here again ascribes to Himself maternal love and maternal conduct (comp. xlii. 14; xlvi. 3 sq.; xlix. 15). Is the term to be pressed? I believe that it ought, for it contains a fine climax. A mother who comforts her child is an affecting image. But a mother's love is still more gloriously displayed when it shows itself to be strong enough to raise up again the son, the strong man, who is bowed down by misfortune. ["The E. V. here dilutes a man to one. The same liberty is taken by many other versions. But comp. Gen. xxiv. 67; Judges xvii. 2; 1 Kings xix. 19, 20, and the affecting scenes between Thetis and Achilles in the Iliad."-ALEXANDER. "The Prophet now thinks of the people as one man. Before he had thought of them as children. Israel is as a man returned from a foreign country, escaped from bondage, full of sad recollections, which are wholly obliterated in the maternal arms of divine love yonder in Jerusalem, the dear home, which even in a strange land was the home of their thoughts."-DELITZSCH. "The 66 in Jerusalem suggests the only means by which these blessings are to be secured, viz., a union of affection and of interest with the Israel of God to whom alone they are promised." ALEXANDER.D. M.]. The beginning of ver. 14 recalls lx. 5. In this place, too, the meaning of the Prophet is, that what Jerusalem shall see is the manifestation of the power of Jehovah on His friends and foes. For the aim and scope of all divine training is that God may be known from all nature and history as the supreme good (comp. xli. 20; xlii. 12 sqq.; xliii. 10 sqq.; xlv. 3 sqq. et saepe). The heart, the centre of life, shall rejoice, the bones, the parts forming the periphery, will shoot as young grass, i. e., they will feel themselves excited to fresh, vigorous manifestation of life (comp. xliv. 4; lviii. Î1; lxi. 3). [The latter part of the verse is "in accordance with the Prophet's constant practice of presenting the salvation of God's people as coincident and simultaneous with the destruction of His enemies." ALEXDER.-D. M.]. 9. GENERAL PICTURE OF THE TIME OF THE END AS THE TIME OF JUDG 16 For by fire and by his sword Will the LORD plead with all flesh : And the slain of the LORD shall be many. 17 They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves 'in the gardens, 'Behind one tree in the midst, Eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, Shall be consumed together, saith the LORD. 18 For I know their works and their thoughts: It shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; 19 And I will set a sign among them, And I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, To Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off, That have not heard my fame, Neither have seen my glory; And they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. 20 And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD Out of all nations Upon horses, and in chariots, and in 'litters, And upon mules, and upon swift beasts, To my holy mountain 'Jerusalem, saith the LORD, As the children of Israel bring an offering In a clean vessel into the house of the LORD. 21 And I will also take of them For priests and for Levites, saith the LORD. 22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, Shall remain before me, saith the LORD, So shall your seed and your name remain. 23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, And from one Sabbath to another, Shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. 24 And they shall go forth, and look Upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: Neither shall their fire be quenched; And they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. 1 Or, one after another. 3 Heb. from new moon to his new moon, and from Sabbath to his Sabbath. For by fire Jehovah contends and by his sword with all flesh. 2 Or, coaches. 1 to Jerusalem. But their works and their thoughts-it is come that they gather all nations, etc. for the gardens behind one in the midst. a report. • dromedaries. And also of them will I take to (as an addition to) the priests, to the Levites. monthly at new moon, and weekly on the Sabbath. Ver. 15. The words ' TT TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL 11 occur exactly as here Jer. iv. 13. There, too, they stand as second subject of the verb y, which is first in order. Jeremiah quotes there Hab. i. 8 also. is never used by Jeremiah elsewhere; he employs the word 227 (xvii. 25; xxii. 4; xlvi 9; xlvii. 3; 1. 37; li. 21). But Isaiah uses 2013 three times, namely ii. 7; xxii. 18, in addition to the present case. p, too, is never elsewhere used by Jeremiah. He employs always instead of it ¬y (xxiii. 19; xxv. 32; xxx. 23) and (xxiii. 