Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 5:18
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
18. The figure seems to express two ideas: (1) the determination with which these men set themselves to work iniquity, and (2) the inevitable connexion between sin and judgment. The idea of punishment is included in the words iniquity (or “guilt”) and sin.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
18, 19. The third woe, against the mocking scepticism which leads men to harden themselves in sin. The men addressed do not believe in the prophet’s threats of a day of retribution yet all the while they are unconsciously doing their utmost to bring about their fulfilment.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wo unto them … – This is a new denunciation. It introduces another form of sin, and threatens its appropriate punishment.
That draw iniquity with cords of vanity – The general idea in this verse and the next, is, doubtless, that of plunging deeper and deeper into sin. The word sin here, has been sometimes supposed to mean the punishment for sin. The word has that meaning sometimes, but it seems here to be taken in its usual sense. The word cords means strings of any kind, larger or smaller; and the expression cords of vanity, is supposed to mean small, slender, feeble strings, like the web of a spider. The word vanity shav’, May, perhaps, have the sense here of falsehood or deceit; and the cords of deceit may denote the schemes of evil, the plans for deceiving people, or of bringing them into a snare, as the fowler springs his deceitful snare upon the unsuspecting bird. The Chaldee translates it, Woe to those who begin to sin by little and little, drawing sin by cords of vanity; these sins grow and increase until they are strong, and are like a cart-rope. The Septuagint renders it, Woe to those who draw sin with a long cable; that is, one sin is added to another, until it comes to an enormous length, and the whole is drawn along together. Probably the true idea is that of the ancient interpretation of the rabbis, An evil inclination is at first like a fine hair string, but the finishing like a cart-rope. At first, they draw sin with a slender cord, then they go on to greater deeds of iniquity that urge them on, and draw them with their main strength, as with a cart-rope. They make a strong effort to commit iniquity.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 5:18-19
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity.
Frivolity and profanity
Frivolity, he says, is the herald and handmaid of guilt. The cords are cords of vanity bound about us in mere thoughtlessness in the unguarded hours of recreation, in the giddy whirl of society, when talk is gay and free, and no man weighs his words; the cords of vanity bind us on subtly but surely to the calamitous burden of sin. I submit to you that the prophet in thus linking together frivolity and iniquity, commends himself to us as a close and just observer of human society. Profanity is the last term of a series; it is a stage we reach by the unmarked way of frivolous habit, and that unmarked way is the broad way of the general life. Society itself is unfavourable to thought and gravity and depth of character. It makes us of necessity superficial, light, shallow. At best it ministers to the gracious externals of a mans conduct, and too often it does this at the cost of his character; for the philosopher said truly that custom is the principal magistrate of a mans life; and if, by the ceaseless iteration of frivolous speech and action, we bind upon ourselves the chain of frivolous habit, be sure the mischief penetrates into the very citadel of character. (Canon H. Hensley Henson, B. D.)
Gods woes
Gods woes are better than the devils welcomes. When we get a woe in this book of blessings it is sent as a warning, that we may escape from woe. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Disguises and defiances
Society, for its self-preservation and well-being, provides that virtue should be in the ascendant, should sit on the throne, should hold the empire and make the laws of the world. There have been times when vice has ostentatiously unmasked itself in high places, and with a triumphant audacity has made itself the fashion and the social law. Such was the epoch of the decadence of the old Roman civilisation. Such were the times of the restoration of the English monarchy under Charles II.
The moral collapse at the Restoration was the inevitable unbending of the bow after the rigours of the Puritan regime. England was tired of unmelodious psalm singing and endless homilies on the sin of eating Christmas pies and dancing around May poles. It welcomed with a strange alacrity and a strange forgetfulness the exiled prince, whose morals, none too good to begin with, had been debauched in foreign courts, and who brought back to the palace of his fathers nothing of royalty, except enchanting manners, graceful wit, and an insatiable thirst for pleasure. But the enthronement of vice was only for a day. Men on the morrow smote it on the face, and hurled it from the seat which gave it power and lustre. This is the history of fashionable and jewelled vice in every age. When those who inherit wealth and polite culture and the accumulated embellishments of life conspicuously trample on the laws of righteousness the insulted world calls them to account, and in self-defence consigns them to social outlawry. So plainly is Virtue the eldest born and the fairest of the daughters of God. If our Lord uttered woe on the heartless and pretentious morality of His day, the prophet uttered woe on the confessed and ostentatious immorality of his time. Isaiahs words, as well as Christs, have a bearing on our modern life: Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope. Men hate hypocrisy. A profitable virtue that is not real, or a formal virtue that is not large and loving, moves us to scorn or pity. But, strange to say, the hatred of hypocrisy is not always in the interests of virtue I will not be a hypocrite, says one, and in his horror of hypocrisy he rushes into an open and shameless evil life. This is what the prophet means in his graphic picture, Woe unto them that draw iniquity, etc. He depicts a class of men who have deliberately harnessed themselves to evil, as a horse or mule is harnessed, to a loaded waggon. There are forms of iniquity which are difficult and laborious. Those who get over any ground with them must pull them with a cart rope. It is grievous business, but some men choose it, and take more trouble to be bad than actually is necessary to be good. And they prosecute ostentatiously the business that they have chosen. They take no care to conceal the evil industry of their life. It is the instinct of sin to disguise itself. It usually skulks behind an assumed goodness. It takes to itself virtuous names. It puts on masks to hide itself, not only from the eyes of men, but also from the eyes of conscience. But the man who drags sin with a cart rope boasts only one virtue, and that is a real one: he is no hypocrite. He has thrown appearances to the winds. He drags his iniquity conspicuously on the highway, in the daylight. He does not care to conceal the coat of arms on the carriage, or the livery of the driver who holds the reins and snaps over him the whip. Perhaps no one ever fully commits himself to this sort of life until he has, or thinks that he has, arrived at the conclusion that all goodness in the world is a sham; that the virtue to which men sing praises is simply a convenient fiction, which they affect to believe, and pretend to possess; that, as there is no real righteousness on the earth, so there is no sovereign righteousness in the heavens; that God is simply a dumb force, without moral quality, and indifferent to the moral quality of His creatures. Hence the prophet makes such a one say, in presumptuous taunt and irony: Let Him make speed, etc. Is this rude picture, culled from the page of the old Hebrew prophet, unsuited to these smooth times and this Christianised civilisation? Do none of you ever say: I know it is wrong. It is an offence against God, against myself, against my neighbour. It is an unquestionable violation of what is pure and honest. I can See the harm that it works; but I do not disguise it. I do not pretend to be other than I am. I am at least frank. I do not affect a virtue which I do not possess? Well, this is one alternative to hypocrisy. Did you ever think that there is another,–to recognise the evil in your nature and the sin in your life; to look at it with keen, brave eyes, illumined by the study of Gods law to guard against it day by day and moment by moment; and resolutely to fight it, in its first impulses, in its fiercest assaults, by the help of Gods grace? Is not this a possible alternative? It is not demanded of you that you be sinless; but you need not be the liveried slave of sin. It is not required of you that you be perfect; but you can enlist and do battle on the side of right. (W. W. Battershall, D. D.)
Cords and cart-ropes
I. Explain the singular description. Here are persons harnessed to the waggon of sin–harnessed to it by many cords, all light as vanity and yet strong as cart ropes.
1. Let me give you a picture. Here is a man who, as a young man, heard the Gospel and grew up under the influence of it. He is an intelligent man, a Bible reader, and somewhat of a theologian. He attended a Bible class, was an apt pupil, and could explain much of Scripture, but he took to lightness and frothiness. He made an amusement of religion and a sport of serious things. He came under the bond of this religious trifling, but it was a cord of vanity small as a packthread. Years ago he began to be bound to his sin by this kind of trifling, and at the present moment I am not sure that he ever cares to go and hear the Gospel or to read the Word of God, for he has grown to despise that which he sported with. The wanton witling has degenerated into a malicious scoffer: his cord has become a cart rope. His life is all trifling now.
