VW-Edition Bible (2010)

1Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower which is at the head of the lush valleys of those who are overcome with wine! 2Behold, the Lord is a mighty and strong one, like a hailstorm, a destroying storm; like a flood of mighty waters overflowing, He casts down to the earth with the hand. 3The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trampled under foot; 4and the glorious beauty at the head of the lush valley shall be a fading flower, and as the first-ripe fruit before the summer; which, the one looking at it swallows up while it is yet in his hand. 5In that day Jehovah of Hosts shall be for a crown of glory and for a diadem of beauty to the rest of His people, 6and for a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and for strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. 7But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink have gone astray. The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink; they are swallowed up by wine; they have gone astray through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. 8For all tables are full of vomit and excrement; no place is clean. 9To whom shall He teach knowledge? And whom shall He make to understand the message? Those weaned from the milk and removed from the breasts. 10For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little; 11for with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people. 12To whom He said, This is the rest; cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing. Yet they were not willing to hear.  13But the Word of Jehovah was to them, Precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little; that they might go and fall backward, and be broken and snared and caught. 14Therefore hear the Word of Jehovah, you scornful men who rule this people in Jerusalem. 15Because you have said, We have made a covenant with death, and we have made an agreement with Sheol; when the overflowing scourge shall have gone and passed through, it shall not come upon us; for we have made lies our refuge, and we have hidden ourselves under falsehood. 16Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I have founded in Zion a Stone, a tried Stone, a precious Cornerstone, a sure Foundation; he who trusts in It shall not be anxious. 17Also I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. 18And your covenant with death shall be covered over, and your agreement with Sheol shall not stand; when the overwhelming scourge shall pass through, then you shall be trampled down by it. 19From the time that it goes out it shall take you; for morning by morning it shall pass over, by day and by night; and it shall be a terror just to understand the report. 20For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the cover is too narrow to wrap oneself in it. 21For Jehovah shall rise up as at Mount Perazim; He will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon, so that He may do His deeds, His strange deeds; and bring to pass His works, His unusual works. 22So then do not be mockers, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard from the Lord Jehovah of Hosts that an annihilation is decreed upon the whole earth. 23Give ear and hear my voice; listen, and hear my speech. 24Does the plowman plow all day to sow? Does he loosen and harrow his ground? 25When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter the black cumin and sprinkle the cumin, and plant the wheat in rows and mark off the barley and spelt in their boundaries? 26For God instructs him to do right; and teaches him. 27For the black cumin is not threshed with a threshing instrument, nor is a cart wheel turned on cumin; but the black cumin is beaten out with a stick and the cumin with a rod. 28Bread flour is ground. But one does not continue treading and threshing it; nor does he destroy it with his cart wheel; nor pulverize it with his horse. 29This also comes forth from Jehovah of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excels in sound wisdom.


Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary
 1   (Isa. 28:1-29)
crown of pride--Hebrew for "proud crown of the drunkards," &c. [HORSLEY], namely, Samaria, the capital of Ephraim, or Israel. "Drunkards," literally (Isa 28:7-Isa 28:8; Isa 5:11, Isa 5:22; Amos 4:1; Amos 6:1-Amos 6:6) and metaphorically, like drunkards, rushing on to their own destruction.
beauty . . . flower--"whose glorious beauty or ornament is a fading flower." Carrying on the image of "drunkards"; it was the custom at feasts to wreathe the brow with flowers; so Samaria, "which is (not as English Version, 'which are') upon the head of the fertile valley," that is, situated on a hill surrounded with the rich valleys as a garland (1Kgs 16:24); but the garland is "fading," as garlands often do, because Ephraim is now close to ruin (compare Isa 16:8); fulfilled 721 B.C. (2Kgs 17:6, 2Kgs 17:24).

 2   strong one--the Assyrian (Isa 10:5).
cast down--namely, Ephraim (Isa 28:1) and Samaria, its crown.
with . . . hand--with violence (Isa 8:11).

 3   crown . . . the drunkards--rather, "the crown of the drunkards."

