Verse 5
Now therefore what have I here, saith the Lord, that my people is taken away for nought ?.... Or what do I get by it, that my people should be taken and held in captivity without cause? I am no gainer, but a loser by it, as it afterwards appears; and therefore why should I sit still, and delay the deliverance of my people any longer? but as I have delivered Israel out of Egypt, and the Jews from Babylon, so will I deliver my people out of mystical Babylon, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt.
They that rule over them cause them to howl, saith the Lord ; they that hath carried them captive, and exercised a tyrannical power over them, cause them to howl under their bondage and slavery, as the Israelites formerly in Egypt; wherefore the Lord is moved with compassion to them, and since neither he nor they were gainers, but losers by their captivity, he determines to deliver them: or it may be rendered, "they cause its rulers to howl" F9 משלו יהילילו "dominatores ejus ululare facient", Montanus; "dominus ipsius ejulant", Junius & Tremellius, Vitringa; "ululant", Piscator; "qui habent potestatem in eum ejulant", Cocceius. , or his rulers howl; not the common people only, but their governors, civil and ecclesiastical; so Aben Ezra interprets it not of Heathen rulers, but of the great men of Israel:
and my name continually every day is blasphemed ; by ascribing their extent of power and authority, their dominions and conquests, not to the Lord, but to their idols, whom they worship, to such or such a saint; opening their mouths in blasphemy against God, his name and tabernacle, and his people, Revelation 13:5 . The Targum is,
"and always, all the day, because of the worship of my name, they provoke.'
The Septuagint is, "for you always my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles"; see Romans 2:24 .
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