INTRODUCTION 1. TIME OF THE PROPHET The first prerequisite to a clear understanding and full appreciation of the prophecies of Isaiah, is a knowledge of his time, and of the different periods of his ministry. The first period was in the reigns of Uzziah (B.C. 811-759) and Jotham (759-743). The precise starting-point depends upon the view we take of ch. 6. But, in any case, Isaiah commenced his ministry towards the close of Uzziah’s reign, and laboured on throughout the sixteen years of the reign of Jotham. The first twenty-seven of the fifty-two years that Uzziah reigned run parallel to the last twenty-seven of the fortyone that Jeroboam II reigned (B.C. 825-784). Under Joash, and his son Jeroboam II, the kingdom of Israel passed through a period of outward glory, which surpassed, both in character and duration, any that it had reached before; and this was also the case with the kingdom of Judah under Uzziah and his son Jotham. As the glory of the one kingdom faded away, that of the other increased.

The bloom of the northern kingdom was destroyed and surpassed by that of the southern. But outward splendour contained within itself the fatal germ of decay and ruin in the one case as much as in the other; for prosperity degenerated into luxury, and the worship of Jehovah became stiffened into idolatry. It was in this last and longest time of Judah’s prosperity that Isaiah arose, with the mournful vocation to preach repentance without success, and consequently to have to announce the judgment of hardening and devastation, of the ban and of banishment. The second period of his ministry extended from the commencement of the reign of Ahaz to that of the reign of Hezekiah. Within these sixteen years three events occurred, which combined to bring about a new and calamitous turn in the history of Judah. In the place of the worship of Jehovah, which had been maintained with outward regularity and legal precision under Uzziah and Jotham; as soon as Ahaz ascended the throne, open idolatry was introduced of the most abominable description and in very various forms. The hostilities which began while Jotham was living, were perpetuated by Pekah the king of Israel and Rezin the king of Damascene Syria; and in the Syro-Ephraimitish war, an attack was made upon Jerusalem, with the avowed intention of bringing the Davidic rule to an end. Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria, to help him out of these troubles. He thus made flesh his arm, and so entangled the nation of Jehovah with the kingdom of the world, that from that time forward it never truly recovered its independence again. The kingdom of the world was the heathen state in its Nimrodic form. Its perpetual aim was to extend its boundaries by constant accretions, till it had grown into a world-embracing colossus; and in order to accomplish this, it was ever passing beyond its natural boundaries, and coming down like an avalanche upon foreign nations, not merely for self-defence or revenge, but for the purpose of conquest also.

Assyria and Rome were the first and last links in that chain of oppression by the kingdom of the world, which ran through the history of Israel. Thus Isaiah, standing as he did on the very threshold of this new and allimportant turn in the history of his country, and surveying it with his telescopic glance, was, so to speak, the universal prophet of Israel. The third period of his ministry extended from the accession of Hezekiah to the fifteenth year of his reign. Under Hezekiah the nation rose, almost at the same pace at which it had previously declined under Ahaz. He forsook the ways of his idolatrous father, and restored the worship of Jehovah. The mass of the people, indeed, remained inwardly unchanged, but Judah had once more an upright king, who hearkened to the word of the prophet by his side-two pillars of the state, and men mighty in prayer (2 Chron 32:20).

When the attempt was afterwards made to break away from the Assyrian yoke, so far as the leading men and the great mass of the people were concerned, this was an act of unbelief originating merely in the same confident expectation of help from Egypt which had occasioned the destruction of the northern kingdom in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign; but on the part of Hezekiah it was an act of faith and confident reliance upon Jehovah (2 Kings 18:7). Consequently, when Sennacherib, the successor of Shalmaneser, marched against Jerusalem, conquering and devastating the land as he advanced, and Egypt failed to send the promised help, the carnal defiance of the leaders and of the great mass of the people brought its own punishment. But Jehovah averted the worst extremity, by destroying the kernel of the Assyrian army in a single night; so that, as in the Syro-Ephraimitish war, Jerusalem itself was never actually besieged. Thus the faith of the king, and of the better portion of the nation, which rested upon the word of promise, had its reward. There was still a divine power in the state, which preserved it from destruction. The coming judgment, which nothing indeed could now avert, according to ch. 6, was arrested for a time, just when the last destructive blow would naturally have been expected. It was in this miraculous rescue, which Isaiah predicted, and for which he prepared the way, that the public ministry of the prophet culminated. Isaiah was the Amos of the kingdom of Judah, having the same fearful vocation to foresee and to declare the fact, that for Israel as a people and kingdom the time of forgiveness had gone by. But he was not also the Hosea of the southern kingdom; for it was not Isaiah, but Jeremiah, who received the solemn call to accompany the disastrous fate of the kingdom of Judah with the knell of prophetic denunciations.

Jeremiah was the Hosea of the kingdom of Judah. To Isaiah was given the commission, which was refused to his successor Jeremiah-namely, to press back once more, through the might of his prophetic word, coming as it did out of the depths of the strong spirit of faith, the dark night which threatened to swallow up his people at the time of the Assyrian judgment.

After the fifteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, he took no further part in public affairs; but he lived till the commencement of Manasseh’s reign, when, according to a credible tradition, to which there is an evident allusion in Heb 11:37 (“they were sawn asunder”), he fell a victim to the heathenism which became once more supreme in the land.

To this sketch of the times and ministry of the prophet we will add a review of the scriptural account of the four kings, under whom he laboured according to Isa 1:1; since nothing is more essential, as a preparation for the study of his book, than a minute acquaintance with these sections of the books of Kings and Chronicles. I. Historical Account of Uzziah-Jotham.

The account of Uzziah given in the book of Kings (2 Kings 15:1-7, to which we may add 14:21-22), like that of Jeroboam II, is not so full as we should have expected. After the murder of Amaziah, the people of Judah, as related in Isa 14:21-22, raised to the throne his son Azariah, probably not his first-born, who was then sixteen years old. It was he who built the Edomitish seaport town of Elath (for navigation and commerce), and made it a permanent possession of Judah (as in the time of Solomon). This notice is introduced, as a kind of appendix, at the close of Amaziah’s life and quite out of its chronological position, because the conquest of Elath was the crowning point of the subjugation of Edom by Amaziah, and not, as Thenius supposes, because it was Azariah’s first feat of arms, by which, immediately after his accession, he satisfied the expectations with which the army had made him king.

For the victories gained by this king over Edom and the other neighbouring nations cannot have been obtained at the time when Amos prophesied, which was about the tenth year of Uzziah’s reign. The attack made by Amaziah upon the kingdom of Israel, had brought the kingdom of Judah into a state of dependence upon the former, and almost of total ruin, from which it only recovered gradually, like a house that had fallen into decay.

The chronicler, following the text of the book of Kings, has introduced the notice concerning Elath in the same place (2 Chron 26:1,2: it is written Eloth, as in 1 Kings 9:26, and the Septuagint at 2 Kings 14:22). He calls the king Uzziahu; and it is only in the table of the kings of Judah, in Chron 3:12, that he gives the name as Azariah. The author of the book of Kings, according to our Hebrew text, calls him sometimes Azariah or Azariahu, sometimes Uzziah or Uzziahu; the Septuagint always gives the name as Azarias. The occurrence of the two names in both of the historical books is an indubitable proof that they are genuine. Azariah was the original name: out of this Uzziah was gradually formed by a significant elision; and as the prophetical books, from Isa 1:1 to Zech 14:5, clearly show, the latter was the name most commonly used.

Azariah, as we learn from the section in the book of Kings relating to the reign of this monarch (2 Kings 15:1-7), ascended the throne in the twentyseventh year of Jeroboam’s reign, that is to say, in the fifteenth year of his sole government, the twenty-seventh from the time when he shared the government with his father Joash, as we may gather from 2 Kings 13:13.

The youthful sovereign, who was only sixteen years of age, was the son of Amaziah by a native of Jerusalem, and reigned fifty-two years. He did what was pleasing in the sight of God, like his father Amaziah; i.e., although he did not come up to the standard of David, he was one of the better kings.

He fostered the worship of Jehovah, as prescribed in the law: nevertheless he left the high places (bamoth) standing; and while he was reigning, the people maintained in all its force the custom of sacrificing and burning incense upon the heights. He was punished by God with leprosy, which compelled him to live in a sick-house (chophshuth = chophshith: sickness) till the day of his death, whilst his son Jotham was over the palace, and conducted the affairs of government. He was buried in the city of David, and Jotham followed by him on the throne. This is all that the author of the book of Kings tells us concerning Azariah: for the rest, he refers to the annals of the kings of Judah. The section in the Chronicles relating to Uzziah (2 Chron 26) is much more copious: the writer had our book of Kings before him, as 26:3-4,21, clearly proves, and completed the defective notices from the source which he chiefly employed-namely, the much more elaborate midrash.

Uzziah, he says, was zealous in seeking Elohim in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in divine visions; and in the days when he sought Jehovah, God made him to prosper. Thus the prophet Zechariah, as a faithful pastor and counsellor, stood in the same relation to him in which Jehoiada the high priest had stood to Joash, Uzziah’s grandfather. The chronicler then enumerates singly the divine blessings which Uzziah enjoyed. First, his victories over the surrounding nations (passing over the victory over Edom, which had been already mentioned), viz.: (1) he went forth and warred against the Philistines, and brake down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built towns b’ashdod and b’phelistim (i.e., in the conquered territory of Ashdod, and in Philistia generally); (2) God not only gave him victory over the Philistines, but also over the Arabians who dwelt in Gur-baal (an unknown place, which neither the LXX nor the Targumists could explain), and the Mehunim, probably a tribe of Arabia Petraea; (3) the Ammonites gave him presents in token of allegiance, and his name was honoured even as far as Egypt, to such an extent did his power grow.

Secondly, his buildings: he built towers (fortifications) above the corner gate, and above the valley gate, and above the Mikzoa, and fortified these (the weakest) portions of Jerusalem: he also built towers in the desert (probably in the desert between Beersheba and Gaza, to protect either the land, or the flocks and herds that were pasturing there); and dug many cisterns, for he had large flocks and herds both in the shephelah (the western portion of Southern Palestine) and in the mishor (the extensive pasture-land of the tribe territory of Reuben on the other side of the Jordan): he had also husbandmen and vine-dressers on the mountains, and in the fruitful fields, for he was a lover of agriculture. Thirdly, his wellorganized troops: he had an army of fighting men which consistedaccording to a calculation made by Jeiel the scribe, and Maaseiah, the officer under the superintendence of Nahaniah, one of the royal princes-of 2600 heads of families, who had 307,500 men under their command, “that made war with mighty power to help the king against the enemy.” Uzziah furnished these, according to all the divisions of the army, with shields, had spears, and helmet, and coats of mail, and bows, even with slinging-stones.

He also had ingenious slinging-machines (balistae) made in Jerusalem, to fix upon the towers and ramparts, for the purpose of shooting arrows and large stones. His name resounded far abroad, for he had marvellous success, so that he became very powerful.

Up to this point the chronicler has depicted the brighter side of Uzziah’s reign. His prosperous deeds and enterprises are all grouped together, so that it is doubtful whether the history within these several groups follows the chronological order or not. The light thrown upon the history of the times by the group of victories gained by Uzziah, would be worth twice as much if the chronological order were strictly observed. But even if we might assume that the victory over the Philistines preceded the victory over the Arabians of Gur-baal and the Mehunim, and this again the subjugation of Ammon, it would still be very uncertain what position the expedition against Edom-which was noticed by anticipation at the close of Amaziah’s life-occupied in relation to the other wars, and at what part of Uzziah’s reign the several wars occurred. All that can be affirmed is, that they preceded the closing years of his life, when the blessing of God was withdrawn from him.

The chronicler relates still further, in Isa 26:16, that as Uzziah became stronger and stronger, he fell into pride of heart, which led him to perform a ruinous act. He sinned against Jehovah his God, by forcing his way into the holy place of the temple, to burn incense upon the altar of incense, from the proud notion that royalty involved the rights of the priesthood, and that the priests were only the delegates and representatives of the king.

Then Azariah the high priest, and eighty other priests, brave men, hurried after him, and went up to him, and said, “This does not belong to thee, Uzziah, to burn incense of Jehovah; but to the priests, and sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary, for thou sinnest; and this is not for thine honour with Jehovah Elohim!” Then Uzziah was wroth, as he held the censer in his hand; and while he was so enraged against the priests, leprosy broke out upon his forehead in the sight of the priests, in the house of Jehovah, at the altar of incense.

When Azariah the high priest and the rest of the priests turned to him, behold, he was leprous in his forehead; and they brought him hurriedly away from thence-in fact, he himself hasted to go out-for Jehovah had smitten him. After having thus explained the circumstances which led to the king’s leprosy, the chronicler follows once more the text of the book of Kings-where the leprosy itself is also mentioned-and states that the king remained a leper until the day of his death, and lived in a sick-house, without ever being able to visit the temple again. But instead of the statement in the book of Kings, that he was buried in the city of David, the chronicler affirms more particularly that he was not placed in the king’s sepulchre; but, inasmuch as he was leprous, and would therefore have defiled it, was buried in the field near the sepulchre. But before introducing this conclusion to the history of Uzziah’s reign, and instead of referring to the annals of the kings of Judah, as the author of the book of Kings has done, or making such citations as we generally find, the author simply states, that “the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, write.”

It cannot possibly be either the prophecies of Isaiah of the time of Uzziah, or a certain historical portion of the original book of Isaiah’s predictions, to which reference is here made; for in that case we should expect the same notice at the close of the account of Jotham’s reign, or, at any rate, at the close of that of Ahaz (cf., Isa 27:7 and 28:26). It is also inconceivable that Isaiah’s book of predictions should have contained either a prophetical or historical account of the first acts of Uzziah, since Isaiah was later than Amos, later even than Hosea; and his public ministry did not commence till the close of his reign-in fact, not till the year of his death. Consequently the chronicler must refer to some historical work distinct from “the visions of Isaiah.” Just as he mentions two historical works within the first epoch of the divided kingdom, viz., Shemaiah’s and Iddo’s-the former of which referred more especially to the entire history of Rehoboam, and the latter to the history of Abijah-and then again, in the second epoch, an historical work by Jehu ben Hanani, which contained a complete history of Jehoshaphat from the beginning to the end; so here, in the third epoch, he speaks of Isaiah ben Amoz, the greatest Judaean prophet of this epoch as the author of a special history of Uzziah, which was not incorporated in his “visions” like the history of Hezekiah (cf., 32:32), but formed an independent work.

Besides this prophetical history of Uzziah, there was also an annalistic history, as 2 Kings 15:6 clearly shows; and it is quite possible that the annals of Uzziah were finished when Isaiah commenced his work, and that they were made use of by him. For the leading purpose of the prophetical histories was to exhibit the inward and divine connection between the several outward events, which the annals simply registered. The historical writings of a prophet were only the other side of his more purely prophetic work. In the light of the Spirit of God, the former looked deep into the past, the latter into the present. Both of them had to do with the ways of divine justice and grace, and set forth past and present, alike in view of the true goal, in which these two ways coincide.

Jotham succeeded Uzziah, after having acted as regent, or rather as viceroy, for several years (2 Kings 15:32-38). He ascended the throne in the second year of Pekah king of Israel, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, and reigned for sixteen years in a manner which pleased God, though he still tolerated the worship upon high places, as his father had done. He built the upper gate of the temple. The author has no sooner written this than he refers to the annals, simply adding, before concluding with the usual formula concerning his burial in the city of David, that in those days, i.e., towards the close of Jotham’s reign, the hostilities of Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel commenced, as a judgment from God upon Judah. The chronicler, however, makes several valuable additions to the text of the book of Kings, which he has copied word for word down to the notice concerning the commencement of the Syro-Ephraimitish hostilities (vid., Chron 27).

We do not include in this the statement that Jotham did not force his way into the holy place in the temple: this is simply intended as a limitation of the assertion made by the author of the book of Kings as to the moral equality of Jotham and Uzziah, and in favour of the former. The words, “the people continued in their destructive course,” also contain nothing new, but are simply the shorter expression used in the Chronicles to indicate the continuance of the worship of the high places during Jotham’s reign. But there is something new in what the chronicler appends to the remark concerning the building of the upper gate of the temple, which is very bold and abrupt as it stands in the book of Kings, viz., “On the wall of the Ophel he built much (i.e., he fortified this southern spur of the temple hill still more strongly), and put towns in the mountains of Judah, and erected castles and towers in the forests (for watchtowers and defences against hostile attacks). He also fought with the king of the Ammonites; and when conquered, they were obliged to give him that year and the two following a hundred talents of silver, ten thousand cors of wheat, and the same quantity of barley. Jotham grew stronger and stronger, because he strove to walk before Jehovah his God.” The chronicler breaks off with this general statement, and refers, for the other memorabilia of Jotham, and all his wars and enterprises, to the book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

This is what the two historical books relate concerning the royal pair- Uzziah-Jotham-under whom the kingdom of Judah enjoyed once more a period of great prosperity and power-”the greatest since the disruption, with the exception of that of Jehoshaphat; the longest during the whole period of its existence, the last before its overthrow” (Caspari). The sources from which the two historical accounts were derived were the annals: they were taken directly from them by the author of the book of Kings, indirectly by the chronicler. No traces can be discovered of the work written by Isaiah concerning Uzziah, although it may possibly be employed in the midrash of the chronicler. There is an important supplement to the account given by the chronicler in the casual remark made in 1 Chron 5:17, to the effect that Jotham had a census taken of the tribe of Gad, which was settled on the other side of the Jordan. We see from this, that in proportion as the northern kingdom sank down from the eminence to which it had attained under Jeroboam II, the supremacy of Judah over the land to the east of the Jordan was renewed.

But we may see from Amos, that it was only gradually that the kingdom of Judah revived under Uzziah, and that at first, like the wall of Jerusalem, which was partially broken down by Joash, it presented the aspect of a house full of fissures, and towards Israel in a very shaky condition; also that the Ephraimitish ox- (or calf-) worship of Jehovah was carried on at Beersheba, and therefore upon Judaean soil, and that Judah did not keep itself free from the idolatry which it had inherited from the fathers (Amos 2:4-5). Again, assuming that Amos commenced his ministry at about the tenth year of Uzziah’s reign, we may learn at least so much from him with regard to Uzziah’s victories over Edom, Philistia, and Ammon, that they were not gained till after the tenth year of his reign. Hosea, on the other hand, whose ministry commenced at the very earliest when that of Amos was drawing to a close, and probably not till the last five years of Jeroboam’s reign, bears witness to, and like Amos condemns, the participation in the Ephraimitish worship, into which Judah had been drawn under Uzziah-Jotham. But with him Beersheba is not referred to any more as an Israelitish seat of worship (4:15); Israel does not interfere any longer with the soil of Judah, as in the time of Amos, since Judah has again become a powerful and well-fortified kingdom (Isa 8:14, cf., 1:7). But, at the same time, it has become full of carnal trust and manifold apostasy from Jehovah (5:10; 12:1); so that, although receiving at first a miraculous deliverance from God (1:7), it is ripening for the same destruction as Israel (ch. 6:11).

This survey of the kingdom of Judah in the time of Uzziah-Jotham by the Israelitish prophet, we shall find repeated in Isaiah; for the same spirit animates and determines the verdicts of the prophets of both kingdoms. II. Historical Account of Ahaz and the Syro-Ephraimitish War.

The account of Ahaz, given in the book of Kings and in the Chronicles (2 Kings 16; 2 Chron 28:1), may be divided into three parts: viz., first, the general characteristics; secondly, the account of the Syro-Ephraimitish war; and thirdly, the desecration of the temple by Ahaz, more especially by setting up an altar made after the model of that at Damascus. f2 (1.) 2 Kings 16:1-4. Ahaz ascended the throne in the seventeenth year of Pekah. He was then twenty years old (or twenty-five according to the LXX at 2 Chron 28:1, which is much more probable, as he would otherwise have had a son, Hezekiah, in the tenth years of his age), and he reigned sixteen years.

He did not please God as his forefather David had done, but took the way of the kings of Israel, and even made his son pass through the fire (i.e., burnt him in honour of Moloch), according to the abominations of the (Canaanitish) people whom Jehovah had driven out before Israel; and he offered sacrifice and burnt incense upon the high places, and upon the hills, and under every green tree. The Deuteronomic colouring of this passage is very obvious. The corresponding passage in the Chronicles is 2 Chron 28:1-4, where the additional fact is mentioned, that he even made molten images for Baalim, and burnt incense in the valley of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire (“his children,” a generic plural like “the kings” in v. 16, and “the sons” in 2 Chron 24:25: “burnt,” r[eb]Yæwæ , unless the reading rbe[\Yæwæ be adopted, as it has been by the LXX, “he caused to pass through.”) (2.) 2 Kings 16:5-9.

Then (in the time of this idolatrous king Ahaz) the following well-known and memorable event occurred: Rezin the king of Aram, and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel, went up against Jerusalem to war, and besieged Ahaz, “but could not overcome him,” i.e., as we may gather from Isa 7:1, they were not able to get possession of Jerusalem, which was the real object of their expedition. “At that time” (the author of the book of Kings proceeds to observe), viz., at the time of this Syro-Ephraimitish war, Rezin king of Aram brought Elath to Aram (i.e., wrested again from the kingdom of Judah the seaport town which Uzziah had recovered a short time before), and drove the Judaeans out of Elath (sic); and Aramaeans came to Elath and settled there unto this day. Thenius, who starts with the needless assumption that the conquest of Elath took place subsequently to the futile attempt to take Jerusalem, gives the preference to the reading of the Keri, “and Edomites (Edomina) came to Elath,” and would therefore correct l’aram (to Aram) into l’edom (to Edom). “Rezin,” he says, “destroyed the work of Uzziah, and gave Edom its liberty again, in the hope that at some future time he might have the support of Edom, and so operate against Judah with greater success.”

But, in answer to this, it may be affirmed that such obscure forms as ‘arowmiym for µWr are peculiar to this account, and that the words do not denote the restoration of a settlement, but mention the settlement as a new and remarkable fact. I therefore adopt Caspari’s conclusion, that the Syrian king transplanted a Syrian colony of traders to Elath, to secure the command of the maritime trade with all its attendant advantages; and this colony held its ground there for some time after the destruction of the Damascene kingdom, as the expression “to this day,” found in the earlier source of the author of the book of Kings, clearly implies.

But if the conquest of Elath fell within the period of the Syro-Ephraimitish war, which commenced towards the end of Jotham’s reign, and probably originated in the bitter feelings occasioned by the almost total loss to Judah of the country on the east of the Jordan, and which assumed the form of a direct attack upon Jerusalem itself soon after Ahaz ascended the throne; the question arises, How was it that this design of the two allied kings upon Jerusalem was not successful? The explanation is given in the account contained in the book of Kings (vv. 7-9): “Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pelezer (sic) the king of Asshur, to say to him, I am thy servant, and thy son; come up, and save me out of the hand of Aram, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who have risen up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the palace, and sent it for a present to the king of Asshur. The king hearkened to his petition; and went against Damascus, and took it, and carried the inhabitants into captivity to Kir, and slew Rezin.” And what did Tiglath-pileser do with Pekah? The author of the book of Kings has already related, in the section referring to Pekah (2 Kings 15:29), that he punished him by taking away the whole of the country to the east of the Jordan, and a large part of the territory on this side towards the north, and carried the inhabitants captive to Assyria. This section must be supplied here-an example of the great liberty which the historians allowed themselves in the selection and arrangement of their materials.

The anticipation in v. 5 is also quite in accordance with their usual style: the author first of all states that the expedition against Jerusalem was an unsuccessful one, and then afterwards proceeds to mention the reason for the failure-namely, the appeal of Ahaz to Assyria for help. For I also agree with Caspari in this, that the Syrians the Ephraimites were unable to take Jerusalem, because the tidings reached them, that Tiglath-pileser had been appealed to by Ahaz and was coming against them; and they were consequently obliged to raise the siege and made a speedy retreat.

The account in the Chronicles (2 Chron 28:5-21) furnishes us with full and extensive details, with which to supplement the very condensed notice of the book of Kings. When we compare the two accounts, the question arises, whether they refer to two different expeditions (and if so, which of the two refers to the first expedition and which to the second), or whether they both relate to the same expedition. Let us picture to ourselves first of all the facts as given by the chronicler. “Jehovah, his God,” he says of Ahaz, “delivered him into the hand of the king of Aram, and they (the Aramaeans) smote him, and carried off from him a great crowd of captives, whom they brought to Damascus; and he was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who inflicted upon him a terrible defeat.” This very clearly implies, as Caspari has shown, that although the two kings set the conquest of Jerusalem before them as a common end at which to aim, and eventually united for the attainment of this end, yet for a time they acted separately. We are not told here in what direction Rezin’s army went. But we know from 2 Kings 16:6 that it marched to Idumaea, which it could easily reach from Damascus by going through the territory of his allynamely, the country of the two tribes and a half. The chronicler merely describes the simultaneous invasion of Judaea by Pekah, but he does this with all the greater fulness. “Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, all valiant men, because they forsook Jehovah, the God of their fathers. Zichri, an Ephraimitish hero, slew Ma>aseauJ the king’s son, and Azrikam the governor of the palace, and Elkanah, the second in rank to the king. And the Israelites carried away captive of their brethren two hundred thousand women, boys, and girls, and took away much spoil from them, and brought this booty to Samaria.” As the Jewish army numbered at that time three hundred thousand men (2 Chron 25:5; 26:13), and the war was carried on with the greatest animosity, these numbers need not be regarded as either spurious or exaggerated. Moreover, the numbers, which the chronicler found in the sources he employed, merely contained the estimate of the enormous losses sustained, as generally adopted at that time of the side of Judah itself.

This bloody catastrophe was followed by a very fine and touching occurrence. A prophet of Jehovah, named Oded (a contemporary of Hosea, and a man of kindred spirit), went out before the army as it came back to Samaria, and charged the victors to release the captives of their brother nation, which had been terribly punished in God’s wrath, and by so doing to avert the wrath of God which threatened them as well. Four noble Ephraimitish heads of tribes, whose names the chronicler has preserved, supported the admonition of the prophet. The army then placed the prisoners and the booty at the disposal of the princes and the assembled people: “And these four memorable men rose up, and took the prisoners, and all their naked ones they covered with the booty, and clothed and shod them, and gave them to eat and drink, and anointed them, and conducted as many of them as were cripples upon asses, and brought them to Jericho the palm-city, to the neighbourhood of their brethren, and returned to Samaria.” Nothing but the rudest scepticism could ever seek to cast a slur upon this touching episode, the truth of which is so conspicuous. There is nothing strange in the fact that so horrible a massacre should be followed by a strong manifestation of the fraternal love, which had been forcibly suppressed, but was not rekindled by the prophet’s words. We find an older fellow-piece to this in the prevention of a fratricidal war by Shemaiah, as described in 1 Kings 12:22-24.

Now, when the chronicler proceeds to observe in v. 16, that “at that time Ahaz turned for help to the royal house of Assyria” (malce asshur), in all probability this took place at the time when he had sustained two severe defeats, one at the hands of Pekah to the north of Jerusalem; and another from Rezin in Idumaea. The two battles belong to the period before the siege of Jerusalem, and the appeal for help from Assyria falls between the battles and the siege. The chronicler then mentions other judgments which fell upon the king in his estrangement from God, viz.: (1) “Moreover the Edomites came, smote Judah, and carried away captives;” possibly while the Syro-Ephraimitish war was still going on, after they had welcomed Rezin as their deliverer, had shaken off the Jewish yoke, and had supported the Syrian king against Judah in their own land; (2) the Philistines invaded the low land (shephelah) and the south land (negeb) of Judah, and took several towns, six of which the chronicler mentions by name, and settled in them; for “Jehovah humbled Judah because of Ahaz the king of Israel (an epithet with several sarcastic allusions), for he acted without restraint in Judah, and most wickedly against Jehovah.” The breaking away of the Philistines from the Jewish dominion took place, according to Caspari, in the time of the Syro- Ephraimitish war. The position of v. 18 in the section reaching from v. 5 to v. 21 (viz., v. 18, invasion of the Philistines; v. 17, that of the Edomites) renders this certainly very probable, though it is not conclusive, as Caspari himself admits.

In vv. 20, 21, the chronicler adds an appendix to the previous list of punishments: Tiglath-Pilnezer (sic) the king of Asshur came upon him, and oppressed him instead of strengthening him; for Ahaz had plundered both temple and palace, and given the treasures to the king of Asshur, without receiving any proper help in return. Thenius disputes the rendering, “He strengthened him not” (cf., Ezek 30:21); but Caspari has shown that it is quite in accordance with the facts of the case. Tiglath-pileser did not bring Ahaz any true help; for what he proceeded to do against Syria and Israel was not taken in hand in the interests of Ahaz, but to extend his own imperial dominion. He did not assist Ahaz to bring ether the Edomites or the Philistines into subjection again, to say nothing of compensating him for his losses with either Syrian or Ephraimitish territory.

