The Song of the Vineyard and the Woes Against Covenant Corruption

Isa 5:6 This puts an end to the unthankful vineyard, and indeed a hopeless one. ”And I will put an end to it: it shall not be pruned nor digged, and it shall break out in thorns and thistles; and I will command the clouds to rain no rain over it. ” “Put an end:” bâthâh (= battâh : Ges. §67, Anm. 11) signifies, according to the primary meaning of bâthath (בּוּת, בּהת, see at Isa 1:29), viz.

, abscindere , either abscissum = locus abscissus or praeruptus (Isa 7:19), or abscissio = deletio . The latter is the meaning here, where shı̄th bâthâh is a refined expression for the more usual כלה עשׂה, both being construed with the accusative of the thing which is brought to an end. Further pruning and hoeing would do it no good, but only lead to further disappointment: it was the will of the Lord, therefore, that the deceitful vineyard should shoot up in thorns and thistles ( âlâh is applied to the soil, as in Isa 34:13 and Pro 24:31; shâimr vâshaith , thorns and thistles, are in the accusative, according to Ges.

§138, 1, Anm. 2; and both the words themselves, and also their combination, are exclusively and peculiarly Isaiah's). In order that it might remain a wilderness, the clouds would also receive commandment from the Lord not to rain upon it. There can be no longer any doubt who the Lord of the vineyard is. He is Lord of the clouds, and therefore the Lord of heaven and earth.

It is He who is the prophet’s beloved and dearest one. The song which opened in so minstrel-like and harmless a tone, has now become painfully severe and terribly repulsive. The husk of the parable, which has already been broken through, now falls completely off (cf. , Mat 22:13; Mat 25:30). What it sets forth in symbol is really true. This truth the prophet establishes by an open declaration.

Isa 5:7 “For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plantation of His delight: He waited for justice, and behold grasping; for righteousness, and behold a shriek. ” The meaning is not that the Lord of the vineyard would not let any more rain fall upon it, because this Lord was Jehovah (which is not affirmed in fact in the words commencing with “for,” Ci ), but a more general one.

This was how the case stood with the vineyard; for all Israel, and especially the people of Judah, were this vineyard, which had so bitterly deceived the expectations of its Lord, and indeed “the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts,” and therefore of the omnipotent God, whom even the clouds would serve when He came forth to punish. The expression “for” ( Ci ) is not only intended to vindicate the truth of the last statement, but the truth of the whole simile, including this: it is an explanatory “for” ( Ci explic.

), which opens the epimythion . “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts” ( Cerem Jehovah Zebaoth ) is the predicate. “The house of Israel ( Beth Yisrâel ) was the whole nation, which is also represented in other passages under the same figure of a vineyard (Isa 27:2. ; Ps 80, etc.) But as Isaiah was prophet in Judah, he applies the figure more particularly to Judah, which was called Jehovah’s favourite plantation, inasmuch as it was the seat of the divine sanctuary and of the Davidic kingdom.

This makes it easy enough to interpret the different parts of the simile employed. The fat mountain-horn was Canaan, flowing with milk and honey (Exo 15:17); the digging of the vineyard, and clearing it of stones, was the clearing of Canaan from its former heathen inhabitants (Psa 54:3); the sorek-vines were the holy priests and prophets and kings of Israel of the earlier and better times (Jer 2:21); the defensive and ornamental tower in the midst of the vineyard was Jerusalem as the royal city, with Zion the royal fortress (Mic 4:8); the winepress-trough was the temple, where, according to Psa 36:9 (8.)

, the wine of heavenly pleasures flowed in streams, and from which, according to Psa 42:1-11 and many other passages, the thirst of the soul might all be quenched. The grazing and treading down are explained in Jer 5:10 and Jer 12:10. The bitter deception experienced by Jehovah is expressed in a play upon two words, indicating the surprising change of the desired result into the very opposite.

The explanation which Gesenius, Caspari, Knobel, and others give of mispâch , viz. , bloodshed, does not commend itself; for even if it must be admitted that sâphach occurs once or twice in the “Arabizing” book of Job (Job 30:7; Job 14:19) in the sense of pouring out, this verbal root is strange to the Hebrew (and the Aramaean). Moreover, mispâch in any case would only mean pouring or shedding, and not bloodshed; and although the latter would certainly be possible by the side of the Arabic saffâch , saffâk (shedder of blood), yet it would be such an ellipsis as cannot be shown anywhere else in Hebrew usage.

On the other hand, the rendering “leprosy” does not yield any appropriate sense, as mispachath ( sappachath ) is never generalized anywhere else into the single idea of “dirt” (Luzzatto: sozzura ), nor does it appear as an ethical notion. We therefore prefer to connect it with a meaning unquestionably belonging to the verb ספח (see kal , 1Sa 2:36; niphal , Isa 14:1; hithpael , 1Sa 26:19), which is derived in יסף, אסף, סוּף, from the primary notion “to sweep,” spec.

to sweep towards, sweep in, or sweep away. Hence we regard mispach as denoting the forcible appropriation of another man’s property; certainly a suitable antithesis to mishpât . The prophet describes, in full-toned figures, how the expected noble grapes had turned into wild grapes, with nothing more than an outward resemblance. The introduction to the prophecy closes here.

The prophecy itself follows next, a seven-fold discourse composed of the six-fold woe contained in vv. 8-23, and the announcement of punishment in which it terminates. In this six-fold woe the prophet describes the bad fruits one by one. In confirmation of our rendering of mispâch , the first woe relates to covetousness and avarice as the root of all evil.

Isa 5:8 “Woe unto them that join house to house, who lay field to field, till there is no more room, and ye alone are dwelling in the midst of the land. ” The participle is continued in the finite verb, as in Isa 5:23; Isa 10:1; the regular syntactic construction is cases of this kind (Ges. §134, Anm. 2). The preterites after “till” (there are to such preterites, for 'ephes is an intensified אין enclosing the verbal idea) correspond to future perfects: “They, the insatiable, would not rest till, after every smaller piece of landed property had been swallowed by them, the whole land had come into their possession, and no one beside themselves was settled in the land” (Job 22:8).

Such covetousness was all the more reprehensible, because the law of Israel and provided so very stringently and carefully, that as far as possible there should be an equal distribution of the soil, and that hereditary family property should be inalienable. All landed property that had been alienated reverted to the family every fiftieth year, or year of jubilee; so that alienation simply had reference to the usufruct of the land till that time.

It was only in the case of houses in towns that the right of redemption was restricted to one year, at least according to a later statute. How badly the law of the year of jubilee had been observed, may be gathered from Jer 34, where we learn that the law as to the manumission of Hebrew slaves in the sabbatical year had fallen entirely into neglect. Isaiah’s contemporary, Micah, makes just the same complaint as Isaiah himself (vid.

, Mic 2:2).

Isa 5:9-10 And the denunciation of punishment is made by him in very similar terms to those which we find here in Isa 5:9, Isa 5:10 : “Into mine ears Jehovah of hosts: Of a truth many houses shall become a wilderness, great and beautiful ones deserted. For ten yokes of vineyard will yield one pailful, and a quarter of seed-corn will produce a bushel. ” We may see from Isa 22:14 in what sense the prophet wrote the substantive clause, “Into mine ears,” or more literally, “In mine ears is Jehovah Zebaoth ,” viz.

, He is here revealing Himself to me. In the pointing, בּאזני is written with tiphchah as a pausal form, to indicate to the reader that the boldness of the expression is to be softened down by the assumption of an ellipsis. In Hebrew, “to say into the ears” did not mean to “speak softly and secretly,” as Gen 23:10, Gen 23:16; Job 33:8, and other passages, clearly show; but to speak in a distinct and intelligible manner, which precludes the possibility of any misunderstanding.

The prophet, indeed, had not Jehovah standing locally beside him; nevertheless, he had Him objectively over against his own personality, and was well able to distinguish very clearly the thoughts and words of his own personality, from the words of Jehovah which arose audibly within him. These words informed him what would be the fate of the rich and insatiable landowners.

“Of a truth:” אם־לא (if not) introduces an oath of an affirmative character (the complete formula is Chai ani 'im - lo' , “as I live if not”), just as 'im (if) alone introduces a negative oath (e. g. , Num 14:23). The force of the expression 'im - lo' extends not only to rabbim , as the false accentuation with gershayim (double-geresh) would make it appear, but to the whole of the following sentence, as it is correctly accentuated with rebia in the Venetian (1521) and other early editions.

