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Verse 1. - TITLE OF THE WORK. It is questioned whether the title can be regarded as Isaiah's, or as properly belonging to the work, and it is suggested that it is rather a heading invented by a collector who brought together into a volume such prophecies of Isaiah as were known to him, the collection being a much smaller one than that which was made ultimately. In favor of this view it is urged

(1) that the prophecies, as we have them, do not all "concern Judah and Jerusalem;"

(2) that there is a mistake in the title, which Isaiah could not have made, none of the prophecies belonging to the reign of Uzziah. But it may be answered, that, in the scriptural sense, all and Jerusalem, prophecy "concerns Judah and Jerusalem," i.e. the people and city of God; and, further, that it is quite impossible to prove that no part of the "vision" was seen in the reign of Uzziah. There are no means of knowing whether Isaiah collected his prophecies into a volume himself or whether the collection was the work of others. In either case, the existing title must be regarded as designed for the entire work. All the earlier prophecies - those of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, and Zephaniah - have some title introducing them. Verse 1. - The vision (comp. Obadiah 1:1; Nahum 1:1). The term is probably used in a collective sense, but is also intended to suggest the intrinsic unity of the entire body of prophecies put forth by Isaiah. As prophets were originally called "seers" (1 Samuel 9:9), so prophecy was called "vision;" and this latter use continued long after the other (comp. 1 Chronicles 17:15; Ezekiel 12:27; Daniel 9:23; Obadiah 1:1, etc.). Isaiah the son of Amoz (comp. Isaiah 2:1; Isaiah 13:1; Isaiah 37:2; etc.; 2 Kings 20:1; 2 Chronicles 32:32). The signification of the name Isaiah is "the salvation of Jehovah." The name Amen (Amots) is not to be confused with Amos ('Amos), who seems to have been a contemporary (Amos 1:1). Concerning Judah and Jerusalem. The prophecies of Isaiah concern primarily the kingdom of Judah, not that of Israel. They embrace a vast variety of nations and countries (see especially Isaiah 13, 15. - 21, 23, 47.); but these nations and countries are spoken of "only because of the relation in which they stand to Judah and Jerusalem" (Kay), or at any rate to the people of God, symbolized under those names. Jerusalem occupies a prominent place in the prophecies (see Isaiah 1:8, 21; Isaiah 3:16-26; Isaiah 4:3-6; Isaiah 29. 1-8; 31:4-9, etc.). In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Uzziah (or Azariah, as he is sometimes called) reigned fifty-two years - probably from B.C. 811 to B.C. 759; Jotham sixteen years - from B.C. 759 to B.C. 743; Ahaz also sixteen years - from B.C. 743 to B.C. 727; and Hezekiah twenty-nine years - from B.C. 727 to B.C. 698. Isaiah probably prophesied only in the later years of Uzziah, say from B.C. 760; but as he certainly continued his prophetical career tin Sennacherib's invasion of Judaea (Isaiah 37:5), which was not earlier than B.C. 705, he must have exercised the prophet's office for at least fifty-six years. The lowest possible estimate of the duration of his ministry is forty-seven years - from the last year of Uzziah, B.C. 759, to the fourteenth of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:5). The highest known to us is sixty-four years - from the fourth year before Uzziah's death ( B.C. 762) to the last year of Hezekiah ( B.C. 698). (See 'Speaker's Commentary,' vol. 5. p. 5.)

Verses 2-6. - GOD'S COMPLAINT AGAINST HIS PEOPLE. The groundwork of Isaiah's entire prophecy is Judah's defection from God. God's people have sinned, done amiss, dealt wickedly. The hour of vengeance approaches. Punishment has begun, and will go on, continually increasing in severity. National repentance would avert God's judgments, but the nation will not repeat. God's vengeance will fall, and by it a remnant will be purified, and return to God, and be his true people. In the present section the indictment is laid. Judah's sins are called to her remembrance. Verse 2. - Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth. "A grave and magnificent exorilium! All nature is invoked to hear Jehovah make complaint of the ingratitude of his people" (Rosenmüller). The invocation is cast in the same form with that so common in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 4:26; 30:19; 31:28; 32:1), and seems to indicate familiarity with that book. The idea extends widely among sacred and other poets (see Psalm 1:3, 4; Micah 6:1, 2; Aesch., 'P. V.,' 11. 88-92). The Lord hath spoken; rather, the Lord (literally, Jehovah) speaketh (so Lowth, Cheyne, and Gesenius). The speech of Jehovah follows in vers. 2, 3. I have nourished and brought up children; literally, (my) sons I have made great and high; i.e. I have raised Israel to greatness and exalted him among the nations. Notwithstanding their disobedience, God still acknowledges them as his "sons." They have rebelled against me. The verb used is generally rendered in our version "transgressed" (see Jeremiah 3:13; Hosea 7:13; Amos 4:4); but it may also have the stronger sense here assigned it. Lowth translates, "revolted from me;" Gesenius, "fallen away from me;" Cheyne, "broken away from me."

