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Chapter 1

Isaiah 1

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¹The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. ²Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. ³The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. ⁴Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that deal corruptly! they have forsaken Jehovah, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are estranged and gone backward. ⁵Why will ye be still stricken, that ye revolt more and more? the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. ⁶From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and fresh stripes: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with oil. ⁷Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. ⁸And the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. ⁹Except Jehovah of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah. ¹⁰Hear the word of Jehovah, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. ¹¹What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith Jehovah: I have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. ¹²When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample my courts? ¹³Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies,—I cannot away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. ¹⁴Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them. ¹⁵And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. ¹⁶Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; ¹⁷learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. ¹⁸Come now, and let us reason together, saith Jehovah: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. ¹⁹If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: ²⁰but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. ²¹How is the faithful city become a harlot! she that was full of justice! righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. ²²Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water. ²³Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth bribes, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. ²⁴Therefore saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies; ²⁵and I will turn my hand upon thee, and thoroughly purge away thy dross, and will take away all thy tin; ²⁶and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called The city of righteousness, a faithful town. ²⁷Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her converts with righteousness. ²⁸But the destruction of transgressors and sinners shall be together, and they that forsake Jehovah shall be consumed. ²⁹For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. ³⁰For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. ³¹And the strong shall be as tow, and his work as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

Adam Clarke
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
John Gill
Keil-Delitzsch
Matthew Henry
Tyndale

Introduction

General title to the whole Book, Jer 1:1-3. Jeremiah receives a commission to prophesy concerning nations and kingdoms, a work to which in the Divine purpose he had been appointed before his birth, Jer 1:4-10. The vision of the rod of an almond tree and of the seething pot, with their signification, Jer 1:11-16. Promises of Divine protection to Jeremiah in the discharge of the arduous duties of his prophetical office, Jer 1:17-19.

Introduction

THE GENERAL TITLE OR PROGRAM applying to the entire book: this discountenances the Talmud tradition, that he was sawn asunder by Manasseh. Isaiah--equivalent to "The Lord shall save"; significant of the subject of his prophecies. On "vision," see Sa1 9:9; Num 12:6; and see my Introduction. Judah and Jerusalem--Other nations also are the subjects of his prophecies; but only in their relation to the Jews (Isa. 13:1-23:18); so also the ten tribes of Israel are introduced only in the same relation (Isa. 7:1-9:21). Jerusalem is particularly specified, being the site of the temple, and the center of the theocracy, and the future throne of Messiah (Psa 48:2-3, Psa 48:9; Jer 3:17). Jesus Christ is the "Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev 5:5). Uzziah--called also Azariah (Kg2 14:21; Ch2 26:1, Ch2 26:17, Ch2 26:20). The Old Testament prophecies spiritually interpret the histories, as the New Testament Epistles interpret the Gospels and Acts. Study them together, to see their spiritual relations. Isaiah prophesied for only a few years before Uzziah's death; but his prophecies of that period (Isa. 1:1-6:13) apply to Jotham's reign also, in which he probably wrote none; for Isa. 7:1-25 enters immediately on Ahaz' reign, after Uzziah in Isa 6:1-13; the prophecies under Hezekiah follow next.

Verse 2

The very words of Moses (Deu 32:1); this implies that the law was the charter and basis of all prophecy (Isa 8:20). Lord--Jehovah; in Hebrew, "the self-existing and promise-fulfilling, unchangeable One." The Jews never pronounced this holy name, but substituted Adonai. The English Version, LORD in capitals, marks the Hebrew "Jehovah," though Lord is rather equivalent to "Adonai" than "Jehovah." children-- (Exo 4:22). rebelled--as sons (Deu 21:18) and as subjects, God being king in the theocracy (Isa 63:10). "Brought up," literally, "elevated," namely, to peculiar privileges (Jer 2:6-8; Rom 9:4-5).

Verse 3

(Jer 8:7). crib--the stall where it is fed (Pro 14:4). Spiritually the word and ordinances. Israel--The whole nation, Judah as well as Israel, in the restricted sense. God regards His covenant-people in their designed unity. not know--namely, his Owner, as the parallelism requires; that is, not recognize Him as such (Exo 19:5, equivalent to "my people," Joh 1:10-11). consider--attend to his Master (Isa 41:8), notwithstanding the spiritual food which He provides (answering to "crib" in the parallel clause).

Verse 4

people--the peculiar designation of God's elect nation (Hos 1:10), that they should be "laden with iniquity" is therefore the more monstrous. Sin is a load (Psa 38:4; Mat 11:28). seed--another appellation of God's elect (Gen 12:7; Jer 2:21), designed to be a "holy seed" (Isa 6:13), but, awful to say, "evildoers!" children--by adoption (Hos 11:1), yet "evildoers"; not only so, but "corrupters" of others (Gen 6:12); the climax. So "nation--people--seed children." provoked--literally, "despised," namely, so as to provoke (Pro 1:30-31). Holy One of Israel--the peculiar heinousness of their sin, that it was against their God (Amo 3:2). gone . . . backward--literally, "estranged" (Psa 58:3).

Verse 5

Why--rather, as Vulgate, "On what part." Image from a body covered all over with marks of blows (Psa 38:3). There is no part in which you have not been smitten. head . . . sick, &c.--not referring, as it is commonly quoted, to their sins, but to the universality of their punishment. However, sin, the moral disease of the head or intellect, and the heart, is doubtless made its own punishment (Pro 1:31; Jer 2:19; Hos 8:11). "Sick," literally, "is in a state of sickness" [GESENIUS]; "has passed into sickness" [MAURER].

Verse 6

From the lowest to the highest of the people; "the ancient and honorable, the head, the prophet that teacheth lies, the tail." See Isa 9:13-16. He first states their wretched condition, obvious to all (Isa 1:6-9); and then, not previously, their irreligious state, the cause of it. wounds--judicially inflicted (Hos 5:13). mollified with ointment--The art of medicine in the East consists chiefly in external applications (Luk 10:34; Jam 5:14).

Verse 7

Judah had not in Uzziah's reign recovered from the ravages of the Syrians in Joash's reign (Ch2 24:24), and of Israel in Amaziah's reign (Ch2 25:13, Ch2 25:23, &c.). Compare Isaiah's contemporary (Amo 4:6-11), where, as here (Isa 1:9-10), Israel is compared to "Sodom and Gomorrah," because of the judgments on it by "fire." in your presence--before your eyes: without your being able to prevent them. desolate, &c.--literally, "there is desolation, such as one might look for from foreign" invaders.

Verse 8

daughter of Zion--the city (Psa 9:14), Jerusalem and its inhabitants (Kg2 19:21): "daughter" (feminine, singular being used as a neuter collective noun), equivalent to sons (Isa 12:6, Margin) [MAURER]. Metropolis or "mother-city" is the corresponding term. The idea of youthful beauty is included in "daughter." left--as a remnant escaping the general destruction. cottage--a hut, made to give temporary shelter to the caretaker of the vineyard. lodge--not permanent. besieged--rather, as "left," and Isa 1:9 require, preserved, namely, from the desolation all round [MAURER].

Verse 9

Jehovah of Sabaoth, that is, God of the angelic and starry hosts (Psa 59:5; Psa 147:4; Psa 148:2). The latter were objects of idolatry, called hence Sabaism (Kg2 17:16). God is above even them (Ch1 16:26). "The groves" were symbols of these starry hosts; it was their worship of Sabaoth instead of the Lord of Sabaoth, which had caused the present desolation (Ch2 24:18). It needed no less a power than His, to preserve even a "remnant." Condescending grace for the elect's sake, since He has no need of us, seeing that He has countless hosts to serve Him.

Verse 10

Sodom--spiritually (Gen 19:24; Jer 23:14; Eze 16:46; Rev 11:8).

Verse 11

God does not here absolutely disparage sacrifice, which is as old and universal as sin (Gen 3:21; Gen 4:4), and sin is almost as old as the world; but sacrifice, unaccompanied with obedience of heart and life (Sa1 15:22; Psa 50:9-13; Psa 51:16-19; Hos 6:6). Positive precepts are only means; moral obedience is the end. A foreshadowing of the gospel, when the One real sacrifice was to supersede all the shadowy ones, and "bring in everlasting righteousness" (Psa 40:6-7; Dan 9:24-27; Heb 10:1-14). full--to satiety; weary of burnt offerings--burnt whole, except the blood, which was sprinkled about the altar. fat--not to be eaten by man, but burnt on the altar (Lev 3:4-5, Lev 3:11, Lev 3:17).

Verse 12

appear before me--in the temple where the Shekinah, resting on the ark, was the symbol of God's presence (Exo 23:15; Psa 42:2). who hath required this--as if you were doing God a service by such hypocritical offerings (Job 35:7). God did require it (Exo 23:17), but not in this spirit (Mic 6:6-7). courts--areas, in which the worshippers were. None but priests entered the temple itself.

Verse 13

oblations--unbloody; "meat (old English sense, not flesh) offerings," that is, of flour, fruits, oil, &c. (Lev 2:1-13). Hebrew, mincha. incense--put upon the sacrifices, and burnt on the altar of incense. Type of prayer (Psa 141:2; Rev 8:3). new moons--observed as festivals (Num 10:10; Num 28:11, Num 28:14) with sacrifices and blowing of silver trumpets. sabbaths--both the seventh day and the beginning and closing days of the great feasts (Lev. 23:24-39). away with--bear, MAURER translates, "I cannot bear iniquity and the solemn meeting," that is, the meeting associated with iniquity--literally, the closing days of the feasts; so the great days (Lev 23:36; Joh 7:37).

Verse 14

appointed--the sabbath, passover, pentecost, day of atonement, and feast of tabernacles [HENGSTENBERG]; they alone were fixed to certain times of the year. weary-- (Isa 43:24).

Verse 15

(Psa 66:18; Pro 28:9; Lam 3:43-44). spread . . . hands--in prayer (Kg1 8:22). Hebrew, "bloods," for all heinous sins, persecution of God's servants especially (Mat 23:35). It was the vocation of the prophets to dispel the delusion, so contrary to the law itself (Deu 10:16), that outward ritualism would satisfy God.

Verse 16

God saith to the sinner, "Wash you," &c., that he, finding his inability to "make" himself "clean," may cry to God, Wash me, cleanse me (Psa 51:2, Psa 51:7, Psa 51:10). before mine eyes--not mere outward reformation before man's eyes, who cannot, as God, see into the heart (Jer 32:19).

Verse 17

seek judgment--justice, as magistrates, instead of seeking bribes (Jer 22:3, Jer 22:16). judge--vindicate (Psa 68:5; Jam 1:27).

Verse 18

God deigns to argue the case with us, that all may see the just, nay, loving principle of His dealings with men (Isa 43:26). scarlet--the color of Jesus Christ's robe when bearing our "sins" (Mat 27:28). So Rahab's thread (Jos 2:18; compare Lev 14:4). The rabbins say that when the lot used to be taken, a scarlet fillet was bound on the scapegoat's head, and after the high priest had confessed his and the people's sins over it, the fillet became white: the miracle ceased, according to them, forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, that is, exactly when Jesus Christ was crucified; a remarkable admission of adversaries. Hebrew for "scarlet" radically means double-dyed; so the deep-fixed permanency of sin in the heart, which no mere tears can wash away. snow-- (Psa 51:7). Repentance is presupposed, before sin can be made white as snow (Isa 1:19-20); it too is God's gift (Jer 31:18, end; Lam 5:21; Act 5:31). red--refers to "blood" (Isa 1:15). as wool--restored to its original undyed whiteness. This verse shows that the old fathers did not look only for transitory promises (Article VII, Book of Common Prayer). For sins of ignorance, and such like, alone had trespass offerings appointed for them; greater guilt therefore needed a greater sacrifice, for, "without shedding of blood there was no remission"; but none such was appointed, and yet forgiveness was promised and expected; therefore spiritual Jews must have looked for the One Mediator of both Old Testament and New Testament, though dimly understood.

Verse 19

Temporal blessings in "the land of their possession" were prominent in the Old Testament promises, as suited to the childhood of the Church (Exo 3:17). New Testament spiritual promises derive their imagery from the former (Mat 5:5).

Verse 20

Lord hath spoken it--Isaiah's prophecies rest on the law (Lev 26:33). God alters not His word Numbers 23. 19).

Verse 21

faithful--as a wife (Isa 54:5; Isa 62:5; Hos 2:19-20). harlot-- (Eze 16:28-35). righteousness lodged-- (Pe2 3:13). murderers--murderous oppressors, as the antithesis requires (see on Isa 1:15; Jo1 3:15).

Verse 22

Thy princes and people are degenerate in "solid worth," equivalent to "silver" (Jer 6:28, Jer 6:30; Eze 22:18-19), and in their use of the living Word, equivalent to "wine" (Sol 7:9). mixed--literally, "circumcised." So the Arabic, "to murder" wine, equivalent to dilute it.

Verse 23

companions of thieves--by connivance (Pro 29:24). gifts-- (Eze 22:12). A nation's corruption begins with its rulers.

Verse 24

Lord . . . Lord--Adonai, JEHOVAH. mighty One of Israel--mighty to take vengeance, as before, to save. Ah--indignation. ease me--My long tried patience will find relief in at last punishing the guilty (Eze 5:13). God's language condescends to human conceptions.

Verse 25

turn . . . hand--not in wrath, but in grace (Zac 13:7), "upon thee," as Isa 1:26-27 show; contrasted with the enemies, of whom He will avenge Himself (Isa 1:24). purely--literally, "as alkali purifies." thy dross--not thy sins, but the sinful persons (Jer 6:29); "enemies" (Isa 1:24); degenerate princes (see on Isa 1:22), intermingled with the elect "remnant" of grace. tin--Hebrew, bedil, here the alloy of lead, tin, &c., separated by smelting from the silver. The pious Bishop Bedell took his motto from this.

Verse 26

As the degeneracy had shown itself most in the magistrates (Isa 1:17-23), so, at the "restoration," these shall be such as the theocracy "at the first" had contemplated, namely, after the Babylonish restoration in part and typically, but fully and antitypically under Messiah (Isa 32:1; Isa 52:8; Jer 33:7; Mat 19:28). faithful--no longer "an harlot."

Verse 27

redeemed--temporarily, civilly, and morally; type of the spiritual redemption by the price of Jesus Christ's blood (Pe1 1:18-19), the foundation of "judgment" and "righteousness," and so of pardon. The judgment and righteousness are God's first (Isa 42:21; Rom 3:26); so they become man's when "converted" (Rom 8:3-4); typified in the display of God's "justice," then exhibited in delivering His covenant-people, whereby justice or "righteousness" was produced in them. converts--so MAURER. But Margin, "they that return of her," namely the remnant that return from captivity. However, as Isaiah had not yet expressly foretold the Babylonian captivity, the English Version is better.

Verse 28

destruction--literally, "breaking into shivers" (Rev 2:27). The prophets hasten forward to the final extinction of the ungodly (Psa 37:20; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:15); of which antecedent judgments are types.

Verse 29

ashamed-- (Rom 6:21). oaks--Others translate the "terebinth" or "turpentine tree." Groves were dedicated to idols. Our Druids took their name from the Greek for "oaks." A sacred tree is often found in Assyrian sculpture; symbol of the starry hosts, Saba. gardens--planted enclosures for idolatry; the counterpart of the garden of Eden.

Verse 30

oak--Ye shall be like the "oaks," the object of your "desire" (Isa 1:29). People become like the gods they worship; they never rise above their level (Psa 135:18). So men's sins become their own scourges (Jer 2:9). The leaf of the idol oak fades by a law of necessary consequence, having no living sap or "water" from God. So "garden" answers to "gardens" (Isa 1:29).

