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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.

The Prophet repeats here nearly the same words with those we explained yesterday: he used then the similitude of a flood, which he again mentions here. But as the first clause is capable of various explanations, I will refer to what others think, and then to what I deem the most correct view. This sentence, that the earth trembles, when it is smitten by God, is usually regarded as a general declaration; and the Prophets do often exalt the power of God in order to fill us with fear, and of this we shall see an instance in the next verse. Yet I doubt not but that this is a special threatening. The Lord Jehovah, then, he says, will smite the land, and it will tremble.

Then follows the similitude of which we spoke yesterday, Mourn shall all who dwell in it; and then, It will altogether ascend as a river Here he intimates that there would be a deluge, so that the face of the earth would not appear. Ascend then shall the land as a river. The ascent of the earth would be nothing else but inundation, which would cover its surface. He afterwards adds, “and it shall be sunk”; that is, every convenience for dwelling: this is not to be understood strictly, as I have said, of the land, but is rather to be referred to men, or to the use which men make of the earth. Sunk then shall it be as by the river of Egypt We have said that Egypt loses yearly its surface, when the Nile inundates it. But as the inundation of the river is given to the Egyptians for fertilizing the land and of rendering its produce more abundant, so the Prophet here declares that the land would be like the sea, so that there would no longer be any habitation. It now follows —