{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ISA","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Isaiah","commonName":"Isaiah","introduction":"The Prophecies of Isaiah\n\nIntroduction\n\nTime of the Prophet\n\nThe first prerequisite to a clear understanding and full appreciation of the prophecies of Isaiah, is a knowledge of his time, and of the different periods of his ministry. The first period was in the reigns of Uzziah (b.c. 811-759) and Jotham (759-743). The precise starting-point depends upon the view we take of Isa 6:1-13. But, in any case, Isaiah commenced his ministry towards the close of Uzziah's reign, and laboured on throughout the sixteen years of the reign of Jotham. The first twenty-seven of the fifty-two years that Uzziah reigned run parallel to the last twenty-seven of the forty-one that Jeroboam II reigned (b.c. 825-784). Under Joash, and his son Jeroboam II, the kingdom of Israel passed through a period of outward glory, which surpassed, both in character and duration, any that it had reached before; and this was also the case with the kingdom of Judah under Uzziah and his son Jotham. As the glory of the one kingdom faded away, that of the other increased. The bloom of the northern kingdom was destroyed and surpassed by that of the southern. But outward splendour contained within itself the fatal germ of decay and ruin in the one case as much as in the other; for prosperity degenerated into luxury, and the worship of Jehovah became stiffened into idolatry. It was in this last and longest time of Judah's prosperity that Isaiah arose, with the mournful vocation to preach repentance without success, and consequently to have to announce the judgment of hardening and devastation, of the ban and of banishment. The second period of his ministry extended from the commencement of the reign of Ahaz to that of the reign of Hezekiah. Within these sixteen years three events occurred, which combined to bring about a new and calamitous turn in the history of Judah. In the place of the worship of Jehovah, which had been maintained with outward regularity and legal precision under Uzziah and Jotham; as soon as Ahaz ascended the throne, open idolatry was introduced of the most abominable description and in very various forms. The hostilities which began while Jotham was living, were perpetuated by Pekah the king of Israel and Rezin the king of Damascene Syria; and in the Syro-Ephraimitish war, an attack was made upon Jerusalem, with the avowed intention of bringing the Davidic rule to an end. Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria, to help him out of these troubles. He thus made flesh his arm, and so entangled the nation of Jehovah with the kingdom of the world, that from that time forward it never truly recovered its independence again. The kingdom of the world was the heathen state in its Nimrodic form. Its perpetual aim was to extend its boundaries by constant accretions, till it had grown into a world-embracing colossus; and in order to accomplish this, it was ever passing beyond its natural boundaries, and coming down like an avalanche upon foreign nations, not merely for self-defence or revenge, but for the purpose of conquest also. Assyria and Rome were the first and last links in that chain of oppression by the kingdom of the world, which ran through the history of Israel. Thus Isaiah, standing as he did on the very threshold of this new and all-important turn in the history of his country, and surveying it with his telescopic glance, was, so to speak, the universal prophet of Israel. The third period of his ministry extended from the accession of Hezekiah to the fifteenth year of his reign. Under Hezekiah the nation rose, almost at the same pace at which it had previously declined under Ahaz. He forsook the ways of his idolatrous father, and restored the worship of Jehovah. The mass of the people, indeed, remained inwardly unchanged, but Judah had once more an upright king, who hearkened to the word of the prophet by his side - two pillars of the state, and men mighty in prayer (Ch2 32:20). When the attempt was afterwards made to break away from the Assyrian yoke, so far as the leading men and the great mass of the people were concerned, this was an act of unbelief originating merely in the same confident expectation of help from Egypt which had occasioned the destruction of the northern kingdom in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign; but on the part of Hezekiah it was an act of faith and confident reliance upon Jehovah (Kg2 18:7). Consequently, when Sennacherib, the successor of Shalmaneser, marched against Jerusalem, conquering and devastating the land as he advanced, and Egypt failed to send the promised help, the carnal defiance of the leaders and of the great mass of the people brought its own punishment. But Jehovah averted the worst extremity, by destroying the kernel of the Assyrian army in a single night; so that, as in the Syro-Ephraimitish war, Jerusalem itself was never actually besieged. Thus the faith of the king, and of the better portion of the nation, which rested upon the word of promise, had its reward. There was still a divine power in the state, which preserved it from destruction. The coming judgment, which nothing indeed could now avert, according to Isa 6:1-13, was arrested for a time, just when the last destructive blow would naturally have been expected. It was in this miraculous rescue, which Isaiah predicted, and for which he prepared the way, that the public ministry of the prophet culminated. Isaiah was the Amos of the kingdom of Judah, having the same fearful vocation to foresee and to declare the fact, that for Israel as a people and kingdom the time of forgiveness had gone by. But he was not also the Hosea of the southern kingdom; for it was not Isaiah, but Jeremiah, who received the solemn call to accompany the disastrous fate of the kingdom of Judah with the knell of prophetic denunciations. Jeremiah was the Hosea of the kingdom of Judah. To Isaiah was given the commission, which was refused to his successor Jeremiah - namely, to press back once more, through the might of his prophetic word, coming as it did out of the depths of the strong spirit of faith, the dark night which threatened to swallow up his people at the time of the Assyrian judgment. After the fifteenth year of Hezekiah's reign, he took no further part in public affairs; but he lived till the commencement of Manasseh's reign, when, according to a credible tradition, to which there is an evident allusion in Heb 11:37 (\"they were sawn asunder\"),\n\n(Note: According to b. Jebamoth, 49b, it was found in a roll containing the history of a Jerusalem family; and according to Sanhedrin, 103b, in the Targum on Kg2 21:16.)