merely alluded to, without being carried out; compare, _e.g._, "Like the day of Midian," Is. ix. 3; "Their heart rejoiceth like wine," Zech. x. 7. The _tertium comparationis_ between the day of her birth and her future condition is only the entire nakedness; compare Job i. 21. Any allusion to the filth, etc., is less obvious; the prophet would have been required to give an intimation of this in some manner. The two parts of the first hemistich of the verse correspond with each other; just as do the three parts of the second hemistich. In the first, the withdrawal of clothing, and nakedness; in the second, the withdrawal of food, and hunger and thirst. It is questionable whether the mention of the birth-day here belongs merely to the imagery, is a mere designation of entire nakedness, because man is never more naked than when he comes into the world; or whether it is to be understood as belonging to the thing itself, and refers to the condition of the people in Egypt to which they are now to be reduced. In favour of the latter explanation, there is not only the comparison of the parallel passage in Ezekiel, but, still more, the purely matter-of-fact character of the entire description. Israel is, in this section, not _compared_ to a wife, so that _figure_ and _thing_ would be co-ordinate, but appears as the wife herself. Ver. 17 also is in favour of this interpretation.--The words, "I make her like the wilderness," which, by _Hitzig_ and others, are erroneously referred to the country instead of the people, are pertinently explained by _Manger_: "The prophet depicts a horrible and desperate condition, where everything necessary for sustaining life is awanting,--where she has to endure a thirst peculiar to an altogether uncultivated and sunburnt wilderness." The comparison appears so much the more suitable, when we remark that wilderness and desert are here personified, and appear as hungry and thirsty. This, however, was too poetical for several prosaic interpreters. Hence they would in both instances supply a ב after the כ, "as in the wilderness" = "I place her in the condition in which she was formerly, in the [Pg 236] wilderness." But it is self-evident that such a supplying of the ב is inadmissible. If we were to receive this interpretation, we must rather assume that here also there is merely a comparison intimated: "as the wilderness,"--for, "as she was in the wilderness." But even then, the interpretation cannot, for another reason, be admitted. The impending condition of the people did not, in the least, correspond to what it was in the wilderness. The natural condition of the wilderness was not then seen in all its reality; the people of the Lord received bread from heaven, and water from the rock. It has its antitype rather in such a condition as that which is to follow upon the punishment, ver. 16. The Article indicates that, by "the wilderness," we are here to understand, specially, the Desert of Arabia,--the desert κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν.