generally, aa in Homer; for the "great Sidon" of antiquity (Sidon mbbiih, Josh. xi. 8, xix. 28) was the mother-city of Plurnicia, which so thoroughly stamped its name upon the whole nation, that Tyre is called Dm DN upon Phoenician coins. The meaning of ver. 3a is not that the revenue of Tyre which accrued to it on the great unfruitful sea, was like a Nilesowing, or an Egyptian harvest (Hitzig, Knobel). Such a simile would be a very beautiful one, but it is a very unlikely one, since the Phoenicians actually did buy up the corn -stores of Egypt, that granary of the ancient world, and housed the cargoes that were brought to them "upon great waters," i.e. on the great Mediterranean. Sichor is a Hebraic form of Siris (the native name of the upper Nile, according to Dionvsius Perieg. and Pliny). It signifies the black river (Melas, Eust. on Dion. Per. 222), the black slime of which gave such fertility to the land. " The harvest of the Nile" is not so much an explanation as an amplification. The valley of the Nile was the field for sowing and reaping, and the Phoenician coast was the barn for this valuable corn; and inasmuch as corn and other articles of trade were purchased and bartered there, it thereby became gain (constr. of sachar, Ewald, 213, «, used in the same sense as in ver. 18, ch. xlv. 14, and Prov. iii. 14), i.e. the means of gain, the source of profit or provision,.to whole nations, and even to many such. Others render the word " emporium;" but sdchdr cannot have this meaning. Moreover, foreigners did not come to Phoenicia, but the Phoenicians went to them (Luzzatto).
The address to the whole of the coast-land now passes into an address to the ancestral city. Ver. 4. " Shudder, 0 Sidon; for the sea spealceth, the fortress of the sea, thus: J have not travailed, nor given birth, nor frained up young men, brought up maidens." The sea, or more closely considered, the fortress of the sea, i.e. the rock-island on which Neo-tyrus stood with its strong and lofty houses, lifts up its voice in lamentation. Sidon, the ancestress of Canaan, must hear with overwhelming shame how Tyre mourns the loss of her daughters, and complains that, robbed as she has been of her children, she is like a barren woman. For the war to have murdered her young men and maidens, was exactly the same as if she had never given birth to them or brought them up. Who is there that does not recognise in this the language of
Isaiah (compare ch. i. 2)? — Even in Egypt the fate of Phoenicia produces alarm. Ver. 5. " When the report cometk to Egypt, they tremble at the report from TzorT In the protasis (ver. 5a) lemitzraim (to Egypt) the verb " cometh" is implied; the Caph in ver. 5b signifies simultaneousness, as in ch. xviii. 4 and xxx. 19 (Ges. Thes. p. 650). The news of the fall of Tyre spreads universal terror in Egypt, because its own prosperity depended upon Tyre, which was the great market for its corn; and when such a bulwark had fallen, a similar fate awaited itself.
The inhabitants of Tyre, who desired to escape from death or transportation, are obliged to take refuge in the colonies, and the farther off the better: not in Cyprus, not in Carthage (as at the time when Alexander attacked the insular Tyre), but in Tartessus itself, the farthest off towards the west, and the hardest to reach. Vers. 6-9. " Pass ye over to Tarshish; howl, ye inhabitants of the coast! Is this your fate, thou full of rejoicing, whose origin is from the days of the olden time, ivhom her feet carried far away to settle? Who hath determined such a thing concerning Tzor, the distributor of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the chief men of the earth? Jehovah of hosts hath determined it, to desecrate the pomp of every kind of ornament, to dishonour the chief men of the earth, all of them? The exclamation " howl ye" (Jielilu) implies their right to give themselves up to their pain. In other cases complaint is unmanly, but here it is justifiable (compare ch. xv. 4). In ver. la the question arises, whether 'allizdh is a nominative predicate, as is generally assumed (" Is this, this deserted heap of ruins, your formerly rejoicing city?"), or a vocative. We prefer the latter, because there is nothing astonishing in the omission of the article in this case (ch. xxii. 2; Ewald, 327, a); whereas in the former case, although it is certainly admissible (see ch. xxxii. 13), it is very harsh (compare ch. xiv. 16), and the whole expression a very doubtful one to convey the sense of DD^ IPS T\vbv mp nam. To 'allizdh there is attached the descriptive, attributive clause: whose origin (Jcadmdh, Ezek. xvi. 55) dates from the days of the olden time; and then a second "whose feet brought her far away (raglaim construed as a masculine, as in Jer. xiii. 16, for example) to dwell in a foreign land. This is generally understood as signifying transportation by force into an enemy's country. But Luzzatto very properly objects to this, partly on the ground that Hvi'l Hvir (her feet carried her) is the strongest expression that can be used for voluntary emigration, to which lagitr (to settle) also corresponds; and partly because we miss the antithetical ^r\y\ which we should expect with this interpretation. The reference is to the trading journeys which extended " far away" (whether by land or sea), and to the colonies, i.e. the settlements founded in those distant places, that leading characteristic of the Tyro-Phoenician people (this is expressed in the imperfect by yobiludh, qnam portabant; gur is the most appropriate word to apply to such settlements: for merdchohj see at ch. xvii. 13). Sidon was no doubt older than Tyre, but Tyre was also of primeval antiquity. Strabo speaks of it as the oldest Phoenician citv " after Sidon;" Curtius calls it reinstate originis insignis; and Josephus reckons the time from the founding of Tyre to the building of Solomon's temple as 240 years (Ant. viii. 3, 1; compare Herod, ii. 44). Tyre is called hamma* atiruh, not as wearing a crown (Vulg. quondam coronatd), but as a distributor of crowns (Targum). Either would be suitable as a matter of fact; but the latter answers better to the JiipJdl (as hikrin, hiphris, which are expressive of results produced from within outwards, can hardly be brought into comparison). Such colonies as Citium, Tartessus, and at first Carthage, were governed by kings appointed by the mother city, and dependent upon her. Pier merchants were princes (compare ch. x. 8), the most honoured of the earth; ^Ma acquires a ^superlative meaning from the genitive connection (Ges. § 119, 2). From the fact that the Phoenicians had the commerce of the world in their hands, a merchant was called cenaani or cenaan (Hos. xii. 8; from the latter, not from ciridniy the plural cbidnim which we find here is formed), and the merchandise ciridh. The verb chillel, to desecrate or profane, in connection with the " pomp of every kind of ornament," leads us to think more especially of the holy places of both insular and continental Tyre, among which the temple of Melkarth in the newT city of the former was the most prominent (according to Arrian, Anab. ii. 16, iraXaLoraTOv &V ^vrjfir} avdpco7TLvr} Siao-to^erac). These glories, which were thought so inviolable, Jehovah will profane. " To dishonour the chief men:"' Vhakel (ad ignominiam deducere, Vulg.) as in ch. viii. 23.
The consequence of the fall of Tyre is, that the colonies achieve their independence, Tartessus being mentioned by way of example. Ver. 10. " Overflow thy land like the Nile, 0 daughter of Tarshish! No girdle restrains thee any longer." The girdle (mezach) is the supremacy of Tyre, which has hitherto restrained all independent action on the part of the colony. Now they no longer need to wait in the harbour for the ships of the mother city, no longer to dig in the mines as her tributaries for silver and other metals. The colonial territory is their own freehold now, and they can spread themselves over it like the Nile when it passes beyond its banks and overflows the land. Koppe has already given this as the meaning of ver. 10.
The prophet now proceeds to relate, as it were, to the Phcenicio-Spanish colony, the daughter, i.e. the population of Tartessus, what has happened to the mother country. Vers. 11, 12. u His hand hath He stretched over the sea, throivn kingdoms into trembling; Jehovah hath given commandment concerning Kenaan, to destroy her fortresses. And He said, TJwu shalt not rejoice any further, thou disgraced one, virgin daughter of Sidon! Get up to Kittim, go over; there also shalt thou not find rest" There is no ground whatever for restricting the " kingdoms " (inamldcoth) to the several small Phoenician states (compare ch. xix. 2). Jehovah, reaching over the sea, has thrown the lands of Hither Asia and Egypto-Ethiopia into a state of the most anxious excitement, and has summoned them as instruments of destruction with regard to Kena'an fa, like?)} in Esther iv. 5). Phoenicia called itself Kenaan (Canaan); but this is the only passage in the Old Testament in which the name occurs in thi^ most restricted sense. 1W, for TptfTO1, as in Num. v. 22, Amos viii. 4. The form ftttPB is more rare, but it is not a deformity, as Knobel and others maintain. There are other examples of the same resolution of the reduplication and transposition of the letters (it stands for v,<TO?> possibly a Phoenician word; see Hitzig, Grabschrift, p. 16, and Levi, Phcenizische Studien, p. 17), viz. «»n in Lam. iii. 22 (vid. at Ps. lxiv. 7), and ^3jj in Num. xxiii. 13, at least according to the Jewish grammar (see, however, Ewald, § 250, b).1 " Virgin the daughter of Sidon'' (equivalent to "virgin daughter of Sidon," two opexegetical genitives; Ewald, § 289, c) is synonymoufl with Kenctan. The name of the ancestral city (compare eh. xxxvii. 22) has here become the name of the whole nation that has sprung from it. Hitherto this nation has been untouched, like a virgin, but now it resembles one ravished and defiled. If now they flee across to Cyprus {cittiyim or cittim), there will be no rest for them even there, because the colony, emancipated from the Phoenician yoke, will only be too glad to rid herself of the unwelcome guests from the despotic mother country.
