Isa 9:8-10:4 | Clarke | e4.org | Verse 8. Lord -"JEHOVAH"] For Adonai, thirty MSS. of Kennicott's , and many of De Rossi's , and three editions, read Yehovah .

‏ Isaiah 9:8-21

Verse 8. Lord-"JEHOVAH"] For Adonai, thirty MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and three editions, read Yehovah.

Verse 9. Pride and stoutness of heart-"Carry themselves haughtily"] veyadeu, "and they shall know;" so ours and the Versions in general. But what is it that they shall know? The verb stands destitute of its object; and the sense is imperfect. The Chaldee is the only one, as far as I can find, that expresses it otherwise. He renders the verb in this place by veithrabrabu, "they exalt themselves, or carry themselves haughtily; the same word by which he renders gabehu, Isa 3:16. He seems, therefore, in this place to have read vaiyigbehu, which agrees perfectly well with what follows, and clears up the difficulty. Archbishop Secker conjectured vayedabberu, referring it to lemor, in the next verse, which shows that he was not satisfied with the present reading. Houbigant reads vaiyereu, et pravi facti sunt, they are become wicked, which is found in a MS.; but I prefer the reading of the Chaldee, which suits much better with the context.

Houbigant approves of this reading; but it is utterly unsupported by any evidence from antiquity: it is a mere mistake of resh for daleth; and I am surprised that it should be favoured by Houbigant.

Verse 10. The bricks] "The eastern bricks," says Sir John Chardin, (see Harmer's Observ. I., p. 176,) "are only clay well moistened with water, and mixed with straw, and dried in the sun." So that their walls are commonly no better than our mud walls; see Maundrell, p. 124. That straw was a necessary part in the composition of this sort of bricks, to make the parts of the clay adhere together, appears from Ex 5:7-19. These bricks are properly opposed to hewn stone, so greatly superior in beauty and durableness. The sycamores, which, as Jerome on the place says, are timber of little worth, with equal propriety are opposed to the cedars. "As the grain and texture of the sycamore is remarkably coarse and spongy, it could therefore stand in no competition at all (as it is observed, Isa 9:10) with the cedar, for beauty and ornament."-Shaw, Supplement to Travels, p. 96. We meet with the same opposition of cedars to sycamores, 1Ki 10:27, where Solomon is said to have made silver as the stones, and cedars as the sycamores in the vale for abundance. By this mashal, or figurative and sententious speech, they boast that they shall easily be able to repair their present losses, suffered perhaps by the first Assyrian invasion under Tiglath-pileser; and to bring their affairs to a more flourishing condition than ever.

Some of the bricks mentioned above lie before me. They were brought from the site of ancient Babylon. The straw is visible, kneaded with the clay; they are very hard, and evidently were dried in the sun; for they are very easily dissolved in water.

Verse 11. The adversaries of Rezin against him-"The princes of Retsin against him"] For tsarey, enemies, Houbigant, by conjecture, reads sarey, princes; which is confirmed by thirty of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., (two ancient,) one of my own, ancient; and nine more have tsaddi, upon a rasure, and therefore had probably at first sarey. The princes of Retsin, the late ally of Israel, that is, the Syrians, expressly named in the next verse, shall now be excited against Israel.

The Septuagint in this place give us another variation; for Retsin, they read har tsiyon, οροςσιων, Mount Sion, of which this may be the sense; but JEHOVAH shall set up the adversaries of Mount Sion against him, (i.e., against Israel,) and will strengthen his enemies together; the Syrians, the Philistines, who are called the adversaries of Mount Sion. See Simonis Lex. in voce sachach.

Verse 12. With open mouth-"On every side"] bechol peh, in every corner, in every part of their country, pursuing them to the remotest extremities, and the most retired parts. So the Chaldee bechol athar, in every place.

Verse 14. In one day.] Thirteen MSS. of Kennicott and De Rossi read beyom, in a day; and another has a rasure in the place of the letter beth.

Verse 17. The Lord-"JEHOVAH"] For Adonai, a great number of MSS. read Yehovah.

