Isa 1:4-6 | KD | STEP | “Woe upon the sinful nation, the guilt-laden people, the miscreant race, the children acting corruptly! They have forsaken Jehovah, blasphemed Israel’s Holy One, turned away backwards.” The distinction sometimes drawn between hoi (with He ) and oi (with Aleph ) - as equivalent to oh! and woe! - cannot be sustained. Hoi is an exclamation of pain, with certain doubtful exceptions; and in the case before us it is not so much a denunciation of woe ( vae genti , as the Vulgate renders it), as a lamentation ( vae gentem ) filled with wrath. The epithets which follow point indirectly to that which Israel ought to have been, according to the choice and determination of God, and plainly declare what it had become through its own choice and ungodly self-determination. (1.) According to the choice and determination of God, Israel was to be a holy nation ( goi kadosh , ); but it was a sinful nation - gens peccatrix , as it is correctly rendered by the Vulgate. חטא is not a participle here, but rather a participial adjective in the sense of what was habitual. It is the singular in common use for the plural חטאי, sinners, the singular of which was not used. Holy and Sinful are glaring contrasts: for kadosh , so far as its radical notion is concerned (assuming, that is to say, that this is to be found in kad and not in dosh : see Psalter , i. 588, 9), signifies that which is separated from what is common, unclean, or sinful, and raised above it. The alliteration in hoi goi implies that the nation, as sinful, was a nation of woe. (2.) In the thorah Israel was called not only “a holy nation,” but also “the people of Jehovah” (Num 17:6, Eng. ver. Num 16:41), the people chosen and blessed of Jehovah; but now it had become “a people heavy with iniquity.” Instead of the most natural expression, a people bearing heavy sins; the sin, or iniquity, i.e., the weight carried, is attributed to the people themselves upon whom the weight rested, according to the common figurative idea, that whoever carries a heavy burden is so much heavier himself (cf., gravis oneribus , Cicero). עון (sin regarded as crookedness and perversity, whereas חטא suggests the idea of going astray and missing the way) is the word commonly used wherever the writer intends to describe sin in the mass (e.g., ; ; ), including the guilt occasioned by it. The people of Jehovah had grown into a people heavily laden with guilt. So crushed, so altered into the very opposite, had Israel’s true nature become. It is with deliberate intention that we have rendered גּוי a nation ( Nation ), and עם(am a people ( Volk ): for, according to Malbim’s correct definition of the distinction between the two, the former is used to denote the mass, as linked together by common descent, language, and country; the latter the people as bound together by unity of government (see, for example, ). Consequently we always read of the people of the Lord, not the nation of the Lord; and there are only two instances in which goi is attached to a suffix relating to the ruler, and then it relates to Jehovah alone (Zep 2:9; ). (3.) Israel bore elsewhere the honourable title of the seed of the patriarch ( ; ; cf., ); but in reality it was a seed of evil-doers (miscreants). This does not mean that it was descended from evil-doers; but the genitive is used in the sense of a direct apposition to zera (seed), as in (cf., ; , and Ges. §116, 5), and the meaning is a seed which consists of evil-doers, and therefore is apparently descended from evil-doers instead of from patriarchs. This last thought is not implied in the genitive, but in the idea of “seed;” which is always a compact unit, having one origin, and bearing the character of its origin in itself. The rendering brood of evil-doers, however it may accord with the sense, would be inaccurate; for “seed of evil-doers” is just the same as “house of evil-doers” in Isa 31:2. The singular of the noun מרעים is מרע , with the usual sharpening in the case of gutturals in the verbs (' '(, מרע with patach , מרע with kametz in pause ( , which see) - a noun derived from the hiphil participle. (4.) Those who were of Israel were “children of Jehovah” through the act of God ( ); but in their own acts they were “children acting destructively ( bânim mashchithim ), so that what the thorah feared and predicted had now occurred ( , ; ). In all these passages we find the hiphil , and in the parallel passage of the great song ( ) the piel - both of them conjugations which contain within themselves the object of the action indicated (Ges. §53, 2): to do what is destructive, i.e., so to act as to become destructive to one’s self and to others. It is evident from , that the term children is to be understood as indicating their relation to Jehovah (cf., , ). The four interjectional clauses are followed by three declaratory clauses, which describe Israel’s apostasy as total in every respect, and complete the mournful seven. There was apostasy in heart: “They have forsaken Jehovah.” There was apostasy in words: “They blaspheme the Holy One of Israel.” The verb literally means to sting, then to mock or treat scornfully; the use of it to denote blasphemy is antiquated Mosaic ( ; Num 14:11, Num 14:23; Num 16:30). It is with intention that God is designated here as “the Holy One of Israel,”a name which constitutes the keynote of all Isaiah’s prophecy (see at ). It was sin to mock at anything holy; it was a double sin to mock at God, the Holy One; but it was a threefold sin for Israel to mock at God the Holy One, who had set Himself to be the sanctifier of Israel, and required that as He was Israel’s sanctification, He should also be sanctified by Israel according to His holiness ( , etc.). And lastly, there was also apostasy in action: “they have turned away backwards;” or, as the Vulgate renders it, abalienati sunt . נזור is the reflective of זוּר, related to נור and סוּר, for which it is the word commonly used in the Targum. The niphal , which is only met with here, indicates the deliberate character of their estrangement from God; and the expression is rendered still more emphatic by the introduction of the word “backwards” ( achor , which is used emphatically in the place of מאחריו). In all their actions they ought to have followed Jehovah; but they had turned their backs upon Him, and taken the way selected by themselves.

