Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 10:4
Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still.
4. Without me slain ] This clause is very difficult. The easiest explanation perhaps is to take it as the answer to the questions of Isa 10:3: ( they can do nothing) except crouch under the captives and fall under the slain. Another is “Except one (here and there) crouch among captives, they must fell under the slain.” Objections to both occur readily enough to anyone who reads the Hebrew, especially the abrupt changes from singular to plural. An ingenious conjecture of Lagarde’s gives the sense “Beltis crouches, Osiris is broken ( cf. Isa 46:1; Jer 50:2), they fall, &c.”; i.e. the heathen gods shall be unable to give protection to their votaries. But there is no evidence that Egyptian deities (Osiris) were worshipped in Israel in Isaiah’s time; and in any case their sudden introduction here would be surprising.
his hand is stretched out still ] See on ch. Isa 5:25 ff.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Without me – bilty. There has been a great variety of interpretation affixed to this expression. The sense in which our translators understood it was, evidently, that they should be forsaken of God; and that, as the effect of this, they should bow down under the condition of captives, or among the slain. The Vulgate and the Septuagint, however. and many interpreters understand the word bore as a simple negative. Where will you flee for refuge? Where will you deposit your wealth so as not to bow down under a chain? Vulgate, Ne incurvemini sub vinculo. Septuagint, tou me empesein eis apagonen – Not to fall into captivity. The Hebrew will bear either mode of construction. Vitringa and Lowth understand it as our translators have done, as meaning that God would forsake them, and that without him, that is, deprived of his aid, they would be destroyed.
They shall bow down – They shall be subdued, as armies are that are taken captive.
Under the prisoners – That is, under the condition of prisoners; or as prisoner. Some understand it to mean, that they should bear down in the place of prisoners; that is, in prison, But it evidently means, simply, that they should be captives.
They shall fall under the slain – They shall be slain. Gesenius renders it, Among the prisoners, and among the slain. The Chaldee reads it, You shall be east into chains out of your own land, and beyond your own cities you shall be cast out slain. Vitringa supposes that the prophet, in this verse, refers to the custom, among the ancients, of placing prisoners in war under a yoke of wood to indicate their captivity. That such a custom obtained, there can be no doubt; but it is not probable that Isaiah refers to it here. The simple idea is, that many of them should be taken captive, and many of them slain. This prediction was fulfilled in the invasion of Tiglath-pileser; 2 Kings 15; 16.
For all this – Notwithstanding these calamities. The cup of punishment is not filled by these, but the divine judgment shall still be poured out further upon the nation. The anger of God shall not be fully expressed by these minor inflictions of his wrath, but his hand shall continue to be stretched out until the whole nation shall be overwhelmed and ruined; see the note at Isa 10:12.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 4. Without me] That is, without my aid: they shall be taken captive even by the captives, and shall be subdued even by the vanquished. “The yod in bilti is a pronoun, as in Ho 13:4.” – Kimchi on the place. One MS. has lebilti.
As the people had hitherto lived without God in worship and obedience; so they should now be without his help, and should perish in their transgressions.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Without me they shall bow down: the words thus translated seem to contain an answer to the foregoing questions: In vain do you seek for a refuge and help from others; for without me, without my favour and help which you have forfeited, and do not seek to recover, and which I shall withdraw from you, or because you are without me, or forsaken by me,
you shall bow down, notwithstanding all your succours. In the Hebrew here is a change of the person and number, which is very usual in prophetical writings. The LXX., and some others, join these words to the foregoing verse, and translate them thus, that you may not bow down: so the sense of the place is, What will you do to prevent your captivity or slaughter? And it is true, that the first word is elsewhere taken for a negative particle. But the former translation seems more genuine.
Under the prisoners; or rather, in the place (as this particle signifies, and is rendered by interpreters, Gen 30:2; 50:19; Exo 16:29; Jos 5:8, and elsewhere) of the prisoners, or among the prisoners; and so in the next clause, among or in the place of the slain.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. Without menot having Me to”flee to” (Isa 10:3).
bow downBereft ofstrength they shall fall; or else, they shall lie down fettered.
under . . . underrather,”among” (literally, “in the place of”) [HORSLEY].The “under” may be, however, explained, “trodden underthe (feet of the) prisoners going into captivity,”and “overwhelmed under the heaps of slain on thebattlefield” [MAURER].
Isa 10:5-34;Isa 11:12. DESTRUCTIONOF THE ASSYRIANS;COMING OF MESSIAH;HYMN OF PRAISE.
