5 Why should ye be stricken | and more. The whole head is any more? ye will revolt more sick, and the whole heart faint. 1 Je. 2. 30. 3 increase revolt. verily estranged from me." It means especially that declining from God, or that alienation, which takes place when men commit sin. Ps. lxxviii. 30. 5. Why, &c. The prophet now, by an abrupt change in the discourse, calls their attention to the effects of their sins. Instead of saying that they had been smitten, or of saying that they had been punished for their sins, he assumes both, and asks why it should be repeated. The Vulgate reads this: "Super quo-on what part-shall I smite you any more?" This expresses well the sense of the Hebrew-by -upon what; and the meaning is, 'what part of the body can be found on which blows have not been inflicted? On every part there are traces of the stripes which have been inflicted for your sins.' The idea is taken from a body that is all covered over with weals or marks of blows, and the idea is, that the whole frame is one continued bruise, and there remains no sound part to be stricken. The particular chastisement to which the prophet refers, is specified in vs. 7-9. In vs. 5, 6, he refers to the calamities of the nation, under the image of a person wounded and chastised for crimes. Such a figure of speech is not uncommon in the classic writers. Thus Cicero (de fin. iv. 14) says, 'quae hic reipublicae vulnera imponebat hic sanabat.' See also, Tusc. Quaes. iii. 22. Ad Quintum fratrem, ii. 25. Sallust. Cat. 10. Should ye be stricken. Smitten, or punished. The manner in which they had been punished, he specifies in vs. 7, 8. Jerome says, that the sense is, "there is no medicine which I can administer to your wounds. All your members are full of wounds; and there is no part of you, body which has not been smitten before. The more you are afflicted, the more will your impiety and iniquity ibereace." The word here, thukku, from , means to smite, to beat, to strike down, to slay, or kill. It is applied to the infliction of punishment on an individual; or to the judgments of God by the plague, pestilence, or sickness. Gen. xix. 2: "And they smote the men that were at the door with blindness." Num. xiv. 12: "And I will smite them with the pestilence." Ex. vii. 25: "After that the Lord had smitten the river," i. e. had changed it into blood. Comp. verse 20. Zech. x. 2. Here it refers to the judgments inflicted on the nation as the punishment of their crimes. ¶ Ye will revolt. Heb. You will add defection, or revolt. The effect of calamity, and punishment, will be only to increase rebellion. Where the heart is right with God, the tendency of affliction is to humble it, and lead it more and more to God. Where it is evil, the tendency is to make the sinner more obstinate and rebellious. This effect of punishment is seen every where. Sinners revolt more and more. They become sullen, and malignant, and fretful; they plunge into vice to seek temporary relief, and thus they become more and more alienated from God. T The whole head. The prophet proceeds to specify more definitely what he had just said respecting their being stricken. designates each of the members of the body-thus comparing the Jewish people to the human body when under severe punishment. The word head in the Scriptures is often used to denote the princes, leaders, or chiefs of the nation. But the expression here is used as a figure taken from the human body, and refers solely to the punishment of the people, not to their sins. It means that all had been smitten-all was filled with the effects of punishment as the human body is when the head and all the members are diseased. ten-so punished, sick and painful. sickness, or pain. He Is sick. Is so smitthat it has become for-לָחָלִי .Heb The preposition > 6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: denotes a state, or condition of any thing. Ps. lxix. 21. "And in [] my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink." The expression is intensive, and denotes that the head was entirely sick. The whole heart faint. The heart is here put for the whole region of the chest, or stomach. As when the head is violently pained, there is also sickness at the heart, or in the stomach, and as these are indications of entire or total prostration of the frame, so the expression here denotes the perfect desolation which had come over the nation. Faint. Sick, feeble, without vigour; attended with nausea. Jer. viii. 18: "When I would comfort myself in my sorrow, my heart is faint within me." Lam. i. 22. When the body is suffering; when severe punishment is inflicted, the effect is to produce languor and faintness at the seat of life. This is the idea here. Their punishment had been so severe for their sins, that the heart was languid and feeble-still keeping up the figure drawn from the human body. 6. From the sole of the foot, &c. Or as we say, from head to foot,' that is, in every part of the body. There may be included also the idea that this extended from the lowest to the highest among the