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The destruction of

B. C. cir. 714.

., ISAIAH.

4. M. cir. 390. at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it.

Olymp. XVI. 3.

cir, annum

Numa Pompilii, R. Roman, 2.

Babylon foretold.

B. C. cir. 714.

8 And he cried, A lion: My A. M. cir. 3290. lord, I stand continually upon the Olymp. XVI. 3. 4 My heart panted, fearful-" watchtower in the day-time, and Numa Pompili, ness affrighted me: the night I am set in my ward whole nights:

of my pleasure hath he turned into fear

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9 And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.

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10 O my threshing, and the scorn of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you. 11 The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?

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P Jer. li. 8; Rev. xiv. 8; xviii. 2. Chap. xlvi. 1; Jer. 1. 2; li. 44. Jer. li. 33. Heb. son.1 Chron. i. 30; Jer. xlix. 7, 8; Ezek. xxxv. 2; Obad. 1.

gage from the camels, and mounted his horsemen upon them; the enemy's horses, offended with the smell of the camels, turned back and fled.-L.

have put an end to all her vexations"] Heb. "Her sighing; that is, the sighing caused by her." So Kimchi on the place: "It means those who groaned through fear of him for the suffixes of the nouns refer Verse 8. And he cried, A lion-" He that looked both to the agent and the patient. All those who groan-out on the watch"] The present reading, arych, ed before the face of the king of Babylon he caused to a lion, is so unintelligible, and the mistake so obvious, rest;" Chald. And so likewise Ephrem Syr. in loc., that I make no doubt that the true reading is edit. Assemani: "His groans, viz., the grief and tears haroeh, the seer; as the Syriac translator manifestly found which the Chaldeans occasioned through the rest of it in his copy, who renders it by sp duka, a watchman. the nations."

Verse 5. Prepare the table" The table is prepared"] In Hebrew the verbs are in the infinitive mood absolute, as in Ezek. i. 14: "And the animals ran and returned, NY】 ratso veshob, like the appearance of the lightning;" just as the Latins say, currere et reverti, for currebant et revertebantur. See chap. xxxii.

11, and the note there.

Arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.] Kimchi observes that several of the rabbins understood this of Belshazzar's impious feast and death. The king of a people is termed the shield, because he is their defence. The command, Anoint the shield, is the same with Anoint a new king. Belshazzar being now suddenly slain, while they were all eating and drinking, he advises the princes, whose business it was, to make speed and anoint another in his stead.

Verse 7. And he saw a chariot, &c.—" And he saw a chariot with two riders; a rider on an ass, a rider on a camel"] This passage is extremely obscure from the ambiguity of the term recheb, which is used three times, and which signifies a chariot, or any other vehicle, or the rider in it; or a rider on a horse, or any other animal; or a company of chariots, or riders. The prophet may possibly mean a cavalry in two parts, with two sorts of riders; riders on asses or mules, and riders on camels; or led on by two riders, one on an ass, and one on a camel. However, so far it is pretty clear, that Darius and Cyrus, the Modes and the Persians, are intended to be distinguished by the two riders on the two sorts of cattle. It appears from Herodotus, i. 80, that the baggage of Cyrus' army was carried on camels. In his engagement with Crosus, he took off the bag

Verse 9. Here cometh a chariot of men, &c.—“ A man, one of the two riders"] So the Syriac understands it, and Ephrem Syr.

Verse 10. O my threshing] "O thou, the object upon which I shall exercise the severity of my discipline; that shalt lie under my afflicting hand, like corn spread upon the floor to be threshed out and winnowed, to separate the chaff from the wheat!" The image of threshing is frequently used by the Hebrew poets, with great elegance and force, to express the punishment of the wicked and the trial of the good, or the utter dispersion and destruction of God's enemies. Of the different ways of threshing in use among the Hebrews, and the manner of performing them, see the note on chap. xxviii. 27.

Our translators have taken the liberty of using the word threshing in a passive sense, to express the object or matter that is threshed; in which I have followed them, not being able to express it more properly, without departing too much from the form and letter of the original. "Son of my floor," Heb. It is an idiom of the Hebrew language to call the effect, the object, the adjunct, any thing that belongs in almost any way to another, the son of it. "O my threshing." The prophet abruptly breaks off the speech of God; and instead of continuing it in the form in which he had begun, and in the person of God, "This I declare unto you by my prophet," he changes the form of address, and adds, in his own person, "This I declare unto you from God."

