easts in the courts before the sanctuary, at which the partakers
rejoiced _before the Lord_, Deut. xii. 7, 12, 18, xiv. 26. In Immanuel,
God with his blessings and gifts has truly entered into the midst of
His people. With the joy at _the dividing of the spoil_, the joy is
compared only to show its greatness, just as with the joy _in the
harvest_; and it is in vain that Knobel tries here to bring in a
dividing of spoil.

Vers. 3, (4). "_For the yoke of his burden and the staff of his neck,
the rod of his driver thou hast broken as in the day of Midian._"

In this verse, the reason of the people's joy announced in the
preceding verse is stated: it is the deliverance from the world's
power, under the oppression of which they groaned, or, in point of
fact, were to groan. He who imposes the _yoke_ and the _staff_, the
_driver_, (an allusion to the Egyptian taskmasters, masters, comp.
Exod. iii. 7; v. 10), is Asshur, and the _whole_ world's power hostile
to the Kingdom of God, which is represented by him, and which by Christ
was to receive, and has received, a mortal blow. A prelude to the
fulfilment took place by the defeat of Sennacherib under Hezekiah,
comp. chap. x. 5, 24, 27; xiv. 25. After him. Babel had to experience
[Pg 84] the destructive power of the Lord, the single phases of which,
pervading, as they do, all history, are here comprehended in one great
act. Although the definitive fulfilment begins first with the
appearance of Christ in the flesh, who spoke to His people: [Greek:
tharseite, ego nenikeka ton kosmon], yet after what we remarked on ver.
2, we are fully entitled to consider the former catastrophes also of
the kingdoms of the world as preludes to the real fulfilment.--[Hebrew:
wkM] "shoulder" does not suit as the _membrum cui verbera infliguntur_;
it comes, as is commonly the case, into consideration as that member
with which burdens are borne. The _staff_ or tyranny is a heavy
_burden_, comp. chap. x. 27: "His burden shall be taken away from
off thy shoulder." "_As in the day of Midian_" is equivalent to: as
thou once didst break the yoke of Midian. This event was especially
fitted to serve as a type of the glorious future victory over the
world's power, partly because the oppression by Midian was very
hard,--according to Judges vii. 12, Midian, Amalek, and the sons of
the East broke in upon the land like grasshoppers for multitude, and
their camels were without number, as the sand by the seaside for