Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 9:14
Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
14. Render: And ( so) Jehovah cut off from Israel head and tail, palm-branch and rush, in one day. head and tail ] i.e. leader and follower, a proverbial expression, like the next phrase.
15 is almost universally regarded as an erroneous explanation of Isa 9:14 and therefore a gloss; but this is not quite certain. False prophets were frequently guilty of following where they pretended to lead (1Ki 22:6; Eze 13:10) and might be very appropriately described as the “tail.” The verse may be objected to on account of its somewhat prosaic character, but the strophe is not complete without it.
The ancient and honourable ] see on Isa 3:2-3.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Will cut off head and tail – This is a proverbial expression, which is explained in the following verse; see also Deu 28:13-14. The head is often used to denote those in honor and authority. The tail is an expression applicable to the lower ranks, and would commonly indicate more than simply the common people. It would imply contempt; a state of great abjectness and meanness.
Branch and rush – This is also a proverbial expression, meaning the highest and lowest; see the note at Isa 19:15. The word here translated branch, means properly the bough or top of the palm tree. The palm grew to a great height before it gave out any branches, and hence, the image is a beautiful one to denote those high in office and authority. The word rush means the coarse, long-jointed reed, that grows in marshes – an apt emblem of the base and worthless classes of society.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 9:14
Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tall, branch and rush, in one day
God giving account of His actions
I.
THE GROUND OR OCCASION OF THE JUDGMENT in the particle therefore. Wherefore? (Isa 9:13). The cause which is here expressed may be conceived to proceed in the way of a three-fold gradation.
1. Of their simple impiety. Sin is the meritorious cause of all punishment.
2. Of their additional impenitency. Those that sin and so thoroughly provoke Gods anger against themselves, by repentance may happily divert and appease it. But the people in the text turned not to Him that smote them. And this made their judgment to be so much the surer to them. Impenitency seems in a manner to own and justify sin and stand in the commission of it. Further, it does in a manner trespass upon all the attributes of God, which it either questions or vilifies. The omniscience of God, as to the deserts of sin (Psa 94:7). The truth of God, as to the threats of sin (2Pe 3:4). The justice of God, as to the punishing of sin, The power of God, as to me executing of judgment.
3. Of their continued obstinacy. They did not seek the Lord of hosts.
II. THE JUDGMENT ITSELF. (T. Horton, D. D.)
Gods judgment on Israel
I. THE DENUNCIATION OF IT.
1. The Author of it. The Lord.
(1) His sovereignty and power. It is He only that is able to punish; it is He only that hath all men and creatures under His command.
(2) His purity. There are none who are so fit to punish others as those who are innocent persons.
2. The nature of it. The Lord will cut off. From correction He passes to destruction. First, He cuts them short; and if that will do no good upon them, He cuts them off. First the pruning knife, then the axe. There is a two-fold sword which God makes use of for cutting with, before He proceeds to cut off; the sword of His mouth, i.e., the Word of God, and the sword of His hand, i.e., the rod of God. He will.
(1) A word of premonition. Despise not Gods gracious hints and admonitions of judgment beforehand.
(2) A word of procrastination. God is slow to anger.
(3) A word of resolution. God will not be always willing; He will be at last doing.
3. The subject of it. If Israel shall provoke God by their impenitency and obstinacy against Him, even Israel shall be punished and cut off by Him 1Pe 4:17).
II. THE EXTENT OF IT. That we have expressed in a double metaphor; the one from the nature of the head and the tail; the other from the nature of a tree, in the branches and roots: both of them coming to one and the same purpose. Whereby we have signified to us the universality and impartiality of the destruction which is here threatened; it shall be of so general an extent, as to reach to all sorts of persons, high and low, rich and poor, great and small, to one as well as to another.
1. The metaphor taken from a body in the head and the tail. We may reduce it by way of explication to a threefold rank of–
(1) Age: old and young.
(2) Estate: rich and poor.
(3) Place or authority: governors and governed; magistrates, ministers, and those who are subordinate and in subjection to them.