\n\nhe fell a victim to the heathenism which became once more supreme in the land. To this sketch of the times and ministry of the prophet we will add a review of the scriptural account of the four kings, under whom he laboured according to Isa 1:1; since nothing is more essential, as a preparation for the study of his book, than a minute acquaintance with these sections of the books of Kings and Chronicles.\n\nI. Historical Account of Uzziah-Jotham - The account of Uzziah given in the book of Kings (Kg2 15:1-7, to which we may add Kg2 14:21-22), like that of Jeroboam II, is not so full as we should have expected. After the murder of Amaziah, the people of Judah, as related in Isa 14:21-22, raised to the throne his son Azariah, probably not his first-born, who was then sixteen years old. It was he who built the Edomitish seaport town of Elath (for navigation and commerce), and made it a permanent possession of Judah (as in the time of Solomon). This notice is introduced, as a kind of appendix, at the close of Amaziah's life and quite out of its chronological position, because the conquest of Elath was the crowning point of the subjugation of Edom by Amaziah, and not, as Thenius supposes, because it was Azariah's first feat of arms, by which, immediately after his accession, he satisfied the expectations with which the army had made him king. For the victories gained by this king over Edom and the other neighbouring nations cannot have been obtained at the time when Amos prophesied, which was about the tenth year of Uzziah's reign. The attack made by Amaziah upon the kingdom of Israel, had brought the kingdom of Judah into a state of dependence upon the former, and almost of total ruin, from which it only recovered gradually, like a house that had fallen into decay. The chronicler, following the text of the book of Kings, has introduced the notice concerning Elath in the same place (Ch2 26:1, Ch2 26:2 : it is written Eloth, as in Kg1 9:26, and the Septuagint at Kg2 14:22). He calls the king Uzziahu; and it is only in the table of the kings of Judah, in Ch1 3:12, that he gives the name as Azariah. The author of the book of Kings, according to our Hebrew text, calls him sometimes Azariah or Azariahu, sometimes Uzziah or Uzziahu; the Septuagint always gives the name as Azarias. The occurrence of the two names in both of the historical books is an indubitable proof that they are genuine. Azariah was the original name: out of this Uzziah was gradually formed by a significant elision; and as the prophetical books, from Isa 1:1 to Zac 14:5, clearly show, the latter was the name most commonly used.\n\nAzariah, as we learn from the section in the book of Kings relating to the reign of this monarch (Kg2 15:1-7), ascended the throne in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam's reign, that is to say, in the fifteenth year of his sole government, the twenty-seventh from the time when he shared the government with his father Joash, as we may gather from Kg2 13:13. The youthful sovereign, who was only sixteen years of age, was the son of Amaziah by a native of Jerusalem, and reigned fifty-two years. He did what was pleasing in the sight of God, like his father Amaziah; i.e., although he did not come up to the standard of David, he was one of the better kings. He fostered the worship of Jehovah, as prescribed in the law: nevertheless he left the high places (bamoth) standing; and while he was reigning, the people maintained in all its force the custom of sacrificing and burning incense upon the heights. He was punished by God with leprosy, which compelled him to live in a sick-house (chophshuth = chophshith: sickness) till the day of his death, whilst his son Jotham was over the palace, and conducted the affairs of government. He was buried in the city of David, and Jotham followed by him on the throne. This is all that the author of the book of Kings tells us concerning Azariah: for the rest, he refers to the annals of the kings of Judah. The section in the Chronicles relating to Uzziah (2 Chron 26) is much more copious: the writer had our book of Kings before him, as Ch2 26:3-4, Ch2 26:21, clearly proves, and completed the defective notices from the source which he chiefly employed - namely, the much more elaborate midrash.\n\nUzziah, he says, was zealous in seeking Elohim in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in divine visions; and in the days when he sought Jehovah, God made him to prosper. Thus the prophet Zechariah, as a faithful pastor and counsellor, stood in the same relation to him in which Jehoiada the high priest had stood to Joash, Uzziah's grandfather. The chronicler then enumerates singly the divine blessings which Uzziah enjoyed. First, his victories over the surrounding nations (passing over the victory over Edom, which had been already mentioned), viz.: (1.) he went forth and warred against the Philistines, and brake down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built towns b'ashdod and b'phelistim (i.e., in the conquered territory of Ashdod, and in Philistia generally); (2.) God not only gave him victory over the Philistines, but also over the Arabians who dwelt in Gur-baal (an unknown place, which neither the lxx nor the Targumists could explain), and the Mehunim, probably a tribe of Arabia Petraea; (3.) the Ammonites gave him presents in token of allegiance, and his name was honoured even as far as Egypt, to such an extent did his power grow. Secondly, his buildings: he built towers (fortifications) above the corner gate, and above the valley gate, and above the Mikzoa, and fortified these (the weakest) portions of Jerusalem: he also built towers in the desert (probably in the desert between Beersheba and Gaza, to protect either the land, or the flocks and herds that were pasturing there); and dug many cisterns, for he had large flocks and herds both in the shephelah (the western portion of Southern Palestine) and in the mishor (the extensive pasture-land of the tribe territory of Reuben on the other side of the Jordan): he had also husbandmen and vine-dressers on the mountains, and in the fruitful fields, for he was a lover of agriculture. Thirdly, his well-organized troops: he had an army of fighting men which consisted - according to a calculation made by Jeiel the scribe, and Maaseiah, the officer under the superintendence of Nahaniah, one of the royal princes - of 2600 heads of families, who had 307,500 men under their command, \"that made war with mighty power to help the king against the enemy.\" Uzziah furnished these, according to all the divisions of the army, with shields, had spears, and helmet, and coats of mail, and bows, even with slinging-stones. He also had ingenious slinging-machines (balistae) made in Jerusalem, to fix upon the towers and ramparts, for the purpose of shooting arrows and large stones. His name resounded far abroad, for he had marvellous success, so that he became very powerful.\n\nUp to this point the chronicler has depicted the brighter side of Uzziah's reign. His prosperous deeds and enterprises are all grouped together, so that it is doubtful whether the history within these several groups follows the chronological order or not. The light thrown upon the history of the times by the group of victories gained by Uzziah, would be worth twice as much if the chronological order were strictly observed. But even if we might assume that the victory over the Philistines preceded the victory over the Arabians of Gur-baal and the Mehunim, and this again the subjugation of Ammon, it would still be very uncertain what position the expedition against Edom - which was noticed by anticipation at the close of Amaziah's life - occupied in relation to the other wars, and at what part of Uzziah's reign the several wars occurred. All that can be affirmed is, that they preceded the closing years of his life, when the blessing of God was withdrawn from him.\n\nThe chronicler relates still further, in Isa 26:16, that as Uzziah became stronger and stronger, he fell into pride of heart, which led him to perform a ruinous act. He sinned against Jehovah his God, by forcing his way into the holy place of the temple, to burn incense upon the altar of incense, from the proud notion that royalty involved the rights of the priesthood, and that the priests were only the delegates and representatives of the king. Then Azariah the high priest, and eighty other priests, brave men, hurried after him, and went up to him, and said, \"This does not belong to thee, Uzziah, to burn incense of Jehovah; but to the priests, and sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary, for thou sinnest; and this is not for thine honour with Jehovah Elohim!\" Then Uzziah was wroth, as he held the censer in his hand; and while he was so enraged against the priests, leprosy broke out upon his forehead in the sight of the priests, in the house of Jehovah, at the altar of incense. When Azariah the high priest and the rest of the priests turned to him, behold, he was leprous in his forehead; and they brought him hurriedly away from thence - in fact, he himself hasted to go out - for Jehovah had smitten him. After having thus explained the circumstances which led to the king's leprosy, the chronicler follows once more the text of the book of Kings - where the leprosy itself is also mentioned - and states that the king remained a leper until the day of his death, and lived in a sick-house, without ever being able to visit the temple again. But instead of the statement in the book of Kings, that he was buried in the city of David, the chronicler affirms more particularly that he was not placed in the king's sepulchre; but, inasmuch as he was leprous, and would therefore have defiled it, was buried in the field near the sepulchre. But before introducing this conclusion to the history of Uzziah's reign, and instead of referring to the annals of the kings of Judah, as the author of the book of Kings has done, or making such citations as we generally find, the author simply states, that \"the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, write.\"\n\nIt cannot possibly be either the prophecies of Isaiah of the time of Uzziah, or a certain historical portion of the original book of Isaiah's predictions, to which reference is here made; for in that case we should expect the same notice at the close of the account of Jotham's reign, or, at any rate, at the close of that of Ahaz (cf., Ch2 27:7 and Ch2 28:26). It is also inconceivable that Isaiah's book of predictions should have contained either a prophetical or historical account of the first acts of Uzziah, since Isaiah was later than Amos, later even than Hosea; and his public ministry did not commence till the close of his reign-in fact, not till the year of his death. Consequently the chronicler must refer to some historical work distinct from \"the visions of Isaiah.\" Just as he mentions two historical works within the first epoch of the divided kingdom, viz., Shemaiah's and Iddo's - the former of which referred more especially to the entire history of Rehoboam, and the latter to the history of Abijah - and then again, in the second epoch, an historical work by Jehu ben Hanani, which contained a complete history of Jehoshaphat from the beginning to the end; so here, in the third epoch, he speaks of Isaiah ben Amoz, the greatest Judaean prophet of this epoch as the author of a special history of Uzziah, which was not incorporated in his \"visions\" like the history of Hezekiah (cf., Ch2 32:32), but formed an independent work. Besides this prophetical history of Uzziah, there was also an annalistic history, as Kg2 15:6 clearly shows; and it is quite possible that the annals of Uzziah were finished when Isaiah commenced his work, and that they were made use of by him. For the leading purpose of the prophetical histories was to exhibit the inward and divine connection between the several outward events, which the annals simply registered. The historical writings of a prophet were only the other side of his more purely prophetic work. In the light of the Spirit of God, the former looked deep into the past, the latter into the present. Both of them had to do with the ways of divine justice and grace, and set forth past and present, alike in view of the true goal, in which these two ways coincide.