THIS chapter and the next appear to constitute one prophecy, the first part of which (ch. 34) is filled with threatenings against the enemies of the church, the latter part (ch. 35) with promises to the church itself. The threatenings of ch. 34 are directed, first against the nations in general, vs. 1-4, and then against Edom in particular, vs. 5-15, with a closing affirmation of the truth and certainty of the prediction, vs. 16, 17. The destruction of the enemies of Zion and the desolation of their lands are represented by the figures of a great sacrifice or slaughter, the falling of the heavenly bodies, the conversion of the soil into brimstone and the waters into pitch, and the inhabitation of animals peculiar to the desert.
Rabbi Moses Haccohen applies all this to the desolation of Edom in the days of Isaiah. Grotius, who adopts the same hypothesis, supposes these judgments to have been provoked by the aid which the Edomites afforded to the Assyrians in their invasion of Judea, and to have been executed by the Ethiopians. Schmidius also applies the chapter to the literal desolation of Edom in the days of Isaiah. Eusebius applies it to the day of judgment and the end of the world. Cyril makes the same application of vs. 1-4. but applies the rest to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish commonwealth, mystically represented here by Edom. Theodoret extends this explanation to the whole, in which he is followed by Cocceius. The rabbinical interpreters, with one exception which has been already mentioned, explain Edom as a mystical or figurative name for Rome, or rather Christendom, of which Rome was once the representative, and understand the chapter as predicting the future downfall of the Christian powers in the days of the Messiah. On this same rabbinical hypothesis Vitringa rears a Christian exposition, by making Edom the emblem not of Christian but of Antichristian (i. e. Papal) Rome. So J. H. Michaelis, Gill, and others, most of whom however give the prophecy a greater latitude of meaning, as a general threatening of destruction to the enemies of Zion, but especially to Antichrist here typified as Edom. J. D. Michaelis regards the prophecy as yet to be fulfilled, and thinks it possible that the ancient Idumea may hereafter be possessed by an antichristian power whose destruction is here foretold. Rosenmuller and the other recent German writers regard the whole as an extravagant expression of revengeful malice by a writer long posterior to Isaiah. This gratuitous assumption is sustained by the usual empirical criticism, which, as we have seen before, may be em ployed on either side of any question. Hitzig, while complaining of the writer’s diffuseness and verbosity, heaps up tautological expressions of con tempt in his own peculiar style. It is worthy of remark, too, that the spirit of this chapter is extremely shocking to these pious unbelievers. Leaving these prejudiced interpretations out of view, the reference of the prophecy to Antichrist may be objected to, upon the ground that the sense which it gives to Edom is a forced one, not sustained by any usage or authority, except certain parts of the book of Revelation, which the older writers used as a key to the ancient prophecies, whereas these alone afford the key to it. The simplest and most satisfactory view of the whole passage is the one proposed by Calvin, who regards it as a general threatening of destruction to the enemies of Zion, Edom being particularly mentioned, as an enemy of ancient Israel peculiarly inveterate and malignant, and thence used to represent the whole class of such enemies. Thus understood, the prophecy extends both to the past and future, and includes many particular events to which interpreters have erroneously endeavoured to restrict it, not excepting the destruction of Antichrist, as the greatest event of this kind which is foretold in prophecy. Compare the note on ch. 11: 4.
1. Come near, ye nations, to hear, and ye peoples, hearken. Lowth adds to me, on the authority of a single manuscript. Let the earth hear and its fulness (that which fills it, all that it contains), the world and all its issues (or productions, all that comes forth from it). This may either be explained with Calvin as an appeal to inanimate nature, like the one at the beginning of the book (ch. 1: 2), or as an appeal to men, poetically represented as the fruit of the earth, which is the sense given in the ancient ver sions and adopted by Vitringa. Knobel supposes a climax or anticlimax, the Prophet first invoking men (nations and peoples), then brutes (the fulness of the earth), and then plants (its productions). But the sense thus put upon the fulness of the earth is altogether arbitrary. This verse announces, as about to be delivered, a prediction of great moment and deserving the attention of the whole world. Cocceius understands by nations the heathen and by peoples the tribes of Israel, a distinction which he makes even in the first verse of the second Psalm. All other writers take the words as poetical equivalents.
2. This verse assigns the reason for the invocation in the one before it. For (there is) anger to Jehovah. The English Version has, the indignation of the Lord is, an idea which would be otherwise expressed in He brew. The construction is the same as in ch. 2: 12. Jehovah has anger (or is angry) against all the nations. The common version is upon, which is the primary meaning of the particle, and is appropriate in this case as suggesting the idea of infliction. That of hostility is of course implied, even if not expressed. Vitringa needlessly and arbitrarily distinguishes between the nations mentioned in the first verse and in this, upon the ground that those who were to be destroyed would not be summoned to hear of their destruction. But why not? It is exactly like the case of an individual convict hearing his sentence before its execution. Vitringa also makes &ra mean nations in general, and o^an these nations, i. e. the ones to be destroyed. But e^ian ba is the strongest expression possible in He brew for all nations.—And wrath (is to Jehovah) against all their host. Not their armies in particular, as Clericus suggests, but their whole multitude, all that belong to them. (Compare the same expression in Gen. 2: 1.)— He has doomed them, or devoted them irrevocably to destruction. For the peculiar usage of the Hebrew verb, see the note on ch. J 1: 15.—He has given (i. e. appointed and abandoned) them to the slaughter. The past tense is not a mere praeteritum prophcticum, implying the certainty of the event although still future, but describes the divine determination or decree as really and literally past.
