Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 9:8
The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.
8. Translate: A word hath the Lord sent into Jacob and it shall light upon Israel. “The Word is in nature and history the messenger of the Lord” (Del.) cf. Psa 107:20; Psa 147:15; Psa 147:18; Isa 55:11. The “word” here is the following oracle, which has already been “sent,” and will “light” (cf. Dan 4:31) on Israel, bringing about its own fulfilment.
Jacob Israel ] here denote the Northern Kingdom, as is plain from the next verse.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
8 12. The first strophe ( Isa 9:8-10 being an introduction to the whole prophecy).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Chap. Isa 9:8 to Isa 10:4 (+ Isa 5:25-30)
Jehovah’s hand stretched out in wrath over His people. An oracle against North Israel
The key-note of the prophecy is given in the recurrent refrain Isa 9:12; Isa 9:17; Isa 9:21, Isa 10:4, Isa 5:25. (On the reasons for including ch. Isa 5:25-30 see on that passage.) It is the most artistically arranged of all Isaiah’s writings, being divided into regular strophes as follows:
(i) Ch. Isa 9:8-12. The introduction ( Isa 9:8-10) explains that the oracle concerns the inhabitants of Samaria, and points to the buoyant assurance and self-confidence which was the habitual temper of the Northern Kingdom. The prophet then enters on a review of the various calamities by which Jehovah had sought to bring the nation to repentance, the first of these being the aggressions of its powerful neighbours on the East and the West ( Isa 9:11-12). This was the first stroke of Jehovah’s hand.
(ii) Isa 9:13-17. A second blow descends on the impenitent nation in some sudden disaster by which the state is bereft of its leaders, great and small (13 16); the condition of the people is then seen to be utterly corrupt, so that Jehovah withdraws His compassion even from the helpless widows and orphans (17).
(iii) Isa 9:18-21. The third visitation is a state of anarchy and internecine strife, which is described mainly in a succession of powerful and telling images. The nation is rent by the conflict of rival factions, the only bond of unity being a common hatred of Judah.
(iv) Ch. Isa 10:1-4. The fourth strophe opens with a “Woe” on the maladministration of the judges, which was always to Isaiah’s mind the chief symptom of a rotten republic ( Isa 9:1-2). This is followed by an allusion to a day of slaughter in which the magnates shall vainly seek safety beneath the slain (3, 4).
[It is possible that another strophe originally stood here, the closing words of which are preserved in Isa 5:25.]
(v) Ch. Isa 5:26-30. The prediction of the Assyrian invasion forms, as has been already explained, the dnouement of this great drama of judgment. (For the exegesis, see on the passage above, pp. 40 42.) The refrain is of course dropped; Jehovah’s wrath is stayed, His hand is no longer stretched forth.
It is assumed in the foregoing analysis that the passage is in the main (down at least to the end of ch. 9) a retrospect of historical judgments; and this is the view naturally suggested by the tenses of the original, which are with few exceptions perfects, or the equivalents of perfects. A majority of commentators, however, taking the perfects as those of prophetic certainty, interpret the oracle as an ideal delineation of the stages of a judgment yet to come. And it is no doubt conceivable that the prophet might assume an ideal standpoint on the eve of the Assyrian invasion, regarding the preliminary chastisements as past, although they were in reality still future at the time of writing. But such a lavish and continuous use of the prophetic perfect would be unparalleled; and the change to the impf. at Isa 5:26 seems too significant to be explained on this hypothesis. It is, therefore, on the whole safer to assume that in Isa 9:8-21 the references are to past events, although it may not be possible in every case to specify the exact circumstances that are meant. A shorter oracle arranged on the principle here supposed is found in Amo 4:6-12.
The date of the prophecy is not easily determined. The most probable view is that it was composed just before the outbreak of the Syro-Ephraimitish war. A later date (though not perhaps impossible) is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the issues of that expedition, so disastrous to the Northern Kingdom, are not mentioned. The Assyrians, moreover, are described in terms so vaguely poetic as to suggest that they were as yet unknown to the Israelites at close quarters. Syria also is mentioned as the enemy of Israel, without any hint of an alliance between them; while it is thought by some that Isa 9:21 alludes to the incipient antagonism towards Judah which afterwards found vent in the invasion. None of these indications are very decisive, but there are none to neutralise them (see, however, on Isa 9:10-11 below); and the passage may at least be regarded provisionally as a product of the earliest period of Isaiah’s ministry.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Lord sent – Not Yahweh here, but Adonai. It is apparent that this verse is the commencement of a new prophecy, that is not connected with that which precedes it. The strain of the preceding prophecy had respect to Judah; this is confined solely to Israel, or Ephraim. Here the division of the chapter should have been made, and should not have been again interrupted until Isa 10:4, where the prophecy closes. The prophecy is divided into four parts, and each part is designed to threaten a distinct judgment on some particular, prominent vice.
I. Crime – their pride and ostentation, Isa 9:8-9. Punishment – the land would be invaded by the Syrians and the Philistines, Isa 9:11-12.
II. Crime – they had apostatized from God, and the leaders had caused them to err, Isa 9:13, Isa 9:16. Punishment – Yahweh would cut off the chief men of the nation, Isa 9:14-15, Isa 9:17.
III. Crime – prevalent wickedness in the nation, Isa 9:18. Punishment – the anger of Yahweh, consternation, anarchy, discord, and want, Isa 9:19-21.
IV. Crime – prevalent injustice; Isa 10:1-2. Punishment – foreign invasion, and captivity; Isa 10:3-4.
The poem is remarkably regular in its structure (Lowth), and happy in its illustrations. At what time it was composed is not certain, but it has strong internal evidence that it immediately followed the preceding respecting Judah.
A word – A message, or prediction; Note, Isa 2:1.
Into Jacob – Jacob was the ancestor of the nation. But the name came to be appropriated to the ten tribes, as constituting the majority of the people. It was at first used to denote all the Jews Num 23:7, Num 23:10, Num 23:23; Num 24:17, Num 24:19; Deu 32:9; 1Ch 16:13; Psa 14:7; Psa 20:1; but it came, after the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam, to be used often to denote them alone; Amo 6:8; Mic 1:5; Mic 3:1; Mic 5:8. The word or message which was sent, refers undoubtedly to that which immediately follows.
And it hath lighted upon – Hebrew It fell. This is but a varied expression for, he sent it to Israel.
Israel – The same as Jacob the ten tribes – the kingdom of Ephraim.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. Lord – “JEHOVAH”] For Adonai, thirty MSS. of Kennicott’s, and many of De Rossi’s, and three editions, read Yehovah.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Sent a word; a prophetical and threatening message by me; for now the prophet, having inserted some consolatory passages for the support of Gods faithful people, returns to his former work of commination against the rebellious Israelites.
It lighted, Heb. it fell, i.e. it shall fall, in the prophetical style. It shall certainly be accomplished.
Israel; the same with Jacob in the former clause, the posterity of Jacob or Israel.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. Heading of the prophecy;(Isa 9:8-12), the firststrophe.
unto Jacobagainstthe ten tribes [LOWTH].
lighted uponfallenfrom heaven by divine revelation (Da4:31).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The Lord sent a word unto Jacob,…. The prophet, having comforted Judah with the promise of the Messiah, returns to denounce the judgments of God upon the ten tribes, under the names of Jacob and Israel, which signify the same; for the “word” here is not the word of promise, the comfortable word concerning the Messiah before mentioned; but a word of threatening, ruin, and destruction, to the kingdom of Israel, after enlarged upon, which the Lord sent unto them by his prophets before hand, to warn them of it, and bring them to repentance; by which they would know, when it came to pass, that their destruction was of the Lord, and not a matter of chance: the Septuagint version is, “the Lord sent death upon Jacob”; and so the Arabic version, following it; the same word, differently pointed, being used for the pestilence, but is not the sense here; the Targum, Syriac, and Vulgate Latin versions, render it, “a word”, as we do:
and it hath lighted upon Israel, or “hath fallen” x; as an arrow shot out of a bow, as some think; or as seed cast upon the earth; or rather like a thunderbolt: it denotes the sure and full accomplishment of the word of God upon the persons to whom it was sent; for as his word of promise, so of threatening, does not return to him void and empty, Isa 55:10. The Targum is,
“the Lord sent a word into the house of Jacob, and it was heard in Israel.”
x “cecidit”, Grotius, Cocccius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The great light would not arise till the darkness had reached its deepest point. The gradual increase of this darkness is predicted in this second section of the esoteric addresses. Many difficult questions suggest themselves in connection with this section. 1. Is it directed against the northern kingdom only, or against all Israel? 2. What was the historical standpoint of the prophet himself? The majority of commentators reply that the prophet is only prophesying against Ephraim here, and that Syria and Ephraim have already been chastised by Tiglath-pileser. The former is incorrect. The prophet does indeed commence with Ephraim, but he does not stop there. The fates of both kingdoms flow into one another here, as well as in Isa 8:5., just as they were causally connected in actual fact. And it cannot be maintained, that when the prophet uttered his predictions Ephraim had already felt the scourging of Tiglath-pileser. The prophet takes his stand at a time when judgment after judgment had fallen upon all Israel without improving it. And one of these past judgments was the scourging of Ephraim by Tiglath-pileser. How much or how little of the events which the prophet looks back upon from this ideal standpoint had already taken place, it is impossible to determine; but this is a matter of indifference so far as the prophecy is concerned. The prophet, from his ideal standing-place, had not only this or that behind him, but all that is expressed in this section by perfects and aorists (Ges. 129, 2, b). And we already know from Isa 2:9; Isa 5:25, that he sued the future conversive as the preterite of the ideal past. We therefore translate the whole in the present tense. In outward arrangement there is no section of Isaiah so symmetrical as this. In chapter 5 we found one partial approach to the strophe in similarity of commencement, and another in chapter 2 in similarity of conclusion. But here Isa 5:25 is adapted as the refrain of four symmetrical strophes. We will take each strophe by itself.
Strophe 1. Isa 9:8-12 “ The Lord sends out a word against Jacob, and it descends into Israel. And all the people must make atonement, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, saying in pride and haughtiness of heart, ‘Bricks are fallen down, and we build with square stones; sycamores are hewn down, and we put cedars in their place.’ Jehovah raises Rezin’s oppressors high above him, and pricks up his enemies: Aram from the east, and Philistines from the west; they devour Israel with full mouth. For all this His anger is not turned away, and His hand is stretched out still.” The word ( dabar ) is both in nature and history the messenger of the Lord: it runs quickly through the earth (Psa 147:15, Psa 147:18), and when sent by the Lord, comes to men to destroy or to heal (Psa 107:20), and never returns to its sender void (Isa 55:10-11). Thus does the Lord now send a word against Jacob ( Jacob, as in Isa 2:5); and this heavenly messenger descends into Israel ( naphal , as in Dan 4:28, and like the Arabic nazala , which is the word usually employed to denote the communication of divine revelation), taking shelter, as it were, in the soul of the prophet. Its immediate commission is directed against Ephraim, which has been so little humbled by the calamities that have fallen upon it since the time of Jehu, that the people are boasting that they will replace bricks and sycamores (or sycamines, from shikmin ), that wide-spread tree (1Ki 10:27), with works of art and cedars. “ We put in their place: ” nachaliph is not used here as in Job 14:7, where it signifies to sprout again ( nova germina emittere ), but as in Isa 40:31; Isa 41:1, where it is construed with (strength), and signifies to renew ( novas vires assumere ). In this instance, when the object is one external to the subject, the meaning is to substitute ( substituere ), like the Arabic achlafa , to restore. The poorest style of building in the land is contrasted with the best; for “the sycamore is a tree which only flourishes in the plain, and there the most wretched houses are still built of bricks dried in the sun, and of knotty beams of sycamore.”
(Note: Rosen, Topographisches aus Jerusalem.)
These might have been destroyed by the war, but more durable and stately buildings would rise up in their place. Ephraim, however, would be made to feel this defiance of the judgments of God (to “know,” as in Hos 9:7; Eze 25:14). Jehovah would give the adversaries of Rezin authority over Ephraim, and instigate his foes: sicsec , as in Isa 19:2, from sacac , in its primary sense of “prick,” figere , which has nothing to do with the meanings to plait and cover, but from which we have the words , , a thorn, nail, or plug, and which is probably related to , to view, lit., to fix; hence pilpel , to prick up, incite, which is the rendering adopted by the Targum here and in Isa 19:2, and by the lxx at Isa 19:2. There is no necessity to quote the talmudic sicsec , to kindle (by friction), which is never met with in the metaphorical sense of exciting. It would be even better to take our sicsec as an intensive form of sacac , used in the same sense as the Arabic, viz., to provide one’s self with weapons, to arm; but this is probably a denominative from sicca , signifying offensive armour, with the idea of pricking and spearing – a radical notion, from which it would be easy to get at the satisfactory meaning, to spur on or instigate. “The oppressors of Rezin ” tzar Retzn , a simple play upon the words, like hoi goi in Isa 1:4, and many others in Isaiah) are the Assyrians, whose help had been sought by Ahaz against Rezin; though perhaps not these exclusively, but possibly also the Trachonites, for example, against whom the mountain fortress Rezn appears to have been erected, to protect the rich lands of eastern Hauran. In Isa 9:12 the range of vision stretches over all Israel. It cannot be otherwise, for the northern kingdom never suffered anything from the Philistines; whereas an invasion of Judah by the Philistines was really one of the judgments belonging to the time of Ahaz (2Ch 28:16-19). Consequently by Israel here we are to understand all Israel, the two halves of which would become a rich prize to the enemy. Ephraim would be swallowed up by Aram – namely, by those who had been subjugated by Asshur, and were now tributary to it – and Judah would be swallowed up by the Philistines. But this strait would be very far from being the end of the punishments of God. Because Israel would not turn, the wrath of God would not turn away.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Threatenings against Judah; Threatenings against Israel. | B. C. 740. |
8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. 9 And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart, 10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. 11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; 12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 13 For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts. 14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. 15 The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. 16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed. 17 Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is a hypocrite and an evil doer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 18 For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke. 19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother. 20 And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm: 21 Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
Here are terrible threatenings, which are directed primarily against Israel, the kingdom of the ten tribes, Ephraim and Samaria, the ruin of which is here foretold, with all the woeful confusions that were the prefaces to that ruin, all which came to pass within a few years after; but they look further, to all the enemies of the throne and kingdom of Christ the Son of David, and read the doom of all the nations that forget God, and will not have Christ to reign over them. Observe,
I. The preface to this prediction (v. 8): The Lord sent a word into Jacob, sent it by his servants the prophets. He warns before he wounds. He sent notice what he would do, that they might meet him in the way of his judgments; but they would not take the hint, took no care to turn away his wrath, and so it lighted upon Israel; for no word of God shall fall to the ground. It fell upon them as a storm of rain and hail from on high, which they could not avoid: It has lighted upon them, that is, it is as sure to come as if come already, and all the people shall know by feeling it what they would not know by hearing of it. Those that are willingly ignorant of the wrath of God revealed from heaven against sin and sinners shall be made to know it.