\n\nJotham succeeded Uzziah, after having acted as regent, or rather as viceroy, for several years (Kg2 15:32-38). He ascended the throne in the second year of Pekah king of Israel, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, and reigned for sixteen years in a manner which pleased God, though he still tolerated the worship upon high places, as his father had done. He built the upper gate of the temple. The author has no sooner written this than he refers to the annals, simply adding, before concluding with the usual formula concerning his burial in the city of David, that in those days, i.e., towards the close of Jotham's reign, the hostilities of Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel commenced, as a judgment from God upon Judah. The chronicler, however, makes several valuable additions to the text of the book of Kings, which he has copied word for word down to the notice concerning the commencement of the Syro-Ephraimitish hostilities (vid., Ch2 27:1-9). We do not include in this the statement that Jotham did not force his way into the holy place in the temple: this is simply intended as a limitation of the assertion made by the author of the book of Kings as to the moral equality of Jotham and Uzziah, and in favour of the former. The words, \"the people continued in their destructive course,\" also contain nothing new, but are simply the shorter expression used in the Chronicles to indicate the continuance of the worship of the high places during Jotham's reign. But there is something new in what the chronicler appends to the remark concerning the building of the upper gate of the temple, which is very bold and abrupt as it stands in the book of Kings, viz., \"On the wall of the Ophel he built much (i.e., he fortified this southern spur of the temple hill still more strongly), and put towns in the mountains of Judah, and erected castles and towers in the forests (for watchtowers and defences against hostile attacks). He also fought with the king of the Ammonites; and when conquered, they were obliged to give him that year and the two following a hundred talents of silver, ten thousand cors of wheat, and the same quantity of barley. Jotham grew stronger and stronger, because he strove to walk before Jehovah his God.\" The chronicler breaks off with this general statement, and refers, for the other memorabilia of Jotham, and all his wars and enterprises, to the book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.\n\nThis is what the two historical books relate concerning the royal pair - Uzziah-Jotham - under whom the kingdom of Judah enjoyed once more a period of great prosperity and power - \"the greatest since the disruption, with the exception of that of Jehoshaphat; the longest during the whole period of its existence, the last before its overthrow\" (Caspari). The sources from which the two historical accounts were derived were the annals: they were taken directly from them by the author of the book of Kings, indirectly by the chronicler. No traces can be discovered of the work written by Isaiah concerning Uzziah, although it may possibly be employed in the midrash of the chronicler. There is an important supplement to the account given by the chronicler in the casual remark made in Ch1 5:17, to the effect that Jotham had a census taken of the tribe of Gad, which was settled on the other side of the Jordan. We see from this, that in proportion as the northern kingdom sank down from the eminence to which it had attained under Jeroboam II, the supremacy of Judah over the land to the east of the Jordan was renewed. But we may see from Amos, that it was only gradually that the kingdom of Judah revived under Uzziah, and that at first, like the wall of Jerusalem, which was partially broken down by Joash, it presented the aspect of a house full of fissures, and towards Israel in a very shaky condition; also that the Ephraimitish ox- (or calf-) worship of Jehovah was carried on at Beersheba, and therefore upon Judaean soil, and that Judah did not keep itself free from the idolatry which it had inherited from the fathers (Amo 2:4-5). Again, assuming that Amos commenced his ministry at about the tenth year of Uzziah's reign, we may learn at least so much from him with regard to Uzziah's victories over Edom, Philistia, and Ammon, that they were not gained till after the tenth year of his reign. Hosea, on the other hand, whose ministry commenced at the very earliest when that of Amos was drawing to a close, and probably not till the last five years of Jeroboam's reign, bears witness to, and like Amos condemns, the participation in the Ephraimitish worship, into which Judah had been drawn under Uzziah-Jotham. But with him Beersheba is not referred to any more as an Israelitish seat of worship (Amo 5:5); Israel does not interfere any longer with the soil of Judah, as in the time of Amos, since Judah has again become a powerful and well-fortified kingdom (Hos 8:14, cf., Hos 1:7). But, at the same time, it has become full of carnal trust and manifold apostasy from Jehovah (Hos 5:10; Hos 12:1); so that, although receiving at first a miraculous deliverance from God (Hos 1:7), it is ripening for the same destruction as Israel (Hos 6:11).\n\nThis survey of the kingdom of Judah in the time of Uzziah-Jotham by the Israelitish prophet, we shall find repeated in Isaiah; for the same spirit animates and determines the verdicts of the prophets of both kingdoms.\n\nII. Historical Account of Ahaz and the Syro-Ephraimitish War. - The account of Ahaz, given in the book of Kings and in the Chronicles (2 Kings 16; Ch2 28:1), may be divided into three parts: viz., first, the general characteristics; secondly, the account of the Syro-Ephraimitish war; and thirdly, the desecration of the temple by Ahaz, more especially by setting up an altar made after the model of that at Damascus.\n\n(Note: On the temple at Damascus, whose altar Ahaz imitated, see the Commentary on the Book of Job.)\n\n(1.) Kg2 16:1-4. Ahaz ascended the throne in the seventeenth year of Pekah. He was then twenty years old (or twenty-five according to the lxx at Ch2 28:1, which is much more probable, as he would otherwise have had a son, Hezekiah, in the tenth years of his age), and he reigned sixteen years. He did not please God as his forefather David had done, but took the way of the kings of Israel, and even made his son pass through the fire (i.e., burnt him in honour of Moloch), according to the abominations of the (Canaanitish) people whom Jehovah had driven out before Israel; and he offered sacrifice and burnt incense upon the high places, and upon the hills, and under every green tree. The Deuteronomic colouring of this passage is very obvious. The corresponding passage in the Chronicles is Ch2 28:1-4, where the additional fact is mentioned, that he even made molten images for Baalim, and burnt incense in the valley of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire (\"his children,\" a generic plural like \"the kings\" in Ch2 28:16, and \"the sons\" in Ch2 24:25 : \"burnt,\" ויּבער, unless the reading ויּעבר be adopted, as it has been by the lxx, \"he caused to pass through.