2. I have seen the same thing take another shape, and then it appeared as captious questioning. How can he believe in Christ when he requires Him, first of all, to be put through a catechism and to be made to answer cavils? Oh, take heed of tying up your soul with cart ropes of scepticism.
3. Some have a natural dislike to religious things and cannot be brought to attend to them. Let me qualify the statement. They are quite prepared to attend a place of worship and to hear sermons, and occasionally to read the Scriptures, and to give their money to help on some benevolent cause; but this is the point at which they draw the line–they do not want to think, to pray, to repent, to believe, or to make heart work of the matter. If you indulge in demurs and delays and prejudices in the first days of your conviction, the time may come when those little packthreads will be so intertwisted with each other that they will make a great cart rope, and you will become an opposer of everything that is good, determined to abide forever harnessed to the great Juggernaut car of your iniquities, and so to perish.
4. I have known some men get harnessed to that ear in another way, and that is by deference to companions. There is no doubt that many people go to hell for the love of being respectable. It is not to be doubted that multitudes pawn their souls, and lose their God and heaven, merely for the sake of standing well in the estimation of a profligate. He that would be free forever must break the cords ere yet they harden into chains.
5. Some men are getting into bondage in another way; they are forming gradual habits of evil.
6. I fear that not a few are under the delusive notion that they are safe as they are. Carnal security is made up of cords of vanity.
II. THERE IS A WOE ABOUT REMAINING HARNESSED TO THE CART OF SIN, and that woe is expressed in our text.
1. It has been hard work already to tug at sins load.
2. But, if you remain harnessed to this car of sin, the weight increases. You are like a horse that has to go a journey, and pick up parcels at every quarter of a mile: you are increasing the heavy luggage and baggage that you have to drag behind you.
3. Further, I want you to notice that as the load grows heavier, so the road becomes worse, the ruts are deeper, the hills are steeper, and the sloughs are more full of mire. An old man with his bones filled with the sin of his youth is a dreadful sight to look upon; he is a curse to others, and a burden to himself.
4. The day will come when the load will crush the horse.
5. I am sure that there is nobody here who desires to be eternally a sinner: let him then beware, for each hour of sin brings its hardness and its difficulty of change. When the moral brakes are taken off, and the engine is on the downgrade, and must run on at a perpetually quickening rate forever, then is the soul lost indeed.
III. Now I want to offer some ENCOURAGEMENT FOR BREAKING LOOSE.
1. There is hope for every harnessed slave of Satan. Jesus Christ has come into the world to rescue those who are bound with chains.
2. You are bound with the cords of sin, and in order that all this sin of yours might effectually be put away, the Lord Jesus, the Son of the Highest, was Himself bound.
3. There is in this world a mysterious Being whom thou knowest not, but whom some of us know, who is able to work thy liberty. Wherever there is a soul that would be free from sin this free Spirit waits to help him.
4. Our experience should be a great encouragement to you. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Spiritual cart ropes
Cart ropes are composed of several small cords firmly twisted together, which serve to connect the beasts of burden with the draught they pull after them. These represent a complication of means closely united, whereby a people here described continue to join them selves to the most wearisome of all burdens. They consist of false reasonings, foolish pretexts, and corrupt maxims, by which obstinate transgressors become firmly united to their sins, and persist in dragging after them their iniquities. Of this sort the following are a few specimens: God is merciful, and His goodness will not suffer any of His creatures to be completely and everlastingly miserable. Others, as well as they, are transgressors. Repentance will be time enough upon a death bed or in old age. The greatest of sinners often pass unpunished. A future state of retribution is uncertain. Unite these, and such like cords, and, I suppose, you have the cart ropes whereby the persons mentioned draw after them much sin and iniquity. All these pretexts, however, are light as vanity. (R. Macculloch.)
The cord of sin
These words are at all times, and among every people, of especial interest, were it only on two accounts–
(1) The easy thoughtlessness with which men begin their acquaintance with sin, and
(2) The hardness of heart in which they are confirmed by its habits. These are represented under a very lively figure in the former of these two verses; and the desperate rebelliousness of spirit to which they are brought, so as to utter defiance against the judgment of the Almighty, is expressed to the life in the latter.
I. THE FIGURE under which the sinner is represented in the former of these verses is that of a rope-maker. He begins with a slight slender thread of flax or hemp, which he can break almost with as much ease as a spiders web; but the end of his work is a cart rope, thick and strong enough to bind the strongest man or beast upon earth. So a man begins and ends with sin. He begins with drawing iniquity with cords of vanity. The iniquity upon which he is tempted to enter seems to him a mere trifle at first, to which, if not good, he thinks that he gives a hard name to call it downright had; and if it even do smite his conscience with some evil signs of its real nature, which he can hardly mistake, he is vain enough, in the notion of his own strength, to think, that when he has gone into it he can as easily come out of it again. It is but as flax or tow (he says); it is but a cord of vanity and not of substance. He needs not to go on spinning and drawing it out (he thinks); but he will stop short as soon as he has gone as far as he wants, and that is not far. Alas! how many can fix the beginning of their ruin in this world, and imminent peril of the judgment of the next, on the day when they said in foolish security, and in face of a warning conscience, It is but for this once! Alas! they never said so again. It proved to them to be now and forever.
II. The text informs us in the next verse that these men, who, beginning with drawing iniquity with cords of vanity, had ended with drawing sin, as it were, with a cart rope, WENT ON TO MOCK AT JUDGMENT TO COME. The thoughts of judgment to come re, of course, very unpleasant to him who knows that he shall have to suffer from it when it does come. His sin, therefore, hardens him into a disbelief of it. (R. W. Evans, B.D.)
The growth of sin
Sin grows as naturally and as fast as the fire, which lays a city in ruins, comes out of a single spark in some solitary obscure corner; as surely as the rains, which bury a whole country in a flood, begin with a few sprinkled drops, which were not worth talking about; as surely as the river, which must be crossed with ships, begins with a well which you might empty almost with the scoop of your hand; as certainly as the strong thick cart rope begins with a few weak flaxen or hempen threads. (R. W.Evans, B. D.)
