Isaiah 11 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:

And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;

And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:

But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. With the rod of his mouth "By the blast of his mouth" - For בשבט beshebet, by the rod, Houbigant reads בשבת beshebeth, by the blast of his mouth, from נשב nashab, to blow. The conjecture is ingenious and probable; and seems to be confirmed by the Septuagint and Chaldee, who render it by the word of his mouth, which answers much better to the correction than to the present reading. Add to this, that the blast of his mouth is perfectly parallel to the breath of his lips in the next line.

And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The girdle "The cincture" - All the ancient Versions, except that of Symmachus, have two different words for girdle in the two hemistichs. It is not probable that Isaiah would have repeated אזור azer, when a synonymous word so obvious as חגור chagor occurred. The tautology seems to have arisen from the mistake of some transcriber. The meaning of this verse is, that a zeal for justice and truth shall make him active and strong in executing the great work which he shall undertake. See note on Isaiah 5:27.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. The wolf also shall, etc. "Then shall the wolf," etc. - The idea of the renewal of the golden age, as it is called, is much the same in the Oriental writers with that of the Greeks and Romans: - the wild beasts grow tame; serpents and poisonous herbs become harmless; all is peace and harmony, plenty and happiness: -

Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni Occidet.

Vega. Eclog. 4:24.

"The serpent's brood shall die. The sacred ground

Shall weeds and noxious plants refuse to bear."

- Nec magnos metuent armenta leones.

Virg. Eclog. 4:22.

"Nor shall the flocks fear the great lions."

Non lupus insidias explorat ovilia circum,

Nec gregibus nocturnus obambulat: acrior illum

Cura domat: timidae damae cervique fugaces

Nunc interque canes, et circum tecta vagantur.

Virg. Georg. 3:537.

"The nightly wolf that round the enclosure prowled,

To leap the fence, now plots not on the fold:

Tamed with a sharper pain, the fearful doe

And flying stag amidst the greyhounds go;

And round the dwellings roam, of man, their former foe."

Dryden.

Nec vespertinus circumgemit ursus ovile,

Nec intumescit alta viperis humus.

Hor. Epod. 16:51.

"Nor evening bears the sheepfold growl around,

Nor mining vipers heave the tainted ground."

Dryden.

Εσται δη τουτ' αμαρ, ὁπηνικα νεβρον εν ευνᾳ

Καρχαροδων δινεσθαι ιδων λυκος ουκ εθελησει.

Theoc. Idyl. 24:84.

There shall be a time when the ravenous wolf shall see the kid lying at ease, and shall feel no desire to do it an injury.

I have laid before the reader these common passages from the most elegant of the ancient poets, that he may see how greatly the prophet on the same subject has the advantage upon the comparison; how much the former fall short of that beauty and elegance, and variety of imagery, with which Isaiah has set forth the very same ideas. The wolf and the leopard not only forbear to destroy the lamb and the kid, but even take their abode and lie down together with them. The calf, and the young lion, and the fatling, not only come together, but are led quietly in the same band, and that by a little child. The heifer and the she-bear not only feed together, but even lodge their young ones, for whom they used to be most jealously fearful, in the same place. All the serpent kind is so perfectly harmless, that the sucking infant and the newly weaned child puts his hand on the basilisk's den, and plays upon the hole of the aspic. The lion not only abstains from preying on the weaker animals, but becomes tame and domestic, and feeds on straw like the ox. These are all beautiful circumstances, not one of which has been touched upon by the ancient poets. The Arabian and Persian poets elegantly apply the same ideas to show the effects of justice impartially administered, and firmly supported, by a great and good king: -

"Mahmoud the powerful king, the ruler of the world,

To whose tank the wolf and the lamb come, together to drink."

Ferdusi.

"Through the influence of righteousness, the hungry wolf

Becomes mild, though in the presence of the white kid."

Ibn Onein. Jones, Poes. Asiat. Comment., p. 380.

