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Isaiah 27:12
Verse
Context
The LORD’s Vineyard
11When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor. 12In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one.13And in that day a great ram’s horn will sound, and those who were perishing in Assyria will come forth with those who were exiles in Egypt. And they will worship the LORD on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
Summary
Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
The channel of the river - The river Sabbation, beyond which the Israelites were carried captive. - Kimchi.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
But when Israel repents, the mercy of Jehovah will change all this. "And it will come to pass on that day, Jehovah will appoint a beating of corn from the water-flood of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt, and ye will be gathered together one by one, O sons of Israel. And it will come to pass in that day, a great trumpet will be blown, and the lost ones in the land of Asshur come, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and cast themselves down before Jehovah on the holy mountain in Jerusalem." I regard every exposition of Isa 27:12 which supposes it to refer to the return of the captives as altogether false. The Euphrates and the brook of Egypt, i.e., the Wady el-Arish, were the north-eastern and south-western boundaries of the land of Israel, according to the original promise (Gen 15:18; Kg1 8:65), and it is not stated that Jehovah will beat on the outside of these boundaries, but within them. Hence Gesenius is upon a more correct track, when he explains it as meaning that "the kingdom will be peopled again in its greatest promised extent, and that as rapidly and numerously as if men had fallen like olives from the trees." No doubt the word châbat is applied to the beating down of olives in Deu 24:20; but this figure is inapplicable here, as olives must already exist before they can be knocked down, whereas the land of Israel is to be thought of as desolate. What one expects is, that Jehovah will cause the dead to live within the whole of the broad expanse of the promised land (according to the promise in Isa 26:19, Isa 26:21). And the figure answers this expectation most clearly and most gloriously. Châbat as the word commonly applied to the knocking out of fruits with husks, which were too tender and valuable to be threshed. Such fruits, as the prophet himself affirms in Isa 28:27, were knocked out carefully with a stick, and would have been injured by the violence of ordinary threshing. And the great field of dead that stretched from the Euphrates to the Rhinokoloura, (Note: Rhinokoloura (or Rhinokoroura): for the origin of this name of the Wady el-Arish, see Strabo, xvi. 2, 31.) resembled a floor covered over with such tender, costly fruit. There true Israelites and apostate Israelites lay mixed together. But Jehovah would separate them. He would institute a beating, so that the true members of the church would come to the light of day, being separated from the false like grains sifted from their husks. "Thy dead will live;" it is to this that the prophet returns. And this view is supported by the choice of the word shibboleth, which combines in itself the meanings of "flood" (Psa 69:3, Psa 69:16) and "ear" (sc., of corn). This word gives a fine dilogy (compare the dilogy in Isa 19:18 and Hab 2:7). From the "ear" of the Euphrates down to the Peninsula of Sinai, Jehovah would knock - a great heap of ears, the grains of which were to be gathered together "one by one," i.e., singly (in the most careful manner possible; Greek, καθεῖς κατη ̓ ἓνα). To this risen church there would be added the still living diaspora, gathered together by the signal of God (compare Isa 18:3; Isa 11:12). Asshur and Egypt are named as lands of banishment. They represent all the lands of exile, as in Isa 19:23-25 (compare Isa 11:11). The two names are emblematical, and therefore not to be used as proofs that the prophecy is within the range of Isaiah's horizon. Nor is there any necessity for this. It is just as certain that the cycle of prophecy in chapters 24-27 belongs to Isaiah, and not to any other prophet, as it is that there are not two men to be found in the world with faces exactly alike.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
Restoration of the Jews from their dispersion, described under the image of fruits shaken from trees and collected. beat off--as fruit beaten off a tree with a stick (Deu 24:20), and then gathered. river--Euphrates. stream of Egypt--on the confines of Palestine and Egypt (Num 34:5; Jos 15:4, Jos 15:47), now Wady-el-Arish, Jehovah's vineyard, Israel, extended according to His purpose from the Nile to the Euphrates (Kg1 4:21, Kg1 4:24; Psa 72:8). one by one--gathered most carefully, not merely as a nation, but as individuals.
