Isaiah 3:9 Komentář

The prophet, in this chapter, goes on to foretel the desolations that were coming upon Judah and Jerusalem for their sins, both that by the Babylonians and that which completed their ruin by the Romans, with some of the grounds of God's controversy with them. God threatens, I. To deprive them of all the supports both of their life and of their government (Isa 3:1-3). II. To leave them to fall into confusion and disorder (Isa 3:4, Isa 3:5, Isa 3:12). III. To deny them the blessing of magistracy (Isa 3:6-8). IV. To strip the daughters of Zion of their ornaments (Isa 3:17-24). V. To lay all waste by the sword of war (Isa 3:25, Isa 3:26). The sins that provoked God to deal thus with them were, 1. Their defiance of God (Isa 3:8). 2. Their impudence (Isa 3:9). 3. The abuse of power to oppression and tyranny (Isa 3:12-15). 4. The pride of the daughters of Zion (Isa 3:16). In the midst of the chapter the prophet is directed how to address particular persons. (1.) To assure good people that it should be well with them, notwithstanding those general calamities (Isa 3:10). (2.) To assure wicked people that, however God might, in judgment, remember mercy, yet it should go ill with them (Isa 3:11). O that the nations of the earth, at this day, would hearken to rebukes and warnings which this chapter gives!

