Thus do they fall out with Jehovah and the bearers of His word. Vers. 12-14. " Therefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel^ Became ye dislike this word, and put your trust in force and shufflings and rely upon this; therefore will this iniquity be to you like a falling breach, bent forwards in a high-towering wall, which falls to ruin suddenly, very suddenly. And He smites it to pieces, as a potters vessel falls to pieces, when they smash it without sparing, and of which, when it lies smashed to pieces there, you cannot find a sherd to fetch fire with from the hearth, or to take water with out of a cistern" The " word " towards which they cherished mfos (read mdoskhem), was the word of Jehovah through His prophet, which was directed against their untheocratic policy of reckoning upon Egypt. Ndloz, bent out or twisted, is the term used to denote this very policy, which was ever resorting to bypaths and secret ways; whilst 'osheq denotes the squeezing out of the money required to carry on the war of freedom, and to purchase the help of Egypt (compare 2 Kings xv. 20). The guilt of Judah is compared to the broken and overhanging part of a high wall (nibJi eh,ber\t forwards; compare V2V2, a term applied to a diseased swelling). Just as such a broken piece brings down the whole of the injured wall along with it, so would the sinful conduct of Judah immediately ruin the whole of its existing constitution. Israel, which wTould not recognise itself as the image of Jehovah, even when there was yet time (ch. xxix. 16), would be like a vessel smashed into the smallest fragments. It is the captivity which is here figuratively threatened by the prophet; for the smashing had regard to Israel as a state. The subject to nnnpi in ver. 14 is Jehovah, who would make use of the hostile power of man to destroy the wall, and break up the kingdom of Judah into such a diaspora of broken sherds. The reading is not Pn^W (LXX., Targum), but PH^j et fran9et eam- Kdthoth is an infinitive statement of the mode; the participle kdthuth, which is adopted by the Targum, Kimchi, Korzi, and others, is less suitable. It was necessary to proceed with fen* K? (without his sparing), simply because the infinitive absolute cannot be connected with t6 (Ewald, § 350, a). *)ifrnp (to be written thus with dagesh both here and Hag. ii. 16) passes from the primary meaning nudare to that of scooping up, as nnv does to that of pouring out.
Into such small sherds, a heap thus scattered hither and thither, would the kingdom of Judah be broken up, in consequence of its ungodly thirst for self -liberation. Vers. 15-17. " For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, Through turning and rest ye ivould be helped; your strength vjould show itself in quietness and confidence; but ye would not. And ye said, No, but we will fly upon horses; therefore ye shall flee: and, We will ride upon racehorses; therefore your pursuers will race. A thousand, ye will flee from the threatening of one, from the threatening of five, until ye are reduced to a remnant, like a pine upon the top of the mountain, and like a baiiner upon the hill." The conditions upon which their salvation depended, and by complying with which they would attain to it, were shubhdh, turning from their self-chosen way, and nachath, rest from self-confident work of their own (from nudch, like rachath, ventilabrum, from riidch, and shachath, fovea, from shudch). Their strength (i.e. what they would be able to do in opposition to the imperial power) would show itself (hdydh, arise, come to the light, as in ch. xxix. 2) in hashqet, laying aside their busy care and stormy eagerness, and bitchdh, trust, which cleaves to Jehovah and, renouncing all self-help, leaves Him to act alone. This was the leading and fundamental principle of the prophet's politics even in the time of Ahaz (ch. vii. 4). But from the very first they would not act upon it; nor would they now that the alliance with Egypt had become an irreversible fact. To fly upon horses, and ride away upon racehorses (kal, like iceXrjs, celer1), had been and still was their proud and carnal ambition, which Jehovah would answer by fulfilling upon them the curses of the thorah (Lev. xxvi. 8, 36; Deut. xxviii. 25, xxxii. 30). One, or at the most five, of the enemy would be able with their snorting to put to flight a whole thousand of the men of Judah. The verb nils (ver. 16), which rhymes with sus, is used first of all in its primary sense of " flying " (related to
1 We regard the Sanscrit kal, to drive or hunt, the Greek *£?va(ox£AX)£/j', and the Semitic qal, as all having the same root: cf. Curtius, Grundziige der yriecli. E'ymol. i. 116.
*£<•, cf. Ex. xiv. 27), and then in its more usual sense of " fleeing." (Luzzatto, after Abulwalid: vogliamo far sui cavalli ijloriosa eamparsa, from nils, or rather ndsas, hence ndnos, from which comes tics, excellere.) \P%\ the fut. niphal, signifies to be light, i.e. swift; whereas b\>\, the fut. kal, had become a common expression for light in the sense of despised or lightly esteemed. The horses and chariots are Judah's own (ch. ii. 7; Mic. v. 9), though possibly with the additional allusion to the Egyptian cavalry, of world-wide renown, which they had called to their help. In ver. 17a the subject of the first clause is also that of the second, and consequently we have not *j[BB* (compare the asyndeta in ch. xvii. 6). The insertion of r'bhdbhdh (ten thousand) after chdmisshdh (five), which Lowth, Gesenius, and others propose, is quite unnecessary. The play upon the words symbolizes the divine law of retribution (talio), which would be carried out with regard to them. The nation, which had hitherto resembled a thick forest, would become like a lofty pine (toren, according to the talmudic turnlthd\ Pinus pined), standing solitary upon the top of a mountain, and like a flagstaff planted upon a hill — a miserable remnant in the broad land so fearfully devastated by war. For DN *\y followed by a preterite (equivalent to the fut. exactum), compare ch. vi. 11 and Gen. xxiv. 19.
The prophet now proceeds with |?^i, to which we cannot give any other meaning than et propterea, which it has everywhere else. The thought of the prophet is the perpetually recurring one, that Israel would have to be reduced to a small remnant before Jehovah would cease from His wrath. Ver. 18. " And therefore will Jehovah wait till He inclines towards you, and therefore will He withdraw Himself on high till He has mercy upon you; for Jehovah is a God of right, salvation to those who wait for Him? In other places lahhen (therefore) deduces the punishment from the sin; here it infers, from the nature of the punishment, the long continuance of the divine wrath. Chikkdh, to wait, connected as it is here with Lamed, has at least the idea, if not the actual signification, of delay (as in 2 Kings ix. 3; compare Job xxxii. 4). This helps to determine the sense of ydrum, which does not mean, He will show Himself exalted as a judge, that through judgment He may render it possible to have mercy upon you (which is too far-fetched a meaning); but, He will raise Himself up, so as to be far away (cf. Num. xvi. 45, " Get you up from among this congregation;" and Ps. x. 5, mdrom = " far above," as far as heaven, out of his sight), that thus (after having for a long time withdrawn His gracious presence; cf. Hos. v. 6) He may bestow His mercy upon you. A dark prospect, but only alarming to unbelievers. The salvation at the remotest end of the future belongs to believers even now. This is affirmed in the word 'ashre (blessed), which recals Ps. ii. 12. The prophet uses chdkhdh in a very significant double sense here, just as he did nits a short time before. Jehovah is waiting for the time when He can show His favour once more, and blessed are they who meet His waiting with their own waiting.
None but such are heirs of the grace that follows the judgment — a people, newly pardoned in response to its cry for help, conducted by faithful teachers in the right way, and renouncing idolatry with disgust. Vers. 19-22. " For a people continues dwelling in Zion, in Jerusalem; thou shalt not weep for ever: He will prove Himself gracious to thee at the sound of thy cry for help; as soon as He hears, He answers thee. And the Lord giveth you bread in penury, and water for your need; and thy teachers will not hide themselves any more, and thine eyes come to see thy teachers. And thine ears will hear words behind thee, saying, ' This is the way, walk ye in it!9 whether ye turn to the right hand or to the left. And ye defile the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the clothing of thy molten images of gold; thou wilt scatter them like a filthy thing: c Get out I9 thou say est to it." We do not render ver. 19a, " For O people that dwelleth in Zion, in Jerusalem!" For although the personal pronoun may be omitted after Vav in an apostrophizing connection (Prov. viii. 5; Joel ii. 23), we should certainly expect to find nnx here. The accent very properly marks these words as forming an independent clause. The apparent tautology in the expression, " in Zion, in Jerusalem," is emphatic and explanatory. The fate of Zion-Jerusalem will not be the same as that of the imperial city, (ch. xiii. 20, xxv. 2); for it is the city of Jehovah, which, according to His promise, cannot become an eternally deserted ruin. After this promising declaration, the prophet turns and addresses the people of the future in the people of his own time: bdkho strengthens the verbal notion with the mark of duration; chdnon with the mark of Certainty and fulness, ^jrij, with an advanced 0, as in Gen. xliii. 29, for Ijnj, 3 is the shortest expression used to denote simultaneous occurrence; answering and hearing would coincide (shorn* dh, nomen actionis, as in ch. xlvii. 9, lv. 2; Ges. § 45, lb; 'dndkh, the pausal form here, as in Jer. xxiii. 37). From this lowest stage of response to the penitential cry for help, the promise rises higher and higher. The next stage is that in which Jerusalem is brought into all the distress consequent upon a siege, as threatened by the prophet in ch. xxix. 3, 4; the besieged would not be allowed by God to die of starvation, but He would send them the necessary support. The same expression, but very little altered, viz. "to give to eat lecliem lachatz umayim lachatz" signifies to put any one upon the low rations of a siege or of imprisonment, in 1 Kings xxii. 27 and 2 Chron. xviii. 26; but here it is a promise, with the threat kept in the background. 1¥ and f*n? are connected with the absolute nouns Dnp and D^o, not as adverbial, but as appositional definitions (like •^F!1? Ci " wme which is giddiness," in Ps. lx. 5; and D;|"|3 DV?, " water which is knees," i.e. which has the measure of the knees, where birkayim is also in apposition, and not the accusative of measurement): literally, bread which is necessity, and water which is affliction; that is to say, nourishment of which there is extreme need, the very opposite of bread and water in abundance. Umbreit and Drechsler understand this spiritually. But the promise rises as it goes on. There is already an advance, in the fact that the faithful and well-meaning teachers (morlm) no longer keep themselves hidden because of the hard-heartedness and hatred of the people, as they have done ever since the time of Ahaz (*15^, a denom.: to withdraw into *|J3, irripv^, the utmost end, the most secret corner; though kdnaph in itself signifies to cover or conceal). Israel, when penitent, would once more be able to rejoice in the sight of those whom it longed to have back again. VjiD is a plural, according to the context (on the singular of the previous predicate, see Ges. § 147). As the shepherds of the flock, they would follow the people with friendly words of admonition, whilst the people would have their ears open to receive their instruction. ti*DWn is here equivalent to WM?, WR. The abominations of idolatry (which continued even in the first years of Hezekiah'a reign: ch. xxxi. 7; Mic. i. 5, v. 11-13, vi. 16) would now be regaided as abominations, and put away. Even gold and silver, with which the images that were either carved or cast in inferior metal were overlaid, would be made unclean (see 2 Kings xxiii. 8 sqq.); that is to say, no use would be made of them. Ddvdh is a shorter expression for kell ddvdh, the cloth worn by a woman at the monthly period. On zdrdh, to dispense— to which ddvdh would be inappropriate if understood of the woman herself, as it is by Luzzatto — compare 2 Kings xxiii. 6. With 1?£J, the plural used in the general address passes over into the individualizing singular; & is to be taken as a neuter pointing back to the plunder of idols.
