326.) The same idea is expressed by the parallel phrase, Holy One of Israel, for the import of which see above, ch. 1:4. It is matter of history, that after the Assyrian conquest and the general deportation of the people, many accepted Hezekiah's invitation and returned to the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem (2 Chron. 30: 11); and this reformation is alluded to as still continued in the times of Josiah (2 Chron. 34 : 9). At the same time the words may be intended to suggest that a similar effect might be expected to result from similar causes in later times.

8. And he shall not turn (or look) to the altars, the work of his own hands, and that which his own fingers have made shall he not regard, and the groves (or images of Ashtoreth) and the pillars (or images) of the sun. The positive declaration of the preceding verse is negatively expressed in this, with a particular mention of the objects which had usurped the place of God. Idol-altars are described as the work of men's hands, because erected by their sole authority, whereas the altar at Jerusalem was, in the highest sense, the work of God himself. The old translation groves, i. e. such as were used for idol-worship, has been shown to be in some places inadmissible, as when the grove is said to have stood upon an altar, or under a tree, or to have been brought out of a temple (1 Kings 14:23. 2 Chron. 34:4). The modern writers, therefore, understand it as denoting the goddess of fortune or happiness, otherwise called Ashtoreth, the Phenician Venus, extensively worshipped in conjunction with Baal.

9. In that day shall his fortified cities le like what is left in the thicket and the lofty branch (namely the cities), which they leave (as they retire) from before the children of Israel, and (the land) shall be a waste. It is universally agreed that the desolation. of the ten tribes is here described by a comparison, but as to

the precise form and meaning of the sentence there is great diversity of judgment. Some suppose the strongest towns to be here represented as no better defended than an open forest. Others on the contrary understand the strong towns alone to be left, the others being utterly destroyed. These are the principal interpretations of the whole verse, or at least of the comparison which it contains. The first supposes the forsaken cities of Ephraim to be here compared with those which the Canaanites forsook when they fled before the Israelites under Joshua, or with the forests which the Israelites left unoccupied after the conquest of the country. The other interpretation supposes no historical allusion, but a comparison of the approaching desolation with the neglected branches of a tree or forest that is felled, or a resumption of the figure of the olivetree in v. 6. This last is strongly recommended by its great simplicity by its superseding all gratuitous assumptions beyond what is expressed.

10. Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and the Rock of thy strength hast not remembered, therefore thou wilt plant plants of pleasantness (or pleasant plantations) and with a strange slip set it. The planting here described is the sin of the people, not their punishment. Those who think a literal planting to be meant, understand strange to signify exotic, foreign, and by implication valuable, costly; but upon the supposition that a moral or spiritual planting is intended, it has its frequent emphatic sense of alien from God, i. e. wicked, or more specifically idolatrous. The foreign growth introduced is understood by some to be idolatry, by others foreign alliance; but these two things, as we have seen before, were inseparably blended in the history and policy of Israel. (See above, ch. 2:6-8.)

11. In the day of thy planting thou wilt hedge it in, and in the

morning thou wilt make thy seed to blossom, (but) away flies the crop in a day of grief and desperate sorrow. In the morning is an idiomatic phrase for early, which some refer to the rapidity of growth, and others to the assiduity of the cultivator, neither of which senses is exclusive of the other.

Like the noise of the

12. Hark! the noise of many nations! sea they make a noise. And the rush of peoples! Like the rush of mighty waters they are rushing. The diversity of judgments, as to the connection of these verses (12-14) with the context, has been already stated in the introduction. On the whole, the safest ground to assume is that already stated in the introduction, viz. that the two chapters form a single prophecy or prophetic picture of the doom awaiting all the enemies of Judah, with particular allusion to particular enemies in certain parts. To the poetical images of this verse a beautiful parallel is found in Ovid's Metamorphoses:

13. Nations, like the rush of many waters, rush; and he rebukes it, and it flees from afar, and is chased like the chaff of hills before a wind, and like a rolling thing before a whirlwind. While there seems to be an obvious allusion to the flight of Sennacherib and the remnant of his host (ch. 37: 36, 37), the terms are so selected as to admit of a wider application to all Jehovah's enemies, and thus prepare the way for the general declaration in the following verse.

14. At evening-tide, and behold terror; before morning he is not. This is (or be) the portion of our plunderers, and the lot of our spoilers. The Prophet is the speaker, and he uses the plural pronouns only to identify himself with the people.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE two great powers of western Asia, in the days of Isaiah, were Assyria and Egypt or Ethiopia, the last two being wholly or partially united under Tirhakah, whose name and exploits are recorded in Egyptian monuments still extant, and who is expressly said in Scripture (2 Kings 19:9) to have come out against Sennacherib. With one or the other of these great contending powers, Judah was commonly confederate, and of course at war with the other. Hezekiah is explicitly reproached by Rabshakeh (Is. 36:9) with relying upon Egypt, i. e. the Ethiopico-Egyptian empire. These historical facts, together with the mention of Cush in v. 1, and the appropriateness of the figures in vs. 4, 5, to the destruction of Sennacherib's army, give great probability to the hypothesis now commonly adopted, that the Prophet here announces that event to Ethiopia, as about to be effected by a direct interposition of Jehovah, and without human aid. On this supposition, although not without its difficulties, the chapter before us is much clearer in itself and in its connection with the one before it, than if we assume with some interpreters; both Jews and Christians, that it relates to the restoration of the Jews, or to the overthrow of the Egyptians or Ethiopians themselves as the enemies of Israel. At the same time, some of the expressions here employed admit of so many interpretations, that it is best to give the whole as wide. an application as the language will admit, on the ground before suggested, that it constitutes a part of a generic prophecy or picture of God's dealings with the foes of his people, including illustrations drawn from particular events, such as the downfall of Syria and Israel, and the slaughter of Sennacherib's army. The Prophet first invites the attention of the Ethiopians and

of the whole world to a great catastrophe as near at hand, vs. 1-3. He then describes the catastrophe itself, by the beautiful figure of a vine or vineyard suffered to blossom and bear fruit, and then, when almost ready to be gathered, suddenly destroyed, vs. 4-6. In consequence of this event, the same people, who had been invoked in the beginning of the chapter, are described as bringing presents to Jehovah at Jerusalem, v. 7.

1. Ho! land of rustling wings, which art beyond the rivers of Cush (or Ethiopia)! Instead of rustling some read shadowy wings. But as the Hebrew word in every other case has reference to sound, some suppose an allusion to the noise made by locusts, some to the rushing sound of rivers, others to the clash of arms or other noises made by armies on the march, here called wings by a common figure. The rivers of Cush are supposed by some to be the Nile and its branches; by others, the Astaboras, Astapus, and Astasobas, mentioned by Strabo as the rivers of Meroe.

2. Sending by sea ambassadors, and in vessels of papyrus on the face of the waters. Go ye light (or swift) messengers, to a nation drawn and shorn, to a people terrible since it existed and onwards, a nation of double strength, and trampling, whose land the streams divide. Nearly every word and phrase of this difficult verse has been the subject of discordant explanations. The word sea is variously explained to mean the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Nile (Is. 19:5. Nah. 3:8). The use of vessels made of the papyrus plant upon the Nile, is expressly mentioned by Theophrastus, Pliny, Lucan, and Plutarch. The second clause of the verse is regarded by some writers as the language of the people who had just been addressed, as if he had said, 'sending ambassadors (and saying to them) go etc.' More probably, however, the Prophet is still speaking in the name of God. The following epithets are applied by some to the Jews, and sup