(26) I will feed them that oppress thee . . .--The words are, of course, symbolical of the utter collapse, the self-destructive struggles of the enemies of Zion, i.e., of the company, or Ecclesia, of the redeemed. The mighty One of Jacob.--Same word, and that a rare one, as in Isaiah 1:24. Verse 26. - I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh (comp. Isaiah 9:20). Civil disunion is intended, which will break the power of Babylon, and render her an easy prey to the Persians. The recently discovered inscriptions clearly show that this was the case. Nabonidus had alienated the affections of his subjects by changes in the religion of the country, and during the course of the war with Cyrus, many Babylonian tribes went over to the invaders, and fought against their own countrymen (see the 'Cylinder of Nabonidus;' and comp. Sayce, 'Ancient Empires of the East,' p. 357). The mighty One of Jacob (see the comment on Isaiah 1:24). and they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; which denotes the abundance of blood that shall be shed, and the pleasure in shedding of it. It will be a righteous thing with God to give the whore of Rome her own blood to drink, even so as to be made drunk with it as with wine, who has been drunk already with the blood of the saints, Revelation 16:6. The Targum is, "I will give the flesh of them that oppress thee for food to every fowl of the heavens; and as they are drunken with wine, so the beasts of the field shall be drunken with their blood;'' see Revelation 19:17, and all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob; it shall be notorious to all the world, that Jehovah, the "Lord" of lords, the Lord of the whole earth, is the "Saviour and Redeemer" of his church and people out of all their afflictions, oppressions, and persecutions, by the Romish antichrist; this will be apparently seen, and publicly owned and acknowledged, when antichrist shall be destroyed, and the church saved; by which it will be manifest, it being the Lord's work, and wondrous in the eyes of men, that he is "the mighty One of Jacob", able to help and save them. |