The promise, after setting forth this act of penitence, rises higher and higher; it would not stop at bread in time of need. Vers. 23-25. "And He gives rain to thy seed, with which thou sowest the land; and bread of the produce of the land, and it is full of sap and fat: in that day your flocks will feed in roomy pastures. And the oxen and the young asses, which work the land, salted mash will they eat, which is winnowed with the winnowing shovel and winnowing fork! And upon every high mountain, and every hill that rises high, there are springs, brooks in the day of the great massacre, when the towers fall." The blessing which the prophet depicts is the reverse of the day of judgment, and stands in the foreground when the judgment is past. The expression " in that day " fixes, as it were, the evening of the day of judgment, which is followed by the depicted morning of blessing. But the great mass of the Jewish nation would be first of all murdered in war; the towers must fall, i.e. (though without any figure, and merely as an exemplifying expression) all the bulwarks of self-confidence, self-help, and pride (ch. ii. 15; Mic. v. 9, 10). In the place of the selfinduced calamities of war, there would now come the Godgiven rich blessings of peace; and in the place of the proud towers, there would come fruitful heights abounding with water. The field would be cultivated again, and produce luxuriant crops of nutritious corn; so that not only the labour of man, but that of the animals also, would receive a rich reward. " Rain to thy seed:" this is the early rain commencing about the middle of October. *WH is an accusative, JHJ being construed with a double accusative, as in Deut. xxii. 9. TJiJP might be the singular, so far as the form is concerned (see i. BO, v. L2, xxii, 11); but, according to Ex. xvii. 3, it must be taken as a plural, like T"p. The 'aldphlm are the oxen used in ploughing and threshing; the 'dydrlm, the asses used for carrying manure, soil, the sheaves, or the grain. B'lil cluimlts is a mash (composed of oats, barley, and vetches, or things of that kind) made more savoury with salt and sour vegetables j1 that is to say, a farrago (from bdlal, to mix; Job, vol. ii. p. 3G2). According to Wetzstein, it is ripe barley (unthreshed during the harvest and threshing time, and the grain itself for the rest of the year) mixed with salt or salt vegetables. In any case, Vlll is to be understood as referring to the grain; this is evident from the relative clause, " which has been winnowed" (= m'zoreh, Ewald, § 169, d), or perhaps more correctly, " which he (one) winnows" (part kal), the participle standing for the third person, with the subject contained within itself (Ewald, § 200), i.e. not what was generally given from economy, viz. barley, etc., mixed with chopped straw (tibn), but pure grain (Jiabb mahd, as they say at the present day). Rachath is a winnowing shovel, which is still used, according to Wetzstein, in Merj, Gedur, and Hauran; mizreh, on the other hand, is the winnowing fork with six prongs. Dainty food, such as was only given occasionally to the cattle, as something especially strengthening, would then be their regular food, and would be prepared in the most careful manner. "Who cannot see," exclaims Yitringa, u that this is to be taken spiritually? " He appeals to what Paul says in 1 Cor. ix. 9, viz. that God does not trouble Himself about oxen. But Paul did not mean this in the same sense as Aristotle, who maintained that the minima were entirely excluded from the providence of God. What the Scriptures say concerning cattle, they do not say for the sake of the cattle, but for the sake of men; though it does not follow that the cattle are to be understood figuratively, as representing men. And this is the case here. What the prophet paints in this idyllic style, in colours furnished by the existing customs,2 is not indeed intended to be understood in the letter; and yet it is to be taken literally. In the age of
1 Such as Salsola kali, Salsola tragus, Salsola soda, and other plants of the family of the chenopodiacese.
2 Asses particularly, even those of a guest, are generally very much
glory, even on this side of eternity, a gigantic stride will be taken forward towards the glorification of universal nature, and towards the end of all those sighs which are so discernible now, more especially among domestic animals. The prophecy is therefore to be interpreted according to Rom. viii. 19 sqq.; from which we may clearly see that God does trouble Himself about the sighing of an ox or ass that is overburdened with severe toil, and sometimes left to starve.
The promise now rises higher and higher, and passes from earth to heaven. Ver. 26. " And the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be multiplied sevenfold, like the light of seven days, in the day that Jehovah bindeth the hurt of His people, and healeth the crushing of His stroke." Modern commentators from Lowth downwards for the most part pronounce &wn riJDKJ "riN3 a gloss; and there is one external evidence in favour of this, which is wanting in the case of the other supposed glosses in Isaiah, namely, that the words are omitted by the LXX. (though not by the Targum, the Syriac, or Jerome). Even Luther (although he notices these words in his exposition and sermons) merely renders them, der Sonnen schein wird siebenmal heller sein denn jtzt (the sunlight will be seven times as bright as it is now). But the internal evidence does not favour their spuriousness even in the case before us; for the fact that the regularity of the verse, as consisting of four members, is thereby disturbed, is no evidence at all, since the verse could be arranged in a pentastic quite as well as in a tetrastic form. We therefore decide in this instance also in favour of the conclusion that the prophet composed the gloss himself. But we cannot maintain, with Umbreit, that the addition was necessary, in order to guard against the idea that there would be seven suns shining in the sky; for the prophet does not predict a multiplication of the sun by seven, but simply the multiplication of its light. The seven days are the length of an ordinary week. Drechsler gives it correctly: " The radiated light, which is sufficient to produce the daylight for a whole week according to the existing order of things, will then be concentrated into a single day." Luther renders it in
neglected. The host throws them a little grass, and then hangs up the fodder-sack full of chopped straw; and it is a sign of extraordinary hospitality if corn is given to the asses as well as to the horses. — Wetzstein.
this way, ah urnn riehen tag ynn eynandcr geschlossen weren if seven days were enclosed in one another). This also is not meant figuratively, any more than Paul means it figuratively, when he says, that with the manifestation of the " glory" of the children of God, the " corruption" of universal nature will come to an end. Nevertheless, it is not of the new heaven that the prophet is speaking, but of the glorification of nature, which is promised by both the Old Testament prophecy and by that of the New at the closing period of the world's history, and which will be the closing typical self-annunciation of that eternal glory in which everything will be swallowed up. The brightest, sunniest days then alternate, as the prophet foretells, with the most brilliant moonlight nights. No other miracles will be needed for this than that wonder-working power of God, which even now produces those changes of weather, the laws of which no researches of natural science have enabled us to calculate, and which will then give the greatest brilliancy and most unchangeable duration to what is now comparatively rare, — namely, a perfectly unclouded sky, with sun or moon shining in all its brilliancy, yet without any scorching from the one, or injurious effects from the other. Heaven and earth will then put on their sabbath dress; for it will be the Sabbath of the world's history, the seventh day in the world's week. The light of the seven days of the world's week will be all concentrated in the seventh. For the beginning of creation was light, and its close will be light as well. The darkness all comes between, simply that it may be overcome. At last will come a boqer (morning), after which it will no more be said, u And evening was, and morning wras." The prophet is speaking of the last type of this morning. What he predicts here precedes what he predicted in ch. xxiv. 23, just as the date of its composition precedes that of ch. xxiv.— xxvii.; for there the imperial city was Babylon, whereas here the glory of the latter day is still placed immediately after the fall of Assyria.
Vers. 27, 28. " Behold, the name of Jehovah cometh from far, burning His wrath, and quantity of smoke: His lips are full of wrathful foam, and His tongue like devouring fire. And His breath is like an overflowing brook, which reaches half-way to the neck, to sift nations in the sieve of nothingness; and a misleading bridle comes to the cheeks of the nations" Two figures are hero melted together, — namely, that of a storm coming up from the farthest horizon, which turns the sky into a sea of fire, and kindles whatever it strikes, so that there rises up a heavy burden, or thick mass of smoke (kobhed massd'dh, like maieth in Judg. xx. 40, cf. 38; on this attributive combination, burning His wrath (Ewald, § 288, c) and a quantity, etc., see ch. xiii. 9); and that of a man burning with wrath, whose lips foam, whose tongue moves to and fro like a flame, and whose breath is a snorting that threatens destruction, which when it issues from Jehovah swells into a stream, which so far covers a man that only his neck appears as the visible half. We had the same figure in ch. viii. 8, where Asshur, as it came upon Judah, was compared to such an almost overwhelming and drowning flood. Here, again, it refers to Judah, which the wrath of Jehovah had almost though not entirely destroyed. For the ultimate object of the advancing name of Jehovah (shem, name, relating to His judicial coming) is to sift nations, etc.: lahandphdh for I'hdmph (like lahdzdddh in Dan. v. 20), to make it more like ndphdh in sound. The sieve of nothingness is a sieve in which everything, that does not remain in it as good corn, is given up to annihilation; WB* is want of being, i.e. of life from God, and denotes the fate that properly belongs to such worthlessness. In the case of v'resen (and a bridle, etc.) we must either supply in thought Bl£v (D;^), or, what is better, take it as a substantive clause: " a misleading bridle" (or a bridle of misleading, as Bottcher renders it, math'eh being the form mashqeh) holds the cheeks of the nations. The nations are regarded as wild horses, which could not be tamed, but which were now so firmly bound and controlled by the wrath of God, that they were driven down into the abyss.
This is the issue of the judgment which begins at the house of God, then turns against the instrument employed, namely the heathen, and becomes to the Israel that survives a counterpart of the deliverance from Egypt. Ver. 29. u Your song will then sound as in the night, ivhen the feast is celebrated; and ye will have joy of heart like those who march with the playing of flutes, to go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the Rock of Israel" In the word chdg (feast), which is generally used with special reference to the feast of tabernacles, there is here an unmistakeable allusion to the passover, as wo may see from the introduction of " the night," which evidently means the night before the passover {lei shimmarlmy Ex. xii. 42), which was so far a festal night, that it preceded and introduced the feast of unleavened bread. The prophet has taken his figure from the first passover-night in Egypt, when Israel was rejoicing in the deliverance which it was just about to receive, whilst the destroying angel was passing through the land. Such would be the song which they would be able to sing, when Jehovah poured out His judgment upon His people's enemies outside. The church is shut up in its chamber (ch. xxvi. 20), and its joy resembles the heartfelt joy of those who go on pilgrimage on one of the three great feasts, or in the procession that carries up the first-fruits to Jerusalem (Biccurim, iii. 3), going up with the sound of flutes to the mountain of Jehovah, to appear before Him, the Rock of Israel.
