Isaiah 33:7-9

Isaiah 33:7-9. Behold, their valiant ones— Behold their valiant ones, they cry without: the ambassadors of peace, they weep bitterly. Isaiah 33:8. The highways lie desolate; the traveller ceaseth: he hath broken, &c. Isaiah 33:9. Lebanon is ashamed, withers away: Sharon is become like a wilderness, &c. The prophet, seeing as it were immediately before his eyes, that spoiling and devastation of the land of the people of God mentioned Isa 33:1 seeing it with all its consequences, such as the desolation of the public ways, the infrequency of travellers, the uncultivated state of the withering and mourning fields, the deplorable sterility of the most fruitful places, such as Bashan, Carmel, Sharon, together with a remarkable circumstance of this devastation, namely, the public lamentation of the heroes without Jerusalem, and the bitter lamentation of the messengers of peace; that is to say, of the leaders and priests in the times of the Maccabees; seeing all this in vision, he paints it to the life, and gives in these verses the most lively description of it. Nothing can more exactly agree to the universal desolation in the land of Canaan by Antiochus, than this description. See 1 Maccabees 1 :