Isaiah 27:4 Komentář

In this chapter the prophet goes on to show, I. What great things God would do for his church and people, which should now shortly be accomplished in the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib and the destruction of the Assyrian army; but it is expressed generally, for the encouragement of the church in after ages, with reference to the power and prevalency of her enemies. 1. That proud oppressors should be reckoned with (Isa 27:1). 2. That care should be taken of the church, as of God's vineyard (Isa 27:2, Isa 27:3). 3. That God would let fall his controversy with the people, upon their return to him (Isa 27:4, Isa 27:5). 4. That he would greatly multiply and increase them (Isa 27:6). 5. That, as to their afflictions, the property of them should be altered (Isa 27:7), they should be mitigated and moderated (Isa 27:8), and sanctified (Isa 27:9). 6. That though the church might be laid waste, and made desolate, for a time (Isa 27:10, Isa 27:11), yet it should be restored, and the scattered members should be gathered together again (Isa 27:12, Isa 27:13). All this is applicable to the grace of the gospel, and God's promises to, and providences concerning, the Christian church, and such as belong to it.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 27 This chapter refers to the same times as the two foregoing ones Isa 25:1; and is a continuation of the same song, or rather a new one on the same occasion; it is prophetical of the last times, and of what shall be done in them, as the destruction of the antichristian powers, and Satan at the head of them, Isa 27:1 the happy state of the church, and its fruitfulness under the care and protection of the Lord, and his affection for it, Isa 27:2 its peace, prosperity, and flourishing condition, Isa 27:5 the nature, use, and end of all its afflictions and chastisements, Isa 27:7 the ruin and destruction of the city of Rome, and its inhabitants, and of its whole jurisdiction, Isa 27:10 a great gathering and conversion of the Lord's people, both Jews and Gentiles, by the ministry of the Gospel, Isa 27:12.

Fury is not in me,.... Against his vineyard he takes so much care of, his church and people, whom he has loved with an everlasting love; they are indeed deserving of his wrath, but he has not appointed them to it, but has appointed his Son to bear it for them, who has delivered them from wrath to come, and they being justified by his blood and righteousness, are saved from it; and though the Lord chastises them for their sins, yet not in wrath and sore displeasure; there is no wrath or fury in his heart towards them, nor any expressed in the dispensations of his providence: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? either suggesting the weakness of his people, who, was he to deal with them as their sins and corruptions deserved, for which they may be compared to thorns and briers, they would be as unable to bear his wrath and fury as briers and thorns could to withstand a consuming fire; or rather intimating, that should such persons rise up in his vineyard, the church, as often do, comparable to briers and thorns for their unfruitfulness and unprofitableness, for the hurt and mischief they do, and the grief and trouble they give to the people of God, as hypocrites and false teachers, and all such as are of unsound principles, and bad lives and conversations, and which are very offensive to the Lord; and therefore, though there is no fury in him against his vineyard, the church, yet there is against those briers and thorns, wicked men, whom he accounts his enemies, and will fight against them in his wrath, and consume them in his fury; see Sa2 23:6, I would go through them: or, "step into it" (p); the vineyard, where those briers or thorns are set and grow up; the meaning is, that he would step into the vineyard, and warily and cautiously tread there, lest he should hurt any of the vines, true believers, while he is plucking up and destroying the briers and thorns; or contending, in a warlike manner, with carnal and hypocritical professors: I would burn them together; or, "I would burn" out of it (q); that is, gather out of the vineyard the briers and thorns, and bind them up in bundles, as the tares in the parable, which signify the same as here, and burn them, or utterly destroy them; though the words may be rendered, "who will give, or set, me a brier and thorn in battle, that I should go against it, and burn it up together?", or wholly (r) and the meaning is, who shall irritate or provoke me to be as a brier and thorn, to hurt, grieve, and distress my people, to cause me to go into them, and against them, in a military way, in wrath and fury to consume them? no one shall. This rendering and sense well agree with the first clause of the verse. Jerom renders it thus, "who will make me an adamant stone?" as the word "shamir" is rendered in Eze 3:9, Zac 7:12 and gives the sense, who will make me hard and cruel, so as to overcome my nature, my clemency, to go forth in a fierce and warlike manner, and walk upon my vineyard, which before I kept, and burn it, which I had hedged about? (p) "gradiar in eam"; so some in Vatablus; "caute ingrediar eam", Piscator. (q) "succendam ex ea", Junius & Tremellius; "comburam illos ex ipsa", Piscator. (r) So De Dieu; and some in Vatablus; and which is approved by Noldius, who renders it in like manner, to the same sense, Ebr. Concord. Part. p. 409. No. 1671.

