(4) And the glorious beauty . . .--Better, And the fading flower of his glorious beauty . . . shall be us the early fig before the fruit-gathering. The "early fig," as a special delicacy (Hosea 9:10; Micah 7:1), becomes a type of the beauty and pride of Samaria, doomed to inevitable destruction. (Comp. Nahum 3:12.) Such a fig the passer-by seizes, and eagerly devours. So, the prophet says, with a Dante-like homeliness of comparison, should the Assyrian king treat Samaria.

Verse 4. - And the glorious beauty, etc. Translate, And the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be like an early fig (that comes) before the harvest. Such an "early fig" is a tempting delicacy, devoured as soon as seen (comp. Hosea 9:10; Nahum 3:12; Jeremiah 24:2, etc.). The "beauty" of Samaria would tempt the Assyrians to desire it so soon as they saw it, and would rouse an appetite which would be content with nothing less than the speedy absorption of the coveted morsel. Samaria's siege, once begun, was pressed without intermission, and lasted less than three years (2 Kings 18:9, 10) - a short space compared to that of other sieges belonging to about the same period; e.g., that of Ashdod, besieged twenty-nine years (Herod., 2. 157); that of Tyre, besieged thirteen years ('Ancient Monarchies,' vol. 3:492).

28:1-4 What men are proud of, be it ever so mean, is to them as a crown; but pride is the forerunner of destruction. How foolishly drunkards act! Those who are overcome with wine are overcome by Satan; and there is not greater drudgery in the world than hard drinking. Their health is ruined; men are broken in their callings and estates, and their families are ruined by it. Their souls are in danger of being undone for ever, and all merely to gratify a base lust. In God's professing people, like Israel, it is worse than in any other. And he is just in taking away the plenty they thus abuse. The plenty they were proud of, is but a fading flower. Like the early fruit, which, as soon as discovered, is plucked and eaten.And the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley,.... Meaning the riches and fruitfulness of the ten tribes, and especially of Samaria the head of them:

shall be a fading flower; as before declared, Isaiah 28:1 and here repeated to show the certainty of it, and to awaken their attention to it:

and as the hasty fruit before the summer; the first ripe fruit, that which is ripe before the summer fruits in common are. The Septuagint render it the first ripe fig; and so the Targum and Aben Ezra:

which when he that looketh upon it seeth it; that it is goodly and desirable, and so gathers it, Micah 7:1,

while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up; and as soon as he has got it into his hand, he cannot keep it there to look at, or forbear eating it, but greedily devours it, and swallows it down at once; denoting what a desirable prey the ten tribes would be to the Assyrian monarch, and how swift, sudden, and inevitable, would be their destruction.