sion, Matt. xvi. 19. and in Rev. iii. 7. has applied to himself the very words of the prophet. 23.—a nail-] In ancient times, and in the eastern countries, as the way of life, so the houses were much more simple than ours at present, They had not that quantity and variety of furniture, nor those accommodatious of all sorts, with which we abound. It was convenient and even necessary for them, and it made an essential part in the building of a house, to furnish the inside of the several apartments with sets of spikes, nails, or large pegs, upon which to dispose of, and hang up, the several moveables and utensils in common use and proper to the apartment. These spikes they worked into the walls at the first erection of them; the walls being of such materials, that they could not bear their being driven in afterward; and they were contrived so as to strengthen the walls by binding the parts together, as well as to serve for convenience. Sir John Chardin's account of this matter is this: "They do not drive with a hammer the nails that are put into the eastern walls: the walls are too hard, being of brick; or if they are of clay, too mouldering: but they fix them in the brick-work as they are building. They are large nails, with square heads like dice, well made; the ends being bent so as to make them cramp-irons. They commonly place them at the windows and doors, in order to hang upon them, when they like, veils and curtains." Harmer, Observat. i. p. 191. And we may add, that they were put in other places too, in order to hang up other things of various kinds; as it appears from this place of Isaiah, and from Ezekiel xv. 3. who speaks of a pin, or nail, "to hang any vessel thereon." The word used here for a nail of this sort is the same by which they express that instrument, the stake, or large pin of iron, with which they fastened down to the ground the cords of their tents. We see, therefore, that these nails were of necessary and common use, and of no small importance, in all their apartments; conspicuous, and much exposed to observation: and if they seem to us mean and insignificant, it is because we are not acquainted with the thing itself, and have no name to express it by, but what conveys to us a low and contemptible idea. "Grace hath been shewed from the Lord our God," saith Ezra ix. 8. "to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place:" that is, as the margin of our Bible explains it," a constant and ure abode." "He that doth lodge near her [Wisdom's] house, Shall also fasten a pin in her walls." Eccl'us xiv. 24. The dignity and propriety of the metaphor appears from the prophet Zechariah's use of it: "From him shall be the corner-stone; from him the nail, From him the battle-bow, From him every ruler together." Zech. x. 4. And Mohammed, using the same word, calls Pharoah the lord or master of the nails, that is, well attended by nobles and officers capable of administering his affairs; Koran, Sur. xxxviii. 11. and lxxxix. 9. So some understand this passage of the Koran: Mr. Sale seems to prefer another interpretation. Taylor, in his Concordance, thinks means the pillar or post that stands in the middle, and supports the tent, in which such pegs are fixed to hang their arms, &c. upon; referring to Shaw's Travels, p. 287. But is never used, as far as appears to me, in that sense. It was indeed necessary, that the pillar of the tent should have such pegs on it for that purpose: but the hanging of such things in this manner upon this pillar does not prove, that was the pillar itself. 23.- -a glorious seat-] That is, his father's house, and all his own family, shall be gloriously seated, shall flourish in honour and prosperity; and shall depend upon him, and be supported by him. 24. —all the glory-] One considerable part of the magnificence of the eastern princes consisted in the great quantity of gold and silver vessels, which they had for various uses. "Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold: none were of silver; it was nothing accounted of in Solomon's days." 1 Kings x. 21. "The vessels in the house of the forest of Lebanon" (the armoury of Jerusalem so called)" were two hundred targets, and three hundred shields, of beaten gold." Ibid. ver. 16, 17. These were ranged in order upon the walls of the armoury, (see Cant. iv. 4.) upon pins worked into the walls on purpose, as above-mentioned. Eliakim is considered as a principal stake of this sort, immoveably fastened in the wall, for the support of all vessels destined for common or sacred uses: that is, as the principal support of the whole civil and ecclesiastical polity. And the consequence of his continued power will be the promotion and flourishing condition of his family and dependants, from the highest to the lowest. Ibid. —meaner vessels] seems to mean earthen vessels of common use, brittle, and of little value; (see Lam. iv. 2. Jer. xlviii. 12.) in opposition to N, goblets of gold and silver used in the sacrifices. Exod. xxiv. 6. 25. The nail fastened—] This must be understood of Shebna, as a repetition and confirmation of the sentence above denounced against him. CHAP. XXIII. 