The application is extremely ingenious and beautiful: but the exquisite imagery of Isaiah is not equalled.

And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. In this verse a word is omitted in the text, יחדו yachdav, together; which ought to be repeated in the second hemistich, being quite necessary to the sense. It is accordingly twice expressed by the Septuagint and Syriac.

And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. The cockatrice' den - This is supposed, both by the Targum and by Kimchi, to mean the pupil of this serpent's eye. "When," says Kimchi, "he is in the mouth of his den, in an obscure place, then his eyes sparkle exceedingly: the child, seeing this, and supposing it to be a piece of crystal, or precious stone, puts forth his hand to take it. What would be very dangerous at another time, shall be safe in the days of the Messiah; for the serpent will not hurt the child."

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. A root of Jesse, which shall stand etc. "The root of Jesse, which standeth," etc. - St. John hath taken this expression from Isaiah, Revelation 5:5, and Revelation 22:16, where Christ hath twice applied it to himself. Seven MSS. have עומד omed, standing, the present participle. Radix Isaei dicitur jam stare, et aliquantum stetisse, in signum populorum. - Vitringa. "The root of Jesse is said to stand, and for some time to have stood, for an ensign to the people." Which rightly explains either of the two readings. Psalms 110:1-7 (note) is a good comment on this verse.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And it shall come to pass in that day - This part of the chapter contains a prophecy which certainly remains yet to be accomplished.

The Lord "Jehovah" - For אדני Adonai, thirty-three MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and two editions, read יהוה Yehovah.

The islands of the sea - The Roman and Turkish empires, say Kimchi.

And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. The adversaries of Judah "And the enmity of Judah" - צררים tsorerim, Postulat pars posterior versus, ut intelligantur inimicitiae Judae in Ephraimum: et potest (צררים tsorerim) inimicitiam notare, ut (נחומים nichumim) poenitentiam, Hosea 11:8. - Secker.

But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.

And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. The Lord - shall smite it in the seven streams "Smite with a drought" - The Chaldee reads החריב hecherib; and so perhaps the Septuagint, who have ερημωσει, the word by which they commonly render it. Vulg. desolabit; "shall desolate." The Septuagint, Vulgate, and Chaldee read הדריכהו hidrichahu, "shall make it passable," adding the pronoun, which is necessary: but this reading is not confirmed by any MS.

Here is a plain allusion to the passage of the Red Sea. And the Lord's shaking his hand over the river with his vehement wind, refers to a particular circumstance of the same miracle: for "he caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land," Exodus 14:21. The tongue; a very apposite and descriptive expression for a bay such as that of the Red Sea. It is used in the same sense, Joshua 15:2, Joshua 15:5; Joshua 18:19. The Latins gave the same name to a narrow strip of land running into the sea: tenuem producit in aequora linguam. Lucan. 2:613. He shall smite the river to its seven streams. This has been supposed to refer to the Nile, because it falls into the Mediterranean Sea by seven mouths: but R. Kimchi understands it of the Euphrates, which is the opinion of some good judges. See the Targum. See below.

Herodotus, lib. i, 189, tells a story of his Cyrus, (a very different character from that of the Cyrus of the Scriptures and Xenophon), which may somewhat illustrate this passage, in which it is said that God would inflict a kind of punishment and judgment on the Euphrates, and render it fordable by dividing it into seven streams. "Cyrus, being impeded in his march to Babylon by the Gyndes, a deep and rapid river which falls into the Tigris, and having lost one of his sacred white horses that attempted to pass it, was so enraged against the river that he threatened to reduce it, and make it so shallow that it should be easily fordable even by women, who should not be up to their knees in passing it. Accordingly he set his whole army to work, and cutting three hundred and sixty trenches, from both sides of the river, turned the waters into them, and drained them off."

And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt. Commentary on the Bible, by Adam Clarke [1831].