Isaiah 3 commentary

God was about to deprive Judah of every stay and support. The city and the land were to be made desolate, because their words and works had been rebellious against the Lord; even at his holy temple. If men do not stay themselves upon God, he will soon remove all other supports, and then they must sink. Christ is the Bread of life and the Water of life; if he be our Stay, we shall find that is a good part not to be taken away, John 6:27. Here note, 1. That the condition of sinners is exceedingly woful. 2. It is the soul that is damaged by sin. 3. Whatever evil befals sinners, be sure that they bring it on themselves.

The rule was certain; however there might be national prosperity or trouble, it would be well with the righteous and ill with the wicked. Blessed be God, there is abundant encouragement to the righteous to trust in him, and for sinners to repent and return to him. It was time for the Lord to show his might. He will call men to a strict account for all the wealth and power intrusted to and abused by them. If it is sinful to disregard the necessities of the poor, how odious and wicked a part do they act, who bring men into poverty, and then oppress them!

The prophet reproves and warns the daughters of Zion of the sufferings coming upon them. Let them know that God notices the folly and vanity of proud women, even of their dress. The punishments threatened answered the sin. Loathsome diseases often are the just punishment of pride. It is not material to ask what sort of ornaments they wore; many of these things, if they had not been in fashion, would have been ridiculed then as now. Their fashions differed much from those of our times, but human nature is the same. Wasting time and money, to the neglect of piety, charity, and even of justice, displease the Lord. Many professors at the present day, seem to think there is no harm in worldly finery; but were it not a great evil, would the Holy Spirit have taught the prophet to expose it so fully? The Jews being overcome, Jerusalem would be levelled with the ground; which is represented under the idea of a desolate female seated upon the earth. And when the Romans had destroyed Jerusalem, they struck a medal, on which was represented a woman sitting on the ground in a posture of grief. If sin be harboured within the walls, lamentation and mourning are near the gates.

1. For, behold. We stated, a little before, that this is the same subject which the Prophet began to treat towards the close of the former chapter; for he warns the Jews that their wealth, however great it may be, will be of no avail to prevent the wrath of God, which, when it has once been kindled, will burn up all their defenses. Hence it follows that they are chargeable with excessive madness, when, in order to drive away their alarm, they heap up their forces, strength, and warlike accoutrements, consultations, armor, abundant supply of provisions, and other resources.

The demonstrative particle הנה, (hinneth,) “behold,” is employed not only to denote certainty, but to express the shortness of time, as if Isaiah caused wicked men to be eye-witnesses of the event; for it frequently happens that they who do not venture openly to ridicule the judgments of God pass them by, as if they did not at all relate to them, or were still at a great distance. “What is that to us?” say they; “Or, if they shall ever happen, why should we be miserable before the time? Will it not be time enough to think of those calamities when they actually befall us?” Since, therefore, wicked men, in order to set at naught the judgments of God, dig for themselves lurking-places of this description, on this account the Prophet presses them more closely and earnestly, that they may not imagine that the hand of God is distant, or vainly expect that it will be relaxed.

The Lord Jehovah of hosts will take away from Jerusalem. This is also the reason why he calls God the Lord and Jehovah of Hosts, that the majesty of God may terrify their drowsy and sluggish minds; for God has no need of titles, but our ignorance and stupidity must be aroused by perceiving his glory. First, the Prophet threatens that the Jews will have the whole produce of the harvest taken from them, so that they will perish through famine. Immediately afterwards he speaks in the same manner about military guards, and all that relates to the good order of the state. Hence we may infer that the Jews boasted of the prosperity which they at that time enjoyed, so as to entertain a foolish belief that they were protected against every danger. But Isaiah threatens that not only the whole country, but Jerusalem herself, which was the invincible fortress of the nation, will be exposed to God’s chastisements; as if he had said, “The wrath of God will not only fall on every part of the body, but will pierce the very heart.”

The power and the strength. “Heb, ‘the support masculine and the support feminine,’ that is, every kind of support, whether great or small, strong or weak. Al kenitz, wal kanitzan; the wild beast, male and female: proverbially applied both to fishing and hunting; that is, I seized the prey, great or little, good or bad. From hence, as Schultens observes, is explained Isaiah 3:1, literally, the male and female stay; that is, the strong and weak, the great and small.” Chappelow, quoted by Lowth. As to the words ומשענה משען, (mashgnen umashgnenah) which differ only in this respect, that one is in the masculine, and the other in the feminine genders, I have no doubt that the Prophet intended by this change to express more fully the certainty that supports of every kind would be broken; and therefore I have translated them the power and the strength Calvin has imitated the Hebrew phrase by the rendering vigorem et vim; employing two words, of which one is in the masculine and the other in the feminine gender, and both begin with the same letter, while each of them denotes strength. Our English version has imitated the alliteration by stay and the staff — Ed. I do not agree with those interpreters who view it as referring to the persons of men, for it more appropriately denotes all supports, whatever may be their nature.

Still it is doubtful whether the Prophet limits it to food, or extends it to all other kinds of support, which he mentions immediately afterwards. But it is natural to suppose that by משען ומשענה, (mashgnen umashgnenah) is included generally everything that is necessary to sustain the order of the city or of the people; and next that, for the sake of explanation, he enumerates some particulars. The first clause therefore means, “God will take away every help and assistance by which you think that you are upheld, so that nothing whatever may be left to support you.”

Next, he adds, what will be their want and nakedness; and he begins, as we have said, with food and nourishment, which hold the first rank in sustaining the life of men. Now there are two ways in which God takes away the strength of bread and water; either when he deprives us of victuals, or when he takes from them the power of nourishing us; for unless God impart to our food a hidden power, the greatest abundance of it that we may possess will do us no good. (Leviticus 26:26.) Hence in another passage God is said to break the staff of bread (Ezekiel 4:16,) when the bakers deliver the bread by weight, and yet it does not yield satisfaction. And this comparison ought to be carefully observed, in order to inform us that, even though the belly be will filled, we shall always be hungry, there being nothing but the secret blessing of God that can feed or support us.

Though the hunger which the Prophet threatens in this passage may be understood to mean that the fields will be unproductive, or, that God will take away from the Jews every kind of food, yet, since the Prophets are generally accustomed to borrow their forms of expression from the law, this interpretation will apply very well. For he might simply have said, “I will take away the bread and wine;” but he expresses something more secret when he speaks of the support of bread and water; as if he had said that, though the people be not reduced to famine, yet God will make them, even while they are rioting in gluttony, to pine with hunger; for when the blessing of God is withdrawn, all its usefulness will vanish away. We may sum it up in this manner, that the people will have no food to strengthen them; either because they will not have bread and water, or, if they have, will derive no advantage from them.

2. The strong man, and the man of war He mentions other ends which contribute to the safety and good order either of nations or of cities. Of these he threatens that the Jews will be wholly deprived, so that they will neither have wisdom or bravery at battle, nor military forces abroad. He is not careful to attend to order, but is satisfied with giving a short abridgement, and mixes one subject with another. He begins with men of war, into whose hands was committed the defense of the country. God sometimes takes them away by death, and sometimes by making them soft and effeminate. The latter is more frequent, so that posterity degenerates from the bravery of ancestors, and those who were formerly courageous become, in process of time, cowardly and unfit for war. But we see also that the former sometimes happens, in consequence of which the boldest men suddenly lose heart.

The judge and the prophet. We know that, in the Hebrew language, the word judge stands for every kind of governors; and it is certain that by prophets are meant every kind of teachers. Accordingly, he threatens that the civil government will be set aside, and that instruction will be at an end, and that thus the Jews will be destroyed; and, indeed magistrates and teachers hold the same place in the commonwealth that the two eyes do in the human body.

Aged diviners and old men And the prudent and the ancient. — Eng. Ver I consider the same rank as before to be denoted by old men, who are more fit for governing, because age brings along with it prudence, wisdom, and gravity. As to the word diviner, though it is used in a bad sense in Scripture, yet here it appears to be used in a good sense, when Isaiah enumerates those things which contribute to preserve the good order of a city and of a kingdoms. The term might, therefore, be applied to a soothsayer, who divines or penetrates into dark matters, not by omens or superstitious arts, but by extraordinary acuteness and skill. But as God forbade them to consult magicians, soothsayers, and diviners, (Deuteronomy 18:20,) and as Balaam himself declares that there is no divination against Israel, (Numbers 23:23,) I do not quarrel with those who would prefer to use the word diviner as denoting magical divinations; nor will there be any absurdity in enumerating among the punishments of the nation, that it would be deprived also of those aids which were sinful and criminal; for along with the altar and sacrifices Hosea mentions teraphim. “The Prophet,” says Calvin, “seems to speak here of idols, for he afterwards adds teraphim; and teraphim were no doubt images, (Genesis 31:19, 30) which the superstitious used while worshipping their fictitious gods, as we read in many places. The King of Babylon is said to have consulted the teraphim; and it is said that Rachel stole the teraphim, and shortly after Laban calls the teraphim his gods.” Com. on the Twelve Minor Prophets, vol 1, p. 130. (Hosea 3:4.)

The captain of fifty. He employs this term agreeably to the custom which then prevailed; for as the Romans had centurions, or captains of hundreds, so the Jews had captains, or rulers of fifties, which the Greeks call πεντηκοντάρχους, but as that custom did not exist among the Latins, so the name was unknown among them. By persons of venerable aspect The honourable man. — Eng. Ver he means those whose reputation for bravery gave then influence among the people.

The senator. The counsellor. — Eng. Ver. The word יועף (yognetz,) for which I have put senator, may be applied to men in private life who are eminent for prudence; but as it is strictly applicable to counsellors, who discharge a public office, I resolved not to depart from the common opinion.

The sinful artificer. Because the mechanical arts are not less advantageous for upholding the prosperity of a nation, and for the support of animal life, Isaiah likewise mentions that, through the want of them, the destruction of the Jews is at hand.

And the eloquent. In a marginal reading of the text our author renders this phrase by skilled in mysterious discourse. “The powerful in persuasion.” — Lowth. “The expert dealer in charms.” — Bishop Stock. “לחש is to whisper or mutter certain words, by which jugglers pretended to charm noxious creatures, and to deprive them of their power of hurting.” — Parkhurst. he word which is placed last in the enumeration has been variously explained by commentators. Literally it means, “skilled in muttering, or in a subdued tone of speech. “Now since the heathen oracles give out their replies by whisperings or in mutterings, some think that the word denotes enchantments. A better exposition is given by those who interpret לחש (lahash) to mean secret designs; but as a style which is both mysterious and weighty may be not inappropriately denoted by this word, I had no hesitation in rendering it by the word eloquent. Yet if it be thought preferable to view it as denoting wise and cautious men, who, though not qualified for public speaking, give private advices of what may profitably be done, I have no objection.

We must attend to this comprehensive description of a well-regulated state. For Isaiah has placed first corn and other things necessary for bodily support; secondly, military forces; thirdly, skill in governing a nation and the various parts of civil government; fourthly, the prophetical office; and fifthly, the mechanical arts. With these ornaments does God adorn the nations which he intends to render safe and sound; and, on the other hand, he takes them from those nations which he intends utterly to destroy. Let us, therefore, know that everything which we find to be profitable for the support of life flows from the undeserved goodness of God. Hence also there follows another instruction, namely, that we ought to beware lest, by our ingratitude, we deprive ourselves of those excellent gifts of God.

4. And I will appoint children to be their princes And I will give children to be their princes. — Eng. Ver. That the vengeance of God may be more manifest, he now describes how sad and wretched will be the change, when competent and faithful rulers shall be taken from among them and God shall put cowardly and worthless persons in their room. By children are meant not only those who are so by age, but also by mind and conduct, such as delicate and effeminate persons, who are destitute of courage and cannot wield the sword entrusted to them. He does not here carry out the contrast, clause by clause; for he thought it enough to point out one way in which a commonwealth is speedily ruined; that is, when its rulers are weak and foolish men like children, who have no gravity or wisdom. But it must be laid down as a principle, that no man is qualified for governing a commonwealth unless he have been appointed to it by God, and be endued with uncommon excellence. Plato, too, understood this matter well: for though, being a heathen, he had no true knowledge of this kind, yet his quick sagacity enabled him to perceive that no man is fit and qualified for public government which has not been prepared for it by God in an extraordinary measure; for public government proceeds from God alone, and in like manner every part of it must be upheld by him. Besides, they whom the Lord does not govern have nothing left for them but to be children, or rather to be twice children, that is, destitute of all skill and of all wisdom.

Now the Lord executes this vengeance in two ways; because it frequently happens, that when we appear to have those who are grave and skillful in business, no sooner do they come to action than they stumble like blind men, and have no more wisdom than children; for the Lord deprives them of that remarkable ability which they had formerly received from him, and stuns them, as if he had struck them with a thunderbolt. But sometimes the Lord proceeds more gently, and gradually removes men of extraordinary ability, who were fit for ruling, and commits the reins of government to those who were unable to govern a family, or even a single child liken these things happen, it is very certain that destruction is not far off.

Besides, it deserves our notice, as I lately mentioned, that a well-regulated commonwealth is a singular gift of God, when the various orders of judges and senators, soldiers, captains, artificers, and teachers, aid each other by mutual intercourse, and join in promoting the general safety of the whole people. For when the Prophet threatens, and pronounces it to be a very severe punishment, that these things shall be taken away, he plainly shows that those eminent and uncommon gifts of God are necessary for the safety of nations. Accordingly, he here commends the office of magistrates, and captains, and soldiers, and likewise the office of teachers. This deserves our notice in opposition to fanatics, who endeavor to banish from the world the power of using the sword, together with all civil government and order. But the Prophet declares that these things are not taken away or removed unless when God is angry. It follows, therefore, that they who oppose, and, as far as lies in their power, set aside or destroy such benefits, are wicked men and enemies of the public safety.

He likewise commends instruction, without which a commonwealth cannot stand; for, as Solomon says,

where prophecy is not, the nation must be ruined. (Proverbs 29:18.)

At the same time, he commends the mechanical arts, agriculture, manual occupations of every description, architecture, and such like, which we cannot dispense with; for all artisans of every kind, who contribute what is useful to men, are the servants of God, and have the same end in view with those who were formerly mentioned, namely, the preservation of mankind

The same thing must be said about war; for, although lawful, war ought to be nothing else than an attempt to obtain peace; yet sometimes an engagement is unavoidable, that they who have the power of the sword may use it, and defend themselves and their followers by arms. War, therefore, is not in itself to be condemned; for it is the means of preserving the commonwealth. But neither must eloquence be despised; for it is often needed, both in public and in private life, that something may be clearly and fully explained and demonstrated to be true. This is also reckoned among the gifts and important blessings of God, when a state abounds in wise and eloquent men,

who can contend with the adversaries in the gate. (Psalm 127:5.)

This passage may be thus summed up, “When God takes away those gifts, and alters the condition of a people, in whatever way this takes place, either by changing the form of government, or by taking away the rulers, the anger of God ought to be acknowledged;” for, as Hosea says,

He Taketh Away Kings In His Wrath, And Appointeth Them In His Indignation. (Hosea 13:11.)

Let us not, therefore, ascribe these changes to chance or other causes.

5. The people will oppress every man his neighbor He describes the utmost confusion, which was about to overtake the Jews, when order was destroyed or relaxed; and this will happen to all nations, as soon as government is removed or falls to the ground. We know how great is the wantonness of the human mind, when every man is hurried along by ambition and, in short, how furious the lawless passions are when they are laid under no restraint. There is no reason, therefore, to wonder if, when the judgment-seats have been laid low, every man insults his neighbor, cruelty abounds, and licentiousness rages without control. If we considered this wisely, we would set a higher value on the kindness of God, when he preserves us in any tolerable condition, and does not allow us to be lamentably ruined. Hence it is evident that they who direct or apply their minds to sap the foundations of civil government are the open enemies of mankind, or rather, they are in no respect different from wild beasts.

But this confusion described by the Prophet is most disgraceful, that a child shall dare to insult an old man, that the dregs of a low and despised multitude shall rise up against nobles and men of high reputation; for it is the most preposterous of all things that modesty shall be thrown away, so that they who were worthy of veneration shall be treated with contempt. And yet this spectacle, so shameful and revolting, must unavoidably be exhibited when civil government has been overthrown. As to my rendering of the verb נגש (niggash) in an active sense, to oppress, I was forced to adopt it, for otherwise the meaning of the passage would have been imperfect.

6. When every man shall take hold of his brother As this verse is closely connected with the former, and proceeds without interruption as far as the phrase he shall swear, the particle כי (ki) is evidently taken for an adverb of time. For Isaiah, intending to express the extreme wretchedness of the people, says that there will be no man who will undertake to govern them, though he were requested to do so. To such an extent unquestionably does ambition prevail among men, that many are always eager to contend for power, and endeavor to obtain it even at the hazard of their lives. In every age the whole world has been convulsed by the desire of obtaining kingly power; and there is not a villain so inconsiderable as not to contain men who willingly undertake to become rulers; and all this proves that man is an animal desirous of honor. Hence it follows that everything is in a deplorable condition, when that dignity is not only despised but obstinately rejected; for the mournful calamity has reached its lowest depth, when that which men naturally desire with the greatest ardor is universally disclaimed.

Isaiah mentions other circumstances of an aggravating nature, tending to show that the Jews will rather lay aside every feeling of humanity and compassion than undertake the office of rulers. If one shall refuse to rule foreign nations, it will not perhaps be thought so wonderful; but when the preservation of brethren is in question, it is excessively unkind to decline the honorable office. It is therefore a proof that matters are utterly desperate, when the office of ruler is disdainfully rejected by that man to whom his kinsmen appeal, by entreating his support and throwing themselves on his protection. Now, since princes are commonly selected on account of their wealth, or, at least, kingly power is not usually bestowed on any who have not a moderate share of riches, lest poverty should lay them open to contempt and reproach, or drive them to unworthy means of gain, he likewise adds this circumstance, that though they are able to bear the burden, still they will not accept of it; as if he had said, “Not only the common people, but also the nobles and the wealthy, decline the task of government.”

The phrase take hold is likewise emphatic, for it means to “lay hands” on a person; as if Isaiah had said that those who shall wish to obtain a prince will not employ flatteries and entreaties, but will proceed with disorder and violence to seize on some person, and endeavor to compel him to occupy the throne.

Let this ruin be under thy hand. This last circumstance is not less weighty. The meaning is, “At least if you have any compassion or humanity, do not fail to aid us in our extreme wretchedness.” For when a multitude of men, like a scattered flock, bewailing with tears their ruinous condition, implore the protection of a shepherd, he who will not stretch out a helping hand must have a heart as hard as iron. Some translate it as if, by a figure of speech, (hypallage,) one word had been put for another, Let thy hand be under this ruin; that is, for the sake of upholding it.

7. In that day shall he swear. The word swear expresses an absolute and vehement refusal; for frequently he who at first excuses himself, or declares that he will not do it, at length yields to entreaty; but he who, in refusing, employs an oath, shuts out all hope, because he gives them to understand that his purpose is firm and decided. Perhaps, too, the phrase in that day, means “immediately, without any delay, and without long consultation;” but as it may also be viewed demonstratively, (δεικτικῶς,) as pointing out more fully the time of the calamity, I do not express a strong opinion. The general meaning is obvious, that their ruinous condition will be past remedy.

As to the word חבש, (chobesh,) though commentators differ in their interpretation of it, yet I cheerfully concur with those who think that the metaphor is here borrowed from surgeons; חבש(chabash) literally signifies to bind I will not be a binder; that is, “I will not be one who binds up your wounds.” Jarchi renders it, “I will not be a binder, that is, I will not be one of those who bind up.” His annotator, Breithaupt, explains it thus: “that is, who employ any remedy, or apply a plaster, teaching in the school or synagogue what should be done, and what should be avoided.” This accords with the rendering, healer, as in the English version, which is supported by that of Lowth, “I will not be a healer of thy breaches.” — Ed for nothing can more fully meet the case. It is as if one, to whom application had been made to heal a sick man, should declare that he has no skill in the art of healing, or that the disease is too inveterate to admit of being cured.

The next copulative ו, (vau,) means for; as if he had said, “And undoubtedly I have not ability to do so.” ובביתי(ubebethi,) and in my house; that is, for in my house is neither bread nor clothing. — Ed His meaning therefore is, that the state of affairs will be so desperate, that no man, even when matters are at the worst, will venture to take measures for their defense.

8. For Jerusalem is ruined. Lest it should be thought that God is excessively cruel, when he punishes his people with such severity, the Prophet here explains briefly the reason of the calamity; as if he had said that the destruction of that ungodly people is righteous, because in so many ways they have persisted in provoking God. And thus he cuts off all ground of complaint; for we know with what insolent fury the world breaks out, when it is chastised with more than ordinary severity. He says that they were ready, both by words and by actions, to commit every kind of crimes. In speaking of their destruction, he employs such language as if it had already taken place; though the past may be taken for the future, as in many other passages.

To provoke the eyes of his glory. This mode of expression aggravates the crime, as denotes that they had intentionally resolved to insult God; for those things which are done before our eyes, if they are displeasing to us, are the more offensive. It is true that wicked men mock God, as if they were able to deceive him; but as nothing, however it may be concealed, escapes his view, Isaiah brings it as a reproach against them, that they openly and shamelessly, in his very presence, indulged in the commission of crimes. The word glory also deserves our attention; for it is a proof of extraordinary madness, if we have no feeling of reverence, when the majesty of God is presented to our view. If God had so illustriously displayed his glory before the nation of Israel, that they ought justly to have been humbled, if they had any remains of shame or of modesty. Whatever, then, may be the murmurings of wicked men against God, or their complaints of his severity, the cause of all the calamities which they endure will be found to be in their own hands.

9. The proof of their countenance will answer in them, or, will answer against them See p. 122. As the Prophet had to do with impudent and brazen-faced hypocrites, who impudently boasted that they were good men; so he says that their countenance testifies what kind of persons they are, and that it will not be necessary to bring witnesses from a distance, in order to prove their wickedness; for to answer means “to bear testimony,” or “to confess.” Although, therefore, they disguise their face and countenance, so that they frequently deceive others, yet God compels them to show and prove what they are; so that, in spite of themselves they carry, as it were, in their forehead a mark of their deceit and hypocrisy.

Some explain it, that their crimes are so manifest that they cannot avoid seeing, as in a mirror, the baseness which they desire to conceal But the former meaning is confirmed by what immediately follows, that they declared their sin in the same manner as the inhabitants of Sodom. By these words he intimates that they devoted themselves to iniquity in such a manner, that they boasted of their transgressions without any shame; as if it had been honorable and praiseworthy in them to trample on every distinction between right and wrong, and not to indulge in every kind of wickedness. On this account he compares them to the inhabitants of Sodom, (Genesis 18:20; 19:5,) who were so much blinded by their lusts, that they rushed, with brutish stupidity, to everything base. So, then, this is the answer of the countenance, which he mentioned a little before, that they carry about with them plain tokens of impiety, which are abundantly sufficient to prove their guilt.

Woe unto their soul! Here he declares what was formerly mentioned, that the whole cause of their calamities is to be found in themselves; for by their sins and iniquities they provoked the Lord; and consequently that they have no means of evasion, that it is useless to contrive idle pretenses, because the evil itself dwells in their bones; as if he had said, “God cannot be accused, as if he punished you unjustly. Acknowledge that it has been done by yourselves; give glory to a righteous judge and lay the whole blame on yourselves.”

10. Say, it shall be well with the righteous Before quoting the opinions of others, I shall point out the true meaning As punishments so severe commonly present to pious minds an exceedingly sharp temptation, and especially since hardly any public calamities occur which do not involve good men along with the bad; so the Prophet — at least, in my opinion — reminds them of the providence of God, which never confounds anything, but even, when there is apparent confusion, never ceases to distinguish between good and bad men.

But there are various ways in which this passage is explained; for some render it, “Say to the righteous man, because he is good, therefore he shall eat the fruit of his hands.” From that interpretation this meaning is obtained: “I wish and command the godly to be of good cheer; for with whatever severity I may punish the crimes of the nation, still it shall be well with the godly.” But a more suitable meaning is this: Say; that is, hold it to be a settled point; for in Scripture to say often means to think, and to be convinced; as David writes, I said, I will take heed to thy ways, (Psalm 39:1,) and in a thousand instances of the same kind; so that he does not bid them tell the righteous man, but he bids every man be fully convinced, that happy will be the condition of the righteous man, though he may only appear to be unhappy.

