The Lord’s Covenant Lawsuit Against a Rebellious People

Isa 1:6 This description of the total misery of every individual in the nation is followed by a representation of the whole nation as one miserably diseased body. “From the some of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it: cuts, and stripes, and festering wounds; they have not been pressed out, nor bound up, nor has there been any soothing with oil.

” The body of the nation, to which the expression “in it” applies (i. e. , the nation as a whole), was covered with wounds of different kinds; and no means whatever had been applied to heal these many, various wounds, which lay all together, close to one another, and one upon the other, covering the whole body. Cuts (from פּצע to cut) are wounds that have cut into the flesh - sword-cuts, for example.

These need binding up, in order that the gaping wound may close again. Stripes ( Chabburâh , from Châbar , to stripe), swollen stripes, or weals, as if from a cut with a whip, or a blow with a fist: these require softening with oil, that the coagulated blood of swelling may disperse. Festering wounds, maccâh teriyâh , from târâh , to be fresh (a different word from the talmudic word t're , Chullin 45 b , to thrust violently, so as to shake): these need pressing, for the purpose of cleansing them, so as to facilitate their healing.

Thus the three predicates manifest an approximation to a chiasm (the crossing of the members); but this retrospective relation is not thoroughly carried out. The predicates are written in the plural, on account of the collective subject. The clause ולא רּכּכה בּשּׁמן, which refers to חבורה (stripes), so far as the sense is concerned (olive-oil, like all oleosa , being a dispersing medium), is to be taken as neuter, since this is the only way of explaining the change in the number: “And no softening has been effected with oil.

” Zoru we might suppose to be a pual , especially on account of the other puals near: it is not so, however, for the simple reason that, according to the accentuation (viz. , with two pashtahs , the first of which gives the tone, as in tohu , Gen 1:2, so that it must be pronounced zóru ), it has the tone upon the penultimate, for which it would be impossible to discover any reason, if it were derived from zârâh .

For the assumption that the tone is drawn back to prepare the way for the strong tone of the next verb ( Chubbâshu ) is arbitrary, as the influence of the pause, though it sometimes reaches the last word but one, never extends to the last but two. Moreover, according to the usage of speech, zorâh signifies to be dispersed, not to be pressed out; whereas zur and zârar are commonly used in the sense of pressing together and squeezing out.

Consequently zoru is either the kal of an intransitive zor in the middle voice (like boshu ), or, what is more probable - as zoru , the middle voice in Psa 58:4, has a different meaning ( abalienati sunt: cf. , Isa 1:4) - the kal of zârar (= Arab. Constringere ), which is here conjugated as an intransitive (cf. , Job 24:24, rommu , and Gen 49:23, where robbu is used in an active sense).

The surgical treatment so needed by the nation was a figurative representation of the pastoral addresses of the prophets, which had been delivered indeed, but, inasmuch as their salutary effects were dependent upon the penitential sorrow of the people, might as well have never been delivered at all. The people had despised the merciful, compassionate kindness of their God.

They had no liking for the radical cure which the prophets had offered to effect. All the more pitiable, therefore, was the condition of the body, which was sick within, and diseased from head to foot. The prophet is speaking here of the existing state of things. He affirms that it is all over with the nation; and this is the ground and object of his reproachful lamentations.

Consequently, when he passes in the next v. from figurative language to literal, we may presume that he is still speaking of his own times. It is Isaiah’s custom to act in this manner as his own expositor (compare Isa 1:22 with Isa 1:23). The body thus inwardly and outwardly diseased, was, strictly speaking, the people and the land in their fearful condition at that time.

Isa 1:7 This is described more particularly in Isa 1:7, which commences with the most general view, and returns to it again at the close. ”Your land ... a desert; your cities ... burned with fire; your field ... foreigners consuming it before your eyes, and a desert like overthrowing by strangers. ” Caspari has pointed out, in his Introduction to the Book of Isaiah , how nearly every word corresponds to the curses threatened in Lev 26 and Deut 28 (29); Mic 6:13-16 and Jer 5:15.

stand in the very same relation to these sections of the Pentateuch. From the time of Isaiah downwards, the state of Israel was a perfect realization of the curses of the law. The prophet intentionally employs the words of the law to describe his own times; he designates the enemy, who devastated the land, reduced its towers to ashes, and took possession of its crops, by the simple term zarim , foreigners or barbarians (a word which would have the very same meaning if it were really the reduplication of the Aramaean bar ; compare the Syriac barōye , a foreigner), without mentioning their particular nationality.

He abstracts himself from the definite historical present, in order that he may point out all the more emphatically how thoroughly it bears the character of the fore-ordained curse. The most emphatic indication of this was to be found in the fact, which the clause at the close of Isa 1:7 palindromically affirms, that a desolation had been brought about “like the overthrow of foreigners.

” The repetition of a catchword like zarim (foreigners) at the close of the v. in this emphatic manner, is a figure of speech, called epanaphora , peculiar to the two halves of our collection. The question arises, however, whether zarim is to be regarded as the genitive of the subject, as Caspari, Knobel, and others suppose, “such an overthrow as is commonly produced by barbarians” (cf.

, 2Sa 10:3, where the verb occurs), or as the genitive of the object, “such an overthrow as comes upon barbarians. ” As mahpechâh (overthrow) is used in other places in which it occurs to denote the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, etc. , according to the primary passage, Deu 29:22, and Isaiah had evidently also this catastrophe in his mind, as Isa 1:8 clearly shows; we decide in favour of the conclusion that zârim is the genitive of the object (cf.

, Amo 4:11). The force of the comparison is also more obvious, if we understand the words in this sense. The desolation which had fallen upon the land of the people of God resembled that thorough desolation ( subversio ) with which God visited the nations outside the covenant, who, like the people of the Pentapolis, were swept from off the earth without leaving a trace behind.

But although there was similarity, there was not sameness, as Isa 1:8, Isa 1:9 distinctly affirm. Jerusalem itself was still preserved; but in how pitiable a condition! There can be no doubt that bath - Zion (“daughter of Zion,” Eng. ver.) in Isa 1:8 signifies Jerusalem. The genitive in this case is a genitive of apposition: “daughter Zion,” not “daughter of Zion” (cf.

, Isa 37:22 : see Ges. §116, 5). Zion itself is represented as a daughter, i. e. , as a woman. The expression applied primarily to the community dwelling around the fortress of Zion, to which the individual inhabitants stood in the same relation as children to a mother, inasmuch as the community sees its members for the time being come into existence and grow: they are born within her, and, as it were, born and brought up by her.

It was then applied secondarily to the city itself , with or without the inhabitants (cf. , Jer 46:19; Jer 48:18; Zec 2:11). In this instance the latter are included, as Isa 1:9 clearly shows. This is precisely the point in the first two comparisons.

Isa 1:8 “And the daughter of Zion remains lie a hut in a vineyard; like a hammock in a cucumber field. ” The vineyard and cucumber field ( mikshah , from kisshu , a cucumber, Cucumis , not a gourd, Cucurbita ; at least not the true round gourd, whose Hebrew name, dalâth , does not occur in the Old Testament) are pictured by the prophet in their condition before the harvest (not after, as the Targums render it), when it is necessary that they should be watched.

The point of comparison therefore is, that in the vineyard and cucumber field not a human being is to be seen in any direction; and there is nothing but the cottage and the night barrack or hammock (cf. , Job 27:18) to show that there are any human beings there at all. So did Jerusalem stand in the midst of desolation, reaching far and wide - a sign, however, that the land was not entirely depopulated.

But what is the meaning of the third point of comparison? Hitzig renders it, “like a watch-tower;” Knobel, “like a guard-city. ” But the noun neither means a tower nor a castle (although the latter would be quite possible, according to the primary meaning, Cingere ); and nezurâh does not mean “watch” or “guard. ” On the other hand, the comparison indicated (like, or as) does not suit what would seem the most natural rendering, viz.

, “like a guarded city,” i. e. , a city shielded from danger. Moreover, it is inadmissible to take the first two Caphs in the sense of sicut (as) and the third in the sense of sic (so); since, although this correlative is common in clauses indicating identity, it is not so in sentences which institute a simple comparison. We therefore adopt the rendering, Isa 1:8 , “As a besieged city,” deriving nezurâh not from zur , niphal nâzor (never used), as Luzzatto does, but from nâzar , which signifies to observe with keen eye, either with a good intention, or, as in Job 7:20, for a hostile purpose.

It may therefore be employed, like the synonyms in 2Sa 11:16 and Jer 5:6, to denote the reconnoitring of a city. Jerusalem was not actually blockaded at the time when the prophet uttered his predictions; but it was like a blockaded city. In the case of such a city there is a desolate space, completely cleared of human beings, left between it and the blockading army, in the centre of which the city itself stands solitary and still, shut up to itself.

