(8) In measure . . .--Literally, with the force of iteration, with measure and measure. The verse continues the thought of the preceding. The word for "measure" is strictly definite: the seah, or third part of an ephah (comp. Isaiah 5:10), and therefore used as proverbial for its smallness, to express the extreme moderation of God's chastisements.

When it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate With it.--Better, When thou didst put her away, thou didst plead with her. The prophet falls back upon the thought of Hosea 1-3, that Israel was the adulterous wife to whom Jehovah had given, as it were, a bill of divorcement, but against whom He did not carry the pleadings to the furthest point that the rigour of the law allowed. Comp. for this meaning Isaiah 1:1; Deuteronomy 24:1; Malachi 2:16.

He stayeth his rough wind . . .--The words have become familiar, as expressing the loving-kindness which will not heap chastisement on chastisement, lest a man should be swallowed up of overmuch sorrow, which keeps the "rough wind" from completing the devastation already wrought by the scorching "east wind." That rendering, however, can scarcely be maintained. The word translated "stay" is found elsewhere in Proverbs 25:4-5, and there has the sense of "separating," or "sifting." And this is its sense here also, the thought expressed asserting, though in another form than the traditional rendering, the compassion of Jehovah, in that He sifts with his rough wind in the day of east wind; though punishment come on punishment, it is reformatory, and not simply penal, to sift, and not to destroy. A rendering accepted by some critics gives, He sigheth with His rough wind, as though with a sorrowing pity mingled with the chastisement.

Verse 8. - Our translators have entirely mistaken the meaning of this verse. The proper rendering is, In measure, when thou puttest her away, thou wilt contend with her; he sighed with his keen breath in the day of the east wind. "In measure" means "with forbearance and moderation" - the punishment being carefully adjusted to the degree of the offence. God was about to "put Judah away" - to banish her into a far country; but still he would refrain himself - he would "not suffer his whole displeasure to arise," or give her over wholly to destruction. In the day of the east wind, or of the national catastrophe, when his breath was fierce and hard against his people, he would "sigh" at the needful chastisement. As Dr. Kay well says, "Amid the rough and stern severity which he breathed into the tempest, there was an undertone of sadness and grief."

27:6-13 In the days of the gospel, the latter days, the gospel church shall be more firmly fixed than the Jewish church, and shall spread further. May our souls be continually watered and kept, that we may abound in the fruits of the Spirit, in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. The Jews yet are kept a separate and a numerous people; they have not been rooted out as those who slew them. The condition of that nation, through so many ages, forms a certain proof of the Divine origin of the Scriptures; and the Jews live amongst us, a continued warning against sin. But though winds are ever so rough, ever so high, God can say to them, Peace, be still. And though God will afflict his people, yet he will make their afflictions to work for the good of their souls. According to this promise, since the captivity in Babylon, no people have shown such hatred to idols and idolatry as the Jews. And to all God's people, the design of affliction is to part between them and sin. The affliction has done us good, when we keep at a distance from the occasions of sin, and use care that we may not be tempted to it. Jerusalem had been defended by grace and the Divine protection; but when God withdrew, she was left like a wilderness. This has awfully come to pass. And this is a figure of the deplorable state of the vineyard, the church, when it brought forth wild grapes. Sinners flatter themselves they shall not be dealt with severely, because God is merciful, and is their Maker. We see how weak those pleas will be. Verses 12,13, seem to predict the restoration of the Jews after the Babylonish captivity, and their recovery from their present dispersion. This is further applicable to the preaching of the gospel, by which sinners are gathered into the grace of God; the gospel proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord. Those gathered by the sounding of the gospel trumpet, are brought in to worship God, and added to the church; and the last trumpet will gather the saints together.In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it,.... Or, "when he sendeth it forth" (x); when God sends forth an affliction on his people, or gives it a commission to them, as all are sent by him, he does it with moderation; he proportions it to their strength, and will not suffer them to be afflicted above what they are able to bear; and as, in afflicting, he debates and contends with his people, having a controversy with them, so he contends with the affliction he sends, and debates the point with it, and checks and corrects it, and will not suffer it to go beyond due bounds; and in this the afflictions of God's people differ from the afflictions of others, about which he is careless and unconcerned:

he stayeth his rough wind in the day of his east wind: when afflictions, like a blustering and blasting east wind, threaten much mischief, and to carry all before them, Jehovah, from whom they have their commission, and who holds the winds in his fist, represses them, stops the violence of them, and gradually abates the force of them, and quite stills them, when they have answered the end for which they are sent: or "he meditateth" (y); or speaketh, as Jarchi interprets it, "by his rough wind in the day of his east wind"; God sometimes meditates hard things against his people, and speaks unto them by the rough dispensations of his providence, admonishes them of their sins, and brings them to a sense and acknowledgment of them, which is his view in suffering them to befall them; or, "he removes by his rough wind" (z); their fruit, so Kimchi interprets it; as a rough wind blows off the blossoms and fruits, so the Lord, by afflictions, removes the unkind blossoms and bad fruit from his people, their sins and transgressions, as it follows.

(x) "in emittendo eam", Montanus. (y) "meditatus est", V. L. so it is used in Psal. i. 2. It sometimes intends a great sound and noise, such as the roaring of a lion, Isaiah 31.4. and Gussetius here interprets it of thunder, Ebr. Comment. p. 202. so Castalio renders it, "sonans suo duro spiritu". (z) "Removit in vento suo duro", Pagninus, Montanus; "removebit", Vatablus; "abstulit", Tigurine version, Piscator; so Ben Melech observes that the word has the signification of removing in Proverbs 25.4, 5.