A universal desolation would ensue: rabbim (many) does not mean less than all; but the houses ( bâttim , as the word should be pronounced, notwithstanding Ewald’s objection to Köhler’s remarks on Zec 14:2; cf. , Job 2:1-13 :31) constituted altogether a very large number (compare the use of the word “many” in Isa 2:3; Mat 20:28, etc.) מאין is a double, and therefore an absolute, negation (so that there is not, no inhabitant, i.

e. , not any inhabitant at all). Isa 5:10, which commences, with Ci , explains how such a desolation of the houses would be brought about: failure of crops produces famine, and this is followed by depopulation. “ Ten zimdē (with dagesh lene , Ewald) of vineyard” are either ten pieces of the size that a man could plough in one day with a yoke of oxen, or possibly ten portions of yoke -like espaliers of vines, i.

e. , of vines trained on cross laths (the vina jugata of Varro), which is the explanation adopted by Biesenthal. But if we compare 1Sa 14:14, the former is to be preferred, although the links are wanting which would enable us to prove that the early Israelites had one and the same system of land measure as the Romans; nevertheless Arab. fddân (in Hauran) is precisely similar, and this word signifies primarily a yoke of oxen, and then a yoke ( jugerum ) regarded as a measure of land.

Ten days’ work would only yield a single bath . This liquid measure, which was first introduced in the time of the kings, corresponded to the ephah in dry measure (Eze 45:11). According to Josephus ( Ant . viii. 2, 9), it was equal to seventy-two Roman sextarii , i. e. , a little more than thirty-three Berlin quarts; but in the time of Isaiah it was probably smaller.

The homer , a dry measure, generally called a Cor after the time of the kings, was equal to ten Attic medimnoi ; a medimnos being (according to Josephus, Ant . xv 9, 2) about 15-16ths of a Berlin bushel, and therefore a little more than fifteen pecks. Even if this quantity of corn should be sown, they would not reap more than an ephah . The harvest, therefore, would only yield the tenth part of the sowing, since an ephah was the tenth part of a homer , or three seahs , the usual minimum for one baking (vid.

, Mat 13:33). It is, of course, impossible to give the relative measure exactly in our translation.

Isa 5:9-10 And the denunciation of punishment is made by him in very similar terms to those which we find here in Isa 5:9, Isa 5:10 : “Into mine ears Jehovah of hosts: Of a truth many houses shall become a wilderness, great and beautiful ones deserted. For ten yokes of vineyard will yield one pailful, and a quarter of seed-corn will produce a bushel. ” We may see from Isa 22:14 in what sense the prophet wrote the substantive clause, “Into mine ears,” or more literally, “In mine ears is Jehovah Zebaoth ,” viz.

, He is here revealing Himself to me. In the pointing, בּאזני is written with tiphchah as a pausal form, to indicate to the reader that the boldness of the expression is to be softened down by the assumption of an ellipsis. In Hebrew, “to say into the ears” did not mean to “speak softly and secretly,” as Gen 23:10, Gen 23:16; Job 33:8, and other passages, clearly show; but to speak in a distinct and intelligible manner, which precludes the possibility of any misunderstanding.

The prophet, indeed, had not Jehovah standing locally beside him; nevertheless, he had Him objectively over against his own personality, and was well able to distinguish very clearly the thoughts and words of his own personality, from the words of Jehovah which arose audibly within him. These words informed him what would be the fate of the rich and insatiable landowners.

“Of a truth:” אם־לא (if not) introduces an oath of an affirmative character (the complete formula is Chai ani 'im - lo' , “as I live if not”), just as 'im (if) alone introduces a negative oath (e. g. , Num 14:23). The force of the expression 'im - lo' extends not only to rabbim , as the false accentuation with gershayim (double-geresh) would make it appear, but to the whole of the following sentence, as it is correctly accentuated with rebia in the Venetian (1521) and other early editions.

A universal desolation would ensue: rabbim (many) does not mean less than all; but the houses ( bâttim , as the word should be pronounced, notwithstanding Ewald’s objection to Köhler’s remarks on Zec 14:2; cf. , Job 2:1-13 :31) constituted altogether a very large number (compare the use of the word “many” in Isa 2:3; Mat 20:28, etc.) מאין is a double, and therefore an absolute, negation (so that there is not, no inhabitant, i.

e. , not any inhabitant at all). Isa 5:10, which commences, with Ci , explains how such a desolation of the houses would be brought about: failure of crops produces famine, and this is followed by depopulation. “ Ten zimdē (with dagesh lene , Ewald) of vineyard” are either ten pieces of the size that a man could plough in one day with a yoke of oxen, or possibly ten portions of yoke -like espaliers of vines, i.

e. , of vines trained on cross laths (the vina jugata of Varro), which is the explanation adopted by Biesenthal. But if we compare 1Sa 14:14, the former is to be preferred, although the links are wanting which would enable us to prove that the early Israelites had one and the same system of land measure as the Romans; nevertheless Arab. fddân (in Hauran) is precisely similar, and this word signifies primarily a yoke of oxen, and then a yoke ( jugerum ) regarded as a measure of land.

Ten days’ work would only yield a single bath . This liquid measure, which was first introduced in the time of the kings, corresponded to the ephah in dry measure (Eze 45:11). According to Josephus ( Ant . viii. 2, 9), it was equal to seventy-two Roman sextarii , i. e. , a little more than thirty-three Berlin quarts; but in the time of Isaiah it was probably smaller.

The homer , a dry measure, generally called a Cor after the time of the kings, was equal to ten Attic medimnoi ; a medimnos being (according to Josephus, Ant . xv 9, 2) about 15-16ths of a Berlin bushel, and therefore a little more than fifteen pecks. Even if this quantity of corn should be sown, they would not reap more than an ephah . The harvest, therefore, would only yield the tenth part of the sowing, since an ephah was the tenth part of a homer , or three seahs , the usual minimum for one baking (vid.

, Mat 13:33). It is, of course, impossible to give the relative measure exactly in our translation.

Isa 5:11 The second woe, for which the curse about to fall upon vinedressing ( Isa 5:10 ) prepared the way by the simple association of ideas, is directed against the debauchees, who in their carnal security carried on their excesses even in the daylight. “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning to run after strong drink; who continue till late at night with wine inflaming them!

” Boker (from bâkar , bakara , to slit, to tear up, or split) is the break of day; and nesheph (from nâshaph , to blow) the cool of the evening, including the night (Isa 21:4; Isa 59:10); 'ichër , to continue till late, as in Pro 23:30 : the construct state before words with a preposition, as in Isa 9:2; Isa 28:9, and many other passages (Ges. §116, 1). Shēcâr , in connection with yayin , is the general name for every other kind of strong drink, more especially for wines made artificially from fruit, honey, raisins, dates, etc.

, including barley-wine (οἶνος κρίθινος) or beer (ἐκ κριθῶν μέθυ in Aeschylus, also called βρῦτον βρυτόν ζῦθος ζύθος, and by many other names), a beverage known in Egypt, which was half a wine country and half a beer country, from as far back as the time of the Pharaohs. The form shēcâr is composed, like ענב (with the fore-tone tsere ), from shâcar , to intoxicate; according to the Arabic, literally to close by stopping up, i.

e. , to stupefy. The clauses after the two participles are circumstantial clauses (Ewald, §341, b ), indicating the circumstances under which they ran out so early, and sat till long after dark: they hunted after mead, they heated themselves with wine, namely, to drown the consciousness of their deeds of darkness. Isa 5:12 describes how they go on in their blindness with music and carousing: “And guitar and harp, kettle-drum, and flute, and wine, is their feast; but they regard not the work of Jehovah, and see not the purpose of His hands.

” “Their feast” is so and so (משׁתּיהם is only a plural in appearance; it is really a singular, as in Dan 1:10, Dan 1:16, and many other passages, with the Yod of the primary form, משׁתּי = משׁתּה, softened: see the remarks on עלה at Isa 1:30, and עשׂיה at Isa 22:11); that is to say, their feast consisted or was composed of exciting music and wine. Knobel construes it, “and there are guitar, etc.

, and wine is their drink;” but a divided sentence of this kind is very tame; and the other expression, based upon the general principle, “The whole is its parts,” is thoroughly Semitic (see Fleischer’s Abhandlungen über einige Arten der Nominalapposition in den Sitzungsberichten der sächs . Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft , 1862). Cinnor (guitar) is a general name for such instruments as have their strings drawn (upon a bridge) over a sounding board; and nebel (the harp and lyre) a general name for instruments with their strings hung freely, so as to be played with both hands at the same time.

Toph (Arab. duff ) is a general name for the tambourin, the drum, and the kettle-drum; Chaill (lit. that which is bored through) a general name for the flute and double flute. In this tumult and riot they had no thought or eye for the work of Jehovah and the purpose of His hands. This is the phrase used to express the idea of eternal counsel of God (Isa 37:26), which leads to salvation by the circuitous paths of judgment (Isa 10:12; Isa 28:21; Isa 29:23), so far as that counsel is embodied in history, as moulded by the invisible interposition of God.

In their joy and glory they had no sense for what was the most glorious of all, viz. , the moving and working of God in history; so that they could not even discern the judgment which was in course of preparation at that very time.

