Then said the Lord unto me, thou hast well seen,.... The thing seen is a very proper emblem of what I am about to do, and the quick dispatch that will be made therein:for l will hasten my word to perform it; the words yna dqv, "shoked ani", "I will hasten", or "I am hastening", are in allusion todqv, "shoked", the name of the almond tree in Hebrew; which is so called because it is quick and early, and, as it were, hastens to bring forth its flowers, leaves, and fruit; in like manner the Lord says he would hasten to perform what he had said or should say by him concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and the captivity of the people, and every thing else he should give him in commission to say.
Jarchi and Abendana make mention of an ancient Midrash, or exposition, to this sense; that from the time of the almond tree's putting forth, until its fruit is ripe, are one and twenty days, according to the number of days which were between the seventeenth of Tammuz, in which the city was broken up, and the ninth of Ab, in which the temple was burnt; but though the almond tree is the first of trees, and is very early in putting forth, yet there is a greater time than this between its putting forth and its fruit being ripe; for Pliny says, that the almond tree first of all flowers in January, and its fruit is ripe in March.
Nat. Hist. l. 16. c.