(Verse 4, 5.) Indignation is not mine: who will give me a thorn and a thistle in battle? I will march over it: I will set it on fire together. Or rather, shall I hold onto my strength? It will bring me peace, it will bring me peace. LXX: There is nothing that does not seize it. Who will appoint me as a keeper of the straw in the field? Because of this adversary, I have repelled it. Therefore, the Lord has done all that He has planned: I am consumed; its inhabitants will say, we will make peace with it: we will make peace with him. According to the Hebrew, the meaning here is: I who, day and night, have always kept my vineyard, so that the boar from the forest would not destroy it, nor the beasts devour it. Do I not have indignation? And do I not know how to strike the sinner and give to each what he deserves? Where the eagle placed a thorn and a bramble, in Hebrew it is written 'Samir' and 'Saith', which means adamant and places full of thorns. Therefore, he says: Who will teach me to be firm and overcome my mercy, and to proceed fiercely in battle: so that I may walk over the vineyard which I kept, and burn it down which I enclosed with my wall? Or should my courage rather do this, that I postpone anger and save those who are not saved by the authority of the Law, with the mercy of the Gospel? But emphatically, according to the Hebrew reading, it is said: Who will make me hard and cruel, that I may overcome my nature? This is indeed signified in the desert and in thorns: that I may crush and burn it as if in battle, which I have always kept guarded by my diligence. Or should I hold onto my courage, which is undoubtedly Christ, and of which we read: Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), so that it may itself make peace for me and reconcile the world? According to the Septuagint, here is the meaning: Let us understand it from the perspective of the Church: I am a strong city, a city surrounded by many enemies, to whom I have given in vain the cups of my enemy, the Synagogue. For she will be captured at night, and her wall will fall, and there will be no power of adversaries that will not seize her. Again I will say: What profit is it for me to guard her, which has straw in herself, not grain: which is so uncultivated, that it is full of disgrace and thorns, which I wanted to save? But because she treats me hostilely, I have departed from her. And the Apostles born in me and from me have said: Indeed, it was necessary for you to speak the word of God first, but since you have rejected it and deemed yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). Therefore, the Lord will do what He has threatened, so that all may burn in it surrounded by Roman fire. Or certainly let them burn with vices and sins, lest they be able to extinguish the burning darts of the devil. For all those who commit adultery are like an oven whose hearts are burning. And those who formerly dwelled in it, after they cry out, the city is captured and burned, and they leave it, and reconciling the world (or unclean) to God, they say: Let us make peace to her, let us make peace to Him, which is Christ, always writing in their Letters: Grace be with you and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord (1 Corinthians 1:3). Of whom we read in this same Prophet: How beautiful are the feet of those who announce peace (Isaiah 52:7)! Some refer this place to the Churches, because they are indeed guarded by God; but many of them do not bear fruit; and therefore the fervor of a good teacher should succeed, so that they may proclaim and confess their error, and afterwards make peace with God, who are truly called the children of Jacob.

622. There is no indignation in me. Here he examines the manner of punishment, and first, the deliberation of the judge is set out; second, the execution of the result of deliberation: for the strong city shall be desolate (Isa 27:10). Concerning the first, he does three things. First, he sets out severe judgment, setting out the wrath of rage: there is no indignation in me, as if to say: indeed, I am justly indignant, for they are ungrateful for my benefits, below: full of the indignation of the Lord (Isa 51:20); and out of wrath he determines a severe punishment: who shall give to me a thorn and a brier, as to the preceding difficulties that arose together among them, above: briers and thorns shall come up over it (Isa 5:6); in battle, as to the attack of the enemy: I myself will fight against you (Jer 21:5–6); shall I set it on fire, as to the destruction of homes and cities: my indignation goes forth like a fire (Jer 21:12).