Isa 5:13 Therefore judgment would overtake them in this blind, dull, and stupid animal condition. “Therefore my people go into banishment without knowing; and their glory will become starving men, and their tumult men dried up with thirst. ” As the word “therefore” ( lâcēn , as in Isa 1:24) introduces the threat of punishment, gâlâh (go into captivity) is a prophetic preterite.

Israel would go into exile, and that “without knowing” ( mibb'li - da'ath ). The meaning of this expression cannot be “from want of knowledge,” since the min which is fused into one word with b'li is not causal, but negative, and mibb'li , as a preposition, always signifies “without” ( absque ). But are we to render it “without knowing it” (as in Hos 4:6, where hadda'ath has the article), or “unawares?

” There is no necessity for any dispute on this point, since the two renderings are fundamentally one and the same. The knowledge, of which Isa 5:12 pronounces them destitute, was more especially a knowledge of the judgment of God that was hanging over them; so that, as the captivity would come upon them without knowledge, it would necessarily come upon them unawares.

“Their glory” ( Cebōdō ) and “their tumult” ( hamono ) are therefore to be understood, as the predicates show, as collective nouns used in a personal sense, the former signifying the more select portion of the nation (cf. , Mic 1:15), the latter the mass of the people, who were living in rioting and tumult. The former would become “men of famine” ( mĕthē rââb : מתי, like אנשׁי in other places, viz.

, 2Sa 19:29, or בּני, 1Sa 26:16); the latter “men dried up with thirst” ( tsichēh tsâmâh : the same number as the subject). There is no necessity to read מתי (dead men) instead of מתי, as the lxx and Vulgate do, or מזי (מזה) according to Deu 32:24, as Hitzig, Ewald, Böttcher, and others propose (compare, on the contrary, Gen 34:30 and Job 11:11). The adjective tzicheh ( hapax leg ) is formed like Chirēsh , Cēheh , and other adjectives which indicate defects: in such formations from verbs Lamed - He , instead of e we have an ae that has grown out of ay (Olshausen, §182, b ).

The rich gluttons would starve, and the tippling crowd would die with thirst.

Isa 5:14 The threat of punishment commences again with “therefore;” it has not yet satisfied itself, and therefore grasps deeper still. “Therefore the under-world opens its jaws wide, and stretches open its mouth immeasurably wide; and the glory of Jerusalem descends, and its tumult, and noise, and those who rejoice within it. ” The verbs which follow lâcēn (therefore) are prophetic preterites, as in Isa 5:13.

The feminine suffixes attached to what the lower world swallows up do not refer to sheol (though this is construed more frequently, no doubt, as a feminine than as a masculine, as it is in Job 26:6), but, as expressed in the translation, to Jerusalem itself, which is also necessarily required by the last clause, “those who rejoice within it. ” The withdrawal of the tone from ועלז to the penultimate (cf.

, Châphētz in Psa 18:20; Psa 22:9) is intentionally omitted, to cause the rolling and swallowing up to be heard as it were. A mouth is ascribed to the under-world, also a nephesh , i. e. , a greedy soul, in which sense nephesh is then applied metonymically sometimes to a thirst for blood (Psa 27:12), and sometimes to simple greediness (Isa 56:11), and even, as in the present passage and Hab 2:5, to the throat or swallow which the soul opens “without measure,” when its craving knows no bounds ( Psychol.

p. 204). It has become a common thing now to drop entirely the notion which formerly prevailed, that the noun sheol was derived from the verb shâal in the sense in which it was generally employed, viz. , to ask or demand; but Caspari, who has revived it again, is certainly so far correct, that the derivation of the word which the prophet had in his mind was this and no other.

The word sheol (an infinitive form, like pekōd ) signifies primarily the irresistible and inexorable demand made upon every earthly thing; and then secondarily, in a local sense, the place of the abode of shades, to which everything on the surface of the earth is summoned; or essentially the divinely appointed curse which demands and swallows up everything upon the earth. We simply maintain, however, that the word sheol , as generally sued, was associated in thought with shâal , to ask or demand.

Originally, no doubt, it may have been derived from the primary and more material idea of the verb שׁאל, possibly from the meaning “to be hollow,” which is also assumed to be the primary meaning of שׁעל. At any rate, this derivation answers to the view that generally prevailed in ancient times. According to the prevalent idea, Hades was in the interior of the earth.

And there was nothing really absurd in this, since it is quite within the power and freedom of the omnipresent God to manifest Himself wherever and however He may please. As He reveals Himself above the earth, i. e. , in heaven, among blessed spirits in the light of His love; so did He reveal Himself underneath the earth, viz. , in Sheōl , in the darkness and fire of His wrath.

And with the exception of Enoch and Elijah, with their marvellous departure from this life, the way of every mortal ended there, until the time when Jesus Christ, having first paid the λὐτρον, i. e. , having shed His blood, which covers our guilt and turns the wrath of God into love, descended into Hades and ascended into heaven, and from that time forth has changed the death of all believers from a descent into Hades into an ascension to heaven.

But even under the Old Testament the believer may have known, that whoever hid himself on this side the grave in Jehovah the living One, would retain his eternal germ of life even in Sheōl in the midst of the shades, and would taste the love of God even in the midst of wrath. It was this postulate of faith which lay at the foundation of the fact, that even under the Old Testament the broader and more comprehensive idea of Sheōl began to be contracted into the more limited notion of hell (see Psychol .

p. 415). This is the case in the passage before us, where Isaiah predicts of everything of which Jerusalem was proud, and in which it revelled, including the persons who rejoice din these things, a descent into Hades; just as the Korahite author of Ps 49 wrote (Psa 49:14) that the beauty of the wicked would be given up to Hades to be consumed, without having hereafter any place in the upper world, when the upright should have dominion over them in the morning.

Hades even here is almost equivalent to the New Testament gehenna .

Isa 5:15-16 The prophet now repeats a thought which formed one of the refrains of the second prophetic address (Isa 2:9, Isa 2:11, cf. , Isa 2:17). It acquires here a still deeper sense, from the context in which it stands. “Then are mean men bowed down, and lords humbled, and the eyes of lofty men are humbled. And Jehovah of hosts shows Himself exalted in judgment, and God the Holy One sanctifies Himself in righteousness.

” That which had exalted itself from earth to heaven, would be cast down earthwards into hell. The consecutive futures depict the coming events, which are here represented as historically present, as the direct sequel of what is also represented as present in Isa 5:14 : Hades opens, and then both low and lofty in Jerusalem sink down, and the soaring eyes now wander about in horrible depths.

God, who is both exalted and holy in Himself, demanded that as the exalted One He should be exalted, and that as the Holy One He should be sanctified. But Jerusalem had not done that; He would therefore prove Himself the exalted One by the execution of justice, and sanctify Himself ( nikdash is to be rendered as a reflective verb, according to Eze 36:23; Eze 38:23) by the manifestation of righteousness, in consequence of which the people of Jerusalem would have to give Him glory against their will, as forming part of “the things under the earth” (Phi 2:10).

Jerusalem has been swallowed up twice in this manner by Hades; once in the Chaldean war, and again in the Roman. But the invisible background of these outward events was the fact, that it had already fallen under the power of hell. And now, even in a more literal sense, ancient Jerusalem, like the company of Korah (Num 16:30, Num 16:33), has gone underground.

Just as Babylon and Nineveh, the ruins of which are dug out of the inexhaustible mine of their far-stretching foundation and soil, have sunk beneath the ground; so do men walk about in modern Jerusalem over the ancient Jerusalem, which lies buried beneath; and many an enigma of topography will remain an enigma until ancient Jerusalem has been dug out of the earth again.

Isa 5:15-16 The prophet now repeats a thought which formed one of the refrains of the second prophetic address (Isa 2:9, Isa 2:11, cf. , Isa 2:17). It acquires here a still deeper sense, from the context in which it stands. “Then are mean men bowed down, and lords humbled, and the eyes of lofty men are humbled. And Jehovah of hosts shows Himself exalted in judgment, and God the Holy One sanctifies Himself in righteousness.

” That which had exalted itself from earth to heaven, would be cast down earthwards into hell. The consecutive futures depict the coming events, which are here represented as historically present, as the direct sequel of what is also represented as present in Isa 5:14 : Hades opens, and then both low and lofty in Jerusalem sink down, and the soaring eyes now wander about in horrible depths.

God, who is both exalted and holy in Himself, demanded that as the exalted One He should be exalted, and that as the Holy One He should be sanctified. But Jerusalem had not done that; He would therefore prove Himself the exalted One by the execution of justice, and sanctify Himself ( nikdash is to be rendered as a reflective verb, according to Eze 36:23; Eze 38:23) by the manifestation of righteousness, in consequence of which the people of Jerusalem would have to give Him glory against their will, as forming part of “the things under the earth” (Phi 2:10).

