THIS chapter admits of a well-defined division into two parts, one of which contains threatening (vs. 1-17), and the other promises (vs. 18-25). The first part may again be subdivided. In vs. 1-4, the Egyptians are threatened with a penal visitation from Jehovah, with the downfall of their idols, with intestine commotions, with the disappointment of their superstitious hopes, and with subjection to hard masters. In vs. 5—10 they are threatened with physical calamities, the drying up of their streams, the decay of vegetation, the loss of their fisheries, and the destruction of their manufactures. In vs. 11—17, the wisdom of their wise men is converted into folly, the courage of their brave men into cowardice, industry universally suspended, and the people filled with dread of the anger of Jehovah. The second part may be also subdivided. In vs. 18-21, the Egyptians are described as acknowledging the true God, in consequence of what they had suffered at his hand, and the deliverance which he had granted them. In vs. 22-25, the same cause is described as leading to an intimate union between Egypt, Assyria, and Israel, in the service of Jehovah, and the enjoyment of his favour. Cocceius takes Egypt in what he calls its mystical sense, as meaning Rome or the Roman empire, and explains the chapter as a synopsis of church history from the conversion of Constantine to the latest time. Both the fundamental hypothesis and the details of his exposition are entirely arbitrary. He also violates the obvious relation of the parts by making the whole chapter minatory in its import. A similar objection lies against the theory of Cyril, Eusebius, Jerome, and others, who understand the whole as a prediction of the conversion of the Egyptians to Christianity. But the first part (vs. 1-17) cannot be explained, except by violence, either as a promise or a figurative description of conversion. Junius errs in the opposite extreme, by applying the first part in a literal sense to events in the early history of Egypt, and the last in a figurative sense to the calling of the Gentiles, without sufficiently explaining the transition or connexion of the parts. Grotius applies the whole to events which occurred before the ad vent. He regards the first part as a description of the troubles in Egypt during the dodecarchy which preceded the reign of Psammetichus, the last part as a prophecy of the diffusion of the true religion by the influx of Jews into Egypt. Clericus agrees with him in principle, but differs in de tail, by referring the first part of the chapter to the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. J. D. Michaelis takes the same general view, but ap plies the first part to the troubles in Egypt under Sethos, and the last part to the recognition of Jehovah as a true God by the Egyptians themselves, but without abjuring heathenism. Vitringa more ingeniously explains the first part as a prediction of the conquest of Egypt by the Persians, and the second as a promise of deliverance by Alexander the Great, and of general peace and friendly intercourse as well as religious advancement under his successors, the Syrian and Egyptian kings, by which the way would be prepared for the introduction of the gospel. This view of the passage is substantially adopted by Lowth, Barnes, and Henderson. Of the modern German writers some explain the difference between the two parts of the chapter by supposing an interpolation. Thus Koppe and Eichhorn regard vs. 18-25 as a distinct prophecy, and even Gesenius doubts the genuine ness of vs. 18-20. Hitzig supposes vs. 16-25 to have been forged by Onias, when he induced Ptolemy to build a temple for the Jews at Leontopolis. These absurd suppositions have been fully and triumphantly refuted by later writers of the same school, and especially by Hendewerk and Knobel. The notion of Koppe and Eichhorn, that even the first part is later than the times of Isaiah, has also been exploded. Ewald admits a peculiarity of manner, but ascribes it to the old age of Isaiah when this prophecy was written. Gesenius, Rosenmuller, Hendewerk, and Knobel, proceeding on the twofold supposition, that the first part must describe the events of a particular period, and that prophetic foresight is impossible, are under the necessity of finding something in the contemporary history of Egypt corresponding to the terms of the description. Gesenius and Knobel, in particular, have taken vast pains to combine and reconcile the contradictory accounts of Herodotus, Diodorus, and Manetho, as to the dynasties of Egypt, the succession of the several monarchs, and especially the date of the accession of Psammetichus. Ewald and Umbreit, much more rationally, reject the hypothesis of specific historical allusions, and regard the whole as an in definite anticipation. On the same general principle, but with a far closer approximation to the truth, Calvin and J. D. Michaelis understand the chapter as a prophetic picture of the downfall of the old Egyptian empire, and of the subsequent conversion of its people. The most correct view of the matter seems to be as follows. The Prophet wishing to announce to the Jews the decline and fall of that great heathen power, in which they were so constantly disposed to trust (30: 1. 31: 1), describes the event under figures borrowed from the actual condition of Egypt. As a writer, who should now predict the downfall of the British empire, in a poetical and figurative style, would naturally speak of its fleets as sunk or scattered, its colonies dismembered, its factories destroyed, its railways abandoned, its universities abolished, so the Prophet vividly portrays the fall of Egypt by describing the waters of the Nile as failing, its meadows withering, its fisheries ceasing, and the peculiar manufactures of the country expiring, the proverbial wisdom of the nation changed to folly, its courage to cowardice, its strength to weakness. Whether particular parts of the description were intended to have a more specific application, is a question not affecting the truth of the hypothesis, that the first part is a metaphorical description of the downfall of the great Egyptian monarchy. So too in the second part, the introduction of the true religion, and its effect as well on the internal state as on the international relations of the different countries, is expressed by figures drawn from the civil and religious institutions of the old economy. The comparative merits of this exegetical hypothesis and those which have been previously stated will be best exhibited in the detailed interpretation of the chapter. It will only be necessary here to add that there is no abrupt transition, but a natural and intimate connexion between the downfall of a heathen power and the growth of the true religion, and also that nothing can be more arbitrary than the exposition of the first part as a literal and of the other as a metaphorical prediction.
1. The Burden of Egypt. Behold! Jehovah riding on a light cloud, and he comes to (or into) Egypt, and the idols of Egypt move at his presence, and the heart of Egypt melts within him. This verse de scribes God as the author of the judgments afterwards detailed. His visible appearance on a cloud, and the personification of the idols, prepare the mind for a poetical description. Lowth, Barnes, and Henderson, translate the suffix in the last word her. But t^sn is here the name of the ancestor (Gen. 10:6) put for his descendants. The English Version has the neuter it. The act of riding on a light cloud implies that he comes from heaven, and that he comes swiftly. On the contemptuous import of the word trans lated idols, vide supra, ch. 2:8; on the meaning of xtea, ch. 13: J.
2. And I will excite Egypt against Egypt, and they shall fight, a man with his brother, and a man with his fellow, city with city, kingdom with kingdom. The first verb is by some rendered arm, by others join or engage in conflict; but the sense of stirring up or rousing is preferred both by the oldest and the latest writers. The version usually given, Egyptians against Egyptians, though substantially correct, is neither so expressive nor so true to the original as that of J. D. Michaelis and Augusti, Egypt against Egypt, which involves an allusion to the internal divisions of the kingdom, or rather the existence of contemporary kingdoms, more explicitly referred to in the other clause. The last words are rendered in the Septuagint, vopoe Inl vofiov, meaning no doubt the thirty-six nomes or provinces of ancient Egypt. Grotius, J. D. Michaelis, Gesenius, and others, understand this verse as referring specifically to the civil wars of Egypt in the days of Sethos or Psammetichus. But while the coincidence with history adds greatly to the propriety and force of the description, there is no sufficient reason for departing from its obvious import, as a description of internal strife and anarchy in general. The expressions bear a strong resemb-* lance to those used in the description of the state of Judah, ch. 3: 5. Junius regards these as the words to be uttered by Jehovah when he enters Egypt. It may, however, be a simple continuation of the prophecy, with a sudden change from the third to the first person, of which there are many other examples.