Israel is marching in such a joyful way to a sacred and glorious height, whilst outside Jehovah is sweeping the worldpower entirely away, and that without any help from Israel. Vers. 30-33. " And Jehovah causes His majestic voice to be heard, and causes the lowering of His arm to be seen, with the snorting of wrath and the blazing of devouring fire, the bursting of a cloud, and pouring of rain and hailstones. For Asshur will be terrified at the voice of Jehovah, when He smites with the staff. And it will come to pass, every stroke of the rod of destiny, which Jehovah causes to fall upon Asshur, is dealt amidst the noise of drums and the playing of guitars; and in battles of swinging arm He fights it. For a place for the sacrifice of abominations has long been made ready, even for the king is it prepared; deep, broad has He made it: its funeral-pile has fire and wood in abundance; the breath of Jehovah like a stream of brimstone sets it on fire" The imposing crash (on hod, see Job xxxix. 20) of the cry which Jehovah causes to be heard is thunder (see Ps. xxix.); for the catastrophe occurs with a discharge of all the destructive forces of a storm (see ch. xxix. 6). Nephets is the " breaking up" or " bursting," viz. of a cloud. It is through such wrath-announcing phenomena of nature that Jehovah manifests the otherwise invisible letting down of His arm to smite {nachath may possibly not be the derivative of nuach, " a settling down," but of nachath, " the coming down,"
as in Ps. xxxviii. 3; just as shehhetli in 2 Sam. xxiii. 7 is not derived from shubh, but from shdbhath, to go to ruin). Ver. 31, commencing with ki (for), explains the terrible nature of what occurs, from the object at which it is directed: Asshur is alarmed at the voice of Jehovah, and thoroughly goes to pieces* We must not render this, as the Targum does, " which smites with the rod," i.e. which bears itself so haughtily, so tyrannically (after ch. x. 24). The smiter here is Jehovah (LXX., Vulg., Luther); and basshebhet yakkeh is either an attributive clause, or, better still, a circumstantial determining clause, eo virga percutiente. According to the accents, vehdydh in ver. 32 is introductory: " And it will come to pass, every stroke of the punishing rod falls (supply njrfl) with an accompaniment of drums and guitars" (the Beth is used to denote instrumental accompaniment, as in ver. 29, ch. xxiv. 9, Ps. xlix. 5, etc.), — namely, on the part of the people of Jerusalem, who have only to look on and rejoice in the approaching deliverance. Musdddh with matteh is a verbal substantive used as a genitive, " an appointment according to decree" (comp. ydsad in Hab. i. 12, and yd! ad in Mic. vi. 9). The fact that drums and guitars are heard along with every stroke, is explained in ver. 325: " Jehovah fights against Asshur with battles of swinging," i.e. not with darts or any other kind of weapon, but by swinging His arm incessantly, to smite Asshur without its being able to defend itself (cf. ch. xix. 16). Instead of na, which points back to Asshur, not to matteli, the keri has D3, which is not so harsh, since it is immediately preceded by V?y. This cutting down of the Assyrians is accounted for in ver. 33, (ki, for), from the fact that it had long ago been decreed that they should be burned as dead bodies. 'JEthmid in contrast with mdchdr is the past: it has not happened to-day, but yesterday, i.e., as the predestination of God is referred to, " long ago." Tophteh is the primary form of topheth (from tuph, not in the sense of the Neo-Persian tdften, Zend, tap, to kindle or burn, from which comes tafedra, melting; but in the Semitic sense of vomiting or abhorring: see at Job xvii. 6), the name of the abominable place where the sacrifices were offered to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom: a Tophet-like place. The word is variously treated as both a masculine and feminine, possibly because the place of abominable sacrifices is described first as hdmdh in Jer. vii. 31. In the clause gVl ^taf> KVrta, the pom, which stands at the head, may be connected with lammelekh, " also for the king is it prepared" (see at Job ii. 10); but in all probability lammelekh is a play upon lammolehh {e.g. Lev. xviii. 2), « even this has been prepared for the Melekh," viz. the king of Asshur. Because he was to be burned there, together with his army, Jehovah had made this Tophet-like place very deep, so that it might have a far-reaching background, and very broad, so that in this respect also there might be room for many sacrifices. And their medurdh, i.e. their pile of wood (as in Ezek. xxiv. 9, cf. 5, from dur, Talm. dayyer, to lay round, to arrange, pile), has abundance of fire and wood (a hendiadysy like " cloud and smoke" in ch. iv. 5). Abundance of fire: for the breath of Jehovah, pouring upon the funeral pile like a stream of brimstone, sets it on fire. 3 1JJ3, not to burn up, but to set on fire. H3 points back to tophteh, like the suffix of mfdurdthdh.1
THE FOURTH WOE. — THE FALSE HELP; THE DESPISED ONE PITIED; AND THE NEW ERA. — CHAP. XXXI.-XXXII. 1-8.
There is nothing to surprise us in the fact, that the prophet returns again and again to the alliance with Egypt. After his warning had failed to prevent it, he wrestled with it in spirit, set before himself afresh the curse which would be its certain fruit, brought out and unfolded the consolation of believers that lay hidden in the curse, and did not rest till the cursed fruit, that had become a real thing, had been swallowed up by the promise, which w^as equally real. The situation of this fourth wToe is just the same as that of the previous one. The alliance with Egypt is still in progress. Vers. 1-3. " Woe to
1 So far as the form of the text is concerned, kol has the disjunctive yethib before pashta, which occurs eleven times according to the Masora. Nevertheless the word is logically connected in the closest manner with what follows (comp. 'eth torath in ch. v. 24). The ah of musadah is rafatum pro mappicato, according to the Masora; in which case the suffix would refer to Asshur. In the place of KV1 DJ we also meet with Nsn DJ, with this chethib and keri reversed; but the former, according to which p^n is equivalent to PI33in, has many examples to support it in the Masora. p)7\ has kametz in correct mss. in half pause; whereas Kimchi (Michlol, 1176) regards it as a participle.
them that go down to Egypt for help, and rely upon horses, and put their trust in chariots, that there are many of them; and in horsemen, that there is a powerful multitude of them; and do not look up to the Holy One of Israel, and do not inquire for Jehovah! And yet He also is wise; thus then He brings evil, and sets not His words aside; and rises up against the house of miscreants, and against the help of evil-doers. And Egypt is man, and not God; and its horses flesh, and not spirit. And when Jehovah stretches out His hand, the helper stumbles, and he that is helped falls, and they all perish together," The expression u them that go down" (Jiayyor'dim) does not imply that the going down was taking place just then for the first time. It is the participle of qualification, just as God is called N*}3n. n?W? with Lamed of the object, as in ch. xx. 6. The horses, chariots, and horsemen here, are those of Egypt, which Diodorus calls iiriraanxo^, on account of its soil being so suitable for cavalry (see Lepsius in Herzog's Cyclopaedia). The participle is combined in the finite verb. Instead of Cp^D'PVl., we also find the reading preferred by Norzi, of sV without Vav, as in ch. v. 11 (cf. 23). The perfects, WW to and ^73 *% are use(^ without any definite time, to denote that which was always wanting in them. The circumstantial clause, " whilst He is assuredly also wise," i.e. will bear comparison with their wisdom and that of Egypt, is a touching /jL€LQ)cn<;. It was not necessary to think very highly of Jehovah, in order to perceive the reprehensible and destructive character of their apostasy from Him. The fut. consec. N?*l is used to indicate the inevitable consequence of their despising Him who is also wise. He will not set aside His threatening words, but carry them out. The house of miscreants is Judah (ch. i. 4); and the help (abstr. pro concr., just as Jehovah is frequently called u my help," * ezrdthl, by the Psalmist) of evil-doers is Egypt, whose help has been sought by Judah. The latter is " man" ('dddm), and its horses " flesh" (bdsdr); whereas Jehovah is God (El) and spirit (rudch; see Psychol, p. 85). Hofmann expounds it correctly: " As riiach has life in itself, it is opposed to the bdsdr, which is only rendered living through the rudch; and so El is opposed to the corporeal 'dddm, who needs the spirit in order to live at all." Thus have they preferred the help of the impotent and conditioned, to the help of the almighty and all-conditioning One.
Jehovah, who is God and spirit, only requires to stretch out His hand (an anthropomorphism, by the side of which we find the rule for interpreting it); and the helpers, and those who are helped (i.e. according to the terms of the treaty, though not in reality), that is to say, both the source of the help and the object of help, are all cast into one heap together.
And things of this kind would occur. Ver. 4. " For thus hath Jehovah spoken to me, As the lion growls, and the young lion over its prey, against which a whole crowd of shepherds is called together; he is not alarmed at their cry, and does not surrender at their noise; so will Jehovah of hosts descend to the campaign against the mountain of Zion, and against their hill" There is no other passage in the book of Isaiah which sounds so Homeric as this (yid. 11. xviii. 161, 162, xii. 299 sqq.). It has been misunderstood by Knobel, Umbreit, Drechsler, and others, who suppose?V N3V7 to refer to Jehovah's purpose to fight for Jerusalem: Jehovah, who would no more allow His city to be taken from Him, than a lion would give up a lamb that it had taken as its prey. But how could Jerusalem, be compared to a lamb which a lion holds in its claws as tereph? (ch. v. 29.) We may see, even from ch. xxix. 7, what construction is meant to be put upon pV N2V. Those sinners and their protectors would first of all perish; for like a fierce indomitable lion would Jehovah advance against Jerusalem, and take it as His prey, without suffering Himself to be thwarted by the Judaeans and Egyptians, who set themselves in opposition to His army (the Assyrians). The mountain of Zion was the citadel and temple; the hill of Zion the city of Jerusalem (ch. x. 32). They would both be given up to the judgment of Jehovah, without any possibility of escape. The commentators have been misled by the fact, that a simile of a promising character follows immediately afterwards, without anything to connect the one with the other. But this abrupt fieTdfiaai? was intended as a surprise, and was a true picture of the actual fulfilment of the prophecy; for in the moment of the greatest distress, when the actual existence of Jerusalem was in question (cf. ch. x. 33, 34), the fate of Ariel took suddenly and miraculously a totally different turn (ch. xxix. 2). In this sense, a pleasant picture is placed side by side with the terrible one (compare Mic. v. 6, 7).
Jehovah suddenly arrests the work of punishment, and the love which the wrath enfolds within itself begins to appear. Ver. 5. " Like fluttering birds, so will Jehovah of Hosts screen Jerusalem; screening and delivering, sparing and setting free." The prophet uses the plural, u like fluttering birds," with an object — namely, not so much to represent Jehovah Himself, as the tender care and, as it were, maternal love, into which His leonine fierceness would be changed. This is indicated by the fact, that he attaches the feminine 'dphoth to the common gender tsippdrim. The word pdsodch recals to mind the deliverance from Egypt (as in ch. xxx. 29) in a very significant manner. The sparing of the Israelites by the destroyer passing over their doors, from which the passover derived its name, would be repeated once more. We may see from this, that in and along with Assyria, Jehovah Himself, whose instrument of punishment Assyria was, would take the field against Jerusalem (ch. xxix. 2, 3); but His attitude towards Jerusalem is suddenly changed into one resembling the action of birds, as they soar round and above their threatened nests. On the inf. abs. leal (gdnon) after the hiphil, see Ewald, § 312, b; and on the continuance of the inf. abs. in the finite verb, § 350, a. This generally takes place through the future, but here through the preterite, as in Jer. xxiii. 14, Gen. xxvi. 13, and 1 Sam. ii. 26 (if indeed vegddel is the third pers. preterite there).
