[492] “When thou didst stand on the opposite side.”—Calvin.
[493] Plural; LXX. and Qeri.
[494] Sudden change to imperative. The English versions render, Thou shouldest not have looked on, etc.
[495] Cf. Ps. cxxxvii. 7, the day of Jerusalem.
[496] The day of his strangeness = aliena fortuna.
[497] With laughter. Wellhausen and Nowack suspect ver. 13 as an intrusion.
[498] פֶּרֶק does not elsewhere occur. It means cleaving, and the LXX. render it by διεκβολή, i.e. pass between mountains. The Arabic forms from the same root suggest the sense of a band of men standing apart from the main body on the watch for stragglers (cf. נגד, in ver. 11). Calvin, “the going forth”; Grätz פרץ, breach, but see Nowack.
[499] Wellhausen proposes to put the last two clauses immediately after ver. 14.
[500] The prophet seems here to turn to address his own countrymen: the drinking will therefore take the meaning of suffering God’s chastising wrath. Others, like Calvin, take it in the opposite sense, and apply it to Edom: “as ye have exulted,” etc.
[501] Reel—for לעוּ we ought (with Wellhausen) probably to read נעוּ: cf. Lam. iv. 2. Some codd. of LXX. omit all the nations … continuously, drink and reel. But אc.aA and Q have all the nations shall drink wine.