Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 1:7
Your 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.
7. The situation here described (which was undoubtedly present at the time of utterance) is that of a land ravaged by foreign troops ( land is “cultivated land”). It has been contended that the word strangers (foreigners) must refer to the Assyrians, and could not be used of the allied Syrians and Ephraimites. But there seems no good reason why an army mainly composed of Syrians should not be designated as “foreigners.”
and it is desolate strangers ] Lit., “and a desolation like an overthrow of strangers.” If the text is sound it must mean “is such an overthrow as might be expected at the hands of strangers” (the so-called Kaph veritatis). This is a weak sense; and hence Ewald’s plausible emendation, “like the overthrow of Sodom,” has been accepted by most subsequent writers. The word for “overthrow” never occurs elsewhere except in connexion with Sodom (ch. Isa 13:19; Deu 29:23; Jer 49:18; Jer 50:40; Amo 4:11).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Your country is desolate – This is the literal statement of what he had just affirmed by a figure. In this there was much art. The figure Isa 1:6 was striking. The resemblance between a man severely beaten, and entirely livid and sore, and a land perfectly desolate, was so impressive as to arrest the attention. This had been threatened as one of the curses which should attend disobedience; Lev 26:33 :
And I will scatter you among the heathen,
And will draw out a sword after you:
And your land shall be desolate,
And your cities waste.
Compare Isa 1:31; Deu 28:49-52. It is not certain, or agreed among expositors, to what time the prophet refers in this passage. Some have supposed that he refers to the time of Ahaz, and to the calamities which came upon the nation during his reign; 2Ch 28:5-8. But the probability is, that this refers to the time of Uzziah; see the Analysis of the chapter. The reign of Uzziah was indeed prosperous; 2 Chr. 26. But it is to be remembered that the land had been ravaged just before, under the reigns of Joash and Amaziah, by the kings of Syria and Israel; 2Ki 14:8-14; 2 Chr. 24; 25; and it is by no means probable that it had recovered in the time of Uzziah. It was lying under the effect of the former desolation, and not improbably the enemies of the Jews were even then hovering around it, and possibly still in the very midst of it. The kingdom was going to decay, and the reign of Uzziah gave it only a temporary prosperity.
Is desolate – Hebrew: Is desolation. shemamah. This is a Hebrew mode of emphatic expression, denoting that the desolation was so universal that the land might be said to be entirely in ruins.
Your land – That is, the fruit, or productions of the land. Foreigners consume all that it produces.
Strangers – zarym, from zur, to be alienated, or estranged, Isa 1:4. It is applied to foreigners, that is, those who were not Israelites, Exo 30:33; and is often used to denote an enemy, a foe, a barbarian; Psa 109:11 :
Let the extortioner catch all that he hath,
And let the strangers plunder his labor.
Eze 11:9; Eze 28:10; Eze 30:12; Hos 7:9; Hos 8:7. The word refers here particularly to the Syrians.
Devour it – Consume its provisions.
In your presence – This is a circumstance that greatly heightens the calamity, that they were compelled to look on and witness the desolation, without being able to prevent it.
As overthrown by strangers – kemahpekah zarym – from haphak, to turn, to overturn, to destroy as a city; Gen 19:21-25; Deu 29:22. It refers to the changes which an invading foe produces in a nation, where everything is subverted; where cities are destroyed, walls are thrown down, and fields and vineyards laid waste. The land was as if an invading army had passed through it, and completely overturned everything. Lowth proposes to read this, as if destroyed by an inundation; but without authority. The desolation caused by the ravages of foreigners, at a time when the nations were barbarous, was the highest possible image of distress, and the prophet dwells on it, though with some appearance of repetition.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 7. – 9. Your country is desolate] The description of the ruined and desolate state of the country in these verses does not suit with any part of the prosperous times of Uzziah and Jotham. It very well agrees with the time of Ahaz, when Judea was ravaged by the joint invasion of the Israelites and Syrians, and by the incursions of the Philistines and Edomites. The date of this prophecy is therefore generally fixed to the time of Ahaz. But on the other hand it may be considered whether those instances of idolatry which are urged in Isa 1:29 – the worshipping in groves and gardens – having been at all times too commonly practised, can be supposed to be the only ones which the prophet would insist upon in the time of Ahaz; who spread the grossest idolatry through the whole country, and introduced it even into the temple; and, to complete his abominations, made his son pass through the fire to Molech. It is said, Isa 1:2; Isa 15:37, that in Jotham’s time “the Lord began to send against Judah, Rezin – and Pekah.” If we may suppose any invasion from that quarter to have been actually made at the latter end of Jotham’s reign, I should choose to refer this prophecy to that time.