3. And the spirit of Egypt shall be emptied out (or exhausted) in the midst thereof, and the counsel (or sagacity) thereof I will swallow up (annihilate or render useless), and they will seek to the idols, and to the mutterers, and to the familiar spirits, and to the wizards. By spirit we are not to understand courage but intellect. Gesenius, in his lexicon, reads te^a and renders it out of or from the midst of it. The original and proper sense of D^wx seems to be murmurs or mutterings, here applied to the mutterers themselves, in allusion to the ancient mode of incantation, as to which, and the meaning of rvoix and 0133^, vide supra, ch. 8: 19. Si^as is variously rendered by the early writers, troubled, decayed, destroyed, etc. but the etymology is decisive in favour of the sense now commonly adopted. Augusti expresses the contemptuous import of tn^bx by translating it their wretched gods.
4. And I will shut up Egypt in the hands of a hard master, and a strong king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts. As do means to shut up wherever it occurs, the intensive form here used can not have the weaker sense of giving up, delivering, in which some take it. mag and ts do not mean cruel or fierce, but stern or rigorous. The first of these Hebrew words is singular in form but construed with a plural noun. The Septuagint renders both phrases in the plural. Junius makes the first plural and refers it to the dodecarchy which intervened between the reigns of Sethos and Psammetichus. Cocceius makes Sioi;? agree with something understood (dominorum grams dominationis), and refers to examples of a similar construction in Ex. 28: 17. Judg. 5:13. 1 Kings 7: 42. 2 Kings 3: 4. Most of the later writers are agreed in explaining taisSx as a pluralis majestaticus, elsewhere applied to individual men (2 Kings 42: 30, 33. 2 Kings 2: 3, 5, 16). The king here mentioned is identified, according to their various hypotheses, by J. D. Michaelis with Sethos, by Grotius, Gesenius, and others with Psammetichus, by the Rabbins with Sennacherib, by Hitzig and Hendewerk with Sargon, by Clericus with Nebuchadnezzar, by Vitringa with Cambyses or Ochus, by Cocceius with Charlemagne. The very multiplicity of these explanations shows how fanciful they are, and naturally leads us to conclude, not with Ewald that the prophet is express ing mere conjectures or indefinite anticipations (reine Ahnung), but with Calvin that he is describing in a general way the political vicissitudes of Egypt, one of which would be subjection to an arbitrary power, whether foreign or domestic, or to both at different periods of its history.
5. And the waters shall be dried up from the sea, and the river shall fail and be dried up. Three distinct verbs are here used in the sense of drying up, for which our language does not furnish equivalents. As the Nile has in all ages been called a sea by the Egyptians (Robinson’s Pales tine, I. 542), most interpreters suppose it to be here referred to, in both clauses. Gesenius and others understand the passage as foretelling a literal failure of the irrigation upon which the fertility of Egypt depends. Vitringa, Knobel, and others, explain it as a figurative threatening of disorder and calamity. Grotius supposes an allusion to the decay of the Egyptian commerce as conducted on the Nile and the adjacent seas; Calvin to the loss of the defence and military strength afforded by these waters. According to the exegetical hypothesis laid down in the introduction to the chapter, this is a prediction of Egypt’s national decline and fall, clothed in figures drawn from the characteristic features of its actual condition. As the desolation of our own western territory might be poetically represented as the drying up of the Mississippi and its branches, so a like event in the history of Egypt would be still more naturally described as a desiccation of the Nile, because that river is still more essential to the prosperity of the country which it waters. In favour of this figurative exposition is the difficulty of applying the description to particular historical events, and also the whole tenor of the context, as will be more clearly seen hereafter. The Septuagint treats ^nuja as an active form of Mna5, to drink, the Egyptians shall drink water from the sea. Aquila makes it a passive from the same root, shall be drunk up or absorbed. Hitzig derives it from n^aj, in the sense of settling, subsiding, and so failing. Gesenius and most other writers make it a derivative of r’JJa. Junius understands this verse as relating to the diver sion of the waters of the Nile to form the lake Moeris, and Luzzatto proposes to take d^ as the name of the lake itself. By the drying up of the seas and rivers, Cocceius understands the irruption of the Saracens and Turks into Europe.
6. And the rivers shall stink (or become putrid), the streams of Egypt are emptied and dried up, reed and rush sicken (pine or wither). The streams meant are the natural and artificial branches of the Nile. ix? is an Egyptian word meaning river, and is specially appropriated to the Nile itself. The older writers take “rise in its usual meaning of defence or fortification, and understand the whole phrase as denoting either the moats and ditches of fortified places, or walled reservoirs. The modern writers regard lixia as the singular of B^SB, denoting either Lower Egypt or the whole country indiscriminately. Ewald translates it Angstland, in allusion to the supposed root “iis or -ns, to press, ^n”1?]^^ is explained by the older writers as meaning to depart or to be turned away, but is now commonly understood to denote the stench or putrescence produced by the failure of the Nile to fill its branches or canals. Gesenius explains it as a mixed form compounded of the Chaldee and Hebrew Hiphil; Ewald, Maurer, Hitzig, and Knobel, as a verb derived from an adjective nsts, meaning fetid or putrescent. The reed and rush are mentioned as a common growth in marshy situations. The Septuagint makes Pp.Q mean the papyrus, Vitringa and Lowth the lotus.
7. The meadows by the river, by the mouth of the river, and all the sown ground of the river, shall wither, being driven away, and it is not (or shall be no more). The Septuagint for niis has a%i which it elsewhere gives as the equivalent of inx, an Egyptian word meaning, according to Jerome, every thing green that grows in the marshes of the Nile. Luther, Calvin, and others, explain it to mean grass. Gesenius derives it from rns to be naked, and explains it to mean bare or open places, i. e. meadows, as distinguished from woodland. The English and some other versions treat it as the name of the papyrus, but without authority. The English Version also takes xx? as a collective (brooks), and Barnes erroneously observes that the Hebrew word is here in the plural number. It is the word already mentioned as the common name in Scripture for the Nile, nor is there any need of departing from this sense in the case before us, by translating it canals, as Lowth does. Calvin explains mouth to mean source or fountain, which is wholly arbitrary. J. H. Michaelis, Gesenius, and others, regard it as synonymous with lip, used elsewhere (Gen. 41: 3. Exod. 2: 3) to denote the brink or margin of the Nile. Knobel gives the same sense to the He brew word in Prov. 8: 29. Hendewerk and some of the older writers give the word its geographical sense, as denoting the place where the waters of a stream are discharged into another or the sea. ryra is not produce (Henderson), but a local noun meaning the place of seed or sowing, i. e. cultivated grounds, here distinguished from the meadows or uncultivated pastures. 5)^5 is commonly supposed to refer to the driving away of the withered and pulverized herbage by the wind. The Vulgate seems to take rvhs as a verb, and the first clause as describing the disclosure of the bed of the river by the sinking of the water (nudabitur alveus rivi a fonte suo). The de cay of vegetation here predicted Cocceius explains to be the dying out of Christianity in those parts of Europe conquered by the Saracens and Turks.