The citizens do not venture out; the enemy does not come within the circle that immediately surrounds the city, for fear of the shots of the citizens; and everything within this circle is destroyed, either by the citizens themselves, to prevent the enemy from finding anything useful, or else by the enemy, who cut down the trees. Thus, with all the joy that might be felt at the preservation of Jerusalem, it presented but a gloomy appearance.

It was, as it were, in a state of siege. A proof that this is the way in which the passage is to be explained, may be found in Jer 4:16-17, where the actual storming of Jerusalem is foretold, and the enemy is called nozerim , probably with reference to the simile before us.

Isa 1:9 For the present, however, Jerusalem was saved from this extremity. The omnipotence of God had mercifully preserved it: “Unless Jehovah of hosts had left us a little of what had escaped, we had become like Sodom, we were like Gomorrah. ” Sarid (which is rendered inaccurately σπέρμα in the Sept. ; cf. , Rom 9:29) was used, even in the early Mosaic usage of the language, to signify that which escaped the general destruction (Deu 2:34, etc.)

; and כּמעט (which might very well be connected with the verbs which follow: “we were very nearly within a little like Sodom,” etc.) is to be taken in connection with sarid , as the pausal form clearly shows: “a remnant which was but a mere trifle” (on this use of the word, see Isa 16:14; 2Ch 12:7; Pro 10:20; Psa 105:12). Jehovah Zebaoth stands first, for the sake of emphasis.

It would have been all over with Israel long ago, if it had not been for the compassion of God (vid. , Hos 11:8). And because it was the omnipotence of God, which set the will of His compassion in motion, He is called Jehovah Zebaoth , Jehovah (the God) of the heavenly hosts - an expression in which Zebaoth is a dependent genitive, and not, as Luzzatto supposes, an independent name of God as the Absolute, embracing within itself all the powers of nature.

The prophet says “us” and “we. ” He himself was an inhabitant of Jerusalem; and even if he had not been so, he was nevertheless an Israelite. He therefore associates himself with his people, like Jeremiah in Lam 3:22. He had had to experience the anger of God along with the rest; and so, on the other hand, he also celebrates the mighty compassion of God, which he had experienced in common with them.

But for this compassion, the people of God would have become like Sodom, from which only four human beings escaped: it would have resembled Gomorrah, which was absolutely annihilated. (On the prefects in the protasis and apodosis, see Ges. §126, 5.)

Isa 1:10-11 The prophet’s address has here reached a resting-place. The fact that it is divided at this point into two separate sections, is indicated in the text by the space left between Isa 1:9 and Isa 1:10. This mode of marking larger or smaller sections, either by leaving spaces of by breaking off the line, is older than the vowel points and accents, and rests upon a tradition of the highest antiquity (Hupfeld, Gram .

p. 86ff.) The space is called pizka ; the section indicated by such a space, a closed parashah ( sethumah ); and the section indicated by breaking off the line, an open parashah ( petuchah ). The prophet stops as soon as he has affirmed, that nothing but the mercy of God has warded off from Israel the utter destruction which it so well deserved. He catches in spirit the remonstrances of his hearers.

They would probably declare that the accusations which the prophet had brought against them were utterly groundless, and appeal to their scrupulous observance of the law of God. In reply to this self-vindication which he reads in the hearts of the accused, the prophet launches forth the accusations of God. In Isa 1:10, Isa 1:11, he commences thus: “Hear the word of Jehovah, ye Sodom judges; give ear to the law of our God, O Gomorrah nation!

What is the multitude of your slain-offerings to me? saith Jehovah. I am satiated with whole offerings of rams, and the fat of stalled calves; and blood of bullocks and sheep and he-goats I do not like. ” The second start in the prophet’s address commences, like the first, with “hear” and “give ear. ” The summons to hear is addressed in this instances (as in the case of Isaiah’s contemporary Micah, Mic 3:1-12) to the kezinim (from kâzâh , decidere , from which comes the Arabic el - Kadi , the judge, with the substantive termination in : see Jeshurun , p.

212 ss.) , i. e. , to the men of decisive authority, the rulers in the broadest sense, and to the people subject to them. It was through the mercy of God that Jerusalem was in existence still, for Jerusalem was “spiritually Sodom,” as the Revelation (Rev 11:8) distinctly affirms of Jerusalem, with evident allusion to this passage of Isaiah. Pride, lust of the flesh, and unmerciful conduct, were the leading sins of Sodom, according to Eze 16:49; and of these, the rulers of Jerusalem, and the crowd that was subject to them and worthy of them, were equally guilty now.

But they fancied that they could not possibly stand in such evil repute with God, inasmuch as they rendered outward satisfaction to the law. The prophet therefore called upon them to hear the law of the God of Israel, which he would announce to them: for the prophet was the appointed interpreter of the law, and prophecy the spirit of the law, and the prophetic institution the constant living presence of the true essence of the law bearing its own witness in Israel.

“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith Jehovah. ” The prophet intentionally uses the word יאמר, not אמר: this was the incessant appeal of God in relation to the spiritless, formal worship offered by the hypocritical, ceremonial righteousness of Israel (the future denoting continuous actions, which is ever at the same time both present and future).

The multitude of zebâchim , i. e. , animal sacrifices, had no worth at all to Him. As the whole worship is summed up here in one single act, zebâchim appears to denote the shelamim , peace-offerings (or better still, communion offerings), with which a meal was associated, after the style of a sacrificial festival, and Jehovah gave the worshipper a share in the sacrifice offered.

It is better, however, to take zebâchim as the general name for all the bleeding sacrifices, which are then subdivided into 'oloth and Cheleb , as consisting partly of whole offerings, or offerings the whole of which was placed upon the altar, though in separate pieces, and entirely consumed, and partly of those sacrifices in which only the fat was consumed upon the altar, namely the sin-offerings, trespass-offerings, and pre-eminently the shelâmim offerings. Of the sacrificial animals mentioned, the bullocks ( pârim ) and fed beasts ( meri'im , fattened calves) are species of oxen ( bakar ); and the lambs ( Cebashim ) and he-goats ( atturim , young he-goats, as distinguished from se'ir , the old long-haired he-goat, the animal used as a sin-offering), together with the ram ( ayil , the customary whole offering of the high priest, of the tribe prince, and of the nation generally on all the high feast days), were species of the flock.

The blood of these sacrificial animals - such, for example, as the young oxen, sheep, and he-goats - was thrown all round the altar in the case of the whole offering, the peace-offering, and the trespass-offering; in that of the sin-offering it was smeared upon the horns of the altar, poured out at the foot of the altar, and in some instances sprinkled upon the walls of the altar, or against the vessels of the inner sanctuary. Of such offerings as these Jehovah was weary, and He wanted no more (the two perfects denote that which long has been and still is: Ges.

§126, 3); in fact, He never had desired anything of the kind.

Isa 1:10-11 The prophet’s address has here reached a resting-place. The fact that it is divided at this point into two separate sections, is indicated in the text by the space left between Isa 1:9 and Isa 1:10. This mode of marking larger or smaller sections, either by leaving spaces of by breaking off the line, is older than the vowel points and accents, and rests upon a tradition of the highest antiquity (Hupfeld, Gram .

p. 86ff.) The space is called pizka ; the section indicated by such a space, a closed parashah ( sethumah ); and the section indicated by breaking off the line, an open parashah ( petuchah ). The prophet stops as soon as he has affirmed, that nothing but the mercy of God has warded off from Israel the utter destruction which it so well deserved. He catches in spirit the remonstrances of his hearers.

They would probably declare that the accusations which the prophet had brought against them were utterly groundless, and appeal to their scrupulous observance of the law of God. In reply to this self-vindication which he reads in the hearts of the accused, the prophet launches forth the accusations of God. In Isa 1:10, Isa 1:11, he commences thus: “Hear the word of Jehovah, ye Sodom judges; give ear to the law of our God, O Gomorrah nation!

What is the multitude of your slain-offerings to me? saith Jehovah. I am satiated with whole offerings of rams, and the fat of stalled calves; and blood of bullocks and sheep and he-goats I do not like. ” The second start in the prophet’s address commences, like the first, with “hear” and “give ear. ” The summons to hear is addressed in this instances (as in the case of Isaiah’s contemporary Micah, Mic 3:1-12) to the kezinim (from kâzâh , decidere , from which comes the Arabic el - Kadi , the judge, with the substantive termination in : see Jeshurun , p.

