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CHAPTER XXX

The Jews reproved for their reliance on Egypt, 1-7. Threatened for their obstinate adherence to this alliance, 8- 17. Images the most elegant and lofty, by which the intense gloriousness of Messiah's reign at the period when all Israel shall be added to the Church is beautifully set forth, 18-26. Dreadful fall of Sennacherib's army, an event most manifestly typical of the terrible and sudden overthrow of Antichrist; as, unless this typical reference be admitted, no possible connection can be imagined between the stupendous events which took place in Hezekiah's reign, and the very remote and inconceivably more glorious displays of Divine vengeance and mercy in the days of the Messiah, 27-33.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXX

Verse 1. "And that cover with a covering "Who ratify covenants"" - Hebrews "Who pour out a libation. " Sacrifice and libation were ceremonies constantly used, in ancient times by most nations in the ratifying of covenants: a libation therefore is used for a covenant, as in Greek the word spondh, for the same reason, stands for both. This seems to be the most easy explication of the Hebrew phrase, and it has the authority of the Septuagint, epoihsate sunqhkav.

Verse 4. "Hanes" - Six MSS. of Kennicott's, and perhaps six others, with four of De Rossi's, read �nj chinnam, in vain, for snh Hanes; and so also the Septuagint, who read likewise w[gy yageu, laboured, for w[ygy yaggiu, arrived at.

Verse 5. "Were-ashamed" - Eight MSS. (one ancient) of lfennicott's, and ten of De Rossi's, read �ybh hobish, without a aleph. So the Chaldee and Vulgate.

"But a shame "But proved even a shame"" - Four MSS. (three ancient) after yk ki, add �a im, unless, which seems wanted to complete the phrase in its usual form.

Verse 6. "The burden" - a�m massa seems here to be taken in its proper sense; the load, not the oracle. The same subject is continued; and there seems to be no place here for a new title to a distinct prophecy.

"Does not burden of the beasts of the South in this place relate to the presents sent by Hoshea king of Israel to the South-to Egypt, which lay south of Judea, to engage the Egyptians to succour him against the king of Assyria? Into the land of trouble and anguish "Through a land of distress and difficulty"" - The same deserts are here spoken of which the Israelites passed through when they came out of Egypt, which Moses describes, Deut. viii. 15, as "that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought; where there was no water. " And which was designed to be a kind of barrier between them and Egypt, of which the Lord had said, "Ye shall henceforth return no more that way, "Deut. xvii. 16.

"Shall not profit them" - A MS. adds in the margin the word wml lamo, them, which seems to have been lost out of the text: it is authorized by the Septuagint and Vulgate.

Verse 7. "Their strength is to sit still "Rahab the Inactive."" - The two last words, tb� �h hem shabeth joined into one, make the participle pihel tb�mh hammeshabbeth. I find the learned Professor Doederlein, in his version of Isaiah, and note on this place, has given the same conjecture; which he speaks of as having been formerly published by him. A concurrence of different persons in the same conjecture adds to it a greater degree of probability.

Verse 8. "For ever and ever "For a testimony for ever"" - d[l leed. So the Syriac, Chaldee, Vulgate, and Septuagint, in MSS. Pachom. and i. D. ii. eis marturion, which two words have been lost out of the other copies of the Septuagint.

Verse 12. "In oppression "In obliquity"" - �q[b beakesh, transposing the two last letters of q�[b beoshek, in oppression, which seems not to belong to this place: a very probable conjecture of Houbigant.

Verse 13. "Swelling out to a high wall "A swelling in a high wall"" - It has been observed before, that the buildings of Asia generally consist of little better than what we call mud walls. "All the houses at Ispahan, "says Thevenot, Vol. II., p. 159, "are built of bricks made of clay and straw, and dried in the sun; and covered with a plaster made of a fine white stone. In other places in Persia the houses are built with nothing else but such bricks, made with tempered clay and chopped straw, well mingled together, and dried in the sun, and then used: but the least rain dissolves them. " Sir John Chardin's MS. remark on this place of Isaiah is very apposite: Murs en Asie etant faits de terre se fendent ainsi par milieu et de haut en bas. "The walls in Asia being made of earth often cleave from top to bottom. " This shouts clearly how obvious and expressive the image is.

The psalmist has in the same manner made use of it, to express sudden and utter destruction:- "Ye shall be slain all of you; Ye shall be like an inclining wall, like a shattered fence." Psa. lxii. 4.

Verse 14. "He shall not spare "And spareth it not"" - Five MSS. add the conjunction w vau to the negative; alw velo.

Verse 17. "At the rebuke of five shall ye flee "At the rebuke of five, ten thousand of you shall flee"" - In the second line of this verse a word is manifestly omitted, which should answer to one thousand in the first: the Septuagint supply polloi, �ybr rabbim. But the true word is hbbr rebabah, as I am persuaded any one will be convinced, who will compare the following passages with this place:- "How should one chase a thousand; And two put ten thousand (hbbr) to flight?" Deut. xxxii. 30.

"And five of you shall chase a hundred; And a hundred of you shall chase (hbbr) ten thousand." Lev. xxvi. 8.

Verse 18. "And therefore will he be exalted "Even for this shall he expect in silence"" - For �wry yarum, he shall be exalted, which belongs not to this place, Houbigant reads �wdy yadum, he shall be silent: and so it seems to be in a MS. Another MS. instead of it reads bw�y yashub, he shall return. The mistakes occasioned by the similitude of the letters d daleth and r resh are very frequent, as the reader may have already observed.

