I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, About which she has said, 'These are my wages that my lovers have given me; And I will make them a forest,' And the animals of the field shall eat them.
Since then the Israelites had so hardened themselves in their superstitions, that this false persuasion could not be driven out of them, until they were deprived of all their blessings, he announces to them this punishment, — that God would take away whatever they thought had come to them from their idols or false gods: I will turn, he says, all these into a forest, that is, “I will reduce to a waste, both the vineyards and all the well cultivated parts; so that they will produce nothing, as is usually the case with desert places.” We now understand the whole meaning of the Prophet. Let us proceed — 