Give ye ear, and hear my voice,.... So said the prophet, as the Targum introduces the words; and because what he was about to say was of importance, and delivered in a parabolical manner, and required attention, he makes use of a variety of words to the same purpose, to engage their attention: hearken, and hear my speech; now about to be made;...
Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow?.... Or, "every day"; he ploughs in order to sow; by ploughing he prepares the ground for sowing, that is his end in ploughing; and he may plough a whole day together when he is at it, but he does not plough every day in the year; he has other work to do besides ploughing, as is later mentioned; such as...
When he hath made plain the face thereof,.... By harrowing it, after it is ploughed: doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin; in sowing them in the ground, prepared for them; the former of these does not seem to be the same we so call, but something else. The Septuagint version calls it the little "melanthion" (c), the same...
For his God doth instruct him to discretion, [and] doth teach him. God gives the husbandman instruction and discretion how to sow his seed, at what time, and in a proper place; for this refers to what goes before; though some think a new act is here intended, namely, threshing or beating out of corn, rendering the words, "and he" (the husbandman)...
For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument,.... A wooden sledge, dray, or cart, drawn on wheels; the bottom of which was stuck with iron teeth, and the top filled with stones, to press it down with the weight thereof, and was drawn by horses, or oxen, to and fro, over the sheaves of corn, laid in proper order, whereby the grain...
Bread [corn] is bruised,.... The corn which bread is made of is bruised and ground in a mill: because he will not always be threshing it; for there is another way of bringing it to flour, that so it may be made bread, namely, by grinding it in a mill; and therefore the husbandman uses his discretion in threshing it; he will not thresh it too much,...
This also cometh from the Lord of hosts,.... All this wisdom the husbandman has, in manuring his ground, in sowing it with proper seed, and in threshing it out in a manner suitable to it. Agriculture or husbandry, even among the Heathens, is always ascribed to God, as an invention of his, and it was the first work which God put man to, and...
INTRODUCTION TO Isaiah 29 This chapter contains a prophecy concerning the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem by the Romans; the character and condition of the people of the Jews, previous to it; the calling of the Gentiles, by the preaching of the Gospel; the ruin of antichrist, and the conversion of the Jews, in the latter day. The...
Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city [where] David dwelt,.... Many Jewish writers by "Ariel" understand the altar of burnt offerings; and so the Targum, "woe, altar, altar, which was built in the city where David dwelt;'' and so it is called in Ezekiel 43:15 it signifies "the lion of God"; and the reason why it is so called, the Jews say (i), is,...
Yet I will distress Ariel,.... Or "straiten" it, by causing it to be besieged; and this he would do, notwithstanding their yearly sacrifices, and their observance of their solemn feasts, and other ceremonies of the law, in which they placed their confidence, and neglected weightier matters: and there shall be heaviness and sorrow; on account of...
And I will camp against thee round about,.... Or as a "ball" or "globe" (o); a camp all around; the Lord is said to do that which the enemy should do, because it was by his will, and according to his order, and which he would succeed and prosper, and therefore the prophecy of it is the more terrible; and it might be concluded that it would...
And thou shalt be brought down,.... To the ground, and laid level with it, even the city of Jerusalem, as it was by the Romans; and as it was predicted by Christ it would, Lu 19:44 though some understand this of the humbling of the inhabitants of it, by the appearance of Sennacherib's army before it, and of which they interpret the following...
Moreover, the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust,.... Or "of those that fan thee" (q), as the Vulgate Latin Version; and so the Targum, "of those that scatter thee;'' or of thine enemies, as others; meaning the Romans, who were a strange people to them, who got the dominion over them, and scattered them abroad in the world: and...
Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise,.... That is, not the multitude of strangers and terrible ones, unless they could be understood of the wicked among the Jews; but thou Ariel, or Jerusalem, shalt be punished by the Lord of hosts; for this visitation or punishment was from him, for their...
And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,.... The Roman army, which consisted of men of all nations, that fought against Jerusalem; the city in which was the altar, as the Targum paraphrases it: even all that fight against her, and her munition, and that distress her; that besieged it, and endeavoured to demolish its walls,...
It shall be even as when a hungry [man] dreameth, and, behold, he eateth,.... That is, he dreams of food, and imagines it before him, and that he is really eating it: but he awaketh, and his soul is empty; his stomach is empty when he awakes, and he finds he has not ate anything at all: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh:...
Stay yourselves, and wonder,.... Stop a while, pause a little, consider within yourselves the case and circumstances of these people, and wonder at their stupidity. Kimchi thinks these words were spoken in the times of Ahaz, with respect to the men of Judah; and so Aben Ezra says, they are directed to the men of Zion; and it is generally thought...
For the Lord hath poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep,.... Gave them up to a stupid frame of spirit; to a reprobate mind, a mind void of judgment and sense; to judicial blindness and hardness of heart: this was remarkably fulfilled in the Jews, in the times of Christ and his apostles, who choosing darkness rather than the light of the...
And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed,.... The prophecies of all the prophets contained in the Scriptures; or all the prophecies in the book of Isaiah, concerning the Messiah, were no more seen, known, and understood, both by the priests and the people, than if they had been in a book, written, rolled up,...
And the book is delivered to him that is not learned,.... Or that knows not a book or letters, as before, and so consequently cannot read, having never been put to school, or learned to read: saying, Read this, I pray thee; or "now" (w), at once, immediately: and he saith, I am not learned; he does not excuse himself on account of its being...