II. The sins charged upon the people of Israel, which provoked God to bring these judgments upon them. 1. Their insolent defiance of the justice of God, thinking themselves a match for him: “They say, in the pride and stoutness of their heart, Let God himself do his worst; we will hold our own, and make our part good with him. If he ruin our houses, we will repair them, and make them stronger and finer than they were before. Our landlord shall not turn us out of doors, though we pay him no rent, but we will keep in possession. If the houses that were built of bricks be demolished in the war, we will rebuild them with hewn stones, that shall not so easily be thrown down. If the enemy cut down the sycamores, we will plant cedars in the room of them. We will make a hand of God’s judgments, gain by them, and so outbrave them.” Note, Those are ripening apace for ruin whose hearts are unhumbled under humbling providences; for God will walk contrary to those who thus walk contrary to him and provoke him to jealousy, as if they were stronger than he. 2. Their incorrigibleness under all the rebukes of Providence hitherto (v. 13); The people turn not unto him that smiteth them (they are not wrought upon to reform their lives, to forsake their sins, and to return to their duty), neither do they seek the Lord of hosts; either they are atheists, and have no religion, or idolaters, and seek to those gods that are the creatures of their own fancy and the works of their own hands. Note, That which God designs, in smiting us, is to turn us to himself and to set us a seeking him; and, if this point be not gained by less judgments, greater may be expected. God smites that he may not kill. 3. Their general corruption of manners and abounding profaneness. (1.) Those that should have reformed them helped to debauch them (v. 16): The leaders of this people mislead them, and cause them to err, by conniving at their wickedness and countenancing wicked people, and by setting them bad examples; and then no wonder if those that are led of them be deceived and so destroyed. But it is ill with a people when their physicians are their worst disease. “Those that bless this people, or call them blessed (so the margin reads it), that flatter them, and soothe them in their wickedness, and cry Peace, peace, to them, cause them to err; and those that are called blessed of them are swallowed up ere they are aware.” We have reason to be afraid of those that speak well of us when we do ill; see Pro 24:24; Pro 29:5. (2.) Wickedness was universal, and all were infected with it (v. 17): Every one is a hypocrite and an evil doer. If there be any that are good, they do not, they dare not appear, for every mouth speaks folly and villany; every one is profane towards God (so the word properly signifies) and an evil doer towards man. These two commonly go together: those that fear not God regard not man; and then every mouth speaks folly, falsehood, and reproach, both against God and man; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
III. The judgments threatened against them for this wickedness of theirs; let them not think to go unpunished.
1. In general, hereby they exposed themselves to the wrath of God, which should both devour as fire and darken as smoke. (1.) It should devour as fire (v. 18): Wickedness shall burn as the fire; the displeasure of God, incurred by sin, shall consume the sinners, who have made themselves as briers and thorns before it, and as the thickets of the forest, combustible matter, which the wrath of the Lord of hosts, the mighty God, will go through and burn together. (2.) It should darken as smoke. The briers and thorns, when the fire consumes them, shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke, so that the whole land shall be darkened by it; they shall be in trouble, and see no way out (v. 19): The people shall be as the fuel of the fire. God’s wrath fastens upon none but those that make themselves fuel for it, and then they mount up as the smoke of sacrifices, being made victims to divine justice.
2. God would arm the neighbouring powers against them, Isa 9:11; Isa 9:12. At this time the kingdom of Israel was in league with that of Syria against Judah; but the Assyrians, who were adversaries to the Syrians, when they had conquered them should invade Israel, and God would stir them up to do it, and join the enemies of Israel together in alliance against them, who yet had particular ends of their own to serve and were not aware of God’s hand in their alliance. Note, When enemies are set up, and joined in confederacy against a people, God’s hand must be acknowledged in it. Note further, Those that partake with each other in sin, as Syria and Israel in invading Judah, must expect to share in the punishment of sin. Nay, the Syrians themselves, whom they were now in league with, should be a scourge to them (for it is no unusual thing for those to fall out that have been united in sin), one attacking them in the front and the other flanking them or falling upon their rear; so that they should be surrounded with enemies on all sides, who should devour them with open mouth, v. 12. The Philistines were not now looked upon as formidable enemies, and the Syrians were looked upon as firm friends; and yet these shall devour Israel. When men’s ways displease the Lord he makes even their friends to be at war with them.
3. God would take from the midst of them those they confided in and promised themselves help from, Isa 9:14; Isa 9:15. Because the people seek not God, those they seek to and depend upon shall stand them in no stead. The Lord will cut off head and tail, branch and rush, which is explained in the next verse. (1.) Their magistrates, who were honourable by birth and office and were the ancients of the people, these were the head, these were the branch which they promised themselves spirit and fruit from; but because these caused them to err they should be cut off, and their dignity and power should be no protection to them when the abuse of that dignity and power was the great provocation: and it was a judgment upon the people to have their princes cut off, though they were not such as they should have been. (2.) Their prophets, their false prophets, were the tail and the rush, the most despicable of all. A wicked minister is the worst of all. A wicked minister is the worst of men. Corruptio optimi est pessima–The best things become when corrupted the worst. The blind led the blind, and so both fell into the ditch; and the blind leaders fell first and fell undermost.
4. That the desolation should be as general as the corruption had been, and none should escape it, v. 17. (1.) Not those that were the objects of complacency. None shall be spared for love: The Lord shall have no joy in their young men, that were in the flower of their youth; nor will he say, Deal gently with the young men for my sake; no, “Let them fall with the rest, and with them let the seed of the next generation perish.” (2.) Not those that were the objects of compassion. None shall be spared for pity: He shall not have mercy on their fatherless and widows, though he is, in a particular manner, the patron and protector of such. They had corrupted their way like all the rest; and, if the poverty and helplessness of their state was not an argument with them to keep them from sin, they could not expect it should be an argument with God to protect them from judgments.
5. That they should pull one another to pieces, that every one should help forward the common ruin, and they should be cannibals to themselves and one to another: No man shall spare his brother, if he come in the way of his ambition of covetousness, or if he have any colour to be revenged on him; and how can they expect God should spare them when they show no compassion one to another? Men’s passion and cruelty one against another provoke God to be angry with them all and are an evidence that he is so. Civil wars soon bring a kingdom to desolation. Such there were in Israel, when, for the transgression of the land, many were the princes thereof, Prov. xxviii. 2.
(1.) In these intestine broils, men snatched on the right hand, and yet were hungry still, and did eat the flesh of their own arms, preyed upon themselves for hunger or upon their nearest relations that were as their own flesh, v. 20. This bespeaks, [1.] Great famine and scarcity; when men had pulled all they could to them it was so little that they were still hungry, at least God did not bless it to them, so that they eat and have not enough, Hag. i. 6. [2.] Great rapine and plunder. Jusque datum sceleri–iniquity is established by law. The hedge of property, which is a hedge of protection to men’s estates, shall be plucked up, and every man shall think all that his own which he can lay his hands on (vivitur ex rapto, non hospes ab hospite tutus–they live on the spoil, and the rites of hospitality are all violated); and yet, when men thus catch at that which is none of their own, they are not satisfied. Covetous desires are insatiable, and this curse is entailed on that which is ill got, that it will never do well.
(2.) These intestine broils should be not only among particular persons and private families, but among the tribes (v. 21): Manasseh shall devour Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh, though they be combined against Judah. Those that could unite against Judah could not unite with one another; but that sinful confederacy of theirs against their neighbour that dwelt securely by them was justly punished by this separation of them one from another. Or Judah, having sinned like Manasseh and Ephraim, shall not only suffer with them, but suffer by them. Note, Mutual enmity and animosity among the tribes of God’s Israel is a sin that ripens them for ruin, and a sad symptom of ruin hastening on apace. If Ephraim be against Manasseh, and Manasseh against Ephraim, and both against Judah, they will all soon become a very easy prey to the common enemy.
6. That, though they should be followed with all these judgments, yet God would not let fall his controversy with them. It is the heavy burden of this song (Isa 9:12; Isa 9:17; Isa 9:21): For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still, that is, (1.) They do nothing to turn away his anger; they do not repent and reform, do not humble themselves and pray, none stand in the gap, none answer God’s calls nor comply with the designs of his providences, but they are hardened and secure. (2.) His anger therefore continues to burn against them and his hand is stretched out still. The reason why the judgments of God are prolonged is because the point is not gained, sinners are not brought to repentance by them. The people turn not to him that smites them, and therefore he continues to smite them; for when God judges he will overcome, and the proudest stoutest sinner shall either bend or break.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verse 8-12: THE PRIDE OF ISRAEL TO BE JUDGED
1. Let it be understood that this is directed to the NORTHERN kingdom (composed of 10 tribes) – Jacob, Israel, Ephraim, Samaria.
2. It is a rebuke of their attitude when a part of their territory has been wrested from them by Tiglath-Pileser, (2Ki 15:29).
a. That attitude is called “pride and stoutness of heart”. (Isa 46:12; Isa 48:4-5; Psa 76:5; Zec 7:11-12; Mal 3:13).
b. “The bricks are fallen”, they say, “but we will (re) build with hewn stones” – better than ever!
3. Thus, the Lord has set the adversaries of Rezin (king of Israel) against him, and has stirred his enemies to unite their efforts toward his defeat – Syria in front and the Philistine behind; together they will devour him with open mouth, . (comp. Psa 79:5-7; Jer 10:25).
4. The anger of the Lord is not yet turned away from this proud and rebellious nation, “but His hand is stretched out still”; they have not learned to fear Him.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
8. The Lord hath sent a word. Here he relates a new prediction, for I think that this discourse is separated from the former, because the Prophet now returns to speak of the future condition of the kingdom of Israel, which was at that time hostile to the Jews. Now, we know that the Jews had good reason for being alarmed at the forces and power of that kingdom, especially when it had made a league with the Syrians, because they saw that they had not sufficient strength to oppose them. In order, therefore, to yield comfort to the godly, he shows what will be the future condition of the kingdom of Israel
By Jacob and Israel he means the same thing; but the diversity of expression is elegant, and is intended to show that the wicked gain nothing by their opposition, when they endeavor either to turn away from them, or to alter the judgment of God. He alludes to the speech of those who think that they can escape by means of their witticisms, and who turn into jest and sport all that is threatened by the Prophets; just as if one were to attempt to drive away a storm by the breath of his mouth. It is, therefore, an ironical admission, as if he had said, “In your opinion, what God pronounces against you will fall on others; but all the threatenings which he utters against Jacob will light upon Israel. ”
To send means to appoint. The preposition ב ( beth) means in Jacob himself. The word of God must dwell and rest in him, for it cannot vanish away without producing any effect. This is what he afterwards lays down in other words, “ My word shall not return to me void; that is, because it is an effectual publication of that which I have once decreed.” (Isa 55:11.) By the word, it hath fallen, (145) he points out the certainty of the effect and result; as if he had said, “I do not conjecture these things, nor do I contrive them out of my own head; but God hath spoken, who cannot be deceived, and cannot change.”
(145) It hath lighted. — Eng. Ver.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE OUTSTRETCHED HAND OF GOD
Isa. 9:8 to Isa. 10:4. But His hand is stretched out still.
Much is said in the Bible concerning the hand of God [926] Consider what the hand is to man: it is the chief instrument by which he executes his purposes,farmer, builder, artist, author, &c.; and by the hand of God is meant His executive force in all its varied forms. God has the means of doing all His will, and He is not an unconcerned spectator of human affairsthese truths inspire Gods people with hope, courage, and joy; and they ought to inspire with terror all who are in rebellion against Him. His hand is outstretched, not for, but against them; His irresistible executive forces are certain to be put forth for their overthrow. Alike for the warning of those whose lives are not governed according to the Divine will, and for the exciting of holy watchfulness in those who are trying to obey that will in all things, let us study this prophecy for the purpose of discovering.
[926] It is so vast that the mighty ocean lies in the hollow of it (Isa. 40:12). It is a hand of power and skill, for by it the foundations of the earth were laid; and all the wondrous hosts of heaven fashioned (Isa. 48:13; Isa. 66:2). In it our life is (Dan. 5:23). When He opens it, His creatures are filled with good, and all their desires are satisfied (Psa. 104:28; Psa. 145:16). By it the Good Shepherd feeds, guides, and protects His sheep (Psa. 95:7). It is a good hand, helping all who are trying to serve God (Ezr. 8:22; Neh. 2:18). It is a mighty hand, delivering His people (Exo. 13:3). It is a hand that controls those who control others (Pro. 21:1). Even the shadow of it is sufficient protection (Isa. 51:16). It is a heavy hand when it rests upon His people in chastisement (Job. 19:21), and still more so when it rests upon the wicked in punishment (1Sa. 5:11). It is outstretched to fight against His enemies (Jer. 21:5).
I. The reasons why Gods hand is outstretched in anger. Reminding you that this is not an exhaustive statement of those reasons, and that no man is necessarily safe merely because his conduct is not here specifically described, I point out that among the things that put men in the most extreme peril of destruction by their Creator are
1. Oppression (Isa. 10:1-2.).
2. Hypocrisy (Isa. 9:17.).
3. Stubbornness under Divine chastisements (Isa. 9:9-10.).
II. The effects of the outstretching of Gods hand in anger. These are terrible, increasing, continuous.
III. The mode of escape for those against whom Gods hand is stretched out in anger. Not defiance, but submission and repentance (Isa. 9:13).
IV. Let us note with reverent and thankful wonder, that against the wicked Gods hand is long stretched out; that it does not, as it so easily might, come down upon them instantly with destructive force. What a proof we have here that, while He is inflexibly righteous, He is tenderly pitiful! And what an encouragement we have here to return to Him with penitence of heart! [932]
[932] H. E. I. 2286.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
2.
ISRAELS PRESUMPTION
TEXT: Isa. 9:8-17
8
The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.
9
And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in pride and in stoutness of heart,
10
The bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stone; the sycamores are cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.
11
Therefore Jehovah will set up on high against him the adversaries of Rezin, and will stir up his enemies,
12
the Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
13
Yet the people have not turned unto him that smote them, neither have they sought Jehovah of hosts.
14
Therefore Jehovah will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm-branch and rush, in one day.
15
The elder and the honorable man, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.
16
For they that lead this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
17
Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men, neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows; for every one is profane and an evil-doer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
QUERIES
a.
How did the Lord send a word into Jacob?
b.
Why was Gods anger not turned away?
c.
What significance is there in the prophet teaching lies?
PARAPHRASE
The Lord has penetrated into Jacob with His word of warningHis word found its mark through the prophets. Soon all the people of Israel will experience what He has promised, because in the pride and haughtiness of their hearts they have said, Let the judgment come, if the bricks of our houses and walls fall, we will just build houses and walls of hewn stone; if the sycamore trees are cut down, we will put cedars in their place. The Lords reply to your bragging is to bring Rezins enemies against youthe Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west. With bared fangs they will devour Israel. But even then the Lords righteous anger against you will not be satisfiedHis hand will still be poised to smash you. For after all this chastening you will not repent and turn to seek Jehovah of hosts. Therefore the Lord, in one day, will cut off from Israel the high and the low; the elder and the honorable man is the high, and the prophet that teaches lies is the low. These false leaders and teachers have led the people in error, and the people have been willing to be led in errorboth shall be destroyed. That is why the Lord has no joy in their young men, and no mercy upon even the widows and orphans; for they are all filthy-mouthed, wicked liars, foolish speakers. But even then the Lords righteous anger against you will not be satisfiedHis hand will still be poised to smash you.
COMMENTS
Isa. 9:8-12 HAUGHTY HEARTS: The Lord has not overlooked their rebellion. He has sent His word directly into their midst through the prophets. He has hewn them by the prophets and slain them by the words of his mouth (Hos. 6:5). They were without excuse, for God had warned them again and again. He pleaded with them through Joel, Jonah, Amos and Hosea, to no avail. They became prouder and prouder. There was no humility and no repentance for sin. In their haughty hearts they said, in effect, Let the Lords judgment come, we are fully capable of controlling every situation by our own hands. If God destroys our brick houses and city walls we will rebuild them with hewn stones which cannot be destroyed. If God takes away our sycamore trees we will replace them with cedars! They refused to acknowledge that things were in Gods hands. So God will let them know (by experience) that His word is omnipotent. Rezins enemies, the Syrians on the east (probably those Syrians who had been subjugated by the Assyrians and made to fight with the Assyrians against Damascus), and the Philistines on the west, would form a military-vise, a pincer movement, and crush Israel and Judah between them. Yet, in spite of all this woe and chastening, there is no repentance in Israel, so the wrath of God will still be directed against them.
Isa. 9:13-17 UNHOLY HARBINGERS: The people had not turned to Jehovah, in spite of Gods chastening and the preaching of Gods prophets. The reason for their continued rebellion could be found in the fact that the leaders of the nation (its rulers and religious leadersprophets) were teaching and leading the people in lies. From the head to the tailfrom the king to the lowliest officialthey were telling the people lies about Jehovah. There were only a very few of the prophets faithful to the truth of God. The majority were false prophets, preaching and teaching what a sinful people wanted to hear, hirelings, concerned with their own selfish ends, (Cf. Amo. 2:12; Mic. 2:6-11). Those being led astray into error (the people) would be destroyed also because they were willing to be led astray! God takes no pleasure in any of these people (Isa. 9:17). The young men of the nation, its greatest treasure are an abomination. The nation is so totally corrupt even the widows and orphans are involved in its rebellion and God cannot even show mercy to these. Everyone is profane and irreligious. They plot evil deeds (Cf. Hos. 4:1-3; Hos. 7:1-16). Every person in the nation is speaking and acting foolishly. It is difficult to comprehend the extent of moral and spiritual decadence rampant in Israel at that time. But the biblical record is substantiated by archaeological data! For this reason Gods hand of judgment is poised to fall heavily upon Israel.
QUIZ
1.
Why were the people without excuse for their rebellion?
2.
What was Israels presumption?
3.
How would the enemies of Rezin deal with Israel?