\") (2.) Kg2 16:5-9. Then (in the time of this idolatrous king Ahaz) the following well-known and memorable event occurred: Rezin the king of Aram, and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel, went up against Jerusalem to war, and besieged Ahaz, \"but could not overcome him,\" i.e., as we may gather from Isa 7:1, they were not able to get possession of Jerusalem, which was the real object of their expedition. \"At that time\" (the author of the book of Kings proceeds to observe), viz., at the time of this Syro-Ephraimitish war, Rezin king of Aram brought Elath to Aram (i.e., wrested again from the kingdom of Judah the seaport town which Uzziah had recovered a short time before), and drove the Judaeans out of Elath (sic); and Aramaeans came to Elath and settled there unto this day. Thenius, who starts with the needless assumption that the conquest of Elath took place subsequently to the futile attempt to take Jerusalem, gives the preference to the reading of the Keri, \"and Edomites (Edomina) came to Elath,\" and would therefore correct l'aram (to Aram) into l'edom (to Edom). \"Rezin,\" he says, \"destroyed the work of Uzziah, and gave Edom its liberty again, in the hope that at some future time he might have the support of Edom, and so operate against Judah with greater success.\" But, in answer to this, it may be affirmed that such obscure forms as ארומים for ארמּים are peculiar to this account, and that the words do not denote the restoration of a settlement, but mention the settlement as a new and remarkable fact. I therefore adopt Caspari's conclusion, that the Syrian king transplanted a Syrian colony of traders to Elath, to secure the command of the maritime trade with all its attendant advantages; and this colony held its ground there for some time after the destruction of the Damascene kingdom, as the expression \"to this day,\" found in the earlier source of the author of the book of Kings, clearly implies.\n\nBut if the conquest of Elath fell within the period of the Syro-Ephraimitish war, which commenced towards the end of Jotham's reign, and probably originated in the bitter feelings occasioned by the almost total loss to Judah of the country on the east of the Jordan, and which assumed the form of a direct attack upon Jerusalem itself soon after Ahaz ascended the throne; the question arises, How was it that this design of the two allied kings upon Jerusalem was not successful? The explanation is given in the account contained in the book of Kings (Kg2 16:7): \"Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pelezer (sic) the king of Asshur, to say to him, I am thy servant, and thy son; come up, and save me out of the hand of Aram, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who have risen up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the palace, and sent it for a present to the king of Asshur. The king hearkened to his petition; and went against Damascus, and took it, and carried the inhabitants into captivity to Kir, and slew Rezin.\" And what did Tiglath-pileser do with Pekah? The author of the book of Kings has already related, in the section referring to Pekah (Kg2 15:29), that he punished him by taking away the whole of the country to the east of the Jordan, and a large part of the territory on this side towards the north, and carried the inhabitants captive to Assyria. This section must be supplied here - an example of the great liberty which the historians allowed themselves in the selection and arrangement of their materials. The anticipation in Kg2 16:5 is also quite in accordance with their usual style: the author first of all states that the expedition against Jerusalem was an unsuccessful one, and then afterwards proceeds to mention the reason for the failure - namely, the appeal of Ahaz to Assyria for help. For I also agree with Caspari in this, that the Syrians the Ephraimites were unable to take Jerusalem, because the tidings reached them, that Tiglath-pileser had been appealed to by Ahaz and was coming against them; and they were consequently obliged to raise the siege and made a speedy retreat.\n\nThe account in the Chronicles (2 Chron 28:5-21) furnishes us with full and extensive details, with which to supplement the very condensed notice of the book of Kings. When we compare the two accounts, the question arises, whether they refer to two different expeditions (and if so, which of the two refers to the first expedition and which to the second), or whether they both relate to the same expedition. Let us picture to ourselves first of all the facts as given by the chronicler. \"Jehovah, his God,\" he says of Ahaz, \"delivered him into the hand of the king of Aram, and they (the Aramaeans) smote him, and carried off from him a great crowd of captives, whom they brought to Damascus; and he was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who inflicted upon him a terrible defeat.\" This very clearly implies, as Caspari has shown, that although the two kings set the conquest of Jerusalem before them as a common end at which to aim, and eventually united for the attainment of this end, yet for a time they acted separately. We are not told here in what direction Rezin's army went. But we know from Kg2 16:6 that it marched to Idumaea, which it could easily reach from Damascus by going through the territory of his ally - namely, the country of the two tribes and a half. The chronicler merely describes the simultaneous invasion of Judaea by Pekah, but he does this with all the greater fulness.\n\n\"Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, all valiant men, because they forsook Jehovah, the God of their fathers. Zichri, an Ephraimitish hero, slew Ma'asejahu the king's son, and Azrikam the governor of the palace, and Elkanah, the second in rank to the king. And the Israelites carried away captive of their brethren two hundred thousand women, boys, and girls, and took away much spoil from them, and brought this booty to Samaria.\" As the Jewish army numbered at that time three hundred thousand men (Ch2 25:5; Ch2 26:13), and the war was carried on with the greatest animosity, these numbers need not be regarded as either spurious or exaggerated. Moreover, the numbers, which the chronicler found in the sources he employed, merely contained the estimate of the enormous losses sustained, as generally adopted at that time of the side of Judah itself.