 fall off. In such a process, it often 
 happens that a few are left unobserved 
 by the reapers. Comp. Deut. xxiv. 
 20; Isa. xxvii. 12, where 027 is em- 
 ployed to denote the same action.— 
 on, derries generally, here olives or 
 
 olive-bexries. Chald, 272; Arab. 5:15. 
 
 faba, but used here by Saadias for 
 olives. It seems properly to be an 
 intensive form of 73, a small corn, 
 bean, berry, or grain.— V8, a towering 
 branch; UXX. ἐπ’ ἄκρου μετεώρου ; 
 Vulg. ix summitate rami. The etymo- 
 logy of the word is best illustrated by 
 
 reference to the Arab. peel 9 Emir, duc, 
 
 princeps, one who is at the head of 
 others.—The 7 in 72x may be the 
 suffix anticipative of 7, more Ara- 
 maico; or the words ought to be 
 divided and read thus: 57 ‘pyD, 
 Before 7 is an ellipsis of Υϑ or ™. 
 
 U 
 
158 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 7 In that day shall a man have regard to his Maker, 
 And his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel : 
 
 8 And he shall not have regard to the altars, the work of his hands, 
 Nor look to the things which his fingers have made— 
 
 7,8. Under the pressure of calamity, 
 the remnant of the people would be 
 brought to a conviction of the folly of 
 idolatry, and abandon its rites for 
 the worship and service of the true 
 6οα.--πνῷ, Ger. schauen, among other 
 significations, denotes fo look to any one 
 for help—The in DAT OWN is to 
 be rendered distr ibutively : either—or. 
 Comp. Exod. xxi. 17. These two words 
 describe the principal objects of Pha- 
 nician and Syrian idolatry, as artificial 
 representatives of their prototypes in 
 the planetary system: the one class 
 of images representing Baa/, or the 
 Sun ; and the other, ds/ar/e, the Moon, 
 or Venus. 77x, of which νῶν is the 
 mas. plur, (ΘΟ or O°"D3, émuges, being 
 understood), has most commonly been 
 rendered groves; and, from the fact 
 that groves were anciently chosen for 
 purposes of religious, and especially 
 of idolatrous worship, it has generally 
 been maintained by expositors that 
 such are here meant. It has, how- 
 ever, been shewn by various authors, 
 and especially, of late, by Gesenius, 
 that this signification will not suit 
 many of the passages in which the 
 term occurs ; and that, in others, the 
 idea of a grove is next to absurd. 
 There is nothing in the word itself, 
 etymologically considered, or in any 
 of its cognates, that would suggest 
 such an idea. Nor is the acceptation 
 temple or shrine, one whit better sup- 
 ported. Though commonly rendered 
 ἄλσος by the LXX., whence, through 
 the Vulg., the signification of grove 
 has crept into the modern versions, 
 yet they have rendered 71x by ᾽Ασ- 
 τάρτη, 2 Chron. xv.16; ᾿Αστάρται, XXIV. 
 18. Aq. and Symm. “have also more 
 than once translated it in the same 
 way; and even the Vulg. itself has 
 Astaroth for nivdx, the fem. plur. form, 
 Judg. iii. 7. To the interpretation 
 which would assign Asfarle as the 
 meaning, it may be objected, that this 
 goddess is called πῦρ, Ashtoreth, in 
 Scripture, and her images, ninavy, 
 
 Ashtaroth; but itis no unusual thing in 
 mythology for gods to have more than 
 one name, all of which, however, are 
 significative of some peculiar quality 
 or operation. With respect to njnAvy, 
 it is now a settled point, that it cor- 
 
 responds to the Persic sin, and the 
 Zabian Syriac 13 δου], and signifies the 
 
 Star, 1. e. by way of eminence, in a 
 religious point of view. Mx, on the 
 other hand, signifies fortune, happiness, | 
 or the goddess by whom they were 
 conferred. This the Phcenicians and 
 Syrians considered to be Venus, or the 
 female generative principle, the com- 
 panion and spouse of Baal, or the sun : 
 though, according to Lucian, De Dea 
 Syr. 4, and Herodian, V. vi. 10, the 
 Moon had this honour ascribed to her. 
 
 The late Dr. Minter was of opinion, 
 that originally the Moon was wor- 
 shipped under the name of Astarte, 
 but that, in process of time, it came 
 to be transferred by the licentious 
 Syrians to Venus. The word thus 
 agrees with the Heb. Wx, Ws, Aappi- 
 ness, and the verb Wx, fo go forward, 
 prosper, be happy, &c. The worship of 
 this goddess was destructive of female 
 virtue, and otherwise consisted of 
 many licentious rites. Her image had 
 the form of a woman, with the head 
 and horns of a bull, to which there is 
 an evident allusion in the very ancient 
 name, Ashteroth-Karnaim, i.e. the two- 
 horned Ashteroth, Gen. xiv.5. From 
 the frequent references made to this | 
 worship in the Old Testament, it is 
 clear that the Hebrews, especially the 
 ten tribes, whose territory bordered on 
 Pheenicia and Syria, were, at times, 
 
 much addicted to 1Ὁ.-- 91, the other 
 term here employed, is derived from 
 
 oon, to be hot; hence ΠΌΤ, the solar 
 heat, Ps. xix. 7, and the Szx himself, 
 
 Job xxx. 28; Isa. xxiv. 23, xxx. 26: 
 That images or statues erected for the 
 worship of the Sun are meant, is 
 placed beyond all doubt by Gesenius, 
 
CHAP. XVII. ] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 The images of Astarte, or the pillars of the Sun. 
 9 In that day his fortified cities shall be 
 Like what is left of the thickets and the tall forests, 
 Which were left before the children of Israel : 
 Yea, each of them shall be desolate. 
 
 in his recent work on Pheenician lite- 
 rature. On a stone found in Malta, 
 is the Punic inscription, j28 2am 5y2, 70 
 Baal Hamén, a stone. Another reads: 
 Δ ὙΠ ὮΝ MT bya ΣΥΝ) 2 2) nbn an? 
 ον 32 eT mnw, To our Lady 
 Tholath, and our Lord Baal Hamdan, a 
 man vows to the goddess of fortune—the 
 writer—Ben Ebed-milkar ; and so others 
 that might be- quoted. These two 
 inscriptions not only contain the word 
 of our text, and that in connexion 
 with Baal, but the latter has likewise 
 Astaroth and Gad, both denoting For- 
 tune in an idolatrous sense. See Isa. 
 lxv. 11, where ἼΣ15 improperly rendered 
 troop in the common translation, <Ac- 
 cording to Spencer, 11. 25, the most 
 ancient images of the Sun erected by 
 the Egyptians, Syrians, and Pheeni- 
 cians, were conical or pyramidal in 
 shape, resembling arising flame. Aiéos 
 δὲ Tis ἐστι μέγιστος, κάτωθεν περιφερής, 
 λήγων εἰς ὀξύτητα: κωνοειδὲς αὐτῷ σχῆμα 
 μέλαινά τε ἡ χροία. Herodian. V. 11]. 
 10. Besides the present instance, 
 ons and Dy are combined, chap. 
 xxvil. 9, and in connexion with D%y3, 
 2 Chron. xxxiv. 4, 7. 
 
 9. The suffix in 1¥9, refers to Jacob, 
 ver. 4. The rest of the verse involves 
 no small difficulty. . The ancient trans- 
 lators, as well as the moderns, have 
 been perplexed by it. Aq. renders 
 wasn wim, festa et Emir; Symam. sylva 
 et Amir ; Theod. Ars, or Hores et Amir. 
 The LXX. reversing the order of the 
 words : of ᾿Αμοῤῥαῖοι καὶ of Evaiot, i. 6. 
 the Amorites and the Hivites, which is 
 adopted by boththe Lowths, Michaelis, 
 Struensee, Koppe, Dathe, Eichhorn, 
 and Boothroyd. This rendering is, 
 however, decidedly and justly rejected 
 by Déderlein, Gesenius, and Hitzig, as 
 having no foundation in the Hebrew 
 text. The Syr., Saad., and Hitzig, 
 consider the words to be the names of 
 places; yet as 1 clearly appears, 
 from Ezek, xxxi.3; 1 Sam. xxiii. 15, 
 
 16; 2 Chron. xxvii. 4, to signify ὦ 
 dense wood, thicket, or such like ; comp. 
 
 Chald. xtvn, Sam. YX, wood ; 
 
 and as YX occurs, ver. 6, in the 
 sense of a fall tree, it is most natural 
 to assign to it the same signification 
 in this place: so that, regarded as 
 collective nouns, the former will de- 
 note such woods as consist of low 
 trees or shrubs, the intertwisting 
 branches of which form thickets ; and 
 the latter, forests of tall and stately 
 trees, as cedars, pines, &c. There is 
 at least more consistency in this in- 
 terpretation than in that of Gesenius, 
 who considers the latter word to sig- 
 nify the summit of a mountain— 
 my Ws, lit. which they left; but as 
 there is no antecedent, it 1s better to 
 render the verb passively, as Job vii. 
 3, xxxii. 15. See Gesen. Lehrgeb. p. 
 798; Luke xii. 20. At the same time, 
 there seems no reason to doubt, that 
 reference is had to the native Canaan- 
 ites who were compelled to abandon 
 their country on its occupation by 
 the Hebrews ; so that 82 1212 forms a 
 constructio preguans,—“which they left, 
 (when they fled,) before the children 
 of Israel;” or, passively, “which 
 were left,” when they, i.e. the Canaan- 
 ites, fled before, &c. The allusion is to 
 the woods and forests, which covered 
 a great part of the country, at the 
 time the Israelites took possession οἵ 
 it, but which had afterwards, with 
 few exceptions, been cut down. So it 
 should be with the fortified cities of 
 Israel—mn, the fem. sing. though 
 construed with Ὁ, the plur. mas., 
 because the subjects spoken of are in- 
 animate. Such construction of the 
 plural, technically called the pluralis 
 inhumanus, is predominant in Arabic. 
 Other Hebrew instances occur, Ps: 
 XXXviil. 31; Job xiv. 19, xxxix, 14. 
 See Gesen. Lehrgeb. p. 719. 
 
100 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, 
 And hast not remembered the Rock of thy strength ; 
 Therefore thou mayest plant pleasant plants, 
 
 And set a foreign shoot. 
 11 
 
 In the day when thou plantest it, thou mayest hedge it in ; 
 
 And in the morning, what thou hast set may blossom ; 
 But the harvest shall flee away, 
 In the day of pain and desperate grief. 
 
 12 
 
 Ho! the noise of many peoples, 
 
 They make a noise like the noise of seas ; 
 
 The roaring of nations, 
 
 Like the roaring of mighty waters, they roar. 
 
 13 
 roar, 
 
 As for the nations, like the roaring of many waters they may 
 
 But he shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far away ; 
 
 10. In yo there is a reference to 
 hyn, ver. 9. If the Israelites had 
 served Jehovah, they would -have 
 found in him that defence which none 
 of their fortified cities could yield 
 them ; but having forsaken him, they 
 had nothing to expect but disappoint- 
 ment and misery.—The fem. gender 
 is here introduced, and continued to 
 the end of the following verse, which 
 closes the section. OY, of common 
 gender, is understood.—vz, Rock, is 
 frequently employed metaphorically as 
 a Divine name. See Deut. xxxii. 4, 
 15, 18, 30, 31 ; Isa. xxvi. 4; 1 Cor. x. 
 4, The antithesis between the true 
 God, and the “pleasant plants” and 
 “foreign shoots,” clearly shews, that 
 by the latter are meant the idols which 
 the Israelites had imported from Phoe- 
 nicia and Syria, and the sinful alliances 
 and gratifications connected with their 
 worship. 793, is a collective.—»n, Zo 
 sow, is here, as chap. xl, 24, used for 
 planting. 
 
 11. -x070n, the Pilpel of 2%, the 
 same as JR, AD, 72v, to hedge, surround 
 
 with a hedge, Arab. rom coronatus, et re 
 
 aliqua, tanquam corona, cinctus fuit. 
 The derivation from 22% cannot be sus- 
 tained.—»¥ in the sense of sapling or 
 scion. Comp. on 3, ver. 10.—7 is the 
 Benon. participle of 1), fo flee away, 
 
 vanish, and strikingly expresses the 
 complete disappearance of all the ad- 
 vantages which the Israelites expected 
 from their idolatrous connexions. In- 
 stead of these, they were to reap pain 
 and sorrow of the severest description. 
 ——im. The close connexion in which 
 this word stands with tx 1x2, shews 
 that it is not to be taken in the sense 
 of possession, from 2, but is a parti- 
 ciple noun fem. in Niph. from ΠΤ, ¢o 
 be sick, in pain, &c., only the Hateph- 
 Patach must be changed into Sheva. 
 Thus 7m, Jer. xiv, 17, xxx. 12, and 
 two of the Erfurt Codices, have the 
 same punctuation in this place. In 
 this way, too, the Syr. and Saad. con- 
 strue the passage. Gesenius, following 
 the LXX., Aq., Symm., and Vulg., ren- 
 ders, day of possession. 
 
 12,13. With the former of these 
 verses commences a new subject, which 
 is prosecuted to the end of chap. xviii. 
 Having brought to a close what he 
 had to deliver respecting the punish- 
 ment of Syria and Ephraim by the 
 Babylonians, the prophet makes a 
 sudden transition to the invasion of 
 Juda by the army of Sennacherib ; 
 and while he describes in strong lan- 
 guage its terrific approach, he predicts 
 its sudden and complete overthrow.— 
 17, ho/ an exclamation here used to 
 call attention to the Assyrian army. 
 
CHAP. ΧΥΠῚ.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 161 
 
 They shall even be chased like the chaff of the mountains before 
 
 the wind, 
 
 And like the whirling stubble before the hurricane. 
 i4 At the time of evening, behold terror ! 
 
 Before morning, they are no more! 
 
 This is the portion of them that spoil us; 
 
 And the lot of them that plunder us. 
 
 The repetition of the same terms gives 
 pathos to the passage. It is true, the 
 first five words of ver. 13 are wanting 
 in seven MSS., originally in another, 
 and in the Syr., which has excited the 
 suspicion, that as they are nearly iden- 
 tical with the last member of the pre- 
 ceding verse, they have been repeated 
 by some inadvertent transcriber. Be 
 this as it may, the text, as it stands in 
 the printed editions, agrees with that 
 from which the LXX. translated ; and 
 the repetition is found in all the other 
 versions, the Syr. alone excepted. On 
 the supposition of its genuineness, 
 Gesenius finds in it a climactic rhythm, 
 a species of Hebrew poetry, according 
 to which, a subsequent verse resumes 
 and repeats the closing words of the 
 preceding. The comparison of the 
 tumultuous noise of an army to the 
 roaring of the sea, which Isaiah had 
 already employed, chap. v. 30, is fre- 
 quently used in the Psalms and the 
 prophets.—The reference in the suff. 
 12 and the corresponding singular of 
 
 the verbs 52 and ΤΊ, is to Sennacherib 
 understood.—The “chaff of the moun- 
 tains,” is the chaff carried off by a 
 sudden and violent gust of wind from 
 the threshing-floor, which was usually 
 situated on some hill or elevated place. 
 —23, from 3, fo roll, forcibly ex- 
 presses the rolling accumulations of 
 stubble, dust, &c. which are borne up- 
 wards into the air, during a hurricane. 
 No metaphor could more aptly de- 
 scribe the sudden destruction of the 
 hostile army. See my Biblical Re- 
 searches, p. 395. 
 
 14, A strong antithesis. Comp. Ps. 
 xxx. 5. The verse concludes with a 
 shout of exultation over the downfal 
 of the enemy, which strikingly ex- 
 presses the feelings of the inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem on the morning of their 
 deliverance. See chap. xxxvu.36. The 
 1 before 28, which fifteen MSS. and 
 two of the early editions exhibit, 
 though countenanced by the LXX., 
 Syr., “Targ, . and Vulg., can scarcely be 
 considered genuine. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 While considerable obscurity hangs over certain parts of this prophecy, it 
 nevertheless presents several points which serve as distinct landmarks for 
 the guidance of the interpreter. That it is not a separate or disjointed 
 portion of the book, may be maintained on three grounds: First, it is not 
 introduced as a distinct prophecy, which is the case with all the other pro- 
 phetic oracles contained in chaps. xiii—xxiii. Secondly, it is not denuncia- 
 tory of judgment upon the nation to which it refers, which is likewise the 
 case with those oracles. And, thirdly, vers. 4—6 are so obviously parallel 
 with chap. xvii. 13, 14, that they can only with propriety be viewed as 
 
162 ISAIAH. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 referring to the same event. It must, therefore, be connected with the 
 three last verses of the preceding chapter; and, according to the unstrained 
 explanation of the geographical and other features which it exhibits, and 
 the historical circumstances of the period, there is no country to which it 
 can consistently be applied but Ethiopia. At the time Sennacherib invaded 
 Judea, which was towards the close of the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s 
 reign, the king of Ethiopia was Tirhakah, a monarch of great military 
 renown, (Strabo, xv. 1. 6,) whose figure, name, and the expedition which he 
 undertook against Sennacherib, are recorded on the walls of a Theban 
 temple. Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 140. According to the 
 
 Phonetic alphabet, his name is TH PK, or, as found on the ruins of 
 
 Medinath-Abu, and those of the mountain Barkal, in Abyssinia, "TH PKA. 
 See Rosell. Mon. ii. tab. 8. Succeeding Sabacho, and Sevechus or So, he 
 also reigned over Upper Egypt; and, in all probability, had his residence at 
 Thebes. As the ultimate object of Sennacherib was the conquest of Egypt, 
 Tirhakah, being informed of his approach, set out with an army to attack 
 him. See 2 Kings xix. 9; Isa, xxxvii. 9. While on the point of taking 
 Jerusalem, the army of the king of Assyria was miraculously destroyed; 
 and as this event was not only of immense importance politically, but 
 calculated to draw the attention of the surrounding nations to the character 
 and claims of Jehovah, it was proper that messengers should be despatched 
 to the principal powers, and especially to Tirhakah, who was more than 
 ordinarily interested in the fate of the Assyrian army. The despatch of 
 these messengers, and the result which followed, form the subject of the 
 present chapter. 
 
 1 Ho! thou land of rustling wings, 
 
 1. One grand source of the mis- 
 interpretation of this chapter has 
 been the false idea which many have 
 attached to the interjection "7. In- 
 stead of rendering it o/ as a call, 
 summoning attention, which the con- 
 text requires, most translators have 
 improperly followed the οὐαὶ of the 
 ancient Greek versions, and given it 
 in terms which express threatening.— 
 
 ww. About the meaning of 
 divided. Many, adopting the idea 
 expressed by the LXX., γῆς πλοίων 
 πτέρυγες, Which is also that dilated 
 upon in the Targ., consider the wings 
 to signify the sails of ships, and apply 
 the passage according to their favourite 
 hypotheses —as Ludovic. Legionensis 
 to the Spanish fleets carrying out the 
 Rowish missionaries to South America, 
 
 and Horsley to Britain employing her 
 navy in carrying back the Jews to 
 Palestine! Some refer 752) to Aneph, 
 an Egyptian idol with wings; while 
 others conjecture that the sis¢rwm, or 
 winged cymbal, which the Egyptians 
 
 used at their sacrifices, is intended. — 
 
 As 3333 may be referred to 55, in the 
 sense of shadowing, it has also been 
 supposed that it may apply to Egypt, 
 on account of the two ranges of 
 mountains by which it is enclosed; 
 or, to the regions between the tropics, 
 where the shadow falls now towards 
 the north, and now towards the south, 
 in the course of the day; or, finally, 
 to the protection which Egypt pro- 
 mised to the Jews. But all these 
 
 ‘modes of solution seem fanciful and 
 
 farfetched: so that we are reduced to 
 the construction first suggested - by 
 
CHAP. XVIII.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 163 
 
 Which art beyond the rivers of Cush ; 
 2 Which sendest ambassadors by sea, 
 
 Symm. οὐαὶ γῆς ὁ ἤχος mrepwros; and 
 Hct ecuian the pide, either of the 
 rustling noise made by the wings of 
 locusts, which greatly abound in Egypt, 
 or of that made by the arms of soldiers 
 when engaged in battle. To the 
 former of these interpretations, which 
 is that of Hiller, Michaelis, and others, 
 it must be objected, that it would not 
 afford any characteristic description 
 either of Egypt or Ethiopia, since 
 locusts abound fully as much in other 
 countries of the East. The latter, 
 which is ably supported by Gesenius, 
 is alone entitled to adoption. 052) we 
 have already found to be used in 
 application to an army, chap. viii. 8; 
 and the reduplicate form of 727%, which 
 nowhere occurs in the acceptation of 
 shadow, onomatopoetically expresses 
 the idea of tinkling, clanging, or rustling, 
 and is used, Job xl. 31, of the /ish-spear 
 or harpoon, and in the plural, D22x, to 
 denote cymbals, 2 Sam. vi. 5; Ps. el. 5. 
 
 Comp.the Arab. (uo , sonuit cum tinnitu 
 
 JSerrum, and wale, cum tonitru quodam 
 
 souuit; hence (hale, tintinnabulum. 
 
 To no country could the words at the 
 time more aptly apply than to Ethio- 
 pia. Its armies were exceedingly 
 numerous. If, as there is reason to 
 believe, Zerah, mentioned 2 Chron. 
 xiv. 9 (Heb. 8), was king of the African 
 Ethiopians, that people was able to 
 bring into the field, in the reign of 
 Asa, not fewer than a million of men, 
 “a huge host with very many chariots 
 and horsemen,” 2 Chron. xiv. 8. 
 And Tirhakah was so celebrated as a 
 mighty conqueror, that Megasthenes 
 mentions his having advanced as far 
 as the Pillars of Hercules, and classes 
 him along with Sesostris and Nebu- 
 chadnezzar. Strabo, xv. 1. 6.--ΡὉ 
 wa 1, beyond the rivers of Cush. 
 Comp. Zeph. ii. 10. Vitringa and 
 others, among whom Hitzig, ineffec- 
 tually attempt to give to “Ὁ 23y9 the 
 sense, ov this side of. It always sig- 
 nifies what lies beyond some sea, river, 
 &e. which is supposed to be between 
 
 it and the person speaking. Comp. 
 Deut. xxx. 13, and for 12, Judg. xi, 
 18; Jer. xxv. 22, Hence yma uy, and 
 HT Wy, uniformly signify the opposite, 
 ἢ. 6. the east side of the Jordan and the 
 Euphrates, when used by a writer or 
 speaker living to the west of these 
 rivers. The instances in which it 
 marks the countries to the west of 
 them, either contain some qualifying 
 term, or place the speaker on the east 
 side. That by 3, Cush, according to 
 
 the Phonetic alphabet, E6WW, we 
 
 are here to understand what is com- 
 monly called Lthiopia, now known by 
 the name of Abyssinia, and neither 
 the Arabian Cush, nor that which lay 
 towards the Caspian Sea, is generally 
 agreed. It was situated on the west 
 side of the Red Sea, and comprised 
 the regions above Syene, including 
 Nubia and Kordofan. It was at times 
 subject to the Pharaohs; at other 
 times, Upper Egypt was subject to its 
 monarchs. The latter was the case 
 when Isaiah wrote. A dynasty con- 
 sisting of the three kings, already 
 mentioned, reigned over Ethiopia, and 
 Pathros or the Thebaid, for the space 
 of forty or forty-four years, till the 
 latter was recovered under Psamme- 
 ticus. “ The rivers of Cush,” are the 
 three principal streams, _anciently 
 denominated the Astaboras,the Astapus, 
 and the Astosabas, Strabo, xvii. i. 2, and 
 Pliny, and now known by the names 
 of the Tucazee, the Mareb, and the 
 Bahr-el-Abiad. The Astaboras and the 
 Astapus surrounded the large island, 
 or rather peninsula, Meroé, on which 
 was built the celebrated city of the 
 same name. These rivers, flowing 
 through the northern parts of Ethi- 
 opia, are here appropriately called by 
 its name; while the country itself, 
 lying for the most part to the south 
 of them, and enclosed by them on the 
 north, is with equal propriety said to 
 116 Jeyond them. 
 
 2. A further description of Ethi- 
 opia. The masc. of the Partic. mt 
 agrees so far with yx, ver. 1, that it 
 borrows from it the idea of people, 
 
164 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 And in vessels of papyrus on the surface of the waters: 
 Go, ye swift messengers, to the nation drawn out and plucked ; 
 To the people terrible from the first and onward ; 
 
 which is masc.; so that there is a 
 constructio ad sensum. That 0 and 
 oy are here synonymous is more than 
 doubtful. From their bordering on 
 the Red Sea, the Ethiopians must 
 have carried on a maritime intercourse 
 with the opposite coast of Arabia, and 
 eastwards in the direction of India, if 
 they did not trade with that country 
 itself. To this it has been objected, 
 that the small papyrus boats, men- 
 tioned immediately after, were alto- 
 gether unsuitable for navigating the 
 Red Sea; but it is carefully to be 
 noticed, that Isaiah does not state that 
 the ambassadors who went by sea 
 proceeded in such boats; he takes it 
 for granted that they would use larger 
 vessels, and confines the former to ¢he 
 waters, i.e. οἵ the Nile, and other 
 rivers in the interior. For this use of 
 ao, see Exod. vii. 15, viii. 6—As DE 
 is used of images, chap. xlv. 16, Bo- 
 chart, Phaleg. iv. 11, supposed that 
 the prophet refers to an Egyptian 
 custom of annually carrying an image 
 of Isis from place to place on the 
 rivers; but ambassadors or messengers, 
 —which the word clearly signifies, 
 Proy,:xins 17. xxvs 19; ‘Isa. lit) 9. 
 Jer. xlix. 14; Obad. 1; in most of 
 which passages it is, as here, con- 
 strued with the verb 2¥,—yields a 
 much more suitable sense. The vast 
 power and extensive influence of Tir- 
 hakah would require an incessant 
 transmission of despatches to foreign 
 parts, the facilities of which by water 
 were great,—Nxpin% the LXX. strangely 
 render ἐπιστολὰς βιβλίνας, though, 
 living in Egypt, they must have been 
 familiar with what is expressed by the 
 words. Koppe, however, conjectures 
 that the words originally read ἐπὶ 
 στόλοις βιβλίνοις. The versions of 
 Aquila, ἐν σκεύεσι βιβλίου ; Symm. διὰ 
 σκευῶν παπυρίνων; Theod. ἐν σκεύεσι 
 
 παπύρου ; the Syr. Ala? ffse= : 
 and the Vulg. iz vasis papyri; give the 
 
 true sense. Reeden skiffs were very 
 common in Egypt; and also, according 
 
 to Heliodorus, in Ethiopia Proper. 
 They were made of the Egyptian reed 
 called papyrus, the cyperus papyrus of 
 modern botanists, to which the He- 
 brews gave the name of xi, from the 
 circumstance of its being porous, and 
 thus absorbiny much moisture. 893, 
 absorpsit, to drink up; Hiph. to give 
 to drink. It was this material of 
 which the vessel was constructed to 
 which Moses was committed, Exod. ii. 
 3. Being exceedingly light, and so 
 small that commonly they held only 
 one person, they sailed with great 
 velocity on the surface of the water, 
 ovo75"79; and when the persons who 
 navigated them came to a cataract, or 
 to a place where the stream was dried 
 up, they carried them on their shoul- 
 ders till they could again embark. 
 See Pliny, xii. 11, vi. 56; Lucan. 
 Pharsal. iv. 36; Plutarch de Is. et 
 Osir. § 358; Theophrast. Hist. Plant. 
 iv. 9; Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, 
 vol. 11. p. 185; Kimchi and Lee on 
 Job ix. 26, where such vessels are 
 called 728 n¥IN, reed-vessels ; and 
 Gesen. iz loc. 
 
 Tn Ὁ» DIN, sift messengers, there 
 is reference to the DY, ambassadors, 
 and to the swiftness with which they 
 proceeded on their embassies in the 
 papyrus boats. The prophet calls 
 upon these to go with all celerity to 
 Ethiopia, to announce the wonderful 
 interposition of Jehovah for the de- 
 liverance of the Jews. Information 
 would first of all be conveyed to Tir- 
 hakah and his army in Egypt, and 
 then to the Thebaid and Ethiopia ; so 
 that the whole nation would become 
 acquainted with the way in which 
 their formidable enemy had been over- 
 thrown. Ezek. xxx. 9, is partly pa- 
 rallel in point of language, but the 
 subject is altogether different.— a 
 worm Fro, Gesenius renders actively, 
 the nation robust and valiant ; Hitzig, 
 tall in growth, and glossy, which he ap- 
 plies to the Macrobian Ethiopians ; 
 though he is inclined to translate ΠΣ Ὁ, 
 long-lived, in reference to their longe- 
 vity. But the ancient versions re- 
 
CHAP. XVIII. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 165 
 
 The nation powerful and victorious, 
 Whose country the rivers divide! 
 
 present the words as passive partici- 
 ples. In this verse, indeed, the LXX. 
 have ἔθνος μετέωρον, but in ver.7, where 
 the same words occur, λαοῦ τεθλιμμένου 
 
 ὶ τετιλμένου ; Syr. . an 
 kal iS μένου ; Syr. mqtnic? ses 
 pe0S0; Vulg. gentem convulsam et di- 
 
 laceratam ; Targ. 872) NOUN NOY, With 
 respect to Jon, Gesenius, abandoning 
 the usual significations of drawing, 
 drawing out, &e., which attach to Ὁ, 
 attempts to establish that of being 
 strong, firm, &c., but fails in making good 
 his point, as may be seen by comparing 
 the passages which he adduces in 
 proof in his larger Lexicon. The verb 
 seems evidently to express the state 
 of the Ethiopian nation, during the 
 extensive wars of Tirhakah, when the 
 mass of the people were drawn out, or 
 taken away from their occupations 
 and homes; or, as Grotius expresses 
 it, “cujus magna pars in longinquis ex- 
 peditionibus occupata est.” It is used 
 in a military acceptation, Judg. iv. 6, 
 xx.37. The interpretation of Vitringa, 
 Lowth, Dathe, and others, which con- 
 siders the term to be descriptive of 
 the great length of Egypt, is quite 
 aside from the mark ; since it is the 
 people, and not the country, that is 
 here the subject. Wo may either be 
 a subst. derived from ὍΣ, or a con- 
 tracted form of the Pual Part. 2390, 
 from 672, which signifies to pluck, tear 
 out or away, as the hair, &c., and is here 
 used to describe further the condition 
 to which the Ethiopians were reduced 
 by war: the best part of the popula- 
 tion being forced to take the field — 
 That oY, people, is identical with *3, 
 nation, and that Gesenius is wrong in 
 supposing two nations to be meant, 
 appears from the repetition of 3, im- 
 mediately after. The words are used 
 synonymously of the same people.—j2 
 TIM NT, lit. from it and edie; is here 
 employed in a temporal, and not in a 
 local sense, which would not at all suit 
 ‘the connexion. Comp. Lev. xxii. 27 ; 
 1Sam. xviii. 9; Nah. i1. 8 (Heb. 9). The 
 phrase is expressive of extreme an- 
 tiquity. That the Ethiopians must 
 
 anciently have been a very enterprising 
 and formidable people, is evident from 
 their having taken possession of so 
 large a portion of Africa, founded the 
 large cities of Axum, Adule, Meroé, 
 and Thebes, and acquired vast quan- 
 tities of the precious metals, partly by 
 mining, and partly by commerce and 
 conquest. There may even bea refer- 
 ence to their history long anterior to 
 their emigration across the Arabian 
 Gulf. wp. No attempt to inter- 
 pret these words, according to the usual 
 acceptations of 12, has given satisfaction. 
 Gesenius happily illustrates them by 
 
 comparing the Arab. 48, power, domi- 
 
 nion, which was first suggested by 
 Aurivilius. The repetition is inten- 
 sive, as in WB, 3.3, &c. That they are 
 properly one word, in a reduplicate 
 form, may be inferred from the occur- 
 rence of the same form, 92° and 03, 
 in verses 1 and 5 of this very chapter. 
 —non, trampling, treading down, in 
 reference to their treading their ene- 
 mies under their feet. That both 
 nouns are to be understood in an 
 active sense, appears from the use 
 of νι), ¢errible, just before—x is a 
 ἅπαξ λεγ. Most translators, both an- 
 cient and modern, consider it to be 
 the same as 3, to plunder, spoil, which 
 four of Kennicott’s MSS. exhibit ; and 
 expositors give the meaning, spot/, de- 
 stroy, in reference either to the land, 
 or the people, according as they take 
 rivers in a literal or a figurative sense. 
 All such interpretations, however, are 
 at variance with the connexion, which 
 requires an idea to be expressed 
 favourable, and not injurious to the 
 people spoken of. I am, therefore, in- 
 duced to adopt the rendering of 
 Gesenius, ¢o cut, divide, comparing 
 
 ma, yea, Arab. ξ pp as in De Sacy’s 
 
 Abd-Allatif. p. 579: δ,» Ul ¢ 5)» the 
 
 water burst forth at the aperture, &e. 
 Besides the three large rivers already 
 noticed, ver. 1, which may be said 
 rather to flow round, than to divide 
 the country of Abyssinia, it is inter- 
 
 x 
 
166 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 3 All ye inhabitants of the world, 
 Even ye that dwell on the earth : 
 When the standard is raised on the mountains, look ye! 
 And when the trumpet is sounded, hear ye! 
 
 4 For thus hath Jehovah said to me: 
 I will sit calmly and look on in my dwelling-place ; 
 It may be like the serene heat in sun-shine, 
 Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest; 
 
 5 But before the harvest, when the blossom is gone, 
 And the flower has become a ripening fruit, 
 He shall cut off the twigs with pruning-hooks, 
 And the shoots he shall remove by cutting them off. 
 
 sected by a vast number of minor 
 streams, whereby its fertility is greatly 
 promoted. See the Travels of Bruce, 
 Riippel, &c. 
 
 3, 4. Though the following message 
 was specially to be sent to the Ethio- 
 pians, it was to be published far and 
 wide. All the nations are, therefore, 
 summoned to attend to the position of 
 the Assyrian army around Jerusalem. 
 The siege is just about to commence, 
 when the prophet receives the revela- 
 tion, that how threatening soever the 
 aspect of things may appear, Jehovah 
 is not affected by it, but views, in im- 
 perturbable majesty, the puny attempt 
 of the enemy of his people. <As it 
 regards the Babylonians, everything is 
 promising: their plan is ripened, as 
 the fruit is by intense sunshine and 
 the copious dews of night, and they 
 are on the very point of carrying it 
 into effect, when Jehovah interposes 
 and frustrates it—The 2 before ἘΠ 
 and 3Y expresses similitude, and is not 
 to be taken as a particle of time in 
 this place. The reference in the sub- 
 stantive verb understood, is not to 
 Jehovah, but to the prosperous ap- 
 pearance of the Babylonians.—x, Vi- 
 tringa, Lowth, Déderlein, and recently, 
 Boettcher, render herbs, and others, 
 after the Rabbins, rain ; but it is to 
 be taken, as Hab. iii. 4, of the shining 
 of the Sun. Thus the versions, with 
 
 the exception of the Syriac, if ou 
 
 be not a mistake for }ioaa-—Ten 
 
 MSS., originally three more, and now 
 three, the LXX., Syr., and Vulg., read 
 ysz ΟΞ, ἐμ the day of harvest, instead 
 of ὙῈΡ ba, while there is, or, in the heat 
 of harvest. The common reading is 
 more appropriate. 
 
 5. ‘21s here adversative. 0m does 
 not express the perfection of the blos- 
 som, but its ceasing to exist. Comp. 
 Ezek. xlvii. 12. 103 properly signifies 
 unripe, ΟΥ̓ sour grapes; in the dialects 
 it is used more extensively of all un- 
 ripe fruit, on account of its acidity. 
 ΠῈΣ is the subject of the proposition ; 
 but owing to the transposition, ™7 
 follows in gender the mas. of the pre- 
 ceding predicate, instead of being put 
 in the fem. to agree with 722. Inde- 
 pendently of this, however, the verb. 
 may be in the mas., as occurring before 
 the noun. Ewald, p. 352. There is, 
 therefore, no necessity, with Lowth, 
 to regard the 7 in 72) to be the pron. 
 affixing, at the pause for 107, from un, 
 a ἅπαξ dey. but evidently allied to the 
 
 Arab. .. to cut off; and placed abso- 
 
 lutely, without a copulative, after the 
 manner of the Syriac. The significa- 
 tion is given by the LXX. ἀποκόψει.---- 
 The prophet compares the hostile 
 army to a vineyard or orchard nearly 
 ready to be reaped, but all at once 
 made completely desolate. The war- 
 riors of Sennacherib were not per- 
 mitted to engage in battle, and thus, 
 in the figurative language of prophecy, 
 to be reaped, but were miraculously 
 cut off. 
 
CHAP. ΧΙΧ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 167 
 
 6 They shall be left together for the ravenous bird of the moun- 
 
 tains, 
 
 And for the wild beast of the earth ; 
 The ravenous bird shall summer on them, 
 And every wild beast of the earth shall winter on them. 
 7 At that time a present shall be brought to Jehovah of Hosts, 
 From the people drawn out and plucked ; 
 Even from the people terrible from the first and onward ; 
 The nation powerful and victorious, 
 Whose country the rivers divide, 
 To the place of the name of Jehovah of Hosts, 
 
 Mount Zion. 
 
 6. In this verse the figure is drop- 
 ped, and instead of the fruit spoken 
 of becoming food for the ravenous 
 animals, the dead bodies of the enemy 
 are to be their repast. ‘273 properly 
 signifies any tame animal, but in the 
 more elevated style, YI8J M272 is equi- 
 valent to ὙΠ m0, a wild beast. Comp. 
 Deut. xxviii. 26. Its occurrence in con- 
 nexion with Ὅν, a bird of prey, shews 
 that such is its meaning here. The dis- 
 tribution in the two latter lines of the 
 verse is not to be understood as limit- 
 ing the ravenous birds to the period 
 of summer, and the wild beasts to that 
 of winter : it is only a poetical division 
 of the whole year. They were to feast 
 upon them both summer and winter. 
 The verbs jy? and 437 are denomina- 
 tives from Y'R, summer, and ΠΤ, winter. 
 Vin YY is to be taken collectively of 
 
 the careases of the slain. 
 
 7. The prophet now foreshews what 
 would be the result of communicating 
 to the Ethiopians, information respect- 
 ing the miraculous destruction of the 
 Assyrians. That a literal present is 
 here meant, there seems no reason to 
 doubt ; see 2 Chron. xxxii. 23 ; though 
 it is also highly probable that the im- 
 pression produced upon that people, 
 on the present occasion, paved the 
 way for the introduction of revealed 
 religion among them at a subsequent 
 period, when sacrifices of a nobler cha- 
 racter were offered to the Lord_—The 
 language is almost identical with that 
 employed in the description, ver. 2. 
 The prefixing of 1 to DYD evinces, that 
 there is an ellipsis of Ὁ before DY, in 
 the preceding line. Its being wanting 
 in six MSS. has little weight. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE SENTENCE OF EGYPT. 
 
 This chapter, which is directed against Egypt, contains a prediction of the 
 anarchy and confusion which existed in that country, during, and after, the 
 dodecarchy, 1—3 ; the cruelties of Cambyses, 4; great physical and civil 
 calamities which followed, 5—10; the infatuation of the Egyptian policy, 
 
168 ISATAH. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 11—17 ; the spread of the knowledge and worship of the true God, by means 
 of the Jews resident in Egypt, and its deliverance by Alexander the Great, 18 
 —22; and the universal religious intercourse which was brought about in the 
 East, in the time of the Seleucide, the Ptolemies, and the Romans, 23—25. 
 
 Eayrt, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea on the north, to Ethiopia on 
 the south, with the Red Sea on the east, and the Lybian desert on the west, 
 and intersected by the Nile throughout the whole of its length, was one of 
 the most celebrated countries in the ancient world. According to the gene- 
 alogical table, Gen. x., it was peopled after the deluge by Mizraim, one of the 
 sons of Ham; hence the names, D2 and 0m, which latter, in the Coptic 
 and Sahidiec dialects, ΔΉ ΔΑ: and KH&RE, Chemi, Cheme, i. e. the land 
 of Ham, is that still given to the country by the natives. This name was 
 also appropriated to one of the great gods of Egypt, who was regarded as 
 the generative principle, and was particularly worshipped at Chemnis, or 
 Panopolis. The word Mizraim does not occur in hieroglyphics, so far as has 
 yet been discovered. See Wilkinson, Second Series, vol. 1, p. 261. The 
 early history of Egypt is greatly involved in the obscurity of fable ; but the 
 discoveries which continue to be made by learned men, who are devoting 
 their time to the study of its antiquities, are successively bringing to light 
 a variety of particulars, which furnish us with certain data relative to its 
 epochs and some of its most notable events. It appears to have been 
 originally subject to a sacerdotal government, during which period, most of 
 its magnificent temples were constructed. To this succeeded the monarchy 
 of the Pharaohs, the first of whom reigned in the time of Abraham ; and 
 the last, Hophra, in that of Jeremiah,—subject to a partial interruption, 
 from the period of the Ethiopian conquest, till the accession of Psamme- 
 tichus. Since his reign, Egypt has been successively conquered and 
 governed by the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Turks, and is at 
 present virtually an independent state. The Egyptians had, at a very early 
 period, made great progress in the arts, as the elegance and delicacy of their 
 sculptured monuments evince, some of which are ascertained to be more 
 than 3,500 years old. Their scientific acquirements were more limited, 
 owing chiefly to their gross superstitions, in which, and in the idolatrous 
 rites and practices connected with them, they exceeded all the other nations 
 of antiquity. They worshipped not only the sun and moon, and other 
 great objects of nature, but animals, reptiles, and vegetables, such as leeks, 
 onions, &c. Notwithstanding the oppression which their ancestors suffered 
 in Egypt, the Jews appear all along to have had strong leanings towards 
 that country ; and being accustomed to apply to it for assistance, whenattacked 
 by any foreign enemy, they transferred to it that confidence which was due 
 to Jehovah alone. Hence the numerous threatenings pronounced against 
 them on account of their alliances with it; and hence the denunciations 
 contained in the present chapter, which were intended to teach them, that, 
 instead of affording them any aid, Egypt would itself be reduced and 
 oppressed. For lengthened accounts of Egypt, and its dynasties, see 
 Vitringa and Gesenius. 
 
CHAP. ΧΙΧ.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 169 
 
 1 Benotp! Jehovah shall ride on a swift cloud, 
 
 And shall come to Egypt ; 
 
 And the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, 
 And the heart of Egypt shall melt within her. 
 
 2 1 will also arm the Egyptians against the Egyptians, 
 And they shall fight each against his brother, 
 And each against his neighbour ; 
 
 City against city, 
 Kingdom against kingdom. 
 
 ὃ The spirit of Egypt also shall fail within her, 
 And J will destroy her counsel ; 
 Yea, they may apply to the idols and the necromancers, 
 And to the diviners and the wizards: 
 
 1. It is common in Scripture to re- 
 present any great calamity, or the in- 
 fliction of a remarkable judgment, 
 under the idea of the coming of the 
 Lord, Ps. 1.3; Isa. xxvi. 21; John xxi. 
 23; Jam. v. 8; and to express the 
 awful majesty in which he appears on 
 such occasions, he is said to come in, 
 with, or upon the clouds, Dan. vii. 13; 
 Matt. xxiv. 30; Rev.i.7. Here, as in Ps. 
 xviii. 9, 10, he is represented as riding 
 upon them ; while the swiftness with 
 which the calamity was coming upon 
 Egypt is expressed by “a light cloud” 
 —such moving with great velocity 
 before the wind. By a striking pro- 
 sopopeeia, the gods of Egypt, such as 
 Jupiter Ammon, Osiris, Isis, Typhon, 
 Kneph, Pthah, Khem, Sate, Maut, 
 Neith, Bubastis, &c., characterised, 
 nevertheless, as D2, non-entities, are 
 introduced as shaking with fear at the 
 approach of Jehovah. The “melting 
 of the heart” means /oss of courage, 
 confidence, &c., Deut. xx. 8; Josh. v. 1. 
 Egypt is here spoken of under the idea 
 of a person. 
 
 2. For the meaning of °N302D, 
 
 see 
 chap. ix. 10.---- ΠΡ Ὁ 3 ΠΡΟ, hingdom 
 against kingdom. This seems distinctly 
 to refer to the intestine broils which 
 took place at the time of the dode- 
 carchy, or the rule of the twelve princes 
 who possessed themselves of the 
 government, after Sethos, the sacer- 
 dotal usurper. Their rule was de- 
 signed to be united ; but they soon 
 
 had mutual feuds, which led to a civil. 
 
 war, on the flight of Psammetichus, 
 one of their number, by whom Greek 
 and Carian mercenaries were intro- 
 duced into the country, and the other 
 princes put down. Both Herodotus 
 and Diodorus Siculus call these princes 
 βασιλεῖς, kings ; and it is to their juris- 
 diction, and not to the ancient division 
 of the country into thirty-six xomes, or 
 provinces, as the LXX. give it, that 
 the prophet refers when he speaks of 
 kingdoms. 
 
 3. On the appearance in Egypt of 
 the foreign troops, panoplied in brass, 
 which Psammetichus introduced, the 
 eleven princes and their counsellors 
 were confounded, and had no resource 
 left but to apply to their gods. ™ 
 and ΠῈΡ are here synonymous: both 
 denoting counsel or purpose.—DOS, necro~ 
 
 Arab. αἱ 9 murmur 
 
 edidit, to speak in a low murmuring 
 voice, resembling the noise made by a 
 new saddle from the motion of a camel, 
 and that made by the camel itself 
 when fatigued and hungry. See Gol. 
 Castel. and Freytag. The reference is 
 to the suppressed and hollow tones in 
 which the idolatrous impostors imi- 
 tated the supposed voice of the gods. 
 Comp. for the other terms, chap. Vili. 
 19. The Egyptians have in all ages 
 been distinguished for the practice of 
 the arts of divination, and are still 
 greatly addicted to it. They had their 
 celebrated oracleof Jupiter Ammon, in 
 Thebes; and that of Latona, at Butos 2 
 
 mancers, from Dox 
 
 τὰ τὰ 
 
170 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XIX. 
 
 4 But I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord, 
 And a fierce king shall rule them, 
 Saith the Lord Jehovah of Hosts. 
 
 5 The water also shall fail from the sea, 
 And the river shall be wasted and dried up. 
 
 and attached to every temple were 
 priests, who pretended to give the re- 
 sponses of the gods. 
 
 ¥. 
 
 4,720, Syr. jam Arab. vials 
 
 only used in Niphal and Piel, but is 
 evidently equivalent to 120, 1207, fo 
 shut up in the power of any one. In 
 this connexion it implies not a mere 
 defeat, or partial subjugation, on the 
 part of the Egyptians, but the com- 
 plete establishment of a foreign rule. 
 —TP Ox, some interpreters, after 
 the LXX., Syr., Vulg., and op, the 
 reading of one MS, render in the 
 plural, hard masters; but 02% is used 
 intensitively when only one person is 
 meant, Gen. xlii. 30, 33; 2 Kings ii. 3, 
 5, 16; and the corresponding ty 722 
 shews that it must be so taken here; 
 which, indeed, the singular number of 
 the adjective absolutely requires. Ge- 
 senius adopts the opinion of Grotius 
 and others, that Psammetichus is 
 intended. By his own shewing, how- 
 ever, there was nothing in the conduct 
 of that monarch deserving the cha- 
 racter of cruel or tyrannical. He 
 appears, on the contrary, to have 
 pursued a liberal policy, and to have 
 been a benefactor to the country ; and 
 though 240,000 Egyptian troops re- 
 volted and emigrated to Ethiopia, this 
 appears to have originated solely in 
 their being piqued at his retaining 
 foreign soldiers in his service, and not 
 in any acts of oppression towards 
 them, or the inhabitants at large. 
 The character rather attaches to Cam- 
 byses, who, on the conquest of Egypt, 
 B.C. 525, gave vent, in a variety of 
 ways, to his mad and ferocious dis- 
 position, practised unheard-of cruel- 
 ties, destroyed the temples and public 
 buildings, violated the sanctuaries of 
 the dead, took or destroyed private 
 property, ordered the priests to be 
 severely whipped for worshipping 
 Apis; and such of the Egyptians as 
 were found in Memphis engaging in 
 
 this worship, he commanded to be 
 slain. Prideaux, pt. i. Ὁ. iii. That 
 this conqueror is intended in the pro- 
 phecy is rendered more probable by 
 the circumstance, that it was he who 
 completely subverted the throne of 
 the Pharaohs—so that Egypt was then 
 reduced to a mere province of the 
 Persian empire, and never afterwards 
 regained its ancient independence. 
 Others are of opinion that, by the 
 “fierce king,” Ochus is meant, whose 
 barbarities exceeded even those of 
 Cambyses ; but the parallelism requires: 
 us to apply it to the same person who. 
 is called a “cruel lord.” The enor- 
 mities of Ochus were merely a renewal. 
 of those committed by Cambyses. 
 
 5. To aggravate the calamitous 
 condition of the subjugated Egyptians,. 
 they were to be visited by a failure in 
 the periodical inundation of the Nile, 
 on which the prosperity of the country 
 mainly depended. This celebrated 
 river, which has its springs in the 
 mountains of Abyssinia, and enters. 
 Egypt at the villages of El-Kalabshe 
 and Teffa, a little to the south of 
 Syene, rises annually in the months of 
 June and July ; in August it overflows. 
 its banks, and by the beginning of 
 September reaches its highest eleva- 
 tion, which is from twenty to twenty-. 
 three feet above the usual level. In 
 Lower Egypt the rise is not so high,. 
 owing to the inundation spreading 
 more widely over the low country. 
 Numerous canals are dug to receive 
 the water, from which it is conveyed 
 to irrigate the land. On the subsiding 
 of the water, a quantity of mud, 
 which it has brought along with it 
 and deposited, is left, which greatly 
 adds to the fertility of the soil. On 
 this mud-covered soil the cultivator 
 casts the seed, and the corn soon 
 springs up and ripens, in consequence 
 of the extreme heat of the sun. 
 During the inundation the country 
 assumes the appearance of a sea, 
 
CHAP. XIX.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 171 
 
 6 The streams also shall become putrid ; 
 The canals of Egypt shall be emptied and dried up ; 
 The reed and the rush shall wither. 
 7 The meadows by the river, by the edge of the river, 
 And all the produce of the river, 
 - Shall be dried up, driven away, and be no more. 
 8 And the fishermen shall mourn : 
 
 studded with small islands, on which 
 cities, yrising grounds, &c. present 
 themselves to the view. Hence the 
 propriety of the term 0’, sea, as 
 applied to the Nile in this verse, and 
 
 in the Arab. Li] px, the Sea Nile, 
 
 and by way of eminence, a, the 
 
 Sea. Comp. Nah. 11. 8; Herod ii. 97; 
 Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxv. 11; and Diod. 
 Sic. i. 12, who tells us, Oi yap Αἰγύπτιοι 
 νομιζούσιν ᾿Ωκεανὸν εἶναι τὸν παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς 
 ποταμὸν Νεῖλον. In the following line 
 it is called ὙΠ), absolutely, which is 
 peculiar to this place; that term 
 ‘being elsewhere exclusively appro- 
 priated, when thus used, to the 
 Euphrates.—n5) the LXX. and others 
 derive from nv, fo drink; but it is 
 the Niph. of m3, fo destroy by causing 
 to fail, to dry up. In 7 and vx there 
 is manifestly a gradation: the former 
 signifying rather the failure of the 
 water; the latter, complete desicca- 
 tion. The desiccation of the Nile is 
 destructive of the agricultural interest 
 in Egypt, and of all that is dependent 
 ‘on it. 
 
 6, 7. A most graphic description of 
 the physical consequences that would 
 immediately follow from the failure of 
 the water. %7N7 is either a double 
 form, compounded of the Chaldee 
 preformant δὲ in Aphel, and the He- 
 brew 7 in Hiphil; or, it is an accom- 
 modation to the forms ΡΝ, TY, Paz, 
 in which the δὶ with a Segol is placed 
 before a sibilant in a mixed syllable. 
 See Hitzig. Travellers greatly com- 
 plain of the foul and putrid state of 
 the water which remains in the 
 streams or canals after the Nile has 
 subsided, the foetid effluvium of which 
 is most destructive—OWN, the plural 
 
 of 1, 1APo, 1€ PO, the native word 
 for river. It here denotes the branches 
 
 or minor divisions of the Nile— xz», 
 which our translators have rendered 
 defence, is the singular of ΘΒ, and 
 seems employed specially to denote 
 Lower Egypt, just as the dual is ex- 
 pressive of the two divisions of the 
 country into Upper and Lower—a 
 distinction recognised in the title 
 “Lord of the two regions,” which 
 was assumed by every monarch of 
 the country at the time of his coro- 
 nation, and represented by the pshent, 
 or double crown, which was placed 
 upon his head on the occasion. The 
 Arabs give to Egypt the corresponding 
 
 name ὁ in the sing.; and Ibn 
 
 Batuta states, that, in his time, Cairo 
 
 was called yon Misr.—nvw, from ™», 
 
 to be naked, the woodless and uncultivated 
 but verdant spots on the banks of the 
 river, which were used for meadows or 
 pasturage. ‘x’ yin, lit. the seed of the 
 river, but YY is also used for the crop 
 which is produced from the seed, Job 
 mex, UO Isa. ex 3. TX τὸ 
 σπειρόμενον διὰ τοῦ ποταμοῦ. 
 
 8. In this, and the two following 
 verses, the prophet introduces those 
 classes of the inhabitants whose occu- 
 pations were more immediately con- 
 nected with the river. The Nile was 
 anciently much celebrated for the 
 multitude, variety, and excellence of 
 its fish. Numb. xi. 5; Herod. ii. 93; 
 Strabo, xvii. 2.4; Diod. Sic. i. 36, 40; 
 Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, vol. 
 iii. p. 683—68, That it is equally so 
 still may be seen from the travels of 
 Sonnini, pp. 407—417, 474 --- 478. 
 Fishermen must, therefore, have formed 
 a numerous class among the inhabit- 
 ants.—On the ground that nets are 
 not now used by the fishermen of 
 Egypt, it has been maintained by 
 some, that by ΠΟΘ is meant a twiggen 
 
172 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 Yea, all that cast the hook into the river shall lament ; 
 And those that spread nets upon the surface of the waters shall 
 
 languish. 
 
 9 And the flax-dressers shall be confounded, 
 
 And the weavers of linen. 
 
 10 Her pillars also are broken down, 
 
 or wicker trap, but against such inter- 
 pretation, the use of 018, fo spread, to 
 spread out, a8 well as DYE %Y, is an 
 insuperable objection. Besides, the 
 ancient use of the net is seen in the 
 representation of one on a monument 
 at Thebes, in Wilkinson, wt swp. vol. 
 iii. p. 55.—For instances of the nomen 
 regens being separated from its geni- 
 tive, as in 737 WI Ὁ, see Gen. vil. 
 6; Job xv. 10; Isa. lii. 14. The same 
 mode of construction occurs in the 
 Arabic poetry and formulas of swear- 
 ing. Gesen. Lehrgeb. p. 675. 
 
 9. nip ond av, LXX. τὸ λίνον τὸ 
 
 σχιστόν: Hexap. Syr. aso ala; 
 
 Symm. τὸ λίνον τὸ κτενιστόν: lit. the 
 workers of combed flax; but the mean- 
 ing is, not that they were employed in 
 manufacturing it after it was combed, 
 but in hatcheling or combing it. See, 
 for an account of this process, Pliny, 
 xix. 1; Wilkinson, vol. iii. p. 139. 
 The former branch of labour belonged 
 to the “Nn Unk, the weavers of linen 
 cloth. 4, which occurs only in this 
 antiquated form, like "τῷ, ‘13, is de- 
 rived from WW, fo be or become white; 
 
 Arab. , white silk; Eth. ἐπ 26: 
 
 white cotton; LXX. rods ἐργαζομένους 
 τὴν βύσσον. Both flax and cotton 
 abounded in Egypt; and the manu- 
 facturing of linen and cotton cloths 
 afforded support to many thousands 
 of its inhabitants. They are still 
 among its most valuable productions. 
 In the year 1835, more than 100,000 
 bales of cotton, each weighing upwards 
 of an hundred-weight, were shipped at 
 Alexandria. Jn ancient times, linen 
 was worn by the people generally as 
 shirts; and, according to Herod. ii. 
 37, the priests were not permitted to 
 wear any thing else: at least when 
 they performed the sacred rites. The 
 exportation of linen yarn, and fine 
 linen cloth, is mentioned 1 Kings x. 
 
 28; Ezek. xxvii. 7. See also Wilkin- 
 son, ut sup. vol. ili. pp. 113—127, 
 where an interesting account will be 
 found of the Egyptian linen, especially 
 that forming the bandages of the 
 mummies.—Those engaged in pre- 
 paring and manufacturing these mate- 
 rials are here mentioned along with 
 the fishermen, on account of their 
 hatcheling and bleaching on the 
 banks of the Nile and its canals. 
 
 10. ΘΙ ΞΟ τηρῶ, Those who wish 
 to see the numerous and conflicting 
 interpretations which have been given 
 of this verse, may consult Rosenmiiler, 
 in loc. 2d edit. That of Gesenius is at 
 once simple and satisfactory: viz. that 
 the two grand divisions of society in 
 the East, the upper and lower classes, 
 are meant ; the former metaphorically 
 called pillars, or supporters of the 
 state, and the latter characterised as 
 labouring for hire. Tin occurs only 
 once besides, Ps. xi. 3, where, after 
 Aquila, our translators render it 
 foundations. It is obviously derived 
 from ™0, to place, set, lay; and may 
 either refer to pillars or foundations, 
 though the use of x37 immediately 
 following, renders the former the more 
 
 probable. Comp. iJ os the 
 
 pillars of state, in use among the Per- 
 sians. The leading men in the country 
 being intended, the participle is of the 
 mas. gen. though the noun is fem. 
 Dw27D, deaten, broken, is doubly appro- 
 priate. It corresponds literally to the 
 idea of broken pillars, but, in agree- 
 ment with the figurative sense in 
 which that term is here used, it signi- 
 fies broken in spirit—The meaning of 
 ‘20 “vy given in the translation is 
 secured by Prov. xi. 18, which should 
 be rendered, 
 “ As for the wicked, he worketh. for 
 deceitful wages ; ὶ 
 But he who soweth righteousness, fo 
 a sure reward,” 
 
CHAP. 51Χ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 173 
 
 And all the hired labourers are grieved in mind. 
 11 Surely the princes of Zoan are fools ; 
 As for the sage counsellors of Pharaoh, their counsel is become 
 
 stupid : 
 
 How then can ye say to Pharaoh, 
 
 Ζύθον, barley-wine, the rendering of the 
 LXX., has the support of three only 
 of De Rossi’s MSS., which read 120.— 
 The interpretation just given evinces 
 that the antithetic ninv is to be under- 
 stood of persons and not of θεσμοῦς, 
 laws, as Syrom. has it, or any neuter 
 subject whatever—)) "228 so evi- 
 dently corresponds to 08372 in the 
 sense of grieved in spirit, broken-hearted, 
 that it is strange any other construc- 
 tion could have been put upon the 
 phrase; much more, that it should 
 have been rendered fish-ponds, &c. 
 Dax, indeed, signifies a marsh, a pool 
 of stagnant water, or a pool generally ; 
 but never in connexion as here with 
 wa. The adjective is evidently cog- 
 nate both with it, and with 02Y, 70 
 stand still, be stagnant, astounded, 
 
 grieved, &e. Comp. the Arab. eal, 
 
 JSastidivit, nauseum concepit ; ΡΞ» ager 
 
 animi; Chald. 038, tristatus est, in an- 
 gore fuit; and see Lee on Job xxx. 25, 
 where ‘52 192” has the same meaning. 
 
 11. Having, in the preceding verse, 
 specified the magnates of Egypt gene- 
 rally, Isaiah now turns to the courtiers 
 in particular; and in this, and the two 
 following verses, exposes the folly of 
 their counsels, and the destructive 
 character of their influence. ΟΞ, in 
 
 Egypt., ANH, οὐ VANE, signify- 
 ing low, inferior, Gr. Tans, Arab. wl : 
 
 Zoan, Or Tanis, one of the principal 
 cities of Lower Egypt, and a royal 
 residence of the Pharaohs. It was of 
 great antiquity, as the notice Numb. 
 ΧΗ]. 22 implies; and was the scene of 
 the miracles performed by Moses, Ps. 
 xxviii. 12, 43. Its sculptured monu- 
 ments testify to its existence in the 
 age of Rameses the Great, 7.c. 3190 
 years ago. Wilkinson’s Manners and 
 Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 
 vol. 1. pp. 5, 6. A difference of opinion 
 
 has obtained respecting its exact situ- 
 ation; but it is now generally agreed 
 that it lay on the east of that branch 
 of the Nile, which takes its name 
 from it, at the N.W. of Tahpanhes, 
 and at no great distance from the sea 
 of Menzaleh. Extensive ruins are 
 still visible around the spot, and 
 several obelisks and other monuments 
 of former magnificence have been 
 found among them. See Gesenius, iz 
 loc. and Wilkinson, wf sup—The con- 
 struction of two nouns with the geni- 
 tive following, as in TD ἜΣ "937, is 
 not without example. See Judg. v. 
 29. In the latter half of the verse, 
 notice is taken of the claims which 
 the counsellors of Pharaoh laid to 
 ancestorial wisdom and royal descent. 
 Each of them is introduced as boast- 
 ing: “Tam the son of sages; the son 
 of ancient kings.” Such construction 
 is more suited to the connexion than 
 that which represents them as putting 
 the words into the mouth of the mon- 
 arch. The boast was quite accordant 
 with the notions and usages which 
 existed among the ancient Egyptians. 
 Their kings were partly chosen from 
 the order of the priests; and, as there 
 were different dynasties, the descend- 
 ants of such kings as had been set 
 aside, surrounding the person of the 
 monarch in the capacity of coun- 
 sellors, or forming a sacred college, 
 would naturally be proud of their 
 parentage, and the lessons of wisdom 
 which had been handed down to them 
 from antiquity. Herodotus tells us, 
 that the priests whom he consulted 
 affirmed, that from the first king to 
 Sethos, the priest of Vulcan, there 
 had been ¢hree hundred and forty-one 
 high-priests and kings; and, conduct- 
 ing him into a spacious temple, they 
 shewed him colossal statues of these 
 priests; each during his life having 
 placed there a statue of himself. 
 Herod. ii. 141; Plut. de 1514. et Osir. 
 p. 452, edit. Wittenb. The preten- 
 
 y 
 
174 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XIX. 
 
 Τ am the son of sages, the son of ancient kings ? 
 
 12 Where now are thy sages ; 
 
 Let them now shew thee, if they know, 
 
 What Jehovah of Hosts hath purposed concerning Egypt. 
 13 The princes of Zoan are infatuated ; 
 
 The princes of Noph are deceived ; 
 
 The corner-stones of her tribes 
 
 Have caused Kgypt to err. 
 
 sions of the ancient Egyptians, like 
 those of the Chinese, to extreme 
 antiquity, are well known: of their 
 wise men and their wisdom, mention 
 is made Exod, vil. 11; 1 Kings iv. 30; 
 Acts vil. 22; whence it appears to 
 have been proverbial; and one of 
 their kings, Bocchoris the Saite, ob- 
 tained, by way of pre-eminent distinc- 
 tion, the surname of “The Wise.” 
 They were deeply skilled in astro- 
 nomy, geometry, architecture, philo- 
 sophy, mythology, metaphysics, astro- 
 logy.——The name 78, Pharaoh, in 
 
 Coptic Ov Po, king, and, with the 
 
 article, TOY PO or cor PO, the king, 
 was common to all the kings of Egypt 
 down to the time of the Persian 
 
 conquest. Comp. the Arab. & yp τώ 
 
 quod summum est, hence princeps, and 
 the Heb. nivw, Judg. v. 2; and see 
 Robinson on this passage, Bib. Rep. 
 vol, i. pp. 579—581. In the present 
 day, [bn Pharaoon, “son of a Pharaoh,” 
 is a great term of reproach among the 
 Kgyptians. Wilkinson, wf sup. 53. 
 This writer, in his Second Series, vol. 
 i. pp. 287, 288, derives the name from 
 Re or Ra, “Sun ;” with the definite 
 article, Pi, Pire, Phré, Phrah, Pharaoh ; 
 and affirms that this regal title was 
 probably owing to the idea, that, as 
 the sun was the chief of the heavenly 
 bodies, he was a fit emblem of the 
 king who was the ruler of all on 
 earth. 
 12. Comp. ch. xli. 22, 23: xliv. 7. 
 
 13. *p, Hos. ix. 6, 7, Copt. Qaeqt 
 and QREKKCTE, Arab. Core, ΤΧΧ. 
 
 and Class. Gr. authors, Μέμφις, Memphis, 
 
 the second capital and celebrated ne 
 cropolis of Egypt. In hieroglyphics 
 it is written J/en-nofri, followed by a 
 pyramid. Wilkinson, w/ sup. vol. 1. p. 
 175. According to Plutarch, Isid et 
 Osir. p. 472, edit. Wittenb., the name 
 signifies ὄρμος ἀγαθῶν, the haven of the 
 good, in reference to their being buried 
 there; which derivation is in the 
 main justified by Jablonsky, Opuse. 
 ii. p. 131, and Champollion, lEgypt 
 sous les Pharaons, tome 1. p. 363. An 
 immense number of mummies have 
 been discovered in and around the 
 spot where it stood, many of them 
 between two and three thousand years 
 old, so that there is a singular propriety 
 in the declaration, Hos. ix. 6, D737A AY, 
 Memphis shall bury them. It was situ- 
 ated near the present village of Moniat- 
 Rahinet, four or five miles south-east 
 of Old Cairo, on the opposite bank of 
 the Nile, and appears to have occupied 
 the whole space between the pyramids 
 of Gizeh and those of Sacarah. <Ac- 
 cording to Josephus, it was founded 
 by Menes, the first of the Egyptian 
 kings, upwards of thirteen hundred 
 years before the time of Solomon. 
 A colossus, and fragments of several 
 statues, bearing the name of Rameses 
 the Great, are still met with among 
 the ruins; but otherwise every vestige 
 of its former grandeur has completely 
 disappeared. It continued to be a 
 royal residence till the times of the 
 Ptolemies, when it began to fall into 
 decay. In the twelfth century, Edrisi 
 describes its ruins as extending nine 
 miles in every direction, but even 
 then containing works of the most 
 stupendous character. Among others 
 he mentions a monolithic temple of 
 granite, thirteen feet and a half high, 
 twelve long, and seven broad, entirely 
 
CHAP. XIX. | 
 
 14 
 
 ISATAH. 175 
 
 Jehovah hath poured into the midst of her a perverse spirit, 
 
 So that Egypt is made to err in all her works, 
 As a drunkard staggereth in his vomit. 
 15 And Egypt shall have no work, 
 
 That the head or the tail, 
 
 perform. 
 16 
 
 covered within and without with in- 
 scriptions ; and statues of great beauty 
 and dimensions, one of which was 
 forty-five feet high, and consisting of 
 a single block of red granite.—The 1 
 prefixed to wn, though supported by 
 the ancient versions, with the excep- 
 tion of the Targ. and Vulg., is omitted 
 in one hundred and six MSS., fourteen 
 early printed editions, and upwards of 
 twenty more. It is evident from its 
 use, Judg. xx. 2, Ps. exviii. 22, and 
 other passages, that 728, which pro- 
 perly signifies a corver or corner-stone, 
 from its prominence and utility in 
 supporting the united walls of an 
 edifice, is here employed metaphori- 
 cally to denote a prince or chief: Ro- 
 senmiiller and others aptly compare 
 the Arab. | $,, which Saadias uses in 
 this place, as occurring in the phrases 
 ysl) op) the pillar of the empire ; 
 ἘΠῚ τ yp the pillar of religion, though 
 it also primarily signifies azgulus. 
 The frequent occurrence of collective 
 nouns in Hebrew, shews that m2 is 
 properly pointed, and is not to be 
 changed into ΠΞΞ, the plural punctua- 
 tion.—What the 229 of Egypt is de- 
 signed to describe is not quite certain. 
 The most probable opinion is, that the 
 inhabitants of the different nomes or 
 prefectures are meant into which the 
 nation was divided. 
 
 14. The proper signification of 79 
 is fo mix, but, as the mixing of liquids 
 was effected by pouring one kind into 
 a vessel containing that with which it 
 was to be mingled, it is so to be taken 
 in the present figurative use of the 
 
 term.—ovy, from my, uss te bend, 
 make crooked, stands for Dww, perversi- 
 fies: the gemination, as usual, indi- 
 cating intensity of signification, The 
 
 the branch or the rush may 
 
 In that day the Egyptians shall be as women ; 
 
 doctrine taught in this verse is the 
 same as that found in chap. xxix. 10; 
 Exod. iv. 2f; Rom. ix. 18, xi. 7, 8; 
 which is not to be understood as 
 asserting any positive or direct in- 
 fusion of evil on the part of God— 
 such an idea being totally repugnant 
 to the holiness of his character,—but 
 his punitively withholding the exer- 
 tion of certain influences, by which 
 men might have been restrained ; or, 
 his so ordering things in his provi- 
 dence, that they, as free agents, shall 
 take occasion from them to do what is 
 wrong. Since all intelligence and 
 wisdom is referred to him as its 
 source, however it may be acquired 
 and improved by its possessors, there 
 is no violence in ascribing its with- 
 drawment to his displeasure. It is 
 very common in Scripture to speak of 
 God’s actually doing what he permits, 
 or for the voluntary perpetration of 
 which, on the part of man, he merely 
 furnishes occasions in the holy proce- 
 dure of his moral government. See 
 2 Sam. xii. 11, xxiv. 1, and comp. the 
 remarks on Isa, vi. 10.—The conjunc- 
 tion } in 277 marks the event; and 
 the third plural of Hiph. is used as 
 freq. with a singular passive significa- 
 tion.—The comparison at the end of 
 the verse is quite in keeping with the 
 use of 702, in the sense of pouring in 
 intoxicating ingredients. Comp. chap. 
 MMVII 75 8. 
 
 15. The > in on) forms the dative 
 of possession. A total stagnation of 
 business would be the result of the 
 infatuated counsels of Egypt. For 
 the metaphors, see remarks on chap. 
 ix, 13, 14. 
 
 16, 17. These verses describe the 
 dispirited condition of the inhabit- 
 ants, and their inability to resist the 
 least powerful of their external foes. 
 The mere rumour that the Jews, who 
 
ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XIX 
 
 For they shall tremble and fear, 
 At the shaking of the hand of Jehovah of Hosts, 
 Which he shall shake at them. 
 
 17 And the land of Judah shall be a terror to Egypt; 
 Every one to whom it is mentioned shall be afraid, 
 Because of the purpose of Jehovah of Hosts, 
 Which he hath purposed against them. 
 
 18 In that day there shall be five 
 
 were accustomed to look to Egypt for 
 succour, were preparing an expedition, 
 would be sufficient to strike terror 
 into every bosom. The reference is to 
 a period subsequent to the restoration 
 from Babylon, when the Jewish power 
 had again begun to increase, under 
 the protection of the Persian mon- 
 archs. By the shaking of the hand of 
 the Lord is meant the approach of 
 Cambyses towards Egypt—o°E) is 
 here used for the Hyyptians, but 15 
 taken collectively, as the gender and 
 number both of the verbs and pro- 
 nouns shew.—*:7 occurs only in this 
 place. Schultens, Michaelis, Dathe, 
 and others, derive the word from the 
 
 Arab. La, confugit, refugit ; and sup- 
 
 pose the prophet to mean, that Juda 
 would, under such circumstances, be 
 lam, a refuge, for the Egyptians. 
 Other conjectures have been offered. 
 There seems no substantial reason 
 why 30 should not be considered as 
 the Chald. orthography of 727, which 
 is found in seven of Kennicott’s Co- 
 dices, three of De Rossi’s, and three 
 printed editions. Comp. xv? for 79, 
 Ruth. i. 20; ἘΠῚ} for 7p, Ezek. xxvii. 
 31; 82 for 720, Ps. cxxvii. 2. Gesenius 
 regards it as derived from 237 (as 27, 
 to describe a circle,) to move round and 
 round ; hence to reel or stagger, and 
 consequently applicable, according to 
 the use of that verb in Ps. evii. 27, to 
 the emotion of amazement, bewilder- 
 ment, fear, consternation, terror. Thus 
 the LXX., Aq., Theod., Targ., Syr., 
 and Vulg.— 02: is improperly sepa- 
 rated from the °29 following, by the 
 Athnach, which perplexes the entire 
 sentence, and has led to the combina- 
 tion We Vx, contrary to the usage of 
 the language. 
 
 cities in the land of Egypt, 
 
 18. For the latitude with which the 
 phrase 8177 OF2 is used, see chap. iv. 2. 
 The prophet had in his eye the period 
 which commenced with the Persian 
 conquest of Egypt, and comprehended 
 the subsequent condition of that 
 country.—Five, is supposed by Clarius, 
 Preb. Lowth, Rosenmiller, and others, 
 to be a definite number used for an 
 indefinite; and Gesenius adduces a 
 number of passages in proof, but not 
 one of them is to the point. Le Clere, 
 Bp. Newton, and Hitzig, take the term 
 literally, and are of opinion, that 
 Heliopolis, Leontopolis, Migdol, Daphne, 
 and Memphis, are meant. See Jer. 
 xliv. 1—yp22 nbw, the lip, i.e. the lan- 
 guage, of Canaan, or, the language 
 spoken in the land of Canaan—there 
 being an ellipsis of S78 before 7533, as 
 in Exod. xv. 15. That by this desig- 
 nation the Hebrew language is meant, 
 with special reference to its having 
 been that spoken by the original 
 inhabitants of Canaan, is agreed on all 
 hands. It has, however, been ques- 
 tioned whether the prophet is to be 
 understood as asserting that this lan- 
 guage would actually be spoken by the 
 inhabitants of the afore-mentioned 
 cities ; or whether the term //p is not 
 rather to be taken figuratively of con- 
 Jession or profession, and the whole 
 phrase to mean the public avowal of 
 true religion. In support of the latter 
 view, an appeal has been made to 
 Zeph. ii. 9, where the Lord promises 
 to turn to the people 72 ADL, a pure 
 lip; and to the latter half of this 
 verse, in which swearing to Jehovah 
 appears to be parallel. It is not im- 
 probable, however, that the reference 
 is to the Hebrew language as employed 
 in the public worship of Jehovah, 
 which the Jews instituted in Egypt ; 
 and as the native proselvtes joined in 
 
CHAP. XIX. | 
 
 ISAIAH. in Fi 
 
 Speaking the language of Canaan, 
 And swearing to Jehovah of Hosts ; 
 
 such worship, they might not im- 
 properly be said to speak the language 
 in which it was performed. Even 
 after the introduction of the Greek 
 into that country, and that of the 
 Greek version among the Jews, the 
 law continued to be publicly read in 
 the original, just as it is in all the 
 synagogues at the present day. Nor 
 must it be forgotten that the emigra- 
 tion of Jews from Palestine to Egypt 
 was so great under the Ptolemies, and 
 the privileges conceded to them by 
 these monarchs were so numerous, 
 that the prevalence of Hebrew for a 
 time, in certain cities of which they 
 may have formed the principal part of 
 the population, is by no means incon- 
 ceivable. Could we rely on the ac- 
 count of Aristeas, it would seem that 
 not fewer than 198,000 Jewish cap- 
 tives were released by Ptolemy Phila- 
 delphus, so that the number of Jews 
 resident in Egypt must have been very 
 great.—To swear to Jehovah, means to 
 profess allegiance to him, publicly to 
 protest and avow that He alone is the 
 object of adoration and religious obe- 
 dience. Comp. chap. xlv. 23; Rom. 
 xiv. 11.—For oy Vy, the City of De- 
 struction, Which several of De Rossi’s 
 Codices express by DVT] YY, sixteen 
 MSS., and several printed editions, 
 read Duya VY, the City of the Sun, which 
 is supported by the renderings of the 
 Complutensian edition of the LXX., 
 Symm., Vulg., Arab., Saad., the Tal- 
 mud, and other Jewish testimonies. 
 Whether Aq. and Theod. also so read, 
 is uncertain. The Targ. unites both 
 readings. The present is one of the 
 only two passages in the Hebrew 
 Bible in which Eichhorn is inclined to 
 admit that the Jews have been guilty 
 of wilful corruption ; and certainly 
 there is ground to suspect that it has 
 been tampered with, in support of 
 party prejudice. We learn from Jo- 
 sephus and other Jewish authorities, 
 that Onias, son of the high-priest 
 Onias ITI., whose right it was to have 
 succeeded to the office, finding that the 
 high-priesthood was transferred by 
 Antiochus to another family, fled into 
 
 Egypt, where he so effectually recom- 
 mended himself by his talents to 
 Ptolemy Philometor, and his queen 
 Cleopatra, that, in the year B.c. 149, 
 he was appointed commander-in-chief 
 of the army ; and soon after, he and 
 Dositheus, one of his countrymen, 
 had committed to them the entire 
 administration of the government. 
 Availing himself of his popularity, 
 Onias persuaded the king to grant him 
 permission to build a temple for the 
 religious services of the numerous 
 Jews resident in Egypt, and actually 
 constructed one on the site of an an- 
 cient temple of Bubastis, or Isis, at 
 the city of Leontopolis, in the Helio- 
 politan nome, of which he was governor. 
 This erection corresponded, in minia- 
 ture, to the temple at Jerusalem. 
 Onias himself became high-priest ; 
 other lineal priests and Levites were 
 appointed ; and the whole service was 
 conducted strictly according to the 
 Mosaic ritual. The temple continued 
 to be thus used till the time of the 
 emperor Vespasian, who ordered it to 
 be shut up and finally destroyed, on 
 account of the attempts of the Egyp- 
 tian Jews to throw off the Roman 
 yoke. Joseph. Antiq. lib. iii. cap. iii. 
 § 1—3, xx. x. § 1. Con. Apion. hb. ii. 
 cap. v. Wolfii Biblioth. Hebr. tom. iv. 
 p. 353. Talmud. Joma, 4. Maimon. 
 Menachoth, 6. 
 
 To justify this undertaking, Onias 
 appealed to the 19th verse of this 
 chapter, by which the scruples of 
 many of his brethren were removed ; 
 but it would seem that strong preju- 
 dices continued to be excited and 
 fostered against it, most likely by 
 Palestinian Jews ; for the text of the 
 LXX., if not originally, yet very early 
 exhibited the reading, πόλις ᾿Ασεδέκ, 
 ἢ.6. PIS Vy, the City of Righteousness : 
 —a reading copied in the Hexaplar 
 
 Syriac, «ο]»}.] 12a.,80, which in- 
 
 serts in the margin the readings of 
 Aq., Symm., and 'Theod., but takes no 
 notice of the Complutensian ’Ayépes, 
 so that it cannot have existed in the 
 MSS. consulted by Origen. So violent 
 
178 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 |CHAP, XIX. 
 
 One of them shall be called THE City oF THE Sun. 
 19 In that day there shall be an altar to Jehovah, 
 
 a departure from the Hebrew text, on 
 the part of the Alexandrian Jews, 
 could only have been proyoked by 
 something similar on that of their 
 brethren in Palestine, who, finding the 
 use to which they applied the text, in 
 all probability changed D777 into D}77, 
 and thus characterised Heliopolis, the 
 city of the Sua, as that of destruction, 
 to which they wished it might be 
 devoted. What warrants this con- 
 clusion, in addition to this circum- 
 stance, and the support it derives 
 from the authorities above quoted, 
 which sustain D137, is the total irrele- 
 vance of the common reading in such 
 a context. Were the prophet still 
 denouncing judgments against the 
 Egyptians, there would be some pro- 
 priety in his giving to one of its cities 
 the name of “the city of destruction ;” 
 
 but he is speaking of the establishment - 
 
 of the worship of the true God, in 
 application to which nothing would 
 be more out of place. 
 
 Other interpretations have been 
 proposed, as that of Iken, in his 16th 
 Dissert. Philol. Theol., who derives 
 
 the word from the Arab. my? a 
 
 strong voracious Lion, and accordingly 
 renders the words Leontopolis; in 
 which he is followed by Michaelis, 
 Déderlein, and Dathe. But to this 
 Rosenmiller justly objects, that there 
 is no such name of the lion in Hebrew, 
 though the language has a number of 
 names by which to designate that 
 animal. The same objection les 
 against the translation of Gesenius, 
 “the city of deliverance,’ deriving the 
 
 noun from the Arab. Urey» servavit, 
 
 custodivit. Hitzig is decidedly in favour 
 of Heliopolis, though his opinion that 
 ow signifies the orb or disk of the sun, 
 
 from Dw, Arab. Uys , to scrape, &e., 
 
 ee, 
 
 is altogether fanciful. The word is 
 otherwise clearly used in Hebrew to 
 denote the sun, Judges viii. 13, xiv. 18 ; 
 Job ix. 7. In this opinion, which is 
 that adopted by Vitringa, Lowth, and 
 Jenour, 1 fully coneur, as best satisfy- 
 
 ing all the claims of the text. I will 
 only add that Coverdale renders, 
 ‘And Heliopolis shall be one of 
 them.” The native name of Heliopolis 
 
 was UN, Heb. fx, Ov: afterwards, 
 
 wow m2, Beth-Shemesh, i. e. the house, 
 or temple of the Sun; Jer. xliii. 
 13, which one of Kennicott’s MSS. 
 exhibits in this place. It stood a few 
 miles to the north of Memphis, about 
 the site of the present village of Mata- 
 rich ; and was celebrated for the beau- 
 tiful temple of the sun, and the nu- 
 merous Obelisks which were erected 
 around it. Leontopolis, where the 
 Jewish temple was built, stood some 
 miles still farther north, and its ruins 
 are now known by the name of Z¢/- 
 
 loudieh, 1.6. (5.2 ub, The Jews heap ; 
 
 where, no doubt, monuments and in- 
 scriptions will yet be found, illustra- 
 tive of the Jewish history. 
 
 The specification of Heliopolis, as 
 one of the five cities in which the 
 worship of the true God should be 
 performed, seems to have been occa- 
 sioned by its being, at the time the 
 prophet wrote, one of the principal 
 seats of Egyptian idolatry. 
 
 19. Commentators generally take 
 the “altar” and “ pillar” here spoken 
 of ina figurative sense, and some, as 
 Gesenius, regard them as collective 
 nouns, intimating that spiritual wor- 
 ship would be rendered to Jehovah 
 throughout the land of Egypt. Since, 
 however, the prophecy has respect to a 
 period prior to the introduction of the 
 Gospel economy, we are not at liberty 
 to interpret the terms otherwise than 
 literally ; and as, during the period 
 referred to, myriads of Jews were 
 resident in Egypt, and worshipped the 
 God of their fathers, there seems no 
 valid reason why we should not con- 
 sider the altar to be that erected by 
 Onias at Leontopolis. It may, indeed, 
 be objected that such a prediction 
 would sanction the violation of the 
 Mosaic statute, which ordained that 
 sacrifices should nowhere be offered 
 except at the place which God should 
 
CHAP. XIX.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 179 
 
 In the midst of the land of Egypt, 
 And a pillar at its boundary to Jehovah ; 
 20 And it shall be for a sign and a witness 
 For Jehovah of Hosts in the land of Egypt ; 
 Because they cried to Jehovah on account of the oppressors, 
 
 choose, Deut. xii. 5—14: but it must 
 be recollected that this enactment 
 had an exclusive reference to Pales- 
 tine, to the circumstances of the 
 Israelites as exposed to idolatry in 
 that country, and to the theocracy as 
 established among them there. Had 
 they been at liberty to sacrifice pri- 
 vately, i.e. each at his own altar, it 
 would infallibly have led to idolatrous 
 practices, as the event proved, in the 
 numerous instances in which they 
 transgressed the commandment. None 
 of these reasons apply to the Egyptian 
 Jews. The theocracy was drawing to 
 its close. Few, comparatively, of the 
 Jews in Egypt could repair to Jerusa- 
 lem at the appointed festivals. No 
 encouragement was given to private 
 sacrifice. The establishment at Leon- 
 topolis was exclusive ; and Onias, who 
 would have succeeded to the priest- 
 hood at Jerusalem, if he had not been 
 unjustly deprived of it, had alone the 
 right to officiate in holy things, and 
 not Alcimus, who only exercised the 
 office of high-priest in virtue of his 
 having been invested with it by An- 
 tiochus. Joseph. Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 
 9,§7. In justification of his conduct, 
 he might have pleaded the example of 
 the prophet Elijah, who, notwithstand- 
 ing the prohibition given to the He- 
 brews generally, did, upon an extra- 
 ordinary occasion, offer sacrifice on 
 Mount Carmel, 1 Kings xviii. 30—38. 
 Nor does it appear that this central 
 worship in Egypt had the smallest in- 
 fluence in leading the Jews to practise 
 idolatry, but the contrary. It tended 
 to wean them from an undue attach- 
 ment to Jerusalem, as “the place 
 where men ought to worship,” as well 
 as to attract the surrounding idolaters 
 to the service of Jehovah ; and as both 
 temples were destroyed, under the 
 same Roman emperor, within a few 
 months of each other, and no provision 
 was made in the Hebrew Scriptures 
 for any future erection of the kind, it 
 
 was demonstrated to the Jews, that 
 henceforth, neither at Jerusalem nor 
 elsewhere, were men exclusively to 
 worship the Father, but that iz every 
 place incense should be offered to his 
 name, and a pure offering, Mal. i. 11. 
 
 The 7229, pillar, appears to have 
 been a commemorative obelisk. It was 
 customary, from the most ancient 
 times, to set up a cippus, or pillar, on 
 remarkable occasions. See Gen. xxviii. 
 18, xxxi. 45, xxxv. 14; 1 Sam. vii. 12; 
 Exod. xxiv. 4; in the last of which 
 passages the term 7329 occurs, as here, 
 In connexion with 1392, az altar; 
 whence it may be inferred, that the 
 monument to be erected in Egypt was 
 designed to induce those who beheld 
 it to worship that God to whom it was 
 dedicated, and whose glorious name 
 was, in all probability, inscribed upon 
 it. Egypt abounded in such obelisks, 
 some of which were of immense size ; 
 and many of them remain at the pre- 
 sent day. It is to those at Heliopolis, 
 which were dedicated to the sun, that 
 Jeremiah refers, and the destruction 
 of which he predicts, chap. xliii. 13. 
 The situation of this pillar is stated to 
 be at the boundary of Egypt; but 
 whether Tahpanhes, or Pelusium, as 
 the northern frontier, or Syene as the 
 southern, be meant, cannot be deter- 
 mined. 
 
 20. Whatever might be the private 
 views of the Jews in the erection of 
 the altar and the pillar, it was the de- 
 sign of Jehovah that they should fur- 
 nish a visible testimony to the Egyp- 
 tians of his existence and character. 
 They would be reminded by them of 
 his gracious interposition in behalf of 
 his worshippers in the days of Hezekiah 
 and Cyrus, and of what he had done 
 for their own country in delivering 
 them from the galling yoke of the 
 Persians. That the deliverer here 
 predicted was Alexander the Great, 
 there can be little doubt. After that 
 monarch had been at Jerusalem, he 
 
180 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 And he sent them a saviour, and a defender, and delivered them. 
 
 21 
 
 And Jehovah shall make himself known to the Egyptians, 
 
 And the Egyptians shall know Jehovah in that day, 
 And shall serve him with sacrifice and oblation ; 
 They shall also make a vow to Jehovah, and perform it. 
 
 But he will heal them ; 
 
 Jehovah shall indeed long smite the Egyptians, 
 
 For they shall turn to Jehovah, 
 And he will be propitious to them, and will heal them. 
 
 23 
 
 In that day there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria; 
 
 So that the Assyrians shall come to Egypt, and the Egyptians 
 
 to Assyria ; 
 
 proceeded to Egypt, where he was 
 hailed with the greatest joy by the in- 
 habitants. Their nobles went as far 
 as Pelusium to do him homage ; and 
 their Persian oppressors were forced 
 to surrender without striking a blow. 
 —1) is the Ben. partic. of 1, fo contend, 
 defend, or maintain the cause of another ; 
 and is not to be confounded with the 
 adjective 14, great, ὅτο. 
 
 21, 22. yt. For the reflexive signi- 
 fication of Niphal, see Gesen, Lehrgeb. 
 p. 238. The means which Jehovah 
 employed for the purpose of revealing 
 himself to the Egyptians, appear to 
 have been the residence of so many 
 Jews among them, the severe national 
 calamities to which they were sub- 
 jected, and the deliverances which he 
 wrought for them. The conversion of 
 multitudes to the Jewish faith, under 
 the Ptolemies, in a great measure 
 paved the way for the introduction of 
 the gospel into Egypt; and, in part, 
 accounts for its very rapid and exten- 
 sive spread in that country.—In 12 
 mI) ΤΠ} there is an ellipsis of 3 before 
 the nouns. Exod. x. 26, which Ge- 
 senius adduces to prove that 72Y signi- 
 fies 4o offer, evinces, on the contrary, 
 that it is used in the acceptation of 
 serving ΟΥ̓ worshipping.*}3—F2D. <A finite 
 verb repeated in the infin. indicates 
 the continuation of the action. See 1 
 Sam. vi. 12; 1 Kings xx. 37. Gesen. 
 Lehrgeb. p. 779. The doctrine here 
 taught is, that when God has purposes 
 of mercy towards a sinful people, he 
 will continue to visit them with cala- 
 mities till they are humbled, and thus 
 
 brought into a fit state for appreciat- 
 ing the value of his mercies. Comp, 
 Job v. 17—19; Hos. vy. 15, yi. 1, 2; 
 Isa. lvii, 15—19. 
 
 23. By Wx, in this and the follow- 
 ing verse, is not meant Assyria Proper, 
 ἢ. 6. the countries on the east of the 
 Tigris, nor Babylonia, but Syria, which 
 is only an abridgement of the former 
 name, and specifically that country, as 
 forming the kingdom of the Seleucid, 
 from B.c. 245 to B.c. 64; and after- 
 wards a proconsular Roman province. 
 Subsequent to the time of Alexander 
 a freer intercourse obtained between 
 the Egyptians, and the countries to- 
 wards the Euphrates ; and the Jews 
 being transported thither as colonists, 
 as for instance by Seleucus Nicanor, 
 Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvi. cap. 10. § 8, 
 and afterwards forming a great part of 
 the population of Antioch, the capital 
 of Syria, the knowledge of the true 
 God was widely propagated in those 
 regions, and many proselytes were 
 made to the Jewish faith. About a 
 century before the birth of Christ, 
 that faith was embraced by the kings 
 of the Homerite Arabians, and, some- 
 what later, by the princes of Adiabene. 
 So great was the abandonment of pa- 
 ganism at Damascus, that the great 
 proportion of the female sex were 
 converts toJudaism. Giesler’s Church 
 Hist. vol. i. p. 31. AUNTY OPIS" 730), 
 Hitzig, after some others, strangely 
 renders, “but the Egyptians shall be 
 in servitude to the Assyrians ;” since 
 it is clear from the whole scope of the 
 passage, as well as from the use of 729 
 
CHAP. ΧΧ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 181 
 
 And the Egyptians shall worship with the Assyrians. 
 
 24 
 
 In that day shall Israel be the third 
 
 In reference to Egypt and Assyria ; 
 A blessing in the midst of the earth. 
 
 25 
 
 Whom Jehovah of Hosts shall bless, saying, 
 Blessed be Egypt, my people, 
 
 And Assyria, the work of my hands, 
 
 And Israel, mine inheritance. 
 
 in a religious sense, ver. 21, it is the 
 worship and service of Jehovah that 
 is meant. For the use of nx, in the 
 signification of with, in company with, 
 see Gesen. Heb. Lex. nx, ii. 2. 
 
 24, 25. These verses have a special 
 reference to the times of the Hasmo- 
 nean dynasty, which lasted one hun- 
 dred and twenty-six years. During 
 this period most of the remarkable 
 occurrences took place in Egypt and 
 Syria which have been noticed above ; 
 and it was in Palestine, Egypt, and 
 Syria, that the earliest and most 
 flourishing Christian churches were 
 planted. The former were, by the 
 providence of God, rendered eminently 
 
 subservient to the accomplishment 
 of the prediction. In OS mM 
 mu is a blending of the genders: 
 the mas. being first used on account 
 of the name ‘xi%™ having been that of 
 the patriarch Jacob; but afterwards 
 the fem. inasmuch as it was that of 
 the nation. See on chap. xv. 3. The ἢ 
 in 1923 is to be taken collectively in re- 
 ference to Israel, Egypt, and Syria, 
 mentioned in the preceding verse. 
 While the two latter are recognised in 
 terms which are elsewhere appropri- 
 ated to*the Hebrews, the latter are 
 still distinguished as ¢he peculiar pos- 
 session of Jehovah. Salvation was of 
 the Jews. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 This brief section of the, book belongs to a period somewhere between the 
 seventh and fourteenth year of Hezekiah, when the Assyrians were ad- 
 
 vancing for the first time to attack the Egyptians and Ethiopians. 
 
 Sargon 
 
 is, indeed, supposed by many to be only another name for Sennacherib, who, 
 according to Jerome, had not fewer than seven names ; and they think that 
 the circumstances here described took place in connexion with the expedi- 
 tion sent by that monarch against Jerusalem ; but the event of his expedi- 
 
 tion presents an insuperable objection to this hypothesis. 
 
 It cannot be 
 
 denied that Tartan is said to have been sent by Sennacherib against Jerusa- 
 lem, 2 Kings xviii. 17; see on Isa. xxxvi. 1,2. Yet it is quite possible that 
 he may have been employed on that occasion, in consequence of the success 
 of a former expedition against Egypt. I agree, therefore, with Gesenius, 
 
 Z 
 
182 ISATATL. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Rosenmiller, Maurer, and Hitzig, in the opinion that Sargon occupied the 
 Assyrian throne during a short period between the reigns of Shalmaneser 
 and Sennacherib, and that Tartan served as general under both kings. 
 The name Sargon, written Surkan, has recently been discovered on the 
 Assyrian monument at Khorasabad, and is the name of the king who built 
 the palace there. 
 
 As usual, the Jews, hearing of the approach of the Assyrian army, cherished 
 the hope that it would be met and vanquished by the Egyptians. To con- 
 vince them of the vanity of such hope, Isaiah is commissioned to exhibit, by 
 striking symbolical actions, the disastrous fate of those in whom they 
 trusted, 1—4; and to announce the shame and consternation which the dis- 
 appointment would occasion, 5, 6. 
 
 1 In the year in which Tartan came to Ashdod, (when Sargon the 
 king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod and took 
 2 it; at that time Jehovah spake by Isaiah the son of Amoz, 
 
 saying: Go and loose the sackcloth from thy loins, and take 
 the shoes off thy feet; and he did so, walking naked and bare- 
 
 1. Wx, LXX.”Acoros, Ashdod, was 
 one of the five principal cities of the 
 Philistines, Josh. xiii. 3; 1 Sam. vi. 
 17; the seat of the worship of Dagon, 
 1 Sam. v. 5; and from its being 
 strongly fortified, and lying near the 
 frontiers of Egypt, was reckoned one 
 of the keys to that country on the 
 north. It was situated a little inland 
 from the coast, about fifty miles north 
 of Gaza, and at the same distance to 
 the west of Jerusalem. It was fre- 
 quently attacked, and sustained a siege 
 on the part of Psammetichus which 
 lasted twenty-nine years—the longest 
 recorded on the page of history. It 
 is at present an inconsiderable village, 
 
 known by the name of Cyd] , Lsdud. 
 
 2. T3 denotes here, as usual, instru- 
 mentality, and is not to be rendered, 
 coram, in conspectu, as Gesenius and 
 
 others propose. ων ooh ω"» of the 
 
 Koran, Sur. ii. 256, which has been 
 adduced in illustration, is aside from 
 the point. The communication was, 
 indeed, in the first instance made to 
 Isaiah, LXX. πρὸς ‘Hoaiay: but the 
 phrase has relation to the whole chap- 
 ter, and not merely to the command 
 
 contained in this verse.—From a com- 
 parison of this passage with 2 Kings 
 1.8; Zech. xiii. 4; and Matt. i. 4; 
 it appears that the Hebrew prophets 
 wore a mantle, or cloak, of hair-cloth, 
 as a badge of office, most probably 
 designed to indicate indifference to 
 worldly refinement and indulgence ; 
 and there is every reason to suppose 
 that Isaiah was thus arrayed, in con- 
 formity with such custom, and not in 
 token of any particular mourning.—— 
 ony, zaked. Some interpreters, both 
 Jewish and Christian, taking this term 
 in its strictest acceptation, suppose 
 that the scene must have been merely 
 allegorical, or, that it was presented 
 in prophetié vision, and that no real 
 actions on the part of the prophet 
 are described ; but such a construction 
 obviously does violence to the narra- 
 tive ; since, if he had not acted in the 
 manner enjoined, he could not have 
 been “a sign and a wonder” to his 
 countrymen. It is, therefore, to be 
 understood literally, to the extent 
 which the context requires, viz. with- 
 out the mantle of sackcloth, &c. which 
 the prophet usually wore. That the 
 Hebrews and other nations were ac- 
 customed to speak of persons‘as naked 
 
CHAP. XX.] 
 
 3 foot. 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 183 
 
 And Jehovah said, As my servant Isaiah walketh naked 
 
 and. barefoot three years, a sign and a type in reference to Egypt 
 4 and Cush; so shall the king of Assyria lead the captives of 
 Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young men and old, naked and 
 
 5 barefoot, with their seat uncovered, the shame of Egypt. 
 
 And 
 
 they shall be afraid and ashamed of Cush their expectation, and 
 
 6 of Egypt their boast. 
 
 And the inhabitants of this coast shall 
 
 say in that day: Behold! thus it is with our expectation to 
 which we have fled for help, that we might be delivered from 
 the king of Assyria: How then shall we escape ? 
 
 when only partially disrobed, see 1 
 Sam. xix. 24; 2 Sam. vi. 20 ; John xxi. 
 7; Cicero ad Fam. x. 32; Sueton. 
 Nero. li.; Seneca de Venef. v. 13; 
 Ailian, V. ἘΠ. 6, 11. 13, 37. At the 
 same time, the language employed in 
 ver. 4 shews that the prophet must 
 have been denuded to the utmost ex- 
 tent which public decency allowed.— 
 Instead of 722, twenty-nine MSS., 
 five others originally, some of the 
 
 earliest and best editions, the LXX., 
 
 Arab., Syr., and Vulg., read 77222 in 
 the plural. 
 
 3. Every attempt which has been 
 made to shew that Isaiah did not ap- 
 pear in this symbolical state for the 
 space of three years has proved abor- 
 tive—being contradictory of the plain 
 statement of the text. 1t is not, how- 
 ever, necessary to suppose that he 
 went about every day in this state, but 
 that when he did appear in public he 
 was thus undressed. The period spe- 
 cified was that which was to elapse 
 before the actual capture of the 
 Egyptians. During the whole of that 
 time the Jews had their attention pro- 
 phetically directed to the certainty of 
 the event. The Hebrew accentuation, 
 the various reading of the LXX., and 
 the conjecture of Lowth, that om v7, 
 three days, may originally have been in 
 the text, are to be traced to a desire 
 to relieve it of what, after all, is no 
 serious difficulty. For the meaning 
 of mpi nix, see chap vili. 17, 18; and 
 comp. Jer. xliii. 8, 9; Ezek, xii. 3—7, 
 11, xxiv. 17, 22—24. 
 
 4, Ancient history is silent respect- 
 ing the victories gained by the Assyrians 
 
 on this occasion ; but it is doubtless 
 the same event referred to, Nahum 11]. 8 
 —10, when No-Ammon, or Thebes, 
 the residence of the Ethiopian kings 
 of Egypt, was taken, and its inhabit- 
 ants carried into captivity. The close 
 connexion between Egypt and Ethio- 
 pia at this time, shews that the African 
 and not the Arabian Cush is meant.— 
 nw pw, is generally considered to bean 
 antiquated plural construct, as 7H, 
 Gen. xlix. 26, 2x0 777), Isa. xvi. 4, the 
 Tzere having been changed into Patach, 
 for the sake of euphony. Several co- 
 dices, however, read ‘pT. On the 
 royal tombs at Thebes are representa- 
 tions of captives led away in triumph, 
 either ina state of complete nudity, 
 or with a small scarf suspended round 
 their loins, and hanging down in front. 
 
 5, ὉΞῸ and ΓΊΝΕΙ are used for the 
 object of expectation and boasting,—an 
 idiom very common in Scripture. 
 
 6. °8, which signifies isle, sea-coast, 
 maritime country, is here to be taken in 
 a more extended acceptation, as com- 
 prehending the whole of Palestine,— 
 so called from its bordering on the 
 Mediterranean. It is derived from 
 
 uss! , se recepit commorandi vel quiescendt 
 ergo, diversatus fuit: IV. in hospitium 
 recepit. conte, mansio, sedes commora- 
 
 tionis. The only hope of the inhabit- 
 ants of Palestine being frustrated by 
 the reduction of Egypt, they had no 
 power to which they might apply for 
 defence against the returning army of 
 the Assyrians, x, after 272), is 
 emphatic. How then shall we escape? 
 
184 ISATAH. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 1—10. 
 
 THE SENTENCE OF THE DESERT OF THE SEA. 
 
 This chapter contains three prophetic oracles, of which the first respects the 
 conquest of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, and occupies the first ten 
 verses. It is full of scenic representation, and is justly characterised by 
 Lowth as singular for its brevity and force ; for the variety and rapidity of 
 the movements ; and for the strength and energy of colouring with which 
 the action and event are painted. Under the image of a portentous storm, 
 the prophet announces the approach of the army of Cyrus, calls upon the 
 warriors to advance, and pathetically describes the consternation which their 
 unexpected attack would produce, 1—4. The king of Babylon and his 
 princes are then described as indulging in festive security ; but, by a sudden 
 transition, the Persians are summoned to arms, 5. The advance of the 
 enemy, and the issue of the attack, are then appropriately depicted, 6—9 ; 
 and the vision closes with an animated address to the Jewish captives, calling 
 
 their attention to what was designed to effect their deliverance, 10. 
 
 1 As hurricanes sweeping through the south, 
 
 It cometh from the desert, 
 From the terrible land. 
 
 1. Ὁ 7379, the Desert of the Sea, a 
 very appropriate designation of the 
 country about Babylon, especially to- 
 wards the south, which was one un- 
 broken extensive plain, consisting 
 either of sterile sandy regions, or of 
 open fields of pasturage for flocks. 
 Previous to the construction of dams 
 by Semiramis, the periodical inunda- 
 tion of the Euphrates caused the 
 whole country to assume the appear- 
 ance of a vast sheet of water, on 
 which account it was called a sea. 
 Herod. i. 184. Abydenus SayS @X- 
 pr essly : : λέγεται δὲ πάντα μὲν ἐξ a ἀρχῆς 
 ὕδωρ εἶναι, ΘΑΛΑΣΣΑΝ καλεομένην. 
 Euseb. Preep. Evang. ix. 41, p. 457, ed. 
 Paris, 1628. Comp. Jer. li. 13, 86. It 
 is, however, not impossible that there 
 may bea reference to the artificial sea, 
 or lake, to the west of Babylon, forty 
 square miles in size, into which the 
 water of the Euphrates was turned, 
 and kept, as in a common reservoir, 
 
 for the purpose of irrigating the lands 
 in the vicinity—The great Arabian 
 desert lying to the south both of 
 Babylon and Palestine, the most de- 
 structive storms come from that direc- 
 tion. They sweep along with tremen- 
 dous fury, carrying tents into the air, 
 and devastating whatever cannot resist 
 their violence. They are properly 
 called M50, sweepers, from FPO, to carry 
 
 entirely away, destroy; Arab. —slw, 
 
 Conj. viii. perire fecit, exterminavit. 
 Comp. Job 1. 19, xxxvii. 9; Zech. ix. 
 14.—The ? in Riad marks the gerund. 
 —The nomin. to 83, is the Medo- 
 Persian army, understood, though not 
 expressed. It is said to come from 
 the desert, i.e. the vast region lying to 
 the north and east of Babylon, and 
 which is called το yx, a ¢errible land, 
 because it was mostly uncultivated, 
 and the residence of wild beasts. 
 Comp. Deut. i. 19. 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΙ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 185 
 
 2 A grievous vision was shewn to me, 
 The plunderer plundering, and the destroyer destroying ; 
 
 Go up, O Elam! 
 
 Besiege, O Media ! 
 
 All sighing I have made to cease. 
 
 3 Therefore my loins are full of writhing ; 
 Pangs have seized me, as the pangs of a woman in labour: 
 I am convulsed, I cannot hear ; 
 
 I am troubled, I cannot see. 
 4 My heart is bewildered, 
 
 Horror hath suddenly seized me; 
 
 2. The fem. nu7 is construed with 
 an adjective and verb in the mas. on 
 account of the tremendous character 
 of the subject to which it refers.—723 
 not only signifies ¢o act perfidiously, but 
 also, to commit violence, pillage, spotl, 
 
 &e.; LXX, ἀθετεῖ: Syr. FQ—>4, perverse 
 
 egit, injuriam intulit. "Targ. DN, to 
 oppress, pluader. Comp. Hab. ii. 5. 
 Lowth’s change of the Ben. into Pah. 
 participles is critically unwarranted, 
 and violates the claims of the con- 
 nexion.—The enemy is seen by the 
 prophet, engaged in the work of de- 
 struction, to effect which he is en- 
 couraged by an express command 
 from Jehovah; and the result is 
 abruptly, but expressively, announced, 
 —the termination of the sufferings 
 and sorrows of those whom Babylon 
 had oppressed. According to the 
 Masoretes, the 7 in 77728 is Raple, i.e. 
 it is to be pronounced soft, without 
 the Mappik, which is found in several 
 MSS. and printed editions, and is, 
 therefore, not to be regarded as 
 a pronominal suffix. It is, indeed, 
 not unusual to introduce an implied 
 reference, especially in animated and 
 abrupt style ; but it seems preferable 
 to consider the 7 as paragogic and 
 emphatic, and so expressing still 
 more forcibly the extent of the sigh- 
 ing which Babylon had occasioned, 
 but which was now to cease. See 
 Ps. iii. 3. Thus Jarchi and Rosen- 
 miller. 1 
 
 3, 4. In these verses the prophet 
 personifies Babylon, and represents 
 her as giving expression to extreme 
 agitation and terror, occasioned by the 
 
 unexpected appearance of the enemy. 
 mn is intensive, and signifies great 
 writhing, or writhing pain, from 7, to 
 twist, writhe. Comp. WW, 17, &e.—d 
 in pdt and Nin expresses negation.— 
 MOT Hr, lit. the twilight of my pleasure ; 
 but 4%, which signifies either the 
 evening or the morning twilight, is 
 also used for the darkness of night 
 that intervenes between them. See 
 chap. v. 11, lix. 10. What the prophet 
 means is the night which the Babylo- 
 nians had devoted to pleasure, when 
 Belshazzar made a great feast to a 
 thousand of his nobles, and drank 
 wine out of the sacred cups which 
 had been taken from the temple at 
 Jerusalem, Dan. v. Of the festival 
 celebrated on this occasion, express 
 mention is made by Herodotus, lib. 1, 
 191: ἀλλὰ τυχεῖν σφὶ ἐοῦσαν ὁρτήν, 
 χορεύειν τε τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον, καὶ ἐν 
 εὐπαθείησι εἶναι, ἐς ὁ δὴ καὶ τὸ κάρτα 
 ἐπύθοντο : “ but they happened to be cele- 
 brating a festival, and were dancing 
 and indulging in pleasure, when they 
 learned what had happened.” And 
 Xenophon states in his Cyropeedia, 
 vii. 7: ‘O δὲ Κῦρος, ἐπειδὴ ἑορτὴν τοι- 
 αὕτην ἐν Βαβυλώνι ἤκουσεν εἶναι, ἐν ἡ 
 πάντες Βαβυλώνιοι ὅλην τὴν νύκτα πί- 
 νουσι καὶ κωμάζουσιν : that “ Cyrus, 
 when he heard that they were celebrating 
 a festival at Babylon, in which all the 
 Babylonians drank and revelled the 
 whole night,” proceeded to take mea- 
 sures for the immediate capture of 
 the city—nw is used impersonally, 
 and is equivalent to the substantive 
 verb ™, followed by ?.—Before 71, 
 subaud. 72, repeated from the preced- 
 ing clause. Comp. Dan..v. 6, 9. 
 
186 
 
 The night of my pleasure 
 
 Is to me become one of terror. 
 
 The table is arranged ; 
 The watch is set ; 
 
 They eat, they drink :— 
 
 or 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXI. 
 
 Arise, ye princes; anoint the shield. 
 6 For thus hath the Lord said to me: 
 
 Go, station a watchman ; 
 
 What he seeth, let him declare. 
 7 And he saw troops of horse by pairs, 
 
 5. PY, ΤΌΣ, Ax, and tim, are his- 
 torical Infinitives, and vividly portray 
 the security and avidity with which 
 the Babylonians were enjoying the 
 feast. The position of ΠΈΣ ΠῈΣ be- 
 tween JT8T FY and nw Ax is beauti- 
 fully select. When the tables had all 
 been prepared, and the king and his 
 guests were about to sit down to the 
 banquet, the precaution was taken to 
 see that the guards were placed at 
 their posts. The coincidence between 
 this circumstance, noticed by Isaiah, 
 and the words addressed to Cyrus by 
 those who were around Gobrias, one 
 of his generals, is also remarkable,— 
 ὡς ἐν κώμῳ δοκεῖ yap ἡ πόλις πᾶσα εἶναι 
 τῇδε τῇ νυκτί. φυλακῇ μέντοι πρὸ 
 τῶν πυλῶν ἐντευξόμεθα' ἔστι γὰρ 
 ἀεὶ τεταγμένη : “the city seems to- 
 night to be in a general revel, but we 
 shall meet with a guard at the gates, Sor 
 there ts always one set there.” Cyropeed. 
 ut sup. Other interpretations of 
 mesimpz have been attempted, but 
 have failed. See Gesenius and Hitzig. 
 The words are not found in the LXX. 
 The Hexap. has, after an asterisk, 
 σκόπευσον τὴν σκοπιάν, but there is 
 no corresponding translation in the 
 Hexap. Syriac. The Peshito Syr., 
 Targ., and Vulg., render according to 
 the usual signification of watching, 
 looking out.—According to Gesenius, 
 the last clause of the verse contains a 
 call from the watch to the princes of 
 Babylon to rise from the tables at 
 which they were feasting, and hasten 
 to the defence of the city; but the 
 words are more probably addressed in 
 vision by the prophet to the com- 
 manders of the Medes and Persians, 
 
 calling upon them to seize the faveur- 
 able moment of attack. Comp. Jer. 
 li. 11, 12; and the words of Cyrus: 
 ἄγετε, λαμβάνετε ὅπλα. The 72, shield, 
 was the chief defence of the ancient 
 warrior. In length it was about half 
 his height, and generally double its 
 own breadth. It was most commonly 
 covered with bull’s hide, (hence ἀσπί- 
 das βοείας, Iliad, v. 452,) having the 
 hair outwards, sometimesstrengthened 
 by one or more rims of metal, and 
 studded with nails or metal pins. 
 Sometimes it was suspended by a 
 thong upon the side, and sometimes 
 held by a handle. Wilkinson’s An- 
 cient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 298. 10 was 
 customary to smear the shields over 
 with oil, to render them smooth, so 
 that the weapons of the enemy might 
 slide off them, and also to prevent 
 them from being injured by rain. 
 This was done before engaging in 
 battle, which accounts for the com- 
 mand on the present occasion. Comp. 
 2 Sam. i. 21. 
 
 6. Isaiah is here ordered to do, 
 what would naturally be done under 
 such circumstances by one anxious to 
 know the result. The whole is trans- 
 acted in vision. A watchman is 
 stationed ; the army of Cyrus is pre- 
 sented to his view ; he gives the alarm 
 by describing its appearance; and 
 finally announces the fall of Babylon, 
 ver. 7—9. 
 
 7. 22), and 123, as well as Won and 723, 
 are here nouns of multitude. As 27 
 also signifies @ chariot, most interpre- 
 ters so render it in the present instance, 
 and some, with Michaelis, suppose 
 the war-chariots, armed with scythes, 
 
CHAP. XXI.]| 
 
 ISATAT. 
 
 187 
 
 Troops of asses, troops of camels ; 
 And listened with the utmost attention. 
 
 to be meant, which were first intro- 
 duced among the Persians by Cyrus. 
 Since, however, it does not appear that 
 asses and camels were employed in 
 the East to draw chariots, or waggons 
 of any description, the term cannot be 
 so taken, at least in the connexion in 
 which it here stands with these 
 animals; and it is scarcely to be ima- 
 gined that it would be used in such 
 close proximity, in two different ac- 
 ceptations. 12, the verb from which 
 
 it is derived, like the Arab. as A 
 
 signifies fo ride, either on an animal or 
 in a vehicle, so that the noun may 
 equally denote riders, and the animals 
 on, or the vehicles in, which they rode. 
 Comp. 2 Sam. viii. 4, x. 18. It must 
 here be understood as signifying troops 
 riding on horses,—O'X}2 signifies both 
 horsemen and horses, especially such as 
 were used for riding: the parallel use 
 of camels and asses shews that the 
 word is to be taken in the latter sense. 
 122 properly denotes a yoke, from 122, 
 lo bind, fasten; but as the yoke was 
 employed for the purpose of binding 
 two animals together, it easily came to 
 signify a couple of animals thus 
 bound, and then ἃ pair or couple in- 
 definitely, without reference to the 
 primary signification of the term. 
 The prophet employs it to describe 
 the Persian cavalry advancing iz double 
 ranks :—a circumstance specially no- 
 ticed by Xenophon: ‘Qs δὲ τὸ τοῦ 
 ποταμοῦ οὕτως ἐπορσύνετο, παρηγγύησεν 
 ὁ Κῦρος, Πέρσαις χιλιάρχοις καὶ πεζῶν 
 καὶ ἱππέων, EIS ΔΥΌ ἄγοντας τὴν χι- 
 λιοστὺν παρεῖναι πρὸς αὐτόν, k.T.d. 
 Cyropeed. vii. ὅ, 8. That Cyrus should 
 have a strong body of hcrsemen might 
 be anticipated, from the use of cavalry 
 by the Egyptians and other nations of 
 antiquity ; but it would seem that 
 they were first used by the Persians, 
 in his wars in Western Asia. How 
 strange soever it may appear, at first 
 sight, to us westerns, that,asses should 
 be employed in offensive warfare, it is 
 certain that the inhabitants of Cara- 
 mania, a province of Persia, thus used 
 them: Χρῶνται δ᾽ ὄνοις οἱ πολλοὶ καὶ 
 
 πρὸς πόλεμον, σπάνει τῶν ἵππων. ὄνον 
 τε θύουσι τῷ “Apet, ὅνπερ σέβονται 
 θεῶν μόνον, καί εἰσι πολεμισταί. “Even 
 in war they mostly use asses, owing 
 to the lack of horses; and they also 
 offer them in sacrifice to Mars, whom 
 alone of all the gods they worship ; 
 being a most warlike people.” Strabo, 
 lib. xv. cap. 2. These animals were 
 not only useful in conveying the 
 soldiers forward to the point where 
 they gave battle to the enemy on foot, 
 but were also employed for the pur- 
 pose of scaring his horses. Thus 
 Herodotus relates, that, in the expedi- 
 tion of Darius against the Scythians, 
 the insolence of the asses so terrified 
 the Scythian horses, that they were 
 panic-struck. by their braying, and, 
 pricking their ears, turned about ; 
 having never before heard the sound, 
 or seen the form of these animals—a 
 circumstance which, in some degree, 
 affected the fortune of the war, lib. iv. 
 cap. 29. According to Xenophon, a 
 similar stratagem was used by Cyrus 
 with the camels, in the decisive battle 
 which he gained against Creesus, which 
 proves that he also had them in his 
 army, conformably to the prediction 
 in the text. Cyropzed. vii. 1, § 14, 22. 
 Since, however, it was anciently cus- 
 tomary for the Bactrians, Parthians, 
 Africans, and other nations of the 
 East, to attack the enemy on the 
 backs of camels or dromedaries, as it 
 has been since, and is at this day in 
 Arabia, there is reason to believe that 
 the like formed part of the military 
 operations of Cyrus in his war with 
 the Babylonians. See Diod. Sic. 1]. 
 54, 111. 44; Liv. xxxvii. 40; Strabo, xvi. 
 3; Herod. vii. 86; Pollux, x. 8; Hero- 
 dian, iv.15; Gesenius, iz loc. ; Michaelis, 
 Laws of Moses, vol. ii. p. 499. 
 
 In the present case, as in number- 
 less others, by abandoning the literal 
 interpretation for one that is sym- 
 bolical and purely imaginary, the 
 evidence which the passage affords in 
 support of the truth of Scripture is 
 entirely lost. Regarding ΘΒ as de- 
 noting horsemen, Estius, Tirinus, Sane- 
 tius, Menochius, Prebend. Lowth, and 
 
188 
 
 8 And he cried out like a lion: 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXI. 
 
 On the watch-tower I stood, my lord! 
 
 Continually by day ; 
 
 And at my post of observation, 
 
 I was stationed whole nights. 
 
 9 And behold! this came: 
 
 Troops of men, horse by pairs. 
 
 And he further said : 
 Babylon is fallen, is fallen ! 
 
 And all the graven images of her gods he hath smashed to the 
 
 ground ! 
 
 10 O my threshing, and the corn of my floor! 
 
 others, suppose the two to be sym- 
 bolical of Cyrus and Darius; while 
 some are of opinion that the ass and 
 the camel are symbolical of the Medes 
 and Persians ! 
 
 8. Want of attention to the usage 
 of the language has led many to 
 interpret ™x, @ lion, of Darius; but 
 there is obviously an ellipsis of 3, as, 
 like, before the word, as “5%, for BY3, 
 Ps. xi. 1; 1, for m3, Isa. xxii. 23; 
 ven, for ὝΣΠΞ, 11, 12, ef freg. Comp. 
 Rey. x. 8. Lowth’s conjecture, that 
 we should read 1819, which is adopted 
 by Michaelis, Dathe, and Déderlein, 
 is altogether gratuitous—The punc- 
 tists, supposing Jehovah to be ad- 
 dressed by the watchman, read ‘21, 
 but as, according to ver. 6, the watch- 
 man was placed at his post by Isaiah, 
 the word should be pointed ‘x, and 
 rendered sir, or my lord, as in our com- 
 mon version. 
 
 9. In the phrase 82 T1737 seems to 
 be couched the sudden and unexpected 
 approach of the Persian army—a cir- 
 cumstance specially noticed by Hero- 
 dotus: viv δὲ ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου opi 
 παρέστησαν οἱ Πέρσαι; “ But the Per- 
 sians came upon them quite wnez- 
 pectedly,” lib. i. 191. Here wx, for 
 Dw, which was omitted ver. 7, is 
 supplied, and the other two particulars 
 there mentioned are left out, being 
 understood.—2y, lit. to axswer, is used 
 idiomatically to express the continu- 
 ance or prosecution of the discourse. 
 Comp. Gen. xviii. 27, and ἀποκρίνομαι, 
 in the Hellenistic Greek of the N. T., 
 Matt. xi. 25, xxii. 1; only, in the pre- 
 
 sent instance, there is, as it were, a 
 perceptible pause on the part of the 
 watchman, before proceeding to an- 
 nounce the result of the hostile ap- 
 proach of Cyrus—the destruction of 
 Babylon. The repetition 75) 753 
 expresses the strong impression which 
 the fall of that great city had pro- 
 duced on the mind of the speaker, and 
 gives emphasis to the declaration. 
 Comp. Rev. xviii. 2, where the same 
 formula is employed in application to 
 spiritual Babylon.—The concluding 
 clause of the verse contains another 
 of those prophetic intimations which 
 receive their confirmation from profane 
 history, though ofttimes in an appa- 
 rently quite incidental manner. Hero- 
 dotus expressly states, lib. i. 131, that 
 ἀγάλματα μὲν καὶ νηοὺς καὶ βωμοὺς οὐκ 
 ἐν νόμῳ ποιευμένους ἱδρύεσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ 
 τοῖσι ποιεῦσι μωρίην ἐπιφέρουσι; “The 
 Persians deem it unlawful to form 
 images, or construct temples and 
 altars, and charge those with stupidity 
 who do so.” They would, therefore, 
 naturally break them in pieces, when- 
 ever they fell in their way. The 
 nomin. to 130 is Cyrus or his army 
 understood. Followed by yw? the 
 verb is a vor pregnans; and the full 
 force of the phrase is, to break in 
 pieces while levelling with the ground. 
 The LXX., Arab., Syr., Targ. and 
 Vulg., appear to have read 13%, and De 
 Rossi’s Cod. 985, originally read 7303; 
 but both readings have sprung from 
 want of attention to the proper nomi- 
 native-—Comp. Jer. 1. 2, li. 47, 52. 
 
 10. The words 9) ‘M72 have 
 
CHAP. XXI.] 
 
 What I have heard from Jehovah 
 
 I have declared to you. 
 
 been variously interpreted, according 
 to the different views which have been 
 taken of the person speaking, and of 
 those respecting whom they are spoken. 
 The most natural construction is that 
 which assigns them to the prophet, 
 and regards them as addressed to his 
 countrymen who should be in Babylon 
 at the time of the Persian conquest, 
 They had been ¢hreshed, i.e. trodden 
 upon and oppressed by their enemies, 
 till, by the blessing of God, their 
 idolatrous practices had been separated 
 from them, and they lay as clean grain 
 upon the threshing-floor, ready to be 
 removed into the garner. The pro- 
 phet calls them Ais, identifying him- 
 self with them as his people. 19, 
 
 VERSES 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 189 
 of Hosts, the God of Israel, 
 
 a threshing, ov that which has been 
 threshed, from 11, Arab. plo, cal- 
 cavit pedibus terram, to tread out grain, 
 trample upon, crush enemies, captives, ὅζο. 
 
 1, a smooth or level area on a rising 
 ground, or in a field, where grain is 
 
 trodden out; Arab. wy? to make 
 
 smooth ΟΥ̓ level. J133, lit. the son of my 
 floor, but used idiomatically for the 
 grain which was upon it. Comp. 
 HO, sparks, Job v. 7; MTB, the 
 arrow, chap. xli. 20, and the Arab. 
 
 (So ων» aurora; οὐκ os eiahie 
 sel ων» luna ; \ SI oth Po 
 
 11, 12. 
 
 THE SENTENCE OF DUMAH. 
 
 11 Onze called to me from Seir: 
 
 Watchman! what of the night ? 
 Watchman! what of the night? 
 
 12 The watchman said: 
 
 11, 12. These two verses contain a 
 prophecy concerning the inhabitants 
 of Dumah, which, from its abrupt in- 
 troduction, its brevity, and its enigma- 
 tical character, is somewhat difficult of 
 interpretation. From 2, Dummh, oc- 
 curring Gen. xxv. 14, and 1 Chron. i. 
 30, as the name of one of the descend- 
 ants of Ishmael, in connexion with 
 Teman and other Arabian names, it is 
 most probable that, in this place, we 
 are to understand by the term, the 
 
 Δουμαίθα of Ptolemy, οὐαὶ keosd, 
 
 the Rocky Dumah, or Sell] Koy, 
 
 Syrian Dumuah, so called from its being 
 situated on the confines of Arabia 
 Petraa and the Syrian desert. Thus 
 Michaelis, Déderlein, Hensler, Ge- 
 senius, Hitzig, Maurer. On the other 
 
 hand, Schmidius, Vitringa, Lowth, 
 Koppe, Dathe, Rosenmiiller, Booth- 
 royd, and Jenour, following the ’Idov- 
 pata of the LXX., consider it to be 
 merely an abbreviation of DYN, H/om. 
 The circumstance that the voice is 
 said to come Vy, from Sei, cannot 
 strictly be adduced in favour of the 
 latter interpretation ; since, if we sup- 
 pose the prophet to have been in 
 Jerusalem, it must have reached him 
 from Seir—the north-east mountains 
 of that country stretching between 
 Dumah and Judea. The period to 
 which the prophecy refers seems to 
 be that during which the Jews were 
 captives in Babylon. Respecting this 
 period, metaphorically called the night, 
 on account of its calamities, (see chap, 
 xlv. 7 ; Joel ii. 2; Amos v. 18,) the in- 
 habitants of Dumah scoffingly inquire, 
 
 AA 
 
190 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. ΧΧΙ. 
 
 Morning cometh, and also night; 
 
 If ye will inquire, inquire ; 
 Turn, come. 
 
 how far it is advanced. And, to give 
 greater pointedness to the taunt, the 
 inquiry is repeated. The inspired 
 reply is, that morning, i. e. the dawn of 
 joy and prosperity (see Job xi. 17) is 
 approaching to the Jews, but that 
 there is also a night at hand, or a sea- 
 son of calamity for their enemies. 
 The prophet then tells them, that, if 
 they would really know what was in 
 the Divine mind, they must repent, 
 and come in the exercise of an humble 
 and teachable disposition. Comp. Job. 
 Xxil, 21.—xnx, and 73, are Aramaic, 
 or imitations of it. The former verb 
 
 VERSES 
 
 is otherwise used in Heb. with 7 for 
 its third radical, which a great many 
 MSS., and the Complut. Bible, exhibit 
 in this place; the latter occurs only 
 once besides, Obad. ver. 6, in the sense 
 of inquiring. Ὑ is used in its meta- 
 phorical sense of turning to God, repent- 
 ing, being converted, &c. like the Arab. 
 
 Wb, δῦ, conver sid, Ls pententia ; 
 
 Syr. and Chald. 562, 37; Rab- 
 
 bin. WW, repentance ; and not adver- 
 bially, to qualify the following verb, 
 as Hitzig maintains, 
 
 13—17. 
 
 THE SENTENCE OF ARABIA, 
 
 From Dumah, on the very confines, the prophet proceeds to deliver an oracle 
 respecting the condition to which the Arabians in general should be reduced 
 
 within a year after its publication. 
 
 Instead of traversing the country as 
 
 usual, and pitching their tents at the ordinary stations, or as might best 
 suit their convenience, the mercantile caravans should be obliged to betake 
 themselves to the thickets, in order to escape from the sword of the enemy. 
 To what invasion of Arabia reference is made cannot be determined ; but, as 
 it must have taken place in the time of Isaiah, it cannot be that by Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, predicted by Jeremiah, chap. xlix. 23—33; except we were to 
 suppose that some definite numeral had been dropped out of the text before 
 m0, Lowth thinks it may have happened in connexion with Sennacherib’s 
 invasion of Judea, about the fourteenth year of Hezekiah. 
 
 13 In the thickets of Arabia shall ye lodge, 
 
 Ye caravans of Dedanites ! 
 
 13. Lowth deems the title, 43 NwD, 
 of doubtful authority, partly because 
 it is wanting in many MSS. of the 
 LXX., and partly because of what he 
 calls the singularity of the phrase- 
 ology. The former circumstance is of 
 little moment, especially as the Greek 
 MSS. in which it is found are sup- 
 
 ported by Aq., Symm., and Theod. 
 And, as it respects the construction, 
 though the two identical nouns no. 
 where else occur with the preposition 
 3 intervening, yet instances of nouns 
 thus construed are by no means un- 
 common. Comp. 3732 7, 2 Sam. i. 
 22; pova ay, Ps, lxxxiv. 7; VEPpa now, 
 
CHAP. XXI.| 
 
 14 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 191 
 
 Bring forward water to the thirsty ; 
 
 Ye inhabitants of the land of Tema, 
 Anticipate with his bread the fugitive. 
 
 15 
 
 Isa. ix. 2; and 2a wa, immediately 
 following in the verse itself, which in 
 all probability was prominent in the 
 mind of Isaiah, when he penned the 
 
 title. See also lvi. 9. any, oa mad 
 
 Arabia, generally speaking, includes 
 the whole tract of country, extending 
 from Palestine to the straits of Babel- 
 mandel, and from the Red Sea to the 
 Euphrates, and usually divided into 
 Deserta, Petrza, and Felix ; but in this 
 passage, as most frequently in Scrip- 
 ture, the name more immediately ap- 
 plies to Arabia Deserta, or the northern, 
 being that with which the Hebrews 
 were most familiar. It is peopled by 
 
 Bedoweens, «9.» i. 6. inhabitants of 
 
 the desert, who have no fixed habita- 
 tions, but live in tents, (σκηνῖται, 
 Strabo, xvi. 3; Diod. Sic. ii. 54,) and 
 move from place to place, according as 
 they require pasturage for their flocks. 
 This mode of life they have led from 
 the most ancient times; as, indeed, 
 they retain unaltered most of the 
 ‘patriarchal manners and customs. 
 Through this desert lay the great 
 route from the Elanitic and Persian 
 gulfs on the south to Damascus, Tyre, 
 and Sidon on the north, connecting 
 the commerce of the Indian seas with 
 that of the Mediterranean. It still 
 forms that of the caravans from 
 Damascus to Mecca. It is to such 
 caravans, here called nimMs, travelling 
 compantes, that the prophet refers. 
 Comp. Job vi. 19. Being stocked with 
 articles of great value they would 
 naturally be an object of attack by 
 the enemy.—lInstead of 23, two of 
 De Rossi’s MSS. read 3193, in the evening, 
 but probably a correction from the 
 Targ., which, with the LXX., Syr., and 
 Vulg., gives this interpretation.—By 
 w is not meant a forest of trees, but 
 a rough or rugged part of the desert, 
 containing thickets of brush-wood, 
 briers, &c. which rendered hostile 
 operations in a great measure imprac- 
 
 For they flee from the swords, 
 
 ticable. Comp. the Arab. yy locus 
 
 salebrosus—OI11, the Dedanites, here 
 mentioned, are not the descendants 
 of Abraham by Keturah, Gen. xxv. 
 3, who occupied a northern tract in 
 Arabia, bordering on Idumea, but 
 those of Raamah, specified Gen. x. 7, 
 
 who inhabited the island we Daden, 
 
 in the Persian Gulf, and most probably 
 part of the adjacent coast of Arabia, 
 and were celebrated on account of 
 their trade with the Pheenicians, Ezek. 
 xxvii. 15, xxxviii. 13. See Bochart 
 Phaleg. lib. iv. cap 6; Michaelis, 
 Spicileg. i. p. 201. It was their cara- 
 vans, and not those of a tribe in the 
 immediate vicinity of Tema, that 
 would be attacked. 
 
 14, non, Tema, still called by the 
 
 Arabs, (8, Zaima, a region on the ex- 
 ΩΣ 
 
 tremity of Arabia Deserta, towards 
 Syria. Job. vi.19; Jer. xxv. 23. The 
 LXX. uniformly render it Θαιμάν, con- 
 founding it with y2n, which lay in the 
 eastern part of Idumea. It is only a 
 few hours’ journey to the east of Hejeh, 
 which lies on the route of the caravans 
 from Damascus to Mecca. The in- 
 habitants are called to perform the 
 rites of hospitality towards the fugi- 
 tives—a virtue for which the Arabs 
 have ever been renowned.—The suff. 
 in 19m) belongs to ΤΏ, the fugitive ; and 
 the meaning is, Supply him with the 
 food which he needs ; just as ὁ ἄρτος 
 ἡμῶν, Matt. νἱ. 11, means the bread, or 
 food, which our circumstances require. 
 —The ancient versions read the verbs 
 yn, and 277, in the Imper., and justly. 
 The former is thus used Jer. xii. 9; 
 and if the latter be not here used in 
 Kal, it is only necessary to change 
 the Hiric into Patach, and write "272, 
 to make it the Imper. of Piel. 799 
 is a contraction for x7. 
 
 15. The cumulative character of 
 this verse greatly heightens the effect. 
 For 725, comp. 1 Sam. xxxi. 3, and the 
 
192 
 
 From the drawn sword, 
 And from the bent bow, 
 
 And from the pressure of war. 
 For thus said the Lord to me: 
 
 16 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP., XXII 
 
 In one year more, according to the years of a hireling, 
 
 All the glory of Kedar shall be consumed. 
 
 And the remainder of the number of bows— 
 
 The mighty sons of Kedar shall be diminished ; 
 For Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath spoken it. 
 
 5 - . . - 
 Arab. dS, molestia affecit, in angustiam 
 
 redegit ; ὅλα » vehementia hiemis, adver- 
 
 sitas. 
 
 16. τῷ, Kedar, an Arabian tribe, de- 
 scended from Kedar, one of the sons 
 of Ishmael, Gen. xxv. 13. Comp. Ps. 
 ΣΧ Os pone 1: oi; Tsay xl. pl ΤΣ; ἡ» 
 Jer. ii. 10, xlix. 28, 29; Ezek. xxvii. 
 21.. They are the Cedrei of Pliny, 
 Hist. Nat. v. 11, and appear to have 
 taken the range of the desert from the 
 Red Sea as far as the Euphrates. 
 
 Τοῦ Κηδὰρ ἀπόγονοι οὐ πόῤῥω τῆς Ba- 
 βυλῶνος μέχρι τήμερον ἐσκήνωνται. 
 Theod. in Ps. cxx. 5. In the present 
 passage, aS in some of those just 
 quoted, the name seems to be em- 
 ployed, in a more extended sense, to 
 denote the Arabs generally. 
 
 17. Mp, dow, stands for NUP, Low- 
 men. Corap. M72 DW, in the absolute 
 state, with 3 mtervening. Thus ὝΞΡ, 
 harvest, chap. xvii. 5, for 32 WR, ὦ 
 reaper. In our own language, a whip 
 is used for a driver; a shot, for one 
 who shoots, ὅτο. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE SENTENCE OF THE VALLEY OF VISION. 
 
 This oracle consists of two parts, the former of which respects the inhabitants 
 
 of Jerusalem generally, and the latter, an individual of high rank at the 
 court. Interpreters have found some difficulty in determining whether to 
 refer the invasion here predicted to that of Sennacherib, or to the desolating 
 one under Nebuchadnezzar. To make sure of the matter, Vitringa, Jackson, 
 and others, suppose both to be meant; but without furnishing any satis- 
 factory exegesis. It appears to me, after a careful examination of the 
 entire section, that there is no part of it but may, without straining, be 
 applied to the events which took place in Judea, and especially in the 
 capital, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah. 
 
 The prophet describes the extreme agitation and confusion of Jerusalem 
 
 during the siege, 1,2; the mortality arising from famine already begun, and 
 the captive state of all who had fled thither for refuge, pent up within her 
 walls, 2,3 ; his own feelings in prospect of the impending destruction, 4, 5; 
 
CHAP. XXII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 193 
 
 and the preparations of the besieging army, 6,7. The defensive measures 
 adopted by the inhabitants are then narrated, accompanied with a severe 
 reproof for their confiding in these measures, and not in Jehovah, and their 
 abandoning themselves to unholy and infidel mirth, instead of humbling 
 themselves, and repenting, as became them, in such alarming circumstances, 
 8—14. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with a prophecy respect- 
 ing a change in the office of treasurer, which took place about the same 
 
 period of Jewish history. 
 
 1 Waar aileth thee now, that all belonging to thee 
 
 Have gone up to the roofs ? 
 
 2 Thou that wast full of commotions, 
 The noisy city, the joyous city! 
 Thy slain are not the slain by the sword, 
 Nor such as have died in battle. 
 
 3 All thy rulers flee together, 
 
 1. That yrut 3, the valley of vision, 
 means Jerusalem, is beyond all doubt, 
 though the phrase occurs only in this 
 place. Being surrounded with hills, 
 and for the most part by a deep valley, 
 by a branch of which it was also in- 
 tersected, it might with all propriety 
 be called by the latter term. See Ps. 
 exxv. 2; Jer. xxi.13. The established 
 ‘use of 7 in reference to prophetic 
 vision, and the circumstance that 
 Jerusalem was the principal seat of 
 divine revelation, Luke xii. 33, 34, 
 prove that such is the acceptation in 
 which the word is here to be taken. 
 The agreement between }V7 and 79, 
 Moriah —both signifying vision, is 
 purely incidental—The prophet begins 
 to address the inhabitants in the 
 character of a stranger, or as one 
 ignorant of the cause of the universal 
 commotion. Comp. Luke xxiv. 17. 
 Their object in assembling on the 
 roofs of the houses, which were flat 
 and spacious, as those of Eastern 
 houses are at this day, appears to have 
 been to make their observations on 
 the position and strength of the 
 enemy, and to concert measures of 
 defence. 
 
 2. περ «nindp., For the sake of 
 emphasis, the noun is placed before 
 the adjective by which it is governed. 
 Gesen—The prophet contrasts the 
 formerly prosperous and joyful condi- 
 
 tion of Jerusalem with her present 
 calamitous circumstances. On com- 
 paring the latter distich with Lam. iv. 
 9, it seems evident that by 722 we 
 are to understand such of the inhabit- 
 ants as had died of famine. See 2 
 Chron, xxxii. 11. Either this con- 
 struction must be put on the term, or 
 it is to be taken figuratively in refer- 
 ence to the state to which they were 
 reduced by fear, which is less natural. 
 
 3. The scene here depicted is still 
 in Jerusalem; consequently, the differ- 
 ent members of the verse must be 
 explained accordingly. 22 is, there- 
 fore, to be taken in the sense of 
 fleeing from the council-chamber— 
 each of the rulers repairing to his 
 family, or to some particular part of 
 the city where he expected safety. 
 
 Comp. the Arab. Jj, II. and IV. dis- 
 
 gregavit, dispersit camelos; VI. ls, 
 
 disperst sunt, huc illuce a se tnvicem aufu- 
 gerunt. Freytag. Theod. μετεκινήθησαν. 
 Yet though they might thus flee, they 
 were still in a state of captivity; 
 though not bound or taken captive by 
 the bowmen, they were confined with- 
 in the walls of the city as effectually 
 as if they had been prisoners of war. 
 —ntp, dow, is used for archers, as 
 chap. xxi. 17; and the Ὁ prefixed is to 
 be taken in a negative sense, aS in 
 
194 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 Without the bow, they are made prisoners ; 
 All found in thee are made prisoners together, 
 Even those who have fled from far. 
 
