earth and lick up the dust of thy feet This as some think is not to be understood of the same Kings and Queens which were nursing fathers and nursing mothers to Sion But of others as of the Kings of Edom and of Moab whom the Jewes subdued after their return out of the Babylonish captivity for to bow down so low as to the earth and to lick the dust of the feet is not the gesture say they of Kings which are friends and benefactors but of enemies which are subdued and of such as worship rather out of feare and flattery than of love as will appeare Psal 72.9 Isaiah 60.14 Exod. 11.8 The sense therefore is say they q. d. And those Kings and Queens which will not be as nursing fathers and nursing mothers to thee shall bow down to thee with their face to the earth and shall lick the dust of thy feet for thou shalt subdue them and bring them under thee When therefore he saith They shall bow down to thee He doth as it were point at those which would not be nursing fathers and nursing mothers to Sion but would rather envy her and hate her But though these phrases taken in their prime and proper sense signifie as they aforementioned say yet by an Hyperbolicall Synecdoche putting one species of respect for any respect in generall they may signifie such respect as Kings which are friends and benefactors shew even to their inferiours And then the same Kings which are nursing fathers to Sion and the same Queens which are nursing mothers may be said to bow down to her with their faces towards the earth and lick up the dust of her feet because of that civil respect which they they gave unto her They shall bow down with their face towards the earth This sheweth respect and reverence to him to whom we bow but a submissive respect and reverence in the prime and proper sense of the words And lick up the dust of thy feet Many to shew their extream submission and reverence and respect to others have kissed the very footsteps where they have trod and licked up the dust which clove to their feet And thou shalt know that I am the Lord i. e. And thou shalt know by those things which I will doe for thee that I am the onely God for I will doe such things for thee as none but the true God can doe For they shall not be ashamed which wait for mee i. e. For they which wait with patience upon me in expectation and hope of salvation from my hand shall not be disappointed of their hope and expectation They which hope and look for great matters if they faile of their hope and expectation they are ashamed Hence he may be said not to be ashamed which obtaineth what he hopeth for 24. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty q. d. The Babylonians are mighty in power and I and my children are their prey They have taken us by the sword and kept us captive and hath any one so great strength as to deliver us out of their hands This is spoken in the person of Sion who doubts of the Lords sayings concerning the coming of her children to her again of her own happiness after their coming to her because of the great power which the Babylonians had and therefore doth she object thus against the Lord Shall the prey be taken from the mighty That which made Sion doubt of the delivery of her children v. 14. was the distrust which she had of the love of God That which makes her doubt here was the conceit which she had of the great power of the Babylonians which she thought invincible Or the lawful captive delivered Supple From the terrible This is but a repetition of the former words The lawful captive That is called a lawful captive here which is taken in a lawful war and that is called a lawful war which is denounced between people and people according to the Law of Arms before it be begun though otherwise that same War may be very unjust and injurious in respect of the Law of God and of the Moral Law Now a Captive which is taken in such a war as is denounced before it be begun sheweth the power of the Conqueror more then that Captive doth which is taken in a war which was not denounced For in a war which is denounced before it is begun he that begins the war relieth upon the greatness of his own strength and believeth that he can master the Enemy by meer force and therefore is more terrible in power But he that wageth a war and denounceth it not hath more confidence in the unpreparedness of his Enemy and such like advantages then in his own power and therefore is not so much to be feared for his strength as the other is 25. But thus saith the Lord even the captives c. This is the Lords Answer to Sions Objection Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away i. e. Thou and thy children though ye be lawful captives of the mighty Babylonians yet shall ye be taken away out of their hands And the prey of the terrible shall be delivered q. d. And though ye be the pâ—ey of the Babylonians which are a terrible Nation