Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament · Isaiah Chapitre 5

“Now then, I will tell you what I will do at once to my vineyard: take away its hedge, and it shall be for grazing; pull down its wall, and it shall be for treading down.” Before “now then” ( vattâh ) we must imagine a pause, as in Isaiah 3:14. The Lord of the vineyard breaks the silence of the umpires, which indicates their consciousness of guilt. They shall hear from Him what He will do at once to His vineyard ( Lamed in l'carmi , as, for example, in Deuteronomy 11:6). “I will do:” ani 'ōeh , fut. instans, equivalent to facturus sum (Ges. §134, 2, b). In the inf. abs. which follow He opens up what He will do. On this explanatory use of the inf. abs., see Isaiah 20:2; Isaiah 58:6-7. In such cases as these it takes the place of the object, as in other cases of the subject, but always in an abrupt manner (Ges. §131, 1). He would take away the m esucah , i.e., the green thorny hedge (Proverbs 15:19; Hosea 2:8) with which the vineyard was enclosed, and would pull down the gârēd , i.e., the low stone wall (Numbers 22:24; Proverbs 24:31), which had been surrounded by the hedge of thorn-bushes to make a better defence, as well as for the protection of the wall itself, more especially against being undermined; so that the vineyard would be given up to grazing and treading down (lxx καταπα'τημα ), i.e., would become an open way and gathering-place for man and beast.

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This puts an end to the unthankful vineyard, and indeed a hopeless one. ”And I will put an end to it: it shall not be pruned nor digged, and it shall break out in thorns and thistles; and I will command the clouds to rain no rain over it.” “Put an end:” bâthâh (= battâh : Ges. §67, Anm. 11) signifies, according to the primary meaning of bâthath ( בּוּת , בּהת , see at Isaiah 1:29), viz., abscindere , either abscissum = locus abscissus or praeruptus (Isaiah 7:19), or abscissio = deletio . The latter is the meaning here, where shı̄th bâthâh is a refined expression for the more usual כלה עשׂה , both being construed with the accusative of the thing which is brought to an end. Further pruning and hoeing would do it no good, but only lead to further disappointment: it was the will of the Lord, therefore, that the deceitful vineyard should shoot up in thorns and thistles ( âlâh is applied to the soil, as in Isaiah 34:13 and Proverbs 24:31; shâimr vâshaith , thorns and thistles, are in the accusative, according to Ges. §138, 1, Anm. 2; and both the words themselves, and also their combination, are exclusively and peculiarly Isaiah's).

(Note: Cassel associates shâmir as the name of a plant ( saxifraga ) with σμὐρις , and shaith with sentis , ἄκανθα ; but the name shâmir is not at all applicable to those small delicate plants, which are called saxifraga (stone-breakers) on account of their growing out of clefts in the rock, and so appearing to have split the rock itself. Both shâmir vâshaith and kōts v'dardar , in Genesis 3:18, seem rather to point to certain kinds of rhamnus , together with different kinds of thistles. The more arid and waste the ground is, the more does it abound, where not altogether without vegetation, in thorny, prickly, stunted productions.)

In order that it might remain a wilderness, the clouds would also receive commandment from the Lord not to rain upon it. There can be no longer any doubt who the Lord of the vineyard is. He is Lord of the clouds, and therefore the Lord of heaven and earth. It is He who is the prophet's beloved and dearest one. The song which opened in so minstrel-like and harmless a tone, has now become painfully severe and terribly repulsive. The husk of the parable, which has already been broken through, now falls completely off (cf., Matthew 22:13; Matthew 25:30). What it sets forth in symbol is really true. This truth the prophet establishes by an open declaration.

