Isaiah 56:10

His watchmen are blind,.... A sad character of watchmen; who, of all men, ought to have good sight, to see who is coming, to discover an enemy, to discern approaching danger, and so be capable of giving notice thereof.

His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. His watchmen - Israel's spiritual leaders (Isaiah 62:6; Ezekiel 3:17).

His; Israel’ s, as is evident from the following verses; the pronoun relative being put without and instead of the antecedent; of which I have given divers instances before. Watchmen; priests and prophets, or other teachers, who are commonly called watchmen, as 33:2 . He mentions only the teachers, because ignorance was most shameful in them; but hereby he supposeth the gross ignorance of the people, who neither pretended nor desired to be wiser than their teachers. They are all ignorant of God’ s will and word, and of their own and the people’ s duty, and of the true Messiah. They are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; they are also slothful and negligent in instructing the people, and do not faithfully reprove them for their sins, nor warn them of their dangers, nor keep them from errors and corruptions in doctrine, and worship, and conversation, as they ought to do. Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber; minding their own ease and safety more than the people’ s benefit.

Isaiah 56:10 His watchmen [are] blind: they are all ignorant, they [are] all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.Ver. 10. His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant.] Invehit in Pseudepiscopos, such as were, and are still in part, the popish clergy; those of the ninth age especially, and not much better a little before Luther stickled: blind leaders of the blind, lamentably ignorant, as the Bishop of Dunkeld, in Scotland, for instance, who professed that he knew neither the New Testament nor the Old. So Bishop Albert, reading the Bible, and being asked by a nobleman what book it was he read; I know not, said he, what book it is, but all that I read in it is contrary to our religion. As for the other ill qualities of the watchmen here inveighed against, Hugo the cardinal said, that the devil had two daughters, Covetousness and Luxury; the former he had heretofore married out to the Jews, the latter to the Gentiles; but now the monks and priests had gotten them both from their old husbands and taken them for their own use. The Hebrew critics have observed, that the word here rendered watchmen, hath a tzaddi larger than ordinary, to show what odious creatures such are as are here described. They are all dumb dogs that cannot bark,] i.e., Will not deal plainly and faithfully with men’ s souls; but either preach not at all, or placentia only, toothless truths. Pliny tells of the dogs in Rome that were set to keep the capitol; because, when the Gauls scaled it, the dogs being fed too full, lay sleeping, and did not give warning, they not only hanged them up, but every year on that day of the year, hanged up certain dogs in the city for exemplary justice; yea, crucified them alive upon an older tree. Let dumb dogs and parasitical preachers, treacherous to men’ s souls, take heed they be not one day hanged in hell. Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.] Non dormiunt solum, sed dedita opera dormiunt; so full they have farced themselves, and so deeply drunk they are, that they sleep soundly, though lions roar, and wolves worry the poor flock, and that many times far enough from the fold, wherein they show themselves to be worse than Ulysses’ swine herd, of whom Homer saith - “ουδεσυβωτη‘Hνοανεναυτοθικοιτοςιωναποκοιμηθηναι, ” That he would not be drawn to sleep from his swine sty. Acts and Mon. Lib xxix. cap. 4. Somnolentia pastorum luporum est gaudium.

(10) His watchmen are blind.—These are the guides of the people, and specially the self-styled prophets, who are “blind” to the signs of the times, who are “dumb,” and give no warning to the people of the real dangers that threaten them, who prophesy for the rewards of divination (Numbers 22:7 :1 Samuel 9:7; Nehemiah 6:12), who are conspicuous for their luxury and intemperance. Given the men who are described in Isaiah 5:22; Isaiah 28:7-8; Isaiah 30:10, and the circumstances of Manasseh’s reign, no other result could be expected. Sleeping.—The prophet, with a scornful irony, substitutes hozîm (“dreamers”) for khozîm (“seers”). The “lying down” contrasts their indolent and easy life with the vigil and the fast of a true prophet.