3. And their slain shall be cast out. The Hebrew word strictly means their wounded, and is so translated in the Septuagint and some other versions. But usage gives it the specific sense of wounded mortally, and for the most part in battle. Cast out i. e. unburied. This suggests the several ideas of contemptuous neglect, of a multitude too vast to be interred, and perhaps of survivors too few to perform the duty. (Compare ch. 14: 18-20.) They shall riot lie unburied merely for a time, but until they rot upon the ground. And their corpses (or carcasses), their stench shall go up. The first noun is construed as an absolute nominative: as to their carcasses, their stench etc. which is equivalent in our idiom to the stench of their carcasses shall go up. With reference to the same revolting circumstance, Lucan calls a battle-field olentcs agros. (Compare Amos 4: 10. Joel 2: 20.)—And mountains shall be melted with (or by} their blood, as they are sometimes washed away by rains or torrents. This cannot mean merely that blood shall run down from the hills (Clericus), but must be taken as a strong poetical hyperbole descriptive of excessive carnage.
4. And all the host of heaven (or heavenly bodies) shall consume away. This verb is commonly applied to the pining or consumption occasioned by disease. In Ps. 33: 6 it means to run as a sore, from which analogy Gesenius deduces here the sense of melting, and adopts Vitringa’s notion that the stars are poetically likened to wax candles. Maurer, with better taste, supposes the obscuration of the heavenly bodies to be represented as a pining away. The ideas of sickly lights and dying lights are not unknown to modern poetry.—And the heavens shall be rolled up (or together) like a scroll, i. e. like an ancient volume (volumen from volvo) or a modern map. Grotius explains this as meaning that nothing should be seen in the heavens any more than in a book rolled up or closed. This idea Umbreit carries out by talking of the sky as God’s great book, in which he has written his eternal name with countless stars. J. D. Michaelis more naturally under stands the Prophet as alluding to the phenomena of storms, in which the sky is first overcast and then covered with clouds, the motion of which gives it the appearance of being rolled together. The best explanation seems however to be that proposed by PfeifFer in his Dubia Vexata, to wit, that as God is elsewhere described as having: stretched out the heavens like a O curtain, their destruction or any total change in their appearance would be naturally represented as a rolling up of the expanse. In like manner Hor ace says: horrida tempestas contraxit coelum. The Targum strangely makes “i3&5 mean according to the book i. e. the scriptures. Montanus no less strangely makes it govern o^-aft (sicut liber coelorum), a construction utterly precluded by the article. (See a similar mistake of Lowth in ch. 17: 8.)—And all their host (referring to the heavens) shall fade (or fall away) like the fading of a leaf from a vine. This beautiful comparison with the decay of plants makes it the more probable that the preceding clause alludes to that of animal life and not to the melting of wax or tallow. —And like a fading (leaf) or a withered (Jig) from a Jig-tree. Knobel explains nbss as a feminine collective put for the plural masculine, an idiom of which there are few if any unambiguous examples. As ribs is masculine, the feminine adjective may be referred to a noun understood. J. D. Michaelis imagines that this clause describes the seeming motion of the stars occasioned by a nocturnal earthquake. Grotius supposes the description of the carnage to be still continued, and the exhalations of the putrid corpses to be here described as veiling the heavens and producing those meteoric appearances called shooting stars. This extravagant conceit is justly condemned by Gesenius as a most infelicitous conception of a poetic image, and is certainly worse than his own prosaic supposition of wax candles. Such exhibitions may enable us to estimate correctly the aesthetic contempt with which some writers speak of this magnificent passage as plainly belonging to a later age. A similar remark may be applied to Knobel’s repetition of Vitringa’s indiscreet suggestion as to the popular belief of the Hebrews respecting the heavens and the heavenly bodies. It would be no less rational to argue from the foregoing verse, that they believed in streams of blood so vast as to dissolve whole mountains. If the terms of that verse are poetical hyperboles, on what ground is this to be explained as a lesson in natural philosophy? Another notion of Vitringa’s, equally unfounded, although not adopted by the modern Germans, is that the terms of this verse plainly show that the prediction has respect to some great body politic or organized society, the sun being the emblem of the civil power, the moon of the ecclesiastical, and the stars of distinguished men in church and state. The context clearly shows that the terms used are not symbolical but poetical, and that here, as in ch. 13: 10, the idea which they are all intended to convey is that of revolution, of sudden, total, and appalling change. The imagery of the passage has been partially adopted in Matt. 24: 29 and Rev. 6: 13, neither of which however is to be regarded either as a repetition or an explanation of the one before us.
5. There is no need of giving *o the sense of yea (Augusti) or of explaining it as a mere connective particle (Knobel), since it may be con strued, in its proper sense, either with v. 3 (Hitzig) or with the whole of the preceding description. All this shall certainly take place, for my sword (the speaker being God himself) is steeped (saturated, soaked) in heaven. Most versions, ancient and modern, take the verb here in the sense of being drunk or intoxicated, either with wrath or with the blood of enemies. It is very improbable however that two different figures were intended here and in v. 7, where all agree that the earth is described as being soaked or saturated with blood. Koppe proposes to read niai-m sharpened, after the ana logy of Ezek. 21: 33. The same sense had long before been put upon the common text by Clericus, who supposes an allusion to the wetting of the grindstone or the blade in grinding. The Targum has revealed, on the authority of which loose paraphrase Lowth reads made bare, adding with great naivete in his note, whatever reading, different 1 presume from the present, he might find, in his copy, I follow the sense which he has given of it. This implies that it is not even necessary to know what a reading is before it is allowed to supersede the common text. The phrase in heaven has been variously explained. Some of the older writers understand it as expressing the certainty of the event (as firm or sure as the heavens); others as descriptive of the great men who were to be destroyed. Gill says it may denote the whole Roman papal jurisdiction, and Henderson, who