Nor was it only that he did not truly help him: he really oppressed him, by making him a tributary vassal instead of a free and independent prince-a relation to Asshur which, according to many evident signs, was the direct consequence of his appeal for help, and which was established, at any rate, at the very commencement of Hezekiah’s reign. Under what circumstances this took place we cannot tell; but it is very probable that, after the victories over Rezin and Pekah, a second sum of money was demanded by Tiglath-pileser, and then from that time forward a yearly tribute. The expression used by the chronicler-”he came upon him”-seems, in fact, to mean that he gave emphasis to this demand by sending a detachment of his army; even if we cannot take it, as Caspari does, in a rhetorical rather than a purely historical sense, viz., as signifying that, “although Tiglath-pileser came, as Ahaz desired, his coming was not such as Ahaz desired, a coming to help and benefit, but rather to oppress and injure.” (3.) The third part of the two historical accounts describes the pernicious influence which the alliance with Tiglath-pileser exerted upon Ahaz, who was already too much inclined to idolatry (2 Kings 16:10-18). After Tiglath-pileser had marched against the ruler of Damascus, and delivered Ahaz from the more dangerous of his two adversaries (and possibly from both of them), Ahaz went to Damascus to present his thanks in person.

There he saw the altar (which was renowned as a work of art), and sent an exact model to Uriah the high priest, who had an altar constructed like it by the time that the king returned. As soon as Ahaz came back he went up to this altar and offered sacrifice, thus officiating as priest himself (probably as a thanksgiving for the deliverance he had received). The brazen altar (of Solomon), which Uriah had moved farther forward to the front of the temple building, he put farther back again, placing it close to the north side of the new one (that the old one might not appear to have the slightest preference over the new), and commanded the high priest to perform the sacrificial service in future upon the new great altar; adding, at the same time, “And (as for) the brazen altar, I will consider (what shall be done with it).” “And king Ahaz,” it is stated still further, “broke out the borders of the stools, and took away the basons; and the sea he took down from the oxen that bare it, and set it upon a stone pedestal (that took the place of the oxen). And the covered sabbath-hall which had been built in the temple, and the outer king’s entrance, he removed into the temple of Jehovah before the king of Assyria.” Thenius explains this as meaning “he altered them” (taking away the valuable ornaments from both), that he might be able to take with him to Damascus the necessary presents for the king of Asshur. Ewald’s explanation, however, is better than this, and more in accordance with the expression “before,” viz., “in order that he might be able to secure the continued favour of the dreaded Assyrian king, by continually sending him fresh presents.”

But bsh does not mean to alter, and h tyiBæ = h tybb would be an unmeaning addition in the wrong place, which would only obscure the sense. If the great alterations mentioned in v. 17 were made for the purpose of sending presents to the king of Assyria with or from the things that were removed, those described in v. 18 were certainly made from fear of the king; and, what appears most probable to me, not to remove the two splendid erections from the sight of the Assyrians, nor to preserve their being used in the event of an Assyrian occupation of Jerusalem, but in order that his relation to the great king of Assyria might not be disturbed by his appearing as a zealous worshipper of Jehovah. They were changes made from fear of man and servility, and were quite in keeping with the hypocritical, insincere, and ignoble character of Ahaz. The parallel passage in the Chronicles is 2 Chron 28:22-25. “In the time of his distress,” says the chronicler in his reflective and rhetorical style, “he sinned still more grievously against Jehovah: he, king Ahaz. He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, who had smitten him. For the gods of the kings of Aram, he said, helped them; I will sacrifice to them, that they may also help me. And they brought him and all Israel to ruin. And Ahaz collected together the vessels of the house of God, and cut them in pieces, and shut the doors of the house of Jehovah, and made himself altars in ever corner of Jerusalem. And in every town of Judah he erected high places to burn incense to other gods, and stirred up the displeasure of Jehovah the God of his fathers.” Thenius regards this passage as an exaggerated paraphrase of the parallel passage in the book of Kings, and as resting upon a false interpretation of the latter.

But the chronicler does not affirm that Ahaz dedicated the new altar to the gods of Damascus, but rather that in the time of the Syro-Ephraimitish war he attempted to secure for himself the same success in war as the Syrians had obtained, by worshipping their gods. The words of Ahaz, which are reported by him, preclude any other interpretation. He there states-what by no means contradicts the book of Kings-that Ahaz laid violent hands upon the furniture of the temple. All the rest-namely, the allusion to his shutting the temple-gates, and erecting altars and high places on every hand-is a completion of the account in the book of Kings, the historical character of which it is impossible to dispute, if we bear in mind that the Syro- Ephraimitish war took place at the commencement of the reign of Ahaz, who was only sixteen years old at the time.

The author of the book of Kings closes the history of the reign of Ahaz with a reference to the annals of the kings of Judah, and with the remark that he was buried in the city of David (2 Kings 16:19-20). The chronicler refers to the book of the kings of Judah and Israel, and observes that he was indeed buried in the city (LXX “in the city of David”), but not in the king’s sepulchre (2 Chron 28:26-27). The source employed by the chronicler was his midrash of the entire history of the kings; from which he made extracts, with the intention of completing the text of our book of Kings, to which he appended his work. His style was formed after that of the annals, whilst that of the author of the book of Kings is formed after Deuteronomy. But from what source did the author of the book of Kings make his extracts?

The section relating to Ahaz has some things quite peculiar to itself, as compared with the rest of the book, viz., a liking for obscure forms, such as Eloth (v. 6), hakkomim (v. 7), Dummesek (v. 10), and Aromim (v. 6); the name Tiglath-peleser; ãKæ instead of dy; , which is customary elsewhere; the rare and more colloquial term jehudim (Jews); the inaccurate construction twnwkmh twrgsmhAra (v. 17); and the verb rQeBæ (to consider, v. 15), which does not occur anywhere else.

These peculiarities may be satisfactorily explained on the assumption that the author employed the national annals; and that, as these annals had been gradually composed by the successive writings of many different persons, whilst there was an essential uniformity in the mode in which the history was written, there was also of necessity a great variety in the style of composition. But is the similarity between 2 Kings 16:5 and Isa 7:1 reconcilable with this annalistic origin? The resemblance in question certainly cannot be explained, as Thenius supposes, from the fact that Isa 7:1 was also taken from the national annals; but rather on the ground assigned by Caspari-namely, that the author of the Chronicles had not only the national annals before him, but also the book of Isaiah’s prophecies, to which he directs his readers’ attention by commencing the history of the Syro-Ephraimitish war in the words of the portion relating to Ahaz. The design of the two allies, as we know from the further contents of Isa 1, was nothing less than to get possession of Jerusalem, to overthrow the Davidic government there, and establish in its stead, in the person of a certain ben- Taab’êl (“son of Tabeal,” Isa 7:6), a newly created dynasty, that would be under subjection to themselves. The failure of this intention is the thought that is briefly indicated in 2 Kings 16:5 and Isa 7:1. III. Historical Account of Hezekiah, more especially of the first six years of his reign.

The account given of Hezekiah in the book of Kings is a far more meagre one than we should expect to find, when we have taken out the large section relating to the period of the Assyrian catastrophe (2 Kings 18:13- 20:19), which is also found in the book of Isaiah, and which will come under review in the commentary on Isa 36-39. All that is then left to the author of the book of Kings is 18:1-12 and 20:20,21; and in these two paragraphs, which enclose the section of Isaiah, there are only a few annalistic elements worked up in Deuteronomical style. Hezekiah began to reign in the third year of Hosea king of Israel. He was twenty-five years old when he came to the throne, and reigned twenty-nine years. He was a king after the model of David. He removed the high places, broke in pieces the statutes, cut down the Asheroth, and pounded the serpent, which had been preserved from the time of Moses, and had become an object of idolatrous worship. In his confidence in Jehovah he was unequalled by any of his followers or predecessors. The allusion here is to that faith of his, by which he broke away from the tyranny of Asshur, and also recovered his supremacy over the Philistines. We have no means of deciding in what years of Hezekiah’s reign these two events-the revolt from Asshur, and the defeat of the Philistines-occurred. The author proceeds directly afterwards, with a studious repetition of what he has already stated in ch. 17 in the history of Hosea’s reign, to describe Shalmanassar’s expedition against Israel in the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign (the seventh of Hosea’s), and the fall of Samaria, which took place, after a siege of three years, in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign, and the ninth of Hosea’s. But as Shalmanassar made no attack upon Judah at the time when he put an end to the kingdom of Israel, the revolt of Hezekiah cannot have taken place till afterwards. But with regard to the victory over the Philistines, there is nothing in the book of Kings to help us even to a negative conclusion. In 20:20, 21, the author brings his history rapidly to a close, and merely refers such as may desire to know more concerning Hezekiah, especially concerning his victories and aqueducts, to the annals of the kings of Judah.

The chronicler merely gives an extract from the section of Isaiah; but he is all the more elaborate in the rest. All that he relates in 2 Chron 29:2-31 is a historical commentary upon the good testimony given to king Hezekiah in the book of Kings (2 Kings 18:3), which the chronicler places at the head of his own text in 29:2. Even in the month Nisan of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah re-opened the gates of the temple, had it purified from the defilement consequent upon idolatry, and appointed a re-consecration of the purified temple, accompanied with sacrifice, music, and psalms (Isa 29:3ff.). Hezekiah is introduced here (a fact of importance in relation to Isa 38) as the restorer of “the song of the Lord” (Shir Jehovah), i.e., of liturgical singing. The Levitical and priestly music, as introduced and organized by David, Gad, and Nathan, was heard again, and Jehovah was praised once more in the words of David the king and Asaph the seer.

The chronicler then relates in ch. 30 how Hezekiah appointed a solemn passover in the second month, to which even inhabitants of the northern kingdom, who might be still in the land, were formally and urgently invited.

It was an after-passover, which was permitted by the law, as the priests had been busy with the purification of the temple in the first month, and therefore had been rendered unclean themselves: moreover, there would not have been sufficient time for summoning the people to Jerusalem. The northern tribes as a whole refused the invitation in the most scornful manner, but certain individuals accepted it with penitent hearts. It was a feast of joy, such as had not been known since the time of Solomon (this statement is not at variance with 2 Kings 23:22), affording, as it did, once more a representation and assurance of that national unity which had been rent in twain ever since the time of Rehoboam. Caspari has entered into a lengthened investigation as to the particular year of Hezekiah’s reign in which this passover was held.

He agrees with Keil, that it took place after the fall of Samaria and the deportation of the people by Shalmanassar; but he does not feel quite certain of his conclusion. The question itself, however, is one that ought not to be raised at all, if we think the chronicler a trustworthy authority. He places this passover most unquestionably in the second month of the first year of Hezekiah’s reign; and there is no difficulty occasioned by this, unless we regard what Tiglath-pileser had done to Israel as of less importance than it actually was. The population that was left behind was really nothing more than a remnant; and, moreover, the chronicler draws an evident contrast between tribes and individuals, so that he was conscious enough that there were still whole tribes of the northern kingdom who were settled in their own homes.

He then states in Isa 31:1, that the inhabitants of the towns of Judah (whom he calls “all Israel,” because a number of emigrant Israelites had settled there) went forth, under the influence of the enthusiasm consequent upon the passover they had celebrated, and broke in pieces the things used in idolatrous worship throughout both kingdoms; and in 31:2ff., that Hezekiah restored the institutions of divine worship that had been discontinued, particularly those relating to the incomes of the priests and Levites. Everything else that he mentions in Isaiah 32:1-26,31, belongs to a later period than the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign; and so far as it differs from the section in Isaiah, which is repeated in the book of Kings, it is a valuable supplement, more especially with reference to Isa 22:8-11 (which relates to precautions taken in the prospect of the approaching Assyrian siege). But the account of Hezekiah’s wealth in ch.Isaiah 32:27-29 extends over the whole of his reign. The notice respecting the diversion of the upper Gihon (ch. Isaiah 32:30) reaches rather into the period of the return after the Assyrian catastrophe, than into the period before it; but nothing can be positively affirmed.

Having thus obtained the requisite acquaintance with the historical accounts which bear throughout upon the book of Isaiah, so far as it has for its starting-point and object the history of the prophet’s own times, we will now turn to the book itself, for the purpose of acquiring such an insight into its general plan as is necessary to enable us to make a proper division of our own work of exposition. BOOK OF ISAIAH ISAIAH 1:1 In passing to our exposition of the book, the first thing which strikes us is its traditional title-Yeshaiah (Isaiah). In the book itself, and throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, the prophet is called Yeshayahu; and the shorter form is found in the latest books as the name of other persons. It was a common thing in the very earliest times for the shorter forms of such names to be used interchangeably with the longer; but in later times the shorter was the only form employed, and for this reason it was the one adopted in the traditional title. The name is a compound one, and signifies “Jehovah’s salvation.” The prophet was conscious that it was not merely by accident that he bore this name; for [væy, (he shall save) and h[;Wvy] (salvation) are among his favourite words. It may be said, in fact, that he lived and moved altogether in the coming salvation, which was to proceed from Jehovah, and would be realized hereafter, when Jehovah should come at last to His people as He had never come before.

This salvation was the goal of the sacred history (Heilsgeschichte, literally, history of salvation); and Jehovah was the peculiar name of God in relation to that history. It denotes “the existing one,” not however “the always existing,” i.e., eternal, as Bunsen and the Jewish translators render it, but “existing evermore,” i.e., filling all history, and displaying His glory therein in grace and truth. The ultimate goal of this historical process, in which God was ever ruling as the absolutely free One, according to His own selfassertion in Ex 3:14, was true and essential salvation, proceeding outwards from Israel, and eventually embracing all mankind. In the name of the prophet the tetragrammaton hwO;hy] is contracted into yhw (yh) by the dropping of the second h. We may easily see from this contraction that the name of God was pronounced with an a sound, so that it was either called Yahveh, or rather Yahaveh, or else Yahvaah, or rather Yahavaah.

According to Theodoret, it was pronounced Babe (Yahaveh) by the Samaritans; and it is written in the same way in the list of the names of the Deity given in Epiphanius. That the ah sound was also a customary pronunciation, may not only be gathered from such names as Jimnah, Jimrah, Jishvah, Jishpah (compare Jithlah, the name of a place), but is also expressly attested by the ancient variations, Jao, Jeuo, Jo (Jer 23:6, LXX), on the one hand, and on the other hand by the mode of spelling adopted by Origen (Jaoia) and Theodoret (Aia, not only in quaest, in Ex. §15, but also in Fab. haeret. v. 4: “Aia signifies the existing one; it was pronounced thus by Hebrews, but the Samaritans call it Jabai, overlooking the force of the word”).

The dull-sounding long a could be expressed by omega quite as well as by alpha. Isidor follows these and similar testimonies, and says (Orig. vii. 7), “The tetragrammaton consisted of ia written twice (ia, ia), and with this reduplication it constituted the unutterable and glorious name of God.”

The Arabic form adopted by the Samaritans leaves it uncertain whether it is to be pronounced Yahve or Yahva. They wrote to Job Ludolf (in the Epistola Samaritana Sichemitarum tertia, published by Bruns, 1781), in opposition to the statement of Theodoret, that they pronounced the last syllable with damma; that is to say, they pronounced the name Yahavoh (Yahvoh), which was the form in which it was written in the last century by Velthusen, and also by Muffi in his Disegno di lezioni e di ricerche sulla lingua Ebraica (Pavia, 1792). The pronunciation Jehovah (Yehovah) arose out of a combination of the keri and the chethib, and has only become current since the time of the Reformation. Genebrard denounces it in his Commentary upon the Psalms with the utmost vehemence, in opposition to Beza, as an intolerable innovation. “Ungodly violators of what is most ancient,” he says, “profaning and transforming the unutterable name of God, would read Jova or Jehova-a new, barbarous, fictitious, and irreligious word, that savours strongly of the Jove of the heathen.” Nevertheless his Jehova (Jova) forced its way into general adoption, and we shall therefore retain it, notwithstanding the fact that the o sound is decidedly wrong. To return, then: the prophet’s name signifies “Jehovah’s salvation.” In the Septuagint it is always written Aeesai’as, with a strong aspirate; in the Vulgate it is written Isaias, and sometimes Esaias.

In turning from the outward to the inward title, which is contained in the book itself, there are two things to be observed at the outset: (1.) The division of the verses indicated by soph pasuk is an arrangement for which the way was prepared as early as the time of the Talmud, and which was firmly established in the Masoretic schools; and consequently it reaches as far back as the extreme limits of the middle ages-differing in this respect from the division of verses in the New Testament. The arrangement of the chapters, however, with the indications of the separate sections of the prophetic collection, is of no worth to us, simply because it is not older than the thirteenth century. According to some authorities, it originated with Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury (†1227); whilst others attribute it to Cardinal Hugo of St. Caro (†1262). It is only since the fifteenth century that it has been actually adopted in the text. (2.) The small ring or star at the commencement points to the footnote, which affirms that Isa 1:1-28 (where we find the same sign again) was the haphtarah, or concluding pericope, taken from the prophets, which was read on the same Sabbath as the parashah from the Pentateuch, in Deut 1:1ff. It was, as we shall afterwards see, a very thoughtful principle of selection which led to the combination of precisely these two lessons.

Verse 1. Title of the collection, as given in v. 1: “Seeing of Jesha’-yahu, son of Amoz, which he saw over Judah and Jerusalem in the days of ‘Uzziyahu, Jotham, Ahaz, and Yehizkiyahu, the kings of Judah.” Isaiah is called the “son of Amoz.” There is no force in the old Jewish doctrine (b.

Megilla 15a), which was known to the fathers, that whenever the name of a prophet’s father is given, it is a proof that the father was also a prophet.

And we are just as incredulous about another old tradition, to the effect that Amoz was the brother of Amaziah, the father and predecessor of Uzziah (b. Sota 10b). There is some significance in this tradition, however, even if it is not true. There is something royal in the nature and bearing of Isaiah throughout. He speaks to kings as if he himself were a king. He confronts with majesty the magnates of the nation and of the imperial power. In his peculiar style, he occupies the same place among the prophets as Solomon among the kings.

Under all circumstances, and in whatever state of mind, he is completely master of his materials-simple, yet majestic in his style-elevated, yet without affectation-and beautiful, though unadorned. But this regal character had its roots somewhere else than in the blood. All that can be affirmed with certainty is, that Isaiah was a native of Jerusalem; for notwithstanding his manifold prophetic missions, we never find him outside Jerusalem. There he lived with his wife and children, and, as we may infer from Isa 22:1, and the mode of his intercourse with king Hezekiah, down in the lower city. And there he laboured under the four kings named in v. 1, viz., Uzziah (who reigned 52 years, 811-759), Jotham (16 years, 759-743), Ahaz (16 years, 743-728), and Hezekiah (29 years, 728-699). The four kings are enumerated without a Vav cop.; there is the same asyndeton enumerativum as in the titles to the books of Hosea and Micah. Hezekiah is there called Yehizkiyah, the form being almost the same as ours, with the simple elision of the concluding sound.

The chronicler evidently preferred the fullest form, at the commencement as well as the termination. Roorda imagines that the chronicler derived this ill-shaped form from the three titles, were it is a copyist’s error for hY;qiz]ji or hY;qiz]ji ; but the estimable grammarian has overlooked the fact that the same form is found in Jer 15:4 and 2 Kings 20:10, where no such error of the pen can have occurred. Moreover, it is not an ill-shaped form, if, instead of deriving it from the piel, as Roorda does, we derive it from the kal of the verb “strong is Jehovah,” an imperfect noun with a connecting i, which is frequently met with in proper names from verbal roots, such as Jesimiël from sim, 1 Chron 4:36: vid., Olshausen, §277, p. 621). Under these four kings Isaiah laboured, or, as it is expressed in v. 1, saw the sight which is committed to writing in the book before us.

Of all the many Hebrew synonyms for seeing, hz;j; (cf., cernere, kri>nein , and the Sanscrit and Persian kar, which is founded upon the radical notion of cutting and separating) is the standing general expression used to denote prophetic perception, whether the form in which the divine revelation was made to the prophet was in vision or by word. In either case he saw it, because he distinguished this divine revelation from his own conceptions and thoughts by means of that inner sense, which is designated by the name of the noblest of all the five external senses. From this verb chazah there came both the abstract chazon, seeing, and the more concrete chizzayon, a sight (visum), which is a stronger from of chizyon (from chazi = chazah).

The noun chazon is indeed used to denote a particular sight (comp. Isa 29:7 with Job 20:8; 33:15), inasmuch as it consists in seeing (visio); but here in the title of the book of Isaiah the abstract meaning passes over into the collective idea of the sight or vision in all its extent, i.e., the sum and substance of all that was seen.

It is a great mistake, therefore, for any one to argue from the use of the word chazon (vision), that v. 1a was originally nothing more than the heading to the first prophecy, and that it was only by the addition of v. 1b that it received the stamp of a general title to the whole book. There is no force in the argument. Moreover, the chronicler knew the book of Isaiah by this title (2 Chron 32:32); and the titles of other books of prophecy, such as Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah, are very similar. A more plausible argument in favour of the twofold origin of v. 1 has been lately repeated by Schegg and Meier, namely, that whilst “Judah and Jerusalem” are appropriate enough as defining the object of the first prophecy, the range is too limited to apply to all the prophecies that follow; since their object is not merely Judah, including Jerusalem, but they are also directed against foreign nations, and at ch. 7 the king of Israel, including Samaria, also comes within the horizon of the prophet’s vision.

And in the title to the book of Micah, both kingdoms are distinctly named.

But it was necessary there, inasmuch as Micah commences at once with the approaching overthrow of Samaria. Here the designation is a central one.

Even, according to the well-known maxims a potiori, and a proximo, fit denominatio, it would not be unsuitable; but Judah and Jerusalem are really and essentially the sole object of the prophet’s vision. For within the largest circle of the imperial powers there lies the smaller one of the neighbouring nations; and in this again, the still more limited one of all Israel, including Samaria; and within this the still smaller one of the kingdom of Judah. And all these circles together form the circumference of Jerusalem, since the entire history of the world, so far as its inmost pragmatism and its ultimate goal were concerned, was the history of the church of God, which had for its peculiar site the city of the temple of Jehovah, and of the kingdom of promise.

The expression “concerning Judah and Jerusalem” is therefore perfectly applicable to the whole book, in which all that the prophet sees is seen from Judah-Jerusalem as a centre, and seen for the sake and in the interests of both. The title in v. 1 may pass without hesitation as the heading written by the prophet’s own hand. This is admitted not only by Caspari (Micah, pp. 90-93), but also by Hitzig and Knobel. But if v. 1 contains the title to the whole book, where is the heading to the first prophecy? Are we to take rv,a as a nominative instead of an accusative (qui instead of quam, sc. visionem), as Luzzatto does? This is a very easy way of escaping from the difficulty, and stamping v. 1 as the heading to the first prophetic words in ch. 1; but it is unnatural, as chzh ‘shr chzwn, according to Ges. (§138, note 1), is the customary form in Hebrew of connecting the verb with its own substantive. The real answer is simple enough. The first prophetic address is left intentionally without a heading, just because it is the prologue to all the rest; and the second prophetic address has a heading in Isa 2:1, although it really does not need one, for the purpose of bringing out more sharply the true character of the first as the prologue to the whole.

FIRST HALF OF THE COLLECTIO PART I Prophecies Relating To The Onward Course Of The Great Mass Of The People Towards Hardening Of Heart) OPENING ADDRESS CONCERNING THE WAYS OF JEHOVAH WITH HIS UNGRATEFUL AND REBELLIOUS NATION ISAIAH 1:2 The difficult question as to the historical and chronological standpoint of this overture to all the following addresses, can only be brought fully out when the exposition is concluded. But there is one thing which we may learn even from a cursory inspection: namely, that the prophet was standing at the eventful boundary line between two distinct halves in the history of Israel. The people had not been brought to reflection and repentance either by the riches of the divine goodness, which they had enjoyed in the time of Uzziah-Jotham, the copy of the times of David and Solomon, or by the chastisements of divine wrath, by which wound after wound was inflicted. The divine methods of education were exhausted, and all that now remained for Jehovah to do was to let the nation in its existing state be dissolved in fire, and to create a new one from the remnant of gold that stood the fiery test. At this time, so pregnant with storms, the prophets were more active than at any other period. Amos appeared about the tenth year of Uzziah’s reign, the twenty-fifth of Jeroboam II; Micah prophesied from the time of Jotham till the fall of Samaria, in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign; but most prominent of all was Isaiah, the prophet par excellence, standing as he did midway between Moses and Christ.

In the consciousness of his exalted position in relation to the history of salvation, he commences his opening address in Deuteronomic style. Modern critics are of opinion, indeed, that Deuteronomy was not composed till the time of Josiah, or at any rate not earlier than Manasseh; and even Kahnis adduces this as a firmly established fact (see his Dogmatik, i. 277). But if this be the case, how comes it to pass, not only that Micah (Mic 6:8) points back to a saying in Deut 10:12, but that all the post-Mosaic prophecy, even the very earliest of all, is tinged with a Deuteronomic colouring. This surely confirms the self-attestation of the authorship of Moses, which is declared most distinctly in Isa 31:9.

Deuteronomy was most peculiarly Moses’ own law-book-his last will, as it were: it was also the oldest national book of Israel, and therefore the basis of all intercourse between the prophets and the nation.

There is one portion of this peculiarly Mosaic thorah, however, which stands not only in a more truly primary relation to the prophecy of succeeding ages than any of the rest, but in a normative relation also. We refer to Moses’ dying song, which has recently been expounded by Volck and Camphausen, and is called shirath haazinu (song of “Give ear”), from the opening words in ch. 32. This song is a compendious outline or draft, and also the common key to all prophecy, and bears the same fundamental relation to it as the Decalogue to all other laws, and the Lord’s Prayer to all other prayers. The lawgiver summed up the whole of the prophetic contents of his last words (ch. 27-28, 29-30), and threw them into the form of a song, that they might be perpetuated in the memories and mouths of the people. This song sets before the nation its entire history to the end of time. That history divides itself into four great periods: the creation and rise of Israel; the ingratitude and apostasy of Israel; the consequent surrender of Israel to the power of the heathen; and finally, the restoration of Israel, sifted, but not destroyed, and the unanimity of all nations in the praise of Jehovah, who reveals Himself both in judgment and in mercy.

This fourfold character is not only verified in every part of the history of Israel, but is also the seal of that history as a whole, even to its remotest end in New Testament times. In every age, therefore, this song has presented to Israel a mirror of its existing condition and future fate. And it was the task of the prophets to hold up this mirror to the people of their own times. This is what Isaiah does. He begins his prophetic address in the same form in which Moses begins his song. The opening words of Moses are: “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth” (Deut 32:1). In what sense he invoked the heaven and the earth, he tells us himself in Deut 31:28-29. He foresaw in spirit the future apostasy of Israel, and called heaven and earth, which would outlive his earthly life, that was now drawing to a close, as witnesses of what he had to say to his people, with such a prospect before them.

Isaiah commences in the same way (Isa 1:2a), simply transposing the two parallel verbs “hear” and “give ear:” “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah speaketh!” The reason for the appeal is couched in very general terms: they were to hear, because Jehovah was speaking. What Jehovah said coincided essentially with the words of Jehovah, which are introduced in Deut 32:20 with the expression “And He said.” What it was stated there that Jehovah would one day have to say in His wrath, He now said through the prophet, whose existing present corresponded to the coming future of the Mosaic ode. The time had now arrived for heaven and earth, which are always existing, and always the same, and which had accompanied Israel’s history thus far in all places and at all times, to fulfil their duty as witnesses, according to the word of the lawgiver. And this was just the special, true, and ultimate sense in which they were called upon by the prophet, as they had previously been by Moses, to “hear.”

They had been present, and had taken part, when Jehovah gave the thorah to His people: the heavens, according to Deut 4:36, as the place from which the voice of God came forth; and the earth, as the scene of His great fire. They were solemnly invoked when Jehovah gave His people the choice between blessing and cursing, life and death (Deut 30:19; 4:26).

And so now they are called upon to hear and join in bearing witness to all that Jehovah, their Creator, and the God of Israel, had to say, and the complaints that He had to make: “I have brought up children, and raised them high, and they have fallen away from me” (v. 2b). Israel is referred to; but Israel is not specially named. On the contrary, the historical facts are generalized almost into a parable, in order that the appalling condition of things which is crying to heaven may be made all the more apparent. Israel was Jehovah’s son (Ex 4:22-23). All the members of the nation were His children (Deut 14:1; 32:20). Jehovah was Israel’s father, by whom it had been begotten (Deut 32:6,18). The existence of Israel as a nation was secured indeed, like that of all other nations, by natural reproduction, and not by spiritual regeneration. But the primary ground of Israel’s origin was the supernatural and mighty word of promise given to Abraham, in Gen 17:15-16; and it was by a series of manifestations of miraculous power and displays of divine grace, that the development of Israel, which dated from that starting-point, was brought up to the position it had reached at the time of the exodus from Egypt. It was in this sense that Israel had been begotten by Jehovah. And this relation between Jehovah and Israel, as His children, had now, at the time when Jehovah was speaking through the mouth of Isaiah, a long and gracious past behind it, viz., the period of Israel’s childhood in Egypt; the period of its youth in the desert; and a period of growing manhood from Joshua to Samuel: so that Jehovah could say, “I have brought up children, and raised them high.”

The piel (giddel) used here signifies “to make great;” and when applied to children, as it is here and in other passages, such as 2 Kings 10:6, it means to bring up, to make great, so far as natural growth is concerned. The pilel (romem), which corresponds to the piel in the so-called verbis cavis, and which is also used in Isa 23:4 and Ezek 31:4 as the parallel to giddel, signifies to lift up, and is used in a “dignified (dignitative) sense,” with reference to the position of eminence, to which, step by step, a wise and loving father advances a child. The two verses depict the state of Israel in the times of David and Solomon, as one of mature manhood and proud exaltation, which had to a certain extent returned under Uzziah and Jotham. But how base had been the return which it had made for all that it had received from God: “And they have fallen away from me.” We should have expected an adversative particle here; but instead of that, we have merely a Vav cop., which is used energetically, as in Isa 6:7 (cf., Hos 7:13).

