8 Won't the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
He confirms what the last verse contains in other words: and the question is emphatical, for it is a double affirmation. A question, we know, is usually put, when there is no measure of doubt on the subject. God then asks here as of a thing certain, how they could remain in safety, who had so perverted every thing right and just, who had violated all equity, who were influenced by no feelings of humanity, -- how could such continue safe? It was impossible. We hence see why the Prophet here uses a question; it was, that he might more fully confirm what he declares. Shall not the land, he says, make a tumult? [1] when these disturb all order, when they mingle, as the proverb is, heaven and earth together, can the earth remain quiet under such a violent confusion? when all reason and equity is confounded, how, he says, can the land do otherwise than make a tumult? And though the Prophet ascribes not here either clamor or speech to the land; it is yet a sort of personification, when he says that the earth must necessarily make a tumult, while it sustains such inhabitants; for between them there was no agreement. Since then their way of living was extremely turbulent, the land itself must necessarily be agitated. He afterwards adds, And mourn shall every one who dwells in it He now shows that the inhabitants of the earth shall feel that commotion of which he predicts: for the earth, ceasing to fulfill its offices, constrains its inhabitants to lament and mourn. And then there is another metaphor which sets forth the moving of the earth, that it will rise as a river to destroy men with a deluge. Many render what follows, "It shall be driven away and closed up like the river of Egypt." But after the Prophet has spoken of inundation of the earth, he turns his discourse to the men whom this inundation would drown and swallow up. Hence, the real sense is, that their habitations would be destroyed, as by a deep gulf, in a way similar to the Nile, which, by overflowing the whole country, seems to make a sea of what had been inhabited. As the Prophet's words lead us as by the hand, I wonder how those skillful in the Hebrew language could have blended things so different, for they give this explanation, "The land shall be raised up, as a river, and then it shall be destroyed and driven away;" and they refer this to the land; and then, "it shall be sunk down:" this also they apply to the land; except that some give this rendering, "It shall discharge itself like the river of Egypt." But I translate otherwise, "It shall heave up whole as a river, and shall be driven away, and shall be immersed as by the river of Egypt." It shall heave up, he says, that is, the land as a river; so that there will be no habitation for men: "I have given this land to my people that they might live in it; but the land itself shall heave up as a river; there shall be an inundation of the whole land." And then when he says, It shall be driven away and sunk, this ought not to be referred to the land itself, but to the inhabitants or to the people. [2] He had said before, k'r, kar, as a river; but now he says, ky'vr, kiaur, which I explain as meaning, as by the river of Egypt. The Nile, we know, overflows annually and covers the whole plain of Egypt. The Prophet therefore borrowed a similitude from the Nile; and he says, that such would be God's vengeance, that the land would be like a river, and its dwellings would be immersed and carried away, or annihilated: for when there is no surface of land, it seems to have been cleared away. So then he says now, It shall be driven away, It shall be sunk. This is the simple explanation; and , oin, is to be understood; for sq, shiko, is to sink or to cover. Here, h, he is only put, but , oin, is to be understood, and there is also a double reading pointed out. [3] We now then perceive the Prophet's meaning. But it follows --
1 - Shake or move is the most current meaning of the word, and the most suitable to this place. Newcome renders it, "be shaken;" Henderson, "tremble;" and Grotius, "be moved." -- Ed.
2 - A different view is given by Newcome and also by Henderson. Newcome translates thus, -- And shall not all of it rise up as the river, And be driven out of its place and sunk down as the river of Egypt? Henderson renders the lines in the same sense, though in different words, -- Shall not all of it rise like the river? Shall it not be driven and subside Like the river of Egypt? The question is unnecessarily retained, borrowed from the first line of the verse. It is seldom, if ever, that this is the case in Hebrew; it is not consistent with the simplicity of the language. It is evidently the earthquake that is here compared to the rising and subsiding of a river. I would therefore render the whole verse thus, -- Shall not for this the land shake, And every inhabitant in it mourn? For heave up as a river shall the whole of it, And it shall be agitated and subside like the river of Egypt. Here is the heaving, the agitation, and the subsidence of the earth in an earthquake. -- Ed.
3 - He means evidently the Keri, the marginal reading. -- Ed.
Shall not the land tremble for this? - o: "For the greater impressiveness, he ascribes to the insensate earth sense, indignation, horror, trembling. For all creation feels the will of its Creator." "It shall rise up wholly as a flood," literally, "like the river." It is the Egyptian name for "river, which Israel brought with it out of Egypt, and is used either for the Nile, or for one of the artificial "trenches," derived from it. "And it shall be cast out and drowned," literally, "shall toss to and fro" as the sea, "and sink as the river of Egypt." The prophet represents the land as heaving like the troubled sea. As the Nile rose, and its currents met and drove one against the other, covered and drowned the whole land like one vast sea, and then sank again, so the earth should rise, lift up itself, and heave and quake, shaking off the burden of man's oppressions, and sink again. It may be, he would describe the heaving, the rising and falling, of an earthquake. Perhaps, he means that as a man forgat all the moral laws of nature, so inanimate nature should be freed from its wonted laws, and shake out its inhabitants or overwhelm them by an earthquake, as in one grave.
Shall not the land tremble for this - It is supposed that an earthquake is here intended, and that the rising up and subsiding as a flood refers to that heaving motion that takes place in an earthquake, and which the prophet here compares to the overflowing and subsiding of the waters of the Nile. But it may refer to commotions among the people.
Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and (f) drowned, as [by] the flood of Egypt.
(f) That is, the inhabitants of the land will be drowned, as the Nile drowns many when it overflows.