Strength of habit
The surgeon of a regiment in India relates the following incident: A soldier rushed into the tent, to inform me that one of his comrades was drowning in a pond close by, and nobody could attempt to save him in consequence of the dense weeds which covered the surface. On repairing to the spot, we found the poor fellow in his last struggle, manfully attempting to extricate himself from the meshes of rope-like grass that encircled his body; but, to all appearance, the more he laboured to escape, the more firmly they became coiled round his limbs. At last he sank, and the floating plants closed in, and left not a trace of the disaster. After some delay, a raft was made, and we put off to the spot, and sinking a pole some twelve feet, a native dived, holding on by the stake, and brought the body to the surface. I shall never forget the expression of the dead mans face–the clenched teeth, and fearful distortion of the countenance, while coils of long trailing weeds clung round his body and limbs, the muscles of which stood out stiff and rigid, whilst his hands grasped thick masses, showing how bravely he had struggled for life. This heart-rending picture is a terribly accurate representation era man with a conscience alarmed by remorse, struggling with his sinful habits, but finding them too strong for him. Divine grace can save the wretch from his unhappy condition, but if he be destitute of that, his remorseful agonies will but make him more hopelessly the slave of his passions. Laocoon, in vain endeavouring to tear off the serpents coils from himself and children, aptly portrays the long-enslaved sinner contending with sin in his own strength. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Insidious nature of sin
In the gardens of Hampton Court you will see many trees entirely vanquished and well-nigh strangled by huge coils of ivy, which are wound about them like the snakes around the unhappy Laocoon: there is no untwisting the folds, they are too giant-like, and fast fixed, and every hour the rootlets of the climber are sucking the life out of the unhappy tree. Yet there was a day when the ivy was a tiny aspirant, only asking a little aid in climbing; had it been denied then, the tree had never become its victim, but by degrees the humble weakling grew in strength and arrogance, and at last it assumed the mastery, and the tall tree became the prey of the creeping, insinuating destroyer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Moral slavery
James II on his death bed thus addressed his son, There is no slavery like sin and no liberty like Gods service. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 18. With a cart-rope – “As a long cable”] The Septuagint, Aquila, Sym., and Theod., for bechabley, read kechahley, , or ; and the Septuagint, instead of shau, read some other word signifying long; ; and so likewise the Syriac, arecha. Houbigant conjectures that the word which the Septuagint had in their copies was sarua, which is used Le 21:18; Le 22:23, for something in an animal body superfluous, lengthened beyond its natural measure. And he explains it of sin added to sin, and one sin drawing on another, till the whole comes to an enormous length and magnitude; compared to the work of a rope-maker still increasing and lengthening his rope, with the continued addition of new materials. “Eos propheta similes facit homini restiario, qui funem torquet, cannabe addita et contorta, eadem iterans, donec funem in longum duxerit, neque eum liceat protrahi longius.” “An evil inclination,” says Kimchi on this place, from the ancient rabbins, “is at the beginning like a fine hair-string, but at the finishing like a thick cart-rope.” By a long progression in iniquity, and a continued accumulation of sin, men arrive at length to the highest degree of wickedness; bidding open defiance to God, and scoffing at his threatened judgments, as it is finely expressed in the next verse. The Chaldee paraphrast explains it in the same manner, of wickedness increasing from small beginnings, till it arrives to a great magnitude. – L.
I believe neither the rabbins nor Bishop Lowth have hit on the true meaning of this place, the prophet seems to refer to idol sacrifices. The victims they offered were splendidly decked out for the sacrifice. Their horns and hoofs were often gilded, and their heads dressed out with fillets and garlands. The cords of vanity may refer to the silken strings by which they were led to the altar, some of which were unusually thick. The offering for iniquity was adorned with fillets and garlands; the sin-offering with silken cords, like unto cart-ropes. Pride, in their acts of humiliation, had the upper hand.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That draw iniquity; that are not only drawn to sin by the allurements of the world, or by the persuasions of wicked men, being surprised and overtaken by sin, as sometimes good men are, Gal 6:1, but are active and industrious in drawing sin to themselves, or themselves to sin; that greedily and steadily pursue sill, and the occasions of it, and are not at rest till they have overtaken it; that sin wilfully, and resolvedly, and industriously.
With cords of vanity; or, with cords of lying, as the last word frequently signifies, i.e. with vain and deceitful arguments and pretences, whereby sinners generally draw themselves to sin; among which, one follows in the next verse, to wit, the impunity which they promise to themselves. Or these cords may note the means which they use to accomplish that iniquity which they have devised.
With a cart rope; with all their might, as beasts commonly do that draw carts with ropes.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18. Third Woeagainstobstinate perseverance in sin, as if they wished to provoke divinejudgments.
iniquityguilt,incurring punishment [MAURER].
cords,c.cart-ropeRabbins say, “An evil inclination is at firstlike a fine hair-string, but the finishing like a cart-rope.“The antithesis is between the slender cords of sophistry, likethe spider’s web (Isa 59:5Job 8:14), with which one sindraws on another, until they at last bind themselves withgreat guilt as with a cart-rope. They strain every nerve insin.
vanitywickedness.
sinsubstantive, not averb: they draw on themselves “sin” and its penaltyrecklessly.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity,…. The prophet returns to the wicked again, and goes on with the account of their sin and punishment; and here describes such, not that are drawn into sin unawares, through the prevalence of their own hearts’ lusts and corruptions, through the temptations of Satan, the snares of the world, or the persuasions of others; but such who draw it to themselves, seek after it, and willingly commit it; who rush and force themselves into it; who solicit it, and seek and take all occasions and opportunities of doing it; and take a great deal of pains about it; and make use of all arguments, reasonings, and pretences they can devise, to engage themselves and others in the practice of it; which are all cords of vanity, fallacious and deceitful.
And sin as it were with a cart rope; using all diligence, wisdom, policy, and strength; labouring with all might and main to effect it. Some by “iniquity” and “sin” understand punishment, as the words used sometimes signify; and that the sense is, that such persons described by their boldness and impudence in sinning, by their impenitence and hardness of heart, and by adding sin to sin, draw upon themselves swift destruction, and the greater damnation. The Targum interprets it of such that begin with lesser sins, and increase to more ungodliness; paraphrasing it thus,
“woe to them that begin to sin a little, and they go on and increase until that they are strong, and “their” sins “are” as a cart rope;”
to which agrees that saying in the Talmud g,
“the evil imagination or corruption of nature at first is like a spider’s thread, but at last it is like to cart ropes; as it is said, “woe to them that draw iniquity”, &c.”
g T. Bab. Succa, fol. 52. 1. & Sanhedrin, fol. 99. 2. Vid. Bereshit Rabba, sect. 22. fol. 19. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The third woe is directed against the supposed strong-minded men, who called down the judgment of God by presumptuous sins and wicked words. “Woe unto them that draw crime with cords of lying, and sin as with the rope of the waggon.” Knobel and most other commentators take m ashak in the sense of attrahere (to draw towards one’s self): “They draw towards them sinful deeds with cords of lying palliation, and the cart-rope of the most daring presumption;” and cite, as parallel examples, Job 40:24 and Hos 11:4. But as m ashak is also used in Deu 21:3 in the sense of drawing in a yoke, that is to say, drawing a plough or chariot; and as the waggon or cart ( agalah , the word commonly used for a transport-waggon, as distinguished from m ercabah , the state carriage or war chariot is expressly mentioned here, the figure employed is certainly the same as that which underlies the New Testament (“unequally yoked,” 2Co 6:14). Iniquity was the burden which they drew after them with cords of lying ( shav’h : see at Psa 26:4 and Job 15:31), i.e., “want of character or religion;” and sin was the waggon to which they were harnessed as if with a thick cart-rope (Hofmann, Drechsler, and Caspari; see Ewald, 221, a). Iniquity and sin are mentioned here as carrying with them their own punishment. The definite (crime or misdeed) is generic, and the indefinite qualitative and massive. There is a bitter sarcasm involved in the bold figure employed. They were proud of their unbelief; but this unbelief was like a halter with which, like beasts of burden, they were harnessed to sin, and therefore to the punishment of sin, which they went on drawing further and further, in utter ignorance of the waggon behind them.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Denunciations against Sin. | B. C. 758. |
18 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope: 19 That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it! 20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! 22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: 23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! 24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25 Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 26 And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly: 27 None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: 28 Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind: 29 Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it. 30 And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.
