14 Herds will lie down in the midst of her, all the animals of the nations. Both the pelican and the porcupine will lodge in its capitals. Their calls will echo through the windows. Desolation will be in the thresholds, for he has laid bare the cedar beams.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet describes here the state of the city and the desolation of the country. He says, that the habitations of flocks would be in the midst of the city Nineveh. The city, we know, was populous; but while men were so many, there was no place for flocks, especially in the middle of a city so celebrated. Hence no common change is here described by the Prophet, when he says, that flocks would lie down in the middle of Nineveh; and he adds, all wild beasts. For beasts, which seek seclusion and shun the sight of men, are wont to come forth, when they find a country desolate and deserted; and they range then at large, as it is the case after a slaughter in war; and when any region is emptied of its inhabitants, the wolves, the lions, and other wild beasts, roam here and there at full liberty. So the Prophet says, that wild beasts would come from other parts and remote places, and find a place where Nineveh once stood. [1] He adds that the bitterns, or the storks or the cuckoos, and similar wild birds would be there. [2] As to their various kinds, I make no laborious research; for it is enough to know the Prophet's design: besides, the Jews themselves, who boldly affirm that either the bittern or the stork is meant, yet adduce nothing that is certain. What, in short, this description means, is--that the place, which before a vast multitude of men inhabited, would become so forsaken, that wild beasts and nocturnal birds would be its only inhabitants. But we must bear in mind what I have stated, that all these things were set before the Jews, that they might patiently bear their miseries, understanding that God would become their defender. For this is the only support that remains for us under very grievous evils, as Paul reminds us in the first chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians; for he says, that the time will come when the Lord shall give to us relief and refreshment, and that he will visit our adversaries with punishment 2-Thessalonians 1:6. The Prophet mentions especially Nineveh, that the Jews might know that there is nothing so great and splendid in the world which God does not esteem of less consequence than the salvation of his Church, as it is said in Isaiah, I will give Egypt as thy ransom. So God threatens the wealthiest city, that he might show how much he loved his chosen people. And the Jews could not have attributed this to their own worthiness; but the cause of so great a love depended on their gratuitous adoption. It afterwards follows--
1 - It is literally, "every wild beast of the nation,"--[nvy],--"of the land," in the Septuagint. What is meant is, every wild beast that belonged to that country.--Ed.
2 - Both Newcome and Henderson render the two words, "the pelican and the porcupine." The former says that [q't], "pelican," comes from [q'h], to vomit, because it casts up fish or water from its membranaceous bag; and [qphd], "porcupine," according to Bochart, is from the verb, which means to cut off as by a bite, or rather, he says, from its Syriac meaning, to dread, for it is a solitary animal. See Newcome. But Parkhurst contends that it is the hedgehog, and both the Septuagint and Vulgate render it so. What Calvin translates "in postibus ejus," [vkphtvyh], is rendered by Newcome, "in the carved lintels thereof," by Henderson, "in her capitals," and by Parkhurst, "in her door-porches," i.e. when thrown down.--Ed.
And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her - No desolation is like that of decayed luxury. It preaches the nothingness of man, the fruitlessness of his toils, the fleetingness of his hopes and enjoyments, and their baffling when at their height. Grass in a court or on a once beaten road, much more, in a town, speaks of the passing away of what has been, that man was accustomed to be there, and is not, or is there less than he was. It leaves the feeling of void and forsakenness. But in Nineveh not a few tufts of grass here and there shall betoken desolation, it shall be one wild rank pasture, where "flocks" shall not feed only, but "lie down" as in their fold and continual resting place, not in the outskirts only or suburbs, but in the very center of her life and throng and busy activity, "in the midst of her," and none shall fray them away. So Isaiah had said of the cities of Aroer, "they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down and none shall make them afraid" Isaiah 17:2, and of Judah until its restoration by Christ, that it should be "a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks" (Isaiah 32:14, compare Jeremiah 6:2). And not only those which are wont to be found in some connection with man, but "all the beasts of a nation" , the troops of wild and savage and unclean beasts which shun the dwellings of man or are his enemies, these in troops have their lair there.
Both the cormorant and the bittern - They may be the same. The pelican retires inland to consume its food. Tristram, Houghton, in Smith's Bible Dictionary, "Pelican" note. It could be a hedgehog.