Isa 10:9;Isa 10:11 show that Samaria wasdestroyed before this prophecy. It was written when Assyria proposed(a design which it soon after tried to carry out under Sennacherib)to destroy Judah and Jerusalem, as it had destroyed Samaria. This isthe first part of Isaiah’s prophecies under Hezekiah. Probablybetween 722 and 715 B.C.(see Isa 10:27).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain,…. That is, either, being forsaken by me, and destitute of my help, they shall bow down; or, “because they are without me”, are not my people, and do not hearken to me, therefore they shall bow down, so David Kimchi; or, were it not for me, they would, as others; or that they might not bow down and fall; and so the words may be connected with the preceding verse
Isa 10:3: others render the word, translated “without me, besides”; and the sense is either, as Moses Kimchi, besides their bowing in their own land, when subdued by the Gentiles, a greater affliction shall befall them, captivity; when they should be either carried captive or slain; or besides him that shall bow down under the prisoners, they shall fall under the slain; besides those that are taken, others shall be killed; or none shall escape, but, or “except”, him that bows, and hides himself under the prisoners, or in the place of the slain, that he might not be thought to be alive: or the sense is, the desolation shall be so general, that none shall escape, either they shall be taken prisoners, or they shall be slain; agreeably to which Noldius i renders the words, “without me”, everyone “shall bow down among the prisoners, or shall fall among the slain”; which gives the best sense of them; that, being left of God for their sins, they would either be bound and carried captive, or else slain with the sword, and one or the other would be the lot of everyone of them:
for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still; the final and utter destruction of the nation of the Jews being then not yet come, when carried captive to Babylon, there remained a greater calamity for them, to come by the hands of the Romans. These first four verses Isa 10:1 seem more properly to belong to the preceding chapter Isa 9:1, and this should begin with the next verse Isa 10:5.
i Ebr. Concord. Part. p. 201, 771.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
4. If they shall not fall down. As the meaning of the particle בלתי ( bilti) is ambiguous, various interpretations of it have been given by commentators. Some take it in an exclusive sense, as in many other passages of Scripture; as if he had said, Only he shall fall down among the bound and slain; that is, because all will be condemned and given up either to captivity or to death. Others render it, Without me they shall fall. If this rendering be preferred, the Prophet shows that the cause of their destruction is, that they have revolted from God; and unquestionably the cause of all our distresses is, to forsake the fountain of life and of salvation, and of all blessings. In this manner he sharply reproves the madness of the ungodly, who vaunt of having been forsaken by God, as if nothing were more desirable or pleasant than to withdraw to the greatest distance from him; and thus it will be an ironical reproof, that their calamity will arise from no other source than from the absence of God, in whom, without any good ground, they had rejoiced.
Others consider it to be an elliptical expression, that they will have no hiding-place but by throwing themselves down under the captives and the slain. It might also be a form of an oath, If they shall not; (159) and the meaning would be highly appropriate, that God swears in wrath that he will spare none of them, but will abandon some to captivity, and will deliver up others to be put to death. In a word, this declaration shows what are the consequences that await all those who, after having been warned by the word of God, do not repent. From what immediately follows, we learn that a dreadful and alarming destruction is threatened; for he repeats what he had already said frequently, that the wrath of the Lord is not yet apparent, that he will find out more frightful punishments for avenging himself. This teaches us that nothing is more truly desirable than to be moved by a sincere feeling of repentance, and to acknowledge our fault, that we may obtain pardon from the Lord.
(159) For this form of an oath, See page 173, n. 1.— Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) Without me they shall bow down . . .The Hebrew text is obscure, but these words were probably intended as the answer to the taunting question that had preceded them. Dropping the direct address, and passing to the third person, the prophet seems to say as with a kind of ominous aside, No, there is no ally, no hiding-place but this, except they bow down among the captives or fall among the slain. Exile or death, that was their only alternative. When that sentence has been uttered, the doom-bell, as we have called it, For all this . . . tolls once more. If we adopt the Authorised version we have the same fact asserted, with the suggested thought that there was a refuge to be found in God.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Without me Apart from my help. The moral is, Leave all else, and flee to me. There is no other door to safety.
They shall bow down Sinking for very shame and self-reproach lower than other captives, or even to lie beneath the slain in war. The refrain is again chanted, and the series of strophes pointing to the captivity of Israel closes. But black as the prophecy is for Israel, it becomes blacker for Assyria, its foe and captor, in the next piece recited by Isaiah. However dark the shades settle on Israel God’s own chosen but erring ones somehow they retire, measurably in virtue of a better few still preserved among them.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 10:4 Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still.
Ver. 4. Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, ] i.e., Without any fault of mine. Hos 13:9 Or, as some render it, Ne corruat inter vinctos, et inter occisos cadant; that it, your glory, should not bow down under the prisoners, and they fall under the slain; i.e., that ye be not some of you captivated, and others slain by the enemy. And yet behold a worse matter.
For all this his anger is not turned away.
a Hac oratione vir sanctus impios crueatat, et vulaerat. – Osor.
bow down under the prisoners = captives will be enough to make you bow down.
fall under the slain = mortally wounded ones [will be enough] to make you fall.
For, &c. See note on Isa 9:12.
Without me: Lev 26:17, Lev 26:36, Lev 26:37, Deu 31:15-18, Deu 32:30, Jer 37:10, Hos 9:12
For all this: Isa 5:25, Isa 9:12, Isa 9:17, Isa 9:21
Reciprocal: Lev 26:16 – for your 1Sa 2:4 – stumbled Psa 138:7 – thou shalt stretch Isa 12:1 – though Isa 13:7 – shall all Isa 17:4 – the glory Isa 65:12 – will I Jer 2:37 – for the Lord Jer 4:8 – the Jer 6:12 – I will Jer 6:15 – therefore Jer 21:4 – Behold Jer 21:5 – with an Jer 46:12 – stumbled Eze 6:14 – will I Eze 14:9 – and I will Mal 1:4 – They shall build Mat 24:8 – General
10:4 {d} Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still.
(d) Because they have forsaken me, some will go into captivity and the rest will be slain.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes