(33) None shall tread with shouting.--The words bring before us the vintage-song of those who trod out the grapes (Jeremiah 25:30; Isaiah 16:10). Of this the prophet says, in a form which reminds us of the ???? ????? ("gifts that are no gifts") of Soph. Aias. 674, that it shall be "no shouting," i.e., that it shall be turned to wailing and lamentation, or the shout and tumult of battle shall have taken its place.Verse 33. - Nearly identical with Isaiah 16:10. The plentiful field; rather, the garden land; i.e. land planted with "noble" plants, especially vines and olives. Wine. Here clearly sweet and unfermented wine (comp. Amos 9:13, 14). None shall tread with shouting. This involves a very harsh construction of the Hebrew, and it is better (considering the numerous other errors of the same kind in the received text) to correct in accordance with Isaiah 16:10," the treader shall not tread." Their shouting shall be no shouting. "Shouting" (Hebrew, hedad) may be taken in two senses: (1) the cheerful, musical cry with which "the treaders" pressed out the juice of the grapes (comp. Jeremiah 25:30); (2) the wild cry (Jeremiah 51:14) with which the enemy "fell upon the summer fruits and upon the vintage" (ver. 32), reducing the inhabitants to abject misery. In Isaiah 16:9, 10 an allusion is made to this double meaning, and so, perhaps, it may be here ("There shall be shouting, but not that of the peaceful vintagers at their work"). Or, as others, we may explain "no shouting" as equivalent to "the opposite of shouting," i.e. either silence or lamentation (comp. Isaiah 10:15, "not wood" equivalent to "that which is specifically different from wood;" and Isaiah 31:3, "not God," equivalent to "the very opposite of Divine"). 48:14-47. The destruction of Moab is further prophesied, to awaken them by national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and mediating on the terror, it will be of more use to us to keep in view the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, and to have our hearts possessed with a holy awe of God and of his wrath, than to search into all the figures and expressions here used. Yet it is not perpetual destruction. The chapter ends with a promise of their return out of captivity in the latter days. Even with Moabites God will not contend for ever, nor be always wroth. The Jews refer it to the days of the Messiah; then the captives of the Gentiles, under the yoke of sin and Satan, shall be brought back by Divine grace, which shall make them free indeed.And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field,.... Or, from Carmel (k); not Mount Carmel in the land of Israel; for the prophecy is of Moab; though that reached to Sibmah; but here it signifies any fruitful place, like Carmel, where were good pasturage, corn, and fruit bearing trees, which produced great plenty of good things, and caused joy to the owners of them: but now all being destroyed by the enemy, joy and gladness would cease: and from the land of Moab; from all parts of it, where there had used to be plenty, and so joy: and I have caused wine to fail from the wine presses: there being no grapes to put into them, or men to tread them, were there any; or, if put in and trodden, not the owners, but the enemy, should have the wine; so that it should fail from the Moabites; they should be never the better for it. These are the words of the Lord, who has the disposal of the fruits of the earth: none shall tread with shouting; as treaders in the wine press used to do, to encourage one another, and make their labour more easy, and the time to pass on in it more pleasantly; but now there should neither be treading nor shouting; see Isaiah 16:10; their shouting shall be no shouting; not a shouting of joy, as used to be when they trod out the wine; but a cry of mourning and lamentation, because of the sword of the enemy. (k) "de Carmelo", V. L. "de Charmel", Montanus; "ex Carmelo", Schmidt. |
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