Isaiah 28:29

Lord of hosts משיחא דיי צבאות meshicha dayai tsebaoth, shall be a crown of joy and a diadem of praise to the residue of his people." Kimchi says the rabbins in general are of this opinion. Here then the rabbins, and their most celebrated Targum, give the incommunicable name, יהוה צבאות Yehovah tsebaoth, the Lord of hosts, to our ever blessed Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Verse 6 The battle to the gate "The war to the gate of the enemy" - That is, who pursue the fleeing enemy even to the very gates of their own city. "But we were upon them even unto the entering of the gate," 2Sam 11:23 ; that is, we drove the enemy back to their own gates. See also 1Sam 17:52 . The Targum says, The Messiah shall give the victory to those who go out to battle, that he may bring them back to their own houses in peace. Verse 9 Whom shall he teach knowledge?" Whom, say they, would he teach knowledge?" - The scoffers mentioned below, Isa 28:14 , are here introduced as uttering their sententious speeches; they treat God's method of dealing with them, and warning them by his prophets, with contempt and derision. What, say they, doth he treat us as mere infants just weaned? doth he teach us like little children, perpetually inculcating the same elementary lessons, the mere rudiments of knowledge; precept after precept, line after line, here and there, by little and little? imitating at the same time, and ridiculing, in Isa 28:10 , the concise prophetical manner. God, by his prophet, retorts upon them with great severity their own contemptuous mockery, turning it to a sense quite different from what they intended. Yes, saith he, it shall be in fact as you say; ye shall be taught by a strange tongue and a stammering lip; in a strange country; ye shall be carried into captivity by a people whose language shall be unintelligible to you, and which ye shall be forced to learn like children. And my dealing with you shall be according to your own words: it shall be command upon command for your punishment; it shall be line upon line, stretched over you to mark your destruction, (compare 2Kgs 21:13 ); it shall come upon you at different times, and by different degrees, till the judgments, with which from time to time I have threatened you, shall have their full accomplishment. Jerome seems to have rightly understood the general design of this passage as expressing the manner in which the scoffers, by their sententious speeches, turned into ridicule the warnings of God by his prophets, though he has not so well explained the meaning of the repetition of their speech in Isa 28:13 . His words are on Isa 28:9 "Solebant hoc ex persona prophetarum ludentes dicere:" and on Isa 28:14 "Quod supra diximus, cum irrisione solitos principes Judaeorum prophetis dicere, manda, remanda, et caetera his similia, per quae ostenditur, nequaquam eos prophetarum credidisse sermonibus, sed prophetiam habuisse despectui, praesens ostendit capitulum, per quod appellantur viri illusores." Hieron. in loc. And so Jarchi interprets the word משלים mishelim in the next verse: Qui dicunt verba irrisionis parabolice." And the Chaldee paraphrases Isa 28:11 to the same purpose, understanding it as spoken, not of God, but of the people deriding his prophets: "Quoniam in mutatione loquelae et in lingua subsannationis irridebant contra prophetas, qui prophetabant populo huic." - L. Verse 10 For precept must be upon precept - The original is remarkably abrupt and sententious. The hemistichs are these: - לצו צו לצו צו כי latsav tsav latsav tsav ki לקו קו לקו קו lakau kau lakau kau שם זעיר שם זעיר sham zeeir sham zeeir For, - Command to command, command to command. Line to line, line to line. A little there, a little there. Kimchi says צו tsau, precept, is used here for מצוה mitsuah, command, and is used in no other place for it but here. צו tsau signifies a little precept, such as is suited to the capacity of a child; see Isa 28:9 . קו kau signifies the line that a mason stretches out to build a layer of stones by. After one layer or course is placed, he raises the line and builds another; thus the building is by degrees regularly completed. This is the method of teaching children, giving them such information as their narrow capacities can receive; and thus the prophet dealt with the Israelites. See Kimchi in loc., and see a fine parallel passage, Heb 5:12-14 , by which this may be well illustrated. My old MS. Bible translates oddly: - For sende efter sende, sende efter sende: Abide efter abiide, abide efter abiide: Lytyl ther, lytyl ther. Coverdale is also singular: - Commande that may be commanded; Byd that maye be bydden: Foorbyd that maye be forbydden; Kepe backe that maye be kepte backe: Here a litle, there a litle. Verse 12 This is the rest "This is the true rest" - The sense of this verse is: God had warned them by his prophets that their safety and security, their deliverance from their present calamities and from the apprehensions of still greater approaching, depended wholly on their trust in God, their faith and obedience; but they rejected this gracious warning with contempt and mockery. Verse 15 A covenant with death - To be in covenant with, is a kind of proverbial expression to denote perfect security from evil and mischief of any sort: - "For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field; And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee." Job 5:23 . "And I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field. And with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground." Hos 2:18 . That is, none of these shall hurt them. But Lucan, speaking of the Psylli, whose peculiar property it was to be unhurt by the bite of serpents, with which their country abounded, comes still nearer to the expression of Isaiah in this place: - Gens unica terras Incolit a saevo serpentum innoxia morsu Marmaridae Psylli. - Pax illis cum morte data est. Pharsal. 9:891. "Of all who scorching Afric's sun endure, None like the swarthy Psyllians are secure: With healing gifts and privileges graced, Well in the land of serpents were they placed: Truce with the dreadful tyrant death they have, And border safely on his realm the grave." Rowe. We have made a covenant with death and with hell are we at agreement - עשינו חזה asinu chozeh, we have made a vision, we have had an interview, struck a bargain, and settled all preliminaries. So they had made a covenant with hell by diabolic sacrifice, כרתנו ברית carathnu beritth. "We have cut the covenant sacrifice;" they divided it for the contracting parties to pass between the separated victim; for the victim was split exactly down the middle, so that even the spinal marrow was exactly divided through its whole length; and being set opposite to each other, the contracting parties entered, one at the head part, the other at the feet; and, meeting in the center, took the covenant oath. Thus, it is intimated, these bad people made an agreement with שאול sheol, with demons, with whom they had an interview; i.e., meeting them in the covenant sacrifice! To such a pitch had the Israelitish idolatry reached at that time! Verse 16 Behold, I lay in Zion - See the notes on Gen 49:32 ; Psa 118:22 (note); Mat 21:42 (note); Act 4:11 (note); Rom 9:33 (note); Rom 10:11 (note); Eph 2:20 (note); 1Pet 2:6-8 (note). Kimchi understands this of Hezekiah; but it most undoubtedly belongs to Jesus Christ alone; and his application of it to himself, even the Jews could not contest. Verse 18 Your covenant with death shall be disannulled "Your covenant with death shall be broken" - For כפר caphar, which seems not to belong to this place, the Chaldee reads תפר taphar, which is approved by Houbigant and Secker. See Jer 33:21 , where the very same phrase is used. See Prelim. Dissert. p. l. Verse 20 For the bed is shorter - A mashal or proverbial saying, the meaning of which is, that they will find all means of defense and protection insufficient to secure them, and cover them from the evils coming upon them. מסך massek, Isa 22:8 , the covering, is used for the outworks of defense, the barrier of the country; and here, in the allegorical sense, it means much the same thing. Their beds were only mattresses laid on the floor; and the coverlet a sheet, or in the winter a carpet, laid over it, in which the person wrapped himself. For כהתכנס kehithcannes, it ought probably to be מהתכנס mehithcannes. Houbigant, Secker. Verse 21 As in Mount Perazim - כהר kehar; but בהר bahar, In the mount, is the reading of two of Kennicott's, one of De Rossi's, and one of my own MSS. Verse 22 The Lord God - אדני יהוה Adonai Jehovah. Adonai is omitted by four of Kennicott's MSS., and in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic. Verse 23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice "Listen ye, and hear my voice" - The foregoing discourse, consisting of severe reproofs, and threatenings of