 4 Wherefore I say, Look away from me; 
 
 I will weep bitterly, 
 (Strive not to comfort me,) 
 
 For the desolation of the daughter of my people. 
 5 For it is a day of tumult, and of treading down, and of confusion, 
 From the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts, in the valley of vision ; 
 
 A calling out on the wall, 
 
 And a crying to the mountain. 
 
 own, Job xi. 15; We, chap. xxi. 9; 
 1229, Isa. xiv. 19. The archers, acting 
 as light infantry, were the part of 
 the army chiefly employed in taking 
 prisoners. ‘Ox signifies properly ove 
 who ts bound ; but it is also used to de- 
 note one who is ina state of captivity, 
 or confinement, irrespective of the cir- 
 cumstance of binding, Gen. xl. 3, 5; 
 contrast Judg. xvi. 21. Comp. the Arab. 
 
 |, construcit, captivum fecit; yw), 
 5᾽ ᾿ J 
 captivitas ; "3, ibid. Not only were 
 
 the rulers and all the ordinary inha- 
 bitants pent up as prisoners within 
 Jerusalem, but those also who, on the 
 approach of the Assyrian army, had 
 fled thither from distant parts of the 
 country were in the same condition. 
 It is to this confinement during the 
 siege that the prophet refers, and 
 not to any actual flight or capture of 
 the fugitives, as most commentators 
 imagine. 
 
 4, The more to affect the minds of 
 the Jews, the seer describes the incon- 
 solable condition into which the scene 
 had thrown him, and begs them not 
 to attempt to comfort him. See Jer. 
 xiii. 17; Lam. ii. 11; Micah i. 8, 9. 
 For WW, one of Kennicott’s Codices 
 reads 120, which some have thought is 
 supported by the LXX., Arab., Syr., 
 and Targ. ; but this is uncertain, since 
 10, from 110, has much the same sig- 
 nification. This reading was probably 
 introduced from Lam. iv. 10. 
 
 5. °2 further assigns the cause of the 
 prophet’s grief; and he traces the 
 calamity to the punishing hand of 
 
 Jehovah. For the formula 775 oY, 
 see chap. ii. 12. The three genitives, 
 MDI DIM W170, form at once a paro- 
 nomasia and a climax, The first de- 
 notes a state of xoisy confusion; the 
 second, that of persons treading upon 
 each other in their eagerness to escape 
 from danger; and the third, the hope- 
 less perplexity to which they are reduced. 
 7a, the root from which 7772 is de- 
 rived, signifies ¢o entangle, as in a thicket 
 
 or labyrinth; Arab. Ab, confusum 
 
 turbatumque fuit negotium ; VII. Turbata 
 mente et turbatis rationibus fuerunt homi- 
 nes. Ἢ Wr, another instance of 
 paronomasia. W772, Jarchi and Kimchi 
 take to be a denominative from 
 the following word, Ὁ, a wall; but 
 Gesenius, Winer, and others, refer 
 it to 1p, to dig, and render, digging 
 through, or undermining, the wall. In 
 Numb. xxiv. 17, the only other pas- 
 sage in which the Pilpal form occurs, 
 the relation in which it stands to yao 
 shews that it is used in the acceptation 
 of destroying ; hence the LXX. mpovo- 
 pevoer; Vulg. vastabit. Here, how- 
 ever, the parallel term, 2%, suggests 
 the idea of crying, crying out, which is 
 the signification of the corresponding 
 
 “2... 
 
 Arab. form, yr barrivit camelus ; 
 
 vocem edidit gallus ; clariorem vocem in 
 eee reciprocavit mugiens camelus. 
 
 reytag, and Michaelis’s Supplem. 
 No. 2292. To render the assimilation 
 of the words more palpable, Ἢ stands 
 for "IY, on the wall. So great were 
 the vociferations of the despairing 
 inhabitants of Jerusalem, that they 
 
CHAP. XXII.| 
 
 6 For Elam beareth the quiver, 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 195 
 
 With chariots of men and horse; 
 _ And Kir uncovereth the shield. 
 7 Thy choicest valleys are full of chariots, 
 And the horse draw up at the gate. 
 8 And the vail of Judah is removed, 
 And now thou lookest to the armour of the forest-house. 
 
 reached the surrounding mountains, 
 
 “ Resonat magnis plangoribus ether.” 
 Virg. Ain. iv. 668. 
 
 6, 7. Isaiah now proceeds to de- 
 scribe the appearance of the besieging 
 foe. From this verse, compared with 
 2 Kings xviii. 11, it is evident that 
 Elam or Persia was in the time of the 
 prophet subject to the Assyrian power. 
 The Elamites, or Elymei, furnished 
 a large body of troops, who were 
 mostly archers. Στρατιώτας τρέφει 
 τοξότας τοὺς πλείστους. Strabo xv. 3. 
 12. Forming the light infantry, they 
 are mentioned in distinction from the 
 war-chariots, and cavalry, also fur- 
 nished by the Persians; and from the 
 Median or Caucasian warriors, who 
 employed the sword and spear. Hence 
 the appropriateness of the allusion 
 here, and Jer. xlix. 34,35. See Rosenm. 
 Bib. Geography, chap. vi. The other 
 foreign troops, specified as forming 
 auxiliaries in the Assyrian army, came 
 from the region on the Kur, V7, Κύρος, 
 
 Armen. 4acp, which takes its rise in 
 
 the mountains of the Caucasus, and, 
 flowing through Tiflis, the capital of 
 Georgia, joins the Araxes before it 
 reaches the Caspian Sea. The name 
 
 of Georgia, δος. δ, Girjistan, is 
 
 obviously a derivative from this an- 
 cient name. The natives of the Cau- 
 casus still wear shields, as I had an 
 opportunity of observing when tra- 
 velling there in the year 1821. Those 
 which I saw were made of wood or 
 strong leather, and surrounded on the 
 outside with iron. See Biblical Re- 
 searches and Travels in Russia, Lon- 
 don, 1826, 8vo. p. 485. From the 
 statement made by Isaiah, they appear 
 to have preserved them in a cover 
 
 while on their march, in order that 
 they might not be injured by rain or 
 dust. Comp. the clypeorum involucra 
 of Cicero, De Nat. Deor. ii. 14. For 
 other Biblical references to this region, 
 see 2 Kings xvi. 9; Amos i. 5, ix. 7. 
 -Ν 12) is the same as Wx 22), chap. 
 xxi. 9; so that there is no necessity, 
 with Lowth, to adopt the conjectural 
 emendation of Houbigant, Ὅτ 223, 
 chariots of Syrians —The Ὁ prefixed 
 to DWE in seven MSS., originally in 
 two more, and four printed editions, 
 is most probably a supply of the 
 ellipsis. It is also expressed in the 
 Targ—inwd nv, lit. placing, they place, 
 z.e. themselves ; but the Infin. is here 
 used substantively, and the meaning 
 is, the cavalry take their station, or 
 draw up in regular order. Thus the 
 
 Fala 
 Syr. co320m3, tustruent sese. 
 
 8. THM yoo, the veil or covering of 
 Judah, means the fortified places in 
 the country which Sennacherib had 
 already taken, 2 Kings xviii. 13. The 
 root is 920, which signifies ¢o cover, 
 protect, and the derivative is used of 
 the curtain before the entrance of the 
 tabernacle, court, &c. Exod. xxvi. 
 36, xxxv. 17. Gesenius supposes the 
 language to be that of reproach; the 
 figure being taken from the wanton 
 and violent tearing away of a vail 
 from a virgin; and adduces from the 
 
 life of Timur, las!) Wado a) ω», 
 
 ere the vail be removed; denoting the 
 exposure of a people to the greatest 
 indignity by the enemy. From the 
 antithesis in this verse, it would rather 
 seem to indicate the defenceless con- 
 dition of a people, than any aftront 
 offered them. We may, however, 
 
 compare the Arab. ys velum, cortina ; 
 
196 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXII. 
 
 9 Yeregard also the breaches of the city of David, which are many, 
 And ye collect the water of the lower pool. 
 10 Ye number also the houses of Jerusalem, 
 And break down the houses to fortify the wall. 
 11 And ye make a reservoir between the two walls, 
 
 For the water of the old pool 
 
 But ye look not to Him who doeth this, 
 Neither do ye regard Him who long since devised it. 
 12 For the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts, calleth on this same day 
 
 ων 5 res omnes qua alia tegitur ; elypeus, 
 
 murus, seu lorica ejus.— WI ma stands 
 for prada wma, the house of the forest ψ' 
 Lebanon, i.e. the cedar palace which 
 Solomon caused to be constructed of 
 trees from Lebanon, 1 Kings vii. 2—7, 
 x. 21; which appears afterwards to 
 have been converted into an arsenal. 
 Comp. Neh. iii. 19. It is supposed to 
 have been built on the acclivitous 
 part of Mount Zion eastward, to which 
 was given the name of Ophel. The 
 means of defence from without having 
 been taken possession of by the 
 Assyrians, the inhabitants now per- 
 ceived that the only resource left was 
 to furnish themselves with anadequate 
 supply of weapons from the armoury, 
 and offer all the resistance they could 
 from within.—The phrase, 877 D¥a, zz 
 that day, possesses in this connexion 
 the least possible extension of mean- 
 ing: it only connects the two events 
 specified closely together in point of 
 time. Comp. ver. 12, where it is used 
 to express the present time, or that 
 during which the events were passing. 
 The entire passage is a description of 
 the present, not a prediction of the 
 future. 
 
 9—l1. The city of David formed the 
 most southerly and highest part of 
 Jerusalem. It lay on Mount Zion, and 
 was surrounded with a separate wall, 
 which appears at this time to have 
 fallen into decay. It derived its 
 name from the circumstances of 
 David’s taking the citadel of _the 
 Jebusites, which stood there, and his 
 making it his royal residence.—The 
 numbering of the houses seems to 
 refer to an inspection undertaken 
 with the view of ascertaining which 
 
 might most conveniently be demo- 
 lished ; or reference may be had to 
 certain houses being pulled down in 
 order to obtain materials for repairing 
 the wall. In 32nn, the Masoretes mark 
 the second nas Raphe, 1.6. there is an 
 omission of the Dagesh compensative 
 for the first radical—ondn, the two 
 walls, 1.6. the one which Hezekiah 
 ‘caused to be repaired, and the exterior 
 one which he built, 2 Chron. xxxii. 5. 
 —The old pool was the same as the 
 upper pool, chap. vii. 3; called also the 
 king’s pool, because its waters irrigated 
 the royal gardens, Neh. ii. 14, 11. 15. 
 By contriving to throw up a wall 
 round it, and along the passage which 
 he caused to be dug for its waters into 
 the city, the king at once deprived 
 the Assyrians of them, and secured 
 a supply for the inhabitants. For 
 further notices respecting the locali- 
 ties here mentioned, see chap. vii. 3. 
 —While the Jews were active in pre- 
 paring various means of defence, and 
 had their attention fixed upon them, 
 they forgot God, who, in accomplish- 
 ment of an eternal purpose, had 
 brought the calamity upon the city. 
 Amos, iii. 6. The repetition of the 
 same verbs, 023, and 7s}, in the 11th 
 verse, which had been employed vers. 
 8, 9, adds to the force of the antithesis. 
 -- ἜΣ, to form, fashion, has here the sig- 
 nification of forming in the mind, pur- 
 posing, determining. See chap. xxxvii. 
 26, and comp. Gen. vi. 5. 
 
 12, 13. Instead of humbling them- 
 selves and confessing their sins before 
 the Lord, agreeably to the call which 
 he had sent them to that end, the 
 Jews indulged in every species of riot, 
 and unblushingly gave expression to 
 sentiments the most epicurean and 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΙΠ] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 197 
 
 To weeping and to lamentation ; 
 And to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: 
 
 13 
 
 But, behold! joy and gladness, 
 
 Slaying oxen and killing sheep, 
 Hating flesh and drinking wine ! 
 —Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we dic! 
 
 14 
 By Jehovah of Hosts: 
 
 But it is revealed in my ears, 
 
 This guilt shall not be pardoned you till ye die, 
 Saith the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts. 
 
 15 Thus saith the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts: 
 
 infidel. Nothing more strikingly 
 evinces the strength of human de- 
 pravity than trifling and reckless 
 bravery when men are on the brink 
 of destruction.—For the effect of the 
 
 deny the resurrection of the dead, 1 
 Cor. xv. 32; and the sentiment they 
 convey frequently occurs in heathen 
 writers. See Wetstein, or Bloomfield ; 
 and the poem of Tarafa, in the Moal- 
 lakat, ver 63. 
 
 14, mn—T22, lit. Jehovah hath re- 
 vealed himself, i.e. made the following 
 
 revelation. Comp. the Arab. Je, 
 
 clarus fuit, manifeste patuit: V. reve- 
 latus, retectus, ac manifestatus fuit, ut 
 Deus homini ; bike? , revelatio. 383, 
 in my ears, instead of x, to me, from 
 the idiomatic use of jis 73, fo wxcover 
 the ear, make a communication to any 
 one, 1 Sam. xx. 2, et freg—dx, If, a 
 formula of swearing which possesses 
 a strong negative power. With δ it 
 has an affirmative signification. See 
 chap. v. 9, where the same introduc- 
 tory style is employed, only with an 
 ellipsis of 7222.—pnomny, fill ye die, i.e. 
 never. The impious Jews should be 
 visited with calamity upon calamity, 
 till finally Nebuchadnezzar would 
 destroy the city. The Targum ex- 
 plains the death here mentioned of xn‘ 
 xvain, the second death in the world to 
 come, which is unwarranted. 
 
 15. Having executed his commission 
 with respect to the ungodly inhabit- 
 ants of Jerusalem generally, Isaiah 
 now receives a message to deliver to 
 Shebna, the steward of the royal 
 house, who, in all probability, set an 
 example of sensual indulgence and 
 irreligion, which greatly promoted 
 these evils in others. Scholz supposes 
 him to have been a powerful statesman 
 in the time of Ahaz; and that Heze- 
 kiah found him in office at the time of 
 his accession, but was unable for some 
 time to remove him from his situation. 
 This oracle appears to have been 
 delivered much about the same time 
 with the preceding. Nor can we doubt 
 that Shebna and Eliakim mentioned 
 in this prophecy are the same persons 
 whom we find spoken of, chap. xxxvi. 
 3, Xxxvii. 2. It is true Shebna is said 
 there to have filled the office of ἜΘ, 
 scribe or secretary, which was a situation 
 inferior to that of prefect of the 
 palace, then held by Eliakim ; but his 
 predicted degradation may have com- 
 menced with his removal to this 
 inferior post, and been first completed 
 by his transportation to Assyria, ver. 
 18.725, Gesenius interprets in the 
 sense of friend, and supposes it to 
 denote the familiar friend of the king; 
 but it seems preferable to derive its 
 
 signification from the Arab. | Sw, 
 
 quietus, tranquillus fuit, habitavit, Heb. 
 72v, and refer it to the residence of 
 Shebna in the palace, for the purpose 
 of administering its affairs, supplying 
 
 BB 
 
198 
 
 Go in now to this steward, 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 To Shebna, who is over the household, [and say, | 
 
 16 
 
 What hast thou to do here? and whom hast thou here ? 
 
 That thou hewest out here for thyself a sepulchre ? 
 —He heweth out his sepulchre on high! 
 He cutteth out a mansion for himself in the rock !— 
 
 it with provisions, ἕο. Hence ων.» 
 
 alimentum. The Targ. accordingly ren- 
 ders it by 8078, distributor, adminis- 
 
 trator ; and Saadias, Jus 4; which has 
 
 the same signification. With this is 
 easily connected the idea of projit, 
 wealth, &c. Job xv. 3, xxii. 2, Xxxv. 
 3; cherishing, 1330, 1 Kings i. 2, 4.— 
 The addition of ™7, the emphatic 
 form of the demonstrative pronoun, 
 to 7260, “¢his steward,” is expressive 
 of a high degree of contempt. See 
 Exod. xxxii. 1.—Who is over the house- 
 hold, is a more specific description of 
 the office designated by 720. The 
 Vulg., Targ., and several interpreters 
 understand ™27, the house, as signifying 
 the temple, and consider Shebna to 
 have been the high-priest ; but, though 
 the term ™2 is unquestionably used 
 both of the tabernacle and the temple, 
 the whole phrase, ™27°y Ws, is never 
 appropriated to designate the high- 
 priest. Between δὲ and 29 there is 
 often no difference of meaning, both 
 being indiscriminately used in the 
 sense of ¢o.—Two of Kennicott’s 
 MSS., the LXX,, Syr., Targ., Vulg., 
 Arab., and Saad., add v2x m2N}, and 
 say to him, which has probably been 
 dropped out of the text. 
 
 16. We are not to conclude from 
 the formula, 4379, that Shebna was a 
 foreigner, or, at least, that he was not 
 a native of Jerusalem. It merely 
 points out the incongruity of such a 
 profane character seeking to per- 
 petuate his memory by a splendid 
 mausoleum at Jerusalem. Comp. Jer. 
 ii.18. Both in this and the co-ordinate 
 question is couched the idea that 
 neither he nor any of his family should 
 remain there. In the second distich, 
 the vanity and folly of his making the 
 preparations referred toare graphically 
 expressed in consequence of a change 
 
 from the second to the third person, 
 which allows the prophet by way of 
 derision to point to him as thus 
 occupied. The " in the participles 
 127, and ΡΤ, is paragogic, and is used 
 in poetry without at all affecting the 
 sense. See Gen. xlix. 11; Deut. 
 xxx. 16; Zech. xi. 17.—It was cus- 
 tomary in the East for kings, and 
 other persons of high rank and dig- 
 nity, to have magnificent sepulchres 
 excavated in the solid rock, in which 
 their remains, and those of their rela- 
 tives, were deposited in sarcophagi. 
 Witness the immense chambers in 
 the face of the mountains about 
 Persepolis and other places in Persia ; 
 those of Petra, recently discovered ; 
 the crypt of Latikea in Syria, and 
 various places in Asia Minor; and the 
 sepulchres described by Maundrell, 
 Clarke, and other travellers, as still 
 visible in the rocks about Jerusalem ; 
 especially those which extend along 
 the side of the ravine to the south- 
 west and west of Mount Zion, and 
 those on the north of the city, com- 
 monly called the sepulchres of the 
 kings. See 1 Kings 11. 10; 2 Chron. 
 Xxxil. 33; where, as Lowth justly 
 observes, 72 should be rendered fhe 
 highest, or most elevated, in point of 
 position, of the royal sepulchres dug 
 out in Mount Zion itself. Neh. iii. 
 16.—dN9, elevation, as freq. for D1V23, 
 on high, high, &c. Speaking of the 
 great mountain-sepulchres to be seen 
 at Persepolis, Sir Robert Ker Porter 
 observes, “The face of the mountain 
 is almost a perpendicular cliff, continu- 
 ing to an elevation of scarcely less than 
 three hundred yards; the substance 
 is a whitish kind of marble. In this 
 have been cut the celebrated sculp- 
 tures and excavations, so long the 
 subjects of discussion with the tra- 
 veller, the artist, and the antiquary. 
 These singular relics of Persian great- 
 
CHAP. XXII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 199 
 
 17 Behold! Jehovah will cast thee headlong, O thou mighty! 
 And he will grasp thee firmly : 
 
 18 Whirling thee round and round, he will toss thee 
 Like a ball into a wide country : 
 
 There thou shalt die, 
 
 ness are placed very near each other, 
 and are all contained within the space 
 of not quite the height of the moun- 
 tain. Those highest on the rock are 
 four ; evidently intended for tombs, 
 and as evidently of a date coeval with 
 the splendour of Persepolis. The 
 range below vary in ability of execu- 
 tion ; and are all in a very inferior 
 taste to those above.” Travels, vol. i. 
 p. 521. The use of the term, }20», 
 habitation, in application to the grave, 
 is quite in accordance with modes of 
 speech current in the East, and other 
 parts of the world. Thus Solomon 
 speaks of man going at death to "3 
 wry, his everlasting or long-enduring 
 house, Eccles. xii. 5. The Phoenicians 
 also called the sepulchre, Ἐν m1 417, 
 the chamber of the eternal house; and 
 
 the Arabs use wines mansio, inter- 
 changeably with ye sepulchrum, to 
 which they also give the name yo 
 
 NI, the eternal habitation. Comp. 
 what Diod. Sic. says of the Egyptians, 
 
 1. 51, τοὺς τῶν τετελευτηκότων τάφους 
 ἀϊδίους οἴκους προσαγορεύουσιν, ὡς 
 ἐν ἅδου διαστελλόντων τὸν ἄπειρον 
 aidva—From the circumstance that 
 the prophet was commanded, ΝΞ, to go 
 in to Shebna, and, from the commence- 
 ment of his address to him, it would 
 appear that he was in the sepulchre at 
 the time—most likely feeding his 
 vanity with the survey of its princely 
 dimensions. How unwelcome, at such 
 a moment, the announcement con- 
 tained in the following verses ! 
 
 17, 18. The original is here pecu- 
 liarly impassioned, and possesses a 
 graphic power, to which no translation 
 can pretend. Not only are there two 
 instances of the repetition of the 
 same word, to which the Hebrew 
 writers are extremely partial, but 
 immediately following these, we have 
 
 the three different forms, 7)2¥ 7222) ΠΣ, 
 which equals in beauty the πόνος πόνῳ 
 πόνον φέρει of Sophocles, Aj. 866, or 
 the δόσιν κακὰν κακῶν κακοῖς of Ais- 
 chylus, Pers. 1046. Two other ex- 
 amples occur, chap. xxvii. 7, in the 
 lines :— 
 
 ὙΡΊΒΙΤ NID NIT 
 
 SUPT Ge 
 
 In like manner Micah ii. 4:— 
 172 ΠΕΣ 
 
 Comp. also Isa. x. 16, and xxix. 14, 
 and the beautiful paronomasia of 
 Paul, μὴ ὑπερφρονεῖν map’ ὃ δεῖ φρονεῖν, 
 ἀλλὰ φρονεῖν εἰς τὸ σωφρονεῖν, Rom. 
 xii. 3.—20700, and 79070, are strongly 
 intensitive forms, derived from the 
 root 59, ¢o be ony; in Hiph. to throw 
 
 down at full length; Arab. kb, longus 
 
 Suit; 11. ix longum extendit ; IV. in 
 longum fecit ; prolongavit. See Ewald’s 
 Gram. § 235, where 7970 is rendered 
 to hurl.— 22, Lowth, Dathe, Jenour, 
 Jones, Gesenius, Maurer, and others, 
 take to be a substantive, used adjec- 
 tively to qualify 77070, which they 
 consider the less usual form of the 
 feminine construct, as did Joseph 
 Kimchi and other Rabbins. The Syr., 
 however, David Kimchi, Lib. Rad. sb 
 voce. 9, Munster, Pagninus, Leo Juda, 
 and, among the moderns, Hensler, 
 Rosenmiiller, Boothroyd, Hitzig, and 
 Scholz, read it in the vocative; which 
 is preferable. It differs from 23, 
 which more appropriately describes 
 one distinguished for military valour ; 
 whereas 123 simply conveys the idea of 
 power, violence, insolence, &c.; Arab. 
 
 ye religavit, consolidavit ; V. super- 
 
 bivit, exrtulit se; and comp. pe V. 
 
 semet extulit et superbivit. It may, 
 however, after all, be only used in this 
 place as ἄνθρωπε is by Paul, Rom. 11, 
 
200 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 And there shall be thy splendid chariots ; 
 Thou disgrace to the house of thy lord! 
 
 19 
 
 For I will drive thee from thy post, 
 
 And pull thee down from thy station. 
 
 And it shall be in that day that I will call my servant, 
 
 Even Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah ; 
 
 21 
 
 And will clothe him with thy robe, 
 
 And bind thy girdle around him ; 
 And thy government will I commit to his hand, 
 And he shall become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
 
 And to the house of Judah. 
 
 22 I will also place the key of the house of David upon his 
 
 shoulder ; 
 
 3, λογίζῃ δὲ τοῦτο, ὦ ἄνθρωπε: and by 
 Galen: οὐ βούλει μαθεῖν, ἄνθρωπε, τὴν 
 τῶν Ἑλλήνων διάλεκτον, to give inten- 
 sity to the sentence———7uY is here 
 used, not in accordance with the sig- 
 
 nification of (ke, obscura fuit nox, 
 
 tezit rem, so as that the meaning 
 would be wrap or roll up, a8 In a 
 
 mantle—but with that of lle, manu 
 
 accept rem; ad festinandum impulit 
 aliquem, Kamoos; and expresses the 
 sudden and resistless grasp with which 
 one lays hold on any person or thing 
 with a view to secure its expulsion.— 
 —F2z, whence 22, a tiara or turban, 
 signifies to ¢wist or roll round, as the 
 Orientals do in wrapping their turbans 
 round their heads, It is employed in 
 this place to describe the significant 
 action of whirling a stone or ball 
 several times round with the hand, or 
 in a sling, in order to acquire strength 
 and steadiness of aim before throwing 
 it toadistance. The triple use of the 
 word, as noticed above, gives singular 
 effect to the passage-—By the j OX 
 orn nam, lit. the land wide of hands, is 
 meant the extensive country of As- 
 syria, into which Shebna was to be 
 carried captive. There he should 
 behold in the hands of the enemy the 
 splendid equipages in which he was 
 accustomed to ride in state about 
 Jerusalem ; and there he was to end 
 his days in disgrace. 
 
 19. The prophet descends from the 
 
 highly figurative language which he 
 had employed, and, in plain terms, 
 announces to Shebna his removal 
 from office. This he does by intro- 
 ducing God himself as addressing him, 
 and then continues the address in the 
 third person—a change very common 
 with the prophets——Both nouns, 239, 
 and 72¥2, convey the idea of fixeduess 
 or stability, and enhance the force of 
 the language. Instead of ἼΘ᾽, one 
 of De Rossi’s MSS., the Syr., Vulg., 
 and Saadias, read ΠΡ τς, but the change 
 was most likely effected to remove the 
 enallage persone. 
 
 20—22 contain a prediction of the 
 transfer of the insignia of office to 
 Eliakim, the new steward, and of the 
 happy consequences of his adminis- 
 tration. 0228, which is elsewhere only 
 used of the splendid girdles worn by 
 the priests, is of uncertain derivation. 
 Most are inclined to regard the δὶ as 
 prosthetic, and trace a connexion be- 
 
 tween it and Nu, lend, a Persie word 
 
 signifying a band or vinculum; but it 
 is more probably of Egyptian origin. 
 For the signification of 38, a father, as 
 here used, see on chap. ix. 5. Instead 
 of the pride and egotism of Shebna, 
 the inhabitants would find in Ehakim 
 the tenderness and benevolent care of 
 a parent—In the East the key is a 
 symbol of power or authority, with 
 special reference to palaces, treasures, 
 stores, &c. It resembles a sickle with 
 a long handle ; and the crooked part 
 
CHAP. XXII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 201 
 
 And he shall open, and none shall shut; 
 And he shall shut, and none shall open. 
 23 Yea, I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, 
 And he shall become a throne of glory to his father’s house ; 
 24 And they shall hang upon him the whole multitude of his 
 
 father’s house ; 
 The offspring and the offsets, 
 All the vessels of small size, 
 
 is so formed as to allow of its being 
 suspended on the shoulder or round 
 the neck. That it actually formed 
 part of the insignia of office, and that 
 the language is not to be taken figura- 
 tively, is unquestionable. Among the 
 Greeks it was worn as a badge of 
 sacerdotal dignity. Katwpadiav δ᾽ ἔχε 
 κλεῖδα, Callim. in Cerem. ver. 45. See 
 Lowth’s Note. 
 
 From the language of ver. 22, being 
 in part appropriated by our Lord to 
 assert his sole and exclusive power, 
 Rey. 111. 7, many have supposed that 
 what is here said respecting Eliakim 
 was designed to apply to him in his 
 mediatorial capacity; but the inter- 
 pretation is altogether arbitrary. 
 “ Locum hunc ad Christum perperam 
 nonnulli transtulerunt: quando pro- 
 pheta duos inter se homines comparat, 
 nempe Sobnam et Eliacim. Privabitur 
 Sobna: succedit autem Eliacim. Quid 
 hee ad Christum?” Calvin, ἐμ /oe. 
 A similar figurative application Christ 
 makes of the words, when investing 
 Peter with apostolical authority, Matt. 
 xvi. 19. 
 
 23. 1, Arab. a Plur. ob,), pan- 
 
 illus; clavis ligneus, qui in terra vel 
 pariete pangitur. 'The word is used of 
 the pins or small stakes driven into 
 the ground for the purpose of fasten- 
 ing a tent, the cords of which hook 
 into them. It is also employed to 
 denote a large peg or wooden pin, 
 such as the Orientals fix in the walls 
 of their houses, for the purpose of 
 hanging upon them household uten- 
 sils, vails, and other articles in con- 
 stant use. See Ezek. xy. 3, where the 
 question is put respecting the vine: 
 202 Yop nino ay woo anprox, Will they 
 take a peg from it on which to hang any 
 
 vessel? The prophet here uses it me- 
 taphorically, in application to the sup- 
 port which Eliakim would yield to all 
 his dependent relations. Comp. Ezra 
 ix. 8; Zech. x. 4. In like manner, 
 Pharaoh is said in the Koran, xxxviii. 
 
 11, to be obs 99) the Possessor of the 
 
 pegs, i. 6. the lord of princes, or per- 
 sons high in station, on whom others 
 depended.—7a1} N03, a glorious seat or 
 throne, is the elevated chair or place 
 of honour usually ornamented with 
 gold, silver, &c. Comp. 1 Sam. ii. 8. 
 The meaning is, that he would be a 
 great support to his family, by pro- 
 curing for them, through his influence 
 with the king, situations of emolu- 
 ment and honour. 
 
 24, 132, which had been used in 
 the preceding verse, is here repeated, 
 but in the acceptation of abundance or 
 multitude. That of glory does not suit 
 the following enumeration, which in- 
 cludes vessels of inferior character.— 
 Both Dxgez and nivee are botanical 
 terms,—the former descriptive of 
 what comes out of the earth generally, 
 and applied figuratively to children, 
 Job v. 25, xxi. 8; Isa. xlviii. 19, lxi. 9; 
 the latter, of the worthless shoots of 
 trees, and, excepting in this passage, 
 only used figuratively, in the form 
 voz, of the progeny of vipers, chap. 
 xiv. 29. Comp. ‘2%, Isa. xi. 8, lix. 5. 
 
 The mas. rps, Arab. ened » signifies ez- 
 
 crementum, for which 78% and 7s‘ are 
 also used; hence the idea of vile, 
 ignoble.—™ 32, the Targ. Syr. and 
 Vulg., render, musical instruments, which 
 signification the word certainly has, 
 in application to the ναβλία, a species 
 of harp or lyre; but its occurring 
 here, in immediate connexion with 
 
202 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXIII. 
 
 From those used as cups even to all used as pitchers. 
 25 In that day, saith Jehovah of Hosts, 
 The peg shall be removed that is fastened in a sure place ; 
 Yea, it shall be cut down and fall ; 
 And the load that is upon it shall be cut off: 
 
 For Jehovah hath spoken it. 
 
 mix, requires that of dottles or pitchers. 
 The LXX. reduces the whole descrip- 
 tion to: ἀπὸ μικροῦ ἕως μεγάλου. All 
 belonging to Eliakim, whatever their 
 stations or employment, would be bet- 
 tered in their circumstances by his 
 elevation. . 
 
 25. The Targ., Jerome, Michaelis, 
 Hitzig, and Scholz, consider Eliakim 
 to be the person here intended, and 
 suppose his future fall to be predicted ; 
 but Jarchi, Kimchi, Munster, Forerius, 
 Calvin, Vitringa, both the Lowths, 
 Déderlein, Dathe, Rosenmiler, Gese- 
 
 nius, and Hensler, more properly refer 
 the words to Shebna, to whom, at the 
 close of his message, the prophet 
 transfers the language which he had 
 just employed, in order to assure him, 
 that however firmly he and his family 
 might now think themselves estab- 
 lished, their fall was certain.—v23, is 
 the term commonly used for cutting 
 down a tree, or any thing made of wood, 
 and is therefore appropriately used in 
 application to the wooden peg, which 
 could not otherwise be removed with- 
 out endangering the wall. 
 
 ‘CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE SENTENCE OF TYRE. 
 
 The next object of prophetic denunciation is Tyre, the great antiquity, com- 
 mercial prosperity, and prowess of which Isaiah here describes. He also 
 forcibly depicts her unexpected destruction by the Chaldwans, whom, in the 
 time of the prophet, the Assyrian monarch had only just settled in the 
 country about Babylon, but who are represented as the instruments em- 
 ployed for effecting the purpose of Jehovah, 1—16 ; he limits the period of 
 her depression to seventy years, 17; and predicts the revival of her com- 
 merce, the proceeds of which should not, as formerly, be hoarded up in 
 treasuries, but devoted to advance the interests of the church of God, 18. 
 The language is terse, highly figurative, and sublime,—quite in the style 
 of our prophet, but unlike that of any later writer. The occurrence of 
 row for M8, and ΤΡ for Tw, ver. 11, and the use of the term 7%, in 
 reference to the Nile, ver. 3, which some have alleged against his being the 
 author, are so trifling, as scarcely to deserve notice. See the notes to these 
 verses. 
 
 Tyre having sustained three sieges by Asiatic powers : the first by Shalmane- 
 ser, in the reign of Hezekiah, B.c. 717; the second by Nebuchadnezzar, B.c. 
 573; and the third by Alexander the Great, B.c. 332; interpreters are 
 
CHAP. XXIII.] ISATAH. 203 
 
 greatly divided in their opinions in regard to the application of the pro- 
 phecy. To the last of these, however, few have been disposed to refer it. 
 Grotius, Greve, Hensler, Volney, and recently, Gesenius and Maurer, think 
 the first is intended ; but that the second is the only one to which the 
 oracle can consistently be applied, is more or less ably maintained by 
 Jerome, Vitringa, Lowth, Michaelis, Déderlein, Dathe, Eichhorn, Bertholdt, 
 Rosenmiiller, De Wette, Hengstenberg, Hitzig, and Scholz, how much soever 
 they differ in their views respecting the writer, and the authority of his 
 prophecy. The most specious reason alleged against this opinion is that 
 advanced by Gesenius; viz. that in heathen writers there is a total silence 
 respecting the actual subjugation of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar ; but (not to 
 insist on the very passing character of the references to the siege found in 
 these authors, see Joseph. Antiq. lib. x. cap. 11, § 1; Con. Apion, i. § 21) 
 that commentator, more than once in his Commentary, is obliged to admit 
 that events specified by the Hebrew prophets may have happened, though 
 no information can be obtained respecting them from foreign sources. 
 Besides, the very circumstance that no notice is taken of the result of 
 the siege affords presumptive ground for believing that it was successful ; 
 since, had it been otherwise, it was scarcely possible to avoid mentioning it. 
 But, however it may be in regard to foreign sources of information, the 
 Scriptures are positive in the decision which they deliver upon the subject. 
 Ezekiel expressly predicts the fall of Tyre as the consequence of the attack 
 of Nebuchadnezzar, chap. xxvi.4—21. Nor does the declaration made chap. 
 xxix. 18, at all contradict this prophecy: the meaning obviously being, that 
 what the king of Babylon found in Tyre was no adequate remuneration for 
 the hardships and losses which his army had sustained, and the immense 
 expense to which he had been put during a siege of thirteen years’ contin- 
 uance. We may, therefore, reasonably acquiesce in the remark of Reland, 
 respecting the entertainment of doubts upon the subject: “ Certe Christi- 
 anos id non decet. Deus predixerat. Hoc sufficit. Res ita evenit, uti 
 preedicta est, etiamsi nulli veterum literis id consignassent.” Palestina, tom. 
 ii. p. 1050. Compare, in illustration of this chapter, the sublime parallel 
 predictions, Ezek. xxvi. xxvii. xxviii. 
 
 1 How1, ye ships of Tarshish, 
 For it is laid waste ; 
 
 Though not so ancient as Zidon, of 
 
 1, W, in full, W2; Arab. py? the 
 
 Sarra of Virgil and Juvenal, and the 
 Sara of Plautus ; Gr. Τύρος, ΤΎΒΕ ; the 
 celebrated emporium of the Pheeni- 
 cians, situated on the coast of the 
 Mediterranean, within the confines 
 of the tribe assigned to Asher, but 
 never subdued by the Israelites. 
 
 which it was originally a colony, it 
 was of great antiquity, ver. 7, Josh. 
 xix. 29; and was built partly on the 
 continent, and partly on an island 
 opposite, at the distance, according to 
 Pliny, of seven hundred paces from 
 the shore. To the former was given 
 the name of Palatyrus, (Παλαιὰ Tupos,) 
 
204 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXIII. 
 
 There is neither house, nor entrance ! 
 From the land of Chittim it is disclosed to them. 
 
 Old Tyre, on the supposition that it 
 was built before the insular part, which 
 latterly became so celebrated. It is, 
 however, uncertain whether the island, 
 which was advantageously situated 
 for maritime transactions, did not, 
 from the first, form an out-port, or 
 station, with warehouses, in which 
 were deposited the principal articles of 
 Phoenician traffic. The continental 
 city appears to be that specially meant 
 by the phrase, 27222 VW», the Cily of the 
 Sortress of Tyre, or, of the fortress on the 
 Rock, Josh. xix. 29, comp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 
 7, in allusion to the rock of which the 
 island is composed, and opposite to 
 which it lay along the coast, to the 
 distance of thirty stadia southward, 
 
 near the present } \,. Ras-el-ain. 
 Ρ SE OY) 
 
 Diod. Sic. xvii. 40; Curtius, iv. 2; 
 Plin. v. 17; Strabo, xvi. 2. At this 
 place are still visible vestiges of the 
 aqueduct built across the isthmus to 
 Tyre. Though at first inferior to 
 Zidon, Tyre soon surpassed it, and 
 was for ages the great centre of com- 
 merce in the ancient world. She 
 planted colonies along the coasts of 
 Asia Minor, Greece, Cyprus, Libya, 
 and Spain ; among others, the popu- 
 lous and powerful Carthage. Till after 
 the days of David and Solomon, with 
 whom Hiram the son of Abibaal, king 
 of the Tyrians, was in close alliance, 
 the inhabitants appear to have carried 
 on their mercantile pursuits unmo- 
 lested; but they were at length at- 
 tacked by Shalmaneser, who, after a 
 blockade of five years, was obliged to 
 abandon the attempt to subdue them. 
 A renewed attack was made by Ne- 
 buchadnezzar, who, though the city 
 made a resistance of upwards of thir- 
 teen years, succeeded in reducing it, 
 and bringing it under the power of 
 the Babylonians. It was afterwards 
 taken by Alexander the Great, B.c. 332 ; 
 regained much of its importance as a 
 commercial city under the Seleucidz 
 and the Romans ; and continued to be 
 a place of considerable note even in 
 the time of the Crusades. Till within 
 some years past, it has been reduced 
 
 to a miserable village, containing only 
 about fifty or sixty poor families ; 
 though relics of its ancient splendour 
 lie scattered, in numerous and beauti- 
 ful columns, along the beach. The 
 causeway of Alexander is now covered 
 by an isthmus of sand about 500 
 French metres in length. 
 
 The prophet begins by addressing 
 himself to the passengers and crews 
 of those Tyrian merchantmen which 
 were homeward bound, at the time of 
 
 the fall of the city ; and while he calls 
 
 upon them to bewail the disastrous 
 event, he states how they became ac- 
 quainted with it: vz. through the 
 medium of Pheenician colonists on the 
 islands and coasts of the Mediterra- 
 nean, which they were accustomed to 
 pass on their return. For the mean- 
 ing of Zarshish, see on ver. 10. By 
 ὉΠ IX, the land of the Chittim, are 
 meant the islands and maritime re- 
 gions on the northern shores of the 
 Mediterranean, especially those on the 
 coasts of Greece and the Aigean sea. 
 Comp. 1 Mace. i. 1, where Alexander 
 is said to have gone forth ἐκ τῆς γῆς 
 Χεττειείμ, and viil. 5, where Perseus is 
 called Κιτιέων βασιλεύς. There seems 
 no sufficient ground to extend the sig- 
 nification of the name to Italy and its 
 islands, as Bochart and others have 
 done. The M2, or 0°73, were, accord- 
 ing to the genealogical table, Gen. x. 4, 
 descendants of Javan, by whom also, 
 in all probability, the island of Cyprus 
 was first peopled. Hence Κίτιον, Ci- 
 tium, the name of its capital city, 
 which, from its contiguity to Tyre, 
 and its importance on other accounts, 
 was chiefly inhabited by Phoenician 
 colonists ; as indeed, according to He- 
 rodotus, vii. 90, were most of its 
 cities. That this island is to be in- 
 cluded among the Chittic regions here 
 referred to, cannot be doubted; but 
 it is not exclusively meant, as Gese- 
 nius supposes. On the contrary, the 
 use of the plural Oxy, Ezek. xxvii. 6, 
 satisfactorily shews that more than 
 one island or maritime region are in- 
 tended. The news of the fall of Tyre 
 
 would speedily be communicated from . 
 
CHAP. XXIII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 205 
 
 2 Be astonished, ye inhabitants of the isle, 
 
 Which the merchants of Zidon, that crossed the sea, supplied. 
 3 For on the great waters was the produce of Sihor ; 
 
 The harvest of the river was her revenue : 
 
 And she was the mart of nations. 
 
 one colony to another, so that those 
 who were returning from Spain would 
 be informed of the catastrophe, at 
 whatever port they might happen to 
 touch.—For the privative force of [9 in 
 sia M2, see chap. xvii. 1. Not only 
 would the residences of the merchants 
 and their warehouses be destroyed, 
 but so complete would be the destruc- 
 tion of the place, that the harbour or 
 quays would be inaccessible. Comp. 
 Ezek, xxvi. 4, 5. 
 
 2. Ὁ Vitringa understands collec- 
 tively of the coasts of the Mediterra- 
 nean: but it is rather to be inter- 
 preted, as at ver. 6, of Tyre itself, 
 with special reference to the island, 
 which, in a maritime point of view, 
 occupied the most prominent place. 
 Hendewerk thinks it comprehends the 
 whole of the Pheenician coast.—0?2}, 
 to be still, silent, to be struck dumb with 
 astonishment, Lam. 11. 10. The impera- 
 tive is used for the future to express 
 the certainty of the predicted calamity. 
 Before pT? WO supply Ws. By the 
 merchants of Zidon are meant, not sim- 
 ply or strictly those resident in that 
 city at the time, but Phenician mer- 
 chants generally. LXX. μετάβολοι Φοι- 
 
 vikns.—}iTz, Zidon, still called, ἴδιο, 
 
 Saide, which, according to Strabo, lay 
 at the distance of two hundred stadii 
 north of Tyre, appears originally to 
 have been merely a fishing station ; 
 for such the name imports: but at a 
 very early period it became a cele- 
 brated mercantile city. Jacob speaks 
 of it in his time in connexion with 
 shipping, Gen. xlix. 13; and Joshua, 
 chap. ΧΙ. 8, xix. 28, calls it great Zidon. 
 The name was also given to the whole 
 territory, to some extent round the 
 city ; whence the term Zidonians came 
 tocomprehend the Pheenicians in gene- 
 ral,—the Tyrians themselves also in- 
 cluded. Thus Ethbaal, whom Menan- 
 der (Joseph, Antiq. viii. 13.2) informs 
 
 us was king of Tyre, is called “king 
 of the Zidonians,’ 1 Kings xvi. 31. 
 Comp. chap. v. 1,6. And Homer re- 
 peatedly speaks of the Σιδονίοι, when 
 referring to Phoenician arts and wares, 
 without ever mentioning Tyre, though 
 this city must have already, in his 
 time, been in a very flourishing con- 
 dition. Zidon was indeed speedily 
 eclipsed by its rival, and generally 
 shared its fate. On several existing 
 Phoenician coins, the name, D212 ἘΝ, the 
 mother, i. 6. the metropolis, of the Zido- 
 nians, is given to Tyre. Inthe present 
 day, it seems to be again rising into 
 some importance ; containing upwards 
 of eight thousand inhabitants ; and 
 carrying on a considerable commerce. 
 A few scanty remains of the ancient 
 city are still discoverable in the 
 vicinity. 
 
 3. Michaelis, Hengstenberg, and 
 others, consider the language of the 
 prophet to be metaphorical, and sup- 
 pose him to speak of the produce of 
 the sea, or the widely-extended mari- 
 time trade of the Pheenicians, as being 
 to Tyre what the rich harvest accruing 
 from the inundation of the Nile was 
 to the Egyptians. It is more natural 
 to take the words literally, as descrip- 
 tive of the extensive trade in Egyptian 
 grain carried on in Pheenician vessels, 
 which was first exported to Tyre, and 
 thence conveyed to various ports in 
 the Mediterranean. Though Egypt 
 abounded in grain, yet the inhabitants 
 left its exportation to foreigners. He- 
 rodotus expressly mentions that Phce- 
 nicians of Tyre inhabited the district 
 round the fane of Proteus, at Memphis, 
 and from this circumstance the dis- 
 trict was called “the camp of the 
 Tyrians,” Ὁ. 11.112, Naucratis, on the 
 western branch of the Delta, was 
 otherwise the ancient emporium for 
 foreign commerce.—For the applica- 
 tion of τῶ, Shzhor, to the Nile, comp. 
 Jer. ii. 18, where it unquestionably has 
 
 cc 
 
200 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 4 Be ashamed, O Zidon! for the sea hath spoken, 
 The fortress of the sea, saying : 
 I was not in labour; neither did I bear children ; . 
 I nourished no youths, neither did I bring up virgins. 
 5 As at the report concerning Egypt, 
 So shall they be in pain at the report of Tyre. 
 
 6 Cross over to Tarshish ; 
 
 Howl, ye inhabitants of the isle! 
 
 7 Is this your joyous city, 
 
 Whose antiquity is of ancient days ? 
 Her own feet bear her to sojourn afar ! 
 
 this signification ; and that it cannot 
 have any otherreference here isevident 
 both from the circumstances of the 
 case, and from the use of the parallel 
 term δ, commonly used of the same 
 river. The Shihor mentioned Josh. xiii. 
 3, and 1 Chron, xiii. 5, is merely the 
 “Ῥινοκόρουρα, or El-arish, a torrent on 
 the confines of Egypt and Palestine. 
 The name, which is derived from WW», 
 to be black, obviously refers to the tur- 
 bid appearance of the Nile, which for 
 the-same reason the Greeks called 
 Μέλας, and the Latins Melo. The seed 
 and harvest are said to be those of 
 that river, because they were produced 
 by its inundation. The fem. pronom, 
 suffix in 7nNIn belongs to °x, the isle, 
 ver. 2. The best comment on the last 
 clause of the verse is furnished Ezek. 
 XXVil. 
 
 4, Sidon is again put for Pheenicia, 
 or the Phcenicians, in general. To 
 render 0 more definite, the prophet 
 adds ἘΝῚ 122, the fortress of the sea, 
 which describes the maritime situation 
 and strength of Tyre. Comp. Ezek. 
 xxvi. 17, xxvii. 4,25; Zech. ix. 3. So 
 entire should be the desolation of the 
 place, that, to the eye of the spectator, 
 it would appear never to have been 
 inhabited. To express this more 
 strongly a personification is employed. 
 Before 22 repeat 8), with the LXX,, 
 Vulg., Targ., Syr., and Arab. 
 
 5. Most translators and commenta- 
 tors suppose that the prophet here 
 refers to the report of the fall of Tyre 
 reaching Egypt ; but it is more pro- 
 bable he had in view the terror and 
 
 consternation which seized the Canaan- 
 ites when they heard of the destruc- 
 tion of the Egyptians at the Red Sea, 
 —so beautifully described in the ode 
 of Moses, Exod. xv. 14, Yo corres- 
 ponds to θοῦ, and > to mx 0, in 
 that passage. 
 
 6. Again using the imperative for 
 the future, Isaiah predicts the only 
 resource left to the Tyrians—the dis- 
 tant Tartessus, to which they would 
 proceed by sea, and thus be out of the 
 reach of the enemy. Those who had 
 connexions in that colony would natu- 
 rally repair thither; just as after- 
 wards, when attacked by Alexander, 
 the inhabitants of Tyre fled to Car- 
 thage, and the islands of Greece. 
 
 7. The language of astonishment at 
 the change which had taken place in 
 her condition. Formerly all was proud 
 exultation ; now all was silence. The 
 interrogative form implies, in such 
 connexion, the strongest affirmative. 
 However incredible, such was the state 
 to which Tyre should be reduced. 
 Before πρὴν supply YY, or ™7.—That 
 Tyre was very ancient all authorities 
 agree. The priests of Hercules boasted 
 to Herodotus that their temple, which 
 was built on the island, was of equal 
 antiquity with the city herself—both 
 having been founded two thousand 
 three hundred years before the time 
 when he consulted them. Hist i. 44. 
 Arrian says of the same temple that 
 it is “vetustissimum eorum, que hu- 
 mana memoria serventur.” Hist. 1. 
 16. Strabo, b. xvi. speaks of Tyre as 
 next to Zidon, μεγίστη τῶν Φοινίκων 
 
CHAP. XXIII. | 
 
 8 Who hath purposed this 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 207 
 
 Against Tyre, the dispenser of crowns ; 
 
 Whose merchants are princes, 
 
 Whose traders are the honourable of the earth ? 
 9 Jehovah of Hosts hath purposed it ; 
 To defile the pride of all the elegant, 
 To render contemptible all the honourable of the earth. 
 10 Overflow thy land like the river, O daughter of Tarshish! 
 
 καὶ ἀρχαιοτάτη πόλις. According to 
 Josephus, it was built two hundred 
 and forty years before the foundation 
 of Solomon’s temple ; but it has, with 
 great probability, been conjectured, 
 that some numerical inaccuracy has 
 here crept into the text of the Jewish 
 historian ; for, as we have seen, it is 
 already mentioned as a place of note 
 in the time of Joshua. Justin ascribes 
 its origin to Agenor, the father of 
 Cadmus, and dates it from the year be- 
 fore the destruction of Troy.—In the 
 combination, A272 ΘΠ) Ὁ Ὁ, is an easy 
 paronomasia.—Some, with Grotius, 
 understand 90, her feet, figuratively, 
 as denoting the ships of Tyre, by 
 means of which her inhabitants went 
 to distant parts, to plant colonies, το. ; 
 but there seems no just reason why 
 we should depart from the literal sig- 
 nification of the term, which is merely 
 empioyed for the purpose of shewing 
 that they betook themselves to flight, 
 and were not led away captive by the 
 enemy—an idea which 727 might 
 otherwise have been thought to ex- 
 
 press. Comp. the Arab. es vehe- 
 
 menter propulit predam. 
 
 8, 9. Such was the prowess of Tyre 
 that she was considered invincible by 
 human arms. Her destruction, there- 
 fore, though mediately effected by the 
 Babylonians, could only be accounted 
 for by resolving it into the purpose of 
 Jehovah, who gave them the victory. — 
 ΤΥ ὭΣΤ, coronatrix, coronam imponens, 
 refers to the power which she exer- 
 cised in the Pheenician colonies, be- 
 stowing the regal dignity at her plea- 
 sure. That Arad, Arke, Carthage, 
 Citium, Tartessus, &c. were governed 
 by kings under the supremacy of the 
 mother-state, clearly appears from the 
 
 statements of the ancients. By oy, 
 princes, are meant senators and coun- 
 cillors, who were chosen from among 
 the opulent merchants to augment the 
 magnificence of the court. Comp. 
 Ezek. xxvi. 16. The synonymous 
 ys77222. comprehends all who filled 
 posts of dignity. Gesenius and Scholz 
 render incorrectly, the opulent of the 
 earth——72P22, lit. her Canaanites ; but 
 as the inhabitants of Canaan were ce- 
 lebrated for their commercial pursuits, 
 the term came to signify merchants 
 generally. Job xl. 30; Hos. xii. 8. 
 ‘12, splendour, beauty, refers to the 
 niwy, crowns, bestowed by Tyre, ver. 8, 
 (comp. 127, Ps. Ixxxix. 40,) and 
 stands for ἊΣ ΣΝ, men of splendour, the 
 magnates of Tyre and her colonies.— 
 Between ὙΠ᾿ and 73)) is a striking anti- 
 thesis ; the latter word signifying to be 
 laden, heavy with honour ; the former 
 to make light, remove the weight of 
 honour, sender contemptible. Comp. 
 chap. vii. 23. 
 
 10. This verse most interpreters 
 deem very obscure; but this obscurity 
 has chiefly arisen from want of atten- 
 tion to the idiomatic force of ΠΣ, 
 daughter of Tarshish. Vitringa, Lowth, 
 and others, suppose Tyre herself, or 
 the Tyrians, to be meant, and attempt 
 to justify their interpretation on the 
 ground that Tyre being ruined, Tar- 
 shish must be considered as occupying 
 her place as mother of the Phenician 
 colonies ; but, as I have shewn in the 
 note to chap. i. 8, the words can only 
 properly mean the inhabitants of Tar- 
 shish ; and here such inhabitants in 
 contradistinction from the Tyrians.— 
 By ww, there can no longer be any 
 reasonable doubt, we are to understand 
 Tartessus, the ancient and celebrated 
 emporium of the Pheenicians, situated 
 
208 
 
 The restraint 1s no more. 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIL. 
 
 11 Jehovah hath stretched his hand over the sea,. 
 He hath caused the kingdoms to shake ; 
 
 between the two mouths of the river 
 Betis, (now Guadalquiver,) on the 
 south-western coast of Spain. To this 
 port they conveyed the produce of 
 the East; and procured, in return, 
 gold, silver, and iron, from the mines 
 which abounded in that country, and 
 lead and tin from the Scilly islands. 
 Herod. iv. 152; Plin. iii. 3; Mal. 11.6; 
 Strabo, iii. 147—149 ; Bochart, Phaleg. 
 ili. 7; Michaelis, Spicileg. i. p. 82; 
 Diod. Sic. ν. 35—38; Ezek. xxvii. 12— 
 25. How long it flourished we are 
 not informed. It was no longer in 
 existence in the time of Strabo, iii. 
 151. The LXX. do not seem to have 
 known it; at all events they either 
 retain the name in the form Θάρσεις, 
 Θάρσις, or render Kapxndév, Carthage 
 —never Ταρτησσος, or Ταρσηΐον, as the 
 word is spelt in Polybius and Steph. 
 Byzant. From Ps. Ixxii. 10, where 
 ww 2 occurs in contradistinction 
 from 81D) 81D 30, the term appears to 
 have been used in a more extended 
 sense, as comprehending all the mari- 
 time nations in the west of Europe. 
 Abulfeda says, that Tunis, built from 
 the ruins of Carthage, and only two 
 miles from them, was also called 
 
 Tarsis : ws lghe write us a) 
 ἜΣ ry pwd: Whether Solo- 
 
 mon’s fleet, fitted out at Eziongeber, 
 on the Alanitic arm of the Red Sea, 
 doubling the southern promontory of 
 Africa, proceeded to Tartessus, or whe- 
 ther it went to a place of the same 
 name in India, cannot be determined. 
 There may have been a Spanish and 
 an Indian Zurshish, just as the name 
 India came to be transferred from the 
 East to the distant West. So much 
 seems certain, that in none of the pas- 
 sages in which Tarshish occurs can 
 Tarsus in Cilicia be intended.—The 
 prophet here announces to the natives 
 of Tartessus, who had been brought 
 into subjection to the Pheenicians, 
 that they were now at liberty to 
 spread themselves over their own 
 
 land; the band by which they had 
 been held in restraint having been 
 broken, Considering the extent to 
 which slavery existed among the an- 
 cients, there is little doubt that the 
 powerful Tyrian princes reduced num- 
 bers of the native Spaniards to bon- 
 dage, compelling them to work in the 
 mines, &c. m2 here, and Ps. cix. 19, 
 like M9, Job xii. 21, properly signifies 
 a girdle, but may be. used to denote 
 that with which any person is bound, 
 and tropically the power by which a 
 people is held in subjection ; which in 
 the present case was Tyre. Thus the 
 
 m mo 
 Syr. woN\ Land? he who drives, or 
 The root is mm, Arab. 
 jp move away ; and the form is that 
 
 impels thee. 
 
 of the participle in Hiph. lke 209, 
 1 Kings vi. 29; 9, Ezek. xxxi. 3. 
 That the comparison is taken from 
 the inundation of the Nile is clear, 
 both from the use of the appropriated 
 word τ, and from the aptness of the 
 reference ; the waters that were pent 
 up flowing over the face of the coun- 
 try as soon as the mound is broken 
 through. The LXX., reading ‘729 in- 
 stead of 2Y, render ἐργάζου τὴν γῆν 
 ood, cultivate thy land, and then para- 
 phrase, καὶ yap πλοῖα οὐκέτι ἐρχόνται 
 ἐκ Καρχηδόνος, for ships no longer come 
 Jrom Carthage:—an excellent sense, 
 were it all warranted by the original; 
 but this not being the case, Michaelis 
 was quite unjustifiable in adopting it. 
 
 11. The nominative to 3, is Tin, 
 following, a mode of construction not 
 infrequent in Heb. poetry, but which 
 is best expressed in western languages 
 by employing the noun first. 0, the 
 sea, means those who trade by sea, the 
 Pheenicians. Comp. ver. 4. The ni3229 
 are the petty states or kingdoms of 
 the Pheenicians, as Tyre, Zidon, Ara- 
 dus, &c. This the use of 723, Canaan, 
 immediately after clearly shews. 1525 
 is here specially employed to denote 
 Phenicia, or that part of Canaan which 
 lay at the foot of Lebanon, and so 
 
CHAP. XXIII.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 He hath given charge concerning Canaan, 
 
 To destroy her strongholds. 
 
 12 Yea, he hath said, Thou shalt exult no more, 
 O violated virgin, the daughter of Zidon. 
 
 Arise! cross over to Chittim τ᾿ 
 
 Yet there thou shalt have no rest. 
 
 called on account of its low situation, 
 from 523, to bend, be low, depressed ; 
 
 τ 
 Arab. εὖ » contractus fuit, inclinavit in 
 
 occasum stella, &c.; se submisit. That 
 its inhabitants appropriated the name 
 κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν to themselves, appears from 
 their coins, and from the fact that it 
 was also retained by the Carthaginians, 
 who came originally from the same 
 coast. See Gesenius iz Joc.—28 
 stands for TUT), as 22 for 7227), 
 Numb. v. 22. In such cases the 7 is 
 omitted, as in the Fut. and Part. of 
 Hiph., and its vowel is assumed by 
 the °. The } in Tuya is not a Chal- 
 deeism, as Vitringa, Eichhorn, and 
 others imagine, the idiom in such 
 case requiring it to be placed before 
 the tand not after it; but a rare in- 
 stance of the Nun Epenthetic before a 
 pronominal affix. The nearest ap- 
 proach I can find to it is 53», his exist- 
 ence ; for % is properly a substantive, 
 though frequently used as a substitute 
 for ™7. It seems better to adopt 
 such resolution of the difficulty, than 
 with Michaelis and Jahn to consider 
 the 2 to be radical, and then attempt 
 to derive a meaning to the word from 
 
 the Arab. "ἢ 7.5 or a Sia Gesen. in- 
 
 geniously compares 72 for mY, Lev. 
 xi. 13, with the present instance of 
 Wyn for Trp. See Lex. Robin. Ed. 
 1844, p. 775. The strongholds of Ca- 
 naan to which the prophet refers were 
 doubtless Old and Insular Tyre, Sidon, 
 Arke, Aradus, &c., which were de- 
 stroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Perhaps 
 Carthage, Tartessus, and other cities 
 fortified by the Pheenicians, may also 
 be intended ; for we learn from Strabo 
 and Megasthenes, that this monarch, 
 after the reduction of Tyre, conquered 
 Egypt, penetrated the north of Africa 
 as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and 
 even subdued Iberia, or Spain. 
 
 12. The daughter of Zidon means 
 
 the Zidonians, just as the daughter of 
 
 Tuarshish, ver. 10, means the Tartes- 
 sians, and not Tyre exclusively, as 
 some interpret: yet the appellation is, 
 in this connexion, to be extended to 
 those inhabiting the Pheenician terri- 
 tory generally, and is not to be re- 
 stricted to such as belonged to the 
 city of Zidon. See Gesen. ἐμ voc. ΡῈ, 
 The Orientals are accustomed to speak 
 of a country or city which has never 
 been conquered, as an unviolated 
 virgin. Such Zidon, or Pheenicia, as 
 a whole, had been down to the attack 
 of Nebuchadnezzar. The country had, 
 indeed, been overrun by the army of 
 Shalmaneser, and many of the cities 
 had submitted to that monarch; but 
 the Tyrian fleet gained a complete 
 victory over the combined squadrons 
 of the Assyrians and apostate Phoeni- 
 cians, and though the island sustained 
 a siege of five years, it remained un- 
 subdued—Shalmaneser being obliged 
 to raise the blockade. Menander, in 
 Joseph. Antiq. 1x.14. By Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, however, Insular Tyre was 
 myn, violated. and subdued. Several 
 MSS., the Alex. copy of the LXX., 
 and the Arab., read jr na, “daughter 
 of Zion ;” but obviously from the 
 mistake of transcribers.—The latter 
 half of the verse contains a predic- 
 tion (couched, as frequently to ex- 
 press certainty, in the form of the 
 Imper.) of the flight of the Phceni- 
 cians to the islands and countries of 
 the Mediterranean, and the unsettled 
 state in which they would find them- 
 selves there. It has been doubted 
 whether this refers to the troubles to 
 which they would be subjected by the 
 inhabitants of these regions, or to 
 their being pursued thither and an- 
 noyed by the Babylonians; Jer. xxv. 
 22 decides in favour of the latter 
 opinion. 
 
210 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans! 
 
 That people which was not, 
 
 (Assyria assigned it to the inhabitants of the desert)— 
 They have erected their towers ; 
 
 13. Having described the author 
 and effects of the calamity to be 
 brought upon Tyre, the prophet now 
 proceeds to describe the instruments 
 by which it would be inflicted. In 
 answer to an implied question—where 
 is there a people to be found able to 
 subdue the strongly fortified, opulent, 
 and populous mart of nations? he 
 points to the Chaldeans, and shews 
 that though insignificant and despic- 
 able, and dependent for a territory 
 upon others, yet they would advance 
 with a formidable apparatus, and lay 
 her in the dust. D'TH2, OPT TM, and oy, 
 are in apposition, and supply the nomi- 
 natives to the following verbs.—The 
 ow2, Chasdim, Chaldeans, as a tribe, 
 were of great antiquity. They are 
 supposed to have sprung from 13, the 
 son of Nahor, brother to Abraham, 
 whose native place was O'w32 ὌΝ, Ur of 
 the Chasdim, and originally to have in- 
 habited the northern part of Mesopo- 
 tamia and the Carduchian mountains 
 adjacent to Armenia. But the name 
 is traceable still farther back ; for it 
 forms one of the components of T0275, 
 Ar-phaxad, (Araph-CHESED,) the name 
 of the third son of Shem, Gen. x. 22, 
 &c. from whom the Chesed mentioned 
 Gen. xxii. 22, was himself descended. 
 In the earliest notice which we have 
 of them in a tribal state, Job i. 17, 
 they appear as addicted to a wild and 
 predatory mode of life. Jeremiah, v. 
 15, speaks of them as DYY9 "2, ax 
 ancient nation, but evidently in the 
 laxer acceptation of that term, so that 
 there is no real contradiction between 
 his statement and that made by Isaiah 
 in the present verse. Of the circum- 
 stances connected with their settle- 
 ment in Babylonia we are totally 
 ignorant. Most probably they had 
 lands assigned them in reward of 
 certain services rendered to the king 
 of Assyria, on which occasion they 
 changed their wild and roving habits, 
 by which they more resembied wild 
 beasts (0%) than men, for those of a 
 
 civilized organization. That it was 
 the portion of Chaldzeans who lived in 
 Mesopotamia that were thus located, 
 may be gathered from the fact, that 
 Xenophon and Strabo speak of Chal- 
 deeans, in their time, inhabiting the 
 mountains near Armenia and Colchis, 
 of which the present Kurds are very 
 likely the descendants. The period of 
 their location must have been shortly 
 before Isaiah wrote. Gesenius thinks 
 it not improbable that it is to be dated 
 from the commencement of the era of 
 Nabonassar, B.C. 747; otherwise called 
 the era of the Chaldeans. By 1x we 
 are not, with Lowth, to understand a 
 king of the name of Ashur, but as 
 usual, Assyria, or the Assyrians. In 
 the course of time, the Chaldeans 
 acquired very considerable influence 
 in the empire, and ultimately, under 
 Nabopollassar, B.c. 597, asserted their 
 independence. That prince, contract- 
 ing an alliance with Cyaxares, king of 
 the Medes, conquered Assyria, and 
 reducing Nineveh its capital, trans- 
 ferred the seat of empire to Babylon; 
 whence, under his son Nebuchadnezzar, 
 the powerful army went forth, which 
 conquered Judea, Phoenicia, and Egypt. 
 The Chaldzan rule terminated with 
 Belshazzar, when Babylonia became a 
 Persian province,and afterwardsshared 
 the fate of the Persian empire.—j x, 
 land, is here used in the proper accep- 
 tation of country, place of location, 
 and not of people, as Gesenius erro- 
 neously interprets. This the use of 
 the verb 1% clearly proves. Indeed, 
 he is obliged to allow that this signi- 
 fication attaches to it, as implied in 
 the suffix 7. Dry ΠῚ is employed, 
 δεικτικῶς : this is the people, the very 
 people which, notwithstanding their 
 not being found in the list of nations 
 or empires, Jehovah hath purposed to 
 use as his instruments in destroying 
 the mighty Tyre—o»s; deserticola, 
 such as live in rude and uncultivated 
 regions. The term is used both of 
 wild beasts and human beings; see 
 
‘ 
 
 CHAP. XXIII.] 
 
 ISATAH, 
 
 211 
 
 They have demolished her palaces ; 
 
 They have made her a ruin. 
 
 14 Howl, ye ships of Tarshish, 
 
 For your stronghold is laid waste. 
 
 15 
 
 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 That Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, 
 
 Like the days of a king ; 
 
 At the end of seventy years there shall be to Tyre 
 As it were the song to a harlot. 
 
 16 
 Thou harlot forgotten ! 
 
 Strike skilfully the chords ; 
 
 Take the harp; go about the city, 
 
 sing many songs, 
 
 "Τὴ order that thou mayest be remembered! 
 17 For it shall be at the end of seventy years, 
 
 note to chap. xiii. 21. It is to be 
 taken here in the latter sense, as 
 descriptive of the rude and unculti- 
 vated condition of the Chaldzeans pre- 
 vious to their settlement in Babylonia. 
 —The Mas. affix in yp7a belongs to 
 a», the people, i.e. the Chaldzeans; and 
 the Fem. affix in P2728 and ANY, to 
 Tyre understood. pa, Keri }73, az 
 
 artificial mound or fort. Arab. ws 
 
 arena accumulata, what is raised, either 
 for the purpose of serving as a watch- 
 tower, or for the purpose of attacking 
 a city during a siege. Comp. }13, chap. 
 xxxli. 14, Such the Chaldean army 
 would throw up on their arrival before 
 Tyre, and thence annoy the inhabit- 
 ants. mis, high and noble buildings, 
 
 palaces, from ὉΠ πε ον, Arab. use to 
 
 raise, be high,—not harems, as Mi- 
 chaelis conjectured. Ὑ is the Poel of 
 vw, to make naked, bare, demolish, &c., 
 rather than from Ὃν, ¢o wake, wake up. 
 Those who prefer the latter derivation, 
 refer the action to the excitement of 
 rebellion in the palaces of Tyre, by 
 which her strength would be weak- 
 ened; but the former seems the more 
 natural construction. So Rosenmiiller, 
 Gesenius, Maurer, and Scholz. The 
 proper nomin. to 72 is OY, taken as a 
 collective. The meaning of the whole 
 verse is briefly this: the Chaldeans, 
 formerly barbarous and unknown as a 
 
 state, but established in Babylon by 
 the Assyrians, shall besiege Tyre, 
 storm her palaces, and reduce her to 
 ruin. Comp. Hab. i. 6—11. 
 
 14, Here the first part of the pro- 
 phecy terminates, and that for the 
 most part in the same words with 
 which it commenced, ver. 1. 
 
 15—17. The prophet specifies the 
 length of the period during which 
 Tyre should remain in a state of deso- 
 lation and neglect. Most interpreters 
 regard the seventy years as those 
 during which the Jews were to be in 
 captivity, at the expiration of which, 
 not only were they to be restored to 
 their own land, but the Babylonian 
 yoke being broken, Tyre and the 
 neighbouring states should also be at 
 liberty to resume their former mer- 
 cantile occupations: The only real 
 difficulty in the verse is created by 
 the words 78 722", commonly ren-) 
 dered, as the days of one king. This 
 difficulty appears to have presented 
 itself to the LXX. who translate: ws 
 χρύνος βασιλέως, ὡς χρόνος ἀνθρώπου, 
 adding the latter words by way of 
 explanation, but in reality not render- 
 ing the passage at all clearer. To refer 
 the words to the period of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar’s life or reign seems altogether 
 unwarrantable ; as, indeed, it likewise 
 does to understand by 779, not a king, 
 but ἃ singdom or dynasty. Equally 
 objectionable is the solution proposed 
 
212 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXIII. 
 
 That Jehovah shall visit Tyre ; 
 And she shall return to her hire, 
 And play the harlot with all the kingdoms of the earth, 
 That are on the surface of the ground. 
 18 But her gain and her hire shall be holy to Jehovah ; 
 It shall not be stored up, nor hoarded ; 
 But her gain shall be for those who dwell before Jehovah, 
 
 by Hensler, who considers 778 to be 
 used here as an ordinal, and the phrase 
 to signify the first king, just as We DY 
 signifies the first day, Gen. i. 5. The 
 only way of untying the knot is to 
 take 178 as equivalent to our indefinite 
 article. Thus, as 7x Ὁ, “a basket,” 
 Ex. xxix. 3; 1x wx, “aman,” 1 Sam. i. 
 1; ΠΝ >x,“@ ram,” Dan. viii. 3; so our 
 text will simply read, “like the days of 
 a king:” i.e. forgotten. It is notorious 
 matter of observation, that, generally 
 speaking, no persons are sooner con- 
 signed to oblivion than monarchs, even 
 the most powerful and illustrious. 
 Take, for example, Napoleon, whose 
 name, after the lapse of little more 
 than twenty years, is scarcely ever 
 mentioned. In like manner, during the 
 period specified, Tyre should be for- 
 gotten. No mention would be made 
 of her glory. However, at the end of 
 that period, it is predicted that she 
 should again bestir herself, and engage 
 in foreign commerce as in former days. 
 This commerce or intercourse with 
 foreign nations, the prophet compares 
 to that of a harlot with her lovers. 
 Comp. Nah. iii. 4; Rev. xviii. 3. She 
 would now make use of every art by 
 which to bring herself again into 
 notice.—737 NV, is the genitive of 
 object, and must be rendered, the song 
 to an harlot, as the connexion obviously 
 demands. This ditty follows in the 
 16th verse, the language of which is 
 peculiarly terse and appropriate. It 
 is a song of taunt or satire—As the 
 destruction of Tyre is ascribed to 
 Jehovah, so her future prosperity is 
 attributed to the kindness of his 
 providence. The term 72x, Aire, refers 
 to the comparison, ver. 15, but is 
 explained ver. 18, by "0, commercial 
 gain. Root 2A, to give presents. The 
 7 in ΠΡ has the Mappic in a great 
 number of MSS.—The apparent pleon- 
 
 asm at the end of ver. 17 is designed 
 to express the great extent to which 
 the trade of Tyre should again be 
 carried on; which took place especially 
 under the Seleucide and the Romans. 
 She had indeed so far recovered her 
 ancient power in the time of Alex- 
 ander the Great, that, though at last 
 taken by that conqueror, she held out 
 a siege of seven months. The number 
 of her inhabitants must then have 
 amounted to at least thirty thousand. 
 
 18. A prediction of the conversion 
 of the Tyrians to the worship and 
 service of the true God. Instead of 
 hoarding up their gains, or devoting 
 them as presents to the temple of 
 Hercules, as they had formerly done, 
 they would now consecrate them to 
 the support of true religion. Comp. 
 Ps. Ixxxvii. 4; Isa. lx. 9. Whether 
 they became proselytes to the Jewish 
 faith, we are not informed; though, 
 considering the number of Jews who 
 resided in foreign cities after the 
 return from the captivity, it is not at 
 all unlikely that many were led to 
 profess it through their instrumen- 
 tality; in which case, they would 
 naturally send gifts to Jerusalem. 
 That they embraced Christianity at an 
 early period, and that it afterwards 
 flourished here, are matters of history, 
 Euseb, Hist. lib. x. cap. 4; and it is 
 not improbable, that to this the pro- 
 phecy refers. Comp. Acts xxi. 3—6. 
 mm 269 Dw, “those who sit or dwell 
 before Jehovah,” is equivalent to 3Ὸν 
 jes, “the inhabitants of Zion,” when 
 used figuratively to denote the mem- 
 bers of the church of God, Ps. xxvii. 
 4, Ixxxiv. 4; only with special refer- 
 ence to the Divine presence. That 
 the priests are intended, is maintained 
 by Hitzig and Maurer, and in part by 
 Rosenmiiller; but it does not appear 
 that they were ever permitted to sit 
 
CHRP: KOT. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 213 
 
 For food in abundance, and for splendid attire. 
 
 in the presence of God. The phrase 
 denotes constancy and diligence in the 
 service of the Lord. About twelve 
 of Kennicott and De Rossi’s MSS. 
 read ΓΊΝΩ" 7172, but most likely from 
 
 an emendation. ny several of the 
 ancient translators have taken in the 
 sense of being o/d; Aquila has perdp- 
 σεως; but the Chald. WW, which is 
 glorious, gives the right meaning. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 That chapters xxiv.—xxvii. form one connected whole, is the unanimous 
 
 opinion of the best commentators. 
 
 They describe the desolations brought 
 
 upon Palestine, as a punishment for the sins of its inhabitants; contain 
 predictions of the restoration of the Jews from captivity, and of the gospel 
 dispensation; hymns of grateful praise for their deliverance; and announce 
 
 the utter destruction of their enemies. 
 
 Vitringa, Michaelis, and others, 
 
 regard this section as the most obscure and difficult in the whole book. It 
 may therefore naturally be supposed that considerable diversity of opinion 
 
 has obtained with respect to its interpretation. 
 applied it to judgments to be brought upon the earth generally. 
 
 Most of the Reformers 
 Hitzig is 
 
 almost alone in the opinion that it refers to the Assyrian empire, and the 
 
 destruction of Nineveh, its capital. 
 
 By Grotius, it is applied to the deso- 
 
 lations effected by Shalmaneser; by Hensler, to those which took place 
 under Sennacherib; by Dathe, Gesenius, Rosenmiiller, and Jahn, to the 
 devastations of Nebuchadnezzar, and the fall of Babylon; by Vitringa, to 
 
 the times of the Maccabees. 
 
 Lowth and some other late writers think the 
 
 prophecy embraces all the desolations of Palestine,—the last, or Roman, not 
 excepted. This hypothesis, though supplying an easy mode of interpreting 
 all its parts, is to be rejected ; having obviously been framed for the purpose 
 of getting rid of the difficulties. If we consider it in the light of a prophetic 
 review of the judgments brought upon the land, more especially those 
 brought upon it by the Chaldeans, down to the time of the Messiah, we 
 shall, I think, come nearest the mark. That it has any reference to times 
 
 yet future, I cannot find. 
 
 That Isaiah was the writer of this portion of the book, there is no just reason 
 to doubt. The objections taken by Eichhorn, Gesenius, Hitzig, and Maurer, 
 are for the most part extremely frivolous. That chap. xxiv. abounds more 
 in paronomasias, and other points of artificial style, than the rest of the 
 book, cannot be denied; but these the Hebrews accounted elegancies, rather 
 than blemishes, and they are not without their parallels, both in Isaiah and 
 his contemporary Micah. See chap. v. 7, vii. 9, xxii. 17, 18. Equally 
 futile are the alleged doctrinal difficulties, especially that of the resurrection 
 
 of the dead. 
 
 See on chap. xxiv. 21, xxvi. 19. While Gesenius denies that 
 
 DD 
 
214 ISATAH. [CHAP, XXIV. 
 
 this section is from the pen of Isaiah, but contends that he is the author 
 of chap. xxiii, Hitzig strenuously maintains an identity of authorship ; 
 though he refers the composition of both to the times, if not to the pen of 
 Nahum. 
 
 In this chapter the prophet depicts in the strongest colours the distress that 
 should prevail in the land, to heighten which he accumulates particulars, 
 1—12; the grateful feelings of the few inhabitants that should make their 
 escape to the regions on the Mediterranean, 13—16; the complete subver- 
 sion of the Jewish polity by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, and the captive 
 state of the priests and royal family, 16—22; and concludes by announcing 
 the restoration of the Jews, and the glorious re-establishment of the 
 
 theocracy, 23. 
 
 1 Brnoxp, Jehovah poureth out the land and emptieth it ; 
 He also turneth down the face of it, and scattereth its 
 
 inhabitants. 
 
 2 And it is, as with the people, so with the priest ; 
 As with the servant, so with his master ; 
 As with the maid, so with her mistress ; 
 As with the buyer, so with the seller ; 
 As with the lender, so with the borrower ; 
 As with the receiver, so with the giver on usury. 
 
 3 The land is utterly emptied and utterly plundered ; 
 For Jehovah hath spoken this word. 
 
 1. The four verbs here employed 
 are all strongly expressive of violence. 
 P23, to empty, pour out violently, Arab. 
 
 5.» multum pluvie fudit ccclam. 4843 
 
 tmpetus, illapsusque vehementior. ci 
 
 nultiloguus, garrulus vir.—p?2 signifies 
 to open, empty as a bottle, and is nearly 
 synonymous with the former word. 
 
 Arab. ce, aperuit omnino vel vehemen- 
 ter ; abriputt. ah, desertum, solitudo. 
 
 LXX. épnpdca.—my, to turn xpside 
 down, overthrow. The entire reference 
 seems to be to a vessel, the contents 
 of which are poured out, and which, 
 in order to its being wholly emptied, 
 is turned completely over. Comp. 
 Jer. xlviii. 11, 12. 
 
 2, This accumulation of antitheses 
 is quite in keeping with the impas- 
 sioned character of the style through- 
 
 out the chapter. They strikingly 
 mark the indiscriminate ruin in which 
 the inhabitants of Judah should be 
 involved. No distinction would be 
 made between the different ranks or 
 conditions of life. That no historical 
 inference is to be drawn from the 
 priest, and not the king being men- 
 tioned, is evident from Hos. iv. 9, 
 where the same antithesis occurs, in 
 application to the state of things in 
 Israel.—Instead of 3, which appears 
 before all the other predicates, δ 
 takes x3, because, with 2 following, 
 it exhibits its verbal, rather than its 
 substantive character. Many of the 
 best codices, and several of the earlier 
 editions, read 7) instead of πῶ, Both 
 letters are elsewhere in use. 
 
 3. Pia and 37 are emphatic Infini- 
 tives, from p72 and 3; the resump- 
 tion of the former of which, from ver. 
 1, connects these two verses closely 
 together. The formula with which 
 
CHAP. XXIV. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 215 
 
 4 The land mourneth, it withereth ; 
 The world languisheth, it withereth ; 
 The highest of the people of the land languish. 
 5 Yea, the land [itself] is profaned under its inhabitants ; 
 For they have transgressed the laws; they have changed the 
 
 statutes ; 
 
 They have broken the everlasting covenant. 
 6 Therefore a curse devoureth the land, 
 And its inhabitants are punished ; 
 Therefore the inhabitants of the land are burnt up; 
 
 the verse concludes is usual with the 
 prophets, and expresses the certainty 
 of the events predicted. 
 
 4, yoxt and °2n are synonymes, and 
 
 both are here employed to designate. 
 
 the land of Judah. Comp. chap. xiil. 
 11, where 529 is used of the Baby- 
 lonian world; ἡ οἰκουμένη, Orbis Ro- 
 manus, Acts xvii. 6, xxiv. 5; and Luke 
 ii.1; Acts xi. 28, (see Bloomfield,) 
 where it is used of Palestine. Comp. 
 also chap. xxvi.18. The paronomasias 
 in the first four verses are merely a 
 prelude to the more striking ones, 
 vers. 17—20. Both 5328 and %2) are 
 properly used of the drooping or fall- 
 ing of plants, leaves, &c. ; here figu- 
 ratively of the languishing condition 
 of the Jewish state. INT Dy DV, Lit. 
 the height of the people of the land ; 01, 
 the abstract for the concrete 9), ez- 
 celsi, the most exalted in power and 
 dignity; LXX. of ὑψηλοὶ τῆς γῆς. 
 Nebuchadnezzar carried into captivity 
 two thousand of the nobles and men 
 of wealth. These are specially singled 
 out, on account of their more aggra- 
 vated guilt. 
 
 5. Ys is here to be taken of ἐλ land 
 literally and, in such connexion, with 
 the article—the very land, the land 
 itself. Because the prophet speaks of 
 min, Jaws, and not 77, the law, Aben- 
 ezra, Vitringa, Rosenmiiller, Hitzig, 
 and some others, are of opinion that 
 the reference is not to the Mosaic 
 institute, but to what are called the 
 laws of nature. The latter commen- 
 tators imagine that the Noachic pre- 
 cepts, covenant, &c. are meant. But 
 for the use of the plural, in application 
 to the law of Moses, see Levit. xxvi. 
 
 46; Neh. ix. 13; Ezek. xliv. 24. in, 
 the singular, is found in one of De 
 Rossi’s MSS., the Soncin. edit. of the 
 Prophets, 1486, and is supported by 
 the LXX., Chald., Syr., and Arab. ; 
 but the plural, being the more diffi- 
 cult, is in all probability the true 
 reading. ΓΤ is here a collective, sta- 
 tutes; UXX. τὰ προστάγματα. ™3 
 div, the Sinaic covenant, which is fre- 
 quently thus designated, because of 
 the long period during which its obli- 
 gations were to be binding. Exod. 
 xxxi. 16; Lev. xxiv. 8. 
 
 6. mos, Arab. δ}, juramentum, pri- 
 TT) J 2 Ρ 
 
 marily denotes az oath, and then the 
 penalty incurred by the breach of it ; the 
 mulet, damage, or suffering, to which 
 the offending party is subject. See 
 Deut. xxix. 13 (14)—19, where it 
 occurs in connexion with m3, It is 
 here specifically the curse, or ban 
 annexed to the violation of the Sinaic 
 covenant. See Deut. xxix. 18, 19; 
 comp. Zech. v. 3. The judgments 
 which God would bring upon the 
 country were an infliction of the 
 threatened punishment.—odwtx denotes, 
 in such connexion, to suffer the con- 
 sequences of guilt, fo be punished ; 
 
 Arab. ra , criminis reus. Comp. Zech. 
 
 xi. 5.—For 19, which is from 9, fo 
 burn, be burnt up, consumed, Houbigant 
 proposes to read 24, which Lowth 
 adopts, and renders, “are destroyed ;” 
 but totally without authority—there 
 being no various reading. Besides, 
 the verb found in the text better 
 accords with 52s in the corresponding 
 parallelism.—* Few men.” On the 
 
216 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 And few are the men that are left. 
 
 7 The new wine mourneth, 
 The vine languisheth ; 
 All the merry-hearted sigh. 
 8 The joy of tabrets ceaseth ; 
 
 The noise of those who exult is ended ; 
 
 The joy of the harp ceaseth. 
 
 9 They drink not wine with the song ; 
 
 The strong liquor is become bitter to those who drank it. 
 10 ‘The city of desolation is broken in pieces ; 
 
 Every house is shut up; there is no entrance. 
 11 A ery for wine is in the streets ; 
 
 All gladness is set ; 
 
 The joy of the land is gone. 
 12 Desolation is left in the city, 
 
 And the gate is battered into 
 13. Yet it shall be in the earth, 
 
 In the midst of the people, 
 
 capture of Jerusalem, none were left 
 behind but the lower class of citizens 
 and the country people; but even 
 they were afterwards carried into cap- 
 tivity by Nebuzaradan, so that the 
 land remained for the most part unin- 
 habited. But see ver. 13. 
 
 7. DIVA, must, new wine, corresponds 
 to 82, the vine, following, and must 
 therefore be understood of the juice 
 while yet in the grape. Comp. chap. 
 
 DB * 
 Ixv. 8; Syr. [sams frumentum. The 
 
 same figures are employed by Joel, i. 
 10—12, where they are carried more 
 fully out. That Isaiah imitated Joel 
 is asserted, but not attempted to be 
 proved, by Gesenius. 
 
 8. Three of De Rossi’s Codices, the 
 LXX., and Arab., read να, instead of 
 yw. The latter, however, besides 
 being the better supported, is the 
 more appropriate reading of the two. 
 
 10. ὙΠ MD, the city of desolation, 1.6. 
 destined to lie desolate and waste, 
 during the captivity. Such would be 
 the quantity of rubbish collected be- 
 fore the houses that were left, that 
 they would be quite inaccessible. 2D 
 is used not only of men, but of things ; 
 as the wilderness, Exod. xiv. 3. For 
 
 ruins. 
 
 the meaning of x12, see chap. xvii. I, 
 Ext. 1. 
 
 11. The cry for wine here mentioned 
 does not refer to the clamorous 
 demand of drunkards, but to the des- 
 titute condition of the wounded and 
 languishing inhabitants. 2, which 
 is used of the setting of the sun, 
 Arab. κ-Ὁ 255, abitt, procul abiit, recessit, 
 
 occidit sol, hence 2, evening, is here 
 with great effect employed metaphor- 
 ically to express the disappearance of 
 every species of joy. 22 properly 
 signifies to go into captivity. Both 
 terms describe the total change that 
 would take place in the circumstances 
 of the inhabitants. % is inserted 
 before IST, in xize of Kennicott and 
 De Rossi’s MSS.; and, according to 
 the LXX. and Arab., it ought to be 
 before wiv, It is most likely in 
 both cases a repetition from the first 
 part of the verse. 
 
 12. we) forms an antithesis to the 
 preceding. The gates of cities were 
 well fortified. When laid in ruins, 
 as here expressed, there was no more 
 defence. το may either have ? un- 
 derstood, or be the accusative. 
 
 13. Comp. chap. xvii. 6. 
 
\ 
 
 | DM, maritime countries ; 
 
 CHAP. XXIV. | 
 
 As when the olive is shaken ; 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 217 
 
 Like the gleanings when the vintage is finished. 
 14 They shall lift up their voice, they) shall sing ; 
 Because of the majesty of Jehovah they shall shout aloud from 
 
 the sea. 
 
 15 Wherefore glorify Jehovah in the regions of fire, 
 In the isles of the sea, the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel. 
 
 14. Some, as Dathe, take the Ὁ in 
 mo to be comparative, and render, 
 “shout more than the sea ;” but as 
 the shout in this place is that of joy, 
 it is contrary to usage, as it is un- 
 natural, to compare it to the roaring 
 of the sea. It is rather the local Ὁ, 
 indicating the residence of the persons 
 spoken of ;'as in M190, DIP, in the east. 
 By &, the sea, is meant the Mediter- 
 ranean, or the West; Jew. Span. de 
 Occidente ; i.e. the islands of Greece, 
 and the countries in Asia Minor, 
 Europe, and Africa, which lay on the 
 coasts of that sea. To these quarters 
 some of the Jews doubtless made 
 their escape by means of Pheenician 
 vessels, and thus retained their per- 
 sonal liberty, while their brethren 
 were captives in Babylon.—In this 
 and the two following verses, the 
 prophet abruptly breaks off from his 
 description of the desolations to be 
 brought upon his country, in order 
 for a moment to introduce the joy of 
 the exiled Jews of the West at the 
 capture of Babylon by Cyrus, which 
 he anticipates. The Tym }ix3, Majesty 
 of Jehovah, which they celebrate, is 
 the glorious manifestation of his 
 power and goodness in destroying the 
 enemies and effecting the rescue of 
 the nation. 
 
 15. Various interpretations have 
 been given of O83, The conjectural 
 emendations may be seen in Lowth. 
 Of these, were any of them necessary, 
 that to be preferred is undoubtedly 
 but the cir- 
 cumstance that while no Heb. MS. 
 exhibits this reading, D%»~3, the full 
 orthography, as found in a great num- 
 ber of codices, as well as in the Bible 
 and the Prophets printed at the 
 Soncin. press, clearly evinces, that, 
 instead of the » having been com- 
 
 \ muted for », the latter has a right to 
 
 maintain its place in the word. Still, 
 however, this conjecture, which Lowth 
 first adopted, is approved by Michae- 
 lis, Hitzig, and some others. Ge- 
 senius, on the other hand, Scholz, 
 and others, render, ix the East, the 
 ORIENT, ὁ.6. the regions of light, or 
 the countries over which the morning 
 sun rises in brightness. They con- 
 sider D 8 and ὈΝΤ ἫΝ as contrasted, 
 and marking the different regions 
 both in the East and the West in 
 which the shouts of praise were to 
 be raised to Jehovah. That regions 
 are meant, the parallelism plainly 
 shews ; but there is something ex- 
 tremely harsh in the introduction of 
 the Orient into the passage: the 
 “sea,” and “the islands of the sea,” 
 i.e. the West, being mentioned both 
 before and after, requires that we 
 look in the same direction for the 
 countries intended by the prophet. 
 If we change the rendering of our 
 common version, “ ¢he fires, into the 
 regions of fire, We shall, in my opinion, 
 hit the mark. Such regions have, 
 from time iminemorial, existed in 
 Sicily, the south of Italy, and other 
 parts on the Mediterranean ; and the 
 Phenician traders, who must fre- 
 quently have witnessed volcanic erup- 
 tions of Etna, Vesuvius, ὅσο. could not 
 fail to spread throughout the East 
 information respecting these extra- 
 ordinary phenomena of nature. Comp. 
 Jer. li. 25, 26; Nah. i. 5, 6; where 
 the imagery is taken from the pheno- 
 mena of volcanoes ; a proof that they 
 were not unknown to the sacred pen- 
 men. I consider the prophet to be 
 addressing, throughout the verse, 
 those Jews who had taken refuge in 
 the West, the following ™7 »s being 
 only an amplification of the idea 
 suggested by ΘΝ. The marginal ren- 
 dering, “valleys,” which is that adopted 
 
218 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 16 From the end of the earth, we hear songs: 
 
 Glory to the Righteous One! 
 
 But I said, Misery to me! Misery to me! Alas for me! 
 The plunderers plunder; yea, the plunder the plunderers 
 
 plunder. 
 
 17 Terror, and the pit, and the snare, 
 Ave upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. 
 
 18 And it shall be, 
 
 That whoso fleeth from the sound of the terror shall fall into 
 
 the pit : 
 
 in the French, Dutch, German, and 
 other current modern versions, is 
 borrowed from the Rabbins, who 
 generally give it this signification, 
 but without any support from the 
 connexion, 
 
 16. The first clause of this verse is 
 a continuation of the preceding sub- 
 ject, and contains a prediction of 
 the joy with which the Jews that 
 were dispersed in distant parts would 
 hail the appearance of Cyrus ; here, 
 as in chap. xli. 2, called the Righteous. 
 See on that passage. But no sooner 
 has the prophet pointed to the de- 
 liverer, than he is struck with horror 
 at the prospect of the evils which 
 should previously overtake his coun- 
 trymen. He sees the repeated and 
 unmitigated ravages of the Chaldeans, 
 and gives expression to his feelings in 
 language the most impassioned and 
 affecting. In such ἃ "βία of mind 
 abrupt sentences and repetitions are 
 extremely natural ; and even parono- 
 masias are not out of place, if the 
 terms employed be appropriate to 
 the subject. Accordingly, we have 
 here ὁ ‘¥1. repeated ; as is the verb 733, 
 with the substantive 123, not fewer 
 than five times within the compass 
 of a single verse. In vers. 17 and 18, 
 m1 71 179, with their separate repeti- 
 tion, furnish an elegant instance of 
 paronomasia, while the reduplicate 
 and intensive forms of the verbs YY, 
 “1B, wi, Di, vers. 19, 20, and the repe- 
 tition of D9, and 27x, ver. 21, give 
 peculiar force and pathos to the pas- 
 sage. Altogether, it is the most length- 
 ened specimen of varied artificial com- 
 position found in the Hebrew Scrip- 
 
 tures, or, perhaps, in any other writ- 
 ings. For a similar though brief in- 
 stance of highly artificial language, 
 composed under circumstances of 
 severe affliction, see Job xvi. 12. 
 
 DT bs 
 Ὁ ΞΒΞΘῊ PIA Ty 
 
 As a parallel to ΝῊ Δ, comp. 
 the Orestes of Eurip. : 
 
 Αἴλινον Athwov ἄρχαν θανάτου, 
 ᾿ Βάρβαροι λεγοῦσιν Αἴ, Αἴ, κιτιλ. 
 
 ἜΝ a subst. after the form 29, 2, from 
 
 the root 77, Arab. Ι; : sis’ deminuit 
 
 rem ; & i> afflictio, erumna, calamitas. 
 
 The Syr., Targ., Aq., Theod., Symm., 
 Vulg., render, my secret; and some, 
 adopting this rendering, would inter- 
 pret the words, “my secret is to my- 
 self ;” 2.6. a secret is revealed to me, 
 but I am not at liberty to divulge it ; 
 but the ὁ Ὁ which follows requires 
 us to take the word in the sense of 
 misery, affliction, or such like. Gesenius, 
 Ich vergehe, ich vergehe: Uitzig and 
 Scholz, Lend mir! elend mir! The 
 prophet gives vent to the deeply pain- 
 ful feelings which affected his mind. 
 For the signification of 723, see chap. 
 xxi. 2, where, as here, the prophet 
 combines the verb and the participle. 
 
 17,18. The language of these verses 
 is adopted with little variation by 
 Jeremiah, chap. xlviil. 43, 44, in his 
 prophecy against Moab. It graphically 
 describes the accumulation of dangers 
 to which the inhabitants of Judah 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΙΥ.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 219 
 
 And whoso cometh up from the midst of the pit, shall be taken 
 
 in the snare ; 
 
 For the windows of heaven are opened, 
 And the foundations of the earth do shake. 
 
 19 The land is violently broken; 
 The land is greatly shattered ; 
 The land totters exceedingly. 
 
 20 
 
 The land reeleth like one who is drunk, 
 
 And moveth to and fro like a hammock : 
 For her rebellion lieth heavy upon her; 
 She shall also fall, and shall rise no more. 
 
 should be exposed, and the impossi- 
 bility of successful escape. The images, 
 as Lowth observes, are taken from 
 hunting. The 15 was the formido, or 
 scare-crow, which partly by its appear- 
 ance, and partly by its noise, (,) 
 frightened the animals into the covered 
 pit-falls that had been dug for them ; 
 or, failing this, into a large space of 
 ground enclosed with zefs, which being 
 drawn narrower and narrower, at last 
 caught them, There is no necessity, 
 with Gesen., to refer 7? to the hunter ; 
 or, with Lowth, to regard 779 as a 
 mere Hebraism, which cannot be sus- 
 tained. The various reading, ΞΕ, is 
 obviously a correction from Jeremiah. 
 The language is otherwise proverbial, 
 like the Latin : incidit in Scyllam, qui 
 vult vitare Charybdim.— pr? is freq. 
 only equivalent to }2; which one 
 MS. has, most probably from Jeremiah, 
 and is the rendering of the LXX., Syr., 
 and Vulg.—The Ὁ in 01199 is a peri- 
 phrasis for the Genitive. The word 
 is otherwise used instead of DY2u07, 
 Gen. vii. 11, which passage the pro- 
 phet had in his eye—comparing the 
 desolation to be brought upon his 
 people to that effected by the deluge. 
 Some few codices have O77, doubt- 
 less from emendation; LXX. ἐκ τοῦ 
 οὐρανοῦ ; Targ. 8202; both giving the 
 meaning, though not the form of the 
 term. I have taken the same liberty 
 here and at ver. 21—our word heaven 
 corresponding etymologically both to 
 Din and ow. 
 
 19, 20. See on ver. 16. The conjec- 
 ture of Secker, that the 7 in ὙΠ has 
 
 been prefixed by some copyist repeat- 
 ing this letter from the end of the 
 preceding word, is extremely probable. 
 The triple repetition of YX, so far 
 from destroying the effect of the pas- 
 sage, aS Gesenius insinuates, greatly 
 increases its force; and as to the anti- 
 climax referred to by Hitzig, it exists 
 only in his own imagination; for 
 whatever may be the comparative de- 
 grees in meaning which attach to the 
 verbs, taken by themselves, there is 
 unquestionably a rise in the sense as 
 we approach the end of the passage. 
 First, there is Tying my, a violent 
 crashing or breaking of such objects 
 as are on the surface of the earth. 
 Secondly, 7Mian7 Hs, a still more im- 
 petuous destruction of them. Then 
 we have ΠΡΌΣ win, yon yin, and 
 mr; all of which describe the 
 motion of the earth itself, tottering to 
 utter ruin. And, to crown the whole, 
 she at last falls under the pressure of 
 accumulated guilt, to rise no more. 
 Nothing can surpass in beauty the 
 comparison of the globe, in such cir- 
 cumstances, to 7299, a covered bed, or 
 hammock, suspended between the bran- 
 ches of a tree, liable to be tossed 
 hither and thither in a storm, to the 
 no small peril of its inhabitant. Such 
 hammocks are common in the East, 
 for the accommodation of those who 
 watch fields or vineyards; as afford- 
 ing shelter from the wild beasts. 
 Comp. chap. i. 8. The term corre- 
 
 sponds to the Arab. J; 2, locus, quem in 
 
 summa arbore sibi struit campi custos pre 
 
220 
 21 And it shall be in that day, 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 That Jehovah shall punish the host of heaven on high, 
 And the kings of the land upon the land. 
 22 Yea, they shall be gathered in company, 
 Like prisoners consigned to the pit ; 
 And shall be shut up in the prison ; 
 But after many days shall they be visited. 
 23 The moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed, 
 
 metu leonis. Kam. Dj. which word the 
 Targ.and Syr.and Saadias have adopted. 
 See Buxtorf, Lex. Chald. p. 1670. 
 
 21, 22. Misled by the force of the 
 imagery employed in the preceding 
 verses, and by a false construction of 
 certain terms in these, Jerome refers 
 the whole to the end of the world, the 
 final judgment, and the punishment 
 of the rebel angels; but he is rather 
 puzzled how to meet the argument of 
 the Origenists, derived, on this view 
 of the passage, from the end of ver. 
 22. Gesenius, however, adopts the 
 same view, which he lamely endeavours 
 to support from passages 1n the Zenda- 
 vesta, the Book of Enoch, and 2 Pet. 
 ii. 4; Jude 6; Matt. xxv.; Rev. xx. 
 Michaelis broaches some curious no- 
 tions respecting demons, tutelary 
 angels, and stars, which are partly 
 retailed by Rosenmiiller and Hitzig. 
 The πρῶτον Ψεῦδος of all such inter- 
 pretation lies in taking the words x2¥ 
 Di97 in a literal sense, whereas it is 
 manifest from the connexion, they are 
 to be understood figuratively. The 
 phrase is clearly identical in meaning 
 with DYwT Nix, Dan. viii. 10, the 
 Levites, or ecclesiastical state, being in- 
 tended. The.service which they per- 
 formed in the tabernacle is expressly 
 called siz, Numb. iv. 23, 35, 39, 43, 
 which Gesenius not improperly ren- 
 ders militia sacra; and the verb is 
 likewise used to express the perform- 
 ance of such service, Numb. iv. 23. 
 What Isaiah, therefore, here predicts, 
 is the subversion for a season of the 
 entire Jewish polity, or the removal 
 to Babylon both of those who mini- 
 stered in the temple, and of the royal 
 state. MINT 1270, the kings of the land, 
 are not foreign rulers, such as the 
 kings of Assyria, Babylon, &c., but 
 
 the Jewish kings, as Zedekiah, Jehoi- 
 achim, &c. See Jer. 111. See Lowth’s 
 note, especially the extract from Sir 
 Isaac Newton. Before VOX, which 
 is a collective noun, supply 3, as freq. 
 In the former of the two cases in 
 which %Y is used, it expresses motion 
 towards a place; in the latter, the 
 being cz the place specified. 2a and 
 "309 are parallel. The former is de- 
 scriptive of the most ancient kinds of 
 prisons, which consisted of empty 
 cisterns that narrowed towards the 
 mouth, so that it was scarcely possible 
 for those who were confined in them 
 to make their escape without assist- 
 ance. Gen. xxxvii. 20, 22; Jer. xxxviii. 
 13. Not unfrequently the bottom was 
 covered with mire or soft clay, which 
 rendered them at once unhealthy and 
 disagreeable. Jer. xxxvii. 6. For the 
 fulfilment, see 2 Kings xxv.; 2 Chron. 
 xxxvi.; Jer. 111.-- 5, Lowth, Rosen- 
 miiller, Gesenius, Maurer, and Scholz, 
 take in the sense of punishing; but a 
 merciful visitation, for the purpose of 
 restoring those here spoken of from 
 captivity, alone suits the connexion. 
 Comp. chap. xxiii. 17. Thus the Syr., 
 Rabbi Joseph, Kamchi, Jackson, Booth- 
 royd. Hitzig defends this construction 
 of the verb, though he differs as to the 
 subject of the prophecy ; and Calvin is 
 inclined to take the same view of it.— 
 The phrase 0") 44, many days, does not 
 necessarily imply a very long period 
 of time, but may with all propriety 
 be applied to the seventy years of the 
 captivity. See Jer. xxxii. 14, where 
 it is used in reference to this very 
 period. 
 
 23. What the prophet here adds 
 confirms the view just given of the 
 preceding clause. But the scene pre- 
 sented to his vision is too glorious in 
 
CHAP. XXV.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 221 
 
 When Jehovah of Hosts shall reign 
 On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, 
 
 Gloriously before his elders. 
 
 its character to admit of application 
 to the state of the Jewish polity after 
 the restoration. Not even the brilliant 
 successes of the Maccabees, nor the 
 state of affairs under the Asmonzan 
 dynasty, at all come up to it. We 
 must, therefore, regard it as another 
 of those abrupt, though not uncon- 
 nected, anticipations of the kingdom 
 of Christ, which abound in this book. 
 It describes times when neither kings 
 
 nor priests should officially constitute _ 
 
 part of the church of God: the only 
 officers to be then recognised as bear- 
 ing rule in that sacred community 
 being D373, LXX., πρεσβύτεροι, preshyters 
 
 or elders. See Acts xiv. 23; Tit. i. 5. 
 That the sun and moon are not to be 
 understood in this passage as specific 
 symbols, but are merely introduced to 
 set off by contrast the glorious splen- 
 dour of Messiah’s reign, is admitted 
 by the best interpreters. Comp. chap. 
 lx. 1, 19, 20. For the meaning of 
 Zion and Jerusalem, in this connexion, 
 see Heb. xii. 22. 123, glory, is to be 
 taken adverbially ; and connected with 
 122, the preceding verb ;- δὰ Regnum 
 
 hristi pertinere; quod sicut xox est 
 de hoc mundo, ita ejus gloria, splendor, 
 dignitas, et magnificentia, istaec omnia 
 pudefieri facit et disparere.”—Forerius. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 This chapter commences with a triumphal song of praise to God, for his 
 fidelity in accomplishing his promises in the destruction of the Babylonish 
 power, by which his people had been oppressed, 1—5. The prophet then 
 predicts the establishment of the new and universal economy, and the rich 
 blessings which should accrue from that event, 6—8. He next introduces 
 a beautiful chorus, in which expectant believers joyfully welcome the Divine 
 Founder of the better dispensation, 9; and, in his usual style, reverts to 
 judgments which should be inflicted on the Moabites,—the implacable ene- 
 mies of the Jews,—during the period between the return from the captivity 
 
 and the advent of Messiah, 10—12. 
 
 1 O JEHOVAH, thou art my God ; 
 I will exalt thee; I will praise thy name ; 
 For thou hast effected wondrous things,— 
 
 1. The language of this verse occurs, 
 in part, on similar occasions of deliver- 
 ance. See Exod. xv. 2,11; Ps. exviii. 
 28, cxlv. 1. ΝΒ, rem mirabilem, as 
 Kimchi gives it ; the wonderful inter- 
 
 position of Divine Providence in ‘be- 
 half of the Jews. nist) is frequently 
 used of such interpositions. The use 
 of p79, in a temporal sense, is_pecu- 
 liar to Isaiah; see chap. xxi. 11, 
 
 EE 
 
ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXV. 
 
 The ancient counsels are faithfulness and truth. 
 2 For thou hast made the city a heap; 
 
 The fortified city a ruin ; 
 
 The palace of the barbarians to be no more a city: 
 
 I: shall never be rebuilt. 
 
 . 
 
 3 Therefore shall the powerful people glorify thee ; 
 The city of the formidable nations shall fear thee. 
 4 For thou hast been a fortress to the poor ; 
 A fortress to the needy in his distress ; 
 A refuge from the storm; a shade from the heat ; 
 When the blast of the formidable was like a storm against a 
 
 wall. 
 
 XXxvii. 26 ; and is equivalent to D2ir4, 
 from eternity, eternal, ἸῸΝ TON, Hitzig 
 considers to be governed by Mwy; but 
 it is better to regard them as abstract 
 nouns governed by the substantive 
 verb understood. The same noun is 
 sometimes repeated, in a different 
 form or gender, with a view to express 
 intensity, as TAD Moov, Ezek. vi. 14. 
 moo WH, Job xxx. 3. The ellipsis of 
 the copulative ) is an instance of the 
 constructio asyndeta, of which Gese- 
 nius gives several examples, Lehrg. p. 
 842. The Divine counsels were proved 
 by the event to be faithful and true. 
 
 2. VY, City, is not used of any 
 hostile city or cities in general, but 
 specifically of Babylon, or the Chaldean 
 power, by which the Jews had, been 
 so long held in bondage. There is no 
 occasion, with Houbigant, Lowth, and 
 others, to change YY2 into VYY7,—the 
 Ὁ denoting the material out of which 
 anything ismade. The ὁ in 535 appears 
 harsh in such close contact with 2; 
 but it could not be omitted after or. 
 The ancient versions may have read as 
 we now do. Comp. Gen. 11], 19; Ps. 
 xvi. 4. In the second instance, in 
 which YY9 occurs here, it is privative 
 in signification. For the change of 
 om into oO}, Houbigant had no autho- 
 rity; nor should we be warranted to 
 alter the text for the sake of two MSS. 
 in which the latter reading has since 
 been found. ink is here used by 
 synecdoche for YY; the palace being 
 the principal part of the city. Com- 
 pare, in illustration of the sense, chap. 
 xiii, 19—22, 
 
 3. By the “powerful people” are 
 meant the Medes, Persians, &c. They 
 are first spoken of in the singular, 
 ww DY, as being united under the rule 
 of Cyrus; and afterwards in the 
 plural, Oy 0%3, to mark their diver- 
 sity. The construction in Ὁ Mm}? 
 PRY DW W, is, ad sensum : the grammar 
 would require the verb to be in the 
 sing. fem. to agree with ™?. Such 
 would be the effect produced upon 
 the minds of these warriors by the 
 acknowledgment of the supremacy of 
 Jehovah by Cyrus, Darius, &c. and 
 the singular favour which they shewed 
 the Jews, that they would be led to 
 make the same acknowledgment, and 
 ascribe to God the glory due to his 
 name. See Ezrai. 2, 6; Dan. vi. 25— 
 27. 
 
 4, 3 connects what follows with 
 ver. 1, and not with ver. 3. [Ὁ intro- 
 duces an additional ground of praise 
 to Jehovah,—the gracious preservation 
 which he afforded to the Jews in Baby- 
 lon. The images employed in this 
 and the following verse possess great 
 force and beauty. ™™ here signifies 
 anger or wrath. See on chap. xxxii. 
 11. By Ὃν 0%, ὦ wall-storm, is meant 
 such a violent storm of wind and rain, 
 as, beating against a stone wall, uproots 
 and throws it prostrate on the ground, 
 Root, 04, to pour, overwhelm; Arab. 
 
 ti D.a. eu abrupit, C.a.; eu nomen 
 
 uvit, qui infertur flumini Tigridi. Kam. 
 q I. 
 
 Freytag. The genitive is that of 
 
 object; so that the 3, which Houbi- 
 gant would introduce, is quite un- 
 
CHAP. XXYV.| 
 
 5 As heat in a dry land, 
 
 ISATAH, 
 
 Thou hast subdued the tumult of the barbarians ; 
 As heat by the shadow of a cloud, 
 The song of the formidable is suppressed. 
 6 In this mountain, Jehovah of Hosts shall prepare for all people, 
 A feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees ; 
 
 Of fat things full of marrow, 
 
 necessary. Lud. Capellus, Vitringa, 
 Lowth, Michaelis, and Dathe, render 
 Y?, winter, by changing it into Vp; or 
 by deriving it from Wp, fo be cold; but 
 contrary to the unvarying usage of 
 the language, in which 77 signifies a 
 wall. 
 
 5. The language is elliptical. After 
 32 23, supply 3y 53 from the third 
 member of the verse; and before 14 
 in that line, supply 2 from the first, 
 It would, however, be unwarrantable 
 to alter the Hebrew text from its 
 present elliptical forms. 72 is here 
 used intransitively. Comp. chap. 
 ΧΧΧΙ. 4. 
 
 6. Having finished his song of tri- 
 umph, Isaiah takes occasion, from the 
 view he had just given of the Divine 
 character, to call the attention of the 
 Jews to a still more glorious display of 
 that character, afforded by the rich 
 supply of spiritual blessings which 
 Jehovah would bestow in the days of 
 Messiah. ‘These blessings are first 
 represented under the image .of a 
 sumptuous banquet; an image not 
 unfrequently employed in Scripture to 
 denote the means of spiritual enjoy- 
 ment and nutrition. See Ps. xxii. 26 
 —29; chap. lv. 1—5; Matt. vi. 11, 
 xxii, 1—10; Luke xiii. 28, 29, xiv. 15 
 —24; in all which passages there is 
 the same distinct recognition of the 
 calling of the Gentiles which we find 
 in the present verse. The prophet 
 then specifies the removal of ignorance, 
 misery, and disgrace, as constituting 
 the essential character of the blessings 
 to be imparted. That the reference is 
 to the happiness to be enjoyed under 
 the reign of the Messiah, there can be 
 no doubt. Comp., in connexion with 
 the passages cited above, John vi. 53— 
 58; 1 Cor. xv. 54. To no other state 
 of things can the passage apply, than 
 to one in which the privileges and 
 
 of well-refined wine on the lees ; 
 
 blessings of the gospel are prepared 
 for men of all nations indiscrimi- 
 nately: and which, in its consumma- 
 tion, involves complete deliverance 
 from every evil. Nothing can be more 
 forced than the interpretation of some 
 of the Rabbins, whom Grotius follows, 
 according to which, the infliction of 
 vengeance upon the external enemies 
 of the church is meant.—i7 173, ie. 
 Mount Sion, mentioned at the close of 
 the preceding chapter, the new dis- 
 pensation “beginning at Jerusalem.” 
 D298 and OND form a paronomasia, 
 which is heightened in effect by their 
 repetition, and by the assimilation in 
 form of the participles by which they 
 are accompanied. “Fatness” is not 
 confined by the Hebrews to animals, 
 but is used of other subjects, the 
 superior excellence of which they 
 would express. Comp. however, τὰ 
 σιτιστα, Matt. xxii. 4. OD 9%, lit. pre- 
 servations, i.e. preservers, the lees, or 
 sediment of wine produced by the 
 bubbles of fixed air, which, during’ 
 fermentation, rise to the surface, and 
 bring along with them the skins, 
 stones, or other grosser matters of the 
 grapes ; thus forming a scum or spongy 
 crust, which, after a time, breaks in 
 pieces and falls to the bottom. When 
 this has taken place, the wine becomes 
 clear; but as the fermentation does 
 not then cease, it increases in the 
 excellence of its qualities, by being 
 suffered still to continue for a time 
 on the lees. See Lowth’s note; and 
 comp. Jer, ΧΙ. 11. By metonymy 
 of the cause for the effect, the word 
 is here used to denote the excellent 
 wines thus prepared by lengthened 
 fermentation. To render them quite 
 fit for use, they are purified by being 
 filtered or drawn off from vessel to 
 vessel. This is expressed by O72; 
 the Pual Part. of px, fo fine, purify. 
 
224 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXV. 
 
 7 And He shall destroy in this mountain, 
 The face of the covering which covereth all people, 
 And the web that is woven over all nations. 
 8 He shall utterly destroy death ; 
 And the Lord Jehovah shall wipe away the tears from all faces, 
 
 Comp. the Arab. (Ὁ 552 Pl. KGS, Vinum, 
 
 Kamoos; from the skin in which it is 
 kept. Such wine Pollux, in his Ono- 
 mast., calls σακκίας οἶνος ὁ διῦλισμένος. 
 Thus Aq. in the present case: πότον 
 λιπασμάτων διῦλισμένον. OYMD, the 
 
 other Part. from πῶ, Arab. t= 
 
 ed 
 
 emedullavit os, to draw the fat out of 
 marrow-bones, is assimilated to the 
 former, instead of being written, D172, 
 which would be the regular form. Ὁ is 
 the substitute of 4, the third radical. 
 7. Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, Hitzig, 
 and Scholz, make the covering here 
 spoken of to be a sign of mourning ; 
 but since the removal of mourning is 
 specially predicted, ver. 8, it is better 
 to interpret it of ignorance, as κάλυμμα, 
 2 Cor. 111. 13, 14. With this igno- 
 rance, as with a veil, all nations were 
 covered at the time of our Lord’s 
 advent, chap. ix. 2, xxix, 18, xlii. 7. 
 Comp, Acts xvii. 30, xxvi. 18; Rom. 
 i, 21; Eph, iv. 18. That the Jews 
 themselves were likewise in a state of 
 spiritual darkness, see John i. 5, iii. 
 19, xii. 40. 0, cog, oxy, on2; Arab, 
 
 LS, bl, LY, exit, operuit, velavit, oc- 
 
 cultavit rem ; signifies to hide, muffle 
 up, to throw a mantle or veil over one’s 
 face ; hence 033, secretly ; 002, secret, 
 hidden arts. The word occurs here 
 first as a noun, and then as a parti- 
 ciple ; only the proper participial form 
 0} is changed into D1, to make it agree 
 in sound with the noun. Critics have 
 needlessly stumbled at wibt 5, “ the 
 face of the covering.” Lowth and 
 Boothroyd, after Houbigant, conjec- 
 ture that 2» has been transposed, and 
 that it stood originally before Oy» 53. 
 In support of this conjecture, the 
 MS. Bodl. is adduced ; but its reading 
 is itself, in all probability, a mere 
 conjectural emendation. At all events, 
 the text, as read by all the ancient 
 
 translators, was as we now have it ; 
 and however harsh it may seem, to 
 speak of destroying the face of a 
 covering, we meet with a similar 
 phrase, Job x1.13 (Hebr. xi. 5): 28 752 "2 
 yw), “Who can uncover the face of 
 his garment?” It is in fact merely a 
 periphrasis for the thing itself, see 
 chap. iii. 15; Ps. xlii. 11 (Hebr. 12). 22, 
 the other verb here employed, usually 
 signifies to pour out as a libation ; to 
 Suse, cast as metal; but in this place 
 the idea seems to be that which 
 
 attaches to the Arab. μανοῦ» fecuit, 
 
 plecuit quid, to twine, weave, &c., hence 
 ΠΡΌ, thread, or warp, and the deriva- 
 tive in the text, 7220, weaving: so that 
 the words are literally, “ the weaving 
 woven over all the nations.” 
 
 The prophecy has already, to a 
 great extent, been fulfilled. The gos- 
 pel, in which are unfolded the charac- 
 ter of the true God, and the principles 
 of his moral government, was the 
 means, at an early period ofits history, 
 of rescuing myriads of Jews from the 
 darkness of their terrestrial notions 
 respecting the Messiah and his king- 
 dom, and of banishing idolatry and 
 superstition from the Roman empire. 
 It has, in the present day, proved 
 victorious in different parts of the 
 heathen world; it is in a state of 
 rapid propagation ; and when this and 
 other similar predictions shall have 
 received their full accomplishment, 
 the earth shall be full of the know- 
 ledge of the Lord, as the waters cover 
 the sea. 
 
 8. A more glaring instance of 
 mistaken historical interpretation is 
 scarcely to be found than that given 
 of the first words of this verse by 
 Grotius: donee vivit Bsechias! Vitrin- 
 ga, true to his principles of interpre- 
 tation, explains them first of the 
 times of Simon and John Hyrcanus, 
 and then of certain periods of the 
 
CHAP. XXV.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 225 
 
 And shall remove the reproach of his people from the whole 
 
 earth: 
 For Jehovah hath spoken it. 
 
 9 And in that day it shall be said: Lo! this is our God; 
 We have waited for him, and he hath saved us: 
 This is Jehovah; we have waited for him; 
 We will rejoice and be glad in his salvation. 
 10 Assuredly the hand of Jehovah shall rest on this mountain ; 
 
 Christian dispensation. Rosenmiiller 
 and Gesenius apply them to what 
 they designate the renewal of the 
 golden age ; and the latter has a long 
 note on the passage, in which he 
 endeavours to support his view by 
 referring to the Zendavesta. But all 
 such exegesis fails to meet the ezi- 
 gentia loci. What Isaiah predicts is not 
 the partial or total cessation of war, 
 extraordinary longevity, or such like, 
 but the absolute abolition of death. 
 In proof of this fact, the apostle 
 expressly quotes it, 1 Cor. xv. 54: 
 τότε γενήσεται ὁ λόγος ὁ γεγραμμένος" 
 Κατεπόθη 6 θάνατος εἰς νῖκος :— 
 thus concluding his celebrated argu- 
 ment in defence of the doctrine of 
 the resurrection. By his inspired 
 authority I deem it the only wise, 
 because the only safe course, in this 
 and all similar cases, to abide. The 
 words, as alleged by Paul, are found 
 in the version of Theod., with which 
 the Targ. and Syr. agree, in reading 
 the verb as a passive. 533, in Piel, as 
 here, commonly signifies ¢o destroy, 
 destroy utterly: in Kal, the more usual 
 signification is that of swallowing, 
 which most of the versions have un- 
 happily adopted. zx, the Greek 
 translators render by ἰσχύσας, εἰς 
 τέλος, εἰς νῖκος ; attaching to the term 
 the idea of what is overpowering, durable, 
 complete. The significations of the 
 Heb. root Mz, used only in Niphal 
 and Piel, are to shine, lead, lead on, be 
 complete; in Chald. to surpass, excel, 
 vanquish ; hence the idea of victory, 
 eternity, &c., attaching to my}, and of 
 completely, entirely, for ever, &c., to M22, 
 mz. The words are therefore equi- 
 valent to ὁ θάνατος οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι, Rev. 
 xxi. 4; where there seems to be an 
 evident allusion to our text; and 
 
 where the subject is, as here, not the 
 millennial state of the church, but the 
 state of glory, after the resurrection 
 of the body. It will be then only 
 that a period shall be put to the 
 reproachful persecutions of the righte- 
 ous, which Isaiah likewise predicts. 
 ’ has here the force of: It ghall 
 assuredly be, for Jehovah hath spoken 
 it. 
 
 The prophecy embraces the whole 
 of the N.T. dispensation, from its 
 establishment till its termination at 
 the last day. 
 
 9. A joyful acclamation of welcome 
 to the Divine Redeemer, by whom the 
 predicted blessings would be secured 
 and bestowed. It requires no com- 
 ment. ὍΝ is used impersonally : oxe 
 shall say, i.e. each, and is best ren- 
 dered in the plural. Thus the LXX. 
 and Vulg.; but the Ger. man, and the 
 French oz, according to a similar 
 idiom. 
 
 10. A new subject is here taken up, 
 —the destruction of Moab. That of 
 Babylon had been predicted at the 
 commencement of the chapter; and 
 it was requisite that the neighbouring 
 enemy, from which the Jews had 
 suffered so much annoyance, and 
 which still evinced an indomitable 
 hostility, should be exhibited in like 
 circumstances of prostration. Comp. 
 chapters xv. and xvi. For the use of 
 3, as an absolute affirmative at the 
 beginning of a prophetic announce- 
 ment, see chap. xv. 1. The phrase 7 
 a Tv, indicates elsewhere hostility, 
 the exercise of punishment on the 
 part of God; but here, in connexion 
 with ™3, it is used in a good or favour- 
 able sense. The Divine power should 
 continue for protection in Zion. No 
 codex reads 2A, shall give rest—Ynna 
 
220 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXV: 
 
 But Moab shall be trodden down in his own place, 
 As straw is trodden in the water of a dunghill. 
 
 11 
 
 He shall even spread forth his hands in the midst of it, 
 
 As the swimmer spreadeth forth his hands to swim ; 
 And He shall bring down his pride, 
 Together with the plots of his hands. 
 
 12 
 He will bring down, lay low, 
 
 Yea, the towering fortifications of thy walls 
 
 And level with the ground, even with the dust. 
 
 refers to Moab and not to Jehovah, 
 and means, iz his own land. Comp. 
 Exod. xvi. 29; 2 Sam. vii. 10. Gese- 
 nius, with many other interpreters, 
 thinks Moab is here used as one of a 
 class, and that the enemies of the 
 Jews generally are meant; but there 
 is no sufficient reason why we should 
 depart from the literal meaning of the 
 term. It must have given the people 
 of God in Babylon great comfort to 
 know, that the enemy who still resided 
 in the vicinity of Judea should not be 
 permitted to molest them on their 
 return. For a, see chap. xxi. 10, and 
 comp. 2 Kings xiii. 7. The Ὁ in 617 is 
 irregularly pointed for 1; but there 
 are a few instances besides of the same 
 irregularity in the Niph. Infin. of 
 verbs “v. The LXX., Vulg., and Syr., 
 render 72279, chariots, as if they had 
 found 72379 in the text; but it exists 
 in no MS., and the Targ. has 7, the 
 mire. Besides, 722%) is never used of 
 threshing cars; 2, 722», &c. being 
 employed to express such instru- 
 ments: and there is a manifest paro- 
 nomasia in }292 and 729792, which 
 proves it to be the genuine reading. 
 maT signifies duaghill. Comp. 72, 
 
 dung, manure, and the Arab. we? 
 
 stercoravit terram; rae Jimetum. To 
 interpret the word of a town of this 
 name makes no sense. According to 
 the Chethib "23, we must render: “zz 
 the water of the dunghill.’ The refer- 
 ence is to the process taken with 
 straw in the cess or pool, to reduce it 
 the sooner to a state of rottenness, 
 and so fit it for manure. 103, the 
 Keri, though found in the text in 
 upwards of thirty MSS., and confirmed 
 ’y the ancient versions, is, after all, 
 
 the less probable. Symim. appears to 
 have read 13, 
 
 11. The nomin. to 2 is "δ, Moa, 
 not Jehovah, as some have thought. 
 The action described is that of a person 
 making every effort to prevent himself 
 from sinking in the water. It repre- 
 sents the helpless condition of the 
 Moabites under the Divine chastise- 
 ments. Before 7207, subaud. Tim, 
 The mention made of the pride of 
 Moab is quite in keeping with the 
 emphatic representation, chap. xvi. 6. 
 yp mins, his crafty undertakings, from 
 nx, fo weave, weave plots, lie in wait. 
 
 Comp. the Arab. «ἡ, suscepit agen- 
 
 dum, versatus, peritus fuit in re. ς- - Ὁ Ι; 
 astutia, calliditas, ἕο. Hitzig would 
 restrict the meaning to Moab’s twist- 
 ing or crossing his hands, in order to 
 escape being drowned; but the word 
 is to be taken metaphorically, as sig- 
 nifying the crafty machinations which 
 he would attempt to carry into effect 
 against the Jews. 
 
 12. The prophet closes with a brief 
 but pointed apostrophe, in which he 
 announces to Moab the total desolation 
 which should come upon that country. 
 That he reverts to Babylon, as Gesen. 
 supposes, cannot be admitted. It is 
 doubtless to the strongly-fortified Kir- 
 Moab that he refers, see chap. xv. 1, 
 xvi. 7, 11. Between the readings 
 yon and POV there is no difference 
 as to sense: before the former, DY, the 
 people, is understood ; before the latter, 
 yu, the land. There is a singular 
 beauty in the accuraulation of verbs 
 here employed at the close of the 
 verse, as well as in the addition of 
 rept after JIS. 
 
CHAP. XXVI.] ISATAH. 227 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Babylon having been destroyed, as predicted at the beginning of the preceding 
 chapter, the captive Jews anticipate in this, their deliverance and restora- 
 tion to their own land. Regarding Jerusalem as rebuilt and fortified, they 
 demand admittance, and exercise a firm trust in God, that it shall take 
 place, 1—4. To this they are the more excited, by reflecting on what he 
 had done to the metropolis of their Babylonish enemies, 5, 6. They next 
 protest their devotedness to God, 7—9 ; deplore the stubborn blindness of 
 the impenitent portion of the nation, and foreshew their doom, 9—11; but 
 exult in Jehovah, who had interposed on their behalf, delivering them from 
 the dominion of their oppressors, 12—14; and view, by faith, the increase 
 of the population, and the extension of the boundaries of the nation, 15. 
 They describe the forlorn condition in which they had been during the cap- 
 tivity, and the fruitlessness of all their attempts to regain their liberty, 16 
 —18. Under the figure of a literal resurrection of the dead, their political 
 resuscitation is then emphatically announced, 19 ; and the prophet, in con- 
 clusion, calls upon them piously to await the complete infliction of the 
 Divine wrath on their enemies, as it would issue in their own deliverance, 
 20, 21. 
 
 1 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: 
 
 We have a strong city ; 
 
 Salvation He will appoint for walls and ramparts. 
 
 Open ye the gates, 
 
 That the righteous nation may enter, 
 
 [The nation] that keepeth faith. 
 
 3 The mind that is firm, thou wilt keep in perfect peace, 
 Because it trusteth in thee. 
 
 bo 
 
 1, sm oY describes the period of 
 the return. Such of the Jews as had 
 reached the land of Judea, and sur- 
 veyed the strong position of Jerusa- 
 lem, encourage their distant brethren 
 to follow them, and assure them of 
 the Divine protection. Before nv, 
 subaud. 7m, which is omitted as freq. 
 by a poetic elegance.—n for ὅπ LXX. 
 περίτειχος, Vulg. antemurale,—the outer 
 and lower fortification, divided from 
 the main wall of a city by a trench. 
 
 2. The response of the returning 
 Jews, demanding admittance. In a 
 national point of view, they were now 
 
 righteous, having entirely abandoned 
 idolatry, and addicted themselves to 
 the worship of the true God. From 
 this time, the Jews have kept them- 
 selves from idols, whose service was 
 the principal cause of the captivity. 
 3. JD ὋΣ is very elliptical. In full, 
 it would be Ὁ} Pop Hy wx Dy, The 
 man whose mind is staid upon thee, &e. ; 
 i.e. by implication, firm, unshaken, 
 steady. Aq. πλάσμα ἐστηρίγμενον. 
 Comp. Ps. exi. 8, cxii. 8. The phrase 
 describes the recumbency of the 
 mind upon Jehovah, from the expe- 
 rience it has of his gracious support. 
 
ppb nz mim, “For J ehovah is 
 
 228 
 
 4 Trust in Jehovah for ever ; 
 For truly Jehovah is J AH— 
 An everlasting Rock. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXVI. 
 
 5 For He hath brought down those that dwelt on high ; 
 The lofty city He hath laid very low ; 
 He hath laid it low, even to the ground ; 
 He hath levelled it with the very dust. 
 
 6 The foot treadeth it ; 
 
 The feet of the afflicted, the steps of the poor. 
 
 sz. is properly what is formed in the 
 mind, but here it is used of the 
 mind itself, ni ni>w, the superlative 
 form : peace, pedce, i.e. the greatest, per- 
 fect peace. Com. chap. vii. 19. 7953, 
 though passive in form, is active in 
 signification, as is the case with the 
 Pah. part. of some other neuter verbs, 
 as PIB, M33, &e. 
 
 4, ma is not to be rendered, “in 
 Jah,’—the 3 being the Beth essentia, 
 which, according to a peculiar idiom, 
 points out the reality, certainty, sub- 
 stantive character or nature of the 
 subject to which it is prefixed. “ Pre- 
 positio 2 sepissime infert intimam ret, 
 vel persone, qualitatem : sive expressum 
 et eminentem characterem quo. aliquid 
 insignitum est, atque distinctum.” 
 Schultens in Prov. ii. 26. Ewald’s 
 Gram. § 521, p. 330, Eng. Trans. 
 Thus Exod. vi. 3, “I appeared unto 
 Abraham, &c., "τῷ "3, wader the cha- 
 racter of, evincing the properties of GoD 
 Aumicuty :” xxxii. 22, “Thou know- 
 est the people, 817 222 3, that they are 
 radically wicked.” Prov. iii. 26, mm 
 153 mm, “Jehovah shall be the sure 
 object of thy confidence.” Ps. Ixvil. 4 
 (Hebr. 5), 28 ™a, “His name is emphati- 
 poally Jau,” ἢ. e. he is ¢ruly what it im- 
 ‘ports: the ErrrNAt, IMMUTABLE Gop. 
 And so in the present instance : "3°? 
 indeed 
 what his name JaH imports; He is 
 an everlasting Rock.” In each of these 
 examples, I have endeavoured to ex- 
 press in a paraphrase what I consider 
 to be the force of the Beth. It is an 
 idiomatic form, to which there is no- 
 thing precisely analogous, except per- 
 haps in some degree in Arab. as 
 
 poe "Ὁ 4}, God is indeed powerful, 
 
 —potentissimus. ἰδαφὼ aul la, God 
 
 will prove a swift witness. Other 
 examples in De Sacy’s Grammaire 
 Arabe, vol. i. p. 356, in which the Ba 
 is obviously mtensive—72, Rock, is 
 used as a Divine name. See Deut. 
 xxxii. 4, 15, 18, 30, 31; 1 Sam. 11. 2; 
 Ps. xviii. 32, 47. See also on Isa. lvii. 
 6. The eternity and immutable power 
 of God are here alleged as a ground 
 of the most unlimited confidence on 
 the part of his people. 
 
 5, 6. The prophet now applies to 
 Babylon the same language which he 
 had employed, chap. xxv. 12, in appli- 
 cation to Kir-Moab. That the former, 
 and not the latter, is here meant, 
 appears from the use of D7] and ἜΣ 
 following; these terms describing the 
 condition to which the Jews had been 
 reduced in Babylon. The punctists 
 have improperly placed the Athnach 
 under 72:0): it should stand under 
 mrpwy,—the suffix appended to which 
 shewing that the second member of 
 the verse ends there, while the other 
 form, 775t*, marks the commencement 
 of a new member. The reader will 
 notice the distinctive use of the Vuz 
 Epenthetic in the former case, as in 
 mys, mp2, which follow. While it 
 places it in apposition with ™y, it 
 places both the latter m apposition 
 with myst, which, as to construction, 
 occupies the same position with My. 
 It also expresses the ideas with greater 
 energy and intensity. The preterite 
 and future tenses being combined, 
 shews that the actions were continued, 
 which was signally the case in regard 
 to the destruction of Babylon. See 
 chap. xiii. pref. 
 
CHAP. XXVI.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 7 The path of the just is perfectly straight ; 
 Thou, O Righteous! makest level the way of the just. 
 8 Even in the way of thy judgments, O Jehovah, have we waited 
 
 for thee; 
 
 To thy name, and to thy remembrance, has been the desire of 
 
 our soul. 
 
 9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night ; 
 And with my spirit within me I have sought thee early ; 
 For when thy judgments are in the earth, 
 The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. 
 
 10 
 
 Should mercy be shewn to the wicked, 
 
 He will not learn righteousness ; 
 In the land of rectitude he will act perversely, 
 And not regard the majesty of Jehovah. 
 11 O Jehovah! thy hand is lifted up, but they will not see it; 
 They shall see it, and be ashamed ; 
 
 Zeal for [thy] people, 
 
 Yea, fire against thine enemies shall devour them. 
 
 7. ow, straightnesses, used adjec- 
 tively and intensively: very straight. 
 The language is metaphorical, and ex- 
 presses the provision made for the 
 escape of the righteous from the try- 
 ing circumstances in which they have 
 been placed: and with special refer- 
 ence to the Jews,—the present sub- 
 ject of discourse,—the straight and 
 even course prepared for them in the 
 providence of God, by which to return 
 to Palestine. 05, in application to a 
 way, signifies to make it level or plain. 
 
 8. While thy judgments are in a 
 course of infliction on the nations, 
 we expect thine interposition for our 
 deliverance. There is an ellipsis of 3 
 before Ms. 
 
 9. The prophet here introduces each 
 of his pious afflicted countrymen as 
 individually giving vent to strong feel- 
 ings of desire after the Divine favour. 
 Before ‘252 and ὙΠ supply 3. The 
 latter part of the verse indicates the 
 effect produced on men, by the execu- 
 tion of the judgments of God. Such 
 is universally their tendency; and 
 such, when sanctified, their result. As 
 the sentiment is general, J 8 and 527 
 cannot be limited to the Babylonian 
 
 empire. That JM is not, as in the 
 ancient versions, to be read in the 
 third person fem. to agree with ΕΣ, 
 but is merely a defective orthography 
 of mx, the parallel FW clearly 
 shews. The full form is found in a 
 great number of MSS. and Editions. 
 10, 11. Such is the perverseness of 
 depraved man, that, though experi- 
 encing pity from the Lord, and enjoy- 
 ing the means of religious improve- 
 ment, he is nevertheless blind to 
 divine things, and obstinately refuses 
 to avail himself of spiritual opportu- 
 nities. The prophet has immediately 
 in view the unbelieving portion of his 
 countrymen, whom he plainly tells, 
 that, though restored to their favoured 
 land, they would still prove incorri- 
 gible. The holy land is called i752 } x, 
 terra rectitudinum, because in the 
 observance of the Mosaic institutes, 
 the strictest justice would abound. 
 The Plur. is that of intensity. Comp. 
 ver. 7. The Nun Paragogic in PY is 
 corroborative: they will not αἵ all, or 
 The resumption, 
 
 FF 
 
ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXVI. 
 
 12 O Jehovah! thou hast ordained peace for us ; 
 Yea, all our works also thou hast performed for us. 
 
 13 
 over us; 
 
 O Jehovah our God! other lords besides thee have had dominion 
 
 But thee,—thy name alone will we celebrate. 
 
 14 
 
 They are dead, they shall not live ; 
 
 They are deceased, they shall not rise: 
 Because thou hast visited and destroyed them, 
 And made all remembrance of them to perish. 
 
 15 
 
 Thou hast increased the nation, O Jehovah! 
 
 Thou hast increased the nation; thou art glorified ; 
 Thou hast widely extended all the boundaries of the land. 
 
 16 
 
 O Jehovah! in affliction they sought thee ; 
 
 They poured out a whisper, when under thy chastisement. 
 
 zeal of God in behalf of his people ; 
 by the latter, his wrath effecting the 
 destruction of his enemies. Comp. 
 for the construction, Ps. lxix. 9 (Hebr. 
 10) ; Obad. 10. 
 
 12. nod, like oni, md, 12, signifies, 
 in such connexion, fo procure, grant, 
 effect, or such like. From the expe- 
 rience which the church had had of 
 the Divine operations in her behalf, 
 on every former occasion of deliver- 
 ance, she confidently expects the res- 
 toration of her prosperity, as the 
 result of the same gracious agency. 
 D3 is here intensive. 
 
 13, 14. Jehovah was the only legiti- 
 mate sovereign of the Hebrew nation. 
 The Assyrians, Babylonians, &c., had 
 exercised an usurped dominion over 
 them; but they confidently anticipate 
 emancipation from captivity, and their 
 grateful celebration of the praise of 
 God in their own land. The 3 in 43 
 is the Beth of Instrument. The 14th 
 verse fully sets forth the result of the 
 Divine interposition in their favour : 
 —the complete destruction of their 
 enemies. 0° and Ow), though verbal 
 nouns, are used instead of verbs ; or 
 the pronoun 7277 may be supplied, as 
 in most versions. To view them as 
 nominatives absolute, and apply them 
 to the deceased Israelites, as Hitzig 
 does, the connexion forbids. The 
 LXX. render the latter word by 
 ἰατροὶ, physicians, having read DX5) 
 
 instead of OND). As the dead are de- 
 prived of all the power over the living, 
 which they might have possessed, and 
 can never resume it, so it was with 
 the Babylonians. This the Jews ex- 
 pected, and their expectations were 
 not frustrated. The Chaldean empire 
 was entirely destroyed. 22 has here 
 the force of a conjunction. The use 
 of ἸῺ after 723, instead of 073, is 
 poetic and intensive. 
 
 15. This verse describes the in- 
 crease of the population, and the 
 extension of the boundaries of the 
 land, in order that it might contain 
 them. The verbs are in the preterite, 
 to express the certainty of the event. 
 