‏ Isaiah 1:4-6

Isa 1:4 “Woe upon the sinful nation, the guilt-laden people, the miscreant race, the children acting corruptly! They have forsaken Jehovah, blasphemed Israel’s Holy One, turned away backwards.” The distinction sometimes drawn between hoi (with He) and oi (with Aleph) - as equivalent to oh! and woe! - cannot be sustained. Hoi is an exclamation of pain, with certain doubtful exceptions; and in the case before us it is not so much a denunciation of woe (vae genti, as the Vulgate renders it), as a lamentation (vae gentem) filled with wrath. The epithets which follow point indirectly to that which Israel ought to have been, according to the choice and determination of God, and plainly declare what it had become through its own choice and ungodly self-determination. (1.) According to the choice and determination of God, Israel was to be a holy nation (goi kadosh, Exo 19:6); but it was a sinful nation - gens peccatrix, as it is correctly rendered by the Vulgate. חטא is not a participle here, but rather a participial adjective in the sense of what was habitual. It is the singular in common use for the plural חטאי, sinners, the singular of which was not used. Holy and Sinful are glaring contrasts: for kadosh, so far as its radical notion is concerned (assuming, that is to say, that this is to be found in kad and not in dosh: see Psalter, i. 588, 9), signifies that which is separated from what is common, unclean, or sinful, and raised above it. The alliteration in hoi goi implies that the nation, as sinful, was a nation of woe. (2.) In the thorah Israel was called not only “a holy nation,” but also “the people of Jehovah” (Num 17:6, Eng. ver. Num 16:41), the people chosen and blessed of Jehovah; but now it had become “a people heavy with iniquity.” Instead of the most natural expression, a people bearing heavy sins; the sin, or iniquity, i.e., the weight carried, is attributed to the people themselves upon whom the weight rested, according to the common figurative idea, that whoever carries a heavy burden is so much heavier himself (cf., gravis oneribus, Cicero). עון (sin regarded as crookedness and perversity, whereas חטא suggests the idea of going astray and missing the way) is the word commonly used wherever the writer intends to describe sin in the mass (e.g., Isa 33:24; Gen 15:16; Gen 19:15), including the guilt occasioned by it. The people of Jehovah had grown into a people heavily laden with guilt. So crushed, so altered into the very opposite, had Israel’s true nature become. It is with deliberate intention that we have rendered גּוי a nation (Nation), and עם(am a people (Volk): for, according to Malbim’s correct definition of the distinction between the two, the former is used to denote the mass, as linked together by common descent, language, and country; the latter the people as bound together by unity of government (see, for example, Psa 105:13). Consequently we always read of the people of the Lord, not the nation of the Lord; and there are only two instances in which goi is attached to a suffix relating to the ruler, and then it relates to Jehovah alone (Zep 2:9; Psa 106:5). (3.) Israel bore elsewhere the honourable title of the seed of the patriarch (Isa 41:8; Isa 45:19; cf., Gen 21:12); but in reality it was a seed of evil-doers (miscreants). This does not mean that it was descended from evil-doers; but the genitive is used in the sense of a direct apposition to zera (seed), as in Isa 65:23 (cf., Isa 61:9; Isa 6:13, and Ges. §116, 5), and the meaning is a seed which consists of evil-doers, and therefore is apparently descended from evil-doers instead of from patriarchs. This last thought is not implied in the genitive, but in the idea of “seed;” which is always a compact unit, having one origin, and bearing the character of its origin in itself. The rendering brood of evil-doers, however it may accord with the sense, would be inaccurate; for “seed of evil-doers” is just the same as “house of evil-doers” in Isa 31:2. The singular of the noun מרעים is מרע , with the usual sharpening in the case of gutturals in the verbs (' '(, מרע with patach, מרע with kametz in pause (Isa 9:16, which see) - a noun derived from the hiphil participle. (4.) Those who were of Israel were “children of Jehovah” through the act of God (Deu 14:1); but in their own acts they were “children acting destructively (bânim mashchithim), so that what the thorah feared and predicted had now occurred (Deu 4:16, Deu 4:25; Deu 31:29). In all these passages we find the hiphil, and in the parallel passage of the great song (Deu 32:5) the piel - both of them conjugations which contain within themselves the object of the action indicated (Ges. §53, 2): to do what is destructive, i.e., so to act as to become destructive to one’s self and to others. It is evident from Isa 1:2, that the term children is to be understood as indicating their relation to Jehovah (cf., Isa 30:1, Isa 30:9). The four interjectional