Isaiah 1:9

Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant,.... This is an instance of the super abounding goodness of the Lord of hosts, as the Targum expresses it; that he should, in those very

Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

If God, by his infinite power and goodness, had not restrained our enemies, and reserved some of us, the whole nation and race of us had been utterly cut off, as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were; so great was the rage and power of our enemies, and so utterly unable we were to deliver ourselves.

Isaiah 1:9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, [and] we should have been like unto Gomorrah.Ver. 9. Except the Lord.] Jehovah, the Essentiator et Induperator, the Maker and Monarch of the universe. Had left unto us a very small remnant.] Which he reserved for royal use; pulling them as "a brand out of the fire," or as "two legs or a piece of an ear taken by the shepherd out of the mouth of a lion." The apostle, after the Septuagint, rendereth it "a seed," in allusion to store seed kept by the husbandman; and there hence inferreth that the elect Jews shall by faith in Christ be freed from the tyranny of Satan and terror of hell. And this is here alleged for an allay to those foregoing dreadful declarations of bygone and direful menaces of future desolations; so loath is the Sun of righteousness to set in a cloud; surely in the midst of judgment he remembereth mercy - “ Quamvis cecidere trecenti, Non omnes Fabios abstulit una dies. ” - Ovid. We should have been as Sodom.] Those five cities of the plain are thrown forth for an example. Lot was no sooner taken out of Sodom but Sodom was taken out of the world and turned into a sea of salt. So Meroz, some city likely near the place where that battle was fought, hath the very name and memorial of it utterly extinct.

(9) Except the Lord of hosts . . .—This name also had been stamped on the prophet’s mind at the time of his call (Isaiah 6:3). The God of the hosts (or armies) of heaven (sun, moon and stars, angels and archangels) and of earth had not been unmindful of the people. The idea of the “remnant” left when the rest of the people perished is closely connected with the leading thought of Isa 6:12-13. It had, perhaps, been impressed on the prophet’s mind by the “remnant” of Israel that had escaped from Tiglath-pileser or Sargon (2 Chronicles 30:6; comp. Micah 5:7). We should have been as Sodom . . .—Here the prophet, continuing perhaps the thought of Isa 1:7, speaks of the destruction, in the next verse of the guilt, of the cities of the plain. Both had passed into a proverb. So Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16:46-56) works out the parallelism; so our Lord speaks of the guilt of Sodom as being lighter than that of Capernaum (Matthew 11:23); so the tradition has condensed itself in the Arabic proverb, quoted by Cheyne, “More unjust than a kadi of Sodom.” (Comp. Isaiah 3:9; Deuteronomy 32:32.)

Verse 9. The Lord of hosts - "JEHOVAH God of hosts"] As this title of God, יהוה צבאות Yehovah tsebaoth, "JEHOVAH of hosts, occurs here for the first time, I think it proper to note, that I translate it always, as in this place, "JEHOVAH God of hosts;" taking it as an elliptical expression for יהוה אלהי צבאות Yehovah Elohey tsebaoth. This title imports that JEHOVAH is the God or Lord of hosts or armies; as he is the Creator and Supreme Governor of all beings in heaven and earth, and disposeth and ruleth them all in their several orders and stations; the almighty, universal Lord. We should have been as Sodom] As completely and finally ruined as that and the cities of the plain were, no vestige of which remains at this day.

9. the Lord of hosts] In Hebr. Yahveh Tsĕ ?bβτth, a peculiarly solemn title of the God of Israel, specially common in the prophetic writings. On the different theories as to the origin of the expression, see the Note in Cheyne, Comm. i. pp. 11 ff. The simplest explanation of its origin is that which regards it as equivalent to “Jehovah (the God) of the armies of Israel” (1 Samuel 17:45; cf. Exodus 7:4). It is true that this cannot be the precise sense in which the phrase is used by the prophets, since it is a fundamental conception with them that Jehovah is no longer on the side of the hosts of Israel. But just as Amos took the phrase “day of Jehovah” from the lips of the people (see below on Isaiah 2:12), and gave it an interpretation diametrically opposed to the popular one, so he may have done also with this expression. If this be the correct view, “God of battles” may approximately reproduce the sense in which it is used by the prophets: Jehovah is still the Lord of Hosts, although He has disowned those of Israel. Or, if a vaguer idea be preferred, we may adopt the Κύριοςπαντοκράτωρ (All-sovereign Lord) of the LXX. as sufficiently expressive. a very small remnant] The adverbial phrase “very small” might (disregarding the accents) be taken with the following clause, which, would then read “we might readily have been as Sodom, &c.” (as in Genesis 26:10; Psalms 94:17; Psalms 119:87). The word for remnant (sarξd) is only here used by Isaiah. He perhaps purposely avoids shμ’βr, which he would have used in speaking of the ideal remnant that inherits the hope of the future.

Except ... - It is owing entirely to the mercy of God, that we are not like Sodom. The prophet traces this not to the goodness of the nation, not to any power or merit of theirs, but solely to the mercy of God.

9. Lord of hosts — Of the angelic hosts, and starry heavens. Worship of the latter was very early observed by the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Canaanites, etc., but the Lord of Israel is above all, and so