Isaia 27:12 Commento

In this chapter the prophet goes on to show, I. What great things God would do for his church and people, which should now shortly be accomplished in the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib and the destruction of the Assyrian army; but it is expressed generally, for the encouragement of the church in after ages, with reference to the power and prevalency of her enemies. 1. That proud oppressors should be reckoned with (Isa 27:1). 2. That care should be taken of the church, as of God's vineyard (Isa 27:2, Isa 27:3). 3. That God would let fall his controversy with the people, upon their return to him (Isa 27:4, Isa 27:5). 4. That he would greatly multiply and increase them (Isa 27:6). 5. That, as to their afflictions, the property of them should be altered (Isa 27:7), they should be mitigated and moderated (Isa 27:8), and sanctified (Isa 27:9). 6. That though the church might be laid waste, and made desolate, for a time (Isa 27:10, Isa 27:11), yet it should be restored, and the scattered members should be gathered together again (Isa 27:12, Isa 27:13). All this is applicable to the grace of the gospel, and God's promises to, and providences concerning, the Christian church, and such as belong to it.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 27 This chapter refers to the same times as the two foregoing ones Isa 25:1; and is a continuation of the same song, or rather a new one on the same occasion; it is prophetical of the last times, and of what shall be done in them, as the destruction of the antichristian powers, and Satan at the head of them, Isa 27:1 the happy state of the church, and its fruitfulness under the care and protection of the Lord, and his affection for it, Isa 27:2 its peace, prosperity, and flourishing condition, Isa 27:5 the nature, use, and end of all its afflictions and chastisements, Isa 27:7 the ruin and destruction of the city of Rome, and its inhabitants, and of its whole jurisdiction, Isa 27:10 a great gathering and conversion of the Lord's people, both Jews and Gentiles, by the ministry of the Gospel, Isa 27:12.

And it shall come to pass in that day,.... When the song will be sung, Isa 27:2 when God will appear to have taken particular care of his church, and is about to bring it into a flourishing condition; when its troubles and afflictions will come to an end, with a sanctified use of them; and when the city of Rome will be destroyed, and all the antichristian powers, then will be the conversion of the Jews; for antichrist stands in the way of that work: that the Lord shall beat off; or "beat out" (g); alluding either to the beating off of fruit from a tree, or to the beating out of grain from the ear; and signifies the separating of the Lord's people in the effectual calling from the rest of the world; as the fruit beaten off is separated from the tree, and corn beaten out is separated from the ear and chaff; for this beating off does not intend judgment, but mercy; and is done not by the rod of affliction, but by the rod of the Lord's strength sent out of Zion, even the Gospel, the power of God to salvation; which, in the ministration of it, should reach from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt; from the river Euphrates, on the banks of which was the city of Babylon, to the river Nile in Egypt, which were the limits and boundaries of the land of Israel, Deu 11:24 and in which places many Jews (h) were, or would be, as in the following verse Isa 27:13. The Septuagint version is, "from the ditch of the river to Rhinocorura;'' which, Jerom says, is a town on the borders of Egypt and Palestine. The meaning is, that the Lord would find out his people, wherever they were, in those parts, and separate and call them by his grace, and gather them to himself, and to his church and people, as follows: and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel; as fruit is gathered up, when beaten off of the tree; and the phrase "one by one" denotes either the fewness of them, and the gradual manner in which they will be gathered; or rather, since this does not so well suit with the conversion of the Jews, which will be of a nation at once, it may signify the completeness of this work, that they shall be everyone gathered, not one shall be left or lost, but all Israel shall be saved; or it may be also expressive of the conjunction of them, and union of them one to another, in the Gospel church state, into which they shall be gathered, as fruit beaten off, and gathered up, is laid together in a storehouse. To this sense agrees the Targum, "ye shall be brought near one to another, O ye children of Israel (i).'' (g) "excutiat", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Cocceius. (h) Ben Melech interprets the river of the river Sabation or the Sabbatical river, beyond which the Jews generally suppose the ten tribes are, and from whence they will come at the time of their restoration; and, as this writer says, will come to Egypt, and there be gathered together with their brethren, the children of this captivity, Judah and Benjamin, which are scattered in every corner, and join one another. (i) "ad unum unum", Montanus; "unus ad unum"; so some in Vatablus, Forerius.