Verse 10. His watchmen are blind] Kimchi observes, "The flock is intrusted to the care of these watchmen. The wild beasts come; these dogs bark not; and the wild beasts devour the flock. Thus they do not profit the flock. Yea, they injure it; for the owner trusts in them, that they will watch and be faithful; but they are not. These are the false teachers and careless shepherds." Dumb dogs, they cannot bark] See Clarke on Isaiah 62:6. Sleeping - "Dreamers"] הזים hozim, ενυπνιαζομενοι, Septuagint. This seems to be the best authority for the meaning of this word, which occurs only in this place: but it is to be observed, that eleven MSS. of Kennicott's and De Rossi's, and four editions, have חזים chazim, seers, or those who see; and so the Vulgate seems to have read, videntes vana, "seeing vain things." Loving to slumber.] לנום lanum: but six of Kennicott's and seven of De Rossi's MSS. read לנוס lanus, to fly, "to change their residence:" but what connexion such reading can have with the sense of the passage, I cannot discern. What is taken for ס samech here is, I have no doubt, a narrow formed final ם mem, which has been mistaken for the above. Many instances occur in my own MSS., where the final ם mem is similar to the samech; and yet no such change was intended by the scribe.

Ch. Isaiah 56:9 to Isaiah 57:21. A Protest against the Unworthy Shepherds of God’s Flock, and the arrogant Heathenism by which it is threatened; followed by a Message of Consolation to True IsraelitesThis sombre and impassioned discourse is composed of three parts: i. ch. Isaiah 56:9 to Isaiah 57:2.—The defenceless condition of the community, due to the incompetence of its spiritual leaders. (1) All the wild beasts of the field and the forest are invited to come and devour the unprotected flock (Isaiah 56:9). (2) For its rulers neglect their duty; they are inefficient as dumb dogs, they are slothful, greedy and sensual (Isaiah 56:10-12). (3) In consequence of their incapacity the righteous perish, none regarding their fate (Isaiah 57:1-2). ii. Isaiah 57:3-13 a. A bitter tirade against an insolent and aggressive paganising party, animated by a contemptuous hostility towards the true religion. (1) This party, which is characterised as a bastard and hybrid race, the illegitimate offspring of an adulterer and a harlot, is summoned to the bar to hear the Divine sentence on their career of flagrant idolatry (Isaiah 57:3-4). (2) The indictment follows, in the form of a recital of the varied heathen rites to which they were addicted (Isaiah 57:5-9), and in which with infatuated perversity they still persist in spite of all the teachings of experience (Isaiah 57:10-11). (3) Judgement is then pronounced; Jehovah will unmask the hypocrisy of their pretended righteousness, and leave them to the protection of the false deities whom they have so diligently served, but who shall be unable to save them (Isaiah 57:12-13). iii. Isaiah 57:14-21. The prophet now turns with a message of comfort to the depressed and contrite people of God. The obstacles in the way of their salvation shall be removed (Isaiah 57:14); Jehovah, whose condescension brings Him near to the lowly in heart, will at length avert His anger, and bring healing and peace (Isaiah 57:15-19); only the wicked who persist in their impenitence are excluded from the promised blessing (Isaiah 57:20-21). Isaiah 56:9 to Isaiah 57:2. Denunciation of the worthless rulers of the Jewish community.—The difficulty of supposing that this passage refers to the state of things in the Exile is obvious. Israel is compared to a flock in charge of its own shepherds; and these shepherds are responsible both for the internal disorders from which it suffers, and the outward dangers which threaten it. An invitation to the wild beasts (the heathen nations) to come and devour a people already “robbed and spoiled” (Isaiah 42:22) by foreign conquest, is almost inconceivable. It is of course possible, as many scholars hold, that the verses are extracted from a pre-exilic prophecy; but the description is at least as applicable to the conditions which existed after the return from Babylon. The books of Malachi and Nehemiah reveal incidentally a state of affairs which would go far to account for the dark picture here presented of the ruling classes in the restored community.

His watchmen - The prophet proceeds to specify the sins which had thus induced God to send the desolating armies of foreign nations.

10, 11. His watchmen — The people’s teachers. Are blind — Can see nothing with a spiritual eye. Dumb dogs — An image from shepherds’ bad watchdogs, which fail to give notice of danger.