Some take the participle נכסף, necasaph, in an active sense, as though the Prophet had said that the Jews were void of every feeling, and had become wholly hardened in their stupidity. But I know not whether this can be grammatically allowed. I therefore follow what has been more approved. The nation is called not worthy of love, because it did not deserve mercy; and God thus amplifies and renders illustrious his own grace, because he was still solicitous about the salvation of those who had willfully destroyed themselves, and rejected his favor. Though then the Jews had by their depravity so alienated themselves from God, that there was no reason why he should save them, he yet still continued to call them back to himself. It is therefore a remarkable proof of the unfailing grace of God, when he shows love to a nation wholly worthy of being hated, and is concerned for its safety. [כסף] is found as a verb in four other places, Genesis 31:30; Job 14:15; Psalm 17:12; and Psalm 84:3. It means to be or to grow pale, either through love, as in Genesis and Job, or through hunger, as in the first Psalm referred to, or through longing for God’s house, as in the last, or through shame, as some—such as Grotius, Dathius, and Gesenius, suppose to be the case here; and they therefore give this rendering—“O nation without shame;” or, “not ashamed.” This idea is favored by the Septuagint—“unteachable—ἀπαίδευτον.” In no instance is it found in a passive sense as to the feeling through which the paleness is occasioned, and therefore “worthy of love,” or “desired,” cannot be its proper rendering. Buxtorf give its meaning in Niphal—“desiderio affici—to be touched with or to feel a desire.” Hence the person spoken of is the subject, not the object, of the desire. According, then, to the use of the verb, the rendering here is to be—“Ye nation that feels no desire,” that is, for God and his law, or, “that feels no shame,” that is, for its sins. The paraphrase of the Targum is—“not willing to be converted to the law,” which corresponds with the idea which has been stated. Marckius considers that the nation is here described as having “no desire,” that is for that which was good, and that its torpidity and indifference as to religion is what is set forth. And such is the view of Cocceius; it had no thirst for righteousness, no desire for the kingdom of God—the mark of an unregenerated mind.—Ed.