They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens, set apart from a unique tree in the midst of those who eat swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, [though they both, all] shall be consumed together saith the Lord.
Isaiah 66:17.
The parallel passage in Isaiah 65:2-5 justifies that the passage above is speaking of a particular day in the first century when a unique tree was set up by the Romans in the midst of them and the Jews. The language in Isaiah 65:2-5 is almost identical to that above, and is clearly speaking of the same event. In both cases the sanctimonious Jews are being linked with the Romans, who, eat pork and, ironically, "the mouse," which is:
. . . according to Jerome and Zwingli the dormouse (glis esculentus), which the Talmud also mentions under the name עכברא דברא (wild mouse) as a dainty bit with epicures, and which was fattened, as is well-known, by the Romans in their gliraria.
Keil-Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, our verse.
More telling, and far more along the lines of a stupendous oracular event, is the statement in Isaiah 65 that sets up the scene where the unique tree is set up in the midst of the Romans. Isaiah 65:2 says:
I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walk in a way that's not good, after their own thoughts. . . They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens, set apart from a unique tree in the midst of those who eat swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, [though they both, all] shall be consumed together saith the Lord.
Isaiah 65:2 followed by 66:17
Why does the Lord say he's "spread out his hands all day" in a passage speaking of the unique tree in the midst of the Romans that's going to become a world-class, bosom-borne, ornament-of-ornaments קשט? Mind you, this unique tree in the middle of the Roman's, which becomes a shrine worn by the Nazarim and lifted up in the Gentile nations, is said, by the Nazarenes, to represent the conquering not just of the Romans and the Jews of first century Jerusalem, say Pilate, and Caiaphas, but, get this, death itself. Which gives cause to parallel these ideas with another passage in Isaiah where indeed death is in the cross-hairs of the statements.
For on this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him . . . and he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as a swimmer spreads forth his hands to swim. And he shall bring down their pride while his own hands are being spoiled by the manner of how they're spread out.
Isaiah 25:10-11.
For [Roman] dogs have already surrounded me [I'm in their midst]; a company of evildoers has enclosed me . . . they paralyze my hands and feet so that I'm powerless either to defend myself or to flee.
The Hirsch Tehillim, 22:17 (KJV 16).
Someone who thinks the two passages above don't belong together hasn't read Rashi on the first. He says the word for the "spreading out of the hands" ופרש, means the hands are being "broken" in the process. Ironically his noting of this nuance shines a light on his contradictory exegesis of the second verse above, Psalms 22:16.
Because the two verses are nearly a direct parallel, Rashi is concerned about the "piercing" of the hands and feet. Jews have contended that the "piercing" of the hands and feet is an old Christian translation. But the LXX translated it "pierced" suggesting that they used an ancient text where it was written that way. The contention is between the word כארי or כארו. ---- A
vav or a
yod? The words are otherwise identical.
The Masoretic Text used a manuscript with a
yod, and the Septuagint a
vav. A manuscript associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls has been found with the
vav rather than the
yod. It was only in the last decade or so that this manuscript was examined in relationship to Psalm 22:16 and it justifies the LXX translation suggesting that the translators of the LXX had a now forsaken manuscript like the one recently made available through the Dead Sea Scrolls. . . Wikipedia has some information on this under the title: "
They have pierced my hands and feet."
Rashi has the translation say: "
For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil doers has encompassed me, like a lion, my hands and feet." ---- The last phrase doesn't make clear sense. But that's what it has to say if there's a
yod rather than a
vav.
So Rashi explains like this: "
As though they [hands and feet] are crushed in a lion's mouth, and so did Hezekiah say (in Isaiah 38:13): `like a lion, so it would break all my bones.'"
The problem is that in the very next verse the Sufferer says that he can count all his bones. They're intact. Such that the Sufferer would be saying that his hands and feet are impaled as though by a lion's mouth, but without breaking a single bone. ----How do you pierce hands and feet without breaking a single bone? You need manufactured lion's teeth, nails. And someone to place them carefully between the bones. You need Roman style crucifixion. And that's exactly what's depicted in Psalm 22, Isaiah 25:11, and thus Isaiah 66:17.
In Isaiah 25:11, Rashi claims the hands that are spread are also being broken, but in the parallel passage (Psalms 22:16) where hands are being pierced, broken, he tries to imply their not being pierced, or broken (since the sufferer can count all his bones) but merely jawed on a bit by a lion without it doing anything like the damage he's doing to a sound and believable exegesis of the Hebrew scripture.
John