Here are, I. Sins described which will bring judgments upon a people: and this perhaps is not only a charge drawn up against the men of Judah who lived at that time, and the particular articles of that charge, though it may relate primarily to them, but is rather intended for warning to all people, in all ages, to take heed of these sins, as destructive both to particular persons and to communities, and exposing men to God’s wrath and his righteous judgments. Those are here said to be in a woeful condition,
1. Who are eagerly set upon sin, and violent in their sinful pursuits (v. 18), who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, who take as much pains to sin as the cattle do that draw a team, who put themselves to the stretch for the gratifying of their inordinate appetites, and, to humour a base lust, offer violence to nature itself. They think themselves as sure of compassing their wicked project as if they were pulling it towards them with strong cart-ropes; but they will find themselves disappointed, for they will prove cords of vanity, which will break when they come to any stress. For the righteous Lord will cut in sunder the cords of the wicked,Psa 129:4; Job 4:8. They are by long custom and confirmed habits so hardened in sin that they cannot get clear of it. Those that sin through infirmity are drawn away by sin; those that sin presumptuously draw iniquity to them, in spite of the oppositions of Providence and the checks of conscience. Some by sin understand the punishment of sin: they pull God’s judgments upon their own heads as it were, with cart-ropes.
2. Who set the justice of God at defiance, and challenge the Almighty to do his worst (v. 19): They say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work; this is the same language with that of the scoffers of the last days, who say, Where is the promise of his coming? and therefore it is that, like them, they draw iniquity with cords of vanity, are violent and daring in sin, and walk after their own lusts, 2Pe 3:3; 2Pe 3:4. (1.) They ridicule the prophets, and banter them. It is in scorn that they call God the Holy One of Israel, because the prophets used with great veneration to call him so. (2.) They will not believe the revelation of God’s wrath from heaven against their ungodliness and unrighteousness; unless they see it executed, they will not know it, as if the curse were brutum fulmen–a mere flash, and all the threatenings of the word bugbears to frighten fools and children. (3.) If God should appear against them, as he has threatened, yet they think themselves able to make their part good with him, and provoke him to jealousy, as if they were stronger than he, 1 Cor. x. 22. “We have heard his word, but it is all talk; let him hasten his work, we shall shift for ourselves well enough.” Note, Those that wilfully persist in sin consider not the power of God’s anger.
3. Who confound and overthrow the distinctions between moral good and evil, who call evil good and moral evil (v. 20), who not only live in the omission of that which is good, but condemn it, argue against it, and, because they will not practise it themselves, run it down in others, and fasten invidious epithets upon it–not only do that which is evil, but justify it, and applaud it, and recommend it to others as safe and good. Note, (1.) Virtue and piety are good, for they are light and sweet, they are pleasant and right; but sin and wickedness are evil; they are darkness, all the fruit of ignorance and mistake, and will be bitterness in the latter end. (2.) Those do a great deal of wrong to God, and religion, and conscience, to their own souls, and to the souls of others, who misrepresent these, and put false colours upon them–who call drunkenness good fellowship, and covetousness good husbandry, and, when they persecute the people of God, think they do him good service–and, on the other hand, who call seriousness ill-nature, and sober singularity ill-breeding, who say all manner of evil falsely concerning the ways of godliness, and do what they can to form in men’s minds prejudices against them, and this in defiance of evidence as plain and convincing as that of sense, by which we distinguish, beyond contradiction, between light and darkness, and between that which to the taste is sweet and that which is bitter.
4. Who though they are guilty of such gross mistakes as these have a great opinion of their own judgments, and value themselves mightily upon their understanding (v. 21): They are wise in their own eyes; they think themselves able to disprove and baffle the reproofs and convictions of God’s word, and to evade and elude both the searches and the reaches of his judgments; they think they can outwit Infinite Wisdom and countermine Providence itself. Or it may be taken more generally: God resists the proud, those particularly who are conceited of their own wisdom and lean to their own understanding; such must become fools, that they may be truly wise, or else, at their end they shall appear to be fools before all the world.
5. Who glory in it as a great accomplishment that they are able to bear a great deal of strong liquor without being overcome by it (v. 22), who are mighty to drink wine, and use their strength and vigour, not in the service of their country, but in the service of their lusts. Let drunkards know from this scripture that, (1.) They ungratefully abuse their bodily strength, which God has given them for good purposes, and by degrees cannot but weaken it. (2.) It will not excuse them from the guilt of drunkenness that they can drink hard and yet keep their feet. (3.) Those who boast of their drinking down others glory in their shame. (4.) How light soever men make of their drunkenness, it is a sin which will certainly lay them open to the wrath and curse of God.
6. Who, as judges, pervert justice, and go counter to all rules of equity, v. 23. This follows upon the former; they drink and forget the law (Prov. xxxi. 5), and err through wine (ch. xxviii. 7), and take bribes, that they may have wherewithal to maintain their luxury. They justify the wicked for reward, and find some pretence or other to clear him from his guilt and shelter him from punishment; and they condemn the innocent, and take away their righteousness from them, that is, overrule their pleas, deprive them of the means of clearing up their innocency, and give judgment against them. In causes between man and man, might and money would at any time prevail against right and justice; and he who was ever so plainly in the wrong would with a small bribe carry the cause and recover the costs. In criminal causes, though the prisoner ever so plainly appeared to be guilty, yet for a reward they would acquit him; if he were innocent, yet if he did not fee them well, nay, if they were feed by the malicious prosecutor, or if they themselves had spleen against him, they would condemn him.
II. The judgments described, which these sins would bring upon them. Let not those expect to live easily who live thus wickedly; for the righteous God will take vengeance, v. 24-30. Here we may observe,
1. How complete this ruin will be, and how necessarily and unavoidably it will follow upon their sins. He had compared this people to a vine (v. 7), well fixed, and which, it was hoped, would be flourishing and fruitful; but the grace of God towards it was received in vain, and then the root became rottenness, being dried up from beneath, and the blossom would of course blow off as dust, as a light and worthless thing, Job xviii. 16. Sin weakens the strength, the root, of a people, so that they are easily rooted up; it defaces the beauty, the blossoms, of a people, and takes away the hopes of fruit. The sin of unfruitfulness is punished with the plague of unfruitfulness. Sinners make themselves as stubble and chaff, combustible matter, proper fuel to the fire of God’s wrath, which then of course devours and consumes them, as the fire devours the stubble, and nobody can hinder it, or cares to hinder it. Chaff is consumed, unhelped and unpitied.
2. How just the ruin will be: Because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and would not have him to reign over them; and, as the law of Moses was rejected and thrown off, so the word of the Holy One of Israel by his servants the prophets, putting them in mind of his law and calling them to obedience, was despised and disregarded. God does not reject men for every transgression of his law and word; but, when his word is despised and his law cast away, what can they expect but that God should utterly abandon them?
3. Whence this ruin should come (v. 25): it is destruction from the Almighty. (1.) The justice of God appoints it; for that is the anger of the Lord which is kindled against his people, his necessary vindication of the honour of his holiness and authority. (2.) The power of God effects it: He has stretched forth his hand against them. That hand which had many a time been stretched out for them against their enemies is now stretched out against them at full length and in its full vigour; and who knows the power of his anger? Whether they are sensible of it or no, it is God that has smitten them, has blasted their vine and made it wither.
4. The consequences and continuance of this ruin. When God comes forth in wrath against a people the hills tremble, fear seizes even their great men, who are strong and high, the earth shakes under men and is ready to sink; and as this feels dreadful (what does more so than an earthquake?) so what sight can be more frightful than the carcases of men torn with dogs, or thrown as dung (so the margin reads it) in the midst of the streets? This intimates that great multitudes should be slain, not only soldiers in the field of battle, but the inhabitants of their cities put to the sword in cold blood, and that the survivors should neither have hands nor hearts to bury them. This is very dreadful, and yet such is the merit of sin that, for all this, God’s anger is not turned away; that fire will burn as long as there remains any of the stubble and chaff to be fuel for it; and his hand, which he stretched forth against his people to smite them, because they do not by prayer take hold of it, nor by reformation submit themselves to it, is stretched out still.