8. And the fishermen shall mourn, and they shall lament, all the throwers of a hooJc into the river (Nile), and the spreaders of a net upon the surface of the water languish. Having described the effect of the drought on vegetation, he now describes its effect upon those classes of the people who were otherwise dependent on the river for subsistence. The multitude of fishes in the Nile, and of people engaged in catching them, is attested both by ancient and modern writers. The use of fish in ancient Egypt was promoted by the popular superstitions with respect to other ani mals. The net is said to be not now used in the fisheries of Egypt. It is remarkable, however, that the implement itself appears on some of the old monuments. This verse is not to be applied to an actual distress among the fishermen at any one time, but to be viewed as a characteristic trait in the prophetic picture. When he speaks of a wine-growing country, as Calvin well observes, the Prophet renders vineyards and vine-dressers prominent objects. So here, when he speaks of a country abounding in fisheries and fishermen, he describes their condition as an index or symbol of the state of the -country. In like manner, a general distress in our southern states might be described as a distress among the sugar, cotton, or tobac co planters. By the fishermen of this verse, Cocceius understands the bishops, archbishops and patriarchs, whose sees became subjected to the Mos lem domination, with sarcastic allusion to the seal of the fisherman by which the pope authenticates his briefs.
9. And ashamed (disappointed or confounded) are the workers of combed (or hatchelled) flax, and the weavers of white (stuffs). The older writers supposed the class of persons here described to be the manufacturers of nets for fishing, and took “nitt in the sense of perforated open-work, or net-work. The moderns understand the verse as having reference to the working of flax and manufacture of linen. Knobel supposes *mn to mean cotton, as being white by nature and before it is wrought. Some of the older writers identified wp^io with sericum, the Latin word for silk. Calvin supposes an allusion in the last clause to the diaphanous garments of luxurious women. Cocceius applies the verse to those who would force all men into one church or commonwealth, like fish collected in a net.
10. And her pillars (or foundations) are broken down, all labour ers for hire are grieved at heart. Many of the older writers suppose the allusion to the fisheries to be still continued, and arbitrarily make rrinttj mean nets and ttJsa fish. Others take nir«3 in the sense of looms or weavers, and “D’a •»&?.» in that of brewers or makers of strong drink, which last interpretation is as old as the Septuagint version (ot noiovvtes TOV £v&ot>). The simplest exposition of the verse is that proposed by Gesenius and adopted by most succeeding writers, which regards this as a general description of distress extending to the two great classes of society, the pillars or chief men and the labourers or commonalty. Hendewerk less naturally understands by the rvinttj or foundations the agricultural class as distinguished from manufacturers and traders. All the late writers explain iaax, not as the plural of wx, a pool, but of an adjective signifying sorrowful, from one of the senses of the same root in Chaldee. This explanation of ‘‘aax removes all necessity and ground for taking ttisa in any other than its usual sense.
11. Only foolish (i. e. entirely foolish) are the princes of Zoan, the sages of the counsellors of Pharaoh, (their) counsel is become brutish (or irrational). How can ye say to Pharaoh, I am the son of wise (fathers), I am the son of Icings of old 1 The reference is not merely to perplexity in actual distress, but also to an unwise policy as one of the causes of the distress itself. The meaning of T|K is not for or surely, but only, nothing else, exclusively. Zoan, the Tanis of the Greeks, was one of the most ancient cities of Lower Egypt (Num. 13: 22), and a royal residence. The name is of Egyptian origin and signifies a low situation. Pharaoh was a common title of the Egyptian kings. It is originally an Egyptian noun with the article prefixed, “roan cannot agree directly as an adjective with ixsn (wise counsellors)—but must either be in apposition with it (the wise men, counsellors of Pharaoh, 2 Kings 10: 6)—or be understood as a superlative (the wisest of the counsellors of Pharaoh). The statesmen and courtiers of ancient Egypt belonged to the sacerdotal caste, from which many of the kings were also taken. The wisdom of Egypt seems to have been proverbial in the ancient world (I Kings 4: 30. Acts 7: 22). The last clause is addressed to the counsellors themselves. The interrogation implies the absurdity of their pretensions. The question is not, how can you say this of Pharaoh (Luther), or how can you dictate this to Pharaoh, i. e. put these words into his mouth (Junius), but how can you say it, each one for himself? Hence the use of the singular number, “^o does not mean sages or counsellors (Vitringa), but kings as elsewhere. Cocceius applies the last clause to the popish claim of apostolical succession. His comment on the first clause may be quoted as a characteristic specimen of his exegesis. ’ Consilium certe stultum fuit in Belgio novos episcopatus instituere, quod factum A.. 1562. Eodem anno primum bellum civile religionis causa inotum est in Gallia, duce inde Francisco Guisio, hinc Ludovico Condaeo. Exitus fuit ut regina religionis reformatae exercitium permitteret sequenti anno 19 Martii. An principes Galliae per principes Tsoan intelligi possint, fortasse magis patebit ex v. 13.’
12. Where (are) they? Where (are) thy wise men? Pray let them tell thee, and (if that is too much) let them (at least) know, what Jehovah of Hosts hath purposed against (or concerning) Egypt. It was a proof of their false pretensions that so far from being able to avert the evil, they could not even foresee it. Knobel thinks there may be an allusion to the belief of the Egyptians, as recorded by Herodotus, that supernatural fore sight of the future is impossible, an article of faith which they could not more devoutly hold than Knobel himself appears to do. a» is not an adverb of time equivalent to nunc (Vulgate) or jam (Junius), but a particle of exhortation or entreaty not unlike the Latin age (Cocceius). ^”^ is 23
not synonymous with *nw (Sept. Vulg. Luther, Clericus, August!, Barnes); nor does it mean inquire or investigate (Hitzig); nor is the true text W’i’p (Seeker); but the word is to be taken in its usual sense with emphasis, or let them even know, as well expressed by Calvin (aut etiam sciant) and by Maurer (quin sciant). The repetition of the interrogative where is highly emphatic, through neglect of which the expression is materially weakened in the ancient versions and by Luther, Hitzig, Hendewerk, Henderson, DeWette, Ewald, Umbreit. The construction is assumed to be subjunctive by Calvin (ut annuncient), relative by Junius (qui indicent), conditional by J. H. Michael is (wenn sie wissen), and indefinite by Gesenius (dass man’s erfahre); but the simple imperative, retained by Ewald, is at once more exact and more expressive. The sense of ^ is not upon but either concerning or against.