The prophet now proceeds to describe the fate of Phoenicia. Vers. 13, 14. " Behold the Chaldean land: this people that has not been (Asshur — it hath prepared the same for desert beasts) — they set up their siege-towers, destroy the palaces of Kendan, make it a heap of ruins. Mourn, ye ships of Tarshish: for your fortress is laid ivaste." The general meaning of ver. 13, as the text now runs, is that the Chaldeans have destroyed Kena'an, and in fact Tyre, W$\} (they set up) points to the plural idea of " this people," and V^ina (chethib l^na) to the singular idea of the same; on the other hand, the feminine suffixes relate to Tyre, u They (the Chaldeans) have laid bare the palaces ('armenoth, from 'armonetli) of Tyre," i.e. have thrown them down, or burned them down to their very foundations (Tlty from "ny = rny, Ps. cxxxvii. 7, like njTJjf in Jer. li. 58); it (the Chaldean people) has made her (Tyre) a heap of rubbish. So far the text is clear, and there is no ground for hesitation. But the question arises, whether in the words D^V? PHD* ^WX Asshur is the subject or the object. In the former case the prophet points to the land of the Chaldeans, for the purpose of describing the instruments of divine wrrath; and having called them " a nation which has not been" (iTH *6), explains this by saying that Asshur first founded the land which the Chaldeans now inhabit for them, i.e. wild hordes (Ps. lxxii. 9); or better still (as tziyyim can hardly signify mountain hordes), that Asshur lias made it (this nation, OV fern., as in Jer. viii. 5, Ex. v. 16) into dwellers in steppes (Knobel), which could not be conceived of in any other way than that Asshur settled the Chaldeans, who inhabited the northern mountains, in the present so-called land of Chaldea, and thus made the Chaldeans into a people, i.e. a settled, cultivated people, and a people bent on conquest and taking part in the history of the world (according to Knobel, primarily as a component part of the Assyrian army). But this view, which we meet with even in Calvin, is exposed to a grave difficulty. It is by no means improbable, indeed, that the Chaldeans, who were descendants of Nahor, according to Gen. xxii. 22, and therefore of Semitic descent,1 came down from the mountains which bound Armenia, Media, and Assyria, having been forced out by the primitive migration of the Arians from west to east; although the more modern hypothesis, which represents them as a people of Tatar descent, and as mixing among the Shemites of the countries of the Euphrates and Tigris, has no historical support whatever, the very reverse being the case, according to Gen. x., since Babylon was of non- Semitic or Cushite origin, and therefore the land of Chaldea, as only a portion of Babylonia (Strabo, xvi. 1, 6), was the land of the Shemites. But the idea that the Assyrians brought them down from the mountains into the lowlands, though not under Ninus and Semiramis,2 as Vitringa supposes, but about the time of Shalmanassar (Ges., Hitzig, Knobel, and others),3 is pure imagination, and merely an inference drawn from this passage. For this reason I have tried to give a different interpretation to the clause Q^Vr ^19^ mM&& in my Com. on Habakkuk (p. 22), viz. " Asshur — it has assigned the same to the beasts of the desert." That Asshur may be used not only pre-eminently, but directly, for Nineveh (like Kenaan for Tzor\ admits of no dispute, since even at the present day the ruins are called j$\, and this is probably a name applied to Nineveh in the arrow-headed writings also (Layard, Nineveh and its
1 Arpachsliad (Gen. x. 22), probably the ancestor of the oldest Chaldeans, was also Semitic, whether his name is equivalent to Armaclislmd (the Chaldean high-land) or not. Arrapacltitis rings like Albagh, the name of the table-land between the lake of Urmia and that of Van, according to which shad was the common Armenian termination for names of places.
2 The same view is held by Oppert, though he regards the Casdim as the primitive Turanian (Tatar) inhabitants of Shinar, and supposes this passage to relate to their subjugation by the Semitic Assyrians.
3 For an impartial examination of this migration or transplantation hypothesis, which is intimately connected with the Scythian hypothesis, see M. v. Niebuhrs Geschichte Assurs und Babels seit Phul (1857, pp. 152-154). Rawlinson (Monarchies, i. 71-74) decidedly rejects the latter as at variance with the testimonies of Scripture, of Berosus, and of the monuments.
Remains). The word tziyyim is commonly applied to beasts of the wilderness {e.g. ch. xiii. 21), and wk id* for n«s Db> (used of Nineveh in Zeph. ii. 13, 14) may be explained in accordance with Ps. civ. 8. The form of the parenthetical clause, however, would be like that of the concluding clause of Amos i. 11. But what makes me distrustful even of this view is not a doctrinal ground (Winer, Real WorterbucJi, i. 218), but one taken from Isaiah's own prophecy. Isaiah undoubtedly sees a Chaldean empire behind the Assyrian; but this would be the only passage in which he prophesied (and that quite by the way) how the imperial power would pass from the latter to the former. It was the task of Nahum and Zephaniah to draw this connecting line. It is true that this argument is not sufficient to outweigh the objections that can be brought against the other view, which makes the text declare a fact that is never mentioned anywhere else; but it is important nevertheless. For this reason it is possible, indeed, that Ewald's conjecture is a right one, and that the original reading of the text was D^W? p.K \\}. Read in this manner, the first clause runs thus: a Behold the land of the Canaaneans: this people has come to nothing; Asshur has prepared it (their land) for the beasts of the desert." It is true that n*n &6 generally means not to exist, or not to have been (Ob. 16); but there are also cases in which &6 is used as a kind of substantive (cf. Jer. xxxiii. 25), and the words mean to become or to have become nothing (Job vi. 21, Ezek. xxi. 32, and possibly also Isa. xv. 6). Such an alteration of the text is not favoured, indeed, by any of the ancient versions. For our own part, we still abide by the explanation we have given in the Commentary on Habakkuh, not so much for this reason, as because the seventy years mentioned afterwards are a decisive proof that the prophet had the Chaldeans and not Asshur in view, as the instruments employed in executing the judgment upon Tyre. The prophet points out the Chaldeans, — that nation which (although of primeval antiquity, Jer. v. 15) had not yet shown itself as a conqueror of the world (cf. Hab. i. 6), having been hitherto subject to the Assyrians; but which had now gained the mastery after having first of all destroyed Asshur, i.e. Nineveh1 (namely, with 1 This destruction of Nineveh was really such an one as could be called yesor Tziyyim (a preparation for beasts of the desert), for it has been ever the Me Jo-Baby Ionian army under Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo-Babylonian empire, in 606 B.C.), — as the destroyers of the palaces of Tyre. With the appeal to the ships of Tarshish to pour out their lamentation, the prophecy returns in ver. 14 to the opening words in ver. 1. According to ver. 4, the fortress here is insular Tyre. As the prophecy thus closes itself by completing the circle, vers. 15-18 might appear to be a later addition. This is no more the case, however, here, than in the last part of ch. xix. Those critics, indeed, who do not acknowledge any special prophecies that are not vaticinia post eventum, are obliged to assign vers. 15-18 to the Persian era.
The prophet here foretells the rise of Tyre again at the close of the Chaldean world-wide monarchy. Vers. 15, 16. " And it will come to pass in that day, that Tzor will be forgotten seventy years, equal to the days of one Icing; after the end of the seventy years, Tzor will go, according to the song of the harlot. Take the guitar, sweep through the city, 0 forgotten harlot! Play bravely, sing zealously, that thou mayest be remembered!" The " days of a Icing" are a fixed and unchangeable period, for which everything is determined by the one sovereign will (as is the case more especially in the East), and is therefore stereotyped. The seventy years are compared to the days of such a king. Seventy is well fitted to be the number used to denote a uniform period of this kind, being equal to 10 X 7, i.e. a compact series of heptads of years (shabbathoth). But the number is also historical, prophecy being the power by which the history of the future was " periodized " beforehand in this significant manner. They coincide with the seventy years of Jeremiah (compare 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21), that is to say, with the duration of the Chaldean rule. During this period Tyre continued with its world-wide commerce in a state of involuntary repose. " Tyre will be forgotten" vnishcachath is not a participle (Bottcher), but the perf cons, which is required here, and stands for nn?BO} with an original n fern. (cf. ch. vii. 14, Ps. cxviii. 23). After the seventy years (that is to say, along with the commencement since a heap of ruins, which the earth gradually swallowed up; so that when Xenophon went past it, he was not even told that these were the ruins of the ancient Ninus. On the later buildings erected upon the ruins, see Marcus v. Niebuhr, p. 203.
of the Persian rule) the harlot is welcomed again. She is like a bayadere or troubadour going through the streets with song and guitar, and bringing her charms into notice again. The prophecy here falls into the tone of a popular song, as in ch. v. 1 and xxvii. 2. It will be with Tyre as with such a musician and dancer as the one described in the popular song.
When it begins again to make love to all the world, it will get rich again from the gain acquired by this worldly intercourse. Ver. 17. "And it icill come to pass at the end of the seventy years: Jehovah will visit Tzor, and she comes again to her hire, and commits prostitution with all the kingdoms of the earth on the broad surface of the globe." Such mercantile trading as hers, which is only bent upon earthly advantages, is called zdndh, on account of its recognising none of the limits opposed by God, and making itself common to all the world, partly because it is a prostitution of the soul, and partly because from the very earliest times the prostitution of the body was also a common thing in markets and fairs, more especially in those of Phoenicia (as the Phoenicians were worshippers of Astarte). Hence the gain acquired by commerce, which Tyre had now secured again, is called 9ethndn (Deut. xxiii. 19), with a feminine suffix, according to the Masora without inappik (Ewald, § 247, a).
This restoration of the trade of Tyre is called a visitation on the part of Jehovah, because, however profane the conduct of Tyre might be, it was nevertheless a holy purpose to which Jehovah rendered it subservient. Ver. 18. "And her gain and her reward of prostitution will be holy to Jehovah: it is not.stored up nor gathered together; but her gain from commerce will be theirs who dwell before Jehovah, to eat to satiety and for stately clothing" It is not the conversion of Tyre which is held up to view, but something approaching it. Sachar (which does not render it at all necessary to assume a form sachar for ver. 3) is used here in connection with 'ethndn, to denote the occupation itself which yielded the profit. This, and also the profit acquired, would become holy to Jehovah; the latter would not be treasured up and capitalized as it formerly was, but they would give tribute and presents from it to Israel, and thus help to sustain in abundance and clothe in stately dress the nation which dwelt before Jehovah, i.e. whose true dwelling-place was in the temple before the presence of God (Ps.
The Assyrians, therefore, were not the predicted instruments of the punishment to be inflicted upon Phoenicia. Nor was Shalmanassar successful in his Phoenician war, as the extract from the chronicle of Menander in the Antiquities of Josephus {Ant. ix. 14, 2) clearly shows. Elulaeus, the king of Tyre, had succeeded in once more subduing the rebellious Cyprians (Kittaioi). But with their assistance (if indeed eirl tovtovs 7reyinjra9 is to be so interpreted1) Shalmanassar made war upon Phoenicia, though a general peace soon put an end to this campaign. Thereupon Sidon, Ace, Palsetyrus, and many other cities, fell away from Tyrus (insular Tyre), and placed themselves under Assyrian supremacy. But as the Tyrians would not do this, Shalmanassar renewed the war; and the Phoenicians that were under his sway supplied him with six hundred ships and eight hundred rowers for this purpose. The Tyrians, however, fell upon them with twelve vessels of war, and having scattered the hostile fleet, took about five hundred prisoners. This considerably heightened the distinction of Tyre. And the king of Assyria was obliged to content himself with stationing guards on the river (Leontes), and at the conduits, to cut off the supply of fresh water from the Tyrians. This lasted for five years, during the whole of which time the Tyrians drank from wells that they had sunk themselves. Now, unless we want to lower the prophecy into a mere picture of the imagination, we cannot understand it as pointing to Asshur as the instrument of punishment, for the simple reason that Shalmanassar was obliged to withdraw from the " fortress of the sea " without accomplishing his purpose, and only succeeded in raising it to all the greater honour. But it is a
1 The view held by Johann Brandis is probably the more correct one, — namely, that Shalmanassar commenced the contest by sending an army over to the island against the Chittseans (£t< not in the sense of a d, to, but of contra, against, just as in the expression further on, W ctvrovg viriarpsips, contra eos rediit), probably to compel them to revolt again from the Tyrians. Rawlinson (Monarchies, ii. 405) proposes, as an emendation of the text, W\ to t/rov, by which the Cyprian expedition is got rid of altogether.