yet shal ye be delivered from them For I will contend with him that contendeth with thee i. e. For I the Lord who am Almighty and can do whatsoever I please will fight against the Babylonians which fight against thee Concerning this phrase see cap. 41.12 and cap. 54.17 26. I will feed them which oppress thee with their own flesh they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine i. e. I will set the Babylonians which oppress thee with hard captivity one against another and they shall fight one with another and slay one another in great number The phrases here used are metaphorical taken from wilde beasts which fight with and kill one the other and when they have killed one the other eat the flesh and suck the blood one of the other Their own flesh Their own blood This is not to be understood of the flesh and blood of their own natural and individual bodies but of the flesh and blood of their Kinsmen and Country-men For these especially Kinsmen are said to be of the same flesh and of the same blood because they came out of the loyns of the same forefathers That which is here spoken might be fulfilled not onely by the Civil Wars of the Babylonians if any such were for we have not Records extant of all things memorable but also when many Babylonians served under Cyrus against other the Babylonians The mighty One of Jacob. i. e. The mighty One whom Jacob serveth and who protecteth Jacob. By Jacob he meaneth the Jews the children of Jacob. The Lord though he calleth himself most usually the holy One of Israel and the holy One of Jacob as cap. 29.23 yet here he calleth himself the
an Antecedent But by They are meant They which did wish evill and were malitiously bent against the Temple and Nation of the Jewes What is here spoken we may read fulfilled in Sanballat and others Ezra 4. and Nehem. 6. But not with me i. e. But not with my commission or order and therefore they shall not prevaile against thee Shall fall i. e. Shall perish For thy sake i. e. Because of the love which I beare to thee 16. Behold I have created the Smith that bloweth the Coales in the fire and that bringeth forth an Instrument foâ— his worke And I have created the water to destroy q. d. I have created both the Smith whtch maketh the Armes and weapons which are used in Battle and the Souldier which useth these Armes and weapons Supple And therefore being that I have created them they are in my hands and under my power And I can make the Smith either to make me Armes and weapons at all or onely such Armes and weapons as shall doe those which use them no service And I can make the Souldier either to be quiet and fit still and not to fight against thee or else to take the foile and fall himself by the Sword This is brought as an argument to confirme and shew that the Lord was able to doe what he said before That bloweth the Coales in the fire To wit to make the fire the hotter and more fervent that he may therein heat his Iron and his Steel of which he maketh his work and so soften them And that bringeth forth an Instrument for his worke i. e. And that bringeth out his hammer and other tools that he useth about his work for to make and finish the work which he hath to doe That bringeth forth an Instrument Supple Out of the place in which he useth to lay them An Instrument i. e. His Instruments or Tooles A Singular is put here collectâ—ve for a Plurall number For his worke i. e. For to worke his worke v. g. A Sword or a Spheare or the like The Waster By the Waster understand the Souldier whose imployment is Warre which is the mother of desolation The Waster to deâ—troy q. d. The Souldier which is made to destroy 17. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper q. d. Therefore the Smith which I have made and which is under my power shall not make any weapon which shall be able to prosper or doe any service against thee or hurt thee And every tongue that shall rise against thee in Judgement thou shalt condemne q. d. And every Waster or Souldier which shall rise against thee to destroy thee shall fall and be destroyed himselfe This is the sense of these words And thus should the Prophet have spoken if he had continued that kinde of speech with which he begun to the end But he changeth his speech to an Allegory before he hath done yet the sense is the same for the sense is that every enemy that shall rise up against her shall fall before her He begun this speech with the Souldier but before he hath finished it he changed it unto a Metaphor of an Accuser or Adversary accusing or pleading against a man in a Court of Justice See the like change Chap. 3. v. 6 7. c. Every tongue that shall rise against thee i. e. Every one that shall rise up and accuse thee or plead against thee He puts the Tongue here which is but a part for the whole man by a Synecdoche and the Tongue rather than any other part because with