Jerusalem has been swallowed up twice in this manner by Hades; once in the Chaldean war, and again in the Roman. But the invisible background of these outward events was the fact, that it had already fallen under the power of hell. And now, even in a more literal sense, ancient Jerusalem, like the company of Korah (Num 16:30, Num 16:33), has gone underground.

Just as Babylon and Nineveh, the ruins of which are dug out of the inexhaustible mine of their far-stretching foundation and soil, have sunk beneath the ground; so do men walk about in modern Jerusalem over the ancient Jerusalem, which lies buried beneath; and many an enigma of topography will remain an enigma until ancient Jerusalem has been dug out of the earth again.

Isa 5:17 And when we consider that the Holy Land is at the present time an extensive pasture-ground for Arab shepherds, and that the modern Jerusalem which has arisen from the dust is a Mohammedan city, we may see in this also a literal fulfilment of Isa 5:17 : “And lambs feed as upon their pasture, and nomad shepherds eat the waste places of the fat ones. ” There is no necessity to supply an object to the verb ורעוּ, as Knobel and others assume, viz.

, the waste lands mentioned in the second clause; nor is Cedâbrâm to be taken as the object, as Caspari supposes; but the place referred to is determined by the context: in the place where Jerusalem is sunken, there lambs feed after the manner of their own pasture-ground, i. e. , just as if they were in their old accustomed pasture ( dober , as in Mic 2:12, from dâbar , to drive).

The lambs intended are those of the gârim mentioned in the second clause. The gârim themselves are men leading an unsettled, nomad, or pilgrim life; as distinguished from gêrim , strangers visiting, or even settled at a place. The lxx have ἄρνες, so that they must have read either Cârim or gedâim , which Ewald, Knobel, and others adopt. But one feature of the prophecy, which is sustained by the historical fulfilment, is thereby obliterated.

Chârboth mêchim are the lands of those that were formerly marrowy, i. e. , fat and strutting about in their fulness; which lands had now become waste places. Knobel’s statement, that âcăl is out of place in connection with gârim , is overthrown by Isa 1:7, to which he himself refers, though he makes he-goats the subject instead of men. The second woe closes with Isa 5:17.

It is the longest of all. This also serves to confirm the fact that luxury was the leading vice of Judah in the time of Uzziah-Jotham, as it was that of Israel under Jeroboam II (see Amo 6:1-14, where the same threat is held out).

Isa 5:18 The third woe is directed against the supposed strong-minded men, who called down the judgment of God by presumptuous sins and wicked words. “Woe unto them that draw crime with cords of lying, and sin as with the rope of the waggon. ” Knobel and most other commentators take mâshak in the sense of attrahere (to draw towards one’s self): “They draw towards them sinful deeds with cords of lying palliation, and the cart-rope of the most daring presumption;” and cite, as parallel examples, Job 40:24 and Hos 11:4.

But as mâshak is also used in Deu 21:3 in the sense of drawing in a yoke, that is to say, drawing a plough or chariot; and as the waggon or cart ( agâlâh , the word commonly used for a transport-waggon, as distinguished from mercâbâh , the state carriage or war chariot is expressly mentioned here, the figure employed is certainly the same as that which underlies the New Testament ἑτεροζυγεῖν (“unequally yoked,” 2Co 6:14). Iniquity was the burden which they drew after them with cords of lying ( shâv'h : see at Psa 26:4 and Job 15:31), i.

e. , “want of character or religion;” and sin was the waggon to which they were harnessed as if with a thick cart-rope (Hofmann, Drechsler, and Caspari; see Ewald, §221, a ). Iniquity and sin are mentioned here as carrying with them their own punishment. The definite העון (crime or misdeed) is generic, and the indefinite הטּאה qualitative and massive. There is a bitter sarcasm involved in the bold figure employed.

They were proud of their unbelief; but this unbelief was like a halter with which, like beasts of burden, they were harnessed to sin, and therefore to the punishment of sin, which they went on drawing further and further, in utter ignorance of the waggon behind them. Isa 5:19 shows very clearly that the prophet referred to the free-thinkers of his time, the persons who are called fools ( nabal ) and scorners ( lētz ) in the Psalms and Proverbs.

“Who say, Let Him hasten, accelerate His work, that we may see; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may experience it. ” They doubted whether the day of Jehovah would ever come (Eze 12:22; Jer 5:12-13), and went so far in their unbelief as to call out for what they could not and would not believe, and desired it to come that they might see it with their own eyes and experience it for themselves (Jer 17:15; it is different in Amo 5:18 and Mal 2:17-3:1, where this desire does not arise from scorn and defiance, but from impatience and weakness of faith).

As the two verbs denoting haste are used both transitively and intransitively (vid. , Jdg 20:37, to hasten or make haste), we might render the passage “let His work make haste,” as Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit, and Drechsler do; but we prefer the rendering adopted by Gesenius, Caspari, and Knobel, on the basis of Isa 60:22, and take the verb as transitive, and Jehovah as the subject.

The forms yâchishâh and taboâh are, with Psa 20:4 and Job 11:17, probably the only examples of the expression of a wish in the third person, strengthened by the âh , which indicates a summons or appeal; for Eze 23:20, which Gesenius cites (§48, 3), and Job 22:21, to which Knobel refers, have no connection with this, as in both passages the âh is the feminine termination, and not hortative (vid. , Comm.

on Job , at Job 11:17, note, and at Job 22:21). The fact that the free-thinkers called God “the Holy One of Israel,” whereas they scoffed at His intended final and practical attestation of Himself as the Holy One, may be explained from Isa 30:11 : they took this name of God from the lips of the prophet himself, so that their scorn affected both God and His prophet at the same time.

Isa 5:20 The fourth woe: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who give out darkness for light, and light for darkness; who give out bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. ” The previous woe had reference to those who made the facts of sacred history the butt of their naturalistic doubt and ridicule, especially so far as they were the subject of prophecy.

This fourth woe relates to those who adopted a code of morals that completely overturned the first principles of ethics, and was utterly opposed to the law of God; for evil, darkness, and bitter, with their respective antitheses, represent moral principles that are essentially related (Mat 6:23; Jam 3:11), Evil, as hostile to God, is dark in its nature, and therefore loves darkness, and is exposed to the punitive power of darkness. And although it may be sweet to the material taste, it is nevertheless bitter, inasmuch as it produces abhorrence and disgust in the godlike nature of man, and, after a brief period of self-deception, is turned into the bitter woe of fatal results.

Darkness and light, bitter and sweet, therefore, are not tautological metaphors for evil and good; but epithets applied to evil and good according to their essential principles, and their necessary and internal effects.

Isa 5:21 The fifth woe: “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight. ” The third woe had reference to the unbelieving naturalists, the opponents of prophecy ( nebuâh ); the fourth to the moralists, who threw all into confusion; and to this there is appended, by a very natural association of ideas, the woe denounced upon those whom want of humility rendered inaccessible to that wisdom which went hand in hand with prophecy, and the true foundation of which was the fear of Jehovah (Pro 1:7; Job 28:28; Ecc 12:13).

“Be not wise in thine own eyes,” is a fundamental rule of this wisdom (Pro 3:7). It was upon this wisdom that that prophetic policy rested, whose warnings, as we read in Isa 28:9-10, they so scornfully rejected. The next woe, which has reference to the administration of justice in the state, shows very clearly that in this woe the prophet had more especially the want of theocratic wisdom in relation to the affairs of state in his mind.

Isa 5:22-23 The sixth woe: “Woe to those who are heroes to drink wine, and brave men to mix strong drink; who acquit criminals for a bribe, and take away from every one the righteousness of the righteous. ” We see from Isa 5:23 that the drinkers in Isa 5:22 are unjust judges. The threat denounced against these is Isaiah’s universal ceterum censeo; and accordingly it forms, in this instance also, the substance of his sixth and last woe.

They are heroes; not, however, in avenging wrong, but in drinking wine; they are men of renown, though not for deciding between guilt and innocence, but for mixing up the ingredients of strong artistic wines. For the terms applied to such mixed wines, see Psa 75:9; Pro 23:30, Sol 7:3. It must be borne in mind, however, that what is here called shecâr was not, properly speaking, wine, but an artificial mixture, like date wine and cider.

For such things as these they were noteworthy and strong; whereas they judged unjustly, and took bribes that they might consume the reward of their injustice in drink and debauchery (Isa 28:7-8; Pro 31:5). “For reward:” ēkeb (Arab. ‛ukb ; different from âkēb , a heel, = ‛akib ) is an adverbial accusative, “in recompense,” or “for pay. ” “ From him ” ( mimmennu ) is distributive, and refers back to tsaddikim (the righteous); as, for example, in Hos 4:8.

