And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. And seven women - The division of the Chapter s has interrupted the prophet's discourse, and broken it off almost in the midst of the sentence. "The numbers slain in battle shall be so great, that seven women shall be left to one man." The prophet has described the greatness of this distress by images and adjuncts the most expressive and forcible. The young women, contrary to their natural modesty, shall become suitors to the men: they will take hold of them, and use the most pressing importunity to be married. In spite of the natural suggestions of jealousy, they will be content with a share only of the rights of marriage in common with several others; and that on hard conditions, renouncing the legal demands of the wife on the husband, (see Exodus 21:10), and begging only the name and credit of wedlock, and to be freed from the reproach of celibacy. See Isaiah 54:4, Isaiah 54:5. Like Marcia, on a different occasion, and in other circumstances: -
Da tantum nomen inane
Connubii: liceat tumulo scripsisse, Catonis Marcia.
Lucan, 2:342.
"This happened," says Kimchi, "in the days of Ahaz, when Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judea one hundred and twenty thousand men in one day; see 2 Chronicles 18:6. The widows which were left were so numerous that the prophet said, 'They are multiplied beyond the sand of the sea,'" Jeremiah 15:8.
In that day - These words are omitted in the Septuagint, and MSS.