country. He mentions Samaria first, and then, in vers. 6, 7, he
describes its destruction which was brought about by the Assyrians,
before he makes mention of that of Jerusalem, because the apostasy took
place first in Samaria, and hence the punishment also was hastened on.
The latter circumstance, which is merely a consequence of the former,
is in an one-sided manner made prominent by the greater number of
interpreters, who therein follow the example of _Jerome_. It was at the
same time, however, probably the intention of the prophet to be done
with Samaria, in order that he might be at liberty to take up
exclusively the case of Judah and Jerusalem--the main objects of his
prophetic ministry.

He makes the transition to this in ver. 8, by means of the words: "_On
that account I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked; I will
make a wailing like the jackals, and a mourning like the ostriches._"
"_On that account_"--_i.e._, on account of the judgment upon Judah, to
be announced in the subsequent verses. It is commonly supposed that the
prophet here speaks in his own person; thus, _e.g._, _Rosenmueller_:
"The prophet mourns in a bitter lamentation for the number and
magnitude of the calamities impending over the Israelitish people." But
the correct view rather is, that the prophet, when, in his inward
vision, he sees the divine judgments not remaining and stopping at
Samaria, but poured out like a desolating torrent over Judah and
Jerusalem, suddenly sinks his own consciousness in that of his
suffering people. We have thus here before us an imperfect symbolical
action, similar to that more finished one which occurs in Is. xx. 3, 4,
and which can be explained only by a deeper insight into the nature of
prophecy, according to which the dramatic character is inseparable from
it. The transition from the mere description of what is present in the
inward vision only, to the prophet's own action, is, according to this
view, very easy. If we confine ourselves to the passage before us, the
following [Pg 428] arguments are in favour of our view. 1. The
predicates [Hebrew: will] and [Hebrew: ervM] cannot be explained upon
the supposition that the prophet describes only his own painful
feelings on account of the condition of his people. Even if [Hebrew:
ervM] stood alone, the explanation by "naked," in the sense of
"deprived of the usual and decent dress, and, on the contrary, clothed
in dirt and rags," would be destitute