Verse 3. - The ox... the ass. The ox and the ass are probably selected as the least intelligent of domesticated animals (so Jerome, Rosenmüller, and Gesenius). Yet even they recognize their owner or master. Jeremiah contrasts the brutish stupidity of Israel with the wise instinct of animals that have not been domesticated, as the stork, the turtle-dove, the crane, and the swallow (Jeremiah 8:7). Israel doth not know; i.e. does not acknowledge its Master and Owner, pays him no respect, does not recognize him as either Owner or Master. My people. Compare the formula, so frequent in Exodus, "Let my people go" (Exodus 7:16; 8:1, 20; 9:1, etc.). Israel was God's people by election (Genesis 15:13), by covenant (Exodus 19:5-8; Exodus 24:3-8), by pardoning grace (Exodus 33:12-17). Despite all their backslidings, he had not yet cast them off. They are still "his people" in Isaiah from first to last, standing in contrast with "the nations, "or "the Gentiles, "among whom they are to be "set as a sign" (Isaiah 66:19). Doth net consider. Gesenius translates, "doth not consider thereof;" Cheyne, "is without understanding." Bishop Lowth retains the words of the Authorized Version. The meaning would seem to be, "My people doth not consider me, cloth not reflect on my relation to them as Lord and Master."

Verse 4. - Ah sinful nation. These are the words of Isaiah, not of Jehovah. The prophet, having delivered God's message in vers. 2 and 3, proceeds to impress and enforce it on the people by remarks of his own. He begins with a lamentation over their wickedness and impenitence; "Ah sinful nation!" or "Alas for the sinful nation! "the nation called to be holy (Exodus 19:6; Leviticus 20:26, etc.), but sunk in sin and wickedness. How sad their condition! How almost hopeless! Laden with iniquity; literally, heavy with guilt. But our version well expresses the sense. As the psalmist says, "My sins have gone up over my head, and are like a sore burden, toe heavy for me to bear" (Psalm 38:4; cf. Matthew 11:28). A seed of evil-doers. Not descendants of evil-doors, but "an evil-doing seed, "or "race" (σπέρμα πονηρόν, LXX.; comp. Isaiah 14:20; Isaiah 61:9; Isaiah 65:23). Children that are corrupters; literally, sons that do corruptly. It is not their corrupting of others, though that might follow, but the corruption that was in themselves, which is spoken cf. The corruption was both moral and doctrinal (see ver. 21). In corroboration of the fact, see 2 Chronicles 27:2. They have forsaken the Lord. Not by renouncing his worship, which they still continued (see vers. 11-15), but by reducing it to a formality. The people "honored him with their lips, while their hearts were far from him" (Isaiah 29:13). They have provoked to anger; rather, despised (Revised Version), or scorched (Kay, Cheyne), or rejected with disdain (Lowth), in allusion to their disobeying his commandments (see vers. 21-23). The Holy One of Israel. This title of God is a favorite one with Isaiah (see Isaiah 5:19, 24; Isaiah 10:17, 20; Isaiah 12:6; Isaiah 17:7; Isaiah 29:19, 23; Isaiah 30:11, 12, 15; Isaiah 31:1; Isaiah 37:23; Isaiah 41:14, 16, 20; Isaiah 43:3, 14; Isaiah 45:11; Isaiah 49:7; Isaiah 54:5; Isaiah 55:5; Isaiah 60:9, 14), and is very rarely used by the other sacred writers. We find it thrice in the Psalms (Psalm 71:22; Psalm 78:41; Psalm 89:18); once in Kings (2 Kings 19:22), but then in the mouth of Isaiah; twice in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:29; 51:5); and once in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 39:7). According to Isaiah's conception of God, holiness is the most essential element of his nature (see Isaiah 6:3, 5, 7). They are gone away backward; literally, they are estranged backwards; or, as Bishop Lowth paraphrases, "they are estranged from him; they have turned their back upon him." Instead of looking to God, and following after him, they "followed a multitude to do evil (Exodus 23:2)."

