Isaiah 3:24 Kommentar

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!

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.

And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be a stink,.... Instead of "spice", or in the place where they put spices, carried musk, or had their smelling bottles, of precious and aromatic ointment, balsam, and myrrh, and such like things (g), namely, in their bosoms, there should be a "stink" or putrefaction, arising from ulcers and diseases of the body, Zac 14:12 the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it "dust"; or this may refer to the anointing of their hair with ointment of myrrh and other things, which gave an agreeable scent; but instead of this there would be a scab, giving an ill scent, Isa 3:17. and instead of a girdle a rent; such as is made in times of mourning and distress, or by the enemy. The Septuagint and Arabic versions render it, a "rope"; instead of fine curious girdles, wrought with gold and silver, they should have nothing but a rope about their loins. The Targum is, "in the place where they bind the girdles, shall be marks of smiting;'' stripes, cuts, see Isa 10:34 as either by blows from the enemy, by whom they should be taken, or by the hand of God, being smitten with sores and ulcers, so that they should not be able to bear girdles upon them; or "holes", in their clothes or skin: and instead of well set hair baldness; instead of plaited hair, and curled locks, kept in order, there would be scabs, ulcers, leprosy, or such diseases as would cause the hair to fall off, and leave a baldness. The Septuagint and Arabic versions render it, "instead of the golden ornament of the head, thou shall have baldness for thy works"; and the Syriac version, "instead of gems, incisions": and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; the word for a "stomacher" is only used in this place; according to Kimchi, it signifies a very broad girdle; but Aben Ezra says it was a thin garment embroidered, which was put over all the rest of the clothes; perhaps something like a "mantelet". The Septuagint version renders it, "instead of the garment worked with purple"; and so the Syriac version, "instead of their hyacinths, or purples"; and the Arabic version, "instead of thy silken garment thou shall be girt with sackcloth"; which was usually done in times of distress and mourning: and burning instead of beauty; either through the scorching beams of the sun, being stripped of their hoods and veils; or rather this is to be understood of carbuncles, and such like hot burning ulcers in their faces, which once were beautiful, and they prided themselves in; though the Hebrew word seems rather to be a preposition than a noun; so Jarchi, whose note is, "for this is fit to be unto them instead of beauty, with which they have prided themselves,'' or have lifted up themselves; and so in his gloss upon the Talmud (h), where this clause, with the context, is cited and paraphrased, "for all these things shall come unto thee instead of thy beauty;'' and this clause may be read in connection with the following, "because of beauty", or "instead of beauty, thy men shall fall", &c. and so the Targum, "this vengeance shall be taken on them, because they have committed fornication in their beauty; thy beautiful men shall be killed by the sword.'' The Syriac version is, "because their beauty shall be corrupted", and those versions which seem to have left out this clause, yet retain something of it in the beginning of the next verse Isa 3:25. The Vulgate Latin version is, "thy most beautiful men also shall fall by the sword". The Septuagint and Arabic versions begin it thus, "and thy beautiful son, whom thou lovest, shall fall by the sword". (g) Misn. Sabbat, c. 6. sect. 3. (h) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 62. 2.

But shouldest thou enter into a church, thou geest forth, without getting anything but countless leers, and revilings, and curses, not from the beholders only, but also from the prophet. For straightway Isaiah, that hath the fullest voice of all, as soon as he hath seen thee, will cry out, "These things saith the Lord against the princely daughters of Sion; because they walked with a lofty neck, and with winkings of the eyes, and in their walking, trailing their garments, and mincing at the same time with their feet; the Lord shall take off their bravery, and instead of a sweet smell there shall be dust, and instead of a stomacher, thou shalt gird thyself with a cord." These things for thy gorgeous array. For not to them only are these words addressed, but to every woman that doeth like them.

