Isaiah · Chapter 1

1:1, with Hosea 1:1. The Jews tell us that he was of the blood royal of Judah. But undoubtedly he was the prince of all the prophets, whether we consider the great extent and variety of his prophecies, the excellency and sublimity of those mysteries which were revealed to him and by him, the majesty and elegancy of his style, or the incomparable liveliness and power of his sermons. He so evidently and fully describes the person, and offices, and sufferings, and kingdom of Christ, that some of the ancients called him the fifth Evangelist. And it is observed, that there are more quotations in the New Testament taken out of Isaiah, than out of all the other prophets. CHAPTER 1.

Judah’s sins, ver. 1-4. Her judgments, ver. 5-9. Her worship is rejected, ver. 10-15. Exhortations to repentance, promises of grace and mercy, threatenings of sore judgments, and complaints by reason of their backsliding, ver. 16-31. V. 1. Vision-Or, the visions; the word being here collectively used: the sense is, this is the book of the visions or prophecies. As prophets were called Seers, 1 Samuel 9:9, so prophecies are called visions, because they were as clearly and certainly represented to the prophets minds, as bodily objects are to mens eyes. Saw-Foresaw and foretold. But he speaks, after the manner of the prophets, of things to come, as if they were either past or present. Judah-Principally, but not exclusively. For he prophecies also concerning Egypt and Babylon, and divers other countries; yet with respect to Judah. The days-In the time of their reign. Whence it may be gathered, that Isaiah exercised his prophetical office above fifty years altogether.

Verse 1. The vision of Isaiah] It seems doubtful whether this title belongs to the whole book, or only to the prophecy contained in this chapter. The former part of the title seems properly to belong to this particular prophecy; the latter part, which enumerates the kings of Judah under whom Isaiah exercised his prophetical office, seems to extend it to the whole collection of prophecies delivered in the course of his ministry. Vitringa— to whom the world is greatly indebted for his learned labours on this prophet and to whom we should have owed much more if he had not so totally devoted himself to Masoretic authority—has, I think, very judiciously resolved this doubt. He supposes that the former part of the title was originally prefixed to this single prophecy; and that, when the collection of all Isaiah’s prophecies was made, the enumeration of the kings of Judah was added, to make it at the same time a proper title to the whole book. As such it is plainly taken in 2 Chronicles 32:32, where the book of Isaiah is cited by this title: “The vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.”

The prophecy contained in this first chapter stands single and unconnected, making an entire piece of itself. It contains a severe remonstrance against the corruptions prevailing among the Jews of that time, powerful exhortations to repentance, grievous threatenings to the impenitent, and gracious promises of better times, when the nation shall have been reformed by the just judgments of God. The expression, upon the whole, is clear; the connection of the several parts easy; and in regard to the images, sentiments, and style, it gives a beautiful example of the prophet’s elegant manner of writing; though perhaps it may not be equal in these respects to many of the following prophecies.

Verse 1. The vision of Isaiah — “It seems doubtful,” says Bishop Lowth, “whether this title belongs to the whole book, or only to the prophecy contained in this chapter. The former part of the title seems properly to belong to this particular prophecy: the latter part, which enumerates the kings of Judah, under whom Isaiah exercised his prophetical office, seems to appropriate it to the whole collection of prophecies delivered in the course of his ministry. Vitringa, to whom the world is greatly indebted for his learned labours on this prophet, has, I think, very judiciously resolved this doubt. He supposes, that the former part of this title was originally prefixed to this single prophecy; and that when the collection of all Isaiah’s prophecies was made, the enumeration of the kings of Judah was added, to make it, at the same time, a proper title to the whole book. And such it is plainly taken to be, 2 Chronicles 32:32; where the book of Isaiah is cited by this title.” Thus understood, the word vision is used collectively for visions, and the sense is, “This is the book of the visions, or prophecies, of Isaiah.” The reader must observe, the two usual ways, whereby God communicated his will to the prophets, were visions and dreams: see Numbers 12:6. In visions, the inspired persons were awake, but their external senses were bound up, and, as it were, laid asleep in a trance. Thus Balaam describes them as to himself, Numbers 24:16. They are called visions, not from any use made of corporal sight, but because of the clearness and evidence of the things revealed, and the conformity of this kind of inspiration to the information which the mind receives by the sight of the bodily eyes. Hence, also, prophets were called seers, 1 Samuel 9:9. Sometimes, however, visions were accompanied with external representations. See Isaiah 6:1; Ezekiel 40:2; Revelation 21:10. See notes on Isaiah, by Wm. Lowth, B.D. Which he saw — Foresaw and foretold. For he speaks, after the manner of the prophets, of things to come, as if they were either past or present. Concerning Judah — Principally, but not exclusively. For he prophesies also concerning Egypt and Babylon, and divers other countries; yet with respect to Judah. In the days of Uzziah, &c. — In the time of their reign. This, probably, was not the first vision which Isaiah had, but is placed at the beginning of his book, because, together with the four following chapters, it contains a general description of the state of the Jews, under the several judgments which God had brought upon them, and is a fit preface or introduction to the rest of his prophecy.

Verse 1. The vision. What the prophet saw with the eyes of his mind, concerning the state of Judah and Jerusalem, his ministry being chiefly confined to the kingdom of Judea.

Isaiah, the son of Amos, not the prophet Amos, but a nobleman of Judah, who had married the sister of king Amaziah, as is recorded in Zeder ôlam, a Hebrew book. He was therefore first cousin of king Azariah, whom he calls Uzziah, chap. 6. He prophesied in the reign of the four kings, Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, which extended to a period of more than sixty years. The Jews have a tradition, that he lived to the beginning of the reign of Manasseh, when the wicked and apostate rulers, who had utterly corrupted the young king, put him to death for opposing their idolatries. They did it under a cloke of religion, as Jezebel in procuring the death of Naboth. They charged him with blasphemy, for saying, Isaiah 6:1, “I saw the Lord;” alleging against him the words of the Lord to Moses. “Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me, and live.” Exodus 33:20. He was therefore sawn asunder with a wooden saw. It is probable that others about the same time suffered in like manner, for the apostle speaks of those martyrs in the plural number. Hebrews 11:37. This tradition is noticed as undisputed by the christian fathers, Tertullian, Basil, and Hayman. It is also stated by Jerome, in his preface to Isaiah, who must have received the crown of martyrdom when near the hundredth year of his age.

As a prophet, his fame lives through every age of the church. He saved Jerusalem twice when the enemies had invaded the land. He saw the Messiah enthroned in the temple, and spake of his sufferings, of his glory and his kingdom, with light above all others; and on that account he is called the evangelical prophet.—His political views of providence corresponded with those of grace. He saw the wicked and bloody nations which surrounded his country melt away like the snow before the warmer sun. In vision he saw Cyrus, and called him by name; he saw the Lord drying up before him the waters of Babylon, and giving him the hidden treasures of darkness. In a word (Daniel having lived to show the king the parchments) he saw Cyrus emancipate the Jews with largesses, adding, “the Lord God hath commanded me to build him a temple in Jerusalem.” Isaiah left many writings whose loss is much regretted by the rabbins. He wrote a chronicle of all the occurrences in the long reign of king Uzziah. 2 Chronicles 26:22. He wrote a biography of celebrated men, a work often cited by Origen. The ascension of Isaiah is named by Jerome and Epiphanius; and also another book, called the vision or apocalypse of Isaiah.

What was the time, and what the occasion, when the prophecies in the five first chapters of this book were delivered? It is replied, in the time when the young and ill-advised Ahaz had so discovered his weakness and superstition that Retzin king of Syria, and Pekah king of Samaria, united their armies to cut off the house of David, and to divide the kingdom. They slaughtered a hundred and twenty thousand of Ahaz’s army in one day, and led captive two hundred thousand women and children, which the prophet Oded persuaded them to return. Thus at a stroke, that… Ahaz lost all the growing glory of the reign of Uzziah and of Jotham. In this tremendous crisis, when the city was full of refugees, Isaiah was in every place preaching and prophesying like a flame of fire.

1. The vision — This is a programme word — a title applying to this entire book of prophecies, spoken or written during the reigns herein mentioned. The word denotes a supernatural perception, inspiration, revelation, prophecy; here taken collectively for a body of prophecies. Isaiah the son of Amoz — Or Isaiah’s origin nothing is certainly known beyond what is stated in this verse. Nothing whatever is known of his father, Amoz, though many of the Church Fathers supposed him to be the prophet Amos, an error caused, possibly, by the Greek word in the Septuagint being “Amos” for both Amoz and Amos. So noble a character had little need to be known other than as simple “Isaiah.” To this prophet has always been assigned the pre-eminence among the so-called prophets of the Old Testament scriptures. Till the time of Semler (1725-1791) his sole authorship of this book was little called in question. The portion then questioned is the last twenty-seven chapters. Eichhorn and others vigorously continued the dispute, resting their objections on internal reasons purely, such as philological peculiarities, archaisms, and words used once only, and that in the questioned chapters. Gesenius, Ewald, and some lesser lights, have pressed this evidence also against the genuineness of other chapters; for an example, Isaiah 13:1-14:23; also, Isaiah 21:6-10. The ground of opposition is largely the supernatural element in prophecy. It is claimed that what is herein predictive can be accounted for by mere statesmanlike prevision; that, at least, the last twenty-seven chapters are a later production, written at or after the Babylonian captivity. Other pieces of this collection, beside those named, on one or another ground of criticism are denied to Isaiah as the author. Against all this, Drechler, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg, Alexander, Prof. Harman, and others, protest staunchly; and with candour, great learning, and acute criticism, utterly overthrow the opposition. Keil, in his Introduction to the Old Testament, (Eng. trans, in Clark’s Theol. Library,) and Kay, in his Introduction to Isaiah, (Speaker’s Commentary,) give excellent aid to one in search of the facts on this subject: the one discusses generally, but thoroughly, in the interest of unity of authorship in Isaiah; and the other is a valiant demolisher of philological difficulties raised against this unity of authorship. Concerning Judah and Jerusalem — These prophecies all had a bearing, direct or remote, on the people of Judah. Though several were uttered with reference to immediately outlying peoples and to foreign nations, they also had alternate reference to the Jews.

The question as to what time this chapter relates, is difficult to settle. Is it the first prophecy written by Isaiah? Or is it rather a comprehensive introduction, covering by anticipation the average character of the people and age for the entire term of the prophet’s career? The latter is more likely to be the true view, because the more reasonable one. Throughout the chapter the prophet’s central thought is God’s covenant with Israel as a nation, as seen in Leviticus 26, in Deuteronomy 28-32, and in Solomon’s prayer, 1 Kings 9:9.

V. 2. Hear-He directs his speech to those senseless creatures, that he might awaken the Israelites, whom he hereby proclaims to be so dull and stupid that they were past hearing, and therefore calls in the whole creation of God to bear witness against them. The Lord-This is his plea against them, of the equity whereof he is willing that all the creatures should be judges.

Verse 2. Hear, O heavens— “Hear, O ye heavens”] God is introduced as entering into a public action, or pleading, before the whole world, against his disobedient people. The prophet, as herald or officer to proclaim the summons to the court, calls upon all created beings, celestial and terrestrial, to attend and bear witness to the truth of his plea and the justice of his cause. The same scene is more fully displayed in the noble exordium of Psalm 50:1, where God summons all mankind, from east to west, to be present to hear his appeal; and the solemnity is held on Sion, where he is attended with the same terrible pomp that accompanied him on Mount Sinai:—

“A consuming fire goes before him

And round him rages a violent tempest:

He calleth the heavens from above.

And the earth, that he may contend in judgment with his people.” Psalm 50:3, 4.

By the same bold figure, Micah calls upon the mountains, that is, the whole country of Judea, to attend to him, Micah 6:1, 2:— “Arise, plead thou before the mountains,

And let the hills hear thy voice.

Hear, O ye mountains, the controversy of JEHOVAH;

And ye, O ye strong foundations of the earth:

For JEHOVAH hath a controversy with his people,

And he will plead his cause against Israel.”

With the like invocation, Moses introduces his sublime song, the design of which was the same as that of this prophecy, “to testify as a witness, against the Israelites,” for their disobedience, Deuteronomy 31:21:— “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak;

And let the earth hear the words of my mouth.”

Deuteronomy 32:1.

This, in the simple yet strong oratorical style of Moses, is, “I call heaven and earth to witness against thee this day; life and death have I set before thee; the blessing and the curse: choose now life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.” Deuteronomy 30:19. The poetical style, by an apostrophe, sets the personification in a much stronger light. Hath spoken— “That speaketh”] I render it in the present time, pointing it rbd dober. There seems to be an impropriety in demanding attention to a speech already delivered. But the present reading may stand, as the prophet may be here understood to declare to the people what the Lord had first spoken to him.

I have nourished] The Septuagint have egennhsa, “I have begotten.” Instead of ytldg giddalti, they read ytdly yaladti; the word little differing from the other, and perhaps more proper; which the Chaldee likewise seems to favour; “vocavi eos filios.” See Exodus 4:22; Jeremiah 31:9.

