that he may know to refuse evil and choose good? Is there any such effect in this food? Surely no. Besides, the child is thus represented to eat those things which only a state of peace produces, during its whole infancy, inconsistently with ver. 16. which promises a relief from enemies only before the end of this infancy; implying plainly, that part of it would be passed in distressful times of war and siege; which was the state of things when the prophecy was delivered.

"But all these objections are cut off, and a clear coherent sense is given to this passage, by giving another sense to the particle; which never occurred to me till I saw it in Harmer's Observat. vol. i. p. 299. See how coherent the words of the Prophet run, with how natural a connexion one clause follows another, by properly rendering this one particle:-" Behold this virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Immanuel: Butter and honey shall he eat, when he shall know to refuse evil, and choose good. For, before this child shall know to refuse evil, and choose good, the land shall be desolate by whose two kings thou art distressed." Thus ver. 16. subjoins a plain reason why the child should eat butter and honey, the food of plentiful times, when he came to a distinguishing age; viz. because before that time the country of the two kings who now distressed Judea should be desolated; and so Judea should recover that plenty which attends peace. That this rendering, which gives perspicuity and rational connexion to the passage, is according to the use of the Hebrew particle is certain. Thus, pa, "at the appearing of morning, or, when morning appeared;" Exod. xiv. 27. ny, "at meal-time, or, when it was time to eat;" Ruth ii. 14. In the same manner, "at his knowing, that is, when he knows."

לפנות

"Harmer (Ibid.) has clearly shown, that these articles of food are delicacies in the East; and as such denote a state of plenty. See also Josh. v. 6. They therefore naturally express the plenty of the country, as a mark of peace restored to it. Indeed, ver. 22. it expresses a plenty arising from the thinness of the people; but that it signifies, ver. 15. a plenty arising from deliverance from war then present, is evident; because otherwise there is no expression of this deliverance. And that a deliverance was intended to be here expressed is plain, from calling the child which should be born, Immanuel, God with us. It is plain, also, because

it is before given to the Prophet in charge to make a declaration of the deliverance, ver 3-7.; and it is there made; and this prophecy must undoubtedly be conformable to that in this matter." Dr JUBB.

The circumstance of the child's eating butter and honey is explained by Jarchi as denoting a state of plenty; " Butyrum et mel comedet infans iste, quoniam terra nostra plena erit omnis boni:" Comment. in locum. The infant Jupiter, says Callimachus, was tenderly nursed with goat's milk and honey: Hymn. in Jov. 48. Homer, of the orphan daughters of Pandareus,

“ Κόμισσε δε δι' Αφροδίτη

د,

Τυρῳ, και μελιτι γλυκερῳ, και ήδει οινῳ. Odyss. xx. 68. "Venus in tender delicacy rears

POPE.

With honey, milk, and wine, their infant years." Τρυφης εστιν ενδειξις· “This is a description of delicate food,” says Eustathius on the place.

Agreeably to the observations communicated by the learned person above-mentioned, which perfectly well explain the historical sense of this much-disputed passage, not excluding a higher secondary sense, the obvious and literal meaning of the prophecy is this: That within the time that a young woman, now a virgin, should conceive and bring forth a child, and that child should arrive at such an age as to distinguish between good and evil, that is, within a few years, (compare chap. viii. 4.), the enemies of Judah should be destroyed.' But the prophecy is introduced in so solemn a manner; the sign is so marked, as a sign selected and given by God himself, after Ahaz had rejected the offer of any sign of his own choosing out of the whole compass of nature; the terms of the prophecy are so peculiar, and the name of the child so expressive, containing in them much more than the circumstances of the birth of a common child required, or even admitted; that we may easily suppose, that, in minds prepared by the general expectation of a great Deliverer to spring from the house of David, they raised hopes far beyond what the present occasion suggested; especially when it was found, that in the subsequent prophecy, delivered immediately afterward, this child, called Immanuel, is treated as the Lord and Prince of the land of Judah. Who could this be, other than the heir of the throne of David? under which character a great and even

a divine Person had been promised. No one of that age answered to this character, except Hezekiah; but he was certainly born nine or ten years before the delivery of this prophecy. That this was so understood at that time, is collected, I think, with great probability, from a passage of Micah, a Prophet contemporary with Isaiah, but who began to prophesy after him; and who, as I have already observed, imitated him, and sometimes used his expressions. Micah, having delivered that remarkable prophecy which determines the place of the birth of Messiah, "the ruler of God's people, whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting" that it should be Bethlehem Ephrata; adds immediately, that nevertheless, in the mean time, God would deliver his people into the hands of their enemies : "he will give them up, till she, who is to bear a child, shall bring forth;" Micah v. 3. This obviously and plainly refers to some known prophecy concerning a woman to bring forth a child; and seems much more properly applicable to this passage of Isaiah, than to any others of the same Prophet to which some interpreters have applied it. St Matthew, therefore, in applying this prophecy to the birth of Christ, does it not merely in the way of accommodating the words of the Prophet to a suitable case not in the Prophet's view; but takes it in its strictest, clearest, and most important sense, and applies it according to the original design and principal intention of the Prophet.

