Commentary on Isaiah Volume 1 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
fore shows that they will be fleet and swift, and that there will be nothing to hinder their rapid march.
None shall slumber nor sleep. He expresses their vast activity by saying that they will not be drowsy. In these words, they shall not slumber nor sleep, the natural order is inverted, He ought rather to have said, They shall not sleep nor slumber; for it is a smaller matter to slumber than to sleep. But that phrase ought to be explained in this manner: They shall not slumber nor even sleep; that is, they will be so far from sleeping, that they will not even slumber. You have an instance of this in these words: Lo, he that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. (Psalm 121:4.)
It is a Hebrew phrase, with which neither the Greek nor the Latin idiom agrees.
28. Their arrows will be sharp. He means that they will be provided with necessary weapons. The custom alluded to is that which existed among the Assyrians and other eastern nations, who frequently made use of bows and arrows in battle, as Englishmen of the present day enter into the battlefield with a loaded quiver. 93 Under this class he includes every kind of weapons of war. But as the way was long, and the journey difficult, the Jew might think that many things would occur to interrupt the march of the enemy. He therefore says, that the hoofs of the horses will be like flint; by which he means that they will suffer no molestation, and will at length arrive in Judea without weariness. For a similar reason he compares their wheels to a whirlwind. The ancients were wont to employ chariots in going to war, and therefore he mentions not only horses, but wheels. All these circumstances must be understood to relate to the haste and rapidity with which they would proceed; or, in other words, that no length of journey would prevent the Lord from carrying forward the enemies without delay for the destruction of the Jews.
29. His roaring shall be like that of a lion. This denotes fierceness and cruelty, for he compares the Chaldeans to lions, which, we know, are frightful to behold, and savage by nature; as if he had said that they would not be men who were moved by any feeling of compassion or tenderness, but rather that they would be savage beasts. He adds, that they will likewise possess great strength, so that none will venture to approach for rescuing their prey. He means that the Jews will have no defense for warding off their attacks, because the dread of their cruelty will keep all at a distance from them. It was God who employed their agency in punishing the Jews, and therefore it was necessary that they should be armed with formidable power, that this wayward people might at length acknowledge that they had to do not with men but with God, into whose hands it is a fearful thing to fall. (Hebrews 10:31.)
93And in that day they shall roar against them. — Eng. Ver.