Besides, I consider טוב, (tob,) to mean a happy and prosperous condition; as in the former verse he employed the word רעה, (ragnah) with which טוב is now contrasted; and thus I do not think that רעה, (ragnah,) means wickedness, but a miserable condition. Now since it literally runs, Say to the righteous man, כי טוב: (ki tob,) that it shall be well either the particle כי, (ki,) has an affirmative sense, as in many other passages, or it appears to be superfluous, though the probability is, that it is intended for confirmation. Surely it shall be well with the righteous man; that is, let every ground of doubt be removed, and let us be fully convinced, that the condition of the righteous man will be most excellent and prosperous. It is difficult to believe this, and therefore it is added, he shall eat the fruit of his doings; that is, he shall not be defrauded of the reward of his good conduct. Others consider to say as meaning to exhort, and render the two words, כי טוב (ki tob,) that he will do well; but I reject it as a forced interpretation.

11. Woe unto the wicked! It shall be ill with him. He brings forward this clause as a contrast to the former one; from which it may be easily inferred what was the design of the Prophet, namely, to comfort the godly, and to terrify the wicked by the judgment of God. For when an uncommonly severe calamity occurs, which attacks all without discrimination, we doubt whether it be by the providence of God, or, on the contrary, by blind chance, that the world is governed. On this account godly men fear and dread that the same destruction which overtakes the wicked will ruin them also. Others think that it is of no importance whether a man be good or bad, when they see both classes visited by pestilence, war, famine and other calamities. And hence arises the wicked thought, that there is no difference between the rewards of the good and of the bad; and in the midst of these gloomy thoughts carnal appetites lead many to despair.

Accordingly, the Prophet shows that the judgment of God is right, that men may continue to fear God, and may be aware that those who, in the expectation of escape of punishment, provoke God, will not pass unpunished. He likewise exhorts them to ascribe to God the praise of justice; as if he had said, “Think not that blind chance rules in the world, or that God punishes with blind violence, and without any regard to justice, but hold it as a principle fully settled in your minds, that it shall be well with the righteous man; for God will repay him what he hath promised, and will not disappoint him of his hope. On the other hand, believe that the condition of the wicked man will be most wretched, for he brings on himself the evil which must at length fall on his head.”

By these words the Prophet, at the same time, charges the people with stupidity in not perceiving the judgment of God; for they suffered the punishments of their crimes, and yet hardened themselves under them, as if they had been altogether devoid of feeling. Now there cannot befall us anything worse than that we should be hardened against chastisements, and not perceive that God chastiseth us. When we labor under such stupidity, our case is almost hopeless.

12. The oppressors of any people are children As for my people, children are their oppressors. — Eng. Ver Here also is reproved the madness and sottishness of the people, because they shut their eyes at noon-day. There is nothing which men are more reluctant to allow than to have a yoke laid on them; nor do they willingly submit to be governed by nobles. Feeble and cowardly, therefore, must be the minds of those who obey delicate and effeminate men, and permit themselves to be oppressed by them; nor can it be doubted that God has struck with a spirit of cowardice those who offer their shoulders, like asses, to bear burdens. The power of a tyrant must indeed be endured, even by men of courage; but the reproach which Isaiah brings against the Jews is, that while they obstinately shake off the yoke of God, they are ready to yield abject submission to men, and to perform any services, however shameful or degrading.

For the Jews could not complain that they were compelled by violence, when of their own accord they obeyed those whose authority they would gladly have declined. Hence it is evident that they were struck by the hand of God, and were shaken with terror, so that they had no strength either of body or of mind.

This is also the vengeance which God had formerly threatened by Moses; for the general doctrine of Moses, as we have already said, is continually alluded to by the prophets. Our author appears to have particularly in his eye, Leviticus 26:36, And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. — Ed. or how was it possible that men who had the power of resistance should of their own accord undergo a slavery from which they would willingly have escaped, had not God deprived them of understanding and forethought that he might in this manner take vengeance on their crimes? Whenever, therefore, anything of this kind shall befall us; let us not imagine that it came by chance. On the contrary, whenever it shall happen that we are governed by men who are of no estimation, and which are more insignificant than children, let us acknowledge the wrath of the Lord, if we do not choose that the Prophet shall charge us with the grossest stupidity.

They who govern thee They which lead thee. — (Eng. Ver.) The marginal reading is, they which call thee blessed. — Ed. He continues to teach the same doctrine, that when God lets loose the reins against the wicked, so as to disturb everything, he shows that he is highly offended at the Jews; for if they had enjoyed his favor, there was reason to hope that his government would be most holy and blessed. At the same time it is probable that the common herd of men were so foolishly devoted to their rulers, that they revered as oracles both their injunctions and their conduct; and hence arose all the corruption that everywhere prevailed. Since, therefore, the contagion was spreading farther without being perceived by the people, Isaiah cries aloud that they ought to guard against the governors themselves, who corrupt and destroy the people.

Others explain it, they who bless thee; but as the participle which he employs may be taken from ישר, (yashar,) which signifies to rule, I shall rather adopt that interpretation, for it is more agreeable to the context. The reading of the Septuagint is, οἱ μακαρίζοντες ὑμᾶς, they who bless you. Undoubtedly מאשרים comes from אשר, and not from ישר, which in the corresponding participle gives מישרים. From the Kal of אשר, to go, the Pihel, taking a Hiphil meaning, denotes to cause to go, or to lead. Not improbably our Author meant that the one verb borrows one of its meanings from the other; but this would need proof. — Ed I do acknowledge that the false prophets flattered the people, but I see no reason why their flatteries should be mentioned here. But it applies very well to the rulers and heads, that they were the cause of the destruction; for as princes are raised to their office for the sake of the public safety, so no plague is more destructive than when they are bad men, and rule according to their own caprice. He says, therefore, that they who rule are the causes of the evils, and that they corrupt everything, since it was their duty to correct other men, and to point out the way by their own example.

13. Jehovah standeth up to plead So long as wickedness rages without control, and the Lord sends no relief from on high, we think that he is idle and has forgotten his duty. More especially, when the nobles themselves are spared, he appears to grant them liberty to commit sin, as if they were most sacred persons that must not be touched. Accordingly, after having complained of the princes, he adds that the Lord will do what his authority demands, and will not permit such flagrant crimes to pass unpunished. For there is hardly any conduct more offensive, or more fitted to disturb our minds, than when the worst examples of every sort are publicly exhibited by magistrates, while no man utters a syllable against them, but almost all give their approbation. We then ask, Where is God, whose glory, a great part of which, consisting in authority, is taken away, ought to have been illustriously displayed by men of that rank? Isaiah meets this difficulty by saying, “Though the nation is wicked, yet because the princes themselves are very greatly corrupted, and even pollute the whole nation by their vices, God sits as judge in heaven, and will at length call them to account, and assign to every one his reward.” Although he does not exempt the multitude from guilt, yet that the sources of the evils may be known, he particularly attacks the rulers, and threatens them with the punishment which they deserved.

14. The Lord will enter into judgement with the ancients of his people. Formerly he had erected for God a throne from which he might plead. Now he says that he will enter into judgment. How? with the ancients. There might have been a slight allusion to lawful assemblies, in which older men sit as God’s deputies; but I assent to the opinion more commonly entertained, that God contends against the ancients of his people. This passage, therefore, corresponds to the saying of David,

God will stand in the assembly of the gods (Psalm 82:1; Like some other quotations of our Author, this is made from memory, and is not quite accurate. — Ed. )

that is, though it may now be thought that princes do everything with impunity, and though there be no one to restrain their caprice and their lawless passions, yet one day they will feel that God is above them, and will render an account to him of all their actions

These reproofs, undoubtedly, the judges of that time were very unwilling to hear. They have no wish, and do not think that it is right, that any one should treat them with such sharpness and severity; for they wish that everything should be at their disposal, that their will should be held as a law, and that they should be allowed to do whatever they choose; that all men ought to flatter and applaud them, and to approve of their very worst actions. They think that no man is a judge of their actions, and do not yield subjection to God himself. Since, therefore, they are so unbridled that they neither endure any advices nor any threatening the Prophet summons them to the judgment seat of God.

And with their princes They are honorably described, by way of acknowledgment, as the chosen princes of the people. This also deserves attention; for they thought that, on account of their rank, they enjoyed a kind of privilege which set them free from the restraints of law, and that though heathen kings and princes might give an account of their actions, they, on the contrary, were sacred persons. They thought, therefore, that they were beyond the reach of all reproof, and ought not to be addressed, like heathen men, by threats and terrors. On this account Isaiah expressly declares, that the Lord will not only call to account every kind of princes, but especially the proud hypocrites to whose care he had committed his people.

And you have destroyed the vineyard Ye have consumed my vineyard. — Lowth Ye have eaten bare my vineyard. — Stock ̔Υμεῖς δὲ τί ἐνεπυρίσατε τὸν ἀμπελῶνά μου; And why did you burn up my vineyard? — Sept. “בער (bagnar,) in its usual acceptation of burning, does not agree with the sense of a passage, which represents people making a profit of what they consume. Understand it, therefore, of clearing away the productions of the soil, as cattle do when they eat down the grass.” — Rosenmuller The metaphor of a vine is very common, where a nation, and especially the nation of Israel, is the subject. (Psalm 80:8; Jeremiah 2:21.) And by this word the Prophet now shows their crime to be double, because they paid no more regard to the people whom God had loved with extraordinary affection that if they had ruled over a heathen nation. The pronoun you is likewise emphatic; for he addresses the vine-dressers themselves, who, instead of devoting themselves, as they ought to have done, to the cultivation of the vine, devoured it like wild beasts. Accordingly, he represents this to be a great aggravation of their cruelty; for how treacherous was it to destroy what they ought to have preserved and protected? By this comparison the Lord shows how great care he takes of his own people, and how warmly he loves them; not only because the Church is called his vine and inheritance, but by declaring that he will not endure the treachery and wickedness of those who have ruled over it tyrannically.

The spoil of the poor is in your houses. He adds one circumstance, by which the other parts of their life might be known, that they had in their houses the prey and spoil of the poor. Now the palace of princes ought to resemble a sanctuary: for they occupy the dwelling place of God, which ought to be sacred to all. It is, therefore, the grossest sacrilege to turn a sanctuary into a den of thieves. He represents still more strongly their criminality by adding of the poor; for it is the most wicked of all acts of cruelty to plunder a poor and needy man, who cannot defend himself, and who ought rather to have been protected.

15. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces? He mentions also other particulars, from which it is evident that they ruled in a haughty, cruel and oppressive manner. It was not necessary that the Prophet should describe minutely everything deserving reproof in the princes; for from these few circumstances it is evident with what injustice and cruelty and tyranny they ruled. But to whom shall the poor betake themselves but to the magistrate, who ought to be the father of his country and the protector of the wretched? On this account he employs a vehement interrogation, What? as if he had said, “What effrontery is this! What cruelty and barbarity, to abuse the mean condition of the poor, so as to have no compassion on them!” By two comparisons he describes their cruel oppression mingled with pride.

Saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts. That the reproof may have all the weight that it ought to have, he brings forward God as speaking; for there is an implied contrast that these things should not be viewed as coming from the mouth of men, but that the accusation proceeds from God himself, and that he pursues those who are guilty of such injustice, and will at length take vengeance on them. Because those who have been exalted to any kind of honor conduct themselves so haughtily as to disdain every direction and advice, he therefore meets their pride by bringing forward the majesty of God, that they may not venture to despise his earnest and severe threatenings. Yet let us remember that this passage ought not to be understood as if the Prophet were speaking only about the mercy of God; for after having threatened vengeance indiscriminately on all, he particularly mentions those who are their heads, in order to show that no man can escape the arm of God: and here he employs what is called the argument from the greater to the less.” How would the Lord spare the lowest of the people, when he punishes even the princes themselves, because they have destroyed the vineyard?”

16. Because the daughters of Zion are haughty. Next follows another threatening against the ambition, luxury, and pride of women. On these points the Prophet has not followed an exact order, but reproves sometimes one vice and sometimes another, as the subject appears to require, and afterwards sums up what he has said in a few words, as he did in the seventh verse of the first chapter. He therefore pronounces censure on gorgeous robes and superfluous ornaments, which were undoubted proofs of vanity and ostentation. Wherever dress and splendor are carried to excess, there is evidence of ambition, and many vices are usually connected with it; for whence comes luxury in men and women but from pride?

And walk with stretched forth neck. First, then, he justly declares pride to be the source of the evil, and points it out by the sign, that is, by their gait; that the women walk with stretched-forth neck For as it is a sign of modesty to have a down-cast look, (as even heathen writers have declared,) so to have excessively holy looks is a sign of insolence; and when a woman lifts up her head it can betoken nothing but pride. The Prophet certainly acts wisely in beginning at the very fountain; for if he had begun by mentioning signs, such as dress, gait, and matters of that sort, it might have been easy to reply that still the mind was pure and upright; and that if their dress was somewhat too elegant and splendid, that was not a sufficient reason for approaching them with such bitter language, and summoning them to the judgement seat of God. Accordingly, in order to meet their unfounded accusations, he lays open the inward disease, which is manifested in the whole of their outward dress.

And wandering eyes. Wanton eyes. Heb. Deceiving with their eyes. — Eng. Ver. “Leering with their eyes — Nictitantes oculis: from סקר, Chald., oculis vagari. This is Abarbanel’s interpretation, approved of by Parkhurst and Rosenmuller. Bishop Lowth derives משקרות from שקר, to falsify, and translates it, falsely setting of their eyes with paint, according to the eastern fashion of tinting the eyelids, on the inside, black with stibium, called by the natives al-cahol. But the object of the poet in this place is to describe, not ornaments, but affected motions of the body.” — Bishop Stock What he adds about wandering eyes denotes shameless lust, which for the most part is expressed by the eyes; for unchaste eyes are the heralds of an unchaste heart; but the eyes of chaste women are sedate, and not wandering or unsteady.

And make a tinkling with their feet This is a part of the indecent gesture by which wantonness is discovered. But it is not easy to say whether the women wore on their sandals some tinkling ornaments which made a noise as they walked, or whether they imitated the dancing women by a measured step; for the form of dresses since that time has been greatly changed. Yet I readily adopt the interpretation that they made a noise in walking, for this is very plainly expressed by the word employed.

17. Therefore will the Lord make bald Smite with a scab. — Eng. Ver. the crown of the head Here the particle ו, (vau,) which signifies and, is put for therefore; for he threatens that, since neither gentle advices nor any words can reform them, the Lord will deal with them in a very different manner, and will not only employ sharp and severe language, but will advance in dreadful array, with an armed band, to take vengeance. Accordingly, as they had manifested their obstinacy from head to foot, so he declares that the Lord will exhibit the marks of his vengeance in every part of their body. He therefore begins with the head, where ornament is chiefly bestowed, and afterwards takes notice of the other parts.

It is worthy of notice that the Prophet had good reason for reproving, with so great earnestness and vehemence, the luxury of women; for while they are chargeable with many vices, they are most of all inflamed with mad eagerness to have fine clothes. Covetous as they naturally are, still they spare no expense for dressing in a showy manner, and even use spare diet, and deprive themselves of what nature requires, that their clothes may be more costly and elegant. So grievously are they corrupted by this vice, that it goes beyond every other.

History tells us what vast crowds the women brought together on account of the Oppian Law “The Oppian Law,” so called from the tribune, Caius Oppius, who proposed it, was enacted during the disastrous wars with Hannibal, about 213 years before the Christian era. It was to this effect, “That no woman should wear on her person more than half an ounce of gold, or use garments of variegated colors, or ride in a carriage in any city or town, or within a mile’s distance of one, unless when she was going to observe the public festivals.” This law, though extorted by the hard necessities of the state, was all along regarded by many persons as harsh and tyrannical, and, after producing extraordinary commotions, was overwhelmed by the tide of public opinion. Livy informs us (34:1) that “ladies, not restrained either by modesty or by the authority of their husbands,” and neglecting the privacy which belonged to the customs of that age, assembled in a tumultuous manner, and publicly solicited the votes of the consuls and praetors, and other persons in office, for the repeal of the law. Ultimately their chief opponent was Cato, who spoke with all his ability and eloquence, but with a sternness peculiar to his character, and increased by the nature of the question under discussion. He was overmatched by the tact and resources of Valerius, who brought to his aid a considerable amount of historical information, placed the popular arguments in an advantageous light, and succeeded in obtaining an almost unanimous repeal of the law, when it had been twenty years in force. Our Author immediately afterwards refers to the arguments employed on that occasion. — Ed which some wished to maintain, and others to repeal; and that transaction was not conducted with any gravity or moderation in consequence of the crowds of women. But we need not go far to find examples; for they are innumerable in almost every nation, and it is a vice which has been very common in every age. As we are dexterous and sharp-sighted in contriving apologies for defending our luxury and extravagance, the Prophet, on that account, has pointed his finger at the source of all the evils, namely, that mad ambition by which men are hurried along to obtain public notice, and to arrive at eminence above others; for, in order that they may be better known, they wish to outshine their neighbors by the elegance of their dress, that they may draw the eyes of others upon them.

Having pointed to the source of the evil, the Prophet descends to many particulars for the purpose of bringing to public view the fooleries of women, and enumerates a long catalogue of them, to show that, in gathering them together, nothing can exceed the curiosity which dwells in woman. Indeed there is no end to those contrivances; and it was not without reason that the ancients called the collection of a woman’s ornaments a world; In the speech already mentioned, Valerius wittily alludes to this antiquated use of the Latin word mundus (a world.) “Our ancestors,” he says, “gave to it the appellation of a woman’s world.” Hunc mundum muliebrem appellarunt majores nostra — Ed. for if they were collected into one heap, they would be almost as numerous as the parts of the world. On this account the Prophet appears to search the women’s chests, and to bring into public view the gaudy trifles which they have treasured up in them, that their extravagant delight and boasting of these things may render their idleness and folly more evident to all. There is no superfluity, therefore, in this enumeration, though spread out in many words, by which their lawless desires are proved to be insatiable.

As to the particulars, I shall not stay to explain them, especially as the best Hebrew scholars have doubts about some of them, and cannot distinguish with certainty the forms of those ornaments. It is enough if we understand the general import and design of the Prophet; namely, that he heaps up and enumerates these trifles in order that the prodigious variety of them may disclose their luxury and ambition, so as to leave them without any excuse. It would be the height of impudence to allege that the contrivances made by the childish vanity of women, beyond what nature requires, are necessary for protecting the body. How many things are here enumerated which are not demanded by nature or necessity or propriety! What is the use of chains, bracelets, earrings and other things of the same sort? Hence it is plain enough that a superfluous collection of such ornaments admits of no excuse; that it gives evidence of excessive luxury which ought to be suppressed or restrained; and that frequently they are unchaste contrivances for weakening the mind and exciting lust. We need not wonder, therefore, that the Prophet speaks so sharply, and threatens severe punishments, against this vice.

24. Instead of a sweet smell there shall be stink. It is evident that the country here described abounds in aromatic herbs; and there is no reason to doubt that in pleasant smells, as well as in other matters, they were luxurious. We see that those nations which are farthest removed from the east are not prevented either by distance or by expense from indulging in that kind of luxury. What may be expected to happen in those places where they are abundant? That they will excite lust and promote luxury is beyond all doubt He means, therefore, that ointments and sweet smells were abused by them in a variety of ways; for the sinful desires of men are ingenious in their contrivances, and can never be satisfied.

Instead of a girdle a rent. Others have rendered it a falling off; because the Lord will ungird them. He intends to contrast things which are exceedingly opposite to each other; that as the women formerly were most carefully girt and adorned when they walked, they shall henceforth be torn and naked. He likewise contrasts baldness with curls; because they arranged their hair not in a modest but an extravagant fashion. Again, a belt is contrasted with sackcloth. Whether it was a belt, or some other kind of binding, it is certain that the Prophet meant a girdle, which was held in high estimation. Again, burning is contrasted with beauty; because fashionable ladies hardly venture to expose themselves to the sun’s rays, for fear of being sunburned; and he tells us that this will happen to them. In short, both men and women are instructed to make a sober use of the gifts of Goal, both in food and in clothing, and in the whole conduct of life. For the Lord cannot endure extravagance, and absolutely must inflict severe punishment on account of it; for it cannot be restrained by a lighter chastisement.

25. Thy men shall fall by the sword. He directs his discourse to Jerusalem and to the whole kingdom of Judah; for, after having demonstrated that the whole body is infected with a plague, and that no part of it is free from disease, and after leaving not even spared the women, he returns to the general doctrine. It would be improper that more than one husband should be assigned to one woman. Besides, what immediately follows applies exclusively to this nation. He particularly describes the punishment, that God will bring down by wars the whole strength of the people.

26. Her gates shall mourn and lament. Hence arises the mourning of the gates, which, he threatens, will take place when they have met with their calamities; for he means, that where there were great crowds and multitudes, nothing but a dismal solitude will be found. We know that at that time public meetings were held at the gates; and, therefore, as the gates sometimes rejoice at the multitude of citizens, so they are said to mourn on account of their frightful desolation. And yet I do not deny that he compares Jerusalem to a woman who is sad, and who bewails her widowhood; for it was customary with mourners to sit on the ground, as that nation was in the habit of using ceremonies and outward signs to a greater degree than would be consistent with our customs. But the sum of the matter is that the city will have lost her inhabitants.

CHAPTER 4

Isaiah Chapter 4:1-6

1. And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

1. Apprehendent itaque in die illa septenae mulieres viros singulos, dicentes, Pane nostro vescemur, vestimentis nostris induemur, tantum invocetur nomen tuum super nos, (vel, censeamur tuo nomine,) tollasque probrum nostrum.

2. In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.

2. In die illa erit germen Iehovae in pulchritudinem et gloriam; et fructus terrae in praestantiam et decorem; nempe in liberatis Israelis.

3. And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem:

3. Et eveniet ut qui reliquus fuerit in Sion, et residuus manserit in Ierusalem, sanctus vocetur, omnesque Ierosolymis inter vivos (vel, ad vitam,) asscripti erunt;

4. When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

4. Cum scilicet Dominus eluerit sordes filiarum Sion, et sanguines Ierusalem expiaverit e medio ejus, et in Spiritu judicii, et in Spiritu incendii (vel, ardoris.)

5. And the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence.

5. Et creabit Iehova super totam habitationem montis Sion, et super omnem coetum ejus, nubem et obscuritatem interdiu; noctu vero splendorem ignis flammantis; quia super omnem gloriam erit protectio.

6. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.

6. Eritque obumbratio per diem in umbram ab aestu, in refugium et latibulum a nimbo et imbre.

CHAPTER 3

Is 3:1-26.

1. For--continuation of Is 2:22.

Lord of hosts--therefore able to do as He says.

doth--present for future, so certain is the accomplishment.

stay ... staff--the same Hebrew word, the one masculine, the other feminine, an Arabic idiom for all kinds of support. What a change from the previous luxuries (Is 2:7)! Fulfilled in the siege by Nebuchadnezzar and afterwards by Titus (Jr 37:21; 38:9).

2. Fulfilled (2Ki 24:14).

prudent--the Hebrew often means a "soothsayer" (De 18:10-14); thus it will mean, the diviners, on whom they rely, shall in that day fail. It is found in a good sense (Pr 16:10), from which passage the Jews interpret it a king; "without" whom Israel long has been (Ho 3:4).

ancient--old and experienced (1Ki 12:6-8).

3. captain of fifty--not only captains of thousands, and centurions of a hundred, but even semi-centurions of fifty, shall fail.

honourable--literally, "of dignified aspect."

cunning--skilful. The mechanic's business will come to a standstill in the siege and subsequent desolation of the state; artisans are no mean "stay" among a nation's safeguards.

eloquent orator--rather, as Vulgate, "skilled in whispering," that is, incantation (Psa 58:5). See Is 8:19, below; and on "prudent," see on Is 3:2.

4. children--in ability for governing; antithesis to the "ancient" (see Is 3:12; Ec 10:16).

babes--in warlike might; antithesis to "the mighty" and "man of war."