17. But JEHOVAH will bring] Houbigant reads X1”, from LXX; aλλa ɛñažeι ó ©ɛos; to mark the transition to a new subject.

Ibid. Even the king of Assyria-] Houbigant supposes these words to have been a marginal gloss, brought into the text by mistake; and so likewise Archbp. Secker. Besides their having no force or effect here, they do not join well in construction with the words preceding; as may be seen by the strange manner in which the ancient interpreters have taken them: and they very inelegantly forestall the mention of the king of Assyria, which comes in with great propriety in the 20th verse. I have therefore taken the liberty of omitting them in the translation.

18. hist the fly] See note on chap. v. 26.

Ibid. Egypt and Assyria] Senacherib, Esarhaddon, Pharao Necho, and Nebuchadnezzar, who one after another desolated Judea.

19. caverns] So LXX, Syr. Vulg. whence Houbigant

הנחללים supposes the true reading to be

20. the river] That is, the Euphrates;, so read the LXX, and two MSS.

The

Ibid. JEHOVAH shall shave by the hired rasor-] To shave with the hired rasor the head, the feet, and the beard, is an expression highly parabolical; to denote the utter devastation of the country from one end to the other, and the plundering of the people, from the highest to the lowest, by the Assyrians; whom God employed as his instrument to punish the Jews. Ahaz himself, in the first place, hired the king of Assyria to come to help him against the Syrians, by a present made to him of all the treasures of the temple, as well as his own: and God himself considered the great nations whom he thus employed as his mercenaries, and paid them their wages: thus he paid Nebuchadnezzar for his services against Tyre, by the conquest of Egypt; Ezek. xxix. 18-20. The hairs of the head are those of the highest order in the state; those of the feet, or the lower parts, are the common people; the beard is the king, the highpriest, the very supreme in dignity and majesty. eastern people have always held the beard in the highest veneration, and have been extremely jealous of its honour. To pluck a man's beard is an instance of the greatest indignity that can be offered. See Isa. 1. 6. The king of the Ammonites, to show the utmost contempt of David, “cut off half the beards of his servants; and the men were greatly ashamed: and David bade them tarry at Jericho till their beards were grown;" 2 Sam. x. 4, 5. Niebuhr, Arabie, p. 275. gives a modern instance of the very same kind of insult. "The Turks," says Thevenot, "greatly esteem a man who has a fine beard: it is a very great affront to take a man by his beard, unless it be to kiss it: they swear by the beard;" Voyages i. p. 57. D'Arvieux gives a remarkable instance of an Arab, who, having received a wound in his jaw, chose to hazard his life, rather than suffer his surgeon to take off his beard. Mémoires, tom. iii. p. 214. See also Niebuhr, Arabie, p. 61.

The remaining verses of this chapter, 21-25. contain an elegant and very expressive description of a country depopulated, and left to run wild, from its adjuncts and circumstances: the vineyards and corn-fields, before well cultivated, now overrun with briers and thorns; much grass,

so that the few cattle that are left, a young cow and two sheep, have their full range, and abundant pasture, so as to yield milk in plenty to the scanty family of the owner: the thinly scattered people, living not on corn, wine, and oil, the produce of cultivation, but on milk and honey, the gifts of nature; and the whole land given up to the wild beasts; so that the miserable inhabitants are forced to go out armed with bows and arrows, either to defend themselves against the wild beasts, or to supply themselves with necessary food by hunting.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE prophecy in the foregoing chapter relates directly to the kingdom of Judah only: the first part of it promises them deliverance from the united invasion of the Israelites and Syrians; the latter part, from ver. 17. denounces the desolation to be brought upon the kingdom of Judah by the Assyrians. The 6th, 7th, and 8th verses of this chapter, seem to take in both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. "This people, that refuseth the waters of Siloah," may be meant of both the Israelites despised the kingdom of Judah, which they had deserted, and now attempted to destroy; the people of Judah, from a consideration of their own weakness, and a distrust of God's promises, being reduced to despair, applied to the Assyrians for assistance against the two confederate kings. But how could it be said of Judah, that they rejoiced in Retsin and the son of Remaliah, the enemies confederated against them? If some of the people were inclined to revolt to the enemy, which however does not clearly appear from any part of the history or the prophecy, yet there was nothing like a tendency to a general defection. This, therefore, must be understood of Israel. The Prophet denounces the Assyrian invasion, which should overwhelm the whole kingdom of Israel under Tiglath Pileser and Shalmaneser; and the subsequent invasion of Judah by the same power under Senacherib, which would bring them into the most imminent danger, like a flood reaching to the neck, in which a man can but just keep his head above water. The two next verses, 9, 10, are addressed by the Prophet, as a subject of the kingdom of Judah, to the Israelites and Syrians; and perhaps to all the enemies of God's people; assuring them, that their attempts against