13. Infatuated are the chiefs of Zoan, deceived are the chiefs of Noph, and they have misled Egypt, the corner (or corner-stone) of her tribes. There is no need of supplying but at the beginning of the sentence (Luther). The first verb does not mean to fail (Septuagint), or to act lightly (Cocceius), or to act foolishly (Junius, Vitringa, Rosenmuller), but to be rendered or become foolish (Vulgate), to be infatuated (Calvin). The translation they are fools (DeWette) is correct but inadequate. Noph is the Memphis of the Greek geographers, called Moph, Hos. 9:6. It was one of the chief cities of ancient Egypt, the royal seat of Psammetichus. After Alexandria was built it declined. Arabian writers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries speak of its extensive and magnificent ruins, which have now almost wholly disappeared, ix-3 is explained as if from x^: to lift up, by the Septuagint (i’ipft)V>J7r>f<y), the Peshito and Cocceius (elati sunt). The Vulgate renders it emarcucrunt. All others make it the passive of &w53, to deceive, riss is not to be read nss (Grotius), nor is it the object of the preceding verb (Vulgate, J. H. Michaelis, Luther), nor governed by a preposition understood (Cocceius quoad angulum, Clericus in angulo), but construed collectively with isnn (Calvin, Vitringa, Gesenius, etc.). It is a figure not for the nomes (Clericus, Vitringa, Rosenmuller), nor for the noble families (Luther), nor for the wise’men (Calvin) or the king (J. H. Michaelis), but for the chief men of the different castes (Hitzig, Ewald). Knobel conjectures that the military caste may have been predominant at Memphis, as the sacerdotal was at Tanis. The view which Cocceius takes may be gathered from a single observation. ‘ Gallia et Belgium extremae orae spiritualis Aegypti sunt.’
14. Jehovah hath mingled in the midst of her a spirit of confusion, and they have misled Egypt in all its work, like the misleading of a drunkard in his vomit. This verse describes the folly before mentioned as the effect not of natural causes or of accident but of a judicial infliction, r^ may be either a preterite or a present, but not a future. It does not strictly mean to pour out, but in usage is nearly equivalent, from its frequent application to the mixing or preparation of strong drinks. (Vide supra, ch. 5. 22.) There is no need of reading cmp with Seeker, on the authority of the ancient versions, which evidently treat the singular suffix as a collective. The antecedent of the suffix is not nrs (Hitzig) but y^x (Knobel). The translation breast or bosom is too specific. Spirit here means a supernatural influence. E”1?^ is not error or perverseness, but subversion, turning upside down, and thence perplexity, confusion. It is strongly expressed by the Vulgate (spiritum vertiginis) and by Luther (Schwindelgeist). The plural isnrj may possibly agree with n^s, but it may be more naturally construed with the Egyptians understood, or taken indefinitely, as equivalent to a passive form, they have misled them, i. e. they have been misled. By work we are here to understand affairs and interests. The masculine form of the suffix here returns, with the usual reference to the national ancestor. nisnn does not directly denote staggering, much less rolling or wallowing, but the act of wandering from the straight course; or, retaining the passive form, that of being made to wander from it; or. assuming the reflexive sense of Niphal, that of making one’s self to wander, leading one’s.self astray. The same verb is elsewhere used in reference to the unsteady motions of a drunken man (Job 12: 25. Isai. 28: 7).
15. And there shall not be to Egypt a work which head and tail branch and rush may do. b is neither for nor in, but to, as usual denoting possession, Egypt shall not have. The translation shall not succeed or be completed is not a version but a paraphrase of the original. Siissjia is not merely a deed (Gesenius), much less a great deed (Hendewerk), nor does it refer exclusively to the acts or occupations before mentioned; but it means any thing done or to be done, including private business and public affairs. The figures of head and tail, branch and rush, are used, as in ch. 9: 13, to denote all classes of society, or rather the extremes between which the others are included. The Septuagint translates the last two beginning and end. The Targum makes them all mean chiefs and rulers. The Peshito, by a strange repetition and inversion, has head and tail, tail and head. Cocceius thinks it easy to trace the fulfilment of this prophecy in the history of Europe from 1590 to 1608.
16. In that day shall Egypt be like women, and shall fear and tremble from before the shaking of the hand of Jehovah of Hosts, which he (is) shaking over it. The comparison in the first clause is a common one for terror and the loss of courage. 13513 may be rendered on account of, which idea is certainly included, but the true force of the original expression is best retained by a literal translation. *n rs^r is not the act of beckoning for the enemy, but that of threatening or preparing to strike. The reference is not to the slaughter of Sennacherib’s army, but more generally to the indications of divine displeasure. At this verse Hitzig supposes the forgery of Onias to begin, but admits that it cannot be proved from the use of the masculine suffix in reference to Egypt, which occurs several times in what he assumes to be the genuine part of this very chapter, nor does it follow from the repetition of the phrase in that day at the beginning of vs. 15, 18, 23, 24, as this formula occurs with equal frequency in the seventh chapter. Knobel observes, moreover, that this verse and the next bear the same relation to v. 4 that vs. li-15 do to vs. 1-3, and are therefore necessary to complete the context.
17. And the land ofJudah shall be for a terror (or become a terror) unto Egypt, every person to whom one mentions it (or every one who recalls it to his own mind) shall fear before the purpose of Jehovah of Hosts which he is purposing against it. This verse relates, not to the destruction of Sennacherib’s army in Judah, nor to the approach of the Assyrians from that quarter, nor to an attack upon Egypt by Judah itself, but to the new feelings which would be entertained by the Egyptians towards the God of the Jews and the true religion. Judah, in a political and military sense, might still appear contemptible; but in another aspect, and for other rea sons, it would be an object of respect and even fear to the Egyptians. A different sense is put upon the verse by Schultens, J. D. Michaelis, and Dathe, who take xsn in the sense of refuge, deduced from an Arabic analogy. 1^5 is referred by some interpreters to Judah, but the change of gender renders it more probable that it relates to Egypt. The sense will then be that the knowledge of God’s purpose against Egypt will dispose its in habitants to look with awe upon the chosen people. There is no need of taking rra’nx with Hendewerk in the strict sense of soil or ground as distinguished from the people. T^K is not to be construed with “ins1; but with “P3t\ This last verb Ewald takes in the strict sense of causing to remember or recalling to mincj; most other writers in the secondary but more usual sense of mentioning. According to Cocceius, the Judah of this verse is the northern part of Europe, in which the Reformation was successfully established, and which holds the same relative position with respect to the unreformed regions, that Judea occupied in reference to Egypt.
18. In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt speak ing the lip (i. e. language) of Canaan, and swearing to Jehovah of Hosts.