question whether even Nebuchadnezzar was more successful with insular Tyre. All that Josephus is able to tell us from the Indian and Phoenician stones of Philostratus, is that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for thirteen years in the reign of Ithobal {Ant. x. 11, 1). And from Phoenician sources themselves, he merely relates (c. Ap. i. 21) that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for thirteen years under Ithobal (viz. from the seventh year of his reign onwards). But so much, at any rate, may apparently be gathered from the account of the Tyrian government which follows, viz. that the Persian era was preceded by the subjection of the Tyrians to the Chaldeans, inasmuch as they sent twice to fetch their king from Babylon. When the Chaldeans made themselves masters of the Assyrian empire, Phoenicia (whether with or without insular Tyre, we do not know) was a satrapy of that empire (Josephus, Ant. x. 11, 1: c. Ap. i. 19, from Berosus), and this relation still continued at the close of the Chaldean rule. So much is certain, however, — and Berosus, in fact, says it expressly, — viz. that Nebuchadnezzar once more subdued Phoenicia when it rose in rebellion; and that when he was called home to Babylon in consequence of the death of his father, he returned with Phoenician prisoners. What we want, however, is a direct account of the conquest of Tyre by the Chaldeans. Neither Josephus nor Jerome could give any such account. And the Old Testament Scriptures appear to state the very opposite, — namely, the failure of Nebuchadnezzar's enterprise. For in the twentyseventh year after Jehoiachim's captivity (the sixteenth from the destruction of Jerusalem) the following word of the Lord came to Ezekiel (Ezek. xxix. 17, 18): " Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has caused his army to perform a long and hard service against Tyre: every head is made bald, and every shoulder peeled; yet neither he nor his army has any wages at Tyre for the hard service which they have performed around the same." It then goes on to announce that Jehovah would give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar, and that this would be the wages of his army. Gesenius, Winer, Hitzig, and others, infer from this passage, when taken in connection with other non-Israelitish testimonies given by Josephus, which merely speak of a siege, that Nebuchadnezzar did not conquer Tyre; but Hengstenberg (de rebus Tyriorum, 1832), Iliiver- nick (Ezek pp. 427-4.42), and Drechsler {Isa. ii. 166-169) maintain by arguments, which have been passed again and again through the sieve, that this passage presupposes the conquest of Tyre, and merely announces the disproportion between the profit which Nebuchadnezzar derived from it and the effort that it cost him. Jerome (on Ezekiel) gives the same explanation. When the army of Nebuchadnezzar had made insular Tyre accessible by heaping up an embankment with enormous exertions, and they were in a position to make use of their siege artillery, they found that the Tyrians had carried away all their wealth in vessels to the neighbouring islands; " so that when the city was taken, Nebuchadnezzar found nothing to repay him for his labour; and because he had obeyed the will of God in this undertaking, after the Tyrian captivity had lasted a few years, Egypt was given to him" (Jerome). I also regard this as the correct view to take; though without wishing to maintain that the words might not be understood as implying the failure of the siege, quite as readily as the uselessness of the conquest. But on the two following grounds, I am persuaded that they are used here in the latter sense. (1.) In the great trilogy which, contains Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre (Ezek. xxvi.-xxviii.), and in which he more than once introduces thoughts and figures from Isa. xxiii., which he still further amplifies and elaborates (according to the general relation in which he stands to his predecessors, of whom he does not make a species of mosaic, as Jeremiah does, but whom he rather expands, fills up, and paraphrases, as seen more especially in his relation to Zephaniah), he predicts the conquest of insular Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. He foretells indeed even more than this; but if Tyre had not been at least conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, the prophecy would have fallen completely to the ground, like any merely human hope. Now we candidly confess that, on doctrinal grounds, it is impossible for us to make such an assumption as this. There is indeed an element of human hope in all prophecy, but it does not reach such a point as to be put to shame by the test supplied in Deut. xviii. 21, 22. (2.) If I take a comprehensive survey of the following ancient testimonies: (a) that Nebuchadnezzar, when called home in consequence of his father's death, took some Phoenician prisoners with him (Berosus, ut sup.); (b) that with this Fad before as, the statement found in the Phoenician sources, to the effect that the Tyrians fetched two of their mien from Babylon, viz. Merbal and Eirom, presents a much greater resemblance to 2 Kings xxiv. 12, 14, and Dan. i. 3, than to 1 Kings xii. 2, 3, with which Hitzig compares it; (c) that, according to Josephus (c Ap. i. 20), it was stated "in the archives of the Phoenicians concerning this kino1 Nebuchadnezzar, that he conquered all Syria and Phoenicia;" and (d) that the voluntary submission to the Persians (Herod, iii. 19; Xen. Cyrop, i. 1, 4) was not the commencement of servitude, but merely a change of masters; — if, I say, I put all these things together, the conclusion to which I am brought is, that the thirteen years' siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar ended in its capture, possibly through capitulation (as Winer, Movers, and others assume).
The difficulties which present themselves to us when we compare together the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel, are still no doubt very far from being removed; but it is in this way alone that any solution of the difficulty is to be found. For even assuming that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Tyre, he did not destroy it, as the words of the two prophecies would lead us to expect. The real solution of the difficulty has been already given by Havernick and Drechsler: " The prophet sees the whole enormous mass of destruction which eventually came upon the city, concentrated, as it were, in Nebuchadnezzar's conquest, inasmuch as in the actual historical development it was linked on to that fact like a closely connected chain. The power of Tyre as broken by Nebuchadnezzar is associated in his view with its utter destruction." Even Alexander did not destroy Tyre, when he had conquered it after seven months' enormous exertions. Tyre was still a flourishing commercial city of considerable importance under both the Syrian and the Eoman sway* In the time of the Crusades it was still the same; and even the Crusaders, who conquered it in 1125, did not destroy it. It was not till about a century and a half later that the destruction was commenced by the removal of the fortifications on the part of the Saracens. At the present time, all the glory of Tyre is either sunk in the sea or buried beneath the sand, — an inexhaustible mine of building materials for Beirut and other towns upon the coast.
Amidst these vast ruins of the island city, there is nothing standing now but a village of wretched wooden huts. And the island is an island no longer. The embankment which Alexander threw up has grown into a still broader and stronger tongue of earth through the washing up of sand, and now connects the island with the shore, — a standing memorial of divine justice (Strauss, Sinai und Golgotha, p. 357). This picture of destruction stands before the prophet's mental eye, and indeed immediately behind the attack of the Chaldeans upon Tyre, — the two thousand years between being so compressed, that the whole appears as a continuous event. This is the well-known law of perspective, by which prophecy is governed throughout. This law cannot have been unknown to the prophets themselves, inasmuch as they needed it to accredit their prophecies even to themselves. Still more was it necessary for future ages, in order that they might not be deceived with regard to the prophecy, that this universally determining law, in which human limitations are left unresolved, and are miraculously intermingled with the eternal view of God, should be clearly known.
But another enigma presents itself. The prophet foretells a revival of Tyre at the end of seventy years, and the passing over of its world-wide commerce into the service of the congregation of Jehovah. We cannot agree with E. O. Gilbert (Theodulia, 1855, pp. 273-4) in regarding the seventy years as a sacred number, which precludes all clever human calculation, because the Lord thereby conceals His holy and irresistible decrees. The meaning of the seventy is clear enough: they are, as we saw, the seventy years of the Chaldean rule. And this is also quite enough, if only a prelude to what is predicted here took place in connection with the establishment of the Persian sway. Such a prelude there really was in the fact, that, according to the edict of Cyrus, both Sidonians and Tyrians assisted in the building of the temple at Jerusalem (Ezra iii. 7, cf. i. 4). A second prelude is to be seen in the fact, that at the very commencement of the labours of the apostles there was a Christian church in Tyre, which was visited by the Apostle Paul (Acts xxi. 3, 4), and that this church steadily grew from that time forward. In this way again the trade of Tyre entered the service of the God of revelation.
Bat it is Christian Tyre which now lies in ruins. One of the most remarkable ruins is the splendid cathedral of Tyre, for which Eusebius of Caesarea wrote a dedicatory address, and in which Friedrich Barbarossa, who was drowned in the Kalykailnos in the year 1190, is supposed to have been buried. Hitherto, therefore, these have been only preludes to the fulfilment of the prophecy. Its ultimate fulfilment has still to be waited for. But whether the fulfilment will be an ideal one, when not only the kingdoms of the world, but also the trade of the world, shall belong to God and His Christ; or spiritually, in the sense in which this word is employed in the Apocalypse, i.e. by the true essence of the ancient Tyre reappearing in another city, like that of Babylon in Rome; or literally, by the fishing village of Tzur actually disappearing again as Tyre rises from its ruins, — it would be impossible for any commentator to say, unless he were himself a prophet.
The cycle of prophecies which commences here has no other parallel in the Old Testament than perhaps Zech. ix.-xiv. Both sections are thoroughly eschatological and apocryphal in their character, and start from apparently sharply defined historical circumstances, which vanish, however, like will-o'-the wisps, as soon as you attempt to follow and seize them; for the simple reason, that the prophet lays hold of their radical idea, carries them out beyond their outward historical form, and uses them as emblems of far-off events of the last days. It is not surprising, therefore, that the majority of modern critics, from the time of Eichhorn and Koppe, have denied the genuineness of these four chapters (xxiv.-xxvii.), notwithstanding the fact that there is nothing in the words themselves that passes beyond the Assyrian times. Rosenmuller did this in the first edition of his Scholia; but in the second and third editions he has fallen into another error, chiefly because the prophecy contains nothing which passes beyond the political horizon of Isaiah's own times. Now we cannot accept this test of genuineness; it is just one of the will-o'-the-wisps already referred to. Another consequence of this phenomenon is, that our critical opponents inevitably get entangled in contradictions as soon as they seek for a different historical basis for this cycle of prophecies from that of Isaiah's own times. According to Gesenius, De Wette, Maurer, and Umbreit, the author wrote in Babylonia; according to Eichhorn, Ewald, and Knobel, in Judah. In the opinion of some, he wrote at the close of the captivity; in that of others, immediately after the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah. Hitzig supposes the imperial city, whose destruction is predicted, to be Nineveh; others, for the most part, suppose it to be Babylon. But the prophet only mentions Egypt and Asshur as powers by which Israel is enslaved; and Knobel consequently imagines that he wrote in this figurative manner from fear of the enemies that were still dwelling in Judah. This wavering arises from the fact, that what is apparently historical is simpjy an eschatological emblem. It is quite impossible to determine whether that which sounds historical belonged to the present or past in relation to the prophet himself. His standing-place was beyond all the history that has passed by, even down to the present day; and everything belonging to this history was merely a figure in the mirror of the last lines. Let it be once established that no human critics can determine a priori the measure of divine revelation granted to any prophet, and all possible grounds combine to vindicate Isaiah's authorship of ch. xxiv.-xxvii., as demanded by its place in the book of Isaiah.1 Appended as they are to ch. xiii.-xxiii. without a distinct heading, they are intended to stand in a relation of steady progress to the oracles concerning the nations; and this relation is sustained by the fact that Jeremiah read them in connection with these oracles (compare oil. xxiv. 17, 18, with Jer. xlviii. 43, 44), and that they are full of retrospective allusions, which run out like a hundred threads, though grasped, as it were, in a single hand. Oh. xxiv.-xxvii. stand in the same relation to ch. xiii.-xxiii., as ch. xi. xii. to ch. vii.-x. The particular judgments predicted in the oracle against the nations, all flow into the last judgment as into a sea; and all the salvation which formed the shining edge of the oracles against the nations, is here concentrated in the glory of a mid-day sun. Ch. xxiv.-xxvii. form the finale to ch. xiii.-xxiii., and that in a strictly musical sense. What the finale should do in a piece of music — namely, gather up the scattered changes into a grand impressive whole — is done here by this closing cycle. But even apart from this, it is full of music and song. The description of the catastrophe in ch. xxiv. is followed by a simple hymnal echo. As the book of Immanuel closes in ch. xii. with a psalm of the redeemed, so have we here a fourfold song of praise. The overthrow of the imperial city is celebrated in a song in ch. xxv. 1-5; another song in ch. xxv. 9 describes how Jehovah reveals himself with His saving presence; another in ch. xxvi. 1-19 celebrates the restoration and resurrection of Israel; and a fourth in ch. xxvii. 2-5 describes the vineyard of the church bringing forth fruit under the protection of Jehovah. And these songs contain every variety, from the most elevated heavenly hymn to the tenderest popular song. It is a grand manifold Concert, which is merely introduced, as it were, by the epic opening in ch. xxiv. and the epic close in ch. xxvii. 6 sqq., and in the midst of which the prophecy unfolds itself in a kind of recitative. Moreover, we do not And so much real music anywhere else in the ring of the words. The heaping up of paronomasia has been placed among the arguments against the genuineness of these chapters. But we have already shown by many examples, drawn from undisputed prophecies (such as ch. xxii. 5, xvii. 12, 13), that Isaiah is fond of painting for the ear; and the reason why he does it here more than anywhere else, is that ch. xxiv.-xxvii. formed a finale that was intended to surpass all that had gone before. The whole of this finale is a grand hallelujah to ch. xiii.-xxiii., hymnic in its character, and musical in form, and that to such a degree, that, like ch.
