17 The LORD shall bring upon thee, | from the day that Ephraim departed and upon thy people, and upon thy fa- from Judah: even the king of Asther's house, days that have not come, syria. New Translation. 17. "But JEHOVAH shall bring upon thee, "And upon thy people, and upon the house of thy father, Days such as have not come "From the day of the departure of Ephraim from Judah ;— sianic interpretation is derived from the conclusion of the prophecy in ch. viii. 8, and especially in ch. ix. 1-7. The prophecy in ch. ix. 1-7, is evidently connected with this; and yet cannot be applied to a son of Isaiah, or to any other child that should be then born. If there is any passage in the Old Testament that must be applied to the Messiah, that is one. See Notes on the passage. And if so, it proves, that though the prophet at first had his eye on an event which was soon to occur, and which would be to Ahaz full demonstration that the land would be safe from the impending invasion, yet that his mind was thrown forward to future times; he employed language which would describe also a future glorious event, and which would be a fuller confirmation and demonstration that God would protect the people. He became fully absorbed in that event, and his language at last referred to that alone. The child that should then be born would, in most of the circumstances of his birth, be an apt emblem of him who should be born in future times, since both would be a demonstration of the divine power and protection. To both, the name Immanuel, though not the common name by which either would be designated' might be appropriately given. Both whould be born of a virgin ;-the former, of one who was then a virgin, and the birth of whose child could be known only to God:-the latter, of one who should be appropriately called the virgin, and who should remain so at the time of his birth. One of these events suggested the other; and Isaiah, when he had a vision of the Messiah (ch. ix. 1, 2), seems to have become wholly absorbed in the contemplation, and to have given then (ch. ix. 3-7) a description that was applicable to him alone. This seems to me to be the meaning of this difficult prophecy. The considerations in favor of referring it to the birth of a child in the time of Isaiah, and which should be a pledge to him of the safety of his kingdom then, seem to me to be unanswerable. And the considerations in favor of an ultimate reference to the Messiah-a reference which becomes in the issue total and absorbing-are equally unanswerable; and if so, then the two-fold reference is clear. On the question respecting the double sense of prophecy involved in this interpretation, see Introduction, § 7. 17. The Lord shall bring, &c. He shall cause to come. The prophet having assured Ahaz that his kingdom should be free from the invasion that then threatened it, proceeds, however, to state to him that it would be endangered from another source. Upon thy people. Thy kingdom; the people of the nation. Thy father's house. The royal family-the princes, and nobles. ¶ Days that have not come. Times of calamity that have not been equailed. From the day that Ephraim departed from Judah. From the time of the separation of the ten tribes from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. ¶ Even the king of Assyria. This was done in the following manner: Though the siege which Rezin and Pekah had undertaken was not at this time successful, yet they returned the year after with stronger forces, and with counsels better concerted, and again besieged the city. This was in consequence of the continued and increasing wickedness of Ahaz, 2 Chron. xxviii. 1-5. In this expedition a great multitude were taken captives, and carried to Damascus, 2 Chron. xxviii. 5. Pekah at this time also slew 120,000 of the Jews in one day, 2 Chron. xxviii. 6; and Zichri, a valiant man of Ephraim slew Maaseiah, the son of Ahaz. At this time also Pekah took no less than 200,000 of the kingdom of Judah, proposing to take them to Samaria, but was prevented by the influence of a prophet of the name of Oded, 2 Chron. xviii. 8--15. In this calamity, Ahaz stripped the temple of its treasures and ornaments, and sent them to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, to induce him to come to his aid to defend him from the united arms of Syria and Ephraim. The consequence was, as might have been foreseen, that the king of Assyria took occasion from this to attack, and bring increasing calamities upon the kingdom of Ahaz. He first, indeed, slew Rezin, and took Damascus, 2 Kings xvi. 7. Having subdued the kingdoms of Damascus and Ephraim, Tiglath-Pileser became a more formidable enemy to Ahaz, than both of them. His object was not to aid Ahaz, but to distress him (2 Chron. xxviii. 20); and his coming professedly, and at the request of Ahaz, to his help, was a far more formidable calamity than the threatened invasion of both Rezin and Pekah. God has power to punish a wicked nation in rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria: 18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the New Translation. 18. "And it shall come to pass in that day, "That JEHOVAH shall hiss for the fly "Which is in the utmost part of the rivers of Egypt, his own way. When they seek human aid he can make this a scourge. He has kings and nations under his control; and though a wicked prince may seek an alliance of earthly power, yet it is easy for God to allow such allies to indulge their ambition and the love of rapine, and make them the very instruments of punishing the nation which they were called to defend. It should be observed that this phrase "even the king of Assyria" is by many critics thought to be spurious, or a marginal reading or gloss that has by some means crept into the text. The ground of this opinion is, that it does not harmonize entirely with the following verse where Egypt is mentioned as well as Assyria, and that it does not agree with the poetical form of the passage. 