and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation. In that day shall the strong cities of the ten tribes be left unpeopled and waste; even as a bough, whose olives are shaken off; whose branch yet shall be left still, for the sake of those Israelites, which I will reserve. XVII. 11 In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. Thou mayest bestow thy best husbandry upon thy plants and upon thy seed, and expect a plentiful increase; but when it shall come to the harvest, thy hopes shall be utterly disappointed; and thou shalt find nothing, but cause of sorrow and humiliation. XVII. 12 Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas. Woe be to that great and numerous army of the Assyrians and Ethiopians, which come up against Jerusalem, whose noise is loud and hideous, like the noise of the sea. XVII. 13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters. The several nations, which shall be confederate against Judah, shall rush like the gushing of many waters. XVII. 14 And behold at eveningtide trouble: and before the morning he is not. Behold, in the evening, there is horror, and confusion, in the host, through the slaughter made by the angel of God; and in the morning, there is not one left of a hundred fourscore and five thousand men. XVIII. 1 Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: Woe to the land of Ethiopia; and that part especially, which is comprehended in Egypt, and the maritime coast; whose frequent shipping doth shadow, as it were, other nations with her sails: XVIII. 2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the water, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; &c. That sendeth ambassadors by sea, in vessels fit for that purpose, artificially framed of bulrushes, to avoid the danger of that rocky passage; to call together united nations from remote parts, to come up against that miserable and spoiled people of the Jews; whose land is overrun and overspread with an inundation of enemies. XVIII. 3 All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Let all the inhabitants of the world, every where, take notice of the Lord's revenge, which he will take of the enemies of his people; when he therefore lifts up his ensign on high, and bloweth his trumpet to call his troops to this battle, let all men consider and observe the certain and terrible success. XVIII. 4 For so the LORD said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. I will for a time forbear judgment, and be as a mere looker on, acting nothing; but, in the mean time, I will have an eye to my Church and people, and will be to them as a kindly heat is to the drooping herbs, or as a sweet dew in the scorching heat of harvest. XVIII. 5 For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches. Meanwhile, if their enemies prosper for a time, it shall not always be so; for when their hopes are come to the height, he shall defeat them immediately before the autumn, when the bud is come to perfection, when the grape is upon the point of ripening, I will cut off their sprigs and boughs with pruning knives, and disappoint all their expectation. XVIII. 6 They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them. The carcasses of their enemies shall be cast out as dung; and shall be a prey, both to the fowls of the mountains, and the beasts of the field; and lie there rotting, both in the summer and winter, till they be consumed. XVIII. 7 In that time shall the present be brought unto the LORD of hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, the mount Zion. In that day, through the mercy of God remembering the miseries of his people, the remaining Jews shall offer themselves to him, as a holy, lively, acceptable sacrifice : even that despised and forJorn people of the Jews, that hath undergone all the despites and oppressions of nations, and been overwhelmed with the multitude of enemies, shall devote themselves to the Lord in mount Zion, and his holy temple. XIX. 1 Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it. Behold, the Lord comes, with a wonderful swiftness and unre- XIX. 4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them. And I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of cruel tyrants, which shall oppress them, as they have done my people heretofore; both of their own, and of the Assyrians, &c. XIX. 5 And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up. And, whereas they trust in the beneficial waters of Nilus, which gives them both plenty and protection, behold, their hopes shall deceive them; for those waters shall be intercepted and dried up. XIX. 6 And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither. Even their channels shall be quite emptied, and the waters derived into other streams; so as the mud thereof shall be hardened; and the reeds and flags, which grew therein, shall be quite withered. XIX. 7 The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more. That plant, which yieldeth the rich commodity of paper, which grows along the brooks; and every other thing, which is set or sown by those otherwise fruitful banks; shall now, through extremity of drought, be destroyed and lost. XIX. 9 Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded. Moreover, through the failing of Nilus, all those curious and wealthy trades of them, who work in fine flax and weave networks, the matter whereof had wont to be imported by those streams, shall be utterly undone and disappointed. XIX. 10 And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish. All they, that live upon the benefit of their