rejects all allusion to Rome, explains it to mean the Idumean heaven or the ruling power in Edom. Gesenius supposes the sword to be here described as drunk with wrath in heaven before it is drunk with blood on earth; Ewald, as dropping blood in heaven as if by anticipation (ivie zum voraus). The best explanation is that of Calvin, who refers the expression to the divine determination and foreknowledge. In the sight of God the sword, although not yet actually used, was already dripping blood. The sword is mentioned, neither because commonly employed in executions (Barnes), nor in the sense of a butcher’s knife (Vitringa), but as a natural and common though poetical expression for any instrument of vengeance. Knobel is singular in understanding this clause as referring to the slaughter of the Babylonians already past, and now to be succeeded by that of the Edomites. Behold, upon Edom it shall come down. Some translate the future as a present, but there is no sufficient reason for departing from the proper sense. The Jewish tradition is that Edom in the prophecies means Rome. For this opinion Abarbenel endeavours to secure a historical foundation by making the Romans actual descendants of Esau. Vitringa justly denounces this as egregious trifling, but adopts the same hypothesis, only applying the name to Pagan and Papal Rome. At the same time, he ap pears unwilling to abandon altogether its application to the Jews themselves. Now the only thing common to these three distinct subjects is their malignant hatred of God’s people. This may serve, therefore, to confirm Calvin’s doctrine, that the name is here applied to the inveterate enemies of the church at large, and not to any one of them exclusively. Henderson, in avoiding Vitringa’s error, goes to the opposite extreme of confining the prediction to the literal and ancient Edom. Even the German critics grant that Edom is here mentioned as a representative. The same thing is clear from the whole complexion of this prophecy and from the analogy of others like ifc. The strength of the expressions cannot be explained by the gratuitous assumption that it was merely adequate to meet the expectations of a patriotic Jew in reference to the infliction of divine judgment on those who had been the ancient and most inveterate enemies of his country. On the other hand, they are sufficiently accounted for, by the supposition that the passage is a prediction of the downfall not of Edom only but of others like him. The fulfilment of these threatenings cannot be traced in the history of ancient Edom. They ceased to be a people not by extirpation but by incorporation with the Jews. The name Idumea, as employed by Josephus, includes a large part of Judea. The Herods, the last royal family of Judah, were of Idumean origin.—And upon the people of my curse or doom i.e. the people whom I have doomed to destruction. (See v. 2.) This is not an extension of the threatening against Edom to other nations (Junius), but a repetition of it in a different form. BBtBfcb is not an adverbial phrase meaning justly, but a declaration of the end for which the sword was to come down, viz. for judgment i. e. to execute justice upon Edom.
6. A. sword (is) to Jehovah (or Jehovah has a sword); it is full of blood. The genitive construction (the sword of Jehovah), although not ungrammatical, is not to be assumed without necessity.—It is smeared with fat. The allusion is not to the fatty part of the blood or to the fat combined with it (Gesenius), but to fat and blood as the animal substances offered in sacrifice.— With the blood of lambs and goats, mentioned as well-known sacrificial animals, with the fat of the kidneys (or the kidney-fat) of rams, mentioned either as remarkable for fatness or as a parallel expression to the foregoing clause.—For there is to Jehovah (or Jehovah has) a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. ns; is otherwise explained to mean a victim (Vulgate), or the preparation for a feast (Cocceius). Bozrah was an ancient city of Edom. Gesenius in his Commentary identifies it with Bostra in Auranitis; but in his Thesaurus he agrees with Raumer and Hitzig in making it the same with the modern Busaireh, a village and castle in Arabia Petraea south-east of the Dead Sea. (See Robinson’s Palestine, II. p. 570.) Cocceius thinks Jerusalem is here called Bozrah as being a stronghold of thieves and robbers. Vitringa applies it to Rome, which he derives from rra-i high. Hitzig applies this verse to the literal slaughter of the Edomitish flocks and herds, which seems inconsistent with the next verse.
7. And unicorns shall come down with them, and bullocks with bulls. And their land shall be soaked (or drenched) with blood, and their dust with fat shall be fattened. The ancient versions, with great unanimity and uniformity, explain dan as meaning the unicorn. This animal has been commonly regarded as fabulous in modern times; but of late some traces of it have been found in Thibet and other parts of Asia. But even supposing it to be a real animal, we have no reason to believe that it was ever common 36 in the Holy Land, as the cfcn would seem to have been from the frequency with which it is mentioned. The explanation of the Hebrew word by Aquila and Saadias, as meaning the rhinoceros, may be considered as exploded by Bochart. The modern writers are divided between a certain species of gazelle or antelope and the wild buffalo of Palestine and Egypt. The name may here be used either as a poetical description of the ox, or to suggest that wild as well as tame beasts should be included in the threatened slaughter. Some understand the term as denoting potent and malignant enemies. Grotius gives a distinctive meaning also to the species mentioned in the foregoing verse, the lambs being the common people, the goats the priests, and the fat rams the men of wealth. This mode of exposition is at variance with the very nature of figurative language. For D-^an in this verse some of the old Jews read D^i”! Romans. Dust here denotes dry soil, which is said to be enriched by the bodies of the slain. So Virgil says that Roman blood had twice enriched the soil of Macedonia. The field of Waterloo (says Barnes) has thus been celebrated, since the great battle there,, for producing rank and luxuriant harvests. To come down in the first clause is by some explained as meaning to come down to the slaughter (Jer. 50; 27. 51: 40); by others to fall or sink under the fatal stroke (Zech. 11: 2).
8. For (there is) a day of vengeance to Jehovah, a year of recom penses for the cause of Zion, i. e. to maintain her cause. Some have taken this in an unfavourable sense as meaning to contend with Zion. Cocceius and Umbreit regard day and year as a climax, but most writers as equivalent indefinite expressions. This verse connects the judgments threatened against Edom with the cause of Zion or the church of God. On the construction and the meaning of the first words of the sentence, compare ch. 2: 12.
