CHAP. IV. 1. And seven women— -] The division of the chapters has interrupted the prophet's discourse, and broken it off almost in the midst of the sentence. "The numbers slain in battle shall be so great, that seven women shall be left to one man." The prophet has described the greatness of this distress by images and adjuncts the most expressive and forcible. The young women, contrary to their natural modesty, shall become suitors to the men: they will take hold of them, and use the most pressing importunity to be married: in spite of the natural suggestions of jealousy, they will be content with a share only of the rights of marriage in common with several others; and that on hard conditions, renouncing the legal demands of the wife on the husband, (see Exod. xxi. 10.) and begging only the name and credit of wedlock; and to be freed from the reproach of celibacy. (See chap. liv. 4, 5.) Like Marcia, on a different occasion, and in other circumstances: "Da tantum nomen inane Connubii: liceat tumulo scripsisse, Catonis Marcia." Lucan. II. 342. Ibid. —in that day-] These words are omitted in LXX, and MS. Ibid. The Branch of JEHOVAH-] The Messiah of JEHOVAH, says the Chaldee. The Branch is an appropriated title of the Messiah; and the fruit of the land means the great Person to spring from the house of Judah, and is only a parallel expression signifying the same: or perhaps the blessings consequent upon the redemption procured by him. Compare chap. xlv. 8. where the same great event is set forth in similar images; and see the note there. '. Ibid. the houe of Israel.] A MS. has x 3. —written among the living.] That is, whose name stands in the enrolment or register of the people; or every man living, who is a citizen of Jerusalem. See Ezek. xiii. 9. where "they shall not be in the writing of the house of Israel," is the same with what immediately goes before, "they shall not be in the assembly of my people." Compare Psalm lxxxvii. 6. lxix. 28. Exod. xxxii. 32. To number and register the people was agreeable to the law of Moses, and probably was always prac tised; being in sound policy, useful and even necessary. David's design of numbering the people was of another kind; it was to enrol them for his army. Michaelis, Mosaisches Recht, part ii. p. 227. see also his Dissert. de Censibus Hebræorum. 4. "The spirit of burning," means the fire of God's wrath, by which he will prove and purify his people; gathering them into his furnace, in order to separate the dross from the silver, the bad from the good. The severity of God's judgments, the fiery trial of his servants, Ezekiel (chap. xxii. 18–22. has set forth at large, after his manner, with great boldness of imagery and force of expression. God threatens to gather them into the midst of Jerusalem, as into the furnace; to blow the fire upon them, and to melt them. Malachi treats the same subject, and represents the same event under the like images: "But who may abide the day of his coming? And like the soap of the fullers. And he shall sit refining and purifiying the silver; And he shall purify the sons of Levi; And cleanse them like gold, and like silver; That they may be JEHOVAH's ministers, 255 Mal. iii. 2, 3. but four MSS. 5.—the station-] The Hebrew text has, every station; (one ancient) omit ; very rightly, as it should seem: for the station was mount Sion itself, and no other. See Exod. xv. 17. And the LXX, and MS. add the same word before, probably right: the word has only changed its place by mistake., “the place where they were gathered together in their holy assemblies," says Sal. b. Melec. Ibid. A cloud by day-] This is a manifest allusion to the pillar of a cloud and of fire, which attended the Israelites in their passage out of Egypt, and to the glory that rested on the tabernacle. Exod. xiii. 21. xl. 38. The prophet Zechariah applies the same image to the same purpose: "And I will be unto her a wall of fire round about; Zeoh. ii. 5. That is, the visible presence of God shall protect her. Which explains the conclusion of this verse of Isaiah; where the makkaph between and, connecting the two words in construction, which ought not to be connected, has thrown an obscurity upon the sentence, and misled most of the translators. 6. And a tabernacle-] In countries subject to violent tempests, as well as to intolerable heat, a portable tent is a necessary part of a traveller's baggage for defence and shelter. CHAP. V. THIS chapter likewise stands single and alone, unconnected with the preceding or following. The subject of it is nearly the same with that of the first chapter. It is a general reproof of the Jews for their wickedness: but it exceeds that chapter in force, in severity, in variety, and elegance; and it adds a more express declaration of vengeance, by the Babylonian invasion. 