xxv. 6, the prophecy is, as it were, both text and divisions at the same time. There was no other than Isaiah who was so incomparable a master of language. Again, the incomparable depth in the contents of ch. xxiv.-xxvii. does not shake our confidence in his authorship, since the whole book of this Solomon among the prophets is full of what is incomparable. And in addition to much that is peculiar in this cycle of prophecies, which does not astonish us in a prophet so richly endowed, and so characterized by a continual change u from glory to glory," the whole cycle is so thoroughly Isaiah's in its deepest foundation, and in a hundred points of detail, that it is most uncritical to pronounce the whole to be certainly not Isaiah's simply because of these peculiarities. So far as the eschatological and apocalyptical contents, which seem to point to a very late period, are concerned, we would simply call to mind the wealth of eschatological ideas to be found even in Joel, who prophesies of the pouring out of the Spirit, the march of the nations of the world against the church, the signs that precede the last day, the miraculous water of the New Jerusalem. The revelation of all the last things, which the Apocalypse of the New Testament embraces in one grand picture, commenced with Obadiah and Joel; and there is nothing strange in the fact that Isaiah also, in ch. xxiv.-xxvii., should turn away from the immediate external facts of the history of his own time, and pass on to these depths beyond.
It is thoroughly characteristic of Isaiah, that the commencement of this prophecy, like ch. xix. 1, places us at once in the very midst of the catastrophe, and condenses the contents of the subsequent picture of judgment into a few rapid, vigorous, vivid, and comprehensive clauses (like ch. xv. 1, xvii. 1, xxiii. 1, cf. xxxiii. 1). Vers. 1-3. " Behold, Jehovah emptieth the earth, and layeth it waste, and marreth its form, and scattereth its inhabitants. And it happeneth, as to the people, so to the priest; as to the servant, so to his master; as to the maid, so to her mistress; as to the buyer, so to the seller; as to the lender, so to the borrower; as to the creditor, so to the debtor, Emptying the earth is emptied, and plundering is plundered: for Jehovah [iath spoken this word." The question, whether the prophet is speaking of a past or future judgment, which is one of importance to the interpretation of the whole, is answered by the fact that with Isaiah " hinneh" (behold) always refers to something future (ch. iii. 1, xvii. 1, xix. 1, xxx. 27, etc.). And it is only in his case, that we do meet with prophecies commencing so immediately with hinneh. Those in Jeremiah which approach this the most nearly (viz. Jer. xlvii. 2, xlix. 35, cf. li. 1, and Ezek. xxix. 3) do indeed commence with hinneh, but not without being preceded by an introductory formula. The opening " behold" corresponds to the confirmatory " for Jehovah hath spoken," which is always employed by Isaiah at the close of statements with regard to the future and occurs chiefly,1 though not exclusively,2 in the book of Isaiah, whom we may recognise in the detailed description in ver. 2 (yid. ch. ii. 12-16, iii. 2, 3, 18-23, as compared with ch. ix. 13; also with the description of judgment in ch. xix. 2—4, which closes in a similar manner). Thus at the very outset we meet with Isaiah's peculiarities; and Caspari is right in saying that no prophecy could possibly commence with more of the characteristics of Isaiah than the prophecy before us. The play upon words commences at the very outset. Bdkak and bdlak (compare the Arabic balluka, a blank, naked desert) have the same ring, just as in Nahum ii. 11, cf. 3, and Jer. li. 2. The niphal futures are intentionally written like verbs Pe-Vdv (tibbok and tibbdZj instead of tibbak and tibbaz), for the purpose of making them rhyme with the infinitive absolutes (cf. ch. xxii. 13). So, again, caggebirtdh is so written instead of cigbirtdh, to produce a greater resemblance to the opening syllable of the other words. The form ngo is interchanged with KIPJ (as in 1 Sam. xxii. 2), or, according to Kimchi's way of writing it, with NtW (written with tzere), just as in other passages we meet with credit, the former is the primary form. Nosheh is the creditor, and fa XV) "iKfc is not the person who has borrowed of him, but, as HBO invariably signifies to credit (hiphil, to give credit), the person whom he credits (with 2 obj., like 3 to in ch. ix. 3), not " the person through whom he is NBb " (Hitzig on Jer. xv. 10). Hence, "lender and borrower, creditor and debtor" (or taker of credit). It is a judgment which embraces all, without distinction of rank and condition; and it is a universal one, not merely throughout the whole of the land of Israel (as even Drechsler renders H.??)> Du* m a^ the eartn; for as Arndt correctly observes, r?.?? signifies " the earth " in this passage, including, as in ch. xi. 4, the ethical New Testament idea of " the world " (kosmos).
That this is the case is evident from vers. 4-9, where the accursed state into which the earth is brought is more fully described, and the cause thereof is given. Vers. 4-9. " Smitten down, withered up is the earth; pined away, ivasted away is the world; pined away have they, the foremost of the people of the earth. And the earth has become wicked among its inhabitants; for they transgressed revelations, set at nought the ordinance, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they who dwelt in it make expiation: therefore are the inhabitants of the earth withered up, and there are very few mortals left. New wine mourneth, vine is parched, all the merryhearted groan. The joyous playing of tabrets is silent; the noise of them that rejoice hath ceased; the joyous playing of the guitar is silent. They drink no wine with a song; meth tastes bitter to them that drink it" u The world" (tebel) is used here in ver. 4, as in ch. xxvi. 9 (always in the form of a proper name, and without the article), as a parallel to " the earth " (Jid'dreiz), with which it alternates throughout this cycle of prophecies. It is used poetically to signify the globe, and that without limitation (even in ch. xiii. 11 and xviii. 3); and therefore " the earth " is also to be understood here in its most comprehensive sense (in a different sense, therefore, from ch. xxxiii. 9, which contains the same play upon sounds). The earth is sunk in mourning, and has become like a faded plant, withered up with heat; the high ones of the people of the earth (merom; abstr. pro concr., like cdbod in ch. v. 13, xxii. 24) are included (pV is used, as in ch. xlii. 5, xl. 7, to signify humanity, i.e. man generally). v/P^ (for the form, see Job, i. 328) stands in half pause, which throws the subjective notion that follows into greater prominence. It is the punishment of the inhabitants of the earth, which the earth has to share, because it has shared in the wickedness of those who live upon it: chdnaph (not related to idnaph) signifies to be degenerate, to have decided for what is evil (ch. ix. 16), to be wicked; and in this intransitive sense it is applied to the land, which is said to be affected with the guilt of wicked, reckless conduct, more especially of blood-guiltiness (Ps. cvi. 38, Num. xxxv. 33; compare the transitive use in Jer. iii. 9). The wicked conduct of men, which has caused the earth also to become chaneplidh, is described in three short, rapid, involuntarily excited sentences (compare ch. xv. 6, xvi. 4, xxix. 20, xxxiii. 8;■ also ch. xxiv. 5, i. 4, 6, 8; out of the book of Isaiah, however, we only meet with this in Joel i. 10, and possibly Josh. vii. 11). Understanding " the earth" as we do in a general sense, "the law" cannot signify merely the positive law of Israel. The Gentile world had also a tordh or divine teaching within, which contained an abundance of divine directions (tdfoth). They also had a law written in their hearts; and it was with the whole human race that God concluded a covenant in the person of Noah, at a time when the nations had none of them come into existence at all. This is the explanation given by even Jewish commentators; nevertheless, we must not forget that Israel was included among the transgressors, and the choice of expression was determined by this. With the expression " therefore " the prophecy moves on from sin to punishment, just as in ch. v. 25 (cf. ver. 24). r6tf is the curse of God denounced against the transgressors of His law (Dan. ix. 11; compare Jer. xxiii. 10, which is founded upon this, and from which TOj* has been introduced into this passage in some codices and editions). The curse of God devours, for it is fire, and that from within outwards (see ch. i. 31, v. 24, ix. 18, x. 16, 17, xxix. 6, xxx. 27 sqq., xxxiii. 11-14): chdru (milel, since pashta is an ace. postpos.),1 from cJidrar, they are burnt up, exusti. With regard to *BBW, it is hardly necessary to observe that it cannot be traced back to DPK = DB>J, DBg>; and that of the two meanings, culpam contrahere and culpam sustinere, it has the latter meaning here. We must not overlook the genuine mark of Isaiah here in the description of the vanishing away of men down to
1 In correct texts chdru has two pashtas, the former indicating the place of the tone.
a small remnant: "WJ ("^) is the standing word used to denote this; "WTD (used with regard to number both here and in ch. xvi. 14; and with regard to time in ch. x. 25 and xxix. 17) is exclusively Isaiah's; and B*foK is used in the same sense as in ch. xxxiii. 8 (cf. ch. xiii. 12). In ver. 7 we are reminded of Joel i. (on the short sentences, see ch. xxix. 20, xvi. 8-10); in vers. 8, 9 any one acquainted with Isaiah's style will recal to mind not only ch. v. 12, 14, but a multitude of other parallels. We content ourselves with pointing to r?y (which belongs exclusively to Isaiah, and is taken from Isa. xxii. 2 and xxxii. 13 in Zeph. ii. 15, and from Isa. xiii. 3 in Zeph. iii. 11); and for basshir (with joyous song) to ch. xxx. 32 (with the beating of drums and playing of guitars), together with ch. xxviii. 7. The picture is elegiac, and dwells so long upon the wine (cf. ch. xvi.), just because wine, both as a natural production and in the form of drink, is the most exhilarating to the heart of all the natural gifts of God (Ps. civ. 15; Judg. ix. 13). All the sources of joy and gladness are destroyed; and even if there is much still left of that which ought to give enjoyment, the taste of the men themselves turns it into bitterness.
