have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is spoiled, and his brethren, and his neighbours, and he is not.

II Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.

12 For thus saith the LORD; Behold, they whose judgment was not to drink of the cup have assuredly drunken; and art thou he that shall altogether go unpunished? thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt surely drink of it.

13 For I have sworn by myself, saith the LORD, that Bozrah shall be

10. But] For. The prophet here gives the reason why the invaders destroy Edom so completely. God has stripped him bare (cp. the use of the verb in Isai. xlvii. 2; ch. xiii. 26), and uncovered his secret places, i.e. the hiding-places in the mountains of Seir, whither he had been wont in time of war to drive his flocks and stow away his treasures; cp. Obad. 7.

bis seed] Esau's seed, the Edomites, while bis brethren are the nations joined with him in the possession of the land, Amalek, Esau's grandson, Gen. xxxvi. 12, and perhaps the Simeonites, 1 Chro. iv. 42, but not the Horites, as Keil thinks, see Deut. ii. 12 and note on Gen. xiv. 6. Lastly, his neighbours are Dedan, Tema, Buz; see ch. xxv. 23.

11. Leave thy fatherless children] As with Moab, ch. xlviii. 47, and Ammon, xlix. 6, so there is mercy for Edom. Though the men fall in battle, yet the widows shall be protected, and in the orphans of Edom the nation shall once again revive.

12. whose judgment was not] Or, whose rule or custom was not. The word trans

lated judgment constantly means babit, practice, e.g."after the former manner," Gen. xl. 13, i.e. according to the previous custom. So again, "as the manner was," 2 K. xi. 14. Sometimes it so completely loses all reference to its original signification, for which see note on ch. viii. 7, that we have, "What manner of man was he?" in 2 K. i. 7. So then here: it was not the ordinary manner of God's people to suffer from His wrath: but now when they are drinking of the wine-cup of fury, ch. XXV. 15, how can those not in covenant with Him hope to escape?

have...drunken] The verbs are future, so that the verse should be translated, Behold they whose rule was not to drink of the cup shall surely drink: and art thou be that shall

go altogether unpunished? Thou shalt not go unpunished, but shalt surely drink.

13. Bozrah] See Gen. xxxvi. 33; Isai. xxxiv. 6.

perpetual avastes] Cp. ch. xxv. 9.

14. In the second strophe, vv. 14—18, we have Edom's chastisement. The nations are mustered to the war, and Edom, now so proud and confident in the strength of her rock cities, is made small and despised, and her territories reduced to a waste like Sodom and Gomorrah.

a rumour] Lit. a hearing, i.e. a report or tidings, cp. Prov. xv. 30, where in the note it is explained as meaning news. The prophet hears tidings from Jehovah, announcing that the nations are mustering to the war with Edom.

rald. The business of an ambassador is to an ambassador] Or, messenger, i.e. henegotiate, of a herald to carry a message. Cp. Isai, xviii. 2, lvii. 9.

15. small among the heathen] Rather, among the nations, i.e. of no political importance, and therefore despised among men, spoken of by men with contempt.

16. Thy terribleness] This is the most tenable rendering of a word not found else where, though much of the rest of the verse is identical with Obad. 4. Edom's terribleness consisted in her cities being hewn in the sides of inaccessible rocks, whence she could suddenly descend for predatory warfare, and retire to her fastnesses without fear of reprisals.

the clefts of the rock] Or, the fastnesses of Sela, the rock-city, literally translated Petra by the Greeks, see notes on 2 K. xiv. 7; Isai. xvi. 1. The word rendered clefts means places of refuge.

the height of the bill] i.e. of Bozrah, de

18. the neighbour cities thereof] i.e. Admah and Zeboim.

By a son of man, lit. a son of Adam, is meant any man, any member of the human race. As noticed by Robinson, II. 575, from A.D. 536 onwards, Petra suddenly vanishes from the pages of history. It was unknown to the Arabs, was confounded by the Crusaders with an entirely different place, and only in the present century was its real site discovered by Burckhardt, and full details given of its splendid but desolate remains by Laborde.