John Gill Bible Commentary
And it shall come to pass in that day,.... When the song will be sung, Isa 27:2 when God will appear to have taken particular care of his church, and is about to bring it into a flourishing condition; when its troubles and afflictions will come to an end, with a sanctified use of them; and when the city of Rome will be destroyed, and all the antichristian powers, then will be the conversion of the Jews; for antichrist stands in the way of that work: that the Lord shall beat off; or "beat out" (g); alluding either to the beating off of fruit from a tree, or to the beating out of grain from the ear; and signifies the separating of the Lord's people in the effectual calling from the rest of the world; as the fruit beaten off is separated from the tree, and corn beaten out is separated from the ear and chaff; for this beating off does not intend judgment, but mercy; and is done not by the rod of affliction, but by the rod of the Lord's strength sent out of Zion, even the Gospel, the power of God to salvation; which, in the ministration of it, should reach from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt; from the river Euphrates, on the banks of which was the city of Babylon, to the river Nile in Egypt, which were the limits and boundaries of the land of Israel, Deu 11:24 and in which places many Jews (h) were, or would be, as in the following verse Isa 27:13. The Septuagint version is, "from the ditch of the river to Rhinocorura;'' which, Jerom says, is a town on the borders of Egypt and Palestine. The meaning is, that the Lord would find out his people, wherever they were, in those parts, and separate and call them by his grace, and gather them to himself, and to his church and people, as follows: and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel; as fruit is gathered up, when beaten off of the tree; and the phrase "one by one" denotes either the fewness of them, and the gradual manner in which they will be gathered; or rather, since this does not so well suit with the conversion of the Jews, which will be of a nation at once, it may signify the completeness of this work, that they shall be everyone gathered, not one shall be left or lost, but all Israel shall be saved; or it may be also expressive of the conjunction of them, and union of them one to another, in the Gospel church state, into which they shall be gathered, as fruit beaten off, and gathered up, is laid together in a storehouse. To this sense agrees the Targum, "ye shall be brought near one to another, O ye children of Israel (i).'' (g) "excutiat", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Cocceius. (h) Ben Melech interprets the river of the river Sabation or the Sabbatical river, beyond which the Jews generally suppose the ten tribes are, and from whence they will come at the time of their restoration; and, as this writer says, will come to Egypt, and there be gathered together with their brethren, the children of this captivity, Judah and Benjamin, which are scattered in every corner, and join one another. (i) "ad unum unum", Montanus; "unus ad unum"; so some in Vatablus, Forerius.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
27:12 Yet: God’s withholding of mercy from Israel (27:11) will be temporary. • from the Euphrates River . . . to the Brook of Egypt: God’s remnant will return from Assyria and Egypt to the territory that God promised to Abraham (Gen 15:18; see 1 Kgs 4:21).
Isaiah 27:12
The LORD’s Vineyard
11When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor. 12In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one.13And in that day a great ram’s horn will sound, and those who were perishing in Assyria will come forth with those who were exiles in Egypt. And they will worship the LORD on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
- Scripture
- Sermons
- Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
The channel of the river - The river Sabbation, beyond which the Israelites were carried captive. - Kimchi.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
But when Israel repents, the mercy of Jehovah will change all this. "And it will come to pass on that day, Jehovah will appoint a beating of corn from the water-flood of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt, and ye will be gathered together one by one, O sons of Israel. And it will come to pass in that day, a great trumpet will be blown, and the lost ones in the land of Asshur come, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and cast themselves down before Jehovah on the holy mountain in Jerusalem." I regard every exposition of Isa 27:12 which supposes it to refer to the return of the captives as altogether false. The Euphrates and the brook of Egypt, i.e., the Wady el-Arish, were the north-eastern and south-western boundaries of the land of Israel, according to the original promise (Gen 15:18; Kg1 8:65), and it is not stated that Jehovah will beat on the outside of these boundaries, but within them. Hence Gesenius is upon a more correct track, when he explains it as meaning that "the kingdom will be peopled again in its greatest promised extent, and that as rapidly and numerously as if men had fallen like olives from the trees." No doubt the word châbat is applied to the beating down of olives in Deu 24:20; but this figure is inapplicable here, as olives must already exist before they can be knocked down, whereas the land of Israel is to be thought of as desolate. What one expects is, that Jehovah will cause the dead to live within the whole of the broad expanse of the promised land (according to the promise in Isa 26:19, Isa 26:21). And the figure answers this expectation most clearly and most gloriously. Châbat as the word commonly applied to the knocking out of fruits with husks, which were too tender and valuable to be threshed. Such fruits, as the prophet