" Ye have only to draw near; ye can feed undisturbed, and devour as much as ye please." This is the explanation adopted by most of the more modern commentators. In Jer. xii. 9, which is founded upon this (" Assemble all ye beasts of the field, bring them hither to devour"), it is also Jerusalem which is assigned as food to the heathen. The parallel in ver. 9 is both synonymous and progressive. The writer seeks for rare forms, because he is about to depict a rare inversion of the proper state of things. foVH (with the first syllable loosely closed) is the antiquated form of connection, which was admissible even with "IV?? following (cf. ch. v. 11, ix. 1, 2; 2 Sam. i. 21). On NJK (=VW|), see at ch. xxi. 12 (cf. ver. 14).
The prophet now proceeds with 1DV (VB'tf): the suffix refers to Israel, which was also the object to to*??. Vers. 10, 11. " His watchmen are blind: they (are) all ignorant, they (are) all dumb dogs that cannot bark; raving, lying down, loving to slumber. And the dogs are mightily greedy, they know no satiety; and such are shepherds! They know no understanding; they have all turned to their own ways, every one for his own gain throughout his border" The " watchmen " are the prophets here, as everywhere else (ch. lii. 8, cf. ch. xxi. 6, Hab. ii. 1; Jer. vi. 17; Ezek. iii. 17). The prophet is like a watchman (tsopheh) stationed upon his watch-tower (specula), whose duty it is, when he sees the sword come upon the land, to blow the s7idphdr, and warn the people (Ezek. xxxiii. 1-9). But just as Jeremiah speaks of bad prophets among the captives (Jer. xxix. 1-32), and the book of Ezekiel is full of reproaches at the existing neglect of the office of watchman and shepherd; so does the prophet here complain that the watchmen of the nation are blind, in direct opposition to both their title and their calling; they are all without either knowledge or the capacity for knowledge (vid. ch. xliv. 9, xlv. 20). They ought to resemble watchful sheep-dogs (Job xxx. 1), which bark when the flock is threatened; but they are dumb, and cannot bark (ndbhach, root nab), and leave the flock to all its danger. Instead of being " seers " (chozlm), they are ravers (hozlm; cf. ch. xix. 18, where we have a play upon Dnnn in Dnnn). Dnh, from njn, to rave in sickness, n. act. hadhajan (which Kimchi compares to parlare in sonno); hence the Targum!*?£, LXX.
ivvTrvia^ofievoi, A ^avra^ofjievoit S opa/iariaTa^ Jer. videntes ViUia. The predicates which follow are attached to the leading word hOzim (raving), if not precisely as adjectives, yet as more minutely descriptive. Instead of watching, praying, wrestling, to render themselves susceptible of visions of divine revelations for the good of their people, and to keep themselves in readiness to receive them, they are idle, loving comfortable ease, talkers in their sleep. And the dogs, viz. those prophets who resemble the worst of them (see at ch. xl. 8, p. 144), are B>M \W, of violent, unrestrained soul, insatiable. Their soul lives and moves in the lowest parts of their nature; it is nothing but selfish avarice, self-indulgent greediness, violent restlessness of passion, that revolves perpetually around itself. With the words " and these are shepherds," the range of the prophet's vision is extended to the leaders of the nation generally; for when the prophet adds as an exclamation, "And such (hi = tales) are shepherds!" he applies the glaring contrast between calling and conduct to the holders of both offices, that of teacher and that of ruler alike. For, apart from the accents, it would be quite at variance with the general use of the personal pronoun ruin, to apply it to any other persons than those just described (viz. in any such sense as this: " And those, who ought to be shepherds, do not know"). Nor is it admissible to commence an adversative minor clause with riDni, as Knobel does, " whereas they are shepherds;" for, since the principal clause has D^an (dogs) as the subject, this would introduce a heterogeneous mixture of the two figures, shepherds' dogs and shepherds. We therefore take D^jn n»rn as an independent clause: " And it is upon men of such a kind, that the duty of watching and tending the nation devolves!" These &sin (for which the Targum reads BTJ) are then still further described: they know not to understand, i.e. they are without spiritual capacity to pass an intelligible judgment (compare the opposite combination of the two verbs in ch. xxxii. 4); instead of caring for the general good, they have all turned to their own way (Fdarkdm), i.e. to their own selfish interests, every one bent upon his own advantage (VV3 from Jflfa, abscinderey as we say, seinen Schnitt zu machen, to reap an advantage, lit. to make an incision). ^nv|5»? from his utmost extremity (i.e. from that of his own station, including all its members), in other words,
"throughout the length and breadth of his own circle;" qdtseh, the end, being regarded not as the terminal point, but as the circumference (as in Gen. xix. 4, xlvii. 21, and Jer. li. 31).
An office-bearer of the kind described is now introduced per mimesin as speaking. Ver. 12. " Come here, I will fetch wine, and let us drink meth; and to-morrow shall be like to-day, great, excessively abundant." He gives a banquet, and promises the guests that the revelry shall be as great to-morrow as to-day, or rather much more glorious, "»n» ^ is the day of to-morrow, to eiravpiov, for mdcMr is always without an article; hence et fet uti hie (dies) dies crastinus, viz. magnus supra modum valde. 1$, or W (as it is to be pointed here according to Kimchi, Michlol 1675, and Worterbuch), signifies superabundance; it is used here adverbially in the sense of extraordinarily, beyond all bounds (differing therefore from ~\T\\\ " more," or " singularly," in the book of Ecclesiastes).
Whilst watchmen and shepherds, prophets and rulers, without troubling themselves about the flock which they have to watch and feed, are thus indulging their own selfish desires, and living in debauchery, the righteous man is saved by early death from the judgment, which cannot fail to come with such corruption as this. Ch. lvii. 1, 2. " The righteous perisheth, and no man taketh it to heart; and pious men are swept away, without any one considering that the righteous is swept away from misfortune. He entereth into peace: they rest upon their beds, whoever has walked straight before him." With " the righteous" the prophet introduces, in glaring contrast to this luxurious living on the part of the leading men of the nation, the standing figure used to denote the fate of its best men. With this prevailing demoralization and worldliness, the righteous succumbs to the violence of both external and interna] sufferings. *l?K, he dies before his time (Eccles. vii. 15); from the midst of the men of his generation he is carried away from this world (Ps. xii. 2; Mic. vii. 2), and no one lays it to heart, viz. the divine accusation and threat involved in this early death. Men of piety (chesed, the love of God and man) are swept away, without there being any one to understand or consider that (Id unfolds the object to be considered and laid to heart, viz. what is involved in this carrying away when regarded as a providential event) the righteous is swept away u from the evil," i.e. that he may be saved from the approaching punishment (compare 2 Kings xxii. 20). For the prevailing corruption calls for punishment from God; and what is first of all to be expected is severe judgment, through which the coming salvation will force its way. In ver. 2 it is intimated that the righteous man and the pious do not lose the blessings of this salvation because they lose this life: for whereas, according to the prophet's watchword, there is no peace to the wicked, it is true, on the other hand, of the departing righteous man, that " he enters into peace " (shdldm, ace. loci s, status; Ges. 118, 1); "they rest upon their beds," viz. the bottom of the grave, which has become their mishkdbh (Job xvii. 13, xxi. 26), " whoever has walked in that which lay straight before him," i.e. the one straight plain path which he had set before him Omj ace. obj. as in ch. xxxiii. 15, 1. 10, Ewald, § 172, b, from n'33, that which lies straight before a person; whereas riDi with rDJ irD3, signifying probably fixedness, steadiness of look, related to,^ij, to pierce, H3J, per cuter e, is used as a preposition: compare Prov. iv. 25, n?J?, straight or exactly before him). The grave, when compared with the restlessness of this life, is therefore " peace." He who has died in faith rests in God, to whom he has committed himself and entrusted his future. We have here the glimmering light of the New Testament consolation, that the death of the righteous is better than life in this world, because it is the entrance into peace.
The reproachful language of the prophet is now directed against the mass of the nation, who have occasioned the " evil" from which the righteous is swept away, i.e. the generation that is hostile to the servants of Jehovah, and by whom those sins of idolatry are still so shamelessly carried on, which first led to the captivity. Vers. 3, 4. " And ye, draw nearer hither, children of the sorceress, seed of the adulterer, and of her that committed whoredom! Over whom do ye make yourselves merry? Over whom do ye open the mouth wide, and put the tongue out long f Are ye not the brood of apostasy, seed of lying?" They are to draw nearer hither (Jienndh as in Gen. xv. 16), to the place where God is speaking through His prophet, to have themselves painted, and to hear their sentence. Just as elsewhere the moral character of a man is frequently indicated by the mention of his father (2 Kings vi. 32), or his mother (1 Sam. xx. 30), or both parents (Job xxx. 8), so here the generation of the captivity, so far as it continued* to practise the idolatry by which its ancestors had brought upon themselves the Chaldean catastrophe, is called first nj3)J »ja (or more correctly ™ty), sons of the sorceress (possibly the maker of clouds or storm, ch. ii. 6, vol. i. 118: Jer. auguratricis), one who made heathen and superstitious customs her means of livelihood, viz. the community as it existed before the captivity, which really deserved no better name, on account of the crying contradiction between its calling and its conduct; and secondly, with regard to both the male and female members of the community, njtni *]Nj» JHT, semen adulteri et fornicarice (Jer.), though Stier, Hahn, and others adopt the rendering semen adulterum et quod (qui) scortaris. A better rendering than this would be, " Seed of an adulterer, and one who committest adultery thyself," viz. (what would be indicated with this explanation by the fuL consec.) in consequence of this descent from an adulterer. But as JHT (seed, posterity), wherever it is more minutely defined, is connected with a genitive, and not with an adjective, the presumption is that n:?rn sjfcOD denotes the father and mother, njjrn is an attributive clause regarded as a genitive (Ges. § 123, 3, Anm. 1), and more closely connected with sj&OD than if it was written rutni (= njitt, ch. i. 21): Seed of an adulterer, and consequently (Ewald, § 351, 6), or similarly, of one who gave herself up to whoredom. Idolatry, prostitution, and magic are most closely allied. The prophet now asks, u Over whom do ye find your pleasure? For whom are your common contemptuous actions intended?" ^ynn is only used here, and denotes the feeling which finds pleasure in the sufferings of another. The objects of this malicious contemptuous pleasure (Ps. xxii. 8 sqq., xxxv. 21) are the servants of Jehovah; and the question, as in ch. xxxvii. 23, is one of amazement at their impudence, since the men over whom they make merry are really deserving of esteem, whereas they themselves are the refuse of Israel: Are ye not a brood of apostasy, seed of lying? As apostasy and lying, when regarded as parents, can only produce something resembling themselves; the character of those from whom they are descended is here imputed to the men themselves, even more clearly than before. The genitives of origin are also genitives of attribute. Instead of llSl (£.</. ch. ii. 6) we have here *& before makkeph, with the shortening of a into t.
