orgies. The city is 'the crown of pride'--that is, the object of
boasting and foolish confidence--and is also 'the fading flower of his
sparkling ornament'; that is, the flower which is the ornament of
Ephraim, but is destined to fade.

The picture of the city passes into that of the drunken debauch, where
the chief men of Samaria sprawl, 'smitten down' by wine, and with the
innocent flowers on their hot temples drooping in the fumes of the
feast. But bright and sunny as the valley is, glittering in the light as
the city sits on her hill, careless and confident as the revellers are,
a black cloud lies on the horizon, and one of the terrible sudden storms
which such lands know comes driving up the valley. 'The Lord hath a
mighty and strong one'--the conqueror from the north, who is God's
instrument, though he knows it not.

The swift, sudden, irresistible onslaught of the Assyrian is described,
in harmony with the figure of the flowery coronal, as a tempest which
beats down the flowers and flings the sodden crown to the ground. The
word rendered 'tempest' is graphic, meaning literally a 'downpour.'
First comes hail, which batters the flowers to shreds; then the effect
of the storm is described as 'destruction,' and then the hurrying words
turn back to paint the downpour of rain, 'mighty' from its force in
falling, and 'overflowing' from its abundance, which soon sets all the
fields swimming with flood water. What chance has a poor twist of
flowers in such a storm? Its beauty will be marred, and all the petals
beaten off, and nothing remains but that it should be trampled into mud.
The rush of the prophet's denunciation is swift and irresistible as the
assault it describes, and it flashes from one metaphor to another
without pause. The fertility of the valley of Samaria shapes the
figures. As the picture of the flowery chaplet, so that which follows of