that he accuseth and pleadeth That shall rise He seemeth to allude to the manner of those which use to pleade who if they sit before rise up and stand when they begin to plead In Iudgement Iudgement may be taken here for the Court of Iudgement or Justice as Cap. 3.14 Thou shalt condemne q. d. Thou shalt not onely quit thy selfe of him but shalt convince him of falshood and cause him to be punished for his false accusation To condemne is taken here for to convince and shew him worthy of condemnation by arguing For to condemne by Sentence is the office onely of the Judge This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord q. d. That which I have said is the priviledge and the blessing of those which serve the Lord uprightly This is the heritage He seemeth in this word to allude to the division of the Land of Canaan by Lot where every Tribe had his peculiar Inheritance allotted to it Iosh 11.23 And their Righteousnesse is of me q. d. For the reward of their righteousnesse and of their upright service is of me I am he that rewards them for it and I will reward them after this manner And is put here for For And Righteousnesse is put by a Metonymie for the reward of righteousnâ—sse Saith the Lord Supple which is able to do what he saith ISAIAH CHAP. LV. HO every one that thirsteth ome c i. e. Ho every one which desireth true knâ—wledge come c. This is spoken in the person of God This Particle Ho is a note of calling to and is used when we call to any one to hearken to what we say Thirst is a desire of that which is moist and cold and is often put for desire in generall This speech is directed to the Gentiles and particularly to those Gentiles among whom the Jewes lived in the time of their captivity And those Gentiles are hereby invited to come to the knowledge of the true God even the God of Israel and to joyne themselves with his people the Jewes in his service and so to become Proselytes Note here that in the time of the Law many Gentiles did forsake their Idols and their Idolatry and joyne themselves to the Lord God of Israel and became his servants which kinde of Gentiles so forsaking their Idolatry and joyning themselves to the Lord and serving him the Jewes called Proselytes Of which they made two kinds one kind was of them that worshipped the true God the God of Israel but were not circumcised nor did they conforme themselves to the Mosaicall rites and ceremonies but were onely tied to the observation of those precepts which the Hebrew Doctors therefore call the Precepts of the sonnes of Noah because all the Sonnes of Noah were bound to observe them Which Precepts were in number Seâ—ven 1. To renounce Idols and all Idolatrous worship 2. To worship the true God the maker of heaven and earth 3. To abstaine from bloud-shedding 4. Not to uncover ones nakednesse that is to abstaine from all unlawfull conjunction 5. To abstaine from robbery 6. To administer justice 7. To abstaine from eating the flesh with the bloud which they call the eating of any member of a beast taken from it alive These kinde of Proselytes they called The Proselytes of the Gate because they were suffered to dwell among the Jewes within their Gates or Cities though they did not conforme
into the ground The Lord speaks here of himself in the third person by an Enallage and useth the Preterperfect tense for a Future 10. O my threshing and the corne of my floor The Prophet speaks here in his own person and useth this Apostrophe to the Jewes whom he calls threshing and corn in the floor because of their divers afflictions with which they had been and were and should be afflicted by the Assyrians The word threshing is to be taken here passively for the thing threshed and by the threshing the corn in the floor he meaneth one and the same thing viz. the corn of the floore vvhich is laid on the floor to be threshed It is usual in the Scripture to call Affliction metaphorically by the name of threshing and those which are afflicted threshed See Cap. 41.15 Jer. 51.33 Mich. 4.13 And so doth the Prophet call them here But why doth he call them his threshing and the corn of his floor Answer Because they were his brethren and kinsmen of the same blood and nation and living in the same Land with him so that by saying thus it is as if he should say O my afflicted brethren or O the persecuted and oppressed men of my countrey That which I have heard of the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Supple Concerning Babylon and those which live in the Wilderness neer unto the Red Sea which are your deadly enemies and which have threshed you as the corn is threshed on the floor c. Have I declared unto you Supple For this end that you may receive comfort thereby when you hear that they which afflict you are your deadly enemies shall be themselves afflicted and destroyed 11. The burthen of Dumah i. e. The burthen of