5. The instruments that should be employed in bringing this ruin upon them: it should be done by the incursions of a foreign enemy, that should lay all waste. No particular enemy is named, and therefore we are to take it as a prediction of all the several judgments of this kind which God brought upon the Jews, Sennacherib’s invasion soon after, and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans first and at last by the Romans; and I think it is to be looked upon also as a threatening of the like desolation of those countries which harbour and countenance those sins mentioned in the foregoing verses; it is an exposition of those woes. When God designs the ruin of a provoking people,
(1.) He can send a great way off for instruments to be employed in effecting it; he can raise forces from afar, and summon them from the end of the earth to attend his service, v. 26. Those who know him not are made use of to fulfil his counsel, when, by reason of their distance, they can scarcely be supposed to have any ends of their own to serve. If God set up his standard, he can incline men’s hearts to enlist themselves under it, though perhaps they know not why or wherefore. When the Lord of hosts is pleased to make a general muster of the forces he has at his command, he has a great army in an instant, Joe 2:2; Joe 2:11. He needs not sound a trumpet, nor beat a drum, to give them notice or to animate them; no, he does but hiss to them, or rather whistle to them, and that is enough; they hear that, and that puts courage into them. Note, God has all the creatures at his beck.
(2.) He can make them come into the service with incredible expedition: Behold, they shall come with speed swiftly. Note, [1.] Those who will do God’s work must not loiter, must not linger, nor shall they when his time has come. [2.] Those who defy God’s judgments will be ashamed of their insolence when it is too late; they said scornfully (v. 19), Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, and they shall find, to their terror and confusion, that he will; in one hour has the judgment come.
(3.) He can carry them on in the service with amazing forwardness and fury. This is described here in very elegant and lofty expressions, v. 27-30. [1.] Though their marches be very long, yet none among them shall be weary; so desirous they be to engage that they shall forget their weariness, and make no complaints of it. [2.] Though the way be rough, and perhaps embarrassed by the usual policies of war, yet none among them shall stumble, but all the difficulties in their way shall easily be got over. [3.] Though they be forced to keep constant watch, yet none shall slumber nor sleep, so intent shall they be upon their work, in prospect of having the plunder of the city for their pains. [4.] They shall not desire any rest of relaxation; they shall not put off their clothes, nor loose the girdle of their loins, but shall always have their belts on and swords by their sides. [5.] They shall not meet with the least hindrance to retard their march or oblige them to halt; not a latchet of their shoes shall be broken which they must stay to mend, as Josh. ix. 13. [6.] Their arms and ammunition shall all be fixed, and in good posture; their arrows sharp, to wound deep, and all their bows bent, none unstrung, for they expect to be soon in action. [7.] Their horses and chariots of war shall all be fit for service; their horses so strong, so hardy, that their hoofs shall be like flint, far from being beaten, or made tender, by their long march; and the wheels of their chariots not broken, or battered, or out of repair, but swift like a whirlwind, turning round so strongly upon their axle-trees. [8.] All the soldiers shall be bold and daring (v. 29): Their roaring, or shouting, before a battle, shall be like a lion, who with his roaring animates himself, and terrifies all about him. Those who would not hear the voice of God speaking to them by his prophets, but stopped their ears against their charms, shall be made to hear the voice of their enemies roaring against them and shall not be able to turn a deaf ear to it. They shall roar like the roaring of the sea in a storm; it roars and threatens to swallow up, as the lion roars and threatens to tear in pieces. [9.] There shall not be the least prospect of relief or succour. The enemy shall come in like a flood, and there shall be none to lift up a standard against him. He shall seize the prey, and none shall deliver it, none shall be able to deliver it, nay, none shall so much as dare to attempt the deliverance of it, but shall give it up for lost. Let the distressed look which way they will, every thing appears dismal; for, if God frowns upon us, how can any creature smile? First, Look round to the earth, to the land, to that land that used to be the land of light and the joy of the whole earth, and behold darkness and sorrow, all frightful, all mournful, nothing hopeful. Secondly, Look up to heaven, and there the light is darkened, where one would expect to have found it. If the light is darkened in the heavens, how great is that darkness! If God hide his face, no marvel the heavens hide theirs and appear gloomy, Job xxxiv. 29. It is our wisdom, by keeping a good conscience, to keep all clear between us and heaven, that we may have light from above even when clouds and darkness are round about us.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verse 18-23: WOE TO THE WICKED!
Here is a series of “woes” addressed:
1. To those who, instead of being drawn away by sin (Jas 1:14), gluttonously, laboriously and persistently draw it to themselves – in spite of divine warnings, (Verse 18; Isa 59:4-8).
2. To those who complain that God’s hand moves so slowly they cannot see His work, and that His purpose is so obscure they cannot understand it, (Verse 19; Eze 12:22-25; 2Pe 2:3-4).
3. To those whose pervert the truth, (Verse 20; Pro 17:15; Amo 5:7; Mat 6:22-23; Luk 11:33-36).
4. To those who consider themselves wise and clever, (Verse 21; Pro 3:7; Rom 11:25; Rom 12:16; 1Co 3:18-20).
5. To those who pride themselves on being able to “handle their wine”, and to be most efficient at mixing tempting intoxicants, (Verse 22; Isa 56:12; Pro 21:17; Pro 23:20-21; Hab 2:15-16).
6. To those magistrates who, for a bribe, corrupt justice, (Verse 23; Exo 23:8; Isa 1:23; Isa 10:1-3; Mic 3:11; Mic 7:3; Jas 5:6).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
18. Wo unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity! After having inserted a short consolation for the purpose of allaying the bitterness of punishments as regards the godly, he returns to threatenings, and proceeds to launch those thunderbolts of words which are fitted to awaken some degree of alarm. By cords he means nothing else than the allurements by which men suffer themselves to be deceived, and harden their heart in crimes; for either they ridicule the judgment of God, or they contrive vain excuses, and allege the plea of necessity. Any concealment, therefore, which they employ, he calls cords; for whenever men are prompted to sin by the lust of the flesh, they at first pause, and feel that something within restrains them, which would certainly keep them back, if they did not rush forward with opposing violence, and break through all opposition. When any man is tempted to do what is sinful, his conscience secretly asks him, What are you doing? And sin never advances so freely as not to feel this check; for God intended in this manner to provide for the good of mankind, lest all should break out into unbridled licentiousness.
How comes it, then, that men are so obstinate in doing what is sinful? Assuredly they permit themselves to be deceived by allurements, and stupify their minds, that they may despise the judgment of God, and may thus have some freedom to commit sin. They flatter themselves by imagining that what is sin is not sin, or by some excuse or idle pretense they lessen its enormity. These, then, are cords, wicked ropes, by which they draw iniquity. Hence it is evident that the Lord has good reason for threatening them; for they sin, not only of their own accord, but perversely and obstinately, and, in short, they bind themselves to sin, so that they are without excuse.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CORDS OF VANITY
Isa. 5:18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope.
Sin in the last clause is parallel with iniquity in the firsta noun and not a verb. Both are said to be drawn. The style of sinning here contemplated is fully given in the next verse.Cowles.
They were proud of their unbelief; but this unbelief was like a halter with which, like beasts of burden, they were harnessed to sin, and therefore to the punishment of sin, which they went on drawing further and further, in utter ignorance of the waggon behind them.Delitsch.
Cart ropes, you know, are composed of several small cords firmly twisted together, which serve to connect the beasts of burden with the draught they pull after them. These represent a complication of means closely united, whereby the people here described continue to join themselves to the most wearisome of all burdens. They consist of false reasonings, foolish pretexts, and corrupt maxims, by which obstinate transgressors become firmly united to their sins, and persist in dragging after them their iniquities. Of this sort the following are a few specimens: God is merciful, and His goodness will not suffer any of His creatures to be completely and everlastingly miserable. Others, as well as they, are transgressors. Repentance will be time enough upon a deathbed, or in old age. The greatest of sinners often pass unpunished. A future state of retribution is uncertain. Unite these, and such like cords, and, I suppose, you have the cart ropes, whereby the persons mentioned draw after them much sin and iniquity. All these pretexts, however, are light as vanity.Maculloch.