AND your cities are burned. – Nineteen of Dr. Kennicott’s MSS. and twenty-two of De Rossi’s, some of my own, with the Syriac and Arabic, add the conjunction which makes the hemistich more complete.
Ver. 7. zarim at the end of the verse. This reading, though confirmed by all the ancient versions, gives us no good sense; for “your land is devoured by strangers; and is desolate, as if overthrown by strangers,” is a mere tautology, or, what is as bad, an identical comparison. Aben Ezra thought that the word in its present form might be taken for the same with zerem, an inundation: Schultens is of the same opinion; (see Taylor’s Concord.;) and Schindler in his Lexicon explains it in the same manner: and so, says Kimchi, some explain it. Abendana endeavours to reconcile it to grammatical analogy in the following manner: ” zarim is the same with zerem; that is, as overthrown by an inundation of waters: and these two words have the same analogy as kedem and kadim. Or it may be a concrete of the same form with shechir; and the meaning will be: as overthrown by rain pouring down violently, and causing a flood.” On Sal. ben Melech, in loc. But I rather suppose the true reading to be zerem, and have translated it accordingly: the word zerim, in the line above, seems to have caught the transcriber’s eye, and to have led him into this mistake. But this conjecture of the learned prelate is not confirmed by any MS. yet discovered.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
All this and what follows was verified in the days of king Ahaz, 2Ch 28, in whose time, and upon which occasion, this prophecy seems to have been delivered, as more exactly agreeing with that time than with any other. If any object, that this being the first of his prophecies, must rather belong to the days of Uzziah, they must take notice, and it is agreed by interpreters, and it is undeniably true, that the prophecies of Isaiah, as also of the other prophets, are not set down in the same order in which they were delivered, but oftentimes the latter are put before the former.
In your presence; which your eyes shall see to torment you, when there is no power in your hands to deliver you.
As overthrown by strangers, Heb, as the overthrow of strangers, i.e. which strangers bring upon a land which is not theirs, nor likely to continue in their hands, and therefore they spare no persons that come in their way, and they spoil and destroy all things, which is not usually done in wars between persons of the same or of a neighbour nation.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. Judah had not in Uzziah’sreign recovered from the ravages of the Syrians in Joash’s reign (2Ch24:24), and of Israel in Amaziah’s reign (2Ch 25:13;2Ch 25:23, c.). Compare Isaiah’scontemporary (Am 4:6-11),where, as here (Isa 1:9 Isa 1:10),Israel is compared to “Sodom and Gomorrah,” because of thejudgments on it by “fire.”
in your presencebeforeyour eyes: without your being able to prevent them.
desolate, &c.literally,”there is desolation, such as one might look for from foreign”invaders.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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,
Mt 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, Mt 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,
2Ch 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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
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 baroye , 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., 2Sa 10:3, where the verb occurs), or as the genitive of the object, “such an overthrow as comes upon barbarians.” As mahpechah (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 zarim 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; Zec 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.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
7. Your country is desolate Literally, it is desolation; and thus Isaiah goes on to speak more fully and plainly of what he had already said figuratively about chastisements, that the country has been reduced to a frightful state of devastation: for I choose to interpret all those statements as relating to past occurrences, because the Prophet does not threaten the vengeance of God, but describes those heavy calamities which have already happened. He upbraids them with indolence and stupidity in remaining unmoved by their afflictions.
Like the destruction of strangers (18). This is added for the sake of heightening the picture; for the opinion that זרים ( zarim) is here put for זרם ( zerem), an inundation, is farfetched. That word might no doubt be applied to enemies, but it is better to take it as literally denoting foreigners. The calamity is more grievous when it is brought on by men who are unknown, and who have come from a distant country, who lay waste with far greater recklessness and cruelty than neighboring tribes. Such men destroy cities, burn houses, buildings, and villages, and spread desolation all around. In short, they rush forward with barbarous ferocity, bent on murders and conflagrations, and are more eager to inflict damage than to make gain. But neighbors, when they have subdued a country, can retain possession of it by having a garrison, and as soon as a revolt is attempted, or an insurrection takes place, can send additional troops; and therefore they are not so cruel; nor do they lay waste a country from which they hope to derive some advantage. It is therefore no ordinary calamity, but the most shocking of all calamities, that is here described.