\n\nThis bloody catastrophe was followed by a very fine and touching occurrence. A prophet of Jehovah, named Oded (a contemporary of Hosea, and a man of kindred spirit","order":23,"numberOfChapters":66,"sha256":"3a85a1aacdd0604a9dcb2fe4db3b90b32e4ec7b9f1860d18512aff8c25077d9c","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ISA/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ISA","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":66,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ISA/66.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ISA","chapter":66},"totalNumberOfVerses":649},"chapter":{"number":47,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["In the second strophe the penal sentence of Jehovah is continued. \"Sit silent, and creep into the darkness, O Chaldeans-daughter! for men no longer call thee lady of kingdoms. I was wroth with my people; I polluted mine inheritance, and gave them into thy hand: thou hast shown them no mercy; upon old men thou laidst thy yoke very heavily. And thou saidst, I shall be lady for ever; so that thou didst not take these things to heart: thou didst not consider the latter end thereof.\" Babylon shall sit down in silent, brooding sorrow, and take herself away into darkness, just as those who have fallen into disgrace shrink from the eyes of men. She is looked upon as an empress (Isa 13:9; the king of Babylon called himself the king of kings, Eze 26:7), who has been reduced to the condition of a slave, and durst not show herself for shame. This would happen to her, because at the time when Jehovah made use of her as His instrument for punishing His people, she went beyond the bounds of her authority, showing ho pity, and ill-treating even defenceless old men. According to Loppe, Gesenius, and Hitzig, Israel is here called zâqēn, as a decayed nation awakening sympathy; but according to the Scripture, the people of God is always young, and never decays; on the contrary, its ziqnâh, i.e., the latest period of its history (Isa 46:4), is to be like its youth. The words are to be understood literally, like Lam 4:16; Lam 5:12 : even upon old men, Babylon had placed the heavy yoke of prisoners and slaves. But in spite of this inhumanity, it flattered itself that it would last for ever. Hitzig adopts the reading עד גּברת, and renders it, \"To all future times shall I continue, mistress to all eternity.\" This may possibly be correct, but it is by no means necessary, inasmuch as it can be shown from Sa1 20:41, and Job 14:6, that (ד is used as equivalent to אשׁר עד, in the sense of \"till the time that;\" and gebhereth, as the feminine of gâbhēr = gebher, may be the absolute quite as well as the construct. The meaning therefore is, that the confidence of Babylon in the eternal continuance of its power was such, that \"these things,\" i.e., such punishments as those which were now about to fall upon it according to the prophecy, had never come into its mind; such, indeed, that it had not called to remembrance as even possible \"the latter end of it,\" i.e., the inevitably evil termination of its tyranny and presumption. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["A third strophe of this proclamation of punishment is opened here with ועתה, on the ground of the conduct censured. \"And now hear this, thou voluptuous one, she who sitteth so securely, who sayeth in her heart, I am it, and none else: I shall not sit a widow, nor experience bereavement of children. And these two will come upon thee suddenly in one day: bereavement of children and widowhood; they come upon thee in fullest measure, in spite of the multitude of thy sorceries, in spite of the great abundance of thy witchcrafts. Thou trustedst in thy wickedness, saidst, No one seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, they led thee astray; so that thou saidst in thy heart, I am it, and none else. And misfortune cometh upon thee, which thou dost not understand how to charm away: and destruction will fall upon thee, which thou canst not atone for; there will come suddenly upon thee ruin which thou suspectest not.\" In the surnames given to Babylon here, a new reason is assigned for the judgment - namely, extravagance, security, and self-exaltation. עדין is an intensive from of עדן (lxx τρυφερά). The i of אפסי is regarded by Hahn as the same as we meet with in אתּי = אתּ; but this is impossible here with the first person. Rosenmller, Ewald, Gesenius, and others, take it as chirek compaginis, and equivalent to עוד אין, which would only occur in this particular formula. Hitzig supposes it to be the suffix of the word, which is meant as a preposition in the sense of et praeter me ultra (nemo); but this nemo would be omitted, which is improbable. The more probable explanation is, that אפס signifies absolute non-existence, and when used as an adverb, \"exclusively, nothing but,\" e.g., קצהוּ אפס, nothing, the utmost extremity thereof, i.e., only the utmost extremity of it (Num 23:13; cf., Num 22:35). But it is mostly used with a verbal force, like אין (אין), (utique) non est (see Isa 45:14); hence אפסי, like איני, (utique) non sum. The form in which the presumption of Babylon expresses itself, viz., \"I (am it), and I am absolutely nothing further,\" sounds like self-deification, by the side of similar self-assertion on the part of Jehovah (Isa 45:5-6; Isa 14:21, Isa 14:22 and Isa 46:9). Nineveh speaks in just the same way in Zep 2:15; compare Martial: \"Terrarum Dea gentiumque Roma cui par est nihil et nihil secundum.\" Babylon also says still further (like the Babylon of the last days in Rev 18:7): \"I shall not sit as a widow (viz., mourning thus in solitude, Lam 1:1; Lam 3:28; and secluded from the world, Gen 38:11), nor experience the loss of children\" (orbitatem). She would become a widow, if she should lose the different nations, and \"the kings of the earth who committed fornication with her\" (Rev 18:9); for her relation to her own king cannot possibly be thought of, inasmuch as the relation in which a nation stands to its temporal king is never thought of as marriage, like that of Jehovah to Israel. She would also be a mother bereaved of her children, if war and captivity robbed her of her population. But both of these would happen to her suddenly in one day, so that she would succumb to the weight of the double sorrow. Both of them would come upon her kethummâm (secundum integritatem eorum), i.e., so that she would come to learn what the loss of men and the loss of children signified in all its extent and in all its depth, and that in spite of (בּ, with, equivalent to \"notwithstanding,\" as