[1] vi. 1. The Jewess, like the ancient Roman, or modern
Englishwoman, was called by her husband's name; and she
prized the honour of wedlock, and dreaded the reproach of
childlessness, at least as much as either of these; but we
must contrast the dignified expression of these feelings by
Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth, nay, even that of the jealous
and petulant Rachel, with the exhibition which the prophet
now contemplates in his mind's eye, in order to see the
picture of social disorganisation which he sees. If a harem
of wives and concubines was still a part of the king's
state in Isaiah's time, though we have no proof of this, it
is quite improbable that polygamy was the common custom of
the nation, or that they had not long passed out of the
half-civilised condition and habits for which Moses had
provided in the laws for the protection of the female
slaves whom a man might take at the same time for his
wives; but now Isaiah says that these women, whose luxury
and pride he has just described, will abandon even the
natural reserve of their sex, and not only force themselves
several upon one man, but declare that they will be content
to share with each other a legalised concubinage in which
they will not claim the concubine's ancient right of bread
and apparel, which the old law (Exod. xxi. 10) had in
express terms secured to her, if only they may bear his
name. It need not be supposed that Isaiah anticipated the
literal fulfilment of his words; we shall probably
understand him better by taking this as an instance of that
poetic or rhetorical hyperbole, which he so delights to use
for the more forcible expression of his moral and political
teaching. The mystery which some commentators have seen in
the numbers "seven" and "one" in this passage, and which is
even said to have occasioned the separation of this portion
of the prophecy into a distinct chapter, perhaps makes
worth while the obvious remark that it is nothing more than
the wide-spread idiom of modern as well as ancient
languages, by which a definite or round number is put for
an indefinite. Seven is thus generally used by the Hebrews
for any considerable number, as it was among the Egyptians
and Persians, and is still said to be in the East. The
Moguls are said to employ nine in like manner. So, in
English, we put five or ten for any small, and a hundred
for a large number, in conversation; though the genius of
our language forbids such idioms in graver
discourse.--_Strachey,_ pp. 55, 56.