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“For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plantation of His delight: He waited for justice, and behold grasping; for righteousness, and behold a shriek.” The meaning is not that the Lord of the vineyard would not let any more rain fall upon it, because this Lord was Jehovah (which is not affirmed in fact in the words commencing with “for,” Ci ), but a more general one. This was how the case stood with the vineyard; for all Israel, and especially the people of Judah, were this vineyard, which had so bitterly deceived the expectations of its Lord, and indeed “the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts,” and therefore of the omnipotent God, whom even the clouds would serve when He came forth to punish. The expression “for” ( Ci ) is not only intended to vindicate the truth of the last statement, but the truth of the whole simile, including this: it is an explanatory “for” ( Ci explic.), which opens the epimythion . “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts” ( Cerem Jehovah Zebaoth ) is the predicate. “The house of Israel ( Beth Yisrâel ) was the whole nation, which is also represented in other passages under the same figure of a vineyard (Isaiah 27:2.; Ps 80, etc.). But as Isaiah was prophet in Judah, he applies the figure more particularly to Judah, which was called Jehovah's favourite plantation, inasmuch as it was the seat of the divine sanctuary and of the Davidic kingdom. This makes it easy enough to interpret the different parts of the simile employed. The fat mountain-horn was Canaan, flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 15:17); the digging of the vineyard, and clearing it of stones, was the clearing of Canaan from its former heathen inhabitants (Psalms 54:3); the sorek-vines were the holy priests and prophets and kings of Israel of the earlier and better times (Jeremiah 2:21); the defensive and ornamental tower in the midst of the vineyard was Jerusalem as the royal city, with Zion the royal fortress (Micah 4:8); the winepress-trough was the temple, where, according to Psalms 36:9 (8.), the wine of heavenly pleasures flowed in streams, and from which, according to Psalms 42:1-11 and many other passages, the thirst of the soul might all be quenched. The grazing and treading down are explained in Jeremiah 5:10 and Jeremiah 12:10. The bitter deception experienced by Jehovah is expressed in a play upon two words, indicating the surprising change of the desired result into the very opposite. The explanation which Gesenius, Caspari, Knobel, and others give of m ispâch , viz., bloodshed, does not commend itself; for even if it must be admitted that sâphach occurs once or twice in the “Arabizing” book of Job (Job 30:7; Job 14:19) in the sense of pouring out, this verbal root is strange to the Hebrew (and the Aramaean). Moreover, m ispâch in any case would only mean pouring or shedding, and not bloodshed; and although the latter would certainly be possible by the side of the Arabic saffâch , saffâk (shedder of blood), yet it would be such an ellipsis as cannot be shown anywhere else in Hebrew usage. On the other hand, the rendering “leprosy” does not yield any appropriate sense, as m ispachath ( sappachath ) is never generalized anywhere else into the single idea of “dirt” (Luzzatto: sozzura ), nor does it appear as an ethical notion. We therefore prefer to connect it with a meaning unquestionably belonging to the verb ספח (see kal, 1 Samuel 2:36; niphal, Isaiah 14:1; hithpael , 1 Samuel 26:19), which is derived in יסף , אסף , סוּף , from the primary notion “to sweep,” spec. to sweep towards, sweep in, or sweep away. Hence we regard m ispach as denoting the forcible appropriation of another man's property; certainly a suitable antithesis to m ishpât . The prophet describes, in full-toned figures, how the expected noble grapes had turned into wild grapes, with nothing more than an outward resemblance. The introduction to the prophecy closes here.

The prophecy itself follows next, a seven-fold discourse composed of the six-fold woe contained in vv. 8-23, and the announcement of punishment in which it terminates. In this six-fold woe the prophet describes the bad fruits one by one. In confirmation of our rendering of m ispâch , the first woe relates to covetousness and avarice as the root of all evil.

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“Woe unto them that join house to house, who lay field to field, till there is no more room, and ye alone are dwelling in the midst of the land.” The participle is continued in the finite verb, as in Isaiah 5:23; Isaiah 10:1; the regular syntactic construction is cases of this kind (Ges. §134, Anm. 2). The preterites after “till” (there are to such preterites, for 'ephes is an intensified אין enclosing the verbal idea) correspond to future perfects: “They, the insatiable, would not rest till, after every smaller piece of landed property had been swallowed by them, the whole land had come into their possession, and no one beside themselves was settled in the land” (Job 22:8). Such covetousness was all the more reprehensible, because the law of Israel and provided so very stringently and carefully, that as far as possible there should be an equal distribution of the soil, and that hereditary family property should be inalienable. All landed property that had been alienated reverted to the family every fiftieth year, or year of jubilee; so that alienation simply had reference to the usufruct of the land till that time. It was only in the case of houses in towns that the right of redemption was restricted to one year, at least according to a later statute. How badly the law of the year of jubilee had been observed, may be gathered from Jer 34, where we learn that the law as to the manumission of Hebrew slaves in the sabbatical year had fallen entirely into neglect. Isaiah's contemporary, Micah, makes just the same complaint as Isaiah himself (vid., Micah 2:2).

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The second woe, for which the curse about to fall upon vinedressing (Isaiah 5:10) prepared the way by the simple association of ideas, is directed against the debauchees, who in their carnal security carried on their excesses even in the daylight. “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning to run after strong drink; who continue till late at night with wine inflaming them!” Boker (from bâkar , bakara , to slit, to tear up, or split) is the break of day; and nesheph (from nâshaph , to blow) the cool of the evening, including the night (Isaiah 21:4; Isaiah 59:10); 'ichër , to continue till late, as in Proverbs 23:30: the construct state before words with a preposition, as in Isaiah 9:2; Isaiah 28:9, and many other passages (Ges. §116, 1). Shēcâr , in connection with yayin , is the general name for every other kind of strong drink, more especially for wines made artificially from fruit, honey, raisins, dates, etc., including barley-wine ( οἶνος κρίθινος ) or beer ( ἐκ κριθῶν μέθυ in Aeschylus, also called βρῦτον βρυτόν ζῦθος ζύθος , and by many other names), a beverage known in Egypt, which was half a wine country and half a beer country, from as far back as the time of the Pharaohs. The form shēcâr is composed, like ענב (with the fore-tone tsere ), from shâcar , to intoxicate; according to the Arabic, literally to close by stopping up, i.e., to stupefy.

