Chú giải Kinh Thánh

Title of the collection, as given in Isaiah 1:1: “Seeing of Jesha'-yahu, son of Amoz, which he saw over Judah and Jerusalem in the days of 'Uzziyahu, Jotham, Ahaz, and Yehizkiyahu, the kings of Judah.” Isaiah is called the “son of Amoz.” There is no force in the old Jewish doctrine ( b. Megilla 15 a), which was known to the fathers, that whenever the name of a prophet's father is given, it is a proof that the father was also a prophet. And we are just as incredulous about another old tradition, to the effect that Amoz was the brother of Amaziah, the father and predecessor of Uzziah ( b. Sota 10 b). There is some significance in this tradition, however, even if it is not true. There is something royal in the nature and bearing of Isaiah throughout. He speaks to kings as if he himself were a king. He confronts with majesty the magnates of the nation and of the imperial power. In his peculiar style, he occupies the same place among the prophets as Solomon among the kings. Under all circumstances, and in whatever state of mind, he is completely master of his materials - simple, yet majestic in his style - elevated, yet without affectation - and beautiful, though unadorned. But this regal character had its roots somewhere else than in the blood. All that can be affirmed with certainty is, that Isaiah was a native of Jerusalem; for notwithstanding his manifold prophetic missions, we never find him outside Jerusalem. There he lived with his wife and children, and, as we may infer from Isaiah 22:1, and the mode of his intercourse with king Hezekiah, down in the lower city. And there he laboured under the four kings named in Isaiah 1:1, viz., Uzziah (who reigned 52 years, 811-759), Jotham (16 years, 759-743), Ahaz (16 years, 743-728), and Hezekiah (29 years, 728-699). The four kings are enumerated without a Vav cop .; there is the same asyndeton enumerativum as in the titles to the books of Hosea and Micah. Hezekiah is there called Yehizkiyah , the form being almost the same as ours, with the simple elision of the concluding sound. The chronicler evidently preferred the fullest form, at the commencement as well as the termination. Roorda imagines that the chronicler derived this ill-shaped form from the three titles, were it is a copyist's error for וחזקיּהוּ or וחזקיּה ; but the estimable grammarian has overlooked the fact that the same form is found in Jeremiah 15:4 and 2 Kings 20:10, where no such error of the pen can have occurred. Moreover, it is not an ill-shaped form, if, instead of deriving it from the piel, as Roorda does, we derive it from the kal of the verb “strong is Jehovah,” an imperfect noun with a connecting i, which is frequently met with in proper names from verbal roots, such as Jesimiël from sim , 1 Chronicles 4:36: vid., Olshausen, §277, p. 621). Under these four kings Isaiah laboured, or, as it is expressed in Isaiah 1:1, saw the sight which is committed to writing in the book before us.