19. In this concluding strophe, vv. 1922, the fall of Edom is compared to the miserable state of a flock worried by an enemy strong and fierce as a lion and swift as an eagle.

he shall come up like a lion] See note on ch. iv. 7. The conqueror is unnamed, as in

chs. xlvi. 18, xlviii. 40.

the swelling of Jordan] Or, the pride of Jordan, the thickets on his banks, ch. xii. 5.

against the habitation of the strong] Or, to the abiding pasturage. The word rendered habitation means the grassy spot where the shepherds encamp, ch. vi. 2, and the Hebr. word eythan means not strong, but permanent, ch. v. 15. The lion stalks forth from the jungle to attack the fold, sure to find sheep there because of the perennial pasture. Keil's translation, rocky-mead, is untenable. Eythan has no such meaning, nor because a rock is firm and lasting, Num. xxiv. 21, does it follow that lasting means rocky. Nägelsb. is much better, `an evergreen pasturage.

I will suddenly make him run away from ber] Right: the first verb only modifies the second, it being lit. I will wink, I will make him run off from her. See note on gather, ch. viii. 13, and ср. iv. 5, &c. There is, however, great difficulty as to what is meant by the pronouns him and her. For him the LXX. the right sense, I will make him, Edom, run and Syr. read them, as in ch. 1. 44, and this is away from it, the pasturage.

and who is a chosen...] Better, and I will appoint over it, the abandoned land of Edom, him who is chosen, my chosen ruler Nebuchadnezzar.

who will appoint me the time?] The plaintiff, in giving notice of a suit, had to mention the time when the defendant must appear. It is therefore rightly explained in the marg., who will convene me in judgment? See Job ix. 19. In these questions Jehovah identifies Himself with Nebuchadnezzar, who was acting as His vicegerent, ch. xxv. 9, and shews the hopelessness of Edom's cause. For who is like Jehovah, His equal in power and might? Who will dare litigate with Him, and question king or ruler will stand up in battle before His right? Finally, what shepherd, what

Him to defend his flock from so dread an assailant?

20. Surely the least...] Rather, Surely they will worry them, the feeble ones of the flock: surely their pasture shall be terror-stricken over them; or, as the verb may be taken transitively, Surely he will make their pasture terror-stricken over them. The rendering of the A. V. is defended by Hävernick, who understands by the least of the flock the feeble Jews, who, nevertheless, shall conquer the Edomites. But the verb does not mean to drag out, but to worry, as lions and wolves worry sheep. As shewn in v. 19, Nebuchadnezzar approaches Edom's fold as a lion, invincible because God is with him. No shepherd can resist him, but all flee, and leave the sheep unprotected. Thereupon the Chaldæans enter, and treat the poor feeble

flock so barbarously, that the very fold is horrified at their cruelty. The translation of the A. V., shall make desolate, derives the verb from another root, from which the laws of grammar scarcely permit of its formation.

21. The earth is moved] Quakes. It is the regular word for an earthquake.

at the cry...] The arrangement is much more poetical in the Hebrew, The shriek-to the sea of Suph is heard its sound. Why the Red Sea is so called see note on Exod. x. 19.

22. he shall come up and fly as the eagle] The repetition of the verb, he shall come up, shews that Jeremiah had his former metaphor in v. 19 in mind. Having there compared Nebuchadnezzar to a lion, the emblem of strength, he now likens him to an eagle, the emblem of swiftness. The rapidity of his movements doubles the terror caused by the greatness of his strength. Finally the misery of the inhabitants, compared there to sheep worried by wild beasts, is now, with less close adherence to the metaphor, described as the pain of a woman in her pangs.

23. Concerning Damascus] Though the superscription is confined to Damascus, the prophecy relates to the whole of Aram, called by us Syria, which was divided into two parts, the northern, of which Hamath was the capital, and that to the south-east, belonging to Damascus. The third Aramaic kingdom, that of Zobah, no longer existed.

Hamath is confounded] Or, is ashamed. For Hamath see note on Gen. x. 18. It was

claimed by Israel as part of its inheritance, Num. xxxiv. 8, was actually subject to Solomon, 2 Chro. viii. 4, and again conquered for Israel by Jeroboam, 2 K. xiv. 25. For its history as gathered from the cuneiform inscriptions see Schrader, p. 30.