Verse 18. For wickedness] Wickedness rageth like a fire, destroying and laying waste the nation: but it shall be its own destruction, by bringing down the fire of God's wrath, which shall burn up the briers and the thorns; that is, the wicked themselves. Briers and thorns are an image frequently applied in Scripture, when set on fire, to the rage of the wicked; violent, yet impotent, and of no long continuance. "They are extinct as the fire of thorns," Ps 118:12. To the wicked themselves, as useless and unprofitable, proper objects of God's wrath, to be burned up, or driven away by the wind. "As thorns cut up they shall be consumed in the fire," Isa 33:12. Both these ideas seem to be joined in Ps 58:9:-

"Before your pots shall feel the thorn,

As well the green as the dry, the tempest shall

bear them away."

The green and the dry is a proverbial expression, meaning all sorts of them, good and bad, great and small, &c. So Ezekiel: "Behold, I will kindle a fire, and it shall devour every green tree, and every dry tree," Eze 20:47. D'Herbelot quotes a Persian poet describing a pestilence under the image of a conflagration: "This was a lightning that, falling upon a forest, consumed there the green wood with the dry." See Harmer's Observations, Vol. II., p. 187.

Verse 20. The flesh of his own arm-"The flesh of his neighbour"] "τουβραχιονοςτουαδελφουαυτου, the Septuagint Alexand. Duplex versio, quarum altera legit reo, quae vox extat, Jer 6:21. Nam rea, αδελφος, Ge 43:33. Recte ni fallor."-SECKER. I add to this excellent remark, that the Chaldee manifestly reads reo, his neighbour, not zeroo, his arm; for he renders it by karibeyh, his neighbour. And Jeremiah has the very same expression: veish besar reehu yochelu, "and every one shall eat the flesh of his neighbour," Isa 19:9. This observation, I think, gives the true reading and sense of this place: and the context strongly confirms it by explaining the general idea by particular instances, in the following verse: "Every man shall devour the flesh of his neighbour;" that is, they shall harass and destroy one another. "Manasseh shall destroy Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh;" which two tribes were most closely connected both in blood and situation as brothers and neighbours; "and both of them in the midst of their own dissensions shall agree in preying upon Judah." The common reading, "shall devour the flesh of his own arm," in connexion with what follows, seems to make either an inconsistency, or an anticlimax; whereas by this correction the following verse becomes an elegant illustration of the foregoing.-L.

‏ Isaiah 10:1-4

CHAPTER X

God's judgments against oppressive rulers, 1-4.

The prophet foretells the invasion of Sennacherib, and the destruction of his army. That mighty monarch is represented as a rod in the hand of God to correct his people for their sins; and his ambitious purposes, contrary to his own intentions, are made subservient to the great desires of Providence, 5-11.

Having accomplished this work, the Almighty takes account of his impious vauntings, 12-14;

and threatens utter destruction to the small and great of his army, represented by the thorns, and the glory of the forest,

15-19.

This leads the prophet to comfort his countrymen with the promise of the signal interposition of God in their favour,

24-27.

Brief description of the march of Sennarherib towards Jerusalem, and of the alarm and terror which he spread every where as he hastened forward, 28-32.

The spirit and rapidity of the description is admirably suited to the subject. The affrighted people are seen fleeing, and the eager invader pursuing; the cries of one city are heard by those of another; and groan swiftly succeeds to groan, till at length the rod is lifted over the last citadel. In this critical situation, however, the promise of a Divine interposition is seasonably renewed. The scene instantly changes; the uplifted arm of this mighty conqueror is at once arrested and laid low by the hand of heaven; the forest of Lebanon, (a figure by which the immense Assyrian host is elegantly pointed out, is hewn down by the axe of the Divine vengeance; and the mind is equally pleased with the equity of the judgment, and the beauty and majesty of the description,

33, 34.

NOTES ON CHAP. X

Verse 2. My people] Instead of ammi, my people, many MSS., and one of my own, ancient, read ammo, his people. But this is manifestly a corruption.

Verse 4. Without me] That is, without my aid: they shall be taken captive even by the captives, and shall be subdued even by the vanquished. "The yod in bilti is a pronoun, as in Ho 13:4."

-Kimchi on the place. One MS. has lebilti.

As the people had hitherto lived without God in worship and obedience; so they should now be without his help, and should perish in their transgressions.