Isaiah 66:17

They that sanctify themselves,.... This is a description of the enemies of the Lord, and of his people, who shall be slain at this time; not who are sanctified by the Spirit and grace of God, but who

They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.

That the Jews might not think that the judgments threatened concerned only the heathen, he tells them they concerned them, the idol worshippers amongst them; and not idolaters only, but such as broke his laws about meats, which he had prohibited them to eat. Those that sanctified and purified themselves in gardens, gardens in which they worshipped idols, 65:3,4 15:13: the word translated gardens signifieth such as were thick planted with trees, and had groves in them, where they set their idols, ; hence the idol is called the grove, ; they had also in these gardens pools, where they washed themselves in a way of preparation for their idol worship, as the priest by God’ s ordinance was to bathe himself, . Behind one tree in the midst; behind one of the trees, or one by one behind the trees. Some think that Achar is here a proper name of an idol, behind which or behind whose temple these idolaters were wont to purify themselves. These gardens were places too as well for brutish lusts as idol worship, as may be learned from , and they by these washings thought to make themselves clean. Eating swine’ s flesh, forbidden . And the abomination; either any abominable things, or all those beasts forbidden the Jews for meat, ,10, &c. Some think a particular abominable thing is here meant, and think it is the weasel, which, , is joined with the mouse, which is here next mentioned. The word which we translate mouse being no where found but there, and here, and ,5,11,18, some think it is not that creature we call a mouse, (because a mouse is properly no creeping thing; but the word, , signifieth a creeping thing,) they therefore think it rather signifieth some serpent. It is a matter of no great consequence. The sense is, that God would not only destroy the open and gross idolaters and superstitious persons, but all those also who had made no conscience of yielding obedience to the law of God in such things as seemed to them of a minute nature, and such as they easily might have yielded obedience to; he saith that they shall all perish together. In the day of judgment, the idolatrous pagan and papist, and the lewd anti disobedient protestant, shall fare alike. It will be a hard thing for a thinking soul to see how baptism, and a membership in the Christian church, should save men from God’ s wrath, without holiness, more than circumcision and membership in the Jewish church.

Isaiah 66:17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one [tree] in the midst, eating swine’ s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.Ver. 17. In the gardens.] Where these idolaters had set up altars, offered sacrifices, and had their ponds, wherein, when they were about to sacrifice, heathen like, they washed and purified themselves one after another, and not together, which they held to be the best way of purifying. This they did also, not apart and in private, but in the midst, ut hoc mode oculos in nudis lavantium, praesertim muliercularum, corporibus pascerent, that they might feed their eyes with the sight of those parts which nature would have hid; for your pagan superstitions were ofttimes contrary to natural honesty. Behind one tree in the midst.] Or, as others render it, After; or, Behind Ahad, which was the name of a Syrian idol, representing the sun, as Macrobius telleth us, calling him Adad. Donec me flumine vivo Abluero. - Virg. Qui noctem in flumine purgas. - Pers.; i.e., nocturnam Venerem. Saturnal., lib. i. cap. 23.

(17) They that sanctify themselves . . .—Better, they that consecrate themselves . . . As in Isaiah 65:3-4, the prophet has in his thoughts the apostates, who gloried in mingling heathen rites with the worship of Jehovah. Such a blending of incompatible elements was, as we have seen, eminently characteristic of the reign of Manasseh. We have no trace of anything corresponding to it among the. Babylonian exiles, either before or after their return. The “consecration” and “purification” are the initiatory rites of heathen mysteries, connected probably with the worship of Baal or Ashtoreth, or, as the context, with its reference to gardens and swine’s flesh, renders probable, with that of Thammuz. (See Note on Isaiah 64:4.) Behind one tree in the midst.—The noun “tree” is a conjectural explanation. The Hebrew text gives the “one” in the masculine, and is explained as referring either (1) to the Hierophant, who led the worshippers; or (2), as with a contemptuous reluctance to utter the name of the false deity, to Thammuz. The Hebrew margin gives “one” in the feminine, and this may have been meant for the Asherah, the “grove,” or Phallic symbol of idolatrous worship. If we adopt the masculine, and refer it to Thammuz, the word may connect itself with the lamentations of the Syrian maidens over Thammuz (Adonis) as over an only son. (Comp. Milton, Paradise Lost, i.) The abomination.—The word stands in Leviticus 7:21; Leviticus 11:11, for various kinds of unclean beasts, among which the mouse, or jerboa, still eaten by the Arabs, was conspicuous (Leviticus 11:29). It is probable that all these, as well as the swine’s flesh, were used in the idolfeasts. In any case the apostate worshippers would seem to have exulted in throwing off the restraints of the Mosaic law.

