(68) The Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships.--Josephus says this was done with many of the Jews by Titus. Thou shalt see it no more again.--Deuteronomy 17:16. Ye shall be sold . . . and no man shall buy you.--Rashi explains thus: "Ye shall desire to be sold--ye shall offer yourselves as slaves to your enemies, and shall be refused, because you are appointed to slaughter and destruction. Or the sellers shall sell you to other sellers, and no one will care to keep you." But the same word is used in the following passage by Nehemiah, "We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold to the heathen" (Nehemiah 5:8). Probably the meaning in Deuteronomy is similar: "Ye shall be sold as slaves to your enemies, and there will be no one to redeem you." Verse 68. - Worst of all, they should be again reduced to bondage, carried back to Egypt, put up for sale as slaves, and be so utterly despicable that no one would purchase them. Bring thee into Egypt again. "If the Exodus was the birth of the nation of God as such, the return would be its death" (Schultz; cf. Hosea 8:13; Hosea 9:3). With ships. They came out of Egypt by land, as free men; they should be carried back imprisoned and cooped up in slave-ships. By the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no mere again. This does not refer to their being carried to Egypt in ships as different from the way by which they had come out from it, but simply to the fact that they should be carried back thither, contrary to what was expected when they so triumphantly came forth from it. There ye shall be sold; literally, shall sell yourselves; i.e. give yourselves up to be sold as slaves. Egypt may be here, as Hengstenberg suggests, "the type of future oppressors;" but there seems no reason why the passage should not be taken literally. It is a fact that, after the capture of Jerusalem by Titus, the Jews were in large numbers carried into Egypt, and there subjected to most ignominious bondage; and in the time of Hadrian, multitudes of Jews were sold into slavery (Josephus, 'De Bell. Jud.,' 6:09, 2; cf. Philo, 'Flacc.' and 'Leg. ad Caium.'). by the way whereof I spake unto thee, thou shall see it no more again; the Targum of Jonathan is,"the Word of the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again in ships;''even the same divine Word, the Son of God, that brought them out of it, and went before them in a pillar of cloud and fire, now provoked by their rejection of him, would lead them back again thither; the paraphrast adds,"through the midst of the Red sea, in the path in which ye passed;''as if they were carried over into Egypt in ships, just in that part of the sea in which they had passed before; but that was an unknown and unseen path, after the waters were closed up, and never to be seen more, and which is here meant; for not Egypt, but the way in which they passed, was to be seen no more: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and for bondwomen, and no man shall buy you; that is, there in Egypt they would be offered to sale, and so many would be sold until the market was glutted with them, and there would be no buyers. The Targum of Jonathan is,"ye shall be sold there at first to your enemies, at a dear price, as artificers, and afterwards at a mean price as servants and handmaids, until ye become despised, and be brought to serve for nothing, and there be none to take you in.''Jarchi interprets it of they themselves being desirous, and seeking to be sold, to avoid cruelties and death; which agrees with the sense of the word, which may be rendered, "ye shall offer yourselves for sale"; but there will be no buyer, because their enemies will determine upon the slaughter and consumption of them; and to the same purpose Aben Ezra. There were such numbers of them to be sold both at Egypt and at Rome, that the sellers of them had but a poor market for them; and it seems not only because of their number, but the ill opinion had of them as servants. Hegesippus (b) says,"there were many to be sold, but there were few buyers; for the Romans despised the Jews for service, nor were there Jews left to redeem their own.''It is said (c), that thirty were sold for a penny; a just retaliation to them, who had sold their Messiah for thirty pieces of silver. (w) Hecataeus apud Joseph. contr. Apion, l. 1. sect. 22. (x) Antiqu. l. 12. c. 2. sect. 1.((y) De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 2.((z) Hieron. in Zech. ii. fol. 120. I.((a) De Termino Vitae, l. 3. sect. 3. p. 131, 132. (b) De excidio Urb. Hieros. l. 5. c. 47. p. 645. (c) Ib. p. 680. |