Two things which ought never to be coupled-Israel’s filial relation to Jehovah, and Israel’s base rebellion against Jehovah-had been realized in their most contradictory forms. The radical meaning of the verb is to break away, or break loose; and the object against which the act is directed is construed with Beth. The idea is that of dissolving connection with a person with violence and self-will; here it relates to that inward severance from God, and renunciation of Him, which preceded all outward acts of sin, and which not only had idolatry for its full and outward manifestation, but was truly idolatry in all its forms. From the time that Solomon gave himself up to the worship of idols, at the close of his reign, down to the days of Isaiah, idolatry had never entirely or permanently ceased to exist, even in public. In two different reformations the attempt had been made to suppress it, viz., in the one commenced by Asa and concluded by Jehoshaphat; and in the one carried out by Joash, during the lifetime of the high priest Jehoiada, his tutor and deliverer. But the first was not successful in suppressing it altogether; and what Joash removed, returned with double abominations as soon as Jehoiada was dead. Consequently the words, “They have rebelled against me,” which sum up all the ingratitude of Israel in one word, and trace it to its root, apply to the whole history of Israel, from its culminating point under David and Solomon, down to the prophet’s own time.

ISAIAH 1:3 Jehovah then complains that the rebellion with which His children have rewarded Him is not only inhuman, but even worse than that of the brutes: “An ox knoweth its owner, and an ass its master’s crib: Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” An ox has a certain knowledge of its buyer and owner, to whom it willingly submits; and an ass has at least a knowledge of the crib of its master (the noun for “master” is in the plural: this is not to be understood in a numerical, but in an amplifying sense, “the authority over it,” as in Ex 21:29: vid., Ges. §108, 2, b, and Dietrich’s Heb. Gram. p. 45), i.e., it knows that it is its master who fills its crib or manger with fodder (evus, the crib, from avas, to feed, is radically associated with fa>tnh , vulgar pa>qnh , Dor. and Lac. pa>tnh , and is applied in the Talmud to the large common porringer used by labourers). f5 Israel had no such knowledge, neither instinctive and direct, nor acquired by reflection (hithbonan, the reflective conjugation, with a pausal change of the ee into a long a, according to Ges. §54, note). The expressions “doth not know” and “doth not consider” must not be taken here in an objectless sense-as, for example, in Isa 56:10 and Ps 82:5-viz. as signifying they were destitute of all knowledge and reflection; but the object is to be supplied from what goes before: they knew not, and did not consider what answered in their case to the owner and to the crib which the master fills,”- namely, that they were the children and possession of Jehovah, and that their existence and prosperity were dependent upon the grace of Jehovah alone. The parallel, with its striking contrasts, is self-drawn, like that in Jer 8:7, where animals are referred to again, and is clearly indicated in the words “Israel” and “my people.”

Those who were so far surpassed in knowledge and perception even by animals, and so thoroughly put to shame by them, were not merely a nation, like any other nation on the earth, but were “Israel,” descendants of Jacob, the wrestler with God, who wrestled down the wrath of God, and wrestled out a blessing for himself and his descendants; and “my people,” the nation which Jehovah had chosen out of all other nations to be the nation of His possession, and His own peculiar government. This nation, bearing as it did the God-given title of a hero of faith and prayer, this favourite nation of Jehovah, had let itself down far below the level of the brutes. This is the complaint which the exalted speaker pours out in vv. and 3 before heaven and earth. The words of God, together with the introduction, consist of two tetrastichs, the measure and rhythm of which are determined by the meaning of the words and the emotion of the speaker. There is nothing strained in it at all. Prophecy lives and moves amidst the thoughts of God, which prevail above the evil reality: and for that very reason, as a reflection of the glory of God, which is the ideal of beauty (Ps 50:1), it is through and through poetical. That of Isaiah is especially so. There was no art of oratory practised in Israel, which Isaiah did not master, and which did not serve as the vehicle of the word of God, after it had taken shape in the prophet’s mind.

With v. 4 there commences a totally different rhythm. The words of Jehovah are ended. The piercing lamentation of the deeply grieved Father is also the severest accusation. The cause of God, however, is to the prophet the cause of a friend, who feels an injury done to his friend quite as much as if it were done to himself (Isa 5:1). The lamentation of God, therefore, is changed now into violent scolding and threatening on the part of the prophet; and in accordance with the deep wrathful pain with which he is moved, his words pour out with violent rapidity, like flash after flash, in climactic clauses having no outward connection, and each consisting of only two or three words.

ISAIAH 1:4 “Woe upon the sinful nation, the guilt-laden people, the miscreant race, the children acting corruptly! They have forsaken Jehovah, blasphemed Israel’s Holy One, turned away backwards.” The distinction sometimes drawn between hoi (with He) and oi (with Aleph)-as equivalent to oh! and woe!- cannot be sustained. Hoi is an exclamation of pain, with certain doubtful exceptions; and in the case before us it is not so much a denunciation of woe (vae genti, as the Vulgate renders it), as a lamentation (vae gentem) filled with wrath. The epithets which follow point indirectly to that which Israel ought to have been, according to the choice and determination of God, and plainly declare what it had become through its own choice and ungodly self-determination. (1.) According to the choice and determination of God, Israel was to be a holy nation (goi kadosh, Ex 19:6); but it was a sinful nation-gens peccatrix, as it is correctly rendered by the Vulgate. af;j; is not a participle here, but rather a participial adjective in the sense of what was habitual. It is the singular in common use for the plural aF;jæ , sinners, the singular of which was not used. Holy and Sinful are glaring contrasts: for kadosh, so far as its radical notion is concerned (assuming, that is to say, that this is to be found in kad and not in dosh: see Psalter, i. 588, 9), signifies that which is separated from what is common, unclean, or sinful, and raised above it.

The alliteration in hoi goi implies that the nation, as sinful, was a nation of woe. (2.) In the thorah Israel was called not only “a holy nation,” but also “the people of Jehovah” (Num 17:6, Eng. ver. 16:41), the people chosen and blessed of Jehovah; but now it had become “a people heavy with iniquity.”

Instead of the most natural expression, a people bearing heavy sins; the sin, or iniquity, i.e., the weight carried, is attributed to the people themselves upon whom the weight rested, according to the common figurative idea, that whoever carries a heavy burden is so much heavier himself (cf., gravis oneribus, Cicero). `ˆwO[; (sin regarded as crookedness and perversity, whereas af]je suggests the idea of going astray and missing the way) is the word commonly used wherever the writer intends to describe sin in the mass (e.g., Isa 33:24; Gen 15:16; 19:15), including the guilt occasioned by it. The people of Jehovah had grown into a people heavily laden with guilt.

So crushed, so altered into the very opposite, had Israel’s true nature become. It is with deliberate intention that we have rendered ywOG a nation (Nation), and `µ[æ a people (Volk): for, according to Malbim’s correct definition of the distinction between the two, the former is used to denote the mass, as linked together by common descent, language, and country; the latter the people as bound together by unity of government (see, for example, Ps 105:13). Consequently we always read of the people of the Lord, not the nation of the Lord; and there are only two instances in which goi is attached to a suffix relating to the ruler, and then it relates to Jehovah alone (Zeph 2:9; Ps 106:5). (3.) Israel bore elsewhere the honourable title of the seed of the patriarch (Isa 41:8; 45:19; cf., Gen 21:12); but in reality it was a seed of evil-doers (miscreants). This does not mean that it was descended from evil-doers; but the genitive is used in the sense of a direct apposition to zera (seed), as in Isa 65:23 (cf., ch. 61:9; 6:13, and Ges. §116, 5), and the meaning is a seed which consists of evil-doers, and therefore is apparently descended from evil-doers instead of from patriarchs. This last thought is not implied in the genitive, but in the idea of “seed;” which is always a compact unit, having one origin, and bearing the character of its origin in itself. The rendering brood of evil-doers, however it may accord with the sense, would be inaccurate; for “seed of evil-doers” is just the same as “house of evil-doers” in Isa 31:2. The singular of the noun [[ær; is [æreme , with the usual sharpening in the case of gutturals in the verbs [[ , [[ær; with patach, [ræ with kametz in pause (Isa 9:16, which see)-a noun derived from the hiphil participle. (4.) Those who were of Israel were “children of Jehovah” through the act of God (Deut 14:1); but in their own acts they were “children acting destructively (bânim mashchithim), so that what the thorah feared and predicted had now occurred (Deut 4:16,25; 31:29). In all these passages we find the hiphil, and in the parallel passage of the great song (Deut 32:5) the piel-both of them conjugations which contain within themselves the object of the action indicated (Ges. §53, 2): to do what is destructive, i.e., so to act as to become destructive to one’s self and to others. It is evident from v. 2b, that the term children is to be understood as indicating their relation to Jehovah (cf., Isa 30:1,9). The four interjectional clauses are followed by three declaratory clauses, which describe Israel’s apostasy as total in every respect, and complete the mournful seven. There was apostasy in heart: “They have forsaken Jehovah.” There was apostasy in words: “They blaspheme the Holy One of Israel.” The verb literally means to sting, then to mock or treat scornfully; the use of it to denote blasphemy is antiquated Mosaic (Deut 31:20; Num 14:11,23; 16:30).

It is with intention that God is designated here as “the Holy One of Israel,”-a name which constitutes the keynote of all Isaiah’s prophecy (see at Isa 6:3). It was sin to mock at anything holy; it was a double sin to mock at God, the Holy One; but it was a threefold sin for Israel to mock at God the Holy One, who had set Himself to be the sanctifier of Israel, and required that as He was Israel’s sanctification, He should also be sanctified by Israel according to His holiness (Lev 19:2, etc.). And lastly, there was also apostasy in action: “they have turned away backwards;” or, as the Vulgate renders it, abalienati sunt. rwOzn is the reflective of rWz , related to rzæn; and rWs , for which it is the word commonly used in the Targum. The niphal, which is only met with here, indicates the deliberate character of their estrangement from God; and the expression is rendered still more emphatic by the introduction of the word “backwards” (achor, which is used emphatically in the place of wyrjam ). In all their actions they ought to have followed Jehovah; but they had turned their backs upon Him, and taken the way selected by themselves.

ISAIAH 1:5 In this verse a disputed question arises as to the words hm,Al[æ hm; , the shorter, sharper form of hm; , which is common even before non-gutturals, Ges. §32, 1): viz., whether they mean “wherefore,” as the LXX, Targums, Vulgate, and most of the early versions render them, or “upon what,” i.e., upon which part of the body, as others, including Schröring, suppose.

Luzzatto maintains that the latter rendering is spiritless, more especially because there is nothing in the fact that a limb has been struck already to prevent its being struck again; but such objections as these can only arise in connection with a purely literal interpretation of the passage. If we adopted this rendering, the real meaning would be, that there was no judgment whatever that had not already fallen upon Israel on account of its apostasy, so that it was not far from utter destruction. We agree, however, with Caspari in deciding in favour of the meaning “to what” (to what end). For in all the other passage in which the expression occurs (fourteen times in all), it is used in this sense, and once even with the verb hiccâh, to smite (Num 22:32), whilst it is only in v. 6 that the idea of the people as one body is introduced; whereas the question “upon what” would require that the reader or hearer should presuppose it here. But in adopting the rendering “whereto,” or to what end, we do not understand it, as Malbim does, in the sense of cui bono, with the underlying thought, “It would be ineffectual, as all the previous smiting has proved;” for this thought never comes out in a direct expression, as we should expect, but rather-according to the analogy of the questions with lamah in Ezek 18:31; Jer 44:7-in the sense of qua de causa, with the underlying thought, “There would be only an infatuated pleasure in your own destruction.” 5a. V. 5a we therefore render thus: “Why would ye be perpetually smitten, multiplying rebellion?” `dwO[ (with tiphchah , a stronger disjunctive than tebir) belongs to hk;T; ; see the same form of accentuation in Ezek 19:9.

They are not two distinct interrogative clauses (“why would ye be smitten afresh? why do ye add revolt?”-(Luzzatto), but the second clause is subordinate to the first (without there being any necessity to supply chi, “because,” as Gesenius supposes), an adverbial minor clause defining the main clause more precisely; at all events this is the logical connection, as in Isa 5:11 (cf., Ps 62:4, “delighting in lies,” and Ps 4:3, “loving vanity”):

LXX “adding iniquity.” Sârâh (rebellion) is a deviation from truth and rectitude; and here, as in many other instances, it denotes apostasy from Jehovah, who is the absolutely Good, and absolute goodness. There is a still further dispute whether the next words should be rendered “every head” and “every heart,” or “the whole head” and “the whole heart.” In prose the latter would be impossible, as the two nouns are written without the article; but in the poetic style of the prophets the article may be omitted after col, when used in the sense of “the whole” (e.g., Isa 9:12: with whole mouth, i.e., with full mouth).

Nevertheless col, without the article following, never signifies “the whole” when it occurs several times in succession, as in Isa 15:2 and Ezek 7:17- 18. We must therefore render v. 5b, “Every head is diseased, and every heart is sick.” The Lamed in locholi indicates the state into which a thing has come: every head in a state of disease (Ewald, §217, d: locholi without the article, as in 2 Chron 21:18). The prophet asks his fellow-countrymen why they are so foolish as to heap apostasy upon apostasy, and so continue to call down the judgments of God, which have already fallen upon them blow after blow. Has it reached such a height with them, that among all the many heads and hearts there is not one head which is not in a diseased state, not one heart which is not thoroughly ill? (davvai an emphatic form of daveh). Head and heart are mentioned as the noblest parts of the outer and inner man. Outwardly and inwardly every individual in the nation had already been smitten by the wrath of God, so that they had had enough, and might have been brought to reflection.

ISAIAH 1:6 This description of the total misery of every individual in the nation is followed by a representation of the whole nation as one miserably diseased body. V. 6. “From the some of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it: cuts, and stripes, and festering wounds; they have not been pressed out, nor bound up, nor has there been any soothing with oil.” The body of the nation, to which the expression “in it” applies (i.e., the nation as a whole), was covered with wounds of different kinds; and no means whatever had been applied to heal these many, various wounds, which lay all together, close to one another, and one upon the other, covering the whole body. Cuts (from [xæp, to cut) are wounds that have cut into the flesh-sword-cuts, for example. These need binding up, in order that the gaping wound may close again. Stripes (chabburâh, from châbar, to stripe), swollen stripes, or weals, as if from a cut with a whip, or a blow with a fist: these require softening with oil, that the coagulated blood of swelling may disperse.

Festering wounds, maccâh teriyâh, from târâh, to be fresh (a different word from the talmudic word t’re, Chullin 45b, to thrust violently, so as to shake): these need pressing, for the purpose of cleansing them, so as to facilitate their healing. Thus the three predicates manifest an approximation to a chiasm (the crossing of the members); but this retrospective relation is not thoroughly carried out. The predicates are written in the plural, on account of the collective subject. The clause ˆm,v, Ëkær; alo , which refers to hrwbj (stripes), so far as the sense is concerned (olive-oil, like all oleosa, being a dispersing medium), is to be taken as neuter, since this is the only way of explaining the change in the number: “And no softening has been effected with oil.” Zoru we might suppose to be a pual, especially on account of the other puals near: it is not so, however, for the simple reason that, according to the accentuation (viz., with two pashtahs, the first of which gives the tone, as in tohu, Gen 1:2, so that it must be pronounced zóru), it has the tone upon the penultimate, for which it would be impossible to discover any reason, if it were derived from zârâh. For the assumption that the tone is drawn back to prepare the way for the strong tone of the next verb (chubbâshu) is arbitrary, as the influence of the pause, though it sometimes reaches the last word but one, never extends to the last but two.

Moreover, according to the usage of speech, zorâh signifies to be dispersed, not to be pressed out; whereas zur and zârar are commonly used in the sense of pressing together and squeezing out. Consequently zoru is either the kal of an intransitive zor in the middle voice (like boshu), or, what is more probable-as zoru, the middle voice in Ps 58:4, has a different meaning (abalienati sunt: cf., v. 4)-the kal of zârar (= Arab. constringere), which is here conjugated as an intransitive (cf., Job 24:24, rommu, and Gen 49:23, where robbu is used in an active sense). The surgical treatment so needed by the nation was a figurative representation of the pastoral addresses of the prophets, which had been delivered indeed, but, inasmuch as their salutary effects were dependent upon the penitential sorrow of the people, might as well have never been delivered at all.

The people had despised the merciful, compassionate kindness of their God. They had no liking for the radical cure which the prophets had offered to effect. All the more pitiable, therefore, was the condition of the body, which was sick within, and diseased from head to foot. The prophet is speaking here of the existing state of things. He affirms that it is all over with the nation; and this is the ground and object of his reproachful lamentations. Consequently, when he passes in the next verse from figurative language to literal, we may presume that he is still speaking of his own times. It is Isaiah’s custom to act in this manner as his own expositor (compare v. 22 with v. 23). The body thus inwardly and outwardly diseased, was, strictly speaking, the people and the land in their fearful condition at that time.

ISAIAH 1:7 This is described more particularly in v. 7, which commences with the most general view, and returns to it again at the close. V. 7. “Your land...a desert; your cities...burned with fire; your field...foreigners consuming it before your eyes, and a desert like overthrowing by strangers.” Caspari has pointed out, in his Introduction to the Book of Isaiah (p. 204), how nearly every word corresponds to the curses threatened in Lev 26 and Deut (29); Mic 6:13-16 and Jer 5:15ff. stand in the very same relation to these sections of the Pentateuch. From the time of Isaiah downwards, the state of Israel was a perfect realization of the curses of the law. The prophet intentionally employs the words of the law to describe his own times; he designates the enemy, who devastated the land, reduced its towers to ashes, and took possession of its crops, by the simple term zarim, foreigners or barbarians (a word which would have the very same meaning if it were really the reduplication of the Aramaean bar; compare the Syriac barôye, a foreigner), without mentioning their particular nationality.

He abstracts himself from the definite historical present, in order that he may point out all the more emphatically how thoroughly it bears the character of the fore-ordained curse. The most emphatic indication of this was to be found in the fact, which the clause at the close of v. palindromically affirms, that a desolation had been brought about “like the overthrow of foreigners.” The repetition of a catchword like zarim (foreigners) at the close of the verse in this emphatic manner, is a figure of speech, called epanaphora, peculiar to the two halves of our collection.

The question arises, however, whether zarim is to be regarded as the genitive of the subject, as Caspari, Knobel, and others suppose, “such an overthrow as is commonly produced by barbarians” (cf., 2 Sam 10:3, where the verb occurs), or as the genitive of the object, “such an overthrow as comes upon barbarians.”

As mahpechâh (overthrow) is used in other places in which it occurs to denote the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, etc., according to the primary passage, Deut 29:22, and Isaiah had evidently also this catastrophe in his mind, as v. 8 clearly shows; we decide in favour of the conclusion that zârim is the genitive of the object (cf., Amos 4:11). The force of the comparison is also more obvious, if we understand the words in this sense.

The desolation which had fallen upon the land of the people of God resembled that thorough desolation (subversio) with which God visited the nations outside the covenant, who, like the people of the Pentapolis, were swept from off the earth without leaving a trace behind. But although there was similarity, there was not sameness, as vv. 8, 9 distinctly affirm.

Jerusalem itself was still preserved; but in how pitiable a condition! There can be no doubt that bath-Zion (“daughter of Zion,” Eng. ver.) in v. signifies Jerusalem. The genitive in this case is a genitive of apposition: “daughter Zion,” not “daughter of Zion” (cf., Isa 37:22: see Ges. §116, 5).

Zion itself is represented as a daughter, i.e., as a woman. The expression applied primarily to the community dwelling around the fortress of Zion, to which the individual inhabitants stood in the same relation as children to a mother, inasmuch as the community sees its members for the time being come into existence and grow: they are born within her, and, as it were, born and brought up by her. It was then applied secondarily to the city itself, with or without the inhabitants (cf., Jer 46:19; 48:18; Zech 2:11). In this instance the latter are included, as v. 9 clearly shows. This is precisely the point in the first two comparisons. 8a. “And the daughter of Zion remains lie a hut in a vineyard; like a hammock in a cucumber field.” The vineyard and cucumber field (mikshah, from kisshu, a cucumber, cucumis, not a gourd, cucurbita; at least not the true round gourd, whose Hebrew name, dalaath, does not occur in the Old Testament) are pictured by the prophet in their condition before the harvest (not after, as the Targums render it), when it is necessary that they should be watched. The point of comparison therefore is, that in the vineyard and cucumber field not a human being is to be seen in any direction; and there is nothing but the cottage and the night barrack or hammock (cf., Job 27:18) to show that there are any human beings there at all. So did Jerusalem stand in the midst of desolation, reaching far and wide-a sign, however, that the land was not entirely depopulated. But what is the meaning of the third point of comparison?

Hitzig renders it, “like a watch-tower;” Knobel, “like a guard-city.” But the noun neither means a tower nor a castle (although the latter would be quite possible, according to the primary meaning, cingere); and nezurâh does not mean “watch” or “guard.” On the other hand, the comparison indicated (like, or as) does not suit what would seem the most natural rendering, viz., “like a guarded city,” i.e., a city shielded from danger. Moreover, it is inadmissible to take the first two Caphs in the sense of sicut (as) and the third in the sense of sic (so); since, although this correlative is common in clauses indicating identity, it is not so in sentences which institute a simple comparison. We therefore adopt the rendering, v. 8b, “As a besieged city,” deriving nezurâh not from zur, niphal nâzor (never used), as Luzzatto does, but from nâzar, which signifies to observe with keen eye, either with a good intention, or, as in Job 7:20, for a hostile purpose.

It may therefore be employed, like the synonyms in 2 Sam 11:16 and Jer 5:6, to denote the reconnoitring of a city. Jerusalem was not actually blockaded at the time when the prophet uttered his predictions; but it was like a blockaded city. In the case of such a city there is a desolate space, completely cleared of human beings, left between it and the blockading army, in the centre of which the city itself stands solitary and still, shut up to itself. The citizens do not venture out; the enemy does not come within the circle that immediately surrounds the city, for fear of the shots of the citizens; and everything within this circle is destroyed, either by the citizens themselves, to prevent the enemy from finding anything useful, or else by the enemy, who cut down the trees. Thus, with all the joy that might be felt at the preservation of Jerusalem, it presented but a gloomy appearance. It was, as it were, in a state of siege. A proof that this is the way in which the passage is to be explained, may be found in Jer 4:16-17, where the actual storming of Jerusalem is foretold, and the enemy is called nozerim, probably with reference to the simile before us. ISAIAH 1:7 This is described more particularly in v. 7, which commences with the most general view, and returns to it again at the close. V. 7. “Your land...a desert; your cities...burned with fire; your field...foreigners consuming it before your eyes, and a desert like overthrowing by strangers.” Caspari has pointed out, in his Introduction to the Book of Isaiah (p. 204), how nearly every word corresponds to the curses threatened in Lev 26 and Deut (29); Mic 6:13-16 and Jer 5:15ff. stand in the very same relation to these sections of the Pentateuch. From the time of Isaiah downwards, the state of Israel was a perfect realization of the curses of the law. The prophet intentionally employs the words of the law to describe his own times; he designates the enemy, who devastated the land, reduced its towers to ashes, and took possession of its crops, by the simple term zarim, foreigners or barbarians (a word which would have the very same meaning if it were really the reduplication of the Aramaean bar; compare the Syriac barôye, a foreigner), without mentioning their particular nationality.

He abstracts himself from the definite historical present, in order that he may point out all the more emphatically how thoroughly it bears the character of the fore-ordained curse. The most emphatic indication of this was to be found in the fact, which the clause at the close of v. palindromically affirms, that a desolation had been brought about “like the overthrow of foreigners.” The repetition of a catchword like zarim (foreigners) at the close of the verse in this emphatic manner, is a figure of speech, called epanaphora, peculiar to the two halves of our collection.

The question arises, however, whether zarim is to be regarded as the genitive of the subject, as Caspari, Knobel, and others suppose, “such an overthrow as is commonly produced by barbarians” (cf., 2 Sam 10:3, where the verb occurs), or as the genitive of the object, “such an overthrow as comes upon barbarians.”

As mahpechâh (overthrow) is used in other places in which it occurs to denote the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, etc., according to the primary passage, Deut 29:22, and Isaiah had evidently also this catastrophe in his mind, as v. 8 clearly shows; we decide in favour of the conclusion that zârim is the genitive of the object (cf., Amos 4:11). The force of the comparison is also more obvious, if we understand the words in this sense.

The desolation which had fallen upon the land of the people of God resembled that thorough desolation (subversio) with which God visited the nations outside the covenant, who, like the people of the Pentapolis, were swept from off the earth without leaving a trace behind. But although there was similarity, there was not sameness, as vv. 8, 9 distinctly affirm.

Jerusalem itself was still preserved; but in how pitiable a condition! There can be no doubt that bath-Zion (“daughter of Zion,” Eng. ver.) in v. signifies Jerusalem. The genitive in this case is a genitive of apposition: “daughter Zion,” not “daughter of Zion” (cf., Isa 37:22: see Ges. §116, 5).

Zion itself is represented as a daughter, i.e., as a woman. The expression applied primarily to the community dwelling around the fortress of Zion, to which the individual inhabitants stood in the same relation as children to a mother, inasmuch as the community sees its members for the time being come into existence and grow: they are born within her, and, as it were, born and brought up by her. It was then applied secondarily to the city itself, with or without the inhabitants (cf., Jer 46:19; 48:18; Zech 2:11). In this instance the latter are included, as v. 9 clearly shows. This is precisely the point in the first two comparisons. 8a. “And the daughter of Zion remains lie a hut in a vineyard; like a hammock in a cucumber field.” The vineyard and cucumber field (mikshah, from kisshu, a cucumber, cucumis, not a gourd, cucurbita; at least not the true round gourd, whose Hebrew name, dalaath, does not occur in the Old Testament) are pictured by the prophet in their condition before the harvest (not after, as the Targums render it), when it is necessary that they should be watched. The point of comparison therefore is, that in the vineyard and cucumber field not a human being is to be seen in any direction; and there is nothing but the cottage and the night barrack or hammock (cf., Job 27:18) to show that there are any human beings there at all. So did Jerusalem stand in the midst of desolation, reaching far and wide-a sign, however, that the land was not entirely depopulated. But what is the meaning of the third point of comparison?

Hitzig renders it, “like a watch-tower;” Knobel, “like a guard-city.” But the noun neither means a tower nor a castle (although the latter would be quite possible, according to the primary meaning, cingere); and nezurâh does not mean “watch” or “guard.” On the other hand, the comparison indicated (like, or as) does not suit what would seem the most natural rendering, viz., “like a guarded city,” i.e., a city shielded from danger. Moreover, it is inadmissible to take the first two Caphs in the sense of sicut (as) and the third in the sense of sic (so); since, although this correlative is common in clauses indicating identity, it is not so in sentences which institute a simple comparison. We therefore adopt the rendering, v. 8b, “As a besieged city,” deriving nezurâh not from zur, niphal nâzor (never used), as Luzzatto does, but from nâzar, which signifies to observe with keen eye, either with a good intention, or, as in Job 7:20, for a hostile purpose.

It may therefore be employed, like the synonyms in 2 Sam 11:16 and Jer 5:6, to denote the reconnoitring of a city. Jerusalem was not actually blockaded at the time when the prophet uttered his predictions; but it was like a blockaded city. In the case of such a city there is a desolate space, completely cleared of human beings, left between it and the blockading army, in the centre of which the city itself stands solitary and still, shut up to itself. The citizens do not venture out; the enemy does not come within the circle that immediately surrounds the city, for fear of the shots of the citizens; and everything within this circle is destroyed, either by the citizens themselves, to prevent the enemy from finding anything useful, or else by the enemy, who cut down the trees. Thus, with all the joy that might be felt at the preservation of Jerusalem, it presented but a gloomy appearance. It was, as it were, in a state of siege. A proof that this is the way in which the passage is to be explained, may be found in Jer 4:16-17, where the actual storming of Jerusalem is foretold, and the enemy is called nozerim, probably with reference to the simile before us.

ISAIAH 1:9 For the present, however, Jerusalem was saved from this extremity.-V. 9.

The omnipotence of God had mercifully preserved it: “Unless Jehovah of hosts had left us a little of what had escaped, we had become like Sodom, we were like Gomorrah.” Sarid (which is rendered inaccurately spe>rma in the Sept.; cf., Rom 9:29) was used, even in the early Mosaic usage of the language, to signify that which escaped the general destruction (Deut 2:34, etc.); and f[æm] (which might very well be connected with the verbs which follow: “we were very nearly within a little like Sodom,” etc.) is to be taken in connection with sarid, as the pausal form clearly shows: “a remnant which was but a mere trifle” (on this use of the word, see Isa 16:14; 2 Chron 12:7; Prov 10:20; Ps 105:12). Jehovah Zebaoth stands first, for the sake of emphasis. It would have been all over with Israel long ago, if it had not been for the compassion of God (vid., Hos 11:8). And because it was the omnipotence of God, which set the will of His compassion in motion, He is called Jehovah Zebaoth, Jehovah (the God) of the heavenly hosts-an expression in which Zebaoth is a dependent genitive, and not, as Luzzatto supposes, an independent name of God as the Absolute, embracing within itself all the powers of nature. The prophet says “us” and “we.” He himself was an inhabitant of Jerusalem; and even if he had not been so, he was nevertheless an Israelite. He therefore associates himself with his people, like Jeremiah in Lam 3:22. He had had to experience the anger of God along with the rest; and so, on the other hand, he also celebrates the mighty compassion of God, which he had experienced in common with them. But for this compassion, the people of God would have become like Sodom, from which only four human beings escaped: it would have resembled Gomorrah, which was absolutely annihilated. (On the prefects in the protasis and apodosis, see Ges. §126, 5.)