 16. During the exile, the Jews re- 
 turned to the true service of God, and 
 earnestly supplicated deliverance from 
 the affliction by which they were op- 
 pressed. 72 is used in the unusual 
 
 sense of seeking after what has been 
 
 lost. Arab. X88, gucsivit rem perditam ; 
 
 desideravit, inquisivit. They had lost 
 the favour of God, which they were 
 now anxious to recover. PY is no- 
 where else employed metaphorically 
 to express giving utterance in prayer ; 
 but "seems purposely selected to ex- 
 press the intensity of the action. 
 This intensity is further indicated by 
 the addition of the Nun Paragogic, 
 which is of extremely rare occurrence 
 in the pretez'te. Comp. 1 Sam. i, 15 ; 
 
CHAP. XXVI.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 231 
 
 17 As a pregnant woman, about to bear, 
 Is in pain, and crieth aloud in her pangs, 
 So have we been, away from thy presence, O Jehovah ! 
 
 18 
 
 We have been pregnant ; we have been in pain ; 
 
 When we brought forth—it was wind: 
 We effected no deliverance for the land ; 
 Neither were the inhabitants of the world brought forth. 
 
 19 
 Their dead bodies shall rise : 
 
 Thy dead men shall live again ; 
 
 Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust ! 
 
 Ps. cii. 1; the Aneid, vi. 55, fuditque 
 preces rex pectore abimo. “03, prayer ; 
 from 8m}, to whisper, speak with a soft 
 or dow voice; but here without any 
 regard to such strict etymological sig- 
 nification, except in so far perhaps as 
 
 it respects the exhaustion, produced. 
 
 by long-continued devotional exer- 
 cises. 
 
 17, 18. 7222, from thy presence, 1. e. 
 at a distance from Jerusalem, where, 
 in the temple, the Divine presence 
 was vouchsafed. As protection and 
 aid were connected with the presence 
 of Jehovah, so exclusion from it im- 
 plied exposure and helplessness. In 
 the beginning of ver. 18, Michaelis 
 imagined he discovered an allusion to 
 what physicians call an empueumatosis, 
 or physometra—tfalse symptoms of preg- 
 nancy, arising from an accumulation 
 of wind in the uterus, which termi- 
 nate in its emission. It is more pro- 
 bable, however, that the prophet had 
 in view the false pains which fre- 
 quently precede actual labour, and 
 disappoint the expectations which 
 they had excited. In this case ™ is 
 not to be taken literally, but meta- 
 phorically, as denoting vanity, nothing. 
 Thus Cicolampadius: /frwstra tulimus 
 dolores. The reference is to the futi- 
 lity of all the self-originating schemes 
 and hopes of the Jews in Babylon, 
 which had for their object their poli- 
 tical regeneration. τῶν), Cicolampa- 
 dius, Leo Juda, Cube, Gesenius, Rosen- 
 miller, and Maurer, take to be the 
 Niphal participle; but as this form 
 of the verb does not occur elsewhere, 
 it seems preferable, with Hitzig and 
 Scholz, to abide by the common con- 
 
 struction, according to which it is the 
 first person plural of Kal. This the 
 context also corroborates, and it is 
 the rendering of the LXX., Vulg.,, 
 Syr., and Arab. Cocceius, Déderlein, 
 Dathe, Gesenius, Hitzig, Maurer, and 
 Scholz, interpret 929 Δ᾽ Y= 53, the in- 
 habitants of the (Jewish) world are not 
 born. This construction best suits the 
 connexion, and is confirmed by a simi- 
 lar use of 53, ver. 19. It is true the 
 verb is not otherwise thus employed ; 
 and 23 is only used of abortions ; but 
 
 the use of the Arab. haw, fo full, for 
 
 to be born, together with that of the 
 Greek πίπτειν, the Latin cado, ἧτο. in 
 the same acceptation, are in favour of 
 this interpretation. See the literature 
 in Gesenius. In our own language fo 
 Jali is used with respect to the irra- 
 tional animals, in the sense of bearing 
 and being born. That °2n may signify 
 the Jewish world, see chap. xxiv. 4, 
 where, as in the present instance, it 
 is synonymous with JX, in the sense 
 of the land of Judea. 'TYhe meaning is, 
 the country is not yet inhabited ; 
 those who should possess it are as if 
 they were still unborn. 
 
 19. From the images employed by 
 the prophet, it is evident that the 
 doctrine of the resurrection of the 
 dead obtained among the Jews of his 
 time. He assumes the fact, and bor- 
 rows from it language admirably adap- 
 ted to express, in a strong and forcible 
 manner, what he had to teach relative 
 to the restoration of the Jews from 
 Babylon. Comp. Ezek. xxxviil. 1—14, 
 where, in like manner, the political 
 regeneration of the same people is 
 
292 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XXVI. 
 
 For as the dew of herbs is thy dew, 
 And the earth shall bring forth the deceased. 
 
 predicted in figurative language taken 
 from that event. Treating of these 
 passages in Isaiah and Ezekiel, Pareau 
 adds, “Observandum est insuper, 
 eorum sermones ad usus publicos 
 fuisse destinatos ; ex quo consequitur 
 hance resurrectionis doctrinam ea etate 
 vulgo ita notum fuisse, ut facile per- 
 spicua et quodammodo popularis 
 imago inde possit desumi.” Comm. 
 de Immortal. p. 109. That the doc- 
 trine of the resurrection is really im- 
 plied in the passage, Gesenius declares 
 to be beyond doubt (unzweifelhaft) ; 
 but there is no foundation for his 
 position, that it was not known to 
 the Jews previous to the captivity ; 
 that they borrowed it, and many other 
 ideas, from the Zoroastrian theology ; 
 and consequently, that this portion of 
 the book could not have been written 
 at so early a period as the days of 
 Isaiah. It must be maintained, on 
 the evidence of such texts as Job xiv. 
 14,15; Ps. xvii. 15, xlix. 15, that the 
 Hebrews did anciently expect a resur- 
 rection ; and though the light which 
 they possessed on the subject was not 
 so clear as that which the nation 
 afterwards acquired, it was neverthe- 
 less sufficient to sustain the hopes of 
 the righteous, and excite in their 
 bosom an ardent longing after an 
 event of such thrilling interest. The 
 object of the pronominal suffix in 
 72, is not the prophet, as some sup- 
 pose, but Jehovah, who is repeatedly 
 addressed in the preceding part of the 
 chapter. The Jews were still his, 
 though it might be concluded from 
 the condition to which they were re- 
 duced, that all connexion between 
 him and them had ceased. The ? in 
 53) has greatly perplexed expositors. 
 A change of person is not unusual 
 in the prophets; but one so harsh 
 and appareitly inappropriate is unex- 
 ampled. For the prophet to introduce 
 himself, or the Messiah, as employing 
 the language, “ .Wy dead body,’’ seems 
 totally irrelevant to the subject. Nor 
 would the construction as to sense be 
 improved, if, with Kimchi, our Com- 
 mon Version, &e we were to supply 
 
 an ellipsis of Ὃν, with, together with. 1 
 therefore take the ?, not to be in this 
 case the pronominal suffix, but a poetic 
 augment absolute. This augment oc- 
 curs frequently in the status construc- 
 tus, as 107, Ps, ὍΣ. Δ: ΝΟΣ, Isa. 21 5 
 but there is an evident transition to- 
 wards the absolute state in those in- 
 stances in which the preposition 3 is 
 prefixed to the second noun, as ‘2% 
 mows, Ps. cxxili. 1 ; 753 ΤΩΣ, Exod. xv. 
 6; oan, Lam. i. 1. Comp. the 
 adverbs °n73, ‘Ny. None of the ancient 
 versions, except the Vulg., exhibits 
 any thing corresponding to the letter 
 as standing for the suffix of the first 
 person. On the contrary, the Chald. 
 
 » v Ψ 
 pA, and the Syr. (OTLap DSC Sup- 
 
 ply that of the third person, which I 
 cannot but think is the meaning, and 
 have rendered accordingly. The Ma- 
 soretes appear to have taken the same 
 view of the matter; for they have 
 pointed the word ‘222, and not °n)2:, 
 after the analogy of 1223, and Onn, 
 which we should have expected. The 
 same may be said of the LXX., though 
 they render freely, οἱ ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις. 
 That 752) is used here as a collective, 
 po, the plural of the following verb, 
 sufficiently shews. It is thus used 
 Ley. xi. 11, where our translators have 
 properly rendered it carcases, in the 
 plural—The suffix in 4328 either 
 refers to OY understood, or to each of 
 the bY 9228, taken distributively. Ge- 
 senius and others refer it to Jehovah, 
 but less properly. mis 52, ¢he dew of 
 plants. The Targ., Syr, Vulg., and 
 several of the moderns, render, “the 
 dew of light,” or “lights,” —understand- 
 ing thereby the morning dew, or the 
 brightness with which it glistens on the 
 face of the ground; but the rendering 
 I have adopted is that given by Kim- 
 chi, and approved by Rosenmiiller, 
 Winer, Hitzig, and Maurer. This sig- 
 nification of nix may justly be re- 
 garded as decided by an appeal to 2 
 Kings iv. 39—the only other instance 
 in which it is used in the feminine 
 plural. In the latter passage the 
 LXX. retain the word dpio8 ; but the 
 
CHAP. XXVII.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 233 
 
 20 Come, my people! enter into thy chambers, 
 And shut thy doors behind thee ; 
 Hide thee, as it were for a little moment, 
 Till the indignation have passed over. 
 
 21 
 
 For behold! Jehovah cometh forth from his place, 
 
 To punish the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth; 
 And the earth shall disclose her blood, 
 
 And no longer cover her slain. 
 
 other Greek versions have ἀγριολάχανα; 
 the Targ. 722, olera; Vulg. herbas 
 
 agrestes ; the Syr. and Arab. laso3 ἢ 
 ' Vase malva. The prophet’s meaning 
 
 τ That as the dew, which in the 
 East falls very copiously on the herbs 
 of the field, and imparts to them fresh 
 life and vigour, so the Divine influence 
 or power should be exerted on the 
 Jews of the captivity, in consequence 
 of which they should come forth fresh 
 and vigorous, to serve Jehovah in 
 their own land. Comp. Ps. Ixxii. 6 ; 
 Hos. xiv. 5,6. Headds, ἘΠ O'SD) FINI, 
 and the earth shall bring forth ‘the de- 
 ceased; 1. 6. the inhabitants who had 
 disappeared, and were accounted as 
 dead, should again come into a state 
 of visible and active existence. It is 
 obvious from Job i. 21,and Ps. cxxxix. 
 15, that the ancient believers regarded 
 the earth as our common mother ; so 
 that the figurative language here em- 
 ployed by Isaiah must have been 
 easily understood. For the meaning 
 of 7517, see on the preceding verse. 
 20. Instead of NV, fen of Kenni- 
 
 cott’s and thirteen of De Rossi’s MSS.,. 
 three printed editions, read 72, as in 
 the Keri; but, independently of the 
 form, the noun has here a plural sig- 
 nification. This and the following 
 verse form an epilogue, in which the 
 Jews in Babylon are exhorted to wait 
 in silent retirement for the termina- 
 tion of the judgments which God was 
 about to bring upon that empire by 
 the army of Cyrus. With the close 
 of these judgments was immediately 
 connected the deliverance of the Jews 
 To express the magnitude and cer- 
 tainty of the catastrophe, Jehovah is 
 represented as coming forth from 
 heaven, when the blood and dead 
 bodies of the slain which had long 
 remained unavenged, and had been 
 hid from human view, are exhibited 
 in evidence of the cruelties that had 
 been committed, especially such as 
 had been wantonly exercised on the 
 people of God, in order that vengeance 
 might be taken on those who had per- 
 petrated them. In illustration of th - 
 two concluding lines, see Gen. iv. 10 
 11; Job xvi. 18. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL. 
 
 The connexion between this and the preceding chapter is obvious. 
 
 The 
 
 prophet, having announced the appearance of Jehovah to avenge his people, 
 now proceeds further to predict the complete destruction of the Babylo- 
 
 nians, | ; 
 
 he assures them of the Divine care and protection, 2—6; shews 
 
234 
 
 the lenity with which they had been 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XXVII. 
 
 punished, and the design and result of 
 
 their punishment, 7—9; describes the desolate condition of Babylon, 10, 
 11; and announces the great ingathering of the Jews which should follow 
 the destruction of the Babylonian empire; and their engaging anew in the 
 
 worship of God at Jerusalem, 12, 13. 
 
 1 In that day shall Jehovah punish with his sword, 
 The hard, the great, and the powerful sword, 
 
 Leviathan, the fleet serpent, 
 
 1. sm oa, αὐ that time, i.e. at the 
 period of the Medo-Persian invasion. 
 The ascription of a sword to Jehovah 
 is not unusual; see Deut. xxxii. 41, 
 42; Isa. xxxiv. 5; Ezek. xxi. ὦ, 4, 5. 
 It denotes the instrument which he 
 employs in executing his judgments. 
 The three epithets by which it is 
 described correspond to the three 
 monsters, or the triple character of 
 the power on which it was to inflict 
 the judgments. ὉΠ, Gesenius takes 
 to be a noun with the termination ἢ, 
 and instances jpv72 as analogously 
 formed; but it seems preferable to 
 regard both as compounds : jf signify- 
 ing a serpent, monster, or such like. 
 my) is a wreath, that which is convolved 
 or twisted; from ™, to join, wreathe, 
 
 9 
 &.; ‘Syr. JaXS eka see conjunatt ; 
 Arab. usr torsit se et vertit funem; 
 
 III. “lJ, inflexit se et spiras fecit serpens ; 
 kis] I, serpens flecus. From a com- 
 
 parison of the several passages in 
 which the word occurs, it clearly 
 appears to be synonymous with p27, a 
 great fish, sea-monster, serpent, and ὉΠ), 
 which, in its general acceptation, sig- 
 nifies all kinds of larger animals that 
 move witha wriggling motion, whether 
 on the land or in the water. That it 
 more specifically denotes the crocodile, 
 Job iii. 8, xl. 25, has been regarded as 
 almost a settled point since this inter- 
 pretation, first given by Beza and 
 Diodati, was learnedly supported by 
 Bochart, Hieroz. P. IIL. lib. v. cap. 16 
 —18. To express more forcibly the 
 
 qualities of the monster here referre:} 
 to, he is described first as 172 373, and 
 then as ΠΡ wm, As ™3 signifies to 
 reach across, a8 a bar, Aq., Symm., and 
 the Vulg., render it accordingly; but 
 ὄφιν φεύγοντα, given by the LXX., is 
 more agreeable to the usual acceptation 
 of the verb fo flee, be fleet : serpens fugax. 
 
 Comp. the Arab. Sy) oh the son of 
 
 fleetness, i.e. the gazelle. It is used in 
 connexion with ὉΠ only in one other 
 passage, Job xxvi. 13, where, however, 
 the reference evidently is to the celes- 
 tial hemisphere. iniY, tortuous, from 
 "2, to twist, wind, coil, describes the 
 sinuosities, or coils, which serpents 
 form with their bodies, by the sudden 
 unfolding of which they are enabled 
 to spring forward, and thereby effect 
 a very rapid motion. 
 
 “Saucius at serpens sinuosa volumina 
 versat, 
 
 Arrectisque horret. squamis et sibilat 
 ore, 
 
 Arduus insurgens.”— Zeid. lib. xi. 
 753. 
 
 yin, Arab. 
 
 Ad, serpens inyens, draco, 
 
 ῳ 
 a kind of large serpent; also a large 
 aquatic animal. 
 
 Comp. Fe) » thunnus 
 
 piscis, the tunny, which is the largest 
 fish of the whale species found in the 
 Mediterranean. Ininterpreting this 
 passage, the chief difficulty lies in 
 determining whether one gigantic 
 monster is intended, of which the 
 several epithets employed describe the 
 character; or whether more than one, 
 
CHAP. XXVII.]| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 235 
 
 Even Leviathan, the coiling serpent :— 
 Yea, he will kill the monster that is in the sea. 
 2 In that day, sing ye concerning the vineyard: 
 
 say two or three, are meant. Kimchi, 
 Abenezra, Jarchi, Vitringa, Lowth, 
 Jenour, Hitzig, Scholz, and others, 
 consider three distinct animals to have 
 been chosen as the symbolical repre- 
 sentatives of as many hostile powers ; 
 but which these are they are not 
 agreed: some supposing them to be 
 Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt; others, 
 Egypt, Assyria, and Tyre; others 
 differently. If Leviathan, occurring 
 the second time, be merely a repetition 
 of the former name, for the purpose 
 of introducing an additional epithet, 
 then enly two monsters are exhibited, 
 which may be viewed as representing 
 Babylon and Egypt. In this case the 
 second Vaz must, as freq., be rendered 
 even. Schnurrer, Eichhorn, and Gese- 
 nius, are of opinion that the various 
 epithets describe only one animal, and 
 that, how incongruous soever it would 
 be to represent such an animal as 
 actually existing in nature, it is in no 
 degree abhorrent from the symbolical 
 language of prophecy—the end of 
 which is, in such case, to magnify the 
 terrific character of the empire for 
 which it stands. The different epi- 
 thetsaremerely thesymbolical drapery, 
 shewing the image to advantage. Thus 
 Dan. vii. 7, 8; Rev. xiii. 1—10; non- 
 descripts, somewhat similar, are intro- 
 duced. On this principle, fully to set 
 forth the formidable, cruel, and de- 
 structive nature of the Babylonian 
 power, a combination of the hugest,and 
 most horrid monsters was required; 
 and certainly none could have been 
 more appropriately selected than those 
 here specified. Luzzato agrees with 
 Gesenius in supposing that the Baby- 
 lonian empire is meant; but he de- 
 cidedly thinks that three distinct sub- 
 jects are specified as itsemblem. Both 
 TY, and oy, are applied to Hyypt, 
 Ps. xxiv. 13, 14, and 2, or pin, Ezek. 
 XXxix. 3, xxxll.2; but this is no reason 
 why Isaiah should not have used the 
 same well-known symbolical terms in 
 application to Babylon, the subject of 
 which he had just been treating. 
 
 This interpretation appears, on the 
 whole, best supported. For the use 
 of 0, the sea, in reference to Babylon, 
 see chap. xxi. 1. 
 
 2. From this verse to the fifth 
 inclusive we have a song of encourage- 
 ment, in which Jehovah, under the 
 symbol of the keeper of a vineyard, 
 is represented as the protector and 
 nourisher of the Jewish church. 
 Houbigant, Lowth, Dathe, Schnurrer, 
 and Boothroyd, consider this song as 
 responsive :—Jehovah speaking, ver. 
 3; the vineyard responding, ver. 4; 
 Jehovah again in the second distich of 
 the same verse, and part of the 5th ; 
 then the vineyard, &. See Lowth’s 
 translation. This fanciful, and in 
 some parts very forced construction, 
 appears to have originated in an 
 undue pressing of what Gesenius 
 takes to be the primary idea conveyed 
 by 722, to sing in responses. The verb, 
 however, is never thus used; all the 
 passages in which it occurs simply 
 convey the notion of singing, or the 
 repetition of the same words; but 
 not of dialogistic response.—N77 OY2 
 is parallel in point of time with the 
 same phrase, ver. 1, and shews that 
 when the Divine judgments were in 
 execution upon the Babylonians, the 
 Jews should be safe. On the com- 
 parison of the Jewish church to a 
 vineyard, see chap. v. 1—7. Instead 
 of V2 0, a vineyard of wine, or red 
 wine, V2 O12, a vineyard of delight, is 
 found in thirty-nine MSS., the Soncin. 
 Edit., and that of Van der Hooght ; 
 and is countenanced by the LXX., 
 and apparently by the Targum; but 
 the former is exhibited in about seventy 
 MSS., in sixty-eight printed editions, 
 and has the support of the Syr. and 
 Vulg. Being the more difficult, it is 
 in all probability the genuine reading. 
 Since 07 does not necessarily express 
 the idea of rineyard, but simply that 
 of field or garden ina state of culti- 
 vation, there is no tautology in adding 
 wo to it. Comp. mo, olive yard, 
 Judg. xv.5. The combination 127 Ὁ, 
 
236 
 
 3 I Jehovah do keep it— 
 Every moment I water it— 
 Lest any should injure it, 
 
 I keep it night and day. 
 
 4 There is no fury in me: 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXVII. 
 
 Yet, would that I had the briers and thorns in battle! 
 
 I would advance against them ; 
 I would burn them up at once. 
 
 5 But if any will cling to my protection, 
 
 He shall make peace with me ; 
 
 Peace with me he shall make. 
 
 however, occurs Amos v. ll. The 
 words form a nomin. absolute: As it 
 regards the vineyard, sing ye, &c. 073 1s 
 an epicenic noun, and therefore takes 
 m after it. 
 
 3. Nearly thirty MSS., jive editions, 
 and the Syr., read 7px, instead of 172, 
 but obviously from an original mis- 
 take. 772 is here used in the sense of 
 hostilely invading, so as to injure, de- 
 stroy, &c. Gwinglius renders, xe quis 
 eam invadat. OY) has DY ΤῸ corres- 
 ponding to it, just as in Job vii. 18, it 
 has 0>2.. Both plurals express con- 
 tinual repetition. 
 
 4. The language of Jehovah at the 
 beginning of this verse is evidently to 
 be restricted to the vineyard, or people 
 of the Jews. As it respected them 
 there was no fury in him; but it was 
 reserved for his and their enemies. 
 See chap. xxxiv. 2, lxiii. 3, 5, 6; Nah. 
 1.2. The LXX. and Syr. read 73h, ὦ 
 wall, instead of M27. 227 stands for 
 ) JE. Ὁ, as ἜΣ for 7? Ἤν», Neh. ix. 28, 
 and is to be taken in the usual idio- 
 matic sense of wishing. It is here 
 equivalent to a strong adversative 
 mode of construction, as, But if any 
 oppose me, ζο. Mo WY, an asyndeton 
 for m4) Wav, which is found ina few 
 MSS., and is expressed in the LXX., 
 Aq., Symm., Targ., Vulg. We have 
 other instances in ΠΝ Np, chap. xxviii. 
 8; Yow pip, xxxii. 13; Ty wow, Hab. 
 iii. 11. The 7 in 73, and the 7} in 
 Try, are the femin. suffixes used dis- 
 tributively as neuters in reference to 
 moyav. By the briers and thorns are 
 meant hostile powers, those who op- 
 
 pose themselves to God and _ his 
 people ; wicked and ungodly men. 
 Comp. chap. x. 17. In the Arabic 
 poem of Amru the same figurative 
 use of one of the terms occurs: “ We 
 stripped the branches of every thorn 
 that opposed us.” Ὁ, to advance 
 
 upon, attack successfully ; Arab. ee, 
 
 desuper percussit ; V. oppressit, vicit ali- 
 quem; Vulg. gradiar super eam; Schmid. 
 cnvadam ea. 
 
 5. ix, Arab. a), aut, non, nisi, &C. or; 
 
 used here as a conditional particle, du¢ 
 if; ἐὰν δὲ, as the LXX. properly give 
 it, Exod. xxi. 36. This verse exhibits 
 in the strongest light the benignity of 
 the Divine character. His enemies 
 must be punished; but if any of them 
 repent and sue for peace, it will as- 
 suredly be granted. ἩΡῸΞ PIT is a 
 mode of expression borrowed from 
 the practice of fleeing to, and laying 
 fast hold of altars, &c. as asylums or 
 places of refuge. 1 Kings i. 50. Comp. 
 for td, Ps. xxxvii. 39, xlii. 2; Isa. 
 xxv. 4. ‘If any one would avail him- 
 self of my protection, make me his 
 refuge, test that security which alone 
 is to be found in me, let him,” &c. 
 ὁ DW Tiny’, according to Josh. ix. 15, 
 would be. he shall grant me peace; but ? 
 is frequently used in the sense of, iz 
 respect to, as it regards, &c. and is here 
 equivalent to DY, with; ἃ superior 
 being referred to. The ancient ver- 
 sions have read 1, and the Syr. has 
 the verb in the first person. The re- 
 petition of the words expresses cer- 
 
CHAP. XXVII.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 237 
 
 6 In coming days Jacob shall take root, 
 Tsrael shall flower and blossom, 
 And fill the face of the world with fruit. 
 7 Hath He smitten him as He smote him who smote him ? 
 Is he slain like the slaying of his slain? 
 8 Very moderately when she was put away didst thou contend 
 
 with her: 
 
 He took her away with his rough blast in the day of the east 
 
 wind ; 
 
 tainty ; and the inversion, by which 
 DIB, peace, is placed first, has the feli- 
 citous effect of giving prominence to 
 what is supposed most powerfully to 
 interest the mind of one who seeks 
 reconciliation. Comp. Hos. viii. 11. 
 
 6. The song being ended, the pro- 
 phet proceeds to assure the captive 
 Jews of the future prosperity of the 
 nation, when restored to their own 
 land. The metaphor is borrowed from 
 the practice of horticulture, and was 
 naturally suggested by the subject of 
 _ the preceding verses. O37 is ellip- 
 | tical for Dxat DvD, iz the days which 
 | are coming ; and is not to be rendered 
 . as if in construction with 37%, which 
 our translators have done. For ὑπ, 
 see Ps. lxxx. 10. 3m is here, as chap. 
 xxiv. 4; xxvi. 18, the Jewish world. 
 
 7. In such appeals, the interroga- 
 tive 7, and the corresponding particle 
 ox, have the force of a strong nega- 
 tive. Directly the reverse of what is 
 expressed is required in the answer 
 implied. The suffix in Ym is to be 
 referred to the enemy of Israel, not 
 to Israel himself—732 being the paral- 
 lel term with which it corresponds. 
 The punishment of the Jews was not 
 to be compared, in point of severity, 
 with that of those who were the 
 instruments of inflicting it: the num- 
 ber of the Assyrians and Babylonians 
 killed by their conquerors far exceeded 
 that of the Hebrews slain by these 
 enemies in their incursions into the 
 kingdoms of Israel and Judah. For 
 the paronomasia, see chap. xxii. 17, 
 18. 
 8. To fill up the ellipsis, subaud. 
 
 bax, Arab. Ql, which corrects or 
 denies what has just been expressed, 
 
 and introduces an affirmative propo- 
 sition expressing the opposite, xo, on 
 the contrary. Instead of having treated 
 his people as he had treated their 
 enemies, Jehovah had exercised great 
 lenity towards them. Assyria and Ba- 
 bylon were utterly destroyed ; whereas 
 the Jews, though chastised, were pre- 
 served and restored to circumstances 
 of great prosperity in their native 
 country. Of yexo3, Michaelis ob- 
 serves, “a strange word, of which I 
 can give no satisfactory explanation.” 
 It has been a stumbling-block to 
 many other interpreters; some of 
 whom have had recourse to violent 
 means in order to relieve the diffi- 
 culty. The radical idea seems to be 
 expressed in Aq., Symm., Theod., 
 Targ., Syr.—the authors of these ver- 
 
 .Sions having derived the word from 
 
 md, a measure. As to form, if it is 
 not to be taken for a reduplicate 
 verb, changing the punctuation into 
 ΝΌΜΟΣ, and thus exhibiting a deno- 
 minative from the above noun, it may 
 be regarded as a repetition of it in 
 the form of a compound ; the 7 being 
 dropped, and the Dagesh compen- 
 sative and conjunctive being inserted 
 in the Ὁ. Its resolution, therefore, 
 will be TND ANDI, by measure, measure, 
 1. 6. very measuredly, moderately ; as 
 pray prov, deep, deep, very deep. Comp. 
 
 the Arab. lly, intendit rem; ω»», 
 
 dousldos revit pro arbitrio, &e. ; rte, 
 rector, administrator, one who eatends, 
 or measures out what is due to those 
 over whom he is placed. Thus ΒΕ, 
 wen, and especially the latter word, 
 as parallel in its application with that 
 in question, Jer. x. 24, xxx. 11, xlvi. 
 
 GG 
 
238 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XXVII. 
 
 9 Nevertheless by this is the iniquity of Jacob expiated ; 
 And this is all the fruit—the removal of his sin: 
 When he maketh all the stones of the altar 
 Like lime-stones broken in pieces ; 
 The images of Astarte and the pillars of the sun shall rise no 
 
 more. 
 
 10 For the fortified city is in a state of desolation, 
 A dwelling emptied and deserted like the wilderness ; 
 
 28. The fem. suffixes in T2277 ΠΡῸΣ, 
 refer to the Jewish state or church, 
 viewed as espoused to Jehovah ; and 
 the former verb, while it appropriately 
 expresses the expulsion of the Jews 
 from their own land, is the very term 
 employed chap. 1. 1, for divorcing a 
 wife. In the latter there is a sudden 
 change of the person from the third 
 to the second, or the direct form of 
 address, which, as I have already had 
 occasion to notice, is very common in 
 Hebrew, especially in poetry. 1324, 
 Kimchi 07, fo remove, see 2 Sam. xx. 
 13 ; Prov. xxv. 4,5. By “the day of 
 the east wind” is meant the judgment 
 inflicted by the Babylonians : DY being 
 put for day of calamity, judgment, 
 &c, See chap. ii. 12. The ΟῚ», Theod. 
 καύσων, is the hot wind, called by the 
 
 Arabs eres Samoom, (Arab. Ver. Jer. 
 XVili. 17, ee ra aE the Simoom wind,) 
 
 which blows from the south-east, 
 across the arid wastes to the east of 
 Palestine, during the hot months of 
 summer. It resembles the steam 
 from the mouth of an oven, scorches 
 the grass, and fills up the wells with 
 sand, and, when more than ordinarily 
 violent, is most destructive in its 
 effects. It seldom lasts longer than 
 thirty-six or forty hours. See Robin- 
 son’s Calmet, art. Winds. To this the 
 Babylonish invasion is aptly compared. 
 
 9. 323, like the Arab. ωϑ , has here 
 
 an adversative force, and marks a 
 transition from the description of the 
 calamity to that of its happy results. 
 752, in the expiatory sense, implies 
 suffering with a view to the removal 
 of guilt, whether such suffering be 
 that of the offender, or of another in 
 
 his stead. The word is frequently 
 used of civil as well as of religious 
 expiations, The meaning here is, the 
 punishment threatened against the 
 idolatry, and other sins of the Jews, 
 had been endured in Babylon ; and 
 the evils having been removed, they 
 were to be pardoned and delivered. 
 The fruit or consequence of the Divine 
 judgment upon them was the aban- 
 donment of idolatry. This is ex- 
 pressly stated in the latter half of the 
 verse. 72 ΠῚ is equivalent to all this. 
 Gesenius preposterously interprets 
 mara of the Divine altar at Jerusalem, 
 and considers Jehovah to be the 
 agent spoken of, whereas it is evi- 
 dently the idolatrous altar, or altars, 
 the prophet has in view; the entire 
 destruction of which he ascribes to 
 the repentant Jews. 3 occurs only 
 in this place. Comp. Arab. > cala 
 viva, unslaked lime. For os and 
 D227, see chap. xvii. 8. 
 
 10, 11. Schnurrer, Gesenius, Maurer, 
 and others, take the ruined city here 
 described to be Jerusalem ; but such 
 construction ill suits the connexion. 
 It is more consistent with the entire 
 context to apply the description to 
 Babylon—the destruction of which 
 proved the death-blow of idolatry, so 
 far as the Jews were concerned ; and 
 was, in a great measure, the occasion 
 of its fall in that part of the East. 
 11a is properly solitariness, separation ; 
 but here it means the condition of 
 one who is abandoned and left to 
 himself; desolation. ΤΠ, which is 
 otherwise used of a house, or dwelling 
 in general, is here, and Zeph. ii. 6, 
 employed to denote the habitations 
 of shepherds. 5»D, her branches, i.e. 
 the branches of the trees and bushes 
 
CHAP. XXVII.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 239 
 
 There the calf shall feed, and there shall it lie down, 
 And entirely consume her branches. 
 
 11 When her boughs wither, they shall be broken off; 
 Women shall come and make fires with them. 
 For it was a people of no understanding ; ° 
 Therefore he that made it had no mercy upon it, 
 And he that formed it shewed it no favour. 
 
 But it shall be im that day, 
 
 That Jehovah shall have an olive-harvest, 
 From the branch of the river to the torrent of Egypt, 
 And ye shall be gleaned one by one, O ye sons of Israel. 
 
 13 And it shall be in that day, 
 
 left in her deserted gardens and 
 parks ; or which had grown up among 
 her ruins. The gathering of fuel in 
 the East belonged to females, on 
 whom devolved the baking and other 
 culinary occupations. Besides dung, 
 which was most generally in use, 
 thorns, vine-twigs, ὅσο. were collected 
 for this purpose. To express the 
 diminutive character of the trees 
 referred to, Y37, which is otherwise 
 masculine, is conceived of as feminine, 
 and made the nominative to the femi- 
 nine verb 7728n, the plural form of 
 which is accounted for by the noun 
 being a collective. The suffix in 77x 
 further shews that Y¥7? is an ideal, 
 though not a grammatical feminine. 
 See Ewald. καὶ 363, 364, 366 ; Lee, art. 
 215. 5. The concluding words de- 
 scribe the awfully brutish condition 
 of the idolaters of Babylon, and their 
 entire abandonment by Jehovah to 
 merited destruction. The epenthetic 
 Nuns are emphatic. 
 
 12,13. A lucid prediction of the 
 recovery of the Jews after the de- 
 struction of Babylon by Cyrus. 27, 
 
 Arab. las, vehementer percussit, Srondes 
 
 ex arbore decussit ; to strike or beat off 
 olives from the trees—the mode in 
 which they are reaped, Deut. xxiv. 
 20. See on chap. xvu.6. The image 
 is employed to set forth the collection 
 of Jews from the places in Palestine 
 in which they had lived during the 
 general dispersion. The individual 
 gathering intimates that none of them 
 should be neglected. ‘The boundaries 
 
 here specified are those which sepa- , 
 rated Palestine, in its widest extent, 
 from Babylonia and Egypt ; and com- 
 prehend the regions occupied by such 
 of the Jews as had not been carried 
 away into captivity ; but who, never- 
 theless, lived in a disunited state, 
 having no civil or religious polity. 
 TET naw, the stream of the river, i.e. 
 collectively, the streams or canals of 
 the Euphrates. Zwinglius translates, 
 ἃ rapido flumine Euphrate. The term 
 n2a8 was in all probability suggested 
 by the reference to the olive-harvest 
 —n)av signifying the branch of a tree, 
 between which and that of a river 
 there is a strong analogy. The radical 
 signification of 52% is to flow. That 
 by the oso ‘m2 is meant ls 
 
 wz, the torrent Harish, on the 
 
 confines of Palestine and Egypt, is 
 now universally admitted ; LXX. Ῥινο- 
 kopodpa; Symm. and of dour. render, 
 ἕως τοῦ χειμάῤῥου Αἰγύπτου, to the 
 winter-brook of Egypt, which cannot 
 possibly be applied to the Nile. See 
 Numb. xxxiv. 5; Josh. xv. 4, 47; 
 1 Kings viii. 65; 2 Kings xxiv. 7, in 
 which last passage we have the same 
 frontiers as in the present verse. 
 Tox) is not in construct. with 7x, as 
 the points would seem to intimate. 
 See Zech. xi. 7. 
 
 Having predicted the restoration 
 of those Jews who should be found 
 within the boundaries of the Holy 
 Land, Isaiah next foreshews that 
 such as had been removed beyond 
 
240 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXVIII. 
 
 That a great trumpet shall be sounded, 
 And those shall come who were perishing in the land of 
 
 Assyria, 
 
 And the outeasts in the land of Egypt, 
 And shall worship Jehovah in the holy mount of Jerusalem. 
 
 these limits, and were in circum- 
 stances of lamentable religious desti- 
 tution, should also return and enjoy 
 their ancient privileges in Jerusalem. 
 By the trumpet we are doubtless to 
 understand proclamations of liberty 
 to those who had been subject to the 
 sway of the Babylonian and Egyptian 
 
 made by Cyrus, Canibyses, Darius, 
 &e. That Assyria, and not Babylon, 
 is mentioned, may be owing to the 
 greater proportion of the Hebrews 
 having been transported during the 
 Assyrian monarchy ; and also to the 
 circumstance, that the country con- 
 tinued, in a great measure, the same. 
 
 kings. These proclamations were 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 This chapter commences with a denunciation against the kingdom of the ten 
 tribes, 1—4; and, after touching on the prosperous state of things in 
 Judah under the reign of Hezekiah, 5, 6, the prophet abruptly proceeds to 
 describe the deterioration which should speedily take place among that 
 favoured division of the Hebrew nation—the profligacy of their teachers, 
 7,8; their mockery of Divine things, 9, 10; and its condign punishment, 
 11—15. He then announces the Messiah, and the security of all who 
 should avail themselves of his salvation, 16; points out the vanity of all 
 other refuges, 17; and predicts the awful judgments which should be 
 brought upon the unbelievers, 18S—22. The conclusion, 23—29, consists 
 of an appeal to the skill of the husbandman, in justification of the 
 various methods of the Divine procedure in conducting the processes 
 of moral cultivation. 
 
 1 Wo to the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, 
 And the fading flower of their glorious beauty ; 
 
 1. This and the three following 
 chapters appropriately begin with ‘7, 
 on account of the pointed denun- 
 ciations contained in them, though 
 with these denunciations are com- 
 bined promises of mercy. Samaria, 
 the capital of the ten tribes, was 
 
 built on a beautiful, fruitful hill, 
 strong by nature, from its insulated 
 situation in the middle of a deep and 
 broad valley, and rendered still more 
 so by the fortifications that were 
 erected for its defence. Dr. Robinson 
 says, that “it would be difficult to 
 
CHAP. XXVIII. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 241 
 
 Which is upon the head of the rich valley 
 Of them that are vanquished by wine. 
 2 Behold, a strong and a powerful one of Jehovah, 
 
 find, in all Palestine, a situation of 
 equal strength, fertility, and beauty 
 combined. In all these particulars 
 it has greatly the advantage over 
 Jerusalem.” Bib. Research. iii. p. 
 146.. It was built by Omri, king of 
 Israel, and became a place of great 
 splendour and luxury under the fol- 
 ‘lowing monarchs, especially under 
 Ahab and Jeroboam II. 1 Kings xxii. 
 39; Amos ii. 15, iv. 1, 2. It was 
 repeatedly attacked by Ben-hadad, 
 king of Syria, but held out against 
 him, though reduced to great ex- 
 tremity. 2 Kings vi. vii. It was 
 afterwards taken, after a siege of three 
 years, by Shalmaneser, king of As- 
 syria, who exercised great cruelties 
 en its inhabitants, and reduced it to 
 a heap ofruins, 2 Kings xvii. 6,7, &c. ; 
 Micah i.6; Hos. x. 14, 15. In this 
 overthrow was fulfilled the present 
 prophecy, which was, in all proba- 
 bility, delivered a few years previous 
 to the reign of Hezekiah. See verse 
 5—7. It raised itself somewhat, and 
 was again depressed in after times, 
 till, finally, it was restored by Herod 
 the Great, who gave it the name of 
 Sebaste, in honour of Augustus; a 
 name retained by the small village that 
 now occupies its site. A beautiful 
 colonnade still remains to attest to 
 its former splendour. See the travels 
 of Maundrell, Richardson, and Buck- 
 ingham.—Cities built on eminences, 
 and especially fortified cities thus 
 situated, were naturally compared to 
 a crown. It is to this circumstance 
 the prophet refers, and not to the 
 chaplets, or wreaths of flowers, worn 
 by the ancients at banquets, as some 
 have imagined. The passage quoted 
 by Lowth from Wisdom ii. 7, 8, aptly 
 describes such custom, but throws no 
 light upon the present text. Samaria 
 was the proud boast of the dissipated 
 inhabitants of the country, and es- 
 pecially of its own inhabitants ; but 
 it was hastening to its fall, and is on 
 this account compared to the flowers 
 with which persons were crowned, 
 
 which soon decayed. It has been 
 doubted whether the drunkenness 
 here adverted to is to be taken lite- 
 rally, or whether it is to be under- 
 stood figuratively of mental infatua- 
 tion ; a8 we say, intoxicated with 
 pleasure, zeal, &. Thus the LXX. οἱ 
 μεθύοντες ἄνευ οἴνου. That the former 
 is the more probable, appears from 
 the prevalence of this sin among the 
 Samaritans, (see Amos iv. 1, which sets 
 forth a most depraved state of morals;) 
 and from the character of the Jews, 
 ver. 7, which is evidently exhibited as 
 parallel to that of the Ephraimites. 
 Comp. also, Amos vi. 1, 6, and Hos. 
 vil. 5. pO, smitten of wine, i. e. 
 overcome by it, iutoxicated. The 
 phrase corresponds to 05%, drunkards, 
 at the beginning of the verse. The 
 
 Arabs similarly use «JS, vicit et 
 
 inebriavit eum vinum dactylorum ; 
 
 go>) secuit vem, percussit, inebriavit 
 
 potus ; - ye? prostravit, ts} wre 
 prostratus poculi ᾿ς «Ὁ, percussit, VII. 
 
 victus vino fuit. 'Thusalso the Greeks, 
 μεθυπλήξ, οἰνοπλήξ ; and the Latins, 
 multo percussus tempora Baccho. 
 Tibull. 1, 2,3. oy20, fatnesses, being 
 merely a noun used adjectively to 
 qualify 3, which, as to sense, is the 
 noun strictly in construction with 
 wav, it was left in the absolute 
 state. Hitzig thinks it was so left to 
 prevent the termination of three 
 words in*. 
 
 2. Instead of "χοῦ, a vast number of 
 MSS., and the first three printed 
 editions, read, 717°, which must be re- 
 garded as the original lection. The 
 ? simply marks the dative of posses- 
 sion: “a mighty and powerful instru- 
 ment, whom the Lord will raise up 
 and employ in executing his anger 
 upon the ten tribes.” This instru- 
 ment was Shalmaneser, king of As- 
 syria, by whom Samaria was taken, 
 after a powerful resistance, about the 
 
bo 
 Aid 
 bo 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XXVIIJ. 
 
 Like a hail-storm, like a destructive tempest, 
 Like a flood of mighty overflowing water, 
 Casteth it to the ground with force. 
 3 With the feet shall be trodden in pieces 
 The proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim. 
 4 And the fading flower of their glorious beauty, 
 That is upon the head of the rich valley, 
 Shall be as the early fig before the summer harvest, 
 Which one looketh at, and while it is yet in his hand 
 
 He swalloweth it. 
 
 5 In that day shall Jehovah of Hosts 
 
 year B.C. 721. Before ww, subaud. 3, 
 as carried forward in idea from O73. 
 For the force of 222 comp. FMR, 22, 
 
 ΞΡ, 207, 227, Chald. 297, Arab. bs, 
 
 all of which verbs convey the idea of 
 cutting, cutting off, exscinding, το. Ty 
 usually signifies to let down or place 
 gently ; bat is here, as in Numb. xix. 
 9, and Amos v. 7, employed in the 
 sense of throwing, casting down. V3 
 immediately following, as well as the 
 nature of the case, shews this. The 
 nomin. is Shalmaneser. 
 
 3. 725977 being in the plural, Lowth 
 and others would read minoy, but all 
 the ancient versions have the singular, 
 and there is no variety in the MSS. 
 To obviate the apparent difficulty, the 
 Rabbins explain MY as a collective ; 
 but we have other instances of the 
 third plur. femin. of the future used 
 for the third singular, as Exod. i. 10, 
 mon. MAP; Judg. v. 26, Twn AT ; 
 Job xvii. ‘16, MTN MPM ; and such 
 construction alone suits the con- 
 nexion. I would suggest, however, 
 that in all such cases the 73 is a form 
 of intensity rather than of plurality. 
 
 4, bai nse for nos mys; like awn 
 for No 7733, Prov. xxiv. 25, The 
 participle is used as an abstract noun, 
 to serve the purpose of an adjective. 
 The change of gender in 72" is merely 
 to vary the form, ver. 1. 3, ¢he 
 
 early fig, Arab. ΩΣ Boccora, from 723, 
 to bear early or first, as fruit, children, 
 
 &e. Aq. πρωτογέννημαα LXX. πρό- 
 ἕρομος σύκου. It 15. a peculiar kind, 
 
 which, after a mild winter, ripens 
 about the end of June, and sometimes 
 earlier; whereas, the summer and 
 winter figs do not come to maturity 
 till the months of August and Novem- 
 ber. It surpasses these in relish ; and 
 is on this account, as well as that of 
 its early appearance, eagerly desired 
 by the inhabitants of the East. While 
 the others hang long upon the tree 
 after they become ripe, the boccora 
 drops immediately on the tree being 
 slightly shaken by the hand, or even 
 of itself, Jer. xxiv. 2; Hos. ix. 10; 
 Micah vii. 1. It is from these circum- 
 stances the prophet here borrows his 
 image, in order to shew how suddenly 
 and easily Samaria should be taken. 
 A three years’ siege must have been 
 reckoned short in ancient times, since 
 that of Tyre, under Nebuchadnezzar, 
 lasted thirteen, and that of Askalon 
 twenty-nine years. The 7 in 723 is 
 to be read without the Mappic. 8% 
 m57, which Lowth ventures to call “a 
 miserable tautology,” and which, after 
 Houbigant, he alters to T8177 Mx, is to 
 be retained as good Hebrew. See 
 chap. xvi. 10, and xxviii. 34, Besides, 
 the idea of plucking the early fig would 
 quite spoil the beauty of the figure. 
 ‘822 AT3, Zwinglius forcibly renders : 
 
 ferme priusquam in manum venerit. 
 
 5, 6. Having predicted the speedy 
 downfal of the apostate kingdom, 
 which was accompanied by the trans- 
 portation of the people beyond the 
 Euphrates, Isaiah directs attention to 
 the manifestations of Divine favour 
 to be experienced by the kingdom of 
 
 e 
 
CHAP. XXVIII. | 
 
 ISAIAH, 
 
 243 
 
 Become a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem, 
 
 To the residue of his people : 
 
 6 And a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth on the bench, 
 And prowess to those who drive back the battle to the gate. 
 7 Yet even these err through wine, 
 And reel through strong drink ; 
 The priest and the prophet err through strong drink ; 
 They are overpowered with wine; they reel through strong 
 
 drink ; 
 
 They err in vision ; they stagger in judgment. 
 8 For all tables are full of vomit and filth ; 
 
 There is no place clean. 
 
 Judah. God would be the protection 
 and boast of his remaining tribes ; he 
 would endow their judges with dis- 
 cernment in matters pertaining to 
 the legal tribunals, and their warriors 
 with power to drive back into their 
 own cities any enemies that might 
 invade the land. x77 oY: cannot, 
 without violence, be interpreted of 
 any other period than that to which 
 reference had just been made. It 
 comprehends the reign of pious Heze- 
 kiah. ype, a diadem, or crown, 50 
 called from the wreaths round the 
 head, of which it consisted. Arab. 
 
 ye pleauit, torsit ; ὃ ARS : pee, 
 erines plexi. Eth. RG_,e.= torsit, con- 
 torsit, plexuit. BOAT 15. put ellipti- 
 cally for HEWDT NED, on the seat or 
 throne of justice. Comp. Ps. ix. 5. 
 Before 22 supply ?. 72079, battle or 
 war, for 7977) Hx, foreign warriors. 
 mw, “to the gate,” ἡ. 6. of the enemy; 
 not only repelling his attack in Judea, 
 but driving him back into his own 
 
 fortified places. The 7 is that of di- 
 rection or motion. Comp. 1 Sam. 
 xvii. 52. 
 
 7, 8. The predicted prosperity, 
 however, would only be of short con- 
 tinuance : the teachers and rulers of 
 Judah would soon resemble those of 
 Ephraim in sottishness and impiety. 
 Most expositors refer this description 
 to the state of things in Judah at the 
 time when Isaiah wrote ; but it seems 
 preferable to apply it to that in the 
 
 reign of Manasseh, which he here 
 predicts. To express the great in- 
 temperance in which they would in- 
 dulge, he employs synonymes and 
 repetitions ; and points out its influ- 
 ence on their official character. ¥922 
 mary, lit. they are swallowed up by 
 
 v 
 wine; Syr. “SND, prevaluit, vicit, 
 absorpsit, devoravit; Arab. ey, per- 
 
 venit, contegit, percenit ad finem ; victt, 
 afiixit aliquem, cum uy? oceupavit 
 
 eum totum res; to be entirely under the 
 influence of any thing. 'The persons 
 referred to had given themselves so 
 completely up to the influence of 
 wine, as to have destroyed their 
 character and salutary influence in 
 society. There is a manifest allusion 
 to the greediness with which they 
 emptied their cups. What they had 
 thus swallowed might be said, by its 
 overpowering influence, to swallow or 
 absorb them, as it destroyed their 
 mental and moral vigour. Comp. Hos. 
 iv. 11. The prepositions 3 and Ὁ are 
 here evidently equivalent. 75, as the 
 participle of 7}, properly signifies ὦ 
 seer, and is the ancient name for 
 prophet; but it is here used as an 
 abstract noun, with the acceptation 
 of vision ; as M7 is, ver. 15, for cove- 
 nant or agreement. ΓΒ occurs only 
 here in Kal; but from the connexion, 
 as well as from its use in Hiph., Jer, 
 x. 4, and its derivatives, D5, that 
 
944 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXVIII. 
 
 9 Whom should he teach knowledge ? 
 And whom should he cause to understand the report ? 
 Those who are weaned from the milk ; 
 Those who are removed from the breasts. 
 
 10 For there is precept by precept, precept by precept ; 
 
 Rule by rule, rule by rule ; 
 A little here, a little there. 
 
 which makes to stagger or fall, and ΡΞ, a 
 tottering or wavering, it clearly signifies 
 to move unsteadily, to act in a wavering, 
 undecided manner, which, in giving 
 judgment, is to be reprobated. Comp. 
 
 the Arab. E)s, fregit, fractus fuit ; 
 luwatus et loco motus fuit; τ ΚΑΘ, 
 
 fatuus fuit. There seems no ground 
 for the acceptation, judgment-seat, tri- 
 bunal, which Gesenius ascribes to 
 mode. It is used adverbially for 7753, 
 z.e. in performing that wherein the 
 judicial office consists ; judging, giving 
 sentence: the 3 being as freq. omitted 
 in the second member of the parallel- 
 ism. Perhaps the 7 is added to in- 
 timate the feebleness and inefficiency 
 of such judgments as they pro- 
 nounced. The eighth verse forcibly 
 depicts the loathsome character, and 
 the extent of the abomination. 782 x’? 
 is an asyndeton. See chap. xxvii. 5. 
 
 9, 10. These verses contain the 
 taunting language of the drunken 
 priests and judges of the Jews, who 
 repel with scorn the idea that they 
 should require the plain and reiterated 
 lessons which Jehovah taught by his 
 messengers. Such elementary in- 
 struction was fit only for babes: it 
 was an insult to their understanding 
 to suppose that they stood in need of 
 it. That the nominative to τὺ and 
 ὙΦ is Jehovah, or the prophet, teach- 
 ing by his authority, seems beyond 
 all doubt. The last two members of 
 ver. 9 contain answers to the ques- 
 tions proposed in the first two, and 
 are not a continuation of the inter- 
 rogatives, as Gesenius and others sup- 
 pose. I ‘nn? and DIN Why are 
 instances of construction with a pre- 
 position between the nouns. Comp. 
 Ezek. xiii. 2; Hos. vii. 5. The lan- 
 guage of ver. 10, 2 2 2 18) WI 
 
 OW Yyt OW Yyr 172, more resembles that 
 of inebriated persons, than any used 
 by persons in a state of sobriety. The 
 words are obviously selected to suit 
 the character of those supposed to 
 employ them; and, by their mono- 
 syllabic and repetitious forms, admi- 
 rably express the initiatory process of 
 tuition, which they indignantly de- 
 spised. “ Mirasunt hic Anadiploses.” 
 Zwing. %2 is used Hos. v. 11, as here, 
 in the acceptation of precept or com- 
 mand, from ™3, in Piel, to appoint, 
 charge, command ; usually M32. %, lit. 
 
 a line or cord, Arab., 845, the same, 
 from use? to twist, bind, ἕο. It is 
 
 here used metaphorically for Jaw, rule, 
 &c., which marks out the ἐμ of con- 
 duct men ought to pursue. The LXX., 
 mistaking the 1 in 1 for Ἢ, as they did 
 Tin ver. 9, rendering 727, κακὰ ; and 
 deriving \7 from ™p, fo wait for, expect, 
 translate thus: Θλίψιν ἐπὶ θλίψιν 
 προσδέχου, ἐλπίδα ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι, ἔτι μικρὸν 
 ἔτι μικρὸν. The Syriac translator, 
 still less to the purpose, amplifies the 
 statement made ver. 8,—in all proba- 
 bility misled by the resemblance of 
 the words. He is, however, followed 
 by Michaelis. The hypothesis of Ge- 
 
 ‘senius, that there may be a reference 
 
 to successive additions of laws, &c., 
 in the Pentateuch, made by prophets 
 in the days of the kings, could only 
 have been forced into this passage by 
 the spirit of unbelief, which obsti- 
 nately denies the authenticity and 
 antiquity of that portion of the sacred 
 volume. See, for their able vindica- 
 tion against the attempts of this 
 author, Gramberg, Hartmann, De 
 Wette, and others, the Rev. H. J. 
 Rose’s Hulsean Lectures for 1833, and 
 Die Authentie des Pentateuchs, by 
 Hengstenberg; Berlin, 1836—1838. 
 
 4 eee 
 
CHAP. XXVIII.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 11 Nay, but with barbarous lips, and in another tongue, 
 
 He will speak to this people ; 
 12 Because he said to them: 
 
 This is the rest; give rest to the weary ; 
 
 And this is the tranquillity ; 
 
 But they were unwilling to hear. 
 
 The words are often preposterously 
 quoted in application to the abundant 
 possession of religious privileges. Both 
 this verse and ver. 13 convey the idea 
 of paucity, or a mere outline of in- 
 struction, and not that of fulness. 
 DvV—owv, here—there. 
 
 11, Ὁ has here, after the interroga- 
 tions, a strongly implied negative 
 force. Comp. Job xiv. 16, xxxi. 18. 
 The verse contains a Divine threaten- 
 ing against the scoffers. “Jus talionis 
 indicatur,” Schmid. The language 
 they employed in cavilling at the pro- 
 phetic warnings was all but barbarous, 
 it consisted of barely intelligible 
 sounds: they should, by way of con- 
 dign punishment, hear the foreign, and 
 to them apparently mocking accents 
 of the Chaldeans, whom God would 
 employ as the interpreters of his 
 severe but righteous will. Comp. Jer. 
 v. 15, where the language of the Chal- 
 dzeans is declared to be unintelligible 
 to the Jews,—i2) vin ND 2,—either 
 because it was that spoken by the 
 Northern tribes which emigrated into 
 Babylon, or because the Semitic dialect 
 spoken in Babylon differed so much 
 from that of the Hebrews as not to 
 be understood by them. In this dia- 
 lect, DTHD 1), it was necessary for 
 Daniel and his companions to receive 
 instruction, Dan. i. 4. Comp. also 
 chap. xxxili. 19.7 »2w, lit. arbarians 
 of, or as to lip: i.e. those who speak a 
 barbarous or foreign language. Comp. 
 
 ν 
 the Syr. RSS balbutivit ; 30> 
 
 fiNscko Les, gut ut subsannantes 
 loquuntur. Liber Adami, i. 324, 7. 
 
 Arab. dels), impuritas, barbarismus. 
 
 The passage is employed by Paul, 1 
 Cor, xiv. 20, 21, quite in the spirit of 
 the connexion in which it here stands, 
 
 He tacitly compares the Corinthian 
 faction, which boasted of the faculty 
 of speaking in unknown tongues, to 
 the puerile characters adverted to ver. 
 9, (παιδία, νηπιάζετε, &e.) and then 
 reminds them, that speaking in such 
 languages had been represented in the 
 Jewish Scriptures—év τῷ vopo—as a 
 punishment, or a mark of the Divine 
 displeasure, and not as a matter of 
 desire or envy. The quotation agrees 
 neither with the words of the Heb. 
 text, nor with those of the LXX., but 
 it corresponds verbally with the ver- 
 sion marked ᾿Αλλ. in Origen’s Poly- 
 glott. 
 
 12. To take 1x as the relative pro- 
 noun, would, in this connexion, be in- 
 tolerably-harsh. Gesenius treats it as 
 redundant, or, at least, as merely a 
 connecting particle. It seems clearly. 
 to be used in its causal sense: decuuse, 
 and is equivalent to Tx p>, Ws non, 
 Jehovah had, by his messengers, 
 pointed out to the priests and judges 
 the only means by which they could 
 secure and enjoy true tranquillity ; viz. 
 faith and obedience; and he had 
 charged them to teach these means to 
 the people, in order that they might 
 be relieved from the molestations 
 which defection from the Divine law 
 had occasioned; but all had been in 
 vain. ΤΟΣ occurs only in this place ; 
 but it is evident from its being in ap- 
 position with m2, and from the 
 meaning of yYi272, Jer. vi. 16, that it is 
 derived from the Hiph. of 2x, ¢o give 
 
 rest, quiet, ἕο. Comp. the Arab. ey 
 bené vertit, beneque cessit illi ; ere 
 
 reditus, which in the Koran is used of 
 the happiness of true believers in 
 
 a future world. Thus Sur. x. 4, ἀαὶ 
 
 Les phe mpe: The final 8 in N28 js 
 
 H H 
 
240 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXVIII. 
 
 13 Verily, the word of Jehovah shall be to them, 
 Precept by precept, precept by precept ; 
 
 Rule by rule, rule by rule; 
 A little here, a little there: 
 
 That they may continue to fall backwards, and be broken, 
 
 And be snared, and taken. 
 14 
 
 Wherefore, hear ye the word of Jehovah, 
 
 Ye scoffers, who rule this people that are in Jerusalem, 
 
 15 Because ye say: 
 
 We have made a contract with death, 
 And with Sheol we have made an agreement: » 
 The overflowing scourge, when it passeth through, shall not 
 
 reach us, 
 
 For we have made falsehood our refuge, 
 And in deceit have we hid ourselves. 
 16 Nevertheless, thus saith the Lord Jehovah : 
 
 otiant, as in Josh. x. 24, 907. This 
 orthography is prevalent in Arabic, as 
 
 Vy poe |,Las. A great number of Co- 
 
 dices, however, and the Soncin. edi- 
 tions, omit the x. 
 
 13, A repetition of the cavilling lan- 
 guage of the drunkards, ver. 10. The 
 meaning is: They may despise the in- 
 struction given to them as puerile, 
 and altogether below the mark to 
 which they imagine they have at- 
 tained, but they shall have no other; 
 and being thus left to act according to 
 the dictates of their own supposed 
 wisdom, they must utterly perish. 
 Comp. 1 Pet, ii. 8. There is a marked 
 gradation in the verbs employed in 
 the latter part of the verse, and their 
 accumulation is designed to express 
 the certainty and grievous nature of 
 the predicted ruin. 72 is here used in 
 a frequentative sense. 
 
 14, 15. A further description of the 
 character of the impious rulers of the 
 Jews. ΠΕΣ ἌΝ, men of scorn, for D>, 
 scorners. Syram.and Theod. χλευασταί. 
 R.  y?, ¢o stammer, speak barbarously, 
 
 deride, mock. Comp. the Arab. (oY; 
 
 anigmatice locutus est. Conj. TV. con- 
 vertit, contortus, convolutus fuit. 202 
 mh DY, Jarchi, Abenezra, Houbigant, 
 
 Ἐπ 
 
 " 
 
 Lowth, Boothroyd, Luzzatto, and 
 Scholz, render: “Ye of this people 
 who mock,” or “use sententious say- 
 ings;” but such interpretation is 
 quite forced, as the construct state 
 shews. Comp. chap. lii. 5; Jer. xxx. 
 21. mh, LXX. συνθήκη; Targ. x20; 
 Vulg. pactum. The word properly sig- 
 nifies vision, like n3n, which stands for 
 it, ver. 18. The form is participial, 
 from 1m, Zo see, have a divine oracle, &c. 
 see chap. i. 1,and is synonymous with 
 ™:; both conveying the idea of a reli- 
 gious sanction, inviolability, &. Comp. 
 
 however, the Arab. djs, dissensit, et 
 
 contra, consensit, concordavit ; Con}. VI. 
 Jedus pepiygerunt. Comp. 017 as simi- 
 larly used, ver. 18. For oY, or, as it 
 is properly given in the Keri, iv, see 
 chap. x. 26. "NW Οὐδ᾽ is obviously a 
 paronomasia, which confirms the read- 
 ing of the Keri. The following 129, on 
 the contrary, (read 729,) is to be pre- 
 ferred to 732°, prescribed by the Keri. 
 The language is that of daring and 
 reckless spirits. 
 
 16. Before proceeding to denounce 
 the Divine judgments against these 
 mockers, and all unbelievers who 
 might adhere to them as their leaders, 
 the prophet, in this verse, describes 
 the provision made by Jehovah for 
 
CHAP, ΧΧΥΠΙ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 247 
 
 Behold, I will lay for a foundation in Zion a stone, 
 A tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a solid foundation ; 
 
 the indestructible security of his 
 people. The more forcibly to point 
 out this security, he introduces the 
 image of a large, firm, and noble 
 foundation-stone, which at once gives 
 support and union to the building 
 erected upon it. That this foundation 
 is exclusively, and not merely sensu 
 sublimiori, Christ our Saviour, no one 
 can call in question, who allows the 
 inspired authority of the N. T. For 
 the passage is not only quoted, in part, 
 with such direct application, Rom. ix. 
 33, x. 11, but in its entire form, with 
 one or two slight verbal discrepancies, 
 1 Pet. 11. 6, with the same primary and 
 immediate reference. That the earlier 
 Jews applied it, in like manner, to the 
 Messiah, appears from the fact, that 
 though the word yw is not μοῖρ in 
 the text of the Targum, which reads, 
 PON) Waa PD YN APP PED 22 NP NT, 
 “ Behold, I constitute in Zion a king, a 
 king strong, mighty, and terrible,” it 
 must originally have occupied a place 
 after the first 7272. This appears, first, 
 from the quotation made of this text 
 from the Targum, by Raymund Mar- 
 tini, in his Pugio Fidei, Pars II. chap. 
 v. p. 342. Edit. Carpzov. It is true, 
 the word is there written ™wnn, and 
 not xm@™owd; but this seems a mere 
 inadvertence, which has arisen from 
 the combination mwnn 7 being so 
 common in Jewish writings. Second- 
 ly, from the proneness of this Tar- 
 gumist to introduce the term, or its 
 equivalent, into all the passages in 
 which he speaks of the promised 
 Deliverer asa king. See chap. ix. 6, 
 ΣΙ ΧΕ ΟΣ xxvii. 5. ‘That Solo- 
 mon Jarchi found the word ih the 
 version appears from his exposition of 
 the passage: °N7oyM 1259 AM AND 729 
 Ta AN PMA Pn, “Tt is already fixed 
 and determined before me, and I have 
 constituted King Messiah a tried stone, 
 &c.” Gesenius, and a few other inter- 
 preters, after the Rabbins, suppose 
 Hezekiah to be meant,—an interpre- 
 tation which was already broached, 
 most likely by the Jews, in the time 
 of Theodoret, who gives his opinion 
 
 of it thus: ᾿Ανοίας ἐσχάτης εἶναι νομίζω 
 τὸ ταύτην τῷ ᾿Εζεκίᾳ προσαρμόζειν τὴν 
 προφητείαν, “ I deem it the greatest folly 
 to apply this prophecy to Hezekiah ;” 
 and then goes on to shew, that, as it 
 would be perfectly repugnant to the 
 doctrine of Scripture, to require any 
 to put confidence in man, no one can 
 possibly be intended but 6 δεσπότης 
 Χριστὸς, the Lord Christ. Rosenmiller 
 acknowledges that the predicates here 
 exhibited are majora et augustiora, than 
 to admit of being applied to an earthly 
 prince ; and even Hitzig scouts the 
 idea of Hezekiah being in any sense 
 intended. The introduction of an 
 abrupt but direct prophecy of the 
 Messiah, into the midst of a discourse 
 respecting the judgments with which 
 his nation was to be visited, is quite 
 in the style of Isaiah. See chap. iv. 
 2, vii. 14, ix. 1—6, xi.1. It served to 
 assure the faithful, that, notwithstand- 
 ing the most threatening calamities, 
 the house of David, from which the 
 Messiah was to spring, should not be 
 destroyed. δ᾽ 2217, Gesenius, Rosen- 
 miller, and others, consider to be 
 elliptical for 15) 1x x72, Lam he 
 who hath laid, &c.; and appeal to the 
 
 analogy of the Arab. as, ὃ] ee Lal, 
 
 it is only I that rose, in which the first 
 person is combined with the third. 
 There can be no doubt, however, that, 
 according to the uniform usage of the 
 Hebrew, the punctuation should be 
 πρὸ ; the participle always following "237, 
 but the third person never. Gesenius 
 seems to have been sensible of this, 
 for in his Lexicons he only adduces 
 the present passage in proof of a 
 finite verb following the suffix of the 
 interjection. "PY 235, chap. xxix. 14, 
 xxxviii. 5, he allows to be a participial 
 form for DY, and only objects to 10’ on 
 the ground that it would give a future 
 signification to the word, which he is 
 unwilling to admit. All the ancient 
 versions, however, translate the verb in 
 the future, which I have not scrupled 
 to do, partly on their authority, 
 which, in such cases, is at least equal 
 
248 
 
 ἸΒΑΙΑΗ. 
 
 [CHAP. XXVIII. 
 
 He that believeth shall not make haste. 
 17 But I will make judgment a line, 
 
 to that of the punctators; but chiefly 
 in conformity with the grammatical 
 law allowed by Gesenius.—j28 is here 
 equivalent to ὋΣ, a rock, or large stone. 
 Both words are applied metaphorically 
 to God, as the refuge and support of 
 his people. Comp. Matt. xvi. 18; 
 Ps. exvili. 22; in which places the 
 
 Syr. has [929 as in the present text. 
 
 172 occurs only here as a noun, but it 
 is used in Pual with the same points, 
 Ezek. xxi. 18 (Eng. 13). The verb pro- 
 perly signifies fo try metals, and is thus 
 synonymous with Pz; but it is also 
 used for trying, or examining in any way. 
 The idea conveyed in this place, is 
 that of adaptation, or fitness, to answer 
 the proposed end: large, compact, strong; 
 ΡΠ, as the Targ. gives it. The stone 
 is itself the subject of trial or proof ; 
 so that the notion of a touch-stone, 
 which some have attempted to intro- 
 duce into the text, is altogether ex- 
 cluded. The words, 151 191 ΠῚ 728, 
 are literally, a@ corner-stone of precious- 
 ness of ὦ well-founded, i. 6. solid, founda- 
 tion; and the meaning is, a costly 
 corner-stone firmly laid as a founda- 
 tion. 138, az angle or corner, from 738, 
 
 to turn; ἃ turning point. Arab. a, 
 
 dus, extremum temporis, pars extremi- 
 
 tasve seculi. It signifies the stone laid 
 at the point where the two sides of a 
 building meet. LXX. ἀκρογωνιαῖον. 
 The term is used Ps. exviii. 22, where 
 m5 Ux should be rendered, the princi- 
 pal corner-stone. Comp. Zech. iv. 7, 
 MON Ἰ2 τ, the principal stone. In both 
 these passages the reference is not to 
 the summit or completion of the 
 edifice, but to its foundation, 7. ὁ. the 
 Messiah :— ὄντος ἀκρογωνιαίου αὐτοῦ 
 ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, Eph. 11. 20. ΠΡ» is not 
 in the absolute state, as Kimchi would 
 have it, but forms, in construction 
 with the following 709, a genitive of 
 object. It otherwise qualifies 725, ex- 
 pressing its intrinsic excellence and 
 value. The Hebrews use ni? 0228 to 
 denote not merely gems or precious 
 stones, but also marble and other 
 
 valuable stones of a large size em- 
 ployed in magnificent . buildings, 1 
 Kings v. 31, (ver. 17, Eng. Ver.) 
 2 Chron. iii. 6. For the sake of 
 greater solidity, stones of immense 
 size were anciently employed as the 
 foundations of temples. Parsons, de- 
 scribing the ruins of one which he 
 visited at Baalbec, mentions a corner- 
 stone that he found, on measuring, to 
 be twenty-eight feet long, six feet six 
 inches wide, and four feet six inches 
 thick. (Letters from Palestine, p.73.) 
 The repetition, 121 15%, is emphatic, 
 and is well expressed by Zwinglius : 
 ad firmissimum fundamentum. For simi- 
 lar instances of substantives followed 
 by verbs of the same root in the 
 Pual participle, see Exod. xii. 9 ; Ps. 
 lxiv. 7; Prov. xxx. 24. wm), Aq., 
 Symm.,and Theod., render, οὐ σπεύσει; 
 Vulg. non festinet ; LUXX. οὐ μὴ καταισ- 
 χυνθῇ, which is quoted literally, 1 Pet. 
 u. 6, and with the trifling variation, 
 οὐ καταισχυνθήσεται, Rom. ix. 333 
 Targ. por xd, shall not be moved ; 
 
 Syr. Saad 2 ii, shall not be afraid. 
 
 The verb ΟἿ primarily signifies ¢o 
 make haste, flee quickly; but, in its 
 secondary or derived senses, may in- 
 clude all the varieties of interpreta- 
 tion here given. Comp. the Arab. 
 
 a . . Sn . . 
 Url, concitavit circumveniens, ut in 
 retia ageret (feram.) V. erubuit. VII. 
 
 territus fugit. eile, res a qua abhor- 
 
 rent homines, cujusque pudet, Ure, 
 terrore perculsus fuit. ners] Ui 
 qui cito conficit opus. ‘The meaning is, 
 that those who believe the Divine de- 
 claration, and thus rest for safety on 
 the foundation here promised, shall 
 feel themselves so perfectly secure, 
 that they shall never have occasion to 
 suspect their confidence ; or, under 
 the impulse of fear and shame, to be- 
 take themselves with speed to another 
 refuge. It is a security which can 
 never fail. 
 
 17. We have in this and the verses 
 
CHAP. XXVIII. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 249 
 
 And righteousness a plumb-line ; 
 And the hail shall sweep away the refuge of falsehood, 
 And the waters shall wash away the hiding-place. 
 
 18 
 
 Yea, your contract with death shall be annulled, 
 
 And your agreement with Sheol shall not stand ; 
 When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, 
 Ye shall be for him to trample upon. 
 
 19 
 
 As often as it passeth through, it shall take you away ; 
 
 For every morning it shall pass through ; 
 
 By day and by night; 
 
 And it shall be a terror only to hear the rumour of it. 
 20 For the bed is too short for one to stretch himself at length, 
 
 immediately following, in striking con- 
 trast with the safety of the righteous 
 just described, the miserable and 
 helpless condition of those who trust 
 in refuges of their own devising. God 
 threatens to adapt his righteous judg- 
 ments so exactly to the circumstances 
 of the impious Jews, that every way 
 of escape should be completely re- 
 moved. 7 occurs only here ; but, 
 from the connexion, as well as from 
 
 the signification of the Arab. shy 
 
 congregavit, et collegit rem, excitavit, 
 extirpavit, it is clearly equivalent to 
 ἮΝ, to gather violently, take away, 
 destroy. Comp. FDY, 7D, PD, all of 
 which have, in common, the idea of 
 scraping, sweeping together ; then that 
 of sweeping away ; hence 75D, a sweep- 
 ing storm, used of the whirlwind. 
 
 Comp. also 9", a shovel; Arab. ust 
 
 repositorium, into which things are 
 collected; and the Eth Φ ὦν: 
 which is, however, limited to the 
 removal or destruction of .any thing 
 by burning. Hail and inundations 
 are frequently used figuratively to 
 denote formidable enemies, or calami- 
 tous events. Chap. viii. 7, 8, xxxii. 
 2,19; Ezek. xiii. 11, 13. 
 
 18. 752, Arab. pe pe» to cover, 
 
 when applied to a covenant or con- 
 tract, properly signifies so to cover 
 the tablet, containing the terms of the 
 agreement, with wax, as completely 
 
 to obliterate the writing, and thus to 
 cancel and render it of no effect. 
 Symm. ἐξαλειφθήσεται. Comp. Colos. 
 ii. 14. Being placed, as the predicate, 
 before the subject, the verb may be 
 in the masculine gender. OD is 
 femin. because it follows the femin. 
 noun. See Ewald, § 567, and Mi- 
 chaelis’ Arab. Gram. § 55, 4. The 
 conjecture of Houbigant, of which 
 Secker and Lowth approve, that the 
 text originally read 75n, is without 
 foundation. The Targum, to which 
 they appeal, does not profess to give 
 the word, but merely its signification. 
 For m7, see on ver. 15. In using the 
 words D212) 1) on, the prophet drops 
 the figure, and describes in plain terms 
 the invading foe, and the destruction 
 which he should effect. 
 
 19. "7, compounded of %, plenty, 
 
 sufficiency. Arab. i 90, medicatus futt, 
 opem tulit ; ol » tacrassuit, multus 
 
 evasit ; and Ὁ, the preposition, is em- 
 ployed to denote correspondent fre- 
 quency : as often as, whenever. 7, only, 
 is to be connected with p2n, and not 
 with 723. Comp. Ps. xxxii. 6. 
 
 20. 2—2, here, and ver. 21, are cor- 
 relative, and causal. vv, 4o make long, 
 stretch out at length. Comp. the Arab. 
 
 ey protendit, spoken of camels 
 stretching out their necks ; duc] we 
 
 camels with long necks ; ie Gy 
 
250 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXVIII. 
 
 And the covering too narrow for one to wrap himself in. 
 
 21 
 
 For Jehovah shall rise up as in Mount Perazim, 
 
 He will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon ; 
 To perform his act, his strange act ; 
 And to execute his work, his unusual work. 
 
 Now, therefore, indulge not in scoffing, 
 
 Lest your bonds be strengthened ; 
 For of a determined devastation I have heard, 
 From the Lord Jehovah of Hosts, concerning all the land. 
 
 23 Give ear, and hear my voice ; 
 
 Attend, and hear my speech. 
 
 hasta longa ; Lene pits The 
 
 language of this verse is in all proba- 
 ‘bility proverbial, and feelingly ex- 
 presses the insufficiency of the means 
 resorted to for defence and comfort. 
 21. The reference is to the histo- 
 rical facts narrated 2 Sam. v. 17—25 ; 
 1 Chron. xiv. 8—17 ; and the meaning 
 is, that the persons spoken of should 
 be treated as were the Philistines by 
 David. The coupling together of the 
 two places here specified, shews that 
 by i222 we are not to understand the 
 Gibeon mentioned Josh. x., but a place 
 of the same name, near the valley of 
 Rephaim. Instead of 533, Gibcon, 
 1 Chron. xiv. 16, we find in 2 Sam. v. 
 25, 22, Geba. As the word properly 
 signifies a fill, it came to be applied 
 to many of the elevated places in 
 Palestine. The strange and unusual 
 conduct ascribed to Jehovah, is his 
 not only punishing the Jews, instead 
 of punishing their enemies, but his 
 punishing them with ἃ severity 
 
 , longus. 
 
 which they had never before expe-. 
 
 rienced. Such the destruction of 
 Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar proved ; 
 and such, in a still more eminent 
 sense, was the character of its destruc- 
 tion by Titus. Contrary to the 
 common usage of the grammar, the 
 adjectives Ἢ and ΤΡῚΣ are placed before 
 their substantives, as chap. liii. 11, 
 “ay paz. The reason seems obviously 
 to be, to give a greater degree of 
 prominence to the ideas conveyed by 
 them, or to render them more em- 
 phatic.. 
 
 22. The prophet directly addresses 
 the scoffers, 2°28, mentioned ver. 
 14, γε, the Hithpal. of y, has a 
 reflexive power, give not yourselves to 
 mockery, indulge not in scoffing. ΝΟ, 
 bond, is here used metaphorically of 
 the punishment inflicted on trans- 
 gressors. By continuing in their 
 wicked and profane courses, they in- 
 cur heavier guilt, and expose them- 
 selves to more fearful destruction. 
 To this destruction, declared in the 
 latter half of the verse to be deter- 
 mined with respect to the whole land, 
 they must inevitably be subject, if 
 they repent not. For 72772) 73, see 
 on chap. x. 23. 
 
 23. This verse is introductory to 
 the following beautiful agricultural 
 parable, in which the prophet teaches, 
 that, in his government of human 
 affairs, in his employment of means 
 for the improvement of mankind, and 
 especially in his appointment of pro- 
 vidential chastisements, Jehovah does 
 not act arbitrarily, or without discri- 
 mination ; but, on the contrary, the 
 methods which he employs are various, 
 in adaptation to the difference of per- 
 sons, times, and circumstances. As 
 the husbandman varies his treatment 
 of the soil, and allots to each species 
 of seed its proper place ; and, after the 
 harvest has been gathered in, uses 
 such instruments as are suitable for 
 separating the ditferent kinds of grain 
 from the straw and the chaff ; so God 
 takes different measures in his treat- 
 ment of men—assigning to them their 
 stations, furnishing them with the 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΥΠΠ. 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 24 Is the ploughman always ploughing in order to sow ? 
 Is he always opening and levelling his ground ? 
 
 25 
 
 When he hath made the surface of it even, 
 
 Doth he not scatter the dill, and cast abroad the cummin, 
 
 And set the wheat in rows, 
 
 The barley in the place marked out for it, 
 
 And the spelt in his border? 
 26 
 He instructeth him. 
 
 means of improvement, and exactly 
 adapting his judgments to their 
 various degrees of guilt. However 
 severe might be the punishment im- 
 pending over the Jewish people, it was 
 not greater than their sins deserved. 
 The immediate design of the parable 
 seems to have been to repel a tacit 
 objection of the scoffers, parallel to 
 that stated 2 Pet. iii. 4. “ Where is 
 the promise of his coming? for since 
 the fathers fell asleep, all things con- 
 tinue as they were from the beginning 
 of the creation.” 
 
 24. 07%, lit. all the day, an idiom 
 for always, continually. See Gen. vi.5 ; 
 Ps. 111. 3; Isa.lxv.5. 71 occurs only, 
 as here, in Piel,.but is obviously used 
 in the acceptation of levelling the 
 ground by harrowing. Comp.the Arab. 
 
 Conj. II. 
 
 rectum fecit ; convenientem aptumque 
 reddidit. 71, a level tract, field, &c. 
 25. TP, a species of cummin, called 
 by the ancients, gith, melanthium, and 
 nigella, from the black colour of the 
 seed. It reaches the height of a cubit, 
 ει has leaves resembling those of a fennel 
 plant, and a blue, poppy-like flower. 
 It corresponds to our dil/, or black 
 cummin, and was used both for food 
 and medicine. Plin. lib. xix. cap. 8, 
 xx. cap. 17 ; Cels. Hierobot. Pars II. 
 p. 70. mv, Talm. mv, @ line, series, 
 
 dw, egualis, rectus fuit ; 
 
 row ; Arab. By» linea struesve una 
 
 lapidum in muro ; signifies the rows in 
 which Oriental husbandmen plant 
 wheat, millet, &c. instead of sowing 
 them, as with us. Thus Jerome, per 
 ordinem ; Zwinglius, serie sua; which 
 is preferable to the rendering, “ prin- 
 
 For his God teacheth him rightly ; 
 
 cipal,’ of our common version, and 
 “in due measure,” which is that of 
 Abenezra, Kimchi, Lowth, and others. 
 7202, used adverbially for 722 Dips, ἐμ 
 the place appointed, i.e. raarked out for 
 it. The root is not found in Heb. but 
 in Chald. j20 signifies fo designate, 
 mark, appoint ; Y2D, a mark, sign. Comp. 
 yo. It thus corresponds to 7H ; and 
 the meaning thus elicited suits the 
 connexion better than the interpre- 
 tation of the LXX., Aq., Theod., 
 and Vulg., according to which, but 
 without other authority, the word 
 signifies mil/e¢t. Our translators have 
 rightly given the signification, but 
 improperly connect it with Mm, from 
 which it differs in gender. 903, spelt, 
 a kind of corn, so called from the shorn 
 or smooth appearance of its ears ; root 
 0D3, ¢o cut or poll the hair; LUXX., Aq., 
 Theod., Symm., ζέα and ὄλυρα. The 
 suffix } in in?a3 has for its antecedent 
 wing, the husbandman; thus corre- 
 sponding to ΠΝ, ver. 24. The mean- 
 ing 1s, iz the border of his field. Hitzig, 
 less properly, refers the suffix to 720). 
 26. As Yo>8 is the nomin. to both 
 verbs, I have, in accordance with the 
 genius of our language, placed it be- 
 fore the former, and employed the 
 pronoun before the latter. In Hebrew 
 poetry the pronoun frequently occurs 
 first. The inference to be deduced 
 from the declaration here made, is 
 not expressed, but left to be drawn 
 by those who are addressed: If God 
 thus instructs the husbandman to 
 vary and adapt his processes accord- 
 ing to the exigency of circumstances, 
 much more may it be expected that 
 He himself will act with due dis- 
 
 _ crimination. 
 
252 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIX. 
 
 27 For the dill is not threshed with the threshing-sledge ; 
 Nor is the wheel of the wain rolled over the cummin ; 
 But the dill is beaten out with a staff, 
 
 And the cummin with a flail. 
 
 28 Bread-corn must be bruised ; 
 
 For he will not always be threshing it ; 
 Nor drive the wheel of his waggon and his horses over it : 
 
 He will not bruise it utterly. 
 29 
 
 This also proceedeth from Jehovah of Hosts, 
 
 Whose plan is admirable, whose wisdom is great. 
 
 27, 28. We have here a description 
 of the different implements used in 
 threshing. The yn, in full, yoy 9, 
 chap. xli. 15, was a kind of sledge 
 drawn by two oxen, in the front of 
 which stood the driver on his knees, 
 or sat on a piece of wood fixed cross- 
 ways on the car. Under this machine 
 were rollers of wood, with sharp 
 stones, or pieces of iron, by which 
 the straw was cut in pieces, and the 
 grain separated from the ears. The 
 m2” was also a car, but differed from 
 the former by its having wheels in- 
 stead of rollers, which, being serrated, 
 produced the same effect, when drawn 
 over the corn. Besides oxen, both 
 horses and asses were employed in 
 drawing these instruments; and, as 
 appears from this passage, horses 
 were made to perform the operation 
 merely by treading out the grain, as 
 they still do in different parts of the 
 East. When the quantity was small, 
 or when more minute kinds of seed 
 were to be threshed out, a flail or 
 switch was used, with which it was 
 beat. See Judg. vi. 11; Ruth ii. 17. 
 on), dread, is used for the corn or 
 wheat of which it is made. Comp. 
 
 the Arab. seb, cibus, edulium, triti- 
 
 cum; Gr. oiros; and see chap. xxx. 
 23. wie is the infinitive of an ob- 
 solete verb, Ix, having the same sig- 
 nification with «7, Some, however, 
 consider it to be an infinitive form of 
 ΟῚ itself; the δὶ being prefixed, after 
 the manner of the Arabic, the analogy 
 of which is preserved in }i78. See 
 Gesenius. The Nun Epenthetic, ex- 
 pressed by the latter Dagesh in 3:77, 
 renders the word emphatic, and shews 
 that it is placed in antithesis with 
 piv, at the beginning of the verse. 
 The practical idea conveyed is, that 
 God mingles mercy with his judg- 
 ments. His design is not to crush 
 his people, but to render them fit 
 for becoming useful subjects of his 
 government; so that when these 
 judgments have answered their end, 
 they shall cease. 
 
 29. Corresponds to ver. 26, but 
 further contains the apodosis, vindi- 
 cating to Jehovah transcendent skill 
 and wisdom. His plans of operation 
 are wonderfully adapted to the ends 
 he has in view, and in all his pro- 
 ceedings the infinite superiority of 
 his understanding is displayed. 57 
 and 327 are Hiphil intransitives. Ὁ 
 
 ---οο.- 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 The speedy enclosure of Jerusalem by the troops of Sennacherib, and the 
 suddenness of their destruction, form the subject with which the prophet 
 here commences, 1—8 ; the stupidity and hypocrisy of the Jews in that 
 
CHAP, XXIX. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 253 
 
 and succeeding ages, and their corresponding punishment, are next 
 described, 9—16 ; and the rest of the chapter is occupied with a prediction 
 respecting the rejection of the Jews, and the vocation of the Gentiles: 
 concluding with a promise of the final conversion of God's ancient people. 
 
 1 Wo to Ariel, to Ariel, 
 
 The city which David besieged ! 
 
 Add ye year to year ; 
 Let the festivals go round! 
 
 1. That by 2x, Ariel, Jerusalem is 
 meant, is agreed on all hands; but 
 there is considerable difference of 
 opinion in regard to the derivation 
 and meaning of the name. Aq. and 
 | Symm., λέων Θεοῦ ; which rendering 
 has been adopted by Dathe, Déder- 
 lein, Eichhorn, Gesenius, Maurer, and 
 Scholz, who consider it as designed to 
 denote the invincible character of the 
 Jewish metropolis. In support of 
 this interpretation an appeal is made 
 to 2 Sam. xxiii. 20, where two heroes 
 are called, 878 δ, ¢wo lions of God. 
 Comp. Ezra viii. 16. And Gesenius 
 adduces in illustration, g\I} yw), cle 
 
 Lion of God, which Mohammed sur- 
 named his uncle Hamzah; the name 
 
 of Ali, the son of Ali Taleb, Awl 
 NES al, the Victorious Lion of God ; 
 and the Persic, |X} Broke of similar 
 
 signification. But, as Jerusalem did 
 not, on the occasion here referred to, 
 sustain an actual siege, and thus give 
 proof of her invincibility, and was 
 afterwards destroyed by the Chalde- 
 ans and Romans, such an appellation 
 seems altogether inappropriate. 1, 
 therefore, prefer the rendering of the 
 Targ., according to which ‘x x has 
 here the same signification as sy, 
 Keri 99x, Ezek. xlii. 15, 16, viz. the 
 hearth or fire-place, i.e. altar of God, 
 on which the burnt sacrifices were 
 offered. This interpretation is ap- 
 proved by the Rabbins, Saad., Lapide, 
 Sanctius, Grotius, Michaelis, Lowth, 
 Rosenmiiller, Hensler, Jenour, and 
 Hitzig. The reference will then be 
 
 to Jerusalem as the centre of the 
 Jewish polity, where alone it was 
 lawful to sacrifice to Jehovah—a view 
 which is corroborated by the mention 
 made of the festivals in the latter 
 part of the verse. For the signifi- 
 cation of hearth, fire-place, attaching 
 
 to “8, comp. the Arab, δ}, focus, ca- 
 
 minus vel ignis, vel accensio ignis, ἧτο. 
 
 from \, IL. ix foco seu camino ac- 
 ay ἡ 
 
 cendit ignem. Comp. also chap. xxxi. 
 9. In 17727 ΠῚ is an ellipsis of Wx 
 and Wy; and m7? is an instance of 
 the construct state being formed with 
 Wx understood, as Job xviii. 21, Dip 
 ox YT ND. For the full form, see Lev. 
 iv. 33; Jer. xxii. 12, Aq., however, 
 renders 727 as a noun, πολίχνη παρεμ- 
 βλήσεως Δαυίδ ; regarding ΠῚ as the 
 usual construct. The LXX. and Vulg. 
 take 737 in its strictly hostile sense, 
 and are followed by most of the 
 modern interpreters; whereas the 
 Targ., Syr., and other versions, ex- 
 hibit that of dwelling as in a resi- 
 dence. The former seems fully borne 
 out by the use of the same verb in 
 ver. 3. Comp. 2 Sam. v. 6—8.—As 
 7 signifies not only a: feast, but also 
 a victim slain and offered on a festival 
 occasion ; and ἨΒ2 signifies fo cut, cut 
 of; our translators have supposed 
 the reference to be to the slaying of 
 sacrifices ; but as 422 nowhere occurs 
 as a sacrificial term, and 75pm is used 
 of the course or return of the seasons, 
 year, &c. 1 Sam. i. 20; Exod. xxxiv. 
 22; it is better to render, »»p7 027, 
 let the festivals go round ; especially as 
 the phrase is parallel with 720 ὃν 72. 
 The language is that of irony; 
 
 1 ἢ 
 
254 
 
 2 Yet I will distress Ariel, 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XXIX. 
 
 And there shall be mourning and sorrow ; 
 And it shall indeed be an Ariel to me. 
 
 3 I will even encamp against thee round about ; 
 And I will beset thee with posts, 
 
 And raise forts against thee. 
 
 4 Depressed, from the ground thou shalt speak, 
 And from the dust shall thy speech be low; 
 
 strongly intimating that the cere- 
 monial observances in which the Jews 
 engaged would not avert the Divine 
 judgments, while their hearts were 
 not right with God. 
 
 2. 727 is here used in the sense 
 of struitening or distressing by siege. 
 m4) TNA form a paronomasia. Comp. 
 Lam. 11. 5. The 3 in δ ΝΘ is the haph 
 veritatis, or intensive : Jerusalem shall 
 indeed be a place of sacrifice to me ; 
 for there I will slay the numerous 
 army of the king of Assyria. The 
 verse, therefore, contains a promise of 
 deliverance, as well as threatenings 
 of punishment; though the former 
 is indefinitely expressed, leaving it 
 to be clearly inferred from ver. 5. 
 
 3, 4. We have in these verses a 
 description of the surrounding army 
 of Sennacherib ; the preparations to 
 be made by the troops for an attack 
 on the city; and the dejection and 
 dismay with which the inhabitants 
 should be seized on perceiving them. 
 What the Assyrians did, Jehovah 
 vindicates to himself, as they were 
 only the instruments which he em- 
 ployed in punishing the Jews. Though 
 the history makes no mention of the 
 construction of any military appa- 
 ratus for attacking Jerusalem, yet, 
 as it is expressly stated that “the 
 king of Assyria sent Tartan, and Rab- 
 saris, and Rabshakeh, from Lachish, 
 to king Hezekiah, with a great host, 
 732 73, against Jerusalem,” 2 Kings 
 xvill. 17; Isa. xxxvi. 2; there cannot 
 be a doubt, that they occupied them- 
 selves with hostile demonstrations 
 while the negotiations were going 
 forward. There is, therefore, no ne- 
 cessity to depart from the threatened 
 attack of Sennacherib, and apply the 
 prophecy to the sieges effected by 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, especially 
 as no intimation whatever is given of 
 the taking of the city, and its con- 
 sequences ; and, as the sudden and 
 complete destruction predicted vers. 
 5—8, was experienced by the Assy- 
 rians alone, chap. xxxvii. 36; and 
 neither by the Chaldzans nor the 
 Romans. The language of our Lord’s 
 prophecy, Luke xix. 43, is parallel 
 with that of Isaiah in the present 
 instance : but this is no reason why 
 both should be referred to the same 
 event. The metaphors are military, 
 and are descriptive of the measures 
 adopted in a regular siege. 7, Arab. 
 
 pe is properly the circle or line of | 
 
 advance, first of all drawn round the | 
 city to be blockaded, though here, 
 with 3, the term is used adverbially. 
 The reading 771, which Houbigant and 
 Lowth approve, is found only in two 
 MSS., and originally in two more ; 
 but has otherwise no suffrage but 
 that of the LXX., and is manifestly 
 an ancient correction from ver. 1. 
 22), from 323, ¢o place, station, denotes 
 the advanced joss, or columns of 
 pioneers ; and the nz were breast- 
 works, palisades, and other means of 
 defence, erected by the besieging 
 party for their protection, and from 
 behind which they annoyed the city. 
 For nz, six of Kennicott and De 
 Rossi’s MSS. read niz9; three more 
 have done so originally, and perhaps 
 two more; but the former is the 
 more appropriate word, in reference 
 to a besieging army. ‘Mz is from Vy, 
 to press, straiten, beset hostilely. For 
 2ix and ADS, see on chap. vill. 19. 
 Such should be the utter dejection of 
 the inhabitants, that they would be 
 able to give expression to their fears 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΙΧ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 259 
 
 Thy voice shall even be as that of a spirit from the ground ; 
 And thy speech shall mutter from the dust. 
 
 5 But the multitude of thine enemies shall be as fine dust, 
 And the multitude of the terrible as the flitting chaff ; 
 It shall also take place suddenly, in a moment. 
 
 6 By Jehovah of Hosts himself thou shalt be visited, 
 With thunder and earthquake, and a loud voice ; 
 
 With storm and tempest, 
 And flames of devouring fire. 
 
 7 And as a dream, or a vision of the night, 
 Shall be the multitude of all the nations, 
 
 That fight against Ariel ; 
 
 Even all who fight against her and her ramparts ; 
 
 » And those who distress her. 
 
 8 It shall even be as when a hungry man dreameth, and behold! 
 
 he eateth ; 
 
 only in feeble and scarcely articulate 
 sounds, resembling those produced 
 by the necromancer or ventriloquist, 
 when personating with his voice the 
 spirit which he pretended to have 
 evoked. Comp. 2 Kings xix. 1—6 ; 
 Isa. xxxvii. 1—6; and see Lowth’s 
 note. 
 
 5. Lowth’s change of 7%, thine ene- 
 mies, into DN, the proud, is altogether 
 unwarranted. “is often used in the 
 sense of 12, an enemy. The LXX., to 
 whom he appeals, render it elsewhere, 
 as here, by ἀσεβὴς, and by ἐχθρὸς ; 
 foreigners being regarded in this light 
 by the Hebrews. ]127, a8 occurring 
 here and ver. 7, denotes the multitude 
 of warriors composing the 72) >, 
 referred to in the preceding note. 
 They are compared to the finest dust, 
 not to point out their number, but to 
 express the ease with which they 
 should be removed from their position. 
 This is further intimated in the fol- 
 lowing member of the parallelism, by 
 their being compared to the light 
 chaff driven away by the wind. np} 
 Dxn, which occurs in the inverse 
 order, Y02) ONNS, chap. xxx. 13, is de- 
 signed emphatically to mark the 
 suddenness with which the Assyrians 
 should be destroyed. 
 
 6. The nomin. to WA is the Assy- 
 
 rian foe, understood. ove, lit. from 
 with, conveys the idea of immediate 
 or miraculous interposition. See chap. 
 vii. 11, viii. 18. No positive inference 
 can be drawn from this verse respect- 
 ing the nature of the phenomena 
 connected with the destruction of the 
 army of Sennacherib—the language 
 being obviously charged with the 
 sublime imagery of prophetic poetry. 
 Comp. Ps. xi. 6; Isa. xxiv. 1, 18, 19, 
 20, xxx. 30, xxxiv. 8—10; and Lowth’s 
 ixth Lect. on Heb. Poetry. 
 
 7, 8. 08372, ὅσο. comprehend all 
 out of the different nations subject to 
 the king of Assyria, who composed the 
 besieging army. ΠΡῸΣ πεῖ", The 
 suffix forms the accusative, as in 737, 
 Ps. li. 6. The point of comparison 
 lies in the entire disappearance of the 
 phantasmata of a night vision. Thus 
 completely should every enemy dis- 
 appear before the morning. 
 
 8. The comparison is here amplified 
 by the prophet, in a manner which 
 Lowth justly characterises as elegant 
 and beautiful in the highest degree, 
 well wrought up, and perfectly suited 
 to the end proposed. Nothing could 
 have more aptly described the eager- 
 ness of the Assyrians to attack Jeru- 
 salem, and the complete disappoint- 
 ment of Sennacherib. The use of 
 
250 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIX. 
 
 But he waketh, and his soul is empty! 
 
 Or, as when a thirsty man dreameth, and behold! he drinketh ; 
 But he waketh, and behold! he is faint, and his soul craveth! 
 Thus shall it be with the multitude of all the nations, 
 
 That fight against Mount Zion. 
 
 9 Delay, and wonder ; 
 
 Take your pleasure, and be blinded. 
 They are drunk, but not with wine ; 
 They stagger, but not with strong drink. 
 10 For Jehovah hath poured upon you a spirit of stupor, 
 
 the same imagery in part by Virgil, 
 En. xii. 908, and Lucret. iv. 1091, is 
 shewn by Lowth; but there is a pecu- 
 liar terseness and simplicity in the 
 language of the prophet, and the 
 triple repetition of the idiomatic 737, 
 behold! greatly increases the effect. 
 The corresponding 7x3 and 72 mark 
 the protasis and apodosis. 
 
 9. Isaiah now turns directly to the 
 unbelieving Jews, and reproves them 
 for their stupidity and false security. 
 The language is that of irony, to ex- 
 press which the more strongly the 
 verbs are put in the concessive and 
 declaratory Imperative. In all proba- 
 bility the prophet was induced thus 
 to complain of his countrymen by the 
 vacant stare and obstinacy discover- 
 able in the countenances of those 
 whom he had just addressed. As the 
 nation enjoyed profound peace, they 
 could give no credit to the predictions 
 of war; and therefore delayed repent- 
 ance, and indulged the more in sin. 
 wmarany, Imp. of mp tn7, the Hithpael 
 of 779, to which it must be referred, 
 though the verb is not used in Kal. 
 The derivation from 2m, which some 
 propose, cannot be sustained; the 
 Imper. in Hithpael of which being 
 
 wmany, Hab, i.5. Comp the Arab. &e, 
 
 Leo; abstine, desine, and kK 4.0» abstinuit, 
 
 destitit, which is employed in reference 
 to the stopping or delaying of camels, 
 horses, &c. Our idiomatic sfd//-I- 
 shall-I corresponds entirely to the 
 Hebrew, both in form and meaning, 
 but is not sufficiently dignified to be 
 adopted into the version, YYw, the 
 
 other verb employed, having two 
 different significations, according as it 
 occurs in the simple or the redupli- 
 cated conjugations, both are here 
 adopted with admirable effect. For 
 the signification of Kal and Hiphil, 
 see chap. vi. 10. In Pilp. and Hithpalp. 
 it has that of delight ; to cause delight ; 
 delight, indulge oneself in pleasure, &c. 
 See Ps. xciv. 19, cxix. 16, 47, 70; Isa. 
 xi. 8. For the peculiar use of the 
 Imperatives, see chap. viii. 9—Having 
 directly addressed his auditors, the 
 prophet proceeds, by the use of the 
 third person of the preterite, to point 
 them out to others, and describes 
 their spiritual stupor by comparing 
 them to persons in a state of intoxica- 
 tion. The more, however, to mark the 
 character of this stupor, he adds, dut 
 not with wine, &c. Comp. chap. li. 21, 
 where the phrase is used in a different 
 sense; and Aschylus, Eumen. 863, 
 ἀοίνοις ἐμμανεῖς θυμώμασι. 
 
 10. This stupefaction is ascribed to 
 the judicial will of God. In punish- 
 ment of their resistance of his truth, 
 he so ordered it in his providence, 
 that the Jews should become the sub- 
 jects of spiritual blindness and insen- 
 sibility. See on chap. vi. 10. ™ 93, 
 a less frequent form for 1 72v. Both 
 verbs convey the ideas of descent 
 from a higher source, and the copious- 
 ness of the supply. The signification 
 of mingling, mixing, given in the Vulg., 
 and that of causing to drink, exhibited 
 in the LXX., are inappropriate, being 
 at variance with the wsus Jloquendt. 
 
 mom, from on, Arab. oy occlusit 
 
 portam vel hiatum; fotum occupavtt ; 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΙΧ.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 257 
 
 And bound up your eyes, the prophets ; 
 And your heads, the seers, hath he covered. 
 
 11 
 book, 
 
 And the whole vision is become to you like the words of a sealed 
 
 Which is delivered to one acquainted with letters, 
 Saying, Read this, I pray thee ; 
 But he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. 
 
 12 Or, the book is delivered to one unacquainted with letters, 
 Saying, Read this, I pray thee ; 
 
 But he saith, I am unacquainted with letters. 
 
 13 Wherefore Jehovah saith, 
 
 Since this people draw near to me with their mouth, 
 
 to throw into a profound sleep or stupor, 
 signifies a state of complete insensi- 
 bility, in which the senses are locked 
 up, and the functions proper to the 
 nervous system almost entirely sus- 
 pended. The term is here used figu- 
 ratively of the suspension of the use 
 of reason, judgment, &c. oxy, in Kal 
 and Piel, signifies to bind fast, make 
 firm; to bind up, shut completely, as the 
 eyes; Chal. DzY, clwusit; comp. Ddx, 
 
 ont; Arab. » prohibuit, servavit, 
 
 defendit ; IV. vineulo loroque constrinzit. 
 The words ΘΟ Στ ny, and O77, Koppe, 
 Eichhorn, Gesenius, Hitzig, and Mau- 
 rer, reject as a gloss; and Hahn, in 
 his 12mo ed. of the Heb. Bib., marks 
 them as doubtful. Zwinglius con- 
 siders them to be an epexegesis. If 
 genuine, they should be differently 
 pointed, and rendered as in the version. 
 According to the present division, nx 
 Dwi3y, should be 02:7 ny}, which is 
 the reading of ftzventy-three MSS. ; has 
 been originally in sz more, and pro- 
 bably in ¢wo or three besides; and is 
 found in the three earliest editions. 
 The LXX. and Syr. also express the 
 Vau. Not only should the Jewish 
 people be blinded, but their teachers 
 and rulers, to whom they naturally 
 looked for guidance, should also labour 
 under gross mental obscurity. Comp. 
 Mait. xv. 14. 
 
 11, 12. 7 nT, lit. the vision of the 
 whole, i.e. all that God has revealed by 
 his servants the prophets—the doc- 
 trines, predictions, promises, threaten- 
 
 ings, &c. These verses teach the 
 moral impossibility of those under- 
 standing Divine revelation whose 
 minds are under the dominion of sin. 
 There was nothing naturally impos- 
 sible in the cases referred to: the 
 person who was skilled in letters had 
 only to break open the seal, and he 
 who was ignorant would only have to 
 learn them; by the application of 
 these means, a knowledge of the 
 document would have been acquired. 
 The point of comparison lies in the 
 disinclination or aversion of the mind. 
 Comp. Dan. xii. 10 ; 2 Cor. iii. 14, 15,16; 
 John vii. 17. In 190", the article is pro- 
 perly omitted by the authors of the Keri. 
 
 13. Instead of "ΣΝ, very many of 
 Kennicott and De Rossi’s MSS. read 
 mm. It is also found in the four 
 oldest printed editions. }~ and 15}, 
 ver. 14, are correlatives. According 
 to the Targ., which is supported by 
 the reading of seventeen MSS. and ¢en 
 printed editions, 32 is to be pointed 
 23, and rendered, “This people are 
 compelled,” i.e. they worship me in- 
 voluntarily ; but the common point- 
 ing and construction are preferable. 
 Supply ὯΝ, and comp. Exod. xxx. 20 ; 
 Jer. xxx. 21. For the form ‘nx onxy, 
 comp. ink ΠΡ, 2 Sam. iii, 11. The 
 verbal noun is used for the Infinitive. 
 Comp. chap. viii. 5. By their fear of 
 God is not meant true piety, but, as we 
 should say, their religion ; nor by “the 
 precepts of men” which they had 
 been taught are we to understand, as 
 Gesenius and some others insinuate, 
 
258 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 And honour me with their lips, 
 But have far removed their heart from me, 
 
 And their fear of me is taught 
 14 
 Wonderfully and wondrously ; 
 Yea, the wisdom of their wise 
 
 by the precept of men: 
 
 Therefore [ will proceed to deal wonderfully with this people, 
 
 shall perish, 
 
 And the prudence of their prudent shall be hid. 
 
 15 
 
 Wo to them that deeply hide their purpose from Jehovah, 
 
 Whose deeds are in the dark, and that say, 
 
 Who seeth us? and, Who kno 
 
 16 O your perverseness ! 
 
 the ritual precepts of the Mosaic law ; 
 but purely human doctrines, injunc- 
 tions, and rites, which their authors 
 and inventors imposed under the 
 pretext of Divine authority. That 
 such existed in the days of Isaiah, 
 there can be no doubt ; and as, from 
 the very nature of the case, they 
 must have accumulated from age 
 to age, till they were swelled to 
 the awful amount which they had 
 reached in the time of our Lord, the 
 language is strikingly descriptive of 
 the character of the great body of 
 the nation during the whole of that 
 period. On this principle we are 
 warranted in interpreting literally the 
 words of Christ, προεφήτευσε περὶ 
 ὑμῶν Ἡσαΐας. Matt. xv. 7,8; Mark 
 vii. 6, 7. While the prophet rebuked 
 his contemporaries, his inspired decla- 
 rations, recorded in the sacred volume, 
 served as a standing rebuke of the 
 evil, and bore preeminently on its 
 fullest development in the religion of 
 the Scribes and Pharisees. The dis- 
 crepancies existing between the Heb. 
 text, and the Greek of the LXX. and 
 the N. T. are trifling, and do not in 
 the least affect the sense of the 
 passage. Mistaking 7m) for wm), the 
 LXX. have translated it μάτην δὲ. 
 mya and m2, though singular, have 
 been taken as collectives, and so ren- 
 dered ἐντάλματα and Sidageuhees 
 
 14, APY is a defective punctuation 
 of the participle PY. See chap. xxxviii. 
 
 5, and note on chap. xxviii. 16. °?57, 
 ἐπ and 28, furnish a marked in- 
 stance of the varied repetition of a 
 word for the sake of energy and effect. 
 
 weth us ? 
 
 See on chap. xxii. 17. The verse con- 
 tains a special prediction of the awful 
 judgment that God would inflict upon 
 the nation by means of the infatuation 
 of their teachers, which the apostle 
 shews to have received its fulfilment 
 in his day, 1 Cor.i.19. So blinded 
 were they, and so completely did they 
 blind the people, that by their re- 
 jection of the true Messiah, and their 
 instigating opposition to the Roman 
 government, they brought about the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, and the 
 final dispersion of the nation. Most 
 commentators, indeed, find only an 
 accommodation of the prophecy in 
 this quotation; but its position, in 
 the present connexion, between the 
 description of the Jewish religion- 
 ists in the days of our Lord, ver. 
 13, and a prediction of the rejection 
 of the Jews, and the calling of the 
 Gentiles, ver. 17, proves that Isaiah 
 and Paul had the same persons in view. 
 The silly and puerile character of Jew- 
 ish or Rabbinical learning, during a 
 period of eighteen centuries, affords a 
 convincing, though melancholy proof of 
 the Divine inspiration of the prophet. 
 
 15. An exact portraiture of the dis- 
 guise and hypocrisy of the Pharisees 
 in the time of our Lord. See Matt. 
 xxiii, 13—33. pry is used adver- 
 bially, as in chap. vii. 11; Jer. xlix. 8, 
 30. The Ὁ in 7 is strictly pre- 
 positional, and not comparative, as 
 Lowth renders it. 
 
 16. 02257. Gcolampadius, perversitas 
 vestra ; Zwinglius, vestra presumptro. 
 O the satan of your depraved and per- 
 verse disposition! What madness to 
 
 [CHAP. XXIX. 
 
-ς 
 
 CHAP. XXIX.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 259 
 
 Shall the potter be regarded as the clay ? 
 Shall the thing made say of its maker, He made me not ? 
 Or the thing formed say of its former, He is unskilful ? 
 
 17 
 
 Is it not yet a very little while, 
 
 And Lebanon shall be converted into a fruitful field, 
 And the fruitful field be deemed a forest ? 
 
 18 
 
 For in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, 
 
 And, freed from obscurity and darkness, the eyes of the blind 
 
 shall see. 
 
 imagine that you can divest yourselves 
 of responsibility to your Maker! The 
 points of similitude are the absolute 
 nothingness of the creature, and the 
 infinite skill and sovereignty of the 
 Creator. Paul employs the same 
 similitude, Rom. ix. 20, but for a 
 different purpose. Comp. Isa, xly. 9. 
 The word is the Kal Infin. used as 
 a noun. Comp. 777, Ps. li. 6. δὲ is 
 simply interrogative ; and its force is 
 carried forward so as to modify the 
 following 3, Js it so that, &c. ? or, asin 
 the translation, Shall the thing made, 
 &c.? Nothing could equal in absur- 
 dity, or in the perversion of every 
 principle of sound reason, the conduct 
 of the impenitent and unbelieving 
 Jews. Instead of p20, the LXX., Syr., 
 Targ., Vulg., and one of De Rossi’s 
 MSS. originally read pin; but the 
 reading of the Textus Receptus is 
 preferable. Some would refer the 
 passage to the subversion of the 
 Jewish state ; but with less propriety, 
 though the conduct here described 
 was the cause of that subversion. 
 
 17. Because 7122) and 23 are here 
 contrasted, the LXX., Targ., Syr., 
 Vulg., Cyril, Zwinglius, Forerius, 
 Brentius, Osiander, Piscator, Schmid., 
 Lowth, Dathe, De Wette, Boothroyd, 
 Jenour, and others, render the latter 
 by Carmel, as if the mountain of that 
 name were meant. On comparing 
 this passage, however, with chap. xxxii. 
 15, it seems much more appropriate 
 to take it as an appellative in 
 the sense of garden or fruitful field. 
 Thus Kimchi, Luther, Gicolampadius, 
 Leo Juda, Michaelis, Rosenmiiller, 
 Gesenius, Hitzig, Scholz, Noyes, &c. 
 The points of comparison are not the 
 barrenness of Lebanon, taken as a 
 
 whole, and the fertility of a plain or 
 open country ; for a great proportion 
 of that mountain is exceedingly fertile, 
 abounding in rich valleys, extensive 
 and well-cultivated fields, productive 
 gardens, &c.; but the forest-district, 
 abounding in cedars, pines, cypresses, 
 and other species of trees. This is 
 evident from the antithesis in the 
 last clause of the verse, in which ™, 
 a forest, corresponds to Lebanon in the 
 former member of the parallelism. 
 The language is figurative, expressing 
 the great revolution to take place at 
 the appearance of the Messiah. The 
 Gentile world, which had produced 
 no fruits of righteousness, but re- 
 sembled the wild and uncultivated 
 regions of Lebanon, should abound in 
 moral fertility and beauty ; while the 
 Jewish church, which had formerly 
 been celebrated as the garden of the 
 Lord, should be reduced to a state of 
 nature, and become like a rudely 
 scattered forest. Comp. chap. xxxii. 
 15, lv. 13 ; and specially for the sub- 
 ject, Matt. xxi. 43 ; Rom. xi. 17—22. 
 18. 18D corresponds to mun, ver. 11. 
 The Ὁ in 78M kD denotes separa- 
 tion, not locality, “freed from obscu- 
 rity,” &c., i.e. no longer in such a state. 
 Most of the commentators are of opi- 
 nion, that the Jews described ver. 10, 
 are here referred to; but the imme- 
 diate context requires the words to be 
 applied to the Gentiles, who had not 
 been favoured with the light of reve- 
 lation; to whom the sacred Scriptures 
 should be delivered in their respective 
 languages ; and who, by the preaching 
 of the gospel, should be turned from 
 darkness to light, and from the power 
 of Satan unto God. See chap. xxxii, 
 3, xxxv. 5, xlii. 7, 16; Eph. iv. 17, 18. 
 
200 
 
 19 
 
 ISAIAH, 
 
 (CHAP. XXIX. 
 
 The aftlicted also shall exceedingly rejoice in Jehovah ; 
 
 And the poor among men shall exult in the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 20 
 The scoffer also is consumed ; 
 
 For the tyrannical is come to nothing ; 
 
 And all that watched for iniquity are cut off : 
 
 21 
 
 That condemned a man in his cause, 
 
 And laid snares for him that decided in the gate, 
 And turned aside the righteous without ground. 
 
 22 
 He that redeemed Abraham ; 
 
 Nevertheless, thus saith Jehovah to the house of Jacob, 
 
 Jacob shall not now be ashamed, 
 Nor shall his face now grow pale. 
 
 19. Comp. chap. lv. 12; Matt. v. 3, 
 xi. 5; James ii. 5. These words apply 
 principally to the Gentiles, though 
 they also include such of the natural 
 seed of Abraham as should submit 
 themselves to the righteousness of 
 God. 
 
 20, 21, contain a prediction of the 
 removal of those rulers and judges 
 who oppressed the people of God; 
 made a mock of true religion; and 
 exercised every species of falsehood 
 and injustice. Such, in a high degree, 
 were the Pharisees and Sadducees 
 towards the close of the Jewish polity ; 
 and on them signally was executed 
 the judgment here threatened. Ἢ 
 78, an unusual phrase, happily chosen 
 for the purpose of marking the atro- 
 cious character of those who ought 
 sedulously to have watched over the 
 best interests of the people, but were 
 awake only for evil. It applies speci- 
 ally to the members of the Sanhedrim. 
 721 is used in a forensic sense, as in 
 Exod. xviii. 16; and ΘΠ is equiva- 
 lent to Ywy. Some interpret the 
 words of seductive conversation ; and 
 others, in conformity with the ren- 
 dering of our common version, of 
 condemning a person for a merely 
 verbal fault; but the judicial sense is 
 supported by what follows. ‘wa m2 
 is descriptive of ὦ judge—the gate or 
 forum being the place where the in- 
 habitants of eastern cities met for 
 business, conversation, &c., and where 
 trials were held. Comp. Amos ν. 10; 
 
 Deut. xxii. 15, xxv. 7; Job v. 4; Prov. 
 xxii. 22. pip is from wip, of the same 
 signification with wp, fo lay snares. 
 win2, comp. wn ὅν, chap. lix. 4, where 
 it is synonymous with x, vanity, 
 
 falsehood, wickedness ; Arab. Li, 80007.8, 
 
 negligens fuit ; SF » vacuus ; cig, se 
 ws, vane res 
 et futiles; LUXX. ἐπ’ ἀδίκοις ; Targ. 
 pwr, in falsitate. It is here equivalent 
 to D7, without cause, undeservedly. 
 
 22. There is a perceptible pause at 
 the close of the preceding verse; and 
 the prophet is here charged to assure 
 the truly pious, who alone were pro- 
 perly entitled to the appellation of 
 “the house of Jacob,”—being the 
 spiritual children of Abraham,—that 
 the immediately impending calamity 
 should be averted. The repetition of 
 MY δ, vot now, is emphatic. Michaelis 
 needlessly stumbles at the phrase, 
 DMN ΠΝ 77, since this verb signifies 
 to preserve, as well as to redeem, and is 
 quite as applicable to Abraham as to 
 Jacob, Gen. xlviii. 16. 7), a ἅπαξ dey. 
 obviously signifying to be white, pallid, 
 
 vy 
 
 Chal. 17, Syr. 3Qae, Arab. 
 
 applicuit ad res vanas ; 
 
 &c., from ὙΠ 
 
 as 3) 
 > to be or become white. Secker and 
 
 Lowth suppose 15™ to have been the 
 original reading, being more commonly 
 used in connexion with wiz; the 
 LXX., however, have μεταβαλεῖ ; the 
 
CHAP. XXX. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 261 
 
 23 But when his children see the work of my hands in their midst, 
 
 They shall hallow my name ; 
 
 Yea, they shall hallow the Holy One of Jacob, 
 And reverence the God of Israel. 
 
 24 Those also who erred in spirit shall know understanding ; 
 And those who were obstinate shall learn doctrine. 
 
 Targ. pam, and this Kimchi and Abul- 
 walid approve. 
 
 23. °2, for Ox 2, But when, ἕο. The 
 ἡ in ink refers to "P TwYD, and is 
 anticipative of it, as in the Aramaic. 
 vi? are the children of Jacob, the Jews, 
 and the nomin. to inX)3, 42973, iz the 
 midst of them, i.e. in the church, wor- 
 shipping the God of their fathers. 
 The work of God’s hands is the καινὴ 
 κτίσις, or New Testament church, 
 consisting for the most part of con- 
 verted Gentiles. It is here predicted 
 that the time would come when the 
 
 sight of so many worshippers of the 
 true God, from among those who had 
 formerly been ignorant of him, should 
 excite the natural posterity of Abra- 
 ham to give glory to his name. Comp. 
 Rom. xi. 11. 
 
 24. The Myr and O22 are the 
 blinded and refractory Jews, who had 
 so long refused to acknowledge the 
 Messiah, but who should at length 
 embrace the doctrines of his gospel. 
 
 For 21, comp. the Arab. wry substitit, 
 
 constitit, commoratus furt. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 This chapter is likewise connected with the invasion of Sennacherib, and was 
 evidently occasioned by attempts that were made to form an alliance with 
 Egypt in order to obtain the aid of that power against the Assyrians. Vers. 
 1—7 contain a description of these attempts, and their failure; which is 
 followed by a severe reproof of those who had originated them, with a 
 denunciation of the Babylonish captivity as the punishment of apostacy 
 from God, 8—17. The prophet then addresses himself to those who put 
 their confidence in Jehovah, and assures them of the restoration of the 
 Divine favour, 18—26; and concludes with a prediction of the overthrow of 
 the Assyrian army, couched in imagery of the boldest and most striking 
 
 character, 27—33. 
 
 1 Wo to the rebellious children, saith Jehovah, 
 Who execute a purpose, but not from me ; 
 
 1. Several commentators think re- 
 ference is here made to the conspiracy 
 of Hosea, king of Samaria, and the 
 embassy which he sent to So, king of 
 
 Egypt, 2 Kings xvii. 4 ; but it is more 
 probable that Isaiah has in view the 
 unbelieving portion of the Jews, resi- 
 dent partly in Jerusalem, and partly 
 
 K K 
 
262 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXX. 
 
 And pour out a libation, but not from my Spirit :— 
 
 Adding sin to sin. 
 
 2 Who set out to go down to Egypt, 
 
 But inquire not at my mouth ; 
 
 Fleeing to the protection of Pharaoh, 
 And taking refuge in the shadow of Egypt. 
 
 co 
 
 But the protection of Pharaoh shall become your shame, 
 
 And your refuge in the shadow of Egypt, your confusion. 
 
 4 For their princes are at Zoan, 
 
 And their ambassadors have reached Hanes. 
 
 or 
 
 They are each ashamed of a people that cannot profit them, 
 
 That are neither for help nor profit, 
 
 in the country, who, unknown to the 
 pious king Hezekiah, and in direct 
 violation of the command of God, had 
 undertaken to procure assistance from 
 Egypt. That such application was 
 known to Sennacherib is evident from 
 the words of Rabshakeh, chap. xxxvi. 
 6,9. nivy), is expletive of oD, the 2 
 before the Infinitives being used to 
 introduce the actions by which the 
 rebellious disposition was manifested. 
 See 1 Sam. xiv. 33; Ps. citi. 20. my πῶν 
 means not fo form, but to execute a 
 purpose. As this was to be done in 
 Egypt, the prophet scruples not to in- 
 troduce the party as pouring out a 
 libation—a pagan custom employed 
 on the conclusion of a treaty of alli- 
 ance between two nations ; hence the 
 name σπονδὴ given to such a league 
 by the Greeks. As 902 signifies both 
 to pour out, and to weave, hedge in, pro- 
 tect, some prefer the latter idea, which 
 is that adopted in our common version; 
 but the former is more appropriate, 
 and is that expressed in the LXX., 
 
 > 2 
 ἐποιήσατε συνθήκας, and the Syr., 
 mm ox ay 
 
 f2c01 Qs03. Before ὙΠῸ supply 7, 
 from the preceding. By 1, is here 
 meant, as frequently, the Spirit of 
 God speaking through his servants the 
 prophets. The refractory Jews had 
 not consulted these infallible interpre- 
 ters of the Divine will. This is fur- 
 ther explained in the following verse. 
 Comp. for M7» xt, Josh. ix. 14. Be- 
 fore mentioning the embassy that had 
 been sent to Egypt, the prophet, in 
 
 this verse, anticipates its fruitless 
 result, and directs his address point- 
 edly to those who had sent it. In 
 such prolepsis, of which several ex- 
 amples occur in Scripture, there is 
 much force. 
 
 4, For yw, Tanis, see chap. xix. 11. 
 As 037, instead of 037, is found in six 
 MSS., and has probably been in a 
 number more, and is the reading ex- 
 pressed in the LXX. and Syr., some 
 have supposed that the passage should 
 be rendered, “have reached it,” 7. 6. 
 Tanis, “¢o xo purpose ;°’ but the paral- 
 lelism absolutely requires the name of 
 a place, which the Targ. supplies, ren- 
 dering the word omETA, Zahpanhes, or 
 Daphne. This interpretation Cham- 
 pollion is inclined to adopt, regarding 
 Das merely an abbreviation; but the 
 place meant is in all probability Hines, 
 
 or FP nes, cNEC, ες ΗΟ, Ube, 
 
 of Edrisi, Heracleopolis, a large city of 
 Middle Egypt, and the capital of the 
 Heracleopolitan Nome. Gesenius and 
 Winer accede to the opinion of Vi- 
 tringa, that it is the city of ”Avvots, 
 mentioned by Herodotus, ii. 137. The 
 suffix Ὁ refers to the rebellious party, 
 understood. 
 
 5. wei, according to the points, 
 should be w21n, without 8, which is the 
 reading of eleven of Kennicott and 
 De Rossi's MSS.; has been in five 
 more originally ; two have it in the 
 margin ; and several note the δὶ as re- 
 dundant. The preposition ° marks 
 the foundation of the disappointment ; 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΧ.] 
 
 ἸΞΑΙΔΗ. 
 
 263 
 
 But for a shame and also a reproach. 
 6 THE SENTENCE OF THE BEASTS OF THE SOUTH. 
 Through a land of distress and difficulty, 
 Whence come the lioness and the fierce lion, 
 The viper and the fiery flying serpent, 
 On the shoulders of young asses they carry their wealth, 
 And their treasures on the bunches of camels, 
 To a people that shall not profit them. 
 7 For vapour and emptiness shall be the help of Egypt. 
 
 or, aS we should say, its source. 33 
 has, in such connexion, all the force of 
 ΝΞ The latter, by emendation, is 
 the reading of four of Kennicott’s 
 MSS. 
 
 6, 7. That 222 nioma kw forms the 
 inscription to what immediately fol- 
 lows in these two verses, seems incon- 
 trovertible ; but that they were inser- 
 ted by a later hand, as Gesenius and 
 Hitzig assert, is highly improbable. 
 As the prophet was commanded, ver. 
 8, both to write the oracle on a tablet, 
 and inscribe it in a book, it is obvious 
 that the former, being for public ex- 
 hibition, must have had an inscription 
 prefixed to it at the time, than which 
 none could have been more appropriate 
 than that here given. The “ beasts of 
 the south” are not those mentioned 
 immediately after, which are merely 
 introduced for the purpose of describ- 
 ing the desert, but the “ young asses ” 
 and “camels,” on which the present 
 or subsidy was conveyed to Egypt. 
 133, south, may either mark their des- 
 tination, or the desert to the south of 
 Palestine, through which they passed 
 on their way thither. The former 
 seems the more appropriate. Geniti- 
 vus hic est objecti, sive cause _finalis. 
 Rosenm. Of the existence of the lion 
 in the deserts of Arabia, see Diod. Sic. 
 11. 20; Hasselquist’s Travels, p. 563. 
 ὉΠ is an enallage of number, instead 
 of 7292; just as D7, in the 7th ver., 
 stands for '7; LXX., ἐκεῖθεν. For the 
 description of the desert, comp. Deut. 
 1.19, viii. 15; and for FpIva Mw, the 
 note on chap. xiv. 29. yay, Arab. 
 
 cl, vipera; from gla, iratus, spu- 
 
 mans; UXX. ἀσπίδες. For ony, a 
 
 number of MSS., and several printed 
 editions, support the Keri ΘΝ ; and 
 twenty-eight MSS., and seven others 
 corrected, together with an ancient 
 printed Bible, read o7>n, instead of 
 oro; LXX. τὸν πλοῦτον. For this 
 use of 07, as the suffix, instead of 
 Ὁ after a singular noun, see Ezek. 
 vii. 11. mw23 occurs only in this 
 place, and is of uncertain derivation. 
 
 The most probable is the Arab. Utes 
 
 supellex domestica vilior ; 1t being, as it 
 were, the furniture of the camel. That 
 the hunch, or hump, of that animal is 
 meant, there can be no doubt. It is 
 of the shape of a pyramid, and some- 
 times of such a size as to occupy at 
 its base nearly the entire back of the 
 animal. The words ni ἘΠ ΠῚ have 
 greatly perplexed interpreters. Those 
 who approve of our common render- 
 ing, Their strength is to sit still, consider 
 them as designed to teach that the 
 true strength and security of the 
 Jews consisted in the exercise of quiet 
 and patient confidence in God, assured 
 that he would deliver them in his own 
 way. To justify such rendering, how- 
 ever, the first two words must be joined, 
 D771, and comp. above in O77. But 
 against this construction of the pas- 
 sage there lie two objections. First, 
 the pronominal suffix could not with 
 propriety be referred to any antece- 
 dent, but O79, at the beginning of 
 the verse. Secondly, the noun 3 
 never oecurs with the acceptation, 
 strength, but always signifies pride, in- 
 
 solence, rage, from 34, Syr. a5, 
 
 tumultuatus est, to rage, act proudly, or 
 insolently. 3, Ps. xc. 10, means pride 
 
264 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXX. 
 
 Therefore I have called her, RAHAB THE INACTIVE. 
 8 Now come, write it on a tablet before them, 
 
 And inscribe it in a book; 
 
 That it may be for future days, 
 
 A testimony for ever. 
 
 9 For they are a rebellious people; lying children; 
 Children that will not hear the law of Jehovah. 
 
 10 
 
 Who say to the seers, See not; 
 
 And to those who have visions, Give us not right visions ; 
 
 Speak smooth things to us; 
 Give us delusive visions. 
 Turn aside from the way ; 
 Decline from the path ; 
 
 11 
 
 Cause to cease from our presence the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 12 
 
 Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: 
 
 Since ye have rejected this word, 
 And trusted in oppression and perverseness ; 
 And staid yourselves upon them : 
 
 or doast, and not real strength. On the 
 other hand, that it is here used as the 
 poetical name of Egypt, seems most 
 natural. Comp. Ps. lxxxvil. 4, [xxxix. 
 10 (Hebr. 11); Isa. li.9. This name 
 appears to have been given to her by 
 the Hebrews, not in imitation of any 
 native Egyptian word, but in reference 
 to her insolent treatment of the people 
 of God. The prophet shews that 
 though, in her pride, she might blus- 
 ter and boast of her prowess, and pro- 
 mise to employ it in behalf of the 
 Jews, she would nevertheless remain 
 quietly at home, and leave them to 
 their fate. “ Fando et promittendo, 
 non agendo opemve ferendo.”’ Kocher. 
 The rendering of Déoderlein, Rahab 
 quiescens ; and that of Lowth, Rahab 
 the Inactive; express the sense, and 
 are approved in the main by more 
 recent translators, though they disap- 
 prove of the proposed alteration of 
 ni OF into NawaT, ΓΞ ΘΠ, or such like. 
 nt refers to Egypt as yx, ὦ country, 
 and ἘΠ᾿ to the Egyptians, as its inha- 
 bitants. 20 may either be the Kal 
 Infin. of 2%, ¢o sit, sit still, remain in 
 one’s place, or a segolate noun from 
 nM, to rest, cease from labour, be inactive. 
 
 Its abstract or indefinite form adds to 
 the force of the idea. 
 
 8. Gesenius, Hitzig, and Scholz, are 
 of opinion that the same action is here 
 commanded under different forms ; 
 but Rosenmiiller and Maurer justly 
 contend for two distinct acts—the in- 
 scription of the sentence on a tablet, 
 for public exhibition, and immediate 
 use ; and its insertion in a book, for a 
 perpetual testimony. O58, with them, 
 in their presence, Jefore them. Comp. 
 Gen. v. 24. For 192, for ever, read 7¥, 
 jor a testimony. Thus the Targ., Syr., 
 and Vulg.; and the LXX. in some 
 MSS. Comp. Deut. xxxi. 19, 21, 26. 
 
 9—11. 1x, they say, i.e. practically, 
 or in effect. It is the wish of their 
 hearts. 4732 and nin are contraries. 
 The latter word is derived from 7 ; 
 
 Arab. is, decepit, to act falsely, 
 
 deceive. They delighted in falsehood, 
 and wished to be freed from every 
 restraint. Comp. 1 Kings xxii. 8; 
 Iliad, i. 106. ὙΠ and Mk are the way 
 or path of duty ; the course of life 
 acceptable to God; true religion. 
 Comp. chap. 11. 3, οὐ /req. 
 
 12. 12, the Niph. Part. of ἢ", fo 
 
CHAP. XXX. ἢ 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 265 
 
 13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you, 
 Like a breach ready to fall, bulging out in a high wall, 
 Whose smash cometh suddenly, in an instant. 
 
 14 Its smash is like the smashing 
 
 of a potter’s vessel, 
 
 Which he breaketh in pieces, and spareth not ; 
 
 Among whose fragments there 
 
 is not found a sherd, 
 
 With which to take up fire from the hearth, 
 
 Or skim off water from a pool. 
 ite 
 
 For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel: 
 
 By conversion and by quietness ye shall be saved, 
 In tranquillity and confidence shall be your strength ; 
 
 But ye would not: 
 16 
 Therefore ye shall flee: 
 
 But said, No! we will flee upon horses ; 
 
 And, Upon swift coursers will we ride ; 
 Therefore your pursuers shall be swift. 
 
 ΤΠ 
 At the menace of five shall ye 
 
 ἐδ 
 
 hend, turn aside. It is used substan- 
 tively to denote perverseness, apostacy. 
 
 13. “This iniquity,’ means the in- 
 fidelity of the Jews developed in the 
 language of the preceding verses, and 
 their application to Egypt for aid. 
 52) p28, a rupture in a wall, in conse- 
 quence of which it is on the point of 
 falling ; or, more properly, the piece 
 forming one side of the breach or rent. 
 As the Orientals most frequently 
 constructed their walls of clay, or soft 
 brick, dried in the sun, they are ex- 
 tremely liable to rend, and be washed 
 down by rain. Comp. Ps. lxi. 3. Hit- 
 zig fails in his attempt to make ΥΞ 
 signify atorrent. The following clause 
 is inserted per epangrthosin, more fully 
 to express the danger. 
 
 14, ™2v, the Masoretes point as a 
 verb, πλῷ, frangit eam; but the LXX. 
 and Targ. more properly read 713%, ifs 
 breach, as at the close of the preceding 
 verse. nmin3 is the Infin. of descrip- 
 
 tion. FT, Arab. dunt, demersus fuit; 
 IV. invenit puteum ; to remove the sur- 
 face, or upper part of any thing ; to 
 draw water by skimming tt, 80 as not to 
 take up any of the sand or mud at the 
 
 A thousand at the menace of one, 
 
 flee ; 
 
 bottom. The meaning is, that, in 
 punishment of their apostacy from 
 God, the Jews should, as it respected 
 their public affairs, experience a com- 
 plete overthrow—a calamity which 
 was inflicted when Jerusalem was de- 
 stroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. 
 
 15, 16. They had been called to re- 
 nounce their false confidence, and 
 make Jehovah the object of their 
 trust, waiting quietly for his deliver- 
 ing mercy, and finding their true 
 strength in such exercise; but they 
 refused to listen, were determined to 
 pursue their own plan, and reaped the 
 disastrous consequences. The riding 
 upon horses refers to the Egyptian 
 cavalry, which they expected would 
 be sent for their deliverance, and not 
 to ἱπποτυφία, of which Gesenius ex- 
 plains it. Comp. chap. xxxi. 1; Jer. 
 xlvi. 4. In Ὁ, 013, and pour, and %, 
 DP, are elegant paronomasias. 
 
 17. Gesenius thinks the conjecture 
 of Lowth probable, according to which 
 722) has been dropped out of the text; 
 but whatever apparent force there may 
 be in the supposition that the LXX. 
 mistook that word for 021, and so 
 rendered πολλοὶ, as also that there is 
 
266 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. “XXX. 
 
 Till ye be left as a pole on the summit of a mountain 
 δ ᾽ 
 
 Or as a banner upon a hill. 
 
 18 Nevertheless Jehovah will wait to show you favour, 
 And he will arise to be merciful to you; 
 For Jehovah is a God of justice: 
 Blessed are all they that wait for him. 
 
 Thou shalt not always weep ; 
 
 Surely, the people of Zion shall dwell in Jerusalem ; 
 
 He will surely show thee favour at the voice of thy ery ; 
 When he heareth it, he will answer thee. 
 20 ‘Though Jehovah give you the bread of distress, and the water 
 
 of affliction, 
 
 a designed imitation of Lev. xxvi. 8; 
 Deut. xxx. 30; I agree with Hitzig 
 and Scholz in the opinion that such a 
 supplement would disturb the con- 
 nexion of the words DAMNi7ON Ty DIN, 
 and weaken, rather’ than strengthen 
 the sense. “Quin tandem aliquando 
 suze sibi vie certum Vatem ire si- 
 nentes nostros errores corrigimus ?” 
 Kocher. 
 
 18. The last words of this verse 
 shew that it is not a continuation of 
 the threatening, but contains a pro- 
 mise of mercy. ΒΟ is, therefore, to 
 be taken in the strict sense of rec¢i- 
 tude, and not in that of punishment. 
 However severe might be the casti- 
 gation to which the Jews should be 
 subjected, it would not exceed the 
 bounds of justice. God would not 
 lay upon them more than was meet. 
 om, Houbigant, Lowth, and others, 
 alter into D)?, without sufficient autho- 
 rity. Equally unauthorized is the 
 attempt of Gesenius to elicit from 
 Dm the meaning of remaining on high, 
 not coming down to the help of his 
 people ; though he has the example 
 of Jarchi and Salomon ben Melech, 
 who render it pm, he will keep himself 
 at a distance. It is obviously parallel 
 with 72”, a verb which is never used 
 in the sense of forbearing to do any 
 thing, but always in that of waiting 
 for, desiring an opportunity, &e. The 
 construction also of both verbs with 
 the 5 of the Infinitives following, 
 indicates inclination towards the per- 
 formance of the actions which they 
 
 express. The point of the sentiment 
 lies in the peculiar use of 737; it 
 being always elsewhere employed in 
 reference to man and not to God. 
 Instead of the Jews being permitted 
 to wait for pity from Jehovah, he 
 would, in great condescension, wait 
 for them, that he might exercise that 
 pity. 0 is here used in the simple 
 acceptation of rising, as Ps. xxi. 14, 
 and is thus equivalent to 097, which is 
 frequently applied to the interposition 
 of God in behalf of his people. 
 
 From this verse to the 26th in- 
 clusive, we have a full and particular 
 prophecy relative to the blessings to 
 be enjoyed by the Jews at the termi- 
 nation of the captivity in Babylon. 
 
 19. The LXX. improperly supply 
 wip after Ov.—jr¥a2 OY stands for js OY ; 
 only the 1 expresses more strongly 
 the relation of the Jews to Zion, as 
 their native home. See on chap. xxi. 
 13, and comp. 1 Kings xvi. 24, and 
 2 Kings v. 23. The prophet views 
 them in a state of banishment, but 
 predicts their return. In im, the 
 vowels are transposed for Tn For 
 the same transposition, see Gen, xliii. 
 29. 
 
 20. The ) in 752) is not copulative, 
 but concessive. 0 has here retained 
 the form of the absolute, instead of 
 being put in the construct. Comp. 
 Ezek. xlvii. 4. The bread and water 
 of affliction, &c. are such small quan- 
 tities, as can with difficulty be ob- 
 tained in times of extreme distress. 
 Ὑπὸ, fo press, squeeze, oppress. Arab. 
 
CHAM. 50x: | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 Yet thy teachers shall no longer hide themselves, 
 But thine eyes shall see thy teachers ; 
 
 21 
 
 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying: 
 
 This is the way, walk ye in it: 
 When ye turn to the right, or to the left. 
 
 22 
 images ; 
 
 And ye shall treat as defiled the silver coverings of your graven 
 
 And the golden attire of your molten images ; 
 Thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth: 
 Thou shalt say to them: Begone! 
 
 23 
 
 Then he will give rain to thy seed, 
 
 With which thou shalt sow the ground ; 
 And the bread-corn, the produce of the ground, shall also be 
 
 rich and plenteous : 
 
 « In that day shall thy cattle feed in large pasturage. 
 
 ues Conj. II. ix angustias redegit, 
 pressit ; ᾿Ξ importunus pressit aliquem ; 
 
 joie , angusti@. *3, a ἅπαξ dey. but 
 obviously signifying fo cover, hide, &c. 
 Arab. passe custodivit rem, and in 
 Conjugations II. V. and VIII. cireun- 
 
 dedit, cinzit. Hence, 33, a wing; ον, 
 Feng » tutela, protectio. 'The Niph. is 
 
 to be taken not as a passive, but as 
 a reflexive ; and indicates that the 
 Jewish teachers would no longer hide 
 themselves, or seek protection in 
 secret from their persecutors, but 
 discharge the duties of their office 
 publicly without molestation, in their 
 own land. 9H, “ thy teachers,” Mun- 
 ster, Calvin, and Lowth, render, “the 
 timely rain:” a signification which 
 the word sometimes has, but which 
 ill accords with the connexion,—the 
 following verse shewing that instruc- 
 tion and not rain is meant. Comp. 
 Ps. lxxiv.9. Four or five MSS. read 
 ΤΠ ; evidently by correction, with 
 a view to make the word agree with 
 the singular of the verb. 
 
 21. Their teachers were to be before 
 them; but when they declined from 
 the right way, their backs would be 
 
 turned to them, consequently, the 
 warning voice would be heard behind 
 them. The first and last clauses of 
 the verse closely cohere. ἸΌΝ stands 
 for 17"; the & being used for the ’, 
 just as, on the contrary, the Syriac 
 
 ~ 9 
 has ewan though derived from 
 Ν 
 
 sc], 
 
 22, xo, fo treat as polluted, by de- 
 stroying. See Deut. vii. 25 ; 2 Kings 
 Xxill. 8—16. 75x, properly an ephod, 
 or garment, the femin. of 28; but 
 here, as parallel with “5, it signifies 
 a covering or plating over the body of 
 an image. It was commonly of silver 
 or gold; hence the περίχρυσα and 
 περιάργυρα, mentioned in the Epist. 
 of Jeremiah, ver. 38. The bodies of 
 the images were frequently of no 
 value—consisting merely of stone or 
 wood ; but they were richly adorned 
 with vestments of the above metals. 
 The Ὁ in Oy refers to the gold and 
 silver platings before mentioned. The 
 Jews, convinced of the abominable 
 evil of idolatry, would cast away their 
 idols with feelings of utter disgust. 
 