19; xxx 23). But Isaiah has including the present place, v. 28; xvii. 13; xxi. 1; xxix. 6. On these grounds we can maintain that the words in Jeremiah are a quotation from the place before us. Ver. 16. is not the sign of the accusative, but a preposition as 1 Sam. xii. 7; Jer. ii. 35; Ezek. xvii. 20; xx. 35 sq.; xxxviii. 22; Jer. xxv. 31. This last place recalls forcibly the one before us. 10 five times, Ver. 17. I hold this verse to be interpolated by the same hand which inserted Ixiv. 9 sqq.; lxv. 3-5, 11; Ixvi. 3b-6. My reasons are, 1) The special mention of the Israelites who had apostatized to heathenism is not at all necessary in this connection. For vers. 15 and 16 speak of the general judgment extending to all flesh (ver. 16). For what purpose then this particular specification of a single class of men? [Criticism of this kind is not worthy of our author. We might apply it to establish the spuriousness of the greater part of the discourse recorded in Matt. xxv. 31-46. There, too, is an account of the judgment of all nations. Yet only a class of persons guilty of a particular sin of omission is condemned by the Judge. It is enough to say that our LORD and the Prophet had their reasons for particularly specifying a certain class of men as the objects of divine judgment.-. M.]. 2) This verse, as lxv. 3, 11, contains clear allusion to foreign, in particular, to Baby lonian heathenism. Such an allusion is suspicious. It cannot be explained from the stand-point of Isaiah. For Isaiah sees into the distant future, it is true, but he does not see as a person standing near. He does not distinguish specific, individual features. [In his remarks on Ixv. 4 DR. NAEGELSBACH admits that there is no evidence outside the book of Isaiah that the Babylonians either offered swine in sacrifice, or used them for food. There is really nothing mentioned in this verse which can be proved to be specifically Babylonian. The gardens were connected with idolatrous worship practised by that the Prophet could not foresee the practices here the Israelites at home. See Isa. i. 29. The statement mentioned depends on the erroneous theory of prophecy which DR. NAEGELSBACH has adopted, and which is animadverted on in the Introduction, pp. 17, 18, footnote.-D. M.]. 3) The words are very appropriate in the mouth of an exile who thought that he must apply particularly to the renegades of his time the threatening of judgment contained in vers. 15 and 16. [But the words are quite appropriate in the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah, and we are not warranted to assume that these forms of idolatry were practised by the exiles in Babylon. Unless Isaiah is supposed to testify to this fact, we have no evidence of it. In the Babylonian Captivity the people were cured of their propensity to gross idolatry.-D. M.]. 4) The singular phrase 2 108 108 clearly betrays a foreign, later hand; and the manifest corruption of the text in the beginning of ver. 18 is also to be regarded as an indication of changes in the origi nal text. The occurrence of the singular phrase referred to is no sign of the hand of an interpolator, who would rather be careful to avoid saying what would be obscure and ambiguous. An interpolator, too, who understood Hebrew, would hardly have left the difficulty complained of in the beginning of ver. 18.—D. M.). EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. The Prophet here, too, represents the future under the forms of the present. He sets forth its leading features, and again brings together what is homogeneous without regard to intervening spaces of time. He begins, vers. 15 16, and 18, by describing the judgment of retribution on the wicked. [On ver. 17 see under Text, and Gram.]. The Prophet surveys together the beginning and end of the judgment. As we see from ver. 19, the beginning of the judgment of the world is for him the judgment on Israel. He, therefore, vers. 19 sqq., tells what shall take place after the destruc of the world, the destruction of Jerusalem, fire tion of the visible theocracy. He beholds a sign 30; lxi. 11; lxv. 3). The preposition might התקדש and הטהר a place latent in the verbs We must, therefore, take in the sense of "in -are very obscure. The old trans אחר אחד בתוך And 2. For, behold, the LORD -my glory. -Vers. 15-18. The Prophet sees the LORD come to judgment in flaming fire, and he beholds His lators (LXX., TARG., SYR., ARAB., THEODORET, chariots rush along as a tempest. The image is SYMMACHUS, HIERONYMUS) were evidently puz here, as Ps. xviii. 