_Return to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope, even today do I declare
that I will repay you double._
Such is the received translation, nor as it now stands, does the sense
appear at all ambiguous, signifying, _Return to your prison-house until
the day of your promised liberation arrives_; that is, the day of the
Messiah’s coming. There can be no doubt who are meant by the prisoners,
but the change of number in the personal pronoun, from plural to singular,
makes it not improbable that the latter part of this line is addressed to
the Messiah, who was apostrophized in the verse preceding. Upon this view
the word אסירי (or יריסא) may be rendered, _my prisoners_, instead of
_prisoners of hope_, which is rather obscure; and התקוה (or הוקתה) as the
imperative hithpael of the verb קוה (or הוק) to wait. And the sense will
then be as given in the text; _Return to the strong hold, my prisoners:
wait thou till the day I declare that I will repay thee double._
Verse 13. :כי דרכתי לי יהודה קשת מלאתי אפרים ועררתי בניך ציון על בניך יון
ושמתיך כחרב גבור
_When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow Ephraim, and raised up thy
sons, Oh Zion! against thy sons, Oh Greece! and made thee as the sword of
a mighty man._
Here כי (or יכ), which signifies _for_, is rendered _when_, thus imposing
a future signification on the verbs that follow. This has, no doubt,
arisen from a supposed allusion to the subsequent wars of Judas Maccabeus.
But Ephraim, or the ten tribes, having no share in those wars, militates
against that supposition; and it seems more probable that this verse,
instead of designating the _time when_ the promised blessing would be
conferred upon the Gentiles, here declares the _reason why_ the Messiah
could not be sent to them directly and unconditionally; namely, because he
was previously promised to Israel. _For I have bent Judah for me, filled
the bow Ephraim_; that is, I have chosen Israel as my people, and
appointed them my instruments for the overthrow of paganism. And,
accordingly, to the house of Israel he came, and was by some of them
received; nor until the great body of that people declined the office,
were the Gentiles called in to fill up the ranks, and carry on the
spiritual warfare; a warfare which was thenceforward carried on by both in
conjunction, for the first Christians still were Jews, though blindness
came in part over Israel.
Verse 14. :ויהוה עליהם יראה ויצא כברק חצו ואדני יהוה בשופר יתקע והלך
בסערות תימן
_And the Lord shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the
lightning; and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go forth
with whirlwinds of the South._
This and the following verse evidently contain promises of Divine
protection, and of triumphant success; but to whom these promises are
given may admit of a question. עליהם (or םהילע) _over them_, may mean the
Jews last spoken of, or the Gentiles mentioned before, or it may apply to
both. And if the triumph of true religion over Pagan idolatry be the
victory here spoken of, as this was obtained by both in conjunction,
during the Apostolic age at least, so both must be included in the
promises. Nor can any construction, worthy of the subject, or adequate in
dignity and importance, be put upon the expression, _the sons of Zion_,
and _the sons of Greece_, but that which refers to the religion of each.
The triumph of true religion over idolatry was one that affected the whole
world, including every country, and extending to every age, and regarding
the eternal as well as temporal interests of mankind.
Verse 15. .יהוה צבאות יגן עליהם ואכלו וכבשו אבני קלע ושתו המו כמו יין
ומלאו כמזרק כזוית מזבח
_And the Lord of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and
subdue with sling stones; and they shall drink and make a noise as through
wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the
altar._
To take these expressions in the literal sense, as promising to man the
grossest of sensual indulgences, would surely be a strange misconstruction
of prophetic language; המו (or ומה) which is rendered, _and make a noise_,
is not preceded by the connective ו _and_; it may, therefore, be simply
the personal pronoun _they_, being the nominative to the verb _drink_;
_they shall drink as of wine_, &c. Who is intended by the pronoun _they_,
if at all doubtful here, becomes sufficiently clear in the next verse,
where it is repeated in a manner that leaves no ambiguity, at least as far
as concerns the Gentiles.
Verse 16. :והושיעם יהוה אלהיהם ביום ההוא כצאן עמו כי אבני נזר מתנוססות על
אדמתו
_And the Lord their God shall save them in that day, as the flock of his
people, for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign
upon his land._
Here the pronoun _them_, in evident contradistinction with _his people_,
shews that two nations are spoken of; otherwise the passage might be
rendered, _the Lord God, shall save as a flock, his people_. But the
antithesis marked by the pronoun _them_, is rendered still more obvious,
if possible, in the next line. _For the wall of separation is waving_ (or
tottering) _over his land_. Such is the literal meaning of the Hebrew,
when the words are taken in their primary and ordinary sense. Thus, אבני
(or ינבא) in its usual sense means, _stones_, as the stones of a wall; but
in a more remote and figurative sense, _precious stones_: נזר (or רזנ) in
the primary sense, signifies, _to separate_, or, _separation_; occurring
in this sense ten times at least in Numbers, ch. vi.; but in the secondary
or more remote sense, _a diadem_, which separates or distinguishes the
prince from the people: נסס (or ססנ) in the primary sense means to wave to
and fro, as a flag, or as a wall before it is blown down by the wind; but,
in a secondary sense it signifies, as some understand it here, to glitter
or sparkle, as a diamond, when waved or moved. Thus we see the pains taken
to avoid the plain and obvious sense of the passage; but the Hebrew
scholar will judge for himself.
The concluding verse, in which the prophet breaks forth into expressions
of adoration and praise for the goodness of the Lord, well accords with
this view of his bounty being unlimited, and extending to all his
creatures alike.