Verse 17. Behind one tree - "After the rites of Achad"] The Syrians worshipped a god called Adad, Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 11; Macrob. Sat. i. 23. They held him to be the highest and greatest of the gods, and to be the same with Jupiter and the sun; and the name Adad, says Macrobius, signifies one; as likewise does the word Achad in Isaiah. Many learned men therefore have supposed, and with some probability, that the prophet means the same pretended deity. אחד achad, in the Syrian and Chaldean dialects, is חד chad; and perhaps by reduplication of the last letter to express perfect unity, it may have become חדד chadad, not improperly expressed by Macrobius Adad, without the aspirate. It was also pronounced by the Syrians themselves, with a weaker aspirate, הדד hadad, as in Benhadad, Hadadezer, names of their kings, which were certainly taken from their chief object of worship. This seems to me to be a probable account of this name. But the Masoretes correct the text in this place. Their marginal reading is אחת achath which is the same word, only in the feminine form; and so read thirty MSS. (six ancient) and the two oldest editions. This Le Clerc approves, and supposes it to mean Hecate, or the moon; and he supports his hypothesis by arguments not at all improbable. See his note on the place. Whatever the particular mode of idolatry which the prophet refers to might be, the general sense of the place is perfectly clear. But the Chaldee and Syriac, and after them Symmachus and Theodotion, cut off at once all these difficulties, by taking the word אחד achad in its common meaning, not as a proper name; the two latter rendering the sentence thus: Οπισωαλληλωνενμεσῳεσθιοντωντοκρεαςτοχοιρειον; "One after another, in the midst of those that eat swine's flesh." I suppose they all read in their copies אחד אחד achad achad, one by one, or perhaps אחד אחר אחד achad achar achad, one after another. See a large dissertation on this subject in Davidis Millii Dissertationes Selectae, Dissert. vi. - L. I know not what to make of this place; it is certain that our translation makes no sense, and that of the learned prelate seems to me too refined. Kimchi interprets this of the Turks, who are remarkable for ablutions. "Behind one in the midst" he understands of a large fish-pond placed in the middle of their gardens. Others make אחד achad a deity, as above; and a deity of various names it is supposed to be, for it is Achad, and Chad, and Hadad, and Achath, and Hecat, an Assyrian idol. Behynd the fyrst tree or the gate withine forth. - Old MS. Bible.

17. A renewed description of the apostates, in terms similar to Isaiah 66:3, Isaiah 65:3-5; Isaiah 65:11. Although the judgement is “with all flesh” it has a special significance for these reprobates. The connexion of Isa 66:17 with Isaiah 66:16 is not, however, beyond suspicion. in the gardens] for the gardens, i.e. in order to go into the sacred gardens (ch. Isaiah 65:3) where the illegal rites were to be consummated (“ad sacra in lucis obeunda”). behind one tree in the midst] A difficult and much disputed phrase. The insertion of the word “tree” is purely gratuitous, and indefensible. If the consonantal text be sound the best rendering by far is after one in the midst; i.e. following the actions of a hierophant or mystagogue, who stands in the midst of the brotherhood and regulates the important ceremony of purification. Comp. Ezekiel 8:11, “… seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand.” There does not appear to be any valid objection to this interpretation, although it is not supported by any ancient authority. The Massoretes substitute the fem. of “one” for the masc., thinking apparently of the image of some goddess as the central object. (The Babylonian Codex and the Soncino Bible have the fem. in the text.) Many commentators, guided by a faulty reference in Macrobius (Saturn. 1. 23), have supposed that the word for “one” (ΰֶ ?ηָ ?γ) contains the name of a deity; but this view, although revived by Lagarde, finds little favour among modern scholars. Several ancient versions (Pesh., Sym., Theod.) render “one after another” (Targ. “company after company”), which would be possible if we might insert an additional ΰηγ (ΰηγΰηψΰηγ), but it leaves “in the midst” unexplained. Cheyne (Introd. p. 370) reads with Klostermann ΰηγΰηγαϊπκ—“one (consecrating) the other on the tip of the ear”; an ingenious emendation, but hardly yielding an easier sense than the received (consonantal) text as understood above. swine’s flesh] ch. Isaiah 65:4. the abomination] Hebr. shιqec̨ ?, the general name for unclean animals; Leviticus 7:21; Leviticus 9:10 ff. (passim); cf. Ezekiel 8:10. (Duhm reads shιreη, “vermin,” creeping or swarming creatures). the mouse] an unclean animal according to Leviticus 11:29. Of the 23 species of small rodents included under the name in Palestine, several are esteemed edible by the Arabs (Tristram, Nat. Hist., pp. 122 ff.). The allusion here without doubt is to sacrificial meals, the mouse being a sacred animal in the same sense as the swine and the dog. see W. R. Smith, Rel. of Sem.2 p. 293; who mentions a statement of Maimonides that the Harranians sacrificed field-mice. shall be consumed] shall come to an end; see on next verse.

They that sanctify themselves - That is, who attempt to purify themselves by idolatrous rites, by ablutions, and lustrations.

17. The judgments of Isa 66:15-16, likewise fall on nations or heathen as well as on Jews who still voluntarily drop themselves from the election of grace, and become measurably like the heathen.