Vers. 9-12.-A BEBUXE OF THE WOMEN. Ver. 9.-RiBe up. The "clll'eless d11ngh- It might seem at first sight o.s if we had ters" are sitting, or reclining upon couches, here o. detached utterance of the prophet, at their ease, The prophet bids· them stand· up, to hear a measu.ge from God (comp.' accidentally conjoined with the preceding Judg. iii. 10). Ye women that are at oaae; passage (vers. 1-8). But vers. 15-18 i.e. "that are self-satisfied and self-com- furoish a link of connection between the placent." The word employed he.a o.lm6st two portions of the chapter, and make it always a bad sense (see 2 Kings xix. 28; proLe.ble that they were delivered at the Job xii. 5; Ps. cxxiii. 4; Amos vi. l; Zech. i. 15). Hear my voice. This clause should so.me time. Mr. Cheyne supposes that the be attached to the first half of the verse. indifference of a knot of women, gathered The order of the words in the original is, Rt some little distance from the men to "Ye women that are e.t ease, rise up and whom Iee.iah hnd addressed vera. 1-S, hear my words ; ye careless daughters, provoked the prophet suddenly to turn to hearken unto my speech.'' &hem, e.nd speak to them i.n terms of warning. Ver. 10.-lllany de.:,1 e.114 :,ear■ ahall :,e «lli. :txxu. 1-20.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPMT ISA.IA.It. 523
be troubled I rather; '" a year and day, 1 The joy6UI oity (see c]1. nii. 2). The word I.e. "in less than twll yeo.rsl' The object used hSB generally the sense of unholy of the prop!Jet is not to fix the duration mirth {comp. eh. xxiii. 7; xxiv. 8; Zeph. of the trouble, bnt to mark the time of itii ii. 15; iii. 11 ). commencement (comp. oh. xxix. 1). Shall Ver. 14.-The pe.laoea ■he.II be foree.ken; ye _be troubled; rather, shall ye tremble, or literally, die palace; but the word is used in ihud.der (so Deut. ii, 25: Pa. lxxvil. 18; a generic sense. The prophet sees in vision scix. I': ob. v. 25; lxiv. 2; Jer. xxxiii. 9, Jerusalem deserted by her inhabitants, etc.). Ye oarelesa women; ro.ther, ye con- the grand houses of the rich empty, the ftlJ,ent ones. 'l'he word is different from that strongholds haunted by wild bea3ts, and the employad in vers. 9 e.nd 11. The vintage slopes of the hills fed on by sheep, and ahall fo.il ; literally, hfls fcviled--'' the pel'fect even occasionally visited by the timid and of prophetic certitude" (0heyne), Some solitude-loving wild ass. The description critice understo.ild a literal failure, or de- suits well the time of the Babylonian cap• struction, of the vintage through the invasion tivity, but not any earlier period. Probably of .the Assyrian&. · Others suggest e. refer• it was not revealed to the prophet how soon ence to eh. v, 4-7. The vineyard of the the condition would be reached. The multi- Lord ( J ude.b) has utterly failed to bring tude of the oity sho.ll be left. The real forth grapes-there is no ingathering~ meaning is, as Bishop Lowth expresses it, there.fore destruction shall fall upori it. " The popnlous city shall be left desolate." Ver. 11.-Tremble ... be troubled. The But the whole passage is, as Delitzscb repetition of thii! verse is, as ·usual, emphatic. observes, "grammatically strange, the lan- Its object-is· to impress those whom the gae.ge becoming more complicated, dis- prophet is addressing with the certainty jointed, and difficult, the greater the wrath of -the ·eoming judgment. Strip you, and and indignation of the poet." The fort■ make·· you •bare ; i:e. "bare your breasts," and towers; rather, hi7l and t01JJer, with in preparation for the beating which is to (perhaps) a special reference to the po.rt follow (see the ·comment on the next verse). of .Teruso.lem called Opbel (2 Chron. xxvii. 3; •. Ver. 12.-~ey ahe.11 lament for the teats; Neh. iii. 26, etc.), the long projecting spnr eto.; rather, they shall beat upon the breasts from the eastern hill, which points a little for the pleasant fields,. etc.. (so the LXX., west of south, and separates the Kedron the Vulgate, Je.rchi; GeseniuA, Ewald, valley rrom the Tyropreon. Shall be for llfourer, Knobel,'Delitzsch, and Mr. Cheyne). dens; literally, for ea ties; bnt dens for wild Dr. Kay prefers the rendering of the Autho- beasts seem to be meant (comp. eh. xiii. 21; rized Versiou, understanding by "the teats" x:x:xiv. 14; Jer. l. 39). For ever. This such " dry breasts " as Hosea speaks of expression must not be pressed. Hyperbole (ix. 14). But nothing hns been said in is a recognized feature of poetry written this place of any such affliction. For ·the under strong excitement. A joy of wild plea.sant fields, etc. ; i.e. for their loss (see asses. The wild ass is not now found rer. 10). • .· .. nearer Palestine than Mesopotrun.ia, or per- Vera. 13--20.--,-.A. FuRTHER MnfotING Oll' haps Northern Syria. It is exceedingly shy, and never approaches the habitations TIIBEATB WITH COMFORTING PROMISES. of men. The women require, like the men, to bo Ver. 15.-lJntil. The expression" until" both wo.med o.nd co!I!forted, wherefore the modifies the previous " for ever," showing prophet addresses to them, a.a to the men that the desolation was not al ways to in eh. xxx. and xxxi., an intermixture of continue. The Spirit be poured upon us from on high. An eflluence from the threatening (vers. 13, 14.) with promise Holy Spirit of God on individuals of emi- (vers. 15-20). •. nence, prophets, kings, artificers, to fit them Ver, 13.-lJpon the le.nd of my people for their tasks, is recognized in many of the sho.ll oome up thorns and .briars. This was earlier books of Scripture, and especially the. punishment .with which the unfruitful in the Davidical psalms. But o. general vineyard was threatened -in eh. v. 6. It effluence of the Spirit of holiness on I\ mo.y ·be. understood either litemlly or of nation, to produce a change of heo.rt, seems the wickedness that would abound when to be first announced by Isaiah. The the time of judgment came. Yea, upon nearly contemporary prophecy of Joel (ii. o.ll the houses of joy (oomp. eh. v. 9). If 28, 29) is, perhaps, as wide in its scope, but Sennacherib• co.rriod ·off, ns he declares limited to the prophetic gi~. which is not (G. Smith, • Eponym Canon,' p. 134), more necessarily conjoined with spiritual-minded- thnn two hundred thousand captives from ness or holiness of life. Isaiah, the "evan- Jndwo., he muat have left many houses gelical prophet," first teaches that tlio without inhe.bitants. 'fhe solilnde begun con,ersion of a nation is God's work, by him was completed by tho Babyloniaus. effected by the Holy Spirit, aud elfeotlllll 524: THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [on. :nxn. 1-20,