The world with its pleasure is judged; the world's city is also judged, in which both the world's power and the world's pleasure were concentrated. Vers. 10-13. " The city oftohu is broken to pieces; every house is shut up, so that no man can come in* There is lamentation for wine in the fields; all rejoicing has set; the delight of the earth is banished* What is left of the city is wilderness, and the gate was shattered to ruins. For so will it be within the earth, in the midst of the nations; as at the olivebeating, as at the gleaning, when the vintage is over" The city of tohu (kiryath tohu): this cannot be taken collectively, as Rosenmuller, Arndt, and Drechsler suppose, on account of the annexation of kiryath to tohu, which is turned into a kind of proper name; nor can we understand it as referring to Jerusalem, as the majority of commentators have done, including even Schegg and Stier (according to ch. xxxii. 13, 14), after we have taken " the earth" (hadretz) in the sense of kosmos (the world). It is rather the central city of the world as estranged from God; and it is here designated according to its end, which end will be tohu, as its nature was tohu. Its true nature was the breaking up of the harmony of all divine order;
ami so its end will be the breaking up of its own standing, and a barling back, as it were, into the chaos of its primeval beginning. With a very similar significance Rome is called turbida Roma in Persius (i. 5). The whole is thoroughly Isaiah's, even to the finest points: tohu is the same as in ch. xxix. 21; and for the expression N12D (so that you cannot enter; namely, on account of the ruins which block up the doorway) compare ch. xxiii. 1, vii. 8, xvii. 1, also v. 9, vi. 11, xxxii. 13. The cry or lamentation for the wine out in the fields (ver. 11; cf. Job v. 10) is the mourning on account of the destruction of the vineyards; the vine, which is one of Isaiah's most favourite symbols, represents in this instance also all the natural sources of joy. In the term 'drbdh (rejoicing) the relation between joy and light is presupposed; the sun of joy is set (compare Mic. iii. 6). What remains of the city (TP3 is partitive, just as S3, in ch. x. 22) is shammdh (desolation), to which the whole city has been brought (compare ch. v. 9, xxxii. 14). The strong gates, which once swarmed with men, are shattered to ruins (yuccath, like Mic. i. 7, for yucath, Ges. § 67, Anm. 8; njK^? air. Xey., a predicating noun of sequence, as in ch. jxxxvii. 26, " into desolated heaps;" compare ch. vi. 11, etc., and other passages). In the whole circuit of the earth (ch. vi. 12, vii. 22; hadretz is " the earth" here as in ch. x. 23, xix. 24), and in the midst of what was once a crowd of nations (compare Mic. v. 6, 7), there is only a small remnant of men left. This is the leading thought, which runs through the book of Isaiah from beginning to end, and is figuratively depicted here in a miniature of ch, xvii. 4-6. The state of things produced by the catastrophe is compared to the olive-beating, which fetches down what fruit was left at the general picking, and to the gleaning of the grapes after the vintage has been fully gathered in (cdldh is used here as in ch. x. 25, xvi. 4, xxi. 16, etc., viz. " to be over," whereas in ch. xxxii. 10 it means to be hopelessly lost, as in ch. xv. 6). There are no more men in the whole of the wide world than there are of olives and grapes after the principal gathering has taken place. The persons saved belong chiefly, though not exclusively, to Israel (John iii. 5). The place where they assemble is the land of promise.
rejoicing in its apostolic calling to the whole world. Vers. 14, 15. " They will lift up their voice, and exult; for the majesty of Jehovah they shout from the sea: therefore praise ye Jehovah in the lands of the sun, in the islands of the sea the name of Jehovah the God of Israel" The ground and subject of the rejoicing is " the majesty of Jehovah," i.e. the fact that Jehovah had shown Himself so majestic in judgment and mercy (ch. xii. 5, 6), and was now so manifest in His glory (ch. ii. 11, 17). Therefore rejoicing was heard "from the sea" (the Mediterranean), by which the abode of the congregation of Jehovah was washed. Turning in that direction, it had the islands and coast lands of the European West in front (iyyi hayydm; the only other passage in which this occurs is ch. xi. 11, cf. Ezek. xxvi. 18), and at its back the lands of the Asiatic East, which are called 'urim, the lands of light, i.e. of the sun-rising. This is the true meaning of 'urim, as J. Schelling and Drechsler agree; for Doderlein's comparison of the rare Arabic word.A septentrio is as far removed from the
Hebrew usage as that of the Talmud *tiK NjniK, vespera. Hitzig's proposed reading D"K1 (according to the LXX.) diminishes the substance and destroys the beauty of the appeal, which goes forth both to the east and west, and summons to the praise of the name of Jehovah the God of Israel,!?"?#, i.e. because of His manifested glory. His "name" (cf. ch. xxx. 27) is His nature as revealed and made "nameable" in judgment and mercy.
This appeal is not made in vain. Ver. 16a. " From the border of the earth we hear songs: Praise to the Righteous One!" It no doubt seems natural enough to understand the term tzaddlk (righteous) as referring to Jehovah; but, as Hitzig)bserves, Jehovah is never called " the Righteous One" in so absolute a manner as this (compare, however, Ps. cxii. 4, where it occurs in connection with other attributes, and Ex. ix. 27, where it stands in an antithetical relation); and in addition to this, Jehovah gives "OV (ch. iv. 2, xxviii. 5), whilst ^33, and not *3X, is ascribed to Him. Hence we must take the word in the same sense as in ch. iii. 10 (cf. Hab. ii. 4). The reference is to the church of righteous men, whose faith has endured the fire of the judgment of wrath. In response to its summons to the praise of Jehovah, they answer it in songs from the border of the earth. The earth is here thought of as a garment spread out; cenaph is the point or edge of the garment, the extreme eastern and western ends (compare ch. xi. 12). Thence the church of the future catches the sound of this grateful song as it is echoed from one to the other.
The prophet feels himself, " in spirit," to be a member of this church; but all at once he becomes aware of the sufferings which will have first of all to be overcome, and which he cannot look upon without sharing the suffering himself. Vers. 16-20. " Then I said, Ruin to me! ruin to me! Woe to me! Bobbers rob, and robbing, they rob as robbers. Horror, and pit, and snare, are over thee, 0 inhabitant of the earth! And it cometh to pass, whoever fleeth from the tidings of horror falleth into the pit; and whoever escapeth out of the pit is caught in the snare: for the trap-doors on high are opened, and the firm foundations of the earth shake. The earth rending, is rent asunder; the earth bursting, is burst in pieces; the earth shaking, totter eth. The earth reeling, reeleth like a drunken man, and swingeth like a hammock; and its burden of sin presseth upon it; and it falleth, and riseth not again" The expression " Then I said" (cf. ch. vi. 5) stands here in the same apocalyptic connection as in Rev. vii. 14, for example. He said it at that time in a state of ecstasy; so that when he committed to writing what he had seen, the saying was a thing of the past. The final salvation follows a final judgment; and looking back upon the latter, he bursts out into the exclamation of pain: rdzi-ll, consumption, passing away, to me (see ch. x. 16, xvii. 4), i.e. I must perish (rdzi is a word of the same form as kali, shdni, 'dni; literally, it is a neuter adjective signifying emaciatum = macies; Ewald, § 749, g). He sees a dreadful, bloodthirsty people preying among both men and stores (compare ch. xxi. 2, xxxiii. 1, for the play upon the word with TQ, root U, cf. icevOeiv tlvcl ti, tecte agere, i.e. from behind, treacherously, like assassins). The exclamation, " Horror, and pit," etc. (which Jeremiah applies in Jer. xlviii. 43, 44, to the destruction of Moab by the Chaldeans), is not an invocation, but simply a deeply agitated utterance of what is inevitable. In the pit and snare there is a comparison implied of men to game, and of the enemy to sportsmen (cf. Jer. xvi. 16, Lam. iv. 19; yilldcer, as in ch. viii. 15, xxviii. 13). The hv in T.?V is exactly the same as in Judg. xvi. 9 (cf. Isa. xvi. 9). They who should flee as soon as the horrible news arrived (min, as in ch. xxxiii. 3) would not escape destruction, but would become victims to one form if not to another (the same thought which we find expressed twice in Amos v. 19, and still more fully in ch. ix. 1-4, as well as in a more dreadfully exalted tone). Observe, however, in how mysterious a background those human instruments of punishment remain, who are suggested by the word bogdim (robbers). The idea that the judgment is a direct act of Jehovah, stands in the foreground and governs the whole. For this reason it is described as a repetition of the flood (for the opened windows or trap-doors of the firmament, which let the great bodies of water above them come down from on high upon the earth, point back to Gen. vii. 11 and viii. 2, cf. Ps. lxxviii. 23); and this indirectly implies its universality. It is also described as an earthquake. u The foundations of the earth" are the internal supports upon which the visible crust of the earth rests. The way in which the earth in its quaking first breaks, then bursts, and then falls, is painted for the ear by the three reflective forms in ver. 19, together with their gerundives, which keep each stage in the process of the catastrophe vividly before the mind. HJp is apparently an error of the pen for 5p, if it is not indeed a n, actionis instead of the inf. absol. as in Hab. iii. 9. The accentuation, however, regards the ah as a toneless addition, and the form therefore as a gerundive (like kob in Num. xxiii. 25). The reflective form yyinn is not the Mthpalel of Jfli, vociferari, but the hithpoel of VT\ (rVj), fr anger e. The threefold play upon the words would be tame, if the words themselves formed an anti-climax; but it is really a climax ascendens. The earth first of all receives rents; then gaping wide, it bursts asunder; and finally sways to and fro once more, and falls. It is no longer possible for it to keep upright. Its wickedness presses it down like a burden (ch. i. 4; Ps. xxxviii. 5), so that it now reels for the last time like a drunken man (ch. xxviii. 7, xxix. 9), or a hammock (ch. i. 8), until it falls never to rise again.
