Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 2:7
Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither [is there any] end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither [is there any] end of their chariots:
7. Their land also is full ] Lit. and its (the people’s) land has become filled (and so throughout Isa 2:7-8). silver and gold treasures ] The wealth of the country had increased enormously through commercial activity and the control of the Red Sea traffic (2Ki 14:22) in the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham. These “treasures” were partly expended in procuring “horses and chariots,” as in the time of Solomon. The prophets condemn all such accumulation of earthly resources, as tending to lead the nation away from reliance on the help of Jehovah. Cf. Deu 17:16-17; Deu 20:1; Isa 31:1; Mic 5:10; Zec 9:10.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Their land also is full of silver and gold – This gold was brought chiefly from Ophir. Solomon imported vast quantities of silver and gold from foreign places; 2Ch 8:18; 2Ch 9:10; 1Ch 29:4; compare Job 28:16; 1Ki 10:21, 1Ki 10:27; 2Ch 9:20. And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones. It was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon. From these expressions we see the force of the language of Isaiah – their land is full, etc. This accumulation of silver and gold was expressly forbidden by the law of Moses; Deu 17:17 : Neither shall he (the king of Israel) greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. The reason of this prohibition was, that it tended to produce luxury, effeminacy, profligacy, the neglect of religion, and vice. It is on this account that it is brought by the prophet as an accusation against them that their land was thus filled.
Treasures – Wealth of all kinds; but chiefly silver, gold, precious stones, garments, etc.; compare the note at Mat 6:19.
Their land also is full of horses – This was also forbidden in the law of Moses; Deu 17:16 : But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses. This law, however, was grossly violated by Solomon; 1Ki 10:26 : And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen; he had a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen. It is not quite clear why the use of horses was forbidden to the Jews. Perhaps several reasons might have concurred:
(1) Egypt was distinguished for producing fine horses, and the Egyptians used them much in war Deu 17:16; and one design of God was to make the Jews distinguished in all respects from the Egyptians, and to keep them from commerce with them.
(2) Horses were chiefly used in war, and the tendency of keeping them would be to produce the love of war and conquest.
(3) The tendency of keeping them would be to lead them to put trust in them rather than in God for protection. This is hinted at in Psa 20:7 : Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of Yahweh our God.
(4) Horses were regarded as consecrated to the sun; see Univ. Hist. Anc. P., vol. x., 177. Ed. 1780. They were sacrificed in various nations to the sun, their swiftness being supposed to render them an appropriate offering to that luminary. There is no evidence, however, that they were used for sacrifice among the Hebrews. They were probably employed to draw the chariots in the solemn processions in the worship of the sun. The ancient Persians, who were sun-worshippers, dedicated white horses and chariots to the sun, and it is supposed that other nations derived the practice from them. The sun was supposed to be drawn daily in a chariot by four wondrous coursers, and the fate of Phaeton, who undertook to guide that chariot and to control those coursers, is known to all. The use of horses, therefore, among the Hebrews in the time of Ahaz, when Isaiah lived, was connected with idolatry, and it was mainly on this account that the prophet rebuked their use with so much severity; 2Ki 23:11. It may be added, that in a country like Judea, abounding in hills and mountains, cavalry could not be well employed even in war. On the plains of Egypt it could be employed to advantage; or in predatory excursions, as among the Arabs, horses could be used with great success and effect, and Egypt and Arabia therefore abounded with them. Indeed, these may be regarded as the native countries of the horse. As it was the design of God to separate, as much as possible, the Jews from the surrounding nations, the use of horses was forbidden.
Chariots – Chariots were chiefly used in war, though they were sometimes used for pleasure. Of those intended for war there were two kinds; one for the generals and princes to ride in, the other to break the enemys ranks. These last were commonly armed with hooks or scythes. They were much used by the ancients; Jos 11:4; Jdg 1:19. The Philistines, in their war against Saul, had 30,000 chariots, and 6000 horsemen; 1Sa 13:5. There is no evidence, however, that the Jews used chariots for war. Solomon had many of them 1Ki 10:26, but they do not appear to have been used in any military expedition, but to have been kept for display and pleasure. Judea was a mountainous country, and chariots would have been of little or no use in war.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 2:7
Their land also is full of silver and gold
An up-to-date inventory
There is something startlingly modern about this chapter; if you sit down to analyse it, you feel that there is something startlingly up-to-date about the Inventory.