ISAIAH 1:10-11 The prophet’s address has here reached a resting-place. The fact that it is divided at this point into two separate sections, is indicated in the text by the space left between vv. 9 and 10. This mode of marking larger or smaller sections, either by leaving spaces of by breaking off the line, is older than the vowel points and accents, and rests upon a tradition of the highest antiquity (Hupfeld, Gram. p. 86ff.). The space is called pizka; the section indicated by such a space, a closed parashah (sethumah); and the section indicated by breaking off the line, an open parashah (pethuchah).

The prophet stops as soon as he has affirmed, that nothing but the mercy of God has warded off from Israel the utter destruction which it so well deserved. He catches in spirit the remonstrances of his hearers. They would probably declare that the accusations which the prophet had brought against them were utterly groundless, and appeal to their scrupulous observance of the law of God. In reply to this self-vindication which he reads in the hearts of the accused, the prophet launches forth the accusations of God. In vv. 10, 11, he commences thus: “Hear the word of Jehovah, ye Sodom judges; give ear to the law of our God, O Gomorrah nation! What is the multitude of your slain-offerings to me? saith Jehovah.

I am satiated with whole offerings of rams, and the fat of stalled calves; and blood of bullocks and sheep and he-goats I do not like.” The second start in the prophet’s address commences, like the first, with “hear” and “give ear.” The summons to hear is addressed in this instances (as in the case of Isaiah’s contemporary Micah, ch. 3) to the kezinim (from kâzâh, decidere, from which comes the Arabic el-Kadi, the judge, with the substantive termination in: see Jeshurun, p. 212 ss.), i.e., to the men of decisive authority, the rulers in the broadest sense, and to the people subject to them. It was through the mercy of God that Jerusalem was in existence still, for Jerusalem was “spiritually Sodom,” as the Revelation (Rev 11:8) distinctly affirms of Jerusalem, with evident allusion to this passage of Isaiah. Pride, lust of the flesh, and unmerciful conduct, were the leading sins of Sodom, according to Ezek 16:49; and of these, the rulers of Jerusalem, and the crowd that was subject to them and worthy of them, were equally guilty now. But they fancied that they could not possibly stand in such evil repute with God, inasmuch as they rendered outward satisfaction to the law.

The prophet therefore called upon them to hear the law of the God of Israel, which he would announce to them: for the prophet was the appointed interpreter of the law, and prophecy the spirit of the law, and the prophetic institution the constant living presence of the true essence of the law bearing its own witness in Israel. “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith Jehovah.” The prophet intentionally uses the word rmæa; , not rmæa; : this was the incessant appeal of God in relation to the spiritless, formal worship offered by the hypocritical, ceremonial righteousness of Israel (the future denoting continuous actions, which is ever at the same time both present and future). The multitude of zebâchim, i.e., animal sacrifices, had no worth at all to Him. As the whole worship is summed up here in one single act, zebâchim appears to denote the shelamim, peace-offerings (or better still, communion offerings), with which a meal was associated, after the style of a sacrificial festival, and Jehovah gave the worshipper a share in the sacrifice offered.

It is better, however, to take zebachim as the general name for all the bleeding sacrifices, which are then subdivided into ‘oloth and cheleb, as consisting partly of whole offerings, or offerings the whole of which was placed upon the altar, though in separate pieces, and entirely consumed, and partly of those sacrifices in which only the fat was consumed upon the altar, namely the sin-offerings, trespass-offerings, and pre-eminently the shelâmim offerings. Of the sacrificial animals mentioned, the bullocks (pârim) and fed beasts (meri’im, fattened calves) are species of oxen (bakar); and the lambs (cebâshim) and he-goats (atturim, young he-goats, as distinguished from se’ir, the old long-haired he-goat, the animal used as a sin-offering), together with the ram (ayil, the customary whole offering of the high priest, of the tribe prince, and of the nation generally on all the high feast days), were species of the flock. The blood of these sacrificial animals-such, for example, as the young oxen, sheep, and he-goats-was thrown all round the altar in the case of the whole offering, the peaceoffering, and the trespass-offering; in that of the sin-offering it was smeared upon the horns of the altar, poured out at the foot of the altar, and in some instances sprinkled upon the walls of the altar, or against the vessels of the inner sanctuary. Of such offerings as these Jehovah was weary, and He wanted no more (the two perfects denote that which long has been and still is: Ges. §126, 3); in fact, He never had desired anything of the kind.

ISAIAH 1:12 Jeremiah says this with regard to the sacrifices (Isa 7:22); Isaiah also applies it to visits to the temple: V. 12. “When ye come to appear before my face, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?” ha;r; is a contracted infinitive niphal for ha;r; (compare the hiphil forms contracted in the same manner in Isa 3:8; 23:11). This is the standing expression for the appearance of all male Israelites in the temple at the three high festivals, as prescribed by the law, and then for visits to the temple generally (cf., Ps 42:3; 84:8). “My face” (panai): according to Ewald, §279, c, this is used with the passive to designate the subject (“to be seen by the face of God”); but why not rather take it as an adverbial accusative, “in the face of,” or “in front of,” as it is used interchangeably with the prepositions l] , tae , and lae ? It is possible that ha;r; is pointed as it is here, and in Ex 34:24 and in Deut 31:11, instead of ha;r; -like ha;r; for ha;r; , in Ex 23:15; 34:20-for the purpose of avoiding an expression which might be so easily misunderstood as denoting a sight of God with the bodily eye. But the niphal is firmly established in Ex 23:17; 34:23, and 1 Sam 1:22; and in the Mishnah and Talmud the terms yrif; and ree’aayown are applied without hesitation to appearance before God at the principal feasts. They visited the temple diligently enough indeed, but who had required this at their hand, i.e., required them to do this? Jehovah certainly had not. “To tread my courts” is in apposition to this, which it more clearly defines. Jehovah did not want them to appear before His face, i.e., He did not wish for this spiritless and undevotional tramping thither, this mere opus operatum, which might as well have been omitted, since it only wore out the floor. 13a. Because they had not performed what Jehovah commanded as He commanded it, He expressly forbids them to continue it. “Continue not to bring lying meat-offering; abomination incense is it to me.” Minchah (the meat-offering) was the vegetable offering, as distinguished from zebach, the animal sacrifice. It is called a “lying meat-offering,” as being a hypocritical dead work, behind which there was none of the feeling which it appeared to express. In the second clause the Sept., Vulg., Gesenius, and others adopt the rendering “incense-an abomination is it to me,” ketoreth being taken as the name of the daily burning of incense upon the golden altar in the holy place (Ex 30:8). But neither in Ps 141:2, where prayer is offered by one who is not a priest, nor in the passage before us, where the reference is not to the priesthood, but to the people and to their deeds, is this continual incense to be thought of. Moreover, it is much more natural to regard the word ketoreth not as a bold absolute case, but, according to the conjunctive darga with which it is marked, as constructive rather; and this is perfectly allowable. The meat-offering is called “incense” (ketoreth) with reference to the so-called azcarah, i.e., that portion which the priest burned upon the altar, to bring the grateful offerer into remembrance before God (called “burning the memorial,” hiktir azcârâh, in Lev 2:2). As a general rule, this was accompanied with incense (Isa 66:3), the whole of which was placed upon the altar, and not merely a small portion of it. The meat-offering, with its sweet-smelling savour, was merely the form, which served as an outward expression of the thanksgiving for God’s blessing, or the longing for His blessing, which really ascended in prayer. But in their case the form had no such meaning. It was nothing but the form, with which they thought they had satisfied God; and therefore it was an abomination to Him. 13b. God was just as little pleased with their punctilious observance of the feasts: “New-moon and Sabbath, calling of festal meetings...I cannot bear ungodliness and a festal crowd.” The first objective notions, which are logically governed by “I cannot bear” ( lbæWaAal : literally, a future hophal-I am unable, incapable, viz., to bear, which may be supplied, according to Ps 101:5; Jer 44:22; Prov 30:21), become absolute cases here, on account of another grammatical object presenting itself in the last two nouns: “ungodliness and a festal crowd.” As for new-moon and Sabbath (the latter always signifies the weekly Sabbath when construed with chodesh)-and, in fact, the calling of meetings of the whole congregation on the weekly Sabbath and high festivals, which was a simple duty according to Lev 23-Jehovah could not endure festivals associated with wickedness. `hr;x;[ (from `rx;[; , to press, or crowd thickly together) is synonymous with ar;q]mi , so far as its immediate signification is concerned, as Jer 9:1 clearly shows, just as panh>guriv is synonymous with ekklhsi>a . ˆw,a; (from ‘uwn, to breathe) is moral worthlessness, regarded as an utter absence of all that has true essence and worth in the sight of God. The prophet intentionally joins these two nouns together. A densely crowded festal meeting, combined with inward emptiness and barrenness on the part of those who were assembled together, was a contradiction which God could not endure.

ISAIAH 1:14 He gives a still stronger expression to His repugnance: “Your new-moons and your festive seasons my soul hateth; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.” As the soul (nephesh) of a man, regarded as the band which unites together bodily and spiritual life, though it is not the actual principle of self-consciousness, is yet the place in which he draws, as it were, the circle of self-consciousness, so as to comprehend the whole essence of His being in the single thought of “I;” so, according to a description taken from godlike man, the “soul” (nephesh) of God, as the expression “my soul” indicates, is the centre of His being, regarded as encircled and pervaded (personated) by self-consciousness; and therefore, whatever the soul of God hates (vid., Jer 15:1) or loves (Isa 42:1), is hated or loved in the inmost depths and to the utmost bounds of His being (Psychol. p. 218). Thus He hated each and all of the festivals that were kept in Jerusalem, whether the beginnings of the month, or the high feastdays (moadim, in which, according to Lev 23, the Sabbath was also included) observed in the course of the month. For a long time past they had become a burden and annoyance to Him: His long-suffering was weary of such worship. “To bear” ( can] , in Isaiah, even in Isa 18:3, for taec] or ht;ve , and here for ac;n; : Ewald, §285, c) has for its object the seasons of worship already mentioned. ISAIAH 1:15 Their self-righteousness, so far as it rested upon sacrifices and festal observances, was now put to shame, and the last inward bulwark of the sham holy nation was destroyed: “And if ye stretch out your hands, I hide my eyes from you; if ye make ever so much praying, I do not hear: your hands are full of blood.” Their praying was also an abomination to God.

Prayer is something common to man: it is the interpreter of religious feeling, which intervenes and mediates between God and man; it is the true spiritual sacrifice.

The law contains no command to pray, and, with the exception of Deut 26, no form of prayer. Praying is so natural to man as man, that there was no necessity for any precept to enforce this, the fundamental expression of the true relation to God. The prophet therefore comes to prayer last of all, so as to trace back their sham-holiness, which was corrupt even to this the last foundation, to its real nothingness. “Spread out,” parash, or pi. peereesh, to stretch out; used with cappaim to denote swimming in Isa 25:11. It is written here before a strong suffix, as in many other passages, e.g., Isa 52:12, with the inflection i instead of e. This was the gesture of a man in prayer, who spread out his hands, and when spread out, stretched them towards heaven, or to the most holy place in the temple, and indeed (as if with the feeling of emptiness and need, and with a desire to receive divine gifts) held up the hollow or palm of his hand (cappaim: cf., tendere palmas, e.g., Virg. Aen. xii. 196, tenditque ad sidera palmas).

However much they might stand or lie before Him in the attitude of prayer, Jehovah hid His eyes, i.e., His omniscience knew nothing of it; and even though they might pray loud and long (gam chi, etiamsi: compare the simple chi, Jer 14:12), He was, as it were, deaf to it all. We should expect chi here to introduce the explanation; but the more excited the speaker, the shorter and more unconnected his words. The plural damim always denotes human blood as the result of some unnatural act, and then the bloody deed and the bloodguiltiness itself. The plural number neither refers to the quantity nor to the separate drops, but is the plural of production, which Dietrich has so elaborately discussed in his Abhandlung, p. 40. f7 The terrible damim stands very emphatically before the governing verb, pointing to many murderous acts that had been committed, and deeds of violence akin to murder. Not, indeed, that we are to understand the words as meaning that there was really blood upon their hands when they stretched them out in prayer; but before God, from whom no outward show can hide the true nature of things, however clean they might have washed themselves, they still dripped with blood. The expostulations of the people against the divine accusations have thus been negatively set forth and met in vv. 11-15: Jehovah could not endure their work-righteous worship, which was thus defiled with unrighteous works, even to murder itself. The divine accusation is now positively established in vv. 16, 17, by the contrast drawn between the true righteousness of which the accused were destitute, and the false righteousness of which they boasted. The crushing charge is here changed into an admonitory appeal; and the love which is hidden behind the wrath, and would gladly break through, already begins to disclose itself. There are eight admonitions. The first three point to the removal of evil; the other five to the performance of what is good.

ISAIAH 1:16 The first three run thus: “Wash, clean yourselves; put away the badness of your doings from the range of my eyes; cease to do evil.” This is not only an advance from figurative language to the most literal, but there is also an advance in what is said. The first admonition requires, primarily and above all, purification from the sins committed, by means of forgiveness sought for and obtained. Wash: rachatzu, from râchatz, in the frequent middle sense of washing one’s self. Clean yourselves: hizzaccu, with the tone upon the last syllable, is not the niphal of zâkak, as the first plur. imper. niph. of such verbs has generally and naturally the tone upon the penultimate (see Isa 52:11; Num 17:10), but the hithpael of zacah for hizdaccu, with the preformative Tav resolved into the first radical letter, as is very common in the hithpael (Ges. §54, 2, b). According to the difference between the two synonyms (to wash one’s self, to clean one’s self), the former must be understood as referring to the one great act of repentance on the part of a man who is turning to God, the latter to the daily repentance of one who has so turned. The second admonition requires them to place themselves in the light of the divine countenance, and put away the evil of their doings, which was intolerable to pure eyes (Hab 1:13). They were to wrestle against the wickedness to which their actual sin had grown, until at length it entirely disappeared. Neged, according to its radical meaning, signifies prominence (compare the Arabic negd, high land which is visible at a great distance), conspicuousness, so that minneged is really equivalent to ex apparentia. ISAIAH 1:17 Five admonitions relating to the practice of what is good: “Learn to do good, attend to judgment, set the oppressor right, do justice to the orphan, conduct the cause of the widow.” The first admonition lays the foundation for the rest. They were to learn to do good-a difficult art, in which a man does not become proficient merely by good intentions. “Learn to do good:” hetib is the object to limdu (learn), regarded as an accusative; the inf. abs. [[ær; in v. 16 takes the place of the object in just the same manner. The division of this primary admonition into four minor ones relating to the administration of justice, may be explained from the circumstance that no other prophet directs so keen an eye upon the state and its judicial proceedings as Isaiah has done. He differs in this respect from his younger contemporary Micah, whose prophecies are generally more ethical in their nature, whilst those of Isaiah have a political character throughout.

Hence the admonitions: “Give diligent attention to judgment” (dârash, to devote one’s self to a thing with zeal and assiduity); and “bring the oppressor to the right way.” This is the true rendering, as châmotz (from châmatz, to be sharp in flavour, glaring in appearance, violent and impetuous in character) cannot well mean “the oppressed,” or the man who is deprived of his rights, as most of the early translators have rendered it, since this form of the noun, especially with an immutable kametz like dwOgB; dwOgB; (cf., dqon; hD;qun] ), is not used in a passive, but in an active or attributive sense (Ewald, §152, b: vid., at Ps 137:8): it has therefore the same meaning as chometz in Ps 71:4, and âshok in Jer 22:3, which is similar in its form. But if châmotz signifies the oppressive, reckless, churlish man, ‘isheer cannot mean to make happy, or to congratulate, or to set up, or, as in the talmudic rendering, to strengthen (Luzzatto: rianimate chi è oppresso); but, as it is also to be rendered in Isa 3:12; 9:15, to lead to the straight road, or to cause a person to keep the straight course. In the case before us, where the oppressor is spoken of, it means to direct him to the way of justice, to keep him in bounds by severe punishment and discipline. f8 In the same way we find in other passages, such as Isa 11:4 and Ps 72:4, severe conduct towards oppressors mentioned in connection with just treatment of the poor. There follow two admonitions relating to widows and orphans. Widows and orphans, as well as foreigners, were the proteges of God and His law, standing under His especial guardianship and care (see, for example, Ex 22:22 (21), cf., 21 (20). “Do justice to the orphan” (Shâphat, as in Deut 25:1, is a contracted expression for shâphat mishpat): for if there is not even a settlement or verdict in their cause, this is the most crying injustice of all, as neither the form nor the appearance of justice is preserved. “Conduct the cause of the widows:” byri with an accusative, as in Isa 51:22, the only other passage in which it occurs, is a contracted form for byri byri . Thus all the grounds of self-defence, which existed in the hearts of the accused, are both negatively and positively overthrown. They are thundered down and put to shame. The law (thorah), announced in v. 10, has been preached to them. The prophet has cast away the husks of their dead works, and brought out the moral kernel of the law in its universal application.

ISAIAH 1:18 The first leading division of the address is brought to a close, and v. contains the turning-point between the two parts into which it is divided.

Hitherto Jehovah has spoken to His people in wrath. But His love began to move even in the admonitions in vv. 16, 17. And now this love, which desired not Israel’s destruction, but Israel’s inward and outward salvation, breaks fully through. V. 18. “O come, and let us reason together, saith Jehovah. If your sins come forth like scarlet cloth, they shall become white as snow; if they are red as crimson, they shall come forth like wool!”

Jehovah here challenges Israel to a formal trial: nocach is thus used in a reciprocal sense, and with the same meaning as nishpat in Isa 43:26 (Ges. §51, 2). In such a trial Israel must lose, for Israel’s self-righteousness rests upon sham righteousness; and this sham righteousness, when rightly examined, is but unrighteousness dripping with blood.

It is taken for granted that this must be the result of the investigation. Israel is therefore worthy of death. Yet Jehovah will not treat Israel according to His retributive justice, but according to His free compassion. He will remit the punishment, and not only regard the sin as not existing, but change it into its very opposite. The reddest possible sin shall become, through His mercy, the purest white. On the two hiphils here applied to colour, see Ges. §53, 2; though he gives the meaning incorrectly, viz., “to take a colour,” whereas the words signify rather to emit a colour: not colorem accipere, but colorem dare. Shâni, bright red (the plural shânim, as in Prov 31:21, signifies materials dyed with shâni), and tolâ, warm colour, are simply different names for the same colour, viz., the crimson obtained from the cochineal insect, color cocccineus. The representation of the work of grace promised by God as a change from red to white, is founded upon the symbolism of colours, quite as much as when the saints in the Revelation (Rev 19:8) are described as clothed in white raiment, whilst the clothing of Babylon is purple and scarlet (Isa 17:4).

Red is the colour of fire, and therefore of life: the blood is red because life is a fiery process. For this reason the heifer, from which the ashes of purification were obtained for those who had been defiled through contact with the dead, was to be red; and the sprinkling-brush, with which the unclean were sprinkled, was to be tied round with a band of scarlet wool.

But red as contrasted with white, the colour of light (Matt 17:2), is the colour of selfish, covetous, passionate life, which is self-seeking in its nature, which goes out of itself only to destroy, and drives about with wild tempestuous violence: it is therefore the colour of wrath and sin. It is generally supposed that Isaiah speaks of red as the colour of sin, because sin ends in murder; and this is not really wrong, though it is too restricted.

Sin is called red, inasmuch as it is a burning heat which consumes a man, and when it breaks forth consumes his fellow-man as well.

According to the biblical view, throughout, sin stands in the same relation to what is well-pleasing to God, and wrath in the same relation to love or grace, as fire to light; and therefore as red to white, or black to white, for red and black are colours which border upon one another. In the Song of Solomon (Isa 7:5), the black locks of Shulamith are described as being “like purple,” and Homer applies the same epithet to the dark waves of the sea. But the ground of this relation lies deeper still. Red is the colour of fire, which flashes out of darkness and returns to it again; whereas white without any admixture of darkness represents the pure, absolute triumph of light. It is a deeply significant symbol of the act of justification. Jehovah offers to Israel an actio forensis, out of which it shall come forth justified by grace, although it has merited death on account of its sins. The righteousness, white as snow and wool, with which Israel comes forth, is a gift conferred upon it out of pure compassion, without being conditional upon any legal performance whatever. ISAIAH 1:19-20 But after the restoration of Israel in integrum by this act of grace, the rest would unquestionably depend upon the conduct of Israel itself. According to Israel’s own decision would Jehovah determine Israel’s future. Vv. 19, 20. “If ye then shall willingly hear, ye shall eat the good of the land; if ye shall obstinately rebel, ye shall be eaten by the sword: for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.” After their justification, both blessing and cursing lay once more before the justified, as they had both been long before proclaimed by the law (compare v. 19b with Deut 28:3ff., Lev 26:3ff., and v. 20b with the threat of vengeance with the sword in Lev 26:25). The promise of eating, i.e., of the full enjoyment of domestic blessings, and therefore of settled, peaceful rest at home, is placed in contrast with the curse of being eaten with the sword. Chereb (the sword) is the accusative of the instrument, as in Ps 17:13-14; but this adverbial construction without either genitive, adjective, or suffix, as in Ex 30:20, is very rarely met with (Ges. §138, Anm. 3); and in the passage before us it is a bold construction which the prophet allows himself, instead of saying, lkæa; br,j, , for the sake of the paronomasia (Böttcher, Collectanea, p. 161).

In the conditional clauses the two futures are followed by two preterites (compare Lev 26:21, which is more in conformity with our western mode of expression), inasmuch as obeying and rebelling are both of them consequences of an act of will: if ye shall be willing, and in consequence of this obey; if ye shall refuse, and rebel against Jehovah. They are therefore, strictly speaking, perfecta consecutiva. According to the ancient mode of writing, the passage vv. 18-20 formed a separate parashah by themselves, viz., a sethumah, or parashah indicated by spaces left within the line. The piskah after v. 20 corresponds to a long pause in the mind of the speaker.- Will Israel tread the saving path of forgiveness thus opened before it, and go on to renewed obedience, and will it be possible for it to be brought back by this path? Individuals possibly may, but not the whole. The divine appeal therefore changes now into a mournful complaint. So peaceful a solution as this of the discord between Jehovah and His children was not to be hoped for. Jerusalem was far too depraved.

ISAIAH 1:21 “How is she become a harlot, the faithful citadel! she, full of right, lodged in righteousness, and now-murderers.” It is the keynote of an elegy (kinah) which is sounded here. Ëyae , and but rarely Ëyae , which is an abbreviated form, is expressive of complaint and amazement. This longer form, like a long-drawn sigh, is a characteristic of the kinah. The kinoth (Lamentations) of Jeremiah commence with it, and receive their title from it; whereas the shorter form is indicative of scornful complaining, and is characteristic of the mâshôl (e.g., Isa 14:4,12; Mic 2:4). From this word, which gives the keynote, the rest all follows, soft, full, monotonous, long drawn out and slow, just in the style of an elegy. We may see clearly enough that forms like ytia\lim] for taælem] , softened by lengthening, were adapted to elegiac compositions, from the first verse of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, where three of these forms occur. Jerusalem had previously been a faithful city, i.e., one stedfastly adhering to the covenant of Jehovah with her (vid., Ps 78:37). f9 This covenant was a marriage covenant. And she had broken it, and had thereby become a zonâh (harlot)-a prophetic view, the germs of which had already been given in the Pentateuch, where the worship of idols on the part of Israel is called whoring after them (Deut 31:16; Ex 34:15-16; in all, seven times). It was not, however, merely gross outward idolatry which made the church of God a “harlot,” but infidelity of heart, in whatever form it might express itself; so that Jesus described the people of His own time as an “adulterous generation,” notwithstanding the pharisaical strictness with which the worship of Jehovah was then observed. For, as the verse before us indicates, this marriage relation was founded upon right and righteousness in the broadest sense: mishpat, “right,” i.e., a realization of right answering to the will of God as positively declared; and tzedek, “righteousness,” i.e., a righteous state moulded by that will, or a righteous course of conduct regulated according to it (somewhat different, therefore, from the more qualitative tzedâkâh).

Jerusalem was once full of such right; and righteousness was not merely there in the form of a hastily passing guest, but had come down from above to take up her permanent abode in Jerusalem: she tarried there day and night as if it were her home. The prophet had in his mind the times of David and Solomon, and also more especially the time of Jehoshaphat (about one hundred and fifty years before Isaiah’s appearance), who restored the administration of justice, which had fallen into neglect since the closing years of Solomon’s reign and the time of Rehoboam and Abijah, to which Asa’s reformation had not extended, and re-organized it entirely in the spirit of the law. It is possible also that Jehoiada, the high priest in the time of Joash, may have revived the institutions of Jehoshaphat, so far as they had fallen into disuse under his three godless successors; but even in the second half of the reign of Joash, the administration of justice fell into the same disgraceful state, at least as compared with the times of David, Solomon, and Jehoshaphat, as that in which Isaiah found it. The glaring contrast between the present and the past is indicated by the expression “and now.” In all the correct MSS and editions, mishpat is not accented with zakeph, but with rebia; and bâh, which ought to have zakeph, is accented with tiphchah, on account of the brevity of the following clause. In this way the statement as to the past condition is sufficiently distinguished from that relating to the present. f10 Formerly righteousness, now “murderers” (merazzechim), and indeed, as distinguished from rozechim, murderers by profession, who formed a band, like king Ahab and his son (2 Kings 6:32). The contrast was as glaring as possible, since murder is the direct opposite, the most crying violation, of righteousness.

ISAIAH 1:22 The complaint now turns from the city generally to the authorities, and first of all figuratively. V. 22. “Thy silver has become dross, thy drink mutilated with water.” It is upon this passage that the figurative language of Jer 6:27ff. and Ezek 22:18-22 is founded. Silver is here a figurative representation of the princes and lords, with special reference to the nobility of character naturally associated with nobility of birth and rank; for silver-refined silver-is an image of all that is noble and pure, light in all its purity being reflected by it (Bähr, Symbolik, i. 284). The princes and lords had once possessed all the virtues which the Latins called unitedly candor animi, viz., the virtues of magnanimity, affability, impartiality, and superiority to bribes. This silver had now become l’sigim , dross, or base metal separated (thrown off) from silver in the process of refining (sig, pl. sigim, siggim from sug, recedere, refuse left in smelting, or dross: cf., Prov 25:4; 26:23). A second figure compares the leading men of the older Jerusalem to good wine, such as drinkers like. The word employed here (sobe) must have been used in this sense by the more cultivated classes in Isaiah’s time (cf., Nah 1:10). This pure, strong, and costly wine was now adulterated with water (lit. castratum, according to Pliny’s expression in the Natural History: compare the Horatian phrase, jugulare Falernum), and therefore its strength and odour were weakened, and its worth was diminished. The present was nothing but the dross and shadow of the past.

ISAIAH 1:23 In v. 23 the prophet says this without a figure: “Thy rulers are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth presents, and hunteth after payment; the orphan they right not, and the cause of the widow has no access to them.” In two words the prophet depicts the contemptible baseness of the national rulers (sârim). He describes first of all their baseness in relation to God, with the alliterative sorerim: rebellious, refractory; and then, in relation to men, companions of thieves, inasmuch as they allowed themselves to be bribed by presents of stolen goods to acts of injustice towards those who had been robbed. They not only willingly accepted such bribes, and that not merely a few of them, but every individual belonging to the rank of princes (cullo, equivalent to haccol, the whole: every one loveth gifts); but they went eagerly in pursuit of them (rodeph). It was not peace (shâlom) that they hunted after (Ps 34:16), but shalmonim, things that would pacify their avarice; not what was good, but compensation for their partiality.-This was the existing state of Jerusalem, and therefore it would hardly be likely to take the way of mercy opened before it in v. 18; consequently Jehovah would avail himself of other means of setting it right:- ISAIAH 1:24 “Therefore, saying of the Lord, of Jehovah of hosts, of the Strong One of Israel: Ah! I will relieve myself on mine adversaries, and will avenge myself upon mine enemies.” Salvation through judgment was the only means of improvement and preservation left to the congregation, which called itself by the name of Jerusalem. Jehovah would therefore afford satisfaction to His holiness, and administer a judicial sifting to Jerusalem. There is no other passage in Isaiah in which we meet with such a crowding together of different names of God as we do here (compare Isa 19:4; 3:1; 10:16,33; 3:15). With three names, descriptive of the irresistible omnipotence of God, the irrevocable decree of a sifting judgment is sealed. The word µaun] , which is used here instead of rmæa; and points back to a verb µaæn; , related to µhæn; and hm;h; , corresponds to the deep, earnest pathos of the words. These verbs, which are imitations of sounds, all denote a dull hollow groaning. The word used here, therefore, signifies that which is spoken with significant secrecy and solemn softness. It is never written absolutely, but is always followed by the subject who speaks (saying of Jehovah it is, i.e., Jehovah says). We meet with it first of all in Gen 22:16. In the prophetic writings it occurs in Obadiah and Joel, but most frequently in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It is generally written at the close of the sentence, or parenthetically in the middle; very rarely at the commencement, as it is here and in 1 Sam 2:30 and Ps 110:1. The “saying” commences with hoi (ah!), the painfulness of pity being mingled with the determined outbreak of wrath. By the side of the niphal nikkam min (to be revenged upon a person) we find the niphal nicham (lit. to console one’s self). The two words are derived from kindred roots. The latter is conjugated with e in the preformative syllable, the former with i, according to the older system of vowel-pointing adopted in the East.

