14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied. Your humiliation will be in your midst. You will store up, but not save; and that which you save I will give up to the sword.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied - The correspondence of the punishment with the sin shall shew that it is not by chance, but from the just judgment of God. The curse of God shall go with what they eat, and it shall not nourish them. The word, thou, is thrice repeated . As God had just said, I too, so here, Thou. Thou, the same who hast plundered others, shalt thyself eat, and not be satisfied; "thou shalt sow, and not reap; thou shalt tread the olive, and thou shalt not anoint thee with oil." "Upon extreme but ill-gotten abundance, there followeth extreme want. And whose," adds one, , "seeth not this in our ways and our times is absolutely blind. For in no period have we ever read that there was so much gold and silver, or so much discomfort and indigence, so that those most true words of Christ Jesus seem to have been especially spoken of us, "Take heed, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" Luke 12:15. And is not this true of us now?
Thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee - Where thou hast laid up thy treasures, or rather thy wickedness, there thou shalt sink down, or give way, from inward decay, in the very center of thy wealth and thy sin. They had said, "Is not the Lord in the midst of us? None evil can come upon us" Micah 3:11. Micah tells them of a different indweller. God had departed from them, and left them to their inherent nothingness. God had been their stay; without God, human strength collapses. Scarcely any destruction is altogether hopeless save that which cometh from within. Most storms pass over, tear off boughs and leaves, but the stem remains. inward decay or excision alone are humanly irrecoverable. The political death of the people was, in God's hands, to be the instrument of their regeneration.
Morally too, and at all times, inward emptiness is the fruit of unrighteous fullness. It is disease, not strength; as even pagan proverbs said; "the love of money is a dropsy; to drink increaseth the thirst," and "amid mighty wealth, poor;" and Holy Scripture, "The rich He sendeth empty away" (Luke 1:53, compare 1-Samuel 2:5). "And truly they must be empty. For what can fill the soul, save God?" Rib.: "This is true too of such as, like the Bishop of Sardis, 'have a name that they live and are dead' Revelation 3:1," Dionysius, "such as do some things good, feed on the word of God, but attain to no fruit of righteousness;" "who corrupt natural and seeming good by inward decay; who appear righteous before men, are active and zealous for good ends, but spoil all by some secret sin or wrong end, as vain-glory or praise of men, whereby they lose the praise of God. Their casting down shall be in the midst of them. The meaning of the whole is the same, whether the word be rendered casting down, that is, downfall (literally, sinking down) or emptiness, especially of the stomach, perhaps from the feeling of "sinking."
Thou shalt take hold - To rescue or remove to a safe place from the enemy, those whom he would take from thee, "but shalt not" wholly deliver; "and that which thou deliverest for a time, will I give up to the sword," that is, the children for whose sake they pleaded that they got together this wealth; as, now too, the idols, for whose sake men toil wrongly all their life, are often suddenly taken away. Their goods too may be said to be given to the sword, that is, to the enemy.
Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied - All thy possessions are cursed, because of thy sins; and thou hast no real good in all thy enjoyments.
And thy casting down - For וישחך veyeshchacha, "thy casting down," Newcome, by transposing the ח and ש, reads ויחשך veyechshach, "and it shall be dark;" and this is probably the true reading. The Arabic and Septuagint have read the same. "There shall be calamity in the midst of thee." It shall have its seat and throne among you.
Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and (k) thy casting down [shall be] in the midst of thee; and thou (l) shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and [that] which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword.
(k) You will be consumed with inward grief and evils.
(l) Meaning that the city would go about to save her men, as they that lay hold of that which they would preserve.
Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied,.... Either not having enough to eat, for the refreshing and satisfying of nature; or else a blessing being withheld from food, though eaten, and so not nourishing; or a voracious and insatiable appetite being given as a curse; the first sense seems best:
and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee; meaning they should be humbled and brought down, either by civil discords and wars among themselves, or through the enemy being suffered to come into the midst of their country, and make havoc there; which would be as a sickness and disease in their bowels. So the Targum,
"thou shalt have an illness in thy bowels.''
The Syriac version is,
"a dysentery shall be in thine intestines;''
a secret judgment wasting and destroying them;
and thou shall take hold, but shall not deliver; and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword; the sense is, that they should take hold of their wives and children, and endeavour to save them from the sword of the enemy, and being carried captive: or should "remove" them (p), as the word is sometimes used, in order to secure them from them; or should "overtake" (q); the enemy, carrying them captive; but should not be able by either of these methods to save them from being destroyed, or carried away by them; and even such as they should preserve or rescue for a while, yet these should be given up to the sword of the enemy, the same or another. Aben Ezra and Kimchi interpret this of their women conceiving, and not bringing forth; and, if they should, yet what they brought forth should be slain by the sword (r). But the Targum and Jarchi incline to the former sense.
(p) "et amovebis", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Tarnovius; "summovebis", Drusius, so Ben Melech; "et removebis", Burkius. (q) "Assequeris", Syr. (r) R. Song. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 35. 2.
eat . . . not be satisfied--fulfiling the threat, Leviticus 26:26.
thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee--Thou shalt be cast down, not merely on My borders, but in the midst of thee, thy metropolis and temple being overthrown [TIRINUS]. Even though there should be no enemy, yet thou shalt be consumed with intestine evils [CALVIN]. MAURER translates as from an Arabic root, "there shall be emptiness in thy belly." Similarly GROTIUS, "there shall be a sinking of thy belly (once filled with food), through hunger." This suits the parallelism to the first clause. But English Version maintains the parallelism sufficiently. The casting down in the midst of the land, including the failure of food, through the invasion thus answering to, "Thou shalt eat, and not be satisfied."
thou shalt take hold, but . . . not deliver--Thou shalt take hold (with thine arms), in order to save [CALVIN] thy wives, children and goods. MAURER, from a different root, translates, "thou shalt remove them," in order to save them from the foe. But thou shalt fail in the attempt to deliver them (Jeremiah 50:37).
that which thou deliverest--If haply thou dost rescue aught, it will be for a time: I will give it up to the foe's sword.
In the midst of thee - Thou shalt be cast down at home by thy own hands. Thou shalt take hold - This may refer either to persons or things, on which we lay hold in order to save them. Shalt not deliver - Where thou lodgest thy children, and layest up thy wealth, thither the enemy shall pursue thee; or if thou fly into other countries, it shall not be a safe refuge to thee. Which thou deliverest - For a little while.
*More commentary available at chapter level.