clauses are followed by three declaratory clauses, which describe Israel’s apostasy as total in every respect, and complete the mournful seven. There was apostasy in heart: “They have forsaken Jehovah.” There was apostasy in words: “They blaspheme the Holy One of Israel.” The verb literally means to sting, then to mock or treat scornfully; the use of it to denote blasphemy is antiquated Mosaic (Deu 31:20; Num 14:11, Num 14:23; Num 16:30). It is with intention that God is designated here as “the Holy One of Israel,”a name which constitutes the keynote of all Isaiah’s prophecy (see at Isa 6:3). It was sin to mock at anything holy; it was a double sin to mock at God, the Holy One; but it was a threefold sin for Israel to mock at God the Holy One, who had set Himself to be the sanctifier of Israel, and required that as He was Israel’s sanctification, He should also be sanctified by Israel according to His holiness (Lev 19:2, etc.). And lastly, there was also apostasy in action: “they have turned away backwards;” or, as the Vulgate renders it, abalienati sunt. נזור is the reflective of זוּר, related to נור and סוּר, for which it is the word commonly used in the Targum. The niphal, which is only met with here, indicates the deliberate character of their estrangement from God; and the expression is rendered still more emphatic by the introduction of the word “backwards” (achor, which is used emphatically in the place of מאחריו). In all their actions they ought to have followed Jehovah; but they had turned their backs upon Him, and taken the way selected by themselves. Isa 1:5

In this v. a disputed question arises as to the words על־מה (מה, the shorter, sharper form of מה, which is common even before non-gutturals, Ges. §32, 1): viz., whether they mean “wherefore,” as the lxx, Targums, Vulgate, and most of the early versions render them, or “upon what,” i.e., upon which part of the body, as others, including Schröring, suppose. Luzzatto maintains that the latter rendering is spiritless, more especially because there is nothing in the fact that a limb has been struck already to prevent its being struck again; but such objections as these can only arise in connection with a purely literal interpretation of the passage. If we adopted this rendering, the real meaning would be, that there was no judgment whatever that had not already fallen upon Israel on account of its apostasy, so that it was not far from utter destruction. We agree, however, with Caspari in deciding in favour of the meaning “to what” (to what end). For in all the other passage in which the expression occurs (fourteen times in all), it is used in this sense, and once even with the verb hiccâh, to smite (Num 22:32), whilst it is only in Isa 1:6 that the idea of the people as one body is introduced; whereas the question “upon what” would require that the reader or hearer should presuppose it here. But in adopting the rendering “whereto,” or to what end, we do not understand it, as Malbim does, in the sense of Cui bono, with the underlying thought, “It would be ineffectual, as all the previous smiting has proved;” for this thought never comes out in a direct expression, as we should expect, but rather - according to the analogy of the questions with lamah in Eze 18:31; Jer 44:7 -in the sense of qua de causa, with the underlying thought, “There would be only an infatuated pleasure in your own destruction.”Isa 1:5 we therefore render thus: “Why would ye be perpetually smitten, multiplying rebellion?” עוד (with tiphchah, a stronger disjunctive than tebir) belongs to תּכּוּ; see the same form of accentuation in Eze 19:9. They are not two distinct interrogative clauses (“why would ye be smitten afresh? why do ye add revolt?” (Luzzatto), but the second clause is subordinate to the first (without there being any necessity to supply Chi, “because,” as Gesenius supposes), an adverbial minor clause defining the main clause more precisely; at all events this is the logical connection, as in Isa 5:11 (cf., Psa 62:4, “delighting in lies,” and Psa 4:3, “loving vanity”): lxx “adding iniquity.” Sârâh (rebellion) is a deviation from truth and rectitude; and here, as in many other instances, it denotes apostasy from Jehovah, who is the absolutely Good, and absolute goodness. There is a still further dispute whether the next words should be rendered “every head” and “every heart,” or “the whole head” and “the whole heart.” In prose the latter would be impossible, as the two nouns are written without the article; but in the poetic style of the prophets the article may be omitted after Col, when used in the sense of “the whole” (e.g., Isa 9:12 : with whole mouth, i.e., with full mouth). Nevertheless Col, without the article following, never signifies “the whole” when it occurs several times in succession, as in Isa 15:2 and Eze 7:17-18. We must therefore render Isa 1:5, “Every head is diseased, and every heart is sick.” The Lamed in locholi indicates the state