Jehovah would procure Himself relief from His enemies by letting out upon them the wrath with which He had hitherto been burdened (Ezek 5:13). He now calls the masses of Jerusalem by their right name.

ISAIAH 1:25 V. 25 states clearly in what the revenge consisted with which Jehovah was inwardly burdened (innakmah, a cohortative with the ah, indicating internal oppression): “And I will bring my hand over thee, and will smelt out thy dross as with alkali, and will clear away all thy lead.” As long as God leaves a person’s actions or sufferings alone, His hand, i.e., His acting, is at rest. Bringing the hand over a person signifies a movement of the hand, which has been hitherto at rest, either for the purpose of inflicting judicial punishment upon the person named (Amos 1:8; Jer 6:9; Ezek 38:12; Ps 81:15), or else, though this is seldom the case, for the purpose of saving him (Zech 13:7). The reference here is to the divine treatment of Jerusalem, in which punishment and salvation were combined-punishment as the means, salvation as the end. The interposition of Jehovah was, as it were, a smelting, which would sweep away, not indeed Jerusalem itself, but the ungodly in Jerusalem. They are compared to dross, or (as the verb seems to imply) to ore mixed with dross, and, inasmuch as lead is thrown off in the smelting of silver, to such ingredients of lead as Jehovah would speedily and thoroughly remove, “like alkali,” i.e., “as if with alkali” (cabbor, comparatio decurtata, for c’babbor: for this mode of dropping Beth after Caph, compare Isa 9:3; Lev 22:13, and many other passages).

By bedilim (from bâdal, to separate) we are to understand the several pieces of stannum or lead have been employed from the very earliest times to accelerate the process of smelting, for the purpose of separating a metal from its ore.

ISAIAH 1:26 As the threat couched in the previous figure does not point to the destruction, but simply to the smelting of Jerusalem, there is nothing strange in the fact that in v. 26 it should pass over into a pure promise; the meltingly soft and yearningly mournful termination of the clauses with ayich, the keynote of the later songs of Zion, being still continued. “And I will bring back thy judges as in the olden time, and thy counsellors as in the beginning; afterwards thou wilt be called city of righteousness, faithful citadel.” The threat itself was, indeed, relatively a promise, inasmuch as whatever could stand the fire would survive the judgment; and the distinct object of this was to bring back Jerusalem to the purer metal of its own true nature. But when that had been accomplished, still more would follow.

The indestructible kernel that remained would be crystallized, since Jerusalem would receive back from Jehovah the judges and counsellors which it had had in the olden flourishing times of the monarchy, ever since it had become the city of David and of the temple; not, indeed, the very same persons, but persons quite equal to them in excellence. Under such God-given leaders Jerusalem would become what it had once been, and what it ought to be. The names applied to the city indicate the impression produced by the manifestation of its true nature. The second name is written without the article, as in fact the word kiryah (city), with its massive, definite sound, always is in Isaiah. Thus did Jehovah announce the way which it had been irrevocably determined that He would take with Israel, as the only way to salvation. Moreover, this was the fundamental principle of the government of God, the law of Israel’s history.

ISAIAH 1:27 V. 27 presents it in a brief and concise form: “Sion will be redeemed through judgment, and her returning ones through righteousness.” Mishpat and tzedâkâh are used elsewhere for divine gifts (Isa 33:5; 28:6), for such conduct as is pleasing to God (ch. 1:21; 32:16), and for royal Messianic virtues (Isa 9:6; 11:3-5; 16:5; 32:1). Here, however, where we are helped by the context, they are to be interpreted according to such parallel passages as Isa 4:4; 5:16; 28:17, as signifying God’s right and righteousness in their primarily judicious self-fulfilment. A judgment, on the part of God the righteous One, would be the means by which Zion itself, so far as it had remained faithful to Jehovah, and those who were converted in the midst of the judgment, would be redeemed-a judgment upon sinners and sin, by which the power that had held in bondage the divine nature of Zion, so far as it still continued to exist, would be broken, and in consequence of which those who turned to Jehovah would be incorporated into His true church. Whilst, therefore, God was revealing Himself in His punitive righteousness; He was working out a righteousness which would be bestowed as a gift of grace upon those who escaped the former. The notion of “righteousness” is now following a New Testament track. In front it has the fire of the law; behind, the love of the gospel.

Love is concealed behind the wrath, like the sun behind the thunder-clouds.

Zion, so far as it truly is or is becoming Zion, is redeemed, and none but the ungodly are destroyed. But, as is added in the next verse, the latter takes place without mercy.

ISAIAH 1:28 “And breaking up of the rebellious and sinners together; and those who forsake Jehovah will perish.” The judicial side of the approaching act of redemption is here expressed in a way that all can understand. The exclamatory substantive clause in the first half of the verse is explained by a declaratory verbal clause in the second. The “rebellious” were those who had both inwardly and outwardly broken away from Jehovah; “sinners,” those who were living in open sins; and “those who forsake Jehovah,” such as had become estranged from God in either of these ways.

ISAIAH 1:29 Ver. 29 declares how God’s judgment of destruction would fall upon all of these. The verse is introduced with an explanatory “for” (chi): “For they become ashamed of the terebinths, in which ye had your delight; and ye must blush for the gardens, in which ye took pleasure.” The terebinths and gardens (the second word with the article, as in Hab 3:8, first binharim, then banneharim) are not referred to as objects of luxury, as Hitzig and Drechsler assume, but as unlawful places of worship and objects of worship (see Deut 16:21). They are both of them frequently mentioned by the prophets in this sense (Isa 57:5; 65:3; 66:17): châmor and bâchar are also the words commonly applied to an arbitrary choice of false gods (Isa 44:9; 41:24; 66:3), and bosh min is the general phrase used to denote the shame which falls upon idolaters, when the worthlessness of their idols becomes conspicuous through their impotence. On the difference between bosh and châpher, see the comm. on Ps 35:4. f13 The word elim is erroneously translated “idols” in the Septuagint and other ancient versions. The feeling which led to this, however, was a correct one, since the places of worship really stand for the idols worshipped in those places. f14 The excited state of the prophet at the close of his prophecy is evinced by his abrupt leap from an exclamation to a direct address (Ges. §137, Anm. 3).

ISAIAH 1:31 Ver. 31 shows in a third figure where this spark was to come from: “And the rich man becomes tow, and his work the spark; and they will both burn together, and no one extinguishes them.” The form poalo suggests at first a participial meaning (its maker), but ˆsoj; would be a very unusual epithet to apply to an idol. Moreover, the figure itself would be a distorted one, since the natural order would be, that the idol would be the thing that kindled the fire, and the man the object to be set on fire, and not the reverse. We therefore follow the LXX, Targ., and Vulg., with Gesenius and other more recent grammarians, and adopt the rendering “his work” (opus ejus). The forms l[æpo and wOll\po (cf., Isa 52:14 and Jer 22:13) are two equally admissible changes of the ground-form l[æpo ( wOl[]pu ). As v. 29 refers to idolatrous worship, poalo (his work) is an idol, a god made by human hands (cf., Isa 2:8; 37:19, etc.). The prosperous idolater, who could give gold and silver for idolatrous images out of the abundance of his possessions (châson is to be interpreted in accordance with Isa 33:6), becomes tow (talm. “the refuse of flax:” the radical meaning is to shake out, viz., in combing), and the idol the spark which sets this mass of fibre in flames, so that they are both irretrievably consumed. For the fire of judgment, by which sinners are devoured, need not come from without. Sin carries the fire of indignation within itself. And an idol is, as it were, an idolater’s sin embodied and exposed to the light of day. The date of the composition of this first prophecy is a puzzle. Caspari thoroughly investigated every imaginary possibility, and at last adopted the conclusion that it dates from the time of Uzziah, inasmuch as vv. 7-9 do not relate to an actual, but merely to an ideal, present. But notwithstanding all the acuteness with which Caspari has worked out his view, it still remains a very forced one. The oftener we return to the reading of this prophetic address, the stronger is our impression that vv. 7-9 contain a description of the state of things which really existed at the time when the words were spoken. There were actually two devastations of the land of Judah which occurred during the ministry of Isaiah, and in which Jerusalem was only spared by the miraculous interposition of Jehovah: one under Ahaz in the year of the Syro-Ephraimitish war; the other under Hezekiah, when the Assyrian forces laid the land waste but were scattered at last in their attack upon Jerusalem. The year of the Syro-Ephraimitish war is supported by Gesenius, Rosenmüller (who expresses a different opinion in every one of the three editions of his Scholia), Maurer, Movers, Knobel, Hävernick, and others; the time of the Assyrian oppression by Hitzig, Umbreit, Drechsler, and Luzzatto. Now, whichever of these views we may adopt, there will still remain, as a test of its admissiblity, the difficult question, How did this prophecy come to stand at the head of the book, if it belonged to the time of Uzziah-Jotham? This question, upon which the solution of the difficulty depends, can only be settled when we come to ch. 6. Till then, the date of the composition of ch. 1 must be left undecided. It is enough for the present to know, that, according to the accounts given in the books of Kings and Chronicles, there were two occasions when the situation of Jerusalem resembled the one described in the present chapter.

THE WAY OF GENERAL JUDGMENT; OR THE COURSE OF ISRAEL FROM FALSE GLORY TO THE TRUE ISAIAH 2:1 The limits of this address are very obvious. The end of ch. 4 connects itself with the beginning of ch. 2, so as to form a circle. After various alternations of admonition, reproach, and threatening, the prophet reaches at last the object of the promise with which he started. Ch. 5, on the other hand, commences afresh with a parable. It forms an independent address, although it is included, along with the previous chapters, under the heading in Isa 2:1: “The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw over Judah and Jerusalem.” Ch. 2-5 may have existed under this heading before the whole collection arose. It was then adopted in this form into the general collection, so as to mark the transition from the prologue to the body of the book. The prophet describes what he here says concerning Judah and Jerusalem as “the word which he saw.” When men speak to one another, the words are not seen, but heard. But when God spoke to the prophet, it was in a supersensuous way, and the prophet saw it. The mind indeed has no more eyes than ears; but a mind qualified to perceive what is supersensuous is altogether eye.

The manner in which Isaiah commences this second address is altogether unparalleled. There is no other example of a prophecy beginning with hy;h; .

And it is very easy to discover the reason why. The praet. consecutivum v’hâyâh derives the force of a future from the context alone; whereas the fut. consecutivum vay’hi (with which historical books and sections very generally commence) is shown to be an aorist by its simple form.

Moreover, the Vav in the fut. consecut. has almost entirely lost its copulative character; in the praet. consec., on the other hand, it retains it with all the greater force. The prophet therefore commences with “and”; and it is from what follows, not from what goes before, that we learn that hayah is used in a future sense. But this is not the only strange thing. It is also an unparalleled occurrence, for a prophetic address, which runs as this does through all the different phases of the prophetic discourses generally (viz., exhortation, reproof, threatening, and promise), to commence with a promise. We are in a condition, however, to explain the cause of this remarkable phenomenon with certainty, and not merely to resort to conjecture. Vv. 2-4 do not contain Isaiah’s own words, but the words of another prophet taken out of their connection. We find them again in Mic 4:1-4; and whether Isaiah took them from Micah, or whether both Isaiah and Micah took them from some common source, in either case they were not originally Isaiah’s. f15 Nor was it even intended that they should appear to be his. Isaiah has not fused them into the general flow of his own prophecy, as the prophets usually do with the predictions of their predecessors. He does not reproduce them, but, as we may observe from the abrupt commencement, he quote them. It is true, this hardly seems to tally with the heading, which describes what follows as the word of Jehovah which Isaiah saw. But the discrepancy is only an apparent one. It was the spirit of prophecy, which called to Isaiah’s remembrance a prophetic saying that had already been uttered, and made it the starting-point of the thoughts which followed in Isaiah’s mind. The borrowed promise is not introduced for its own sake, but is simply a self-explaining introduction to the exhortations and threatenings which follow, and through which the prophet works his way to a conclusion of his own, that is closely intertwined with the borrowed commencement.

ISAIAH 2:2 The subject of the borrowed prophecy is Israel’s future glory: “And it cometh to pass at the end of the days, the mountain of the house of Jehovah will be set at the top of the mountains, and exalted over hills; and all nations pour unto it.” The expression “the last days” (acharith hayyamim, “the end of the days”), which does not occur anywhere else in Isaiah, is always used in an eschatological sense. It never refers to the course of history immediately following the time being, but invariably indicates the furthest point in the history of this life-the point which lies on the outermost limits of the speaker’s horizon. This horizon was a very fluctuating one. The history of prophecy is just the history of its gradual extension, and of the filling up of the intermediate space. In Jacob’s blessing (Gen 49) the conquest of the land stood in the foreground of the acharith or last days, and the perspective was regulated accordingly.

But here in Isaiah the acharith contained no such mixing together of events belonging to the more immediate and the most distant future. It was therefore the last time in its most literal and purest sense, commencing with the beginning of the New Testament aeon, and terminating at its close (compare Heb 1:1; 1 Peter 1:20, with 1 Cor 15 and the Revelation). The prophet here predicted that the mountain which bore the temple of Jehovah, and therefore was already in dignity the most exalted of all mountains, would. one day tower in actual height above all the high places of the earth. The basaltic mountains of Bashan, which rose up in bold peaks and columns, might now look down with scorn and contempt upon the small limestone hill which Jehovah had chosen (Ps 68:16-17); but this was an incongruity which the last times would remove, by making the outward correspond to the inward, the appearance to the reality and the intrinsic worth.

That this is the prophet’s meaning is confirmed by Ezek 40:2, where the temple mountain looks gigantic to the prophet, and also by Zech 14:10, where all Jerusalem is described as towering above the country round about, which would one day become a plain. The question how this can possibly take place in time, since it presupposes a complete subversion of the whole of the existing order of the earth’s surface, is easily answered.

The prophet saw the new Jerusalem of the last days on this side, and the new Jerusalem of the new earth on the other (Rev 21:10), blended as it were together, and did not distinguish the one from the other. But whilst we thus avoid all unwarrantable spiritualizing, it still remains a question what meaning the prophet attached to the word b’rosh (“at the top”). Did he mean that Moriah would one day stand upon the top of the mountains that surrounded it (as in Ps 72:16), or that it would stand at their head (as in 1 Kings 21:9,12; Amos 6:7; Jer 31:7)?

The former is Hofmann’s view, as given in his Weissagung und Erfüllung, ii. 217: “he did not indeed mean that the mountains would be piled up one upon the other, and the temple mountain upon the top, but that the temple mountain would appear to float upon the summit of the others.” But as the expression “will be set” (nacon) does not favour this apparently romantic exaltation, and b’rosh occurs more frequently in the sense of “at the head” than in that of “on the top,” I decide for my own part in favour of the second view, though I agree so far with Hofmann, that it is not merely an exaltation of the temple mountain in the estimation of the nations that is predicted, but a physical and external elevation also. And when thus outwardly exalted, the divinely chosen mountain would become the rendezvous and centre of unity for all nations. They would all “flow unto it” (nâhar, a denom. verb, from nâhâr, a river, as in Jer 51:44; 31:12).

It is the temple of Jehovah which, being thus rendered visible to nations afar off, exerts such magnetic attraction, and with such success. Just as at a former period men had been separated and estranged from one another in the plain of Shinar, and thus different nations had first arisen; so would the nations at a future period assemble together on the mountain of the house of Jehovah, and there, as members of one family, live together in amity again. And as Babel (confusion, as its name signifies) was the place whence the stream of nations poured into all the world; so would Jerusalem (the city of peace) become the place into which the stream of nations would empty itself, and where all would be reunited once more. At the present time there was only one people, viz., Israel, which made pilgrimages to Zion on the great festivals, but it would be very different then.

ISAIAH 2:3 “And peoples in multitude go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob; let Him instruct us out of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” This is their signal for starting, and their song by the way (cf., Zech 8:21-22). What urges them on is the desire for salvation. Desire for salvation expresses itself in the name they give to the point towards which they are travelling: they call Moriah “the mountain of Jehovah,” and the temple upon it “the house of the God of Jacob.” Through frequent use, Israel had become the popular name for the people of God; but the name they employ is the choicer name Jacob, which is the name of affection in the mouth of Micah, of whose style we are also reminded by the expression “many peoples” (ammim rabbim). Desire for salvation expresses itself in the object of their journey; they wish Jehovah to teach them “out of His ways,”-a rich source of instruction with which they desire to be gradually entrusted.

The preposition min (out of, or from) is not partitive here, but refers, as in Ps 94:12, to the source of instruction. The “ways of Jehovah” are the ways which God Himself takes, and by which men are led by Him-the revealed ordinances of His will and action. Desire for salvation also expresses itself in the resolution with which they set out: they not only wish to learn, but are resolved to act according to what they learn. “We will walk in His paths:” the hortative is used here, as it frequently is (e.g., Gen 27:4, vid., Ges. §128, 1, c), to express either the subjective intention or subjective conclusion. The words supposed to be spoken by the multitude of heathen going up to Zion terminate here. The prophet then adds the reason and object of this holy pilgrimage of the nations: “For instruction will go out from Zion, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.” The principal emphasis is upon the expressions “from Zion” and “from Jerusalem.” It is a triumphant utterance of the sentiment that “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22).

From Zion-Jerusalem there would go forth thorah, i.e., instruction as to the questions which man has to put to God, and debar Jehovah, the word of Jehovah, which created the world at first, and by which it is spiritually created anew. Whatever promotes the true prosperity of the nations, comes from Zion-Jerusalem. There the nations assemble together; they take it thence to their own homes, and thus Zion-Jerusalem becomes the fountain of universal good. For from the time that Jehovah made choice of Zion, the holiness of Sinai was transferred to Zion (Ps 68:17), which now presented the same aspect as Sinai had formerly done, when God invested it with holiness by appearing there in the midst of myriads of angels. What had been commenced at Sinai for Israel, would be completed at Zion for all the world. This was fulfilled on that day of Pentecost, when the disciples, the first-fruits of the church of Christ, proclaimed the thorah of Zion, i.e., the gospel, in the languages of all the world. It was fulfilled, as Theodoret observes, in the fact that the word of the gospel, rising from Jerusalem “as from a fountain,” flowed through the whole of the known world. But these fulfilments were only preludes to a conclusion which is still to be looked for in the future. For what is promised in the following verse is still altogether unfulfilled.

ISAIAH 2:4 “And He will judge between the nations, and deliver justice to many peoples; and they forge their swords into coulters, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation lifts not up the sword against nation, neither do they exercise themselves in war any more.” Since the nations betake themselves in this manner as pupils to the God of revelation and the word of His revelation, He becomes the supreme judge and umpire among them. If any dispute arise, it is no longer settled by the compulsory force of war, but by the word of God, to which all bow with willing submission. With such power as this in the peace-sustaining word of God (Zech 9:10), there is no more need for weapons of iron: they are turned into the instruments of peaceful employment, into ittim (probably a synonym for ethim in 1 Sam 13:21), plough-knives or coulters, which cut the furrows for the ploughshare to turn up and mazmeroth, bills or pruning-hooks, with which vines are pruned to increase their fruit-bearing power.

There is also no more need for military practice, for there is no use in exercising one’s self in what cannot be applied. It is useless, and men dislike it. There is peace, not an armed peace, but a full, true, God-given and blessed peace. What even a Kant regarded as possible is now realized, and that not by the so-called Christian powers, but by the power of God, who favours the object for which an Elihu Burritt enthusiastically longs, rather than the politics of the Christian powers. It is in war that the power of the beast culminates in the history of the world. This beast will then be destroyed. The true humanity which sin has choked up will gain the mastery, and the world’s history will keep Sabbath. And may we not indulge the hope, on the ground of such prophetic words as these, that the history of the world will not terminate without having kept a Sabbath?

Shall we correct Isaiah, according to Quenstedt, lest we should become chiliasts? “The humanitarian ideas of Christendom,” says a thoughtful Jewish scholar, “have their roots in the Pentateuch, and more especially in Deuteronomy. But in the prophets, particularly in Isaiah, they reach a height which will probably not be attained and fully realized by the modern world for centuries to come.” Yet they will be realized. What the prophetic words appropriated by Isaiah here affirm, is a moral postulate, the goal of sacred history, the predicted counsel of God.

ISAIAH 2:5 Isaiah presents himself to his contemporaries with this older prophecy of the exalted and world-wide calling of the people of Jehovah, holds it up before them as a mirror, and exclaims in v. 5, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of Jehovah.” This exhortation is formed under the influence of the context, from which vv. 2-4 are taken, as we may see from Mic 4:5, and also of the quotation itself. The use of the term Jacob instead of Israel is not indeed altogether strange to Isaiah (Isa 8:17; 10:20-21; 29:23), but he prefers the use of Israel (compare Isa 1:24 with Gen 49:24).

With the words “O house of Jacob” he now turns to his people, whom so glorious a future awaits, because Jehovah has made it the scene of His manifested presence and grace, and summons it to walk in the light of such a God, to whom all nations will press at the end of the days. The summons, “Come, let us walk,” is the echo of v. 3, “Come, let us go;” and as Hitzig observes, “Isaiah endeavours, like Paul in Rom 11:14, to stir up his countrymen to a noble jealousy, by setting before them the example of the heathen.” The “light of Jehovah” (‘or Jehovah, in which the echo of v’yorenu in v. 3 is hardly accidental; cf., Prov 6:23) is the knowledge of Jehovah Himself, as furnished by means of positive revelation, His manifested love. It was now high time to walk in the light of Jehovah, i.e., to turn this knowledge into life, and reciprocate this love; and it was especially necessary to exhort Israel to this, now that Jehovah had given up His people, just because in their perverseness they had done the very opposite. This mournful declaration, which the prophet was obliged to make in order to explain his warning cry, he changes into the form of a prayerful sigh.

ISAIAH 2:6 “For Thou hast rejected Thy people, the house of Jacob; for they are filled with things from the east, and are conjurors like the Philistines; and with the children of foreigners they go hand in hand.” Here again we have “for” (chi) twice in succession; the first giving the reason for the warning cry, the second vindicating the reason assigned. The words are addressed to Jehovah, not to the people. Saad., Gecatilia, and Rashi adopt the rendering, “Thou has given up thy nationality;” and this rendering is supported by J.

D. Michaelis, Hitzig, and Luzzatto. But the word means “people,” not “nationality;” and the rendering is inadmissible, and would never have been thought of were it not that there was apparently something strange in so sudden an introduction of an address to God. But in Isa 2:9; 9:2, and other passages, the prophecy takes the form of a prayer. And nâtash (cast off) with âm (people) for its object recals such passages as Ps 94:14 and 1 Sam 12:22. Jehovah had put away His people, i.e., rejected them, and left them to themselves, for the following reasons: (1.) Because they were “full from the east” (mikkedem: min denotes the source from which a person draws and fills himself, Jer 51:34; Ezek 32:6), i.e., full of eastern manners and customs, more especially of idolatrous practices. By “the east” (kedem) we are to understand Arabia as far as the peninsula of Sinai, and also the Aramaean lands of the Euphrates. Under Uzziah and Jotham, whose sway extended to Elath, the seaport town of the Elanitic Gulf, the influence of the south-east predominated; but under Ahaz and Hezekiah, on account of their relations to Asshur, Aram, and Babylon, that of the north-east. The conjecture of Gesenius, that we should read mikkesem, i.e., of soothsaying, it a very natural one; but it obliterates without any necessity the name of the region from which Judah’s imitative propensities received their impulse and materials. (2.) They were onenim (= meonenim, Mic 5:11, from the poel onen: Kings 21:6), probably “cloud-gatherers” or “storm-raisers,” like the Philistines (the people conquered by Uzziah, and then again by Hezekiah), among whom witchcraft was carried on in guilds, whilst a celebrated oracle of Baal-Zebub existed at Ekron. (3.) And they make common cause with children of foreigners. This is the explanation adopted by Gesenius, Knobel, and others. Sâphak with cappaim signifies to clap hands (Job 27:23). The hiphil followed by Beth is only used here in the sense of striking hands with a person. Luzzatto explains it as meaning, “They find satisfaction in the children of foreigners; it is only through them that they are contented;” but this is contrary to the usage of the language, according to which hispik in post-biblical Hebrew signifies either suppeditare or (like saphak in 1 Kings 20:10) sufficere.

Jerome renders it pueris alienis adhaeserunt; but yalde nâc’rim does not mean pueri alieni, boys hired for licentious purposes, but the “sons of strangers” generally (Isa 60:10; 61:5), with a strong emphasis upon their unsanctified birth, the heathenism inherited from their mother’s womb.

With heathen by birth, the prophet would say, the people of Jehovah made common cause.

ISAIAH 2:7-8 In vv. 7, 8 he describes still further how the land of the people of Jehovah, in consequence of all this (on the future consec. see Ges. §129, 2, a), was crammed full of objects of luxury, of self-confidence, of estrangement from God: “And their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end of their treasures; and their land is filled with horses, and there is no end of their chariots. And their land is filled with-idols; the work of their own hands they worship, that which their own fingers have made.” The glory of Solomon, which revived under Uzziah’s fifty-two years’ reign, and was sustained through Jotham’s reign of sixteen years, carried with it the curse of the law; for the law of the king, in Deut 17:14ff., prohibited the multiplying of horses, and also the accumulation of gold and silver.

Standing armies, and stores of national treasures, like everything else which ministers to carnal self-reliance, were opposed to the spirit of the theocracy. Nevertheless Judaea was immeasurably full of such seductions to apostasy; and not of those alone, but also of things which plainly revealed it, viz., of elilim, idols (the same word is used in Lev 19:4; 26:1, from elil, vain or worthless; it is therefore equivalent to “not-gods”). They worshipped the work of “their own” hands, what “their own” fingers had made: two distributive singulars, as in Isa 5:23, the hands and fingers of every individual (vid., Mic 5:12-13, where the idols are classified). The condition of the land, therefore, was not only opposed to the law of the king, but at variance with the decalogue also. The existing glory was the most offensive caricature of the glory promised to the nation; for the people, whose God was one day to become the desire and salvation of all nations, had exchanged Him for the idols of the nations, and was vying with them in the appropriation of heathen religion and customs.

ISAIAH 2:9-11 It was a state ripe for judgment, from which, therefore, the prophet could at once proceed, without any further preparation, to the proclamation of judgment itself. V. 9. “Thus, then, men are bowed down, and lords are brought low; and forgive them-no, that Thou wilt not.” The consecutive futures depict the judgment, as one which would follow by inward necessity from the worldly and ungodly glory of the existing state of things.

The future is frequently used in this way (for example, in Isa 9:7ff.). It was a judgment by which small and great, i.e., the people in all its classes, were brought down from their false eminence. “Men” and “lords” (âdâm and ish, as in Isa 5:15; Ps 49:3, and Prov 8:4, and like a>nqrwpov and anh>r in the Attic dialect), i.e., men who were lost in the crowd, and men who rose above it-all of them the judgment would throw down to the ground, and that without mercy (Rev 6:15).

The prophet expresses the conviction (al as in 2 Kings 6:27), that on this occasion God neither could nor would take away the sin by forgiving it.

There was nothing left for them, therefore, but to carry out the command of the prophet in v. 10: “Creep into the rock, and bury thyself in the dust, before the terrible look of Jehovah, and before the glory of His majesty.”

The glorious nation would hide itself most ignominiously, when the only true glory of Jehovah, which had been rejected by it, was manifested in judgment. They would conceal themselves in holes of the rocks, as if before a hostile army (Judg 6:2; 1 Sam 13:6; 14:11), and bury themselves with their faces in the sand, as if before the fatal simoom of the desert, that they might not have to bear this intolerable sight. And when Jehovah manifested Himself in this way in the fiery glance of judgment, the result summed up in v. 11 must follow: “The people’s eyes of haughtiness are humbled, and the pride of their lords is bowed down; and Jehovah, He only, stands exalted in that day.” The result of the process of judgment is expressed in perfects: nisgab is the third pers. praet., not the participle:

Jehovah “is exalted,” i.e., shows Himself as exalted, whilst the haughty conduct of the people is brought down (shâphel is a verb, not an adjective; it is construed in the singular by attraction, and either refers to âdâm, man or people: Ges. §148, 1; or what is more probable, to the logical unity of the compound notion which is taken as subject, the constr. ad synesin s. sensum: Thiersch, §118), and the pride of the lords is bowed down (shach = shâchach, Job 9:13). The first strophe of the proclamation of judgment appended to the prophetic saying in vv. 2-4 is here brought to a close. The second strophe reaches to v. 17, where v. 11 is repeated as a concluding verse.

ISAIAH 2:12 The expression “that day” suggests the inquiry, What day is referred to?

The prophet answers this question in the second strophe. V. 12. “For Jehovah of hosts hath a day over everything towering and lofty, and over everything exalted; and it becomes low.” “Jehovah hath a day” (yom layehovah), lit., there is to Jehovah a day, which already exists as a finished divine thought in that wisdom by which the course of history is guided (Isa 37:26, cf., 22:11), the secret of which He revealed to the prophets, who from the time of Obadiah and Joel downwards proclaimed that day with one uniform watchword. But when the time appointed for that day should arrive, it would pass out of the secret of eternity into the history of time-a day of world-wide judgment, which would pass, through the omnipotence with which Jehovah rules over the hither as well as lower spheres of the whole creation, upon all worldly glory, and it would be brought low (shaphel). The current accentuation of v. 12b is wrong; correct MSS have `l[æ with mercha, acnAlk with tifcha. The word v’shâphel (third pers. praet. with the root-vowel ee) acquires the force of a future, although no grammatical future precedes it, from the future character of the day itself: “and it will sink down” (Ges. §126, 4).

