7., (at the end of the verse.) This reading, though confirmed by all the ancient versions, gives us no good sense; for "your land is devoured by strangers; and is desolate, as if overthrown by strangers,” is a mere tautology, or, what is as bad, an identical comparison Aben Ezra thought, that the word, in its present form, might be taken for the same with, an inundation: Schultens is of the same opinion; (see Taylor's Concord.) and Schindler in his Lexicon explains it in the same manner: and so, says Kimchi, some explain it. Abendana endeavours to reconcile it to grammatical analogy in the following manner: "Dis the same with; that is, as overthrown by an inundation of waters: and these two words have the same analogy as and P. Or it may be a concrete, of the same form with ; and the meaning will be, as overthrown by rain pouring down violently, and causing a flood.” On Sal. b. Melech, in loc. But I rather suppose the true reading to be , and have translated it accordingly: the word, in the line above, seems to have caught the transcriber's eye, and to have led him into this mistake. 8. as a shed in a vineyard;-] A little temporary but, covered with boughs, straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat by day, and the cold and dews by night, for the watchman that kept the garden, or vineyard, during the short season while the fruit was ripening; (see Job xxvii. 18.) and presently removed when it had served that purpose. See Harmer, Observ. i. 454. They were probably obliged to have such a constant watch, to defend the fruit from the jackals. "The jackal" (Chical of the Turks), says Hasselquist, (Travels, p. 277.) “is a specics of mustela, which is very common in Palestine, especially during the vintage, and often destroys whole vineyards, and gardens of cucumbers." "There is also plenty of the canis vulpes, the fox, near the convent of St. John in the desert, about vintage time; for they destroy all the vines, unless they are strictly watched." Ibid. p. 184. See Cant. ii. 15. Fruits of the gourd kind, melons, water-melons, cucumbers, &c. are much used, and in great request, in the Levant, on accouut of their cooling quality. The Israelites in the wilderness regretted the loss of the cucumbers and the melons, among the other good things of Egypt; Num. xi. 5. In Egypt the season of water-melons, which are most in request, and which the common people then chiefly live upon, lasts but three weeks. See Hasselquist, p. 256. Tavernier makes it of longer continuance: "L'on y void de grands carreaux de melons et de concombres; mais beaucoup plus des derniers, dont les Levantins font leur delices. Le plus souvent ils les mangent sans les peler, après quoy ils vont boire une verre d'eau. Dans toute l'Asie c'est la nourriture ordinaire du petit peuple pendant trois ou quatre mois: toute la famille en vit, et quand un enfant demand à manger, ou lieu qu'en France ou ailleurs nous luy donnerions du pain, dans le Levant on luy presente un concombre, qu'il mange cru comme on le vient de cueillir.-Les concombres dans le Levant ont une bonté particuliere, et quoiqu' on les mange crus, ils ne font jamais de mal." Tavernier, Relat. du Serrail, cap. xix. Ibid. a city taken by siege.] So LXX, and Vulg. 9. Jehovah God of hosts] As this title of God NAY MIT, “JEHOVAH of hosts," occurs here for the first time, I think it proper to note, that I translate it always, as in this place, "JEHOVAH God of hosts;" taking it as an elliptical expression for . This title imports, that JEHOVAH is the God, or Lord, of hosts, or armies; as he is the Creator, and Supreme Governor of all beings in heaven and earth; and disposeth and ruletb them all in their several orders and stations; the Almighty, Universal Lord. 10. Ye princes of Sodom-] The incidental mention of Sodom and Gomorrah in the preceding verse, suggested to the prophet this spirited address to the rulers and inhabitants of Jerusalem, under the character of princes of Sodom and people of Gomorrah. Two examples of a sort of elegant turn of the like kind may be observed in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, xv. 4, 5, and 12, 13. See Locke on the place: and see 29, 30. of this chapter; which gives another example of the same. 11. —the fat of fed beasts; And in the blood-] The fat and the blood are particularly mentioned, because these were in all sacrifices set apart to God. The fat was always burnt upon the altar; and the blood was partly sprinkled, differently on different occasions, and partly poured out at the bottom of the altar. See Lev. iv. 11—16. What have I to do-] The prophet Amos has expressed the same sentiments with great elegance: "I hate, I despise your feasts; And I will not delight in the odour of your solemnities: And your meat-offerings I will not accept : Neither will I regard the peace-offering of your fatlings. And the melody of your viols I will not hear. Amos v. 21-24. 