Isaiah 4:1

CHAPTER IV

The havoc occasioned by war, and those other calamities which

the prophet had been describing in the preceding chapter, are

represented as so terribly great that seven women should be

left to one man, 1.

Great blessedness of the remnant that shall be accounted worthy

to escape these judgments, 2-4.

The privileges of the Gospel set forth by allusions to the

glory and pomp of the Mosaic dispensation, 5, 6.

NOTES ON CHAP. IV

Verse Isaiah 4:1. And seven women] The division of the chapters has interrupted the prophet's discourse, and broken it off almost in the midst of the sentence. "The numbers slain in battle shall be so great, that seven women shall be left to one man." The prophet has described the greatness of this distress by images and adjuncts the most expressive and forcible. The young women, contrary to their natural modesty, shall become suitors to the men: they will take hold of them, and use the most pressing importunity to be married. In spite of the natural suggestions of jealousy, they will be content with a share only of the rights of marriage in common with several others; and that on hard conditions, renouncing the legal demands of the wife on the husband, (see Exodus 21:10,) and begging only the name and credit of wedlock, and to be freed from the reproach of celibacy. See Isaiah 54:4. Like Marcia, on a different occasion, and in other circumstances: -

Da tantum nomen inane

Connubii: liceat tumulo scripsisse, Catonis Marcia.

LUCAN, ii. 342.

"This happened," says Kimchi, "in the days of Ahaz, when Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judea one hundred and twenty thousand men in one day; see 2 Chronicles 28:6. The widows which were left were so numerous that the prophet said, 'They are multiplied beyond the sand of the sea,'" Jeremiah 15:8.

In that day] These words are omitted in the Septuagint, and MSS.