9. And her streams (those of Idumea or the land of Edom) shall be turned to pitch, and her dust to brimstone, and her land shall become burn ing pitch. This verse, as Calvin well observes, announces nothing new, but repeats the same prediction under other figures, borrowed from the over throw of Sodom and Gomorrah, which throughout the Bible are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 7). To the fire and brimstone there mentioned, pitch or bitumen is added, as Hendewerk and Knobel suppose, because the soil of Idumea, lying adjacent to the Dead Sea, is bituminous and abounds in veins or springs of naphtha. According to Sanctius, pitch is mentioned as a substance easily kindled and burning long, ft^na neither means her valleys (Septuagint) nor her torrents (Lowth), but her streams in general, as distinguished from her dust or dry ground, both being included in the general term land which occurs in the last clause (Hitzig). According to Knobel, the suffix in nsix still refers to Idumea and the noun means surface. Grotius applies this description to the burning of the Idumean cities. Clericus explains the first clause as meaning that their streams should be as turbid as if turned to pitch. Barnes correctly understands it as expressing in the strongest terms the idea of utter and permanent destruction, as complete and terrible as if the streams were turned to pitch. The old editions of the Chaldee paraphrase read here iht streams of Rome etc. According to the Talmud, Rome was founded on the day that Jeroboam set up the golden calf, and is to be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. Upon this tradition (which is given at length in Buxtorf ‘s Talmudical Lexicon under the word xtt’n) Gill seizes with avidity, so far as it is suited to his purpose, and applies it to the future destruction of Rome by fire, as predicted in Rev. 17: 16. 18: 8. Vitringa also thinks it not impossible that even this verse may be literally verified in the sulphureous soil of Latium and Campania. He seems indeed to have regarded it as an event likely to happen in his own day, and cites with great solemnity the similar anticipations of Jerome Savonarola, as recorded by Philip de Comines. and the prophecy found, according to Matthew of Paris, in the bed-room of Gregory IX. So little does the failure of these earlier forebodings appear to have taught him their groundless and unprofitable nature! At the same time he appears to allow ample space for the fulfilment by referring to the great fire under Nero as a prelude to the final conflagration.
10. Day and night it shall not be quenched; forever shall its smoke go up; from generation to generation shall it lie waste, for ever and ever, there shall be no one passing through it. The remarkable gradation and accumulation of terms denoting perpetuity can scarcely be expressed in a translation. This is especially the case with the last and highest of the series, which Lowth renders to everlasting ages, and Henderson to all perpetuity, neither of which is stronger than the common version for ever and ever, or approaches much nearer to the strict sense of the Hebrew phrase, to perpetuity of perpetuities. The original form of expression. though not the exact sense of the words, is retained by Theodotion, ei$ £6%aTa 8G%dT(ov. Grotius’s characteristic explanation is in these words: id est, diu. Lowth’s disposition to improve the common version by substituting Latin for Saxon words is exemplified in this verse, where he changes waste and quenched into desert and extinguished. Grotius supposes an allusion to the long-continued smoking of burnt cities, and quotes parallels from Virgil and Seneca. A much more striking parallel is found in the statement (Gen. 19: 28), that when Abraham looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, the smoke, of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. These sublime and fearful images are copied in the book of Revelation (14: 10, 11), but it does not follow that the copy, though inspired and prophetic, was intended to determine the sense of the original. Rosenmuller and Knobel understand the last words as meaning that no one shall go to it or pass into it, but Gesenius and Ewald1 with the older writers, that no one shall pass through or over it, implying that it shall not be a thorough fare for caravans or single travellers. Keith, in his Evidence of Prophecy, has collected some remarkable illustrations of this passage from the incidental statements of modern travellers with respect to what was once the land of Edom. Thus Volney speaks of thirty deserted towns within three days’ journey; Seetzen, of a wide tract utterly without a place of habitation, and of his own route through it as one never before attempted; Burckhardt, of the passage as declared by the people of the nearest inhabited districts to be impossible, in accordance with which notion he was unable to procure guides at any price. These are striking coincidences, and as illustrations of the prophecy important, but are not to be insisted on as constituting its direct fulfilment, for in that case the passage of these very travellers through the country would falsify the prediction which they are cited to confirm. The truth of the prophecy in this clause is really no more sus pended on such facts, than that of the first clause and of the preceding verse upon the actual existence of bituminous streams and a sulphureous soil throughout the ancient Idumea. The whole is a magnificent prophetic picture, the fidelity of which, so far as it relates to ancient Edom, is notoriously attested by its desolation for a course of ages. In this verse Hitzig represents the writer as attaining his highest point of bitterness against the Edomites; and Knobel, in a kindred spirit, says that the repeated threatening of perpetual desolation, while it makes the prediction more impressive, shows great spite (verrath grossen Hass), an expression far more applicable to the comment than the text, which is as little open to the charge of malice as the sentence which a judge pronounces on a convict.
