in Arabic run together in that of cutting off. שַׁדְמוֹת the Plural of the Feminine of the Adjective שָׁרֵמ are, accordingly, loca abscissa, places which are cut off and excluded [from the Holy City] outwardly (Aq.: προάσπεια), and, at the same time, inwardly. Thus we obtain a striking contrast between their present nature and future destination. What is now distinctly separated from the holy, then become holiness, קדש. From 2 Kings xxiii. it appears, moreover, that the fields of Kidron were unclean. It was thither as to an unclean place, that Josiah caused all the abominations of idolatry to be carried, and to be burnt; comp. ver. 4 (Josiah commanded all the vessels which had been made to Baal and Ashera to be brought forth out of the temple): "And he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron." Ver. 6: "And he brought out the Ashera out of the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and he burned them in the valley of Kidron.... And cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people." These last words (the children of the people = the mob, high and low, who had polluted themselves by idolatry, comp. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 4: "And he strewed the dust upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them")
enable us perhaps to conjecture the cause of the uncleanness of these fields. They served as a burying ground to the adherents of the worship of Moloch, who were anxious to rest in the neighbourhood of their idol, which dwelt in the neighbouring Tophet; and this is the more easily accounted for, that it is very probable that the sacrifices offered up to the idol were, in a great measure, sacrifices offered for the dead.--קדש ליהוה refers to every thing mentioned in the verse before us. As regards the last words, comp. Remarks on Zech. xiv. 11.
[ [1]] The person of the Messiah meets us as the living centre of the salvation in ver. 9: "And they serve the Lord their God, and David their King, whom I will raise up unto them;" on which words Jonathan remarks: "And the Messiah the Son of David;" and Abarbanel: "This is King Messiah, who is of the house of David, and is therefore called by his name." From the parallel passages, Hos. iii. 5; Is. lv. 3, our passage differs in this, that David here does not, as in those passages, designate the family of David which centres in Christ, but the person of the Messiah. The commentary is furnished by chap. xxiii. 5: "I raise unto David a righteous Sprout." The circumstance, that it is not the Sprout of David, but David, that is spoken of here, is explained from a reference to the words which the ten tribes spoke at their rebellion, 1 Kings xii. 16: "We have no portion in David, neither have we inheritance in the Son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel." To the person of the Messiah the Prophet reverts once more towards the close also: "And their glorious one shall be out of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them (compare Mic. v. 1, 2, [2, 3]), and I cause him to draw near, and he approacheth unto me; for who is surety for his heart to approach unto me, saith the Lord?" God himself receives the King of the Future into the closest communion with Him,--"I and the Father are one"--a communion which no one can usurp by his own power, and which, in the case of the former kings, even in that of David, was frequently disturbed by their sinful weakness.
[ [2]] Hofmann (Weiss. u. Erf. 1 S. 138) assigns to the phrase the meaning: "to make an arrangement." But decisive against this is not only the derivation, (comp. Gesenius Thesaurus), but the circumstance also, that it is almost exclusively and quite manifestly used of a relation resting on reciprocity, of the making of a covenant in the ordinary sense; and that the few instances where there is apparently a reference to one party, form an exception only to the rule.
[ [3]] Even the most recent interpreters, who take בעל sensu malo, still greatly differ,--a proof that this interpretation has a very insufficient foundation on which to rest. Gesenius, De Wette, Bleek (on Heb. viii. 9), retain the explanation by fastidire, rejicere; Maurer translates: dominarer, domini partes sustinerem, contrasting tyrannical dominion with a relation of love; Ewald: "Seeing that I am her master and protector;" Hitzig: "And I got possession of her." All these interpretations are opposed by the usus loquendi, according to which בעל has only the two significations: "to possess," and "to take for a wife," the latter being the ordinary and prevailing one.
[ [4]] Not less than these, Hitzig too has allowed himself to be carried away by the appearance. He says: "Then, indeed, the office of religious instructors must cease."
[ [5]] According to Krafft (sur Topographie Jerus. S. 158), it is only the hill Bezetha which, by the third wall of Agrippa, was added to the town, that can correspond to the situation of Gareb.
[ [6]] Thenius, in the appendix to the Commentary on the Books of Kings, S. 24, remarks: "גל does not, in any of the dialects, denote the natural hill of rocks, but merely stones heaped up." Hence, the hill would be an artificial hill for the execution of criminals. (Compare the German word Rabenstein, lit. "raven-stone," for: place of execution.)