Of all the many Hebrew synonyms for seeing, חזה (cf., Cernere , κρίνειν , and the Sanscrit and Persian kar , which is founded upon the radical notion of cutting and separating) is the standing general expression used to denote prophetic perception, whether the form in which the divine revelation was made to the prophet was in vision or by word. In either case he saw it, because he distinguished this divine revelation from his own conceptions and thoughts by means of that inner sense, which is designated by the name of the noblest of all the five external senses. From this verb Chazah there came both the abstract Chazon , seeing, and the more concrete C hizzayon , a sight ( visum ), which is a stronger from of C hizyon (from C hazi = C hazah ). The noun C hazon is indeed used to denote a particular sight (comp. Isaiah 29:7 with Job 20:8; Job 33:15), inasmuch as it consists in seeing ( visio ); but here in the title of the book of Isaiah the abstract meaning passes over into the collective idea of the sight or vision in all its extent, i.e., the sum and substance of all that was seen. It is a great mistake, therefore, for any one to argue from the use of the word Chazon (vision), that Isaiah 1:1 was originally nothing more than the heading to the first prophecy, and that it was only by the addition of Isaiah 1:1 that it received the stamp of a general title to the whole book. There is no force in the argument. Moreover, the chronicler knew the book of Isaiah by this title (2 Chronicles 32:32); and the titles of other books of prophecy, such as Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah, are very similar. A more plausible argument in favour of the twofold origin of Isaiah 1:1 has been lately repeated by Schegg and Meier, namely, that whilst “Judah and Jerusalem” are appropriate enough as defining the object of the first prophecy, the range is too limited to apply to all the prophecies that follow; since their object is not merely Judah, including Jerusalem, but they are also directed against foreign nations, and at chapter 7 the king of Israel, including Samaria, also comes within the horizon of the prophet's vision. And in the title to the book of Micah, both kingdoms are distinctly named. But it was necessary there, inasmuch as Micah commences at once with the approaching overthrow of Samaria. Here the designation is a central one. Even, according to the well-known maxims a potiori , and a proximo , fit denominatio , it would not be unsuitable; but Judah and Jerusalem are really and essentially the sole object of the prophet's vision. For within the largest circle of the imperial powers there lies the smaller one of the neighbouring nations; and in this again, the still more limited one of all Israel, including Samaria; and within this the still smaller one of the kingdom of Judah. And all these circles together form the circumference of Jerusalem, since the entire history of the world, so far as its inmost pragmatism and its ultimate goal were concerned, was the history of the church of God, which had for its peculiar site the city of the temple of Jehovah, and of the kingdom of promise. The expression “concerning Judah and Jerusalem” is therefore perfectly applicable to the whole book, in which all that the prophet sees is seen from Judah - Jerusalem as a centre, and seen for the sake and in the interests of both. The title in Isaiah 1:1 may pass without hesitation as the heading written by the prophet's own hand. This is admitted not only by Caspari ( Micah, pp. 90-93), but also by Hitzig and Knobel. But if Isaiah 1:1 contains the title to the whole book, where is the heading to the first prophecy? Are we to take אשׁר as a nominative instead of an accusative ( qui instead of quam , sc. visionem ), as Luzzatto does? This is a very easy way of escaping from the difficulty, and stamping Isaiah 1:1 as the heading to the first prophetic words in Chapter 1; but it is unnatural, as חזון אשׁר חזה , according to Ges. (§138, note 1), is the customary form in Hebrew of connecting the verb with its own substantive. The real answer is simple enough. The first prophetic address is left intentionally without a heading, just because it is the prologue to all the rest; and the second prophetic address has a heading in Isaiah 2:1, although it really does not need one, for the purpose of bringing out more sharply the true character of the first as the prologue to the whole.

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The difficult question as to the historical and chronological standpoint of this overture to all the following addresses, can only be brought fully out when the exposition is concluded. But there is one thing which we may learn even from a cursory inspection: namely, that the prophet was standing at the eventful boundary line between two distinct halves in the history of Israel. The people had not been brought to reflection and repentance either by the riches of the divine goodness, which they had enjoyed in the time of Uzziah-Jotham, the copy of the times of David and Solomon, or by the chastisements of divine wrath, by which wound after wound was inflicted. The divine methods of education were exhausted, and all that now remained for Jehovah to do was to let the nation in its existing state be dissolved in fire, and to create a new one from the remnant of gold that stood the fiery test. At this time, so pregnant with storms, the prophets were more active than at any other period. Amos appeared about the tenth year of Uzziah's reign, the twenty-fifth of Jeroboam II; Micah prophesied from the time of Jotham till the fall of Samaria, in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign; but most prominent of all was Isaiah, the prophet par excellence, standing as he did midway between Moses and Christ.