1. Let me sing now a song] A MS. respectable for its antiquity, adds the word (a song) after N】; which gives so elegant a turn to the sentence by the repetition of it in the next member, and by distinguishing the members so exactly in the style and manner of the Hebrew poetical composition, that I am much inclined to think it genuine. Ibid. A song of loves] TT, for IT; status constructus pro absoluto, as the grammarians say, as Micah vi, 16. Lament. iii. 14, and 66. so archbishop Secker. Or rather, in all these and the like cases, a mistake of the transcribers, by not observing a small stroke, which in many MSS is the שיות דודים דודי' is made to supply the o of the plural, thus same with TT, Psal. xlv. 1. In this way of understanding it, we avoid the great impropriety of making the author of the song, and the person to whom it is addressed, to be the same. Ibid. On a high and fruitful hill] Heb. "on a horn the son of oil." The expression is highly descriptive and poetical. "He calls the land of Israel a horn, because it is higher than all lands; as the horn is higher than the whole body: and the son of oil, because it is said to be a land flowing with milk and honey." Kimchi on the place. The parts of animals are, by an easy metaphor, applied to parts of the earth, both in common and poetical language. A promontory is called a cape or head; the Turks call it a nose. "Dorsum immane mari summo:" Virg. a back, or ridge of rocks. "Hanc latus angustum jam se cogentis in arctum Hesperiæ tenuem producit in æquora linguam, Lucan. ii. 612. of Brundusium, i. e. Bpɛvtɛσiv, which in the ancient lan< guage of that country signifies stag's head, says Strabo. A horn is a proper and obvious image for a mountain, or mountainous country. Solinus, cap. viii. says, “Italiam, ubi longius processerit, in cornua duo scindi:” that is, the high ridge of the Alps, which runs through the whole length of it, divides at last into two ridges, one going through Calabria, the other through the country of the Brutii. "Cornwall is called by the inhabitants in the British tongue Kernaw, as lessening by degrees like a horn, running out into promontories like so many horns. For the Britons call a horn corn, in the plural kern.". Camden. "And Sammes is of opinion, that the country had this name originally from the Phenicians, who traded hither for tin; keren, in their language, being a horn." Gibson. Here the precise idea seems to be that of a high mountain standing by itself; vertex montis, aut pars montis ab aliis divisa;" which signification, says I. H. Michaelis, (Bibl. Hallens. Not. in loc.) the word has in Arabic. Judea was in general a mountainous country; whence Moses sometimes calls it the mountain: "Thou shalt plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance." Exod. xv. 17. "I pray thee let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan; that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.' Deut. iii. 25. And in a political and religious view it was detached and separated from all the nations round it. Whoever has considered the descriptions given of mount Tabor, (see Reland, Palæstin. Eugene Roger, Terre Sainte, p. 64.) and the views of it which are to be seen in books of travels, (Maundrell, p. 114. Egmont and Heyman, vol. ii. p. 25. Thevenot, vol. i. p. 429.) its regular conic form, rising singly in a plain to a great height, from a base small in proportion, its beauty and fertility to the very top, will have a good idea of “a horn the son of oil;" and will perhaps be induced to think, that the prophet took his image from that mountain. 2. and he cleared it from the stones.] This was agreeable to the ancient husbandry: "Saxa, summa parte terræ, et vites et arbores lædunt; ima parte, refrigerant." Columell. de Arb. III. "Saxosum facile est expedire lectione lapidum." Id. II. 2. "Lapides, qui supersunt [al. insuper sunt], hieme rigent, æstate fervescunt; idcirco satis, arbustis, et vitibus nocent." Pallad, I. 6. A piece of ground thus cleared of the stones, Persius, in his hard way of metaphor, calls "Exossatus ager." Sat. vi. 52. Ibid. Sorek.] Many of the ancient interpreters, LXX, Aq. Theod. have returned this word as a proper name; I think, very rightly: Sorek was a valley lying between Ascalon and Gaza, and running far up eastward in the tribe of Judah. Both Ascalon and Gaza were anciently famous for wine; the former is mentioned as such by Alexander Trallianus; the latter by several authors: (quoted by Reland, Palæst. p. 589. and 986.) And it seems, that the upper part of the valley of Sorek, and that of Eshcol, where the spies gathered the single cluster of grapes, which they were obliged to bear between two upon a staff, being both near to Hebron, were in the same neighbourhood; and that all this part of the country abounded with rich vineyards. Compare Num. xiii. 22, 23. Judg. xvi. 3, 4. P. Nau supposes Eshcol and Sorek to be only different names for the same valley. Voyage Nouveau de la Terre Sainte, liv. iv. chap. 18. So likewise De Lisle's posthumous map of the Holy Land. Paris, 1763. See Bochart, Hieroz. ii. col. 725. Thevenot, i. p. 406. Michaelis (note on Judg. xvi. 4. German translation) thinks it probable, from some circumstances of the history there given, that Sorek was in the tribe of Judah, not in the country of the Philistines. The vine of Sorek was known to the Israelites, being mentioned by Moses (Gen. xlix. 11.) before their coming out of Egypt. Egypt was not a wine country. "Throughout this country there are no wines." Sandys, p. 101. At least in very ancient times they had none. Herodotus, ii. 77. says, it had no vines; and therefore used an artificial wine made of barley: that is not strictly true; for the vines of Egypt are spoken of in Scripture, (Psal. lxxviii. 