9, 13, borrowed from a thunder-zled with the text, and conjectured its meaning rastorm. It appears to me better to regard ther than explained it according to certain principles. The later interpreters can be classified accordas second subject to than to supply in the translation the substantive verb. For the chariotsing to what they understand by 18 (108, 20 are not in themselves like a stormy wind, but the last is the reading of the K'ri). SEB. SCHMIDT their rolling is compared with the rushing of a the trees, or of a reservoir in the garden, behind and BOCHART think (after SAADIA) of one of tempest. The plural is certainly the proper plural. For as an earthly commander of an army refer TN to an idol. or in which the lustration was performed. Others is accompanied by many chariots, so too is the (K'ri) is Astarte. Very many interpreters ABENEZRA thinks that "LORD of hosts." KLEINERT justly observes on Hab. iii. that the elements, clouds and winds, (after SCALIGER) take to be the name of a as media of manifestation, are compared with Je- Syrian divinity, "Adados, who is called in EUSEhovah's horses and chariots. In Ps. civ. 3 the BIUS (Praep. Ev. I. 10) King of gods. LORD is expressly described as He who "maketh this explanation has been the rather adopted, bethe clouds his chariot." meaning of this name "unus," a statement which cause MACROBIUS (Saturn. I. 23) gives as the is manifestly owing to his want of knowledge of the language. CLERICUS sees in the name 'Ekáτn. BEN. CARPZOv, who is followed by HAHN and MAURER, understands an idol of some kind. STIER, not satisfied with Antichrist, who is thought of by NETELER, understands under the one the "idol of the world in the strictest sense, whose place of concealment is the tree of knowledge in the midst of the garden.” MAJUS in the sense of praeter unum, i. e., beside the only true God (Deut. vi. 4) they follow an idol set in the midst. But this meaning the words will not bear. That explanation has most in its favor, which refers cannot possibly denote here as Job ix. 13; Ps. lxxviii. 38, to take away wrath. Here retribution is the subject of discourse. We must, therefore, compare places such as Hos. xii. 3, where 'n standing alone means to recompense, and Deut. xxxii. 41, 43, where it is joined with D in like signification. In the day of judgment they who have sown evil must reap the wrath of God as necessary harvest (comp. Gal. vi. 7). God will render his anger to them in the form of , i. e., of burning fury (comp. xlii. 25; lix. 18, and his rebuke (comp. xxx. 17; 1. 2; li. 20), in flames of fire (comp. xiii. 8; xxix. 6; xxx. 30). Fire must serve not only to indicate the violence of the divine wrath, but also as a real instrument of judgment. For the first judgment of the world was accomplished by water (Gen. vii.), the second will be effected by fire. At the first act of the second judgment Econ. p. 984) takes to a human being. Here we must set aside as philologically untenable the view which, after the Targ. Jon., and the Syriac, would in any way bring out the sense alius post alium. After the example of PFEIFER in the Dubia Vexata, it is better to understand a person placed in the midst | all give such translations that they evidently supwho acted as leader, initiator, or hierophant. So pose the present Masoretic text. They all use GESENIUS, HITZIG, HENDEWERK, BECK, UM- the first person in the rendering of 3. But BREIT, KNOBEL, DELITZSCH, SEINECKE, ROHL- this does not justify our inferring a difference of ING. is understood by HITZIG, HENDE text. It is merely a free translation. The prediWERK, BECK, UMBREIT, EWALD of the middle cate to ' is wanting. Some would supply of the house, the impluvium, the court. But KNO-T [as the E. V.], or PE (DELITZSCH), as BEL, DELITZSCH, SEINECKE, ROHLING think of the hierophant standing in the midst, so that stands jects of 11. Comp. on lxv. 4. is it possible that the writer omitted the prediwas done in some manuscripts of the LXX. But cate? ["The ellipsis is like that in Virgil Quos ego (Aen. I. 139), and belongs to the rhetorical figure of aposiopesis: and I, their works and thoughts-(will know to punish)." DELITZSCH. If an ellipsis is to be supplied, there is none more facile than that assumed in the English version, and which can plead the support of the Targum. But it seems to me better to retain the aposiopesis of the original, with KNOBEL, EWALD, ALEXANDER and KAY. The last mentioned has this remark: "The sentence is interrupted; as if it were too great a condescension to comment on their folly,-so soon to be made evident by the course of events. And I -as for their works and their thoughts, the time cometh for gathering all nations."-D. M.]. So much can be seen from ver. 18, that God's judgments will rest on a bringing to light not only of the works, but also of the thoughts of the heart (Hebr. iv. 12). N is according to the accents to be taken as a participle. The feminine is to be understood in a neuter for the arrival of the right moment: it is come sense [i. e., it is used impersonally]. N stands to this that all nations, etc., comp. Ezek. xxxix. 