people. The Chaldee paraphrase is, "from the lowest of the people even to the princesall are contumacious and rebellious." No soundness. methom, from Dên thâmăm, to be perfect, sound, uninjured. There is no part unaffected; no part that is sound. It is all smitten and sore. ¶ But wounds. The precise shade of difference between this and the two following words may not be apparent. Together, they mean such wounds and contusions as are inflicted upon man by scourging, or beating him. This mode of punishment was common among the Jews; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.5 5 or, oil. as it is at the East at this time. Abarbanel and Kimchi say that the word here rendered wounds (, a verbal from to wound, to mutilate), means an open wound, or a cut from which blood flows. ¶ Bruises. an hhabburâ. This word means a contusion, or the effect of a blow where the skin is not broken; such a contusion as to produce a swelling, and livid appearance; or to make it, as we say, black and blue. ¶ Putrifying sores. The Hebrew rather means recent, or fresh wounds; or rather, perhaps, a running wound, which continues fresh and open; which cannot be cicatrized, or dried up. The LXX. render it elegantly πληγή φλεγμαίνουσα, a swelling, or tumefying wound. The expression is applied usually to inflammations, as of boils, or to the swelling of the tonsils, &c. They have not been closed. That is, the lips had not been pressed together, to remove the blood from the wound. The meaning is, that nothing had been done towards healing the wound. It was an unhealed, undressed, all-pervading sore. The art of medicine, in the East, con sists chiefly in external applications; accordingly the prophet's images ia this place are all taken from surgery. Sir John Chardin in his note on Prov. iii. 8, It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones,' observes, that the comparison is taken from the plasters, ointments, oils, and frictions, which are made use of in the East, in most maladies. 66 In Judea," says Tavernier, "they have a certain preparation of oil, and melted grease, which they commonly use for the healing of wounds." Lowth. Comp. Note on ch. xxxviii. 21. Neither mollified with ointment. Neither made soft, or tender, with ointment. Great use was made, in Eastern nations, of oil, and various kinds of unguents, in 7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it o Deut. 28. 51. medicine. Hence the good Samaritan is represented as pouring in oil and wine into the wounds of the man that fell among thieves (Luke x. 34); and the apostles were directed to anoint with oil those who were sick. James v. 14. Comp. Rev. iii. 18. Ointment. Heb. oil. The oil of olives was used commonly for this purpose. The whole figure in these two verses relates to their being punished for their sins. It is taken from the appearance of a man who is severely beaten, or scourged for crime; whose wounds had not been dressed; and who was thus a continued bruise, or sore, from his head to his feet. The cause of this the prophet states afterwards, vs. 10, seq. With great skill he first reminds them of what they saw and knew, that they were severely punished; and then states to them the cause of it. Of the calamities to which the prophet refers, they could have no doubt. They were every where visible in all their cities and towns. On these far-spreading desolations, he fixes the eye distinctly first. Had he begun with the statement of their depravity, they would probably have revolted at it. But being presented with a statement of their sufferings, which they all saw and felt, they were prepared for the statement of the cause.-To find access to the consciences of sinners, and to convince them of their guilt, it is often necessary to remind them first of the calamities in which they are actually involved; and then to search for the cause. This passage, therefore, has no reference to their moral character. It relates solely to their punish ment. It is often indeed adduced to prove the doctrine of depravity; but it has no direct reference to it, and it should not be adduced to prove that men are depraved, or applied as referring to the moral condition of man. The account of their moral character, And I will scatter you among the heathen, And your cities waste. Comp. vs. 31, 32. Deut. xxviii. 49.52. It is not certain, or agreed among expositors, to what time the prophet refers in this passage. Some have supposed that he refers to the time of Ahaz, and to the calamities which came upon the nation during his reign. 2 Chron. xxviii. 5-8. But the probability is, that this refers to the time of Uzziah. See the Analysis of the chapter. The reign of Uzziah was indeed prosperous. 