ISAIAH 2:15-16 The glory of nature is followed by what is lofty and glorious in the world of men, such as magnificent fortifications, grand commercial buildings, and treasures which minister to the lust of the eye. Vv. 15, 16. “As upon every high tower, so upon every fortified wall. As upon all ships of Tarshish, so upon all works of curiosity.” It was by erecting fortifications for offence and defence, both lofty and steep (bâzur, praeruptus, from bâzar, abrumpere, secernere), that Uzziah and Jotham especially endeavoured to serve Jerusalem and the land at large. The chronicler relates, with reference to Uzziah, in 2 Chron 26, that he built strong towers above “the cornergate, the valley-gate, and the southern point of the cheesemakers’ hollow,” and fortified these places, which had probably been till that time the weakest points in Jerusalem; also that he built towers in the desert (probably in the desert between Beersheba and Gaza, to increase the safety of the land, and the numerous flocks which were pastured in the shephelah, i.e., the western portion of southern Palestine). With regard to Jotham, it is related in both the book of Kings (2 Kings 15:32ff.) and the Chronicles, that he built the upper gate of the temple; and in the Chronicles (2 Chron 27) that he fortified the ‘Ofel, i.e., the southern spur of the temple hill, still more strongly, and built cities on the mountains of Judah, and erected castles and towers in the forests (to watch for hostile attacks and ward them off).

Hezekiah also distinguished himself by building enterprises of this kind (2 Chron 32:27-30). But the allusion to the ships of Tarshish takes us to the times of Uzziah and Jotham, and not to those of Hezekiah (as Ps 48:7 does to the time of Jehoshaphat); for the seaport town of Elath, which was recovered by Uzziah, was lost again to the kingdom of Judah during the reign of Ahaz. Jewish ships sailed from this Elath (Ailath) through the Red Sea and round the coast of Africa to the harbour of Tartessus, the ancient Phoenician emporium of the maritime region watered by the Baetis (Guadalquivir), which abounded in silver, and then returned through the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar: vid., Duncker, Gesch. i. 312- 315). It was to these Tartessus vessels that the expression “ships of Tarshish” primarily referred, though it was afterwards probably applied to mercantile ships in general. The following expression, “works of curiosity” (sechiyyoth hachemdah), is taken in far too restricted a sense by those who limit it, as the LXX have done, to the ships already spoken of, or understand it, as Gesenius does, as referring to beautiful flags. Jerome’s rendering is correct: “et super omne quod visu pulcrum est” (and upon everything beautiful to look at); seciyyâh, from sâcâh, to look (see Job, p. 468), is sight generally. The reference therefore is to all kinds of works of art, whether in sculpture or paintings (mascith is used of both), which delighted the observer by their imposing, tasteful appearance. Possibly, however, there is a more especial reference to curiosities of art and nature, which were brought by the trading vessels from foreign lands. ISAIAH 2:17 Ver. 17 closes the second strophe of the proclamation of judgment appended to the earlier prophetic word: “And the haughtiness of the people is bowed down, and the pride of the lords brought low; and Jehovah, He alone, stands exalted on that day.” The closing refrain only varies a little from v. 11. The subjects of the verbs are transposed. With a feminine noun denoting a thing, it is almost a rule that the predicate shall be placed before it in masculine (Ges. §147, a).

ISAIAH 2:18 The closing refrain of the next two strophes is based upon the concluding clause of v. 10. The proclamation of judgment turns now to the elilim, which, as being at the root of all the evil, occupied the lowest place in the things of which the land was full (vv. 7, 8). In a short verse of one clause consisting of only three words, their future is declared as it were with a lightning-flash. V. 18. “And the idols utterly pass away.” The translation shows the shortness of the verse, but not the significant synallage numeri.

The idols are one and all a mass of nothingness, which will be reduced to absolute annihilation: they will vanish câlil, i.e., either “they will utterly perish” (funditus peribunt), or, as câlil is not used adverbially in any other passage, “they will all perish” (tota peribunt, Judg 20:40)-their images, their worship, even their names and their memory (Zech 13:2).

ISAIAH 2:20 Ver. 20 forms the commencement to the fourth strophe: “In that day will a man cast away his idols of gold and his idols of silver, which they made for him to worship, to the moles and to the bats.” The traditional text separates lachpor peroth into two words, though without its being possible to discover what they are supposed to mean.

The reason for the separation was simply the fact that plurilitera were at one time altogether misunderstood and regarded as composita: for other plurilitera, written as two words, compare Isa 61:1; Hos 4:18; Jer 46:20.

The prophet certainly pronounced the word lachparpâroth (Ewald, §157, c); and chapharpârâh is apparently a mole (lit. thrower up of the soil), talpa, as it is rendered by Jerome and interpreted by Rashi. Gesenius and Knobel, however, have raised this objection, that the mole is never found in houses. But are we necessarily to assume that they would throw their idols into lumber-rooms, and not hide them in holes and crevices out of doors?

The mole, the shrew-mouse, and the bat, whose name (atalleph) is regarded by Schultens as a compound word (atal-eph, night-bird), are generically related, according to both ancient and modern naturalists. Bats are to birds what moles are to the smaller beasts of prey (vid., Levysohn, Zoologie des Talmud, p. 102).

The LXX combine with these two words l’hishtachavoth (to worship).

Malbim and Luzzatto adopt this rendering, and understand the words to mean that they would sink down to the most absurd descriptions of animal worship. But the accentuation, which does not divide the verse at `aasuwlow, as we should expect if this were the meaning, is based upon the correct interpretation. The idolaters, convinced of the worthlessness of their idols through the judicial interposition of God, and enraged at the disastrous manner in which they had been deceived, would throw away with curses the images of gold and silver which artists’ hands had made according to their instructions, and hide them in the holes of bats and in mole-hills, to conceal them from the eyes of the Judge, and then take refuge there themselves after ridding themselves of this useless and damnable burden.

ISAIAH 2:21,22 “To creep into the cavities of the stone-blocks, and into the clefts of the rocks, before the terrible look of Jehovah, and before the glory of His majesty, when He arises to put the earth in terror.” Thus ends the fourth strophe of this “dies irae, dies illa,” which is appended to the earlier prophetic word. But there follows, as an epiphonem, this nota bene in v. 22: Oh, then, let man go, in whose nose is a breath; for what is he estimated at? The Septuagint leaves this verse out altogether. But was it so utterly unintelligible then? Jerome adopted a false pointing, and has therefore given this marvellous rendering: excelsus (bâmâh!) reputatus est ipse, by which Luther was apparently misled. But if we look backwards and forwards, it is impossible to mistake the meaning of the verse, which must be regarded not only as the resultant of what precedes it, but also as the transition to what follows.

It is preceded by the prediction of the utter demolition of everything which ministers to the pride and vain confidence of men; and in Isa 3:1ff. the same prediction is resumed, with a more special reference to the Jewish state, from which Jehovah is about to take away every prop, so that it shall utterly collapse. Accordingly the prophet exhorts, in v. 22, to a renunciation of trust in man, and everything belonging to him, just as in Ps 118:8-9; 146:3, and Jer 17:5. The construction is as general as that of a gnome. The dat. commodi ttæK; (Ges. §154, 3, e) renders the exhortation both friendly and urgent: from regard to yourselves, for your own good, for your own salvation, desist from man, i.e., from your confidence in him, in whose nose (in cujus naso, the singular, as in Job 27:3; whereas the plural is used in Gen 2:7 in the same sense, in nares ejus, “into his nostrils”) is a breath, a breath of life, which God gave to him, and can take back as soon as He will (Job 34:14; Ps 104:29).

Upon the breath, which passes out and in through his nose, his whole earthly existence is suspended; and this, when once lost, is gone for ever (Job 7:7). It is upon this breath, therefore, that all the confidence placed in man must rest-a bad soil and foundation! Under these conditions, and with this liability to perish in a moment, the worth of man as a ground of confidence is really nothing. This thought is expressed here in the form of a question: At (for) what is he estimated, or to be estimated? The passive participle nechshâb combines with the idea of the actual (aestimatus) that of the necessary (aestimandus), and also of the possible or suitable (aestimabilis); and that all the more because the Semitic languages have no special forms for the latter notions. The Beth is Beth pretii, corresponding to the Latin genitive (quanti) or ablative (quanto)-a modification of the Beth instrumenti, the price being regarded as the medium of exchange or purchase: “at what is he estimated,” not with what is he compared, which would be expressed by ‘eth (Isa 53:12; compare meta> , Luke 22:37) or ‘im (Ps 88:5).

The word is hm; , not hm; , because this looser form is only found in cases where a relative clause follows (eo quod, Eccl 3:22), and not bammâh, because this termination with aa is used exclusively where the next word begins with Aleph, or where it is a pausal word (as in 1 Kings 22:21); in every other case we have bammeh. The question introduced with this quanto (quanti), “at what,” cannot be answered by any positive definition of value. The worth of man, regarded in himself, and altogether apart from God, is really nothing. The proclamation of judgment pauses at this porisma, but only for the purpose of gathering fresh strength. The prophet has foretold in four strophes the judgment of God upon every exalted thing in the kosmos that has fallen away from communion with God, just as Amos commences his book with a round of judgments, which are uttered in seven strophes of uniform scope, bursting like seven thunder-claps upon the nations of the existing stage of history. The seventh stroke falls upon Judah, over which the thunderstorm rests after finding such abundant booty. And in the same manner Isaiah, in the instance before us, reduces the universal proclamation of judgment to one more especially affecting Judah and Jerusalem. The current of the address breaks through the bounds of the strophe; and the exhortation in Isa 2:22 not to trust in man, the reason for which is assigned in what precedes, also forms a transition from the universal proclamation of judgment to the more special one in Isa 3:1, where the prophet assigns a fresh ground for the exhortation:- ISAIAH 3:1 “For, behold, the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah supporter and means of support, every support of bread and every support of water.” The divine name given here, “The Lord, Jehovah of hosts,” with which Isaiah everywhere introduces the judicial acts of God (cf., Isa 1:24; 10:16,33; 19:4), is a proof that the proclamation of judgment commences afresh here. Trusting in man was the crying sin, more especially of the times of Uzziah-Jotham. The glory of the kingdom at that time carried the wrath of Jehovah within it. The outbreak of that wrath commenced in the time of Ahaz; and even under Hezekiah it was merely suspended, not changed. Isaiah foretells this outbreak of wrath. He describes how Jehovah will lay the Jewish state in ruins, by taking away the main supports of its existence and growth. “Supporter and means of support” (mash’en and mash’enah) express, first of all, the general idea.

The two nouns, which are only the masculine and feminine forms of one and the same word (compare Mic 2:4; Nah 2:11, and the examples from the Syriac and Arabic in Ewald, §172, c), serve to complete the generalization: fulcra omne genus (props of every kind, omnigena). They are both technical terms, denoting the prop which a person uses to support anything, whilst mish’an signifies that which yields support; so that the three correspond somewhat to the Latin fulcrum, fultura, fulcimen. Of the various means of support, bread and wine are mentioned first, not in a figurative sense, but as the two indispensable conditions and the lowest basis of human life. Life is supported by bread and water: it walks, as it were, upon the crutch of bread, so that “breaking the staff of bread” (Lev 26:26; Ezek 4:16; 5:16; 14:13; Ps 105:16) is equivalent to physical destruction. The destruction of the Jewish state would accordingly be commenced by a removal on the part of Jehovah of all the support afforded by bread and water, i.e., all the stores of both.

And this was literally fulfilled, for both in the Chaldean and Roman times Jerusalem perished in the midst of just such terrible famines as are threatened in the curses in Lev 26, and more especially in Deut 28; and in both cases the inhabitants were reduced to such extremities, that women devoured their own children (Lam 2:20; Josephus, Wars of Jews, vi. 3, 3, 4). It is very unjust, therefore, on the part of modern critics, such as Hitzig, Knobel, and Meier, to pronounce v. 1b a gloss, and, in fact, a false one.

Gesenius and Umbreit retracted this suspicion. The construction of the verse is just the same as that of Isa 25:6; and it is Isaiah’s custom to explain his own figures, as we have already observed when comparing Isa 1:7ff. and 1:23 with what preceded them. “Every support of bread and every support of water” are not to be regarded in this case as an explanation of the general idea introduced before, “supporters and means of support,” but simply as the commencement of the detailed expansion of the idea. For the enumeration of the supports which Jehovah would take away is continued in the next two verses.

ISAIAH 3:2-3 “Hero and man of war, judge and prophet, and soothsayer and elder; captains of fifty, and the highly distinguished, and counsellors, and masters in art, and those skilled in muttering.” As the state had grown into a military state under Uzziah-Jotham, the prophet commences in both verses with military officers, viz., the gibbor, i.e., commanders whose bravery had been already tried; the “man of war” (ish milchâmâh), i.e., private soldiers who had been equipped and well trained (see Ezek 39:20); and the “captain of fifty” (sar chamisshim), leaders of the smallest divisions of the army, consisting of only fifty men (pentekontarchos, 2 Kings 1:9, etc.). The prominent members of the state are all mixed up together; “the judge” (shophet), i.e., the officers appointed by the government to administer justice; “the elder” (zâkeen), i.e., the heads of families and the senators appointed by the town corporations; the “counsellor” (yooetz), those nearest to the king; the “highly distinguished” (nesu panim), lit., those whose personal appearance (panim) was accepted, i.e., welcome and regarded with honour (Saad.: wa’gîh, from wa’gh, the face of appearance), that is to say, persons of influence, not only on account of their office, but also on account of wealth, age, goodness, etc.; “masters in art” (chacam charâshim: LXX sofo>v arcite>ktwn ), or, as Jerome has very well rendered it, in artibus mechanicis exercitatus easque callide tractans (persons well versed in mechanical arts, and carrying them out with skill).

In the Chaldean captivities skilled artisans are particularly mentioned as having been carried away (2 Kings 24:14ff.; Jer 24:1; 29:2); so that there can be no doubt whatever that charâshim (from cheresh) is to be understood as signifying mechanical and not magical arts, as Gesenius, Hitzig, and Meier suppose, and therefore that chacam charâshim does not mean “wizards,” as Ewald renders it (charâshim is a different word from chârâshim, fabri, from chârâsh, although in 1 Chron 4:14, cf., Neh 11:35, the word is regularly pointed vr;j; even in this personal sense). Moreover, the rendering “wizards” produces tautology, inasmuch as masters of the black art are cited as nebon lachash, “skilled in muttering.” Lachash is the whispering or muttering of magical formulas; it is related both radically and in meaning to nachash, enchantment (Arabic nachs, misfortune); it is derived from lâchash, sibilare, to hiss (a kindred word to nâchash; hence nâchâsh, a serpent). Beside this, the masters of the black art are also represented as kosem, which, in accordance with the radical idea of making fast, swearing, conjuring, denoted a soothsayer following heathen superstitions, as distinguished from the nabi, of false Jehovah prophet (we find this as early as Deut 18:10,14). f18 These came next to bread and water, and were in a higher grade the props of the state. They are mixed together in this manner without regular order, because the powerful and splendid state was really a quodlibet of things Jewish and heathen; and when the wrath of Jehovah broke out, the godless glory would soon become a mass of confusion.

ISAIAH 3:4 Thus robbed of its support, and torn out of its proper groove, the kingdom of Judah would fall a prey to the most shameless despotism: “And I give them boys for princes, and caprices shall rule over them.” The revived “Solomonian” glory is followed, as before, by the times of Rehoboam. The king is not expressly named. This was intentional. He had sunk into the mere shadow of a king: it was not he who ruled, but the aristocratic party that surrounded him, who led him about in leading strings as unum inter pares. Now, if it is a misfortune in most cases for a king to be a child (na’ar, Eccl 10:16), the misfortune is twice as great when the princes or magnates who surround and advise him are youngsters (ne’ârim, i.e., young lords) in a bad sense. It produces a government of taalulim. None of the nouns in this form have a personal signification. According to the primary meaning of the verbal stem, the word might signify childishnesses, equivalent to little children (the abstract for the concrete, like ta> paidika> , amasius), as Ewald supposes; or puppets, fantocci, poltroons, or men without heart or brain, as Luzzatto maintains.

But the latter has no support in the general usage of the language, and the verb yimshelu (shall rule) does not necessarily require a personal subject (cf., Ps 19:14; 103:19). The word taalulim is formed from the reflective verb hithallel, which means to meddle, to gratify one’s self, to indulge one’s caprice. Accordingly taalulim itself might be rendered vexationes (Isa 66:4). Jerome, who translates the word effeminati, appears to have thought of `llæ[; in an erotic sense. The Sept. rendering, empai>ktai , is better, though empai>gmata would be more exact. When used, as the word is here, along with ne’arim, it signifies outbursts of youthful caprice, which do injury to others, whether in joke or earnest. Neither law nor justice would rule, but the very opposite of justice: a course of conduct which would make subjects, like slaves, the helpless victims at one time of their lust (Judg 19:25), and at another of their cruelty. They would be governed by lawless and bloodstained caprice, of the most despotic character and varied forms. And the people would resemble their rulers: their passions would be let loose, and all restraints of modesty and decorum be snapt asunder.

ISAIAH 3:5 “And the people oppress one another, one this and another that; the boy breaks out violently upon the old man, and the despised upon the honoured.” Niggas is the reciprocal niphal, as the clause depicting the reciprocity clearly shows (cf., nilcham, Isa 19:2); nagas followed by Beth means to treat as a tyrant or taskmaster (Isa 9:3). The commonest selfishness would then stifle every nobler motive; one would become the tyrant of another, and ill-mannered insolence would take the place of that reverence, which is due to the old and esteemed from boys and those who are below them in position, whether we regard the law of nature, the Mosaic law (Lev 19:32), or the common custom of society. Nikleh (from kâlâh, the synonym of llæq; , Isa 8:23; 23:9; cf., ch. 16:14, kal, to be light or insignificant) was a term used to denote whoever belonged to the lowest stratum of society (1 Sam 18:23). It was the opposite of nicbâd (from cabed, to be heavy or of great importance). The Septuagint rendering, oJ a>timov pro>v to>n e>ntimon is a very good one (as the Semitic languages have no such antithetical formations with aa stereetiko’n). With such contempt of the distinctions arising from age and position, the state would very soon become a scene of the wildest confusion.

ISAIAH 3:8 The prophet then proceeds, in vv. 8-12, to describe this deep, tragical misery as a just retribution. V. 8. “For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah fallen; because their tongue and their doings (are) against Jehovah, to defy the eyes of His glory.” Jerusalem as a city is feminine, according to the usual personification; Judah as a people is regarded as masculine. f19 The two preterites câsh’lâh and nâphal express the general fact, which occasioned such scenes of misery as the one just described. The second clause, beginning with “because” (chi), is a substantive clause, and attributes the coming judgment not to future sin, but to sin already existing. “Again Jehovah:” lae is used to denote a hostile attitude, as in Isa 2:4; Gen 4:8; Num 32:14; Josh 10:6. The capital and the land are against Jehovah both in word and deed, “to defy the eyes of His glory” (lamroth ‘eenee chebodo). `ˆyi[æ is equivalent to `ˆyi[æ ; and lamroth is a syncopated hiphil, as in Isa 23:11, and like the niphal in ch. 1:12: we find the same form of the same word in Ps 78:17. The kal mârâh, which is also frequently construed with the accusative, signifies to thrust away in a refractory manner; the hiphil himrâh, to treat refractorily, literally to set one’s self rigidly in opposition, obniti; mar, stringere, to draw tightly, with which unquestionably the meaning bitter as an astringent is connected, though it does not follow that mârâh, himrâh, and hemar (Ex 23:21) can be rendered parapikrai>nein , as they have been in the Septuagint, since the idea of opposing, resisting, fighting in opposition, is implied in all these roots, with distinct reference to the primary meaning. The Lamed is a shorter expression instead of ˆ[æmæ , which is the term generally employed in such circumstances (Amos 2:7; Jer 7:18; 32:29). But what does the prophet mean by “the eyes of His glory?” Knobel’s assertion, that châbod is used here for the religious glory, i.e., the holiness of God, is a very strange one, since the châbod of God is invariably the fiery, bright doxa which reveals Him as the Holy One. but his remark does not meet the question, inasmuch as it does not settle the point in dispute, whether the expression “the eyes of His glory” implies that the glory itself has eyes, or the glory is a quality of the eyes. The construction is certainly not a different one from “the arm of His glory” in Isa 52:10, so that it is to be taken as an attribute. But this suggests the further question, what does the prophet mean by the glory-eyes or glorious eyes of Jehovah? If we were to say the eyes of Jehovah are His knowledge of the world, it would be impossible to understand how they could be called holy, still less how they could be called glorious. This abstract explanation of the anthropomorphisms cannot be sustained. The state of the case is rather the following. The glory (chabod) of God is that eternal and glorious morphe which His holy nature assumes, and which men must picture to themselves anthropomorphically, because they cannot imagine anything superior to the human form. In this glorious form Jehovah looks upon His people with eyes of glory. His pure but yet jealous love, His holy love which breaks out in wrath against all who meet it with hatred instead of with love, is reflected therein.

ISAIAH 3:10-11 The prophet’s meaning is evident enough. But inasmuch as it is the curse of sin to distort the knowledge of what is most obvious and self-evident, and even to take it entirely away, the prophet dwells still longer upon the fact that all sinning is self-destruction and self-murder, placing this general truth against its opposite in a palillogical Johannic way, and calling out to his contemporaries in vv. 10, 11: “Say of the righteous, that it is well with him; for they will enjoy the fruit of their doings. Woe to the wicked! it is ill; for what his hands have wrought will be done to him.” We cannot adopt the rendering “Praise the righteous,” proposed by Vitringa and other modern commentators; for although âmar is sometimes construed with the accusative of the object (Ps 40:11; 145:6,11), it never means to praise, but to declare (even in Ps 40:11). We have here what was noticed from Gen 1:4 onwards-namely, the obvious antiptôsis or antiphonêsis in the verbs ha;r; (cf., Isa 22:9; Ex 2:2), [dæy; (1 Kings 5:17), and rmæa; (like le>gein , John 9:9): dicite justum quod bonus = dicite justum esse bonum (Ewald, §336, b).

The object of sight, knowledge, or speech, is first of all mentioned in the most general manner; then follows the qualification, or more precise definition. bwOf , and in v. 11 [ræ [ræ without the pause), might both of them be the third pers. pret. of the verbs, employed in a neuter sense: the former signifying, it is well, viz., with him (as in Deut 5:30; Jer 22:15-16); the latter, it is bad (as in Ps 106:32). But it is evident from Jer 44:17 that aWh bwOf and aWh [ræ may be used in the sense of kalw>v ( kakw>v ) e>cei , and that the two expressions are here thought of in this way, so that there is no ttæK; to be supplied in either case. The form of the first favours this; and in the second the accentuation fluctuates between ywa tiphchah [vrl munach, and the former with merka, the latter tiphchah. At the same time, the latter mode of accentuation, which is favourable to the personal rendering of [ræ , is supported by editions of some worth, such as Brescia 1494, Pesaro 1516, Venice 1515, 1521, and is justly preferred by Luzzatto and Bär. The summary assertions, The righteous is well, the wicked ill, are both sustained by their eventual fate, in the light of which the previous misfortune of the righteous appears as good fortune, and the previous good fortune of the wicked as misfortune. With an allusion to this great difference in their eventual fate, the word “say,” which belongs to both clauses, summons to an acknowledgment of the good fortune of the one and the misfortune of the other. O that Judah and Jerusalem would acknowledge their to their own salvation before it was too late! For the state of the poor nation was already miserable enough, and very near to destruction.

ISAIAH 3:12 “My people, its oppressors are boys, and women rule over it; my people, thy leaders are misleaders, who swallow up the way of thy paths.” It is not probable that me’olel signifies maltreaters or triflers, by the side of the parallel nâshim; moreover, the idea of despotic treatment is already contained in nogesaiv. We expect to find children where there are women.

And this is one meaning of me’olel. It does not mean a suckling, however, as Ewald supposes (§160, a), more especially as it occurs in connection with yonek (Jer 44:7; Lam 2:11), and therefore cannot have precisely the same meaning; but, like `llewO[ and `llewO[ (the former of which may be contracted from meoleel), it refers to the boy as playful and wanton (Lascivum, protervum). Böttcher renders it correctly, pueri, lusores, though meoleel is not in itself a collective form, as he supposes; but the singular is used collectively, or perhaps better still, the predicate is intended to apply to every individual included in the plural notion of the subject (compare Isa 16:8; 20:4, and Ges. §146, 4): the oppressors of the people, every one without exception, were (even though advance din years) mere boys or youths in their mode of thinking and acting, and made all subject to them the football of their capricious humour.

Here again the person of the king is allowed to fall into the background. but the female rule, referred to afterwards, points us to the court. And this must really have been the case when Ahaz, a young rake, came to the throne at the age of twenty (according to the LXX twenty-five), possibly towards the close of the reign of Jotham. With the deepest anguish the prophet repeats the expression “my people,” as he passes in his address to his people from the rulers to the preachers: for the meassherim or leaders are prophets (Mic 3:5); but what prophets! Instead of leading the people in a straight path, they lead them astray (Isa 9:15, cf., 2 Kings 21:9). This they did, as we may gather from the history of this crowd of prophets, either by acting in subservience to the ungodly interests of the court with dynastic or demagogical servility, or by flattering the worst desires of the people. Thus the way of the path of the people, i.e., the highway or road by whose ramifying paths the people were to reach the appointed goal, had been swallowed up by them, i.e., taken away from the sight and feet of the people, so that they could not find it and walk therein (cf., Isa 25:7-8, where the verb is used in another connection).

What is swallowed up is invisible, has disappeared, without a grace being left behind. The same idea is applied in Job 39:27 to a galloping horse, which is said to swallow the road, inasmuch as it leaves piece after piece behind it in its rapid course. It is stated here with regard to the prophets, that they swallow up the road appointed by Jehovah, as the one in which His people were to walk, just as a criminal swallows a piece of paper which bears witness against him, and so hides it in his own stomach. Thus the way of salvation pointed out by the law was no longer to be either heard of or seen. The prophets, who ought to have preached it, said mum, mum, and kept it swallowed. It had completely perished, as it were, in the erroneous preaching of the false prophets. ISAIAH 3:13 This was how it stood. There was but little to be expected from the exhortations of the prophet; so that he had to come back again and again to the proclamation of judgment. The judgment of the world comes again before his mind.-V. 13. “Jehovah has appeared to plead, and stands up to judge the nations.” When Jehovah, weary with His long-suffering, rises up from His heavenly throne, this is described as “standing up” (kum, Isa 2:19,21; 33:10); and when He assumes the judgment-seat in the sight of all the world, this is called “sitting down” (yashab, Ps. 9:5, Joel 4:12); when, having come down from heaven (Mic 1:2ff.), He comes forward as accuser, this is called “standing” (nizzab or amad, Ps 82:1: amad is coming forward and standing, as the opposite of sitting; nizzab, standing, with the subordinate idea of being firm, resolute, ready). This pleading (ribh, Jer 25:31) is also judging (din), because His accusation, which is incontrovertible, contains the sentence in itself; and His sentence, which executes itself irresistibly, is of itself the infliction of punishment. Thus does he stand in the midst of the nations at once accuser, judge, and executioner (Ps 7:8). But among the nations it is more especially against Israel that He contends; and in Israel it is more especially against the leaders of the poor misguided and neglected people that He sets Himself.

ISAIAH 3:14-15 “Jehovah will proceed to judgment with the elders of His people, and its princes. And ye, ye have eaten up the vineyard; prey of the suffering is in your houses. What mean ye that ye crush my people, and grind the face of the suffering? Thus saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts.” The words of God Himself commence with “and ye” (v’attem). The sentence to which this (et vos = at vos) is the antithesis is wanting, just as in Ps 2:6, where the words of God commence with “and I” (va’ani, et ego = ast ego). the tacit clause may easily be supplied, viz., I have set you over my vineyard, but he have consumed the vineyard. The only question is, whether the sentence is to be regarded as suppressed by Jehovah Himself, or by the prophet. Most certainly by Jehovah Himself. The majesty with which He appeared before the rulers of His people as, even without words, a practical and undeniable proof that their majesty was only a shadow of His, and their office His trust. But their office consisted in the fact that Jehovah had committed His people to their care. The vineyard of Jehovah was His people-a self-evident figure, which the prophet dresses up in the form of a parable in ch. 5.

Jehovah had appointed them as gardeners and keepers of this vineyard, but they themselves have become the very beasts that they ought to have warded off. r[æB; is applied to the beasts which completely devour the blades of a corn-field or the grapes of a vineyard (Ex 22:4). This change was perfectly obvious. The possessions stolen from their unhappy countrymen, which were still in their houses, were the tangible proof of their plundering of the vineyard. “The suffering:” ‘ani (depressus, the crushed) is introduced as explanatory of haccerem, the prey, because depression and misery were the ordinary fate of the congregation which God called His vineyard.

