I have likened, &c. There being nothing for woman in the Hebrew text, and the word נוה, here rendered comely, frequently signifying a pasture, a sheep-fold, and a habitation, the verse is translated different ways by learned men. Houbigant and several others read it and the next verse thus: “I have likened the daughter of Sion to a pleasant pasture, whither the shepherds, with their flocks, come to feed: they have pitched their tents near it, and they feed round it, every one in his place.”
According to this reading, in which Sion is likened to a rich pasture, the shepherds and their flocks that come together to take possession of it, and eat it up, mean the Chaldean generals and their armies, who should possess themselves of Judea and Jerusalem, with as much ease as shepherds lead their flocks into a fresh and open pasture, and should enrich themselves with the spoil thereof. This is certainly a very easy and probable sense of the passage. Blaney, however, prefers rendering the word נוה habitation; and, taking the verb דמיתי to signify here, not, I have likened, but, I have destroyed, (a sense which it sometimes bears,) he reads the passage, “The habitation, even the delightful one, have I doomed to destruction, the daughter of Sion. The shepherds, with their flocks, shall come to her. And they shall pitch their tents against her round about.” “Jerusalem,” he observes, “is in like manner called simply נוה, the habitation, Isaiah 27:10. And it seems entitled to the name by way of eminence, as the chief residence both of Israel and the God of Israel. Accordingly, speaking of the very desolation here intended, the psalmist says, They have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling-place, נוהו, Psalms 79:7. It is also called God's habitation, Exodus 15:13; 2 Samuel 15:25, &c. And, with respect to the epithet annexed, the delightful one, Jerusalem is frequently spoken of in terms that show it to have been, in a very eminent degree, the object of delight both with God and man.”