47. cv. 33. and see Gen. xl. 11. by which it should seem that they drank only the fresh juice pressed from the grape, which was called ovog aμmελivos. Herodot. ii. 37.) but they had no large vineyards; nor was the country proper for them, being little more than one large plain, annually overflowed by the Nile. The Mareotic in later times is, I think, the only celebrated Egyptian wine which we meet with in history. The vine was formerly, as Hasselquist tells us it is now, "cultivated in Egypt for the sake of eating the grapes, not for wine; which is brought from Candia," &c. They were supplied with wine from Greece, and likewise from Phenicia." Herodot. iii. 6. The vine and the wine of Sorek therefore, which lay near at hand for importation into Egypt, must, in all probability, have been well known to the Israelites when they sojourned there. There is something remarkable in the manner in which Moses makes mention of it, which, for want of considering this matter, has not been attended to: it is in Jacob's prophecy of the future prosperity of the tribe of Judah. "Binding his foal to the vine, And his ass's colt to his own Sorek; He wasbeth his raiment in wine, 66 And his cloak in the blood of grapes." Gen. xlix. 11. עיר I take the liberty of rendering, for p, his Sorek, as the Masoretes do of pointing, for y, his foal. might naturally enough appear in the feminine form, but it is not at all probable that p ever should. By naming particularly the vine of Sorek, and as the vine belonging to Judah, the prophecy intimates the very part of the country which was to fall to the lot of that tribe. Sir John Chardin says, "That at Casbin, a city of Persia, they turn their cattle into the vineyards, after the vintage, to brouse on the vines." He speaks also of vines in that country so large, that he could hardly compass the trunks of them with his arms. Voyages, tom. iii. p. 12. 12mo. This shews, that the ass might be securely bound to the vine; and without danger of damaging the tree by brousing on it. Ibid. And he built a tower in the midst of it.] Our Saviour, who has taken the general idea of one of his parables (Matt. xxi. 33. Mark xii. 1.) from this of Isaiah, has likewise inserted this circumstance of building a tower; which is generally explained by commentators, as designed for the keeper of the vineyard to watch and defend the fruits. But for this purpose it was usual to make a little temporary hut, (Isa. i. 8.) which might serve for the short season while the fruit was ripening, and which was removed afterward. The tower therefore should rather mean a building of a more permanent nature and use; the farm, as we may call it, of the vineyard, containing all the offices and implements, and the whole apparatus, necessary for the culture of the vineyard, and the making of the wine. To which image in the allegory, the situation, the manner of building, the use, and the whole service of the temple exactly answered. And so the Chaldee paraphrast very rightly expounds it: "Et statui eos (Israelitas) ut plantam vineæ selectæ, et ædificavi Sanctuarium meum in medio illorum." So also Hieron. in loc. "Edificavit quoque turrim in medio ejus: templum videlicet in media civitate." That they have still such towers, or buildings, for use or pleasure, in their gardens in the east, see Harmer's Observations, ii. p. 241. Ibid. And hewed out a lake therein.] This image also our Saviour has preserved in his parable. p. LXX render it here πρoλŋvшv, and in four other places væоλŋviv, Isa. xvi. 10. Joel iii. 13. Hag. ii. 17. Zech. xiv. 10.; I think, more properly: and this latter word St. Mark uses. It means, not the wine-press itself, or calcatorium, which is called a, or , but what the Romans called lacus, the lake; the large open place, or vessel, which, by a conduit, or spout, received the must from the winepress. In very hot countries it was perhaps necessary, or at least very convenient, to have the lake under ground, or in a cave hewed out of the side of the rock, for coolness; that the heat might not cause too great a fermentation, and sour the must. "Vini confectio instituitur in cella, vel intimæ domos camera quadam, a ventorum ingressu remota.” Kempfer, of Schiras wine. Amoen. Exot. p. 376. For the hot wind, to which that country is subject, would injure the wine. "The wine-presses in Persia," says Sir John Chardin, "are formed by making hollow places in the ground, lined with mason's work." Harmer's Observations, i. p. 392. See a print of one in Kempfer, p. 377. Nonnus describes at large Bacchus hollowing the inside of a rock, and hewing out a place for the winepress, or rather the lake: Και σκοπέλους ελαχηνε· πεδοσκαφείς δε σιδήρου Αφρον [Γ. ακρον] εϋσταφυλοιο τυπον ποιησατο λήνου. |