5. The anarchy resulting under such imbecile rulers (Is 3:4); unjust exactions mutually; the forms of respect violated (Le 19:32).

base--low-born. Compare the marks of "the last days" (2Ti 3:2).

6. Such will be the want of men of wealth and ability, that they will "take hold of" (Is 4:1) the first man whom they meet, having any property, to make him "ruler."

brother--one having no better hereditary claim to be ruler than the "man" supplicating him.

Thou hast clothing--which none of us has. Changes of raiment are wealth in the East (2Ki 5:5).

ruin--Let our ruined affairs be committed to thee to retrieve.

7. swear--literally, "lift up," namely, his hand; the gesture used in solemn attestation. Or, his voice, that is, answer; so Vulgate.

healer--of the body politic, incurably diseased (Is 1:6).

neither ... clothing--so as to relieve the people and maintain a ruler's dignity. A nation's state must be bad indeed, when none among men, naturally ambitious, is willing to accept office.

8. Reason given by the prophet, why all shrink from the government.

eyes of his glory--to provoke His "glorious" Majesty before His "eyes" (compare Is 49:5; Ha 1:13). The Syriac and Lowth, by a slight change of the Hebrew, translate, "the cloud of His glory," the Shekinah.

9. show--The Hebrew means, "that which may be known by their countenances" [Gesenius and Weiss]. But Maurer translates, "Their respect for person"; so Syriac and Chaldee. But the parallel word "declare" favors the other view. Kimchi, from the Arabic, translates "their hardness" (Job 19:3, Margin), or impudence of countenance (Jr 3:3). They have lost not only the substance of virtue, but its color.

witness--literally, "corresponds" to them; their look answers to their inner character (Ho 5:5).

declare--(Jude 13). "Foaming out their own shame"; so far from making it a secret, "glorying" in it (Php 3:19).

unto themselves--Compare "in themselves" (Pr 1:31; 8:36; Jr 2:19; Ro 1:27).

10. The faithlessness of many is no proof that all are faithless. Though nothing but croaking of frogs is heard on the surface of the pool, we are not to infer there are no fish beneath [Bengel]. (See Is 1:19, 20).

fruit of doings--(Pr 1:31) in a good sense (Ga 6:8; Re 22:14). Not salvation by works, but by fruit-bearing faith (Is 45:24; Jr 23:6). Gesenius and Weiss translate, Declare as to the righteous that, &c. Maurer, "Say that the righteous is blessed."

11. ill--antithesis to "well" (Is 3:10); emphatic ellipsis of the words italicized. "Ill!"

hands--his conduct; "hands" being the instrument of acts (Ec 8:12, 13).

12. (See Is 3:4).

oppressors--literally, "exactors," that is, exacting princes (Is 60:17). They who ought to be protectors are exactors; as unqualified for rule as "children," as effeminate as "women." Perhaps it is also implied that they were under the influence of their harem, the women of their court.

lead--Hebrew, "call thee blessed"; namely, the false prophets, who flatter the people with promises of safety in sin; as the political "rulers" are meant in the first clause.

way of thy paths--(Jr 6:16). The right way set forth in the law. "Destroy"--Hebrew, "Swallow up," that is, cause so utterly to disappear that not a vestige of it is left.

13. standeth up--no longer sitting in silence.

plead--indignant against a wicked people (Is 66:16; Eze 20:35).

14. ancients--Hence they are spoken of as "taken away" (Is 3:1, 2).

vineyard--the Jewish theocracy (Is 5:1-7; Psa 80:9-13).

eaten up--"burnt"; namely, by "oppressive exactions" (Is 3:12). Type of the crowning guilt of the husbandmen in the days of Jesus Christ (Mt 21:34-41).

spoil ... houses--(Mt 23:14).

15. What right have ye to beat, &c. (Psa 94:5; Mi 3:2, 3).

grind--by exactions, so as to leave them nothing.

faces--persons; with the additional idea of it being openly and palpably done. "Presence," equivalent to "face" (Hebrew).

16. Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, &c.--Luxury had become great in Uzziah's prosperous reign (2Ch 26:5).

stretched forth--proudly elevated (Psa 75:5).

wanton--rather, "making the eyes to glance about," namely, wantonly (Pr 6:13) [Maurer]. But Lowth, "falsely setting off the eyes with paint." Women's eyelids in the East are often colored with stibium, or powder of lead (see on Job 42:14; Jr 4:30, Margin).

mincing--tripping with short steps.

tinkling--with their ankle-rings on both feet, joined by small chains, which sound as they walk, and compel them to take short steps; sometimes little bells were attached (Is 3:18, 20).

17. smite with a scab--literally, "make bald," namely, by disease.

discover--cause them to suffer the greatest indignity that can befall female captives, namely to be stripped naked, and have their persons exposed (Is 47:3; compare with Is 20:4).

18. bravery--the finery.

tinkling--(See Is 3:16).

cauls--network for the head. Or else, from an Arabic root, "little suns," answering to the "tires" or neck-ornaments, "like the moon" (Jud 8:21). The chumarah or crescent is also worn in front of the headdress in West Asia.

19. chains--rather, pendants, hanging about the neck, and dropping on the breast.

mufflers--veils covering the face, with apertures for the eyes, close above and loosely flowing below. The word radically means "tremulous," referring to the changing effect of the spangles on the veil.

20. bonnets--turbans.

ornaments of the legs--the short stepping-chains from one foot to another, to give a measured gait; attached to the "tinkling ornaments" (Is 3:16).

headbands--literally, "girdles."

tablets--rather, "houses of the breath," that is, smelling boxes [Vulgate].

earrings--rather, amulets suspended from the neck or ears, with magic formulæ inscribed; the root means to "whisper" or "conjure."

21. nose jewels--The cartilage between the nostrils was bored to receive them; they usually hung from the left nostril.

22. Here begin entire articles of apparel. Those before were single ornaments.

changeable--from a root, "to put off"; not worn commonly; put on and off on special occasions. So, dress-clothes (Zec 3:4).

mantles--fuller tunics with sleeves, worn over the common one, reaching down to the feet.

wimples--that is, mufflers, or hoods. In Ru 3:15, "veils"; perhaps here, a broad cloak, or shawl, thrown over the head and body.

crisping pins--rather, money bags (2Ki 5:23).

23. glasses--mirrors of polished metal (Ex 38:8). But the Septuagint, a transparent, gauze-like, garment.

hoods--miters, or diadems (Is 62:3; Zec 3:5).

veils--large enough to cover the head and person. Distinct from the smaller veils ("mufflers") above (Ge 24:65). Token of woman's subjection (1Co 11:10).

24. stink--arising from ulcers (Zec 14:12).

girdle--to gird up the loose Eastern garments, when the person walked.

rent--the Septuagint, better, a "rope," an emblem of poverty; the poor have nothing else to gird up their clothes with.

well-set hair--(1Pe 3:3, 4).

baldness--(Is 3:17).

stomacher--a broad plaited girdle.

sackcloth--(2Sa 3:31).

burning--a sunburnt countenance, owing to their hoods and veils being stripped off, while they had to work as captives under a scorching sun (So 1:6).

25. Thy men--of Jerusalem.

26. gates--The place of concourse personified is represented mourning for the loss of those multitudes which once frequented it.

desolate ... sit upon ... ground--the very figure under which Judea was represented on medals after the destruction by Titus: a female sitting under a palm tree in a posture of grief; the motto, Judæa capta (Job 2:13; La 2:10, where, as here primarily, the destruction by Nebuchadnezzar is alluded to).

The stay and the staff "Every stay and support" - Hebrew, "the support masculine, and the support feminine:" that is, every kind of support, whether great or small, strong or weak. "Al Kanitz, wal-kanitzah; the wild beasts, male and female. Proverbially applied both to fishing and hunting: i.e., I seized the prey, great or little, good or bad. From hence, as Schultens observes, is explained Isa 3:1, literally, the male and female stay: i.e., the strong and weak, the great and small." - Chappelow, note on Hariri, Assembly 1. Compare Ecc 2:8.

The Hebrew words משען ומשענה mashen umashenah come from the same root שען shaan, to lean against, to incline, to support; and here, being masculine and feminine, they may signify all things necessary for the support both of man and woman. My old MS. understands the staff and stay as meaning particular persons, and translates the verse thus: - Lo forsoth, the Lordschip Lord of Hoostis schal don awey fro Jerusalem and fro Juda the stalworth and the stronge.

The two following verses, Isa 3:2, Isa 3:3, are very clearly explained by the sacred historian's account of the event, the captivity of Jehoiachin by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon: "And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths; none remained save the poorest sort of the people of the land," 2Kgs 24:14. Which is supplied by our version.

I will give children to be their princes "I will make boys their princes" - This also was fully accomplished in the succession of weak and wicked princes, from the death of Josiah to the destruction of the city and temple, and the taking of Zedekiah, the last of them, by Nebuchadnezzar.

Babes shall rule over them - Dymennysche men schul lordschopen to hem. - Old MS. Bible.

Of the house of his father "Of his father's house" - For בית beith, the house, the ancient interpreters seem to have read מבית mibbeith, from the house; του οικειου του πατρος αυτου, Septuagint; domesticum patris sui, Vulgate; which gives no good sense. But the Septuagint MS. 1. D. 2: for οικειου has οικου. And, his brother, of his father's house, is little better than a tautology. The case seems to require that the man should apply to a person of some sort of rank and eminence; one that was the head of his father's house, (see Jos 12:14), whether of the house of him who applies to him, or of any other; ראש בית אביו rosh beith abaiu, the chief, or head of his father's house. I cannot help suspecting, therefore, that the word ראש rosh, head, chief, has been lost out of the text.

Saying - Before שמלה simlah, garment, two MSS., one ancient, and the Babylonish Talmud have the word לאמר lemor, saying; and so the Steptuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, and Chaldee. I place it with Houbigant, after שמלה simlah.

Thou hast clothing "Take by the garment" - That is, shall entreat him in an humble and supplicating manner. "Ten men shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, Let us go with you; for we have heard that God is with you," Zac 8:23. And so in Isa 4:1, the same gesture is used to express earnest and humble entreaty. The behavior of Saul towards Samuel was of the same kind, when he laid hold on the skirt of his raiment, 1Sam 15:27. The preceding and following verses show, that his whole deportment, in regard to the prophet, was full of submission and humility.

And let this ruin be under thy hand "And let thy hand support" - Before תחת ידך tachath yadecha, a MS. adds תהיה tihyeh, "let it be;" another MS. adds in the same place, תקח בידך takach beyadecha, which latter seems to be a various reading of the two preceding words, making a very good sense: "Take into thy hand our ruinous state." Twenty-one MSS. of Kennicott's, thirteen of De Rossi's, one of my own, ancient, and three editions of the Babylonish Talmud have ידיך yadeycha, plural, "thy hands."

In that day shall he swear "Then shall he openly declare" - The Septuagint, Syriac, and Jerome, read וישא veyissa, adding the conjunction, which seems necessary in this place.

I will not be a healer - I am noy a leche. - Old MS. Bible. Leech was the ancient English word for a physician.

For in my house is neither bread nor clothing "For in my house is neither bread nor raiment" - "It is customary through all the East," says Sir J. Chardin, "to gather together an immense quantity of furniture and clothes; for their fashions never alter." Princes and great men are obliged to have a great stock of such things in readiness for presents upon all occasions. "The kings of Persia," says the same author, "have great wardrobes, where there are always many hundreds of habits ready, designed for presents, and sorted," Harmer, Observ., 2:11 and 88. A great quantity of provision for the table was equally necessary. The daily provision for Solomon's household, whose attendants were exceedingly numerous, was proportionately great, 1Kgs 4:22, 1Kgs 4:23. Even Nehemiah, in his strait circumstances, had a large supply daily for his table; at which he received a hundred and fifty of the Jews and rulers, besides those that came from among the neighboring heathen, Neh 5:17, Neh 5:18.

This explains the meaning of the excuse made by him that is desired to undertake the government. He alleges that he has not wherewithal to support the dignity of the station, by such acts of liberality and hospitality as the law of custom required of persons of superior rank. See Harmer's Observations, 1:340, 2:88.

The eyes "The cloud" - This word appears to be of very doubtful form, from the printed editions, the MSS., and the ancient versions. The first yod in עיני eyney, which is necessary according to the common interpretation, is in many of them omitted; the two last letters are upon a rasure in two MSS. I think it should be ענן anan, "a cloud," as the Syriac reads; and the allusion is to the cloud in in which the glory of the Lord appeared above the tabernacle; see Exo 16:9, Exo 16:10; Exo 40:34-38; Num 16:41, Num 16:42.

Either of the readings gives a very good sense. The allusion may be to the cloud of the Divine presence in the wilderness: or the eyes of the Lord may be meant, as they are in every place beholding the evil and the good. And he cannot look upon iniquity but with abhorrence; therefore, the eyes of his glory might be well provoked by their crimes.

The show of their countenance - Bishop Lowth has it the steadfastness of their countenance - they appear to be bent on iniquity, their eyes tell the wickedness of their hearts. The eye is the index of the mind. Envy, hatred, malice, malevolence, concupiscence, and murder, when in the heart, look most intelligently out at the eye. They tell the innocent to be on their guard; and serve the same purpose as the sonorous rings in the tail of the rattlesnake - they announce the presence of the destroyer.

They declare their sin as Sodom - Impure propensities are particularly legible in the eyes: whoever has beheld the face of a debauchee or a prostitute knows this; of these it may be said, they wish to appear what they really are. They glory in their iniquity. This is the highest pitch of ungodliness.

They have rewarded evil unto themselves - Every man's sin is against his own soul. Evil awaiteth sinners - and he that offends his God injures himself.

Say ye to the righteous - לצדיק letsaddik, the ל lamed is added here by one MS. and the Chaldee. The righteous is the person,

1. Who fears God.

2. Departs from evil.

3. Walks according to the testimony of God.

4. And expects and prepares for a glorious immortality. "Pronounce ye." - The reading of this verse is very dubious. The Septuagint for אמרו imru read נאסר neasor, or both, אמרו נאסר imru neasor, and כי לא טוב לנו ki lo tob lanu. Δησωμεν τον δικαιον, ὁτι δυσχρηστος ἡμιν εστι. Perhaps, for אמרו imru, the true reading may be אשרו ashsheru, "bless you;" or אמרו אשרי imru ashrey, "say ye, blessed is." The Vulgate and an ancient MS. read in the singular number, יאכל yochel, comedat, "he shall eat." "It shall be well with him:" - כי טוב ki tob, "that good." Say nothing to such but good. He is a good man, he does nothing but good, and has a good God to deal with, from whom he expects nothing but goodness. It shall be well with such in all circumstances of life.

1. In prosperity.

2. In adversity.

3. In sickness.

4. In health.

5. In death.

6. In judgment. And,

7. Through eternity

In every case, occurrence, and circumstance, he shall eat the fruit of his doings - he shall derive benefit from being a righteous man, and walking in a righteous way.

Wo unto the wicked - לרשע lerasha, the man who is,

1. Evil in his heart.

2. Evil in his purposes.

3. Evil in his life.

As he is wicked, he does that which is wicked; and is influenced by the wicked one, of whom he is the servant and the son. It shall be ill with him, רע ra; in a single word say to him - evil! Of him you can speak no good; and to him you can speak no good - all is evil, in him - before him - after him - round about him - above him - below him. Evil in time - evil through eternity!

The reward of his hands - What he has deserved he shall get. He shall be paid that for which he has labored, and his reward shall be in proportion to his work. O, what a lot is that of the wicked! Cursed in time, and accursed through eternity!

Err "Pervert" - בלעו billeu, "swallow." Among many unsatisfactory methods of accounting for the unusual meaning of this word in this place, I choose Jarchi's explication, as making the best sense. "Read בללו billalu, 'confound.' Syriac." - Dr. Judd. "Read בהלו beholu, 'disturb or trouble.'" - Secker. So Septuagint. This verse might be read, "The collectors of grapes shall be their oppressors; and usurers (noshim, instead of nashim, women) shall rule over them."

The people "His people" - עמו ammo, Septuagint.

The vineyard. "My vineyard" - כרמי - "dr carmi, Septuagint, Chaldee, Jerome.

And grind the faces - The expression and the image is strong, to denote grievous oppression but is exceeded by the prophet Micah, Mic 3:1-3 : - "Hear, I pray you, ye chiefs of Jacob,

And ye princes of the house of Israel:

Is it not yours to know what is right?

Ye that hate good and love evil:

Who tear their skins from off them,

And their flesh from off their bones;

Who devour the flesh of my people;

And flay from off them their skin;

And their bones they dash in pieces;

And chop them asunder, as morsels for the pot:

And as flesh thrown into the midst of the caldron."

In the last line but one, for כאשר keasher, read, by the transposition of a letter, כשאר kisher, with the Septuagint and Chaldee.

And wanton eyes "And falsely setting off their eyes with paint" - Hebrew, falsifying their eyes. I take this to be the true meaning and literal rendering of the word; from שקר shakar. The Masoretes have pointed it, as if it were from שקר sakar, a different word. This arose, as I imagine, from their supposing that the word was the same with סקר sakar, Chaldee, "intueri, innuere oculis;" or that it had an affinity with the noun סיקרא sikra, which the Chaldeans, or the rabbins at least, use for stibium, the mineral which was commonly used in colouring the eyes. See Jarchi's comment on the place. Though the colouring of the eyes with stibium be not particularly here expressed, yet I suppose it to be implied; and so the Chaldee paraphrase explains it; stibio linitis oculis, "with eyes dressed with stibium." This fashion seems to have prevailed very generally among the Eastern people in ancient times; and they retain the very same to this day.

Pietro delta Valle, giving a description of his wife, an Assyrian lady born in Mesopotamia, and educated at Baghdad, whom he married in that country, (Viaggi, Tom. I., Lettera 17), says, "Her eyelashes, which are long, and, according to the custom of the East, dressed with stibium, (as we often read in the Holy Scriptures of the Hebrew women of old, Jer 4:30; Eze 23:40; and in Xenophon, of Astyages the grandfather of Cyrus, and of the Medes of that time, Cyropaed. lib. i.), give a dark, and at the same time a majestic, shade to the eyes." "Great eyes," says Sandys, Travels, p. 67, speaking of the Turkish women, "they have in principal repute; and of those the blacker they be the more amiable; insomuch that they put between the eyelids and the eye a certain black powder with a fine long pencil, made of a mineral, brought from the kingdom of Fez, and called Alcohole; which by the not disagreeable staining of the lids doth better set forth the whiteness of the eye; and though it be troublesome for a time, yet it comforteth the sight, and repelleth ill humours." Vis ejus (stibii) astringe ac refrigerare, principalis autem circa oculos; namque ideo etiam plerique Platyophthalmon id appellavere, quoniam in calliblepharis mulierum dilatat oculos; et fluxiones inhibet oculorum exulcerationesque. "It is astringent in its virtue, and refrigerant, and to be chiefly employed about the eyes, and it is called Platyophthalmon, for being put into those ointments with which women beautify their eyes, it dilates them, removes defluxions, and heals any ulcerations that may be about the eyelids." - Pliny, Nat. Hist. 33:6.

Ille supercilium madida fuligine tactum

Obliqua producit acu, pingitque trementes

Attollens oculos

Juv. Sat. 2:93.

One his eyebrows, tinged with black soot,

Lengthens with an oblique bodkin, and paints,

Lifting up his winking eyes. "But none of those [Moorish] ladies," says Dr. Shaw, Travels, p. 294, fol., "take themselves to be completely dressed, till they have tinged the hair and edges of their eyelids with alkahol, the powder of lead ore. This operation is performed by dipping first into the powder a small wooden bodkin of the thickness of a quill; and then drawing it afterwards through the eyelids, over the ball of the eye." Ezekiel, Eze 23:40, uses the same word in the form of a verb, כחלת עניך cachalt eynayik, "thou didst dress thine eyes with alcahol;" which the Septuagint render εστιβιζου τους, οφθαλμους σου, "thou didst dress thine eyes with stibium;" just as they do when the word פוך phuch is employed: compare 2Kgs 9:30; Jer 4:30. They supposed, therefore, that פוך phuch and כחל cachal, or in the Arabic form, alcahol, meant the same thing; and probably the mineral used of old for this purpose was the same that is used now; which Dr. Shaw (ibid. note) says is "a rich lead ore, pounded into an impalpable powder." Alcoholados; the word משקרות meshakkeroth in this place is thus rendered in an old Spanish translation. - Sanctius. See also Russell's Nat. Hist. of Aleppo, p. 102.

The following inventory, as one may call it, of the wardrobe of a Hebrew lady, must, from its antiquity, and the nature of the subject, have been very obscure even to the most ancient interpreters which we have of it; and from its obscurity must have been also peculiarly liable to the mistakes of transcribers. However, it is rather matter of curiosity than of importance; and is indeed, upon the whole, more intelligible and less corrupted than one might have reasonably expected. Clemens Alexandrinus, Paedag. lib. ii., c. 12, and Julius Pollux, lib. vii., c. 22, have each of them preserved from a comedy of Aristophanes, now lost, a similar catalogue of the several parts of the dress and ornaments of a Grecian lady; which, though much more capable of illustration from other writers, though of later date, and quoted and transmitted down to us by two different authors, yet seems to be much less intelligible, and considerably more corrupted, than this passage of Isaiah. Salmasius has endeavored, by comparing the two quotations, and by much critical conjecture and learned disquisition, to restore the true reading, and to explain the particulars; with what success, I leave to the determination of the learned reader, whose curiosity shall lead him to compare the passage of the comedian with this of the prophet, and to examine the critic's learned labors upon it. Exercit. Plinian, p. 1148; or see Clem. Ales. as cited above, edit. Potter, where the passage, as corrected by Salmasius, is given.

Nich. Guel. Schroederus, professor of oriental languages in the University of Marpurg, has published a very learned and judicious treatise upon this passage of Isaiah. The title of it is, "Commentarius Philologico-Criti cus de Vestitu Mulierum Hebraearum ad Iesai 3 ver. 16-24. Lugd. Bat. 1745." As I think no one has handled this subject with so much judgment and ability as this author, I have for the most part followed him, in giving the explanation of the several terms denoting the different parts of dress, of which this passage consists; signifying the reasons of my dissent, where he does not give me full satisfaction.

Bishop Lowth's translation of these verses is the following: -

18. In that day will the Lord take from them the ornaments,Of the feet-rings, and the net-works, and the crescents;

19. The pendants, and the bracelets, and the veils;

20. The tires, and the fetters, and the zones, And the perfume-boxes, and the amulets;

21. The rings, and the jewels of the nostrils;

22. The embroidered robes, and the tunics, And the cloaks, and the little purses,

23. The transparent garments, and the fine linen vests, And the turbans, and the mantles.

24. And there shall be instead of perfume, a putrid ulcer;And instead of well-girt raiment, rags;And instead of high-dressed hair, baldness;And instead of a zone, a girdle of sackcloth; And sun-burnt skin, instead of beauty.

The daughters of Zion - walk - What is meant by these several kinds of action and articles of dress cannot be well conjectured. How our ancestors understood them will appear from the following, which is the translation of these verses in my old MS. Bible: -

16. The doughteris of Syon wenteh with strught out necks, and ib beckes (winking) of eegen, geeden and flappeden with hondis for joye, and geeden: and with theire feet in curyous goying geeden; - 17. the Lord schall fully make ballid the top of the boughtris of Syon: and the Lord the her of hem schal naken. And for ournemente schal be schenschip.

18. In that day, the Lord schal don awey the ournement of Schoon and hoosis: 19. and beegis, and brochis, and armeerclis, and mytris; 20. and coombis, and rybanys and reversis at the hemmys, and oynment boris and ereringis; 21. and ryngis and jemmys in the frount hongynge; 22. and chaunginge clothis, and litil pallis, and scheetis, and prynys; 23. and scheweris, and neche hercheuys, and flyetis, and roketis; 24. and ther schal be for swot smel, stynke, and for gyrdil, a litl coord; and for crisp her, ballidnesse; and for brest boond and heyr.

Some of these things are hard to be understood, though I think this version as good as that of the very learned bishop: but there is little doubt that articles of clothing and dress bore these names in the fourteenth century.

