Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope,
Parallel Translations
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Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope,
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Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
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Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope,
Cross-references (21)
Passages linked to Isaiah 5:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 23:14 In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.”
- Psalms 36:2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes, too much to detect and hate his sin.
- Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?
- Jeremiah 23:10 For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;
- Ezekiel 13:22 Because with lies you have grieved the heart of the righteous, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, and be saved alive.
- Judges 17:5 The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.
- Judges 17:13 Then Micah said, “Now I know that Yahweh will do good to me, since I have a Levite as my priest.”
- 2 Samuel 16:20-23 Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give your counsel what we shall do.” Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Go in to your father’s concubines that he has left to keep the house. Then all Israel will hear that you are abhorred by your father. Then the hands of all who are with you will be strong.” So they spread a tent for Absalom on the top of the house, and Absalom went in to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel. The counsel of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days, was as if a man inquired at the inner sanctuary of God. All the counsel of Ahithophel both was like this with David and with Absalom.
- Psalms 10:11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see it.”
- Psalms 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt. They have done abominable deeds. There is no one who does good.
- Psalms 94:5-11 They break your people in pieces, Yahweh, and afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the alien, and murder the fatherless. They say, “Yah will not see, neither will Jacob’s God consider.” Consider, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you be wise? He who implanted the ear, won’t he hear? He who formed the eye, won’t he see? He who disciplines the nations, won’t he punish? He who teaches man knows. Yahweh knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile.
- Isaiah 28:15 “Because you have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and we are in agreement with Sheol. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it won’t come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and we have hidden ourselves under falsehood.’ ”
- Isaiah 59:4-8 No one sues in righteousness, and no one pleads in truth. They trust in vanity, and speak lies. They conceive mischief, and give birth to iniquity. They hatch adders’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web. He who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper. Their webs won’t become garments. They won’t cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are in their paths. They don’t know the way of peace; and there is no justice in their ways. They have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever goes in them doesn’t know peace.
- Jeremiah 8:5-9 Why then have the people of Jerusalem fallen back by a perpetual backsliding? They cling to deceit. They refuse to return. I listened and heard, but they didn’t say what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle. Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times. The turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law. “ ‘How do you say, “We are wise, and Yahweh’s law is with us?” But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made that a lie. The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected Yahweh’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them?
- Jeremiah 23:24 Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says Yahweh. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 28:15-16 Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen, Hananiah! Yahweh has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie. Therefore Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I will send you away from off the surface of the earth. This year you will die, because you have spoken rebellion against Yahweh.’ ”
- Jeremiah 44:15-19 Then all the men who knew that their wives burned incense to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, even all the people who lived in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, “As for the word that you have spoken to us in Yahweh’s name, we will not listen to you. But we will certainly perform every word that has gone out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of the sky, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. “When we burned incense to the queen of the sky, and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to her, without our husbands?”
- Ezekiel 13:10-11 “ ‘Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, “Peace;” and there is no peace. When one builds up a wall, behold, they plaster it with whitewash. Tell those who plaster it with whitewash that it will fall. There will be an overflowing shower; and you, great hailstones, will fall. A stormy wind will tear it.
- Zephaniah 1:12 It will happen at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in their heart, “Yahweh will not do good, neither will he do evil.”
- John 16:2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.
- Acts 26:9 “I myself most certainly thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (19 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Which use all allurements, occasions, and excuses to harden…
Which use all allurements, occasions, and excuses to harden their conscience in sin.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 5:18 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with…
Isa 5:18 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
Ver. 18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity.] That draw sin to them, as a beast draweth a cart after it. Here the prophet reproveth and threateneth such, saith an interpreter, {a} as sin without any strong temptation or occasion drawing them thereunto; yea, they draw sin to themselves as with ropes, et quodammodo velut invitum et repugnans cogunt, not remembering that sin haleth hell at the heels of it. Let such get from under sin’s cart as soon as they can, otherwise they shall be "holden with the cords (punishments) of their iniquity; they shall die without instruction," &c. {Pro 5:22} The devils, as they sinned without a tempter, so they perish without a Saviour. Cavete. Beware!
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{a} Nihil agitantes nisi malum omni studio suo. - Jun. Qui data opera peccant. - Scultet,
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain That draw iniquity; that are not only drawn to…
That draw iniquity; that are not only drawn to sin by the allurements of the world, or by the persuasions of wicked men, being surprised and overtaken by sin, as sometimes good men are, Gal 6:1, but are active and industrious in drawing sin to themselves, or themselves to sin; that greedily and steadily pursue sill, and the occasions of it, and are not at rest till they have overtaken it; that sin wilfully, and resolvedly, and industriously.
With cords of vanity; or, with cords of lying, as the last word frequently signifies, i.e. with vain and deceitful arguments and pretences, whereby sinners generally draw themselves to sin; among which, one follows in the next verse, to wit, the impunity which they promise to themselves. Or these cords may note the means which they use to accomplish that iniquity which they have devised.
