Isaiah 2:2

In the last days "In the latter days" - "Wherever the latter times are mentioned in Scripture, the days of the Messiah are always meant," says Kimchi on this place: and, in regard to this place, nothing can be more clear and certain. And the mountain of the Lord's house, says the same author, is Mount Moriah, on which the temple was built. The prophet Micah, Micah 4:1-4 , has repeated this prophecy of the establishment of the kingdom of Christ, and of its progress to universality and perfection, in the same words, with little and hardly any material variation: for as he did not begin to prophesy till Jotham's time, and this seems to be one of the first of Isaiah's prophecies, I suppose Micah to have taken it from hence. The variations, as I said, are of no great importance.

Isaiah 2:2 . הוא hu , after ונשא venissa , a word of some emphasis, may be supplied from Micah, if dropped in Isaiah. An ancient MS. has it here in the margin. It has in like manner been lost in Isaiah 53:4 ; (note), and in Psalm 22:29 , where it is supplied by the Syriac, and Septuagint. Instead of הגוים כל col haggoyim , all the nations, Micah has only עמים ammim , peoples; where the Syriac has עמים כל col ammim , all peoples, as probably it ought to be.

Isaiah 2:3 . For the second אל el , read ואל veel , seventeen MSS., one of my own, ancient, two editions, the Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, Chaldee, and so Micah, Micah 4:2 .

Isaiah 2:4 . Micah adds רחק עד ad rachok , afar off, which the Syriac also reads in this parallel place of Isaiah. It is also to be observed that Micah has improved the passage by adding a verse, or sentence, ( Micah 4:4 ;) for imagery and expression worthy even of the elegance of Isaiah: -

"And they shall sit every man under his vine,

And under his fig tree, and none shall affright them:

For the mouth of Jehovah, God of hosts, hath spoken it."

The description of well established peace, by the image of "beating their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks," is very poetical. The Roman poets have employed the same image, Martial, 14:34. " Falx ex ense ."

" Pax me certa ducis placidos curvavit in usus :

Agricolae nunc sum; militis ante fui ."

"Sweet peace has transformed me. I was once the property of the soldier, and am now the property of the husbandman."

The prophet Joel, Joel 3:10 , hath reversed it, and applied it to war prevailing over peace: -

"Beat your ploughshares into swords,

And your pruning-hooks into spears."

And so likewise the Roman poets: -

- Non ullus aratro

Dignus honos: squalent abductis arva colonis,

Et curvae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem