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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 57:7 - 57:7
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The prophet now proceeds with perfects, like שָׁפַכְתְּ and הֶעֱלִית (addressed to the national community generally, the congregation regarded as a woman). The description is mostly retrospective. “Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set up thy bed; thou also ascendedst thither to offer slain offerings. And behind the door and the post thou didst place thy reminder: for thou uncoveredst away from me, and ascendedst; thou madest thy bed broad, and didst stipulate for thyself what they had to do: thou lovedst their lying with thee; thou sawest their manhood.” The lovers that she sought for herself are the gods of the heathen. Upon lofty mountains, where they are generally worshipped, did she set up her bed, and did all that was needed to win their favour. The zikkârōn, i.e., the declaration that Jehovah is the only God, which the Israelites were to write upon the posts of their houses, and upon the entrances (Deu 6:9; Deu 11:20), for a constant reminder, she had put behind the door and post, that she might not be reminded, to her shame, of her unfaithfulness. That this explanation, which most of the commentators adopt, is the true one, is proved by the expression מֵאתִּיִ כִּי which follows, and according to which זִכְרוֹןֵ is something inconvenient, which might and was intended to remind them of Jehovah. מֵאתִּיִ, away, far from me, as in Jer 3:1, and like מִתַּחְתַּי, which is still more frequently used. It is unnecessary to take gillı̄th with עֶרְוָתֵךְ understood (Eze 23:18) as equivalent to “thou makest thyself naked,” or with reference to the clothes = ἀνασύρεις. מִשְׁכָּבֵ is the common object of all three verbs, even of וַתַּעֲלִי (with double metheg), after Gen 49:4. On וַתִּכְרָת for וַתִּכְרְתיִ (cf., Jer 3:5), see Ewald, §191, b. The explanation “thou didst bind,” or “thou didst choose (some) of them to thyself,” is contrary to the general usage, according to which לְ כָּרַת signifies spondere (2Ch 7:18), and (עִם כָּרַת pacisci (1Sa 22:8), in both cases with בְּרִית to be supplied, so that מן (בְּרִית) כָּרַת would mean stipulari ab aliquo, i.e., to obtain from a person a solemn promise, with all the force of a covenant. What she stipulated from them was, either the wages of adultery, or the satisfaction of her wanton lust. What follows agrees with this; for it is there distinctly stated, that the lovers to whom she offered herself gratified her lust abundantly: adamasti concutibum eorum (mishkâb, cubile, e.g., Pro 7:17, and concubitus, e.g., Ezra 23:17), manum conspexisit. The Targum and Jewish commentators adopt this explanation, loco quem delegisti, or (postquam) locum delegisti. This also is apparently the meaning of the accents, and most of the more modern commentators have adopted it, taking יָד in the sense of place or side. But this yields only a very lame and unmeaning thought. Doederlein conjectured that יָד was employed here in the sense of ἰθύφαλλος; and this is the explanation adopted by Hitzig, Ewald, and others. The Arabic furnishes several analogies to this obscene use of the word; and by the side of Eze 16:26 and Eze 23:20, where the same thing is affirmed in even plainer language, there is nothing to astonish in the passage before us. The meaning is, that after the church of Jehovah had turned away from its God to the world and its pleasures, it took more and more delight in the pleasures afforded it by idolatry, and indulged its tastes to the full.