into which a thing has come: every head in a state of disease (Ewald, §217, d: locholi without the article, as in 2Ch 21:18). The prophet asks his fellow-countrymen why they are so foolish as to heap apostasy upon apostasy, and so continue to call down the judgments of God, which have already fallen upon them blow after blow. Has it reached such a height with them, that among all the many heads and hearts there is not one head which is not in a diseased state, not one heart which is not thoroughly ill? (davvai an emphatic form of daveh). Head and heart are mentioned as the noblest parts of the outer and inner man. Outwardly and inwardly every individual in the nation had already been smitten by the wrath of God, so that they had had enough, and might have been brought to reflection. Isa 1:6

This description of the total misery of every individual in the nation is followed by a representation of the whole nation as one miserably diseased body. “From the some of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it: cuts, and stripes, and festering wounds; they have not been pressed out, nor bound up, nor has there been any soothing with oil.” The body of the nation, to which the expression “in it” applies (i.e., the nation as a whole), was covered with wounds of different kinds; and no means whatever had been applied to heal these many, various wounds, which lay all together, close to one another, and one upon the other, covering the whole body. Cuts (from פּצע to cut) are wounds that have cut into the flesh - sword-cuts, for example. These need binding up, in order that the gaping wound may close again. Stripes (Chabburâh, from Châbar, to stripe), swollen stripes, or weals, as if from a cut with a whip, or a blow with a fist: these require softening with oil, that the coagulated blood of swelling may disperse. Festering wounds, maccâh teriyâh, from târâh, to be fresh (a different word from the talmudic word t're, Chullin 45 b, to thrust violently, so as to shake): these need pressing, for the purpose of cleansing them, so as to facilitate their healing. Thus the three predicates manifest an approximation to a chiasm (the crossing of the members); but this retrospective relation is not thoroughly carried out. The predicates are written in the plural, on account of the collective subject. The clause ולא רּכּכה בּשּׁמן, which refers to חבורה (stripes), so far as the sense is concerned (olive-oil, like all oleosa, being a dispersing medium), is to be taken as neuter, since this is the only way of explaining the change in the number: “And no softening has been effected with oil.” Zoru we might suppose to be a pual, especially on account of the other puals near: it is not so, however, for the simple reason that, according to the accentuation (viz., with two pashtahs, the first of which gives the tone, as in tohu, Gen 1:2, so that it must be pronounced zóru), it has the tone upon the penultimate, for which it would be impossible to discover any reason, if it were derived from zârâh. For the assumption that the tone is drawn back to prepare the way for the strong tone of the next verb (Chubbâshu) is arbitrary, as the influence of the pause, though it sometimes reaches the last word but one, never extends to the last but two. Moreover, according to the usage of speech, zorâh signifies to be dispersed, not to be pressed out; whereas zur and zârar are commonly used in the sense of pressing together and squeezing out. Consequently zoru is either the kal of an intransitive zor in the middle voice (like boshu), or, what is more probable - as zoru, the middle voice in Psa 58:4, has a different meaning (abalienati sunt: cf., Isa 1:4) - the kal of zârar (= Arab. Constringere), which is here conjugated as an intransitive (cf., Job 24:24, rommu, and Gen 49:23, where robbu is used in an active sense). The surgical treatment so needed by the nation was a figurative representation of the pastoral addresses of the prophets, which had been delivered indeed, but, inasmuch as their salutary effects were dependent upon the penitential sorrow of the people, might as well have never been delivered at all. The people had despised the merciful, compassionate kindness of their God. They had no liking for the radical cure which the prophets had offered to effect. All the more pitiable, therefore, was the condition of the body, which was sick within, and diseased from head to foot. The prophet is speaking here of the existing state of things. He affirms that it is all over with the nation; and this is the ground and object of his reproachful lamentations. Consequently, when he passes in the next v. from figurative language to literal, we may presume that he is still speaking of his own times. It is Isaiah’s custom to act in this manner as his own expositor (compare Isa 1:22 with Isa 1:23). The body thus inwardly and outwardly diseased, was, strictly speaking, the people and the land in their fearful condition at that time.