(Note: It is a question, therefore, whether the name of sugar is related to it or not. The Arabic sakar corresponds to the Hebrew shecâr ; but sugar is called sukkar , Pers. 'sakkar , 'sakar , no doubt equivalent to σἀκχαρι (Arrian in Periplus, μἐλι τὸ καλἀμινον τὸ λεγὀμενου σἀκχαρι ), saccharum , an Indian word, which is pronounced Carkarâ in Sanscrit and sakkara in Prakrit, and signifies “forming broken pieces,” i.e., sugar in grains or small lumps (brown sugar). The art of boiling sugar from the cane was an Indian invention (see Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 269ff.). The early Egyptian name for beer is hek (Brugsch, Recueil, p. 118); the demotic and hieratic name henk , the Coptic henke . The word ζῦθος ζὐθος ) is also old Egyptian. In the Book of the Dead (79, 8) the deceased says, “I have taken sacrificial cakes from the table, I have drunk seth - t in the evening.” Moses Stuart wrote an Essay upon the Wines and Strong Drinks of the Ancient Hebrews, which was published in London (1831), with a preface by J. Pye Smith.)

The clauses after the two participles are circumstantial clauses (Ewald, §341, b), indicating the circumstances under which they ran out so early, and sat till long after dark: they hunted after mead, they heated themselves with wine, namely, to drown the consciousness of their deeds of darkness.

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Isaiah 5:12 describes how they go on in their blindness with music and carousing: “And guitar and harp, kettle-drum, and flute, and wine, is their feast; but they regard not the work of Jehovah, and see not the purpose of His hands.” “Their feast” is so and so ( משׁתּיה ם is only a plural in appearance; it is really a singular, as in Daniel 1:10, Daniel 1:16, and many other passages, with the Yod of the primary form, משׁתּי = משׁתּה , softened: see the remarks on עלה at Isaiah 1:30, and עשׂיה at Isaiah 22:11); that is to say, their feast consisted or was composed of exciting music and wine. Knobel construes it, “and there are guitar, etc., and wine is their drink;” but a divided sentence of this kind is very tame; and the other expression, based upon the general principle, “The whole is its parts,” is thoroughly Semitic (see Fleischer's Abhandlungen über einige Arten der Nominalapposition in den Sitzungsberichten der sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft, 1862). Cinnor (guitar) is a general name for such instruments as have their strings drawn (upon a bridge) over a sounding board; and nebel (the harp and lyre) a general name for instruments with their strings hung freely, so as to be played with both hands at the same time. Toph (Arab. duff ) is a general name for the tambourin, the drum, and the kettle-drum; C haill (lit. that which is bored through) a general name for the flute and double flute. In this tumult and riot they had no thought or eye for the work of Jehovah and the purpose of His hands. This is the phrase used to express the idea of eternal counsel of God (Isaiah 37:26), which leads to salvation by the circuitous paths of judgment (Isaiah 10:12; Isaiah 28:21; Isaiah 29:23), so far as that counsel is embodied in history, as moulded by the invisible interposition of God. In their joy and glory they had no sense for what was the most glorious of all, viz., the moving and working of God in history; so that they could not even discern the judgment which was in course of preparation at that very time.

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Therefore judgment would overtake them in this blind, dull, and stupid animal condition. “Therefore my people go into banishment without knowing; and their glory will become starving men, and their tumult men dried up with thirst.” As the word “therefore” ( lâcēn , as in Isaiah 1:24) introduces the threat of punishment, gâlâh (go into captivity) is a prophetic preterite. Israel would go into exile, and that “without knowing” ( m ibb'li - da'ath ). The meaning of this expression cannot be “from want of knowledge,” since the min which is fused into one word with b'li is not causal, but negative, and m ibb'li , as a preposition, always signifies “without” ( absque ). But are we to render it “without knowing it” (as in Hosea 4:6, where hadda'ath has the article), or “unawares?” There is no necessity for any dispute on this point, since the two renderings are fundamentally one and the same. The knowledge, of which Isaiah 5:12 pronounces them destitute, was more especially a knowledge of the judgment of God that was hanging over them; so that, as the captivity would come upon them without knowledge, it would necessarily come upon them unawares. “Their glory” ( C ebōdō ) and “their tumult” ( hamono ) are therefore to be understood, as the predicates show, as collective nouns used in a personal sense, the former signifying the more select portion of the nation (cf., Micah 1:15), the latter the mass of the people, who were living in rioting and tumult. The former would become “men of famine” ( m ĕthē rââb : מתי , like אנשׁי in other places, viz., 2 Samuel 19:29, or בּני , 1 Samuel 26:16); the latter “men dried up with thirst” ( tsichēh tsâmâh : the same number as the subject). There is no necessity to read מתי (dead men) instead of מתי , as the lxx and Vulgate do, or מזי ( מזה ) according to Deuteronomy 32:24, as Hitzig, Ewald, Böttcher, and others propose (compare, on the contrary, Genesis 34:30 and Job 11:11). The adjective tzicheh ( hapax leg ) is formed like C hirēsh , C ēheh , and other adjectives which indicate defects: in such formations from verbs Lamed - He , instead of e we have an ae that has grown out of ay (Olshausen, §182, b). The rich gluttons would starve, and the tippling crowd would die with thirst.