11. Then shall possess it (as a heritage) the pelican and porcupine, the crane and crow shall dwell in it. And he (or one) shall stretch upon it the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness. Having declared that man should no longer pass through it, he now explains who shall be its inhabitants. The first verb is rendered by Cocceius, shall inherit; by Junius still more fully, shall possess by hereditary right; but by Gesenius and most later writers, shall possess, which though correct is scarcely adequate, as the original word could not fail to suggest to a Hebrew reader the idea of succession. These animals should not only occupy the land, but occupy it as the successors and to the exclusion of mankind. The n«p is no doubt the pelican, as the etymology of the name (from &op to vomit) agrees with the habits of that bird, and the ancient versions so explain it. In this place, it is true, the Septuagint has not nefaxav, as Henderson quotes it, but the general term oQvsa, and the Vulgate not pelican but onocrotalus. The next word has been translated owl (Calvin) and bittern (English Version), but is now agreed to mean the porcupine or hedgehog, as explained in the Septuagint (fyivoi). The next word is now understood to denote not an owl (Bochart), but a heron or crane; according to the Septuagint, the ibis or Egyptian heron. The essential idea, as Calvin observes, is that of wild and solitary animals. (Compare ch. 13: 21, 22. 14: 23. Rev. 18: 2.) Here again a remarkable coincidence is furnished by the statements of travellers with respect to the number of wild birds in Edom. Mangles, while at Petra, describes the screaming of the eagles, hawks, and owls, seemingly annoyed at any one approaching their lonely habitation. Burckhardt speaks of Tafyle as frequented by an immense number of crows and of the birds called Jcatta, which fly in such large flocks that the boys often kill two or three at a time merely by throwing a stick among them. In this last case the coincidence is verbal also, as the Jcatta bears a strong resemblance to the nxp. The apparent inconsistency between this clause and the description of the country in the verse before it only shows that neither can be strictly taken, but that both are metaphorical predictions of entire desolation. In the next clause the same idea is expressed by an entire change of figure. The verb may be construed either with Jehovah understood (Kimchi), or indefinitely, as by Junius (quisquis conabitur) and August! (man ziehi), which is really equivalent to the passive form adopted in the Vulgate (extendetur). In the use of the words inn and im, there may be a distinct allusion to Gen. 1:2, as there is in Jer. 4: 23. The line meant is a measuring line, mentioned elsewhere not only in connexion with building”- (Zech. 1: 16), but also with destroying (2 Kings 21: 13). The stones meant are not the black flints with which the soil of ancient Edom is pro fusely covered (Burckhardt), but stones used for weights (Deut. 25: 13. Prov. 16: 11), and here for plumb-line or plummet. This sense, which is given in the Vulgate (perpendiculuni), is required by the parallelism and assumed by all interpreters. The same figure is employed by Amos (7: 7-9) to denote a moral test or standard, but in this case as a symbol of destruction. The plummet is here mentioned, not because actually used in the taking down of buildings (Henderson), but as a parallel to line (Hitzig), both together expressing the idea of exact and careful measurement. The sense of the whole metaphor may then be either that God has laid this work out for himself and will perform it (Barnes), or that in destroying Edom he will act with equity and justice (Gill), or that even in destroying he will proceed deliberately and by rule (Knobel), which last sense is well expressed in Rosenmuller’s paraphrase (ad mensuram vastabitur, ad regulam depopulabitur). Ewald seems to understand the clause as meaning that the land should be meted out to new inhabitants, but that these should be only Waste and Chaos. Calvin and others make it mean that all attempts at restoration should be vain, the line and plummet of the builder should only serve as measures of desolation. According to Clericus, the sense is that there should be nothing to prevent one from measuring the ruins. The Septuagint curiously assimilates the clauses by translating this: ass-centaurs shall inhabit it.
12. Her caves and there is no one there (i. e. her uninhabited or empty caves) they will (still) call a kingdom, and all her chiefs will be cessation (i. e. cease to be). Lowth reads m-nra or si^^n ^3?, connects it with the preceding verse (for which division of the text he cites the authority of the Peshito), and translates the last words of that verse as follows: and the plummet of emptiness over her scorched plains. Such a sense is dearly purchased by an arbitrary change of text and the introduction of a word of rare occurrence, not to say of doubtful meaning. Not content with this, however, he reads BIB for BIB, gives xnjD the sense which he says it has in Prov. 20: 6, and translates the first clause: no more shall they boast the renown of the kingdom! Most other writers take rp’Vn in the sense given to it by the Septuagint (nn^m-nJ) and Vulgate (nobiles). Montanus renders it heroes. Gesenius retains the common meaning but derives it (on the strength of an Arabic analogy) from the primary idea of free-born. It is also commonly agreed since Vitringa, that this first word should be construed as a nominative absolute (as to her nobles’), and the first verb as indefinite. That verb has been variously explained here as meaning to say (Augusti), to cry (French Version), to lament (Castalio), to propose (DeDieu), to name (Forerius), to recall (Grotius), to proclaim (Cocceius), and to call in the sense of nominating or appointing (Vatablus). No less various are the senses put upon the whole clause, among which however three may be particularly mentioned. According to the first, it means that there shall be none to proclaim the kingdom (Ewald) or to call a king (Munster). According to the second, it means that there shall be no kingdom. This idea is variously expressed and combined so as to mean that their princes will be princes without land (Luther), or that they will lament for the destruction of the kingdom (Castalio), or will cry that it is at an end (French Version), or will call for its restoration (DeDieu); to which may be added Augustus explanation, that men will say of her princes, they have no kingdom! and Grotius’s, that they will call to mind (memoria recolent) their ancient royal race now extinct, in favour of which he appeals to the Targum, which is here of very doubtful meaning. A third sense, preferred by most of the late writers, is that there shall be no one whom they can call to the king dom. The same elliptical construction is supposed to occur in Deut. 33: 19. This great variety of explanations, and the harshness of construction with which most of them are chargeable, may serve as an excuse for the suggestion of a new one, not as certainly correct, but as possibly entitled lo consideration. All the interpretations which have been cited coincide in giving to D^nh the sense of nobles, which it certainly has in several places., (See 1 Kings 21: 8, 11. Neh. 2: 16. 4: 13.) But in several others, it no less certainly means holes or caves. (See 1 Sam. 14: 11. Job 30: 6. Nah. 2: 13.) Now it is matter of history, not only that Edom was full of caverns, but that these were inhabited, and that the aboriginal inhabitants, expelled by Esau, were expressly called Horites (o’nh) as being troglodytes or inhabitants of caverns (Gen. 14: 6. 36: 20. Deut. 2: 12, 22). This being the case, the entire depopulation of the country, and especially the destruction of its princes, might be naturally and poetically expressed by saying that the kingdom of Edom should be thenceforth a kingdom of deserted caverns. How appropriate such a description would be to the actual condition of the country, and particularly to its ancient capital, may be seen from Robinson’s account of Petra (Palestine, II. pp. 514-537). The sup posed parallelism between f^-in and JrmB, which Henderson urges against Lowth’s absurd emendation of the text, can have little weight in a case where the construction is at best so difficult. It is proper to add that this interpretation was suggested by the allusion to the Horites which Hendewerk assumes, although he gives c^n the sense of nobles with the great mass of interpreters. Gesenius infers from his own interpretation of this clause, that the kingdom of Edom was elective, and Hitzig adds that they sometimes called a king from foreign parts, of which he finds an instance in Gen. 35: 37; but Hendewerk objects that on the same grounds, Isaiah 3: 6, 7 would prove Judah to have been an elective monarchy. Gill of course applies this verse to the kingdom of the beast (Rev. 16: 10) and m-i-a to the cardinals.