dreadful judgments impending on the Jews for their vices, and their profane contempt of God's warnings by his messengers, the prophet concludes with an explanation and defense of God's method of dealing with his people in an elegant parable or allegory; in which he employs a variety of images, all taken from the science of agriculture. As the husbandman uses various methods in preparing his land, and adapting it to the several kinds of seeds to be sown, with a due observation of times and seasons; and when he hath gathered in his harvest, employs methods as various in separating the corn from the straw and the chaff by different instruments, according to the nature of the different sorts of grain; so God, with unerring wisdom, and with strict justice, instructs, admonishes, and corrects his people; chastises and punishes them in various ways, as the exigence of the case requires; now more moderately, now more severely; always tempering justice with mercy; in order to reclaim the wicked, to improve the good, and, finally, to separate the one from the other. Verse 26 For his God doth instruct him - All nations have agreed in attributing agriculture, the most useful and the most necessary of all sciences, to the invention and to the suggestions of their deities. "The Most High hath ordained husbandry, "saith the son of Sirach, Ecclus. 7:15. Namque Ceres fertur fruges, Liberque liquoris Vitigeni laticem mortalibus instituisse. Lucretius, 5:14. "Ceres has taught mortals how to produce fruits; and Bacchus has taught them how to cultivate the vine." Ὁ δ' ηπιος ανθρωποισι Δεξια σημαινει, λαους δ' επι εργον εγειρει Μιμνησκων βιοτοιο· λεγει δ' ὁτε βωλος αριστη Βουσι τε και μακελῃσι· λεγει δ' ὁτε δεξιαι ὡραι Και φυτα γυρωσαι, και σπερματα παντα βαλεσθαι. Aratus, Phantom. v. "He, Jupiter, to the human race Indulgent, prompts to necessary toil Man provident of life; with kindly signs The seasons marks, when best to turn the glebe With spade and plough, to nurse the tender plant, And cast o'er fostering earth the seeds abroad." Verse 27 Four methods of threshing are here mentioned, by different instruments; the flail, the drag, the wain, and the treading of the cattle. The staff or flail was used for the infirmiora semina, says Jerome, the grain that was too tender to be treated in the other methods. The drag consisted of a sort of strong planks, made rough at the bottom, with hard stones or iron; it was drawn by horses or oxen over the corn sheaves spread on the floor, the driver sitting upon it. Kempfer has given a print representing the manner of using this instrument, Amaen. Exot. p. 682, fig. 3. The wain was much like the former; but had wheels with iron teeth, or edges like a saw: Ferrata carpenta rotis per medium in serrarum modum se volventibus. Hieron. in loc. From this it would seem that the axle was armed with iron teeth or serrated wheels throughout. See a description and print of such a machine used at present in Egypt for the same purpose in Niebuhr's Voyage en Arabie, Tab. 17 p. 123; it moves upon three rollers armed with iron teeth or wheels to cut the straw. In Syria they make use of the drag, constructed in the very same manner as above described; Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p. 140. This not only forced out the grain, but cut the straw in pieces for fodder for the cattle; for in the eastern countries they have no hay. See Harmer's Observ. 1 p. 425. The last method is well known from the law of Moses, which "forbids the ox to be muzzled, when he treadeth out the corn;" Deu 25:4 . Verse 28 The bread-corn - I read ולהם velahem, on the authority of the Vulgate and Symmachus; the former expresses the conjunction ו vau, omitted in the text, by autem; the latter by δε. Bruise it with his horsemen "Bruise it with the hoofs of his cattle" - For פרשיו parashaiv, horsemen or teeth, read פרסיו perasaiv, hoofs. So the Syriac, Syrnmachus, Theodotion, and the Vulgate. The first is read with ש shin, the latter with ס samech, the pronunciation is nearly the same. Introduction Distress of Ariel, or Jerusalem, on Sennacherib's invasion, with manifest allusion, however, to the still greater distress which it suffered from the Romans, Isa 29:1-4 . Disappointment and fall of Sennacherib described in terms, like the event, the most awful and terrible, Isa 29:5-8 . Stupidity and hypocrisy of the Jews, Isa 29:9-16 . Rejection of the Jews, and calling of the Gentiles, Isa 29:17 . The chapter