212 ss.) , i. e. , to the men of decisive authority, the rulers in the broadest sense, and to the people subject to them. It was through the mercy of God that Jerusalem was in existence still, for Jerusalem was “spiritually Sodom,” as the Revelation (Rev 11:8) distinctly affirms of Jerusalem, with evident allusion to this passage of Isaiah. Pride, lust of the flesh, and unmerciful conduct, were the leading sins of Sodom, according to Eze 16:49; and of these, the rulers of Jerusalem, and the crowd that was subject to them and worthy of them, were equally guilty now.

But they fancied that they could not possibly stand in such evil repute with God, inasmuch as they rendered outward satisfaction to the law. The prophet therefore called upon them to hear the law of the God of Israel, which he would announce to them: for the prophet was the appointed interpreter of the law, and prophecy the spirit of the law, and the prophetic institution the constant living presence of the true essence of the law bearing its own witness in Israel.

“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith Jehovah. ” The prophet intentionally uses the word יאמר, not אמר: this was the incessant appeal of God in relation to the spiritless, formal worship offered by the hypocritical, ceremonial righteousness of Israel (the future denoting continuous actions, which is ever at the same time both present and future).

The multitude of zebâchim , i. e. , animal sacrifices, had no worth at all to Him. As the whole worship is summed up here in one single act, zebâchim appears to denote the shelamim , peace-offerings (or better still, communion offerings), with which a meal was associated, after the style of a sacrificial festival, and Jehovah gave the worshipper a share in the sacrifice offered.

It is better, however, to take zebâchim as the general name for all the bleeding sacrifices, which are then subdivided into 'oloth and Cheleb , as consisting partly of whole offerings, or offerings the whole of which was placed upon the altar, though in separate pieces, and entirely consumed, and partly of those sacrifices in which only the fat was consumed upon the altar, namely the sin-offerings, trespass-offerings, and pre-eminently the shelâmim offerings. Of the sacrificial animals mentioned, the bullocks ( pârim ) and fed beasts ( meri'im , fattened calves) are species of oxen ( bakar ); and the lambs ( Cebashim ) and he-goats ( atturim , young he-goats, as distinguished from se'ir , the old long-haired he-goat, the animal used as a sin-offering), together with the ram ( ayil , the customary whole offering of the high priest, of the tribe prince, and of the nation generally on all the high feast days), were species of the flock.

The blood of these sacrificial animals - such, for example, as the young oxen, sheep, and he-goats - was thrown all round the altar in the case of the whole offering, the peace-offering, and the trespass-offering; in that of the sin-offering it was smeared upon the horns of the altar, poured out at the foot of the altar, and in some instances sprinkled upon the walls of the altar, or against the vessels of the inner sanctuary. Of such offerings as these Jehovah was weary, and He wanted no more (the two perfects denote that which long has been and still is: Ges.

§126, 3); in fact, He never had desired anything of the kind.

Isa 1:12 Jeremiah says this with regard to the sacrifices (Isa 7:22); Isaiah also applies it to visits to the temple: “When ye come to appear before my face, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? ” לראות is a contracted infinitive niphal for להראות (compare the hiphil forms contracted in the same manner in Isa 3:8; Isa 23:11). This is the standing expression for the appearance of all male Israelites in the temple at the three high festivals, as prescribed by the law, and then for visits to the temple generally (cf.

, Psa 42:3; Psa 84:8). “My face” ( panai ): according to Ewald, §279, c, this is used with the passive to designate the subject (“to be seen by the face of God”); but why not rather take it as an adverbial accusative, “in the face of,” or “in front of,” as it is used interchangeably with the prepositions ל, את, and אל? It is possible that לראות is pointed as it is here, and in Exo 34:24 and in Deu 31:11, instead of לראות - like יראוּ for יראוּ, in Exo 23:15; Exo 34:20, - for the purpose of avoiding an expression which might be so easily misunderstood as denoting a sight of God with the bodily eye.

But the niphal is firmly established in Exo 23:17; Exo 34:23, and 1Sa 1:22; and in the Mishnah and Talmud the terms ראיה and ראיון are applied without hesitation to appearance before God at the principal feasts. They visited the temple diligently enough indeed, but who had required this at their hand, i. e. , required them to do this? Jehovah certainly had not.

“ To tread my courts ” is in apposition to this , which it more clearly defines. Jehovah did not want them to appear before His face, i. e. , He did not wish for this spiritless and undevotional tramping thither, this mere opus operatum , which might as well have been omitted, since it only wore out the floor.

Isa 1:13 Because they had not performed what Jehovah commanded as He commanded it, He expressly forbids them to continue it. “Continue not to bring lying meat-offering; abomination incense is it to me. ” Minchah (the meat-offering) was the vegetable offering, as distinguished from zebach , the animal sacrifice. It is called a “lying meat-offering,” as being a hypocritical dead work, behind which there was none of the feeling which it appeared to express.

In the second clause the Sept. , Vulg. , Gesenius, and others adopt the rendering “incense - an abomination is it to me,” ketoreth being taken as the name of the daily burning of incense upon the golden altar in the holy place (Exo 30:8). But neither in Psa 141:2, where prayer is offered by one who is not a priest, nor in the passage before us, where the reference is not to the priesthood, but to the people and to their deeds, is this continual incense to be thought of.

Moreover, it is much more natural to regard the word ketoreth not as a bold absolute case, but, according to the conjunctive darga with which it is marked, as constructive rather; and this is perfectly allowable. The meat-offering is called “incense” ( ketoreth ) with reference to the so-called azcarah , i. e. , that portion which the priest burned upon the altar, to bring the grateful offerer into remembrance before God (called “burning the memorial,” hiktir azcârâh , in Lev 2:2).

As a general rule, this was accompanied with incense (Isa 66:3), the whole of which was placed upon the altar, and not merely a small portion of it. The meat-offering, with its sweet-smelling savour, was merely the form, which served as an outward expression of the thanksgiving for God’s blessing, or the longing for His blessing, which really ascended in prayer.

But in their case the form had no such meaning. It was nothing but the form, with which they thought they had satisfied God; and therefore it was an abomination to Him. Isa 1:13 . God was just as little pleased with their punctilious observance of the feasts: “New-moon and Sabbath, calling of festal meetings ... I cannot bear ungodliness and a festal crowd. ” The first objective notions, which are logically governed by “I cannot bear” (לא־אוּכל: literally, a future hophal - I am unable, incapable, viz.

, to bear, which may be supplied, according to Psa 101:5; Jer 44:22; Pro 30:21), become absolute cases here, on account of another grammatical object presenting itself in the last two nouns: “ungodliness and a festal crowd. ” As for new-moon and Sabbath (the latter always signifies the weekly Sabbath when construed with Chodesh ) - and, in fact, the calling of meetings of the whole congregation on the weekly Sabbath and high festivals, which was a simple duty according to Lev 23 - - Jehovah could not endure festivals associated with wickedness.

עצרה (from עצר, to press, or crowd thickly together) is synonymous with מקרא), so far as its immediate signification is concerned, as Jer 9:1 clearly shows, just as πανήγυρις is synonymous with εκκλησία . און (from אוּן, to breathe) is moral worthlessness, regarded as an utter absence of all that has true essence and worth in the sight of God. The prophet intentionally joins these two nouns together.

A densely crowded festal meeting, combined with inward emptiness and barrenness on the part of those who were assembled together, was a contradiction which God could not endure.

Isa 1:14 He gives a still stronger expression to His repugnance: “Your new-moons and your festive seasons my soul hateth; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. ” As the soul ( nephesh ) of a man, regarded as the band which unites together bodily and spiritual life, though it is not the actual principle of self-consciousness, is yet the place in which he draws, as it were, the circle of self-consciousness, so as to comprehend the whole essence of His being in the single thought of “I;” so, according to a description taken from godlike man, the “soul” ( nephesh ) of God, as the expression “my soul” indicates, is the centre of His being, regarded as encircled and pervaded (personated) by self-consciousness; and therefore, whatever the soul of God hates (vid.

, Jer 15:1) or loves (Isa 42:1), is hated or loved in the inmost depths and to the utmost bounds of His being ( Psychol . p. 218). Thus He hated each and all of the festivals that were kept in Jerusalem, whether the beginnings of the month, or the high feast-days ( moadim , in which, according to Lev 23, the Sabbath was also included) observed in the course of the month.

For a long time past they had become a burden and annoyance to Him: His long-suffering was weary of such worship. “To bear” (נשׂא), in Isaiah, even in Isa 18:3, for שׂאת or שׂאת ro , and here for לשׂאת: Ewald, §285, c ) has for its object the seasons of worship already mentioned.

Isa 1:15 Their self-righteousness, so far as it rested upon sacrifices and festal observances, was now put to shame, and the last inward bulwark of the sham holy nation was destroyed: “And if ye stretch out your hands, I hide my eyes from you; if ye make ever so much praying, I do not hear: your hands are full of blood. ” Their praying was also an abomination to God.