13. And- her palaces (or in her palaces) shall come up thorns, net tles and brambles in her fortresses. The natural consequence of her de population. Here, as in ch. 5: 6, Cocceius and Ewald construe the verb with the noun of place (increscent spinis); but Gesenius, who adopts the same construction in the other case, rejects it here, where it is much more natural, as it precludes the necessity of supplying a preposition. In the next clause, Ewald supplies are; but the preposition before fortresses makes the other construction the more probable. Grotius quotes a beautiful parallel from Virgil. Carduus et spinis surgit paliurus acutis. The word paliurus is itself used in the Vulgate version of this sentence. In n^-‘SSBa Gill supposes an allusion to the name Bozrah. Grotius explains the phrase to mean within the limits of her ancient walls. The situation here described would of course be the resort of wild and solitary animals. And she shall be a home of wolves. The Septuagint has sirens and the Vulgate dragons, which is retained in most of the old versions. Gill, who refers it all to Rome directly, understands this to mean that as she had been the abode of figurative dragons, i. e. of the old dragon, the devil and the beast, with their creatures, popes and cardinals, so now she shall be occupied by literal dragons, i. e. monsters of the wilderness. Gesenius and Ewald render tran jackals, but Henderson’s version wolves is more expressive, and the exact species meant is both dubious and unimportant. A. court (or grass-plot) for ostriches. Gesenius explains i^sn as an orthographical variation for “isii a court or enclosure. Hitzig takes it in its usual sense of grass. In like manner it had been explained as meaning grass or pasture long before by Luther (Weide) and Cocceius (gramen). The general sense, in either case, is that of an enclosed and appropriated spot, a play-ground or a dwell ing-place.- The last phrase is rendered by Augusti, daughters of howling. It is now understood to mean not owls but female ostriches. (See the note on ch. 13: 21.)
14. And wild (or desert) creatures shall (there) meet with howling creatures. The verb sometimes means to meet or encounter in the sense of attacking (Ex. 4: 24. Hos. 13: 8); but here it seems to have the gen eral sense of falling in with. These lonely creatures, as they traverse Idumea, shall encounter none but creatures like themselves. Gesenius and Ewald follow Bochart in explaining d^s to mean wild-cats. Lowth has jackals. Most other writers, with greater probability, take it in the general sense of those inhabiting the wilderness. (Compare the note on ch. 13: 21.) In like manner D^X may be understood, according to its etymology, as signifying howlers, i. e. howling animals. This is less arbitrary, and at the same time better suited to the context, than the explanation of the words as names of particular species. The principal specific meanings put upon n^a are those of vultures (Luther), thoes (Bochart), mountain-cats (Lowth), wild-cats (Grotius), wild dogs (Gesenius), and wolves (Ewald). Hendewerk prefers the more general meaning beasts of prey (Raubthiere), for which there seems to be no sufficient ground in etymology. Augusti retains both Hebrew words (Zihim and Ijim). Castalio has Sylvani and Faunis. Next to the explanation first proposed, the most probable is that given by Cocceius and the English Version, wild beasts of the desert and wild beasts of the island. The antithesis might then be that between the animals inhabiting dry places and those frequenting marshes or the banks of streams (according to the wide sense of the Hebrew “% explained in the note on ch. 20: 6), implying either the existence of such spots in Idumea, or that the whole description is to be tropically understood. By the wild beast of the desert Cocceius understands the Saracens and Turks, and by the wild beasts of the island the Crusaders. In the words fi^s and there is a paronomasia but not & pun (Barnes). A pun is the use of one word in two senses. A paronomasia is the likeness of two different words in form or sound. And the shaggy monster shall call to his fellow. Hitzig and Ewald give Kip*1 the sense of meeting, as a parallel to “jicas, and suppose the Kal to be here construed as the Niphal is in Ex. 3: 18. But as the Kal itself never means to meet, excepting in a figurative application, and as the other explanation gives a perfectly good sense, and adds variety to the description, it is better to explain it as most writers have done since the Septuagint version (fioriGoviai). For the true sense of TW, see the extended comment on the plural form as it occurs in ch. 13: 21. Ewald, who has satyrs there, has he-goat in the case before us; and Henderson, who has wild goats there, has here the shaggy he-goat. Other writers still give the word, as in the former case, the sense of a hirciform spectre (Bochart), field-spirit (Augusti), field-devil (Luther), wood-devil (J. D. Michaelis and Gesenius), and the Dutch Version makes it flatly mean de duyvel. Amidst these various and fanciful interpretations, the most consistent with itself and with the etymology is still that of the Vulgate (pilosus). This is preferable even to that given by Henderson and Ewald, on the ground that it corresponds better with the general descriptive meaning which, as we have seen above, most probably belongs to the words a^s and n^x in the preceding clause. If that clause speaks of wild and howling beasts, and not of any one class exclusively, it is more natural that this should speak of shaggy monsters generally than of goats. Hendewerk’s conjecture, that the Prophet here alludes to Mount Seir (“^jftfj), is not so felicitous as that respecting the allusion to the Horites in v. 12. Only there reposes the night-monster and finds for herself a resting-place. *]X, which the older writers render quinimo (Vitringa), eerie (Cocceius), etc. is properly a particle of limitation meaning only. The latest writers connect it with Stt as meaning only there (Gesenius), or with the verb as meaning only rest (DeWette), or with n*1?