Verse 11. The burden of Dumah—“The oracle concerning Dumah."] Pro Dumah, Codex R. Meiri habet 178 Edom; and so the Septuagint; Vid

7'he prophecy

A. M. cir. 3290.
B. C. cir. 714..

CHAP. XXI.

V

concerning Arabia.

A. M. cir. 3290.

12 The watchman said, The in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye C. cir. 714. Olymp. XVI. 3. morning cometh, and also the travelling companies of DeNuma Pompilii, night: if ye will inquire, inquire danim.

cir. annum

R. Roman., 2.

ye return, come.

Olymp. XVI. 3.
Numa Pompilii,
R. Roman., 2.

cir. annum

14 The inhabitants of the land
brought water to him that was

13 "The burden upon Arabia. In the forest of Tema u Jer. xlix. 28.- 1 Chron. i. 9, 32. Kimchi ad h. 1. Biblia Michaelis, Hale, 1720, not. ad 1. See also De Rossi. Bishop Lowth translates

the prophecy thus:

11. THE ORACLE CONCERNING DUMAH.

A voice crieth to me from Seir:
Watchman, what from the night?
Watchman, what from the night?
12. The watchman replieth:

The morning cometh, and also the night.
If ye will inquire, inquire ye: come again.
This differs very little from our common Version.
One of Kennicott's MSS., and one of my own, omit
the repetition, "Watchman, what from the night?"

W

w Or, bring ye

now appears and also the night-the time in which God will no longer wait to be gracious, but will cut you off as cumberers of the ground. 2. But if you will inquire seriously how you are to escape. God's judgments, inquire ye. 3. There is still a door of hope; continue to pray for mercy. 4. Return from your iniquities. 5. Come to God, through Christ, that ye may obtain salvation.

Verse 13. The burden upon Arabia—" The oracle concerning Arabia"] This title is of doubtful authority. In the first place, because it is not in many of the MSS. of the Septuagint; it is in MSS, Pachom. and 1. D. II. only, as far as I can find with This prophecy, from the uncertainty of the occasion certainty. Secondly, from the singularity of the on which it was uttered, and from the brevity of the phraseology; for massa is generally prefixed to expression, is extremely obscure. The Edomites as its object without a preposition, as 7 ND massa well as the Jews were subdued by the Babylonians. babel; and never but in this place with the preposition They inquire of the prophet how long their subjec- beth. Besides, as the word ya baarab occurs at tion is to last: he intimates that the Jews should the very beginning of the prophecy itself, the first be delivered from their captivity; not so the Edom-word but one, it is much to be suspected that some ites. Thus far the interpretation seems to carry with it some degree of probability. What the meaning of the last line may be, I cannot pretend to divine. In this difficulty the Hebrew MSS. give no assistance. The MSS. of the Septuagint, and the fragments of the other Greek Versions, give some variations, but no light. This being the case, I thought it best to give an exact literal translation of the whole two verses, which may serve to enable the English reader to judge in some measure of the foundation of the various interpretations that have been given of them.

one, taking it for a proper name and the object of the
prophecy, might note it as such by the words
massa baarab written in the margin, which he might
easily transfer to the text. The Septuagint did not
take it for a proper name, but render it ev s guμç
sospas, "in the forest, in the evening," and so the
Chaldee, which I follow; for otherwise, the forest in
Arabia is so indeterminate and vague a description,
that in effect it means nothing at all. This observa-
tion might have been of good use in clearing up the
foregoing very obscure prophecy, if any light had

separating title; but I see no connexion between them.
The Arabic Version has, "The prophecy concerning
the Arabians, and the children of Chedar."

The burden of Dumah.-R. D. Kimchi says, "Hisarisen from joining the two together by removing the father understood this of the destruction of Dumah (one of the cities of the Ishmaelites) by the inhabitants of Seir; and that they inquired of the prophet to know the particular time in which God had given them a commission against it. The prophet answered: The morning—the time of success to you, cometh, is just at hand; and the night-the time of utter destruction to the inhabitants of Dumah, is also ready."

man.

This prophecy was to have been fulfilled within a year of the time of its delivery, see ver. 16; and it was probably delivered about the same time with the rest in this part of the book, that is, soon before or after the 14th of Hezekiah, the year of Sennacherib's

from the Egyptian expedition, he might perhaps overrun these several clans of Arabians; their distress on some such occasion is the subject of this prophecy.-L.