8. The words Dan--nap seem to be borrowed from Joel iv. 2. On the other hand, the Prophet Zephaniah (iii. 8) seems to have had this place of Isaiah before him. The expression is the mouse (comp. Lev. xi. 29; 1 Sam. vi. 4 sqq.). On edible mice, or rats (glires) see DE-n- does not occur exactly elseLITZSCH, Comment. in loc., BOCHART, Hieroz. II. 432 sqq., HERZ. R.-Encycl. XIV. p. 602. The actual use of any kind of mouse in the ancient heathen rites has never been established, the modern allegations of the fact being founded on the place before us." ALEXANDER. This commentator contends that the Prophet is still treating of the excision of the Jews and the vocation of the Gentiles. And although the generation of Jews "upon whom the final blow fell were hypocrites, not idolaters, the misdeeds of their fathers entered into the account, and they were cast off not merely as the murderers of the Lord of Life, but as apostates who insulted Jehovah to His face by bowing down to stocks and stones, in grovce and gardens, and by eating swine's flesh, the abomination, and the mouse.' Isaiah would naturally make prominent, in assigning the causes of divine judgment, the most flagrant transgressions of the law that prevailed in his own time. We have had many examples of his practice to depict the future in the colors of the present.-D. M.]. Ver. 18 is very difficult. It appears to me impossible to obtain an appropriate sense from the text as it stands. must therefore hold it to be corrupt. The old versions do not enable us to detect any corruption that has taken place since they were made. They where. We can compare, on the one hand, Gen. x. 20, 31 (comp. ver. 5), on the other, Dan. iii. 4, 7, 29, 31: v. 19; vi. 26; vii. 14. Comp. Zech. viii. 23. If this expression really belonged to a later age, we should find in it a confirmation of the supposition that the text of ver. 18 also has been corrupted by an interpolator. [“The use of the word tongues as an equivalent to nations has reference to national distinctions springing from diversity of language, and is founded on Gen. x. 5, 20, 31, by the influence of which passage and the one before us, it became a phrase of frequent use in Daniel, whose predictions turn so much upon the calling of the Gentiles (Dan. iii. 4, 7. 31; v. 19). The representation of this form of speech as an Aramaic idiom by some modern critics is characteristic of their candor." ALEXANDER. Some suppose the glory of Jehovah which all nations will be assembled to see to be a gracious display of His glory, and others think that a grand manifestation of judgment In the preceding part is here referred to. of the chapter a revelation of both grace and expresjudgment is foretold. We can take the Ision in a general sense for the revelation of Jehovah's perfections. But here a difficulty arises. If in this verse all nations are represented as gathered, as having come to see the glory of the LORD, where are the distant nations who are to be visited according to the following verse by those that have escaped from the judgment? The seeming inconsistency is removed, if we regard ver. 19 as describing the way in which the nations will be brought to see the glory of God, and take the as causal: For I will set a sign, etc. For this causal force of comp. on lxiv. 3. This is better than to suppose, with DELITZSCH, that all nations and tongues in ver. 18 are not to be understood of all nations without exception.-D. M.]. and see my glory. [But if we regard the at the beginning of ver. 19 as explicative or causal, this objection falls away.-D. M.]. EWALD, UMBREIT, DELITZSCH, SEINECKE think that the escape of some from the all-destroying slaughter is itself the miracle. But is it something so extraordinary and wonderful that individuals should escape from a slaughter, be it ever so bloody? I would not say with the Catholic interpreters that But I think that this is the sign of the cross. Luke [Simeon] when he, ii. 34, speaks of Him who is set for a sign which shall be spoken 3. And I will set--all flesh.-Vers. 19- refer the sign of the Son of man (Matth. against had our place before him. And I would 24. [This verse explains the gathering of all na- xxiv. 30) to the same source. It was the purpose tions mentioned in the previous verse. The Heof God, which Isaiah here announces without brew often employs the simple connective and where we would use for.-D. M.]