The Lord will smite "Will the Lord humble" - ταπεινωσει, Septuagint; and so Syriac and Chaldee. For שפח sippach they read שפל shaphal. Instead of יהוה Yehovah, many MSS. have אדני Adonai.

Will discover their secret parts "Expose their nakedness" - It was the barbarous custom of the conquerors of those times to strip their captives naked, and to make them travel in that condition, exposed to the inclemency of the weather; and the worst of all, to the intolerable heat of the sun. But this to the women was the height of cruelty and indignity; and especially to such as those here described, who had indulged themselves in all manner of delicacies of living, and all the superfluities of ornamental dress; and even whose faces had hardly ever been exposed to the sight of man. This is always mentioned as the hardest part of the lot of captives. Nahum, Nah 3:5, Nah 3:6, denouncing the fate of Nineveh, paints it in very strong colors: - "Behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah, God of hosts:

And I will discover thy skirts upon thy face;

And I will expose thy nakedness to the nations;

And to the kingdoms thy shame.

And I will throw ordures upon thee;

And I will make thee vile, and set thee as a gazing-stock."

Ornaments about their feet "The ornaments of the feet rings" - The late learned Dr. Hunt, professor of Hebrew and Arabic in the University of Oxford, has very well explained the word עכס both verb and noun, in his very ingenious Dissertation on Prov, Isa 7:22, Isa 7:23. The verb means to skip, to bound, to dance along, and the noun, those ornaments of the feet which the Eastern ladies wore; chains or rings, which made a tinkling sound as they moved nimbly in walking. Eugene Roger, Description de la Terre Sainte, 54:2 ch. 2, speaking of the Arabian women, of the first rank in Palestine, says,"Au lieu de brasselets elles ont de menottes d'argent, qu'elles portent aux poignets et aux pieds; ou sont attachez quantite de petits annelets d'argent, qui font un cliquetis comme d'une cymbale, lorsqu'elles cheminent ou se mouvent quelque peu." See Dr. Hunt's Dissertation; where he produces other testimonies to the same purpose from authors of travels. Hindoo women of ill fame wear loose ornaments one above another on their ankles, which at every motion make a tinkling noise. See Ward.

And their cauls "the net-works" - I am obliged to differ from the learned Schroederus almost at first setting out. He renders the word שביסים shebisim by soliculi, little ornaments, bullae, or studs, in shape representing the sun, and so answering to the following word שהרנים saharonim, lunulae, crescents. He supposes the word to be the same with שמישים shemishim, the י yod in the second syllable making the word diminutive, and the letter מ mem being changed for ב beth, a letter of the same organ. How just and well founded his authorities for the transmutation of these letters in the Arabic language are, I cannot pretend to judge; but as I know of no such instance in Hebrew, it seems to me a very forced etymology. Being dissatisfied with this account of the matter, I applied to my good friend above mentioned, the late Dr. Hunt, who very kindly returned the following answer to my inquiries: - "I have consulted the Arabic Lexicons, as well MS. as printed, but cannot find שביסים shebisim in any of them, nor any thing belonging to it; so that no help is to be had from that language towards clearing up the meaning of this difficult word. But what the Arabic denies, the Syriac perhaps may afford; in which I find the verb שבש shabas, to entangle or interweave, an etymology which is equally favorable to our marginal translation, net-works, with שבץ shabats, to make chequer work, or embroider, (the word by which Kimchi and others have explained שביס shabis); and has moreover this advantage over it, that the letters ש sin and ס samech are very frequently put for each other, but צ tsaddi and ס samech scarcely ever. Aben Ezra joins שביסים shebisim and עכסים achasim, which immediately precedes it, together; and says that שביס shabis was the ornament of the leps, as עכס eches was of the feet. His words are, שביס תכשיט של שוקים כמו עכס של רגלים - L."

The tablets - The words בתי הנפש bottey hannephesh, which we translate tablets, and Bishop Lowth, perfume boxes, literally signify houses of the soul; and may refer to strong scented bottles used for pleasure and against fainting; similar to bottles with otto of roses, worn by the ladies of the East to the present time.

Nose-jewels "The jewels of the nostril" - נזמי האף nizmey haaph. Schroederus explains this, as many others do, of jewels, or strings of pearl hanging from the forehead, and reaching to the upper part of the nose; than which nothing can be more ridiculous, as such are seldom seen on an Asiatic face. But it appears from many passages of Holy Scripture that the phrase is to be literally and properly understood of nose-jewels, rings set with jewels hanging from the nostrils, as ear-rings from the ears, by holes bored to receive them.

Ezekiel, enumerating the common ornaments of women of the first rank, has not omitted this particular, and is to be understood in the same manner, Eze 16:11, Eze 16:12. See also Gen 24:47 : - "And I decked thee with ornaments;

And I put bracelets upon thine hands,

And a chain on thy neck:

And I put a jewel on thy nose,

And ear-rings on thine ears,

And a splendid crown upon thine head."

And in an elegant proverb of Solomon, Pro 11:22, there is a manifest allusion to this kind of ornament, which shows it to have been used in his time: - "As a jewel of gold in the snout of a swine;

So is a woman beautiful, but wanting discretion."

This fashion, however strange it may appear to us, was formerly and is still common in many parts of the East, among women of all ranks. Paul Lucas, speaking of a village or clan of wandering people, a little on this side of the Euphrates, says, (2d Voyage du Levant, tom. i., art. 24), "The women, almost all of them, travel on foot; I saw none handsome among them. They have almost all of them the nose bored; and wear in it a great ring, which makes them still more deformed." But in regard to this custom, better authority cannot be produced than that of Pietro della Valle, in the account which he gives of the lady before mentioned, Signora Maani Gioerida, his own wife. The description of her dress, as to the ornamental parts of it, with which he introduces the mention of this particular, will give us some notion of the taste of the Eastern ladies for finery. "The ornaments of gold and of jewels for the head, for the neck, for the arms, for the legs, and for the feet (for they wear rings even on their toes) are indeed, unlike those of the Turks, carried to great excess, but not of great value: for in Bagdad jewels of high price are either not to be had, or are not used; and they wear such only as are of little value, as turquoises, small rubies, emeralds, carbuncles, garnets, pearls, and the like. My spouse dresses herself with all of them according to their fashion; with exception, however, of certain ugly rings of very large size, set with jewels, which, in truth, very absurdly, it is the custom to wear fastened to one of their nostrils, like buffaloes: an ancient custom, however, in the East, which, as we find in the Holy Scriptures, prevailed among the Hebrew ladies even in the time of Solomon, Pro 11:22. These nose-rings, in complaisance to me, she has left off, but I have not yet been able to prevail with her cousin and her sisters to do the same; so fond are they of an old custom, be it ever so absurd, who have been long habituated to it." Viaggi, Tom. i., Let. 17.

It is the left nostril that is bored and ornamented with rings and jewels. More than one hundred drawings from life of Eastern ladies lie now before me, and scarcely one is without the nose-jewel: both the arms and wrists are covered with bracelets, arm-circles, etc., as also their legs and feet; the soles of their feet and palms of their hands coloured beautifully red with henna, and their hair plaited and ornamented superbly. These beautiful drawings are a fine comment on this chapter.

The glasses - The conjunction ו vau, and - And the glasses, is added here by forty-three of Kennicott's and thirty-four of De Rossi's MSS., and one of my own, ancient, as well as by many editions.

And the veils. "The transparent garments" - Τα διαφανη Λακωνικα, Sept. A kind of silken dress, transparent, like gauze; worn only by the most elegant women, and such as dressed themselves elegantius quam necesse esset probis, "more elegantly than modest women should." Such garments are worn to the present day; garments that not only show the shape of every part of the body, but the very color of the skin. This is evidently the case in some scores of drawings of Asiatic females now before me. This sort of garments was afterwards in use among the Greeks. Prodicus, in his celebrated fable (Xenoph. Memorab. Socr. lib. ii.) exhibits the personage of Sloth in this dress: Εσθητα δε, εξ ἡς αν μαλιστα ὡρα διαλαμποι: - "Her robe betray'd

Through the clear texture every tender limb,

Height'ning the charms it only seem'd to shade;

And as it flow'd adown so loose and thin,

Her stature show'd more tall, more snowy white her skin."

They were called multitia and coa (scil, vestimenta) by the Romans, from their being invented, or rather introduced into Greece, by one Pamphila of the island of Cos. This, like other Grecian fashions, was received at Rome, when luxury began to prevail under the emperors. It was sometimes worn even by the men, but looked upon as a mark of extreme effeminacy. See Juvenal, Sat. ii., 65, etc. Publius Syrus, who lived when the fashion was first introduced, has given a humorous satirical description of it in two lines, which by chance have been preserved: - "Aequum est, induere nuptam ventum textilem?

Palam prostare nudam in nebula linea?"

Instead of sweet smell "perfume" - A principal part of the delicacy of the Asiatic ladies consists in the use of baths, and of the richest oils and perfumes; an attention to which is in some degree necessary in those hot countries. Frequent mention is made of the rich ointments of the spouse in the Song of Solomon, Sol 4:10, Sol 4:11 : - "How beautiful are thy breasts, my sister, my spouse!

How much more excellent than wine;

And the odour of thine ointments than all perfumes!

Thy lips drop as the honey-comb, my spouse!

Honey and milk are under thy tongue:

And the odor of thy garments is as the odour of Lebanon."

The preparation for Esther's being introduced to King Ahasuerus was a course of bathing and perfuming for a whole year; "six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet odours;" Est 2:12 (note). A diseased and loathsome habit of body, instead of a beautiful skin, softened and made agreeable with all that art could devise, and all that nature, so prodigal in those countries of the richest perfumes, could supply, must have been a punishment the most severe and the most mortifying to the delicacy of these haughty daughters of Sion.

Burning instead of beauty "A sunburnt skin" - Gaspar Sanctius thinks the words כי תחת ki thachath an interpolation, because the Vulgate has omitted them. The clause כי תחת יפי ki thachath yophi seems to me rather to be imperfect at the end. Not to mention that כי ki, taken as a noun for adustio, burning, is without example, and very improbable. The passage ends abruptly, and seems to want a fuller conclusion.

In agreement with which opinion, of the defect of the Hebrew text in this place, the Septuagint, according to MSS. Pachom. and 1 D. ii., and Marchal., which are of the best authority, express it with the same evident marks of imperfection at the end of the sentence; thus: ταυτα σοι αντι καλλωπισμου The two latter add δου. This chasm in the text, from the loss probably of three or four words, seems therefore to be of long standing.

Taking כי ki in its usual sense, as a particle, and supplying לך lech from the σοι of the Septuagint, it might possibly have been originally somewhat in this form: - מראה רעת לך תהיה יפי תחת כי marah raath lech thihyeh yophi thachath ki "Yea, instead of beauty thou shalt have an illfavoured countenance." כי תחת יפי ki thachath yophi (q. יחת yachath), "for beauty shall be destroyed." Syr. חתת chathath or נחת nachath.-Dr. Durell. "May it not be כהי cohey, 'wrinkles instead of beauty?' as from יפה yaphah is formed יפי yephi, yophi; from מרה marah, מרי meri, etc.; so from כהה cahah, to be wrinkled, כהי cohey." - Dr. Jubb. The כי ki is wanting in one MS., and has been omitted by several of the ancients.

Thy mighty men - For גבורתך geburathech an ancient MS. has גבורך gibborech. The true reading, from the Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, and Chaldee, seems to be גבוריך gibborayich.

Sit upon the ground - Sitting on the ground was a posture that denoted mourning and deep distress. The prophet Jeremiah (Lam 2:8) has given it the first place among many indications of sorrow, in the following elegant description of the same state of distress of his country: - "The elders of the daughter of Sion sit on the ground, they are silent: They have cast up dust on their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth; The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed down their heads to the ground." "We find Judea," says Mr. Addison, (on Medals, Dial. ii), "on several coins of Vespasian and Titus, in a posture that denotes sorrow and captivity. I need not mention her sitting on the ground, because we have already spoken of the aptness of such a posture to represent an extreme affliction. I fancy the Romans might have an eye on the customs of the Jewish nation, as well as those of their country, in the several marks of sorrow they have set on this figure. The psalmist describes the Jews lamenting their captivity in the same pensive posture: 'By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Zion.' But what is more remarkable, we find Judea represented as a woman in sorrow sitting on the ground, in a passage of the prophet, that foretells the very captivity recorded on this medal." Mr. Addison, I presume, refers to this place of Isaiah; and therefore must have understood it as foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation by the Romans: whereas it seems plainly to relate, in its first and more immediate view at least, to the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar, and the dissolution of the Jewish state under the captivity at Babylon. - L.

Several of the coins mentioned here by Mr. Addison are in my own collection: and to such I have already referred in this work. I shall describe one here. On the obverse a fine head of the emperor Vespasian with this legend, Imperator Julius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia Potestate Pater Patriae, Consul VIII.

On the reverse a tall palm tree, emblem of the land of Palestine, the emperor standing on the left, close to the tree, with a trophy behind him; on the right, Judea under the figure of a female captive sitting on the ground, with her head resting on her hand, the elbow on her knee, weeping. Around is this legend, Judea Capta. Senates Consulto. However this prediction may refer proximately to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, I am fully of opinion that it ultimately refers to the final ruin of the Jewish state by the Romans. And so it has been understood by the general run of the best and most learned interpreters and critics.

The judge - The civil magistrates. The ancient - Whose wisdom was increased by long experience.

Oppressed - By thy command or permission of such childish rulers.

Thou hast - We are utterly undone, and have neither food nor raiment; but thou hast something left to support the dignity which we offer to thee. Under thine hand - To heal it.

An healer - A repairer of the ruins of the state.

The shew - Their pride, and wantonness, and impiety m manifestly shews itself in their very looks. They declare - They act it publickly, casting off all fear of God and reverence to men. Rewarded - Procured a fit recompense for their wickedness, even utter ruin.

Say ye - O ye priests and Levites, that God will be their safeguard and portion.

Women - Weak and effeminate rulers. They - Thy rulers civil and ecclesiastical.

Standeth - He will shortly and certainly stand up as a judge, to enquire into the cause, and to give sentence. To judge - To defend and deliver them.

Ancients - The princes or rulers; such were commonly chosen out of those who were in ripe years. Eaten - Destroyed instead of preserving the church and commonwealth of Israel. Spoil - The goods which you have violently taken away from the poor.

The daughters - The women; (hitherto he reproved the men). A tinkling - By some ornaments which they wore upon their shoes.

Secret paths - By giving her into the power of those enemies that shall strip her of all her raiment.

Cauls - It is agreed by all, that this and several words that follow, were ornaments used in those times. And it is of no concern, exactly to understand the nature and differences of them. The moon - There were in ancient times, and at this day there are some ornaments worn, which carry a manifest resemblance to the moon or half moon.

Tablets - He seems to mean boxes of perfumes.

Nose - jewels - Which were fastened to the head, and hung down upon the forehead to the beginning of the nose.

Pins - Of silver or gold, either used to curl the hair, or fastened and worn in the hair.

Glasses - The looking - glasses, as we call them, tho' in truth they were not made of glass, but of bright and burnished brass.

Girdle - Which were fine and costly, and useful to gird their garments about them. A rent - Torn and tattered garments. Burning - By the heat of the sun, to which they are now commonly exposed, from which they used formerly to guard themselves with the utmost care.

Gates - The gates of Zion or Jerusalem, which, by a figure, are said to lament, to imply the great desolation of the place; that there would be no people to go out and come in by the gates, as they used to do. Shall sit - Like a mournful woman bewailing the loss of her husband and children.

FOr behold , the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem, and from Judah, the stay and the staf[illegible: 1+ letters] , the whole stay of bread , and the whole stay of water:

Look upon it as a thing as certain as if it were already done.

All the Supports of their State and Church.

Called elsewhere the staff of bread; whereby is understood, either, 1. the Nourishing power of Bread, which wholly depends upon Gods Blessing; or rather, 2. Bread it self, as this Phrase is understood Levit. 26. 26. Psal. 105. 16. Ezek. 4. 16. and directly explained Ezek. 5. 16. Bread which is the Staff of Life.

2 The mighty man and the man of war, the judge , and the prophet , and the prudent , and the ancient ;

Strong and valiant Men.

The Civil Magistrates.

Either strictly so called, the want of whom is matter of grief, see Psal. 74. 9. or largely, so as to include all skilful and faithful Teachers.

Whose Wisdom and Conduct was necessary to preserve them from ruine.

Whose Wisdom was increased by long Experience.

Marginal references: Heb. diviner or ghesser.

3 The captain of fifty , and the honourable man , and the counsellor , and the cunning artificer , and the eloquent oratour .

There shall not be a Man left able to command and manage Fifty Soldiers, and much less such as could command Hundreds or Thousands, which yet were necessary.

Men of high Birth, and Place, and Power, and Reputation.

Wise and Learned Statesmen.

Who could make either Ornaments for Times of Peace, or Instruments for War; which therefore Conquerors took away from those Nations whom they subdued, 1 Sam. 13. 19, 20. 2 Kings 24. 14.

Heb. The skilful of charm. Whereby he understands either▪ 1. Charmers, whom he threatens to take away, not as if such Persons were Blessings to a People, or the removing of such were a Curse, but only because they made great use of them, and trusted to them. And so he signifies that God would remove all the Grounds of their Confidence, both right and wrong, and make their Case desperate. As in like manner, and for the same reason, God threatens the Israelites that they should be as without a sacrifice, so without Teraphim, Hos. 3. 4. or, 2. as most understand it, such as could powerfully perswade, and, as it were, charm that ungovernable Beast the Multitude of Common People, by their Eloquence, to do those things which were necessary for their Peace and Safety: For this word may be taken in good sence, as divination is, Prov. 16. 10.

Marginal references: Heb. a man eminent in countenance.; Heb. skilful of charm.

4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.

Either 1. in Age, whose Minority corrupt Ministers of State commonly abuse to great Mischiefs; or, 2. in Understanding, Experience, and Manners, foolish, froward, unteachable, &c.

Marginal references: E[illegible: 1+ letters]cl. 10. 16.

5 And the people shall be oppressed , every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable .

By the command or connivence of such Childish Rulers.

Foolish and unworthy Men shall by wicked Arts gain the Favour and abuse the Power of the Prince, and thereby behave themselves insolently towards their Betters.

6 When a man shall take hold of his brother, of the house of his father , saying, Thou hast cloathing , be thou our ruler , and let this ruine be under thine hand .

Whereas Envy ordinarily reigns in near Relations, when one Brother is advanced far above all the rest.

We are utterly undone, and have neither Food nor Raiment; but thou hast something yet left to support the Dignity which we offer to thee, and to enable thee to execute thine Office.

He sheweth, that Misgovernment should cause the Dissolution of the Government, and that the former Governours should be removed either by Foreign Force, or by Domestick Insurrection.

To wit, to heal it, as it is explained in the next Verse. Undertake the Charge of this tottering State.

7 In that day shall he swear , saying, I will not be an healer : for in my house is neither bread nor cloathing : make me not a ruler of the people.

Heb. he shall l[illegible: 1+ letters]ft up; understand either i. his Voice; he shall cry aloud, to shew his earnestness in refusing the Offer; or 2. his Hand, which was the usual gesture in Swearing, Gen. 14. 22. Deut. 32. 40. &c. to shew his Resolvedness.

A Repairer of the Ruines of the State.

I have not sufficient Provisions either of Food or Raiment for my own Family; much less, as you falsely suppose, for the Discharge of so high a Trust.

Marginal references: Heb. lift up the hand.; Heb. binder up.

8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory .

Of his glorious Majesty, whom they ought to reverence and adore.

9 ¶ The shew of their countenance doth witness against them , and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not : wo unto their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

Their Pride, and Wantonness, and Impiety manifestly shews it self in their very Looks and Carriages, and will be a swift Witness against them both before God and Men.

They act it publickly, casting off all Fear of God, and Reverence to Men, and they glory in it.

As Men do who have any remainders of Modesty or Ingenuity.

i. e. Procured a fit Re[illegible: 1+ letters]ompence for their Wickedness, even utter Ruine. Or, they have done: for this Word is oft so used, without any signification of a Recompence, as Psal. 7. 4. They cannot blame me▪ but themselves: their Destruction is wholly from themselves. Compare Hos. 13. 9.

Marginal references: Or, hardning.; Gen. 13. 13▪ & 18. 21. & 19. 5.

10 Say ye to the righteous, That it shall be well with him: for they shall eat of the fruit of their doings .

God hath said it, and doth now by me say it; and you▪ O ye Priests and Levites, say it in your Sermons to the People.

Let not them fear, for God will be their Safeguard and Portion in the common Calamity.

11 Wo unto the wicked , it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hand shall be given him.

These heavy Judgments are designed against them, and shall certainly find them out▪ though here they be mixed with the Righteous.

Marginal references: Heb. done to him.

12 ¶ As for my people, children are their oppressours, and women rule over them: O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to erre, and destroy the way of thy paths .

Either 1. properly so called, by their Favour and Power with the Rulers; or, 2. weak and effeminate Rulers, such being called Women both in Sacred and Profane Writings.

Thy Rulers Civil and Ecclesiastical, whose Duty it is to shew thee th[illegible: 1+ letters] right way. Or, as others, They that bless thee, i. e. thy false Prophets, which flatter thee, and speak Peace to thee.

Keep thee from the Knowledge or Practice of that Way which leads to thy Salvation, and mislead thee into evil Courses, by their wicked Counsels or Examples.

Marginal references: Ver. 4.; Chap. 9. 16.; Or, they which call thee blessed.; Heb. swallow up.

13 The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people .

He will shortly and certainly stand up as a Judge, to enquire into the Cause, and to give Sentence.

i. e. To def[illegible: 1+ letters]nd and deliver them, or to judge for them, as this Phrase is oft used.

14 The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his People, and the Princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard ; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

The Princes or Rulers, as it is explained in the next Clause, who are oft called Elders, because such were commonly and fitly chosen out of those who were ripe in years.

Destroyed in stead of preserving and dressing it, as you should have done.

The Church and Commonwealth of Israel, which is oft called Gods Vineyard, as Psal. 80. 8, 14, 15. Isa. 5. 1. Ier. 2. 21. &c. and here the vineyard, by way of eminency: or, the vineyard which was committed to your care to keep.

The Goods which you have violently taken away from the Poor.

Marginal references: Or, bur[illegible: 1+ letters]t up.

15 What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts.

What Warrant have ye for it? How durst you presume to do it?

Or, bat[illegible: 1+ letters]er, as the Word is used Exod. 32. 20. Smite them cruelly. See Chap. 58. 4.

16 ¶ Moreover, the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks , and wanton eyes , walking and mincing as they go , and making a tinkling with their feet :

The Women; as hitherto he reproved the Men.

Affecting Stateliness, Psal. 75. 5. and to seem tall.

Or, as others, twinkling with their eyes in a lascivious manner.

After the manner of loose and wanton Persons.

By some Ornaments which they wore upon their Shoes.

Marginal references: Heb. deceiving with their eyes.; Or, tripping nicely.

17 Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts .

Will by sending Scabs, or by other ways, take off the Hair of their Head, which is a Womans Glory, 1 Cor. 11. 15▪ and which doubtless ministred to their Pride and Wantonness. Others render it, He will make bald, &c.

By giving her into the power of those Enemies that shall either strip her of all her Raiments, not leaving her sufficient to cover her Nakedness; or otherwise abuse her, by such immodest and contemptuous Actions▪ Compare Isa. 47. 3▪ Ezek. 16. 37. & 23▪ 10, 26▪

Marginal references: Heb. make naked.

18 In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls , and their round tires like the moon ,

As for this and the other Hebrew words here following, I judge it unnecessary and improper to trouble the English Reader with the differing Interpretations given of them by Learned Men, which the Curious may find in my Latin Synopsis. It is agreed by all, that they were Ornaments used by that People in those Times, and made Fewel to their Lusts. And it is of no concernment to the Direction either of our Faith or Manners, exactly to understand the Nature and Differences of them. And therefore I shall take them as they are in our Translation.

There were in ancient Times, and at this day there are some Jewels or other Ornaments worn, which carry a manifest resemblance to the Moon or Half-moon. Compare Iudg. 8. 21, 26.