Verse 2. Hear, O heavens, &c. — “God is introduced as entering upon a solemn and public action, or pleading, before the whole world, against his disobedient people. The prophet, as herald, or officer, to proclaim the summons to the court, calls upon all created beings, celestial and terrestrial, to attend and bear witness to the truth of his plea, and the justice of his cause.” — Bishop Lowth. See the same scene more fully displayed, Psalm 50:3, 4. With the like invocation Moses begins his sublime song, Deuteronomy 32:1; see also Micah 6:1, 2. For the Lord hath spoken — Or, It is Jehovah that speaketh, as Bishop Lowth renders it, there seeming to be an impropriety in demanding attention to a speech already delivered. I have nourished, &c. — I first made them a people, and, until this time, I have sustained and blessed them above all other nations: God’s care over them is compared to that of parents in nursing and training up their children. And they have rebelled against me — Or, as yb w[vp may be rendered, have revolted from me — Even they, peculiarly favoured as they have been, have proved deserters, nay, traitors, against my crown and dignity. This is the Lord’s plea against them, of the equity of which he is willing that all the creatures should be judges.

Ver. 2. Hear, oh heavens, and give ear, oh earth. Ye heavens that have witnessed the perfidy of this guilty people; and thou, oh earth, that has nourished them with harvests and wine. The like addresses to inanimate nature are used by Moses. Deuteronomy 4:29. By David, Psalm 50:4. The prophet’s mind, full of his subject, bursts at once in effusions the most sublime.

2. Hear, O heavens… give ear, O earth — Here begins a solemn reprehensory appeal against Judah and Jerusalem, filled with digressive yet relevant points, and ending with the fifth chapter. It is in the style of Deuteronomy 32:1, for earth and heaven are unchanging witnesses from the time of Moses to that of Isaiah of the clearness with which God, by his prophets, sets forth his requirements, and their rejection by the people. They are summoned to listen again, for a crisis is reached, and Jehovah speaks. The Lord — Hebrew, hwhy, Yehovah, a name which the Jews never uttered, but used ynda, Adonai, in stead, which means Master, Lord. The other chief name of deity, µyhla, Elohim, designates in the Old Testament a being of power; while Jehovah is the word which expresses what Deity is in himself. More need not here be said of this name, other than that it was the national name of Israel’s God, yet so awfully sacred that it was pronounced only by the substitute name — Adonai. Hath spoken — The preterit is here used for the present — he speaks, though this is not the first time. Hebrews 1:1. He has repeatedly spoken, and still speaks. Nourished and brought up children — From his infancy as a nation God reared Israel. This strain is followed by other prophets. See Hosea 11:1; Jeremiah 2:2, 3. “The Lord” made Israel great, and set him on high. Ezekiel 31:4. Still he rebelled. Such conduct of a covenant people was the greatest of wonders, and heaven and earth are called to attest this fact.

V. 3. Know-Me their owner and master. Knowing is here taken practically, as it is usually in scripture, and includes reverence and obedience.

Verse 3. The ox knoweth] An amplification of the gross insensibility of the disobedient Jews, by comparing them with the most heavy and stupid of all animals, yet not so insensible as they. Bochart has well illustrated the comparison, and shown the peculiar force of it. “He sets them lower than the beasts, and even than the most stupid of all beasts, for there is scarcely any more so than the ox and the ass. Yet these acknowledge their master; they know the manger of their lord; by whom they are fed, not for their own, but for his good; neither are they looked upon as children, but as beasts of burden; neither are they advanced to honours, but oppressed with great and daily labours. While the Israelites, chosen by the mere favour of God, adopted as sons, promoted to the highest dignity, yet acknowledged not their Lord and their God; but despised his commandments, though in the highest degree equitable and just.” Hieroz. i., col. 409. Jeremiah’s comparison to the same purpose is equally elegant, but has not so much spirit and severity as this of Isaiah.

“Even the stork in the heavens knoweth her season;

And the turtle, and the swallow, and the crane,

observe the time of their coming:

But my people doth not know the judgment of JEHOVAH.

Jeremiah 8:7.

Hosea has given a very elegant turn to the same image, in the way of metaphor or allegory:—

“I drew them with human cords, with the bands of love:

And I was to them as he that lifteth up the yoke upon their cheek; And I laid down their fodder before them.”

Hosea 11:4.

Salomo ben Melech thus explains the middle part of the verse, which is somewhat obscure: “I was to them at their desire as they that have compassion on a heifer, lest she be overworked in ploughing; and that lift up the yoke from off her neck, and rest it upon her cheek that she may not still draw, but rest from her labour an hour or two in the day.” But Israel] The Septuagint, Syriac, Aquila, Theodotion, and Vulgate, read larvyw veyisrael, BUT Israel, adding the conjunction, which being rendered as an adversative, sets the opposition in a stronger light. Doth not know] The same ancient versions agree in adding ME, which very properly answers, and indeed is almost necessarily required to answer, the words possessor and lord preceding. Israhl de ME ouk egnw; Sept. “Israel autem ME non cognovit,” Vulg. Israhl de MOU ouk egnw; Aquil., Theod. The testimony of so scrupulous an interpreter as Aquila is of great weight in this case. And both his and Theodotion’s rendering is such as shows plainly that they did not add the word MOU to help out the sense, for it only embarrasses it. It also clearly determines what was the original reading in the old copies from which they translated. It could not be ידעני yedani, which most obviously answers to the version of the Septuagint and Vulgate, for it does not accord with that of Aquila and Theodotion. The version of these latter interpreters, however injudicious, clearly ascertains both the phrase, and the order of the words of the original Hebrew; it was [dy al ytwa larvy veyisrael othi lo yada. The word ytwa othi has been lost out of the text. The very same phrase is used by Jeremiah, Jeremiah 4:22, ידעו al ytwa ym[ ammi othi lo yadau. And the order of the words must have been as above represented; for they have joined larvy yisrael, with ytwa othi, as in regimine; they could not have taken it in this sense, Israel MEUS non cognovit, had either this phrase or the order of the words been different. I have endeavoured to set this matter in a clear light, as it is the first example of a whole word lost out of the text, of which the reader will find many other plain examples in the course of these notes. But Rosenmuller contends that this is unnecessary, as the passage may be translated, “Israel knows nothing: my people have no understanding.”

The Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate, read ועמי veammi, “and my people;” and so likewise sixteen MSS. of Kennicott, and fourteen of Deuteronomy Rossi.

Verse 3. The ox knoweth his owner, &c. — In these words the prophet amplifies “the gross insensibility of the disobedient Jews, by comparing them with the most heavy and stupid of all animals, yet not so insensible as they. Bochart has well illustrated the comparison, and shown the peculiar force of it. ‘He sets them lower than the beasts, and even than the stupidest of all beasts; for there is scarce any more so than the ox and the ass. Yet these acknowledge their master; they know the manger of their lord; by whom they are fed, not for their own, but his good; neither are they looked upon as children, but as beasts of burden; neither are they advanced to honours, but oppressed with great and daily labours. While the Israelites, chosen by the mere favour of God, adopted as sons, promoted to the highest dignity, yet acknowledged not their Lord and their God, but despised his commandments, though in the highest degree equitable and just.’” See a comparison of Jeremiah 8:7, to the same purpose, equally elegant; but not so forcible and severe as this of Isaiah.

Ver. 3. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib. What, must the learned priests, doctors, and princes be reproved and instructed by the ox and the ass! Have beasts sagacity enough to abide in safe cribs and green pastures, while the Israelites leave Jehovah’s altar for the barren hills of Baal! See the like arguments in Hosea 11:4. Jeremiah 8:7.

3. Rebelling thus they virtually declared God’s proprietorship in them is at an end. So they stand in poor contrast with the stupidest animals. Jeremiah 8:7. The ox… the ass — Dr. Thomson, (The Land and the Book, vol. ii, p. 97,) describing a scene at the close of a day in Tiberias, says: “No sooner had we got within the walls, than the drove began to disperse. Every ox knew perfectly well his owner, his house, and the way to it, nor did he become bewildered for a moment in the mazes of narrow and crooked alleys. As for the asses, they walked straight to the door, and up to the master’s crib. I followed one company clear into the habitation, and saw each take his appropriate manger, and begin his evening meal.” Israel — The whole nation, Judah as well as Israel. As a covenant people, both were included in a designed unity. Not know — Do not recognise God as their rightful owner. Not consider — The parallelism here is explanatory. My people have lost knowledge of me, and do not attend to the spiritual food which, as their Lord, I fain would give them: just as the master of the “ox” and the “ass” is known, and these stupid animals are fed by him. A comparison the more striking for its homeliness.

V. 4. A seed-The children of wicked parents, whose guilt they inherit, and whose evil example they follow. Corrupters-Heb. that corrupt themselves, or others by their counsel and example. Backward-Instead of proceeding forward and growing in grace.

Verse 4. Ah sinful nation— “Degenerate”] Five MSS., one of them ancient, read µytjcm moschathim, without the first y yod, in hophal corrupted, not corrupters. See the same word in the same form, and in the same sense, Proverbs 25:26.

Are corrupters— “Are estranged”] Thirty-two MSS., five ancient, and two editions, read wrwzn nazoru; which reading determines the word to be from the root rwz zur, to alienate, not from rzn nazar, to separate; so Kimchi understands it. See also Annotat. in Noldium, 68. They are gone away backward— “They have turned their backs upon him.”] So Kimchi explains it: “they have turned unto him the back and not the face.” See Jeremiah 2:27; 7:24. I have been forced to render this line paraphrastically; as the verbal translation, “they are estranged backward,” would have been unintelligible.

Verse 4. Ah, sinful nation — The prophet bemoans those who would not bemoan themselves; and he speaks with a holy indignation at their degeneracy, and with a dread of the consequences of it. A people laden with iniquity — Laden, not with the sense of sin, as those described Matthew 11:28, but with the guilt and bondage of sin. A seed of evil-doers — The children of wicked parents, whose guilt they inherit, and whose evil example they follow; children that are corrupted — Hebrew, µytyjvm, that corrupt, namely, themselves, or their ways, or others, by their counsel and example: or, that destroy themselves and their land by their wickedness. They have forsaken the Lord — Not indeed in profession, but in practice, and therefore in reality, neglecting or corrupting his worship, and refusing to be subject and obedient to him. They have provoked the Holy One, &c. — They have lived as if it were their great design and business to provoke him. They are gone away backward — Instead of proceeding forward, and growing in grace, which was their duty, they are fallen from their former professions, and have become more wicked than ever.

Ver. 4. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity. The moment Ahaz ascended the throne, the idolater made a wide mouth, and shot out the tongue for joy: Isaiah 57:4. All the bad propensities of the heart were let loose, and degeneracy of morals pervaded all ranks of the nation. What proofs of original sin! The sour grapes, ate by the fathers, set the children’s teeth on edge; the degenerate vine bears degenerate fruit.

4. Ah — The exclamation denotes mental pain, and answers to our word alas! The adjective of the text is an active participle in the Hebrew. Seed of evildoers — Offspring of wicked immediate ancestors. Children… corrupters — From a word of a reflexive form, hence corrupting themselves. Deuteronomy 4:16, 25. The word denotes violence, moral self-violence, and is used of the antediluvians who “corrupted” their way, so as to compel God to destroy them. Genesis 6:12, 13. All the phrases here express intense feeling. Holy One of Israel — This phrase is used by Isaiah more than by any other prophet. It is used in all parts of this collection of the prophecies, and is a proof of one authorship of the whole. It means Him “whose name is holy,” (Isaiah 57:15,) essentially holy; who deigned to choose Israel, and dwell with him: but he forsook God, and turned his back, not his face, to him. Such is the thought stated in the words, they are gone away backward.

V. 5. Head-The very head and heart of the body politick, from whence the plague is derived to all the other members.

Verse 5. Why should ye be stricken any more— “On what part,” &c.?] The Vulgate renders hm l[ al meh, super quo, (see Job 38:6; 2 Chronicles 32:10,) upon what part. And so Abendana on Sal. ben Melech: “There are some who explain it thus: Upon what limb shall you be smitten, if you add defection? for already for your sins have you been smitten upon all of them; so that there is not to be found in you a whole limb on which you can be smitten.” Which agrees with what follows: “From the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it:” and the sentiment and image is exactly the same with that of Ovid, Pont. ii. 7, 42:—

Vix habet in nobis jam nova plaga locum.

There is no place on you for a new stripe.

Or that still more expressive line of Euripides; the great force and effect of which Longinus ascribes to its close and compressed structure, analogous to the sense which it expresses:—

Gemw kakwn dh, k~ ouket~ esq~ oph tiqh.

I am full of miseries: there’s no room for more.

Herc. Fur. 1245, Long. sec. 40.

“On what part will ye strike again? will ye add correction?” This is addressed to the instruments of God’s vengeance; those that inflicted the punishment, who or whatsoever they were. Ad verbum certæ personæ intelligendæ sunt, quibus ista actio quæ per verbum exprimitur competit; “The words are addressed to the persons who were the agents employed in the work expressed by the original word,” as Glassius says in a similar case, Phil. Sacr. i. 3, 22. See Isaiah 7:4.

As from [dy yada, דעה deah, knowledge; from x[y yaats, hx[ etsah, counsel; from ישנ yeshan, hnv shenah, sleep, &c.; so from rsy yasar is regularly derived hrs sarah, correction.

