Isaiah 28
DOYLY—add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.] 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. This might perhaps be delivered at the time of some great feast, when they were thus employed. Bp. Lowth.
Isaiah 28:2
- Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, &c.] Under these resemblances the Prophet represents Shalmaneser, who should carry away the ten tribes captive,
of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
Before CHRIST about 725.
Isaiah 28:4
- — which when he that looketh upon it seeth, &c.] This image in the strongest manner expresses the great case with which the Assyrians should take the city and the whole kingdom, and the avidity with which they should seize the rich prey without resistance. Bp. Lowth.
Isaiah 28:5
- — unto the residue of his people.] To ver. 5, the prophecy has related to the Israelites, and their approaching destruction; here it turns to the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who were to continue a kingdom after the final captivity of the Israelites. It begins with a favourable prognostication of their affairs under Hezekiah, but soon changes to reproofs and threatenings for their intemperance, disobedience, and profaneness. Bp. Lowth.
Isaiah 28:6
- — that turn the battle to the gate.] That pursue the enemy to the gates of their own cities. See 1 Sam. xvii. 52; 2 Sam. xi. 23. W. Lowth, Bp. Lowth.
Isaiah 28:9
- Whom shall he teach knowledge? &c.] The scoffers, mentioned ver. 14, seem to be introduced here as uttering their sententious speeches. What, say they, doth He treat us as little children, perpetually inculcating the same elementary lessons, the mere rudiments of knowledge, precept upon precept, &c.? Ver. 11, God, may be supposed by his Prophet to retort upon them
The Jews’ untowardness to learn. Christ is promised. Before CHRIST about 725. Or. hath been. stammerings of lips. a 1 Cor. 14. 21. Or. he hath spoken. weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
Isaiah 28:15
- — We have made a covenant with death, &c.] To be in covenant with, is a kind of proverbial expression to denote perfect security from evil and mischief of any sort. See Job v. 23. W. Lowth. 16. — Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, &c.] The Church being wholly built upon Christ, and all our hopes of salvation depending upon Him, He is often spoken of in Holy Writ under the name and notion of a rock or stone: see the passages referred to in the margin. Bp. Beveridge. — he that believeth shall not make haste.] He that believeth God’s promises, will patiently depend upon God; and not, out of distrust of his mercy, betake himself to any unlawful means of securing himself, as many did, ver. 15. The Septuagint read, “shall not be ashamed.” W. Lowth. tion: he that believeth shall not make haste.
Isaiah 28:17
- Judgment also will I lay to the line, &c.] The Prophet carries on the metaphor of building, and tells the scorners, that God would square his actions by the severest rules of justice. W. Lowth. 20. For the bed is shorter—and the covering narrower &c.] Two proverbial expressions, importing that all worldly comforts are insufficient to cure the disorders they are applied to, and human devices too short to secure us against the hand of Providence, whenever that designs to punish. W. Lowth.
Isaiah 28:21
- For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim.] The destruction of the Philistines there is, in the passages referred to in the margin, compared to a “breach of waters,” much the same comparison as is here used, ver. 19. The extraordinary manifestations of God’s power there and at Gibeon were for the deliverance of his people; but now God will act contrary to his usual proceedings of grace and mercy. W. Lowth.
Isaiah 28:23
- Give ye ear, and hear my voice:] The foregoing discourse, consisting of severe reproofs and threatenings to the Jews for their vices, and profane contempt of God’s warnings by his messengers, the Prophet concludes with an explanation and defence of God’s method of dealing with his people in a parable; in which He employs a variety of images, taken from the science of agriculture. As the husbandman uses various methods in preparing his land, and adapting it to the several kinds of seed to be sown, with a due observation of God’s discreet providence. His judgment upon Jerusalem.
Or, the wheat in the principal place, and barley in the appointed place? Or, spell. He, border? Or, And he dwelt it in such sort as his God doth teach him.
Isaiah 28:29
- This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, &c.] Since the Lord of hosts hath given this wit and understanding to plain men, for the management of their affairs, in due times and fit ways; how much more shall He, who is infinite in wisdom, contrive his own works, both of mercy and judgment, with men? Bp. Hall.
ful in counsel, and excellent in working. # CHAP. XXIX.