อิสยาห์ 1:4 วิจารณ์

The first verse of this chapter is intended for a title to the whole book, and it is probable that this was the first sermon that this prophet was appointed to publish and to affix in writing (as Calvin thinks the custom of the prophets was) to the door of the temple, as with us proclamations are fixed to public places, that all might read them (Hab 2:2), and those that would might take out authentic copies of them, the original being, after some time, laid up by the priests among the records of the temple. The sermon which is contained in this chapter has in it, I. A high charge exhibited, in God's name, against the Jewish church and nation, 1. For their ingratitude (Isa 1:2, Isa 1:3). 2. For their incorrigibleness (Isa 1:5). 3. For the universal corruption and degeneracy of the people (Isa 1:4, Isa 1:6, Isa 1:21, Isa 1:22). 4. For the perversion of justice by their rulers (Isa 1:23). II. A sad complaint of the judgments of God, which they had brought upon themselves by their sins, and by which they were brought almost to utter ruin (Isa 1:7-9). III. A just rejection of those shows and shadows of religion which they kept up among them, notwithstanding this general defection and apostasy (Isa 1:10-15). IV. An earnest call to repentance and reformation, setting before them life and death, life if they compiled with the call and death if they did not (Isa 1:16-20). V. A threatening of ruin to those that would not be reformed (Isa 1:24, Isa 1:28-31). VI. A promise of a happy reformation at last, and a return to their primitive purity and prosperity (Isa 1:25-27). And all this is to be applied by us, not only to the communities we are members of, in their public interests, but to the state of our own souls.

This chapter, after the inscription, contains a charge of aggravated sin against the Jews; God's rejection of their ceremonial sacrifices and service; an exhortation to repentance and obedience, with a promise of pardon; a restoration from their sad estate; a prophecy of their restoration to a better; and of the destruction of idolatrous sinners. The inscription is in Isa 1:1 in which are the title of the prophecy, a vision; the writer of it described by his name, his descent, and the times in which he prophesied; and the subject of the prophecy is Judah and Jerusalem. The charge against the Jews is rebellion against the Lord, and the heavens and earth are called as witnesses of it; which is aggravated by the relation they stood in to God, and by the favours bestowed upon them, Isa 1:2 by their more than brutish stupidity, Isa 1:3 by the multitude of their sins, which were of a provoking nature, Isa 1:4 by the uselessness of chastisements, the whole body of the people, from the highest to the lowest, being afflicted without being the better for it, and so generally depraved, that no regard was had to any means of reformation, Isa 1:5 and by the desolation it brought upon them, which is illustrated by several similes, Isa 1:7 and by the grace and goodness of God in reserving a few, or otherwise they must have been for their punishment, as they were for their sins, like Sodom and Gomorrah, Isa 1:9 wherefore both rulers and people are called upon under those names to hearken to the law of God, and not trust in and depend upon their sacrifices and other rites of the ceremonial law, together with their hypocritical prayers; all which were abominable to the Lord, since they were guilty of such dreadful immoralities, Isa 1:11 when they are exhorted to repentance for sin, to the obedience of faith, and washing in the blood of Christ, whereby their crimson and scarlet sins would become as white as wool and snow, otherwise destruction must be expected, Isa 1:16 and then a lamentation is taken up concerning the deplorable state of Jerusalem, representing the difference between what it was now, and what it was formerly, and the sad degeneracy of the people, rulers, and judges, Isa 1:21 upon which the Lord foretells what he thought to do: to avenge himself of his enemies; to purge his church and people; to restore them to their former uprightness and integrity; and to redeem them with judgment and righteousness, Isa 1:24 and the chapter is concluded with a denunciation of utter destruction upon wicked men, who are described and pointed at as idolaters; which will cover them with shame and confusion, Isa 1:28 and which is illustrated by the fading of the leaves of an oak, and by a garden parched with drought, Isa 1:30 and it is suggested that it will be by burning with fire unquenchable, Isa 1:31.