12. Tread my courts no more— -] So the LXX divide the sentence; joining the end of this verse to the beginning of the next. N. These words } 13. The fast, and the day of restraint-] are rendered in many different manners by different interpreters; to a good and probable sense by all; but, I think, by none in such a sense as can arise from the phrase itself, agreeably to the idiom of the Hebrew language. Instead of N, the LXX manifestly ready, vnoTELAV, "the fast." This Houbigant has adopted. The prophet could not well have omitted the fast in the enumeration of their solemnities; nor the abuse of it, amongst the instances of their hypocrisy, which he has treated at large with such force and elegance in his 58th chapter. Observe also, that the prophet Joel twice joins together the fast, and the day of restraint; קדשו צום קראו עצרה "Sanctify a fast; proclaim a day of restraint:" Joel i. 14. ii. 15. Which shews how properly they are here joined together., the restraint, is rendered, both here and in other places in our English translation, the solemn assembly. Certain holy days, ordained by the law, were distinguished by a particular charge, that "no servile work should be done therein." Lev. xxiii. 36. Num. xxix. 35. Deut. xvi. 8. This circumstance clearly explains the reason of the name, the restraint or the day of restraint, given to those days. If I could approve of any translation of these two words, which I have met with, it should be that of the Spanish version of the Old Testament, made for the use of the Spanish Jews: “tortura y detenimiento," "it is a pain and a constraint unto me." But I still think, that the reading of the LXX is more probably the truth. 15. When ye spread-] The Syr. LXX, and MS. read DDI, without the conjunction ). Ibid. For your hands-] Aı yap Xεipes. LXX. Manus enim vestræ. Vulg. They seem to have read.p 16. Wash ye-] Refering to the preceding verse, "your hands are full of blood:" and alluding to the legal washings commanded on several occasions. See Lev. xiv. 8, 9.47. 17. amend that which is corrupted]. In rendering this obscure phrase I follow Bochart, (Hieroz. part i. lib. II. cap. 7.) though I am not perfectly satisfied with his explication of it. 18. Though your sins were as scarlet-], "scarlet, or crimson," dibaphum, twice dipped, or double-dyed; from, iterare, to double, or to do a thing twice: this derivation seems much more probable than that which Salmasius prefers, from 1, acuere; from the sharpness and strength of the colour; ovpovikov. n, the same; properly the worm, vermiculus (from whence vermeil); for this colour was produced from a worm, or insect, which grew in a coccus, or excrescence, of a shrub of the ilex kind; (see Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 8.) like the cochineal worm in the Opuntia of America; (see Ulloa's Voyage, b. v. ch. 2. note to p. 342.) There is a shrub of this kind that grows in Provence and Languedoc, and produces the like insect, called the kermes oak (see Miller, Dict. Quercus), from kermez, the Arabic word for this colour; whence our word crimson is derived. "Neque amissos colores ་་ says the poet; applying the same image to a different purpose: to discharge these strong colours is impossible to human art or power; but to the grace and power of God, all things, even 'much more difficult, are possible and easy. 19. Ye shall feed on the good of the land;] Referring to ver. 7. it shall not be devoured by strangers." ,תאכלכם 20. Ye shall be food for the sword] The LXX and Vulg. read "the sword shall devour you;" which is of much more easy construction than the present reading of the text. "The Chaldee seems to read 1 278 2702; ́ye shall be consumed by the sword of the enemy.' Syr. also reads, and renders the verb passively. And the rhythmus seems to require this addition." Dr. JUBB. 21. become a harlot.] See Lowth, Comment. on the place; and De S. Poes. Hebr. Præl. xxxi. 22. wine mixed with water.] An image used for the adulteration of wine, with more propriety than may at first appear, if what Thevenot says of the people of the Levant of late times was true of them formerly: he says, "they never mingle water with their wine to drink; but drink by itself what water they think proper for abating the strength of the wine." "Lorsque les Persans boivent du vin, ils le prennent tout pur, à la façon des Levantins, qui ne le mêlent jamais avec de l'eau; mais en beuvant' du vin, de temps en temps ils prennent un pot d'eau, et en boivent de grand traits.". Voyage, part ii. liv. ii. chap 10. "Ils (les Turcs) n'y meslent jamais d'eau, et se moquent des Chrestiens, qui en mettent, ce que leur semble tout à fait ridicule." Ibid. part i. chap. 24. It is remarkable, that whereas the Greeks and Latins by mixed wine always understood wine diluted and lowered with water; the Hebrews on the contrary generally mean by it wine made stronger and more inebriating, by the addition of higher and more powerful ingredients; such as honey, spices, defrutum (or wine inspissated by boiling it down to two-thirds, or one-half, of the quantity), myrrh, mandragora, opiates, and other strong drugs. Such were the exhilarating, or rather stupifying, ingredients, which Helen mixed in the bowl together with the wine for her guests oppressed with grief, to raise their spirits; the composition of which she had learned in Egypt: Αντικέ αξ' εις οινον Βαλε φαρμακον, ενθεν επινον, Homer Odysss. ▲'. 