Shall not the land tremble for this,.... For this wickedness committed, in using the poor with so much inhumanity? may not an earthquake be expected? and which happened two years after Amos began to prophesy, Amos 1:1; or that the earth should gape and swallow up these men alive, guilty of such enormities? or shall not the inhabitants of the land tremble at such judgments, which the Lord hath sworn he will bring upon it?
and everyone mourn that dwelleth therein? at the hearing of them, and especially when they shall come upon them: as the calamity would be general, the mourning should be universal:
and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; that is, the calamity threatened shall rise up at once like a flood of waters, like Noah's flood, and cover the whole land, and wash off and utterly destroy man and beast:
and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt; or the river of Egypt, the Nile, which overflows at certain times, and casts up its waters and its mud, and drowns all the country; so that the whole country, during its continuance, looks like a sea: it overflows both its banks, both towards Lybia or Africa, and towards Arabia, and on each side about two days' journey, as Herodotus (d) relates; and this it does regularly every year, in the summer solstice, in the higher and middle Egypt, where it seldom rains, and its flood is necessary; but is not so large in the lower Egypt, where it more frequently rains, and the country needs it not. Strabo (e) says this flood remains more than forty days, and then it decreases by little and little, as it increased; and within sixty days the fields are seen and dried up; and the sooner that is, the sooner they plough and sow, and have the better harvests. Herodotus (f) says it continues a hundred days, and is near the same in returning; and he says, unless it rises to sixteen, or at least fifteen cubits, it will not overflow the country (g): and, according to Pliny (h), the proper increase of the waters is sixteen cubits; if only they arise to twelve, it is a famine; if to thirteen, it is hunger; if to fourteen, it brings cheerfulness; if to fifteen, security; and if to sixteen, delights. But Strabo (i) relates, that the fertility by it is different at different times; before the times of Petronius, the greatest fertility was when the Nile arose to the fourteenth cubit; and when to the eighteenth, it was a famine: but when he was governor of that country, when it only reached the twelfth cubit, there was great fruitfulness; had when it came to the eighth (the eighteenth I suppose it should be) no famine was perceived. An Arabic writer (k) gives an account of the Nilometry, or measures of the Nile, from the year of Christ 622 to 1497; and he says, that, when the depth of the channel of the Nile is fourteen cubits, a harvest may be expected that will amount to one year's provision; but, if it increases to sixteen, the corn will be sufficient for two years; less than fourteen, a scarcity; and more than eighteen makes a famine. Upon the whole, it seems that sixteen cubits have been reckoned the standard that portends plenty, for many generations, to which no addition has appeared to have been made during the space of five hundred years.
"This we learn (says Dr. Shaw) (l), not only from the sixteen children that attend the statue of the Nile, but from Pliny also; and likewise from a medal of Hadrian in the great brass where we see the figure of the Nile, with a boy upon it, pointing to the number sixteen. Yet in the fourth century, which it will be difficult to account for, fifteen cubits only are recorded by the Emperor Julian (m) as the height of the Nile's inundation; whereas, in the middle of the sixth century, in the time of Justinian, Procopius (n) informs us that the rise of the Nile exceeded eighteen cubits; in the seventh century, after Egypt was subdued by the Saracens, the amount was sixteen or seventeen cubits; and at present, when the river rises to sixteen cubits, the Egyptians make great rejoicings, and call out, "wafaa Allah", that is, "God has given them all they wanted".''
The river begins to swell in May, yet no public notice is taken of it till the twenty eighth or twenty ninth of June; by which time it is usually risen to the height of six or eight pikes (or cubits, a Turkish measure of twenty six inches); and then public criers proclaim it through the capital, and other cities, and continue in the same manner till it rises to sixteen pikes; then they cut down the dam of the great canal. If the water increases to the height of twenty three or twenty four pikes, it is judged most favourable; but, if it exceed that, it does a great deal of mischief, not only by overflowing houses, and drowning cattle, but also by engendering a great number of insects, which destroy the fruits of the earth (o). And a late learned traveller (p) tells us, that
"eighteen pikes is an indifferent Nile (for so high it is risen when they declare it but sixteen); twenty is middling; twenty two is a good Nile, beyond which it seldom rises; it is said, if it rises above twenty four pikes, it is looked on as an inundation, and is of bad consequence.''
And to such a flood the allusion is here. Thus the land of Israel should be overwhelmed and plunged into the utmost distress, and sink into utter ruin, by this judgment coming upon them; even the Assyrian army, like a flood, spreading themselves over all the land, and destroying it. So the Targum,
"a king shall come up against it with his army, large as the waters of a river, and shall cover it wholly, and expel the inhabitants of it, and shall plunge as the river of Egypt;''
see Isaiah 8:7.
(d) Euterpe, sive l. 9. c. 19. (e) Geograph. l. 17. p. 542. (f) Ut supra. (Euterpe, sive l. 9. c. 19.) (g) Ibid. c. 13. (h) Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 9. (i) Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 17. p. 542.) (k) Apud Calmet. Dictionary, in the word "Nile". (l) Travels, p. 384. Ed. 2. (m) Ecdicio, Ep. 50. (n) De Rebus Gothicis, l. 3. (o) Universal History, vol. 1. p. 413. (p) Pocock's Description of the East, p. 200.
the land . . . rise up wholly as a flood--The land will, as it were, be wholly turned into a flooding river (a flood being the image of overwhelming calamity, Daniel 9:26).
cast out and drowned, &c.--swept away and overwhelmed, as the land adjoining the Nile is by it, when flooding (Amos 9:5). The Nile rises generally twenty feet. The waters then "cast out" mire and dirt (Isaiah 57:20).
The land - The people of it. For this - This that you have done, and this that God will do. And it - The judgment, the displeasure of God, shall rise and grow like a mighty wasting flood. It - The land. Drowned - As Egypt by the overflowing of the Nile.
*More commentary available at chapter level.