Isaiah 3 - Introduction

Isaiah 3:1 to Isaiah 4:1. Judgement on the Rapacity and Luxury of the Upper Classes in Judah

The passage falls into two sections:

2 Samuel 3:1; 2 Samuel 3:1. A prediction of the impending dissolution of social order, due to the selfishness and tyranny of the ruling classes.

(1) Jehovah is about to remove all the existing pillars of the state, and hand over the land to the miseries of incompetent and capricious government (1 4). A state of anarchy will ensue, which will be felt to be intolerable even by those who have helped to bring it about. A graphic picture is presented of the futile efforts of the people to restore some semblance of authority (5 7).

(2) The reason of this visitation is next stated; the unblushing wickedness which prevails in the land has provoked the "eyes of Jehovah's glory," the chief guilt lying at the door of the court and the nobles (8 12). The section closes with a vision of judgment; Jehovah appears in person and sternly calls the authorities of His people to account for their abuse of the trust committed to them (13 15).

ii. Isa 3:16 to Isaiah 4:1. The second section, which is perhaps somewhat fragmentary, is devoted to the fashionable women of the capital. It contains:

(1) A diatribe against the frivolity and extravagance of the ladies of Jerusalem, combined with a threat of the degradation in store for them (16 24).

(2) A picture of the desolation of the city, bereft of her defenders, who have fallen in war (25, 26).

(3) A description of the effect of this disaster on the surviving women, who in the depletion of the male population will scarcely find husbands to take away their reproach (Isaiah 4:1).

Throughout the passage the prophet's point of view is somewhat different from that occupied in ch. Isaiah 2:6 ff. There it is the religious aspect of the people's sin that is emphasised: pride, idolatry, and reliance on worldly power; here it is dealt with in its social aspect, as misgovernment, cruelty, luxury, &c. Again, the judgment in ch. 2 is represented as an overpowering physical catastrophe; here it is conceived as a destruction of the invisible bonds of society and a setting loose of the unruly passions of men to prey upon each other. This vivid apprehension of the evils of anarchy is instructive as the earliest indication of the statesmanlike quality of Isaiah's genius, and his profound sense of the value of good government as the primary condition of national well-being.

1 ff. The collapse of the social fabric is to be brought about by the removal of the classes that contribute to the order and stability of the state. The state of things described might be the effect either of war and captivity (cf. 2 Kings 24:14; Jeremiah 24:1; Jeremiah 29:1) or of a political. revolution. The former view is the more natural, but it should be noted that in ch. Isaiah 9:8 ff. (addressed to North Israel, and nearly contemporary with this) a period of revolutionary anarchy precedesthe crowning disaster of the Assyrian invasion.