What did this proud people make their boast about?
1. The abundance of their treasure; their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures.
2. Their shipping and their active commerce all the ships of Tarshish.
3. Their military equipment; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots.
4. Their natural defences; all the high mountains, all the hills that are lifted up.
5. Their artificial defences; every high tower, every fenced wall.
6. The wealth of their timber; all the cedars of Lebanon, all the oaks of Bashan.
7. They boasted even of the treasures of their art; all pleasant pictures. (J. H.Jowett, M. A.)
Gold may shut out the vision of God
An old proverb runs, The sixpence in the mans eye prevented him from seeing the sovereign at the end of his nose. And some men allow the passion money to become so all-absorbing that the coin fills all their vision and shuts out God and His heaven. (W. C. Bonner.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 7. Their land is also full of horses – “And his land is filled with horses”] This was in direct contradiction to God’s command in the law: “But he (the king) shall not multiply horses to himself; nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold,” De 17:16-17. Uzziah seems to have followed the example of Solomon, see 1Kg 10:26-29, who first transgressed in these particulars; he recovered the port of Elath on the Red Sea, and with it that commerce which in Solomon’s days had “made silver and gold as plenteous at Jerusalem as stones,” 2Ch 1:15. He had an army of 307,500 men, in which, as we may infer from the testimony of Isaiah, the chariots and horse made a considerable part. “The law above mentioned was to be a standing trial of prince and people, whether they had trust and confidence in God their deliverer.” See Bp. Sherlock’s Discourses on Prophecy. Dissert. iv., where he has excellently explained the reason and effect of the law, and the influence which the observance or neglect of it had on the affairs of the Israelites.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Neither is there any end of their treasures; they have heaped up riches immoderately, (which was forbidden even to their king, Deu 17:17) and by wicked practices; they are never satisfied, but still greedily pursuing after more and more wealth, making this their chief business and joy. Their land also is full of horses; which even their king was forbidden to multiply, Deu 17:16, much more his subjects.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. goldforbidden to be heapedtogether (De 17:17). Solomondisobeyed (1Ki 10:21; 1Ki 10:27).
horses . . .chariotsforbidden (De17:16). But Solomon disobeyed (1Ki20:26). Horses could be used effectively for war in the plains ofEgypt; not so in the hilly Judea. God designed there should be aswide as possible a distinction between Israel and the Egyptians. Hewould have His people wholly dependent on Him, rather than on theordinary means of warfare (Ps20:7). Also horses were connected with idolatry (2Ki23:11); hence His objection: so the transition to “idols”(Isa 2:8) is natural.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Their land also is full of silver and gold,…. Procured by pardons, indulgences, masses, praying souls out of purgatory, tithes, annates, Peter’s pence, c.