4.
How did the rulers and prophets contribute to the rebellion of Israel?
5.
To what extent had the nation fallen into decadence?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(8).The Lord sent a word into Jacob . . .For hath lighted read it lighteth. A new section, though still closely connected with the historical occasion of Isaiah 7, begins. The vision of the glory of the far-off king comes to an end, and the prophet returns to the more immediate surroundings of his time. The word which Jehovah sends is the prophetic message that follows. It is a question whether the terms Jacob and Israel stand in the parallelism of identity or contrast, but the use of the former term in Isa. 2:3; Isa. 2:5-6, makes the former use more probable. In this case both names stand practically for the kingdom of Judah as the true representative of Israel, the apostate kingdom of the Ten Tribes being no longer worthy of the name, and therefore described here, as in Isa. 7:5; Isa. 7:8; Isa. 7:17, simply as Ephraim. The occasion of the prophecy is given in Isa. 9:9. Pekah, the king of Ephraim, was still confident in his strength, and in spite of his partial failure, and the defeat of his ally (2Ki. 16:9), derided the prophets prediction.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. The Lord Not Jehovah this time, but Adonai, the universal Lord and proprietor. Furst.
Sent a word into Jacob “Word,” is a direct revelation, by prophets and by Moses.
It lighted upon Israel Urgency of menace now enforces the broken divine law upon rebellious Israel.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The First Chastisement, Invasion by Syria and Philistia ( Isa 9:8-12 ).
Analysis.
The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it has lighted on Israel (Isa 9:8).
And all the people will know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, who say in proudness and stoutness of heart (Isa 9:9).
“The bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stone” (Isa 9:10 a).
The sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars” (Isa 9:10 b).
Therefore Yahweh will set up on high against him, the adversaries of Rezin, and will stir up his enemies (Isa 9:11).
The Syrians in front and the Philistines behind, and they will devour Israel with open mouth. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still (Isa 9:12).
In ‘a’ the Lord’s word comes against Israel, and in the parallel it is brought about. In ‘b’ their hearts are high against Yahweh and in the parallel acts highly against them. In ‘c’ their comparative claims are stated in parallel.
Isa 9:8-10
‘The Lord sent a word into Jacob,
And it has lighted on Israel,
And all the people will know,
Even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria,
That say in proudness and stoutness of heart,
“The bricks are fallen,
But we will build with hewn stone,
The sycamores are cut down,
But we will change them into cedars”.’
Here we see ‘the zeal (jealousy) of Yahweh of hosts’ revealed in another way as the sovereign ‘Lord’ acts against Israel with the purpose of bringing them back to Himself after they have turned to other gods and rejected the covenant, and their kings have done evil in the sight of Yahweh. His powerful and effective word has gone out against them, bringing about events that have destroyed their buildings and denuded their forests. But they spurn His warning. They vaunt themselves, and in response to disaster declare that they are not concerned, for they will make things better than before. Their attitude is that they do not need Him. But they have forgotten with Whom they are dealing. Spurning His word can only lead to further judgment.
‘Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria.’ Ephraim was the largest tribe in Israel and often used to depict the whole. Samaria was Israel’s capital city.
‘Proudness.’ Exalting themselves and choosing their own way. ‘Stoutness of heart’ (arrogance) indicates self-sufficiency and unwillingness to respond to another or be dependent on them. They had no time or place for God.
‘The bricks are fallen’ may refer to an earthquake or to houses demolished in war, either way it was the judgment of Yahweh, but they ignored the warning and rose above the situation. The cutting down of the sycamores is mentioned because they also were presumably cut down by an enemy, an act of great enormity. Trees were usually preserved, even by an enemy (Deu 20:19-20), but not by Assyria (Isa 37:24). But even this had not prevented Israel from rising again on their own, without help. They are seen as being proud of their endurance and durability, and unwilling to respond to Yahweh’s pleas.
Isa 9:11-12
‘Therefore Yahweh will set up on high against him,
The adversaries of Rezin,
And will stir up his enemies,
The Syrians in front and the Philistines behind,
And they will devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
But his hand is stretched out still.’
This prophecy probably came early in Isaiah’s ministry as it refers to the Syrians as attackers, and this must presumably be before they were crushed by Assyria. It was therefore one of the first of Isaiah’s warnings to Israel, seeking to bring them back to obedience to the covenant. They would have to face both the enmity of Assyria and the enmity of their neighbours. The situation would seem to be that of Assyria (the adversaries of Rezin, king of Syria) approaching from the north to attack Syria, (and thus being the main cause of what followed), and Syria and Philistia joining in alliance, against them, and seeking to persuade Israel to join them. They appear to have invaded Israel successfully for they are depicted as devouring Israel with open mouth. This may well have been what resulted in Pekah’s revolt against Pekahiah (2Ki 15:25) with the result that he then joined the alliance, which would finally prove disastrous for Israel. Pekah was ‘the son of Remaliah’ mentioned earlier (Isa 7:1; Isa 7:5; Isa 7:9).
‘For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.’ Compare Isa 9:17; Isa 9:21; Isa 10:4 and Isa 5:25. These may originally all been part of one prophetic word, but not necessarily so. A good phrase is worth using again and again. But if they were once part of one prophecy they have been deliberately separated into two and brought into use to illustrate Isaiah’s current message. They indicate a series of attempts by Yahweh to win back Israel, which failed because of their obstinacy, resulting in His anger against them increasing. And thus His hand was still stretched out against them.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Sovereign Lord’s Effective Word Against Israel Who Have Failed To Respond To His Warnings ( Isa 9:8 to Isa 10:4 ).
It is a huge and deliberate anticlimax to move from the coming of the Davidic king and his great triumph back to the sinful state of Israel, the northern kingdom. (But as we have already seen these contrasts are a feature of Isaiah). For whereas the future was moving forward to triumph, the present was heading for disaster. As well as being concerned for Judah, Isaiah was desperately concerned for Israel in its present state, and we now have depicted a series of events in which God will reveal His anger against Israel because of their disobedience to the covenant, and will seek by chastisement to bring them back to Himself.
Isa 9:8 to Isa 10:4
The Four Chastisements ( Isa 9:8 to Isa 10:4 ).
The four chastisements are distinguished by their all ending with the words, ‘For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.’
Analysis.
a The first chastisement is the invasion by Syria and Philistia, seeking to make them join an alliance with them against Assyria (Isa 9:8-12).
b The second is the removal of their leadership (Isa 9:13-17).
b The third is the disintegration of their society (Isa 9:18-21).
a The fourth is bad leadership, rank injustice, and captivity (Isa 10:1-4).
In ‘a’ there is the threat of captivity and in the parallel it is to become a reality. In ‘b’ their leadership is to be removed, and in the parallel it results in their society becoming disjointed.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jehovah’s Hand Stretched our in Judgment
v. 8. The Lord sent a word into Jacob, v. 9. And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, v. 10. The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars, v. 11. Therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, v. 12. the Syrians before, v. 13. For the people turneth not unto Him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts. v. 14. Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel, v. 15. The ancient and honorable, v. 16. For the leaders of this people cause them to err, v. 17. Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, v. 18. For wickedness burneth as the fire, v. 19. Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, v. 20. And he v. 21. Manasseh, Ephraim; and Epraim, Manasseh,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Isa 9:8-12. The Lord sent a word into Jacob We have here the third section of the fifth discourse, which reaches to the fifth verse of the next chapter; it is divided into four parts, and exhibits so many divine judgments concerning the state of the people of Ephraim, to be solemnly denounced upon them by the prophet. The first, from the present to the 12th verse. The second, from the 12th to the 17th. The third, from the 17th to the 21st. The fourth, from chap. Isa 10:1 st to the 4th verse. The parts are almost all two-fold; wherein first the fault is laid down, and secondly the punishment, except that a third member is added in defence of the divine judgment: In the verses before us, we have first the fault, Isa 9:8-10 namely, the pride and contempt with which the Ephraimites had received the threatenings of the true prophets of God, who had denounced to them the unhappy consequence of their undertakings. Elevated with vain hope, the Ephraimites had declared that they would never desist from their purpose of invading Judaea for any denunciations of the prophets; on the contrary, they had boasted proudly, that strengthened as they were by their present alliance with the king of Assyria, though they had heretofore suffered great loss, they had no doubt of repairing their fortune: Though the bricks were fallen down, they would build with hewn stones, &c. The expression is metaphorically elegant, and denotes the restoration of a fallen state for the better; and the change of a mean and low to a more honourable and excellent situation. For their pride and arrogance, the God who laugheth vain men to scorn, denounces their punishment in the two following verses, and, according to his usual justice, assures them that the union with Rezin, wherein they boasted, should itself prove their destruction. This prophesy was fulfilled by Tiglath-pileser: 2Ki 16:17. A further threatening is subjoined at the end of the verse. See chap. Isa 5:25.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
B.THREATENING OF JUDGMENT TO BE ACCOMPLISHED BY MEANS OF ASSYRIA, ADDRESSED TO ISRAEL OF THE TEN TRIBES
Isa 9:8 (Isa 9:7). Isa 10:4.
To the prophecies that denounce impending judgment against Judah, of which Assyria was to be the agent, is joined a prophecy, that announces the same fate for the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. For, that the latter are the subject of this prophecy appears, 1) because, in the whole passage, only Israel or Jacob (Isa 9:7; Isa 9:11; Isa 9:13), the Ephraimites and inhabitants of Samaria (Isa 9:8) appear as those addressed; never Judah. For Isa 9:8 shows plainly that we must so understand Jacob and Israel (Isa 9:7), because those receiving the word spoken of in Isa 9:7 are designated as the whole people, and they in turn in the second clause of Isa 9:8 are specified, not as Judah and Israel, but as Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria: 2) because Isa 9:20 we notice that the totality who are there reproached with ruinous dissensions are divided into Ephraim and Manasseh. These are opposed to one another; if they unite it is for the purpose of attacking Judah. If Judah were included in the totality addressed there, it must read: Ephraim Judah, Judah Ephraim. But Ephraim and Manasseh are designated as the mutually contending members; Judah as one outside of the community and the common object of their hatred. We will show below that Isa 9:11 a does not conflict with this interpretation.
As to the period to which this prophecy belongs, we may ascertain it from Isa 9:9. It appears there that at this time pieces must have been rent away from the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. We know of only one such diminution of their territory occurring in that period. It is that related 2Ki 15:29. According to that account Tiglath-Pileser, who had been invoked by Ahaz, depopulated a great part of the eastern and northern region of that kingdom. At that time the Ephraimites must have boasted that it would be easy to repair the damage they had suffered. Isaiah felt that he must meet this foolish notion, which took the damage done by Tiglath-Pileser for the conclusion of their visitation, with the announcement that that visitation was only the beginning, only the first of many following degrees. If, then, the foregoing prophecies (79:6) fall in the time before the introduction of the Assyrians, then our present passage belongs to the period immediately after. And if chapters 79:6, are attributed to the beginning of the three years, when both Pekah and Ahaz were living, say about 743 B. C., then the present prophecy belongs to the close of this period, say about 74039 B. C. (Comp. on Isa 7:15-17)
The form of our passage is artistic, yet simple. Proceeding from the underlying thought that what the Ephraimites took for the end, was only the first stage, the Prophet builds up his prophecy in three stages, each of which points to the succeeding one with the refrain: for all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still. Even the last concludes with these words to show that the judgment on Israel continues still beyond the immediate horizon of the prophetic view. This extreme visible horizon is the exile (Isa 10:4). Beyond that the Israel of the Ten Tribes has disappeared to the present day. They experienced no restoration like Judah did. But to the day of visitation and desolation (Isa 10:3) the punishments increase as the inward corruption grows. After that visitation to which the audacious words Isa 9:9 refer, Israel, instead of recovering and growing strong, is renewedly hard pressed on the East and the West. But still more comes (Isa 9:11 b). Still the people are not converted to Him that smites them. Therefore the punishment falls first of all on the leaders of the people, who have proved themselves betrayers, whose sins must be expiated by the betrayed down to the young men, the widows and the orphans (Isa 9:13-16). But still more comes. For the people are as a forest on fire: for the flames of discord spread on all sides with devouring and desolation (Isa 9:17-20). Injustice and violence, according to the constant Old Testament sentiment, the chief cause of the ruin of states, bring the people to the verge of the abyss. Then no seeking for aid from foreign nations will avail. Nothing remains but to submit to the horrors of exile. But still more comes. For even the carrying away into exile is not yet the end of Gods judgments on Israel (Isa 10:1-4).
Thus we have four sections, of which the first two have each five verses, the last two four verses. They may be set forth as follows:
1. The supposed end is the beginning of the judgment (Isa 9:7-11).
2. The deceivers the bane of the deceived (Isa 9:12-16).
3. Israel devouring itself by the flames of discord (Isa 9:17-20).
4. Injustice and violence fill up the measure and precipitate Israel into the horrors of exile (Isa 10:1-4).
____________________________
1. THE SUPPOSED END IS THE BEGINNING OF THE JUDGMENT
CHAPTER Isa 9:8-12. (Isa 9:7-11)
8 (7) THE LORD sent a word into Jacob,
And it hath lighted upon Israel.
(8) 9And all the people shall know,
Even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria,
That say in the pride and stoutness of heart,
(9) 10The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones:
The sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
11 (10) Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him,
And ajoin his enemies together;
(11) 12The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind;
And they shall devour Israel with bopen mouth.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
But his hand is stretched out still.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
On Isa 9:8. according to Isa 13:3; Isa 13:11; Isa 16:6; Isa 25:11. again only Isa 10:12. does not depend on , but on and to which it relates as quotation marks, in as much as it introduces the speech that manifests that haughtiness.
On Isa 9:9. , properly , 1 Kings 5:31; Eze 40:42; lapides caesurae, i. e., caesi, only here in Isa.That means not simply exstruere, construere, build up, construct, but also simply struere to pile, pile up, appears from passages like 1Ki 18:32; Exo 20:25. only here. Isa 10:33; Isa 14:12; Isa 22:25; Isa 45:2 (from these examples it appears that it is wont to be joined with ); but the context shows that not cutting down trees is meant, as DRECHSLER supposes, but breaking down wooden buildings. (see on Isa 8:8) is to exchange. Hiph. islet come in as exchange, reparation; comp. Isa 40:31; Isa 41:1.
On Isa 9:10. and also , Isa 9:11, are praeter. propheticum. The involves at the same time adverbial meaning. DRECHSLER remarks that Pi. has always the meaning to make high, unattainable, place higher, defendere, munire. But then it is construed with (Psa 59:2; Psa 107:41). That stands here proves that the word is taken in an offensive sense, which it may very well have. Moreover it is to be noticed that stands in contrast with the high structures which the Israelites purpose in Isa 9:9.It is incomprehensible how EWALD can prefer , the reading of some MSS. to of the text; or how CHEYNE can construe as genitive of the subject, seeing that the same power that slew Rezin and conquered his land, not twenty years later actually made an end to the kingdom of Ephraim. is found only here and Isa 19:2. The verb , with all its derivatives (, , , ) has the sense of covering. Now there is a word , spina (Num. 33:65) and telum acutum (Job 40:31). As regards the exchange of for compare Exo 33:22. Seeing the meaning to cover in the sense usual with the Hebrews, i. e., to protect, does not at all suit here (comp. Isa 9:11), and to cover, = to cover with arms, to arm, cannot be supported, I prefer, with TARG., SYR., SAAD., GESENIUS (Thes.), DELITZSCH, [J. A. ALEXANDER], to take in the sense of to set on, stimulate, concitare.
On Isa 9:11. The formula beside here and Isa 9:16; Isa 9:20; Isa 10:4, is found only Isa 9:25.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The Lord sentcedars.
Isa 9:8-10 (Isa 9:7-9). It seems to me that the words, A word has the LORD sent, etc., is fallen, etc., must be judged of according to passages like Job 4:12; Job 35:4; Psa 62:12. As in those, a single little word, tossed to them, as it were, from the mouth of the Lord as from a judging and destroying power, is opposed to human pride and haughtiness, so the Prophet here opposes a single, brief word of the LORD to the Ephraimites which, as it were, falls by the way, but which suffices to humble that foolish pride. The word () therefore, stands first with emphasis, as if the Prophet would say: only a word, nothing more has the LORD sent. And this word has, as it were, fallen in Israel by accident. I prefer to compare Rth 3:18, for the meaning of to fall, rather than Dan 4:28, because there, too, is the underlying idea of (at least seeming) accident. This mode of expression, by which the Prophet represents the following language as something accidental and by the way, has its reason, likely, in this, that Isaiah is a Prophet primarily for Judah, and not for Israel. He therefore steps beyond the sphere of his own proper activity with these words, which fall like a morsel from the table prepared for the children.