In the consciousness of his exalted position in relation to the history of salvation, he commences his opening address in Deuteronomic style. Modern critics are of opinion, indeed, that Deuteronomy was not composed till the time of Josiah, or at any rate not earlier than Manasseh; and even Kahnis adduces this as a firmly established fact (see his Dogmatik, i. 277). But if this be the case, how comes it to pass, not only that Micah (Micah 6:8) points back to a saying in Deuteronomy 10:12, but that all the post-Mosaic prophecy, even the very earliest of all, is tinged with a Deuteronomic colouring. This surely confirms the self-attestation of the authorship of Moses, which is declared most distinctly in Isaiah 31:9. Deuteronomy was most peculiarly Moses' own law-book - his last will, as it were: it was also the oldest national book of Israel, and therefore the basis of all intercourse between the prophets and the nation. There is one portion of this peculiarly Mosaic thorah, however, which stands not only in a more truly primary relation to the prophecy of succeeding ages than any of the rest, but in a normative relation also. We refer to Moses' dying song, which has recently been expounded by Volck and Camphausen, and is called shirath hâzinu (song of “Give ear”), from the opening words in chapter 32. This song is a compendious outline or draft, and also the common key to all prophecy, and bears the same fundamental relation to it as the Decalogue to all other laws, and the Lord's Prayer to all other prayers. The lawgiver summed up the whole of the prophetic contents of his last words (Deut. 27-28, 29-30), and threw them into the form of a song, that they might be perpetuated in the memories and mouths of the people. This song sets before the nation its entire history to the end of time. That history divides itself into four great periods: the creation and rise of Israel; the ingratitude and apostasy of Israel; the consequent surrender of Israel to the power of the heathen; and finally, the restoration of Israel, sifted, but not destroyed, and the unanimity of all nations in the praise of Jehovah, who reveals Himself both in judgment and in mercy. This fourfold character is not only verified in every part of the history of Israel, but is also the seal of that history as a whole, even to its remotest end in New Testament times. In every age, therefore, this song has presented to Israel a mirror of its existing condition and future fate. And it was the task of the prophets to hold up this mirror to the people of their own times. This is what Isaiah does. He begins his prophetic address in the same form in which Moses begins his song. The opening words of Moses are: “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth” (Deuteronomy 32:1). In what sense he invoked the heaven and the earth, he tells us himself in Deuteronomy 31:28-29. He foresaw in spirit the future apostasy of Israel, and called heaven and earth, which would outlive his earthly life, that was now drawing to a close, as witnesses of what he had to say to his people, with such a prospect before them. Isaiah commences in the same way (Isaiah 1:2), simply transposing the two parallel verbs “hear” and “give ear:” “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah speaketh!” The reason for the appeal is couched in very general terms: they were to hear, because Jehovah was speaking. What Jehovah said coincided essentially with the words of Jehovah, which are introduced in Deuteronomy 32:20 with the expression “And He said.” What it was stated there that Jehovah would one day have to say in His wrath, He now said through the prophet, whose existing present corresponded to the coming future of the Mosaic ode. The time had now arrived for heaven and earth, which are always existing, and always the same, and which had accompanied Israel's history thus far in all places and at all times, to fulfil their duty as witnesses, according to the word of the lawgiver. And this was just the special, true, and ultimate sense in which they were called upon by the prophet, as they had previously been by Moses, to “hear.” They had been present, and had taken part, when Jehovah gave the thorah to His people: the heavens, according to Deuteronomy 4:36, as the place from which the voice of God came forth; and the earth, as the scene of His great fire. They were solemnly invoked when Jehovah gave His people the choice between blessing and cursing, life and death (Deuteronomy 30:19; Deuteronomy 4:26).

