Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/452

 8-9== To bring the subjugated kingdom wholly under his power, he shall carry away its gods along with all the precious treasures into Egypt. The carrying away of the images of the gods was a usual custom with conquerors; cf. Isa 46:1., Jer 48:7; Jer 49:3. In the images the gods themselves were carried away; therefore they are called “their gods.” נסכיהם signifies here not drink-offerings, but molten images; the form is analogous to the plur. פּסילים, formed from פּסל; on the contrary, נסיכם libationes, Deu 32:38, stands for נסכּיהם, Isa 41:29. The suffix is not to be referred to אלהים, but, like the suffix in חמדּתם, to the inhabitants of the conquered country. וזהב כּסף are in apposition to חמדּתם כּלי, not the genitive of the subject (Kran.), because an attributive genitive cannot follow a noun determined by a suffix. Häv., v. Leng., Maurer, Hitzig, Ewald, and Klief. translate 'וגו יעמד שׁנים והוּא: he shall during (some) years stand off from the king of the north. Literally this translation may perhaps be justified, for עמד, c. מן, Gen 29:35, has the meaning of “to leave off,” and the expression “to stand off from war” may be used concisely for “to desist from making war” upon one. But this interpretation does not accord with the connection. First, it is opposed by the expressive והוּא, which cannot be understood, if nothing further should be said than that the king of the south, after he had overthrown the fortresses of the enemies' country, and had carried away their gods and their treasures, abstained from war for some years. The והוּא much rather leads us to this, that the passage introduced by it states some new important matter which does not of itself appear from the subjugation of the enemy and his kingdom. To this is to be added, that the contents of Dan 11:9, where the subject to בּא can only be the king of the north, do not accord with the abstaining of the king of the south from warring against the king of the north. By Ewald's remark, “With such miserable marchings to and fro they mutually weaken themselves,” the matter is not made intelligible. For the penetrating of the king of the south into the fortresses of his enemy, and the carrying away of his gods and his treasures, was not a miserable, useless expedition; but then we do not understand how the completely humbled king of the north, after his conqueror abstained from war, was in the condition to penetrate into his kingdom and then to return to his own land. Would his conqueror have suffered him to do this? We must, therefore, with Kranichfeld, Gesenius, de Wette, and Winer, after the example of the