The participles which follow in the next verse are in apposition to DWKj and confirm the predicates already applied to them. They soon give place, however, to independent sentences. Vers. 5, 6. " Ye that inflame yourselves by the terebinths, tinder every green tree, ye slayers of children in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks. By the smooth ones of the brook was thy portion; they, they were thy lot: thou also pouredst out libations to them, thou laidst meat-offerings upon them. Shall I be contented with this tn The people of the captivity are addressed, and the idolatry handed down to them from their ancestors depicted. The prophet looks back from the standpoint of the captivity, and takes his colours from the time in which he himself lived, possibly from the commencement of Manasseh's reign, when the heathenism that had for a long time been suppressed burst forth again in all its force, and the measure of iniquity became full. The part, niphal D^nan is formed like |njl in Jer. xxii. 23, if the latter signifies miserandum esse. The primary form is Dn:? which is doubled like "IJJ from "n? in Job xx. 28, and from which Dnj) is formed by the resolution of the latent reduplication. Stier derives it from Drp; but even if formed from this, Dn?. would still have to be explained from Ero, after the form ri2f3. 'Ellm signifies either gods or terebinths (see vol. i. 108, note 1). But although it might certainly mean idols, according to Ex. xv. 11, Dan. xi. 36 (LXX., Targ., and Jerome), it is never used directly in this sense, and Isaiah always uses the word as the name of a tree (ch. i. 29, lxi. 3). The terebinths are introduced here, exactly as in ch. i. 29, as an object of idolatrous lust: "who inflame themselves with the terebinths;" 3 denotes the object with which the lust is excited and inflamed. The terebinth (eldh) held the chief place in tree-worship (hence D3?N, lit. oak-trees, together with D^K, is the name of one of the Phoenician gods1), possibly as being the tree sacred to Astarte; just as the Samura Acacia among the heathen Arabs was the tree sacred to the goddess f Uzza,2 The following expression, "under every green tree," is simply a permutative of the words u with the terebinths" in the sense of " with the terebinths, yea, under every green tree" (a standing expression from Deut. xii. 2 downwards),— one tree being regarded as the abode and favourite of this deity, and another of that, and all alluring you to your carnal worship. From the tree-worship with its orgies, which was so widely spread in antiquity generally, the prophet passes to the leading Canaanitish abomination, viz. human sacrifices, which had been adopted by the Israelites (along with '■DriB* we find the false reading *Dni?, which is interpreted as signifying self-abuse). Judging from the locality named, "under the clefts of the rocks," the reference is not to the slaying of children sacrificed to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom, but to those offered to Baal upon his bdmoth or high places (Jer. xix. 5; Ezek. xvi. 20, 21; Hos. xiii. 2; Ps. cvi. 37, 38). As we learn from the chronique scandaleuse many things connected with the religious history of Israel, which cannot be found in its historical books, there is nothing to surprise us in the stone-worship condemned in ver. 6. The dagesh of *£?n is in any case dagesli dirimens. The singular is either P?n after the form *D3n (cf. ^V, ch. lviii. 3), or pfo after the form nij. But PJ>n? smoothness, never occurs; and the explanation, " in the smoothnesses, i.e. the smooth places of the valley, is thy portion," has this also against it, that it does not do justice to the connection 3 P?n, in which the preposition is not used in a local sense, and that it leaves the emphatic &n EH quite unexplained. The latter does not point to places, but to objects of worship for which they had exchanged Jehovah, of whom the true Israelite could say 'fl sppn, Ps. cxix. 57, etc., or 'fta v P^f Josh. xxii. 25, and *hfa IpOfcl PUJK (Thou art He that maintaineth my lot), Ps. xvi. 5. The prophet had such expressions as these in his mind, and possibly also the primary meaning of inu = /cXripos, which may be gathered from the rare Arabic word 'garaly gravel, stones worn smooth by rolling, when he said, " In the smooth ones of the valley is thy portion; they, they are thy lot." In the Arabic also, achlaq (equivalent to chdldq, smooth, which forms here a play upon the word with?*?$, chdldq) is a favourite word for stones and rocks. >02"*i?r0j however, according to 1 Sam. xvii. 40 (where the intensive form P&0, like 713^, is used), are stones which the stream in the vallev has washed smooth with time, and rounded into a pleasing shape. The mode of the worship, the pouring out of libations,1 and the laying of meat-offerings upon themr confirm this view. In Carthage such stones were called abhadires (= THN, ptf); and among the ancient Arabs, the asndm or idols consisted for the most part of rude blocks of stone of this description. Herodotus (iii. 8) speaks of seven stones which the Arabs anointed, calling upon the god Orotal. Suidas (s.v. ®e0? aprj<i) states that the idol of Ares in Petra was a black square stone; and the black stone of the Ka'aba was, according to a very inconvenient tradition for the Mohammedans, an idol of Saturn (zuhal).2 Stoneworship of this kind had been practised by the Israelites before the captivity, and their heathenish practices had been transmitted to the exiles in Babylon. The meaning of the question, Shall I comfort myself concerning such things? — i.e. Shall I be contented with them (Brt3X niphal, not hithpael) 1 — is, that it was impossible that descendants who so resembled their fathers should remain unpunished.
The prophet now proceeds with perfects, like fi??^ and rppgn (addressed to the national community generally, the congregation regarded as a woman). The description is mostly retrospective. Vers. 7, 8. " Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set up thy bed; thou also ascendedsi thither to offer slain offerings.
1 Compare the remarks made in the Comm. on the Pentateuch, vol. i. p. 283, on the heathen worship of anointed stones, and the Bsetulian worship.
2 See Krehl, p. 72. In the East Indies also we find stone-worship not only among the Vindya tribes (Lassen, A.K. i. 376), but also among the Vaishnavas, who worship Vishnu in the form of a stone, viz. the sdlagrdma, a kind of stone from the river Gandak (see Wilson's Sanscrit Lexicon s.h.v. and Vishnu- Pur ana, p. 163). The fact of the great antiquity of stone and tree worship has been used in the most ridiculous manner by Dozy in bis work on the Israelites at Mecca (1864). He draws the following conclusion from Deut. xxxii. 18: u Thus the Israelites sprang from a divine block of stone; and this is, in reality, the true old version of the origin of the nation." From Isa. li. 1, 2, he infers that Abraham and Sara were not historical persons at all, but that the former was a block of stone, and the latter a hollow; and that the two together were a block of stone in a hoilow, to which divine worship was paid. "This fact," he says, "viz. that Abraham and Sarah in the second Isaiah are not historical persons, but a block of stone and a hollow, is one of great worth, as enabling us to determine the time at which the stories of Abraham in Genesis were written, and to form a correct idea of the spirit of those stories."
And behind the door and the post thou didst place thy reminder: for thou uncoveredst away from me, and ascendedst; thou madest thy bed broad, and didst stipulate for thyself what they had to do: thou lovedst their lying with thee; thou sawest their manhood." The lovers that she sought for herself are the gods of the heathen. Upon lofty mountains, where they are generally worshipped, did she set up her bed, and did all that was needed to win their favour. The zikkdron, i.e. the declaration that Jehovah is the only God, which the Israelites were to write upon the posts of their houses, and upon the entrances (Deut. vi. 9, xi. 20), for a constant reminder, she had put behind the door and post, that she might not be reminded, to her shame, of her unfaithfulness. That this explanation, which most of the commentators adopt, is the true one, is proved by the expression VjWD "'S which follows, and according to which 3Qh3T is something inconvenient, which might and was intended to remind them of Jehovah. *?KD, away, far from me, as in Jer. iii. 1, and like Vinno, which is still more frequently used. It is unnecessary to take gilllth with ipVty understood (Ezek. xxiii. 18) as equivalent to " thou makest thyself naked," or with reference to the clothes = avaavpeis. ^K'b is the common object cf all three verbs, even of yV.'d) (with double metheg), after Gen. xlix. 4. On njafl] for W3W (cf. Jer. iii. 5), see Ewald, § 191, b. The explanation " thou didst bind," or " thou didst choose (some) of them to thyself," is contrary to the general usage, according to which? n^3 signifies spondere (2 Chron. vii. 18), and DV ID? pacisci (1 Sam. xxii. 8), in both cases with n*}3 to be supplied, so that p (n^3) 1"0? would mean stipulari ab aliquo, i.e. to obtain from a person a solemn promise, with all the force of a covenant. What she stipulated from them was, either the wages of adultery, or the satisfaction of her wanton lust. What follows agrees writh this; for it is there distinctly stated, that the lovers to whom she offered herself gratified her lust abundantly: adamasti concubitum eorum (mishkdbh, cubile, e.g. JProv. vii. 17, and concubitus, e.g. Ezra xxiii. 17), manum conspexisti. The Targum and Jewish commentators adopt this explanation, loco quern delegisti, or (postquam) locum delegisti. This also is apparently the meaning of the accents, and most of the more modern commentators have adopted it, taking T in the sense of place or side. But this yields only a very lame and unmeaning thought. Doederlein conjectured that V was employed here in the sense of iOvcpaWo?; and this is the explanation adopted by Hitzig, Ewald, and others. The Arabic furnishes several analogies to this obscene use of the word; and by the side of Ezek. xvi. 26 and xxiii. 20, where the same thing is affirmed in even plainer language, there is nothing to astonish in the passage before us. The meaning is, that after the church of Jehovah had turned away from its God to the world and its pleasures, it took more and more delight in the pleasures afforded it by idolatry, and indulged its tastes to the full.
In the closest reciprocal connection with this God-forgetting, adulterous craving for the favour of heathen gods, stood their coquetting with the heathen power of the world. Vers. 9, 10. " And thou wentest to the king ivith oil, and didst measure copiously thy spices, and didst send thy messengers to a great distance, and didst deeply abase thyself, even to Hades. Thou didst become weary of the greatness of thy ivay; yet thou saidst not, It is unattainable: thou obtainedst the revival of thy strength: therefore thou wast not pained." The first thing to be noticed here, is one that has been overlooked by nearly all the modern commentators, viz. that we have here a historical retrospect before us. And secondly, a single glance at ver. 11 is sufficient to show that the words refer to a servile coquetry from the fear of man, and therefore to a wicked craving for the favour of man; so that " the king'* is not Baal, or any heathen god whatever (according to ch. viii. 21 and Zeph. i. 5), but the Asiatic ruler of the world. Ahaz sent messengers, as we read in 2 Kings xvi. 7 sqq., to Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria, to say to him, " 1 am thy servant and thy son." And Ahaz took the silver and gold that were in the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the palace, and sent a bribe to the king of Assyria. And again, at vers. 10 sqq., Ahaz went to Damascus to meet the king of Assyria, and there he saw an altar, and sent a model of it to Jerusalem, and had one like it put in the place of the altar of burnt-offering. Such acts as these are here described in the figure of Israel travelling with oil to the king, and taking a quantity of choice spices with it to gain his favour, and also sending messengers, and not only bowing itself to the earth, but even stooping to Hades, that is to say, standing as it were on its head in its excessive servility, for the purpose of obtaining allies. It seems most natural to take \DW2 as equivalent to \OW2 nmra: thou wentest in oil (dripping with pomade), and didst apply to thyself many spices; but Beth after verbs of going signifies to go with anything, to take it with one and bring it, so that the oil and spices are thought of here as presents, which she took with her as sensual stimulants, with a view to the amorous pleasures she was seeking (Ezek. xxiii. 41, cf. Hos. xii. 2). **&&*} signifies to go deep down in Jer. xiii. 18; the meaning here is, to bow very low, or to degrade one's self. By " the greatness or breadth of the way" (a similar expression to that in Josh. ix. 13), all the great sacrifices are intended which it cost her to purchase the favour of the heathen ruler. Although they were a great trouble to her, yet she did not say EW3, " it is hopeless;" the niphal of WW signifies in 1 Sam. xxvii. 1, to betake one's self to a thing with despair of its success. The participle in Job vi. 26 means a despairing person; it also occurs in a neuter sense in Jer. ii. 25, xviii. 12, viz. given up, i.e. absolutely in vain. She did not give up hope, although the offerings nearly exhausted her strength; on the contrary, she gained T n»n5 « life of her arm," i.e. (according to the use of «Tn in the sense of reviving, and n^nn, to bring to life again) new life in her arm, in other words, " the renewing of her strength" (recentem vigorem virium 8uarum). Thus, without noticing the sighs and groans forced from her by the excessive toil and fatigue, but stirring herself up again and again, she pursued the plan of strengthening her alliances with the heathen. Ezekiel's picture of Aholah and Aholibah is like a commentary on vers. 3-10 (see Ezek. xxiii.). From fear of man, Israel, and still more Judah, had given up the fear of Jehovah. Ver. 11a. "And of whom hast thou been afraid, and (whom) didst thou fear, that thou becamest a liar, and didst not continue mindful of me, and didst not take it to heart?" It was of men — only mortal men, with no real power (ch. Ii. 12) — that Israel was so needlessly afraid, that it resorted to lies and treachery to Jehovah (kl, ut, an interrogative sentence, as in 2 Sam. vii. 18, Ps. viii. 5): purchasing the favour of man out of the fear of man, and throwing itself into the arms of false tutelar deities, it banished Jehovah its true shelter out of its memory, and did not take it to heart, viz. the sinfulness of sucli infidelity, and the eventful consequences by which it was punished (compare ch. xlvii. 7 and xlii. 25).
