Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament · Isaiah Capitolo 37

Second turn, “By thy servants (K. thy messengers) hast thou reviled the Lord, in that thou sayest, With the multitude (K. chethib ברכב ) of my chariots have I climbed the height of the mountains, the inner side of Lebanon; and I shall fell the lofty growth of its cedars, the choice ( mibhchar , K. mibhchōr ) of its cypresses: and I shall penetrate (K. and will penetrate) to the height (K. the halting-place) of its uttermost border, the grove of its orchard.” The other text appears, for the most part, the preferable one here. Whether m al'ăkhekhâ (thy messengers, according to Isaiah 9:14) or ‛ ăbhâdekhâ (thy servants, viz., Rabshakeh, Tartan, and Rabsaris) is to be preferred, may be left undecided; also whether רכבי ברכב is an error or a superlative expression, “with chariots of my chariots,” i.e., my countless chariots; also, thirdly, whether Isaiah wrote mibhchōr . He uses mistōr in Isaiah 4:6 for a special reason; but such obscure forms befit in other instances the book of Kings, with its colouring of northern Palestine; and we also meet with mibhchōr in 2 Kings 3:19, in the strongly Aramaic first series of histories of Elisha. On the other hand, קצּה מלון is certainly the original reading, in contrast with קצו מרום . It is important, as bearing upon the interpretation of the passage, that both texts have ואכרת , not ואכרת , and that the other text confirms this pointing, inasmuch as it has ואבואה instead of ואובא . The Lebanon here, if not purely emblematical (as in Jeremiah 22:6 = the royal city Jerusalem; Ezekiel 17:3 = Judah-Jerusalem), has at any rate a synecdochical meaning (cf., Isaiah 14:8), signifying the land of Lebanon, i.e., the land of Israel, into which he had forced a way, and all the fortresses and great men of which he would destroy. He would not rest till Jerusalem, the most renowned height of the land of Lebanon, was lying at his feet. Thenius is quite right in regarding the “resting-place of the utmost border” and “the pleasure-garden wood” as containing allusions to the holy city and its royal citadel (compare the allegory in chapter 5).

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Third turn, “I, I have digged and drunk (K. foreign) waters, and will make dry with the sole of my feet all the Nile-arms ( יארי , K. יאורי ) of Matsor.” If we take עליתי in Isaiah 37:24 as a perfect of certainty, Isaiah 37:25 would refer to the overcoming of the difficulties connected with the barren sandy steppe on the way to Egypt (viz., et - Tih ); but the perfects stand out against the following futures, as statements of what was actually past. Thus, in places where there were no waters at all, and it might have been supposed that his army would inevitably perish, there he had dug them ( qūr , from which m âqōr is derived, fodere ; not scaturire , as Luzzatto supposes), and had drunk up these waters, which had been called up, as if by magic, upon foreign soil; and in places where there were waters, as in Egypt ( m âtsōr is used in Isaiah and Micah for mitsrayim , with a play upon the appellative meaning of the word: an enclosing fence, a fortifying girdle: see Psalms 31:22), the Nile-arms and canals of which appeared to bar all farther progress, it was an easy thing for him to set at nought all these opposing hindrances. The Nile, with its many arms, was nothing but a puddle to him, which he trampled out with his feet.

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The prophet now turns to Hezekiah. “And let this be a sign to thee, Men eat this year what is self-sown; and in the second year what springs from the roots ( shâc , K. sâchı̄sh ); and in the third year they sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat ( chethib אכול ) their fruit.” According to Thenius, hasshânâh (this year) signifies the first year after Sennacherib's invasions, hasshânâh hasshēnı̄th (the second year) the current year in which the words were uttered by Hezekiah, hasshânâh hassh e lı̄shith (the third year) the year that was coming in which the land would be cleared of the enemy. But understood in this way, the whole would have been no sign, but simply a prophecy that the condition of things during the two years was to come to an end in the third. It would only be a “sign” if the second year was also still in the future. By hasshânâh , therefore, we are to understand what the expression itself requires (cf., Isaiah 29:1; Isaiah 32:10), namely the current year, in which the people had been hindered from cultivating their fields by the Assyrian who was then in the land, and therefore had been thrown back upon the sâphı̄ach , i.e., the after growth ( αὐτόματα , lxx, the self-sown), or crop which had sprung up from the fallen grains of the previous harvest (from sâphach , adjicere , see at Habakkuk 2:15; or, according to others, effundere ). It was autumn at the time when Isaiah gave this sign (Isaiah 33:9), and the current civil year was reckoned from one autumnal equinox to the other, as, for example, in Exodus 23:16, where the feast of tabernacles or harvest festival is said to fall at the close of the year; so that if the fourteenth year of Hezekiah was the year 714, the current year would extend from Tishri 714 to Tishri 713. But if in the next year also, 713-712, there was no sowing and reaping, but the people were to eat shâchis , i.e., that which grew of itself ( αὐτοφυές , A q., Theod.), and that very sparingly, not from the grains shed at the previous harvest, but from the roots of the wheat, we need not assume that this year, 713-712, happened to be a sabbatical year, in which the law required all agricultural pursuits to be suspended.

(Note: There certainly is no necessity for a sabbatical year followed by a year of jubilee, to enable us to explain the “sign,” as Hofmann supposes.)

It is very improbable in itself that the prophet should have included a circumstance connected with the calendar in his “sign;” and, moreover, according to the existing chronological data, the year 715 had been a sabbatical year (see Hitzig). It is rather presupposed, either that the land would be too thoroughly devastated and desolate for the fields to be cultivated and sown (Keil); or, as we can hardly imagine such an impossibility as this, if we picture to ourselves the existing situation and the kind of agriculture common in Palestine, that the Assyrian would carry out his expedition to Egypt in this particular year (713-12), and returning through Judah, would again prevent the sowing of the corn (Hitzig, Knobel). But in the third year, that is to say the year 712-11, freedom and peace would prevail again, and there would be nothing more to hinder the cultivation of the fields or vineyards. If this should be the course of events during the three years, it would be a sign to king Hezekiah that the fate of the Assyrian would be no other than that predicated. The year 712-11 would be the peremptory limit appointed him, and the year of deliverance.

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