2. The metaphor taken from the nature of a tree or plant: the branch and the rush. It is not said the branch and the root, because the Lord reserved a remnant which should be spared by Him. But the branch and the rush; the branch as an emblem of usefulness–persons of parts and employments; the rush as a note of unfruitfulness–idle and unprofitable persons. The branch is a note of strength and solidity; the rush of weakness and inconstancy. The branch (in like manner as the head) is a note of supremacy, the rush of meanness, In the execution of public judgments for the impenitency and incorrigibleness of a nation, Gods hand is indifferent and impartial; He will spare no ranks or sorts or conditions of people at all
III. THE TIME OR SEASON OF IT. In one day. It is a day–
1. In regard of the certainty of it, as that which is set and fixed.
2. In regard of the suddenness, as that which is speedy and soon accomplished. (T. Horton, D. D.)
Judgment obliterates classifications
Branch and rush–the allusion is to the beauteous palm tree: it shall be cut down notwithstanding its beauty; and the rush–the common growths round about it, entangled roots, poor miserable shrubs that crowd and cumber the earth–branch and rush cannot stand before Gods sword and fire: everything that is wrong goes down in a common destruction. Judgment obliterates our classifications. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 14. In one day.] Thirteen MSS. of Kennicott and De Rossi read beyom, in a day; and another has a rasure in the place of the letter beth.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Head and tail; high and low, honourable and contemptible, as the next verse explains it.
Branch; the goodly branches of tall and strong trees, the mighty and noble.
Rush; the bulrush, the weakest and meanest persons.
In one day; all together, one as well as another, without any distinction.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. head and tailproverbialfor the highest and lowest (Deu 28:13;Deu 28:44).
branch and rushanotherimage for the same thought (Isa19:15). The branch is elevated on the top of the tree: therush is coarse and low.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail,…. The former of these is afterwards interpreted of “the ancient and honourable”, men in high places, civil magistrates, judges, governors, and elders of the people, the king as supreme, and all subordinate officers; and so the Targum,
“the Lord will destroy from Israel the prince and the ruler;”
and the latter is interpreted of the false prophet. The people of Israel are compared to a beast with a tail, being so sadly degenerated and corrupted; as the Romish antichrist, in both his capacities, civil and ecclesiastical, is compared to a beast; the one being the head, and the other the tail, Re 13:1 and Rome Pagan to a dragon with a tail, Re 12:3 and the Saracens and Turks to locusts with tails like the tails of scorpions, Re 9:10:
branch and rush, in one day. The Septuagint render it, “great and small”; and so the Arabic version; the first word intending the great men of the nation, in flourishing circumstances, like branches of trees; the latter the common, people, like reeds and rushes, weak and feeble; so Kimchi explains them,
“the strong and the weak;”
though the Targum interprets both of the governor and lord; and so Jarchi says they signify kings and governors; but Aben Ezra renders the word root and branch; and so they may denote the utter destruction of the people of Israel, fathers and children, high and low, rich and poor. See Mal 4:1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
14. Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel. He intimates that God’s vengeance will be universal, and will involve all ranks; for the whole nation was corrupted, and the contagion had spread over the whole country, to such an extent that no part was left whole or sound. Now, when iniquity thus abounds, every one flatters himself, and they think that they have concealed themselves by an admirable veil, because they have many who are like them; and when they compare themselves with others, they think that they have pleaded their excuse. This is the reason why he threatens that vengeance generally against all; for not one was free from the general disease.
Head and tail, branch and reed. (151) By branch he means the stronger and more powerful; by reed or rush he means the feebler, that is, men of the lowest rank, and who had scarcely any wealth. He therefore means that the vengeance of God hangs over them, and spares neither the strong nor the weak, neither the highest nor the lowest, because no part is sound or uninfected by the general disease.
(151) Branch and rush. — Eng. Ver.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
TRUE NATIONAL GREATNESS
Isa. 19:1-3; Isa. 19:14. The burden of Egypt, &c.
The prophecies of Isaiah take a wide range, embrace the fortunes of almost every nation, however remote, with whom the Israelites were brought into common relation, whether of policy or commerceMoab, Damascus, Tyre, Babylon, Ethiopia, Egypt. The prophet records the political and social phenomena of his day, not with the eye of a mere statesman or diplomatist, but as reviewing the moral as well as the political aspects of things, the eternal governing laws as well as the fitful moods and changes of a nations life, the spiritual as well as the material forces of the world.
Israel, in their dread of the great Assyrian monarchy, often cast wistful eyes towards Egypt, where they hoped to find a sure and powerful ally. The Egyptians accepted their subsidies, but thought they consulted their own interests best by observing what has been called amongst ourselves a masterly inactivity. Their strength was to sit still. They had a large standing army; but, as Rabshakeh showed, on a memorable occasion, that he knew (chap. Isa. 36:6) the nation, with all its outward semblance of prosperity, was being eaten up with a thousand moral and social cankers, which corrupted the very source of all national life. This chapter lays bare those wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.