Ver. 5. The whole head is sick] The king and the priests are equally gone away from truth and righteousness. Or, The state is oppressed by its enemies, and the Church corrupted in its rulers and in its members.

Verses 5, 6. Why should ye be stricken any more — It is to no purpose to seek to reclaim you by one chastisement after another; ye will revolt more and more — I see you are incorrigible, and turn even your afflictions into sin. The whole head is sick, &c. — The disease is mortal, as being in the most noble and vital parts, the very head and heart of the body politic, from whence the plague is derived to all the other members. “The end of God’s judgments, in this world, is men’s reformation; and when people appear to be incorrigible, there is no reason to expect that he should try any further methods of discipline with them, but consume them all at once.” From the sole of the foot, &c. — “The whole frame of the Jewish Church and state is corrupted, and their misery is as universal as their sin which caused it.” — Lowth.

Ver. 5. Why should ye be stricken any more? Wars, pestilence, famine, locusts, captivity, and ills which cannot be counted, have come upon you; yet you are the same people. The whole head is sick; the palace, the altar, the populace are all diseased. The works of the flesh, countless in number, Galatians 5:19, are breaking out in loathsome ulcers. The nation is lost, the disease is incurable; nothing but the unveiled treasures of mercy can save you from ruin and destruction. The whole heart is faint; you are astounded with guilt, and lifeless with fear.

5, 6. Why should… more — It is doubtful whether the question in Hebrew is, “For what reason should ye,” or, “Upon what part will ye,” be stricken any more? The latter is philologically less harsh, and it falls in better with the sense of the connecting words. The sense then is, Why permit yourselves to be smitten more? your whole person is already bruised in every part, as the proper punishment, of your voluntary evil doings. As to the word which means to smite, see it illustrated in Deuteronomy 28:22, 27, 35. The whole head… the whole heart — In this figure the nation is meant, and in the figure continued in the words from the sole of the foot even unto the head, the desperate moral state of all Judah — subjects and rulers, priests and prophet — is indicated. All are involved, not only in this condition, but in punishment for it. Not a spot in Church or body politic is left unsmitten. Isaiah 9:13-16. The intent here is not so much total depravity, (for which this passage is often quoted,) as the retributive consequences of departure from God. Wounds — Contusions, effects of blows where skin is not broken. Putrefying sores — Either recent or old, which admit not of healing. Closed… bound… molified — This language refers to the surgical treatment in that age. Medical applications were external, (Luke 10:34, James 5:14,) chiefly oil (ointment in the text) and hand pressure, and binding with cloth — no sewing up of wounds. The moral is, that priests and false prophets did not turn the people to God, who alone could heal their maladies and pardon sin, but adopted a worldly policy in their training of the nation.

Verse 6. They have not been closed, &c.— “It hath not been pressed,” &c.] The pharmaceutical art in the East consists chiefly in external applications: accordingly the prophet’s images in this place are all taken from surgery. Sir John Chardin, in his note on Proverbs 3:8, “It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones,” observes that “the comparison is taken from the plasters, ointments, oils, and frictions, which are made use of in the East upon the belly and stomach in most maladies. Being ignorant in the villages of the art of making decoctions and potions, and of the proper doses of such things, they generally make use of external medicines.”—Harmer’s Observations on Scripture, vol. ii. p. 488. And in surgery their materia medica is extremely simple, oil making the principal part of it. “In India,” says Tavernier, “they have a certain preparation of oil and melted grease, which they commonly use for the healing of wounds.” Voyage Ind. So the good Samaritan poured oil and wine on the wounds of the distressed Jew: wine, cleansing and somewhat astringent, proper for a fresh wound; oil, mollifying and healing, Luke 10:34. Kimchi has a judicious remark here: “When various medicines are applied, and no healing takes place, that disorder is considered as coming immediately from God.”

Of the three verbs in this sentence, one is in the singular number in the text; another is singular in two MSS., (one of them ancient,) hvbj chubbeshah; and the Syriac and Vulgate render all of them in the singular number.

Verses 5, 6. Why should ye be stricken any more — It is to no purpose to seek to reclaim you by one chastisement after another; ye will revolt more and more — I see you are incorrigible, and turn even your afflictions into sin. The whole head is sick, &c. — The disease is mortal, as being in the most noble and vital parts, the very head and heart of the body politic, from whence the plague is derived to all the other members. “The end of God’s judgments, in this world, is men’s reformation; and when people appear to be incorrigible, there is no reason to expect that he should try any further methods of discipline with them, but consume them all at once.” From the sole of the foot, &c. — “The whole frame of the Jewish Church and state is corrupted, and their misery is as universal as their sin which caused it.” — Lowth.

5, 6. Why should… more — It is doubtful whether the question in Hebrew is, “For what reason should ye,” or, “Upon what part will ye,” be stricken any more? The latter is philologically less harsh, and it falls in better with the sense of the connecting words. The sense then is, Why permit yourselves to be smitten more? your whole person is already bruised in every part, as the proper punishment, of your voluntary evil doings. As to the word which means to smite, see it illustrated in Deuteronomy 28:22, 27, 35. The whole head… the whole heart — In this figure the nation is meant, and in the figure continued in the words from the sole of the foot even unto the head, the desperate moral state of all Judah — subjects and rulers, priests and prophet — is indicated. All are involved, not only in this condition, but in punishment for it. Not a spot in Church or body politic is left unsmitten. Isaiah 9:13-16. The intent here is not so much total depravity, (for which this passage is often quoted,) as the retributive consequences of departure from God. Wounds — Contusions, effects of blows where skin is not broken. Putrefying sores — Either recent or old, which admit not of healing. Closed… bound… molified — This language refers to the surgical treatment in that age. Medical applications were external, (Luke 10:34, James 5:14,) chiefly oil (ointment in the text) and hand pressure, and binding with cloth — no sewing up of wounds. The moral is, that priests and false prophets did not turn the people to God, who alone could heal their maladies and pardon sin, but adopted a worldly policy in their training of the nation.

V. 7. In your presence-Which your eye shall see to torment you, when there is no power in your hands to deliver you. As-Heb. as the overthrow of strangers, that is, which strangers bring upon a land which is not likely to continue in their hands, and therefore they spare no persons, and spoil and destroy all things, which is not usually done in wars between persons of the same, or of a neighbouring nation.

Verses. 7. - 9. Your country is desolate] The description of the ruined and desolate state of the country in these verses does not suit with any part of the prosperous times of Uzziah and Jotham. It very well agrees with the time of Ahaz, when Judea was ravaged by the joint invasion of the Israelites and Syrians, and by the incursions of the Philistines and Edomites. The date of this prophecy is therefore generally fixed to the time of Ahaz. But on the other hand it may be considered whether those instances of idolatry which are urged in Isaiah 1:29-the worshipping in groves and gardens-having been at all times too commonly practised, can be supposed to be the only ones which the prophet would insist upon in the time of Ahaz; who spread the grossest idolatry through the whole country, and introduced it even into the temple; and, to complete his abominations, made his son pass through the fire to Molech. It is said, 2 Kings 15:37, that in Jotham’s time “the Lord began to send against Judah, Rezin-and Pekah.” If we may suppose any invasion from that quarter to have been actually made at the latter end of Jotham’s reign, I should choose to refer this prophecy to that time.

AND your cities are burned.—Nineteen of Dr. Kennicott’s MSS. and twenty-two of Deuteronomy Rossi’s, some of my own, with the Syriac and Arabic, add the conjunction which makes the hemistich more complete. Ver. 7. זרים zarim at the end of the verse. This reading, though confirmed by all the ancient versions, gives us no good sense; for “your land is devoured by strangers; and is desolate, as if overthrown by strangers,” is a mere tautology, or, what is as bad, an identical comparison. Aben Ezra thought that the word in its present form might be taken for the same with זרם zerem, an inundation: Schultens is of the same opinion; (see Taylor’s Concord.;) and Schindler in his Lexicon explains it in the same manner: and so, says Kimchi, some explain it. Abendana endeavours to reconcile it to grammatical analogy in the following manner: “זרים zarim is the same with זרם zerem; that is, as overthrown by an inundation of waters: and these two words have the same analogy as µdq kedem and µydq kadim. Or it may be a concrete of the same form with rykv shechir; and the meaning will be: as overthrown by rain pouring down violently, and causing a flood.” On Sal. ben Melech, in loc. But I rather suppose the true reading to be זרם zerem, and have translated it accordingly: the word זרים zerim, in the line above, seems to have caught the transcriber’s eye, and to have led him into this mistake. But this conjecture of the learned prelate is not confirmed by any MS. yet discovered.

Verses 7, 8. Your country is desolate — “The description of the ruined and desolate state of the country, in these verses,” says Bishop Lowth, “does not suit with any part of the prosperous times of Uzziah and Jotham. It very well agrees with the time of Ahaz, when Judea was ravaged by the joint invasion of the Israelites and Syrians, and by the incursions of the Philistines and Edomites. The date of this prophecy is therefore generally fixed to the time of Ahaz.” Strangers devour it in your presence — Which your eyes see to torment you, when there is no power in your hands to deliver you. As overthrown, &c. — tkphmk, as the overthrow; of strangers — That is, such as strangers bring upon a land which is not likely to continue in their hands, and therefore they spare no persons; and spoil and destroy all things, which is not usually done in wars between persons of the same or of a neighbouring nation. And the daughter of Zion is left — Is left solitary, all the neighbouring villages and country round about it being laid waste. As a cottage — Or, as a shed in a vineyard, as Bishop Lowth translates it, namely, “a little temporary hut, covered with boughs, straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat by day, and the cold and dews by night, for the watchman that kept the garden, or vineyard, during the short season while the fruit was ripening; see Job 27:18; and presently removed when it had served that purpose.” — See Harmer, Observ. 1:454.

Ver. 7. Your country is desolate. The people are slain, or fled, or taken captive. The cities smoke, the mountains mourn, the vallies weep. Invaders and destroyers are alone to be seen.— “Oh my country, my country,” said a great statesman, in his last moments. Oh my country! Think of this, ye christians dwelling at ease.

7. The figurative language is now dropped, and words direct and literal are used. Country… desolate… cities… burned with fire, etc. — Notice how nearly every word corresponds to the curses threatened in Leviticus xxvi and Deuteronomy 28. From the time of Isaiah downward the state of Israel was a realization of the curses of the law. Strangers — This word occurs twice in this verse: possibly the fact hints at the oppression the people were to experience from foreign conquerors, as a just return for their propensity to stray after strange gods rather than to adhere to their covenant God and Protector. See Deuteronomy 28:48, 50, 51.

V. 8. Is left-Is left solitary, all the neighbouring villages and country round about it being laid waste.

Verse 8. As a cottage in a vineyard— “As a shed in a vineyard”] A little temporary hut covered with boughs, straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat by day, and the cold and dews by night, for the watchman that kept the garden or vineyard during the short season the fruit was ripening, (see Job 27:18,) and presently removed when it had served that purpose. See Harmer’s Observ. i. 454. They were probably obliged to have such a constant watch to defend the fruit from the jackals. “The jackal,” (chical of the Turks,) says Hasselquist, (Travels, p. 227,) “is a species of mustela which is very common in Palestine, especially during the vintage; and often destroys whole vineyards, and gardens of cucumbers.” “There is also plenty of the canis vulpes, the fox, near the convent of St. John in the desert, about vintage time; for they destroy all the vines unless they are strictly watched.” Ibid. p. 184. See Song of Solomon 2:15.

Fruits of the gourd kind, melons, watermelons, cucumbers, &c., are much used and in great request in the Levant, on account of their cooling quality. The Israelites in the wilderness regretted the loss of the cucumbers and melons among the other good things of Egypt, Numbers 11:5. In Egypt the season of watermelons, which are most in request, and which the common people then chiefly live upon, lasts but three weeks. See Hasselquist, p. 256. Tavernier makes it of longer continuance: L’on y void de grands carreaux de melons et de concombres, mais beaucoup plus de derniers, dont les Levantins font leur delices. Le plus souvent, ils les mangent sans les peter, apres quoi ils vont boire une verre d’eau. Dans toute l’Asie c’est la nourriture ordinaire du petit peuple pendant trois ou quatre mois; toute la famine en vit, et quand un enfant demand a manger, au lieu qu’en France ou aillieurs nous luy donnerions du pain, dans le Levant on luy presente un concombre, qu’il mange cru comme on le vient de cueillir. Les concombres dans le Levant ont une bonte particuliere; et quoiqu’ on les mange crus, ils ne font jamais de mal; “There are to he seen great beds of melons and cucumbers, but a greater number of the latter, of which the Levantines are particularly fond. In general they eat them without taking off the rind, after which they drink a glass of water. In every part of Asia this is the aliment of the common people for three or four months; the whole family live on them; and when a child asks something to eat, instead of giving it a piece of bread, as is done in France and other countries, they present it with a cucumber, which it eats raw, as gathered. Cucumbers in the Levant are peculiarly excellent; and although eaten raw, they are seldom injurious.” Tavernier, Relat. du Serrail, cap. xix. As a lodge, &c.] That is, after the fruit was gathered; the lodge being then permitted to fall into decay. Such was the desolate, ruined state of the city. So the wv poliv poliorkoumenh; Septuagint: see also the Vulgate.

