RELIANCE upon Egypt is distrust of God, who will avenge himself by destroying both the helper and the helped, vs. 1-3. His determination and ability to save those who confide in his protection are expressed by two comparisons, vs. 4-5. The people are therefore invited to return to him, from every false dependence, human or idolatrous, as they will be constrained to do with shame, when they shall witness the destruction of their enemies by the resistless fire of his wrath, vs. 6-9.
Hitzig assumes an interval, though not a very long one, between this and the preceding chapter. To most interpreters and readers, it seems to be a direct continuation, or at most a repetition, of the threatenings and reproofs which had just been uttered.
1. Woe to those going down to Egypt for help, and on horses they lean (or rely), and trust in cavalry, because it is numerous, and in horse men, because they are very strong, and they look not to the Holy One of Israel, and Jehovah they seek not. The abundance of horses in Egypt is attested, not only in other parts of Scripture, but by profane writers. Homer describes Thebes as having a hundred gates, out of each of which two hundred warriors went forth with chariots and horses. Diodorus speaks of the whole country between Thebes and Memphis as filled with royal stables. The horses of Solomon are expressly said to have been brought out of Egypt. This kind of military force was more highly valued, in comparison with infantry, by the ancients than the moderns, and especially by those who, like the Hebrews, were almost entirely deprived of it themselves. Hence their reliance upon foreign aid is frequently identified with confidence in horses, and contrasted with simple trust in God (Psalm 20: 8). Most interpreters give M^ here its usual sense of chariot, put collectively for chariots; but as such a use of the singular between two plurals would be somewhat unnatural, it may be taken in the sense which we have seen it to have in ch. 21: 7. To seek Jehovah is not merely to consult him, but to seek his aid, resort to him, implying the strongest confidence. For the meaning of the phrase look to, see the note on ch. 17: 8.
2. And (yet) he too is wise, and brings evil, and his words he re moves not, and he rises up against the house of evil-doers, and against the help of the workers of iniquity. The adversative yet is required by our idiom in this connexion, but is not expressed by ea, which has its usual sense of too or also, implying a comparison with the Egyptians, upon whose wisdom, as well as strength, the Jews may have relied, or with the Jews themselves, who no doubt reckoned it a masterpiece of wisdom to secure such powerful assistance. The comparison may be explained as comprehending both. God was as wise as the Egyptians, and ought therefore to have been consulted; he was as wise as the Jews, and could therefore thwart their boasted policy. There is not only a meiosis in this sentence, but an obvious irony. There is no need of supposing, with Vitringa, that die wisdom, either of Egypt or of Israel, is here denied, excepting in comparison with that of God. The translation of the verbs as futures is arbitrary. Ewald refers S;P to previous threatenings, which is hardly justified by usage. ^n&n, in this connexion, seems to have the sense of withdrawing 34 or revoking, as in Josh. 11: 15 it denotes a practical revocation by neglect ing to fulfil. The house of evil-doers is their family or race (ch. 1:4), here applied to the unbelieving Jews. The Egyptians are called their help, and both are threatened with destruction. To rise up is to show one’s self, address one’s self to action, and implies a state of previous forbearance or neglect.
3. And Egypt (is) man and not God, and their horses flesh and not spirit, and Jehovah shall stretch out his hand, and the helper shall stumble and the helped fall, and together all of them shall cease (or be destroyed). This verse repeats the contrast between human and divine aid, and the threatening that the unbelievers and their foreign helpers should be involved in the same destruction. The antithesis offlesh and spirit, like that of God and man, is not metaphysical but rhetorical, and is intended simply to ex press extreme dissimilitude or inequality. Reliance upon Egypt is again sarcastically represented as reliance upon horses, and as such opposed to confidence in God. As Egypt here means the Egyptians, it is afterwards referred to as a plural. Stumble and fall are here poetical equivalents.
4. For thus said Jehovah unto me, As a lion growls, and a young lion, over his prey, against whom a multitude of shepherds is called forth, at their voice he is not frightened, and at their noise he is not humbled, so will Jehovah of Hosts come down, to fight upon Mount Zion and upon her hill. This is still another form of the same contrast. The comparison is a favourite one with Homer, and occurs in the eighteenth book of the Iliad, in terms almost identical. Growl is to be preferred to roar, not only for the reason given by Bochart, that the lion roars before not after it has seized its prey, but because rtin more properly denotes a suppressed or feeble sound. &K is literally fulness, and is rendered by Montana pknitudinc. Other less natural constructions of the second clause are: when a multitude is called; who (when) a multitude is called, etc. Some read &oj^, and translate it either cries or meets. Most interpreters have,/or Mount Zion, in which sense bs is used with cn^s elsewhere. But as acs itself, with this same preposition, means to fight against in ch. 29: 7, Hitzig and Hendewerk regard this as a threatening that God will take part with the Assyrians against Jerusalem, the promise of deliverance beginning with the next verse. Ewald supposes &C2 to be used in allusion to the name rvixast (the Lord of Hosts will be present in the host) and gives ^? the sense of over or upon (iiber), which may either indicate the place or the subject of the contest. By supposing the particle to mean concerning, we can explain its use both in a hostile and a favourable sense. The “O at the beginning of this verse introduces the ground or reason of the declaration that the seeking of foreign aid was both unlawful and unnecessary. The hill is by some supposed to be Moriah, as an appendage of Mount Zion; but it may just as well be simply parallel to mountain, the mountain of Zion and the hill thereof. The feminine suffix. refers not to “ifi but to “^s.