neither [is there any] end of their treasures laid up in the pope’s coffers, in their churches, monasteries, and convents:
their land is also full of horses, neither [is there any] end of their chariots; for the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, &c. to ride on and in. Horses and chariots are mentioned among the wares and merchandise of Rome, in Re 18:13.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In Isa 2:7, Isa 2:8 he describes still further how the land of the people of Jehovah, in consequence of all this (on the future consec. see Ges. 129, 2, a), was crammed full of objects of luxury, of self-confidence, of estrangement from God: “And their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end of their treasures; and their land is filled with horses, and there is no end of their chariots. And their land is filled with – idols; the work of their own hands they worship, that which their own fingers have made.” The glory of Solomon, which revived under Uzziah’s fifty-two years’ reign, and was sustained through Jotham’s reign of sixteen years, carried with it the curse of the law; for the law of the king, in Deu 17:14., prohibited the multiplying of horses, and also the accumulation of gold and silver. Standing armies, and stores of national treasures, like everything else which ministers to carnal self-reliance, were opposed to the spirit of the theocracy. Nevertheless Judaea was immeasurably full of such seductions to apostasy; and not of those alone, but also of things which plainly revealed it, viz., of elilim , idols (the same word is used in Lev 19:4; Lev 26:1, from elil , vain or worthless; it is therefore equivalent to “not-gods”). They worshipped the work of “their own” hands, what “their own” fingers had made: two distributive singulars, as in Isa 5:23, the hands and fingers of every individual (vid., Mic 5:12-13, where the idols are classified). The condition of the land, therefore, was not only opposed to the law of the king, but at variance with the decalogue also. The existing glory was the most offensive caricature of the glory promised to the nation; for the people, whose God was one day to become the desire and salvation of all nations, had exchanged Him for the idols of the nations, and was vying with them in the appropriation of heathen religion and customs.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
7. Their land is filled with silver and gold We must attend to the order which the Prophet here observes; for he now enumerates the reasons why the Lord rejected his people. In the former verse he began with divinations and the customs of strangers; he now comes down to silver and gold; and afterwards he will speak of horses and chariots. There can be no doubt that, having first condemned idolatry, he reproves them, secondly, for covetousness, and, thirdly, for sinful trust, when men depart from God, and contrive for themselves vain grounds of confidence. It was not a thing in itself to be condemned, that this nation had abundance of gold and silver; but because they burned with insatiable covetousness, and trusted to horses and chariots, he justly reproves them.
The Hebrew particle ו ( vau) is here viewed by some as denoting a contrast, supposing the meaning to be, and yet their land is filled with silver and gold. This would show the ingratitude of the people to be the greater, because, though they enjoyed an abundance of all good things, they betook themselves, as if their case had been desperate, to magical arts and to idols, which is much less excusable than if they had fled to them during their adversity; because, though they were fed to the full with an abundance of good things, yet they shook off the yoke of God. In this way he would aggravate the criminality of a nation that fled to idols freely and of their own accord, even though they were luxuriating in their abundance. But I do not receive this interpretation, for I think it too far-fetched. On the contrary, he includes in one continued enumeration the vices with which that nation was chargeable, covetousness, sinful confidence, and idolatry. Accordingly, though the opinion of those who explain it as a contrast be a true opinion, it does not harmonize with this passage.
And there is no end of their treasures Isaiah proceeds to illustrate more clearly and forcibly what he has formerly said; for, though it be not in itself sinful or blamable that a person should possess gold or silver, provided that he make a proper use of it, he properly launches out against that wicked desire and mad eagerness to accumulate money, which is most detestable. He says that there is no end, because their eagerness is insatiable, and goes beyond the bounds of nature. The same opinion must be formed about horses and chariots, for false confidence is here reproved. To prevent this evil, the Lord had forbidden kings to gather together a great multitude of horses or chariots, lest, trusting to them, they should cause the people to return to Egypt. (Deu 17:16.) since, therefore, it is difficult for men to have resources of this kind in abundance without being also lifted up with pride, it was the will of God that his people should not have them at all, or at least should be satisfied with a moderate share.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(7) Their land also is full of silver and gold.The long and prosperous reign of Uzziah, especially his trade with Ophir, had reproduced the wealth of the days of Solomon. Tribute came from the Arabians and Ammonites (2Ch. 26:8). The words point to an earlier date than that at which Ahaz was left naked and distressed (2Ch. 28:19). Even under Hezekiah, Sennacherib records in the inscription on the Taylor cylinder that the tribute paid by that king amounted to 30 talents of gold, and 800 talents of silver, besides wrought metal; and a like profusion of wealth, prior to Sennacheribs invasion, is shown in the account of Hezekiahs display of his treasures, in Isa. 39:2 (Cheyne, in loc.; Records of the Past, i. 38).
Their land is also full of . . . chariots.Here also the reign of Uzziah was like that of Solomon (1Ki. 10:26-28). Chariots were used probably both for state pageants (Son. 1:9; Son. 3:9-10) and as part of the matriel of war (2Ch. 1:14; 2Ch. 9:25). Isaiah here also agrees with Micah (Mic. 1:13) in looking on this as the beginning of sin (see Deu. 17:16; 1Sa. 8:11). For him, as for Zechariah (Zec. 9:9), the true King was to come, not with chariots and horses, but riding, as the judges of Israel had ridden (Jdg. 5:10; Jdg. 10:4; Jdg. 12:14), on a colt, the foal of an ass.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
7. Another effect of the intercourse with foreign peoples which the prophet inveighed against, was foreign money and foreign troops.