Jacob stands only poetically for Israel. It can mean the whole nation, and the people of the Ten Tribes just as well as the name Israel (comp. Isa 2:3; Isa 2:5-6; Isa 8:17). Only the context decides in what sense the name is to be taken where it occurs. In the introduction to this section, we have showed that both Jacob and Israel mean the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. This antithesis of Jacob and Israel in parallelism occurs here for the first time. It is found again as designation of the entire Israel, Isa 10:20; Isa 14:1; Isa 27:6; Isa 29:23; Isa 40:27; Isa 41:8; Isa 41:14; Isa 42:24; Isa 43:1; Isa 43:22; Isa 43:28; Isa 44:1, (2), 5, 21, 23; Isa 45:4; Isa 46:3; Isa 48:1; Isa 48:12; Isa 49:5-6. This antithesis is found first in Hos 12:13 (of the Patriarch): then in Micah, and relatively the oftenest in him: Mic 1:5; Mic 2:12; Mic 3:1; Mic 3:8-9. In Nah 2:3. In Jer 2:4; Jer 30:10; Jer 31:7; Jer 46:27. Eze 39:25. From this it appears that the form of expression is pre-eminently characteristic of Isaiah. If it is asked; what kind of word the LORD sent? I would refer for answer neither to Isa 5:25 nor to Isa 7:14 sqq. For both are remote. Those are right that take Isa 9:8, or say Isa 9:10 sq., as the word referred to in Isa 9:7. Nothing is more natural; any word more remote must be more exactly designated. The word they shall know it, Isa 9:8, favors this. For what should the Ephraimites know? Certainly, the very word of which Isa 9:7 speaks. At the same time the context makes it clear, that they should learn how ill the plan of Jehovah (according to Isa 9:10) will suit their proud plans. Therefore, the word, Isa 9:7, is identical with the object of they shall know, Isa 9:8, and we are justified in translating and shall know it.
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria are contrasted here just as the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Isa 5:3, comp. Isa 1:1, Isa 2:1. The Ephraimites and Samaritans, then, shall come to a certain knowledge, as persons that are in a state of pride and height of courage, for which just that knowledge commends itself as the best remedy. Wherein the pride consists is said Isa 9:9.
The haughty language consists of two simple, easily understood contrasts. Wood and stone are the chief materials for building. Bricks are poorer than hewn stones, and sycamores than cedars. Sycamore trees are common in Palestine, as THEODORETin loc. says. Flourishing in low places, (signum camporum sunt sycamori,) says the JERUS. GEMARA, comp. 1Ch 27:28); they are prized as wood for building, but not compared with the cedar. (Comp. under Text. and Gram.) The sense of the figurative language is plain. They acknowledge that Ephraim has suffered, but they hope abundantly to repair all these damages.
2. Therefore the Lordstretched out still.
Isa 9:11-12 (Isa 9:10-11). Jehovahs doing Isa 9:10 sq. brings to nought the proud hopes of Isa 9:9, and is announced here as the contents of the word of Isa 9:7. They would rise high, but the LORD raises above even their high house, the oppressors of Rezin. These oppressors are the Assyrians. They had proved themselves such even at that time. They are called oppressors of Rezin, because Israels strength at that time, lay in the alliance with Rezin. The same power that killed Rezin, and conquered his kingdom, actually made an end of Ephraim not twenty years later. Syria itself, compelled by Assyria, is represented as marching against Ephraim. Because of the words, the Philistines behind, DELITZSCH supposes that the Prophet, from Isa 9:11 on, extends his view and has in mind all Israel, since the northern kingdom never had to suffer from the Philistines, whereas (acc. to 2Ch 28:16-19) an invasion by the Philistines in Judah is expressly mentioned as belonging to the judgments of Ahazs time. But if this were so, Isa 9:12 (11) would need to be more distinctly disconnected from Isa 9:11 (10). For, as they stand, the words the Syriansbehind must be taken as dependent on will set on, and the nations named here as specifications of the enemies Isa 9:11 (10). But then those attacked by Syria and the Philistines are identical with Ephraim to whom him and his (the suffixes in and (Isa 9:10) refer. But Isa 9:12 a (11) is not to be taken in a literal sense. Syria and the Philistines represent East and West. Isa 2:6; Isa 11:14 puts the Philistines as representatives of the West as opposed to () the East. Moreover we must not take eating with a full mouth as meaning a complete destruction. On the contrary, we see from Isa 9:12 b (11), that recurs afterwards three times, that the Prophet would say: ye hold the damage that ye hope easily to repair, to be the end of your calamity. But I say to you: you are destined to have your oppressors come on you from every side in superior power, and yet even this will be but the beginning of the end.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa 7:1. Hierosolyma oppugnatur, etc. Jerusalem is assaulted but not conquered. The church is pressed but not oppressed.Foerster.
2. On Isa 7:2. Quando ecclesia, etc. When the Church is assaulted and Christ crucified over again in His elect, Rezin and Pekah, Herod and Pilate are wont to form alliance and enter into friendly relations. There are, so to speak, the foxes of Samson, joined indeed by the tails, but their heads are disconnected.Foerster.He that believes flees not (Isa 28:16). The righteous is bold as a lion (Pro 28:1). Hypocrites and those that trust in works (work-saints) have neither reason nor faith. Therefore they cannot by any means quiet their heart. In prosperity they are, indeed, overweening, but in adversity they fall away (Jer 17:9). Cramer.
3. On Isa 7:9. (If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.) Insignis sententia, etc. A striking sentiment that may be adapted generally to all temptation, because all earnest endeavor after anything, as you know, beguiles us in temptation. But only faith in the word of promise makes us abide and makes sure whatever we would execute. He warns Ahaz, therefore, as if he said: I now promise you by the word, it shall be that those two kings shall not hurt you. Believe this word! For if you do not, whatever you afterwards devise will deceive you: because all confidence is vain which is not supported by the word of God.Luther.
4. On Isa 7:10-12. Wicked Ahaz pretends to great sanctity in abstaining from asking a sign through fear of God. Thus hypocrites are most conscientious where there is no need for it: on the other hand, when they ought to be humble, they are the most insolent. But where God commands to be bold, one must be bold. For to be obedient to the word is not tempting God. That is rather tempting God when one proposes something without having the word for it. It is, indeed, the greatest virtue to rest only in the word, and desire nothing more. But where God would add something more than the word, then it must not be thought a virtue to reject it as superfluous. We must therefore exercise such a faith in the word of God that we will not despise the helps that are given in addition to it as aids to faith. For example the Lord offers us in the gospel all that is necessary to salvation. Why then Baptism and the Lords Supper? Are they to be treated as superfluous? By no means. For if one believes the word he will at the same time exhibit an entire obedience toward God. We ought therefore to learn to join the sign with the word, for no man has the power to sever the two.
But do you ask: is it permitted to ask God for a sign? We have an example of this in Gideon. Answer: Although Gideon was not told of God to ask a sign, yet he did it by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, and not according to his own fancy. We must not therefore abuse his example, and must be content with the sign that is offered by the Lord. But there are extraordinary signs or miracles, like that of the text, and ordinary ones like Baptism and the Lords Supper. Yet both have the same object and use. For as Gideon was strengthened by that miraculous event, so, too, are we strengthened by Baptism and the Lords Supper, although no miracle appears before our eyes. Heim and Hoffmann after Luther. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, also asked the Lord to show him the right wife for Isaac by means of a sign of His own choosing, (Gen 24:14).
It ought to be said that this asking a sign (opening the Bible at a venture, or any other book) does not suit Christian perfection (Heb 6:1). A Christian ought to be inwardly sensible of the divine will. He ought to content himself with the guarantees that God Himself offers. Only one must have open eyes and ears for them. This thing of demanding a sign, if it is not directly an effect of superstition (Mat 12:39; Mat 16:4; 1Co 1:22), is certainly childish, and, because it easily leads to superstitious abuses, it is dangerous.
5. On Isa 7:13. Non caret, etc. That the Prophet calls God his God is not without a peculiar emphasis. In Zec 2:12 it is said, that whoever touches the servants of God touches the pupil of Gods eye. Whoever opposes teacher and preacher will have to deal with God in heaven or with the Lord who has put them into office.Foerster.
6. On Isa 7:14. The name Immanuel is one of the most beautiful and richest in contents of all the Holy Scripture. God with us comprises Gods entire plan of salvation with sinful humanity. In a narrower sense it means God-man (Mat 1:23), and points to the personal union of divinity and humanity, in the double nature of the Son of God become man. Jesus Christ was a God-with-us, however, in this, that for about 33 years He dwelt among us sinners (Joh 1:11; Joh 1:14). In a deeper and wider sense still He was such by the Immanuels work of the atonement (2Co 5:19; 1Ti 2:3). He will also be such to every one that believes on Him by the work of regeneration and sanctification and the daily renewal of His holy and divine communion of the Spirit (Joh 17:23; Joh 17:26; Joh 14:19-21; Joh 14:23). He is such now by His high-priestly and royal administration and government for His whole Church (Mat 28:20; Heb 7:25). He will be snch in the present time of the Church in a still more glorious fashion (Joh 10:16). The entire and complete meaning of the name Immanuel, however, will only come to light in the new earth, and in the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:3; Rev 21:23; Rev 22:5).Wilh. Fried. Roos.
Isa 8:7. On Isa 8:5 sqq. Like boastful swimmers despise small and quiet waters, and on the other hand, for the better display of their skill, boast of the great sea and master it, but often are lost in it,thus, too, did the hypocrites that despised the small kingdom of Judah, and bragged much and great things of the power and splendor of the kingdom of Israel and of the Syrians; such hypocrites are still to be found now-a-dayssuch that bear in their eye the admiranda Romae, the splendor, riches, power, ceremonies and pomp of the Romish church, and thereupon set their bushel by the bigger-heap. It is but the devils temptation over again: I will give all this to thee.Cramer.Fons Siloa, etc. The fountain of Siloam, near the temple, daily reminded the Jews that Christ was coming.Calvin on Joh 9:7.
8. On Isa 8:10. When the great Superlatives sit in their council chambers and have determined everything, how it ought to be, and especially how they will extinguish the gospel, then God sends the angel Gabriel to them, who must look through the window and say: nothing will come of it.Luther.Christ, who is our Immanuel, is with us by His becoming man, for us by His office of Mediator, in us by the work of His sanctification, by us by His personal, gracious presence.Cramer.
9. On Isa 8:14-15. Christ alone is set by God to be a stone by which we are raised up. That He is, however, an occasion of offence to many is because of their purpose, petulance and contempt (1Pe 2:8). Therefore we ought to fear lest we take offence at Him. For whoever falls on this stone will shatter to pieces (Mat 21:44). Cramer.
10. On Isa 8:16 sqq. He warns His disciples against heathenish superstition, and exhorts them to show respect themselves always to law and testimony. They must not think that God must answer them by visions and signs, therefore He refers them to the written word, that they may not become altogether too spiritual, like those now-a-days who cry: spirit! spirit! Christ says, Luke 16 : They have Moses and the prophets, and again Joh 5:39 : Search the Scriptures. So Paul says, 2Ti 3:16 : The Scripture is profitable for doctrine. So says Peter, 2Pe 1:9 : We have a sure word of prophecy. It is the word that changes hearts and moves them. But revelations puff people up and make them insolent. Heim and Hoffmann after Luther.
Chap. 911. On Isa 9:1 sqq. (2). Postrema pars, etc. The latter part of chap. 8 was (legal and threatening) so, on the other hand, the first and best part of chap. 9 is , (evangelical and comforting). Thus must ever law and gospel, preaching wrath and grace, words of reproof and words of comfort, a voice of alarm and a voice of peace follow one another in the church. Foerster.
12. On Isa 9:1 (2). Both in the Old Testament and New Testament Christ is often called light. Thus Isaiah calls Him a light to the gentiles, Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6. The same Prophet says: Arise, shine (make thyself light), for thy light is come, Isa 60:1. And again Isa 9:19 : The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light. In the New Testament it is principally John that makes use of this expression: The life was the light of men, Joh 1:4, and the light shined in the darkness, Joh 9:5. John was not that light, but bore testimony to the light, Joh 9:8. That was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, Joh 9:9. And further: And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, Joh 3:19. I am the light of the world, (Joh 8:12; Joh 9:5; comp. Joh 12:35).
13. On Isa 9:1 (2). The people that sit in darkness may be understood to comprise three grades. First, the inhabitants of Zebulon and Naphtali are called so (Isaiah 8:23), for the Prophets gaze is fixed first on that region lying in the extreme end of Palestine, which was neighbor to the heathen and mixed with them, and on this account was held in low esteem by the dwellers in Judah. The night that spreads over Israel in general is darkest there. But all Israel partakes of this night, therefore all Israel, too, may be understood, as among the people sitting in darkness. Finally, no one can deny that this night extends over the borders of Israel to the whole human race. For far as men dwell extends the night which Christ, as light of the world, came to dispel, Luk 1:76 sqq.
14. On Isa 9:5 (6). Many lay stress on the notion child, inasmuch as they see in that the reason for the reign of peace spoken of afterwards. It is not said a man, a king, a giant is given to us. But this is erroneous. For the child does not remain a child. He becomes a man: and the six names that are ascribed to Him and also the things predicted of His kingdom apply to Him, not as a child, but as a man. That His birth as a child is made prominent, has its reason in this, that thereby His relation to human kind should be designated as an organic one. He does not enter into humanity as a man, i.e. as one whose origin was outside of it, but He was born from it, and especially from the race of David. He is Son of man and Son of David. He is a natural offshoot, but also the crowning bloom of both. Precisely because He was to be conceived, carried and born of a human mother, and indeed of a virgin, this prophecy belongs here as the completion and definition of the two prophetic pictures Isa 7:10 sqq.; Isa 8:1 sqq.He came down from heaven for the sake of us men, and for our bliss (1Ti 1:15; Luk 2:7). For our advantage: for He undertook not for the seed of angels, but for the seed of Abraham (Heb 2:16). Not sold to us by God out of great love, but given (Rom 5:15; Joh 3:16). Therefore every one ought to make an application of the word to us to himself, and to learn to say: this child was given to me, conceived for me, born to me.Cramer.Cur oportuit, etc. Why did it become the Redeemer of human kind to be not merely man nor merely God, but God and man conjoined or ? Anselm replies briefly, indeed, but pithily: Deum qui posset, hominem, qui deberet. Foerster.
15. On Isa 9:5 (6). You must not suppose here that He is to be named and called according to His person, as one usually calls another by his name; but these are names that one must preach, praise and celebrate on account of His act, works and office. Luther.
16. On Isa 9:6. Verba pauca, etc. A few words, but to be esteemed great, not for their number but for their weight. Augustine. Admirabilis in, etc. Wonderful in birth, counsellor in what He preaches, God in working, strong in suffering, father of the world to come in resurrection, Prince of peace in bliss perpetual. Bernard of Clairvaux. In reference to a child is born, and a son is given, Joh. Cocceius remarks in his Heb. Lex. s. v. : respectu, etc., in respect to His human nature He is said to be born, and in respect to His divine nature and eternal generation not indeed born, but given, as, Joh 3:16, it reads God gave His only begotten Son.
In the application of this language all depends on the words is born to us, is given to us. The angels are, in this matter, far from being as blessed as we are. They do not say: To us a Saviour is born this day, but; to you. As long as we do not regard Christ as ours, so long we shall have little joy in Him. But when we know Him as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, as a gift that our heavenly Father designed for us, we will appropriate Him to ourselves in humble faith, and take possession of all His redeeming effects that He has acquired. For giving and taking go together. The Son is given to us; we must in faith receive Him. J. J. Rambach, Betracht. ber das Ev. Esaj., Halle, 1724.
