[459] Do not belong to you; but the _I am_, אהיה, recalls the _I am that I am_ of Exodus. [460] Augustine, Ambrose, Theodoret, Cyril Alex. and Theodore of Mopsuestia. [461] It is interesting to read in parallel the interpretations of Matthew Henry and Dr. Pusey. They are very alike, but the latter has the more delicate taste of his age. [462] i. 2. [463] The former is Matthew Henry's; the latter seems to be implied by Pusey. [464] Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_. [465] Apparently it was W. R. Smith's interpretation which caused Kuenen to give up the allegorical theory. [466] Two instances are usually quoted. The one is Isaiah vi., where most are agreed that what Isaiah has stated there as his inaugural vision is not only what happened in the earliest moments of his prophetic life, but this spelt out and emphasised by his experience since. See _Isaiah I.-XXXIX._ (Exp. Bible), pp. 57 f. The other instance is Jeremiah xxxii. 8, where the prophet tells us that he became convinced that the Lord spoke to him on a certain occasion only after a subsequent event proved this to be the case. [467] An Eastern woman seldom weans her child before the end of its second year. [468] iii. 2. [469] From a speech by John Bright. [470] iv. 13, 14. [471] Cf. the spiritual use of the term, Isa. lxii. 4. [472] For proof and exposition of all this see Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 92 ff. [473] ii. 8. [474] So best is rendered חסד, ḥesedh, which means always not merely an affection, "lovingkindness," as our version puts it, but a relation loyally observed. [475] An expansion of this will be found in the present writer's _Isaiah XL.-LXVI._ (Expositor's Bible Series), pp. 398 ff. [476] ii. 13. [477] ii. 5, 13. [478] ii. 5. [479] See above, p. 235. [480] The participle Qal, used by God of Himself in His proclamations of grace or of punishment, has in this passage (cf. ver. 16) and elsewhere (especially in Deuteronomy) the force of an immediate future. [481] So LXX.; Mass. Text, _thy_. [482] The reading גְּדֵרָהּ is more probable than גְּדֵרָה. [483] Or _they made it into a Ba'al_ image. So Ew., Hitz., Nowack. But Wellhausen omits the clause. [484] Wellhausen thinks that up to ver. 14 only physical calamities are meant, but the הצלתו of ver. 11, as well as others of the terms used, imply not the blighting of crops before their season, but the carrying of them away in their season, when they had fully ripened, by invaders. The cessation of all worship points to the removal of the people from their land, which is also implied, of course, by the promise that they shall be sown again in ver. 23. [485] Cf. Isa. xl. 1: which to the same exiled Israel is the fulfilment of the promise made by Hosea. See _Isaiah XL.-LXVI._ (Expositor's Bible), pp. 75 ff. [486] Wellhausen calls ver. 18 a gloss to ver. 19. [487] Massoretic Text, _her_.