Ah sinful nation,..... Or "sinning nation" (y); that was continually sinning, doing nothing else but sin, the reverse of what they were chosen to be, Deu 7:6. These words are said, either as calling and crying to them, to cause them to hear and hearken to what is said, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi observe, and as is used in Isa 55:1 or by way of complaint and lamentation, as Jarchi thinks, because of their general and continued wickedness, see Kg1 13:30, or by way of threatening, as in Isa 1:24 and so the Targum paraphrases it, "woe to them who are called a holy people, and have sinned:'' and so the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions render it, "woe to the sinning nation"; their ruin is at hand: a people laden with iniquity; full of sin; they multiplied offences, as in the Chaldee paraphrase: they were "heavy" with them, as the word (z) signifies, yet felt not, nor complained of, the burden of them: a seed of evil doers; this is not said of their fathers, but of themselves, as Jarchi observes; they had been planted a right seed, but now were degenerate, a wicked generation of men. Children that are corrupters; of themselves and others, by their words and actions; who had corrupted their ways, as the Targum adds; and so Kimchi and Aben Ezra. They have forsaken the Lord; the worship of the Lord, as the Targum interprets it; the ways and ordinances of God, forsook the assembling of themselves together, neglected the hearing of the word, and attendance on the worship of the Lord's house: they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger; by their numerous sins, both of omission and commission: they are gone away backward; were become backsliders and revolters, had apostatized from God and his worship, turned their backs on him, and cast his law behind them. The characters here given not only agree with the Jews in the times of Isaiah, but also with those in the times of Christ and his apostles, Mat 12:39. (y) "gens peccatrix", Sept. V. L. Syr. Ar. (z) "gravi iniquitate", V. L.

And that this too may be clear to you, there were spoken from the person of the Father through Isaiah the prophet, the following words: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, and My people hath not understood. Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, a wicked seed, children that are transgressors, ye have forsaken the Lord."

Correction is a public rebuke of sin. [God] uses it in a manner that is particularly necessary for our instruction because of the weak faith of so many. For example, he says through Isaiah, “You have forsaken the Lord, you have provoked the holy one of Israel.”

Excoriation is the most vigorous expression of disapproval. God employed excoriation as a remedy when he said through Isaiah, “Ah, sinful nation, a people full of sins, an evil seed, lawless children.”

(Verse 4) Woe to the sinful nation, a people burdened with iniquity, a wicked offspring, wicked children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backwards. The phrase I placed last, 'they have turned away backwards,' is not found in the Septuagint and instead of 'they have blasphemed,' it is written in them, 'they have provoked to anger.' And instead of 'wicked offspring,' it is translated in the Hebrew as 'wicked ones,' so that the vice of the offspring is not so much a defect of their nature (lest good and evil be thought to have different natures) as it is a result of their wickedness, those who have forsaken the Lord by their own will. In the beginning of the book, the title mentions the characters, the cause, and the time: in the second part, it captivates the listeners; in the third part, it narrates what the Lord said; in the fourth part, it reproaches the sinful nation, and a people full of or weighed down by injustice. Not that there is another nation and another people, as some think, but it is Israel itself, which is called both nation and people, and is referred to as wicked or unjust sons: those who were first called sons of the Lord through his kindness, but afterwards were called sons of iniquity because of their own fault; or as others have said in agreement, corrupting sons, that is, those who have lost the good of their nature through their own fault. And the text continues: 'They blasphemed the holy Israel, it is said specifically of the Jews, shouting: We have no king but Caesar' (John 19:15); and: 'Is this not the son of the carpenter?' (Matthew 13:55); and, 'He has a demon, and is a Samaritan' (John 8:48). Therefore, because they abandoned Christ and blasphemed the Holy Israel, they were estranged backwards, so that those who were called part and children of God would later be called: 'Alien children have lied to me' (Psalm 18:46). The Savior commanded that, with the plow seized, we do not look back (Luke 9:62), so as not to imitate Lot's wife. Hence the Apostle, stretching out towards the things before, forgets the things that are behind (Philippians 3:13). And what he said according to the Septuagint, to a people full of sins (Zechariah 5:7), shows that there was no kind of sins that the people of Israel did not have. But if we read it as in Hebrew, to a people heavy with iniquity, let us remember the testimony of that, that iniquity sits upon a talent of lead, and it is said from the person of a sinner in the thirty-seventh psalm: My iniquities have been lifted up above my head: As a heavy burden, they have been burdened upon me (Psalm 37:5). We pass through things that are manifest, so that we may linger in those that are more obscure and require explanation.

