Pass ye. Go and compare your condition with that of other countries, from the furthest east to the north, to your own neighbours—has not God done more for you than for them? Nothing is said about the destruction of the three capitals, nor is Samaria threatened with similar ruin.
Rather the cities are contemplated as still flourishing and prosperous (though by this time they had suffered at their enemies' hands), and Israel is bidden to remember that she is more favoured than they.
Calneh, one of the five great Babylonian cities, is probably the Kul-unu of the inscriptions, a town in Southern Babylonia, whose site is unknown. In Genesis 10:10 and Isaiah 10:9 the LXX. call it Chalanne or Chalane; in the present passage they mistake the Hebrew, and render, διάβητε πάντες, "pass ye all by".
St. Jerome identifies it with Ctesiphon, on the east bank of the Tigris. Others find in it Nopher or Nipur, the modern Niffer, some sixty miles southeast of Babylon. As one of the oldest cities in the world, ranking with Babel, Erech, and Aecad, it was well known to the Israelites.
Hamath the great; Septuagint, ἐματραββά. This was the principal city of Upper Syria, and a place of great importance. In after years it was called Epiphania, after Antiochus Epiphanes (Genesis 10:18; Numbers 34:8; Isaiah 10:9).
It fell in Sargon's reign, B.C. 720; afterwards it lost its independence, and was incorporated in the Assyrian empire. Oath of the Philistines. One of their five chief cities, and at one time the principal (1 Chronicles 18:1).
The site is placed by Porter at Tell-es-Safi, an isolated hill; standing above the bread valley of Elah, and "presenting on the north and west a white precipice of many hundred feet." Dr. Thomson considers Gath to be the same city as Betogabra, Eleutheropolis, and the modern Beth Jibrin, which is some few miles south of Tell Safi.
He thinks the site of Tell Sift is not adapted for the seat of a large city, and he saw few indications of ancient ruins there; whereas Beit Jibrin has in and around it the most wonderful remains of antiquity to be found in all Philistia.
It had probably declined in importance at this time (see note on Isaiah 1:6), but its old reputation was still remembered. It was taken by Uzziah, but seems not to have remained long in his possession (2 Chronicles 26:6).
In the year B.C. 711 Sargon reduced Ashdod and Garb, which he calls Gimtu Asdudim, i.e. Gath of the Ashdodites. Be they better? Have they received more earthly prosperity at God's hands than you? Is their territory greater than yours?
No. How ungrateful, then, are you for all my favours (comp. Jeremiah 2:5-11)! Schrader and Bickell regard the verse as an interpolation, grammatically, metrically, and chronologically inadmissible; but their arguments are not strong, and Ames makes no mention of the fate of these cities.