11 Unhappy is the sinner! for the reward of his evil doings will come on him.
But if you do not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and take care to do all his orders and his laws which I give you today, then all these curses will come on you and overtake you: You will be cursed in the town and cursed in the field. A curse will be on your basket and on your bread-basin. A curse will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. The Lord will send on you cursing and trouble and punishment in everything to which you put your hand, till sudden destruction overtakes you; because of your evil ways in which you have been false to me. The Lord will send disease after disease on you, till you have been cut off by death from the land to which you are going. The Lord will send wasting disease, and burning pain, and flaming heat against you, keeping back the rain till your land is waste and dead; so will it be till your destruction is complete. And the heaven over your heads will be brass, and the earth under you hard as iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust, sending it down on you from heaven till your destruction is complete. The Lord will let you be overcome by your haters: you will go out against them one way, and you will go in flight before them seven ways: you will be the cause of fear among all the kingdoms of the earth. Your bodies will be meat for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth; there will be no one to send them away. The Lord will send on you the disease of Egypt, and other sorts of skin diseases which nothing will make well. He will make your minds diseased, and your eyes blind, and your hearts wasted with fear: You will go feeling your way when the sun is high, like a blind man for whom all is dark, and nothing will go well for you: you will be crushed and made poor for ever, and you will have no saviour. You will take a wife, but another man will have the use of her: the house which your hands have made will never be your resting-place: you will make a vine-garden, and never take the fruit of it. Your ox will be put to death before your eyes, but its flesh will not be your food: your ass will be violently taken away before your face, and will not be given back to you: your sheep will be given to your haters, and there will be no saviour for you. Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will be wasted away with looking and weeping for them all the day: and you will have no power to do anything. The fruit of your land and all the work of your hands will be food for a nation which is strange to you and to your fathers; you will only be crushed down and kept under for ever: So that the things which your eyes have to see will send you out of your minds. The Lord will send a skin disease, attacking your knees and your legs, bursting out from your feet to the top of your head, so that nothing will make you well. And you, and the king whom you have put over you, will the Lord take away to a nation strange to you and to your fathers; there you will be servants to other gods of wood and stone. And you will become a wonder and a name of shame among all the nations where the Lord will take you. You will take much seed out into the field, and get little in; for the locust will get it. You will put in vines and take care of them, but you will get no wine or grapes from them; for they will be food for worms. Your land will be full of olive-trees, but there will be no oil for the comfort of your body; for your olive-tree will give no fruit. You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go away prisoners into a strange land. All your trees and the fruit of your land will be the locust's. The man from a strange land who is living among you will be lifted up higher and higher over you, while you go down lower and lower. He will let you have his wealth at interest, and will have no need of yours: he will be the head and you the tail. And all these curses will come after you and overtake you, till your destruction is complete; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, or keep his laws and his orders which he gave you: These things will come on you and on your seed, to be a sign and a wonder for ever; Because you did not give honour to the Lord your God, worshipping him gladly, with joy in your hearts on account of all your wealth of good things; For this cause you will become servants to those whom the Lord your God will send against you, without food and drink and clothing, and in need of all things: and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck till he has put an end to you. The Lord will send a nation against you from the farthest ends of the earth, coming with the flight of an eagle; a nation whose language is strange to you; A hard-faced nation, who will have no respect for the old or mercy for the young: He will take the fruit of your cattle and of your land till death puts an end to you: he will let you have nothing of your grain or wine or oil or any of the increase of your cattle or the young of your flock, till he has made your destruction complete. Your towns will be shut in by his armies, till your high walls, in which you put your faith, have come down: his armies will be round your towns, through all your land which the Lord your God has given you. And your food will be the fruit of your body, the flesh of the sons and daughters which the Lord your God has given you; because of your bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters. That man among you who is soft and used to comfort will be hard and cruel to his brother, and to his dear wife, and to of those his children who are still living; And will not give to any of them the flesh of his children which will be his food because he has no other; in the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns. The most soft and delicate of your women, who would not so much as put her foot on the earth, so delicate is she, will be hard-hearted to her husband and to her son and to her daughter; And to her baby newly come to birth, and to the children of her body; for having no other food, she will make a meal of them secretly, because of her bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns. If you will not take care to do all the words of this law, recorded in this book, honouring that name of glory and of fear, THE LORD YOUR GOD; Then the Lord your God will make your punishment, and the punishment of your seed, a thing to be wondered at; great punishments and cruel diseases stretching on through long years. He will send on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which were a cause of fear to you, and they will take you in their grip. And all the diseases and the pains not recorded in the book of this law will the Lord send on you till your destruction is complete. And you will become a very small band, though your numbers were like the stars of heaven; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God. And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and increasing you, so the Lord will take pleasure in cutting you off and causing your destruction, and you will be uprooted from the land which you are about to take as your heritage. And the Lord will send you wandering among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other: there you will be servants to other gods, of wood and stone, gods of which you and your fathers had no knowledge. And even among these nations there will be no peace for you, and no rest for your feet: but the Lord will give you there a shaking heart and wasting eyes and weariness of soul: Your very life will be hanging in doubt before you, and day and night will be dark with fears, and nothing in life will be certain: In the morning you will say, If only it was evening! And at evening you will say, If only morning would come! Because of the fear in your hearts and the things which your eyes will see. And the Lord will take you back to Egypt again in ships, by the way of which I said to you, You will never see it again: there you will be offering yourselves as men-servants and women-servants to your haters for a price, and no man will take you.