concludes by a recurrence to the favourite topics of the prophet, viz., the great extension of the Messiah's kingdom in the latter days, and the future restoration of Israel, Isa 29:18-24 . The subject of this and the four following chapters is the invasion of Sennacherib; the great distress of the Jews while it continued; their sudden and unexpected deliverance by God's immediate interposition in their favor; the subsequent prosperous state of the kingdom under Hezekiah; interspersed with severe reproofs, and threats of punishment, for their hypocrisy, stupidity, infidelity, their want of trust in God, and their vain reliance on the assistance of Egypt; and with promises of better times, both immediately to succeed, and to be expected in the future age. The whole making, not one continued discourse, but rather a collection of different discourses upon the same subject; which is treated with great elegance and variety. Though the matter is various, and the transitions sudden, yet the prophet seldom goes far from his subject. It is properly enough divided by the chapters in the common translation. - L. Verse 1 Ariel - That Jerusalem is here called by this name is very certain: but the reason of this name, and the meaning of it as applied to Jerusalem, is very obscure and doubtful. Some, with the Chaldee, suppose it to be taken from the hearth of the great altar of burnt-offerings which Ezekiel plainly calls by the same name, and that Jerusalem is here considered as the seat of the fire of God, אור אל ur el which should issue from thence to consume his enemies: compare Isa 31:9 . Some, according to the common derivation of the word, ארי אל ari el, the lion of God, or the strong lion, suppose it to signify the strength of the place, by which it was enabled to resist and overcome all its enemies. Τινες δε φασι την πολιν οὑτως ειρησθαι· επει, δια Θεου, λεοντος δικην εσπαραττε τους ανταιροντας. Procop. in loc. There are other explanations of this name given: but none that seems to be perfectly satisfactory. - Lowth. From Eze 43:15 , we learn that Ari-el was the name of the altar of burnt-offerings, put here for the city itself in which that altar was. In the second verse it is said, I will distress Ari-el, and it shall be unto me as Ari-el. The first Ari-el here seems to mean Jerusalem, which should be distressed by the Assyrians: the second Ari-el seems to mean the altar of burntofferings. But why is it said, "Ari-el shall be unto me as Ari-el?" As the altar of burntofferings was surrounded daily by the victims which were offered: so the walls of Jerusalem shall be surrounded by the dead bodies of those who had rebelled against the Lord, and who should be victims to his justice. The translation of Bishop Lowth appears to embrace both meanings: "I will bring distress upon Ari-el; and it shall be to me as the hearth of the great altar." Add ye year to year - Ironically. Go on year after year, keep your solemn feasts; yet know, that God will punish you for your hypocritical worship, consisting of mere form destitute of true piety. Probably delivered at the time of some great feast, when they were thus employed. Verse 2 There shall be heaviness and sorrow "There shall be continual mourning and sorrow" - Instead of your present joy and festivity. And it shall be unto me as Ariel "And it shall be unto me as the hearth of the great altar" - That is, it shall be the seat of the fire of God; which shall issue from thence to consume his enemies. See note on Isa 29:1 (note). Or, perhaps, all on flame; as it was when taken by the Chaldeans; or covered with carcasses and blood, as when taken by the Romans: an intimation of which more distant events, though not immediate subjects of the prophecy, may perhaps be given in this obscure passage. Verse 3 And I will camp against thee round about "And I will encamp against thee like David" - For כדור caddur, some kind of military engine, כדוד kedavid, like David, is the reading of the Septuagint, two MSS. of Kennicott's, if not two more: but though Bishop Lowth adopts this reading, I think it harsh and unnecessary. Forts "Towers" - For מצרת metsuroth, read מצדות metsudoth: so the Septuagint and five MSS. of Dr. Kennicott's, one of them ancient, and four of De Rossi's. Verse 4 And thy speech shall be low out of the dust "And from out of the dust thou shalt utter a feeble speech" - That the souls of the dead uttered a feeble stridulous sound, very different from the natural