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Promise of deliverance

A. M. cir. 3291.
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ISAIAH..

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from the Assyrian army.

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B. C. cir. 713.

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9 The earth mourneth and holding of bribes, that stoppeth A. M. cir. 3291. Olymp. XVI. 4. languisheth: Lebanon is ashamed his ears from hearing of blood, Olymp. XVI. 4. Numa Pompilii, and 1hewn down: Sharon is like and shutteth his eyes from seeing Numa Pompilii, a wilderness; and Bashan and evil; Carmel shake off their fruits.

R. Roman., 3.

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15 He that walketh 'righteously, and speak-down; f not one of the stakes thereof shall eth uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from

ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.

Chap. xxiv. 4.- -Or, withered away.- -m Psa. xii. 5. Heb. heights or high places.Psa. vii. 14; chap. lix. 4. Chap. ix. 18. Chap. xlix. | § 1 Cor. i. 20.——————2 Heb. weigher.1. Psa. xv. 2; xxiv. 4.- Heb. in righteousnesses. xxvii. 49, 50; Jer. v. 15.

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- Heb. the land of far distances.

2 Kings xix. 32. Deut.

Or, ridiculous.—d Psa. xlviii.

Heb. uprightnesses. Or, deceits. - Heb. bloods.- Psa. 12. Psa. xlvi. 5; cxxv. 1, 2.- Chap. xxxvii. 33.

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None of the MSS. give us pointed by the king of Assyria to estimate their numany help, but as we see above in Lowth... ber and property in reference to their being heavily taxed.

Verse 9. Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits "Bashan and Carmel are stripped of their beauty."] Davega εorai, made manifest. Sept. They read veneerah.

"Verse 11. Your breath-"And my spirit"] "For Don ruchechem, your spirit, read 19ɔ ruchi kemo." Secker. Which reading is confirmed by the Chaldee, where D meymri, "my word," answers to ruchi, "my spirit."

Verse 14. The sinners in Zion are afraid] Zion has been generally considered as a type of the Church of God. Now all the members of God's Church should be holy, and given to good works; sinners in Zion, therefore, are portentous beings! but, alas! where are they not? The Targum on this verse is worthy of notice: "The sinners in Zion are broken down; fear hath seized the ungodly, who are suffering for their ways. They say, Who among us shall dwell in Zion, where the splendour of the Divine Majesty is like a consuming fire? Who of us shall dwell in Jerusalem, where the ungodly are judged and delivered into hell for an eternal burning?" Everdurpnge brennpngis. Old MS. Bible.

Where is the receiver?] Or he who was to have collected this tribute.

Where is he that counted the towers?] That is, the commander of the enemy's forces, who surveyed the fortifications of the city, and took an account of the height, strength, and situation of the walls and towers, that he might know where to make the assault with the greatest advantage; as Capaneus before Thebes is represented in a passage of the Phoenissæ of Euripides, which Grotius has applied as an illustration of this place :

Εκείνος έπτα προσβάσεις τεκμαίρεται

Πυργών, ανω τε και κατω τείχη μέτρων. Ver. 187. "To these seven turrets each approach he marks; The walls from their proud summit to their base Measuring with eager eye."

He that counted the towers-"Those who were ordered to review the fortified places in Judea, that they might be manned and provisioned for the king of Assyria. So sure was he of gaining Jerusalem and subduing the whole of Judea, that he had already formed all these arrangements."-Dodd's notes.

Verse 15. That stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood-"Who stoppeth his ears to the proposal of blood- Verse 20. Look upon Zion-" Thou shalt see Zion"] shed"] A MS. reads p' bedamim, "in blood." For n chazeh, "see," read in techezeh, “thou Verse 18. Where is the scribe?] The person ap-shalt see," with the Chaldee.-Houbigant. At the end

Remarkable preservation

B. C. cir. 713.

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B. C. cir. 713.

A. M. cir. 3291. 21 But there the glorious 23 m Thy tacklings are loosed; A. M. cir. 3291. Olymp. XVI. 4. LORD will be unto us a place they could not well strengthen

cir. annum

h

Numa Pompilii, of broad rivers and streams; R. Roman, 3. wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. 22 For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.