The city of destruction shall be said to one (i. e. shall one be called). In that day, according to prophetic usage, is a somewhat indefinite expression, and may either mean during or after the distresses just described. Canaan is here put for the land of Canaan (as in Ex. J5: 15) and the language of Canaan for the Hebrew language, not because it was the language of the old Canaanites, but because it was spoken in the land which they once occupied. Some of the later writers understand what is here said strictly as denoting an actual prevalence of the Hebrew language, while others take it as a strong expression for such intimate union, social, commercial, and political, as would seem to imply a community of language. The older writers very generally apply the terms to religious union and communion. Calvin explains lip or language as a figure for confession or profession, and the speaking of the language of Canaan for a public profession of the true religion. Vitringa gains the same end by a reference to the phrase speaking the same things, used in the New Testament to signify conformity of feeling and opinion. (See 1 Cor. 1: 10.) He also admits the possibility of an allusion to the dialect of saints or believers as distinguished from that of the world, and to the study of the literal Hebrew as promoted by the spread of the true religion. Cocceius and some others understand directly by the use of the language of Canaan, the study of the Bible or rather the reception and promulgation of its doctrines. The simplest interpretation of the phrase is, that in itself it denotes intimate intercourse and union generally, but that the idea of religious unity is here suggested by the context and especially by the following clause. Many interpreters appear to regard the phrases swearing by and swearing to as perfectly synonymous. The former act does certainly imply the recognition of the deity by whom one swears, especially if oaths be regarded as they are in Scripture as solemn acts of religious worship. But the phrase swearing to conveys the additional idea of doing homage and acknowledging a sovereign by swearing fealty or allegiance to him. This is the only meaning that the words can bear in 2 Chr. 15: 14, and in Isai. 45: 23 the two phrases seem to be very clearly distinguished. The distinction intended in Zeph. 1: 5 is not so clear. The act of thus professing the true faith and submit ting to the true God is ascribed in the verse before us to Jive towns or cities. Of this phrase there are three distinct interpretations. Gesenius, Ewald, Knobel, and others, understand five as a round or indefinite number, meaning few or many, and derived either from Egyptian usage (Gen. 43: 34. 45: 22. 47: 2), or from the practice of counting on the fingers. Thus understood, the sense is simply that a number of cities shall do so and so. Another class of writers understand the words strictly as denoting five and neither more nor less. The five cities meant are supposed by Vitringa to be Heliopolis, Memphis, Sais, Bubastus, Alexandria; by Clericus, Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, Heliopolis, and one in Pathros, probably No-ammon or Diospolis; by Hitzig the same, except the last, for which he substitutes Leontopolis; by Hendewerk, the five cities of the Philistines, which he supposes to be here considered as belonging to Egypt. Among the five cities perhaps referred to, Barnes includes Pathros or Thebais, which was not a city at all. A third interpretation understands the words as expressive not of absolute number but proportion; five out of the twenty thousand cities which Herodotus says Egypt contained; or out of the one thousand which Calvin thinks a more reasonable estimate; or five out of ten, i. e. one half; or five out of six, which is Calvin’s own interpretation. The objection to the first or indefinite construction is the want of any clear example of this number being used in that way without something in the context to afford a standard of comparison. (See Lev. 26: 8. 1 Cor. 14: 19.) The objection to the second or absolute construction is the impossibility of fixing certainly what five are meant, or of tracing the fulfilment of so definite a prophecy, or even of ascertaining from the context any reason why just five should be distinguished in this manner. Of the third class or relative constructions, that of Calvin is to be preferred, because the others arbitrarily assume a standard of comparison (twenty thousand, ten thousand, ten etc.), whereas this hypothesis finds it in the verse itself, five professing the true religion to one rejecting it. Most of the other interpretations understand the one to be included in the five, as if he had said one of them. As pnxb admits either of these senses, or rather applications, the question must de pend upon the meaning given to the rest of the clause. Even on Calvin’s hypothesis, however, the proportion indicated need not be taken with mathematical precision. What appears to be meant is that five-sixths, i. e. a very large proportion, shall profess the true religion, while the remaining sixth persists in unbelief. It shall be said to one, i. e. one shall be addressed as follows, or called by the following name. This periphrasis is common in Isaiah, but is never applied, as Gesenius observes, to the actual appellation, but always to a description or symbolical title. (See Isai. 4:3. 61: 6. 62: 4.) This may be urged as an argument against the explanation of b^rtn as a proper name. The Hebrew form is retained in the Complutensian text of the Septuagint (W/^), by Theodotion and Aquila (W^v), by the Peshito (00501), and by Luther (Irheres). Sixteen manuscripts and several editions read oinn, and this is adopted as the true text by most of the modern writers. It is also supposed to be confirmed by the Greek form ‘^fQie above quoted. Jerome compares it with izr’in a potsherd, and refers to the town which the Greeks called ‘Otfr^ax/”?/ (i. e. earthen). Others suppose an allusion to Tahpanes, the brick-kilns of which are mentioned Jer. 43: 9. Gesenius, in his Commentary, derives the meaning of the name from the Arabic ij^ *and renders it *deliverance (Errettung). Ewald, with reference to the same root, renders it fortune or happiness (Gliickstadt). But most of those who adopt this reading give to sin the sense of sun, which it has in several places (Judg. 8: 13. 14: 18. Job 9: 7), and regard the whole phrase as equivalent to the Hebrew Bethshcmesh (dwelling of the sun) and the Greek Heliopolis (city of the sun), the name of a famous town of Lower Egypt, in the Heliopolitan Nome, so called from it. In this nome, Onias, a fugitive priest from Palestine, about 150 years before Christ, prevailed upon Ptolemy Philometor to erect a temple for the Jews of Egypt, an event which some suppose to be predicted here. The exact site of this temple, although in the nome just mentioned, was at Leontopolis (or city of the lion), and this name also has been found by some interpreters in the prediction. J. D. Michaelis and Dathe, following a suggestion made by Iken, identify the common reading 0*1 n with the Arabic <*<.