(Verse 12) And it shall be on that day, the Lord shall strike from the channel of the river to the torrent of Egypt. LXX: And it shall be on that day, the Lord shall shut off from the channel of the river to Rhinocorura. If it had not joined together, on that day, through which we are taught, the things that are to be connected with the things that were said earlier, we could have explained it as the proper sense of this chapter; but now all things must be referred back to the earlier ones. For the fortified city shall be desolate, and the beautiful city shall be forsaken like a desert, and there the calf shall lie down, and it shall devour the branches of the vine, and all things shall become dry, because there is no people who have understanding, and because of their foolishness, they have not obtained any mercy from their Creator. Therefore, the Lord will strike or close off from the channel or stream of the river to the torrent of Egypt, so that in all of Judaea, which was once the promised land, no teaching may be found, no knowledge of the Scriptures, of which the Apostle speaks: In order that we may not pay attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth (Titus 1:14); and again: For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision (Ibid., 10). But the riverbed, or the stream of the river, next to the Euphrates, we can call it, as it is written in the seventy-first psalm: He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth (Psalm 71:8). Others think it is the Jordan. And it should be noted that in the borders of Judea, it is called a river; in the borders of Egypt, a torrent, which has turbid waters and is not permanent. Instead of the torrent of Egypt, the seventy translators translated it as Rhinocorura, which is a town on the border of Egypt and Palestine, expressing not so much the words of the Scriptures as the meaning of the words. But what we said, he will strike, for which the LXX translated συμφράξει as concludet: Aquila and Theodotion interpreted as ῥαβδήσει, which can be understood as either he will strike with a rod or he will count the number of his flock with a rod, so that it is not taken in a bad but in a good sense. And you shall be gathered one by one, O sons of Israel. LXX: But you, gather together one by one, O sons of Israel. O sons of Israel, for whom Symmachus has interpreted, the house of Israel: striking your enemies from the river stream, even to the river of Egypt, that is, from the Euphrates to the Nile, you yourselves shall be gathered to the faith of the Lord one by one, because the crowd of Jews did not believe, by which it signifies that only a few of the Jews will believe in the Savior Lord. Certainly, O Apostles and apostolic men, when the multitude of Jews did not believe, you, from the whole world, whom you were able, bring back like sick sheep to the folds of the Lord, and gather them with the people of the nations, so that what the Apostle Paul and Barnabas speak to the Jews may be fulfilled: For it was necessary for the word of God to be announced to you first; but since you judged yourselves unworthy of salvation, behold, we turn to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46).

628. Third, the magnitude of the destruction, both as to universality of place: and it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord will strike from the channel of the river even to the torrent of Egypt, that is, from one end to the other, above: from the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein (Isa 1:6); and as to the small number of men who will remain: and you shall be gathered together one by one: you shall remain few in number (Deut 28:62).

Ambassadors being come from several neighboring nations to solicit the king of Judah to join in a confederacy against the king of Babylon, Jeremiah is commanded to put bands and yokes upon his neck, (the emblems of subjection and slavery), and to send them afterwards by those ambassadors to their respective princes; intimating by this significant type that God had decreed their subjection to the Babylonian empire, and that it was their wisdom to submit. It is farther declared that all the conquered nations shall remain in subjection to the Chaldeans during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and those of his son and grandson, even till the arrival of that period in which the Babylonians shall have filled up the measure of their iniquities; and that then the mighty Chaldean monarchy itself, for a certain period the paramount power of the habitable globe, shall be voted with a dreadful storm of Divine wrath, through the violence of which it shall be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel, the fragments falling into the hands of many nations and great kings, Jer 27:1-11. Zedekiah, particularly, is admonished not to join to the revolt against Nebuchadnezzar, and warned against trusting to the suggestions of false prophets, Jer 27:11-18. The chapter concludes with foretelling that what still remained of the sacred vessels of the temple should be carried to Babylon, and not restored till after the destruction of the Chaldean empire, Jer 27:19-22.

The channel of the river - The river Sabbation, beyond which the Israelites were carried captive. - Kimchi.