With ver. 116 the reproaches are addressed to the present. The treachery of Israel had been severely punished in the catastrophe of which the captivity was the result, but without effecting any improvement. The great mass of the people were as forgetful of God as ever, and would not be led to repentance by the long-suffering of God, which had hitherto spared them from other well-merited punishments. Ver. lib. " Am I not silent, and that for a long time, whereas thou wast not afraid of me?" A comparison with ch. xlii. 14 will show that the prophecy returns here to its ordinary style. The LXX. and Jerome render the passage as if the reading were D^yp (viz. W = irapopcov, quasi non videns), and this is the reading which Lowth adopts. "We may see from this, that the original text had a defective D7JJB1, which was intended, however, to be read DoJB*. The prophet applies the term *dlam (see ch. xlii. 14) to the captivity, which had already lasted a long time — a time of divine silence: the silence of His help so far as the servants of Jehovah were concerned, but the silence of His wrath as to the great mass of the people.
But this silence would not last for ever. Vers. 12, 13. UI, I will proclaim thy righteousness; and thy works, they will not profit thee. When thou criest, let thy heaps of idoh save thee: but a wind carries them all away; a breath takes them off; and whoever putteth trust in me will inherit the land, and take possession of my holy mountain." According to the context, ^[JIV cannot be a synonym of TOB^. here. It is neither salvation nor the way of salvation that is intended; nor is this even included, as Stier supposes. But the simple reference is to what Israel in its blindness regarded as righteousness; whereas, if it had known itself, it wrould have seen that it was the most glaring opposite. This lying-righteousness of Israel would be brought to a judicial exposure by Jehovah. ^BTO-njO is not a second accusative to Tax, for in that case we should have 1WD1 ^npTms; but it commences a second sentence, as the accents really indicate. When Jehovah begins thus to speak and act, the impotence of the false gods which His people have made for themselves will soon be exposed; and u as for thy works (i.e. thine idols, ch. xli. 29, cf. ch. i. 31), they will do thee no good"
(eh. xliv. 9, 10, compare Jer. xxiii. 33; for the question RfeWID, here an emphatic elevation of the subject, compare ch. liii. 8, V-iH-nw, Evvald, § 277, p. 683). This determines the meaning of SRflSi?, which Knobel supposes to refer to the large army of the Babylonians, with which the apostates among the exiles had formed an offensive and defensive alliance. But the term is really applied to the heaps (gibbuts, collectio, not an adjective of the form limmud) of different idols, with which Israel had furnished itself even in its captivity (compare qibbdtsdh in Mic. i. 17). It was in vain for them to turn to these pantheons of theirs; a single ruach would earry them all away, a hebhel would sweep them off, for they themselves were nothing but hebhel and ruach (ch. xli. 29). The proper punctuation here is ^?nT"nP_).; the first syllable of np\ which is attached to a word with a disjunctive accent, has a so-called heavy Gayay the second a euphonic Gaya, according to rules which are too little discussed in our grammars. When Knobel supports his explanation of "pXUp on the ground that the idols in ver. 13a and the worshippers of Jehovah in ver. \2>b do not form a fitting antithesis, the simple reply is, that the contrast lies between the idols, which cannot save, and Jehovah, who not only saves those who trust in Him, but sends them prosperity according to His promises. With the promise, " Whoso trusts in me will inherit the land," this prophecy reaches the thought with which the previous prophecy (ch. lvi. 7,.8) closed; and possibly what is here affirmed of "^V^i? forms an intentional antithesis to the promise there, VS3j?:? V?y paps *])V: when Jehovah gathers His faithful ones from the dispersion, and gathers others to them (from among the heathen), then will the plunder which the faithless have gathered together be all scattered to the winds. And whilst the latter stand forsaken by their powerless works, the former will be established in the peaceful inheritance of the promised land.
The first half of the prophecy closes here. It is full of reproach, and closes with a brief word of promise, which is merely the obverse of the threat. The second half follows an opposite course. Jehovah will redeem His people, provided it has been truly humbled by the sufferings appointed, for He has seen into what errors it has fallen since He has withdrawn His mercy from it. "But the wicked," etc. The whole closes here with words of threatening, which are the obverse of the promise. Ver. 136 forms the transition from the first half to the second.
The promise is now followed by an appeal to make ready the way which the redeemed people have to take. Ver. 14. u And He saith, Heap up, heap up, prepare a ivay, take away every obstruction from the way of my people." This is the very same appeal which occurs once in all three books of these prophecies (ch. xl. 3, 4, lvii. 14, lxii. 10). The subject of the verb (dinar) is not Jehovah; but the prophet intentionally leaves it obscure, as in ch. xl. 3, 6 (cf. xxvi. 2). It is a heavenly cry; and the crier is not to be more precisely named.
The primary ground for this voice being heard at all is, that the Holy One is also the Merciful One, and not only has a manifestation of glory on high, but also a manifestation of grace below. Ver. 15. "For thus saith the high and lofty One, the eternally dwelling One, He wliose name is Holy One; I dwell on high and in the holy place, and with the contrite one and him that is of a humbled spirit, to revive the spirit of humbled ones, and to revive the heart of contrite ones." He inflicts punishment in His wrath; but to those who suffer themselves to be urged thereby to repentance and the desire for salvation, He is most inwardly and most effectually near with His grace. For the heaven of heavens is not too great for Him, and a human heart is not too small for Him to dwell in. And He who dwells upon cherubim, and among the praises of seraphim, does not scorn to dwell among the sighs of a poor human soul. He is called ram (high), as being high and exalted in Himself; Nfett (the lofty One), as towering above all besides; and *iy i?b\ This does not mean the dweller in eternity, which is a thought quite outside the biblical range of ideas; but, since ^V stands to p$ not in an objective, but in an attributive or adverbial relation (Ps. xlv. 7, cf. Prov. i. 33), and |?B>, as opposed to being violently wrested from the ordinary sphere of life and work (cf. Ps. xvi. 9, cii. 29), denotes a continuing life, a life having its root in itself, "W |3b> must mean the eternally (= W) dwelling One, i.e. He whose life lasts for ever and is always the same. He is also called qddosh, as One who is absolutely pure and good, separated from all the uncleanness and imperfection by which creatures are characterized. This is not to be rendered sanctum nomen ejus, but sanctus; this name is the facit of His revelation of Himself in the history of salvation, which is accomplished in love and wrath, grace and judgment. This God inhabits mdrom veqddosh, the height and the Holy Place (accusatives of the object, like mdrom in ch. xxxiii. 5, and nfromim in ch. xxxiii. 16), both together being equivalent to <£w? airpoauTov (1 Tim. vi. 16), since qddosh (neuter, as in Ps. xlvi. 5, lxv. 5) answers to </>w?, and mdrom to aiTpoaiTov. But He also dwells with (HN as in Lev. xvi. 16) the crushed and lowly of spirit. To these He is most intimately near, and that for a salutary and gracious purpose, namely " to revive..." n^nn and n*n always signify either to keep that which is living alive, or to restore to life that which is dead. The spirit is the seat of pride and humility, the heart the seat of all feeling of joy and sorrow; we have therefore spiritum humilium and cor contritorum. The selfish egotism which repentance breaks has its root in the heart; and the selfconsciousness, from whose false elevation repentance brings down, has its seat in the spirit {Psychol, p. 199).
The compassion, by virtue of which God has His abode and His wrork of grace in the spirit and heart of the penitent, is founded in that free anticipating love which called man and his self-conscious spirit-soul into being at the first. Ver. 16. " For I do not contend for ever, and I am not angry for ever: for the spirit would pine away before me, and the souls of men which I have created" The early translators (LXX., Syr., Jer., possibly also the Targum) give to ^V\ the meaning egredietur, which certainly cannot be established. And so also does Stier, so far as the thought is concerned, when he adopts the rendering, " A spirit from me will cover over, and breath of life will I make;" and so Hahn, " When the spirit pines away before me, I create breath in abundance." But in both cases the writer would at any rate have used the perf. consec. Wl?}W> and the last clause of the verse has not the syntactic form of an apodosis. The rendering given above is the only one that is unassailable both grammatically and in fact. *3 introduces the reason for the self-limitation of the divine wrath, just as in Ps. lxxviii. 38, 39 (cf. Ps. ciii. 14): if God should put no restraint upon His wrath, the consequence wrould be the entire destruction of human life, which was His creative work at first. The verb *\®y, from its primary meaning to bend round (Job, ii. p. 8), has sometimes the transitive meaning to cover, and sometimes the meaning to wrap one's self round, i.e. to become faint or weak (compare *P&y, fainted away, Lam. ii. 19; and *1WHJ i" Ps. cxlii. 4, which is applied to the spirit, like the kal here). ^B?» is equivalent to " in consequence of the wrath proceeding from me." ntotw (a plural only met with here) signifies, according to the fixed usage of the Old Testament (ii. 22, xlii. 5), the souls of men, the origin of which is described as a creation in the attributive clause (with an emphatic ^N), just as in Jer. xxxviii. 16 (cf. Zech. xii. 1). Whether the accents are intended to take sTWy ^K in this attributive sense or not, cannot be decided from the tiphchah attached to niDt^l. The prophet, who refers to the flood in other passages also (e.g. ch. liv. 9), had probably in his mind the promise given after the flood, according to which God would not make the existing and inherited moral depravity an occasion for utterly destroying the human race.