Arpad] Schrader, p. 204, says that this place is called Arpaddu in the inscriptions. It lay about fourteen miles north of Aleppo, at a place where is now a heap of ruins called

Tel Erfâd. Kieppert, 'Deut. Morg. Ges.' xxv. 655. they are fainthearted] The marg. melted is wrong. The verb means that the sinews are relaxed, unknit, through terror.

there is sorrow on the sea] In the sea. Nearly twenty MSS. read like the sea, the change being a very slight one (for 3). As the next clause is taken verbatim from Isai. lvii. 20, and as the reading there is like the sea, there would be little doubt of this being right, were it not that all the versions have in the sea. As the sea is used in Isai. lvii. 20 of the agitation of the thoughts of evil men, its sense here also probably is, there is sorrow, or rather anxiety, in the agitated hearts of the Syrians.

24. and turneth, &c.] Omit and. In the original the rapid sequence of unconnected scription. Damascus is unnerved: she turned sentences greatly heightens the effect of the deto flee, and trembling seized her; anguish and writhings took hold of her as of a woman in travail. The prophet represents the people as standing so paralysed and quaking with terror, as to be no more able to flee than a woman suddenly overtaken by her pangs.

25. How is the city of praise not left] As the words stand they are an exclamation of sorrow wrung from the prophet at the thought of the people of Damascus thus remaining to be slaughtered. The words my joy have made most commentators put the words into the mouth of the Damascenes themselves, and if so the only probable exposition offered is that of Graf, who takes How as meaning Would that the city of praise were not abandoned, the house of my joy. But the Vulg., Syr., and Targ. omit my, and if retained it must be understood as expressing the prophet's own sympathy. The praise of Damascus for beauty has been universal from the days of Naaman, 2 K. v. 12, to those of the most recent travellers.

14.

26. shall be cut off] See note on ch. viii.

Amos 1.4.

m ver. 8. + Heb. flit

27 And I will kindle a 'fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Ben-hadad.

28 ¶ Concerning Kedar, and concerning the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon shall smite, thus saith the LORD; Arise ye, go up to Kedar, and spoil the men of the east.

29 Their tents and their flocks shall they take away: they shall take to themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels; and they shall cry unto them, Fear is on every side.

30 ¶Flee, get you far off, dwell greatly deep, O ye inhabitants of Hazor, saith the LORD; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath taken counsel against

27. I will kindle] This verse is taken from Amos i. 4, where see note.

Ben-badad] See note on 1 K. xi. 14, 23. 28. Concerning Kedar] See on ch. ii. 10. the kingdoms of Hazor] Hazor, derived from bazer, an unwalled village, is a general appellative of those Arab tribes who were partially settled, while Kedar signifies the Bedaween, who used only tents. If they thus possessed villages their divisions would be more properly called kingdoms than if their chiefs were the mere sheikhs of wandering tribes. Ewald, however, argues that Hazor is another way of spelling Jetor, i.e. Ituræa, whose inhabitants, with the Kedarenes, would naturally be called the sons of the East.

shall smite] Or, smote. This statement of the fulfilment of the prophecy was probably added at the same time as the reference to

Gaza in ch. xlvii. 1. The retention in the Hebrew of the spelling Nebuchadrezzor, a mere slip of the scribe, occasioned by Hazor immediately before, is an instance of the extreme scrupulousness of the Masorites.

29. curtains] The hangings of which the tents are formed, see ch. iv. 20.

Fear is on every side] Magor-missabib, see ch. vi. 25. Not to be understood as the Chaldæan war-cry, but as indicating the panic which is the result of the unexpected onset of

the enemy.

30. Flee, get you far off] Both verbs mean to flee, but the second is the more emphatic. They may be rendered, Flee, hasten rapidly away.

dawell deep] See note on v. 8.

31. Arise, get you up] These words are in the Hebrew the same as are translated, Arise ye, go up, in v. 28. They thus shew that the poem is to be divided into two strophes, each of which will be found to conanother. In the first the enemy is summoned sist of three parts closely answering to one to the attack; in the second the cattle and camels of Kedar are promised for spoil; in the third, rapid flight is set forth as the sole chance of escape, for the king of Babel has purposed their ruin, and this purpose we see in the corresponding clause completely accomplished.

the wealthy nation] Or, a nation at rest, living tranquilly and in calm repose. So without care would be more correctly rendered securely, the Hebrew being in confidence.

gates nor bars] Cp. note on Deut. iii. 5. which dwell alone] They davell alone, i.e. have neither alliances with other nations, nor intercourse by commerce. dwell alone, Num. xxiii. 9.