Verse 31

strong--powerful rulers (Amo 2:9). maker of it--rather, his work. He shall be at once the fuel, "tow," and the cause of the fire, by kindling the first "spark." both--the wicked ruler, and "his work," which "is as a spark." Next: Isaiah Chapter 2

Introduction

This chapter, after the inscription, contains a charge of aggravated sin against the Jews; God's rejection of their ceremonial sacrifices and service; an exhortation to repentance and obedience, with a promise of pardon; a restoration from their sad estate; a prophecy of their restoration to a better; and of the destruction of idolatrous sinners. The inscription is in Isa 1:1 in which are the title of the prophecy, a vision; the writer of it described by his name, his descent, and the times in which he prophesied; and the subject of the prophecy is Judah and Jerusalem. The charge against the Jews is rebellion against the Lord, and the heavens and earth are called as witnesses of it; which is aggravated by the relation they stood in to God, and by the favours bestowed upon them, Isa 1:2 by their more than brutish stupidity, Isa 1:3 by the multitude of their sins, which were of a provoking nature, Isa 1:4 by the uselessness of chastisements, the whole body of the people, from the highest to the lowest, being afflicted without being the better for it, and so generally depraved, that no regard was had to any means of reformation, Isa 1:5 and by the desolation it brought upon them, which is illustrated by several similes, Isa 1:7 and by the grace and goodness of God in reserving a few, or otherwise they must have been for their punishment, as they were for their sins, like Sodom and Gomorrah, Isa 1:9 wherefore both rulers and people are called upon under those names to hearken to the law of God, and not trust in and depend upon their sacrifices and other rites of the ceremonial law, together with their hypocritical prayers; all which were abominable to the Lord, since they were guilty of such dreadful immoralities, Isa 1:11 when they are exhorted to repentance for sin, to the obedience of faith, and washing in the blood of Christ, whereby their crimson and scarlet sins would become as white as wool and snow, otherwise destruction must be expected, Isa 1:16 and then a lamentation is taken up concerning the deplorable state of Jerusalem, representing the difference between what it was now, and what it was formerly, and the sad degeneracy of the people, rulers, and judges, Isa 1:21 upon which the Lord foretells what he thought to do: to avenge himself of his enemies; to purge his church and people; to restore them to their former uprightness and integrity; and to redeem them with judgment and righteousness, Isa 1:24 and the chapter is concluded with a denunciation of utter destruction upon wicked men, who are described and pointed at as idolaters; which will cover them with shame and confusion, Isa 1:28 and which is illustrated by the fading of the leaves of an oak, and by a garden parched with drought, Isa 1:30 and it is suggested that it will be by burning with fire unquenchable, Isa 1:31.

Verse 1

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz,.... This is either the particular title of the prophecy contained in this single chapter, as Jarchi and Abarbinel think; seeing the second chapter Isa 2:1 begins with another title, "the word that Isaiah saw", &c. or rather it is the common title of the whole book; since it is the vision which Isaiah saw in the reign of four kings, as is later affirmed; and so is no other than in general "the prophecy of Isaiah", as the Targum renders it; called a "vision", because it was delivered to him, at least the greatest part of it, in a vision; and because he had a clear perception of the things he prophesied of, as well as delivered them in a clear and perspicuous manner to others: hence the Jews say (m), that Moses and Isaiah excelled the other prophets, seeing they understood what they prophesied of. The name of Isaiah, the penman of this book, signifies either "the Lord shall save", according to Hilleras (n); or "the salvation of the Lord", as Abarbinel, Jerom, and others; and is very suitable to the message he was sent with to the people of God; to acquaint them that the Lord had provided a Saviour for them, and that he would come and save them. He is said to be "the son of Amoz"; not of Amos the prophet; the names differ; the name of the prophet that stands among the twelve lesser prophets is "Amos"; the name of Isaiah's parent is "Amoz". It is a tradition with the Jews (o), that Amoz, the father of Isaiah, was brother to Amaziah, king of Judah, so that Isaiah was of the royal family. Abarbinei endeavours to confirm it from that greatness of mind, freedom and boldness, he used in reproofs, and from his polite and courtly way of speaking; and this is mentioned by Aben Ezra as a reason why the Jews did not harm him, as they did Jeremiah: but this tradition is not equally regarded by the Jewish writers; and though Kimchi takes notice of it, yet he says the genealogy of Isaiah is not known, nor of what tribe he was. If he was of the seed royal, this is an instance of God's calling some that are noble, not only by his grace, but to office in his church; and it is with a view to this tradition, no doubt, that Jerom (p) calls him "vir nobilis", a "nobleman". It is also a rule with the Jews (q), that where the name of a prophet's father is mentioned, it is a sign that his father was a prophet; and so they say this Amoz was, though the king's brother; and that he is the same with the man of God that came to Amaziah (r), Ch2 25:7 but Aben Ezra suggests, that this rule does not always hold good. Which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem; that is, chiefly and principally; for though Ephraim, or the ten tribes of Israel, are mentioned, yet very rarely; and though there are prophecies concerning other nations in it, yet these relate to the deliverance of the Jews from them, or to God's vengeance on them for their sake. Judah is put for the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and is particularly mentioned, because the Messiah, so much spoken of in this book, was to spring from thence, whose title is the Lion of the tribe of Judah; and though Jerusalem was in it, yet that is also particularly taken notice of, because not only the temple, the place of divine worship, was in it, and it was the metropolis of the land; but because the Messiah, when he came, was often to appear here, and from thence the Gospel was to go forth into all the world; and this was a figure of the Gospel church state to the end of the world, which often bears this name: and many things are said in this prophecy not only concerning the coming of Christ, but of the Gospel dispensation, and of various things that should come to pass in it; concerning the glory of the church in the latter day, the calling of the Gentiles, the conversion of the Jews, the destruction of antichrist, and the new heavens and new earth. In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah: if Isaiah began to prophesy in the first year of Uzziah's reign, as Kimchi and Abarbinel think, relying pretty much on Ch2 26:22 and lived out the reign of Hezekiah, as he must, if he was put to death by Manasseh, according to the tradition of the Jews, he must prophesy a hundred and twelve or thirteen years; for Uzziah reigned fifty two years, Jotham sixteen, Ahaz sixteen, and Hezekiah twenty nine; but as this seems to begin his prophecy too soon, since so small a part of it was in or concerns Uzziah's reign; so it seems too late to fix the date of his prophecy from the year that King Uzziah died, when he had the vision in Isa 6:1 and desired to be sent of the Lord; which is the opinion of Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and others; but Dr. Lightfoot's opinion is more probable, who places the beginning of his prophecy in the twenty third year of Uzziah; though perhaps it may be sufficient to allow him only ten years of Uzziah's reign: and as he lived through the two reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, so it is certain that he lived through more than half of the reign of Hezekiah; his whole reign was twenty nine years; and therefore it was when he had reigned fourteen years that he was taken sick, and then fifteen years more were added to his days; and the year after this came the messengers from Babylon to congratulate him on his recovery; all which Isaiah gives an account of Isa 38:1 but how long he lived and prophesied after this cannot be said: had his days been prolonged to the times of Manasseh, it would have been written, as Aben Ezra observes, and who pays but little regard to the tradition of the Jews concerning Isaiah's being put to death by Manasseh; if the thing, says he, is "cabala", a tradition, it is truth; but he seems to call in question its reality; however, it is not to be depended on. (m) R. Eleazar in Yalkut, pars 2. fol. 118. 2. (n) Onomastic. Sacr. p. 319. (o) T. Bab. Megilla, fol. 10. 2. & Sota, fol. 10. 2. & Seder Olam Zuta, p. 104. Juchasin, fol. 12. 1. Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 11. 2. (p) Ad Paulam, fol. 8. M. tom. 3. (q) T. Bab. Megilla, fol. 15. 1. (r) Kimchi in 2 Chron. xxv. 7.

Verse 2

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,.... To what the Lord was about to say of his controversy with his people, which was to be managed openly and publicly before them as spectators and witnesses; this designs either strictly and properly the heavens and the earth, or figuratively the inhabitants of them, angels and men. The address is solemn, and denotes something of moment and importance to be done and attended to: see Deu 32:1. The Targum is, "hear, O ye heavens, that were moved when I gave my law to my people; and hearken, O earth, that trembleth before my word.'' For the Lord hath spoken: not only by Moses, and the prophets that were before Isaiah, but he had spoken to him the words he was now about to deliver; for they were not his own words, but the Lord's: he spoke by the inspiration of God, and as moved by the Holy Ghost; and therefore what he said was to be received, not as the word of man, but as the word of God: I have nourished and brought up children; meaning the Jews; "my people, the house of Israel, whom I have called children,'' as the Targum paraphrases it; see Exo 4:22 to these, as a nation, belonged the adoption; they were reckoned the children of God; the Lord took notice and care of them in their infant state, brought them out of Egypt, led them through the wilderness, and fed them in it; brought them into Canaan's land, drove out the nations before them, and settled them there; gave them his laws and ordinances, distinguished them from all other nations by his favours, and raised them to a high estate, to much greatness and prosperity, especially in the days of David and Solomon. The words may be rendered, "I have magnified", or "made great, and have exalted children" (s); not only brought them up, but brought them to great honour and dignity; and even unto man's estate, unto the time appointed of the Father, when they should have been under tutors and governors no longer, but under the King Messiah; but they were rebellious, as follows: and they have rebelled against me, their Lord and King; for the Jews were under a theocracy; God, who was their Father, was their King, and they rebelled against him by breaking his laws, which rebellion is aggravated by its being not only of subjects against their king, but of children against their father; the law concerning a rebellious son, see in Deu 21:18. The Targum paraphrases it, "they have rebelled against my Word"; the essential Word, the Messiah; the Septuagint version is, "but they have rejected me" (t); and the Vulgate Latin version (u), "but they have despised me": so the Jews rejected and despised the true Messiah when he came, would not have him to reign over them, would not receive his yoke, though easy, but rebelled against him. The Jews were a rebellious people from the beginning, in Moses's time, and in the prophets, and so quite down to the times of the Messiah. (s) "magnificavi", Montanus, Vatablus; "exaltavi", Munster; "extuli", Jun. & Tremel. Sept. (t) . (u) "Spreverunt me".

Verse 3

The ox knoweth his owner,.... Knows his voice, when he calls him, and follows him where he leads him, whether to plough in the field, or feed in the meadows; and the ass his masters crib, or "manger"; where he is fed, and to which he goes when he wants food, and at the usual times. Gussetius (w) interprets the words; the ass knows the floor where he treads out the corn, and willingly goes to it, though it is to labour, as well as to eat; and so puts Israel to shame, who were weary of the worship of God in the temple, where spiritual food was provided for them, but chose not to go for it, because of labour there. But Israel doth not know; his Maker and Owner, his King, Lord, and Master, his Father, Saviour, and Redeemer; he does not own and acknowledge him, but rejects him; see Joh 1:10. My people doth not consider; the Jews, who were the people of God by profession, did not stir themselves up to consider, nor make use of means of knowing and understanding, divine and spiritual things, as the word used (x) signifies; they would not attend to the word and ordinances, which answer to the crib or manger; they would not hear nor regard the ministry of the word by Christ and his apostles, nor suffer others, but hindered them as much as in them lay; see Mat 23:13. The Targum is, "Israel does not learn to know my fear, my people do not understand to turn to my law.'' In like manner the more than brutal stupidity of this people is exposed in Jer 8:7. (w) Comment. Ling. Ebr. p. 13, 14. (x) a "intellexit". So Gussetius says it signifies a spontaneous application, by which you stir up yourself to understand; which is an action leading to wisdom, and without which no man can be wise, Comment. Ling. Ebr. p. 121.

Verse 4

Ah sinful nation,..... Or "sinning nation" (y); that was continually sinning, doing nothing else but sin, the reverse of what they were chosen to be, Deu 7:6. These words are said, either as calling and crying to them, to cause them to hear and hearken to what is said, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi observe, and as is used in Isa 55:1 or by way of complaint and lamentation, as Jarchi thinks, because of their general and continued wickedness, see Kg1 13:30, or by way of threatening, as in Isa 1:24 and so the Targum paraphrases it, "woe to them who are called a holy people, and have sinned:'' and so the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions render it, "woe to the sinning nation"; their ruin is at hand: a people laden with iniquity; full of sin; they multiplied offences, as in the Chaldee paraphrase: they were "heavy" with them, as the word (z) signifies, yet felt not, nor complained of, the burden of them: a seed of evil doers; this is not said of their fathers, but of themselves, as Jarchi observes; they had been planted a right seed, but now were degenerate, a wicked generation of men. Children that are corrupters; of themselves and others, by their words and actions; who had corrupted their ways, as the Targum adds; and so Kimchi and Aben Ezra. They have forsaken the Lord; the worship of the Lord, as the Targum interprets it; the ways and ordinances of God, forsook the assembling of themselves together, neglected the hearing of the word, and attendance on the worship of the Lord's house: they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger; by their numerous sins, both of omission and commission: they are gone away backward; were become backsliders and revolters, had apostatized from God and his worship, turned their backs on him, and cast his law behind them. The characters here given not only agree with the Jews in the times of Isaiah, but also with those in the times of Christ and his apostles, Mat 12:39. (y) "gens peccatrix", Sept. V. L. Syr. Ar. (z) "gravi iniquitate", V. L.

Verse 5

Why should ye be stricken any more? .... Or "for what are ye stricken again" (a)? with afflictions and chastisements, with which God smites his people by way of correction for their sins, Isa 57:17 and the sense is, either that they did not consider what they were afflicted for, that it was for their sins and transgressions; they thought they came by chance, or imputed them to second causes, and so went on in sin, and added sin to sin; to which sense the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, incline: or the meaning is, that the chastisements that were laid upon them were to no purpose; had produced no good effect, were of no avail, and unprofitable to them; and which is mentioned as an aggravation of their sins, obstinacy, and impenitence; see Jer 5:3. Ye will revolt more and more, or "add defection" (b); go on in sin, and apostatize more and more, and grow more obdurate and resolute in it; unless afflictions are sanctified, men become more hardened by them: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint; which may be understood either of their chastisements, which were universal, and had reached all sorts and ranks of men among them, without any reformation, and therefore it was in vain to use more; or of their sins and transgressions which abounded among them, even among the principal of them; their civil rulers and governors, meant by the "head"; and the priests, who should feed the people with knowledge and understanding, designed by the "heart"; but both were corrupted, and in a bad condition. (a) "super quo", V. L. "ad quid", Ar. (b) "addentes prevaricationem", Sept. V. L.

Verse 6

From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it,.... Every member of the body politic was afflicted in one way or another, or sadly infected with the disease of sin; see Psa 28:3. So the Targum, "from the rest of the people, even unto the princes, there is none among them who is perfect in my fear;'' see Dan 9:8. but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores; to which either public calamities on a city or nation may be compared, Hos 5:13 or the sins and transgressions both of single persons, and of whole bodies of men, Psa 38:5. The Targum is, "they are all stubborn and rebellious, they are defiled with sins as an ulcerous plaster.'' They have not been closed; that is, the wounds and sores have not been healed; or "they have not been pressed" or "squeezed" (c), in order to get the purulent matter out of them: neither bound up; with bands, after the matter is squeezed out, and a plaster laid on: neither mollified with ointment; which is used for the supplying and healing of wounds; see Luk 10:34. The sense either is, that they were not reformed by their afflictions; or that they did not repent of their sins, nor seek to God for healing and pardon, nor make use of any means for their more healthful state and condition. The Targum paraphrases the words thus, "they do not leave their haughtinesses, nor are they desirous of repentance, nor have they any righteousness to protect them.'' (c) "non expessa fuere a" "exprimere humorem, hoc significari clarum est ex" Jud. vi. 38. Gusset. Comment. Ling. Ebr. p. 227. So Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius.

Verse 7

Your country is desolate,.... Or "shall be"; this is either a declaration in proper terms of what is before figuratively expressed, or rather a prophecy of what would be their case on account of transgressions; and which had its accomplishment partly in the Babylonish captivity, and fully in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; when not only their city and temple, called their house, Mat 23:38, were left unto them desolate, but the whole land; and they were carried captive, and scattered among the nations, where they have been ever since: your cities are, or shall be, burned with fire; as, Jerusalem has been, and other cities in Judea, Mat 22:7. your land, strangers devour it in your presence; before their eyes, and it would not be in their power to prevent it; meaning either the Babylonians or the Romans, or both, and especially the latter, who were strangers and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel: and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers; who ravage, plunder, and destroy all they meet with, and spare nothing, not intending to settle there, as those who are near do, when they conquer a neighbouring nation. Some think this prophecy was delivered in the times of Ahaz, and refers to the desolation in his time, Ch2 28:17 but rather, as Joel and Amos prophesied before Isaiah, he may refer to those desolating judgments, they speak of, by the locusts, caterpillars, and fire, Joe 1:4 but to consider the words as a prediction of what should be in after times seems best; and so the Arabic version reads the words, "your land shall be desolate, your cities shall be burnt with fire, and your country strangers shall devour before you"; or shall be as overthrown by strangers, being overflown with a flood or storm of rain; so Abendana (d). (d) As if it was which signifies a flood, or overflowing of water, Hab. iii. 10. to which sense Aben Ezra inclines; so Schultens in Job xxiv. 8.

