3 Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
He confirms here again what he had said in the last verse, -- that they would perceive God's curse in want and poverty. The curse of God is any kind of calamity; for as God declares especially his favor by a liberal support, so the sterility of the land and defective produce most clearly evidence the curse of God. The Prophet then shows, by mentioning one thing, what sort of curse was nigh the Jews, -- that God would destroy their seed. Some read, but improperly, "I will destroy you and the seed." I wonder how learned men make such puerile mistakes, when there is nothing ambiguous in the Prophet's words. I will destroy then for you the seed; that is, "Sow as much as you please, I will yet destroy your seed, so that it shall produce no fruit." In short, he threatens the Jews with want and famine; for the land would produce nothing when cursed by God. [1] But as the Jews flattered themselves on account of their descent, and ever boasted of their fathers, and as that preeminence with which God had favored them proved to them an occasion of haughtiness and pride, the Prophet here ridicules this foolish confidence, I will scatter dung, he says, on your faces: "Ye are a holy nation, ye are the chosen seed of Abraham, ye are a royal priesthood; these are your boastings; but the Lord will render your faces filthy with dung; this will be your nobility and preeminence! there is then no reason for you to think yourselves exempt from punishments because God has adopted you; for as ye have abused his benefits and profaned his name, so ye shall also find in your turn, that he will cover you with everything disgraceful and ignominious, so as to make you wholly filthy: ye shall then be covered all over with dung, and shall not be the holy seed of Abraham." But as they might have again raised a clamor and say, "Have we then in vain so diligently served God? Why has he bidden a temple to be built for him by us and promised to dwell there? God then has deceived us, or at least his promises avail nothing." -- The Prophet gives this answer, "God will overwhelm you with disgrace and also your sacrifices." But he calls them the dung of solemnities, as though he had said, "I will cover you with reproach on account of your impiety, which is seen in your sacrifices." Had the Jews any holiness they derived it from their sacrifices, by which they expiated their sins and reconciled themselves to God: but the Prophet says that it was their special ill-savor which offended God, and which he abominated, because they vitiated their sacrifices. Nor is that to be disapproved which some of the rabbins have said, that the Prophet alludes to the oxen, calves, and rams; for when the Jews from various places brought their sacrifices, there must have been much dung from all that vast number. There is then here a striking allusion to the victims themselves, as though he had said, "Ye think that I can be pacified by your sacrifices, as though loads of dung were pleasing to me; for when ye bring such a vast number, even the place itself, the area before the temple, throws an ill-savor on account of the dung that is there. Ye are then, forsooth! holy, and all your filth is cleansed away by means of this dung. Begone then together with the dung of your solemnities; for I will cast this very dung on your heads." We now perceive what the Prophet means: and emphatical are the words, Behold I; for God by these single words cuts off all those pretences by which the Jews deceived themselves, and thought that their vices were concealed from God: "I myself," he says, "am present, to whom ye think your sacrifices to be acceptable; I then will destroy your seed, and I will also cast dung on your faces; all the dignity which ye pretend shall be abolished, for ye think that ye are defended by a sort of privilege, when ye boast yourselves to be the seed of Abraham: it is dung, it is dung," he says. He afterwards shows what was especially the dung and the filth: for when they objected and said, "What! have our sacrifices availed nothing?" he answers, "Nay, I will cast that dung upon you, because the chief pollution is in your sacrifices, for ye vitiate and adulterate my service: and what else is your sacrifice but profanation only? ye are sacrilegious in all your empty pomps. Since then all your victims have an ill-savor and displease me, and as I nauseate them, (as it is also said in the first and last chapter of Isaiah,) I will heap the dung on your own heads, because ye think it to be your chief expiation." He adds at last, It shall take you to itself; that is, "Ye shall be dung altogether; and thus all your boastings, that ye are descended from the holy Patriarch Abraham, shall be wholly useless; though I made a covenant and promised that you should be to me a royal priesthood, yet the dung shall take you to itself, and thus whatever dignity I have hitherto conferred on you shall be taken away." [2] Let us proceed
1 - The word zr, means "the shoulder" as well as "seed," and it is so rendered by the Septuagint, and the Arabic, and also by Grotius and Newcome, -- Behold, I will withhold from you the shoulder. The shoulder belonged to the priests, see Leviticus 7:32; Deuteronomy 18:3. This rendering suits the context better than the other. -- Ed.
2 - Participles and vers are often connected by "and" in Hebrew, and so in Welsh; but then the auxiliary is understood. Such is the case here, and the Septuagint have so regarded it, "kai lepsomai humas eis to au'to -- and I will take you to the same." -- Ed.
Lo, I will rebuke the seed for your sake - o, i. e., that it should not grow. He who worketh by His sustaining will all the operations of nature, would at His will withhold them. Neither priests nor Levites cultivated the soil; yet, since the tithes were assigned to them, the diminution of the harvest affected them. The meal-offering too was a requisite part of the sacrifice. (See also Joel 1:13; Joel 2:14.)
