11 When its branches are withered they shall be broken off; women shall come [and] set them on fire. For it is a people of no intelligence; therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he who formed them will shew them no favour.
in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who know not God, and those who do not obey the glad tidings of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall pay the penalty [of] everlasting destruction from [the] presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his might,
And Jehovah repented that he had made Man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart. And Jehovah said, I will destroy Man, whom I have created, from the earth -- from man to cattle, to creeping things, and to fowl of the heavens; for I repent that I have made them.
Son of man, what is the wood of the vine more than any wood, the vine-branch, which is among the trees of the forest? Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will [men] take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? Behold, it is given to the fire for fuel: the fire consumeth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned; is it fit for [any] work? Behold, when it was whole, it was used for no work; how much less when the fire hath consumed it, and it is burned, should it yet be used for any work? Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: As the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will set my face against them: they shall go forth from [one] fire, and [another] fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I [am] Jehovah when I set my face against them. And I will make the land a desolation, because they have wrought unfaithfulness, saith the Lord Jehovah.
Hear now this, O foolish and heartless people, who have eyes and see not; who have ears, and hear not. Will ye not fear me? saith Jehovah. Will ye not tremble at my presence, who have set the sand a bound for the sea by a perpetual decree, and it shall not pass it? and its waves toss themselves, but they do not prevail; and they roar, yet can they not pass over it?
And I said, Surely these are the wretched ones, they are foolish; for they know not the way of Jehovah, the judgment of their God. I will go unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they know the way of Jehovah, the judgment of their God; but these have altogether broken the yoke, have burst the bonds.
They have no knowledge, and understand not; for he hath plastered their eyes, that they may not see; and their hearts, that they may not understand. And none taketh it to heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire, and have also baked bread upon the coals thereof, I have roasted flesh, and eaten [it], and with the rest thereof shall I make an abomination? shall I bow down to a block of wood? He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for thou art my servant; I have formed thee: thou art my servant, Israel; thou shalt not be forgotten of me.
Even the stock which thy right hand hath planted, and the young plant thou madest strong for thyself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down; they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.
But they mocked at the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the fury of Jehovah rose against his people, and there was no remedy. And he brought up [against] them the king of the Chaldees, and slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and spared not young man nor maiden, old man nor him of hoary head: he gave [them] all into his hand.
Of the Rock that begot thee wast thou unmindful, And thou hast forgotten ùGod who brought thee forth. And Jehovah saw it, and despised them, Because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be; For they are a perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is no ùGod; They have exasperated me with their vanities; And I will move them to jealousy with that which is not a people; With a foolish nation will I provoke them to anger. For a fire is kindled in mine anger, And it shall burn into the lowest Sheol, And shall consume the earth and its produce, And set fire to the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; Mine arrows will I spend against them. They shall be consumed with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, And with poisonous pestilence; And the teeth of beasts will I send against them, With the poison of what crawleth in the dust. From without shall the sword bereave them, and in the chambers, terror -- Both the young man and the virgin, The suckling with the man of gray hairs.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 27
Commentary on Isaiah 27 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Upon whom the judgment of Jehovah particularly falls, is described in figurative and enigmatical words in Isaiah 27:1 : “In that day will Jehovah visit with His sword, with the hard, and the great, and the strong, leviathan the fleet serpent, and leviathan the twisted serpent, and slay the dragon in the sea.” No doubt the three animals are emblems of three imperial powers. The assertion that there are no more three animals than there are three swords, is a mistake. If the preposition were repeated in the case of the swords, as it is in the case of the animals, we should have to understand the passage as referring to three swords as well as three animals. But this is not the case. We have therefore to inquire what the three world-powers are; and this question is quite a justifiable one: for we have no reason to rest satisfied with the opinion held by Drechsler, that the three emblems are symbols of ungodly powers in general, of every kind and every sphere, unless the question itself is absolutely unanswerable. Now the tannin (the stretched-out aquatic animal) is the standing emblem of Egypt (Isaiah 51:9; Psalms 74:13; Ezekiel 29:3; Ezekiel 32:2). And as the Euphrates-land and Asshur are mentioned in Isaiah 27:12, Isaiah 27:13 in connection with Egypt, it is immediately probable that the other two animals signify the kingdom of the Tigris, i.e., Assyria, with its capital Nineveh which stood on the Tigris, and the kingdom of the Euphrates, i.e., Chaldea, with its capital Babylon which stood upon the Euphrates. Moreover, the application of the same epithet Leviathan to both the kingdoms, with simply a difference in the attributes, is suggestive of two kingdoms that were related to each other. We must not be misled by the fact that nâchâsh bâriach is a constellation in Job 26:13; we have no bammarōm (on high) here, as in Isaiah 24:21, and therefore are evidently still upon the surface of the globe. The epithet employed was primarily suggested by the situation of the two cities. Nineveh was on the Tigris, which was called Chiddekel ,
(Note: In point of fact, not only does Arab. tyr signify both an arrow and the Tigris, according to the Neo-Persian lexicons, but the old explanation “Tigris, swift as a dart, since the Medes call the Tigris toxeuma ” (the shot or shot arrow; Eustath, on Dion Perieg. v. 984), is confirmed by the Zendic tighri , which has been proved to be used in the sense of arrow or shot ( Yesht 8, 6, yatha tighris mainyavacâo ), i.e., like a heavenly arrow.)
on account of the swiftness of its course and its terrible rapids; hence Asshur is compared to a serpent moving along in a rapid, impetuous, long, extended course ( bâriach , as in Isaiah 43:14, is equivalent to barriach, a noun of the same form as עלּיז , and a different word from berriach , a bolt, Isaiah 15:5). Babylon, on the other hand, is compared to a twisted serpent, i.e., to one twisting about in serpentine curves, because it was situated on the very winding Euphrates, the windings of which are especially labyrinthine in the immediate vicinity of Babylon. The river did indeed flow straight away at one time, but by artificial cuttings it was made so serpentine that it passed the same place, viz., Arderikka, no less than three times; and according to the declaration of Herodotus in his own time, when any one sailed down the river, he had to pass it three times in three days (Ritter, x. p. 8). The real meaning of the emblem, however, is no more exhausted by this allusion to the geographical situation, than it was in the case of “the desert of the sea” (Isaiah 21:1). The attribute of winding is also a symbol of the longer duration of one empire than of the other, and of the more numerous complications into which Israel would be drawn by it. The world-power on the Tigris fires with rapidity upon Israel, so that the fate of Israel is very quickly decided. But the world-power on the Euphrates advances by many windings, and encircles its prey in many folds. And these windings are all the more numerous, because in the prophet's view Babylon is the final form assumed by the empire of the world, and therefore Israel remains encircled by this serpent until the last days. The judgment upon Asshur, Babylon, and Egypt, is the judgment upon the world-powers universally.
The prophecy here passes for the fourth time into the tone of a song. The church recognises itself in the judgments upon the world, as Jehovah's well-protected and beloved vineyard.
In that day a merry vineyard - sing it!
I, Jehovah, its keeper,
Every moment I water it.
That nothing may come near it,
I watch it night and day.
Wrath have I none;
O, had I thorns, thistles before me!
I would make up to them in battle,
Burn them all together.
Men would then have to grasp at my protection,
Make peace with me,
Make peace with me.