Verses 7, 8. Your country is desolate — “The description of the ruined and desolate state of the country, in these verses,” says Bishop Lowth, “does not suit with any part of the prosperous times of Uzziah and Jotham. It very well agrees with the time of Ahaz, when Judea was ravaged by the joint invasion of the Israelites and Syrians, and by the incursions of the Philistines and Edomites. The date of this prophecy is therefore generally fixed to the time of Ahaz.” Strangers devour it in your presence — Which your eyes see to torment you, when there is no power in your hands to deliver you. As overthrown, &c. — tkphmk, as the overthrow; of strangers — That is, such as strangers bring upon a land which is not likely to continue in their hands, and therefore they spare no persons; and spoil and destroy all things, which is not usually done in wars between persons of the same or of a neighbouring nation. And the daughter of Zion is left — Is left solitary, all the neighbouring villages and country round about it being laid waste. As a cottage — Or, as a shed in a vineyard, as Bishop Lowth translates it, namely, “a little temporary hut, covered with boughs, straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat by day, and the cold and dews by night, for the watchman that kept the garden, or vineyard, during the short season while the fruit was ripening; see Job 27:18; and presently removed when it had served that purpose.” — See Harmer, Observ. 1:454.

Ver. 8. The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage. A metropolis without a country; the whole land, once beautiful as the garden of the Lord, is now reduced to a solitary lodge.

8. The daughter of Zion — Zion was the strong hill of Jerusalem. made sacred in David’s devout thoughts of Jehovah’s presence in the tabernacle erected there. It was the seat of regal dominion and of sacred worship during David’s life — the “chosen habitation” of Jehovah. Psalms 2:6; 132:13. By a rhetorical figure all Jerusalem was called Zion, as the seat of religion and of the Church. Isaiah 10:24. The Church was called “Daughter of Zion,” denoting virgin innocence, and youthful promise of vigour and fruitfulness. There would be a faithful few in Jerusalem, even when ravages of war would be upon her. These Isaiah sees are to be left as a desolated, tumble-down lodge after the harvest of the country gardens. The cottage or lodge here spoken of is a rude temporary shelter erected in the open grounds, where vines, cucumbers, gourds, etc., are growing, and in which “lodge” some lonely man or boy is set to watch, either to guard the plants from robbers or to scare away foxes and jackals from the vines. Cucumbers — Not such as pass by that name with us, but a species of melon, Cucumis chate, or C. sativis, said by Hasselquist to be used, the first by grandees, the second by common people.

Verse 9. The Lord of hosts— “JEHOVAH God of hosts”] As this title of God, twabx hwhy Yehovah tsebaoth, “JEHOVAH of hosts, occurs here for the first time, I think it proper to note, that I translate it always, as in this place, “JEHOVAH God of hosts;” taking it as an elliptical expression for twabx yhla hwhy Yehovah Elohey tsebaoth. This title imports that JEHOVAH is the God or Lord of hosts or armies; as he is the Creator and Supreme Governor of all beings in heaven and earth, and disposeth and ruleth them all in their several orders and stations; the almighty, universal Lord.

We should have been as Sodom] As completely and finally ruined as that and the cities of the plain were, no vestige of which remains at this day.

Verse 9. Except the Lord had left us a remnant — If God, by his infinite power and goodness, had not restrained our enemies, and reserved some of us, we should have been as Sodom — The whole nation of us had been utterly cut off, as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were. So great was the rage and power of our enemies, and so utterly unable were we to deliver ourselves. This remnant was “a type of those few converts among the Jews, who, embracing the gospel, escaped both the temporal and eternal judgments which came upon the rest of the nation for rejecting Christ and his messengers,” Romans 9:2, and 11:5. — Lowth.

9. Lord of hosts — Of the angelic hosts, and starry heavens. Worship of the latter was very early observed by the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Canaanites, etc., but the Lord of Israel is above all, and so is called “Lord” or Master “of hosts.” Very small remnant — That which is left of the people after the ravages of invasive war. With Isaiah, as often elsewhere, the word “remnant” means the righteous, in distinction from the multitude of the ungodly. Romans 9:29. We — After having reproved the sinful nation, the prophet now identifies himself with the people. As Sodom — Not in character, probably, but in destiny; that is, cut off entirely. Gomorrah — The same idea, repeated for preserving poetic parallelism. The prophets — eminently Isaiah — frequently gave their instructions in symbolic terms, and in sentences metrical as well as poetical.

V. 10. Of Sodom-So called for their resemblance of them in wickedness. The law-The message which I am now to deliver to you from God, your great lawgiver.

Verse 10. Ye rulers of Sodom— “Ye princes of Sodom”] The incidental mention of Sodom and Gomorrah in the preceding verse suggested to the prophet this spirited address to the rulers and inhabitants of Jerusalem, under the character of princes of Sodom and people of Gomorrah. Two examples of a sort of elegant turn of the like kind may be observed in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Romans 15:4, 5, 12, 13. See Locke on the place; and see Isaiah 1:29, 30, of this chapter, which gives another example of the same.

AND—like unto Gomorrah.—The w vau is added by thirty-one of Kennicott’s MSS., twenty-nine of Deuteronomy Rossi’s and one, very ancient, of my own. See on Isaiah 1:6.

Verse 10. Hear the word of the Lord — I bring a message from your Lord and governor, to whom you owe all reverence and obedience; ye rulers of Sodom — So called for their resemblance of them in wickedness. Compare Deuteronomy 32:32; Ezekiel 16:46, 48. “The incidental mention of Sodom and Gomorrah in the preceding verse, suggested to the prophet this spirited address to the rulers and inhabitants of Jerusalem, under the character of princes of Sodom and people of Gomorrah. Two examples, of an elegant turn, of the like kind, may be observed in St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans 15:4, 5, and 12, 13.” — Bishop Lowth. Give ear unto the law of our God — The message which I am now to deliver to you from God, your great lawgiver.

Ver. 10. Ye rulers of Sodom. The batch of prisoners put to the bar must hear the judge; the nuncio of a king must be bold to declare his master’s pleasure. A similarity in moral character to Sodom, justified a similarity in appellatives. The burning of cities was already begun.

10, 11. The appeal, continued from verses 10 to 20, rather supposes the prophet to observe that the people are conscious of their delinquencies, and that to make up for them, they make an extravagant show of ceremonial devotion. Hence this abrupt chiding. Ye rulers of Sodom… Gomorrah — The prophet had already said, that but for God’s mercy the nation would have been in condition like to those vile cities — utterly destroyed; now he says, they are positively like to them in character. To what purpose — Denoting unacceptableness and valuelessness, because of the insincerity of the offerers. I am full — Have had enough of them. Burnt offerings of rams — Rams, bullocks, lambs, goats, were of-feted on festivals of new moon, passover, feast of weeks, feast of trumpets, day of atonement, and feast of tabernacles, the first three as “burnt offerings,” (Numbers 28:13, 24,) the last as a sin offering. Numbers 28:15, 22. Moses instituted Jehovah-worship on the new moon to extinguish heathen superstitions on that occasion among his people. The feast of the new moon was the moon of Tisri, our October, the opening of the civil year, announced by the blowing of silver trumpets and other ceremonies.

V. 11. To me-Who am a spirit, and therefore cannot be satisfied with such carnal oblations, but expect to have your hearts and lives, as well as your bodies and sacrifices, presented unto me. Blood-He mentions the fat and blood, because these were in a peculiar manner reserved for God, to intimate that even the best of their sacrifices were rejected by him.

Verse 11. To what purpose, &c.— “What have I to do.”] The prophet Amos has expressed the same sentiments with great elegance:— “I hate, I despise your feasts;

And I will not delight in the odour of your solemnities: Though ye offer unto me burnt-offerings

And your meat-offerings, I will not accept:

Neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fatlings. Take away from me the noise of your songs;

And the melody of your viols I will not hear.

But let judgment roll down like waters;

And righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Amos 5:21-24.

So has Persius; see Sat. ii. v. 71-75:—

“Quin damus id Superis, de magna quod dare lanæ,” &c. The two or three last pages of Plato’s Euthyphro contain the same idea. Sacrifices and prayers are not profitable to the offerer, nor acceptable to the gods, unless accompanied with an upright life. The fat of fed beasts, &c.] The fat and the blood are particularly mentioned, because these were in all sacrifices set apart to God. The fat was always burnt upon the altar, and the blood was partly sprinkled, differently on different occasions, and partly poured out at the bottom of the altar. See Leviticus 4:5-7, 16-18, 25, 30, 34.

Verses 11, 12. To what purpose, &c., your sacrifices unto me? — Who am a Spirit, and therefore cannot be satisfied with such carnal oblations, but expect to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and to have your hearts and lives, as well as your bodies and sacrifices, presented unto me. I delight not in the blood, &c. — He mentions the fat and blood, because these were, in a peculiar manner, reserved for God, to intimate that even the best of their sacrifices were rejected by him. The prophets often speak of the ceremonies of Moses’s law as of no value, without that inward purity, and true spiritual worship, and devotedness to God, which were signified by them. This was a very proper method to prepare the minds of the Jews for the reception of the gospel, by which those ceremonies were to be abolished. When ye come to appear before me — Upon the three solemn feasts, or upon other occasions. Who hath required this at your hand? — The thing I commanded was not only, nor chiefly, that you should offer external sacrifices, but that you should do it with true repentance, with faith in my promises, and sincere resolutions of devoting yourselves to my service.

Ver. 11. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices? Will heaven make bargains with the wicked? Will the Lord receive a gift from impure hands? Your hands are full of blood:— yesterday you were offering children to Moloch.

10, 11. The appeal, continued from verses 10 to 20, rather supposes the prophet to observe that the people are conscious of their delinquencies, and that to make up for them, they make an extravagant show of ceremonial devotion. Hence this abrupt chiding. Ye rulers of Sodom… Gomorrah — The prophet had already said, that but for God’s mercy the nation would have been in condition like to those vile cities — utterly destroyed; now he says, they are positively like to them in character. To what purpose — Denoting unacceptableness and valuelessness, because of the insincerity of the offerers. I am full — Have had enough of them. Burnt offerings of rams — Rams, bullocks, lambs, goats, were of-feted on festivals of new moon, passover, feast of weeks, feast of trumpets, day of atonement, and feast of tabernacles, the first three as “burnt offerings,” (Numbers 28:13, 24,) the last as a sin offering. Numbers 28:15, 22. Moses instituted Jehovah-worship on the new moon to extinguish heathen superstitions on that occasion among his people. The feast of the new moon was the moon of Tisri, our October, the opening of the civil year, announced by the blowing of silver trumpets and other ceremonies.

V. 12. To appear-Upon the three solemn feasts, or upon other occasions. Who required-The thing I commanded, was not only, nor chiefly, that you should offer external sacrifices, but that you should do it with true repentance, with faith in my promises, and sincere resolutions of devoting yourselves to my service.

Verse 12. When ye come to appear] Instead of twarl leraoth, to appear, one MS. has twarl liroth, to see. See Deuteronomy Rossi. The appearing before God here refers chiefly to the three solemn annual festivals. See Exodus 23:14.

Tread my courts (no more)] So the Septuagint divide the sentence, joining the end of this verse to the beginning of the next: Patein thn aulhn mou, ou prosqhsesqe; “To tread my court ye shall not add—ye shall not be again accepted in worship.”

Verses 11, 12. To what purpose, &c., your sacrifices unto me? — Who am a Spirit, and therefore cannot be satisfied with such carnal oblations, but expect to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and to have your hearts and lives, as well as your bodies and sacrifices, presented unto me. I delight not in the blood, &c. — He mentions the fat and blood, because these were, in a peculiar manner, reserved for God, to intimate that even the best of their sacrifices were rejected by him. The prophets often speak of the ceremonies of Moses’s law as of no value, without that inward purity, and true spiritual worship, and devotedness to God, which were signified by them. This was a very proper method to prepare the minds of the Jews for the reception of the gospel, by which those ceremonies were to be abolished. When ye come to appear before me — Upon the three solemn feasts, or upon other occasions. Who hath required this at your hand? — The thing I commanded was not only, nor chiefly, that you should offer external sacrifices, but that you should do it with true repentance, with faith in my promises, and sincere resolutions of devoting yourselves to my service.

12. Who hath required this — That is, to appear in this formal, heartless, undevout way. The true way of appearing before the Lord is prescribed in Exodus 34:23, 24; Deuteronomy 16:16, 17.

V. 13. The solemn meeting-The most solemn day of each of the three feasts, which was the last day.

Verse 13. The new moons and Sabbaths— “The fast and the day of restraint”] hrx[w אונ aven vaatsarah. These words are rendered in many different manners by different interpreters, to a good and probable sense by all; but I think by none in such a sense as can arise from the phrase itself, agreeably to the idiom of the Hebrew language. Instead of אונ aven, the Septuagint manifestly read µwx tsom, nhsteian, “the fast.” This Houbigant has adopted. The prophet could not well have omitted the fast in the enumeration of their solemnities, nor the abuse of it among the instances of their hyprocrisy, which he has treated at large with such force and elegance in his fifty-eighth chapter. Observe, also, that the prophet Joel, (Joel 1:14; 2:15,) twice joins together the fast and the day of restraint:—

hrx[ warq µwx wvdq

atsarah kiru tsom kaddeshu

“Sanctify a fast; proclaim a day of restraint:”

which shows how properly they are here joined together. hrx[ atsarah, “the restraint,” is rendered, both here and in other places of our English translation, “the solemn assembly.” Certain holy days ordained by the law were distinguished by a particular charge that “no servile work should be done therein;” Leviticus 23:36; Numbers 29:35; Deuteronomy 16:8. This circumstance clearly explains the reason of the name, the restraint, or the day of restraint, given to those days. If I could approve of any translation of these two words which I have met with, it should be that of the Spanish version of the Old Testament, made for the use of the Spanish Jews: Tortura y detenimento, “it is a pain and a constraint unto me.” But I still think that the reading of the Septuagint is more probably the truth.