But if the old earth passes away in this manner out of the system of the universe, the punishment of God must fall at the same time both upon the princes of heaven and upon the princes of earth (the prophet does not arrange what belongs to the end of all things in a " chronotactic" manner). They are the secrets of two worlds, that are here unveiled to the apocalyptic seer of the Old Testament. Vers..21-23. "And it cometh to pass in that day, Jehovah will visit the army of the high place in the high place, and the kings of the earth on the earth. And they are imprisoned, as one imprisons captives in the pit, and shut up in prison; and in the course of many days they are visited. And the moon blushes, and the sun turns pale: for Jehovah of hosts reigns royally upon Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before //is elders is glory." With this doubly expressed antithesis of mdrom and 'addmdh (cf. xxiii. lib) before us, brought out as it is as sharply as possible, we cannot understand " the army of the high place" as referring to certain earthly powers (as the Targum, Luther, Calvin, and Havernick do). Moreover, the expression itself is also opposed to such an interpretation; for, as ver. 18 clearly shows, in which mimmdrom is equivalent to misshdmaim (cf. ch. xxxiii. 5, xxxvii. 23, xl. 26), DhD N2¥ is synonymous with BW? *y*\ and this invariably signifies either the starry host (ch. xl. 26) or the angelic host (1 Kings xxii. 19; Ps. cxlviii. 2), and occasionally the two combined, without any distinction (Neh. ix. 6). As the moon and sun are mentioned, it might be supposed that by the " host on high" we are to understand the angelic host, as Abravanel, Umbreit, and others really do: "the stars, that have been made into idols, the shining kings of the sky, fall from their altars, and the kings of the earth from their thrones." But the very antithesis in the word u kings" (malche) leads us to conjecture that "the host on high" refers to personal powers; and the view referred to founders on the more minute description of the visitation (pdkad *al, as in ch. xxvii. 1, 3, cf. xxvi. 21), " they are imprisoned," etc.; for this must also be referred to the heavenly host. The objection might indeed be urged, that the imprisonment only relates to the kings, and that the visitation of the heavenly host finds its full expression in the shaming of the moon and sun (ver. 23); but the fact that the moon and sun are thrown into the shade by the revelation of the glory of Jehovah, cannot be regarded as a judgment inflicted upon them. Hence the commentators are now pretty well agreed, that " the host on high" signifies here the angelic army. But it is self-evident, that a visitation of the angelic army cannot be merely a relative and partial one. And it is not sufficient to understand the passage as meaning the wicked angels, to the exclusion of the good. Both the context and the parallelism show that the reference must be to a penal visitation in the spiritual world, winch stands in the closest connection with the history of man, and in fact with the history of the nations. Consequently the host on high will refer to the angels of the nations and kingdoms; and the prophecy here presupposes what is affirmed in Deut. xxxii. 8 (LXX.), and sustained in the book of Daniel, when it speaks of a sar of Persia, Javan, and even the people of Israel. In accordance with this exposition, there is a rabbinical saying, to the effect that " God never destroys a nation without having first of all destroyed its prince," i.e. the angel who, by whatever means he first obtained possession of the nation, whether by the will of God or against His will, has exerted an ungodly influence upon it. Just as, according to the scriptural view, both good and evil angels attach themselves to particular men, and an elevated state of mind may sometimes afford a glimpse of this encircling company and this conflict of spirits; so do angels contend for the rule over natrons and kingdoms, either to guide them in the way of God or to lead them astray from God; and therefore the judgment upon the nations which the prophet here foretells will be a judgment upon angels also. The kingdom of spirits has its own history running parallel to the destinies of men. What is recorded in Gen. vi. was a seduction of men by angels, and one of later occurrence than the temptation by Satan in paradise; and the seduction of nations and kingdoms by the host of heaven, which is here presupposed by the prophecy of Isaiah, is later than either. Ver. 22a announces the preliminary punishment of both angelic and human princes: 'asepJidh stands in the place of a gerundive, like talteldh in ch. xxii. 17. The connection of the words 'asepJidh 'assir is exactly the same as that of talteldh gdber in ch. xxii. 17: incarceration after the manner of incarcerating prisoners; 'dsaph, to gather together (ch. x. 14, xxxiii. 4), signifies here to incarcerate, just as in Gen. xlii. 17. Both verbs are construed with 'al9 because the thrusting is frcm above downwards into the pit and prison ^al embraces both upon or over anything, and into it, e.g. 1 Sam. xxxi. 4, Job vi. 16; see Hitzig on Nah. iii. 12). We may see from 2 Pet. ii. 4 and Jude 6 how this is to be understood. The reference is to the abyss of Hades where they are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day. According to this parallel, yippdkedu (shall be visited) ought apparently to be understood as denoting a visitation in wrath (like ch. xxix. 6, Ezek. xxxviii. 8; compare pdkad followed by an accusative in ch. xxvi. 21, also xxvi. 14, and Ps. lix. 6; niphkad, in fact, is never used to signify visitation in mercy), and therefore as referring to the infliction of the final punishment. Hitzig, however, understands it as relating to a visitation of mercy; and in this he is supported by Ewald, Knobel, and Luzzatto. Gesenius, Umbreit, and others, take it to indicate a citation or summons, though without any ground either in usage of speech or actual custom. A comparison of ch. xxiii. 17 in its relation to ch. xxiii. 151 favours the second explanation, as being relatively the most correct; but the expression is intentionally left ambiguous. So far as the thing itself is concerned, we have a parallel in Rev. xx. 1-3 and 7-9: they are visited by being set free- again, and commencing their old practice once more; but only (as ver. 23 affirms) to lose again directly, before the glorious and triumphant might of Jehovah, the power they have temporarily reacquired. What the apocalyptist of the New Testament describes in detail in Rev. xx. 4, xx. 11 sqq., and xxi., the apocalyptist of the Old Testament sees here condensed into one fact, viz. the enthroning of Jehovah and His people in a new Jerusalem, at which the silvery white moon (lebdndh) turns red, and the glowing sun {chammdh) turns pale; the two great lights of heaven becoming (according to a Jewish expression) "like a lamp at noonday" in the presence of such glory. Of the many parallels to ver. 23 which we meet with in Isaiah, the most worthy of note are ch. xi. 10 to the concluding clause, " and before His elders is glory" (also ch. iv. 5), and ch. i. 26 (cf. iii. 14), with reference to the use of the word zekenim (elders). Other parallels are ch. xxx. 26, for chammdh and lebdndh; ch. i. 29, for chdpher and bosh; ch. xxxiii. 22, for mdlak; ch. x. 12, for "Mount Zion and Jerusalem." We have already spoken at ch. i. 16 of the word neged 1 Cf. Targ., Saad., " they will come into remembrance again."
be pressed down, to sink), as applied to that which stands out prominently and clearly before one's eyes. According to Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, i. 320-1), the elders here, like the twenty-four presbuteroi of the Apocalypse, are the sacred spirits, forming the council of God, to which He makes known His will concerning the world, before it is executed by His attendant spirits the angels. But as we find counsellors promised to the Israel of the new Jerusalem in ch. i. 26, in contrast with the bad zehenim (elders) which it then possessed (ch. iii. 14), such as it had at the glorious commencement of its history; and as the passage before us says essentially the same with regard to the zekenim as we find in ch. iv. 5 with regard to the festal meetings of Israel (vid. ch. xxx. 20 and xxxii. 1); and still further, as Rev. xx. 4 (cf. Matt. xix. 28) is a more appropriate parallel to the passage before us than Rev. iv. 4, we may assume with certainty, at least with regard to this passage, and without needing to come to any decision concerning Rev. iv. 4, that the zekenim here are not angels, but human elders after God's own heart. These elders, being admitted into the immediate presence of God, and reigning together with Him, have nothing but glory in front of them, and they themselves reflect that glory.
A. First echo: Salvation of the nations after the fall of the imperial city. — Chap. xxv. 1-8.
There is not merely reflected glory, but reflected sound as well. The melodious echoes commence with ch. xxv. 1 sqq. The prophet, transported to the end of the days, commemorates what he has seen in psalms and songs. These psalms and songs not only repeat what has already been predicted; but, sinking into it, and drawing out of it, they partly expand it themselves, and partly prepare the way for its further extension.
The first echo is ch. xxv. 1-8, or more precisely ch. xxv. 1-5. The prophet, whom we already know as a psalmist from ch. xii., now acts as choral leader of the church of the future, and praises Jehovah for having destroyed the mighty imperial city, and proved Himself a defence and shield against its tyranny towards His oppressed church. Vers. 1-5. "Jehovah, Thou art my God; I will exalt Thee, I will praise Thy name, that Thou hast wrought wonders, counsels from afar, sincerity, truth. For Thou hast turned it from a city into a heap of stones, the steep castle into a ruin; the palace of the barbarians from being a city, to be rebuilt no more for ever. Therefore a wild people will honour Thee, cities of violent nations fear Thee. For Thouprovedst Thyself a stronghold to the lowly, a stronghold to the poor in his distress, as a shelter from the storm of rain, as a shadow from the burning of the sun; for the blast of violent ones was like a storm of rain against a wall. Like the burning of the sun in a parched land, Thou subduest the noise of the barbarians; [like) the burning of the sun through the shadow of a cloud, the triumphal song of violent ones was brought low." The introductory clause is to be understood as in Ps. cxviii. 28: Jehovah (voc), my God art Thou. " Thou hast wrought wonders:" this is taken from Ex. xv. 11 (as in Ps. lxxvii. 15, lxxviii. 12; like ch. xii. 2, from Ex. xv. 2). The wonders which are now actually wrought are " counsels from afar" (merdchok), counsels already adopted afar off, i.e. long before, thoughts of God belonging to the olden time; the same ideal view as in ch. xxii. 11, xxxvii. 26 (a parallel which coincides with our passage on every side), and, in fact, throughout the whole of the second part. It is the manifold " counsel" of the Holy One of Israel (ch. v. 19, xiv. 24-27, xix. 12, 17, xxiii. 8, xxviii. 29) which displays its wonders in the events of time. To the verb TV'tV we have also a second and third object, viz.)OX RADK. It is a common custom with Isaiah to place derivatives of the same word side by side, for the purpose of giving the greatest possible emphasis to the idea (ch. iii. 1, xvi. 6). n^DX indicates a quality, PJK an actual fact. What He has executed is the realization of His faithfulness, and the reality of His promises. The imperial city is destroyed. Jehovah, as the first clause which is defined by tzakeph affirms, has removed it away from the nature of a city into the condition of a heap of stones. The sentence has its object writhin itself, and merely gives prominence to the change that has been effected; the Lamed is used in the same sense as in ch. xxiii. 13 (cf. xxxvii. 26); the min, as in ch. vii. 8, xvii. 1, xxiii. 1, xxiv. 10.
Mappeldh, with hametz or tzere before the tone, is a word that can only be accredited from the book of Isaiah (ch. xvii. 1, xxiii. 13). TJf, HJlpj and p">£K are common parallel words in Isaiah (ch. i. 26, xxii. 2, xxxii. 13, 14); and zdrim, as in ch. i. 7 and xxix. 5, is the most general epithet for the enemies of the people of God. The fall of the imperial kingdom is followed by the conversion of the heathen; the songs proceed from the mouths of the remotest nations. Ver. 3 runs parallel with Rev. xv. 3, 4. Nations hitherto rude and passionate now submit to Jehovah with decorous reverence, and those that were previously oppressive (aritzim, as in ch. xiii. 11, in form like pdrltzim, shdlishim) with humble fear. The cause of this conversion of the heathen is the one thus briefly indicated in the Apocalypse, " for thy judgments are made manifest" (Rev. xv. 4). 71 and jtatf (cf. ch. xiv. 30, xxix. 19) are names well known from the Psalms, as applying to the church when oppressed. To this church, in the distress which she had endured Q1? ""^2, as in ch. xxvi. 16, lxiii. 9, cf. xxxiii. 2), Jehovah had proved Himself a strong castle (jna'dz; on the expression, compare ch. xxx. 3), a shelter from storm and a shade from heat (for the figures, compare ch. iv. 6, xxxii. 2, xvi. 3), so that the blast of the tyrants (compare ruach in ch. xxx. 28, xxxiii. 11, Ps. lxxvi. 13) was like a wall-storm, i.e. a storm striking against a wall (compare ch. ix. 3, a shoulder- stick, i.e. sl stick which strikes the shoulder), sounding against it and bursting upon it without being able to wash it away (ch. xxviii. 17; Ps. lxii. 4), because it was the wall of a strong castle, and this strong castle was Jehovah Himself. As Jehovah can suddenly subdue the heat of the sun in dryness (tzdyon, abstract for concrete, as in ch. xxxii. 2, equivalent to dry land, ch. xli. 18), and it must give way when He brings up a shady thicket (Jer. iv. 29), namely of clouds (Ex. xix. 9; Ps. xviii. 12), so did He suddenly subdue the thundering (s/ia'orc, as in ch. xvii. 12) of the hordes that stormed against His people; and the song of triumph (zdmlr, only met with again in Song of Sol. ii. 12) of the tyrants, which passed over the world like a scorching heat, was soon "brought low" (dndh, in its neuter radical signification " to bend," related to V33, as in ch. xxxi. 4).
