16 to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished, and shake his head.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet again denounces the punishment which they deserved, that desolation awaited the land. It would be, he says, their reward to have the land reduced to a solitude, and also to perpetual hissings. The word vlm oulam, which the Prophet had just used, is here also used, but in a different sense, for when he said, the paths of ages, he referred to past time, but now to a future time. As then the Jews had alienated themselves from the ways of ages, that is, from the eternal verity of God, so now he says, that their land would be for the hissings of ages, for the dreadful calamity now at hand would not be for a few years but to the end of the world. And in the second clause he expresses more clearly what he meant by eternal hissings, that every one passing through it would be astonished and move or shake his head, [1] as one does either in amazement, or in contempt, or in abhorrence; this kind of speaking often occurs in the Prophets. The land of Canaan, after having been given to the Jews, became as it were an extraordinary country, in which all kinds of opulence appeared, for God poured upon it the invaluable treasures of his bounty, so that the very sight of it filled all with admiration; on the other hand, it became the scene of horror and an object of hissing when God cursed it. A confirmation then follows --
1 - More literally, "And shall nod with his head." -- Ed.
Hissing - Not derision, but the drawing in of the breath quickly as men do when they shudder.
Way his head - Or, "shake his head," a sign among the Jews not of scorn but of pity. The desolation of the land of Israel is to fill people with dismay.
A perpetual hissing - שריקות sherikoth. a shrieking, hissing; an expression of contempt.
To make their land desolate,.... Not that this was the intention either of those that led them out of the right way into those wrong paths, or of them that went into them; but so it was eventually; this was the issue of things; their idolatry and other sins were the cause of their land being desolate; through the ravage of the enemy, let in upon them by way of judgment; and through the destruction of men by them; so that there were few or none to cultivate and manure it:
and a perpetual hissing; to be hissed at perpetually by the enemy, whenever they passed by it, and observed its desolation; thereby expressing their hatred at its inhabitants; their joy at its desolation; and their satisfaction in it, which would be for ever; or, as Kimchi interprets, a long time. This is the present case of the Jews; and has been ever since their destruction by the Romans; and will be until the fulness of the Gentiles is gathered in:
everyone that passeth thereby shall be astonished: to see the desolations made, and the strange alterations in a place once so famous for fruitfulness and number of inhabitants:
and wag his head; either out of pity, or rather in a way of derision and exultation; see Lamentations 2:15.
hissing-- (1-Kings 9:8). In sign of contempt. That which was to be only the event is ascribed to the purpose of the people, although altogether different from what they would have been likely to hope for. Their purpose is represented as being the destruction of their country, because it was the inevitable result of their course of acting.
wag . . . head--in mockery (2-Kings 19:21; Matthew 27:39). As "wag . . . head" answers to "hissing," so "astonished" answers to "desolate," for which, therefore, MUNSTER and others rather translate, "an object of wonder" (Jeremiah 19:8).
Desolate - Not that this was the end they aimed at, but it was the end these courses would certainly issue in.
*More commentary available at chapter level.