Isaiah 4

1 seven. That is, several: the number “seven” being used indefinitely. Such would be the carnage of the war, that there would be few men left. In unnatural self-humiliation, the daughters of Jerusalem would not only seek for husbands, but would renounce their ordinary legal claim as wives, for food and clothing.

2 the Branch of the Lord, or “sprout of the Eternal.” This prophecy is clearly referred to by the later prophets Jeremiah (xxiii. 5; xxxiii. 15) and Zechariah (iii. 8; vi. 12), in a manner which shows that the word “Branch” must be applied to a person who is a righteous judge, a king of the family of David, a servant of God. And this can be no other than the Messiah, who is justly called “beautiful, glorious, excellent, comely.” So through belief in God and in His inexhaustible mercy “from the blackest pessimism shall arise new hope and faith, as from beneath Isaiah’s darkest verses that glorious passage suddenly bursts like uncontrollable spring from the very feet of winter."—G. A. Smith.

3. Shall be called. The kingdom of the Messiah shall realise what the former theocracy symbolised—the moral purity of those whom God acknowledges as His people.

written among the living. Lit., “written down for life.”

4 the filth. That is, their moral defilement.

the spirit of judgement, etc. The reformation and holiness of Zion is distinctly attributed to a Divine influence, convincing, correcting, and purifying like fire: comp. i. 25. That this is the work of the Holy Spirit we learn from John xvi. 8-15.

5 upon all the glory [shall be] a defence. Or, “over all the glory [shall be spread] a canopy” (R.V.), like the pillar of cloud and of fire over Israel in the wilderness.