When Isaiah calls them “evil seed,” he does not mean to insult the ancestors of those to whom he was speaking. Rather he was denouncing their own wickedness, just as John the Baptist called the Jewish leaders “a brood of vipers” and the Lord called them “an evil and adulterous generation.” They were called these things because they did not preserve the virtuous life of those who went before them.

33. He adds to the weight of the effect of the deed, however, through its confirmed use: hence he first shows the confirmation, and second, shows their turning away: they have forsaken the Lord. He shows the confirmation first through the custom of sin, which gives rise to habit: hence he says, the sinful nation; for a sinner is such out of habit just as a singer is such out of art or office, below: I have called you a transgressor from the womb (Isa 48:8). Second, through the promptness of sin, which is like a sort of gravity in the sinner: Gregory: a sin which is not washed away by penance quickly draws to another by its own weight; their feet are swift to shed blood (Ps 13:3). Third, from the succession of sin, because, imitating the sins of their fathers, they have them as if from propagation; hence he says, a wicked seed, that is, seed of the worst, according to another translation: we have sinned with our fathers: we have acted unjustly, we have wrought iniquity (Ps 105[106]:6). Fourth, as to the magnitude of their sins, when he says, ungracious children: slanderers have been in you to shed blood, they have committed wickedness in the midst of you (Ezek 22:9); below, are not you wicked children, a false seed? (Isa 57:4).

General title to the whole Book, Jer 1:1-3. Jeremiah receives a commission to prophesy concerning nations and kingdoms, a work to which in the Divine purpose he had been appointed before his birth, Jer 1:4-10. The vision of the rod of an almond tree and of the seething pot, with their signification, Jer 1:11-16. Promises of Divine protection to Jeremiah in the discharge of the arduous duties of his prophetical office, Jer 1:17-19.

Ah sinful nation "Degenerate" - Five MSS., one of them ancient, read משחתים moschathim, without the first י yod, in hophal corrupted, not corrupters. See the same word in the same form, and in the same sense, Pro 25:26. Are corrupters "Are estranged" - Thirty-two MSS., five ancient, and two editions, read נזורו nazoru; which reading determines the word to be from the root זור zur, to alienate, not from נזר nazar, to separate; so Kimchi understands it. See also Annotat. in Noldium, 68. They are gone away backward "They have turned their backs upon him" - So Kimchi explains it:" they have turned unto him the back and not the face." See Jer 2:27; Jer 7:24. I have been forced to render this line paraphrastically; as the verbal translation, "they are estranged backward," would have been unintelligible.

THE GENERAL TITLE OR PROGRAM applying to the entire book: this discountenances the Talmud tradition, that he was sawn asunder by Manasseh. Isaiah--equivalent to "The Lord shall save"; significant of the subject of his prophecies. On "vision," see Sa1 9:9; Num 12:6; and see my Introduction. Judah and Jerusalem--Other nations also are the subjects of his prophecies; but only in their relation to the Jews (Isa. 13:1-23:18); so also the ten tribes of Israel are introduced only in the same relation (Isa. 7:1-9:21). Jerusalem is particularly specified, being the site of the temple, and the center of the theocracy, and the future throne of Messiah (Psa 48:2-3, Psa 48:9; Jer 3:17). Jesus Christ is the "Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev 5:5). Uzziah--called also Azariah (Kg2 14:21; Ch2 26:1, Ch2 26:17, Ch2 26:20). The Old Testament prophecies spiritually interpret the histories, as the New Testament Epistles interpret the Gospels and Acts. Study them together, to see their spiritual relations. Isaiah prophesied for only a few years before Uzziah's death; but his prophecies of that period (Isa. 1:1-6:13) apply to Jotham's reign also, in which he probably wrote none; for Isa. 7:1-25 enters immediately on Ahaz' reign, after Uzziah in Isa 6:1-13; the prophecies under Hezekiah follow next.