&• But this has been shown by later writers to be merely a poetical epithet of the lion, de noting its voracity. Rosenmuller, in his larger Scholia, agrees with Hezel in explaining bin from the Syriac analogy as signifying safety or salvation. But Gesenius has shown that there is no such Syriac word, and that the Syriac writers quoted merely give conjectural explanations of the Hebrew word before us. Rosenmuller, therefore, in the Compendium of his Scholia, adopts Gesenius’s interpretation given above, while Gesenius himself, in his Thesaurus, adopts that of Vitringa and the Vulgate (civitas solis). This is also given by Hitzig, who identifies bin the sun with bin a scab (Deut. 28: 27), the disk of the former being so called on account of its scratched, scraped, or smoothed appearance, an etymological deduction of which Umbreit gravely signifies his approbation. All the interpretations which have now been mentioned either depart from the common text or explain it by some forced or foreign analogy. If, however, we proceed upon the only safe principle of adhering to the common text and to Hebrew usage, without the strongest reasons for abandoning either or both, no explanation of the name can be so satisfactory as that given by Calvin (civitas desolationis) and the English Version (city of destruction). It is very remarkable that both the readings (bin and bin) appear to be combined in the Chaldee Paraphrase: the city of Bethshemesh (i. e. Heliopolis), which is to be destroyed/ This would seem to imply that the text or the meaning of the word was already doubtful and disputed at the date of that old version. It has been objected to the common reading and the sense just put upon it, that a threatening of destruction would here be out of place. But on Calvin’s hypothesis, there is a promise of salvation to five-sixths. It is also a favourite idea with some writers, that the text was corrupted by the Jews of Palestine, in order to convert what seemed at least to be an explicit prediction of the temple of Onias into a threatening of its destruction. To the same source some ascribe the reading Dinn which is found in a few manuscripts. On the other hand, the common text of the Septuagint version has (pisn), which is supposed to have been introduced (from ch. 1: 26) by the Egyptian Jews in order to put honour on their temple. Even this, however, is pressed into the service of other hypotheses by Iken, who identifies oiGedex with an Arabic word used by the poets in describing the appearance of a lion, and by Le Moyne, who argues from Mai. 3: 20, that pis and np^s were applied to the sun. Thus the same blunder of the Seventy is made to prove that the Hebrew word means Heliopolis and Leontopolis. Hitzig, as we have seen already, looks upon this whole passage from the sixteenth verse as a fabrication of Onias, intended to facilitate the rearing of his temple. But in that case he would surely have made it more explicit, or at least have prevented its conversion into an anathema against himself, It is not even true that he interpreted this clause as pointing out the place for the erection, as alleged by Lowth and others after him. Josephus merely says that he appealed to the prediction of an altar to Jehovah in the land of Egypt, which would hardly have contented him if he had understood the verse before us as expressly naming either Heliopolis or Leontopolis. These facts, when taken in connexion with the usage of * ^E^ already stated, make it altogether probable that s^n-l ^ is not a proper name but a descriptive and prophetic title, meaning (in accordance with the constant usage of the verb o^r?) *the city of destruction. Kimchi, who puts this sense upon the words, but is puzzled by the threatening against one of the five towns, as he supposes it to be, absurdly makes the words to mean that the five cities would be so devoted to the true religion that if either of them should apos tatize the others would destroy it. Scarcely more natural is the explanation of the words by Junius and Tremellius, as meaning a city almost destroyed or saved from destruction. Schmidius more ingeniously evades the difficulty by taking onn in an active sense, a city of destruction i. e. to its enemies or those of the true religion. Both the hypotheses last.mentioned give to nn« the distributive sense of each or every one, which it sometimes derives from repetition or the context. (See Ezek. 1: 6.) Hendewerk, who supposes the five towns of the Philistines to be meant, understands this as a prophecy that one of them (Ashdod) should be destroyed but afterwards rebuilt, with an allusion to the derivation of the name from TT’^ to destroy. But of all the explanations of the common text, the simplest is the one proposed by Calvin? which supposes the whole verse to mean that for one town which shall perish in its unbelief five shall profess the true faith and swear fealty to Jehovah. The simplicity of this interpretation, and its strict agreement with the general tenor of the passage as a prophetic picture of great changes in the state of Egypt, serve at the same time to commend the common reading as the true one. By the five cities Cocceius understands the five states in which the Reformation was permanently established (Great Britain, Denmark, Swe~ den, Holland, and northern Germany), and by desolation or destruction what they subsequently suffered by war and otherwise from the popish powers.
19. In that day there shall be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at (or near) its border to Jehovah. It has been disputed whether we are here to understand an altar for sacrifice or an altar to serve as a memorial (Josh. 22: 26, 27). It has also been dis puted whether the prohibition of altars and consecrated pillars (Lev. 26: 1. Deut. 12: 5. 16: 22) was applicable only to the Jews or to Palestine, leaving foreign Jews or proselytes at liberty to rear these sacred structures as the Patriarchs did of old (Gen. 28: 18. 35: 14). The necessity of answering these questions is removed by a just view of the passage, as predicting the prevalence of the true religion and the practice of its rites, in language borrowed from the Mosaic or rather from the patriarchal institutions. As we might now speak of a missionary pitching his tent at Hebron or at Shechem, without intending to describe the precise form of his habitation, so the Prophet represents the converts to the true faith as erect ing an altar and a pillar to the Lord in Egypt, as Abraham and Jacob did of old in Canaan. A still more exact illustration is afforded by the frequent use among ourselves of the word altar to denote the practice of devotion, especially in families. There is a double propriety and beauty in the use of the word roars, because while it instantly recalls to mind the patriarchal practice, it is at the same time finely descriptive of the obelisk, an object so characteristic of Egypt that it may be regarded as its emblem. Both the obelisk and the patriarchal pillar, being never in the human form, are to be carefully distinguished from statues or images, although the latter word is sometimes used to represent the Hebrew one in the English Version. (See 2 Kings 3:2. 10: 26. Mic. 5: 13.) Those explanations of the verse which suppose the altar and the pillar, or the centre and the border of the land, to be contrasted, are equally at variance with good taste and the usage of the language, which continually separates in parallel clauses words and things which the reader is expected to combine. See an example of this usage in the sixth verse of the preceding chapter. As the wintering of the beasts and the summering of the birds are there intended to denote the presence of both beasts and birds throughout the year, so here the altar in the midst of the land and the pillar at its border denote altars and pillars through its whole extent. This is much more natural than Ewald’s supposition that the words are expressive of a gradual progress or extension of the truth.