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Olymp. XVI. 4.
Numa Pompilii,

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R. Roman., 3.

their mast, they could not spread
the sail: then is the
of a
prey
great spoil divided; the lame take the prey.
24 And the inhabitant shall not
say,
sick: the people that dwell therein shall be
forgiven their iniquity.

Heb. Psa. lxxxix. 18.- -m

of this verse we find in the Masoretic Bibles this note, On chatsi hassepher, "the middle of the book;" that is, the middle of the book of Isaiah.

Verse 21. The glorious Lord-" The glorious name of JEHOVAH"] I take by shem for a noun, with the Septuagint and Syriac. See Psa. xx. 1; Prov. xviii. 10. Verse 23. Thy tacklings are loosed] Here the Assyrians are represented under the figure of a ship wrecked by a violent storm; and the people on the beach, young, old, feeble, and diseased, gathering the spoil without any to hinder them. Kimchi, who understands the whole of this chapter of Hezekiah and the king of Assyria, says, "There are others of our rabbins who apply it all to the days of the

Messiah."

I am

Or, they have forsaken thy tacklings. ■ Jer. 1. 20.

"Who forgiveth all thy sin;

And healeth all thine infirmities." Psa. ciii. 3. Where the latter line only varies the expression of the former. And our blessed Saviour reasons with the Jews on the same principle: "Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?" Mark ii. 9. See also Matt. viii. 17; Isa. liii. 4. Qui locus Isaiæ, 1 Pet. ii. 24, refertur ad remissionem peccatorum: hic vero ad sanationem morborum, quia ejusdem potentiæ et bonitatis est utrumque præstare; et, quia peccatis remissis, et morbi, qui fructus sunt peccatorum, pelluntur. "Which passage of Isaiah has reference, in 1 Pet. ii. 24, to the remission of sins, and here to the healing of diseases, because both are effects of the same power and goodness; and because with the remission of sins was associated the removal of disorders, the fruits of sin."--Wetstein on Matt. viii. 17.

Their mast-"Thy mast"] For D tornam, "their mast," the Syriac reads T torneycha, "thy mast;" the Septuagint and Vulgate, 1 tornecha, idros dou exλuvev, "thy mast is fallen aside."—Septuagint. They seem to have read natah or me panah, tornecha, or rather, lo cun, "is not firm," the negative having been omitted in the present text by mistake. However, I have followed their sense, which seems very probable, as the present read-him three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents ing is to me extremely obscure.

Verse 24. And the inhabitant shall not say] This erse is somewhat obscure. The meaning of it seems to be, that the army of Sennacherib shall by the stroke of God be reduced to so shattered and so weak a condition, that the Jews shall fall upon the remains of them, and plunder them without resistance; that the most infirm and disabled of the people of Jerusalem shall come in for their share of the spoil; the lame shall seize the prey; even the sick and the diseased shall throw aside their infirmities, and recover strength enough to hasten to the general plunder. See above. The last line of the verse is parallel to the first, and expresses the same sense in other words. Sickness being considered as a visitation from God, and a punishment of sin; the forgiveness of sin is equivalent to the removal of a disease. Thus the psalmist :

That this propheey was exactly fulfilled, I think we may gather from the history of this great event given by the prophet himself. It is plain that Hezekiah, by his treaty with Sennacherib, by which he agreed to pay

of gold, had stripped himself of his whole treasure. He not only gave him all the silver and gold that was in his own treasury and in that of the temple, but was even forced to cut off the gold from the doors of the temple and from the pillars, with which he had himself overlaid them, to satisfy the demands of the king of Assyria: but after the destruction of the Assyrian army, we find that he "had exceeding much riches, and that he made himself treasuries for silver, and for gold, and for precious stones," &c. 2 Chron. xxxii. 27. He was so rich, that out of pride and vanity he displayed his wealth to the ambassadors from Babylon. This cannot be otherwise accounted for, than by the prodigious spoil that was taken on the destruction of the Assyrian army.-L. And thus, in the providence of God, he had the wealth which was exacted from him restored.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The prophet earnestly exhorts all nations to attend to the communication which he has received from Jehovah, as the matter is of the highest importance, and of universal concern, 1. The wrath of God is denounced against all the nations that had provoked to anger the Defender of the cause of Zion, 2, 3. Great crowd of images, by which the final overthrow and utter extermination of every thing that opposes the spread of true religion in the earth are forcibly and majestically set forth; images so very bold and expressive as to

