irst, by a hedge of thorns, and then, by a wall; but the same
thing is expressed here by a double figure, as is also done in Is. v.
5. First, the shutting up is alone spoken of; it is afterwards brought
into connection with the effects to be thereby produced; and because
she is enclosed by a wall, she cannot find her path. "I wall her wall"
is tantamount to, "I make a wall for her." The words of the husband in
the verse under consideration form an evident contrast to those of the
wife in the preceding verse. _Schmid_ says: "The punishment is by the
law of retaliation. She had said, 'I will go to my lovers;' but God
threatens, on the contrary, that He will obstruct the way so that she
cannot go." The [Hebrew: hnni] points to the unexpectedness of the
result. The wife imagined that she would be able to carry out her
purpose with great safety and ease; it does not even occur to her to
think of her husband, who had hitherto allowed her, from weakness, as
she imagines, to go on her way undisturbed; but she sees herself _at
once_ firmly enclosed by a wall.--There can be no doubt, that, by the
hedging and walling about, severe sufferings are intended, by which
the people are encompassed, straitened, and hindered in every free
movement. For sufferings regularly appear as the specific against
Israel's apostasy from their God. Compare, _e.g._, Deut. iv. 30: "In
the tribulation to thee, and when all these things come upon thee, thou
returnest in the end of the days to the Lord thy God, and hearest His
voice;" Hosea v. 15: "I will go and return to My place till they become
guilty; in the affliction to them, they will seek Me." The figure of
enclosing has elsewhere also, undeniably, the meaning of inflicting
sufferings. Thus in Job iii. 23: "To the man whose way is hid, [Pg 240]
and whom God has hedged in round about;" xix. 8: "He hath fenced up my
way and I cannot pass, and upon my paths He sets darkness;" Lam. iii.
7: "He hath hedged me about, and I cannot get out; He hath made my
chain heavy;" compare also ibid. ver. 9; Ps. lxxxviii. 9.--The object
of the walling about is to cut her off from the lovers; the infliction
of heavy sufferings is to put an end to idolatrous tendencies.--The
words, "thy way," clearly refer to, "I will go after my lovers," in
ver. 7; and by "her paths which she cannot find," her whole previous
conduct in general is indeed to be understood, but chiefly, from the
connection with ver. 7, her former intercours