human voice, was a popular notion among the heathens as well as among the Jews. This appears from several passages of their poets; Homer, Virgil, Horace. The pretenders to the art of necromancy, who were chiefly women, had an art of speaking with a feigned voice, so as to deceive those who applied to them, by making them believe that it was the voice of the ghost. They had a way of uttering sounds, as if they were formed, not by the organs of speech, but deep in the chest, or in the belly; and were thence called εγγαστριμυθοι, ventriloqui: they could make the voice seem to come from beneath the ground, from a distant part, in another direction, and not from themselves; the better to impose upon those who consulted them. Εξεπιτηδες το γενος τουτο τον αμυδρον ηχον επιτηδευονται, ἱνα δια την ασαφειαν της φωνης τον του ψευδους αποδιδρασκωσιν ελεγχον. Psellus De Daemonibus, apud Bochart, 1 p. 731. "These people studiously acquire, and affect on purpose, this sort of obscure sound; that by the uncertainty of the voice they may the better escape being detected in the cheat. "From these arts of the necromancers the popular notion seems to have arisen, that the ghost's voice was a weak, stridulous, almost inarticulate sort of sound, very different from the speech of the living. Verse 5

cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? 26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. 27 For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. 28 Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. 29 This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. This parable, which (like many of our Saviour's parables) is borrowed from the husbandman's calling, is ushered in with a solemn preface demanding attention, He that has ears to hear, let him hear, hear and understand, v. 23 . I. The parable here is plain enough, that the husbandman applies himself to the business of his calling with a great deal of pains and prudence, secundum artem—according to rule, and, as his judgment directs him, observes a method and order in his work. 1. In his ploughing and sowing: Does the ploughman plough all day to sow? Yes, he does, and he ploughs in hope and sows in hope, 1 Cor. ix. 10 . Does he open and break the clods? Yes, he does, that the land may be fit to receive the seed. And when he has thus made plain the face thereof does he not sow his seed, seed suitable to the soil? For the husbandman knows what grain is fit for clayey ground and what for sandy ground, and, accordingly, he sows each in its place— wheat in the principal place (so the margin reads it), for it is the principal grain, and was a staple commodity of Canaan ( Ezek. xxvii. 17 ), and barley in the appointed place. The wisdom and goodness of the God of nature are to be observed in this, that, to oblige his creatures with a grateful variety of productions, he has suited to them an agreeable variety of earths. 2. In his threshing, v. 27, 28 . This also he proportions to the grain that is to be threshed out. The fitches and the cummin, being easily got out of their husk or ear, are only threshed with a staff and a rod; but the bread-corn requires more force, and therefore that must be bruised with a threshing instrument, a sledge shod with iron, that was drawn to and fro over it, to beat out the corn; and yet he will not be ever threshing it, nor any longer than is necessary to loosen the corn from the chaff; he will not break it, or crush it, into the ground with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it to pieces with his horsemen; the grinding of it is reserved for another operation. Observe, by the way, what pains are to be taken, not only for the earning, but for the preparing of our necessary food; and yet, after all, it is meat that perishes. Shall we then grudge to labour much more for the meat which endures to everlasting life? Bread-corn is bruised. Christ was so; it pleased the Lord to bruise him, that he might be the bread of life to us. II. The interpretation of the parable is not so plain. Most interpreters make it a further answer to those who set the judgments of God at defiance: "Let them know that as the husbandman will not be always ploughing, but will at length sow his seed, so God will not be always threatening, but will at length execute his threatenings and bring upon sinners the judgments they have deserved; but in wisdom, and in proportion to their strength, not that they may be ruined, but that they