(Verse 24.) And it will be for a sweet smell, a stench; and for a belt, a cord. The one repenting of sins speaks of the stench: My scars have putrefied and become corrupted from the face of my foolishness (Psalm 38:6). The Apostle commanded to gird the loins with a belt, saying: Stand with your loins girded in truth (Ephesians 6:14). And we read about the sinner: Each one is bound by the cords of their own sins (Proverbs 5:22). Therefore, for the good smell of virtues, the daughters of Zion will have the putrefaction of sins; and for the belt of truth, they will be bound by the cords of lies, which they had on their heads when they prayed for life from the king of Syria with rags and filth. And as for the pectoral band, they translated the cilicium. Concerning the pectoral band, which Symmachus interpreted as a tunic of fine purple, that is, adorned with clavi, they translated it as a girdle of exultation, which Aquila expressed. Theodotion himself used the Hebrew word Phthigil (פתיגיל), which is a type of feminine ornament. The pectoral band covers the chest and occupies the same place in women as the Rationale in the Pontiffs. Regarding this pectoral band, Jeremiah said in a mystical discourse: If the bride can forget her attire, or the virgin her pectoral band, then I will forget you, says the Lord (Jer. II, 32). The Virgin, whom the Apostle wants us to present to Christ (2 Cor. 2), as long as she is not corrupted in Egypt, and her breasts, which are bound with a breastband, are not broken, is joined to her spouse; and even though she daily gives birth to sons of virtue, she never ceases to be a virgin. But if she sometimes spreads her legs to all who pass by, and follows her lovers, and according to the prophecy of Hosea, the Lord will hedge her paths and block her ways, she will return to her former husband, and she will hear: 'Put off the garments of mourning and put on the garments of your glory' (Hosea 2).

127. And instead of a sweet smell there shall be. Here, the adornments of lasciviousness having been taken away, he exchanges them for the care of misery. And first, as to that which is without, he says: instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench: for smell comes from without: his stench shall ascend, and his rottenness shall go up, because he has done proudly (Joel 2:20). Second, as to that which is around, he says, instead of a girdle, a cord: he looses the belt of kings, and girds their loins with a cord (Job 12:18). Third, as to that which is above, he says, instead of curled hair, baldness. Fourth, as to that which is within: instead of a stomacher, according to the Gloss, with which the breasts are bound together, that is, squeezed together, lest from their size they convey shamefulness.

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.

Instead of sweet smell "perfume" - A principal part of the delicacy of the Asiatic ladies consists in the use of baths, and of the richest oils and perfumes; an attention to which is in some degree necessary in those hot countries. Frequent mention is made of the rich ointments of the spouse in the Song of Solomon, Sol 4:10, Sol 4:11 : - "How beautiful are thy breasts, my sister, my spouse! How much more excellent than wine; And the odour of thine ointments than all perfumes! Thy lips drop as the honey-comb, my spouse! Honey and milk are under thy tongue: And the odor of thy garments is as the odour of Lebanon." The preparation for Esther's being introduced to King Ahasuerus was a course of bathing and perfuming for a whole year; "six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet odours;" Est 2:12 (note). A diseased and loathsome habit of body, instead of a beautiful skin, softened and made agreeable with all that art could devise, and all that nature, so prodigal in those countries of the richest perfumes, could supply, must have been a punishment the most severe and the most mortifying to the delicacy of these haughty daughters of Sion. Burning instead of beauty "A sunburnt skin" - Gaspar Sanctius thinks the words כי תחת ki thachath an interpolation, because the Vulgate has omitted them. The clause כי תחת יפי ki thachath yophi seems to me rather to be imperfect at the end. Not to mention that כי ki, taken as a noun for adustio, burning, is without example, and very improbable. The passage ends abruptly, and seems to want a fuller conclusion. In agreement with which opinion, of the defect of the Hebrew text in this place, the Septuagint, according to MSS. Pachom. and 1 D. ii., and Marchal., which are of the best authority, express it with the same evident marks of imperfection at the end of the sentence; thus: ταυτα σοι αντι καλλωπισμου The two latter add δου. This chasm in the text, from the loss probably of three or four words, seems therefore to be of long standing. Taking כי ki in its usual sense, as a particle, and supplying לך lech from the σοι of the Septuagint, it might possibly have been originally somewhat in this form: - מראה רעת לך תהיה יפי תחת כי marah raath lech thihyeh yophi thachath ki "Yea, instead of beauty thou shalt have an illfavoured countenance." כי תחת יפי ki thachath yophi (q. יחת yachath), "for beauty shall be destroyed." Syr. חתת chathath or נחת nachath.-Dr. Durell. "May it not be כהי cohey, 'wrinkles instead of beauty?' as from יפה yaphah is formed יפי yephi, yophi; from מרה marah, מרי meri, etc.; so from כהה cahah, to be wrinkled, כהי cohey." - Dr. Jubb. The כי ki is wanting in one MS., and has been omitted by several of the ancients.

