17. As when a pregnant (woman) draws near to the birth, she writhes, she cries out in her pangs, so have we been from Thy presence, O Jehovah! 18. We were in travail, we were in pain, as it were we brought forth wind. Deliverance we could not make the land, nor would the inhabitants of the world fall. 19. Thy dead shall live, my corpses shall arise: (awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust!) for the dew of herbs is Thy dew, and (on) the earth (on) the dead, Thou wilt cause it to fall.
VIII.—The Time is not Yet.—Vers. 20, 21.
20. Go, my people, enter into thy chambers, and shut thy doors after thee, hide thyself for a little moment, till the wrath be past. 21. For behold, Jehovah (is) coming out of His place, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth upon him, and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
IX.—Israel’s Chastisements and Jehovah’s Judgments on His enemies, with the glorious results thereof.—Chap. xxvii.
1. In that day shall Jehovah visit with His sword, the hard, the great, the strong (sword), upon leviathan the flying serpent, and upon leviathan the coiled serpent, and shall slay the dragon which (is) in the sea. 2. In that day, as a vineyard of wine, afflict her. 3. I Jehovah (am) keeping her; every moment I will water her; lest any hurt her, night and day will I keep her. 4. It is not because I am cruel or revengeful that I thus afflict My people, but because she is a vineyard overrun with thorns or briers, on account of which I must pass through her and burn them out of her [Or, I am (no longer) angry with My people; O that their enemies, as thorns and briers, would array themselves against Me, that I might rush upon them and consume them.] 5. Or let him lay hold of My strength and make peace with Me; peace let him make with Me.
6. (In) coming (days) shall Jacob take root, Israel shall bud and blossom, and they shall fill the face of the earth with fruit. 7. Like the smiting of the smiter did He smite him, or like the slaying of his slain was he slain?
8. In measure, by sending her away, Thou dost contend with her. He removes (her) by His hard wind in the day of the east wind. 9. Therefore by this (affliction) shall Jacob’s iniquity be purged away, and this is all (its) fruit to take away his sin, (as will appear) in his placing all the stones of the (idolatrous) altar like limestones dashed in pieces (so that) groves and solar images shall arise no more.
10. For a fenced city shall be desolate, a dwelling-place broken up and forsaken like the wilderness. There shall the calf feed, and there shall it lie and consume her branches. 11. When its boughs are withered they shall be broken off, women coming and burning them; because it is not a people of understanding, therefore its Creator shall not pity it, and its Maker shall not have mercy on it.
12. And it shall be in that day, that Jehovah shall gather in His fruit from the channel of the river to the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one to another, O ye children of Israel! 13. And it shall come to pass in that day, (that) a great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come that were wandering in the land of Assyria, and those exiled in the land of Egypt, and shall bow down to Jehovah, in the holy mountain, in Jerusalem.
the downfall of samaria.—chap. xxviii.