X. (1) WOE UNTO THEM THAT DECREE UNRIGHTEOUS DECREES... — The division of the Chapter s is again misleading. Isaiah 10:1 continue the discourse of Isaiah 9, and end with the final knell, “For all this ...” With Isaiah 10:5 a new section begins, and is carried on to Isaiah 12:6, which deals, for the... [ Continue Reading ]
AND WHAT WILL YE DO IN THE DAY OF VISITATION...? — The question was not without a certain touch of irony. Had those corrupt judges asked themselves what they would do when the Supreme Judge should call them to account? Had they an ally who could protect them against Jehovah? Or had they found a hidi... [ Continue Reading ]
WITHOUT ME THEY SHALL BOW DOWN... — The Hebrew text is obscure, but these words were probably intended as the answer to the taunting question that had preceded them. Dropping the direct address, and passing to the third person, the prophet seems to say as with a kind of ominous “aside,” “No, there i... [ Continue Reading ]
O ASSYRIAN. — The words open, as has been said above, a perfectly distinct section. Assyria had been named in connection with the Syro-Ephraim alliance against Judah (Isaiah 7:17; Isaiah 8:7); but this is the first prophetic utterance of which it is the direct subject. Anticipating the phraseology o... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL SEND HIM AGAINST AN HYPOCRITICAL NATION. — Better, _impious._ The verb admits of the various renderings, “I will send,” “I did send,” and “I am wont to send.” The last seems to give the best meaning — not a mere fact in history, nor an isolated prediction, but a law of the Divine government.... [ Continue Reading ]
HOWBEIT HE MEANETH NOT SO. — The thoughts which Isaiah puts into the mouth of the Assyrian are exactly in accord with the supreme egotism of the Sargon inscription, “I conquered,” “I besieged,” “I burnt,” “I killed,” “I destroyed”; this is the ever-recurring burden, mingled here and there with the b... [ Continue Reading ]
ARE NOT MY PRINCES ALTOGETHER KINGS? — So Tiglath-pileser names the twenty-three kings (Ahaz and Pekah among them) who came to do homage and pay tribute at Damascus (_Records of the Past, v._ 5-26).... [ Continue Reading ]
IS NOT CALNO AS CARCHEMISH? — The six names obviously pointed to more recent conquests in which Sargon and his predecessors had exulted. One after another they had fallen. Could Judah hope to escape? (1) Calno, the Calneh of Genesis 10:10; Amos 6:2. That prophet had held up its fate in vain as a war... [ Continue Reading ]
AS MY HAND HATH FOUND THE KINGDOMS OF THE IDOLS. — The word “idols” seems hardly appropriate as a word of scorn in the mouth of an idolatrous king; but Isaiah probably puts into his lips the words which he himself would have used. It is, however, quite in character with the Assyrian inscriptions tha... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL I NOT, AS I HAVE DONE... — The verse gives the occasion of Isaiah’s utterance. Sargon was threatening Jerusalem, probably in the early years of Hezekiah’s reign. The inscriptions show, as Isaiah 20:1 also does, that he made war against Philistia and besieged Ashdod (_Records of the Past, vii._... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEREFORE IT SHALL COME TO PASS... — Better, _And it shall come to pass_ ... The boast of the proud king is interrupted by the reassertion of the fact that he is but an instrument in the hand of Jehovah, and that when his work was done he too will be punished for his pride. The “fruit” of the “stout... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR HE SAITH, BY THE STRENGTH OF MY HAND... — Another reproduction of the style of the royal inscriptions of Assyria. (Comp. Isaiah 37:10.) I HAVE REMOVED THE BOUNDS OF THE PEOPLE. — The practice has, of course, more or less characterised the conquerors of all ages in their attempts to merge indepe... [ Continue Reading ]