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The threat of punishment commences again with “therefore;” it has not yet satisfied itself, and therefore grasps deeper still. “Therefore the under-world opens its jaws wide, and stretches open its mouth immeasurably wide; and the glory of Jerusalem descends, and its tumult, and noise, and those who rejoice within it.” The verbs which follow lâcēn (therefore) are prophetic preterites, as in Isaiah 5:13. The feminine suffixes attached to what the lower world swallows up do not refer to sheol (though this is construed more frequently, no doubt, as a feminine than as a masculine, as it is in Job 26:6), but, as expressed in the translation, to Jerusalem itself, which is also necessarily required by the last clause, “those who rejoice within it.” The withdrawal of the tone from ועלז to the penultimate (cf., C hâphētz in Psalms 18:20; Psalms 22:9) is intentionally omitted, to cause the rolling and swallowing up to be heard as it were. A mouth is ascribed to the under-world, also a nephesh , i.e., a greedy soul, in which sense nephesh is then applied metonymically sometimes to a thirst for blood (Psalms 27:12), and sometimes to simple greediness (Isaiah 56:11), and even, as in the present passage and Habakkuk 2:5, to the throat or swallow which the soul opens “without measure,” when its craving knows no bounds ( Psychol. p. 204). It has become a common thing now to drop entirely the notion which formerly prevailed, that the noun sheol was derived from the verb shâal in the sense in which it was generally employed, viz., to ask or demand; but Caspari, who has revived it again, is certainly so far correct, that the derivation of the word which the prophet had in his mind was this and no other. The word sheol (an infinitive form, like pekōd ) signifies primarily the irresistible and inexorable demand made upon every earthly thing; and then secondarily, in a local sense, the place of the abode of shades, to which everything on the surface of the earth is summoned; or essentially the divinely appointed curse which demands and swallows up everything upon the earth. We simply maintain, however, that the word sheol , as generally sued, was associated in thought with shâal , to ask or demand. Originally, no doubt, it may have been derived from the primary and more material idea of the verb שׁאל , possibly from the meaning “to be hollow,” which is also assumed to be the primary meaning of שׁעל .

(Note: The meaning “to be hollow” is not very firmly established, however; as the primary meaning of שׁעל , and the analogy sometimes adduced of hell = hollow (Hölle = Höhle ), is a deceptive one, as Hölle (hell), to which Luther always gives the more correct form Helle, does not mean a hollow, but a hidden place (or a place which renders invisible: from hëln , to conceal), Lat. celans (see Jütting, Bibl. Wörterbuch, 1864, pp. 85, 86). It is much more probable that the meaning of sheol is not the hollow place, but the depression or depth, from של , which corresponds precisely to the Greek χαλᾶν so far as its primary meaning is concerned (compare the talmud ic shilshêl , to let down; shilshul , sinking or depression, Erubin 83b; shul , the foundation, fundus): see Hupfeld on Psalms 6:6. Luzzatto on this passage also explains sheol as signifying depth, and compares the talmudic hishchil = hēshil , to let down (or, according to others, to draw up - two meanings which may easily be combined in the same word, starting from its radical idea, which indicates in a general a loosening of the previous connection). Fürst has also given up the meaning cavitas, a hollow, and endeavours to find a more correct explanation of the primary signification of shâ'al (see at Isaiah 40:12).)

At any rate, this derivation answers to the view that generally prevailed in ancient times. According to the prevalent idea, Hades was in the interior of the earth. And there was nothing really absurd in this, since it is quite within the power and freedom of the omnipresent God to manifest Himself wherever and however He may please. As He reveals Himself above the earth, i.e., in heaven, among blessed spirits in the light of His love; so did He reveal Himself underneath the earth, viz., in Sheōl , in the darkness and fire of His wrath. And with the exception of Enoch and Elijah, with their marvellous departure from this life, the way of every mortal ended there, until the time when Jesus Christ, having first paid the λὐτρον , i.e., having shed His blood, which covers our guilt and turns the wrath of God into love, descended into Hades and ascended into heaven, and from that time forth has changed the death of all believers from a descent into Hades into an ascension to heaven. But even under the Old Testament the believer may have known, that whoever hid himself on this side the grave in Jehovah the living One, would retain his eternal germ of life even in Sheōl in the midst of the shades, and would taste the love of God even in the midst of wrath. It was this postulate of faith which lay at the foundation of the fact, that even under the Old Testament the broader and more comprehensive idea of Sheōl began to be contracted into the more limited notion of hell (see Psychol. p. 415). This is the case in the passage before us, where Isaiah predicts of everything of which Jerusalem was proud, and in which it revelled, including the persons who rejoice din these things, a descent into Hades; just as the Korahite author of Ps 49 wrote (Psalms 49:14) that the beauty of the wicked would be given up to Hades to be consumed, without having hereafter any place in the upper world, when the upright should have dominion over them in the morning. Hades even here is almost equivalent to the New Testament gehenna .