Isa 5:22-23 The sixth woe: “Woe to those who are heroes to drink wine, and brave men to mix strong drink; who acquit criminals for a bribe, and take away from every one the righteousness of the righteous. ” We see from Isa 5:23 that the drinkers in Isa 5:22 are unjust judges. The threat denounced against these is Isaiah’s universal ceterum censeo; and accordingly it forms, in this instance also, the substance of his sixth and last woe.

They are heroes; not, however, in avenging wrong, but in drinking wine; they are men of renown, though not for deciding between guilt and innocence, but for mixing up the ingredients of strong artistic wines. For the terms applied to such mixed wines, see Psa 75:9; Pro 23:30, Sol 7:3. It must be borne in mind, however, that what is here called shecâr was not, properly speaking, wine, but an artificial mixture, like date wine and cider.

For such things as these they were noteworthy and strong; whereas they judged unjustly, and took bribes that they might consume the reward of their injustice in drink and debauchery (Isa 28:7-8; Pro 31:5). “For reward:” ēkeb (Arab. ‛ukb ; different from âkēb , a heel, = ‛akib ) is an adverbial accusative, “in recompense,” or “for pay. ” “ From him ” ( mimmennu ) is distributive, and refers back to tsaddikim (the righteous); as, for example, in Hos 4:8.

Isa 5:24 In the three exclamations in Isa 5:18-21, Jehovah rested contented with the simple undeveloped “woe” ( hoi ). On the other hand, the first two utterances respecting the covetous and the debauchees were expanded into an elaborate denunciation of punishment. But now that the prophet has come to the unjust judges, the denunciation of punishment bursts out with such violence, that a return to the simple exclamation of “woe” is not to be thought of.

The two “therefores” in Isa 5:13, Isa 5:14, a third is now added in Isa 5:24 : “Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours stubble, and hay sinks together in the flame, their root will become like mould, and their blossom fly up like dust; for they have despised the law of Jehovah of hosts, and scornfully rejected the proclamation of the Holy One of Israel. ” The persons primarily intended as those described in Isa 5:22, Isa 5:23, but with a further extension of the range of vision to Judah and Jerusalem, the vineyard of which they are the bad fruit.

The sinners are compared to a plant which moulders into dust both above and below, i. e. , altogether (cf. , Mal 4:1, and the expression, “Let there be to him neither root below nor branch above,” in the inscription upon the sarcophagus of the Phoenician king Es'mun'azar ). Their root moulders in the earth, and their blossom ( perach , as in Isa 18:5) turns to fine dust, which the wind carries away.

And this change in root and blossom takes place suddenly, as if through the force of fire. In the expression Ce'ecol kash leshon 'ēsh (“as the tongue of fire devours stubble”), which consists of four short words with three sibilant letters, we hear, as it were, the hissing of the flame. When the infinitive construct is connected with both subject and object, the subject generally stands first, as in Isa 64:1; but here the object is placed first, as in Isa 20:1 (Ges.

§133, 3; Ewald, §307). In the second clause, the infinitive construct passes over into the finite verb, just as in the similarly constructed passage in Isa 64:1. As yirpeh has the intransitive meaning Collabi , to sink together, or collapse; either lehâbâh must be an acc. loci , or Chashash lehâbâh the construct state, signifying flame-hay, i. e. , hay destined to the flame, or ascending in flame.

As the reason for the sudden dissolution of the plantation of Judah, instead of certain definite sins being mentioned, the sin of all sins is given at once, namely, the rejection of the word of God with the heart ( mâ'as ), and in word and deed ( ni'ēts ). The double 'ēth (with yethib immediately before pashta , as in eleven passages in all; see Heidenheim’s Imspete hate'amim , p.

20) and v'êth (with tebir ) give prominence to the object; and the interchange of Jehovah of hosts with the Holy One of Israel makes the sin appear all the greater on account of the exaltation and holiness of God, who revealed Himself in this word, and indeed had manifested Himself to Israel as His own peculiar people. The prophet no sooner mentions the great sin of Judah, than the announcement of punishment receives, as it were, fresh fuel, and bursts out again.

Isa 5:25 “Therefore is the wrath of Jehovah kindled against His people, and He stretches His hand over them, and smites them; then the hills tremble, and their carcases become like sweepings in the midst of the streets. For all this His anger is not appeased, and His hand is stretched out still. ” We may see from these last words, which are repeated as a refrain in the cycle of prophecies relating to the time of Ahaz (Isa 9:11, Isa 9:16; Isa 10:4), that the prophet had before his mind a distinct and complete judgment upon Judah, belonging to the immediate future.

It was certainly a coming judgment, not one already past; for the verbs after “therefore” ( ‛al - cên ), like those after the three previous lâcēn , are all prophetic preterites. It is impossible, therefore, to take the words “and the hills tremble” as referring to the earthquake in the time of Uzziah (Amo 1:1; Zec 14:5). This judgment, which was closer at hand, would consist in the fact that Jehovah would stretch out His hand in His wrath over His people (or, as it is expressed elsewhere, would swing His hand: Luther, “wave His hand,” i.

e. , move it to and fro; vid. , Isa 11:15; Isa 19:16; Isa 30:30, Isa 30:32), and bring it down upon Judah with one stroke, the violence of which would be felt not only by men, but by surrounding nature as well. What kind of stroke this would be, was to be inferred from the circumstance that the corpses would lie unburied in the streets, like common street-sweepings.

The reading תּצּות must be rejected. Early editors read the word much more correctly תּצּות; Buxtorf (1618) even adopts the reading תוּצות, which has the Masoretic pointing in Num 22:39 in its favour. It is very natural to connect Cassuchâh with the Arabic kusâcha (sweepings; see at Isa 33:12): but kusâc is the common form for waste or rubbish of this kind (e.

g. , kulâm , nail-cuttings), whereas Cassuach is a form which, like the forms fâōl (e. g. , Châmōts ) and fâūl (compare the Arabic fâsūs , a wind-maker, or wind-bag, i. e. , a boaster), has always an intensive, active (e. g. , Channun ), or circumstantial signification (like shaccul ), but is never found in a passive sense. The Caph is consequently to be taken as a particle of comparison (followed, as is generally the case, with a definite article); and sūchâh is to be derived from sūach (= verrere , to sweep).

The reference, therefore, is not to a pestilence (which is designated, as a stroke from God, not by hiccâh , but by nâgaph ), but to the slaughter of battle; and if we look at the other terrible judgment threatened in Isa 5:26. , which was to proceed from the imperial power, there can be no doubt that the spirit of prophecy here points to the massacre that took place in Judah in connection with the Syro-Ephraimitish war (see 2Ch 28:5-6).

The mountains may then have trembled with the marching of troops, and the din of arms, and the felling of trees, and the shout of war. At any rate, nature had to participate in what men had brought upon themselves; for, according to the creative appointment of God, nature bears the same relation to man as the body to the soul. Every stroke of divine wrath which falls upon a nation equally affects the land which has grown up, as it were, with it; and in this sense the mountains of Judah trembled at the time referred to, even though the trembling was only discernible by initiated ears.

But “for all this” ( Beth , = “notwithstanding,” “in spite of,” as in Job 1:22) the wrath of Jehovah, as the prophet foresaw, would not turn away, as it was accustomed to do when He was satisfied; and His hand would still remain stretched out over Judah, ready to strike again.

Isa 5:26 Jehovah finds the human instruments of His further strokes, not in Israel and the neighbouring nations, but in the people of distant lands. “And lifts up a banner to the distant nations, and hisses to it from the end of the earth; and, behold, it comes with haste swiftly. ” What the prophet here foretold began to be fulfilled in the time of Ahaz. But the prophecy, which commences with this verse, has every possible mark of the very opposite of a vaticinium post eventum .

It is, strictly speaking, only what had already been threatened in Deu 28:49. (cf. , Deu 32:21.) , though here it assumes a more plastic form, and is here presented for the first time to the view of the prophet as though coming out of a mist. Jehovah summons the nations afar off: haggōyim mērâchok signifies, as we have rendered it, the “distant nations,” for mērâc is virtually an adjective both here and Isa 49:1, just as in Jer 23:23 it is virtually a substantive.

The visible working of Jehovah presents itself to the prophet in two figures. Jehovah plants a banner or standard, which, like an optical telegraph, announces to the nations at a more remote distance than the horn of battle ( shophâr ) could possibly reach, that they are to gather together to war. A “banner” ( nês ): i. e. , a lofty staff with flying colours (Isa 33:23) planted upon a bare mountain-top (Isa 13:2).

נשׂא alternates with הרים in this favourite figure of Isaiah. The nations through whom this was primarily fulfilled were the nations of the Assyrian empire. According to the Old Testament view, these nations were regarded as far off, and dwelling at the end of the earth (Isa 39:3), not only inasmuch as the Euphrates formed the boundary towards the north-east between what was geographically known and unknown to the Israelites (Psa 72:8; Zec 9:10), but also inasmuch as the prophet had in his mind a complex body of nations stretching far away into further Asia.

