Isaiah 3:1

For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts,.... These titles of Jehovah, expressive of power and authority, are used to show that he is able to execute what he threatens to do; and the word "behold" is

For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, For - continuation of Isa 2:22.

ISAIAH CHAPTER 3. Great confusion on both people and rulers for their sin and impudence in it, . Peace to the righteous, and misery to the wicked, ,11. The oppression and covetousness of the rulers, . The pride of women, and its judgments, . Behold; look upon it as a thing as certain as if it were already done. The stay and the staff; all the supports of their state and church. The whole stay of bread, called elsewhere the staff of bread; whereby is understood either, 1. The nourishing power of bread, which wholly depend upon God’ s blessing; or rather, 2. Bread itself, as this phrase is understood, , and directly explained, , bread which is the staff of life.

Isaiah 3:1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,Ver. 1. For, behold.] This is also part of the former sermon, though made the beginning of another chapter; for of our prophet that is some way true which Petrarch saith of Livy, viz., that he wrote many books, Quos in decades non ipse sed fastidiosa legentium scidit imperitia, which not himself, but others without any great skill divided into decades - sc., chapters. The Lord - doth take away.] Heb., Is taking away - i.e., He will surely and suddenly do it, and thereby pave a way to the utter ruin of all. For as it was a sign Samson meant to pull down the house when he pulled away the pillars, so that God is about to ruin a state when he plucketh away those that are the shores and props of it. The stay and the staff.] Validum et validam, so some render it, the Miriams as well as the Moseses. Others, baculum et bacillum, the staff and the little staff: all the supports and stays of the State, both great and small, one with another; cease ye therefore from man. The whole stay of bread.] Sustenance as well as supporters, Quicquid alimento aut munimento esse poterat. Septuagint. Piscator.

III. (1) For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem . . .—From the general picture of the state of Judah as a whole, of the storm of Divine wrath bursting over the whole land, Isaiah turns to the Holy City itself, and draws the picture of what he saw there of evil, of that which would be seen before long as the punishment of the evil. The stay and the staff . . .—In the existing Hebrew text the words receive an immediate interpretation, as meaning the two chief supports of life—bread and water. So we have the “staff of bread” in Leviticus 26:26; Psalms 105:16; Ezekiel 4:16; Ezekiel 5:16. Possibly, however, the interpretation is of the nature of a marginal gloss, which has found its way into the text, and “the stay and staff” (in the Hebrew the latter word is the feminine form of the former) are really identified with the “pillars of the state,” the great women as well as the great men who are named afterwards. On the other hand, Isaiah 3:7 implies the pressure of famine, and the prophet may have intended to paint the complete failure of all resources, both material and political.

CHAPTER III The whole of this chapter, with the first verse of the next, is a prophecy of those calamities that should be occasioned by the Babylonish invasion and captivity. These calamities are represented as so great and so general, that even royal honours, in such a state, are so far from being desirable, that hardly any can be got to accept them, 1-7. This visitation is declared to be the consequence of their profanity and guilt; for which the prophet farther reproves and threatens them, 8-15. Particular amplification of the distress of the delicate and luxurious daughters of Zion; whose deplorable situation is finely contrasted with their former prosperity and ease, 16-26. NOTES ON CHAP. III Verse 1. The stay and the staff - "Every stay and support"] Hebrew, "the support masculine, and the support feminine:" that is, every kind of support, whether great or small, strong or weak. "Al Kanitz, wal-kanitzah; the wild beasts, male and female. Proverbially applied both to fishing and hunting: i.e., I seized the prey, great or little, good or bad. From hence, as Schultens observes, is explained Isaiah 3:1, literally, the male and female stay: i.e., the strong and weak, the great and small." - Chappelow, note on Hariri, Assembly I. Compare Ecclesiastes 2:8. The Hebrew words משען ומשענה mashen umashenah come from the same root שען shaan, to lean against, to incline, to support; and here, being masculine and feminine, they may signify all things necessary for the support both of man and woman. My old MS. understands the staff and stay as meaning particular persons, and translates the verse thus: - Lo forsoth, the Lordschip Lord of Hoostis schal don awey fro Jerusalem and fro Juda the stalworth and the stronge. The two following verses, 2, 3, are very clearly explained by the sacred historian's account of the event, the captivity of Jehoiachin by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon: "And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths; none remained save the poorest sort of the people of the land," 2Kg 24:14. Which is supplied by our version.

1. the Lord, the Lord of hosts] as in Isaiah 1:24 : the Sovereign, Jehovah of Hosts. the stay and the staff] The second word is the fem. form of the first. The conjunction of similar-sounding words (like “bag and baggage” in English) frequently expresses exhaustiveness. The meaning is simply “every kind of prop.” Cf. Nahum 2:10; Zephaniah 1:15. the whole stay … water] This explanation is exceedingly unnatural in view of the enumeration which follows. The clause is probably a marginal gloss (readily suggested by such passages as Leviticus 26:26; Ezekiel 4:16; Psalms 105:16) which has crept into the text.

For - This is a continuation of the previous chapter. The same prophecy is continued, and the force of the argument of the prophet will not be seen unless the chapters are read together; see the Analysis prefixed to Isa. 2.

1-7. Cease ye from man is now the order. For behold — Attention is challenged. The Lord — (Ha-Adon.) “The Lord” as sovereign.