Isa 9:8-21 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 8 Lord "Jehovah" - For אדני Adonai, thirty MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and three editions, read יהוה Yehovah.

Isaiah 9:8-21

Verse 8

Lord "Jehovah" - For אדני Adonai, thirty MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and three editions, read יהוה Yehovah. Verse 9

Pride and stoutness of heart "Carry themselves haughtily" - וידעו 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 ואתרברבו veithrabrabu, "they exalt themselves, or carry themselves haughtily; the same word by which he renders גבהו gabehu, Isa 3:16. He seems, therefore, in this place to have read ויגבהו vaiyigbehu, which agrees perfectly well with what follows, and clears up the difficulty. Archbishop Secker conjectured וידברו vayedabberu, referring it to לאמר lemor, in the next verse, which shows that he was not satisfied with the present reading. Houbigant reads וירעו 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 ר resh for ד daleth; and I am surprised that it should be favored 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 Exodus 5. 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, 1Kgs 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 צרי tsarey, enemies, Houbigant, by conjecture, reads שרי 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 צ tsaddi, upon a rasure, and therefore had probably at first שרי 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 רצין Retsin, they read הר ציון har tsiyon, ορος Σιων, 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 סכך sachach. Verse 12

With open mouth "On every side" - בכל פה 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 בכל אתר bechol athar, in every place. Verse 14

In one day - Thirteen MSS. of Kennicott and De Rossi read ביום beyond in a day; and another has a rasure in the place of the letter ב beth. Verse 17

The Lord "Jehovah" - For אדני Adonai, a great number of MSS. read יהוה 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," Psa 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 Psa 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, etc. 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 neighbor" - "Του βραχιονος του αδελφου αυτου, the Septuagint Alexand. Duplex versio, quarum altera legit רעו reo, quae vox extat, Jer 6:21. Nam רע rea, αδελφος, Gen 43:33. Recte ni fallor." - Secker. I add to this excellent remark, that the Chaldee manifestly reads רעו reo, his neighbor, not זרעו zeroo, his arm; for he renders it by קריביה karibeyh, his neighbor. And Jeremiah has the very same expression: ואיש בשר רעהו יאכלו veish besar reehu yochelu, "and every one shall eat the flesh of his neighbor," Jer 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 neighbor;" 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 neighbors; "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 connection 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.