I have heard the words applied in the way of gene-invasion. In his first march into Judea, or in his return ral exhortation. 1. Every minister of God is a watchHe is continually watching for the safety and interests of his people, and looking for the counsel of God that he may be properly qualified to warn and to comfort. 2. Such are often called to denounce heavy judgments; they have the burden of the word of the Lord to denounce against the impenitent, the backslider, the lukewarm, and the careless. 3. When the watchman threatens judgments, some are awakened, and some mock: Watchman, what of the night? "What are the judgments thou threatenest, and when are they to take place?" 4. To this question, whether seriously or tauntingly proposed, the watchman answers: 1. The morning cometh-there is a time of repentance granted; a morning of God's long-suffering kindness

Verse 14. The land of Tema-"The southern country"] Oaiuav, Sept.; Austri, Vulg. They read 'n teiman, which seems to be right; for probably the inhabitants of Tema might be involved in the same calamity with their brethren and neighbours of Kedar, and not in a condition to give them assistance, and to relieve them, in their flight before the enemy, with bread and water. To bring forth bread and water is an instance of common humanity in such cases of distress; especially in those desert countries in which the common necessaries of life, more particularly water, are not easily to be met with or pro

The prophecy

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0 thirsty, they prevented with their Within a year, according to the O via bread him that fled.

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15 For they fled from the * 2 words, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousBan A war,

is For thus hath the LORD said unto me, Mats from the face- Chap. xvi. 14.

wws. Men linda the Ammonite and Moabite to b. was the congregation of the Lord to the Mar *****w. One reason which he gives for this the son of the common offices of Awdy voward the rpelites; "because they met Bwd with bread and water in the way, when they www fun wat Vay," Deut. xxiii. 4.

***** 17 The archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar The mighty bowmen of the sons M Kader") Magittariorum fortium, Vulg.; transpay the two words, and reading nop gibborey hasheth; which seems to be right. The strong men of the bow, the most excellent archers.

years of a hireling, and all the
glory of Kedar shall fail:

A. M. eir. 3290.
Olymp. XVL 3.

B. C. cir. 714.

cir annum

Numa Pompilii,
R. Roman, 2.

17 And the residue of the number of barchers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be diminished: for the LORD God of Israel hath spoken it.

a Psa. exx. 5; chap. lx. 7. Heb, bows.

For the Lord hath spoken it-" For JEHOVAH hath spoken it."] The prophetic Carmina of Marcius, foretelling the battle of Canna, lib. xxv. 12, conclude with the same kind of solemn form: Nam, mihi ita Jupiler fatus est; "Thus hath Jupiter spoken to me." Observe that the word DN naam, to pronouce, to declare, is the solemn word appropriated to the delivering of prophecies: "Behold, I am against the prophets, saith (ON) naam, pronounceth) JEHOVAH, who use their tongues, ON DN vaiyinamu neum, and solemnly pronounce, He hath pronounced it ;” Jer. xxiii. 31. What God says shall most assuredly come to pass; he cannot be deceived.

CHAPTER XXII.

Prophecy concerning Jerusalem, 1-14. Sentence against Shebna, who was over the household, 15-19. Prophecy concerning Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, 20, 21. From Eliakim, Isaiah, (agreeably to the mode unibersally adopted in the prophetical writings, of making the things then present, or which were shortly to be accomplished, types or representations of things to be fulfilled upon a larger scale in distant futurity,) makes a transition to the Messiah, of whom Eliakim was a type, to whom the words will best apply, and to whom summa pasanges in the prophecy must be solely restrained, 20-24. The sentence against Shebna again comfirmed, 5.

THE burden of the valley of

Vision. What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly gone up to thin her materin?