himself affirms in Isa 28:27, were knocked out carefully with a stick, and would have been injured by the violence of ordinary threshing. And the great field of dead that stretched from the Euphrates to the Rhinokoloura, (Note: Rhinokoloura (or Rhinokoroura): for the origin of this name of the Wady el-Arish, see Strabo, xvi. 2, 31.) resembled a floor covered over with such tender, costly fruit. There true Israelites and apostate Israelites lay mixed together. But Jehovah would separate them. He would institute a beating, so that the true members of the church would come to the light of day, being separated from the false like grains sifted from their husks. "Thy dead will live;" it is to this that the prophet returns. And this view is supported by the choice of the word shibboleth, which combines in itself the meanings of "flood" (Psa 69:3, Psa 69:16) and "ear" (sc., of corn). This word gives a fine dilogy (compare the dilogy in Isa 19:18 and Hab 2:7). From the "ear" of the Euphrates down to the Peninsula of Sinai, Jehovah would knock - a great heap of ears, the grains of which were to be gathered together "one by one," i.e., singly (in the most careful manner possible; Greek, καθεῖς κατη ̓ ἓνα). To this risen church there would be added the still living diaspora, gathered together by the signal of God (compare Isa 18:3; Isa 11:12). Asshur and Egypt are named as lands of banishment. They represent all the lands of exile, as in Isa 19:23-25 (compare Isa 11:11). The two names are emblematical, and therefore not to be used as proofs that the prophecy is within the range of Isaiah's horizon. Nor is there any necessity for this. It is just as certain that the cycle of prophecy in chapters 24-27 belongs to Isaiah, and not to any other prophet, as it is that there are not two men to be found in the world with faces exactly alike.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
Restoration of the Jews from their dispersion, described under the image of fruits shaken from trees and collected. beat off--as fruit beaten off a tree with a stick (Deu 24:20), and then gathered. river--Euphrates. stream of Egypt--on the confines of Palestine and Egypt (Num 34:5; Jos 15:4, Jos 15:47), now Wady-el-Arish, Jehovah's vineyard, Israel, extended according to His purpose from the Nile to the Euphrates (Kg1 4:21, Kg1 4:24; Psa 72:8). one by one--gathered most carefully, not merely as a nation, but as individuals.
John Gill Bible Commentary
And it shall come to pass in that day,.... When the song will be sung, Isa 27:2 when God will appear to have taken particular care of his church, and is about to bring it into a flourishing condition; when its troubles and afflictions will come to an end, with a sanctified use of them; and when the city of Rome will be destroyed, and all the antichristian powers, then will be the conversion of the Jews; for antichrist stands in the way of that work: that the Lord shall beat off; or "beat out" (g); alluding either to the beating off of fruit from a tree, or to the beating out of grain from the ear; and signifies the separating of the Lord's people in the effectual calling from the rest of the world; as the fruit beaten off is separated from the tree, and corn beaten out is separated from the ear and chaff; for this beating off does not intend judgment, but mercy; and is done not by the rod of affliction, but by the rod of the Lord's strength sent out of Zion, even the Gospel, the power of God to salvation; which, in the ministration of it, should reach from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt; from the river Euphrates, on the banks of which was the city of Babylon, to the river Nile in Egypt, which were the limits and boundaries of the land of Israel, Deu 11:24 and in which places many Jews (h) were, or would be, as in the following verse Isa 27:13. The Septuagint version is, "from the ditch of the river to Rhinocorura;'' which, Jerom says, is a town on the borders of Egypt and Palestine. The meaning is, that the Lord would find out his people, wherever they were, in those parts, and separate and call them by his grace, and gather them to himself, and to his church and people, as follows: and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel; as fruit is gathered up, when beaten off of the tree; and the phrase "one by one" denotes either the fewness of them, and the gradual manner in which they will be gathered; or rather, since this does not so well suit with the conversion of the Jews, which will be of a nation at once, it may signify the completeness of this work, that they shall be everyone gathered, not one shall be left or lost, but all Israel shall be saved; or it may be also expressive of the conjunction of them, and union of them one to another, in the Gospel church state, into which they shall be gathered, as fruit beaten off, and gathered up, is laid together in a storehouse. To this sense agrees the Targum, "ye shall be brought near one to another, O ye children of Israel (i).'' (g) "excutiat", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Cocceius. (h) Ben Melech interprets the river of the river Sabation or the Sabbatical river, beyond which the Jews generally suppose the ten tribes are, and from whence they will come at the time of their restoration; and, as this writer says, will come to Egypt, and there be gathered together with their brethren, the children of this captivity, Judah and Benjamin, which are scattered in every corner, and join one another. (i) "ad unum unum", Montanus; "unus ad unum"; so some in Vatablus, Forerius.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
27:12 Yet: God’s withholding of mercy from Israel (27:11) will be temporary. • from the Euphrates River . . . to the Brook of Egypt: God’s remnant will return from Assyria and Egypt to the territory that God promised to Abraham (Gen 15:18; see 1 Kgs 4:21).