Verse 8

And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in the vineyard,.... The Targum is, "after they have got in the vintage.'' A cottage in the vineyard was a booth, as the word (e) signifies, which was erected in the middle of the vineyard for the keeper of the vineyard to watch in night and day, that the fruit might not be hurt by birds, or stolen by thieves, and was a very, lonely place; and when the clusters of the vine were gathered, this cottage or booth was left by the keeper himself: and such it is suggested Jerusalem should be, not only stand alone, the cities all around being destroyed by the besiegers, but empty of inhabitants itself, when taken. As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers: the Targum adds here also, "after they have gathered them out of it.'' A lodge in a garden of cucumbers was built up for the gardener to watch in at night, that nobody came and stole away the cucumbers, and this was also a lonely place; but when the cucumbers were gathered, the gardener left his lodge entirely; and such a forsaken place would Jerusalem be at the time of its destruction; see Luk 19:43. as a besieged city; which is in great distress, and none care to come near it, and as many as can make their escape out of it; or "as a city kept"; so Gussetius (f), who understands this, and all the above clauses, of some places preserved from the sword in the common desolation. (e) , Sept. (f) "ut urbs custodita", Gusset. Comment. Ling. Ebr. p. 529. "Observata vel observanda", Forerius.

Verse 9

Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant,.... This is an instance of the super abounding goodness of the Lord of hosts, as the Targum expresses it; that he should, in those very wicked and calamitous times, leave and reserve a few from being defiled with the sins of the age, and from being involved in the general calamity of it; which was true of the Christian Jews at the time of Jerusalem's destruction; for that this prophecy belongs to these times is clear from the application of it by the Apostle Paul, Rom 9:29 and which confirms the sense given of the above passages: "the very small remnant" are the remnant according to the election of grace, the little flock, the few that entered in at the strait gate and are saved, or the few that believed in Christ, and so were saved from that untoward generation; these were "left", reserved, distinguished, and secured in the grace of election, being a remnant according to it, in the hands of Christ to whom they were given, and in whom they were preserved; in redemption by him, that they might be a peculiar people; in providence till called, in which the Lord watched over them to do them good, and waited to be gracious to them, and saved them to be called; and in effectual calling, in which he separated them from the rest of the world, and kept them by his power through faith unto salvation. And this was done "unto us"; for the sake of his church, that that might continue, and he might have a seed to serve him: and by "the Lord of hosts", of the hosts of heaven, the sun, and moon, and stars, and of the angels there, and of the inhabitants of the earth; which shows great condescension in him to regard this remnant, and great grace to them; since he could not stand in need of them, having the host of heaven on his right hand and on his left; nor was there any thing in them that could deserve this of him; but it was, as Jarchi observes, in his mercy, and not for their righteousness: to which may be added, that since he is the Lord of hosts, he was able to protect and preserve this remnant, notwithstanding all the opposition of men and devils, as he did; and had he not taken such a method as this, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah: cities that were infamous for their sins, and notorious for the punishment of them, being consumed by fire from heaven, Gen 13:13 and not only the Jews, but any and every nation, even the whole world, would have been like these cities, both for sin and punishment, had it not been for the distinguishing grace of God, in leaving and reserving a few for his glory, and the support of his interest. All the holiness that ever was, is, or will be in the world, is owing to electing, redeeming, and efficacious grace: there had not been a holy man nor a holy woman in the world, in any age, if God had not taken such methods of grace; and it is owing to, and for the sake of, this small remnant, that temporal judgments are often averted from a nation and people, and that the conflagration of the world is not yet; this is kept back till they are gathered in; and were it not for this distinguishing grace, every individual of mankind would have been cast into hell, and must have suffered the vengeance of eternal fire, which the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah, was an example of.

Verse 10

Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom,.... Not literally, but mystically, meaning the governors of Judea; they and their people having sinned in like manner, and as openly, as the rulers of Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof; see Isa 3:9 and so the Targum paraphrases the words, "receive the word of the Lord, ye governors, whose works are evil like the governors of Sodom.'' These are called to attend to the word of the Lord; either the Scriptures, which should be the rule of faith and practice, from which they had swerved; or to the word which now came to them by the prophet, and is contained in the following verses; or rather to the Gospel preached to them by John the Baptist, Christ, and his apostles, see Isa 2:3 which being rejected by them as it was, it is declared that it would be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, in the day of judgment, than for them, Mat 11:24. give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah; the inhabitants of Judea; for as were both the civil and ecclesiastical rulers, so were the people both in Isaiah's time, and in the times of Christ and his apostles. The Targum is, "hearken to the law of our God, ye people whose works are like to the people of Gomorrah.'' And by "the law of our God" is meant, not so much the law of Moses, which these people had not hearkened to, but had broken it, and cast it away from them, as the doctrine of the grace of God, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our God; which was first sent and preached to this wicked people, for the sake of the small remnant, according to the election of grace left among them; see Isa 2:3.

Verse 11

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord,.... These people, though they neglected the weightier matters of the law, and the more substantial duties of religion, as did the Scribes and Pharisees in Christ's time, Mat 23:23 yet were very diligent in the observance of the ceremonial law, and repeated their sacrifices almost without number, on which they placed all their trust and dependence; wherefore, to take off their confidence in these things, the Lord observes to them the unprofitableness of them; they could be of no avail to them, for they could not expiate their sins, or atone for them; and they could not be profitable to God, for he had no need of them; see Psa 50:10. I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; to the loathing of them, and therefore would no more eat their flesh, and drink their blood, or accept of them in sacrifice, Psa 50:13 "rams" were used for burnt offerings, Exo 29:18, Lev 1:10 and the fat of any creature offered in sacrifice was burnt, and forbidden to be eaten by men, Lev 1:8, Lev 1:15. and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats: as he did in moral services, in acts of beneficence and mercy, and in sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, Sa1 15:22, Hos 6:6 much less did he delight in the sacrifices of these creatures, as offered by such wicked hands and without faith in the blood and sacrifice of Christ; and still less when these were superseded and abrogated by Christ; for this prophecy belongs to the times of the apostles, as appears from Isa 1:9 see Psa 40:6. The several creatures mentioned were used in sacrifice, and their blood was sprinkled round about the altar, Lev 3:2 and before the vail, Lev 4:6.

Verse 12

When ye come to appear before me,.... At the grand festivals of the passover, pentecost, and tabernacles, at which times all the males in Israel appeared before God, Exo 23:17. who hath required this at your hand; either to appear at such times, these feasts being no more to be observed; or to offer the above sacrifices; these were not required of the Israelites when they first came out of Egypt, Jer 7:22 nor were they necessary to appear before God with, or to introduce them to the throne of his grace, Mic 6:6 and much less under the Gospel dispensation, being abolished by the sacrifice of Christ; or this relates to what follows, to tread my courts? in that unbecoming and hypocritical way they did, and with such wicked hearts and bloody hands. "Courts" are mentioned, because, as Kimchi observes, the Israelites stood in the courts of the Lord's house, and did not go into the temple, only the priests.

Verse 13

Bring no more vain oblations,.... As all such were, which were offered up without faith in Christ, in hypocrisy, and with dependence on them for pardon and atonement, and particularly when put an end to by the sacrifice of Christ; see Mat 15:9. The Targum renders it, "an oblation of robbery"; see Isa 60:8. incense is an abomination to me; instead of being of a sweet smell. This was burnt on the altar of incense, and put upon the sacrifices, Exo 30:1 was typical of prayer, Psa 141:2 but now under the Gospel dispensation to be disused, and so disagreeable to God, that it is as if an idol was blessed, Isa 66:3. the new moons; the feasts kept on the first day of the month, at the appearance of the moon: and sabbaths; observed every seventh day, every seventh year, and every seven times seventh year: the calling of assemblies; or "the new moon and sabbath, do not call a congregation". These assemblies called were the holy convocations on the seventh day sabbath, at the feasts of passover, pentecost, and tabernacles, at the blowing of the trumpets, and on the day of atonement, Lev 23:3 &c. Num 28:26. The words, I cannot away with or "bear", may be joined with the following word, "iniquity"; and the meaning is, that the Lord could not bear the iniquity that was in their hearts when they had their solemn assemblies and holy convocations: it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting: or cessation from work on any of the above festivals; particularly the feast of weeks, or pentecost, was called "Atzareth", by the Jews (g), the same word with this here (h). (g) Misn. Chagiga, c. 2. sect. 4. (h) The whole verse, agreeably to the accents, is thus rendered by Reinbeck. de Accent. Heb. p. 377, 378. "Do not go on to offer oblation of vanity; incense of abomination is it to me; do not go on, I say, on the new moon, and sabbath, to call a convocation: I cannot bear iniquity, together with the most solemn congregation.''

Verse 14

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth,.... The Targum is, "my Word abhorreth;'' the Messiah, the essential Word. These are the same as before. They are a trouble unto me; as they were kept and observed, either when they should not, or in a manner unbecoming: I am weary to bear them; because of the sins with which they made him to serve, Isa 43:24.

Verse 15

And when ye spread forth your hands,.... That is, in prayer, this being a prayer gesture: hence the Targum paraphrases it, "and when the priests spread out their hands to pray for you.'' I will hide mine eyes from you; will not look upon them, nor regard their prayer; see Lam 3:42. yea, when ye make many prayers; as the Scribes and Pharisees did in Christ's time, and thought to be heard for their much speaking, like the Gentiles, Mat 6:7. I will not hear; so as to give an answer, or fulfil their requests: the reason follows, your hands are full of blood; of the prophets of the Lord, of Christ and his followers, whom they put to death.

Verse 16

Wash ye, make you clean, &c. These two words are to be regarded as one, since they intend the same thing, and suppose the persons spoken to to be unclean, as they were, notwithstanding their legal sacrifices and ceremonial ablutions; and are designed to convince them of it, to bring them to a sense of their inability to cleanse themselves, to lead them to inquire after the proper means of it, and so to the fountain of Christ's blood to wash in, which only cleanses from it: put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; the exhortation is not barely to put away their doings, but the evil of them, and that not from themselves, but from before the eyes of God, from the eyes of his vindictive justice, which is only done by the sacrifice of Christ; and the use of this exhortation is to show the necessity of putting away sin to salvation, and the insufficiency of the blood of bulls and goats to do it, since, notwithstanding these, it remains untaken away; and to direct to the sacrifice of Christ, which effectually does it. Cease to do evil; either from ceremonial works done with a wicked mind, or from outward immoralities, such as shedding innocent blood, oppressing the fatherless and widow, things mentioned in the context; it denotes a cessation from a series and course of sinning, otherwise there is no ceasing from sin in this life.

Verse 17

Learn to do well,.... Which men are naturally ignorant of; to do good they have no knowledge; nor can they that are accustomed to do evil learn to do well of themselves; but the Lord can teach them to profit, and of him they should ask wisdom, and desire, under the influence of his grace, to learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, and particularly to do acts of beneficence to all men, and especially to the household of faith; and also, the following ones, seek judgment; seek to do justice between man and man in any cause depending, without respect of persons: relieve the oppressed; the poor that are oppressed by their neighbours that are richer and mightier than they, right their wrongs, and deliver them out of the hands of their oppressors (i): judge the fatherless; do justice to them who have none to take care of them, and defend them: plead for the widow; that is desolate, and has none to plead her cause. (i) Misn. Sabbat, c. 9. sect. 3. T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 67. 1,

Verse 18

Come now, and let us reason, together, saith the Lord,.... These words stand not in connection either with the preceding or following, but are to be read in a parenthesis, and are thrown in for the sake of the small remnant God had left among this wicked people, in order to comfort them, being distressed with sin. These, seeing their sins in their dreadful colours, and with all their aggravating circumstances, were ready to conclude that they were unpardonable; and, seeing God as an angry Judge, dared not come nigh him, but stood at a distance, fearing and expecting his vengeance to fall upon them, and therefore put away the promises, and refused to be comforted; when the Lord was pleased to encourage them to draw near to him, and come and reason with him: not at the bar of his justice; there is no reasoning with him there; none can contend with him, or answer him, one of a thousand; if he marks iniquity in strict justice, none can stand before him; there is no entering the lists with him upon the foot of justice, or at its bar: but at the bar of mercy, at the throne of grace; there the righteous may dispute with him from his declarations and promises, as well as come with boldness to him; and at the altar and sacrifice of Christ, and at the fountain of his blood: here sinners may reason with him from the virtue and efficacy of his blood and sacrifice; and from the Lord's proclamation of grace and mercy through him; and from his promises to forgive repenting and confessing sinners: and here God reasons with sensible souls from his own covenant promises and proclamations to forgive sin; from the aboundings of his grace over abounding sin; from the righteousness of Christ to justify, his blood to cleanse from sin, and his sacrifice to atone for it; and from the end of his coming into the world to save the chief of sinners: saying, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Every sin is a transgression of the law, and hateful and abominable to God; no sin is venial in itself, but deserving of the wrath of God, and the curses of the law; all sin is mortal, the wages of it is death: but all are not alike; some are greater, others lesser; some are attended with aggravating circumstances, as when the persons that commit them have, besides the light of nature, also the law of Moses, or the Gospel of Christ; have had the advantage of a religious education; have sat under a Gospel ministry, and received much speculative light and knowledge; yea, have been under convictions of sin time after time, and yet have been ringleaders and encouragers of others in sin, guilty of very enormous crimes, which in themselves are comparable to "scarlet" and "crimson": and perhaps reference may be had to the sin of murder, since the persons, among whom these dwelt, their hands were full of blood; and may respect the crucifiers of Christ, among whom there were some savingly convicted and converted. Moreover, they may be signified hereby on account of the effects of them, they defile men, provoke God to wrath, and, through the law, work wrath in their consciences; and may signify, that they are sins of a deep dye, and which have such a place in their hearts and consciences, that nothing can remove them but the blood of Christ: and besides are open, flagrant, and notorious to all, and especially to God; yet these, through the grace and blood of Jesus, become as white as wool and as snow: not that pardon of sin takes sin out of the hearts and natures of men, nor changes the nature of sin, or causes it to cease to be sin; but this is to be understood of the persons of sinners, who hereby are made so white, yea, whiter than this, Psa 51:1 as they are considered in Christ, washed in his blood, and clothed with his righteousness, which is fine linen, clean and white; God, seeing no iniquity in them, has thus graciously dealt with them, and they being without fault, spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. It was with respect to this Scripture that the Jews in later times were wont to tie a scarlet thread to the head of the scapegoat, when he was sent into the wilderness; though at first they fastened it to the door of the outward porch, and then to the door of the inward porch, and, if it turned white, it was a sign their sins were forgiven them, but, if not, otherwise (k); and it is owned by them, that it belongs to future time, the time of the Messiah (l). (k) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 89. 2. (l) Gussetius observes, that signifies not "oppressed", but infected with leaven, and so means, reduce to a right way him that is corrupt with the leaven of vice, by hindering him that he may not go on to hurt the fatherless. Comment. Ebr. p. 265.

Verse 19

If ye be willing and obedient,.... The Targum adds, "to my Word": the Word made flesh, and dwelling among them; who would have gathered the inhabitants of Jerusalem to his ministry, to attend his word and ordinances, but their rulers would not: ye shall eat the good of the land; the land of Canaan; as the Jews held the possession of that land, before the times of Christ, by their obedience to the laws of God, which were given them as a body politic, and which, so long as they observed, they were continued in the quiet and full enjoyment of all the blessings of it; so, when Christ came, had they received, embraced, and acknowledged him as the Messiah, and been obedient to his will, though only externally, they would have remained in their own land, and enjoyed all the good things in it undisturbed by enemies.

Verse 20

But if ye refuse and rebel,.... The Targum is, "and do not receive my Word"; the Messiah, when come, neither his person, nor his doctrines and ordinances: ye shall be devoured with the sword; of the Roman armies, as they were under Titus Vespasian; see Mat 22:7. for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it; now, by Isaiah, as well as in former times, Lev 26:25.