Verse 13. Bring no more vain oblations — I neither desire, nor will accept of any on these terms. Incense is an abomination to me — So far is it from being a sweet savour to me, as you foolishly imagine. The new moons — Which were holy to God, and observed with great solemnity; the calling of assemblies — At all other solemn times, wherein the people were obliged to meet together. I cannot away with — Hebrew, lkwa al, I cannot endure; it is grievous to me. It is iniquity — It is so far from pleasing me, that it is an offence to me: and, instead of reconciling me to you, which is your design, it provokes me more against you; even the solemn meeting — The most solemn day of each of the three feasts, which was the last day, which was called by this very name, hrx[, Leviticus 23:36; Numbers 29:35, and elsewhere; although the word be used sometimes more generally of any other solemn festival day. Perhaps the great day of atonement was especially intended. Bishop Lowth renders it, the day of restraint, certain holy days, ordained by the law, being distinguished by a particular charge, that “no servile work should be done therein.” This circumstance clearly explains the reason of the name, the restraint, given to those days.

13. Vain oblations — The Minchah — an offering of meal to go with the “burnt offering;” this is here termed “vain,” because an undevout, empty performance. Incense — No longer a flagrant odour, a symbol of true devotion, but an abomination to God. Incense was made from burning in a censer frankincense procured from incisions in thuriferous trees, found in Arabia. Sweet spices were mixed with it, making “a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour.” Solemn meeting — Heartless worldliness attending ordinary religious occasions “reaches even to the great day of atonement, the most solemn of all days in their sacred calendar.”

Ver. 14. Your new moons—my soul hateth. The zodiac divided the seasons into twelve; the new moon announced fresh sacrifices the moment it was seen, with peace-offerings and music at home; festivals of sin, instead of piety. Numbers 28:11.

14, 15. My soul hateth — The “soul” is the seat of emotions, affections, etc. God’s hatred, or anger, however, is different from men’s, in that it means an ethical intention to punish. Romans 1:18. But here the prophet speaks in God’s place, and as he supposes God feels. Year after year the cycle of new moon, sabbath, and festival ran its round, with no result to the people but that of Jehovah’s indignant non-acceptance. This was God’s punishment. Spread forth your hands — The palms of your hands raised in prayer, in alarm. Jeremiah 4:31. They may pray now in fear, but I am not hearing (Hebrew present participle) them, because it is in fear, not in repentance. Their hands are still full of blood.

V. 15. Blood-You are guilty of murder, and oppression.

Verse 15. When ye spread] The Syriac, Septuagint, and a MS., read בפרשכם beparshecem, without the conjunction w vau. Your hands— “For your hands”] Ai gar ceirev—Sept. Manus enim vestræ—Vulg. They seem to have read ידיכם yk ki yedeychem.

Verse 15. When ye spread forth your hands — When ye pray with your hands spread abroad, as the manner was; I will hide mine eyes from you — I will take no notice of your persons or requests. Your hands are full of blood — You are guilty of murder and oppression, and of other crying sins, which I abhor, and have forbidden under pain of my highest displeasure.

14, 15. My soul hateth — The “soul” is the seat of emotions, affections, etc. God’s hatred, or anger, however, is different from men’s, in that it means an ethical intention to punish. Romans 1:18. But here the prophet speaks in God’s place, and as he supposes God feels. Year after year the cycle of new moon, sabbath, and festival ran its round, with no result to the people but that of Jehovah’s indignant non-acceptance. This was God’s punishment. Spread forth your hands — The palms of your hands raised in prayer, in alarm. Jeremiah 4:31. They may pray now in fear, but I am not hearing (Hebrew present participle) them, because it is in fear, not in repentance. Their hands are still full of blood.

V. 16. Wash-Cleanse your hearts and hands.

Verse 16. Wash you] Referring to the preceding verse, “your hands are full of blood;” and alluding to the legal washing commanded on several occasions. See Leviticus 14:8, 9, 47.

Verses 16, 17. Wash ye, make you clean — Repent, and do works meet for repentance: cleanse your hearts and hands from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and do not content yourselves with your ceremonial washings. He refers to the charge preferred in the preceding clause, and alludes to the legal purifications commanded on several occasions: see Leviticus 14:8, 9, 47. Put away the evil, &c., from before mine eyes — Reform yourselves thoroughly, that you may not only approve yourselves to men, but to me, who search your hearts and try all your actions. Learn to do well — Begin, and inure yourselves, to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Seek judgment, &c. — Show your religion to God, by practising justice and mercy to men. Judge the fatherless, &c. — Deliver and defend those that are poor and helpless, and liable to be oppressed by unjust and potent adversaries.

16. Wash you — The allusion here is doubtless to the injunction on priests, who, on pain of death, (Exodus 30:19-21,) had to wash hands and feet before they ministered at the altar. The symbol, no doubt, was at once understood by these worldly men now before the prophet: the expression did not seem to them an abrupt transition to another subject. Before they could offer “the earnest, effectual prayer of the righteous man,” they must pray not in alarm merely, but with deep repentance. They must cease to do evil.

V. 17. Learn-Begin to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Judgment-Shew your religion to God, by practising justice to men. Judge-Defend and deliver them.

Verse 17. Relieve the oppressed— “Amend that which is corrupted”] xwmj wrva asheru chamots. In rendering this obscure phrase I follow Bochart, (Hieroz. Part i., lib. ii., cap. 7.,) though I am not perfectly satisfied with this explication of it.

Verses 16, 17. Wash ye, make you clean — Repent, and do works meet for repentance: cleanse your hearts and hands from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and do not content yourselves with your ceremonial washings. He refers to the charge preferred in the preceding clause, and alludes to the legal purifications commanded on several occasions: see Leviticus 14:8, 9, 47. Put away the evil, &c., from before mine eyes — Reform yourselves thoroughly, that you may not only approve yourselves to men, but to me, who search your hearts and try all your actions. Learn to do well — Begin, and inure yourselves, to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Seek judgment, &c. — Show your religion to God, by practising justice and mercy to men. Judge the fatherless, &c. — Deliver and defend those that are poor and helpless, and liable to be oppressed by unjust and potent adversaries.

17. Seek judgment — Better, the concrete word, justice. As rulers and magistrates they had sought bribes rather than to do justice. Relieve the oppressed — The verb means set right, or, make straight, the condition of him who has been unjustly dealt with. The same duty is enjoined in behalf of the fatherless, inexperienced orphans, and the helpless widow. Both of these were an easy prey to their rapaciousness. For both of these classes, oftener than for any others, does the Bible set up the plea for vindication and protection. Psalm 10:18; 72:4; Exodus 22:22-24; Deuteronomy 10:18; James 1:27.

Verse 18. Though your sins be as scarlet] ynv shani, “scarlet or crimson,” dibaphum, twice dipped, or double dyed; from hnv shanah, iterare, to double, or to do a thing twice. This derivation seems much more probable than that which Salmasius prefers from שנן shanan, acuere, to whet, from the sharpness and strength of the colour, oxufoinikon; [lt tela, the same; properly the worm, vermiculus, (from whence vermeil,) for this colour was produced from a worm or insect which grew in a coccus or excrescence of a shrub of the ilex kind, (see Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 8,) like the cochineal worm in the opuntia of America. See Ulloa’s Voyage book v., chap. ii., note to page 342. There is a shrub of this kind that grows in Provence and Languedoc, and produces the like insect, called the kermes oak, (see Miller, Dict. Quercus,) from kermez, the Arabic word for this colour, whence our word crimson is derived.

“Neque amissos colores

Lana refert medicata fuco,”

says the poet, applying the same image to a different purpose. To discharge these strong colours is impossible to human art or power; but to the grace and power of God all things, even much more difficult are possible and easy. Some copies have כשנים keshanim, “like crimson garments.” Though they be red, &c.] But the conjunction w vau is added by twenty-one of Kennicott’s, and by forty-two of Deuteronomy Rossi’s MSS., by some early editions, with the Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic. It makes a fuller and more emphatic sense. “AND though they be red as crimson,” &c.

Verses 18-20. Come now, let us reason together — The word hjkwn is properly understood of two contending parties arguing a case; or, as Bishop Lowth translates it, pleading together; but here it seems to import also the effect, or issue of such a debate, namely, the accommodating their differences. Though your sins be as scarlet — Red and bloody as theirs were, mentioned verse 15; great and heinous; they shall be white as snow — God, upon your repentance and reformation, will pardon all that is past, and look upon you with the same grace and favour as if you had never offended, your sins being expiated by the blood of the Messiah, typified by your legal sacrifices. It is a metonymical expression, by which sins are said to be purged, as Hebrews 1:3, when men are purged from their sins, Hebrews 9:14. If ye be willing and obedient — If you be heartily willing and fully resolved to obey all my commands; ye shall eat the good of the land — Together with the pardon of your sins, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings. But if ye refuse and rebel — If you obstinately persist in your disobedience to me, as hitherto you have done; ye shall be devoured with the sword — With the sword of your enemies, which shall be commissioned to destroy you, and with the sword of God’s justice, his wrath and vengeance, which shall be drawn against you; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it — And he will surely make it good for the maintaining of his own honour.

Ver. 18. Come now, and let us reason. Let us argue. Lowth. hjkwnw venivookah. Nos increpemus, Let us rebuke ourselves. Montanus. Corrigamus, Let us correct ourselves. Castellio. The two last translators express the word better than Lowth, as calling on a guilty people to own the justice of their punishment for sin, deep as the dyes of scarlet and crimson.

The vivid colours of crimson and scarlet instruct us in the deepest stains of sin, which no frail efforts of reform can discharge. The dyes were anciently twice or oftener dipped, though now raised at once; but not in all cases. Our scarlet skins are stained first with a crimson tint by a dye of cochineal; then when dried, a solution of tin is poured over the leather, which gives the scarlet blaze. It is the same with cotton; on the second dip a solution of tin is poured into the vat. Surely then nothing but the altar of Calvary can discharge the stains of a conscience dipped in sin a thousand times. “The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth from all sin.” But grace does more than heal; when God takes away sin, he confers all the adornings of grace, and the beauty of holiness. He creates and cleanses, and makes the conscience white as wool.

18-20. Revolting as the people’s acts have been, God is here pleading to show that their ill condition is of their own causing. Come now — This is a common formula of entreaty. Let us reason — Discuss the case together. The verb is reciprocal; hence, considering the parties, to secure their consent to examine the issue is to secure their own self-conviction. Though your sins be as scarlet — As deep dyed as scarlet. This expresses a superlative degree of moral turpitude. “Scarlet,” or crimson, is made from a dye formed of insects found in excrescences on the oak, like our common cochineal. It is the firmest of dyes, and is the deepest symbol of blood-guiltiness. Yet such sins shall be washed out, and the souls of the people become cleansed to whiteness, if they will even now become obedient; but fearfully otherwise if they still rebel. On condition of obedience, land and city shall be preserved; on continued disobedience, the ruthless invader shall bring destruction, as sure as God liveth.

V. 19. If-If you are fully resolved to obey all my commands. Shall eat-Together with pardon, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings.

Verse 19. Ye shall eat the good of the land] Referring to Isaiah 1:7: it shall not be “devoured by strangers.”

Verses 18-20. Come now, let us reason together — The word hjkwn is properly understood of two contending parties arguing a case; or, as Bishop Lowth translates it, pleading together; but here it seems to import also the effect, or issue of such a debate, namely, the accommodating their differences. Though your sins be as scarlet — Red and bloody as theirs were, mentioned verse 15; great and heinous; they shall be white as snow — God, upon your repentance and reformation, will pardon all that is past, and look upon you with the same grace and favour as if you had never offended, your sins being expiated by the blood of the Messiah, typified by your legal sacrifices. It is a metonymical expression, by which sins are said to be purged, as Hebrews 1:3, when men are purged from their sins, Hebrews 9:14. If ye be willing and obedient — If you be heartily willing and fully resolved to obey all my commands; ye shall eat the good of the land — Together with the pardon of your sins, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings. But if ye refuse and rebel — If you obstinately persist in your disobedience to me, as hitherto you have done; ye shall be devoured with the sword — With the sword of your enemies, which shall be commissioned to destroy you, and with the sword of God’s justice, his wrath and vengeance, which shall be drawn against you; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it — And he will surely make it good for the maintaining of his own honour.

Ver. 19. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall recover from this tremendous stroke of invasion, and see golden harvests wave in the fields, and the purple clusters of grapes hang on the rocky hills. All your glory as in former days shall be restored.