The terrible judgments

ISAIAH.

of the Lord. render it impossible, without doing great violence to symbolical language, to restrain their import to the calamities which befell the Edomites in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, or in that of any other potentate, or even to the calamities which the enemies of the Church have yet suffered since the delivery of the prophecy. Edom must therefore be a type of Antichrist, the last grand adversary of the people of God; and consequently this most awful prophecy, in its ultimate signification, remains to be accomplished, 4-15. The Churches of God, at the period of the consummation, commanded to consult the book of Jehovah, and note the exact fulfilment of these terrible predictions in their minutest details. Not one jot or tittle relative even to the circumstances shadowed forth by the impure animals shall be found to fail; for what the mouth of the Lord has declared necessary to satisfy the Divine justice, his Spirit will accomplish, 16, 17.

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This and the following chapter make one distinct prophecy; an entire, regular, and beautiful poem, consisting of two parts: the first containing a denunciation of Divine vengeance against the enemies of the people. or Church of God; the second describing the flourishing state of the Church of God consequent upon the execution of those judgments. The event foretold is represented as of the highest importance, and of universal concern: ALL nations are called upon to attend to the declaration of it; and the wrath of God is denounced against all the nations, that is, all those that had provoked to anger the Defender of the cause of Zion. Among those, Edom is particularly specified. The principal provocation of Edom was their insulting the Jews in their distress, and joining against them with their enemies, the Chaldeans; see Amos i. 11; Ezek. xxv. 12; xxxv. 15; Psa. cxxxvii. 7. Accordingly the Edomites were, together with the rest of the neighbouring nations, ravaged and laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar; see Jer. xxv. 15-26; Mal. i. 3, 4, and see Marsham, Can. Chron. Sæc. xviii., who calls this the age of the destruction of cities. The general devastation spread through all these countries by Nebuchadnezzar may be the event which the prophet has primarily in view in the thirty-fourth chapter: but this event, as far as we have any account of it in history, seems by no means to come up to the terms of the prophecy, or to justify so highly wrought and terrible a description; and it is not easy to discover what connexion the extremely flourishing state of the Church or people of God, described in the next chapter, could have with those events, and how the former could be the consequence of the latter, as it is there represented to be. By a figure, very common in the prophetical writings, any city or people, remarkably distinguished as enemies of the people and kingdom of God, is put for those enemies in general. This seems here to be the case with Edom and Botsra. It seems, therefore, reasonable to suppose, with many learned expositors, that this prophecy has a farther view to events still future; to some great revolutions to be effected in later times, antecedent to that more perfect state of the kingdom of God upon earth, and serving to in

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troduce it, which the Holy Scriptures warrant us to expect.

That the thirty-fifth chapter has a view beyond any thing that could be the immediate consequence of those events, is plain from every part, especially from the middle of it, ver. 5, 6; where the miraculous works wrought by our blessed Saviour are so clearly specified, that we cannot avoid making the application: and our Saviour himself has moreover plainly referred to this very passage, as speaking of him and his works, Matt. xi. 4, 5. He bids the disciples of John to go and report to their master the things which they heard and saw; that the blind received their sight, the lame walked, and the deaf heard; and leaves it to him to draw the conclusion in answer to his inquiry, whether he who performed the very works which the prophets foretold should be performed by the Messiah, was not indeed the Messiah himself. And where are these works so distinctly marked by any of the prophets as in this place? and how could they be marked more distinctly? To these the strictly literal interpretation of the prophet's words directs us. According to the allegorical interpretation, they may have a farther view: this part of the prophecy may run parallel with the former, and relate to the future advent of Christ; to the conversion of the Jews, and their restitution to their land; to the extension and purification of the Christian faith; events predicted in the Holy Scriptures as preparatory to it. Kimchi says, "This chapter points out the future destruction of Rome, which is here called Bosra; for Bosra was a great city of the Edomites. Now the major part of the Romans are Edomites, who profess the law of Jesus. The Emperor Cæsar (qy. Constantine) was an Edomite, and so were all the emperors after him. The destruction of the Turkish empire is also comprehended in this prophecy."-L. As to the last, I say, Amen!

NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIV. Verse 1. Hearken-" Attend unto me"] A MS. adds in this line the word ali, unto me, after ' leummim; which seems to be genuine.

Verse 4. And all the host of heaven] See note on

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5 For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.

6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be a soaked with blood,

e Psa. cii. 36; Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8; Joel ii. 31; iii. 15; Matt. xxiv. 29; 2 Pet. iii. 10. Rev. vi. 14. Chap. xiv. 12.- Rev. vi. 13. Jer. xlvi. 10. Jer. xlix. 7, &c.; Mal. ì. 4. 1 Chap. Ixiii. 1; Jer. xlix. 13; Zeph. i. 7.

chap. xxiv. 21, and De Sacra Poësi Hebræorum, Præl. ix.

Verse 5. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven"For my sword is made bare in the heavens"]. There seems to be some impropriety in this, according to the present reading: "My sword is made drunken, or is. bathed in the heavens;" which forestalls, and expresses not in its proper place, what belongs to the next verse: for the sword of JEHOVAH was not to be bathed or glutted with blood in the heavens, but in Botsra and the land of Edom. In the heavens it was only prepared for slaughter. To remedy this, Archbishop Secker proposes to read, for D' bashshamayim, bedamim; referring to Jer. xlvi. 10. But even this is premature, and not in its proper place. The Chaldee, for rivvethah, has a tithgalli, shall be revealed or disclosed: perhaps he read terach or Whatever reading, different I presume from the present, he might find in his copy, I follow the sense which he has given of it.

.nirathah נראתה

Verse 6. The Lord hath a sacrifice" For JEHOVAH celebrateth a sacrifice"] Ezekiel, chap. xxxix. 16, 17, has manifestly imitated this place of Isaiah. He hath set forth the great leaders and princes of the adverse powers under the same emblems of goats, bulls, rams, fatlings, &c., and has added to the boldness of the imagery, by introducing God as summoning all the fowls of the air, and all the beasts of the field; and bidding them to the feast which he has prepared for them by the slaughter of the enemies of his people

"And thou, son of man,

Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH,
Say to the bird of every wing,
And to every beast of the field:
Assemble yourselves, and come;
Gather together from every side,
To the sacrifice which I make for you,

and judgments foretold.

and their dust made fat with A. M. cir. 3291. fatness.

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8 For it is the day of the LORD's

B. C. cir. 713. Olymp. XVI. 4.

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Numa Pompilii, vengeance, and the year of re- R. Roman., 3. compenses for the controversy of Zion.

9 And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.

10 It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: 'from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

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11 But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.

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m Or, rhinoceros.

Dent. xxix. 23.

Chap. xiv. 23; u2 Kings xxi. 13;

Or, drunken.
--Chap. Ixiii. 4.-
-P See
Rev. xiv. 11; xviii. 18; xix. 3. Mal. i. 4.
Zeph. ii. 14; Rev. xviii, 2.- —Or, pelican.
Lam. ii. 8.

A great slaughter on the mountains of Israel.
And ye shall eat flesh and drink blood:
The flesh of the mighty shall ye eat,

And the blood of the lofty of the earth shall ye
drink;

Of rams, of lambs, and of goats,

Of, bullocks, all of them the fat ones of Bashan ;
And ye shall eat fat, till ye are cloyed,
And drink blood, till ye are drunken;

Of my slaughter, which I have slain for you.” The sublime author of the Revelation, chap. xix. 17, 18, has taken this image from Ezekiel, rather than from Isaiah.