And so now they are called upon to hear and join in bearing witness to all that Jehovah, their Creator, and the God of Israel, had to say, and the complaints that He had to make: “I have brought up children, and raised them high, and they have fallen away from me” (Isaiah 1:2). Israel is referred to; but Israel is not specially named. On the contrary, the historical facts are generalized almost into a parable, in order that the appalling condition of things which is crying to heaven may be made all the more apparent. Israel was Jehovah's son (Exodus 4:22-23). All the members of the nation were His children (Deuteronomy 14:1; Deuteronomy 32:20). Jehovah was Israel's father, by whom it had been begotten (Deuteronomy 32:6, Deuteronomy 32:18). The existence of Israel as a nation was secured indeed, like that of all other nations, by natural reproduction, and not by spiritual regeneration. But the primary ground of Israel's origin was the supernatural and mighty word of promise given to Abraham, in Genesis 17:15-16; and it was by a series of manifestations of miraculous power and displays of divine grace, that the development of Israel, which dated from that starting-point, was brought up to the position it had reached at the time of the exodus from Egypt. It was in this sense that Israel had been begotten by Jehovah. And this relation between Jehovah and Israel, as His children, had now, at the time when Jehovah was speaking through the mouth of Isaiah, a long and gracious past behind it, viz., the period of Israel's childhood in Egypt; the period of its youth in the desert; and a period of growing manhood from Joshua to Samuel: so that Jehovah could say, “I have brought up children, and raised them high.” The piel ( giddel ) used here signifies “to make great;” and when applied to children, as it is here and in other passages, such as 2 Kings 10:6, it means to bring up, to make great, so far as natural growth is concerned. The pilel ( romem ), which corresponds to the piel in the so-called verbis cavis , and which is also used in Isaiah 23:4 and Ezekiel 31:4 as the parallel to giddel , signifies to lift up, and is used in a “dignified (dignitative) sense,” with reference to the position of eminence, to which, step by step, a wise and loving father advances a child. The two vv. depict the state of Israel in the times of David and Solomon, as one of mature manhood and proud exaltation, which had to a certain extent returned under Uzziah and Jotham. But how base had been the return which it had made for all that it had received from God: “And they have fallen away from me.” We should have expected an adversative particle here; but instead of that, we have merely a Vav cop. , which is used energetically, as in Isaiah 6:7 (cf., Hosea 7:13). Two things which ought never to be coupled - Israel's filial relation to Jehovah, and Israel's base rebellion against Jehovah - had been realized in their most contradictory forms. The radical meaning of the verb is to break away, or break loose; and the object against which the act is directed is construed with Beth. The idea is that of dissolving connection with a person with violence and self-will; here it relates to that inward severance from God, and renunciation of Him, which preceded all outward acts of sin, and which not only had idolatry for its full and outward manifestation, but was truly idolatry in all its forms. From the time that Solomon gave himself up to the worship of idols, at the close of his reign, down to the days of Isaiah, idolatry had never entirely or permanently ceased to exist, even in public. In two different reformations the attempt had been made to suppress it, viz., in the one commenced by Asa and concluded by Jehoshaphat; and in the one carried out by Joash, during the lifetime of the high priest Jehoiada, his tutor and deliverer. But the first was not successful in suppressing it altogether; and what Joash removed, returned with double abominations as soon as Jehoiada was dead. Consequently the words, “They have rebelled against me,” which sum up all the ingratitude of Israel in one word, and trace it to its root, apply to the whole history of Israel, from its culminating point under David and Solomon, down to the prophet's own time.

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Jehovah then complains that the rebellion with which His children have rewarded Him is not only inhuman, but even worse than that of the brutes: “An ox knoweth its owner, and an ass its master's crib: Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” An ox has a certain knowledge of its buyer and owner, to whom it willingly submits; and an ass has at least a knowledge of the crib of its master (the noun for “master” is in the plural: this is not to be understood in a numerical, but in an amplifying sense, “the authority over it,” as in Exodus 21:29: vid., Ges. §108, 2, b, and Dietrich's Heb. Gram. p. 45), i.e., it knows that it is its master who fills its crib or manger with fodder ( evus , the crib, from avas , to feed, is radically associated with φάτνη , vulgar πάτνη , Dor. and Lac. πάτνη , and is applied in the Talmud to the large common porringer used by labourers).

(Note: Nedarim iv 4 jer. Demai viii. The stable is called repheth Even in jer. Shebuoth viii. 1, where cattle are spoken of as standing b'evus , the word signifies a crib or manger, not a stable. Luzzatto tries to prove that evus signifies a threshing-floor, and indeed an enclosed place, in distinction from geren ; but he is mistaken.)