This general law of His action is most especially the law of His conduct towards Israel, in which such grievous effects of its well-deserved punishment are apparent, and effects so different from those intended, that the compassion of God feels impelled to put an end to the punishment for the good of all that are susceptible of salvation. Vers. 17, 18. "And because of the iniquity of its selfishness, I was wroth, and smote it; hiding myself, and being angry: then it went on, turning away in the way of its own heart. I have seen its ways, and will heal it; and will lead it, and afford consolations to it, and to its mourning ones." The fundamental and chief sin of Israel is here called yV3? lit. a cut or slice (= gain, ch. lvi. 11); then, like irXeove^ia, which is "idolatry" according to Col. iii. 5, or like cjitXapyvpia, which is " the root of all evil" according to 1 Tim. vi. 10, greedy desire for worldly possession, self-seeking, or worldliness generally. The future *""I2**1, standing as it does by the side of the perfect here, indicates that which is also past; and ^P&O stands in the place of a second gerund: abscondendo (viz. pdnai, my face, ch. liv. 8) et stomachando. When Jehovah had thus wrathfully hidden His gracious countenance from Israel, and withdrawn His gracious presence out of the midst of Israel (Hos. v. 6, DH? ybn)9 it went away from Him (SliP with 33*0, like?jiy with 'cty, going its own ways like the world of nations that had been left to themselves. But Jehovah had not seen these wanderings without pity. The futures which follow are promising, not by virtue of any syntactic necessity, but by virtue of an inward necessity. He will heal His wounded (ch. i. 4-6) and languishing people, and lead in the right way those that are going astray, and afford them consolation as a recompense for their long sufferings (D*»in3 is derived from the piel DJTJ, and not, as in Hos. xi. 8, from the niphal hinndchem, in the sense of " feelings of sympathy"), especially (Vav epexeget.; Ges. § 155, 1) its mourning ones (ch. lxi. 2, 3, lxvi. 10), i.e. those whom punishment has brought to repentance, and rendered desirous of salvation.
But when the redemption comes, it will divide Israel into two halves, with very different prospects. Vers. 19-21. " Creating fruit of the lips; Jehovah saithy i Peace, peace to those that are far off, and to those that are near; and I heal it. But the wicked are like the sea that is cast up; for it cannot rest, and its waters cast out slime and mud. There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked." The words of God in ver. 19 are introduced with an interpolated " inquit Jehova" (cf. ch. xlv. 24, and the ellipsis in ch. xli. 27); and what Jehovah effects by speaking thus is placed first in a determining participial clause: u Creating fruit (313 = M, 3fa, Jceri 2^3) of the lips," Kapirov -)(el\e(t)v (LXX., Heb. xiii. 15), i.e. not of His own lips, to which N~n2 would be inapplicable, but the offering of praise and thanksgiving springing from human lips (for the figure, see Psychol, p. 214, transl.; and on the root 33, to press upon forward, Gen. p. 635): " Jehovah saith shdlom, shdlom," i.e. lasting and perfect peace (as in ch. xxvi. 3), " be the portion of those of my people who are scattered far and near" (ch. xliii. 5-7, xlix. 12; compare the application to heathen and Jews in Eph. ii. 17); "and I heal it" (viz. the nation, which, although scattered, is like one person in the sight of God). But the wicked, who persist in the alienation from God inherited from the fathers, are incapable of the peace which God brings to His people: they are like the sea in its tossed and stormy state (8H33 pausal third pers. as an attributive clause). As this cannot rest, and as its waters cast out slime and mud, so has their natural state become one of perpetual disturbance, leading to the uninterrupted production of unclean and ungodly thoughts, words, and works. Thus, then, there is no peace for them, saith my God. With these words, which have even a more pathetic sound here than in ch. xlviii. 22, the prophet seals the second book of his prophecies. The " wicked" referred to are not the heathen outside Israel, but the heathen, i.e. those estranged from God, within Israel itself.
The transition from the first to the second half of this closing prophecy is formed by "1PK1 in ch. lvii. 14. In the second half, from ch. lvii. 116, we find the accustomed style of our prophet; but in ch. lvi. 9— lvii. 11a the style is so thoroughly different, that Ewald maintains that the prophet has here inserted in his book a fragment from some earlier writer of the time of Manasseh. But we regard this as very improbable. It is not required by what is stated concerning the prophets and shepherds, for the book of Ezekiel clearly shows that the prophets and shepherds of the captivity were thus debased. Still less does what is stated concerning the early death of the righteous require it; for the fundamental idea of the suffering servant of Jehovah, which is peculiar to the second book, is shadowed forth therein. Nor by what is affirmed as to the idolatrous conduct of the people; for in the very centre (ver. 4) the great mass of the people are reproached for their contemptuous treatment of the servants of Jehovah. Nor does the language itself force us to any such conjecture, for ch. liii. also differs from the style met with elsewhere; and yet (although Ewald regards it as an earlier, borrowed fragment) it must be written by the author of the whole, since its grandest idea finds its fullest expression there. At the same time, we may assume that the prophet described the idolatry of the people under the influence of earlier models. If he had been a prophet of the captives after the time of Isaiah, he would have rested his prophecies on Jeremiah and Ezekiel. For just as ch. li. 18 sqq. has the ring of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, so does ch. lvii. 3 sqq. resemble in many respects the earlier reproaches of Jeremiah (compare Jer. v. 7-9, 29, ix. 8, with the expression, " Should I rest satisfied with this? "); also ch. ii. 25 (WiJ), ii. 20, hi. 6, 13 (" upon lofty mountains and under green trees"); also the night scene in Ezek. xxiii.
As the last prophecy of the second book contained all the three elements of prophetic addresses — reproach, threat, and promise, — so this, the first prophecy of the third book, cannot open in any other way than with a rehearsal of one of these. The prophet receives the commission to appear as the preacher of condemnation; and whilst Jehovah is giving the reason for this commission, the preaching itself commences. Vers. 1, 2. " Cry with full throat, hold not back; lift up thy voice like a bugle, and proclaim to my people their apostasy, and to the house of Jacob their sins. And they seek me day by day, and desire to learn my ways, like a nation which has done righteousness, and has not forsaken the right of their God: they ask of me judgments of righteousness; they desire the drawing near of Elohim" As the second prophecy of the first part takes as its basis a text from Micah (ch. ii. 1-4), so have we here in ver. lb the echo of Mic. iii. 8. Not only with lisping lips (1 Sam. i. 13), but with the throat (Ps. cxv. 7, cxlix. 6); that is to say, with all the strength of the voice, lifting up the voice like the shophdr (not a trumpet, which is called ^VVH, nor in fact any metallic instrument, but a bugle or signal horn, like that blown on newyear's day: see at Ps. lxxxi. 4), i.e. in a shrill shouting tone. With a loud voice that must be heard, with the most unsparing publicity, the prophet is to point out to the people their deep moral wounds, which they may indeed hide from themselves with hypocritical opus operatum, but cannot conceal from the all-seeing God. The 1 of *rrtW does not stand for an explanatory particle, but for an adversative one: " their apostasy... their sins; and yet (although they are to be punished for these) they approach Jehovah every day" (Di"1 Di*1 with mahpach under the first D^, and pasek after it, as is the general rule between two like -sounding words), "that He would now speedily interpose." They also desire to know the ways which He intends to take for their deliverance, and by which He desires to lead them. This reminds us of the occurrence between Ezekiel and the elders of Gola (Ezek. xx. 1 sqq.; compare also Ezek. xxxiii. 30 sqq.). As if they had been a people whose rectitude of action and fidelity to the commands of God warranted them in expecting nothing but what was good in the future, they ask God (viz. in prayer and by inquiring of the prophet) for mislip'le tsedeqy " righteous manifestations of judgment," i.e. such as will save them and destroy their foes, and desire qirbath 'Elohlm, the coming of God, i.e. His saving parousia. The energetic futures, with the tone upon the last syllable, answer to their self-righteous presumption; and P^sn"! is repeated, according to Isaiah's most favourite oratorical figure (see p. 134), at the close of the verse.
There follow now the words of the work-righteous themselves, who hold up their fasting before the eyes of God, and complain that He takes no notice of it. And how could He?! Vers. 3, 4. " ' Wherefore do we fast and Thou seest not, afflict our soul and Thou regardest notV Behold, on the day of your fasting ye carry on your business, and ye oppress all your labourers. Behold, ye fast with strife and quarrelling, and with smiting- with the fist maliciously closed: ye do not fast now to make your voice audible on high" By the side of DW (root D¥, to press, tie up, constrain) we have here the older expression found in the Pentateuch, £>£J nay? to do violence to the natural life. In addition to the fasting on the day of atonement (the tenth of the seventh month Tizri), the only fast prescribed by the law, other fasts were observed according to Zech. vii. 3, viii. 19, viz. fasts to commemorate the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem (10th Tebeth), its capture (17th Tammuz), its destruction (9th Abib), and the murder of Gedaliah (3d Tizri). The exiles boast of this fasting here; but it is a heartless, dead work, and therefore worthless in the sight ot God. There is the most glaring contrast between the object of the fast and their conduct on the fast-day: for they carry on their work-day occupation; they are then, more than at any other time, true taskmasters to their work-people (lest the service of the master should suffer from the service of God); and because when fasting they are doubly irritable and ill-tempered, this leads to quarrelling and strife, and even to striking with an ^ry fist (*P?N3, from *n|, to collect together, make into a ball, clench). Hence in their present state the true purpose of fastino- is quite unknown to them, viz. to enable them to draw near writh importunate prayer to God, who is enthroned on hi<di (ch. lvii. 15).1 The only difficulty here is the phrase pan kvd. In the face of ver. 13, this cannot have any other meaning than to stretch one's hand after occupation, to carry on business, to occupy one's self with it, — fan combining the three meanings, application or affairs, striving, and trade or occupation. **-f?> however, maintains its primary meaning, to lay hold of 0/ grasp (cf. ch. x. 14; Targ. $*?*£ pyrin |*nK, ye seek your livelihood). This is sustained by what follows, whether we derive DM3TP (cf. ^n, ch. lvii. 6) from 3Sg (et omnes labor es vestros graves rigide exigitis), tWJ (from which we have here Vt^-Ofi for *fefcfl, Deut. xv. 3) being construed as in 2 Kings xxiii. 35 with the accusative of what is peremptorily demanded; or (what we certainly prefer) from 2Vy; or better still from y&V (like fey): omnes operarios vestros adigitis (urgetis), iMJ being construed with the accusative of the person oppressed, as in Deut. xv. 2, where it is applied to the oppression of a debtor. Here, however, tHe reference is not to those wrho owe money, but to those who owe labour, or to obligations to labour; and y*V does not signify a debtor (an idea quite foreign to this verbal root), but a labourer, one w7ho eats the bread of sorrows, or of hard toil (Ps. cxxvii. 2). The prophet paints throughout from the life; and we cannot be persuaded by Stier's false zeal for Isaiah's authorship to give up the opinion, that we have here a figure drawn from the life of the exiles in Babylon.
Whilst the people on the fast-day are carrying on their worldly, selfish, everyday business, the fasting is perverted from a means of divine worship and absorption in the spiritual character of the day to the most thoroughly selfish purposes: it is supposed to be of some worth and to merit some reward.
1 The ancient church called a fast statio, because he who fasted had to wait in prayer day and night like a soldier at his post. See on this and what follows, the Shepherd of Hernias, iii. Sim. 5, and the Epistle of Barnaba», c. iii.