5. As birds flying (over or around their nests), so will Jehovah cover over (or protect) Jerusalem, cover and rescue, pass over and save. According to Hitzig, it is not Jehovah but Jerusalem that is here compared to fluttering birds. But, as Hendewerk properly objects, m’B5 means flying, and is inapplicable to young birds in the nest. The feminine nis? also indicates a reference to the care of mothers for their young. Gesenius follows Kimchi in explaining ^sn and B^ri as unusual forms of the infinitive; but Ewald and Hitzig regard this as an instance of the idiomatic combination of infinitive and finite forms. noa is the verb used to denote the passing over of the houses in Egypt by the destroying angel (hence woe passover), to which there may be an allusion here. There is at least no ground for making the verb, in either case, mean to cover (Vitringa) or to leap forward (Lowth). To pass over, in the sense of sparing, is appropriate in both.
6. Since you need no protection but Jehovah’s, therefore, return unto him from whom (or with respect to whom) the children of Israel have deeply revolted (literally, have deepened revolt). The last words may also be read, from whom they (i. e. men indefinitely) have deeply revolted, oh ye children of Israel. The substitution of the second person for the third, in the ancient versions and by Barnes (ye have revolted), is wholly arbitrary. Some explain •v^xb to mean according as or in proportion as, which seems to be a forced construction. The syntax may be solved, either by supposing to him to be understood and giving “ittJ$£ the sense of with respect to whom, or by assuming that, as both these ideas could be expressed by this one phrase, it was put but once in order to avoid the tautology. Deep may be here used to convey the specific idea of debasement, or the more general one of distance, or still more generally, as a mere intensive, like our common phrases deeply grieved or deeply injured. The analogy of ch. 29: 15, however, would suggest the idea of deep contrivance or design, which is equally appropriate.
7. This acknowledgment you will be constrained to make sooner or later. For in that day (of miraculous deliverance) they shall reject (cast away with contempt), a man (i. e. each) his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your sinful hands have made for you, or, which your own hands have made for you as sin, i. e. as an occasion and a means of sin. In like manner the golden calves are called the sin of Israel (Deut. 9: 21. Am. 8: 14). The construction which makes sin a qualifying epithet of hands, is preferred by Hendewerk-and some older writers, but is not so natural as that which makes the former denote the object or effect of the action. For the true construction of his silver and his gold, see the note on ch. 2: 20. For the same enallage of person, in a similar connexion, see ch. 1: 29. Trust in idols and reliance upon human helpers are here, and often else where, put together, as identical in principle, and closely connected in the experience of ancient Israel. (See the notes on ch. 2: 8, 22.)
8. This future abandonment of all false confidences is described as springing from the demonstration of Jehovah’s willingness and power to save. And Assyria shall fall by no mail’s sword, and no mortal’s sword shall devour him, and he shall flee from before the sword, and his young men (or chosen warriors) shall become tributary (literally, tribute). tt5l>’K”K^ and DTK’^b are commonly explained as emphatic compounds, like y?~aft in ch. 10: 15, implying not mere negation but contrariety, something in finitely more than man. In such a comparison, the antithesis of mighty man and mean man seems so entirely out of place, that it is best to explain tflix and n*ix, according to the ordinary principle of parallelism, as equivalents. In either case, the terms are universal and exclusive. For •ft, a few manuscripts and one of the earliest editions read &&, not from the sword, i. e. he shall flee when no man pursueth (Prov. 28: 1). But the pleonastic dative after verbs of motion is a common Hebrew idiom. Vitringa and others derive fcia from &c?a to melt, and explain the whole phrase to mean, shall be melted, i. e. either dispersed or overcome with fear. But in every other case the expression means to become tributary, with a special reference to the rendering of service to a superior. The objection that the prophecy, as thus explained, was not fulfilled, proceeds upon the false assumption that it refers exclusively to the overthrow of Sennacherib’s host, whereas it describes the decline and fall of the Assyrian power after that catastrophe.
9. And his rock (i. e. his strength) from fear shall pass away, and his chiefs shall be afraid of a standard (or signal, as denoting the presence of the enemy), saith Jehovah, to whom there is a fire in Zion and a furnace in Jerusalem. Besides the version above given of the first clause, which is that of Jerome (fortitudo transibit), there are two constructions, also ancient, between which modern writers are divided. Kimchi explains the words to mean, that in his flight he should pass by the strongholds on his own frontier where he might have taken refuge. Grotius quotes in illustration the Latin proverb, fugit praeter casam. Hendewerk modifies this explanation by supposing caverns in the hills to be referred to, as customary places of concealment. The other construction is proposed by Aben Ezra: he shall pass (not by but) to his stronghold, i.e. as Calvin understands it, Nineveh. Neither of these explanations seems so obvious and simple as the one just given. Lowth arbitrarily translates 1022 at his flight. Zwingle applied this clause to the cowardly desertion of the standards. The last clause, according to Piscator, means, whose hearth is in Jerusalem, or as Gill ex presses it, who keeps house there and therefore will defend it. But this use of fire and furnace is not only foreign from the usage of the Scriptures, but from the habits of the orientals, who have no such association of ideas be tween hearth and home. The true explanation of the clause seems to be that which supposes an allusion both to the sacred fire on the altar and to the consuming fire of God’s presence, whose altar flames in Zion and whose wrath shall thence flame to destroy his enemies.s Compare the explanation of the mystical name Ariel in the note on ch. 29: 1.
