(29) In the land of Canaan unto Chaldaea.--Canaan was originally the name of only that strip of land between the hills and the sea occupied by the Ph?nicians, in other words, the lowlands. Thence it became extended over the whole land. It is thought by some writers to revert here to its original meaning, and be equivalent to the low, flat land. The expression will become clearer if translated, "the Canaan land Chaldaea." The word, however, bears also the meaning of traffic, commerce (Isaiah 23:8; Hosea 12:7; Zephaniah 1:11), and in this sense is applied to Babylon in Ezekiel 17:4, and this is the better meaning here. The idea will then be that Israel, beginning its idolatries in the actual Canaan, had extended them along with her commercial intercourse on every side, until at last she had carried them even to Chaldaea, the great commercial emporium of the time.

Verse 29. - In the land of Canaan, etc. The words at first seem to give the nearest and furthest points of the intercourse of Israel with foreign nations. I incline, however, with Smend and the margin of the Revised Version, to take Canaan in its secondary sense as "the land of traffick," Chaldea being in apposition with it (comp. Isaiah 23:8; Hosea 12:7; Zephaniah 1:11, for a like use of the Hebrew word). Chaldea thus comes in its right place as closing the list of the nations with whom the harlot city had been unfaithful.

16:1-58 In this chapter God's dealings with the Jewish nation, and their conduct towards him, are described, and their punishment through the surrounding nations, even those they most trusted in. This is done under the parable of an exposed infant rescued from death, educated, espoused, and richly provided for, but afterwards guilty of the most abandoned conduct, and punished for it; yet at last received into favour, and ashamed of her base conduct. We are not to judge of these expressions by modern ideas, but by those of the times and places in which they were used, where many of them would not sound as they do to us. The design was to raise hatred to idolatry, and such a parable was well suited for that purpose.Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan,.... Or, "with the land of Canaan" (l); with the inhabitants of it, doing the same evils, committing the same idolatries, as the old inhabitants of Canaan did; and so the Targum,

"and thou hast multiplied thine idols, that thou mightest be joined to the people of Canaan:''

or, "to the land of Canaan" (m); like to the land of Canaan; according to the abominations of the Canaanites, doing as they did. Jarchi takes the word Canaan to signify a "merchant", as it does in Hosea 12:7; and the land of Canaan to be the same with the land of Chaldea, called a land of traffic, and Babylon the city of merchants, Ezekiel 17:4; since it follows,

unto Chaldea: but the sense is, that the Jews were not content with the idolatries in the land of Canaan, but sent even to Chaldea, a remote country, to fetch new idols from thence; see Ezekiel 23:14. The Targum is,

"to walk in the laws of the Chaldeans;''

their religious ones, their rites and ceremonies respecting idolatrous worship:

and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith; but still wanted other idols and modes of worship; not being content with the gods of the Egyptians, nor of the Assyrians, nor of the Canaanites, nor of the Chaldeans.

(l) "cum terra Canaan", Munster, so some in Vatablus, Tigurine version, Noldius, p. 39. No. 288. (m) "ad terram Canaan", so some in Vatablus. Approved by Kimchi and Ben Melech.