The second figure is taken from a bee-master, who entices the bees, by hissing or whistling, to come out of their hives and settle on the ground. Thus Virgil says to the bee-master who wants to make the bees settle, “Raise a ringing, and beat the cymbals of Cybele all around” ( Georgics , iv 54). Thus does Jehovah entice the hosts of nations like swarms of bees (Isa 7:18), and they swarm together with haste and swiftness.

The plural changes into the singular, because those who are approaching have all the appearance at first of a compact and indivisible mass; it is also possible that the ruling nation among the many is singled out. The thought and expression are both misty, and this is perfectly characteristic. With the word “behold” ( hinnēh ) the prophet points to them; they are approaching mehērâh kal , i.

e. , in the shortest time with swift feet, and the nearer they come to his view the more clearly he can describe them.

Isa 5:27 “There is none exhausted, and none stumbling among them: it gives itself no slumber, and no sleep; and to none is the girdle of his hips loosed; and to none is the lace of his shoes broken. ” Notwithstanding the long march, there is no exhausted one, obliged to separate himself and remain behind (Deu 25:18; Isa 14:31); no stumbling one ( Cōshēl ), for they march on, pressing incessantly forwards, as if along a well-made road (Jer 31:9).

They do not slumber ( nūm ), to say nothing of sleeping ( yâshēn ), so great is their eagerness for battle: i. e. , they do not slumber to refresh themselves, and do not even allow themselves their ordinary night’s rest. No one has the girdle of his armour-shirt or coat of mail, in which he stuck his sword (Neh 4:18), at all loosened; nor has a single one even the shoe-string, with which his sandals were fastened, broken ( nittak, disrumpitur ).

The statement as to their want of rest forms a climax descendens ; the other, as to the tightness and durability of their equipment, a climax ascendens : the two statements follow one another after the nature of a chiasmus .

Isa 5:28 The prophet then proceeds to describe their weapons and war-chariots. “He whose arrows are sharpened, and all his bows strung; the hoofs of his horses are counted like flint, and his wheels like the whirlwind. ” In the prophet’s view they are coming nearer and nearer. For he sees that they have brought the sharpened arrows in their quivers (Isa 22:6); and the fact that all their bows are already trodden (namely, as their length was equal to a man’s height, by treading upon the string with the left foot, as we may learn from Arrian’s Indica ), proves that they are near to the goal.

The correct reading in Jablonsky (according to Kimchi’s Lex . cf. , Michlal yofi ) is קשּׁתתיו with dagesh dirimens , as in Psa 37:15 (Ges. §20, 2, b ). As the custom of shoeing horses was not practised in ancient times, firm hoofs (ὃπλαι καρτεραί, according to Xenophon’s Hippikos ) were one of the most important points in a good horse. And the horses of the enemy that was now drawing near to Judah had hoofs that would be found like flint ( tzar , only used here, equivalent to the Arabic zirr ).

Homer designates such horses Chalkopodes , brazen-footed. And the two wheels of the war-chariots, to which they were harnessed, turned with such velocity, and overthrew everything before them with such violence, that it seemed not merely as if a whirlwind drove them forward, but as if they were the whirlwind itself (Isa 66:15; Jer 4:13). Nahum compares them to lightning (Isa 2:5).

Thus far the prophet’s description has moved on, as if by forced marches, in clauses of from two to four words each. It now changes into a heavy, stealthy pace, and then in a few clauses springs like a wild beast upon its prey.

Isa 5:29 “Roaring issues from it as from the lioness: it roars like lions, and utters a low murmur; seizes the prey, carries it off, and no one rescues. ” The futures, with the preceding לו שׁאגה which is equivalent to a future, hold each feature in the description fast, as if for prolonged contemplation. The lion roars when eager for prey; and such is now the war-cry of the bloodthirsty enemy, which the prophet compares to the roaring of a lion or of young lions ( Cephirim ) in the fulness of their strength.

(The lion is described by its poetic name, לביא; this does not exactly apply to the lioness, which would rather be designated by the term לביּה.) The roar is succeeded by a low growl ( nâham , fremere ), when a lion is preparing to fall upon its prey. And so the prophet hears a low and ominous murmur in the army, which is now ready for battle. But he also sees immediately afterwards how the enemy seizes its booty and carries it irrecoverably away: literally, “how he causes it to escape,” i.

e. , not “lets it slip in cruel sport,” as Luzzatto interprets it, but carries it to a place of safety (Mic 6:14). The prey referred to is Judah. It also adds to the gloomy and mysterious character of the prophecy, that the prophet never mentions Judah. In the following v. also (Isa 5:30) the object is still suppressed, as if the prophet could not let it pass his lips.

Isa 5:30 “And it utters a deep roar over it in that day like the roaring of the sea: and it looks to the earth, and behold darkness, tribulation, and light; it becomes night over it in the clouds of heaven. ” The subject to “roars” is the mass of the enemy; and in the expressions “over it” and “it looks” ( nibbat ; the niphal , which is only met with here, in the place of the hiphil ) the prophet has in his mind the nation of Judah, upon which the enemy falls with the roar of the ocean - that is to say, overwhelming it like a sea.

And when the people of Judah look to the earth, i. e. , to their own land, darkness alone presents itself, and darkness which has swallowed up all the smiling and joyous aspect which it had before. And what then? The following words, tzar vâ'ōr , have been variously rendered, viz. , “moon (= sahar ) and sun” by the Jewish expositors, “stone and flash,” i. e.

, hail and thunder-storm, by Drechsler; but such renderings as these, and others of a similar kind, are too far removed from the ordinary usage of the language. And the separation of the two words, so that the one closes a sentence and the other commences a fresh one (e. g. , “darkness of tribulation, and the sun becomes dark”), which is adopted by Hitzig, Gesenius, Ewald, and others, is opposed to the impression made by the two monosyllables, and sustained by the pointing, that they are connected together.

The simplest explanation is one which takes the word tzar in its ordinary sense of tribulation or oppression, and 'ōr in its ordinary sense of light, and which connects the two words closely together. And this is the case with the rendering given above: tzar vâ'ōr are “tribulation and brightening up,” one following the other and passing over into the other, like morning and night (Isa 21:12).

This pair of words forms an interjectional clause, the meaning of which is, that when the predicted darkness had settled upon the land of Judah, this would not be the end; but there would still follow an alternation of anxiety and glimmerings of hope, until at last it had become altogether dark in the cloudy sky over all the land of Judah ( ‛ariphim , the cloudy sky, is only met with here; it is derived from âraph , to drop or trickle, hence also arâphel : the suffix points back to lâ'âretz , eretz denoting sometimes the earth as a whole, and at other times the land as being part of the earth). The prophet here predicts that, before utter ruin has overtaken Judah, sundry approaches will be made towards this, within which a divine deliverance will appear again and again.

Grace tries and tries again and again, until at last the measure of iniquity is full, and the time of repentance past. The history of the nation of Judah proceeded according to this law until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. The Assyrian troubles, and the miraculous light of divine help which arose in the destruction of the military power of Sennacherib, were only the foreground of this mournful but yet ever and anon hopeful course of history, which terminated in utter darkness, that has continued now for nearly two thousand years.

This closes the third prophetic address. It commences with a parable which contains the history of Israel in nuce , and closes with an emblem which symbolizes the gradual but yet certain accomplishment of the judicial, penal termination of the parable. This third address, therefore, is as complete in itself as the second was. The kindred allusions are to be accounted for from the sameness of the historical basis and arena.

During the course of the exposition, it has become more and more evident and certain that it relates to the time of Uzziah and Jotham - a time of peace, of strength, and wealth, but also of pride and luxury. The terrible slaughter of the Syro-Ephraimitish war, which broke out at the end of Jotham’s reign, and the varied complications which king Ahaz introduced between Judah and the imperial worldly power, and which issued eventually in the destruction of the former kingdom - those five marked epochs in the history of the kingdoms of the world, or great empires, to which the Syro-Ephraimitish war was the prelude - were still hidden from the prophet in the womb of the future.

The description of the great mass of people that was about to roll over Judah from afar is couched in such general terms, so undefined and misty, that all we can say is, that everything that was to happen to the people of God on the part of the imperial power during the five great and extended periods of judgment that were now so soon to commence (viz. , the Assyrian, the Chaldean, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman), was here unfolding itself out of the mist of futurity, and presenting itself to the prophet’s eye.

Even in the time of Ahaz the character of the prophecy changed in this respect. It was then that the eventful relation, in which Israel stood to the imperial power, generally assumed its first concrete shape in the form of a distinct relation to Asshur (Assyria). And from that time forth the imperial power in the mouth of the prophet is no longer a majestic thing without a name; but although the notion of the imperial power was not yet embodied in Asshur, it was called Asshur, and Asshur stood as its representative.