This work-holy delusion, behind which self-righteousness and unrighteousness were concealed, is met thus by Jehovah through His prophet: Vers. 5-7. " Can such things as these pass for a fast that I have pleasure in, as a day for a man to afflict his soul f To bow down his head like a bulrush, and spread sackcloth and ashes under him — dost thou call this a fast and an acceptable day for Jehovah? Is not this a fast that I have pleasure in: To loose coils of wickedness, to untie the bands of the yoke, and for sending away the oppressed as free, and that ye break every kind of yoke? Is it not this, to break thy bread to the hungry, and to take the poor and houseless to thy home; when thou stest a naked man that thou clothest him, and dosi not deny thyself before thine own flesh?" The second part of the address commences with ver. 5. The true worship, which consists in works of merciful love to one's brethren, and its great promises are here placed in contrast with the false worship just described. TOn points backwards: is such a fast as this a fast after Jehovah's mind, a day on which it can be said in truth that a man afflicts his soul (Lev. xvi. 29)? The n of *p7n is resumed in HDn; the second? is the object to N'Jpn expressed as a dative. The first / answers to our preposition " to" with the infinitive, which stands here at the beginning like a casus absol. (to hang down; for which the inf. abs. *liS3n might also be used), and as in most other cases passes over into the finite {et quod saccum et cinerem substernit, viz. sibi: Ges. § 132, Anm. 2). To hang down the head and sit in sackcloth and ashes — this does not in itself deserve the name of fasting and of a day of gracious reception (ch. lvi. 7, lxi. 2) on the part of Jehovah (mrp? for a subjective genitive). Vers. 6 and 7 affirm that the fasting which is pleasant to Jehovah consists in something very different from this, namely, in releasing the oppressed, and in kindness to the helpless; not in abstinence from eating as such, but in sympathetic acts of that self-denying love, which gives up bread or any other possession for the sake of doing good to the needy.1 There is a bitter irony in these words, just as when the ancients said, " not eating is a natural fast, but abstaining from sin is a spiritual fast." During the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans a general
1 The ancient church connected fasting with almsgiving by law. Dressel, Patr. Ap. p. 493.
emancipation of the slaves of Israelitish descent (who were to be set free, according to the law, every three years) was resolved upon and carried out; but as soon as the Chaldeans were gone, the masters fetched their liberated slaves back into servitude again (Jer. xxxiv. 8-22). And as ver. 6 shows, they carried the same selfish and despotic disposition with them into captivity. The HJ which points forwards is expanded into infin. absolutes, which are carried on quite regularly in the finite tense. Mdtdh, which is repeated palindromically, signifies in both cases a yoke, lit. vectis, the cross wood which formed the most important part of the yoke, and which was fastened to the animal's head, and so connected with the plough by means of a cord or strap (Sir. xxx. 35, xxxiii. 27).1 It is to this that nrUN, knots, refers. We cannot connect it with mutteh, a state of perverted right (Ezek. ix. 9), as Hitzig does. &TtiT\ are persons unjustly and forcibly oppressed even with cruelty; fT} is a stronger synonym to P^'V (e.g. Amos iv. 1). In ver. 7 we have the same spirit of general humanity as in Job xxxi. 13-23, Ezek. xviii. 7, 8 (compare what James describes in ch. i. 27 as "pure religion and undefiled"). tirb (BH3) D"}3 is the usual phrase for ickav (/cXd^etv) dprov. DHViJp is the adjective to E\s?y, and apparently therefore must be derived from TTO: miserable men who have shown themselves refractory towards despotic rulers. But the participle mdrud cannot be found elsewhere; and the recommendation to receive political fugitives has a modern look. The parallels in Lam. i. 7 and iii. 19 are conclusive evidence, that the word is intended as a derivative of in, to wander about, and it is so rendered in the LXX., Targ., and Jerome (vagos). But ^D, pi. DnFip, is no adjective; and there is nothing to recommend the opinion, that by " wanderers" we are to understand Israelitish men. Ewald supposes that DHrup mav be taken as a part. hoph. for E^tiS, hunted away, like D*mD»n in 2 Kings xi. 2 (keri a™??); but it cannot
1 I have already observed at ch. xlvii. 6, in vindication of what was stated at ch. x. 27, that the yoke was not in the form of a collar. I brought the subject under the notice of Prof. Schegg, who wrote to me immediately after his return from his jouruey to Palestine to the following effect: " I saw many oxen ploughing in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and the neighbourhood of Ephesus; and in every case the yoke was a cross piece of wood laid upon the neck of the animal, and fastened to the pole of the plough by a cord which passed under the neck of the animal."
be shown that the language allowed of this shifting of a vowelsound. We prefer to assume that DHVip (persecuted) is regarded as part..pass.9 even if only per metaplasmum, from T1D, a secondary form of in (cf. DDE, }'?»? nyo, makund). Ver. lb is still the virtual subject to vnnaij Dte. The apodosis to the hypothetical *3 commences with a per/, consec, which then passes into the pausal future w. In T)j?f? (from thine own flesh) it is presupposed that all men form one united whole as being of the same flesh and blood, and that they form one family, owing to one another mutual love.
The prophet now proceeds to point out the reward of divine grace, which would follow such a fast as this, consisting of self-renouncing, self-sacrificing love; and in the midst of the promise he once more reminds of the fact, that this love is the condition of the promise. This divides the promises into two. The middle promise is linked on to the first; the morning dawn giving promise of the "perfect day" (Prov. iv. 18). The first series of promises we have in vers. 8, 9a. " Then will thy light break forth as the morning dawn, and thy healing w>ill sprout up speedily, and thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will follow thee. Then wilt thou call and
Jehovah will answer; thou wilt beseech, and He will say, Here am I!n The love of God is called "light" in contrast with His wrath; and a quiet cheerful life in God's love is so called, in contrast with a wild troubled life spent in God's wrath. This life in God's love has its dawn and its noon-day. When it is night both within and around a man, and he suffers himself to be awakened by the love of God to a reciprocity of love; then does the love of God, like the rising sun, open for itself a way through the man's dark night and overcome the darkness of wrath, but so gradually that the sky within is at first only streaked as it were with the red of the morning dawn, the herald of the sun. A second figure of a promising character follows. The man is sick unto death; but when the love of vigour, and his recovery springs up suddenly; he feels within him a new life working through with energetic force like a miraculous springing up of verdure from the earth, or of growing and flowering plants. The only other passages in which n:n">X occurs are in the books of Jeremiah, Chronicles, and Nehemiah. It signifies recovery (LXX. here, rh Idfiard gov Tayy dvareXel, an old mistake for Ifjudria, vestimenta), and hence general prosperity (2 Chron. xxiv. 13). It always occurs with the predicate anpy (causative TOn, cf. Targ. Ps. cxlvii. 3, Njp"]^ pDS? another reading P?"W), oritur (for which we have here poetically germinat) alicui sanitas; hence Gesenius and others have inferred, that the word originally meant the binding up of a wound, bandage (imponitur alicui fascia). But the primary word is "H^N —- T)$,, to set to rights, to restore or put into the right condition (e.g. b. Sabbath 336, " he cured his wounded flesh"), connected with T1^, Arab, drak, accommodatus; so that nrinK, after the form ^Im, Arab, (though rarely) arika, signifies properly, setting to rights, i.e. restoration.
The third promise is: " thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will gather thee, or keep thee together," i.e. be thy rear-guard (LXX. irepio-Teka, ere, enclose thee with its protection; *1DK as in *1?N», ch. Hi. 12). The fiimre is a significant one: the first of the mercies of God is hucaiovv, and the last &o%d£eiv. When Israel is diligent in the performance of works of compassionate love, it is like an army on the march or a travelling caravan, for which righteousness clears and shows the way as being the most appropriate gift of God, and whose rear is closed by the glory of God, which so conducts it to its goal that not one is left behind. The fourth promise assures them of the immediate hearing of prayer, of every appeal to God, every cry for help.
But before the prophet brings his promises up to their culminating point, he once more lays down the condition upon which they rest. Vers. 96-12. u If thou put away from the midst of thee the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking of evil, and offerest up thy gluttony to the hungry, and satisftest the soid that is bowed down: thy light will stream out in the darkness, and thy darkness become like the brightness of noon-day. And Jehovah will guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in droughts, and refresh thy bones; and thou wilt become like a wellwatered garden, and like a fountain, whose waters never deceive. And thy people will build ruins of the olden time, foundations of earlier generations wilt thou erect; and men will call thee repairers of breaches, restorers of habitable streets? n9^> a yoke, is here equivalent to yoking or oppression, as in ver. 6a, where it stands by the side of VVh. JJ3W"rw (only met with here, for riW, Ges. § 65, 1, a), the stretching out of the finger, signifies a scornful pointing with the fingers (Prov. vi. 13, SaKTvXo- SeiKrecv) at humbler men, and especially at such as are godly (ch. lvii. 4). |jK""W5J the utterance of things which are wicked in themselves and injurious to one's neighbour, hence sinful conversation in general. The early commentators looked for more under 1^?$, than is really meant (and so does even Stier: " thy soul, thy heart, all thy sympathetic feelings," etc.). The name of the soul, which is regarded here as greedily longing (ch. lvi. 11), is used in Deut. xxiv. 6 for that which nourishes it, and here for that which it longs for; the longing itself (appetitus) for the object of the longing (Psychol, p. 204). We may see this very clearly from the choice of the verb PBH (a voluntative in a conditional clause, Ges. § 128, 2), which, starting from the primary meaning educere (related to p£3, Arabic ajifaqa, to give out, distribute, nafaqa, distribution, especially of alms), signifies both to work out, acquire, carry off (Prov. iii. 13, viii. 35, etc.), and also to take out, deliver, offer, expromere (as in this instance and Ps. cxl. 9, cxliv. 13). The soul "bowed down" is bowed down in this instance through abstinence. The apodoses commence with the perf. cons. rnn. fPiDS is the darkness caused by the utter absence of light (Arab. afalat esh-shemsu, " the sun has become invisible "); see at Job x. 22. This, as the substantive clause affirms, is like the noon-day, which is called E!1£H> Decause at tnat point the daylight of both the forenoon and afternoon, the rising and setting light, is divided as it were into two by the climax which it has attained. A new promise points to the fact, that such a man may enjoy without intermission the mild and safe guidance of divine grace, for which nnj (nroil, syn.?HJ) is the word commonly employed; and another to the communication of the most copious supply of strength. The aira^ <yeyp. ninvnva does not state with what God will satisfy the soul, as Hahn supposes (after Jerome, " splendoribus"), but according to nrrn^ (Ps. lxviii. 7) and such promises as ch. xliii. 20, xlviii. 21, xlix. 10, the kind of satisfaction and the circumstances under which it occurs, viz. in extreme droughts (Targ. " years of drought"). In the place of the perf. cons, we have then the future, which facilitates the elevation of the object: "and thy bones will He make strong," T?^., for which Hupfeld would read *V^n\ "will He rejuvenate." YynP is a denom. of p'5", expeditus; it may, however, be directly derived from a verb }vnf presupposed by cwn, not, however, in the meaning " to be fat" (LXX. Tnav6r}cr6T(u, and so also Kimchi), but " to be strong," lit. to be loose or ready for action; and b. Jebamotli 1026 has the very suitable gloss WJ WT (making the bones strong). Tli is idea of invigorating is then unfolded in two different figures, of which that of a well-watered garden sets forth the abundance received, that of a spring the abundance possessed. Natural objects are promised, but as a gift of grace; for this is the difference between the two testaments, that in the Old Testament the natural is ever striving to reach the spiritual, whereas in the New Testament the spiritual lifts up the natural to its own level. The Old Testament is ever striving to give inwardness to what was outward; in the New Testament this object is attained, and the further object now is to make the outward conformed to the inward, the natural life to the spiritual. The last promise (whether the seventh or eighth, depends upon whether we include the growing of the morning light into the light of noon, or not) takes its form from the pining of the exiles for their home: " and thy people (j\®b) build" (Ewald, § 295, c); and Bottcher would read 10D till; but IP with a passive, although more admissible in Hebrew than in Arabic, is very rarely met with, and then more frequently in the sense of airo than in that of viro, and til followed by a plural of the thing would be more exact than customary. Moreover, there is no force in the objection that 1&» with the active can only signify " some of thee," since it is equivalent to "]»» "!£&, those who sprang from thee and belong to thee by kindred descent. The members born to the congregation in exile will begin, as soon as they return to their home, to build up again the ruins of olden time, the foundations of earlier generations, i.e. houses and cities of which only the foundations are left (ch. lxi. 4); therefore Israel restored to its fatherland receives the honourable title of "builder of breaches," "restorer of streets (i.e. of places much frequented once) nig6 " (for inhabiting), i.e. so that, although so desolate now (ch. xxxiii. 8), they becomo habitable and populous once more.
