Commentary on Isaiah Volume 1 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH
persisted in their wickedness. Nothing therefore remained but that the Lord should miserably destroy them, since they were obstinate and refractory.
The copulative( וvau) I have translated But, which is the meaning that it frequently bears. Those who think that the Prophet threatens for a future period, preserve its ordinary meaning, as if the Prophet, after having mentioned God, named the executioners of his vengeance. But I have already given the exposition which I prefer, and the context will make it still more clear, that I had good reasons for being of that opinion.
When he speaks of the "Elamites" and the "Cyrenaeans," this applies better, I think, to the Assyrians than to the Babylonians; for although those nations had never make war against the Jews by troops under their own command, yet it is probable that they were in the pay of the Assyrian king, and that they formed part of his army while he was besieging Jerusalem. We have already remarked that, taking a part for the whole, by the "Elamites" are meant the eastern nations.
And Kir making bare the shield 350 By Kir he undoubtedly means the inhabitants of Cyrenaica. 351 Because they were (πελτασταὶ) shieldsmen, he says that they "laid bare the shield;" for when they enter the field of battle, they draw the shields out of their sheaths.
7. And the choice of the valleys 352 was full of chariots. I do not find fault with the translation given by some interpreters, "in a chariot of horsemen," but I have chosen rather to translate literally the words of the Prophet; for I think that he means "a military chariot." At that time they made use of two kinds of chariots, one for carrying baggage, and another for the field of battle. Here he means those chariots in which the horsemen rode.
Had it been a threatening, it would have been proper to translate it in the future tense, "And it shall be;" but as the words which immediately follow are in the past tense, and as there is reason to believe that the Prophet is relating events which have already taken place, I have not hesitated to make this beginning agree with what follows. "The choice of the valleys" means "the choicest valleys." He reminds the Jews of those straits to which they were reduced when the enemies were at their gates. They ought at that time to have sought help from God; but those wretched people became more strongly alienated from God, and more shamefully manifested their rebellion, which shewed them to be men utterly abandoned, and therefore he reproaches them with this hardened obstinacy.
8. And he took away the covering of Judah. He shews in what distress of mind the Jews were when they were so closely besieged. Some refer this verb to God, and others to the enemy; but I rather think it ought to
350"And Kir uncovered (Heb. made naked) the shield." — Eng. Ver. 351"Kir is now agreed to be identical with Κ, the name of a river rising in the Caucasus, and emptying into the Caspian Sea, from which Georgia (Girgistan) is supposed to derive its name. Kir was subject to Assyria in the time of Isaiah, as appears from the fact that it was one of the regions to which the exiles of the ten tribes were transported. It may here be put for Media, as Elam is for Persia." — Alexander
352"Thy choicest valleys, (Heb. the choice of thy valleys.)" — Eng. Ver.