Verse 17
17. Israel sang this song
“Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it;
The well which the princes digged,
Which the nobles of the people delved
With the sceptre and with their staves.”
“The arrival in Moab marks, indeed, the first outburst of Hebrew poetry. Ordinary words would no longer suffice to give expression to the joy at entering on fertile regions, and leaving the desert behind them.” Geikie. This song, first sung at the digging of the well, was afterward, no doubt, commonly used by those who came to draw water. The maidens of Israel chanted it one to another, verse by verse, as they toiled at the bucket, and thus beguiled their labour. But its peculiar charm lies in the characteristic touch which manifestly connects it with the life of the time to which the narrative assigns it. The leaders were not above doing some part of the work. “This little carol is fresh and lusty with long life; it sparkles like the water of the well whose springing up first occasioned it; it is the expression of lively confidence in the sympathy of their leaders, which might be relied on in all emergencies.” Ewald.
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