18-20. Revolting as the people’s acts have been, God is here pleading to show that their ill condition is of their own causing. Come now — This is a common formula of entreaty. Let us reason — Discuss the case together. The verb is reciprocal; hence, considering the parties, to secure their consent to examine the issue is to secure their own self-conviction. Though your sins be as scarlet — As deep dyed as scarlet. This expresses a superlative degree of moral turpitude. “Scarlet,” or crimson, is made from a dye formed of insects found in excrescences on the oak, like our common cochineal. It is the firmest of dyes, and is the deepest symbol of blood-guiltiness. Yet such sins shall be washed out, and the souls of the people become cleansed to whiteness, if they will even now become obedient; but fearfully otherwise if they still rebel. On condition of obedience, land and city shall be preserved; on continued disobedience, the ruthless invader shall bring destruction, as sure as God liveth.

Verse 20. Ye shall be devoured with the sword— “Ye shall be food for the sword”] The Septuagint and Vulgate read תאכלכם tochalchem, “the sword shall devour you;” which is of much more easy construction than the present reading of the text.

The Chaldee seems to read wlkat bywa brjb bechereb oyeb teachelu, “ye shall be consumed by the sword of the enemy.” The Syriac also reads brjb bechereb and renders the verb passively. And the rhythmus seems to require this addition.—Dr. JUBB.

Verses 18-20. Come now, let us reason together — The word hjkwn is properly understood of two contending parties arguing a case; or, as Bishop Lowth translates it, pleading together; but here it seems to import also the effect, or issue of such a debate, namely, the accommodating their differences. Though your sins be as scarlet — Red and bloody as theirs were, mentioned verse 15; great and heinous; they shall be white as snow — God, upon your repentance and reformation, will pardon all that is past, and look upon you with the same grace and favour as if you had never offended, your sins being expiated by the blood of the Messiah, typified by your legal sacrifices. It is a metonymical expression, by which sins are said to be purged, as Hebrews 1:3, when men are purged from their sins, Hebrews 9:14. If ye be willing and obedient — If you be heartily willing and fully resolved to obey all my commands; ye shall eat the good of the land — Together with the pardon of your sins, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings. But if ye refuse and rebel — If you obstinately persist in your disobedience to me, as hitherto you have done; ye shall be devoured with the sword — With the sword of your enemies, which shall be commissioned to destroy you, and with the sword of God’s justice, his wrath and vengeance, which shall be drawn against you; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it — And he will surely make it good for the maintaining of his own honour.

18-20. Revolting as the people’s acts have been, God is here pleading to show that their ill condition is of their own causing. Come now — This is a common formula of entreaty. Let us reason — Discuss the case together. The verb is reciprocal; hence, considering the parties, to secure their consent to examine the issue is to secure their own self-conviction. Though your sins be as scarlet — As deep dyed as scarlet. This expresses a superlative degree of moral turpitude. “Scarlet,” or crimson, is made from a dye formed of insects found in excrescences on the oak, like our common cochineal. It is the firmest of dyes, and is the deepest symbol of blood-guiltiness. Yet such sins shall be washed out, and the souls of the people become cleansed to whiteness, if they will even now become obedient; but fearfully otherwise if they still rebel. On condition of obedience, land and city shall be preserved; on continued disobedience, the ruthless invader shall bring destruction, as sure as God liveth.

V. 21. The city-Jerusalem, which in the reign of former kings was faithful to God. An harlot-Is filled with idolatry. Murderers-Under that one gross kind, he comprehends all sorts of unrighteous men and practices.

Verse 21. Become a harlot] See before, the Discourse on the Prophetic Style; and see Lowth’s Comment on the place, and Deuteronomy Sacr. Poes. Hebr. Præl. xxxi.

Verse 21. How is the faithful city — Jerusalem, which in the reign of former kings was faithful to God; become a harlot — Filled with idolatry, called whoredom in the Scriptures. It was full of judgment, &c. — Judgment was truly and duly executed in all its courts, and righteousness, or justice, lodged, or had its seat in it; but now murderers — Under that one gross kind, he comprehends all sorts of unrighteous men and practices.

Ver. 21. How is the faithful city become a harlot, by idolatry. In the time of David, of Solomon, and Uzziah, it was full of judgment; righteousness dwelt in it, but now murderers.

AN EXCLAMATION AGAINST THE CITY, 21-31.

21-23. By a Hebrew character called Piskah, after verse 20 a long pause is indicated. Though invited to repent, the people, it seems, make no promise, not even a response, and the prophet’s tone now becomes elegiac. How is the faithful city — The once faithful. Lamentations 1:3. Reading it thus, the rhythm is better seen: “How is she become a harlot — the faithful citadel. She that was full of judgment, wherein righteousness did lodge, and now murderers.” The “city,” or citadel, is Zion. Verse 27. (Just this was the case with Jerusalem when destroyed by the Chaldaeans, and afterward by the Romans.) Thy silver is… dross, thy wine mixed with water — These are symbols of great moral deterioration. So far, figures; but in the next verse, plain, bluntly-literal predicates occur. Princes… rebellious — Are utterly corrupt and lawless. Companions of thieves — In public responsibilities they are confederate with plunderers. No justice done without bribery; no hearing given to the fatherless and widow, because the latter are too poor to give bribes.

Verse 22. Wine mixed with water] An image used for the adulteration of wines, with more propriety than may at first appear, if what Thevenot says of the people of the Levant of late times were true of them formerly. He says, “They never mingle water with their wine to drink; but drink by itself what water they think proper for abating the strength of the wine.” “Lorsque les Persans boivent du vin, ils le prennent tout pur, a la facon des Levantins, qui ne le melent jamais avec de l’eua; mais en beuvant du vin, de temps en temps ils prennent un pot d’eau, et en boivent de grand traits.” Voyage, part ii., liv. ii., chap. x. “Ils (les Turcs) n’y meslent jamais d’eau, et se moquent des Chretiens qui en mettent, ce qui leur semble tout a fait ridicule.” Ibid. part i., chap. 24. “The Turks never mingle water with their wine, and laugh at the Christians for doing it, which they consider altogether ridiculous.”

It is remarkable that whereas the Greeks and Latins by mixed wine always understood wine diluted and lowered with water, the Hebrews on the contrary generally mean by it wine made stronger and more inebriating by the addition of higher and more powerful ingredients, such as honey, spices, defrutum, (or wine inspissated by boiling it down to two-thirds or one-half of the quantity,) myrrh, mandragora, opiates, and other strong drugs. Such were the exhilarating, or rather stupifying, ingredients which Helen mixed in the bowl together with the wine for her guests oppressed with grief to raise their spirits, the composition of which she had learned in Egypt:—

Autik~ ar~ eiv bale farmakon, enqen epinon,

Nhpenqev t~ acolon te, kakwn epilhqon apantwn.

HOMER. Odyss. lib. iv., ver. 220.

“Meanwhile, with genial joy to warm the soul,

Bright Helen mix’d a mirth-inspiring bowl;

Temper’d with drugs of sovereign use, to assuage

The boiling bosom of tumultuous rage:

Charm’d with that virtuous draught, the exalted mind

All sense of wo delivers to the wind.”

POPE.

Such was the “spiced wine and the juice of pomegranates,” mentioned Song of Solomon 8:2. And how much the Eastern people to this day deal in artificial liquors of prodigious strength, the use of wine being forbidden, may be seen in a curious chapter of Kempfer upon that subject. Amœn. Exot. Fasc. iii., Obs. 15.

Thus the drunkard is properly described, Proverbs 23:30, as one “that seeketh mixed wine,” and “is mighty to mingle strong drink,” Isaiah 5:22. And hence the poet took that highly poetical and sublime image of the cup of God’s wrath, called by Isaiah, Isaiah 51:17, the “cup of trembling,” causing intoxication and stupefaction, (see Chappelow’s note on Hariri, p. 33,) containing, as St. John expresses in Greek the Hebrew idea with the utmost precision, though with a seeming contradiction in terms, kekerasmenon akraton, merum mixtum, pure wine made yet stronger by a mixture of powerful ingredients; Revelation 14:10. “In the hand of JEHOVAH,” saith the psalmist, Psalm 75:8, “there is a cup, and the wine is turbid: it is full of a mixed liquor, and he poureth out of it,” or rather, “he poureth it out of one vessel into another,” to mix it perfectly, according to the reading expressed by the ancient versions, hz la hzm rgyw vaiyagger mizzeh al zeh, and he pours it from this to that, “verily the dregs thereof,” the thickest sediment of the strong ingredients mingled with it, “all the ungodly of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.” R. D. Kimchi says, “The current coin was adulterated with brass, tin, and other metals, and yet was circulated as good money. The wine also was adulterated with water in the taverns, and sold notwithstanding for pure wine.”

Verses 22, 23. Thy silver is become dross — Thou art wofully degenerated from thy former purity. Thy wine mixed with water — If there be any remains of religion and virtue in thee, they are mixed with many and great corruptions. Thy princes are rebellious — Against me, their sovereign Lord; and companions of thieves — Partly by giving them connivance and countenance, and partly by practising the same violence, and cruelty, and injustice that thieves used to do. Every one loveth gifts — That is, bribes given to pervert justice.

AN EXCLAMATION AGAINST THE CITY, 21-31.

21-23. By a Hebrew character called Piskah, after verse 20 a long pause is indicated. Though invited to repent, the people, it seems, make no promise, not even a response, and the prophet’s tone now becomes elegiac. How is the faithful city — The once faithful. Lamentations 1:3. Reading it thus, the rhythm is better seen: “How is she become a harlot — the faithful citadel. She that was full of judgment, wherein righteousness did lodge, and now murderers.” The “city,” or citadel, is Zion. Verse 27. (Just this was the case with Jerusalem when destroyed by the Chaldaeans, and afterward by the Romans.) Thy silver is… dross, thy wine mixed with water — These are symbols of great moral deterioration. So far, figures; but in the next verse, plain, bluntly-literal predicates occur. Princes… rebellious — Are utterly corrupt and lawless. Companions of thieves — In public responsibilities they are confederate with plunderers. No justice done without bribery; no hearing given to the fatherless and widow, because the latter are too poor to give bribes.

V. 23. Rebellious-Against me their sovereign Lord. Companions of thieves-Partly by giving them connivance and countenance, and partly by practising the same violence, and cruelty, and injustice that thieves used to do. Gifts-That is, bribes given to pervert justice.

Verse 23. Companions of thieves— “Associates”] The Septuagint, Vulgate, and four MSS., read yrbj chabrey without the conjunction w vau.

Verses 22, 23. Thy silver is become dross — Thou art wofully degenerated from thy former purity. Thy wine mixed with water — If there be any remains of religion and virtue in thee, they are mixed with many and great corruptions. Thy princes are rebellious — Against me, their sovereign Lord; and companions of thieves — Partly by giving them connivance and countenance, and partly by practising the same violence, and cruelty, and injustice that thieves used to do. Every one loveth gifts — That is, bribes given to pervert justice.

AN EXCLAMATION AGAINST THE CITY, 21-31.

21-23. By a Hebrew character called Piskah, after verse 20 a long pause is indicated. Though invited to repent, the people, it seems, make no promise, not even a response, and the prophet’s tone now becomes elegiac. How is the faithful city — The once faithful. Lamentations 1:3. Reading it thus, the rhythm is better seen: “How is she become a harlot — the faithful citadel. She that was full of judgment, wherein righteousness did lodge, and now murderers.” The “city,” or citadel, is Zion. Verse 27. (Just this was the case with Jerusalem when destroyed by the Chaldaeans, and afterward by the Romans.) Thy silver is… dross, thy wine mixed with water — These are symbols of great moral deterioration. So far, figures; but in the next verse, plain, bluntly-literal predicates occur. Princes… rebellious — Are utterly corrupt and lawless. Companions of thieves — In public responsibilities they are confederate with plunderers. No justice done without bribery; no hearing given to the fatherless and widow, because the latter are too poor to give bribes.

Verse 24. Ah, I will ease me— “Aha! I will be eased”] Anger, arising from a sense of injury and affront, especially from those who, from every consideration of duty and gratitude, ought to have behaved far otherwise, is an uneasy and painful sensation: and revenge, executed to the full on the offenders, removes that uneasiness, and consequently is pleasing and quieting, at least for the present. Ezekiel, Ezekiel 5:13, introduces God expressing himself in the same manner:—

“And mine anger shall be fully accomplished;

And I will make my fury rest upon them;

And I will give myself ease.”

This is a strong instance of the metaphor called anthropopathia, by which, throughout the Scriptures, as well the historical as the poetical parts, the sentiments sensations, and affections, the bodily faculties qualities, and members, of men, and even of brute animals, are attributed to God, and that with the utmost liberty and latitude of application. The foundation of this is obvious; it arises from necessity; we have no idea of the natural attributes of God, of his pure essence, of his manner of existence, of his manner of acting: when therefore we would treat on these subjects, we find ourselves forced to express them by sensible images. But necessity leads to beauty; this is true of metaphor in general, and in particular of this kind of metaphor, which is used with great elegance and sublimity in the sacred poetry; and what is very remarkable, in the grossest instances of the application of it, it is generally the most striking and the most sublime. The reason seems to be this: when the images are taken from the superior faculties of the human nature, from the purer and more generous affections, and applied to God, we are apt to acquiesce in the notion; we overlook the metaphor, and take it as a proper attribute; but when the idea is gross and offensive as in this passage of Isaiah, where the impatience of anger and the pleasure of revenge is attributed to God, we are immediately shocked at the application; the impropriety strikes us at once, and the mind, casting about for something in the Divine nature analogous to the image, lays hold on some great, obscure, vague idea, which she endeavours to comprehend, and is lost in immensity and astonishment. See Deuteronomy Sacr. Pœsi. Hebr. Præel. xvi. sub. fin., where this matter is treated and illustrated by examples.

Verse 24. Ah, I will ease me, &c. — This is an expression borrowed from men’s passions, who find some sort of ease and rest in their minds upon venting their anger on just occasions, or in bringing offenders to condign punishment. Thus God, speaking after the manner of men, represents himself as feeling satisfaction in executing justice upon obstinate and incorrigible offenders. Compare Ezekiel 5:13, and 16:42, and 21:17. But let it be observed, God is never said to take pleasure in the punishment of any, but those who have filled up the measure of their iniquities.

24. But there is a Judge who sees all this, and who will recompense according to what he sees. The Lord of hosts — He commands from heaven to smite and to protect: in the one case as it deserves; in the other, as it needs. The term “The Lord,” here, is from an unusual Hebrew word, nwdah, Ha Adon, used in Exodus 33:17; 34:23; Isaiah 1:24: 3:1; 10:16, 23; 19:4. “It designates God as the supreme administrator and judge. They (the people) had “appeared before” him, (verse 12,) much as if they were patronizing one whom they were willing to please with a grand pageant, but one who had no real control over them; (compare Psalm 12:5, Adon;) and, after trampling his courts, had gone forth to oppress their fellow men. He will now prove himself to be what he was called, (KAY, Com., in loco,) the Mighty One of Israel, and this name is analogous to “Mighty God of Jacob” in Genesis 49:24, which passage helps us to the meaning of this. In this verse, He shows who is master, and who can bring proud and rebellious Israel through sharp pangs of punishment to repentance, and give exaltation to the crushed few who were his real friends. Isaiah, and those he represents in his own times and in all ages, are his real friends. Is not this principle involved… in the remaining words of this verse? Ah — The connexion requires this word to be used here in a tone of menace, as in verse 4, it must needs be in a tone of grief. Or, it may be of grief here also, and so the meaning be, “Alas, that I must ease or comfort myself by using severity on the guilty, unfaithful ones of Israel.” This softens the metaphor in this passage, and others of like import, called anthropopathia, that is, speaking or feeling as men speak and feel. This figure is constantly used in the Bible. It is necessarily so used. The pure essence of God’s being is impossible for men to apprehend. His mode of thinking and feeling is therefore expressed in our own way of thinking and feeling. Lowth says: “This very necessity leads to beauty, as does all metaphoric language. When images are taken from the superior faculties of man, from the purer and more generous affections of human nature, and applied to God, we are apt to acquiesce in the notion — we overlook the metaphor and take it as a proper attribute; but when the idea is gross and offensive, as in this passage of Isaiah, where the impatience of anger and the pleasure of revenge are attributed to God, we are immediately shocked at the application; the impropriety strikes us at once: and the mind, casting about for something in the divine nature analogous to the image, lays hold on some great, obscure, vague idea, which it endeavours in vain to comprehend, and is lost in immensity and astonishment.” — LOWTH, Isaiah, in loco. But no mischiefs need result from the use of this figure, if it be considered that the inspired writer is predicting only the incomprehensible ethical action of God in the case, not the manner of the action. All the imprecatory psalms, the lxixth and cixth, for example, have their explanation on this basis.

V. 25. And purge-I will purge out of thee, those wicked men that are incorrigible, and for those of you that are curable, I will by my word, and by the furnace of affliction, purge out all that corruption that yet remains in you.

Verse 25. I will turn my hand upon thee] So the common version; and this seems to be a metaphor taken from the custom of those who, when the metal is melted, strike off the scoriæ with their hand previously to its being poured out into the mould. I have seen this done with the naked hand, and no injury whatever sustained.

Purge away thy dross— “In the furnace”] The text has rbk cabbor, which some render “as with soap;” as if it were the same with tyrbk keborith; so Kimchi; but soap can have nothing to do with the purifying of metals. Others, “according to purity,” or “purely,” as our version. Le Clerc conjectured that the true reading is rwkk kechur, “as in the furnace;” see Ezekiel 22:18, 20. Dr. Durell proposes only a transposition of letters rkb to the same sense; and so likewise Archbishop Secker. That this is the true reading is highly probable.

Verses 25, 26. And I will turn my hand upon thee — I will chastise thee again, and thereby reform thee: or, I will do that for the reviving of religion, which I did at first for the planting of it. And purge away thy dross — I will purge out of thee those wicked men that are incorrigible, and, as for those of you that are curable, I will by my word, and by the furnace of affliction, purge out all that corruption that yet remains in you. And I will restore thy judges, &c. — I will give thee such princes and magistrates as thou hadst in the beginning, either, 1st, Of thy commonwealth, such as Moses and Joshua: or, 2d, Of thy kingdom, such as David. And thy counsellors — Thy princes shall have, and shall hearken to, wise and faithful counsellors. Afterward thou shalt be called — Namely, justly and truly, the city of righteousness, &c. — Thou shalt be such. “The reforming of the magistracy,” says Henry, “is a good step toward the reforming of the city and country too.”

25. In this verse punishment and salvation are combined: punishment as the means, salvation as the end. I will turn my hand upon thee — This with a view to vigorous correction. The words seem addressed to captive Zion. Verse 27. If this chapter were written as introductory to the whole body of prophecies following, as some think, then its scope embraces the average character of Judah from Uzziah’s reign to the captivity and the restoration. Then, too, the changes of aspect — deep shades and partial lights — seen to pass over the chapter are to be accounted for. And purely purge away thy dross — The recovery was to be by severe measures, namely, as by smelting fires. The figure is, that in the people and princes of Judah there was something corresponding to silver, but mixed with abundant dross. The latter was to be thoroughly removed. Thy tin — Alloy; tin, lead, or other base metal. The same figure as before used, precious metals held in combination by other ores.

V. 26. Thy counsellors-Thy princes shall hearken to wise and faithful counsellors. Called faithful-Thou shalt be such.

Verse 26. I will restore] “This,” says Kimchi, “shall be in the days of the Messiah, in which all the wicked shall cease, and the remnant of Israel shall neither do iniquity, nor speak lies.” What a change must this be among Jews!

Afterward— “And after this”] The Septuagint, Syriac, Chaldee, and eighteen MSS., and one of my own, very ancient, add the conjunction w vau, AND.

Verses 25, 26. And I will turn my hand upon thee — I will chastise thee again, and thereby reform thee: or, I will do that for the reviving of religion, which I did at first for the planting of it. And purge away thy dross — I will purge out of thee those wicked men that are incorrigible, and, as for those of you that are curable, I will by my word, and by the furnace of affliction, purge out all that corruption that yet remains in you. And I will restore thy judges, &c. — I will give thee such princes and magistrates as thou hadst in the beginning, either, 1st, Of thy commonwealth, such as Moses and Joshua: or, 2d, Of thy kingdom, such as David. And thy counsellors — Thy princes shall have, and shall hearken to, wise and faithful counsellors. Afterward thou shalt be called — Namely, justly and truly, the city of righteousness, &c. — Thou shalt be such. “The reforming of the magistracy,” says Henry, “is a good step toward the reforming of the city and country too.”

26, 27. I will restore thy judges — Corrupt judges and counsellors shall be removed, and such magistrates as in early times — as in David’s time — were enjoyed, shall take their places. City of righteousness — The prophet catches a glimpse of what he is yet to describe in Isaiah 60:14. Faithful city — A city steadfast in character, also of unquestionably good reputation. Isaiah 7:9; 33:5, 6. Zion — By metonomy, the purified city itself. With judgment — In just visitation for sin, yet with merciful intent. Although obliged to punish this rebellious people because of their perversity, God’s infliction should lead to repentance, when he would remove his stroke and again gather them to their own land. Her converts — Margin, They that return of her. Possibly the reference is to the return from captivity in Babylon: more likely, the expression is general, and means those who return to the Lord.

V. 27. Redeemed-Shall be delivered from all their enemies and calamities. With-Or, by judgment, that is, by God’s righteous judgment, purging out those wicked and incorrigible Jews, and destroying their unmerciful enemies. Converts-Heb. her returners, those of them who shall come out of captivity into their own land. Righteousness-Or, by righteousness, either by my faithfulness, in keeping my promise, or by my goodness.

Verse 27. With judgment— “In judgment”] By the exercise of God’s strict justice in destroying the obdurate, (see Isaiah 1:28,) and delivering the penitent in righteousness; by the truth and faithfulness of God in performing his promises.”

Verses 27, 28. Zion shall be redeemed — Shall be delivered from all their enemies and calamities; with judgment — By the exercise of God’s strict justice in destroying the obdurate; by purging out those wicked and incorrigible Jews, who, by their sins, hindered the deliverance of the people; and by punishing and destroying their unmerciful enemies who kept them in cruel bondage; and her converts — Hebrew, hybvw, her returners, those of them who shall come out of captivity into their own land; with righteousness — Or, by righteousness; either by God’s faithfulness, in keeping his promise of delivering them after seventy years, or by his goodness; for both these qualities come under the name of righteousness in the Scriptures. And, or rather, but, the destruction of the transgressors, &c., shall be together — Though I will deliver my people from the Babylonish captivity, yet those of them who shall still go on in their wickedness, shall not have the benefit of that mercy, but shall be reserved for a more dreadful and total destruction.

Ver. 27. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment. The second member of the metaboles of Hebrew poetry, when a doubt occurs, often determines the sense of the first. The righteousness which should redeem and restore Zion to glory was the practice of judgment, mercy, and truth; the ceasing to do evil, and learning to do well, as in ver. 26. Then thou shalt be called the city of righteousness. On the contrary, as in the verses following, the apostates to idolatry fade as the leaf, and burn as the tow with a spark.

26, 27. I will restore thy judges — Corrupt judges and counsellors shall be removed, and such magistrates as in early times — as in David’s time — were enjoyed, shall take their places. City of righteousness — The prophet catches a glimpse of what he is yet to describe in Isaiah 60:14. Faithful city — A city steadfast in character, also of unquestionably good reputation. Isaiah 7:9; 33:5, 6. Zion — By metonomy, the purified city itself. With judgment — In just visitation for sin, yet with merciful intent. Although obliged to punish this rebellious people because of their perversity, God’s infliction should lead to repentance, when he would remove his stroke and again gather them to their own land. Her converts — Margin, They that return of her. Possibly the reference is to the return from captivity in Babylon: more likely, the expression is general, and means those who return to the Lord.

Verses 27, 28. Zion shall be redeemed — Shall be delivered from all their enemies and calamities; with judgment — By the exercise of God’s strict justice in destroying the obdurate; by purging out those wicked and incorrigible Jews, who, by their sins, hindered the deliverance of the people; and by punishing and destroying their unmerciful enemies who kept them in cruel bondage; and her converts — Hebrew, hybvw, her returners, those of them who shall come out of captivity into their own land; with righteousness — Or, by righteousness; either by God’s faithfulness, in keeping his promise of delivering them after seventy years, or by his goodness; for both these qualities come under the name of righteousness in the Scriptures. And, or rather, but, the destruction of the transgressors, &c., shall be together — Though I will deliver my people from the Babylonish captivity, yet those of them who shall still go on in their wickedness, shall not have the benefit of that mercy, but shall be reserved for a more dreadful and total destruction.

28. Destruction… transgressors — Literally, there shall be a breaking, or entire crushing out, of apostates, revolters, deserters from Jehovah. They that forsake — An equivalent expression to apostates; they shall come to an end, be destroyed totally. The characters in the first of the chapter are here referred to. See Psalm 37:20, 38.

V. 29. The oaks-Which, after the manner of the Heathen, you have consecrated to idolatrous uses. Gardens-In which, as well is in the groves, they committed idolatry.

Verse 29. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks— “For ye shall be ashamed of the ilexes”] Sacred groves were a very ancient and favourite appendage of idolatry. They were furnished with the temple of the god to whom they were dedicated, with altars, images, and every thing necessary for performing the various rites of worship offered there; and were the scenes of many impure ceremonies, and of much abominable superstition. They made a principal part of the religion of the old inhabitants of Canaan; and the Israelites were commanded to destroy their groves, among other monuments of their false worship. The Israelites themselves became afterwards very much addicted to this species of idolatry. “When I had brought them into the land,

Which I swore that I would give unto them;

Then they saw every high hill and every thick tree;

And there they slew their victims;

And there they presented the provocation of their offerings; And there they placed their sweet savour;

And there they poured out their libations.”

Ezekiel 20:28.

“On the tops of the mountains they sacrifice;

And on the hills they burn incense;

Under the oak and the poplar;

And the ilex, because her shade is pleasant.”

Hosea 4:13.