He will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, which gives its fruit at the right time, whose leaves will ever be green; and he will do well in all his undertakings. The evil-doers are not so; but are like the dust from the grain, which the wind takes away. For this cause there will be no mercy for sinners when they are judged, and the evil-doers will have no place among the upright,
For this cause says the Lord God, My servants will have food, but you will be in need of food: my servants will have drink, but you will be dry: my servants will have joy, but you will be shamed: My servants will make songs in the joy of their hearts, but you will be crying for sorrow, and making sounds of grief from a broken spirit. And your name will become a curse to my people, and the Lord God will put you to death, and give his servants another name:
The Lord puts the upright and the sinner to the test, but he has hate in his soul for the lover of violent acts. On the evil-doer he will send down fire and flames, and a burning wind; with these will their cup be full.
What punishment will he give you? what more will he do to you, you false tongue? Sharp arrows of the strong, and burning fire.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Isaiah 3
Commentary on Isaiah 3 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 3
Isa 3:1-26.
1. 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; 38:9).
2. Fulfilled (2Ki 24:14).
prudent—the Hebrew often means a "soothsayer" (De 18:10-14); thus it will mean, the diviners, on whom they rely, shall in that day fail. It is found in a good sense (Pr 16:10), from which passage the Jews interpret it a king; "without" whom Israel long has been (Ho 3:4).
ancient—old and experienced (1Ki 12:6-8).
3. captain of fifty—not only captains of thousands, and centurions of a hundred, but even semi-centurions of fifty, shall fail.
honourable—literally, "of dignified aspect."
cunning—skilful. The mechanic's business will come to a standstill in the siege and subsequent desolation of the state; artisans are no mean "stay" among a nation's safeguards.
eloquent orator—rather, as Vulgate, "skilled in whispering," that is, incantation (Ps 58:5). See Isa 8:19, below; and on "prudent," see on Isa 3:2.
4. children—in ability for governing; antithesis to the "ancient" (see Isa 3:12; Ec 10:16).
babes—in warlike might; antithesis to "the mighty" and "man of war."
5. The anarchy resulting under such imbecile rulers (Isa 3:4); unjust exactions mutually; the forms of respect violated (Le 19:32).
base—low-born. Compare the marks of "the last days" (2Ti 3:2).
6. Such will be the want of men of wealth and ability, that they will "take hold of" (Isa 4:1) the first man whom they meet, having any property, to make him "ruler."
brother—one having no better hereditary claim to be ruler than the "man" supplicating him.
Thou hast clothing—which none of us has. Changes of raiment are wealth in the East (2Ki 5:5).
ruin—Let our ruined affairs be committed to thee to retrieve.
7. swear—literally, "lift up," namely, his hand; the gesture used in solemn attestation. Or, his voice, that is, answer; so Vulgate.
healer—of the body politic, incurably diseased (Isa 1:6).
neither … clothing—so as to relieve the people and maintain a ruler's dignity. A nation's state must be bad indeed, when none among men, naturally ambitious, is willing to accept office.
8. Reason given by the prophet, why all shrink from the government.
eyes of his glory—to provoke His "glorious" Majesty before His "eyes" (compare Isa 49:5; Hab 1:13). The Syriac and Lowth, by a slight change of the Hebrew, translate, "the cloud of His glory," the Shekinah.
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 (Ho 5:5).
declare—(Jude 13). "Foaming out their own shame"; so far from making it a secret, "glorying" in it (Php 3:19).
unto themselves—Compare "in themselves" (Pr 1:31; 8:36; Jer 2:19; Ro 1:27).
10. The faithlessness of many is no proof that all are faithless. Though nothing but croaking of frogs is heard on the surface of the pool, we are not to infer there are no fish beneath [Bengel]. (See Isa 1:19, 20).
fruit of doings—(Pr 1:31) in a good sense (Ga 6:8; Re 22:14). Not salvation by works, but by fruit-bearing faith (Isa 45:24; Jer 23:6). Gesenius and Weiss translate, Declare as to the righteous that, &c. Maurer, "Say that the righteous is blessed."