It was ecclesia pressa, but woe to the oppressors! In the question “what mean ye?” (mallâcem) the madness and wickedness of their deeds are implied. hm; and ttæK; are fused into one word here, as if it were a prefix (as in Ex 4:2; Ezek 8:6; Mal 1:13; vid., Ges. §20, 2). The keri helps to make it clear by resolving the chethibh. The word mallâcem ought, strictly speaking, to be followed by chi: “What is there to you that ye crush my people?” as in Isa 22:1,16; but the words rush forwards (as in Jonah 1:6), because they are an explosion of wrath. For this reason the expressions relating to the behaviour of the rulers are the strongest that can possibly be employed. ak;D; (crush) is also to be met with in Prov 22:22; but “grind the face” (tâchan p’ne) is a strong metaphor without a parallel. The former signifies “to pound,” the latter “to grind,” as the millstone grinds the corn.

They grind the faces of those who are already bowed down, thrusting them back with such unmerciful severity, that they stand as it were annihilated, and their faces become as white as flour, or as the Germans would say, cheese-white, chalk-white, as pale as death, from oppression and despair.

Thus the language supplied to a certain extent appropriate figures, with which to describe the conduct of the rulers of Israel; but it contained no words that could exhaust the immeasurable wickedness of their conduct: hence the magnitude of their sin is set before them in the form of a question, “What is to you?” i.e., What indescribable wickedness is this which you are committing? The prophet hears this said by Jehovah, the majestic Judge, whom he here describes as Adonai Elohim Zebaoth (according to the Masoretic pointing). This triplex name of God, which we find in the prophetic books, viz., frequently in Amos and also in Jer 2:19, occurs for the first time in the Elohistic Psalm, Ps 69:7. This scene of judgment is indeed depicted throughout in the colours of the Psalms, and more especially recals the (Elohistic) Psalm of Asaph (Ps 82).

ISAIAH 3:16-17 But notwithstanding the dramatic vividness with which the prophet pictures to himself this scene of judgment, he is obliged to break off at the very beginning of his description, because another word of Jehovah comes upon him. This applies to the women of Jerusalem, whose authority, at the time when Isaiah prophesied, was no less influential than that of their husbands who had forgotten their calling.-V. 16, 17. “Jehovah hath spoken: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk about with extended throat, and blinking with the eyes, walk about with tripping gait, and tinkle with their foot-ornaments: the Lord of all makes the crown of the daughters of Zion scabbed, and Jehovah will uncover their shame.”

Their inward pride (gâbah, as in Ezek 16:50; cf., Zeph 3:11) shows itself outwardly. They walk with extended throat, i.e., bending the neck back, trying to make themselves taller than they are, because they think themselves so great.

The keri substitutes the more usual form, hf;n; ; but Isaiah in all probability intentionally made use of the rarer and ruder form netuvoth, since such a form really existed (1 Sam 25:18), as well as the singular nâtu for nâtui (Job 15:22; 41:25: Ges. §75, Anm. 5). They also went winking the eyes (mesakkeroth, for which we frequently find the erratum meshakkeroth), i.e., casting voluptuous and amatory glances with affected innocence ( neu>mata ofqalmw>n , LXX). “Winking:” sâkar is not used in the sense of fucare (Targ. b. Sabbath 62b, Jome 9b, Luther)-which is all the more inappropriate, because blackening the eyelids with powder of antimony was regarded in the East of the Old Testament as indispensable to female beauty-but in the sense of nictare (LXX, Vulg., Syr., syn. remaz, cf., sekar, Syr. to squint; Targ. = shâzaph, Job 20:9). Compare also the talmudic saying: God did not create woman out of Adam’s ear, that she might be no eavesdropper (tsaithânith), nor out of Adam’s eyes, that she might be no winker (sakrânith). f20 The third was, that they walked incedendo et trepidando. The second inf. abs. is in this case, as in most others, the one which gives the distinct tone, whilst the other serves to keep before the eye the occurrence indicated in its finite verb (Ges. §131, 3). They walk about tripping (tâphoph, a widespread onomato-poetic word), i.e., taking short steps, just putting the heel of one foot against the toe of the other (as the Talmud explains it). Luther renders it, “they walk along and waggle” (schwânzen, i.e., clunibus agitatis). The rendering is suitable, but incorrect. They could only take short steps, because of the chains by which the costly foot-rings (achâsim) worn above their ankles were connected together. These chains, which were probably ornamented with bells, as is sometimes the case now in the East, they used to tinkle as they walked: they made an ankle-tinkling with their feet, setting their feet down in such a manner that these ankle-rings knocked against each other.

The writing beragleehem (masc.) for beragleehen (fem.) is probably not an unintentional synallage gen.: they were not modest virgines, but cold, masculine viragines, so that they themselves were a synallage generis.

Nevertheless they tripped along. Tripping is a child’s step. Nevertheless they tripped along. Tripping is a child’s step. Although well versed in sin and old in years, the women of Jerusalem tried to maintain a youthful, childlike appearance. They therefore tripped along with short, childish steps. The women of the Mohammedan East still take pleasure in such coquettish tinklings, although they are forbidden by the Koran, just as the women of Jerusalem did in the days of Isaiah. The attractive influence of natural charms, especially when heightened by luxurious art, is very great; but the prophet is blind to all this splendour, and seeing nothing but the corruption within, foretells to these rich and distinguished women a foul and by no means aesthetic fate. The Sovereign Ruler of all would smite the crown of their head, from which long hair was now flowing, with scab (v’sippach, a progressive preterite with Vav apodosis, a denom. verb from sappachath, the scurf which adheres to the skin: see at Hab 2:15); and Jehovah would uncover their nakedness, by giving them up to violation and abuse at the hands of coarse and barbarous foes-the greatest possible disgrace in the eyes of a woman, who covers herself as carefully as she can in the presence of any stranger (Isa 47:3; Nah 3:5; Jer 13:22; Ezek 16:37).

ISAIAH 3:18-23 The prophet then proceeds to describe still further how the Lord would take away the whole of their toilet as plunder. Vv. 18-23. “On that day the Lord will put away the show of the ankle-clasps, and of the head-bands, and of the crescents; the ear-rings, and the arm-chains, and the light veils; the diadems, and the stepping-chains, and the girdles, and the smellingbottles, and the amulets; the finger-rings, and the nose-rings; the galadresses, and the sleeve-frocks, and the wrappers, and the pockets; the hand-mirrors, and the Sindu-cloths, and the turbans, and the gauze mantles.” The fullest explanation of all these articles of female attire is to be found in N. W. Schröder’s work, entitled Commentarius de vestitu mulierum Hebraearum ad Jes. Isa 3:16-24, Ludg. Batav. 1745 (a quarto volume), and in that of Ant. Theod. Hartmann, consisting of three octavo volumes, and entitled Die Hebräerin am Putztische und als Braut (The Jewess at the Toilet-table, and as Bride, 1809-10); to which we may also add, Saalschütz, Archaeologie, ch. iii., where he treats of the dresses of men and women.

It was not usually Isaiah’s custom to enter into such minute particulars. Of all the prophets, Ezekiel was the one most addicted to this, as we may see, for example, from Ezek 16. And even in other prophecies against the women we find nothing of the kind again (Isa 32:9ff.; Amos 4:1ff.). But in this instance, the enumeration of the female ornaments is connected with that of the state props in Isa 3:1-3, and that of the lofty and exalted in Isa 2:13-16, so as to form a trilogy, and has its own special explanation in that boundless love of ornament which had become prevalent in the time of Uzziah-Jotham. It was the prophet’s intention to produce a ludicrous, but yet serious impression, as to the immeasurable luxury which really existed; and in the prophetic address, his design throughout is to bring out the glaring contrast between the titanic, massive, worldly glory, in all its varied forms, and that true, spiritual, and majestically simple glory, whose reality is manifested from within outwards.

In fact, the theme of the whole address is the way of universal judgment leading on from the false glory to the true. The general idea of tiphereth (show: rendered “bravery” in Eng. ver.) which stands at the head and includes the whole, points to the contrast presented by a totally different tiphereth which follows in Isa 4:2. In explaining each particular word, we must be content with what is most necessary, and comparatively the most certain. “Ankle-clasps” (acâsim): these were rings of gold, silver, or ivory, worn round the ankles; hence the denom. verb (icces) in v. 16, to make a tinkling sound with these rings. “Head-bands,” or “frontlets” (shebisim, from shâbas = shâbatz: plectere), were plaited bands of gold or silver thread worn below the hair-net, and reaching from one ear to the other. There is some force, however, in the explanation which has been very commonly adopted since the time of Schröder, namely, that they were sunlike balls (= shemisim), which were worn as ornaments round the neck, from the Arabic ‘sumeisa (‘subeisa), a little sun.

The “crescents” (saharonim) were little pendants of this kind, fastened round the neck and hanging down upon the breast (in Judg 8:21 we meet with them as ornaments hung round the camels’ necks). Such ornaments are still worn by Arabian girls, who generally have several different kinds of them; the hilâl, or new moon, being a symbol of increasing good fortune, and as such the most approved charm against the evil eye. “Ear-rings” (netiphoth, ear-drops): we meet with these in Judg 8:26, as an ornament worn by Midianitish kings. Hence the Arabic munattafe, a woman adorned with ear-rings. “Arm-chains:” sheroth, from shâra, to twist. According to the Targum, these were chains worn upon the arm, or spangles upon the wrist, answering to the spangles upon the ankles. “Fluttering veils” (re’âloth, from râ’al, to hang loose): these were more expensive than the ordinary veils worn by girls, which were called tza’iph. “Diadems” (pe’erim) are only mentioned in other parts of the Scriptures as being worn by men (e.g., by priests, bride-grooms, or persons of high rank). “Stepping-chains:” tze’âdoth, from tze’âdah, a step; hence the chain worn to shorten and give elegance to the step. “Girdles:” kisshurim, from kâshar (cingere), dress girdles, such as were worn by brides upon their wedding-day (compare Jer 2:32 with Isa 49:18); the word is erroneously rendered hair-pins (kalmasmezayyah) in the Targum. “Smelling-bottles:” botte hannephesh, holders of scent (nephesh, the breath of an aroma). “Amulets:” lechashim (from lâchash, to work by incantations), gems or metal plates with an inscription upon them, which were worn as a protection as well as an ornament. “Finger-rings:” tabbâ’oth, from tâba, to impress or seal, signet-rings worn upon the finger, corresponding to the chothâm worn by men upon the breast suspended by a cord. “Nose-rings” (nizmee hâaph) were fastened in the central division of the nose, and hung down over the mouth: they have been ornaments in common use in the East from the time of the patriarchs (Gen 24:22) down to the present day. “Gala-dresses” (machalâtsoth) are dresses not usually worn, but taken off when at home. “Sleeve-frocks” (ma’atâphâh): the second tunic, worn above the ordinary one, the Roman stola. “Wrappers” (mitpâchoth, from tâphach, expandere), broad cloths wrapped round the body, such as Ruth wore when she crept in to Boaz in her best attire (Rut. Ruth 3:15). “Pockets” (charitim) were for holding money (2 Kings 5:23), which was generally carried by men in the girdle, or in a purse (cis). “Hand-mirrors” (gilyonim): the Septuagint renders this diafanee’ lakoonika’, sc. iJma>tia , Lacedaemonian gauze or transparent dresses, which showed the nakedness rather than concealed it (from gâlâh, retegere); but the better rendering is mirrors with handles, polished metal plates (from gâlâh, polire), as gillâyon is used elsewhere to signify a smooth table. “Sindu-cloths” (sedinim), veils or coverings of the finest linen, viz., of Sindu or Hindu cloth ( sindo>nev )- Sindu, the land of Indus, being the earlier name of India. f21 “Turbans” (tseniphoth, from tsânaph, convolvere), the head-dress composed of twisted cloths of different colours. “Gauze mantles” (redidim, from râdad, extendere, tenuem facere), delicate veil-like mantles thrown over the rest of the clothes. Stockings and handkerchiefs are not mentioned: the former were first introduced into Hither Asia from Media long after Isaiah’s time, and a Jerusalem lady no more thought of suing the latter than a Grecian or Roman lady did. Even the veil (burko) now commonly worn, which conceals the whole of the face with the exception of the eyes, did not form part of the attire of an Israelitish woman in the olden time. f22 The prophet enumerates twenty-one different ornaments: three sevens of a very bad kind, especially for the husbands of these state-dolls. There is no particular order observed in the enumeration, either from head to foot, or from the inner to the outer clothing; but they are arranged as much ad libitum as the dress itself.

ISAIAH 3:24 When Jehovah took away all this glory, with which the women of Jerusalem were adorned, they would be turned into wretched-looking prisoners, disfigured by ill-treatment and dirt.-V. 24. “And instead of balmy scent there will be mouldiness, and instead of the sash a rope, and instead of artistic ringlets a baldness, and instead of the dress-cloak a frock of sackcloth, branding instead of beauty.” Mouldiness, or mother (mak, as in Isa 5:24, the dust of things that have moulded away), with which they would be covered, and which they would be obliged to breathe, would take the place of the bosem, i.e., the scent of the balsam shrub (bâsâm), and of sweet-scented pomade in general; and nipâh that of the beautifully embroidered girdle (Prov 31:24). The meaning of this word is neither “a wound,” as the Targums and Talmud render it, nor “rags,” as given by Knobel, ed. 1 (from nâkaph, percutere, perforare), but the rope thrown over them as prisoners (from kâphâh = kâvâh, contorquere: LXX, Vulg., Syr.). f23 Baldness takes the place of artistic ringlets hv,q]mi hc,[mæ , not hc,[mæ , so that it is in apposition: cf., Isa 30:20; Ges. §113; Ewald, §287, b). The reference is not to golden ornaments for the head, as the Sept. rendering gives it, although miksheh is used elsewhere to signify embossed or carved work in metal or wood; but here we are evidently to understand by the “artificial twists” either curls made with the curling-tongs, or the hair plaited and twisted up in knots, which they would be obliged to cut off in accordance with the mourning customs (Isa 15:2; 22:12), or which would fall off in consequence of grief. A frock of sackcloth (machagoreth sak), i.e., a smock of coarse haircloth worn next to the skin, such as Layard found depicted upon a bas-relief at Kouyunjik, would take the place of the pethigil, i.e., the dress-cloak (either from pâthag, to be wide or full, with the substantive termination îl, or else composed of pethi, breadth, and gil, festive rejoicing); and branding the place of beauty. Branding (ci = cevi, from câvâh, kai>ein ), the mark burnt upon the forehead by their conquerors: ci is a substantive, not a particle, as the Targum and others render it, and as the makkeph might make it appear. There is something very effective in the inverted order of the words in the last clause of the five. In this five-fold reverse would shame and mourning take the place of proud, voluptuous rejoicing.

ISAIAH 3:25 The prophet now passes over to a direct address to Jerusalem itself, since the “daughters of Zion” and the daughter of Zion in her present degenerate condition. The daughter of Zion loses her sons, and consequently the daughters of Zion their husbands.-V. 25. “Thy men will fall by the sword, and thy might in war.” The plural methim (the singular of which only occurs in the form methu, with the connecting vowel û as a component part of the proper names) is used as a prose word in the Pentateuch; but in the later literature it is a poetic archaism. “Thy might” is used interchangeably with “thy men,” the possessors of the might being really intended, like robur and robora in Latin (compare Jer 49:35). ISAIAH 3:26 What the prophet here foretells to the daughter of Zion he sees in v. fulfilled upon her: “Then will her gates lament and mourn, and desolate is she, sits down upon the ground.” The gates, where the husbands of the daughters of Zion, who have now fallen in war, sued at one time to gather together in such numbers, are turned into a state of desolation, in which they may, as it were, be heard complaining, and seen to mourn (Isa 14:31; Jer 14:2; Lam 1:4); and the daughter of Zion herself is utterly vacated, thoroughly emptied, completely deprived of all her former population; and in this state of the most mournful widowhood or orphanage, brought down from her lofty seat (Isa 47:1) and princely glory (Jer 13:18), she sits down upon the ground, just as Judaea is represented as doing upon Roman medals that were struck after the destruction of Jerusalem, where she is introduced as a woman thoroughly broken down, and sitting under a palmtree in an attitude of despair, with a warrior standing in front of her, the inscription upon the medal being Judaea capta, or devicta. The Septuagint rendering is quite in accordance with the sense, viz., kai> kataleifqh>sh mo>nh kai> eiv th>n gh>n edafisqh>sh (cf., Luke 19:44), except that bvæy; is not the second person, but the third, and hq;n; the third pers. pret. niph. for ht;Q]ni -a pausal form which is frequently met with in connection with the smaller distinctive accents, such as silluk and athnach (here it occurs with tiphchah, as, for example, in Amos 3:8). The clause “sits down upon the ground” is appended asunde>twv ;-a frequent construction in cases where one of two verbs defines the other in a manner which is generally expressed adverbially (vid., 1 Chron 13:2, and the inverted order of the words in Jer 4:5; cf., Isa 12:6): Zion sits upon the earth in a state of utter depopulation.

ISAIAH 4:1 When war shall thus unsparingly have swept away the men of Zion, a most unnatural effect will ensue, namely, that women will go in search of husbands, and not men in search of wives.-Ch. Isa 4:1. “And seven women lay hold of one man in that day, saying, We will eat our won bread, and wear our own clothes; only let thy name be named upon us, take away our reproach.” The division of the chapters is a wrong one here, as this verse is the closing verse of the prophecy against the women, and the closing portion of the whole address does not begin till Isa 4:2. The present pride of the daughters of Zion, every one of whom now thought herself the greatest as the wife of such and such a man, and for whom many men were now the suitors, would end in this unnatural self-humiliation, that seven of them would offer themselves to the same man, the first man who presented himself, and even renounce the ordinary legal claim upon their husband for clothing and food (Ex 21:10). It would be quite sufficient for them to be allowed to bear his name (“let thy name be named upon us:” the name is put upon the thing named, as giving it its distinctness and character), if he would only take away their reproach (namely, the reproach of being unmarried, Isa 54:4, as in Gen 30:23, of being childless) by letting them be called his wives. The number seven (seven women to one man) may be explained on the ground that there is a bad seven as well as a holy one (e.g., Matt 12:45).

In Isa 4:1 the threat denounced against the women of Jerusalem is brought to a close. It is the side-piece to the threat denounced against the national rulers. And these two scenes of judgment were only parts of the general judgment about to fall upon Jerusalem and Judah, as a state or national community. And this again was merely a portion, viz., the central group of the picture of a far more comprehensive judgment, which was about to fall upon everything lofty and exalted on the earth. Jerusalem, therefore, stands here as the centre and focus of the great judgment-day. It was in Jerusalem that the ungodly glory which was ripe for judgment was concentrated; and it was in Jerusalem also that the light of the true and final glory would concentrate itself. To this promise, with which the address returns to its starting-point, the prophet now passes on without any further introduction.

In fact it needed no introduction, for the judgment in itself was the medium of salvation. When Jerusalem was judged, it would be sifted; and by being sifted, it would be rescued, pardoned, glorified. The prophet proceeds in this sense to speak of what would happen in that day, and describes the one great day of God at the end of time (not a day of four-and-twenty hours any more than the seven days of creation were), according to its general character, as opening with judgment, but issuing in salvation.

ISAIAH 4:2 “In that day will the sprout of Jehovah become an ornament and glory, and the fruit of the land pride and splendour for the redeemed of Israel.” The four epithets of glory, which are here grouped in pairs, strengthen our expectation, that now that the mass of Israel has been swept away, together with the objects of its worthless pride, we shall find a description of what will become an object of well-grounded pride to the “escaped of Israel,” i.e., to the remnant that has survived the judgment, and been saved from destruction. But with this interpretation of the promise it is impossible that it can be the church of the future itself, which is here called the “sprout of Jehovah” and “fruit of the land,” as Luzzatto and Malbim suppose; and equally impossible, with such an antithesis between what is promised and what is abolished, that the “sprout of Jehovah” and “fruit of the earth” should signify the harvest blessings bestowed by Jehovah, or the rich produce of the land.

For although the expression zemach Jehovah (sprout of Jehovah) may unquestionably be used to signify this, as in Gen 2:9 and Ps 104:14 (cf., Isa 61:11), and fruitfulness of the land is a standing accompaniment of the eschatological promises (e.g., Isa 30:23ff., compare the conclusion of Joel and Amos), and it was also foretold that the fruitful fields of Israel would become a glory in the sight of the nations (Ezek 34:29; Mal 3:12; cf., Joel 2:17); yet this earthly material good, of which, moreover, there was no lack in the time of Uzziah and Jotham, was altogether unsuitable to set forth such a contrast as would surpass and outshine the worldly glory existing before. But even granting what Hofmann adduces in support of this view-namely, that the natural God-given blessings of the field do form a fitting antithesis to the studied works of art of which men had hitherto been proud-there is still truth in the remark of Rosenmüller, that “the magnificence of the whole passage is at variance with such an interpretation.”

Only compare Isa 28:5, where Jehovah Himself is described in the same manner, as the glory and ornament of the remnant of Israel. But if the “sprout of Jehovah” is neither the redeemed remnant itself, nor the fruit of the field, it must be the name of the Messiah. And it is in this sense that it has been understood by the Targum, and by such modern commentators as Rosenmüller, Hengstenberg, Steudel, Umbreit, Caspari, Drechsler, and others. The great King of the future is called zemach, anatolh> in the sense of Heb 7:14, viz., as a shoot springing out of the human, Davidic, earthly soil-a shoot which Jehovah had planted in the earth, and would cause to break through and spring forth as the pride of His congregation, which was waiting for this heavenly child. It is He again who is designated in the parallel clause as the “fruit of the land” (or lit., fruit of the earth), as being the fruit which the land of Israel, and consequently the earth itself, would produce, just as in Ezek 17:5 Zedekiah is called a “seed of the earth.” The reasons already adduced to show that “the sprout of Jehovah” cannot refer to the blessings of the field, apply with equal force to “the fruit of the earth.” This also relates to the Messiah Himself, regarded as the fruit in which all the growth and bloom of this earthly history would eventually reach its promised and divinely appointed conclusion. The use of this double epithet to denote “the coming One” can only be accounted for, without anticipating the New Testament standpoint, from the desire to depict His double-sided origin. He would come, on the one hand, from Jehovah; but, on the other hand, from the earth, inasmuch as He would spring from Israel. We have here the passage, on the basis of which zemach (the sprout of “Branch”) was adopted by Jeremiah (Jer 23:5 and 33:15) and Zechariah (Zech 3:8; 6:12) as a proper name for the Messiah, and upon which Matthew, by combining this proper name zemach (sprout) with nezer (Isa 11:1, cf., 53:2), rests his affirmation, that according to the Old Testament prophecies the future Messiah was to be called a Nazarene. It is undoubtedly strange that this epithet should be introduced so entirely without preparation even by Isaiah, who coined it first. In fact, the whole passage relating to the Messiah stands quite alone in this cycle of prophecies in ch. 1-6. But the book of Isaiah is a complete and connected work. What the prophet indicates merely in outline here, he carries out more fully in the cycle of prophecies which follows in ch. 7-12; and there the enigma, which he leaves as an enigma in the passage before us, receives the fullest solution. Without dwelling any further upon the man of the future, described in this enigmatically symbolical way, the prophet hurries on to a more precise description of the church of the future.

ISAIAH 4:3 “And it will come to pass, whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem, holy will he be called, all who are written down for life in Jerusalem.” The leading emphasis of the whole verse rests upon kadosh (holy). Whereas formerly in Jerusalem persons had been distinguished according to their rank and condition, without any regard to their moral worth (Isa 3:1-3,10- 11; cf., Isa 32:5); so the name kadosh (holy) would now be the one chief name of honour, and would be given to every individual, inasmuch as the national calling of Israel would now be realized in the persons of all (Ex 19:6, etc.). Consequently the expression “he shall be called” is not exactly equivalent to “he shall be,” but rather presupposes the latter, as in Isa 1:26; 61:6; 62:4. The term kadosh denotes that which is withdrawn from the world, or separated from it. The church of the saints or holy ones, which now inhabits Jerusalem, is what has been left from the smelting; and their holiness is the result of washing. rtæy; is interchanged with raæv; .

The latter, as Papenheim has shown in his Hebrew synonyms, involves the idea of intention, viz., “that which has been left behind;” the former merely expresses the fact, viz., that which remains. The character of this “remnant of grace,” and the number of members of which it would consist, are shown in the apposition contained in v. 3b. This apposition means something more than those who are entered as living in Jerusalem, i.e., the population of Jerusalem as entered in the city register (Hofmann); for the verb with Lamed does not mean merely to enter as a certain thing, but (like the same verb with the accusative in Jer 22:30) to enter as intended for a certain purpose. The expression yjæ may either be taken as a noun, viz., “to life” (Dan 12:2), or as an adjective, “to the living” (a meaning which is quite as tenable; cf., Ps 69:29; 1 Sam 25:29). In either case the notion of predestination is implied, and the assumption of the existence of a divine “book of life” (Ex 32:32-33; Dan 12:1; cf., Ps 139:16); so that the idea is the same as that of Acts 13:48: “As many as were ordained to eternal life.”

The reference here is to persons who were entered in the book of God, on account of the good kernel of faith within them, as those who should become partakers of the life in the new Jerusalem, and should therefore be spared in the midst of the judgment of sifting in accordance with this divine purpose of grace. For it was only through the judgment setting this kernel of faith at liberty, that such a holy community as is described in the protasis which comes afterwards, as in Ps 63:6-7, could possibly arise.

ISAIAH 4:4 “When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged away the bloodguiltinesses of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of sifting.” “When,” followed by a preterite (equivalent to a fut. exact. as in Isa 24:13; Ges. §126, 5), introduces the circumstance, whose previous occurrence would be the condition of all the rest. The force of the future yâdiach (“shall have purged”) is regulated by that of the preterite râchatz, as in Isa 6:11; for although, when regarded simply by itself, as in Isa 10:12, the future tense may suggest the idea of a future prefect, it cannot have the force of such a future. The double purification answers to the two scenes of judgment described in ch. 3. The filth of the daughters of Zion is the moral pollution hidden under their vain and coquettish finery; and the murderous deeds of Jerusalem are the acts of judicial murder committed by its rulers upon the poor and innocent.

This filth and these spots of blood the Sovereign Ruler washes and purges away (see 2 Chron 4:6), by causing His spirit or His breath to burst in upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, both male and female. This breath is called “the spirit of judgment,” because it punishes evil; and “the spirit of sifting,” inasmuch as it sweeps or cleans it away. r[æB; is to be explained, as in Isa 6:13, in accordance with Deut 13:6 (5, Eng. Ver.; “put the evil away”) and other passages, such especially as Isa 19:13; 21:9. The rendering given in the Septuagint and Vulgate, viz., “in the spirit of burning,” is founded upon the radical meaning of the verb, which signifies literally to burn up, and hence to clear away or destroy (see Comm. on Job, at 31:12, Eng. Tr.).

Nevertheless, “burning” in connection with judgment is not definite enough, since every manifestation of divine judgment is a manifestation of fire; but it is not every judgment that has connected with it what is here implied-namely, the salutary object of burning away or, in other words, of winnowing. The “spirit” is in both instances the Spirit of God which pervades the world, not only generating and sustaining life, but also at times destroying and sifting (Isa 30:27-28), as it does in the case before us, in which the imperishable glory described in v. 5 is so prepared.

ISAIAH 4:5 “And Jehovah creates over every spot of Mount Zion, and over its festal assemblies, a cloud by day, and smoke, and the shining of flaming fire by night: for over all the glory comes a canopy.” Just as Jehovah guided and shielded Israel in the days of the redemption from Egypt in a smoke-cloud by day and a fire-cloud by night, which either moved in front like a pillar, or floated above them as a roof (Num 14:14, etc.), the perpetuation of His presence at Sinai (Ex 19:9,16ff.); so would Jehovah in like manner shield the Israel of the final redemption, which would no longer need the pillar of cloud since its wanderings would be over, but only the cloudy covering; and such a covering Jehovah would create, as the praet. consec. ar;B; (“and He creates”) distinctly affirms. The verb bârâh always denotes a divine and miraculous production, having its commencement in time; for even the natural is also supernatural in its first institution by God. In the case before us, however, the reference is to a fresh manifestation of His gracious presence, exalted above the present course of nature. This manifestation would consist by day in “a cloud,” and as the hendiadys “cloud and smoke” (i.e., cloud in form and smoke in substance) distinctly affirms, a smoke-cloud, not a watery cloud, like those which ordinarily cover the sky; and by night in a fiery splendour, not merely a lingering fiery splendour like that of the evening sky, but, as the words clearly indicate, a flaming brightness (lehâbâh), and therefore real and living fire. The purpose of the cloud would not only be to overshadow, but also to serve as a wall of defence against opposing influences; and the fire would not only give light, but by flaming and flashing would ward off hostile powers. But, above all, the cloud and fire were intended as signs of the nearness of God, and His satisfaction. In the most glorious times of the temple a smokecloud of this kind filled the Holy of holies; and there was only one occasion-namely, at the dedication of Solomon’s temple-on which it filled the whole building (1 Kings 8:10); but now the cloud, the smoke of which, moreover, would be turned at night into flaming fire, would extend over every spot (mâcoon, a more poetical word for mâkoom) of Mount Zion, and over the festal assemblies thereon. The whole mountain would thus become a Holy of holies. It would be holy not only as being the dwellingplace of Jehovah, but as the gathering-place of a community of saints. “Her assemblies” (mikrâehâ) points back to Zion, and is a plural written defectively (at least in our editions as, for example, in Jer 19:8. There is no necessity to take this noun in the sense of “meeting halls’ (a meaning which it never has anywhere else), as Gesenius, Ewald, Hitzig, and others have done, since it may also signify “the meetings,” though not in an abstract, but in a concrete sense (ecclesiae). f28 The explanatory clause, “for over all the glory (comes) a canopy,” admits of several interpretations. Dr. Shegg and others take it in the general sense: “for defence and covering are coming for all that is glorious.” Now, even if this thought were not so jejune as it is, the word chuppâh would not be the word used to denote covering for the sake of protection; it signifies rather covering for the sake of beautifying and honouring that which is covered.