Of what particular kinds the trees here mentioned are, cannot be determined with certainty. In regard to hla ellah, in this place of Isaiah, as well as in Hosea, Celsius (Hierobot.) understands it of the terebinth, because the most ancient interpreters render it so; in the first place the Septuagint. He quotes eight places; but in three of these eight places the copies vary, some having druv, the oak, instead of terebinqov, the terebinth or turpentine tree. And he should have told us, that these same seventy render it in sixteen other places by druv, the oak; so that their authority is really against him; and the Septuagint, “stant pro quercu,” contrary to what he says at first setting out. Add to this that Symmachus, Theodotion, and Aquila, generally render it by druv, the oak; the latter only once rendering it by terebinqov, the terebinth. His other arguments seem to me not very conclusive; he says, that all the qualities of hla ellah agree to the terebinth, that it grows in mountainous countries, that it is a strong tree, long-lived, large and high, and deciduous. All these qualities agree just as well to the oak, against which he contends; and he actually attributes them to the oak in the very next section. But I think neither the oak nor the terebinth will do in this place of Isaiah, from the last circumstance which he mentions, their being deciduous, where the prophet’s design seems to me to require an evergreen, otherwise the casting of its leaves would be nothing out of the common established course of nature, and no proper image of extreme distress and total desolation, parallel to that of a garden without water, that is, wholly burnt up and destroyed. An ancient, who was an inhabitant and a native of this country, understands it in like manner of a tree blasted with uncommon and immoderate heat; velut arbores, cum frondes æstu torrente decusserunt. Ephrem Syr. in loc., edit. Assemani. Compare Psalm 1:4; Jeremiah 17:8. Upon the whole I have chosen to make it the ilex, which word Vossius, Etymolog., derives from the Hebrew hla ellah, that whether the word itself be rightly rendered or not, I might at least preserve the propriety of the poetic image.—L.

By the ilex the learned prelate means the holly, which, though it generally appears as a sort of shrub, grows, in a good soil, where it is unmolested, to a considerable height. I have one in my own garden, rising three stems from the root, and between twenty and thirty feet in height. It is an evergreen.

Ver. 29. For they shall be ashamed— “For ye shall be ashamed”] wvwbt teboshu, in the second person, Vulgate, Chaldee, three MSS., one of my own, ancient, and one edition; and in agreement with the rest of the sentence.

Verse 29. For they shall be ashamed — He does not speak of an ingenuous and penitential shame for sin, but of an involuntary and penal shame for the disappointment of the hopes which they had placed in their idols; of the oaks which ye have desired — Which, after the manner of the heathen, you have consecrated to idolatrous uses. Of what particular kind the trees here mentioned were, cannot be determined with certainty. The Hebrew word hla, here used, is rendered ilex by Bishop Lowth, which properly means the scarlet oak. Others think the terebinth-tree was intended. And ye shall be confounded for the gardens, &c. — In which, as well as in the groves, they practised idolatry: see Isaiah 65:3; and 66:17. “Sacred groves,” the reader will observe, “were a very ancient and favourite appendage of idolatry. They were furnished with the temple of the god to whom they were dedicated; with altars, images, and every thing necessary for performing the various rites of worship offered there; and were the scenes of many impure ceremonies, and of much abominable superstition. They made a principal part of the religion of the old inhabitants of Canaan; and the Israelites were commanded to destroy their groves, among other monuments of their false worship. The Israelites themselves, however, became afterward very much addicted to this species of idolatry:” see Ezekiel 20:28; Hosea 4:13. Bishop Lowth.

29. They… ye — These pronouns are thought by some interpreters to belong to the same parties. A Hebrew image, in some instances, allows this. But a consistent sense is yielded by supposing different classes to be referred to; in which case the meaning would be, they, of the coming period, will shrink with shame from the oaks, or terebinth groves, and the gardens, both of which ye, of this generation, have used (under the one, and within the other) for idolatrous practices. The idolatrous element was ever present in pre-eminently wicked times. Which ye have desired — The prophet, while speaking, turns suddenly around to the men of that time, and says, “Ye are the men I mean, who are storing up shame and confusion for the generations to come.”

Verse 30. Whose leaf— “Whose leaves”] Twenty-six of Kennicott’s, twenty-four of Deuteronomy Rossi’s, one ancient, of my own, and seven editions, read hyla aleyha, in its full and regular form. This is worth remarking, as it accounts for a great number of anomalies of the like kind, which want only the same authority to rectify them.

As a garden that hath no water— “A garden wherein is no water.”] In the hotter parts of the Eastern countries, a constant supply of water is so absolutely necessary for the cultivation and even for the preservation and existence of a garden, that should it want water but for a few days, every thing in it would be burnt up with the heat, and totally destroyed. There is therefore no garden whatever in those countries but what has such a certain supply, either from some neighbouring river, or from a reservoir of water collected from springs, or filled with rain water in the proper season, in sufficient quantity to afford ample provision for the rest of the year. Moses, having described the habitation of man newly created as a garden planted with every tree pleasant to the sight and good for food, adds, as a circumstance necessary to complete the idea of a garden, that it was well supplied with water, “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden;” Genesis 2:10: see also Genesis 13:10. That the reader may have a clear notion of this matter, it will be necessary to give some account of the management of their gardens in this respect. “Damascus,” says Maundrell, p. 122, “is encompassed with gardens, extending no less, recording to common estimation, than thirty miles round; which makes it look like a city in a vast wood. The gardens are thick set with fruit trees of all kinds, kept fresh and verdant by the waters of the Barrady, (the Chrysorrhoas of the ancients,) which supply both the gardens and city in great abundance. This river, as soon as it issues out from between the cleft of the mountain before mentioned into the plain, is immediately divided into three streams; of which the middlemost and biggest runs directly to Damascus, and is distributed to all the cisterns and fountains of the city. The other two (which I take to be the work of art) are drawn round, one to the right hand, and the other to the left, on the borders of the gardens, into which they are let as they pass, by little currents, and so dispersed all over the vast wood, insomuch that there is not a garden but has a fine quick stream running through it. The Barrady is almost wholly drunk up by the city and gardens. What small part of it escapes is united, as I was informed, in one channel again on the southeast side of the city; and, after about three or four hours’ course finally loses itself in a bog there, without ever arriving at the sea.” This was likewise the case in former times, as Strabo, lib. xvi., Pliny, lib. v. 18, testify; who say, “that this river was expended in canals, and drunk up by watering the place.”

“The best sight,” says the same Maundrell, p. 39, “that the palace of the emir of Beroot, anciently Berytus, affords, and the worthiest to be remembered, is the orange garden. It contains a large quadrangular plat of ground, divided into sixteen lesser squares, four in a row, with walks between them. The walks are shaded with orange trees of a large spreading size. Every one of these sixteen lesser squares in the garden was bordered with stone; and in the stone work were troughs, very artificially contrived, for conveying the water all over the garden; there being little outlets cut at every tree for the stream as it passed by to flow out and water it.” The royal gardens at Ispahan are watered just in the same manner, according to Kempfer’s description, Amœn. Exot., p. 193. This gives us a clear idea of the מים פלגי palgey mayim, mentioned in the first Psalm, and other places of Scripture, “the divisions of waters,” the waters distributed in artificial canals; for so the phrase properly signifies. The prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah 17:8, has imitated, and elegantly amplified, the passage of the psalmist above referred to:— “He shall be like a tree planted by the water side,

And which sendeth forth her roots to the aqueduct.

She shall not fear, when the heat cometh;

But her leaf shall be green;

And in the year of drought she shall not be anxious,

Neither shall she cease from bearing fruit.”

From this image the son of Sirach, Ecclus. 24:30, 31, has most beautifully illustrated the influence and the increase of religious wisdom in a well prepared heart.

“I also come forth as a canal from a river,

And as a conduit flowing into a paradise.

I said, I will water my garden,

And I will abundantly moisten my border:

And, lo! my canal became a river,

And my river became a sea.”

This gives us the true meaning of the following elegant proverb, Proverbs 21:1:—

“The heart of the king is like the canals of waters in the hand of JEHOVAH; Whithersoever it pleaseth him, he inclineth it.”

The direction of it is in the hand of JEHOVAH, as the distribution of the water of the reservoir through the garden by different canals is at the will of the gardener.

“Et, cum exustus ager morientibus æstuat herbis,

Ecce supercilio clivosi tramitis undam

Elicit: illa cadens raucum per levia murmur

Saxa ciet, scatebrisque arentia temperat arva.”

Virg., Georg. i. 107.

“Then, when the fiery suns too fiercely play,

And shrivelled herbs on withering stems decay,

The wary ploughman on the mountain’s brow

Undams his watery stores; huge torrents flow;

And, rattling down the rocks, large moisture yield,

Tempering the thirsty fever of the field.”

DRYDEN.

Solomon, Ecclesiastes 2:5, 6, mentions his own works of this kind:— “I made me gardens, and paradises;

And I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.

I made me pools of water,

To water with them the grove flourishing with trees.”

Maundrell, p. 88, has given a description of the remains, as they are said to be, of these very pools made by Solomon, for the reception and preservation of the waters of a spring, rising at a little distance from them; which will give us a perfect notion of the contrivance and design of such reservoirs. “As for the pools, they are three in number, lying in a row above each other; being so disposed that the waters of the uppermost may descend into the second, and those of the second into the third. Their figure is quadrangular, the breadth is the same in all, amounting to about ninety paces. In their length there is some difference between them; the first being about one hundred and sixty paces long, the second, two hundred, and the third, two hundred and twenty. They are all lined with wall and plastered; and contain a great depth of water.” The immense works which were made by the ancient kings of Egypt for recovering the waters of the Nile, when it overflowed, for such uses, are well known. But there never was a more stupendous work of this kind than the reservoir of Saba, or Merab, in Arabia Felix. According to the tradition of the country, it was the work of Balkis, that queen of Sheba who visited Solomon. It was a vast lake formed by the collection of the waters of a torrent in a valley, where, at a narrow pass between two mountains, a very high mole or dam was built. The water of the lake so formed had near twenty fathoms depth; and there were three sluices at different heights, by which, at whatever height the lake stood, the plain below might be watered. By conduits and canals from these sluices the water was constantly distributed in due proportion to the several lands; so that the whole country for many miles became a perfect paradise. The city of Saba, or Merab, was situated immediately below the great dam; a great flood came, and raised the lake above its usual height; the dam gave way in the middle of the night; the waters burst forth at once, and overwhelmed the whole city, with the neighbouring towns and people. The remains of eight tribes were forced to abandon their dwellings, and the beautiful valley became a morass and a desert. This fatal catastrophe happened long before the time of Mohammed, who mentions it in the Koran, chap. xxxiv. ver.

15. See also Sale, Prelim. s. i. p. 10, and Michaelis, Quest. aux Voyag. Dan. No. 94. Niebuhr, Descrip. de l’Arabie. p. 240.—L. ISAIAH

Verse 30. For ye shall be as an oak, &c. — As you have sinned under the oaks and in the gardens, so you shall be like unto oaks and gardens, not when they are green and flourishing, but when they wither and decay. This verse is remarkably elegant, in which, what was the pleasure and confidence of those idolaters, is made to denote their punishment. “All the gardens in the East,” says a late writer, “have water in them, which is so absolutely necessary, that without it every thing, in summer, would be parched up. This is a circumstance which we should attend to, if we would enter into the energy of the latter clause.”

30. An oak whose leaf fadeth — “Notice the beautiful sarcasm. Ye have chosen oaks, and as a fading-leafed oak ye shall be; ye have chosen gardens, and ye shall be as a garden dry and parched. The objects or your idolatry are the images of your ruin.” — Whedon.

V. 31. The strong-Your idols, which you think to be strong and able to defend you. As tow-Shall be as suddenly and easily, consumed by my judgments, as tow is by fire. The maker-Of the idol, who can neither save himself nor his workmanship.

Verse 31. And the strong — The wisest, strongest, or richest persons among you, who think to secure themselves against the threatened danger by their wisdom, wealth, or power, and much more they that are weak and helpless; shall be as tow — Shall be as suddenly and easily consumed by God’s judgments as tow is by the fire. And the maker of it — The maker of the idol, who can neither save himself nor his workmanship; as a spark — To set it on fire: by his sin he shall bring himself to ruin. Or, as xwxynl wl[p, may be rendered, his work shall become a spark, shall be the cause of his destruction. “The words are elegant, and the meaning of them is, that the rich, the powerful, the great, (meant by the word ˆsjh, which we render strong,) who seemed like a lofty and well-rooted oak, shall perish with their works: for their works, their great and wicked undertakings, by which they had sought safety, like sparks, shall set them on fire and consume them like tow. They shall perish, like fools, by their own devices. The very works themselves, which they had raised for the glory and preservation of themselves and their republic, shall be turned into the very cause of their destruction. Vitringa thinks the prophet alludes to the destruction of their state and temple by the Romans.” — Dodd.

31. And the strong — The “strong” men — “strong” rulers of the nation, of which the present rulers are the fit representatives. As tow — Beaten flax. A symbol of weakness. And the maker of it — Better, his work, as in the marginal reading. All that his skill has laboriously produced — whether his idols or worldly schemes. A spark — As the “spark” which ignites the “tow.” No longer than this shall they endure — they shall go up in a flash and in smoke, and that shall be the end of them. Such is the appropriate warning of the close of this preface to the body of prophecies following. “The hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies.” Isaiah 66:14.