Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

9. Israel to Be Destroyed

¹ I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said:

   “Strike the tops of the pillars
   so that the thresholds shake.
Bring them down on the heads of all the people;
   those who are left I will kill with the sword.
Not one will get away,
   none will escape.
² Though they dig down to the depths below,
   from there my hand will take them.
Though they climb up to the heavens above,
   from there I will bring them down.
³ Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
   there I will hunt them down and seize them.
Though they hide from my eyes at the bottom of the sea,
   there I will command the serpent to bite them.
⁴ Though they are driven into exile by their enemies,
   there I will command the sword to slay them.

“I will keep my eye on them
for harm and not for good.”

    ⁵ The Lord, the LORD Almighty—
he touches the earth and it melts,
   and all who live in it mourn;
the whole land rises like the Nile,
   then sinks like the river of Egypt;
⁶ he builds his lofty palace The meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain. in the heavens
   and sets its foundation The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain. on the earth;
he calls for the waters of the sea
   and pours them out over the face of the land—
   the LORD is his name.

    ⁷ “Are not you Israelites
   the same to me as the Cushites That is, people from the upper Nile region?” declares the LORD.
“Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt,
   the Philistines from Caphtor That is, Crete
   and the Arameans from Kir?

    ⁸ “Surely the eyes of the Sovereign LORD
   are on the sinful kingdom.
I will destroy it
   from the face of the earth.
Yet I will not totally destroy
   the descendants of Jacob,” declares the LORD.
⁹ “For I will give the command,
   and I will shake the people of Israel
   among all the nations
as grain is shaken in a sieve,
   and not a pebble will reach the ground.
¹⁰ All the sinners among my people
   will die by the sword,
all those who say,
   ‘Disaster will not overtake or meet us.’

Israel’s Restoration

¹¹ “In that day

   “I will restore David’s fallen shelter—
   I will repair its broken walls
   and restore its ruins—
   and will rebuild it as it used to be,
¹² so that they may possess the remnant of Edom
   and all the nations that bear my name, Hebrew; Septuagint so that the remnant of people / and all the nations that bear my name may seek me” declares the LORD, who will do these things.

¹³ “The days are coming,” declares the LORD,

   “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman
   and the planter by the one treading grapes.
New wine will drip from the mountains
   and flow from all the hills,
    ¹⁴ and I will bring my people Israel back from exile. Or will restore the fortunes of my people Israel

   “They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them.
   They will plant vineyards and drink their wine;
   they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
¹⁵ I will plant Israel in their own land,
   never again to be uprooted
   from the land I have given them,”

says the LORD your God.

Here the Prophet denounces horrible punishments; but not without reason, for there was astonishing torpidity in that people, as there is usually in all hypocrites when they have any shadow of excuse. They were then the only elect people in the whole world. When, therefore, they thought that they excelled others and that they were endued with singular privileges beyond all other nations, this glory inebriated them, and they imagined that God was in a manner bound to them, as we have seen in other places. This, then, was the reason why the Prophet in so many ways enlarged on the judgment of God on hypocrites; it was, that they might be terrified by the vehemence and severity of his words.

Hence he says, If they dig for themselves passages to hell, that is, to the center of the earth, for שאול, shaul, is here put for the center; thence shall my hand draw them forth; and then, If they ascend to heaven, thence I will draw them down, saith the Lord; If they hide themselves in deserts, if they flee to the top of Carmel, I will trace them out: in short, they shall find no corner either in heaven, or on the earth, or in the sea, where they can be hid from my sight. There is no need here to understand by heavens high citadels, as the Chaldean paraphraser explains it: it is a frigid paraphrase. But the Prophet speaks in an hyperbolical language of the center of the earth, of the heavens, and of the deep of the sea; as though he had said, “Should all the elements open themselves for hiding-places, yet the Israelites shall in vain try to escape, for I will follow them when sunk in the depth of the sea, I will draw them down from heaven itself; there shall, in a word, be no hiding-place for them either above or below.”

We now understand the Prophet’s meaning; and an useful warning may be hence gathered, — that when God threatens us, we in vain seek subterfuges, as his hand extends itself to the lowest deep as well as to heaven; as it is said in Psalm 139:7-9,

‘Where shall I flee from thy presence, O Lord?
If I ascend into heaven, thou art there;
if I descend to the grave, thou art present;
if I take the wings of the dawn, (or, of the morning star,)
and dwell in the extremities of the sea,
there also shall thy hand lead me.’

The Prophet speaks not in that psalm, as some have very absurdly philosophized, of the unlimited essence of God; but he rather shows, that we are always in his sight. So then we ought to feel assured that we cannot escape, whenever God designs to make a scrutiny as to our sins, and to summon us to his tribunal.

But we must at the same time remember, that the Prophet has not employed a superfluous heap of words; there is not here one syllable which is not important though at the first view it seems to be otherwise. But the Holy Spirit, as I have already reminded you, knowing our heedlessness, does here shake off all our self-flatteries. There is in us, we know, an innate torpor by nature, so that we despise all threatenings, or at least we are not duly moved by them. As the Lord sees us to be so careless, he rouses us by his goads. Whenever then Scripture denounces punishment on us, let us at the same time learn to join with it what the Prophet here relates; “Thou hast to do with God, what can’t thou effect now by evasions? though thou climbest to heaven, the Lord can draw thee down; though thou descendent to the abyss, God’s hand will thence draw thee forth; if thou seekest a hiding-place in the lowest depths, he will thence also bring thee forth to the light; and if thou hidest thyself in the deep sea, he will there find thee out; in a word, wherever thou betakest thyself, thou canst not withdraw thyself from the presence and from the hand of God.” We hence see the design of all these expressions, and that is, that we may not think of God as of ourselves, but that we may know that his power extends to all hiding-places. But these words ought to be subjects at meditations though it be sufficient for our purpose to include in few words what the Prophet had in view. But as we are so entangled in our vain confidences, the Prophet, as I have said, has not in vain used so many words.