Verse 21

How is the faithful city become a harlot!.... The city of Jerusalem, in which were the temple, and the pure worship of God, and was in the tribe of Judah, which ruled with God, and was very faithful with the saints when the ten tribes revolted, and fell in with the sin of Jeroboam; but now, in Isaiah's time, was become like a treacherous wife to her husband, unfaithful to the Lord, went after other lovers, committed spiritual adultery, that is, idolatry, with stocks and stones; and in the times of Christ were a wicked and an adulterous generation, corrupting the word and worship of God; see Mat 12:39. it was full of judgment; strict justice was exercised privately between man and man, as well as in the public courts of judicature; righteousness lodged in it; that is, righteous men, who walked in all the commandments of the Lord, and lived soberly, righteously, and godly; see Pe2 3:13. but now murderers: of the prophets whom they stoned, who were sent unto them, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom they were the betrayers and murderers; see Mat 23:37.

Verse 22

Thy silver is become dross,.... Meaning either that such persons, who had the appearance of goodness, looked like genuine silver, were now become reprobate, and, as the wicked of the earth, like dross, Jer 6:30 or that the word of God, which is as silver purified seven times, was now corrupted with false glosses and human traditions, which were as dross: thy wine mixed with water (m); the wine of the divine word, which was mixed and blended with the inventions of men, as before; so the roof of the church's mouth, which is no other than the ministry of the word, is compared to the best wine, Sol 7:9. (m) It being usual to mix water with wine, and drink it, and this being not at all reproachful, but commendable, Gussetius thinks such a version does not express the sense of the words; he therefore thinks that is the same as contracted, which signified "infatuated"; and so the words should be rendered, "thy wine is infatuated into water"; is degenerated, and has lost its spirit and sprightliness, and is become insipid and tasteless. So Jarchi mentions a Midrash, which interprets it by the same word in Ecc 2:2. It is a word only used in this place. Joseph Kimchi says that in the Arabic, language has the signification of mixture, but without giving any instance. Indeed, according to Castel, it is used for the lees of oil.

Verse 23

Thy princes are rebellious,.... Stubborn and obstinate, refused to receive and acknowledge the Messiah; such were the Jewish rulers, civil and ecclesiastical, in the times of Christ. And companions of thieves: who devoured widows' houses; made the temple, which was a house of prayer, a den of thieves; and took away the key of knowledge from the people, and would not suffer them to attend the ministry of the Gospel, Mat 21:13. everyone loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards. The Targum paraphrases it, "everyone says to his neighbour, do me a favour in my cause, I will return "it" to thee in thy cause;'' and so justice was perverted: they judge not the fatherless; that is, either they do not take their cause in hand at all, or, if they do, do not do them justice, but wrong them of their goods and estates, which, of right, belong to them: neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them; there being no money to be got by undertaking it; see the case of the unjust judge, a picture of judges in those times, Luk 18:2.

Verse 24

Therefore, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel,.... All these names and titles, which are expressive of the majesty, power, and authority of God, are used to give the greater solemnity and weight to what follows; and to show that he is able to accomplish what he determines and threatens to do. Ah! which is a particle, either expressive of grief at their wretched and miserable condition, or of indignation at their provoking sins and transgressions: I will ease me of mine adversaries; or, "I will take comfort (n) of" them, by destroying them; expressing the pleasure and satisfaction he should take in avenging his justice on them: they had been a trouble to him, and had wearied him with their sins, and now he will ease himself of them by removing them. The Targum is, "I will comfort the city of Jerusalem;'' not taking the sense of the words: and avenge me of mine enemies; the Jews, who were enemies to Christ and his Gospel, and would not have him to reign over them, and which was the cause of the destruction of their city, temple, and nation; see Luk 19:14. (n) "consolationem capiam", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. "Consolabor me", Cocceius.

Verse 25

And I will turn my hand upon thee,.... The remnant, according to the election of grace, left in Jerusalem, Isa 1:9 meaning not his afflicting hand, no, not even as a fatherly chastisement; though the Lord sometimes, by such means, purges away the iniquity of his people, as follows; see Isa 27:9 much less his hand of wrath and vengeance, the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger; but his hand of efficacious grace in conversion, with which he plucks sinners as brands out of the burning; delivers them from the power of Satan; turns their hearts to himself; opens them, to attend unto and understand divine things; breaks them in pieces with the hammer of his word; works grace in them, and carries on the good work in their souls: all which is owing to his mighty hand of grace upon them, and to the exertions of the exceeding greatness of his power towards them. This was accomplished in part in the conversion of a large number of the Jews on the day of Pentecost, and afterwards; and will be more fully accomplished in the latter day, when that people shall turn to the Lord, in consequence of his hand of powerful grace being turned on them. The phrase is used of the display of divine grace and mercy, in Zac 13:7. and purely purge away thy dross; which the Targum rightly interprets of "ungodliness" or wickedness; it means the sins of converted ones, which, at conversion, they are purely purged from; not that sin, as to the being of it, is removed from them; that dwells in them, abides with them; and, like dross, is a heavy burden, a dead weight upon them, and will be while they are in this tabernacle, and makes them groan, being burdened; so far from it, that in their view it rather increases; they see the plague of their own hearts; and such innumerable swarms of corruption they never saw before; sin revives, and they die; but in conversion grace superabounds it, deluges over it, keeps down the force and power of it, so that it has not the dominion; the old man is put off concerning the former conversation, which ceases to be a series, a course of sinning: besides, through the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, which cleanseth from all the dross and filth of sin, the guilt is removed from the conscience, and perfect peace and full pardon take place; all iniquity is caused to pass from them, and they are clothed with change of raiment, the righteousness of Christ, by which they are justified from all things, and are pure, spotless, and without fault before the throne: and take away all thy tin. The Targum also interprets this of iniquity, rendering it, "I will take away all thy sin"; but it is better to understand it of self-righteousness; which, as tin is of more worth than dross, and looks like silver; so this has the appearance of some good in it, and was what the Jews were fond of, trusted in, and depended on, and which they followed after, and endeavoured to establish and hold fast; but this in conversion is all taken away: the Lord, by his Spirit; convinces of the weakness and insufficiency of it, to justify in his sight; shows that it is not a righteousness, and will be of no service in that respect; yea, takes away these filthy rags, and clothes with the righteousness of Christ; causes the soul to drop and renounce its own righteousness, and put on that; and not only to renounce works before conversion, but all after it, as a profession of religion, subjection to Gospel ordinances, and all works, though done in faith, and in a right manner; a glaring instance we have of all this in one of that little remnant, the Apostle Paul, Phi 3:6. Moreover, by "dross" and "tin", or "tins", in the plural number, may be meant persons; wicked and profane men, by the former, who should be put away like dross, Psa 119:119 and self righteous persons, by the latter; who shine like silver, make a show of religion, appear outwardly righteous; but these, as well as the other, should be separated from the people of God, when the precious and the vile should be distinguished.

Verse 26

And I will restore thy judges as at the first,.... This refers not to the times after the Babylonish, captivity, when the Jews had judges and rulers, such as Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, as they had in the times of Moses, Joshua, and the judges, or as in the times of David and Solomon; but it refers, as Kimchi observes, to the times of the Messiah; and is true of the apostles of Christ, who were set on twelve thrones, had power and authority from Christ to preach his Gospel, and to judge the twelve tribes of Israel in a doctrinal way, Mat 19:28 for which they were abundantly qualified, having the spirit of counsel and of judgment resting upon them, as the prophets of old; and will be again verified in the ministers of the Gospel, at the time of the Jews' conversion, when the watchmen shall see eye to eye, have a clear discerning and judgment of things as at the first, Isa 52:8. and thy counsellors as at the beginning; which is to be understood of the same persons; the apostles at Jerusalem gave advice and counsel in matters of difficulty, and were consulted on special occasions, of which there is an instance in Act 15:1 and ordinary ministers of the word are qualified, and especially will be in the latter day, to give advice both to sensible sinners, inquiring the way of salvation, and to saints when under desertion, and have lost their beloved, or have any matters of difficulty upon them, whether with respect to faith or practice. Afterward thou shall be called the city of righteousness: when many shall be converted through the hand of the Lord turned upon them, and become incorporated into a church state, and having the apostles and other ministers of the Gospel among them, with proper officers over them, as the first Christian church at Jerusalem had; and the members of it were righteous persons, such as were justified by the righteousness of Christ, and lived righteously, walking in the ordinances of the Lord, and as became the Gospel of Christ, and will be the case of the churches of Christ in the latter day: the faithful city; to Christ, his Gospel, ordinances, and one another, as the first Christians at Jerusalem were; see Act 2:12. A true church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, who keep the ordinances as they were delivered; stand first in the faith of the Gospel; take care that the laws of Christ's house are put in execution; and do not suffer sin upon one another, nor bear them that are evil, whether in doctrine or practice; and which in the latter day will be the case of the churches of Christ in a remarkable manner, when they will justly bear this character.

Verse 27

Zion shall be redeemed with judgment,.... The blessing of redemption by Christ is the source and foundation of the other blessings of grace, before mentioned, the little remnant are favoured with, as justification, pardon of sin, and conversion, Isa 1:18, Isa 1:25 it is of a spiritual nature; the redemption of the soul is a deliverance from the captivity of sin, Satan, and the law, and is plenteous and eternal; the objects of redeeming grace are "Zion" and her converts; not the world, but the church is redeemed by Christ; for by Zion is meant, not a place, but people, even the church and people of God, who frequently bear the name of Zion in this prophecy, and in other passages of Scripture, both of the Old and of the New Testament; see Isa 49:14 compared to Mount Zion for its height and holiness; for being the object of God's love, the instance of his choice, the place of his habitation; where his worship is, he grants his presence, and distributes his blessings; for its being a perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth, well fortified and immovable: and the redemption of the church by Christ is with judgment; with the judgment and vengeance of God on Christ, and through the condemnation of him as her Head and representative; with the judgment of God, which is according to truth, in whose judgment she is truly redeemed by the blood of Christ, and really delivered from her bondage, according to his justice and holiness, which are glorified by it: but here the redemption of Zion seems to mean a more glorious state of the church, a restoration of her to her former glory, or to a greater, which will be in the latter day, and may be discerned as drawing near by the signs of the times fulfilling, Luk 21:28 whereby the truth and faithfulness of God, in his promises concerning it, will be honoured, and he will appear to be a God of judgment: and her converts with righteousness; so called, not because converted by the church, for conversion is God's work, and not man's; no man can effect his own conversion, he is passive in it; nor can any others, not their nearest friends and relations; they can only pray for it, as Abraham did for Ishmael, and bring them under the means; nor are ministers sufficient, only instruments of conversion neither Zion's ministers nor members can convert one sinner: but they are so called, either because converted "in" her, through the ministry of the word as a means, preached in the midst of her, Psa 87:5 or because converted "to" her, Isa 60:5 being made to submit to the ordinances of the church, and to join themselves to it. "Converts" are the objects of redemption by Christ; all that are redeemed are, sooner or later, converted; and all that are converted are redeemed; and the redemption of them by his blood is consistent "with" the "righteousness" of God; for hereby sin is fully condemned and punished; the justice of God has all its demands, and the law is completely fulfilled; and so the end of God is answered, which is to declare his righteousness by it. Moreover, in the latter day, when there, will be a redemption and deliverance or the church out of all her troubles and distresses, her converts will manifestly appear to be all righteous, being justified with the spotless righteousness of Christ, Isa 60:21.

Verse 28

And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together,.... Of the beast and false prophet, of the followers of antichrist, the man of sin, who are transgressors of the law of God, and sinners against the Lord; the destruction of these, or the breaking of them into shivers, as the word (o) signifies, see Rev 2:27 will be at the time of Zion's redemption, and make a part of it; and it shall be all at once and together; these sinners will be all together consumed out of the earth, and these wicked antichristian ones will be no more in it, Psa 104:35. and they that forsake the Lord; his word, his worship and ordinances; as the Papists have manifestly done, by setting up their own unwritten traditions against the word of God, by adulterating his ordinances, and introducing new ones, and by worshipping images of gold, silver, brass, and wood; wherefore they shall be consumed; with the breath of Christ's mouth, and with the brightness of his coming, Th2 2:8. (o) "contritio sive confractio", Syr.

Verse 29

For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired,.... Though there is a change of persons in the words, the same are intended; and design such, who being convinced of the idolatries of the church of Rome they have been fond of, and delighted in, will be ashamed of them, and relinquish them, and come out of Babylon a little before the destruction of it; for under oaks, and such like green trees, idolatry used to be committed, to which the allusion is; see Jer 2:20 and so the Targum interprets it of "trees of idols"; that is, under which idolatry was practised: and ye shall be confounded for the gardens ye have chosen; where also idolatrous practices were used, see Isa 65:3 and so the Targum paraphrases it, "and ye shall be ashamed of the gardens of idols, from whom ye have sought help.'' The sense is the same as before; unless both clauses should rather be understood of the destruction of sinners, before spoken of, who at that time will be filled with shame and confusion, they in vain praying to their idols for help; which sense the following words incline to.

Verse 30

For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth,.... Shall be stripped of all their dependencies and self confidence, and be as naked and as bare as an oak that has cast its leaves; or thus, in a way of just retaliation, since they have desired oaks, and sacrificed under them, they shall be like them as in the wintertime, stripped of all their riches, honour, substance, and desirable things; see Rev 18:12. and as a garden that hath no water; in which the herbs and plants are dried up and withered: it signifies the uncomfortable condition such shall be in, as before.

Verse 31

And the strong shall be as tow,.... "that strong one", who is eminently so; the little horn, whose look is more stout than his fellows, Dan 7:20 the beast who had great power and authority given by the dragon, Rev 13:2 who shall be cast alive into the lake of fire; when he will be like tow in those devouring flames, easily, quickly, and irrecoverably consumed, Dan 7:11, Rev 19:20. and the maker of it as a spark, or "his work"; so the Targum, "and the work of their hands shall be as a spark of fire;'' or like the embers and ashes of a coal, which are blown away and lost at once: so antichrist, and all his evil works, as well as all his evil workers under him, will be entirely consumed: or, as it may be rendered, "he that wrought him": that is, Satan, for his coming is after the working of Satan; he has his seat, power, and authority, from the dragon, the old serpent, and the devil, and may be truly called a creature of his, Th2 2:9. and they shall both burn together; both the pope and the devil in the lake of fire and brimstone, into which they will both be cast, Rev 20:10. and none shall quench them; that fire will be unquenchable and everlasting; they will be tormented for ever and ever, and so will all the worshippers of the beast, Mat 25:41. The Chaldee paraphrase is, "so the wicked shall be consumed, and their evil works, and there shall be no mercy upon them.'' Next: Isaiah Chapter 2

Introduction

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 ישׁע (he shall save) and ישׁוּעה (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 self-assertion in Exo 3:14, was true and essential salvation, proceeding outwards from Israel, and eventually embracing all mankind. In the name of the prophet the tetragrammaton יהוה is contracted into יהו (יה) by the dropping of the second ה. 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 Yahvâh, or rather Yahavâh. According to Theodoret, it was pronounced ̓Ιαβε (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. "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 (iaia), 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 ̔Ησαΐ̀ας, 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 vv. 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 vv. 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 Isaiah 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 Deu 1:1. 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 Isa 1:1 : "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 Isa 1:1, 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 וחזקיּהוּ or וחזקיּה; but the estimable grammarian has overlooked the fact that the same form is found in Jer 15:4 and Kg2 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 Jesimil from sim, Ch1 4:36 : vid., Olshausen, 277, p. 621). Under these four kings Isaiah laboured, or, as it is expressed in Isa 1:1, saw the sight which is committed to writing in the book before us. Of all the many Hebrew synonyms for seeing, חזה (cf., Cernere, κρίνειν, 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; Job 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 Isa 1:1 was originally nothing more than the heading to the first prophecy, and that it was only by the addition of Isa 1:1 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 (Ch2 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 Isa 1:1 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 chapter 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 Isa 1:1 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 Isa 1:1 contains the title to the whole book, where is the heading to the first prophecy? Are we to take אשׁר 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 Isa 1:1 as the heading to the first prophetic words in Chapter 1; but it is unnatural, as חזון אשׁר חזה, 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.

Verse 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 Deu 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 hâzinu (song of "Give ear"), from the opening words in chapter 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 (Deut. 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" (Deu 32:1). In what sense he invoked the heaven and the earth, he tells us himself in Deu 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 1:2), 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 Deu 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 Deu 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 (Deu 30:19; Deu 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" (Isa 1:2). 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 (Exo 4:22-23). All the members of the nation were His children (Deu 14:1; Deu 32:20). Jehovah was Israel's father, by whom it had been begotten (Deu 32:6, Deu 32:18). 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 Kg2 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 Eze 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 vv. 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.