220. t' assuage "Meanwhile, with genial joy to warm the soul, POPE. Such was "the spiced wine and the juice of pomegranates," mentioned Cant. viii. 2. And how much the eastern people to this day deal in artificial liquors of prodigious strength, the use of wine being forbidden, may be seen in a curious chapter of Kempfer upon that subject. Amoen. Exot. Fasc. iii. Obs. 15. Thus the drunkard is properly described (Prov. xxiii. 30.) as one "that seeketh mixed wine;" and is "mighty to mingle strong drink:" Isaiah v. 22. And hence the Psalmist took that highly poetical and sublime image of the cup of God's wrath, called by Isaiah (li. 17.) "the cup of trembling," (causing intoxication and stupefaction; see Chappelow's note on Hariri, p. 33.) containing, as St. John expresses in Greek the Hebrew idea, with the utmost precision, though with a seeming contradiction in terms, KEREράσμεvov aкparov, merum mixtum, pure wine made yet stronger by a mixture of powerful ingredients. Rev. xiv. 10. "In the hand of JEHOVAH," saith the Psalmist, (Psal. lxxv. 9.) “there is a cup, and the wine is turbid: it is full of a mixed liquor, and he poureth out of it" (or rather, 'he poureth it out of one vessel into another,' to mix it perfectly; according to the reading expressed by the ancient versions, :)"verily the dregs thereof" (the thickest sediment of the strong ingredients mingled with it), "all the ungodly of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them." out a 23. associates-] The LXX, Vulg. and four MSS. read, without the conjunction ¶. 24, Aha! I will be eased-] Anger, arising from a sense of injury and affront, especially from those who, from every consideration of duty and gratitude, ought to have behaved far otherwise, is an uneasy and painful sensation: and revenge, executed to the full on the offenders, removes that uneasiness, and consequently is pleasing and quieting, at least for the present. Ezekiel introduces God expressing himself in the same manner: "And mine anger shall be fully accomplished; Chap. v. 13. This is a strong instance of the metaphor called Anthropopathia; by which, throughout the Scriptures, as well the historical as the poetical parts, the sentiments, sensations, and affections; the bodily faculties, qualities, and members, of men, and even of brute animals, are attributed to God; and that with the utmost liberty and latitude of application. The foundation of this is obvious; it arises from necessity: we have no idea of the natural attributes of God, of his pure essence, of his manner of existence, of his manner of acting: when therefore we would treat on these subjects, we find ourselves forced to express them by sensible images. But necessity leads to beauty: this is true of metaphor in general, and in particular of this kind of metaphor; which is used with great elegance and sublimity in the sacred poetry: and, what is very remarkable, in the grossest instances of the application of it, it is generally the most striking and the most sublime. The reason seems to be this: when the images are taken from the superior faculties of the human nature, from purer and more generous affections, and applied to God, we are apt to acquiesce in the notion; we overlook the metaphor, and take it as a proper attribute: but when the idea is gross and offensive, as in this passage of Isaiah, where the impatience of anger, and the pleasure of revenge, is attributed to God; we are immediately shocked at the application, the impropriety strikes us at once; and the mind, casting about for something in the Divine nature analogous to the image, lays hold on some great, obscure, vague idea, which she endeavours in vain to comprehend, and is lost in immensity and astonishment. See de S. Poësi Hebr. Præl. xvi. sub fin. where this matter is treated and illustrated by examples. 25. in the furnace] The text has ; which some render “as with soap:" as if it were the same with; so Kimchi: but soap can have nothing to do with the purifying of metals: others, "according to purity, or purely," as our Version. Le Clerc conjectured, that the true meaning is; as in the furnace ;" see Ezek. xxii. 18. 20. Dr. Durell proposes only a transposition of letters; to the same sense: and so likewise archbishop Secker. That this is the true reading is highly probable. 26. And after this-] The LXX, Syr. Chald. and eighteen MSS. add the conjunction 1. 27. “in judgment;" by the exercise of God's strict justice in destroying the obdurate, (see ver. 28.) and delivering the penitent: "in righteousness;" by the truth and faithfulness of God in performing his pro mises. 29, 30. For ye shall be ashamed of the ilexes-] very ancient and favourite appendage of idolatry. Sacred groves were a |