The third part of the prophecy now adds to the duties of human love the duty of keeping the Sabbath, together with equally great promises; i.e. it adds the duties of the first table to those of the second, for the service of works is sanctified by the service of worship. Vers. 13, 14. u If thou hold back thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy business on my holy day, and callest the Sabbath a delight, the holy of Jehovah, reverer, and honourest it, not doing thine own ways, not pursuing thy business and speaking words: then wilt thou have delight in Jehovah, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the land, and make thee enjoy the inheritance of Jacob thy forefather, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it." The duty of keeping the Sabbath is also enforced by Jeremiah (ch. xvii. 19 sqq.) and Ezekiel (ch. xx. 12 sqq., xxii. 8, 26), and the neglect of this duty severely condemned. Ch. lvi. has already shown the importance attached to it by our prophet. The Sabbath, above all other institutions appointed by the law, was the true means of uniting and sustaining Israel as a religious community, more especially in exile, where a great part of the worship necessarily fell into abeyance on account of its intimate connection with Jerusalem and the holy land; but whilst it was a Mosaic institution so far as its legal appointments were concerned, it rested, in a way which reached even beyond the rite of circumcision, upon a basis much older than that of the law, being a ceremonial copy of the Sabbath of creation, which was the divine rest established by God as the true object of all motion; for God entered into Himself again after He had created the world out of Himself, that all created things might enter into Him. In order that this, the great end set before all creation, and especially before mankind, viz. entrance into the rest of God, might be secured, the keeping of the Sabbath prescribed by the law was a divine method of education, which put an end every week to the ordinary avocations of the people, with their secular influence and their tendency to fix the mind on outward things, and was designed by the strict prohibition of all work to force them to enter into themselves and occupy their minds with God and His word. The prophet does not hedge round this commandment to keep the Sabbath with any new precepts, but merely demands for its observance full truth answering to the spirit of the letter. u If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath " is equivalent to, if thou do not tread upon its holy ground with a foot occupied with its everyday work, rtifeg which follows is not elliptical (= HlfeTO answering to HSlBJp, an unnecessary and mistaken assumption), but an explanatory pcrmutative of the object "thy foot:" "turn away thy foot," viz. from attending to thy business (a defective plural) on my holy day. Again, if thou call (i.e. from inward contemplation and esteem) the Sabbath a pleasure (oneg, because it leads thee to God, and not a burden because it leads thee away from thine everyday life; cf. Amos viii. 5) and the holy one of Jehovah (on this masculine personification of the Sabbath, see ch. lvi. 2), " mekhubbdd" honoured = honourable, honorandus (see vol. i. p. 128), and if thou truly honourest him, whom Jehovah has invested wTith the splendour of His own glory (Gen. ii. 3: "and sanctified it"), "not" (p = ware firj) "to perform thy ways " (the ordinary ways which relate to selfpreservation, not to God), " not to attend to thine own business" (see at ver. 3) " and make wTords," viz. words of vain useless character and needless multitude ("^""i^rn as in Hos. x. 4, denoting unspiritual gossip and boasting);1 then, just as the Sabbath is thy pleasure, so wilt thou have thy pleasure in Jehovah, i.e. enjoy His delightful fellowship ('«TvP ^ynn, a promise as in Job xxii. 26), and He will reward thee for thy
1 Hitzig observes, that " the law of the Sabbath has already received the Jewish addition, ' speaking is work.' " But from the premiss that the sabbatical rest of God was rest from speaking His creating word (Ps. xxxiii. 6), all the conclusion that tradition has ever drawn is, that on the Sabbath men must to a certain extent rest TQTnD as well as n^y?DD; and when R. Simon b. Jochai exclaimed to his loquacious old mother on the Sabbath, "Keeping the Sabbath means keeping silence," his meaning was not that talking in itself was working and therefore all conversation was forbidden on the Sabbath. Tradition never went as far as this. The rabbinical exposition of the passage before us is the following: " Let not thy talking on the Sabbath be the same as that on working days; " and when it is stated once in the Jerusalem Talmud that the Rabbins could hardly bring themselves to allow of friendly greetings on the Sabbath, it certainly follows from this, that $hey did not forbid them. Even the author of the r6"B> OVOn JYirn^ *JB>) with its excessive ceremonial stringency goes no further than this, that on the Sabbath men must abstain from pin **OT. And is it possible that our prophet can have been more stringent than the strictest traditionalists, and wished to make the keeper of the Sabbath a Carthusian monk? There could not be a more thorough perversion of the spirit of prophecy than this.
renunciation of earthly advantages with a victorious reign, with an unapproachable possession of the high places of the land — ■ i.e. chiefly, though not exclusively, of the promised land, which shall then be restored to thee, — and with the free and undisputed usufruct of the inheritance promised to thy forefather Jacob (Ps. cv. 10, 11; Deut. xxxii. 13 and xxxiii. 29); — this will be thy glorious reward, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. Thus does Isaiah confirm the predictions of ch. i. 20 and xl. 25 (compare ch. xxiv. 3 and the passages quoted at vol. i. p. 425).
This second prophetic address continues the reproachful theme of the first. In the previous prophecy we found the virtues which are well-pleasing to God, and to which He promises redemption as a reward of grace, set in contrast with those false means, upon which the people rested their claim to redemption. In the prophecy before us the sins which retard redemption are still more directly exposed. Vers. 1, 2. " Behold, Jehovalis hand is not too short to help, nor His ear too Iieavy to hear; but your iniquities have become a party-wall between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear" The reason why redemption is delayed, is not that the power of Jehovah has not been sufficient for it (cf. ch. 1. 2), or that He has not been aware of their desire for it, but that their iniquities (D^Tiriy with the second syllable defective) have become" dividers (Dv'DD, defective), have grown into a party-wall between them and their God, and their sins (cf. Jer. v. 25) have hidden pdnim from them. As the " hand" (ydd) in ch. xxviii. 2 is the absolute hand; so here the u face" (pdnim) is that face which sees everything, which is everywhere present, whether uncovered or concealed; which diffuses light when it unveils itself, and leaves darkness when it is veiled; the sight of which is blessedness, and not to see which is damnation. This absolute countenance is never to be seen in this life without a veil; but the rejection and abuse of grace make this veil a perfectly impenetrable covering. And Israel had forfeited in this way the linrlit and sight of this countenance of God, and had raised a party-wall between itself and Him, and that TOfp, so that He did not hear, i.e. so that their prayer did not reach Him (Lam. iii. 44) or bring down an answer from Him.
The sins of Israel are sins in words and deeds. Ver. 3. " For your hands are defiled with bloody and your fingers with iniquity; your lips speak lies, your tongue murmurs wickedness." The verb p$\, to spot (see ch. lxiii. 3), is a later softening down of?V\ (e.g. 2 Sam. i. 21); and in the place of the niphal?MJ (Zeph. iii. 1), we have here, as in Lam. iv. 14, the double passive form?SM, compounded of niphal and pual. The post-biblical nithpael, compounded of the niphal and the hithpael, is a mixed form of the same kind, though we also meet with it in a few biblical passages (Deut. xxi. 8; Prov. xxvii. 15; Ezek. xxiii. 48). The verb hdgdh (LXX. /jbeXera) combines the two meanings of " thought" (meditation or reflection), and of a light low " expression," half inward half outward.
The description now passes over to the social and judicial life. Lying and oppression universally prevail. Vers. 4-6. " No one speaks with justice, and no one pleads with faithfulness; men trust in vanity, and speak with deception; they conceive trouble, and bring forth ruin. They hatch basilisks eggs, and weave spiders webs. He that eateth of their eggs must die; and if one is trodden upon, it splits into an adder. Their webs do not suffice for clothing, and men cannot cover themselves with their works: their works are works of ruin, and the practice of injustice is in their hands." As fcTjiJ is generally used in these prophetic addresses in the sense of Knpvaaeuv, and the judicial meaning, citare, in jus vocare, litem intendere, cannot be sustained, we must adopt this explanation, " no one gives public evidence with justice" (LXX. ovheh \a\el BUata). P*J>* is firm adherence to the rule of right and truth; n^BK a conscientious reliance which awakens trust; BQ^D (in a reciprocal sense, as in ch. xliii. 26, Ixvi. 16) signifies the commencement and pursuit of a law-suit with any one. The abstract infinitives which follow in ver. 4b express the general characteristics of the social life of that time, after the manner of the historical infinitive in Latin (cf. ch. xxi. 5; Ges. § 131, 4, b). Men trust in tohu, that which is perfectly destitute of truth, and speak KJf, what »<■ morally corrupt and worthless. The double figure px yty!X\ bay hn is taken from Job xv. 35 (cf. Vs. vii. 15). ^">n (compare the poel in ver. 13) is only another form for nin (Ges. § 131, 4, b); and Ivffl (the western or Palestinian reading here), or TO«1 (the oriental or Babylonian reading), is the usual form of the inf. abs. hiph. (Ges. § 53, Anm. 2). What they carry about with them and set in operation is compared in ver. 5« to basilisks' eggs (^typy, serpens regulus, as in ch. xi. 8) and spiders' webs (^33^ as in Job viii. 14, from 23V, possibly in the sense of squatter, sitter still, with the substantive ending ish; see Jeshurun, p. 228). They hatch basilisks' eggs (Vi?3 like y£3, ch. xxxiv. 15, a perfect, denoting that which has hitherto always taken place and therefore is a customary thing); and they sp>in spiders' webs (J*]N possibly related to apd%-vr);l the future denoting that which goes on occurring). The point of comparison in the first figure is the injurious nature of all they do, whether men rely upon it, in which case u he that eateth of their eggs dieth," or whether they are bold or imprudent enough to try and frustrate their plans and performances, when that (the egg) which is crushed or trodden upon splits into an adder, i.e. sends out an adder, wdiich snaps at the heel of the disturber of its rest, lit as in Job xxxix. 15, here the part. pass, f 'em. like rryiD (ch. xlix. 21), with — instead of —, like n37j the original a of the feminine (zurath) having returned from its lengthening into a to the weaker lengthening into e. The point of comparison in the second figure is the worthlessness and deceptive character of their works. What they spin and make does not serve for a covering to any man (*D3JV with the most general subject: Ges. § 137, 3), but has simply the appearance of usefulness; their works are IJ^'^yo (with metheg, not munach, under the Mem), evil works, and their acts are all directed to the injury of their neighbour, in his right and his possession.