MY HAND HATH FOUND AS A NEST. — The inscription of Sargon presents an almost verbal parallelism (_Records of the Past, vii._ 28). In other documents the king looks on himself as a colossal fowler, and the kingdoms are but as birds’-nests for him to spoil, and the nests are left empty. THERE WAS NON... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL THE AX BOAST ITSELF...? — The words spoken by the prophet as the mouthpiece of Jehovah remind us of the way in which Christian writers of the fifth century spoke of Attila as “the scourge of God.” There was comfort in that thought for the nations that were scourged. The man’s lust for power mi... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE SHALL THE LORD... SEND AMONG HIS FAT ONES LEANNESS. — The overthrow of the Assyrian is painted in the two-fold imagery of famine and of fire. (Isaiah 17:4; comp. Pharaoh’s vision in Genesis 41:18.) The “fat ones” are the warriors of the Assyrian army. The fire that burns the glory of the k... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE LIGHT OF ISRAEL SHALL BE FOR A FIRE. — The Divine glory, which is as a consuming fire (Isaiah 27:4) to the enemies of Israel, is to Israel itself as the very light of life. The “briars and thorns” (we note the recurrence of the combination of Isaiah 9:18) are the host of the Assyrian army (c... [ Continue Reading ]
BOTH SOUL AND BODY. — Literally, _from the soul even to the flesh._ The metaphor is for a moment dropped, and the reality is unveiled. AS WHEN A STANDARDBEARER FAINTETH. — The Authorised version represents the extremity of misery and exhaustion. The “standard-bearer” was chosen for his heroic stren... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE REST OF THE TREES OF HIS FOREST SHALL BE FEW. — To number the host of an army, to count killed and wounded after a battle, was commonly the work of the royal scribe, who appears so often as in that employment in Assyrian sculptures. Here the survivors (the “remnant” as before) were to be so... [ Continue Reading ]
THE REMNANT OF ISRAEL... — For the remnant of Assyria there is as yet no word of hope. (See, however, Isaiah 19:23.) For that of Israel, the prophet, falling back on the thought embodied in the name Shear-jashub (see Note on Isaiah 7:3), predicts a brighter future. SHALL NO MORE AGAIN STAY UPON HIM... [ Continue Reading ]
THE REMNANT SHALL RETURN... — The very form of the words (_Shear-jashub_) shows that the prophet had the “Immanuel promise in his thoughts, just as “the mighty God” (the same word as in Isaiah 9:6) must have reminded men of the Child who was to bear that name in the age to come. (Comp. Hezekiah’s pr... [ Continue Reading ]
THOUGH THY PEOPLE ISRAEL BE AS THE SAND OF THE SEA. — The word “remnant” has, however, its aspect of severity as well as of promise. Men are not to expect that they, the hypocrites and evil-doers, shall escape their punishment. The promise of restoration is for the remnant only. (Comp. St. Paul’s ap... [ Continue Reading ]
O MY PEOPLE... BE NOT AFRAID OF THE ASSYRIAN. — The practical conclusion of all that has been said is, that the people should not give way to panic as they had done in the days of Ahaz (Isaiah 7:2), but should abide the march of Sargon, or his successor, with the tranquillity of faith. They were not... [ Continue Reading ]
THE INDIGNATION SHALL CEASE... — The “indignation” is the wrath of Jehovah poured out upon His people. That wrath is to cease, and His anger _shall be for_ the destruction of their enemies.... [ Continue Reading ]
ACCORDING TO THE SLAUGHTER OF MIDIAN. — The historical associations of Isaiah 9:4 are still in the prophet’s mind. In the history of Judges (Judges 7:25), Oreb and Zeeb are the names at once of the Midianite chiefs and of the places where they were slain. AS HIS ROD WAS UPON THE SEA. — The italics... [ Continue Reading ]
THE YOKE SHALL BE DESTROYED BECAUSE OF THE ANOINTING... — The English, as it stands, is scarcely intelligible, but suggests the idea that the “anointing” was that which marked out the kings and priests of Judah as a consecrated people, and the remembrance of which would lead Jehovah to liberate them... [ Continue Reading ]
HE IS COME TO AIATH... — There is an obvious break between this and the preceding verse, and a new section begins, connected with the former by unity of subject, both referring to Sargon’s invasion of Judah. That such an invasion took place at or about the time of that king’s attack on Ashdod (Isaia... [ Continue Reading ]
BEHOLD,... THE LORD OF HOSTS... — The sudden change of tone indicates another pressure of the “strong hand” of Jehovah (Isaiah 8:11), another burst of intensest inspiration. So far shalt thou go, the prophet says to Sargon, as he said afterwards to Sennacherib (Isaiah 37:28), and no farther. In the... [ Continue Reading ]