Here God proceeds in his controversy with his people. Observe, I. The ground of his controversy. It was for sin that God contended with them; if they vex themselves, let them look a little further and they will see that they must thank themselves: Woe unto their souls! For they have rewarded evil unto themselves. Alas for their souls! (so it may be read, in a way of lamentation), for they have procured evil to themselves, Isa 3:9. Note, The condition of sinners is woeful and very deplorable. Note, also, It is the soul that is damaged and endangered by sin. Sinners may prosper in their outward estates, and yet at the same time there may be a woe to their souls. Note, further, Whatever evils befals sinners it is of their own procuring, Jer 2:19. That which is here charged upon then is, 1. That the shame which should have restrained them from their sins was quite thrown off and they had grown impudent, Isa 3:9. This hardens men against repentance, and ripens them for ruin, as much as anything: The show of their countenance doth witness against them that their minds are vain, and lewd, and malicious; their eyes declare plainly that they cannot cease from sin, Pe2 2:14. One may look them in the face and guess at the desperate wickedness that there is in their hearts: They declare their sin as Sodom, so impetuous, so imperious, are their lusts, and so impatient of the least check, and so perfectly are all the remaining sparks of virtue extinguished in them. The Sodomites declared their sin, not only by the exceeding greatness of it (Gen 13:13), so that it cried to heaven (Gen 18:20), but by their shameless owning of that which was most shameful (Gen 19:5); and thus Judah and Jerusalem did: they were so far from hiding it that they gloried in it, in the bold attempts they made upon virtue, and the victory they gained over their own convictions. They had a whore's forehead (Jer 3:3) and could not blush, Jer 6:15. Note, Those that have grown impudent in sin are ripe for ruin. Those that are past shame (we say) are past grace, and then past hope. 2. That their guides, who should direct them in the right way, put them out of the way (Isa 3:12): "Those who lead thee (the princes, priests, and prophets) mislead thee; they cause thee to err." Either they preached to them that which was false and corrupt, or, if they preached that which was true and good, they contradicted it by their practices, and the people would soon follow a bad example than a good exhortation. Thus they destroyed the ways of their paths, pulling down with one hand what they built up with the other. Que te beatificant - Those that call thee blessed cause thee to err; so some read it. Their priests applauded them, as if nothing were amiss among them, cried Peace, peace, to them, as if they were in no danger; and thus they caused them to go on in their errors. 3. That their judges, who should have patronized and protected the oppressed, were themselves the greatest oppressors, Isa 3:14, Isa 3:15. The elders of the people, and the princes, who had learning and could not but know better things, who had great estates and were not under the temptation of necessity to encroach upon those about them, and who were men of honour and should have scorned to do a base thing, yet they have eaten up the vineyard. God's vineyard, which they were appointed to be the dressers and keepers of, they burnt (so the word signifies); they did as ill by it as its worst enemies could do, Psa 80:16. Or the vineyards of the poor they wrested out of their possession, as Jezebel did Naboth's, or devoured the fruits of them, fed their lusts with that which should have been the necessary food of indigent families; the spoil of the poor was hoarded up in their houses; when God came to search for stolen goods there he found it, and it was a witness against them. It was to be had, and they might have made restitution, but would not. God reasons with these great men (Isa 3:15): "What mean you, that you beat my people into pieces? What cause have you for it? What good does it do you?" Or, "What hurt have they done you? Do you think you had power given you for such a purpose as this?" Note, There is nothing more unaccountable, and yet nothing which must more certainly be accounted for, than the injuries and abuses that are done to God's people by their persecutors and oppressors. "You grind the faces of the poor; you put them to as much pain and terror as if they were ground in a mill, and as certainly reduce them to dust by one act of oppression after another." Or, "Their faces are bruised and crushed with the blows you have given them; you have not only ruined their estates, but have given them personal abuses." Our Lord Jesus was smitten on the face, Mat 26:67. II. The management of this controversy. 1. God himself is the prosecutor (Isa 3:13): The Lord stands up to plead, or he sets himself to debate the matter, and he stands to judge the people, to judge for those that were oppressed and abused; and he will enter into judgment with the princes, Isa 3:14. Note, The greatest of men cannot exempt or secure themselves from the scrutiny and sentence of God's judgment, nor demur to the jurisdiction of the court of heaven. 2. The indictment is proved by the notorious evidence of the fact: "Look upon the oppressors, and the show of their countenance witnesses against them (Isa 3:9); look upon the oppressed, and you see how their faces are battered and abused," Isa 3:15. 3. The controversy is already begun in the change of the ministry. To punish those that had abused their power to bad purposes God sets those over them that had not sense to use their power to any good purposes: Children are their oppressors, and women rule over them (Isa 3:12), men that have as weak judgments and strong passions as women and children: this was their sin, that their rulers were such, and it became a judgment upon them. III. The distinction that shall be made between particular persons, in the prosecution of this controversy (Isa 3:10, Isa 3:11): Say to the righteous, It shall be well with thee. Woe to the wicked; it shall be ill with him. He had said (Isa 3:9), they have rewarded evil to themselves, in proof of which he here shows that God will render to every man according to his works. Had they been righteous, it would have been well with them; but, if it be ill with them, it is because they are wicked and will be so. Thus God stated the matter to Cain, to convince him that he had no reason to be angry, Gen 4:7. Or it may be taken thus: God is threatening national judgments, which will ruin the public interests. Now, 1. Some good people might fear that they should be involved in that ruin, and therefore God bids the prophets comfort them against those fears: "Whatever becomes of the unrighteous nation, let the righteous man know that he shall not be lost in the crowd of sinners; the Judge of all the earth will not slay the righteous with the wicked (Gen 18:25); no, assure him, in God's name, that it shall be well with him. The property of the trouble shall be altered to him, and he shall be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. He shall have divine supports and comforts, which shall abound as afflictions abound, and so it shall be well with him." When the whole stay of bread is taken away, yet in the day of famine the righteous shall be satisfied; they shall eat the fruit of their doings - they shall have the testimony of their consciences for them that they kept themselves pure from the common iniquity, and therefore the common calamity is not the same thing to them that it is to others; they brought no fuel to the flame, and therefore are not themselves fuel for it. 2. Some wicked people might hope that they should escape that ruin, and therefore God bids the prophets shake their vain hopes: "Woe to the wicked; it shall be ill with him, Isa 3:11. To him the judgments shall have sting, and there shall be wormwood and gall in the affliction and misery." There is a woe to wicked people, and, though they may think to shelter themselves from public judgments, yet it shall be ill with them; it will grow worse and worse with them if they repent not, and the worst of all will be at last; for the reward of their hands shall be given them, in the day when every man shall receive according to the things done in the body.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 3 In this chapter the Jews are threatened with various calamities, on account of their sins, which would issue in their entire ruin and destruction. They are threatened with a famine, Isa 3:1 with a removal of useful men in church and state, and in common life, Isa 3:2 with ignorant and effeminate governors; the consequences of which would be oppression and insolence, Isa 3:4 yea, that such would be their state and condition, that men, though naturally ambitious of honour, would refuse to have the government of them, Isa 3:6 the reasons of these calamities, and of this ruin and fall of them, are their evil words and actions against the Lord, which were highly provoking to him; and their impudence in sinning like Sodom, which was to their own harm, Isa 3:8 yet, in the midst of all this, it is the will of God that the righteous should be told it shall be well with them, with the reason of it; when it shall be ill with the wicked, as a just recompence of reward, Isa 3:10 the errors and mistakes of the people are attributed to their childish and effeminate governors, Isa 3:12 wherefore the Lord determines to plead their cause, and contend with their elders and rulers, because they had spoiled and devoured the poor, Isa 3:13 and particularly the women are threatened, for their pride and luxury, to have their ornaments taken from them, which are particularly mentioned, Isa 3:16 and the chapter is concluded with a prophecy, that their mighty men should perish by the sword in war, and the city should be desolate, Isa 3:25.