^ as meaning nonnisi spectra nocturna (Maurer). The word rnW, which occurs only here, has experienced very much the same fate with “^siB. In itself it means nothing more nor less than nocturnal, and would seem to be applicable either to an animal or to any other object peculiarly belonging to the night. The Vulgate renders it by lamia, a word used very much like the English witch, but derived from the name of a Libyan queen, who having lost her child was said to prey upon the children of others. With this may be connected another Roman superstition, that of the strix or varnpyre, which sucked the blood of children in the cradle. These superstitions were adopted by the later Jews and connected with the word before us, as denoting a nocturnal spectre (or she-demon as Gill calls it) preying upon newborn children, against which the German Jews are said to use traditional precautions. This gratuitous interpretation of the Hebrew word was unfortunately sanctioned by Bochart and Vitringa, and adopted with eagerness by the modern Germans, who rejoice in every opportunity of charging a mistake in physics or a vulgar superstition on the Scriptures. This disposition is the more apparent here, because the writers of this school usually pique themselves upon the critical discernment with which they separate the exegetical inventions of the Rabbins from the genuine meaning of the Hebrew text. Gesenius, for example, will not even grant that the doctrine of a personal Messiah is so much as mentioned in the writings of Isaiah, although no opinion has been more universally main tained by the Jews, from the date of their oldest uncanonical books extant. In this case, their unanimous and uninterrupted testimony goes for nothing, because it would establish an unwelcome identity between the Messiah of the Old and New Testament. But when the object is to fasten on the Scriptures a contemptible and odious superstition, the utmost deference is paid, not only to the silly legends of the Jews, but to those of the Greeks, Romans. Zabians, and Russians, which are collated and paraded with a prodigal expenditure of trifling erudition, to prove what never was disputed, that these superstitions have existed and do still exist; as if it followed of course that they were ci rrent in the days of Isaiah, and if not believed are distinctly mentioned by him. But this conclusion would be wholly unauthorized, even if the words of the Prophet at first sight seemed to bear that meaning; how much more when it can only be attached to them by violence. J. D. Michaelis, who stands among the writers on Isaiah at the turn ing point between belief and unbelief, acquits the Prophet of believing in such spectres, but regards it as a case of accommodation to popular errors or illusions, the same principle on which the demoniacal possessions of the gospel are explained away, and as the ultimate result of the same process, the historical existence of Christ himself resolved into a mythus. That a similar mode of exposition was adopted by such men as Bochart and Vitringa, only proves that they lived before its dangerous tendency had been developed. It should also be considered that nocturnal spectres had not then been so decisively referred to the category of ideal beings as they are at present. These remarks are intended merely to prevent an inconsiderate adoption of the views in question, on the authority either of the older writers or the modern Germans. Against the views themselves there are substantive obo jections of the most conclusive kind. Besides the fact already mentioned, that n^b strictly means nocturnal, and that its application to a spectre is entirely gratuitous, we may argue here, as in ch. 13: 25, that ghosts as well as demons would be wholly out of place in a list of wild and solitary anir^als. That such animals are mentioned in the first clause of this verse and of the next, is allowed by all interpreters, however widely they may differ as to the specific meaning of the terms employed. Taking Gesenius’”s interpretation, the first item in the catalogue is wild cats, the second wild dogs, the third demons, the fourth hobgoblins, and the fifth arrow-snakes. Is this a natural succession of ideas? Is it one that ought to be assumed without necessity? The only necessity that can exist in such a case is that of meeting the conditions of the context. The third and fourth particulars in this list must of course he something doleful or terrific; but they need not be more so than the other objects in the same connexion. It is enough if they belong to the same class, in this respect, with wild-cats, jackals, wolves, and arrow-snakes. This is sufficiently secured by making n-M mean a nocturnal bird (Aben Ezra) or more specifically an owl (Cocceius) or screech-owl (Lowth). But the word admits of a still more satisfactory interpretation, in exact agreement with the exposition which has been already given of the preceding terms as general descriptions rather than specific names. If these terms represent-the animals occupying Idumea, first as belonging to the wilderness (0^2), then as distinguished by their fierce or melancholy cries (n^x), and then as shaggy in appearance (“•’sia), nothing can be more natural than that the fourth epithet should also be ex pressive of their habits as a class, and no such epithet could well be more appropriate than that of nocturnal or belonging to the night. Another objection to the meaning spectre is, that the poetry and legends of all nations have associated with such beings the idea of inquietude. When Hamlet says, Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! he virtually tells the ghost to cease to be one. But here, according to the fashionable exegesis, the spectre is described, not as flitting or gliding through the land or among its ruins, but as taking up its lodgings and reposing. Of all the figures that could be employed, that of resting seems to be the least appropriate in the description of a spectre, and especially of such as Gesenius describes to us from eastern story books and rabbinical traditions. Of this incongruity he seems to have had at least a vague apprehension, as he strangely says that the terms here used imply a restless wandering state, whereas they seem to imply the very contrary, and no less strangely cites Matt. 12: 43, where the evil spirit is expressly said to pass through dry places seeking rest and finding none. On these grounds, therefore, that the Hebrew word, according to its derivation, simply means nocturnal; that in this sense it suits perfectly the parallelism and the context, as containing names of animals or rather descriptions of their habits; that the action described is peculiarly unsuited to a ghost or a spectre; that the Scriptures contain no intimations of the real existence of such beings; that the supposition of a mere accommodation to the popular belief is dangerous, unworthy, and gratuitous; and that the existence of the popular belief itself so early is exceedingly improbable; we may safely set aside the spectral interpretation as untenable on philological and historical grounds, and as certainly not worth being taken for granted. The same considerations make it unnecessary to retain the Hebrew word (lilith), as Augusti and Henderson have done, as if in obedience to the flippant direction of John David Michaelis, that whoever will not tolerate a ghost here must retain the Hebrew word and imagine it to mean what he pleases (was ihm beliebt). The alternatives in such a case are seldom so few as they are sometimes represented by this learned and ingenious but conceited and dogmatical interpreter. It only remains to observe that the Septuagint version, the authority of which has done so much to introduce demons into ch. 13: 23, makes use of the word daipovia in this verse too, but as the translation of d”^s, while its favourite term ovoxwTavQoi is em ployed to represent both d^« and n^b. This absurd interpretation is so far consistent with itself, that it makes the whole verse a catalogue of non descript hobgoblins, demons, and ass-centaurs, and if not a refutation of the current exposition of r^W, is at least a severe satire on it.