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And when we consider that the Holy Land is at the present time an extensive pasture-ground for Arab shepherds, and that the modern Jerusalem which has arisen from the dust is a Mohammedan city, we may see in this also a literal fulfilment of Isaiah 5:17: “And lambs feed as upon their pasture, and nomad shepherds eat the waste places of the fat ones.” There is no necessity to supply an object to the verb ורעוּ , as Knobel and others assume, viz., the waste lands mentioned in the second clause; nor is C edâbrâm to be taken as the object, as Caspari supposes; but the place referred to is determined by the context: in the place where Jerusalem is sunken, there lambs feed after the manner of their own pasture-ground, i.e., just as if they were in their old accustomed pasture ( dober , as in Micah 2:12, from dâbar , to drive). The lambs intended are those of the gârim mentioned in the second clause. The gârim themselves are men leading an unsettled, nomad, or pilgrim life; as distinguished from gêrim , strangers visiting, or even settled at a place. The lxx have ἄρνες , so that they must have read either C ârim or gedâim , which Ewald, Knobel, and others adopt. But one feature of the prophecy, which is sustained by the historical fulfilment, is thereby obliterated. Chârboth m êchim are the lands of those that were formerly marrowy, i.e., fat and strutting about in their fulness; which lands had now become waste places. Knobel's statement, that âcăl is out of place in connection with gârim , is overthrown by Isaiah 1:7, to which he himself refers, though he makes he-goats the subject instead of men. The second woe closes with Isaiah 5:17. It is the longest of all. This also serves to confirm the fact that luxury was the leading vice of Judah in the time of Uzziah-Jotham, as it was that of Israel under Jeroboam II (see Amos 6:1-14, where the same threat is held out).

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The third woe is directed against the supposed strong-minded men, who called down the judgment of God by presumptuous sins and wicked words. “Woe unto them that draw crime with cords of lying, and sin as with the rope of the waggon.” Knobel and most other commentators take m âshak in the sense of attrahere (to draw towards one's self): “They draw towards them sinful deeds with cords of lying palliation, and the cart-rope of the most daring presumption;” and cite, as parallel examples, Job 40:24 and Hosea 11:4. But as m âshak is also used in Deuteronomy 21:3 in the sense of drawing in a yoke, that is to say, drawing a plough or chariot; and as the waggon or cart ( agâlâh , the word commonly used for a transport-waggon, as distinguished from m ercâbâh , the state carriage or war chariot is expressly mentioned here, the figure employed is certainly the same as that which underlies the New Testament ἑτεροζυγεῖν (“unequally yoked,” 2 Corinthians 6:14). Iniquity was the burden which they drew after them with cords of lying ( shâv'h : see at Psalms 26:4 and Job 15:31), i.e., “want of character or religion;” and sin was the waggon to which they were harnessed as if with a thick cart-rope (Hofmann, Drechsler, and Caspari; see Ewald, §221, a). Iniquity and sin are mentioned here as carrying with them their own punishment. The definite העו ן (crime or misdeed) is generic, and the indefinite הטּאה qualitative and massive. There is a bitter sarcasm involved in the bold figure employed. They were proud of their unbelief; but this unbelief was like a halter with which, like beasts of burden, they were harnessed to sin, and therefore to the punishment of sin, which they went on drawing further and further, in utter ignorance of the waggon behind them.