Verse 5. - Why should ye, etc.? Translate, Why will ye be still smitten, revolting more and more? or, Why will ye persist in re-hellion, and so be smitten yet more? The Authorized Version does not express the sense, which is that suffering must follow sin - that if they still revolt, they must still be smitten for it - why, then, will they do so? Compare Ezekiel's "Why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 18:31). The whole head... the whole heart. Mr. Cheyne translates, "Every head... every heart;" but Lowth, Gesenius, and Ewald agree with the Authorized Version. The prophet personifies Israel, and means to say that the whole head of the nation is diseased, its whole heart faint, or "prostrate with languor" (Kay). The head and heart represent respectively the intellectual and moral natures.

Verse 6. - From the sole of the foot even unto the head (comp. Job 2:7). From top to bottom, the body corporate is diseased throughout - there is no soundness in it (cf. Psalm 38:3, 7) - all is one wound, one livid bruise, one festering sore. Note the use of the singular number in the original. They have not been closed; literally, they have not been pressed; which is explained to mean (Aben Ezra, Kay) that they have not had the matter formed by suppuration pressed out of them. Neither bound up; i.e. not bandaged, Neither mollified with ointment; rather, with oil. On the treatment of wounds and ulcers with oil m ancient times, see 'Hippocrat., De Ulceri. bus,' § 4; Galen., 'De Compos. Medic.,' § 2; and comp. Luke 10:34. Recent medical science has revived the practice, and wounds of all kinds are now frequently treated with nothing but carbolic oil. The general sentiment of the entire passage is that there has been no medical treatment of the wounds of any kind; they have been left to themselves, to spread corruption over the whole body - no attempt has been made to cure them.

Verse 7. - Your country is desolate. Metaphor is now dropped, and the prophet describes in strong but simple language the judgments of God, which have already followed the sins of the nation. First of all, their land is "a desolation." It has been recently ravaged by an enemy; the towns have been burnt, the crops devoured. There is nothing to determine who the enemy had been. Knobel supposes the Edomites and Philistines, who invaded Judaea in the time of Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28:17, 18), to be intended; Rosenmüller suggests the Israelites under Amaziah (2 Chronicles 25:21-24); while Mr. Cheyne supposes the devastation to have been wrought by the Assyrians under Sargon. If we could be assured that the prophecies of Isaiah are arranged in chronological order, we should either have to accept Rosenmüller's view, or to suppose some invasion of Judaea to have taken place in the later years of Uzziah of which no mention is made by the authors of Kings and Chronicles; but it is impossible to be certain on what principle Isaiah's prophecies are arranged. The mention of "strangers" is in favor of the enemy having been actual foreigners, and therefore not the Israelites. Your cities are burned with fire. The common fate of cities taken in war. In the Assyrian sculptures we often see the torch applied to them. Your land. Mr. Cheyne translates, "your tillage." Adamah means "soil" or "ground" generally; but here no doubt denotes the ground which bore crops. Strangers devour it; i.e. "foreigners" others than the sons of the soil - not necessarily persons of a different race, but still probably such persons. In your presence; before your eyes, as you look on - an aggravation of the affliction. It is desolate, as overthrown by strangers; literally, it is a desolation, like an overthrow by strangers. The near approach to repetition displeases moderns, who conjecture

(1) that zarim, strangers, has another meaning, and should be here translated by "inundation" or "deluge" (Aben Ezra, Michaelis, Lowth); or

(2) that it is a wrong reading, and should Be altered into sodim, a word not very different (Ewald, Cheyne). But "the return to words whose sounds are yet lingering in the ear" is characteristic of ancient writing, and a favorite practice of Isaiah's (Kay). The translation of the Authorized Version may therefore stand.

Verse 8. - The daughter of Zion. Not "the faithful Church" (Kay), but the city of Jerusalem, which is thus personified. Comp. Isaiah 47:1, 5, where Babylon is called the "daughter of the Chaldeans;" and Lamentations 1:6; Lamentations 2:1, 4, 8, 10, where the phrase here used is repeated in the same sense. More commonly it designates the people without the city (Lamentations 2:13; Lamentations 4:22; Micah 3:8, 10, 13; Zephaniah 3:14; Zechariah 2:10; Zechariah 9:9, etc.). As a cottage; rather, as a booth (Revised Version; see Leviticus 23:42). Vineyards required to be watched for a few weeks only as the fruit began to ripen; and the watchers, or keepers, built themselves, therefore, mere "booths" for their protection (Job 27:18). These were frail, solitary dwellings - very forlorn, very helpless. Such was now Jerusalem. As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. Cucumber-gardens required watching throughout the season, i.e. from spring to autumn, and their watcher needed a more solid edifice than a booth. Hence such gardens had "lodges" in them, i.e. permanent huts or sheds, such as those still seen in Palestine (Tristram's 'Natural History of Palestine,' p. 442). As a besieged city. Though not yet besieged, Jerusalem is as if besieged - isolated, surrounded by waste tracts, threatened.