 23—25. Promises of temporal pros- 
 perity after the return from Babylon. 
 Seasonable rain, plentiful crops, and 
 rich pasture, would every where 
 abound. yu, rain of seed, means 
 
208 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXX. 
 
 24 'The oxen also, and the young asses, that till the ground, 
 
 Shall eat salted provender, 
 
 Which has been winnowed with the shovel and the fan. 
 
 25 
 
 And upon every high mountain and every elevated hill, 
 
 Shall be rills and streams of water, 
 In the day of the great slaughter, 
 
 At the falling of the towers. 
 26 
 
 Then shall the light of the moon be as the light of the sun, 
 
 And the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, 
 
 As the light of seven days: 
 
 In the day when Jehovah bindeth up the breach of his people, 
 And healeth the wound of their stroke. 
 
 the rain necessary to make it grow. 
 2d) poI, two synonymes used for the 
 sake of intensity. Instead of #379, 
 forty-one MSS., originally six more, 
 the Sonc., Brix., and Complut. edi- 
 tions, and the Vulg. read 72372; but 
 the former may also be taken as a 
 singular. See Gesen. Heb. Gram. § 90, 
 9. 72, properly a lamb, as chap. xvi. 
 1, but here employed metonym. for 
 pasture in which lambs feed. Comp. 
 Ps. Ixv. 14. Root, 193, fo dance, frish. 
 Not only would there be abundance 
 of grass in the mountainous districts ; 
 but there would also be such plenty 
 of grain, as to admit of the cattle 
 being fed with it. por ™3, farrago 
 subacida, i.e. provender mixed up of 
 various kinds of grain, and sprinkled 
 with salt, so as to give it a higher 
 relish. Instead of salt, sour herbs 
 were sometimes used. Comp. the 
 
 Arab. (»5.5-» salsa et amara planta ; 
 Use» depastus fuit (camelus) amaram 
 
 et salsam plantam. Conj. IV. acidam 
 reddidit ; edendam dedit camelo plantam, 
 
 Use> The animals are so fond of 
 
 it, that the Arabs have a proverb: 
 “Sweet provender is the food of the 
 camels; salted provender their des- 
 sert.” ™2, a winnowing shovel or fan, 
 used in the East for separating the 
 chaff from the grain. The synony- 
 mous nM is derived from ™™, and 
 describes the instrument as exposing 
 the grain to the influence of the 
 
 wind. 07329, fowers, the Targ. under- 
 stands figuratively, 212), “the Great.” 
 Thus also Aquila, μεγαλυνομένους, and 
 Symm., μεγάλους, and rightly. See 
 chap. ii. 15. The king of Babylon 
 and his nobles are meant, who were 
 slain on the capture of that city by 
 Cyrus. 
 
 26. The prophet here finishes, by a 
 noble climax, his description of the 
 great prosperity restored to the Jews. 
 While every thing on the earth was 
 calculated to inspire them with joy, 
 the heavens above presented the most 
 exhilarating appearance. The light of 
 the moon admitted of comparison 
 with that of the sun; but as there 
 was no brighter luminary with which 
 to compare that of the latter, it is 
 multiplied in degree seven times, to 
 express its abundance. zh? is used, 
 as frequently, to denote prosperity 
 and joy. 72257 and m7, the poetical 
 names of the moon and the sun, 
 heighten the effect. The words, ὙΝ3 
 oT ny, are omitted in most copies 
 of the LXX. and in the Itala. On 
 this ground, and on that of an inter- 
 ruption of the rhythm, Lowth, Gesen- 
 ius, Hitzig, Rosenmiiller, and Scholz, 
 reject them as an explanatory gloss. 
 These reasons, however, do not war- 
 rant our expunging them from the 
 text. They are in all the Heb. MSS., 
 and in all the other versions except 
 the Arabic, which slavishly follows 
 the LXX. The Hexap. Syriac reads : 
 
 {Sras pas [oo Ladcs> σιῤσιο2ο. 
 
CHAP. XxXx.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 269 
 
 27 Behold! the Name of Jehovah cometh from afar, 
 His anger burneth, and dense is the smoke ; 
 His lips are full of indignation, 
 And his tongue is like devouring fire. 
 
 His breath also is like an overflowing torrent, 
 
 That reacheth to the very neck ; 
 He will sift the nations in the sieve of vanity ; 
 And a bridle that leadeth astray shall be upon the cheeks of 
 
 the people. 
 29. 
 
 Ye shall have singing as in the night of celebrating the feast, 
 
 And joy of heart, like his who marcheth to the pipe, 
 Going to the mountain of Jehovah, to the Rock of Israel. 
 
 Nor can much stress be laid on the 
 rhythmical construction. Their in- 
 sertion is rather in the style of Isaiah 
 than otherwise.—The 120, breach, is 
 that described ver. 14. 
 
 27. Isaiah now returns to the As- 
 syrian invasion, and predicts the 
 awful catastrophe, historically de- 
 scribed chap. xxxvii. 36. Tim DW, Jeho- 
 vah himself interposing in a miraculous 
 manner ; DY, vame, being used to de- 
 note that by which any one is known 
 to be what he really is. Others con- 
 sider an illustrious display of the 
 Divine glory to be meant. Grotius: 
 “Deus omni laude  dignissimus.” 
 Zwinglius : “ Nomen Domini pro ejus 
 Maiestate ac potentia capi, vulgare est 
 in scripturis.” ΡΙΤΥΘΌ, some take in a 
 temporal sense, long ago; but after 
 verbs of coming it always refers to 
 place. God is said to be at a distance 
 from persons, when he has withdrawn 
 from them the sensible tokens of 
 his favour. It was thus with the 
 Jews, at the period here described ; 
 but Jehovah would suddenly return 
 for their deliverance at the moment 
 of their extremity. “Nw, smoke, from 
 Nw, fo rise, gO up as flame, smoke, Kc. 
 Comp. Judges xx. 38, 40. The lan- 
 guage of this and the following verse 
 is highly anthropopathic. Comp. Ps. 
 XViii. 
 
 28, am war, shall divide to the 
 neck, i.e. reaching so high as to leave 
 only the head above the water, and 
 thus, in appearance, dividing it from 
 the body. The figure expresses ex- 
 
 treme danger. 72272 is a Chaldee 
 form of the Infinitive, with its future 
 signification, for 729). It seems pur- 
 posely chosen to correspond in sound 
 with the following 52. Comp. for, 
 the image, chap. xli. 16. By “the 
 sieve of vanity” is meant that which 
 would completely separate, scatter, 
 and so reduce to nothing. Yn 7D), 
 ὦ bit or bridle that causeth to wander ; 
 1.6. Which leads out of the road, and 
 draws into destruction. Comp. chap. 
 XXXVili. 29. 
 
 29. Great should be the exultation 
 of the Jews at the destruction of the 
 Assyrians. The prophet compares it 
 with that which they indulged in at 
 the celebration of the passover, and 
 that of the travelling companies 
 which came up to keep the annual 
 festivals at Jerusalem. 27 is used 
 here κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν, like ἡ ἑορτὴ in the 
 N. T. of the paschal feast. This fes- 
 tival was celebrated af night, Exod. 
 xl. 42; and its celebration partly 
 consisted in songs commemorative of 
 delivering mercy, or the great Hailel, 
 comprising the exiiith and four fol- 
 lowing Psalms, Matt. xxvi. 30. For 
 the joy of those going up in caravans 
 to the holy city, and anticipating the 
 privileges to be there enjoyed, see Ps. 
 Ixxxiv. exxii. It would appear, from 
 the present text, that they employed 
 musical instruments to cheer them on 
 their way. For 23, three of the ear- 
 liest editions read %23,—a change by 
 no means unusual. 
 
270 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXX. 
 
 30 For Jehovah shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, 
 And make visible the descent of his arm, 
 With furious anger, and a flame of devouring fire, 
 A flood, a rushing storm, and hailstones. 
 
 31 
 
 Verily, by the voice of Jehovah shall Assyria be broken, 
 
 He shall smite him with the rod. 
 
 32 
 
 And every stroke of the appointed rod 
 
 Which Jehovah shall lay upon him, 
 
 Shall be accompanied with tabrets and harps ; 
 
 And with tumultuous battles shall he fight against him. . 
 33 For long ago hath Tophet been prepared ; 
 
 30. When no words or articulate 
 sounds are mentioned as accompany- 
 ing “the voice of Jehovah,” it signi- 
 fies thunder. See Ps. xxix. The phrase, 
 however, in this place is figurative. 
 For vit nt, comp, 2 mmm, Ps. xxxviil. 
 3. Both phrases express the coming 
 down and resting of Divine chastise- 
 ment or punishment on any one. 
 nm] may here most naturally be re- 
 ferred to the root, ΠΤ, signifying ¢o 
 descend : as occurring ver. 15, it is to 
 be derived from ™:, ¢o rest, remain 
 tranquil, as Od from md. As none of 
 the collated MSS. and πὸ printed 
 edition before that of Van der Hooght 
 reads Yx for 7X, it must be regarded as 
 a typographical error. See De Rossi. 
 
 31, 32. v2} and ΠΘῸ are combined 
 in the prophet’s usual style. The 
 nomin. to 72 is M7, not Wx, Comp. 
 chap. xxxvil. 36. 299, lit. pass, and 
 nearly in the acceptation of this 
 English term, as used to denote a 
 push, or thrust in fencing. I have 
 rendered it s¢roke,—this being what is 
 effected by causing a rod or staff to 
 pass on a person by way of punish- 
 ment. Wo ΠΡΌ, the rod of appoint- 
 ment, from o:, to found, establish, 
 ordain, means the chastisement which 
 God had purposed to inflict on the As- 
 syrians. Comp. Hab. i. 12. Lowth’s 
 change of 770%) into ™o%, correction, 
 is equally unwarranted and unneces- 
 sary. Jarchi, Vitringa, Hocheisel, 
 Rosenmiiller, and Jenour, suppose the 
 Assyrian power itself to be intended 
 by the staff here mentioned, on the 
 ground of its being so called, chap. x. 
 
 5, 15, 24; but the above construction 
 better suits the connexion.—The 
 tabrets and harps are those of the 
 Jews rejoicing at the discomfiture of 
 their enemy. Comp. ver. 29. nian 
 is in the plural, for the sake of in- 
 tensity. For 73, iz her, i.e. Assyria ; 
 the Keri, which reads 03, in them, i.e. 
 the Assyrians, is supported by the 
 textual lection of forty-four MSS., 
 originally nineteen others, and pro- 
 bably a few more ; and by the Sonc., 
 Brix., and Complut. Editions, the 
 Targ. and the Vulg. The 7 has most 
 probably arisen from a mistake in 
 reading the final Ὁ, 12 would otherwise 
 be the correct gender. 
 
 33. Sons was employed by the He- 
 brews, not merely to express yesterday, 
 strictly taken, but past time inde- 
 finitely. Here it is evidently ‘used of 
 a very ancient period, or eternity: the 
 date of the Divine purpose. Comp. χθὲς, 
 Heb. xiii. 8. LXX. πρὸ ἡμερῶν. Syr. 
 
 9 τ 
 
 τ Go. Tos. TH 
 
 Zwing. ab eterno. Comp. also the Arab. 
 
 * ve . . 
 es » mora. dels ,ensis antiquus, multo 
 
 tempore non politus. 2 occurs only 
 in this place, but obviously, from the 
 accompanying attributes, the same as 
 nen, Zophet ; the place in the valley 
 of the sons of Hinnom, on the south 
 side of Jerusalem, where the idolatrous 
 Jews sacrificed their children by burn- 
 ing them in honour of Moloch. It 
 was afterwards made the receptacle 
 of ordure and all manner of filth, in 
 order to render it an object of eternal 
 
CHAP. XXXI.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 271 
 
 It hath even been made ready for the king, deep and wide; 
 The pile thereof is fire and abundance of wood : 
 The breath of Jehovah, as a torrent of sulphur, shall kindle it. 
 
 abomination ; and fires were con- 
 stantly kept burning in it, to consume 
 what was thrown into it, and thereby 
 prevent putrefaction. From these 
 circumstances, 0373, Gr. Γέεννα, came 
 metaphorically to signify the place of 
 punishment in the eternal world. See 
 Matt. v. 22, xxiii. 15, 33. Buxtorf, 
 Lex. Chal. Rab. 395, 2623. Gesen. 
 Thesaur. iz voc. The latter author is 
 inclined to derive 7757 from the Persic, 
 
 _ pod , to kindle, burn, &c.; but neither 
 
 this etymology, nor that of )2n, to deat 
 a tabret or drum, seems so appro- 
 priate as the derivation which refers 
 
 both neh and mma to the Arab. 235, 
 Wuat, divit \a5 in aliquem, i.e. re- 
 pudiavit, detestatus fuit ; Ἰὼ) being an 
 adverb of detesting, abhorring, &c. 
 
 ow 
 
 Comp. also «1.9, sordes, squalor ; 
 rat) » spuit, expuit salivam; Eth. 
 
 TGA : thid. Chald. ἢν, ¢o spit, spit 
 
 with contempt. By Tophet, therefore, 
 is meant the place of detestation ; and, 
 figuratively, that of punishment. See 
 chap. Ixvi. 24; Dan. xii. 2. As to 
 the form, it is anomalous only so far 
 as the Kametz is concerned ; there 
 being several instances of feminine 
 nouns ending in Segol. The Keri, »7, 
 is found in a great number of MSS. 
 and several printed editions, and is 
 probably the original reading. ‘7%, 
 a pile or round heap of wood, from ¥7, 
 
 to move or be round. Arab. J); the 
 
 same. The pron. affix refers to Mnpn ; 
 and that in 72 to 7. The whole 
 passage furnishes one of the finest 
 specimens of figurative description to 
 be met with in the Bible; and the 
 vengeance taken on the impious king 
 of Assyria and his army, as here set 
 forth, is emblematical both of the 
 destruction. of Antichrist, as described 
 in the Apocalypse, and of the wicked 
 generally in the world to come. 
 
 CHAPTER ΧΧΧΙ. 
 
 The folly of the Jews in applying to Egypt for help, instead of confiding in 
 the Divine protection, 1—3; a gracious promise of deliverance and pro- 
 tection, 4, 5; a call to repentance and reformation, 6, 7; and another 
 specific prediction of the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib and his 
 army, 8, 9, form the subject-matter of the present chapter. It appears to 
 have been added in confirmation of that which precedes it. 
 
 1 Wo to them that go down to Egypt for help, 
 
 And rely upon horses ; 
 
 1. Comp. chap. xxx. 2, 16. That 
 
 breeding of horses, and their using 
 
 the Egyptians were noted at'a very them in chariots, appears from Gen. 
 early period for their attention to the xlvii. 17, 1. 9 ; Exod. ix. 3, xiv. 7, 9. 
 
212 
 
 That trust in chariots, because 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XXXI. 
 
 they are many, 
 
 And on horsemen, because their number is great ; 
 But look not to the Holy One of Israel, 
 
 And resort not to Jehovah. 
 
 Yet He also is wise, and will bring calamity ; 
 
 For he will not recall his words, 
 But will arise against the house of evil doers, 
 And against the help of the workers of iniquity. 
 
 For the Egyptians are men, and not God; 
 
 And their horses flesh, and not spirit : 
 When Jehovah shall stretch forth his hand, 
 
 The helper shall stumble, and 
 
 the helped shall fall ; 
 
 Yea, they shall all of them perish together. 
 
 For thus saith Jehovah to me: 
 
 As the lion, with the young lion, growls over his prey, 
 When a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him ; 
 He is not terrified by their shout, 
 
 According to Diod. Sic. i. 45, the 
 whole region from Thebes to Mem- 
 phis was full of royal stalls ; and such 
 was the abundance of horses, that no 
 fewer than twenty thousand chariots, 
 each having two, were furnished by 
 them in times of war. In the reign 
 of Solomon, vast numbers both of 
 horses and chariots were procured at 
 great expense from Egypt, 1 Kings x. 
 26, 28,29; 2 Chron.i. 14—17. Comp. 
 liad, ix. 383. 
 
 2. This verse commences with the 
 language of irony, to meet the proud 
 boasting of the infidel party among 
 the Jews, chap. xxix. 14—16, and 
 that of the Egyptians, chap. xix. 11, 
 in whom they trusted. The words 
 vindicate to Jehovah the skill and 
 power adequate to inflict punishment 
 on both the contracting parties, to- 
 gether with veracity in carrying his 
 threatenings into execution. Comp. 
 Numb. xxiii. 19; 1 Sam. xv. 29. 13, 
 evil, in the sense of calamity, punish- 
 ment. The O'yy2 ma and PR YD are 
 synonymous, and designate the re- 
 bellious Jews. By 77, the Egyptians 
 are meant. The 1in is omitted in 
 upwards of fifty MSS., six printed 
 editions, and in the LXX., Vulg., and 
 + Avab. 
 
 3. 8, lit. The Powerful One, from >x, 
 to be mighty, strong, is adopted, instead 
 of Dv>x, to render the antithesis the 
 more pointed. “God” and “man,” 
 “spirit” and “flesh,” are strikingly 
 contrasted with each other. The 
 contrast in the latter case is evidently 
 founded on the fact, that the body 
 without the soul is utterly powerless, 
 but animated by it as an energetic 
 principle, is capable of achieving 
 mighty deeds. The seat of human 
 strength is in the mind. In Wy and 
 ay is an elegant paronomasia. Both 
 participles are collectives. What had 
 been denounced in the latter part of 
 the previous verse is here more em- 
 phatically repeated. The destruction 
 of the confederates would be complete : 
 a prediction which was fulfilled when 
 Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judea and 
 Egypt. 
 
 4, 2 is used causatively. A sudden 
 and unexpected turn is given to the 
 message of the prophet. Though 
 Jehovah would punish the rebellious, 
 yet he would appear on behalf of 
 those who feared him, and for their 
 sakes would deliver Jerusalem. The 
 image of a lion, to represent the 
 power of God, is not unfrequent, Hos. 
 v. 14, xi. 10, xiii. 7, 8; Amos iu. 8; 
 
CHAP. XXXI.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 273 
 
 Nor discouraged by their tumult : 
 So Jehovah of Hosts shall come down, 
 To fight for Mount Zion, and for her hill. 
 
 As birds covering their young, 
 
 So Jehovah of Hosts shall protect Jerusalem, 
 
 Protecting and delivering, 
 Sparing and rescuing. 
 Return ye to Him 
 
 From whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted. 
 
 Surely, in that day shall they treat with contempt, 
 
 Hach his idols of silver and his idols of gold, 
 Which your hands made to you for sin! 
 8 For the Assyrian shall fall by no human sword ; 
 
 Rev. v. 5. Between the imagery here 
 employed and that of Homer, Iliad, 
 ΧΙ]. 299, xviii. 161, there is a strict 
 coincidence. The vast army of the 
 Assyrians were as nothing in the 
 estimation of Jehovah. He viewed 
 unperturbed their attempt to seize 
 the locality which he had chosen as 
 his special residence. 
 
 5. Fv is here used in the sense of 
 covering, comp. HY; and not in that of 
 Jtying, as given in our common version, 
 which does not furnish a suitable point 
 of comparison. The image is taken 
 from the protection which birds afford 
 to their young, by throwing their wings 
 over them. Comp. Deut. xxxii. 11; 
 Matt. xxiii. 37. The Infinitives }i22 and 
 ΤῸ indicate continuous action, and 
 are used elliptically for the Infin. and 
 ' Fut. combined. This accounts for the 
 Preterites 727 and 7 with the Vau 
 conversive, which Kocher, Rosen- 
 miller, and Gesenius, would point 
 >zo and ὌΠ, to make them corre- 
 spond to the other Infinitives. The 
 verb 708 is selected with special refer- 
 ence to the protection extended to 
 the Israelites in Egypt, when the 
 Lord mercifully interposed to prevent 
 the destroying angel from entering 
 their houses. It properly signifies to 
 pass over, and figuratively, to spare, as 
 here. Hence "02, the Passover, which 
 was instituted in commemoration of 
 the sparing mercy of Jehovah towards 
 his people. Josephus : ὑπερβασία:; 
 Philo : διαβατήρια ; Aquila: ὑπέρβασις ; 
 
 and Aquila, Symm., and Theod., in 
 the present passage, ὑπερβαίνων ; and 
 the Pacom. MS. περιβήσεται: : —all 
 which authorities go to invalidate the 
 reasoning of Lowth, who contends 
 that the verb here signifies, ¢o leap or 
 spring forward. The Bishop’s note is 
 otherwise ingenious; but his con- 
 struction of Exod. xii. 23 is quite un- 
 tenable, it being expressly stated that 
 it was Jehovah himself that should 
 pass through to smite the Egyptians, 
 as well as to spare the Hebrews. The 
 idea of a sudden leap or spring would 
 ill comport with the form of the verb 
 as used by Isaiah ; and when it does 
 occur in the sense of leaping, it has 
 always a reference to a halting, forced 
 springing, or limping, as if from a 
 wrench or dislocation. See 2 Sam. iv. 
 4; 1 Kings xviii. 21, 26. 
 
 6. An argument enforcing repent- 
 ance is drawn from the preceding pro- 
 mises of Divine interposition. Comp. 
 Rom. ii. 4. The guilt of the Israelites 
 was great; but on their turning to 
 God, they would meet with a gracious 
 reception. 
 
 7. This verse contains an assurance 
 that such conversion would take place ; 
 and that the Jews would bring forth 
 fruits meet forrepentance. ΝΠ stands 
 for xom, and denotes the object of 
 sin, 1.6. ΓΝ idol or idols. Comp. 
 Deut, ix. 18; Amos viii. 14. 
 
 8, 9. By ow Μὴ and Diy XN) is meant 
 
 Jehovah himself. See for this idiom, 
 
 on chap. x. 15. To prevent the repe- 
 
214 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [cHAP, XXXII. 
 
 The sword of Him who is not man shall devour him : 
 Yea, he shall flee before the sword, 
 And his choice warriors shall be tributary. 
 
 9 ΤῸ his rock also he shall pass through fear, 
 And his captains shall be dismayed at the standard, 
 Saith Jehovah, whose fire is in Zion, 
 
 And his furnace in Jerusalem. 
 
 tition of “man” in the translation, I 
 have been obliged to change the idiom 
 in the former instance. One of Kenni- 
 cott’s MSS., one of De Rossi’s at first 
 hand, and the Soncin. Edit. read δ 
 instead of 1); but though supported 
 by the LXX., Arab., and Vulg., and 
 approved by Déderlein, this reading is 
 inferior to that of the Textus Receptus. 
 According to the usus loquendi, 022 7 
 means ¢o become tributary, and not as 
 some would render, fo mel¢ away, con- 
 sume, though such is the signification 
 of Dop.—r1y’—iy9 does not mean ἔο 
 pass by or beyond his rock or fortress, as 
 Vitringa, Lowth, Gesenius, Boothroyd, 
 and Jenour, interpret; but ¢o pass on 
 to it. For this signification of Ἂν 
 governing an accusative, see chap. xvi. 
 8. Hitzig and Scholz take »%> in the 
 
 sense of military forces; but this 
 acceptation of the word is nowhere to 
 be met with, and otherwise contradicts 
 the fact of the case. Nor is D2 to be 
 rendered flight, as Lowth and Booth- 
 royd give it; but the constant accep- 
 tation, standard, is to be retained,— 
 that of Jehovah being intended. For 
 the concluding words, comp. chap. 
 xxix. 1, only there is here a special 
 reference to the sacrifice of the 
 Assyrian army, which Jehovah was 
 to consume. 
 
 These two verses very clearly pre- 
 dict the miraculous destruction of the 
 Assyrians before Jerusalem ; the servi- 
 tude to which such of the warriors as 
 survived should be reduced ; and the 
 flight of Sennacherib and his staff to 
 Nineveh. See chap. xxxvii, 36, 37. 
 
 Sa 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 This chapter contains a prophecy of the nature of Messiah’s reign ; and the 
 character and happy security of those who submit to him, 1—8; a de- 
 scription of the desolate condition of Judza during his reign, 9—14; and 
 intimations of a glorious change in the condition of the Jews, which should 
 result from the effusion of the Holy Spirit, 15—20. 
 
 1 BEHOLD, a king shall reign righteously, 
 
 1. The prophet, in his usual style, 
 makes a sudden transition from the 
 destruction of the impious power of 
 the Assyrians, predicted at the close 
 of the previous chapter, to the holy 
 and spiritual rule of Christ. Comp. 
 
 chap. ix. 4—7, x. xi. That this chap- 
 ter is a continuation of the foregoing 
 discourse is allowed by Déderlein, 
 Dathe, Hensler, Gesenius, Rosen- 
 miiller, and Hitzig. The prophecy 
 having been delivered on the eve of 
 
CHAP. XXXII.] 
 
 And princes shall rule justly. 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 275 
 
 2 Yea, a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, 
 And a shelter from the tempest ; 
 As rills of water‘in a dry region, 
 As the shade of a great rock in a weary land. 
 3 The eyes also of those that see shall not be obscured, 
 And the ears of those that hear shall attend. 
 4 And the heart of the rash shall discern knowledge, 
 And the tongue of the stammerers shall be prompt to speak 
 
 clearly. 
 
 Sennacherib’s invasion, and distinctly 
 referring to what was to take place 
 subsequent to the time of Hezekiah, 
 it cannot describe that monarch, 
 either exclusively, as the Rabbins, and 
 after them Grotius and others main- 
 tain, or Hezekiah primarily, and, in 
 a secondary sense, the Messiah, as 
 most commentators contend; but 
 must be interpreted of the latter 
 exclusively. 772 72 has its exact 
 parallel in 9 722; and py? and 
 eeu? correspond to MT! ΒΦ, Jer. 
 xxii. 5. Comp. Isa. ix. 6, x1.5; Zech. 
 ix. 9. The princes or rulers spoken of, 
 are the Apostles, who, as our Saviour 
 declares, were in the παλιγγενεσία, or 
 new state of things which took place 
 at the introduction of Christianity, to 
 “sit upon twelve thrones, judging the 
 twelve tribes of Israel,” Matt. xix. 28. 
 They alone, as inspired by the Holy 
 Ghost, were invested with infallible 
 authority under the king of Sion. }in 
 ow is better resolved by rendering 
 it, quantum ad, quod attinet ad, than by 
 regarding it as properly forming part 
 of the nominative. Comp. for a 
 similar usage, Josh. xxi. 20; Job. xvi. 
 21; Ps. xvi. 3, xvii. 4; and especially 
 Eccles. ix. 4. Some, however, after 
 Kimchi, think it redundant. 
 
 2. wx cannot, without violence to 
 the connexion, be taken distributively 
 of the rulers just mentioned, but must 
 be referred to the king who was to 
 rule in righteousness. It is used with 
 emphasis of the Messiah, as ποτ, 
 Zech. vi. 12. To interpret the sublime 
 imagery of this verse in application to 
 a mere human being would be quite 
 repugnant to the spirit of the sacred 
 
 writers, by whom Jehovah alone is 
 represented as the source of protection 
 and refreshment to his people, and all 
 trust in creatures solemnly inter- 
 dicted. To the weary traveller under 
 a vertical sun nothing can be more 
 gratifying than the shade of a huge 
 projecting rock, and the water of a 
 cooling stream; just as a place of 
 shelter is appreciated by him who is 
 exposed to the resistless violence of 
 a storm. Comp. the sazea umbra of 
 Virg., Georg. 11. 145, and the πετραίη 
 oxen of Hesiod, ii. 206. 
 
 3, 4. For the force of 77pm, see on 
 chap. vi. 10. The meaning of the 
 verses is, that the impediments to 
 spiritual perception and obedience 
 being removed, the subjects of Mes- 
 siah’s reign would be endowed with 
 true knowledge and right dispositions. 
 Even those who might seem to labour 
 under insuperable difficulties would 
 surmount them with ease. 0793, 
 rash, precipitate ; persons who are so 
 hasty, that they cannot take time to 
 acquire solid knowledge, and conse- 
 quently, are the dupes of deception 
 and error. λον, the same as 032; 
 such as speak in a stammering or bar- 
 barous manner. LXX. ψελλίζουσι. 
 Vulg. dalborum. Comp. the Arab. 
 
 e- , barbarus, crassus barbarus, re- 
 * 
 
 ligionem non profitens. The term is 
 here to be taken in a religious sense, 
 as designating those who, from their 
 ignorance of Divine things, cannot 
 speak of them intelligibly. Such, the 
 prophet declares, would, in the new 
 state of things, speak nin3, clearly, with 
 perspicuity, so as to be understood by 
 
210 
 
 or 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXXII. 
 
 The vile shall no more be called liberal, 
 
 Nor shall it be said of the miser, He is rich. 
 6 But the vile will utter what is vile, 
 And his heart will frame iniquity ; 
 Acting profanely, and uttering error respecting Jehovah ; 
 Leaving empty the soul of the hungry, 
 And suffering the drink of the thirsty to fail. 
 7 And as for the miser, his instruments are wicked ; 
 He plotteth mischievous devices ; 
 To destroy the poor with words of falsehood, 
 And the needy, when he speaketh what is right. 
 8 But the liberal deviseth liberal deeds, 
 
 all. Root mz, cog. My, to be bright, 
 v 
 ass amy 
 
 ee} 
 to thirst, be dry, shine; Arab. ran 
 
 Sol, et lua ejus ; oe , manifestus 
 ac evidens fuit; \x?, conspicua fuit. 
 
 sunny, parched, dry; Avram. ¢ 
 
 Symm. τρανά. Vulg. clara. 
 
 5, 6. 922 is one of the strongest 
 words in Hebrew, expressive of utter 
 worthlessness of character :—aban- 
 doned, vile, shameful, reckless of the 
 regard both of God and man. In our 
 common version it is generally ren- 
 dered fool, and 7223, folly; but the 
 connexion often shews that such terms 
 are far below the force of the original. 
 See Job 11. 10; Ps. xiv. 1; Judges 
 xix. 23, 24, xx. 6; and the present 
 connexion. It denotes the want, not 
 of intellectual, but of moral qualities, 
 and the unchecked dominion of a de- 
 praved bias of heart. Instead of 
 indicating a mere defect, it involves 
 a settled and determined opposition 
 to all that is holy, a state of which 
 moral turpitude is the element. The 
 root properly signifies, 70 wither, become 
 flaccid, as leaves, flowers, Xe. ; hence, 
 by easy transfer, its moral acceptation. 
 For the paronomasia, 72) 522, comp. 
 1 Sam. xxv. 25. ἸῸΝ may iow 32, In 
 yorn, at the end of ver. 6, there is a 
 return from the use of the Infin. to 
 the direct form of the verb with which 
 the verse commences. See for 32 and 
 3, the following verses. viv is used 
 
 in its usual acceptation, wealthy, opu- 
 lent; from yr, tg. 1, Arab. ey 
 amplus fuit. NV. divitiis abundawit ; 
 dew, opulentia ; eyo dives, potens. 
 
 The signification, /iberal, is less apt, 
 as it is too much even for flattery to 
 give this epithet to the miser. A due 
 discrimination of character would be 
 made in the times of the Messiah, and 
 persons and things would be called by 
 their appropriate names. Comp. Mal. 
 iii. 18; Matt. xxiii. 13—33; Luke xii. 
 20, 21; Eph. v. 5. 
 
 7, 8. 3 is the same as YD in the 
 preceding verse, only it is slightly 
 changed to form a paronomasia with 
 ys) immediately following. Hitzig 
 derives it from 23, in Piel, to consume, 
 waste ; and renders it waster. Dodson : 
 prodigal. Gesenius and Winer, on the 
 authority of the Vulg., fraudulentus, 
 refer it to 521 as its root; but the 
 derivation is forced. It is more 
 natural to refer it to 3, to hold, con- 
 tain, retain, keep back. Comp. 8%, 
 
 Arab. JS » mensuravit, mensurando 
 
 dedit. us » tnstrumentum, quo mensura 
 “ 
 
 definitur. Kimchi, availing himself of 
 this use of the cognate Arabic verb, 
 explains it of the parsimonious, who 
 measures out what he is compelled to 
 give in the most niggardly manner. 
 It forcibly describes the tenacious, 
 griping character of the miser. Co- 
 verdale: the covetous. As to form, 
 
CHAP. XXXII. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 211 
 
 And in liberal deeds he will persevere. 
 9 Ye women at ease! Arise, hear my voice ; 
 Ye confident daughters! give ear to my speech. 
 10 In little more than a year shall ye be disquieted, ye confident 
 
 ones ! 
 
 For the vintage faileth ; the fruit-harvest cometh not. 
 11 Tremble, ye that are at ease; be alarmed, ye confident ones ; 
 
 Strip, make yourselves bare ; 
 Put a girdle on your loins. 
 
 comp. 21, from 27, 12 from 7, &c. 
 The 5 is merely an augment, as in 
 “in, 123, &c. 0% means the instru- 
 ments, measures, or means, by which 
 the avaricious seeks to increase his 
 pelf. These are not only declared to 
 be wicked, but instances of oppression 
 and injustice are adduced.—In ΠῚ2)12---- 
 ni2’7) 272 is another of Isaiah’s favourite 
 paronomasias. The root, 373, signifies 
 to impel, incite ; in Hithp. to impel one- 
 self, to give willingly, liberally, &e. 
 
 Comp. the Arab. Weds, instigavit, 
 impulit ; \“—miSd, agilis et expeditus, et 
 
 egregius, pulcher fuit ; mS, Ingenuosus, 
 
 pulcher, generosus. Hence, 172 means 
 a princely, noble, liberal, character. 
 oy DP usually means ¢o rise against, 
 stand opposed, &c., but is here obviously 
 to be taken in the sense of continuing 
 or persevering in the noble deeds pre- 
 
 dicted. Comp. the Arab. ust “3: 
 
 intentus fuit re, perseveravit ; and Καλῶν 
 ἔργων προΐστασθαι, Tit. iii, 8, 14. 
 According to this and other descrip- 
 tions of the character of Messiah’s 
 subjects, they are distinguished by 
 a noble-minded liberality; contriving 
 and persevering in the execution of 
 enlarged schemes.of benevolence. See 
 especially Ps. cx. 3, where they are 
 described as n372 DY, a people of volun- 
 tarinesses, 1.6. readily devoting them- 
 selves and all that they have to the 
 service of their Divine Lord. For the 
 fulfilment, see Acts 11, 44, 45, iv. 32— 
 37; 2 Cor. viii. 1—4, ix. 2; Heb. vi. 
 10. 
 
 9, The prophet returns abruptly to 
 
 his own times, and addressing himself 
 toa company of careless females whom 
 he espies, takes occasion to predict the 
 disastrous events that would happen 
 to the nation to which they belonged, 
 and of which they might, in their 
 present posture, be considered the 
 representatives. Some interpreters, 
 after Theodoret, among whom Vitrin- 
 ga, are of opinion, that by Ὁ ὩΣ, ccties, 
 and not women, literally taken, are in- 
 tended; but the term is never so used 
 except in allegory, as Ezek. xvi. 28%, 
 properly ¢o enjoy quiet or rest; but 
 here, in a bad sense, to indulge in carnal 
 security. 'The same remark’ applies to 
 moa, Comp. chap. ii.16. The form 
 of address is that of Lamech to his 
 wives, Gen. iv. 23. 
 
 10. The phrase, ποῦ >Y 0D), is anom- 
 alous ; lit. days over a year. ‘The pre- 
 pos. is obviously used to convey the 
 idea of superaddition ; but whether 
 nm, days, are to be understood defi- 
 nitely, as signifying the longest com- 
 plement of days; viz. a year,—in 
 which case, the phrase would be 
 equivalent to ποῦν ποῦ, chap. xxix. 1; 
 or whether they are to be taken in an 
 indefinite sense, has been contested. 
 
 The Syr. {ASco., and the Arab. Leb], 
 
 some days, would seem to favour the 
 latter construction. In all probability, 
 the prophet indicates the near ap- 
 proach of the Assyrian invasion. 
 
 11. > is of *he mase. gender, as 
 are also the .ilowing Imperatives, 
 with 7 paragogic, because both it and 
 m2 occur before the nouns to which 
 they refer. See Ewald, § 567. ὉΔΦΒ is 
 very appropriately employed to denote 
 the removal of the splendid garments 
 
 M M 
 
218 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXXII. 
 
 12 They smite themselves on the breasts, 
 On account of the pleasant fields, 
 On account of the fruitful vine. 
 
 13 
 
 Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers ; 
 
 Yea, upon all the joyous houses in the exulting city. 
 
 14 
 
 For the palace shall be deserted ; 
 
 The wealth of the city shall be abandoned ; 
 Ophel and the watch-tower shall long be converted into dens ; 
 The joy of wild asses, the pasture of flocks ; 
 
 15 Till the Spirit be poured out upon us from above ; 
 
 in which the persons here addressed 
 were arrayed, in order that, in their 
 stead, they might put on sackcloth. 
 In 727 the substantive pv, sackcloth, 
 is understood. 7 is not from ἫΝ, 
 but from "WY, 7.¢g. TY, ¢o be, or make 
 oneself naked. 
 
 12. To give greater effect to his 
 language, the prophet, as frequently, 
 drops the personal form of address, 
 and assumes the descriptive style, by 
 adopting the Ben. participle. oO y 
 pd, icolampadius, Déderlein, Dathe, 
 Gesenius in his Translation, Hitzig, 
 Jenour, and Scholz, render: “They 
 mourn on account of the fields,”— 
 changing 078 into Oo, and maintain- 
 ing that ἼΒΌ is used not of the gesture, 
 but of the sound of mourning. They 
 also urge that >, following this verb, 
 always refers to the cause of the grief. 
 In his larger Lexicon, however, pub- 
 lished in 1838, Gesenius abandons 
 these positions, and renders: “ they 
 smite upon the breasts.” He is 
 followed by Maurer. Coverdale has : 
 Ye shall-knock upon your breasts. Thus 
 also the LXX. ἐπὶ τῶν μαστῶν κόπτεσθε: 
 the Targ. γ᾽ p71 "5, Vulg. super ubera 
 
 v yv 
 plangite ; and the Syr. eatiarZ “So 
 
 Ve 
 tr]. The primary signification of 
 
 2D is that of eating; and both its 
 sound and signification are retained 
 in the Gr. σφαδάζω, the Sanscrit, 
 sphud, sphut. Our own translators 
 appear to have understood by “the 
 teats,” the οὖθαρ ἀρούρης of Homer, 
 liad, ix. 141. Only one of De Rossi’s 
 MSS. reads 01%; but instead of the 
 
 foliowing "1, the reading 770 is found 
 in fourteen MSS., was originally in 
 seven more, and probably in another ; 
 is found in the Sone. Bib. and Proph., 
 the Brix., and Kennicott’s, 253; the 
 LXX., Arab., Aquila, Symm., Theod., 
 Syr., and Vulg.; and is in all proba- 
 bility the true reading—the plural of 
 mw being nity, not oY or OTD. It is, 
 nevertheless, used as a noun of multi- 
 tude. The nomin. to 0759 is not 0%, 
 women, ver. 9; but the Jews, under- 
 stood, who should live in after times, 
 while the following predictions were 
 being fulfilled. 
 
 13. Yaw YP, an instance of the con- 
 structio asyndeta, as in chap. xxvii. 4. 
 In this and the following verse, a pro- 
 spective view is given of the deserted 
 condition of Judzea, subsequent to the 
 destruction of Jerusalem by the Ro- 
 mans. Comp. chap. vii. 23, 24. 33, 
 imo, yes indeed. Before Mp, subaud. 3. 
 
 14, 5%, Ophel, properly a fill or 
 mound, but is specially used to denote 
 a fortified height, forming part of 
 Mount Sion on the east, near Moriah. 
 ὈΡΊ ΣΤΡ is here to be taken in a limited 
 sense, as intimating only along period, 
 as the use of τὸ in the following verse 
 shews. 
 
 15. Dyan MH ary mw. Till the 
 Spirit be poured out wpon us from above. 
 As the verb vy, in its different con- 
 jugations, signifies ¢o make bare, empty; 
 pour out fully or completely, it is obvious 
 the prophet cannot refer to any partial 
 communication of Divine influence at 
 the return from Babylon, but must 
 have in view some copious effusion of 
 the Spirit in connexion with the reign 
 of Christ foretold at the beginning of 
 
CHAP, XXXII.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 279 
 
 Then shall the wilderness become a fruitful field, 
 And the fruitful field shall be esteemed a forest. 
 
 16 
 
 Then also shall justice dwell in the desert, 
 
 And righteousness shall inhabit the fruitful field. 
 
 17 
 
 And the effect of righteousness shall be peace, 
 
 And the result of righteousness shall be quiet and security for 
 
 ever. 
 
 For my people shall dwell in peaceful habitations, 
 
 In secure abodes, and tranquil resting-places : 
 
 19 
 
 But it shall hail at the falling of the forest ; 
 
 And the city shall be low in depression. 
 
 Happy ye that sow beside all waters ; 
 
 That send forth the foot of the ox and the ass. 
 
 the chapter. Most interpreters think 
 the same effusion is intended which is 
 spoken of by Joel, chap. ii. 28, which 
 we know took place on the day of Pen- 
 tecost, Acts 11. 16—21; but to this 
 application of the words it must be 
 objected, that the desolate state of the 
 Jewish affairs is predicted to last till 
 the effusion takes place ; whereas 
 prosperity was restored to the Jews 
 at the close of the captivity, 7.e. about 
 five centuries before the commence- 
 ment of the Christian dispensation. 
 I cannot, therefore, but interpret the 
 passage of a remarkable outpouring of 
 the Holy Spirit yet future, when the 
 great body of the Jewish nation (τὸ 
 πλήρωμα αὐτῶν, Rom. xi. 12) shall, in 
 consequence, be converted to God. 
 The 1 in ™7) marks the apodosis. For 
 the rest of the verse, see on chap. 
 ἜΣΙΧ: 17. 
 
 16—18. 72793, in that which had been 
 a desert: 72753, in that which has become 
 a fruitful field. This and the following 
 verse describe the spiritual and happy 
 results of the remarkable effusion of 
 the Holy Spirit, which had just been 
 predicted. 2 is here a collective 
 noun. In ὈΤΌΣ and nin, ver. 18, 
 there seems to be an allusion to ver. 
 9. What was only imaginary in the 
 case of the Jews living in Isaiah’s 
 time, would be experienced by them 
 in reality in that of the Messiah. 
 
 19, 20. In these verses are con- 
 trasted the destruction of the Jewish 
 polity, and the happiness of those 
 who should be engaged in propagating 
 the gospel throughout the world. By 
 the forest is meant the Jewish army 
 engaged in the defence of Jerusalem. 
 Comp. chap. x. 18, 19, 33, 34, where 
 the same image is used of the Assyrian 
 army. Hail isan image of Divine judg- 
 ments, and betokens their severity. 
 Comp. chap xxviii. 2,17; Rev. xi. 19. 
 For 173, Kennicott’s Cod. 30, reads 1, 
 but all the ancient versions follow the 
 received reading. In ΠΤ ΤῺ is a 
 paronomasia, as there also is in M5wa 
 %tn. Thecity here spoken of isneither 
 Nineveh nor Babylon, but Jerusalem, 
 mentioned ver. 13. For its depression, 
 comp. Matt. xxiv. 2. “Urbs ista ad 
 imum statum redigitur.” Dathe. The 
 figure, ver. 20, is taken from the 
 nomadic life ; and beautifully exhibits 
 the free and unrestrained exertions of 
 the apostles and other missionaries, in 
 sowing the seed of the kingdom in 
 every part of the world. 52) 7>% does 
 not refer to the employment of the 
 animals mentioned to tread the ground 
 preparatory to the planting of rice, as 
 Sir John Chardin and Lowth suppose, 
 but to setting them at liberty from 
 the rope with which they were tied. 
 by the foot. 
 
280 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXXIII. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXITI. 
 
 The prophet, in this chapter, delivers his last prediction respecting the 
 Assyrians. He announces the retributive justice which they should ex- 
 perience at the hand of Jehovah, 1; whose gracious interposition he invokes, 
 2; anticipates the results of such interposition, 3—6 ; describes the state 
 of the country during the invasion of Sennacherib, 7—9 ; J ehovah’s actual 
 interference, and its consequences, 10—12 ; and depicts the alarm of the 
 wicked inhabitants of Jerusalem, with which he beautifully contrasts the 
 security and felicity of the righteous in the enjoyment of their religious 
 privileges, and their exemption from outward molestation, 13—24. 
 
 1 Wo to thee who spoilest, but hast not been spoiled ;. 
 And who plunderest, but others have not plundered thee : 
 When thou art done with spoiling, thou shalt be spoiled ; 
 When thou hast finished plundering, others shall plunder thee. 
 2 O Jehovah! have mercy upon us; in thee we trust ; 
 
 1, Sennacherib, as the representative 
 of the Assyrian monarchy, is here set 
 forth in the character of a ruthless 
 conqueror, who has sustained no re- 
 verses, but to whose career a limit is 
 set, and who is to be subdued in his 
 turn. Instead of 421723, upwards of 
 sixty MSS. and seven early editions, 
 read 12723, but the former alone 
 agrees with the connexion. 272, 
 apparently from an obsolete root, Dn 
 —such being the regular Hiph. Infin. 
 of verbs with ) for the middle radical ; 
 but evidently, from the connexion, of 
 the same signification with Dn, to 
 bring to an end, finish, complete. To 
 the same root may be referred Din, 
 Dyan, completeness. 573, the corre- 
 sponding Infin. is less easily accounted 
 for. Some derive it from 4%, or 79%, 
 to be wearied, exhausted, &e. Thus 
 Symm. ὅταν κοπιάσῃ ; Targ. sn, Saad. 
 
 pst] ; Vulg. futigatus, Lowth, 
 Hensler, Dathe, in edit. secund, 
 
 Boothroyd, and Noyes. On the other 
 hand, Secker, Doderlein, and Ge- 
 senius in Lex. Man., approve of the 
 
 conjecture of Cappellus, that instead 
 of 4132, we should read ¥7722—the 9 
 having been mistaken by some copyist 
 for 2. This latter construction might 
 seem to derive support from the com- 
 bination of On7 and 753, Dan. ix. 24; 
 but there is no necessity to abandon 
 the Hebrew interpreters, who derive 
 the word from 73, and consider it to 
 be a contracted form of the Hiph. 
 Infin. 779272, like 9193773—the 7 being 
 dropped, and compensation being made 
 by the Dagesh in the following letter. 
 m2, whence 0939, their acquisition, Job 
 xv. 29, has the signification of the 
 
 Arab. ων, med. Je, perfecit, ad finem 
 
 oo 
 perducit, consummavit ; Syr. fly, depre- 
 
 hendens, to reach an object, obtain, finish. 
 Thus Hitzig, Winer, and First. 
 
 2, oy, their arm, i.e. their help, 
 protection. See on chap. ix. 19. All 
 the MSS. and editions have the third 
 personal pronoun ; only the edition of 
 Venice, 1518, has in the margin 24 
 —a manifest emendation, as is that of 
 Houbigant, νῦν. The Syr. and Targ. 
 
CHAP. XXXIII.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 —Be their arm every morning :— 
 
 Yea, be thou our salvation in the time of distress. 
 
 281 
 
 3 At the sound of the noise the people flee ; 
 When thou arisest, the nations are dispersed. 
 4 And your spoil shall be gathered up, 
 Like the gathering of the devouring locust ; 
 As the running of the caterpillar-locust, 
 
 Men shall run upon it. 
 
 5 Jehovah is exalted; for he dwelleth on high ; 
 He filleth Zion with justice and righteousness. 
 6 He also shall be the stability of thy time; 
 A store of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge: 
 The fear of Jehovah is his treasure. 
 
 have the first person plural ; but the 
 LXX., τὸ σπέρμα τῶν ἀπειθούντων, evi- 
 dently read the third. Τῇ, as there is 
 every reason to believe, the Ὁ pro- 
 ceeded from the pen of the prophet, 
 he is to be regarded, in this sentence, 
 as giving expression to his own in- 
 dividual desire for the Divine pro- 
 tection of his people. 0773), ἐμ refer- 
 ence to the mornings, i. e. every Morning 
 —that being the period when the 
 enemy might be expected to renew 
 the attack. Comp. the following 
 hemistich. 
 
 3. iam 4p being parallel with 7225, 
 the thunder accompanying the Divine 
 interposition is meant, and not any 
 tumult in the hostile army, though 
 the phrase otherwise denotes the 
 noise of a multitude. 
 
 4, An apostrophic address to the 
 Assyrians, in which the prophet 
 describes the effect of what he had 
 predicted in the preceding verse. The 
 enemy having either been destroyed 
 or made to flee, the inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem would eagerly run up and 
 down through the deserted camp, and 
 collect the spoils. The comparison to 
 the locusts is beautifully graphic. 
 Some, indeed, understand the prophet 
 to refer to the collection of the locusts 
 by the husbandman ; but the active 
 forms of ΡῈ and ppv shew that he has 
 in view the complete consumption of 
 vegetation, fruits, &c. by these insects, 
 Comp. Joel 1. 4, 11. 3—9, with New- 
 
 come’s Notes. Before 08 supply 3, 
 from the following. ppt, impersonally, 
 one, they, men, or the like. 
 
 5, 6. These verses are intimately 
 connected. The person addressed, 
 ver. 6, is Hezekiah. The nominative 
 to m7) is Jehovah, in the verse pre- 
 ceding. ΠΌΝΟΝ some render fuith ; 
 others fidelity ; but security, stability, 
 or such like, is preferable. Comp. the 
 
 Arab. ot! 5 wel, securitas, protectio : 
 
 from ; ᾿" fidit, nivus fuit, securus futt. 
 
 Instead of ΠὩν, thirty-four MSS., origin- 
 ally ten more, now one ; upwards of 
 thirty printed editions ; the Syr. and 
 Symm. read ΠΡ in the singular. For 
 the meaning of NY, ¢me, in such con- 
 nexion, see Ps, Ixxxi. 15 (Hebr.16). By 
 Jehovah’s being the stability of one’s 
 time is meant, his being the author of 
 the peaceful, settled, and prosperous 
 state of things, which, during any given 
 period, a person enjoys. ‘Df is used 
 in the sense both of s/rength, riches, and 
 store, storehouse, &c. Comp. the Arab. 
 
 =, magazine. Thesame sentiment 
 Σὰ 
 
 occurs, Job xxii. 25.—ninw, lit. salva- 
 tions, 1.6. complete deliverance. Sixteen 
 MSS., originally six, and now two, 
 substitute 7227 for m227. Several in- 
 stances, however, occur of the con- 
 struct being similarly used instead of 
 the absolute, as 7271 73, chap. xxxv. 2. 
 
282 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXXII. 
 
 7 Behold their Ariel! They raise a cry without ; 
 The messengers of peace weep bitterly. 
 
 8 The highways are desolate ; 
 The traveller ceaseth ; 
 
 He hath broken the treaty ; the cities are despised ; 
 
 Man is held in no estimation. 
 
 9 The land mourneth ; it languisheth ; 
 Lebanon is put to shame; it withereth : 
 
 Sharon is like a desert ; 
 
 Bashan also, and Carmel cast off their leaves. 
 
 7. This and the two following verses 
 describe the alarm and distress of 
 Judea during the Assyrian invasion. 
 Even the inhabitants of the metropolis 
 should be in terror. That they are 
 intended by the term Ooxyx, I cannot 
 doubt. According to the punctuation, 
 indeed, it must be differently inter- 
 preted ; but this punctuation is so 
 perfectly anomalous, that, had it not 
 been for an early mis-construction of 
 the passage, it never could have ob- 
 tained. The Syr., Targ., Aquila, and 
 Symm. take it to be compounded of 
 the verb 78}, fo see, in Niph. ¢o appear, 
 and 02 for 099, ¢o them. To this deri- 
 vation videntes of the Vulg. is also to 
 bereferred. The LXX. likewise found 
 a verb in the word—only they read 
 xv, and not73. The parallelism, how- 
 ever, requires a noun and not a verb ; 
 and no resolution is more easy than 
 that furnished by the punctuation 
 Dos, according to which the word is 
 simply made up of x, Ariel, the 
 name given to Jerusalem, chap. xxix. 
 1, 2, and Ὁ the pronom. affix, referring 
 to the Jews. For the meaning of the 
 term, see on the passage just cited. 
 The word occurs in this defective form 
 2 Sam. xxiii. 20. Michaelis, Lowth, 
 Gesenius, Boothroyd, Jenour, and 
 others, adopt Os, the reading of 
 a few MSS., and render, ¢he heroes, or 
 “the mighty,” with which agrees the 
 rendering of our common version; but 
 the above interpretation, which is 
 that supported by Hitzig, Maurer, and 
 Scholz, is preferable. That Déderlein 
 should have rendered the words legati 
 publicos clamores cient, following the 
 notion of 78%, angel, messenger, sug- 
 
 gested by the Rabbins, is unaecount- 
 able,as the interpretation is altogether 
 arbitrary. By metonymy Ariel is put 
 for the inhabitants, as the plural 372¥ 
 shews. Jerusalem was the glory and 
 boast of the nation ; and, as such, atten- 
 tion is drawn to it by the prophet ; but 
 instead of affording encouragement to 
 the Jews at the present crisis, it was 
 itself placed in cireumstances of im- 
 minent danger. The inhabitants had 
 left their houses, and in the streets 
 and open places of the city gave vent 
 to their cries of distress. By the 
 Dis ND are meant Eliakim, and 
 Shebna, and Joab, the messengers 
 whom Hezekiah sent to negotiate 
 peace with Rabshakeh, 2 Kings xviii. 
 18, 37, xix. 2. 
 
 8. All intercourse throughout the 
 country had ceased. Comp. Judg. v. 
 6. The nominative to 7 is Senna- 
 cherib, who, having broken the treaty 
 into which he had entered with Heze- 
 kiah, overran the country, and re- 
 garded with contempt its fortified 
 places and inhabitants. 
 
 9. A beautiful poetical amplification 
 of the description. The most magni- 
 ficent and fruitful scenes of nature 
 are represented as converted into 
 barrenness and desolation. 8 being 
 an epicenic noun, admits of the verbs 
 being of both genders. Sharon was 
 a plain, lying along the Mediterranean, 
 between Carmel and Joppa, greatly 
 celebrated for its extraordinary beauty 
 and fertility. It not only furnished 
 the richest pasturage, but abounded 
 in agricultural produce. Comp. Song 
 li. 1; Isa. xxxv, 2, Ixy; 10. 
 
CHAP. XXXIII.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 283 
 
 10 Now will I arise, saith Jehovah ; 
 
 Now will I exalt myself; 
 
 Now will I lift myself up. 
 Mal 
 
 Your own wrath is @ fire that 
 
 12 And the nations shall be like 
 
 Ye shall conceive chaff; ye shall bring forth stubble ; 
 
 shall devour you. — 
 the burning of limestone ; 
 
 Like thorns cut down, they shall be consumed with fire. 
 
 13 
 
 Hear, ye that are far off, what I have done; 
 
 And ye that are near, acknowledge my might. 
 
 14 
 
 The sinners are afraid in Zion ; 
 
 Trembling hath seized on the impious ; 
 Which of us can dwell in devouring fire ? 
 Which of us can dwell in everlasting burnings ? 
 
 15 He that walketh righteously, 
 
 And speaketh things that are 
 
 10. In the desperate state of Jewish 
 affairs Jehovah suddenly interposes, 
 and miraculously delivers his people. 
 The repetition of THY, xow, is peculiarly 
 emphatic. 
 
 11. The images here employed 
 strikingly set forth the vain attempt 
 of the Assyrians to reduce Jerusalem. 
 Toexpress the formationand execution 
 of plans, the Hebrews use metaphori- 
 cally the terms employed to denote 
 natural conception and birth; and, to 
 convey an idea of the utter inutility 
 of any scheme, it is compared to 
 chaff, stubble, wind, ἕο. Comp. Ps. 
 vii. 14; Isa. xxvi. 18, lix. 4. 0, 
 breath, is here used for anger, or rage, 
 as Judges viii. 3; Isa. xxv.4. Lowth’s 
 alteration of My D274 into Wx 2-1, 
 after the conjecture of Secker, is un- 
 warranted. ‘The meaning is, that the 
 rage of the Assyrians against Jehovah 
 and his people would prove the cause 
 of their own destruction. 
 
 12. The \is continuative. By ony 
 are meant people from the different 
 nations serving in the Assyrian army. 
 mipywn, Jurnings, is put in the plural to 
 indicate intensity. Comp. Amos. ii. 
 1; and, for the last clause of the verse, 
 2 Sam. xxiii. 6, 7. 
 
 13. The miraculous overthrow of 
 the army of Sennacherib was so 
 
 right ; 
 
 co) 
 
 illustrious a display of the Divine 
 omnipotence and care, that it claimed 
 the attention both of Gentiles and 
 Jews. They are, therefore, summoned 
 to give earnest heed to it. 
 
 14. Having called upon the Jews to 
 consider the awful manifestation of 
 the character of Jehovah, which they 
 had witnessed in the destruction of 
 his enemies, the prophet now de- 
 scribes the alarm which it produced 
 in the wicked inhabitants of Jeru- 
 salera. The concluding words of the 
 verse have no meaning, except there 
 be an implied reference to eternal 
 punishment. Of that punishment the 
 impious Jews had a striking emblem 
 before their eyes, in the fires of Tophet, 
 in which the dead bodies of the As- 
 syrians were being burned. See chap. 
 xxx. 33, and the passages there quoted. 
 1 is here used emphatically, as 07? is, 
 Amos. ix. 1. 
 
 15, 16. These verses contain a beau- 
 tiful description of the character, 
 security, and happiness, of the right- 
 eous, contrasted with the miserable 
 condition of the ungodly. Comp. Ps. 
 xy. and xxiv. nipi and o9 are used 
 adverbially. The participles 723, ΘῸΝ, 
 and ody, strongly express the repug- 
 nance felt to the evils specified. 
 Before Θ᾿, subaud. πεν, The righteous 
 
284 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXXIII. 
 
 That despiseth the gain of oppression ; 
 That shaketh his hands, that he may not take a bribe ; 
 That stoppeth his ears, that he may not listen to bloodshed ; 
 
 And shutteth his eyes, that he 
 16 
 
 may not behold injury : 
 
 He it is that shall dwell on high ; 
 
 The strongholds of rocks shall be his refuge ; 
 
 His bread shall be given him ; 
 
 His water shall be constant. 
 17 
 
 They shall see distant lands. 
 18 
 
 Thine eyes shall contemplate the King in his beauty: 
 
 Thine heart shall reflect on the terror : 
 
 Where is the secretary ? where the collector ? 
 Where he that numbered the towers ? 
 
 cannot listen to any scheme or counsel 
 which has murder for its object. 897, 
 at the beginning of ver.16,is emphatic: 
 He it is who, &. D282 0% signifies 
 permanent, i.e. perennial fountains or 
 streams, Jer. xv. 18;—a figure quite 
 natural to an Oriental poet, and 
 powerfully calculated to impress the 
 mind. Comp. Ps. xxiii. 
 
 17. Interpreters are greatly divided 
 on the subject of the king to whom 
 reference is here made. Déderlein 
 advocates the preposterous opinion 
 that Sennacherib is meant. Piscator, 
 Vatablus, Clarius, Clericus, Jackson, 
 Hensler, v. d. Palm, Gesenius, Hitzig, 
 Scholz, and Hendewerk, maintain that 
 the prophet has Hezekiah in his eye. 
 This interpretation is also admitted 
 by Calvin, and that class of commen- 
 tators, who, with him, explain the 
 passage first literally of Hezekiah, and 
 then typically of Christ. On compar- 
 ing, however, ver. 22, chap. vi. 5; Ps. 
 xlviii. 2, there is reason to believe that 
 Jehovah himself is intended. Thus 
 the Targ. S29 72) NPIS WM, the glory 
 of the presence of the King of the worlds ; 
 meaning the sensible symbol of the 
 Divine presence vouchsafed in the 
 temple. The vision of this glory was 
 an object of intense desire on the part 
 of the pious Israelites, Ps. xxvil. 4, 
 lxili. 2; Isa, xxxviii. 11, This inter- 
 pretation has the suffrages of Vitringa, 
 Michaelis, Koppe, and Cube. The 
 Jews who had been cut off from access 
 
 to Jerusalem by the Assyrian army, 
 should again enjoy the privilege of 
 worshipping in the temple, and be- 
 holding the glory of the Lord. fy 78 
 opmye, lit. the land of distances, i.e. 
 distant countries. Instead of being 
 cooped up within the walls of Jerusa- 
 lem by the Assyrians, the inhabitants 
 should not only freely traverse their 
 own land, but visit distant nations. 
 Comp. Jer. viii. 19, where the same 
 phrase occurs ; and in the same sense, 
 without yx, Zech. x. 9. 
 
 18. The meaning is not, as the 
 rendering of our common version 
 would import, that the minds of the 
 inhabitants would be filled with terror 
 in reference to anticipated evils, but 
 that the state of terror into which 
 they had been brought by the foreign 
 army should now only be matter of 
 reflection. The questions which follow 
 shew that the reflection would be 
 joyous and exulting. As usual, the 
 interrogatives imply the strongest 
 negation. By 125 is here meant the 
 secretary or scribes of Sennacherib, 
 who took the census of the people, 
 and imposed upon them the tribute. 
 This clearly appears from its close 
 connexion with the following 7, 
 the weigher, i.e. the collector or tax- 
 gatherer, who, on receiving the money, 
 weighed it to ascertain its amount. 
 DyAWTnY Ww designates the engineer 
 officer who reconnoitred the fortifica- 
 tions, to determine on the most eligible 
 
CHAP. XXXIII.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 285 
 
 19 The fierce people thou shalt see no more ; 
 The people of unintelligible language, 
 Of a barbarous, unmeaning tongue. 
 
 20 
 
 Contemplate Zion, the city of our festivals ; 
 
 Let thine eyes look on Jerusalem, a tranquil abode— 
 A tent that shall not be removed : 
 Its stakes shall never be pulled up, 
 Nor shall any of its cords be broken. 
 
 21 But there the glorious Jehovah shall be to us 
 Instead of rivers and wide-spreading streams ; 
 
 No oared galley shall enter it, 
 
 Nor shall any magnificent vessel pass through to it. 
 
 For Jehovah is our Judge ; 
 Jehovah is our Lawgiver ; 
 Jehovah is our King ; 
 
 22 
 
 points of attack. The words of Paul, 
 1 Cor. i. 20, ποῦ σοφός ; ποῦ γραμμα- 
 Tevs ; ποῦ συζητητὴς, K.T.A., are not, 
 as some have imagined, a quotation 
 of the words of this verse; the only 
 points of agreement between them 
 being merely the occurrence of ypap- 
 parevs, and the repetition of the in- 
 terrogative ποῦ. It is not impossible, 
 however, that the structure of the 
 one passage may have suggested the 
 other. 
 
 19. wi) is the regular Niphal Parti- 
 ciple of 1, which occurs only in this 
 place, but is obviously equivalent in 
 signification to WY, to be strong, fierce, 
 
 y 
 
 cruel. Targ. Win. Syr. eas. Vulg. 
 impudentem. Symm. ἀναιδὴς. Comp. 
 mw, Dan. vii. 23. For mw ‘poy, 
 comp. Ezek. 111. 5, 6; and for ji 2973, 
 Isa, xxvill..11. That the Assyrians 
 are meant cannot be doubted. Their 
 language, or rather that of their 
 Medo-Persian mercenaries, not being 
 understood by the Jews, is represented 
 as in itself unintelligible. 
 
 20. Instead of Ivin, upwards of 
 sixty MSS. and the earliest editions 
 read 31ND, WE, a ἅπαξ Ney. Comp. 
 
 the Arab. ye migravit, iter fecit. 
 
 Almost all the terms here employed 
 are borrowed from the nomadic life ; 
 
 and the whole strongly describes the 
 permanence and tranquillity of the 
 Jewish state. mz25, however, is not to 
 be taken in an absolutely unlimited 
 sense, but is to be understood as ap- 
 plicable to the old dispensation. ἡ 
 
 21. ΟἸΡῸ is used adverbially. See 
 Hitzig on Hos. ii. 1. In 3 OW OI 
 or there is evident allusion to the 
 situation of Nineveh and the royal 
 cities of Egypt. What the Tigris and 
 its canals were to the former, and 
 those of the Nile to the latter, Jehovah 
 would be to Jerusalem, which had no 
 such streams for her defence. Comp. 
 Nah. iii. 8 ; and as parallel in meaning, 
 chap. xxvi.1. The suffixes in ia and 
 ay refer to Jerusalem, as expressed 
 in DW, the adverb of place. Of the 
 two kinds of vessels here mentioned, 
 one was propelled by oars; and the 
 other had sails: hence the use of Ὑπὸ, 
 splendid, magnificent. 'The former were 
 employed as war-galleys for conveying 
 troops, and making an attack; the 
 latter were vessels of burden for the 
 transportation of stores, &e. Comp. 
 Ezek. xxvii. 27, xxx. 9. 
 
 22. This beautiful triplet expresses 
 the confidence of the church in the 
 government and protection of Jehovah. 
 The Divine name is placed first for 
 the sake of emphasis. 7 also is 
 emphatic. ; 
 
 NN 
 
286 
 
 He it is that will save us. 
 
 23 Thy ropes hang loose ; 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXXIV. 
 
 The men could not make firm the socket of the mast ; 
 
 They could not spread the sail. 
 
 Then the booty of much spoil was divided ; 
 Even the lame seized upon the prey. 
 
 24 
 
 Neither shall any inhabitant say: I am sick; 
 
 The people that dwell therein have their iniquity forgiven. 
 
 23. The prophet, reverting to the 
 subject he had introduced, ver. 21, by 
 a sudden apostrophe addresses the 
 Assyrian army under the image of a 
 fleet. Instead of being properly rigged 
 and prepared for action, it should be 
 totally dismantled and unfit for ser- 
 vice :—the effect of the storm of 
 Divine wrath with which it should be 
 visited. The 3 was the cross-beam 
 in which the mast was fixed, so as to 
 make it steady: called by the Greeks, 
 μεσόδμη, ἱστοπέδα, and ἱστοδόκη. Be- 
 cause 0D) occurs, chap. xxx. 17, in the 
 sense of flag, Hitzig would so render 
 it here ; but the subject is altogether 
 
 different, and 18, to spread, could only 
 with propriety be used of sai/s. τὰ, 
 then, is emphatic, and marks the exact 
 point of time when the inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem should seize upon the 
 Assyrian spoils. The introduction of 
 the lame as going forth to possess 
 themselves of the booty is exquisite 
 in effect. 
 
 24. The Jews should now enjoy a 
 period of prosperity and comfort,— 
 the result of the forgiveness of their 
 sins. For the connexion between 
 pardon and convalescence, comp. Ps. 
 clll. 3; Matt. viii. 17. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 There only remained one other hostile nation against which it was necessary 
 to pronounce the Divine sentence ; »iz. Edom: the ancient and inveterate 
 
 enemy of the Jews. 
 
 This sentence is here delivered as part of a general 
 
 denunciation against the enemies of the church of God. The chapter begins 
 with a universal summons to the nations to attend to what the prophet was 
 
 about to deliver, 1. 
 
 Then follows a prediction of the calamities which 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar would bring upon all the nations round Judza, 2—4; 
 especially upon Idumea, which, with its capital, should be rendered a per- 
 petual desolation, 5—15. Finally; those who should live in after times are 
 called to compare the prophecy, as recorded in the inspired volume, with 
 the event, in order to convince themselves of its Divine origin, and most 
 minute fulfilment, 16,17. The entire piece is a strongly coloured, magnifi- 
 cent, and sublime specimen of the prophetic style. See Lowth in Joc. and 
 
 Lect. xx. 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΧΙΥ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 287 
 
 1 Draw near, ye nations, to hear ; 
 
 Ye people, attend : 
 
 Let the earth and her fulness hear ; 
 The globe, and all its productions. 
 2 For the indignation of Jehovah is upon all the nations, 
 And his fury upon all their armies: 
 He hath devoted them to destruction ; 
 He hath delivered them over to slaughter. 
 3 Their slain also shall be cast out ; 
 Yea, the stench of their carcases shall ascend ; 
 And the mountains shall flow down with their blood. 
 4 All the host of heaven shall also melt, 
 And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll ; 
 
 Yea, all their host shall fall, 
 
 As the leaf falleth from the vine, 
 And as the withered leaf from the fig tree. 
 5 For my sword shall be made drunk in the heavens ; 
 
 1. Though Oxexy is used in several 
 instances metaphorically of children, 
 
 (comp. the Arab. use? stirps, and 
 
 the Eth, RARA, fetus, embryo,) 
 
 yet it seems here to be employed 
 literally to denote the various pro- 
 ductions which spring out of the 
 earth. Whatever exists on the face 
 of the globe is summoned to witness 
 the execution of the Divine wrath. 
 Comp. for similar instances of proso- 
 poperia, Ps. 1. 4; Isa. 1.1; Ezek. vi. 
 3; Micah vi. 1, 2. 
 
 2. For the peculiar force of O77, 
 see chap. xi. 15. 
 
 3,4. The language of these verses 
 is in the highest degree hyperbolical 
 All nature is represented as involved 
 in the predicted catastrophe, and sink- 
 ing into ruin. The atmosphere should 
 be infected with the effluvia rising 
 from the bodies of the slain ; and the 
 quantity of blood should be such as 
 to wash away the very mountains 
 from their localities. Not even the 
 celestial bodies should escape, but 
 should roll together like a piece of 
 parchment when set on fire. Comp. 
 Matt. xxiv. 29; 2 Pet. iii, 10, 12; 
 
 Rev. vi. 12—14; Isa. xiii. 10. In pro- 
 phetic style mountains denote reli- 
 gious establishments, and the heavens 
 the sphere of political governments ; 
 so that the violent and entire removal 
 of these in the countries around 
 Judea is here predicted. 
 
 5. Now commences the specific 
 sentence against the Idumzans, with 
 which are to be compared chap. 
 Ixiii. 1—6, and Jer. xlix. 7—22. The 
 language of the latter prophecy is so 
 explicit, and the description accords 
 so completely with that more figura- 
 tively expressed in the two parallel 
 passages of Isaiah, that we are com- 
 pelled to refer them all to the same 
 event—the desolating conquests of 
 Nebuchadnezzar. The IDUMANS, or 
 Epomites, 078722; LXX. ᾿Ιδουμαῖοι ; 
 were the descendants of Esau, or 
 Edom, Gen. xxv. 25, 30 ; and inhabited 
 the mountainous country of Seir, 
 
 Arab. δ] psi) , which stretched from the 
 
 Dead Sea, and the south-eastern boun- 
 dary of Palestine to the Elanitic gulf. 
 They were first governed by dukes or 
 petty chiefs, and afterwards by kings, 
 Gen. xxxvi. They maintained their 
 independence till the time of David, 
 
288 
 
 ἸΒΑΙΛΗ. 
 
 [CHAP. XXXIV. 
 
 Behold, upon Edom it shall descend, 
 Even for judgment upon the people whom I have devoted. 
 6 The sword of Jehovah is full of blood ; 
 
 It is besmeared with fat ; 
 
 by whom they were subdued, and con- 
 tinued vassals to the Jews till the 
 reign of Jehoram, when they rebelled; 
 and, though checked by the decisive 
 victory gained over them by Amaziah, 
 they soon recovered themselves, to the 
 great annoyance of the Jewish state. 
 - Their enmity was also manifested 
 during and after the exile, having in- 
 vaded the land of Judzea, and exercised 
 wanton cruelties on such of the inha- 
 bitants as had remained. They were, 
 however, severely chastised by Judas 
 Maccabeus, who slew twenty thousand 
 of them; and were at last conquered 
 by John Hyrcanus, and compelled to 
 conform to the religion of the Jews ; 
 they afterwards suffered jointly with 
 the latter from the Roman arms, and 
 ultimately became extinct, or amalga- 
 mated with the Arabs of the desert. No 
 sooner were the Israelites brought 
 into contact with them, on their pas- 
 sage from Egypt, than they expe- 
 rienced their hostility, Numb. xx. 17, 
 18; and all along, their hostile dispo- 
 sition manifested itself whenever there 
 was a fit occasion, either in the way 
 of predatory invasion, or of offensive 
 alliance with other enemies of the 
 Jews. Hence the denunciations against 
 them, Ps. cxxxvii. 7; Obad. 10—14; 
 Jer. xlix. 7—22; Lam. iv. 21, 22; 
 Ezek. xxv. 12—14, xxxii. 29, xxxv.; 
 Amos i. 11, 12; and in the present 
 chapter. 
 
 The immediate connexion of all 
 these prophecies, and the similarity 
 of the language employed in most of 
 them, prove that it is the literal Edom 
 which Isaiah has in view. The notion 
 of a mystical people or community, as 
 some have imagined, is utterly unten- 
 able; resting primarily on the blas- 
 phemous interpretation of the Jewish 
 Rabbins, who, by transposing the let- 
 ters of the name Jesus, have converted 
 it into Esau, and then applied it to 
 the Saviour; and Edom, to which 
 it poetically corresponds, to the Chris- 
 tians, and especially to Rome—the 
 
 centre of Christendom, at the time 
 they wrote. See Buxtorf’s Lex. Chald. 
 Talmud. et Rabbin. svb voc. 07x. To 
 the literal interpretation, the sublime 
 and awful character of the language 
 cannot justly be objected, since it 
 was merely adequate to meet the ex- 
 pectations of a patriotic Jew in refer- 
 ence to the infliction of Divine judg- 
 ment on those who had been the 
 ancient and most inveterate enemies 
 of his country. 
 
 mis here taken in the Aram. ac- 
 ceptation, ¢o be filled with liquor, inebri- 
 ated, LUXX. ἐμεθύσθη ; the sword being 
 poetically represented as eagerly drink- 
 ing the blood which it was the instru- 
 ment of shedding. The preterite is 
 subordinated to the following future, 
 and must be rendered accordingly. 
 By ond is meant the Idumezan 
 “heaven,” or the ruling power in 
 Edom, as in ver.4. Yet the judgment 
 was not to be confined to the rulers ; it 
 was likewise to extend to the inhabit- 
 ants generally. 217 DY, lit. the people 
 of my devotion, i. 6. those whom I have 
 
 evoted to destruction. 
 
 6. The idea introduced in the pre- 
 ceding verse is illustrated in this by 
 language borrowed from the slaughter 
 of sacrificial victims—a figure which 
 the prophets frequently employ when 
 setting forth the destruction of a 
 people by war. See Jer. xlvi. 10, 1. 27, 
 li. 40; Ezek. xxxix. 17—20; and 
 comp. Rev. xix. 17.—72577 stands for 
 mang, the Hothpaal conjugation, of 
 which a few other examples occur, as 
 ὌΞΞΙΤ, Lev. xii, 55, 56; xaun, Deut. 
 xxiv. 4. 
 
 mz3, BozRau, is considered by Ge- 
 senius to be the Béorpa of the Greek, 
 and the Bostra Arabia of the Roman 
 writers, which the Arabs still call by 
 
 the name of wa), and which lies 
 in the Hauran, to the N.E. of the 
 mountains of Gilead. There is no 
 proof, however, that this city ever 
 belonged to the Idumeans ; nor 15 
 
CHAP. XXXIV.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 289 
 
 The blood of lambs and of goats, 
 The fat of the kidneys of rams. 
 For Jehovah hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, 
 And a great slaughter in the land of Edom. 
 7 With them also shall the unicorns come down, 
 And the bullocks with the bulls ; 
 
 there the smallest probability that 
 they would have a capital at the dis- 
 tance of a hundred miles from their 
 territory, with the powerful states of 
 Moab and Ammon intervening. In 
 all probability, the city of which the 
 prophet speaks occupied the site of 
 
 the present 8 yha?s Besseyra, a village 
 
 which Burckhardt found in the moun- 
 tainous country of Djebal, sixteen 
 hours to the south of Kerek, and 
 which, judging from the surrounding 
 ruins, he considers to have been an- 
 ciently a considerable city. It lies on 
 an elevation, at the summit of which 
 is a castle, built of stone, with strong 
 walls. What confirms this view of 
 its position is the mention made of 
 it in immediate connexion with }21, 
 Teman, Amos i. 12, a city and region 
 to the east of Idumea. Burckhardt 
 takes it to have been the Psora of Pa- 
 lestina Tertia ; but this Dr. Robinson 
 disputes. From the circumstance that 
 Bozrah is mentioned, Jer. xlviil. 24, as 
 belonging to Moab, some have thought 
 that it was at one time in the posses- 
 sion of that people, and that it had 
 been taken from them by the Idu- 
 means. This is not impossible ; but, 
 as it again occurs, chap. xlix. 13, as 
 the capital of Edom, we are doubtless 
 to regard that occurring in the former 
 passage, as a place of the same name 
 in Moab. Indeed, as the word signi- 
 fies a fortified or inaccessible place, it 
 appears to have designated several 
 cities. Comp. however, with a special 
 view to the present case, Ps. Ix. 9, 
 (Heb. 11). That the Bozrah of Isaiah 
 originally pertained to Edom, we 
 gather from Gen. xxxvi. 33. 
 
 7. The opinion of Jerome, Pagninus, 
 Forerius, Bruce, &c. that by 0x9, or 0, 
 the rhinoceros is meant, is now ex- 
 ploded ; as is, for the most part, that 
 of Bochart, that the Hebrew word cor- 
 
 responds in signification, as it does in 
 form, to the Arab. “Ὁ yy Ti, & Species 
 
 of antelope or gazelle. Schultens, 
 Gesenius, De Wette, Winer, Hitzig, 
 and others, contend that the bos buba- 
 lus, or wild buffalo, is the animal in- 
 tended : treating the idea of the uni- 
 corn as altogether fabulous. Still, 
 however, there are testimonies from 
 independent witnesses to the existence 
 of such an animal both in Asia and 
 Africa, which should make us pause 
 before we reject this ancient interpre- 
 tation. Not only is the figure of the 
 unicorn exhibited on the ruins of 
 Persepolis, but it is described by 
 Pliny in his Nat. Hist. viii. 21; by 
 Ludovico de Bartema, who saw two 
 at Mecca ; by several Portuguese, and 
 by Father Lobo, who saw them in 
 Abyssinia; by the Hottentots in South 
 Africa; by the natives of Thibet, 
 where it is called 2502; by Mr. 
 Hodgson, the British resident at Ne- 
 paul, who states that it is a native of 
 southern Thibet ; and by Bishop Bru- 
 guéres, who is at the head of the 
 Catholic mission in Siam. See Robin- 
 son’s Calmet; Winer’s Realworterb. 
 art. “EKinhorn;” and the Times for 
 Oct. 29, 1832. The animal is described 
 as bearing some resemblance to a 
 horse, has cloven hoofs, a tail shaped 
 like that of a boar, and the horn 
 grows out of the forehead. One of 
 these horns, obtained by Major Latter, 
 from the Sachia Lama of Thibet, was 
 twenty inches in length, four inches 
 and a half at the root, tapering to- 
 wards the point, and nearly straight. 
 According to Bp. Bruguéres, its head 
 is larger than that of an ox, and 
 the horn rises from its forehead and 
 points upwards ; it is endowed with 
 remarkable speed, and bounds like our 
 deer. It seems unaccountable that the 
 different Greek translators of the Pen- 
 
290 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXXIV. 
 
 Yea, their land shall be drenched with blood, 
 And their soil overspread with fat. 
 8 For Jehovah hath a day of vengeance, 
 A year of recompense in vindication of Zion. 
 9 Her streams also shall be turned into pitch, 
 
 And her dust into brimstone ; 
 
 And her land shall become burning pitch. 
 
 It shall not be quenched by night or by day ; 
 
 Her smoke shall ascend for ever ; 
 From generation to generation it shall lie waste ; 
 None shall pass through it to all perpetuity. 
 
 11 
 
 But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it ; 
 
 The crane also and the crow shall inhabit it ; 
 
 tateuch, Job, and the Psalms, the 
 result of whose labour we have in 
 the LXX., should have concurred in 
 rendering the term by povoképas, 1. 6. 
 unicorn, if the existence of some such 
 animal had not been familiar to them. 
 In all the passages in which it occurs 
 it is thus rendered, except in the pre- 
 sent instance, in which it is translated 
 οἱ ἁδροὶ, the strong ones. In those pas- 
 
 2 ον 
 sages the Syr. has [Saa3, which is 
 
 given, Deut. xiv. 5, as the transla- 
 tion of 10", a species of antelope ; 
 
 and the Arab. has variously rp 
 gazelle, wo eS, rhinoceros, Des ac- 
 
 cording to Damir, ἃ species of 
 
 steph pia the wild ow, and wy 
 soldi) or wy Ms; Unicori. 
 
 The Ethiopic has likewise HAdh@., 
 PC, the one horned, in the three 
 
 passages in which it is thus rendered 
 in the Arabic. It is obvious no stress 
 is to be laid on the circumstance that 
 in Deut. xxxiii. 17, horns are ascribed 
 to the 08), since the word is there 
 used as a noun of multitude, the 
 horns not signifying, as some have 
 supposed, Ephraim and Manasseh : 
 but as Moses immediately explains, 
 “ They are the ten thousands of Ephraim, 
 
 and they are the thousands of Manas- 
 seh.” According to the Scripture re- 
 presentations, the D981 were strong 
 and fierce, and were therefore appro- 
 priately used in a figurative sense to 
 denote powerful and formidable ene- 
 mies, especially those of elevated rank, 
 such as princes or rulers. ΤΥ is here 
 used in a sense equivalent to 52, to 
 fall, come down involuntarily ; ined 
 συμπεσοῦνται. 
 
 8. By ΡῈ 2, the cause of Zion, is 
 meant the contention, or, to use a 
 legal term, the suit carried on between 
 the Idumezans and the Jews, to the 
 great annoyance of the latter, which 
 Jehovah would now terminate by tak- 
 ing vengeance on the former. Comp. 
 Obad. 10—15. 
 
 9, 10. Comp. Jer. xlix. 18, where 
 also the destruction of Edom is com- 
 pared to that of Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah; but it is much more forcibly 
 exhibited by the bold and striking 
 figures here employed by. Isaiah. This 
 destruction was to be complete and 
 perpetual. Comp. Jude 7, and Rev. 
 xiv. 10, 11. 
 
 11. This and the following verses 
 contain an accumulation of objects 
 usually associated with desolate re- 
 gions, in order still more to heighten 
 the effect of the prophetic picture. 
 The os7, Kaath, Chal. sm, Katha, 
 Burckhardt describes as abounding in 
 such numbers in Shera, that “the 
 Arab boys kill two or three of them 
 
CHAP. XXXIV. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 291 
 
 For he will stretch over it the line of desolation, 
 And the plummet of emptiness. 
 
 12 
 rule ; 
 
 As for her nobles—none is there whom they might call to the 
 
 And none of her princes exist any more. 
 
 13 
 
 Thorns also shall spring up in her palaces ; 
 
 Nettles and thistles in her fortresses : 
 And she shall be a habitation for wolves ; 
 
 A dwelling-place for ostriches. 
 The wild cats shall meet the jackals ; 
 
 14 
 
 And the shaggy he-goat shall call to his fellow ; 
 
 There also the lilith shall rest, 
 
 And find for herself a place of repose. 
 
 at a time, merely by throwing a stick 
 among them.” LXX. (Lev. xi. 18; 
 &c.) Πελεκὰν ; Vulg. Pelican. The name 
 is derived from 8p, fo vomit ; this bird 
 being remarkable for vomiting back the 
 shells which it has swallowed. In Ps. 
 ΟἿ]. 7, it is called 1272 Np, the pelican of 
 the desert, from its frequenting places 
 remote from the habitations of man. 
 For tp, see on chap. xiv. 23. The 
 FON, FON, heron or crane, is likewise a 
 water-fowl, found in marshy deserts. 
 LXX. ἴβεις, the Egyptian /d7s or heron. 
 In the concluding words of the verse, 
 reference is made to the 1731375 state 
 of the earth, before it was shaped into 
 order and beauty, Gen. i. 2,—a state 
 of complete desolation and emptiness, 
 than which no comparison could be 
 more apt. See Jer.iv.23. Tosucha 
 condition was Idumeza to be reduced ; 
 and all who have attempted to pene- 
 trate it, describe such to be its con- 
 dition at the present day. The line 
 and plummet were used not only when 
 buildings were being erected, but also 
 when they were to be taken down. In 
 792) the Vis causal, and the nominative 
 is Jehovah, understood. 
 
 12. Lowth’s emendation here is 
 most unhappy,—TW, her princes, in 
 the following member of the parallel- 
 ism, obviously corresponding to 777, 
 her nobles. The same may be said of 
 Dpx and |X. 1 in PS) is pleonastic after 
 the Nom. absolute. Before 139 is an 
 ellipsis of > 7¢x, which is not uncom- 
 
 mon. From the statement here made 
 it would appear that the Idumean 
 monarchy was elective. 
 
 13. Before 732.8 is an ellipsis of 3. 
 For 0:5, see on chap. xili. 22. 
 
 14. Observe the paronomasia in DZ 
 and ox, and see for the signification 
 of both words, and of yw, chap. xiii. 
 21, 29. τὴ, a ἅπαξ dey—Bochart, 
 Gesenius, Rosenm., Hitzig, and others, 
 imagine it to be a night-spectre, such 
 as the Rabbins describe, and the 
 
 same as the ων of the Arabs, the 
 
 {dus of the Syrians, and the 
 
 ἔμπουσα of the Greeks ; but employed 
 as it is by the prophet in a catalogue 
 of real animals, there can be no doubt 
 that some animal is meant, though 
 it may now be impossible to decide 
 which. It is not, however, unlikely 
 that the m>, lilith, may be the same 
 
 as the Arab. ων, lailon, which the 
 
 Kamoos explains; tarda avis, ejusve 
 pullus. Freytag’s Arab. Lex. Of this 
 interpretation, Déderlein approves, 
 and adds: “otidem veterum, avem 
 sordidam, fetore horrendam, solitu- 
 dinis amicam ;” referring to Shaw’s 
 Travels for a fuller description. Dathe 
 has: “tarda avis 5. lamia.” LXX. 
 ὀνοκένταυροι. Aq. λίλιθ. Vulg. lamia. 
 Most moderns, the screech-owl, as in 
 our common version. In the present 
 state of uncertainty, I have deemed it 
 
292 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXXIV. 
 
 15 There the arrow-snake shall nestle and lay eggs ; 
 And hatch them, and cover the young with her shadow 
 There also the vultures shall be gathered together, 
 
 Each one with her mate. 
 16 
 Not one of these shall fail ; 
 
 Search out from the book of Jehovah, and read : 
 
 No female shall want her mate ; 
 For the Divine mouth hath commanded, 
 And His Spirit hath gathered them. 
 
 17 
 
 He hath also cast the lot for them, 
 
 And His hand hath divided it for them with the line; 
 
 They shall possess it for ever ; 
 
 best, with Aquila, Van der Palm, and 
 De Wette, to retain the original word. 
 
 15. ep, Arab. Blas , the arrow-snake, 
 from ye , saliit, insiliit ; the serpent 
 
 known among the Greeks by the name 
 of ἀκοντίας, and the anguis jaculus of 
 Lin. It abounds in Arabia, and 
 springs suddenly, and with great 
 violence, on its prey. Its wound is 
 deadly. See Boch. lib. iii. cap. 9. 
 Four MSS. read 1557, and other five 
 have done so originally. It is also 
 the reading of the Soncin. Edit., but is 
 otherwise unsupported. 72 properly 
 signifies fo slip away, or make one’s 
 escape: it is here used in Piel to 
 denote the slipping of the eggs out of 
 the body of the serpent ; only it is 
 taken causatively as the act of the 
 
 serpent. Comp. the Arab. lal, fetus. 
 
 Serpents lay their eggs with much 
 apparent pain, and leave them to be 
 hatched in the sun; but when the 
 young appear, they carefully protect 
 them. This protection is expressed 
 by 123, which signifies ¢o collect, heap 
 together, and so to sit upon or brood. 
 16. The prophet here calls upon all 
 who should live after the devastation 
 of Idumeea, to compare the event with 
 the predictions respecting it which he 
 had just delivered. These predictions 
 would be found in the sacred volume, 
 emphatically called i 790, the book of 
 Jehovah, because written by inspiration 
 of his Spirit, and bearing the stamp 
 
 of his authority. The foundation of 
 its contents had been laid by Moses ; 
 and they were augmented from time 
 to time by succeeding prophets, till 
 the canon was complete. Isaiah knew 
 that his prophecies would form part 
 of the volume, and he, therefore, con- 
 fidently makes his appeal to it. With 
 THD YD WH, comp. epevvare τὰς γραφάς, 
 John v. 39.—7:7, these, Vitringa refers 
 to the predictions: it rather belongs 
 to the different animals just enu- 
 merated : they should all, without fail, 
 be found inhabiting the land of Edom. 
 ΔΤ is the pronoun used emphatically 
 for 7, and may therefore admit of 2 
 in the construct state. Comp. Deut. 
 Xxxii. 39, and similar passages in which 
 sii is thus used as equivalent to 77. 
 
 > is similarly used in Arabic. A few 
 
 codices have 178, contrary to usage ; 
 some have 737 Ἔ, which is the reading 
 of the LXX. and Arab.; but both 
 evidently emendations. 
 
 17. Both genders are here used, 
 doubtless because the animals men- 
 tioned are of different genders. 
 
 That the prophecy contained in this 
 chapter has been minutely fulfilled, 
 must be admitted by all who are 
 acquainted with the present desolate 
 condition of Idumeza. Volney, in 
 spite of his infidel prejudices, was 
 compelled to bear testimony to the 
 facts of the case. “There are,” he 
 says, “to the S.E. of the Dead Sea, 
 within three days’ journey, upwards of 
 eighty ruined towns absolutely desolated ; 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΧΥ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 29 
 
 ὧν 
 
 To successive generations they shall dwell therein. 
 
 several with large edifices. The Arabs 
 sometimes use them as folds for their 
 cattle ; but in general they avoid 
 
 them, on account of the enormous scor- 
 pions with which they swarm.” See 
 Keith on the Prophecies. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 This chapter is intimately connected with the preceding. ‘The enemies of the 
 
 Jews having been all overthrown in the judgments brought upon them by 
 Jehovah, Judea, which they had laid waste, should again flourish, 1, 2; the 
 timid and weak should be encouraged to trust in God for deliverance, 3, 4 ; 
 every obstacle should be removed which tended to obstruct the restoration 
 of the Jews to their own land, and every advantage afforded them by which 
 their speedy and safe return might be promoted, 5—9; so that the sorrows 
 which had preyed upon them for so long a period should give place to 
 exquisite and permanent joy, 10. The attempts that have been made to 
 explain this prophecy of gospel-times, and, in part, of heaven itself, are 
 exceedingly loose and unsatisfactory. The explanation given by both the 
 Lowths is of this character. As the language of part of the 6th verse and 
 that of the 7th is obviously figurative, it is quite a violation of hermeneu- 
 tical propriety to interpret the 5th, and the former part of the 6th, literally 
 of the miracles performed by our Saviour. Nor is there any proof what- 
 ever that Christ refers John the Baptist to this passage, Matt. xi.5. He 
 employs none of the formulas which he uniformly uses when directing the 
 attention of his hearers to passages in the O. T. (see Matt. xi. 10, xii. 17, xiii. 
 14), but simply appeals to his miracles in proof of his Messiahship. The 
 language is similar, but the subjects are different. 
 
 1 Tue desert and the parched ground shall be glad on their 
 account, 
 And the wilderness shall exult, and blossom as the rose. 
 
 1. Abenezra, Kimchi, Ewald, and 
 some others, consider the Ὁ in nwt» to 
 be paragogic, instead of the usual 1, 
 and ascribe the change to the influence 
 of the following 2 in 7272. Kennicott, 
 Lowth, and Hitzig, regard it as the 
 mistake of some copyist, arising out 
 of the next word’s beginning with the 
 
 same letter. There is, however, no 
 difficulty created by our taking it as 
 the suffix, having for its antecedent 
 the 0.3, zations, whose destruction had 
 been predicted in the preceding chap- 
 ter. For instances of similar con- 
 struction, see omy, Gen. xv. 13; 
 omy, Ps. xlii. 5. The waste places of 
 
 0 0 
 
294 
 
 ISATAH, 
 
 [CHAP. XXXV. 
 
 2 It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice, 
 Even with exultation and shouting: 
 The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it ; 
 The splendour of Carmel and Sharon ; 
 They shall see the glory of Jehovah, 
 
 The splendour of our God. 
 
 3 Strengthen ye the weak hands, 
 
 And confirm the feeble knees. 
 
 4 Say to the faint-hearted: Be strong; fear not ; 
 
 Behold your God !— 
 
 Vengeance cometh, the retribution of God,— 
 
 He will come and save you. 
 
 Cr 
 
 Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, 
 
 And the ears of the deaf unstopped. 
 6 Then shall the lame leap like the hart, 
 And the tongue of the dumb shall sing ; 
 
 Judea personified, exult on account of 
 the overthrow of those who had deso- 
 lated them, and again assume their 
 wonted beauty and fertility. n2v2n. 
 Interpreters are not agreed as to what 
 particular plant is intended by this 
 word. Misled by Gesenius and others, 
 Thad rendered it by crocusin my former 
 edition ; but I would now retract that 
 rendering, and restore the term rose as 
 in our common version, since it more 
 suitably expresses the idea of fragrance 
 and beauty which the context so 
 obviously demands. Colchicum autum- 
 nale, assigned by some as the import 
 of the word, whatever support it may 
 seem to derive from etymology, does 
 not commend itself, inasmuch as it 
 denotes a poisonous bulbous-rooted 
 plant, and thus conveys a repulsive 
 rather than an attractive idea. The 
 rose, on the contrary, is an universal 
 favourite with Oriental poets, and ex- 
 presses what is more pleasing to an 
 English ear. The word only occurs 
 once besides, Song ii. 1 ; where, in our 
 common version, it is again translated 
 7086. 
 
 2. 3 73, the LXX. render, τὰ ἔρημα 
 tov “Iopdavov, which Lowth, after 
 Houbigant, with equal licence, trans- 
 lates, “the well-watered plain of Jor- 
 dan.” 3 is put for πὴ, the construct 
 
 for the absolute, as chap. xxxiii. 6, li. 
 21. For 73, eleven MSS. read 1), 
 which two more have done originally, 
 and one or two perhaps still do. The 
 sense is the same. For the rest of 
 the verse, see on chap. xxix. 17, xxxiii. 
 9. What had lain barren and waste 
 was now to equal the most beautiful 
 and magnificent scenes of nature. 
 ma denotes the inhabitants, who 
 should witness the glorious display of 
 the Divine character, in the deliver- 
 ance of the people of God. 
 
 3, 4. Comp. Job iv. 3, 4; Isa. xl. 
 29—31; Heb. xii. 12, 13.~2>>-7M93, the 
 hasty, quick of heart, i. e. those whose 
 heart palpitates quickly through fear. 
 The attention of the church is directed 
 to the approaching interposition of 
 Jehovah,—the efiect of which would 
 be a vindication of her wrongs, by in- 
 flicting a just retribution upon her 
 enemies. 
 
 5, 6. So conspicuous and overpower- 
 ing would be the interference of God 
 on behalf of his people, that those of 
 the most obtuse intellect could not 
 fail to perceive it. So joyous would 
 be the event, that persons the most 
 unlikely would participate in the ex- 
 ultation. No image could more beau- 
 tifully depict the sudden change of 
 circumstances from adversity to pros- 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΧΥ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 295 
 
 For water shall break forth in the wilderness, 
 
 And streams in the desert. 
 
 7 Yea, the vapoury illusion shall become a lake, 
 And the thirsty soil springs of water ; 
 Tn the haunts of wolves, where they rest, 
 Shall be a place for reeds and rushes. 
 
 8 A raised road also shall be there, and a way, 
 And it shall be called, the Holy Way ; 
 The unclean shall not pass along it, 
 
 perity, than the bursting forth of a 
 plentiful stream in the midst of an 
 arid sandy desert: nor could any 
 more powerfully affect the mind of 
 an Oriental, whose climate differs so 
 much from ours. Comp. chap. xli. 18, 
 xiii. 19, 20, xliv. 3, 4. 
 
 7. Still more to enhance the idea of 
 the joyful experience of the Divine 
 goodness, the prophet introduces the 
 
 193, Sharab, Arab. -»» Serab,—an 
 
 illusion to which the French have 
 given the name of mirage, consisting 
 in the presentation to the view of a 
 lake or sea in the midst of a plain, 
 where none in reality exists. It is 
 produced by the refraction of the rays 
 of light, during the exhalation of 
 vapours, by the excessive heat of the 
 sun; and frequently exhibits, along 
 with the undulating appearance of 
 water, the shadows of objects within 
 or around the plain, both in a natural 
 and inverted position. The deception 
 is most complete ; and to the weary 
 traveller, who is attracted by it, in 
 the highest degree mortifying ; since, 
 instead of reaching refreshing water, 
 he finds himself in the midst of 
 nothing but glowing sand. It is often 
 used proverbially, or for the sake of 
 comparison, by the Arabs, as in the 
 
 Koran, Sur. xxiv. 39. |.,γ δ els 
 Luts sda οἱ sl> fol ole “Le, “But 
 as for those who believe not, their 
 works are like the Serad of the plain: 
 
 the thirsty imagines it is water, 
 but when he reaches it, he finds it is 
 
 nothing.” See more instances quoted 
 in Gesen. The meaning of Isaiah is, 
 that the expectations of the Jews 
 should not be disappointed. What 
 they might apprehend would only 
 prove a delusion, they should ex- 
 perience to be a reality. The most 
 abundant provision would be made 
 for their comfort. The same idea 
 is conveyed in the latter part of 
 the verse. The haunts or dvwell- 
 ing-places of the wolves are natu- 
 rally dry. 228, ὦ collection of water, 
 
 lake, &e. le lel. Compare the 
 
 Arabic version of Ps. exiv. 8. For the 
 meaning of 02m, see on chap. xiii, 22. 
 in AZM is added on the principle of 
 the pluralis inhumanus, referring, though 
 a fem. sing., to the mas. plur., 02", 
 See Gesen. Lehrg. p. 719. 72, with- 
 out the Mappik, is found in twenty 
 MSS., two of the first printed, and 
 seven other editions, but most likely 
 from grammatical correction. Be- 
 fore 7Z2, supply Wy, and after it, 
 ow. Though vz properly signifies a 
 Jenced court or habitation, yet it is here 
 clearly to be taken in the acceptation 
 of locality, place, &c., and seems to 
 have been selected to form an anti- 
 thesis to 73. 
 
 8. JD is omitted in eighteen MSS., 
 and in the LXX., Syr., and Arab., but 
 its repetition does not burden the sen- 
 tence. It is more likely genuine than 
 otherwise. There being no proper 
 roads in deserts, but, at most, a faint 
 track left by the footsteps of camels, 
 &c., the prediction imports that every 
 facility would be secured for the re- 
 turn of the exiles. Nor should any 
 enjoy these facilities, or have the pri- 
 
290 
 
 But it shall be for those,— 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXXVI. 
 
 The travellers, though foolish, shall not err. ὃ: 
 
 9 No lion shall be there ; 
 
 Neither shall any destructive beast ascend it ; 
 
 Tt shall not be found there : 
 
 But the redeemed shall walk there. 
 
 10 
 
 For the ransomed of Jehovah shall return, 
 
 And come to Zion with singing ; 
 
 And everlasting joy shall be upon their heads ; 
 They shall obtain gladness and joy ; 
 
 And sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 
 
 vilege of returning, but such as had 
 been recovered from idolatry. Comp. 
 chap. Ixii. 10, 12. Idolatry is fre- 
 quently spoken of as spiritual im- 
 purity, Jer. ii. 23, 111. passim, xi. 13— 
 17; Ezek. xxxvii. 23. 4} possesses 
 peculiar emphasis. The deliverance 
 
 that which makes God the nominative 
 to 7477. Those who should avail 
 themselves of the means of escape 
 from Babylon and other countries, 
 however defective some of them might 
 be in intellectual energy, should not 
 fail of reaching Zion. 
 
 9. NV yn", one that is ravenous of 
 or among beasts; a persecutor, oppres- 
 sor. The redeemed should return in 
 perfect safety: no enemy should be 
 found to molest them. x¥an, to be 
 regular, should be 83%‘, in the mas., as 
 
 it reads in three of Kennicott’s MSS., 
 and in another originally ; but it was, 
 in all probability, written in the fem. 
 by Isaiah,—nv7 predominating in his 
 mind over y"®, at the moment he 
 penned it. The other reading savours 
 of correction. After 3271), supply 38, 
 which one of De Rossi’s Codices reads, 
 or 73, as in the LXX., Arab., and 
 Syr. 
 
 10. Comp. chap. li. 11. I must here 
 adduce the words of Déderlein, with 
 whose view of the subject I perfectly 
 concur: “De temporibus N. T. regno 
 millenario vel reditu ad ccelesta gaudia 
 Esaias quidem hoc loco, si quid judico, 
 ne cogitavit quidem, qui autem his de 
 rebus exposuere locum nostrum, pia 
 quidem varia, vera multa, sed aliena a 
 mente prophets congesserunt.” Who- 
 ever is familiar with the bold and 
 magnificent character of the prophetic 
 style will not deem the liberation 
 from the captivity an event too trivial 
 to be predicted in the language here 
 employed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 This and the three following chapters consist almost entirely of historical 
 matter, relating to Sennacherib’s invasion, and other events that transpired 
 towards the end of the reign of Hezekiah. With some variations, it is iden- 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΧΥΙ.] ISATAH. 
 
 297 
 tical with 2 Kings xviii, 13—37, xix.,and 2 Chron. xxxii.; which last chapter, 
 however, contains only an abbreviated account of the transactions. It has 
 been queried whether this portion of the book of Isaiah, or the correspond- 
 ing portion of the Second Book of Kings, be the original ; and whether it 
 was written by the prophet himself, or merely extracted by another hand 
 from the annals of the Jewish kings. That Isaiah added it to the preceding 
 collection of prophecies against foreign nations, with a view to shew how 
 those which related to the invasion and overthrow of the Assyrians had 
 been fulfilled, seems highly probable, since we find him inserting other his- 
 torical narratives for a similar purpose. See chapters vii. viii. xx. xxii. 
 Certain phrases and sentences, too, are precisely those which we meet with 
 in his predictions, such as x}. Up, xxxvii. 23; comp. i. 4, x. 17,20. ™ 
 Won, ver. 24; comp. x. 18. ΠΝ ΤΌΣ ΠΊΝΩΝ Ti nN, ver. 32; comp. ix. 7. 
 Yet as these peculiarities are likewise found in the section of the Book of 
 Kings, it follows that both were written by our prophet. To which add, 
 the minuteness with which many of the circumstances are related, evincing 
 that the writer was an eye-witness, or, at least, a contemporary, which we 
 know Isaiah to have been, as well as one who was personally concerned in 
 the transactions. On closely comparing, however, the two portions of the 
 sacred text, it will be quite apparent that what we have in Isaiah is an 
 altered copy of the text in 2 Kings, and not vice versé. It abbreviates and 
 omits many things, as well as modes of expression, which occur in the lat- 
 ter; aims at greater uniformity in the use and construction of words ; and 
 substitutes what is easier or more appropriate for what is more difficult. 
 Examples of these will be noticed in the Commentary. It would, therefore, 
 appear that the prophet must have copied what he had already written in 
 the Jewish annals, or in the Book of Kings, only altering it as he proceeded, 
 emending some parts, omitting others, and adding some new matter, such 
 as the song of Hezekiah, chap. xxxviii. 9—20. The mention of the death 
 of Sennacherib as an historical fact, chap. xxxvii. 38, forms no objection to 
 the authorship of Isaiah, since the latter must have reached a very advanced 
 age. See Introd. Equally futile is the objection taken from the use of the 
 terms 72 and m7, since there is nothing that militates against their 
 having been employed by our prophet. 
 
 1 AND it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, 
 that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the 
 
 1. The expedition of Sennacherib, 
 to which reference is here made, was 
 not undertaken against the Jews, but, 
 as Herodotus, 11. 141, informs us, 
 against Sethos, king of Egypt. This 
 accounts for his immense army, (στρα- 
 τὸν μέγαν, Herod.) which must have 
 
 amounted to vastly more than 200,000, 
 since nearly this number perished of 
 that single division of it which had 
 been sent against Jerusalem. It was 
 on his march through Palestine that 
 he stopped to chastise Hezekiah for 
 having thrown off the Assyrian yoke, 
 
298 
 
 2 fortified cities of Judah, and took them. 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXXVI. 
 
 And the king of 
 
 Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king 
 Hezekiah, with a great army; and he halted at the aqueduct of 
 
 co 
 
 the upper pool, in the causeway of the fuller’s field. 
 
 And there 
 
 went out to him Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the 
 household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joach, the son of 
 
 4 Asaph, the annalist. 
 
 And Rabshakeh said to them: Tell now 
 
 Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What 
 
 or 
 
 and to subdue the fortified places 
 which lay in his way, that they might 
 not prove an annoyance to the rear of 
 his army, or obstruct him were he 
 forced to retreat. His Hebrew name, 
 17720, is very accurately preserved in 
 Σαναχάριβος, as given by Herodotus. 
 
 Bohlen compares the Pers. yal, 
 celebritas victorie,—a more likely deri- 
 vation than ω» holy, and --» 
 
 priest, proposed by Gesenius. His 
 being styled by Herodotus: βασιλέα 
 ᾿Αραβίων τε Kat ᾿Ασσυρίων, may be 
 accounted for, partly on the ground 
 of the extended acceptation anciently 
 given to the name Arabia, and partly 
 from actual conquests made in Arabia 
 by the Assyrian power. The fortified 
 cities of Judah were built by Reho- 
 boam, and were fifteen in number. 
 They are specified 2 Chron. xi. 5—12. 
 The meaning of the historian is, that 
 these cities were all successively taken 
 by Sennacherib ; not that they had 
 been all actually subdued previous to 
 the transactions which he was about 
 to describe. 
 
 2. MOT, Rabshakeh, prop. a name of 
 
 Q vy 
 office: Syr, 1325. D3 , the Chief But- 
 
 ler; Opoon wo, Gen. xl. 2, 9, 90: 
 Comp. D0, Radb-saris, “the chief 
 eunuch,” and 221, Lab-mag, “ Chief 
 of the Magi,” Jer. xxxix. 3: but it 
 was not unusual, as it still is in the 
 East, for persons holding high offices 
 at court, to be at the same time high 
 in military command. The narrative 
 is here considerably abbreviated from 
 
 confidence is this that thou exercisest? saying: I maintain (but 
 it is mere talk) there is counsel and might for the war. 
 
 On 
 
 that in 2 Kings xviii. 13—17. Of the 
 three officers there mentioned,—Tar- 
 tan, Rab-saris, and Rab-shakeh, the last 
 only is noticed in Isaiah, because he 
 was the speaker on the occasion. 
 2, Lachish, originally a royal city of 
 the Canaanites, Josh. x. 3, but fortified 
 by Rehoboam, 2 Chron. xi. 9. It must 
 have been a place of considerable 
 strength, Jer. xxxiv. 7. According to 
 Eusebius, it lay seven Roman miles 
 from Eleutheropolis southward, or 
 about twenty-five miles west of Jeru- 
 salem. For the locality here specified, 
 see on chap. vii. 3. 
 
 3. See chap. xxii. 15—25, where, as 
 in the present narrative, the name of 
 Shebna is spelt 822, and not 122%, as 
 in 2 Kings. As 180, scride, he filled a 
 different office from ‘2%, recorder, 
 being employed as private secretary ; 
 whereas, the latter was the historio- 
 grapher, or royal annalist, whose duty 
 it was to enter on the public records 
 of the kingdom the more remarkable 
 events that transpired. 
 
 4, 137 7227, the Great King: a title 
 assumed by oriental monarchs, partly 
 from vanity, and partly to distinguish 
 them from the petty kings or princes 
 whom they held in vassalage. Comp. 
 chap. x. 8. i) is here used as a par- 
 ticle of contempt, as 1 Kings ix. 13. 
 
 5. Instead of Max, 7 say, thirteen 
 of Kennicott’s MSS., one now, and 
 three in the margin, five of De Rossi’s 
 originally, and the Syr., read, AyY2x, 
 Thou sayest, which is the textual read- 
 ing in 2 Kings. It is very possible, 
 however, that ἸΌΝ is genuine,—TNX?, 
 saying, being understood, as frequently, 
 at the end of the preceding verse. 
 
CHAP. XXXVI. | 
 
 ISATAH. 299 
 
 whom now dost thou rely, that thon hast rebelled against me ? 
 Behold! thou reliest on that broken reed-staff, Egypt, on which, 
 if one lean, it will enter into his hand, and pierce it through: 
 such is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who rely upon him. 
 But thou wilt say to me: We confide in Jehovah, our God :—is 
 it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath 
 removed, and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem: Before this 
 altar ye shall worship? But now, enter the lists with my 
 master, the king of Assyria, and I will furnish thee with two 
 thousand horses, if thou canst furnish thyself with riders to 
 them. How then shouldst thou repulse one officer of the least 
 of my master’s servants? Yet thou reliest upon Egypt for 
 
 10 chariots and horsemen. 
 
 mnawrs1, a word, or thing of lips, i.e. 
 what is merely such, and has no 
 foundation in reason or reality. Comp. 
 on wr, a man of lips, i.e. a great 
 talker, one who blusters, but means 
 nothing by what he says. 
 
 6. P22 is not properly what is 
 actually broken, as no one would lean 
 upon such a staff, but what is bruised, 
 orreally, though not apparently injured, 
 and thus incapable of yielding the 
 support expected from it. There is 
 possibly here a reference to the weak- 
 ening of the Egyptian power, by the 
 expedition sent thither by Sargon, the 
 immediate predecessor of Sennacherib. 
 See chap. xx. The 737, reed, was a fit 
 symbol of Egypt, since it grew so 
 plentifully in that country. Comp. 
 for the sentiment, chap. xxx. 5, 7. 
 Such language, coming from Rabsha- 
 keh, was a severe reproof to the Jews, 
 who were so prone to confide in Egypt. 
 
 7. Instead of wom, the text in 2 
 Kings has pv2Nn — addressing the 
 people instead of Hezekiah, which 
 agrees better with that monarch’s 
 being immediately spoken of in the 
 third person. There is no various 
 reading in the MSS.; but the LXX. 
 and Chald. have the plural. There is 
 here a reference to the abolition of 
 idolatry effected by Hezekiah, of which 
 an account is given, 2 Kings xviii. 4; 
 2 Chron. xxix. 16. 
 
 8. rw, fo mix one’s self up with any 
 one, meddle, enter tnto a combat. For 
 
 But now, is it without Jehovah that I 
 
 ex 7297, one of De Rossi’s MSS., and 
 one of Kennicott’s, the Soncin. and 
 Brix. Edd., and the Soncin. Prophets 
 of 1486, read 77, without the article, 
 which is the more usual practice. 
 The text of 2 Kings reads, "Wx 77) ney. 
 There are, however, several instances 
 in which the article is used before a 
 noun in construction. Hezekiah might 
 easily have furnished two thousand 
 men, but two thousand fit to act as 
 horsemen might have been more 
 difficult, as the training of cavalry 
 was doubtless discouraged, if not 
 absolutely prohibited by that pious 
 king. 
 
 9. 778, a foreign word of uncertain 
 origin. Bohlen derives it from the 
 
 Persic, Uw, proceres, magnates ; 
 Ewald, from Beat curare. The per- 
 
 son who filled this office was governor 
 or prefect of a province, but inferior 
 to a satrap. The name was in use 
 among the Hebrews as early ‘as the 
 time of Solomon, see 1 Kings x. 15; 
 so that the position of Gesenius, 
 respecting its recent introduction, is 
 without foundation. His remark, how- 
 ever, that 708 nmD is the only instance 
 of a substantive and an adjective 
 being both in construction with the 
 following noun, is worthy of notice. 
 10, Either this was mere bluster on 
 the part of Rabshakeh, or he may 
 have been encouraged in his expedition 
 
900 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 ISATAH. [CHAP. XXXVI. 
 
 am come up against this land to destroy it? Jehovah hath said 
 tome, Go up to this land, and destroy it. Then Eliakim, Shebna, 
 and Joach, said to Rabshakeh, Speak, we pray, to thy servants 
 in Aramaic, for we understand it, but do not speak to us in 
 Jewish, in the hearing of the people that are on the wall. But 
 Rabshakeh said, Was it to thy master, and to thee, that my 
 master sent me to speak these words? Was it not to the men 
 who sit on the wall, who are to eat their own excrements and 
 drink their own urine, along with you? And Rabshakeh stood. 
 and cried with a loud voice in Jewish, and said, Hear ye the 
 words of the great king, the king of Assyria: Thus saith the 
 king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he is not able to 
 deliver you. And let not Hezekiah make you confide in 
 Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will surely deliver us; this city shall 
 not be surrendered to the king of Assyria. Hearken not to 
 Hezekiah ; for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make peace with 
 me, and come out to me, and eat ye, each of his own vine, and 
 each of his own fig-tree, and drink ye, each of the water of his 
 own cistern ; till 1 come and take you to a land like your own 
 land; a land of corn and new wine, a land of bread-corn and 
 vineyards. Let not Hezekiah deceive you, saying, Jehovah 
 will deliver us. Did the gods of the nations deliver, each his 
 
 by some false prophet, who pretended 
 to have a revelation from Jehovah on 
 the subject. 
 
 11. maw, Aramaic, the language 
 spoken not only in the western divi- 
 sions of Syria, on the confines of the 
 Holy Land, but also in Mesopotamia, 
 and even further to the east. mn, 
 Jewish, i.e. Hebrew; but appropriately 
 so termed, as the ten tribes had by 
 this time been carried into captivity. 
 
 12. The Keri has here, as elsewhere, 
 euphemistically Dpx2 for DIYS VW, and 
 Dm) for oF. On this point 
 the Jewish literati have been ex- 
 tremely sensitive: the editors of the 
 Soncin. and Brix. editions actually 
 adopting DY." of the Keri into 
 the text ; and others, who would not 
 venture so far, leaving an open space 
 sufficient to admit the word Ὁ, the 
 vowel-points of which they have not 
 scrupled to insert. The > in 2%, and 
 nm, expresses destination. Rab- 
 shakeh calls the attention of the in- 
 
 habitants to the extremities to which 
 they should be reduced in the siege, 
 and excites them to rebellion, by 
 pointing out the impossibility of their 
 successful resistance of the attack. 
 16, 7273, dlessing, is here evidently 
 used in the acceptation of Οὐ, peace. 
 Thus the Chald. δορὰ ay Ὑτὴν ; Saad. 
 
 _siyele. On the other hand Diy is 
 
 frequently used for 773, in the sense 
 of salute. 
 
 17. The Jews, on capitulating, should 
 enjoy their liberty till the Assyrian 
 army returned from Egypt, when they 
 should be transported, according to 
 the custom of those times, to the land 
 of the conqueror. The country be- 
 yond the Euphrates or the Tigris 
 they would find as fertile and plentiful 
 as their own. There is here a con- 
 siderable abbreviation of the text in 
 2 Kings. 
 
 18, 19. Rabshakeh regarded Je- 
 hovah merely as a local deity, entitled 
 
CHAP. XXXVII.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 301 
 
 19 own land, from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are 
 
 20 
 
 21 
 
 the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of 
 Sepharvaim ? Did they deliver Samaria from my hand? Who 
 among all the gods of these lands delivered their country from 
 my hand, that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem from my 
 hand? And they were silent, and did not answer him a word ; 
 for the king’s order was, Ye shall not answer him. And 
 Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and 
 Shebna, the secretary, and Joach, the son of Asaph, the annalist, 
 came to Hezekiah, with rent garments, and told him the words 
 
 of Rabshakeh. 
 
 to no greater consideration than those 
 of other cities which had been taken 
 by the Assyrians. For Hamath, and 
 
 the most southerly city of Mesopo- 
 tamia, situated on the east bank of 
 the Euphrates. It was from this city, 
 or the district belonging to it, that 
 colonists were sent to occupy the 
 land of Israel, 2 Kings xvii. 24. The 
 opinion of Vitringa, that some Syro- 
 pheenician city is meant, which Koppe 
 
 adopts, is without sufficient foun- 
 dation. Thetextin Kings adds Hena, 
 and Ivah, which afterwards occur in 
 this history. The ἡ in 3) has an in- 
 terrogative force, which the versions 
 express. It is, however, omitted in 
 three of Kennicott’s Codices, and was 
 
 of Kings reads. 
 
 22. Comp. chap. xxxili. 7. The 
 rending of the garments was a common 
 and very expressive token of grief 
 among the Hebrews, and other eastern 
 nations. Comp. chap. xxxvii. 1. 
 
 1 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 AND it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard them, he 
 rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went 
 into the house of Jehovah, and sent Eliakim, who was over the 
 household, and Shebna, the secretary, and the elders of the 
 priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah, the son of Amoz, the 
 prophet. And they said to him, Thus saith Hezekiah: This 
 day is a day of distress, and rebuke, and calumny ; for the 
 children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to 
 
 3. The concluding sentence in this 
 verse is proverbial, and is expressive 
 of the greatest danger, and despair 
 of deliverance. The inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem were like a woman in child- 
 
 birth, whose strength is completely 
 exhausted, so that she sinks helpless 
 at the very moment when it is most 
 required, 
 
802 
 
 10 
 
 ISAIAH. [CHAP, XXXVII. 
 
 bring forth. Perhaps Jehovah, thy God, will hear the words 
 of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, hath sent 
 to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which 
 Jehovah thy God hath heard; wherefore, offer up a prayer for 
 the existing remnant. And the servants of king Hezekiah 
 came to Isaiah. And Isaiah said to them, Thus shall ye say to 
 your master: Thus saith Jehovah, Be not afraid on account of 
 the words which thou hast heard, with which the striplings of 
 the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold! I will 
 inspire him with courage; but he shall hear a report, and shall 
 return to his own country; and I will cause him to fall by the 
 sword in his own country. 
 
 Then Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria 
 besieging Libnah ; for he had heard that he had departed from 
 Lachish. And he heard of Tirhakah, king of Cush, saying, 
 He cometh forth to fight thee. And when he heard it, he sent 
 messengers to Hezekiah, saying, Thus shall ye speak to 
 Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God, in whom 
 
 4, Vin nxn, is inferential, wherefore, 
 on this account. 
 
 6. 02, lads, striplings, is used con- 
 temptuously instead of 0°72Y, servants ; 
 though, in other connexions, it is 
 
 _ equivalent to it. 
 
 7. 77 42 7) ‘27 has been variously in- 
 terpreted. Some think there is here 
 a distinct prediction of the miraculous 
 destruction of Sennacherib’s army, 
 which they suppose to have been 
 effected by means of the simoom, or 
 hot wind from the Arabian desert. 
 Of this our translators appear to have 
 approved—rendering the words, “ Be- 
 hold, I will send a blast upon him.” 
 To such construction, however, it 
 must be objected, that it is at variance 
 with the idiomatic force of 21% 0), 
 which uniformly signifies to czspire, 
 endow mentally, endue with life, will, 
 determination, ὅθ, On the same prin- 
 ciple πνεῦμα δειλίας, proposed by Secker, 
 and approved by Hendewerk, must be 
 rejected. Déder. consilium ; Rosenm. 
 voluntatem; Gesen. and Hitzig, dis- 
 position; none of which satisfies the 
 claims of the passage. On the other 
 hand, as [™ is more than once used in 
 the sense of fortitude, courage, &c., as 
 Josh. ii. 11, v. 1; 1 Kings x. 5, it may 
 
 appropriately be taken in this accep- 
 tation in the present instance. Je- 
 hovah declares that he would inspire 
 the king of Assyria with resolution to 
 prosecute the ends of his expedition ; 
 but at the moment of his proceeding 
 to meet Tirhakah, intelligence of the 
 overthrow of that part of his army 
 which lay before Jerusalem would 
 reach him, and occasion his immediate 
 flight. It is evidently to this, and not 
 to the report respecting Tirhakah, 
 ver. 9, that the 7y2¥ refers, since the 
 result of that report was not his 
 effecting an immediate retreat, but 
 his sending a fresh embassy to Heze- 
 kiah to induce him to capitulate, in 
 order that he might be at liberty to 
 employ his entire force against the 
 Ethiopian monarch. 
 
 8. Whether Sennacherib succeeded 
 in taking Lachish or not, cannot be 
 determined, though it is more likely 
 he had. 72, LXX. AcBvd, AoBva, a 
 city of the priests, in the south of 
 Judah. Eusebius calls it AoBava, and 
 places it in the vicinity of Eleuthero- 
 polis. 
 
 9. For an account of Tirhakah, see 
 chap. xviii. 
 
 10, The Assyrian monarch repeats, 
 
CHAP. XXXVII.] 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 ISAIAH. 303 
 
 thou confidest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be 
 surrendered to the king of Assyria. Behold! thou hast heard 
 what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, 
 devoting them to destruction; and shalt thou be delivered ? 
 Did the gods of the nations, which my fathers destroyed, deliver 
 them? Gozan, and Haran, and Retzeph, and the Edenites, 
 which are in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, and 
 the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of the Sepharvaites, 
 
 of Henah, and Ivah ? 
 14 
 
 And Hezekiah received the letters from the hand of the 
 
 messengers, and read them, and went up to the house of 
 
 15 
 
 Jehovah, and spread them before Jehovah. And Hezekiah 
 
 16 prayed to Jehovah, saying, Ὁ Jehovah of Hosts, the God of 
 
 in an amplified form, the argument 
 which he had already employed, chap. 
 XXxvi. 18—20. 
 
 12. 33, Gozan, in all probability the 
 Tavoaviris of Ptolemy, v. 18, situated 
 between the rivers Chaboras and 
 Saccoras. Some would place it on 
 the Kissil-Osan, a river in the north 
 of Persia, which flows into the Caspian 
 Sea; but its immediate connexion 
 with Haran favours the former inter- 
 pretation. Comp. 2 Kings xvii. 6, 
 Xviil. 11, where the Chaboras is called 
 the river of Gozan. 0, Haran, LXX. 
 Xappay, 81, 1 Chron. v. 26, an ancient 
 city-in Mesopotamia, Gen. xi. 31, xii. 
 5, xxvli. 43 ; the Kappau, Carre, of the 
 Greeks and Romans, and celebrated for 
 the defeat of Crassus. 421, Rezeph. 
 Jakut, in his Geog., mentions not fewer 
 than nine towns of this name ; as does 
 also Abulfeda in his Tab. Syr. Most 
 probably the one here specified is the 
 “Pnodda of Ptolemy, v. 15, or the Re- 
 sapha Heshami of Abulfeda ; situated 
 somewhat short of a day’s journey to 
 the west of the Euphrates. y1v™~23, the 
 children, i.e. the inhabitants of Hden. 
 That the Eden here spoken of cannot 
 be the Eden of Damascus, Amos i. 5, 
 situated between Tripoli and Baalbek, 
 seems clear, from its occurring in 
 connexion with Haran, as it also does, 
 Ezek, xxvii. 23. It is most likely the 
 
 Syrian, pose » Maedan, which Asse- 
 
 man, Bib. Orien. i. p. 224, places in 
 the province of Diarbekr. This place 
 
 or district the Assyrians appear to 
 have conquered, and transplanted the 
 inhabitants to Wwn, 2 Kings xix. 12, 
 in full weir, Telassar, which is sup- 
 posed to be the same as 1038, Hllasar, 
 Gen. xiv. 1; a country or district 
 somewhere to the north of Shinar. 
 
 Saad. ἀλλο» Armenia. 
 
 can be no doubt that it is used by 
 Isaiah—not of the rulers or chief 
 magistrates of these cities, but of 
 their idols, to which the Syrians and 
 Phoenicians gave the name, as D7 79, 
 ΤΡ Ξε ἢ pod, &. vy, LXX. (2 Kings 
 XVili. 34) "Ava, Ava, probably the city 
 ale 
 situated in Mesopotamia, on a ford of 
 the Euphrates. my, 2 Kings xvii. 24, sy, 
 Ivah, a city respecting which nothing 
 further is known, than that it was taken 
 by the king of Assyria, and its inha- 
 bitants were sent to colonize Samaria. 
 
 14. Instead of 718779, the text of 
 2 Kings, and De Rossi's MS. 380, read 
 DxXw in the plural; yet both have 
 the following 75) in the singular. 
 Both may be reconciled by taking the 
 plural distributively, each of them, 
 singly, or such like. 
 
 15—20. A most appropriate and 
 beautiful prayer, expressive of a clear 
 faith and confident trust in Jehovah, 
 as the only God, in opposition to the 
 claims advanced by idolaters in behalf 
 
 of the Arabian geographers, 
 
904 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 ISATAH. [CHAP. XXXVII. 
 
 Israel, that sittest between the cherubs! Thou alone art the 
 God of all the kingdoms of the earth. Thou hast made the 
 heavens, and the earth. Incline, O Jehovah! thine ear, and 
 hear; open, O Jehovah! thine eyes, and behold; and hear all 
 the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to reproach the 
 living God. In truth, O Jehovah! the kings of Assyria have 
 destroyed all the nations, and their countries; and have cast 
 their gods into the fire, (for they are not gods, but the work of 
 men’s hands, wood and stone,) and destroyed them. And now, 
 O Jehovah, our God! save us from his hand, that all the 
 
 kingdoms of the earth may know that thou alone art Jehovah. 
 
 21 
 
 Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, 
 
 Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Since thou hast prayed 
 
 22 
 
 to me concerning Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, this is the 
 
 thing which Jehovah hath spoken respecting him : 
 
 of their deities ; and recognising the 
 Divine glory as the result of the 
 supplicated deliverance, 
 
 16, DET AW, lit. the Inhabiter of the 
 cherubs, but, according to Exod. xxv. 
 22, DIT MD pr, between the two che- 
 rubs, placed one on each side of the 
 mercy-seat, the throne of Jehovah’s 
 visible glory among the Hebrews. For 
 the meaning of 273, see on chap. vi. 2. 
 NUT, In OVNI NIT TY, possesses peculiar 
 emphasis: Thou art He who art, &c. 
 ἢ. 6. the true, or really existing God. 
 What is added, “Thou hast made,” 
 &c., Zwinglius calls an elegans prosa- 
 podosis, shewing that God had a right 
 to all things, because he was their 
 Maker. 
 
 17. For 47%, fifty-five MSS,, and ori- 
 ginally ¢ez more, the Soncin., Brix., 
 and sixteen other editions read in full, 
 72», which is the reading in 2 Kings. 
 The LXX., Syr., Vulg., and Arab. have 
 the plural, “‘ thine eyes,’’ which is un- 
 doubtedly right. Gesenius has here 
 the very ingenious observation, that 
 the use of the singular in reference 
 to the ear, and that of the dual in 
 reference to the eye, is equally in 
 accordance with the wsws loguendi, and 
 with fact. When we would listen to 
 any one we naturally incline ove of our 
 ears towards him, but when we would 
 look at any thing we open doth our 
 eyes. 
 
 18, ὈΞ ΤΙΝῚ Nsw ΠΝ, lit. all the 
 lands and their land; in Kings sms 
 Dosw), the nations and their land, 
 which is the reading in Isaiah of up- 
 wards of twelve MSS.; yet most 
 probably by correction, since all the 
 versions have ΠΊΣΤΙΝ, Hither Isaiah 
 understood by nizix, zations, those 
 who inhabit countries ; or, he was led 
 to use the term the better to suit the 
 preceding verb 7, which nowhere 
 else occurs in application to people, 
 except chap. lx. 12. The only objec- 
 tion against the present reading is 
 the harshness of the repetition; fx 
 being otherwise used metonymically 
 for the inhabitants of a country, 
 Judges xviii. 30; Isa. xi. 4. In 2 
 Chron. xxxii. 13, we find ΓΒ τ “3, 
 and oYIwny, immediately following— 
 so that, after all, there may here be 
 an ellipsis of 3. 
 
 19. 12}, the historical Infin. which 
 we find Isaiah also employing chap. 
 v. 5, et freq. The text of Kings has 
 333), 
 
 “20. mmx, in Tim TAY, is emphatic. 
 Comp. Ps. xc. 3. In Kings, D8 is 
 added to mim, After wy, upwards 
 of twenty MSS. add %2, which the 
 text in Kings exhibits ; but it is not 
 expressed in any of the versions. 
 
 22. On 7Yna, virgin, in application 
 to cities, see chap. xxiii. 12. Micha- 
 elis notices, that previous to the con- 
 
CHAP. XXXVIL.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 305 
 
 The virgin daughter of Zion despiseth thee, she laugheth at 
 
 thee ; 
 
 The daughter of Jerusalem shaketh her head at thee. 
 
 23 
 
 Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed ? 
 
 Yea, against whom hast thou raised thy voice, 
 
 And lifted up thine eyes ? 
 
 Against the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 24 
 
 By thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said : 
 
 With the multitude of my chariots have I ascended 
 
 The heights of the mountains, the recesses of Lebanon ; 
 
 I have also cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses ; 
 And reached its extreme height, its finest forest. 
 
 bo 
 Or 
 
 I have dug and drunk water ; 
 
 And will dry up, with my feet, all the streams of Egypt. 
 
 Hast thou not heard, that of old I prepared it, 
 
 And planned it from ancient days ? 
 
 quest of Magdeburg, in 1630, the 
 arms of that town exhibited a young 
 woman with a virgin crown upon her 
 head ; but after that event she held 
 the crown in her hand. To shake the 
 head at one, was, among the Hebrews, 
 an expression of contempt. This the 
 inhabitants of Jerusalem would do 
 when Sennacherib was compelled to 
 flee. Comp. κινεῖν τὴν κεφαλὴν, Matt. 
 XXVil. 39. 
 
 23—25. Here the insolent monarch 
 is called to account for his blasphe- 
 mous arrogance ; and a specimen is 
 given of the vaunting language which 
 he had dared to employ. No‘obstacle 
 had hitherto impeded him in his pro- 
 gress. The most inaccessible regions 
 of Lebanon had been explored by his 
 troops ; and, in the wanton pride of 
 his heart, he had made havoc of its 
 most stately trees. Nor had he ex- 
 perienced any want of water in the 
 desert for the supply of his immense 
 army ; the mere introduction of which 
 into Egypt would dry up the Nile, 
 and all its branches! The language 
 is mainly figurative ; since the march- 
 ing of troops over the ridges of 
 Lebanon would have been as prepos- 
 terous as the conveyance of chariots 
 over those elevated, precipitous, and 
 snow-clad regions impossible. As he 
 
 had conquered every difficulty, so 
 now he would carry all before him. 
 Comp. for the phraseology, chap. x. 
 18; and for a parallel specimen of 
 his boasting, ver. 13, 14, of the same 
 chapter. Comp. also chap. xiv. 13, 
 14, Thus Alaric, boasting of his con- 
 quests :— : 
 
 “cum cesserit omnis 
 Obsequiis natura meis? Subsidere 
 nostris 
 Sub pedibus montes; arescere vidi- 
 mus amunes. 
 Fregi Alpes galeisque Padum victri- 
 cibus hausi.” 
 Claudian, de Bello Get. 526, 532. 
 
 Thus also Juvenal describes the 
 
 Greeks under Xerxes :— 
 
 { credimus.altos 
 
 Defecisse amnes, epotaque flumina 
 Medo 
 
 Prandente, et madidis cantat que 
 Sostratus alis.”—Sut. x. 176. 
 
 26. Nothing could be more sublime 
 in effect than the suddenness with 
 which Jehovah here interrupts the 
 boasting monarch. “Be not proud 
 of thy victories ; thou art merely an 
 
306 
 
 Now [I bring it to pass, 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXXVII. 
 
 That thou shouldest convert fortified cities into desolate ruins. 
 
 27 
 
 Therefore are their inhabitants short of power ; 
 
 They are dismayed and confounded ; 
 They are as the grass of the field, and as the green herb ; 
 
 As the grass on the roofs, 
 
 And as grain blighted before it hath stalked. 
 
 in, | know; 
 And also thy rage against me. 
 
 Have come up into mine ears, 
 
 Yea, thy sitting down, and thy going out, and thy coming 
 
 Because thy rage against me, and thine insolence, 
 
 I will put my ring into thy nose, 
 
 And my curb into thy lips, 
 
 And turn thee back by the way which thou camest. 
 
 30 
 
 And this shall be a sign to thee: Eat this year that which 
 
 groweth of itself; and in the second year, that which springeth 
 up in like manner; and in the third year, sow and reap, plant 
 
 instrument in my hand, by which I 
 have punished wicked cities, as I long 
 ago purposed and predicted through 
 my prophets.” Scholz. Comp. chap. 
 x. 5, 6. In Dz) 042 is no difficulty 
 whatever, though Lowth stumbles at 
 the words. Comp. xxv. 2; Jer. ix. 
 9 (Heb. 10), li. 37, and iv. 7. 
 
 27. Ὁ ΞΡ, short-handed, i.e. weak, 
 powerless. Comp. ᾿ ial dy ye " Μὰ 
 Knés Hist. x. Ves. pp. 9,10. Τὸ ex- 
 press his power, Artaxerxes I. had the 
 surname μακρόχειρ, Lougimanus. ΤΟ Τῷ, 
 in Kings 727%, which three codices 
 read here. The Ὁ has in all proba- 
 bility been substituted for the 5, by 
 some transcriber. The noun is derived 
 from τ, ¢o scorch; Chald. τῶ, Zo 
 
 burn; Arab. WSduv θυ , tenebrea ; 
 
 the blackness of night. When corn is 
 blighted, it becomes black. 
 
 28. The accumulation in this verse 
 is intended to express the utmost 
 attention and most accurate know- 
 ledge. Comp. Ps. exxxix. 2. 
 
 29. The Mm was a hook, or ring, used 
 for securing large marine animals, 
 and for curbing land animals, such ag 
 
 camels, buffaloes, ὅσο. Comp. Job xl. 
 1, 2; Ezek. xxix. 4, xxxviii. 4. 
 
 30. The prophet now addresses 
 Hezekiah, and encourages him to 
 exercise confidence in God, by giving 
 him a token by which he should 
 know that an entire deliverance from 
 the Assyrians would ensue. This nix, 
 sign, like that specified chap. vii. 14, 
 consisted in the prophetic announce- 
 ment of a future event, the miraculous 
 accomplishment of which would con- 
 firm the oracle. In the present in- 
 stance the event was to be an 
 abundant supply of provisions for 
 two years, in the absence of all culti- 
 vation of the ground. Instead of the 
 accustomed produce, which had failed 
 during the former of these years, 
 either from the fields not having been 
 sown at the time when the Assyrian 
 army entered the country, or from 
 its having been trampled upon and 
 eaten up during the invasion, the 
 Jews should find a sufficiency in that 
 which grew spontaneously from what 
 had remained in the ground after the 
 crop of the preceding year had been 
 reaped, Not only, however, was such 
 spontaneous growth to suffice for one 
 
CHAP. XXXVII.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 907 
 
 31 vineyards also, and eat the fruit of them. And the escaped of the 
 house of Judah, that are left, shall again strike root downward, 
 
 32 
 
 and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a 
 
 remnant, and they that have escaped, from mount Zion: the 
 
 33 
 
 zeal of Jehovah of Hosts shall effect this. 
 
 Therefore, thus 
 
 saith Jehovah concerning the king of Assyria : 
 He shall not come into this city, 
 
 Nor shoot an arrow into it; 
 
 He shall not present a shield before it, 
 Nor throw up a mound against it. 
 
 year ; but a second spontaneous crop 
 was to spring from what in like 
 manner might remain of it, to be a 
 supply for the year ensuing, and for 
 so much of the third as might elapse 
 before harvest. It is generally believed, 
 that the reason why the Jews were 
 not at liberty to cultivate the ground 
 the second year was, that it was either 
 the sabbatical year, or that of jubilee ; 
 though, from the uncertainty con- 
 nected with the Hebrew chronology, 
 it is scarcely possible satisfactorily to 
 establish the point. At all events it 
 must have required a special blessing 
 (comp. Lev. xxv. 21) to render the 
 earth sufficiently productive to secure 
 the supply here promised, The terms 
 map and ow scarcely, if at all, differ 
 in signification. The former, the LXX. 
 in 2 Kings xix. 29, and Lev. xxv. 5, 
 render αὐτόματα, what springs up of 
 itself; but here a ἕσπαρκας : the latter 
 the LXX. give by τὸ κατάλειμμα, what 
 is left; Aq. and Theod. αὐτοφυῆ. 
 
 Comp. the Arab. ua , sustulit sese, 
 
 elatus fuit. In Kings the reading is 
 wrD—reversing the first and last 
 letters.— 28, according to the ancient 
 versions, and the following verbs, are 
 imperatives used for the future, in 
 order strongly to express the certainty 
 of the event. See on chap. vi. 10. 
 Instead of 3281, which might other- 
 wise be pointed 728, the Keri has 
 28, which is found in the text of 
 more than forty codices, and in some 
 of the earliest editions. It is like- 
 wise supported by all the versions. 
 Perhaps, however, this verb, in both 
 the instances in which it is used in 
 
 this verse, was designed to be taken 
 as the Infinitive 728, employed ellip- 
 tically for 28M 3x, eating, ye shall φαΐ, 
 ie. ye shall certainly, or abundantly 
 eat. Comp. 133, Exod. xx. 8; inv, 
 Deut. v. 12. 
 
 31, 32. By an easy transition, the 
 prophet proceeds to foretel the pro- 
 sperity which should follow to the 
 nation, by comparing it to a tree, 
 which strikes deep root in the ground, 
 and, drinking in abundance of mois- 
 ture, produces plenty of fruit. 2 
 signifies to add to, increase, &c. ; and, 
 connected as here with “WW, it indi- 
 cates the depth and spread of the 
 roots. By 7235 are meant those who 
 had fled before the Assyrians; and 
 by mixt, such as remained in the 
 land, and were now in the power of 
 the enemy, or such as continued safe 
 within the walls of Jerusalem. When 
 the enemy was no more, they would 
 go forth at pleasure throughout the 
 land : some to their homes, and some 
 to assist in cultivating the ground, 
 and repairing what had been laid 
 waste. Comp. Nah.ii.3. For the last 
 clause of ver. 32, comp. chap. ix. 6. 
 