It also necessarily follows from this, that Chapters 2-4 and 5 belong to the times anterior to Ahaz, i. e. , to those of Uzziah and Jotham. But several different questions suggest themselves here. If chapters 2-4 and 5 were uttered under Uzziah and Jotham, how could Isaiah begin with a promise (Isa 2:1-4) which is repeated word for word in Mic 4:1. , where it is the direct antithesis to Isa 3:12, which was uttered by Micah, according to Jer 26:18, in the time of Hezekiah?

Again, if we consider the advance apparent in the predictions of judgment from the general expressions with which they commence in Chapter 1 to the close of chapter 5, in what relation does the address in chapter 1 stand to chapters 2-4 and 5, inasmuch as Isa 5:7-9 are not ideal (as we felt obliged to maintain, in opposition to Caspari), but have a distinct historical reference, and therefore at any rate presuppose the Syro-Ephraimitish war? And lastly, if Isa 6:1-13 does really relate, as it apparently does, to the call of Isaiah to the prophetic office, how are we to explain the singular fact, that three prophetic addresses precede the history of his call, which ought properly to stand at the commencement of the book?

Drechsler and Caspari have answered this question lately, by maintaining that Isa 6:1-13 does not contain an account of the call of Isaiah to the prophetic office, but simply of the call of the prophet, who was already installed in that office, to one particular mission. The proper heading to be adopted for Isa 6:1-13 would therefore be, “The ordination of the prophet as the preacher of the judgment of hardening;” and chapters 1-5 would contain warning reproofs addressed by the prophet to the people, who were fast ripening for this judgment of hardening (reprobation), for the purpose of calling them to repentance.

The final decision was still trembling in the balance. But the call to repentance was fruitless, and Israel hardened itself. And now that the goodness of God had tried in vain to lead the people to repentance, and the long-suffering of God had been wantonly abused by the people, Jehovah Himself would harden them. Looked at in this light, Isa 6:1-13 stands in its true historical place.

It contains the divine sequel to that portion of Isaiah’s preaching, and of the prophetic preaching generally, by which it had been preceded. But true as it is that the whole of the central portion of Israel’s history, which lay midway between the commencement and the close, was divided in half by the contents of Isa 6:1-13, and that the distinctive importance of Isaiah as a prophet arose especially from the fact that he stood upon the boundary between these two historic halves; there are serious objections which present themselves to such an explanation of Isa 6:1-13.

It is possible, indeed, that this distinctive importance may have been given to Isaiah’s official position at his very first call. And what Umbreit says - namely, that Isa 6:1-13 must make the impression upon every unprejudiced mind, that it relates to the prophet’s inaugural vision - cannot really be denied. but the position in which Isa 6:1-13 stands in the book itself must necessarily produce a contrary impression, unless it can be accounted for in some other way.

Nevertheless the impression still remains (just as at Isa 1:7-9), and recurs again and again. We will therefore proceed to Isa 6:1-13 without attempting to efface it. It is possible that we may discover some other satisfactory explanation of the enigmatical position of Isa 6:1-13 in relation to what precedes.

Isa 6:1 The time of the occurrence here described, viz. , “the year that king Uzziah ( Uzı̄yahu ) died,” was of importance to the prophet. The statement itself, in the naked form in which it is here introduced, is much more emphatic than if it commenced with “it came to pass” ( vay'hi ; cf. , Exo 16:6; Pro 24:17). It was the year of Uzziah’s death, not the first year of Jotham’s reign; that is to say, Uzziah was still reigning, although his death was near at hand.

If this is the sense in which the words are to be understood, then, even if the chapter before us contains an account of Isaiah’s first call, the heading to chapter 1, which dates the ministry of the prophet from the time of Uzziah, is quite correct, inasmuch as, although his public ministry under Uzziah was very short, this is properly to be included, not only on account of its own importance, but as inaugurating a new ear ( lit . “an epoch-making beginning”).

But is it not stated in 2Ch 26:22, that Isaiah wrote a historical work embracing the whole of Uzziah’s reign? Unquestionably; but it by no means follows from this, that he commenced his ministry long before the death of Uzziah. If Isaiah received his call in the year that Uzziah died, this historical work contained a retrospective view of the life and times of Uzziah, the close of which coincided with the call of the prophetic author, which made a deep incision into the history of Israel.

Uzziah reigned fifty-two years (809-758 b. c.) This lengthened period was just the same to the kingdom of Judah as the shorter age of Solomon to that of all Israel, viz. , a time of vigorous and prosperous peace, in which the nation was completely overwhelmed with manifestations of divine love. But the riches of divine goodness had no more influence upon it, than the troubles through which it had passed before.

And now the eventful change took place in the relation between Israel and Jehovah, of which Isaiah was chosen to be the instrument before and above all other prophets. The year in which all this occurred was the year of Uzziah’s death. It was in this year that Israel as a people was given up to hardness of heart, and as a kingdom and country to devastation and annihilation by the imperial power of the world.

How significant a fact, as Jerome observes in connection with this passage, that the year of Uzziah’s death should be the year in which Romulus was born; and that it was only a short time after the death of Uzziah (viz. , 754 b. c. according to Varro’s chronology) that Rome itself was founded! The national glory of Israel died out with king Uzziah, and has never revived to this day.

In that year, says the prophet, “I saw the Lord of all sitting upon a high and exalted throne, and His borders filling the temple. ” Isaiah saw, and that not when asleep and dreaming; but God gave him, when awake, an insight into the invisible world, by opening an inner sense for the supersensuous, whilst the action of the outer senses was suspended, and by condensing the supersensuous into a sensuous form, on account of the composite nature of man and the limits of his present state.

This was the mode of revelation peculiar to an ecstatic vision (ἐν ἐκστἀσει, Eng. ver. “in a trance,” or ἐν πνεὐματι, “in the spirit”). Isaiah is here carried up into heaven; for although in other instances it was undoubtedly the earthly temple which was presented to a prophet’s view in an ecstatic vision (Amo 9:1; Eze 8:3; Eze 10:4-5; cf. , Act 22:17), yet here, as the description which follows clearly proves, the “high and exalted throne” is the heavenly antitype of the earthly throne which was formed by the ark of the covenant; and the “temple” ( hēcâl : lit.

, a spacious hall, the name given to the temple as the palace of God the King) is the temple in heaven, as in Psa 11:4; Psa 18:7; Psa 29:9, and many other passages. There the prophet sees the Sovereign Ruler, or, as we prefer to render the noun, which is formed from âdan = dūn , “ the Lord of all ” ( All-herrn , sovereign or absolute Lord), seated upon the throne, and in human form (Eze 1:26), as is proved by the robe with a train, whose flowing ends or borders ( fimibrae : shūilm , as in Exo 28:33-34) filled the hall.

The Sept. , Targum, Vulgate, etc. , have dropped the figure of the robe and train, as too anthropomorphic. But John, in his Gospel, is bold enough to say that it was Jesus whose glory Isaiah saw (Joh 12:41). And truly so, for the incarnation of God is the truth embodied in all the scriptural anthropomorphisms, and the name of Jesus is the manifested mystery of the name Jehovah.

The heavenly temple is that super-terrestrial place, which Jehovah transforms into heaven and a temple, by manifesting Himself there to angels and saints. But whilst He manifests His glory there, He is obliged also to veil it, because created beings are unable to bear it. But that which veils His glory is no less splendid, than that portion of it which is revealed.

And this was the truth embodied for Isaiah in the long robe and train. He saw the Lord, and what more he saw was the all-filling robe of the indescribable One. As far as the eye of the seer could look at first, the ground was covered by this splendid robe. There was consequently no room for any one to stand. And the vision of the seraphim is in accordance with this.

Isa 6:2 “Above it stood seraphim: each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly. ” We must not render לו ממּעל “near him;” for although על or מעל is applied to a person standing near or over against another who is sitting down (Exo 18:13; Jer 36:21; compared 2Ch 26:19, where the latter is used to signify “over against” the altar of incense), and is used in this sense to denote the attitude of spirits (Job 1:16; 1Ki 22:19; Zec 6:5), and even of men (Zec 4:14), in relation to God when seated on His throne, in which case it cannot possibly be employed in the sense of “towering above;” yet לו ממּעל, the strongest expression for supra , cannot be employed in any other than a literal sense here; for which reason Rashi and the Targums understand it as signifying “above in the attitude of service,” and the accentuation apparently, though erroneously, implies this (Luzzatto).

What Isaiah meant by this standing above, may be inferred from the use which the seraphim are said to have made of their wings. The imperfects do not describe what they were accustomed to do (Böttcher and others), but what the seer saw them do: with two of their six wings he saw them fly. Thus they stood flying, i. e. , they hovered or soared (cf. , Num 14:14), as both the earth and stars are said to stand, although suspended in space (Job 26:7).