Verse 7. The unicorns shall come down] O'N reenim, translated wild goats by Bishop Lowth. The reem Bochart thinks to be a species of wild goat in the deserts of Arabia. It seems generally to mean the rhinoceros.'

With blood-" With their blood"]

middamam;

so two ancient MSS. of Kennicott's, the Syriac, and Chaldee.

Verse 8. The year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion-"The year of recompense to the defender of the cause of Zion"] As from 17 dun, j din, a judge; so from 1 rub, rib, an advocate, or defender; Judici Sionis: Syriac.

Verse 11. The cormorant] kaath, the pelican, from the root p ki, to vomit, because it is said she swallows shell-fish, and when the heat of her stomach has killed the fish, she vomits the shells, takes out the dead fish, and eats them.

The bittern] p kippod, the hedge-hog, or porcupine. The owl yanshoph, the bittern, from`] nashaph, to blow, because of the blowing noise it makes, almost like the lowing of an ox. My old MS. Bible renders the words thus :-The foule in face like an asse, and the prchoun, and the supte (snipe.)

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Chap. xxxii. 13; Hos. ix. 6 Chap. xii. 21, &c. Or, Heb. daughters of the owl. Heb. Zum.— Heb. Ijim. D Or, night monster.— Mal. iii. 16.

estriches.

The screech owl] lilith, the night-bird, the

The line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness -"The plummet of emptiness over her scorched ' night-raven, nyctycorax, from ↳ʼn layil, or n↳ lailah, plains."] The word man choreyha, joined to the 12th the night. verse, embarrasses it, and makes it inexplicable. At

Verse 15. The great owl np kippoz, the axovrias,

The vultures] daiyoth, the black vultures. My old MS. Bible renders these names curiously: And agepu rumen schul devplis: the beste, party of an asse, and party of a man: and the wodwose, the tother gebal trien to the tother. There schal byn lampa, that 15, thrisse, or a beste havynge the body inc a woman, and hors feet. Cher hadde dichis, the perheen, and murshide out littil chittis. There ben gadred kuns, the top to the top. What language!

least I do not know that any one has yet made out the or darter, a serpent so called because of its suddenly construction, or given any tolerable explication of it.. leaping up or darting on its prey. Probably the monI join it to the 11th verse, and supply a letter or two, goz or ichneumon may be intended. which seem to have been lost. Fileen MSS., five ancient, and two editions, read on cherryla; the first printed edition of 1486, I think nearer to the truth. ann an cher churryia. I read moro šecturerezia, or 1000 by al chorerryta ; see Jer. xv. 6. A MS. has 177 chodiah, and the Syrac reads to charvah, gaudium, joining it to the two preceding words: wich he likewise reads diferently, but without improving the sense. However, his authority is clear for Éviing the verses as they are here divided. I read Or stem, as a noun. They shal beast xp now; see Pror, xx & Verse 13. And thorns shall come və in her palaces) meow * reala jetrnendey t; so read al de

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Every one with her mate.] A MS. adds el after nisisk, which seems necessary to the constreetion; and so the Syriac and Vulgate. Anocher MS. adds in the same place eth, which is equivalent.

Verse 16. My mouth—“ For the mouth of JEHOFor an Au, five MSS., (three ancient,) read r Yekweek, and another is so corrected; so likewise the Septuagint. Two editions have tsivam ; and so the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Arabic, with the ečtion of 1486, and a MS. has □yıp kebatsam, with the masculine pronoun instead of the feminine: and so in the next verses it is on lahem, instead of ¡ at in fourteen MSS., six of them ancient.-L. To see the importance of these various readings, the Hebrew Bible must be consulted.

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CHAPTER XXIV

In sommquent as the meni dzments predicted in the preceding chapter. MIN HO THU HO CHO NÀY ĐAN B Nga trong vòng and sublime as to oblige us to extend their •" deyil"un when Messiah shall take unto himself his great power en **** dierally accomplished by our Saviour and his apostles: but babere were not the only import of the language used by the proPhoy, therefore, have a farther application; and are contem

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» augments of God upon the enemies of the Church in the latter vans and extension of the Christian faith, the conversion of the ( 10 )

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