 33—35. In these verses a positive 
 assurance is given, that, instead of 
 advancing with the rest of his army, 
 and laying regular siege to Jerusalem, 
 Sennacherib should, through the gra- 
 cious interposition of Jehovah, be 
 compelled to return to his own coun- 
 try. That some preparations for an 
 attack had previously been made by 
 the division under Rabshakeh is evi- 
 dent from chap. xxix. 3; so that the 
 present prediction must relate to what 
 Hezekiah still apprehended—a siege 
 
908 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XXXVII. 
 
 34 By the very way he came shall he return, 
 And shall not come into this city, saith Jehovah. 
 35 For I will protect this city, and deliver it, 
 For my own sake, and for the sake of David my servant. 
 
 36 
 
 And an angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp 
 
 of the Assyrians, an hundred and eighty-five thousand men ; 
 and when men arose early in the morning, behold! they were 
 
 37 all dead corpses. 
 
 by the Assyrian monarch himself, at 
 the head of his entire army. Accord- 
 ing to this interpretation, the two 
 passages are in perfect harmony with 
 each other. For the promise of pro- 
 tection here given, comp. chap. xxxi. 5. 
 
 36. That the term azgel was ever 
 figuratively employed by the Hebrews 
 to designate any agent in the material 
 world cannot be proved, though it has 
 become almost fashionable in inter- 
 preters to assert it. We are not, 
 therefore, at liberty to assign any 
 other signification to it here, than 
 that which it ordinarily bears ; viz. a 
 celestial spirit employed as an instru- 
 ment of Divine providence. There is 
 nothing, however, to hinder us from 
 supposing that this extraordinary and 
 invisible agent employed secondary 
 or mediate causes, just as an angel 
 destroyed seventy thousand men by 
 the’ pestilence, 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 16; 
 1 Chron, xxi. 14—18; or, as in the 
 case of Herod, in which it is said, 
 that “the angel of the Lord smote 
 him—and he was eaten of worms.” 
 Whether on the present occasion a 
 miraculous simoom, a supernatural 
 thunder-storm, or the plague λοίμικην 
 νόσον, Joseph. Antiq. x. i. 5, were the 
 means employed, we cannot, in the 
 absence of data, determine. While 
 there would be nothing miraculous in 
 such a number of men dying of the 
 plague,—it being a fact, related by 
 Jahn, Antiq. i. 2, p. 392, that in the 
 year 1580 it carried off about 500,900 
 persons at Cairo in the course of 
 seven months,—we cannot suppose it 
 possible for it to have destroyed 
 185,000 in one night, 2 Kings xix. 35, 
 except it had been brought about 
 through the intervention of a miracle. 
 A distorted account of this catastrophe 
 
 Then Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, broke 
 
 was given to Herodotus by the Egyp- 
 tian priests, who represented the 
 scene to have been Pelusium ; Vulcan, 
 the deity whose aid was invoked, and 
 whom the Egyptians identified with 
 the God of the Hebrews ; Sethos, the 
 monarch who invoked it; and field- 
 mice, the instruments by which the 
 army of Sennacherib were in one 
 night rendered powerless, and obliged 
 to take to flight the following morning. 
 The event was commemorated by a 
 stone statue of Sethos, in the temple 
 of Vulcan, with a mouse in his hand, 
 and the inscription, ES EME ΤΙΣ 
 ‘OPEQN, EYSEBHS ESTQ, Let him who 
 looks on me, reverence the gods. Herod, 
 ii. 141. Michaelis is of opinion that, 
 as the mouse was the Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphic for destruction, Sethos held it 
 in his hand to indicate the miraculous 
 destruction of his enemy ; and that it 
 was either misconstrued by the priests, 
 or misunderstood by Herodotus. Vor- 
 rede to the second half of Isaiah, p. 
 xxxiL, and Anmerk. on chap. xix. p. 
 107. Comp. in illustration of this 
 verse, chap. x. 16, 32—34, xxix. 5, 6, 
 xxx, 30,33) Xxx1- Θὲ 
 
 37. For the accumulation ΟΣ YD" 
 aw), to express haste, comp. Cicero’s 
 abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit, in his de- 
 scription of the flight of Catiline. 
 It is implied in 1%), avd he dwelt, that 
 Sennacherib was not murdered imme- 
 diately on his return to Nineveh. 
 What authority Hales had for the 
 statement, that he was assassinated 
 fifty-five days after his arrival, | know 
 not; but, according to the extracts 
 from Berosus and Abydenos, in the 
 Armenian translation of Euseb. Chron. 
 1. p. 41, he still lived sixteen years ; 
 reduced the Babylonians to obedience, 
 who had rebelled under Elibus, the 
 
CHAP. XXXVIII.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 309 
 
 38 up, and set off, and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it 
 came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch 
 his god, that Adrammelech and Sharetzer, his sons, slew him 
 with the sword, and made their escape into the country of Ara- 
 rat; and Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead. 
 
 successor of Merodach Baladan ; 
 gained a victory over the Greeks in 
 Cilicia ; and founded the city of Tar- 
 sus. See Gesen. Comment. p. 999— 
 1002. Both Hitzig and Gesenius place 
 the year of his death in the year B.C. 
 696. When the prophet states that he 
 dwelt in Nineveh, his meaning is, that 
 he never after returned to Palestine. 
 Of his exploits elsewhere no. account 
 is taken, as they did not affect the 
 Jews. 
 
 38. 13, Nisroch, i.e. the great Eagle, 
 
 from 33, Arab. » » eagle, and the in- 
 tensive syllable J}, This bird the 
 
 ancient Persians held in peculiar vene- 
 ration, and regarded it as the symbol 
 of Ormuzd: it was likewise worship- 
 ped as a deity by the Arabs, before 
 the time of Mohammed. Of the two 
 royal parricides, Adrammelech was in 
 all probability the principal, and is the 
 only one mentioned by Berosus, under 
 the name of Ardumusanus. For 
 Ararat, see on chap. xiii. 4. The 
 LXX. translate ’Appevia. For an ac- 
 count of Hzar-haddon, see Winer’s 
 Realworterb. What ground Russell 
 has for asserting, in his Connexion of 
 Sac. and Prof. Hist., that he parti- 
 cipated in the guilt of his father’s 
 murder, does not appear. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 This chapter contains an account of the dangerous sickness of Hezekiah, 1— 
 3; the sign given him that his days should be lengthened, 4—8 ; his reco- 
 very, and the beautiful eucharistical ode which he composed after his resto- 
 
 ration to health, 9—22. 
 
 > 
 
 1 In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death ; and Isaiah the 
 
 1. The phrase 077 Ὁ, iz those 
 days, does not necessarily imply that 
 what follows took place at or before 
 the time of Sennacherib’s invasion ; 
 though this has been asserted by the 
 author of Seder Olam Rabba, Usher, 
 Lightfoot, Prideaux, Zwinglius, v. d. 
 Palm, Hendewerk, and others. On 
 the other hand, Calvin, Pareus, Pis- 
 cator, Le Clerc, Vitringa, Scheidius, 
 Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, and Winer, 
 
 maintain that it happened after the 
 retreat of the Assyrian monarch ; and 
 to this opinion I cannot but accede. 
 It is in the highest degree improbable, 
 that the king of Babylon, who was at 
 the time tributary to Sennacherib, 
 would have ventured to send a con- 
 gratulatory embassy to Hezekiah, if 
 he had not received previous infor- 
 mation of the defeat, chap. xxxix, 
 1. Comp. 2 Chron. xxxii. 22—24, 
 
 QQ 
 
310 
 
 ISATAH. [CHAP. XXXVIII. 
 
 prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said to him, Thus 
 saith Jehovah: Charge thy house; for thou shalt die, and not 
 live. Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to 
 Jehovah, and said: O Jehovah! I beseech thee remember now 
 how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect 
 heart, and have done that which was good in thy sight; and 
 Hezekiah wept exceedingly. Then the word of Jehovah came 
 to Isaiah, saying: Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith Jeho- 
 vah, the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer ; 
 I have seen thy tears; behold! I will add to thy days fifteen 
 years. And I will deliver thee, and this city, from the hand 
 of the king of Assyria; and I will protect this city. And 
 this shall be the sign to thee from Jehovah, that Jehovah will 
 
 .8 do the thing which he hath spoken. 
 
 Behold! I will cause 
 
 the shadow of degrees, which hath gone down, by the sun, 
 
 The promise, ver. 6, cannot be urged 
 as a valid objection, since it is merely 
 a repetition of that in chap. xxxvii. 
 35; and was given to remove from the 
 mind of the king all fear of future 
 attacks on the part of the Assyrians. 
 Dathe renders, Hodem illo anno; Dé6- 
 derlein, Circa hoc tempus. As, however, 
 Hezekiah reigned only twenty-nine 
 years, and fifteen of them were those 
 added to his life through the Divine 
 goodness, it is evident that his reco- 
 very must have happened in the course 
 of the remaining portion of the four- 
 teenth year of his reign—which was 
 that of the Assyrian invasion. For 
 the nature of his sickness, see on ver. 
 21. The words 42? 1, give charge to 
 thy house, is equivalent to our making 
 a last will: hence the Rabbin. “xx, 
 a will, or testament. Comp. 2 Sam. 
 XVii. 29. 
 
 2. The pious monarch turned to- 
 wards the wall by the side of which 
 his couch stood, that he might present 
 his prayer, undisturbed by what might 
 be passingin the chamber. See Lowth’s 
 note. Ina very different spirit Ahab 
 turned away his face, 1 Kings xxi. 4. 
 
 3. The terms, 090, perfect, and Nx, 
 truth,in this connexion, and frequently, 
 when used of the Jewish kings, have 
 a special reference to sincere endea- 
 vours to establish and maintain the 
 pure worship of Jehovah, in opposition 
 
 to all idolatrous intermixtures. Comp. 
 the Arab. pos integer a ποῖα et vitiis ; 
 
 lw, énteger vitii expers; »bw\\, religio 
 Y Pp ¢ Ly 
 
 , one addicted to 
 
 and professing the true faith, i.e. Is- 
 
 lamism. 
 
 4, The parallel passage in Kings is 
 fuller and more special. 
 
 6. See on ver. 1. 
 
 8. According to the longer narrative 
 in Kings, it was placed at the option 
 of Hezekiah, whether the shadow on 
 the dial should go forward ten degrees, 
 or go backward ten degrees ; the latter 
 of which he chose, as being the more 
 remarkable. With respect to the 
 niyo of Ahaz, it has been disputed 
 whether ὦ suz-dial introduced by that 
 monarch, or the steps leading up to his 
 palace, be meant. The former is the 
 rendering of the Chald. vw y2x, howr- 
 stone, and of Symm., and Jerome, ἐν 
 ὡρολογίῳ, in horologio; the latter, 
 that of the LXX. ἀναβαθμῶν, and 
 
 Saad. us! . None of the objec- 
 
 Muhammedica ; 
 
 tions that have been raised against 
 the existence of a dial at that time in 
 Jerusalem, are of any weight. Anaxi- 
 mander, to whom the Greeks ascribe 
 the division of time by hours, and the 
 introduction of the sun-dial, travelled 
 
CHAP. XXXVIII.| . 
 
 on the dial of Ahaz, to go back ten degrees. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 aid 
 And the sun 
 
 turned back ten degrees, by the degrees by which it had 
 
 gone down. 
 
 9 THE WRITING OF HEZEKIAH, KING OF JUDAH, WHEN HE HAD 
 BEEN SICK, AND HAD RECOVERED FROM HIS SICKNESS : 
 
 in Chaldea about the time of the 
 captivity, and very probably became 
 acquainted with both during his in- 
 tercourse with the Oriental astrono- 
 mers. Indeed, Herodotus expressly 
 states, ii. 109, that the Greeks obtained 
 the knowledge of the pole, the dial, 
 and the division of the day into 
 twelve parts, from the Babylonians. 
 It is not at all unlikely, that Ahaz, 
 who appears to have been fond of 
 foreign objects of art, 2 Kings xvi. 
 10, obtained a sun-dial from Babylon ; 
 and that it is to this, rather than to 
 any steps which he had caused to be 
 made, that reference is had in the 
 present case. The circumstance, too, 
 of the interest taken by the Baby- 
 lonians in the event of the retrogra- 
 dation of the shadow, confirms this 
 hypothesis. Elias Chomer, a Jewish 
 Rabbi, supposes the dial to have been 
 a concave hemisphere, having in the 
 middle a globe, the shadow of which 
 fell upon certain lines, which marked 
 the time. Of the length of the de- 
 grees we are not informed ; but that 
 they bore some proportion to the 
 length of the day is probable, from 
 the selection of the number ἔθη, rather 
 than fifteen,—that of the years which 
 Hezekiah was to live. 
 
 The infidel objection to the event, 
 derived from the motion of the sun 
 being opposed to the well-known con- 
 struction of the mundane system, is 
 at once met by the facts,—that there 
 is no more inconsistency in speaking 
 of the sun going back, than there is in 
 our speaking of his risizy and setting ; 
 and that what is called the sz in one 
 part of the verse, is called the shadow 
 in the other,—the cause, by a common 
 figure of speech, being put for the 
 effect. Nor is there any necessity for 
 supposing, that, on the occasion, the 
 earth was actually arrested in her 
 progress round the sun, and turned 
 so far back in a contrary direction as 
 
 to produce the difference in degrees 
 here specified: since all that was 
 necessary to produce the effect was 
 to bend, or cause a change in the 
 direction of the rays of light, so as to 
 make them retrograde on the dial. 
 Partial phenomena of this descrip- 
 tion have been observed in modern 
 times. On the 27th of March, 1703, 
 P. Romauld, prior of the cloister at 
 Metz, made the observation, that, 
 owing to such a refraction of the solar 
 rays in the higher regions of the 
 atmosphere, in connexion with the 
 appearance of a cloud, the shadow on 
 his dial deviated an hour and a half. 
 The production of such a phenomenon, 
 on a scale of such magnitude, how- 
 ever, as that stated by Isaiah, could 
 not but be regarded as a remarkable 
 interposition of Divine power; and 
 the foreknowledge of it, on the part of 
 the prophet, must have been strictly 
 miraculous. The words, wow 20m) 
 nya wy, And the sun went back ten 
 degrees, are wanting in three of Ken- 
 nicott’s MSS., and originally in two 
 of De Rossi’s: they are likewise 
 omitted in the Syr.; but their omis- 
 sion, and that of wown, ¢he suv, in the 
 Kénigsberg Cod., is most probably an 
 emendation. This last word, however, 
 does not occur in Kings. 
 
 9. This eucharistical ode of Heze- 
 kiah, which is wanting in Kings, is 
 distinguished for its peculiar sweet- 
 ness and tenderness; the plaintive 
 tone which pervades it ; and the ex- 
 treme conciseness of its style. “ Est 
 autem carmen hoc cum primis doctum 
 et elegans.” Zwinglius. It chiefly 
 describes the state of his feelings 
 during his sickness. Of its genuine- 
 ness and authenticity there can exist 
 no doubt. That this pious king was 
 fond of poetry appears from Proy. 
 xxy. 1; so that there is every reason 
 to regard the > in wp) as the Lamed 
 Auctoris, 31920, LXX. προσευχὴ, but 
 
812 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XXXVIII. 
 
 10 I said: In the meridian of my days I shall enter the gates of 
 
 Sheol ; 
 
 I am deprived of the residue of my years. 
 11 I said: I shall no more see JAH, 
 
 JAH in the land of the living ; 
 I shall no more behold man, 
 
 With the inhabitants of the world. 
 
 the Alex. Cod. δὴ : οἱ λοι. γραφὴ: a 
 song committed to writing, with a 
 view to commemorate the Divine 
 goodness. The reader will do well to 
 consult on this ode the very learned 
 Dissertatio Philologico-Exegetica of 
 Ever. Scheid., Lugd. Batav. 1769, 8vo. 
 
 10, ‘273, Vulg. ἐμ dimidio, a figurative 
 mode of expression, taken from the 
 apparent stationary position of the 
 sun at noon. This idea, the LXX. 
 doubtless meant to express, when 
 they rendered ἐν τῷ ὕψει, though 
 Jerome thinks they mistook the 7 for 
 a. The root is 23, ¢o be silent, rest, 
 
 &c. Comp. Gieuhar. ἜΝ ἘΝ 
 ἐντὶ SS ες» spoken of “the sun 
 
 when he stands in the midst of 
 heaven.” It is equivalent to the 
 Greek, ἐν τῇ μεσημβρίᾳ τοῦ βίου, and 
 our “meridian of life.” Coverdale: 
 in my best age. 'Tingstadius : lefnads- 
 middag. Wezekiah, reflecting that, at 
 the age of thirty-nine, he had only, 
 as it were, reached the mid-day of 
 human life, (see Ps. xc. 10,) laments 
 the prospect of early death. This in- 
 terpretation is preferable to that 
 adopted by Gesenius and others, who 
 render, “in the tranquillity of my days ;” 
 as the corresponding member of the 
 parallelism shews. On xv, Sheol, see 
 chap. v. 14. ΠΕ, I am visited, 1. 6. 
 punished, as it respects the residue 
 of the years I might have lived ; de- 
 prived of them. See for the Accus. 
 as here used, Ewald, § 482. Some 
 render, 7 shall be missing, which is not 
 contrary to Hebrew usage. 
 
 11. ™ occurs only once in three of 
 De Rossi’s MSS. and in the Syr. ; and 
 two Codices have originally read 717 ; 
 but there can be no doubt, from the 
 tone of the poem, that the repetition 
 
 is genuine. Comp. the repetition of 
 “9, ver. 17, and of ‘0, ver. 19. The 
 vision of God, to which Hezekiah 
 here refers, was the contemplation of 
 the Divine glory in the temple. He 
 had taken great pains to restore the 
 temple-worship, and anticipated, with 
 pious delight, those manifestations of 
 the presence of Jehovah, which he 
 had promised to his assembled people. 
 The loss of this privilege he here 
 deplores. Comp. Ps. xxvii. 4, Lxiii. 2, 
 and the Note on chap. xxxiii. 17. The 
 LXX. have τὸ σωτήριον τοῦ Θεοῦ, 
 “the salvation of God,” (see on xl. 5,) 
 —as if they considered the appear- 
 ance of Messiah to have been the 
 object of his vision. “The land of 
 the living” is contrasted with Sheol, 
 the state of the departed. That 577, 
 which occurs only here, is to be ren- 
 dered, place of cessation or rest, and ap- 
 plied to the grave, as Vitringa, 
 Scheidius, Rosenmiiller, v. d. Palm, 
 Gesenius, Winer, Hitzig, and others, 
 maintain, the parallelism seems abso- 
 lutely to forbid—17 Δ, correspond- 
 ing so exactly to oT px. I cannot, 
 therefore, but agree with those inter- 
 preters who consider 777 to be identical 
 in meaning with 137; especially as 
 the only difference consists in a trans- 
 position of the letters 7 and 9; and 
 the precisely similar phrase, 177 20, 
 occurs Ps. xlix.2. For other instances 
 of transposition, comp. 2) and 203, 
 3 and %2D, Fw and AY. For ὙΠ, 
 
 comp. the Arab. WS, perennavit, et 
 sempiternus fuit ; S\%, perennitas, secu- 
 lum, D3%, world. Thus here Saad. 
 Lo} ; and the Chald. sx, the earth. 
 
 LXX. ἐπὶ γῆς. Tingstad, cbland verl- 
 dens inbyggare. Six MSS. read ὑπ; 
 and four more have done so at first. 
 
CHAP. ΧΧΧΥΠΙ.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 313 
 
 12 My habitation is plucked up, and removed from me, 
 
 Like the tent of a shepherd ; 
 
 I roll up, like a weaver, my life ; 
 From the thrum he cutteth me off; 
 From morning to night thou makest an end of me. 
 
 13 
 
 I compose myself till the morning, 
 
 Then, like a lion, he breaketh in pieces all my bones ; 
 From morning to night thou makest an end of me. 
 14 Like the swallow and the crane I twitter ; 
 
 I moan like the dove ; 
 
 12. 7, ὦ circle, dwelling, tent, &c. 
 Arab. le, the same, from 7, ye to 
 
 move round in a circle, be round, &c., to 
 live in a circular tent, or in tents 
 placed in a circular form ; in which 
 way the Nomades usually construct 
 their dwellings. D2 1s specially used 
 of pulling up the pins by which the 
 cords of a tent have been fixed to the 
 ground, comp. chap. xxxill. 20; and 
 m3, to uncover, remove, &c., in applica- 
 tion to the removal of the cloth or 
 covering of the tent, &c. “ Nomadee 
 quum pascua mutant, tabernacula 
 convolyunt atque abeunt.” Zwinglius. 
 Comp. for the figure Jer. iv. 20, x. 20; 
 2 Cor. v.1; 2 Pet. i. 183—15. It was 
 very common for the Hebrews and 
 other Orientals to speak of the body 
 as atent. It was regarded not as the 
 proper person, but merely his tempo- 
 rary habitation. Comp. 2 Cor. v. 1; 
 2 Pet. 1. 13,14. °29, from me, is empha- 
 tic, in the same view of the subject. 
 5, pastoralis, Winer. ° added to 
 words, sometimes expresses a quality 
 or attribute ; as "122, 22771. See Gesen. 
 Lehrgeb. p. 524—Hezekiah next com- 
 pares the finishing of his life to the 
 rolling up of a web, which, when 
 finished, is cut off from the thrum. 
 
 1p, Arab. 28, to contract, roll up, &e. 
 
 Tingstadius: Jag vicklar thop. This 
 was all that was left for the monarch 
 to do, since God had, to all appear- 
 ance, cut short his days. Comp. Job 
 vi. 9. 21 properly signifies what hangs 
 down, such as hair from the head, 
 threads, thrums, and the like. Comp. 
 Song vii. 6. The nomin. to ws» and 
 
 to 12%, in the following verse, is 71, 
 understood. Recognising the Divine 
 hand in what had taken place, he ad- 
 dresses himself directly to the Most 
 High, in words which are repeated at 
 the close of the following verse. For 
 the phrase, ΠΣ ἽΝ oY, which means 
 the whole day, comp. ἐξ ἡμέρας eis νύκτα, 
 Eurip. Here. Fur. 503. oY is here 
 used instead of 773, the beginning of 
 the day. Coverdale : iz one day. 
 
 13. 718, to be even, equal; in Piel, to 
 
 make level, even; Arab. Vw, aquare, 
 
 componere,—to compose one’s-self: in 
 full, wa) mw, Ps. cxxxi. 2.. The king 
 endeavoured to allay his fears and 
 take rest during the night, hoping 
 that the following morning would 
 bring him relief; but when day re- 
 turned, his malady raged with greater 
 violence than ever. Comp. Job x. 16. 
 While 3 corresponds to the 3 in 3, 
 as in ver. 14, it likewise marks the 
 apodosis. 
 
 14, Ὅν DD, forms an asyndeton, as 
 in TY wy, Hos. vi. 3; TY Wor, Hab. 
 iii. 11. There is also an ellipsis of the 
 > of comparison before the latter 
 word, Comp. Jer. viii. 7, WP) DxD, 
 where the use of the copulative shews 
 that by Ὅν we are not to understand 
 the swallow itself, as expressing the 
 gyrations made by that bird in flying, 
 but some other bird of passage. That 
 it signifies the grws or crane, Bochart 
 has satisfactorily proved, ili. 68—80 ; 
 
 deriving it from the Arab. π΄: aufugit 
 ad suos, quibus adsuevit. The Chald. 
 has 372; Saad. ees , both having 
 
514 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XXXVIII. 
 
 Mine eyes fail with looking upward ; 
 O Jehovah! I am oppressed; undertake for me. 
 
 15 What shall I say ? 
 
 He hath both made a promise to me, and performed it. 
 
 Τ will walk humbly all my years, 
 Because of the bitterness of my soul. 
 
 16 O Lord! by these men live ; 
 
 And entirely through them is the life of my spirit ; 
 Yea, thou hast restored me, and made me to live. 
 
 the same signification. For 01, three 
 MSS., and originally two more, have 
 DD, Theod. ois, which Jahn states to 
 be orientalium lectio. 'The word is ono- 
 matopoetic,—expressing the sound 
 made by the swallow. Hence also the 
 Italian, Zisil/a. Both birds are noted 
 for the circles and evolutions which 
 they make in the air, and their noise 
 when setting out on their journeys. 
 This noise is here expressed by )¥52, 
 which, though more applicable to the 
 twitter of the swallow, may also de- 
 scribe the call-note of the crane. See 
 on chap. viii. 19. There is peculiar force 
 and beauty in the comparison here 
 made between the dying believer and 
 migratory birds, about to take their 
 departure to a distant and more genial 
 clime. They linger in the scenes 
 which they have frequented; but 
 they are impelled by instinct to re- 
 move. The plaintive note of the 
 dove is again referred to, chap. lix. 11; 
 Ezek. vii. 16. It occurs frequently in 
 Eastern poetry. NY signifies fo engage 
 tn behalf of another, pledge one s-self for 
 him, and by implication, deliver him. 
 15. Here begins the second half of 
 the ode, in which Hezekiah attempts 
 to give expression to the rapturous 
 feelings of gratitude with which he 
 was oppressed. When he was at the 
 last extremity, he received the Divine 
 promise that he should recover, and 
 he had now experienced its fulfilment. 
 
 As the verb, Arab. Jolo, Zo go slowly, 
 
 is used, as here, in Hithpael, Ps. xlii. 
 5, in the sense of walking in slow and 
 solemn procession to the temple, some 
 think that the pious king declares it 
 to be his intention, as long as he 
 lived, to go up to the house of God to 
 
 give thanks for his deliverance. Thus 
 the Chald. ‘Mi27p, Dts Mex, “T will 
 worship and pay my vows before 
 him.’ Schmidius, Vitringa, Hoheisel, 
 Dathe, and Rosenmiiller, approve of 
 this interpretation ; but it is decidedly 
 forced ; as is also recogitabo, reputabo, 
 reflect, meditate, &e., of the Vulg., 
 Jerome, Lowth, and others. There 
 seems rather to be in the word the 
 expression of a pious resolution ever 
 after to “walk humbly with God,” 
 Mic. vi. 8, ὅν, on account of, or, induced 
 by a consideration of the deep afflic- 
 tion with which he had been visited, as 
 the chastisement of his sins. It is the 
 opposite of wz, which signifies to 
 walk in a stately, independent man- 
 ner; and is equivalent to ox 77, 1 
 Kings xxi. 27. 
 
 16. The pronominal affixes, 07 and 
 17, being of both genders, express the 
 number and diversity of the Divine 
 benefits, and refer to these as the sub- 
 jects implied in ὍΝ and Avy. Both v 
 and 3 indicate the instrumental or 
 efficient cause. Comp. Gen. xxvii. 
 40; Deut. viii. 3. For 73, which is 
 the reading of all De Rossi’s MSS, 
 nine of Kennicott’s read 07; most 
 probably the result of a grammatical 
 correction. %22 is connected, accord- 
 ing to the syntax, with 17 "7; the 772 
 being merely interjected to give ease 
 to the composition, as ™, Gen. vii. 6; 
 ty, 2Sam.1.9; Job xxvii. 3. 2090, 
 though put in the Fut. to mark the 
 succession of the event, in reference 
 to the past condition of the royal pen- 
 man, is to be understood as a Preter. ; 
 and the following Imper., ΠῚ, is, ac- 
 cording to rule, to be rendered in the 
 same sense. Comp. ™—%2m, Gen. 
 xx, 7; MoM—nwy2, Josh. ix. 20, 
 
CHAP. XXXVIII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 315 
 
 17 Behold! my bitter anguish is changed into ease ; 
 And in love to my soul, thou hast delivered me from the pit of 
 
 decay ; 
 
 Fcr thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. 
 18 Verily, Sheol cannot praise thee ; 
 
 Death cannot celebrate thee ; 
 
 Those that descend to the pit cannot hope for thy truth. 
 19 The living, the living shall praise thee, as I do this day ; 
 The father to the children shall announce thy truth. 
 
 17. Lit. “Behold! turned into 
 soundness was my great bitterness.” 
 That 9 is employed to denote a tran- 
 sition or change from one state into 
 another, see Gesen. Heb. Lex. (9, A) 3; 
 so that there is no necessity, with 
 Dathe, Cube, and others, to regard 
 19, in either of the two instances in 
 which it here occurs, as a finite form 
 of the verb 1, to change,—a con- 
 struction forced in itself, and at 
 variance with the spirit of the ode, 
 which requires the latter 1 to be 
 
 simply a repetition of the former, for . 
 
 the sake of emphasis. Comp. ver. 11 
 and 19.—72 ‘Sb Pe is pregnant in 
 meaning: “Zhou hast loved me, and 
 effected my deliverance from,’ &c. 
 
 Comp. the Arab. (jac, amore flagravit, 
 
 adhesit. Nearly the same words occur 
 Job xxxili. 18, ΠΤ Wp] Jw; but 
 the signification of ΤΠ is so fully 
 established, that we are not at liberty 
 to change it into 727, as Chappelow 
 ‘suggests in his Note on this passage 
 in Job. 23, consumption, decay ; from 
 m3, fo fuil, waste, come to nothing. 
 
 Arab. 58 trita et consumpta fuit 
 vestis. coll do ert 9) et depascit 
 
 eos vermis consumptionis. Hist. Tam. 
 p. 322.—To cast any person or thing 
 behind one’s back, is a mode of speech 
 common among the Orientals to ex- 
 press oblivion. See 1 Kings xiv. 9; 
 Nehem. ix. 26; and comp. the Arab. 
 
 ye , with », post tergum rejecit, obli- 
 tus, non curavit res. r kalo a>, 
 
 oblitus fuit, nec curavit rem necessariam. 
 
 In reference to crimes, it means to 
 forgive them. Thus Harir. Consess. 
 
 XXXiv. Cell ws υ J yg Kies ts 
 Ls ἰὼ, And I cast his deeds behind my 
 
 back, though they were most atrocious. 
 Comp. Micah vii. 19. Its opposite is 
 to place any thing before the face, 
 meaning to observe, or keep in view 
 for punishment. See Ps. xe. 8, cix. 
 14,15; Jer. xvi. 17; Hos. vii. 2. 
 
 18. 388 and ny, the LXX. pro- 
 perly interpret, of ἐν ἄδου, and οἱ 
 ἀποθανόντες. Before ΠῚ repeat N%. 
 The meaning of this, and similar 
 passages in the Psalms, is not, that 
 the departed have no conscious exist- 
 ence, or active employments in 
 another world, but that they take no 
 further part in the concerns of the 
 present life. ‘Those who have entered 
 the invisible world no longer enjoy 
 any opportunities of glorifying God 
 upon earth; nor do they experience 
 the fulfilment of his promises re- ° 
 specting temporal good. Devoted as 
 the pious Jews were to the temple- 
 worship, to which 777 and 557 parti- 
 cularly refer, they regarded a com- 
 plete removal from it by death as a 
 grievous calamity. Comp. Eccles. ix. 
 10. Τοῖς γὰρ ἔτι ζῶσι τοῦτο ποιεῖν 
 padiov? οἱ γὰρ τεθνέωντες ἔξω τῆς 
 ἐμπορίας γεγένηνται, Theodor. on Isa. 
 XxXxvili. 18. 
 
 19. For ΤΠ, see ver. 11 and 17. 
 One of Kennicott’s MSS., another of 
 De Rossi’s originally, and the Com- 
 plut. Polyg. read nx instead of ὅν, 
 but the preposition is without doubt 
 genuine,—being often used after verbs 
 of speaking, publishing, &c. See Gen, 
 xx, 2 3. Ps. di. 7; Jor. Σ]..16; 
 
810 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
  [CHAP. XXXIX. 
 
 20 Jehovah was ready to deliver me ; 
 Therefore will we strike my stringed instruments 
 All the days of our life in the house of Jehovah. 
 
 21 
 
 22 and apply it to the ulcer, and he shall recover. 
 
 Now, Isaiah had said: Let them take a cake of dried figs, 
 
 Hezekiah also 
 
 had said: What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of 
 
 Jehovah ? 
 
 20. The 5 before the Infir. absolute 
 is sometimes used to denote the con- 
 tinuance of an action, Gen. ii. 3; or 
 simply the Fut., Prov. xix. 8. 
 
 21, 22. According to 2 Kings xx. 
 7, 8, these verses should come in 
 somewhere after ver. 6; and Lowth 
 and Boothroyd insert them partly 
 after the 6th, and partly after the 
 8th ; but, from the peculiar manner 
 in which they are worded, it seems 
 pretty evident that they have not 
 been placed here by transposition, 
 and that they are not to be ascribed 
 to the negligence of a transcriber ; 
 but owe their place to Isaiah him- 
 self, who, after inserting the ode of 
 Hezekiah, recollected that what is 
 here added was necessary to complete 
 
 the narrative. myo, Arab. c rp ἐμ- 
 
 -τὸ 
 
 unxit et emollivit corpus oleo, to rub 
 ointment into a wound, apply what is 
 mollifying, &. From the particular 
 mention made of pm, the ulceration, 
 which appeared on the body of Heze- 
 kiah, it has, with considerable pro- 
 bability, been concluded that the 
 disease with which he was afflicted 
 was the plague. This disease is not 
 only characterised by entire prostra- 
 tion of strength, and great mental 
 depression, but also by certain local 
 symptoms, as buboes, carbuncles, and 
 livid spots, which discharge offensive 
 matter, and often reach deep into the 
 system. The application of the cata- 
 plasm was to produce suppuration, 
 Hezekiah’s recovery was so rapid, that 
 on the third day he was able to go up 
 to the temple, 2 Kings ax. 5. , 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 This chapter contains an account of the embassy sent by the king of Babylon, 
 to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery, 1; the ostentatious display 
 which he made of his royal establishment, 2; his reproof by the prophet 
 Isaiah, 3,4; a prediction of the captivity, 5—7; and the king’s acquies- 
 cence in the announcement thus made to him, 8. 
 
 1 AT that time, Merodach Baladan, son of Baladan, king of 
 ' Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he had 
 
 1. The name, 13 JINN, Merodach- 
 Baladan, Winer and Von Bohlen de- 
 
 rive from the Persic, yok Soyo» 
 
 vir laudatus; but Gesenius, with 
 _greater probability, regards it as a 
 
 compound of JI, Mars, the great 
 slaughterer, from wore? to die, corre- 
 sponding to the Persic, ΟΝ , over 
 throwing men, a hero; 7, Belus, the 
 
CHAP. XXXIX. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 317 
 
 2 heard that he had been sick, and had. recovered. And Heze- 
 kiah was delighted with them, and shewed them his treasury, 
 the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious oil, and 
 the whole of his armoury, and all that was found among his 
 treasures. There was nothing in his house, or in the whole 
 
 3 of his dominion, which Hezekiah did not shew them. 
 
 Then 
 
 came Isaiah the prophet to king Hezekiah, and said to him: 
 
 What have these men said ; 
 
 and whence came they to thee ? 
 
 And Hezekiah said: They came to me from a distant country, 
 
 chief god of the Babylonians; and 
 Tx, Adon, Adonis, the Pheenician name 
 of a deity. Two MSS. read 77893, as 
 in 2 Kings, and a few have 7119, 
 TWN, or ἽΝ το. Merodach is men- 
 tioned Jer. 1. 2, as. one of the gods of 
 the Babylonians, and the name was 
 borrowed by their kings, as Lvi/- 
 merodach, Mesessimordachus, Sitsimorda- 
 chus. The ruler here referred to is 
 the Mardocampad of Ptolemy, who 
 reigned from the year B.c. 721 to 709 ; 
 and is mentioned by the name of 
 Marodach-Baladan in the passage from 
 Berosus, preserved in the Armenian 
 version of Eusebius’s Chronicle. He 
 is there stated to have slain Acises, 
 who had usurped the Babylonian 
 rule after the brother of Sennacherib. 
 See Gesen. zz Joc. Baladan, the father, 
 Usher takes to be Belesis, or Nabo- 
 nassar, from whom the celebrated 
 Babylonian era took its name. Ac- 
 cording to 2 Chron. xxxii. 31, the 
 object of the embassy to Hezekiah 
 was not merely to congratulate him 
 on his recovery, but also to make 
 particular inquiry respecting the ΠΕΡῚ, 
 prodigy, which had taken place in the 
 land of Judah. This prodigy Scholz 
 thinks was the miraculous destruc- 
 tion of the Assyrians; but it was 
 more likely the horological pheno- 
 menon, since this was immediately 
 connected with the recovery of Heze- 
 kiah, and must have been a subject 
 of great interest to the astronomers 
 of Babylon. The delivery of presents 
 by the ambassadors was quite in ac- 
 cordance with Oriental practice. 
 
 2. 7322, his treasury, or store- 
 house, in which were laid up the 
 precious articles belonging to the 
 crown. As 85) occurs Gen. xxxvii. 
 
 25, and xliii. 11, in application to 
 some kind of spice, it has been sup- 
 posed by many that 752 15. 80 to be 
 understood in the present passage. 
 Thus Aq. τὸν οἶκον τῶν ἀρωμάτων 
 αὐτοῦ. Vulg. cella aromatum. On the 
 other hand, the Chald. “423 ™3, the 
 
 Syr. ap Ded» the Arab. ew 
 ale, and Saad. sploo Ly), take 
 
 it to signify treasury ; and, from the 
 enumeration immediately following, 
 this would seem to be the right in- 
 terpretation ; especially, as Ὁ, aro- 
 mata, form one of the items dis- 
 tinctly specified. The etymology 15 
 uncertain; but that proposed by 
 Lorsbach, Jena Algem. Lit. Zeit. 
 1815, No. 59, which traces the word 
 in the Persic, _ wal, depositum, 15 
 the most approved. For the armoury, 
 see chap. xxii. 8. The hereditary 
 treasures of Hezekiah must have 
 been greatly increased by the spoils 
 of the Assyrian camp; but, instead 
 of gratefully acknowledging to the 
 Pagan ambassadors the hand of Jeho- 
 vah in his deliverances, the vanity of 
 his mind led him to make an osten- 
 tatious display of his state, and thus 
 to provoke the Divine displeasure. 
 He seems likewise to have been desi- 
 rous of commending himself to the 
 favourable regard of the king of 
 Babylon, with a view to an alliance 
 with him against the Assyrians. All 
 such foreign alliances being repug- 
 nant to the fundamental principle of 
 the theocracy, the prophet virtually 
 denounces them in the following 
 verses. 
 
 R. R 
 
318 
 
 ISATAH. [CHAP. XIx 
 
 4 even from Babylon. Then he said: What have they seen 
 in thy house? And Hezekiah said: All that is in my house 
 have they seen; there is nothing among my treasures which 
 
 5 I have not shewed them. Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah: 
 
 6 Hear the word of Jehovah of Hosts: Behold, the days are 
 coming when all that is in thine house, and what thy fathers 
 have treasured up to this day, shall be carried away to 
 
 7 Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith Jehovah. And of thy 
 sons, who shall proceed from thee, whom thou shalt beget, 
 shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace 
 
 8 of the king of Babylon. 
 
 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good 
 is the word of Jehovah, which thou hast spoken. 
 
 He said, 
 
 moreover, There shall be peace and truth in my days. 
 
 7. That the kings of Babylon prided 
 themselves in having youths of noble 
 and royal blood for attendants, ap- 
 pears from Dan. 1. 3, ὅσ. oom, I 
 have rendered in the usual way by 
 eunuchs, Since this is strictly the 
 meaning of the word, and most of 
 those who were appointed to fill con- 
 fidential stations about the persons 
 of Eastern princes were emasculated. 
 See Winer’s Realwort. art. “ Versch- 
 nittene,” p. 760. How exactly was 
 the prediction here given fulfilled! 
 2 Kings xxiv. 12—16; Dan. i. 1—7. 
 Yet nothing could be more impro- 
 bable at the time of its delivery. 
 The king of Babylon was himself a 
 vassal of Assyria; and though, on 
 occasion of the defeat of Sennacherib, 
 he might cherish the hope of inde- 
 pendence, yet no human foresight 
 could have determined the conquests 
 of Nebuchadnezzar, or the captivity 
 
 of the persons and treasures of the 
 house of David. 
 
 8. Hezekiah has been unjustly ac- 
 cused of egotism, or a blameworthy 
 self-love, in the declaration which he 
 here makes. It is nothing more than 
 the expression of submissive acqui- 
 escence in the Divine appointment, 
 accompanied with a grateful joy, that 
 undisturbed prosperity was to be 
 granted throughout the remainder of 
 his reign. The repetition of 128", aud 
 he said, without its being added to 
 whom the words were addressed, is 
 supposed by some to indicate that he 
 spake to himself, there being an 
 ellipsis of 4222 ; but the ordinary con- 
 struction of the passage is more 
 natural. mx) dd, peace and truth, 
 are not to be taken as a hendiadis. 
 The former is used to signify pros- 
 perity in general; the latter, the 
 prevalence of true religion. 
 
 CHAPTER XT, 
 
 The portion of the book which begins with this chapter embraces the entire 
 period from the restoration of the Hebrews from the Babylonish captivity, 
 
 to the end of the Christian dispensation. 
 
 The subjects more particularly 
 
 treated of are the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon; their return to 
 
CHAP. XL.] ISAIAH. 319 
 
 Judea, and the re-establishment of their ancient polity ; the appearance, 
 work, sufferings, death, glorification, and reign of the Messiah ; the down- 
 fall of idolatry, and the enjoyment of the blessings of salvation by the 
 Gentiles ; and the final recovery of the Jewish people. Having, in chap. 
 xxxix. 6, 7, predicted the captivity, Isaiah, with a view to console his 
 nation, delivers the prophetic discoveries which, in perspective vision, 
 he obtained of the remarkable interposition of Divine providence for 
 their deliverance. To this subject he continually reverts in the course of 
 the first twelve chapters, after digressing to touch on the coming of the 
 Messiah, and the establishment of his kingdom, to which the restoration 
 from captivity was to be subservient. His exhibitions of the character 
 and government of Jehovah are the most sublime and magnificent to be 
 found in Scripture. The superiority which he evinces to the narrow spirit 
 of Jewish nationality, and the mere formal observance of the Jewish ritual ; 
 and the readiness with which he avails himself of every opportunity to 
 introduce the Gentiles to a joint participation in the benefits of true 
 religion, argue the influence of principles, the full development of which is 
 only to be found in the Christian economy. The Spirit of Christ, which 
 was in him, not only disclosed to his view those future temporal events 
 which affected his people, but pre-eminently, above and beyond them, “the 
 sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” 
 
 It has for some time past been fashionable among the German neologists to 
 deny the authenticity of this section of the book, and to ascribe it to some 
 anonymous writer, whom they suppose to have flourished about the time 
 of the restoration from Babylon. The first who directed his weapons against 
 it was Déderlein, who was followed by Justi, Eichhorn, Paulus, Rosenmiiller, 
 Bertholdt, De Wette, and, more recently, by Gesenius and Hitzig. On the 
 other hand, Piper, Beckhaus, Hensler, Jahn, Dereser, Greve, Moller, Kleinert, 
 and Lee, have more or less successfully undertaken its defence. The refer- 
 ences to their works will be found in the Christologie of Hengstenburg, 1 
 Theil. 2 Abtheil., who likewise treats the subject with great ability; or in a 
 Translation of this portion of it in the Amer. Bib. Repos. for Oct. 1831. See 
 also Horne’s Introd. vol. iv. pp. 165—169. The objections taken from the 
 historical circumstances of the prophecies; the impossibility of their being 
 understood by the contemporaries of Isaiah ; the position which the writer 
 assigns to himself among those who lived after the captivity; the minute- 
 ness of the details; the want of reference by Jeremiah ; traces of Chaldee 
 and later idiom ; and the diversity of style and phraseology, have been im- 
 partially weighed by these authors, especially by Jahn, Moller, Kleinert, and 
 Lee, and proved to be destitute of that importance which has been attached 
 to them, and totally insufficient to overturn the position against which they 
 have been brought forward. They are founded, partly and chiefly, on a 
 positive rejection of prophetic inspiration, partly on a misinterpretation of 
 particular passages, and partly on an undue pressing of a few minor points 
 of style, the character of which is quite compatible with the general manner 
 of Isaiah. Most of the hypotheses which have been framed in opposition to 
 the authenticity, are perfectly arbitrary and gratuitous, and are not for 
 
920 ISATAH. [CHAP. XL. 
 
 a moment to be confronted with the overwhelming mass of evidence which 
 exists in favour of it. The principles which they involve are such as would 
 not for a moment be listened to were they applied in the critical treatment 
 of any Greek or Latin classic. The minutiz of idiom, &c., and such of the 
 arguments of the opponents as appear in any degree plausible, will be 
 noticed in the places in connexion with which they are adduced. 
 
 The subjects treated of in chap. xl. are, the restoration from Babylon, 1, 2; the 
 preparations for and actual appearance of the Messiah, 3—11; the incom- 
 parable superiority of Jehovah to idols, 12—21,; his infinite wisdom and 
 power displayed in creation, a ground of confidence to his people, 22—27 ; 
 and the encouragement which the disconsolate Jews had to expect deliver- 
 ance, 28—31. The majesty and sublimity of description which the prophet 
 here displays, and the elegance and beauty of the diction in which it is 
 
 clothed, are altogether unrivalled. 
 
 1 ComFort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. 
 2 Speak soothingly to Jerusalem, and declare to her, 
 
 That her suffering is ended, 
 That her iniquity is expiated ; 
 That she hath received, at the 
 
 1. The persons immediately ad- 
 dressed are the public teachers of 
 religion. The LXX. supply ἱερεῖς, 
 priests; the Chald. 313, the prophets. 
 Both may be included, since there is 
 no reason for supposing, with Gesen., 
 that there were no priests during the 
 captivity. Ezra ii. and Neh. xii. prove 
 the contrary ; and that they were in- 
 structors of the people, see Mal. ii. 7. 
 The repetition 1972 1912 gives intensity 
 to the address. No objection can be 
 more futile than that taken to the 
 authenticity of this part of the book 
 from such repetitions. Though the 
 identical words, such as 728 °28, 737 737, 
 may not occur in what all allow to be 
 the genuine Isaiah, yet similar repeti- 
 tions do. Comp. Ὁ τ, xxiv. 16; 
 Di OW, ΧΧΥΪ. 35 WIN WW, xxix. 1; 
 not to mention ™ ™, V2 V9, 7 Ὑπ, in the 
 song of Hezekiah. The use of the 
 pron, affix Dx, “your God,” en- 
 hances the consolation conveyed by 
 the address, 
 
 2. ayy, to speak according to the 
 heart, i.e. what is pleasing or delightful, 
 is equivalent to 03, ¢o comfort, in the 
 preceding verse. Comp. Zech. i. 13, 
 
 hand of Jehovah, 
 
 pam ὉΔῚ Ὁ O27, Dathe, dlande 
 alloquimini. The joyful message is an 
 announcement that the captivity into 
 which the Jews had been carried, as a 
 punishment for their sins, is ended. 
 The verbs are all in the Preterite, to 
 express the certainty of the future 
 event. 823 1s properly military service ; 
 from 8212, to go forth to war ; by impli- 
 cation, hardship, privation, suffering, &c. 
 Comp. Job vii. 1, x. 17; Dan. x. 1. 
 PY TT means fo satisfy, or make compen- 
 sation for sin, by enduring punishment 
 on account of it, and has reference to 
 the delight with which the person 
 forgives against whom it has been 
 committed. Though no real moral 
 atonement can be made by sinners for 
 their transgressions, yet, in a civil or 
 national point of view, expiation was 
 admissible under the Jewish economy. 
 Comp. Lev. xxvi. 41, 48, and the fol- 
 lowing clause of the present verse. 
 0152, double, ample, full. Comp. Zech. 
 ix. 12; διπλόος, 1 Tim. v. 17; διπλώ- 
 care αὐτῇ διπλᾶ---κεράσατε αὐτῇ διπλοῦν, 
 Rev. xvii. 6. Most expositors under- 
 stand the recompense here spoken of 
 to be the blessings conferred upon the 
 
CHAP. XL.| 
 
 Double for all her sins. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 521 
 
 3 The voice of a herald in the wilderness : 
 Prepare ye the way of Jehovah ; 
 Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 
 
 4 Kvery valley shall be raised, 
 
 And every mountain and hill made low; 
 The crooked also shall become straight, 
 
 And the rough places plain. 
 
 5 And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, 
 And all flesh shall see it together: 
 For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. 
 
 Jews on their return; but the parallel- 
 /ism forbids this construction, and 
 shews that punishment is meant. 
 They had suffered such chastisement 
 as amply sufficed to clear the Divine 
 character, and correct them of the 
 great evil of idolatry. At the same 
 time respect was had to a// their sins. 
 Zwinglius, ‘ plenam castigationem.” 
 Calvin, “ Prophetam nihil aliud velle 
 constat quam Deum LEcclesiz \ sue 
 miseriis satis superque esse conten- 
 tum.” Coverdale, szffictent correction. 
 mim ΤῸ 7722 is elliptical for Dia mb, fo 
 take the cup,i.e. of punishment. See 
 chap. li. 22; Jer. xxv. 15; Lam. iv. 
 21,22. Perhaps 0°) may stand for 
 05 ΟἿΞ, ὦ double cup, or one twice filled. 
 The language is hyperbolical, and is 
 designed to inspire the strongest con- 
 solation. 
 
 3—5. Contemplating the Jews as 
 liberated from their captive state in 
 Babylon, and again settled in their 
 own land, the prophet announces the 
 ministry of John the Baptist, in his 
 character of herald and precursor of 
 the Messiah, whose advent he predicts 
 in the following verses. That the 
 entire passage refers to the introduc- 
 tion of the New dispensation appears, 
 first, because the words are expressly 
 quoted by three of the inspired evan- 
 gelists as receiving their fulfilment in 
 John, Matt. iii. 3; Mark. i. 3; and 
 Luke iii. 4—6 ; and, secondly, because 
 the way was to be prepared, not for 
 the Jews, but for Jehovah himself. 
 According to the LXX., Vulg., and 
 N.T., 12792 is to be connected with 
 xp, and not with 5. This division 
 
 of the words is likewise supported by 
 the accents,—Zakeph-gadol possessing 
 a greater power of separation than 
 Zakeph-katon ; and by the rule of 
 syntax, which requires that impera- 
 tives should precede any other word, 
 at the commencement of animated 
 discourse. That 27Y is not to be taken 
 in the acceptation of Azll or acclivity, 
 but in that of crooked, is evident, both 
 from the primary meaning of "9, its 
 opposite, and from the parallelism. 
 The language of these verses is other- 
 wise figurative; the images being 
 borrowed from the Oriental custom 
 of persons sent as pioneers before 
 a monarch, to cut through rocks and 
 forests, fill up hollows, and remove 
 every impediment out of his way, 
 especially in desert countries. See 
 Diod. Sic. ii. 18; Arrian’s Alex. iv. 
 30; Lowth, zz /oc.; and especially 
 Horne’s Introduction, vol. ili. p. 94. 
 Such was the character of John’s 
 ministry. The wilderness in which it 
 was exercised was only faintly emble- 
 matical of the moral waste which the 
 Jewish church presented at the time. 
 Nothing less than a thorough μετάνοια 
 and ἀποκατάστασις was required to fit 
 her members for the reception of the 
 Messiah. See Matt. iii. 1—10; Mark 
 ix. 12. By mim 129 the LXX. appear 
 to have understood the promised 
 Saviour; adding at the end of the 
 verse, τὸ σωτήριον τοῦ Θεοῦ; which 
 Luke retains chap. iii. 6. This phrase 
 is thus metonymically used, Luke ii. 
 30, and in the Test. xii. Patr. pp. 542, 
 614. Comp. John i. 14; 2 Cor. iii. 
 18; Heb. i. 2. Such is doubtless the 
 
322 
 
 6 A voice said, Proclaim! 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 (CHAP. "KL. 
 
 And I said, What shall I proclaim ?— 
 
 All flesh is grass, and all its goodness as the flower of the field ; 
 7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, 
 
 For the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it: 
 
 Surely the people is grass. 
 
 8 The grass withereth; the flower fadeth ; 
 
 But the word of our God shall stand for ever. 
 9 Get thee up upon a high mountain, 
 
 Thou that publishest good news to Zion ; 
 
 Raise powerfully thy voice, 
 
 Thou that publishest good news to Jerusalem. 
 
 Raise it; be not afraid ; 
 
 Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God! 
 10 Behold! the Lord Jehovah shall come with might, 
 
 right construction ; though it was un- 
 justifiable in Lowth to adopt the 
 words into the text. In the 5th verse 
 the universality of the Christian dis- 
 pensation is clearly recognised. The 
 same formula of certainty occurring 
 chap. i. 20, identifies the authorship. 
 Comp. also chap. xxi. 17, xxii. 25. 
 
 6. Wa, flesh, is used metonymically 
 of all animated beings, but especially 
 of man; hence Wat, or Wr, 
 means all mankind, Gen. vi. 3, 12, 13; 
 Πᾶσα σὰρξ, John xvii. 2; Rom. iii. 20. 
 This and the two following verses 
 contain another proclamation, designed 
 to call off the attention of the Jews 
 from their confidence in human an- 
 cestry and merit, and direct it to the 
 Gospel, as furnishing the only solid 
 durable ground of hope. Comp. Matt. 
 iii. 9; Johni. 13, vi. 63 ; Rom. ii. 28, 
 29, iv.¥,° 2; 2.Cor iv. 16, 173 and’ 1 
 Pet. i. 23—25, where the words are 
 quoted and applied. 57, Gesenius 
 understands to be grace, elegance, or 
 beauty ; but it is rather to be taken in 
 a moral sense, as expressive of that 
 imaginary excellence, or righteousness, 
 on the ground of which men are 
 prone to advance a claim on the 
 Divine favour, See Rom. x. 3; Ting- 
 stadius, godhet. Comp. 7017 ὍΝ, chap. 
 lvii. 1, where the word is used of 
 genuine piety, or true moral excellence. 
 The LXX. omit ora vs7 ἸῸΝ; and 
 
 Koppe and Hitzig consider them to be 
 a gloss; but the emphasis in 097, fhe, 
 i.e. this people, meaning the Jews, 
 shews that they were quite in their 
 place. 
 
 9. ΤῈ Mwin, Ke. are not in apposi- 
 tion, as if Zion were the subject, but 
 the genitive of object. The announce- 
 ment was to be made /o the Jews, not 
 by them. The feminine form of the 
 participle is accounted for on the 
 principle, that in the Oriental lan- 
 guages terminations of that gender 
 are not unfrequently employed in 
 words denoting office, station, &c.; as 
 np, @ preacher ; N78, a scribe; Arab. 
 
 caus, successor; exxls, creator, &e. 
 
 The vehemence here ascribed to the 
 publishers of the message shews that 
 females cannot be intended. The 
 purport of the message is the appear- 
 ance of God in the person of Messiah, 
 which had been predicted ver. 3, and 
 is here repeated for the sake of 
 amplification in the following verses. 
 The prophet employs the Divine 
 names 77, ‘278, and OWN, specifically 
 with this reference. Comp. chap. ix. 
 6; Jer. xxiii, 6; Mal. iii. 1; Ps. xlv. 
 6; Luke i. 15—17; Dr. J. Pye Smith’s 
 Script. Test. vol. 11. pp. 33—43. 
 
 10, 11. These verses exhibit certain 
 attributes of the character and work 
 of Christ ; such as power, tenderness, 
 
CHAP. XL.| 
 
 ISATAH. 323 
 
 And his arm shall rule for him ; 
 Behold! his reward is with him, 
 And his recompense before him. 
 
 11 
 
 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd ; 
 
 He shall gather the lambs in his arms, 
 
 And carry them in his bosom ; 
 
 He shall gently lead the milk-giving ewes. 
 
 12 
 
 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand ; 
 
 And meted the heavens with a span ; 
 And comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure ; 
 And weighed the mountains in scales, 
 
 And the hills in a balance ? 
 13 
 
 Who hath meted the Spirit of Jehovah ? 
 
 Or, being His counsellor, hath taught Him ? 
 
 14 
 
 With whom took He counsel, that He should instruct Him, 
 
 And teach Him in the path of judgment ; 
 
 Or teach Him knowledge, 
 
 And make Him acquainted with the way of understanding ? 
 
 and love. The 2 in pia is the Beth 
 essentie. See on chap. xxvi.4. Tv 
 is not here to be taken in the sense of 
 work, but of the effect, reward, &c. of 
 work. It is merely a synonyme of 
 Ὁ. Comp. Lev. xix. 13; Ps. cix. 20. 
 ) is the Dativus commodi: which 
 shews that the reward and recompense 
 following are not those which the 
 Messiah would bestow on others, but 
 his own—what he had himself 
 merited; the only sense, indeed, of 
 which ποὺ will admit. Comp. chap. 
 xlix. 4, 1111. 12; Phil. 11. 8—11; Heb. 
 li. 9, 10. ‘mx and v2) indicate the 
 absolute certainty of the rewards. 
 The figures here borrowed from pas- 
 toral life are exquisitely beautiful ; 
 expressing, with the utmost elegance 
 of language, the infinite care and 
 tenderness of “the good Shepherd.” 
 He not only exercises a sovereign and 
 uncontrollable power for the defence 
 of his sheep, John x. 28, but attends 
 to the weak and feeble, tenderly 
 carries the young in his bosom, and 
 gently guides such as give suck, that 
 they may not be overdriven. Comp. 
 Gen. xxxiii. 13; Numb. xi. 12; 2 
 Sam. xii. 3; Isa. xlvi. 3, 4. By oxo 
 are meant lambs of such tender age as 
 
 still to be dependent on the ewes for 
 sustenance. Root ny, Syr. UY, to 
 
 ἫΝ properly signifies fo 
 give milk ; Arab. se, aluit familiam 
 
 suam; kel, sustentavit ; le; lactavit. 
 
 12. Now follows a sublime and mag- 
 nificent description of “the True God 
 and Eternal Life,’ who was to appear 
 in the cities of Judah. The connexion 
 proves that the same person is in- 
 tended who had just been spoken of 
 by the prophet. wv, Aq. τρισώμῳ, 
 Symm. τρίτῳ, a measure, containing 
 the ¢hird part of a larger one ; but of 
 what quantity does not appear. That 
 it must have been small, the spirit of 
 the passage requires. The verse sets 
 forth the wisdom and power of God 
 in the disposition and sustentation of 
 the different parts of the universe. 
 Comp. Job xxxviii. 
 
 13, 14. The knowledge of the Divine 
 Spirit is boundless and independent. 
 y2m seems to be taken in the same sense 
 as in the preceding verse. Symm. 
 ἡτοίμασε; the LXX.betteréyvw. The 
 interrogative forms imply, as usual, 
 strong negation. The words are in 
 part quoted Rom. xi. 34, in application 
 
 be new, young. 
 
524 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 15 Behold! the nations are as a drop of the bucket, 
 And are accounted as the small dust on the balance ; 
 Behold! He taketh up the maritime lands as an atom. 
 
 16 
 
 Yea, Lebanon is not sufficient for fuel ; 
 
 Nor are its beasts for a burnt-offering. 
 
 ily 
 
 All nations are as nothing before Him ; 
 
 They are accounted by Him less than nothing and void. 
 
 18 
 
 To whom then can ye liken God ? 
 
 Or, what likeness can ye compare unto Him ? 
 
 19 
 
 The workman casteth an image, 
 
 And the smith overlayeth it with gold ; 
 The smith also beateth out silver chains. 
 
 20 
 
 He that is too poor to bring an oblation, 
 
 Chooseth a tree that will not rot ; 
 He seeketh for himself a skilful workman, 
 To erect an image that shall not be moved. 
 
 21 Have ye not known? 
 
 to the unfathomable wisdom displayed 
 in the arrangements of the gospel 
 dispensation. . 
 
 15. Godisimmense. In how familiar 
 yet forcible a manner is this truth 
 here illustrated! What we call the 
 immensity of creation is nothing in 
 comparison of Him. 19, a drop or 
 tear ; from 9, to flow, distil. pre, Arab. 
 
 ae » fricando trivit, comminuit in pul- 
 
 verem, to pound to dust ; a particle of 
 what is thus pounded. 77, in like 
 manner, signifies the most minute 
 particle or atom ; from 77, to beat into 
 minute parts, Zwinglius, very forcibly, 
 atomi umbra. For 0°, see on chap. 
 xi. 11. The connexion here obviously 
 requires the idea of large and extensive 
 regions. 
 
 16. To the Jews, who were familiar 
 with the vast forests of Lebanon, and 
 the abundance of animals which it sus- 
 tained, the image here employed must 
 have possessed great force. The Divine 
 nature is such that no finite sacrifice 
 is adequate to satisfy its claims on 
 the guilty. Comp. Ps. 1. 10—13. 
 
 17. carn, less than nothing, the idea 
 of little being suggested by the subject. 
 For other instances in which the ad- 
 jective is omitted before the com- 
 
 parative, see Noldii Concord. p. 466, 
 (6.) Comp. for the force of the ex- 
 pression, the ἐλαχιστότερος of Paul, 
 Eph. iii. 8. Gesenius, Hitzig and 
 Scholz render, from nothing ; but less 
 aptly. Comp. chap. xli. 24. 
 
 18. The Hebrew Future is often 
 potential in signification. 
 
 19, 20. If the entire creation is 
 nothing in comparison of God, how 
 absurd to invest a piece of metal, or 
 a block of wood, with the attributes 
 of divinity ; or even merely to regard 
 such as an image of him! In the 
 former of these verses is described the 
 costly idol of the rich ; in the latter, 
 that of the poor. ἩῪΝΣ is repeated in 
 order to add to the force of the irony ; 
 and Y72 is understood, only in the 
 acceptation of beating, to express the 
 making of chains. In many of the 
 Egyptian idols holes are found, through 
 which chains passed for the purpose 
 of suspending them on the wall. }2027 
 mann, lit. He that is impoverished as to 
 a gift ; one who is so poor that he has 
 nothing to present as an oblation, but 
 may obtain a piece of wood, such as 
 oak or cedar, fit to be an idol; and 
 thereby evince his sense of religion. 
 
 21. A spirited appeal to the in- 
 struction which the Jews had always 
 
CHAP. XL. | 
 
 Have ye not heard ? 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 525 
 
 Hath it not been told you from the beginning ?. 
 Have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth ? 
 
 22 
 
 He it is, that sitteth above the circle of the earth ; 
 
 The inhabitants of which are as grasshoppers ; 
 That stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, 
 And spreadeth them as a dwelling-tent ; 
 
 23 
 
 That reduceth the princes to nothing ; 
 
 He maketh void the judges of the earth. 
 
 24 
 
 Scarcely are they planted; scarcely are they sown ; 
 
 Scarcely is their trunk rooted in the earth ; 
 And He seareely bloweth upon them, when they wither, 
 And, like stubble, the tempest carrieth them away. 
 
 Or may I be compared ? 
 Saith the Holy One. 
 26 
 
 To whom then can ye liken me? 
 
 Lift your eyes on high, and behold, 
 
 Who hath created these things ? 
 
 enjoyed respecting the Creator of the 
 world, and the knowledge of his eternal 
 power and Godhead, which all nations 
 had more or less the means of ac- 
 quiring, partly through tradition, and 
 partly through the contemplation of 
 the universe. Comp. Rom. i. 20, where 
 ἀπὸ κτίσεως, corresponds to ὙΠ NVDiN ; 
 before which supply the prepos, »from 
 the preceding OND. 
 
 22—24, Another sublime description 
 of the transcendent majesty of Je- 
 hovah. While unaffected by the re- 
 volutions of the celestial system, and 
 the meaner affairs of men, he regulates 
 and controls the whole of his vast 
 universe with infinite ease. From the 
 use of 31, circle, or sphere, here, and 
 Job xxvi. 10; Prov. viii. 27; it is 
 evident the ancients had a knowledge 
 of the spherical form of the earth. In 
 passages, such as the preceding verse, 
 where the foundations of the earth are 
 spoken of, the language is obviously 
 figurative, being borrowed from the 
 idea of a building, the commencement 
 of which is made by laying the foun- 
 
 dation. ὑπ, Arab. 99» subtilis, valde 
 
 minutus, properly signifies what is 
 made small, minute, by pounding, as 
 
 dust ; but it may also signify what- 
 ever is small either in size or quality ; 
 slender, fine, thin. It is here employed 
 to denote a tent-covering of superior 
 fineness, such as the rich Orientals 
 spread over their courts in summer. 
 Comp. Ps. civ. 2. As ἮΝ not merely 
 indicates addition, accession, but also 
 complement, fulness, &c., 92 7X ex- 
 presses what is zot wholly done, 7. 6. 
 scarcely : the negative being thus de- 
 prived of its absolute force. Calvin, 
 adeo ut. In such connexion, D3 is in- 
 tensive. The passage teaches the utter 
 frailty and imbecility of the oppressors 
 of the church of God: a truth full of 
 comfort to the Jews of the captivity, 
 and to all who are the subjects of 
 persecution. 
 
 25. The sudden introduction of Je- 
 hovah himself, as the speaker, has 
 an admirable effect, compared with 
 ver. 18. 
 
 26. OPPY Divaww. Comp. div? ΝΠ. 
 TPP, chap. xxxvii. 23. ED23, in num- 
 ber, i.e. numerously ; as 23, power- 
 fully ; 4223, gloriously, &c. ; and not 
 as Rosenmiiller interprets, “ zumero, 
 scil. certo suo et definito.” The re- 
 ference is to the overwhelming number 
 of the heavenly bodies. Thus Zwing- 
 
 ss 
 
920 
 
 27 
 
 _ 29 
 
 ISATAH. [CHAP. XL. 
 
 He bringeth out their numerous army ; 
 
 He calleth them all by name; | 
 
 Through the greatness of his might, and the strength of his 
 arm ; 
 
 Not one is missing. 
 
 Why sayest thou, O Jacob! and speakest, O Israel : 
 
 My way is hid from Jehovah ; 
 
 And, My judgment hath passed away from my God ? 
 
 Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard ? 
 
 Jehovah is the Eternal God, 
 
 The Creator of the ends of the earth ; 
 
 He fainteth not, neither is weary ; 
 
 His understanding is unsearchable. 
 
 He giveth power to the faint ; 
 
 And to them that have no might, 
 
 He increaseth strength. 
 30 
 
 For the young men shall faint and be weary, 
 
 And the choice youths shall utterly fall ; 
 
 91 
 
 But they that wait upon Jehovah shall gain fresh strength ; 
 
 They shall soar on pinions like eagles: 
 They shall run and not become weary ; 
 
 lus, “ Numero, emphasis est pro 
 magno numero.” The survey of the 
 immense canopy of heaven, studded 
 with innumerable worlds, which, in 
 the brightness of an Oriental sky, the 
 naked eye could command in the 
 plains of Babylon, was calculated at 
 once to produce elevated conceptions 
 of the wisdom, power, and grandeur 
 of the Divine Being, and to inspire the 
 mind with unlimited confidence in his 
 protecting care. The figure is military, 
 taken from the muster which an army 
 passes before its general, who has 
 called it out to marshal and review it. 
 From the immense celestial army not 
 an individual is absent. Each star, and 
 each sun, of the hundreds of millions, 
 is always in its place. Considering 
 the proneness of the ancient Eastern 
 nations to worship the heavenly 
 bodies, it may also have been the 
 design of the prophet to shew the 
 folly of such worship, by asserting the 
 transcendent supremacy of Jehovah. 
 27. From this verse to the end of 
 
 the chapter, the prophet specially ap- 
 plies what he had adduced respecting 
 the majesty and power of God, to the 
 disconsolate Jews in Babylon ; com- 
 mencing with an expostulation on 
 account of their unbelief. They had 
 been so long in the power of their 
 enemies, that they concluded they 
 were quite overlooked by the God of 
 their fathers. 
 
 28. The Eternal and Immutable 
 Creator is incapable of exhaustion, 
 both as it respects power and wisdom. 
 
 30, 31. Those who trust in their 
 own prowess, and those who confide 
 in Jehovah, are here contrasted ; as 
 are also the different results of their 
 reliance. 159M, shall acquire new 
 strength, from *23, to pass out of one 
 place or state into another; Arab. 
 
 WANs, successor alicujus fuit, venit post 
 alium; IV. instauravit, regerminavit ; 
 Syr. Lau], the same ; ἀὰ nee , suc- 
 
 cessor, the calif, or successor of Mo- 
 
CHAP. XLI.| 
 
 They shail walk and not faint. 
 
 hammed. It is chiefly used to denote 
 transition from an inferior state to 
 a better ; and specially to mental in- 
 vigoration. Comp. chap. xli.1. The 
 use of ὍΝ, pinion, from 728, to be strong, 
 shews that no reference is had to the 
 popular notion of the eagle’s renewing 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 327 
 
 his youth ; the points of comparison 
 are his strength of wing and conse- 
 quent rapidity of flight. The former 
 idea, which many approve, appears to 
 have been borrowed from the LXX., 
 
 1 Gun \ 
 πτεροφυή σουσιν ὡς AETOL. 
 
 CHAPTER XLL 
 
 To confirm the faith of the captive Jews in the true God, and evince the folly 
 of idolatry, Isaiah now proceeds to predict the Divine commission and 
 victorious conquests of Cyrus, 1—4; together with the consternation of 
 idolaters at his approach, 5—7. He next encourages the Jews with as- 
 surances of the presence, protection, and aid, of the God of their fathers, 
 8—16 ; promises them every thing needful for their comfort and enjoyment, 
 on their return through the desert, 17—20 ; gives a spirited, but powerfully 
 ironical challenge to the idol-gods, to furnish proofs of their prescience and 
 power, 21—24; and again announces the mission of Cyrus, the previous 
 knowledge of which was derived, not from idolaters, but from Jehovah, 
 
 25—29. 
 
 1 LisTen in silence to me, ye maritime lands! 
 Let the nations also put on fresh strength ; 
 Let them draw near; then let them speak ; 
 Let us come together to the trial. 
 
 2 Who hath raised up from the east 
 
 1. wy is the appropriate term for 
 commanding silent attention. The point 
 at issue was one of the deepest interest 
 and importance, and claimed to be 
 heard with breathless silence. Comp. 
 Job xxxiii. 31. The LXX., who have 
 ἐγκαινίζεσθε, have mistaken Ἢ for Ἢ, and 
 given to ©19,a conjugation which no- 
 where occurs. Aquil. κωφεύσατε. 
 Theod. ovyjoare. For 0x, islands, see 
 on chap. xi. 11. The inhabitants of 
 Asia Minor and the Grecian islands 
 are here specially intended. To these 
 
 the phrase, PINT MzPp, the ends of the 
 earth, ver. 5, also appropriately applies. 
 
 2, The subject of the prediction is 
 suppressed, as in ver. 25, and chap. 
 xiil. 2; but that Cyrus is meant is be- 
 yond all doubt. Comp. ver. 25; chap. 
 xliv. 28, xlv. 1—7, 13, xlvi. 11. With 
 no propriety can the description here 
 given be applied to Abraham ; while 
 the whole tallies most exactly with 
 the Persian conqueror. Besides, the 
 passage contains a prophecy of what 
 was still to happen, not an account of 
 
328 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLI. 
 
 The just one, whom he hath called to follow him ? 
 He hath delivered over nations to him, so that he hath subdued 
 
 kings ; 
 
 He hath made their swords as dust, and their bows as driven 
 
 chaff. 
 
 3 He hath pursued them; he hath passed on safely, 
 By a way which he had never entered with his feet. 
 4 Who hath wrought and done it ? 
 He that calleth the generations from the beginning ; 
 
 ancient events. What seems princi- 
 pally to have proved an obstacle in 
 the way of the true interpretation, is 
 the occurrence of the term 77%, right- 
 eousness, Which, it has been thought, 
 cannot be applied to Cyrus. But 
 it is not a little remarkable, that of 
 all the virtuous princes of antiquity, 
 he alone was thought worthy of being 
 exhibited as a model of just govern- 
 ment. “Cyrus ille a Xenophonte, 
 non ad historize fidem scriptus, sed ad 
 effigiem justi imperii.” Cicero ad 
 Quint. Making every allowance for 
 the colouring given to his character 
 by Xenophon, still there is much 
 force in the remark of Kocher: “non 
 tamen eum proposuisset in exemplum, 
 nisi virtutibus eminuisset.” Not only 
 was he exemplary in private life, but 
 his victories and conquests had for 
 their principal object the vindication 
 of law and justice. See Rollin, Book 
 IV. chap. i. art. iii. § 3. He is even 
 said to have been an object of the 
 Divine love, chap. xlviii. 14. His de- 
 struction of the Babylonian empire, 
 and liberation of the Jews, were spe- 
 cial acts of righteousness; and the 
 abolition of idolatry, which, in a 
 great measure, followed the success 
 of the Persian arms, comes also under 
 the same head. See on chap. xliv. 28 ; 
 and xly. 1—4, 13. In this last verse, 
 - Cyrus is expressly said to be raised 
 up, ΡΊΞΞ, for righteousness, 1. Θ. to vindi- 
 cate the cause of the Jewish captives, 
 by inflicting punishment upon their 
 enemies. Comp. Jer. 1. 15, 25, 28, 29, 
 li. 10, 56. At p72, there is an ellipsis 
 of Wx; or, it may be taken as the ab- 
 stract for the concrete ΡΞ. Thus the 
 Chald., Syr., and Vulg.— 31) 83, fo call 
 
 to the foot of any one, means to engage 
 another in his service, to order him to 
 follow him and perform the duties 
 prescribed. Cyrus was called to fol- 
 low in the track marked out for him 
 by Divine Providence. The? in mn 
 belongs to God, understood. For 52, 
 in the sense of following, comp. 1 Sam. 
 xxv. 42; Job xviii. 11; Hab. iii. 5; 
 
 Arab. Fe) us post illum ; statim e ves- 
 tigio ejus. Pers. yr iol ye to 
 
 follow any one. The suffix in i217 and 
 inup refers to those whom Cyrus 
 should attack, and is to be taken col- 
 lectively. For the image, comp. Job 
 ΧΙ, 27—29. The nations over which 
 he obtained dominion were the Medes, 
 Hyrcanians, Assyrians, Arabians, Cap- 
 padocians, Phrygians, Lydians, Carians, 
 Babylonians, &c. Cyropezedia, lib. i. 1. 
 
 3. DW Way D|TyY graphically express 
 the rapidity and success of the expe- 
 ditions undertaken by Cyrus, and the 
 extent of territory through which 
 they were conducted. That against 
 Croesus is specially in point. The 
 omission of 3 before Οὐ is nothing 
 uncommon in poetic diction ; so that 
 the suppositions of Lowth are quite 
 gratuitous. 
 
 4. To the question, Ὁ, Who, &c., 
 once more emphatically repeated, a 
 direct reply is given. Between the 
 verbs 92 and Mwy there is little differ- 
 ence of meaning; only the former 
 may describe the preparation for the 
 result, and the latter the result itself: 
 the one the work in operation, the 
 other, the completion of it. See on 
 Micah ii. 1. As frequently in Hebrew 
 poetry, the object is not expressed. 
 
CHAP. XLI.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 329 
 I, Jehovah, the First, 
 
 And with the last I am He. 
 
 The maritime lands saw and were afraid ; 
 
 The ends of the earth trembled ; 
 
 They drew near; they came. 
 
 They helped each other ; 
 
 And one said to another: Be courageous. 
 
 Yea, the carpenter encouraged the smith ; 
 
 He that smootheth with the hammer him that striketh the anvil; 
 Saying of the soldering: It is good; 
 
 And fastened it with nails, that it might not be moved. 
 
 But thou, O Israel, my servant, “ 
 
 O Jacob, whom I have called, 
 
 The seed of Abraham, my friend ; 
 9 Whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, 
 And called from its extremities ; 
 
 For the sense in which Jehovah ap- 
 propriates to himself, JTS) Fr, che 
 First and the Last, see on chap. xliv. 6. 
 Here the latter of these terms being 
 changed into ὉΠ ΠΝ, seems in- 
 tended, either to be more emphatic, 
 the adjective being put in the plural 
 to agree with Dx, and the nx retain- 
 ing its intensively demonstrative sig- 
 nification ; or, to teach, that, as God 
 had called into existence the genera- 
 tions of mankind from the beginning, 
 so his existence would run parallel 
 with that of all who should live in 
 future time. Comp. }778 %, Ps. xlviil. 
 14; ΟΣ πα, Job xviii, 20, where it is 
 opposed to D2H77 ; Ὁ τ, contrasted 
 with O72) MA Ws 73, Eccles. iv. 16; and 
 DWN) ON ONY, Eccles. i. 11. While 
 the idols had come from, and should 
 soon again be reduced to nothing, the 
 true God ever continues the same. 87, 
 
 like the Arab. “Ὁ is used emphatically 
 
 of Jehovah, to denote the singularity 
 or uniqueness of his personal exist- 
 ence. st qui est ; He alone is what 
 he is: Gop. Zwinglius renders x17 72x, 
 Ego sum ille qui est, and remarks: 
 “Tanta vis est Hebraicz orationis, bre- 
 vissimee quidem, sed potentissime.” 
 5—7. INT} 381 is an elegant parono- 
 masia. This and the two following 
 
 verses describe the consternation of 
 the idolatrous inhabitants of Asia 
 Minor, and the islands and coasts of 
 Greece, on learning the rapid successes 
 of Cyrus ; and the increase of their 
 national devotions, in order to obtain 
 the protection of the gods. The enu- 
 meration of the god-makers in their 
 workshops is highly satirical, and quite 
 in its place; though Houbigant and 
 Kennicott imagined that the 6th and 
 7th verses have been transposed from 
 chap. xl. 20. Michaelis renders 077 
 DvD, bellows-blower. 
 
 8. For the different applications of 
 14Y, TH? 72Y, see on chap. xlii. 1. It is 
 here used of the Israelites, as worship- 
 pers of thé true God. The transition 
 in this verse is sudden and affecting. 
 The correlatives heighten the effect. 
 For the exalted title of Abraham, 
 comp. 2 Chron. xx. 7; James ii. 23. 
 
 a) Quis, the friend of God, is the 
 common title of Abraham, among the 
 Arabs, in the present day. 
 
 9. The people of Israel being dis- 
 tinguished from Abraham himself, and 
 being directly addressed, the choice 
 and call here spoken of must be 
 those of the Hebrews in Egypt. 
 Comp. Ezek. xx. 5; Hos. xi. 1. To 
 that country τ ἘΝῚ PINT NP applies 
 
330 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLI. 
 
 And to whom I have said, Thou art my servant ; 
 I have chosen thee, and will not reject thee: 
 
 10 
 
 Be not afraid, for | am with thee ; 
 
 Be not dismayed, for I am thy God ; 
 
 I will strengthen thee ; 
 
 yea, I will defend thee ; 
 
 Yea, I will uphold thee with my just right hand. 
 
 11 
 
 Behold! all shall be ashamed and confounded, 
 
 That are enraged against thee ; 
 
 They that contend with thee 
 
 Shall become as nothing, and perish. 
 
 Them that strove with thee ; 
 
 They that fought against thee 
 
 Thou shalt seek, but shalt not find 
 
 Shall become as nothing and nought. 
 
 13 
 
 For I Jehovah am thy God, that holdeth thy right hand ; 
 
 That saith to thee, Fear not, I will help thee. 
 
 14 
 
 Fear not, thou worm Jacob; ye mortals of mee 
 
 I will help thee, saith eevee 
 Even thy Redeemer, the Holy One of ret 
 
 15 
 
 Behold! I will make thee a threshing wain, 
 
 Sharp and new, with double edges ; 
 Thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small ; 
 
 with greater propriety than to Meso- 
 potamia. Ὁ ΕΝ, properly signify the 
 angles, joints, OY ‘elbows of the arm, and 
 somewhat modify the meaning of Mp, 
 ends, a8 occurring before. The expres- 
 sion of a statement first positively 
 and then negatively, for the purpose 
 of making a strong asseveration, is not 
 uncommon in Hebrew. Comp. for 
 the Hellenistic usage, John 1. 20. 
 10—14. While all the other nations 
 should be in terror at the approach of 
 Cyrus, the Jews had nothing to fear. 
 Their God was with them, and would 
 effect their deliverance. Though they 
 were contemptible and helpless as a 
 worm in the eyes of their haughty 
 conquerors, yet these should be utterly 
 destroyed, while the people of God 
 escaped. 7a, vers. 10 and 23, in 
 Hithpael, ‘signifies to look about for help, 
 when one is in danger. By the “just 
 right hand” of God, is meant his 
 power, exerted in vindication of the 
 
 rights of his people.  x1~'N9, being 
 parallel to nyan, must also be taken 
 in a contemptible sense, as meaning 
 dead, inanimate, incapable of any poli- 
 tical movement. Aq.re@vewres Ἰσραήλ; 
 Theod. νεκροὶ Ἰσραήλ. So the Jews 
 were regarded by the Babylonians. 
 
 15, 16. By mountains and hills are 
 meant governments, &c. See on chap. 
 ii, 2. The prophecy received its fulfil- 
 ment in the time of the Maccabees, 
 John Hyrcanus, &c, when the Jews 
 again became an independent state, 
 and gained splendid victories over 
 
 min, Arab. c ap tri- 
 
 bulum ; a sledge or dray, drawn by 
 oxen over the corn, for the purpose of 
 threshing it. See on chap. XxXviii. 
 27. nD 23, lit. master of numerous 
 mouths ; well furnished with sharp 
 points of stone or wood. The Hebrews 
 call the edge or point of the sword, 
 its mouth, on account of the destruc- 
 
 their enemies. 
 
CHAP. XLI. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 551 
 
 And the hills thou shalt make as chaff. 
 
 16 
 
 Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away ; 
 
 The storm shall also scatter them ; 
 But thou shalt rejoice in Jehovah τ: 
 In the Holy One of Israel shalt thou glory. 
 
 17 
 
 The poor and needy are seeking for water, and there is none ; 
 
 Their tongue is parched with thirst. 
 
 I, Jehovah, will answer them; 
 
 I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. 
 
 18 
 
 I will open rivers on the barren hills, 
 
 And fountains in the midst of the valleys ; 
 I will make the desert a standing pool, 
 And the dry land springs of water. 
 
 19 
 
 Τ will place in the desert, the cedar, the acacia, 
 
 The myrtle also, and the olive tree ; 
 I will place in the wilderness, the cypress, 
 The pine, and the larch together : 
 
 That men may see and know, 
 
 And consider, and understand together, 
 That the hand of Jehovah hath done this, 
 And the Holy One of Israel hath created it. 
 
 tion which it effects. Comp. for the 
 reduplicate form, nD 17, Ps. exlix. 
 
 17—19. The destitute condition of 
 the Jews of the captivity is compared 
 to that of travellers in the arid deserts 
 of Arabia, who are on the point of 
 
 perishing with thirst, and know not y2j λα, &e.; Heb. ὙΠ, 
 
 where to look for water. God pro- 
 mises to relieve them with the most 
 abundant supply of blessings. 77%). 
 See on chap. xix. 5. Gesenius con- 
 siders the Dagesh in © to be euphonic, 
 in connexion with the pause. Comp. 
 Jer. li. 30. Not only should the actual 
 wants of the returning captives be 
 abundantly supplied; they should, 
 likewise, have the richest enjoyments. 
 This latter prediction is couched in 
 language borrowed from luxuriant, 
 shady, and fragrant trees, which 
 should beautify the desert. 777" and 
 wwienm occur only here and chap. lx. 13. 
 
 The former, Saad. renders, om plan- 
 
 tanus indicus, and with him agree 
 Kimchi and Sal. ben Melech ; compar- 
 ing Song 1. 17, in the Targum. It 
 seems rather, however, to be the pine; 
 
 po in Arab. signifying perpetuitas ; 
 
 splenduit ; 
 
 that tree being one of the most shin- 
 ing evergreens. The latter is in all 
 probability the larch, and has the 
 name given to it on account of its tall 
 and erect form. Some think a species 
 of cedar is meant, called by the Arabs, 
 
 * τ . 
 wo. The idea of doz-tree is now 
 (Ons π 
 
 quite abandoned. 
 
 20. It has been doubted whether 
 the nominative to the verbs here em- 
 ployed be the Jews, or idolaters. The 
 former is the more probable opinion. 
 worm is elliptical for 29 ὃν 12°. Comp. 
 ver. 22; and for ellipses of 35, Job 
 KXxiv. 23, xxxvii, 15. 
 
332 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLI. 
 
 21 Bring forward your cause, saith Jehovah ; 
 Produce your strong arguments, saith the King of Jacob. 
 
 22, 
 
 Let them produce them, and shew us things that were to happen; 
 
 Let them shew us what were the former predictions, 
 That we may consider, and know their event ; 
 Or let them declare to us coming events. 
 
 23 
 
 Shew the things that are coming in the future, 
 
 That we may know that ye are gods: 
 
 Do either good or evil, 
 
 That we may be dismayed, and be afraid together. 
 24 Behold! ye are less than nothing, 
 
 And your work is less than nought ; 
 
 He is an object of abomination that chooseth you. 
 
 21. The prophet now returns to the 
 subject proposed at the commence- 
 ment of the chapter, and challenges 
 the gods of the heathen to produce 
 evidence of their claims to divinity. 
 moaxzy, Theod. κραταιώματα; Symm. 
 ἰσχυρὰ ; properly a military term, sig- 
 nifying strong works raised round a 
 city for its protection: here used 
 tropically of forcible arguments or proofs. 
 Comp. Job xiii. 12. 0323 927723, your 
 defences are defences of mud. 
 
 22. The proof to which they are 
 challenged is Divine foreknowledge. 
 
 t is placed at their option either to 
 adduce prophecies uttered by them 
 in ancient times, that they might be 
 compared with the events to which 
 they referred; or, distinctly to an- 
 nounce some future contingent events, 
 ΤΙ νι, Theod. τὰ dpxaa; LXX. 
 πρότερον. The heathen had_ their 
 oracles ; but which of them could pre- 
 tend to an ancient date, or minutely 
 and clearly described ages beforehand 
 events that actually happened? But 
 as it was impossible for their devotees 
 to produce any such prophecies, it 
 was equally impossible for them to 
 furnish a definite, unambiguous predic- 
 tion of an event of public notoriety 
 and interest in the still distant 
 future. 
 
 23. Besides repeating his demand 
 for an unexceptionable prediction, 
 Isaiah challenges the false gods to 
 work a miracle in confirmation of 
 their pretensions. The nature of the 
 
 miracle he leaves them to choose. 
 When they produced such a proof of 
 the validity of their claims, it would 
 be time to acknowledge their divinity. 
 The language at the same time implies 
 that so far were they from being able 
 to work miracles, that they were ab- 
 solutely incapable of doing any thing, 
 either beneficial or destructive. Comp. 
 Jer. x. 5. Gesenius is at some pains 
 to attach to Tym: the idea expressed 
 by the same form, 78107, 2 Kings xiv. 
 8, 11; viz. that of engaging in mutual 
 combat; but his attempt is unsatis- 
 factory, and it is better to abide by 
 the idea of mutual dismay, which is 
 that conveyed by the verb in this 
 very form, ver. 10, Its radical mean- 
 ing is, ¢o look, to look anxiously for help. 
 I prefer 1, the textual reading, to 
 moan, that of the Keri, and point it 
 x2}, and that we may be afraid. Thus 
 xv and πὸ, occur together, ver. 10. 
 
 24, A triumphant assertion of the 
 nonentity of the heathen deities ! 
 Οὐδὲν εἴδωλον ἐν κόσμῳ, 1 Cor. vill. 4. 
 vox the Rabbins take to mean the 
 same as TYE, ὦ viper, but unsuitably to 
 the connexion. It is in all probability 
 a corruption of Das. πον, the ab- 
 stract for ποθὴ wy. Idolatry is always 
 represented as peculiarly detestable to 
 Jehovah. It is likewise so utterly de- 
 basing in its influence on character, as 
 to render its adherents, and especially 
 its priests, objects of moral reproba- 
 tion to all who fear him, 
 
CHAP. XLI.| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 333 
 
 25 I have raised up one from the north, and he cometh ; 
 From the rising of the sun he shall call upon my name ; 
 He shall also come upon princes as upon mortar, 
 
 And as the potter treadeth the clay. 
 
 26 
 
 Who shewed it from the beginning, that we might know ? 
 
 Or aforetime, that we might say, It is right ? 
 There was not even one that shewed it; 
 
 Not even one that declared it ; 
 
 Not even one that heard your words. 
 
 27 
 
 I first said to Zion, Behold! behold them! 
 
 And gave to Jerusalem a messenger of good. 
 
 28 
 
 Τ looked, indeed, but there was none, 
 
 Even among these, but there was no counsellor, 
 That I might inquire of them, and that they might give a 
 
 response. 
 29 
 Their works are nought ; 
 
 Behold! they are all of them vanity ; 
 
 Their molten images are wind and void. 
 
 25. Having proved that the false 
 gods could neither announce future 
 events, nor work any miracle, Jehovah 
 repeats the announcement already 
 made, ver. 2; declaring the conquests 
 of Cyrus upwards of a century before 
 they took place, and even when the 
 Medo-Persian empire had no exist- 
 ence. In ver. 2, Cyrus is brought 
 from the Hast; here from the North 
 and the Zus¢ ; in obvious allusion to 
 the united kingdoms of Media and 
 Persia, over which he reigned. That 
 Cyrus was induced to worship Jeho- 
 vah, no one can doubt who reads his 
 edict, Ezra i. 1—4, though it would 
 not have answered the design of Xe- 
 nophon to have noticed it. By 0220 
 are meant the prefects, or deputies, 
 in the Babylonian empire. X82) cor- 
 responds to ns%}, and is not to be dis- 
 turbed, as Le Clerc, Secker, and 
 Lowth propose. 
 
 26. None of the gods had given 
 any intimation of the conquest of 
 Babylon, either in the most distant, 
 or in more proximate past time. ΡΣ, 
 vight, means here, ἐξ is so in truth. 
 The cumulative propositions, intro- 
 duced by the repetition of 4X, are 
 singularly forcible. 
 
 27. What is denied of the gods, 
 Jehovah vindicates to himself. He 
 first announced by his prophet the 
 approach of the conqueror. Before 
 POX) is an ellipsis of V8, which is sug- 
 gested by jax Ww29, in the following 
 hemistich. 
 
 28, 29. Every opportunity was given 
 to the oracles, and those who consulted 
 them, to commence their defence, but 
 not a syllable was uttered. The un- 
 avoidable conclusion was, that the 
 whole system of idolatry was pure 
 fiction and imposture. 
 
| 
 
 334 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLII. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 This chapter exhibits the person, character,-and-office-of-the.Messiah, 1—5 ; 
 the extension of the blessings of the Gospel to the Gentiles, 6—12-; the 
 intervening destruction of Babylon, 13—15 ; the return from captivity, 16 ; 
 the confusion of idolaters, 17 ; the contemptuous rejection of the Messiah 
 by the Jews, 18—20; Jehovah's delight in his work, 21; and the final 
 punishment of the Jewish people for disobeying the Gospel, 22—25. 
 
 1 BrHoLp my Servant, whom I uphold; 
 
 1. In determining the application 
 of this prophecy, it is necessary to 
 ascertain the meaning of the phrase, 
 mm tap, the servant of Jehovah. That 
 Isaiah uses it in various senses, no one 
 familiar with his writings will deny. 
 It is applied to himself, chap. xx. 3 ; 
 to Eliakim, xxii. 20; to the Jewish 
 
 xlvili. 20; and to a distinguished 
 
 | people, xli. 8, 9, xliv. 1, 2, 21, xlv. 4, 
 
 Divine Legate, of whom a number of 
 | things are predicated, which cannot 
 } consistently be applied either to the 
 | Jews as a body, to their prophets 
 | collectively, or to any one of them in 
 particular, xlii. 1—7, xlix. 1—9, 1. 5— 
 10, li. 13—lii.; with which comp. 
 Zech. iii. 8. That these last cited 
 passages intimately cohere is admitted 
 by most interpreters, how much so- 
 ever they may differ in their views of 
 the subject to whom they belong ; and 
 certainly no one can accurately com- 
 pare them with each other, without 
 being struck with their cognate re- 
 lationship, and the peculiarity of 
 features with which they are marked. 
 Respecting the application of the pre- 
 
 Rosenmiiller, Hitzig, Maurer, and 
 some others, apply the phrase to the 
 Jewish people, or, at least, to the 
 better or select part of them. Others, 
 as Saadias, Koppe, Hensler, White, 
 think that Cyrus ismeant. Abenezra, 
 Grotius, Dathe, Déderlein, propose 
 Isaiah himself; while De Wette and 
 
 Gesenius imagine it applies to the 
 prophets collectively. A very satis- 
 factory refutation of these different 
 opinions will be found in Hengsten- 
 berg’s Christologie Erst. Theil. 2 
 Abtheil. pp. 236—240, The reader 
 may also consult the very able notes 
 of Michaelis on the passage. That it 
 applies exclusively to the Messiah has 
 been maintained by the great body of 
 interpreters, both ancient and modern, 
 and more especially by Vitringa, Mi- 
 chaelis, Lowth, v. d. Palm, Umbreit, 
 Hengstenberg, Jenour, and Scholz. 
 The principal reasons advanced in de- 
 fence of this position are the following : 
 First, the passage is directly applied 
 to our Saviour by the inspired evan- 
 gelist Matthew, chap. xii. 17—21; and 
 part of the first verse is verbally 
 adopted in the Divine testimony to 
 his Messiahship at the Jordan, iii. 17, 
 and on the mount of transfiguration, 
 xvii. 5; Mark ix. 7; Luke ix. 35. To 
 which add the reference made to the 
 6th verse by Simeon, in his inspired 
 testimony, Luke ii. 32. Secondly, this 
 interpretation is that of theChaldee 
 
 and Abarbanel, notwithstanding the 
 narrowness of their hereditary notions, 
 The latter writer scruples not to assert 
 that all those who do not interpret the 
 prophecy of the Messiah have been 
 struck with blindness, 0%». Thirdly, 
 the totality of character exhibited in 
 the passage is such as to render it 
 inapplicable to any but our Lord. 
 
CHAP. XLIL] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 335 
 
 Mine Elect, in whom my soul delighteth ; 
 
 I have put my Spirit upon him ; 
 
 He shall cause judgment to go forth to the nations. 
 2 He shall not cry, nor raise his voice, 
 
 Nor cause it to be heard in the streets. 
 3 A bruised reed shall he not crush; 
 
 And a glimmering wick shall he not quench : 
 
 With no truth or consistency can it 
 be said either of Cyrus, or of the 
 Jews, or their prophets, that their 
 commission extended to the spiritual 
 emancipation of the Gentiles. See 
 vers. 1, 4,6, 7. Fourthly, the subject 
 to which the prophecy has respect, is 
 obviously identical with that exhibited, 
 chap. xix, 1—12. The person and office 
 of the same individual are described 
 in both. They equally insist on his 
 mediatorial character, and the univer- 
 sality of the dispensation of knowledge 
 and happiness which he was to esta- 
 blish in the world. Lastly, every 
 predicate here specified most aptly 
 applies to Christ. 
 
 The transition was easy, from the 
 temporal deliverance to be effected by 
 Cyrus, to the spiritual salvation to be 
 accomplished by the Messiah. }7 has 
 there all its force as a demonstrative 
 interjection, and marks the transition 
 to a new subject, on which it fixes the 
 attention ofthe reader. Ἂν, the LXX. 
 render παῖς, as they do elsewhere, in 
 upwards of three hundred instances ; 
 and this Matthew retains, though he 
 widely differs from them in the 
 wording of his quotation. See Bloom- 
 field on Matt. xii. 18 ; and comp. for 
 παῖς, Acts iv. 27. Some have sup- 
 posed that in Ἰακὼβ ὁ παῖς pov and 
 ᾿Ισραὴλ ὁ ἐκλεκτός μου, the names 
 ᾿Ιακὼβ and ᾿Ισραὴλ are a more recent 
 interpolation ; but their insertion is 
 quite in keeping with the manner in 
 which many parts of this book are ren- 
 dered in the LXX. ; the author having 
 taken the liberty of introducing brief 
 explanations, to render what he took 
 to be the sense more perspicuous. 
 See chap. i. 21, iv.4, lx.1. The Chald. 
 renders ; ΦΊΔΙ YMA TAPS NPG Ty xT 
 20 72, Behold my servant, THE Mus- 
 SIAH, [ will cause him to draw near ; my 
 chosen, in whom my word is delighted. 
 
 Kimchi: moon yon wm, This is the hing 
 MesstaH. Alschech: wot Jn KW, 
 He is the king Messtan. Abarbanel : 
 monn wn, dud this is the MESSIAH, Kc. 
 See also Midrash Tillim in Raym. 
 Martini Pug. Fid. p. 527. Our Re- 
 deemer was the choice of infinite 
 wisdom. He possessed a plenitude of 
 mediatorial qualifications which ren- 
 dered him the object of the Father’s 
 complacence, and, in every respect, fit 
 to undertake the work of human re- 
 demption. This was in part the result 
 of the superabundant gift of the Holy 
 Spirit. Matt. ii. 16,17 ; Johni. 32— 
 34, 111. 34. w bw, judgment, here, and 
 vers, 3 and 4, is equivalent to ™n, daw ; 
 and both mean the doctrine or insti- 
 tution of the Messiah; the gospel 
 dispensation. Εν, he will carry forth, 
 or cause to go forth. Comp. 825, chap. 
 ii. 3. True religion had been, for the 
 most part, confined to the Jews. In 
 the new dispensation; πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, 
 all the 0%3, heathen nations, were to be 
 brought under its influence. Comp. 
 xlix. 6, 12, li. 4, 5, ii, 2—4; Matt. 
 xxviii. 19 ; Mark xvi. 15. 
 
 2, 3. These verses describe the meek 
 and gentle character of the Messiah ; 
 the noiseless and unostentatious mode 
 in which the affairs of his kingdom 
 should be conducted ; and the tender 
 compassion which he would exercise 
 towards the dejected and helpless. 
 Comp. chap. lxi. 1—3; Matt. xi. 28— 
 30. It was the retiring conduct of 
 our Lord, which led Matthew to quote 
 the words of the prophecy as receiving 
 their fulfilment inhim, smtp, LXX. de. 
 λίνον, flax, or linen; here a wick made 
 of such material. 193, to be feeble, weuk, 
 pale, dim, peculiarly expressive of a 
 lamp just about to expire. LXX. 
 καπνιζόμενον. Matt. τυφόμενον. Aq, 
 Symm., Theod., ἀμαυρὸν. MP8? must 
 either mean dy, i.e. by means of truth, the 
 
336 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLII. 
 
 For permanence he shall cause judgment to go forth. 
 4 He shall not glimmer, neither shall he be bruised, 
 
 Till he have established judgment on the earth, 
 
 And the maritime lands have waited for his law. 
 
 5 Thus saith the God, Jehovah, 
 
 That created the heavens, and stretched them out ; 
 That spread forth the earth, and its productions ; 
 That giveth breath to the people upon it, 
 And spirit to them that walk on it. 
 6 I, Jehovah, have called thee for righteousness ; 
 I also will take hold of thy hand ; 
 Yea, I will preserve thee, and appoint thee for a covenant to 
 
 the people, 
 
 > denoting the dative of instrument ; 
 or, for a permanence ; i.e. the dispen- 
 sation which was to continue, in op- 
 position to that of Moses, which was 
 to cease. The root is ox, in Niph. Zo 
 be stable, durable, permanent. Thus 
 Matt. ἑως ἂν ἐκβάλῃ εἰς νῖκος τὴν κρίσιν ; 
 where εἰς νῖκος is used Hellenistically, 
 as by the LXX. in Job xxxvi. 7; 2Sam. 
 11. 26, for N22, for ever ; 22, perpetuity, 
 eternity. Comp. Hab. i. 4. 
 
 4. The verbs 772 and yy are here 
 repeated with fine effect, in appli- 
 cation to the Messiah himself. Mild 
 and gentle as he would be towards the 
 broken-hearted and desponding, no 
 power should depress his spirit, im- 
 pede his progress, obscure his glory, 
 or thwart his purpose. The negatives 
 in this and the preceding verses are 
 intended strongly to affirm the con- 
 trary. For the form j7v, comp. 77, 
 Ps. xci. 6. ἣν Prov. xxix. 6; which 
 are referable to 17 and jn, as yv is to 
 yz. This verb is here used intransi- 
 tively, as in Eccles. xii. 6. There can, 
 I think, be little doubt, that ἐπὶ τῷ 
 ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ, the present reading of 
 the LXX., was originally, ἐπὶ τῷ νόμῳ 
 avrov. Thus the other Greek versions: 
 καὶ ἐν τῷ νόμῳ αὐτοῦ ἔθνη ἐλπιοῦσι. 
 Matt., however, retains ὄνομα, as suffi- 
 cient for his purpose. See Bloomfield 
 in loc. For 0x, in the sense of remote 
 western countries, see on chap. xi. 11. 
 In such connexions as the present, it is 
 almost synonymous with 3, zations ; 
 yet not without a more special re- 
 
 ference to those of Europe and other 
 western parts, in which Christianity 
 has most prevailed. 
 
 5. Such descriptions of the exclusive 
 claims of Jehovah to be believed in and 
 obeyed, frequently occur in passages 
 which treat of the folly or downfal of 
 idolatry. They form an appropriate 
 introduction to what follows. Among 
 other effects to be produced by the 
 establishment of the New Covenant, 
 was the conversion of idolaters to the 
 service of the true God. The ° in 
 oP is not the sign of the plural, but | 
 merely a substitute for the radical 7; | 
 as jaye, Ezek. i. 5. 
 
 6, 7. Jehovah now addresses himself 
 directly to the Messiah. The language 
 resembles that employed respecting 
 Cyrus, chap. xlv. 13; but what is 
 otherwise here predicated can with no 
 propriety be applied to that monarch. 
 ΡΊΞΞ, with or for, i.e. furnished with, 
 prepared to bestow righteousness. 
 Maurer: “ cum justitia sc. mea, ἢ. 6. ut 
 cum justitia mea venias.” For this 
 signification of 3, see on chap. vill. 16. 
 The δικαιοσύνη introduced by the 
 Messiah, Dan. ix. 24, called, Rom. 1.17, 
 ii. 21, 22, δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ, iS very 
 different from that which the Persian 
 conqueror brought to Babylon. It is 
 that, without which there can be no 
 enjoyment of the other blessings 
 specified in the prophecy. ΓΒ, Cove- 
 nant, is used elliptically, for m2 4x7, | 
 the Messenger, or Agent of the Covenant, 
 Meoirns ; and is employed as a per- | 
 
CHAP. ΧΙ11.]} 
 
 For a light to the nations. 
 7 To open the blind eyes ; 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 337 
 
 To bring the prisoners out of confinement ; 
 Out of the prison-house them that sit in darkness. 
 8 Iam Jehovah; this is my name ; 
 And my glory will I not give to another, 
 Nor my praise to graven images. 
 9 As to the former predictions, behold! they have come to pass ; 
 
 And new events I declare ; 
 
 Before they spring forth I publish them to you. 
 
 10 
 
 Sing to Jehovah a new song; 
 
 His praise at the extremity of the earth ; 
 Ye that go down upon the sea, and its fulness ; 
 
 sonal title of the Messiah, because he 
 was sent to be the medium through 
 which the blessings conveyed by it 
 were to flow to mankind. Some ren- 
 der, Covenant-victim ; but this idea, 
 though implied in the Scripture doc- 
 trine of the New Covenant, is not 
 suggested by the word itself. ody ma, 
 a Covenant of the people, is the Genitive 
 of object, just as Ὁὴ 3 Nx, light of the 
 nations, is. The Covenant was not one 
 which the people already possessed, 
 but one that was to be made with 
 them through the mediation of the 
 Messiah. Comp. chap. xlix. 8, lv. 3; 
 Jer. xxxi. 31: Mal. ii. 1 ; Heb. viii. 6, 
 kpeitroves διαθήκης μεσίτης, 8—13, ix. 
 15, διαθήκης καινῆς μεσίτης. OY, people, 
 and 0%3, zations, are here used anti- 
 thetically, as in chap. xlix. 6, 8, to 
 denote the Jews, as God’s peculiar 
 people, and the other nations of the 
 earth by which he had not been 
 known or served. The benefits of 
 redemption were not to be confined to 
 the former, but were to be extended 
 throughout the world. ix, as φῶς, 
 John i. 8, 9, viii. 12, is employed 
 metaphorically for the author of light, 
 and designates the Messiah as the 
 Great Moral Teacher, the Author not 
 only of spiritual illumination, but of 
 deliverance from the impurity and 
 misery of sin. Though the two 
 epithets are used distinctively in the 
 antithesis, it is not meant that the 
 Jews alone were to enjoy the privileges 
 of the New Covenant, nor that the 
 
 heathen were to enjoy the light to the 
 exclusion of the Jews: they were to 
 have both in common, only the cove- 
 nant belonged primarily to the latter, 
 Acts ili. 25. 
 
 8. Before x, supply 98 from ver. 5. 
 Comp. O78 ovoRX, Exod. xx. 3. The 
 Divine and Incommunicable name, 
 mm, is here used in reference to its 
 peculiar import : THE SreLr-ExisTent 
 AND IMMUTABLE. Comp. Exod. iii. 14; 
 Hos. xii. 5. 
 
 9. The nists were the predictions 
 previously delivered, respecting the de- 
 struction of the Assyrians, &c.; the 
 mw are those which had, in part, 
 been delivered by the prophet, in the 
 preceding part of this chapter, re- 
 specting the Messiah, and the dispen- 
 sation which he was to establish. 
 ΤΌΣ DW. is a botanical metaphor, 
 aptly introduced to shew that no ap- 
 pearances existed which gave the least 
 indication of the things predicted. 
 They were, as it were, hid under 
 ground from the sight of mortals. 
 
 10. This and the two following 
 verses describe the universal joy which 
 the publication of the Gospel should 
 occasion. Benefits so transcendent as 
 those which it bestows, called for 
 higher -strains of praise than any 
 which had previously been conferred. 
 Carmina non prius audita, Horace. For 
 WIT VY, comp. Ps. xevi.1, xeviii.1. Both 
 these Psalms, and that which inter- 
 venes, are strikingly parallel in phrase- 
 ology to the present passage. The 
 
338 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLII. 
 
 The maritime lands, and their inhabitants. 
 
 11 The desert and its towns shall raise their voice ; 
 The villages that Kedar inhabiteth ; 
 The inhabitants of Sela shall sing ; 
 From the summit of the mountains shall they shout. 
 12 They shall render glory to Jehovah, 
 And declare his praise in the maritime lands. 
 13 Jehovah shall go forth like a hero; 
 Like a warrior shall he rouse his zeal ; 
 He shall cry aloud ; he shall call to battle: 
 He shall shew himself mighty against his foes. 
 14 I have long been silent; 
 I have held my peace ; I have contained myself : 
 Like a woman in child-birth, I will ery out ; 
 1 will pant and breathe at once. 
 15 1 will lay waste mountains and hills, 
 And dry up all their herbage ; 
 I will also turn the rivers into habitable lands, 
 And dry up the pools: 
 16 And will lead the blind by a way which they knew not; 
 
 In paths which they knew not will I conduct them: 
 
 subject is the same,—the abolition of 
 idolatry under the reign of the Mes- 
 siah. Lowth’s proposed change of 
 DT Ny into oy, YY, or JY, 15 opposed 
 by its correlate O»8. The Phoenician 
 merchants, and the inhabitants of the 
 transmarine regions in the west, are 
 here meant. Instead of 77», fifteen 
 MSS. and origin. eight more, read 7¥73, 
 and De Rossi’s Cod. 109, mentions 
 that others read thus. 
 
 11. At Ἰνὼ is an ellipsis of Dp. As 
 Kedar means the Arabs generally, 
 chap. xxi. 16, and is used as a proper 
 name, consistency of interpretation 
 requires that », Sela, should be 
 viewed in the same light, as denoting 
 the city of Petra, to the south of the 
 Dead Sea. See on chap. xvi.1. The 
 inhabitants of these regions are se- 
 lected to represent the Kast, as those 
 living in countries down the Mediter- 
 ranean had been to represent the 
 West. 737 means the great Arabian 
 desert, and its DY, the towns which are 
 found in different parts of it. 
 
 13. The prophet here returns to the 
 subject of the captivity. The lan- 
 guage is military, and powerfully ex- 
 presses the ardour with which a war- 
 rior rushes upon the enemy. ΠῈΣ, 
 
 Arab. - - 72 clare exposuit ; 11. aperte 
 
 divit rem; in Hiph. to give a loud shout 
 or cry, such as warriors do when en- 
 tering into battle, for the purpose of 
 inspiring each other with courage. 
 
 14. The metaphors are now bor- 
 rowed from a female in her pains, and 
 most significantly express the impa- 
 tience with which Jehovah waited to 
 give birth to his purpose respecting 
 Babylon. The interrogative turn 
 which some give to the former half 
 of the verse is unnatural. Dx some 
 derive from 09%, to lay waste; but it 
 is more in accordance with the images 
 here employed to refer it to Ὁ), fo 
 breathe strongly, pant for breath. ‘Thus 
 AN, fo blow, or breathe hard. 
 
 15, 16. The Babylonian empire, and 
 every other obstacle that prevented . 
 
CHAP. XLII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 339 
 
 I will turn darkness into light before them, 
 And rugged places into a plain: 
 These things will I do for them, and will not forsake them. 
 
 17 
 
 They are turned back, they are utterly confounded, 
 
 That confide in graven images ; 
 
 That say to molten images : 
 Ye are our Gods. 
 
 18 Hear, ye deaf! 
 
 And, ye blind! look, that ye may see. 
 
 19 
 
 Who is blind but my Servant? 
 
 Or deaf as my Messenger whom I will send ? 
 
 the happy return of the Jews to their 
 own land, were to be destroyed. In- 
 stead of Dx, many critics, after Hou- 
 bigant, would read ΘῈ, but quite 
 unnecessarily. Besides, the latter 
 word signifies the inhabitants of arid 
 regions, never the regions themselves. 
 See on chap. xiii. 21. Nothing could 
 have been more unexpected than the 
 mode of deliverance from Babylon. 
 It was manifestly the hand of God. 
 The imagery is bold and sublime. 
 Comp. chap. xli. 15—19. The con- 
 struction Dn Dy is not uncommon. 
 
 17. A description of the disappoint- 
 ment experienced by the idolaters of 
 Babylon, when they found that their 
 gods had been unable to protect them 
 from Cyrus. 
 
 18. The prophet here turns abruptly 
 upon his countrymen, who enjoyed 
 - abundantly the means of religious in- 
 struction after the restoration, more 
 especially during the ministry of our 
 Lord, ver. 20, but who were obsti- 
 nately stupid and inattentive, and calls 
 upon them to regard the Divine mes- 
 sage. Comp. chap. xliii. 8 ; Matt. xv. 
 14; Mark iii. 5. 
 
 19. Most interpreters apply these 
 words to the Jewish people, addressed 
 both in the preceding and the follow- 
 ing verse: but their interpretation is 
 clogged with insuperable difficulties. 
 Nowhere in scripture is that people 
 spoken of as the Tim 4X, Messenger of 
 Jehovah. Whenever they are called 
 his servant, reference is had to their 
 worship and obedience to his laws,— 
 not to their executing a commission 
 
 to others. Besides, with no propriety 
 could the term 03% be applied to 
 them. We are told, indeed, what is 
 
 perfectly true, that pres Moslem, 
 oe ee Mosleman, whence our Mussul- 
 
 man, signifies one who is devoted to 
 the service of God, who obeys him, 
 and submits to his will; but even if 
 it were allowable to transfer the Mo- 
 hammedan acceptation of this Arabic 
 term to the Hebrew, nothing would be 
 gained. The Jews were distinguished 
 for any thing rather than devotion to 
 the will and service of Jehovah. A 
 more appropriate rendering, in appli- 
 cation to them, would be that of 
 recompensed, punished—the verb 0d» 
 signifying, fo requite, retribute: but 
 this would ill comport with the fore- 
 going terms. The signification, friend, 
 ally of God, proposed by Gesenius, is 
 equally irrelevant. Abraham was so 
 called, but never the Jewish nation. 
 The construction, to whom I have sent 
 my messenger, which is that of the 
 Vulg., Chald., Saadias, Lowth, and, 
 others, Gesenius justly rejects. The 
 language I consider ironical, and de- 
 signed to shew, that such would be 
 the light in which the Jews would re- 
 gard the Messiah. When accused of 
 unbelief, they retort: “ Who can 
 listen to such a messenger? He is 
 blind to all the prospects of earthly 
 glory, which our prophets have taught 
 us to cherish; he is deaf to all our 
 pretensions on the score of legal 
 righteousness.” Comp. chap. liii. 1. 
 
340 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLII. 
 
 Who is blind as the Perfect One ? 
 Blind as the Servant of Jehovah ? 
 
 20 
 
 Thou hast seen many things, but hast not observed them ; 
 
 Having the ears open, but heard nothing. 
 
 21 
 
 Jehovah is well-pleased for the sake of his righteousness ; 
 
 He shall magnify the law, and render it glorious. 
 
 But this is a people spoiled and plundered ; 
 
 All of them are bound in dungeons, 
 
 And hid in prison-houses ; 
 
 They have become a spoil, and there is no deliverer ; 
 A plunder, and no one saith, Restore. 
 
 23 
 
 Who among you will give ear to this ? 
 
 Attend, and hear for the future ? 
 
 24 Who delivered up Jacob to be a spoil, 
 
 To our Lord all the epithets here em- 
 ployed most aptly apply. He was the 
 Father’s Servant; the Messenger whom 
 he was to send; the Perfect One. The 
 last term, 0202, Symm. renders, ὁ 
 τέλειος; Kimchi, 9m, perfect; and 
 Abenezra regards it as synonymous 
 with pz, righteous. The signification, 
 delivered up, betrayed, might be sug- 
 gested, comp. Josh. xi. 19; but that 
 
 ‘of perfect is best established. Instead 
 of 1», blind, repeated at the end of the 
 verse, two MSS. and Symm. read 17, 
 deaf, of which Houbigant, Lowth, and 
 Déderlein approve ; but there is sin- 
 gular force in the repetition, which is 
 beyond doubt genuine. 
 
 20. The blind Jews are now ad- 
 dressed as a body. They had been 
 favoured with the highest advantages; 
 numerous and illustrious miracles 
 were performed by our Lord before 
 their eyes, but they heeded them not. 
 Their ears were open to their phari- 
 saical teachers, but they were unwill- 
 ing to listen to him. niu, the Keri, 
 though numerously supported by MS. 
 authority, is most likely, after all, an 
 emendation, proposed for the purpose 
 of rendering the word conformable 
 to the following Infin. 072 ; yet comp. 
 ninw, chap. xxi. 18 ; nis, Hos. x. 4. 
 Symm. εἶδες πολλὰ ; LXX. εἴδετε πλε- 
 ονάκις. The same may be said of aun, 
 in the Second Person instead of the 
 Third. 
 
 .- 
 
 21. The antecedent to the pronom. 
 affix in Wiz, His righteousness, is the 
 Illustrious Servant and Messenger of 
 Jehovah. Thus the LXX. ἵνα δικαιωθῇ; 
 Symm. ἵνα δικαιώσῃ αὐτὸν ; and simi- 
 
 larly the Chald., Vulg., and Saad. ΥὙ8π|, 
 
 signifies to end, incline, Arab. a 
 
 Jlexit, inflexit ; to be inclined, favourable 
 towards a person ; be delighted, pleased. 
 It is here used of the propense dispo- 
 sition of God to bestow blessings on 
 the guilty, in consideration of the 
 righteousness of the Messiah. The 
 Jews might reject him, as predicted 
 in the preceding verses, but his work 
 should not be fruitless. Comp. chap. 
 xlix. 5. The mim you, chap. lui. 10, 
 should prosper in his hand. The 
 nominative to the verbs 712 and Ww 
 is the Messiah, understood. For the 
 sense, comp. Matt. v. 17; Rom. iii. 31, 
 vii. 12, vil. 4, x. 4; Gal. iii. 18. 
 
 22. From this verse to the end of 
 the chapter we have a pathetic argu- 
 mentative description of the miserable 
 circumstances to which the’ Jews 
 should be reduced, in consequence of 
 their rejecting the Saviour. M57 is 
 the historical Infinitive of πῇ, oa 
 may either be rendered, the young men ; 
 or, ἐμ holes. The latter is preferable, 
 on account of the parallelism. By 
 Tis meant a subterranean prison. 
 
 24, Not is used per κοίνωσιν,--- 
 the prophet identifying himself with 
 
CHAP. XLIII.] ISATAH. 341 
 
 And Israel to the plunderers ? 
 Was it not Jehovah? He against whom they had sinned ; 
 In whose ways they were unwilling to walk ; 
 And whose laws they did not obey. 
 
 25 Therefore, he hath poured upon him the heat of his anger ; 
 And the fierceness of war ; 
 It hath even kindled around him, yet he perceiveth it not; 
 Yea, it burneth him up, yet he layeth it not to heart. 
 
 his nation. The LXX. and Chald. instance of the stat. absol. pro constr. 
 
 read NOM, or a genitive of apposition : heat which 
 25. For 727, one of Kennicott’s is his anger,i.e. his hot anger. 
 
 MSS. reads non. ‘58 727 may be an 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 The prophet resumes the subject of the restoration from Babylon and other 
 countries, and adduces several grounds of comfort and encouragement to 
 the pious, 1—7 ; while he exposes the guilt of such of the Jews as obsti- 
 nately persisted in unbelief, 8. He then, by an easy transition, addresses 
 himself to the idolaters, challenging them to produce a single instance of 
 prescience on the part of their gods, 9; appeals to the liberated Jews, and 
 to the Messiah, for the truth of the fact, that there was no God but Jehovah 
 alone, 10—13 ; and again announces the interposition at Babylon, 14, 15 ; 
 which he illustrates by a reference to the deliverance at the Red Sea, 16, 17. 
 The former, however, was to be the more memorable of the two, 18—21. 
 He then shews that the deliverance of the Jews was not owing to ceremonial 
 offerings, &c., but to the free grace of Jehovah, pardoning their sins, 22— 
 26 ; and the chapter concludes with a statement of the causes of the capti- 
 vity, 27, 28. 
 
 1 Burt now, thus saith Jehovah that created thee, O Jacob ! 
 And He that formed thee, O Israel ! 
 
 1. Creation and redemption are here, figuratively, to give existence to 
 here to be understood in a national what the name or person imports. 
 sense, ὉΔῚ ΝῊ primarily means, fo Comp. chap. i. 26; Exod. xxxi. 2; 
 call a person by enouncing his name; Isa, xlv.3,4. Ina higher sense, when 
 
 teu 
 
942 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XLII. 
 
 Fear not, for I have redeemed thee ; 
 I have called thee by name ; thou art mine. 
 
 2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee ; 
 And through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee ; 
 When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned ; 
 Neither shall the flame consume thee. 
 
 3 For I, Jehovah, am thy God, 
 
 The Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour ; 
 I have given Egypt for thy ransom, 
 
 Cush and Seba im thy stead. 
 
 4 Because thou wast precious in my sight, 
 
 Thou hast been honoured ; 
 
 And because 1 loved thee, I have given men in thy stead, 
 And nations instead of thy life. 
 
 5 Fear not, for I am with thee; 
 
 God is the subject, it means fo call 
 φρο, or invoke him, with special re- 
 ference to his name, z.e. his revealed 
 character. Gen. iv. 26, e¢ freq. 
 
 2. Images of the greatest troubles 
 and dangers, and promises of perfect 
 security. 
 
 3. 183, from ἝΞ 
 
 =) 
 
 to cover, overlay with 
 acovering, Arab. ps 5 pe texit, operuit 
 
 rem; and the latter, condonavit pec- 
 catum ; signifies ransom-money, λύτρον, 
 a compensation paid for expiation and 
 deliverance. Comp. Exod. xxi. 30, 
 xxx. 12. Its substitutionary or vica- 
 rious character is confirmed by ΤΏΙ, 
 in thy stead, in the following clause. 
 The ransom consisted in the countries 
 here specified, with which the Per- 
 sians were rewarded for liberating the 
 Jews from Babylon. They received 
 no compensation from the Jews them- 
 selves ; but under Cambyses, they 
 pushed their conquests into Africa, 
 subdued Egypt, and penetrated as far 
 as Ethiopia and Meroé. For 3, Cush, 
 see chap. xi. 11. By x20, Seda, is 
 meant the celebrated sacerdotal state 
 of Meroé, situate in the fruitful penin- 
 sula formed by the rivers Astapus and 
 Astaboras, or Tacazze, and now con- 
 stituting part of the kingdom of 
 Senaar, in Nubia. The city of Meroé 
 was famous for its commerce, riches, 
 
 and temples, one of which was of 
 gold, and particularly noted for the 
 priests having been murdered in it, in 
 the third century before Christ, by 
 Ergamenes the king, who thus ren- 
 dered himself independent of the 
 priesthood. Numerous remaining 
 temples, pyramids, colossuses, and 
 sepulchral monuments, attest its 
 ancient magnitude and _ splendour. 
 Some of the most remarkable ruins 
 are those of Subah (lat. 15° N.), in 
 which we recognise the Hebrew name. 
 The worship of Ammon and Osiris 
 was here celebrated in the most 
 sumptuous manner. 810, Seba, was 
 descended from Cush, Gen. x. 7. On 
 its being conquered by Cambyses, he 
 gave it the name of Meroé, after that 
 of his sister. LXX. Σοήνη. See fur- 
 ther on chap. xlv. 14. 
 
 4, The compound 1x» is not to be 
 understocd, in this place, in reference 
 to time, but as assigning the reason 
 why such a compensation was made 
 for the deliverance of the Jews. Its 
 repetition in °}38) is superseded by the 
 continuative force of the Vau. In 
 TAS), the Vau is simply inferential. 
 This verse is epexegetical of the 
 preceding. 
 
 5—7. On the invasion of Judea by 
 Nebuchadnezzar, many of the Jews 
 fled into Egypt and other neighbour- 
 
CHAP. XLIII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 343 
 
 I will bring thy seed from the east, 
 And gather thee from the west. 
 
 6 I will say to the north, Give up; 
 And to the south, Keep not back ; 
 
 Bring my sons from far, 
 
 And my daughters from the ends of the earth ; 
 
 “J 
 
 Every one that is called by my name; 
 
 Whom I have created for my glory ; 
 Whom I have formed and made. 
 8 Bring forth the blind people, that have eyes, 
 
 And the deaf, that have ears. 
 
 9 Let all the nations be assembled ; 
 And let the people be collected. 
 Who among them can declare this Ὁ 
 Or shew us former predictions ? 
 Let them produce their witnesses, that they may be justified ; 
 That men may hear, and say, It is true. 
 
 10 
 
 Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, 
 
 And my Servant whom I have chosen ; 
 That ye may know, and believe me, 
 And understand, that I am ΠΕ. 
 
 Before me no God was formed ; 
 
 And after me there shall be none. 
 
 11 1,1 am Jehovah ; 
 
 ing countries, where they remained 
 during the captivity. The conquests 
 of Cyrus afforded them an opportunity 
 of returning at the time of the resto- 
 ration from Babylon. The verbs in 
 ver. 6, are of the Fem. gender,—jy x 
 being understood. 
 
 8. By the blind and deaf are meant 
 such Jews as had mixed themselves 
 up with the heathen, learned their 
 ways, and rejected the messages of 
 Jehovah. They here form a subject 
 of transition to the following challenge 
 given to the idolatrous nations. Comp. 
 chap. xlii. 18. 257 is the Imperative. 
 
 10. Jehovah addresses the Jews 
 who were to be restored to their own 
 land, ver. 5—7, and shews that they 
 were designed to bear testimony to 
 the truth of his Divine existence and 
 character, in opposition to the claims 
 
 put forth by idolaters. This they 
 specially did during the period which 
 intervened between the restoration, 
 and the advent of our Lord, the 729, 
 Servant, (Targ. sw 12Y),) here speci- 
 fically intended. Comp. chap. xhi. 1. 
 By him, and by his apostles and 
 succeeding ministers of the word, 
 such testimony was to be borne, as 
 should effect the complete overthrow 
 of idol-worship. Comp. Mark xii. 29 ; 
 John xvii. 3; Acts xiv. 15, xvii. 23— 
 30; 1. Cor. viii. 6; 1 Thess. i. 9, 10. 
 wir», was not formed, is not to be 
 pressed, except as it sarcastically 
 exposes the origin of idols: it is 
 equivalent to was not. 
 
 11. The repetition, 58 ‘8, is em- 
 phatic. Comp. ver. 25, 11. 12. 28 28, 
 xlviii. 15. 
 
344 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLIII. 
 
 And besides me there is no Saviour. 
 
 12 
 
 I have declared, and saved, and made it known, 
 
 When there was no strange god among you: 
 Ye also are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, 
 
 That I am God. 
 13 
 
 From the time that day was, I am HE; 
 
 And none can rescue from my hand ; 
 I will execute my work ; and who shall hinder it ? 
 
 14 Thus saith Jehovah, 
 
 Your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: 
 For your sakes I sent to Babylon ; 
 
 And brake down all the barriers, 
 
 And the Chaldeans in their joyous vessels. 
 
 15 
 
 I, Jehovah, am your Holy One, 
 
 The Creator of Israel, your King. 
 
 16 Thus saith Jehovah: 
 
 He that made a way in the sea, 
 And a path in the mighty waters ; 
 
 17 
 The army and the force :— 
 
 That brought out the chariot and the horse, 
 
 They lay down together; they rose no more ; 
 They were quenched, they went out as a wick. 
 
 18 
 
 Remember not the former things ; 
 
 Neither reflect on the things of old. 
 
 12. At J, supply °x, as found in Ps. 
 xliv. 21, lxxxi. 10. 
 
 13. DIN, LXX. ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ; from the 
 first day of creation, Gen. i. 5. Not 
 only did Jehovah exist as the _Immut- 
 able, but also as the Omnipotent and 
 Trresistible. 
 
 14, ont’, the prophetic future, 
 indicating the absolute certainty of 
 the Medo-Persian invasion. 03, or, 
 as Theod., Jerome, Abenezra, and 
 Abarbanel, or), Jars, bolts; figura- 
 tively, protectors, defenders, soldiers. 
 This acceptation of the word is here 
 preferable to that of fugitives, since it 
 would seem to designate the land- 
 troops, in contradistinction to the 
 naval force of Babylon, mentioned 
 immediately after. oOnm nvr, lit. the 
 ships of their joy, i.e. the vessels 
 manned by the Chaldeans, the crews 
 
 of which cheered each other with a 
 view to mutual excitement. That navi- 
 gation in larger vessels obtained on 
 the Euphrates in ancient times, is past 
 dispute. See Herod. i. 184—186; 
 Strabo, xvi. According to Huet, in 
 his Hist. du Commer., Semiramis had 
 a fleet of three thousand galleys. 
 See Lowth’s Note. 
 
 16—18. A forcible allusion to the 
 destruction of the Egyptians in the 
 Red Sea ; which, however, is declared, 
 ver. 18, to be among those former in- 
 terpositions of Divine Providence, 
 that were to be eclipsed by the de- 
 struction of the Babylonians, and the 
 rescue of the captive Jews. These 
 were to be so remarkable, that they 
 should exclusively occupy the minds 
 of the faithful. 
 
CHAP. XLIII.] 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 . ISAIAH. 345 
 
 Behold! I will effect a new thing ; 
 
 Now it shall spring up; will ye not regard it? 
 I will even make a way in the desert, 
 
 And rivers in the wilderness, 
 
 The beasts of the field shall honour me ; 
 
 The wolves and the ostriches ; 
 
 For I will put water in the desert, 
 
 And rivers in the wilderness ; 
 
 To furnish drink for my people, my chosen. 
 
 21 
 
 This people I have formed for myself; 
 
 They shall celebrate my praise. 
 
 22 
 
 But thou hast not invoked me, O Jacob! 
 
 Yea, thou hast been weary of me, O Israel! 
 
 23 
 
 Thou hast not brought me the lambs for thy burnt-offerings ; 
 
 Neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices ; 
 I have not burdened thee with oblations, 
 
 Nor wearied thee with incense. 
 Thou hast not bought for me sweet cane with money ; 
 
 24 
 
 Neither hast thou satiated me with the fat of thy sacrifices ; 
 But thou hast burdened me with thy sins; 
 
 19—21. The circumstances con- 
 nected with the return should be 
 altogether novel in their character. 
 To indicate that every provision for 
 comfort and security would be made, 
 the boldest poetical images are em- 
 ployed. The whole should be cele- 
 brated as exclusively the work of God, 
 executed in behalf of his chosen 
 people. 
 
 22. Prone as the Jews ever were to 
 imagine that they merited the Divine 
 favour by their ceremonial obsery- 
 ances, it was necessary, after the high 
 terms in which they had been spoken 
 of, and the enouncement of so remark- 
 able a deliverance as that which was 
 to be effected for them, to remind 
 ‘them of the facts, that, before the 
 captivity, they had either neglected 
 to present the prescribed offerings, 
 or had done it in a mere formal 
 manner; that while it lasted none 
 had been imposed upon them ; and 
 that, instead of serving their God, 
 their conduct had been characterised 
 by ingratitude and rebellion. As 
 
 Lowth observes, the emphasis on 
 which the sense depends, lies on the 
 pronoun Ve. See his note, and comp. 
 Amos v. 25. This verse contains a 
 general proposition, which is explained 
 in the particulars enumerated, vers. 
 23, 94. 
 
 24. πὴ, calamus aromaticus, the 
 sweet cane, which is in high esti- 
 mation in India, Western Asia, and 
 Africa. Mr. Campbell relates, that 
 the inhabitants of the two towns 
 highest up in Africa, which he visited, 
 presented him with pieces of sugar or 
 sweet cane, about a foot in length, 
 and in such quantities that the bottom 
 of that part of the wagon where he 
 sat was covered with it. It was an 
 article of traffic, and often brought 
 from a distance, Jer. vi. 20; and was 
 used as a component ingredient in 
 preparing the holy anointing oil, 
 Exod. xxx. 23. In 72—m} is a paro- 
 nomasia. The verbs ΤΩΣ and ὉΠ are 
 repeated with great effect from the 
 preceding verse; and, as here used, 
 are strongly anthropopathical. The 
 
846 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLII. 
 
 Thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. 
 
 25 I, lam He, 
 
 That blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake, 
 And will not remember thy sins. 
 
 26 
 
 Put me in remembrance ; let us plead together ; 
 
 Record thou, that thou mayest be justified. 
 
 27 
 
 Thy chief father hath sinned, 
 
 And thine interpreters have rebelled against me. 
 
 28 
 
 Therefore have I desecrated the rulers of the sanctuary, 
 
 And given up Jacob to the curse, 
 
 And Israel to reproaches. 
 
 former, from 73¥, to serve, labour, means 
 to impose labour upon one, to burden, or 
 Jatigue with labour. 
 
 25. For the repetition, see on ver. 
 11: 
 motives derived purely from my own 
 nature ; uninfluenced by any cause in 
 
 ou. 
 
 26. The Jews are called upon to 
 specify a single instance in which 
 they had done any thing really meri- 
 torious. Jehovah was willing, not 
 only that the cause should be tried, 
 but that they themselves should give 
 the verdict. So evident was it that 
 they had nothing to produce. 
 
 27. WONT six, according to most 
 commentators, means Adam, and even 
 Gesenius thinks this interpretation is 
 not altogether to be rejected. Hitzig 
 and Scholz also adopt it. But that 
 the reference is to some person or 
 persons to whom the Jews in particular 
 were related, the spirit of the passage 
 requires. Yet Abraham, of whom 
 others have thought, is likewise out 
 of the question, on the ground that, 
 though, like each of his posterity, he 
 was chargeable with sin, yet he is 
 elsewhere uniformly represented as a 
 righteous or justified person, and not 
 as one entailing punishment upon 
 himself and others, The LXX. have 
 taken the phrase to be a collective, ot 
 
 2709, for my own sake; from’ 
 
 πατέρες ὑμῶν πρῶτοι, your forefathers, | 
 and this Gesenius prefers; but the | 
 parallelism requires us to understand 
 a person in office, and none is so 
 likely to be intended as the High 
 Priest. vox), first, is used not only of 
 time, but also of dignity, as 1 Chron. 
 xviii. 17; and Bx 373, the head or chief 
 priest, and simply ‘x57, the chief, are 
 employed to denote the Jewish pontiff. 
 At the same time, there is no reason 
 to conclude that only one High Priest 
 is meant. By Ow are meant zz/er- 
 preters of the Divine will, internuncii, 
 religious teachers. Comp. Gen. xlii. 
 23. The LXX. have ἄρχοντες ὑμῶν ; 
 but Aq. and Symm. ἑρμηνεῖς σοῦ. 
 Job xxxiil. 23. 
 
 28. DIp WW, princes of the sanctuary, 
 are the priests, 1 Chron. xxiv. 5. 308) 
 wip τ, therefore have I desecrated, 
 &c. affords an excellent sense, and 
 is to be retained. The LXX., Syr., 
 Houbigant, Lowth, and Boothroyd, 
 unwarrantably substitute yw TM 
 wm, Aud thy princes have profuned my 
 sanctuary. The parallelism is decid- 
 edly against such construction. The 
 priests were profaned by being re- 
 moved from the temple, and carried 
 away promiscuously with the rest of 
 the people into captivity. “Copula 
 Ὑ hic pro illativa capitur.” Calvin. 
 
CHAP. XLIV.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 347 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 Having promised complete forgiveness towards the close of the preceding 
 chapter, the prophet now proceeds to predict the prosperous state of religion 
 as the result of the effusion of the Holy Spirit, 1—5; again asserts the 
 exclusive claims of Jehovah, 6—8 ; exposes with admirable effect, by the 
 use of the keenest satire, the folly and absurdity of idolatry, 9—20 ; re- 
 sumes the joyful subject of emancipation, 21—23 ; and then re-asserts the 
 Divine supremacy as evinced in the frustration of the heathen oracles, and 
 the fulfilment of the predictions respecting the expedition of Cyrus, whom 
 
 he expressly names, 24—28, 
 
 1 YeET now, hear, O Jacob! my servant, 
 And Israel! whom I have chosen ; 
 
 2 Thus saith Jehovah, thy Maker, 
 He that formed thee, and helped thee from the womb: 
 Fear not, O my servant Jacob! 
 O Jeshurun! whom I have chosen. 
 
 3 For I will pour water upon the thirsty soil, 
 And streams upon the dry ground ; 
 I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, 
 And my blessing upon thine offspring : 
 
 4 So that they shall grow up as among the grass; 
 As willows by the watercourses. 
 
 5 One shall say, I am Jehovah’s; 
 
 2. The womb in which the Israelites 
 had been was Egypt: their birth, the 
 exodus. pt, a poetical diminutive of 
 affection; hence the LXX. ἠγαπημένος. 
 The root is W= Wry, fo be straight, 
 right, upright, righteous. οἱ Nour. εὐθὺς. 
 Jehovah recognises the Jews in this 
 character in consideration of their 
 entire abandonment of idolatry, and 
 return to his service. It is in this 
 sense that their ancient kings are often 
 said to have done wn, that which was 
 right in the eyes of the Lord. Comp. 
 Deut. xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 5, 26. 
 
 4. The conjunction Ὁ in 37x) is to 
 be taken ἐκβατικῶς, so that; in conse- 
 
 quence of the effusion, &c. Instead 
 of 723, five MSS., five more originally, 
 now one, twelve printed editions, and 
 the LXX., read p23, which may have 
 been the primitive lection. Forty- 
 five MSS., originally ten more, now 
 two, and seven editions, read 123 ; and 
 a few }22; according to which the 
 meaning would be iz a grassy place. 
 The images here employed denote 
 luxuriance and abundance. 
 
 5. Not only should true religion 
 flourish among the natural posterity 
 of Jacob ; numerous proselytes would 
 joyfully participate in their privileges, 
 Comp. Zech, viii. 23. πὶ repeated de- 
 
348 ι 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLIV. 
 
 Another shall distinctly avow the name of Jacob ; 
 And another shall inscribe on his hand: JEHOVAH’S; 
 And shall speak honourably of the name of Israel. 
 6 Thus saith Jehovah, the king of Israel, 
 And his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts : 
 I am the First, I also am the Last; 
 And besides me there is no God. 
 7 For who like me hath announced ? 
 Let him even declare it, and arrange it for me, 
 
 notes number and diversity. See Ps. 
 Ixxxvul. 4,6. Their profession of the 
 true religion should be open and 
 visible. ‘Ow 8p cannot here signify 
 to call upon, so that prayers should be 
 addressed to the patriarch Jacob, or 
 to the people collectively, but ἕο pro- 
 claim, enounce the name of any one, 
 Ps. xlix. 12; Isa. xii. 4.” Hitzig. This 
 is so far good ; but there seems to be 
 further included in the phrase, as here 
 used, the idea of so employing the 
 name as to indicate that those to whom 
 it belongs are alone to be regarded as 
 worshippers of the true God. The 
 use of 723 as a synonymous verb in 
 the corresponding member of the 
 parallelism confirms this interpre- 
 tation. This verb in Chaldee signifies 
 
 to address a person by his title ; es 
 
 in Arab. significavit aliquid nomine 
 improprio, cognominavit, blanditus est cir- 
 cumlocutione ; and in Hebrew the ac- 
 ceptation is obviously that of speaking 
 of any one in a flattering or honourable 
 manner. See Job xxxu. 21, 22; Isa. 
 xlv. 4. Symm. renders 87’, passively, 
 κληθήσεται. The LXX. have βοήσεται 
 for both verbs. The words 1? 17» may 
 either be rendered, he shall write with 
 his hand, i. e. subscribe, as one does 
 a document or declaration ; or, he shall 
 inscribe on his hand the word, 7. 
 The former mode of construction 
 Déderlein, Dathe, Rosenmiiller, in his 
 Schol. V. T. in Compend. redact, Ge- 
 senius, and Jenour, prefer; but the 
 latter, first adopted by the LXX., 
 ἕτερος ἐπιγράψει χειρὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ 
 εἰμὶ, is that approved by Michaelis, 
 Lowth, Tingstad., v.d. Palm, Booth- 
 royd, Hitzig,and Scholz. The Hebrew 
 is simply, he shall write his hand, ‘Vis 
 
 the Accusative of object, governed by 
 any. The language is figurative, and 
 is borrowed from the ancient custom 
 of burning marks into the hand, or 
 some other part of the body, for the 
 purpose of expressing the name of the 
 person to whom one belonged. Thus 
 the slave had the name of his master ; 
 the soldier of his commander; and 
 the idolater of his god. See Spencer 
 de Leg. Hebreor. lib. 11. cap. xx. 
 Comp. Ezek. ix. 4; Rev. xiii. 16. For 
 the force of 7, comp. 7? Ὁ, Exod. 
 Xxxii. 26; and for the accomplishment 
 of the prophecy in the times between 
 the return of the Jews from Babylon, 
 and the advent of Christ, see the note 
 on chap. xix. 23. 
 
