[205] This verb best gives the force of the Hebrew, which means both to deal prudently and to prosper or succeed. See p. [346].
[206] Vulgate finely: "extolletur, sublimis erit et valde elatus."
[207] "The term rendered 'startle' has created unnecessary difficulty to some writers. The word means to 'cause to spring or leap;' when applied to fluids, to spirt or sprinkle them. The fluid spirted is put in the accusative, and it is spirted upon the person. In the present passage the person, 'many nations,' is in the accusative, and it is simply treason against the Hebrew language to render 'sprinkle.' The interpreter who will so translate will 'do anything.'"—A. B. Davidson, Expositor, 2nd series, viii., 443. The LXX. has θαυμασονται εθνη πολλα. The Peschitto and Vulgate render sprinkle.
[208] And not our report, or something we caused to be heard, as in the English Version,—שמועה is the passive participle of שמע, to hear, and not of השמיע, to cause to hear. The speakers are now the penitent people of God who had been preached to, and not the prophets who had preached.
[209] Tender shoot. Masculine participle, meaning sucker, or suckling. Dr. John Hunter (Christian Treasury) suggests succulent plant, such as grow in the desert. But in Job viii. 16; xiv. 7; xv. 30, the feminine form is used of any tender shoot of a tree, and the feminine plural in Ezek. xvii. 22 of the same. The LXX. read παιδιον, infant. Before Him, i.e. Jehovah. Cheyne, following Ewald, reads before us. So Giesebrecht.
[210] Took for his burden. Loaded himself with them. The same grievous word which God uses of Himself in ch. xlvi. See p. [180].
[211] There is more than afflicted (Authorised Version) in this word. There is the sense of being humbled, punished for his own sake.
[212] The possessive pronoun has been put to the end of the lines, where it stands in the original, producing a greater emphasis and even a sense of rhyme.
[213] כלנו Kūllanū so rendered instead of "all of us," in order to be assonant with the close of the verse, as the original is, which closes with kullam.
[214] That is, by a form of law that was tyranny, a judicial crime.