Israel had no such knowledge, neither instinctive and direct, nor acquired by reflection ( hithbonan , the reflective conjugation, with a pausal change of the e4 into a long a, according to Ges. §54, note). The expressions “doth not know” and “doth not consider” must not be taken here in an objectless sense - as, for example, in Isaiah 56:10 and Psalms 82:5 -viz. as signifying they were destitute of all knowledge and reflection; but the object is to be supplied from what goes before: they knew not, and did not consider what answered in their case to the owner and to the crib which the master fills,” - namely, that they were the children and possession of Jehovah, and that their existence and prosperity were dependent upon the grace of Jehovah alone. The parallel, with its striking contrasts, is self-drawn, like that in Jeremiah 8:7, where animals are referred to again, and is clearly indicated in the words “Israel” and “my people.” Those who were so far surpassed in knowledge and perception even by animals, and so thoroughly put to shame by them, were not merely a nation, like any other nation on the earth, but were “Israel,” descendants of Jacob, the wrestler with God, who wrestled down the wrath of God, and wrestled out a blessing for himself and his descendants; and “my people,” the nation which Jehovah had chosen out of all other nations to be the nation of His possession, and His own peculiar government. This nation, bearing as it did the God-given title of a hero of faith and prayer, this favourite nation of Jehovah, had let itself down far below the level of the brutes. This is the complaint which the exalted speaker pours out in Isaiah 1:2 and Isaiah 1:3 before heaven and earth. The words of God, together with the introduction, consist of two tetrastichs, the measure and rhythm of which are determined by the meaning of the words and the emotion of the speaker. There is nothing strained in it at all. Prophecy lives and moves amidst the thoughts of God, which prevail above the evil reality: and for that very reason, as a reflection of the glory of God, which is the ideal of beauty (Psalms 50:1), it is through and through poetical. That of Isaiah is especially so. There was no art of oratory practised in Israel, which Isaiah did not master, and which did not serve as the vehicle of the word of God, after it had taken shape in the prophet's mind.

With Isaiah 1:4 there commences a totally different rhythm. The words of Jehovah are ended. The piercing lamentation of the deeply grieved Father is also the severest accusation. The cause of God, however, is to the prophet the cause of a friend, who feels an injury done to his friend quite as much as if it were done to himself (Isaiah 5:1). The lamentation of God, therefore, is changed now into violent scolding and threatening on the part of the prophet; and in accordance with the deep wrathful pain with which he is moved, his words pour out with violent rapidity, like flash after flash, in climactic clauses having no outward connection, and each consisting of only two or three words.

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“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 , Exodus 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” (Numbers 17:6, Eng. ver. Numbers 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., Isaiah 33:24; Genesis 15:16; Genesis 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 ע ם (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, Psalms 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 (Zephaniah 2:9; Psalms 106:5).

(3.) Israel bore elsewhere the honourable title of the seed of the patriarch (Isaiah 41:8; Isaiah 45:19; cf., Genesis 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 Isaiah 65:23 (cf., Isaiah 61:9; Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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 (Isaiah 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 (Deuteronomy 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 (Deuteronomy 4:16, Deuteronomy 4:25; Deuteronomy 31:29). In all these passages we find the hiphil, and in the parallel passage of the great song (Deuteronomy 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 Isaiah 1:2, that the term children is to be understood as indicating their relation to Jehovah (cf., Isaiah 30:1, Isaiah 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 (Deuteronomy 31:20; Numbers 14:11, Numbers 14:23; Numbers 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 Isaiah 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 (Leviticus 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.

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In this v. a disputed question arises as to the words על־מה ( מה , the shorter, sharper form of מה , which is common even before non-gutturals, Ges. §32, 1): viz., whether they mean “wherefore,” as the lxx, Targums, Vulgate, and most of the early versions render them, or “upon what,” i.e., upon which part of the body, as others, including Schröring, suppose. Luzzatto maintains that the latter rendering is spiritless, more especially because there is nothing in the fact that a limb has been struck already to prevent its being struck again; but such objections as these can only arise in connection with a purely literal interpretation of the passage. If we adopted this rendering, the real meaning would be, that there was no judgment whatever that had not already fallen upon Israel on account of its apostasy, so that it was not far from utter destruction. We agree, however, with Caspari in deciding in favour of the meaning “to what” (to what end). For in all the other passage in which the expression occurs (fourteen times in all), it is used in this sense, and once even with the verb hiccâh , to smite (Numbers 22:32), whilst it is only in Isaiah 1:6 that the idea of the people as one body is introduced; whereas the question “upon what” would require that the reader or hearer should presuppose it here. But in adopting the rendering “whereto,” or to what end, we do not understand it, as Malbim does, in the sense of Cui bono , with the underlying thought, “It would be ineffectual, as all the previous smiting has proved;” for this thought never comes out in a direct expression, as we should expect, but rather - according to the analogy of the questions with lamah in Ezekiel 18:31; Jeremiah 44:7 -in the sense of qua de causa , with the underlying thought, “There would be only an infatuated pleasure in your own destruction.”