15. Several manuscripts and one of the oldest editions read lisp as in v. 11 above, and the Septuagint has lyivog in both places. Jarchi and Kimchi explain the common reading (tiBp) as a synonyme. It is supposed to denote different kinds of birds by Calvin (ululd), Junius (merula), Cocceius (anataria) etc. Bochart objects that if a bird were meant, its wings would have been mentioned in the other clause, and not merely its shadow. Most of the modern writers follow Bochart in explaining it to mean the serpens jaculus or arrow-snake, so called from its darting or springing motion. The same learned writer shows that the use of the word nest in reference to serpents is common in Arabic as well as Greek and Latin. There is no need therefore of giving n53p a wider meaning as Jerome does (habuit foveam). The next verb is rendered by the Vulgate, enutrivit catulos; by Castalio, as an adverbial expression meaning safely, with impunity; but by the great mass- of interpreters, as meaning to lay eggs, a sense analogous to that of the cognate form applied in ch. 66: 7 to human parturition. Jerome translates the next verb rircumfodit, but most other writers hatch, the primary sense being that of cleaving. (Compare ch. 59: 5.) This meaning Luther seems to give to rrna^i, perhaps by an inadvertent transposition. Others explain it to mean gather (Junius), hide (Augusti), take refuge (Rosenmiiller), but the latest writers brood or cherish, after the Vulgate (fovei). It is here applied to the young when hatched, as it is in Jer. 17: 11 to the eggs of the partridge. Calvin seems to refer the suffix in fibss not to the animal but to some other object. Grotius’s paraphrase is sub ruinis. All the modern writers understand it to mean, under her own shadow. n*~ is either the black vulture (Bochart) or the kite (Gesenius). Lowth’s trans lation, every one her mate, may convey an incorrect idea, as both the Hebrew words are feminine. Cocceius disregards the gender and translates the phrase, unus cum altero. As to the particular species of animals referred to in this whole passage, there is no need, as Calvin well observes, of troubling ourselves much about them. (Non est cur in Us magnopere torqueamur.) The general sense evidently is, that a human population should be succeeded by wild and lonely animals, who should not only live but breed there, implying total and continued desolation. So Horace says of Troy: Priami Paridisque busto insult at armentum, et catulos ferae celant inultae.
16. Seek ye out of the book of Jehovah and read. Knobel connects V£-n with the preceding verse (each one her mate they seek), and then changes the remainder of this clause so as to read thus: sop”1 iiw -isc^a bs, by number will Jehovah call (them). This bears a strong resemblance to Lowth’s treatment of the first clause of v. 12, but is still more extravagant. The book of Jehovah has been variously explained to mean the book of his decrees (Aben Ezra), his annals or record of events (Forerius), the Scriptures generally, or more particularly the book of Genesis, or that part which relates to clean and unclean animals (Jarchi), the Mosaic law relating to that subject (Joseph Kimchi), the law in general (Calvin), the book of Revelation (Gill), the book of Prophecy in general (Junius), the Prophecies against Edom in particular (Alting), and finally this very prophecy (David Kim chi). The most natural interpretation seems to be that which makes this an exhortation to compare the prophecy with the event, and which is strongly recommended by the fact that all the verbs are in the past tense, implying that the Prophet here takes his stand at a point of time posterior to the event. The book may then be this particular prophecy, or the whole prophetic volume, or the entire scripture, without material change of sense. The persons addressed are the future witnesses of the event. ^SJE does not mean from top to bottom, as Vitringa imagines, but simply from upon, as we speak of reading a sentence off a book or paper. This expression seems to have been used in anticipation of the verb tJOp, which has here the sense of publishing by reading aloud. One of them has not failed. A very few writers understand this as relating to the evils threatened; but the great majority more naturally apply it to the animals mentioned in the preceding verses, as signs of desolation. As if he had said, I predicted that Edom should be occupied by such and such creatures, and behold they are all here, not one of them is wanting. This is a lively and impressive mode of saying, the prediction is fulfilled. One another they miss not. The verb has here the sense of mustering or reviewing to discover who is absent, as in 1 Sam. 20: 6. 25: 15. The reference is not to the pairing of animals (Barnes), because both httSK and nms-i are feminine, and because the context requires an allusion to the meeting of different species, not of the individuals of one kind. For my mouth, it has commanded- and his spirit, it has gathered them, i. e. the animals aforesaid. The last phrase is a more specific explanation of the general expression has commanded. To add a suffix to the latter, therefore, would complete the parallelism but disturb the sense. The sudden change of person from my mouth to his spirit has led to various explanations. Houbigant reads I^B and Knobel irrs, his mouth, which is actually found in a few manuscripts. Lowth reads nin^ for Kin, the mouth of Jehovah, which is not only arbitrary but in violation of his favourite principle of parallelism. The same objection lies against the explanation of Kin, by Glassius and Simonis, as a divine name, and by Rosenmuller and Dathe, as a substitute for it. Such an explanation of the second xin is precluded by the foregoing suffix. A much more plausible solution is the one proposed by Aben Ezra and Kimchi, who refer the suffix in irm to ^ (my mouth and its breath), and thus make God the speaker in both clauses. But on the whole, the simplest course is either to suppose with Vitringa that Jehovah speaks in one clause and the Prophet in the next, an enallage too frequent to be inadmissible, or that the Prophet really refers the command to his own mouth instrumentally, but then immediately names the Divine Spirit as the efficient agent. This is the less improbable because the first clause of the verse, as we have seen, contains an appeal to his own written prediction. The Spirit of God is not merely his power but himself, with special reference to the Holy Ghost, as being both the author and fulfiller of the prophecies.
17. He too has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them by line. An evident allusion to the division of the land of Canaan, both by lot and measuring-line. (See Numb. 26: 55, 56. Josh. 18: 4-6.) As Canaan was allotted to Israel, so Edom is allotted to these doleful creatures. Having referred to the allotment as already past, he now describes the occupation as future and perpetual. Forever shall they hold it as a heritage, to all generations shall they dwell therein. Cocceius, who applies the whole prediction to the unbelieving Jews, thus explains this last clause: nunquam restituetur respublica Judaeorum in ilia terra.