Shall lodge in the upper lintels of it. - The "chapiters" (English margin) or capitals of the pillars of the temples and palaces shall lie broken and strewn upon the ground, and among those desolate fragments of her pride shall unclean animals haunt. The pelican has its Hebrew name from vomiting. It vomits up the shells which it had swallowed whole, after they had been opened by the heat of the stomach, and so picks out the animal contained in them , the very image of greediness and uncleanness. It dwells also not in deserts only but near marshes, so that Nineveh is doubly waste.
A voice shall sing in the windows - In the midst of the desolation, the muteness of the hedgehog and the pensive loneliness of the solitary pelican, the musing spectator is even startled by the gladness of a bird, joyous in the existence which God has given it. Instead of the harmony of music and men-singers and women-singers in their palaces shall be the sweet music of some lonely bird, unconscious that it is sitting "in the windows" of those, at whose name the world grew pale, portions of the outer walls being all which remain of her palaces. "Desolation" shall be "in the thresholds," sitting, as it were, in them; everywhere to be seen in them; the more, because unseen. Desolation is something oppressive; we "feel" its presence. There, as the warder watch and ward at the empty portals, where once was the fullest throng, shall "desolation sit," that no one enter. "For He shall uncover (hath uncovered, English margin) the cedar-work:" in the roofless palaces, the carved "cedar-work" shall be laid open to wind and rain. Any one must have noticed, how piteous and dreary the decay of any house in a town looks, with the torn paper hanging uselessly on its walls. A poet of our own said niche beautiful ruins of a wasted monastery:
"For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout the ruins gray."
But at Nineveh it is one of the mightiest cities of the world which thus lies waste, and the bared "cedar-work" had, in the days of its greatness, been carried off from the despoiled Lebanon or Hermon .
And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her - Nineveh was so completely destroyed, that its situation is not at present even known. The present city of Mossoul is supposed to be in the vicinity of the place where this ancient city stood.
The cormorant קאת kaath; and the bittern, קפד kippod. These Newcome translates, "The pelican and the porcupine."
Their voice shall sing in the windows - The windows shall be all demolished; wild fowl shall build their nests in them, and shall be seen coming from their sills, and the fine cedar ceilings shall be exposed to the weather, and by and by crumble to dust. See the note on Isaiah 34:11-14 (note), where nearly the same terms are used.
I have in another place introduced a remarkable couplet quoted by Sir W. Jones from a Persian poet, which speaks of desolation in nearly the same terms.
"The spider holds the veil in the palace of Caesar:
The owl stands sentinel in the watchtower of Afrasiab."
And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the (h) cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; [their] voice shall sing in the windows; desolation [shall be] in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work.
(h) Read (Isaiah 34:11)
And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her,.... In the midst of the city of Nineveh; in the streets of it, where houses stood, and people in great numbers walked; but now only should be seen the cottages of shepherds, and flocks of sheep feeding or lying down, as is before observed of the sea coast of the Philistines, Zephaniah 2:6,
all the beasts of the nations; that is, all sorts of beasts, especially wild beasts, in the several parts of the world, should come and dwell here; instead of kings and princes, nobles, merchants, and the great men thereof, who once here inhabited, now there should be beasts of prey, terrible to come nigh unto; for these are to be understood properly and literally, and not figuratively, of men, for their savageness and cruelty, comparable to beasts:
both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; of the doors of the houses in Nineveh: or, "on its pomegranates" (k); the figures of these being often put on chapiters, turrets, pinnacles, pillars, and posts in buildings, and over porches of doors; and on these those melancholy and doleful creatures here mentioned, which delight in solitary places, should take up their abode. The "cormorant" is the same with the "corvus aquaticus", or "sea raven", about the size of a goose; it builds not only among rocks, but often on trees: what is called the "shagge" is a species of it, or the lesser cormorant, a water fowl common on our northern coasts; is somewhat larger than a common duck, and builds on trees as the common cormorant (l). Bochart (m) takes it to be the "pelican" which is here meant; and indeed, whatever bird it is, it