Isaiah 4:1

them, and use the most pressing importunity to be married. In spite of the natural suggestions of jealousy, they will be content with a share only of the rights of marriage in common with several others; and that on hard conditions, renouncing the legal demands of the wife on the husband, (see Exo 21:10 ), and begging only the name and credit of wedlock, and to be freed from the reproach of celibacy. See Isa 54:4 , Isa 54:5 . Like Marcia, on a different occasion, and in other circumstances: - Da tantum nomen inane Connubii: liceat tumulo scripsisse, Catonis Marcia. Lucan, 2:342. "This happened," says Kimchi, "in the days of Ahaz, when Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judea one hundred and twenty thousand men in one day; see 2Chr 18:6 . The widows which were left were so numerous that the prophet said, 'They are multiplied beyond the sand of the sea,'" Jer 15:8 . In that day - These words are omitted in the Septuagint, and MSS. Verse 2 The branch of the Lord "the branch of Jehovah" - The Messiah of Jehovah, says the Chaldee. And Kimchi says, The Messiah, the Son of David. The branch is an appropriate title of the Messiah; and the fruit of the land means the great Person to spring from the house of Judah, and is only a parallel expression signifying the same; or perhaps the blessings consequent upon the redemption procured by him. Compare Isa 45:8 (note), where the same great event is set forth under similar images, and see the note there. Them that are escaped of Israel "the escaped of the house of Israel" - A MS. has בית ישראל beith yisrael, the house of Israel. Verse 3 Written among the living - That is, whose name stands in the enrolment or register of the people; or every man living, who is a citizen of Jerusalem. See Eze 13:9 , where, "they shall not be written in the writing of the house of Israel," is the same with what immediately goes before, "they shall not be in the assembly of my people." Compare Psa 69:28 ; Psa 87:6 ; Exo 32:32 . To number and register the people was agreeable to the law of Moses, and probably was always practiced; being, in sound policy, useful, and even necessary. David's design of numbering the people was of another kind; it was to enroll them for his army. Michaelis Mosaisches Recht, Part iii., p. 227. See also his Dissert. de Censibus Hebraeorum. Verse 4 The spirit of burning - Means the fire of God's wrath, by which he will prove and purify his people; gathering them into his furnace, in order to separate the dross from the silver, the bad from the good. The severity of God's judgments, the fiery trial of his servants, Ezekiel ( Eze 22:18-22 ) has set forth at large, after his manner, with great boldness of imagery and force of expression. God threatens to gather them into the midst of Jerusalem, as into the furnace; to blow the fire upon them, and to melt them. Malachi, Mal 3:2 , Mal 3:3 , treats the same subject, and represents the same event, under the like images: - "But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like the fire of the refiner, And like the soap of the fullers. And he shall sit refining and purifying the silver; And he shall purify the sons of Levi; And cleanse them like gold, and like silver; That they may be Jehovah's ministers, Presenting unto him an offering in righteousness." This is an allusion to a chemist purifying metals. He first judges of the state of the ore or adulterated metal. Secondly, he kindles the proper degree of fire, and applies the requisite test; and thus separates the precious from the vile. Verse 5 And the Lord will create - One MS., the Septuagint, and the Arabic, have יביא yabi, He shall bring: the cloud already exists; the Lord will bring it over. This is a blessed promise of the presence of God in all the assemblies of his people. Every dwelling place "the station" - The Hebrew text has, every station: but four MSS. (one ancient) omit כל col, all; very rightly, as it should seem: for the station was Mount Zion itself, and no other. See Exo 15:17 . And the Septuagint, Arabic, and MSS., add the same word כל col, before מקראה mikraeha, probably right: the word has only changed its place by mistake. מקראיה mikrayeh, "the place where they were gathered together in their holy assemblies," says Sal ben Melech. But twenty-five of Kennicott's MSS., and twenty-two of De Rossi's fifty-three editions, besides the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic, have the word in the plural number. A cloud and smoke by day - This is a manifest allusion to the pillar of a cloud and of fire which attended the Israelites in their passage out of Egypt, and to the glory that rested on the tabernacle, Exo 13:21 ; Exo 40:38 . The prophet Zechariah, Zac 2:5 , applies the same image to the same purpose: - "And I will be unto her a wall of fire round about; And a glory will I be in the midst of her." That is, the visible presence of God shall protect her. Which explains the conclusion of this verse of Isaiah; where the makkaph between כל col, and כבוד cabod, connecting the two words in construction, which ought not to be connected, has thrown an obscurity upon the sentence, and misled most of the translators. For upon all the glory shall be a defense - Whatever God creates, he must uphold, or it will fail, Every degree of grace brings with it a degree of power to maintain itself in the soul. Verse 6 A tabernacle - In countries subject to violent tempests, as well as to intolerable heat, a portable tent is a necessary part of a traveller's baggage, for defense and shelter. And to such tents the words of the text make evident allusion. They are to be met with in every part of Arabia and Egypt, and in various other places in the East. Introduction This chapter begins with representing, in a beautiful parable, the tender care of God for his people, and their unworthy returns for his goodness, Isa 5:1-7 . The parable or allegory is then dropped; and the prophet, in plain terms, reproves and threatens them for their wickedness; particularly for their covetousness, Isa 5:8-10 ; intemperance, Isa 5:11 ; and inattention to the warnings of Providence, Isa 5:12 . Then follows an enumeration of judgments as the necessary consequence. Captivity and famine appear with all their horrors, Isa 5:13 . Hades, or the grave, like a ravenous monster, opens wide its jaws, and swallows down its myriads, Isa 5:14 . Distress lays hold on all ranks, Isa 5:15 ; and God is glorified in the execution of his judgments, Isa 5:16 ; till the whole place is left desolate, a place for the flocks to