the Ismaelites which descended from Ismael by Dumah Dumah was the Son of Ismael Gen. 25.14 and is put here by a Metonymy for the Sons of Dumah which were Ismaelites He called to me out of Seir i. e. A certain Edomite of Mount Seir called to me who am an Ismaelite out of Mount Seir as I passed along thereby saying c. They which dwelt in Mount Seir were Edomites the Sons of Esau who was called Edom Gen. 36. verse 7 8 9. Mount Seir was either directly in the way from Babylon to the Land of the Ismaelites or else this Ismaelite took his way by Mount Seir homeward because he thought it the safest way That which the Prophet here tells of was shewed to him by the Lord in a vision and what he saw or was represented to him in that vision was an Ismaelite descended from Ismael by Dumah speaking as he here speaks in these two verses That therefore which is here spoken is spoken in the person of a Son of Dumah an Ismaelite who being in Babylon as a Souldier when Babylon was taken and destroyed by the Medes made an escape and hasted as for life homeward travelling night and day he took his way from Babylon to his own Countrey by Mount Seir where a certain Edomite of Mount Seir seeing him travelling thus in the night and guessing him to be a Souldier by his habit and somewhat marvelling why he travelled so late in the night and imagining that it was upon more then an ordinary occasion that he thus travelled asked him the cause of his so late travelling the Ismaelite tells him that he was a Souldier in Babylon and that Babylon was taken and destroyed by the Medes and that the Medes had sent out armies to subdue not onely Babylon but all that had any confederacy with Babylon from the River Euphrates even to the River Nilus and that he escaped and ran for his life to his own Countrey The Edomite some that were with him hearing him tell that the Medes had taken and destroyed Babylon and had sent out Armies to subdue all the confederates of Babylon from Euphrates even to Nilus would not altogether beleeve him but made as if they would go towards Babylon to enquire the truth of the Ismaelites words whereupon the Ismaelite saith unto them if ye will enquire enquire But the Edomites were not gone far but they fall into a doubt whether they should go or no which the Ismaelite perceiving calls to them to return saying Return come intimating thereby that it was true which he had told them and that all was lost they were undone To me i. e. To me who am an Ismaelite and a son of Dumah as I passed by Mount Seir homewards from Babylon where I was a Souldier and from whence I escaped when Babylon was taken and destroyed by the Medes Watchman i. e. Souldier Souldiers may be called Watchmen in an honourable way because they lie abroad in the fields and observe the motions of the enemy and watch over the City or Land which they fight for that they may preserve it What of the night i. e. Why or what is the reason that thou travellest thus in the night This phrase is curt and short and thus to be understood Note that the Particle Of is not here a note or signe of the Genitive Case but a Praeposition and answereth to the Hebrew Praefix Mem and to the Latin Praeposition De and as the Hebrew Praefix Mem doth sometimes signifie In as Job 19. vers 26. And the Latin Praeposition De doth sometimes signifie the like as when Plautus saith de die in the day and Iuvenalde nocte in the night so doth Of in this place and of the night is as much as in the night What of the night The Edomite doubteth his question here out of the great desire he had to know why this Souldier travelled so late for he guessed it to be an extraordinary occasion which made him travel so in the night and perhaps he asketh as one that had heard of the Medes expedition against Babylon and desired to know what the event thereof was and thought that this Souldier could resolve him therefore seeing the Souldier travelling so fast on his way he asketh him the question twice out of earnestness as we use to double our question in the like case 12. The Watchman said i. e. I said The Souldier speaks of himself in the third person The morning cometh and also the night q. d. The morning cometh to some and the night to others that is Some rise and some fall and in particular the Medes they rise having got a great victorie over Babylon and Babylon is fallen and we and all that were confederates with her are undone and shall fall with her The morning signifieth prosperity rising and encreasing Prosperity as I may call it in its spring the night adversity adversity after a time or state of prosperity But secondly the morning may not onely signifie prosperity but it may signifie Gods judgements also and so it signifieth Ezech. 7.7 in these words The morning is come unto Thee O Thou that dwellest in the Land Where the morning is put for judgements in allusion to that that