people--the peculiar designation of God's elect nation (Hos 1:10), that they should be "laden with iniquity" is therefore the more monstrous. Sin is a load (Psa 38:4; Mat 11:28). seed--another appellation of God's elect (Gen 12:7; Jer 2:21), designed to be a "holy seed" (Isa 6:13), but, awful to say, "evildoers!" children--by adoption (Hos 11:1), yet "evildoers"; not only so, but "corrupters" of others (Gen 6:12); the climax. So "nation--people--seed children." provoked--literally, "despised," namely, so as to provoke (Pro 1:30-31). Holy One of Israel--the peculiar heinousness of their sin, that it was against their God (Amo 3:2). gone . . . backward--literally, "estranged" (Psa 58:3).

In passing to our exposition of the book, the first thing which strikes us is its traditional title - Yeshaiah (Isaiah). In the book itself, and throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, the prophet is called Yeshayahu; and the shorter form is found in the latest books as the name of other persons. It was a common thing in the very earliest times for the shorter forms of such names to be used interchangeably with the longer; but in later times the shorter was the only form employed, and for this reason it was the one adopted in the traditional title. The name is a compound one, and signifies "Jehovah's salvation." The prophet was conscious that it was not merely by accident that he bore this name; for ישׁע (he shall save) and ישׁוּעה (salvation) are among his favourite words. It may be said, in fact, that he lived and moved altogether in the coming salvation, which was to proceed from Jehovah, and would be realized hereafter, when Jehovah should come at last to His people as He had never come before. This salvation was the goal of the sacred history (Heilsgeschichte, literally, history of salvation); and Jehovah was the peculiar name of God in relation to that history. It denotes "the existing one," not however "the always existing," i.e., eternal, as Bunsen and the Jewish translators render it, but "existing evermore," i.e., filling all history, and displaying His glory therein in grace and truth. The ultimate goal of this historical process, in which God was ever ruling as the absolutely free One, according to His own self-assertion in Exo 3:14, was true and essential salvation, proceeding outwards from Israel, and eventually embracing all mankind. In the name of the prophet the tetragrammaton יהוה is contracted into יהו (יה) by the dropping of the second ה. We may easily see from this contraction that the name of God was pronounced with an a sound, so that it was either called Yahveh, or rather Yahaveh, or else Yahvâh, or rather Yahavâh. According to Theodoret, it was pronounced ̓Ιαβε (Yahaveh) by the Samaritans; and it is written in the same way in the list of the names of the Deity given in Epiphanius. That the ah sound was also a customary pronunciation, may not only be gathered from such names as Jimnah, Jimrah, Jishvah, Jishpah (compare Jithlah, the name of a place), but is also expressly attested by the ancient variations, Jao, Jeuo, Jo (Jer 23:6, lxx), on the one hand, and on the other hand by the mode of spelling adopted by Origen (Jaoia) and Theodoret (Aia, not only in quaest, in Ex. 15, but also in Fab. haeret. "Aia signifies the existing one; it was pronounced thus by Hebrews, but the Samaritans call it Jabai, overlooking the force of the word"). The dull-sounding long a could be expressed by omega quite as well as by alpha. Isidor follows these and similar testimonies, and says (Orig. vii. 7), "The tetragrammaton consisted of ia written twice (iaia), and with this reduplication it constituted the unutterable and glorious name of God." The Arabic form adopted by the Samaritans leaves it uncertain whether it is to be pronounced Yahve or Yahva. They wrote to Job Ludolf (in the Epistola Samaritana Sichemitarum tertia, published by Bruns, 1781), in opposition to the statement of Theodoret, that they pronounced the last syllable with damma; that is to say, they pronounced the name Yahavoh (Yahvoh), which was the form in which it was written in the last century by Velthusen, and also by Muffi in his Disegno di lezioni e di ricerche sulla lingua Ebraica (Pavia, 1792). The pronunciation Jehovah (Yehovah) arose out of a combination of the Keri and the chethib, and has only become current since the time of the Reformation. Genebrard denounces it in his Commentary upon the Psalms with the utmost vehemence, in opposition to Beza, as an intolerable innovation. "Ungodly violators of what is most ancient," he says, "profaning and transforming the unutterable name of God, would read Jova or Jehova - a new, barbarous, fictitious, and irreligious word, that savours strongly of the Jove of the heathen." Nevertheless his Jehova (Jova) forced its way into general adoption, and we shall therefore retain it, notwithstanding the fact that the o sound is decidedly wrong. To return, then: the prophet's name signifies "Jehovah's salvation." In the Septuagint it is always written ̔Ησαΐ̀ας, with a strong aspirate; in the Vulgate it is written Isaias, and sometimes Esaias. In turning from the outward to the inward title, which is contained in the book itself, there are two things to be observed at the outset: (1.) The division of the vv. indicated by soph pasuk is an arrangement for which the way was prepared as early as the time of the Talmud, and which was firmly established in the Masoretic schools; and consequently it reaches as far back as the extreme limits of the middle ages - differing in this respect from the division of vv. in the New Testament. The arrangement of the chapters, however, with the indications of the separate sections of the prophetic collection, is of no worth to us, simply because it is not older than the thirteenth century. According to some authorities, it originated with Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury († 1227); whilst others attribute it to Cardinal Hugo of St. Caro († 1262). It is only since the fifteenth century that it has been actually adopted in the text. (2.) The small ring or star at the commencement points to the footnote, which affirms that Isaiah 1:1-28 (where we find the same sign again) was the haphtarah, or concluding pericope, taken from the prophets, which was read on the same Sabbath as the parashah from the Pentateuch, in Deu 1:1. It was, as we shall afterwards see, a very thoughtful principle of selection which led to the combination of precisely these two lessons.