Thus the first hymnic echo dies away; and the eschatological prophecy, coming back to ch. xxiv. 23, but with deeper prayer- like penetration, proceeds thus in ver. 6: " And Jehovah of hosts prepares for all nations upon this mountain a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things rich in marrow, of wines on the lees thoroughly strained? " This mountain " is Zion, the seat of God's presence, and the place of His church's worship. The feast is therefore a spiritual one. The figure is taken, as in Ps. xxii. 27 sqq., from the sacrificial meals connected with the sheldmim (the peace-offerings). Shemdrim m'zukkdkim are wines which have been left to stand upon their lees after the first fermentation is over, which have thus thoroughly fermented, and have been kept a long time (from shdmar, to keep, spec, to allow to ferment), and which are then filtered before drinking (Gr. 6lvo<$ aa/ctcta,?, i.e. $iv\.io~fjLevo<; or SirjOifcbs, from SiwOeiv, percolare), hence wine both strong and clear. Memuchdyim might mean emedullata (" with the marrow taken out;" compare, perhaps, Prov. xxxi. 3), but this could only apply to the bones, not to the fat meat itself; the meaning is therefore " mixed with marrow," made marrowy, medullosce. The thing symbolized in this way is the full enjoyment of blessedness in the perfected kingdom of God. The heathen are not only humbled so that they submit to Jehovah, but they also take part in the blessedness of His church, and are abundantly satisfied with the good things of His house, and made to drink of pleasure as from a river (Ps. xxxvi. 9). The ring of the verse is inimitably pictorial. It is like joyful music to the heavenly feast. The more flexible form B^mDD (from the original, ^PP — nH?P) ls intentionally chosen in the place of B^PP* It is as if we heard stringed instruments played with the most rapid movement of the bow.
Although the feast is on earth, it is on an earth which has been transformed into heaven; for the party-wall between God and the world has fallen down: death is no more, and all tears are for ever wiped away. Vers. 7, 8. " And He casts away upon thh mountain the veil that veiled over all peoples, and the covering that covered over all nations. He puts away death for ever; and the Lord Jehovah wipes the tear from every face; and He removes the shame of His people from the whole earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it." What Jehovah bestows is followed by what He puts away. The "veil" and "covering" (massecdh, from ndsac = mdsdc, ch. xxif. 8, from sdcac, to weave, twist, and twist over = to cover) are not symbols of mourning and affliction, but of spiritual blindness, like the " veil " upon the heart of Israel mentioned in 2 Cor. iii. 15. The pene hallot (cf. Job xli. 5) is the upper side of the veil, the side turned towards you, by which Jehovah takes hold of the veil to lift it up. The second hallot stands for tt?n (Ges. § 71, Anm. 1), and is written in this form, according to Isaiah's peculiar style (vid. ch. iv. 6, vii. 11, viii. 6, xxii. 13), merely for the sake of the sound, like the obscurer niphal forms in ch. xxiv. 3. The only difference between the two nouns is this: in lot the leading idea is that of the completeness of the covering, and in massecdh that of its thickness. The removing of the veil, as well as of death, is called y?3, which we find applied to God in other passages, viz. ch. xix. 3, Ps. xxi. 10, lv. 10. Swallowing up is used elsewhere as equivalent to making a thing disappear, by taking it into one's self; but here, as in many other instances, the notion of receiving into one's self is dropped, and nothing remains but the idea of taking away, unless, indeed, abolishing of death may perhaps be regarded as taking it back into what hell shows to be the eternal principle of wrath out of which God called it forth. God will abolish death, so that there shall be no trace left of its former sway. Paul gives a free rendering of this passage in 1 Cor. xv. 54, Kareivodr) 6 Odvaro? ek vltcos (after the Aramaean nHzach, vine ere). The Syriac combines both ideas, that of the Targum and that of Paul: absorpta est mors per victoriam in sem-piternum. But the abolition of death is not in itself the perfection of blessedness. There are sufferings wThich force out a sigh, even after death has come as a deliverance. But all these sufferings, whose ultimate ground is sin, Jehovah sweeps away. There is something very significant in the use of the expression ^V^ (a tear), which the Apocalypse renders irav Sa/cpvov (Rev. xxi. 4). Wherever there is a tear on any face whatever, Jehovah wipes it away; and if Jehovah wipes away, this must be done most thoroughly: He removes the cause with the outward symptom, the sin as well as the tear. It is self-evident that this applies to the church triumphant. The world has been judged, and what was salvable has been saved. There is therefore no more shame for the people of God. Over the whole earth there is no further place to be found for this; Jehovah has taken it away. The earth is therefore a holy dwelling-place for blessed men. The new Jerusalem is Jehovah's throne, but the whole earth is Jehovah's glorious kingdom. The prophet is here looking from just the same point of view as Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 2$, and John in the last page of the Apocalypse.
After this prophetic section, which follows the first melodious echo like an interpolated recitative, the song of praise begins again; but it is soon deflected into the tone of prophecy. The shame of the people of God, mentioned in ver. 8, recals to mind the special enemies of the church in its immediate neighbourhood, who could not tyrannize over it indeed, like the empire of the world, but who nevertheless scoffed at it and persecuted it. The representative and emblem of these foes are the proud and boasting Moab (ch. xvi. 6; Jer. xlviii. 29). All such attempts as that of Knobel to turn this into history are but so much lost trouble. Moab is a mystic name. It is the prediction of the humiliation of Moab in this spiritual sense, for which the second echo opens the way by celebrating Jehovah's appearing. Jehovah is now in His manifested presence the conqueror of death, the drier of tears, the saviour of the honour of His oppressed church. Ver. 9. " And they say in that day, Behold our God, for whom we waited to help us: this is Jehovah, for whom we waited; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation? The undefined but selfevident subject to vdmar (" they say") is the church of the last days. "Behold:" hinneh and zeh belong to one another, as in ch. xxi. 9. The waiting may be understood as implying a retrospective glance at all the remote past, even as far back as Jacob's saying, " I wait for Thy salvation, O Jehovah " (Gen. xlix. 18). The appeal, "Let us be glad," etc., has passed over into the grand hodu of Ps. cxviii. 24.
In the land of promise there is rejoicing, but on the other side of the Jordan there is fear of ruin. Two contrasted pictures are placed here side by side. The Jordan is the same as the " great gulf " in the parable of the rich man. Upon Zion Jehovah descends in mercy, but upon the highlands of Moab in His wrath. Vers. 10-12. "For the hand of Jehovah will sink down upon this mountain, and Moab is trodden down there where it is, as straw is trodden down in the water of the dung-pit. And he spreadeth out his hands in the pool therein, as the swimmer spreadeth them out to swim; but Jehovah forceth down the pride of Moab in spite of the artifices of his hands. Yea, thy steep, towering walls He boxes down, forces under, and casts earthwards into dust." Jehovah brings down His hand upon Zion (nuach, as in ch. vii. 2, xi. 1), not only to shelter, but also to avenge. Israel, that has been despised, He now makes glorious, and for contemptuous Moab He prepares a shameful end. In the place where it now is (Wjnn, as in 2 Sam. vii. 10, Hab. iii. 16, "in its own place," its own land) it is threshed down, stamped or trodden down, as straw is trodden down into a dung-pit to turn it into manure: hiddush, the inf. constr., with the vowel sound u, possibly to distinguish it from the inf. absol. hiddosh (Ewald, § 240, b). Instead of i&2l (as in ch. xliii. 2), the chethib has SD3 (cf. Job ix. 30); and this is probably the more correct reading, since madmendh, by itself, means the dunghill, and not the tank of dung water. At the same time, it is quite possible that Vmo is intended as a play upon the name Moab, just as the word madmendh may possibly have been chosen with a play upon the Moabitish Madmen (Jer. xlviii. 2). In ver. 11 Jehovah would be the subject, if VMrbo (in the midst of it) referred back to Moab; but although the figure of Jehovah pressing down the pride of Moab, by spreading out His hands within it like a swimmer, might produce the impression of boldness and dignity in a different connection, yet here, where Moab has just been described as forced down into the manurepit, the comparison of Jehovah to a swimmer would be a very offensive one. The swimmer is Moab itself, as Gesenius, Hitzig, Knobel, and in fact the majority of commentators suppose. " In the midst of it:" Ukirbo points back in a neuter sense to the place into which Moab had been violently plunged, and which was so little adapted for swimming. A man cannot swim in a manure pond; but Moab attempts it, though without success, for Jehovah presses down the pride of Moab in spite of its artifices (EV, as in Neh. v. 18; ^^1^, written with dagesh according to the majority of MSS., from n3"»K, like the Arabic urbe, irbe, cleverness, wit, sharpness), i.e. the skilful and cunning movement of its hands. Saad. gives it correctly, as muchdtale, wiles and stratagems; Hitzig also renders it " machinations,"
1.4. twistings and turnings, which Moab makes with its arms, for the purpose of keeping itself up in the water. What ver. 11 affirms in figure, ver. 12 illustrates without any figure. If the reading were 1W& nioin 3§fe>D, the reference would be to Kir-Moab (eh. xv. 1, xvi. 7). But as the text stands, we are evidently to understand by it the strong and lofty walls of the cities of Moab in general.
Thus the second hymnic echo has its confirmation in a prophecy against Moab, on the basis of which a third hymnic echo now arises. Whilst on the other side, in the land of Moab, the people are trodden down, and its lofty castles demolished, the people in the land of Judah can boast of an impregnable city. Ver. 1. " In that day will this song be sung in the land of Judah: A city of defence is ours; salvation He sets for walls and bulwark" According to the punctuation, this ought to be rendered, " A city is a shelter for us;" but T'y Tp seem rather to be connected, according to Prov. xvii. 19, "a city of strong, i.e. of impregnable offence and defence." The subject of rPPJ is Jehovah. The future indicates what He is constantly doing, and ever doing afresh; for the walls and bulwarks of Jerusalem (chelj as in Lam. ii. 8, the small outside wall which encloses all the fortifications) are not dead stone, but yeshudh, ever living and never exhausted salvation (ch. Ix. 18). In just the same sense Jehovah is called elsewhere the wall of Jerusalem, and even a wall of fire in Zech. ii. 9, — parallels which show that yeshudh is intended to be taken as the accusative of the object, and not as the accusative of the predicate, according to ch. v. 6, Ps. xxi. 7, Ixxxiv. 7, Jer. xxii. 6 (Luzzatto).
