Supra, [מעלה]; "upward,” Newcome; “backward,” Henderson; “forward,” Secker. The last refers to 1 Samuel 16:13, and 30:25, as the only places besides here and in verse 18, where it is applied to time: and clearly in Samuel it means “forward,” or hereafter. It means the same when applied to age, Numbers 1:20, and when applied to place, Deuteronomy 28:43 If we retain this meaning, we must consider this verse, and its repetition in verse 18, as the commencement of a sentence, which is completed at the end of verse 19, as intervening clauses. Then the passage would be as follows— 15. And now take, I pray, notice; From this day and forward, From the time of setting a stone on a stone In the Temple of Jehovah, 16. From the time you came to a heap of twenty, And it was ten, And came to the vat to draw fifty measures, And there were twenty; 17. I smote you with blight, and with mildew, And with hail, even all the work of your hands; But ye turned not to me, saith Jehovah;— 18. Take, I pray, notice; From this day and forward, From the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, From the day in which was founded The Temple of Jehovah;—take notice; 19. Is yet the seed in the granary?— And as yet the vine and the fig tree, And the pomegranate and the olive, it hath not borne;— From this day will I bless you. I prefer “Take notice,” or, “mark,” to “consider,” as the meaning of [לבבכם שימו], “set or fix your heart.” In favor of “your” instead of “their” in verse 16, there are three MSS.; and it is more consistent with the context. The expression literally is, “From your being to come,” i.e from the time in which you came, and found out the deficiency. “Fifty measures;” [פורה] is rendered by the Septuagint μετρητὰς—“baths;” by Jerome, “Lagenas—flagons.” The word means here evidently a vessel to measure the wine from the vat; what quantity it contained is not known. It is here in the singular number, while the numeral, “fifty,” is in the plural; deugain, which literally in English is, “ten measure and forty.” In verse 17, “even all the work of your hands,” is in apposition with “you,” and explanatory of it, according to what we often find in the Prophets; for by “you” was meant their “work,” and not themselves personally. “But ye turned not to me,” literally, “But ye not to me;” perhaps the meaning is, “Ye ascribed it not to me,” that is, the judgment previously mentioned, or, “Ye attended not to me:” but the verb [שבתם] is commonly thought to be understood. See Amos 4:9. The question in verse 19 is to be taken negatively, to correspond with the negative declaration in what follows.—Ed.