Verse 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 Exo 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 φάτνη, vulgar πάτνη, Dor. and Lac. πάτνη, and is applied in the Talmud to the large common porringer used by labourers). (Note: Nedarim iv 4 jer. Demai viii. The stable is called repheth Even in jer. Shebuoth viii. 1, where cattle are spoken of as standing b'evus, the word signifies a crib or manger, not a stable. Luzzatto tries to prove that evus signifies a threshing-floor, and indeed an enclosed place, in distinction from geren; but he is mistaken.) Israel had no such knowledge, neither instinctive and direct, nor acquired by reflection (hithbonan, the reflective conjugation, with a pausal change of the e4 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 Psa 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 Isa 1:2 and Isa 1:3 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 (Psa 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 Isa 1:4 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.

Verse 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, Exo 19:6); but it was a sinful nation - gens peccatrix, as it is correctly rendered by the Vulgate. חטא 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 חטאי, 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. Num 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). עון (sin regarded as crookedness and perversity, whereas חטא 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; Gen 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 גּוי a nation (Nation), and עם(am 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, Psa 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 (Zep 2:9; Psa 106:5). (3.) Israel bore elsewhere the honourable title of the seed of the patriarch (Isa 41:8; Isa 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., Isa 61:9; Isa 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 מרעים is מרע , with the usual sharpening in the case of gutturals in the verbs (' '(, מרע with patach, מרע 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 (Deu 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 (Deu 4:16, Deu 4:25; Deu 31:29). In all these passages we find the hiphil, and in the parallel passage of the great song (Deu 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 Isa 1:2, that the term children is to be understood as indicating their relation to Jehovah (cf., Isa 30:1, Isa 30:9). 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 (Deu 31:20; Num 14:11, Num 14:23; Num 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. נזור is the reflective of זוּר, related to נור and סוּר, 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 מאחריו). 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.

Verse 5

In this v. a disputed question arises as to the words על־מה (מה, the shorter, sharper form of מה, 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 Schrring, 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 Isa 1:6 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 Eze 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." Isa 1:5 we therefore render thus: "Why would ye be perpetually smitten, multiplying rebellion?" עוד (with tiphchah, a stronger disjunctive than tebir) belongs to תּכּוּ; see the same form of accentuation in Eze 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., Psa 62:4, "delighting in lies," and Psa 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 Eze 7:17-18. We must therefore render Isa 1:5, "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 Ch2 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.

Verse 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. "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 פּצע 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 ולא רּכּכה בּשּׁמן, which refers to חבורה (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 Psa 58:4, has a different meaning (abalienati sunt: cf., Isa 1:4) - 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 v. 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 Isa 1:22 with Isa 1:23). The body thus inwardly and outwardly diseased, was, strictly speaking, the people and the land in their fearful condition at that time.

Verse 7

This is described more particularly in Isa 1:7, which commences with the most general view, and returns to it again at the close."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, how nearly every word corresponds to the curses threatened in Lev 26 and Deut 28 (29); Mic 6:13-16 and Jer 5:15. 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 barōye, 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 Isa 1:7 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 v. 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., Sa2 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, Deu 29:22, and Isaiah had evidently also this catastrophe in his mind, as Isa 1:8 clearly shows; we decide in favour of the conclusion that zârim is the genitive of the object (cf., Amo 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 Isa 1:8, Isa 1:9 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 Isa 1:8 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; Jer 48:18; Zac 2:11). In this instance the latter are included, as Isa 1:9 clearly shows. This is precisely the point in the first two comparisons.

Verse 8

"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, dalâth, 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, Isa 1:8, "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 Sa2 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.

Verse 9

For the present, however, Jerusalem was saved from this extremity. 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 σπέρμα 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 (Deu 2:34, etc.); and כּמעט (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; Ch2 12:7; Pro 10:20; Psa 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.)

Verse 10

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 Isa 1:9 and Isa 1:10. 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 (petuchah). 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 Isa 1:10, Isa 1:11, 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, Mic 3:1-12) 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 Eze 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 יאמר, not אמר: 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 zebâchim 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 (Cebashim) 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 peace-offering, 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.

Verse 12

Jeremiah says this with regard to the sacrifices (Isa 7:22); Isaiah also applies it to visits to the temple: "When ye come to appear before my face, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?" לראות is a contracted infinitive niphal for להראות (compare the hiphil forms contracted in the same manner in Isa 3:8; Isa 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., Psa 42:3; Psa 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 ל, את, and אל? It is possible that לראות is pointed as it is here, and in Exo 34:24 and in Deu 31:11, instead of לראות - like יראוּ for יראוּ, in Exo 23:15; Exo 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 Exo 23:17; Exo 34:23, and Sa1 1:22; and in the Mishnah and Talmud the terms ראיה and ראיון 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.

Verse 13

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 (Exo 30:8). But neither in Psa 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. Isa 1:13. 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" (לא־אוּכל: literally, a future hophal - I am unable, incapable, viz., to bear, which may be supplied, according to Psa 101:5; Jer 44:22; Pro 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. עצרה (from עצר, to press, or crowd thickly together) is synonymous with מקרא), so far as its immediate signification is concerned, as Jer 9:1 clearly shows, just as πανήγυρις is synonymous with εκκλησία . און (from אוּן, 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.

Verse 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 feast-days (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" (נשׂא), in Isaiah, even in Isa 18:3, for שׂאת or שׂאת ro , and here for לשׂאת: Ewald, 285, c) has for its object the seasons of worship already mentioned.

Verse 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; (Note: The primary idea of hithpallel and tephillah is not to be obtained from Deu 9:18 and Ezr 10:1, as Dietrich and Frst suppose, who make hithpallel equivalent to hithnappel, to throw one's self down; but from Sa1 2:25, "If a man sin against a man, the authorities right him" (וּפללו אלהים: it is quite a mistake to maintain that Elohim cannot have this meaning), i.e., they can set right the relation which he has disturbed. "But if one sin against Jehovah, who shall mediate for him (מי יתפּלּל־לו, quis intercedat pro eo)?" We may see from this that prayer is regarded as mediation, which sets right and establishes fellowship; and hithpallel signifies to make one's self a healer of divisions, or to settle for one's self, to strive after a settlement (sibi, pro se, intercedere: cf., Job 19:16, hithchannen, sibi propitium facere; Job 13:27, hithchakkah, sibi insculpere, like the Arabic ichtatta, to bound off for one's self).) 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 pērēsh, 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. (Note: As Chittah signified corn standing in the field, and Chittim corn threshed and brought to the market, so damim was not blood when flowing through the veins, but when it had flowed out-in other words, when it had been violently shed. (For the Talmudic misinterpretation of the true state of the case, see my Genesis, p. 626.)) 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 Isa 1:11-15 : 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 Isa 1:16, Isa 1:17, 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.

Verse 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: hizdaccu, 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 ne‛gd, high land which is visible at a great distance), conspicuousness, so that minneged is really equivalent to ex apparentia.

Verse 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. הרע in Isa 1:16 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 בּגוד בּגודה (cf., נקד נקּדּה), is not used in a passive, but in an active or attributive sense (Ewald, 152, b: vid., at Psa 137:8): it has therefore the same meaning as Chomeotz in Psa 71:4, and âshok in Jer 22:3, which is similar in its form. But if Châmotz signifies the oppressive, reckless, churlish man, אשּׁר cannot mean to make happy, or to congratulate, or to set up, or, as in the talmudic rendering, to strengthen (Luzzatto: rianimate chi oppresso); but, as it is also to be rendered in Isa 3:12; Isa 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. (Note: The Talmud varies in its explanation of Chamoz: in one instance it is applied to a judge who lets his sentence be thoroughly leavened before pronouncing it; in another the Chamuz is said to signify a person robbed and injured, in opposition to Chomez (b. Sanhedrin 35a). It is an instructive fact in relation to the idea suggested by the word, that, according to Joma 39b, a man who had not only taken possession of his own inheritance, but had seized upon another person's also, bore the nickname of ben chimzon as long as he lived.) In the same way we find in other passages, such as Isa 11:4 and Psa 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 protgs of God and His law, standing under His especial guardianship and care (see, for example, Exo 22:22 (21), cf., Exo 21:21 (20). "Do justice to the orphan" (Shâphat, as in Deu 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:" ריב with an accusative, as in Isa 51:22, the only other passage in which it occurs, is a contracted form for ריב ריב. 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 Isa 1:10, 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.

Verse 18

The first leading division of the address is brought to a close, and Isa 1:18 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 Isa 1:16, Isa 1:17. And now this love, which desired not Israel's destruction, but Israel's inward and outward salvation, breaks fully through. "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 Pro 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 (Mat 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.

Verse 19

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. "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 Isa 1:19 with Deu 28:3., Lev 26:3., and Isa 1:20 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 Psa 17:13-14; but this adverbial construction without either genitive, adjective, or suffix, as in Exo 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, חרב תּאכלכם, for the sake of the paronomasia (Bttcher, 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 Isa 1:18-20 formed a separate parashah by themselves, viz., a sethumah, or parashah indicated by spaces left within the line. The piskah after Isa 1:20 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.

Verse 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. איכה, and but rarely איך, 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 mâshōl (e.g., Isa 14:4, Isa 14:12; 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 מלאתי for מלאת, softened by lengthening, were adapted to elegiac compositions, from the first v. 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., Psa 78:37). (Note: We have translated the word kiryah "citadel" (Burg), instead of "city;" but Burg also became the name of the town which sprang up around the citadel, and the persons living in and around the Burg or citadel were called burgenses, "burghers." Jerusalem, which was also called Zion, might be called, with quite as much right, a citadel (Burg), as a city.) 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 (Deu 31:16; Exo 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 v. 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. (Note: It is well known that rebia has less force as a disjunctive than tiphchah, and that zakeph is stronger then either. With regard to the law, according to which bâh has rebia instead of zakeph, see Br, Thorath Emeth, p. 70. To the copies enumerated by Luzzatto, as having the correct accentuation (including Brescia 1494, and Venice, by J. B. Chayim, 1526), we may add Plantin (1582), Buxtorf (1618), Nissel (1662), and many others (cf., Dachselt's Biblia accentuata, which is not yet out of date).) Formerly righteousness, now "murderers" (merazzechim), and indeed, as distinguished from rozechim, murderers by profession, who formed a band, like king Ahab and his son (Kg2 6:32). The contrast was as glaring as possible, since murder is the direct opposite, the most crying violation, of righteousness.

Verse 22

The complaint now turns from the city generally to the authorities, and first of all figuratively. "Thy silver has become dross, thy drink mutilated with water." It is upon this passage that the figurative language of Jer 6:27. and Eze 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 (Bhr, 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., Pro 25:4; Pro 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.

Verse 23

In Isa 1:23 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 (Psa 34:16), but shalmonimshalmonim, 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 Isa 1:18; consequently Jehovah would avail himself of other means of setting it right.

Verse 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; Isa 3:1; Isa 10:16, Isa 10:33; Isa 3:15). With three names, descriptive of the irresistible omnipotence of God, the irrevocable decree of a sifting judgment is sealed. The word נאּם, which is used here instead of אמר and points back to a verb נאם, related to נהם and המה, 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 Sa1 2:30 and Psa 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 ĕ in the preformative syllable, the former with i, according to the older system of vowel-pointing adopted in the East. (Note: The so-called Assyrian mode of pointing, which was entirely supplanted, with the exception of a few relics, by the Tiberian mode which now lies before us, has no seghol (see DMZ. xviii. 322). According to Luzzatto (Proleg. p. 200), they wrote ektol instead of iktol, to avoid confounding it with יקטל, which was pronounced iktol, and not yiktol.) Jehovah would procure Himself relief from His enemies by letting out upon them the wrath with which He had hitherto been burdened (Eze 5:13). He now calls the masses of Jerusalem by their right name.

Verse 25

Isa 1:25 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 (Amo 1:8; Jer 6:9; Eze 38:12; Psa 81:15), or else, though this is seldom the case, for the purpose of saving him (Zac 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 (Note: Plumbum nigrum, says Pliny, n. n. xxiv. 16, is sometimes found alone, and sometimes mixed with silver: ejus qui primus fluic in fornacibus liquor, stannum appellatur. The reference here is to the lead separated from the ore in the process of obtaining pure silver. In the form of powder this dross is called bedil, and the pieces bedilim; whereas ophereth is the name of solid lead, obtained by simply melting down from ore which does not contain silver. The fact that bedil is also apparently used as a name for tin, may be explained in the same way as the homonymy of iron and basalt (Com. on Job 28:2), and of the oak and terebinth. The two metals are called by the same name on account of their having a certain outward resemblance, viz., in softness, pliability, colour, and specific gravity.) in which the silver is contained, and which are separated by smelting, all the baser metals being distinguished from the purer kinds by the fact that they are combustible (i.e., can be oxidized). Both bor, or potash (an alkali obtained from land-plants), and nether, natron (i.e., soda, or natron obtained from the ashes of marine plants, which is also met with in many mineral waters), have been employed from the very earliest times to accelerate the process of smelting, for the purpose of separating a metal from its ore.

Verse 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 Isa 1:26 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.

Verse 27

Isa 1:27 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; Isa 28:6), for such conduct as is pleasing to God (Isa 1:21; Isa 32:16), and for royal Messianic virtues (Isa 9:6; Isa 11:3-5; Isa 16:5; Isa 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; Isa 5:16; Isa 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.

Verse 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 v. 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.

Verse 29

Isa 1:29 declares how God's judgment of destruction would fall upon all of these. The v. 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 Deu 16:21). They are both of them frequently mentioned by the prophets in this sense (Isa 57:5; Isa 65:3; Isa 66:17): Châmor and bâchar are also the words commonly applied to an arbitrary choice of false gods (Isa 44:9; Isa 41:24; Isa 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 Psa 35:4. (Note: It is perfectly certain that Châpher (Arab. Chaphira, as distinguished from Châphar, hafara, to dig) signifies to blush, erubescere; but the combination of bosh and yâbash (bâda), which would give albescere or expallescere (to turn white or pale) as the primary idea of bosh, has not only the Arabic use of bayyada and ibyadda (to rejoice, be made glad) against it, but above all the dialectic bechath, bahita (bahuta), which, when taken in connection with bethath (batta), points rather to the primary idea of being cut off (abscindi: cf., spes abscissa). See Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, i. 263.) 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. (Note: With regard to the derivation, êlim, whether used in the sense of strong men, or gods, or rams, or terebinths, is still but one word, derived from ı̄l or ūl, so that in all three senses it may be written either with or without Yod. Nevertheless elim in the sense of "rams" only occurs without Yod in Job 42:8. In the sense of "gods" it is always written without Yod; in that of "strong men" with Yod. In the singular the name of the terebinth is always written elah without Yod; in the plural, however, it is written either with or without. But this no more presupposes a singular êl (ayil) in common use, than bêtzim presupposes a singular bêts (bayits); still the word êl with Yod does occur once, viz., in Gen 14:6. Allâh and allōn, an oak, also spring from the same root, namely âlal = il; just as in Arabic both ı̄l and ill are used for ēl (God); and âl and ill, in the sense of relationship, point to a similar change in the form of the root.) 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).

Verse 30

He still continues in the same excitement, piling a second explanatory sentence upon the first, and commencing this also with "for" (Chi); and then, carried away by the association of ideas, he takes terebinths and gardens as the future figures of the idolatrous people themselves. "For ye shall become like a terebinth with withered leaves, and like a garden that hath no water." Their prosperity is distroyed, so that they resemble a terebinth withered as to its leaves, which in other cases are always green (nobleth ‛aleah, genitives connection according to (Ges. 112, 2). Their sources of help are dried up, so that they are like a garden without water, and therefore waste. In this withered state terebinths and gardens, to which the idolatrous are compared, are easily set on fire. All that is wanted is a spark to kindle them, when they are immediately in flames.

Verse 31

Isa 1:31 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 החסון 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 פּעלו and פּעלו (cf., Isa 52:14 and Jer 22:13) are two equally admissible changes of the ground-form פעלו (פּעלו). As Isa 1:29 refers to idolatrous worship, poalo (his work) is an idol, a god made by human hands (cf., Isa 2:8; Isa 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 Isa 1:7-9 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 Isa 1:7-9 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, Rosenmller (who expresses a different opinion in every one of the three editions of his Scholia), Maurer, Movers, Knobel, Hvernick, 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 Isa 6:1-13. Till then, the date of the composition of chapter 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.