in Isa 5:25; not \"through = on account of,\" since this tone is adopted for the first time in Isa 47:10) the multitude of its incantations, and the very great mass (‛ŏtsmâh, an inf. noun, as in Isa 30:19; Isa 55:2, used here, not as in Isa 40:29, in an intensive sense, but, like ‛âtsūm, as a parallel word to rabh in a numerical sense) of its witchcrafts (chebher, binding by means of incantations, κατάδεσμος). Babylonia was the birth-place of astrology, from which sprang the twelve-fold division of the day, the horoscope and sun-dial (Herod. ii. 109); but it was also the home of magic, which pretended to bind the course of events, and even the power of the gods, and to direct them in whatever way it pleased (Diodorus, ii. 29). Thus had Babylon trusted in her wickedness (Isa 13:11), viz., in the tyranny and cunning by which she hoped to ensure perpetual duration, with the notion that she was exalted above the reach of any earthly calamity. \nShe thought, \"None seeth me\" (non est videns me), thus suppressing the voice of conscience, and practically denying the omnipotence and omnipresence of God. ראני (with a verbal suffix, videns me, whereas ראי saere in Gen 16:3 signifies videns mei = meus), also written ראני, is a pausal form in half pause for ראני (Isa 29:15). Tzere passes in pause both into pathach (e.g., Isa 42:22), and also, apart from such hithpael forms as Isa 41:16, into kametz, as in קימנוּ (Job 22:20, which see). By the \"wisdom and knowledge\" of Babylon, which had turned her aside from the right way, we are to understand her policy, strategy, and more especially her magical arts, i.e., the mysteries of the Chaldeans, their ἐπιχώριοι φιλόσοφοι (Strabo, xxi. 1, 6). On hōvâh (used here and in Eze 7:26, written havvâh elsewhere), according to its primary meaning, \"yawning,\" χαῖνον, then a yawning depth, χάσμα, utter destruction, see at Job 37:6. שׁאה signifies primarily a desert, or desolate place, here destruction; and hence the derivative meaning, waste noise, a dull groan. The perfect consec. of the first clause precedes its predicate רעה in the radical form בא (Ges., 147, a). With the parallelism of כּפּרהּ, it is not probable that שׁחרהּ, which rhymes with it, is a substantive, in the sense of \"from which thou wilt experience no morning dawn\" (i.e., after the night of calamity), as Umbreit supposes. The suffix also causes some difficulty (hence the Vulgate rendering, ortum ejus, sc. mali); and instead of תדעי, we should expect תראי. In any case, shachrâh is a verb, and Hitzig renders it, \"which thou wilt not know how to unblacken;\" but this privative use of shichēr as a word of colour would be without example. It would be better to translate it, \"which thou wilt not know how to spy out\" (as in Isa 26:9), but better still, \"which thou wilt not know how to conjure away\" (shichēr = Arab. sḥḥr, as it were incantitare, and here incantando averruncare). The last relative clause affirms what shachrâh would state, if understood according to Isa 26:9 : destruction which thou wilt not know, i.e., which will come suddenly and unexpectedly. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["Then follows the concluding strophe, which, like the first, announces to the imperial city in a triumphantly sarcastic tone its inevitable fate; whereas the intermediate strophes refer rather to the sins by which this fate has been brought upon it. \"Come near, then, with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy witchcrafts, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth: perhaps thou canst profit, perhaps thou wilt inspire terror. Thou art wearied through the multitude of thy consultations; let the dissectors of the heavens come near, then, and save thee, the star-gazers, they who with every new moon bring things to light that will come upon thee. Behold, they have become like stubble: fire has consumed them: there is not a red-hot coal to warm themselves, a hearth-fire to sit before. So is it with thy people, for whom thou hast laboured: thy partners in trade from thy youth, they wander away every one in his own direction; no one who brings salvation to thee.\" Hitzig and others adopt the simple rendering, \"Persevere, then, with thine enchantments.\" It is indeed true, that in Lev 13:5 בּ עמד signifies \"to remain standing by anything,\" i.e., to persevere with it, just as in Eze 13:5 it signifies to keep one's standing in anything; in Kg2 23:3, to enter upon anything; and in Ecc 8:3, to engage in anything; but there is no reason for taking it here in any other sense than in Isa 47:13. Babylon is to draw near with all the processes of the black art, wherein בּאשׁר, according to our western mode of expression, equivalent to בּהם אשׁר, Ges. 123, 2*) it had been addicted to abundance of routine from its youth upwards (יגעאתּ with an auxiliary pathach for יגעתּ); possibly it may be of some use, possibly it will terrify, i.e., make itself so terrible to the approaching calamity, as to cause it to keep off. The prophet now sees in spirit how Babylon draws near, and how it also harasses itself to no purpose; he therefore follows up the עמדי־נא, addressed in pleno to Babylon, with a second challenge commencing with יעמדוּ־נא. Their astrologers are to draw near, and try that power over the future to which they lay claim, by bringing it to bear at once upon the approaching destruction for the benefit of Babylon. עצתיך is a singular form connected with a feminine plural suffix, such as we find in Psa 9:15; Eze 35:11; Ezr 9:15, connected with a masculine plural suffix. Assuming the correctness of the vowel-pointing, the singular appears in such cases as these to have a collective meaning, like the Arabic pl. fractus; for there is no ground to suppose that the Aramaean plural form ‛ētsâth is used here in the place of the Hebrew. Instead of שׁמים הברו (which would be equivalent to הברו אשׁרא, the keri reads שׁמים הברי, cutters up of the heavens, i.e., planners or dissectors of them, from hâb, dissecare, resecare (compare the rabbinical habhârâh, a syllable, i.e., segmentum vocabuli, and possibly also the talmudic 'ēbhârı̄m, limbs of a body). The correction proposed by Knobel, viz., chōbherē, from châbhār, to know, or be versed in, is unnecessary. Châzâh b' signifies here, as it generally does, to look with pleasure or with interest at anything; hence Luther has rendered it correctly, die Sternkucker (Eng. ver. star-gazers). They are described still further as those who make known with every new moon (lechŏdâshı̄m, like labbeqârı̄m, every morning, Isa 