On the ground of this half terrible, half comforting picture of the future, the call to repentance is now addressed to the people of the prophet's own time. Yer. 6. " Then turn, 0 sons of Israel, to Him from whom men have so deeply departed" Strictly speaking, " to Him with regard to whom (i^N) ye are deeply fallen away" (hetfmiq, as in Hos. ix. 9, and sdrdh, that which is alienated, alienation, as in ch. i. 5); the transition to the third person is like the reverse in ch. i. 29. This call to repentance the prophet strengthens by two powerful motives drawn from the future.
The first is, that idolatry would one day be recognised in all its abomination, and put away. Ver. 7. " For in that day they will abhor every one their silver idols and their gold idols, which your hands have made you for a sin" i.e, to commit sin and repent, with the preponderance of the latter idea, as in Hos. viii. 116 (compare 1 Kings xiii. 34). NBn, a second accusative to *fy, indicating the result. The prospect is the same as that held out in eh. xxx. 22, xxvii. 9, xvii. 8, ii. 20.
The second motive is, that Israel will not be rescued by men, but by Jehovah alone; so that even He from whom they have now so deeply fallen will prove Himself the only true ground of confidence. Vers. 8, 9. "And Asshur falls by a sword not of a man, and a sword not of a man will devour him; and he flees before a sword, and his young men become tributary. And his rock, for fear will it pass away, and his princes be frightened away by the flags: the saying of Jehovah, who has His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem" The LXX, and Jerome render this falsely fev^erai ov/c (&6) airo irpoawirov fxaxaipas. Sh is an ethical dative, and the prophet intentionally writes " before a sword" without any article, to suggest the idea of the unbounded, infinite, awful (cf. ch. xxviii. 2, beydd; Psalter, vol. i. p. 15). A sword is drawn without any human intervention, and before this Asshur falls, or at least so many of the Assyrians as are unable to save themselves by flight. The power of Asshur is for ever broken; even its young men will henceforth become tributary, or perform feudal service. By " his rock" most commentators understand the rock upon which the fugitive would gladly have taken refuge, but did not dare (Rosen miiller, Gesenius, Knobel, etc.); others, again, the military force of Asshur, as its supposed invincible refuge (Saad., etc.); others, the apparently indestructible might of Asshur generally (Vulgate, Rashi, Hitzig). But the presence of " his princes" in the parallel clause makes it most natural to refer "his rock" to the king; and this reference is established with certainty by what ch. xxxii. 2 affirms of the king and princes of Judah. Luther also renders it thus: undjr Fels wird fur furcht wegzihen (and their rock will withdraw for fear). Sennacherib really did hurry back to Assyria after the catastrophe in a most rapid flight. Minnes are the standards of Asshur, which the commanders of the army fly away from in terror, without attempting to rally those that were scattered. Thus speaks Jehovah, and this is what He decrees who has His 'ur and tannur in Jerusalem. We cannot suppose that the allusion here is to the fire and hearth of the sacrifices; for tannur does not mean a hearth, but a furnace (from nur, to burn). The reference is to the light of the divine presence, which was outwardly a devouring fire for the enemies of Jerusalem, an unapproachable red-hot furnace (ignis et caminus qui devorat peccatores et ligna, f cerium stipulamque consumit: Jerome).
For Judah, sifted, delivered, and purified, there now begins a new era. Righteous government, as a blessing for the people, is the first beneficent fruit. Ch. xxxii. 1, 2. u Behold, the king will reign according to righteousness; and the princes, according to right will they command. And every one will be like a shelter from the wind, and a covert from the storm; like water-brooks in a dry place, like the shadow of a gigantic rock in a languishing land." The kingdom of Asshur is for ever destroyed; but the kingdom of Judah rises out of the state of confusion into which it has fallen through its God-forgetting policy and disregard of justice. King and princes now rule according to the standards that have been divinely appointed and revealed. The Lamed in ulesarlm (and the princes) is that of reference (quod attinet ad, as in Ps. xvi. 3 and Eccles. ix. 4), the exponent of the usual casus abs. (Ges. § 146, 2); and the two other Lameds are equivalent to Kara, secundum (as in Jer. xxx. 11). The figures in ver. 2 are the same as in ch. xxv. 4. The rock of Asshur (i.e. Sennacherib) has departed, and the princes of Asshur have deserted their standards, merely to save themselves. The king and princes of Judah are now the defence of their nation, and overshadow it like colossal walls of rock. This is the first fruit of the blessing.
The second is an opened understanding, following upon the ban of hardening. Vers. 3, 4. " And the eyes of the seeing no more are closed, and the ears of the hearing attend. And the heart of the hurried understands to know, and the tongue of stammerers speaks clear things with readiness" It is not physical miracles that are predicted here, but a spiritual change. The present judgment of hardening will be repealed: this is wThat ver. 3 affirms. The spiritual defects, from which many suffer who do not belong to the worst, will be healed: this is the statement in ver. 4. The form,"1J'Wfl is not the future of i"W here, as in ch. xxxi. 1, xxii. 4, xvii. 7, 8 (in the sense of, they will no longer stare about restlessly and without aim), but of nyp = VW, a metaplastic future of the latter, in the sense of, to be smeared over or closed (see ch. xxix. 9, vi. 10; cf. tach in ch. xliv. 18).
On qdthabh (the kal of which is only met with here), see at ch. xxi. 7. The times succeeding the hardening, of which [uiah is speaking here, are "the last times," as ch. vi. clearly shows; though it does not therefore follow that the king mentioned in ver. 1 (as in ch. xi. 1 sqq.) is the Messiah Himself. In ver. 1 the prophet merely affirms, that Israel as a national commonwealth will then be governed in a manner well pleasing to God; here he predicts that Israel as a national congregation will be delivered from the judgment of not seeing with seeing eyes, and not hearing with hearing ears, and that it will be delivered from defects of weakness also. The nimhdrim are those that fall headlong, the precipitate, hurrying, or rash; and the B^fV, stammerers, are not scoffers (ch. xxviii. 7 sqq., xxix. 20), as Knobel and Drechsler maintain, but such as are unable to think and speak with distinctness and certainty, more especially concerning the exalted things of God. The former would now have the gifts of discernment (ydbhlu), to perceive things in their true nature, and to distinguish under all circumstances that which is truly profitable (ladaatli); the latter would be able to express themselves suitably, with refinement, clearness, and worthiness. Tsachoth (old ed. tsdchoth) signifies that which is light, transparent; not merely intelligible, but refined and elegant. TQB? gives the adverbial idea to ledabber (Ewald, § 285, a).
A third fruit of the blessing is the naming and treating of every one according to his true character. Vers. 5-8. " The fool will no more be called a nobleman, nor the crafty a gentleman. For a fool speaks follies, and his heart does godless things, to practise tricks and to speak error against Jehovah, to leave the soul of hungry men empty, and to withhold the drink of thirsty ones. A nd the craft of a crafty man is evil, who devises stratagems to destroy suffering ones by lying words, even when the needy exhibits his right. But a noble man devises noble things, and to noble things he adheres." Nobility of birth and wealth will give place to nobility of character, so that the former will not exist or not be recognised without the latter. Nadlbh is properly one who is noble in character, and then, dropping the ethical meaning, one who is noble by rank. The meaning of the word generosus follows the same course in the opposite direction. Shoa is the man who is raised to eminence by the possession of property; the gentlc- VOL TI. J> man, as in Job xxxiv. 19. The prophet explains for himself in what sense he uses the words ndbhdl and kllai. We see from his explanation that kllai neither signifies the covetous, from kul (Saad.), nor the spendthrift, from hlldh (Hitzig). Jerome gives the correct rendering, viz. fraudulentus; and Rashi and Kimchi very properly regard it as a contraction of nekhilai. It is an adjective form derived from P'S—?*33, like &OK> = fcW: (Job xx. 6). The form v3 in ver. 1 is used interchangeably with this, merely for the sake of the resemblance in sound to V73 (macJiinatoris machines pravcz). In ver. 6, commencing with ki (for), the fact that the ndbhdl (fool) and kllai (crafty man) will lose their titles of honour, is explained on the simple ground that such men are utterly unworthy of them. Ndbhdl is a scoffer at religion, who thinks himself an enlightened man, and yet at the same time has the basest heart, and is a worthless egotist. The infinitives with Lamed show in what the immorality ('dven) consists, with which his heart is so actively employed. In ver. 6, ublfdabber (" and if he speak") is equivalent to, " even in the event of a needy man saying what is right and well founded:" Vdv = et in the sense of etiam (cf. 2 Sam. i. 23; Ps. xxxi. 12; Hos. viii. 6; Eccles. v. 6); according to Knobel, it is equivalent to et quidem, as in Eccles. viii. 2, Amos iii. 11, iv. 10; whereas Ewald regards it as Vav conj. (§ 283, d), " and by going to law with the needy," but jtaKTW would be the construction in this case (yid. 2 Kings xxv. 6). According to ver. 8, not only does the noble man devise what is noble, but as such (wn) he adheres to it. We might also adopt this explanation, " It is not upon gold or upon chance that he rises;" but according to the Arabic equivalents, qum signifies persistere here.