Prayer is something common to man: it is the interpreter of religious feeling, which intervenes and mediates between God and man; it is the true spiritual sacrifice. The law contains no command to pray, and, with the exception of Deut 26, no form of prayer. Praying is so natural to man as man, that there was no necessity for any precept to enforce this, the fundamental expression of the true relation to God.

The prophet therefore comes to prayer last of all, so as to trace back their sham-holiness, which was corrupt even to this the last foundation, to its real nothingness. “Spread out,” parash , or pi pērēsh , to stretch out; used with Cappaim to denote swimming in Isa 25:11. It is written here before a strong suffix, as in many other passages, e. g. , Isa 52:12, with the inflection i instead of e .

This was the gesture of a man in prayer, who spread out his hands, and when spread out, stretched them towards heaven, or to the most holy place in the temple, and indeed (as if with the feeling of emptiness and need, and with a desire to receive divine gifts) held up the hollow or palm of his hand ( Cappaim : cf. , tendere palmas , e. g. , Virg. Aen . xii. 196, tenditque ad sidera palmas ).

However much they might stand or lie before Him in the attitude of prayer, Jehovah hid His eyes, i. e. , His omniscience knew nothing of it; and even though they might pray loud and long ( gam chi , etiamsi : compare the simple Chi , Jer 14:12), He was, as it were, deaf to it all. We should expect Chi here to introduce the explanation; but the more excited the speaker, the shorter and more unconnected his words.

The plural damim always denotes human blood as the result of some unnatural act, and then the bloody deed and the bloodguiltiness itself. The plural number neither refers to the quantity nor to the separate drops, but is the plural of production, which Dietrich has so elaborately discussed in his Abhandlung , p. 40. The terrible damim stands very emphatically before the governing verb, pointing to many murderous acts that had been committed, and deeds of violence akin to murder.

Not, indeed, that we are to understand the words as meaning that there was really blood upon their hands when they stretched them out in prayer; but before God, from whom no outward show can hide the true nature of things, however clean they might have washed themselves, they still dripped with blood. The expostulations of the people against the divine accusations have thus been negatively set forth and met in Isa 1:11-15 : Jehovah could not endure their work-righteous worship, which was thus defiled with unrighteous works, even to murder itself.

The divine accusation is now positively established in Isa 1:16, Isa 1:17, by the contrast drawn between the true righteousness of which the accused were destitute, and the false righteousness of which they boasted. The crushing charge is here changed into an admonitory appeal; and the love which is hidden behind the wrath, and would gladly break through, already begins to disclose itself.

There are eight admonitions. The first three point to the removal of evil; the other five to the performance of what is good.

Isa 1:16 The first three run thus: “Wash, clean yourselves; put away the badness of your doings from the range of my eyes; cease to do evil. ” This is not only an advance from figurative language to the most literal, but there is also an advance in what is said. The first admonition requires, primarily and above all, purification from the sins committed, by means of forgiveness sought for and obtained.

Wash: rachatzu , from râchatz , in the frequent middle sense of washing one’s self. Clean yourselves: hizdaccu , with the tone upon the last syllable, is not the niphal of zâkak , as the first plur. imper. niph . of such verbs has generally and naturally the tone upon the penultimate (see Isa 52:11; Num 17:10), but the hithpael of zacah for hizdaccu , with the preformative Tav resolved into the first radical letter, as is very common in the hithpael (Ges.

§54, 2, b ). According to the difference between the two synonyms (to wash one’s self, to clean one’s self), the former must be understood as referring to the one great act of repentance on the part of a man who is turning to God, the latter to the daily repentance of one who has so turned. The second admonition requires them to place themselves in the light of the divine countenance, and put away the evil of their doings, which was intolerable to pure eyes (Hab 1:13).

They were to wrestle against the wickedness to which their actual sin had grown, until at length it entirely disappeared. Neged , according to its radical meaning, signifies prominence (compare the Arabic ne‛gd , high land which is visible at a great distance), conspicuousness, so that minneged is really equivalent to ex apparentia .

Isa 1:17 Five admonitions relating to the practice of what is good: “Learn to do good, attend to judgment, set the oppressor right, do justice to the orphan, conduct the cause of the widow. ” The first admonition lays the foundation for the rest. They were to learn to do good - a difficult art, in which a man does not become proficient merely by good intentions.

“Learn to do good:” hetib is the object to limdu (learn), regarded as an accusative; the inf. abs. הרע in Isa 1:16 takes the place of the object in just the same manner. The division of this primary admonition into four minor ones relating to the administration of justice, may be explained from the circumstance that no other prophet directs so keen an eye upon the state and its judicial proceedings as Isaiah has done.

He differs in this respect from his younger contemporary Micah, whose prophecies are generally more ethical in their nature, whilst those of Isaiah have a political character throughout. Hence the admonitions: “Give diligent attention to judgment” ( dârash , to devote one’s self to a thing with zeal and assiduity); and “bring the oppressor to the right way. ” This is the true rendering, as Châmotz (from Châmatz , to be sharp in flavour, glaring in appearance, violent and impetuous in character) cannot well mean “the oppressed,” or the man who is deprived of his rights, as most of the early translators have rendered it, since this form of the noun, especially with an immutable kametz like בּגוד בּגודה (cf.

, נקד נקּדּה), is not used in a passive, but in an active or attributive sense (Ewald, §152, b: vid. , at Psa 137:8): it has therefore the same meaning as Chomeotz in Psa 71:4, and âshok in Jer 22:3, which is similar in its form. But if Châmotz signifies the oppressive, reckless, churlish man, אשּׁר cannot mean to make happy, or to congratulate, or to set up, or, as in the talmudic rendering, to strengthen (Luzzatto: rianimate chi è oppresso ); but, as it is also to be rendered in Isa 3:12; Isa 9:15, to lead to the straight road, or to cause a person to keep the straight course.

In the case before us, where the oppressor is spoken of, it means to direct him to the way of justice, to keep him in bounds by severe punishment and discipline. In the same way we find in other passages, such as Isa 11:4 and Psa 72:4, severe conduct towards oppressors mentioned in connection with just treatment of the poor. There follow two admonitions relating to widows and orphans.

Widows and orphans, as well as foreigners, were the protégés of God and His law, standing under His especial guardianship and care (see, for example, Exo 22:22 (21), cf. , Exo 21:21 (20). “Do justice to the orphan” ( Shâphat , as in Deu 25:1, is a contracted expression for shâphat mishpat ): for if there is not even a settlement or verdict in their cause, this is the most crying injustice of all, as neither the form nor the appearance of justice is preserved.

“Conduct the cause of the widows:” ריב with an accusative, as in Isa 51:22, the only other passage in which it occurs, is a contracted form for ריב ריב. Thus all the grounds of self-defence, which existed in the hearts of the accused, are both negatively and positively overthrown. They are thundered down and put to shame. The law ( thorah ), announced in Isa 1:10, has been preached to them.

The prophet has cast away the husks of their dead works, and brought out the moral kernel of the law in its universal application.

Isa 1:18 The first leading division of the address is brought to a close, and Isa 1:18 contains the turning-point between the two parts into which it is divided. Hitherto Jehovah has spoken to His people in wrath. But His love began to move even in the admonitions in Isa 1:16, Isa 1:17. And now this love, which desired not Israel’s destruction, but Israel’s inward and outward salvation, breaks fully through.

“O come, and let us reason together, saith Jehovah. If your sins come forth like scarlet cloth, they shall become white as snow; if they are red as crimson, they shall come forth like wool! ” Jehovah here challenges Israel to a formal trial: nocach is thus used in a reciprocal sense, and with the same meaning as nishpat in Isa 43:26 (Ges. §51, 2). In such a trial Israel must lose, for Israel’s self-righteousness rests upon sham righteousness; and this sham righteousness, when rightly examined, is but unrighteousness dripping with blood.

It is taken for granted that this must be the result of the investigation. Israel is therefore worthy of death. Yet Jehovah will not treat Israel according to His retributive justice, but according to His free compassion. He will remit the punishment, and not only regard the sin as not existing, but change it into its very opposite. The reddest possible sin shall become, through His mercy, the purest white.

On the two hiphils here applied to colour, see Ges. §53, 2; though he gives the meaning incorrectly, viz. , “to take a colour,” whereas the words signify rather to emit a colour: not Colorem accipere , but Colorem dare . Shâni , bright red (the plural shânim , as in Pro 31:21, signifies materials dyed with shâni ), and tolâ , warm colour, are simply different names for the same colour, viz.

, the crimson obtained from the cochineal insect, Color cocccineus . The representation of the work of grace promised by God as a change from red to white, is founded upon the symbolism of colours, quite as much as when the saints in the Revelation (Rev 19:8) are described as clothed in white raiment, whilst the clothing of Babylon is purple and scarlet (Isa 17:4).