Marginal references: Or, networks.

20 The bonnets , and the ornaments of the legs, and the head-bands, and the tablets , and the ear-rings,

These were Ornaments to cover the Head, common both to Men, as Exod. 39. 28. and to Women, as here.

Heb. the houses of the soul, or, of l[illegible: 1+ letters]fe, or, of breath. Whereby he seems to mean Boxes of excellent Perfumes, which are of great efficacy to revive our drooping Spirits, and to that end are oft applied to such as are ready to saint away.

Marginal references: Heb. houses of the soul.

21 The rings, and the nose-jewels ,

Which were fastned to the Head, and hung down upon the Forehead to the beginning of the Nose. Of which see Gen. 24. 22, 47. Iudg. 8. 24. &c.

22 The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins .

Of Silver or Gold, either used to curl the Hair, or rather fastned and worn in the Hair; which Custom is not altogether disused at this day.

23 The glasses , and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails.

The Looking-glasses, as we call them, though in truth they were not made of Glass, but of bright and burni[illegible: 1+ letters]ed B[illegible: 1+ letters]ass.

24 And it shall come to pass, that in stead of sweet smell , there shall be stink ; and in stead of a girdle , a rent ; and in stead of wellset hair, baldness; and in stead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth; and burning , in stead of beauty.

Those Perfumes mentioned v. 20.

From their scabs mentioned v. 17. or from other ill usages of their Enemies.

Which were fine and costly, and useful to gird their Garments about them.

Either the rending of their Garments for grief; or torn and tattered Garments, not sufficient to cover their Bodies.

By the heat of the Sun, to which they are now commonly exposed, from which they used formerly to guard themselves with great care.

26 And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she being desolate, shall sit upon the ground .

The Gates of Zion or Ierusalem, which, by a Figure very usual in Sacred Scripture, and all Authors, are said to lament, to imply the great Desolation of the Place, that there should be no People to go out and come in by the Gates, or to meet together in the Gates, as they used to do.

Like a mournful Woman bewailing the loss of her Husband and Children.

Marginal references: Or, emptied.; Heb. cleansed.

Isa 3:1 “For, behold, the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah supporter and means of support, every support of bread and every support of water.” The divine name given here, “The Lord, Jehovah of hosts,” with which Isaiah everywhere introduces the judicial acts of God (cf., Isa 1:24; Isa 10:16, Isa 10:33; Isa 19:4), is a proof that the proclamation of judgment commences afresh here. Trusting in man was the crying sin, more especially of the times of Uzziah-Jotham. The glory of the kingdom at that time carried the wrath of Jehovah within it. The outbreak of that wrath commenced in the time of Ahaz; and even under Hezekiah it was merely suspended, not changed. Isaiah foretells this outbreak of wrath. He describes how Jehovah will lay the Jewish state in ruins, by taking away the main supports of its existence and growth. “Supporter and means of support” (mash'en and mash'enah) express, first of all, the general idea. The two nouns, which are only the masculine and feminine forms of one and the same word (compare Mic 2:4; Nah 2:11, and the examples from the Syriac and Arabic in Ewald, §172, c), serve to complete the generalization: fulcra omne genus (props of every kind, omnigena). They are both technical terms, denoting the prop which a person uses to support anything, whilst mish'an signifies that which yields support; so that the three correspond somewhat to the Latin fulcrum, fultura, fulcimen. Of the various means of support, bread and wine are mentioned first, not in a figurative sense, but as the two indispensable conditions and the lowest basis of human life. Life is supported by bread and water: it walks, as it were, upon the crutch of bread, so that “breaking the staff of bread” (Lev 26:26; Eze 4:16; Eze 5:16; Eze 14:13; Psa 105:16) is equivalent to physical destruction. The destruction of the Jewish state would accordingly be commenced by a removal on the part of Jehovah of all the support afforded by bread and water, i.e., all the stores of both. And this was literally fulfilled, for both in the Chaldean and Roman times Jerusalem perished in the midst of just such terrible famines as are threatened in the curses in Lev 26, and more especially in Deut 28; ; and in both cases the inhabitants were reduced to such extremities, that women devoured their own children (Lam 2:20; Josephus, Wars of Jews, vi. 3, 3, 4). It is very unjust, therefore, on the part of modern critics, such as Hitzig, Knobel, and Meier, to pronounce Isa 3:1 a gloss, and, in fact, a false one. Gesenius and Umbreit retracted this suspicion. The construction of the v. is just the same as that of Isa 25:6; and it is Isaiah’s custom to explain his own figures, as we have already observed when comparing Isa 1:7. and Isa 1:23 with what preceded them. “Every support of bread and every support of water” are not to be regarded in this case as an explanation of the general idea introduced before, “supporters and means of support,” but simply as the commencement of the detailed expansion of the idea. For the enumeration of the supports which Jehovah would take away is continued in the next two verses.

Isa 3:2-3 “Hero and man of war, judge and prophet, and soothsayer and elder; captains of fifty, and the highly distinguished, and counsellors, and masters in art, and those skilled in muttering.” As the state had grown into a military state under Uzziah-Jotham, the prophet commences in both vv. with military officers, viz., the gibbor, i.e., commanders whose bravery had been already tried; the “man of war” (ish imlchâmâh), i.e., private soldiers who had been equipped and well trained (see Eze 39:20); and the “captain of fifty” (sar Chamisshim), leaders of the smallest divisions of the army, consisting of only fifty men (pentekontarchos, 2Ki 1:9, etc.). The prominent members of the state are all mixed up together; “the judge” (shophet), i.e., the officers appointed by the government to administer justice; “the elder” (zâkēn), i.e., the heads of families and the senators appointed by the town corporations; the “counsellor” (yōetz), those nearest to the king; the “highly distinguished” (nesu panim), lit., those whose personal appearance (panim) was accepted, i.e., welcome and regarded with honour (Saad.: wa'gı̄h, from wa'gh, the face of appearance), that is to say, persons of influence, not only on account of their office, but also on account of wealth, age, goodness, etc.; “masters in art” (Chacam Charâshim: lxx σοφὸς ἀρχιτέκτων ), or, as Jerome has very well rendered it, in artibus mechanicis exercitatus easque callide tractans (persons well versed in mechanical arts, and carrying them out with skill). In the Chaldean captivities skilled artisans are particularly mentioned as having been carried away (2Ki 24:14.; Jer 24:1; Jer 29:2); so that there can be no doubt whatever that Charâshim (from Cheresh) is to be understood as signifying mechanical and not magical arts, as Gesenius, Hitzig, and Meier suppose, and therefore that Chacam Charâshim does not mean “wizards,” as Ewald renders it (Chărâshim is a different word from Chârâshim, fabri, from Chârâsh, although in 1Ch 4:14, cf., Neh 11:35, the word is regularly pointed חרשׁים even in this personal sense). Moreover, the rendering “wizards” produces tautology, inasmuch as masters of the black art are cited as nebon lachash, “skilled in muttering.” Lachash is the whispering or muttering of magical formulas; it is related both radically and in meaning to nachash, enchantment (Arabic nachs, misfortune); it is derived from lachash, sibilare, to hiss (a kindred word to nâchash; hence nâchâsh, a serpent). Beside this, the masters of the black art are also represented as kosem, which, in accordance with the radical idea of making fast, swearing, conjuring, denoted a soothsayer following heathen superstitions, as distinguished from the nabi, of false Jehovah prophet (we find this as early as Deu 18:10, Deu 18:14).According to the primary meaning of the whole thema, which is one of hardness, rigidity, firmness, aksama (hi. of kâsam) signifies, strictly speaking, to make sure, i.e., to swear, either by swearing to the truth and certainty of a thing, or by making a person swear that he will do or not do a certain thing, by laying as it were a kasam upon him. The kal, on the other hand (kasama), gets its meaning to divide from the turn given to the radical idea in the substantive kism, which signifies, according to the original lexicographers, something fixed (= nası̄b), definite, i.e., a definite portion. There is just the same association of ideas in ‛azama as in aksama, namely, literally to be firm or make firm, i.e., to direct one’s will firmly towards an object or place; also to direct one’s will firmly towards a person, to adjure him to do a thing or not to do it; sometimes with a softer meaning, to urge or invite a person to anything, at other times to recite conjuring formulas (‛azâim.

These came next to bread and water, and were in a higher grade the props of the state. They are mixed together in this manner without regular order, because the powerful and splendid state was really a quodlibet of things Jewish and heathen; and when the wrath of Jehovah broke out, the godless glory would soon become a mass of confusion.

Isa 3:4

Thus robbed of its support, and torn out of its proper groove, the kingdom of Judah would fall a prey to the most shameless despotism: “And I give them boys for princes, and caprices shall rule over them.” The revived “Solomonian” glory is followed, as before, by the times of Rehoboam. The king is not expressly named. This was intentional. He had sunk into the mere shadow of a king: it was not he who ruled, but the aristocratic party that surrounded him, who led him about in leading strings as unum inter pares. Now, if it is a misfortune in most cases for a king to be a child (na'ar, Ecc 10:16), the misfortune is twice as great when the princes or magnates who surround and advise him are youngsters (ne'ârim, i.e., young lords) in a bad sense. It produces a government of tâlulim. None of the nouns in this form have a personal signification. According to the primary meaning of the verbal stem, the word might signify childishnesses, equivalent to little children (the abstract for the concrete, like τἀπαιδικά amasius), as Ewald supposes; or puppets, fantocci, poltroons, or men without heart or brain, as Luzzatto maintains. But the latter has no support in the general usage of the language, and the verb yimshelu (shall rule) does not necessarily require a personal subject (cf., Psa 19:14; Psa 103:19). The word tâlulim is formed from the reflective verb hithallel, which means to meddle, to gratify one’s self, to indulge one’s caprice. Accordingly tâlulim itself might be rendered vexationes (Isa 66:4). Jerome, who translates the word effeminati, appears to have thought of התעלּל in an erotic sense. The Sept. rendering, ἐμπαῖκται is better, though ἐμπαίγματα would be more exact. When used, as the word is here, along with ne'arim, it signifies outbursts of youthful caprice, which do injury to others, whether in joke or earnest. Neither law nor justice would rule, but the very opposite of justice: a course of conduct which would make subjects, like slaves, the helpless victims at one time of their lust (Jdg 19:25), and at another of their cruelty. They would be governed by lawless and bloodstained caprice, of the most despotic character and varied forms. And the people would resemble their rulers: their passions would be let loose, and all restraints of modesty and decorum be snapt asunder.

Isa 3:5 “And the people oppress one another, one this and another that; the boy breaks out violently upon the old man, and the despised upon the honoured.” Niggas is the reciprocal niphal, as the clause depicting the reciprocity clearly shows (cf., nilcham, Isa 19:2); nagas followed by Beth means to treat as a tyrant or taskmaster (Isa 9:3). The commonest selfishness would then stifle every nobler motive; one would become the tyrant of another, and ill-mannered insolence would take the place of that reverence, which is due to the old and esteemed from boys and those who are below them in position, whether we regard the law of nature, the Mosaic law (Lev 19:32), or the common custom of society. Nikleh (from kâlâh, the synonym of הקל, Isa 9:1; Isa 23:9; cf., Isa 16:14, kal, to be light or insignificant) was a term used to denote whoever belonged to the lowest stratum of society (1Sa 18:23). It was the opposite of nichâd (from Cabed, to be heavy or of great importance). The Septuagint rendering, ὁ ἄτιμος πρὸς τὸν ἔντιμον is a very good one (as the Semitic languages have no such antithetical formations with ἃ στερητικόν). With such contempt of the distinctions arising from age and position, the state would very soon become a scene of the wildest confusion.

Isa 3:6-7

At length there would be no authorities left; even the desire to rule would die out: for despotism is sure to be followed by mob-rule, and mob-rule by anarchy in the most literal sense. The distress would become so great, that whoever had a coat (cloak), so as to be able to clothe himself at all decently, would be asked to undertake the government. “When a man shall take hold of his brother in his father’s house, Thou hast a coat, thou shalt be our ruler, and take this ruin under thy hand; he will cry out in that day, I do not want to be a surgeon; there is neither bread nor coat in my house: ye cannot make me the ruler of the people.” “his father’s house” - this is not an unmeaning trait in the picture of misery. The population would have become so thin and dispirited through hunger, that with a little energy it would be possible to decide within the narrow circle of a family who should be ruler, and to give effect to the decision. “In his father’s house:” Beth âbiv is an acc. loci. The father’s house is the place where brother meets with brother; and one breaks out with the urgent petition contained in the words, which follow without the introductory “saying” (cf., Isa 14:8, Isa 14:16, and Isa 22:16; Isa 33:14). לכה for לך with He otians, a form rarely met with (vid., Gen 27:37). תּהיה, which would be written תּהי before the predicate, is jussive in meaning, though not in form. “This ruin:” macshelah is used in Zep 1:3 for that which occasions a person’s fall; here it signifies what has been overthrown; and as Câshal itself, which means not only to stumble, strip, or slide, but also to fall in consequence of some force applied from without, is not used in connection with falling buildings, it must be introduced here with an allusion to the prosopopeia which follows in Isa 3:8. The man who was distinguished above all others, or at any rate above many others, by the fact that he could still dress himself decently (even if it were only in a blouse), should be made supreme ruler or dictator (cf., kâtzin, Jdg 11:6); and the state which lay so miserably in ruins should be under his hand, i.e., his direction, protection, and care (2Ki 8:20; Gen 41:35, cf., Isa 16:9, where the plural is used instead of the ordinary singular yâd.) The apodosis to the protasis introduced with Chi as a particle of time (when) commences in Isa 3:7. The answer given by the brother to the earnest petition is introduced with “he will raise (viz., his voice, Isa 24:14) in that day, saying.” It is given in this circumstantial manner because it is a solemn protest. He does not want to be a Chobēsh, i.e., a binder, namely of the broken arms, and bones, and ribs of the ruined state (Isa 30:26; Isa 1:6; Isa 61:1). The expression ehyeh implies that he does not like it, because he is conscious of his inability. He has not confidence enough in himself, and the assumption that he has a coat is a false cone: he not only has no coat at home (we must remember that the conversation is supposed to take place in his father’s house), but he has not any bread; so that it is utterly impossible for a naked, starving man like him to do what is suggested (“in my house,” ubebethi with a Vav of causal connection: Ges. 155, 1, c).

Isa 3:8

The prophet then proceeds, in Isa 3:8-12, to describe this deep, tragical misery as a just retribution.”For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah fallen; because their tongue and their doings (are)against Jehovah, to defy the eyes of His glory.” Jerusalem as a city is feminine, according to the usual personification; Judah as a people is regarded as masculine.As a rule, the name of a people (apart from the personification of the people as beth, a house) is only used as a feminine, when the name of the land stands for the nation itself (see Gesenius, Lehrbegr. p. 469).

The two preterites Câs'lah and nâphal express the general fact, which occasioned such scenes of misery as the one just described. The second clause, beginning with “because” (Chi), is a substantive clause, and attributes the coming judgment not to future sin, but to sin already existing. “Again Jehovah:” אל is used to denote a hostile attitude, as in Isa 2:4; Gen 4:8; Num 32:14; Jos 10:6. The capital and the land are against Jehovah both in word and deed, “to defy the eyes of His glory” (lamroth ‛ēnē Chebodo). עני is equivalent to עיני; and lamroth is a syncopated hiphil, as in Isa 23:11, and like the niphal in Isa 1:12 : we find the same form of the same word in Psa 78:17. The kal mârâh, which is also frequently construed with the accusative, signifies to thrust away in a refractory manner; the hiphil himrâh, to treat refractorily, literally to set one’s self rigidly in opposition, obniti; mar, stringere, to draw tightly, with which unquestionably the meaning bitter as an astringent is connected, though it does not follow that mârâh, himrâh, and hemar (Exo 23:21) can be rendered παραπικραίνειν, as they have been in the Septuagint, since the idea of opposing, resisting, fighting in opposition, is implied in all these roots, with distinct reference to the primary meaning. The Lamed is a shorter expression instead of למען, which is the term generally employed in such circumstances (Amo 2:7; Jer 7:18; Jer 32:29). But what does the prophet mean by “the eyes of His glory?” Knobel’s assertion, that Châbod is used here for the religious glory, i.e., the holiness of God, is a very strange one, since the Châbod of God is invariably the fiery, bright doxa which reveals Him as the Holy One. but his remark does not meet the question, inasmuch as it does not settle the point in dispute, whether the expression “the eyes of His glory” implies that the glory itself has eyes, or the glory is a quality of the eyes. The construction is certainly not a different one from “the arm of His glory” in Isa 52:10, so that it is to be taken as an attribute. But this suggests the further question, what does the prophet mean by the glory-eyes or glorious eyes of Jehovah? If we were to say the eyes of Jehovah are His knowledge of the world, it would be impossible to understand how they could be called holy, still less how they could be called glorious. This abstract explanation of the anthropomorphisms cannot be sustained. The state of the case is rather the following. The glory (Châbod) of God is that eternal and glorious morphē which His holy nature assumes, and which men must picture to themselves anthropomorphically, because they cannot imagine anything superior to the human form. In this glorious form Jehovah looks upon His people with eyes of glory. His pure but yet jealous love, His holy love which breaks out in wrath against all who meet it with hatred instead of with love, is reflected therein.

Isa 3:9

But Israel, instead of walking in the consciousness of being a constant and favourite object of these majestic, earnestly admonishing eyes, was diligently engaged in bidding them defiance both in word and deed, not even hiding its sin from fear of them, but exposing them to view in the most shameless manner. - “The look of their faces testifies against them, and their sin they make known like Sodom, without concealing it: woe to their soul! for they do themselves harm.” In any case, the prophet refers to the impudence with which their enmity against God was shamelessly stamped upon their faces, without even the self-condemnation which leads in other cases to a diligent concealment of the sin. But we cannot follow Luzzatto and Jos. Kimchi, who take haccârath as used directly for azzuth (impudence), inasmuch as the Arabic hakara (hakir‛a), to which Kimchi appeals, signifies to be astonished and to stare (see at Job 19:3). And in this case there would be nothing strange in the substantive form, which would be a piel formation like בּלּהה חטּאה. But it may be a hiphil formation (Ewald, §156, a); and this is incomparably the more probable of the two, as hiccir panim is a very common phrase. It signifies to look earnestly, keenly, or inquiringly in the face of a person, to fix the eye upon him; and, when used of a judge, to take the part of a person, by favouring him unjustly (Deu 1:17; Deu 16:19). But this latter idea, viz., “their acceptance of the person, or partiality” (according to Pro 24:23; Pro 28:21), is inadmissible here, for the simple reason that the passage refers to the whole nation, and not particularly to the judges. “The look of their faces” (haccârath p'nēhem) is to be understood in an objective sense, viz., the appearance (τὸ εἶδος, Luk 9:29), like the agnitio of Jerome, id quo se agnoscendum dat vultus eorum. This was probably the expression commonly employed in Hebrew for what we designate by a very inappropriate foreign word, viz., physiognomy, i.e., the expression of the face which reveals the state of the mind. This expression of their countenance testified against them (anah b', as in Isa 59:12), for it was the disturbed and distorted image of their sin, which not only could not be hidden, but did not even wish to be; in a word, of their azzuth (Ecc 8:1). And it did not even rest with this open though silent display: they spoken openly of their sin (higgid in its simplest meaning, palam facere, from nâgad, nagâda, to be open, evident) without making any secret of it, like the Sodomites, who publicly proclaimed their fleshly lusts (Gen 19). Jerusalem was spiritually Sodom, as the prophet called it in Isa 1:10. By such barefaced sinning they did themselves harm (gâmal, lit., to finish, then to carry out, to show practically).It may now be accepted as an established fact, that the verb gâmal is connected with the Arabic 'gamala, to collect together, 'gamula, to be perfect, kamala, kamula id., and gâmar, to finish (see Hupfeld on Psa 7:5, and Fürst, Heb. Lex.).

Isa 3:10-11

The prophet’s meaning is evident enough. But inasmuch as it is the curse of sin to distort the knowledge of what is most obvious and self-evident, and even to take it entirely away, the prophet dwells still longer upon the fact that all sinning is self-destruction and self-murder, placing this general truth against its opposite in a palillogical Johannic way, and calling out to his contemporaries in Isa 3:10, Isa 3:11 : “Say of the righteous, that it is well with him; for they will enjoy the fruit of their doings. Woe to the wicked! it is ill; for what his hands have wrought will be done to him.” We cannot adopt the rendering “Praise the righteous,” proposed by Vitringa and other modern commentators; for although âmar is sometimes construed with the accusative of the object (Psa 40:11; Psa 145:6, Psa 145:11), it never means to praise, but to declare (even in Psa 40:11). We have here what was noticed from Gen 1:4 onwards - namely, the obvious antiptôsis or antiphonêsis in the verbs ראה (cf., Isa 22:9; Exo 2:2), ידע (1Ki 5:17), and אמר (like λέγειν, Joh 9:9): dicite justum quod bonus = dicite justum esse bonum (Ewald, §336, b). The object of sight, knowledge, or speech, is first of all mentioned in the most general manner; then follows the qualification, or more precise definition. טוב, and in Isa 3:11 רע (רע without the pause), might both of them be the third pers. pret. of the verbs, employed in a neuter sense: the former signifying, it is well, viz., with him (as in Deu 5:30; Jer 22:15-16); the latter, it is bad (as in Psa 106:32). But it is evident from Jer 44:17 that הוּא טוב and הוּא רע may be used in the sense of καλῶς (κακῶς) ἔχει, and that the two expressions are here thought of in this way, so that there is no לו to be supplied in either case. The form of the first favours this; and in the second the accentuation fluctuates between אוי tiphchah לרשׁע munach, and the former with merka, the latter tiphchah. At the same time, the latter mode of accentuation, which is favourable to the personal rendering of רע, is supported by editions of some worth, such as Brescia 1494, Pesaro 1516, Venice 1515, 1521, and is justly preferred by Luzzatto and Bär. The summary assertions, The righteous is well, the wicked ill, are both sustained by their eventual fate, in the light of which the previous misfortune of the righteous appears as good fortune, and the previous good fortune of the wicked as misfortune. With an allusion to this great difference in their eventual fate, the word “say,” which belongs to both clauses, summons to an acknowledgment of the good fortune of the one and the misfortune of the other. O that Judah and Jerusalem would acknowledge their to their own salvation before it was too late! For the state of the poor nation was already miserable enough, and very near to destruction.

Isa 3:12 “My people, its oppressors are boys, and women rule over it; my people, thy leaders are misleaders, who swallow up the way of thy paths.” It is not probable that me‛olel signifies maltreaters or triflers, by the side of the parallel nâshim; moreover, the idea of despotic treatment is already contained in nogesaiv. We expect to find children where there are women. And this is one meaning of me‛olel. It does not mean a suckling, however, as Ewald supposes (§160, a), more especially as it occurs in connection with yonek (Jer 44:7; Lam 2:11), and therefore cannot have precisely the same meaning; but, like עולל and עולל (the former of which may be contracted from meolēl), it refers to the boy as playful and wanton (Lascivum, protervum). Böttcher renders it correctly, pueri, lusores, though meolēl is not in itself a collective form, as he supposes; but the singular is used collectively, or perhaps better still, the predicate is intended to apply to every individual included in the plural notion of the subject (compare Isa 16:8; Isa 20:4, and Ges. §146, 4): the oppressors of the people, every one without exception, were (even though advanced in years) mere boys or youths in their mode of thinking and acting, and made all subject to them the football of their capricious humour. Here again the person of the king is allowed to fall into the background. but the female rule, referred to afterwards, points us to the court. And this must really have been the case when Ahaz, a young rake, came to the throne at the age of twenty (according to the lxx twenty-five), possibly towards the close of the reign of Jotham. With the deepest anguish the prophet repeats the expression “my people,” as he passes in his address to his people from the rulers to the preachers: for the meassherim or leaders are prophets (Mic 3:5); but what prophets! Instead of leading the people in a straight path, they lead them astray (Isa 9:15, cf., 2Ki 21:9). This they did, as we may gather from the history of this crowd of prophets, either by acting in subservience to the ungodly interests of the court with dynastic or demagogical servility, or by flattering the worst desires of the people. Thus the way of the path of the people, i.e., the highway or road by whose ramifying paths the people were to reach the appointed goal, had been swallowed up by them, i.e., taken away from the sight and feet of the people, so that they could not find it and walk therein (cf., Isa 25:7-8, where the verb is used in another connection). What is swallowed up is invisible, has disappeared, without a grace being left behind. The same idea is applied in Job 39:27 to a galloping horse, which is said to swallow the road, inasmuch as it leaves piece after piece behind it in its rapid course. It is stated here with regard to the prophets, that they swallow up the road appointed by Jehovah, as the one in which His people were to walk, just as a criminal swallows a piece of paper which bears witness against him, and so hides it in his own stomach. Thus the way of salvation pointed out by the law was no longer to be either heard of or seen. The prophets, who ought to have preached it, said mum, mum, and kept it swallowed. It had completely perished, as it were, in the erroneous preaching of the false prophets.