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Isaiah 5:19 shows very clearly that the prophet referred to the free-thinkers of his time, the persons who are called fools ( nabal ) and scorners ( lētz ) in the Psalms and Proverbs. “Who say, Let Him hasten, accelerate His work, that we may see; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may experience it.” They doubted whether the day of Jehovah would ever come (Ezekiel 12:22; Jeremiah 5:12-13), and went so far in their unbelief as to call out for what they could not and would not believe, and desired it to come that they might see it with their own eyes and experience it for themselves (Jeremiah 17:15; it is different in Amos 5:18 and Mal 2:17-3:1, where this desire does not arise from scorn and defiance, but from impatience and weakness of faith). As the two verbs denoting haste are used both transitively and intransitively (vid., Judges 20:37, to hasten or make haste), we might render the passage “let His work make haste,” as Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit, and Drechsler do; but we prefer the rendering adopted by Gesenius, Caspari, and Knobel, on the basis of Isaiah 60:22, and take the verb as transitive, and Jehovah as the subject. The forms yâchishâh and taboâh are, with Psalms 20:4 and Job 11:17, probably the only examples of the expression of a wish in the third person, strengthened by the âh , which indicates a summons or appeal; for Ezekiel 23:20, which Gesenius cites (§48, 3), and Job 22:21, to which Knobel refers, have no connection with this, as in both passages the âh is the feminine termination, and not hortative (vid., Comm. on Job, at Job 11:17, note, and at Job 22:21). The fact that the free-thinkers called God “the Holy One of Israel,” whereas they scoffed at His intended final and practical attestation of Himself as the Holy One, may be explained from Isaiah 30:11: they took this name of God from the lips of the prophet himself, so that their scorn affected both God and His prophet at the same time.

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The fourth woe: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who give out darkness for light, and light for darkness; who give out bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” The previous woe had reference to those who made the facts of sacred history the butt of their naturalistic doubt and ridicule, especially so far as they were the subject of prophecy. This fourth woe relates to those who adopted a code of morals that completely overturned the first principles of ethics, and was utterly opposed to the law of God; for evil, darkness, and bitter, with their respective antitheses, represent moral principles that are essentially related (Matthew 6:23; James 3:11), Evil, as hostile to God, is dark in its nature, and therefore loves darkness, and is exposed to the punitive power of darkness. And although it may be sweet to the material taste, it is nevertheless bitter, inasmuch as it produces abhorrence and disgust in the godlike nature of man, and, after a brief period of self-deception, is turned into the bitter woe of fatal results. Darkness and light, bitter and sweet, therefore, are not tautological metaphors for evil and good; but epithets applied to evil and good according to their essential principles, and their necessary and internal effects.

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The fifth woe: “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight.” The third woe had reference to the unbelieving naturalists, the opponents of prophecy ( nebuâh ); the fourth to the moralists, who threw all into confusion; and to this there is appended, by a very natural association of ideas, the woe denounced upon those whom want of humility rendered inaccessible to that wisdom which went hand in hand with prophecy, and the true foundation of which was the fear of Jehovah (Proverbs 1:7; Job 28:28; Ecclesiastes 12:13). “Be not wise in thine own eyes,” is a fundamental rule of this wisdom (Proverbs 3:7). It was upon this wisdom that that prophetic policy rested, whose warnings, as we read in Isaiah 28:9-10, they so scornfully rejected. The next woe, which has reference to the administration of justice in the state, shows very clearly that in this woe the prophet had more especially the want of theocratic wisdom in relation to the affairs of state in his mind.

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In the three exclamations in Isaiah 5:18-21, Jehovah rested contented with the simple undeveloped “woe” ( hoi ). On the other hand, the first two utterances respecting the covetous and the debauchees were expanded into an elaborate denunciation of punishment. But now that the prophet has come to the unjust judges, the denunciation of punishment bursts out with such violence, that a return to the simple exclamation of “woe” is not to be thought of. The two “therefores” in Isaiah 5:13, Isaiah 5:14, a third is now added in Isaiah 5:24: “Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours stubble, and hay sinks together in the flame, their root will become like mould, and their blossom fly up like dust; for they have despised the law of Jehovah of hosts, and scornfully rejected the proclamation of the Holy One of Israel.” The persons primarily intended as those described in Isaiah 5:22, Isaiah 5:23, but with a further extension of the range of vision to Judah and Jerusalem, the vineyard of which they are the bad fruit. The sinners are compared to a plant which moulders into dust both above and below, i.e., altogether (cf., Malachi 4:1, and the expression, “Let there be to him neither root below nor branch above,” in the inscription upon the sarcophagus of the Phoenician king Es'mun'azar). Their root moulders in the earth, and their blossom ( perach, as in Isaiah 18:5) turns to fine dust, which the wind carries away. And this change in root and blossom takes place suddenly, as if through the force of fire. In the expression Ce'ecol kash leshon 'ēsh (“as the tongue of fire devours stubble”), which consists of four short words with three sibilant letters, we hear, as it were, the hissing of the flame. When the infinitive construct is connected with both subject and object, the subject generally stands first, as in Isaiah 64:1; but here the object is placed first, as in Isaiah 20:1 (Ges. §133, 3; Ewald, §307). In the second clause, the infinitive construct passes over into the finite verb, just as in the similarly constructed passage in Isaiah 64:1. As yirpeh has the intransitive meaning Collabi , to sink together, or collapse; either lehâbâh must be an acc. loci, or Chashash lehâbâh the construct state, signifying flame-hay, i.e., hay destined to the flame, or ascending in flame.

