Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/5_000_p.lzh/5_043.TXT

Text File | 1995-01-16 | 7KB | 128 lines

spiritual presence with his people. See \\#Joh 1:14 1Ti 3:16\\.
\*Ver. 15. \\Butter and honey shall he eat\\. &c.] As the
Messiah Jesus no doubt did; since he was born in a
land flowing with milk and honey, and in a time of
plenty, being a time of general peace; so that this
phrase points at the place where, and the time when,
the Messiah should be born, as well as expresses the
truth of his human nature, and the manner of his
bringing up, which was in common with that of other
children. \^hamx\^ signifies the %cream of milk%, as well as
%butter%, as Jarchi, in \\#Ge 18:\\8, observes; and milk
and honey were common food for infants: \*\\that he may
know to refuse the evil, and choose the good\\; meaning
not knowledge of good and bad food, so as to choose the
one, and refuse the other; but knowledge of moral
good and evil; and this does not design the end of his
eating butter and honey, as if that was in order to gain
such knowledge, which have no such use and tendency;
but the time until which he should live on such food;
namely, until he was grown up, or come to years of
discretion, when he could distinguish between good
and evil; so that as the former phrase shews that he
assumed a true body like ours, which was nourished
with proper food; this that he assumed a reason-
able soul, which, by degrees, grew and increased
in wisdom and knowledge; see \\#Lu 2:52\\. \^wtedl\^
should be rendered, %until he knows%; as \^vrpl\^ in
\\#Le 24:12\\ which the Chaldee paraphrase of Onkelos
renders, %until it was declared to them%; and so the Targum
here, \*"butter and honey shall he eat, whilst or
"before the child knows not, or until he knows to
"refuse the evil, and choose the good."\*  KILL
\*Ver. 16. \\For before the child shall know to refuse the
evil, and choose the good\\, &c.] This may be understood
of Isaiah's child, Shearjashub, he had along with him,
he was bid to take with him; and who therefore must
be supposed to bear some part, or answer some end or
other, in this prophecy; which it is very probable may
be this, viz. to assure Ahaz and the house of David
that the land which was abhorred by them should be
forsaken of both its kings, before the child that was
with him was grown to years of discretion; though it
may be understood of any child, and so of the Messiah;
and the sense be, that before any child, or new born
babe, such an one as is promised, \\#Isa 7:14\\, arrives to
years of discretion, even in the space of a few years,
this remarkable deliverance should be wrought, and
the Jews freed from all fears of being destroyed by
these princes: \*\\the land that thou abhorrest shall be for-
saken of both her kings\\; meaning not the land of Judea,
now distressed by them, which they should leave; for
that could not be said to be abhorred by Ahaz, or the
house of David; but the land of Israel and Syria, called
one land, because of the confederacy between the kings
of them, Rezin and Remaliah's son, which Ahaz and
his nobles abhorred, because of their joining together
against them; and so it was, that in a very little time
both these kings were cut off; Pekah the son of Rema-
liah was slain by Hoshea the son of Elah, who reigned
in his stead, \\#2Ki 15:30\\ and Rezin was slain by
the king of Assyria, \\#2Ki 16:9\\.
\*Ver. 17. \\The Lord shall bring upon thee\\, &c.] These
words are directed to Ahaz; and shew, that though
he and his kingdom would be safe from the two kings
that conspired against him, yet evils should come upon
him from another quarter, even from the Assyrians he
sent to for help, and in whom he trusted; in which
the Lord himself would have a hand, and permit
them in his providence, in order to chastise him for
his unbelief, stubbornness, and ingratitude in refusing
the sign offered him, and for his other sins; and the
calamities threatened began in his time; and therefore
it is said, %upon thee%; for Tilgathpilneser, king of
Assyria, to whom he sent for help, instead of helping
and strengthening him, distressed him, \\#2Ch 28:20,21\\:
\*\\and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house\\;
so in the reign of his son Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king
of Assyria, invaded the land of Judah, took all its fenced
cities, excepting Jerusalem, and came up even to that,
\\#2Ki 18:13-17\\ and in the times of Zedekiah,
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up against
Jerusalem, and destroyed it, and carried the people of
Judah captive, \\#2Ki 25:1-21\\ and these are the
evil days, the days of affliction and adversity, here
threatened: \*\\days that have not come, from the day that
Ephraim departed from Judah\\: meaning the revolt of
the ten tribes from the house of David, in the times of
Rehoboam, \\#1Ki 12:16-20\\ which was a day of
great adversity, a great affliction to the house of Judah;
and there had been several evil days since, and that
very lately; as when the king of Syria came into the
land, and carried away great multitudes captives to
Damascus; and when Pekah, king of Israel, slew in
Judah, on one day, a hundred and twenty thousand
valiant men, and carried captive two hundred thousand
women, sons and daughters, with a great spoil,
\\#2Ch 28:5-8\\ and yet these were not to be
compared with the calamitous times yet to come: \*\\[even]
the king of Assyria\\; or %with the king of Assyria%, as the
Vulgate Latin version renders it; rather the meaning
is, that those days of trouble should come by the king
of Assyria {i}, as they did. The Septuagint version
renders it, %from the day that Ephraim took away from
Judah the king of the Assyrians%; and the Syriac and
Arabic versions, just the reverse, %from the day that the
king of the Assyrians%, or %Assyria, carried away Ephraim
from Judea%; neither of them right.
\*Ver. 18. \\And it shall come to pass in that day\\, &c.]
the time when those evil days before spoken of should
take place: \*\\[that] the Lord shall hiss for the fly that [is] in
the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt\\; or flies, as
the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions render it;
the Egyptians, so called because their country abounded
with flies; and because of the multitude of their armies,
and the swiftness of their march; this seems to have
had its accomplishment when Pharaohnechoh king
of Egypt slew Josiah, put his son Jehoahaz, that
reigned after him, in bands, placed Eliakim his brother
in his stead, and made the land of Judah tributary to
him, \\#2Ki 23:29-35\\ though some think either
the Edomites or Philistines, that bordered on Egypt,
are meant; who in Ahaz's time invaded Judah, and
brought it low, \\#2Ch 28:17-19\\ or else the

{i} \^rwva Klm ta\^ %per regem Assyriae%, Junius & Tremellius,
    Piscator; and which is preferred by Noldius, Ebr. Concord.
    Part. p. 120, No. 616.