Red is the colour of fire, and therefore of life: the blood is red because life is a fiery process. For this reason the heifer, from which the ashes of purification were obtained for those who had been defiled through contact with the dead, was to be red; and the sprinkling-brush, with which the unclean were sprinkled, was to be tied round with a band of scarlet wool.

But red as contrasted with white, the colour of light (Mat 17:2), is the colour of selfish, covetous, passionate life, which is self-seeking in its nature, which goes out of itself only to destroy, and drives about with wild tempestuous violence: it is therefore the colour of wrath and sin. It is generally supposed that Isaiah speaks of red as the colour of sin, because sin ends in murder; and this is not really wrong, though it is too restricted.

Sin is called red, inasmuch as it is a burning heat which consumes a man, and when it breaks forth consumes his fellow-man as well. According to the biblical view, throughout, sin stands in the same relation to what is well-pleasing to God, and wrath in the same relation to love or grace, as fire to light; and therefore as red to white, or black to white, for red and black are colours which border upon one another.

In the Song of Solomon (Isa 7:5), the black locks of Shulamith are described as being “like purple,” and Homer applies the same epithet to the dark waves of the sea. But the ground of this relation lies deeper still. Red is the colour of fire, which flashes out of darkness and returns to it again; whereas white without any admixture of darkness represents the pure, absolute triumph of light.

It is a deeply significant symbol of the act of justification. Jehovah offers to Israel an actio forensis , out of which it shall come forth justified by grace, although it has merited death on account of its sins. The righteousness, white as snow and wool, with which Israel comes forth, is a gift conferred upon it out of pure compassion, without being conditional upon any legal performance whatever.

Isa 1:19-20 But after the restoration of Israel in integrum by this act of grace, the rest would unquestionably depend upon the conduct of Israel itself. According to Israel’s own decision would Jehovah determine Israel’s future. “If ye then shall willingly hear, ye shall eat the good of the land; if ye shall obstinately rebel, ye shall be eaten by the sword: for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.

” After their justification, both blessing and cursing lay once more before the justified, as they had both been long before proclaimed by the law (compare Isa 1:19 with Deu 28:3. , Lev 26:3. , and Isa 1:20 with the threat of vengeance with the sword in Lev 26:25). The promise of eating, i. e. , of the full enjoyment of domestic blessings, and therefore of settled, peaceful rest at home, is placed in contrast with the curse of being eaten with the sword.

Chereb (the sword) is the accusative of the instrument, as in Psa 17:13-14; but this adverbial construction without either genitive, adjective, or suffix, as in Exo 30:20, is very rarely met with (Ges. §138, Anm. 3); and in the passage before us it is a bold construction which the prophet allows himself, instead of saying, חרב תּאכלכם, for the sake of the paronomasia (Böttcher, Collectanea , p.

161). In the conditional clauses the two futures are followed by two preterites (compare Lev 26:21, which is more in conformity with our western mode of expression), inasmuch as obeying and rebelling are both of them consequences of an act of will: if ye shall be willing, and in consequence of this obey; if ye shall refuse, and rebel against Jehovah. They are therefore, strictly speaking, perfecta consecutiva .

According to the ancient mode of writing, the passage Isa 1:18-20 formed a separate parashah by themselves, viz. , a sethumah , or parashah indicated by spaces left within the line. The piskah after Isa 1:20 corresponds to a long pause in the mind of the speaker. - Will Israel tread the saving path of forgiveness thus opened before it, and go on to renewed obedience, and will it be possible for it to be brought back by this path?

Individuals possibly may, but not the whole. The divine appeal therefore changes now into a mournful complaint. So peaceful a solution as this of the discord between Jehovah and His children was not to be hoped for. Jerusalem was far too depraved.

Isa 1:19-20 But after the restoration of Israel in integrum by this act of grace, the rest would unquestionably depend upon the conduct of Israel itself. According to Israel’s own decision would Jehovah determine Israel’s future. “If ye then shall willingly hear, ye shall eat the good of the land; if ye shall obstinately rebel, ye shall be eaten by the sword: for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.

” After their justification, both blessing and cursing lay once more before the justified, as they had both been long before proclaimed by the law (compare Isa 1:19 with Deu 28:3. , Lev 26:3. , and Isa 1:20 with the threat of vengeance with the sword in Lev 26:25). The promise of eating, i. e. , of the full enjoyment of domestic blessings, and therefore of settled, peaceful rest at home, is placed in contrast with the curse of being eaten with the sword.

Chereb (the sword) is the accusative of the instrument, as in Psa 17:13-14; but this adverbial construction without either genitive, adjective, or suffix, as in Exo 30:20, is very rarely met with (Ges. §138, Anm. 3); and in the passage before us it is a bold construction which the prophet allows himself, instead of saying, חרב תּאכלכם, for the sake of the paronomasia (Böttcher, Collectanea , p.

161). In the conditional clauses the two futures are followed by two preterites (compare Lev 26:21, which is more in conformity with our western mode of expression), inasmuch as obeying and rebelling are both of them consequences of an act of will: if ye shall be willing, and in consequence of this obey; if ye shall refuse, and rebel against Jehovah. They are therefore, strictly speaking, perfecta consecutiva .

According to the ancient mode of writing, the passage Isa 1:18-20 formed a separate parashah by themselves, viz. , a sethumah , or parashah indicated by spaces left within the line. The piskah after Isa 1:20 corresponds to a long pause in the mind of the speaker. - Will Israel tread the saving path of forgiveness thus opened before it, and go on to renewed obedience, and will it be possible for it to be brought back by this path?

Individuals possibly may, but not the whole. The divine appeal therefore changes now into a mournful complaint. So peaceful a solution as this of the discord between Jehovah and His children was not to be hoped for. Jerusalem was far too depraved.

Isa 1:21 “How is she become a harlot, the faithful citadel! she, full of right, lodged in righteousness, and now-murderers. ” It is the keynote of an elegy ( kinah ) which is sounded here. איכה, and but rarely איך, which is an abbreviated form, is expressive of complaint and amazement. This longer form, like a long-drawn sigh, is a characteristic of the kinah .

The kinoth (Lamentations) of Jeremiah commence with it, and receive their title from it; whereas the shorter form is indicative of scornful complaining, and is characteristic of the mâshōl (e. g. , Isa 14:4, Isa 14:12; Mic 2:4). From this word, which gives the keynote, the rest all follows, soft, full, monotonous, long drawn out and slow, just in the style of an elegy.

We may see clearly enough that forms like מלאתי for מלאת, softened by lengthening, were adapted to elegiac compositions, from the first v. of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, where three of these forms occur. Jerusalem had previously been a faithful city, i. e. , one stedfastly adhering to the covenant of Jehovah with her (vid. , Psa 78:37). This covenant was a marriage covenant.

And she had broken it, and had thereby become a zonâh (harlot) - a prophetic view, the germs of which had already been given in the Pentateuch, where the worship of idols on the part of Israel is called whoring after them (Deu 31:16; Exo 34:15-16; in all, seven times). It was not, however, merely gross outward idolatry which made the church of God a “harlot,” but infidelity of heart, in whatever form it might express itself; so that Jesus described the people of His own time as an “adulterous generation,” notwithstanding the pharisaical strictness with which the worship of Jehovah was then observed.

For, as the v. before us indicates, this marriage relation was founded upon right and righteousness in the broadest sense: mishpat , “right,” i. e. , a realization of right answering to the will of God as positively declared; and tzedek , “righteousness,” i. e. , a righteous state moulded by that will, or a righteous course of conduct regulated according to it (somewhat different, therefore, from the more qualitative tzedâkâh ).

Jerusalem was once full of such right; and righteousness was not merely there in the form of a hastily passing guest, but had come down from above to take up her permanent abode in Jerusalem: she tarried there day and night as if it were her home. The prophet had in his mind the times of David and Solomon, and also more especially the time of Jehoshaphat (about one hundred and fifty years before Isaiah’s appearance), who restored the administration of justice, which had fallen into neglect since the closing years of Solomon’s reign and the time of Rehoboam and Abijah, to which Asa’s reformation had not extended, and re-organized it entirely in the spirit of the law.

It is possible also that Jehoiada, the high priest in the time of Joash, may have revived the institutions of Jehoshaphat, so far as they had fallen into disuse under his three godless successors; but even in the second half of the reign of Joash, the administration of justice fell into the same disgraceful state, at least as compared with the times of David, Solomon, and Jehoshaphat, as that in which Isaiah found it. The glaring contrast between the present and the past is indicated by the expression “and now.