2

• Isaiah, wah the fourteenth verse of IN KANTAN," oracle concerning the Way Might Valmy which is meant Jerusalem, beWat fon Metech, it was the place of proFREE MAANAding to Josephus, was built JOHN wond Aera, separated by It speaks of another broad KIM, Bell. Jud, v. 13, ***dation; the place Then we given, and where mythene budy place, *********** Jerusalem by *****.*** by the Chal Vingaw of opion What the Chal

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Verse 1. Art-gone up to the house-tops-" Are gone up to the house-tops"] The houses in the east were in ancient times, as they are still, generally, built in one and the same uniform manner. The roof or top of the house is always flat, covered with broad stones, or a strong plaster of terrace, and guarded on every wide with a low parapet wall; see Deut. xxii. 8. The terrace is frequented as much as any part of the house. On this, as the season favours, they walk, they eat, they sleep, they transact business, (1 Sam. ix. 25, see was the Neptuagint in that place,) they perform their / me thunkardeve, Ants x. 9. The house is built with a court ****** ***, 4, 6, wulum, into which chiefly the windows open: those that W***w***, what the street are so obstructed with lattice-work ********* either without or within can see through

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Whenever, therefore, any thing is to be seen

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man; which seems to me extremely probable. The conjunction 1 vau, and, prefixed to parashim, horsemen, seems necessary in whatever way the sentence may be taken; and it is confirmed by five MSS., (one ancient,) four of De Rossi's, and two ancient of my own; one by correction of Dr. Kennicott's, and three editions. Kir was a city belonging to the Medes. The Medes were subject to the Assyrians in Hezekiah's time, (see 2 Kings xvi. 9, and xvii. 6;) and so perhaps might Elam (the Persians) likewise be, or auxiliaries to them...

or heard in the streets, any public spectacle, any alarm of a public nature, every one immediately goes up to the house-top to satisfy his curiosity. In the same manner, when any one has occasion to make any thing public, the readiest and most effectual way of doing it is to proclaim it from the house-tops to the people in the streets. "What ye hear in the ear, that publish ye on the house-top," saith our Saviour, Matt. x. 27. The people running all to the tops of their houses gives a lively image of a sudden general alarm: Sir John Chardin's MS. note on this place is as follows: "Dans les festes pour voir passer quelque chose, et dans les Verse 8. The armour-"The arsenal"] Built by maladies pour les annoncer aux voisins en allumant des Solomon within the city, and called the house of the lumieres, le peuple monte sur les terrasses." "In fes-forest of Lebanon; probably from the great quantity tivals, in order to see what is going forward, and in of cedar from Lebanon which was employed in the times of sickness, in order to indicate them to neigh-building. bours by lighting of candles, the people go up to the house-tops."

4

Verse 3. All thy rulers—are bound by the archers "All thy leaders are fled from the bow"] There seems to be somewhat of an inconsistency in the sense according to the present reading. If the leaders were bound, 1 usseru, how could they flee away? for their being bound, according to the obvious construction and course of the sentence, is a circumstance prior to their flight. I therefore follow Houbigant, who reads 1707 huseru, remoti sunt, "they are gone off." 1 galu, transmigraverunt, Chaldee; which seems to confirm this emendation.

Verse 6. Chariots of men" The Syrian "]. It is not easy to say what recheb adam, a chariot of men, can mean. It seems by the form of the sentence, which consists of three members, the first and the third mentioning a particular people, that the second should do so likewise. Thus DVD) OW berecheb aram uparashim, "with chariots the Syrian, and with horsemen :" the similitude of the letters daleth and ▾resh is so great, and the mistakes arising from it are so frequent, that I readily adopt the correction of Houbigant, aram, Syria, instead of 8 adam,

See 1 Kings vii. 2, 3.

Verse 9. Ye gathered together the waters—“ And ye shall collect the waters"] There were two pools in or near Jerusalem, supplied by springs: the upper pool, or the old pool, supplied by the spring called Gihon, 2 Chron. xxxii. 30, towards the higher part of the city, near Sion, or the city of David, and the lower pool, probably supplied by Siloam, towards the lower part. When Hezekiah was threatened with a siege by Sennacherib, he stopped up all the waters of the fountains without the city; and brought them into the city by a conduit, or subterranean passage cut through the rock; those of the old pool, to the place where he had a double wall, so that the pool was between the two walls. This he did in order to distress the enemy, and to supply the city during the siege. This was so great a work that not only the historians have made particular mention of it, 2 Kings xx. 20; 2 Chron. xxxii. 2, 3, 5, 30; but the son of Sirach also has celebrated it in his encomium on Hezekiah. "Hezekiah fortified his city, and brought in water into the midst thereof; he digged the hard rock with iron, and made wells for water," Ecclus. xlviii.