So Israel was to

32. them...corners] Or, those who clip the corners of their beards, see note on ch. ix. 26.

from all sides] Nebuchadnezzar will so arrange his troops that the Bedaween will be surrounded on all sides, and being thus unable

to escape in a body will be scattered to all the winds, to the four quarters of the earth.

33. dragons] i.e. jackals, ch. x. 22. For the rest cp. v. 18.

34. against Elam] Or, concerning Elam. The preposition is not, however, the simple toof, used in vv. 1, 7, 23, 28, but a stronger one often interchanged by Jeremiah

supposing that it is so interchanged here. This

Elam in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying,

35 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might.

36 And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come.

37 For I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before

country, called by the Persians Uvaja, by the early Greeks Cissia, but better known subsequently as Susiana, is the modern Chuzistan, and lies on the east of Chaldæa, from which it is separated by the Tigris. In the cuneiform inscriptions we find the Elamites in perpetual war with Nineveh, with whom they contested possession of the country of Rasi (Lenormant, Les prem. Civ.' II. 248, who supposes that this region is mentioned in Ezek. xxxviii. 2, xxxix. 1). With Babylon, on the contrary, they were on friendly terms, and they appear perpetually as the allies of Merodach-Baladan and his sons, in their struggles for independence, ib. 232, &c. The suggestion therefore of Ewald that they served as auxiliaries in the Chaldæan army, in the expedition which ended in the fall of Jehoiakim, and the deportation of Jeconiah and the best of the land to Babylon, is not improbable, though there is nothing to justify us in laying to their charge any extraordinary cruelty. It was in the next year, the first of Zedekiah, that this prophecy was written, and thus it is later than those which immediately precede by seven years, but a little prior to the prophecies against Babylon, ch. li. 59, which immediately follow. It is remarkable that the words rà Aiλáp, the Elam, appear in the LXX. in ch. xxv. 14, followed by this prophecy, while in ch. xxvi. 1 we find, In the beginning of the reign of king Zedekiah there was this word about Elam, followed in v. 2 by the prophecy (in ch. xlvi. of the Hebr.) against Egypt. For this and because also of the absence of any allusion to Nebuchadnezzar, Movers, Hitz., and Nägelsb. have argued that its date is also the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and that it was contained in the roll. But though thus the LXX. give us a double superscription, yet they testify to the correctness of the date, and the insertion of the prophecy by them in a place, to which it manifestly does not belong, is a proof simply

of the confusion which existed in the Egyptian transcripts of the prophecies relating to the nations. As the true superscription in their copy had been transposed, the words at the beginning, rà Aiλáu, were probably a marginal note to indicate its place. For further information about Elam see notes on Gen. x. 22, xiv. 1; Isai. xxii. 6; and ch. xxv. 25.

35. the bow of Elam] The bow was the national weapon of Elam, Isai. xxii. 6, and was therefore the chief of their might, that on which their strength in war depended.

36. the four winds] In a whirlwind violent gales seem to blow from every quarter, and whatever is exposed to their fury they seize upon, bear aloft, and scatter over the whole country. With similar violence the whole nation of Elam shall be dispersed far and wide.

the outcasts of Elam] The written text has the outcasts of eternity. Neumann defends this, but it is probably a mere error (by for

). Cp. note on Ps. cxliii. 3.

38. the king and the princes] Lit. king and princes. Not any particular king, as in the A. V., but Elam will lose its independence, and henceforward have no native ruler with his attendant officers.

39. I will bring again the captivity of Elam] We find Elam subject to Babylon, Dan. viii. 2, and its capital Shushan a favourite residence of the Persian kings, Esther i. 2. Of its subsequent fate we know little, but that the Elamites continued to exist, and were no strangers to God's mercy, is plain from members of their nation being present at Pentecost among those chosen to represent the Gentile world at the first preaching of the Gospel, Acts ii. 9.