Introduction

The first verse of this chapter is intended for a title to the whole book, and it is probable that this was the first sermon that this prophet was appointed to publish and to affix in writing (as Calvin thinks the custom of the prophets was) to the door of the temple, as with us proclamations are fixed to public places, that all might read them (Hab 2:2), and those that would might take out authentic copies of them, the original being, after some time, laid up by the priests among the records of the temple. The sermon which is contained in this chapter has in it, I. A high charge exhibited, in God's name, against the Jewish church and nation, 1. For their ingratitude (Isa 1:2, Isa 1:3). 2. For their incorrigibleness (Isa 1:5). 3. For the universal corruption and degeneracy of the people (Isa 1:4, Isa 1:6, Isa 1:21, Isa 1:22). 4. For the perversion of justice by their rulers (Isa 1:23). II. A sad complaint of the judgments of God, which they had brought upon themselves by their sins, and by which they were brought almost to utter ruin (Isa 1:7-9). III. A just rejection of those shows and shadows of religion which they kept up among them, notwithstanding this general defection and apostasy (Isa 1:10-15). IV. An earnest call to repentance and reformation, setting before them life and death, life if they compiled with the call and death if they did not (Isa 1:16-20). V. A threatening of ruin to those that would not be reformed (Isa 1:24, Isa 1:28-31). VI. A promise of a happy reformation at last, and a return to their primitive purity and prosperity (Isa 1:25-27). And all this is to be applied by us, not only to the communities we are members of, in their public interests, but to the state of our own souls.

Verse 1

Here is, I. The name of the prophet, Isaiah, or Jesahiahu (for so it is in the Hebrew), which, in the New Testament is read Esaias. His name signifies the salvation of the Lord - a proper name for a prophet by whom God gives knowledge of salvation to his people, especially for this prophet, who prophesies so much of Jesus the Saviour and of the great salvation wrought out by him. He is said to be the son of Amoz, not Amos the prophet (the two names in the Hebrew differ more than in the English), but, as the Jews think, of Amoz the brother, or son, of Amaziah king of Judah, a tradition as uncertain as that rule which they give, that, where a prophet's father is named, he also was himself a prophet. The prophets' pupils and successors are indeed often called their sons, but we have few instances, if any, of their own sons being their successors. II. The nature of the prophecy. It is a vision, being revealed to him in a vision, when he was awake, and heard the words of God, and saw the visions of the Almighty (as Balaam speaks, Num 24:4), though perhaps it was not so illustrious a vision at first as that afterwards, Amo 6:1. The prophets were called seers, or seeing men, and therefore their prophecies are fitly called visions. It was what he saw with the eyes of his mind, and foresaw as clearly by divine revelation, was as well assured of it, as fully apprised of it, and as much affected with it, as if he had seen it with his bodily eyes. Note 1. God's prophets saw what they spoke of, knew what they said, and require our belief of nothing but what they themselves believed and were sure of, Joh 6:69; Jo1 1:1. 2. They could not but speak what they saw, because they saw how much all about them were concerned in it, Act 4:20; Co2 4:13. III. The subject of the prophecy. It was what he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, the country of the two tribes, and that city which was their metropolis; and there is little in it relating to Ephraim, or the ten tribes, of whom there is so much said in the prophecy of Hosea. Some chapters there are in this book which relate to Babylon, Egypt, Tyre, and some other neighbouring nations; but it takes its title from that which is the main substance of it, and is therefore said to be concerning Judah and Jerusalem, the other nations spoken of being such as the people of the Jews had concern with. Isaiah brings to them in a special manner, 1. Instruction; for it is the privilege of Judah and Jerusalem that to them pertain the oracles of God. 2. Reproof and threatening; for if in Judah, where God is known, if in Salem, where his name is great, iniquity be found, they, sooner than any other, shall be reckoned with for it. 3. Comfort and encouragement in evil times; for the children of Zion shall be joyful in their king. IV. The date of the prophecy. Isaiah prophesied in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. By this it appears, 1. That he prophesied long, especially if (as the Jews say) he was at last put to death by Manasseh, to a cruel death, being sawn asunder, to which some suppose the apostle refers, Heb 11:37. From the year that king Uzziah died (Isa 6:1) to Hezekiah's sickness and recovery was forty-seven years; how much before, and after, he prophesied, is not certain; some reckon sixty, others eighty years in all. It was an honour to him, and a happiness to his country, that he was continued so long in his usefulness; and we must suppose both that he began young and that he held out to old age; for the prophets were not tied, as the priests were, to a certain age, for the beginning or ending of their administration. 2. That he passed through variety of times. Jotham was a good king, and Hezekiah a better, and no doubt gave encouragement to and took advice from this prophet, were patrons to him, and he a privy-counsellor to them; but between them, and when Isaiah was in the prime of his time, the reign of Ahaz was very profane and wicked; then, no doubt, he was frowned upon at court, and, it is likely, forced to abscond. Good men and good ministers must expect bad times in this world, and prepare for them. Then religion was run down to such a degree that the doors of the house of the Lord were shut up and idolatrous altars were erected in every corner of Jerusalem; and Isaiah, with all his divine eloquence and messages immediately from God himself, could not help it. The best men, the best ministers, cannot do the good they would do in the world.

Verse 2

We will hope to meet with a brighter and more pleasant scene before we come to the end of this book; but truly here, in the beginning of it, every thing looks very bad, very black, with Judah and Jerusalem. What is the wilderness of the world, if the church, the vineyard, has such a dismal aspect as this? I. The prophet, though he speaks in God's name, yet, despairing to gain audience with the children of his people, addresses himself to the heavens and the earth, and bespeaks their attention (Isa 1:2): Hear, O heavens! and give ear, O earth! Sooner will the inanimate creatures hear, who observe the law and answer the end of their creation, than this stupid senseless people. Let the lights of the heaven shame their darkness, and the fruitfulness of the earth their barrenness, and the strictness of each to its time their irregularity. Moses begins thus in Deu 32:1, to which the prophet here refers, intimating that now those times had come which Moses there foretold, Deu 31:29. Or this is an appeal to heaven and earth, to angels and then to the inhabitants of the upper and lower world. Let them judge between God and his vineyard; can either produce such an instance of ingratitude? Note, God will be justified when he speaks, and both heaven and earth shall declare his righteousness, Mic 6:1, Mic 6:2; Psa 50:6. II. He charges them with base ingratitude, a crime of the highest nature. Call a man ungrateful, and you can call him no worse. Let heaven and earth hear and wonder at, 1. God's gracious dealings with such a peevish provoking people as they were: "I have nourished and brought them up as children; they have been well fed and well taught" (Deu 32:6); "I have magnified and exalted them" (so some), "not only made them grow, but made them great - not only maintained them, but preferred them - not only trained them up, but raised them high." Note, We owe the continuance of our lives and comforts, and all our advancements, to God's fatherly care of us and kindness to us. 2. Their ill-natured conduct towards him, who was so tender of them: "They have rebelled against me," or (as some read it) "they have revolted from me; they have been deserters, nay traitors, against my crown and dignity." Note, All the instances of God's favour to us, as the God both of our nature and of our nurture, aggravate our treacherous departures from him and all our presumptuous oppositions to him - children, and yet rebels! III. He attributes this to their ignorance and inconsideration (Isa 1:3): The ox knows, but Israel does not. Observe, 1. The sagacity of the ox and the ass, which are not only brute creatures, but of the dullest sort; yet the ox has such a sense of duty as to know his owner and to serve him, to submit to his yoke and to draw in it; the ass has such a sense of interest as to know has master's crib, or manger, where he is fed, and to abide by it; he will go to that of himself if he be turned loose. A fine pass man has come to when he is shamed even in knowledge and understanding by these silly animals, and is not only sent to school to them (Pro 6:6, Pro 6:7), but set in a form below them (Jer 8:7), taught more than the beasts of the earth (Job 35:11) and yet knowing less. 2. The sottishness and stupidity of Israel. God is their owner and proprietor. He made us, and his we are more than our cattle are ours; he has provided well for us; providence is our Master's crib; yet many that are called the people of God do not know and will not consider this, but ask, "What is the Almighty that we should serve him? He is not our owner; and what profit shall we have if we pray unto him? He has no crib for us to feed at." He had complained (Isa 1:2) of the obstinacy of their wills; They have rebelled against me. Here he runs it up to its cause: "Therefore they have rebelled because they do not know, they do not consider." The understanding is darkened, and therefore the whole soul is alienated from the life of God, Eph 4:18. "Israel does not know, though their land is a land of light and knowledge; in Judah is God known, yet, because they do not live up to what they know, it is in effect as if they did not know. They know; but their knowledge does them no good, because they do not consider what they know; they do not apply it to their case, nor their minds to it." Note, (1.) Even among those that profess themselves God's people, that have the advantages and lie under the engagements of his people, there are many that are very careless in the affairs of their souls. (2.) Inconsideration of what we do know is as great an enemy to us in religion as ignorance of what we should know. (3.) Therefore men revolt from God, and rebel against him, because they do not know and consider their obligations to God in duty, gratitude, and interest. IV. He laments the universal pravity and corruption of their church and kingdom. The disease of sin was epidemic, and all orders and degrees of men were infected with it; Ah sinful nation! Isa 1:4. The prophet bemoans those that would not bemoan themselves: Alas for them! Woe to them! He speaks with holy indignation at their degeneracy, and a dread of the consequences of it. See here, 1. How he aggravates their sin, and shows the malignity that there was in it, Isa 1:4. (1.) The wickedness was universal. They were a sinful nation; the generality of the people were vicious and profane. They were so in their national capacity. In the management of their public treaties abroad, and in the administration of public justice at home, they were corrupt. Note, It is ill with a people when sin becomes national. (2.) It was very great and heinous in its nature. They were laden with iniquity; the guilt of it, and the curse incurred by that guilt, lay very heavily upon them. It was a heavy charge that was exhibited against them, and one which they could never clear themselves from; their wickedness was upon them as a talent of lead, Zac 5:7, Zac 5:8. Their sin, as it did easily beset them and they were prone to it, was a weight upon them, Heb 12:1. (3.) They came of a bad stock, were a seed of evil-doers. Treachery ran in their blood; they had it by kind, which made the matter so much the worse, more provoking and less curable. They rose up in their fathers' stead, and trod in their fathers' steps, to fill up the measure of their iniquity, Num 32:14. They were a race and family of rebels. (4.) Those that were themselves debauched did what they could to debauch others. They were not only corrupt children, born tainted, but children that were corrupters, that propagated vice, and infected others with it - not only sinners, but tempters - not only actuated by Satan, but agents for him. If those that are called children, God's children, that are looked upon as belonging to his family, be wicked and vile, their example is of the most malignant influence. (5.) Their sin was a treacherous departure from God. They were deserters from their allegiance: "They have forsaken the Lord, to whom they had joined themselves; they have gone away backward, are alienated or separated from God, have turned their back upon him, deserted their colours, and quitted their service." When they were urged forward, they ran backward, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, as a backsliding heifer, Hos 4:16. (6.) It was an impudent and daring defiance of him: They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger wilfully and designedly; they knew what would anger him, and that they did. Note, The backslidings of those that have professed religion and relation to God are in a special manner provoking to him. 2. How he illustrates it by a comparison taken from a sick and diseased body, all overspread with leprosy, or, like Job's, with sore boils, Isa 1:5, Isa 1:6. (1.) The distemper has seized the vitals, and so threatens to be mortal. Diseases in the head and heart are most dangerous; now the head, the whole head, is sick - the heart, the whole heart, is faint. They had become corrupt in their judgment: the leprosy was in their head. They were utterly unclean; their affection to God and religion was cold and gone; the things which remained were ready to die away, Rev 3:2. (2.) It has overspread the whole body, and so becomes exceedingly noisome; From the sole of the foot even to the head, from the meanest peasant to the greatest peer, there is no soundness, no good principles, no religion (for that is the health of the soul), nothing but wounds and bruises, guilt and corruption, the sad effects of Adam's fall, noisome to the holy God, painful to the sensible soul; they were so to David when he complained (Psa 38:5), My wounds stink, and are corrupt, because of my foolishness. See Psa 32:3, Psa 32:4. No attempts were made for reformation, or, if they were, they proved ineffectual: The wounds have not been closed, not bound up, nor mollified with ointment. While sin remains unrepented of the wounds are unsearched, unwashed, the proud flesh in them not cut out, and while, consequently, it remains unpardoned, the wounds are not mollified or closed up, nor any thing done towards the healing of them and the preventing of their fatal consequences. V. He sadly bewails the judgments of God which they had brought upon themselves by their sins, and their incorrigibleness under those judgments. 1. Their kingdom was almost ruined, Isa 1:7. So miserable were they that both their towns and their lands were wasted, and yet so stupid that they needed to be told this, to have it shown to them. "Look and see how it is; your country is desolate; the ground is not cultivated, for want of inhabitants, the villages being deserted, Jdg 5:7. And thus the fields and vineyards become like deserts, all grown over with thorns, Pro 24:31. Your cities are burned with fire, by the enemies that invade you" (fire and sword commonly go together); "as for the fruits of your land, which should be food for your families, strangers devour them; and, to your greater vexation, it is before your eyes, and you cannot prevent it; you starve while your enemies surfeit on that which should be your maintenance. The overthrow of your country is as the overthrow of strangers; it is used by the invaders, as one might expect it should be used by strangers." Jerusalem itself, which was as the daughter of Zion (the temple built on Zion was a mother, a nursing mother, to Jerusalem), or Zion itself, the holy mountain, which had been dear to God as a daughter, was now lost, deserted, and exposed as a cottage in a vineyard, which, when the vintage is over, nobody dwells in or takes any care of, and looks as mean and despicable as a lodge or hut, in a garden of cucumbers; and every person is afraid of coming near it, and solicitous to remove his effects out of it, as if it were a besieged city, Isa 1:8. And some think, it is a calamitous state of the kingdom that is represented by a diseased body, Isa 1:6. Probably this sermon was preached in the reign of Ahaz, when Judah was invaded by the kings of Syria and Israel, the Edomites and the Philistines, who slew many, and carried many away into captivity, Ch2 28:5, Ch2 28:17, Ch2 28:18. Note, National impiety and immorality bring national desolation. Canaan, the glory of all lands, Mount Zion, the joy of the whole earth, both became a reproach and a ruin; and sin made them so, that great mischief-maker. 2. Yet they were not all reformed, and therefore God threatens to take another course with them (Isa 1:5): "Why should you be stricken any more, with any expectation of doing you good by it, when you increase revolts as your rebukes are increased? You will revolt more and more, as you have done," as Ahaz particularly did, who, in his distress, trespassed yet more against the Lord, Ch2 28:22. Thus the physician, when he sees the patient's case desperate, troubles him no more with physic; and the father resolves to correct his child no more when, finding him hardened, he determines to disinherit him. Note, (1.) There are those who are made worse by the methods God takes to make them better; the more they are stricken the more they revolt; their corruptions, instead of being mortified, are irritated and exasperated by their afflictions, and their hearts more hardened. (2.) God, sometimes, in a way of righteous judgment, ceases to correct those who have been long incorrigible, and whom therefore he designs to destroy. The reprobate silver shall be cast, not into the furnace, but to the dunghill, Jer 6:29, Jer 6:30. See Eze 24:13; Hos 4:14. He that is filthy, let him be filthy still. VI. He comforts himself with the consideration of a remnant that should be the monuments of divine grace and mercy, notwithstanding this general corruption and desolation, Isa 1:9. See here, 1. How near they were to an utter extirpation. They were almost like Sodom and Gomorrah in respect both of sin and ruin, had grown almost so bad that there could not have been found ten righteous men among them, and almost as miserable as if none had been left alive, but their country turned into a sulphureous lake. Divine Justice said, Make them as Admah; set them as Zeboim; but Mercy said, How shall I do it? Hos 11:8, Hos 11:9. 2. What it was that saved them from it: The Lord of hosts left unto them a very small remnant, that were kept pure from the common apostasy and kept safe and alive from the common calamity. This is quoted by the apostle (Rom 9:27), and applied to those few of the Jewish nation who in his time embraced Christianity, when the body of the people rejected it, and in whom the promises made to the fathers were accomplished. Note, (1.) In the worst of times there is a remnant preserved from iniquity and reserved for mercy, as Noah and his family in the deluge, Lot and his in the destruction of Sodom. Divine grace triumphs in distinguishing by an act of sovereignty. (2.) This remnant is often a very small one in comparison with the vast number of revolting ruined sinners. Multitude is no mark of the true church. Christ's is a little flock. (3.) It is God's work to sanctify and save some, when others are left to perish in their impurity. It is the work of his power as the Lord of hosts. Except he had left us that remnant, there would have been none left; the corrupters (Isa 1:4) did what they could to debauch all, and the devourers (Isa 1:7) to destroy all, and they would have prevailed of God himself had not interposed to secure to himself a remnant, who are bound to give him all the glory. (4.) It is good for a people that have been saved from utter ruin to look back and see how near they were to it, just upon the brink of it, to see how much they owed to a few good men that stood in the gap, and that that was owing to a good God, who left them these good men. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed.