2 Chron. xxvi. But it is to be remembered that the land had been ravaged just before under the reigns of Joash and Amaziah, by the kings of Syria and Israel, 2 Kings xiv. 8-14, 2 Chron. xxiv. xxv.; and it is by no means probable that it had recovered in the time of Uzziah. It was lying under the effect of the former desolation, and not improbably the enemies of the Jews were even then hovering around it, and possibly still in the very midst of it. The kingdom was going to decay, and the reign of Uzziah gave it only a temporary prosperity. Is desolate. Heb. Is desolation. shemâmâ. This is a Hebrew mode of emphatic expression, denoting that the desolation was su 8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vine. universal that the land might be said Let the extortioner catch all that he hath, Ezek. xi. 9, xxviii. 10, xxx. 12. Hos. q Lam. 2. 6. the southern part of the city. As Zion became the residence of the court, and was the most important part of the city, the name was often used to denote the city itself, and is often applied to the whole of Jerusalem. The phrase "daughter of Zion" here means Zion itself, or Jerusalem. The name daughter is given to it by a personification in accordance with a common custom in Eastern writers, by which beautiful towns and cities are likened to young females. The name mother is also applied in the same way. Perhaps the custom arose from the fact that when a city was built, towns and villages would spring up round it— and the first would be called the mother-city (hence the word metropolis). The expression was also employed as an image of beauty, from a fancied resemblance between a beautiful town and a beautiful and well-dressed woman. Thus Ps. xlv. 13, the phrase daughter of Tyre, means Tyre itself. Ps. cxxxvii. 8, daughter of Babylon, i. e. Babylon. Isa. xxxvii. 22, « The virgin, the daughter of Zion." Jer. xlvi. 2. Isa. xxiii. 12. Jer. xiv. 17. Num. xxi. 23, 32. (Heb.) Jud. xi. 26. Is left.. The word here used denotes left as a part or remnant is left-not left entire, or complete, but in a weakened or divided state. ¶ As a cottage. Literally, a shade, or shelter -from hâphākh, to turn, to overturn, to destroy as a city. Gen. xix. 21-25. Deut. xxix. 22 It refers to the changes which an invading foe produces in a nation, where every thing is subverted; where cities are destroyed, walls are thrown down, and fields and vineyards laid waste. The land was as if an invading army had passed through it, and completely overturned every thing. Lowth proposes to read this, "as if destroyed by an inunda- kesükkâ, a temporary habition" but without authority. The desolation caused by the ravages of foreigners, at a time when the nations were barbarous, was the highest possible image of distress, and the prophet dwells on it, though with some appearance of repetition. 8. And the daughter of Zion. Zion, or Sion, was the name of one of the hills on which the city of Jerusalem was built. On this hill formerly stood the city of the Jebusites, and when David took it from them he transferred to it his court, and it was called the city of David, or the holy hill. It was in tation erected in vineyards to give shelter to the grape-gatherers, and to those who were appointed to watch the vineyard to guard it from depredation. Comp. Note Matt. xxi. 33. The following passage from Mr. Jowett's "Christian Researches," describing what he himself saw, will throw light on this verse. "Extensive fields of ripe melons and cucumbers adorned the sides of the river (the Nile). They grew in such abundance that the sailors freely helped themselves. Some guard, however, is placed upon them. Occasionally, but at long and desolate yard, as a lodge in a garden of | cucumbers, as a besieged city. ticularly mentioned among the luxu ries which the Israelites enjoyed in Egypt, and for which they sighed when they were in the wilderness. Num. xi. 5: "We remember-the cucumbers and the melons," &c. The cucumber which is produced in Egypt and Palestine is large-usually a foot in length, soft, tender, sweet, and easy of digestion (Gesenius), and being of a cooling nature, was peculiarly delicious in their hot climate. The meaning here is, that Jerusalem seemed to be left as a temporary, lonely habitation, soon to be forsaken and destroyed. T As a besieged city. Such a cottage would be designed only | and perfection. These things are par for a temporary habitation. So Jerusalem seemed to be left amidst the surrounding desolation as a temporary abode, soon to be destroyed. As a lodge. The word lodge here properly denotes a place for passing the night, but it means also a temporary abode. It was erected to afford a shelter to hose who guarded the enclosure from ieves, or from jackals, and small foxes. "The jackal," says Hasselquist, "is a species of mustela, which is very common in Palestine, especially during the vintage, and often destroys whole vineyards, and gardens of cucumbers." A garden of cucumbers. The word cucumbers here probably includes every thing of the melon kind, as well as the cucumber. They are in great request in that region on account of their cooling qualities, and are produced in great abundance 7. Lowth. "As a city taken by siege." Noyes. "So is the delivered city.' This translation was first proposed by Arnoldi of Marburg. It avoids the incongruity of comparing a city with a city, and requires no alteration of |