may be reformed and brought to repentance by them." But I think we may give this parable a greater latitude in the exposition of it. 1. In general, that God who gives the husbandman this wisdom is, doubtless, himself infinitely wise. It is God that instructs the husbandman to discretion, as his God, v. 26 . Husbandmen have need of discretion wherewith to order their affairs, and ought not undertake that business unless they do in some measure understand it; and they should by observation and experience endeavour to improve themselves in the knowledge of it. Since the king himself is served of the field, the advancing of the art of husbandry is a common service to mankind more than the cultivating of most other arts. The skill of the husbandman is from God, as every good and perfect gift is. This takes off somewhat of the weight and terror of the sentence passed on man for sin, that when God, in execution of it, sent man to till the ground, he taught him how to do it most to his advantage, otherwise, in the greatness of his folly, he might have been for ever tilling the sand of the sea, labouring to no purpose. It is he that gives men capacity for this business, an inclination to it, and a delight in it; and if some were not by Providence cut out for it, and mad to rejoice (as Issachar, that tribe of husbandmen) in their tents, notwithstanding the toil and fatigue of this business, we should soon want the supports of life. If some are more discreet and judicious in managing these or any other affairs than others are, God must be acknowledged in it; and to him husbandmen must seek for direction in their business, for they, above other men, have an immediate dependence upon the divine Providence. As to the other instance of the husbandman's conduct in threshing his corn, it is said, This also comes forth from the Lord of hosts, v. 29 . Even the plainest dictate of sense and reason must be acknowledged to come forth from the Lord of hosts. And, if it is from him that men do things wisely and discreetly, we must needs acknowledge him to be wise in counsel and excellent in working. God's working is according to his will; he never acts against his own mind, as men often do, and there is a counsel in his whole will: he is therefore excellent in working, because he is wonderful in counsel. 2. God's church is his husbandry, 1 Cor. iii. 9 . If Christ is the true vine, his Father is the husbandman ( John xv. 1 ), and he is continually by his word and ordinances cultivating it. Does the ploughman plough all day, and break the clods of his ground, that it may receive the seed, and does not God by his ministers break up the fallow ground? Does not the ploughman, when the ground is fitted for the seed, cast in the seed in its proper soil? He does so, and so the great God sows his word by the hand of his ministers ( Matt. xiii. 19 ), who are to divide the word of truth and give every one his portion. Whatever the soil of the heart is, there is some seed or other in the word proper for it. And, as the word of God, so the rod of God is thus wisely made use of. Afflictions are God's threshing-instruments, designed to loosen us from the world, to separate between us and our chaff, and to prepare us for use. And, as to these, God will make use of them as there is occasion; but he will proportion them to our strength; they shall be no heavier than there is need. If the rod and the staff will answer the end, he will not make use of his cart-wheel and his horsemen. And where these are necessary, as for the bruising of the bread-corn (which will not otherwise be got clean from the straw), yet he will not be ever threshing it, will not always chide, but his anger shall endure but for a moment; nor will he crush under his feet the prisoners of the earth. And herein we must acknowledge him wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. This woe to Ariel, which we have in this chapter, is the same with the "burden of the valley of vision" ( ch. xxii. 1 ), and (it is very probable) points at the same event—the besieging of Jerusalem by the Assyrian army, which was cut off there by an angel; yet

This also - This part of the husbandman's discretion. These words contain the application of the similitude. The husbandman manages his affairs with common discretion; but God governs the world, and his church, with wonderful wisdom: he is great and marvellous, both in the contrivance of things, and in the execution of them.