1. Howl, O ye ships of Tarshish-] This prophecy denounceth the destruction of Tyre and Nebuchadnezzar. It opens with an address to the Tyrian negociators and sailors at Tarshish (Tartessus in Spain), a place which, in the course of their trade, they greatly frequented. The news of the destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar is said to be brought to them from Chittim, the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean: “for the Tyrians," says Jerom on ver. 6. " when they saw they had no other means of escaping, fled in their ships, and took refuge in Carthage, and in the islands of the Ionian and Egean Sea." From whence the news would spread and reach Tarshish: so also Jarchi on the place. This seems to be the most probable interpretation of this verse. 2. Be silent] Silence is a mark of grief and consternation. See chap. xlvii. 5. Jeremiah has finely expressed this image: "The elders of the daughter of Sion sit on the ground, they are silent: They have cast up dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground." Lam. ii. 10. 3. And the seed of the Nile-] The Nile is called here Shichor, as it is Jer. ii. 18. and 1 Chron. xiii, 5. It had this name from the blackness of its waters charged with the mud, which it brings down from Ethiopia, when it overflows, "Et viridem Ægyptum nigra fœcundat arena :" as it was called by the Greeks Melas, and by the Latins Melo, for the same reason. See Servius on the above line of Virgil, Georg. iv. 291. It was called Siris by the Ethiopians; by some supposed to be the same with Shichor. Egypt, by its extraordinary fertility, caused by the overflowing of the Nile, supplied the neighbouring nations with corn; by which branch of trade the Tyrians gained great wealth. 4. Be ashamed, O Sidon-] Tyre is called, ver. 12. the daughter of Sidon. "The Sidonians," says Justin, xviii. 3. "when their city was taken by the king of Ascalon, betook themselves to their ships, and landed, and built Tyre." Sidon, as the mother city, is supposed to be deeply affected with the calamity of her daughter. Ibid. —nor educated—] ', so an ancient MS., prefixing the 1, which refers to the negative preceding, and is equivalent to . See Deut. xxxiii. 6. Prov. xxx. 3. 7.—whose antiquity is of the earliest date.] Justin, in the passage above quoted, had dated the building of Tyre at a certain number of years before the taking of Troy; but the number is lost in the present copies. Tyre, though not so old as Sidon, yet was of very high antiquity: it was a strong city even in the time of Joshua: it is called, “the city of the fortress of Sor," Josh. xix. 29. Interpreters raise difficulties in regard to this passage, and will not allow it to have been so ancient: with what good reason, I do not see; for it is called by the same name, "the fortress of Sor," in the history of David, 2 Sam. xxiv. 7. and the circumstances of the history determine the place to be the very same. 10. O daughter of Tarshish-] Tyre is called the daughter of Tarshish; perhaps because, Tyre being ruined, Tarshish was become the superior city, and might be considered as the metropolis of the Tyrian people: or rather because of the close connexion and perpetual intercourse between them, according to that latitude of signification in which the Hebrews use the words son and daughter, to express any sort of conjunction and dependence whatever. , a girdle, which collects, binds, and keeps together the loose raiment, when applied to a river, may mean a mound, mole, or artificial dam, which contains the waters, and prevents them from spreading abroad. A city, taken by siege, and destroyed, whose walls are demolished, whose policy is dissolved, whose wealth is dissipated, whose people is scattered over the wide country, is compared to a river, whose banks are broken down, and its waters, let loose and overflowing all the neighbouring plains, are wasted and lost. This may possibly be the meaning of this very obscure verse; of which I can find no other interpretation that is at all satisfactory. 13. Behold the land of the Chaldeans-] This verse is extremely, obscure: the obscurity arises from the ambiguity of the agents which belong 10 the verbs, and of the objects expressed by the pronouns; from the change of number in the verbs, and of gender in the pronouns. The MSS. give us no assistance; and the ancient versions very little. The Chaldee and Vulg. read in the plural number. I have followed the interpretation which, among many different ones, seemed to me most probable, that of Perizonius, and Vitringa. The Chaldeans, Chasdim, are supposed to have had their origin, and to have taken their name, from Chesed the son of Nachor, the brother of Abraham. They were known by that name in the time of Moses; who calls Ur in Mesopotamia, from whence Abraham came, to distinguish it from other places of the same name, Ur of the Chaldeans. And Jeremiah calls them an ancient nation. This is not inconsistent with what Isaiah here says of them: "This people was not;" that is, they were of no account; (see Deut. xxxii. 