[140] See above, pp. 41 ff.
[141] Some, however, think the prophet is speaking in prospect of the Chaldean invasion of a few years later. This is not so likely, because he pictures the overthrow of Niniveh as subsequent to the invasion of Philistia, while the Chaldeans accomplished the latter only after Niniveh had fallen.
[142] According to Herodotus.
[143] Ver. 7, LXX.
[144] The measure, as said above, is elegiac: alternate lines long with a rising, and short with a falling, cadence. There is a play upon the names, at least on the first and last—“Gazzah” or “‘Azzah ‘Azubah”—which in English we might reproduce by the use of Spenser’s word for “dreary”: _For Gaza ghastful shall be._ “‘Eḳron te’aḳer.” LXX. Ἀκκαρων ἐκριζωθήσεταὶ (B), ἐκριφήσεται (A). In the second line we have a slighter assonance, ‘Ashkĕlōn lishĕmamah. In the third the verb is יְגָרְשׁוּהָ; Bacher (_Z.A.T.W._, 1891, 185 ff.) points out that גֵּרַשׁ is not used of cities, but of their populations or of individual men, and suggests (from Abulwalid) יירשוה, _shall possess her_, as “a plausible emendation.” Schwally (_ibid._, 260) prefers to alter to יְשָׁרְשׁוּהָ, with the remark that this is not only a good parallel to תעקר, but suits the LXX. ἐκριφήσεται.—On the expression _by noon_ see Davidson, _N. H. and Z._, Appendix, Note 2, where he quotes a parallel expression, in the Senjerli inscription, of Asarhaddon: that he took Memphis by midday or in half a day (Schrader). This suits the use of the phrase in Jer. xv. 8, where it is parallel to _suddenly_.
[145] Canaan omitted by Wellhausen, who reads עליך for עליכם. But as the metre requires a larger number of syllables in the first line of each couplet than in the second, Kĕna’an should probably remain. The difficulty is the use of Canaan as synonymous with _Land of the Philistines_. Nowhere else in the Old Testament is it expressly applied to the coast south of Carmel, though it is so used in the Egyptian inscriptions, and even in the Old Testament in a sense which covers this as well as other lowlying parts of Palestine.
[146] An odd long line, either the remains of two, or perhaps we should take the two previous lines as one, omitting Canaan.
[147] So LXX.: Hebrew text _and the sea-coast shall become dwellings, cots_ (כְּרֹת) _of shepherds_. But the pointing and meaning of כרת are both conjectural, and the _sea-coast_ has probably fallen by mistake into this verse from the next. On Kereth and Kerethim as names for Philistia and the Philistines see _Hist. Geog._, p. 171.
[148] LXX. adds _of the sea_. So Wellhausen, but unnecessarily and improbably for phonetic reasons, as sea has to be read in the next line.
[149] So Wellhausen, reading for עַל־הַיָּם עֲליהֶם.
[150] Some words must have fallen out, for _first_ a short line is required here by the metre, and _second_ the LXX. have some additional words, which, however, give us no help to what the lost line was: ἀπὸ προσώπου υἱῶν Ἰούδα.
[151] As stated above, there is no conclusive reason against the pre-exilic date of this expression.
[152] Cf. Isa. xvi. 6.
[153] LXX. _My._
[154] Doubtful word, not occurring elsewhere.
[155] Heb. singular.
[156] LXX. omits _the people of_.
[157] LXX. _maketh Himself manifest_, נראה for נורא.
[158] ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. The passive of the verb means _to grow lean_ (Isa. xvii. 4).
[159] מקום has probably here the sense which it has in a few other passages of the Old Testament, and in Arabic, of _sacred place_.
Many will share Schwally’s doubts (p. 192) about the authenticity of ver. 11; nor, as Wellhausen points out, does its prediction of the conversion of the heathen agree with ver. 12, which devotes them to destruction. Ver. 12 follows naturally on to ver. 7.