(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).

stink--arising from ulcers (Zac 14:12). girdle--to gird up the loose Eastern garments, when the person walked. rent--the Septuagint, better, a "rope," an emblem of poverty; the poor have nothing else to gird up their clothes with. well-set hair-- (Pe1 3:3-4). baldness-- (Isa 3:17). stomacher--a broad plaited girdle. sackcloth-- (Sa2 3:31). burning--a sunburnt countenance, owing to their hoods and veils being stripped off, while they had to work as captives under a scorching sun (Sol 1:6).

"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.

When Jehovah took away all this glory, with which the women of Jerusalem were adorned, they would be turned into wretched-looking prisoners, disfigured by ill-treatment and dirt. - "And instead of balmy scent there will be mouldiness, and instead of the sash a rope, and instead of artistic ringlets a baldness, and instead of the dress-cloak a frock of sackcloth, branding instead of beauty." Mouldiness, or mother (mak, as in Isa 5:24, the dust of things that have moulded away), with which they would be covered, and which they would be obliged to breathe, would take the place of the bosem, i.e., the scent of the balsam shrub (bâsâm), and of sweet-scented pomade in general; and nipâh that of the beautifully embroidered girdle (Pro 31:24). The meaning of this word is neither "a wound," as the Targums and Talmud render it, nor "rags," as given by Knobel, ed. 1 (from nâkaph, percutere, perforare), but the rope thrown over them as prisoners (from kâphâh = kâvâh, Contorquere: lxx, Vulg., Syr.). (Note: Credner (Joel, p. 147) renders the word "tatters," from nâkaph, to rub in pieces; but the word has no such meaning, whereas the meaning vulnus, lit., percussio, is admissible (see at Job 19:26), but does not suit the antithesis. Luzzatto connects it with n'kaph, to bind (from which the makkeph derives its name), and understands it as referring to the dressing applied to wounds, to lint into which the girdle was torn. The most plausible derivation is from kâphâh, which is really employed in post-biblical usage to signify not only to congeal and wrinkle, but also to thicken (Sabbath 21a, l'hakpoth: "Make the wick thicker, that it may burn the brighter"). It is probably radically akin to the Arabic nukbe (explained in Lamachzari as equivalent to the Persian mijân-bend, a girdle), which is apparently used to denote the coarse girdle worn by peasants or by Arab women of the wandering tribes, resembling a rope of goat's hair, as distinguished from the artistic and costly girdle worn by women of the upper classes in the towns.) Baldness takes the place of artistic ringlets (מקשׁה מעשׂה, not מעשׂה, so that it is in apposition: cf., Isa 30:20; Ges. 113; Ewald, 287, b). The reference is not to golden ornaments for the head, as the Sept. rendering gives it, although miksheh is used elsewhere to signify embossed or carved work in metal or wood; but here we are evidently to understand by the "artificial twists" either curls made with the curling-tongs, or the hair plaited and twisted up in knots, which they would be obliged to cut off in accordance with the mourning customs (Isa 15:2; Isa 22:12), or which would fall off in consequence of grief. A frock of sackcloth (machagoreth sak), i.e., a smock of coarse haircloth worn next to the skin, such as Layard found depicted upon a bas-relief at Kouyunjik, would take the place of the pethigil, i.e., the dress-cloak (either from pâthag, to be wide or full, with the substantive termination ı̄l, or else composed of pethi, breadth, and gil, festive rejoicing); and branding the place of beauty. Branding (Ci = Cevi, from Câvâh, καἰειν), the mark burnt upon the forehead by their conquerors: Ci is a substantive, (Note: It is so understood in b. Sabbath 62b, with an allusion to the proverb, "The end of beauty is burning" (viz., inflammation). In Arabia, the application of the Cey with a red-hot iron (mikwâh) plays a very important part in the medical treatment of both man and beast. You meet with many men who have been burned not only on their legs and arms, but in their faces as well, and, as a rule, the finest horses are disfigured by the Cey. - Wetzstein.) not a particle, as the Targum and others render it, and as the makkeph might make it appear. There is something very effective in the inverted order of the words in the last clause of the five. In this five-fold reverse would shame and mourning take the place of proud, voluptuous rejoicing.