Verse 10

Here, I. God calls to them (but calls in vain) to hear his word, Isa 1:10. 1. The title he gives them is very strange; You rulers of Sodom, and people of Gomorrah. This intimates what a righteous thing it would have been with God to make them like Sodom and Gomorrah in respect of ruin (Isa 1:9), because that had made themselves like Sodom and Gomorrah in respect of sin. The men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly (Gen 13:13), and so were the men of Judah. When the rulers were bad, no wonder the people were so. Vice overpowered virtue, for it had the rulers, the men of figure, on its side; and it out-polled it, for it had the people, the men of number, on its side. The streams being thus strong, no less a power than that of the Lord of hosts could secure a remnant, Isa 1:9. The rulers are boldly attacked here by the prophet as rulers of Sodom; for he knew not how to give flattering titles. The tradition of the Jews is that for this he was impeached long after, and put to death, as having cursed the gods and spoken evil of the ruler of his people. 2. His demand upon them is very reasonable: "Hear the word of the Lord, and give ear to the law of our God; attend to that which God has to say to you, and let his word be a law to you." The following declaration of dislike to their sacrifices would be a kind of new law to them, though really it was but an explication of the old law; but special regard is to be had to it, as is required to the like, Psa 50:7, Psa 50:8. "Hear this, and tremble; hear it, and take warning." II. He justly refuses to hear their prayers and accept their services, their sacrifices and burnt-offerings, the fat and blood of them (Isa 1:11), their attendance in his courts (Isa 1:12), their oblations, their incense, and their solemn assemblies (Isa 1:13), their new moons and their appointed feasts (Isa 1:14), their devoutest addresses (Isa 1:15); they are all rejected, because their hands were full of blood. Now observe, 1. There are many who are strangers, nay, enemies, to the power of religion, and yet seem very zealous for the show and shadow and form of it. This sinful nation, this seed of evil-doers, these rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah, brought, not to the altars of false gods (they are not here charged with that), but to the altar of the God of Israel, sacrifices, a multitude of them, as many as the law required and rather more - not only peace-offerings, which they themselves had their share of, but burnt-offerings, which were wholly consumed to the honour of God; nor did they bring the torn, and lame, and sick, but fed beasts, and the fat of them, the best of the kind. They did not send others to offer their sacrifices for them, but came themselves to appear before God. They observed the instituted places (not in high places or groves, but in God's own courts), and the instituted time, the new moons, and sabbaths, and appointed feasts, none of which they omitted. Nay, it should seem, they called extraordinary assemblies, and held solemn meetings for religious worship, besides those that God had appointed. Yet this was not all: they applied to God, not only with their ceremonial observances, but with the exercises of devotion. They prayed, prayed often, made many prayers, thinking they should be heard for their much speaking; nay, they were fervent and importunate in prayer, they spread forth their hands as men in earnest. Now we should have thought these, and, no doubt, they thought themselves, a pious religious people; and yet they were far from being so, for (1.) Their hearts were empty of true devotion. They came to appear before God (Isa 1:12), to be seen before him (so the margin reads it); they rested in the outside of the duties; they looked no further than to be seen of men, and went no further than that which men see. (2.) Their hands were full of blood. They were guilty of murder, rapine, and oppression, under colour of law and justice. The people shed blood, and the rulers did not punish them for it; the rulers shed blood, and the people were aiding and abetting, as the elders of Jezreel were to Jezebel in shedding Naboth's blood. Malice is heart-murder in the account of God; he that hates his brother in his heart has, in effect, his hands full of blood. 2. When sinners are under the judgments of God they will more easily be brought to fly to their devotions than to forsake their sins and reform their lives. Their country was now desolate, and their cities were burnt (Isa 1:7), which awakened them to bring their sacrifices and offerings to God more constantly than they had done, as if they would bribe God Almighty to remove the punishment and give them leave to go on in the sin. When he slew them, then they sought him, Psa 78:34. Lord, in trouble have they visited thee, Isa 26:16. Many that will readily part with their sacrifices will not be persuaded to part with their sins. 3. The most pompous and costly devotions of wicked people, without a thorough reformation of the heart and life, are so far from being acceptable to God that really they are an abomination to him. It is here shown in a great variety of expressions that to obey is better than sacrifice; nay, that sacrifice, without obedience, is a jest, an affront and provocation to God. The comparative neglect which God here expresses of ceremonial observance was a tacit intimation of what they would come to at last, when they would all be done away by the death of Christ. What was now made little of would in due time be made nothing of. "Sacrifice and offering, and prayer made in the virtue of them, thou wouldest not; then said I, Lo, I come." Their sacrifices are here represented, (1.) As fruitless and insignificant; To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices? Isa 1:11. They are vain oblations, Isa 1:13. In vain do they worship me, Mat 15:9. Their attention to God's institutions was all lost labour, and served not to answer any good intention; for, [1.] It was not looked upon as any act of duty or obedience to God: Who has required these things at your hands? Isa 1:12. Not that God disowns his institutions, or refuses to stand by his own warrants; but in what they did they had not an eye to him that required it, nor indeed did he require it of those whose hands were full of blood and who continued impenitent. [2.] It did not recommend them to God's favour. He delighted not in the blood of their sacrifices, for he did not look upon himself as honoured by it. [3.] It would not obtain any relief for them. They pray, but God will not hear, because they regard iniquity (Psa 66:18); he will not deliver them, for, though they make many prayers, none of them come from an upright heart. All their religious service turned to no account to them. Nay, (2.) As odious and offensive. God did not only not accept them, but he did detest and abhor them. "They are your sacrifices, they are none of mine; I am full of them, even surfeited with them." He needed them not (Psa 50:10), did not desire them, had had enough of them, and more than enough. Their coming into his courts he calls treading them, or trampling upon them; their very attendance on his ordinances was construed into a contempt of them. Their incense, though ever so fragrant, was an abomination to him, for it was burnt in hypocrisy and with an ill design. Their solemn assemblies he could not away with, could not see them with any patience, nor bear the affront they gave him. The solemn meeting is iniquity; though the thing itself was not, yet, as they managed it, it became so. It is a vexation (so some read it), a provocation, to God, to have ordinances thus prostituted, not only by wicked people, but to wicked purposes: "My soul hates them; they are a trouble to me, a burden, an incumbrance; I am perfectly sick of them, and weary of bearing them." God is never weary of hearing the prayers of the upright, but soon weary of the costly sacrifices of the wicked. He hides his eyes from their prayers, as that which he has an aversion to and is angry at. All this is to show, [1.] That sin is very hateful to God, so hateful that it makes even men's prayers and their religious services hateful to him. [2.] That dissembled piety is double iniquity. Hypocrisy in religion is of all things most abominable to the God of heaven. Jerome applies the passage to the Jews in Christ's time, who pretended a great zeal for the law and the temple, but made themselves and all their services abominable to God by filling their hands with the blood of Christ and his apostles, and so filling up the measure of their iniquities.

Verse 16

Though God had rejected their services as insufficient to atone for their sins while they persisted in them, yet he does not reject them as in a hopeless condition, but here calls upon them to forsake their sins, which hindered the acceptance of their services, and then all would be well. Let them not say that God picked quarrels with them; no, he proposes a method of reconciliation. Observe here, I. A call to repentance and reformation: "If you would have your sacrifices accepted, and your prayers answered, you must begin your work at the right end: Be converted to my law" (so the Chaldee begins this exhortation), "make conscience of second-table duties, else expect not to be accepted in the acts of your devotion." As justice and charity will never atone for atheism and profaneness, so prayers and sacrifices will never atone for fraud and oppression; for righteousness towards men is as much a branch of pure religion as religion towards God is a branch of universal righteousness. 1. They must cease to do evil, must do no more wrong, shed no more innocent blood. This is the meaning of washing themselves and making themselves clean, Isa 1:16. It is not only sorrowing for the sin they had committed, but breaking off the practice of it for the future, and mortifying all those vicious affections and dispositions which inclined them to it. Sin is defiling to the soul. Our business is to wash ourselves from it by repenting of it and turning from it to God. We must put away not only that evil of our doings which is before the eye of the world, by refraining from the gross acts of sin, but that which is before God's eyes, the roots and habits of sin, that are in our hearts; these must be crushed and mortified. 2. They must learn to do well. This was necessary to the completing of their repentance. Note, It is not enough that we cease to do evil, but we must learn to do well. (1.) We must be doing, not cease to do evil and then stand idle. (2.) We must be doing good, the good which the Lord our God requires and which will turn to a good account. (3.) We must do it well, in a right manner and for a right end; and, (4.) We must learn to do well; we must take pains to get the knowledge of our duty, be inquisitive concerning it, in care about it, and accustom ourselves to it, that we may readily turn our hands to our work and become masters of this holy art of doing well. He urges them particularly to those instances of well-doing wherein they had been defective, to second-table duties: "Seek judgment; enquire what is right, that you may do it; be solicitous to be found in the way of your duty, and do not walk carelessly. Seek opportunities of doing good: Relieve the oppressed, those whom you yourselves have oppressed; ease them of their burdens, Isa 58:6. You, that have power in your hands, use it for the relief of those whom others do oppress, for that is your business. Avenge those that suffer wrong, in a special manner concerning yourselves for the fatherless and the widow, whom, because they are weak and helpless, proud men trample upon and abuse; do you appear for them at the bar, on the bench, as there is occasion. Speak for those that know not how to speak for themselves and that have not wherewithal to gratify you for your kindness." Note, We are truly honouring God when we are doing good in the world; and acts of justice and charity are more pleasing to him than all burnt-offerings and sacrifices. II. A demonstration, at the bar of right reason, of the equity of God's proceedings with them: "Come now, and let us reason together (Isa 1:18); while your hands are full of blood I will have nothing to do with you, though you bring me a multitude of sacrifices; but if you wash, and make yourselves clean, you are welcome to draw nigh to me; come now, and let us talk the matter over." Note, Those, and those only, that break off their league with sin, shall be welcome into covenant and communion with God; he says, Come now, who before forbade them his courts. See Jam 4:8. Or rather thus: There were those among them who looked upon themselves as affronted by the slights God put upon the multitude of their sacrifices, as ch. 58:3, Wherefore have we fasted (say they) and thou seest not? They represented God as a hard Master, whom it was impossible to please. "Come," says God, "let us debate the matter fairly, and I doubt not but to make it out that my ways are equal, but yours are unequal," Eze 18:25. Note, Religion has reason on its side; there is all the reason in the world why we should do as God would have us do. The God of heaven condescends to reason the case with those that contradict him and find fault with his proceedings; for he will be justified when he speaks, Psa 51:4. The case needs only to be stated (as it is here very fairly) and it will determine itself. God shows here upon what terms they stood (as he does, Eze 18:21-24; Eze 33:18, Eze 33:19) and then leaves it to them to judge whether these terms are not fair and reasonable. 1. They could not in reason expect any more then, if they repented and reformed. they should be restored to God's favour, notwithstanding their former provocations. "This you may expect," says God, and it is very kind; who could have the face to desire it upon any other terms? (1.) It is very little that is required, "only that you be willing and obedient, that you consent to obey" (so some read it), "that you subject your wills to the will of God, acquiesce in that, and give up yourselves in all things to be ruled by him who is infinitely wise and good" Here is no penance imposed for their former stubbornness, nor the yoke made heavier or bound harder on their necks; only, "Whereas hitherto you have been perverse and refractory, and would not comply with that which was for your own good, now be tractable, be governable" He does not say, "If you be perfectly obedient," but, "If you be willingly so;" for, if there be a willing mind, it is accepted. (2.) That is very great which is promised hereupon. [1.] That all their sins should be pardoned to them, and should not be mentioned against them. "Though they be as red as scarlet and crimson, though you lie under the guilt of blood, yet, upon your repentance, even that shall be forgiven you, and you shall appear in the sight of God as white as snow." Note, The greatest sinners, if they truly repent, shall have their sins forgiven them, and so have their consciences pacified and purified. Though our sins have been as scarlet and crimson, as deep dye, a double dye, first in the wool of original corruption and afterwards in the many threads of actual transgression - though we have been often dipped, by our many backslidings, into sin, and though we have lain long soaking in it, as the cloth does in the scarlet dye, yet pardoning mercy will thoroughly discharge the stain, and, being by it purged as with hyssop, we shall be clean, Psa 51:7. If we make ourselves clean by repentance and reformation (Isa 1:16), God will make us white by a full remission. [2.] That they should have all the happiness and comfort they could desire. "Be but willing and obedient, and you shall eat the good of the land, the land of promise; you shall have all the blessings of the new covenant, of the heavenly Canaan, all the good of the land." Those that go on in sin, though they may dwell in a good land, cannot with any comfort eat the good of it; guilt embitters all; but, if sin be pardoned, creature-comforts become comforts indeed. 2. They could not in reason expect any other than that, if they continued obstinate in their disobedience, they should be abandoned to ruin, and the sentence of the law should be executed upon them; what can be more just? (Isa 1:20); "If you refuse and rebel, if you continue to rebel against the divine government and refuse the offers of the divine grace, you shall be devoured with the sword, with the sword of your enemies, which shall be commissioned to destroy you - with the sword of God's justice, his wrath, and vengeance, which shall be drawn against you; for this is that which the mouth of the Lord has spoken, and which he will make good, for the maintaining of his own honour." Note, Those that will not be governed by God's sceptre will certainly and justly be devoured by his sword. "And now life and death, good and evil, are thus set before you. Come, and let us reason together. What have you to object against the equity of this, or against complying with God's terms?"