In ver. 1 this city is thought of as still empty: for, like paradise, in which man was placed, it is first of all a creation of God; and hence the exclamation in ver. 2: " Open ye the gates, that a righteous people may enter, one keeping truthfulness" The cry is a heavenly one; and those who open, if indeed we are at liberty to inquire who they are, must be angels. We recal to mind Ps. xxiv., but the scene is a different one. The author of Ps. cxviii. has given individuality to this passage in vers. 19, 20. Goi tzaddik (a righteous nation) is the church of the righteous, as in ch. xxiv. 16. Goi (nation) is used here, as in ver. 15 and ch. ix. 2 (cf. p. 80), with reference to Israel, which has now by grace become a righteous nation, and has been established in covenant truth towards God, who keepeth truth ('emunim, from 'emun, Ps. xxxi. 24).
The relation of Israel and Jehovah to one another is now a permanent one. Ver. 3. " Thou keepest the firmly-established mind in peace, peace; for his confidence rests on Tliee." A gnome (borrowed in Ps. cxii. 7, 8), but in a lyrical connection, and with a distinct reference to the church of the last days. There is no necessity to take ^DD W as standing for "HP TpiBD, as Knobel does. The state of mind is mentioned here as designating the person possessing it, according to his inmost nature. "W (the mind) is the whole attitude and habit of a man as inwardly constituted, i.e. as a being capable of thought and will. spDD is the same, regarded as having a firm hold in itself, and this it has whenever it has a firm hold on God (ch. x. 20). This is the mind of the new Israel, and Jehovah keeps it, shdlom, shdlom (peace, peace; accusative predicates, used in the place of a consequential clause), i.e. so that deep and constant peace abides therein (Phil. iv. 7). Such a mind is thus kept by Jehovah, because its trust is placed in Jehovah, rnttsi refers to W, according to Ewald, § 149, d, and is therefore equivalent to wn irm (cf. Ps. vii. 10, lv. 20), the passive participle, like the Latin confisus, fretus. To hang on God, or to be thoroughly devoted to Him, secures both stability and peace.
A cry goes forth again, as if from heaven, exhorting Israel to continue in this mind. Ver. 4. u Hang confidently on Jehovah for ever: for in Jah, Jehovah, is an everlasting rock." The combination Jah Jehovah is only met with here and in ch. xii. 2. It is the proper name of God the Redeemer in the most emphatic form. The Beth essentia? frequently stands before the predicate (Ges. § 151, 3); here, however, it stands before the subject, as in Ps. lxviii. 5, lv. 19. In Jah Jehovah (munach, tzakepli) there is an everlasting rock, i.e. He is essentially such a rock (compare Deut. xxxii. 4, like Ex. xv. 2 for ch. xii. 2).
He has already proved Himself to be such a rock, on which everything breaks that would attack the faithful whom He surrounds. Vers. 5, 6. " For He hath bent down them that dwell on high; the towering castle, He tore it down, tore it down to the earth, cast it into dust. The foot treads it to pieces, feet of the poor, steps of the lowly." Passing beyond the fall of Moab, the fall of the imperial city is celebrated, to which Moab was only an annex (ch. xxv. 1, 2, xxiv. 10-12). The futures are determined by the preterite; and the anadiplosis, which in other instances (e.g. ch. xxv. 1, cf. Ps. cxviii. 11) links together derivatives or variations of form, is satisfied in this instance with changing the forms of the suffix. The second thought of ver. 6 is a more emphatic repetition of the first: it is trodden down; the oppression of those who have been hitherto oppressed is trodden down.
The righteous, who go astray according to the judgment of the world, thus arrive at a goal from which their way appears in a very different light. Ver. 7. " The path that the righteous man takes is smoothness; Thou makest the course of the righteous smooth." iK>J is an accusative predicate: Thou rollest it, i.e. Thou smoothest it, so that it is just as if it had been bevelled with a rule, and leads quite straight (on the derivative peles, a level, see at Job xxxvii. 16) and without interruption to the desired end. The song has here fallen into the language of a mashal of Solomon (vid. Prov. iv. 26, v. 6, 21). It pauses here to reflect, as if at the close of a strophe.
It then commences again in a lyrical tone in vers. 8 and 9: a We have also waited for Thee, that Thou shouldest come in the path of Thy judgments; the desire of the soul went after Thy name, and after Thy remembrance. With my soul I desired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit deep within me, I longed to have Thee here: for when Thy judgments strike the earth, the inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness." In the opinion of Hitzig, Knobel, Drechsler, and others, the prophet here comes back from the ideal to the actual present. But this is not the case. The church of the last days, looking back to the past, declares with what longing it has waited for that manifestation of the righteousness of God which has now taken place. " The path of Thy judgments: " 'orach mishpdtekd belongs to the te; venientem (or venturum) being understood. The clause follows the poetical construction rnx Ni n? after the analogy of T}?. *&?. They longed for God to come as a Redeemer in the way of His judgments. The " name" and " remembrance" are the nature of God, that has become nameable and memorable through self-assertion and self-manifestation (Ex. iii. 15). They desired that God should present Himself again to the consciousness and memory of man, by such an act as should break through His concealment and silence. The prophet says this more especially of himself; for he feels himself " in spirit" to be a member of the perfected church. " My soul" and " my spirit" are accusatives giving a more precise definition (Ewald, § 281, c). " The night" is the night of affliction, as in ch. xxi. 11. In connection with this, the word shicher (lit. to dig for a thing, to seek it eagerly) is employed here, with a play upon shachar. The dawning of the morning after a night of suffering was the object for which he longed, naphshi (my soul), i.e. with his entire personality (Psychol, p. 202), and ruchi b'kirbi (my spirit within me), i.e. with the spirit of his mind, Trvevfia rod voos (Psychol, p. 183). And why? Because, as often as God manifested Himself in judgment, this brought men to the knowledge, and possibly also to the recognition, of what was right (cf. Ps. ix. 17). " Will learn:" lamdu is a prcet. gnomicum, giving the result of much practical experience.
Here again the shir has struck the note of a mdshdl. And proceeding in this tone, it pauses here once more to reflect as at the close of a strophe. Ver. 10. " If favour is shown to the wicked man, he does not learn righteousness; in the most upright land he acts wickedly, and has no eye for the majesty of Jehovah." yf~[ ICl? is a hypothetical clause, which is left to be indicated by the emphasis, like Neh. i. 8 (Ewald, § 357, b): granting that favour (chen = u goodness," Rom. ii. 4) is constantly shown to the wicked man. " The most upright land: " 'eretz necochoth is a land in which everything is right, and all goes honourably. A worthless man, supposing he were in such a land, would still act knavishly; and of the majesty of Jehovah, showing itself in passing punishments of sin, though still sparing him, he would have no perception whatever. The prophet utters this with a painful feeling of indignation; the word bal indicating denial with emotion.
The situation still remains essentially the same in vers. 11-13: "Jehovah, Thy hand has been exalted, but they did not see: they will see the zeal for a people, being put to shame; yea, fire will devour Thine adversaries. Jehovah, Thou wilt establish peace for us: for Thou hast accomplished all our work for us. Jehovah our God, lords besides Thee had enslaved us; but through Thee we praise Thy name." Here are three forms of address beginning with Jehovah, and rising in the third to " Jehovah our God." The standpoint of the first is the time before the judgment; the standpoint of the other two is in the midst of the redemption that has been effected through judgment. Hence what the prophet states in ver. 11 will be a general truth, which has now received its most splendid confirmation through the overthrow of the empire. The complaint of the prophet here is the same as in ch. liii. 1. We may also compare Ex. xiv. 8, not Ps. x. 5; {rum does not mean to remain beyond and unrecognised, but to prove one's self to be high.) The hand of Jehovah had already shown itself to be highly exalted (rdmdh, 3 pr.), by manifesting itself in the history of the nations, by sheltering His congregation, and preparing the way for its exaltation in the midst of its humiliation; but as they had no eye for this hand, they would be made to feel it upon themselves as the avenger of His nation. The " zeal for a people," when reduced from this ideal expression into a concrete one, is the zeal of Jehovah of hosts (ch. ix. 6, xxxvii. 32) for His own nation (as in ch. xlix. 8). Kinath 'dm (zeal for a people) is the object to yechezu (they shall see); vyeboshu (and be put to shame) being a parenthetical interpolation, which does not interfere with this connection. " Thou wilt establish peace" (tishpot'shdlom, ver. 12) expresses the certain hope of a future and imperturbable state of peace (pones, stabilies); and this hope is founded upon the fact, that all which the church has hitherto accomplished (mdaseh, the acting out of its calling, as in Ps. xc. 17, see at ch. v. 12) has not been its own work, bnt the work of Jehovah for it. And the deliverance just obtained from the yoke of the imperial power is the work of Jehovah also. The meaning of the complaint, " other lords beside Thee had enslaved us," is just the same as that in ch. lxiii. 18; but there the standpoint is in the midst of the thing complained of, whereas here it is beyond it. Jehovah is Israel's King. He seemed indeed to have lost His rule, since the masters of the world had done as they liked with Israel. But it was very different now, and it was only through Jehovah (" through Thee") that Israel could now once more gratefully celebrate Jehovah's name.
The tyrants who usurped th6 rule over Israel have now utterly disappeared. Ver. 14. " Dead men live not again, shades do not rise again: so hast Thou visited and destroyed them, and caused all their memory to perish," The meaning is not that Jehovah had put them to death because there was no resurrection at all after death; for, as we shall see further on, the prophet was acquainted with such a resurrection. In methim (dead men) and rephaim (shades) he had directly in mind the oppressors of Israel, who had been thrust down into the region of the shades (like the king of Babylon in ch. xiv.), so that there was no possibility of their being raised up or setting themselves up again. The gf is not argumentative (which would be very freezing in this highly lyrical connection), but introduces what must have occurred eo ipso when the other had taken place (it corresponds to the Greek apa, and is used here in the same way as in ch. lxi. 7, Jer. v. 2, ii. 33, Zech. xi. 7, Job xxxiv. 25, xlii. 3). They had fallen irrevocably into Sheol (Ps. xlix. 15), and consequently God had swept them away, so that not even their name was perpetuated.
Israel, when it has such cause as this for praising Jehovah, will have become a numerous people once more. Ver. 15. u Thou hast added to the nation, 0 Jehovah, hast added to the nation; glorified Thyself; moved out all the borders of the land" The verb *p\, which is construed in other cases with?V,?&, here with?, carries its object within itself: to add, i.e. to give an increase. The allusion is to the same thing as that which caused the prophet to rejoice in ch. ix. 2 (compare ch. xlix. 19, 20, liv. 1 sqq., Mic. ii. 12, iv. 7, Obad. 19, 20, and many other passages; and for richaktd, more especially Mic. vii. 11). Just as ver. 13 recals the bondage in Egypt, and ver. 14 the destruction of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, so ver. 16 recals the numerical strength of the nation, and the extent of the country in the time of David and Solomon. At the same time, we cannot say that the prophet intended to recal these to mind. The antitypical relation, in which the last times stand to these events and circumstances of the past, is a fact in sacred history, though not particularly referred to here.