 6. TSW) ΟΝ Ὅν, 7 am the First, 
 and I am the Last,—a sublime character 
 of the Deity, by which he vindicates 
 to himself absolute eternity and su- 
 premacy. He is the infinitely perfect 
 Being—the First Cause and Last End 
 of all things. Comp. chap. xli. 4, 
 xlviii. 12. In Rev. 1. 17, ii. 8, and 
 xxii. 13, our Saviour appropriates the 
 attributes to himself, without re- 
 striction or reservation. Compare 
 the language of Orpheus, Zed, ἀρχὴ 
 πάντων, πάντων τε τελετὴ, Hym. xiv. 7: 
 and Ζεὺς πρῶτος ἐγένετο---Ζεὺς ὕστατος. 
 Dr. Bloomfield on Rev. i. 11. 
 
 7. By Dv Dy, the ancient people, some 
 understand the Hebrews ; but it is 
 preferable to interpret the phrase, as 
 Ezek. xxvi. 20, of the oldest inha- 
 bitants of the globe ; so that the 
 meaning will be, from the most ancient 
 times. Though the Jews were the 
 depositaries of the ancient prophecies, 
 and most of them were delivered by 
 persons belonging to that nation, yet 
 others were announced long before 
 
CHAP. XLIV. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 349 
 
 From the time that I settled the ancient people ; 
 Or, let them declare to them future things, things that shall 
 
 happen. 
 8 Fear not, neither be terrified ; 
 
 Have I not of old published it to thee, and declared it ? 
 
 Ye therefore are my witnesses. 
 Is there a God besides me ? 
 
 There is, indeed, no Rock ; I know of none. 
 
 9 All that form a graven image are vanity ; 
 And their objects of delight profit not :— 
 Yea, they are themselves witnesses ; 
 
 They neither see nor know ; 
 That they may be ashamed. 
 
 10 Who hath formed a god, 
 
 And cast an image, that profiteth nothing ? 
 
 1 
 
 Behold! all his associates shall be ashamed : 
 
 For the workmen themselves are of men: 
 Let them all assemble; let them stand up ; 
 They shall be afraid and ashamed together. 
 
 12 
 
 The smith prepareth an axe, and worketh in the coals ; 
 
 He fashioneth it also with hammers, and worketh it with his 
 
 powerful arm ; 
 
 they had a national existence. Be- 
 tween nvoR and 781m there is no 
 essential difference of meaning ; they 
 are merely synonymes, employed to de- 
 note the certainty of the future events. 
 Twelve MSS., originally another, and 
 one by correction, read Wx, without 
 1; as does also the Syriac. 102 172, 
 let them—the fictitious gods—declare 
 to them, i.e. their worshippers : or, the 
 Dative may be the dativus commodi: 
 let the idolaters declare, in vindication 
 of the claims of their deities. 
 
 8, 3n, in two MSS., 371A, is a ἅπαξ 
 
 Aey., but cognate with the Arab. δ)»; 
 
 pre metu attonitus fuit. The root AY is 
 related to the verb ἣν ; Theod. μὴ θαμ- 
 βεῖσθε. 
 
 9. The exposure of idolatry in this 
 and the following verses is inimitably 
 forcible and beautiful. With the most 
 exact disposition of the parts, are 
 combined an exactness and vividness 
 of delineation, a pointedness of sar- 
 
 casm, a force of argument, and a con- 
 cinnity and elegance of expression, 
 which entitle the passage to the 
 highest place among the compositions 
 of our seer. OF TOT mean the objects 
 of their idolatrous attachment, their 
 idols, which they procured at much 
 trouble and expense. The four extra- 
 ordinary points over 727 were designed 
 by the punctuators to fix the attention 
 of the reader on the dumb idols being 
 constituted witnesses against the stu- 
 pidity of their worshippers. 
 
 10. What is here put as a question 
 is the real fact of the case. The 
 question is strongly ironical. 
 
 11. yun, all who assist the idol- 
 maker. "If they are themselves of 
 human origin, what absurdity for them 
 to pretend to impart divinity ? Comp. 
 Acts xvii. 29. 
 
 12. “13 OW, the fabricator of iron, 15 
 the smith ; ; just as oxy om, the fabri- 
 cator of wood, ver. 13, is the car penter. 
 Before ὙΠῸ supply 21 or 8. The 
 
 xX X 
 
250 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLIY. 
 
 He becometh hungry, and hath no strength ; 
 He drinketh no water, and is faint. 
 
 13 
 
 The carpenter stretcheth out the line ; 
 
 He sketcheth its figure with a sharp tool ; 
 
 He worketh it with chisels ; 
 
 He marketh it off with a compass ; 
 He maketh it into human shape, 
 
 After the beauty of a man ; 
 To dwell in a house. 
 14 
 
 He heweth down cedars for himself ; 
 
 He taketh also the ilex and the oak ; , 
 And what he deemeth firm among the trees of the forest ; 
 He planteth the pine, and the rain nourisheth it. 
 
 substantive, 575, properly signifies 
 what is black; charcoal, coal: Arab. 
 
 » multum niger fuit : and = carbo. 
 
 The point of the argument in this verse 
 consists in a human being putting 
 forth all his might in merely forming 
 an instrument to be afterwards em- 
 ployed in making a god, while he is 
 reminded by the cravings of nature 
 that he is himself a weak and de- 
 pendent creature. 
 
 13. The axe having been prepared 
 for the use of the carpenter, his share 
 in the business of god-making is next 
 graphically described. He first of all 
 measures off the piece of wood which 
 is to form the idol ; then cuts it into 
 a rude shape; after which he takes 
 the exact dimensions of the several 
 parts, and brings out a due proportion; 
 and finishes by subjecting it to those 
 nicer operations by which it assumes 
 the graceful appearance of the human 
 
 form. WY, Arab. οἵ μον, acus sutorum, 
 
 subula, stylus, Aq. mapaypadis, a sharp 
 instrument, graver, &c. Comp. the 
 Talmudic 01, DoW, to draw lines by 
 cutting them into the wood or stone. 
 This signification is better supported 
 than that of @ coloured line or cord, 
 such as carpenters alsouse. Whether 
 m2 15 to be understood of an ordinary 
 house, or of a temple, which it also signi- 
 fies, is doubtful. Idols were set up 
 in both, 
 
 14. The absurdity of idolatry is 
 next exposed by shewing that there 
 was nothing supernatural about the 
 materials of which the gods were 
 made. The wood was either such as 
 grew spontaneously, or such as the 
 carpenter had planted for a supply. 
 ΤῊΣ is the Infin. absolute, used for 
 the finite verb. m7, most probably, 
 as the Vulg. renders, ¢he tlex, a species 
 of oak, so called from its peculiar 
 hardness and strength. Comp. the 
 
 Arab. ip , durus, validus, rigidus fuit. 
 
 Celsius, Hierobotan. tom. ii. p. 269. 
 Its occurrence in connexion with 7x 
 is in favour of this meaning. ix, 
 LXX. πίτυς ; Vulg. pinus. This, which 
 is the most ancient, is most probably 
 the true interpretation of the word. 
 Others take it to mean ornus, the 
 
 ash; and others, the Arab. ΠΝ a 
 
 thorny tree, which grows in Arabia 
 Petraea. 19 yas) most moderns render, 
 and chooseth for himself; but no such 
 signification can fairly be brought out 
 of the verb. It has merely been 
 adopted from a supposed exigency of 
 the place. Lowth, /ayeth in good store ; 
 others otherwise. I do not see why 
 we may not here apply the well- 
 known principle, that verbs in Piel 
 frequently express, not the reality or 
 intensity of what is signified by the 
 primitive form, but what is ¢hougit or 
 conceived of in reference to it. The 
 
CHAP. XLIV.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 351 
 
 15 They serve a man even for fuel ; 
 For he taketh of them, and warmeth himself ; 
 He also kindleth a fire, and baketh bread ; 
 He even maketh a god, and bendeth down to it; 
 He maketh a graven image, and worshippeth it. 
 
 16 
 On part of it he eateth flesh ; 
 
 Part of it he burneth in the fire ; 
 
 He roasteth a roast, and eateth his full; 
 He also warmeth himself, and saith, 
 Ah! I am warm, I see the fire. 
 
 17 
 
 But the remainder of it he maketh a god, his graven image ; 
 
 He falleth down to it, and worshippeth it ; 
 He also prayeth to it, and saith, 
 Deliver me, for thou art my God. 
 
 18 
 
 They know not, neither do they understand ; 
 
 For their eyes are plastered over, so that they cannot see ; 
 Their hearts, that they cannot perceive. 
 
 19 
 
 say : 
 
 Yea, none reflecteth in his mind: 
 He hath neither the knowledge, nor the intelligence 
 
 Part οἵ τὸ I have burned in the fire ; 
 
 I have also baked bread over the coals thereof ; 
 
 I have roasted flesh, and eaten it. 
 
 Shall I then make the remainder of it an abomination ? 
 Shall I bow down to a clump of wood ? 
 
 words are thus a periphrase, denoting 
 whatever other trees the carpenter 
 might find suitable to his purpose. 
 
 15. A similar exposure of the ab- 
 surdity of idol-worship is given by 
 Horace : 
 
 “Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile 
 lignum, ; 
 
 Cum faber incertus, scamnum facer- 
 etne Priapum, 
 
 Maluit esse Deum.”—~Sq/é. i. 8. 1. 
 
 Comp. also Wisdom xiii. 11—13, which 
 is manifestly an imitation of this pas- 
 sage in Isaiah. 
 
 16. V3 >Y, on a part of it, i.e. the 
 wood, by which is meant the plate or 
 dish on which the meat was served. 
 m1, ¢o see, the Hebrews employ to 
 describe perception by any of the 
 
 to 
 senses, as well as by the eyes. Pis- 
 cator, “Sensi calorem ignis.” It is 
 
 a natural way of expressing the cause 
 of the heat derived from fire. 
 
 18. 7, from m7, or, if pointed 
 mm, from 7, fo plaster, close up: Syr. 
 ‘Sa. Comp. chap. vi. 10. For the 
 
 negative force of Ὁ in Mixy and 72079, 
 see chap. xvil. 1. 
 
 19. The slightest degree of con- 
 sideration must convince the idolater 
 of the absurdity of his conduct. 
 mavin, an object of abhorrence, is not 
 the term which the speaker can be 
 supposed to have selected ; but it is 
 employed by Isaiah to express the 
 detestation in which the Jews were 
 taught to hold every object of heathen 
 worship, 
 
352 
 
 20 He feedeth upon ashes ; 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLIV. 
 
 A deluded heart hath turned him aside ; 
 So that he cannot extricate himself, nor say, 
 [5 there not a lie in my right hand ? 
 
 21 
 
 Remember these things, O Jacob ! 
 
 O Israel! for thou art my servant : 
 I have formed thee ; thou art my servant: 
 O Israel! thou shalt not forget me. 
 
 22 
 
 [ have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions, 
 And as a thick cloud thy sins : 
 
 Return to me, for I have redeemed thee. 
 
 23 
 
 Sing, O ye heavens! for Jehovah hath done it ; 
 
 Shout, ye lower parts of the earth! 
 Burst into song, O ye mountains! 
 Thou forest, and every tree therein ! 
 For Jehovah hath redeemed Jacob, 
 And glorified himself in Israel. 
 
 24 
 
 Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, 
 
 Kiven He that formed thee from the womb: 
 1 am Jehovah, the Maker of all; 
 
 20. For the phrase ἜΝ 7Y4, comp. 
 mi ivy, Hos. xii. 2. Both indicate 
 the pursuit of what can yield no 
 substantial good. For the rest of the 
 verse, Comp. πλανῶντες kal πλανώμενοι, 
 2 Tim. iii. 13. 
 
 21. Jehovah now directly addresses 
 the Jews in Babylon, and calls upon 
 them, while they looked around and 
 witnessed innumerable instances of 
 the stupidity and absurdity which 
 had just been described, to contrast 
 with the condition of such degraded 
 Adolaters the relation in which, as his 
 people, they stood to him, and the 
 benefits which he had conferred, and 
 would still confer upon them. 22, 
 the LXX., Syr., Vulg., Chald., Jarchi, 
 Musculus, Michaelis, Dathe, Déder- 
 lein, Tingstadius, Hensler, Méller, 
 Hitzig, and Scholz, render, forget me 
 not, ΟΥ̓, thou shalt not forget me, which 
 better suits the connexion than the 
 rendering of the Com. Ver., Lowth, 
 Boothroyd, Jenour, Gesen., &c. 
 
 22, 23. An announcement of the 
 complete pardon of the sins for which 
 the Jews had been carried captive to 
 
 Babylon; their repentance and deli- 
 verance ; and a powerful apostrophe, 
 by which the whole of nature is 
 summoned to celebrate the event. 
 Nothing can exceed the sublimity 
 and beauty of the latter verse. 
 
 24, The Ὁ in 83, “ from the womb,” 
 is not to be pressed, so as to exclude 
 their formation iz it. The phrase 
 means, from the earliest period of 
 existence. Instead of the Chethib, 
 ὮΝ, thirty-one MSS., seventeen edi- 
 tions, the LXX., and Vulg., read Ὁ 
 ‘nx, who was with me? but this divi- 
 sion quite breaks in upon the sym- 
 metry of the passage. The Keri, 
 ‘pyn, from, or by myself, is therefore to 
 be adopted: it is exhibited in the 
 text of fifteen MSS.; four editions, 
 among which the Soncin., Rabboth, 
 and the Syr. Gesenius aptly com- 
 
 pares comic we? in the Arab. ver- 
 
 sion of John viii. 28. In this and 
 the following verses, Jehovah asserts 
 the exclusiveness of his creative and 
 providential power. He alone is God: 
 besides him there is none. else. 
 
CHAP. XLIV.]| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 That stretched forth the heavens alone ; 
 That spread out the earth by myself ; 
 
 25 That frustrateth the signs of the impostors ; 
 
 And sheweth the diviners to be fools : 
 That refuteth the sages, 
 And proveth their knowledge to be folly : 
 
 26 That establisheth the word of his servant, 
 
 And accomplisheth the counsel of his messengers : 
 
 That saith of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited ; 
 And of the cities of Judah, They shall be built ; 
 
 353 
 
 - And, I will restore her desolate places : 
 27 He that saith to the deep, Be dry ; 
 
 And, I will dry up thy rivers: 
 
 28 He that saith of Cyrus, My Shepherd ; 
 
 25. By nin are meant the portenta, 
 prodigia, or omens from which the 
 augurs of the ancient pagans pre- 
 tended to foretel lucky or unlucky 
 events, such as the flight, chattering 
 and singing of birds, appearances in 
 the heavens, &c. o72 Michaelis ren- 
 ders die Hinsiedler, i.e. “hermits,” and 
 remarks that, in the East, such per- 
 sons are addicted to soothsaying. It 
 rather signifies dies, from 113, to be 
 singular ; things which exceed belief ; 
 and hence, by an easy transition, fa/se- 
 
 hoods. Comp. the Syr, |,=, commen- 
 
 tus est. The abstract is here put for 
 Dy ΣΝ, authors of falsehoods, i.e. im- 
 postors. 
 
 26. A distinct recognition of the 
 predictions uttered by Isaiah and 
 other prophets respecting the restora- 
 tion from Babylon. The 7zy of the 
 Divine messengers does not mean 
 any counsel or advice of their own, 
 tendered to the Jews, but the purpose 
 of Jehovah which they were com- 
 missioned toannounce. It is parallel 
 with 721, which means the revealed 
 word of God. Dw being a femin. 
 when the city is meant, 2417 must be 
 the third person sing. fem.; to agree 
 with which, ? is to be rendered of, 
 respecting, aS not unfreq. after verbs 
 of speaking. Thus also the following, 
 ΤΟΙ ; and 723, ver. 28, 
 
 27. The commentators are generally 
 agreed that this verse contains a pre- 
 diction of the stratagem adopted by 
 Cyrus, by which he easily effected 
 the capture of Babylon. By making 
 a trench from the Euphrates to the 
 empty marsh, which anciently formed 
 the artificial lake Nitocris, he diverted 
 the water from its usual channel, so 
 as to leave the river fordable by his 
 infantry, who marched straight up 
 its bed into the city. Herodot. 1. 
 185, 190; Xenoph. Cyroped. vii. 
 Perhaps there is likewise a reference 
 to his diverting the waters of the 
 Gyndes into a hundred and sixty 
 trenches. That the words of the 
 prophet are to be taken in a literal 
 sense, appears on comparing them 
 with Jer. 1. 38, which contains a 
 similar prediction. 
 
 28. Cyrus, the Persian monarch, by 
 whom Babylon was to be taken, and 
 the Jews restored to their own land, 
 is now introduced by name: wy, 
 
 Pers. ype oF Dy MU yg; Hur, 
 Khur, Khurshid, which signifies the 
 Sun. Thus, in the book entitled Sad- 
 
 der, ye 2. Xe, the Moon and the Sun ; 
 
 ane eee 
 heart was brighter than the light of the 
 
854 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLV. 
 
 And, He shall perform all my pleasure : 
 That saith of Jerusalem, She shall be built ; 
 And of the temple, It shall be founded. 
 
 Swit. CO 9 5- Abulfeda explains by 
 meisll gins, the splendour of the Sun. 
 
 The word frequently occurs in the poet 
 Ferdusi, who also uses Luss > 
 
 of a priest of the Sun. Ctesias and 
 Plutarch derive the name from the 
 same source: Κύρος---ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου. 
 Thus the Etymolog. Mag.: Κόρος ὁ 
 
 βασιλεὺς τῶν Περσῶν ὁ παλαιός. Ἡλίου 
 
 γὰρ ἔχει τὸ ὄνομα. Κοῦρον γὰρ καλεῖν 
 Sez) ς la \ ω 
 εἰώθασιν of Πέρσαι τὸν Ἥλιον. If we 
 
 reject the ὦ in wy3, as merely a ter- 
 mination, expressing the , « of the 
 
 ei 
 Persic Διὸ 25 we have in the He- 
 
 brew the exact form of this ancient 
 name ; only pointing it with Shurec, 
 instead of Holem. Infidel critics 
 stumble at this express mention of 
 the name of Cyrus by Isaiah, who 
 flourished so long before his appear- 
 ance ; but king Josiah was likewise 
 predicted by name, upwards of three 
 centuries before his birth, 1 Kings 
 xii. 2. Cyrus was the son of Cam- 
 byses king of Persia, by Mandane, 
 a daughter of Astyages, king of the 
 Medes. When only sixteen years of 
 age, he commanded an army against 
 the Assyrians ; he afterwards assisted 
 his uncle Cyaxares IT. in an expedition 
 against the Babylonians, on which 
 
 occasion he obtained the command 
 of all the Median troops; defeated 
 Creesus, king of Lydia ; and soon after 
 put an end to the Chaldzan monarchy, 
 by the conquest of Babylon, in the 
 year B.c. 5388 or 539. On his return 
 to Persia he married his cousin, and 
 obtained with her the right of succes- 
 sion to the crown of Media, which he 
 united in his own person with that of 
 Persia on the death of Cyaxares, in 
 536 or 535. Scarcely had he ascended 
 the throne of the Medo-Persian em- 
 pire, than he issued his celebrated 
 edict, granting permission to the Jews 
 to return to their own country, and 
 ordering them to be furnished with 
 what was requisite for rebuilding the 
 temple, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23; Ezra i. 
 He died at the age of seventy, after a 
 reign of thirty years. For his cha- 
 racter, see on chap. xli. 2. According 
 to Josephus, Antiq. lib. XI. 1. 2, the 
 Jews in Babylon shewed this text to 
 Cyrus, which he acknowledged in his 
 edict, and ascribed his possession of 
 universal empire to the God of Israel. 
 After ‘YS supply 7. Kings and princes 
 are called shepherds in Scripture, as 
 they are in the ancient classics. It 
 was a title to which Cyrus was par- 
 tial: it being a proverbial saying with 
 him, “ A good prince‘and a good shep- 
 herd have the same duties,” Cyropzed. 
 Vili. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 A continuation of the subject more prominently introduced at the end of the 
 preceding chapter—the commission of Cyrus. That monarch is now 
 directly addressed, and receives gracious.promises of Divine direction, sup- 
 
 port, and success, 1—5. 
 
 The prophet then specifies one of the grand 
 
CHAP. XLV.] ISAIAH. 
 
 355 
 designs to be effected by the Persian conquests, 6, 7 ; predicts, in the form 
 of hortatory address, the joyful arrival of the deliverance from Babylon, 8 ; 
 denounces judgment upon the unbelieving and captious Jews of the capti- 
 vity, 9, 10 ; expostulates with them on their presumption in arraigning the 
 Divine conduct, 11; asserts the sovereignty of Jehovah, and his determina- 
 tion to employ Cyrus as his instrument, 12, 13; foretels the great accession 
 of proselytes which should succeed the captivity, 14 ; expresses the confi- 
 dence exercised by the pious in God, notwithstanding the darkness of his 
 dispensations, that deliverance should arrive, the Divine predictions be ful- 
 filled, and idolaters confounded, 15—19; calls upon all to forsake their 
 idolatry, and return to the service of the true God, 20—22 ; and concludes 
 by announcing the superior blessings to be enjoyed under the reign of Mes- 
 
 siah, 23—25. 
 
 1 Tuus saith Jehovah to his Anointed, to Cyrus, 
 Whom 1 hold by the right hand ; 
 
 To subdue nations before him, 
 And ungird the loins of kings 
 
 . 
 7 
 
 To open before him the folding doors, 
 And the gates shall not be shut. 
 
 I will go before thee, 
 
 And will make the rough places plain ; 
 
 The folding doors of brass I will break in pieces ; 
 
 And cut in sunder the bars of 
 
 1. Cyrus is called the “ Anointed” 
 of the Lord, because he had, in his 
 providence, appointed him to the rule 
 under which the Jews were to be 
 restored. The allusion is to the 
 ancient rite of anointing with oil 
 those who were invested with royal 
 dignity. Judges ix. 8; 1 Sam. ix. 16, 
 xv. 1; 1 Kings i. 34. OH», fo wubind, 
 ungird, 18 opposed to x, which sig- 
 nifies 20 bind up, gird, &c., and here 
 means to deprive of power and dig- 
 nity : Oriental monarchs being accus- 
 tomed to wear richly decorated girdles, 
 which at once gave strength to their 
 bodies, and added to the splendour of 
 their state. For the nations subdued 
 by Cyrus, see on chap. xli. 2, and Xe- 
 nophon as there quoted. on and 
 oy are synonymes; only the for- 
 mer refers to the two divisions, or 
 folding-doors by which the gates were 
 secured. The gates here spoken of 
 
 i 
 
 iron. 
 
 are those of Babylon, of which there 
 were an hundred, all of brass. TvAae 
 δὲ ἐνεστᾶσι πέριξ τοῦ τείχεος ἑκατὸν 
 XAAKEAI ΠΑ͂ΣΑΙ. Herodot. i. 179. 
 See also Euseb. Preeparat. Evangel. 1. 
 ix.c.41. By a remarkable providence, 
 and contrary to what might have been 
 expected on the part of the besieged, 
 the gates leading to the river had been 
 left open on the night of the attack by 
 Cyrus, in consequence of which his 
 troops found no difficulty in entering 
 the city. Even the gates of the palace 
 were incautiously opened during the 
 tumult occasioned by the invasion. 
 So minutely was this prediction ful- 
 filled. 
 
 2. God promises to remove every 
 impediment out of the way of Cyrus. 
 opm, LXX. ὄρη, heights, raised, or 
 
 rough places; Arab. yom intumutt, 
 .,,Δ5. locus declivis, quo quis delabitur. 
 
956 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLY. 
 
 3 I will also give thee the treasures that are in darkness, 
 And the stores that are in hidden places ; 
 That thou mayest know, that I am Jehovah ; 
 The God of Israel, that hath announced thy name. 
 
 4 For the sake of Jacob my servant, 
 
 And Israel my chosen, 
 
 I called thee distinctly by thy name; 
 I made honourable mention of thee, though thou knewest me 
 
 not. 
 
 5 Iam Jehovah, and there is none else; 
 
 Besides me there is no God: 
 
 I have girded thee, though thou knewest me not ; 
 6 That men may know at the rising of the sun, 
 
 And at his setting, that there is none beside me: 
 
 I am Jehovah, and there is none else: 
 7 The Former of light, and the Creator of darkness ; 
 
 3. Not only did Cyrus seize upon 
 the immense riches of Babylon, Jer. 
 1. 37; but, on subduing Creesus, king 
 of Lydia, that monarch delivered up 
 to him his treasures, amounting in 
 value to 126,224,000/. sterling. See 
 Cyropeed. vil.; Plin, Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 
 2.15. Brerewood de Ponderibus, cap. 
 x. Costly stores are generally de- 
 posited in places remote from the 
 public gaze; and, especially in the 
 East, under ground, that they may be 
 safe from plunderers. 
 
 4, 7228, [ have made honourable men- 
 tion of thee. See on chap. xliv. 5. It 
 was no surname, but his own proper 
 name that Jehovah gave to Cyrus. 
 The meaning is, that he had spoken 
 of him by the prophet, in terms such 
 as had never been employed in refer- 
 ence to any other heathen prince,— 
 giving him the character of righteous, 
 declaring that he loved him, and that 
 he would protect and prosper him. 
 Chap. xli. 2, xliv. 28, xlv. 2, 3, 13, 
 xlviii. 14. 
 
 5,6. Though the Persians, among 
 whom Cyrus had received his educa- 
 tion, held the worshippers of idols in 
 abhorrence, they had no proper idea 
 of the only living and true God. Je- 
 hovah repeatedly asserts this fact, and 
 vindicates to himself the claims of 
 
 exclusive divinity. The conquests of 
 Cyrus prepared the way for a new 
 state of things, both in the East and 
 the West: vast political changes en- 
 sued, which eventually resulted in 
 the diffusion of revealed truth through- 
 out the world; not to mention the 
 striking effect which the recognition 
 of Jehovah in the royal edict must 
 have produced, especially in all the 
 countries in which the Jews were 
 scattered. The πίη 72 is doubtless 
 the pronominal suffix, without Mappic. 
 Comp. chap. xxiii. 17,18. The form 
 of the noun, in every other instance, 
 is 12. The two most distant geo- 
 graphical points known to the ancients 
 are fixed on, including all the regions 
 between. 
 
 7. This verse asserts the superiority 
 of Jehovah to the dualistic powers of 
 Parsism. The Magi taught, that there 
 are two co-eternal supramundane 
 beings: Ormuzd, the pure and eternal 
 principle of light, the source of all 
 that is good; and Ahriman, the source 
 of darkness, and fountain of all evil, 
 both physical and moral. These two 
 divide the empire of the world, and 
 are in perpetual conflict with each 
 other. The system in which the doc- 
 trine of these antagonistic principles is 
 taught is contained in the Zend-Avesta, 
 
CHAP. XLY.| 
 
 _ISATAH. 
 
 o07 
 
 The Maker of peace, and the Creator of evil: 
 I am Jehovah, the Maker of all these. 
 
 8 Drop, ye heavens, from above ; 
 
 Yea, let the clouds shower down righteousness ; 
 Let the earth open, that Salgado and righteousness may be 
 
 produced ; 
 
 Let her bring them forth at once : 
 
 I, Jehovah, create it. 
 
 9 Wo to him that contendeth with Him that formed him !— 
 
 A potsherd of the potsherds of 
 
 the earth ! 
 
 Shall the clay say to its potter, What makest thou? 
 Or thy work, He hath no hands ? 
 
 10 
 
 Wo to him that saith to his father, What begettest thou ? 
 
 Or to the woman, With what art thou in pain ? 
 
 11 Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: 
 As for things to come, will ye question me concerning my children? 
 Or will ye give me a charge ae the work of my hands ? 
 
 I made the earth, 
 And created man upon it ; 
 
 12 
 
 or Living Word, commonly ascribed 
 ~to Zoroaster, the great reformer of 
 the Parsees. In opposition to all such 
 ideas, God claims an eternal indepen- 
 dence and sovereignty. Both good 
 and evil are under his absolute direc- 
 tion and control. δ being here op- 
 posed to . Οὐ, peace, or prosperity, 
 must mean affliction, adversity, το. 
 Comp. Amos 1. 6. ° 
 _ 8. I consider mp1 xx to be the 
 nominatives to the "plural m1; and 
 yw that to moxn, which makes all 
 plain. The Tae, Syr., and Vulg., 
 read the verb in the singular. , 
 9—12. That the infidel and discon- 
 tented portion of the Jewish people 
 is here intended, seems beyond dis- 
 pute. No arguments could more forci- 
 bly evince the extreme arrogance and 
 folly of creatures pretending to scan 
 and carp at the plans of Divine Pro- 
 vidence. They are directly ad homi- 
 nem. Comp. Rom. ix. 20, &., where 
 the Apostle is asserting the sovereign 
 right which God has to dispose of all 
 creatures, according to his holy and 
 righteous pleasure. The m8 in wy 
 MOIR Wn creates some difficulty. 
 
 It seems to be used in the sense of 
 closeness, union, society, identity of rela- 
 tionship, &c. Comp. Gen. v. 24, vi. 18. 
 It is thus equivalent to one of, on a par 
 with, of, a8 toa common nature. Thus 
 Oo νὰ ὡ - Qo 
 the Syr. {S3}> aD eae «Ὁ [Dyae, 
 a, potsherd of the potsherds of the 
 earth.” The language is that of con- 
 tempt, being expressive of the mean 
 and worthless character of the subject 
 spoken of. The LXX. and Theod. 
 have read ww instead of win. The 
 close connexion of the word with 13%, 
 the potter, shews that the Masoretic 
 pronunciation of it is correct. ND 
 is subordinated to ‘27 in the Future, 
 and both are to be rendered interro- 
 gatively. The indicative form, “ask 
 ye me,” &c., is unsuitable to the con- 
 nexion. The expostulation concludes 
 with an unanswerable argument for 
 acquiescence in the special arrange- 
 ments of providence, drawn from the 
 creation and government of the Uni- 
 verse. The use of 8 before '? is 
 emphatic. 
 
358 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 It was my hands that spread out the heavens ; 
 
 I also gave charge to all their host. 
 
 I have raised him up for righteousness, 
 
 And will direct all his ways ; 
 
 He shall build my city, and release my captives ; 
 But not for hire, nor for reward, 
 
 Saith Jehovah of Hosts. 
 
 Thus saith Jehovah : 
 
 The wealth of Egypt; and the gains of Cush, 
 And the Sabeeans, men of stature, 
 
 Shall pass over to thee, and be thine ; 
 
 They shall follow thee ; 
 
 They shall pass over in chains ; 
 
 They shall even prostrate themselves to thee ; 
 They shall pray toward thee : 
 Only in thee [shall they say] 
 
 (CHAP. XLV. 
 
 is God, and there is none else; 
 
 13. Cyrus is again pointedly referred 
 to, as the instrument of restoring the 
 Jewish polity. In accomplishing this 
 object, he was not impelled by any 
 prospect of remuneration, but by a 
 sense of justice, and a regard to the 
 command of God. Comp. lii. 3. 
 
 14, From the similarity of this verse 
 with chap. xlii. 3, Munster, Musculus, 
 Tirinus, Grotius, and v.d. Palm, have 
 been induced to apply it to Cyrus, but 
 the words, > 3 9x, oxly in thee is God, 
 render it impossible consistently to 
 adopt such an interpretation. The 
 punctators, who are followed, among 
 the moderns, by Michaelis, Déderlein, 
 Dathe, Gesenius, Hitzig, and Scholz, 
 apply it to Jerusalem, and rightly. 
 The prophecy refers to the result of 
 the Persian conquests in Egypt, &c., 
 as regards the Jews and their religion. 
 Favoured as the people of God were 
 by the victors, the inhabitants of these 
 countries would be led to respect 
 them, inquire into their peculiar polity, 
 send them munificent presents, and, 
 in great numbers, become proselytes 
 to their religion. Comp. chap. xviii. 
 7, xix. 18—25; Zeph. iii. 10; Ps. 
 Ixviili. 29—31; Zech. viii. 20—23 ; 
 Acts viii. 27. The countries here 
 mentioned were celebrated in ancient 
 times for their immense trade, com- 
 merce, and opulence. They are those 
 
 specified chap. xliii. 3. Of the ox320, 
 inhabitants of Meroé, it is added, that 
 they were ΠῚ "22x, men of extension, or 
 length; i.e. tall of stature. LXX. 
 ἄνδρες ὑψηλοὶ. Comp. 1 Chron. xi. 
 23. ‘The Ethiopians are described by 
 Herodotus, Ὁ. ii. 114, as ἄνδρας peyi- 
 στους καὶ καλλίστους καὶ μακροβιωτά- 
 τους, “of the highest stature, the most 
 beautiful and longlived of men.” See 
 also the same book, 20: λέγονται εἶναι 
 μέγιστοι ἀνθρώπων ; and Solin. cap. 30, 
 Aithiopes duodecim pedes longi. Aga- 
 tharchides also, speaking of the Sa- 
 beans, sayS: Td σώματα ἔστι τῶν κατοι- 
 κούντων ἀξιολογώτερα. ‘The coming 
 of these people zz chains is a figurative 
 mode of expression, denoting the sub- 
 missiveness with which they should 
 present themselves as worshippers of 
 Jehovah. 2m 728 does not mean 
 that they were to worship or make 
 supplication to the Jews, but that 
 such of them as could not personally 
 come to Jerusalem would direct their 
 worship towards the temple in that 
 city, as the place of Jehovah’s earthly 
 residence. Comp. 1 Kings viii. 35, 
 where the phrase 137 Di97 Ox n7, to 
 pray towards this place, occurs, as does 
 mIn 37 oN, toward this house, 42; and 
 VT TT TD Ox, to Jehovah, in the direc- 
 tion of the city,44; ἕο. Comp. also 
 Dan. vi. 10, 11. 
 
CHAP. XLY.] 
 
 There is no God. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 309 
 
 Surely, thou art a God that hidest thyself, 
 O God of Israel, the Saviour ! 
 They shall be ashamed ; and shall all of them be confounded ; 
 
 They shall go into confusion together that fabricate images. 
 
 But Israel shall be saved through Jehovah, 
 With an everlasting salvation ; 
 
 Ye shall not be ashamed, nor confounded, 
 
 To eternal ages. 
 18 
 He is God; 
 
 For thus saith Jehovah, the Creator of the heavens, 
 
 The Former of the earth, and its Maker; 
 
 It was He that established it ; 
 
 He did not create it in vain ; 
 
 He formed it to be inhabited : 
 
 I am Jehovah, and there is none else. 
 
 19 
 
 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; 
 
 I have not said to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain. 
 I, Jehovah, give utterance to righteousness ; 
 
 I declare things that are right. 
 
 20 Assemble and come; 
 
 Draw near together, ye of the nations that have escaped ; 
 They have no knowledge that carry about their wooden idol ; 
 
 15. In this verse, the church ad- 
 mires the mysterious character of the 
 Divine counsels and modes of action, 
 with special reference to the captivity 
 and restoration. Comp. Rom, x1. 33; 
 Deut. xxix. 29. 
 
 16. From the time of the conquest 
 of Babylon, idolatry began to decline ; 
 and shortly after the Christian era, in 
 consequence of the spread of the 
 Gospel, it disappeared from the best 
 portions of Asia, Africa, and Europe. 
 
 17. This verse forms an antithesis 
 to the preceding, and teaches that 
 those who serve the true God shall 
 never be deprived of his protection 
 and favour. 
 
 18. There seems to be here a spe- 
 cial reference to the deserted state of 
 the Holy Land during the captivity, 
 while, at the same time, the sole 
 divinity of Jehovah is re-asserted. 
 
 19. An appeal to the publicity and 
 perspicuity with which the Divine 
 
 predictions had been ‘announced ; 
 with manifest reference to the re- 
 sponses of the heathen oracles, which 
 were given from deep and obscure 
 caverns, or the hidden recesses of 
 temples: and were, at the best, artful 
 and equivocal; and, in cases of ex- 
 treme difficulty, were altogether with- 
 held. See my Lectures on Divine 
 Inspiration, pp. 251, 252, 555. The 
 prophets of Jehovah exercised their 
 ministry in public, before all classes ; 
 they foretold contingent future events 
 in language the most explicit and 
 unambiguous ; and, committing their 
 predictions to writing, deposited them 
 in the hands of the nation, as vouchers 
 for their Divine commission. Comp. 
 John xviii. 20. prs and oD are 
 synonymes. 
 
 20—22. The idolaters are now ad- 
 dressed; the folly of their idolatry is 
 pointed out; the claims of Jehovah, 
 as the only God, are asserted; and 
 
360 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLV. 
 
 That pray to a god that cannot save. 
 
 21 Declare ye, and draw near ; 
 
 Let them also hold consultation ; 
 
 Who published this of old? 
 
 Who declared it from ancient times ? 
 Was it not I, Jehovah ? for besides me there is no God ; 
 The righteous God, and the Saviour : 
 
 There is none besides me. 
 
 All ye ends of the earth; 
 
 ‘Turn unto me, that ye may be saved, 
 
 For I am God, and there is none else. 
 
 28 By myself have I sworn; 
 
 The word hath proceeded from my mouth ; 
 It is truth, and shail not return: 
 That to me every knee shall bend, 
 
 Every tongue shall swear. 
 24 
 
 strength ; 
 To Him he shall come ; 
 
 And all shall be put to shame 
 
 a call is given to them to turn from 
 their vain objects of confidence to Him 
 as their Creator and Portion. That 
 ora ΘΒ, the escaped of the nations, 
 means such of the heathen as had 
 escaped the devastating wars that 
 were carried on in different parts, and 
 not the Jews, is evident from the wsus 
 loquendi. See Judg. xii. 4, 5; Obad. 
 14. On being obliged to flee, the 
 idolaters carried about their idols 
 with them from place to place ; none 
 of which had either announced the 
 fall of Babylon, or delivered their 
 votaries in the hour of distress. 
 Jehovah had done both to the people 
 of the Jews. ᾿ 
 
 23—25, These verses describe ἃ 
 period when the knowledge and wor- 
 ship of the true God should be 
 universal. To mark its importance 
 and certainty, the prediction is in- 
 troduced by a solemn Divine oath, 
 Comp. Jer. xxii. 5; Amos vi. 8; 
 Heb. vi. 13. None who admit the 
 inspired authority of Paul can doubt 
 that there is here a primary and 
 
 Only in Jehovah, shall each say, have I righteousness and 
 
 direct reference to the Messiah. See 
 Rom. xiv. 11, and Phil. ii. 10, 11. To 
 Him, according to the Apostle’s doc- 
 trine, universal religious homage and 
 submission are due—such homage and 
 submission as it would be idolatry to 
 render to a mere creature. His is the 
 ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα--- ΚΎΡΙΟΣ, 
 mim, the Incommunicable Name of the 
 Self-Existent Deity. He is the ΘΕΟΣ 
 to whom all are responsible for their 
 actions, as the close connexion be- 
 tween the verses Rom. xiv. 11 and 12 
 clearly proves. In the present pas- 
 sage, which the apostle expressly 
 quotes with his usual formula γέγραπ- 
 ται yap, He is presented to view as 
 the Object of universal worship, the 
 Source of righteousness and strength 
 
 .to his people, and the Inflictor of 
 
 punishment upon his enemies. The 
 nominative to XZ? is 123; but as it 
 is preceded by ΠΣ, it must be 
 regarded as having this for its object ; 
 and the sense is best given by taking 
 up the latter term separately in the 
 acceptation, fruth, true, ἕο. Comp. 
 
CHAP. ΧΙΥ1.} 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 361 
 
 That are incensed against Him, 
 25 In Jehovah shall all the seed of Israel be justified, 
 
 And shall make their boast. 
 
 the Arab. (30, verar, veritas. Vi- 
 
 tringa, Dathe, Gesenius, Hitzig, and 
 others, render 128 Ὁ, shall say of me; 
 but the immediate occurrence of 772 
 before » makes such construction 
 harsh and unnatural, I have there- 
 fore retained the common rendering 
 of ὁ, there is to me, or I have. The 
 verb is used, as frequently, in an 
 impersonal sense. MpTz, righteousness, 
 is the plural of excellence or emi- 
 nence ; signifying ¢he most distinguished 
 
 righteousness,—the Pauline δικαιοσύνη 
 Θεοῦ, Rom. i. 17, 111. 21, 22 ; ἡ ἐκ Θεοῦ 
 δικαιοσύνη, Phil. iii. 9; and the Petrine 
 δικαιοσύνη τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ Σωτῆρος 
 Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Comp. also chap. li. 
 Oo Jers Skil, Os ΕΟ ἘΠ 9:1 
 Cor. i. 30. Since the scene here 
 described embraces the whole human 
 family, it is obvious we are to under- 
 stand by x1 YH, not the natural, but 
 the spiritual posterity of the patriarch, 
 whether Jews or Gentiles. Comp. 
 Rom. iv. 12—17 ; Gal. iii, 26—29. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 Isaiah here predicts the downfal of the Babylonian idols, as involved in that 
 of the city; shews their utter impotence, with which he contrasts the 
 power and care of Jehovah, that had been all along experienced by the 
 Jews, 1—4; exposes, in his usual forcible and elegant manner, the absurdity 
 of idolatry, 5—7 ; asserts the sole claims of the true God, on the ground of 
 the miracles and prophecies with which the Jewish church had long been 
 conversant, 8—10 ; repeats the announcement respecting the deliverance to 
 be effected by Cyrus, 11; and addresses a pointed expostulation to such of 
 the Jewish captives as might have hardened themselves in sin, 12, 13. 
 
 1 Bet boweth down; Nebo stoopeth ; 
 
 1. 73, Bel, the principal god of the 
 Babylonians, “Sacratissimum Assyri- 
 orum Deum,” Plin. Hist. Nat. 37, 55. 
 Διὸς, ὃν καλοῦσιν οἱ Βαβυλώνιοι Βῆλον. 
 Diod. Sic. ii. 8. The name is a con- 
 traction of 73, the Chaldee pronuncia- 
 
 | tion of the Pheenician, ὅν, Baal. He 
 
 was called Ζεὺς, and Jupiter, by the 
 Greeks and Romans, and is supposed 
 by some to have been the symbol of 
 the sun; by others, of the planet 
 
 Jupiter. The worship of this planet, 
 
 under the name of \Wu>, certainly 
 
 formed part of the idolatrous rites of 
 the Sabeans. See Norberg’s Onomast. 
 p. 28. He had a temple erected to 
 him, the ruins of which are still 
 visible in the Birs Nimrood, described 
 by Mr. Rich, Sir Robt. Ker Porter, and 
 other travellers. See on chap. xiii, 1. 
 According to Herodotus, it (Διὸς Βήλου 
 
362 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLVI. 
 
 Their idols are laid on the beasts and the cattle ; 
 What were borne by you are made into loads, 
 
 A burden to the weary beast. 
 
 2 They stoop, they bow down together ; 
 They are not able to deliver the burden ; 
 Yea, themselves go into captivity. 
 
 3 Hearken to me, O house of Jacob! 
 And all the remnant of the house of Israel ! 
 That have been borne from the belly, 
 That have been carried from the womb. 
 
 4 Even to old age I will be the same; 
 Even to gray hairs will I carry you: 
 
 ἱρὸν) stood on the summit of the top- 
 most of eight towers, the ascent of 
 which was on the outside ; the height 
 of the whole has been computed at 
 five hundred feet. In the temple was 
 a large handsome couch, and near it a 
 golden table, but no statue. Within 
 the precincts of the temple, however, 
 on the ground, was another sacred 
 edifice, within which was an immense 
 golden statue of Jupiter, ἄγαλμα μέγα 
 Tov Atos ἔνι κατήμενον χρύσεον. Around 
 this statue were large tables, which, 
 with the steps and throne, were all of 
 gold ; amounting, according to the 
 estimate of the Chaldeans, to eight 
 hundred talents in weight. There was 
 also a golden altar outside this edifice, 
 and another large altar on which sacri- 
 fices were offered. Shortly before the 
 time of Herodotus, there had been in 
 the sacred enclosure a statue, which 
 the Chaldeeans affirmed to have been 
 of solid gold, and twelve cubits in 
 height. Herod. 1, 181, 182. The high 
 veneration in which Belus was held 
 appears from the frequent use of his 
 name in compound names of persons 
 living in Babylon, as Baladan, Belte- 
 shaezar, Belshazzar, Belesis, Belibus, &e. 
 \23, Nebo, the other idol here specified, 
 is supposed to have been the symbol 
 of the planet Mercury, the celestial 
 scribe and interpreter of the gods, 
 corresponding to Hermes and Anubis, 
 of the Egyptians. He was likewise 
 worshipped by the Sabzeans, in Arabia. 
 See Norberg’s Onomast. p. 95. Gese- 
 nius traces the name in 3, prophet, 
 
 an interpreter of the Divine will. It 
 is likewise found in many compound 
 proper names, as Wadbonasser, Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, Nebushasban, &c. — The 
 prophet describes the fall and re- 
 moval of the Babylonian idols in 
 language of the keenest satire. They 
 had formerly been carried about by 
 the priests in solemn procession, but 
 should now be broken in pieces, and 
 borne away by the enemy on the backs 
 of beasts of burden; which, sinking 
 down under the weight, they should 
 not be able to relieve. Nothing was 
 more natural than the plunder of the 
 temples, on account of the riches they 
 contained, especialiy the gold and 
 silver images. History makes no 
 mention of Cyrus having removed the 
 Babylonian idols ; but both Herodotus, 
 i. 183, and Arrian, vii. 19, 2, state that 
 Xerxes took away the large golden 
 statue above described. At πρὸ su- 
 baud. 272 or m7. 
 
 2. The weary beasts fall under the — 
 
 load of idols, none of which is able to 
 help them up. 052, their soul, is a 
 periphrasis for 727, they. Comp. Hos. 
 ix. 4, e¢ freg. Crusius, however, thinks 
 that the prophet may have used the 
 term 5}, sow/, sarcastically of the 
 idols, ‘‘ cum anima propria dicta et 
 vita carerent.” Hypomn. ad Theolog. 
 Prophet. iii. p. 424. 
 
 3, 4. Instead of bearing their God, 
 the Jews had been graciously borne by 
 him from the earliest period of their 
 history; and he would continue to 
 care for and support them to the last 
 
CHAP. XLVI.] 
 
 I have made, and I will bear, 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 363 
 
 Yea, I will carry, and deliver you. 
 5 ΤῸ whom can ye liken me, or make me equal? 
 Or compare me, that we may be like ? 
 6 They lavish gold out of the bag, 
 And weigh silver in the balance ; 
 They hire a goldsmith, that he may make it a god : 
 They fall down, yea they worship him. 
 7 They lift him upon their shoulder ; 
 
 They carry him about; 
 
 They set him down also in his place, and he standeth ; 
 From his place he will not move: 
 Yea, they may each cry to him, but he will not answer ; 
 Nor at all deliver him from his trouble. 
 8 Remember this, and shew yourselves men ; 
 Recall it to mind, ye apostates ! 
 9 Remember the former things, of old time, 
 For 1 am God, and there is none else ; 
 I am God, and there is none like me: 
 
 10 
 
 Declaring the end from the beginning, 
 
 Even from ancient time things not yet done ; 
 Saying, My purpose shall stand, 
 
 —being the immutable Jehovah. 
 After Dar subaud. 299, by me, 
 which would have been inserted, but 
 for the Ὁ following. Comp. Deut, i. 
 Sy ext. 11, 12. 
 
 5. Comp. chap. xl. 18, 25. 
 
 6, 7. The use of the verb ™, Zo 
 lavish, pour out abundantly, is very 
 appropriate in application to the idols 
 of Babylon, many of which appear to 
 have been of the most costly descrip- 
 tion. See Dan. iii. 1, and above, ver. 
 1. The participle is here used for the 
 finite verb. The picture given of the 
 stupid conduct of the idol-worshippers 
 is exceedingly striking, and drawn 
 quite to the life. Comp. chap. xl. 19, 
 90, xli. 6, 7, xliv. 9—19; Jer. x. 3—5. 
 
 8. Different interpretations have 
 been given of the ἅπαξ λεγ., TUNNT ; 
 but the most approved is that which 
 treats it as a denominative from tx, 
 a man. \t thus corresponds in form 
 to ἀνδρίζεσθε, 1 Cor. xvi..13, though 
 the apostle uses the Greek word in 
 
 the sense of acting a brave or cou- 
 rageous part; whereas, what Isaiah 
 means is, to act a manly and rational 
 part, in opposition to the absurd con- 
 duct of idolaters. Comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 
 
 20. Thus the Syr, οἱ δ], de intelli- 
 
 gent, act like intelligent beings. Kimchi, 
 Yaw NN IY NW NTI NA OWIN wo, Be 
 men and not beasts, which neither under- 
 stand, nor consider. 'The Conjug. is 
 Hithpalel, like j33n7 from 73. In 
 Jer. 1. 38, the Babylonians are said to 
 have been mad upon idols. 
 
 9. Jehovah here appeals to his 
 miraculous interposition on behalf of 
 the Jews in ancient times, especially 
 the stupendous miracles which he had 
 wrought in Egypt. 
 
 10, Ancient predictions of contin- 
 gent events in the remote future, 
 likewise evinced the proper deity of 
 Israel’s God. Some of these had been 
 announced from the earliest periods 
 
564 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 ISATAH. [CHAP. XLVII. 
 
 And I will do all my pleasure: 
 
 Calling from the east, the eagle ; 
 
 From a distant land, the man whom I have appointed ; 
 I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass ; 
 
 I have purposed it, I will also do it. 
 
 Hearken to me, ye stubborn in heart ; 
 
 Ye that are far from righteousness. 
 
 I bring near my righteousness ; it shall not be far off; 
 And my salvation shall not tarry ; 
 
 Yea, I will appoint salvation in Zion, 
 
 For Israel my glory. 
 
 of time, and were recorded in the 
 public documents of the Jewish nation. 
 Comp. chap. xli, 22, 23, xliii. 9, xliv. 
 
 11. MY, ἀετὸς, a bird of prey, and 
 specially ¢he eagle, so called from the 
 impetuosity with which he rushes on 
 
 his prey ; Arab. blé, irritavit, ingressus 
 seu demersus fuit ; Luc, vehementia. 
 
 my or DY, fo rush upon. Cyrus is so 
 called on account of the rapid and 
 astounding character of his conquests. 
 Comp. Jer. xlvili. 40; Ezek. xvii. 8 ; 
 Hos! yi, 1 Hab. 1. 8: (It 15 not 5 
 little remarkable that Cyrus is the 
 first of whom we read that introduced 
 the eagle as a military ensign: Ἢν δὲ 
 αὐτῷ σημεῖον ἀετὸς χρυσοῦς ἐπὶ δόρατος 
 μακροῦ ἀνατεταμένος" καὶ νῦν δὲ τοῦτο 
 ἔτι σημεῖον τῷ Περσῶν βασιλεῖ διαμένει. 
 _ Cyropeed. vii. near the beginning. For 
 “inzy, the Keri and numerous MSS. 
 read Ὧν, which is supported by the 
 ancient versions; By ‘ney wx is not 
 meant the man.who is to execute my 
 
 purpose, but the man who is the object 
 of my purpose, the instrument whom 
 Ihave destined to be the deliverer of 
 my people. ZAwinglius, Quicquid con- 
 stituero. 
 
 12, 13. 32 ἼΞΝ, French, 165 esprits 
 forts ; infidel, obstinate ; Symm. σκλη- 
 ροκάρδιοι. There seems to be here a 
 momentary transition to a greater 
 deliverance than that from Babylon, 
 but for which the latter was to be 
 preparatory. The persons addressed 
 did not believe in the possibility of 
 their restoration to Judea: Jehovah 
 declares that he would effect a still 
 more wonderful work—that of re- 
 demption through the Messiah, in 
 consequence of whose righteousness 
 there would be in Zion that salvation 
 which would be the glory or beauty of 
 all believers. Comp. chap. xxviii. 14, 
 as glanced at by Paul, Acts xii. 41. 
 ‘omen, my splendour, 1.e. the splen- 
 dour which comes from me,” Gesenius ; 
 but comp. John xvii. 10; 2 Thess, 
 1 LO, 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 The subject with which the preceding chapter commenced is continued in 
 this: viz. the destruction of Babylon, Under the personification of a 
 delicate, voluptuous, and powerful princess, that city is ordered to descend 
 
CHAP. XLVII. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 365 
 
 from her throne, take the place of a slave, and disappear from the political 
 horizon, 1—5. Her principal crimes are specified, and condign punishment 
 is threatened, which all the power of astrology, divination, and magic, should 
 
 not be able to avert, 6—15. 
 
 1 Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin-daughter of Babylon! 
 Sit on the ground, without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! 
 For thou shalt no longer be called tender and delicate. 
 
 2 Take the mill-stones, and grind meal ; 
 
 Raise thy veil, lift up the train ; 
 Uncover the leg; wade through the rivers. 
 
 3 Thy nakedness shall be exposed, 
 
 And thy shame shall be seen ; 
 
 I will take vengeance, and spare no man. 
 
 4 As for our Redeemer ; 
 
 Jehovah of Hosts is his name, 
 
 The Holy One of Israel. 
 
 1. The Orientals are accustomed to 
 speak of cities or empires that have 
 never been conquered, as virgins ; see 
 on chap. xxiii. 12, where ΝΣ na nana, 
 virgin-daughter of Zidon, corresponds to 
 aaa na nana, virgin-daughter of Babylon. 
 By daughter is meant the people or 
 inhabitants. For the idiom, to be 
 called, meaning to be, see chap. i. 26. 
 27, here and ver. 5, is used instead 
 of 8772. The third plural is often to 
 be taken impersonally, and is best 
 rendered by our passive. The inha- 
 bitants of Babylon were notorious for 
 their luxury, effeminacy, and carnal 
 indulgences. See Herodot. i, 195, 
 199 ; Curtius, v. 3. 
 
 2. The mill here referred to is a 
 hand-mill resembling the Scotch quern, 
 and consisting of an upper and a lower 
 stone, the latter of which is fixed, and 
 the former is made to move round 
 upon it by means of a handle. The 
 work of grinding is very laborious, 
 and, in the East, is confined to female 
 slaves, or other females in low circum- 
 stances. Burckhardt, speaking of the 
 inhabitants of Medina and its vicinity, 
 says: “The women of the cultivators, 
 and of the inhabitants of the suburbs, 
 serve in the families of the towns- 
 people as domestics, principally to grind 
 
 corn in the hand-mills.”’ Travels in 
 Arabia, vol. ii. p. 265. Comp. Exod. 
 xi. 5, xii. 29: Job xxxi. 10; Matt, 
 xxiv. 41: δύο ἀλήθουσαι ἐν τῷ μυλῶνι 5 
 Nidda, fol. 6, 2, “duee mulheres mo- 
 lentes molis mulinariis ;” where re- 
 ference is had to the usual custom of 
 two slaves being employed together 
 at the hand-mill. Homer's Odyss. vii. 
 103, 104, xx. 105—108. The whole 
 verse graphically describes a degraded 
 and miserable state of captivity. 
 
 3. 22 signifies to meet either in a 
 friendly, or 10 a hostile manner. Here, 
 from the connexion, the meaning ob- 
 viously is, meeting and treating any one 
 kindly, sparing, &c. The idea of peti- 
 tioning, supplicating, &ec., is, in such 
 case, commonly implied. ZAwinglius, 
 “ intercedar, pro flecti me patiar.’” Mus- 
 culus thinks there is an ellipsis of 3 
 before O78, and interprets, “1 will not 
 meet thee as aman, but as God, whom 
 none can resist ;” and this Kocher 
 and others approve. 
 
 4. This verse is inserted parenthe- 
 tically with great effect. It contains 
 the joyous and triumphant language 
 of the believing Jews recognising In 
 Jehovah their Almighty Deliverer. 
 2983 is the Nom. absol. 
 
 ZZ 
 
866 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLVII. 
 
 5 Sit thou in silence; yea, go into darkness, O daughter of the 
 
 Chaldeans ; 
 
 For thou shalt no more be called, The Mistress of Kingdoms. 
 
 6 I was angry with my people ; 
 I profaned my inheritance, 
 
 And delivered them into thy hand : 
 Thou shewedst them no mercy ; 
 Upon the aged didst thou very heavily lay thy yoke. 
 7 Thou saidst also, I shall be Mistress for ever, 
 So that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart ; 
 Thou didst not reflect on their end. 
 8 Now, therefore, hear this, O thou voluptuous one ! 
 
 That dwellest securely ; 
 She that saith in her heart, 
 
 I am, and there is none besides me; 
 
 5. Silence and darkness characterise 
 a state of imprisonment. Captives 
 were usually shut up in dark dungeons, 
 far removed from the noisy scenes of 
 life. Comp. xlii. 7; Lam. ii. 10, iii. 2. 
 Babylon is here called nixd29 n33, the 
 Mistress of Kingdoms, because of the 
 great number of kingdoms which she 
 conquered, and over which she ruled, 
 or which were tributary to her. Comp. 
 Dan. ii. 37, 38, iv. 1. Her condition 
 was now to be completely reversed: 
 she was herself to be a captive. 
 
 6. For the latter half of the verse, 
 comp. Jer. 1. 17; li. 34; Lam. iv. 16, 
 v. 12; Zech. i. 15. Gesenius refers 
 i to the advanced or aged state of 
 the Jewish nation ; but the connexion 
 shews that, literally, old and infirm 
 persons are meant. 
 
 7. Ἢ must either have the Athnach 
 transferred to it, and be connected 
 with 7723; or it must be construed 
 with "2X, and thus will mark the 
 degree of pride and security in which 
 Babylon indulged : so as not to lay, &e., 
 or, adeo ut, usque adeo ut, or, on to such 
 a degree ; which expresses the radical 
 idea of progress, &c., inherent in 77Y. 
 Two or three MSS. read x. The word 
 isnot expressed in the ancient versions. 
 mx, these things, and a, it, in AD ITY, 
 refer to the conduct of Babylon: the 
 Fem. gender being frequently em- 
 ployed to express the Collective 
 
 Neuter. Inattention to this circum- 
 stance, and to the force of the paral- 
 lelism, has originated the reading 
 yo IK, which is found in eighteen 
 MSS., and originally in two more, in 
 the margin or appendix of two printed 
 Edd., and in the Vulg. 
 
 8. The security of the Babylonians 
 is thus described by Xenophon: “'The 
 inhabitants of the city'could not but 
 laugh at his (Cyrus’s) intention of 
 besieging them; and knowing that 
 they had provisions for more than 
 twenty years, they treated the attempt 
 with mockery.” Cyrop. vii. 5. For 
 the natural strength of the city, see 
 on chap. xiii. 1, Zwinglius justly 
 observes on "38, J,as here used: “valde 
 emphaticé pro Ego una, aut Ego sola, 
 sum scilicet hera,” DB, lit. nothing of 
 me, i.@.none possessing my prowess, 
 riches, enjoyments, &c. It seems 
 better thus to resolve the Yod, than 
 to regard it as merely Paragogic. The 
 same form occurs ver. 10, and Zeph. 
 ii. 15. Others take iy ΒΝ to be in 
 construction. The meaning is the 
 same either way. Comp. Martial, lib. 
 xii. epigr. 8, “ Terrarum dea gentium- 
 que, Roma, cui par est nihil, et nihil 
 secundum ;” in connexion with Rev. 
 xvii. 18, where the language of these 
 verses is applied to the N. T. Babylon ; 
 and still more fully, xviii. 7,8. The 
 metaphor of a virgin is now exchanged 
 
CHAP. XLVII.| 
 
 I shall not dwell a widow, 
 
 ISATAH 
 
 367 
 
 Nor know what it is to be childless. 
 9 There shall even come upon thee both of these, 
 
 Suddenly, in one day, 
 
 Loss of children, and widowhood : 
 
 They shall come upon thee in their perfection ; 
 In spite of thy numerous sorceries ; 
 
 In spite of the vast number of thy spells. 
 
 10 
 
 Thou didst also trust in thy wickedness ; 
 Thou saidst, No one seeth me: 
 
 Thy wisdom and thy science have turned thee away ; 
 And thou saidst in thy heart, I am, and there is none besides me. 
 
 ΠῚ 
 
 Therefore shall evil come upon thee ; 
 
 Thou shalt know no dawn after it ; 
 
 for that of a married woman, in order 
 to admit of the introduction of a state 
 of widowhood, and drexvia. To this 
 state Babylon was reduced when her 
 king was slain, and her inhabitants 
 were either massacred, or carried away 
 captive. Comp. liv. 1,4; Lam.i.1; 
 Isa. 11. 18—20. 
 
 9. The sudden and unexpected at- 
 tack of Cyrus is here specially set 
 forth. See on chap. xxi. 9. That the 
 Babylonians were greatly addicted to 
 magic, appears not only from this 
 verse and ver. 12, but also from Dan. 
 i, 20, ii. 2, 10, iv. 7, v.11, &. Comp. 
 Diod. Sic. lib. ii. 053, from 723, Arab. 
 
 ᾿ ᾿ 4, . . . ΄ 
 AERA » detexit, revelavit, manifestavit ; 
 
 CAs , detectus, revelatus; keublKe, 
 ecstasis ; persons who, by magical arts, 
 pretended to reveal the fortunes of 
 empires, individuals, ἕο. Thus, Ibn 
 Batuta, speaking of the Mohammedan 
 saints, who pretended to reveal the 
 
 future, calls them, peg Ws,d), 
 p.9. This etymology seems preferable 
 to that adopted by Bertholdt and 
 Miinter, who derive it from Wau, 
 
 scidit pannum, obscuravit, eclipsi affecit, 
 though there can be no doubt that they 
 employed eclipses for the same purpose. 
 Gesenius and Winer trace the word to 
 
 the Syr. pis in Ethpaal, ¢o sup- 
 
 plicate, celebrate acts of worship, &ce., 
 which may well agree with the 
 theurgic ceremonies of the Oriental 
 incantators. By D737 are meant spells 
 or charms, by which those who were 
 the dupes of them were downd ; from 
 7, to bind, bind fast with spells. 
 Gesenius thinks the term denotes a 
 species of magic, practised by binding 
 magic knots; ver. 13. in 443, ὅζο,, 15 
 not to be rendered with or through, but 
 has a negative signification, such as 
 nevertheless, notwithstanding, in spite of, 
 &c. Comp. Numb. xiv.11 ; Job. i. 22. 
 Thus Calvin, zon obstante. None of 
 all the numerous sorceries of Babylon 
 should be able to afford her the least 
 assistance. Md¥Y is properly in con- 
 struction with 189, used substantively. 
 7220 indeed intervenes, but this is not 
 more abhorrent from the genius of 
 the language, than the interruption of 
 direct construction by prepositions, 
 conjunctions, &e. See Gesen. Lehrgeb. 
 p. 679. 
 
 10, Babylon was proud, not only of 
 her political wisdom, but also of her 
 astronomical and mythological science. 
 NYT, γνῶσις, in connexion, as here, with 
 7237, superior knowledge, i. e. that of 
 the gods, &c. 221% is used both in 
 a good and a bad sense ; here, as lvii. 
 17, it indicates a determined apostasy 
 from the true God. 
 
 11. πρὸ, in this verse corresponds 
 to JOP. in ver. 10. WYN, its duwn, i.e. 
 the commencement of a period of 
 
368 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLYII. 
 
 Yea, calamity shall overwhelm thee, 
 
 Which thou shalt not be able by expiation to remove ; 
 There shall even come upon thee suddenly, 
 
 Desolation of which thou shalt not be aware. 
 
 12 
 
 Persevere now with thy spells ; 
 
 And with the multitude of thy sorceries, 
 With which thou hast toiled from thy youth : 
 Perhaps thou mayest profit by them ; 
 
 Perhaps thou mayest resist. 
 13 
 
 Thou art wearied with the multitude of thy counsels : 
 
 Let the dividers of the heavens, the astrologers, 
 The prognosticators at the new moons, 
 
 Stand up now, and save thee 
 
 From the things that shall come upon thee. 
 14 Behold! they shall be as stubble ; 
 
 succeeding prosperity ; the morning, 
 figuratively considered, after a night 
 of calamity. See on chap. viii. 20. 
 The following member of the paral- 
 lelism confirms this interpretation, 
 which indeed might be considered as 
 sufficiently justified from the incon- 
 gruity of representing affliction as 
 dawning upon any one. 3, 70 cover, 
 atone for, remove, avert by expiation, &e. 
 
 12. The language ofirony. By “the 
 youth” of Babylon is meant the 
 earliest periods of her political exist- 
 ence. It is generally allowed, that 
 whatever admixtures of Egyptian 
 superstition were found in the religion 
 of the Babylonians, the Chaldeans 
 possessed an original system of philo- 
 sophy and learning ; on which account 
 they are spoken of as a distinct class, 
 Dan. ii. 2, 10, &e. Their astronomical 
 observations appear to date from a 
 remote antiquity. Ptolemy mentions 
 two lunar eclipses observed by them 
 about 700 years B.c. YW is here used 
 
 like the Arab. 2° , adversus occurrit ; 
 
 Conj. IIL. obstitit, restitit. 
 
 13. Pox», for POY ; most probably 
 to make it agree in sound with 7127 
 and 7ppw>, ver. 12. But comp. Ps. ix. 
 5; Ezek. xxxv. 11. 125, ἡ, 6. as the 
 Keri ordains, bm 14, the dividers of 
 
 the heavens, from the Arab. 94 , concrdit, 
 
 secuit, to cut or divide into large parts, 
 with obvious reference to the division 
 of the zodiac into twelve signs, in 
 connexion with which the Chaldzean 
 astronomers carried on the practice of 
 judicialastrology. LXX. οἱ ἀστρολόγοι 
 τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. Vulg.auguresceli. Some 
 MSS. and Edd. read "27 or 737; but 
 these readings have probably origi- 
 nated in some copyist recollecting that 
 D217 occurred in the preceding verses. 
 D722 OWT, who see, 1. 6. predict future 
 events, destinies, ὅσο, dy means of the 
 stars. iT is a seer, or prophet; ap- 
 plied here to the Chaldzan astrologers, 
 who divined by the rising and setting, 
 the motions, aspects, colour, degree of 
 light, &c., of the stars. They main- 
 tained that the stars had an influence 
 over the nativities of men. The ?in 
 own denotes time, as 7722, 2709, &e. 
 It would appear that the astronomers 
 at Babylon published a monthly table 
 of the leadmg events that might be 
 expected to happen. x2 connects 
 more naturally with yy, though re- 
 mote in point of position, than with 
 orn, The partitive use of }2 does 
 not well apply here. 
 
 14, 15. The utter destruction of 
 the astronomical and magical societies 
 of Babylon is here predicted. The 
 persons composing them, so far from 
 contributing by their science or arts 
 to rescue those who had been accus- 
 
CHAP. XLVIII.| 
 
 The fire shall burn them up ; 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 369 
 
 They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame ; 
 It shall not be a coal to warm one ; 
 
 Nor a fire before which to sit. 
 
 15 Thus shall they be to thee, for whom thou hast toiled, 
 Those with whom thou hast dealt from thy youth ; 
 They shall wander, each to his quarter : 
 
 None shall save thee. 
 
 tomed to consult them, should not be 
 able to deliver themselves, but should 
 either perish in the catastrophe, or 
 betake themselves to flight. The 
 images are very expressive. The fire 
 was not to be for ordinary purposes, 
 but an all-devouring flame. It has 
 been queried, whether by ΤῸ in this 
 place, we are to understand merchants 
 
 in the literal acceptation of the term ; 
 or the astrologers, &c., who traversed 
 the country, practising their super- 
 stitious arts for gain. The latter 
 seems the more probable. ‘29, 
 straight before him. Comp. V22 722°Rx, 
 Ezek. 1. 9, 12, of λοιπ. eis τὸ πέραν 
 ἑαυτοῦ. 
 
 CHAPTER ΧΊ ΤΠ. 
 
 In this chapter the Jews are reproved for their hypocrisy and formality, 1, 2 ; 
 their obstinate addictedness to idolatry, notwithstanding the proofs which 
 they had of the Divine existence, is forcibly set forth, 3—8 ; the design of 
 the captivity, and the instrument by which their deliverance from it was to 
 
 be effected, are pointed out, 9—15 ; 
 
 a powerful appeal to their conscience 
 
 and feelings is then made by the Messiah, 16—19 ; and an exhortation is 
 given to them to avail themselves of the opportunity afforded them in the 
 providence of God to return to Judea with security and comfort, 20, 21 ; 
 accompanied with a warning to such as persisted in rebellion, 22, 
 
 1 Hear this, O house of Jacob! 
 
 Ye that are called by the name of Israel ; 
 And have come forth from the waters of Judah ! 
 That swear by the name of Jehovah, 
 
 1, 2. THT "99. Comp. Numb. xxiv. 7; 
 Ps. Ixviii. 26 (Hebr. 27) ; Rev. viii. 10. 
 Nations are by the Orientals compared 
 to rivers, of which the progenitors 
 are the fountains. Ὁ, which is the 
 reading of thirty-nine MSS. and four 
 
 early editions, is not designed, as 
 Lowth thinks, to express from the days, 
 but is merely the reduplicate form of 
 2; see Exod. vii. 19, viii. 2. For 
 wp vy, the Holy City, comp. Neh. xi. 
 1; Dan. ix. 24: Matt. iv. 5, xxvii. 53; 
 
370 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLVIII. 
 
 And make mention of the God of Israel ; 
 
 But not truly nor justly. 
 
 2 For they call themselves of the holy city, 
 And stay themselves upon the God of Israel : 
 
 Jehovah of Hosts is his name. 
 
 3 The former events I declared long ago ; 
 Yea, from my mouth they proceeded ; and I made them known ; 
 I effected them suddenly, and they came to pass. 
 
 4 I knew that thou art stubborn; 
 That thy neck is a bar of iron; 
 
 And thy brow brass. 
 
 5 Therefore I declared them to thee long ago; 
 
 Before they came to pass I made them known to thee ; 
 
 Lest thou shouldst say, My idol effected them ; 
 
 Or, My graven image, and my molten image commanded them. 
 6 Thou hast heard them ; view them all ; 
 
 And should ye not declare it ? 
 
 Henceforth I publish to thee new events, 
 
 Even hidden things, which thou hast not known. 
 7 They are produced now, and not long ago ; 
 
 At no former period didst thou hear of them ; 
 
 Lest thou shouldest say, Behold! I knew them. 
 8 Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not ; 
 
 the inscription on the Maccabean coins, 
 mop ow, Jerusalem the Holy; and 
 
 the Arab. (wid ew, dist, by 
 which name she is still commonly 
 known all over the East. 
 
 * 3. ΤΆ 15 generally thought that there 
 is here a reference to the predictions 
 respecting Sennacherib, to the events 
 connected with whose discomfiture 
 DxNB aptly applies. 
 
 4, nym, it is of my knowledge, 
 i.e. part of it; I know with certainty. 
 πῶ stands for 30 77, Ezek. iii. 7. 
 Comp. as to sense, Exod. xxxii. 9; 
 Ezek. ii. 4. Obstinate, audacious, and 
 unblushing rebellion characterised the 
 Jews as a people. 
 
 5. The 1 at the beginning of this 
 verse is inferential, marking what had 
 been done in consequence of the Divine 
 knowledge of the character of the 
 
 Jews. That the Feminine in 8127 is 
 to be taken as a Collective Neuter, is 
 evident from the use of the plural 
 affix Ὁ, immediately following. 
 
 7. Sis here used in the sense of 
 the miraculous production, not of events, 
 but of the prophecies respecting them. 
 The announcement of them was a 
 creation of knowledge, as real as that 
 of the universe was of matter, Gen. 
 1.1.  DVv725) means before the day of 
 their announcement, LXX. προτέραις 
 ἡμέραις. The things themselves had 
 no existence in the time of the prophet. 
 The Chaldzans were not in possession 
 of Babylon; and the Persians were a 
 weak and inconsiderable power. They 
 could not, by any possibility, have 
 been anticipated by human sagacity. 
 
 8. This verse describes the disin- 
 clination of the Jews to attend to the 
 Divine communications, rather than 
 
CHAP. XLVIII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 511 
 
 Yea, thine ear was not opened to them long ago : 
 For I knew that thou wast altogether faithless, 
 And wast called rebellious from the belly. 
 9 For my name’s sake 1 have deferred my anger, 
 And for the sake of my praise I have restrained it from thee ; 
 
 That I might not cut thee off. 
 Behold! I have refined thee, but not as silver ; 
 
 10 
 
 I have tried thee in the furnace of affliction. 
 
 11 
 
 For my own sake, for my own sake, have I done it ; 
 
 For how should my name be profaned ? 
 My glory I will not give to another. 
 
 12 
 
 Hearken to me, O Jacob! and Israel, my called ! 
 
 Iam He: I am the First; I also am the Last. 
 
 13 
 
 It was, indeed, my hand that founded the earth, 
 
 And my right hand that expanded the heavens ; 
 I called them; they stood forth at once. 
 14 Assemble, all of you, and hear: 
 
 their not having received them. mn» 
 TR, to open the ear, means to disclose 
 any thing to any one. The verb is 
 here used intransitively, to denote 
 being opened, receiving the revelation. 
 nap, Pual of xp, fo call ; here idioma- 
 tically, to de. Seeonchap.i.26. The 
 period here specified was that of the 
 deliverance from Egypt, “ ea liberatio 
 fuit veluti queedam Kcclesize nativitas.” 
 Calvin. From the very first the He- 
 brew nation had been rebellious ; wit- 
 ness their history in the wilderness. 
 9—11. A beautiful exhibition of the 
 goodness, longsuffering, and forbear- 
 ance of Jehovah. Dum is here used 
 with great effect. It properly signifies 
 to muzzle; hence to subdue, restrain, 
 
 &c.; Arab. eas, percussit im naso ; 
 
 instruzit capistro camelum, &c. ; elas, 
 
 capistrum. After the verb, ΝΞ is un- 
 derstood ; as "2 is after ‘2. This 
 ellipsis may seem harsh ; but it is not 
 more so than many others which we 
 meet with. It has been supplied by 
 the LXX.,7r0 ἐμὸν ὄνομα, and in one of 
 Kennicott’'s MSS. It would have 
 derogated from the character of Je- 
 hovah, in the eyes of the heathen, had 
 he abandoned his people to utter 
 
 destruction, and have been a tacit 
 renunciation of those claims by which 
 he is distinguished from all created 
 objects. 023, the LXX., Michaelis, 
 and others, render “ ox account of, for 
 silver ;” not adverting to the circum- 
 stance that 1 is often used in the 
 acceptation of 3, like, in the manner of. 
 See Zwinglius. Vulg. “quasi argen- 
 tum.” Instead of 7m7a, two MSS. 
 and the Syr. read 77303, which is 
 doubtless a gloss, but conveys the pri- 
 mary signification of 173. See Gesen, 
 
 Lex. iz voc.; and comp. the Syr. 
 
 pue> > exploravit, examinavit. 
 
 12. Comp. xli. 4, xliv. 6. 
 
 13. 70 seems to be a denominative, 
 from mp0, the palm of the hand. 
 Comp. ΠΕ, a palm, or hand-breadth ; 
 omen, Lam. 11. 20, a bearing on the 
 palms of the hands; hence to use 
 the hand for smoothing, extending, 
 stretching forth. Comp. the Arab. 
 
 po , latum fecit, in latum duvit, ex- 
 
 panditve ; ΣΝ » Calum; as Yi), ex- 
 ΓΟ 
 
 panse, from YP, to expand. 
 
 14, Instead of 073, among them, 
 twenty-seven MSS., originally nine 
 more, now four ; the Soncin. and Brix. 
 
812 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLVIII. 
 
 Which of them hath shewed these things ? 
 Jehovah loved him; he will execute his purpose against 
 
 Babylon, 
 
 And be his arm against the Chaldeeans. 
 
 15 
 
 I, I have spoken it; I also have called him ; 
 
 I have brought him ; and his way shall be prosperous. 
 
 16 Draw near to me; hear this: 
 
 I spake not in secret from the beginning ; 
 From the time that it was, I was there : 
 And now the Lord Jehovah hath sent me and his Spirit. 
 
 editions, and the Syr.,read 023, among _ 
 
 you. The reading of the Textus Re- 
 ceptus is the more appropriate ; and 
 the variation was doubtless occasioned 
 by the suffix in 029) immediately 
 before. The reference, in which Zwin- 
 glius finds the language of contempt, 
 is to the idols. The Nomin. to 1278 is 
 Cyrus, understood. The love here 
 spoken of is not pure affection or 
 delight, but favour ; which may be 
 shewn in various ways. The love or 
 favour of God was shewn to Cyrus in 
 his selecting him to be the distin- 
 guished instrument of liberating the 
 Jews, and giving him victory over the 
 nations. “ Dilectio autem non sim- 
 pliciter, sed πρὸς τὶ accipitur: ideoque 
 ad felicem expeditionis eventum re- 
 stringitur.’ Calvin. Comp. Rom. ix. 
 lf. Before D2, the prepos. 3 is to 
 be supplied from the preceding hemi- 
 stich. 
 
 15. This verse is expletive of the 
 preceding, and presents Jehovah in 
 the boldest contrast with the gods of 
 the Chaldeans. 
 
 16. Several commentators have at- 
 tempted to vindicate the whole of this 
 verse to Isaiah; but they have met 
 with few abettors. Even Gesenius is 
 forced to admit that, comparing the 
 second member with chap. xlv. 19, 
 Jehovah must be the speaker; and 
 that the third cannot well be explained 
 as the words of the prophet. He is, 
 however, of opinion that the fourth 
 member contains the language of the 
 prophet. Thus also Zwinglius, Mus- 
 culus, Calvin, Clarius, ν. ἃ. Palm, and 
 others. On the other hand, Athana- 
 sius, Augustine, Basil, Chrysostom, 
 
 Procopius, Jerome, (colampadius, 
 Castalio, Calovius, Schmidius, &c., in- 
 terpret the words of the Logos, which 
 certainly does not appear so harsh as 
 to admit a change of person in the 
 speaker. Indeed, the close connexion 
 of 28 OW AMT ny and *yIw—NAY ren- 
 ders such change next to impossible. 
 The suffix in anv has ts, the begin- 
 ning, for its antecedent; which, though 
 masculine in form, is feminine in sig- 
 nification. When tx and ἀρχὴ are 
 put absolutely in Scripture, the com- 
 mencement of created existence is 
 meant. OW is here properly a tem- 
 poral adverb. Comp. Prov. viii. 27, 
 where it likewise follows Us, in appli- . 
 cation to the commencement of time. 
 Comp. for the doctrine,* 0 ἣν am’ ἀρχῆς, 
 and Tov ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς, 1 Johni. 1, 1. 13, 
 14. It has been disputed whether 
 im, His Spirit, be the nominative or 
 the accusative. The latter is, from 
 the position of the word, the more 
 natural ; and consequently the more 
 probable. Thus Origen, though he 
 admits that ἀμφίβολος ἔστιν ἡ λέξις, 
 explains, ἀμφότερα ἀπέστειλεν 0 πατὴρ, 
 τὸν σωτήρα καὶ τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα ; “the 
 Father sent doth, the Saviour and the 
 Holy Spirit ;” and he introduces the 
 passage by stating that δεδήλωται, τέ is 
 manifest from it, that the Holy Spirit, 
 as well as Christ, was sent for the sal- 
 vation of men. The meaning there- 
 fore will be, that the Logos, in his 
 mediating character as the Angel of 
 Jehovah, received a special commission 
 to interpose for the deliverance of his 
 captive people; and the Holy Spirit 
 was likewise sent to reveal, through 
 the prophet, the joyful event. Such 
 
CHAP. XLVIII. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 378 
 
 17 Thus saith Jehovah thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel : 
 I Jehovah, thy God, teach thee to profit ; 
 I lead thee in the way thou shouldst go. 
 
 18 
 
 O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! 
 
 Then should thy peace have been like a river ; 
 And thy righteousness as the billows of the sea. 
 
 19 
 
 Thy seed also should have been as the sand thereof; 
 
 And the offspring of thy bowels as that of its bowels ; 
 Tt should not have been cut off; ἢ 
 Neither should its name have been destroyed from my presence. 
 
 20 
 
 Depart ye out of Babylon; flee from the Chaldeans ; 
 
 With the voice of joy shew this ; make it known ; 
 Carry it forth to the end of the earth ; 
 Say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob. 
 
 21 
 
 For they thirsted not in the deserts through which he led them ; 
 
 He caused water to flow out of the rock for them ; 
 Yea, he clave the rock, and the water gushed out. 
 
 22 
 
 construction is quite in accordance 
 with the mode of representation else- 
 where employed in Scripture respect- 
 ing the economy of the Divine opera- 
 tions. 
 
 17—19. If the Jews had attended 
 to the Divine instructions with which 
 they had been favoured, uninterrupted 
 and abundant prosperity would have 
 been their lot, instead of the calami- 
 tous circumstances into which they 
 had been plunged by their transgres- 
 sions. 77 signifying here, as generally, 
 the sand on the sea-shore, I have sup- 
 plied a pronoun referring to 0%, in 
 the preceding verse. ΓΙῸ is the 
 same as DPD, dowels, only it is femi- 
 nine, because used in a figurative 
 sense. Before it, ἜΞΩ is understood 
 
 There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked. 
 
 as repeated, to signify the fishes which 
 the sea produces. 
 
 21. These words are not descriptive 
 of what took place on the journey of 
 the ancient Israelites through the 
 wilderness, but describe in figurative 
 language, borrowed from events which 
 then took place, the copious supplies 
 which the Jews should enjoy on their 
 journey from Babylon to Judea. See 
 Exod. xvii. 6.; Numb. xx. 11; Ps. 
 Ixxviil. 15. 
 
 22. A denunciation against such as 
 should persist in rebellion and un- 
 belief—preferring the pleasures of sin 
 with the enemies of God, to the holy 
 and spiritual enjoyments of his ser- 
 vice. Comp. chap. lvii. 21. 
 
14 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. XLIX. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 This chapter consists of two parts : the /irst relating to the Messiah, in which 
 he calls the attention of the world to his appointment to be the Redeemer, 
 not of the Jews only, 1—4, but also of the Gentiles, 5—13: the second re- 
 presenting the desolate condition of Judea during the captivity, 14; the 
 Divine compassion towards her, 15, 16 ; the certainty of the restoration of 
 the Jews, and the immense number of the citizens, 17—21 ; the support 
 rendered to them by foreign princes, 22, 23; the interposition of Jehovah 
 for their rescue, and the destruction of their enemies, 24—26. 
 
 1 HARKEN to me, ye maritime lands! 
 
 And attend, ye distant people! 
 
 _ Jehovah hath called me from the womb ; 
 
 From my mother’s bowels he hath mentioned my name. 
 2 He hath also made my mouth like a sharp sword ; 
 
 Tn the shadow of his hand hath he concealed me ; 
 
 Yea, he hath made me a polished arrow, 
 
 He hath hid me in his quiver ; 
 
 3 And hath said to me, Thou art my servant ; 
 
 1. That Messiah is the speaker, is 
 agreed among the great body of inter- 
 preters. Attempts have, indeed, been 
 made by the Rabbins, by Grotius, 
 Koppe, and others, to explain the pas- 
 sage of Isaiah himself; by Doéderlein, 
 Paulus, Rosenmiiller, and Hitzig, of 
 the Jewish nation ; by Gesenius, of 
 his favourite prophetie order ; and by 
 some of Cyrus. But their several 
 hypotheses are clogged with difficul- 
 ties, which they have themselves felt, 
 or on the ground of which they have 
 opposed and refuted each other. See 
 on chap. xlii. 1, and Hengstenberg’s 
 Christologie, i. Theil. 2 Abtheil. p. 
 259, &c. The Messiah had been in- 
 troduced, chap. xlvii. 16, declaring 
 his commission to interpose for the 
 deliverance of the Jews in Babylon: 
 here he is presented in the higher 
 character of a Spiritual Deliverer both 
 of Jews and Gentiles. Though it is 
 literally true that he received the 
 name of Jesus while yet in the womb 
 
 of the virgin, Luke ii. 21, yet the 
 stress of the words seems to bear on 
 his appointment to office by the 
 Father, in opposition to its being self- 
 assumed, Comp. Jer. 1. 5 ; Gal. i. 15. 
 
 2. 7b, the mouth, is here, as freq., 
 used for that which proceeds from it, 
 speech, doctrine, ὅθ. The metaphors 
 of a sword and an arrow, in the best 
 state of preparation, aptly set forth 
 the penetrating and subduing efficacy 
 of the Gospel. Comp. Eccles. xii. 11 ; 
 Heb. iv. 12; Rev. i. 16. Pindar, in 
 like manner, employs the metaphor of 
 the arrow, in application to powerful 
 eloquence, Olymp. 11. 149, 160, ix. 17 ; 
 and Gesenius quotes passages from 
 the Life of Timur, tom. ii. p. 888, 
 and p. 334, to the same effect. The 
 concealment referred to is that of the 
 Divine Redeemer previous to his 
 manifestation in the flesh. 
 
 3. Comp. xliv. 23. The occurrence 
 of the term xt, /srae/, in this verse 
 has occasioned considerable difficulty. 
 
CHAP. XLI1X.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 ald 
 
 That in thee, O Israel! I may be glorified. 
 4 But I said: I have toiled in vain; 
 For nought and in vain have I exhausted my strength: 
 Nevertheless, my cause is with Jehovah ; 
 And my reward is with my God. 
 
 5 And now saith Jehovah, 
 
 That formed me from the womb to be his servant, 
 
 To restore Jacob to him: 
 
 Though Israel should not be gathered to him, 
 Yet I shall be glorious in the sight of Jehovah, 
 And my God shall be my praise. 
 6 He also saith: It is too small a thing for thee to be my servant, 
 To raise up the tribes of Jacob, 
 And to restore the preserved of Israel ; 
 I have also appointed thee to be a light to the nations, 
 To be my salvation to the end of the earth. 
 
 Michaelis and Gesenius hold it to be 
 very suspicious ; and think it may 
 have been introduced at an early 
 period by some copyist, just as ᾿Ισραὴλ 
 and Ἰακὼβ were by the LXX., in the 
 parallel passage, chap. xlii. 1. It is 
 actually wanting in Kennicott’s Cod. 
 96. Saadias renders, My servant, 
 
 Jy! pal dl ΤῸ Israel; making the 
 
 Jewish people the objects of a special 
 mission. Thus also Grotius and Dathe. 
 Others are of opinion that there is 
 an abrupt transition from the Servant 
 of Jehovah, to those on whom his 
 ministry was first of all destined to 
 tell. And, indeed, by rendering Wx, 
 that, in order that, this sense is most 
 naturally brought out. Comp. for 
 such use of 1x, as a relative conjunc- 
 tion preceding the Fut., Gen. xi. 7; 
 Numb. xxiii. 13; Deut. iv. 40, &c. 
 
 4. The Messiah here complains of 
 the fruitlessness of his labours among 
 the Jews, but expresses his confidence 
 in the righteous appointment of his 
 Heavenly Father. 
 
 5, 6. Such appointment is here defi- 
 nitely announced. Though he should 
 not be successful in ettecting the con- 
 version of the Jews, yet Jehovah 
 would glorify him, by making him the 
 instrument of salvation to the world 
 
 at large. Instead of )Dx. 8%, shall NOT 
 be gathered, the Keri reads "Ps. , shall 
 be gathered to Him: expressing, in a 
 synonymous parallelism, the idea con- 
 veyed by the preceding V8 3p¥” 2270), 
 This alteration has the countenance 
 of six MSS., three more originally, and 
 now one; the LXX., Chald., and Aq. 
 But the textual reading, which is sup- 
 ported by the great mass of MSS., 
 and has the suffrages of Symm., 
 Theod., and the Vulg., agrees better 
 with the following: since the Vaus in 
 Ste) and 7228), correspond to each 
 other, as though and yet. The Athnach 
 should properly be at V2. 1¥, from my, 
 to be strong, signifies glory, majesty, 
 praise, when coupled with 133, or, as 
 here, with 723, in Niphal. For ‘Ys3, 
 the Keri has the participial form ‘32. 
 The meaning is, such of the Jews as 
 had been restored to their own land ; 
 and the term corresponds to "22%, pre- 
 ceding. The language clearly and ab- 
 solutely excludes the idea, that by the 
 “ Servant of Jehovah,” either the pro- 
 phet or the people of Israel is in- 
 tended. To maintain that Isaiah was 
 to be the great teacher of the heathen 
 (a2 ἦν), would be to maintain what 
 is contrary to fact ; and no absurdity 
 can be greater, than to suppose, that, 
 though the Jews could not effect their 
 
316 
 
 7 Thus saith Jehovah, 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 (CHAP. XLIX. 
 
 The Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, 
 To him whom men despise, whom the nation abhorreth, 
 
 To the servant of rulers: 
 
 Kings shall behold, and stand up; 
 
 Princes also, and shall worship ; 
 
 For the sake of Jehovah, that is faithful, 
 
 The Holy One of Israel, that hath chosen thee. 
 
 8 Thus saith Jehovah: 
 thee ; 
 
 In an acceptable time I have answered 
 
 And in the day of salvation I have helped thee ; 
 
 And have preserved thee, and made thee a covenant for the 
 
 people ; 
 
 To raise up the earth, to cause the desolate possessions to be 
 
 occupied : 
 
 9 To say to the prisoners, Go forth! 
 To them that are in darkness, Appear! 
 
 They shall feed by the ways ; 
 
 And on all the high places shall be their pasture. 
 
 LO 
 
 They shall not hunger, neither shall they thirst ; 
 
 Neither shall the glowing heat, nor the sun smite them ; 
 For He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, 
 
 own recovery, they should, neverthe- 
 less, be the active and _ successful 
 agents in effecting the restoration of 
 the world. Comp. for the doctrine of 
 the text, chap. xlii. 6; Mal. i. 10, 11; 
 Luke 11. 30—32 ; ‘Acts xill. 46, 47; 
 Rom. xi. 11, 12. For ny, MY saloa- 
 tion, two Konigsb. MSS., the LXX., 
 Arab., and Acts xiii. 47, read my, 
 salvation. Both forms occur elsewhere 
 in the prophet. 
 
 7—10. These verses describe the 
 humiliation, and subsequent exalta- 
 tion and administration of the Re- 
 deemer. 5272 agrees so entirely 
 with 12 299, that the rendering of the 
 LXX., rov ἢ ἀν μοὺπα τὴν sre αὐτοῦ, 
 “ who despiseth his life,” of which 
 Michaelis approves, cannot be ad- 
 mitted. 5] is here used collectively 
 of men. Comp. Deut. xxiv. 7. ™3 is 
 the Infin. taken as the Pahul Part. 
 a, Ps. xxii. 7; and corresponds to 
 23, chap. 111]. 3:—both passages being 
 
 strictly parallel. 229 is a verbal noun, 
 derived from Piel, and signifies ax 
 object of abomination. or disgust. Ge- 
 senius, however, in his Lexicon, retains 
 the proper participial form, and ren- 
 ders, “ causing abhorrence to the 
 people,” z.e. who is an abhorrence to 
 them. By 3, zation, is meant the 
 Jewish, by which our Saviour was 
 despised and rejected. Having ren- 
 dered perfect obedience to the con- 
 stituted authorities, the Redeemer 
 might with all propriety be called 
 “a servant of rulers,’ though the 
 phrase may also have been designed 
 to express his humiliation, as exhi- 
 bited in his subjection to them. 
 After 17m, supply ink, “shall wor- 
 ship Him;” which the connexion 
 obviously requires. The “ acceptable 
 time,” and the “day of salvation,” 
 
 mean the period of the New Dispen- 
 sation, at the commencement of 
 which the Messiah appeared, to effect 
 
 -»- 
 
CHAP. XLIX. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 307 
 
 And conduct them to fountains of water. 
 11 I will also make all my mountains a way ; 
 And my causeways shall be raised. 
 
 12 
 
 Behold! these shall come from far : 
 
 And behold! these from the North, and from the West ; 
 And these from the land of Sinim. 
 
 13 
 
 Sing, O heavens! and rejoice, O earth ! 
 
 Burst, ye mountains, into song! 
 For Jehovah comforteth his people, 
 And hath compassion on his afflicted. 
 
 14 
 
 But Zion saith, Jehovah hath forsaken me, 
 
 And, The Lord hath forgotten me. 
 
 15 
 
 the work of human redemption, and 
 during which the blessings of that 
 redemption are being communicated 
 to mankind. Comp. 2 Cor. vi. 2. 
 How he prayed, was heard, and 
 helped, see Heb. v. 7; Matt. xxvi. 
 39—44; Luke xxu. 41—44. The 
 ninth verse clearly shews, that by 
 the desolate possessions are not 
 meant waste places in Judea, but the 
 moral wastes in the Gentile world. 
 Comp. chap. xli. 6, 7. Twenty-two 
 of Kennicott and De Rossi’s MSS, 
 aud six more originally, read 7x), 
 instead of 70x. It is also the reading 
 of several ancient editions, and has 
 the support of the LXX., Arab., Syr., 
 Vulg., and Targ. The rich provision 
 made for the supply of the Gentile 
 converts is beautifully described in 
 metaphors borrowed from nomadic 
 life. 
 
 11. Every obstacle shall be re- 
 moved, and every facility granted for 
 conversion. 
 
 12. The entrance of converts from 
 the most distant quarters into the 
 church is here specifically predicted. 
 myD, Sinim, has been variously inter- 
 preted. Aq., Symm., and Theod., 
 retain the word σινείμ: the LXX. ἐκ 
 γῆς Περσῶν. Michaelis, Déderlein, 
 and others, Syeze, the southern bound- 
 ary of Egypt; and Bochart, Pelusium, 
 But there can no longer be any doubt 
 
 that China is meant. ων» Sin, and 
 
 Can a woman forget her suckling, 
 
 wi Chin, are the names given to 
 China by the Arabs. The Turks also 
 have ues wp Chin-oo-Machin. 
 
 Comp. arte ork: And the 
 
 Syrians, joa. It has been affirmed 
 
 that the term is not in use among the 
 Chinese themselves, except as the 
 designation of a dynasty, which took 
 its rise B.c. 246; but, according to 
 Professor Neumann, 7571. was the 
 name of a great tributary kingdom to 
 the west of China, the first monarch 
 of which began to reign B.c. 897. 
 Nothing was more natural than for 
 the western Asiatics, whose caravans 
 brought them into contact with this 
 kingdom, to extend the designation to 
 the whole empire. 
 
 13. A joyful anticipation of the 
 happy state of things under the 
 Messiah, as set forth in the pre- 
 ceding verses. 
 
 14, The prophet now naturally 
 reverts to the desolate condition of 
 Jerusalem during the captivity. To 
 interpret Zion, as meaning the Chris- 
 tian church, would do violence to the 
 remaining portion of the chapter. 
 No language could more pathetically 
 and tenderly describe the feelings of 
 the Jewish church, or the love of God 
 towards her, than that here employed. 
 
378 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, XLIX: 
 
 So as to have no affection for the son of her womb ? 
 
 Even these may forget, 
 But I will not forget thee. 
 
 16 Behold! I have portrayed thee upon my hands ; 
 Thy walls are continually before me. 
 
 17 Thy sons make haste ; 
 
 They that destroyed thee, and laid thee waste, depart from thee. 
 
 18 
 
 Lift up thine eyes around, and look ; 
 
 They all assemble, they come to thee. 
 
 As I live, saith Jehovah, 
 
 Thou shalt surely put them all on as ornaments, 
 And bind them about as doth a bride. 
 
 19 
 destroyed, 
 
 For thy wastes,and thy desolate places, and thy land that is 
 
 Shall now be too confined for the inhabitants ; 
 And they that destroyed thee shall be far away. 
 20 Thy sons, of whom thou wast bereaved, 
 
 16. pea properly signifies fo cut or 
 grave letters in some solid substance ; 
 but here to delineate, portray. UXX. 
 ἐζωγράφηκα. There seems to be an 
 allusion to the custom of marking or 
 representing certain objects on the 
 hand, with a view to their being kept 
 constantly in remembrance. Maun- 
 drell describes such a practice as 
 common with the pilgrims who visit 
 Jerusalem. There are artists who 
 undertake the operation. They em- 
 ploy wooden stamps, with which they 
 print off upon the arm, with powder 
 of charcoal, the desired figure or 
 representation. They then take two 
 very fine needles tied close together, 
 which they dip like a pen in an ink 
 compounded of gunpowder and ox- 
 gall, and make with them small pune- 
 tures all along the lines of the figure 
 which they have printed ; and washing 
 the part in wine, conclude the opera- 
 tion. See Journey from Aleppo to 
 Jerusalem, p. 75. And comp., for a 
 similar custom, chap. xliy. 5. 
 
 17. 133, thy children, is read 723, thy 
 builders, by the LXX., Chald., Vulg., 
 Saad., and is approved by Michaelis, 
 Lowth, and many of the moderns, on 
 the ground of the antithesis which it 
 forms to the following participles, 
 
 ΗΝ but the Masoretic 
 reading is more agreeable to the 
 whole context, especially vers. 18, 21, 
 22. It is accordingly adopted by 
 Gesenius, Hitzig, Maurer, Scholz, and 
 Jenour. Nz) 732, Lowth strangely ren- 
 ders, shall become thine offspring. No 
 interpretation could be more forced. 
 
 18. The nomin. to 033 is 33, in the 
 preceding verse. The inhabitants of 
 a city are its beauty ; and, cities being 
 regarded by the Hebrews as females, 
 the metaphor of a bride is the more 
 appropriate. 
 
 19, 20. The second °2 is intensive, 
 but cannot well be expressed in 
 English. This prophecy was literally 
 fulfilled in the immense population of 
 Judza, between the return from the 
 captivity and the time of our Lord. 
 Josephus, describing Galilee, says: 
 προσησκήθη γοῦν ὑπὸ τῶν οἰκητόρων 
 πᾶσα, καὶ μέρος αὐτῆς οὐδὲν ἀργόν. 
 ἀλλὰ καὶ πόλεις πυκναὶ, καὶ τὸ τῶν 
 κωμῶν πλῆθος πανταχοῦ πολυάνθρωπον 
 διὰ τὴν εὐθηνίαν, ὡς τὴν ἐλαχίστην ὑπὲρ 
 πεντακισχιλίους πρὸς τοῖς μυρίοις ἔχειν 
 οἰκήτορας. De Bello Jud. lib. iii. cap. 
 8. P2BwW 2a, lit. flit orbitatis tua, but 
 meaning, the inhabitants of which 
 thou wast bereaved. 773 may either 
 be rendered approach me; or, recede 
 
 TPN POW ; 
 
CHAP. XLIX.| 
 
 ISATAH. 379 
 
 Shall again say in thine ears : 
 The place is too confined for me ; 
 Make room for me that I may dwell. 
 
 21 And thou shalt say in thine heart : 
 
 Who hath born these for me ? 
 For I was childless and solitary ; an exile and an outcast : 
 
 Who, then, hath brought up these ? 
 
 Behold! I was left alone: 
 These—where were they ? 
 27; 
 
 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: 
 
 Behold, I will raise my hand to the nations, 
 
 And elevate my standard to the people ; 
 
 And they shall bring thy sons in their bosom, 
 
 And thy“daughters shall be borne on their shoulders. 
 
 23 
 
 Kings also shall be thy supporters, 
 
 And their princesses thy nurses ; 
 
 With their faces on the ground they shall do thee homage, 
 And shall lick the dust of thy feet ; 
 
 And thou shalt know that I am Jehovah ; 
 
 For they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. 
 
 Jrom me, according to circumstances. 
 In such a case as the present, the 
 latter is obviously the proper render- 
 ing. LXX. ποίησον μοὶ τόπον: Vulg. 
 Jue mihi spatium. For similar contrary 
 acceptations of words signifying ap- 
 proach and departure, see Gesenius zz 
 loc. and his Lex. iw voc. 023, and comp. 
 Gen. xix. 9. 
 
 21. 7712 being the form exclusively 
 employed when the mother is spoken 
 of, the verb must be rendered by orn, 
 not by deget. Instead of 7x, fifty-six 
 of Kennicott and De Rossi’s MSS., 
 twenty-five more originally, now five, 
 with the LXX., Vulg., and the Targ., 
 De Rossi, 737, read 7x), 
 
 22, 23. These verses describe the 
 readiness, zeal, and liberality, with 
 which, in the providence of God, the 
 nations and their rulers should pro- 
 mote the restoration of the Jews to 
 
 their own land. By qn, Arab. we 
 
 Eth. εν ὦ ὦ : is meant the dosom of a 
 garment, or, that part of it which 
 
 opens about the bosom. The meta- 
 phor is taken from the practice, still 
 common in the East, of carrying 
 young children in such aperture. 
 That of carrying on the shoulders is 
 also very common. Among the South 
 Sea islanders, it is a mark of honour 
 for females to be borne astride on 
 men’s shoulders. The queen of Ta- 
 heite is thus exhibited on the Plate, 
 representing the cession of a portion 
 of land to the London Missionary 
 Society. The prophet represents the 
 royal personages as rendering the 
 most profound homage to the Jews: 
 the acts here specified being those 
 usually performed to superiors in the 
 East. Ibn Batutu relates, that when 
 the daughter of the Sultan of Con- 
 stantinople, one of the wives of the 
 Sultan of Uzbek Tartary, returned on 
 a visit to her parents, and met them, 
 she alighted, and kissed the ground 
 before them, as well as the hoofs of 
 their horses. Travels, p. 82. The 
 prediction was fulfilled in the reigns 
 of Cyrus, Darius. Hystaspes, Arta- 
 
980 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 (CHAP: XL1x. 
 
 24 Shall the booty be taken from the mighty ? 
 Or the captive of the strong be rescued ? 
 
 25 Verily thus saith Jehovah : 
 
 The captive of the mighty shall be taken, 
 And the booty of the terrible shall be rescued : 
 For with him that contendeth with thee will I contend ; 
 
 And I will save thy children. 
 26 
 
 Yea, I will feed thine oppressors with their own flesh, 
 
 And they shall be drunk with their own blood, as with new 
 
 wine ; 
 
 And all flesh shall know that I, Jehovah, am thy Saviour, 
 And thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. 
 
 xerxes, Demetrius Nicator, Alexander 
 the Great, the Ptolemies, Esther, &c. 
 The address concludes with the assur- 
 ance that the sons of Zion should 
 experience the Divine faithfulness in 
 the fulfilment of the promises which 
 God had given them. 
 
 24—26. So completely were the 
 Jews in subjection to the tyrannical 
 power of Babylon, that there was no 
 rational prospect of deliverance. This 
 is strongly put in the interrogative 
 form, ver. 24; and, according to an 
 idiom of the language, a negative reply 
 is expected; but the two following 
 verses contain a pointed answer in the 
 affirmative, directing the attention of 
 the Jews to the almighty power of 
 God, as that by which their rescue 
 should assuredly be effected. pe "Ὁ 
 some of the ancient, and many modern 
 versions, render, the righteous or lawful 
 captive. As ?72, however, corresponds 
 to yrv, in the following verse, some 
 have supposed that the original 
 reading must have been yw "τῶ, she 
 captive of the terrible, and translate 
 accordingly. Lowth calls the present 
 reading a palpable mistake, and other- 
 wise expresses himself very confidently 
 on the point. It is, however, of great 
 antiquity ; LXX. ἀδίκως, giving to the 
 term a contrary signification ; Aq. 
 and Theod. δίκαιον ; Symm. δικαίου, 
 Zwinglius observes, “ Hic autem 
 Justus pro Robusto accipitur, quo- 
 modo Germanis, Redlich : quee vox et 
 justem et fortem significat.” Such is 
 actually the rendering of the Syriac, 
 
 a 9 ΩΣ 
 fromcss hme, the captive of the 
 
 strong, from eas , prevaluit, confortatus 
 est; Ethpa. fortiter egit. And this” 
 idea also attaches to the Arab. (340. 
 
 Thus Freytag, “Tum quoque verbo 
 significationem tribuerunt fortiler pug- 
 nandi,” conf. Hamak. Waked. p. 145, 
 vers. (Hoe ex dicendi modo ortum videtur 
 
 οι εὐ Ido .) Hence (3h0, sin- 
 i , “ 
 ceritas, robur ; ὥς “9 ck, 
 
 strenuus, gut impetu in hostem faciendo 
 veraz est. Kam. Alb. Schultens, turba 
 captiva bellatoris ; Moller, den Sterke ; 
 Tingstadius, en valdig segrare ; Paulus, 
 braver Soldat. I have not, therefore, 
 scrupled to render “the strong.” In 
 his second edition, Gesenius interprets, 
 “captives of the righteous,” ἡ. 6. con- 
 sisting of such ; but this is unsuitable 
 to the connexion. 
 
 26. O'DY, wine. fresh from the grape, 
 of which the Orientals are exceedingly 
 fond. A description of intestine 
 bloodshed. Before the capture of 
 Babylon by Cyrus, Evil-merodach had 
 been murdered by Neriglissor ; Labo- 
 rosoarchodus, the son and successor of 
 the latter, was likewise put to death ; 
 and, according to Xenophon, it was 
 two generals of the king of Babylon, 
 Gobrias and Gadarus, who had gone 
 over to Cyrus, that forced their way 
 into the palace, and slew the king. 
 Cyropeed. iv. vii. 
 
CHAP. L. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 9581 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 The beginning of this chapter intimately coheres with the preceding. 
 
 The 
 
 captivity was not strictly the act of Jehovah, but the result of the wicked- 
 ness of the Jews, 1 ; nevertheless by asserting his Omnipotence, the Servant 
 of Jehovah conveys an assurance of deliverance, 2, 3; vindicates to himself 
 the possession of those qualifications which fitted him to act as the great 
 Prophet of the church, 4, 5 ; adverts to his voluntary sufferings, 6; avows 
 his confidence in God for victory over his enemies, 7—9; calls upon the 
 pious to exercise faith and trust, 10 ; and denounces vengeance against such 
 
 as trusted in their own devices, 11. 
 
 1 Tuus saith Jehovah: 
 
 Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, 
 
 With which I dismissed her ? 
 
 Or, to which of my creditors have I sold you ? 
 
 Behold! for your iniquities are ye sold ; 
 
 And for your transgressions is your mother dismissed. 
 2 Why, when I came, was there no man? 
 
 When I called, was there none that answered ? 
 
 Is my hand at all too short to redeem ? 
 
 Or, have I no power to deliver ? 
 
 Behold! by my rebuke I dry up the sea, 
 
 And make the rivers a desert ; 
 
 Their fish stinketh for want of water, 
 
 And dieth for thirst. 
 
 1. Two metaphors are here em- 
 ployed: the one borrowed from a 
 state of matrimony ; the other, from 
 mercantile life. The Jewish church 
 is frequently represented as standing 
 in the relation of wife to Jehovah. To 
 prove that her sufferings did not 
 proceed from any arbitrary or self-in- 
 terested motive in him, he demands 
 the production of the bill of divorce,— 
 intimating that it would be found to 
 contain nothing to impeach his con- 
 duct. And, if it were alleged that he 
 had disposed of her for the sake of 
 advantage, let inquiry be made from 
 
 the person who had purchased her. No 
 such allegation could in truth be made. 
 The inference is, that if she return to 
 obedience she shall be graciously 
 received. 
 
 2, 3. The speaker in this and the 
 following verses is the Messiah, who 
 complains of the inattention and un- 
 belief of the Jewish people, and proves 
 his ability to save by appealing to the 
 mighty operations of his providence. 
 The subject implied is the deliverance 
 from Babylon, which was to be pre- 
 paratory to his coming in the flesh, » 
 and suffering, as described in the 
 
 3 B 
 
382 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. L. 
 
 3 I clothe the heavens with blackness, 
 And make sackcloth their covering. 
 
 4 
 taught ; 
 
 The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of those who are 
 
 That I may know how to succour the weary with a word ; 
 He wakeneth me every morning ; he wakeneth my ear, 
 That I may listen like those who are taught. 
 
 And I am not rebellious : 
 I turn not back. 
 I give my back to the smiters, 
 
 The Lord Jehovah openeth my ear, 
 
 And my cheeks to them that pluck the beard ; 
 My face I hide not from reproach and. spitting. 
 
 But the Lord Jehovah helpeth me ; 
 
 Therefore I shall not be confounded ; 
 Therefore I set my face as a flint ; 
 For I know that 1 shall not be put to shame. 
 
 He is near that justifieth me: 
 
 Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. 
 Who is my adversary ? Let him approach me. 
 9 Behold! the Lord Jehovah helpeth me: 
 
 following verses. Δα] yeh to be short 
 
 of hand, is a coramon phrase in Arabic 
 to denote powerlessness. On the 
 other hand, Artaxerxes Longimanus 
 was so called to describe his power. 
 4, Comp. xlix. 2; John viii. 28. The 
 Messiah was fully qualified to impart 
 Divine instruction and consolation. 
 This he refers to his Heavenly Father, 
 as John vii. 16, xvii. 8. Some take 
 ona in two different acceptations in 
 this verse ; in the first instance as 
 signifying expert; in the latter, dis- 
 ciples. It seems preferable to retain 
 the same interpretation of the word 
 in both cases. Comp. chap. viii. 16, 
 liv. 13. mw, the LXX. take in the 
 sense of timing a thing, speaking at 
 the proper season, τοῦ γνῶναι ἡνίκα 
 (Alex. MS. ἐν καιρῷ ἡνίκα) δεῖ εἰπεῖν 
 λόγον. It scems rather to signify the 
 imparting of mental succour, comfort, and 
 
 the like. Comp. the Arab. oye 
 ole , opem tulit, succurrit ; 
 
 ΝΞ 
 
 lel, the day of help ; Aq. ὑποστη- 
 ρίσαι ; Vulg. sustentare. Comp. chap. 
 lxi. 1—3; Matt. xi. 28. 
 
 5. Comp. Ps. xl. 6; Heb. x. 5. The 
 ideas of a Divine commission and 
 voluntary obedience are here taught. 
 How different the conduct of the 
 Messiah from that of Jonah! Comp. 
 Jer. xvii. 16. 
 
 6. Plucking the beard was, as it 
 still is, regarded in the East as the 
 greatest act of indignity, and is here 
 selected for the purpose of shewing to 
 what contempt and insult the Messiah 
 should be exposed. Comp. 2 Sam. x. 
 4,5; Isa. vii.20. Spitting in the face 
 was likewise considered in the highest 
 degree contemptuous. See Deut. xxv. 
 9; Numb. xii.14. For the fulfilment, 
 see the history of our Lord’s trial. 
 Comp. Micah ν. 1. 
 
 7—9. The language of assured 
 confidence respecting the issue of his 
 sufferings. Comp. Rom. i. 4; 1 Tim. 
 iii. 16. 
 
CHAP. 11.] 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 Who is he that condemneth me ? 
 
 Behold! they shall all decay like a garment ; 
 The moth shall consume them. 
 
 Who is there among you that feareth Jehovah ; 
 That obeyeth the voice of his Servant, 
 
 That walketh in darkness, and hath no light ? 
 Let him trust in the name of Jehovah, 
 
 And stay himself upon his God. 
 
 Behold! all ye that kindle a fire, 
 
 That surround yourselves with torches ; 
 
 Walk in the light of your fire, 
 
 383 
 
 And of the torches which ye have kindled : 
 This shall ye have at my hand, 
 
 Ye shall lie down in sorrow. 
 
 10. The 7m Ἣν is the same Servant 
 who is set forth chap. xlii. 1, 19, xlix. 
 5, liii. 11; and the persons described 
 are those who should embrace his 
 doctrines and submit to his authority. 
 Comp. Gen. xlix. 10; Rom. xvi. 26. 
 Whatever might be the afflictions and 
 persecutions to which they should be 
 subject on account of their fidelity to 
 his cause, they might confidently 
 reckon on Divine protection and sup- 
 port. To this they are excited by the 
 prophet. 
 
 11. Pursuing the metaphor which 
 had just been employed, this verse 
 describes the proud and self-righteous 
 confidence of the Jews who rejected 
 the Messiah, and the punishment in- 
 flicted upon them by the Romans. 
 They imagined that by means of their 
 own devising, they could obtain com- 
 
 fort and happiness ; but they became, 
 on the contrary, the subjects of a long 
 dark night of vexation and trouble. 
 mpr uN, lit. girding on torches, from 
 x, Zo gird, gird oneself; but here, more 
 generally, ¢o swrround. The term ex- 
 presses the number of expedients to 
 which the Jews should resort in order 
 to obtain relief. nip Gesenius renders 
 arrows; but this does not suit the 
 connexion,—the object of the persons 
 described not being to attack their 
 enemies, but to procure /ight for them- 
 selves. The noun seems to be derived 
 from P23 in the acceptation of binding ; 
 
 hence the Syr. 122) ,acord; such a 
 cord prepared and used as ὦ torch ; 
 
 Syr. [DaDroaa , flame; LXX φλόγα. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 The Jews in Babylon are further instructed to confide in God for their 
 restoration and prosperity, by reflecting on the numerous offspring which 
 he had raised up from their solitary progenitor Abraham, 1—3; the great 
 end of the restoration consisting in the introduction of the Gospel and its 
 
984 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LI. 
 
 blessings, 4, 5; the frailty and perishableness of the Babylonians and their 
 empire, 6—8; and the signal display of Divine power exhibited in the 
 deliverance of their fathers from Egyptian tyranny, 9,10. Jehovah then 
 expressly promises their redemption, 11; challenges their confidence in 
 his power and faithfulness, while he assures them of the happy result, 
 12—15; asserts the Divine commission of the Messiah to re-establish the 
 Jewish polity, 16; and calls upon the nation to rouse from its deplorable 
 condition, by an assurance, that, though all human help failed, his inter- 
 position was certain, and should prove effectual, 17—23. 
 
 1 HEARKEN to me, ye that pursue righteousness, 
 
 Ye that seek Jehovah ; 
 
 Look to the rock whence ye were hewn, 
 And to the hole of the pit whence ye were dug. 
 
 bo 
 
 And to Sarah that bare you: 
 
 Look to Abraham your father, 
 
 Though he was one when I called him, 
 Yet I blessed him, and made him many. 
 
 3 For Jehovah will have compassion upon Zion ; 
 He will have compassion upon all her wastes: 
 Yea, he will make her wilderness like Eden, 
 And her desert like the garden of Jehovah : 
 Joy and gladness shall be found in her, 
 Thanksgiving and the voice of praise. 
 
 4 Attend to me, O my people! 
 
 O my nation! give ear to me ; 
 
 For a law shall proceed from me, 
 
 And my statute will I establish for a light to the people. 
 5 My righteousness is near; my salvation goeth forth ; 
 
 Mine arms also shall judge the people: 
 
 1—3. On the vast increase of the 
 family of Abraham, according to the 
 Divine promise, Gen. xii. 1, 2, is 
 founded an argument to induce faith 
 in the restoration from Babylon, and 
 the increase and prosperity of the 
 Jewish state. The metaphors are 
 taken from the quarry. For the force 
 of 7x, in such application, comp. Ezek. 
 XXxill. 24, 
 
 4, 5. These verses are so obviously 
 parallel to chap. xlii. 1—4, 6, that 
 they must be regarded as referring 
 
 to the same subject—the establish- 
 ment of the gospel dispensation. To 
 this, in the plan of the Divine govern- 
 ment, the restoration of the Jews 
 was indispensable. For ‘ay, my people, 
 two MSS., one more originally, and 
 the Syr., read, "AY, people, in the 
 plural ; and for "29, my nation, seven 
 MSS., five more originally, and the 
 Syr., read ΘΝ, zations. According 
 to this alteration, the Gentiles, and 
 not the Jews, would be addressed ; 
 but the evidence in its favour is not 
 
CHAP. LI.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 385 
 
 For me the maritime lands shall wait, 
 
 And shall expect my arm. 
 
 6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, 
 And look upon the earth beneath ; 
 Verily, the heavens shall vanish like smoke, 
 And the earth decay like a garment, 
 And its inhabitants in like manner shall die: 
 But my salvation shall be eternal, 
 And my righteousness shall not be abolished. 
 7 Hearken to me, ye that know righteousness, 
 The people in whose heart is my law: 
 
 Fear not the reproach of men, 
 
 Neither be disheartened by their revilings. 
 
 8 For the moth shall consume them like a garment, 
 And the worm shall eat them like wool; 
 But my righteousness shall be eternal, 
 And my salvation to all generations. 
 
 9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Jehovah ! 
 Awake, as in ancient days, in the generations of antiquity. 
 Art thou not the same that cut Rahab in pieces ? 
 
 That wounded the dragon ? 
 10 
 
 Art thou not the same that dried up the sea, 
 The waters of the great abyss, 
 
 That made the depths of the sea 
 A way for the passage of the redeemed ? 
 
 to be weighed against that by which 
 the reading of the Textus Receptus 
 is supported, especially if we take the 
 internal evidence into the account. 
 v7, to restrain, allay, be quiet; im 
 Hiph. to cause to rest, settle, found. 
 
 6. That the natural universe of 
 created objects is here intended, the 
 context shews. Jehovah contrasts 
 with the perishable nature of all such 
 objects the durability of gospel bless- 
 ings. ΤΙΣ is a ἅπαξ Ney. Comp. the 
 
 Arab. os: valide incessit ; longe abi- 
 
 erunt per terram; and , celeriter 
 
 movit alas im volatu avis. Hence 
 δον fugiens ξ ΩΝ Jugitivus. The 
 
 idea of fleeting, transitory, seems to be 
 
 intended. Thus similarly παρελεύσον- 
 rar, 2 Pet. ii. 10. y2102 Gesenius 
 renders like a gnat, but less naturally. 
 Lowth, nearly the same ; only he had 
 the delicacy not to name the insect 
 he had in view. All the ancient ver- 
 sions take Ὶ9 adverbially. 
 
 7,8. The pious in Babylon, who 
 were exposed to the reproaches and 
 blasphemous scofts of their enemies, 
 are encouraged not to be affected by 
 their revilings. 
 
 9, 10. In the animated language of 
 poetry, Jehovah is represented as ad- 
 dressing his own Omnipotence, and 
 calling for its renewed exercise, for 
 the liberation of his people. For 
 722, Rosenm. compares θοῦριν ἐπι- 
 ειμένοι ἀλκὴν, Iliad, xviii. 157. 3, 
 Rahab, the poetical name of Egypt. 
 
386 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 19 
 
 ISAIAH. [CHAP, LI. 
 
 Thus shall the ransomed of the Lord return, 
 
 And come to Zion with singing ; 
 
 And everlasting joy shall be upon their heads ; 
 
 They shall obtain gladness and joy ; 
 
 And sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 
 
 I, I am he that comforteth you : 
 
 Who then art thou, that thou shouldst fear man, that shall die, 
 Or a son of man, that shall be treated as grass ? 
 
 And forget Jehovah thy Maker, 
 
 That stretched out the heavens, 
 
 And founded the earth ; 
 
 And be afraid continually every day, 
 
 Of the fury of the oppressor, 
 
 As if he were ready to destroy ? 
 But where is the fury of the oppressor ? 
 
 14 
 He shall not die in the pit ; 
 Nor be in want of his food. 
 
 15 For I, Jehovah, am thy God, 
 
 See on chap. xxx. 7. For 135, see on 
 chap. xxvii. 1—The Infin. 4x? may 
 best be rendered substantively. 
 
 11. The ) introduces the apodosis, 
 and is best rendered by thus, so, or 
 
 Ω . . (A 
 the like. So Kimchi: 73 ~o2H” 
 
 saat mw Ὗ Ὁ» 5, 2.6. the Vau in 75) 
 stands for }2, for Vau is used to ex- 
 press the similitude or correspondence 
 of things. For 303, thirty-nine MSS., 
 originally eighteen more, now two, 
 two of the earliest editions, and the 
 Syr., read 10, from which it has been 
 supposed that the text originally 
 stood 1px 12", especially as the words 
 occur thus, chap. xxxv. 10, which is 
 otherwise identical with the present 
 text. 
 
 12, 13. In mx, Thou, fem., Zion is 
 addressed. The same gender is em- 
 ployed in the verbs. That Wx2 is 
 properly rendered, as if, comp. Job x. 
 19; Zech. x. 6. It must, however, 
 be noticed, that the > is omitted in 
 thirty-two MSS. ; originally in eight 
 more; and in some early editions. 
 The pointed question at the close of 
 
 Speedily shall the bending prisoner be released ; 
 
 ver. 13, beautifully introduces the 
 prediction, ver. 14. 
 
 14, av, the bending prisoner, pro- 
 bably in allusion to the custom of 
 putting a prisoner into the πεντεσύ- 
 ptyyos, or five-holed wooden machine, 
 which held the body in a_bent 
 posture, the head as well as the hands 
 and feet being fixed in it. A more 
 distressing posture cannot well be 
 imagined. See Michaelis’ Comment. 
 on the Laws of Moses, vol. iii. p. 443. 
 Comp. Jer. ii. 20; and the Arab. 
 
 law, 50» inclinatus, curvatus futt, 
 reclinavit caput ; 52» “52. inclinatio. 
 
 Lowth, misled by a different use of 
 the term, chap. Ixii. 1, renders, He 
 marcheth on, &c., contrary to the 
 exigency of the following 727), in 
 Niphal. 172 is often used adverbially 
 to express the idea of haste or speed. 
 nm}, here, as 43, Jer. xxviii. 6, Zech. 
 ix. 11, means a cistern without water, 
 converted into a dungeon. 
 
 15, 16. The gender is now changed 
 for the masculine. The person ad- 
 
CHAP. 11.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 387 
 
 That calmeth the sea, when the waves thereof roar : 
 
 Jehovah of Hosts is his name. 
 And I have put my words into thy mouth ; 
 
 16 
 
 Yea, with the shadow of my hand have I covered thee ; 
 To plant the heavens, and to found the earth ; 
 And to say to Zion, Thou art my people. 
 
 17 
 
 Rouse thyself, rouse thyself; arise, O J erusalem ! 
 
 Thag hast drunk from the hand of Jehovah the cup of his fury ; 
 That hast drunk, yea, drunk off the goblet, 
 
 The cup of intoxication. 
 18 
 
 She has none to lead her of all the sons she bare ; 
 
 ‘Nor any of all the sons she nurtured to take her by the hand. 
 19 These two things have happened to thee ; 
 
 dressed is the Messiah, to whom 
 alone the predicates employed can, 
 with any propriety, be applied. Comp. 
 chap. xlii. 1, xlix. 1, 2; with which 
 last verse, the former half of the 
 second of the present verses is paral- 
 lel. The 9 in -¥%02), 16°9, and 7x2, con- 
 nects with the person addressed, and 
 expresses the end or purpose for 
 which he was instructed or employed. 
 The creation ascribed to him is that 
 of the new Jewish world, the new 
 state of things to be established after 
 the captivity. Comp. 2 Cor. v. 17, 
 where a complete spiritual renovation 
 is called a καινὴ κτίσις. The Hebrews 
 were accustomed to speak of a great 
 political or ecclesiastical revolution 
 as the destruction or creation of the 
 heavens and the earth, chap. xiii. 13, 
 Ixv. 17, 18, Ixvi. 22. y2) is not, as 
 Lowth imagines, a mistake for nO, 
 but the proper term by which to 
 denote the fixing or establishment of 
 the heavens, conceived of as a ¢ent,— 
 a metaphor not unusual with the 
 ' sacred writers. It signifies fo plant, 
 in the sense of fixing or driving into 
 the ground, the pins or pegs to which 
 the cords of a tent are fastened. The 
 ‘Logos, as the Angel that was with 
 the O. T. church, (comp. -chap. Ixiii. 
 9; Acts vii. 38,) was to bring back 
 the Jews and establish them, as before, 
 in their own land. 
 
 17. The interposition of the Divine 
 Redeemer was indispensable, for Jeru- 
 salem was reduced to a state of utter 
 
 helplessness. This is forcibly ex- 
 pressed in metaphors taken from the 
 use and effects of intoxicating liquors. 
 The wrath or anger of Jehovah is 
 represented as constituting the ingre- 
 dients of a large cup which he had 
 put into the hand of the devoted city, 
 by drinking the entire contents of 
 which she had stupified herself, stag- 
 gered and fallen to the ground. In 
 this prostrate condition she lay, in- 
 capable of helping herself, and with- 
 out any one of her citizens to assist 
 her. They might struggle and toss, 
 but it would only be like the vain 
 efforts of the oryx to extricate him- 
 self from the net in which he is 
 entangled. At length Jehovah inter- 
 poses, and transfers the cup to her 
 oppressors, who, in their turn, ar 
 reduced to the same condition, while 
 she, on the contrary, is completely 
 restored. Comp. Jer. xxv. 15—31, 
 xlix, 12, li. 7; Lam. iv. 215; Ezek. 
 Xx. SI—35; Rev. xiv. 10. The 
 passage is justly considered by Lowth, 
 as exhibiting sublime poetry of the 
 highest order. ‘yn7 ivnT is much 
 more emphatic than the simple "YY 
 “pr, ver. 9, though even there the 
 repetition gives ‘intensity to the 
 style. 729, Syr. ἔ , Arab. Sar sucit, 
 
 exsuxit, raeans to drink greedily, drink 
 off, to the dregs. 
 
 19. What the two things here re- 
 ferred to are has been disputed. 
 The more natural solution of the 
 
388 
 
 Who shall bemoan thee ?— 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LI. 
 
 Desolation and destruction; famine also, and sword : 
 Who ? I myself will comfort thee. 
 
 20 
 Like the oryx in a net; 
 
 Thy sons swoon; they lie at the head of all the streets, 
 
 They are full of the fury of Jehovah, 
 
 The rebuke of thy God. 
 21 
 
 Wherefore, hear now this, thou afflicted, 
 
 And drunken, but not with wine. 
 
 22 
 
 Thus saith thy Lord, Jehovah, 
 
 And thy God, the Defender of his people: 
 Behold! I will take out of thy hand the cup of intoxication, 
 The goblet, the cup of my fury : 
 
 Thou shalt drink it no more. 
 23 
 
 But I will put it into the hand of thine oppressors, 
 
 That have said to thee, Bow down, that we may pass over ; 
 And thou madest thy back like the ground, 
 And as the street to the passengers. 
 
 difficulty is to regard the four nouns 
 which follow as divisible into pairs : 
 Ww and 712 describing the destruction 
 of the city ; 12) and 297, that of its 
 inhabitants. The prefixed to each 
 of the nouns is not without emphasis. 
 After Ὁ, who, we should have ex- 
 pected Jou, shall comfort thee? Wut 
 Jehovah suppresses the rest of the 
 question, and at once replies, 7272, 
 1 will comfort thee. The ancient ver- 
 sions, with the exception of the Targ., 
 express the third person. 
 
 20. sin, the LXX. strangely render, 
 σευτλίον ἡμίεφθον, a half-cooked beet ; 
 but Aquil., Symm., and Theod., ὄρυξ, 
 the oryx, which is also the rendering 
 of the Vulg. The LXX., however, 
 give ὄρυξ as the meaning of inn, 
 Deut. xiv. 5, of which the form in 
 the present instance is doubtless a 
 contraction. The oryx is an animal 
 of the antelope species, which, in the 
 East, is still caught in a net. 
 
 21, See chap. xxix. 9. Owing to 
 
 the close connexion between n12% and 
 ὯΝ, the former word is put in the 
 construct. form, though both 8%) and 
 intervene. 
 
 22. 29, from 2, ¢o contend, plead 
 Jor, defend, is here a noun signifying 
 a defender ; one who maintains, or vin- 
 dicates the cause of another. Comp. 
 av, Hos. v. 13, x. 6; and the parti- 
 cipial form, Isa. xix. 20. 
 
 23. JwH2, to thy soul, i.e. according 
 to a common Hebraism, ¢o thee. The 
 metaphor here employed is taken 
 from the haughty and degrading 
 manner in which Oriental kings treat 
 their captives. Ibn Batuta relates, 
 that when the negroes who appeared 
 before the black sultan at Mali, in 
 Nigritia, fell down, they laid bare 
 their backs, and covered their heads 
 with dust, as tokens of the most 
 profound submission : by the former, 
 indicating that he might walk over 
 their naked backs. See also Lowth’s 
 Note. 
 
CHAP. LII.] ISATAH. 389 
 
 CHAPTER 1171]. 1—12. 
 
 The first twelve verses of this chapter continue the subject with which the 
 preceding closes—the restoration from Babylon. Jerusalem is called upon 
 to change her position, 1, 2; reasons are given by Jehovah for his gracious 
 interference in behalf of the captives, 3—6 ; the joyful announcement of 
 the event, and the universal joy it would occasion to the liberated, are next 
 introduced, 7, 8; Jerusalem, as the metropolis of Judza, is summoned to 
 participate in the joy, while the surrounding nations behold the wonderful 
 display of Divine power and goodness, 9, 10. The address concludes with 
 a direct call to the captives to leave Babylon, taking no idolatrous thing 
 
 with them, and calmly confiding in their Almighty Deliverer, 11, 12. 
 
 The 
 
 remaining three verses form the commencement of the celebrated prophecy 
 of the Messiah, which is continued throughout the following chapter. 
 
 1 AWAKE, awake, put on thy splendour, O Zion! 
 Put on thy beautiful array, O Jerusalem! the holy city ; 
 For the un¢ircumcised and profane shall enter thee no more. 
 
 2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, take thy seat, O Jerusalem ! 
 Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, 
 
 O captive daughter of Zion! 
 3 For thus saith Jehovah: 
 
 As ye sold yourselves for nought, 
 So ye shall be redeemed without money. 
 
 1, 2. signifies both strength and 
 glory. Here the latter acceptation is 
 required by the parallel Myon, deau- 
 teous array. SD) TY, the uncircumcised 
 and the impure, are to be restricted to 
 the Babylonians, who had entered the 
 holy city, carried off its inhabitants, 
 and made it desolate. They had 
 proved the most formidable enemy 
 the Jews ever had ; but nothing fur- 
 ther was to be apprehended from them. 
 Comp. Nah. i. 15, where similar lan- 
 guage is employed respecting the As- 
 syrian power. To explain the passage 
 of other foreigners, would lay it open 
 to contradiction from facts of history : 
 Antiochus Epiphanes in particular 
 having exerted a more polluting and 
 
 irreligious influence in Jerusalem, than 
 even the Chaldeans; while the Ro- 
 mans also took and destroyed it. Its 
 application to the Christian Church is 
 equally unsatisfactory. νὰ, sif, de- 
 notes, in such connexion, to occupy 
 an elevated seat or throne; and is 
 opposed to the prostrate condition 
 described at the end of the preceding 
 chapter. The Keri 7m5n7 is found in 
 the text of a number of MSS., and in 
 the Soncin., Brix., and Complut. 
 Editions. 
 
 3. As the 1 in 8% is the Vau adaqua- 
 tionis, it is implied before 037, which 
 introduces the protasis. Comp. chap. 
 li. 11. For the sentiment, see chap. 
 xlv. 13. 
 
 ag 
 
ὅ90 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LII. 
 
 4 For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: 
 My people went down at first into Egypt, to dwell there, 
 And Assyria oppressed them at the last. 
 5 And now, what have I here, saith Jehovah, 
 That my people should be taken away for nought? 
 They that rule over them, howl, saith Jehovah ; 
 And continually, every day, my name is blasphemed. 
 6 Assuredly, my people shall know my name ; 
 Assuredly, they shall know in that day, 
 That I am the Promiser: Behold me! 
 7 How beautiful upon the mountains the feet of him that publish- 
 
 eth good news! 
 
 That announceth peace, that publisheth good, 
 That announceth salvation, saying to Zion: 
 
 Thy God reigneth ! 
 
 8 Thy watchmen shall raise their voice ; 
 With their voice shall they sing together ; 
 
 For eye to eye shall they see, 
 
 4, 5. Two instances of oppression, 
 from which Jehovah had delivered his 
 people, are here specified, to assure 
 them that he would again deliver them. 
 The latter was that of Sennacherib. 
 Though 2x3 is nowhere else used in 
 a temporal sense, yet the exigency of 
 the parallelism requires it to be so 
 taken in this place. 75 refers to 
 heaven, the place of God’s immediate 
 presence. The interrogation strongly 
 implies, that God would not, in the 
 afflicted circumstances of the Jews, 
 remain inactive, but would descend 
 and interpose for their deliverance. 
 Their gratuitous oppression in Baby- 
 lon, and the contempt poured upon 
 his holy character by the Babylonians, 
 are adduced as motives for such inter- 
 position. There is generally supposed 
 to be a reference to this passage in 
 Rom. ii. 24; but it rather seems to be 
 to Ezek. xxxvi. 22, 23. 
 
 6. After the second 135, supply >? 
 from the preceding. To know the 
 name of God is to be practically and 
 experimentally acquainted with the 
 Divine character :—here, especially, 
 the Divine faithfulness. 
 
 7—9. Messengers are sent before- 
 
 hand to Judea, to announce the 
 deliverance. They are seen hastening 
 over the mountains,—an object most 
 grateful to the spectators. The joyful 
 proclamation is made, that the God of 
 Zion reigns. The watchmen on the 
 ruinous walls of Jerusalem, as with 
 one voice, repeat the news. The eye 
 of each inhabitant catches that of his 
 fellow: all is ecstasy at the joyful 
 event. The language employed is, in 
 part, employed elsewhere, as chap. xl. 
 9, xliv. 23, xlix. 13, but nowhere is 
 the whole combined ashere. Nahum 
 uses the identical phraseology re- 
 specting the messengers who an- 
 nounced the destruction of Nineveh, 
 chap. ii. 1 (Eng. Trans. i. 15); and the 
 Apostle Paul quotes it in illustration 
 of his statements relative to the first 
 preachers of the Gospel, Rom. x. 15. 
 The point of beauty in the feet of the 
 messengers is not their being torn and 
 dusty, as Campbell expounds, which, 
 though presenting a spectacle natu- 
 rally offensive, yet are, in consideration 
 of the welcome message, converted 
 into one that is pleasing and delight- 
 ful; but the speed with which they 
 bear the messengers forward. In 4p 
 
CHAP. LI. | 
 
 When Jehovah restoreth Zion. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 591 
 
 9 Burst out, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem ! 
 For Jehovah hath comforted his people ; 
 
 He hath redeemed Jerusalem. 
 Jehovah hath made bare his holy arm 
 
 10 
 Before all the nations ; 
 
 And all the ends of the earth shall see 
 
 The salvation of our God. 
 11 
 Touch not the unclean ; 
 
 Go out from the midst of her; 
 
 Depart ye, depart ye, go out thence ; 
 
 Be pure, ye that bear the vessels of Jehoyah ! 
 
 12 
 
 For ye shall not go out with haste, 
 
 Neither shall ye proceed in flight ; 
 
 For Jehovah goeth before you, 
 The God of Israel shall also bring up your rear. 
 
 is an ellipsis of 3, which is. very 
 common. For the true meaning of 
 mm 2103, in opposition to Lowth’s 
 construction, see Ps. xiv. 7. pya py, 
 eye in eye, or eye to eye, is generally 
 explained as signifying clearness of 
 vision, or unanimity of opinion. 
 There does not appear to be any 
 thing in the connexion to warrant 
 such exegesis. The phrase occurs 
 besides only in Numb. xiv. 14, where 
 it is used for the purpose of expressing 
 the indubitable certainty of the Divine 
 manifestations to Israel. Here the 
 subject is not the discovery or revela- 
 tion of the mind of God, but the joy 
 felt on hearing of the downfal of 
 Babylon. Nothing is more natural 
 than for one person whose feelings 
 are elated with joy, to look to the 
 glistening eyes of another who is 
 equally interested in the cause by 
 which it is produced. The phrases, 
 mm 23 72, Numb: xii. 8, and Ὁ} ox 028, 
 Exod, xxxiii, 11, are not exactly 
 parallel. The change of dD into 
 ΟΣ is obviously by emendation. 
 
 10. This verse is anticipative of 
 chap. hii. 1. The restoration from 
 Babylon was to be introductory to a 
 greater deliverance, in which all the 
 inhabitants of the world should be 
 personally interested. 
 
 11. The Jews in general, and the 
 
 » 
 
 priests in particular, are summoned 
 to leave the place of their captivity ; 
 and, by purification and separation 
 from every idolatrous and sinful ob- 
 ject, to prepare for their return to 
 the holy land. In dw and azine, Baby- 
 Jon 18 understood by implication. 
 Comp. chap. xlviii. 20. So far as 
 external obedience was concerned, 
 there is every reason to conclude that 
 this order was punctually obeyed. To 
 bear the sacred vessels would naturally 
 devolve upon the priests, though 
 committed by Cyrus to the care of 
 Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah, 
 Ezra i. 7—11, v. 13—15, vi. 5. Comp. 
 for the sentiment, Rev. xviii. 4. Part 
 of the words are appropriated by Paul, 
 2 Cor. vi. 17, for the purpose of 
 warning Christians against having any 
 fellowship with idolaters. 
 