1. There was a day when Egypt had been famous for its wisdom. This wisdom had become a thing of the past (Isa. 19:11-12).
2. There was no unity of purpose, no coherence of action in the body politic. The true ideas of the family, of the municipality, of the nation, were lost. Every man was fighting against his brother (Isa. 19:2). It is history eternally repeating itself; it is the lament of Thucydides over Greece; of Horace, Livy, and Tacitus over the corruption of guilty imperialism, and over the absence of the masculine, simple, republican virtues of ancient Rome.
3. With the decay of public virtue comes the decay of public spirit, and then soon follows the decay of national strength. Then comes what these old Hebrew seers called the judgment; God coming out of His place to visit the earth; anarchy, internal dissolution, collapse, conquest by the foreigner; the giving over of the nation into the hand of a cruel lord; the establishment of a military despotism.
It were easy to point these remarks elsewhere, but let us look at home. Many feel that during the last decade of years or more England has been parting with many of her old traditions. Some of those principles which were merely corrupt remnants of a social and political system which has passed awayfeudalismwe have undoubtedly gained by losing. But there are others which we have lost, or are fast losing, to the great detriment of the commonwealth. The high sense of duty to the State overruling the sense of interest in the individual citizen; the true measure of a nations wealth and greatness, not by its revenue in pounds sterling, but by its revenue in the healthy bodies, and honest hearts, and pure, healthy homes of the people; the noble, self-sacrificing spirit of devotion to the call of duty; the principle of right recognised as a higher principle than that of expediency; a temper of loyalty in the strict sense of the word, of willing obedience to the law and those who represent the law; strict commercial integrity, and not the tricks of trade which have been generated by an unwholesome competitionthese are maxims of ancient wisdom which made England great, and the loss of which will make England small. Our greatness, whatever it has been, has not rested so much upon material forces, but, like Israels of old, upon moral. We can only hope that our position among the peoples will be maintained as long as we hold fast the principles by which it was won. These privileges are not things of chance, but the direct result of moral laws as immutable and irreversible as the laws which govern the physical world. God send us statesmen who will turn the nations mind away from delusive and partisan aims, and direct them seriously to efforts which may unite us all in one great crusade against evil; in which every soldier might certainly feel that he was fighting under the banner of Christ, in a righteous war, for objects which surely have a place in the redemption which Christ accomplished for the world.Bishop Fraser: Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii. pp. 177, 178.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(14) Head and tail, branch and rush . . .The branch is strictly that of the palm-tree, which in its stately height answered to the nobles of the land, while the rush, the emblem of a real or affected lowliness (Isa. 58:5) represented the mean man of Isa. 2:9. The same proverbial formula meets us in Isa. 19:15.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 9:14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
Ver. 14. Head and tail, ] i.e., High and low a as Isa 9:15 Here he compareth Israel, non sine morsu, to a beast with a long tail, for the perverseness of their practices. Or else to the serpent amphisbaena, which stingeth both with head and tail.
Branch and rush.
a M . – Sept. Parvi properemus et ampli.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
rush. Hebrew. ‘agmon. Occurs twice in “former” portion, here and Isa 19:15; and once in “latter” portion (Isa 58:5, “bulrush”). Elsewhere only in Job 41:2, Job 41:20.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
will cut: Isa 3:2, Isa 3:3, Isa 19:15, 2Ki 17:6-20, Hos 1:4, Hos 1:6, Hos 1:9, Hos 4:5, Hos 5:12-14, Hos 8:8, Hos 9:11-17, Hos 13:3, Amo 2:14-16, Amo 3:12, Amo 5:2, Amo 5:3, Amo 6:11, Amo 7:8, Amo 7:9, Amo 7:17, Amo 9:1-9, Mic 1:6-8
in one day: Isa 10:17, Isa 30:13, Hos 10:15, Rev 18:8, Rev 18:10, Rev 18:17
Reciprocal: Deu 13:5 – prophet Deu 28:13 – the head Jos 10:19 – smite 1Ki 22:25 – Behold Neh 6:14 – on the prophetess Isa 5:15 – the mean Isa 5:24 – their root Isa 7:20 – head Isa 24:2 – as with the people Isa 48:19 – his name Jer 6:21 – fathers Jer 16:6 – the great Jer 32:32 – they Lam 2:20 – shall the priest Lam 4:16 – they respected Dan 11:7 – out of Hos 4:9 – like people Hos 11:6 – consume Mal 2:12 – the master and the scholar Mat 23:13 – woe 2Co 11:15 – whose