CONTINUATION OF THE TWENTY-FOURTH, TWENTY-FIFTH, AND TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTERS. (Isa 27:1-13) sore--rather, "hard," "well-tempered." leviathan--literally, in Arabic, "the twisted animal," applicable to every great tenant of the waters, sea-serpents, crocodiles, &c. In Eze 29:3; Eze 32:2; Dan 7:1, &c. Rev 12:3, &c., potentates hostile to Israel are similarly described; antitypically and ultimately Satan is intended (Rev 20:10). piercing--rigid [LOWTH]. Flying [MAURER and Septuagint]. Long, extended, namely, as the crocodile which cannot readily bend back its body [HOUBIGANT]. crooked--winding. dragon--Hebrew, tenin; the crocodile. sea--the Euphrates, or the expansion of it near Babylon.

Restoration of the Jews from their dispersion, described under the image of fruits shaken from trees and collected. beat off--as fruit beaten off a tree with a stick (Deu 24:20), and then gathered. river--Euphrates. stream of Egypt--on the confines of Palestine and Egypt (Num 34:5; Jos 15:4, Jos 15:47), now Wady-el-Arish, Jehovah's vineyard, Israel, extended according to His purpose from the Nile to the Euphrates (Kg1 4:21, Kg1 4:24; Psa 72:8). one by one--gathered most carefully, not merely as a nation, but as individuals.

But when Israel repents, the mercy of Jehovah will change all this. "And it will come to pass on that day, Jehovah will appoint a beating of corn from the water-flood of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt, and ye will be gathered together one by one, O sons of Israel. And it will come to pass in that day, a great trumpet will be blown, and the lost ones in the land of Asshur come, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and cast themselves down before Jehovah on the holy mountain in Jerusalem." I regard every exposition of Isa 27:12 which supposes it to refer to the return of the captives as altogether false. The Euphrates and the brook of Egypt, i.e., the Wady el-Arish, were the north-eastern and south-western boundaries of the land of Israel, according to the original promise (Gen 15:18; Kg1 8:65), and it is not stated that Jehovah will beat on the outside of these boundaries, but within them. Hence Gesenius is upon a more correct track, when he explains it as meaning that "the kingdom will be peopled again in its greatest promised extent, and that as rapidly and numerously as if men had fallen like olives from the trees." No doubt the word châbat is applied to the beating down of olives in Deu 24:20; but this figure is inapplicable here, as olives must already exist before they can be knocked down, whereas the land of Israel is to be thought of as desolate. What one expects is, that Jehovah will cause the dead to live within the whole of the broad expanse of the promised land (according to the promise in Isa 26:19, Isa 26:21). And the figure answers this expectation most clearly and most gloriously. Châbat as the word commonly applied to the knocking out of fruits with husks, which were too tender and valuable to be threshed. Such fruits, as the prophet himself affirms in Isa 28:27, were knocked out carefully with a stick, and would have been injured by the violence of ordinary threshing. And the great field of dead that stretched from the Euphrates to the Rhinokoloura, (Note: Rhinokoloura (or Rhinokoroura): for the origin of this name of the Wady el-Arish, see Strabo, xvi. 2, 31.) resembled a floor covered over with such tender, costly fruit. There true Israelites and apostate Israelites lay mixed together. But Jehovah would separate them. He would institute a beating, so that the true members of the church would come to the light of day, being separated from the false like grains sifted from their husks. "Thy dead will live;" it is to this that the prophet returns. And this view is supported by the choice of the word shibboleth, which combines in itself the meanings of "flood" (Psa 69:3, Psa 69:16) and "ear" (sc., of corn). This word gives a fine dilogy (compare the dilogy in Isa 19:18 and Hab 2:7). From the "ear" of the Euphrates down to the Peninsula of Sinai, Jehovah would knock - a great heap of ears, the grains of which were to be gathered together "one by one," i.e., singly (in the most careful manner possible; Greek, καθεῖς κατη ̓ ἓνα). To this risen church there would be added the still living diaspora, gathered together by the signal of God (compare Isa 18:3; Isa 11:12). Asshur and Egypt are named as lands of banishment. They represent all the lands of exile, as in Isa 19:23-25 (compare Isa 11:11). The two names are emblematical, and therefore not to be used as proofs that the prophecy is within the range of Isaiah's horizon. Nor is there any necessity for this. It is just as certain that the cycle of prophecy in chapters 24-27 belongs to Isaiah, and not to any other prophet, as it is that there are not two men to be found in the world with faces exactly alike.