On Isa 9:6 (7). The government is on His shoulders. It is further shown how Christ differs in this respect from worldly kings. They remove from themselves the burden of government and lay it on the shoulders of the privy counsellors. But He does not lay His dominion as a burden on any other; He needs no prime minister and vicegerent to help Him bear the burden of administration, but He bears all by the word of His power as He to whom all things are given of the Father. Therefore He says to the house of Jacob (Isa 46:3 sq.): Hearken unto me ye who were laid on my shoulders from your mothers womb. I will carry you to old age. I will do it, I will lift, and carry and deliver,on the contrary the heathen must bear and lift up their idols, (Isa 46:1; Isa 46:7).Rambach. In the first place we must keep in mind His first name: He is called Wonderful. This name affects all the following. All is wonderful that belongs to this king: wonderfully does He counsel and comfort; wonderfully He helps to acquire and conquer, and all this in suffering and want of strength. (Luther, Jen. germ. Tom. III. Fol. 184 b.). He uses weakness as a means of subduing all things to Himself. A wretched reed, a crown of thorns and an infamous cross, are the weapons of this almighty God, by means of which He achieves such great things. In the second place, He was a hero and conqueror in that just by death, He robbed him of his might who had the power of death, i.e., the devil (Heb 2:14); in that He, like Samson, buried His enemies with Himself, yea, became poison to death itself, and a plague to hell (Hos 13:14) and more gloriously resumed His life so freely laid down, which none of the greatest heroes can emulate.Rambach.
17. On Isa 9:18 (19) sqq. True friendship can never exist among the wicked. For every one loves only himself. Therefore they are enemies one of another; and they are in any case friends to each other, only as long as it concerns making war on a third party.
Isaiah 10-18. On Isa 10:4. (Comp. the same expression in chap. 10). Gods quiver is well filled. If one arrow does not attain His object, He takes another, and so on, until the rights of God, and justice have conquered.
19. On Isa 10:5-7. God works through men in a threefold way. First, we all live, move and have our being in Him, in that all activity is an outflow of His power. Then, He uses the services of the wicked so that they mutually destroy each other, or He chastises His people by their hand. Of this sort the Prophet speaks here. In the third place, by governing His people by the Spirit of sanctification: and this takes place only in the elect.Heim and Hoffmann.
20. On Isa 10:5 sqq. Ad hunc, etc. Such places are to be turned to uses of comfort. Although the objects of temptation vary and enemies differ, yet the effects are the same, and the same spirit works in the pious. We are therefore to learn not to regard the power of the enemy nor our own weakness, but to look steadily and simply into the word, that will assuredly establish our minds that they despair not, but expect help of God. For God will not subdue our enemies, either spiritual or corporal, by might and power, but by weakness, as says the text: my strength is made perfect in weakness. (2Co 12:9).Luther.
21. On Isa 10:15. Efficacia agendi penes Deum est, homines ministerium tantum praebent. Quare nunc sibilo suo se illos evocaturum minabatur (cap. Isa 5:26; Isa 7:18); nunc instar sagenae sibi fore ad irretiendos, nunc mallei instar ad feriendos Israelitas. Sed praecipue tum declaravit, quod non sit otiosus in illis, dum Sennacherib securim vocat, quae ad secandum manu sua et destinata fuit et impacta. Non male alicubi Augustinus ita definit, quod ipsi peccant, eorum esse; quod peccando hoc vel illud agant, ex virtute Dei esse, tenebras prout visum est dividentis (De praedest Sanctt.).Calvin Inst. II. 4, 4.
22. On Isa 10:20-27. In time of need one ought to look back to the earlier great deliverances of the children of God, as to the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, or later, from the hand of the Midianites. Israel shall again grow out of the yoke.Diedrich.
Isaiah 11-23. On Isa 11:4. The staff of His mouth. Evidence that the kingdom of Christ will not be like an earthly kingdom, but consist in the power of the word and of the sacraments; not in leathern, golden or silver girdles, but in girdles of righteousness and faith.Cramer.
24. On Isa 11:10 sqq. If the Prophet honors the heathen in saying that they will come to Christ before Israel, he may be the more readily believed, when Isa 11:11 sqq., he gives the assurance that the return out of the first, the Egyptian exile, shall be succeeded by a return out of the second, the Assyrian exile, (taking this word in the wider sense of Isaiah). It is manifest that the return that took place under Zerubbabel and Ezra was only an imperfect beginning of that promised return. For according to our passage this second return can only take place after the Messiah has appeared. Farthermore, all Israelites that belong to the remnant of Israel, in whatever land they may dwell, shall take part in it. It will be, therefore, a universal, not a partial return. If now the Prophet paints this return too with the colors of the present (Isa 11:13 sqq.), still that is no reason for questioning the reality of the matter. Israel will certainly not disappear, but arise to view in the church of the new covenant. But if the nation is to be known among the nations as a whole, though no more as a hostile contrast, but in fraternal harmony, why then shall not the land, too, assume a like position among the lands? But the nation can neither assume its place among nations, nor the land its place among lands, if they are not both united: the people Israel in the land of their fathers.
25. On Isaiah 11 We may here recall briefly the older, so-called spiritual interpretation. Isa 11:1-5 were understood of Christs prophetic office that He exercised in the days of His flesh, then of the overthrow of the Roman Empire and of Antichrist, who was taken to be the Pope. But the most thorough-going of those old expositors must acknowledge, at Isa 11:4, that the Antichrist is not yet enough overthrown, and must be yet more overthrown. If such is the state of the case, then this interpretation is certainly false, for Isa 11:4 describes not a gradual judgment, but one accomplished at once. There have been many Antichrists, and among the Popes too, but the genuine Antichrist described 2 Thessalonians 2, is yet to be expected, and also the fulfillment of Isa 11:4 of our chapter. Thereby is proved at the same time that the peaceful state of things in the brute world and the return of the Jews to their native land are still things of the future, for they must happen in that period when the Antichristian world, and its head shall be judged by Christ. But then, too, the dwelling together of tame and wild beasts is not the entrance of the heathen into the church, to which they were heretofore hostile, and the return of the Jews is not the conversion of a small part of Israel that took place at Pentecost and after. The miracles and signs too, contained in Isa 11:15-16 did not take place then. We see just here how one must do violence to the word if he will not take it as it stands. But if we take it as we have done, then the whole chapter belongs to the doctrine of hope (Hoffnungslehre) of the Scripture, and constitutes an important member of it. The Lord procures right and room for His church. He overthrows the world-kingdom, together with Antichrist. He makes of the remnant of Israel a congregation of believers filled with the Spirit, to whom He is near in an unusual way, and from it causes His knowledge to go out into all the world. He creates peace in the restless creatures, and shows us here in advance what more glorious things we may look for in the new earth. He presents to the world a church which, united in itself, unmolested by neighbors, stands under Gods mighty protection. All these facts are parts of a chain of hope that must be valuable and dear to our hearts. The light of this future illumines the obscurity of the present; the comfort of that day makes the heart fresh. Weber, der Prophet Jesaja, 1875.
Chap. 1226. On Isa 12:4 sq. These will not be the works of the New Testament: sacrificing and slaying, and make pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to the Holy Sepulchre, but praising God and giving thanks, preaching and hearing, believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth. For to praise our God is good; such praise is pleasant and lovely (Psa 147:1). Cramer.
27. On Chap. 12 With these words conclude the prophetic discourses on Immanuel. Through what obscurity of history have we not had to go, until we came to the bright light of the kingdom of Christ! How Israel and the nations had to pass through the fire of judgment before the sun arises in Israel and the entire gentile world is illumined! It is the, same way that every Christian has to travel. In and through the fire we become blessed. Much must be burnt up in us, before we press to the full knowledge of God and of His Son, before we become entirely one with Him, entirely glad and joyful in Him. Israel was brought up and is still brought up for glory, and we too. O that our end too were such a psalm of praise as this psalm! Weber, Der Pr. Jes. 1875.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
What is here said, though it may have a peculiar reference to the state of the Church in the days of the prophet, is not so limited, but that it hath respect to the Church in all ages. The Lord hath sent his word, his redemption, unto his people, and it hath lighted unto the ends of the earth. But, alas! even to the present hour, who hath believed over report, may every servant of the gospel exclaim, and say, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Neither judgments nor mercies, neither prosperous nor humbling providences, though accompanying the Lord’s word, will procure reverence to the Lord’s commands. If the Lord smites in one dispensation, the proud unhumbled heart will seek comfort from another; and though the Lord throw down the building sin hath erected, yet sin will rear another. Hence the Prophet cries out, and every gracious looker-on joins in the same confession, “This is the sad cause, why . judgments continue, the Lord’s anger is not removed, but his hand is stretched out still!”
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 9:8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.
Ver. 8. The Lord sent a word into Jacob. ] He sent it as a shaft out of a bow, that will be sure to hit. God loves to forewarn; but woe be to those that will not be warned. The Septuagint render it, The Lord sent a plague, or death, into Jacob; and indeed after the white horse followeth the red and the black. Rev 6:2 ; Rev 6:4-5 Like as Tamerlane, that warlike Scythian, displayed first a white flag in token of mercy; and then a red, menacing and threatening blood; and then, lastly, a black flag, the messenger and ensign of death, was hung abroad.
And it hath lighted upon Israel.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 9:8-12
8The Lord sends a message against Jacob,
And it falls on Israel.
9And all the people know it,
That is, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,
Asserting in pride and in arrogance of heart:
10The bricks have fallen down, But we will rebuild with smooth stones;
The sycamores have been cut down,
But we will replace them with cedars.
11Therefore the LORD raises against them adversaries from Rezin
And spurs their enemies on,
12The Arameans on the east and the Philistines on the west;
And they devour Israel with gaping jaws.
In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away
And His hand is still stretched out.
Isa 9:8-12 God has sent a clear message to the Northern Tribes. They have heard it and understood it (cf. Isa 9:9 a), yet their response is unacceptable.
1. They assert in pride (BDB 144) and arrogance (BDB 152)
a. they will rebuild after God’s judgment, even better, Isa 9:10
b. they will replant after God’s judgment, even better, Isa 9:10
2. YHWH raises (BDB 960, KB 1305, Piel IMPERFECT) and stirs up (BDB 1127, Pilpel IMPERFECT, only here and possibly Isa 19:2)
a. Syria
b. Philistines
3. Yet still YHWH is agitated (cf. Isa 9:12; Isa 9:17; Isa 9:21)
a. His anger does not turn away
b. His hand is still stretched out
Isa 9:8-9 Israel. . .Ephraim. . .Samaria These three names designate the Northern Ten Tribes after the split in 922 B.C.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Isa 9:8-17
Isa 9:8-12
THE GATHERING SHADOWS OVER ISRAEL
The remainder of this chapter and through the first four verses of the next, the prophecy returns to the great burden of much of Isaiah, namely, the total ruin and destruction of the sinful kingdom of the chosen people.
“The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, that say in pride and stoutness of heart, The bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stone; the sycamores are cut down, but we will put cedars in their place. Therefore Jehovah will set up on high against him the adversaries of Rezin, and will stir up his enemies, the Syrians before and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.”
This whole paragraph is a “judgment against bravado.” So much is “hewn stone” better than the bricks of that day, and so much as “cedars” were superior to sycamores, Ephraim mockingly rejects the chastening of the Lord, boasting that things will be only better for them, no matter what God does! This terrible paragraph foretold a time for Ephraim when even their former allies, the Syrians, would join the besieging armies of Assyria, to bring about Samaria’s final extinction. “All the leading classes who had failed to repent and turn to God and who had been unfaithful to their trust would be totally destroyed, with all their children.”
Isa 9:13-17
“Ye the people have not turned to him that smote them, neither have they sought Jehovah of hosts. Therefore Jehovah will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and rush, in one day. The elder and the honorable man, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. For they that lead the people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed. Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men, neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is profane and an evil-doer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.”
Note the repeated sentence in these chapters, “For all this his anger is not turned away; but his hand is stretched out still.” This is a kind of refrain, a tragic one, that is repeated over and over as the details of the ruin of Ephraim are recounted. It occurs again in Isa 9:12; Isa 9:17; Isa 9:21, and Isa 10:4, and also in Isa 5:25. There are four stanzas, each ending in this refrain; and They prophecy the Assyrian invasion, the bravado, disdain, and arrogance of Ephraim, the turning of their allies against them, and the total ruin of the nation because of their repeated rebellions against the Lord.
Notice God’s promise here to cut off “the head and the tail.” This merely means the high and the low, the weak and the mighty. We are shocked that Cheyne thought the crooked priest should have been identified as the “head.” However, we truly believe that Isaiah is here exactly right. In every society the crooked exponent of false religion, no matter what might be his exalted position in a wicked society, is truly the “tail” of that society.
Isa 9:8-12 HAUGHTY HEARTS: The Lord has not overlooked their rebellion. He has sent His word directly into their midst through the prophets. He has hewn them by the prophets and slain them by the words of his mouth (Hos 6:5). They were without excuse, for God had warned them again and again. He pleaded with them through Joel, Jonah, Amos and Hosea, to no avail. They became prouder and prouder. There was no humility and no repentance for sin. In their haughty hearts they said, in effect, Let the Lords judgment come, we are fully capable of controlling every situation by our own hands. If God destroys our brick houses and city walls we will rebuild them with hewn stones which cannot be destroyed. If God takes away our sycamore trees we will replace them with cedars! They refused to acknowledge that things were in Gods hands. So God will let them know (by experience) that His word is omnipotent. Rezins enemies, the Syrians on the east (probably those Syrians who had been subjugated by the Assyrians and made to fight with the Assyrians against Damascus), and the Philistines on the west, would form a military-vise, a pincer movement, and crush Israel and Judah between them. Yet, in spite of all this woe and chastening, there is no repentance in Israel, so the wrath of God will still be directed against them.
Isa 9:13-17 UNHOLY HARBINGERS: The people had not turned to Jehovah, in spite of Gods chastening and the preaching of Gods prophets. The reason for their continued rebellion could be found in the fact that the leaders of the nation (its rulers and religious leaders-prophets) were teaching and leading the people in lies. From the head to the tail-from the king to the lowliest official-they were telling the people lies about Jehovah. There were only a very few of the prophets faithful to the truth of God. The majority were false prophets, preaching and teaching what a sinful people wanted to hear, hirelings, concerned with their own selfish ends, (Cf. Amo 2:12; Mic 2:6-11). Those being led astray into error (the people) would be destroyed also because they were willing to be led astray! God takes no pleasure in any of these people (Isa 9:17). The young men of the nation, its greatest treasure are an abomination. The nation is so totally corrupt even the widows and orphans are involved in its rebellion and God cannot even show mercy to these. Everyone is profane and irreligious. They plot evil deeds (Cf. Hos 4:1-3; Hos 7:1-16). Every person in the nation is speaking and acting foolishly. It is difficult to comprehend the extent of moral and spiritual decadence rampant in Israel at that time. But the biblical record is substantiated by archaeological data! For this reason Gods hand of judgment is poised to fall heavily upon Israel.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
False Leadership Brings Ruin
Isa 9:8-17
The grievous sins of the Chosen People are again enumerated. They defied God, Isa 8:9-10. They refused to repent; they were blind and deaf and profane, Isa 8:13. Their religious and political leaders led them astray, Isa 8:16. What could they expect but the letting loose of the judgments of the Almighty!
Isaiahs protests were disregarded, and 2Ki 15:1-38 tells the sequel. It seems very terrible. But what would the forest-glades become if there were not a perfect machinery for the instant removal of all traces of disease, decay, and death! What is true in the physical is true also in the moral sphere. When a nation has ceased to help, and has commenced to impede the progress of humanity, it must be put out of the way.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Jacob (See Scofield “Gen 32:28”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
sent a word: Isa 7:7, Isa 7:8, Isa 8:4-8, Mic 1:1-9, Zec 1:6, Zec 5:1-4, Mat 24:35
Reciprocal: Isa 17:4 – the glory Zec 9:1 – the rest
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
At this point the prophet resumed the denunciation of the people and their sins, which had been suspended that he might relate his vision of Jehovah of Hosts and give the prediction concerning Immanuel. We now learn how God’s hand was stretched out upon them in anger and discipline. In Isa 5:1-30, woe was pronounced upon them six times, and now we get the hand of God stretched out in wrath four times over – verses Isa 9:12, Isa 9:17, Isa 9:21, and Isa 10:4. There seems to be an increase of severity as we proceed.
The ten tribes had been chastised with much destruction, but in their pride they declared that it gave them the opportunity to rebuild on a much improved scale. They spoke then just as men are speaking today as they view the destruction wrought in the recent war. The Lord warned them that their ally, Rezin of Syria, would be overthrown, a token of the overthrow coming upon themselves.
But again the people did not accept the discipline and turn to God who sent it. Consequently they would be deceived by prophecy that was false, and from the highest to the lowest face a cuffing off and disaster. But this too would fail of any true effect.
Hence further miseries would come upon them and inter-tribal strife. The wrath of the Lord would darken the land and yet be as a fire and the people as fuel. And still His anger would remain.