21.) they were not reckoned among the great and potent nations of the world, till of later times: they were a rude, uncivilized, barbarous people, without laws, without settled habitations ; wandering in a wide desert country, D, and addicted to rapine, like the wild Arabians. Such they are represented to have been in the time of Job, (i. 17.) and such they continued to be till Assur, some powerful king of Assyria, gathered them together, and settled them in Babylon, and the neighbouring country. This probably was Ninus, whom I suppose to have lived in the time of the Judges. In this, with many eminent chronologers, I follow the authority of Herodotus; who says, that the Assyrian monarchy lasted but five hundred and twenty years. Ninus got possession of Babylon from the Cuthean Arabians, the successors of Nimrod in that empire, collected the Chaldeans, and settled a colony of them there, to secure the possession of the city, which he and his successors greatly enlarged and ornamented. They had perhaps been useful to him in his wars, and might be likely to be farther useful in keeping under the old inhabitants of that city, and of the country belonging to it; according to the policy of the Assyrian kings, who generally brought new people into the conquered countries. See Isa. xxxvi. 17. 2 Kings xvii. 6. 24. The testimony of Dicæarchus, a Greek historian contemporary with Alexander, (apud Steph. de Urbibus, in v. Xaλdatos), in regard to the fact is remarkable, though he is mistaken in the name of the king be speaks of: he says, "That a certain king of Assyria, the fourteenth in succession from Ninus" (as he might be, if Ninus is placed, as in the common chronology, eight hundred years higher than we have above set him), "named as it is said Chaldæus, having gathered together and united all the people called Chaldeans, built the famous city Babylon, upon the Euphrates." 14. Howl, O ye ships—] The prophet Ezekiel hath enlarged upon this part of the same subject with great force and elegance: "Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH concerning Tyre: At the sound of thy fall, at the cry of the wounded, At the great slaughter in the midst of thee, shall not the islands tremble? The renowned city, that was strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants! Now shall the coasts tremble in the day of thy fall, And the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure." Ezek. xxvi. 15-18. 15. According to the days of one king-] That is, of one kingdom. See Dan. vii. 17. viii. 20. Nebuchadnezzar began his conquests in the first year of his reign; from thence to the taking of Babylon by Cyrus are seventy years; at which time the nations conquered by Nebuchadnezzar were to be restored to liberty. These seventy years limit the duration of the Babylonish monarchy. Tyre was taken by him towards the middle of that period; so did not serve the king of Babylon during the whole period, but only for the remaining part of it. This seems to be the meaning of Isaiah: the days allotted to the one king, or kingdom, are seventy years; Tyre, with the rest of the conquered nations, shall continue in a state of subjection and desolation to the end of that period. Not from the beginning and through the whole of the period; for, by being one of the latest conquests, the duration of that state of subjection in regard to her was not much more than half of it. "All these nations," saith Jeremiah, (xxv. 11.)" shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years." Some of them conquered sooner, some later; but the end of this period was the common term for the deliverance of them all. There is another way of computing the seventy years, from the year in which Tyre was actually taken to the nineteenth of Darius Hystapsis ; whom the Phenicians, or Tyrians, assisted against the Ionians, and probably on that account might then be restored to their former liberties and privileges. But I think the former the more probable interpretation. Ibid. —sing as the harlot singeth—] “Fidicinam esse meretricum est," says Donatus in Terent. Eunuch. iii. 2, 4. "Nec meretrix tibicina, cujus Ad strepitum salias." Hor. I. Epist. xiv. 25. Sir John Chardin, in his MS. note on this place, says: 66 C'est que les vielles prostituées,-ne font que chanter quand les jeunes dancent, et les animer par l'instrument et par la voix." 17, 18. And at the end of seventy years] Tyre, after its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, recovered, as it is here foretold, its ancient trade, wealth, and grandeur; as it did likewise after a second destruction by Alexander. It became Christian early with the rest of the neighbouring countries. St. Paul himself found many Christians there,'Acts xxi. 4. It suffered much in the Diocletian persecution. It was an archbishopric under the patriarchate of Jerusalem, with fourteen bishoprics under its jurisdiction. It continued Christian till it was taken by the Saracens in 639: was recovered by the Christians in 1124. But in 1280 was conquered by the Mamalukes; and afterward taken from them by the Turks in 1516. Since that time it has sunk into utter decay; is now a mere ruin; a bare rock; 66 a place to spread nets upon," as the prophet Ezekiel foretold it should be, chap. xxvi. 14. See Sandys's Travels; Vitringa on the place; bishop Newton on the Prophecies, Dissert. xi. CHAP. XXIV. FROM the thirteenth chapter to the twenty-third inclusive, the fate of several cities and nations is denounced: of Babylon, of the Philistines, Moab, Damascus, Egypt, Tyre. After having foretold the destruction of the foreign nations, enemies of Judah, the prophet declares the judgments impending on the people of God themselves, for their wickedness and apostasy; and the desolation that shall be brought on their whole country. Y |