Chuppâh is the name still given by the Jews to the wedding canopy, i.e., a canopy supported on four poles and carried by four boys, under which the bride and bridegroom receive the nuptial blessing-a meaning which is apparently more appropriate, even in Ps 19:6 and Joel 2:16, than the ordinary explanation thalamus to torus. Such a canopy would float above Mount Zion in the form of a cloud of smoke and blaze of fire. (There is no necessity to take chuppâh as a third pers. pual, since hy;h; , which follows immediately afterwards in v. 6, may easily be supplied in thought.) The only question is whether col-câbood signifies “every kind of glory,” or according to Ps 39:6; 45:14, “pure glory” (Hofmann, Stud. u. Krit. 1847, pp. 936-38). The thought that Jerusalem would now be “all glory,” as its inhabitants were all holiness, and therefore that this shield would be spread out over pure glory, is one that thoroughly commends itself. but we nevertheless prefer the former, as more in accordance with the substantive clause. The glory which Zion would now possess would be exposed to no further injury: Jehovah would acknowledge it by signs of His gracious presence; for henceforth there would be nothing glorious in Zion, over which there would not be a canopy spread in the manner described, shading and yet enlightening, hiding, defending, and adorning it.

ISAIAH 4:6 Thus would Zion be a secure retreat from all adversities and disasters. V. 6. “And it will be a booth for shade by day from the heat of the sun, and for a refuge and covert from storm and from rain.” The subject to “will be” is not the miraculous roofing; for ânân (cloud) is masculine, and the verb feminine, and there would be no sense in saying that a chuppâh or canopy would be a succâh or booth. Either, therefore, the verb contains the subject in itself, and the meaning is, “There will be a booth” (the verb hâyâh being used in a pregnant sense, as in Isa 15:6; 23:13); or else Zion (v. 5) is the subject. We prefer the latter. Zion or Jerusalem would be a booth, that is to say, as the parallel clause affirms, a place of security and concealment (mistor, which only occurs here, is used on account of the alliteration with machseh in the place of sether, which the prophet more usually employs, viz., in Isa 28:17; 32:2). “By day” (yoomâm, which is construed with lxe in the construct state, cf., Ezek 30:16) is left intentionally without any “by night” to answer to it in the parallel clause, because reference is made to a place of safety and concealment for all times, whether by day or night.

Heat, storm, and rain are mentioned as examples to denote the most manifold dangers; but it is a singular fact that rain, which is a blessing so earnestly desired in the time of chooreb, i.e., of drought and burning heat, should also be included. At the present day, when rain falls in Jerusalem, the whole city dances with delight. Nevertheless rain, i.e., the rain which falls from the clouds, is not paradisaical; and its effects are by no means unfrequently destructive. According to the archives of Genesis, rain from the clouds took the place of dew for the first time at the flood, when it fell in a continuous and destructive form. The Jerusalem of the last time will be paradise restored; and there men will be no longer exposed to destructive changes of weather. In this prediction the close of the prophetic discourse is linked on to the commencement. This mountain of Zion, roofed over with a cloud of smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night, is no other than the mountain of the house of Jehovah, which was to be exalted above all the mountains, and to which the nations would make their pilgrimage; and this Jerusalem, so holy within, and all glorious without, is no other than the place from which the word of Jehovah was one day to go forth into all the world.

But what Jerusalem is this? Is it the Jerusalem of the time of final glory awaiting the people of God in this life, as described in Rev 11 (for, notwithstanding all that a spiritualistic and rationalistic anti-chiliasm may say, the prophetic words of both Old and New Testament warrant us in expecting such a time of glory in this life); or is it the Jerusalem of the new heaven and new earth described in Rev. 20:21? The true answer is, “Both in one.” The prophet’s real intention was to depict the holy city in its final and imperishable state after the last judgment. But to his view, the state beyond and the closing state here were blended together, so that the glorified Jerusalem of earth and the glorified Jerusalem of heaven appeared as if fused into one. It was a distinguishing characteristic of the Old Testament, to represent the closing scene on this side the grave, and the eternal state beyond, as a continuous line, having its commencement here.

The New Testament first drew the cross line which divides time from eternity. It is true, indeed, as the closing chapters of the Apocalypse show, that even the New Testament prophecies continue to some extent to depict the state beyond in figures drawn from the present world; with this difference, however, that when the line had once been drawn, the demand was made, of which there was no consciousness in the Old Testament, that the figures taken from this life should be understood as relating to the life beyond, and that eternal realities should be separated from their temporal forms. JUDGMENT OF DEVASTATION UPON THE VINEYARD OF JEHOVAH Closing Words of the First Cycle of Prophecies The foregoing prophecy has run through all the different phases of prophetic exhortation by the time that we reach the close of ch. 4; and its leading thought, viz., the overthrow of the false glory of Israel, and the perfect establishment of true glory through the medium of judgment, has been so fully worked out, that ch. 5 cannot possibly be regarded either as a continuation or as an appendix to that address. Unquestionably there are many points in which ch. 5 refers back to ch. 2-4. The parable of the vineyard in Isa 5:1-7 grows, as it were, out of ch. 3:14; and in ch. 5:15 we have a repetition of the refrain in Isa 2:9, varied in a similar manner to ch. 2:17. But these and other points of contact with ch. 2-4, whilst they indicate a tolerable similarity in date, by no means prove the absence of independence in ch. 5. The historical circumstances of the two addresses are the same; and the range of thought is therefore closely related. But the leading idea which is carried out in ch. 5 is a totally different one. The basis of the address is a parable representing Israel as the vineyard of Jehovah, which, contrary to all expectation, had produced bad fruit, and therefore was given up to devastation. What kind of bad fruit it produced is described in a six-fold “woe;” and what kind of devastation was to follow is indicated in the dark nocturnal conclusion to the whole address, which is entirely without a promise.

ISAIAH 5:1-2 The prophet commenced his first address in ch. 1 like another Moses; the second, which covered no less ground, he opened with the text of an earlier prophecy; and now he commences the third like a musician, addressing both himself and his hearers with enticing words. V. 1a. “Arise, I will sing of my beloved, a song of my dearest touching his vineyard.” The fugitive rhythm, the musical euphony, the charming assonances in this appeal, it is impossible to reproduce. They are perfectly inimitable. The Lamed in liidiidii is the Lamed objecti. The person to whom the song referred, to whom it applied, of whom it treated, was the singer’s own beloved. It was a song of his dearest one (not his cousin, patruelis, as Luther renders it in imitation of the Vulgate, for the meaning of dood is determined by yâdid, beloved) touching his vineyard. The Lamed in l’carmo is also Lamed objecti. The song of the beloved is really a song concerning the vineyard of the beloved; and this song is a song of the beloved himself, not a song written about him, or attributed to him, but such a song as he himself had sung, and still had to sing.

The prophet, by beginning in this manner, was surrounded (either in spirit or in outward reality) by a crowd of people from Jerusalem and Judah. The song is a short one, and runs thus in vv. 1b, 2: “My beloved had a vineyard on a fatly nourished mountain-horn, and dug it up and cleared it of stones, and planted it with noble vines, and built a tower in it, and also hewed out a wine-press therein; and hoped that it would bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.” The vineyard was situated upon a keren, i.e., upon a prominent mountain peak projecting like a horn, and therefore open to the sun on all sides; for, as Virgil says in the Georgics, “apertos Bacchus amat colles.” This mountain horn was ben-shemen, a child of fatness: the fatness was innate, it belonged to it by nature (shemen is used, as in Isa 28:1, to denote the fertility of a nutritive loamy soil). And the owner of the vineyard spared no attention or trouble.

The plough could not be used, from the steepness of the mountain slope: he therefore dug it up, that is to say, he turned up the soil which was to be made into a vineyard with a hoe (izzeek, to hoe; Arab. mi’zak, mi’zaka); and as he found it choked up with stones and boulders, he got rid of this rubbish by throwing it out sikkeel, a privative piel, lapidibus purgare, then operam consumere in lapides, sc. ejiciendos, to stone, or clear of stones:

Ges. §52, 2). After the soil had been prepared he planted it with sorek, i.e., the finest kind of eastern vine, bearing small grapes of a bluish-red, with pips hardly perceptible to the tongue. The name is derived from its colour (compare the Arabic zerka, red wine). To protect and adorn the vineyard which had been so richly planted, he built a tower in the midst of it. The expression “and also” calls especial attention to the fact that he hewed out a wine-trough therein (yekeb, the trough into which the must or juice pressed from the grapes in the wine-press flows, lacus as distinguished from torcular); that is to say, in order that the trough might be all the more fixed and durable, he constructed it in a rocky portion of the ground (châtseeb bo instead of chatsab bo, with a and the accent drawn back, because a Beth was thereby easily rendered inaudible, so that châtseeb is not a participial adjective, as Böttcher supposes). This was a difficult task, as the expression “and also” indicates; and for that very reason it was an evidence of the most confident expectation. But how bitterly was this deceived! The vineyard produced no such fruit, as might have been expected from a sorek plantation; it brought forth no ‘anâbim whatever, i.e., no such grapes as a cultivated vine should bear, but only b’ushim, or wild grapes. Luther first of all adopted the rendering wild grapes, and then altered it to harsh or sour grapes. But it comes to the same thing. The difference between a wild vine and a good vine is only qualitative. The vitis vinifera, like all cultivated plants, is assigned to the care of man, under which it improves; whereas in its wild state it remains behind its true intention (see Genesis, §622). Consequently the word b’ushim (from bâ’ash, to be bad, or smell bad) denotes not only the grapes of the wild vine, which are naturally small and harsh (Rashi, lambruches, i.e., grapes of the labrusca, which is used now, however, as the botanical name of a vine that is American in its origin), but also grapes of a good stock, which have either been spoiled or have failed to ripen. f29 These were the grapes which the vineyard produced, such as you might indeed have expected from a wild vine, but not from carefully cultivated vines of the very choicest kind.

ISAIAH 5:3-4 The song of the beloved who was so sorely deceived terminates here. The prophet recited it, not his beloved himself; but as they were both of one heart and one soul, the prophet proceeds thus in vv. 3 and 4: “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard! What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore did I hope that it would bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes?” The fact that the prophet speaks as if he were the beloved himself, shows at once who the beloved must be. The beloved of the prophet and the lover of the prophet (yâdid and dood) were Jehovah, with whom he was so united by a union mystica exalted above all earthly love, that, like the angel of Jehovah in the early histories, he could speak as if he were Jehovah Himself (see especially Zech. 2:12-15). To any one with spiritual intuition, therefore, the parabolical meaning and object of the song would be at once apparent; and even the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah (yoosheeb and iish are used collectively, as in Isa 8:14; 9:8; 22:21, cf., 20:6) were not so stupefied by sin, that they could not perceive to what the prophet was leading. It was for them to decide where the guilt of this unnatural issue lay-that is to say, of this thorough contradiction between the “doing” of the vineyard and the “doing” of the Lord; that instead of the grapes he hoped for, it brought forth wild grapes. (On the expression “what could have been done,” quid faciendum est, mah-la’asoth, see at Hab 1:17, Ges. §132, Anm. 1.) Instead of hm; hm; ) we have the more suitable term [æWDmæ , the latter being used in relation to the actual cause (causa efficiens), the former in relation to the object (causa finalis). The parallel to the second part, viz., Isa 50:2, resembles the passage before us, not only in the use of this particular word, but also in the fact that there, as well as here, it relates to both clauses, and more especially to the latter of the two. We find the same paratactic construction in connection with other conjunctions (cf., Isa 12:1; 65:12). They were called upon to decide and answer as to this what and wherefore; but they were silent, just because they could clearly see that they would have to condemn themselves (as David condemned himself in connection with Nathan’s parable,2 Sam 12:5). The Lord of the vineyard, therefore, begins to speak. He, its accuser, will now also be its judge.

ISAIAH 5:5 “Now then, I will tell you what I will do at once to my vineyard: take away its hedge, and it shall be for grazing; pull down its wall, and it shall be for treading down.” Before “now then” (v’attâh) we must imagine a pause, as in Isa 3:14. The Lord of the vineyard breaks the silence of the umpires, which indicates their consciousness of guilt. They shall hear from Him what He will do at once to His vineyard (Lamed in l’carmi, as, for example, in Deut 11:6). “I will do:” ani ‘ooseh, fut. instans, equivalent to facturus sum (Ges. §134, 2, b). In the inf. abs. which follow He opens up what He will do. On this explanatory use of the inf. abs., see Isa 20:2; 58:6-7. In such cases as these it takes the place of the object, as in other cases of the subject, but always in an abrupt manner (Ges. §131, 1). He would take away the mesucah, i.e., the green thorny hedge (Prov 15:19; Hos 2:8) with which the vineyard was enclosed, and would pull down the gâreed, i.e., the low stone wall (Num 22:24; Prov 24:31), which had been surrounded by the hedge of thorn-bushes to make a better defence, as well as for the protection of the wall itself, more especially against being undermined; so that the vineyard would be given up to grazing and treading down (LXX katapa>thma ), i.e., would become an open way and gathering-place for man and beast. ISAIAH 5:6 This puts an end to the unthankful vineyard, and indeed a hopeless one. V. 6. “And I will put an end to it: it shall not be pruned nor digged, and it shall break out in thorns and thistles; and I will command the clouds to rain no rain over it.” “Put an end:” bâthâh (= battâh: Ges. §67, Anm. 11) signifies, according to the primary meaning of bâthath tWB, b¦hat, see at Isa 1:29), viz., abscindere, either abscissum = locus abscissus or praeruptus (Isa 7:19), or abscissio = deletio. The latter is the meaning here, where shiith bâthâh is a refined expression for the more usual hl;K; `hc;[; , both being construed with the accusative of the thing which is brought to an end.

Further pruning and hoeing would do it no good, but only lead to further disappointment: it was the will of the Lord, therefore, that the deceitful vineyard should shoot up in thorns and thistles (‘âlâh is applied to the soil, as in Isa 34:13 and Prov 24:31; shâmir vâshaith, thorns and thistles, are in the accusative, according to Ges. §138, 1, Anm. 2; and both the words themselves, and also their combination, are exclusively and peculiarly Isaiah’s). f30 In order that it might remain a wilderness, the clouds would also receive commandment from the Lord not to rain upon it. There can be no longer any doubt who the Lord of the vineyard is. He is Lord of the clouds, and therefore the Lord of heaven and earth. It is He who is the prophet’s beloved and dearest one. The song which opened in so minstrel-like and harmless a tone, has now become painfully severe and terribly repulsive.

The husk of the parable, which has already been broken through, now falls completely off (cf., Matt 22:13; 25:30). What it sets forth in symbol is really true. This truth the prophet establishes by an open declaration.

ISAIAH 5:7 “For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plantation of His delight: He waited for justice, and behold grasping; for righteousness, and behold a shriek.” The meaning is not that the Lord of the vineyard would not let any more rain fall upon it, because this Lord was Jehovah (which is not affirmed in fact in the words commencing with “for,” ci), but a more general one. This was how the case stood with the vineyard; for all Israel, and especially the people of Judah, were this vineyard, which had so bitterly deceived the expectations of its Lord, and indeed “the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts,” and therefore of the omnipotent God, whom even the clouds would serve when He came forth to punish. The expression “for” (ci) is not only intended to vindicate the truth of the last statement, but the truth of the whole simile, including this: it is an explanatory “for” (ci explic.), which opens the epimythion. “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts” (cerem Jehovah Zebaoth) is the predicate. “The house of Israel (beth Yisrâel) was the whole nation, which is also represented in other passages under the same figure of a vineyard (Isa 27:2ff.; Ps 80, etc.). But as Isaiah was prophet in Judah, he applies the figure more particularly to Judah, which was called Jehovah’s favourite plantation, inasmuch as it was the seat of the divine sanctuary and of the Davidic kingdom. This makes it easy enough to interpret the different parts of the simile employed. The fat mountain-horn was Canaan, flowing with milk and honey (Ex 15:17); the digging of the vineyard, and clearing it of stones, was the clearing of Canaan from its former heathen inhabitants (Ps 54:3); the sorek-vines were the holy priests and prophets and kings of Israel of the earlier and better times (Jer 2:21); the defensive and ornamental tower in the midst of the vineyard was Jerusalem as the royal city, with Zion the royal fortress (Mic 4:8); the winepress-trough was the temple, where, according to Ps 36:9 (8), the wine of heavenly pleasures flowed in streams, and from which, according to Ps 42 and many other passages, the thirst of the soul might all be quenched.

The grazing and treading down are explained in Jer 5:10 and 12:10. The bitter deception experienced by Jehovah is expressed in a play upon two words, indicating the surprising change of the desired result into the very opposite. The explanation which Gesenius, Caspari, Knobel, and others give of mispâch, viz., bloodshed, does not commend itself; for even if it must be admitted that sâphach occurs once or twice in the “Arabizing” book of Job (Job 30:7; 14:19) in the sense of pouring out, this verbal root is strange to the Hebrew (and the Aramaean). Moreover, mispâch in any case would only mean pouring or shedding, and not bloodshed; and although the latter would certainly be possible by the side of the Arabic saffâch, saffâk (shedder of blood), yet it would be such an ellipsis as cannot be shown anywhere else in Hebrew usage. On the other hand, the rendering “leprosy” does not yield any appropriate sense, as mispachath (sappachath) is never generalized anywhere else into the single idea of “dirt” (Luzzatto: sozzura), nor does it appear as an ethical notion. We therefore prefer to connect it with a meaning unquestionably belonging to the verb cpch (see kal, 1 Sam. 3:36; niphal, ch. 14:1; hithpael, 1 Sam 26:19), which is derived in ãsæy; , ãsæa; , ãWs , from the primary notion “to sweep,” spec. to sweep towards, sweep in, or sweep away. Hence we regard mispach as denoting the forcible appropriation of another man’s property; certainly a suitable antithesis to mishpât. The prophet describes, in full-toned figures, how the expected noble grapes had turned into wild grapes, with nothing more than an outward resemblance. The introduction to the prophecy closes here.

The prophecy itself follows next, a seven-fold discourse composed of the six-fold woe contained in vv. 8-23, and the announcement of punishment in which it terminates. In this six-fold woe the prophet describes the bad fruits one by one. In confirmation of our rendering of mispâch, the first woe relates to covetousness and avarice as the root of all evil.

ISAIAH 5:8 “Woe unto them that join house to house, who lay field to field, till there is no more room, and ye alone are dwelling in the midst of the land.” The participle is continued in the finite verb, as in v. 23; Isa 10:1; the regular syntactic construction is cases of this kind (Ges. §134, Anm. 2). The preterites after “till” (there are to such preterites, for ‘ephes is an intensified ˆyiaæ enclosing the verbal idea) correspond to future perfects: “They, the insatiable, would not rest till, after every smaller piece of landed property had been swallowed by them, the whole land had come into their possession, and no one beside themselves was settled in the land” (Job 22:8). Such covetousness was all the more reprehensible, because the law of Israel and provided so very stringently and carefully, that as far as possible there should be an equal distribution of the soil, and that hereditary family property should be inalienable. All landed property that had been alienated reverted to the family every fiftieth year, or year of jubilee; so that alienation simply had reference to the usufruct of the land till that time. It was only in the case of houses in towns that the right of redemption was restricted to one year, at least according to a later statute.

How badly the law of the year of jubilee had been observed, may be gathered from Jer 34, where we learn that the law as to the manumission of Hebrew slaves in the sabbatical year had fallen entirely into neglect. Isaiah’s contemporary, Micah, makes just the same complaint as Isaiah himself (vid., Mic 2:2).

ISAIAH 5:9-10 And the denunciation of punishment is made by him in very similar terms to those which we find here in vv. 9, 10: “Into mine ears Jehovah of hosts: Of a truth many houses shall become a wilderness, great and beautiful ones deserted. For ten yokes of vineyard will yield one pailful, and a quarter of seed-corn will produce a bushel.” We may see from Isa 22:14 in what sense the prophet wrote the substantive clause, “Into mine ears,” or more literally, “In mine ears is Jehovah Zebaoth,” viz., He is here revealing Himself to me. In the pointing, ˆz,aO is written with tiphchah as a pausal form, to indicate to the reader that the boldness of the expression is to be softened down by the assumption of an ellipsis. In Hebrew, “to say into the ears” did not mean to “speak softly and secretly,” as Gen 23:10,16; Job 33:8, and other passages, clearly show; but to speak in a distinct and intelligible manner, which precludes the possibility of any misunderstanding.

The prophet, indeed, had not Jehovah standing locally beside him; nevertheless, he had Him objectively over against his own personality, and was well able to distinguish very clearly the thoughts and words of his own personality, from the words of Jehovah which arose audibly within him.

These words informed him what would be the fate of the rich and insatiable landowners. “Of a truth:” aloAµai (if not) introduces an oath of an affirmative character (the complete formula is chai ani ‘im-lo’, “as I live if not”), just as ‘im (if) alone introduces a negative oath (e.g., Num 14:23).

The force of the expression ‘im-lo’ extends not only to rabbim, as the false accentuation with gershayim (double-geresh) would make it appear, but to the whole of the following sentence, as it is correctly accentuated with rebia in the Venetian (1521) and other early editions. A universal desolation would ensue: rabbim (many) does not mean less than all; but the houses (bâttim, as the word should be pronounced, notwithstanding Ewald’s objection to Köhler’s remarks on Zech 14:2; cf., Job, 2:31) constituted altogether a very large number (compare the use of the word “many” in Isa 2:3; Matt 20:28, etc.). ˆyiaæ is a double, and therefore an absolute, negation (so that there is not, no inhabitant, i.e., not any inhabitant at all). V. 10, which commences, with ci, explains how such a desolation of the houses would be brought about: failure of crops produces famine, and this is followed by depopulation. “Ten zimdee (with dagesh lene, Ewald) of vineyard” are either ten pieces of the size that a man could plough in one day with a yoke of oxen, or possibly ten portions of yoke-like espaliers of vines, i.e., of vines trained on cross laths (the vina jugata of Varro), which is the explanation adopted by Biesenthal. But if we compare 1 Sam 14:14, the former is to be preferred, although the links are wanting which would enable us to prove that the early Israelites had one and the same system of land measure as the Romans; nevertheless Arab. fddân (in Hauran) is precisely similar, and this word signifies primarily a yoke of oxen, and then a yoke (jugerum) regarded as a measure of land. Ten days’ work would only yield a single bath. This liquid measure, which was first introduced in the time of the kings, corresponded to the ephah in dry measure (Ezek 45:11). According to Josephus (Ant. viii. 2, 9), it was equal to seventy-two Roman sextarii, i.e., a little more than thirty-three Berlin quarts; but in the time of Isaiah it was probably smaller. The homer, a dry measure, generally called a cor after the time of the kings, was equal to ten Attic medimnoi; f32 a medimnos being (according to Josephus, Ant. xv. 9, 2) about 15-16ths of a Berlin bushel, and therefore a little more than fifteen pecks. Even if this quantity of corn should be sown, they would not reap more than an ephah.

The harvest, therefore, would only yield the tenth part of the sowing, since an ephah was the tenth part of a homer, or three seahs, the usual minimum for one baking (vid., Matt 13:33). It is, of course, impossible to give the relative measure exactly in our translation.

ISAIAH 5:11 The second woe, for which the curse about to fall upon vinedressing (v. 10a) prepared the way by the simple association of ideas, is directed against the debauchees, who in their carnal security carried on their excesses even in the daylight. V. 11. “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning to run after strong drink; who continue till late at night with wine inflaming them!” Boker (from bâkar, bakara, to slit, to tear up, or split) is the break of day; and nesheph (from nâshaph, to blow) the cool of the evening, including the night (Isa 21:4; 59:10); ‘ichër, to continue till late, as in Prov 23:30: the construct state before words with a preposition, as in Isa 9:2; 28:9, and many other passages (Ges. §116, 1). Sheecâr, in connection with yayin, is the general name for every other kind of strong drink, more especially for wines made artificially from fruit, honey, raisins, dates, etc., including barley-wine ( oi>nov kri>qinov ) or beer ( ek kriqw>n me>qu in Aeschylus, also called bru>ton bruto>n zu>qov zu>qov , and by many other names), a beverage known in Egypt, which was half a wine country and half a beer country, from as far back as the time of the Pharaohs. The form sheecâr is composed, like `bn;[e (with the fore-tone tsere), from shâcar, to intoxicate; according to the Arabic, literally to close by stopping up, i.e., to stupefy. f33 The clauses after the two participles are circumstantial clauses (Ewald, §341, b), indicating the circumstances under which they ran out so early, and sat till long after dark: they hunted after mead, they heated themselves with wine, namely, to drown the consciousness of their deeds of darkness.

ISAIAH 5:12 Ver. 12 describes how they go on in their blindness with music and carousing: “And guitar and harp, kettle-drum, and flute, and wine, is their feast; but they regard not the work of Jehovah, and see not the purpose of His hands.” “Their feast” is so and so hT,v]mi is only a plural in appearance; it is really a singular, as in Dan 1:10,16, and many other passages, with the Yod of the primary form, yTæv]mi = hT,v]mi , softened: see the remarks on `hl,[; at Isa 1:30, and `hc;[; at Isa 22:11); that is to say, their feast consisted or was composed of exciting music and wine. Knobel construes it, “and there are guitar, etc., and wine is their drink;” but a divided sentence of this kind is very tame; and the other expression, based upon the general principle, “The whole is its parts,” is thoroughly Semitic (see Fleischer’s Abhandlungen über einige Arten der Nominalapposition in den Sitzungsberichten der sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft, 1862).

Cinnor (guitar) is a general name for such instruments as have their strings drawn (upon a bridge) over a sounding board; and nebel (the harp and lyre) a general name for instruments with their strings hung freely, so as to be played with both hands at the same time. Toph (Arab. duff) is a general name for the tambourin, the drum, and the kettle-drum; chalil (lit. that which is bored through) a general name for the flute and double flute. In this tumult and riot they had no thought or eye for the work of Jehovah and the purpose of His hands. This is the phrase used to express the idea of eternal counsel of God (Isa 37:26), which leads to salvation by the circuitous paths of judgment (Isa 10:12; 28:21; 29:23), so far as that counsel is embodied in history, as moulded by the invisible interposition of God. In their joy and glory they had no sense for what was the most glorious of all, viz., the moving and working of God in history; so that they could not even discern the judgment which was in course of preparation at that very time.

ISAIAH 5:13 Therefore judgment would overtake them in this blind, dull, and stupid animal condition. V. 13. “Therefore my people go into banishment without knowing; and their glory will become starving men, and their tumult men dried up with thirst.” As the word “therefore” (lâceen, as in Isa 1:24) introduces the threat of punishment, gâlâh (go into captivity) is a prophetic preterite. Israel would go into exile, and that “without knowing” (mibb’lida’ath).

The meaning of this expression cannot be “from want of knowledge,” since the min which is fused into one word with b’li is not causal, but negative, and mibb’li, as a preposition, always signifies “without” (absque). But are we to render it “without knowing it” (as in Hos 4:6, where hadda’ath has the article), or “unawares?” There is no necessity for any dispute on this point, since the two renderings are fundamentally one and the same.

The knowledge, of which v. 12 pronounces them destitute, was more especially a knowledge of the judgment of God that was hanging over them; so that, as the captivity would come upon them without knowledge, it would necessarily come upon them unawares. “Their glory” (ceboodoo) and “their tumult” (hamono) are therefore to be understood, as the predicates show, as collective nouns used in a personal sense, the former signifying the more select portion of the nation (cf., Mic 1:15), the latter the mass of the people, who were living in rioting and tumult. The former would become “men of famine” (methee rââb: tmæ , like vyai in other places, viz., 2 Sam 19:29, or ˆBe , 1 Sam 26:16); the latter “men dried up with thirst” (tsicheeh tsâmâh: the same number as the subject). There is no necessity to read tmæ (dead men) instead of tmæ , as the LXX and Vulgate do, or hz,m, (m¦zeeh) according to Deut 32:24, as Hitzig, Ewald, Böttcher, and others propose (compare, on the contrary, Gen 34:30 and Job 11:11).

The adjective tzicheh (hapax leg.) is formed like chireesh, ceeheh, and other adjectives which indicate defects: in such formations from verbs Lamed-He, instead of e we have an ae that has grown out of ay (Olshausen, §182, b). The rich gluttons would starve, and the tippling crowd would die with thirst.

ISAIAH 5:14 The threat of punishment commences again with “therefore;” it has not yet satisfied itself, and therefore grasps deeper still. V. 14. “Therefore the under-world opens its jaws wide, and stretches open its mouth immeasurably wide; and the glory of Jerusalem descends, and its tumult, and noise, and those who rejoice within it.” The verbs which follow lâceen (therefore) are prophetic preterites, as in v. 13. The feminine suffixes attached to what the lower world swallows up do not refer to sheol (though this is construed more frequently, no doubt, as a feminine than as a masculine, as it is in Job 26:6), but, as expressed in the translation, to Jerusalem itself, which is also necessarily required by the last clause, “those who