Berean BlueApp preview

John Calvin on Isaiah 28:8

Commentaries. Browse this work.

Isaiah28:8

8. For all tables are full of vomiting. He pursues the same metaphor, and draws, as it were, a picture of what usually happens to men who are given up to drunkenness; for they forget shame, and not only debase themselves like beasts, but shrink from nothing that is disgraceful. It is certainly an ugly and revolting sight to see “tables covered with vomiting;” and, accordingly, under this figure Isaiah describes the whole life of the people as shameful beyond endurance. There can be no doubt that the Prophet intended to express by a single word, that no sincerity or uprightness was left among the Jews. If we approach their tables, we can find nothing but foul drunkenness; if we look at their life, no part of it is pure or free from crimes and enormities. Doctrine itself is so corrupt that it stinks as if it were polluted by vomiting and filth. In expounding allegories, I have no intention to enter, as some do, into ingenious disquisitions.

John Calvin, Commentaries, Isaiah 28:8. Public domain.

Permanent link. Source edition.

Read Isaiah 28. Compare commentaries on this chapter.

Source and publication rights

Public domain. Public Domain. Source edition.

Berean Blue opens December 1, 2026. Explore this passage in the app preview.