Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/5_000_p.lzh/5_098.TXT

Text File | 1995-02-14 | 7KB | 129 lines

%Jazer%, and %the vine of Sibmah%:
the prophet here personates the Moabites
weeping for their vines more especially, they being a
people addicted to drunkenness, in which their father
was begotten; hence Bacchus is said to be the founder
of many of their cities, see \\#Jer 48:32. The Tar-
gum is, \*"as I have brought armies against Jazer, so
"will I bring slayers against Sibmah;"\* \*\\I will water thee
with my tears\\: shed abundance of them, see \\#Ps 6:6\\:
\*\\O Heshbon, and Elealeh\\; perhaps alluding to the fish-
ponds, in the former, \\#So 7:4\\ of these places,
\*\\see Gill on "Isa 15:4"\\: \*\\for the shouting for thy summer
fruits, and for thy harvest, is fallen\\; is ceased, so as
not to be heard; namely, the singing and shouting
which used to be made by labourers, whilst they were
gathering the summer fruits, or reaping the harvest,
with which they amused and diverted themselves, and
their fellow labourers, and so their time and their work
went on more pleasantly; or else that great joy and
shouting they expressed when all was ended, some-
thing of which nature is still among us at this day;
but now in Moab it was at an end, because the enemy
had destroyed both their summer fruits and harvest;
though Jarchi and Kimchi interpret this shouting of
the enemy, of the spoilers and plunderers, upon their
summer fruits and harvest, when they destroyed them;
and so the Targum, \*"upon thy harvest, and upon thy
"vintage, spoilers have fallen;"\* so Noldius {g} renders
the words, %for upon thy summer fruits, and upon thy
harvest, the shouting shall fall%; that is, the shouting
of the enemy, spoiling their fruits and their harvest;
and this seems to be the true sense, since it agrees with
\\#Jer 48:32\\ and the ceasing of the other kind of
shouting is observed in the next verse \\#Isa 16:10\\.
\*Ver. 10. \\And gladness is taken away, and joy out of
the plentiful field\\, &c.] Or %is gathered% {h}, though their
harvest was not; all cause of joy and gladness was re-
moved; a plentiful field being foraged, trampled upon,
and destroyed by the enemy, and left desolate without
any to manure it: \*\\and in the vineyards there shall be no
singing\\; as there used to be by the men that gathered
the grapes, and trod the wine presses; but now there
would be no men in the vineyards, there being no
grapes to gather or tread, as follows: \*\\the treaders shall
tread out no wine in [their] presses\\; the way in those
times and countries being for men to tread the grapes,
and the wine out of them, with their feet, in vats or
vessels, and not in presses with screws and weights,
as now: \*\\I have made their [vintatge shouting] to cease\\;
by suffering the enemy to come in among them, which
had destroyed their vintage, and so prevented their
shouting, and spoiled their song.
\*Ver. 11. \\Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp
for Moab\\, &c.] Making a noise as the harp does, and
a mournful one as that, when used at funerals; which
it makes when it is stricken or played on with the
hand, as these were, through the afflictive and punitive
hand of God; and which, when stricken, causes a
quavering of the strings, to which the inward trembling
of the bowels is compared, and is very expressive of the
prophet's sympathy, or those he persenates; for, when
one string of the harp is touched, the rest sound. For
these words, as Kimchi says, are spoken in the lan-
guage of the Moabites; those that survived lamenting
the desolate state of their country, which must be very
great and affecting; and to shew that it was so is the
design of the prophet's expressing himself after this
manner; for if it was painful to him, it must be much
more so to them; so the Targum, \*"wherefore the
"bowels of the Moabites shall sound as a harp;"\*
of the sounding of the bowels, see \\#Isa 63:15 Jer 4:9\\:
\*\\and mine inward parts for Kir-haresh\\: the same with
Kir-hareseth, \\#Isa 16:7\\ which being a principal city, the
destruction of it was greatly laid to heart. The Tar-
gum is, \*"and their heart shall grieve for the men of
"the city of their strength;"\* it being a strong city, in
which they placed their confidence; but being de-
stroyed, and the inhabitants of it, it was very affecting,
to which agrees \\#Jer 48:31\\.
\*Ver. 12. \\And it shall come to pass, when it is seen
that Moab is weary on the high place\\, &c.] With
weeping there, \\#Isa 15:2\\ or with frequent sacrifices,
and going from one high place to another, as Balak king
of Moab did; and by comparing places together, it looks
as if this was the way of the Moabites in their distress,
to offer up a multitude of sacrifices in different places;
now, when it should be seen by others, and appear to
themselves, that they wearied themselves in vain, and
all their cries and sacrifices were to no purpose, they
should then be ashamed of them, leave off, and betake
themselves to some other method; though Jarchi in-
terprets it of their being weary of fighting on the high
places of their towers, which when observed, they
would take another course, and apply to devotion:
\*\\that he shall come to his sanctuary to pray\\; to the
temple of Chemosh, and to pray to that idol to help
him, \\#1Ki 11:7\\: \*\\but he shall not prevail\\; his
prayers shall be ineffectual; his suit will be fruitless,
and without success; or %he cannot%, that is, his idol
cannot help him. So Kimchi interprets his sanctuary
of the house of his God; and the Targum, of the house
of his idolatry; yet since the house or temple of an
idol is never called a sanctuary, it may be understood
of God's sanctuary, the temple at Jerusalem; and the
sense be, that when Moab shall see that his praying
and sacrificing to idols are in vain, and he has tired
himself with his superstition and idolatry, without
having any redress, he shall think and express his de-
sire of going up to the temple of Jerusalem, and of
praying to the God of Israel; but he shall not be able
to do it, because of the enemy; and could he get
thither, he would not prevail with God, for the decree
was gone forth, which could not be frustrated, as
follows. Ben Melech interprets it of the palace of the
king.
\*Ver. 13. \\This [is] the word that the Lord hath spoken
concerning Moab\\, &c.] That is, this prophecy now
delivered out is what comes from the Lord; it is the
word of the Lord, and not of man, and so shall cer-
tainly come to pass; when this word was spoken
follows: \*\\since that time\\; from eternity, as some, and
so refer it to the decree of God within himself; or
from the time that Moab was in being, or a nation, as
others; or from the time that Balak hired Balaam to

{g} Ebr Concord. Part p. 253.
{h} \^Poan\^ %colligetur%, Montanus; %ad verbum, collectum est%,
    Vatablus.