9 In my ears, Yahweh of Armies says: "Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
This is in the ears of Jehovah of hosts. Here something must be supplied; for he means that the Lord sits as judge, and as taking cognizance of those things. When covetous men seize and heap up their wealth, they are blinded by their desire of gain, and do not understand that they will one day render an account. Never, certainly, were men so utterly stupid as not to ascribe some judgment to God; but they flatter themselves so far as to imagine that God does not observe them. In general, therefore, they acknowledge the judgment of God: when they come to particular cases, they take liberties, and suppose that they are not bound to proceed to that extent. If many houses be not laid desolate. Having warned them that none of these things escape the eyes of God, lest they should imagine that it is a knowledge which does not lead to action, he immediately adds, that vengeance is close at hand. He likewise makes use of an oath; for the expression If not is a form of swearing that frequently occurs in the Scriptures. [1] In order to strike them with greater terror he breaks off the sentence with studied abruptness. [2] He might indeed have brought out this threatening with full expression, but the incomplete form is better fitted to keep the hearer in doubt and suspense, and is therefore more alarming. Besides, by this instance of reserve the Lord intended to train us to modesty, that we may not be too free in the use of oaths. But what does he threaten? Many houses will be laid desolate. This is a just punishment, by which the Lord chastises the covetousness and ambition of men, who did not consider their own meanness, that they might be satisfied with a moderate portion. In a similar manner the poet ridicules the mad ambition of Alexander the Great, who having learned from the philosophy of Anacharsis that there were many worlds, sighed to think, that after having worn himself out by so many toils, he had not yet made himself master of one world. "One globe does not satisfy the Macedonian youth. He writhes in misery on account of the narrow limits of the world, as if he were confined to the rocks of Gyaros, or to the puny Seriphos. But when he shall enter the city framed by potters, he will be content with a tomb. Death alone acknowledges how small are the dimensions of the bodies of men." [3] Instances of the same kind occur every day, yet we do not observe them; for the Lord exhibits to us, as in a mirror, the absurd vanity of men, who spend a vast amount of money in building palaces that are afterwards to become the receptacles of owls and bats and other animals. These things are plainly before our eyes, and yet we do not apply our mind to the consideration of them. So sudden and various are the changes that happen, so many houses are laid desolate, so many cities are overthrown and destroyed, and, in short, there are so many other evident proofs of the judgment of God; and yet men cannot be persuaded to lay aside this mad ambition. The Lord threatens by the Prophet Amos: "You have built houses of hewn stones, but you shall not dwell in them." (Amos 5:11.) And again, "He will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts." (Amos 6:11.) These things happen daily, and yet the lawless passions of men are not abated.
1 - The following is a striking instance: To whom I sware in my wrath, If they shall enter into my rest; that is, they shall not enter into my rest. (Psalm 95:11.), -- Ed.
2 - The classical reader may be reminded of a fine instance of aposiopesis, by which the effect of a speech is prodigiously heightened: Quos ego -- sed motos praestat componere fluctus. -- Virg. AEn. 1:135.
3 - Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis: AEstuat infelix angusto limite mundi, Ut Gyari clausus scopulis parvaque Seripho: Quum tamen a figulis munitam intraverit urbem, Sarcophago contentus erit. Mors sola fatetur, Quantula sint hominum corpuscula. Juven. Sat. 10:168-173.
In mine ears - This probably refers to the prophet. As if he had said, 'God has revealed it to me,' or 'God has said in my ears,' i. e, to me. The Septuagint reads it, 'These things are heard in the ears of the Lord of hosts,' that is, the wishes" of the man of avarice. The Chaldee, 'The prophet said, In my ears I have heard; a decree has gone from the Lord of hosts,' etc.
Many houses shall be desolate - Referring to the calamities that should come upon the nation for its crimes.
In mine ears. "To mine ear" - The sentence in the Hebrew text seems to be imperfect in this place; as likewise in Isaiah 22:14 (note), where the very same sense seems to be required as here. See the note there; and compare 1-Samuel 9:15 (note). In this place the Septuagint supply the word ηκουσθη, and the Syriac אשתמע eshtama, auditus est Jehovah in auribus meis, i.e., נגלה niglah, as in Isaiah 22:14.
Many houses - This has reference to what was said in the preceding verse: "In vain are ye so intent upon joining house to house, and field to field; your houses shall be left uninhabited, and your fields shall become desolate and barren; so that a vineyard of ten acres shall produce but one bath (not eight gallons) of wine, and the husbandman shall reap but a tenth part of the seed which he has sown." Kimchi says this means such an extent of vineyard as would require ten yoke of oxen to plough in one day.
In my (l) ears [said] the LORD of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, [even] great and fair, without inhabitant.
(l) I have heard the complaint and cry of the poor.
In mine ears, said the Lord of hosts,.... This may be understood either of the ears of the Lord of hosts, into which came the cry of the sins of covetousness and ambition before mentioned; these were taken notice of by the Lord, and he was determined to punish them; or of the ears of the prophet, in whose hearing the Lord said what follows: so the Targum,
"the prophet said, with mine ears I have heard, when this was decreed from before the Lord of hosts:''
of a truth many houses shall be desolate; or "great" ones (z); such as the houses of the king, of the princes, and nobles, judges, counsellors, and great men of the earth; not only the house of God, the temple, but a multitude of houses in Jerusalem and elsewhere; which was true not only at the taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, but at the destruction of it by the Romans, to which this prophecy belongs, Matthew 23:38 the words are a strong asseveration, and in the form of an oath, as Jarchi and Kimchi observe; , "if not"; if many houses are not left desolate, let it be so or so, I swear they shall:
even great and fair, without inhabitants: houses of large and beautiful building shall be laid in such a ruinous condition, that they will not be fit for any to dwell in, nor shall any dwell in them: and this is the judgment upon them for joining house to house; that for laying field to field follows.
