Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/1513

by Schultz with perfect justice: “It is à priori inconceivable, that in so short an ode there should be so elaborate a digression on the subject of the heathen, seeing that their folly is altogether foreign to the theme of the whole.” To this we may add, that throughout the Old Testament it is the moral corruption and ungodliness of the Israelites, and never the vices of the heathen, that are compared to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Israelites who were forsaken by the Lord, were designated by Isaiah (Isa 1:10) as a people of Gomorrah, and their rulers as rulers of Sodom (cf. Isa 3:9); the inhabitants of Jerusalem were all of them like Sodom and Gomorrah (Jer 23:14); and the sin of Jerusalem was greater than that of Sodom (Eze 16:46.). The only sense in which the “for” in Deu 32:32 can be regarded as co-ordinate to that in Deu 32:31, is on the supposition that the former gives the reason for the thought in Deu 32:30, whilst the latter serves to support the idea in Deu 32:30. The order of thought is the following: Israel would have been able to smite its foes with very little difficulty, because the gods of the heathen are not a rock like Jehovah; but Jehovah had given up His people to the heathen, because it had brought forth fruits like Sodom, i.e., had resembled Sodom in its wickedness. The vine and its fruits are figurative terms, applied to the nation and its productions. “The nation was not only a degenerate, but also a poisonous vine, producing nothing but what was deadly” (Calvin). This figure is expanded still further by Isa 5:2. Israel was a vineyard planted by Jehovah, that it might bring forth good fruits, instead of which it brought forth wild grapes (vid., Jer 2:21; Psa 80:9.; Hos 10:1). “Their vine” is the Israelites themselves, their nature being compared to a vine which had degenerated as much as if it had been an offshoot of a Sodomitish vine. שׁדמת, the construct state of שׁדמת, floors, fields. The grapes of this vine are worse than wild grapes is snake-poison. Tannin: see Exo 7:9-10. Pethen: the asp or adder, one of the most poisonous kinds of snake, whose bite was immediately fatal (vid., Rosenmüller, bibl. Althk. iv. 2, pp. 364ff.). These figures express the thought, that “nothing could be imagined worse, or more to be abhorred, than that nation” (Calvin). Now although this comparison simply refers to the badness of Israel, the thought of the penal judgment that fell upon Sodom lies behind. “They imitate the Sodomites, they bring forth the worst fruits of all impiety, they deserve to perish like Sodom” (J. H. Michaelis).