My God. The first person singular refers to the prophet, or these are the words which every one of the ancients is represented speaking (24:23).

עצות מרחוק Counsels of old. Objective case governed by עשית thou hast done.—The counsels of oldare the plans of God predicted by the prophets.

אמונה אמן With faithfulness and truth.¹ As to the repetition אמונה אמן comp. עזי ומעזי my strength and my fortress (Jer. 16:19).²

footnotes: ¹ A. V., Are faithfulness and truth. According to I. E. the meaning of the phrase is: God has fulfilled His prophecies with faithfulness and truth. ² A word is sometimes repeated either in the same or in a different form for the sake of emphasis. Comp. iii., Note 1, and xxiv., Note 27.

For thou hast made a city an heap, etc. Many cities will be destroyed, when Gog and Magog³³ will come. According to R. Moses Hakkohen it refers to the period of Sennacherib.

footnotes: ³ See xxiv., Notes 18 and 24. ³ See xxiv., Notes 18 and 24.

לגל An heap. Comp. Gen. 31:51.

זרים Strangers. Non-Israelites.

מעיר Of every city.⁴

footnotes: ⁴ A. V., To be no city. The translation of the whole phrase according to I. E., who very strangely explains the preposition מֵ (lit. from) to be the sign of the possessive genitive, is, The palaces of the heathen people shall never be built again in any city.

יכבדוך עם עז Shall a strong people glorify thee. Those who have escaped or are far off shall glorify thee, when they will hear the report.¹

footnotes: ¹ Of the defeat of Gog and Magog or of Sennacherib.

For thou hast been, etc. It is wonderful how all well fortified towns were taken, and the city of the poor, that is, Jerusalem, escaped. A refuge from the showers,⁵ from the enemy who is compared to showers of water.

footnotes: ⁵ A. V., A refuge from the storm.

For the blast of the terrible ones is as showers against the wall. This phrase is to explain the expression from the showers.

בציון In a dry place. Comp. בארץ ציה in a dry land (Jer. 2:6).

חורב בצל עב ונו׳ The heat in¹ the shadow of a cloud, etc. Repetition of the same idea.

footnotes: ¹ A. V., With.

בצל עב In the shadow of a cloud, that is, in the shadow which hides the clouds and makes them invisible.⁶

footnotes: ⁶ I. E. means to say that in the shadow of a cloud is the same as in the absence of all clouds, or in sunshine; but it can hardly be seen what compelled I. E. to assume here such a metaphor, unless it be the parallelism, which seems to demand a greater similarity between בציון and בצל עב than that existing between in a dry land and in the shadow of a cloud; the land is supposed to be dry when sunshine continues for some time, but not when the heaven is covered with clouds.

זמיר עריצים The song of the terrible ones.⁷ It is the same as שאון זרים; comp. זמירות songs (24:16).

footnotes: ⁷ A. V., The branch of the terrible ones.

יענה Shall be low. It is an intransitive verb of the same root as עני poor (Deut. 24:12); לענות to be humbled (Ex. 10:3)

In this mountain. In Zion.

A feast of fat things, etc. God will feed them with fat things,

ממחים with things full of marrow—comp. ומוח and the marrow (Job. 21:24); ממחים is participle Pual—

and then he will give them to drink lees well refined, so that they will become drunk; ⁸ comp. As you have drunk on my holy mountain, etc. (Obad. 16)

footnotes: ⁸ A figure often used by the prophets to indicate the approaching catastrophe decreed by the Lord.

ובלע And he shall discover.⁹ Comp. כבלע when are discovered¹⁰ (Num. 4:20).

footnotes: ⁹ A. V., And he will destroy. ¹⁰ A. V., When are covered. I. E., in his commentary ad locum mentions both explanations, when are covered and when are discovered, and gives the preference to the former.

הלוט The covering. Comp. וילט and he wrapped (1 Kgs. 19:13); it is the same as the corresponding מכסה ═ מסכה covering; comp. והמסכה and the covering (28:20)

בלע המות Death will destroy¹¹ them.¹²¹²

footnotes: ¹¹ A. V., He will swallow up death. ¹² The nations mentioned in the preceding verse. ¹² The nations mentioned in the preceding verse.

And the Lord will wipe away tears from off all faces. For they have caused great evils to all.¹³

footnotes: ¹³ They have caused by their wicked actions, tears and sorrow to everybody; those tears will be shed no longer, when death has swallowed up the evil-doers.

ואמר And they will say.¹⁴ The people mentioned before, will say.

footnotes: ¹⁴ A. V., And it shall be said.

ויושענו And he saved us.¹⁵ And he saved us continually. It is the imperfect tense.¹⁶

footnotes: ¹⁵ A. V., And he will save us. ¹⁶ See i., Note 43.

The hand of the Lord. His punishment.

Moab, that will come to help the besiegers of Zion.

ונדוש And shall be trodden down. Niphal of a verb (דוש) ע״ו or בְּהִדּוּשׁ .(דשש) ע״ע As is trodden down. Infinitive Niphal; וּ is here instead of וֹ; these two vowels are capable of interchange.

מדמנה Dunghill.

And he shall spread forth. The Lord shall spread forth. In the midst of them. In the midst of Moab.

השוחה He that swimmeth. Comp. שחו to swim (Ez. 47:5).

His pride. The pride of Moab.

ארבות Hap. leg.; the meaning must be found from the context.16a Some compare it with ארבות windows (Gen. 7:11), but their explanation is far-fetched.

Thy walls. The pronoun refers to Moab.

השח השפיל He brought down, he laid low.¹⁷, Rashi: towers, Kimchi: the wrists, R. Jonah: the multitude, A. V., the spoils. Asyndeton; comp. כרע שכב נפל He bowed, he fell, he lay down (Judg. 5:27). The past is used here because the action was already completed in the time of Sennacherib.¹⁷

footnotes: ¹⁷ It is strange that I. E. does not state what the meaning of the word is; the context admits of many meanings, as may be seen from a comparison of the various renderings of the word, e.g. ¹⁷ A. V., He shall bring low, lay low. I. E. refers this prophecy to the period of the war of Gog and Magog, while Moab was to receive her punishment long before that period, in the days of Sennacherib.