Hence we ought to learn that, when God begins to punish us, if we do not repent, he does not immediately desist, but multiplies the chastisements, and continually follows them up with other afflictions. We ought therefore to abstain from such obstinacy, if we do not wish to draw down upon ourselves the same punishments, or at least to deserve the same reproach which was brought against the Jews, that though they had received sharp warnings, and had felt the hand of God, still they could not be corrected or reformed.
Moreover, we ought not to wonder that we are visited with so great an amount and variety of afflictions, of which we see no end or limit, for by our obstinacy we fight with God and with his stripes. It must therefore happen with us as with wincing and unruly horses, which, the more obstinate and refractory they are, have the whip and spur applied to them with greater severity. In the present day there are many who almost accuse God of cruelty, as if he always treated us with harshness, and as if he ought to chastise us more gently; but they do not take into account our shocking crimes. If those crimes were duly weighed by them, they would assuredly acknowledge that, amidst the utmost severity, the forbearance of God is wonderful; and that we may not think that in this case the Lord was too severe, we must take into consideration the vices which he afterwards enumerates.
Here an objection will be started. Why does Isaiah declare that the nation endured such a variety of afflictions, while we have already mentioned that he began to prophesy under Uzziah, (19) during whose reign the kingdom of Judah was in a prosperous condition? (2Ch 26:5.) For although, towards the end of his life, the kingdom of Israel met with some disasters, still this did not affect the kingdom of Judah. Accordingly, the Jews think that these words relate to the reign of Jotham, (2Kg 15:32,) and not of Uzziah. Their opinion appears at first sight to have little weight; and yet, when the whole matter is examined, it is not destitute of probability; for we know that the prophets did not always attend to chronological arrangement in collecting their prophecies; and it is possible that this discourse of Isaiah was placed first in order for no other reason but because it contains a summary view of that doctrine which is afterwards to be delivered.
Others think that they can easily get rid of the difficulty by interpreting the whole passage as a description of vice, and not of punishments; but what is said about the burning of cities and about the desolation of the country cannot easily be disposed of in that manner. If it is supposed that the Prophet speaks of the future and not the present condition of that kingdom, and that in the name of God he foretells approaching calamities, though they did not behold them with their eyes, I do not greatly object to that view, though it is probable that he treats of events which were known to them. It is a real narrative, and not a prediction, though in the next verse I acknowledge he announces the approaching result.
(18) In the English version it runs, as overthrown by strangers; and the marginal reading, adhering more closely to the Hebrew idiom, is, as the overthrow of strangers. The interpretation rejected by Calvin has been approved by some able critics; and Lowth, distrusting the philological views given by his predecessors, has resorted to a conjectural alteration of the Hebrew text: — “This reading, though confirmed by all the ancient versions, gives us no good sense; for your land is devoured by strangers, and is desolate as if overthrown by strangers, is a mere tautology, or, what is as bad, an identical comparison. Aben Ezra thought that the word, in its present form, might be taken for the same with זרם, an inundation. Schultens is of the same opinion, (see Taylor’s Concord;) and Schindler, in his Lexicon, explains it in the same manner, and so, says Kimchi, some explain it.” After enumerating the attempts of Abendana “to reconcile it to grammatical analogy,” he adds, “but I rather suppose the true reading to be זרם, and have translated it accordingly: the word זרים, in the line above, seems to have caught the transcriber’s eye, and to have led him into this mistake.” — Notes on Isaiah. — Ed
(19) Called also Azariah, 2Kg 15:1. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(7) Your country is desolate . . .It is natural to take the words as describing the actual state of things when the prophet wrote. There had been such invasions in the days of Ahaz, in which Israel and Syria (Isa. 7:1), Edom and the Philistines, had been conspicuous (2Ch. 28:17-18); and the reign of Hezekiah already had witnessed that of Sargon (Isa. 20:1).