 12. The exodus from Babylon was 
 to be very different from that out of 
 Egypt. 187, hasty flight, is the very 
 term employed, Exod. xii, 11, Deut. 
 xvi. 3, to express the hasty manner in 
 which the Hebrews ate the passover 
 on the eve of their departure from 
 the latter country. The metaphor of 
 the van and rear-guard is likewise 
 borrowed from the same _ history, 
 Exod. χῖν. 19. Under the immediate 
 protection of Jehovah, their covenant 
 God, the Jews had nothing to fear. 
 
392 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LII. 
 
 CHAPTER LIT. 13—LIII. 
 
 That a new section of the book, including these fifteen verses, begins here, is 
 universally admitted. The prominence given to the SERVANT OF JEHOVAH; 
 the depth of his humiliation ; his unpretending and unpromising appear- 
 ance; the vicarious nature of his sufferings and death; his subsequent 
 exaltation, success, conquests, and glory,—present a fout-ensemble of cha- 
 racter unequalled by any exhibited elsewhere in Scripture. The prophet 
 collects into one focus the various rays of light which he and preceding 
 seers had scattered abroad for the purpose of revealing to the Jewish 
 people the Illustrious Deliverer that was to come. Hence the unparalleled 
 perspicuity of the prophecy, and the facility with which all its parts apply 
 to the Messiah ; while every attempt to excogitate hypotheses in support 
 ofyother subjects has only obscured and perplexed it. 
 
 That the Jews would violently oppose the application of the passage to Jesus 
 of Nazareth was naturally to be expected. When adduced, in argument 
 with them, by Origen, they explained it of the sufferings of their own 
 nation ; and this hypothesis is adopted by Jarchi, Abenezra, Kimchi, Abar- 
 banel, and Lipmann ; only some of these writers are of opinion that the 
 pious part of the nation is intended. Some few have endeavoured to 
 interpret it of the pious king Josiah; and others, among whom Saadias 
 Haggaon, of the prophet Jeremiah. Jonathan, however, in his Targum, the 
 Midrash Tanhuma, the Pesikta, Moses Haddarshan, the Talmud, the Mid- 
 rash Tillim, and the books Rabboth, Chasidim, and Zohar, more or less 
 unreservedly apply it to the Messiah ; and Rabbi Alshech, in his Commen- 
 tary on the prophecy, avows it as his opinion that such application of it is 
 obviously the right one. To which may be added, that of those Jews who 
 have truly embraced the Christian faith, most have been impelled to take 
 the step by the evidence which the prophecy Puppy of the identity of 
 the suffering and glorified Messiah. 
 
 Grotius was the first professedly Christian author sit interpreted the section 
 of any other than our Saviour. His hypothesis, however, that Jeremiah 
 was intended, has not been adopted by any, except Seidel, and Collins, in 
 his Scheme of Literal Prophecy. Schuster, Eichhorn, Telge, Stephani, 
 Rosenmiiller in his later Commentaries, Hitzig, and others, interpret the 
 section of the Jewish people collectively ; while Paulus, Ammon, Maurer, 
 and Thenius, suppose the pious portion of that people to be meant. 
 According to the earlier opinion of Rosenmiiller, which he abandoned, but 
 which has been adopted by De Wette and Gesenius, the prophetic order, or 
 the collective body of the prophets, forms the subject of the prediction. 
 Other hypotheses of minor note may be seen in Hengstenberg, as quoted, 
 chap. xlii. 1. 
 
 The exclusive application of the passage to Christ was more or less ably 
 
CHAP. LII. | ISATAH. 393 
 
 justified by several of the Fathers in their controversies both with Jews 
 and Pagans. In modern times its defence has been sustained by J. H. and 
 J. Ὁ. Michaelis, Moldenhauer, Lowth, Koppe, Kocher, Dathe, Déderlein, 
 Cube, Henzler, Hezel, Hess, Storr, Hansi, Martini, v.d. Palm, Scholz, and 
 others; and more especially by Hengstenberg, wf swp.,and Reinke in his 
 admirable Exegesis Critica in Jesaiz, cap. lii. 13—liii. 12, seu de Messia Ex- 
 piatore Passuro et Morituro Commentatio, &c. Minster, 1836, 8vo. To these 
 two writers I refer the reader, since they may be regarded as having ex- 
 hausted the subject, and supplied the best critical expositions of the pro- 
 phecy. Those who may not have access to their works will find a brief but 
 very satisfactory reply to the arguments of Gesenius, in Dr. J. Pye Smith’s 
 Four Discourses on the Sacrifice and Priesthood of Christ, London, 1828, 
 note ix. p. 260. That it was our Redeemer alone that'the prophet had in 
 his eye, must be admitted by all who fully allow the Divine authority of 
 the N. T., and have impartially examined the following passages, in which 
 certain parts of the prediction are either referred to, or expressly quoted 
 with such application : Matt. viii. 17; Mark xv. 28 ; Luke xxii. 37 ; John i. 
 29, xii. 38, 41; Acts viii. 30—35 ; Rom. x. 16; 1 Pet. ii. 21—25. 
 
 In chap. lii. 13—15, Jehovah introduces the Messiah, and announces his exalta- 
 tion and preceding sufferings ; liii. 1—10 contains the language of the pro- 
 phet, complaining of the infidelity of the Jews, 1; describing the scandal 
 and contempt with which they regarded his humble and suffering condition, 
 2,3; asserting the cause of his sufferings to be the sins of others, 4—6; 
 setting forth several remarkable circumstances connected with them, 7—9 ; 
 and predicting the glorious effects in which they should result, 10. At the 
 middle of ver. 11, a renewed declaration commences, which is confirmatory 
 of what had been previously advanced respecting the work of the Messiah, 
 the propitiatory nature of his sufferings, and the certainty of his remunera- 
 tive triumphs, 11, 12. 
 
 13 BreHo“p! my Servant shall prosper ; 
 He shall be raised, and extolled, and highly exalted. 
 
 13. This and the two following 
 verses form the text on which chap. 
 liii. may be said to be a commentary. 
 From the deliverance to be effected 
 by Cyrus, the prophet makes a sudden, 
 but natural transition to that infi- 
 nitely more glorious salvation which 
 the Messiah should effect ; and shews 
 that the latter was to be achieved, not 
 by conquest, but by suffering. 737 is 
 here used δεικτικώς, for the purpose of 
 drawing special attention to Him and 
 his work. For 7%" 72¥, comp. xli. 1, 
 19, xlix. 3, 5, 1. 8 As Cyrus had 
 
 succeeded and attained toa high pitch 
 of worldly elevation and renown, so 
 the greater future Deliverer should 
 prosper in his spiritual undertaking, 
 and be crowned with glory and honour. 
 y27, most of the ancient versions 
 have taken in the acceptation of being 
 prudent, intelligent, &c.; but the ren- 
 dering of the Targ. sto IP Mz? NF, 
 “Behold! my Servant the Messiah 
 shall prosper,” better suits the con- 
 nexion. That the verb has this signi- 
 fication, see Deut. xxix. 9 ; Josh. 1. 7, 
 8; Prov, xvii. 8; and, as here, in 
 
ὦ ee 
 
 394 
 
 14 
 
 ia ISALAH. 
 
 [CHAP. 1111. 
 
 a. 
 s many were shocked at thee, 
 
 (Such was the disfiguration of his appearance more than that of 
 
 any man, 
 
 And of his form more than that of the sons of men :) 
 
 εἴ. Βο shall he sprinkle many nations: 
 
 Kings shall shut their mouths on account of him ; 
 For what had not been told them, they shall see ; 
 And what they had not heard, they shall perceive. 
 
 reference to the Messiah, Jer. xxiii. 
 δ. 7722) 87) DTV are Ssynonymes em- 
 ployed to express the superlative ex- 
 altation and glory of the Redeemer. 
 Comp. Eph. i. 20—23 ; Phil. ii.9—11; 
 Heb. ii. 7—9. The Midrash Tanhuma, 
 taking each of the verbs separately, ex- 
 plains the passage thus : moan 7 ΠῚ 
 ΒΝ YO TIN MoD NON OAK yO ON— 
 mot, This is the King Messiah,—who 
 shall be higher than Abraham, more ele- 
 vated than Moses, and exalted above the 
 ministering angels. 
 
 14, 15. To the words Ἰοὺ Wwx2, Ke. 
 forming the protasis, correspond ΠΡ 73, 
 &c. which introduce the apodosis. The 
 72, in ver. 14, is merely expletive of 
 what precedes it, and introduces an 
 exegetical parenthesis. The change 
 of 2, at thee, into YY, at him, which 
 is the reading of two MSS., the Targ., 
 and Syr., is doubtless an emendation. 
 Similar instances of enallage of person 
 are not uncommon in Hebrew poetry. 
 The 14th verse commences with a 
 direct address, which form gives way 
 to the use of the third person, more 
 appropriately used in description, and 
 is not resumed, OW is used intran- 
 sitively to express the shock felt by 
 the mind on the discovery of any un- 
 expected object or event. Here, as in 
 Jer. ii. 12, xviii. 16, xix. 8, it conveys 
 the idea of disappointment and aver- 
 sion. With such feelings the bulk of 
 the Jewish people (02) regarded our 
 Saviour ; and consequently derived no 
 benefit from his atonement. When, 
 on the other hand, he was preached 
 unto the Gentiles (ἔθνεσιν, 03), they 
 believed, and participated in its bless- 
 ings. nm is the construct. of Nw, 
 corruption, deformity, disfigurement, from 
 nm, ¢o corrupt, spoil, deface. It is in 
 
 construction with 27872, though sepa- 
 rated from it by xp, just as V23 is 
 from 0", in DX sax 23, Job xv. 10. 
 See also Isa. xix. 8. The preposition 
 ΤῸ is here, as in the clause just quoted 
 from Job, to be taken in its compara- 
 tive, and not, with Hengstenberg, Hit- 
 zig, and Reinke, in its negative or 
 privative acceptation. Filling up the 
 ellipses, the passage will read thus: 
 ASAD TNA NTO Ws AVON WANT NT 72 
 Dis 33, Such was the disfigurement of his 
 countenance, more than that of the counte- 
 nance of any man, and the disfigurement of 
 his form more than that of the form of the 
 sons of men. In the second line of a pa- 
 rallelism, the term which expresses the 
 thing compared is frequently omitted. 
 Some of the moderns, after Jerome, 
 limit the description here given to the 
 humble and abject condition of the 
 Messiah ; but, that the effects of the 
 bodily injuries inflicted upon him, as 
 well as of the intense mental anguish 
 to which he was subject, are likewise 
 to be taken into the account, the 
 minute detail of his sufferings in 
 
 the following chapter abundantly 
 proves. oa) ΝᾺ ΠΡ 72. The verb 73, 
 
 which occurs here in the Hiph. Con- 
 jugation, signifies, in every other 
 instance, ¢o sprinkle, besprinkle. 'The 
 idea of leaping for joy, exulting, &e., to 
 which Gesenius assigns the primary 
 place in his Lexicon, is unsustained 
 by a single example from Hebrew 
 usage, or from any of the kindred 
 
 dialects. The Arab. Ι» which has 
 
 been compared, has no such signi- 
 fication,—the rendering, erul/avit pre 
 hilaritate, which Golius gives from 
 the Kamdos, being founded on an 
 erroneous reading. See Freytag. In 
 
CHAP. 1.11.]} 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 395 
 
 CHAPTER 1111. 
 
 1 Who hath believed our report ? 
 And to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed ? 
 
 Ethiopic the corresponding verb is 
 VHS <7, respersit, conspersit ; hence 
 
 ‘@MTH'S: LUV: the sprinkling of blood, 
 Heb. xi. 28; ΣΉ ΠΤ : EYL : the 
 same, xii.24;and ΠΡ HET: GOU: 
 
 AH.Preri : ACI : through 
 
 the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, 
 i 'Pet, “1 2. ‘Comp.’ Heby *ix.” 19! 
 
 MVRIHS: σὺ χά. : ACT: 
 
 (Ὁ Π“ Δο: (VHD : ad sprinkled the 
 
 book of the law, and all the people. The 
 Vulg. and Syr. accordingly render, 
 
 “- v wi 
 asperget gentes multas: [πωλῶν jo Foe) 
 
 v 
 (lone purifying ov expiating many 
 
 nations. With such support we may 
 dismiss the derivations of Schroeder, 
 Gesenius, Martini, Michaelis, and 
 others, and acquiesce in the decision 
 of First, in his Heb. Concord. “ At 
 vero nil impedit, quominus etiam hoc 
 loco ingenitam verbi significationem 
 retineamus.” This signification he 
 shews to be rigure, irrigare, inspergere, 
 adspergere, imbuere. On consulting the 
 passages in the Levitical code in which 
 the verb occurs, instances will be 
 found of an ellipsis both of the mate- 
 rial sprinkled, and the preposition %, 
 upon, just as in the present case. See 
 Lee’s Sermons and Dissert. pp. 199— 
 202. The ceremonial use of the term, 
 and the N. T. allusions to it, quoted 
 above, shew the meaning to be, that 
 the Messiah would extend to the 
 nations the purifying efficacy of his 
 blood. The offence taken at him by 
 the Jews, and the experience of his 
 salvation by the numerous Gentile 
 nations (0°21 0%3), form a striking anti- 
 thesis. For 72 y2p, fo shut the mouth, 
 
 comp. Job xxix. 9. It means, to 
 maintain a respectful silence, and so 
 to acknowledge the superiority of the 
 person to whom it is shewn. 7x} here 
 signifies to perceive mentally. The 
 preaching of the Gospel, as the means 
 of extending throughout the world 
 the blessings of redemption, is clearly 
 implied in the prophetic description ; 
 while the history of the Church abun- 
 dantly exhibits the fulfilment of the 
 prediction. 
 
 Cuapter LIII.—1. The prophet re- 
 sumes the subject of the offence taken 
 by the Jews at the meanness of our 
 Lord’s outward appearance ; and to 
 intimate, that few, if any of them, 
 would receive the testimony borne by 
 himself and other divinely-inspired 
 messengers on the subject, he asks, 
 Who hath believed, &.? πυνοῦ or 
 mow is properly the Pah. Part. and 
 signifies what has been heard by any 
 one. Chrysostom so understands it 
 here: οὐκ εἶπε, τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ ἡμῶν 
 ἐνταῦθα δεικνὸς, ὅτι οὐκ οἴκοθέν τι ἐφθέγ- 
 γοντο ἀλλ᾽ ἅπερ ἤκουσαν παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ 
 ταῦτα ἀπήγγελαν. Thus also Martini, 
 Jahn, Rosenmiiller, and others. That 
 it was not, however, intended to con- 
 vey the idea of the Divine origin of 
 the message, appears from the zwsus 
 loquendi, according to which it is em- 
 ployed actively, to denote a report or 
 testimony communicated to and heard 
 
 by others. Comp.the Ethiopic f}"UUg, 
 
 audivit, testificatus est; FY (7, cesti- 
 
 mony. UXX. ἀκοὴ, Rom. x. 16. Targ. 
 NIANDI, our announcement. YIN, arm, 
 like δ, hand, denotes power as put 
 forth in act. The meaning is, that 
 few would recognise in the Messiah 
 the efficacious interposition of Jeho- 
 vah for the deliverance of Israel. To 
 such, however, as believed, he was 
 Θεοῦ δύναμιν καὶ Θεοῦ σοφίαν, 1 Cor. i. 
 
396 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP LITT. 
 
 2 For he grew up like a sucker before them, 
 And like a root out of dry ground: 
 He had neither form nor splendour, that we should regard him ; 
 Nor appearance, that we should desire him. 
 3 He was despised and contemned by men, 
 A man of sorrows, and familiar with grief, 
 
 24. No importance is to be attached 
 to the use of ὅν, instead of ?and 5x, 
 which, in all other instances, follow 
 723, since these prepositions are other- 
 wise often interchangeable. Comp. 
 
 the Arab. le | Je, in Harir. 
 
 2. The Ὁ in YY is causal, and, at the 
 same time, connects the verb with 
 yy, chap. 11]. 15: the subject being 
 the Servant of Jehovah there spoken 
 of. my is frequently used of the 
 growth of plants. 72%, properly a suck- 
 ling ; here a sucker or shoot sprouting 
 up from the root of a tree that has 
 been cut down to the ground. Hence 
 ww, roof, the corresponding syno- 
 nyme ; meaning that which springs from 
 the root. Comp.a similar metaphorical 
 use of this word, and of 7 and ¥3, 
 chap. xi. 1, and the note on that verse. 
 The suffix in Y28? cannot, with any 
 propriety, be referred to Jehovah ; 
 since it was not in his estimation, but 
 in that of the Jewish people, that the 
 Messiah was as a root out of a dry 
 ground. It is true, DY, people, does not 
 precede; but it is obviously under- 
 stood in the interrogative Ὁ, in the 
 foregoing verse. 0Y2 Ὁ, Who among the 
 people; i.e. the Jews. A more insig- 
 nificant and unpromising object can- 
 not well be imagined, than a solitary 
 sprout in an arid soil, and under a 
 sultry oriental sky. The figure strik- 
 ingly sets forth the reduced and ob- 
 scure condition of the family of David 
 at the time of our Lord’s appearance. 
 Of the application of part of the lan- 
 guage to the Virgin Mary, by Euse- 
 bius, Theodoret, Jerome, and other 
 Fathers, we may say with Calvin : 
 “extra rem loquuntur.” 87 and Ny 
 are repeated from chap. lii. 14, only 
 with the superadded idea of beautiful 
 or graceful; which, indeed, 177, orna- 
 ment, splendour, expresses. There is 
 clearly a reference to the splendour 
 
 and pomp of the regal state, by which 
 monarchs are distinguished from those 
 
 around them. Nosuch majestymarked ἡ 
 
 the Messiah. The Athnach should 
 have been placed at ™z, and not at 
 ὙΠΟ, as the parallelism shews. Symm. 
 has rightly rendered the Ὁ before the 
 verbs by iva. The prophet uses the plu- 
 ral per xoiveow,—identifying himself 
 with his nation, though he condemned 
 their conduct. 
 
 3. What had just been described 
 negatively is now asserted positively. 
 Dw is a rare plural, instead of ΣΝ ; 
 occurring only besides in Ps. exli. 4 ; 
 Proy. vill. 4. Dx 517 has been vari- 
 ously rendered. LXX. ἐκλεῖπον παρὰ 
 τοὺς υἱοὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων. Symm. ἐλά- 
 χιστος ἀνδρῶν. Vulg. novissimus viro- 
 
 207 ὁ Ν 
 rum. Syr. [.Δ1]» [3ιῶϑο, humillimus 
 = 
 
 hominum. Abenezra similarly, 7 
 Dyn ov rw, he ceased to be reckoned 
 with men. Most of the moderns ap- 
 prove of the sense brought out by 
 
 comparing the Arab. UA, spe et aua- 
 {0 destituit ; sda, destitutus ope, 
 
 derelictus, contemptus; which seems 
 sufficiently justified by ‘27277, my 
 intimate friends have abandoned me, Job 
 xix. 14. See Schultens zz Joc. As, 
 however, those who are thus deserted 
 are usually despised or contemned, 
 hence the idea of contempt or abhor- 
 rence is here conveyed. 2) and 777 
 are thus synonymes. As to form, 71) 
 is a verbal adj. from the intrans. verb, 
 517, to leave off, cease, desert, &&. Ws is 
 elegantly borrowed from the preceding 
 ows; or, if we suppose it to have 
 been previously in the prophet’s 
 mind, it may have occasioned the use 
 of this plural. makin wy, a man of 
 sorrows, according to a Hebrew idiom, 
 “a man of many sorrows ;” one who is. 
 
CHAP. 1111.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 397 
 
 So that men hid their face from him ; 
 He was despised, and we regarded him not.. 
 
 4 But it was our griefs he bare, 
 
 the subject of great or manifold suffer- 
 ings. Comp. ningn wy, a man of re- 
 proofs; i.e. one frequently reproved, 
 Prov. xxix. 1, 282 signifies to be pained 
 or wounded, either in body or mind, but 
 more usually the latter. Comp. the Syr. 
 
 ols, doluit ; Arab. wt and we, 
 
 malo statu mestoque animo fuit, 77 νυν, 
 Symm. renders γνωστὸς νόσῳ, known 
 by sickness, and is followed by Jahn, 
 Martini, Rosenmiller, Gesenius, and 
 Maurer. According to this interpre- 
 tation, the meaning would be, that 
 the Messiah was distinguished from 
 all other men by the intensity of his 
 sufferings. The parallelism, however, 
 requires that the Messiah himself 
 should be the subject of the know- 
 ledge or experience here spoken οἵ: 
 knowing, experienced in, familiar with 
 suffering. ‘That the Pahul Part. is to 
 be taken in this sense, comp. Deut. i. 
 13, 15; where Dy? is manifestly 
 synonymous with 0337 D937, and is to 
 be rendered, knowing, skilful, or the 
 like. The LXX., Syr., and Vulg., ap- 
 pear to have read yt), which is found 
 in eight MSS., originally in one more, 
 and now in four others by correction. 
 The reading of De Rossi’s MS. 319, 
 ym, is not entitled to notice. τ, the 
 Pause punctuation for ἍΤ, weakness, af- 
 fliction, pain, sickness, is used both of 
 corporeal and of mental disease ; and 
 of what is inflicted by another, as 
 well as of what arises from natural 
 causes in the subject. In the present 
 connexion, all ideas of natural malady 
 or infirmity would be most irrelevant. 
 Comp. vers. 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. Commen- 
 tators are generally agreed that the 
 prophet uses the word figuratively to 
 denote the severe bodily and mental 
 sufferings to which our Lord was sub- 
 jected. a9 20227nDD. The 1 is here 
 to be taken ἐκβατικῶς ; and the 3 is 
 the Caph veritatis. Literally: So that 
 there was a hiding of face from him. 
 The LXX., Aq., Vulg., and Targ., and 
 some modern translators, have ren- 
 dered the suffix in 1299 as that of the 
 first person plural; but less aptly. 
 
 Isaiah represents the Saviour as an 
 object of disgust to the Jews, in lan- 
 guage calculated to produce on the 
 mind a strong impression of their 
 hatred to his person and claims ; and 
 closes the verse, as he had begun it, 
 with 22: only adding a negative 
 proposition for the sake of greater 
 energy. 
 
 4, ὯΝ is strongly adversative, and 
 is designed pointedly to direct the 
 attention of the reader to the fact, 
 that the sorrow and grief which had 
 just been attributed to the Messiah 
 were not occasioned by any thing in 
 himself, but were inflictions, which, 
 but for his substitution, we must have 
 borne. To mark this more distinctly, 
 the identical words “7 and 3829 are 
 repeated from the preceding verse. 
 In both instances they denote in- 
 flictions, or sufferings, on account of 
 sin. Hence the LXX. and Symm. 
 render: tds ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν. Hengsten- 
 berg appositely remarks, “ that no pas- 
 sage in the New Testament, relative to 
 the atoning death of Jesus, is more 
 dogmatically definite than the present. 
 No wonder that the unbelieving Jews 
 should be perplexed in their attempts 
 to interpret it. It is, and ever must 
 be, a rock of offence to them while 
 they reject the true Messiah, who died 
 for our sins and was raised again for 
 our justification.” For 17, eleven 
 MSS., the Ven. Ed. of 1525—28, and 
 seventeen other editions, have the full 
 plural form, 27. And instead of 
 ἜΝ ΘΟ, upwards of twenty MSS., and 
 two editions, read 722829 ; but all, the 
 ancient versions have the plural. Be- 
 fore 0920, thirteen MSS., originally five 
 more, now three; four editions, and 
 many more, insert x7 as a Keri ; yet 
 it is probably a mere repetition, by 
 some copyist, from the preceding 
 hemistich. It has been maintained 
 by some, that the verbs x2 and 72D 
 signify simply, to bear away, remove, 
 &c., and convey no idea of suffering or 
 bearing, in the way of punishment 3, 
 but in direct opposition to fact, and 
 to the spirit of the context. Not only 
 
 ond 
 
398 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LIII. 
 
 Yea, it was our sorrows he carried. 
 We, indeed, accounted him smitten, 
 
 are the phrases, JY N02, NOT NDI, Zo 
 bear sin, to bear iniquity, used of one 
 who suffers for his own sin, but also 
 of the expiation made for the sin of 
 others, by vicarious suffering. See 
 Ley. v. 1, 17, xvii. 16, xxiv. 15; Numb. 
 ix. 13, xiv. 33; Exod. xxviii. 38; Lev. 
 x. 17, xvi. 22. Thus also, in ver. 12 
 of this very chapter, D27ROT 37) 
 δ), Aud he bare the sin, i.e. the 
 punishment due to the sin, of many. 
 Comp., fora similar usage, in Arab. 
 
 Koran, ¢xxix, 11. 12) οὐδ Je, 
 w=, ὕλμω las] Ipiel ωοδὸν \yp3S 
 “τ ak CaN Sane) heat 
 μῶν ol pl cot ον 
 
 “And the unbelievers say to those 
 who believe : Follow our way, and we 
 will bear your sins ; but they shall not 
 bear any part of their sins, but they 
 shall bear their own burdens.” In like 
 manner, 72D signifies ¢o sustain or bear ; 
 to bear as a burden what another cannot 
 bear ; to bear what is imposed by another, 
 either by oppression, or as punishment. 
 Hence the nouns, 930, 535, %3D, 720, 
 a burden. But it also signifies to bear 
 or suffer vicariously,—the idea of the 
 weight or burden of the punishment 
 being necessarily implied. Thus Lam. 
 v. 7, 920 ony ams, We bear their 
 tniquities, 1.e. the infliction due to 
 their iniquities ; their penal conse- 
 quences. Comp. ver. 11 of this chap. 
 7am xT ἘΠ νὴ, Hor he sustained the in- 
 fliction of their iniquities. That such 
 is the meaning of the verb here, Ge- 
 senius himself allows. “ 51D,—trop. 
 to bear the sorrows, sins, of any one, 
 i.e. to suffer the punishment which 
 another has merited,’ Heb. Lex. iz 
 voc. ‘Thus also Winer, in his Edit. 
 of Simonis: “trop. peccatum alicujus 
 bajulare est peccati ponas gravis- 
 simas perpeti,” Jes. liii. 11; Thren. 
 v. 7. The words are also quoted 
 in the ancient Rabbinical work, 
 
 . 7 . t Us 
 entitled Pesikfa; mwa wy mI sows 
 “ 
 1 ἼΩΝ TWA now) WL aD NOD ANN YP 
 mow we Ὁ ΓΝ Sod mead ome aS 
 
 judgment. 
 
 pq? pow ὙΌΣ Se 0 ἼΩΝ PTY WON DD 
 SIDR Ὁ ἼΩΝ NDI MTT PX PIT Nw ow 
 mmow2 ome; “ When the blessed 
 Creator made his world, he stretched 
 out his hand under the throne of glory, 
 and brought out the soul of the 
 Messiah. He then said to him: Wilt 
 thou heal and redeem my sons after 
 six thousand years? He replied: 
 Yes. Then God said to him: Wilt 
 thou bear the inflictions in order to 
 purge their iniquity, as it is written : 
 But it was our diseases he bore? He 
 said to him: I will bear them joyfully.” 
 Such was the construction put upon 
 it by the LXX.: Otros τὰς ἁμαρτίας 
 ἡμῶν φέρει, καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται ; 
 Symmachus, αὐτὸς ἀνέλαβε, καὶ τοὺς 
 πόνους ὑπέμεινεν. To the doctrine of 
 the vicarious sufferings of the Messiah, 
 as here taught, it has been objected, 
 that the words are quoted Matt. viii. 
 17, in application to our Lord's re- 
 moval of bodily diseases. But the 
 objection would only be valid, if it 
 could be shewn that the application 
 made by the Evangelist was designed 
 to exhaust the meaning of the pro- 
 phet. The instances of miraculous 
 cures were merely an incipient ful- 
 filment of the prediction: a type or 
 specimen of what was to be eftected 
 by our Lord’s mediation generally. 
 The Jews were taught to regard disease 
 as the temporal punishment of sin ; 
 and since the prophet clearly shews, 
 in the following verse, that the end to 
 be attained by the substitutionary 
 sufferings of the Messiah, was the 
 removal of punishment from the 
 guilty, the quotation was appositely 
 applied to the removal of bodily dis- 
 tempers, as a partial attainment of 
 that end. See Magee on the Atone- 
 ment, vol. i. pp. 412—435, third edit., 
 Lond. 1812. 13, smitten, by Divine 
 The verb is specially ap- 
 plied to the infliction of such diseases 
 as the plague or leprosy. Hence 
 Jerome renders, leprosus. Aq. ἀφή- 
 μενον. Symm. ἐν ἁφῇ ὄντα. Theod. 
 better, μεμαστιγῶμένον. The words, 
 Tym ovis mp, are exegetical,—ex- 
 pressing, in plain terms, the opinion 
 
CHAP. LIII.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 399 
 
 Stricken by God, and afflicted : 
 
 5 But he was wounded on account of our transgressions ; 
 He was bruised on account of our iniquities : 
 The infliction with a view to our peace was upon him, 
 
 of the Jews, that the sufferings of our 
 Lord were inflicted as the immediate 
 punishment of great personal guilt. 
 That they were accustomed to draw 
 similar conclusions, see Luke xiii. 1; 
 John ix. 2. That 39, smitten, is rightly 
 pointed in the construct, and cannot 
 be read as the absolute, as Bellarmine 
 would have it, 1. 6. ὦ smitten God, is 
 .sufficiently clear from the connexion. 
 
 5. The prophet now describes in 
 plain terms what he had expressed 
 figuratively in the preceding verse. 
 270, the Pass. Part. in Poel, might 
 be rendered pierced,—being derived 
 
 from 3, Arab gy perforatus est, to 
 
 bore, pierce, ἕο. It would thus dis- 
 tinctly recognise the piercing of the 
 hands, feet, and side of our Redeemer, 
 as described by the Evangelists. 
 Comp. Ps. xxii. 16; Zech. xii. 10. 
 But that it is better to adopt the more 
 extended signification of the verb, 
 appears from the general use of &379, 
 following. Thus the LXX. érpavpa- 
 
 τίσθη. Arab, or vulnus accepit ; 
 Il. malta inflixit vuluera. The Syr. has 
 
 Ψ 
 Qo lsc , oecisus est ; a signification 
 
 which > certainly has, Gen. xxxiv. 
 27 ; Jer. xiv.18. 823, to break in small 
 pieces, crush, expresses the excessive 
 _ severity of our Lord’s sufferings. 
 
 Comp. ver. 10 ; Luke xxii. 44; Matt. /xii. 20. 
 
 xxvil. 46 ; Ps. xxii. 14—17. The pre- 
 position 72 has here the causative 
 | signification, and marks the causa 
 eficiens, the immediate ground or 
 reason of these sufferings. 329917 7079, 
 lit. the punishment of our peace; but 
 as such construction is altogether 
 abhorrent from the English idiom, 
 the phrase must be rendered peri- 
 phrastically, the infliction by which our 
 
 ppeace is effected, i. e. the exemplary 
 
 ' sufferings which were required in order 
 to our enjoying immunity from punish- 
 ment. The genitive is that of object, 
 1D, being derived from 70, fo chasten, 
 
 figuratively as a cure. 
 
 correct, with a view to moral improve- 
 ment, (hence fo teach, generally,) to 
 
 punish, as a warning to others, conveys 
 
 the idea of sufferings, which, while 
 they atoned for our sins, and thereby 
 procured for us reconciliation with 
 God, furnished a public illustration of 
 the great principles of his moral 
 government. They were pana exem- 
 plaris. This, however, is only a 
 secondary idea, and must not be taken 
 to the exclusion of suffering, which is 
 the primary signification of the term. 
 The LXX. have παιδεία ; but both 
 παιδεία and παιδεύω are currently used 
 by them in the sense of inflicting cas- 
 tigation or punishment. See Magee, 
 
 on v 
 ut sup. p. 401; Syr. 1Zo2;80 > casti- 
 
 gatio, correptio ; Arab. wo, instruxit, 
 docuit, castigavit spec. verberibus. The 
 use of 2, “wpon him,” plainly shews 
 that vicarious punishment is meant, 
 For 213, thirty-two MSS., orig. two 
 more, and one in the marg.; four of 
 the early, and thirty-one other 
 editions, read 2194 in the plural, 
 which would express the abundance 
 and variety of blessings flowing to us 
 through the death of the Messiah. 
 The plural of this noun is not used 
 elsewhere. For the doctrine, comp. 
 chap. ix. 6 ; Micah v.5; Zech. vi. 13: 
 Eph. ii. 14—17 ; Col. i. 20, 21 ; Heb. 
 It distinctly expresses that 
 transfer of our guilt on the one hand, 
 
 /and of the merit of the Mediator on 
 \the other, which lies at the foundation 
 ‘of the whole scheme of redemption. 
 
 man is taken collectively, and must be. 
 rendered in the plural. The personal 
 pronouns of the third singular are 
 emphatic and in striking antithesis 
 with those of the first person. 8273, 
 a partic. noun, from x2}, /o heal ; but~ 
 
 | as diseases are spoken of in Scripture } 
 /as a punishment for sin, so deliverance , 
 
 from the effects of sin is represented 
 Comp. chap. 
 vi. 10, note ; Mark iv. 12; and ver, 4 
 
400 
 
 ΙἸΒΑΙΔΉ. 
 
 [CHAP. 1111. 
 
 That by his stripes we might be healed. 
 6 All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; 
 
 We have turned each to his own way ; 
 
 But Jehovah hath inflicted upon him the punishment of us all. 
 7 He was severely afilicted, yet he submitted himself, 
 
 And opened not his mouth ; 
 
 of the present chapter. The adver- 
 sative conjunction } refers back to 72x, 
 ver. 4. It is well observed by Stier, 
 that the whole passage, the whole 
 prophet, much more the whole Scrip- 
 ture, Rom. v. 10 not excepted, know 
 nothing of enmity or wrath on the 
 part of the Father, which required to 
 be removed by the sufferings of Christ. 
 The Saviour was never more the ob- 
 ject of the Divine delight than when 
 he suffered on the cross and in the 
 garden of Gethsemane. The sufferings 
 to which our Redeemer was subjected 
 were no expression of Divine oppo- 
 sition to him personally, but to our 
 sins, for which he had undertaken to 
 atone. 
 
 6. A common but very significant 
 metaphor, teaching the folly, diversity, 
 universality, and guilt of sin. It is 
 here specially introduced for the pur- 
 pose of accounting for the intensity 
 of the Messiah’s sufferings. Comp. 
 Ps! exix. 176: 1 Pet. 11. 95. Οὔτε yap 
 ἴσα πάντων τὰ πλημμελήματα, οὐδὲ εἷς 
 ὁ τρόπος" ἄλλα γὰρ τὰ ᾿Αιγυπτίων εἴδωλα, 
 καὶ ἄλλα τὰ Φοινίκων" καὶ τὰ Ἑλλήνων 
 ἕτερα, καὶ ἄλλα τῶν Σκυθῶν" ἄλλ᾽ ὅμως 
 εἰ καὶ διάφοροι τῆς πλάνης οἱ τρόποι, 
 πάντες ὁμοίως τὸν ὄντα Θεὸν καταλελοι- 
 πότες ἐῴκειμεν προβάτοις πλανωμένοις, 
 καὶ προκειμένοις τοῖς λύκοις. 'Theodoret 
 in loc. The same holds true of trans- 
 gressors individually. No two sin 
 precisely alike; but all, without ex- 
 ception, are in a state of apostasy, 
 guilt, and peril. The in 757 is ad- 
 versative, and introduces the second 
 member of the antithesis. 11 »257, ὅσο, 
 the LXX. paraphrase, παρέδωκεν αὐτὸν 
 ταῖς ἁμαρτίᾳις ἡμῶν ; but the verb 
 properly signifies ¢o fall in with, or act 
 upon any one, and is used both in a 
 friendly and in a hostile sense. Here 
 the latter obviously obtains; hence 
 some interpreters render, with Kimchi, 
 hostiliter in eum irruere fecit. Simply 
 
 to lay upon, is too weak ; Symm. better, 
 καταντῆσαι ἐποίησεν, caused to reach, 
 i. 6. as the object on which the punish- 
 ment was inflicted. Comp. Numb. 
 xxxii. 23 ; and for the signification of 
 vi2, in a hostile sense, Judg. vii. 21 ; 
 1 Sam. xxii. 17; 2Sam.i.15; 1 Kings 
 ii. 29; Amos v. 19. Punishment is 
 here represented under the metaphor 
 of a wild beast, to which straying 
 sheep are exposed in the wilderness. 
 It is eagerly looking out for its 
 victims ; but, instead of falling in 
 with them, it comes in contact with 
 the shepherd himself, and while it 
 attacks him, the sheep make their 
 escape. Thus the Messiah, having as 
 Mediator interposed himself between 
 his people and the punishment which 
 was coming upon them, received it . 
 upon his sacred person in their 
 room. Comp. Zech. xiii. 7; Matt. 
 xxvi. 81; John x. 1—18; 1 Pet. 
 ii. 24, 25. The transition from the 
 condition of the sheep, in the former 
 half of the antithesis, to that of the 
 Shepherd, was natural and easy. }Y 
 is a collective noun, which accounts 
 for the ancient versions exhibiting 
 the plural, 253253 are correlates, 
 
 7. Cyril among the ancients, Sanc- 
 tius, Sanchez, Hensler, Dathe, Kuinoel, 
 Jahn, Lowth, Crusius, Moller, Green, 
 Boothroyd, Jones, and others, render 
 mr 817) 032, 790 was exacted, and he be- 
 came answerable, or to this eftect ; and 
 this rendering has generally been ap- 
 proved by such as hold the doctrine 
 of our Lord’s voluntary substitution. 
 It is, however, to say the least, very 
 doubtful whether such meaning can 
 fairly be brought out of the words. 
 It is certain none of the ancient trans- 
 lators understood them so; Symm. 
 προσηνάχθη καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπήκουσε; LXX. 
 καὶ αὐτὸς διὰ τὸ κεκακῶσθαι ; Syr., 
 
 reading 22 instead of 93, “550 
 
CHAP. LIII.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 401 
 
 As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, 
 Or as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, 
 
 So he opened not his mouth. 
 
 8 Without restraint, and without a sentence, he was taken away ; 
 
 Vv τν - 
 yasozio, accessit et humiliavit se; 
 
 Vulg. oblatus est quia ipse voluit. 2 
 signifies, indeed, fo press a debtor, to 
 extort service, &c. ; but uniformly with 
 the implication, that the debt or 
 service is obtained from the individual 
 against his will. The idea of tyran- 
 nical oppression is likewise conveyed 
 by the term, but manifestly in this 
 connexion can only be attributed to 
 the Jews, and not to any treatment 
 of the Son of God by his Heavenly 
 Father. Chap. lx. 17 forms no ex- 
 ception, Ὁ 23, exvactors, being there 
 qualified by the term ΠΣ, righteous- 
 ness. "The verb occurs in Niphal only 
 in three other passages; vz. 1 Sam. 
 xiii. 6, xiv. 24; Isa. ii. 5; in all of 
 which the idea of being distressed, 
 oppressed, &c. is obviously that which 
 is intended to be conveyed. In like 
 manner, though 72%, the other verb 
 here employed, signifies to respond, 
 answer, announce, &¢c., it nowhere con- 
 veys the notion of legal or moral 
 responsibility. This signification has 
 been transferred to it from the Latin, 
 ad diem respondere. I am, therefore, 
 compelled, on purely philological 
 grounds, to reject the rendering in 
 question, though I firmly believe the 
 doctrine which it teaches. To 72Y2 in 
 Niphal, I assign here, with Koppe, 
 Jahn, Steudel, Hengstenberg, and 
 Reinke, the reflexive signification, he 
 submitted himself. Such construction 
 is required by 81, preceding, and well 
 agrees with the following description 
 of the patience with which the Mes- 
 siah endured his sufferings. Thus 
 καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπήκουσε of Symm., and guia 
 ipse voluit of Jerome. Comp. John 
 x, 17, 185° Phil a.) 8.3, 7Hebis mith, 2; 
 1 Pet. 11. 23. ὙΒ MAD. XD, at the end of 
 the verse, is merely a repetition for 
 the sake of emphasis: only the ) in 
 8”) marks the apodosis. For the ful- 
 filment, see the history of our Lord’s 
 sufferings. 
 
 8. The prophet now reaches the 
 
 culminating point in his description 
 of the sufferings of the Messiah, viz. 
 the unjust death in which they ter- 
 minated. That ΠΣ is used of a re- 
 moval from among the living, see 
 Gen. v. 24, xlii. 36; 2 Kings ii. 9; 
 Jer. xv. 15; Ezek. xxiv. 16. ΝῺ is 
 similarly used, Job xxxii. 22; and 
 FON, Isa. Ivii. 1. Gesenius compares 
 
 the Arab. 38 ai} Gav. And that 
 
 such must be the signification of the 
 verb here is plain, from the latter 
 half of the verse. Perhaps no three 
 words in the Hebrew Bible have been 
 more variously rendered than Ww? 
 mp wpa; LXX. ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει 
 (Just. Mar. and Chrysost. add αὐτοῦ) 
 
 π᾿ 
 
 «δὸ 
 
 ν ρ ~ 
 922} .; «90, 6 carcere et ex judi- 
 
 oO ΕΝ 
 ἡ κρίσις αὐτοῦ ἤρθη; ὅγν. ἰχοξα 
 
 cio raptus est ; Arab. ral ᾽ KK, judi- 
 
 cium ejus raptus est ; Vulg. De angustia, 
 et de judicio sublatus est ; Jewish Span. 
 de detenimiento y de juizio fue tomado ; 
 and thus generally the Rabbins, and 
 by Calvin, Gesenius, Hitzig, and 
 Scholz: only Calvin and others ex- 
 plain 779 of our Lord’s being taken 
 up to glory. Déderlein, Dathe, and 
 others, take Hawam WY to be a hen- 
 diadis, and translate, post angustias 
 judicitt ad suppliciam rapitur ; Lowth, 
 Tingstadius, and Jones, fy an oppres- 
 sive judgment he was taken off. By 
 another class of interpreters the pre- 
 position 79 is taken in its negative or 
 privative acceptation: Zwinglius, iz- 
 dicta causa citraque judicium tolletur ; 
 Leo Juda, Absque dilatione citraque 
 judicium vaptus est ; Coverdale, He shal 
 be had awaie, his cause not herd, and 
 without any judgement; Luzzatto, On 
 Pemportait (on le tuait) sans autorité 
 souveraine, et sans justice, Cest-a-dire : 
 on pouvait le tuer impunément. This 
 construction seems preferable to any 
 other ; only 1? is to be taken in its 
 
402 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. 1111. 
 
 And who can describe his generation ? 
 For he was cut off from the land of the living ; 
 On account of the transgression of my people he was smitten. 
 
 usual signification, restraint, hindrance, 
 and ΒΡ in that of sentence, judicial 
 sentence. Instead of restraining the 
 Jews from carrying into effect their 
 murderous purpose against our Lord, 
 Pilate “delivered” him “to their 
 will.” Luke xxiii, 25. Nor as pro- 
 curator, occupying the judgment-seat, 
 Matt. xxvii. 19, did he pronounce a 
 formal sentence upon him, but merely 
 decided (éméxpwe) that it should be 
 as the Jews required, Luke xxiii. 24. 
 WP Ὁ is used Judges xviii. 7, to 
 express the office and authority of a 
 magistrate, exercised in restraining 
 from the commission of lawless 
 deeds.—Of the different interpreta- 
 tions that have been given of “ἦτ, 
 generation, such as eternal production ; 
 length of life; manner of life; pos- 
 terity ; men living at the same time ; the 
 last alone is justifiable on the ground 
 of Hebrew usage. It only signifies 
 posterity when used in the plural, 
 and even then only such of a poste- 
 rity as are contemporaries. LXX. 
 
 γενεὰ ; Saad. >, corresponding to 
 
 the use of ἦτ, Gen. vii. 1 ; Eccles i. 4. 
 Storr, Déderlein, Dathe, Rosenmiiller, 
 Gesenius, and others, take ‘i7nx, 
 though the accusative, to be equiva- 
 lent to the nominative absolute, and 
 render, Who of his contemporaries con- 
 sidered that he was, &c.; but such con- 
 struction is not so natural as that 
 which regards it as strictly the accu- 
 sative absolute, “And as to the men 
 of his time, who can conceive of 
 them?” 1.6. their atrocious wicked- 
 ness. The verb m2, of which mi» is 
 the Pilel, signifies 70 conceive in the 
 mind, meditate, and then to give utter- 
 ance to such conceptions ; LXX. διη- 
 ynoera. The best comment on the 
 words is furnished by the testimony 
 of Josephus, de Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 
 13, sect. 6. Οἶμαι ‘Popaidy βραδυνόν- 
 τῶν ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀλιτηρίους, ἢ καταποθῆναι 
 ἂν ὑπὸ χάσματος, ἢ κατακλυσθῆναι τὴν 
 πόλιν, ἢ τοὺς τῆς Σοδομηνῆς μεταλαβεῖν 
 κηραυτοῦς" πολὺ γὰρ τῶν ταῦτα παθόν- 
 
 των ἤνεγκε ΓΈΝΕΑΝ ἀθεωτέραν. “I 
 deem it, that if the Romans had de- 
 layed to come against these wretches, 
 the city would have been swallowed 
 up by an earthquake, or overwhelmed 
 by a deluge, or experienced the same 
 fate with Sodom: for it bore a more 
 impious GENERATION than those which 
 suffered such things.” And again, 
 cap. x. sect. 5. μήτε TENEAN ἐξ αἰῶνος 
 γεγονέναι κακίας γονιμωτέραν. “Nor 
 was there ever from the beginning of 
 the world A GENERATION more prolific 
 in wickedness.” Comp. Matt. xii. 39, 
 xxiii. 33; Luke xi. 48—51. ὋΣ, Arab. 
 
 25» occidit, to cut, cut off, slay, kill, 
 
 expresses the violent death of the 
 Messiah. Comp. Dan. ix. 26, where 
 ΤῊ is similarly used. Ps. Ixxxviii. 6; 
 Lam. 111. 54. The pronom. affix in Ὅν, 
 refers to the prophet, who, as fre- 
 quently, includes himself among the , 
 people. For in} the LXX. have read | 
 ny, εἰς θάνατον, smitten unto death. ὦ 
 Thus also the versions which have ἡ 
 been made from the LXX.; but the 
 reading is confirmed by no Heb. MS., 
 and by no other independent autho- 
 rity. On the contrary, Symm., 
 Theod., the Targ., Syr., and Jerome, 
 all express the pronoun. And _ that 
 the two first so translated, clearly 
 proves that nyo? was not the reading 
 of the text in the time of Origen, as 
 Kennicott, in Lowth, contends. In 
 the dispute of that father with the 
 Jews, the argument did not turn upon 
 the rendering of this particular word, 
 but upon ὍΣ, τοῦ λαοῦ pov, my people, 
 from whom the person spoken of 
 is evidently distinguished. On this 
 being urged, the Jew who had objected 
 that it was not one man, but one 
 people that was meant, was silenced, 
 Orig. con, Celsum, lib. i. p, 370, edit. 
 1733. The proposed emendation is, 
 therefore, justly rejected by Gesenius, 
 Hitzig, Scholz, and other moderns. It 
 is contended by Gesenius and others 
 that in 19%, the poetical suffix is 
 plural and not singular; but the’ 
 
CHAP. 1.111.} 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 403 
 
 9 They had also assigned him his grave with the wicked, 
 But he was with the rich after his death : 
 Because he had done no violence, 
 Neither was deceit found in his mouth. 
 
 latter alone suits the context, and is 
 decidedly to be so taken, chap. xliv. 
 15, where it refers to 908, and is con- 
 _ verted into 19, ver. 17. See also Gen. 
 ix. 26, 27; and comp. Job xx. 23, 
 xxii. 2, xxvii. 23, for a similar use of 
 jo%y in the singular. In the last of 
 these passages the form is irhmedi- 
 ately changed into vv. Thus the 
 Syr. and Vulg. 
 
 9. 15, lit. and he gave, i.e. destined, 
 appointed, assigned ; but this form of 
 the verb is very often used imperson- 
 ally, as in the German, Man gab; or 
 the French, Oz avait ordonné ; and is 
 best rendered by an English plural. 
 The meaning is, that our Saviour was 
 destined by the Jews to have the 
 ignoble burial of those who under- 
 went capital punishment. Ὃ δὲ βλασ- 
 φημήσας Θεὸν καταλευσθεὶς κρεμάσθω 
 Ov ἡμέρας, καὶ ἀτίμως καὶ ἀφανῶς θαπ- 
 τέσθω. “ Let him who blasphemes 
 God be stoned and hanged for a day, 
 and have a disgraceful and obscure 
 burial.” Josephus, Antiq. iv. 8. 6. 
 See also Iken. in Bib]. Hagana, ii. p. 
 215. nx before DY is not the sign 
 of the accusative, as it has been 
 taken by the LXX., Symm., Vulg,, 
 and Targ., but is used as a preposition 
 in the sense of with. Thus Saad. 
 
 od opel te Jex>s, and so 
 
 Gesenius, Hitzig, and other moderns, 
 confirming thereceived interpretation. 
 Even Rosenmiller falls in with it, in 
 the last edition of his Scholia. Several 
 interpreters, among whom Luther, 
 Calvin, Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, Hitzig, 
 Maurer, take Vey to be parallel with 
 Dyw, and give to it the signification 
 of impious, ungodly, or the like ; mostly 
 on the ground that riches are fre- 
 quently the source of pride, arrogance, 
 and wickedness. This transition of 
 meaning, however, Hitzig scruples not 
 to designate a fiction, and has re- 
 course, with Martini and Koppe, to 
 
 the Arab. ye , to stumble, take a wrong 
 
 step, &c.; but neither this verb, nor 
 any of its derivatives, appear ever to 
 have been used in the sense of crimin- 
 ality. In the Hebrew Bible vey uni- 
 formly signifies rich, and it depends 
 upon the circumstances of the con- 
 text what character is to be attached 
 to the individual thus designated. 
 
 Saad. ppdtund | 92 cum opulentis ; 
 
 Jewish Span. coz rico. In vay ny) the 
 Ὑ is adversative, and the subst. verb. 
 m1 is to be supplied. That Joseph of 
 Arimathea is meant no one can doubt 
 who impartially compares the gospel 
 history. Matt. xxvii, 57—61. yn103, 
 Abenezra, Forerius, Ccolampadius, 
 Zwinglius, Schindler, Drusius, Kenni- 
 cott, Lowth, Jubb, Kuinoel, Martini, 
 Moller, Jenour, Noyes, and others, 
 render, iz his sepulchre—taking the 2 
 to be radical, and the noun to be the 
 plural construct of 793, a high place: 
 —and attaching to it the idea of ἐω- 
 mulus. From no other passage, how- 
 ever, can it be shewn, that ni02mean 
 tumuli, or sepulchral mounds. On the 
 contrary, they always mean either 
 heights in general, or specifically the 
 high places so frequently mentioned in 
 the O. T., where idolatrous worship 
 was performed. Ezek. xliii. 7, forms 
 no exception; for the connexion there 
 requires us to point Onin2, iz or afler 
 their death, which some of De Rossi’s 
 MSS. exhibit. It is also the punctua- 
 tion of the Sone. Edition, and is con- 
 firmed by the rendering of the Tar- 
 gum. Wherever nin: takes the suffix, 
 it retains the Kametz, as Lev. xxvi. 
 30; Isa. xxxvi. 7. I, therefore, adhere 
 to the interpretation of the LXX., 
 Targ. Syr., Vulg., and most modern 
 versions, a8 those of Vitringa, Micha- 
 elis, Rosenmiiller, Tingstadius, Dathe, 
 Gesenius, Hitzig, Hengstenberg, Ewald, 
 Reinke, Scholz, Jones, &c., according 
 to which 3 is the preposition, and yn 
 the regular plural of m2, death, with 
 the pronom. suffix. We find the plural 
 used Ezek. xxviii. 10, to express a 
 
404 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LIII. 
 
 10 But Jehovah was pleased to bruise him; he put him to grief: 
 Verily, if he make himself a sacrifice for sin, 
 He shall see his seed, he shall live long, 
 And the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. 
 
 violent death, or as Jarchi explains it, 
 nya Ὁ 75, all kinds of death. 1t is thus 
 intensive in force, and expresses the 
 awful nature of that death to which 
 our Lord submitted. 3,1 have ren- 
 dered after, on the authority of Lev. 
 xi. 31; 1 Kings xiii. 31 ; Esther ii. 7, 
 where the preposition has this mean- 
 ing before the Infin. of nm. Comp. 
 other passages in Noldius. The mean- 
 ing is, that on his death, and while he 
 remained in a state of death, his body 
 was with, or in the tomb of, a rich 
 man. ἢ following, satisfactorily shews 
 that the two preceding hemistichs 
 form an antithesis, and that it is to 
 be restricted to the latter of them ; 
 for there would be no propriety in as- 
 signing the innocence of the Messiah 
 as the cause why he was ignominiously 
 treated by his enemies. The conjec- 
 ture of Le Clerc, which Kennicott 
 adopts, that 27 and "103 have changed 
 places, is totally unsupported. 
 
 10. The Conjun. in 77 is resumptive 
 and confirmatory, connecting what fol- 
 lows with 7i™, ver.6. Whatever hand 
 man might have in the death of the 
 Redeemer, it was, nevertheless, the 
 result of the gracious purpose of God. 
 Comp. Acts il, 23. 27 Isat refer back 
 to m2 and 8279, ver. 5. 7 is an 
 Aramaic form for 7777, the Hiph. of 
 mn, to be in pain, suffer grief, &e. Dx, 
 if, so far from being here a particle of 
 doubt, rather expresses the certainty 
 of what is affirmed; only the state- 
 ment is put hypothetically, for the 
 purpose of laying down the condition 
 of the following predictions respecting 
 the success of the Messiah’s under- 
 taking. It forms the point of transi- 
 tion from the use of the Preterite to 
 that of the Future tense. His sacri- 
 fice was still future, but it should cer- 
 tainly be presented, and issue in the 
 specified results. In such cases, D8 has 
 all the native force of its derivation 
 
 from j2x, Arab. ul, which convey the 
 
 idea of firmness, security, certainty, &c. 
 Whether own be the second person 
 masculine, or the third feminine, (both 
 being alike in form,) has been dis- 
 puted. To the former mode of con- 
 struction, it cannot fairly be objected 
 that it would occasion too violent a 
 change of person, since many such 
 abrupt changes occur in the prophets. 
 And, as such a degree of prominence 
 had just been given to the act of 
 the Father in bruising the Son, there 
 might, to the mind of a Hebrew, ap- 
 pear a singular propriety in the mo- 
 mentary adoption of the direct form 
 of address. Still, it seems more in 
 accordance with the usual reciprocal 
 force of 152, his soul, for himself, and 
 especially as occurring immediately 
 after, ver. 12, to take the verb as the 
 third feminine, agreeing with Ὁ Ὲ).--- Ὁ Ὁ 
 is used intransitively, as in 1 Kings | 
 xx. 12; so that the literal rendering 
 of νῦ8) ove DA DX will be, Truly if 
 his soul make itself a sacrifice for guilt; 
 i.e. if he lay down his life as a propi- 
 tiatory sacrifice. Comp. παρέδωκεν 
 ‘EAYTON ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν προσφορὰν καὶ 
 θυσίαν, Eph. v. 2. Comp. also Matt. 
 xx. 28; Gal. i. 4; Heb. ix. 14. The 
 doctrine taught in these passages, and 
 in our text, is that of our Lord’s 
 voluntary substitution of himself as a 
 victim to expiate human guilt. Be- 
 tween DWX and nxen there is no fur- 
 ther difference, than that the latter 
 relates to the sinful act, considered 
 simply in itself: the former to its 
 guilt as affecting the individual, in the 
 way of exposing him to punishment. 
 This liability the Messiah took upon 
 himself, and actually endured the 
 punishment due to others. Both 
 terms are sacrificial, and are fre- 
 quently used in the Levitical law. 
 The “seed” of the Messiah are such 
 as should believe in him, being born 
 again through the instrumentality of 
 his Gospel, James i. 18; 1 Pet. i. 23, 
 25. In the East, Christians are called 
 
CHAP. LIII. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 405 
 
 11 After the sorrow of his soul, he shall see it, and be satisfied ; 
 By the knowledge of himself shall my Righteous Servant 
 
 justify many ; 
 
 For he shall bear their iniquities. 
 
 ἐπ Ovo, the family of the Messiah. 
 
 Comp. Ps. xxii. 30. The LXX., Vulg., 
 and some moderns, among whom 
 Lowth, connect D> JS with yy, and 
 render, a long-lived posterity, or a seed 
 which shall prolong their days ; but the 
 construction which refers both verbs 
 to a common subject, viz. the Messiah, 
 is more appropriate. It is the con- 
 structio asyndeta. Thus the Syr., 
 Vitringa, Déderlein, Dathe, Hensler, 
 Tingstadius, van der Palm, Rosenmiil- 
 ler, Gesenius, Hitzig, Hengstenberg, 
 Reinke, Scholz, and Jenour. Comp. 
 Ps. Ixxii. 15 ; Heb. vii. 16, 25 ; Rev. i. 
 18. 77 yh means not simply the 
 cause of Jehovah, as Gesenius inter- 
 prets, but such cause as that in which 
 Jehovah takes peculiar delight. Like 
 εὐδοκία in the N. T., it implies special 
 good-will, or favour. The term seems 
 to have been selected here to corres- 
 pond with ye 7m at the beginning of 
 the verse. 173, iz his hand, i.e. through 
 his instrumentality. 
 
 . 11. The prophet prosecutes the idea 
 of the reward to be enjoyed by the 
 Messiah, as the result of his painful 
 sufferings. The verb 781 cannot be 
 construed with }2 in the sense of seeing 
 of, 1. 6. “ the fruit of,” which our com- 
 mon version expresses. Such con- 
 struction would imply that only a 
 part or portion should be seen. The 
 preposition is rather used in the sense 
 of after, from the tinie of, as in Ps. lxxiii. 
 20, ya DYT2, “as a dream after one 
 awakes.” 'The prophets predicted the 
 sufferings of Christ, and the glory ¢hat 
 should follow, 1 Pet.i.11. ὋΝ signifies 
 labour, toil, sorrow, travail, &c., but has 
 no reference whatever to the sorrows 
 of childbirth, as some have explained 
 the term ¢ravail in our common ver- 
 
 sion. Arab. ὡ,., Jecit, operatus fuit. 
 
 Hence the fatigue, exhaustion, &c., 
 resulting from manual labour. The 
 object to WY, he shall see, is YU, seed, 
 
 in the preceding verse; so that we 
 have here another instance of re- 
 sumptive prediction, Y2w! TNT is again 
 the constructio asyndeta, as in ver. 10. 
 The latter verb signifies to have abun- 
 dance, to be supplied to the full, and 
 expresses the immense number of 
 converts whom it would be the Re- 
 deemer’s joy to contemplate. inv, his 
 knowledge, is the genitive of object: 
 the knowledge which respects the 
 Messiah; a spiritual acquaintance 
 with him and his propitiatory suffer- 
 ings just described. In "iv PY, my 
 righteous servant, the adjective is placed 
 first, for the sake of emphasis, in 
 order that the idea of righteousness, 
 expressed, by the preceding verb, 71, 
 might be more prominently exhibited. 
 See on chap. xxviii. 21. The charge 
 of solecism, therefore, brought for- 
 ward by Lowth, is without foundation. 
 That the righteousness intended is 
 the meritorious righteousness of 
 Christ, on account of which sinners 
 obtain the pardon of sin, and the 
 consequent blessings of salvation, 
 must be evident to all who are fami- 
 liar with the Scripture use of the 
 terms, PAST, WI, δικαιόω, δικαιοσύνη, 
 δίκαιος, in connexion with the execu- 
 tion of the scheme of mercy. See 
 chap. xlv. 24; Jer. xxiii. 6; Acts xiii. 
 38, 39; Rom. iii. 21—28, iv. 5—8, 25, 
 v. 16—19; 2 Cor. v. 21; Phil. iii. 9. 
 The context abundantly shews that 
 the verb p27 is used in the forensic 
 sense, and not in that of moral im- 
 provement. 27727 is unique, but 
 seems designed to teach the actual 
 communication of the blessing of jus- 
 tification to such as believe. Comp. 
 2777, chap. xiv. 3; 217, Gen. xlv. 
 7. Jin ony is causal, assigning the 
 reason why the Messiah was qualified 
 to impart righteousness or justification 
 to sinners—his having suffered the 
 punishment due to their guilt. For 
 the signification of 520, see on ver. 4. 
 
 =+) 
 
 3E 
 
406 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LIII. 
 
 12 Therefore, I will divide for him a portion among the great; 
 And with the strong he shall divide the spoil ; 
 Because he poured out his soul unto death, 
 And was numbered with transgressors, 
 
 12. In this verse the reward of the 
 Messiah is more distinctly announced 
 in metaphors borrowed from the 
 ancient military life, in which a vic- 
 torious general had conferred upon 
 him, by his monarch, the spoils which 
 he had won, and again distributed 
 them among the soldiers. He was to 
 have a glorious triumph as a compen- 
 sation for the sufferings which he 
 should endure. After i>pins, J will 
 divide to him, 7, his portion, is under- 
 stood. The LXX., Vulg., followed by 
 the Fathers, and, among the moderns, 
 by Hensler, Lowth, Martini, Dathe, 
 Boothroyd, Hengstenberg, Reinke, and 
 Jones, render O32 and D'nzY ΤΙΝ as ac- 
 cusatives, and thus represent the 
 great and mighty as constituting the 
 spoil given to our Lord. But the 
 more natural construction of the 
 words is that given in our common 
 version,—3 being rendered wmong, and 
 Mx, with. That the latter is properly 
 so rendered, is clear from the parallel 
 use of this particle as a prepos., Prov. 
 xvi. 19: 908 pom ony ow 31 
 ΝΣ, “It is better to be of a lowly 
 spirit with the humble, than fo divide 
 the spoil with the proud.” Comp. 
 OPLEDY, “with transgressors,” in this 
 very verse, and Drwrny, “with the 
 
 wicked,” ver. 9. And, to satisfy the. 
 
 law of parallelism, 3 must be suffered 
 to retain its usual signification of with, 
 among, or such like. This construc- 
 tion is accordingly approved by Leo 
 Juda, Castalio, Calvin, Hezel, Rosen- 
 miiller, Gesenius, Riickert, Hitzig, 
 Noyes, and Scholz, as the more philo- 
 logically correct. The meaning thus 
 brought out is, that, as the great and 
 mighty have extended their conquests 
 in the world, and brought home abun- 
 dance of spoil, to be distributed ac- 
 cording to custom, so the Messiah, 
 having gained the victory in the infi- 
 nitely important spiritual conflict in 
 which he was to engage, should not 
 be behind them, but should receive a 
 
 reward suitable to the conquest he 
 was to gain; and likewise, on his 
 part, bestow rewards on his followers. 
 Comp. Luke xxii. 29; John xvii. 22 ; 
 Rey. iii. 21. The reading p30 instead 
 of γῆν, found in one of De Rossi’s 
 MSS., and supported by the LXX. 
 and Arab., has in all probability origi- 
 nated in a desire to introduce unifor- 
 mity into this part of the verse-—The 
 prophet is so full of the amazing love 
 of the Messiah in laying down his life 
 for transgressors, that though by using 
 the causal particle 133, se ee at the 
 beginning of the verse, he had shewn 
 that his sufferings previously specified 
 constituted the ground of his reward, 
 yet he once more resumes the subject, 
 which he introduces with the empha- 
 tic Wx nA, eo quod, pro co quod, in re- 
 ward for. The words, 105) nyo? My, 
 forcibly express the voluntary and un- 
 reserved exposure to death, to which 
 our Lord submitted in our room. 9, 
 
 Arab. sy signifies to be bare, naked, 
 
 &e.; in’ Piel and Hiph. to make bare, 
 empty, pour out. It occurs in the for- 
 mer of these conjugations, Ps. exli. 8, 
 »0D) ym bs, “Suffer not my soul to be 
 poured out,” z.e. by the enemy. "1%, 
 to blast, make bare, is similarly used 
 Judg. v. 18, min? Wwe) FT OY, “a people 
 that exposed their soul to die,’ LXX. 
 eis θάνατον, ΓΛ), to death. The Arabs 
 
 γῈ13 
 employ the phrases du23 Cla, effudit 
 animam suam, in the same sense. 
 Comp. Phil. ii. 7, ἑαυτὸν "EKENQZE, 
 “he emptied himself.” 322 is an in- 
 stance of the imperfect or indefinite 
 future, intimating that the interces- 
 sion of the Messiah was not to bea 
 transient act, or such an act as would 
 be completed at the time of his death, 
 but that it would consist in an action 
 continuously carried on in future 
 time. For the fulfilment, see Luke 
 xxiii. 34; Rom. viii. 34; Heb. vii. 25 ; 
 1 John ii. 1. For the general signifi- 
 
CHAP. 110.] 
 
 And bare the sin of many, 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 407 
 
 And made intercession for the transgressors. 
 
 cation of 28, see on chap. xlvii. 3, and 
 liii. 6. As used here in Hiphil with 3, 
 it means, fo present the cause of another, 
 to use one’s influence for his benefit. 
 
 So manifestly is the doctrine of 
 atonement taught in this important 
 section of the prophet, that Gesenius 
 himself is compelled to acknowledge 
 it in the following terms: “Most 
 
 Hebrew readers, who were previously 
 familiar with the ideas of sacrifice and 
 substitution, must necessarily have 
 taken this view of the passage ; and 
 it cannot be doubted, that the apo- 
 stolic representation of the death of 
 Christ as an atonement pre-eminently 
 rests upon this basis.” Comment, il, 
 Theil. p. 191. 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 Having finished his description of the sufferings and triumphs of the Messiah, 
 the prophet resumes his address to the church of God, which he had called 
 to depart from Babylon, chap. lii. 11 ; but modifies it, in accordance with 
 those views into the distant future with which he was favoured by the 
 Spirit of prophecy. He sets out by predicting the amazing increase of the 
 church after her restoration to the land of Judea, 1; and the extension of 
 her boundaries into the desolate regions of paganism, 2—5. Grounds of 
 encouragement are then drawn from the Divine love and faithfulness, 6— 
 10; and assurances are given of her future glory, security, and happiness, 
 11—17. Some consider the chapter to be exclusively applicable to the 
 Jews, as a people ; but the interpretation put upon ver. 1, by the Apostle, 
 Gal. iv. 27, and the facts of history, militate against such application. 
 Though Isaiah does not lose sight of that people as originally constituting 
 the church, yet, having his eye upon the spiritual seed of the Messiah, to 
 be chiefly collected from the heathen world, he merges for the time the 
 peculiar interests of Judaism in those of the universal church. 
 
 1 Srye, O barren! that didst not bear ; 
 Burst into song, and shout, thou that wast not in travail! 
 
 1. It is not the state of the Gentile 
 world that is here contrasted with 
 that of the Jews, but the desolate or 
 widowed condition of the latter, con- 
 trasted with their happy state before 
 their divorce at the captivity. By the 
 moniwn2, the children of the desolate, are 
 
 meant the members of the church 
 which had been desolate during that 
 captivity, but was now viewed as 
 flourishing under the reign of the 
 Messiah. The prophet had already 
 predicted the vast increase of the Jew- 
 ish people, chap. xlix. 18—22. This 
 
408 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LIY. 
 
 For more are the children of the desolate, 
 Than the children of the married wife, saith Jehovah. 
 
 2 Hnlarge the place of thy tent ; 
 
 Yea, stretch out the cords of thy dwellings ; spare not ; 
 Lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. 
 3 For thou shalt break forth to the right and to the left ; 
 Thy seed also shall inherit the nations, 
 And shall people the desolate cities. 
 4 Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed ; 
 Neither be confounded, for thou shalt not be put to shame ; 
 For thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth ; 
 And the reproach of thy widowhood thou shalt remember no 
 
 more. 
 
 5 For thy Maker is thy husband ; 
 
 Jehovah of Hosts is his name ; 
 
 he here repeats, with special reference 
 to the spiritual church. In the apo- 
 stolic age numerous myriads (πόσαι 
 μυριάδες, Acts xxi. 20) of Jews believed 
 in Jesus as the Messiah, while the 
 number of Gentile converts exceeded 
 all calculation. To the Christian com- 
 munity, composed of both, the Apo- 
 stle obviously applies the words, Gal. 
 iv. 26, 27, where he contrasts the 
 literal Jerusalem—the representative 
 of such of the Jews as continued in 
 unbelief—with the spiritual Jerusa- 
 lem, or Christian church, the mother 
 of all believers, whether from among 
 Jews or Gentiles. That the Rabbins 
 considered the passage to havea bear- 
 ing on the times of the Messiah, see 
 Midrash Shir Hashirim ad Cant. i. 5. 
 2, 3. This beautiful metaphor is 
 taken from the pastoral life, which, in 
 the East, renders movable habitations 
 absolutely necessary. The Orientals 
 have two kinds of tents, the one 
 larger, and the other smaller; but 
 both constructed much in the same 
 way. ‘They are sustained by poles, 
 more or fewer in number, according to 
 the size of the tent, but the tallest is 
 always in the midst ; while the others 
 suspend the covering round the sides. 
 This covering is made of a stuff woven 
 from wool and camel’s hair ; it hangs 
 down like a curtain over the side- 
 poles, and is fastened by cords to 
 
 wooden pegs, which are firmly driven 
 into the ground. Other cords, fastened 
 at the one end to the tops of the 
 poles, and at the other to pegs or 
 stakes, keep the tent steady, and se- 
 cure it against the violence of storms. 
 As the family increases, it is pro- 
 portionally enlarged, and requires the 
 cords to be longer, and the stakes to 
 be stronger in proportion. By “ΠΝ, 
 tent, is meant the entire habitation ; 
 by niz2u02, divellings, the different com- 
 partments into which it was divided 
 by the smaller curtains suspended 
 from the roof. ™™ is future, but de- 
 rives an imperative force from the 
 preceding ’2177.—The future members 
 of the church should occupy the 
 localities formerly possessed by idola- 
 ters, and characterised by spiritual 
 desolation. Comp. chap. xlix. 8. 
 
 4, The youth of the Jewish Church 
 was the period of her servitude in 
 Egypt ; her widowhood, that of the 
 captivity in Babylon. Comp. Jer. ii. 
 2; Ezek. xvi. 22 ; Jer. li. 5, jo; Lam. 
 ae. 
 
 5. Jehovah, to whom the church 
 owed her existence, was still, and 
 would continue to be, her husband, in 
 communion with whom she might 
 reckon on the enjoyment of her 
 matrimonial privileges. Comp. John 
 iii, 29; Rom. vii. 4; 2 Cor. xi. 2; 
 Eph. v, 23—33. Instead, however, of 
 
CHAP. 110.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 409 
 
 And thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel : 
 The God of the whole earth he shall be called. 
 6 For Jehovah hath called thee as a forsaken, spirit-broken 
 
 female ; 
 
 And as a wife of youth, though thou wast rejected, 
 
 Saith thy God. 
 
 7 For a smail moment have I forsaken thee, 
 But with the greatest tenderness I will gather thee. 
 
 8 Inan outpouring of wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment ; 
 But with everlasting kindness I will be merciful to thee, 
 
 Saith thy Redeemer, Jehovah. 
 
 9 For this is to me as the waters of Noah ; 
 As I swore that the waters of Noah should not again overflow 
 
 the earth, 
 
 So have I sworn, that I will not be angry with thee, nor rebuke 
 
 thee. 
 10 
 
 Though the mountains should be removed, 
 
 And the hills should be shaken, 
 
 sustaining this relation to her, as 
 composed of Jews only, and occupying 
 the contracted territory of Canaan, he 
 was to sustain it to all, throughout 
 the world, who should enter her pale. 
 Comp. Zech. xiv. 9 ; Mal. i. 11; John 
 xi. 52; Acts xv. 14—17; Rom. iii. 29. 
 53 and δον are plurals after the 
 model of ox. The latter occurs 
 again Ps. cxlix. 2; LXX. Κύριος ὁ 
 ποιῶν oe. For the idiomatic force of 
 N17, see on chap, 1. 26. 
 
 6. Mark the paronomasia in 722 
 and mnzy. By ony) nex, a wife of 
 youth, is meant one who is married to 
 a person in his youth, to whom his 
 affection may be expected to be strong. 
 Such was the affection of God towards 
 his people, notwithstanding the for- 
 lorn condition to which they had been 
 reduced. Though they had been re- 
 jected, they were to be again received 
 into favour. 
 
 7, 8. The period of the Babylonish 
 captivity, and that of the gospel dis- 
 pensation, are here contrasted. Not 
 only should the church be restored, 
 but she should enjoy the highest 
 felicity in the everlasting favour of 
 her God. Such a state might consist 
 with outward afflictions in the kingdom 
 
 of heaven, Mark x. 30; John xvi. 33 ; 
 I Thessti, δι; ΕΘ. ΧΑ: ΤΕ τ, Or 
 how ill soever these might accord with 
 the principles of the ancient theocracy. 
 AER ΣΦ form a paronomasia, The 
 former term is a ἅπαξ )ey., but ob- 
 viously synonymous with ἢ, Comp. 
 
 Prov. xxvii. 4; and the Arab. ks, 
 
 dura et angusta fuit vita; hardship, 
 adversity, &¢.—the effect, of which the 
 cause is expressed by the Hebrew. 
 
 9. There is an ellipsis of 3 before 
 the former 2, just as there is before 
 wx, Inattention to this circumstance, 
 which is of common occurrence, has 
 led Symm., Theod., the Syr., Vulg., 
 Targ., and Saad., to unite 2 °D so as 
 to form one word, "2; reading δ᾽", day, 
 in the plural, instead of 0, waters. 
 To the same cause is doubtless to be 
 ascribed the occurrence of "22 in some 
 few MSS. The conjunction 3 could not 
 have been omitted. Nv, ¢is calamity. 
 Gen. viii. 21 ; ix. 11. 
 
 10. ὃ 3, my covenant of peace, 
 i.e. the new covenant which I am 
 about to make with you, by which 
 I guarantee to you reconciliation and 
 spiritual prosperity. Comp. chap. 111. 
 5, liv. 18 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 25, xxxvii, 26 ; 
 
410 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LIV. 
 
 Yet my lovingkindness shall not be removed from thee, 
 Nor shall my covenant of peace be shaken, 
 Saith Jehovah, that sheweth thee mercy. 
 
 11 
 
 O thou afflicted ! storm-tossed, unconsoled ! 
 
 Behold! I will lay thy stones in stibium, 
 And will found thee with sapphires. 
 
 12 
 
 I will also make thy battlements of rubies, 
 
 And thy gates of sparkling gems; 
 And all thy borders of precious stones. 
 
 13 
 
 All thy children likewise shall be taught by Jehovah ; 
 
 And great shall be the peace of thy children. 
 
 14 
 
 Thou shalt be established in righteousness ; 
 
 Thou shalt be far from oppression, 
 
 For thou shalt not fear ; 
 And from terror, 
 
 For it shall not come near thee. 
 
 Zech. vi. 13. The phrase seems to 
 have been suggested by the reference 
 made in the preceding verse to the 
 Divine engagement to Noah, which 
 God calls his πὴ, Gen. ix.9,11. That 
 these promises cannot apply to the 
 past history of the Jews as a nation, 
 is evident from the fact of their 
 present dispersion, which has con- 
 tinued nearly eighteen centuries. 
 
 11, 12. I now adopt Alexander’s ren- 
 dering of MD, as being at once more 
 literal and also more forcible. On 
 this verse Lowth aptly remarks, that 
 these seem to be general images to 
 express beauty, magnificence, purity, 
 strength, and solidity, agreeably to 
 the ideas of the Eastern nations, and 
 to have never been intended to be 
 strictly scrutinized, or minutely and 
 particularly explained, as if each of 
 them had some precise moral or spi- 
 ritual meaning. A similarly splendid 
 description of the happy state of the 
 millennial church is found Rev. xxi. 
 18—21. Ἢ, stibivm, or antimony, in 
 
 Arab. 
 
 compounded of lead and zinc, and 
 moistened with oil or vinegar, with 
 which the Oriental females paint the 
 edges of the eye-lids, thereby giving 
 them a black colour, and so apparently 
 enlarging the eyes, as to render their 
 
 , a fine mineral powder, 
 
 effect more powerful. The prophet 
 compares the cement to this black 
 compound, to intimate that the beauty 
 of the stones would thereby be aug- 
 mented. See for the word, 2 Kings 
 ix. 30; 1 ‘Chron. xxix. 2'; Jer. iv: 30. 
 By nvwow, LXX. ἐπάλξεις, parapets, or 
 notched battlements, but why so called 
 it is difficult to say, except it be that 
 they admitted the rays of the sun. 
 Lit. suns. 
 
 13. The former half of this verse 
 our Lord quotes in proof of the 
 necessity of Divine teaching, John 
 γἱ. 45. TMD) lit. disciples of Jehovah. 
 Comp. chap. viii. 16; Jer. xxxi. 34; 
 Heb. viii. 11 ; and θεοδίδακτοί, 1 Thess. 
 iv. 9. By which is meant not merely, 
 or chiefly, the teaching of God by 
 the precepts of the Gospel, but that 
 Divine teaching by the Hoty Spirit, 
 whereby not so much the intellect is 
 enlightened, as thé heart is touched, 
 and the affections swayed. Bloom- 
 field, iz loc. See also 1 John ii. 27. 
 For the latter half of the verse, comp. 
 John xiv. 27, and Phil. iv. YB ἡ εἰρήνη 
 τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ ὑπερέχουσα πάντα νοῦν. 
 
 14, ‘7m, be far, has here the power 
 of the fature, from the preceding 
 verb, Since the New Testament 
 church has been the subject of awful 
 oppressions, this prophecy must have 
 special reference to the millennial 
 
CHAP. LY.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 411 
 
 15 If they at all assemble, it is not from me ; 
 Whoever may assemble against thee shall fall away to thee. 
 16 Behold! I create the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire ; 
 And bringeth out the instrument for his work ; 
 I also create the spoiler to destroy. 
 17 No instrument formed against thee shall prosper ; 
 And thou shalt condemn every tongue that riseth up in 
 
 judgment with thee. 
 
 This is the inheritance of the servants of Jehovah ; 
 And their righteousness is from me, saith Jehovah. 
 
 \ 
 
 state. Comp. Rev. xxi. and xxii, in 
 the latter of which chapters we have 
 a sublime symbolical description, 
 which may be regarded as an ampli- 
 fication of verses 11 and 12. 
 
 15. The meaning of this verse is, 
 that whatever enemies might assault 
 the church, they were not to be viewed 
 as commissioned by God to execute 
 wrath upon her, as the Assyrians and 
 Babylonians had been, and conse- 
 quently should not succeed in their 
 attempts to remove her. At Ὃν" 7a 
 subaud. Vs, the enemy. JI is not used 
 here as an interjection, but as a con- 
 ditional particle. Comp., for this 
 usage, Exod. vili. 22; Job xl 23. 
 ‘MNd is a less usual, but by no means 
 a recent form, of ‘7x2. The verb %3, 
 followed by ἡ of the person, always 
 signifies 10. go over to another party ; 
 
 LXX. ἐπὶ σὲ καταφεύξονται ; Vulg. 
 
 adjungetur titi. How often have the 
 
 enemies of the saints been arrested in 
 their hostility, by a conviction that 
 they were fighting against God, laid 
 down their arms, and joined themselves 
 to those whom they persecuted ! 
 
 16, 17. All creatures and instru- 
 ments being subordinate to the super- 
 intending agency of Divine providence, 
 the church is assured, that nothing 
 shall be permitted to transpire that 
 can inflict any real injury upon her. 
 Those who fabricate weapons, and 
 those who employ them, are equally in 
 the hand of God—the Maker of all. 
 
 The chapter concludes with a decla- 
 ration, that although such should be 
 the happy state of the servants of the 
 Lord, it was not to be the reward of 
 any merit in them, but the result of 
 his own free and undeserved favour. 
 To him they are indebted, both for the 
 righteousness of their character, and 
 the vindication of their privileges. 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 This chapter treats of the spiritual blessings to be enjoyed by the church as 
 restored from Babylon, and established under the reign of the Messiah. It 
 commences with an universal invitation to those who are spiritually 
 destitute to come and participate in the gratuitous provisions of the Gospel, 
 and a powerful appeal respecting the fruitlessness of every attempt to obtain 
 happiness from any other source, 1—3. The attention of mankind is then 
 
412 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LY. 
 
 directed to the mediatorial appointment of the Messiah, and the extension 
 of his kingdom throughout the world, 4, 5. On this is based a series of 
 calls to the unconverted Jews to avail themselves of the Gospel as first 
 preached to them, with gracious assurances of pardon, 6—9. And after 
 a beautiful illustration of the certainty of the Divine word’s taking effect, 
 10, 11, the prophet returns to his captive people, and again predicts their 
 joyful deliverance, and happy return to their own land. 
 
 1 Ho! every one that thirsteth, come to the waters, 
 And he that hath no money, come, procure and eat ; 
 Yea, come, procure wine and milk, 
 
 Without money and without price. 
 
 2 Why do ye give your money for what is not bread? 
 And your toil for that which satisfieth not ? 
 Hearken attentively to me, and eat what is good, 
 And your soul shall delight itself in fatness. 
 
 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; 
 
 Hear, that your soul may live ; 
 And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, 
 
 The sure mercies of David. 
 
 1. The freeness, abundance, richness, 
 the pure, refreshing, and satisfactory 
 nature of gospel-blessings, are indi- 
 cated by the metaphors here employed. 
 Comp. chap. xii. 3, xxv. 6. The Targ. 
 limits the tense to instruction ; but 
 this is only the medium through which 
 men are brought into the enjoyment of 
 these blessings. ‘Mihi vero dubium 
 non est quin Jesaias hisce nominibus 
 Aquarum, Lactis, Vini, Panis, omnia 
 comprehendat que δ spiritualem 
 vitam necessaria sunt.” Calvin. 
 
 2. WDD DW, lit. to weigh, weigh out 
 money, in reference to the custom of 
 weighing uncoined gold and silver 
 in mercantile transactions, which an- 
 ciently obtained, not only among the 
 Hebrews, but among other nations ; 
 and still obtains in Turkey, and other 
 parts of the East. Hence the terms 
 RD, shekel, ττῷ, Gerah, &e. 
 
 3. The DY ma, which God promises 
 to institute, is none other than the 
 mom ma, so fully described, Jer. xxxi. 
 31—34. Indeed, it is explained in 
 the words immediately following, ‘107 
 
 DONT NI, the sure benefits promised to 
 David; Arab. ἄδοί ΑἹ dd Suclye, 
 
 promissa Davidis veracia ; LXX. ra ὅσια 
 Δαυὶδ ta πιστὰ, which the Apostle 
 quotes, Acts xiii. 34, in order to shew 
 that Christ must necessarily have 
 risen to an immortal life. The phrase 
 τὴ ΡΠ, LXX. rd ἐλέη Δαυΐδ, occurs 
 again 2 Chron. vi. 42, as descriptive 
 of the promise which God made to 
 David of a Son who was to be raised 
 up to him after his death, 1 Chron. 
 xvii. 11 ; who was not only to be his 
 descendant, but the descendant of his 
 sons, ibid. ; and who was to reign over 
 a kingdom that was to endure to 
 perpetuity, vers. 12—14. Comp. Isa. 
 ix. 7; Luke i. 32, 33. That this pro- 
 mise, of which we have a full state- 
 ment 2 Sam. vii. 12—16, and 1 Chron. 
 xvii. 11—14, was altogether distinct 
 from that which respected Solomon, 
 1 Chron, xxii. 8—13, has been satis- 
 factorily shewn by Whiston, Pierce, 
 and Kennicott. It likewise forms the 
 subject of Ps. Ixxxix.; the title of 
 
CHAP. LV.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 415 
 
 4 Behold! I have made him a Witness fo the people. 
 A Prince and Commander to the people. 
 
 5 Behold! thou shalt call nations which ἕπου Enewest not, 
 And nations which knew not thee shall rum ἔν thee ; : 
 
 Because of Jehovah thy God, 
 
 And because of the Holy One of Israel, who hath glonfied thee. 
 6 Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found: 
 Call ye upon him while he is near ; 
 
 which ἘΞ ΘΝ GP Te Oy I will sng 
 of the mercies of Jehorch for ever, ie 
 
 sach, sure and permanent. 
 
 4. As the promises are all Yea and 
 Amen im the Meszah, he ἔξ here D 
 troduced to view pers 
 
 F 
 
 i 
 
 F 
 
 ἢ, 
 
 ἔ 
 
 , 
 “8 
 A ἢ 5' 
 
 we 
 
 ‘ 
 Hl; 
 i 
 
 : 
 ; 
 i 
 ἢ, 
 Ἵ 
 
 > 
 i 
 : 
 Aur 
 
 NT ἐν Rev. ἢ 5; ἀρχεγὰς, Acts 
 . T. ἄρχων, Rev. ὃς 
 
 NL15 ; Heb ἢ τὸ. The difference 
 im meaning between this 
 
 the Tas TSS2, Cemmenier, seems 
 to be, that by the former ᾿Ξ expressed 
 the Mea of suime before, a5 ἃ primce 
 
 ts. and Scholz, are of qpimen that 
 Sie Clisech si Seok Meio 
 
 is more natural ie refer the wank te 
 der is used contrary te the mage of 
 
 the when adtirexins the 
 acta Οὐ τος Egan ai 
 Messcks. Ghnm, SBS νὰ 
 
414 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LY. 
 
 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, 
 And the unrighteous his thoughts ; 
 And let him return to Jehovah, and he will be merciful to him ; 
 Even to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 
 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
 Neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah. 
 9 For as the heavens are high above the earth, 
 So are my ways above your ways, 
 And my thoughts above your thoughts. 
 
 10 
 
 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, 
 
 And return not thither, but water the earth, 
 And cause it to bring forth and bud, 
 That it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater : 
 
 ll 
 
 So shall my word be, which goeth out of my mouth; 
 It shall not return to me void, 
 
 But shall effect that which I please, 
 And prosper in that for which I send it. 
 
 12 
 And be led out in peace ; 
 
 For ye shall go forth with joy, 
 
 The mountains and hills shall burst into song before you, 
 And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 
 18 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress ; 
 
 established among them, lest Jehovah 
 should withdraw his presence from 
 them and vouchsafe it to the Gentiles 
 only. While the latter pressed for- 
 ward with the utmost eagerness, it 
 behoved the former to repent, believe 
 the Gospel, and bring forth fruits 
 worthy of repentance. See, for a 
 similar argument, chap. 11. 2—5, 
 
 8, 9. Though men would not so act 
 towards each other, as it regards the 
 forgiveness of numerous and _ highly 
 aggravated offences, it was in perfect 
 accordance with the exalted charac- 
 ter of Jehovah, who “ delighteth in 
 mercy.” Before the former 1723, the 
 compound Ws, marking the protasis, 
 is omitted. Job vii.9; Ps. xlviii. 6; 
 Hos. xi. 2; furnish similar instances 
 of this ellipsis. Comp. for the sen- 
 timent, Ps. οἱ], 11. 
 
 11. By some, 727 has here been 
 taken in a personal sense, as desig- 
 nating the Logos, of whom, according 
 
 to such interpretation, Jehovah de- 
 clares, that he should not return to 
 heaven without accomplishing the 
 work which he had given him to do ; 
 but, as appears from the following 
 verse, it is rather to be understood of 
 the Divine mandate given to Cyrus 
 to liberate the captive Jews. Though 
 thus special, however, in the present 
 connexion, the declaration holds true 
 of the Divine word universally, Numb. 
 xxiii. 19. 
 
 12,13. The general meaning of these 
 verses is well given by Musculus: 
 * Quoniam, inquit, verbum hoe quod 
 egressus est ex ore Dei, sic erit efficax 
 suo tempore, ut sit vos ὃ Babylone 
 liberaturum, et in hance terram ves- 
 tram reducturum. Exibitis igitur ὃ 
 Babylone liberati, cum gaudio, et 
 deducimini cum pace: hoc est, pro- 
 speré, sine hostili infestatione, et 
 absque omni impedimento.” The 12th 
 verse exhibits a noble instance of 
 
CHAP. 11. ISATAH. 
 
 And instead of the nettle shall come up the myrtle ; 
 And it shall become a name to Jehovah ; ' 
 An everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. 
 
 prosopopeeia; the most prominent 
 objects in nature being represented as 
 meeting the returning Jews with 
 exultant joy, or joining in acclama- 
 tions as they pass along. 
 
 “ Tpsi leetitia voces ad sidera jactant, 
 
 Intonsi montes: ips jam carmina 
 rupes, 
 
 Tpsa sonant arbusta.”—Virg. Eel. v. 
 
 To indicate their prosperous and 
 happy condition, nature is represented 
 as undergoing a complete change. 
 
 415 
 Comp. chap. xli. 18, 19. ΕΘ is of 
 doubtful signification: LXX., Aq., 
 
 Theod., κονύζα, the inula viscosa ; 
 Symm. xvidn, the common nettle. Thus 
 also the Vulg.° wrtica, which I have 
 followed, as the root is, not impro- 
 bably, 772, 4o dura, with 72 appended, 
 from 18, calamity ; Sanscrit, pid, to 
 make sad, afflict. 
 
 The event should redound to the 
 glory of God, and be appealed to in 
 all future time as a signal instance of 
 his gracious interposition in behalf of 
 his people. 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 The first eight verses of this chapter are intimately connected with the 
 subject of the preceding. The Jews are incited to cultivate those dispo- 
 sitions, and to exhibit that conduct which corresponded to the nature of 
 the dispensation about to be established, 1, 2; assurances and promises are 
 given to those who had been excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, 
 that they should be received to the full enjoyment of the richer privileges 
 of the Christian Church, 3—7; and a specific prediction is inserted 
 respecting the ingathering of the Gentiles generally, 8. 
 
 With the 9th verse a new subject begins, which is continued through the 
 three foll6wing chapters; vz. the character of the Jews and their rulers, 
 which brought down upon them the retributions of Divine providence. 
 The prophet had presented to his mental vision that character as developed 
 from his own time till after the final dispersion of the Jews’ by the 
 Romans. The different hostile powers by which they were to be oppressed 
 are first summoned to attack them, 9; and then the description of 
 character commences with a graphic picture of the ignorance, insensibility, 
 avarice, and voluptuousness of their ecclesiastical and civil rulers, 10—12. 
 
 1 Tus saith Jehovah : 
 
 Observe justice ; yea, practise righteousness ; 
 
 1, 2. The import of these verses is 
 
 Comp. Ps. I. 23; Mal. iv. 4, 5. As 
 
 essentially that of the message of during the exile, the Sabbath was the 
 
 John the Baptist, Matt. iii, 2, 8. 
 
 only part of the law which the Jews 
 
410 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LVI. 
 
 Hor the coming of my salvation is near, 
 And the revelation of my righteousness. 
 2 Blessed is the man that doeth this ; 
 And the son of man that adhereth to it ; 
 Keeping the sabbath, without profaning it ; 
 And keeping his hand so as to do no evil. 
 3 Nor let the stranger, that joineth himself to Jehovah, say, 
 Jehovah hath utterly separated me from his people ; 
 
 Neither let the eunuch say, 
 Behold! 1 am a dry tree. 
 
 4 lor thus saith Jehovah to the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, 
 And choose the things in which I delight, 
 
 Adhering to my covenant : 
 
 or 
 
 I will give them in my house, and within my walls, 
 
 A memorial and a name better than sons and daughters ; 
 
 I will give to each an everlasting name, 
 
 That shall not be cut off. 
 
 had it in their power to keep, in so 
 far as external observances were con- 
 cerned, particular stress is laid upon 
 its celebration; but with a directly 
 implied reference to future times. It 
 is also worthy of special notice, that 
 the observance of the. day of rest is 
 here placed on a level with the per- 
 formance of moral duties :—a circum- 
 stance which exactly tallies with the 
 place assigned to it in the decalogue. 
 msi and ΠΡ are anticipative of the 
 duties afterwards mentioned in the 
 verse, 
 
 3. These two classes are selected to 
 serve aS a specimen of the whole 
 Gentile world. They had been ex- 
 pressly ‘excluded from the congrega- 
 tion of the Hebrews, Deut. xxiii. 1—8. 
 And even such converts as were after- 
 wards received by the Jews, under 
 the designation of P1873, proselytes of 
 righteousness, were never cordially re- 
 garded by them, but, on the contrary, 
 were held to be the canker and rust 
 of Israel. Such distinctions were all 
 to be done away. The phrase, “a 
 dry tree,” is still used in the East of 
 a person of either sex who has no 
 children. 
 
 4. The covenant referred to here 
 an ver. 6, is doubtless the everlasting, 
 
 or New Covenant, the establishment 
 of which is promised, chap. lv. 3. 
 
 5. 2, hand, is here used in the sense 
 of monument or memorial; that by 
 which the knowledge of the character 
 or actions of any one is transmitted 
 to future generations. The eunuchs 
 might have nothing within the pre- 
 cincts of the Jewish temple to per- 
 petuate their memory: they night 
 have no “name” on the genealogical 
 tables of the Jews; but the want of 
 these would be amply compensated, 
 by the everlasting privileges which 
 they should enjoy as sons and citizens 
 in the New Jerusalem. Michaelis has 
 here an ingenious reference to the 
 Ethiopian eunuch, who is immor- 
 talized by a monument and a name, 
 Acts viii. far above any celebrity that 
 could have accrued to him from sons 
 and daughters. Gesenius, and some 
 other expositors, prefer the accepta- 
 tion portion, to that of monument, but 
 Dw, zwme, being mentioned in imme- 
 diate connexion with it, proves that 
 
 -it means the latter, as that on which 
 
 the name was inscribed. Comp. 1 
 Sam. xv. 12; 2 Sam. viii. 13. 1 is to 
 be taken collectively, as frequently 
 after a plural. 
 
CHAP. LVI. | 
 
 _ISATAH. 
 
 417 
 
 6 And as for the strangers that join themselves to Jehovah, 
 
 to serve him, 
 
 And to love the name of Jehovah, becoming his servants ; 
 All that keep the sabbath, without profaning it, 
 
 Adhering to my covenant: 
 
 7 I will bring them to my holy mountain, 
 And make them joyful in my house of prayer: 
 Their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted on 
 
 my altar; 
 
 For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. 
 
 8 The Lord Jehovah saith! 
 
 He that collecteth the dispersed of Israel : 
 
 Τ will collect to him others, 
 
 In addition to those of his that are collected. 
 9 All ye beasts of the field, come ; 
 All ye beasts of the forest, come to devour! 
 10 His watchmen are blind; they are all without knowledge ; 
 
 7. The language of this verse is 
 obviously metaphorical, since it de- 
 seribes privileges to be enjoyed after 
 Jerusalem, and the temple, with all 
 its ritual observances, had been de- 
 stroyed. It is borrowed from scenes 
 and services familiar to the Jews in 
 the days of the prophet, and onward 
 during the continuance of their ancient 
 dispensation. The quotation of part 
 of the verse by our Lord, Mark xi. 17, 
 in application to the literal temple, 
 which was then standing, has the 
 Same general aspect towards the Gen- 
 tiles. Comp. Mal. i. 10, 11; Ps. li. 
 U7Ge Rom, ΧΗ Ὁ Ὁ. 1) Tim, ii.'15;' Heb. 
 xiii, 15; 1 Pet. ii. 5. sp, shall be 
 called: i.e. shall be. 
 
 8. Israel stands for the Church of 
 God. Not only were the dispersed 
 Jews to be collected, and prepared for 
 the enjoyment of the privileges of the 
 Gospel, but the Gentiles were likewise 
 to be gathered, so as to form one body 
 with such of the former as should be 
 converted to the Messiah. The ante- 
 cedent to YY and Y¥372 is NIM, Israel, 
 the original stock, as the Apostle 
 teaches, Rom. xi. 17, 18, into which 
 the Gentile branches were grafted. 
 
 9. Mention having been made of 
 
 the dispersion of the Jews, the pro- 
 phet, by a bold apostrophe, abruptly 
 
 -summons to the execution of their 
 
 work, the agents by whom it was to 
 be effected. These he characterises 
 as wild beasts,—a metaphor not un- 
 usual in the prophetic writings, when 
 reference is made to persecuting 
 powers. See Jer. xii. 9; Ezek, xxxiv. 
 28; Dan. vii. 3, 19, 23; Rev. xiii. 1. 
 yoy has Wa 11743, as well as ‘Tw imn %, 
 for its object: to express which I have 
 repeated the corresponding English 
 verb. The interpretation of some of 
 the Rabbins, Rosenmiller, and others, 
 that the wild beasts are called to 
 devour one another, cannot be jus- 
 tified from the connexion. Lowth’s 
 objection to the 3 in 12 is also ground- 
 less. See on chap. xxi. 13. 
 
 10. The exposure of the Jews to 
 the inflictions of Divine indignation 
 is in this and the two following 
 verses ascribed to the impiety of 
 their teachers as its primary ¢ause. 
 They were not only neglected by 
 them, but deceived by their erro- 
 neous doctrines, and corrupted by 
 their bad example. Most commen- 
 tators consider both civil and eccle- 
 siastical rulers to be meant by the 
 
418 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LVI. 
 
 They are all dumb dogs; they cannot bark ; 
 Dreamers; lying down; loving to slumber. 
 
 11 
 
 Yea, the dogs are greedy; they cannot have enough ; 
 
 And the shepherds themselves cannot understand : 
 They all turn to their own way ; 
 Each for his gain from his quarter. 
 
 12 Come, I will fetch wine, 
 
 And let us drink ourselves drunk with strong liquor ; 
 For to-morrow shall be as this day ; 
 
 Yea, vastly superior. 
 
 op’, watchmen ; but I do not find the 
 term ever applied figuratively to any 
 but prophets, or religious teachers. 
 Those here introduced were destitute 
 of spiritual perception,—consequently, 
 could not see the impending danger, 
 and give warning of it. Comp. Matt. 
 xv. 14; xxiii. 16, 17, 19, 24, 26. The 
 idea of dumb dogs was naturally sug- 
 gested by that of watchmen who 
 gave no warning. 123, fo bark, occurs 
 only here, but is common in the 
 Arabic, and in the Rabbinical He- 
 brew. O17 is likewise a ἅπαξ dey. Five 
 MSS., originally three more, and per- 
 haps three others, four Edd., Symm., 
 and the Vulg., read ὉΠ, seers ; but 
 this would break in upon the meta- 
 phorical character of the passage. 
 The rendering of the LXX. ἐνυπνιαζό- 
 μενοι, and of Aq. φανταζόμενοι, dreamers, 
 delirantes, is fully supported by the 
 
 cognate Arab. Six, om, derilavit 
 in loquendo ; use , deliratio, whether 
 
 from sleep, or disease ; and, the refer- 
 ence to dogs being continued, the 
 term aptly describes the dreams to 
 which these animals are subject, 
 under the influence of which they 
 give utterance to a subdued bark or 
 
 growl, 023% conveys not merely the 
 idea of lying down, but of continuing 
 to lie, a8 in sleep. 
 
 11. wea, lit. strong of soul; i.e. of 
 a powerful appetite, greedy. The 
 metaphor expresses the avaricious 
 character of the Jewish teachers. 
 By the shepherds are meant the kings 
 and princes of the nation, who, 
 equally with the false prophets, were 
 destitute of spiritual discernment, and 
 addicted to selfishness and sensual in- 
 dulgence, ὙΠΕΡ, lit. from his extremity, 
 which expresses the extreme lengths 
 to which they went, in their efforts to 
 accumulate gain. 
 
 12. Isaiah ironically introduces 
 these abandoned princes as inviting 
 their companions to join them in in- 
 temperance. 7x, with which the 
 invitation commences, is the identical 
 term used ver. 9, where the wild 
 beasts are summoned to come and 
 inflict punishment upon them. Each 
 of them is represented as giving such 
 invitation, the propriety of which not 
 having been perceived by some in- 
 terpreters, they have changed the 
 singular 7778 into the plural 772, we 
 will fetch. The language here em- 
 ployed strikingly depicts the feelings 
 of the voluptuous in every age. 
 
CHAP. 1.011.] ISAIAH. 419 
 
 CHAPTER ΤΥ}. 
 
 The prophet now proceeds to describe the national character of the Jews in 
 his own day, and down to the time of the captivity. Unaffected by the 
 removal of the pious, which is always an ominous circumstance in the 
 history of a nation, 1, 2, they evinced an awful hardihood in mocking God, 
 3, 4; abandoned themselves to the grossest idolatries, 5—8 ; and left no 
 methods untried by which to gratify their apostate disposition, 9, 10. 
 Jehovah expostulates with them on the folly of their conduct, and the 
 inutility of their self-righteous confidence, 11, 12 ; promises deliverance to 
 the penitent, 13—18; announces the Gospel of peace to be preached to 
 Jews and Gentiles at a period subsequent to the return from Babylon, 
 19; and threatens obstinate transgressors with the deprivation of every 
 
 blessing, 20, 21, 
 
 1 THE righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; 
 And good men are taken away, while none considereth it ; 
 But it is from calamity the righteous is taken away : 
 
 2 He entereth into peace; they rest on their beds : 
 
 Every one that walketh straight before him. 
 
 3 But as for you,—draw nigh, ye sons of the sorceress! 
 
 Ye brood of the adulterer, and the whore! 
 
 1. Whether Hezekiah or Josiah be 
 meant by 7127 cannot be determined, 
 nor, indeed, whether any particular 
 individual be intended; but both of 
 these excellent princes were removed 
 before they were advanced in life, 
 and were thus relieved from the pains 
 of witnessing the calamities which 
 the wicked kings by whom they were 
 succeeded brought upon the nation. 
 nods, which properly signifies ¢o gather, 
 is frequently used in Niphal, of being 
 removed from the present state into 
 that of the pious dead, to be re-united 
 to them as still living with God, Luke 
 xx. 38. Comp. Gen. xxv. 8, xlix. 29. 
 
 2. The elliptical phrase ἵν Nia 
 means to enter into the peaceable 
 state of the departed, where they are 
 free from all the sufferings and dis- 
 quietudes of life. It is used of the 
 
 spirit only: the rest of the body in 
 the grave is expressed in the following 
 clause. 473} 727 is descriptive,—not 
 of a walk or conversation in the 
 invisible world, but of the character 
 of the blessed dead while they lived 
 in the present. Theirs was a straight- 
 forward, undeviating course. 
 
 3,4. There is great force in Dns), 
 with which this address commences ; 
 as there is, likewise, an emphasis in 
 the repetition of the same pronoun 
 towards the close of the next verse. It 
 places the wicked Jews in the boldest 
 contrast with the pious departed. 
 They are called to come forward and 
 answer for the daring profligacy of 
 their conduct ; and are addressed in 
 terms of correspending opprobrium 
 and reproach, 3:7 is here used sub- 
 stantively, instead of 734, but is pro- 
 
420 
 
 ISATAH 
 
 [CHAP. LVIT. 
 
 4 At whom is it ye indulge in sport? 
 At whom is it ye gape with the mouth, ye stretch out the 
 
 tongue ? 
 
 Are ye not rebellious children ? a treacherous brood ? 
 
 or 
 
 Enflamed with gods under every green tree, 
 
 Slaying the children in the valleys, 
 
 Under the cliffs of the rocks. 
 
 6 The smooth stones of the valley are thy portion ; 
 
 They, they are thy lot ; 
 
 Yea, to them thou hast poured out a libation, 
 
 And presented an offering. 
 
 Should I not take vengeance on account of these things ? 
 
 perly the third sing. fem. of the fut. 
 in Kal, from 72, ¢o commit whoredom or 
 idolatry. 82 TW, to make a _ long 
 tongue, i.e. to stretch it out of the 
 mouth, in contempt of any one, was 
 not peculiar to the Hebrews. Livy, 
 describing the meeting of T. Manlius 
 and his Gallic foe, says: “Armatum 
 adornatumque adversus Gallum stolide 
 letum, et (quoniam id quoque me- 
 moria dignum antiquis visum est) 
 linguam etiam ab irrisu exserentem pro- 
 ducunt.” Hist. vii. 10. 
 
 5. Here commences a fearful picture 
 of the idolatrous practices in which 
 the Jews indulged. 0973, the Niph. 
 part. of oan, 40 burn, be inflamed with 
 lust. Comp. 082, from 7x, Mal. 111. 9 ; 
 nimi, Jer. xxii. 23; and see Ewald, καὶ 
 262. Orig. Gesen. Lehrg. Ὁ. 371. It 
 is followed by 2 to mark the im- 
 passioned devotedness with which 
 the Jews engaged in the service of 
 idols. By 0 x, gods or idols, not oaks 
 are meant, as the words immediately 
 following shew. Thus the LXX,, 
 Vulg., Targ., Syr. The barbarous 
 custom of immolating children in 
 honour of, or with a view to pro- 
 pitiate, the gods, was awfully pre- 
 valent among the Pagan nations of 
 antiquity. Its existence among the 
 Pheenicians is mentioned by Eusebius, 
 Prep. Evan. iv. 16; Curtius, iv. 2, 23 ; 
 Porphyr. de Abstin. ii. 56 ; among the 
 Carthaginians, by Justin. xix. 1, and 
 Varro, in Augustine’s Civ. Dei, vii. 
 19; and among the Cretans, by 
 Porphyr. wt sup. In Hebrew, it is 
 
 expressed by x2 O22 Yn, to offer 
 children, by causing them to pass into 
 the fire. Some, indeed, after the 
 Rabbins, have attempted to soften 
 the description, by representing the 
 action as consisting merely of a lus- 
 tration, in performing which upon 
 the children, they passed through 
 uninjured ; but that they were really 
 burned, such passages as Ps. cvi. 37, 
 38; Jer. vil. 31, xix. 5, indisputably 
 prove. Diod. Sic., describing the rite 
 as celebrated by the Carthaginians to 
 Cronos or Saturn, says: ἦν παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς 
 ἀνδριὰς Κρόνου χαλκοῦς, ἐκτετακὼς Tas 
 χεῖρας ὑπτίας ἐγκεκλιμένας ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, 
 ὥστε τὸν ἐπιτεθέντα τῶν παίδων ἀποκυ- 
 λίεσθαι καὶ πίπτειν εἴς τι χάσμα πλῆρες 
 πυρός, Xx. 14. See Calmet and Winer, 
 art. “Moloch.” In the O. T. this 
 worship is specially spoken of in 
 reference to Moloch, the god of the 
 Ammonites. It was practised by the 
 Jews in the valley of Hinnom, 2 
 Chron. xxviii. 3, xxxili. 6; and, as 
 would appear from the present text, 
 in other valleys. 
 
 6. The Jews are addressed collec- 
 tively in the fem. gen.—most probably 
 to point out the fact of their sustain- 
 ing the character of the 717, specified 
 v. 3. In Jr PTA is an elegant 
 paronomasia. That the 3 in 7127773 
 is the Beth essentie (see on chap. XxXvi. 
 4), the following ἘΠῚ 077 seem clearly to 
 indicate. What we are to understand 
 by opt has been disputed. The 
 ancient versions give it by portion. 
 Hitzig and Scholz, naked, unshaded 
 
CHAP. LVII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 421 
 
 7 On the high and lofty mountain thou hast placed thy bed ; 
 Yea, thou hast gone up thither to offer sacrifice. 
 
 places, without any appropriate mean- 
 ing. Gesenius, who had broached this 
 rendering i in his Comm., has returned 
 to that of portion in his Thesaurus, 
 
 sub voc. The root px, Arab. eS, 
 
 levigavit, quantitate et mensura definivit, 
 signifies fo de smooth; and as smooth 
 stones were used as lots, 727 in Chald. 
 
 and gsi in Arab. denote a stone 
 
 employed for this purpose. The 
 phrase, 72772 O28 ‘227, smooth stones 
 Jrom the valley, 1 ‘Sam. xvii. 40, is the 
 full form of what is here only ‘ellipti- 
 cally expressed. Since these stones are 
 here represented as being objects of 
 idolatrous worship, (722 ποθ Di7D3,) 
 there can be little ἫΝ that they 
 were such as had been smoothed and 
 formed into particular shapes by the 
 violent action of the water in the 
 wady upon them ; and so rendered fit 
 to be selected to serve as idols. Of 
 their size nothing is said. They are 
 supposed to have been the’ λίθοι 
 Aurapol, anointed stones, which were 
 consecrated to the honour of certain 
 deities, and were believed to be in- 
 stinct with their presence. They were 
 also called βαιτύλια ; and traceable, it 
 has been thought, to the transaction 
 at Bethel, where Jacob erected his 
 commemorative pillar, poured oil upon 
 it, and constituted it a place of Divine 
 worship. Lucian thus describes an 
 idolater, in reference to the super- 
 stitious veneration paid to such stones: 
 Pate ais ἀνὴρ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα καλὸς καὶ 
 ἀγαθὸς .... τὰ δὲ περὶ τοὺς θεοῦς πάνυ 
 νοσῶν, καὶ ἀλλόκοτα περὶ αὐτῶν πεπι- 
 στευκὼς, καὶ εἰ μόνον ἀληλιμμένον ποῦ 
 λίθον, ἢ ἢ ἔστεφανωμένον θεάσαιτο, προσ- 
 πίπτων ἀεὶ καὶ προσκυνῶν, καὶ ἐπὶ 
 πολὺ παρεστὼς, καὶ εὐχόμενος, καὶ τἀγαθὰ 
 παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ αἰτῶν. Pseudomantis, c. 
 xxx. Arnobius also, speaking of ‘his 
 conduct when a Pagan, says: “Si 
 quando conspexeram lubricatum lapi- 
 dem et ex olivi unguine sordidatum, 
 tanquam inesset vis presens, adulabar, 
 affabar et beneficia poscebam nihil 
 
 sentiente trunco.” Adver. Gent. i. p. 
 13. Comp. also: Πάντα λίθον, τὸ δὴ 
 λεγόμενον, λιπαρὸν ἐπροσκυνοῦν. Clem. 
 Alex. Strom. vii. Of this ancient 
 superstition, the celebrated Black 
 
 Stone (Ogud] = 1) in the angle of 
 
 the Caaba at Mecca, is, in all proba- 
 bility, a relic. “It is,’ says Burck- 
 hardt, “an irregular oval, about seven 
 inches in diameter, with an undulated 
 surface, composed of about a dozen 
 smaller stones of different sizes and 
 shapes, well joined together with a 
 small quantity of cement, and per- 
 fectly smoothed.—It is very difficult 
 to determine accurately the quality 
 of this stone, which has been 
 worn to its present surface by the 
 millions of touches and kisses it 
 has received.” Travels in Arabia, 
 i. pp. 249, 250. 
 
 Such idols were the 720, portion, and 
 303, Jot, of the apostate Jews, because 
 they regarded them as the authors of 
 their prosperity, possessions, and en- 
 joyments. The words are used pre- 
 cisely in the same sense in which 
 Jehovah is said to be the 727 of his 
 people, Ps. Ixxiii. 26, cxix. 57. exlii. 6 ; 
 Jer. x. 16; Lam. iii. 24. He is to 
 them the source of infinite good. See 
 especially the passage just quoted 
 from Jeremiah, in which Jehovah, as 
 “the portion of Jacob,” is contrasted 
 with the objects of heathen confidence 
 and worship.—There is considerable 
 emphasis in the repetition 07 07, as 
 well as in 53 before 079. “Non sim- 
 pliciter dicit, Fundis ipsis libamen : 
 sed etiam ipsis; g. d. non mihi soli 
 sed ipsis quoque fundis,” &c. Mus- 
 culus. Jin YT is equivalent to N77; 
 at least, an affirmative answer is im- 
 plied in interrogations thus put. So 
 the LXX. and Vulg. 
 
 7. The metaphor here employed is 
 taken from the conduct of astrumpet, 
 entirely destitute of shame. Comp. 
 Jer. iii. 2; Ezek. xvi. 24, 25, 31. Wis 
 used collectively for mountains or 
 hills. 
 
 an 
 
422 
 
 ἸΞΑΤΙΑΗ͂. 
 
 [CHAP. -LVII. 
 
 8 Behind the door also, and the door-post, thou hast placed thy 
 
 memorial ; 
 
 For thou hast exposed thyself to another than me ; 
 
 Yea, thou hast gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed ; 
 
 And thou hast obtained a contract from them ; 
 
 Thou hast loved their converse ; thou hast chosen the place. 
 9 Yea, thou hast travelled to the king with ointment, 
 
 And multiplied thy perfumes ; 
 
 Yea, thou hast sent thy messengers to a distance, 
 
 And gone down even to Sheol. 
 Thou hast been fatigued with the length of thy journey : 
 
 10 
 
 Yet thou hast not said, It is desperate : 
 Thou hast found the vigour of thy hand ; 
 
 8. An amplified description of 
 idolatrous lewdness in reference to 
 household gods, and the worship paid 
 to them in secret.—j}n3, remembrance, 
 
 . memorial, that which brings to re- 
 membrance ; here, images or represen- 
 tations of celebrated idols. Comp. 
 Ezek. xvi. 19, xxiii. 14—16.— nxn, lit. 
 From with me; 1. 6. in a state of sepa- 
 ration or apostasy from me. Comp. 
 mm “me 3, Hos, 1. 2; nD, iv. 12; 
 and ὅν, ix. 1, in the same sense.— 
 DM NM; supply ΓΞ, a covenant ; 
 here used for the terms of a contract. 
 The reference is to the advantages 
 which the Jews expected from the 
 service of idols, which are represented 
 as the hire obtained by a harlot from 
 her lovers. The representation, Ezek. 
 Xvi. 33, 34, is of a still more aggravated 
 description. 3M is an incorrect form 
 for ™2n. For a similar instance, see 
 Jer. 11]. 5.—m17 2, Déderlein, Gesenius 
 in Comm., and Hitzig, take to be an 
 euphemism ; but, in his later Lexicons, 
 Gesenius has returned to the signi- 
 fication, place. That 717 signifies fo 
 look out, select, choose, see Exod, xviii. 
 21. Thus the Targ. and Syr. 
 
 9. 1 usually signifies Zo view, look 
 round, watch for, but here it obviously 
 appears to be used in the acceptation 
 of going or travelling. Comp. 1A, to go 
 
 about, and the Arab. ye », ter fecit ; 
 ww, profectio, tter ; Jb circumivit. 
 
 Lean aatle here means the king of 
 Assyria, Egypt, or some other foreign 
 country; or, whether it stands for 
 920, Molech, and should be so pointed, 
 is uncertain. We find the word 
 in the compound name of idols, as 
 yO, Adrammelech, and 37232, Anam- 
 melech, gods of the Sepharvaim, 2 
 Kings xvii. 31; and, from the con- | 
 nexion, it is probable that either 
 Molech, or some other idol, is in-| 
 tended. Comp. Amos v. 26; Zeph. 
 i. 5. The Jews are represented as 
 a courtesan who uses precious oils 
 and perfumes, in order to set off her 
 person, and ingratiate herself with her 
 paramours. To such idols as were 
 within reach they went in person ; 
 and to such as were celebrated in dis- 
 tant countries, they sent messengers 
 with offerings. *xw1v, unto Sheol, 
 means, 7 the lowest degree. See Deut. 
 Xxxil. 22, as ἕως adov, Matt. xi. 23; 
 Luke. x. 15. The idolatry was of the 
 most degrading description. 
 
 10. That 77725 means length of way, 
 see Josh. ix. 13. For Ν᾽), comp. Jer. 
 li. 25, xviii. 12.—77. 7 has been va- 
 riously interpreted. The literal ren- 
 dering, the life, i.e. vigour, strength, 
 of thy hand, farnishes the mogt appro- 
 priate meaning. The hand being the 
 symbol of power, and ™ being used 
 of whatever is lively or strong, the 
 idea of natural vigour is intended to 
 be conveyed. The idolatrous Jews 
 wearied themselves with their un- 
 
CHAP. LVII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 423 
 
 Therefore, thou hast not been discouraged. 
 
 il 
 
 Who filled thee with dread? or, of whom wast thou afraid, 
 
 When thou provedst false, and didst not remember me, 
 
 Nor lay it to heart ? 
 
 Was 1 not silent, and hid mine eyes ὃ 
 
 Yet thou fearedst me not. 
 12 
 
 18 
 thee! 
 
 I will shew thy righteousness, 
 For they shall not profit thee. 
 When thou criest out, let the collection of thy gods deliver 
 
 and thy works ; 
 
 Surely, the wind shall carry them all off; a puff shall take 
 
 them away ; 
 
 But he that trusteth in me shall possess the land, 
 And inherit my holy mountain. 
 
 hallowed practices ; but finding that 
 they had not entirely exhausted their 
 strength, they would not give up 
 their pursuits as hopeless, but rather 
 emboldened themselves in wicked- 
 ness. 
 
 11. An inquiry is here put to the 
 infatuated Jews ; which of the idols to 
 which they had applied, could they 
 regard as more powerful than Je- 
 hovah ? Because he had forborne to 
 punish, they indulged in practices 
 which argued the absence of all true 
 regard to his authority. oz», the 
 reading of the Textus .Receptus, is 
 justly suspected. Very many MSS., 
 among which the oldest ‘and _ best 
 Spanish, and some printed Editions, 
 as the Biblia Antiqua in fol., without 
 date, the Complutensian, and that of 
 Norzius of 1742, read 05ym, which, if 
 pointed om, with yy understood, 
 furnishes the sense found in the LXX. 
 and Vulg. mapopé ; quasi non videns. 
 For a similar ellipsis of Dry, see Ps. 
 x. 1, This reading also well agrees 
 with the context; so that, in con- 
 sideration of the whole, I have been 
 induced, with Lowth and Michaelis, 
 to depart from the punctuation of the 
 current text, 
 
 12. The reading ὭΣ, of which also 
 Lowth approves, is not by any means 
 so well supported, and has, in all 
 probability, originated in a desire to 
 remove the apparent incongruity of 
 
 supposing that any thing bearing the 
 character of righteousness could be 
 ascribed to the persons here addressed. 
 But even in the most idolatrous times 
 of the Jewish state, the temple-wor- 
 ship was not entirely abandoned. Of 
 this the Jews boasted, while they 
 joined to it the worship of other gods, 
 whom they were anxious to propitiate, 
 in order to prevent attacks on the 
 part of those nations of whom these 
 idols were regarded as the patrons. 
 Comp. Jer. vii. passim. This exegesis is 
 preferable to that of Zwinglius, who 
 considers the words to be spoken kar’ 
 εἰρωνείαν sive ἀντίφρασιν. In Pwd 
 the idea of wicked is implied ; hence 
 the rendering of the LXX. τὰ κακά 
 cov. It would be made apparent that 
 neither a hypocritical service of the 
 true God, nor the worship of strange 
 gods, could be of any avail in the 
 hour of danger. 
 
 13. By ov13a7 are meant the idols 
 and images of the entire Pantheon 
 of the apostate Jews. Thus Jarchi, 
 nap Wr D>) ODOR msiap; and Ge- 
 senius, “ deine Haufen, gleichs. deine 
 Schaaren, Legionen von Gottern, dein 
 ganzes Pantheon.” To these they should 
 look in vain for deliverance. 
 
 The prophet now, by way of an- 
 tithesis, administers comfort to the 
 pious who should be involved in the 
 national calamity ; and promises them 
 a return to their own land. The lan- 
 
424 
 
 14 
 
 10 
 
 ISATAH. [CHAP. LVII. 
 
 And it shall be said: Cast up, cast up; prepare the way ; 
 Remove the stumbling-block out of the way of my people. 
 For thus saith the high and lofty One, 
 
 That dwelleth in eternity, whose name is holy: 
 
 I dwell in the high and holy place, 
 
 But also in him that is contrite and of a lowly spirit ; 
 
 To revive the spirit of the lowly, 
 
 And to revive the heart of the contrite. 
 
 For I will not always contend, 
 
 Neither will I be angry for ever: 
 
 Since the spirit would wear out before me, 
 And the souls which I have made. 
 
 17 
 
 For his exorbitant iniquity I was angry, and smote him ; 
 I hid my face, and was angry, 
 
 Because he was contumacious in the way of his heart. 
 
 18 
 
 I have seen his ways, and 1 will heal him ; 
 
 Τ will also comfort him, and restore consolations to him, 
 
 And to his mourners ; 
 
 Creating the fruit of the lips— 
 
 Peace, peace to him that is far off, 
 
 guage employed in this and the fol- 
 lowing verse is almost identical with 
 that elsewhere employed in reference 
 to the same subject. 
 
 14, 128 is here used impersonally. 
 
 15, 16. These verses contain the 
 most sublime description of the 
 Divine majesty and condescension to 
 be found in the Scriptures. The 
 words require no comment; but they 
 have a depth of meaning which no 
 finite mind can fully comprehend. 
 Comp. Ps. cxxxviii. 6 ; Isa. lxvi. 1, 2. 
 ΤΟΣ and mm are here identical in 
 meaning, 723) standing elsewhere for 
 wb), 
 
 17. iyza PY, lit. the iniquity of his gain ; 
 but as the Hebrews were accustomed 
 to connect the idea of exorbitant and 
 oppressive means with that of lucre, 
 they, naturally came to give to »z3 the 
 signification of what was in a high 
 degree, or flagrantly, unjust. Hence 
 the combination yzirza denotes a 
 rapacious person, one who breaks 
 through all bounds in order to acquire 
 
 gain. Arab, oak secuit, amputavit ; 
 
 X. mercaturam fecit. Comp. Eph. v. 5, 
 πλεονέκτης Os ἐστιν εἰδωλολάτρης. The 
 pronominal masculine affix in ᾿θ 53 has 
 for its antecedent Oy, ver. 14, which 
 accounts for the use of this gender in 
 this and the following verse. HOT is 
 the historical infinitive ; 22 being un- 
 derstood. The ) in 72) is causal. 
 
 18. It is here implied that such 
 were the destructive courses pursued 
 by the Jews, that they were irreco- 
 verable by any merely human means. 
 Jehovah, therefore, graciously declares 
 that he will reclaim them, remove 
 their punishment, and restore comfort 
 to them. The distinction between 
 “him” and “ his mourners ” seems to 
 be, that by the latter are meant such 
 of the heathen as had become prose- 
 lytes to the faith of the Jews, and, 
 from sympathy, bewailed their cap- 
 tivity in Babylon. 
 
 19. By mney 13, fruit of the lips, is 
 meant the following announcement, 
 Peace, Peace. It denotes the proclama- 
 tion of reconciliation in the Gospel, 
 which is vindicated to God as its 
 author, Comp. καρπὸν χειλέων, Heb, 
 
CHAP. LVIII. | 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 425 
 
 And to him that is near, saith Jehovah ; 
 
 And I will heal him. 
 
 20 But as for the wicked, they are each tossed about like the sea, 
 
 Which cannot rest ; 
 
 And whose waters cast up mire and mud. 
 21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. 
 
 xiii. 15, where, however, the subject of 
 reference is praise. The repetition, 
 DW DIY, is expressive of the highest, 
 or most complete, peace. The appro- 
 priated use of p77 and 397, to designate 
 the Gentiles along with the Jews, 
 shews that the prophet had that 
 period in view when both should be 
 upon an equality in regard to privi- 
 leges. Comp. Zech. ix. 10; Acts x. 
 36; Eph. ii. 17. 
 
 20, 21. The character and unhappy 
 
 condition of such as reject the mes- 
 sage of peace, and persevere in a 
 course of rebellion, are here distinctly 
 pointed out. Twenty-two MSS. read 
 mm instead of wx, while three others, 
 with the Alex. copy of the LXX. and 
 the Arabic, combine both; but this 
 diversity has doubtless arisen from 
 the influence of chap. xlviii. 22, where 
 the same declaration is made, and 
 where all the MSS. exhibit 77, The 
 Hexap. Syr. has simply jn τ 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 Having in the preceding chapter depicted the character of his countrymen, in 
 the times immediately preceding the captivity, he now sets forth their cha- 
 racter as exhibited towards its close, and from the period of that calamity, 
 till the time of our Lord, Though recovered from idolatry, and professing 
 great zeal for the worship of the true God, their religion was, in a great 
 measure, confined to external forms and services, which were made a cloak 
 
 for their wickedness. 
 
 We learn from Zech. vii. viii., that the subject of 
 
 fasts greatly occupied their attention after the return ; and the fact that 
 the sect of the Pharisees sprang up in the course of a short time, in whose 
 character the union of religious pretension with covert depravity was noto- 
 rious, leaves no room to doubt that the portraiture here given was chiefly 
 intended for them. It must, indeed, be familiar to every one who has perused 
 
 the gospels. 
 
 In this chapter, the prophet receives a commission to announce to the Jews 
 the guilt which they still contracted, notwithstanding the flaming character 
 of their religious profession, 1, 2; he specifies the worthlessness of their 
 fasts, 3—5; points out the nature of acceptable fasting, 6, 7 ; promises 
 prosperity and happiness to such as sincerely engaged in the service of God, 
 8—12; and concludes with a particular recognition of the sanctity of the 
 Sabbath, and a special promise to those who should hallow it, 13, 14. 
 
420 
 
 ISATAH. [CHAP. LVIII. 
 
 Cry aloud, restrain not ; 
 
 Raise thy voice like a trumpet ; 
 
 And declare to my people their rebellion, 
 
 And to the house of Jacob their sins. 
 
 They seek me, indeed, every day, 
 
 And delight to know my ways ; 
 
 Like a nation that doeth righteousness, 
 
 And forsaketh not the ordinance of its God ; 
 
 They inquire of me respecting righteous ordinances ; 
 They delight in approaching to God. 
 
 Why [say they] do we fast, and thou regardest not ? 
 Do we humble ourselves, and thou takest no notice ? 
 
 Behold! on your fast-day ye attend to business, 
 
 And exact all your tasks. 
 
 4 Behold! it is for strife and contention ye fast, 
 And to smite with the fist of injustice ; 
 Ye should not fast as ye do this day, 
 Causing your voice to be heard on high. 
 5 Is this the fast which I approve— 
 The day for a man to humble himself? 
 
 1. The loudness of the proclamation 
 indicates the enormity of the evil. ΝῊ 
 Waa, lit. ery through or with the throat, 
 1. 6. with a full voice proceeding from 
 the lungs, as distinguished from that 
 which comes merely from the lips and 
 tongue. 
 
 2. The persons spoken of discovered 
 much outward zeal and punctuality in 
 attending to the ceremonies of reli- 
 gion, and took a certain kind of de- 
 light in going the round of duty, 
 from the self-righteous persuasion 
 that thereby they merited the Divine 
 favour. ΚῚΣ ΒΦ and OY np, Gese- 
 nius interprets of judgments of righ- 
 teousness executed upon the enemy, 
 and the approach of God to execute 
 these judgments. The context, how- 
 ever, requires us to understand them 
 of religious ordinances, and direct 
 acts of religious worship. Comp., for 
 the latter phrase, Ps. lxxiii. 28. 
 
 3. Notwithstanding the rigidity of 
 their fasts, they felt a lurking convic- 
 tion that they did not enjoy the 
 favour of God. That yon signifies 
 
 business, and not pleasure, in this place, 
 the use of 12%, /abowr, in the corres- 
 ponding member of the parallelism, 
 sufficiently shews. The latter word 
 the LXX. understand of servants: 
 kal πάντας τοὺς ὑποχειρίους ὑμῶν ὑπο- 
 vuooere ; but such a signification is 
 not justified from usage. The mean- 
 ing doubtless is, that though the pha- 
 risaical Jews would not themselves 
 engage in manual labour, they did not 
 scruple to make the most rigorous 
 demands on the time and strength of 
 those whom they employed, requiring 
 the full amount of their daily task. 
 
 4. An amplification of the descrip- 
 tion just given. Whether causing the 
 voice to be heard on high be meant 
 to convey the idea of the loud clamour 
 of debate, or the elevation of the 
 voice in public prayers, may seem 
 doubtful. The former construction is 
 the better sustained by the immediate 
 context, 
 
 5. 13, which properly signifies fo ¢ry, 
 examine, prove, 18 evidently employed 
 here in the sense of approving what is 
 
CHAP. LVIII. | 
 
 ISATAH. 427 
 
 Ts it to hang down his head like a bulrush ? 
 To make sackcloth and ashes his couch ? 
 
 Wilt thou call this a fast, 
 
 And a day aeceptable to Jehovah ? 
 6 Is not this the fast which I approve :— 
 To loosen the fetters of injustice ; 
 To untie the cords of the yoke ; 
 And to set the oppressed at liberty ; 
 And to burst asunder every yoke ? 
 7 Is it not to break thy bread to the hungry; 
 And to bring the persecuted poor into thy house’; 
 When thou seest the naked, to clothe him ; 
 ‘And not to hide thyself from thine own flesh ? 
 8 Then should thy light break forth as the morning, 
 And thy welfare spring up quickly ; 
 Thy righteousness also should go before thee, 
 And the glory of Jehovah should be thy rearward. 
 9 Then thou shouldst call, and Jehovah would answer ; 
 
 found to be good. 83 niiy, to humble 
 the soul, or oneself, is parallel with dix, 
 fast, and the second member of the he- 
 mistich merely expresses in different 
 phraseology what is expressed in the 
 first. It is the identical phrase em- 
 ployed to describe the fasting to be 
 observed on the great day of atone- 
 ment, Lev. xvi. 29, 31; xxiii. 27, 32. 
 Want of attention to these circum- 
 stances led me, in the former edition 
 of this work, to refer it to the third 
 line of the verse, which, however, 
 forms the first of another parallelism. 
 ΕΣ is obviously used, as frequently, 
 with the force of a reflexive pronoun. 
 
 za from yy, Arab. rey to strew or 
 
 place as a bed, prepare a place to lie 
 in. The language describes the coarsest 
 accommodation, such as that men- 
 tioned by Wellsted, when he was 
 under the necessity of making his 
 bed in the ground, by digging out a 
 sufficient portion of the dust or sand, 
 and covering himself with whatever 
 he had at hand. Travels in Arabia, 
 vol. ii. p. 30. 
 
 6, 7. Jehovah now describes the 
 nature of the fast of which he ap- 
 proves, in language appropriate to 
 
 the circumstances of the religionists 
 to whom special reference is here 
 made. Comp. Jer. xxxiv. 8—18. 
 Hospitality is a virtue which has 
 always held the very first rank among 
 the Oriental nations ; and any symp- 
 tom of indisposition to exercise it, 
 has ever met with execration. See 
 Gen. xviii. 1—8, xix. 1, 2; Job xxxi. 
 16—21; Matt. xxv. 35, 36. For on) Dw, 
 comp. Ψψωμίζειν, 1 Cor. xiii. 3, and 
 Bloomfield’s Note. oma, lit. persecu- 
 tions, for DN "O28, men of persecutions, 
 1. 6. the persecuted; from the Eth. 
 
 CRE: persequi: TAQ BR: per- 
 secutionem passus est. The LXX. ren- 
 der ἄστεγοι, the houseless. By 713, thy 
 own flesh, is meant kindred, or relatives, 
 especially such as were more imme- 
 diately connected. It not unfrequently 
 happens, that persons whose minds 
 are influenced by false notions of reli- 
 gion, disregard family and relative 
 claims. See Matt. xv. 5, 6. 
 
 8. A beautiful figurative representa- 
 tion of a state of prosperity, with re- 
 ference to Jehovah as its author. 
 
 9—12, These verses contain a con- 
 tinuation of promises made to such 
 as should serve God with acceptance, 
 
428 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LVIII. 
 
 Thou shouldst cry, and he would say, Behold me! 
 If thou remove from the midst of thee the yoke, 
 The pointing with the finger, and wicked discourse ; 
 
 10 
 
 And cause thy desire to go forth to the hungry, 
 
 And satisfy the desire of the oppressed ; 
 Then should thy light arise in darkness, 
 And thy obscurity should be as noon. 
 
 11 
 
 Then Jehovah would lead thee continually, 
 
 And satisfy thee in extreme drought ; 
 
 He also would strengthen thy bones ; 
 
 And thou shouldst be like a well-watered garden, 
 And like a fountain whose water faileth not. 
 
 12 
 
 Yea, those that belong to thee should rebuild the ancient ruins ; 
 
 Thou shouldst restore the foundations of successive gene- 
 
 rations: 
 
 And thou shouldst be called, The Repairer of the breach ; 
 The Restorer of paths for the inhabitants. 
 
 and a further amplification of particu- 
 lars by which their religion was to be 
 characterised. The 228 728 refers to 
 the holding out of the middle finger 
 in contempt of any person, on which 
 account it was called by the ancients 
 infamis digitus, Pers. 11. 33. Gesen. 
 compares Martial, 11. 28, 2: 
 
 “ Rideto multo 
 . et digitum porrigito medium ;” 
 
 and Plaut. Pseudol. iv. 7,45 : “intende 
 digitum in hunc;” and aptly remarks, 
 
 that the denominative Arab. verb we 
 
 signifies, intendit digitum in aliquem vitu- 
 perii ergo.—In 5) PPT is no difficulty, 
 requiring the substitution of 07), 
 which Lowth adopts. It is expres- 
 sive of a strong feeling of desire to- 
 wards the indigent, the contrary of 
 which we have in the κλείειν τὰ 
 σπλάγχνα ἀπὸ τινὸς, 1 John iii. 17. 
 Others think, that by 22 is here 
 meant the object of desire, of appetite, 
 or the like; and that the duty enjoined 
 is, that the person who fasts is to give 
 to the poor what might have afforded 
 gratification to himself. For ΓΊΠΕΠΣ, 
 
 11, comp. the Arab. ci: 
 
 ver. 
 
 pauca, minimeque profunda aqua; ee 
 
 sol, campus patens soli expositus ; hence 
 ὑπ}: shining, dry, and the like. The 
 reduplicate form is, as usual, inten- 
 sive. The images here employed are 
 peculiarly forcible in Eastern coun- 
 tries, where there is frequently a 
 great paucity of water, and where, in 
 consequence, a perennial spring is 
 of immense value.—n2X), for dwelling, 
 is put for NI 2x2, or λυ, for the in- 
 habitants, i. e. such as should occupy 
 the country. 
 
 As these prophecies were to be in 
 the hands of the Jews before they 
 left’ Babylon, and as the evils against 
 which they were directed existed, at 
 least in their germ, during the latter 
 part of the captivity, it cannot be 
 deemed any violation of hermeneu- 
 tical consistency, to apply the restora- 
 tion of the ruined cities here spoken 
 of to that which took place after the 
 return. This interpretation is prefer- 
 able to that which would construe 
 722, ver. 12, as signifying thy posterity, 
 in reference to a distant futurity ; for 
 there seems no ground for addressing 
 such a promise to the Jews after their 
 return, or even in the time of our 
 Lord. 
 
CHAP. 11Χ.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 429 
 
 13 If thou restrain thy foot on the Sabbath, 
 And do not thine own business on my holy day ; 
 And call the Sabbath, a delight, 
 And the holy day of Jehovah, honourable ; 
 
 And honour it,— 
 Not doing thine own ways, 
 
 Nor attending to thine own business, 
 
 Nor spending it in talk : 
 14 
 
 Then thou shouldst delight thyself in Jehovah ; 
 
 And I would cause thee to ride over the heights of the earth ; 
 And feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father: 
 For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. 
 
 13. Occasion is taken from the in- 
 troduction of the subject of fasts, to 
 advert to that of the Sabbath, the ob- 
 servance of which was so strictly en- 
 forced in the Mosaic law, and has, in 
 all ages, been found essential to the 
 maintenance and prosperity of spiri- 
 tual religion. 2, business, worldly 
 affairs, as ver.3. More than one hun- 
 dred and twelve MSS., and eighteen 
 printed editions, read 7257, in the 
 plural. In niwy there is an ellipsis 
 of the prepositive Ὁ, which is easily 
 supplied from the preceding 29. 
 
 Many MSS. supply ) before “779.— 
 1217727 is used idiomatically for mere 
 talk, or idle and unprofitable conver- 
 sation. I have endeavoured, in the 
 translation, to give the force of the 
 idiom. 
 
 14. ΡΠ is aptly borrowed from 
 the use of 229 in the preceding verse. 
 Comp. Ps. xxxvii. 4. The metaphor 
 of riding over the heights is taken 
 from military usage, and expresses 
 the triumphant progress of the Jews 
 in pee possession of the whole 
 land. 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 This chapter contains an awful picture of the depraved state of Jewish morals. 
 To no period of their history does it appear so applicable, as to that imme- 
 
 diately preceding the destruction of their polity by the Romans. 
 testimonies adduced from Josephus in the note on chap. liii. 8. 
 
 See the 
 It thus 
 
 connects with the portraiture of Pharisaism reprobated in the preceding 
 
 chapter. 
 
 The fact that no reference whatever is made to idolatrous prac- 
 
 tices, proves that times succeeding the Babylonish captivity must be in- 
 tended. In consequence of the aggravated sins of the Jews, God abandoned 
 them to intestine broils, the rapacity and oppressions of wicked rulers, and 
 the subjugating power of the Romans, whereby their national prosperity 
 was destroyed, and they were reduced to circumstances of great distress. 
 
 Pt el 
 
480 ISATAH. [CHAP. LIX. 
 
 The prophet shews, 1, 2, that their pitiable condition was to be attributed, not 
 to any want of ability in God to deliver them, but to their own sinfulness. 
 He then enters into a minute specification of their crimes, with a view to 
 shew that they richly merited the sufferings that had been inflicted upon 
 them, 3—8 ; having finished which, he draws up a confession for them, and 
 introduces them as bewailing their calamitous circumstances, and acknow- 
 ledging their sins as the cause of the Divine displeasure, 9—15. On the 
 failure of all human means of reformation, Jehovah is represented as him- 
 self interposing, partly to effect salvation for his people, partly to take ven- 
 geance on the incorrigible, and partly, afterwards, to execute judgment on 
 the Romans, whom he had employed as the instruments of his vengeance, 
 16—18. The prophet then foretells what would follow the destruction of 
 imperial Rome,—the spread of true religion, first in Europe, and other 
 parts of the west, &c., and afterwards in Asia; and the desperate effort of 
 the last Antichrist, 19 ; and the chapter concludes with the announcements 
 that the salvation of the Jews was the primary and immediate object of the 
 Messiah’s advent, and that the Divine covenant made with the Jewish 
 people, in the person of Abraham, shall assuredly take effect in their future 
 general conversion, 20, 21. 
 
