Isaiah 1:8

And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in the vineyard,.... The Targum is, "after they have got in the vintage.'' A cottage in the vineyard was a booth, as the word (e) signifies, which was

And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

The daughter of Zion, i.e. Zion, or Jerusalem; for these two names are promiscuously used of the same place; the name of daughter being frequently given to cities or countries. Thus the daughter of Babylon is put for Babylon itself, . In the same sense we read of the daughter of Tyre, , and of Zidon, , and of Egypt, ,24, and of Edom, . Is left as a cottage in a vineyard as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers; is left solitary, all the neighbouring villages and country round about it being laid waste.

Isaiah 1:8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.Ver. 8. And the daughter of Zion.] Jerusalem, which is called the daughter of Zion, say some, because standing at the foot of that hill as a daughter; it comes out from between the feet, being also cherished and tendered by God as his daughter. Howbeit, as dear as she was to him, she fell into deep distress when she became undutiful. Abused mercy turneth into fury. Is left as a cottage in a vineyard.] As a shed or booth, whereof after the vintage there is little use or regard. As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.] Or, Melons, which, when ripe, lie on the ground. So, saith one, do God’ s ripest and best servants, being humble, and meanly conceited of themselves. As a besieged city.] Besieged, though at a distance; as Rome was at the time when Saguntum was beleagured.

(8) The daughter of Zion.—The phrase stands, as everywhere (Psalms 45:12; Lamentations 2:8; Micah 4:10), for the ideal city personified. Is left as a cottage in a vineyard . . .—The “hut,” or “booth,” in which the keeper of the vineyards dwelt, apart from other habitations, was an almost proverbial type of isolation, yet to such a state was Zion all but reduced. The second similitude is of the same character. Cucumbers and other plants of the gourd type (Jonah 4:6) were largely cultivated in Judæa, and here, too, each field or garden, like the olive groves and vineyards of Italy, had its solitary hut. As a besieged city.—The comparison of the besieged city to itself is at first startling. Rhetorically, however, it forms a climax. The city was not at this time actually besieged, but it was so hemmed in with perils, so isolated from all help, that this was what its condition practically came to. It was neither more nor less than “as a besieged city,” or ‘within a measurable distance’ of becoming so.

Verse 8. As a cottage in a vineyard - "As a shed in a vineyard"] A little temporary hut covered with boughs, straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat by day, and the cold and dews by night, for the watchman that kept the garden or vineyard during the short season the fruit was ripening, (see Job 27:18,) and presently removed when it had served that purpose. See Harmer's Observ. i. 454. They were probably obliged to have such a constant watch to defend the fruit from the jackals. "The jackal," (chical of the Turks,) says Hasselquist, (Travels, p. 227,) "is a species of mustela which is very common in Palestine, especially during the vintage; and often destroys whole vineyards, and gardens of cucumbers." "There is also plenty of the canis vulpes, the fox, near the convent of St. John in the desert, about vintage time; for they destroy all the vines unless they are strictly watched." Ibid. p. 184. See So 2:15. Fruits of the gourd kind, melons, watermelons, cucumbers, c., are much used and in great request in the Levant, on account of their cooling quality. The Israelites in the wilderness regretted the loss of the cucumbers and melons among the other good things of Egypt, Numbers 11:5. In Egypt the season of watermelons, which are most in request, and which the common people then chiefly live upon, lasts but three weeks. See Hasselquist, p. 256. Tavernier makes it of longer continuance: L'on y void de grands carreaux de melons et de concombres, mais beaucoup plus de derniers, dont les Levantins font leur delices. Le plus souvent, ils les mangent sans les peter, apres quoi ils vont boire une verre d'eau. Dans toute l'Asie c'est la nourriture ordinaire du petit peuple pendant trois ou quatre mois toute la famine en vit, et quand un enfant demand a manger, au lieu qu'en France ou aillieurs nous luy donnerions du pain, dans le Levant on luy presente un concombre, qu'il mange cru comme on le vient de cueillir. Les concombres dans le Levant ont une bonte particuliere; et quoiqu' on les mange crus, ils ne font jamais de mal; "There are to he seen great beds of melons and cucumbers, but a greater number of the latter, of which the Levantines are particularly fond. In general they eat them without taking off the rind, after which they drink a glass of water. In every part of Asia this is the aliment of the common people for three or four months; the whole family live on them; and when a child asks something to eat, instead of giving it a piece of bread, as is done in France and other countries, they present it with a cucumber, which it eats raw, as gathered. Cucumbers in the Levant are peculiarly excellent; and although eaten raw, they are seldom injurious." Tavernier, Relat. du Serrail, cap. xix. As a lodge, c.] That is, after the fruit was gathered the lodge being then permitted to fall into decay.

8. daughter of Zion] A gen. of apposition = “the daughter, Zion.” It is a personification either of the city or the population of Jerusalem, or both together. The capital is as yet spared, but its isolation in the midst of the devastated country suggests to the imagination of the prophet two homely and vivid pictures of forlorn and dreary solitariness: like a booth in a vineyard, or a night-lodge in a cucumber field. Such frail structures, consisting of four poles stuck in the ground, with cross-pieces supporting a couch and a slight roof or awning overhead, were erected for the watchers who guarded the fruit or crop from thieves and wild animals. (See Wetzstein’s description in Del. Comm. on Job, Trans., vol. ii. p. 74, and ed.) as a besieged city] The exact sense is doubtful. Some render: “like a city under observation,” others: “like a watch-tower.” An interesting parallel to the idea of the verse is furnished by Sennacherib’s boast (in 701) that he shut up Hezekiah in his capital “like a bird in a cage.”

And the daughter of Zion - Zion, or Sion, was the name of one of the hills on which the city of Jerusalem was built.

8. The daughter of Zion — Zion was the strong hill of Jerusalem. made sacred in David’s devout thoughts of Jehovah’s presence in the tabernacle erected there.