The Hebrew has no copulative verb, but joins subject and predicate together with the emphasis of abruptness: Your landa desolation, and so on. The repetition of the word strangers is characteristic of Isaiahs style.
As overthrown by strangers.Conjectural readings give (1) as the overthrow of Sodom; (2) as the overthrow of (i.e., wrought by) a rain-storm. The word rendered overthrown is elsewhere applied only to the destruction of the cities of the plain (Deu. 29:23; Amo. 4:11; Jer. 49:18). So taken, the clause prepares the way for the fuller comparison of Isa. 1:9-10.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
7. The figurative language is now dropped, and words direct and literal are used. Country desolate cities burned with fire, etc. Notice how nearly every word corresponds to the curses threatened in Leviticus xxvi and Deuteronomy 28. From the time of Isaiah downward the state of Israel was a realization of the curses of the law.
Strangers This word occurs twice in this verse: possibly the fact hints at the oppression the people were to experience from foreign conquerors, as a just return for their propensity to stray after strange gods rather than to adhere to their covenant God and Protector. See Deu 28:48; Deu 28:50-51.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 1:7. Your country, &c. Or, Your land is become a desolation: your cities are burned with fire; your ground strangers eat up before you; and the desolation is as if it were destroyed by an inundation. See Lowth.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Isa 1:7 Your 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.
Ver. 7. Your country is desolate. ] Here the prophet speaketh plainly, what before, parabolically. Thus many times the Scripture explaineth itself. Job 7:3-9
Your cities are burnt.
Your land, strangers devour it.
In your presence.
a Zar, “alienum” significat et “hostem.”
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 1:7-9
7Your land is desolate,
Your cities are burned with fire,
Your fields – strangers are devouring them in your presence;
It is desolation, as overthrown by strangers.
8The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard,
Like a watchman’s hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.
9Unless the Lord of hosts
Had left us a few survivors,
We would be like Sodom,
We would be like Gomorrah.
Isa 1:7 This reflects an exile, probably either the Assyrian attack in 701 B.C. and invasion of Israel in 723 B.C. or possibly the Babylonian invasion of Judah in 586 B.C. Remember Isaiah, the book, is a compilation of his messages. The exact historical setting is not stated. Often his poems can refer to different invasions. They may even have been structured for purposeful ambiguity. It reflects the curses of Deuteronomy 28.
NASB, NKJVstrangers
NRSValiens
TEV, NJBforeigners
This PARTICIPLE (BDB 266, KB 267, Qal ACTIVE PARTICIPLE, twice) denotes someone from a different family, tribe, nation (cf. Isa 25:2; Isa 25:5; Isa 29:5; Isa 61:5), usually an enemy of the covenant people. YHWH judges His people by the use of pagan enemies (cf. Isa 10:5).
Isa 1:8 The daughter of Zion The parent-child motif is begun in Isa 1:2. Here it is continued into a metaphor that will recur in prophetic literature.
1. daughter of Zion, Isa 1:8; Isa 10:32; Isa 16:1; Isa 37:22; Isa 52:2; Isa 62:11; Jer 4:31; Jer 6:23; Lam 1:6; Lam 2:1; Lam 2:4; Lam 2:8; Lam 2:18; Mic 4:8; Mic 4:10; Mic 4:13; Zep 3:14; Zec 2:10; Zec 9:9
2. daughter of Jerusalem, Isa 37:22
3. daughter of Judah, Lam 2:2; Lam 2:5; Lam 2:13; Lam 2:15; Mic 4:8
4. daughter of Tyre, Psa 45:12
5. daughter of Babylon, Psa 137:8; Isa 47:1 (virgin daughter); Jer 50:42; Jer 51:33; Zec 2:7
6. daughter of my people, Isa 22:4; Jer 4:11; Jer 6:26; Jer 8:11; Jer 8:19; Jer 8:21-22; Jer 9:1; Jer 9:7; Lam 2:11; Lam 3:48; Lam 4:6; Lam 4:10
7. virgin daughter, Isa 23:12; Isa 37:22; Jer 14:17; Jer 46:11; Lam 1:15; Lam 2:13
8. daughter of Egypt, Jer 46:24
9. daughter of Edom, Lam 4:21-22
10. daughter of Tarshish, Isa 23:10
11. daughter of the Chaldeans, Isa 47:1; Isa 47:5
12. faithless daughter, Jer 31:22
Obviously it was a tender idiom referring to the inhabitants of a nation, region, or city.
