Isaia 5:28 Commento

In this chapter the prophet, in God's name, shows the people of God their transgressions, even the house of Jacob their sins, and the judgments which were likely to be brought upon them for their sins, I. By a parable, under the similitude of an unfruitful vineyard, representing the great favours God had bestowed upon them, their disappointing his expectations from them, and the ruin they had thereby deserved (Isa 5:1-7). II. By an enumeration of the sins that did abound among them, with a threatening of punishments that should answer to the sins. 1. Covetousness, and greediness of worldly wealth, which shall be punished with famine (Isa 5:8-10) 2. Rioting, revelling, and drunkenness (Isa 5:11, Isa 5:12, Isa 5:22, Isa 5:23), which shall be punished with captivity and all the miseries that attend it (Isa 5:13-17). 3. Presumption in sin, and defying the justice of God (Isa 5:18, Isa 5:19). 4. Confounding the distinctions between virtue and vice, and so undermining the principles of religion (Isa 5:20). 5. Self-conceit (Isa 5:21). 6. Perverting justice, for which, and the other instances of reigning wickedness among them, a great and general desolation in threatened, which should lay all waste (Isa 5:24, Isa 5:25), and which should be effected by a foreign invasion (Isa 5:26-30), referring perhaps to the havoc made not long after by Sennacherib's army.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 5 In this chapter, under the parable of a vineyard and its ruins, the Jews and their destruction are represented; the reasons of which are given, their manifold sins and transgressions, particularly enumerated, with the punishment threatened to them, and which is delivered in form of a song. The vineyard is described by the owner of it, a well beloved one; by the situation of it, in a fruitful hill; by the fence about it, and care and culture of it; and by its not answering the expectation of the owner, it bringing forth wild grapes instead of good ones, Isa 5:1 wherefore the men of Judah and Jerusalem are made judges between the owner and his vineyard, what more could have been done to it, or rather what was now to be done to it, since this was the case; and the result is, that it should be utterly laid waste, and come to ruin; and the whole is applied to the house of Israel, and men of Judah, Isa 5:3 whose sins, as the cause of their ruin, are mentioned in the following verses; their covetousness, with the punishment of it, Isa 5:8 their intemperance, luxury, and love of pleasure, with the punishment threatened thereunto, Isa 5:11 whereby haughty men should be humbled, the Lord be glorified, and at the same time his weak and innocent people would be taken care of, Isa 5:15 next, other sins are taken notice of, and woes pronounced on account of them, as, an impudent course of sinning, insolent impiety against God, confusion of good and evil, conceit of their own wisdom, drunkenness, and perversion of justice, Isa 5:18 wherefore for these things, and for their contempt and rejection of the law and word of the Lord, utter destruction is threatened them, Isa 5:24 yea, the anger of God had been already kindled against them, and they had felt it in some instances, Isa 5:25 but they are given to expect severer judgments, by means of foreign nations, that should be gathered against them; who are described by their swiftness, strength, and vigilance; by their armour, horses, and carriages; and by their terror and cruelty; the consequence of which would be utter darkness, distress, and calamities, in the land of Judea, Isa 5:26.

Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent,.... Ready to shoot their arrows upon any occasion; and which being sharp, penetrated deep, and were deadly. This includes all kind of warlike instruments, with which they should come furnished, and ready prepared to do execution: their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint; by those who rode upon them; who knowing how strong and firm they were, and that they were not worn out, nor hurt by the length of the way they came, would not spare to make haste upon them: and their wheels like a whirlwind; that is, the wheels of their chariots, they used in battle, as Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret it; and so the Septuagint and Arabic versions render it: this metaphor denotes both the swiftness with which they should come, and the noise and rattling they should make, and the power and force in bearing down all before them. The Targum is, "and his wheels swift as a tempest.''

His arrows are sharp, and all his bows are drawn tight. The hooves of his horses are like flint, and his chariot wheels are like a whirlwind. His roar is like that of a lion, he will roar like a lion's cubs. He will growl, and seize his prey, and embrace it, and no one will rescue it. The multitude of archers, the troops of horsemen, the fervor of chariots and quadrigas, is compared to the roar of a lion, which came not so much to fight as to plunder and devour.

200. Their arrows are sharp. Here he shows that they are armed for fighting. And first, as to the goodness of their arms; and he sets out the arms that are customary in those lands: their arrows are sharp, in which the goodness of their arrows is noted; their bows are bent, in which the preparation of their arms is noted, lest they be impeded by preparing: the sharp arrows of the mighty (Ps 119[120]:4). Second, he places their transport: the hoofs of their horses shall be like the flint, which is not easily broken, and their wheels like the violence of a tempest, making a great noise because of their multitude and great speed: behold he shall come up as a cloud, and his chariots as a tempest (Jer 4:13).

The prophet, having described the judgments impending over his countrymen, enlarges on the corruptions which prevailed among them. Their profession of religion was all false and hypocritical, Jer 5:1, Jer 5:2. Though corrected, they were not amended, but persisted in their guilt, Jer 5:3. This was not the case with the low and ignorant only, Jer 5:4; but more egregiously so with those of the higher order, from whose knowledge and opportunities better things might have been expected, Jer 5:5. God therefore threatens them with the most cruel enemies, Jer 5:6; and appeals to themselves if they should be permitted to practice such sins unpunished, Jer 5:7-9. He then commands their enemies to raze the walls of Jerusalem, Jer 5:10; that devoted city whose inhabitants added to all their other sins the highest contempt of God's word and prophets, Jer 5:11-13. Wherefore his word, in the mouth of his prophet, shall be as fire to consume them, Jer 5:14; the Chaldean forces shall cruelly addict them, Jer 5:15-17; and farther judgments await then as the consequence of their apostasy and idolatry, Jer 5:18, Jer 5:19. The chapter closes with a most melancholy picture of the moral condition of the Jewish people at that period which immediately preceded the Babylonish captivity, Jer 5:20-31.