"Woe upon the sinful nation, the guilt-laden people, the miscreant race, the children acting corruptly! They have forsaken Jehovah, blasphemed Israel's Holy One, turned away backwards." The distinction sometimes drawn between hoi (with He) and oi (with Aleph) - as equivalent to oh! and woe! - cannot be sustained. Hoi is an exclamation of pain, with certain doubtful exceptions; and in the case before us it is not so much a denunciation of woe (vae genti, as the Vulgate renders it), as a lamentation (vae gentem) filled with wrath. The epithets which follow point indirectly to that which Israel ought to have been, according to the choice and determination of God, and plainly declare what it had become through its own choice and ungodly self-determination. (1.) According to the choice and determination of God, Israel was to be a holy nation (goi kadosh, Exo 19:6); but it was a sinful nation - gens peccatrix, as it is correctly rendered by the Vulgate. חטא is not a participle here, but rather a participial adjective in the sense of what was habitual. It is the singular in common use for the plural חטאי, sinners, the singular of which was not used. Holy and Sinful are glaring contrasts: for kadosh, so far as its radical notion is concerned (assuming, that is to say, that this is to be found in kad and not in dosh: see Psalter, i. 588, 9), signifies that which is separated from what is common, unclean, or sinful, and raised above it. The alliteration in hoi goi implies that the nation, as sinful, was a nation of woe. (2.) In the thorah Israel was called not only "a holy nation," but also "the people of Jehovah" (Num 17:6, Eng. ver. Num 16:41), the people chosen and blessed of Jehovah; but now it had become "a people heavy with iniquity." Instead of the most natural expression, a people bearing heavy sins; the sin, or iniquity, i.e., the weight carried, is attributed to the people themselves upon whom the weight rested, according to the common figurative idea, that whoever carries a heavy burden is so much heavier himself (cf., gravis oneribus, Cicero). עון (sin regarded as crookedness and perversity, whereas חטא suggests the idea of going astray and missing the way) is the word commonly used wherever the writer intends to describe sin in the mass (e.g., Isa 33:24; Gen 15:16; Gen 19:15), including the guilt occasioned by it. The people of Jehovah had grown into a people heavily laden with guilt. So crushed, so altered into the very opposite, had Israel's true nature become. It is with deliberate intention that we have rendered גּוי a nation (Nation), and עם(am a people (Volk): for, according to Malbim's correct definition of the distinction between the two, the former is used to denote the mass, as linked together by common descent, language, and country; the latter the people as bound together by unity of government (see, for example, Psa 105:13). Consequently we always read of the people of the Lord, not the nation of the Lord; and there are only two instances in which goi is attached to a suffix relating to the ruler, and then it relates to Jehovah alone (Zep 2:9; Psa 106:5). (3.) Israel bore elsewhere the honourable title of the seed of the patriarch (Isa 41:8; Isa 45:19; cf., Gen 21:12); but in reality it was a