Their land The land of Judah, a rich agricultural land, under great cultivation, (for Uzziah loved husbandry, 2Ch 26:10,) and produced abundant commerce, and a great influx of gold and silver at this time.
Silver and gold It was not for gold as such, but the love of it for forbidden luxury, that is lamented.
Horses chariots The law of Moses against the multiplication of these, (Deu 17:16,) was clearly to encourage peaceful agricultural habits among the people. “Chariots” and “horses,” however, became very common. But how about highways for chariots? At the present time no such roads exist in Palestine nor can they be made, except at very large expense, over parts of the main bridle-path thoroughfares: neither have they ever prevailed there under Mohammedan rule. Civilization, in the Bible ages of Palestine, must have been vastly in advance of the present.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 2:7. Their land also is full of silver, &c. In the original, this consists of a stanza of four verses, in which the construction of the two members is alternate; their land is full of silver, answering to their land is full of horses; as, neither is there any end of their treasures, does to neither is there any end of their chariots. The express orders of Moses against multiplying horses were intended to prevent the Israelites from having any commerce with Egypt, remarkable for its horses, and the source of idolatry: We therefore find, that when Solomon had opened a trade for horses, his kingdom likewise was therefore notorious for idolatry; in allusion to which, the prophet here, after saying, there is no end of their chariots, adds, their land also is full of idols. See Deu 17:16.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Isa 2:7 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither [is there any] end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither [is there any] end of their chariots:
Ver. 7. Their land also is full of silver. ] They had forsaken the fountain of living waters, and now they hew them out broken cisterns; they have made their gold their god, which is a more subtle kind of idolatry, Col 3:5 dum sibi ipsis numen quoddam larariura constant. But though their houses were full of silver and gold, their hearts were not; for they were vexed with the curse of dissatisfaction. Ecc 5:10
“ Auri nempe fames parto fit maior ab auro. ” – Prudentius.
Neither is there any end of their treasures. ] Josephus saith that there was a world of money found at Jerusalem when taken by the Romans; so there was at Constantinople when taken by the Turks; and therefore taken, because the inhabitants could not find in their hearts to part with it, though for their own defence.
Their land also is full of horses.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
land: Deu 17:16, Deu 17:17, 1Ki 10:21-27, 2Ch 9:20-25, Jer 5:27, Jer 5:28, Jam 5:1-3, Rev 18:3, Rev 18:11-17
their land is: Isa 30:16, Isa 31:1, Deu 17:16, 1Ki 4:26, 1Ki 10:26, Psa 20:7, Hos 14:3
Reciprocal: 1Ki 1:5 – and he 2Ch 9:28 – brought Job 3:15 – who filled their houses
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 2:7. Their land also is full of silver, &c. They have heaped up riches immoderately, and still are greedily pursuing after more. Lowth thinks the prophet is especially reproving those who, in the midst of the public calamities, made no conscience of enriching themselves by oppression and injustice. Their land also is full of horses Which even their kings were forbidden to multiply, (as they were also forbidden to multiply gold and silver,) and much more the people. In the original this verse consists of a stanza of four lines, in which the construction of the two members is alternate, the first line answering to the third, and the second to the fourth.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2:7 Their land also is full of {p} silver and gold, neither [is there any] end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither [is there any] end of their chariots:
(p) The prophet first condemned their superstition and idolatry next their covetousness and thirdly their vain trust in worldly means.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Specifically, Israel had filled herself with the wealth, armaments, and idols of the pagan nations (cf. Deu 17:16-17; 1Ki 10:26 to 1Ki 11:8). King Uzziah’s successful reign brought material prosperity to Judah, but this wealth had only encouraged Jewish materialism and neglect of God. Judah had accumulated these things to make herself secure, but she was only trusting in what she herself had made. Contrast the nations that will seek spiritual benefits (Isa 2:3), enjoy peace (Isa 2:4), and follow the Lord (Isa 2:4).