The shew of their countenance doth witness against them,.... The word translated "shew" is only used in this place. Some derive it from "to know", in the conjugations Piel and Hiphil; and render it, "the knowledge of their countenance" (f); that is, that which may be known by their countenances; the countenance oftentimes shows what is in the heart, the cruel disposition of the mind, the pride and vanity of it, the uncleanness and lasciviousness that is in it; to this our version agrees, and which is confirmed by the Chaldee paraphrase, "the knowledge of their countenance in judgment doth testify against them;'' as they appear there, so it may be judged of them; their guilt flies in their face, and fills them with shame and confusion; and so the Septuagint and Arabic versions render it, "the shame of their face"; but others derive it from which has the signification of hardness in the Arabic language, and as it is thought by some to have in Job 19:3 and render it, "the hardness of their countenance"; so R. Joseph Kimchi, and others (g), meaning their impudence (h); not only their words and actions, but their impudent looks, show what they are; which agrees with what follows: and they declare their sin as Sodom, and hide it not; commit it openly, without fear or shame; glory in it, and boast of it, as the Jews did in their crucifixion of Christ, and their evil treatment of him: woe to their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves; they have brought upon themselves, soul and body, the just recompence of reward; they have been the cause of their own ruin, and have wronged their own souls. (f) "cognitio vultus eorum", Munster, Vatablus, V. L. (g) "Obfermatio", Janius & Tremellius; "durities", Piscator. (h) So Schindler renders the Arabic word, "hacar", impudence. Vid. Castel. Lexic. col. 846.

The climax of your sin is that you hate the righteous one whom you killed, as well as those who by his grace are godly, righteous and loving. It is for this reason that the Lord said, “Woe to their soul, because they have taken evil counsel against themselves, saying, ‘Let us take away the just one, for he is distasteful to us.’ ” Although you did not offer a sacrifice to Baal, like your ancestors, and did not offer cakes in groves and on hills to the heavenly army, you did not accept the Lord’s Christ. Whoever does not know Christ does not know the will of God. Whoever rejects and hates him obviously rejects and hates the one who sent him. Whoever does not have faith in him does not believe the words of the prophets who preached his good news and proclaimed him to all people.

Immediately following, the prophet himself explains why he called them rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah: “Your hands are full of blood.” Again a little later he says, “They have proclaimed their sin as Sodom and made it manifest. Woe to their souls, because they have taken evil counsel with themselves, saying, ‘We will bind the just one, for he is a burden to us.’ ” Since he overtly speaks of blood and a plot against a just man, there is nothing else this could be than the plot against our Savior Jesus Christ.

Those who look upon their dispersion and the desolation of their city may not aptly say, “Woe to them, for they have imagined an evil imagination, saying against their own soul, let us bind the righteous man, because he is not pleasing to us.” It is so true, for when they erred concerning the Scriptures, they did not know that “the one who digs a pit for his neighbor falls in it; and a serpent will bite the one who destroys a hedge.”

