of all proof and authority. No
instance whatsoever is found of the outward habit of a mourner being
designated as nakedness. But it is still more arbitrary thus to deal
with [Hebrew: will], whether it be explained by "deprived of his mental
faculties on account of the unbounded grief of his soul,"--as is
done by several Jewish expositors (who, in the explanation of this
passage, would have done much better, had they followed the Chaldee,
in whom the correct view is found; only that he, giving up the
figurative representation, substitutes the third person for the first,
paraphrasing it thus: "On that account they shall wail and howl, they
shall go stripped and naked," etc.),--or by "badly clothed," as is done
by the greater number of Christian expositors. The signification
"robbed," "plundered," is the only established one; compare [Hebrew:
wvll] in Job xii. 17-19. The parallel passages, in which nakedness
appears as the characteristic feature of the captives taken in war,
show how little we are entitled to depart from the most obvious
signification, in these two words. Thus we find immediately afterwards,
in ver. 11: "Pass ye away, ye inhabitants of Saphir, having your shame
naked;" on which _Michaelis_ remarks: "With naked bodies, as is the
case with those who are led into captivity after having been stripped
of their clothes." Thus Is. xx. 3, 4: "And the Lord said. Like as My
servant Isaiah walketh _naked_ and _barefoot_ three years, for a sign
and wonder upon Egypt and Ethiopia, so shall the king of Assyria lead
away the prisoners of Egypt, and the prisoners of Ethiopia, young men
and old men, _naked_ and _barefoot_;" compare Is. xlvii. 3.--2. The
term [Hebrew: htplwti], in ver. 10, is in favour of the supposition,
that the prophet here appears as the representative of the future
condition of his people. The _Imperat. fem._ [Hebrew: htplwi] of the
marginal reading is evidently, as is commonly the case, only the result
of the embarrassment of the Mazorets. The reading of the text can be
pointed as the first person of the Preterite only; for the view of
_Rosenmueller_, who takes it as the [Pg 429] second person of the
Preterite, which here is to have an optative signification, is,
grammatically, inadmissible. _Rueckert's_ explanation, "In the house of
_dust_ (_zu Staubheim_), I have strewed dust upon me," is quite
correct. But if _here_ we must suppose that the prophet suddenly passes
over from the address to his unfort