Isaiah 1:5 we therefore render thus: “Why would ye be perpetually smitten, multiplying rebellion?” עוד (with tiphchah, a stronger disjunctive than tebir ) belongs to תּכּוּ ; see the same form of accentuation in Ezekiel 19:9. They are not two distinct interrogative clauses (“why would ye be smitten afresh? why do ye add revolt?” (Luzzatto), but the second clause is subordinate to the first (without there being any necessity to supply C hi , “because,” as Gesenius supposes), an adverbial minor clause defining the main clause more precisely; at all events this is the logical connection, as in Isaiah 5:11 (cf., Psalms 62:4, “delighting in lies,” and Psalms 4:3, “loving vanity”): lxx “adding iniquity.” Sârâh (rebellion) is a deviation from truth and rectitude; and here, as in many other instances, it denotes apostasy from Jehovah, who is the absolutely Good, and absolute goodness. There is a still further dispute whether the next words should be rendered “every head” and “every heart,” or “the whole head” and “the whole heart.” In prose the latter would be impossible, as the two nouns are written without the article; but in the poetic style of the prophets the article may be omitted after Col , when used in the sense of “the whole” (e.g., Isaiah 9:12: with whole mouth, i.e., with full mouth). Nevertheless Col , without the article following, never signifies “the whole” when it occurs several times in succession, as in Isaiah 15:2 and Ezekiel 7:17-18. We must therefore render Isaiah 1:5, “Every head is diseased, and every heart is sick.” The Lamed in locholi indicates the state into which a thing has come: every head in a state of disease (Ewald, §217, d: locholi without the article, as in 2 Chronicles 21:18). The prophet asks his fellow-countrymen why they are so foolish as to heap apostasy upon apostasy, and so continue to call down the judgments of God, which have already fallen upon them blow after blow. Has it reached such a height with them, that among all the many heads and hearts there is not one head which is not in a diseased state, not one heart which is not thoroughly ill? ( davvai an emphatic form of daveh ). Head and heart are mentioned as the noblest parts of the outer and inner man. Outwardly and inwardly every individual in the nation had already been smitten by the wrath of God, so that they had had enough, and might have been brought to reflection.