Ambassadors being come from several neighboring nations to solicit the king of Judah to join in a confederacy against the king of Babylon, Jeremiah is commanded to put bands and yokes upon his neck, (the emblems of subjection and slavery), and to send them afterwards by those ambassadors to their respective princes; intimating by this significant type that God had decreed their subjection to the Babylonian empire, and that it was their wisdom to submit. It is farther declared that all the conquered nations shall remain in subjection to the Chaldeans during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and those of his son and grandson, even till the arrival of that period in which the Babylonians shall have filled up the measure of their iniquities; and that then the mighty Chaldean monarchy itself, for a certain period the paramount power of the habitable globe, shall be voted with a dreadful storm of Divine wrath, through the violence of which it shall be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel, the fragments falling into the hands of many nations and great kings, Jer 27:1-11. Zedekiah, particularly, is admonished not to join to the revolt against Nebuchadnezzar, and warned against trusting to the suggestions of false prophets, Jer 27:11-18. The chapter concludes with foretelling that what still remained of the sacred vessels of the temple should be carried to Babylon, and not restored till after the destruction of the Chaldean empire, Jer 27:19-22.

Fury is not in me "I have no wall" - For חמה chemah, anger, the Septuagint and Syriac read חומה chomah, wall. An ancient MS. has חימה cheimah. For בה bad, in her, two MSS. read בם bam, in them, plural. The vineyard wishes for a wall and a fence of thorns - human strength and protection, (as the Jews were too apt to apply to their powerful neighbors for assistance, and to trust to the shadow of Egypt): Jehovah replies, that this would not avail her, nor defend her against his wrath. He counsels her, therefore, to betake herself to his protection. On which she entreats him to make peace with her. From the above note it appears that the bishop reads, חומה chomah, wall, for חמה chemah, anger or fury, in accordance with the Syriac and Septuagint. The letter ו vau makes the only difference, which letter is frequently absent from many words where its place is supplied by the point. cholem: it might have been so here formerly; and in process of time both vau and cholem might have been lost. The Syriac supports the learned bishop's criticism, as the word shora is there used; which word in the plural is found, Heb 11:30 : "By faith the walls of Jericho. "The bishop thinks the Septuagint is on his side: to me, it seems neither for nor against the criticism. The words in the Vatican copy are εγω πολις οχυρα, I am a fortified city; which the Arabic follows: but instead of οχυρα, the Codex Alexandrinus has ισχυρα, I am a Strong city. The word חומה chomah, wall, is not found in any MS. in the collections of Kennicott and De Rossi, nor in any of my own MSS. However, one of Dr. Kennicott's MSS. has חימה cheimah; but probably that which now appears to be a י yod was formerly a ו vau, and now partially obliterated. This song receives much light from being collated with that in chap. 5.; and perhaps the bishop's criticism will find its best support from such a collation. In Isa 5:5 of that chapter, God threatens to take away the wall of his vineyard: this was done; and here the vineyard complains, I have no wall, and wishes for any kind of defense rather than be thus naked. This is the only natural support of the above criticism. "About Tripoli there are abundance of vineyards and gardens, inclosed, for the most part, with hedges, which chiefly consist of the rhamnus, paliurus, oxyacantha, "etc. Rawolf, p. 21, 22. A fence of thorns is esteemed equal to a wall for strength, being commonly represented as impenetrable. See Mic 7:4; Hos 2:6. Who would set the briers and thorns against me "O that I had a fence of the thorn and brier" - Seven MSS., (two ancient), and one edition, with the Syriac, Vulgate, and Aquila, read ושית veshayith, with the conjunction ו vau prefixed: Who would set the briers and thorns. מי יתנני שמיר שית mi yitteneni shamir shayith, Who shall give me the brier and thorn, i.e., for a defense: but hear Kimchi: "Who (the vineyard) hath given me (Jehovah) the brier and the thorn instead of good grapes."

CONTINUATION OF THE TWENTY-FOURTH, TWENTY-FIFTH, AND TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTERS. (Isa 27:1-13) sore--rather, "hard," "well-tempered." leviathan--literally, in Arabic, "the twisted animal," applicable to every great tenant of the waters, sea-serpents, crocodiles, &c. In Eze 29:3; Eze 32:2; Dan 7:1, &c. Rev 12:3, &c., potentates hostile to Israel are similarly described; antitypically and ultimately Satan is intended (Rev 20:10). piercing--rigid [LOWTH]. Flying [MAURER and Septuagint]. Long, extended, namely, as the crocodile which cannot readily bend back its body [HOUBIGANT]. crooked--winding. dragon--Hebrew, tenin; the crocodile. sea--the Euphrates, or the expansion of it near Babylon.

Fury is not in me--that is, I entertain no longer anger towards my vine. who would set . . . in battle--that is, would that I had the briers, &c. (the wicked foe; Isa 9:18; Isa 10:17; Sa2 23:6), before me! "I would go through," or rather, "against them."