CORDS AND CART-ROPES
Isa. 5:18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope [658]
[658] See Notes on pp. 121, 122.
There is a certain oddity and grotesqueness in these words as they stand. It disappears as soon as we perceive that we have here an instance of Hebrew parallelism. (Compare chap. Isa. 1:18.) Sin is a noun, not a verb, and is a synonym for iniquity; to sin men yoke themselves as it were with cords of vanity or as with a cart-rope. Cords of vanity are such as have no substance in them, that will not stand any real strain; a cart-rope will stand an immense strain. Where, then, is the propriety of describing that by which the sinner binds himself to his sin by such opposite terms? In this, that in the first clause these bands are regarded from the point of view of a sound judgment, in the second from the point of view of the sinners experience. Subjected to a real examination they are seen to be of no strength at all, and yet they suffice to bind the sinner to his sin as thoroughly as if they were strong as a cart-rope.
What are these cords of vanity? They are false ideasof God, of truth, of duty. This is plain from Isa. 5:19, which is an explanation of this one. There we have an illustrative case. Certain men are represented as bound to their iniquity by the false idea that God will not fulfil His threatenings against iniquity.
Our text furnishes the solution of a mystery which often perplexes us in daily life. We see men cleaving to ruinous iniquities, and cleaving to them in spite of the remonstrances and entreaties of their friends and of Gods servants. We who have felt the powers of the world to come wonder that men do not repent and believe, and so escape from the wrath to come. Here is the explanation: they are bound to their ungodly practices as it were with a cart-rope; and yet they are thus enslaved by what, when rightly tested, are only cords of vanity. They are like a horse tied to a post by a bridle-rein: it could snap the rein in an instant, but it does not attempt to do so because it has no suspicion of the weakness of the rein. Look at some of the cords of vanity by which men are bound to their iniquities; the exposure of their essential weakness may excite some who are now fettered and bound to make an effort to attain to moral freedom.
I. One prevalent cord of vanity is unbelief in Gods threatenings against iniquity. That God has threatened to do certain terrible things to impenitent sinners is admitted, but there lurks in the sinners heart the idea that God is like certain foolish parents who threaten their children with punishments which they are much too good-natured ever to inflict. But whence did you derive this idea of God? Certainly not from His Word. He there distinctly forewarns us, that, though He is merciful and gracious, He will by no means clear the guilty (Exo. 34:7). Not from any intelligent examination of His dealings in providence. There neglect or infraction of law is invariably followed by punishment. If a whole nation were to neglect to sow its fields, would God be too good-natured to permit it to starve? But if God invariably punishes men for their infractions of His material laws, what reason can we have for hoping that He will not fulfil His threatenings against those who despise His spiritual ordinances? And why should we hope this? What reverence could we have for, what trust could we repose in, a God who did not fulfil His threatenings? How could we then trust in His promises? Surely this is a cord of vanity! and yet how many are bound by it as if it were a cart-rope!
II. Another cord is the reflection, We are no worse than others. Men compare themselves with others, perhaps even more iniquitous than themselves, and so arrive at the conclusion that they are not in any great danger. They do this even in temporal things,e.g., in the matter of drainage. The authorities of a country village or town will listen with the most complete indifference to the warnings of a Government inspector, that they are inviting an outbreak of fever or cholera; and the ground of their indifference is that they know of other villages or towns as badly drained as their own. But does that afford them any protection against the dangers of which they are warned? Men act as foolishly in spiritual matters. Because there are so many sinners they close their eyes to their own dangers or sins. Will God be either unable or afraid to punish transgressors because they are so numerous? Surely this also is a cord of vanity; and yet thousands are bound by it to their eternal destruction!
III. We shall be able to shake ourselves loose from our evil habits by and by. They imagine that they can repent and reform at any time, and they are firmly resolved to do so before death. Perhaps there could not be found a single sinner who does not secretly cherish in his breast wicked Balaams desire, Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his! But this idea that men can repent and reform at any time is a delusion. As men continue in sin
(1) The power to reform decays.
(2) The desire to reform dies out. The love of sin takes entire possession of the man. It enwraps him as ivy unchecked will enwrap a tree; at first with no more strength than a childs finger, in the end with the strength of a thousand giants. It is the oldest sinners who cling to their vices most desperately, who are bound by them as by cart-ropes.
(3.) The opportunities for reform rapidly diminish and often end unexpectedly (Pro. 29:1; 1Th. 5:3).
Inquire by what cords of vanity you are bound. Break them! (Dan. 4:27.) Look to Jesus, who came into the world for the very purpose of setting at liberty them that are bound.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(18) That draw iniquity with cords of vanity.The phrase is boldly figurative. Evil-doers are thought of as harnessing themselves as to the chariot of sin. The cords of vanityi.e., of emptiness or ungodlinessare the habits by which they are thus bound. The cart ropes, thicker and stronger than the cords, represent the extreme stage, when such habits become irresistibly dominant. Probably the words may point to some idolatrous procession, in which the chariot of Baal or Ashtaroth was thus drawn by their worshippers, like that of Demter or Cybele in Greece, or Juggernth in India.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. Draw iniquity [The truly muscular sinners, who put their pluck and power into the business of sin: so that they are like very stout pullers who draw the greatest cartloads with the strongest of ropes. Yet the cords that bind them to the huge loads of iniquity they carry are but cords of vanity, of infatuated folly.]
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Third Woe ( Isa 5:18-19 ).
Isa 5:18-19
‘Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity,
And sin as it were with a cart rope,
Who say, “Let him hurry up,
Let him hasten his work, that we may see it,
And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near,
And come, that we may know it.” ’
So great is the enthusiasm of the people for sin that they draw it along with them in great quantity. They lasso it and make it follow them in their ways. But the ropes are ropes of emptiness and deceit, of vainness and uselessness, of folly. They can only bode ill for them. Significant in this is the deliberate nature of it all. This is not sinning through weakness and frailty, it is deliberate indulgence in sin. They do it, not because they cannot help it, but because they want to do it.
And indeed so great is their sin that they mock God. They say, if God is going to act why does He not hurry up? They are waiting, they say. Why does He not get on with it? Let Him get on with it quickly so that they may see it. And they add that if He wants to advise them, let Him do so plainly and in such a way that they know that it is from Him. Let Him produce another Sinai. Man always thinks he knows what God should do.
It is not that they want Him to or expect Him to. (Although the same request might have been made in a godly fashion, compare Rev 6:10). In their hearts they are denying the possibility (compare Jer 17:15; Zep 1:12; Psa 10:3-6). They have no real expectation. The very blasphemy is drawn out by their use of the title ‘the Holy One of Israel’. They are treating commonly and carelessly what is most holy.
So does sin grow. It began with greed and avarice (the first woe), it went on to selfish overindulgence and excess of pleasure seeking (the second woe), now it has expanded into gross sin overindulged in and careless blasphemy. As men gain more, and find ease and grow in sin, so do they become more blasphemous and more careless of God. But things will shortly become even worse.
The Fourth Woe ( Isa 5:20 ).
Isa 5:20
‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness.
Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.’
Three aspects of what God and His word are, are in mind here, what is good, what is light and what is sweet. What is good is of God, for the idea of goodness is essentially linked with God (Psa 25:8; Psa 34:8; Psa 54:6; Psa 86:5; Psa 100:5; Psa 107:1; Psa 118:1; Psa 118:29; Psa 119:68; Psa 135:3; Psa 136:1; Psa 145:9; Nah 1:7). Thus what God requires is good, and what He is against is evil (Psa 37:23). But these men glory in the opposite. They glory in evil, and call it good, while condemning and castigating what is really good.