And spread dung upon your phaces, the dung o of your solemn feasts - , or, "of your sacrifices." It was by the law carried without the camp and burned with the animal itself. They had brought before the face of God maimed, unfitting sacrifices; they should have them cast back, with their refuse, upon them; "as a lord that rejecteth a gift, brought to him by his servant, casts it back in his time." "Of your sacrifices, not of Mine, for I am not worshiped in them: ye seek to please, not Me, but yourselves." So God said of Eli 1-Samuel 2:30, "them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."
And one shall take you away with it - , literally "to it." They should be swept away, as if they were an appendage to it, as God said 1-Kings 14:10, "I will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, until all be gone." As are the offerings, so shall it be with the offerers.
Behold, I will corrupt your seed - So as to render it unfruitful. Newcome translates, - "I will take away from you the shoulder." This was the part that belonged to the priest, Leviticus 7:32; Deuteronomy 18:3.
Spread dung upon your faces - Instead of receiving a sacrifice at your hands, I will throw your offerings back into your faces. Here God shows his contempt for them and their offerings.
Behold, I will corrupt (d) your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, [even] the (e) dung of your solemn feasts; and [one] shall take you away with it.
(d) The seed you sow will come to no profit.
(e) You boast of your holiness, sacrifices, and feasts, but they will turn to your shame and be as vile as dung.
Behold, I will corrupt your seed,.... Or, "the seed for you" (r); that is, for your sake, as Kimchi and Ben Melech explain it; meaning the seed they cast into the earth, which the Lord threatens to corrupt and destroy; so that it should not spring up again, and bring forth any increase: or, "rebuke" (s) it, as the word sometimes signifies; and so the Targum,
"behold, I will rebuke you in the increase, the fruit (son) of the seed.''
The sense is the same; corrupting the seed being a rebuke to them; and rebuking the seed being a corruption of that, or hindering it from growing up. It is a threatening of a sore famine that should be in the Jewish nation; and which Cocceius thinks was that which happened in the days of Claudius Caesar, Acts 11:28. The Septuagint version renders it, "behold, I separate to you the shoulder"; the Arabic version, "the right hand", or arm; and the Vulgate Latin is, "behold, I will cast forth to you the arm"; the right shoulder of the sacrifice, which was given to the priests, and here threatened to be cast to them with indignation, Leviticus 7:32 but the former sense is best:
and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; that is, the dung of their beasts which were slain for sacrifice at their solemn feasts: so this word is used for a beast offered for sacrifice at a festival, Psalm 118:27. The sense is, that their sacrifices and solemn feasts were so far from being acceptable to God, that he would reject both them and their persons, and would cast the very dung of the creatures brought for sacrifice into their faces, and spread it over them: a phrase expressive of the utmost contempt of them, and of exposing them to the greatest shame and confusion for their sins. So the Targum,
"I will make manifest the shame of your sins upon your faces; and will cause to cease the magnificence of your feasts.''
The Septuagint render it, the ventricle, or "maw"; which was given to the priests, Deuteronomy 18:3 and in which the dung was contained:
and one shall take you away with it; with the dung spread upon them; they looking like a heap of dung, being covered with it, and had in no more account than that: or "to it" (t); that is, as Jarchi explains it, to the dung of the beasts of your sacrifices they shall carry you; or you shall be carried to it, that ye may be rejected and despised as that. Kimchi's note is
"the iniquity (you are guilty of) shall carry you to this contempt; measure for measure; you have despised me, and ye shall be despised:''
or "with him", or "to himself" (u); meaning he, or it that shall take them away; either the wind or dung; or the enemy, as Aben Ezra interprets it; by whom the Romans may be designed, who took them away out of their own land, and carried them captive. According to the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, this is to be understood of God, who render the words, "I will take you together", or "with it".
(r) "propter vos", Munster, Drusius. (s) "increpabo", Tigurine version; "increpo", Drusius, Cocceius; "increpans", Burkius. (t) , Sept.; "ad istud", so some in Vatablus, De Dieu. (u) "Ad se", Pagninus, Montanus, Munster, Tigurine version: Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, Calvin, Burkius.
corrupt, &c.--literally, "rebuke," answering to the opposite prophecy of blessing (Malachi 3:11), "I will rebuke the devourer." To rebuke the seed is to forbid its growing.
your--literally, "for you"; that is, to your hurt.
dung of . . . solemn feasts--The dung in the maw of the victims sacrificed on the feast days; the maw was the perquisite of the priests (Deuteronomy 18:3), which gives peculiar point to the threat here. You shall get the dung of the maw as your perquisite, instead of the maw.
one shall take you away with it--that is, ye shall be taken away with it; it shall cleave to you wherever ye go [MOORE]. Dung shall be thrown on your faces, and ye shall be taken away as dung would be, dung-begrimed as ye shall be (1-Kings 14:10; compare Jeremiah 16:4; Jeremiah 22:19).
I will corrupt - I will take away the prolific virtue and strength of it, that it shall bring forth no fruit. Spread dung - It is an expression of the greatest contempt. Of your solemn feasts - Your most solemn days and feasts, shall be as loathsome to me as dung, and shall make you, who offer them as unclean, and loathsome, as if I had thrown the dung of those sacrifices into your faces. Take you away - You shall be taken away with it, removed as equally unclean with the dung itself, equally fit to be cast out to the dunghill.
*More commentary available at chapter level.