 4   Rather, "the fading flower, their glorious beauty (Isa 28:1), which is on the head of the fat (fertile) valley, shall be as the early fig" [G. V. SMITH]. Figs usually ripened in August; but earlier ones (Hebrew bikkurah, Spanish bokkore) in June, and were regarded as a delicacy (Jer 24:2; Hos 9:10; Mic 7:1).
while it is yet--that is, immediately, without delay; describing the eagerness of the Assyrian Shalmaneser, not merely to conquer, but to destroy utterly Samaria; whereas other conquered cities were often spared.

 5   The prophet now turns to Judah; a gracious promise to the remnant ("residue"); a warning lest through like sins Judah should share the fate of Samaria.
crown--in antithesis to the "fading crown" of Ephraim (Isa 28:1, Isa 28:3).
the residue--primarily, Judah, in the prosperous reign of Hezekiah (2Kgs 18:7), antitypically, the elect of God; as He here is called their "crown and diadem," so are they called His (Isa 62:3); a beautiful reciprocity.

 6   Jehovah will inspire their magistrates with justice, and their soldiers with strength of spirit.
turn . . . battle to . . . gate--the defenders of their country who not only repel the foe from themselves, but drive him to the gates of his own cities (2Sam 11:23; 2Kgs 18:8).

 7   Though Judah is to survive the fall of Ephraim, yet "they also" (the men of Judah) have perpetrated like sins to those of Samaria (Isa 5:3, Isa 5:11), which must be chastised by God.
erred . . . are out of the way--"stagger . . . reel." Repeated, to express the frequency of the vice.
priest . . . prophet--If the ministers of religion sin so grievously, how much more the other rulers (Isa 56:10, Isa 56:12)!
vision--even in that most sacred function of the prophet to declare God's will revealed to them.
judgment--The priests had the administration of the law committed to them (Deut 17:9; Deut 19:17). It was against the law for the priests to take wine before entering the tabernacle (Lev 10:9; Ezek 44:21).

 9   Here the drunkards are introduced as scoffingly commenting on Isaiah's warnings: "Whom will he (does Isaiah presume to) teach knowledge? And whom will He make to understand instruction? Is it those (that is, does he take us to be) just weaned, &c.? For (he is constantly repeating, as if to little children) precept upon precept," &c.
line--a rule or law. [MAURER]. The repetition of sounds in Hebrew tzav latzav, tzav latzav, qav laqav, qav laquav, expresses the scorn of the imitators of Isaiah's speaking; he spoke stammering (Isa 28:11). God's mode of teaching offends by its simplicity the pride of sinners (2Kgs 5:11-12; 1Cor 1:23). Stammerers as they were by drunkenness, and children in knowledge of God, they needed to be spoken to in the language of children, and "with stammering lips" (compare Matt 13:13). A just and merciful retribution.

 11   For--rather, "Truly." This is Isaiah's reply to the scoffers: Your drunken questions shall be answered by the severe lessons from God conveyed through the Assyrians and Babylonians; the dialect of these, though Semitic, like the Hebrew, was so far different as to sound to the Jews like the speech of stammerers (compare Isa 33:19; Isa 36:11). To them who will not understand God will speak still more unintelligibly.

 12   Rather, "He (Jehovah) who hath said to them."
this . . . the rest--Reference may be primarily to "rest" from national warlike preparations, the Jews being at the time "weary" through various preceding calamities, as the Syro-Israelite invasion (Isa 7:8; compare Isa 30:15; Isa 22:8; Isa 39:2; Isa 36:1; 2Kgs 18:8). But spiritually, the "rest" meant is that to be found in obeying those very "precepts" of God (Isa 28:10) which they jeered at (compare Jer 6:16; Matt 11:29).

 13   But--rather, "Therefore," namely, because "they would not hear" (Isa 28:12).
that they might go--the designed result to those who, from a defect of the will, so far from profiting by God's mode of instructing, "precept upon precept," &c., made it into a stumbling-block (Hos 6:5; Hos 8:12; Matt 13:14).
go, and fall--image appropriately from "drunkards" (Isa 28:7-Isa 28:8, which they were) who in trying to "go forward fall backward."

 14   scornful--(See on Isa 28:9).