‘Light’ too speaks of what God is and of His truth (Isa 2:5; Isa 9:2; Psa 27:1; Psa 36:9; Psa 43:3; Psa 118:27; Psa 119:30). He is men’s light, and as His light shines on men they see and know the truth and it guides them and makes them free. But these men turn to darkness and the things of darkness, and call them light. Their backs are towards God and they choose evil. They seek to distort God’s truth, and replace it with a parody of God’s truth. They exalt their own wisdom at the expense of the word of God.
And God’s word is regularly seen as ‘sweet’, but these men see it as bitter. So these men in turning from good and from light are turning from God and replacing God’s way and will by their own way and will. They are rejecting God and choosing themselves and their own way. They are not just questioning morality, they are questioning God.
The words ‘light’ and ‘sweet’ are regularly associated by the Psalmists with the word of God (For ‘light’ see Psa 19:8; Psa 36:9; Psa 43:3; Psa 118:27; Psa 119:105; Psa 119:130; Pro 6:23; for ‘sweet’ see Psa 19:10; Psa 55:14; Psa 104:34; Psa 119:103; Psa 141:6 – although not all the same Hebrew word). They are the essence of God’s truth which brings light and is sweet (compare Isa 8:20 and compare Isa 2:5). Indeed to those who would find light Isaiah says that they should put their trust and confidence in God (Isa 50:10). But these people turn away from that word. They corrupt it, and turn men from it. Thus do they make good evil, light darkness and what is sweet bitter.
Indeed in their rejection of the word of God they themselves see it as bitter. It is too demanding, they say, it is too hard. So they replace it with ‘sweet’ words of their own which are in fact really bitter in their effect, for they result in evil consequences for all. This was the essence of the false prophets. They said what people wanted to hear, and thereby destroyed them (Isa 28:7; Jer 5:31; Jer 8:10; Jer 13:13; Jer 14:13-18; Jer 23:9-15; Jer 23:25-29; Jer 27:9-15; Jer 29:8-9; Jer 37:19; Lam 2:14; Eze 7:26; Eze 13:2-4; Eze 13:9; Eze 13:16; Amo 2:12; Mic 2:11; Mic 3:5-6).
Note.
God’s word may sometimes seem bitter, but in the end its effect is sweet for those who respond, and it is always sweet to the believer even when its consequences are bitter because it is God’s word. The contrast between bitterness and sweetness, where what is sweet becomes bitter, is especially found in Rev 10:9-10. There it was sweet because it was God’s word, but was bitter because of its sad message. What is sweet because it is God’s word often turns out to be bitter in practise for the unbeliever, for to the unbelieving and disobedient God’s word can only result in bitter consequences. What seems at first pleasant can therefore have appalling consequences. But that bitterness often finally results in sweetness for those who respond to it as is evidenced by the chastenings of God on His people (Heb 12:11).
End of note.
Those described here in Isaiah have in fact turned morality inside out. They have found rational and religious grounds for doing what God condemns as evil, and they condemn what is good, and by clever arguments make it seem wrong and unworthy (compare Mic 3:2; Amo 5:7; Mal 2:17). They replace light with darkness, and so commend darkness that it is made to seem like the new ‘light’. Men follow after their idols and their ways. But Jesus would later point out that if the light within a man was darkness, how great was that darkness (Mat 6:22-23). They make what is sweet seem bitter, and they offer as sweet what is essentially bitter suggesting that it will produce sweetness, although bitterness continues to lie underneath and will be experienced in the end.
The clever in mind can always find arguments that support their positions. It is always possible to bolster any position for a while, until time and events prove it fallacious and dangerous. But then it is often too late and many have fallen thereby. Today it often goes under the name of ‘research’. ‘Research shows’, they say, but it often reaches its solutions by inadequate means and rests on men’s opinions and optimism. It regularly assumes man’s essential goodness and fails to take into account his continual strong tendencies to sin and selfishness and perversion. And thus it comes to the wrong conclusion, while believing it to be right. And it goes in fashions and thus often turns out to be simply giving us man’s failing opinions which have ignored crucial factors time and again.
So those people whom Isaiah had in mind earlier would have put up ‘sound’ economic arguments for their land-grabbing, they would have defended strongly their sensual living, they would have plausibly argued for their gross sins, but God points out that none of their pleas will prevent the inevitable consequences. For when nations behave so, the end may be delayed, but it will only finally end in disaster. And so it is woe to them.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 5:18-19. Woe unto them that draw iniquity, &c. The third crime is, the pretence of false and wicked reasonings, by which the profane bring their minds to perpetrate the most abominable crimes against the calls and admonitions of conscience; which is expressed metaphorically in this verse, and literally in the next, as is very usual with the prophet. By moshkei heavon, drawing iniquity, he alludes, according to the force of the Hebrew, to drawing it along like a plough; i.e. keeping it in perpetual action; promoting or encouraging the practice of it. By cords of vanity, are meant idle pretexts and specious arguments: such as these; that God does not regard human affairs; that many of the greatest sinners often go unpunished: that we see no proofs of the divine interposition, &c. See 2Pe 3:3-4 and Vitringa. We cannot have a fairer comment on these words than the state and disposition of the Jews, as described in the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who scoffed at all his divine offers, and those of his apostles, and would not regard the counsel of the holy One of Israel, till their own destruction overwhelmed them.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Here are accounts of still increasing wickedness, and woes of still increasing misery. Reader, in the present Christ despising generation, doth not the prophet’s representation suit, as though written for the very purpose? Is there not one and the same family feature? Alas how fallen is our nature: how general, yea, universal, the taint of evil? Is it to be wondered at, that sorrows abound, where sin so much abounds? Let the Reader, if by grace happily preserved from such daring impiety, not overlook, nor forget, to what cause to ascribe it. 1Co 4:7 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 5:18 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
Ver. 18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity. ] That draw sin to them, as a beast draweth a cart after it. Here the prophet reproveth and threateneth such, saith an interpreter, a as sin without any strong temptation or occasion drawing them thereunto; yea, they draw sin to themselves as with ropes, et quodammodo velut invitum et repugnans cogunt, not remembering that sin haleth hell at the heels of it. Let such get from under sin’s cart as soon as they can, otherwise they shall be “holden with the cords (punishments) of their iniquity; they shall die without instruction,” &c. Pro 5:22 The devils, as they sinned without a tempter, so they perish without a Saviour. Cavete. Beware!
a Nihil agitantes nisi malum omni studio suo. – Jun. Qui data opera peccant. – Scultet,
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 5:18-23
18Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood,
And sin as if with cart ropes;
19Who say, Let Him make speed, let Him hasten His work, that we may see it;
And let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near
And come to pass, that we may know it!
20Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
And clever in their own sight!
22Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine
And valiant men in mixing strong drink,
23Who justify the wicked for a bribe,
And take away the rights of the ones who are in the right!
Isa 5:18-23 Another strophe of woes on the wicked is enumerated because
1. Isa 5:18, they lead evil around like an animal on a leash
2. Isa 5:19, they demand YHWH to quickly fulfill His covenant promises (without regard for the covenant requirements)
3. Isa 5:20, this may be related to Isa 5:19. When God does not act the way they wanted, they called His acts evil, dark, and bitter
4. Isa 5:21, they assume their own wisdom to be true and God’s false (Isa 5:19-20)
5. Isa 5:22, they are drunkards
6. Isa 5:23, they use bribery to achieve their ends
These are manipulative egotists!