This short address, although rounded off well, is something more than a fragment complete in itself, like the short parabolic piece in ch. xxviii. 23-29, which commences in a similar manner. It is the last part of the fourth woe, just as that was the last part of the first. It is a side piece to the threatening prophecy of the time of Uzziah-Jotham (ch. iii. 16 sqq.), and chastises the frivolous self-security of the women of Jerusalem, just as the former chastises their vain and luxurious love of finery. The prophet has now uttered many a woe upon Jerusalem, which is bringing itself to the verge of destruction; but notwithstanding the fact that women are by nature more delicate, and more easily affected and alarmed, than men, he has made no impression upon the women of Jerusalem, to whom he now foretells a terrible undeceiving of their carnal ease, whilst he holds out before them the ease secured by God, which can only be realized on the ruins of the former. The first part of the address proclaims the annihilation of their false ease. Vers. 9-14. u Ye contented women, rise up, hear my voice; ye confident daughters, hearken to my speech! Days to the year: then will ye tremble, confident ones I for it is all over with the vintage, the fruit harvest comes to nought. Tremble, contented ones! Quake, ye confident ones! Strip, make yourselves bare, and gird your loins with sackcloth! They smite upon their breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine* On the land of my people there come up weeds, briers; yea, upon all joyous houses of the rejoicing city. For the palace is made solitary; the crowd of the city is left desolate; the of el and watch-tower serve as caves for ever, for the delight of wild asses, for the tending of flocks." The summons is the same as in Gen. iv. 23 and Jer. ix. 19 (comp. ch. xxviii. 23); the attributes the same as in Amos vi. 1 (cf. ch. iv. 1, where Isaiah apostrophizes the women of Samaria). ]^f, lively, of good cheer; and n&3, trusting, namely to nothing. They are to rise up (qomndh), because the word of God must be heard standing (Judg. iii. 20). The definition of the time " days for a year" (ydmim ral-shdndh) appears to indicate the length of time that the desolation would last, as the word tirgazndh is without any Vav apod. (cf. ch. lxv. 24, Job i. 16-18); but ch. xxix. 1 shows us differently, and the Vav is omitted, just as it is, for example, in Dan. iv. 28. Shdndh is the current year. In an undefined number of days, at the most a year from the present time (which is sometimes the meaning of ydmlm), the trembling would begin, and there would be neither grapes nor fruit to gather. Hence the spring harvest of corn is supposed to be over when the devastation begins. DSE} is an ace. temporis; it stands here (as in ch. xxvii. 6, for example; vid. Ewald, § 293, 1) to indicate the starting point, not the period of duration. The milel-forms natrs, rny, rnSn, are explained by Ewald, Drechsler, and Luzzatto, as plur. fern, imper. with the Nun of the termination noli dropped, — an elision that is certainly never heard of. Others regard it as inf. with He femin. (Credner, Joel, p. 141); but Hpbj? for the infinitive <™?Pr is unexampled; and equally unexampled would be the inf. with He indicating the summons, as suggested by Bottcher, "to the shaking.!" "to the stripping!" They are sing. maze. imper., such as occur elsewhere apart from the pause, e.g. n9^P (for which the keri has n???) in Judg. ix. 8; and the singular in the place of the plural is the strongest form of command. The masculine instead of the feminine appears already in Fnn, which is used in the place of nrnn. The prophet then proceeds in the singular number, comprehending the women as a mass, and using the most massive expression. The He introduced into the summons required that the feminine forms, W, etc., should be given up. rnjj, from *ny, to be naked, to strip one's self. nn:n absolute, as in Joel i. 13 (cf. ch. iii. 24), signifies to gird one's self with sackcloth (saq). We meet with the same remarkable enall. generis in ver. 12. Men have no breasts (shddaim), and yet the masculine sophedtm is employed, inasmuch as the prophet had the whole nation in his mind, throughout which there would be such a plangere ubera on account of the utter destruction of the hopeful harvest of corn and wine. Shddaim (breasts) and ^W (construct to sddoth) have the same common ring as ubera and ubertas frugum. In ver. 13 taaleh points back to qots shdmir, which is condensed into one neuter idea. The hi in ver. V6b has the sense of the Latin imo (Ewald, § 330, b). The genitive connection of nrtj wy with wm TO (joy-houses of the jubilant city) is the same as in ch. xxviii. 1. The whole is grammatically strange, just as in the Psalms the language becomes all the more complicated, disjointed, and difficult, the greater the wrath and indignation of the poet. Hence the short shrill sentences in ver. 14: palace given up (cf. ch. xiii. 22); city bustle forsaken (i.e. the city generally so full of bustle, ch. xxii. 2). The use of *W3 is the same as in Prov. vi. 26, Job ii. 4. ' Ofel, i.e. the south-eastern fortified slope of the temple mountain, and the bachan (i.e. the watch-tower, possibly the flock-tower which is mentioned in Mic. iv. 8 along with 'ofel), would be pro speluncis, i.e. would be considered and serve as such. And in the very place where the women of Jerusalem had once led their life of gaiety, wild ftsses would now have their delight, and flocks their pasture (on the wild asses, p'rd'lm, that fine animal of the wroodless steppe, see at Job xxiv. 5, xxxix. 5-8). Thus would Jerusalem, with its strongest, proudest places, be laid in ruins, and that in a single year, or even less than a year.
The state would then continue long, very long, until at last the destruction of the false rest would be followed by the realization of the true. Vers. 15-19. " Until the Spirit is poured out over us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as the forest And justice makes its abode in the desert, and righteousness settles down upon the fruit-field. And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the reward of righteousness rest and security for ever. And my people dwells in a place of peace, and in trustworthy, safe dwellings, and in cheerful resting-places. And it hails with the overthrow of the forest, and into lowliness must the city be brought low" There is a limit, therefore, to the " for ever "of ver. 14. The punishment would last till the Spirit, which Israel had not then dwelling in the midst of it (see Hag. ii. 5), and whose fulness was like a closed vessel to Israel, should be emptied out over Israel from the height of heaven (compare the piel rny, Gen. xxiv. 20), i.e, should be poured out in all its fulness. When that was done, a great change would take place, the spiritual nature of which is figuratively represented in the same proverbial manner as in ch. xxix. 17. At the same time, a different turn is given to the second half in the passage before us. The meaning is, not that what was now valued as a fruitbearing garden would be brought down from its false eminence, and be only regarded as forest; but that the whole would be so glorious, that what was now valued as a fruit-garden, would be thrown into the shade by something far more glorious still, in comparison with which it would have the appearance of a forest, in which everything grew wild. The whole land, the uncultivated pasture-land as well as the planted fruitful fields of corn and fruit, would then become the tent and seat of justice and righteousness. " Justice and righteousness" (mishpdt and ts'ddqdh) are throughout Isaiah the stamp of the last and perfect time. As these advance towards self-completion, the produce and result of these will be peace (madseh and 'abhdddh are used to denote the fruit or self-reward of work and painstaking toil; compare njVS). But two things must take place before this calm, trustworthy, happy peace, of which the existing carnal security is only a caricature, can possibly be realized. In the first place, it must hail, and the wood must fall, being beaten down with hail. We already know, from ch. x. 34, that " the wood" was an emblem of Assyria; and in ch. xxx. 30, 31, we find " the hail" mentioned as one of the forces of nature that would prove destructive to Assyria. And secondly, " the city" pT^, a play upon the word, and a counterpart to "vy*n) must first of all be brought low into lowliness (i.e. be deeply humiliated). Rosenmiiller and others suppose the imperial city to be intended, according to parallels taken from ch xxiv.-xxvii.; but in this cycle of prophecies, in which the imperial city is never mentioned at all, " the city" must be Jerusalem, whose course from the false peace to the true lay through a humiliating punishment (ch. xxix. 2-4, xxx. 19 sqq., xxxi. 4 sqq.).
In the face of this double judgment, the prophet congratulates those who will live to see the times after the judgment. Ver. 20. u Blessed are ye that sow by all waters, and let the foot of the oxen and asses rove in freedom" Those who lived to see these times would be far and wide the lords of a quiet and fruitful land, cleared of its foes, and of all disturbers of peace. They would sow wherever they pleased, by all the waters that fertilized the soil, and therefore in a soil of the most productive kind, and one that required little if any trouble to cultivate. And inasmuch as everything would be in the most copious abundance, they would no longer need to watch with anxiety lest their oxen and asses should stray into the corn-fields, but would be able to let them wander wherever they pleased. There cannot be the slightest doubt that this is the correct explanation of the verse, according to ch. xxx. 23-25 (compare also ch. vii. 21 sqq.).
This concludes the four woes, from which the fifth, that immediately follows, is distinguished by the fact, that in the former the Assyrian troubles are still in the future, whereas the fifth places us in the very midst of them. The prophet commenced (ch. xxviii. 1-4) with the destruction of Samaria; he then threatened Judah and Jerusalem also. But it is uncommonly difficult to combine the different features of the threat Into a complete picture. Sifting even to a small remu:uit is d leading thought, which runs through the threat. And \\ e also read throughout the whole, that Asshur will meet with its own destruction in front of that very Jerusalem which it is seeking to destroy. But the prophet also knows, on the one hand, that Jerusalem is besieged by the Assyrians, and will not be rescued till the besieged city has been brought to the last extremity (ch. xxix. 1 sqq., xxxi. 4 sqq.); and, on the other hand, that this will reach even to the falling of the towers (ch. xxx. 25), the overthrow of the wall of the state (ch. xxx. 13, 14), the devastation of the land, and the destruction of Jerusalem itself (ch. xxxii. 12 sqq.); and for both of these he fixes the limit of a year (ch. xxix. 1, xxxii. 10). This double threat may be explained in the following manner. The judgments which Israel has still to endure, and the period of glory that will follow them, lie before the mental eye of the prophet like a long deep diorama. While threatening the existing generation, he penetrates more or less deeply into the judgments which lie in perspective before him. He threatens at one time merely a siege that will continue till it is brought to the utmost extremity; at another time utter destruction. But the imperial power intended, by which this double calamity is to be brought upon Judah, must be Assyria; since the prophet knew of no other in the earliest years of Hezekiah, when these threatening addresses were uttered. And this gives rise to another difficulty. Not only was the worst prediction — namely, that of the destruction of Jerusalem— not fulfilled; but even the milder prophecy — namely, that of a siege, which would bring them to the deepest distress — was not accomplished. There never was any actual siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians. The explanation of this is, that, according to Jer. xviii. 7, 8, and 9, 10, neither the threatenings of punishment nor the promises of blessing uttered by the prophets were so unconditional, that they were certain to be fulfilled and that with absolute necessity, at such and such a time, or upon such and such a generation. The threatened punishment might be repealed or modified, if repentance ensued on the part of the persons threatened (Jonah iii. 4; 1 Kings xxi. 29; 2 Kings xxii. 15-20; 2 Chron. xii. 5-8). The words of the prophecy did not on that account fall to the ground. If they produced repentance, they answered the veiy purpose for which they were intended; but if the circumstances which called for punishment should return, their force returned as well in all its fulness. If the judgment was one irrevocably determined, it was merely delayed by this, to be discharged upon the generation which should be ripest for it. And we have also an express historical testimony, which shows that this is the way in which the nonfulfilmentof what Isaiah threatened as about to take place within a year is to be accounted for. Not only Isaiah, but also his contemporary Micah, threatened, that along with the judgment upon Samaria, the same judgment would also burst upon Jerusalem. Zion would be ploughed as a field, Jerusalem would be laid in ruins, and the temple mountain would be turned into a wooded height (Mic. iii. 12). This prophecy belongs to the first year of Hezekiah's reign, for it was then that the book of Micah was composed. But we read in Jer. xxvi. 18, 19, that, in their alarm at this prophecy, Hezekiah and all Judah repented, and that Jehovah withdrew His threat in consequence. Thus, in the very first year of Hezekiah, a change for the better took place in Judah; and this was necessarily followed by the withdrawal of Isaiah's threatenings, just as those threatenings had co-operated in the production of this conversion (see Caspari, Micha, p. 160 sqq.). Not one of the three threats (Isa. xxix. 1-4, xxxii. 9—14; Mic. iii. 12), which form an ascending climax, was fulfilled. Previous threatenings so far recovered their original force, when the insincerity of the conversion became apparent, that the Assyrians did unquestionably march through Judah, devastating everything as they went along. But because of Hezekiah's self-humiliation and faith, the threat was turned from that time forward into a promise. In direct opposition to his former threatening, Isaiah now promised that Jerusalem would not be besieged by the Assyrians (ch. xxxvii. 33-35), but that, before the siege was actually established, Assyria would fall under the walls of Jerusalem.