This evil doing of theirs rises even to hatred, the very opposite of that love which is well-pleasing to God. Ver. 7. " Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed innocent blood;
1 Neither xulpog nor ccpd,%vY) has hitherto been traced to an Indian root in any admissible way. Benfey deduces the former from the root dhvri (to twist); but this root has to perform an immense number of services M. Miiller deduces the latter from rak; but this means to make, not to spin.
their thoughts are thoughts of wickedness; wasting and destruction are in their paths.1' Paul has interwoven this passage into his description of the universal corruption of morals, in Rom. iii. 15-17. The comparison of life to a road, and of a man's conduct to walking, is very common in proverbial sayings. The prophet has here taken from them both his simile and his expressions. We may see from ver. 7a, that during the captivity the true believers were persecuted even to death by their countrymen, who had forgotten God. The verbs WV and Virion (the proper reading, with metheg, not munach, under the E>) depict the pleasure taken in wickedness, when the conscience is thoroughly lulled to sleep.
Their whole nature is broken up into discord. Ver. 8. " The way of peace they know not, and there is no right in their roads: they make their paths crooked: every one who treads upon them knows no peace." With T?/i!, the way upon which a man goes, the prophet uses interchangeably (here and in ver. 7) n?DD? a high-road thrown up with an embankment;?jyp (with the plural in im and 6th), a carriage-road; and nyru, a footpath formed by the constant passing to and fro of travellers. Peaceable conduct, springing from a love of peace, and aiming at producing peace, is altogether strange to them; no such thing is to be met with in their path as the recognition or practice of right: they make their paths for themselves (&[?', dat. ethicus), i.e. most diligently, twisting about; and whoever treads upon them (bah, neuter, as in ch. xxvii. 4), forfeits all enjoyment of either inward or outward peace. Shalom is repeated significantly, in Isaiah's peculiar style, at the end of the verse. The first strophe of the prophecy closes here: it was from no want of power or willingness on the part of God, that He had not come to the help of His people; the fault lay in their own sins.
In the second strophe the prophet includes himself when speaking of the people. They now mourn over that state of exhaustion into which they have been brought through the perpetual straining and disappointment of expectation, and confess those sins on account of which the righteousness and salvation of Jehovah have been withheld. The prophet is speaking communicatively here; for even the better portion of the nation was involved in the guilt and consequences of the corruption which prevailed among the exiles, inasmuch as a nation forms an organized whole, and the delay of redemption really affected them. Vers. 9-11. " Therefore rigid remains fur from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold darkness; for brightness — we walk in thick darkness. We grope along the wall like the blind, and like eyeless men ice grope: ice stumble in the light of noon-day as in the darkness, and among the living like the dead. We roar all like bears, and moan deeply like doves: ice hope for rigid, and it cometh not; for salvation — it remaineth far off from us." At the end of this group of verses, again, the thought with which it sets out is palindromically repeated. The perfect niJQ]J denotes a state of things reaching from the past into the present; the future uyfrn a state of things continuing unchangeable in the present. By mishpdt we understand a solution of existing inequalities or incongruities through the judicial interposition of God; by tseddqdh the manifestation of justice, which bestows upon Israel grace as its right in accordance with the plan of salvation after the long continuance of punishment, and pours out merited punishment upon the instruments employed in punishing Israel. The prophet's standpoint, whether a real or an ideal one, is the last decade of the captivity. At that time, about the period of the Lydian war, when Cyrus wTas making one prosperous stroke after another, and yet waited so long before he turned his arms against Babylon, it may easily be supposed that hope and despondency alternated incessantly in the minds of the exiles. The dark future, which the prophet penetrated in the light of the Spirit, was indeed broken up by rays of hope, but it did not amount to light, i.e. to a perfect lighting up (iiegdhoth, an intensified plural of negohdh, like nekhochoth in eh. xxvi. 10, pi. of nekhochdh in ver. 14); on the contrary, darkness was still the prevailing state, and in the deep thick darkness ('dpheldth) the exiles pined away, without the promised release being effected for them by the oppressor of the nations. " We grope," they here complain, " like "blind men by a wall, in which there is no opening, and like eyeless men we grope." W3 (only used here) is a synonym of the older * (Deut. xxviii. 29); rwfe&J (with the elision of the reduplication, which it is hardly possible to render audible, and which comes up again in the pausal nvwty has the ah of force, here of the impulse to self-preservation, which leads them to grope for an outlet in this airopla; and &?V T^ is not quite synonymous with D*!W, for there is such a thing as blindness with apparently sound eyes (cf. ch. xliii. 8); and there is also a real absence of eyes, on account of either a natural malformation, or the actual loss of the eyes through either external injury or disease. In the lamentation which follows, " we stumble in the light of noon-day (B^JJ-Jj meridies = mesidies, the culminating point at which the eastern light is separated from the western) as if it were darkness, and D^DBfca, as if we were dead men," we may infer from the parallelism that since Ds30Kto must express some antithesis to &™?, it cannot mean either in caliginosis (Jer., Luther, etc.), or "in the graves" (Targ., D. Kimchi, etc.), or "in desolate places" (J. Kimchi). Moreover, there is no such word in Hebrew as B&'tf, to be dark, although the lexicographers give a Syriac word NJ*?™K, thick darkness (possibly related to <Ulz, which does not mean the dark night, but late in the night); and the verb slidmen, to be fat, is never applied to " fat, i.e. thick darkness," as Knobel assumes, whilst the form of the word with J c. dagesh precludes the meaning a solitary place or desert (from DKW = DDB>). The form in question points rather to the verbal stem JE2>, which yields a fitting antithesis to DTIEO, whether we explain it as meaning "in luxuriant fields," or "among the fat ones, i.e. those who glory in their abundant health." We prefer the latter, since the word mishmannlm (Dan. xi. 24; cf. Gen. xxvii. 28) had already been coined to express the other idea; and as a rule, words formed with K prosth. point rather to an attributive than to a substantive idea. |WN is a more emphatic form of \QW (Judg. iii. 29); * and ^|0^« indicates indirectly the very same thing which is directly expressed by B^Dtr'p in ch. x. 16. Such explanations as " in opimis rebus " (Stier, etc.), or " in fat-
1 The name of the Phoenician god of health and prosperity, viz. Esmoun, which Alois Muller (Esmun, ein Beitrag zur Mythologie des orient. Altertliums. 18G-4) traces to peri (Ps. lxviii. 32) from DBW = Dtt>"n, uthe splendid one (illustris)" probably means "the healthy one, or one of full health " (after the form Tint's, iTKDKfc), which agrees somewhat better with the account of Photios: "Ea/xovvou uttq ^qivikuu uvo^xo^iviy W\ rji dippy T^g £«jjf.
ness of body, i.e. fulness of life" (Bottcher), are neither so suitable to the form of the word, nor do they answer to the circumstances referred to here, where all the people in exile are speaking. The true meaning therefore is, " we stumble (reel about) among fat ones, or those who lead a merry life," as if we were dead. "And what," as Dcederlein observes, "can be imagined more gloomy and sad, than to be wandering about like shades, while others are fat and flourishing?" The growling and moaning in ver. 11 are expressions of impatience and pain produced by longing. The people now fall into a state of impatience, and roar like bears (Jidmdh like fremere), as when, for example, a bear scents a flock, and prowls about it (yespertinus circumgemit ursus ovile: Hor. Ep. xvi. 51); and now again they give themselves up to melancholy, and moan in a low and mournful tone like the doves, quarum blanditias verbaque murmur habet (Ovid). nwy like murmurare, expresses less depth of tone or raucitas than nnn. All their looking for righteousness and salvation turns out again and again to be nothing but self-deception, when the time for their coming seems close at hand.
The people have already indicated by \3sV in ver. 9 that this benighted, hopeless state is the consequence of their prevailing sins; they now come back to this, and strike the note of penitence (viddui), which is easily recognised by the recurring rhymes dnu and enu. The prophet makes the confession (as in Jer. xiv. 19, 20, cf. iii. 21 sqq.), standing at the head of the people as the leader of their prayer (baal fphilldh): Vers. 12, 13, " For our transgressions are many before Thee, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are known to us, and our evil deeds vjell known: apostasy and denial of Jehovah, and turning back from following our God, oppressive and false speaking, receiving and giving out from the heart words of falsehood " The people acknowledge the multitude and magnitude of their apostate deeds, which are the object of the omniscience of God, and their sins which bear witness against them (pr}W the predicate of a neuter plural; Ges. § 146, 3). The second *3 resumes the first: " our apostate deeds are with us (HX as in Job xii. 3; cf. DP, Job xv. 9), i.e. we are conscious of them; and our misdeeds, we know them " (BUJfjJ for jUVT, as in Gen. xli. 23, cf. 6, and with V., as is always the case with verbs ]fh before 3, and with a suffix; Ewald, § 60). The sins are now enumerated in ver. 13 in abstract infinitive forms. At the head stands apostasy in thought and deed, which is expressed as a threefold sin. 'H3 (of Jehovah) belongs to both the " apostasy " (treachery; e.g. ch. i. 2) and the " denial " (Jer. v. 12). JiD3 is an inf. abs. (different from Ps. lxxx. 19). Then follow sins against the neighbour: viz. such speaking as leads to oppression, and consists of sdrdh, that which deviates from or is opposed to the law and truth (Deut. xix. 16); also the conception (concipere) of lying words, and the utterance of them from the heart in which they are conceived (Matt. xv. 18, xii. 35). Wl and fan are the only poel infinitives which occur in the Old Testament, just as "Wit? (ch. x. 13) is the only example of & poel perfect of a verb n"7. The poel is suitable throughout this passage, because the action expressed affects others, and is intended to do them harm. According to Ewald, the poel indicates the object or tendency: it is the conjugation employed to denote seeking, attacking, or laying hold of; e.g. I^v, lingua petere, i.e. to calumniate; \^V, oculo petere, i.e. to envy.
The confession of personal sins is followed by that of the sinful state of society. Vers. 14, 15a. "And right is forced back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth has fallen in the market-place, and honesty finds no admission. And truth became missing, and he who avoids evil is outlawed." In connection with mishpdt and tseddqdh here, we have not to think of the manifestation of divine judgment and justice which is prevented from being realized; but the people are here continuing the confession of their own moral depravity. Right has been forced back from the place which it ought to occupy (hisslg is the word applied in the law to the removal of boundaries), and righteousness has to look from afar off at the unjust habits of the people, without being able to interpose. And why are right and righteousness — that united pair so pleasing to God and beneficial to man — thrust out of the nation, and why do they stand without? Because there is no truth or uprightness in the nation. Truth wanders about, and stands no longer in the midst of the nation; but upon the open street, the broad market-place, where justice is administered, and where she ought above all to stand upright and be preserved upright, she had stumbled and fallen down (cf. ch. iii. 8); and honesty (jfkhochdh), which goes straight forward^ vrould gladly enter the limits of the forum, but she cannot: people and judges alike form a barrier which keeps her back. The consequence of this is indicated in ver. 15a: truth in its manifold practical forms has become a missing thing; and whoever avoids the existing voice is mishtolel (part. hithpoel, not hithpoai), one who is obliged to let himself be plundered and stripped (Ps. lxxvi. 6), to be made a sholdl (Mic. i. 8), Arab. maslub, with a passive turn given to the reflective meaning, as in b'2nnn? to cause one's self to be spied out = to disguise one's self, and as in the so-called niphal tolerativum (Ewald, 133, b, 2).
