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"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of
the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of
Israel" (Isa. 27: 12).
"Beat off" translates the Hebrew word chabat, the first occurrence of which reads
"when thou beatest thine olive tree" (Deut. 24: 20), and the second "and beat out that
she had gleaned" (Ruth 2: 17). In Judges 6: 11 it refers to "threshing wheat" and in
Isa. 28: 27 to beating out fitches with a staff. The statement "Ye shall be gathered
one by one" (Isa. 27: 12) seems to 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 Isa. 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 Isa. 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 brook of Arnon", "the brook Kidron" (Numb. 13: 23; 21: 14;
II Sam. 15: 23). Dr. Lightfoot says "this is not the Nile in Egypt, but Sihor in the way of
Egypt, Josh. 13: 3; Jer. 2: 18. In the LXX it is rhinocorura". 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 nahor "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 (Judg. 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 Matt. 22: 12.
This "one by one" discriminate gathering is compared with the way in which the tithe of
the herd was counted, as in Lev. 27: 32, "whatsoever passeth under the rod". In
Ezek. 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 world) of the covenant: and I will purge out from among you the
rebels" (Ezek. 20: 33-38).
In Jer. 33:, where Israel's desolations are to be restored, the same figure is used:
"In the cities of Judah, shall 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).