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This description of the total misery of every individual in the nation is followed by a representation of the whole nation as one miserably diseased body. “From the some of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it: cuts, and stripes, and festering wounds; they have not been pressed out, nor bound up, nor has there been any soothing with oil.” The body of the nation, to which the expression “in it” applies (i.e., the nation as a whole), was covered with wounds of different kinds; and no means whatever had been applied to heal these many, various wounds, which lay all together, close to one another, and one upon the other, covering the whole body. Cuts (from פּצע to cut) are wounds that have cut into the flesh - sword-cuts, for example. These need binding up, in order that the gaping wound may close again. Stripes ( C habburâh , from C hâbar , to stripe), swollen stripes, or weals, as if from a cut with a whip, or a blow with a fist: these require softening with oil, that the coagulated blood of swelling may disperse. Festering wounds, m accâh teriyâh , from târâh , to be fresh (a different word from the talmudic word t're , Chullin 45 b, to thrust violently, so as to shake): these need pressing, for the purpose of cleansing them, so as to facilitate their healing. Thus the three predicates manifest an approximation to a chiasm (the crossing of the members); but this retrospective relation is not thoroughly carried out. The predicates are written in the plural, on account of the collective subject. The clause ולא רּכּכה בּשּׁמן , which refers to חבורה (stripes), so far as the sense is concerned (olive-oil, like all oleosa, being a dispersing medium), is to be taken as neuter, since this is the only way of explaining the change in the number: “And no softening has been effected with oil.” Zoru we might suppose to be a pual, especially on account of the other puals near: it is not so, however, for the simple reason that, according to the accentuation (viz., with two pashtahs , the first of which gives the tone, as in tohu , Genesis 1:2, so that it must be pronounced zóru ), it has the tone upon the penultimate, for which it would be impossible to discover any reason, if it were derived from zârâh . For the assumption that the tone is drawn back to prepare the way for the strong tone of the next verb ( C hubbâshu ) is arbitrary, as the influence of the pause, though it sometimes reaches the last word but one, never extends to the last but two. Moreover, according to the usage of speech, zorâh signifies to be dispersed, not to be pressed out; whereas zur and zârar are commonly used in the sense of pressing together and squeezing out. Consequently zoru is either the kal of an intransitive zor in the middle voice (like boshu ), or, what is more probable - as zoru , the middle voice in Psalms 58:4, has a different meaning ( abalienati sunt : cf., Isaiah 1:4) - the kal of zârar (= Arab. Constringere ), which is here conjugated as an intransitive (cf., Job 24:24, rommu , and Genesis 49:23, where robbu is used in an active sense). The surgical treatment so needed by the nation was a figurative representation of the pastoral addresses of the prophets, which had been delivered indeed, but, inasmuch as their salutary effects were dependent upon the penitential sorrow of the people, might as well have never been delivered at all. The people had despised the merciful, compassionate kindness of their God. They had no liking for the radical cure which the prophets had offered to effect. All the more pitiable, therefore, was the condition of the body, which was sick within, and diseased from head to foot. The prophet is speaking here of the existing state of things. He affirms that it is all over with the nation; and this is the ground and object of his reproachful lamentations. Consequently, when he passes in the next v. from figurative language to literal, we may presume that he is still speaking of his own times. It is Isaiah's custom to act in this manner as his own expositor (compare Isaiah 1:22 with Isaiah 1:23). The body thus inwardly and outwardly diseased, was, strictly speaking, the people and the land in their fearful condition at that time.

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This is described more particularly in Isaiah 1:7, which commences with the most general view, and returns to it again at the close. ”Your land ... a desert; your cities ... burned with fire; your field ... foreigners consuming it before your eyes, and a desert like overthrowing by strangers.” Caspari has pointed out, in his Introduction to the Book of Isaiah, how nearly every word corresponds to the curses threatened in Lev 26 and Deut 28 (29); Micah 6:13-16 and Jeremiah 5:15. stand in the very same relation to these sections of the Pentateuch. From the time of Isaiah downwards, the state of Israel was a perfect realization of the curses of the law. The prophet intentionally employs the words of the law to describe his own times; he designates the enemy, who devastated the land, reduced its towers to ashes, and took possession of its crops, by the simple term zarim , foreigners or barbarians (a word which would have the very same meaning if it were really the reduplication of the Aramaean bar ; compare the Syriac barōye , a foreigner), without mentioning their particular nationality. He abstracts himself from the definite historical present, in order that he may point out all the more emphatically how thoroughly it bears the character of the fore-ordained curse. The most emphatic indication of this was to be found in the fact, which the clause at the close of Isaiah 1:7 palindromically affirms, that a desolation had been brought about “like the overthrow of foreigners.” The repetition of a catchword like zarim (foreigners) at the close of the v. in this emphatic manner, is a figure of speech, called epanaphora , peculiar to the two halves of our collection. The question arises, however, whether zarim is to be regarded as the genitive of the subject, as Caspari, Knobel, and others suppose, “such an overthrow as is commonly produced by barbarians” (cf., 2 Samuel 10:3, where the verb occurs), or as the genitive of the object, “such an overthrow as comes upon barbarians.” As mahpechâh (overthrow) is used in other places in which it occurs to denote the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, etc., according to the primary passage, Deuteronomy 29:22, and Isaiah had evidently also this catastrophe in his mind, as Isaiah 1:8 clearly shows; we decide in favour of the conclusion that zârim is the genitive of the object (cf., Amos 4:11). The force of the comparison is also more obvious, if we understand the words in this sense. The desolation which had fallen upon the land of the people of God resembled that thorough desolation ( subversio ) with which God visited the nations outside the covenant, who, like the people of the Pentapolis, were swept from off the earth without leaving a trace behind. But although there was similarity, there was not sameness, as Isaiah 1:8, Isaiah 1:9 distinctly affirm. Jerusalem itself was still preserved; but in how pitiable a condition! There can be no doubt that bath - Zion (“daughter of Zion,” Eng. ver.) in Isaiah 1:8 signifies Jerusalem. The genitive in this case is a genitive of apposition: “daughter Zion,” not “daughter of Zion” (cf., Isaiah 37:22: see Ges. §116, 5). Zion itself is represented as a daughter, i.e., as a woman. The expression applied primarily to the community dwelling around the fortress of Zion, to which the individual inhabitants stood in the same relation as children to a mother, inasmuch as the community sees its members for the time being come into existence and grow: they are born within her, and, as it were, born and brought up by her. It was then applied secondarily to the city itself, with or without the inhabitants (cf., Jeremiah 46:19; Jeremiah 48:18; Zechariah 2:11). In this instance the latter are included, as Isaiah 1:9 clearly shows. This is precisely the point in the first two comparisons.

