en
Babylon and Judea. Thus, for example, _Manger_: "_I am disposed to
think_ that the desert of Arabia itself is here called the wilderness
of the nations, on account of the different nomadic tribes which are
accustomed to wander through it." _Rosenmueller_ says: "He _seems_ to
speak here of those vast solitudes which the Jews had to pass through,
on their way from Babylon to Judea." But this "I am disposed to think,"
and this "he seems," on the part of these interpreters, show that they
themselves felt the insufficiency of their own explanation. That
nomadic tribes are straying through that wilderness, is not at all
essential, and can therefore not be mentioned here, where only the
essential feature--the nature and substance of the leading through the
wilderness--are concerned. And we cannot at all perceive why just the
wilderness between Babylon and Judea should be called the wilderness of
the nations. It was no more travelled by nomadic tribes than was any
other wilderness. And just as little was it characteristic of it, that
it bordered upon the territories of various nations (_Hitzig_). Such a
designation would throw us upon the territory of mere conjecture, on
which we are, in Holy Scripture, never thrown, except through our own
fault. But it is quite decisive that the words, "I bring you out of the
wilderness of the nations," stand in a close relation to the words, "I
bring you out from the nations." From this it appears that the nations,
to which the Israelites are to be brought, cannot be any other than
those, out of the midst of whom they are to be led. In the first
leading out of the Israelites, the two spiritual conditions were
separated externally also. The first belonged to Egypt; the second, to
the wilderness. But it shall not be thus, in this announced repetition
of the leading. It is only spiritually that the Israelites, at the
commencement of the second condition, shall be led out from among the
nations, in the midst of whom they, outwardly, still continue to be.
The wilderness is in the second Egypt itself. The stay in the
wilderness is repeated as to its essence only, and not as to its
accidental outward form; just as in Zech. x. 12, the words, "And he
passeth through the sea," which apparently might imply a repetition of
the outward form merely, are limited to the substance by the subjoined
"affliction." From this we obtain for our passage (_Hitzig_ likewise
[Pg 260] remarks: Ezek. xx. 34-38 seems to