18. In that day. In that futurc time mentioned in v. 17. ¶ The Lord shall hiss. See Note ch. v. 26. For the fly. That is, for the army, or the multitude of people. The comparison of a numerous army with flies is not uncommon. See Homer's Iliad, B. ii. 469, &c. -Thick as insects play, The wandering nation of a summer's day, The gilded legions, glittering in the sun. Pope. The comparison is drawn probably from the number, but also is intended to indicate the troublesome character, of the invaders. Perhaps also there is an allusion here to the well-known fact that one of the ten plagues of Egypt was caused by numerous swarms of flies. Ex. viii. 21-24. An army would be brought up from that country as numerous, as troublesome, and as destructive as was that swarm of flies. The following description of the troublesome nature of flies in Abysinia and the adjacent regions will give an idea of the character of this calamity and the force of the language used here. "This insect is called Zimb; it has not been described by any naturalist. It is, in size, very little larger than a bee, of a thicker proportion, and has wings, which are broader than those of a bee, placed separate, like those of a fly: they are of pure gauze, without color or spot upon them; the head is large, the upper jaw or lip is sharp, and has at the end of it a strong pointed hair, of about a quarter of an inch long; the lower jaw has two of these pointed hairs; and this pencil of hairs, when joined together, makes a resistance to the finger, nearly equal to that of a strong hog's bristle; its legs are serrated in the inside, and the whole covered with brown hair or down. As soon as this plague appears, and their buzzing is heard, all the cattle forsake their food, and run wildly about the plain, till they die, worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No remedy remains, but to leave the black earth, and hasten down to the sands of Atbara; and there they remain, while the rains last, this cruel enemy never daring to pursue them farther. Though his size be immense, as is his strength, and his body covered with a thick skin, defended with strong hair, yet, even the camel is not capable to sustain the violent punctures the fly makes with his pointed proboscis. He must lose no time in removing to the sands of Atbara; for when once attacked by this fly, his body, head, and legs, break out into large bosses, which swell, break, and putrify, to the certain destruction of the creature. Even the elephant and rhinoceros, who, by reason of their enormous bulk, and the vast quantity of food and water they daily need, cannot shift to desert and dry places as the season may require, are obliged to roll themselves in mud and mire, which, when dry, coats them over like armor, and enables them to stand their ground against this winged assassin; yet I have found some of these tubercles upon almost every elephant and rhinoceros that I have seen, and attribute thern to VOL. I. 35 Not a few this cause. All the inhabitants of the sea-coast of Melinda, down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba, and the south coast of the Red Sea, are obliged to put themselves in motion, and remove to the next sand, in the beginning of the rainy season, to prevent all their stock of cattle from being destroyed. This is not a partial emigration; the inhabitants of all the countries, from the mountains of Abyssinia northward, to the confluence of the Nile, and Astaboras, are once a year obliged to change their abode, and seek protection in the sand of Beja; nor is there any alternative, or means of avoiding this, though a hostile band were in their way, capable of spoiling them of half their substance. This fly has no sting, though he seem to me to be rather of the bee kind; but his motion is more rapid and sudden than that of the bee, and resembles that of the gad-fly in England. There is something particular in the sound or buzzing of this insect; it is a jarring noise, together with a humming, which induces me to believe it proceeds, at least in part, from a vibration made with the three hairs at his snout." (Bruce.) The uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt. The remo test part of the land—that is, from the whole country. should come, but an army from every portion of the land. Egypt was watered by a single river-the Nile. the Mediterranean by several mouths. cut numerous canals to water the land. rivers of Egypt. See Notc, ch. xix. 67. nant for no small part of the year; and around them would be produ. ced, as is usual near stagnant waters, great quantities of flies. Hence also the propriety of this figure. This prophecy was fulfilled by the invasion of the land in subsequent times by the Egyptians. 2 Kings xxiii. 33, 34, 2 Chron. xxxv. 20, 24, xxxvi. 1, 2. And for the bee. That is, for the army. An army is compared to bees on account of their number; perhaps also on account of the pungency and severity of the sting. The comparison is common. See Deut. i. 44, vii. 20, Ps cxviii. 12. The Chaldee has rendered this verse, "The Lord shall call to a people girded with the armies of the brave, who are numerous as flies, and shall bring them from the ends of the land of Egypt; and strong armies, strong as bees, and shall bring them from the land of Assyria." No prophecy was ever more completely fulfilled than this by the successive invasions of Pharaoh-Necho, Esar. haddon and Nebuchadnezzar. See Isa. xxxvi., xxxvii, 2 Chron. Xxxvi. 7-21. But this river emptied into And from this river also were These are intended by the Those canals would be stag |