(Note: In Arabic also, Chashı̄sh signifies hay; but in common usage (at least in Syriac) it is applied not to dried grass, but to green grass or barley: hence the expression yachush there is green fodder. Here, however, in Isaiah, Chashash is equivalent to Chashish yâbis , and this is its true etymological meaning (see the Lexicons). But kash is still used in Syro-Arabic, to signify not stubble, but wheat that has been cut and is not yet threshed; whereas the radical word itself signifies to be dry, and Châshash consequently is used for mown grass, and kash for the dry halm of wheat, whether as stubble left standing in the ground, or as straw (vid., Comm. on Job, at Job 39:13-18).)

As the reason for the sudden dissolution of the plantation of Judah, instead of certain definite sins being mentioned, the sin of all sins is given at once, namely, the rejection of the word of God with the heart ( m â'as ), and in word and deed ( ni'ēts ). The double 'ēth (with yethib immediately before pashta, as in eleven passages in all; see Heidenheim's Imspete hate'amim, p. 20) and v'êth (with tebir ) give prominence to the object; and the interchange of Jehovah of hosts with the Holy One of Israel makes the sin appear all the greater on account of the exaltation and holiness of God, who revealed Himself in this word, and indeed had manifested Himself to Israel as His own peculiar people. The prophet no sooner mentions the great sin of Judah, than the announcement of punishment receives, as it were, fresh fuel, and bursts out again.

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“Therefore is the wrath of Jehovah kindled against His people, and He stretches His hand over them, and smites them; then the hills tremble, and their carcases become like sweepings in the midst of the streets. For all this His anger is not appeased, and His hand is stretched out still.” We may see from these last words, which are repeated as a refrain in the cycle of prophecies relating to the time of Ahaz (Isaiah 9:11, Isaiah 9:16; Isaiah 10:4), that the prophet had before his mind a distinct and complete judgment upon Judah, belonging to the immediate future. It was certainly a coming judgment, not one already past; for the verbs after “therefore” ( ‛al - cên ), like those after the three previous lâcēn , are all prophetic preterites. It is impossible, therefore, to take the words “and the hills tremble” as referring to the earthquake in the time of Uzziah (Amos 1:1; Zechariah 14:5). This judgment, which was closer at hand, would consist in the fact that Jehovah would stretch out His hand in His wrath over His people (or, as it is expressed elsewhere, would swing His hand: Luther, “wave His hand,” i.e., move it to and fro; vid., Isaiah 11:15; Isaiah 19:16; Isaiah 30:30, Isaiah 30:32), and bring it down upon Judah with one stroke, the violence of which would be felt not only by men, but by surrounding nature as well. What kind of stroke this would be, was to be inferred from the circumstance that the corpses would lie unburied in the streets, like common street-sweepings. The reading תּצּות must be rejected. Early editors read the word much more correctly תּצּות ; Buxtorf (1618) even adopts the reading תוּצות , which has the Masoretic pointing in Numbers 22:39 in its favour. It is very natural to connect C assuchâh with the Arabic kusâcha (sweepings; see at Isaiah 33:12): but kusâc is the common form for waste or rubbish of this kind (e.g., kulâm , nail-cuttings), whereas Cassuach is a form which, like the forms fâōl (e.g., C hâmōts ) and fâūl (compare the Arabic fâsūs , a wind-maker, or wind-bag, i.e., a boaster), has always an intensive, active (e.g., C hannun ), or circumstantial signification (like shaccul ), but is never found in a passive sense. The Caph is consequently to be taken as a particle of comparison (followed, as is generally the case, with a definite article); and sūchâh is to be derived from sūach (= verrere , to sweep). The reference, therefore, is not to a pestilence (which is designated, as a stroke from God, not by hiccâh , but by nâgaph ), but to the slaughter of battle; and if we look at the other terrible judgment threatened in Isaiah 5:26., which was to proceed from the imperial power, there can be no doubt that the spirit of prophecy here points to the massacre that took place in Judah in connection with the Syro-Ephraimitish war (see 2 Chronicles 28:5-6). The mountains may then have trembled with the marching of troops, and the din of arms, and the felling of trees, and the shout of war. At any rate, nature had to participate in what men had brought upon themselves; for, according to the creative appointment of God, nature bears the same relation to man as the body to the soul. Every stroke of divine wrath which falls upon a nation equally affects the land which has grown up, as it were, with it; and in this sense the mountains of Judah trembled at the time referred to, even though the trembling was only discernible by initiated ears. But “for all this” ( Beth, = “notwithstanding,” “in spite of,” as in Job 1:22) the wrath of Jehovah, as the prophet foresaw, would not turn away, as it was accustomed to do when He was satisfied; and His hand would still remain stretched out over Judah, ready to strike again.