Like a watchman’s hut in a cucumber field This refers to the very fragile, flimsy structure (cf. Isa 24:20) that is erected during harvest time as a shelter for guards to protect the crop from robbers. Without God His people have no protection or hope (cf. Isa 1:9).
Isa 1:9 the Lord of Hosts See Special Topic following,
SPECIAL TOPIC: LORD OF HOSTS
Had left us a few survivors This refers to the terrible judgment of the Assyrian and/or the Babylonian exiles of God’s people from the Promised Land.
It denotes the concept of a faithful remnant of believers (cf. Isa 10:20-22; Isa 11:11; Isa 11:16; Isa 37:4; Isa 37:31-32; Isa 46:3, see Special Topic below), which Paul refers to and expands to include Gentiles in Rom 9:19-29! Not everyone will be redeemed!
SPECIAL TOPIC: THE REMNANT, THREE SENSES
Sodom … Gomorrah This is a historical allusion to God’s judgment recorded in Genesis 18-19. These Canaanite cities became a proverb for both evil and God’s judgment of evil.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
desolate. Occurs in “former” portion here, Isa 6:11; Isa 17:9; Isa 33:8; and in the “latter” portion, Isa 49:8, Isa 49:19; Isa 54:1, Isa 54:3; Isa 61:4, Isa 61:4; Isa 62:4.
your cities. Some codices, with Syriac, read “and your cities”.
land = soil.
strangers = foreigners, or apostates. Hebrew. zur. See note on Pro 5:3 (not the same word as in Isa 2:6).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
country: Isa 5:5, Isa 5:6, Isa 5:9, Isa 6:11, Isa 24:10-12, Lev 26:34, Deu 28:51, 2Ch 28:5, 2Ch 28:16-21, Psa 107:34, Psa 107:39, Jer 6:8
burned: Isa 9:5, Isa 34:9, Jer 2:15
strangers: Isa 5:17, Deu 28:33, Deu 28:43, Deu 28:48-52, Lam 5:2, Eze 30:12, Hos 7:9, Hos 8:7
overthrown by strangers: Heb. the overthrow of strangers
Reciprocal: Lev 26:31 – And I will make Lev 26:32 – And I Num 31:10 – General Deu 28:52 – General 2Ki 15:29 – carried them Isa 5:13 – my people Isa 30:17 – till ye Isa 33:9 – earth Isa 36:1 – that Sennacherib Isa 42:22 – a people Isa 64:10 – General Jer 2:16 – have broken the crown Jer 4:7 – to Jer 7:34 – for Jer 20:2 – the stocks Eze 25:4 – they shall eat Luk 13:35 – your
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 1:7-8. Your country is desolate The description of the ruined and desolate state of the country, in these verses, says Bishop Lowth, does not suit with any part of the prosperous times of Uzziah and Jotham. It very well agrees with the time of Ahaz, when Judea was ravaged by the joint invasion of the Israelites and Syrians, and by the incursions of the Philistines and Edomites. The date of this prophecy is therefore generally fixed to the time of Ahaz. Strangers devour it in your presence Which your eyes see to torment you, when there is no power in your hands to deliver you. As overthrown, &c. , as the overthrow; of strangers That is, such as strangers bring upon a land which is not likely to continue in their hands, and therefore they spare no persons; and spoil and destroy all things, which is not usually done in wars between persons of the same or of a neighbouring nation. And the daughter of Zion is left Is left solitary, all the neighbouring villages and country round about it being laid waste. As a cottage Or, as a shed in a vineyard, as Bishop Lowth translates it, namely, a little temporary hut, covered with boughs, straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat by day, and the cold and dews by night, for the watchman that kept the garden, or vineyard, during the short season while the fruit was ripening; see Job 27:18; and presently removed when it had served that purpose. See Harmer, Observ. 1:454.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1:7 Your country [is] desolate, your cities [are] burned with fire: your land, foreigners devour it in your presence, and [it is] desolate, as overthrown by {n} foreigners.
(n) Meaning, of them who dwell far off, who because they look for no advantage of that which remains destroy all before them.