In that day - In that calamitous time. Seven - Many. A certain number for an uncertain. One man - Because few men shall survive that dreadful stroke. Only - Own us for thy wives. Our reproach - Virginity was esteemed a reproach; children, the usual fruit of marriage, being both an honour to their parents, and a blessing of God, especially to that people, from some of whose loins the Messiah was to spring.

1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. It was threatened ( ch. iii. 25 ) that the mighty men should fall by the sword in war, and it was threatened as a punishment to the women that affected gaiety and a loose sort of conversation. Now here we have the effect and consequence of that great slaughter of men, 1. That though Providence has so wisely ordered that, communibus annis—on an average of years, there is nearly an equal number of males and females born into the world, yet, through the devastations made by war, there should scarcely be one man in seven left alive. As there are deaths attending the bringing forth of children, which are peculiar to the woman, who was first in transgression, so, to balance that, there are deaths peculiar to men, those by the sword in the high places of the field, which perhaps devour more than child-bed does. Here it is foretold that such multitudes of men should be cut off that there should be seven women to one man. 2. That by reason of the scarcity of men, though marriage should be kept up for the raising of recruits and the preserving of the race of mankind upon earth, yet the usual method of it should be quite altered,—that, whereas men ordinarily make their court to the women, the women should now take hold of the men, foolishly fearing (as Lot's daughters did, when they saw the ruin of Sodom and perhaps thought it reached further than it did) that in a little time there would be none left ( Gen. xix. 31 ),—that whereas women naturally hate to come in sharers with others, seven should now, by consent, become the wives of one man,—and that whereas by the law the husband was obliged to provide food and raiment for his wife ( Exod. xxi. 10 ), which with many would be the most powerful argument against multiplying wives, these women will be bound to support themselves; they will eat bread of their own earning, and wear apparel of their own working, and the man they court shall be at no expense upon them, only they desire to be called his wives, to take away the reproach of a single life. They are willing to be wives upon any terms, though ever so unreasonable; and perhaps the rather because in these troublesome times it would be a kindness to them to have a husband for their protector. Paul, on the contrary, thinks the single state preferable in a time of distress, 1 Cor. vii. 26 . It were well if this were not introduced here partly as a reflection upon the daughters of Zion, that, notwithstanding the humbling providences they were under ( ch. iii. 18 ), they remained unhumbled, and, instead of repenting of their pride and vanity, when God was contending with them for them, all their care was to get husbands—that modesty, which is the greatest beauty of the fair sex, was forgotten, and with them the reproach of vice was nothing to the reproach of virginity, a sad symptom of the irrecoverable desolations of virtue. The Future Glory of Zion. ( b. c. 758.) 2 I