The seraphim would not indeed tower above the head of Him that sat upon the throne, but they hovered above the robe belonging to Him with which the hall was filled, sustained by two extended wings, and covering their faces with two other wings in their awe at the divine glory (Targ. ne videant ), and their feet with two others, in their consciousness of the depth at which the creature stands below the Holiest of all (Targ.

ne videantur ), just as the cherubim are described as veiling their bodies in Eze 1:11. This is the only passage in the Scriptures in which the seraphim are mentioned. According to the orthodox view, which originated with Dionysius the Areopagite, they stand at the head of the nine choirs of angels, the first rank consisting of seraphim , cherubim , and throni .

And this is not without support, if we compare the cherubim mentioned in Ezekiel, which carried the chariot of the divine throne; whereas here the seraphim are said to surround the seat on which the Lord was enthroned. In any case, the seraphim and cherubim were heavenly beings of different kinds; and there is no weight in the attempts made by Hendewerk and Stickel to prove that they are one and the same.

And certainly the name serpahim does not signify merely spirits as such, but even, if not the highest of all, yet a distinct order from the rest; for the Scriptures really teach that there are gradations in rank in the hierarchy of heaven. Nor were they mere symbols or fanciful images, as Hävernick imagines, but real spiritual beings, who visibly appeared to the prophet, and that in a form corresponding to their own supersensuous being, and to the design of the whole transaction.

Whilst these seraphim hovered above on both sides of Him that sat upon the throne, and therefore formed two opposite choirs, each ranged in a semicircle, they presented antiphonal worship to Him that sat upon the throne.

Isa 6:3 “And one cried to the other, and said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts: filling the whole earth is His glory. ” The meaning is not that they all lifted up their voice in concert at one and the same time (just as in Psa 42:8 el is not used in this sense, viz. , as equivalent to C'neged ), but that there was a continuous and unbroken antiphonal song.

One set commenced, and the others responded, either repeating the “ Holy , holy , holy ,” or following with “ filling the whole earth is His glory . ” Isaiah heard this antiphonal or “hypophonal” song of the seraphim, not merely that he might know that the uninterrupted worship of God was their blessed employment, but because it was with this doxology as with the doxologies of the Apocalypse, it had a certain historical significance in common with the whole scene.

God is in Himself the Holy One ( kâdōsh ), i. e. , the separate One, beyond or above the world, true light, spotless purity, the perfect One. His glory ( Câbod ) is His manifested holiness, as Oetinger and Bengel express it, just as, on the other hand, His holiness is His veiled or hidden glory. The design of all the work of God is that His holiness should become universally manifest, or, what is the same thing, that His glory should become the fulness of the whole earth (Isa 11:9; Num 14:21; Hab 2:14).

This design of the work of God stands before God as eternally present; and the seraphim also have it ever before them in its ultimate completion, as the theme of their song of praise. But Isaiah was a man living in the very midst of the history that was moving on towards this goal; and the cry of the seraphim, in the precise form in which it reached him, showed him to what it would eventually come on earth, whilst the heavenly shapes that were made visible to him helped him to understand the nature of that divine glory with which the earth was to be filled.

The whole of the book of Isaiah contains traces of the impression made by this ecstatic vision. The favourite name of God in the mouth of the prophet viz. , “the Holy One of Israel” ( kedosh Yisrael ), is the echo of this seraphic sanctus ; and the fact that this name already occurs with such marked preference on the part of the prophet in the addresses contained in Isaiah 1:2-4:5, supports the view that Isaiah is here describing his own first call.

All the prophecies of Isaiah carry this name of God as their stamp. It occurs twenty-nine times (including Isa 10:17; Isa 43:15; Isa 49:7), viz. , twelve times in chapters 1-39, and seventeen times in chapters 40-66. As Luzzatto has well observed, “the prophet, as if with a presentiment that the authenticity of the second part of his book would be disputed, has stamped both parts with this name of God, 'the Holy One of Israel,' as if with his own seal.

” The only other passages in which the word occurs, are three times in the Psalms (Psa 71:22; Psa 78:41; Psa 89:19), and twice in Jeremiah (Jer 50:29; Jer 51:5), and that not without an allusion to Isaiah. It forms an essential part of Isaiah’s distinctive prophetic signature. And here we are standing at the source from which it sprang. But did this thrice-holy refer to the triune God?

Knobel contents himself with saying that the threefold repetition of the word “holy” serves to give it the greater emphasis. No doubt men are accustomed to say three times what they wish to say in an exhaustive and satisfying manner; for three is the number of expanded unity, of satisfied and satisfying development, of the key-note extended into the chord. But why is this?

The Pythagoreans said that numbers were the first principle of all things; but the Scriptures, according to which God created the world in twice three days by ten mighty words, and completed it in seven days, teach us that God is the first principle of all numbers. The fact that three is the number of developed and yet self-contained unity, has its ultimate ground in the circumstance that it is the number of the trinitarian process; and consequently the trilogy ( trisagion ) of the seraphim (like that of the cherubim in Rev 4:8), whether Isaiah was aware of it or no, really pointed in the distinct consciousness of the spirits themselves to the truine God.

Isa 6:4 When Isaiah heard this, he stood entranced at the farthest possible distance from Him that sat upon the throne, namely, under the door of the heavenly palace or temple. What he still further felt and saw, he proceeds to relate in Isa 6:4 : “And the foundations of the thresholds shook with the voice of them that cried; and the house became full of smoke.

” By ‛ammoth hassippim , the lxx, Vulgate, Syriac, and others understand the posts of the lintels, the supporting beams of the superliminaria , which closed the doorway at the top. But as saph is only used in other places to signify the threshold and porch ( limen and vestibulum ), ‛ammoth hassippim must be understood here in the (perfectly appropriate) sense of “the foundations of the thresholds” ( ammâh , which bears the same relation to עם, mother, as matrix to mater , is used to denote the receptive basis into which the door-steps with their plugs were inserted, like the talmudic ammetâh derēchayyâh , the frame or box of the hand-mill ( Berachoth 18 b ), and ammath megērah , the wood-work which runs along the back of the saw and keeps it firmly extended ( Kelim 21, 3); compare the “ Schraubenmutter ,” literally screw- mother , or female screw, which receives and holds the cylindrical screw).

Every time that the choir of seraphim (הקּורא: compare such collective singulars as hâ'oreb , the ambush, in Jos 8:19; hechâlutz , of men of war, in Jos 6:7, etc.) began their song, the support of the threshold of the porch in which Isaiah was standing trembled. The building was seized with reverential awe throughout its whole extent, and in its deepest foundations: for in the blessed state beyond, nothing stands immoveable or unsusceptible in relation to the spirits there; but all things form, as it were, the accidentia of their free personality, yielding to their impressions, and voluntarily following them in all their emotions.

The house was also “ filled with smoke . ” Many compare this with the similar occurrence in connection with the dedication of Solomon’s temple (1Ki 8:10); but Drechsler is correct in stating that the two cases are not parallel, for there God simply attested His own presence by the cloud of smoke behind which He concealed Himself, whereas here there was no need of any such self-attestation.

Moreover, in this instance God does not dwell in the cloud and thick darkness, whilst the smoke is represented as the effect of the songs of praise in which the seraphim have joined, and not of the presence of God. The smoke arose from the altar of incense mentioned in Isa 6:6. But when Drechsler says that it was the prayers of saints (as in Rev 5:8; Rev 8:3-4), which ascended to the Lord in the smoke, this is a thought which is quite out of place here.

The smoke was the immediate consequence of the seraphs’ song of praise. This begins to throw a light upon the name seraphim , which may help us to decipher it. The name cannot possibly be connected with sârâph , a snake (Sanscr. sarpa , Lat. serpens ); and to trace the word to a verb sâraph in the sense of the Arabic 'sarafa ( 'sarufa ), to tower high, to be exalted, or highly honoured (as Gesenius, Hengstenberg, Hofmann, and others have done), yields a sense which does not very strongly commend itself.

On the other hand, to follow Knobel, who reads shârâthim (worshippers of God), and thus presents the Lexicon with a new word, and to pronounce the word serpahim a copyist’s error, would be a rash concession to the heaven-storming omnipotence which is supposed to reside in the ink of a German scholar. It is hardly admissible, however, to interpret the name as signifying directly spirits of light or fire, since the true meaning of sâraph is not urere (to burn), but Comburere (to set on fire or burn up).

Umbreit endeavours to do justice to this transitive meaning by adopting the explanation “fiery beings,” by which all earthly corruption is opposed and destroyed. The vision itself, however, appears to point to a much more distinctive and special meaning in the name, which only occurs in this passage of Isaiah. We shall have more to say upon this point presently.