For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer: now the LORD will feed them as a lamb in a large place.
Ver. 16. For Israel slideth back, as a back sliding heifer] Iuvenea petulca, as an unruly heifer, which kicketh against the milk pail, and wriggleth against the yoke. As a mad cow, δαμαλις παροιστρωσα, so the Septuagint. Mr Dearing told Queen Elizabeth in a sermon, that whereas once she wrote in Woodstock windows, tanquam ovis, as a sheep to the slaughter; now she was tanquam indomita iuvenca, as an untamed heifer; and might well fear lest God would feed her as a lamb in a large place as here, and feed her with his rod, as Micah 7:14. The Chaldee rendereth, sicut bos qui saginatur et recalcitrat, as an ox that waxeth fat and kicketh. But the Hebrew word is feminine; and in all creatures, the female is observed to be more headlong and headstrong. (Virg. Georg. III):
“ Scilicet ante omnes furor est insignis equarum. ”
Heifers also are more wild, wanton, and untractable: noting the children of disobedience, those refractory rebels: that, as false jades, will not stand and pull (as countrymen call it), set their shoulders to the yoke, and their sides to the work, but give in and kick against the prick.
Now the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a large place] i.e. He will keep them short, as a heifer kept in a sheep pasture, where there is nothing for her to bite on, it is so bare. A lamb can live where a heifer cannot; a lamb can pick up the grass of the wilderness, and pick a living out of it. God threateneth these heifers, they shall have henceforth short commons. Thus Gaulther carries it. Mercer will have it thus: I will feed them as a lamb, i.e. daintily and plentifully, that being the sooner fatted, they may be fitted for the shambles. Other thus, and I think better, he shall feed them, that is, punish them, as Micah 5:4 ; Micah 5:6 ; Mic 7:14 as a lamb, one single helpless lamb, that goes bleating up and down in the wide waste wilderness, having none to tend it, or take care of it: it shall be all alone in a large place. How much better and safer were it to be in God's fold, where (though penned, or pent up in a narrower room, yet) God's lambs are sure to be fed daily and daintily. Whereas those that affect freedom from God's service, and hold themselves at best ease when they have elbow room enough to satisfy their lusts without restraint or control, they shall be fed with God's rod, Micah 7:14, yea, they shall find that he hath two rods, beauty and bands, Zechariah 11:7, the latter for those that fight the former. Or if he feed them as a lamb in a large place, alone, and at random, they will quickly become a prey to the wolf, and soon have enough of that wild liberty that they so much affected.