Isa 3:13

This was how it stood. There was but little to be expected from the exhortations of the prophet; so that he had to come back again and again to the proclamation of judgment. The judgment of the world comes again before his mind. - “Jehovah has appeared to plead, and stands up to judge the nations.” When Jehovah, weary with His long-suffering, rises up from His heavenly throne, this is described as “standing up” (kum, Isa 2:19, Isa 2:21; Isa 33:10); and when He assumes the judgment-seat in the sight of all the world, this is called “sitting down” (yashab, Psa 9:5, Joe 3:12); when, having come down from heaven (Mic 1:2.), He comes forward as accuser, this is called “standing” (nizzab or amad, Psa 82:1 : amad is coming forward and standing, as the opposite of sitting; nizzab, standing, with the subordinate idea of being firm, resolute, ready). This pleading (ribh, Jer 25:31) is also judging (din), because His accusation, which is incontrovertible, contains the sentence in itself; and His sentence, which executes itself irresistibly, is of itself the infliction of punishment. Thus does he stand in the midst of the nations at once accuser, judge, and executioner (Psa 7:8). But among the nations it is more especially against Israel that He contends; and in Israel it is more especially against the leaders of the poor misguided and neglected people that He sets Himself.

Isa 3:14-15 “Jehovah will proceed to judgment with the elders of His people, and its princes. And ye, ye have eaten up the vineyard; prey of the suffering is in your houses. What mean ye that ye crush my people, and grind the face of the suffering? Thus saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts.” The words of God Himself commence with “and ye” (v'attem). The sentence to which this (et vos = at vos) is the antithesis is wanting, just as in Psa 2:6, where the words of God commence with “and I” (va'ani, et ego = ast ego). the tacit clause may easily be supplied, viz., I have set you over my vineyard, but he have consumed the vineyard. The only question is, whether the sentence is to be regarded as suppressed by Jehovah Himself, or by the prophet. Most certainly by Jehovah Himself. The majesty with which He appeared before the rulers of His people as, even without words, a practical and undeniable proof that their majesty was only a shadow of His, and their office His trust. But their office consisted in the fact that Jehovah had committed His people to their care. The vineyard of Jehovah was His people - a self-evident figure, which the prophet dresses up in the form of a parable in chapter 5. Jehovah had appointed them as gardeners and keepers of this vineyard, but they themselves have become the very beasts that they ought to have warded off. בּער is applied to the beasts which completely devour the blades of a corn-field or the grapes of a vineyard (Exo 22:4). This change was perfectly obvious. The possessions stolen from their unhappy countrymen, which were still in their houses, were the tangible proof of their plundering of the vineyard. “The suffering:” ani (depressus, the crushed) is introduced as explanatory of haccerem, the prey, because depression and misery were the ordinary fate of the congregation which God called His vineyard. It was ecclesia pressa, but woe to the oppressors! In the question “what mean ye?” (mallâcem) the madness and wickedness of their deeds are implied. מה and לכם are fused into one word here, as if it were a prefix (as in Exo 4:2; Eze 8:6; Mal 1:13; vid., Ges. §20, 2). The Keri helps to make it clear by resolving the chethibh. The word mallâcem ought, strictly speaking, to be followed by chi: “What is there to you that ye crush my people?” as in Isa 22:1, Isa 22:16; but the words rush forwards (as in Jon 1:6), because they are an explosion of wrath. For this reason the expressions relating to the behaviour of the rulers are the strongest that can possibly be employed. דּכּא (crush) is also to be met with in Pro 22:22; but “grind the face” (tâchan p'ne) is a strong metaphor without a parallel. The former signifies “to pound,” the latter “to grind,” as the millstone grinds the corn. They grind the faces of those who are already bowed down, thrusting them back with such unmerciful severity, that they stand as it were annihilated, and their faces become as white as flour, or as the Germans would say, cheese-white, chalk-white, as pale as death, from oppression and despair. Thus the language supplied to a certain extent appropriate figures, with which to describe the conduct of the rulers of Israel; but it contained no words that could exhaust the immeasurable wickedness of their conduct: hence the magnitude of their sin is set before them in the form of a question, “What is to you?” i.e., What indescribable wickedness is this which you are committing? The prophet hears this said by Jehovah, the majestic Judge, whom he here describes as Adonai Elohim Zebaoth (according to the Masoretic pointing). This triplex name of God, which we find in the prophetic books, viz., frequently in Amos and also in Jer 2:19, occurs for the first time in the Elohistic Psalm, Psa 69:7. This scene of judgment is indeed depicted throughout in the colours of the Psalms, and more especially recals the (Elohistic) Psalm of Asaph (Psa 82:1-8).

Isa 3:16-17

But notwithstanding the dramatic vividness with which the prophet pictures to himself this scene of judgment, he is obliged to break off at the very beginning of his description, because another word of Jehovah comes upon him. This applies to the women of Jerusalem, whose authority, at the time when Isaiah prophesied, was no less influential than that of their husbands who had forgotten their calling. “Jehovah hath spoken: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk about with extended throat, and blinking with the eyes, walk about with tripping gait, and tinkle with their foot-ornaments: the Lord of all makes the crown of the daughters of Zion scabbed, and Jehovah will uncover their shame.” Their inward pride (gâbah, as in Eze 16:50; cf., Zep 3:11) shows itself outwardly. They walk with extended throat, i.e., bending the neck back, trying to make themselves taller than they are, because they think themselves so great. The Keri substitutes the more usual form, נטוּית; but Isaiah in all probability intentionally made use of the rarer and ruder form netuvoth, since such a form really existed (1Sa 25:18), as well as the singular nâtu for nâtui (Job 15:22; Job 41:25 : Ges. §75, Anm. 5). They also went winking the eyes (mesakkeroth, for which we frequently find the erratum mesakkeroth), i.e., casting voluptuous and amatory glances with affected innocence (νεύματα ὀφθαλμῶν, lxx). “Winking:” sâkar is not used in the sense of fucare (Targ. b. Sabbath 62 b, Jome 9 b, Luther) - which is all the more inappropriate, because blackening the eyelids with powder of antimony was regarded in the East of the Old Testament as indispensable to female beauty - but in the sense of nictare (lxx, Vulg., Syr., syn. remaz, cf., sekar, Syr. to squint; Targ. = shâzaph, Job 20:9). Compare also the talmudic saying: God did not create woman out of Adam’s ear, that she might be no eavesdropper (tsaithânith), nor out of Adam’s eyes, that she might be no winker (sakrânith).Also b. Sota 47b: “Since women have multiplied with extended necks and winking eyes, the number of cases has also multiplied in which it has been necessary to resort to the curse water (Num 5:18).” In fact, this increased to such an extent, that Johanan ben Zakkai, the pupil of Hillel, abolished the ordeal (divine-verdict) of the Sota (the woman suspected of adultery) altogether. The people of his time were altogether an adulterous generation.

The third was, that they walked incedendo et trepidando. The second inf. abs. is in this case, as in most others, the one which gives the distinct tone, whilst the other serves to keep before the eye the occurrence indicated in its finite verb (Ges. §131, 3). They walk about tripping (tâphop, a wide-spread onomato-poetic word), i.e., taking short steps, just putting the heel of one foot against the toe of the other (as the Talmud explains it). Luther renders it, “they walk along and waggle” (schwânzen, i.e., Clunibus agitatis). The rendering is suitable, but incorrect. They could only take short steps, because of the chains by which the costly foot-rings (achâsim ) worn above their ankles were connected together. These chains, which were probably ornamented with bells, as is sometimes the case now in the East, they used to tinkle as they walked: they made an ankle-tinkling with their feet, setting their feet down in such a manner that these ankle-rings knocked against each other. The writing beraglēhem (masc.) for beraglēhen (fem.) is probably not an unintentional synallage gen.: they were not modest virgines, but cold, masculine viragines, so that they themselves were a synallage generis. Nevertheless they tripped along. Tripping is a child’s step. Nevertheless they tripped along. Tripping is a child’s step. Although well versed in sin and old in years, the women of Jerusalem tried to maintain a youthful, childlike appearance. They therefore tripped along with short, childish steps. The women of the Mohammedan East still take pleasure in such coquettish tinklings, although they are forbidden by the Koran, just as the women of Jerusalem did in the days of Isaiah. The attractive influence of natural charms, especially when heightened by luxurious art, is very great; but the prophet is blind to all this splendour, and seeing nothing but the corruption within, foretells to these rich and distinguished women a foul and by no means aesthetic fate. The Sovereign Ruler of all would smite the crown of their head, from which long hair was now flowing, with scab (v'sippach, a progressive preterite with Vav apodosis, a denom. verb from sappachath, the scurf which adheres to the skin: see at Hab 2:15); and Jehovah would uncover their nakedness, by giving them up to violation and abuse at the hands of coarse and barbarous foes - the greatest possible disgrace in the eyes of a woman, who covers herself as carefully as she can in the presence of any stranger (Isa 47:3; Nah 3:5; Jer 13:22; Eze 16:37).

Isa 3:18-23

The prophet then proceeds to describe still further how the Lord would take away the whole of their toilet as plunder. “On that day the Lord will put away the show of the ankle-clasps, and of the head-bands, and of the crescents; the ear-rings, and the arm-chains, and the light veils; the diadems, and the stepping-chains, and the girdles, and the smelling-bottles, and the amulets; the finger-rings, and the nose-rings; the gala-dresses, and the sleeve-frocks, and the wrappers, and the pockets; the hand-mirrors, and the Sindu-cloths, and the turbans, and the gauze mantles.” The fullest explanation of all these articles of female attire is to be found in N. W. Schröder’s work, entitled Commentarius de vestitu mulierum Hebraearum ad Jes. Isa 3:16-24, Ludg. Batav 1745 (a quarto volume), and in that of Ant. Theod. Hartmann, consisting of three octavo volumes, and entitled Die Hebräerin am Putztische und als Braut (The Jewess at the Toilet-table, and as Bride, 1809-10); to which we may also add, Saalschütz, Archaeologie, chapter iii., where he treats of the dresses of men and women. It was not usually Isaiah’s custom to enter into such minute particulars. Of all the prophets, Ezekiel was the one most addicted to this, as we may see, for example, from Ezek 16. And even in other prophecies against the women we find nothing of the kind again (Isa 32:9.; Amo 4:1.). But in this instance, the enumeration of the female ornaments is connected with that of the state props in Isa 3:1-3, and that of the lofty and exalted in Isa 2:13-16, so as to form a trilogy, and has its own special explanation in that boundless love of ornament which had become prevalent in the time of Uzziah-Jotham. It was the prophet’s intention to produce a ludicrous, but yet serious impression, as to the immeasurable luxury which really existed; and in the prophetic address, his design throughout is to bring out the glaring contrast between the titanic, massive, worldly glory, in all its varied forms, and that true, spiritual, and majestically simple glory, whose reality is manifested from within outwards. In fact, the theme of the whole address is the way of universal judgment leading on from the false glory to the true. The general idea of tiphereth (show: rendered “bravery” in Eng. ver.) which stands at the head and includes the whole, points to the contrast presented by a totally different tiphereth which follows in Isa 4:2. In explaining each particular word, we must be content with what is most necessary, and comparatively the most certain. “Ankle-clasps” (acâsim): these were rings of gold, silver, or ivory, worn round the ankles; hence the denom. verb (icces) in Isa 3:16, to make a tinkling sound with these rings. “Head-bands,” or “frontlets” (shebisim, from shâbas = shâbatz: plectere), were plaited bands of gold or silver thread worn below the hair-net, and reaching from one ear to the other. There is some force, however, in the explanation which has been very commonly adopted since the time of Schröder, namely, that they were sun-like balls (= shemisim), which were worn as ornaments round the neck, from the Arabic ‛sumeisa (‛subeisa), a little sun. The “crescents” (saharonim) were little pendants of this kind, fastened round the neck and hanging down upon the breast (in Jdg 8:21 we meet with them as ornaments hung round the camels’ necks). Such ornaments are still worn by Arabian girls, who generally have several different kinds of them; the hilâl, or new moon, being a symbol of increasing good fortune, and as such the most approved charm against the evil eye. “Ear-rings” (netiphoth, ear-drops): we meet with these in Jdg 8:26, as an ornament worn by Midianitish kings. Hence the Arabic munattafe, a woman adorned with ear-rings. “Arm-chains:” sheroth, from shâra, to twist. According to the Targum, these were chains worn upon the arm, or spangles upon the wrist, answering to the spangles upon the ankles. “Fluttering veils” (re'âloth, from râ'al, to hang loose): these were more expensive than the ordinary veils worn by girls, which were called tza'iph. “Diadems” (pe'erim) are only mentioned in other parts of the Scriptures as being worn by men (e.g., by priests, bride-grooms, or persons of high rank). “Stepping-chains:” tze'âdoth, from tze'âdah, a step; hence the chain worn to shorten and give elegance to the step. “Girdles:” kisshurim, from kâshar (Cingere), dress girdles, such as were worn by brides upon their wedding-day (compare Jer 2:32 with Isa 49:18); the word is erroneously rendered hair-pins (kalmasmezayyah) in the Targum. “Smelling-bottles:” botte hannephesh, holders of scent (nephesh, the breath of an aroma). “Amulets:” lechashim (from lâchash, to work by incantations), gems or metal plates with an inscription upon them, which were worn as a protection as well as an ornament. “Finger-rings:” tabbâ'oth, from tâba, to impress or seal, signet-rings worn upon the finger, corresponding to the Chothâm worn by men upon the breast suspended by a cord. “Nose-rings” (nizmê hâaph) were fastened in the central division of the nose, and hung down over the mouth: they have been ornaments in common use in the East from the time of the patriarchs (Gen 24:22) down to the present day. “Gala-dresses” (machalâtsoth) are dresses not usually worn, but taken off when at home. “Sleeve-frocks” (ma'atâphâh): the second tunic, worn above the ordinary one, the Roman stola. “Wrappers” (mitpâchoth, from tâphach, expandere), broad cloths wrapped round the body, such as Ruth wore when she crept in to Boaz in her best attire (Rth 3:15). “Pockets” (Charitim) were for holding money (2Ki 5:23), which was generally carried by men in the girdle, or in a purse (Cis). “Hand-mirrors” (gilyonim): the Septuagint renders this διαφανῆ λακωνικὰ, sc. ἱμάτια, Lacedaemonian gauze or transparent dresses, which showed the nakedness rather than concealed it (from gâlâh, retegere); but the better rendering is mirrors with handles, polished metal plates (from gâlâh, polire), as gillâyon is used elsewhere to signify a smooth table. “Sindu-cloths” (sedinim), veils or coverings of the finest linen, viz., of Sindu or Hindu cloth (σινδόνες) - Sindu, the land of Indus, being the earlier name of India.The Mishna (Kelim xxiv 13) mentions three different sedinin: night dresses, curtains, and embroidery. The sindon is frequently referred to as a covering wrapped round the person; and in b.Menachoth 41 a, it is stated that the sindom is the summer dress, the sarbal (cloak) the winter dress, which may help to explain Mar 14:51-52.“Turbans” (tseniphoth, from tsânaph, Convolvere), the head-dress composed of twisted cloths of different colours. “Gauze mantles” (redidim, from râdad, extendere, tenuem facere), delicate veil-like mantles thrown over the rest of the clothes. Stockings and handkerchiefs are not mentioned: the former were first introduced into Hither Asia from Media long after Isaiah’s time, and a Jerusalem lady no more thought of suing the latter than a Grecian or Roman lady did. Even the veil (burko) now commonly worn, which conceals the whole of the face with the exception of the eyes, did not form part of the attire of an Israelitish woman in the olden time.Rashi, however, makes a different statement (Sabbath 65 a), viz., that “Israelitish women in Arabia go out with veils which conceal the face, and those in Media with their mantles fastened about the mouth.”

The prophet enumerates twenty-one different ornaments: three sevens of a very bad kind, especially for the husbands of these state-dolls. There is no particular order observed in the enumeration, either from head to foot, or from the inner to the outer clothing; but they are arranged as much ad libitum as the dress itself.

Isa 3:24

When Jehovah took away all this glory, with which the women of Jerusalem were adorned, they would be turned into wretched-looking prisoners, disfigured by ill-treatment and dirt. - “And instead of balmy scent there will be mouldiness, and instead of the sash a rope, and instead of artistic ringlets a baldness, and instead of the dress-cloak a frock of sackcloth, branding instead of beauty.” Mouldiness, or mother (mak, as in Isa 5:24, the dust of things that have moulded away), with which they would be covered, and which they would be obliged to breathe, would take the place of the bosem, i.e., the scent of the balsam shrub (bâsâm), and of sweet-scented pomade in general; and nipâh that of the beautifully embroidered girdle (Pro 31:24). The meaning of this word is neither “a wound,” as the Targums and Talmud render it, nor “rags,” as given by Knobel, ed. 1 (from nâkaph, percutere, perforare), but the rope thrown over them as prisoners (from kâphâh = kâvâh, Contorquere: lxx, Vulg., Syr.).Credner (Joel, p. 147) renders the word “tatters,” from nâkaph, to rub in pieces; but the word has no such meaning, whereas the meaning vulnus, lit., percussio, is admissible (see at Job 19:26), but does not suit the antithesis. Luzzatto connects it with n'kaph, to bind (from which the makkeph derives its name), and understands it as referring to the dressing applied to wounds, to lint into which the girdle was torn. The most plausible derivation is from kâphâh, which is really employed in post-biblical usage to signify not only to congeal and wrinkle, but also to thicken (Sabbath 21 a, l'hakpoth: “Make the wick thicker, that it may burn the brighter”). It is probably radically akin to the Arabic nukbe (explained in Lamachzari as equivalent to the Persian mijân - bend, a girdle), which is apparently used to denote the coarse girdle worn by peasants or by Arab women of the wandering tribes, resembling a rope of goat’s hair, as distinguished from the artistic and costly girdle worn by women of the upper classes in the towns.Baldness takes the place of artistic ringlets (מקשׁה מעשׂה, not מעשׂה, so that it is in apposition: cf., Isa 30:20; Ges. §113; Ewald, §287, b). The reference is not to golden ornaments for the head, as the Sept. rendering gives it, although miksheh is used elsewhere to signify embossed or carved work in metal or wood; but here we are evidently to understand by the “artificial twists” either curls made with the curling-tongs, or the hair plaited and twisted up in knots, which they would be obliged to cut off in accordance with the mourning customs (Isa 15:2; Isa 22:12), or which would fall off in consequence of grief. A frock of sackcloth (machagoreth sak), i.e., a smock of coarse haircloth worn next to the skin, such as Layard found depicted upon a bas-relief at Kouyunjik, would take the place of the pethigil, i.e., the dress-cloak (either from pâthag, to be wide or full, with the substantive termination ı̄l, or else composed of pethi, breadth, and gil, festive rejoicing); and branding the place of beauty. Branding (Ci = Cevi, from Câvâh, καἰειν), the mark burnt upon the forehead by their conquerors: Ci is a substantive,It is so understood in b. Sabbath 62 b, with an allusion to the proverb, “The end of beauty is burning” (viz., inflammation). In Arabia, the application of the C ey with a red-hot iron (mikwâh) plays a very important part in the medical treatment of both man and beast. You meet with many men who have been burned not only on their legs and arms, but in their faces as well, and, as a rule, the finest horses are disfigured by the C ey. - Wetzstein. not a particle, as the Targum and others render it, and as the makkeph might make it appear. There is something very effective in the inverted order of the words in the last clause of the five. In this five-fold reverse would shame and mourning take the place of proud, voluptuous rejoicing.

Isa 3:25

The prophet now passes over to a direct address to Jerusalem itself, since the “daughters of Zion” and the daughter of Zion in her present degenerate condition. The daughter of Zion loses her sons, and consequently the daughters of Zion their husbands. - “Thy men will fall by the sword, and thy might in war.” The plural methim (the singular of which only occurs in the form methu, with the connecting vowel ū as a component part of the proper names) is used as a prose word in the Pentateuch; but in the later literature it is a poetic archaism. “Thy might” is used interchangeably with “thy men,” the possessors of the might being really intended, like robur and robora in Latin (compare Jer 49:35).

Isa 3:26

What the prophet here foretells to the daughter of Zion he sees in Isa 3:26 fulfilled upon her: “Then will her gates lament and mourn, and desolate is she, sits down upon the ground.” The gates, where the husbands of the daughters of Zion, who have now fallen in war, sued at one time to gather together in such numbers, are turned into a state of desolation, in which they may, as it were, be heard complaining, and seen to mourn (Isa 14:31; Jer 14:2; Lam 1:4); and the daughter of Zion herself is utterly vacated, thoroughly emptied, completely deprived of all her former population; and in this state of the most mournful widowhood or orphanage, brought down from her lofty seat (Isa 47:1) and princely glory (Jer 13:18), she sits down upon the ground, just as Judaea is represented as doing upon Roman medals that were struck after the destruction of Jerusalem, where she is introduced as a woman thoroughly broken down, and sitting under a palm-tree in an attitude of despair, with a warrior standing in front of her, the inscription upon the medal being Judaea capta, or devicta. The Septuagint rendering is quite in accordance with the sense, viz., καὶ καταλειφθἠση μόνη καὶ εἰς την̀ γῆν ἐδαφισθήση (cf., Luk 19:44), except that תּשׁב is not the second person, but the third, and נקּתה the third pers. pret. niph. for נקּתה - a pausal form which is frequently met with in connection with the smaller distinctive accents, such as silluk and athnach (here it occurs with tiphchah, as, for example, in Amo 3:8). The clause “sits down upon the ground” is appended ἀσυνδἔτως - a frequent construction in cases where one of two verbs defines the other in a manner which is generally expressed adverbially (vid., 1Ch 13:2, and the inverted order of the words in Jer 4:5; cf., Isa 12:6): Zion sits upon the earth in a state of utter depopulation.

Judgments Denounced. (b. c. 758.)

1 For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, 2 The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, 3 The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. 4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. 5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable. 6 When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand: 7 In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be a healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a ruler of the people. 8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord , to provoke the eyes of his glory.

The prophet, in the close of the foregoing chapter, had given a necessary caution to all not to put confidence in man, or any creature; he had also given a general reason for that caution, taken from the frailty of human life and the vanity and weakness of human powers. Here he gives a particular reason for it—God was now about to ruin all their creature-confidences, so that they should meet with nothing but disappointments in all their expectations from them (v. 1): The stay and the staff shall be taken away, all their supports, of what kind soever, all the things they trusted to and looked for help and relief from. Their church and kingdom had now grown old and were going to decay, and they were (after the manner of aged men, Zech. viii. 4) leaning on a staff: now God threatens to take away their staff, and then they must fall of course, to take away the stays of both the city and the country, of Jerusalem and of Judah, which are indeed stays to one another, and, if one fail, the other feels from it. He that does this is the Lord, the Lord of hosts—Adon, the Lord that is himself the stay or foundation; if that stay depart, all other stays certainly break under us, for he is the strength of them all. He that is the Lord, the ruler, that has authority to do it, and the Lord of hosts, that has the ability to do it, he shall take away the stay and the staff. St. Jerome refers this to the sensible decay of the Jewish nation after they had crucified our Saviour, Rom. xi. 9, 10. I rather take it as a warning to all nations not to provoke God; for if they make him their enemy, he can and will thus make them miserable. Let us view the particulars.

