He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;

He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he did eat the increase of the field; And he made him to suck honey out of the rock, And oil out of the flinty rock;

He set him upon high land: that he might eat the fruits of the fields, that he might suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the hardest stone,

He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he ate the produce of the field; And he made him suck honey out of the crag, And oil out of the flinty rock;

He maketh him ride on high places of earth, And he eateth increase of the fields, And He maketh him suck honey from a rock, And oil out of the flint of a rock;

He put him on the high places of the earth, his food was the increase of the field; honey he gave him out of the rock and oil out of the hard rock;

He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he did eat the fruitage of the field; And He made him to suck honey out of the crag, And oil out of the flinty rock;

He stood him upon an exalted land, so that he might eat the fruits of the fields, so that he might eat honey from the rock, and oil from the hardest stone,

Equitare fecit eum super excelsa terrae, et comedit fructus agri, et fecit ut sugeret mel e petra, et oleum e silice petrae.

He made him ride on the high places. Theirs is but a frivolous imagination, who suppose that Judea was so called as being the navel or center of the earth; [1] it is more likely that it was called high in reference to Egypt; and, indeed, it is by no means an unusual expression, that those who go into Egypt, are said to go down, and those who come into Judea to come up. Still I am rather disposed Lo think that by height he denotes its excellency; inasmuch as that land, on account of its illustrious endowments, was, as it were, the most noble theater in the world. Moses celebrates its fertility, when he says that the people sucked honey from the rock and oil from the stones: for he means to indicate, that no part of it was unproductive, since they gathered honey from the rocks, and upon them also the olive grew. The same is the intention of the other figures, that they ate "butter of kine, and milk of sheep;" by which he signifies that the land was full of rich pastures. By "fat of lambs," he undoubtedly means the plumpness of their flesh, because it was not lawful to eat their actual fat; but it is not unusual to denote by this word any kind of richness, as soon afterwards he calls the best meal or flour, from which the more delicate kind of bread was made, "the fat of wheat." With respect to the wine, he magnifies God's liberality by the use of a poetic figure, when he says they drank of the blood of the grape. There is no doubt but that he alludes to its color; yet he takes occasion to extol more highly the beneficence of God, by intimating that, when the juice of the grapes is expressed, it is just as if their blood flowed forth for the nutriment of men. Since, then, the metaphor is taken from the redness of wine, I have not hesitated to translate the epithet chmr, chamer, at the end of the verse, red. [2] From many passages it appears to have been very delicious; and in Isaiah 27:2 the word chmr, chamer, is used for a vine of great preciousness and of exquisite flavor. Those who render it pure, have rather taken into consideration the fact, than the signification of the word.

Footnotes

1 - "In summa parte orbis, qubd Terra Saneta sit in medio climate mund" -- Vatablus, in Poole's Synopsis.

2 - It may either mean red or effervescing; it is not easy to see why A. V. renders it pure -- W.

i. e., God gave Israel possession of those commanding positions which carry with them dominion over the whole land (compare Deuteronomy 33:29), and enabled him to draw the richest provision out of spots naturally unproductive.

He made him ride - ירכבהו yarkibehu, he will cause him to ride. All the verbs here are in the future tense, because this is a prophecy of the prosperity they should possess in the promised land. The Israelites were to ride - exult, on the high places, the mountains and hills of their land, in which they are promised the highest degrees of prosperity; as even the rocky part of the country should be rendered fertile by the peculiar benediction of God.
Suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock - This promise states that even the most barren places in the country should yield an abundance of aromatic flowers, from which the bees should collect honey in abundance; and even the tops of the rocks afford sufficient support for olive trees, from the fruit of which they should extract oil in abundance: and all this should be occasioned by the peculiar blessing of God upon the land.

He made him ride on the high places of the (g) earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck (h) honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
(g) Meaning, of the land of Canaan, which was high in respect to Egypt.
(h) That is, abundance of all things even in the very rocks.

He made him to ride on the high places of the earth,.... Or land, the land of Canaan; by which are meant the towers, castles, and fortified places in it, some of which might be built on hills and mountains; and being made to ride on them may denote the delivery of them into their hands, their conquests and possession of them, and triumph in them; see Isaiah 58:14; so the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases, it,"made him to dwell in the towers of the land of Israel,''those high walled and strongly fenced cities which they dreaded; this may be an emblem of the conquest believers have of their spiritual enemies, sin. Satan, and the world, in and through Christ; of their safety and triumph in him; of their high and elevated frames of soul, when they have got above the world and the things of it; this will be the case of spiritual Israel in every sense in the latter day, when the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains:
that he might eat the increase of the fields: the produce of them, particularly corn for bread, and which the Israelites ate of as soon as they came into the land of Canaan, Joshua 5:11; an emblem of the Gospel, and the truths of it, which are salutary, nourishing, strengthening, reviving, and cheering, and of Christ the bread of life, which believers by faith eat of, and feed upon and live:
and he made him to suck honey out of the rock; not water out of the rock, as sweet to them as honey, that they had in the wilderness; but either the honey of bees that made their nests in rocks, as a swarm of them did in the carcass of a lion; and so in like manner as honey came out of the lion, it may be said to be sucked out of the rock: so Homer (a) speaks of swarms of bees out of a hollow rock: or this was the honey of palm trees, as Aben Ezra observes, some say, which might grow on rocks; see Gill on Deuteronomy 8:8; and this is favoured by the Targum of Jonathan, which paraphrases the words,"honey from those fruits which grow on the rocks,''unless it means honey gathered by bees from such fruits; the rock may typify Christ, and the honey out of it the Gospel, which is from him and concerning him; comparable to honey for the manner of its production and gathering, by the laborious ministers of the word; for its nourishment, and especially for its sweetness, its precious promises, and pleasant doctrines:
and oil out of the flinty rock; that is, oil out of the olives, which grow on rocks, and these delight to grow on hills and mountains; hence we read of the mount of Olives, see Job 29:6; and so the Targum of Jonathan,"and oil out of the olives and suckers which grow on the strong rocks;''this may signify the Spirit and his graces, the unction which comes from Christ the Holy One, and the blessings of grace had from him, and the Gospel and its truths; which are cheering and refreshing, mollifying and healing, feeding and fattening, pure and unmixed, and useful for light, as oil is.
(a) Iliad. 2. l. 87, 88.

He made him ride on the high places, &c.--All these expressions seem to have peculiar reference to their home in the trans-jordanic territory, that being the extent of Palestine that they had seen at the time when Moses is represented as uttering these words. "The high places" and "the fields" are specially applicable to the tablelands of Gilead as are the allusions to the herds and flocks, the honey of the wild bees which hive in the crevices of the rocks, the oil from the olive as it grew singly or in small clumps on the tops of hills where scarcely anything else would grow, the finest wheat (Psalm 81:16; Psalm 147:14), and the prolific vintage.

The high places - To conquer their strongest holds, which often are in the mountains, and their cities fenced with walls of greatest height and strength. To ride upon, in scripture phrase, is to subdue or conquer. Out of the rock - This being a land flowing with honey, where the bees made honey in the holes of rocks, or in the trees that grew upon or among the rocks. Out of the flinty rocks - The olive - trees grow and bear most fruit in rocky or hilly places.