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Jehovah finds the human instruments of His further strokes, not in Israel and the neighbouring nations, but in the people of distant lands. “And lifts up a banner to the distant nations, and hisses to it from the end of the earth; and, behold, it comes with haste swiftly.” What the prophet here foretold began to be fulfilled in the time of Ahaz. But the prophecy, which commences with this verse, has every possible mark of the very opposite of a vaticinium post eventum . It is, strictly speaking, only what had already been threatened in Deuteronomy 28:49. (cf., Deuteronomy 32:21.), though here it assumes a more plastic form, and is here presented for the first time to the view of the prophet as though coming out of a mist. Jehovah summons the nations afar off: haggōyim m ērâchok signifies, as we have rendered it, the “distant nations,” for m ērâc is virtually an adjective both here and Isaiah 49:1, just as in Jeremiah 23:23 it is virtually a substantive. The visible working of Jehovah presents itself to the prophet in two figures. Jehovah plants a banner or standard, which, like an optical telegraph, announces to the nations at a more remote distance than the horn of battle ( shophâr ) could possibly reach, that they are to gather together to war. A “banner” ( nês ): i.e., a lofty staff with flying colours (Isaiah 33:23) planted upon a bare mountain-top (Isaiah 13:2). נשׂא alternates with הרי ם in this favourite figure of Isaiah. The nations through whom this was primarily fulfilled were the nations of the Assyrian empire. According to the Old Testament view, these nations were regarded as far off, and dwelling at the end of the earth (Isaiah 39:3), not only inasmuch as the Euphrates formed the boundary towards the north-east between what was geographically known and unknown to the Israelites (Psalms 72:8; Zechariah 9:10), but also inasmuch as the prophet had in his mind a complex body of nations stretching far away into further Asia. The second figure is taken from a bee-master, who entices the bees, by hissing or whistling, to come out of their hives and settle on the ground. Thus Virgil says to the bee-master who wants to make the bees settle, “Raise a ringing, and beat the cymbals of Cybele all around” ( Georgics, iv 54). Thus does Jehovah entice the hosts of nations like swarms of bees (Isaiah 7:18), and they swarm together with haste and swiftness. The plural changes into the singular, because those who are approaching have all the appearance at first of a compact and indivisible mass; it is also possible that the ruling nation among the many is singled out. The thought and expression are both misty, and this is perfectly characteristic. With the word “behold” ( hinnēh ) the prophet points to them; they are approaching m ehērâh kal, i.e., in the shortest time with swift feet, and the nearer they come to his view the more clearly he can describe them.

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“There is none exhausted, and none stumbling among them: it gives itself no slumber, and no sleep; and to none is the girdle of his hips loosed; and to none is the lace of his shoes broken.” Notwithstanding the long march, there is no exhausted one, obliged to separate himself and remain behind (Deuteronomy 25:18; Isaiah 14:31); no stumbling one ( Cōshēl ), for they march on, pressing incessantly forwards, as if along a well-made road (Jeremiah 31:9). They do not slumber ( nūm ), to say nothing of sleeping ( yâshēn ), so great is their eagerness for battle: i.e., they do not slumber to refresh themselves, and do not even allow themselves their ordinary night's rest. No one has the girdle of his armour-shirt or coat of mail, in which he stuck his sword (Nehemiah 4:18), at all loosened; nor has a single one even the shoe-string, with which his sandals were fastened, broken ( nittak, disrumpitur). The statement as to their want of rest forms a climax descendens; the other, as to the tightness and durability of their equipment, a climax ascendens: the two statements follow one another after the nature of a chiasmus.

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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 (Isaiah 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 Psalms 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 (Isaiah 66:15; Jeremiah 4:13). Nahum compares them to lightning (Isaiah 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.

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“Roaring issues from it as from the lioness: it roars like lions, and utters a low murmur; seizes the prey, carries it off, and no one rescues.” The futures, with the preceding לו שׁאגה which is equivalent to a future, hold each feature in the description fast, as if for prolonged contemplation. The lion roars when eager for prey; and such is now the war-cry of the bloodthirsty enemy, which the prophet compares to the roaring of a lion or of young lions ( Cephirim ) in the fulness of their strength. (The lion is described by its poetic name, לביא ; this does not exactly apply to the lioness, which would rather be designated by the term לביּה .) The roar is succeeded by a low growl ( nâham , fremere ), when a lion is preparing to fall upon its prey.

(Note: In Arabic, en - nehem is used to signify greediness (see Ali's Proverbs, No. 16).)

And so the prophet hears a low and ominous murmur in the army, which is now ready for battle. But he also sees immediately afterwards how the enemy seizes its booty and carries it irrecoverably away: literally, “how he causes it to escape,” i.e., not “lets it slip in cruel sport,” as Luzzatto interprets it, but carries it to a place of safety (Micah 6:14). The prey referred to is Judah. It also adds to the gloomy and mysterious character of the prophecy, that the prophet never mentions Judah. In the following v. also (Isaiah 5:30) the object is still suppressed, as if the prophet could not let it pass his lips.

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