They would still practice deceit and treachery and oppression, and bring upon themselves what is described as “the day of visitation.” Having forsaken their God, He would be no refuge for them in that hour of distress, and His hand would still be against them. This brings us to the Assyrian, in verse Isa 9:5.
But we pause a moment to remark that, as so often in Old Testament prophecy, there is an ultimate fulfilment as well as a more immediate one, and this surely is the case here. For instance, there were prophets speaking falsely in Isaiah’s day, but the very special “prophet that speaketh lies,” who is “the tail” is a reference to the antichrist of the last days; just as “the day of visitation” looks on to that special day of trial that is yet to come. Similarly “the Assyrian,” that now we are to consider, has this double application – the then existing great power centred in Nineveh, and also that “king of the North,” which was Assyria, that we read of in the last days.
In Isaiah’s day the power of Assyria was threatening all the nations. God had taken that people up as the rod of His anger to chastise many a nation that was far from Him – and Israel among them. Later God used the Chaldeans in the same way, and this it was that disturbed the mind of Habakkuk, and led him to protest that, bad as Israel might be, the Chaldeans, whom God was going to use against them for their discipline, were worse. We see here what we see also in Habakkuk; that God may use an evil nation to chastise His faithless people, but only under His strict supervision and control. God was now sending him, as verse Isa 9:6 says, against an hypocritical nation – evidently the ten tribes and Samaria.
But the Assyrian himself did not realize this, and therefore, “he meaneth not so,” but intended to ravage Jerusalem as well as Samaria, doing to them what he had already done to many of the surrounding peoples. As we know from the historical Scriptures, though he distressed and threatened Jerusalem he did not take it. As verse Isa 9:12 intimates, he would be used to perform on Jerusalem that which God intended and then he himself would be punished and humbled. He was only like an axe or a rod in the hand of the Lord and could not dictate to the One who wielded him. The Holy One of Israel would consume him and bring down his pride and importance.
We know how all this was fulfilled in the days of Hezekiah. Samaria was led captive, but when Sennacherib attempted with proud boasts to take Jerusalem his forces received a conclusive blow directly from the hand of God, and he himself was shortly after slain by two of his sons, as we read in 2Ki 19:37.
The double application of the latter part of Isa 10:1-34 is, we think, quite evident. In verses 20-23, God pledges Himself to preserve a remnant though He was to permit a great consuming in the land, according to His holy government. This promise of a remnant covers the whole “house of Jacob,” for it must have been given some years before the ten tribes were taken into captivity. God did preserve a remnant in those far-off days when the prophecy was given, and He will yet do so in the coming days at the end of this age.
So again, in verses 24-34, there was the plain assurance to the inhabitants of Jerusalem that they need not fear the Assyrian. He would afflict them as with a rod, yet God would destroy him eventually. This came to pass, as we have seen, though he would come to the very gates of the city and, “shake his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.” His progress through the towns, as he approached, is very graphically described. He would seem to be like a great cedar of Lebanon, stretching his mighty bough over the city, but Jehovah of hosts would lop his bough with terror.
All this also has an application to the last days, as is manifest when we commence reading Isa 11:1-16, for there is really no break between the two chapters. The Lord Jesus is the “Rod [or, Shoot] out of the stem of Jesse,” and the “Branch,” and the chapter presents Him in the power and glory of His second coming. That the Spirit of the Lord, in seven-fold fulness, rested upon Him at His first coming is very true, and when we read of our Lord that, “God giveth not the Spirit by measure (Joh 3:34), there may be a reference to what is stated here, as also there is in “the seven Spirits,” mentioned in Rev 1:4; Rev 3:1; Rev 4:5; Rev 5:6; and in this last reference they are “sent forth into all the earth,” as will be the case when the Shoot of Jesse comes forth endowed with this seven-fold fulness.
We are reminded also of the candlestick in the Tabernacle with its six branches springing from the main stem. The oil, typical of the Holy Spirit, fed its seven lamps. The “Branch” is to grow or more accurately, “be fruitful,” and when Christ in the plenitude of the Spirit fills the earth, fruit will abound for there will not only be wisdom, but the might to enforce its dictates, and all controlled by the fear of the Lord.
Moreover He will not be dependent, as are human judges, on external things; on what He sees or hears; since He will possess that “quick understanding,” which will give Him that intuitive knowledge, which springs from His Divine nature, so that His actions, whether in favour of the poor and meek or against the wicked, will be marked by absolute righteousness. At last an age of righteousness will have dawned.
As the result of this, peace will descend upon the earth, so much so that all antagonism and ferocity will depart, even from the animal creation. The creature was made subject to vanity, not of its own will but by reason of the sin of Adam, and it is to be “delivered from the bondage of corruption” (Rom 8:20, Rom 8:21); but the Apostle gives us a detail not made known to Isaiah, for it will be the time when not only the Shoot of Jesse will be manifested, but also the manifestation and glory of the sons of God.
The picture of millennial blessedness, presented to us in verses Isa 9:6-9, is a very delightful one. Missionaries would tell us, we believe, that to slay and eat a kid of the goats is a special attraction for the leopard, just as the wolf naturally slaughters the lambs. All creation shall be at peace, all ferocity abolished; even the poisonous serpent deprived of its venom and its desire to bite. The earth in that day, instead of being full of the confusion and the conflicts created by the fall of man, will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. How do the waters cover the sea-bed? They do so completely, without one crevice being unfilled. Such is the lovely picture that is presented to us here.
And how can such wonderful things, not only for Israel but for all creation, be brought about? Verse Isa 9:10, we think, sheds light on this, for there we discover that the Lord Jesus is predicted as the “Root of Jesse,” as well as a “Shoot” out of his stem. We are reminded at once that in the last chapter of the Bible the Lord presents Himself to us as “the root and offspring of David;” an allusion doubtless to our chapter. Here “Jesse” is used we believe, to heighten the contrast, for David had become a name of great renown, whereas Jesse only reminds us of the otherwise unknown farmer from whom David sprang. From one small and unknown the great Messiah was to spring, and yet to be the Root from which Jesse sprang.
So, if as the Shoot we think of Christ in His holy Manhood, as the Root we have to think of Him in His Deity. In His Manhood He sprang out of Israel, and had special links with that people. Introduce His Godhead, and all men come at once into view. So it is, as often noticed, in the Gospel of John, where the word “world” occurs with great frequency; and so it is here for the word “people” in our version should be “peoples;” that is, the nations generally, to whom the Root will stand as an “ensign” or “banner,” and to Him will the Gentiles seek: and “His rest will be glory,” as the margin reads. Greed will go out and glory will come in. What a day for the earth that will be!
This wonderful prophetic strain continues to the end of Isa 12:1-6, and four times do we get the expression, “in that day.” The first we have glanced at in verse Isa 9:10, when the promised Messiah shall be manifested in His Godhead glory, and bring blessing to the remotest peoples. The second is in verse Isa 9:11, for in that day there will be a re-gathering of Israel, and the predictions concerning this continue to the end of the chapter. We must not mistake the present migration of Jews to Palestine for this, since verse Isa 9:11 speaks of what will be accomplished in the day of Christ’s manifestation, and it will be an act of God and doubtless accomplished through Christ; for “Lord” in verse Isa 9:11 is not “Jehovah” but “Adonai,” the title used for instance in Psa 110:1, when David by the Spirit spoke of the coming Messiah as “my Lord.”
Moreover, when that re-gathering is brought to pass, the division between the ten tribes and the two will have disappeared, and the nations that surround Israel will have been subdued, and there will be an alteration in geographical conditions both as to Egypt and Assyria. None of these things have yet come to pass.
But these things will come to pass, and “in that day,” when they do, there will burst forth from Israel a song of praise far deeper and more sincere than that which was sung in Exo 15:1-27. But let us recapitulate for a moment. In verse Isa 9:10, Messiah appears in His Deity and glory as the rallying centre for all mankind. He draws all to Himself, according to Joh 12:32. But this means, as the rest of the chapter shows, that Israel will get redemption blessing, far more wonderful than their past redemption from Egypt. Then follows, as Isa 12:1-6 opens, the triumph song of this new redemption. Jehovah had been angry with them, and rightly so in view of their past of tragic wickedness, but now He has become their Comforter, their Strength and their Salvation.
If verses Isa 9:1-2 remind us of Exo 14:1-31; Exo 15:1-27, verse Isa 9:3 is reminiscent of Elim, which is mentioned in the last verse of chapter 15. The Elim wells were very welcome and refreshing but here is something far more wonderful, of which Elim was only a faint type, since the salvation that Israel will then receive will be not only of a temporal sort but also spiritual and eternal.
Our short chapter ends with praise in view of that which will be the very climax of their blessing – the “Holy One of Israel” in the midst of them. This was foreshadowed when, redeemed from Egypt, the Tabernacle was erected in their midst with the cloud of glory resting on it. This which will be brought to pass “in that day” will far exceed what was accomplished under Moses; With this striking prophecy a definite division of the book reaches its close.
What we have seen we might almost call, the burden of Jacob. Judgment has to “begin at the house of God” (1Pe 4:17). Israel was that of old time, but though their heavy guilt brings on them heavy judgment, a bright future waits for them at the end. The judgment having begun at them, we now find the surrounding nations judged. A burden lay upon them from the hand of God and as the prophet uttered the burden it lay also doubtless on his own spirit. Isa 13:1-22 begins the “burden of Babylon.” The Spirit of God foresaw that this city would become the chief oppressor, and the original seat of Gentile. power when the “times of the Gentiles” should set in.
The predicted destruction will arrive when “the day of the Lord” sets in, as verses Isa 9:6; Isa 9:9 show; hence the terrible overthrow, detailed in verses Isa 9:1-10, will be witnessed in the last days, and be executed upon the proud Gentile power of which Babylon was the head and front, as we see in Dan 2:1-49 and Dan 7:1-28. Verse Isa 9:11 speaks of punishing “the world” for their iniquity, and of convulsions in the heavens as well as the earth, such as the Lord also predicted in His prophetic discourse. But in verse Isa 9:17 the prophecy does descend to a judgment more immediate, which was executed by the Medes, as the book of Daniel records. It is in this connection that the statement is made that the destruction of Babylon should be complete and irremediable. The prediction has been fulfilled unto this day and still stands. Anything that might appear to be to the contrary applies, we judge, to the dominant Gentile power, which does still exist, and of which Babylon was the beginning, or to that “mystery” Babylon of Rev 17:1-18, which represents the false professing church, left for judgment when the Lord comes for His true saints.
The first three verses of Isa 14:1-32 show that the judgment of Babylon clears the way for mercy to flow to Israel. This had a partial fulfilment in the days of Cyrus, as the opening verses of Ezra record. It will have a far greater and more complete one when the times of the Gentiles come to an end. Then, not only will Israel be established once more in their own land but they will be the supreme nation, ruling over the others who formerly oppressed them, and completely at rest themselves. In that day they will take up the proverb against the king of Babylon, that fills verses 4-23 of the chapter.
When Isaiah uttered this prophecy Babylon was still dominated by the Assyrian power. A century or so later it became “the golden city” under the great king Nebuchadnezzar, spoken of as the “head of gold” in Dan 2:38. With him the times of the Gentiles began, and they will close under the potentate, called “the beast” in Rev 13:1-18, who is to be raised up and inspired by Satan, who is called “the dragon.” All the world will worship the beast and the dragon who, though unseen, lies behind him.
Isaiah’s prophecy in these verses applies first to the visible king – verses Isa 9:4-11. The Lord will break his sceptre and cast him into hell as is more fully explained in Rev 19:1-21. But in verses Isa 9:12-15, we seem to pass from the visible king to Satan, whose nominee he is to be. Satan, whose original sin was an attempt at self-exaltation unto equality with God, is to be “brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit,” as we also see in Rev 20:1-15.
Verses Isa 9:13-14 are most striking. Notice the five-fold repetition of “I will.” The very essence of sin is the assertion of the will of the creature against the Creator. In Gen 2:1-25, God said to Adam, “Thou shalt not;” but in Gen 3:1-24, tempted by Satan, Adam virtually said “I will.” The complete contrast to this is found in Php 2:1-30, where the One who was “the Most High,” whose throne was “above the stars of God,” who could not “ascend,” since there was no place higher than the one He occupied, descended and took the form of a Servant. Satan sought to exalt himself and is to be abased. Christ humbled Himself, and He is, and shall yet be, exalted.
In the succeeding verses we seem to come back to the judgment of the visible king, of his city, and of all those that follow him. It will be no partial or provisional dealing of God but a final judgment that will make a clean sweep of his power and kingdom, a judgment more severe than that which has fallen upon others.
At verse 24 we pass back again to the more immediate judgment of Assyria. Upon the mountains of Israel, which the Lord calls “My mountains,” he should be broken. This had not been accomplished in the year that king Ahaz died, for that was the third year of king Hoshea of the ten tribes, and Samaria was carried captive by the Assyrian in Hoshea’s ninth year. In verses 29 and 31 “Palestina” means apparently, “Philistia” the country to the south west of Jerusalem. At that moment all might seem peaceful, but their judgment was coming, and their only hope and trust was to be reposing in Zion.
Now Zion does not mean simply Jerusalem, for that city too would ultimately fall under God’s judgment. Zion was founded by the Lord in His mercy when He intervened and raised up David, so that it has become a symbol of the mercy and grace of God. This we see in such a scripture as Heb 12:22. In that grace, which Zion represents, the godly poor amongst the people will trust. They did so in days that are past. They will do so in days that are to come.
They are doing so today. Are we amongst them?
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
Isa 9:8-12. The Lord sent a word, &c. A prophetical and threatening message by me: for now the prophet, having inserted some consolatory passages for the support of Gods faithful people, returns to his former work of commination against the rebellious Israelites; and it lighted Hebrew, , it fell, that is, it shall fall in the prophetical style. It shall certainly be accomplished; upon Israel The same with Jacob in the former clause. We have here the third section of the fifth discourse, which reaches to the fifth verse of the next chapter, and makes, says Bishop Lowth, a distinct prophecy, and a just poem, remarkable for the regularity of its disposition, and the elegance of its plan. It has no relation to the preceding or following prophecy, which relate principally to the kingdom of Judah; whereas, this is addressed exclusively to the kingdom of Israel. The subject of it is a denunciation of vengeance awaiting their crimes. It is divided into four parts, each threatening the particular punishment of some grievous offence; of their pride; of their perseverance in their vices; of their impiety; and of their injustice. To which is added a general denunciation of a further reserve of divine wrath, contained in a distich before used by the prophet on a like occasion, (Isa 5:25,) and here repeated after each part: this makes the intercalary verse of the poem; or, as we call it, the burden of the song. And all the people shall know Namely, by experience. They shall know whether my word be true or false. Even Ephraim, &c. The people of the ten tribes, and particularly Ephraim, the proudest of them all. And Samaria The strongest place, and the seat of the king and court. Here we have the first fault of the Ephraimites, namely, the pride and contempt with which they had received the threatenings of the true prophets of God, who had denounced to them the unhappy consequences of their undertakings. Elevated with vain hope, they had declared that they would never desist from their purpose of invading Judah for any denunciations of the prophets; on the contrary, they had boasted proudly, that, strengthened as they were by their present alliance with the king of Syria, though they had heretofore suffered great loss, they had no doubt of repairing their fortune. Though the bricks were fallen down, they would build with hewn stones, &c. The expression is metaphorically elegant, and denotes the restoration of a fallen state for the better, and the change of a mean and low to a more honourable and excellent situation. For their pride and arrogance, the God who laugheth vain men to scorn, denounces their punishment in the two following verses; and, according to his usual justice, assures them that the union with Rezin, wherein they boasted, should itself prove their destruction. This prophecy was fulfilled by Tiglath-pileser. See 2Ki 16:17, Vitringa, and Dodd. Dr. Waterland renders the beginning of the twelfth verse, The Syrians from the east, and the Philistines from the west. Though Rezin, king of Syria, was destroyed, yet the body of the nation survived, and submitted themselves to the king of Assyria, and upon his command invaded Israel afterward. And they shall devour Israel, &c. Like wild beasts.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 9:8 to Isa 10:4. Yahweh Smites Ephraim with Stroke after Stroke.It is generally agreed that Isa 5:26-29 formed the closing strophe of this poem (p. 440). The date is probably before the coalition of Syria and Ephraim (Isa 9:11 f.), i.e. between 740 and 735. It is one of Isaiahs earliest prophecies. It is very uncertain whether the whole is a prediction of the future, or whether, with the exception of the conclusion, it describes calamities that have already overtaken the people. On the whole the former view is preferable. It is that adopted in RV, the tenses being taken as prophetic perfects, the alternative view being given in the margin.
