An handful. — Rather, abundance, from a root meaning spread. The clauses, as arranged in the text, evidently miss the intention of the writer. Render,
“Let there be abundance of corn on the earth;
On the top of the mountains let it wave like Libanus,”
i.e., like the cedars of Libanus. The word rendered “wave” elsewhere is used of “earthquakes” or “violent storm,” and suggests here rather a violent agitation than the quiet waving of a sunny cornfield, as if the very mountains were under cultivation, and their crowning woods that sway to and fro in the breeze were suddenly changed to grain. (Comp. Psalms 92:13.) The images suggested by the LXX. and Vulg., of the corn in the lowlands growing high enough to overtop Lebanon, is grotesque.
And they of the city... — Better, and let them (men) spring forth from the city like grass from the earth. (As images of large population, comp. Psalms 92:7; Job 5:25.) But probably we ought to transpose a letter and read, “and let cities spring up like grass from the earth.”