It is the tribes, then, that are meant by the names of the patriarchs. From the tribe of Simeon come the scribes, from that of Levi the chief priests, who brought their wickedness to completion and filled up the entire measure of their fathers’ ungodliness in the passion of the Lord. They took counsel against the Lord Jesus, to kill him, even as Isaiah says, “Alas for their souls! Because they have devised an evil counsel against themselves, saying. ‘Let us bind the just one, for he is profitless to us.’ ” They killed the prophets and apostles who announced the coming of the Lord of salvation and preached his glorious passion and resurrection. Thereafter, in their greed and out of their desire for earthly wickedness, they fled from sharing in the divine, from chastity of body and moderation of spirit, contempt for money and profit in grace.

(Verses 8, 9.) For Jerusalem has fallen, and Judah has collapsed: because their tongue and their inventions are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His majesty. The recognition of their faces testifies against them, and they declare their sin like Sodom, and do not hide it. The Prophet speaks of this, not as many suppose, that he who was the chosen leader spoke. And he says that for this reason no one wants to rule over a sinful people, because both Judah and Jerusalem, and the city, and the province of Judaea, or the tribe of Judah have fallen together. And they gave reasons for their impiety, because they blasphemed against the Lord and said: 'Take him away, take him away, crucify him, for we have no king but Caesar' (John 19:15, 16): and with the fury of their tongue, they provoked the most merciful Lord to bitterness. The recognition of their faces will answer to them: that is, they have received their sins, or as the Septuagint translated: the confusion of their faces opposed them: that is, they always had their own sins before their eyes. And just as the Sodomites, sinning with all freedom and not having any shame in their wickedness, said to Lot: 'Bring out the men so that we may have relations with them' (Gen. XIX, 5); so too these, proclaiming openly, have preached their own sin and have had no shame in blaspheming. For the second plank after shipwreck is consolation in miseries, to hide their own impiety. Hence they are called the rulers of the Sodomites, because they had Sodomite sins.

They bound Jesus and led him to the meeting place of the high priest. Can you recognize that this was already written? Isaiah says, “Woe to their souls because they have taken evil counsel against themselves, saying, ‘Let us bind the just one, for he is troublesome to us.’ ” Woe to their souls indeed! Let us see why. Isaiah was sawn in two, but afterwards the people were restored. Jeremiah was thrown into the dungeon, but the Jews had their wound healed. In these instances the sin was against a man, and therefore less. However, when they sinned not against a man but against God become human, then woe to their souls!

For he [Jesus] had done so many good works among them. He had given sight to the blind, feet to the lame, the power of walking to the palsied, life also to the dead; for all these good works they paid him death as his price, appraised at thirty pieces of silver. It is related also in the Gospels that he was bound. This also the word of prophecy had foretold by Isaiah, saying, “Woe to their soul, who have devised a most evil device against themselves, saying, ‘Let us bind the just one, seeing that he is unprofitable to us.’ ”

Again, they are to be admonished that if they are not afraid of being wicked; they should at least be ashamed of being seen for what they are. Often a sin that is concealed is avoided, because a mind that is ashamed to be taken for what it does not fear to be in fact is sometimes ashamed to be in fact what it avoids appearing to be. On the other hand, when a person is shamelessly and notoriously wicked, then, the more freely he commits every kind of evil, the more he thinks it lawful, and in imagining it lawful, he is thereby without doubt immersed in it all the more. Therefore, it is written, “They have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it.” For if Sodom had concealed its sin, it would still have sinned, but in fear. But it had completely lost the curb of fear, in that it did not seek even darkness in its sinning. Therefore, it is said again, “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied.” For sin in words is sin in act, but sin that is cried out is sin committed with deliberation.

Third, from the publication of their sin, whence he says: the show of their countenance, because by their countenance they make their sin to be shown to others; has answered them, in punishment as to their bearing; and as to the commendation of their sin, he says: and they have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, that is, they have praised it: you had a harlot's forehead, you would not blush (Jer 3:3). 111. This is explained otherwise in the Gloss: the show of their countenance, that is, the knowledge of their sins, which they will have in their intellect, because the senses are in the countenance, has answered them, who ask why they are punished. Or otherwise: the show of their countenance, that is, the remorse of conscience, has answered them, as punishment. And mystically, this refers to the sin of those who saw Christ and did not wish to know him, because of which their conscience reproves them, as the Gloss says. And because the justice of God does not allow such grave evils to be unpunished, therefore woe to their souls, not only to their bodies, for evils have been rendered to them, in the foreknowledge of God; or the past tense is used here for the future.