20. And it shall be for a sign and for a testimony to Jehovah of Hosts in the land of Egypt, that they shall cry to Jehovah from the presence of oppressors, and he will send them a deliverer and a mighty one and save them. The older writers for the most part construe rrni with what goes before: ’ and it (or they) shall be etc.’ In that case we must either suppose an enallage of gender (so as to make tvzz-q the subject of the verb) or an enallage of number (so as to construe it with both the nouns), or else refer it to the remoter antecedent nap. Any of these constructions would be admissible if absolutely necessary; but in the case before us they are all superseded by a simpler one now commonly adopted. This refers FPiii not at all to what precedes but to what follows, taking 13 in its proper sense of on, that. ‘ This shall be a sign and a witness to (i. e. with respect to, in behalf of) Jehovah in the land of Egypt, viz. that when they cry etc.’ He will afford a providential testimony in behalf of his own being, presence, and supremacy, by saving those who cry to him. Those who refer irjfi1! to what goes before either take the other verbs in the past tense (a sign and a testimony that they cried), which is entirely arbitrary, or give to h3 its usual sense of for, because (for they shall cry), in which case the connexion is not obvious between their crying and the altar’s being a sign and witness for Jehovah. Even then, however, we may understand the Prophet to mean that when they cry at the altar of Jehovah, he will answer and deliver them, and thus the altar will bear witness to him. But as nothing is said of crying at the altar, the other construction is to be preferred, which makes the hearing of their prayers and their deliverance from suffering the sign and witness in behalf of Jehovah. ^ may be either an adjective meaning great or the participle of a-n to strive, especially at law, and then to plead the cause or take the part of any one, the participle of which might well be used to signify an advocate, patron, or defender. Calvin and others, adopt ing the former explanation of the word (salvalorem et principem), apply it to Christ. Vitringa, laying stress upon the word as meaning great, regards it as a proof that the deliverer here mentioned was Alexander the Great, or his Egyptian successor Ptolemy, also called the Great and (by a singular coincidence) Soter or the Saviour. The whole force of this ingenious combination lies in the explanation of ^ as an adjective. It cannot, therefore, be consistently maintained by those who adopt the other supposition, as Henderson does. Barnes also weakens the argument in favour of Vitringa’s exposition by exchanging great for powerful. The other explanation of srn as a participle is found in all the ancient versions, and is adopted by most modern writers. It is also favoured by the fact that the adjective is usually written an when not in pause, although some cases of the other pointing do occur (e.g. Gen. 36: 7. Josh. 11: 4), and Hitzig thinks the form here sufficiently accounted for by the accompanying accent. As to the application of the term in either case, besides that adopted by Vitringa and others, may be mentioned the rabbinical opinion that it means the angel who destroyed Sennacherib’s army, and the opinion of some modern writers that it denotes Psammetichus. A name, which admits of being plausibly applied to things so far apart and unlike, may safely be regarded as generic in its import. Even if the language of this verse by itself might seem to point to a particular deliverer, the comprehensive language of the context would forbid its reference to any such exclusively. If, as we have seen reason to believe, the chapter is a prophecy not of a single event but of a great progressive change to be wrought in the condition of Egypt by the introduction of the true religion, the promise of the verse before us must be that when they cried God would send them a deliverer, a promise verified not once but often, not by Ptolemy or Alexander only but by others, and in the highest sense by Christ himself. The assertion, that the meaning of the prophecy was exhausted by events before the advent, is as easily contradicted as advanced. It is admitted that the rise of Alexander’s power was contemporaneous with a great increase of Jewish population and Jewish influence in Egypt, and also with a great improvement in the social and political condition of the people. This was still more remarkably the case when Christianity was introduced, and who shall say what is yet to be witnessed and experienced in Egypt under the influence of this same gospel? In the language of this verse there is an obvious allusion to the frequent statement in the book of Judges, that the people cried to God and he raised them up deliverers who saved them from their oppressors (Judg. 2: 16. 3:9 etc.). Cocceius applies these terms to the various deliverers who were raised up to free the Reformed Church from its enemies.
21. And Jehovah shall be known to Egypt, and Egypt (or the Egyptians) shall know Jehovah in that day, and shall serve (with) sacrifice and offering, and shall vow a vow to Jehovah and perform it. This is not the prediction of a new event, but a repetition in another form of the preceding promise. The first clause may be understood as containing an emphatic repetition, or s’li’a may be taken in a reflexive sense as meaning he shall make himself known, in which case each of the parties is the subject of an active verb. The second clause is still but another variation of the same idea. What is first described as the knowledge of the true God, is after wards represented as his service, the expressions being borrowed from the ancient ritual. If the last clause be literally understood, we must either regard it as an unfounded expectation of the Prophet which was never fulfilled, or suppose that it relates to an express violation of the law of Moses, or assume that the ancient rites and forms are hereafter to be re-established. On the other hand, the figurative explanation is in perfect agreement with the usage of both testaments and with the tenor of the prophecy itself. Bloody and unbloody sacrifice is here combined with vows in order to express the 364 totality of ritual services as a figure for those of a more, spiritual nature. The express mention of the Egyptians themselves as worshipping Jehovah shows that they are also meant in the preceding verse, and not, as Hitzig imagines, the Jews resident in Egypt, whose example and experience of God’s favour were to be the means of bringing those around them to the knowledge and reception of the truth. Gesenius explains 1^3 j as a synonyme of liss, and makes it govern the noun directly in the sense of performing or offering sacrifice etc. Hitzig adopts the same construction, and moreover makes this use of W symptomatic of a later writer. Hendewerk justly condemns this reasoning as exceedingly unfair, when the common acceptation of the term gives a perfectly good sense, and the absolute use of n?5 in the sense of serving God occurs elsewhere (Job 36: 11), and the same ellipsis in this very chapter (v. 23).
22. And Jehovah shall smite Egypt (or the Egyptians), smiting and healing, and they shall return unto Jehovah, and he shall be entreated of them and shall heal them. Here again the second clause contains no advance upon the first, and the whole verse no advance upon the foregoing context, but an iteration of the same idea in another form. This verse may indeed be regarded as a recapitulation of the whole preceding prophecy, consisting as it does of an extended threatening (vs. 1-17) followed by an ample promise (vs. 18-21). As if he had said, thus will God smite Egypt and then heal it. That great heathen power, with respect to which the Jews so often sinned both by undue confidence and undue dread, was to be broken and reduced; but in exchange for this political decline, and partly as a consequence of it, the Egyptians should experience benefits far greater than they ever before knew. Thus would Jehovah smite and heal, or smite but so as afterwards to heal, which seems to be the force of the reduplicated verb. (See Ewald <§> 540.) The meaning is not simply that the stroke should be followed by healing, nor is it simply that the stroke should itself possess a healing virtue; but both ideas seem to be included. Returning to Jehovah is a common figure for repentance and conversion, even in reference to the heathen. (See Psalm 22: 28.)
23. In that day there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria shall come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria, and Egypt (or the Egyptians) shall serve with Assyria. No translation will convey the precise form of the original, in which the ancestral names Q’yixo and “tfnsx are put not only for their descendants but for the countries which they occupied. Thus in one clause we read of coming into tn^E, while in the next the same name is construed with a plural verb. No one, it is probable, has ever yet maintained that a road was literally opened between Egypt and Assyria, or that Isaiah expected it. All classes of interpreters agree that the opening of the highway is a figure for easy, free, and intimate communication. This unanimous admission of a metaphor in this place not only shows that the same mode of interpretation is admissible in the other parts of the same prophecy, but makes it highly probable that what is said of altars and sacrifices is to be likewise so understood. The Chaldee Paraphrast alone seems to have understood the second clause as having reference to hostile communication. Some understand it as relating only to commercial intercourse; others confine it to religious union. But the same thing is true here and in v. 18, that while the language itself denotes intimate connexion and free intercourse in general, the context renders the idea of spiritual union prominent. The last clause admits of two constructions, one of which regards n« as the objective particle and understands the clause to mean that the Egyptians shall serve the Assyrians; the other makes rx a preposition and explains the clause to mean that the Egyptians shall serve (God) with the Assyrians. In favour of the first is the constant usage of -ns with nut (Gen. 14:4. 27: 40. 31: 6. Ex. 14: 12 etc.) and the unanimous agreement of the ancient versions. But the sense thus yielded is at variance with the context, what precedes and follows being clearly expressive of a union so complete and equal as to exclude the idea of subjection or superiority. Some have attempted to evade this difficulty by attaching to ins the sense of serving by benevolence (Gal. 5: 13) or of simply treating with respect or reverence. But even if this explanation of the word were justified by usage, why should this deference be confined to one party instead of being mutual, especially when what precedes and follows so emphatically expresses the idea of reciprocity? In favour of the other construction is the constant use of “i^s? to denote the service of Jehovah, and the omission of the divine name after it, not only in Job 36: 11, but in v. 21 of this very chapter. For although the latter place admits, as we have seen, of two interpretations, the very fact that the elliptical construction is appropriate in both, and that no other sense but that of serving God is equally appropriate to both, would seem to be decisive in favour of this sense and this construction as the true one. Some understand the clause to mean that the Egyptians should serve with the Assyrians in the same army under the same leader, viz. Alexander the Great or his successors. But ins is nowhere absolutely used, if at all, in this modern military sense, which is moreover wholly inadmissible in v. 21. The sense of serving God to gether is adopted by Luther and all the later German writers except Hitzig, who agrees with Cocceius and the ancient versions. Some remove the ambiguity by supplying the ellipsis, others by giving a specific meaning to the verb, as Lowth (worship) and Ewald (huldigen).
