Isaiah 66:17

A renewed description of the apostates, in terms similar to Isaiah 66:3; Isaiah 65:3-5; Isaiah 65:11. Although the judgement is "with all flesh" it has a special significance for these reprobates. The connexion of Isaiah 66:17 with Isaiah 66:16 is not, however, beyond suspicion.

in the gardens for the gardens, i.e. in order to go into the sacred gardens (ch. Isaiah 65:3) where the illegal rites were to be consummated ("ad sacra in lucis obeunda").

behind onetree in the midst A difficult and much disputed phrase. The insertion of the word "tree" is purely gratuitous, and indefensible. If the consonantal text be sound the best rendering by far is after one in the midst; i.e. following the actions of a hierophant or mystagogue, who stands in the midst of the brotherhood and regulates the important ceremony of purification. Comp. Ezekiel 8:11, "… seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in the midstof them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand." There does not appear to be any valid objection to this interpretation, although it is not supported by any ancient authority. The Massoretes substitute the fem. of "one" for the masc., thinking apparently of the image of some goddess as the central object. (The Babylonian Codex and the Soncino Bible have the fem. in the text.) Many commentators, guided by a faulty reference in Macrobius (Saturn.1. 23), have supposed that the word for "one" (אֶחָד) contains the name of a deity; but this view, although revived by Lagarde, finds little favour among modern scholars. Several ancient versions (Pesh., Sym., Theod.) render "one after another" (Targ. "company after company"), which would be possible if we might insert an additional אחד (אחד אחר אחד), but it leaves "in the midst" unexplained. Cheyne (Introd.p. 370) reads with Klostermann אחד אחד בתנך "one (consecrating) the other on the tip of the ear"; an ingenious emendation, but hardly yielding an easier sense than the received (consonantal) text as understood above.

swine's flesh ch. Isaiah 65:4.

the abomination Hebr. shéqec̨, the general name for unclean animals; Leviticus 7:21; Leviticus 9:10 ff. (passim); cf. Ezekiel 8:10. (Duhm reads shéreç, "vermin," creeping or swarming creatures).

the mouse an unclean animal according to Leviticus 11:29. Of the 23 species of small rodents included under the name in Palestine, several are esteemed edible by the Arabs (Tristram, Nat. Hist., pp. 122 ff.). The allusion here without doubt is to sacrificial meals, the mouse being a sacred animal in the same sense as the swine and the dog. see W. R. Smith, Rel. of Sem.2 p. 293; who mentions a statement of Maimonides that the Harranians sacrificed field-mice.

shall be consumed shall come to an end; see on next verse.