seed of evil-doers (miscreants). This does not mean that it was descended from evil-doers; but the genitive is used in the sense of a direct apposition to zera (seed), as in Isa 65:23 (cf., Isa 61:9; Isa 6:13, and Ges. 116, 5), and the meaning is a seed which consists of evil-doers, and therefore is apparently descended from evil-doers instead of from patriarchs. This last thought is not implied in the genitive, but in the idea of "seed;" which is always a compact unit, having one origin, and bearing the character of its origin in itself. The rendering brood of evil-doers, however it may accord with the sense, would be inaccurate; for "seed of evil-doers" is just the same as "house of evil-doers" in Isa 31:2. The singular of the noun מרעים is מרע , with the usual sharpening in the case of gutturals in the verbs (' '(, מרע with patach, מרע with kametz in pause (Isa 9:16, which see) - a noun derived from the hiphil participle. (4.) Those who were of Israel were "children of Jehovah" through the act of God (Deu 14:1); but in their own acts they were "children acting destructively (bânim mashchithim), so that what the thorah feared and predicted had now occurred (Deu 4:16, Deu 4:25; Deu 31:29). In all these passages we find the hiphil, and in the parallel passage of the great song (Deu 32:5) the piel - both of them conjugations which contain within themselves the object of the action indicated (Ges. 53, 2): to do what is destructive, i.e., so to act as to become destructive to one's self and to others. It is evident from Isa 1:2, that the term children is to be understood as indicating their relation to Jehovah (cf., Isa 30:1, Isa 30:9). The four interjectional clauses are followed by three declaratory clauses, which describe Israel's apostasy as total in every respect, and complete the mournful seven. There was apostasy in heart: "They have forsaken Jehovah." There was apostasy in words: "They blaspheme the Holy One of Israel." The verb literally means to sting, then to mock or treat scornfully; the use of it to denote blasphemy is antiquated Mosaic (Deu 31:20; Num 14:11, Num 14:23; Num 16:30). It is with intention that God is designated here as "the Holy One of Israel,"a name which constitutes the keynote of all Isaiah's prophecy (see at Isa 6:3). It was sin to mock at anything holy; it was a double sin to mock at God, the Holy One; but it was a threefold sin for Israel to mock at God the Holy One, who had set Himself to be the sanctifier of Israel, and required that as He was Israel's sanctification, He should also be sanctified by Israel according to His holiness (Lev 19:2, etc.). And lastly, there was also apostasy in action: "they have turned away backwards;" or, as the Vulgate renders it, abalienati sunt. נזור is the reflective of זוּר, related to נור and סוּר, for which it is the word commonly used in the Targum. The niphal, which is only met with here, indicates the deliberate character of their estrangement from God; and the expression is rendered still more emphatic by the introduction of the word "backwards" (achor, which is used emphatically in the place of מאחריו). In all their actions they ought to have followed Jehovah; but they had turned their backs upon Him, and taken the way selected by themselves.