Note 80 — Chapter XXVIII
Reading edition
vv. 14-16, which are very perplexing. In 14 a company is introduced to us very vaguely as those or yonder ones, who are represented as seeing the bright side of the convulsion which is the subject of the chapter. They cry aloud from the sea; that is, from the west of the prophet. He is therefore in the east, and in captivity, in the centre of the convulsion. The problem is to find any actual historical situation, in which part of Israel was in the east in captivity, and part in the west free and full of reasons for praising God for the calamity, out of which their brethren saw no escape for themselves.