Isa 9:8-12. Yahweh has sent crashing into Israel His word with its power of self-fulfilment, which will soon teach the boastful Ephraimites another lesson. For they believe that the state of things temporarily overthrown by disaster was mean and fragile in comparison with the splendour and stability they will soon attain. So Yahweh will incite the Syrians and Philistines against them. Yet His anger is not turned away, His hand is still stretched out to smite.
Isa 9:10. To the present day houses in Palestine are generally built of sun-dried bricks and beams of sycomore, since they are the cheapest material. Hewn stone and cedar would be reserved for the rich (p. 109).
Isa 9:11. adversaries of Rezin: since the Syrians are Israels enemies, and Rezin was king of Syria, we must correct the text, reading probably his adversaries.
Isa 9:13-17. Since this will have no salutary effect, Yahweh will in one day destroy both small and great. He will not spare the sturdiest or the most helpless; the whole nation is evil. Nor yet does this exhaust His wrath.
Isa 9:14. palm-branch and rush: the lofty and the low.
Isa 9:15 f. An insertion. Isa 9:15 contains an incorrect explanation of Isa 9:14; for Isa 9:16 cf. Isa 3:12.
Isa 9:17. rejoice over: spare (yiphsah for yismah) would give a better parallel.
Isa 9:18-21. Wickedness is like a fire, which first lays hold on the briers, and, gaining strength, sets alight the whole dense forest. The land will be visited by Yahwehs wrath, the people will be like cannibals, the land rent by a ruthless civil war. Yet His hand is still stretched out.
Isa 9:19. burnt up: of quite uncertain meaning.as the fuel of fire: we should probably read like cannibals.
Isa 9:20. his own arm: read, his neighbour (r for zer); cf. Jer 19:9.
Isa 10:1-4. This section differs in several ways from the rest of the poem, and may be derived from another context. It is probably Isaianic. It attacks unjust judges, who deprive the poor and defenceless of justice, that they may defraud them. What will they do when the storm of vengeance sweeps on them from afar? To whom can they turn?
Isa 10:3. glory: wealth.
Isa 10:4. Very difficult; the text must be corrupt. A re-division of the consonants gives Beltis crouches, Osiris is broken (Lagarde). This may be correct, but we have no evidence for the worship of these deities in Palestine at this time. The meaning would be, You can flee to no one, for your false gods will be buried under heaps of slain. Gray reads, To avoid crouching under the prisoners.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
9:8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon {m} Israel.
(m) This is another prophecy against them of Samaria who were mockers and contemners of God’s promises and menaces.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The pride of Ephraim 9:8-12
Isaiah explained that because the Northern Kingdom had not turned to Him for safety but to an alliance with Syria, He would not defend her from her enemy. [Note: See Kemper Fullerton, "Isaiah’s Earliest Prophecy against Ephraim," The American Journal of Semitic Languages 3:3 (1916):9-39.]
". . . the sin for Isaiah, the source of all other sin, is the pride which exalts humanity above God, which makes God but a tool for the achievement of our plans and dreams." [Note: Oswalt, p. 251.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The prophet announced that God had pronounced a message (Heb. dabar, word) of judgment against the Northern Kingdom. It had all the force of Yahweh’s sovereign power behind it, but it would come subject to Ephraim continuing on the course it presently pursued. Prophetic announcements of judgment usually allowed for the possibility of repentance. If the people under God’s promised judgment repented, the judgment would not fall (cf. Jer 18:7-10; Jon 3:4-10).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
2. Measurement by God’s standard 9:8-10:4
This section of the book focuses on the Northern Kingdom, and it ties in with the section immediately preceding concerning the Messiah (Isa 9:2-7). It explains why Ephraim’s plans against Judah would fail. They would not fail because of Ahaz’s alliance with Assyria but because God would frustrate them. Ephraim would not go into captivity because she lacked sufficient military strength but because she failed to measure up to the standard God had set for her. This standard lay in the area of moral rectitude through covenant obedience rather than military resources.
"The great light would not arise till the darkness had reached its deepest point. The gradual increase of this darkness is predicted in this second section of the esoteric addresses [Isa 8:5 to Isa 12:6]." [Note: Delitzsch, 1:255.]
This section, a poem, consists of four strophes, each ending with the refrain: "In spite of all this His anger does not turn away and His hand is still stretched out" (Isa 9:12; Isa 9:17; Isa 9:21; Isa 10:4; cf. Isa 5:25). The progression of thought is from pride, to flawed leadership, to selfishness, to social injustice.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER III
THE VINEYARD OF THE LORD,
OR TRUE PATRIOTISM THE CONSCIENCE OF OUR COUNTRYS SINS
735 B.C.
Isa 5:1-30; Isa 9:8 – Isa 10:4
THE prophecy contained in these chapters belongs, as we have seen, to the same early period of Isaiahs career as chapters 2-4, about the time when Ahaz ascended the throne after the long and successful reigns of his father and grandfather, when the kingdom of Judah seemed girt with strength and filled with wealth, but the men were corrupt and the women careless, and the earnest of approaching judgment was already given in the incapacity of the weak and woman-ridden king. Yet although this new prophecy issues from the same circumstances as its predecessors, it implies these circumstances a little more developed. The same social evils are treated, but by a hand with a firmer grasp of them. The same principles are emphasised-the righteousness of Jehovah and His activity in judgment – but the form of judgment of which Isaiah had spoken before in general terms looms nearer, and before the end of the prophecy we get a view at close quarters of the Assyrian ranks.
Besides, opposition has arisen to the prophets teaching. We saw that the obscurities and inconsistencies of chapters 2-4 are due to the fact that that prophecy represents several stages of experience through which Isaiah passed before he gained his final convictions. But his countrymen, it appears, have now had time to turn on these convictions and call them in question: it is necessary for Isaiah to vindicate them. The difference, then, between these two sets of prophecies, dealing with the same things, is that in the former (chapters 2-4), we have the obscure and tortuous path of a conviction struggling to light in the prophets own experience; here, in chapter 5, we have its careful array in the light and before the people.
The point of Isaiahs teaching against which opposition was directed was of course its main point, that God was about to abandon Judah. This must have appeared to the popular religion of the day as the rankest heresy. To the Jews the honour of Jehovah was bound up with the inviolability of Jerusalem and the prosperity of Judah. But Isaiah knew Jehovah to be infinitely more concerned for the purity of His people than for their prosperity. He had seen the Lord “exalted in righteousness” above those national and earthly interests, with which vulgar men exclusively identified His will. Did the people appeal to the long time Jehovah had graciously led them for proof that He would not abandon them now? To Isaiah that gracious leading was but for righteousness sake, and that God might make His own a holy people. Their history, so full of the favours of the Almighty, did not teach Isaiah, as it did the common prophets of his time, the lesson of Israels political security, but the far different one of their religious responsibility. To him it only meant what Amos had already put in those startling words, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.” Now Isaiah delivered this doctrine at a time when it brought him the hostility of mens passions as well as of their opinions. Judah was arming for war. Syria and Ephraim were marching upon her. To threaten his country with ruin in such an hour was to run the risk of suffering from popular fury as a traitor as well as from priestly prejudice as a heretic. The strain of the moment is felt in the strenuousness of the prophecy. Chapter 5, with its appendix, exhibits more grasp and method than its predecessors. Its literary form is finished, its feeling clear. There is a tenderness in the beginning of it, an inexorableness in the end, and an eagerness all through which stamp the chapter as Isaiahs final appeal to his countrymen at this period of his career.
The chapter is a noble piece of patriotism-one of the noblest of a race who, although for the greater part of their history without a fatherland, have contributed more brilliantly than perhaps any other to the literature of patriotism, and that simply because, as Isaiah here illustrates, patriotism was to their prophets identical with religious privilege and responsibility. Isaiah carries this to its bitter end. Other patriots have wept to sing their countrys woes; Isaiahs burden is his peoples guilt. To others an invasion of their fatherland by its enemies has been the motive to rouse by song or speech their countrymen to repel it. Isaiah also hears the tramp of the invader; but to him is permitted no ardour of defence, and his message to his countrymen is that they must succumb, for the invasion is irresistible and of the very judgment of God. How much it cost the prophet to deliver such a message we may see from those few verses of it in which his heart is not altogether silenced by his conscience. The sweet description of Judah as a vineyard, and the touching accents that break through the roll of denunciation with such phrases as “My people are gone away into captivity unawares,” tell us how the prophets love of country is struggling with his duty to a righteous God. The course of feeling throughout the prophecy is very striking. The tenderness of the opening lyric seems ready to flow into gentle pleading with the whole people. But as the prophet turns to particular classes and their sins his mood changes to indignation, the voice settles down to judgment; till when it issues upon that clear statement of the coming of the Northern hosts every trace of emotion has left it, and the sentences ring out as unfaltering as the tramp of the armies they describe.
I. THE PARABLE OF THE VINEYARD
{Isa 5:1-7}
Isaiah adopts the resource of every misunderstood and unpopular teacher, and seeks to turn the flank of his peoples prejudices by an attack in parable on their sympathies. Did they stubbornly believe it impossible for God to abandon a State He had so long and so carefully fostered? Let them judge from an analogous case in which they were all experts. In a picture of great beauty Isaiah describes a vineyard upon one of the sunny promontories visible from Jerusalem. Every care had been given it of which an experienced vinedresser could think, but it brought forth only wild grapes. The vinedresser himself is introduced, and appeals to the men of Judah and Jerusalem to judge between him and his vineyard. He gets their assent that all had been done which could be done, and fortified with that resolves to abandon the vineyard. “I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come up briers and thorns.” Then the stratagem comes out, the speaker drops the tones of a human cultivator, and in the omnipotence of the Lord of heaven he is heard to say, “I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.” This diversion upon their sympathies having succeeded, the prophet scarcely needs to charge the peoples prejudices in face. His point has been evidently carried. “For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant; and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but behold a cry.”
The lesson enforced by Isaiah is just this, that in a peoples civilisation there lie the deepest responsibilities, for that is neither more nor less than their cultivation by God; and the question for a people is not how secure does this render them, nor what does it count for glory, but how far is it rising towards the intentions of its Author? Does it produce those fruits of righteousness for which alone God cares to set apart and cultivate the peoples? On this depends the question whether the civilisation is secure, as well as the right of the people to enjoy and feel proud of it. There cannot be true patriotism without sensitiveness to this, for however rich be the elements that compose the patriots temper, as piety towards the past, ardour of service for the present, love of liberty, delight in natural beauty, and gratitude for Divine favour, so rich a temper will grow rancid without the salt of conscience; and the richer the temper is, the greater must be the proportion of that salt. All prophets and poets of patriotism have been moralists and satirists as well. From Demosthenes to Tourgenieff. from Dante to Mazzini, from Milton to Russell Lowell, from Burns to Heine, one cannot recall any great patriot who has not known how to use the scourge as well as the trumpet. Many opportunities will present themselves to us of illustrating Isaiahs orations by the letters and speeches of Cromwell, who of moderns most resembles the statesman-prophet of Judah; but nowhere does the resemblance become so close as when we lay a prophecy like this of Jehovahs vineyard by the side of the speeches in which the Lord Protector exhorted the Commons of England, although it was the hour of his and. their triumph, to address themselves to their sins.
So, then, the patriotism of all great men has carried a conscience for their countrys sins. But while this is always more or less a burden to the true patriot, there are certain periods in which his care for his country ought to be this predominantly, and need be little else. In a period like our own, for instance, of political security and fashionable religion, what need is there in patriotic displays of any other kind? but how much for patriotism of this kind-of men who will uncover the secret sins, however loathsome, and declare the hypocrisies, however powerful, of the social life of the people! These are the patriots we need in times of peace; and as it is more difficult to rouse a torpid people to their sins than to lead a roused one against their enemies, and harder to face a whole people with the support only of conscience than to defy many nations if you but have your own at your back, so these patriots of peace are more to be honoured than those of war. But there is one kind of patriotism more arduous and honourable still. It is that which Isaiah displays here, who cannot add to his conscience hope or even pity, who must hail his countrys enemies for his countrys good, and recite the long roll of Gods favours to his nation only to emphasise the justice of His abandonment of them.
II. THE WILD GRAPES OF JUDAH
{Isa 5:8-24}
The wild grapes which Isaiah saw in the vineyard of the Lord he catalogues in a series of Woes (Isa 5:8-24), fruits all of them of love of money and love of wine. They are abuse of the soil (Isa 5:8-10, Isa 5:17), a giddy luxury which has taken to drink (Isa 5:11-16), a moral blindness and headlong audacity of sin which habitual avarice and drunkenness soon develop (Isa 5:18-21), and, again, a greed of drink and money-mens perversion of their strength to wine, and of their opportunities of justice to the taking of bribes (Isa 5:22-24). These are the features of corrupt civilisation not only in Judah, and the voice that deplores them cannot speak without rousing others very clamant to the modern conscience. It is with remarkable persistence that in every civilisation the two main passions of the human heart, love of wealth and love of pleasure, the instinct to gather and the instinct to squander, have sought precisely these two forms denounced by Isaiah in which to work their social havoc-appropriation of the soil and indulgence in strong drink. Every civilised community develops sooner or later its land-question and its liquor-question. “Questions” they are called by the superficial opinion that all difficulties may be overcome by the cleverness of men; yet problems through which there cries for remedy so vast a proportion of our poverty, crime, and madness, are something worse than “questions.” They are huge sins, and require not merely the statesmans wit, but all the patience and zeal of which a nations conscience is capable. It is in this that the force of Isaiahs treatment lies. We feel he is not facing questions of State, but sins of men. He has nothing to tell us of what he considers the best system of land tenure, but he enforces the principle that in the ease with which land may be absorbed by one person the natural covetousness of the human heart has a terrible opportunity for working ruin upon society. “Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.” We know from Micah that the actual process which Isaiah condemns was carried out with the most cruel evictions and disinheritances. Isaiah does not touch on its methods, but exposes its effects on the country-depopulation and barrenness, -and emphasises its religious significance. “Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without an inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah Then shall lambs. feed as in their pasture, and strangers shall devour the ruins of the fat ones”-i.e., of the luxurious landowners (Isa 5:9, Isa 5:10, Isa 5:17). And in one of those elliptic statements by which he often startles us with the sudden sense that God Himself is acquainted with all our affairs, and takes His own interest in them, Isaiah adds, “All this was whispered to me by Jehovah: In mine ears-the Lord of hosts” (Isa 5:9).
During recent agitations in our own country one has often seen the “land laws of the Bible” held forth by some thoughtless demagogue as models for land tenure among ourselves; as if a system which worked well with a small tribe in a land they had all entered on equal footing, and where there was no opportunity for the industry of the people except in pasture and in tillage, could possibly be applicable to a vastly larger and more complex population, with different traditions and very different social circumstances. Isaiah says nothing about the peculiar land laws of his people. He lays down principles, and these are principles valid in every civilisation. God has made the land, not to feed the pride of the few, but the natural hunger of the many, and it is His will that the most be got out of a countrys soil for the people of the country. Whatever be the system of land-tenure-and while all are more or less liable to abuse, it is the duty of a people to agitate for that which will be least liable-if it is taken advantage of by individuals to satisfy their own cupidity, then God will take account of them. There is a responsibility which the State cannot enforce, and the neglect of which cannot be punished by any earthly law, but all the more will God see to it. A nations treatment of their land is not always prominent as a question which demands the attention of public reformers; but it ceaselessly has interest for God, who ever holds individuals to answer for it. The land-question is ultimately a religious question. For the management of their land the whole nation is responsible to God, but especially those who own or manage estates. This is a sacred office. When one not only remembers the nature of land-how it is an element of life, so that if a man abuse the soil it is as if he poisoned the air or darkened the heavens-but appreciates also the multitude of personal relations which the landowner or factor holds in his hand-the peace of homes, the continuity of local traditions, the physical health, the social fearlessness and frankness, and the thousand delicate associations which their habitations entwine about the hearts of men-one feels that to all who possess or manage land is granted an opportunity of patriotism and piety open to few, a ministry less honourable and sacred than none other committed by God to man for his fellow-men.
