Bashan. 16. Why leap ye, ye high hills? the hill which God desireth
JOHN CALVIN
insists still upon the figure of the whiteness of silver, which he had previously introduced. The country had, as it were, been blackened or sullied by the hostile confusions into which it was thrown, and he says that it had now recovered its fair appearance, and resembled Salmon, which is well known to have been ordinarily covered with snows. 508 Others think that Salmon is not the name of a place, but an appellative, meaning a dark shade. 509
I would retain the commonly received reading. At the same time, I think that there may have been an allusion to the etymology. It comes from the word,צלםtselem, signifying a shade, and mount Salmon had been so called on account of its blackness. 510 This makes the comparison more striking; for it intimates, that as the snows whitened this black mountain, so the country had resumed its former beauty, and put on an aspect of joy, when God dispelled the darkness which had lain upon it during the oppression of enemies. 511
Psalm 68:15-17
15. The hill of God, the hill of Bashan, a high hill, 512 the hill of Bashan. 16. Why leap ye, ye high hills? the hill which God desireth to dwell in; yea, Jehovah will dwell in it for ever. 17. The chariots
Carrieres, in his paraphrase, has, "You became white as snow on mount Salmon." "We certainly think," says the author of the Illustrated Commentary upon the Bible, "that Carrieres has seized the right idea. The intention evidently is, to describe by a figure the honor and prosperity the Hebrews acquired by the defeat of their enemies, and to express this by whiteness, and superlatively by the whiteness of snow. Nothing can be more usual in Persia, for instance, than for a person to say, under an influx of prosperity or honor, or on receiving happy intelligence, 'My face is made white;' or gratefully, in return for a favor or compliment, 'You have made my face white;' so also, 'His face is whitened,' expresses the sense which is entertained of the happiness or favor which has before been received. Such a figurative use of the idea of whiteness does, we imagine, furnish the best explanation of the present and some other texts of Scripture."
Instead of "in Salmon," the Targum has, "in the shade of death;" and Boothroyd has, "The Almighty having scattered these kings, hath by this turned death-shade to splendor."
Walford gives a similar version, and explains the meaning to be, "Though you have been in bondage and the darkness of a dejected condition, you are now illuminated with the splendor of victory and prosperity."
That is, it was so called from the dark shade produced by its trees.
"Que comme les neiges font blanchir ceste montagne, laquelle de soy est obscure et noire, ainsi quand il a pleu a Dieu d'oster l'obscurite qu'apportoit l'affliction des ennemis, lors on a veu la terre reluire d'un lustre naif, et par maniere de dire, porter une face joyeuse." — Fr.