13 Our barns are full, filled with all kinds of provision. Our sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Our recesses full, etc. Some read storehouses, [1] and I would not reject this meaning. But as the word comes from the same root with zvh, zavah, which is rendered corner in the previous verse, it seems more agreeable to the etymology to translate the words as I have done -- "that the recesses or corners were full." The participle mphyqym, mephikim, some take transitively, and read producing, but the meaning comes to the same thing, that abundance of every blessing flowed from all the corners, expression mzn 'l-zn, mizan el-zan, [2] seems to me to denote the variety and manifold nature of the blessings, rather than, as some interpreters think, so abundant a produce as would issue in the different species being mixed, and forming a confused heap owing to the unmanageable plenty. We have no need to have recourse to this strained hyperbole, and the words as they stand evidently do not favor that sense, for had a confused heap been meant, it would have read simply zn zn, zan. The meaning in short is, that there prevailed amongst the people such plenty, not only of wheat, but all kinds of produce, that every corner was filled to sufficiency with every variety.
1 - mzvynv, Our garners. This word is to be found in Scripture only once, but it has most probably the same root as zvyt, and it may denote primarily our corners, and then our garners; because garners or storehouses were usually at the ends or corners of edifices." -- Phillips
2 - Literally, "from kind to kind."
That our garners may be full - That our fields may yield abundance, so that our granaries may be always filled.
Affording all manner of store - Margin, "From kind to kind." Hebrew, "From sort to sort;" that is, every sort or kind of produce or grain; all, in variety, that is needful for the supply of man and beast.
That our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets - A great part of the wealth of Palestine always consisted in flocks of sheep; and, from the earliest periods, not a few of the inhabitants were shepherds. This language, therefore, is used to denote national prosperity.
In our streets - The Hebrew word used here means properly whatever is outside; what is out of doors or abroad, as opposed to what is within, as the inside of a house; and then, what is outside of a town, as opposed to what is within. It may, therefore, mean a street Jeremiah 37:21; Job 18:17; Isaiah 5:25; and then the country, the fields, pastures, etc.: Job 5:10; Proverbs 8:26. Here it refers to the pastures; the fields; the commons.
That our garners, etc. - Our garners are full. These are not prayers put up by David for such blessings: but assertions, that such blessings were actually in possession. All these expressions should be understood in the present tense.
Ten thousands in our streets - בחצתינו bechutsotheynu should be translated in our pens or sheep-walks; for sheep bringing forth in the streets of cities or towns is absurd.
[That] our (l) garners [may be] full, affording all manner of store: [that] our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets:
(l) That the corners of our houses may be full of store for the great abundance of your blessings.
That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store,.... Or "our corners" (s), the corners of their houses, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi; the nooks that were in them might be full of provisions for the supply of the family; or that their barns and granaries might be full of all kind of corn, as wheat, rye, barley, &c. which might be sufficient from year to year, as the Targum; plenty of all food is intended, in opposition to a scarcity, dearth, and famine, Proverbs 3:9; that so there might be enough for increasing families. Spiritually it may design that large provision of grace in the churches of Christ, and the fulness of the blessings of the Gospel the ministers of it come forth with, bringing out of their treasure things new and old, in the ministration of the word and administration of ordinances;
that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets; or millions; in which lay the riches of men formerly, and indeed in our nation now, where wool is the staple commodity of it; and these are creatures that breed and increase much; when they stand well, a few soon become a thousand, and these thousands produce ten thousands or millions, more. The Hebrew word "sheep", seems to be derived from the Arabic word "tzana", which signifies to be "fruitful", whether in men or beasts: "tzana": "foecunda fuit, et multos liberos hubuit mulier-----idem significat, et multa habuit pecora", Golius, col. 1428; and though for the most part they bring but one at a time, yet Aristotle (t) says, sometimes two, three, and four; and in India, Aelianus (u) says, they bring four, and never less than three. It is a beautiful sight to see them driven in such numbers through the streets of cities to markets, or to pasture. Or rather this may design the country towns and villages, where large flocks of them are kept. The people of God resemble these in their meekness, harmlessness, innocence, and other things; and who not only increase in grace and gifts, and spiritual knowledge, and in all goodness, which is desirable, but also in numbers, as they did in the first times of the Gospel, and will in the last, when they shall be increased as a flock; the fulness of the Gentiles, the other sheep, shall be brought in, and the nation of the Jews called at once.
(s) "anguli nostri", Pagninus, Vatablus, Cocceius, Michaelis. (t) Hist. Animal. l. 6. c. 19. (u) De Animal. l. 4. c. 32.
*More commentary available at chapter level.