Their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint "The hoofs of their horses shall be counted as adamant" - The shoeing of horses with iron plates nailed to the hoof is quite a modern practice, and was unknown to the ancients, as appears from the silence of the Greek and Roman writers, especially those that treat of horse medicine, who could not have passed over a matter so obvious and of such importance that now the whole science takes its name from it, being called by us farriery. The horseshoes of leather and iron which are mentioned; the silver and gold shoes with which Nero and Poppaea shod their mules, used occasionally to preserve the hoofs of delicate cattle, or for vanity, were of a very different kind; they enclosed the whole hoof as in a case, or as a shoe does a man's foot, and were bound or tied on. For this reason the strength, firmness and solidity of a horse's hoof was of much greater importance with them than with us, and was esteemed one of the first praises of a fine horse. Xenophon says that a good horse's hoof is hard, hollow, and sounds upon the ground like a cymbal. Hence the χαλκοποδες ἱπποι, of Homer, and Virgil's solido graviter sonat ungula cornu. And Xenophon gives directions for hardening the horses' hoofs by making the pavement on which he stands in the stable with roundheaded stones. For want of this artificial defense to the foot which our horses have, Amos, Amo 6:12, speaks of it as a thing as much impracticable to make horses run upon a hard rock as to plough up the same rock with oxen: - "Shall horses run upon a rock? Shall one plough it up with oxen?" These circumstances must be taken into consideration in order to give us a full notion of the propriety and force of the image by which the prophet sets forth the strength and excellence of the Babylonish cavalry, which made a great part of the strength of the Assyrian army. Xenop. Cyrop. lib. ii. Like a whirlwind - כסופה cassuphah, like the stormy blast. Here sense and sound are well connected.

PARABLE OF JEHOVAH'S VINEYARD. (Isa. 5:1-30) to--rather, "concerning" [GESENIUS], that is, in the person of My beloved, as His representative [VITRINGA]. Isaiah gives a hint of the distinction and yet unity of the Divine Persons (compare He with I, Isa 5:2-3). of my beloved--inspired by Him; or else, a tender song [CASTALIO]. By a slight change of reading "a song of His love" [HOUBIGANT]. "The Beloved" is Jehovah, the Second Person, the "Angel" of God the Father, not in His character as incarnate Messiah, but as God of the Jews (Exo 23:20-21; Exo 32:34; Exo 33:14). vineyard-- (Isa 3:14; Psa 80:8, &c.). The Jewish covenant-people, separated from the nations for His glory, as the object of His peculiar care (Mat 20:1; Mat 21:33). Jesus Christ in the "vineyard" of the New Testament Church is the same as the Old Testament Angel of the Jewish covenant. fruitful hill--literally, "a horn" ("peak," as the Swiss shreckhorn) of the son of oil; poetically, for very fruitful. Suggestive of isolation, security, and a sunny aspect. Isaiah alludes plainly to the Song of Solomon (Sol 6:3; Sol 8:11-12), in the words "His vineyard" and "my Beloved" (compare Isa 26:20; Isa 61:10, with Sol 1:4; Sol 4:10). The transition from "branch" (Isa 4:2) to "vineyard" here is not unnatural.

bent--ready for battle. hoofs . . . flint--The ancients did not shoe their horses: hence the value of hard hoofs for long marches. wheels--of their chariots. The Assyrian army abounded in cavalry and chariots (Isa 22:6-7; Isa 36:8).

The prophet then proceeds to describe their weapons and war-chariots. "He whose arrows are sharpened, and all his bows strung; the hoofs of his horses are counted like flint, and his wheels like the whirlwind." In the prophet's view they are coming nearer and nearer. For he sees that they have brought the sharpened arrows in their quivers (Isa 22:6); and the fact that all their bows are already trodden (namely, as their length was equal to a man's height, by treading upon the string with the left foot, as we may learn from Arrian's Indica), proves that they are near to the goal. The correct reading in Jablonsky (according to Kimchi's Lex. cf., Michlal yofi) is קשּׁתתיו with dagesh dirimens, as in Psa 37:15 (Ges. 20, 2, b). As the custom of shoeing horses was not practised in ancient times, firm hoofs (ὃπλαι καρτεραί, according to Xenophon's Hippikos) were one of the most important points in a good horse. And the horses of the enemy that was now drawing near to Judah had hoofs that would be found like flint (tzar, only used here, equivalent to the Arabic zirr). Homer designates such horses Chalkopodes, brazen-footed. And the two wheels of the war-chariots, to which they were harnessed, turned with such velocity, and overthrew everything before them with such violence, that it seemed not merely as if a whirlwind drove them forward, but as if they were the whirlwind itself (Isa 66:15; Jer 4:13). Nahum compares them to lightning (Isa 2:5). Thus far the prophet's description has moved on, as if by forced marches, in clauses of from two to four words each. It now changes into a heavy, stealthy pace, and then in a few clauses springs like a wild beast upon its prey.