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“And the daughter of Zion remains lie a hut in a vineyard; like a hammock in a cucumber field.” The vineyard and cucumber field ( mikshah , from kisshu , a cucumber, Cucumis , not a gourd, Cucurbita ; at least not the true round gourd, whose Hebrew name, dalâth , does not occur in the Old Testament) are pictured by the prophet in their condition before the harvest (not after, as the Targums render it), when it is necessary that they should be watched. The point of comparison therefore is, that in the vineyard and cucumber field not a human being is to be seen in any direction; and there is nothing but the cottage and the night barrack or hammock (cf., Job 27:18) to show that there are any human beings there at all. So did Jerusalem stand in the midst of desolation, reaching far and wide - a sign, however, that the land was not entirely depopulated. But what is the meaning of the third point of comparison? Hitzig renders it, “like a watch-tower;” Knobel, “like a guard-city.” But the noun neither means a tower nor a castle (although the latter would be quite possible, according to the primary meaning, Cingere ); and nezurâh does not mean “watch” or “guard.” On the other hand, the comparison indicated (like, or as) does not suit what would seem the most natural rendering, viz., “like a guarded city,” i.e., a city shielded from danger. Moreover, it is inadmissible to take the first two Caphs in the sense of sicut (as) and the third in the sense of sic (so); since, although this correlative is common in clauses indicating identity, it is not so in sentences which institute a simple comparison. We therefore adopt the rendering, Isaiah 1:8, “As a besieged city,” deriving nezurâh not from zur , niphal nâzor (never used), as Luzzatto does, but from nâzar , which signifies to observe with keen eye, either with a good intention, or, as in Job 7:20, for a hostile purpose. It may therefore be employed, like the synonyms in 2 Samuel 11:16 and Jeremiah 5:6, to denote the reconnoitring of a city. Jerusalem was not actually blockaded at the time when the prophet uttered his predictions; but it was like a blockaded city. In the case of such a city there is a desolate space, completely cleared of human beings, left between it and the blockading army, in the centre of which the city itself stands solitary and still, shut up to itself. The citizens do not venture out; the enemy does not come within the circle that immediately surrounds the city, for fear of the shots of the citizens; and everything within this circle is destroyed, either by the citizens themselves, to prevent the enemy from finding anything useful, or else by the enemy, who cut down the trees. Thus, with all the joy that might be felt at the preservation of Jerusalem, it presented but a gloomy appearance. It was, as it were, in a state of siege. A proof that this is the way in which the passage is to be explained, may be found in Jeremiah 4:16-17, where the actual storming of Jerusalem is foretold, and the enemy is called nozerim , probably with reference to the simile before us.

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