AVe are now in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign. The threatenings of the first years, which the repentance of the people had delayed, are now so far in force again, and so far actually realized, that the Assyrians are already in Judah, and have not only devastated the land, but are threatening Jerusalem. The element of promise now gains the upper hand, the prophet places himself between Asshur and his own nation with the weapons of prophecy and prayer, and the woe turns from the latter to the former. Ver. 1. " Woe, devastator, and thyself not devastated; and thou spoiler, and still not spoiled! Hast thou done with devastating? thou shalt be devastated. Hast thou attained to rob? men rob thee? Asshur is described as not devastated and not spoiled (which could not be expressed by a participle as with us, since bdgad is construed with Beth, and not with the accusative of the person), because it had not yet been visited by any such misfortune as that which had fallen upon other lands and nations. But it would be repaid with like for like as soon as (3 indicating simultaneousness, as in ch. xxx. 19 and xviii. 5, for example) its devastating and spoiling had reached the point determined by Jehovah. Instead of *)3, we find in some codd. and editions the reading n, which is equally admissible. In ^B^l!? (from &Efi) the radical syllable is lengthened, instead of having dagesh. ^733 is equivalent to?jntan3, a hiphil syncopated for the sake of rhythm (as in ch. iii. 8, Deut. i. 33, and many other passages), written here with dagesh dirimens, from the verb ndldh, which is attested also bv Job xv. 29. The coincidence in meaning with the verb
165), has been admitted by the earliest of the national grammarians, Ben-Koreish, Chayug, etc. The conjecture ^nta:p (in addition to which Cappellus proposed ^^3) is quite unnecessary. The play upon the sound sets forth the punishment of the hitherto unpunished one as the infallible echo of its sin.
In ver. 2 the prophet's word of command is changed into a believing prayer: u Jehovah, be gracious to us; we wait for Thee: be their arm with every morning, yea, our salvation in time of need! " " Their arm," i.e. the power which shelters and defends them, viz. Thy people and my own. " Yea," 'aph, is emphatic. Israel's arm every morning, because the danger is renewed every day; Israel's salvation, i.e. complete deliverance (ch. xxv. 9), because the culminating point of the trouble is still in prospect.
While the prophet is praying thus, he already sees the answer. Vers. 3, 4. " At the sound of a noise peoples pass away; at Thy rising nations are scattered. And your booty is swept away as a swarm of locusts sweeps away; as beetles run, they run vpon it." The indeterminate hdmon, which produces for that very reason the impression of something mysterious and terrible, is at once explained. The noise comes from Jehovah, who is raising Himself judicially above Assyria, and thunders as a judge. Then the hostile army runs away (EfM—^SJ, from the niphal Y%), 1 Sam. xiii. 11, from p¥E3 = pE0, from ps); and your booty (the address returns to Assyria) is swept away, just as when a swarm of locusts settles on a field, it soon eats it utterly away. Jerome, Cappellus, and others follow the Septuagint rendering, ov Tpoirov idv t*9 a-vvaydyrj cucpihas. The figure is quite as appropriate, but the article in hechdsll makes the other view the more natural one; and ver. 4£> places this beyond all doubt. Shdqaq, from which the participle shoqeq and the substantive masshdq are derived, is used here, as in Joel ii. 9, to signify a busy running hither and thither {discursitare). The syntactic use of shoqeq is the same as that of fcOp (they call) in ch. xxi. 11, and sophedlm (they smite) in ch. xxxii. 12. The inhabitants of Jerusalem swarm in the enemy's camp like beetles; they are all in motion, and carry off what they can.
The prophet sees this as he prays, and now feasts himself on the consequences of this victory of Jehovah, prophesying in vers. 5, 6: " Jehovah is exalted; for, dwelling on high, He has filed Zion with justice and righteousness. And there will be security of thy times, riches of salvation, of wisdom, and knowledge. Fear of Jehovah is then the treasure of Judah" Exalted: for though highly exalted in Himself, He has performed an act of justice and righteousness, with the sight and remembrance of which Zion is filled as with an overflowing rich supply of instruction and praise. A new time has dawned for the people of Judali. The prophet addresses them in ver. 6; for there is nothing to warrant us in regarding the words as addressed to Hesekiah. To the times succeeding this great achievement then would belong 'gmundh, i.e. durability (Ex. xvii. 12), — a uniform and therefore trustworthy state of things (compare ch. xxxix. 8, " peace and truth"). Secondly, there would also belong to them ]0hy a rich store of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge (compare the verb in ch. xxiii. 18). We regard these three ideas as all connected with chosen. The prophet makes a certain advance towards the unfolding of the seven gifts in ch. xi. 2, which are implied in " salvation;" but he hurries at once to the lowest of them, which forms the groundwork of all the rest, when he says, thirdly, that the fear of Jehovah will be the people's treasure. The construct form, chokhmath, instead of chokhmdh, is a favourite one, which Isaiah employs, even apart from the genitive relation of the words, for the purpose of securing a closer connection, as ch. xxxv. 2, li. 21 (compare pdrash in Ezek. xxvi. 10), clearly show. In the case before us, it has the further advantage of consonance in the closing sound.
The prophet has thus run through the whole train of thought with a few rapid strides, in accordance with the custom which we have already frequently noticed; and now he commences afresh, mourning over the present miserable condition of things, in psalm-like elegiac tones, and weeping with his weeping people. Vers. 7-9. " Behold, their heroes weep without; the messengers of peace weep bitterly. Desolate are roads, disappeared are travellers; he has broken covenant, insulted cities, despised men. The land mourns, languishes; Lebanon stands ashamed, parched; the meadow of Sharon has become like a steppe, and Bashan and Carmel shake their leaves." D^"1K is probably chosen with some allusion to y Ariel, the name of Jerusalem in ch. xxix,; but it has a totally different meaning. We have rendered it " heroes," because ^K is here synonymous with £>fcpK in the NibelungAike piece contained in 2 Sam. xxiii. 20 and 1 Chron. xi. 22. This \iriel, which is here contracted into 'er*el (compare the biblical name 'Ar' ell and the postbiblical name of the angels, 'Erellim), is compounded of 'dri (& lion) and 'El (God), and therefore signifies " the lion of
God," but in this sense, that El (God) gives to the idea of leonine courage merely the additional force of extraordinary or wonderful; and as a composite word, it contents itself with a singular, with a collective sense according to circumstances, without forming any plural at all. The dagesh is to be explained from the fact that the word (which tradition has erroneously regarded as a compound of D[6 n^nx) is pointed in accordance with the form?0^3 ^?p")3). The heroes intended by the prophet were the messengers sent to Sennacherib to treat with him for peace. They carried to him the amount of silver and gold which he had demanded as the condition of peace (2 Kings xviii. 14). But Sennacherib broke the treaty, by demanding nothing less than the surrender of Jerusalem itself. Then the heroes of Jerusalem cried aloud, when they arrived at Jerusalem, and had to convey this message of disgrace and alarm to the king and nation; and bitterly weeping over such a breach of faith, such deception and disgrace, the embassy, which had been sent off, to the deep self-humiliation of Judah and themselves, returned to Jerusalem. Moreover, Sennacherib continued to storm the fortified places, in violation of his agreement (on ma as 'drim, see 2 Kings xviii. 13). The land was more and more laid waste, the fields were trodden down; and the autumnal aspect of Lebanon, with its faded foliage, and of Bashan and Carmel, with their falling leaves, looked like shame and grief at the calamities of the land. It was in the autumn, therefore, that the prophet uttered these complaints; and the definition of the time given in his prophecy (ch. xxxii. 10) coincides with this, /E>iJ is the pausal form for tej?, just as in other places an e with the tone, which has sprung from i, easily passes into a in pause; the sharpening of the syllable being preferred to the lengthening of it, not only when the syllable which precedes the tone syllable is an open one, but sometimes even when it is closed (e.g. Judg. vi. 19, &*!!]). Instead of nyiya we should read rmya (without the article), as certain codd. and early editions do.1 Isaiah having mourned in the tone of the Psalms, now comforts himself with the words of a
1 "We find the same in Zech. xiv. 10, and D'Q'IJD in ch. xliv. 4, whereas we invariably have ninya (see Michlol, 45ft), just as we always find D^3K3» and on the other hand D"03X3- psalm. Like David in Ts. xii. 6, he hears Jehovah speak. The measure of Asshur's iniquity is full; the hour of Judah's redemption is come; Jehovah has looked on long enough, as though sitting still (ch. xviii. 4). Ver. 10. " Now will I arise, saith Jehovah, now exalt myself, now lift up myself." Three times does the prophet repeat the word 'attdh (now), which is so significant a word with all the prophets, but more especially with Hosea and Isaiah, and which always fixes the boundaryline and turning-point between love and wrath, wrath and love. D?ns% (in half pause for ClOViK) is contracted from D£ftn« (Ges. § 54, 2, b). Jehovah would rise up from His throne, and show Himself in all His greatness to the enemies of Israel.
After the prophet has heard this from Jehovah, he knows how it will fare with them. He therefore cries out to them in triumph (ver. 11), " Ye are pregnant with hay, ye bring forth stubble! Your snorting is the fire that will devour you.i} Their vain purpose to destroy Jerusalem comes to nothing; their burning wrath against Jerusalem becomes the fire of wrath, which consumes them (for chdshash and gash, see at ch. v. 24).
The prophet announces this to them, and now tells openly what has been exhibited to him in his mental mirror as the purpose of God. Ver. 12. " And nations become as lime burnings, thorns cut off, which are kindled with fir eV The first simile sets forth the totality of the destruction: they will be so completely burned up, that nothing but ashes will be left, like the lump of lime left at the burning of lime. The second contains a figurative description of its suddenness: they have vanished suddenly, like dead brushwood, which is cut down in consequence, and quickly crackles up and is consumed (ch. v. 24, cf. ix. 17): Jcdsach is the Targum word for zdmar, amputare, whereas in Arabic it has the same meaning as sdchdh, verrere.
But the prophet, while addressing Asshur, does not overlook those sinners of his own nation who are deserving of punishment. The judgment upon Asshur is an alarming lesson, not only for the heathen, but for Israel also; for there is no respect of persons with Jehovah. Vers. 13, 14. " Hear, ye distant ones, what I have accomplished; and perceive, ye near ones, my omnipotence! The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling seizes the hypocrites: who of us can abide with devouring fire? who of us abide with everlasting burnings V* Even for the sinners in Jerusalem also there is no abiding in the presence of the Almighty and Just One, who has judged Asshur (the act of judgment is regarded by the prophet as having just occurred); they must either repent, or they cannot remain in His presence. Jehovah, so far as His wrath is concerned, is " a consuming fire" (Deut. iv. 24, ix. 3); and the fiery force of His anger is " everlasting burnings" (mok'de roldm), inasmuch as it consists of flames that are never extinguished, never burn themselves out. And this God had His fire and His furnace in Jerusalem (ch. xxxi. 9), and had just shown what His fire could do, when once it burst forth. Therefore do the sinners inquire in their alarm, whilst confessing to one another (lanu; cf. Amos ix. 1) that none of them can endure it, " Who can dwell with devouring fire?" etc. (gur with the ace. loci, as in Ps. v. 5).