Verse 19. "For the people shall dwell in Zion "When a holy people shall dwell in Sion"" - laov sgiov, Septuagint; �wdq �[ am kadosh. The word �wdq kadosh, lost out of the text, but happily supplied by the Septuagint, clears up the sense, otherwise extremely obscure. When the rest of the cities of the land were taken by the king of Assyria, Zion was preserved, and all that were in it.

"Thou shalt weep no more "Thou shalt implore him with weeping"" - The negative particle al lo is not acknowledged by the Septuagint. It may perhaps have been written by mistake for wl lo, to him, of which there are many examples.

Verse 20. "Though the Lord "Though JEHOVAH"" - For ynda Adonai, sixteen MSS. and three editions have hwhy Yehovah, many of De Rossi's have the same reading; all my own have hwhy Yehovah.

Verse 21. "When ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left "Turn not aside, to the right or to the left."" - The Syriac Chaldee, and Vulyate, translate as if, instead of ykw- yk ki-vechi, they read alw-al lo-velo.

Verse 22. "Ye shall defile "Ye shall treat as defiled"" - The very prohibition of Moses, Deut. vii. 25, only thrown out of the prose into the poetical form: "The graven images of their gods ye shall burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or the gold that is on them; nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein; for it is an abomination to JEHOVAH thy God."

Verse 25. "When the towers fall "When the mighty fall."" - �yldgm migdalim, megalouv, Sym.; megalunomenouv, Aquila; ybrbr rabrebin, Chard.; all signifying mighty sizes.

Verse 26. "Shall be sevenfold" - The text adds �ymyh t[b� rwak keor shibath haiyamayim, "as the light of seven days, "a manifest gloss, taken in from the margin; it is not in most of the copies of the Septuagint. It interrupts the rhythmical construction, and obscures the sense by a false, or at least an unnecessary, interpretation.

By moon, sun, light, are to be understood the abundance of spiritual and temporal felicity with which God should bless them in the days of the Messiah, which should be sevenfold, i.e. vastly exceed all that they had ever before possessed.

Verse 27. "And the burden thereof is heavy "And the flame raged violently"" - ha�m massaah; this word seems to be rightly rendered in our translation, the flame, Judg. xx. 38, 40, &c.; a sign of fire, Jer. vi. 1; called properly ta�m masseeth, an elevation, from its tending upwards.

Verse 28. "To sift the nations with a sieve of vanity "To toss the nations with the van of perdition"" - The word hpnhl lahanaphah is in its form very irregular. Kimchi says it is for Pynhl lehaniph. Houbigant supposes it to be a mistake, and shows the cause of it; the joining it to the h he, which should begin the following word. The true reading is �ywgh Pynhl lehaniph haggoyim, "to sift the nations." The Vulgate seems to be the only one of the ancient interpreters who has explained rightly the sense; but he has dropped the image: ad perdendas gentes in nihilum, "to reduce the nations to nothing. " Kimchi's explanation is to the following effect: " hpn naphah is a van with which they winnow corn; and its use is to cleanse the corn from the chaff and straw: but the van with which God will winnow the nations will be the van of emptiness or perdition; for nothing useful shall remain behind, but all shall come to nothing, and perish. In like manner, a bridle is designed to guide the horse in the right way; but the bridle which God will put in the jaws of the people shall not direct them aright, but shall make them err, and lead them into destruction. " This latter image the prophet has applied to the same subject afterwards, ch. xxxvii. xxix. - "I will put my bridle in thy jaws, And turn thee back by the way in which thou camest." And as for the former it is to be observed, that the van of the ancients was a large instrument, somewhat like a shovel, with a long handle, with which they tossed the corn mixed with the chaff and chopped straw into the air, that the wind might separate them. See Hammond on Matt. iii. 12.

"There shall be a bridle in the jaws" - A metaphor taken from a headstrong, unruly horse: the bridle checks, restrains, and directs him.

What the true God does in restraining sinners has been also attributed to the false gods of the heathen. Thus AEschylus, prom. Vinct. 6xci. - allq ephnagkaze nin diov calinov prov bian prassein tade.

"But the bridle of Jupiter violently constrained him to do these things."

Verse 30. "The Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard" - Kimchi understands this of the great destruction of the Assyrian host by the angel of the Lord. Instead of �a P[zb bezaaph ais, "with swift anger, "five of Dr. Kennicott's MSS. and one of my own, read Pa �[zb bezaam aph, "with detestation indignant. " For �a ats, "swift, "which is the common reading, forty-two of Kennicott's, forty-three of De Rossi's, and two of my own, have �a ats, "wrath or fury. " The former reading, �a ats, is not found in any Bible previously to that of Van der Hooght, in 1705; and there it seems to be a typographical mistake.

Verse 31. "Whieh smote with a rod "He that was ready to smite with his staff"" - "Post rw�a ashshur, forte excidit r�a asher." -SECKER. After rw�a ashshur, probably r�a asher, "which, "has been omitted.

Verse 32. "The grounded staff "The rod of his correction"" - For hdswm musadah, the grounded staff, of which no one yet has been able to make any tolerable sense, Le Clerc conjectured hrswm musarah, of correction; (see Prov. xxii. 15;) and so it is in two MSS., (one of them ancient,) and seems to be so in the Bodleian MS. The Syriac has hdb [w�d deshuebedah, Virgo domans, vet subjectionis, "the taming rod, or rod of subjection." With tabrets and harps] With every demonstration of joy and thanksgiving for the destruction of the enemy in so wonderful a manner: with hymns of praise, accompanied with musical instruments. See ver. 29.

"With it "Against them."" - For hb bah. against her, fifty-two MSS. and five editions read �b bam, against them.