” In all the correct MSS and editions, mishpat is not accented with zakeph , but with rebia ; and bâh , which ought to have zakeph , is accented with tiphchah , on account of the brevity of the following clause. In this way the statement as to the past condition is sufficiently distinguished from that relating to the present. Formerly righteousness, now “murderers” ( merazzechim ), and indeed, as distinguished from rozechim , murderers by profession, who formed a band, like king Ahab and his son (2Ki 6:32).

The contrast was as glaring as possible, since murder is the direct opposite, the most crying violation, of righteousness.

Isa 1:22 The complaint now turns from the city generally to the authorities, and first of all figuratively. “Thy silver has become dross, thy drink mutilated with water. ” It is upon this passage that the figurative language of Jer 6:27. and Eze 22:18-22 is founded. Silver is here a figurative representation of the princes and lords, with special reference to the nobility of character naturally associated with nobility of birth and rank; for silver - refined silver - is an image of all that is noble and pure, light in all its purity being reflected by it (Bähr, Symbolik , i.

284). The princes and lords had once possessed all the virtues which the Latins called unitedly Candor animi , viz. , the virtues of magnanimity, affability, impartiality, and superiority to bribes. This silver had now become l'sigim , dross, or base metal separated (thrown off) from silver in the process of refining ( sig , pl. sigim , siggim from sug , recedere , refuse left in smelting, or dross: cf.

, Pro 25:4; Pro 26:23). A second figure compares the leading men of the older Jerusalem to good wine, such as drinkers like. The word employed here ( sobe ) must have been used in this sense by the more cultivated classes in Isaiah’s time (cf. , Nah 1:10). This pure, strong, and costly wine was now adulterated with water ( lit. castratum , according to Pliny’s expression in the Natural History: compare the Horatian phrase, jugulare Falernum ), and therefore its strength and odour were weakened, and its worth was diminished.

The present was nothing but the dross and shadow of the past. In Isa 1:23 the prophet says this without a figure: “Thy rulers are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth presents, and hunteth after payment; the orphan they right not, and the cause of the widow has no access to them. ” In two words the prophet depicts the contemptible baseness of the national rulers ( sârim ).

He describes first of all their baseness in relation to God, with the alliterative sorerim : rebellious , refractory; and then, in relation to men, companions of thieves, inasmuch as they allowed themselves to be bribed by presents of stolen goods to acts of injustice towards those who had been robbed. They not only willingly accepted such bribes, and that not merely a few of them, but every individual belonging to the rank of princes ( Cullo , equivalent to haccol , the whole: every one loveth gifts); but they went eagerly in pursuit of them ( rodeph ).

It was not peace ( shâlom ) that they hunted after (Psa 34:16), but shalmonim shalmonim, things that would pacify their avarice; not what was good, but compensation for their partiality. - This was the existing state of Jerusalem, and therefore it would hardly be likely to take the way of mercy opened before it in Isa 1:18; consequently Jehovah would avail himself of other means of setting it right.

Isa 1:24 “Therefore, saying of the Lord, of Jehovah of hosts, of the Strong One of Israel: Ah! I will relieve myself on mine adversaries, and will avenge myself upon mine enemies. ” Salvation through judgment was the only means of improvement and preservation left to the congregation, which called itself by the name of Jerusalem. Jehovah would therefore afford satisfaction to His holiness, and administer a judicial sifting to Jerusalem.

There is no other passage in Isaiah in which we meet with such a crowding together of different names of God as we do here (compare Isa 19:4; Isa 3:1; Isa 10:16, Isa 10:33; Isa 3:15). With three names, descriptive of the irresistible omnipotence of God, the irrevocable decree of a sifting judgment is sealed. The word נאּם, which is used here instead of אמר and points back to a verb נאם, related to נהם and המה, corresponds to the deep, earnest pathos of the words.

These verbs, which are imitations of sounds, all denote a dull hollow groaning. The word used here, therefore, signifies that which is spoken with significant secrecy and solemn softness. It is never written absolutely, but is always followed by the subject who speaks (saying of Jehovah it is, i. e. , Jehovah says). We meet with it first of all in Gen 22:16.

In the prophetic writings it occurs in Obadiah and Joel, but most frequently in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It is generally written at the close of the sentence, or parenthetically in the middle; very rarely at the commencement, as it is here and in 1Sa 2:30 and Psa 110:1. The “saying” commences with hoi ( ah! ), the painfulness of pity being mingled with the determined outbreak of wrath.

By the side of the niphal nikkam min (to be revenged upon a person) we find the niphal nicham (lit. to console one’s self). The two words are derived from kindred roots. The latter is conjugated with ĕ in the preformative syllable, the former with i , according to the older system of vowel-pointing adopted in the East. Jehovah would procure Himself relief from His enemies by letting out upon them the wrath with which He had hitherto been burdened (Eze 5:13).

He now calls the masses of Jerusalem by their right name. Isa 1:25 states clearly in what the revenge consisted with which Jehovah was inwardly burdened ( innakmah , a cohortative with the ah , indicating internal oppression): “And I will bring my hand over thee, and will smelt out thy dross as with alkali, and will clear away all thy lead. ” As long as God leaves a person’s actions or sufferings alone, His hand, i.

e. , His acting, is at rest. Bringing the hand over a person signifies a movement of the hand, which has been hitherto at rest, either for the purpose of inflicting judicial punishment upon the person named (Amo 1:8; Jer 6:9; Eze 38:12; Psa 81:15), or else, though this is seldom the case, for the purpose of saving him (Zec 13:7). The reference here is to the divine treatment of Jerusalem, in which punishment and salvation were combined - punishment as the means, salvation as the end.

The interposition of Jehovah was, as it were, a smelting, which would sweep away, not indeed Jerusalem itself, but the ungodly in Jerusalem. They are compared to dross, or (as the verb seems to imply) to ore mixed with dross, and, inasmuch as lead is thrown off in the smelting of silver, to such ingredients of lead as Jehovah would speedily and thoroughly remove, “like alkali,” i.

e. , “as if with alkali” ( Cabbo r, Comparatio decurtata , for C'babbor : for this mode of dropping Beth after Caph , compare Isa 9:3; Lev 22:13, and many other passages). By bedilim (from bâdal , to separate) we are to understand the several pieces of stannum or lead in which the silver is contained, and which are separated by smelting, all the baser metals being distinguished from the purer kinds by the fact that they are combustible (i.

e. , can be oxidized). Both bor , or potash (an alkali obtained from land-plants), and nether , natron (i. e. , soda, or natron obtained from the ashes of marine plants, which is also met with in many mineral waters), have been employed from the very earliest times to accelerate the process of smelting, for the purpose of separating a metal from its ore.

Isa 1:26 As the threat couched in the previous figure does not point to the destruction, but simply to the smelting of Jerusalem, there is nothing strange in the fact that in Isa 1:26 it should pass over into a pure promise; the meltingly soft and yearningly mournful termination of the clauses with ayich , the keynote of the later songs of Zion, being still continued. “And I will bring back thy judges as in the olden time, and thy counsellors as in the beginning; afterwards thou wilt be called city of righteousness, faithful citadel.

” The threat itself was, indeed, relatively a promise, inasmuch as whatever could stand the fire would survive the judgment; and the distinct object of this was to bring back Jerusalem to the purer metal of its own true nature. But when that had been accomplished, still more would follow. The indestructible kernel that remained would be crystallized, since Jerusalem would receive back from Jehovah the judges and counsellors which it had had in the olden flourishing times of the monarchy, ever since it had become the city of David and of the temple; not, indeed, the very same persons, but persons quite equal to them in excellence.

Under such God-given leaders Jerusalem would become what it had once been, and what it ought to be. The names applied to the city indicate the impression produced by the manifestation of its true nature. The second name is written without the article, as in fact the word kiryah (city), with its massive, definite sound, always is in Isaiah. Thus did Jehovah announce the way which it had been irrevocably determined that He would take with Israel, as the only way to salvation.

Moreover, this was the fundamental principle of the government of God, the law of Israel’s history. Isa 1:27 presents it in a brief and concise form: “Sion will be redeemed through judgment, and her returning ones through righteousness. ” Mishpat and tzedâkâh are used elsewhere for divine gifts (Isa 33:5; Isa 28:6), for such conduct as is pleasing to God (Isa 1:21; Isa 32:16), and for royal Messianic virtues (Isa 9:6; Isa 11:3-5; Isa 16:5; Isa 32:1).

Here, however, where we are helped by the context, they are to be interpreted according to such parallel passages as Isa 4:4; Isa 5:16; Isa 28:17, as signifying God’s right and righteousness in their primarily judicious self-fulfilment. A judgment, on the part of God the righteous One, would be the means by which Zion itself, so far as it had remained faithful to Jehovah, and those who were converted in the midst of the judgment, would be redeemed - a judgment upon sinners and sin, by which the power that had held in bondage the divine nature of Zion, so far as it still continued to exist, would be broken, and in consequence of which those who turned to Jehovah would be incorporated into His true church.