The prophet answers their question. Vers. 15, 16. "He that walketh in righteousness, and speaketh uprightness; he that despiseth gain of oppressions, whose hand keepeth from grasping bribes; he that stoppeth his ear from hearing murderous counsel, and shutteth his eyes from looking at evil; he will dwell upon high places; rocky fastnesses are his castle; his bread is abundant, his waters inexhaustible" Isaiah's variation of Ps. xv. and xxiv. 3-6 (as Jer. xvii. 5-8 contains Jeremiah's variation of Ps. i.). Tseddqoth is the accusative of the object, so also is meshdrim: he who walks in all the relations of life in the full measure of righteousness, i.e. who practises it continually, and whose words are in perfect agreement with his inward feelings and outward condition. The third quality is, that he not only does not seek without for any gain which injures the interests of his neighbour, but that he inwardly abhors it. The fourth is, that he diligently closes his hands, his ears, and his eyes, against all danger of moral pollution. Bribery, which others force into his hand, he throws away (cf. Neh. v. 13); against murderous suggestions, or such as stimulate revenge, hatred, and violence, he stops his ear; and from sinful sights he closes his eyes firmly, and that without even winking. Such a man has no need to fear the wrath of God. Living according to the will of God, he lives in the love of God; and in that he is shut in as it were upon the inaccessible heights and in the impregnable walls of a castle upon a rock. He suffers neither hunger nor thirst; but his bread is constantly handed to him (nittdn, partic), namely, by the love of God; and his waters never fail, for God, the living One, makes them flow. This is the picture of a man who has no need to be alarmed at the judgment of God upon Asshur.
Over this picture the prophet forgets the sinners in Zion, and greets with words of promise the thriving church of the future. Ver. 17. " Thine eyes will see the king in his beauty, will see a land that is very far off? The king of Judah, hitherto so deeply humbled, and, as Micah instances by way of example, " smitten upon the cheeks," is then glorified by the victory of his God; and the nation, constituted as described in vers. 15, 16, will see him in his God-given beauty, and see the land of promise, cleared of enemies as far as the eye can reach and the foot carry, restored to Israel without reserve, and under the dominion of this sovereign enjoying all the blessedness of peace.
The tribulation has passed away like a dream. Vers. 18, 19. " Thy heart meditates upon the shuddering. Where is the valuer f where the weigher? where he who counted the towers? The rough people thou seest no more, the people of deep inaudible Up, of stammering unintelligible tongue." The dreadful past is so thoroughly forced out of mind by the glorious present, that they are obliged to turn back their thoughts (hdgdh, meditari, as Jerome renders it) to remember it at all. The sopher who had the management of the raising of the tribute, the shogel who tested the weight of the gold and silver, the sopher 'eth hammigddlim who drew up the plan of the city to be besieged or stormed, are all vanished. The rough people (Ufa OV, the niphal of T_?y, from HP), that had shown itself so insolent, so shameless, and so insatiable in its demands, has become invisible. This attribute is a perfectly appropriate one; and the explanation given by Rashi, Vitringa, Ewald, and Fiirst, who take it in the sense of loez in Ps. cxiv. 1, is both forced and groundless. The expressions 'imke and niVag refer to the obscure and barbarous sound of their language; misshemoa to the unintelligibility of their speech; and nya J\S to the obscurity of their meaning. Even if the Assyrians spoke a Semitic language, they were of so totally different a nationality, and their manners were so entirely different, that their language must have sounded even more foreign to an Israelite than Dutch to a German.
And how will Jerusalem look when Asshur has been dashed to pieces on the strong fortress? The prophet passes over here into the tone of Ps. xlviii. (vers. 13, 14.) Ps. xlvi. and xlviii. probably belong to the time of Jehoshaphat; but they are equally applicable to the deliverance of Jerusalem in the time of Hezekiah. Yer. 20. " Look upon Zion, the castle of our festal meeting. Thine eyes will see Jerusalem, a pleasant place, a tent thai does not wander about, whose pegs are never drawn, and none of whose cords are ever broken." Jerusalem stands there unconquered and inviolable, the fortress where the congregation of the whole land celebrates its feasts, a place full of good -cheer (ch. xxxii. 18), in which everything is now arranged for a continuance. Jerusalem has come out of tribulation stronger than ever, — not a nomadic wandering tent (tsd'an, a nomad word, to wander, lit. to pack up = taan in Gen. xlv. 17), but one set up for a permanent dwelling.
It is also a great Lord who dwells therein, a faithful and almighty defender. Vers. 21, 22. "No, there dwells for us a glorious One, Jehovah; a place of streams, canals of wide extent, into which no fleet of rowing vessels ventures, and which no strong man of war shall cross. For Jehovah is our Judge; Jehovah is our war-Prince; Jehovah is our King; He will bring us salvation." Following upon the negative clauses in ver. 20b, the next verse commences with kl 'im (imo). Glorious (^addlr) is Jehovah, who has overthrown Lebanon, i.e. Assyria (ch. x. 34). He dwells in Jerusalem for the good of His people, — a place of streams, i.e. one resembling a place of streams, from the fact that He dwells therein. Luzzatto is right in maintaining, that ia and tiiajP point back to BipD, and therefore that mekom is neither equivalent to loco (tachath, instead of), which would be quite possible indeed, as 1 Kings xxi. 19, if not Hos. ii. 1, clearly proves (cf. ch. xxii. 38), nor used in the sense of substitution or compensation. The meaning is, that, by virtue of Jehovah's dwelling there, Jerusalem had become a place, or equivalent to a place, of broad streams, like those which in other instances defended the cities they surrounded (e.g. Babylon, the " twisted snake," ch. xxvii. 1), and of broad canals, which kept off the enemy, like moats around a fortification. The w ord D*>fc* was an Egyptian word, that had become naturalized in Hebrew; nevertheless it is a very natural supposition, that the prophet was thinking of the No of Egypt, which was surrounded by waters, probably Nile-canals (see Winer, R.W. Nah. iii. 8). The adjective in which yddaim brings out with greater force the idea of breadth, as in ch. xxii. 18 (ft on both sides"), belongs to both the nouns, which are placed side by side, aavvSercos (because permutative). The presence of Jehovah was to Jerusalem what the broadest streams and canals were to other cities; and into these streams and canals, which Jerusalem had around it spiritually in Jehovah Himself, no rowing vessels ventured (3 ^I?n, ingredi). Luzzatto renders the word u ships of roving," i.e. pirate ships; but this is improbable, as shut, when used as a nautical word, signifies to row. Even a majestic tsi, i.e. trieris magna, could not cross it: a colossal vessel of this size would be wrecked in these mighty and dangerous waters. The figure is the same as that in ch. xxvi. 1. In the consciousness of this inaccessible and impenetrable defence, the people of Jerusalem gloried in their God, who watched as a shophet over Israel's rights and honour, who held as m'choqeq the commander's rod, and ruled as melekh in the midst of Israel; so that for every future danger it was already provided with the most certain help.
Now indeed it was apparently very different from this. It was not Assyria, but Jerusalem, that was like a ship about to be wrecked; but when that which had just been, predicted should be fulfilled, Jerusalem, at present so powerless and sinful, would be entirely changed. Vers. 23, 24. " Thy ropes hang loose; they do not hold fast the support of thy mast; they do not hold the flag extended: then is booty of plunder divided in abundance; even lame men share the prey. And not an inhabitant will say, I am weak: the people settled there have their sins forgiven.9' Nearly every commentator (even Luzzatto) has taken ver. 23 as addressed to Assyria, which, like a proud vessel of war, would cross the encircling river by which Jerusalem was surrounded. But Drechsler has very properly given up this view. The address itself, with the suffix ayihh (see at ch. i. 26), points to Jerusalem; and the reference to this gives the most appropriate sense, whilst the contrast between the now and then closes the prophecy in the most glorious manner. Jerusalem is now a badly appointed ship, dashed about by the storm, the sport of the waves. Its rigging hangs loose (Jerome, laxati sunt); it does not hold the ken torndm fast, i.e. the support of their mast, or cross beam with a hole in it, into which the mast is slipped (the mesodme of Homer, Od. xv. 289), which is sure to go to ruin along with the falling mast, if the ropes do not assist its bearing power (malum sustinentes thecce succurrant, as Vitruvius says). And so the ropes of the ship Jerusalem do not keep the nes spread out, i.e. the lirlariyiov of the ship, whether we understand by it a flag or a sail, with a device worked upon it (see Winer, B. W. s. v. Schiffe). And this is the case with Jerusalem now; but then Qdz) it will be entirely different. Asshur is wrecked, and Jerusalem enriches itself, without employing any weapons, from the wealth of the Assyrian camp. It was with a prediction of this spoiling of Asshur that the prophet commenced in ver. 1; so that the address finishes as it began. But the closing words of the prophet are, that the people of Jerusalem are now strong in God, and are fW KGPJ (as in Ps. xxxii. 1), lifted up, taken away from their guilt. A people humbled by punishment, penitent, and therefore pardoned, would then dwell in Jerusalem. The strength of Israel, and all its salvation, rest upon the forgiveness of its sins.
FINALE OF THE JUDGMENT UPON ALL THE WORLD (MORE ESPECIALLY UPON EDOM), AND REDEMPTION OF THE PEOPLE OF JEHOVAH.