I. Was their plenty a support to them? It is so to any people; bread is the staff of life: but God can take away the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water; and it is just with him to do so when fulness of bread becomes an iniquity (Ezek. xvi. 49), and that which was given to be provision for the life is made provision for the lusts. He can take away the bread and the water by withholding the rain, Deut. xxviii. 23, 24. Or, if he allow them, he can take away the stay of bread and the stay of water by withholding his blessing, by which man lives, and not by bread only, and which is the staff of bread (Matt. iv. 4), and then the bread is not nourishing nor the water refreshing, Hag. i. 6. Christ is the bread of life and the water of life; if he be our stay, we shall find that this is a good part not to be taken away, John iv. 14; vi. 27.

II. Was their army a support to them—their generals, and commanders, and military men? These shall be taken away, either cut off by the sword or so discouraged with the defeats they meet with that they shall throw up their commissions and resolve to act no more; or they shall be disabled by sickness, or dispirited, so as to be unfit for business; The mighty men, and the man of war, and even the inferior officer, the captain of fifty, shall be removed. It bodes ill with a people when their valiant men are lost. Let not the strong man therefore glory in his strength, nor any people trust too much to their mighty men; but let the strong people glorify God and the city of the terrible nations fear him, who can make them weak and despicable, ch. xxv. 3.

III. Were their ministers of state a support to them—their learned men, their politicians, their clergy, their wits and virtuoso? These also should be taken away—the judges, who were skilled in the laws, and expert in administering justice,—the prophets, whom they used to consult in difficult cases,—the prudent, who were celebrated as men of sense and sagacity above all others and were assistants to the judges, the diviners (so the word is), those who used unlawful arts, who, though rotten stays, yet were stayed on, (but it may be taken, as we read it, in a good sense),—the ancients, elders in age, in office,—the honourable man, the gravity of whose aspect commands reverence and whose age and experience make him fit to be a counsellor. Trade is one great support to a nation, even manufactures and handicraft trades; and therefore, when the whole stay is broken, the cunning artificer too shall be taken away; and the last is the eloquent orator, the man skilful of speech, who in some cases may do good service, though he be none of the prudent or the ancient, by putting the sense of others in good language. Moses cannot speak well, but Aaron can. God threatens to take these away, that is, 1. To disable them for the service of their country, making judges fools, taking away the speech of the trusty and the understanding of the aged, Job xii. 17, &c. Every creature is that to us which God makes it to be; and we cannot be sure that those who have been serviceable to us shall always be so. 2. To put an end to their days; for the reason why princes are not to be trusted in is because their breath goeth forth, Ps. cxlvi. 3, 4. Note, The removal of useful men by death, in the midst of their usefulness, is a very threatening symptom to any people.

IV. Was their government a support to them? It ought to have been so; it is the business of the sovereign to bear up the pillars of the land, Ps. lxxv. 3. But it is here threatened that this stay should fail them. When the mighty men and the prudent are removed children shall be their princes—children in age, who must be under tutors and governors, who will be clashing with one another and making a prey of the young king and his kingdom-children in understanding and disposition, childish men, such as are babes in knowledge, no more fit to rule than a child in the cradle. These shall rule over them, with all the folly, fickleness, and frowardness, of a child. And woe unto thee, O land! when thy king is such a one! Eccl. x. 16.

V. Was the union of the subjects among themselves, their good order and the good understanding and correspondence that they kept with one another, a stay to them? Where this is the case a people may do better for it, though their princes be not such as they should be; but it is here threatened that God would send an evil spirit among them too (as Judg. ix. 23), which would make them, 1. Injurious and unneighbourly one towards another (v. 5): "The people shall be oppressed every one by his neighbour," and their princes, being children, will take no care to restrain the oppressors or relieve the oppressed, nor is it to any purpose to appeal to them (which is a temptation to every man to be his own avenger), and therefore they bite and devour one another and will soon be consumed one of another. Then homo homini lupus—man becomes a wolf to man; jusque datum sceleri—wickedness receives the stamp of law; nec hospes ab hospite tutus—the guest and the host are in danger from each other. 2. Insolent and disorderly towards their superiors. It is as ill an omen to a people as can be when the rising generation among them are generally untractable, rude, and ungovernable, when the child behaves himself proudly against the ancient, whereas he should rise up before the hoary head and honour the face of the old man, Lev. xix. 32. When young people are conceited and pert, and behave scornfully towards their superiors, their conduct is not only a reproach to themselves, but of ill consequence to the public; it slackens the reins of government and weakens the hands that hold them. It is likewise ill with a people when persons of honour cannot support their authority, but are affronted by the base and beggarly, when judges are insulted and their powers set at defiance by the mob. Those have a great deal to answer for who do this.

VI. It is some stay, some support, to hope that, though matters may be now ill-managed, yet other may be raised up, who may manage better? Yet this expectation also shall be frustrated, for the case shall be so desperate that no man of sense or substance will meddle with it.

1. The government shall go a begging, v. 6. Here, (1.) It is taken for granted that there is no way of redressing all these grievances, and bringing things into order again, but by good magistrates, who shall be invested with power by common consent, and shall exert that power for the good of the community. And it is probable that this was, in many places, the true origin of government; men found it necessary to unite in a subjection to one who was thought fit for such a trust, in order to the welfare and safety of them all, being aware that they must either be ruled or ruined. Here therefore is the original contract: "Be thou our ruler, and we will be subject to thee, and let this ruin be under thy hand, to be repaired and restored, and then to be preserved and established, and the interests of it advanced, ch. lviii. 12. Take care to protect us by the sword of war from being injured from abroad, and by the sword of justice from being injurious to another, and we will bear faith and true allegiance to thee." (2.) The case is represented as very deplorable, and things as having come to a sad pass; for, [1.] Children being their princes, every man will think himself fit to prescribe who shall be a magistrate, and will be for preferring his own relations; whereas, if the princes were as they should be, it would be left entirely to them to nominate the rulers, as it ought to be. [2.] Men will find themselves under a necessity even of forcing power into the hands of those that are thought to be fit for it: A man shall take hold by violence of one to make him a ruler, perceiving him ready to resist the motion: nay, he shall urge it upon his brother; whereas, commonly, men are not willing that their equals should be their superiors, witness the envy of Joseph's brethren. [3.] It will be looked upon as ground sufficient for the preferring of a man to be a ruler that he has clothing better than his neighbours—a very poor qualification to recommend a man to a place of trust in the government. It was a sign that the country was much impoverished when it was a rare thing to find a man that had good clothes, or could afford to buy himself an alderman's gown or a judge's robes; and it was proof enough that the people were very unthinking when they had so much respect to a man in gay clothing, with a gold ring ( Jam. ii. 2, 3), that, for the sake thereof, they would make him their ruler. It would have been some sense to have said, "Thou hast wisdom, integrity, experience; be thou our ruler." But it was a jest to say, Thou hast clothing; be thou our ruler. A poor wise man, though in vile raiment, delivered a city, Eccl. ix. 15. We may allude to this to show how desperate the case of fallen man was when our Lord Jesus was pleased to become our brother, and, though he was not courted, offered himself to be our ruler and Saviour, and to take this ruin under his hand.

2. Those who are thus pressed to come into office will swear themselves off, because, though they are taken to be men of some substance, yet they know themselves unable to bear the charges of the office and to answer the expectations of those that choose them (v. 7): He shall swear (shall lift up the hand, the ancient ceremony used in taking the oath) I will not be a healer; make not me a ruler. Note, Rulers must be healers, and good rulers will be so; they must study to unite their subjects, and not to widen the differences that are among them. Those only are fit for government that are of a meek, quiet, healing, spirit. They must also heal the wounds that are given to any of the interests of their people, by suitable applications. But why will he not be a ruler? Because in my house is neither bread nor clothing. (1.) If he said true, it was a sign that men's estates were sadly ruined when even those who made the best appearance really wanted necessaries—a common case, and a piteous one. Some who, having lived fashionably, are willing to put the best side outwards, are yet, if the truth were known, in great straits, and go with heavy hearts for want of bread and clothing. (2.) If he did not speak truth, it was a sign that men's consciences were sadly debauched, when, to avoid the expense of an office, they would load themselves with the guilt of perjury, and (which is the greatest madness in the world) would damn their souls to save their money, Matt. xvi. 26. (3.) However it was, it was a sign that the case of the nation was very bad when nobody was willing to accept a place in the government of it, as despairing to have either credit or profit by it, which are the two things aimed at in men's common ambition of preferment.

3. The reason why God brought things to this sad pass, even among his own people (which is given either by the prophet or by him that refused to be a ruler); it was not for want of good will to his country, but because he saw the case desperate and past relief, and it would be to no purpose to attempt it (v. 8): Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen; and they may thank themselves. They have brought their destruction upon their own heads, for their tongue and their doings are against the Lord; in word and action they broke the law of God and therein designed an affront to him; they wilfully intended to offend him, in contempt of his authority and defiance of his justice. Their tongue was against the Lord, for they contradicted his prophets; and their doings were no better, for they acted as they talked. It was an aggravation of their sin that God's eye was upon them, and that his glory was manifested among them; but they provoked him to his face, as if the more they knew of his glory the greater pride they took in slighting it, and turning it into shame. And this, this, is it for which Jerusalem is ruined. Note, The ruin both of persons and people is owing to their sins. If they did not provoke God, he would do them no hurt, Jer. xxv. 6.

Judgments Denounced.. (b. c. 758.)

9 The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. 10 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. 11 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. 12 As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. 13 The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. 14 The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. 15 What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.

Here God proceeds in his controversy with his people. Observe,

I. The ground of his controversy. It was for sin that God contended with them; if they vex themselves, let them look a little further and they will see that they must thank themselves: Woe unto their souls! For they have rewarded evil unto themselves. Alas for their souls! (so it may be read, in a way of lamentation), for they have procured evil to themselves, v. 9. Note, The condition of sinners is woeful and very deplorable. Note, also, It is the soul that is damaged and endangered by sin. Sinners may prosper in their outward estates, and yet at the same time there may be a woe to their souls. Note, further, Whatever evils befals sinners it is of their own procuring, Jer. ii. 19. That which is here charged upon then is, 1. That the shame which should have restrained them from their sins was quite thrown off and they had grown impudent, v. 9. This hardens men against repentance, and ripens them for ruin, as much as anything: The show of their countenance doth witness against them that their minds are vain, and lewd, and malicious; their eyes declare plainly that they cannot cease from sin, 2 Pet. ii. 14. One may look them in the face and guess at the desperate wickedness that there is in their hearts: They declare their sin as Sodom, so impetuous, so imperious, are their lusts, and so impatient of the least check, and so perfectly are all the remaining sparks of virtue extinguished in them. The Sodomites declared their sin, not only by the exceeding greatness of it (Gen. xiii. 13), so that it cried to heaven (Gen. xviii. 20), but by their shameless owning of that which was most shameful (Gen. xix. 5); and thus Judah and Jerusalem did: they were so far from hiding it that they gloried in it, in the bold attempts they made upon virtue, and the victory they gained over their own convictions. They had a whore's forehead (Jer. iii. 3) and could not blush, Jer. vi. 15. Note, Those that have grown impudent in sin are ripe for ruin. Those that are past shame (we say) are past grace, and then past hope. 2. That their guides, who should direct them in the right way, put them out of the way (v. 12): "Those who lead thee (the princes, priests, and prophets) mislead thee; they cause thee to err." Either they preached to them that which was false and corrupt, or, if they preached that which was true and good, they contradicted it by their practices, and the people would soon follow a bad example than a good exhortation. Thus they destroyed the ways of their paths, pulling down with one hand what they built up with the other. Que te beatificant—Those that call thee blessed cause thee to err; so some read it. Their priests applauded them, as if nothing were amiss among them, cried Peace, peace, to them, as if they were in no danger; and thus they caused them to go on in their errors. 3. That their judges, who should have patronized and protected the oppressed, were themselves the greatest oppressors, v. 14, 15. The elders of the people, and the princes, who had learning and could not but know better things, who had great estates and were not under the temptation of necessity to encroach upon those about them, and who were men of honour and should have scorned to do a base thing, yet they have eaten up the vineyard. God's vineyard, which they were appointed to be the dressers and keepers of, they burnt (so the word signifies); they did as ill by it as its worst enemies could do, Ps. lxxx. 16. Or the vineyards of the poor they wrested out of their possession, as Jezebel did Naboth's, or devoured the fruits of them, fed their lusts with that which should have been the necessary food of indigent families; the spoil of the poor was hoarded up in their houses; when God came to search for stolen goods there he found it, and it was a witness against them. It was to be had, and they might have made restitution, but would not. God reasons with these great men (v. 15): "What mean you, that you beat my people into pieces? What cause have you for it? What good does it do you?" Or, "What hurt have they done you? Do you think you had power given you for such a purpose as this?" Note, There is nothing more unaccountable, and yet nothing which must more certainly be accounted for, than the injuries and abuses that are done to God's people by their persecutors and oppressors. "You grind the faces of the poor; you put them to as much pain and terror as if they were ground in a mill, and as certainly reduce them to dust by one act of oppression after another." Or, "Their faces are bruised and crushed with the blows you have given them; you have not only ruined their estates, but have given them personal abuses." Our Lord Jesus was smitten on the face, Matt. xxvi. 67.

II. The management of this controversy. 1. God himself is the prosecutor (v. 13): The Lord stands up to plead, or he sets himself to debate the matter, and he stands to judge the people, to judge for those that were oppressed and abused; and he will enter into judgment with the princes, v. 14. Note, The greatest of men cannot exempt or secure themselves from the scrutiny and sentence of God's judgment, nor demur to the jurisdiction of the court of heaven. 2. The indictment is proved by the notorious evidence of the fact: "Look upon the oppressors, and the show of their countenance witnesses against them (v. 9); look upon the oppressed, and you see how their faces are battered and abused," v. 15. 3. The controversy is already begun in the change of the ministry. To punish those that had abused their power to bad purposes God sets those over them that had not sense to use their power to any good purposes: Children are their oppressors, and women rule over them (v. 12), men that have as weak judgments and strong passions as women and children: this was their sin, that their rulers were such, and it became a judgment upon them.

III. The distinction that shall be made between particular persons, in the prosecution of this controversy (v. 10, 11): Say to the righteous, It shall be well with thee. Woe to the wicked; it shall be ill with him. He had said (v. 9), they have rewarded evil to themselves, in proof of which he here shows that God will render to every man according to his works. Had they been righteous, it would have been well with them; but, if it be ill with them, it is because they are wicked and will be so. Thus God stated the matter to Cain, to convince him that he had no reason to be angry, Gen. iv. 7. Or it may be taken thus: God is threatening national judgments, which will ruin the public interests. Now, 1. Some good people might fear that they should be involved in that ruin, and therefore God bids the prophets comfort them against those fears: "Whatever becomes of the unrighteous nation, let the righteous man know that he shall not be lost in the crowd of sinners; the Judge of all the earth will not slay the righteous with the wicked (Gen. xviii. 25); no, assure him, in God's name, that it shall be well with him. The property of the trouble shall be altered to him, and he shall be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. He shall have divine supports and comforts, which shall abound as afflictions abound, and so it shall be well with him." When the whole stay of bread is taken away, yet in the day of famine the righteous shall be satisfied; they shall eat the fruit of their doings—they shall have the testimony of their consciences for them that they kept themselves pure from the common iniquity, and therefore the common calamity is not the same thing to them that it is to others; they brought no fuel to the flame, and therefore are not themselves fuel for it. 2. Some wicked people might hope that they should escape that ruin, and therefore God bids the prophets shake their vain hopes: "Woe to the wicked; it shall be ill with him, v. 11. To him the judgments shall have sting, and there shall be wormwood and gall in the affliction and misery." There is a woe to wicked people, and, though they may think to shelter themselves from public judgments, yet it shall be ill with them; it will grow worse and worse with them if they repent not, and the worst of all will be at last; for the reward of their hands shall be given them, in the day when every man shall receive according to the things done in the body.

The Vanity of the Daughters of Zion. (b. c. 758.)

16 Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: 17 Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. 18 In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, 19 The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, 20 The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, 21 The rings, and nose jewels, 22 The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, 23 The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils. 24 And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty. 25 Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. 26 And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.

The prophet's business was to show all sorts of people what they had contributed to the national guilt and what share they must expect in the national judgments that were coming. Here he reproves and warns the daughters of Zion, tells the ladies of their faults; and Moses, in the law, having denounced God's wrath against the tender and delicate woman (the prophets being a comment upon the law, Deut. xxviii. 56), he here tells them how they shall smart by the calamities that are coming upon them. Observe,

I. The sin charged upon the daughters of Zion, v. 16. The prophet expressly vouches God's authority for what he said, lest it should be thought it was unbecoming in him to take notice of such things, and should be resented by the ladies: The Lord saith it. "Whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, let them know that God takes notice of, and is much displeased with, the folly and vanity of proud women, and his law takes cognizance even of their dress." Two things that here stand indicted for—haughtiness and wantonness, directly contrary to that modesty, shamefacedness, and sobriety, with which women ought to adorn themselves, 1 Tim. ii. 9. They discovered the disposition of their mind by their gait and gesture, and the lightness of their carriage. They are haughty, for they walk with stretched-forth necks, that they may seem tall, or, as thinking nobody good enough to speak to them or to receive a look or a smile from them. Their eyes are wanton, deceiving (so the word is); with their amorous glances they draw men into their snares. They affect a formal starched way of going, that people may look at them, and admire them, and know they have been at the dancing-school, and have learned the minuet-step. They go mincing, or nicely tripping, not willing to set so much as the sole of their foot to the ground, for tenderness and delicacy. They make a tinkling with their feet, having, as some think, chains, or little bells, upon their shoes, that made a noise: they go as if they were fettered (so some read it), like a horse tramelled, that he may learn to pace. Thus Agag came delicately, 1 Sam. xv. 32. Such a nice affected mien is not only a force upon that which is natural, and ridiculous before men, men of sense; but as it is an evidence of a vain mind, it is offensive to God. And two things aggravated it here: 1. That these were the daughters of Zion, the holy mountain, who should have behaved with the gravity that becomes women professing godliness. 2. That it should seem, by the connexion, they were the wives and daughters of the princes who spoiled and oppressed the poor (v. 14, 15) that they might maintain the pride and luxury of their families.

II. The punishments threatened for this sin; and they answer the sin as face answers to face in a glass, v. 17, 18. 1. They walked with stretched-forth necks, but God will smite with a scab the crown of their head, which shall lower their crests, and make them ashamed to show their heads, being obliged by it to cut off their hair. Note, Loathsome diseases are often sent as the just punishment of pride, and are sometimes the immediate effect of lewdness, the flesh and the body being consumed by it. 2. They cared not what they laid out in furnishing themselves with great variety of fine clothes; but God will reduce them to such poverty and distress that they shall not have clothes sufficient to cover their nakedness, but their uncomeliness shall be exposed through their rags. 3. They were extremely fond and proud of their ornaments; but God will strip them of those ornaments, when their houses shall be plundered, their treasures rifled, and they themselves led into captivity. The prophet here specifies many of the ornaments which they used as particularly as if he had been the keeper of their wardrobe or had attended them in their dressing-room. It is not at all material to enquire what sort of ornaments these respectively were and whether the translations rightly express the original words; perhaps 100 years hence the names of some of the ornaments that are now in use in our own land will be as little understood as some of those here mentioned now are. Fashions alter, and so do the names of them; and yet the mention of them is not in vain, but is designed to expose the folly of the daughters of Zion; for, (1.) Many of these things, we may suppose, were very odd and ridiculous, and, if they had not been in fashion, would have been hooted at. They were fitter to be toys for children to play with than ornaments for grown people to go to Mount Zion in. (2.) Those things that were decent and convenient, as the linen, the hoods, and the veils, needed not be provided in such abundance and variety. It is necessary to have apparel and proper that all should have it according to their rank; but what occasion was there for so many changeable suits of apparel (v. 22), that they might not be seen two days together in the same suit? "They must have (as the homily against excess of apparel speaks) one gown for the day, another for the night—one long, another short—one for the working day, another for the holy-day—one of this colour, another of that colour—one of cloth, another of silk or damask—one dress afore dinner, another after—one of the Spanish fashion, another Turkey—and never content with sufficient." All this, as it is an evidence of pride and vain curiosity, so must needs spend a great deal in gratifying a base lust that ought to be laid out in works of piety and charity; and it is well if poor tenants be not racked, or poor creditors defrauded to support it. (3.) The enumeration of these things intimates what care they were in about them, how much their hearts were upon them, what an exact account they kept of them, how nice and critical they were about them, how insatiable their desire was of them, and how much of their comfort was bound up in them. A maid could forget none of these ornaments, though they were ever so many (Jer. ii. 32), but they would report them as readily, and talk of them with as much pleasure, as if they had been things of the greatest moment. The prophet did not speak of these things as in themselves sinful (they might lawfully be had and used), but as things which they were proud of and should therefore be deprived of.

III. They were very nice and curious about their clothes; but God would make those bodies of theirs, which were at such expense to beautify and make easy, a reproach and burden to them (v. 24): Instead of sweet smell (those tablets, or boxes, of perfume, houses of the soul or breath, as they are called, v. 20, margin) there shall be stink, garments grown filthy with being long worn, or from some loathsome disease or plasters for the cure of it. Instead of a rich embroidered girdle used to make the clothes sit tight, there shall be a rent, a rending of the clothes for grief, or old rotten clothes rent into rags. Instead of well-set hair, curiously plaited and powdered, there shall be baldness, the hair being plucked off or shaven, as was usual in times of great affliction (ch. xv. 2; Jer. xvi. 6), or in great servitude, Ezek. xxix. 18. Instead of a stomacher, or a scarf or sash, there shall be a girding of sackcloth, in token of deep humiliation; and burning instead of beauty. Those that had a good complexion, and were proud of it, when they are carried into captivity shall be tanned and sun-burnt; and it is observed that the best faces are soonest injured by the weather. From all this let us learn, 1. Not to be nice and curious about our apparel, not to affect that which is gay and costly, nor to be proud of it. 2. Not to be secure in the enjoyment of any of the delights of sense, because we know not how soon we may be stripped of them, nor what straits we may be reduced to.

IV. They designed by these ornaments to charm the gentlemen, and win their affections (Prov. vii. 16, 17), but there shall be none to be charmed by them (v. 25): Thy men shall fall by the sword, and the mighty in the war, The fire shall consume them, and then the maidens shall not be given in marriage; as it is, Ps. lxxviii. 63. When the sword comes with commission the mighty commonly fall first by it, because they are most forward to venture. And, when Zion's guards are cut off, no marvel that Zion's gates lament and mourn (v. 26), the enemies having made themselves masters of them; and the city itself, being desolate, being emptied or swept, shall sit upon the ground like a disconsolate widow. If sin be harboured with in the walls, lamentation and mourning are near the gates.

CHAP. III.

Ver. 1. FOr behold] This is alſo part of the former Sermon, though made the beginning of another Chapter: for of our Prophet that is ſome way true which Petrarch ſaith of Livy, viz. that he wrote many Books, quos in Decades non ipſe ſed faſtidioſa legentium ſcidit imperitia, which not himſelf but others without any great skill divided into Decads; ſc. Chapters.

The Lord—doth take away] Heb. is taking away, i. e. He will ſurely and ſuddenly do it, and thereby pave a way to the utter ruine of all. For as it was a Sign Sampſon meant to pull down the Houſe when he pulled away the pillars: ſo that God is about to ruine a State, when he plucketh away thoſe that are the ſhores and props of it.

The ſtay and the ſtaff] Validum & validam, ſo ſome render it, Sept. Piſcat. the Miriams as well as the Moſeſſes, Mic. 6.4. Others, baculum & bacillum, the ſtaff and the little ſtaff; all the ſupports and ſtayes of the State, both great and ſmall, one with another: Ceaſe ye therefore from man, as chap. 2.22.

The whole ſtay of bread] Suſtenance as well as Supporters, quicquid alimento aut munimento eſſe poterat.

Ver. 2. The mighty man and the man of War] Such as were Davids Mighties, Hannibal, Fabius Maximus (of whom the Poet, Hic patria eſt, muri que urbis ſtant pectore in uno) Scipio Africanus, of whoſe death when Metellus heard, he run out into the publick Forum, and cryed out, Concurrite cives, urbis veſtrae maenia corruerunt. Come forth, and conſult what is to be done, for your City is undone.