fishponds and sluices, preserving in these commodious stews those fishes which they take and sell for advantage of gain, shall be now defeated of their trade. XIX. 11 Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellers of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings? Where now are those wise counsellers and great peers of Egypt, that made themselves so sure and safe against all events? I do now, by commission from God, tell them, they are no better than fools; yea, than brutish: to what good issue are their fond brags now come, wherein they suggested unto Pharaoh the glory of his wisdom, and of his princely descent? XIX. 14 The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit. The Lord, in his justice, hath given them up to a spirit of giddiness and perverseness; justly punishing their pride, with the seduction of their leaders, who have caused Egypt to go wrong in all their enterprises; even as a man extremely drunk reeleth and staggereth out of his way. XIX. 15 Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do. Nothing shall come to any good effect, which the Egyptians shall undertake, from the highest to the lowest: all their attempts shall be unprosperous. XIX. 16 In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid, and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shaketh over it. In that day shall the Lord daunt the spirits of the Egyptians, so as they shall become weak and faint-hearted like women; and this shall be caused through their astonishment, and fear of the imminent judgments of God. XIX. 18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction. Yet, even upon Egypt itself will God have mercy and compassion; and shall, of six cities of theirs, preserve five still for himself; which shall be reclaimed from their superstition, and conspire in their holy worship and service with God's people, and swear by no other name but his: only one of them shall be called, A city rejected and destroyed. XIX. 19 In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the LORD. And the true religion of God shall be established and flourish, in the midst of the land of Egypt; and in the utmost borders thereof, shall be monuments of their holy devotion to the Lord. XIX. 20 And he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them. He shall send them a temporal deliverer from their outward oppressions; and, at the last, a spiritual Saviour, and Almighty Redeemer from the ghostly bondage of sin and Satan. XIX. 23 In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assy rians. Neither shall this mercy be confined to Egypt alone, but shall extend itself to other nations, no less averse from God than it: both Egypt and Assyria shall have free intercourse with each other, and shall communicate mutually in the same holy profession. XIX. 24 In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land. And in that day Israel shall come in as a third nation, to join with them both; so as Israel, Egypt, and Assyria shall be blessed all together, and in each other, with a holy conjunction of mind, in one and the same truth of religion. XX. 1 In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) &c. In the year that Tartan, the great Assyrian captain, came unto Ashdod, a Philistine city, when Sargon, or Sennacherib, (for he is called by both names,) the king of Assyria sent him, &c. XX. 2 Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. Go, and put off that hairy garment which is about thee, the ordinary habit of a prophet, and put off thy shoe from thy foot; and he did so, walking disrobed and barefoot. XX. 3 Barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia. For a sign and token, that, three years after this prophecy, the forces of Egypt and Ethiopia, led by Tirhakah, shall be utterly discomfited, and they stripped of that great power whereof they boasted. XX. 5 And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory. And my people, the Jews, shall be ashamed and confounded in themselves, to think they have been so foolish, to put their trust in Ethiopia and Egypt, so impotent protectors. XX. 6 And the inhabitants of this isle shall say in that day, Behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria: and how shall we escape? And the inhabitants of this country, which I have sequestered for myself from the rest of the world, shall say, See to what broken reeds we trusted for our deliverance! how vainly have we feared, that we could not possibly be safe and escape without them! XXI. 1 The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert; from a terrible land. The heavy tidings sent to Chaldea, and especially to Babylon: As those whirlwinds which arise from the south are most furious, so shall this be which shall pass over thee, O Babylon, from the Medes; who, like a violent tempest, shall rush upon thee, and turn thee over. XXI. 2 A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease. It is a grievous vision to thee, O Chaldea, which is shewed unto me, concerning thee: wicked men do their kind: the treacherous Syrian dealeth treacherously, and the cruel Babylonian spoileth unmercifully, and shall be dealt with thereafter. Go up, O thou Persian, and besiege Babylon: O Media, do thou join thy forces in this service: I will give no respect to any of the sighs of that oppressing nation, but will give them over to a just destruction. XXI. 3 Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me. I am deeply afflicted in myself, to forsce these grievous judgments, which are coming upon these secure enemies of God's Church, |