Verse 11. Unto the maker thereof "To him that hath disposed this"] That is, to God the Author and

The prophecy

A. M. eir. 3292.
Olymp. XVII. 1.

B. C. cir. 712.

cir. annum

Numa Pompili,

R. Roman., 4.

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walls for the water of the old drinking wine; let us eat and
pool: but ye have not looked drink, for to-morrow we shall
unto the maker thereof, nei- die.

ther had respect unto him that

fashioned it long ago..

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B. C. cir. 712.

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M. cir. 2292. Olymp. XVIL L Numa Pompilii, 14 And it was revealed in R. Roman, mine ears by the LORD of hosts, Surely this iniquity "shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord GoD of hosts.

15 Thus saith the Lord Gon of hosts, Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto Shebna, which is over the house, and say,

xv. 32. Chap. v. 9.1 Sam. iii. 14; Ezek. xxiv. 13.
2 Kings xviii. 37; chap. xxxvi. 3.——————w 1 Kings iv. 6.

Ere you push the goblet round;
Lest some fatal illness cry,
'Drink no more the cup of joy.'"

ADDISON.

Verse 14. It was revealed in mine ears—“The

"Hast thou not heard of old, that I have disposed it; voice of Jehovah"] The Vulgate has ror Domini ; And of ancient times, that I have formed it ?" Verse 13. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.] This has been the language of all those who have sought their portion in this life, since the foundation of the world. So the poet :

Heu, heu nos miseri! quam totus homuncio nil est! Sic erimus cuncti, postquam nos auferet orcus. Ergo vivamus, dum licet esse, bene. Alas, alas! what miserable creatures are we, only the semblances of men! And so shall we be all when we come to die. Therefore let us live joyfully while

we may.

Domitian had an image of death hung up in his dining-room, to show his guests that as life was uncertain, they should make the best of it by indulging themselves. On this Martial, to flatter the emperor, whom he styles god, wrote the following epigram :

Frange thoros, pete vina, tingere nardo. Ipse jubet mortis te meminisse Deus. Sit down to table-drink heartily-anoint thyself with spikenard; for God himself commands thee to remember death.

So the adage

Ede, bibe, lude: post mortem nulla voluptas. "Eat, drink, and play, while here ye may: No revelry after your dying day."

as if in his copy he had read kol Yehovah; and in truth, without the word p kol, voice, it is not easy to make out the sense of the passage; as appears from the strange versions which the rest of the ancients, (except the Chaldee,) and many of the moderns, have given of it; as if the matter were revealed in or to the ears of JEHOVAH: EV TOIS Wo Kugiou, in the ears of the Lord, Septuagint. Vitringa translates it, Revelatus est in auribus meis JEHOVAH, "JEHOVAH hath

revealed it in mine ears ;" and refers to 1 Sam. ii. 27; iii. 21: but the construction in those places is different, and there is no speech of God added; which here seems to want something more than the verb 1 nigleh to introduce it. Compare chap. v. 9, where the text is still more imperfect.

The Lord God of hosts]
Yehovah tsebaoth. But

Adonai אדני יהיה צבאות

Adonai, Lord, is omitted by two of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., and by two of my own; by three editions, and the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic.

Verse 15. Go-unto Shebna] The following prophecy concerning Shebna seems to have very little relation to the foregoing, except that it might have been delivered about the same time; and Shebna might be a principal person among those whose luxury and profaneness is severely reprehended by the prophet in the conclusion of that prophecy, ver. 11-14.

Shebna the scribe, mentioned in the history of Hezekiah, chap. xxxvi., seems to have been a different person from this Shebna, the treasurer or steward of the household, to whom this prophecy relates. Eliakim here mentioned was probably the person who,

The

St. Paul quotes the same heathen sentiment, 1 Cor. xv. 32: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Anacreon is full in point, and from him nothing bet-at the time of Sennacherib's invasion, was actually ter can be expected :

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treasurer, the son of Hilkiah. If so, this prophecy was delivered, as the preceding, (which makes the former part of the chapter,) plainly was, some time before the invasion of Sennacherib. As to the rest, history affords us no information.

"And say unto him"] Here are two words lost out of the text, which are supplied by two of Dr. Kennicott's MSS., one ancient, which read veamarta elaiv, and thou shalt say unto him; by the Septuagint, xa sinov auTy, and in the same manner by all the ancient versions. It is to be observed that

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