The Judge and the Prophet] When God gathereth ſuch by cluſters as it were, ſome evil is at hand: as when men pull up their hedges and fences, it is open-tide.

And the prudent] Heb. the Diviner: ſuch as have their eyes on their head, Eccl. 2.14. their hearts at their right hands, Eccleſ. 10.20. that judiciouſly pondering things paſt, can prudently order things preſent, and providently foreſee to prevent dangers likely to enſue.

And the ancient] With whom is Wiſdom and Counſel, Job 32.4.6, 7.

Ver. 3. The Captain of fifty] One of the leaſt and loweſt Commanders in War: ſuch alſo ſhall fail, and therefore all muſt needs fall to wrack and ruine; this Epaminondas when he was dying foreſaw at Thebes, Plut: and therefore counſelled his Country-men to make peace upon any terms.

And the honourable] Heb. the man eminent in countenance. Sept. [non-Latin text not transcribed], a man of reſpect and authority; in the eyes of Auguſtus Caeſar ſate ſuch a rare Majeſty as a man could hardly endure to behold them, without cloſing of his own.

And the cunning artificer] Such as was Hiram (whom for honour-ſake Solomon called Father) Archimedes, and ſuch others who are of great uſe to a State, for making of Engines and Inſtruments.

And the eloquent Orator] Heb. skilled in Charms: Quintilian deſcribes an Orator thus:Intelligentem, meditatam & gravem orationem. Oecolamp. Vir bonus dicendi peritus, a good man well-ſpoken. Ille regit dictis animos & pectora mulcet, he carryeth the people which way he pleaſeth: The Athenians called ſuch [non-Latin text not transcribed] and ſet an high price upon them, as they did on Pericles, Demoſthenes, Phocion, &c.

Ver. 4. And I will give children to be their Princes] ſi non annis, at animis; ſuch as were Ahaz, Manaſſeh, the four laſt Kings of Judah; the calamity of that Kingdom.Dii avertant principes pueros. Vopiſ. Princes that are witleſs, wilful, weak or wicked, are the peoples wo, Eccleſ. 10.16. this childhood of theirs is the maturity of their Subjects miſery. See Iob 34.30.

And babes ſhall rule over them] Sept. Mockers. ſome render it Foxes. Others Effeminate perſons. But babes is beſt. Such a one was Rehoboam, and Honorius the Emperour, who when he heard that his City of Rome was taken by Alarichus, grieved moſt of all for the loſs of a certain bird which was there kept for him, and by him called Rome. Indignum ſane, Regem aves praeferre urbibus, ſaith the Hiſtorian.

Ver. 5. And the people ſhall be oppreſſed one by another] the greater devouring the leſſer, as fiſhes do. How ſhould it be otherwiſe, when there is either no Government, or not that which is good, but all things turned as here, topſy-turvy, without any reſpect to age, order, or dignity, and Virg.Scinditur incertum ſtudia in contraria vulgus.

This diſſention is the mother of Diſſolution, ſaith Nazianzen. This Diſſipation and perverſion of Order and Manners is the fore-runner of utter deſolation and ſubverſion.

Ver. 6. When a man ſhall take hold of his brother] This is a further miſchief that Government ſhall go a begging, and ſcarce one be found that ſhall hold it worth having. The Venetians have Magiſtrates called Praegadi, becauſe at firſt men were pray'd to take the office, and not many would accept of it. This was the caſe here: Men are naturally ambitious of Ruledom (the Bramble thinks it a goodly thing to raign over the Trees) but they may ſoon have enough of it, and be forced to cry out as he once did of his Diadem, O vilis pannus! O baſe rag! not worth taking up at a mans feet!

Thou haſt clothing] fit for a Prince, ſome badge of honour, and ſuch Apparrel as may procure thee reſpect: For Hunc homines decorant, quem veſtimenta decorant.

Let this ruin be under thy hand] that is, by an Hypallage, let thy hand be under this ruin, that is, under this deſolate and ruined State, to raiſe it up and repair it.

Ver. 7. In that day ſhall he ſwear, ſaying] Tis come to this paſs in ſome places at this day, Ʋt ambigant prudentiores, otium, an officium aliquod Reip. ſint perſecuturi, that Wiſe men doubt whether they had beſt bear Office or not. But true goodneſs is publike-ſpirited, though to private diſadvantage.

In caducum parietem non inclinabo. I will not be an healer] i. e. a Ruler. I will not be a binder up, or a Chyrurgion; for this State is no better then a great Spittle; the whole Head is ſick, and the whole Heart heavy, &c. I dare not therefore meddle with it, ſith it is incurable, incorrigible. The Septuagint render it, I will not be thy Prince: A King hath his Name in Greek from healing, [non-Latin text not transcribed] ab [non-Latin text not transcribed] medela. as Plutarch obſerveth: becauſe he is to be the Phyſitian or Surgeon of the Common wealth.

In mine houſe is neither bread, nor cloathing] I have not for mine own, much leſs for you. A Prince had need to be well under-laid, that he may not need to pill and poll his Subjects, or in judging to gape after gain.

Ver. 8. For Jeruſalem is faln] Therefore Ile not meddle, ſith it is a very ſad thing to be Phyſitian to a dying State, quando conclamatum eſt, when men are forſaken of their hopes.

Becauſe their tongue and their doings are againſt the Lord] They ſet their mouths againſt Heaven, and like ſo many Wolves they howl upwards: they lay the reins in the neck, and let their unruly tongues run riot. And as they talk, ſo they act, doing wickedly with both hands earneſtly, againſt the Author of their Being and Well-being.

To provoke the eyes of his glory] His eyes run to and fro through the earth: and all the wickedneſs in the world is committed before his face. This they know, and yet, go on in ſin, as if they did it on purpoſe to provoke him, and to ſee what he can do. Oecolampadius noteth, that Gods eyes are here mentioned, becauſe men are eaſily provoked to anger by a hurt in the eye. And Junius here obſerveth, that Gods eyes are called the Eyes of his Glory, becauſe as he is glorious in himſelf, ſo he is either to be glorified by us, or elſe he will ſurely glorifie himſelf upon us, ſuch eſpecially as are obſtinate and impudent, as here.

Ver. 9. The ſhew of their countenance doth witneſs againſt them] q. d. You may ſee by their very looks what Lewd loſels they are. Their cruelty, pride, envy, hypocriſie, mulieroſity ſitteth and ſheweth it ſelf apparently in their faces and fore-heads. Wiſdom maketh the face to ſhine, ſaith Solomon; & ipſe aſpectus viri boni delectat. Good men look lovely, ſaith Seneca, as did that Angel of God, John Bradford, quoth Dr. Taylor Martyr: not ſo Cain, when diſcontented at God and diſpleaſed at his brother, Gen. 4.6. he ſcouled and looked like a dog under a door, as we ſay. [non-Latin text not transcribed], Hom. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. The thoughts are oft known by the countenance: and the heart is printed upon the face. Damaſcen calleth the eyes, the exact images of the Imaginations. And the Italians have a Proverb that a man with his words cloſe and his countenance looſe, may travel undiſcovered, what he is or goes about, all the world over. The word here uſed for ſhew or trial, doth in Hithpael ſignifie to make a mans ſelf unknown.

And they declare their ſin, as Sodom] They tell it out, as Judg. 14.16. And as the ſhameleſs Sodomites ſaid to Lot, Bring them out to us that we may know them, Gen. 19.5. See the like impudency in Lamech, Gen. 4.23, 24. In Lots two daughters, Gen. 19.36, 37. This impudent naming of their inceſtuous brats as begotten by their own Father ſheweth, that they declared their ſin, as Sodom, where they had lived and learned it.

They hide it not] So Ezek. 24.7. Her blood is in the midſt of her: ſhe ſet it upon the top of a Rock, as it were a ſunning, ſhe poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with duſt. See Jer. 2.25.

Wo to their ſoul] to their very ſoul. All wickedneſs hath a woe hanging at the heels of it: but eſpecially that which is grown impudent, a noon-day-Devil. The Septuagint here have it thus: Wo to their ſoul, for that they have taken evil counſel: ſaying, let us bind the juſt One, for that he is not for our purpoſe or profit. Wherein they do inſinuate the Myſterie of Chriſts Paſſion, ſaith Oecolampadius, and do manifeſtly tax their own Nation. Epiphanius teſtifieth of the Jews at Tiberias after the laſt deſtruction of Jeruſalem, that it was uſual with them when any of their dear friends or kindred were at the point of death,Epiphan. apud Lonicer. in Theat. Hiſtor. p. 96. to whiſper theſe words ſecretly into their ears, Crede in Jeſum Nazarenum crucifixum, Believe in Jeſus of Nazareth, whom our Chieftains crucified: for he it is who ſhall come to judge thee at the laſt day; Now if this be true, how great is the obſtinacy and impudence of that perverſe people, who ſtill ſin againſt ſuch ſtrong convictions?

Ver. 10. Say ye to the Righteous] Tell them ſo from me, ſaith God, for their comfort and encouragement. Zuinglius when he had preached terrour to the wicked, was wont to add, Probe vir, hoc nihil ad te. All this concerneth not thee, O thou godly man. When the dogs in a houſe are beaten, the Children will be apt to fright and cry: So when the wicked are threatened, good men are apt to be troubled. Say therefore to ſuch, and let them know aſſuredly,

That it ſhall be well with him] Heb. that good, ſc. ſhall betide him, whatever befalleth others. God ſhall be with the good, 2 Chron. 19. ult. Yet God is good to Iſrael, to the pure in heart, Pſalm 73.1. Eccl. 8.12.

For they ſhall eat the fruit of their doings] They ſhall reap in due time if they faint not; they ſhall eat of the fat, and drink of the ſweet, Iſa. 25.6. See chap. 65.13. & Prov 14.14. with the Notes.

Ver. 11. Wo to the wicked] This Sentence ſhould ever ſound in the wicked mans ears, for a powerfull retentive from wickedneſs, conſidering the evil Conſequent thereof, that doleful [non-Latin text not transcribed] wo and alaſs for evermore! And when thou art making (ſaith One) a covenant with ſin; ſay to thy ſoul, as Boaz ſaid to his kinſman, Ruth. 4.4. At what time thou buyeſt it, thou muſt have Ruth with it: If thou wilt have the pleaſure of ſin, the wayes of wickedneſs, thou muſt alſo have the vengeance and wrath of God with it; and let thy ſoul anſwer as he here doth; No, I may not do it, I ſhall mar and ſpoil a better Inheritance, I ſhall inherit a curſe, &c. Look ſaith Mr. Bradford Martyr to the tag tyed to Gods Law (the malediction) which is ſuch as cannot but make us to caſt our curriſh tails betwixt our legs,Serm. of Repentance. if we believe it.

Jun. It ſhall go ill with him] Vtcun que ſibi de rebus praeſentibus gratuletur. Though he ſtroake himſelf on the head, ſaying, I ſhall have peace though I walk in the imaginations of my heart, to add drunkenneſs to thirſt, Deut. 29.19. Tell him from me, ſaith God, Evil ſc. ſhall betide him, Yea An evil, an only evil awaiteth him, Ezek. 7.5. let him look for it.

The reward of his hands ſhall be given him] He ſhall reap as he ſowed, drink as he brewed, Gal, 6.7, 8.

Mox aut poena manet miſeros, aut palma beatos: Quiſ que ſuae vitae ſemina jacta metet.

Verſ. 12. A for my people] Now the people of my wrath, and of my curſe, Loammi, diſcovenanted, diſcarded.

Children are their oppreſſours] Rulers he calleth them not, as being too good a Name for them: but Oppreſſours, and theſe were boyes and women, i. e. ſuch as were no wiſer then children, nor had any more command of their paſſions then weak women,Heyl. Coſm[illegible: 1 letter]g. and were therefore unfit for Government. Brunhild the wife of Sigebert King of Metz, Fri[illegible: 1 letter]egund the wife of Chilperick, and Katherine Medices wife of Henry the 2. are ſaid to be the Furies of France. What work they made in that Kingdom in their generations, by abuſing their Husbands love and authority, Hiſtories are full. The like did Jezabel in Iſrael, Athaliah in Judah, and Dame Alice Pierce here in England in King Edward the thirds dayes. This Woman being the Kings Concubine, and preſuming on his favour, whom in his old age ſhe had ſubdued, grew ſo inſolent, that ſhe impriſoned Sir Peter la Mare, Speaker for the Parliament:Dan. Hiſt. 257. intermeddled with Courts of Juſtice, and other Offices, where ſhe her ſelf would ſit to effect her deſire; which though in all who are ſo exalted are ever exceſſive, yet in a woman moſt immoderate, as having leſs of diſcretion, and more of gre[illegible: 1 letter]dineſs. Heliogabalus in a merriment ſet up a Senate of Women, but then their Ordinances were correſpondent, as what Attire each Woman ſhould uſe, how they ſhould take place, when ſalute, &c. But theſe in the Text working upon their Husbands Impotencies (who were children in the ſence that Shechem the ſon of Hamor is ſo called, Gen. 34.19. Ne que diſtulit puer, a lad or a boy, becauſe ſwayed not by right reaſon, but by blind affection) exacted of the poor people unreaſonable Tributes and Penſions, for the maintenance of their pride and luxury. Eſt haec ingens plaga, ſaith One, this is a great miſchief to a State, ſuch as Greece and Rome ſometimes groaned under. Diophantus the ſon of Themiſtocles once boaſted that he Ruled all Greece, becauſe he Ruled his mother: ſhe Ruled his Father, and he Ruled Greece. Cato alſo complained, Mulieres regunt nos, nos Senatum, Senatis Romam, Roma orbem; Our Women, ſaid he, Rule us, we Rule the Senate, the Senate the City and the City the whole world.

Qui bea[illegible: 2 letters]ficant te. O my people, they which lead thee] Or, thoſe that bleſs thee, and pronounce thee happy, ſaying, as do thy falſe-Prophets, thoſe flatterers, becauſe thou haſt with thee the Oracles and Ordinances of God, the Ceremonies and Sacrifices, praiſing thee therefore and promiſing thee all happineſs, ſoothing thee up in thy ſins, &c. Qui ducunt te, ſeducunt; Falſe Guides they are, and

Deſtroy the way of thy Paths] Heb. They ſwallow up, that is, they hide from thee thy duty, and ſo harden thee in thy ſin.

Ver. 13. The Lord ſtandeth up to plead] Or, to debate, Job 9.3. Prov. 25.8, 9. to argue the caſe, and to hear pleas. He is content, for the clearing of his Juſtice, and conviction of ſinners, to ſubmit his courſes unto ſcanning. See chap. 5.3. Judicate quaeſo, Judge I pray you: ſo Jer. 2.9. Wherefore I will yet plead with you, and with your childrens children will I plead. But when that is done,

He ſtandeth to judge the people] And the Lord will enter into Judgement, ver. 14. three ſeveral words are here made uſe of for Judgement, to ſhew, ſaith Oecolampadius, that God hath been is, and ſhall be Judge; and that in his Judgement, nihil relinquetur inexpenſum, nothing ſhall be left unconſidered.

Ver. 14. The Lord will enter into judgement with the ancients] 1. with the Prince and Rulers, each of which ſhall have cauſe to cry out Judex ante fui, nunc judicis ante tribunal Siſtor.—

For ye have eaten up the Vineyard] Vos, non caret Emphaſi, Ye, even ye, that ſhould have preſerved it, and wrought in it, have depaſtured and deſtroyed my Vineyard, that is my Church, as chap. 5.17. or poor mens poſſeſſions, through your extortions and oppreſſions.

And the ſpoil of the poor is in your houſes] You are taken [non-Latin text not transcribed] in the very act of your theft, as Cacus was, and Verres, Deprehenſi eſtis in ſurto. Oecolamp. &c.

Ver. 15. What mean you that you beat my people to pieces?] Heb. What to you? all in a word, ſhort and ſharp, q. d. What reaſon had you? What authority to do thus? That was a witty anſwer that was given once here to the Popes Exactor,Tuitione. who pleaded that all Churches were his, and therefore he might call for what ſumms he pleaſed; a nimble Diſputant replyed, that all Churches were the Popes in a ſence, viz. Tuitione, ſed non fruitione; defenſione, non diſſipatione, i. e. to defend them, but not to deſtroy them. If God give any man power, it is for edification, and not for deſtruction, 2 Cor. 13.10.

And grind the faces] holding their Noſes to the grind ſtone, as we ſay by hard uſage. See on Mic. 3.3.

Saith the Lord God] Dixit Dominator dominus; he who is higher then the higheſt, and being Lord of Hoſts, hath thoſe at hand that are higher then they, Eccleſ. 5.8.

Ver. 16. Moreover the Lord ſaith] He hath this other ſaying to the other ſex, for the maintaining of whoſe pride and luxury their Husbands and Paramours exerciſed ſuch cruelty, as before in the Raign of Henry 2. King of France, Anno 1554. many were burned there for Religion, as they ſaid; but indeed to ſatiate the covetouſneſs, and ſupport the pomp of Diana Valentina the Kings Miſtreſs,Hiſt of Counc. of Trent. 387. to whom he had given all the confiſcation of goods made in the Kingdom for cauſe of Hereſie.

Becauſe the Daughters of Zion] the Court Ladies.

Are haughty] Elatae, h. e. ſuperbia inflatae, puft up wth pride, firſt in heart, and then in habit: for pride will bud, Ezek. 7.10.

And walk] Women ſhould keep the houſe, ſaith Paul. Sarah was in the Tent,Tit. 2.5. Gen. 17.9. and theſe profeſſed to be her Daughters, but were nothing like her; Modeſtia enim à ſuperbia triumphata eſt.

With ſtretcht forth necks] like Cranes or Swans, that they might ſhew their fair foreheads, whereas nature hath given the ſubmiſs and modeſt viſages.

And wanton eyes] Heb. Lying or deceiving, viz. by their lewd laſcivious looks, twinkling and making ſignes. Some render it facie ſercuſſata with their painted faces, and counterfeit viſages, whereby to the reproach of their Maker they would ſeem fairer then they are.

Walking and mincing as they go] Or tripping or tabering, with an affected gate, after the manner of Dancers. Or ruffling in their Silks and Taffaties, with which laſt word, the original ſeemeth to have affinity. Others derive it from Taph a little child,Minutim & numeroſe paſſus conſerunt. Jac. Revius. & render it inſtar parvulorum ambulant, they take ſhort ſteps, as little ones do; ſo nice they are in their gate and garbe; elaborata quadam concinnitate greſſum modulantes.

Making a tinkling with their feet] going as if they were ſhackled, or as yong Colts that are to be broken and brought to a pace. Some think they wore bels about their legs, or ſpangles on their pantofles. Pope Sixtus quartus was wont to give his Harlot Tyreſia pantofles covered with Pearls.

Turpe pecus mutilum, turpis ſine gramine campus. Et fine p[illegible: 1 letter]onde frutex, & ſine crine caput. Ovid. Ver. 17. Therefore the Lord will ſmite with a ſcab the crown of the head] He will not only pull off their rich pantofles off their feet, but alſo their lovely looks from off their heads, with ſcabs and ſcales, perhaps cauſed by ſome ſoul Diſeaſe, as the lues Venerea, or plica Polonica.

And will diſcover their ſecret parts] not having a rag left to cover them with, whileſt ſtript of all by the enemy, they are driven away as thoſe Aegyptians were, chap. 20.4. naked and bare-foot, even with their buttocks uncovered to the ſhame of Aegypt: or as the Albigenſes in France at Carcaſſona had quarter for their lives given them, by the Popiſh Biſhops and other Cruciats that perſecuted them: but on this condition,Rivet Jeſuit. vapul. that both men and women ſhould depart the Town ſtark naked in the view of the whole Army.

Ver. 18. The Lord will take away the bravery] All the following bravery: for the Prophet as punctually and particularly threatneth all down, as if he had lately ſeen the Ladies Wardrobes in Jeruſalem. And if this vanity of gallantry be ſo blameworthy in a woman, who is naturally [non-Latin text not transcribed] addicted to fine attire, how much more in a man, who ſhall turn Lands into laces, and embroyder his cloak with Woods and Parks, and Lordſhips, lining it, haply, with Obligations, and Bonds, and Statutes?

Of their tinkling ornament, &c.] Here and in the following Verſes we have an Inventory of the Ladies gallantry, ſuch as made the mighty men fall in the War, ver. 25.26. This was the fruit of their twinkling eyes and tinkling Ornaments, Vatablus ſaith that the Spaniſh women did wear bells about their heels when they danced.

And the round tires like the Meon] Lunata monilia. Statius.

Ver. 19.20, 21, 22, 23. And the chains and the bracelets, &c.] The particulars of all their bravery we can ſay little unto upon certainty; ſith we are at this day ignorant what Ornaments and Abiliments were then in uſe: and beſides, the Names here given unto them are ſuch as the Jews themſelves can hardly tell what to make of. It is a ſad thing that the gawds and gayeties of this Age and Country are ſuch and ſo many, as that not ſix or ſeven Verſes, but ſo many whole Chapters might be eaſily taken up in Inventarying them. Lyſander a Heathen will riſe up in Judgement againſt many amongſt us: for he would not ſuffer his Daughters to wear gorgeous attire, ſaying, it would not make them ſo comely as common. That is very remarkable that is ſtoried of Mr. Fox the Martyrologue,Hiſt of mod. Div. by Lupton. that when a ſon of his returning from his travels into forraign parts, came to him in Oxford, attired in a looſe outlandiſh faſhion, Who are you? ſaid his old Father, not knowing him. He replyed, I am your ſon: O what enemy of thine, ſaid he, hath taught thee ſo much vanity? The Hebrew word beghed for a garment, comes from Baghad, which ſignifieth to deal perfidiouſly or treacherouſly, as Iſa. 21.3. perhaps, becauſe it is tegumentum & teſtimonium, not more a covering of mans ſhame, then a teſtimony of his firſt ſin in falling from God. So that a man or woman hath no more cauſe to brag of his fine cloaths or to be proud of them, then a Thief of a ſilk-rope, or then one bath of a Plaiſter laid to his filthy ſore.

Ver. 24. And there ſhall be in ſtead of ſweet ſmell, ſtink] Ex illuvie & ſordibus captivitatis & carceris. Martial and Marcellinus tell us of a natural ſtench the Jews have, ſuch as made the Emperour Aurelius coming amongſt ſome of them, and annoyed with their ill ſavour,Ammian. li. 2. to cry out, O Marcomanni, O Quadi, O Sarmatae, &c. O Marcomans, Quades and Sarmatians, at length I have met with thoſe that are more naſty and loathſome then you are. Theſe dainty Dames are threatened with dirty doings in captivity and priſon, ſuch as ſhould render them odious.

And in ſtead of a girdle, a rent] Or rags, or a beating, the Vulgar rendereth it a cord.

And inſtead of well ſet hair] Heb. work of even or ſmooth ſetting, or trimming, [non-Latin text not transcribed] or hair-trimmers were anciently noted for effeminate. Pompey is taxed in Hiſtory for that he did, Ʋnico digitulo caput ſcalpere, ſcratch his well-ſet hair with his little finger only.

Baldneſs] Pro criſpanti crine calvitium, & pro faſcia pectorali cilicium. Pride is ſo hatefull to God, that ſuch as are guilty of it ſeldom eſcape his viſible vengeance.

And burning inſtead of beauty] Burning, that is Sun-burning.

Ver. 25. Thy men ſhall fall by the ſword] for ſuffering and favouring the womens exceſſes; ſuch as are now adaies naked breaſts and ſhoulders: Abhorred filth! Our King Henry the 6. at ſuch a ſight cryed, Fit fie Ladies, in ſooth you are too blame, &c.

Ver. 26. And her gates ſhall lament] becauſe unfrequented, as Lam. 1.4. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Nazian.

And the King deſolate] ſwept and wiped of all; not, as once, with her turrified head and ſtretcht forth neck.

Sitteth upon the ground] as a ſad mourner. Mony was coined by Veſpatian with a woman ſitting at the root of a Palm-tree, and this inſcription, Judae capta.