Isa 5:18-19 Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood,
And sin as if with cart ropes The Hebrew is uncertain. This seems to refer to a group of people whom I have designated as practical atheists. They admit God’s existence theologically, but refuse to walk in this knowledge. They choose to live as if there were no God and even taunt His existence (cf. Isa 5:19). They hold on to their sin at any cost! They are tied/bound to their self-centered lifestyles!
Isa 5:19 There are several commands in this verse.
1. let Him make speed, BDB 554, KB 553, Piel IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense
2. let Him hasten, BDB 301, KB 300, Hiphil COHORTATIVE
3. let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near, BDB 897, KB 1132, Qal IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense (the Holy One of Israel is a title for Deity so common in Isaiah; see note at Isa 1:4)
4. come to pass, BDB 97, KB 112, Qal COHORTATIVE
5. that we may know it, BDB 393, KB 390, Qal COHORTATIVE
This verse may relate contextually to Isa 5:12! They really do not want to understand God’s will and purpose because they are so set on their own will and purpose. The results of the fall (Genesis 3) continue!
The NASB Study Bible makes an interesting comment about #1 and #2 above.
The Hebrew for the words ‘make speed’ and ‘hasten’ correspond to that of the first and third elements of the name ‘Maher-shalal-hash-baz’ (meaning ‘swift is the booty, speedy is the prey,’ see Isa 8:1; Isa 8:3), he may have been responding to the sarcastic taunts of their sinners (p. 967).
Isa 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil Many say that this refers to the judges of Israel. Although that fits Isa 5:18-23, it seems to me that this is a reference to the society as a whole, not limited to a group of judges. This is a poignant example of the tragedy of what happens when our light becomes darkness (cf. Mat 6:22-23). The fall of Genesis 3 has affected the moral compass of the creatures made in the image and likeness of the God of Justice, Righteousness, and Fairness!
Isa 5:21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And clever in their own sight This again refers to the sin of prideful arrogance (i.e., results of Genesis 3). Probably one of the most classical passages of this is Jer 9:23-24. Real wisdom is in knowing and trusting God! Humans are smoke-blinded by self, sin, and their own importance (cf. Pro 26:5; Pro 26:12; Pro 26:16; Pro 28:11).
Isa 5:22 Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine Isaiah is using sarcasm because the term heroes normally refers to mighty men of war, but in this context it refers to drinking bouts and not military exploits.
mixing strong drink There has been some question as to what this (BDB 1016) refers.
1. mixing wine with water, Isa 1:22, like the Greeks and Romans, but the Isaiah texts refer to bad wine, not normal drinking wine
2. old strong wine mixed with new wine
3. wine mixed with other distilled fruit or honey liquors, which made it more intoxicating (they did not have fermented drinks with high alcohol content, as are available today)
This is the NOUN form of the VERB to become drunk. Drunkenness is condemned often in Scripture (cf. Isa 5:11; Isa 5:22; Isa 28:7; Isa 56:12; Pro 20:1; Pro 23:29-35; Mic 2:11). It is even used as a metaphor for the judgment of YHWH (cf. Psa 75:8). See Special Topic: Biblical Attitudes Toward Alcohol and Alcoholism .
Isa 5:23 Who justify the wicked for a bribe This is the place in the strophe where commentators discuss the absence of a seventh woe. The interpretive question is whether there are seven woes (the perfect number) or six woes (the number of human imperfection).
Bribery was regularly condemned in Isa 1:23; Isa 10:1-2 (cf. Exo 23:8; Deu 10:17; Deu 16:19; Pro 17:23; Mic 3:11; Mic 7:3).
iniquity. Hebrew. ‘avah. App-44.
cords, &c. Which draw on sin by the load.
cart rope. Implies sin by the cart-load.
Warning against Pride, Intemperance, and Corruption
Isa 5:18-30
The wild grapes of Judah are here continued: blind atheism, Isa 5:18-20; proud self-conceit, Isa 5:21; drunkenness, Isa 5:22; injustice in the courts, Isa 5:23-24. What a terrible description is that given in Isa 5:18 of the inevitable progress of sin! The bacchanalian procession which is seen, in Isa 5:14, descending with music and flowers into the open gates of Hades is described in Isa 5:18 as being drawn down by a cable. Men begin with a thread, but the thread of habit becomes a rope, and the rope grows to a cable, which ultimately lands a man in the pit. From Isa 5:25 onward we have the description of impending judgment. Earthquakes, armed raids, civil strife, and famine fever, the devastating inroads of hostile invasion, a desolate land and a hungry sea such would be the forces of destruction which Judahs sin would unloose. Recent events have revealed the terror of such a visitation. Remember that the wrath of love is as severe as a consuming fire.
draw: Isa 28:15, Jdg 17:5, Jdg 17:13, 2Sa 16:20-23, Psa 10:11, Psa 14:1, Psa 36:2, Psa 94:5-11, Jer 5:31, Jer 8:5-9, Jer 23:10, Jer 23:14, Jer 23:24, Jer 28:15, Jer 28:16, Jer 44:15-19, Eze 13:10, Eze 13:11, Eze 13:22, Zep 1:12, Joh 16:2, Act 26:9
Reciprocal: Pro 16:27 – diggeth Pro 30:8 – Remove Ecc 8:11 – sentence Isa 3:8 – because Isa 10:1 – Woe Isa 29:15 – seek Isa 30:1 – add Jer 9:5 – weary Jer 36:23 – he cut Mal 2:17 – Where 2Pe 3:4 – where
Isa 5:18-19. Wo unto them that draw iniquity That are not only drawn to sin by the allurements of the world, or by the persuasions of wicked men, but are active and industrious in drawing sin to themselves, or themselves to sin: with cords of vanity Or, of lying, as the word frequently signifies; that is, with vain and deceitful arguments and pretences, whereby sinners generally draw themselves to sin, such as, That God does not regard human affairs; that many of the greatest sinners often go unpunished; that we see no proofs of the divine interposition, &c. See 2Pe 3:3-4. And sin with a cart-rope With all their might, as beasts that draw carts with ropes. That say, Let him make speed Namely, God, in whose name thou and other prophets are always reproving and threatening us; and hasten his work, that we may see it He only thinks to affright us, as if we were fools or children, with bugbears, or pretended evils: he either cannot, or will not, do us any harm. This was the plain language of their actions; they lived as if they were of this opinion. And let the counsel of the Holy One draw nigh What you have declared to be his counsel, with regard to our going into captivity, and which, you say, his holiness obliges him to execute: they scornfully repeat the title of Holy One, usually given by the prophets to God. And come, that we may know it We cannot believe that it will ever happen unless we see it with our eyes. Thus, by a long progression in iniquity, and a continued accumulation of sin, men arrive at length to the highest degree of wickedness; bidding open defiance to God, and scoffing at his threatened judgments; to which they cannot be persuaded to give any credit till they find them executed upon them.
5:18 Woe to them that draw iniquity with {y} cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
(y) Who use all allurements, opportunities and excuses to harden their conscience in sin.
Sins of the cynically unbelieving 5:18-25
Isaiah proceeded to expose the attitude that resulted in the people not allowing their knowledge of God to affect the way they lived (cf. Isa 5:13). They thought that God would not act and that they knew what was better for themselves than He did. The prophet identified more "sour grapes" that issued from these attitudes.
Four additional woes 5:18-23
The Israelites were deliberately sinning. They had not innocently fallen into sin, but they were pursuing it willfully. Rather than fleeing from it, they were holding it close to themselves. Even worse, they were doing so in an attempt to bait God to respond. They believed that He would not punish them. Their ties with sin were like the cords that the people used to lead their animals and the cart ropes that were much stronger and harder to break.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)