After the land-sin Isaiah hurls his second Woe upon the drink-sin, and it is a heavier woe than the first. With fatal persistence the luxury of every civilisation has taken to drink; and of all the indictments brought by moralists against nations, that which they reserve for drunkenness is, as here, the most heavily weighted. The crusade against drink is not the novel thing that many imagine who observe only its late revival among ourselves. In ancient times there was scarcely a State in which prohibitive legislation of the most stringent kind was not attempted, and generally carried out with a thoroughness more possible under despots than where, as with us, the slow consent of public opinion is necessary. A horror of strong drink has in every age possessed those who from their position as magistrates or prophets have been able to follow for any distance the drifts of social life. Isaiah exposes as powerfully as ever any of them did in what the peculiar fatality of drinking lies. Wine is a mocker by nothing more than by the moral incredulity which it produces, enabling men to hide from themselves the spiritual and material effects of over-indulgence in it. No one who has had to do with persons slowly falling from moderate to immoderate drinking can mistake Isaiahs meaning when he says, “They regard not the work of the Lord; neither have they considered the operation of His hands.” Nothing kills the conscience like steady drinking to a little excess; and religion, even while the conscience is alive, acts on it only as an opiate. It is not, however, with the symptoms of drink in individuals so much as with its aggregate effects on the nation that Isaiah is concerned. So prevalent is excessive drinking, so entwined with the social customs of the country and many powerful interests, that it is extremely difficult to rouse public opinion to its effects. And “so they go into captivity for lack of knowledge.” Temperance reformers are often blamed for the strength of their language, but they may shelter themselves behind Isaiah. As he pictures it, the national destruction caused by drink is complete. It is nothing less than the peoples captivity, and we know what that meant to an Israelite. It affects all classes: “Their honourable men are famished, and their multitude parched with thirst. The mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled.” But the want and ruin of this earth are not enough to describe it. The appetite of hell itself has to be enlarged to suffice for the consumption of the spoils of strong drink. “Therefore hell hath enlarged her desire and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth among them, descend into it.” The very appetite of hell has to be enlarged! Does it not truly seem as if the wild and wanton waste of drink were preventable, as if it were not, as many are ready to sneer, the inevitable evil of mens hearts choosing this form of issue, but a superfluous audacity of sin, which the devil himself did not desire or tempt men to? It is this feeling of the infernal gratuitousness of most of the drink-evil-the conviction that here hell would be quiet if only she were not stirred up by the extraordinarily wanton provocatives that society and the State offer to excessive drinking- which compels temperance reformers at the present day to isolate drunkenness and make it the object of a special crusade. Isaiahs strong figure has lost none of its strength today. When our judges tell us from the bench that nine-tenths of pauperism and crime are caused by drink, and our physicians that if only irregular tippling were abolished half the current sickness of the land would cease, and our statesmen that the ravages of strong drink are equal to those of the historical scourges of war, famine, and pestilence combined, surely to swallow such a glut of spoil the appetite of hell must have been still more enlarged, and the mouth of hell made yet wider.
The next three Woes are upon different aggravations of that moral perversity which the prophet has already traced to strong drink. In the first of these it is better to read, draw punishment near with cords of vanity, than draw iniquity. Then we have a striking antithesis-the drunkards mocking Isaiah over their cups with the challenge, as if it would not be taken up, “Let Jehovah make speed, and hasten His work of judgment, that we may see it,” while all the time they themselves were dragging that judgment near, as with cart-ropes, by their persistent diligence in evil. This figure of sinners jeering at the approach of a calamity while they actually wear the harness of its carriage is very striking. But the Jews are not only unconscious of judgment, they are confused as to the very principles of morality: “Who call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
In his fifth Woe the prophet attacks a disposition to which his scorn gives no peace throughout his ministry. If these sensualists had only confined themselves to their sensuality they might have been left alone; but with that intellectual bravado which is equally born with “Dutch courage” of drink, they interferred in the conduct of the State, and prepared arrogant policies of alliance and war that were the distress of the sober-minded prophet all his days. “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.”
In his last Woe Isaiah returns to the drinking habits of the upper classes, from which it would appear that among the judges even of Judah there were “six-bottle men.” They sustained theft extravagance by subsidies, which we trust were unknown to the mighty men of wine who once filled the seats of justice in our own country. “They justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him.” All these sinners, dead through their rejection of the law of Jehovah of hosts and the word of the Holy One of Israel, shall be like to the stubble, fit only for burning, and their blossom as the dust of the rotten tree.
III. THE ANGER OF THE LORD
{Isa 5:25; Isa 9:8 – Isa 10:4; Isa 5:26-30}
This indictment of the various sins of the people occupies the whole of the second part of the oration. But a third part is now added, in which the prophet catalogues the judgments of the Lord upon them, each of these closing with the weird refrain, “For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.” The complete catalogue is usually obtained by inserting between the 25th and 26th verses of chapter 5 {Isa 5:25-26}. the long passage from chapter 9, verse 8, to chapter 10, verse 4. It is quite true that as far as chapter 5 itself is concerned it does not need this insertion; Isa 9:8-21; Isa 10:1-4 is decidedly out of place where it now lies. Its paragraphs end with the same refrain as closes Isa 5:25, which forms, besides, a natural introduction to them, while Isa 5:26-30 form as natural a conclusion. The latter verses describe an Assyrian invasion, and it was always in an Assyrian invasion that Isaiah foresaw the final calamity of Judah. We may, then, subject to further light on the exceedingly obscure subject of the arrangement of Isaiahs prophecies, follow some of the leading critics, and place Isa 9:8-21; Isa 10:1-4 between verses 25-26 of chapter 5; and the more we examine them the more we shall be satisfied with our arrangement, for strung together in this order they form one of the most impressive series of scenes which even an Isaiah has given us.
From these scenes Isaiah has spared nothing that is terrible in history or nature, and it is not one of the least of the arguments for putting them together that their intensity increases to a climax. Earthquakes, armed raids, a great battle, and the slaughter of a people; prairie and forest fires, civil strife and the famine fever, that feeds upon itself; another battle-field, with its cringing groups of captives and heaps of slain; the resistless tide of a great invasion; and then, for final prospect, a desolate land by the sound of a hungry sea, and the light is darkened in the clouds thereof. The elements of nature and the elemental passions of man have been let loose together; and we follow the violent floods, remembering that it is sin that has burst the gates of the universe, and given the tides of hell full course through it. Over the storm and battle there comes booming like the storm-bell the awful refrain, “For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.” It is poetry of the highest order, but in him who reads it with a conscience mere literary sensations are sobered by the awe of some of the most profound moral phenomena of life. The persistence of Divine wrath, the long-lingering effects of sin in a nations history, mans abuse of sorrow and his defiance of an angry Providence, are the elements of this great drama. Those who are familiar with “King Lear” will recognise these elements, and observe how similarly the ways of Providence and the conduct of men are represented there and here.
What Isaiah unfolds, then. is a series of calamities that have overtaken the people of Israel. It is impossible for us to identify every one of them with a particular event in Israels history otherwise known to us. Some it is not difficult to recognise; but the prophet passes in a perplexing way from Judah to Ephraim and Ephraim to Judah, and in one case, where he represents Samaria as attacked by Syria and the Philistines, he goes back to a period at some distance from his own. There are also passages, as for instance Isa 10:1-4, in which we are unable to decide whether he describes a present punishment or threatens a future one. But his moral purpose, at least, is plain. He will show how often Jehovah has already spoken to His people by calamity, and because they have remained hardened under these warnings, how there now remains possible only the last, worst blow of an Assyrian invasion. Isaiah is justifying his threat of so unprecedented and extreme a punishment for Gods people as overthrow by this Northern people, who had just appeared upon Judahs political horizon. God, he tells Israel, has tried everything short of this, and it has failed; now only this remains, and this shall not fail. The prophets purpose, therefore, being not an accurate historical recital, but moral impressiveness, he gives us a more or less ideal description of former calamities, mentioning only so much as to allow us to recognise here and there that it is actual facts which he uses for his purpose of condemning Israel to captivity, and vindicating Israels God in bringing that captivity near. The passage thus forms a parallel to that in Amos, with its similar refrain: “Yet ye have not returned unto Me, saith the Lord,” {Amo 4:6-12} and only goes farther than that earlier prophecy in indicating that the instruments of the Lords final judgment are to be the Assyrians.
Five great calamities, says Isaiah, have fallen on Israel and left them hardened:
1st, earthquake; {Isa 5:25}
2d, loss of territory; {Isa 9:8-12}
3d, war and a decisive defeat; {Isa 9:13-17}
4th, internal anarchy; {Isa 9:18-21}
5th, the near prospect of captivity. {Isa 10:1-4}
1. THE EARTHQUAKE.-Amos {Isa 5:25} closes his series withan earthquake; Isaiah begins with one. It may be the same convulsion they describe, or may not. Although the skirts of Palestine both to the east and west frequently tremble to these disturbances, an earthquake in Palestine itself, up on the high central ridge of the land, is very rare. Isaiah vividly describes its awful simplicity and suddenness. “The Lord stretched forth His hand and smote, and the hills shook, and their carcases were like offal in the midst of the streets.” More words are not needed, because there was nothing more to describe. The Lord lifted His hand; the hills seemed for a moment to topple over, and when the living recovered from the shock there lay the dead, flung like refuse about the streets.
2. THE LOSS OF TERRITORY.-So {Isa 9:8-21} awful a calamity, in which the dying did not die out of sight nor-fall huddled together on some far off battle-field, but the whole land was strewn with her slain, ought to have left indelible impression on the people. But it did not. The Lords own word had been in it for Jacob and Israel, {Isa 9:8} “that the people might know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria.” But unhumbled they turned in the stoutness of their hearts, saying, when the earthquake had passed: “The bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stones”; the “sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.” Calamity did not make this people thoughtful; they felt God only to endeavour to forget Him. Therefore He visited them the second time. They did not feel the Lord shaking their land, so He sent their enemies to steal it from them: “the Syrians before and the Philistines behind; and they devour Israel with open mouth.” What that had been for appalling suddenness this was for lingering and harassing-guerilla warfare, armed raids, the land eaten away bit by bit. “Yet the people do not return unto Him that smote them, neither seek they the Lord of hosts.”
3. WAR AND DEFEAT.-The {Isa 9:13-17} next consequent calamity passed from the land to the people themselves. A great battle is described, in which the nation is dismembered in one day. War and its horrors are told, and the apparent want of Divine pity and discrimination which they imply is explained. Israel has been led into these disasters by the folly of their leaders, whom Isaiah therefore singles out for blame. “For they that lead these people cause them to err, and they that are led of them are destroyed.” But the real horror of war is that it falls not upon its authors, that its victims are not statesmen, but the beauty of a countrys youth, the helplessness of the widow and orphan. Some question seems to have been stirred by this in Isaiahs heart. He asks, Why does the Lord not rejoice in the young men of His people? Why has He no pity for widow and orphan, that He thus sacrifices them to the sin of the rulers? It is because the whole nation shares the rulers guilt; “every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly.” As ruler so people, is a truth Isaiah frequently asserts, but never with such grimness as here. War brings out, as nothing else does, the solidarity of a people in guilt.
4. INTERNAL ANARCHY.-Even {Isa 9:18-21} yet the people did not repent; their calamities only drove them to further wickedness. The prophets eyes are opened to the awful fact that Gods wrath is but the blast that fans mens hot sins to flame. This is one of those two or three awful scenes in history, in the conflagration of which we cannot tell what is human sin and what Divine judgment. There is a panic wickedness, sin spreading like mania, as if men were possessed by supernatural powers. The physical metaphors of the prophet are evident: a forest or prairie fire, and the consequent famine, whose fevered victims feed upon themselves. And no less evident are the political facts which the prophet employs these metaphors to describe. It is the anarchy which has beset more than one corrupt and unfortunate people, when their mis-leaders have been overthrown: the anarchy in which each faction seeks to slaughter out the rest. Jealousy and distrust awake the lust for blood, rage seizes the people as fire the forest, “and no man spareth his brother.” We have had modern instances of all this; these scenes form a true description of some days of the French Revolution, and are even a truer description of the civil war that broke out in Paris after her late siege.
“If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, I will come,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself
Like monsters of the deep.”
5. THE THREAT OF CAPTIVITY.-Turning {Isa 10:1-4} now from the past, and from the fate of Samaria, with which it would appear he has been more particularly engaged, the prophet addresses his own countrymen in Judah, and paints the future for them. It is not a future in which there is any hope. The day of their visitation also will surely come, and the prophet sees it close in the darkest night of which a Jewish heart could think-the night of captivity. Where, he asks his unjust countrymen-where “will ye then flee for help? and where will you leave your glory?” Cringing among the captives, lying dead beneath heaps of dead-that is to be your fate, who will have turned so, often and then so finally from God. When exactly the prophet thus warned his countrymen of captivity we do not know, but the warning, though so real, produced neither penitence in men nor pity in God. “For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.”
6. THE ASSYRIAN INVASION.-The {Isa 5:26-30} prophet is, therefore, free to explain that cloud which has appeared far away on the northern horizon. Gods hand of judgment is still uplifted over Judah, and it is that hand which summons the cloud. The Assyrians are coming in answer to Gods signal, and they are coming as a flood, to leave nothing but ruin and distress behind them. No description by Isaiah is more majestic than this one, in which Jehovah, who has exhausted every nearer means of converting His people, lifts His undrooping arm with a “flag to the nations that are far off, and hisses” or whistles “for them from the end of the earth. And, behold, they come with speed, swiftly: there is no weary one nor straggler among them; none slumbers nor sleeps; nor loosed is the girdle of his loins, nor broken the latchet of his shoes; whose arrows are sharpened, and all their bows bent; their horses hoofs are like the dint, and their wheels like the whirlwind: a roar have they like the lions, and they roar like young lions; yea, they growl and grasp the prey, and carry it off, and there is none to deliver. And they growl upon him that day like the growling of the sea; and if one looks to the land, behold dark and distress, and the light is darkened in the cloudy heaven.”
Thus Isaiah leaves Judah to await her doom. But the tones of his weird refrain awaken in our hearts some thoughts which will not let his message go from us just yet.
It will ever be a question, whether men abuse more their sorrows or their joys; but no earnest soul can doubt, which of these abuses is the more fatal. To sin in the one case is to yield to a temptation; to sin in the other is to resist a Divine grace. Sorrow is Gods last message to man; it is God speaking in emphasis. He who abuses it shows that he can shut his ears when God speaks loudest. Therefore heartlessness or impenitence after sorrow is more dangerous than intemperance in joy; its results are always more tragic. Now Isaiah points out that mens abuse of sorrow is twofold. Men abuse sorrow by mistaking it, and they abuse sorrow by defying it.
Men abuse sorrow by mistaking it, when they see in it nothing but a penal or expiatory force. To many men sorrow is what his devotions were to Louis XI, which having religiously performed, he felt the more brave to sin. So with the Samaritans, who said in the stoutness of their hearts, “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.” To speak in this way is happy, but heathenish. It is to call sorrow “bad luck”; it is to hear no voice of God in it, saying, “Be pure; be humble; lean upon Me.” This disposition springs from a vulgar conception of God, as of a Being of no permanence in character, easily irritated but relieved by a burst of passion, smartly punishing His people and then leaving them to themselves. It is a temper which says, “God is angry, let us wait a little; God is appeased, let us go ahead again.” Over against such vulgar views of a Deity with a temper Isaiah unveils the awful majesty of God in holy wrath: “For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.” How grim and savage does it appear to our eyes till we understand the thoughts of the sinners to whom it was revealed! God cannot dispel the cowardly thought, that He is anxious only to punish, except by letting His heavy hand abide till it purify also. The permanence of Gods wrath is thus an ennobling, not a stupefying doctrine.
Men also abuse sorrow by defying it, but the end of this is madness. “It forms the greater part of the tragedy of King Lear, that the aged monarch, though he has given his throne away, retains his imperiousness of heart, and continues to exhibit a senseless, if sometimes picturesque, pride and selfishness in face of misfortune. Even when he is overthrown he must still command; he fights against the very elements; he is determined to be at least the master of his own sufferings and destiny. But for this the necessary powers fail him; his life thus disordered terminates in madness. It was only by such an affliction that a character like his could be brought to repentance; to humility, which is the parent of true love, and that love in him could be purified. Hence the melancholy close of that tragedy.” As Shakespeare has dealt with the king, so Isaiah with the people; he also shows us sorrow when it is defied bringing forth madness. On so impious a height mans brain grows dizzy, and he falls into that terrible abyss which is not, as some imagine, hell, but Gods last purgatory. Shakespeare brings shattered Lear out of it, and Isaiah has a remnant of the people to save.