. The mention knowing how it should be fulfilled, that out of the ashes of the old covenant the phoenix of the new of ', ver. 19, implies that the judgment should arise. [ALEXANDER, who sees in the from which they have escaped is not the general who go to the nations the first preachers judgment. After it there will remain no nations of the Gospel, who were escaped Jews, saved from on the earth to whom the messengers could come that perverse generation (Acts ii. 40), thinks that to announce Jehovah's glory. That judgment, the sign to be set denotes "the whole miraculous then, from which the messengers have escaped, display of divine power, in bringing the old dismust be only the first act of the general judg-pensation to a close and introducing the new, inment, i. e., the judgment on Israel. If we consider this place in the light of fulfilment, we must cluding the destruction of the unbelieving Jews, on the one hand, and, on the other, all those signs take the destruction of the theocracy by the Romans and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the for this first act of the general judgment, which the Prophet views together with its last act or last Holy Ghost (Heb. ii. 4), which Paul calls the acts, just as our LORD does in His oratio escha- signs of an apostle (2 Cor. xii. 12), and which Christ Himself had promised should follow them tologica, Matth. xxiv. They who have escaped from that believed (Mark xvi. 17). All these were that dreadful catastrophe which befalls the church of the Old Covenant are the church of the New signs placed among them, i. e., among the Jews, to the greater condemnation of the unbelievers, Covenant, for whose flight and deliverance the and to the salvation of such as should be saved." LORD has so significantly cared in that discourse But if we compare Isa. xi. 10 and its connection (Matth. xxiv. 16 sqq.). If this is the case, what with the place before us and the context, it would opinion have we to form regarding the sign, appear that Messiah is the sign here spoken of.which the LORD, according to the words comD. M.]. The following names of nations repremencing ver. 19, will set among them," i. e., sent the entire heathen world. The Prophet deamong those on whom that first great act of judg-signedly mentions the names of the most remote ment has fallen? The expression occurs Gen. iv. 15; Ex. x. 2; Jer. xxxii. 20; Ps. lxxviii. nations to intimate that to all, even the most distant 43; ev. 27. It alternates with or is peoples, the joyful message (evuyyehov) should come. Respecting Tarshish (comp. on ii. 16.) (Deut. xiii. 2; Josh. ii. 12; Judges vi. 17; Ps. The name Pul occurs as the name of a people lxxxvi. 17 et saepe). Of these forms D is only here (as name of a person, comp. 2 Kings the most emphatic. It denotes, we might say, xv. 19). In Jer. xlvi. 9; Ezek. xxvii. 10; xxx. setting a sign as a monument for general and per- 5, the name is mentioned in conjunction manent observation. To regard this sign as a with 7. The LXX., too, have in our place signal to call the nations does not suit the context boud. In the places in Jer. and Ezek. just cited the [?], for the nations are not called to the judgment LXX. have Aißveç for 5. BOCHART understands upon Israel. The announcement is rather borne by Pul the island Philae. Most scholars hold to them. CALVIN'S explanation "I make a sign the identity of 4 and 5, and assume either an on them," namely, on the elect for their deliverance, is justified by the language; but the suffixes error in writing, or an interchange of in D and D refer to those who are judged, (HITZIG). Regarding, it is pretty generally and not to those who are saved. The old ortho held, after the LXX., to be Libyia. EBERS, indox explanation, according to which the "sign" deed, affirms that on the Egyptian monuments is the Spirit poured out upon the disciples as evi- Punt or Put always denotes a country east of dence of their divine mission, is exposed to the Egypt, namely, Arabia. We must in regard to same objection. When, on the other hand, HIT- tain what people we have to understand under this point defer a decision. It is not quite cerZIG and KNOBEL consider as the sign, the judg-. In Gen. x. 13 D is named as the first ment upon the heathen, a great slaughter, there is this objection that it is to the heathen that they who escaped the judgment go. And when STIER refers the sign to the judgment upon Israel, it seeins strange that mention should be made of the sign after the description of the judgment and its happy consequences, and they shall come and son of Mizraim; but there, too, in ver. 22 the fourth son of Shem is called Lud. EBERS holds, with ROUGEMONT (L'age du bronze), the son of Shem for the Lutennu, i. e., Syrians, while according to him the Ludu or Rutu are the native Egyptians in opposition to the non-Egyptian ele |