Whilst, therefore, God was revealing Himself in His punitive righteousness; He was working out a righteousness which would be bestowed as a gift of grace upon those who escaped the former. The notion of “righteousness” is now following a New Testament track. In front it has the fire of the law; behind, the love of the gospel. Love is concealed behind the wrath, like the sun behind the thunder-clouds.

Zion, so far as it truly is or is becoming Zion, is redeemed, and none but the ungodly are destroyed. But, as is added in the next verse, the latter takes place without mercy.

Isa 1:28 “And breaking up of the rebellious and sinners together; and those who forsake Jehovah will perish. ” The judicial side of the approaching act of redemption is here expressed in a way that all can understand. The exclamatory substantive clause in the first half of the v. is explained by a declaratory verbal clause in the second. The “rebellious” were those who had both inwardly and outwardly broken away from Jehovah; “sinners,” those who were living in open sins; and “those who forsake Jehovah,” such as had become estranged from God in either of these ways.

Isa 1:29 declares how God’s judgment of destruction would fall upon all of these. The v. is introduced with an explanatory “for” ( Chi ): “For they become ashamed of the terebinths, in which ye had your delight; and ye must blush for the gardens, in which ye took pleasure. ” The terebinths and gardens (the second word with the article, as in Hab 3:8, first binharim , then banneharim ) are not referred to as objects of luxury, as Hitzig and Drechsler assume, but as unlawful places of worship and objects of worship (see Deu 16:21).

They are both of them frequently mentioned by the prophets in this sense (Isa 57:5; Isa 65:3; Isa 66:17): Châmor and bâchar are also the words commonly applied to an arbitrary choice of false gods (Isa 44:9; Isa 41:24; Isa 66:3), and bosh min is the general phrase used to denote the shame which falls upon idolaters, when the worthlessness of their idols becomes conspicuous through their impotence. On the difference between bosh and Châpher , see the comm.

on Psa 35:4. The word elim is erroneously translated “idols” in the Septuagint and other ancient versions. The feeling which led to this, however, was a correct one, since the places of worship really stand for the idols worshipped in those places. The excited state of the prophet at the close of his prophecy is evinced by his abrupt leap from an exclamation to a direct address (Ges.

§137, Anm. 3).

Isa 1:30 He still continues in the same excitement, piling a second explanatory sentence upon the first, and commencing this also with “for” ( Chi ); and then, carried away by the association of ideas, he takes terebinths and gardens as the future figures of the idolatrous people themselves. “For ye shall become like a terebinth with withered leaves, and like a garden that hath no water.

” Their prosperity is distroyed, so that they resemble a terebinth withered as to its leaves, which in other cases are always green ( nobleth ‛aleah , genitives connection according to (Ges. §112, 2). Their sources of help are dried up, so that they are like a garden without water, and therefore waste. In this withered state terebinths and gardens, to which the idolatrous are compared, are easily set on fire.

All that is wanted is a spark to kindle them, when they are immediately in flames. Isa 1:31 shows in a third figure where this spark was to come from: “And the rich man becomes tow, and his work the spark; and they will both burn together, and no one extinguishes them. ” The form poalo suggests at first a participial meaning (its maker), but החסון would be a very unusual epithet to apply to an idol.

Moreover, the figure itself would be a distorted one, since the natural order would be, that the idol would be the thing that kindled the fire, and the man the object to be set on fire, and not the reverse. We therefore follow the lxx, Targ. , and Vulg. , with Gesenius and other more recent grammarians, and adopt the rendering “his work” ( opus ejus ). The forms פּעלו and פּעלו (cf.

, Isa 52:14 and Jer 22:13) are two equally admissible changes of the ground-form פעלו (פּעלו). As Isa 1:29 refers to idolatrous worship, poalo (his work) is an idol, a god made by human hands (cf. , Isa 2:8; Isa 37:19, etc.) The prosperous idolater, who could give gold and silver for idolatrous images out of the abundance of his possessions ( Châson is to be interpreted in accordance with Isa 33:6), becomes tow (talm.

“the refuse of flax:” the radical meaning is to shake out, viz. , in combing), and the idol the spark which sets this mass of fibre in flames, so that they are both irretrievably consumed. For the fire of judgment, by which sinners are devoured, need not come from without. Sin carries the fire of indignation within itself. And an idol is, as it were, an idolater’s sin embodied and exposed to the light of day.

The date of the composition of this first prophecy is a puzzle. Caspari thoroughly investigated every imaginary possibility, and at last adopted the conclusion that it dates from the time of Uzziah, inasmuch as Isa 1:7-9 do not relate to an actual, but merely to an ideal, present. But notwithstanding all the acuteness with which Caspari has worked out his view, it still remains a very forced one.

The oftener we return to the reading of this prophetic address, the stronger is our impression that Isa 1:7-9 contain a description of the state of things which really existed at the time when the words were spoken. There were actually two devastations of the land of Judah which occurred during the ministry of Isaiah, and in which Jerusalem was only spared by the miraculous interposition of Jehovah: one under Ahaz in the year of the Syro-Ephraimitish war; the other under Hezekiah, when the Assyrian forces laid the land waste but were scattered at last in their attack upon Jerusalem.

The year of the Syro-Ephraimitish war is supported by Gesenius, Rosenmüller (who expresses a different opinion in every one of the three editions of his Scholia ), Maurer, Movers, Knobel, Hävernick, and others; the time of the Assyrian oppression by Hitzig, Umbreit, Drechsler, and Luzzatto. Now, whichever of these views we may adopt, there will still remain, as a test of its admissiblity, the difficult question, How did this prophecy come to stand at the head of the book, if it belonged to the time of Uzziah-Jotham?

This question, upon which the solution of the difficulty depends, can only be settled when we come to Isa 6:1-13. Till then, the date of the composition of chapter 1 must be left undecided. It is enough for the present to know, that, according to the accounts given in the books of Kings and Chronicles, there were two occasions when the situation of Jerusalem resembled the one described in the present chapter.

Isa 2:1 The limits of this address are very obvious. The end of Isa 4:1-6 connects itself with the beginning of chapter 2, so as to form a circle. After various alternations of admonition, reproach, and threatening, the prophet reaches at last the object of the promise with which he started. Chapter 5, on the other hand, commences afresh with a parable. It forms an independent address, although it is included, along with the previous chapters, under the heading in Isa 2:1 : “The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw over Judah and Jerusalem.

” Chapters 2-5 may have existed under this heading before the whole collection arose. It was then adopted in this form into the general collection, so as to mark the transition from the prologue to the body of the book. The prophet describes what he here says concerning Judah and Jerusalem as “the word which he saw. ” When men speak to one another, the words are not seen, but heard.

But when God spoke to the prophet, it was in a supersensuous way, and the prophet saw it. The mind indeed has no more eyes than ears; but a mind qualified to perceive what is supersensuous is altogether eye. The manner in which Isaiah commences this second address is altogether unparalleled. There is no other example of a prophecy beginning with והיה. And it is very easy to discover the reason why.

The praet. consecutivum v'hâyâh derives the force of a future from the context alone; whereas the fut. consecutivum vay'hi (with which historical books and sections very generally commence) is shown to be an aorist by its simple form. Moreover, the Vav in the fut. consecut. has almost entirely lost its copulative character; in the praet. consec. , on the other hand, it retains it with all the greater force.

The prophet therefore commences with “and”; and it is from what follows, not from what goes before, that we learn that hayah is used in a future sense. But this is not the only strange thing. It is also an unparalleled occurrence, for a prophetic address, which runs as this does through all the different phases of the prophetic discourses generally (viz. , exhortation, reproof, threatening, and promise), to commence with a promise.

We are in a condition, however, to explain the cause of this remarkable phenomenon with certainty, and not merely to resort to conjecture. Isa 2:2-4 do not contain Isaiah’s own words, but the words of another prophet taken out of their connection. We find them again in Mic 4:1-4; and whether Isaiah took them from Micah, or whether both Isaiah and Micah took them from some common source, in either case they were not originally Isaiah's.

Nor was it even intended that they should appear to be his. Isaiah has not fused them into the general flow of his own prophecy, as the prophets usually do with the predictions of their predecessors. He does not reproduce them, but, as we may observe from the abrupt commencement, he quote them. It is true, this hardly seems to tally with the heading, which describes what follows as the word of Jehovah which Isaiah saw.

But the discrepancy is only an apparent one. It was the spirit of prophecy, which called to Isaiah’s remembrance a prophetic saying that had already been uttered, and made it the starting-point of the thoughts which followed in Isaiah’s mind. The borrowed promise is not introduced for its own sake, but is simply a self-explaining introduction to the exhortations and threatenings which follow, and through which the prophet works his way to a conclusion of his own, that is closely intertwined with the borrowed commencement.