The first five verses of this chapter allude to the subject of the last; and contain earnest exhortations to repentance, with gracious promises of pardon, notwithstanding every aggravation of guilt, Jer 3:1-5. At the sixth verse a new section of prophecy commences, opening with a complaint against Judah for having exceeded in guilt her sister Israel, already cast off for her idolatry, Jer 3:6-11. She is cast off, but not forever; for to this same Israel, whose place of captivity (Assyria) lay to the north of Judea, pardon is promised on her repentance, together with a restoration to the Church of God, along with her sister Judah, in the latter days, Jer 3:12-20. The prophet foretells the sorrow and repentance of the children of Israel under the Gospel dispensation, Jer 3:21. God renews his gracious promises, Jer 3:22; and they again confess their sins. In this confession their not deigning to name the idol Baal, the source of their calamities, but calling him in the abstract shame, or a thing of shame, is a nice touch of the perusal extremely beautiful and natural, Jer 3:22-25.

The show of their countenance - Bishop Lowth has it the steadfastness of their countenance - they appear to be bent on iniquity, their eyes tell the wickedness of their hearts. The eye is the index of the mind. Envy, hatred, malice, malevolence, concupiscence, and murder, when in the heart, look most intelligently out at the eye. They tell the innocent to be on their guard; and serve the same purpose as the sonorous rings in the tail of the rattlesnake - they announce the presence of the destroyer. They declare their sin as Sodom - Impure propensities are particularly legible in the eyes: whoever has beheld the face of a debauchee or a prostitute knows this; of these it may be said, they wish to appear what they really are. They glory in their iniquity. This is the highest pitch of ungodliness. They have rewarded evil unto themselves - Every man's sin is against his own soul. Evil awaiteth sinners - and he that offends his God injures himself.

(Isa. 3:1-26) For--continuation of Isa 2:22. Lord of hosts--therefore able to do as He says. doth--present for future, so certain is the accomplishment. stay . . . staff--the same Hebrew word, the one masculine, the other feminine, an Arabic idiom for all kinds of support. What a change from the previous luxuries (Isa 2:7)! Fulfilled in the siege by Nebuchadnezzar and afterwards by Titus (Jer 37:21; Jer 38:9).

show--The Hebrew means, "that which may be known by their countenances" [GESENIUS and WEISS]. But MAURER translates, "Their respect for person"; so Syriac and Chaldee. But the parallel word "declare" favors the other view. KIMCHI, from the Arabic, translates "their hardness" (Job 19:3, Margin), or impudence of countenance (Jer 3:3). They have lost not only the substance of virtue, but its color. witness--literally, "corresponds" to them; their look answers to their inner character (Hos 5:5). declare-- (Jde 1:13). "Foaming out their own shame"; so far from making it a secret, "glorying" in it (Phi 3:19). unto themselves--Compare "in themselves" (Pro 1:31; Pro 8:36; Jer 2:19; Rom 1:27).

"For, behold, the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah supporter and means of support, every support of bread and every support of water." The divine name given here, "The Lord, Jehovah of hosts," with which Isaiah everywhere introduces the judicial acts of God (cf., Isa 1:24; Isa 10:16, Isa 10:33; Isa 19:4), is a proof that the proclamation of judgment commences afresh here. Trusting in man was the crying sin, more especially of the times of Uzziah-Jotham. The glory of the kingdom at that time carried the wrath of Jehovah within it. The outbreak of that wrath commenced in the time of Ahaz; and even under Hezekiah it was merely suspended, not changed. Isaiah foretells this outbreak of wrath. He describes how Jehovah will lay the Jewish state in ruins, by taking away the main supports of its existence and growth. "Supporter and means of support" (mash'en and mash'enah) express, first of all, the general idea. The two nouns, which are only the masculine and feminine forms of one and the same word (compare Mic 2:4; Nah 2:11, and the examples from the Syriac and Arabic in Ewald, 172, c), serve to complete the generalization: fulcra omne genus (props of every kind, omnigena). They are both technical terms, denoting the prop which a person uses to support anything, whilst mish'an signifies that which yields support; so that the three correspond somewhat to the Latin fulcrum, fultura, fulcimen. Of the various means of support, bread and wine are mentioned first, not in a figurative sense, but as the two indispensable conditions and the lowest basis of human life. Life is supported by bread and water: it walks, as it were, upon the crutch of bread, so that "breaking the staff of bread" (Lev 26:26; Eze 4:16; Eze 5:16; Eze 14:13; Psa 105:16) is equivalent to physical destruction. The destruction of the Jewish state would accordingly be commenced by a removal on the part of Jehovah of all the support afforded by bread and water, i.e., all the stores of both. And this was literally fulfilled, for both in the Chaldean and Roman times Jerusalem perished in the midst of just such terrible famines as are threatened in the curses in Lev 26, and more especially in Deut 28; and in both cases the inhabitants were reduced to such extremities, that women devoured their own children (Lam 2:20; Josephus, Wars of Jews, vi. 3, 3, 4). It is very unjust, therefore, on the part of modern critics, such as Hitzig, Knobel, and Meier, to pronounce Isa 3:1 a gloss, and, in fact, a false one. Gesenius and Umbreit retracted this suspicion. The construction of the v. is just the same as that of Isa 25:6; and it is Isaiah's custom to explain his own figures, as we have already observed when comparing Isa 1:7. and Isa 1:23 with what preceded them. "Every support of bread and every support of water" are not to be regarded in this case as an explanation of the general idea introduced before, "supporters and means of support," but simply as the commencement of the detailed expansion of the idea. For the enumeration of the supports which Jehovah would take away is continued in the next two verses.

But Israel, instead of walking in the consciousness of being a constant and favourite object of these majestic, earnestly admonishing eyes, was diligently engaged in bidding them defiance both in word and deed, not even hiding its sin from fear of them, but exposing them to view in the most shameless manner. - "The look of their faces testifies against them, and their sin they make known like Sodom, without concealing it: woe to their soul! for they do themselves harm." In any case, the prophet refers to the impudence with which their enmity against God was shamelessly stamped upon their faces, without even the self-condemnation which leads in other cases to a diligent concealment of the sin. But we cannot follow Luzzatto and Jos. Kimchi, who take haccârath as used directly for azzuth (impudence), inasmuch as the Arabic hakara (hakir‛a), to which Kimchi appeals, signifies to be astonished and to stare (see at Job 19:3). And in this case there would be nothing strange in the substantive form, which would be a piel formation like בּלּהה חטּאה. But it may be a hiphil formation (Ewald, 156, a); and this is incomparably the more probable of the two, as hiccir panim is a very common phrase. It signifies to look earnestly, keenly, or inquiringly in the face of a person, to fix the eye upon him; and, when used of a judge, to take the part of a person, by favouring him unjustly (Deu 1:17; Deu 16:19). But this latter idea, viz., "their acceptance of the person, or partiality" (according to Pro 24:23; Pro 28:21), is inadmissible here, for the simple reason that the passage refers to the whole nation, and not particularly to the judges. "The look of their faces" (haccârath p'nēhem) is to be understood in an objective sense, viz., the appearance (τὸ εἶδος, Luk 9:29), like the agnitio of Jerome, id quo se agnoscendum dat vultus eorum. This was probably the expression commonly employed in Hebrew for what we designate by a very inappropriate foreign word, viz., physiognomy, i.e., the expression of the face which reveals the state of the mind. This expression of their countenance testified against them (anah b', as in Isa 59:12), for it was the disturbed and distorted image of their sin, which not only could not be hidden, but did not even wish to be; in a word, of their azzuth (Ecc 8:1). And it did not even rest with this open though silent display: they spoken openly of their sin (higgid in its simplest meaning, palam facere, from nâgad, nagâda, to be open, evident) without making any secret of it, like the Sodomites, who publicly proclaimed their fleshly lusts (Gen 19). Jerusalem was spiritually Sodom, as the prophet called it in Isa 1:10. By such barefaced sinning they did themselves harm (gâmal, lit., to finish, then to carry out, to show practically). (Note: It may now be accepted as an established fact, that the verb gâmal is connected with the Arabic 'gamala, to collect together, 'gamula, to be perfect, kamala, kamula id., and gâmar, to finish (see Hupfeld on Psa 7:5, and Frst, Heb. Lex.).)