 For regularity of structure, beauty and force of imagery, fidelity, and 
 minuteness of graphic description, this section is quite in the best style 
 of Isaiah. 
 
 1 Benorp! the hand of Jehovah is not short, that it cannot save ; 
 Nor is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. 
 2 But it is your iniquities that have made a separation between 
 you and your God ; | 
 And your sins have caused him to hide his face from you, and 
 not to hear. 
 3 For your hands are polluted with blood, 
 And your fingers with imiquity ; 
 Your lips speak falsehood, 
 Your tongue uttereth wickedness. 
 
 1—3. The prophet anticipates the 032 ὙΠΟ occurs. Comp. DX D9, 
 
 complaints of the Jews respecting the 
 calamitous state of their affairs, and 
 fearlessly imputes it to their own 
 guilt as the cause. Instead, therefore, 
 of finding fault with the Divine con- 
 duct, it behoved them to criminate 
 themselves. 0°25 is used absolutely, as 
 here, without the pronoun, Job xxxiy. 
 29; Jer. ii. 27, xviii. 17: so that the 
 proposed emendations of Secker and 
 Lowth are uncalled for. In the first 
 of these passages the very phrase 
 
 Isa. 111. 3.—The idea of pollution 
 appears to have been attached to 3, 
 from the circumstance that the >s3, 
 or Avenger of blood, was considered to 
 have the blood of murder upon him, 
 till he had avenged it. It is not 
 a verb of the later Hebrew, as Gese- 
 nius maintains, being found in this 
 sense, Zeph. iii. 1; and may well have 
 been used by Isaiah, who flourished 
 little more than fifty years earlier. 
 
CHAP. 11Χ.] 
 
 4 None advocateth justice, 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 431 
 
 Neither doth any one contend for truth ; 
 They rely upon a thing of nought, and speak vanity ; 
 They conceive evil, and bring forth iniquity. 
 
 or 
 
 They hatch the eggs of the basilisk, 
 
 And weaye the webs of the spider ; 
 He that eateth of their eggs shall die, 
 And that which is crushed shall produce a viper. 
 6 Their webs shall not become raiment, 
 Neither shall they cover themselves with their works ; 
 Their works are works of iniquity, 
 And the deed of violence is in their hands. 
 
 ~ 
 
 Their feet run to that which is evil, 
 
 And they hasten to shed innocent blood: 
 Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity ; 
 Destruction and havoc are in their paths. 
 8 The way of peace they know not ; 
 Neither is there any justice in their tracks: 
 They make for themselves crooked paths ; 
 None that walketh therein knoweth peace. 
 9 Therefore, justice is removed far from us, 
 
 And equity reacheth us not ; 
 
 We look for light, but behold! darkness ; 
 For brightness, but we walk in gloom. 
 
 10 We grope about, like the blind, for the wall: 
 Like those who have no eyes do we grope : 
 
 5, 6. The figures here employed are 
 simple, but forcibly expressive of the 
 fruitlessness of all ungodly plans, and 
 the certainty, that, sooner or later, 
 they will recoil on the head of their 
 inventors. | The very religion of such 
 persons is utterly worthless. 779 is 
 the fem. of the passive part. of 1%, 
 to press, squeeze, crush: only Segol is 
 substituted for Kametz, as 725 for 72), 
 Zech. ν. 4. Why the substitution was 
 made does not appear. 
 
 7, 8. These verses are in part intro- 
 duced by Paul into his quotations 
 from the O. T. when describing the 
 depravity of the Jews, Rom. iii. 15— 
 17. The repetition of WT NX) DID 7D, 
 under a different form, is ‘hot without 
 emphasis. 
 
 9, uSun and ΤΡῚΣ are here used in 
 the sense of Divine judgments inter- 
 posed to vindicate the cause of the 
 nation. 
 
 10. The charge of poverty and in- 
 elegance brought by Lowth against 
 the oe of T2W22 in this verse is 
 unfair, and his adoption of 72223, the 
 emendation proposed by Houbigant, 
 altogether unwarranted. The Hebrew 
 poets are fond of repetitions. See 
 especially in Isaiah, chap. xi. 5, xv. 1, 
 xvi. 12, 13, xix. 7, xlii. 19, lv.4. The 
 prophet might have employed the 
 synonymous verb wn; but he chose 
 to repeat the unusual v3, for the sake 
 of more emphatically giving expres- 
 sion to the thought.—D22tx has been 
 variously interpreted. In all proba- 
 
432 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LIX. 
 
 We stumble at noon, as in the twilight ; 
 Like those that die in circumstances of plenty. 
 
 ΠῚ 
 
 We all of us growl like bears, 
 
 And moan continually like doves ; 
 We look for justice, but there is none ; 
 For salvation, but it is far from us. 
 
 12 
 
 For our rebellious deeds are numerous before thee, 
 
 And each of our sins testifieth against us ; 
 For our rebellious deeds are with us; 
 And as for our iniquities, we acknowledge them. 
 
 13 
 
 We have rebelled, and acted falsely towards Jehovah ; 
 
 And have gone back from our God ; 
 We have spoken words of violence and revolt ; 
 We have conceived, and uttered from the heart, matters of 
 
 falsehood. 
 14 
 
 And equity standeth aloof ; 
 
 Justice also is made to withdraw, 
 
 For truth stumbleth in the street, 
 
 bility, it is a derivative from ἡ, to be 
 Jat, with Aleph prosthetic ; and sig- 
 nifies the dest, richest, most fuvourable 
 circumstances in which persons can 
 be placed. It is thus perfectly parallel 
 with Onn in the preceding hemistich. 
 Others less aptly compare 72%, Gen. 
 XXVil. 28, 39, and o';0u, Dan. xi. 24. 
 The meaning is, that no security was 
 enjoyed, or could be hoped for. 
 
 11. For the growling of the bear, 
 comp. Ovid Metam. IT. 485: 
 
 “Mens antiqua tamen facto quoque 
 mansit in urso: 
 
 Assiduoque suos gemitu testata do- 
 lores ;” 
 
 and for the plaintive moaning of the 
 dove, chap. xxxviii. 14 ; Ezek. vii. 16. 
 The language is that of dissatisfaction, 
 grief, and despair. The Jewish affairs 
 had become all but desperate. 
 
 12. A deep-felt and frank confes- 
 sion. To aggravate the guilt of sin, 
 it is frequently spoken of in the 
 Scriptures as being committed zz the 
 presence of, or before GoD. ny, the 
 sing. agrees distributively with 1»nNen 
 in the plural—uanx, with us, i.e. in- 
 stead of being forgotten, and thus 
 
 removed from our view, our sins are 
 seen and felt by us. Rosen. “culpz 
 nostree nobis conscii sumus.” 
 
 13. There is in this verse an unpa- 
 ralleled accumulation of Infinitives: 
 not only expressing more emphatically 
 or powerfully, by this naked form of 
 the verb, the continuity and enormity 
 of the actions, but placing them in 
 close juxtaposition, in order to render 
 them more distinctly prominent in 
 the aggregate. 2102 is not to be taken 
 as the Niph. of 230, but is the Infin. 
 of the root 302, with the same mean- 
 ing. The verse is historically descrip- 
 tive both of the immediate past, and 
 of what was still in existence. As 
 there is no mention of idolatry either 
 here, or in the following verses, the 
 rebellion against Jehovah specifically 
 intended must be that alienation of 
 heart which so awfully discovered 
 itself in the sins enumerated by the 
 prophet. 
 
 14, ΠῚ properly signifies a wide 
 open sfree/, but here it seems rather 
 to be used in reference to the forum, 
 or broad open place at the gate, where 
 justice was administered. sia has a 
 similar reference, 
 
CHAP. LIX.] 
 
 And rectitude cannot enter. 
 
 15 Yea, truth is missing, 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 433 
 
 And he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. 
 And Jehovah saw, and it displeased him, 
 
 Because there was no justice. 
 16 
 
 He saw also that there was no one ; 
 
 And he was astonished that there was none to interpose ; 
 Therefore his own arm wrought salvation for him, 
 And his righteousness sustained him. 
 
 17 
 
 Yea, he put on righteousness as a coat of mail, 
 
 And a helmet of salvation was on his head ; 
 Yea, he put on garments of vengeance for apparel, 
 And clothed himself with zeal as a mantle. 
 
 18 According to their demerits, he will strictly render : 
 
 15. Xm, Targ. puand; Vulg. pre- 
 de patuit. Comp. Ps. lxxvi. 6. The 
 
 ᾿ root °73, Arab. Uw, signifies Zo draw 
 
 out or off, to strip, plunder. 
 
 16,17. Just at the time when the 
 wickedness of the Jews had reached 
 its height, and it was rendered evident 
 to all that it could not be arrested by 
 any human power, Jehovah interposes 
 for the deliverance of his people, and 
 the punishment of the wicked. In 
 his usual anthropopathic style, Isaiah 
 represents God as filled with amaze- 
 ment at the discovery, that no one 
 should be found qualified to reform 
 and save the nation. Comp. chap. 
 Ixiii, 5. odpinea forcibly expresses 
 that complete mental disturbance into 
 which one is thrown by the appear- 
 ance of any thing unexpected or 
 alarming. Root Ὁρῶ, to lay waste, 
 destroy. That by 7Y%, salvation, we 
 are to understand that spiritual deli- 
 verance which the Redeemer came to 
 effect, and not any temporal rescue, 
 appears from the description given of 
 his work, ver. 20. For 2259, see on 
 chap. 111. 6,12. It is here used gene- 
 rally to denote interposition. The idea 
 of intercession is foreign to the pas- 
 sage. To express the greatness of the 
 conflict, and the qualifications of the 
 Messiah to engage in it, language 
 borrowed from the armour and dress 
 of ancient warriors is employed. 
 
 Comp. Eph. vi. 10—17; 1 Thess. v. 
 8. Not only should the Mediator be 
 possessed of resistless power, but also 
 of moral purity, courage, and ardour. 
 my27mn—w2 is too much in the style 
 of our prophet to allow us for a 
 moment to doubt of the genuineness 
 of the latter word. Instead of being 
 inelegant, as Jubb insinuates, it is 
 singularly beautiful. 
 
 18. Interpreters have raised un- 
 necessary difficulties in reference to 
 the repetition of the compound pre- 
 position 3. For the alteration of 
 Lowth, who reads °v3, there is no MS. 
 authority, except perhaps that of 
 Kennicott’s Cod. 126, which may also 
 be merely an alteration in imitation 
 of the Targ. The preposition itself 
 occurs in this very form, in connexion 
 with the verb 73, chap. lxiii. 7; and 
 as to the repetition, it is not more 
 harsh than that of 322, chap. 11]. 6; 
 where there is an ellipsis of >, just 
 as there is here of n\723,—both words 
 being so easily supplied by the reader. 
 On the contrary, there is an elegance 
 attaching to it, as every one must 
 perceive on reading the words: 
 
 D2w Oyp nina WD. 
 
 The emendation proposed by the Bi- 
 shop— 
 
 NT ΤΥ bya 
 
 Dow m3 bv2 
 
484 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LIX. 
 
 Fury to his adversaries, retribution to his foes : 
 To the maritime lands he will render retribution. 
 19 Then shall those of the west fear the name of Jehovah ; 
 
 And those of the sun-rise his 
 
 is drawling and paraphrastic, and 
 does not after all admit of the inter- 
 pretation which he puts upon it. Pro- 
 perly rendered, it would be— 
 
 He is the Retributor ; 
 The Retributor will requite. 
 
 Nothing less in keeping with the 
 
 style of the preceding verses could 
 
 have been introduced. 
 
 In this verse there is an obvious 
 distinction between two classes of 
 enemies on whom retribution was to 
 be inflicted. The former, specially 
 characterised as DN and ODS, are the 
 wicked Jews so graphically described 
 in the preceding part of the chapter, 
 the atrocity of whose hostility was 
 particularly manifested in the perse- 
 cution of our Saviour and his fol- 
 lowers. The Apostle expressly calls 
 them ἐχθροὶ, scil. rod Θεοῦ, Rom. xi. 
 28; and it is to them and their poli- 
 tical excision that our Lord so em- 
 phatically points, Luke xix. 27 ; comp. 
 vers. 12—14. The retribution here 
 predicted was rendered when Jeru- 
 salem was destroyed, and the Jews 
 scattered among the nations. The 
 other class on whom vengeance was 
 to be taken were the Romans—those 
 inhabiting the D%x, or maritime re- 
 gions to the west of Palestine. They, 
 in their turn, met with retribution 
 when the swarms of northern bar- 
 barians poured in upon the empire, 
 ravaged its provinces, plundered its 
 cities, and ultimately effected its total 
 overthrow. That the judgments which 
 have since been, and are still to be 
 inflicted on the European states, in 
 punishment of their connexion with, 
 and support of, the hostile power of 
 Rome ecclesiastical, are also included 
 in the prediction, I think highly pro- 
 bable. Comp. Rev. xvi. 19, 20. 
 
 19. The holy seer has next pre- 
 sented to his inspired vision the 
 spread of true religion in times sub- 
 sequent to the overthrow of the 
 
 glory ; 
 
 Roman empire. It is particularly 
 worthy of notice, that, while in every 
 other passage of Scripture in which 
 the spread of the Gospel is spoken of, 
 it is uniformly represented as ad- 
 vancing from the East towards the 
 West, that order is here reversed. 
 True religion is first set forth as 
 flourishing in the West, and then in 
 the Eastern regions of the earth. 
 Whoever reflects on the actual amount 
 of Scriptural piety in this country 
 and America, (not excluding its pro- 
 gress in the Continental states of 
 Europe,) and compares it with the 
 religious aspect of Asia,—at the same 
 time surveying the successful efforts 
 which are being made by European 
 and American missionaries, both to 
 regenerate the fallen Oriental churches, 
 and to diffuse the light of Divine 
 truth in the Mohammedan and Pagan 
 countries of the East, can hardly 
 avoid coming to the conclusion, that 
 what we have lived to witness is an 
 incipient fulfilment of the prophecy. 
 The last desperate effort of the 
 anti-Christian power now presents 
 itself to the view of the prophet. 
 That Ἢ is to be taken as a substan- 
 tive, and the nominative to sv, and 
 not as an adjective qualifying 173, the 
 exigency of the passage absolutely 
 requires. So Maurer decidedly. The 
 event to which reference is made is 
 not the execution of judgment pre- 
 dicted in the preceding verse, but 
 succeeds the spread of the Gospel 
 predicted in the former half of the 
 present. To no antecedent can the 
 verb with any propriety be referred. 
 The renderings, therefore, of the LXX. 
 ἥξει yap ὡς ποταμὸς βίαιος ἡ ὀργὴ mapa 
 Κυρίου, the Vulg., Lowth, Gesenius, 
 Noyes, Hitzig, and others, cannot be 
 sustained, Equally untenable is the 
 principle of interpretation which 
 would render Tim 1, ‘a strong or 
 mighty wind? Such rendering ought 
 long ago to have been repudiated as 
 totally unfounded on Hebrew usage. 
 
CHAP. LIX. | 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 435 
 
 When the adversary cometh in like a river, 
 The breath of Jehovah shall raise a standard against him. 
 20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion ; 
 Even to those in Jacob that turn from transgression, saith 
 
 Jehovah. 
 
 21 For as to me, this is my covenant with them, saith Jehovah : 
 
 My Spizit which is upon thee, 
 
 In no instance can it be proved that 
 the phrases O'7>x ΠῚ and Mim 1 have 
 any such meaning. Whenever moun- 
 tains, cedars, &c. are placed in con- 
 struction with the Divine names, such 
 names are not used as superlatives, 
 but indicate the origin to which these 
 objects are to be referred. See on 
 chap. xiv. 13. A mighty wind is ex- 
 pressed in Hebrew by 737310, That 
 mm 1 is here equivalent to rnp 77, 
 chap. xi. 4, and the corresponding 
 TO πνεῦμα TOD στόματος αὐτοῦ, 2 Thess. 
 il. 8, seems in the highest degree 
 probable. The subject and all the 
 circumstances are identical. 
 
 What the prophet teaches is, that 
 when the great visible Adversary of 
 the cause of Christ upon earth—the 
 1s by way of eminence—shall collect 
 all his forces, in order to crush the 
 people of God, a Divine mandate shall 
 eall forth destruction upon them. 
 Comp. Dan. vii. 26, 27; Rev. xix. 
 , 11—21. περ", as to form, may either 
 be the Benoni Part. of 002, ¢o lift up, 
 elevate, as a standard ; whence Ὁ), ὦ 
 banner or ensign ; or the third person 
 singular in the Poel of Ὁ"), fo flee ; 
 but as the latter verb is never used 
 in a transitive acceptation, except in 
 Hiphil, we are compelled to adopt 
 the former, which is the rendering of 
 our common version. Thus also, in 
 effect, Theod. πνεῦμα Κυρίου ἐσημειώθη 
 ἐν αὐτῷ ; Saad. & de er ΔΜ} γον" 
 And so Dathe, Boothroyd, and Lee 
 in his Heb. Lex. sub voc. It is equi- 
 valent to D2 803, chap. v. 26 ; and the 
 meaning is, that by the command of 
 Jehovah his army should be called 
 out and directed to the final and 
 victorious conflict with the enemy. 
 
 20, 21. It is impossible for any one 
 impartially to examine the scope and 
 
 management of the Apostle’s argu- 
 ment, Rom. xi., and not to perceive 
 that he quotes this passage in verses 
 26, 27, for the express purpose of 
 proving, from the Old Testament, the 
 future conversion of the Jewish people. 
 The chronology of the two writers is 
 in the strictest harmony. For, as. 
 Isaiah introduces the conversion of 
 the Jews as happening after the 
 general extension of true religion 
 among the Gentiles, so Paul mani- 
 festly links the two events together 
 in the same order : “ Blindness in part 
 is happened to Israel UNTIL THE FUL- 
 NESS OF THE GENTILES BE COME IN. 
 AND SO ALL ISRAEL SHALL BE SAVED: 
 as it is written,” &c. Between the 
 Hebrew text, the LXX., and the Greek 
 of the Apostle, there are some verbal 
 discrepancies ; but the general sense 
 is the same. Instead of 7589, the 
 LXX. read ἕνεκεν Σιὼν ; Paul, ἐκ Σιὼν. 
 The former is not, indeed, at variance 
 with the force of the Heb. preposi- 
 tion; but as the latter is totally so, 
 it has not without reason been sup- 
 posed that the Apostle had in his 
 mind Ps. xiv. 7, where the identical 
 phrase occurs, in connexion with the 
 deliverance of the Jews. For yvp ‘209 
 aya, the LXX. have καὶ ἀποστρέψει 
 ἀσεβείας ἀπὸ ᾿Ιακὼβ, which is followed 
 by Paul. The principal idea being 
 the conversion of the Jewish people, 
 it made no difference to the Apostle’s 
 argument, whether he viewed it ac- 
 tively or passively. From the cir- 
 cumstance that the advent of the 
 Saviour is limited, in the way of pro- 
 mise, to such of the Jews as should 
 repent, and turn to God, we may 
 safely infer that mas ᾿Ισραὴλ, ‘ all Is- 
 rael,’ Rom. xi. 26, is not intended to 
 convey the idea that every individual 
 of the nation, but that the mass, the 
 
436 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. Lx. 
 
 And my words which I have put into thy mouth, 
 Shall not depart from thy mouth, 
 
 Nor from the mouth of thy seed, 
 
 Nor from the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith Jehovah, 
 From henceforth, even for ever. 
 
 great body, the people generally, shall 
 be saved. Comp., for a similar re- 
 stricted use of πᾶς, Matt. 11. 3, i. 5. 
 It clearly appears from chap. lxv. 11, 
 that in the latter day there will still 
 be a number of the Jews who will 
 prefer their infidelity and secular 
 interests to the sacred claims of reli- 
 gion. That a future, and not the first 
 advent of the Redeemer is intended, 
 must be maintained, as more in ac- 
 cordance with the spirit of the pas- 
 sage. 
 
 _ The subject, ver. 21, is the dispen- 
 sation of the spirit and truth to the 
 restored Israelites, of which they 
 should no more be deprived as in 
 times past. The change from the 
 third person plural to the second 
 singular is not uncommon in Hebrew, 
 and seems to be here specially made 
 with a view to give greater point and 
 interest to the promise. The hypo- 
 thesis of Gesenius, that Isaiah and 
 
 his successors in office are meant, 
 is totally unsupported by any thing 
 in the context. The ¢erminus a quo, 
 marked by 7529, from now, is not the 
 period in which the prophet wrote, 
 but that of the events to which the 
 prediction refers—the future conver- 
 sion of the Jews. For the due fulfil- 
 ment of the prophecy, a corroborative 
 pledge is afforded by their continued 
 preservation as a distinct people. 
 
 In the last verses of this chapter, 
 the events of the future, though some 
 of them widely distant from each 
 other in point of time, are placed in 
 close juxtaposition,—the whole having 
 been presented, as in a perspective 
 group, to the inward view of the pro- 
 phet. On the subject of the future 
 conversion of the Jews, the reader 
 will find much information in a long, 
 but interesting note of Michaelis, in 
 his Anmerkungen, on these two verses. 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 That this and the remaining chapters mainly refer to the future prosperity 
 and glory of the Jews, when restored to a state of church-relation to 
 Jehovah, is the only position that can be maintained, consistently with 
 
 a strict adherence to definite principles of interpretation. 
 
 In our most 
 
 esteemed commentaries there is a perpetual vacillaney between the literal 
 and the spiritual, the Jews and the Gentiles, the past and the future, which 
 is anything but satisfactory. From many of them, indeed, it is evident 
 that their authors, notwithstanding their strong propensity to apply these 
 predictions to the past and present privileges of the Christian Church, as 
 made up of Gentile converts, and the still fuller enjoyment of these privi- 
 leges during the Millennium, have been compelled to admit that the Jews 
 are not altogether to be excluded, though they still begrudge them a re- 
 
 establishment, as a converted community, in the land of Palestine. 
 
 To me 
 
CHAP. LX.] ISATAH. 437 
 
 it appears, from the close connexion of these chapters with the last verses 
 of chapter lix.; from the obvious distinction kept up between the con- 
 verted Jews and converted Gentiles ; from the direct recognition of restored 
 cities, lands, vineyards, &c., which had long lain desolate ; as well as from 
 the general bearing of the whole—that the glorious re-integration of the 
 Jewish people into the Church of God is the exalted theme on which the 
 prophet so largely expatiates, and in treating of which he may truly be 
 said to have exhausted all the variety of imagery with which his style‘is so 
 richly charged. Not that he loses sight of the Gentiles: on the contrary, 
 they are repeatedly brought forward, though it certainly is rather for the 
 purpose of gracing the triumphs of his own people, than of exhibiting 
 them in the all-engrossing light in which they have usually been presented. 
 How much soever he is to be regarded as the evangelical prophet, and how 
 much soever he was raised above the contracted spirit by which his 
 countrymen were too generally actuated, still he was a prophet of the Jews 
 and to the Jews. Their interests as a people, both in the then present, and 
 in the future, could not but deeply engross him: so that, while he hails 
 with feelings of delight the extension of the blessings of salvation to the 
 Gentile world, he anticipates with ecstatic joy the recovery of his “ brethren, 
 his kinsmen according to the flesh.” 
 
 The chapter may justly be viewed as an ἀποτέλεσμα or finished exhibition of 
 the triumphant and glorious state of the church during the Millennium : 
 the Jews, restored to their own land, and brought to acknowledge Jesus as 
 the true and only Messiah, forming the central portion of the Divine 
 kingdom, while distant nations cheerfully accord to them a due regard, 
 not only as brethren in the faith, and partakers of the common salvation, 
 but as “the natural branches,” again occupying their place in “their own 
 olive tree,”—“ beloved for the fathers’ sakes,” Rom. xi. 21, 24, 28. Nothing 
 can exceed the glowing colours in which the happy condition of the 
 Millennial Church is here depicted. The figures are rich and varied ; the 
 structure, grandeur, and flow of the poetic diction are admirable ; and the 
 whole is calculated to produce and cherish the brightest expectations of 
 the sacred ‘golden age.’ 
 
 Fired by the prospect which had burst upon his vision, chap. lix. 20, 21, the 
 prophet in the most animated manner summons Jerusalem, the personified 
 representative of the Jewish people, to arise from her long state of deso- 
 lation, and reflect the splendour imparted to her by Jehovah, 1, 2; and 
 describes the nations with their rulers, merchants, and shepherds, as 
 voluntarily and liberally contributing to her re-establishment, 3—7. The 
 multitude of her dispersed sons have every facility afforded for their 
 return, 8, 9 ; men of all nations and ranks resort to her, with their wealth 
 and every thing that can add to her beauty and stability, 10—14; the 
 most complete change takes place in regard to both her external and 
 internal circumstances ; and the most complete provision is made for full, 
 uninterrupted, and undiminished supplies of knowledge, purity, afd 
 happiness, 15—22. 
 
 ed 
 
ISAIAH. 
 
 ARISB, shine, for thy light is come, 
 
 And the glory of Jehovah hath arisen upon thee. 
 For, behold! the darkness shall cover the earth, 
 And gross darkness the people ; 
 
 (CHAP. LX. 
 
 But upon thee Jehovah shall arise, 
 And his glory shall be seen upon thee. 
 3 And nations shall come to thy light, , 
 And kings to the brightness of thy rising. 
 4 Lift up thine eyes around and behold ; 
 They all collect themselves, they come to thee : 
 
 Thy sons shall come from far, 
 
 And thy daughters shall be borne on the side. 
 5 Then thou shalt look, and brighten up ; 
 Yea, thy heart shall throb and dilate ; 
 
 1, 2. So evident isit that Jerusalem 
 is here addressed, that the LXX., 
 Vulg., Targ., and Saadias, have in- 
 serted the term. The first mentioned 
 version has, Φωτίζου φωτίζου "lepov- 
 σαλὴμ: as if the translator had read 
 “Hx He. Comp. chap. li. 17, hi. 1, 2. 
 By the images of light and darkness 
 in these verses are meant a state of 
 trouble and distress on the one hand, 
 and of prosperity and joy on the 
 other. While the different nations 
 shall be involved in the awful ca- 
 lamities connected with the overthrow 
 of the Antichristian confederacy, Dan. 
 xii, 1, 6, 7; Rev. xviii. xix., the pe- 
 culiar favour of Jehovah shall be 
 manifested towards the Jews. To 
 express this more forcibly, two figures 
 are employed ; the one taken from 
 the rising of the sun, and the other 
 from the visible glory or splendour 
 which the Israelites beheld in the 
 wilderness. There may also be a re- 
 ference to the contrasted circum- 
 stances of the Israelites and Egyptians, 
 Exod. xiv. 19—24. 
 
 3. The report of the distinguished 
 excellence and felicity of the restored 
 church will bring strangers, and even 
 monarchs, to view and participate in 
 her blessedness. 
 
 4. The reference in 05> is not to 
 those spoken of in the preceding verse, 
 but to the sons and daughters,—the 
 future inhabitants of Jerusalem,— 
 
 mentioned immediately after. These 
 shall come from the most distant 
 parts whither they shall have been 
 scattered. 72 Y does not mean at the 
 side, in the sense of being near, but oz 
 the side, in reference to the Oriental 
 custom of carrying children astride 
 upon the hip, while they cling to the 
 side of those who bear them. LXX. 
 ἐπ᾽ ὥμων ἀρθήσονται, shall be carried on 
 the shoulders. The idea of nursing, 
 which also attaches to 3 Ν, is not so 
 natural in this place as that of bearing 
 or carrying, which is, indeed, the 
 proper signification of the term, in 
 application to the nursing of a child. 
 See Numb. xi. 12; Isa. lxvi. 12. 
 
 5. For 377, thou shalt see, fifty-four 
 MSS., originally eleven, probably three 
 more, now one other, and the Soncin. 
 edition, read NYA, thou shalt fear, of 
 which Abenezra, Vitringa, Lowth, Mi- 
 chaelis hesitatingly, Doderlein, Dathe, 
 Hensler, Gesenius, Moller, Boothroyd, 
 Jenour, Jones, Noyes, and Scholz, 
 approve. On the other hand, the 
 common reading is supported by the 
 LXX., Targ., Vulg., Syr., Saad., and is 
 adopted by Tingstadius, Hitzig, and 
 Maurer. Though, if viewed in con- 
 nexion with the following hemistich, 
 the proposed emendation might ap- 
 pear the more natural, yet the repe- 
 tition of 783, from ver. 4, is quite 
 admissible, and may actually have 
 come from the pen of the prophet. 
 
 EE ee ee 
 
CHAP. 1Χ.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 439 
 
 For the riches of the sea shall be turned to thee, 
 The wealth of the nations shall come to thee. 
 6 A multitude of camels shall cover thee, 
 The young camels of Midian and Ephah ; 
 All those of Sheba shall come ; 
 They shall bear gold and frankincense, 
 And publish the praises of Jehovah. 
 7 All the sheep of Kedar shall be collected for thee ; 
 The rams of Nebaioth shall serve thee ; 
 
 m7, usually rendered ¢o fear, signifies 
 here ¢o palpitate, throb, as the heart 
 does in excessive joy. 72 signifies 
 both ¢o flow, as water, and ¢o shine, be 
 
 bright, &e, 
 splenduit. Arab. bg, dies. The latter 
 
 signification alone suits in this place, 
 and expresses the cheerful indications 
 of inward joy experienced by Jeru- 
 salem. Theod. χαρήση; the Arab. 
 
 Braga 'y—The sea is, as frequently, 
 
 put for the maritime nations of the 
 west. Thus the Targ. xiqv2 Wy, the 
 wealth of the West. Comp. Deut. 
 xXxxiil. 19. 
 
 6, 7. From the merchants who 
 traded in ships on the Mediterranean, 
 and the nations of the west with 
 which they had intercourse, the pro- 
 phet turns to the rich merchants and 
 the possessors of flocks in Arabia, and 
 shews that they would be equally 
 forward to minister to the wants of 
 Zion. 022 are not dromedaries, but 
 
 young camels, Comp. the Arab. x 
 
 Comp. the Syr. δι 
 
 and ἃς » parvus camelus, vel juvencus. 
 
 The term for dromedaries is 117272, for 
 which, see chap. lxvi.20. The camel, 
 owing to his hardiness, his endurance 
 of thirst, and the scanty food on 
 which he is capable of subsisting, is 
 well fitted to be a beast of burden in 
 
 ] dws the ship of the desert.— 
 
 The places here specified all lay in 
 Arabia; and as the inhabitants of 
 that country have not been subject 
 to the changes which those nations 
 have undergone that lay more directly 
 in the way of the great conquerors of 
 antiquity, their descendants occupy 
 nearly the same positions, and follow 
 the same occupations.—}71, Midian. 
 The tribes that went by this name 
 appear to have inhabited the country 
 between the northern extremity of 
 the Arabian Gulf and Arabia Felix, 
 and the plains of Moab, They were 
 descended from Abraham by Keturah, 
 Gen. xxv. 2, 4, and carried on a trade 
 by caravans between Gilead and Egypt, 
 as early as the days of Jacob. Abul- 
 feda describes the ruins of a town 
 
 called wpe on the east side of the 
 
 above-mentioned gulf, in which di- 
 rection we find a Mndiava spoken of 
 by Ptol. v. 17, and a Madujvn_by 
 Joseph. Antiq. ii. 11, 1.—py, LXX. 
 Γαιφά, Hphah, occurs in connexion 
 with Midian, Gen. xxv. 4; 1 Chron. 
 i. 33. Bochart, Hieron. i. 81, 82, 
 compares the” Ἵππος of Ptolemy, which 
 the latter writer places near to Mndiava. 
 —By x2, Sheba, is meant Arabia 
 Felix, or the regions between the 
 Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, now 
 called the Hejaz. It abounded in 
 spices, 1 Kings x. 2; Jer. vi. 20; 
 
 desert countries, and is employed for, ,Ezek. xxvii. 22; especially in frank- 
 
 this purpose, in all parts of the East, 
 but in none more than Arabia. Some 
 of them will carry ten hundred weight, 
 though generally their loads are not 
 heavy. The camel is hence not in- 
 appropriately called by the Arabs, 
 
 incense ; and in gold and precious 
 stones, Ps. xxii. 15. Its inhabitants 
 carried on a great trade, not only in 
 their native productions, but also 
 in Indian and Phoenician articles. 
 According to Strabo, xvi., their 
 
440 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LX. 
 
 They shall willingly ascend my altar, 
 And my beauteous house I will beautity. 
 8 Who are these, that fly like a cloud ? 
 And like doves to their windows ? 
 9 Surely, the maritime lands shall wait for me, 
 And the ships of Tarshish first ; 
 
 To bring thy sons from afar, 
 
 Their silver and their gold with them ; 
 
 principal city was called Mariaba, (the 
 present bo» about sixty miles to 
 
 the N. E. of Sanaa,) though its ancient 
 name, as occurring in Diod.. Sic. 
 111. 47, is Saba. It is now generally 
 agreed that it was the queen of this 
 country who paid the celebrated visit 
 to Solomon, 1 Kings x. 1—13. The 
 Ὁ in 0% has for its antecedent not 
 m3, &c. but the inhabitants or mer- 
 chants understood—For Ἢρ, Kedar, 
 see on chap. xxi. 16.—nn, the Ne- 
 batheans, comprehended the principal 
 tribes of Arabia Petreea, occupying 
 a middle place between the Midianites 
 and the inhabitants of Sheba. They 
 appear anciently to have been divided 
 in their occupations ; some carrying 
 on a lucrative trade with caravans, 
 and others addicting themselves ex- 
 clusively to the nomadic life. The 
 latter are described by Diodorus Sic. 
 as deeming it unlawful to cultivate 
 the ground or. trees ; to drink wine ; 
 and to build houses.—Whatever the 
 descendants of these Oriental tribes 
 may possess shall be cheerfully placed 
 at the disposal of the restored Jews. 
 This is beautifully expressed by re- 
 presenting the animals selected for 
 sacrifice as mounting the altars of 
 their own accord. There shall be no 
 want of any thing that is required for 
 the full restoration of Divine worship, 
 when the mosque of Omar shall give 
 place to a new temple to be erected 
 for the celebration of the services of 
 that ministration which exceedeth in 
 glory, 2 Cor. 111. 8—11. pty and 
 }zY are not synonymous. The latter 
 signifies for acceptance, acceptably ; the 
 former, here used, with pleasure, delight, 
 or good-will. 
 
 8. The verb ΠΡ ΡΠ is in the femi- 
 
 nine plural, as a kind of absolute ; 
 there being no substantive expressed 
 or understood to which to refer it. It 
 thus quite accords with the indefinite 
 character of the interrogation. See 
 Nordheimer’s Heb. Gram. § 737. 1, 2. 
 The ideas conveyed by the images 
 here employed are those of number 
 and velocity. The reference to the 
 doves is beautifully illustrated by a 
 passage in Morier’s Second Journey in 
 Persia. Speaking of the pigeon-houses 
 near Ispahan, he says: “ They are 
 large round towers, rather broader at 
 the bottom than the top, crowned by 
 conical spiracles, through which the 
 pigeons descend. Their interior re- 
 sembles a honey-comb, pierced with 
 a thousand holes, each of which forms 
 a snug retreat fora nest. The extra- 
 ordinary flights of pigeons which I 
 have seen upon one of these buildings, 
 afford perhaps a good illustration of 
 Isaiah lx. 8. Their great numbers, 
 and the compactness of their mass, 
 literally looked like a cloud at a 
 distance, and obscured the sun in 
 their passage.” The persons referred 
 to are the Jews, who now flock in 
 immense numbers from all quarters, 
 to the land of their fathers, and 
 Jerusalem, the summit of their earthly 
 oy. 
 
 ‘ 9. The inhabitants of the west, es- 
 pecially those which carry on maritime 
 traffic, spiritually converted to God, 
 shall lay their ships and wealth under 
 contribution, to the accomplishment 
 of the purposes of God relating to the 
 restoration of the Jews to Palestine, 
 and to the further advancement of 
 the Divine glory. 72Ux3, LXX. ἐν 
 πρώτοις, “among the first.” Twenty- 
 five MSS. and the Syr. read 720872), 
 i.e. as formerly, in reference to the 
 
CHAP. LX.]| 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 441 
 
 To the name of Jehovah thy God, 
 And to the Holy One of Israel who hath beautified thee. 
 
 10 
 
 The sons of strangers also shal! build thy walls, 
 
 And their kings shall serve thee ; 
 Though in my wrath I smote thee, 
 Yet in my good pleasure I will pity thee. 
 
 11 
 
 Thy gates also shall be open continually ; 
 
 They shall not be shut by day, nor by night ; 
 That the wealth of the nations may be brought into thee, 
 And their kings conducted along. 
 
 12 
 perish ; 
 
 For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee, shall 
 
 Yea, those nations shall be utterly destroyed. 
 
 13 
 
 The glory of Lebanon shall come to thee, 
 
 The cypress, the larch, and the pine together ; 
 To beautify the place of my sanctuary, 
 And I will make the place of my feet glorious. 
 14 The sons also of thine oppressors shall come crouching to thee ; 
 
 assistance rendered by the Tyrians to 
 Solomon. For “the ships of Tar- 
 shish,” see on chap. xxi. 10. The 
 suffix in 02D) and 03m is to be referred 
 to the Jews, and not to the commercial 
 powers. Their property as well as 
 themselves shall be conveyed, free of 
 charge, to Palestine. Many of them 
 living in remote parts, can only con- 
 veniently return by sea. 
 
 10. By 122723 are meant foreigners— 
 Gentiles, such as had been accounted 
 ΞΈΝΟΙ τῶν διαθηκῶν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, 
 but now συμπολῖται τῶν ἁγίων καὶ 
 οἰκεῖοι τοῦ Θεοῦ, Eph. 11.12, 19. Such 
 shall count it an honour to be em- 
 ployed in rebuilding Jerusalem, and, 
 im any way, contributing to the re- 
 covery of the lost happiness of Israel. 
 Monarchs shall regard it as a privilege 
 to aid in the work, by employing 
 whatever legitimate influence they 
 may possess in advancing it. 
 
 11. The idea conveyed by the gates 
 never being shut, is that of the con- 
 tinual arrival of the multitudes re- 
 ferred to. Modern travellers greatly 
 complain of the inconvenience to 
 which they are put, when they do 
 not reach Jerusalem before the gates 
 are closed. The Apostle John borrows 
 
 the language in his description of the 
 new Jerusalem, Rev. xxi. 25. The 
 
 ‘ideas of security and peace are implied. 
 
 —o 7) may either signify /ed along in 
 chains, as captives, and thus the 
 Targ. and Hitzig ; or in procession, 
 by their devoted attendants, which 
 seems the more natural interpretation, 
 
 12. There is obviously a meiosis in 
 this verse. The absence of active aid 
 is construed into positive hostility, 
 and punished accordingly. Comp. 
 Judges v. 23. 
 
 13. For the trees here specified, see 
 on chap. xli. 19. A literal temple, or 
 house of worship, being intended, the 
 language must be literally explained. 
 From all that appears to be the state 
 of Palestine in regard to wood, supplies 
 from Lebanon will be as necessary as 
 they were when the ancient temple 
 was constructed. “The place of” 
 Jehovah's “feet,” is parallel to “the 
 place of ” his “sanctuary ;” viz. Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 14. Jerusalem hath literally been 
 “trodden down” by many nations, 
 Luke xxi. 24; and her scattered sons 
 have been subject to greater calamities, 
 arising from rapine and massacre, than 
 any people under heaven. Not only 
 
442 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LX. 
 
 Yea, all that despised thee shall prostrate themselves at the 
 
 soles of thy feet ; 
 
 And shall call thee, The City of Jehovah, 
 Zion of the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 15 Instead of thy having been deserted and hated, 
 So that no one passed through thee, 
 I will make thee an eternal excellency, 
 The joy of successive generations. 
 
 16 Thou shalt also suck the milk of the nations; 
 Yea, the breast of kings thou shalt suck ; 
 And shalt know that I, Jehovah, am thy Saviour, 
 And thy Redeemer, the Protector of Jacob. 
 
 17 Instead of copper, I will bring gold ; 
 And instead of iron, 1 will bring silver ; 
 
 And instead of wood, copper ; 
 
 and instead of stones, iron ; 
 
 And I will make thy overseers peaceful, 
 
 And thy rulers righteous. 
 
 in the East, but in almost every 
 country of Europe, the most violent 
 and tragical outrages have been com- 
 mitted upon them. The descendants 
 of her oppressors, however, will ac- 
 knowledge the wrongs that have been 
 done to her, and humbly crave a share 
 in her privileges. Instead of jr, 
 Zion, Hitzig reads ΤῊΣ, cippus, a pillar, 
 but violently in such connexion. 
 mms, the construct punctuation for 
 minw, the absolute. 
 
 15, nn merely expresses, zz exchange 
 for ; though from the circumstances of 
 the case the idea of compensation is 
 necessarily implied. 0%¥ is here used, 
 as in many other places, for a period 
 of long and unknown duration. 
 
 16. A repetition, in somewhat dif- 
 ferent language, of what is predicted, 
 verses 3,5, 10, and 11. Comp. Rev. 
 xxi, 24. “Sucking the breast of 
 kings” is unusual, and by fastidious 
 critics may be deemed unnatural ; but 
 the phrase is merely employed for the 
 purpose of carrying out more effi- 
 ciently the idea taught in the preced- 
 ing clause ; viz. that abundant contri- 
 butions would be made by the inhabi- 
 tants of the different nations to the 
 sustenance of Zion. Kings are intro- 
 duced on account of their greater 
 
 wealth and influence, which they shall 
 now expend upon the cause of God, 
 instead of squandering them, as for- 
 merly, upon objects of vanity and sin. 
 For Ὅν, Protector, see on chap. i. 24. 
 17. For the repeated use of 7m in 
 this verse, comp. chap. 111. 24. Such 
 identity of style corroborates the 
 authenticity of the present portion of 
 the book. The temporal prosperity of 
 the restored Israelites shall resemble 
 that of their ancestors in the days 
 of Solomon, 1 Kings x. 27; 2 Chron. 
 ix. 20, 27. N37, the LXX. doubtless 
 rendered τοὺς ἐπισκόπους σου, thine in- 
 spectors or bishops, though these words 
 and τοὺς apxovras σου, thy rulers, the 
 proper rendering of 7025, have, in the 
 course of transcription, exchanged 
 places. Both terms are here used to 
 designate the office-bearers, or rulers 
 of the restored Jewish community,— 
 the one, those who shall superintend 
 its spiritual, and the other, those who 
 shall administer its temporal, affairs. 
 Comp. the use of ἐπισκοπὴ, 1 Tim. 11]. 
 1, and the combination ἐπίσκοποι καὶ 
 διάκονοι, Philip. i. 1. This is the only 
 passage in which ‘33 is used in a good 
 sense, It otherwise signifies a task- 
 master, a collector of tribute, or an 
 oppressive ruler. Instead of being, as 
 
CHAP. 1,Χ.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 445 
 
 18 Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, 
 Nor devastation or destruction within thy borders ; 
 But thou shalt call thy walls, Salvation, 
 
 And thy gates, Praise. 
 19 
 
 The sun shall no more be for light to thee by day, 
 
 Neither shall the moon enlighten thee with brightness ; 
 For Jehovah shall be to thee an everlasting light, 
 And thy God shall be thy beauty. 
 
 20 Thy sun shall no more set, 
 
 Neither shall thy moon withdraw herself ; 
 For Jehovah shall be to thee an everlasting light, 
 And the days of thy mourning shall be ended. 
 
 21 
 
 And as for thy people, they shall all of them be righteous ; 
 
 They shall inherit the land for ever ; 
 The branch of my planting, the work of my hands, 
 
 That I may be glorified. 
 22 
 
 The little one shall become a thousand, 
 
 And the small one a mighty nation : 
 I, Jehovah, will hasten it in its season. 
 
 formerly, contentious and unjust, the 
 Jewish officers shall seek to promote 
 peace, and satisfy the just claims of all 
 who are under their government. 
 ove and API are the abstract used 
 for the concrete. 
 
 18. Oppression and war shall no 
 more be known. The most perfect 
 security shall be enjoyed; and the 
 very gates shall re-echo the praises of 
 Jehovah. 
 
 19, 20. These verses further depict, 
 in language of the most sublime 
 imagery, the superlative degree of 
 happiness which shall be enjoyed by 
 the new and holy Jerusalem church. 
 Its ordinary sources shall no longer be 
 thought of. Jehovah himself shall be 
 found to be a glorious and unfailing 
 fountain of joy. “ Lux Jove (i.e. for- 
 tuna tua prospera, cujus Jova auctor 
 erit) tanta est futura, ut pro nihilo 
 zstimanda sit lux solis aut lune.” 
 Maurer. The language is ad sensum 
 quoted and applied to the same state 
 of things, Rev. xxi. 23, xxii. 5. The 
 LXX. and Targ. have read, or at least 
 supplied, 72°, which may have origin- 
 ally been omitted by an ellipsis. The 
 
 concluding words of ver. 20, furnish 
 a key to the meaning of both verses. 
 
 21. Comp. Rev. xxi. 27, and 7. The 
 character of the inhabitants of Zion 
 shall be in accordance with the dignity 
 of their privileges. In support of 
 the Keri ‘Yo. we have the authority 
 of forty-four MSS., and seven others 
 originally, and that of the Syr., Vulg., 
 and Targ.; according to which the 
 restoration of the Jews is, under a 
 beautiful figure, directly ascribed to 
 Jehovah. Comp. chap. 1xi. 3. 
 
 22. The Jews, who are compara- 
 tively few in number in any country, 
 and are despised by those among 
 whom they live, shall form a nume- 
 rous and powerful nation when con- 
 gregated in their own land. Malte 
 Brun estimates their present number 
 at between four and five millions. 
 The period of their return is not 
 specified by the prophet, but he 
 speaks of it as fixed and definite: 
 mnyi, at its proper season, the period 
 appointed for its taking place. For 
 its certainty, the Divine declaration is 
 a sufficient guarantee. 
 
444 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LXI. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 The same subject is here continued. The recovery of Israel formed an im- 
 portant part of the Messiah’s commission, which he is introduced as assert- 
 ing, 1—3. Brought back to their own land, they shall rebuild its cities 
 that have long lain desolate, 4 ; foreigners shall perform their more menial 
 labours, while they addict themselves to the services of religion, amply 
 supported by the rich contributions of those who live in other countries, 5, 
 6; and full compensation shall be made to them for all the infamy and 
 pillage to which they have been subject, 7—9. Not only restored exter- 
 nally, but invested with moral excellence, they raise a hymn of praise for 
 the wonderful change which they have experienced, 10, 11. 
 
 1 THe Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me ; 
 
 For Jehovah hath anointed me, 
 
 To publish glad tidings to the afflicted, 
 
 He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, 
 
 To proclaim liberty to the captives, 
 
 And to those that are bound, complete deliverance ; 
 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of Jehovah, 
 
 And the day of vengeance of our God ; 
 
 To comfort all that mourn ; 
 
 1—3. That the speaker in this pas- 
 sage is not the prophet himself, as 
 maintained by Michaelis, van der Palm, 
 Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, Hitzig, and 
 Scholz, but the Great Messiah, I can- 
 not but contend, on the highest pos- 
 sible authority. On reading the words 
 to the Jews assembled in the syna- 
 gogue at Nazareth, while their eyes 
 were intently fixed upon him, he 
 most unequivocally applied them to 
 his own commission, and proceeded to 
 explain their cheering import to the 
 people, Luke iv. 16—22. No principle 
 of accommodation, or of secondary 
 application, can at all satisfy the 
 claims of the announcement, “This 
 day is this scripture fulfilled in your 
 ears.” It must, however, be observed, 
 that this completion merely lay in our 
 Lord’s entering upon the public dis- 
 charge of his prophetic office among 
 
 the Jews. Far from being confined 
 to the instructions of that particular 
 day, it was to be exercised in perpe- 
 tuity, during the continuance of the 
 church upon earth, and pre-eminently, 
 as it respects the Jews, at the future 
 period here referred to.—The Messiah 
 first announces the source of his quali- 
 fications for the office of Teacher— 
 the influences of the Divine Spirit. 
 Comp. chap. xi. 2. He then enume- 
 rates the principal features of the 
 character of those to whom he was 
 commissioned to impart relief—the 
 afflicted, the broken-hearted, the cap- 
 tives, the prisoners, the mourners, and 
 the desponding. These terms are ac- 
 cumulated in order to express more 
 forcibly the awful state of spiritual 
 misery and distress in which they are 
 naturally involved, and from which he 
 was sent to rescue them. Such will 
 
CHAP. LXI.| 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 445 
 
 3 ΤῸ make glad the mourners in Zion ; 
 To give them beauty instead of ashes, 
 The oil of gladness instead of mourning, 
 The garment of praise instead of a desponding spirit ; 
 And they shall be called, the Trees of Righteousness, 
 The Plantation of Jehovah; that he may be glorified. 
 4 Then shall they build up the ancient ruins, 
 They shall raise up the former desolations ; 
 And they shall renovate the waste cities, 
 The desolations of successive generations, 
 5 Strangers also shall stand and feed your flocks ; 
 Yea, the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and 
 
 vine-dressers. 
 
 6 But ye shall be called, The Priests of Jehovah ; 
 Ye shall be named, The Servants of our God: 
 
 pre-eminently be the condition of the 
 Jews when God visits them in mercy 
 in the latter day. See Zech. xi. 9—14. 
 Do» is derived from 73%, to lead, lead 
 captive, subdue, afflict, humble, &c.; and 
 may either signify the afflicted, or the 
 humble, meek, &c. according to the con- 
 nexion. In the present instance the 
 former acceptation is the more appro- 
 priate. 
 which Hitzig approves ; and this ren- 
 dering is retained by Luke. The 
 terms “captives” and “ prisoners” 
 are to be taken metaphorically, and 
 have no reference to external re- 
 straint. Comp. Job xl. 10. WW is 
 specially used of the liderty granted to 
 slaves, when they were manumitted 
 at the jubilee, which, on this account, 
 was called W717 Πρ, the year of liberty, 
 Ezek. xlvi. 17. Instead of TPT, 
 twelve MSS., and the Complut. Edit., 
 read ΠΡ, thus presenting one word 
 in the reduplicate form, for the sake 
 of intensity. Some, with De Dieu, 
 
 compare the Ethiop. (BP qh: a chain, 
 
 and the Chald. 777, the same; and 
 render, fo open the prison, a3 in our 
 Common Version; but the former 
 seems preferable, especially as it has 
 the support of the LXX., Vulg., Targ., 
 and Saad. For the form, comp, %”An», 
 Deut. xxxii. 5. The meaning is a com- 
 
 ‘ 
 
 The LXX. have πτωχοῖς, of 
 
 plete opening of the prison. After ov 
 supply ivy. In ἫΝ nom we is an 
 elegant paronomasia. 
 
 The “day of vengeance,” here con- 
 nected with the “acceptable year of 
 the Lord,” designates the period of 
 Judgment referred to chap. lix. 18, 19, 
 —the punishment of the last Anti- 
 christ. By piza-?s are not meant 
 geseqnete Terebinthen, as Gesenius ren- 
 ders, nor oaks of truth, as Lowth ex- 
 plains them, but frees producing right- 
 eousness as their fruit. Comp. Phil. i. 
 11. is here used generically. 
 
 4, 5. These verses admit of no con- 
 sistent interpretation, except on the 
 principle that the Jews are to be re- 
 stored to the land of their fathers. 
 The ruins and desolations are those 
 of cities that had once been inhabi- 
 ted ; and cannot, without the utmost 
 violence, be applied to the heathen 
 world. 2x) Ποῦ, Gesenius renders, 
 the desolations of the forefathers, but less 
 aptly than taking Dts) adjectively. 
 
 6. Comp. Exod. xix. 6. The lan- 
 guage implies holiness, spirituality, 
 and devotedness to the service of God. 
 So abundant shall be the supplies, 
 that there shall be no absorption of 
 time by the cares and distractions of 
 business. W2N7, the Hithp. of 12x, 
 
 Arab, ys to command, order ; hence 
 
 3K 
 
440 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LXI. 
 
 Ye shall consume the wealth of the nations, 
 And have their riches at your command. 
 7 Instead of your shame, there shall be double; 
 And instead of ignominy, they shall rejoice in their portion ; 
 For in their land they shall inherit the double, 
 They shall have everlasting joy. 
 
 8 For I, Jehovah, love justice, 
 
 I hate the rapine of wickedness ; 
 
 And I will faithfully grant their reward, 
 
 And make an everlasting covenant with them. 
 9 And their seed shall be known among the nations, 
 _ And their offspring among the people; 
 
 All that see them shall acknowledge them, 
 
 That they are a seed whom Jehovah hath blessed. 
 
 10 
 
 I will greatly rejoice in Jehovah ; 
 
 My soul shall exult in my God: 
 
 For he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation ; 
 He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness ; 
 
 As the bridegroom dresseth himself splendidly, 
 
 Or as the bride adorneth herself with her jewels. 
 
 11 
 
 For as the earth causeth her produce to come forth, 
 
 And as the garden causeth the things sown in it to grow up, 
 So the Lord Jehovah shall cause righteousness to spring up, 
 And praise, before all the nations. 
 
 pels an emir. Others, to change, have 
 
 in exchange, to have, or enjoy instead of 
 another. 
 
 7. The Jews have been the subjects 
 of ignominy among all nations. When 
 restored, the honour conferred upon 
 them by Jehovah, and the estimation 
 in which they shall be held by believ- 
 ing Gentiles, will far overbalance the 
 contempt in which they have been 
 held. Sn, double, ie. ample, full. 
 See on chap. xl. 2. The change of 
 person we have often had occasion to 
 notice. 
 
 8. 73» the same as MY. Thus the 
 
 Syr. os , and several MSS. By “the 
 
 rapine of injustice” is meant what is 
 taken away unjustly. The 2 in mva 
 is that of instrument; LXX. ἁρπάγ- 
 para ἐξ ἀδικίας. Comp. Job v. 16; 
 
 Ps. lviii. 3, lxiv. 7. The reference is 
 to the acts of flagrant injustice which 
 have been committed on the Jews by 
 the Gentile nations, among which 
 they have been scattered. 
 
 9, Ὁ in D> is pleonastic. 
 
 10, 11. Jerusalem, as the represen- 
 tative of the Jews, joyfully and grate- 
 fully raises a hymn of praise to her 
 great Deliverer. Instead of any longer 
 sitting in the dust, in squalid attire, 
 and with a downcast look, she is 
 decked in the most splendid festal 
 garments. 773, fo officiate as priest; 
 here ¢o appear as a priest, thus officiat- 
 ing; Aq. ὡς νύμφιον ἱερατευομένον 
 στεφάνῳ; Symm. according to the 
 meaning, κεκοσμημένον στεφάνῳ ; and 
 so the Vulg. The allusion is to the 
 mitre and golden crown of the high 
 priest when fully attired. For ver. 11, 
 comp. chap. xlv. 8; Ps. Ixxxy. 11, 12. 
 
ISATAH. 447 
 
 CHAP. LXII.| 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 This chapter contains a further development of the happy condition of the 
 Jewish people, when brought to the knowledge of the Messiah. This deve- 
 lopment is furnished in vers. 2, 3,4, and 5. In vers. 1 and 6, the Messiah 
 himself is introduced as interesting himself for the prosperity of Zion, and 
 calling upon those whom he had appointed to superintend her affairs to be 
 unremitting in their supplications on her behalf, 7. And, after announcing 
 the oath of Jehovah, pledging the exercise of his omnipotence to her resto- 
 ration, 8, 9, and directing every preparation to be made, 10, the prophet, 
 in one of his finest strains, presents to view the advent of the Saviour for 
 the recovery of the Jews, and the happy state of Jerusalem, when rebuilt, 
 
 and inhabited by a holy and sincerely religious people, 11, 12, 
 
 1 For the sake of Zion I will not be silent, 
 Nor, for the sake of Jerusalem, will I be quiet, 
 Till her righteousness go forth as brightness, 
 And her salvation as a blazing torch. 
 
 2 Then shall the nations behold thy righteousness, 
 
 And all kings thy glory ; 
 
 And thou shalt be called by a new name, 
 Which the mouth of Jehovah shall express. 
 3 And thou shalt be a beautiful crown in the hand of Jehovah, 
 
 1. There is considerable doubt re- 
 specting the speaker in this verse. 
 The prophet, the Messiah, the Jewish 
 people, and Jehovah, have each been 
 supposed to be intended. The second 
 opinion seems decidedly entitled to 
 the preference, on the ground of the 
 frequency with which the Redeemer 
 is thus abruptly introduced by our 
 prophet. Through his mediatorial 
 intercession the Jews shall be restored 
 to their standing in the Church of 
 God. 
 
 2. It is here predicted that Israel 
 shall be invested with a character 
 altogether new—the result of the 
 change effected by the gracious inter- 
 position of Jehovah. That 0 is not 
 
 to be understood of a mere name, but 
 has special reference to state and 
 character, is obvious from the common 
 idiom by which any thing is said to 
 be called what it really is. See chap. 
 1. 26, 73, to penetrate, cut, hew, mark, 
 express by distinct signs ; hence, distin- 
 guish y name, Nurab. i. 17. 
 
 3. It has been thought by some 
 that there is a want of congruity in 
 representing the crown as in the 
 hand, instead of its being upon the 
 head ; but it must be obvious, that 
 with no propriety whatever could the 
 church be spoken of as placed on the 
 head of Jehovah. The language is 
 designed to teach the high estimation 
 in which Jerusalem shall be held by 
 
448 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LXII. 
 
 And a royal diadem in the palm of thy God. 
 4 Thou shalt no more be called, Forsaken ; 
 Neither shall thy land be any more termed, Desolate ; 
 But thou shalt be called, My-delight-is-in-her ; 
 And thy land, The Married Woman: 
 For Jehovah shall delight in thee, 
 And thy land shall be married. 
 5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, 
 So shall they that build thee marry thee ; 
 And as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, 
 So shall thy God rejoice over thee. 
 6 Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem! have I appointed watchmen, 
 That shall never be silent the whole of the day nor the whole 
 
 of the night ; 
 
 Ye that make mention of Jehovah, be not silent : 
 
 7 Neither allow him to be silent, 
 
 Till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem 
 
 A praise in the earth. 
 
 the Most High, and her perfect secu- 
 rity under his protection. 23 is 
 properly a turban or tiara wound 
 round the head; and, as worn by 
 Eastern monarchs, studded with the 
 most valuable jewels. The word is 
 thus exhibited in the Keri, and in 
 three MSS. in the text, instead of 
 FM, the usual Chethib. 
 
 4. As the names here specified are 
 merely symbolical, and will never be 
 employed as proper names, I have 
 deemed it right to give them in a 
 translated form, rather than retain 
 them. Indeed, their exhibition in 
 this form alone renders the concluding 
 lines of the verse intelligible. Hephzi- 
 bah was otherwise the name of the 
 mother of Manasseh, 2 Kings xxi. 1. 
 
 5. The correlatives 1x) and 2 are 
 twice to be supplied in this verse. 
 Yet there is no reason to suppose, 
 with Lowth, that they ever existed in 
 the text. Their absence is nothing 
 more than a poetical ellipsis. Instead 
 of 723, thy sons, Lowth, Koppe, Mi- 
 chaelis, Déderlein, v. d. Palm, Ting- 
 stadius, Méller, and others, point 1.33, 
 thy builders, and consider the plural 
 
 to be used for the singular, as 7 Ὁ, 
 chap. liv. 5,—Jehovah being meant in 
 both instances. To this it cannot be 
 objected, that when plural attributives 
 are ascribed to the Deity, the verb is 
 put in the singular, and not in the 
 plural as we here find p yn; for 
 though this holds as a general rule, 
 yet there are exceptions, as Gen. xx. 
 13, xxxv. 7;.2 Sam. vii. 23.° Such 
 construction is required by the corre- 
 sponding position of ΤΠ in the 
 parallel member of the verse, and at 
 once removes the incongruous image 
 of sons marrying their own mother. 
 
 6,7. The speaker is still the Mes- 
 siah, who declares that he would place 
 faithful teachers in Jerusalem, and 
 charges them to be incessant in 
 prayer for her complete restoration, 
 and the extension of her fame through- 
 out the world. The mention of “the 
 walls” proves that the reference is 
 not to the priests and Levites who 
 kept watch about the temple, as 
 Lowth supposes, but to those who 
 were appointed to watch the city 
 itself. Comp. xxi. 6, 8, 11, lii. 8, lvi. 
 10; Hab. 11. 1. 
 
CHAP. LXII.] ISAIAH. 449 
 
 8 Jehovah hath sworn by his right hand, and by his mighty arm ; 
 I will no more give thy corn for food to thine enemies ; 
 Neither shall the sons of the alien drink thy wine, 
 
 For which thou hast laboured. 
 
 9 But they that reap it shall eat it, 
 
 And shall praise Jehovah ; 
 
 And they that bring it in, shall drink it 
 
 In my holy courts. 
 
 Pass through, pass through the gates ; 
 
 Prepare the way for the people ; 
 
 Cast up, cast up the highway ; 
 
 Clear it of stones ; 
 
 Raise a banner for the people. 
 
 11 Behold! Jehovah proclaimeth to the end of the earth : 
 
 Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold! thy Saviour cometh ; 
 Behold! his reward is with him, 
 And his recompense before him. 
 
 Then shall they be called, The Holy People; The Redeemed 
 
 10 
 
 12 
 
 of Jehovah ; 
 
 And thou shalt be called, frequented ; 
 
 The City Unforsaken. 
 
 8, 9. The enemies of Israel having 
 all been swept away by the powerful 
 judgments of God, the most perfect 
 tranquillity shall reign throughout 
 the land, and those who may go up 
 to worship at Jerusalem shall enjoy 
 unmolested the fruit of their labour. 
 
 10. This verse contains a call to 
 the inhabitants of the cities that may 
 lie in the way of the returning Israel- 
 ites, to go forth and remove every 
 obstacle that impeded their progress. 
 By vara, as well as ova, the peculiar 
 people are intended. 
 
 11. The “daughter of Zion” means 
 
 here the rightful inhabitants of Jeru- 
 salem, 7.¢. the Jews scattered over the 
 face of the earth. Comp. chap. i. 8, 
 xxill. 10. To them the announcement 
 is made. That “salvation” is used 
 metonymically for “Saviour,” the 
 following pronominal affixes shew. 
 Comp. chap. xl. 5, 9, 10, which is 
 strictly parallel in language, though 
 the advents in the two passages are 
 different. 
 
 12. The Jews shall now be a holy 
 people, redeemed from all iniquity, 
 and thronging their ancient capital 
 for religious purposes. 
 
450 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LXIII. 
 
 CHAPTER LXITITI. 
 
 The first six verses of this chapter appear, at first sight, to stand quite insu- 
 lated, and to admit of no interpretation in connexion with the subject 
 treated of in the preceding and subsequent context. They have accordingly 
 been regarded by many as merely a fragment of some other prophecy, 
 which has, by mistake, found its way into this portion of the book. On 
 closer attention being paid, however, to the character and scope of the 
 chapter, there seems great propriety in bringing forward, in this place, the 
 destruction of Idumeea, as an instance of Jehovah’s interposing goodness in 
 behalf of the Jewish nation. The object of the prophet is to deduce an 
 argument from God’s dealings with his ancient people, in favour of his 
 graciously regarding them in their then distantly future dispersion ; but, 
 instead of commencing with the deliverance from Egypt, he begins with 
 the last which they should have experienced as a nation; viz. that which 
 took place when the Idumzean power was subverted, according to the special 
 predictions contained in chap. xxxiv. The passage, therefore, contains no 
 new prophecy, but merely the adduction of a fact already predicted, for the 
 sake of illustration. To apply it to any future judgments to be inflicted on 
 the country formerly occupied by the Edomites, is equally unjustifiable with 
 the attempt to apply it figuratively to the future enemies of the Church in 
 general, or to the Roman Antichrist in particular. See Introd. to chap. 
 XXXIV. 
 
 The subject of Divine interposition, for the destruction of the Edomites, is 
 beautifully brought out in a dramatic form,’by the introduction of two 
 interrogations; the reply to the last of which completely exhausts it, 1—6 ; 
 a brief review is then taken of other signal acts of Divine loving-kindness 
 towards Israel, notwithstanding the rebelliousness of that people, 7—14 ; 
 and the.rest of the chapter is occupied with pleadings for a renewal of such 
 gracious interference for their ultimate deliverance, 15—19. 
 
 1 Wuo is this that cometh from Edom ? 
 
 1. In prophetic vision, a triumphant 
 conqueror is discovered, arrayed in 
 military attire, and returning from 
 Idumza,—the scene of battle and vic- 
 tory. To excite attention, the ques- 
 tion is put—who can he be? To 
 which he himself replies, in language 
 which leaves us at no loss to doubt, 
 that he is the Divine Loagos or 
 
 SPEAKER, who, from the beginning, 
 revealed the will of God to men; 
 and, as the Angel or Messenger of 
 the Divine presence, acted as the Pro- 
 tector and Saviour of ancient Israel. 
 See ver. 9. This interpretation, which 
 is that adopted by most commenta- 
 tors, both ancient and modern, alone 
 satisfies the claims of the passage ; 
 
CHAP. LXIII. | 
 
 In purple array from Bozrah ? 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 451 
 
 This, that is glorious in his apparel, 
 Advancing stately in the greatness of his strength ? 
 It is I, the Announcer of righteousness,— 
 
 Mighty to save. 
 2 Why is thine apparel red ? 
 
 And thy garments like those of him that treadeth in the wine- 
 
 vat ? 
 
 3 I have trodden the wine-press by myself, 
 And of the people no man was with me ; 
 
 Yea, I trod them in my anger, 
 
 And trampled them in my fury; 
 
 but nothing can be more preposterous, 
 or more directly at variance with the 
 entire spirit of it, than the applica- 
 tion which some have made of it to 
 the victory which he obtained upon 
 the cross. y127 is well explained by 
 Bochart, Hieroz. i. lib. ii. cap. vii., of 
 the brilliancy of scarlet affecting the 
 eye, as the sharpness of vinegar does 
 the palate. He instances the Greek 
 χρῶμα ὀξύ, πορφύραι ὀξύταται, ὀξυ- 
 φέγγη, ἕο. The verb properly signi- 
 fies to ferment, become acid. Comp. the 
 sf 
 
 Syr. potas acidus factus est ; and the 
 Arab. Ure» acidus fuit. Some are 
 
 of opinion that the garment here 
 spoken of means the purple cloak of 
 a military general; but it seems more 
 natural to explain it by verses 2 and 
 3, in which it is represented as made 
 red by the blood of the enemy having 
 been sprinkled upon it. Comp. Rey. 
 xix. 13, “περιβεβλημένος ἱ ἱμάτιον βεβαμ- 
 μένον αἵματι, which is obviously bor- 
 rowed from this passage in Isaiah,— 
 ‘O AOTOS, the name there given to 
 the warrior corresponding exactly to 
 1272, by which he here characterises 
 himself, mys signifies ¢o turn, move in 
 any way ; here, to proceed with the 
 head tossed or turned back, indicating 
 the proud mien of the triumphant 
 warrior.—3 in 7772 is to be taken in 
 the sense of concerning, in regard to ; 
 “JT that speak respecting righteous- 
 ness,” announce, or make it known. 
 For instances, see Noldius. 
 
 2. For the treading in the wine- 
 press, see on chap. xvi. 10, and comp., 
 for its figurative application to the 
 discomfiture of enemies in battle, 
 Lam.1.15; Joel iii. 13; Rev. xix. 15. 
 In 08, red, is evidently an allusion to 
 DIN, ver. 1. Instead of > qwy, fifty-six 
 MSS. , originally three more, and the 
 Penta. Prag. 1518, the TX, . and 
 Syr. read spun} in the plural. 
 
 3. 2 occurs only here and Hag. 
 ii. 16. It comes from ὙΒ, fo break, 
 break in pieces. Hence it signifies the 
 place where the grapes are broken by 
 treading. Mz, an unusual term, em- 
 ployed here and ver. 6, to denote dlood. 
 It properly signifies the juice or liquor 
 which is spirted from the grape. LXX. 
 αἷμᾳ ; Lowth, /ife-blood. Comp. the 
 
 Arab. ce , conspersit: and the Eth. 
 
 5H: which is used of the sprinkling 
 
 of blood, Heb. ix.19,—F>s28 stands for 
 HINT, and i is, in all probability, to be 
 ascribed to some copyist, who, being 
 familiar with the Aramaic, in which 
 xis the preformant, instead of the 7 
 in Hebrew, substituted the one for 
 the other. The change has occasioned 
 a trifling variety of reading in a couple 
 of MSS., but none reads °n?827. — 
 When the victor declares, that none 
 of the people or nations rendered 
 him any assistance in the attack upon 
 Edom, he refers to the fact, that ven- 
 geance had not been taken upon that 
 nation, as it had been upon Tyre, 
 Moab, Egypt, &c., through foreign 
 
452 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LXIII. 
 
 So that their blood is sprinkled on my garment, 
 And I have stained all my apparel. 
 4 For the day of vengeance was in my heart, 
 And the year of my redeemed was come. 
 5 And I looked; but there was no helper ; 
 And I was astonished that there was no supporter ; 
 Then my own arm wrought salvation for me, 
 And my own fury supported me. 
 6 Yea, I trod the people in my anger, 
 I even brake them in pieces in my fury ; 
 And I made their blood flow down to the earth. 
 7 I will celebrate the kindness of Jehovah, 
 
 The praises of Jehovah, 
 
 According to all that Jehovah hath bestowed upon us ; 
 And the great goodness toward the house of Israel, 
 Which he hath bestowed upon them in his tender mercies, 
 And according to his great kindness. 
 
 8 For he said, Surely they are my own people ; 
 
 intervention. Identifying the Jews 
 under the Maccabees and Hyrcanus 
 with himself, by whom they were 
 employed as native instruments, he 
 vindicates the glory of the deed from 
 all aid obtained from an extraneous 
 source. Comp. Ezek. xxv. 14. 
 
 4, 5. Comp. chap. lix.16. The lan- 
 guage in this place is strongly anthro- 
 popathic. Help was required, but 
 there was none. Assyria and Baby- 
 lon, that had formerly been employed 
 in executing the Divine judgments, 
 were no more. Jehovah, therefore, 
 led forth his own people against their 
 ancient enemy, and gave them the 
 victory. Nearly thirty MSS. read, or 
 have read, ‘nz, my righteousness, in- 
 stead of ὙΠ, my fury, and the same 
 reading is found in four ancient Edi- 
 tions ; but it is manifestly a correc- 
 tion from chap. lix. 16, 
 
 6. The action of treading out the 
 wine is repeated from ver. 3, only in 
 a more condensed form,.—o720x, J will 
 make them drunk, appears to have been 
 substituted for DJavx, 7 will break 
 them in pieces, Which is found in 
 twenty-three MSS., and has been ori- 
 ginally in thirteen more at least ; is 
 
 the reading of three Editions; and 
 is supported by the Targ., which 
 translates, poor. The difference 
 consists simply in the exchange of 3 
 for 3, many instances of which occur 
 in the Hebrew text. In favour of 
 rv, Hitzig properly adduces the use 
 of the preposition 1: 128 would have 
 been followed by the accusative, or 
 by the preposition 12. 
 
 7. The mind of the prophet is now 
 led back, by the Spirit of inspiration, 
 from the signal destruction of the 
 Edomites, to review God’s ancient fa- 
 vours towards the Jewish people, not- 
 withstanding their demerit, in order 
 to derive encouragement to those 
 who should live in the final disper- 
 sion, still to trust in his mercy, and 
 to furnish them with arguments to be 
 employed in their devotional applica- 
 tions for its renewed and glorious 
 exercise. From this verse to the end 
 of the following chapter, they are 
 provided with a formulary of con- 
 fession and supplication, couched, as 
 Lowth observes, in the elegiac form, 
 pathetic and elegant. 
 
 8. The expression of a reasonable 
 expectation of what the Jewish nation 
 
CHAP. LXIII.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 453 
 
 Children that will not act falsely : 
 
 So he became their Saviour. 
 
 9 In all their affliction, he was not an adversary, 
 For the Angel of his Presence saved them ; 
 In his love and in his pity he redeemed them ; 
 _ . And he took them up, and carried them all the days of old. 
 10 Yet they rebelled, and grieved his Holy Spirit, 
 So that he was turned to be their foe ; 
 
 should have proved, considering the 
 peculiar relation into which they had 
 been brought to Jehovah. 
 
 9. The words Ἢ 8? Ona have 
 occasioned no small diversity of in- 
 terpretation. The textual reading N° 
 is expressed in the LXX, Syr., Targ., 
 and Vulg.; and has the suffrages of 
 Saadias, Jarchi, and other Rabbins, 
 who render, “ In all their affliction he 
 did not afflict them,” 2.6. so as to 
 abandon them to it, or leave them 
 in it, without pity or deliverance. 
 In such case, 072 must be supplied 
 after 1% from the pronom. affix in 
 omy, The 1 in 772 will then assume 
 the causal signification, and introduce 
 the reason why they were not left in 
 trouble. Thus also Kocher, Micha- 
 6115, Déderlein, Dathe, Tingstadius, 
 Hensler, Gesenius, Maurer, Booth- 
 royd, Jones, and Noyes. 1%, Auri- 
 villius and Michaelis take to be an 
 intensive masculine noun, used in 
 contrast with the preceding feminine 
 “a, and so expressive of extreme 
 distress. The latter writer compares 
 2 Cor. iv. 8, θλιβόμενοι, aAN οὐ στενο- 
 xopovpevot. I prefer the verbal sig- 
 nification ; only attaching to the word 
 the idea of hostility, or opposition, 
 so as to crush or destroy. To the 
 Keri 12 5, there was affliction to him, or 
 he was afficted, which is found in the 
 text of eleven MSS., and was in five or 
 six more originally, and is exhibited 
 in two of the earliest editions, it is 
 properly objected, that, to furnish this 
 sense, the order of the words must 
 have been 1? ἼΞ, and not 12 1. Comp. 
 2 Sam. i. 26. The latter interpre- 
 tation. however, is preferred by Moller, 
 Jenour, v. d. Palm, Scholz, our own 
 and other translators.—By v2 ἼΝ is 
 meant the ANGEL or MESSENGER, by 
 
 way of eminence, so frequently re- 
 ferred to in the Mosaic writings ; 
 who is therein represented as pos- 
 sessing the Divine Name; and who 
 is spoken of interchangeably with 
 JEHOVAH himself. The combination 
 of the terms Angel of his presence, is not 
 intended to convey the idea of an 
 angel accustomed to stand in the 
 Divine presence, but the Messenger 
 in and through whose person the Deity 
 was manifested to ancient Israel ;— 
 the Divine personal Representative. 
 Comp. Exod. xxiii. 20—23, xxxili. 14, 
 15, in which latter passage 022, faces, 
 or presence, by itself, is obviously used 
 in the highest personal sense. 
 
 10. wWIRIM, His Holy Spirit, is like- 
 wise to be taken here in a personal 
 sense, forasmuch as personal suscep- 
 tibility and actions are distinctly 
 ascribed to him. The simple idea of 
 moral purity, or opposition to all 
 moral evil, as existing in the Divine 
 mind, falls altogether short of the 
 conceptions suggested by the phrase 
 in this and numerous parallel pas- 
 sages of Scripture. The attribute of 
 holiness is predicated of the Spirit 
 of God, because he is the Source and 
 Author of that holiness which is 
 found in the creatures. Comp. for 
 the sentiment, Eph. iv. 30. The 
 statement made in the latter hemi- 
 stich is not at variance with that 
 made at the beginning of the pre- 
 ceding verse, 28 not being used in 
 the same intensive sense as 1%, but, 
 as explained by D2 077 following, 
 merely expressing such a degree of 
 opposition as was necessary to ac- 
 count for the “2%, affliction, with 
 which the Israelites were visited, with 
 a view to their moral benefit. 
 
 ke 
 
484 
 
 He fought against them. 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LXIII. 
 
 11 But he remembered the ancient days—Moses and his people. 
 Where is he that brought up from the sea the shepherds of his 
 
 flock ? 
 
 Where is he that put his Holy Spirit within them ? 
 
 12 That made his glorious arm to go forth at the right hand of 
 
 Moses ; 
 
 Dividing the waters before them, 
 
 To make for himself an everlasting name ? 
 13 That led them through the deeps ? 
 
 Like a horse in the desert, they stumbled not. 
 14 As the cattle descend into the valley, 
 
 So the Spirit of Jehovah led them to rest: 
 
 11, Gesenius, Hitzig, and Scholz, 
 consider θυ, his people, to be the no- 
 minative to =P); but, besides its 
 being too remote in position, it “is 
 not so natural as a reference to the 
 preceding antecedent. ‘ny mn is 
 merely an asyndeton, of which several 
 occur in Isaiah, see chap. xxvii. 4; so 
 that, although the text of the LXX. 
 exhibits nothing corresponding to 
 mn, there is no reason to regard it 
 as a gloss. ὑπῆν, his servant, (instead 
 of Va», his people,) the reading of two 
 MSS. and one ancient edition, sup- 
 ported by the Syriac, though a very 
 natural combination with the name 
 ‘of Moses, is not critically entitled to 
 adoption.—Mention having been made 
 of the Divine interposition in the 
 days of Moses, the Jews of the final 
 dispersion are represented as abruptly 
 inquiring where God now was? there 
 being no such visible interference on 
 their behalf. The description ori- 
 ginated by these inquiries is continued 
 to the end of ver. 14; and is imme- 
 diately followed by earnest suppli- 
 cations, appeals, and expostulations, 
 having a similar deliverance for their 
 object.—As nearly sivty MSS., and 
 little short of forty printed editions, 
 together with others in the margin, 
 and the Vulg., read ‘v4, shepherds, in 
 the plural, I cannot but regard the 
 particle ns as the sign of the accu- 
 sative, designed to qualify or shew 
 the reference of the pronominal affix 
 in 0990, which is here used anticipa- 
 
 tively, as in Aramaic. Or if, with a 
 very ancient MS. of Kennicott, and 
 one of De Rossi’s, celebrated for its 
 accuracy, and the LXX., Arab., and 
 Syr., we omit the affix Ὁ, which might 
 easily have originated in the following 
 word 0% beginning with the same 
 letter, we arrive at the same conclu- 
 sion. In this case “the shepherds” 
 will be Moses and Aaron. Comp. Ps. 
 Ixxvii. 20. The pronominal reference 
 in ia is to Nk preceding; and this 
 being a collective, I have rendered 
 it in the plural, into which it is 
 changed, ver. 12. 1727 is not here 
 to be taken in a personal sense, as in 
 ver. 10, but means, as in other pas- 
 sages in which giving, pouring out, 
 putting, taking away, &c. are combined 
 with the phrase, the operative influence 
 of the Holy Spirit. The extraordinary 
 or miraculous gifts which were vouch- 
 safed to ancient Israel seem specially 
 intended. See Numb. xi. 17; Neh. 
 ix. 20. 
 
 12—14. The exodus and passage 
 
 through the wilderness to Canaan are_ 
 
 prominently brought out, in order 
 the more forcibly to advance the fol- 
 lowing appeals. By 7279, desert, is 
 here meant a level surface, uninter- 
 rupted by rocks, clefts, gullies, &c. to 
 impede animals in their course, such 
 as is frequently met with, to an 
 almost boundless extent, in many 
 countries of the East. Rough and 
 rugged as might be the rocks at the 
 bottom of the Red Sea, they proved 
 
CHAP. LXIII.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 455 
 
 Thus thou didst lead thy people, 
 To make for thyself a glorious name. 
 
 15 
 
 Look down from heaven, and behold 
 
 From thy holy and glorious habitation ; 
 Where is thy zeal, and thy might? 
 Are the sounding of thy bowels and thy compassion towards 
 
 me restrained ? 
 
 16 Surely Thou art our Father, 
 
 Though Abraham taketh no notice of us, 
 And Israel doth not acknowledge us: 
 Thou, O Jehovah! art our Father, our Redeemer ; 
 
 Thy name.is from eternity. 
 17 
 ways ? 
 
 Why, O Jehovah! hast thou made us to wander from thy 
 
 Why hast thou hardened our heart, that we should not fear 
 
 thee ? 
 
 Return, for the sake of thy servants, 
 The tribes of thine inheritance. 
 
 no obstacle to the progress of the 
 Israelites. One MS., the LXX., Arab., 
 Syr., Targ., and Vulg., read 727, thou 
 didst lead them, from ™2; but the 
 same idea of leading is implied in 
 the common reading, which is the 
 Hiph. of ™:, fo rest. The second 
 hemistich of ver. 14, embodies the 
 idea in the form of direct address, and 
 thus paves the way for the appeals, 
 ver. 15, το. 
 
 15. A powerful argument is here 
 drawn from the tenderness of parental 
 affection, as formerly displayed in so 
 signal a manner in behalf of the nation. 
 Instead of the-plural ὙΠ 533, eighteen 
 MSS., originally three, two editions, 
 andallthe ancient versions, read 7n}23 ; 
 and many more MSS. and editions 
 exhibit the word in a defective form. 
 
 16. The hereditary descent of the 
 Jews from Abraham, and their de- 
 pendence upon his merits, and those 
 of Isaac and Jacob, form the proudest 
 grounds of boasting among them at 
 the present day, as they did in the 
 time of our Lord, Matt. iii. 9; John 
 viii. 39. See Wetstein on the former 
 passage. When converted, they shall 
 
 be ashamed of all such confidence, 
 and glory in Jehovah alone. For Ὁ, 
 in the acceptation, taking care or notice 
 of, regarding, &e. see Gen. xxxix. 6 ; 
 Job ix; 21 ;, Ps..cxliv. 3. 
 
 17. Though the language of this 
 verse appears to advance a charge 
 against Jehovah, it is merely designed 
 to indicate the deep earnestness of 
 the suppliants. That they do not in 
 reality ascribe their moral deviation 
 and obduracy to the exertion of any 
 positive, direct, or internal influence 
 on the part of God, is evident from 
 the tenor of the petition which is 
 immediately added. Because of their 
 wickedness, he had withdrawn from 
 them his favour, and left them in 
 circumstances from which they took 
 occasion to pursue their own ways— 
 the inevitable results of which were 
 spiritual blindness and induration. 
 During a period of nearly eighteen 
 centuries they have continued in this 
 awful condition — the subjects of 
 abandonment, unbelief, and delusion. 
 Compare the case of Pharaoh, Exod. 
 vii. 3, 18, viii. 15, 32; Rom. ix. 18 ; 
 and for a similar use of Hiphil, Ps. 
 
456 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 {CHAP. LXIY. 
 
 18 It was a short time thy holy people were in possession ; 
 Our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. 
 
 19 We have been as those over whom thou never didst rule, 
 Who were not called by thy name. 
 
 exix. 10, cxli. 4; Jer. iv. 10. For an 
 effectual recovery out of this state, 
 they now pray that the Divine favour 
 might be restored. 
 
 18, 19. The Jews urge, as a further 
 reason for their restoration, the com- 
 
 paratively short period during which 
 they had been in possession of Canaan, 
 the long duration of their’ rejection, 
 and the desecration of the holy temple 
 by the enemies of the Most High. 
 Comp. Luke xxi. 24. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 This chapter contains further arguments and confessional pleadings in favour 
 
 of a restoration. 
 
 The Jews pray for a renewed manifestation of the Divine 
 
 power in the destruction of their enemies, who, as such, are represented as 
 the adversaries of Jehovah, 1, 2; to which they are encouraged by reflecting 
 on the unparalleled interposition which the nation experienced in Egypt, 
 3, 4, and on the constancy of the Divine conduct towards all who act 
 righteously, 5. They confess the deplorable circumstances to which their 
 sins have reduced them, 6, 7 ; re-assert their original relationship to God, 
 8, 9 ; and finally appeal to the desolate state of the Holy Land, the sight of 
 which could not but move him to interfere for their deliverance, 10—12. 
 
 1 O THAT thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come 
 
 down ! 
 
 That the mountains might quake at thy presence ! 
 
 2 As fire kindleth the dry twigs, 
 
 And as fire causeth the water to boil ; 
 
 1—3. I have followed our Common 
 Version, the LXX., Vulg., and Syr., 
 in departing from the Masoretic di- 
 vision of the chapters, according to 
 which the words AT Dw AYN 
 32 ONT PID are very improperly 
 made to conclude chapter lxiii—The 
 heavens are regarded as an outspread 
 tent, that required to be rent in order 
 
 that its occupant might suddenly rush 
 forth in a case of emergency. 1733, the 
 Niph. of 5, to tremble, be shaken; Arab. 
 
 U; 1)» an earthquake ; LXX. τρόμος 
 
 λήψεται; Targ. % This derivation 
 suits the connexion better than that 
 from 53, to flow. The scene referred 
 to is that at Sinai, when the Lord 
 
CHAP. LXIY.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 457 
 
 So make known thy name to thine adversaries, 
 That the nations may tremble at thy presence. 
 3 When thou didst terrible things that we expected not, 
 Thou camest down ; the mountains quaked at thy presence. 
 4 Never had men heard, nor perceived by the ear, 
 Neither had eye seen a God besides thee, 
 That would act for him that waited for him. 
 5 Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and doeth righteousness ; 
 Them that remember thee in thy ways: 
 Though thou art angry, because we have sinned, 
 Yet because they are everlasting, we shall be saved. 
 6 Weare, all of us, as an unclean thing, 
 
 descended in fire, and the whole 
 mount quaked greatly, Exod. xix. 18. 
 By the action of fire on dry twigs or 
 brushwood, as also on water, noise is 
 produced, and thereby the effect of 
 the phenomena heightened. That by 
 Dan, ¢wigs are meant, has been shewn 
 by Gesenius ; with whom Hitzig, 
 Maurer, and Scholz concur. Comp. 
 
 the Arab. eed; lenis strepitus, which 
 
 Saadias here employs. 
 
 4, None of the gods of the nations 
 had ever appeared to deliver his 
 votaries, as Jehovah had done for the 
 salvation of his people. Comp. Deut. 
 iv. 7. The Apostle cites the passage, 
 with considerable verbal variety, 1 
 Cor. ii. 9, in apt illustration of his 
 position, that while no. real inter- 
 vention for the impartation of saving 
 wisdom had been experienced by those 
 who followed human systems of philo- 
 sophy, such had been graciously 
 vouchsafed to the Apostles, for the 
 benefit of mankind. } Mwy, Zo do or act 
 for, has here the sense of interposing 
 for the good of any one. 
 
 5. 228, to meet either in a hostile or 
 in a friendly sense. Here the latter 
 isthemeaning. The latter hemistich, 
 Lowth and others think, has been 
 greatly corrupted ; and several me- 
 thods have been tried to restore the 
 text to its pristine state. The whole 
 difficulty is created by the words 
 div ἘΠῚ. Some consider the pronoun 
 Dy to refer to sizs, or punishments, 
 
 understood, and explain o3» of the 
 long period during which they had 
 continued ; but the most natural re- 
 ference is to 027), the masculine ante- 
 cedent in the preceding hemistich ; 
 and this our translators no doubt had 
 in view, when they gave the rendering, 
 “tn those is continuance.” The 3 is 
 the Beth essentia, which expresses the 
 reality of any thing, and, in the 
 present case, gives emphasis to the 
 personal pronoun, which stands, as 
 frequently, for the substantive verb. 
 ory stands elliptically for Di» IW, as 
 Ps. Ixxxix. 2, 5, 38. The } in Dw) 
 marks the apodosis, to which there 
 is an implied protasis in 073. This 
 I have expressed in the version by 
 the word “because,” which supersedes 
 the necessity of rendering, “therefore 
 we shall be saved.” 7 is not here an 
 interjection, but an hypothetical par- 
 ticle, putting the fact, in order to 
 reason from it. The meaning of the 
 whole is this: though we are now 
 punished on account of our trans- 
 gressions, yet as the ways in which 
 God manifests his goodness are ever- 
 lasting, we may confidently hope for 
 deliverance. That “the ways of God” 
 signify his gracious dealings with 
 men, as well as the course of life 
 which he requires of them, see chap. 
 lv. 8, 9. 
 
 6. ow 123, LXX, ῥάκος ἀποκαθημένης. 
 
 Vulg. pannus menstruate. Arab. $c, 
 the monthly course of females. 
 
458 ISATAH. 
 
 And all our righteous deeds as a menstruous cloth ; 
 We, all of us, fade like a leaf, 
 
 And our iniquities, like the wind, have carried us away. 
 
 [CHAP. LXV. 
 
 7 Moreover, there is none that calleth on thy name, 
 That stirreth up himself to cleave to thee ; 
 Therefore thou hast hid thy face from us, 
 And made us to melt away through our iniquities. 
 8 Yet now, O Jehovah! Thou art our Father ; 
 We are the clay, and Thou art our Former ; 
 We are, all of us, the work of thy hand. 
 9 Be not angry, O Jehovah! to excess ; 
 Neither remember iniquity for ever : Ξ 
 Behold! look, we beseech thee ; we are, all of us, thy people. 
 
 10 Thy holy cities are a desert ; 
 Zion is a desert ; 
 Jerusalem a desolation. 
 
 11 Our holy and our beauteous house, 
 In which our fathers praised thee, 
 
 Has been burned with fire ; 
 
 And every one of our objects of desire has been destroyed. 
 12 Wilt thou refrain at these things, O Jehovah! 
 Wilt thou keep silence, and afflict us to excess ? 
 
 8. THY, zow, is here used aitiologi- 
 cally, and not as a particle of time. 
 
 10. FOR W, thy holy cities, Vitringa 
 and Rosenmiller interpret of the 
 upper and lower cities of Jerusalem, 
 on the ground that the metropolis 
 alone is honoured with the designation 
 holy ; but the fact that the same term 
 
 is applied to the borders of Canaan, Ps. 
 Ixxviil. 54, shews that cities may here 
 mean those of the Holy Land generally. 
 The picture exhibited of the state of 
 Palestine, in this and the following 
 verse, is still faithfully correct, as it 
 has been for numerous ages past. 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 Jehovah responds in this chapter to the supplicants by whom he had been 
 
 addressed in the preceding section. 
 
 He first shews them, for their en- 
 
 couragement, that he had conferred his favour on the Gentiles who had 
 made no application to him, and to whom he had stood in no coyvenant- 
 relation, 1; and then accounts for his having punished the Jews, by 
 
CHAP. LXV.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 459 
 
 describing both the idolatrous and pharisaical periods of their history, 2—7, 
 His sparing them as a people, with a view to their ultimate restoration, is 
 next adverted to; and distinct promises of such restoration are given, 
 accompanied with fearful denunciations against those who should prefer 
 a life of worldliness and irreligion to the enjoyment of the privileges and 
 blessings of the Gospel, 8—15. The rest of the chapter is occupied with 
 a glowing description of the happy circumstances of the Millennial Church, 
 
 1 [ HAVE listened to them that asked not; 
 I have been found by them that sought me not ; 
 I have said, Behold me! Behold me! 
 To a nation not called by my name. 
 2 I have stretched out my hands continually to a rebellious 
 
 people, 
 
 That walked in a way that was not good, 
 According to their own devices ; 
 
 3 A people that continually provoked me to my face ; 
 Sacrificing in the gardens, and burning incense on the tiles ; 
 
 1. That these words are spoken of 
 the Gentiles who were received into 
 the church, on the introduction of 
 Christianity, is obvious, both from the 
 character here given of them as con- 
 trasted with that of the Jews, and 
 from the citation of the passage Rom. 
 x. 20, 21, with direct and express ap- 
 plication to the rejection of the latter, 
 and the adoption of the former to be 
 the people of God. 12 expresses the 
 result of application to God in prayer: 
 the granting of the things prayed for. 
 LXX. ἐμφανὴς ἐγενήθην. In xv, the 
 accusative of the person is understood. 
 Two or three codices have >. The 
 ingemination, ‘27°27, dehold me! be- 
 hold me! or here I am, here I am, is 
 peculiarly emphatic, and expresses the 
 greatest readiness to impart relief to 
 the needy. 3, zation, is here used as 
 a collective noun to denote the Gen- 
 tiles generally. 282 xyp, Lowth, Booth- 
 royd, Jehour, and Noyes, improperly 
 interpret of invoking, or calling upon 
 the name of God. ‘The meaning is, 
 that the Gentiles had never been 
 called the people of Jehovah; they had 
 stood in no such relation to him. 
 
 2. God had continually invited the 
 
 Jews to return and enjoy his favour, 
 but they contumaciously rejected his 
 mercy. WN, xot good, is a λιτότης 
 for 11, bad, wicked. 
 
 3,4. This and the two following 
 verses contain a specification of the 
 different ways in which the Jews had, 
 at different periods of their history, 
 evinced their opposition to the Divine 
 will, and rendered themselves liable to 
 the punishments that had been in- 
 flicted upon them. Their idolatries 
 had been of the most open and bare- 
 faced description—7 35 9». Nothing 
 could have been more daring. By 
 “gardens” are meant groves, such as 
 those in which the heathen were ac- 
 customed to worship their idols. See 
 chap. 1. 29, Ixvi. 17. By 0222, some 
 suppose altars built with drichs are 
 intended ; but it is more probable we 
 are to understand by the term, the 
 tiles of the roofs, on which the Jews 
 poured out libations to the host of 
 heaven. See Jer. xix. 13; Zeph. i. 5. 
 Gesenius, however, is rather inclined 
 to adopt the opinion of Rosenmiiller, 
 that the Prophet refers to a custom of 
 the Babylonians, of offering incense 
 to certain of their deities on baked 
 
400 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LXV. 
 
 4 That sat in the graves, 
 
 And spent the nights in the sepulchres ; 
 
 That ate the flesh of swine, 
 
 And in whose vessels was the broth of unclean meats : 
 5 That said, Keep by thyself; come not near me ; 
 
 For I am holier than thou. 
 
 These were a smoke in my nose ; 
 
 A fire that burned continually. 
 6 Behold! it is recorded before me: 
 
 I will not keep silence, but will requite ; 
 
 bricks, such as those on which are in- 
 sculped magical figures, and arrow- 
 headed characters.—Allusion is next 
 made to the means to which they re- 
 sorted in order to procure a know- 
 ledge of secret and future events,— 
 the practice of necromancy and divi- 
 nation. This they expected to obtain 
 from the spirits of the dead, which 
 they imagined still to hover about 
 their tombs; and for this purpose 
 they frequented, during the dark 
 hours of night, the graves and se- 
 pulchral excavations in which their 
 bodies were deposited. The latter 
 are called Os), reserved, hidden, con- 
 cealed places, from their darkness and 
 obscurity. ΠΤΧΧ, σπήλαια. From the 
 addition made by the translators 
 of this version, κοιμῶνται διὰ ἐνύπνια, 
 it would appear, that they supposed 
 there was a reference in the passage 
 to the superstitious belief of the 
 Egyptians, that Isis appeared in 
 dreams to those who slept in her 
 temples, and revealed to them the 
 knowledge of medicine and future 
 events. Diod. Sic. i. 25, 55 ; Strabo, 
 xvii. and other literary references in 
 Gesenius.—As swine were offered in 
 sacrifice to Ceres and other heathen 
 deities, and their flesh was eaten at 
 the sacrificial feasts,.the Jews, imita- 
 ting the idolatrous rite, violated the 
 express prohibition, Levit. xi. 7.—?}, 
 broth, is derived from ΡΒ, ¢o ¢ear, or 
 pluck in pieces, a8 flesh, in order to its 
 being boiled into broth. ?y9, the read- 
 ing of the Keri, and of a few MSS. 
 and editions, has the same significa- 
 tion. Whether this broth was used 
 by the Jews as food, for lustration, or 
 
 for presentation to idols, cannot be 
 determined. 
 
 5. Having, in the preceding verse, 
 specified the sins for which the Jews 
 were notorious, during what may be 
 called the idolatrous period of their 
 history, Jehovah now portrays their 
 character during the self-righteous | 
 period, or that which succeeded the Ὁ 
 return from the captivity,—including 
 Pharisaism, Talmudism, and modern 
 Judaism. Comp. chap. lvii. 1—3 ; 
 Luke xviii. 11; Rom. x.3. The hy- 
 pothesis of Gesenius, that the refer- 
 ence here is to purifications in use 
 among the ancient Parsees, or those 
 who professed the Medo-Persian reli- 
 gion, seems altogether destitute of 
 probability. For the phrase 728 2, 
 lit. approach to thyself, comp. the Arabic 
 ENS] EW, to thee, to thee ; signify- 
 ing, “Keep away from me.”—7 DOT), 
 I am holy in respect to thee, 1. 6. taking 
 thy character into the account. It is 
 equivalent to 722 Mw, am more holy 
 than thou. Thus the Targ. 30 8721. 
 The conceit of imaginary holiness, ac- 
 cruing from certain external relations, 
 and the performance of certain ritual 
 or bodily exercises, such as the Jews 
 have long entertained, and which is 
 also awfully prevalent among nominal 
 Christians, Jehovah here declares to 
 be peculiarly offensive to him. 
 
 6, 7. For 287 72:3, ἐξ is written before 
 me, corap. Jude, ver.4 ; of πάλαι mpoye- 
 γραμμένοι εἰς τοῦτο τὸ κρίμα. The 
 phrase is forensic, denoting the sen- 
 tence which has been pronounced 
 upon a criminal, and which is written 
 in a book or posted up in some public 
 
CHAP. LXV.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 461. 
 
 Yea, I will requite into their bosom, 
 7 Your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together, 
 
 saith Jehovah ; 
 
 That burned incense upon the mountains, 
 And dishonoured me upon the high places ; 
 I will even measure their former demerit into their bosom. 
 
 8 Thus saith Jehovah: 
 
 As when new wine is found in the cluster, 
 And men say, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it: 
 So will I act in behalf of my servants ; 
 
 Not to destroy the whole. 
 
 9 For I will cause a seed to go forth from Jacob, 
 And from Judah, inheritors of my mountains ; 
 Yea, my chosen shall inherit it, 
 
 And there shall my servants dwell. 
 
 10 
 
 Sharon also shall become a fold for flocks, 
 
 And the valley of Achor a resting-place for herds ; 
 For the benefit of my people that have sought me. 
 
 11 But as for you, that forsake Jehovah, 
 
 place ; and the certainty of its execu- 
 tion.—The Jews, by their obstinate 
 rejection of the Messiah, anf the 
 iniquities which have sprung out of 
 that rejection, have no less than their 
 progenitors exposed themselves to the 
 Divine indignation ; and upon them 
 hath been visited the full amount of 
 national guilt, which they had for 
 ages been contracting. Comp. Matt. 
 XXill. 31—39. nina is the term usually 
 employed in application to the elevated 
 places on which the idolatrous Israel- 
 ites offered sacrifices and incense, in 
 imitation of the heathen, who were 
 accustomed to select nivaa, high hills, as 
 localities peculiarly favourable to the 
 worship of the host of heaven. ‘ya 
 signifies both work, and the wages or 
 reward of labour. It is here used to 
 denote the punishment which the 
 Jews have merited by their national 
 transgressions, which, as a long series, 
 stretched back into former times. The 
 phrase, “measuring intothe bosom,” is 
 takenfrom the Oriental custom of carry- 
 ing articles in the ample bosom of the 
 hyke or cloak, and means to furnish 
 
 abundantly ; or, as in the present 
 case, to administer full punishment. 
 Comp. Ps. Ixxix. 12; Jer, xxx. 18. 
 8—10. The Jewish people are here 
 compared toa cluster of grapes, which, 
 from their being so bad as to be unfit 
 for use, are upon the point of being 
 thrown away. Subsequent to the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem by the Romans, 
 they seem as if they had been devoted 
 to utter destruction. The “blessing” 
 denotes the Divine favour which is 
 still in store for them as the descend- 
 ants of the patriarchs. See Rom. xi. 
 28, and the note on chap. vi. 13. The 
 future happy occupation of Palestine 
 by a regenerated race of Jews is here 
 clearly predicted. δ and WW are 
 collectives. It is to the celebrated 
 fertility of Sharon and Achor that 
 special reference is had. The former 
 was situated in the west, and the other 
 in the east, of cis-Jordanic Canaan. 
 They are adduced as samples of the 
 whole. ὍΣ is the Dat. commodi; for 
 the advantage of my chosen people. 
 11. As the persons addressed in 
 this and the four following verses are 
 
 3M 
 
402 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LXV. 
 
 And forget my holy mountain ; 
 That prepare a table for Fortune, 
 
 : And fill a libation to Fate: 
 12 
 
 I will even appoint you to the sword ; 
 
 And ye shall all of you bow down to the slaughter ; 
 Because I called, but ye answered not ; 
 
 I spake, but ye hearkened not: 
 
 But would do that which is evil in my sight, 
 
 contrasted with those who are to 
 return and enjoy the Divine favour in 
 Palestine, it seems more natural to 
 regard them as the impenitent and 
 worldly portion of the Jews who shall 
 live at the time of the restoration, 
 rather than the idolatrous part of the 
 nation that lived before the Babylonish 
 captivity. Such construction alone 
 fully suits the close and immediate 
 coherence of the argument. In such 
 case, as there is no reason to imagine 
 that any of the Jews will again become 
 actual idolaters, all attempts to ex- 
 plain 3, Gad, and °%, Meni, of idols 
 literally taken, are aside from the 
 point. On few words in the He- 
 brew Bible, perhaps, has more been 
 written, and certainly on none have 
 the opinions advanced afforded less 
 satisfaction. I refer those who may 
 be desirous of reviewing them to Vi- 
 tringa, Rosenmiiller, and Gesenius ; 
 and the works quoted by these authors. 
 That the terms may have been bor- 
 rowed from the nomenclature of idol- 
 aters may be admitted. 3, which 
 signifies, Fortune, good luck, prosperity, 
 is cognate with the Arab. d>, of the 
 same signification; which Rabbi Moses 
 Haccohen asserts was a name given 
 by the Arabs to the planet Jupiter. 
 They also gave to this planet the 
 
 name ys Y) dawl, dona fortuna major. 
 
 Comp. 722=72 83, “ prosperity cometh,” 
 Gen. xxx. 11; and Ἢ 993, the place 
 where the god Fortune was worshipped 
 at the foot of Mount Hermon, Josh. 
 xi. 17. In the common text of the 
 LXX. this word is rendered δαιμόνιον, 
 and the following by τύχη ; but, accord- 
 ing to the version of Jerome, and the 
 MSS. Pachom, and I. D. 11, the order 
 of the words must originally have 
 
 been the reverse. 29 has been re- 
 ferred by some to Μήνη, the moon, by 
 others to Venus; but the word is 
 more probably related to the Arab. 
 
 $lio, the name of an idol worshipped 
 
 “by the ancient Arabs. Comp. ἄκλο, 
 
 Jutum, chance, destiny ; from the verb 
 m2, to number, appoint, allot, being em- 
 ployed, ver. 12, with obvious reference 
 to the signification of °29, with which 
 it forms an elegant paronomasia ; and 
 from the close relation in which the 
 terms Gad and Meni stand to each 
 other, the idea of Fute or Destiny is 
 most likely that which the latter is 
 designed to convey. The description 
 admirably suits worldly and infidel 
 charaeters, who not only have no re- 
 gard for, but laugh at, religion ; have 
 no god but riches, and regard human 
 affairs as governed by chance. <Ac- 
 cording to Jerome, the custom to 
 which allusion is made, -obtained 
 among the Egyptians, who placed in 
 all their cities, on the last day of the 
 year, a table full of various kinds of 
 provision, and a cup of sweet wine 
 mixed with water, either in acknow- 
 ledgment of the fertility of the past, 
 or to implore the fruitfulness of the 
 approaching year. 
 
 12. The Jews who shall prefer the 
 pleasures of sin to those of true reli- 
 gion embraced by the great body of 
 the nation, shall meet with inevitable 
 and condign punishment. This pun- 
 ishment will, in all probability, be 
 inflicted upon them in common with 
 the members of the anti-Christian 
 confederacy, after their believing 
 brethren shall have been securely 
 settled in Palestine. “In which I 
 had no delight,” z.e, by meiosis, which 
 7 utterly abhorred. 
 
CHAP. LXV.] ISAIAH. 463 
 
 And choose that in which I delighted not. 
 
 Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah : 
 
 Behold! my servants shall eat, but ye shall famish ; 
 Behold! my servants shall drink, but ye shall have thirst ; 
 Behold! my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed ; 
 ‘Behold! my servants shall shuot for gladness of heart, 
 But ye shall cry out for sorrow of heart ; 
 
 And shall howl for anguish of spirit. 
 
 And ye shall leave your name for a curse¢o my chosen ; 
 For the Lord Jehovah shall kill thee, 
 
 And call his servants by another name. 
 
 So that he that blesseth in the land, 
 
 Shall bless by the faithful God ; 
 
 And he that sweareth in the land, 
 
 Shall swear by the faithful God ; 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 Because the former troubles are forgotten, 
 
 13, 14. The contrast in these verses 
 is admirably sustained, and possesses 
 great energy. 2) 399, lit. goodness of 
 heart, but used to express internal 
 happiness or delight. Comp. Deut. 
 xxviii. 47; Ps. iv. 7. For ὙΠ, see on 
 chap. xv. 2. 
 
 15. So signal shall be the punish- 
 ment of the infidel Jews, that, in 
 future time, should any curse or im- 
 precation be pronounced against a 
 sinner, none would be more awful in 
 its character than that which should 
 involve their fate. Comp. Jer. xxix. 
 22; Numb. v. 21. Henceforth a Jew 
 should only be spoken of as the sub- 
 ject of Divine indignation.—Many 
 interpreters suppose the name Chris- 
 tian to be here intended; and the 
 passage has been adduced in support 
 of the opinion, that this name was 
 given to the disciples at Antioch by 
 immediate revelation ; but as no ap- 
 pellation is added, it is more correct 
 to explain the phrase of the new 
 state and character of the converted 
 Israelites. See on chap. lxii. 2. The 
 Ἢ in 727 is a collective suffix, and, as 
 such, is rendered by the LXX, and 
 the Targ. in the plural. 
 
 16. By lan. is meant imploring 
 blessings for one’s self, and, in this 
 case, with the 3 of object, direct 
 
 application to God in acts of religious 
 worship. This, »202 following clearly 
 shews. Comp. chap. xix. 18, and Jer. 
 
 ee DD 
 
 interpreters, the true God ; Gesenius, 
 “ Deus veri, for Deus verus.? To ex- 
 press this, however, the phrase should 
 have been ΤῸΝ x, ὁ. 6. the God who 
 is really such, in opposition to all 
 false or fictitious deities. ἸῸΝ has 
 reference, not to existence, but to 
 promises, engagements, or declara- 
 tions; and expresses the veracious- 
 ness or fidelity of him of whom it is 
 predicated, or the certainty of these 
 taking effect. The immediate con- 
 nexion shews that this must be the 
 meaning of the attribute as here 
 ascribed to Jehovah. The final resto- 
 ration of the Jews will furnish one of 
 the most illustrious instances of the 
 accomplishment of the promises and 
 predictions of Scripture, and, conse- 
 quently, the most abundant proof of 
 the faithfulness of Him by whom 
 they were delivered. It is thus the 
 words of Christ are to be understood, 
 Rev. iii. 14, τάδε λέγει ὁ ᾿Αμὴν, ὁ μάρτυς 
 ὁ πιστὸς καὶ ἀληθινὸς. The rendering 
 of some, however, “the God AMEN,” 
 which they apply to our Saviour, is 
 unwarranted by the Hebrew text. 
 
464 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LXV. 
 
 And because they are hid from mine eyes. 
 
 17 
 
 For, behold! I create new heavens, and a new earth; 
 
 And the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. 
 
 18 
 
 But rejoice, and exult for ever in regard to that which I create ; 
 
 For, behold! I create Jerusalem an exultation, 
 
 And her people a joy. 
 19 
 And rejoice in my people ; 
 
 For I will exult in Jerusalem, 
 
 And there shall no more be heard in her 
 The sound of weeping, or the sound of outcry. 
 
 20 
 
 There shall no more be there a child of a few days, 
 
 Nor an aged man, that hath not filled up his days ; 
 For the youth shall die a hundred years old, 
 And the sinner of a hundred years shall be accursed. 
 
 21 
 
 They shall even build houses, and inhabit them ; 
 
 And plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 
 
 22 
 
 They shall not build, and another inhabit ; 
 
 They shall not plant, and another eat ; 
 For as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people; 
 And my chosen shall enjoy the work of their hands. 
 
 17,18. Creation is here to be un- 
 derstood not physically, but in a 
 civil and religious sense. The subject 
 is Jerusalem and the Jews. Their 
 restoration will be like a fresh spring- 
 ing into existence ; and the constitu- 
 tion to be established among them 
 will be entirely different from their 
 ancient economy. Comp. Rev. xxi. 1. 
 Vx is here to be taken as the accusa- 
 tive, ix regard to, as it respects that, 
 &c. Comp. Judg. viii. 15. 
 
 19. Now follows, to the end of the 
 chapter, an exquisitely beautiful and 
 truly graphic description of the Mil- 
 lennial happiness of the Jewish 
 people. Longevity, the undisturbed 
 possession and enjoyment of the 
 blessings of Providence, the speediest 
 answer to prayer, and the most com- 
 plete harmony and peace, shall dis- 
 tinguish that blissful period. 
 
 20, nvin; LXX. ἐκεῖ; Syr. wl; 
 Saad. lin, there. In this case the 
 preposition has no more force than in 
 
 pom, map, Opp, &e. By om nv, an 
 infant of days, is meant one that is 
 only a few days old, or who has, at 
 least, not reached the age of a year. 
 jen Oe Ὃν are connected, so that the 
 pronoun Vx, and the pronom. affix in 
 va, refer to both. The child shall 
 live to see a good old age, and the 
 aged themselves shall reach the goal 
 of antediluvian longevity. So general 
 shall be this extraordinary length of 
 human life, that not only shall he be 
 accounted a youth who dies at the age 
 of a hundred years, but his being cut 
 off at that early period shall be 
 regarded as a special judgment on 
 account of his sins. 
 
 22. Some trees, such as the oak, 
 the terebinth, and the banian, reach 
 the age of a thousand years. The 
 oak, for instance, grows for three 
 hundred years, retains its full vigour 
 for two hundred more, and then takes 
 five hundred to decay, the process of 
 which is during most of that period 
 imperceptible. 
 
CHAP. LXVI.] 
 
 23 They shall not toil in vain, — 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 465 
 
 Nor bring forth children for sudden destruction ; 
 For they are the seed of the blessed of Jehovah, 
 
 And their offspring with them. 
 24 
 
 And it shall be, that before they call, I will answer ; 
 
 While they are yet speaking, 1 will hear. 
 
 25 
 
 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, 
 
 And the lion shall eat straw like the ox; 
 But as for the serpent, dust shall be his food ; 
 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, 
 
 Saith Jehovah. 
 
 23. For 773 
 
 Trt) 
 
 comp. the Arab. Je, 
 execratus fuit ; ἅλῳ, maledictio, dire. 
 
 But as the person who incurred a 
 curse was regarded as doomed to 
 destruction, the ideas of ruin, destruc- 
 tion, death, naturally came to be 
 attached to it. Chald. xpi), 18 
 signifies to tremble, to flee for fear, to 
 perish suddenly; hence 7773, speedy, 
 sudden destruction. From such pun- 
 ishment the children shall be exempt, 
 being beloved for the sake of their 
 ancestors, to whom Jehovah attached 
 a peculiar blessing. Comp. chap. 
 lix. 21. 
 
 24. This language is strongly ex- 
 pressive of the utmost readiness of 
 Jehovah to confer blessings upon his 
 people. 
 
 representation of the blessed harmony 
 to be realized under the reign of the 
 Messiah, which is furnished chap. xi. 
 6—9. What was to be more or less 
 extensively the effect of the change 
 produced on the character of man- 
 kind, in proportion to the spread of 
 true religion among them, shall be 
 fully exhibited during the period of 
 the latter-day glory. By πὲ, the 
 serpent, in this place, there seems 
 every reason to believe that Satan, 
 the old seducer and author of discord 
 and misery, is meant. During the 
 Millennium he is to be subject to the 
 lowest degradation. Compare, for the 
 force of the phrase fo lick the dust, 
 Ps. Ixxii. 9; Mic. vii. 17. This was 
 the original doom of the tempter, 
 Gen. 111. 14, and shall be fully carried 
 into execution, Comp. Rev. xx. 
 
 25. We have here an almost verbal 1—3. 
 repetition of the sublime figurative 
 --- Ὁ--- - 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 Having in the latter part of the preceding chapter carried forward the atten- 
 tion of the Jews to the happiness to be enjoyed by their nation in the 
 distant Millennial age, the prophet, before closing his sublime predictions, 
 
 ᾿ adverts to certain circumstances which should be connected with the intro- 
 
 duction of that new state of things. 
 
 He anticipates and reprobates the attempt that will be made by the unbeliev- 
 
466 ISAIAH. [CHAP. LXVI. 
 
 ing portion of the Jews to rebuild their temple, and re-establish their 
 ancient ceremonies, 1—3 ; denounces Divine judgments upon them, 4—6 ; 
 foretells the sudden and unexpected conversion of the nation, 7—9 ; calls 
 upon their Gentile brethren to rejoice with them, 10, 11; promises great 
 prosperity and happiness to the converted Israelites, 12—14; shews that 
 awful destruction shall overtake those nations that shall oppose themselves 
 to the purposes and claims of Jehovah, 15—18 ; predicts a special mission 
 of converted Gentiles into different and distant countries, and the recovery 
 of all such Jews as remained in them, to the service of God in the land of 
 their fathers, 19—21; gives an assurance of the permanence of the new 
 Jewish Church, in conjunction and union with that of the Gentiles, 22, 23 ; 
 and concludes with an awful representation of the misery of the finally 
 
 impenitent, 24, 
 
 1 Tuus saith Jehovah: 
 
 Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool ; 
 Where is the house that ye would build for me ? 
 And where is the place of my rest? 
 
 2 All these things hath my hand made ; 
 And all these things have been, saith Jehovah : 
 
 But to this man will I look, 
 
 To him that is humble and contrite in spirit, 
 
 And trembleth at my word. 
 
 3 He that slayeth an ox, killeth a man ; 
 
 1, 2. It appears from these verses, 
 and that which follows, that, on being 
 restored to their own land, and occu- 
 pied with the building of Jerusalem, 
 some of the Jews will attempt to 
 reconstruct their temple, in’ order 
 that they may worship in it according 
 to the Mosaic ritual. Such an at- 
 tempt is here met by the declaration 
 that no earthly structure is worthy 
 of the transcendent excellence of the 
 spiritual and blessed nature of Jeho- 
 vah. The Jews have ever been prone 
 to glory in, and rest satisfied with, 
 external and splendid services; and 
 the same disposition will actuate the 
 unbelieving portion of them on their 
 restoration. To check this disposi- 
 tion, the Most High asserts his infi- 
 nite superiority, as Creator and Lord 
 of the Universe, to everything mate- 
 rial, and describes the only temple in 
 which he condescends to dwell—the 
 
 heart of the contrite and spiritual 
 worshipper. Comp. chap. lvii. 15; 1 
 Kings viii. 27—30. Comp. also Rev. 
 xxi. 22, where it is expressly declared 
 that no temple was visible in the new 
 Jerusalem. According to the points, 
 DiP2 is in apposition with ΠΤ), but 
 all the ancient versions place the 
 words in construction. In ver. 2, 9 
 is improperly supplied by the LXX., 
 Syr., and Lowth. The substantive 
 verb ™7 is used absolutely, as in Ps. 
 XXxiii. 9; and as ἦσαν in Rev. iv. 11. 
 3. Lowth supposes instances of 
 extreme wickedness combined with 
 hypocrisy to be here intended ; but 
 it seems far more in accordance with | 
 the spirit of the passage to view it as 
 teaching the absolute unlawfulness of 
 sacrifices under the Christian dispen- 
 sation. When the Jews are converted 
 to the faith of Jesus the Son of God, 
 they must acquiesce in the doctrine 
 
CHAP. LXVI.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 467 
 
 He that sacrificeth a lamb, cutteth off the neck of a dog ; 
 He that offereth an oblation, offereth swine’s blood ; 
 He that maketh a remembrance-offering of incense, blesseth an 
 
 idol. 
 
 As for them, they have chosen their own ways, 
 
 And their soul hath delighted in their abominations. 
 4 J also will choose their calamities, 
 
 And bring upon them the things which they dread ; 
 
 Because 1 called, but none answered ; 
 
 I spake, but they did not hearken ; 
 
 But did that which was evil in my sight, 
 
 And chose that in which 1 delighted not. 
 
 5 Hear the word of Jehovah, 
 Ye that tremble at his word ! 
 Your brethren that hate you, 
 
 And thrust you out for my name’s sake, have said, 
 
 Let Jehovah be glorified ; 
 
 But he shall appear to your joy, 
 
 And they shall be ashamed. 
 
 6 <A voice of tumult from the city! 
 
 A voice from the temple ! 
 
 taught in the ixth and xth chapters 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that 
 the one offering which he presented 
 upon the cross, for ever set aside all 
 the animal sacrifices and oblations 
 which had been appointed by the law 
 of Moses. *Any attempt to revive the 
 practice is here declared to be upon a 
 par with the cruel and abominable 
 customs of the heathen, who offered 
 human sacrifices, and such animals 
 as the ancient people of God were 
 taught to hold in abomination. The 
 > of comparison is omitted, as fre- 
 quently in poetry ; but is supplied in 
 the LXX., Vulg., Targ., Theod., Symm., 
 and most modern versions. Its in- 
 sertion in the present case would 
 weaken the force and vehemence of 
 the language. 
 
 4, 5. In retribution of the unbeliev- 
 ing and rebellious persistence of the 
 Jews in endeavouring to establish the 
 old ritual, Jehovah threatens them 
 with condign punishment; while 
 
 such of them as may render them- 
 selves obnoxious to their brethren by 
 receiving the doctrine of the Gospel 
 on the subject, have a gracious promise 
 of Divine approbation and protection 
 given to them. o> oy signify cala- 
 mities, vexations, a8 the parallelism 
 shews, and as the root ἣν, ¢o act 
 repeatedly, vex by improper conduct, evil- 
 entreat, &c. naturally suggests. See 
 on chap. 111. 4, 12; Targ. ji7724, interi- 
 tus eorum. ‘This interpretation is to 
 be preferred to ἐμπαίγματα of the 
 LXX., and illusiones of the Vulg. 
 
 6. By a remarkable and astounding 
 interposition of Jehovah, the scheme 
 of the Jews shall be defeated. The 
 very temple which they shall be in 
 the act of erecting shall be the scene 
 of judgment. By 77m 4p, the voice of 
 Jehovah, is meant thunder, as in Ps. 
 xxix. ; so that, in all probability, the 
 projected temple will be destroyed by 
 lightning. 
 
468 
 The voice of Jehovah! 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP, LXVI. 
 
 Rendering retribution to his enemies. 
 7 Before she was in pain, she brought forth ; 
 Before her pangs came upon her, she was delivered of a male. 
 
 8 Who hath heard of such a thing Ὁ 
 
 Who hath seen such things ? 
 
 Is a country in pain in a day? 
 Is a nation brought forth at once ? 
 Yet Zion hath both been in pain, and hath brought forth her 
 
 sons. 
 
 9 Should I bring to the birth, and not cause to bear? saith 
 
 Jehovah ; 
 
 Should I cause to bear, and yet restrain? saith your God. 
 
 10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, 
 
 And exult on her account, all ye that love her ; 
 Be exceedingly joyful with her, all ye that mourned for her ; 
 
 11 
 
 That ye may suck, and be satisfied, 
 
 At the breast of her consolations ; 
 That ye may press out, and be delighted 
 With the abundance of her glory. 
 
 12 For thus saith Jehovah : 
 
 Behold! I will extend to her prosperity like a river, 
 
 And the wealth of the nations like a flooding stream ; 
 And ye shall suck them, and shall be carried on the side, 
 
 7—9. The metaphors here taken 
 from a woman in travail are fre- 
 quently employed by our prophet. 
 See chap. xii. 8, xxi. ὃ, xxvi. 18. The 
 language forcibly expresses the sudden 
 and unexpected reproduction of the 
 Jewish nation in their own land in 
 the latter day. Compare that of the 
 last cited passage in reference to the 
 restoration from the captivity in Baby- 
 lon. Their future recovery is the 
 object of Divine purpose, and every 
 providential arrangement shall be 
 made for effecting it ; yet the event 
 shall be unexpectedly sudden. 
 
 10. m8 expresses the object of joy, 
 ἢ. 6. Jerusalem. 
 
 11. ΤΡΌΠΟΣ Ww does not mean the 
 breast of Jerusalem, but the Source 
 from which her consolations are sup- 
 plied. While men shall witness the 
 
 rich enjoyment of the Divine favour 
 conferred upon her, they shall be ex- 
 cited more earnestly to apply for the 
 same blessings. ῬῈ occurs only thrice: 
 here, and Ps. 1. 11, lxxx. 14; but ob- 
 viously means a copious supply ; or, 
 as corresponding to WW, breast, that 
 from which such supply is obtained. 
 Gesenius derives it from 1%, fo move, 
 radiate, flow out like rays, and renders 
 full breast. The Soncin. Edit., four 
 MSS., and originally nine, read ™, 
 brightness ; while the probable reading 
 of De Rossi’s MSS. 545, is 7}, the 
 word proposed by Lowth. The Targ. 
 reads }”, wine, which makes no sense. 
 The wild beasts, being full of activity, 
 are designated by this term in the 
 passages just quoted from the Psalms. 
 Symm. and Theod. ἀπὸ πλήθους. 
 12. Comp. chap. lx. 4—6. 
 
CHAP. LXVI.] 
 
 And dandled upon the knees. 
 13 
 So will I comfort you ; 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 469 
 
 As one whom his mother comforteth, 
 
 Even in Jerusalem shall ye be comforted. 
 
 14 
 
 And ye shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, 
 
 And your bones shall flourish, like the green herb: 
 For the hand of Jehovah shall be known to his servants ; 
 But he shall be indignant against his enemies. 
 
 15 
 
 For behold! Jehovah shall come with fire, 
 
 And his chariots shall be as the whirlwind ; 
 Causing his anger to return with fury, 
 
 And his rebuke with flames of fire. - 
 
 16 
 
 For with fire shall Jehovah contend, 
 
 And with his sword, with all flesh ; 
 And many shall be the slain of Jehovah. 
 
 17 
 
 Those that sanctify themselves, 
 
 And that purify themselves in the gardens after one, 
 
 14. m8 in Yay marks the object 
 on which ΠΡ 12 terminates. The anti- 
 thesis in this verse is very striking, 
 and occasions the following awful 
 denunciations of Divine wrath. 
 
 15, 16. These verses describe the 
 tremendous judgment to be inflicted 
 on the anti-Christian confederacy, to 
 which distinct, pointed, and repeated 
 reference is made in the prophetic 
 Scriptures :—the great battle of Ar- 
 mageddon, so graphically set forth, 
 Rev. xvi. 14—21, xix. 11—21. The 
 figurative language of fire and sword 
 is common to all the prophets. 27 
 ‘ok means to visit with renewed in-: 
 flictions of wrath, and points out the 
 awfully severe character of the judg- 
 ment to be poured out upon the ene- 
 mies of the Church of God. 
 
 17. To what species of superstition 
 the prophet here refers, it is hard to 
 determine. As the verse is likewise 
 comminatory, and closely coheres with 
 the two preceding, it is obvious that 
 the persons intended must belong to 
 the same general confederacy against 
 the Messiah ; yet, since they are dis- 
 tinguished in so very marked a manner 
 from the rest, we cannot but conclude, 
 that the prophecy points to some 
 class of enemies in particular on which 
 
 signal punishment is to be inflicted. 
 With respect to language, the only 
 words which create any serious diffi- 
 culty are FRI Ws.wy, lit. after or Le- 
 hind one in the midst. The various 
 readings are of little weight, being 
 chiefly conjectural, or emendatorial. 
 Two MSS., and as it would seem 
 another, and apparently two originally, 
 read M8 IMR, ove, one, 1. Θ. one by one. 
 Instead of 17s the Keri has nms in the 
 feminine, which one of De Rossi’s 
 MSS. and the Soncin. Edit. exhibit in 
 the text; and another MS. of De 
 Rossi’s has ΓΝ 3s ΠΝ, which corre- 
 sponds, except in gender, with the Syr. 
 v yo ¥. 
 
 pao SDD ganar 016 after one, and in 
 Sense with ὀπίσω ἀλλήλων, of Symm. 
 and Theod. Most of those commen- 
 tators who suppose a reference to be 
 made to some ancient idolatrous rites, 
 are of opinion that by Achad a Syro- 
 Phenician idol is meant. This 
 opinion is founded on the statement 
 of Macrobius, that the Syrians give to 
 the sun, as the Supreme Power, the 
 name of Adad, the signification of 
 which is Ove. Saturnal. i. 23. The 
 same name is found in Sanchoniathon, 
 (Euseb. Preepar. Evang. lib. x. cap. 
 38,) and in Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxxvii. 11, 
 
 3.N 
 
ATO 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LXVI. 
 
 Amidst them that eat swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and 
 
 the mouse ; 
 
 They shall perish together, saith Jehovah. 
 
 The occurrence of nearly the same 
 form in the royal names 117, Hadad, 
 wi, Hadadezer, 1773, Benhadad, is 
 thought to be traceable to the same 
 source, and to be little else than the 
 Hebrew x, only the aspirate is sup- 
 pressed, and the last letter doubled 
 for the sake of intensity. Pfeiffer, 
 however, in his Dubia vexata, Gesenius, 
 Hitzig, and Scholz, consider x, Oxe, 
 to be the leader or chief priest in 
 an idolatrous procession, whom the 
 company of worshippers follow into 
 the midst of the temple or grove 
 where the rites were celebrated. 
 Such a single leader is prominently 
 exhibited on the ancient Persian 
 monuments. It is not a little re- 
 markable, that the term which has 
 occasioned so much difficulty in the 
 interpretation of the passage is pre- 
 
 cisely that (d=], AcHap, “One,”) 
 
 which the Mohammedans have con- 
 tinually on their lips, as distinguishing 
 the object of their worship. In mani- 
 fest contradiction of the Scripture 
 doctrine of the Trinity, the cxiith Surah 
 
 of the Koran teaches, d=} a} "Ὁ ως 
 
 bk οὖν οἱ, ply οἷν, οἱ deal all 
 d>| 1,38 , Say, God is (ACHAD) one ; 
 
 the Eternal God ; he begetteth not, nei- 
 ther is he begotten ; and he is without an 
 
 equal. This Surah is entitled δ yy 
 olay , the Chapter of Salvation, and 
 
 is held in such veneration, that the 
 repeating of it is reckoned equal in 
 value to that of a third part of the 
 whole Koran. It is also a notorious 
 fact, that purification forms one of 
 the most essential ceremonies of the 
 Mohammedan religion. Numerous 
 minute rules prescribe the different 
 modes in which it is to be performed, 
 and especially those ablutions which 
 take place at the five periods of daily 
 
 prayer. No act of worship can be 
 celebrated if the individual has not 
 previously purified himself. The 
 obstinate unbelief of the Moham- 
 medans, as it respects the Gospel, and 
 the extravagant ideas which they en- 
 tertain of their own dignity, especially 
 as contrasted with Jews, Christians, 
 and idolaters, are leading features in 
 their character. That they are speci- 
 fically intended in this prophecy it 
 would be presumptuous absolutely to 
 assert ; but I frankly own that I am 
 strongly inclined to believe this to be 
 the case.— x, after, is here used in 
 the religious sense of following, being 
 addicted to the worship or service of any 
 deity, Comp. 1 Sam. xii. 14, 70x 
 DRX WM, and chap. lix. 13, Ws 307 
 asx. As no proper sense can be 
 brought out of ni, as divided and 
 pointed by the Masoretes, I have con- 
 strued it with the following 12 ‘Dk, 
 &e. This mode of construction is 
 further recommended by the following 
 considerations : First, neither the 
 LXX. ἐν τοῖς προθύροις, nor the Targ. 
 ἈΦ IN] ND, has read 712 in the ab- 
 solute. Secondly, Symm. and Theod. 
 similarly construe, ὀπίσω ἀλλήλων ἐν 
 μέσῳ ἐσθίοντων τὸ κρέας χοιρεῖον. 
 Thirdly, D928, being without the 
 article, shews that it is not in ap- 
 position with OTA oOwPNDD, but 
 designates a totally different class of 
 persons. The meaning is, that those 
 who prided themselves on their sepa- 
 ration from every thing impure, 
 should, in the infliction of Divine 
 judgment, be commingled with such 
 as they considered to be legally pol- 
 luted ; they should, as it is imme- 
 diately added, perish together. What 
 is meant by 7220, the abomination, does 
 not appear. The 722Y is doubtless the 
 
 Arab. pe yor Exp , Jerboa, as it 15 
 
 rendered in the Arabic version, the 
 mus jaculus of Linneeus, which 15 much 
 larger than the common mouse. It 
 abounds, in the fields, and is very 
 destructive to them. 
 
CHAP. LXVI.] 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 471 
 
 18 As for me, their works and their thoughts are come [before me] ; 
 I will assemble all the nations and the languages ; 
 And they shall come and shall see my glory. 
 
 19 
 
 For I will place a sign among them ; 
 
 And those of them that escape I will send to the nations ; 
 To Tarshish, Pul and Lud, that draw the bow; 
 
 To Tubal and Javan, to the distant maritime lands, 
 
 That have not heard of my fame, 
 
 Nor seen my glory ; 
 
 18. The first clause of this verse is 
 elliptical. The best mode of con- 
 struction is to take *238) as the nomin. 
 absol.; and, referring 7x32 distribu- 
 tively to OMY and nize, to supply 
 25), beforé me: the meaning being, that 
 the wicked deeds and purposes of the 
 nations had now come up for judgment. 
 Some supply the verb Ὁ after °25x), 
 but this seems less natural. The 
 Infin. 37? has here the force of the 
 future, and is, with such signification, 
 to be connected with the pronoun at 
 the beginning of the verse. The glory 
 of Jehovah, which the assembled 
 nations are to see, is that accruing to 
 him from the signal defeat and pun- 
 ishment of the enemies of his Church. 
 Comp. Ezek. xxxix. 21. 
 
 19. 1is here causal in signification. 
 The mx, or sigz, betokens the mira- 
 culous overthrow of the hostile army. 
 Comp. Exod. x. 2, where 2718 0 is 
 used to express the supernatural 
 judgments inflicted on the Egyptians. 
 ἘΠῚ and O79 refer to D130, the nations, 
 ver. 18, and not to the Jews, as many 
 have violently supposed. The mis- 
 sionaries to be sent to the different 
 parts of the world are Gentiles, who 
 shall have been present at, but have 
 not perished in, the great overthrow in 
 Palestine ; and who, brought by what 
 they shall have witnessed to acknow- 
 ledge the Divine claims, and become 
 reconciled to God, shall cheerfully 
 obey his mandate, to publish his fame 
 among the various nations of the 
 earth. The nations specified are ob- 
 viously given as a sample. For 
 Tarshish, see on chap. xxiii. 10, By 
 mB, Pul, it is generally agreed we are 
 to understand the island of Phile, and 
 the surrounding region on the Nile, 
 
 to the south of Elephantine, and 
 about a hundred stadii beyond Syene. 
 It was inhabited by the Egyptians 
 and Ethiopians in common, lying be- 
 tween their two countries. Its name 
 
 in Coptic is TWIAAK or WEAAK, 
 
 and signifies the boundary. Wilkin- 
 son describes the extensive ruins with 
 which it abounds, which prove its 
 importance in ancient times. ὍΣ, Lad, 
 occurs as the name of a people de- 
 scended from the Egyptians, Gen. x, 
 13. They are described as handling 
 the bow and the shield, Jer. xlvi. 9, 
 and as being mercenaries of the Phe- 
 nicians, Ezek. xxvii. 10. From the 
 last mentioned circumstance, it is 
 probable that they inhabited a region 
 stretching from the southern shore of 
 the Mediterranean towards Ethiopia. 
 Like the Ethiopians, they were cele- 
 brated for their expert use of the 
 bow, so that πῶ °2v9 is quite in its 
 place, and is not open to the suspicion 
 raised against it by Lowth. 2», 
 Tubal, occurs, as here, in connexion 
 with jy, Javan, Gen. x. 2; Ezek. xxvii. 
 13; and usually with 7», Meshech, 
 a people inhabiting the Moschian 
 mountains between Iberia, Armenia, 
 and Colchis. The term, doubtless, 
 denotes the Zibarenes, oi Τιβαρηνοὶ, 
 whom Strabo describes as occupying 
 the eastern and south-eastern coasts 
 of the Black Sea, xi. 527. The Cir- 
 cassians and Mingrelians are, in all 
 probability, descended from them. 
 2, Lavan, Fonia, originally the name of 
 the province so called in Asia Minor, 
 but afterwards extended so as to in- 
 cludeall Greece. Πάντας τοὺς Ἕλληνας 
 Ἰώάονας οἱ βάρβαροι ἐκάλουν. Schol. ad 
 Aristoph. Acharn. 106, In the San- 
 
472 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 [CHAP. LXVI. 
 
 And they shall declare my glory among the nations. 
 
 20 
 
 And they shall bring all your brethren, 
 
 From all the nations, an oblation to Jehovah, 
 On horses, and in chariots and litters, 
 
 On mules also, and on dromedaries, 
 
 To my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, 
 As the children of Israel bring the oblation 
 
 Tn a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah. 
 
 21 And of them also will I take 
 
 For priests and for Levites, saith Jehovah. 
 
 For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, 
 
 Shall remain before me, saith Jehovah ; 
 So shall your seed, and your name remain. 
 23 And it shall be, that from month to month, 
 
 And from sabbath to sabbath, 
 
 scrit, the Greeks are called Yavanas. 
 The design of the mission here spe- 
 cified is to announce to the different 
 nations the glorious interposition of 
 Jehovah, of which the persons deputed 
 shall have been witnesses, that all 
 may be induced to fear him, and de- 
 vote themselves to his service. For 
 ‘wow, my fame, the LXX. and Syr. read 
 nd, my name, Which, on this authority 
 alone, Lowth adopts. 
 
 20. This verse describes the happy 
 result of the announcement as it re- 
 gards such Jews as might not yet 
 have reached the land of their fathers. 
 Looking upon them as belonging to a 
 people in whose behalf the Most High 
 had signally interposed, the converted 
 Gentiles will render them every assist- 
 ance requisite for their return. That 
 DIT, your brethren, mean the Jews, 
 there can be no doubt. By m2 are 
 meant /itters or counes, which resemble 
 cradles, covered handsomely with 
 cloth, so as to protect the persons 
 who are carried in them from sun 
 and rain. They are borne on camels, 
 one on each side, and have openings 
 or windows for the admission of light. 
 Comp. Numb. vii.3. Sometimes they 
 are carried by two camels, one before 
 and the other behind. ΠῚ 93 occurs 
 only this once, but according to the 
 Rabbins, with whom Gesenius and 
 other moderns agree, it signifies 
 
 dromedaries, which are so called from 
 the dancing or bounding motion which 
 they make in walking. Root 13, 173, 
 to dance. 
 
 21. From the close of the following 
 verse, it appears that the persons here 
 spoken of are the recovered Jews 
 mentioned in ver. 20, and not the 
 Gentiles likewise there specified. The 
 language implies that the performance 
 of Divine service shall not be re- 
 stricted to the tribe of Levi, but shall 
 be the common privilege of the whole 
 people. Sixty-three MSS., originally 
 thirteen more, and perhaps three, 
 with all the versions, prefix } to 02). 
 
 22. See chap. lxv. 17, 18, and comp. 
 Heb. xii. 26—28. As the Christian 
 dispensation is to be permanent, and 
 shall not give way to any other, so 
 permanent shall be the happy state of 
 the restored Israelites. They shall 
 never be any more rejected, but shall 
 form one fold with the Gentiles, under 
 the One Shepherd and Bishop of 
 souls, the Great Messiah. Comp. 
 chap. lix. 21. 
 
 23. This verse points out the con- 
 stancy and regularity with which the 
 whole human family shall celebrate 
 Divine worship. Comp. Zech. xiv. 
 16—19. Not only on the sacred day 
 of rest, but on other stated occasions, 
 corresponding to those which obtained 
 among ancient Israel, men will as- 
 
CHAP. LXVI.] 
 
 ISATAH. 
 
 473 
 
 All flesh shall come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. 
 24 And they shall go forth, and shall see 
 The carcases of the men that have rebelled against me ; 
 
 For their worm shall not die, 
 
 Neither shall their fire be quenched : 
 But they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh. 
 
 semble to celebrate its rites. 8}, 
 before me, is not to be restricted to 
 Jerusalem, as it is absolutely impossi- 
 ble that all should be able to repair 
 thither, but is to be taken in the 
 latitude taught in Mal. i. 11; John 
 iv. 21—24. ; 
 
 24, The prophet concludes with a 
 warning to all to beware of transgres- 
 sion, which he derives from the mise- 
 rable condition of those that had 
 perished in the awful judgment pre- 
 dicted, verses 15, 16. The scene is 
 laid in the environs of Jerusalem, 
 most probably in the valley of Hin- 
 
 THE 
 
 nom, for which see on chap. xxx. 33. 
 Pxy, Dan. xii, 2, xy, from the Arab. 
 
 Yo, to repulse, reject, signifies an object 
 
 of abhorrence. The language here em- 
 ployed afterwards became proverbial 
 among the Jews, in application to the 
 punishment of the wicked. See 
 Judith xvi. 17 ; Eccles. vii.17. It is 
 likewise employed by our Lord to 
 express the intensity and eternity of 
 suffering in another world, to which 
 all shall be subject who prefer indul- 
 gence in sin to the fear and service of 
 God, Mark. ix. 44, 46, 48. 
 
 END. 
 
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