——‘and also from the height they fear, and shall be terrified in the way, and the watch shall rush upon him, and the almond flourish, and the grasshopper be increased, and the caper shall burst, and desire shall cease.’ We think that, with these different versions before us, all of which have preserved portions of the original, we shall be able to conjecture the meaning of the text. It is just possible that originally the text read מגביה, and which might have been altered by displacing the י, and putting it on to the beginning of the next word; for otherwise it is hard to suppose that the LXX. would go out of their way to alter a reading the meaning of which, as it stands, is so obvious. B. seems to have preserved this original reading. The difference to the sense, however, is not great, as this looking upwards is evidently the effect of fear, as is shown by the next clause. This begins with the word וחתחתים——a reduplicated and therefore emphasized form of חתת, to ‘be dismayed,’ or ‘distracted,’ as in the sense of ‘broken in pieces;’ hence the rendering of Aquila: ‘These intense tremblings in the way’——which word ‘way’ surely we may interpret in the ethical sense so common in this book of ‘way of life’——are the natural result of ‘looking with fearfulness into the height.’ Compare chapter iii. 21.
[♦] “πανχυνθῆ” replaced with “παχυνθῇ”
The next clause is still more obscure. The word ינאץ has, in all other places, the meaning ‘to be despised,’ or, in piel, to ‘provoke.’ The hiphil occurs here only, and is rendered, contrary to all analogy, ‘flourish.’ This is virtually to alter the text; and though the LXX. support this rendering, it is clear, from its various readings, that the Greek text has also been tampered with. The original meaning has apparently been preserved by Symmachus, and by the alternative rendering of the Syriac. Then as to ‘the almond tree,’ השקד: the word occurs Genesis xliii. 11, Numbers xvii. 8 (23), Jeremiah i. 11, all. This last passage gives probably the clue. The almond is the first tree to blossom in the coming spring, and is its harbinger; it is, as it were, in a hurry to welcome it; but this harbinger of spring is despised. As to the interpretation that the almond blossom is an allegorical description of the white hairs of an old man, it may be answered that the almond blossom is pink, not white.
The next clause——‘The grasshopper shall be a burden’——may be explained by noticing that the word חגב occurs Numbers xiii. 33, Isaiah xl. 22, as the type of something small or insignificant. The only other two places, viz. Leviticus xi. 22, 2 Chronicles vii. 13, where the word occurs, show that this creature was edible, but might become a plague. יסתבל, the hithpael of סבל, occurs here only; ‘burdens itself’ is the exact meaning. The English Version no doubt gives here the true sense.