f Zion is Zion itself,
personified, and represented as a virgin; and if her hill be spoken
of, what else can be meant, than Mount Zion in the more restricted
sense--the Mount [Greek: kat' exochen], before which Akra and Moriah
are changed into plains? We have thus a most appropriate relation of
the two appellations to each other,--the tower of the flock being the
particular, and the hill of the daughter of Zion, the general. [Pg 461]
_Further_,--We obtain the most perfect harmony and agreement with the
last words of the verse. The hill which, morally and physically,
commands the daughter of Zion, is the same which obtains dominion over
the daughter of Jerusalem. _Finally_,--We see the most striking
contrast with iii. 12, and the most admirable connection with iv. 1-7,
in which, everywhere, Mount Zion is spoken of, and the exaltation is
described which, after its deep abasement, it shall obtain in the
future, by the flowing of the heathens to it, and by the dominion of
the Lord to be there exercised.

It is only in appearance that our explanation is contradicted by
passages of the Old Testament, and of _Josephus_, where _Ophel_ is
mentioned as a particular place; compare _Bachiene_ 2. 1, Sec. 76;
_Hamelsveld_ 2, S. 35 ff. The supposition of several interpreters,
that this _Ophel_ is some particular hill (compare, _e.g._, _Vitringa
de Templo Ezech._ L. i. c. iii. p. 159, and his _Commentary on
Isaiah_ xxxii. 13), has already been invalidated by _Reland_ (p. 855),
and _Faber_ l.c., p. 347, who rightly remark, that _Josephus_, in
enumerating the hills of Jerusalem, makes no mention of _Ophel_, but
speaks always only of the place _Ophel_. All the difficulties, however,
which stand in the way of the other assumptions, are removed by the
following view of the matter. Mount Zion was called [Hebrew: hepl], the
Hill [Greek: kat' exochen], and this word became, by and by, a _nomen
proprium_, and, in this state, as well as in its transition to
the _nomen proprium_, was used without the Article. From this it
followed--and numerous analogies everywhere occur--that the foot of
the mountain, the place where it was connected with the lower part of
the temple-mountain by means of a deep valley, acquired this name in
preference, and received it, as it were, as a _nomen proprium_. At this
foot of Zion--and hence over against the temple, and near it--dwelt the
Nethinim, the temple servants, Neh. iii. 26; and _Josephus_ says, that
the wall