24. In that day shall Israel be a third with respect to Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth. The meaning obviously is that Israel should be one of three or a party to a triple union, n^’j^ia there fore does not agree with ^XTiJ1? considered as a feminine noun, because in tended to denote not the country but the nation. This explanation, the one suggested by Gesenius, is directly contrary to usage, which makes countries feminine and nations masculine, as stated by Gesenius himself in his comment on the next verse. Nor is it necessary to suppose a reference torn:? or any other noun understood. “ As the fractional numerals are all abstract nouns, the feminine form of the ordinals is employed exclusively for their representation.” (Nordheimer § 627. Compare Gesenius § 96.) The word therefore means a third part or one equal part out of three. The idea meant to be conveyed, however, is not, as Cocceius supposes, merely that of equality in magnitude or power, but also that of intimate conjunction, as in the preceding verse. Blessing is here used in a comprehensive sense, as denoting at the same time a source of blessing, a means of blessing, and an object to be blessed. Luther supplies a preposition before it and a relative after it (through the blessing which is in the midst of the earth). Knobel simply supplies the verb of existence (blessing shall be in the midst etc.). The simplest construction is to put it in apposition with baniu11 or mbiB^is, a blessing in the midst of the earth, which is equivalent to saying as a blessing or (as Ewald has it) for a blessing in the midst of the earth. The restricted sense of land, whether understood to mean the land of Israel or the land of the three united powers now reckoned as one, is not only arbitrary, i. e. assumed without necessity, but greatly impairs the strength of the expressions.
25. Which Jehovah of Hosts has blessed (or with which Jehovah of Hosts has blessed it) saying, Blessed be my people Egypt, and the work of my hands Assyria, and my heritage (or peculiar people) Israel. The perfect union of the three great powers in the service of God and the enjoyment of his favour is now expressed by a solemn benediction on the three, in which language commonly applied to Israel exclusively is extended to Egypt and Assyria. The force of the expressions would be much enhanced by the habitual associations of a Jewish reader. It arises very much from the surprise excited by the unexpected termination of the clauses. Instead of Blessed be my people Israel, the formula is blessed be my people Egypt. That the work of my hands does not merely mean my creature, or a creature perfectly at my disposal, but my creature in a special and a spiritual sense, the same in which God is said to be the maker or founder of Israel (Deut. 32: 6. Isai. 43: 6, 7), is evident from this consideration, that the clause would otherwise say nothing peculiar or distinctive of Assyria, as those before and after it do of Egypt and Israel. Some writers understand the last clause as still making a distinction in favour of Israel, as if he had said, Egypt is indeed my people and Assyria my handiwork, but Israel after all and alone is my inheritance. The objections to this interpretation are, first, that it is wholly arbitrary, that is, it assumes a peculiar emphasis in the word inheritance which neither usage nor the context warrants; and second ly, that it contradicts or makes unmeaning the varied and reiterated forms of speech by which the Prophet had before expressed the ideas of equality and union. Where his very object seems to be to represent the three united powers as absolutely one in privilege, it cannot be supposed that he would wind up by saying that they are not absolutely equal after all. Much less is such a meaning to be put upon his words when there is nothing in the words themselves to require or even authorize it. The correct view of the verse seems to be this. In order to express once more and in the most emphatic manner the admission of Egypt and Assyria to the privileges of the chosen people, he selects three titles commonly bestowed upon the latter exclusively, to wit, God’s people, the work of his hands, and his inheritance, and these three he distributes to the three united powers without discrimination or invidious distinction. If this view of the matter be correct, the mean ing of the whole will be distorted by attaching any undue emphasis to the concluding words. As to the application of the prophecy there are three distinct opinions. One is that the Prophet here anticipates a state of peace and international communion between Egypt, Israel, and Assyria in his own times, which may or may not have been actually realized. Another is that he predicts what actually did take place under the reign of Alexander and the two great powers that succeeded him, viz. the Graeco-Syrian and Egyptian monarchies, by which the true religion was protected and diffused and the way prepared for the preaching of the gospel. A third is that Egypt and Assyria are here named as the two great heathen powers known to the Jews, whose country lay between them and was often the scene if not the subject of their contests, so that for ages they were commonly in league with the one against the other. To describe these two great belligerent powers as at peace with Israel and one another, was not only to foretell a most surprising revolution in the state of the world, but to intimate at least a future change in the relation of the Jews and Gentiles. When he goes still further and describes these representatives of heathenism as received into the covenant and sharing with the church of God its most distinctive titles, we have one of the clearest and most striking predictions of the calling of the Gentiles that the word of God contains. One advantage of this exposition is that while it thus extends and elevates the scope of the prediction, it retains unaltered whatever there may be of more specific prophecy or of coincidence with history. If Alexander is referred to, and the spread of Judaism under him and his successors, and the general pacification of the world and progress of refinement, these are so many masterly strokes added to the great prophetic picture; but they cannot be extracted from it and made to constitute a picture by themselves. As to the construction of the first clause, it may be observed that most writers refer the relative pronoun to fl^rj, or give “ies the sense of for, because, but Ewald and Knobel make fo^s the antecedent—the blessing wherewith God has blessed it—as in Deut. 12:7. 15: 14. In either case, the suffix is^a refers not to -pan as a masculine because denoting people, but to Egypt, Assyria, and Israel, considered as a single nation. The preterite form of the verb has reference to the benediction as preceding and occasioning the union just before described. When Egypt, Assyria, and Israel are thus united, it will be because God has already blessed them, saying, etc. There is therefore no necessity or ground for an arbitrary change of the preterite into a future, nor even for evading an exact translation by the substitution of the present form. How far the early Jews were below the genuine spirit of the Prophecies may be gathered from the fact that both the Septuagint and Targum make this a promise to Israel exclusively, Assyria and Egypt being mentioned merely as the places where they had experienced affliction.