seems to have its name from vomiting; and this is what naturalists (n) observe of the pelican, that it swallows down shell fish, which, being kept awhile in its stomach, are heated, and then it casts them up, which then open easily, and it picks out the flesh of them: and it seems to delight in desolate places, since it is called the pelican of the wilderness, Psalm 102:6. Isidore says (o) it is an Egyptian bird, dwelling in the desert by the river Nile, from whence it has its name; for it is called "canopus Aegyptus"; and the Vulgate Latin version renders the word here "onocrotalus", the same with the pelican; and Montanus translates it the "pelican"; and so do others. The "bittern" is a bird of the heron kind; it is much the size of a common heron; it is usually found in sedgy and reedy places near water, and sometimes in hedges; it makes a very remarkable noise, and, from the singularity of it, the common people imagine it sticks its beak in a reed or in the mud, in order to make it; hence it is sometimes called the "mire drum" (p). It is said it will sometimes make a noise like a bull, or the blowing of a horn, so as to be heard half a German mile, or one hour's journey; hence it is by some called "botaurus", as if "bootaurus", because it imitates the bellowing of a bull (q). The Tigurine version renders it the "castor" or "beaver" (r); but Bochart (s) takes it to be the "hedgehog"; and so the word is rendered in the Vulgate Latin, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, and by others: which is a solitary creature, and drives away all other animals from society with it by its prickles:
their voice shall sing in the windows: of desolate houses, the inhabitants being gone who used to be seen looking out of them; but now these creatures before named should dwell here, and utter their doleful sounds, who otherwise would not have come near them:
desolation shall be in the thresholds; there being none to go in and out over them. The Septuagint version, and which is followed by the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions, render it, "the ravens shall be in its gates": mistaking "desolation", for "a raven":
for he shall uncover the cedar work; the enemy Nebuchadnezzar, or Nabopolassar, when he should take the city, would unroof the houses panelled with cedar, and expose all the fine cedar work within to the inclemencies of the air, which would soon come to ruin. All these expressions are designed to set forth the utter ruin and destruction of this vast and populous city; and which was so utterly destroyed, as Lucian says, that there is no trace of it to be found; and, according to modern travellers, there are only heaps of rubbish to be seen, which are conjectured to be the ruins of this city; See Gill on Nahum 1:8.
(k) "in malogranatis ejus", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Tarnovius. (l) Vid Supplement to Chambers's Dictionary, in the words "Cormorant, Cornus Aquaticus", and "Shagge". (m) Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 1. c. 24. col. 294. (n) Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 10. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 40. Aelian de Animal. l. 3. c. 20. (o) Originum, l. 12. c. 7. (p) Supplement, ut supra (Chambers's Dictionary), in the word "Bittern". (q) Schotti Physica Curiosa, par. 2. l. 9. c. 24. p. 1160. (r) Vid. Fuller. Miscel. Saer. l. 1. c. 18. (s) Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 3. c. 36. col. 1036.
flocks--of sheep; answering to "beasts" in the parallel clause. Wide pastures for sheep and haunts for wild beasts shall be where once there was a teeming population (compare Zephaniah 2:6). MAURER, needlessly for the parallelism, makes it "flocks of savage animals."
beasts of the nations--that is, beasts of the earth (Genesis 1:24). Not as ROSENMULLER, "all kinds of beasts that form a nation," that is, gregarious beasts (Proverbs 30:25-26).
cormorant--rather, the "pelican" (so Psalm 102:6; Isaiah 34:11, Margin).
bittern-- (Isaiah 14:23). MAURER translates, "the hedgehog"; HENDERSON, "the porcupine."
upper lintels--rather, "the capitals of her columns," namely, in her temples and palaces [MAURER]. Or, "on the pomegranate-like knops at the tops of the houses" [GROTIUS].
their voice shall sing in the windows--The desert-frequenting birds' "voice in the windows" implies desolation reigning in the upper parts of the palaces, answering to "desolation . . . in the thresholds," that is, in the lower.
he shall uncover the cedar work--laying the cedar wainscoting on the walls, and beams of the ceiling, bare to wind and rain, the roof being torn off, and the windows and doors broken through. All this is designed as a consolation to the Jews that they may bear their calamities patiently, knowing that God will avenge them.
All the beasts - All sorts of beasts which are found in those countries. The bittern - A bird that delights in desolate places.
*More commentary available at chapter level.