Isa 2:2 The subject of the borrowed prophecy is Israel’s future glory: “And it cometh to pass at the end of the days, the mountain of the house of Jehovah will be set at the top of the mountains, and exalted over hills; and all nations pour unto it. ” The expression “the last days” ( acharith hayyamim , “the end of the days”), which does not occur anywhere else in Isaiah, is always used in an eschatological sense.

It never refers to the course of history immediately following the time being, but invariably indicates the furthest point in the history of this life - the point which lies on the outermost limits of the speaker’s horizon. This horizon was a very fluctuating one. The history of prophecy is just the history of its gradual extension, and of the filling up of the intermediate space.

In Jacob’s blessing (Gen 49) the conquest of the land stood in the foreground of the acharith or last days, and the perspective was regulated accordingly. But here in Isaiah the acharith contained no such mixing together of events belonging to the more immediate and the most distant future. It was therefore the last time in its most literal and purest sense, commencing with the beginning of the New Testament aeon, and terminating at its close (compare Heb 1:1; 1Pe 1:20, with 1 Cor 15 and the Revelation).

The prophet here predicted that the mountain which bore the temple of Jehovah, and therefore was already in dignity the most exalted of all mountains, would. one day tower in actual height above all the high places of the earth. The basaltic mountains of Bashan, which rose up in bold peaks and columns, might now look down with scorn and contempt upon the small limestone hill which Jehovah had chosen (Psa 68:16-17); but this was an incongruity which the last times would remove, by making the outward correspond to the inward, the appearance to the reality and the intrinsic worth.

That this is the prophet’s meaning is confirmed by Eze 40:2, where the temple mountain looks gigantic to the prophet, and also by Zec 14:10, where all Jerusalem is described as towering above the country round about, which would one day become a plain. The question how this can possibly take place in time, since it presupposes a complete subversion of the whole of the existing order of the earth’s surface, is easily answered.

The prophet saw the new Jerusalem of the last days on this side, and the new Jerusalem of the new earth on the other (Rev 21:10), blended as it were together, and did not distinguish the one from the other. But whilst we thus avoid all unwarrantable spiritualizing, it still remains a question what meaning the prophet attached to the word b'rosh ( “at the top” ).

Did he mean that Moriah would one day stand upon the top of the mountains that surrounded it (as in Psa 72:16), or that it would stand at their head (as in 1Ki 21:9, 1Ki 21:12; Amo 6:7; Jer 31:7)? The former is Hofmann’s view, as given in his Weissagung und Erfüllung , ii. 217: “he did not indeed mean that the mountains would be piled up one upon the other, and the temple mountain upon the top, but that the temple mountain would appear to float upon the summit of the others.

” But as the expression “will be set” ( nacon ) does not favour this apparently romantic exaltation, and b'rosh occurs more frequently in the sense of “at the head” than in that of “on the top,” I decide for my own part in favour of the second view, though I agree so far with Hofmann, that it is not merely an exaltation of the temple mountain in the estimation of the nations that is predicted, but a physical and external elevation also. And when thus outwardly exalted, the divinely chosen mountain would become the rendezvous and centre of unity for all nations.

They would all “flow unto it” ( nâhar , a denom. verb, from nâhâr , a river, as in Jer 51:44; Jer 31:12). It is the temple of Jehovah which, being thus rendered visible to nations afar off, exerts such magnetic attraction, and with such success. Just as at a former period men had been separated and estranged from one another in the plain of Shinar, and thus different nations had first arisen; so would the nations at a future period assemble together on the mountain of the house of Jehovah, and there, as members of one family, live together in amity again.

And as Babel ( confusion , as its name signifies) was the place whence the stream of nations poured into all the world; so would Jerusalem (the city of peace ) become the place into which the stream of nations would empty itself, and where all would be reunited once more. At the present time there was only one people, viz. , Israel, which made pilgrimages to Zion on the great festivals, but it would be very different then.

Isa 2:3 “And peoples in multitude go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob; let Him instruct us out of His ways, and we will walk in His paths. ” This is their signal for starting, and their song by the way (cf. , Zec 8:21-22). What urges them on is the desire for salvation. Desire for salvation expresses itself in the name they give to the point towards which they are travelling: they call Moriah “the mountain of Jehovah,” and the temple upon it “the house of the God of Jacob.

” Through frequent use, Israel had become the popular name for the people of God; but the name they employ is the choicer name Jacob , which is the name of affection in the mouth of Micah, of whose style we are also reminded by the expression “many peoples” ( ammim rabbim ). Desire for salvation expresses itself in the object of their journey; they wish Jehovah to teach them “out of His ways,” - a rich source of instruction with which they desire to be gradually entrusted.

The preposition min (out of, or from) is not partitive here, but refers, as in Psa 94:12, to the source of instruction. The “ways of Jehovah” are the ways which God Himself takes, and by which men are led by Him - the revealed ordinances of His will and action. Desire for salvation also expresses itself in the resolution with which they set out: they not only wish to learn, but are resolved to act according to what they learn.

“We will walk in His paths:” the hortative is used here, as it frequently is (e. g. , Gen 27:4, vid. , Ges. §128, 1, c ), to express either the subjective intention or subjective conclusion. The words supposed to be spoken by the multitude of heathen going up to Zion terminate here. The prophet then adds the reason and object of this holy pilgrimage of the nations: “For instruction will go out from Zion, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.

” The principal emphasis is upon the expressions “from Zion” and “from Jerusalem. ” It is a triumphant utterance of the sentiment that “salvation is of the Jews” (Joh 4:22). From Zion-Jerusalem there would go forth thorah , i. e. , instruction as to the questions which man has to put to God, and debar Jehovah , the word of Jehovah, which created the world at first, and by which it is spiritually created anew.

Whatever promotes the true prosperity of the nations, comes from Zion-Jerusalem. There the nations assemble together; they take it thence to their own homes, and thus Zion-Jerusalem becomes the fountain of universal good. For from the time that Jehovah made choice of Zion, the holiness of Sinai was transferred to Zion (Psa 68:17), which now presented the same aspect as Sinai had formerly done, when God invested it with holiness by appearing there in the midst of myriads of angels.

What had been commenced at Sinai for Israel, would be completed at Zion for all the world. This was fulfilled on that day of Pentecost, when the disciples, the first-fruits of the church of Christ, proclaimed the thorah of Zion, i. e. , the gospel, in the languages of all the world. It was fulfilled, as Theodoret observes, in the fact that the word of the gospel, rising from Jerusalem “as from a fountain,” flowed through the whole of the known world.

But these fulfilments were only preludes to a conclusion which is still to be looked for in the future. For what is promised in the following v. is still altogether unfulfilled.

Isa 2:4 “And He will judge between the nations, and deliver justice to many peoples; and they forge their swords into coulters, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation lifts not up the sword against nation, neither do they exercise themselves in war any more. ” Since the nations betake themselves in this manner as pupils to the God of revelation and the word of His revelation, He becomes the supreme judge and umpire among them.

If any dispute arise, it is no longer settled by the compulsory force of war, but by the word of God, to which all bow with willing submission. With such power as this in the peace-sustaining word of God (Zec 9:10), there is no more need for weapons of iron: they are turned into the instruments of peaceful employment, into ittim (probably a synonym for ethim in 1Sa 13:21), plough-knives or coulters, which cut the furrows for the ploughshare to turn up and mazmeroth , bills or pruning-hooks, with which vines are pruned to increase their fruit-bearing power.

There is also no more need for military practice, for there is no use in exercising one’s self in what cannot be applied. It is useless, and men dislike it. There is peace, not an armed peace, but a full, true, God-given and blessed peace. What even a Kant regarded as possible is now realized, and that not by the so-called Christian powers, but by the power of God, who favours the object for which an Elihu Burritt enthusiastically longs, rather than the politics of the Christian powers.

It is in war that the power of the beast culminates in the history of the world. This beast will then be destroyed. The true humanity which sin has choked up will gain the mastery, and the world’s history will keep Sabbath. And may we not indulge the hope, on the ground of such prophetic words as these, that the history of the world will not terminate without having kept a Sabbath?

Shall we correct Isaiah, according to Quenstedt, lest we should become chiliasts? “The humanitarian ideas of Christendom,” says a thoughtful Jewish scholar, “have their roots in the Pentateuch, and more especially in Deuteronomy. But in the prophets, particularly in Isaiah, they reach a height which will probably not be attained and fully realized by the modern world for centuries to come.

” Yet they will be realized. What the prophetic words appropriated by Isaiah here affirm, is a moral postulate, the goal of sacred history, the predicted counsel of God.