Verse 21

Here, I. The woeful degeneracy of Judah and Jerusalem is sadly lamented. See, 1. What the royal city had been, a faithful city, faithful to God and the interests of his kingdom among men, faithful to the nation and its public interests. It was full of judgment; justice was duly administered upon the thrones of judgment which were set there, the thrones of the house of David, Psa 122:5. Men were generally honest in their dealings, and abhorred to do an unjust thing. Righteousness lodged in it, was constantly resident in their palaces and in all their dwellings, not called in now and then to serve a turn, but at home there. Note, Neither holy cities nor royal ones, neither places where religion is professed nor places where government is administered, are faithful to their trust if religion do not dwell in them. 2. What it had now become. That beauteous virtuous spouse was now debauched, and become an adulteress; righteousness no longer dwelt in Jerusalem (terras Astraea reliquit - Astrea left the earth); even murderers were unpunished and lived undisturbed there; nay, the princes themselves were so cruel and oppressive that they had become no better than murderers; an innocent man might better guard himself against a troop of banditti or assassins than against a bench of such judges. Note, It is a great aggravation of the wickedness of any family or people that their ancestors were famed for virtue and probity; and commonly those that thus degenerate prove the most wicked of all men. Corruptio optimi est pessima - That which was originally the best becomes when corrupted the worst, Luk 11:26; Ecc 3:16; See Jer 22:15-17. The degeneracy of Jerusalem is illustrated, (1.) By similitudes (Isa 1:22): Thy silver has become dross. This degeneracy of the magistrates, whose character is the reverse of that of their predecessors, is a great a reproach and injury to the kingdom as the debasing of their coin would be and the turning of their silver into dross. Righteous princes and righteous cities are as silver for the treasury, but unrighteous ones are as dross for the dunghill. How has the gold become dim! Lam 4:1. Thy wine is mixed with water, and so has become flat and sour. Some understand both these literally: the wine they sold was adulterated, it was half water; the money they paid was counterfeit, and so they cheated all they dealt with. But it is rather to be taken figuratively: justice was perverted by their princes, and religion and the word of God were sophisticated by their priests, and made to serve what turn they pleased. Dross may shine like silver, and the wine that is mixed with water may retain the colour of wine, but neither is worth any thing. Thus they retained a show and pretence of virtue and justice, but had no true sense of either. (2.) By some instances (Isa 1:23): "Thy princes, that should keep others in their allegiance to God and subjection to his law, are themselves rebellious, and set God and his law at defiance." Those that should restrain thieves (proud and rich oppressors, those worst of robbers, and those that designedly cheat their creditors, who are no better), are themselves companions of thieves, connive at them, do as they do, and with greater security and success, because they are princes, and have power in their hands; they share with the thieves they protect in their unlawful gain (Psa 50:18) and cast in their lot among them, Pro 1:13, Pro 1:14. [1.] The profit of their places is all their aim, to make the best hand they can of them, right or wrong. They love gifts, and follow after rewards; they set their hearts upon their salary, the fees and perquisites of their offices, and are greedy of them, and never think they can get enough; nay, they will do any thing, though ever so contrary to law and justice, for a gift in secret. Presents and gratuities will blind their eyes at any time, and make them pervert judgment. These they love and are eager in the pursuit of, Hos 4:18. [2.] The duty of their places is none of their care. They ought to protect those that are injured, and take cognizance of the appeals made to them; why else were they preferred? But they judge not the fatherless, take no care to guard the orphans, nor does the cause of the widow come unto them, because the poor widow has no bribe to give, with which to make way for her and to bring her cause on. Those will have a great deal to answer for who, when they should be the patrons of the oppressed, are their greatest oppressors. II. A resolution is taken up to redress these grievances (Isa 1:24): Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel - who has power to make good what he says, who has hosts at command for the executing of his purposes, and whose power is engaged for his Israel - Ah! I will ease me of my adversaries. Observe, 1. Wicked people, especially wicked rulers that are cruel and oppressive, are God's enemies, his adversaries, and shall so be accounted and so dealt with. If the holy seed corrupt themselves, they are the foes of his own house. 2. They are a burden to the God of heaven, which is implied in his easing himself of them. The Mighty One of Israel, that can bear any thing, nay, that upholds all things, complains of his being wearied with men's iniquities, Isa 43:24. Amo 2:13. 3. God will find out a time and a way to ease himself of this burden, by avenging himself on those that thus bear hard upon his patience. He here speaks as one triumphing in the foresight of it: Ah. I will ease me. He will ease the earth of the burden under which it groans (Rom 8:21, Rom 8:22), will ease his own name of the reproaches with which it is loaded. He will be eased of his adversaries, by taking vengeance on his enemies; he will spue them out of his mouth, and so be eased of them, Rev 3:16. He speaks with pleasure of the day of vengeance being in his heart, Isa 63:4. If God's professing people conform not to his image, as the Holy One of Israel (Isa 1:4), they shall feel the weight of his hand as the Mighty One of Israel: his power, which was wont to be engaged for them, shall be armed against them. In two ways God will ease himself of this grievance: - (1.) By reforming his church, and restoring good judges in the room of those corrupt ones. Though the church has a great deal of dross in it, yet it shall not be thrown away, but refined (Isa 1:25): "I will purely purge away thy dross. I will amend what is amiss. Vice and profaneness shall be suppressed and put out of countenance, oppressors displaced, and deprived of their power to do mischief." When things are ever so bad God can set them to rights, and bring about a complete reformation; when he begins he will make an end, will take away all the tin. Observe, [1.] The reformation of a people is God's own work, and, if ever it be done, it is he that brings it about: "I will turn my hand upon thee; I will do that for the reviving of religion which I did at first for the planting of it." He can do it easily, with the turn of his hand; but he does it effectually, for what opposition can stand before the arm of the Lord revealed? [2.] He does it by blessing them with good magistrates and good ministers of state (Isa 1:26): "I will restore thy judges as at the first, to put the laws in execution against evil-doers, and thy counsellors, to transact public affairs, as at the beginning," either the same persons that had been turned out or others of the same character. [3.] He does it by restoring judgment and righteousness among them (Isa 1:27), by planting in men's minds principles of justice and governing their lives by those principles. Men may do much by external restraints; but God does it effectually by the influences of his Spirit, as a Spirit of judgment, Isa 4:4; Isa 28:6. See Psa 85:10, Psa 85:11. [4.] The reformation of a people will be the redemption of them and their converts, for sin is the worst captivity, the worst slavery, and the great and eternal redemption is that by which Israel is redeemed from all his iniquities (Psa 130:8), and the blessed Redeemer is he that turns away ungodliness from Jacob (Rom 11:26), and saves his people from their sins, Mat 1:21. All the redeemed of the Lord shall be converts, and their conversion is their redemption: "Her converts, or those that return of her (so the margin), shall be redeemed with righteousness." God works deliverance for us by preparing us for it with judgment and righteousness. [5.] The reviving of a people's virtues is the restoring of their honour: Afterwards thou shalt be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city; that is, First, "Thou shalt be so;" the reforming of the magistracy is a good step towards the reforming of the city and the country too. Secondly, "Thou shalt have the praise of being so;" and a greater praise there cannot be to any city than to be called the city of righteousness, and to retrieve the ancient honour which was lost when the faithful city became a harlot, Isa 1:21. (2.) By cutting off those that hate to be reformed, that they may not remain either as snares or as scandals to the faithful city. [1.] it is an utter ruin that is here threatened. They shall be destroyed and consumed, and not chastened and corrected only. The extirpation of them will be necessary to the redemption of Zion. [2.] It is a universal ruin, which will involve the transgressors and the sinners together, that is, the openly profane that have quite cast of all religion, and the hypocrites that live wicked lives under the cloak of a religious profession - they shall both be destroyed together, for they are both alike an abomination to God, both those that contradict religion and those that contradict themselves in their pretensions to it. And those that forsake the Lord, to whom they had formerly joined themselves, shall be consumed, as the water in the conduit-pipe is soon consumed when it is cut off from the fountain. [3.] It is an inevitable ruin; there is no escaping it. First, Their idols shall not be able to help them, the oaks which they have desired, and the gardens which they have chosen; that is, the images, the dunghill-gods, which they had worshipped in their groves and under the green trees, which they were fond of and wedded to, for which they forsook the true God, and which they worshipped privately in their own garden even when idolatry was publicly discountenanced. "This was the practice of the transgressors and the sinners; but they shall be ashamed of it, not with a show of repentance, but of despair, Isa 1:29. They shall have cause to be ashamed of their idols; for, after all the court they have made to them, they shall find no benefit by them; but the idols themselves shall go into captivity," Isa 46:1, Isa 46:2. Note, Those that make creatures their confidence are but preparing confusion for themselves. You were fond of the oaks and the gardens, but you yourselves shall be, 1. "Like an oak without leaves, withered and blasted, and stripped of all its ornaments." Justly do those wear no leaves that bear no fruit; as the fig-tree that Christ cursed. 2. "Like a garden without water, that is neither rained upon nor watered with the foot (Deu 11:10), that had no fountain (Sol 4:15), and consequently is parched, and all the fruits of it gone to decay." Thus shall those be that trust in idols, or in an arm of flesh, Jer 17:5, Jer 17:6. But those that trust in God never find him as a wilderness, or as waters that fail, Jer 2:31. Secondly, They shall not be able to help themselves (Isa 1:31): "Even the strong man shall be as tow not only soon broken and pulled to pieces, but easily catching fire; and his work (so the margin reads it), that by which he hopes to fortify and secure himself, shall be as a spark to his own tow, shall set him on fire, and he and his work shall burn together. His counsels shall be his ruin; his own skin kindles the fire of God's wrath, which shall burn to the lowest hell, and none shall quench it." When the sinner has made himself as tow and stubble, and God makes himself to him as a consuming fore, what can prevent the utter ruin of the sinner? Now all this is applicable, 1. To the blessed work of reformation which was wrought in Hezekiah's time after the abominable corruptions of the reign of Ahaz. Then good men came to be preferred, and the faces of the wicked were filled with shame. 2. To their return out of their captivity in Babylon, which had thoroughly cured them of idolatry. 3. To the gospel-kingdom and the pouring out of the Spirit, by which the New Testament church should be made a new Jerusalem, a city of righteousness. 4. To the second coming of Christ, when he shall thoroughly purge his floor, his field, shall gather the wheat into his barn, into his garner, and burn the chaff, the tares, with unquenchable fire.

Verse 1

1:1 These are the visions (literally The vision): This term introduces the book as a unified whole, covering Isaiah’s prophecies over a period of some fifty-five years (about 740–685 BC). • Isaiah son of Amoz: Beyond this, nothing is known of Isaiah’s family background. • Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah, was the center of Isaiah’s ministry. However, some of his prophecies also relate to the northern kingdom, Israel (referred to as Samaria and Ephraim, 9:8-21; 28:1-13), which fell in 722 BC (see 2 Kgs 17).

Verse 2

1:2 heavens . . . earth: All of creation is called to witness the trial that God convened against Judah (cp. Deut 31:28; 32:1).

Verse 3

1:3 an ox knows its owner: Not so with Judah. Yet despite their rebellion, God still graciously addressed them as my people.

Verse 4

1:4 The expression Holy One of Israel is frequently used in Isaiah as a title for the Lord. God is the righteous and just King of heaven and earth (6:3-5), the incomparable God (40:25), and the Redeemer of his people (43:14). It was a terrible and foolish sin for Judah to reject him.

Verse 5

1:5 God sent famine, war, disease, and death as punishment. In most cases, however, God wanted to change stubborn behavior rather than simply to punish. • As a result of their persistent rebellion, the people’s head is injured and their heart is sick. The nation was wounded physically from Assyrian aggression, while spiritually they were defiled and overtaken by sin (64:6).

Verse 6

1:6 without any soothing ointments or bandages: Judah’s national condition was like the body of an injured person who had not received medical care.

Verse 7

1:7 country . . . towns: By 701 BC, the Assyrians had destroyed the infrastructure, taken cities, and ravaged the fields (see 64:10). This fulfilled Isaiah’s prophetic word (6:11-13). Those who survived this Assyrian onslaught would know by experience to heed later warnings of exile to Babylon (39:6-7). God does what he says he will do, so the warning of God’s judgment on all the nations is certain.

Verse 8

1:8 Beautiful Jerusalem (Hebrew The daughter of Zion): Zion, one of the hills on which Jerusalem stands, often served as a synonym for Jerusalem. Zion carried with it the notion of God’s presence (Ps 46), his protection of his people, and Jerusalem’s resistance to enemy forces. Now, however, the opposite was true. Jerusalem had become weak, like a helpless city under siege and like an abandoned . . . shelter or lean-to.

Verse 9

1:9 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies refers to the millions of angels that are at the Lord’s command (see 2 Kgs 6:16-17; Matt 26:53). At the Exodus, Moses described God as a warrior fighting for his people (Exod 15:1-21). Ironically, in Isaiah’s day, God fought against Judah because of their wickedness (Isa 1:24; 3:1-5).

Verse 10

1:10 Listen to (literally listen to the word of) the Lord: In this context, listen means to respond in obedience to the law (or teaching; Hebrew torah) of our God (see 2:3; 5:24). • leaders . . . people: All levels of society were guilty. • Like Sodom and Gomorrah, Jerusalem had come under divine judgment for its rebellion against God’s laws. Jerusalem might have been utterly destroyed like those cities were it not for God’s grace (1:9; see Gen 19).

Verse 11

1:11-15 The people had so offended God through their sin that he took no pleasure any more in their sacrifices. The Lord wanted Judah to stop the religious exercises he had commanded them to do rather than to continue them in a manner that was sinful and false (1:13). Ritual is never an acceptable substitute for true godliness.

Verse 13

1:13 The incense that accompanied offerings was intended as a sweet fragrance to the Lord (see Exod 30:7-8), but when offered with hypocrisy it was a nauseating stench and an abomination to God. • While the Lord had ordered special days for fasting at the Temple (Lev 16:31; 23:32; Num 29:7), they were ruined by the guilt of Judah’s sin (see Isa 58:1-7; Matt 6:16-18). • pious meetings: These holy days were associated with the new moon and other festivals (see Lev 23).

Verse 14

1:14 New moon celebrations occurred on the first day of each lunar month (Num 28:11-15) and included sacrifices, feasting, and rest from work. • The annual festivals were the festivals of Passover, Harvest, Trumpets, and Shelters (Num 28:16–29:39; Deut 16:1-17).

Verse 15

1:15 I will not look . . . I will not listen: The Lord does not respond to prayer offered from a life of persistent wickedness. In this case, God charged the people with perverting his laws in order to practice violent injustice toward innocent victims.

Verse 16

1:16 Wash . . . and be clean! The people were defiled by their sin and the uncleanness of their sacrifices. To be clean in God’s eyes, they needed to change their behavior, get rid of their sins, and give up their evil ways (see also 1:18).

Verse 17

1:17 Seeking justice means upholding God’s standards of fairness and advancing the rights of the oppressed, orphans, and widows—those who are weak and marginalized in society (see also Jer 7:5-7; 22:3; Zech 7:10; Matt 23:23; 25:31-46; Jas 1:27).

Verse 18

1:18 God called his people to come and settle their dispute so that he could restore his covenant relationship with them. This required Judah to make a decision between obeying or turning away (1:19-20). Isaiah says their sins are like scarlet . . . they are red like crimson, the color of blood, which Judah had unjustly shed (1:15). • white as snow . . . white as wool: The people would be radically transformed—cleansed, purified, and made holy (see also Ps 51:7; Dan 7:9).

Verse 19

1:19-20 Repentance leads to life, whereas resisting God’s will and turning away from him results in death (see Deut 11:26-28; 28:1-62).

Verse 20

1:20 I, the Lord, have spoken! This statement marks the solemnity of what God has just promised. The phrase is used eleven times in Isaiah.

Verse 21

1:21 The image of Jerusalem as a prostitute represents Judah’s unfaithfulness to God (see Jer 3:6-14; Ezek 16:25-26; Hos 1–3).

Verse 24

1:24 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the Mighty One of Israel, was usually Israel’s protector (31:5). However, in this context, God was coming to take revenge against his own people, who by their wickedness had become his enemies and foes.

Verse 25

1:25 I will raise my fist against you: God, normally Israel’s protector, would become their attacker. However, he had a purpose beyond punishment. • I will melt you down. . . . I will remove all your impurities: God would use the Exile to remove the wicked from among his people and to refine those who would return.

Verse 26

1:26 The restoration of the community would be marked by new leaders who uphold justice rather than perverting it (see 1:23). Jerusalem would again be pure silver (see 1:22), the Home of Justice and the Faithful City.

Verse 27

1:27 Here, Zion refers to the remnant community. Only those who repent would receive God’s salvation and purification and would dwell in his presence. Zion was required to be the bastion of justice and righteousness, for God loves righteousness. God expected the covenant community to reflect the holy standards he cares about.

Verse 29

1:29-30 The rebels (1:28), who practiced idolatry in groves of sacred oaks and in gardens dedicated to idols, would become like drought-stricken oaks and gardens. They would lack the nourishing vitality of the true God’s presence. Those who followed the Canaanite fertility religion of Baal treated gardens and trees as sacred, believing that they brought blessings. Instead, they brought spiritual death.

Crusade 1957

What Is It to Accept Jesus

A Pure Heart - Part 2

Dating Sermon

(Biblical Manhood) -Morning Brunch

(Awake! Series): Consider Your Ways

Worship Beyond Prayer and Praise

A Call for Prophetic Evangelistic Preaching

(Poland) Walking in the Spirit

Short Excerpt

夫妻之道 - Husbands and Wives

We Glorify christ...

A Message for America and Its Cultural Religion

Drawing Nigh to God

Is This That?

Are You Developing a Hard Heart

Strange Incense

The Spirit and the Bride Say Come

Doctrine of the Remnant - Part 1

What Does It Mean to Accept Christ - Part 1

Dangerous Shepards

Repentance Prophetic Word

(First Baptist Church) #2 - Conscience

The Anatomy of Adultery

(John - Part 46): The Last Supper: Jesus' True Humility

Introduction

Introduction

Verse 2

Verse 3

Verse 4

Verse 5

Verse 6

Verse 7

Verse 8

Verse 9

Verse 10

Verse 11

Verse 12

Verse 13

Verse 14

Verse 15

Verse 16

Verse 17

Verse 18

Verse 19

Verse 20

Verse 21

Verse 22

Verse 23

Verse 24

Verse 25

Verse 26

Verse 27

Verse 28

Verse 29

Verse 30

Verse 31

Introduction

Verse 1

Verse 2

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