The third strophe of the prophecy commences at ver. 156 or ver. 16. It begins with threatening, and closes with promises; for the true nature of God is love, and every manifestation of wrath is merely one phase in its development. In consideration of the fact that this corrupt state of things furnishes no prospect of self-improvement, Jehovah has already equipped Himself for judicial interposition. Vers. 155-18. u And Jehovah saw it, and it ivas displeasing in His eyes, that there icas no right. And He saiv that there icas not a man anywhere, and icas astonished that there icas nowhere an intercessor: then His arm brought Him help, and His righteousness became His stay. And He put on righteousness as a coat of mail, and the helmet of salvation upon His head; and put on garments of vengeance as armour, and clothed Himself in zeal as in a cloak. According to the deeds, accordingly He icill repay: burning wrath to His adversaries, punishment to His foes; the islands He will repay with chastisement." The prophet's language has now toilsomely worked its way through the underwood of keen reproach, of dark descriptions of character, and of mournful confession which has brought up the apostasy of the great mass in all the blacker colours before his mind, from the fact that the confession proceeds from those who are ready for salvation. And now, having come to the description of the approaching judgment, out of whose furnace the church of the future is to spring, it rises again like a palm-tree that has been violently hurled to the ground, and shakes its head as if restored to itself in the transforming ether of the future.
Jehovah saw, and it excited His displeasure (" it was evil in His eyes," an antiquated phrase from the Pentateuch, e.g. Gen. xxxviii. 10) to see that right (which He loves, ch. lxi. 8; Ps. xxxvii. 28) had vanished from the life of His nation. He saw that there was no man there, no man possessing either the disposition or the power to stem this corruption (B^K as in Jer. v. 1, cf. 1 Sam. iv. 9, 1 Kings ii. 2, and the old Jewish saying, " Where there is no man, I strive to be a man "). He was astonished (the sight of such total depravity exciting in Him the highest degree of compassion and displeasure) that there was no V^ptp, i.e. no one to step in between God and the people, and by his intercession to press this disastrous condition of the people upon the attention of God (see ch. liii. 12); no one to form a wall against the coming ruin, and cover the rent with his body; no one to appease the wrath, like Aaron (Num. xvii. 12, 13) or Phinehas (Num. xxv. 7). What the fut. consec. affirms from y^ifll onwards, is not something to come, hut something past, as distinguished from the coming events an* nounced from ver. 18 onwards. Because the nation was sa utterly and deeply corrupt, Jehovah had equipped Himself for judicial interposition. The equipment was already completed; only the taking of vengeance remained to be effected. Jehovah saw no man at His side who was either able or willing to help Him to His right in opposition to the prevailing abominations, or to support His cause. Then His own arm became His help, and His righteousness His support (cf. ch. lxiii. 5); so that He did not desist from the judgment to which He felt Himself impelled, until He had procured the fullest satisfaction for the honour of His holiness (ch. v. 16). The armour which Jehovah puts on is now described. According to the scriptural view, Jehovah is never unclothed; but the free radiation of His own nature shapes itself into a garment of light. Light is the robe He wears (Ps. civ. 2). When the prophet describes this garment of light as changed into a suit of armour, this must be understood in the same sense as when the apostle in Eph. vi. speaks of a Christian's panoply. Just as there the separate pieces of armour represent the manifold self-manifestations of the inward spiritual life, so here the pieces of Jehovah's armour stand for the manifold self-manifestations of His holy nature, which consist of a mixture of wrath and love. He does not arm Himself from any outward armoury; but the armoury is His infinite wrath and His infinite love, and the might in which He manifests Himself in such and such a way to His creatures is His infinite will. He puts on righteousness as a coat of mail (|pB> in half pause, as in 1 Kings xxii. 34 in full pause, for JV~)^, o passing into the broader a, as is generally the case in Y^., B*3rF; also in Gen. xliii. 14, vfatf; xlix. 3, W; xlix. 27, *W), so that His appearance on every side is righteousness; and on His head He sets the helmet of salvation: for the ultimate object for which He goes into the conflict is the redemption of the oppressed, salvation as the fruit of the victory gained by righteousness. And over the coat of mail He draws on clothes of vengeance as a tabard (LXX. Trepi/SoXaiov), and wraps Himself in zeal as in a war-cloak. The inexorable justice of God is compared to an impenetrable brazen coat of mail; His joyful salvation, to a helmet which glitters from afar; His vengeance, with its manifold inflictions of punishment, to the clothes worn above the coat of mail; and His wrathful zeal (nwjp from WiJ, to be deep red) with the fiery-looking chlamys. No weapon is mentioned, neither sword nor bow; for His own arm procures Him help, and this alone. But what will Jehovah do, when He has armed Himself thus with justice and salvation, vengeance and zeal? As ver. 18 affirms, He will carry out a severe and general retributive judgment. S^DS and H7D3 signify accomplishment of (on gdmal, see at ch. iii. 9) a prjfia fieaov; flippy which may signify, according to the context, either manifestations of love or manifestations of wrath, and either retribution as looked at from the side of God, or forfeiture as regarded from the side of man, has the latter meaning here, viz. the works of men and the double-sided gemul, i.e. repayment, and that in the infliction of punishment, byp, as if, as on account of, signifies, according to its Semitic use, in the measure (3) of that which is fitting (by); cf. ch. lxiii. 7, uti par est propter. It is repeated with emphasis (like p? in ch. Iii. 6); the second stands without rectum, as the correlate of the first. By the adversaries and enemies, we naturally understand, after what goes before, the rebellious Israelites. The prophet does not mention these, however, but u the islands," that is to say, the heathen world. He hides the special judgment upon Israel in the general judgment upon the nations. The very same fate falls upon Israel, the salt of the world which has lost its savour, as upon the whole of the ungodly world. The purified church will have its place in the midst of a world out of which the crying injustice has been swept away.
The prophet now proceeds to depict the njn^, the symbol of which is the helmet upon Jehovah's head. Vers. 19, 20. " And they will fear the name of Jehovah from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun: for He will come like a stream dammed up, which a tempest of Jehovah drives away. And a Redeemer comes for Zion, and for those ivho turn from apostasy in Jacob, saith Jehovah." Instead of WTJ, Knobel would strike out the metheg, and read HTW, " and they will see;" but "seeing the name of Jehovah" (the usual expression is "seeing His glory") is a phrase that cannot be met with, though it is certainly a passable one; and the relation ia which ver. 196 stands to 19a does not recommend the alteration, since ver. 196 attributes that general fear of the name of Jehovah (cf. Deut. xxviii. 58) and of His glory (see the parallel overlooked by. Knobel, Ps. cii. 16), which follows the manifestation cf judgment on the part of Jehovah, to the manner in which this manifestation occurs. Moreover, the true Masoretic reading in this passage is not WTV1 (as in Mic. vii. 17), but 1X-n (see Norzi). The two \0 in 3^0 (with the indispensable metheg before the chateph, and a second to ensure clearness of pronunciation) 1 and ^p^'TiiTtpDI (also with the so-called strong metheg)2 indicate the terminus a quo. From all quarters of the globe will fear of the name and of the glory of Jehovah become naturalized among the nations of the world. For when God has withdrawn His name and His glory from the world's history, as during the Babylonian captivity (and also at the present time), the return of both is all the more intense and extraordinary; and this is represented here in a figure which recals ch. xxx. 27, 28, x. 22, 23 (cf. Ezek. xliii. 2). The accentuation, which gives pashta to 1^1?, does indeed appear to make "tt the subject, either in the sense of oppressor or adversary, as in Lam. iv. 12, or in that of oppression, as in ch. xxv. 4, xxvi. 10, xxx. 20. The former is quite out of the question, since no such transition to a human instrument of the retributive judgment could well take place after the Vnv? nDn in ver. 18. In support of the latter, it would be possible to quote ch. xlviii. 18 and lxvi. 12, since "i¥ is the antithesis to shdlom. But according to such parallels as ch. xxx. 27, 28, it is incomparably more natural to take Jehovah (His name, His glory) as the subject. Moreover, to, which must in any case refer to "irrjD, is opposed to the idea that "i¥ is the subject, to which U would have the most natural claim to be referred, — an explanation indeed which Stier and Halm have really tried, taking nDDi: as in Ps. Ix. 4, and rendering it " The Spirit of Jehovah holds up a banner against him, viz. the enemy." If, however, Jehovah is the subject to fcfcj, TO "IH3D must be taken together (like DSPDD... DJB3, ch. xi. 9; naiD igjri, Ps. cxliii. 10; Ges.^§ 111, 2, b), either in the sense of u a hemming stream," one causing as it were a state of siege (from tsiir, ch. xxi. 2, xxix. 3), or, better still, according to the adjective use of the noun "IV (here with tzakeph, TO from TW) in ch. xxviii. 20, Job xli. 7, 2 Kings vi. 1, a closely confined stream, to whose waters the banks form a compressing dam, which it bursts through when agitated by a tempest, carrying everything away with it. Accordingly, the explanation we adopt is this: Jehovah will come like the stream, a stream hemmed in, which a wind of Jehovah, i.e. (like " the mountains of God," " cedars of God," "garden of Jehovah," ch. li. 3, cf. Num. xxiv. 6) a strong tempestuous w7ind, sweeps away (fa riDDb, ndsesa-b-boi with the tone drawn back and dagesh forte conj. in the monosyllable, the pilel of nils with Beth: to hunt into, to press upon and put to flight), — a figure which also indicates that the Spirit of Jehovah is the driving force in this His judicially gracious revelation of Himself. Then, when the name of Jehovah makes itself legible once more as with letters of fire, when His glory comes like a sea of fire within the horizon of the world's history, all the world from west to east, from east to west, will begin to fear Him. But the true object of the love, which bursts forth through this revelation of wrath, is His church, which includes not only those who have retained their faith, but all who have been truly converted to Him. And He comes (N31 a continuation of N3J) for Zion a Redeemer, i.e. as a Redeemer (a closer definition of the predicate), and* for those who turn away from apostasy (XTCfe *3B*, compare ch. i. 27, and for the genitive connection Mic. ii. 8, n?0r^ *^> those who have turned away from the war). The Vav here does not signify "and indeed," as in ch. lvii. 18, but "more especially." He comes as a Redeemer for Zion, i.e. His church which has remained true, including those who turn again to Jehovah from their previous apostasy. In Rom. xi. 26 the apostle quotes this word of God, which is sealed with " Thus saith Jehovah," as a proof of the final restoration of all Israel; for HVP (according to the Apocalypse, o cov teal 6 r\v koX 6 ip^ofxevo^) is to him the God who moves on through the Old Testament towards the goal of His incarnation, and through the New Testament towards that of His parousia in Christ, which will bring the world's history to a close. But this final close does not take place without its having become apparent at the same time that God u has concluded all in unbelief, that He may have compassion upon all" (Rom. xi. 32).