 15   said--virtually, in your conduct, if not in words.
covenant--There may be a tacit reference to their confidence in their "covenant" with the Assyrians in the early part of Hezekiah's prosperous reign, before he ceased to pay tribute to them, as if it ensured Judah from evil, whatever might befall the neighboring Ephraim (Isa 28:1). The full meaning is shown by the language ("covenant with death--hell," or sheol) to apply to all lulled in false security spiritually (Ps 12:4; Eccl 8:8; Jer 8:11); the godly alone are in covenant with death (Job 5:23; Hos 2:18; 1Cor 3:22).
overflowing scourge--two metaphors: the hostile Assyrian armies like an overwhelming flood.
pass through--namely, through Judea on their way to Egypt, to punish it as the protector of Samaria (2Kgs 17:4).
lies--They did not use these words, but Isaiah designates their sentiments by their true name (Amos 2:4).

 16   Literally, "Behold Me as Him who has laid"; namely, in My divine counsel (Rev 13:8); none save I could lay it (Isa 63:5).
stone--Jesus Christ; Hezekiah [MAURER], or the temple [EWALD], do not realize the full significancy of the language; but only in type point to Him, in whom the prophecy receives its exhaustive accomplishment; whether Isaiah understood its fulness or not (1Pet 1:11-12), the Holy Ghost plainly contemplated its fulfilment in Christ alone; so in Isa 32:1; compare Gen 49:24; Ps 118:22; Matt 21:42; Rom 10:11; Eph 2:20.
tried--both by the devil (Luke 4:1-Luke 4:13) and by men (Luke 20:1-38), and even by God (Matt 27:46); a stone of tested solidity to bear the vast superstructure of man's redemption. The tested righteousness of Christ gives its peculiar merit to His vicarious sacrifice. The connection with the context is, though a "scourge" shall visit Judea (Isa 28:15), yet God's gracious purpose as to the elect remnant, and His kingdom of which "Zion" shall be the center, shall not fail, because its rests on Messiah (Matt 7:24-Matt 7:25; 2Tim 2:19).
precious--literally, "of preciousness," so in the Greek, (1Pet 2:7). He is preciousness.
corner-stone-- (1Kgs 5:17; 1Kgs 7:9; Job 38:6); the stone laid at the corner where two walls meet and connecting them; often costly.
make haste--flee in hasty alarm; but the Septuagint has "be ashamed"; so Rom 9:33, and 1Pet 2:6, "be confounded," substantially the same idea; he who rests on Him shall not have the shame of disappointment, nor flee in sudden panic (see Isa 30:15; Isa 32:17).

 17   line--the measuring-line of the plummet. HORSLEY translates, "I will appoint judgment for the rule, and justice for the plummet." As the corner-stone stands most perpendicular and exactly proportioned, so Jehovah, while holding out grace to believers in the Foundation-stone, will judge the scoffers (Isa 28:15) according to the exact justice of the law (compare Jas 2:13).
hail--divine judgment (Isa 30:30; Isa 32:19).

 18   disannulled--obliterated, as letters traced on a waxen tablet are obliterated by passing the stylus over it.
trodden down--passing from the metaphor in "scourge" to the thing meant, the army which treads down its enemies.

 19   From the time, &c.--rather, "As often as it comes over (that is, passes through), it shall overtake you" [HORSLEY]; like a flood returning from time to time, frequent hostile invasions shall assail Judah, after the deportation of the ten tribes.
vexation . . . understand . . . report--rather, "It shall be a terror even to hear the mere report of it" [MAURER], (1Sam 3:11). But G. V. SMITH, "Hard treatment (HORSLEY, 'dispersion') only shall make you to understand instruction"; they scorned at the simple way in which the prophet offered it (Isa 28:9); therefore, they must be taught by the severe teachings of adversity.

 20   Proverbial, for they shall find all their sources of confidence fail them; all shall be hopeless perplexity in their affairs.