11. ill—antithesis to "well" (Isa 3:10); emphatic ellipsis of the words italicized. "Ill!"
hands—his conduct; "hands" being the instrument of acts (Ec 8:12, 13).
12. (See Isa 3:4).
oppressors—literally, "exactors," that is, exacting princes (Isa 60:17). They who ought to be protectors are exactors; as unqualified for rule as "children," as effeminate as "women." Perhaps it is also implied that they were under the influence of their harem, the women of their court.
lead—Hebrew, "call thee blessed"; namely, the false prophets, who flatter the people with promises of safety in sin; as the political "rulers" are meant in the first clause.
way of thy paths—(Jer 6:16). The right way set forth in the law. "Destroy"—Hebrew, "Swallow up," that is, cause so utterly to disappear that not a vestige of it is left.
13. standeth up—no longer sitting in silence.
plead—indignant against a wicked people (Isa 66:16; Eze 20:35).
14. ancients—Hence they are spoken of as "taken away" (Isa 3:1, 2).
vineyard—the Jewish theocracy (Isa 5:1-7; Ps 80:9-13).
eaten up—"burnt"; namely, by "oppressive exactions" (Isa 3:12). Type of the crowning guilt of the husbandmen in the days of Jesus Christ (Mt 21:34-41).
spoil … houses—(Mt 23:14).
15. What right have ye to beat, &c. (Ps 94:5; Mic 3:2, 3).
grind—by exactions, so as to leave them nothing.
faces—persons; with the additional idea of it being openly and palpably done. "Presence," equivalent to "face" (Hebrew).
16. Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, &c.—Luxury had become great in Uzziah's prosperous reign (2Ch 26:5).
stretched forth—proudly elevated (Ps 75:5).
wanton—rather, "making the eyes to glance about," namely, wantonly (Pr 6:13) [Maurer]. But Lowth, "falsely setting off the eyes with paint." Women's eyelids in the East are often colored with stibium, or powder of lead (see on Job 42:14; Jer 4:30, Margin).
mincing—tripping with short steps.
tinkling—with their ankle-rings on both feet, joined by small chains, which sound as they walk, and compel them to take short steps; sometimes little bells were attached (Isa 3:18, 20).
17. smite with a scab—literally, "make bald," namely, by disease.
discover—cause them to suffer the greatest indignity that can befall female captives, namely to be stripped naked, and have their persons exposed (Isa 47:3; compare with Isa 20:4).
18. bravery—the finery.
tinkling—(See Isa 3:16).
cauls—network for the head. Or else, from an Arabic root, "little suns," answering to the "tires" or neck-ornaments, "like the moon" (Jud 8:21). The chumarah or crescent is also worn in front of the headdress in West Asia.
19. chains—rather, pendants, hanging about the neck, and dropping on the breast.
mufflers—veils covering the face, with apertures for the eyes, close above and loosely flowing below. The word radically means "tremulous," referring to the changing effect of the spangles on the veil.
20. bonnets—turbans.
ornaments of the legs—the short stepping-chains from one foot to another, to give a measured gait; attached to the "tinkling ornaments" (Isa 3:16).
headbands—literally, "girdles."
tablets—rather, "houses of the breath," that is, smelling boxes [Vulgate].
earrings—rather, amulets suspended from the neck or ears, with magic formulæ inscribed; the root means to "whisper" or "conjure."
21. nose jewels—The cartilage between the nostrils was bored to receive them; they usually hung from the left nostril.
22. Here begin entire articles of apparel. Those before were single ornaments.
changeable—from a root, "to put off"; not worn commonly; put on and off on special occasions. So, dress-clothes (Zec 3:4).
mantles—fuller tunics with sleeves, worn over the common one, reaching down to the feet.
wimples—that is, mufflers, or hoods. In Ru 3:15, "veils"; perhaps here, a broad cloak, or shawl, thrown over the head and body.
crisping pins—rather, money bags (2Ki 5:23).
23. glasses—mirrors of polished metal (Ex 38:8). But the Septuagint, a transparent, gauze-like, garment.
hoods—miters, or diadems (Isa 62:3; Zec 3:5).
veils—large enough to cover the head and person. Distinct from the smaller veils ("mufflers") above (Ge 24:65). Token of woman's subjection (1Co 11:10).
24. stink—arising from ulcers (Zec 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—(1Pe 3:3, 4).
baldness—(Isa 3:17).
stomacher—a broad plaited girdle.
sackcloth—(2Sa 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 (So 1:6).
25. Thy men—of Jerusalem.
26. gates—The place of concourse personified is represented mourning for the loss of those multitudes which once frequented it.
desolate … sit upon … ground—the very figure under which Judea was represented on medals after the destruction by Titus: a female sitting under a palm tree in a posture of grief; the motto, Judæa capta (Job 2:13; La 2:10, where, as here primarily, the destruction by Nebuchadnezzar is alluded to).