Isaiah 30:13

As a breach ready to fall.

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A retributive crash

The best translation seems to be: “Therefore this guilt shall be to you as a rent descending (literally, “falling”) (and) bulging out in a high wall, whose crash comes,” etc. The slight beginnings of transgression, its inevitable tendency to gravitate more and more from the moral perpendicular, till a critical point is reached, then the suddenness of the final catastrophe,--are vividly expressed by this magnificent simile. Psalms 62:3. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)

Nemesis

1. The people, on account of the eminence and grandeur to which they were elevated, are compared to a high wall.

2. The sin whereby they despised the Word of the Lord, the instructions of His servants, and even the name of the Holy One of Israel, and sought assistance from Egypt, was to prove ruinous to them, as the swelling out in a high wall. The breach, or bulge, which is supposed to have been in the lower part of the wall, as often happens in old buildings, might signify the insolence and pride whereby the posterity of Israel were puffed up in the confidence of being aided by the Egyptians. (R. Macculloch.)

Nemesis

I. WHO IT IS THAT GIVES JUDGMENT UPON THEM. “The Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 30:12). See Isaiah 30:11. Faithful ministers will not be driven from using such expressions as are proper to awaken sinners, though they be displeasing.

II. WHAT THE GROUND OF THE JUDGEMENT IS. “Because ye despise,” etc., (Isaiah 30:12).

III. WHAT THE JUDGMENT IS THAT IS PASSED UPON THEM. The ruin they should bring upon themselves should be--

1. A surprising ruin, coming suddenly.

2. An utter ruin, universal and irreparable (Isaiah 30:14). (M. Henry.)