 21   Perazim--In the valley of Rephaim (2Sam 5:18, 2Sam 5:20; 1Chr 14:11), there Jehovah, by David, broke forth as waters do, and made a breach among the Philistines, David's enemies, as Perazim means, expressing a sudden and complete overthrow.
Gibeon-- (1Chr 14:16; 2Sam 5:25, Margin); not Joshua's victory (Josh 10:10).
strange--as being against His own people; judgment is not what God delights in; it is, though necessary, yet strange to Him (Lam 3:33).
work--punishing the guilty (Isa 10:12).

 22   mockers--a sin which they had committed (Isa 28:9-Isa 28:10).
bands--their Assyrian bondage (Isa 10:27); Judah was then tributary to Assyria; or, "lest your punishment be made still more severe" (Isa 24:22).
consumption--destruction (Isa 10:22-Isa 10:23; Dan 9:27).

 23   Calling attention to the following illustration from husbandry (Ps 49:1-Ps 49:2). As the husbandman does his different kinds of work, each in its right time and due proportion, so God adapts His measures to the varying exigencies of the several cases: now mercy, now judgments; now punishing sooner, now later (an answer to the scoff that His judgments, being put off so long, would never come at all, Isa 5:19); His object being not to destroy His people any more than the farmer's object in threshing is to destroy his crop; this vindicates God's "strange work" (Isa 28:21) in punishing His people. Compare the same image, Jer 24:6; Hos 2:23; Matt 3:12.

 24   all day--emphatic; he is not always ploughing: he also "sows," and that, too, in accordance with sure rules (Isa 28:25).
doth he open--supply "always." Is he always harrowing?

 25   face--the "surface" of the ground: "made plain," or level, by harrowing.
fitches--rather, "dill," or "fennel"; Nigella romana, with black seed, easily beaten out, used as a condiment and medicine in the East. So the Septuagint, "cummin" was used in the same way.
cast in . . . principal wheat--rather, plant the wheat in rows (for wheat was thought to yield the largest crop, by being planted sparingly [PLINY, Natural History, 18.21]); [MAURER]; "sow the wheat regularly" [HORSLEY]. But GESENIUS, like English Version, "fat," or "principal," that is, excellent wheat.
appointed barley--rather, "barley in its appointed place" [MAURER].
in their place--rather, "in its (the field's) border" [MAURER].

 26   to discretion--in the due rules of husbandry; God first taught it to man (Gen 3:23).

 27   The husbandman uses the same discretion in threshing. The dill ("fitches") and cummin, leguminous and tender grains, are beaten out, not as wheat, &c., with the heavy corn-drag ("threshing instrument"), but with "a staff"; heavy instruments would crush and injure the seed.
cart wheel--two iron wheels armed with iron teeth, like a saw, joined together by a wooden axle. The "corn-drag" was made of three or four wooden cylinders, armed with iron teeth or flint stones fixed underneath, and joined like a sledge. Both instruments cut the straw for fodder as well as separated the corn.
staff--used also where they had but a small quantity of corn; the flail (Ruth 2:17).

 28   Bread corn--corn of which bread is made.
bruised--threshed with the corn-drag (as contrasted with dill and cummin, "beaten with the staff"), or, "trodden out" by the hoofs of cattle driven over it on the threshing-floor [G. V. SMITH], (Deut 25:4; Mic 4:13).
because--rather, "but" [HORSLEY]; though the corn is threshed with the heavy instrument, yet he will not always be thus threshing it.
break it--"drive over it (continually) the wheel" [MAURER].
cart--threshing-drag.
horsemen--rather, "horses"; used to tread out corn.

 29   This also--The skill wherewith the husbandman duly adjusts his modes of threshing is given by God, as well as the skill (Isa 28:26) wherewith he tills and sows (Isa 28:24-Isa 28:25). Therefore He must also be able to adapt His modes of treatment to the several moral needs of His creatures. His object in sending tribulation (derived from the Latin tribulum, a "threshing instrument," Luke 22:31; Rom 5:3) is to sever the moral chaff from the wheat, not to crush utterly; "His judgments are usually in the line of our offenses; by the nature of the judgments we may usually ascertain the nature of the sin" [BARNES].
This chapter opens the series of prophecies as to the invasion of Judea under Sennacherib, and its deliverance.