(z) "domus magnificae, sive sumptuosae", Vatablus.
In mine ears . . . the Lord--namely, has revealed it, as in Isaiah 22:14.
desolate--literally, "a desolation," namely, on account of the national sins.
great and fair--houses.
And the denunciation of punishment is made by him in very similar terms to those which we find here in Isaiah 5:9, Isaiah 5:10 : "Into mine ears Jehovah of hosts: Of a truth many houses shall become a wilderness, great and beautiful ones deserted. For ten yokes of vineyard will yield one pailful, and a quarter of seed-corn will produce a bushel." We may see from Isaiah 22:14 in what sense the prophet wrote the substantive clause, "Into mine ears," or more literally, "In mine ears is Jehovah Zebaoth," viz., He is here revealing Himself to me. In the pointing, בּאזני is written with tiphchah as a pausal form, to indicate to the reader that the boldness of the expression is to be softened down by the assumption of an ellipsis. In Hebrew, "to say into the ears" did not mean to "speak softly and secretly," as Genesis 23:10, Genesis 23:16; Job 33:8, and other passages, clearly show; but to speak in a distinct and intelligible manner, which precludes the possibility of any misunderstanding. The prophet, indeed, had not Jehovah standing locally beside him; nevertheless, he had Him objectively over against his own personality, and was well able to distinguish very clearly the thoughts and words of his own personality, from the words of Jehovah which arose audibly within him. These words informed him what would be the fate of the rich and insatiable landowners. "Of a truth:" אם־לא (if not) introduces an oath of an affirmative character (the complete formula is Chai ani 'im-lo', "as I live if not"), just as 'im (if) alone introduces a negative oath (e.g., Numbers 14:23). The force of the expression 'im-lo' extends not only to rabbim, as the false accentuation with gershayim (double-geresh) would make it appear, but to the whole of the following sentence, as it is correctly accentuated with rebia in the Venetian (1521) and other early editions. A universal desolation would ensue: rabbim (many) does not mean less than all; but the houses (bâttim, as the word should be pronounced, notwithstanding Ewald's objection to Khler's remarks on Zac 14:2; cf., Job 2:1-13 :31) constituted altogether a very large number (compare the use of the word "many" in Isaiah 2:3; Matthew 20:28, etc.). מאין is a double, and therefore an absolute, negation (so that there is not, no inhabitant, i.e., not any inhabitant at all). Isaiah 5:10, which commences, with Ci, explains how such a desolation of the houses would be brought about: failure of crops produces famine, and this is followed by depopulation. "Ten zimdē (with dagesh lene, Ewald) of vineyard" are either ten pieces of the size that a man could plough in one day with a yoke of oxen, or possibly ten portions of yoke-like espaliers of vines, i.e., of vines trained on cross laths (the vina jugata of Varro), which is the explanation adopted by Biesenthal. But if we compare 1-Samuel 14:14, the former is to be preferred, although the links are wanting which would enable us to prove that the early Israelites had one and the same system of land measure as the Romans;
(Note: On the jugerum, see Hultsch, Griechische und rmische Metrologie, 1862. The Greek plethron, which was smaller by two and a half, corresponded to some extent to this; also the Homeric tetraguon, which cannot be more precisely defined (according to Eustathius, it was a piece of land which a skilful labourer could plough in one day). According to Herod. ii. 168, in the Egyptian square-measure an a'roura was equal to 150 cubits square. The Palestinian, according to the tables of Julian the Ashkalonite, was the plethron. "The plethron," he says, "was ten perches, or fifteen fathoms, or thirty paces, sixty cubits, ninety feet" (for the entire text, see L. F. V. Fennersberg's Untersuchungen ber alte Langen-, Feld-, und Wegemaase, 1859). Fennersberg's conclusion is, that the tzemed was a plethron, equal in length to ten perches of nine feet each. But the meaning of the word tzemed is of more importance in helping to determine the measure referred to, than the tables of long measure of the architect of Ashkalon, which have been preserved in the imperial collection of laws of Constantine Harmenopulos, and which probably belong to a much later period.)
nevertheless Arab. fddân (in Hauran) is precisely similar, and this word signifies primarily a yoke of oxen, and then a yoke (jugerum) regarded as a measure of land. Ten days' work would only yield a single bath. This liquid measure, which was first introduced in the time of the kings, corresponded to the ephah in dry measure (Ezekiel 45:11). According to Josephus (Ant. viii. 2, 9), it was equal to seventy-two Roman sextarii, i.e., a little more than thirty-three Berlin quarts; but in the time of Isaiah it was probably smaller. The homer, a dry measure, generally called a Cor after the time of the kings, was equal to ten Attic medimnoi;
(Note: Or rather 7 1/2 Attic medimnoi = 10 Attic metretoi = 45 Roman modia (see Bckh, Metrologische Untersuchungen, p. 259).)
a medimnos being (according to Josephus, Ant. xv 9, 2) about 15-16ths of a Berlin bushel, and therefore a little more than fifteen pecks. Even if this quantity of corn should be sown, they would not reap more than an ephah.The harvest, therefore, would only yield the tenth part of the sowing, since an ephah was the tenth part of a homer, or three seahs, the usual minimum for one baking (vid., Matthew 13:33). It is, of course, impossible to give the relative measure exactly in our translation.
In mine ears - I heard God speak what I am about to utter.
*More commentary available at chapter level.