indicate that the reference here is to the harvesting of the olive berry.

Twice, Isaiah speaks of the 'shaking of an olive' (Isa. 17:6; 24:13), and the

figure used in Isaiah 27:12 is that Israel shall be gathered 'one by one' as

olives are beaten off the boughs, not gathered indiscriminately, mixing wheat

and tares together in one sheaf.

Two rivers are indicated in Isaiah 27:12.  'The river', Hebrew nahar,

refers to the river Euphrates.  (See Gen. 2:14; 15:18; Deut. 1:7; Jer. 46:2).

The 'stream' of Egypt refers to a brook, Hebrew nachal, usually translated

'brook' as in the references to 'the brook of Eshcol', 'the brooks of Arnon',

'the brook Kidron' (Num. 13:23; 21:14; 2 Sam. 15:23).  Dr. Lightfoot says

'this is not the Nile in Egypt, but Sihor in the way to Egypt, (Josh. 13:3;

Jer. 2:18).  In the LXX it is rhinokoura'.  Dr. Young, in the map contained

in his Analytical Concordance, places 'the stream of Egypt' south of Gaza, a

strip of territory much in the news as these words are written.  The word

Mesopotamia 'between the rivers' is aram naharaim, retaining this word nahar

'the river', i.e. the Euphrates.  The 'channel' of the river is the

translation of the well -known word shibboleth, used as a test by the men of

Gilead to discover the Ephraimites, who at the passages or fords (Jud. 12:6)

of Jordan asked permission to go over, the test word 'shibboleth' being one

of the names in Hebrew given to a ford, a channel or a wady.  The gathering

'one by one' not only alludes to the method of gathering olives, but suggests

that there will be no possibility of anyone 'gate crashing' as in Matthew

22:12.  This 'one by one' discriminate gathering is compared with the way in

which the tithe of the herd was counted, as in Leviticus 27:32, 'whatsoever

passeth under the rod'.  In Ezekiel 20, the prophet says of Israel, that they

will say: 'We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to

serve wood and stone'.  To this the Lord replies:

'As I live, saith the Lord God ... I will bring you out from the

people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are

scattered ... and I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will

bring you into the bond (or the "binding obligation", only occurrence

of this word) of the covenant: and I will purge out from among you the

rebels' (Ezek. 20:33 -38).

In Jeremiah 33, where Israel's desolations are to be restored, the same

figure is used:

'In the cities of Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of

him that telleth them' (Jer. 33:13).

It is not without purpose that the Psalmist associates 'the gathering

of the outcast of Israel' with the fact that the Lord:

'Telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names'

(Psa. 147:4).

This insistence by the Prophets on the 'one by one' gathering, the

passing under the rod, the telling of the names, is all against a mass

movement crashing into Palestine at the impulse of fear, or of the

satisfaction of political purposes.  When Israel enter their land, the tares

will be discriminated from the wheat.

The names Cain, Lot, Ammon, Moab and Ishmael come to the mind at once.

When Israel left Egypt on the night of the first Passover, we read 'a mixed

multitude went up also with them' (Exod. 12:38), and Nehemiah uses the same