33:2, etc.), things which, etc. מאשׁר is used in a partitive sense: out of the great mass of events they select the most important, and prepare a calendar or almanack (ἀλμενιχιακά in Plutarch) for the state every month. But these very wise men cannot save themselves, to say nothing of others, out of the power of that flame, which is no comforting coal-fire to warm one's self by, no hearth-fire (Isa 44:16) to sit in front of, but a devouring, eternal, i.e., peremptory flame (Isa 33:14). The rendering adopted by Grotius, Vitringa, Lowth, Gesenius, and others, \"non supererit pruna ad calendum,\" is a false one, if only because it is not in harmony with the figure. \"Thus shall they be unto thee,\" he continues in Isa 47:15, i.e., such things shall be endured to thy disgrace by those about whom thou hast wearied thyself (אשׁר = בּהם אשׁר). The learned orders of the Chaldeans had their own quarter, and enjoyed all the distinction and privileges of a priestly caste. What follows cannot possibly be understood as relating to these masters of astrology and witchcraft, as Ewald supposes; for, according to the expression שׁחרהּ in Isa 47:11, they would be called שׁחריך. Moreover, if they became a prey of the flames, and therefore were unable to flee, we should have to assume that they were burned while taking flight (Umbreit). סחריך are those who carried on commercial intercourse with the great \"trading city\" (Eze 17:4), as Berossos says, \"In Babylon there was a great multitude of men of other nations who had settled in Chaldea, and they lived in disorder, like the wild beasts;\" compare Aeschylus, Pers. 52-3, Βαβυλὼν δ ̓ ἡ πολύχρυσος πάμμικτον ὄχλον πέμπει. All of these are scattered in the wildest flight, אל־עברו אישׁ, every one on his own side, viz., in the direction of his own home, and do not trouble themselves about Babylon. \n"]}],"introduction":"From the gods of Babylon the proclamation of judgment passes onto Babylon itself. \"Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter Babel; sit on the ground without a throne, O Chaldaeans-daughter! For men no longer call thee delicate and voluptuous. Take the mill, and grind meal: throw back they veil, lift up the train, uncover the thigh, wade through streams. Let thy nakedness be uncovered, even let thy shame be seen; I shall take vengeance, and not spare men. Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts is His name, Holy One of Israel.\" This is the first strophe in the prophecy. As v. 36 clearly shows, what precedes is a penal sentence from Jehovah. Both בּת in relation to בּתוּלת (Isa 23:12; Isa 37:22), and בּבל and כּשׂדּים in relation to בּת, are appositional genitives; Babel and Chaldeans (כשׂדים as in Isa 48:20) are regarded as a woman, and that as one not yet dishonoured. The unconquered oppressor is threatened with degradation from her proud eminence into shameful humiliation; sitting on the ground is used in the same sense as in Isa 3:26. Hitherto men have called her, with envious admiration, rakkâh va‛ânuggâh (from Deu 28:56), mollis et delicata, as having carefully kept everything disagreeable at a distance, and revelled in nothing but luxury (compare ‛ōneg, Isa 13:22). Debauchery with its attendant rioting (Isa 14:11; Isa 25:5), and the Mylitta worship with its licensed prostitution (Herod. i. 199), were current there; but now all this was at an end. תוסיפי, according to the Masora, has only one pashta both here and in Isa 47:5, and so has the tone upon the last syllable, and accordingly metheg in the antepenult. Isaiah's artistic style may be readily perceived both in the three clauses of Isa 47:1 that are comparable to a long trumpet-blast (compare Isa 40:9 and Isa 16:1), and also in the short, rugged, involuntarily excited clauses that follow. The mistress becomes the maid, and has to perform the low, menial service of those who, as Homer says in Od. vii. 104, ἀλετρεύουσι μύλης ἔπι μήλοπα καρπόν (grind at the mill the quince-coloured fruit; compare at Job 31:10). She has to leave her palace as a prisoner of war, and, laying aside all feminine modesty, to wade through the rivers upon which she borders. Chespı̄ has ĕ instead of ĭ, and, as in other cases where a sibilant precedes, the mute p instead of f (compare 'ispı̄, Jer 10:17). Both the prosopopeia and the parallel, \"thy shame shall be seen,\" require that the expression \"thy nakedness shall be uncovered\" should not be understood literally. The shame of Babel is her shameful conduct, which is not to be exhibited in its true colours, inasmuch as a stronger one is coming upon it to rob it of its might and honour. This stronger one, apart from the instrument employed, is Jehovah: vindictam sumam, non parcam homini. Stier gives a different rendering here, namely, \"I will run upon no man, i.e., so as to make him give way;\" Hahn, \"I will not meet with a man,\" so destitute of population will Babylon be; and Ruetschi, \"I will not step in as a man.\" Gesenius and Rosenmller are nearer to the mark when they suggest non pangam (paciscar) cum homine; but this would require at any rate את־אדם, even if the verb פּגע really had the meaning to strike a treaty. It means rather to strike against a person, to assault any one, then to meet or come in an opposite direction, and that not only in a hostile sense, but, as in this instance, and also in Isa 64:4, in a friendly sense as well. Hence, \"I shall not receive any man, or pardon any man\" (Hitzig, Ewald, etc.). According to an old method of writing the passage, there is a pause here. But Isa 47:4 is still connected with what goes before. As Jehovah is speaking in Isa 47:5, but Israel in Isa 47:4, and as Isa 47:4 is unsuitable to form the basis of the words of Jehovah, it must be regarded as the antiphone to Isa 47:1-3 (cf., Isa 45:15). Our Redeemer, exclaims the church in joyfully exalted self-consciousness, He is Jehovah of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel! The one name affirms that He possesses the all-conquering might; the other that He possesses the will to carry on the work of redemption - a will influenced and constrained by both love and wrath. \n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ISA/47.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ISA","chapter":47},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ISA/48.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ISA","chapter":48},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/ISA/46.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"ISA","chapter":46},"numberOfVerses":3}