These two chapters stand in precisely the same relation to ch. xxviii.-xxxiii. as ch. xxiv.-xxvii. to ch. xiii.-xxiii. In both instances the special prophecies connected with the history of the prophet's own times are followed by a comprehensive finale of an apocalyptic character. We feel that we are carried en- tirely away from the stage of history. There is no longer that foreshortening, by which the prophet's perspective was characterized before the fall of Assyria. The tangible shapes of the historical present, by which we have been hitherto surrounded, are now spiritualized into something perfectly ideal. We are transported directly into the midst of the last things; and the eschatological vision is less restricted, has greater mystical depth, belongs more to another sphere, and has altogether more of a New Testament character. The totally different impression which is thus made by ch. xxxiv. xxxv., as compared with ch. xxviii.-xxxiii., must not cause any misgivings as to the authenticity of this closing prophecy. The relation in which Jeremiah and Zephaniah stand to ch. xxxiv. and xxxv., is quite sufficient to drive all doubts away. (Read Caspari's article, " Jeremiah a Witness to the Genuineness of Isa. xxxiv., and therefore also to the Genuineness of Isa. xl.-lxvi., xiii.-xiv. 23, and xxi. 1—10," in the Lutherische Zeitschrift, 1843, 2; and Nagelsbach's Jeremia und Babylon, pp. 107-113, on the relation of Jer. 1. li. more especially to Isa. xxxiv. xxxv.) There are many passages in Jeremiah (viz. ch. xxv. 31, 33, 34, xlvi. 10, 1. 27, 39, li. 40) which cannot be explained in any other way than on the supposition that Jeremiah had the prophecy of Isaiah in ch. xxxiv. before him. We cannot escape from the conclusion, that just as we find Jeremiah introducing earlier prophecies generally into his cycle of prophecies against the nations, and, in the addresses already mentioned, borrowing from Amos and Nahum, and placing side by side with a passage from Amos (compare Jer. xxv. 30 with Amos i. 2) one of a similar character, and agreeing with Isa. xxxiv., so he also had Isa. xxxiv. and xxxv. before him, and reproduced it in the same sense as he did other and earlier models. It is equally certain that Zeph. i. 7, 8, and ii. 14, stand in a dependent relation to Isa. xxxiv. 6, 11; just as Zeph. ii. 15 was taken from Isa. xlvii. 8, and Zeph. i. 7 fin. and iii. 11 from Isa. xiii. 3; whilst Zeph. ii. 14 also points back to Isa. xiii. 21, 22. We might, indeed, reverse the relation, and make Jeremiah and Zephaniah into the originals in the case of the passages mentioned; but this is opposed to the generally reproductive and secondary character of both these prophets, and also to the evident features of the passages in question. We might also follow Movers, De Wette, and Hitzig, who get rid of the testimony of Isaiah by assuming that the passages resting upon Isa. xxxiv., and other disputed prophecies of Isaiah, are interpolated; but this is opposed to the moral character of all biblical prophecy, and, moreover, it could only apply to Jeremiah, not to Zephaniah. We must in this case " bring reason into captivity to obedience " to the external evidence; though internal evidence also is not wanting to set a seal upon these external proofs. Just as ch. xxiv.-xxvii. are full of the clearest marks of Isaiah's authorship, so is it also with ch. xxxiv. xxxv. It is not difficult to understand the marked contrast which we find between these two closing prophecies and the historical prophecies of the Assyrian age. These two closing prophecies were appended to ch. xiii.-xxiii. and xxviii.-xxxiii. at the time when Isaiah revised the complete collection. They belong to the latest revelations received by the prophet, to the last steps by which he reached that ideal height at which he soars in ch. xl.-lxvi., and from which he never descends again to the stage of passing history, which lay so far beneath. After the fall of Assyria, and when darkness began to gather on the" horizon again, Isaiah broke completely away from his own times. "The end of all things" became more and more his own true home. The obscure foreground of his prophecies is no longer Asshur, which he has done with now so far as prophecy is concerned, but Babel (Babylon). And the bright centre of his prophecies is not the fall of Asshur (for this was already prophetically a thing of the past, which had not been followed by complete salvation), but deliverance from Babylon. And the bright noon-day background of his prophecies is no longer the realized idea of the kingdom of prophecy, — realized, that is to say, in the one person of the Messiah, whose form had lost the sharp outlines of ch. vii.-xii. even in the prophecies of Hezekiah's time, — but the parousia of Jehovah, which all Jlesh would see. It was the revelation of the mystery of the incarnation of God, for which all this was intended to prepare the way. And there was no other way in which that could be done, than by completing the perfect portrait of the Messiah in the light of the ultimate future, so that both the factors in the prophecy might be assimilated. The spirit of Isaiah, more than that of any other prophet, was the laboratory of this great process in the history of revelation. The prophetic cycles in eh. wiv.-xxvii. and xxxiv. xxxv. stand in the relation of preludes to it. In ch. xl.-lxvi. the process of assimilation is fully at work, and there is consequently no book of the Old Testament which has gone so thoroughly into New Testament depths, as this second part of the collection of Isaiah's prophecies, which commences with a prediction of the parousia of Jehovah, and ends with the creation of the new heaven and new earth. Ch. xxxiv. and xxxv. are, as it were, the first preparatory chords. Edom here is what Moab was in ch. xxiv.-xxvii. By the side of Babylon, the empire of the world, whose policy of conquest led to its enslaving Israel, it represents the world in its hostility to Israel as the people of Jehovah. For Edom was Israel's brother-nation, and hated Israel as the chosen people. In this its unbrotherly, hereditary hatred, it represented the sum-total of all the enemies and persecutors of the church of Jehovah. The special side-piece to ch. xxxiv. is ch. lxiii. 1-6.
What the prophet here foretells relates to all nations, and to every individual within them, in their relation to the congregation of Jehovah. He therefore commences with the appeal in vers. 1-3: " Come near, ye peoples, to hear; and ye nations, attend. Let the earth hear, and that which Jills it, the world, and everything that springs from it. For the indignation of Jehovah will fall upon all nations, and burning wrath upon all their host; He has laid the ban upon them, delivered them to the slaughter. And their slain are cast away, and their corpses — their stench will arise, and mountains melt with their blood." The summons does not invite them to look upon the completion of the judgment, but to hear the prophecy of the future judgment; and it is issued to everything on the earth, because it would all have to endure the judgment upon the nations (see at ch. v. 25, xiii. 10). The expression qetseph layehovdh implies that Jehovah was ready to execute His wrath (compare yom layehovdh in ver. 8 and ch. ii. 12). The nations that are hostile to Jehovah are slaughtered, the bodies remain unburied, and the streams of blood loosen the firm masses of the mountains, so that they melt away. On the stench of the corpses, compare Ezek. xxxix. 11. Even if chdsam, in this instance, does not mean " to take away the breath with the stench," there is no doubt that Ezekiel had this prophecy of Isaiah in his mind, when prophesying of the destruction of Gog and Magog (Ezek. xxxix.).
The judgment foretold by Isaiah also belongs to the last things; for it takes place in connection with the simultaneous destruction of the present heaven and the present earth. Ver. 4. " And all the host of the heavens moulder away, and the heavens are rolled up like a scroll, and all their host withers as a leaf withers away from the vine, and like withered leaves from the fig-tree" Ndmaq, to be dissolved into powdered mother (ch. iii. 24, v. 24); ndgol (for ndgal, like ndzol in ch. lxiii. 19, lxiv. 2, and ndrots in Eccles. xii. 6), to be rolled up, — a term applied to the cylindrical book-scroll. The heaven, that is to say, the present system of the universe, breaks up into atoms, and is rolled up like a book that has been read through; and the stars fall down as a withered leaf falls from a vine, when it is moved by even the lightest breeze, or like the withered leaves shaken from the fig-tree. The expressions are so strong, that they cannot be understood in any other sense than as relating to the end of the world (ch. lxv. 17, lxvi. 22; compare Matt. xxiv. 29). It is not sufficient to say that " the stars appear to fall to the earth," though even Vitringa gives this explanation.
When we look, however, at the following kl (for), it undoubtedly appears strange that the prophet should foretell the passing away of the heavens, simply because Jehovah judges Edom. But Edom stands here as the representative of all powers that are hostile to the church of God as such, and therefore expresses an idea of the deepest and widest cosmical signification (as ch. xxiv. 21 clearly shows). And it is not only a doctrine of Isaiah himself, but a biblical doctrine universally, that God will destroy the present world as soon as the measure of the sin which culminates in unbelief, and in the persecution of the congregation of the faithful, shall be really full.
If we bear this in mind, we shall not be surprised that the prophet gives the following reason for the passing away of the present heavens. Vers. 5-7. " For my sword has become intoxicated in the heaven; behold, it comes down upon Edom, and upon the people of my ban to judgment. The sword of Jehovah fills itself with blood, is fattened with fat, with blood
' Iambi and hc-goats, with kidney-fat of rams; for Jehovah has a sacrifice in Basrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. And buffaloes fall with them, and bullocks together with bulls; and their land becomes intoxicated with blood, and their dust fattened with fat." Just as in ch. lxiii. Jehovah is represented as a treader of the wine-press, and the nations as the grapes; so here He is represented as offering sacrifice, and the nations as the animals offered (zebhach: cf. Zeph. i. 7; Jer. xlvi. 10; Ezek. xxxix. 17 sqq.: all three passages founded upon this). Jehovah does not appear here in person as judge, as He does there, but His sword appears; just as in Gen. iii. 24, the " sword which turned every way" is mentioned as an independent power standing by the side of the cherub. The sword is His executioner, which has no sooner drunk deeply of wrath in heaven, i.e. in the immediate sphere of the Deity (rivvHhdh, an intensive form of the kal, like pittedch, ch. xlviii. 8; Ewald, § 120, d), than it comes down in wild intoxication upon Edom, the people of the ban of Jehovah, i.e. the people upon whom He has laid the ban, and there, as His instrument of punishment, fills itself with blood, and fattens itself with fat. nrjnn is the hothpaal = njKHrin, with the n of the preformative syllable assimilated (compare to}1? in ch. i. 16, and nmx in ch. xiv. 14). The penultimate has the tone, the ndh being treated as in the plural forms of the future. The dropping of the dagesh in the V is connected with this. The reading SpriD, in ver. 6, is an error that has been handed down in modern copies (in opposition to both codices and ancient editions); for 27n (primary form, chilb) is the only form met with in the Old Testament. The lambs, he-goats, and rams, represent the Edomitish nation, which is compared to these smaller sacrificial animals. Edom and Bozrah are also placed side by side in ch. lxiii. 1. The latter was one of the chief cities of the Edomites (Gen. xxxvi. 33; Amos i. 12; Jer. xlix. 13, 22), — not the Bozrah in Auranitis (Haurdn), however, which is well known in church history, but Bozrah in the mountains of Edom, upon the same site as the village of Buzaire {i.e. Minor Bozrah), which is still surrounded by its ruins. In contrast with the three names of the smaller animals in ver. 6, the three names of oxen in ver. 7 represent the lords of Edom. They also will fall, smitten by the sword (ydr'dti: cf. Jer. 1. 27, li. 40; also Jer. xlviii. 15). The feast of the sword is so abundant, that even the earth and the dust of the land of Edom are satiated with blood and fat.
Thus does Jehovah avenge His church upon Edom. Vers. 8-10. " For Jehovah hath a day of vengeance, a year of recompense, to contend for Zion. And the brooks of Edom are turned into fitch, and its dust into brimstone, and its land becomes burning pitch. Day and night it is not quenched; the smoke of Edom goes up for ever: it lies waste from generation to generation; no one passes through it for ever and ever? The one expression, " to contend for Zion," is like a flash of lightning, throwing light upon the obscurity of prophecy, both backwards and forwards. A day and a year of judgment upon Edom (compare ch. lxi. 2, lxiii. 4) would do justice to Zion against its accusers and persecutors (ribh, vindicare, as in ch. li. 22). The everlasting punishment which would fall upon it is depicted in figures and colours, suggested by the proximity of Edom to the Dead Sea, and the volcanic character of this mountainous country. The unquenchable fire (for which compare ch. lxvi. 24), and the eternally ascending smoke (cf. Rev. xix. 3), prove that the end of all things is referred to. The prophet meant primarily, no doubt, that the punishment announced would fall upon the land of Edom, and within its geographical boundaries; but this particular punishment represented the punishment of all nations, and all men who were Edomitish in their feelings and conduct towards the congregation of Jehovah.
The land of Edom, in this geographical and also emblematical sense, would become a wilderness; the kingdom of Edom would be for ever destroyed. Vers. 11, 12. u And pelican and hedgehog take possession of it, and eared-owl and raven dwell there; and he stretches over it the measure of Tohu and the level of Bohu. Its nobles — there is no longer a monarchy which they elected; and all its princes come to nought" The description of the ruin, which commences in ver. 11a with a list of animals that frequent marshy and solitary regions, is similar to the one in ch. xiii. 20-22, xiv. 23 (compare Zeph. ii. 14, which is founded upon this). Isaiah's was the original of all such pictures of ruin which we meet with in the later prophets. The qippod is the hedgehog, although we find it here in the company of birds (from qdphad7