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With a cart rope; with all their might, as beasts commonly do that draw carts with ropes.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here are, I. Sins described which will bring judgments…
Here are, I. Sins described which will bring judgments upon a people: and this perhaps is not only a charge drawn up against the men of Judah who lived at that time, and the particular articles of that charge, though it may relate primarily to them, but is rather intended for warning to all people, in all ages, to take heed of these sins, as destructive both to particular persons and to communities, and exposing men to God's wrath and his righteous judgments. Those are here said to be in a woeful condition,
1. Who are eagerly set upon sin, and violent in their sinful pursuits (Isa 5:18), who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, who take as much pains to sin as the cattle do that draw a team, who put themselves to the stretch for the gratifying of their inordinate appetites, and, to humour a base lust, offer violence to nature itself. They think themselves as sure of compassing their wicked project as if they were pulling it towards them with strong cart-ropes; but they will find themselves disappointed, for they will prove cords of vanity, which will break when they come to any stress. For the righteous Lord will cut in sunder the cords of the wicked, Psa 129:4; Job 4:8; Pro 22:8. They are by long custom and confirmed habits so hardened in sin that they cannot get clear of it. Those that sin through infirmity are drawn away by sin; those that sin presumptuously draw iniquity to them, in spite of the oppositions of Providence and the checks of conscience. Some by sin understand the punishment of sin: they pull God's judgments upon their own heads as it were, with cart-ropes.
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2. Who set the justice of God at defiance, and challenge the Almighty to do his worst (Isa 5:19): They say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work; this is the same language with that of the scoffers of the last days, who say, Where is the promise of his coming? and therefore it is that, like them, they draw iniquity with cords of vanity, are violent and daring in sin, and walk after their own lusts, Pe2 3:3, Pe2 3:4. (1.) They ridicule the prophets, and banter them. It is in scorn that they call God the Holy One of Israel, because the prophets used with great veneration to call him so. (2.) They will not believe the revelation of God's wrath from heaven against their ungodliness and unrighteousness; unless they see it executed, they will not know it, as if the curse were brutum fulmen - a mere flash, and all the threatenings of the word bugbears to frighten fools and children. (3.) If God should appear against them, as he has threatened, yet they think themselves able to make their part good with him, and provoke him to jealousy, as if they were stronger than he, Co1 10:22. "We have heard his word, but it is all talk; let him hasten his work, we shall shift for ourselves well enough." Note, Those that wilfully persist in sin consider not the power of God's anger.
3. Who confound and overthrow the distinctions between moral good and evil, who call evil good and moral evil (Isa 5:20), who not only live in the omission of that which is good, but condemn it, argue against it, and, because they will not practise it themselves, run it down in others, and fasten invidious epithets upon it - not only do that which is evil, but justify it, and applaud it, and recommend it to others as safe and good. Note, (1.) Virtue and piety are good, for they are light and sweet, they are pleasant and right; but sin and wickedness are evil; they are darkness, all the fruit of ignorance and mistake, and will be bitterness in the latter end. (2.) Those do a great deal of wrong to God, and religion, and conscience, to their own souls, and to the souls of others, who misrepresent these, and put false colours upon them - who call drunkenness good fellowship, and covetousness good husbandry, and, when they persecute the people of God, think they do him good service - and, on the other hand, who call seriousness ill-nature, and sober singularity ill-breeding, who say all manner of evil falsely concerning the ways of godliness, and do what they can to form in men's minds prejudices against them, and this in defiance of evidence as plain and convincing as that of sense, by which we distinguish, beyond contradiction, between light and darkness, and between that which to the taste is sweet and that which is bitter.
4. Who though they are guilty of such gross mistakes as these have a great opinion of their own judgments, and value themselves mightily upon their understanding (Isa 5:21): They are wise in their own eyes; they think themselves able to disprove and baffle the reproofs and convictions of God's word, and to evade and elude both the searches and the reaches of his judgments; they think they can outwit Infinite Wisdom and countermine Providence itself. Or it may be taken more generally: God resists the proud, those particularly who are conceited of their own wisdom and lean to their own understanding; such must become fools, that they may be truly wise, or else, at their end they shall appear to be fools before all the world.
5. Who glory in it as a great accomplishment that they are able to bear a great deal of strong liquor without being overcome by it (Isa 5:22), who are mighty to drink wine, and use their strength and vigour, not in the service of their country, but in the service of their lusts. Let drunkards know from this scripture that, (1.) They ungratefully abuse their bodily strength, which God has given them for good purposes, and by degrees cannot but weaken it. (2.) It will not excuse them from the guilt of drunkenness that they can drink hard and yet keep their feet. (3.) Those who boast of their drinking down others glory in their shame. (4.) How light soever men make of their drunkenness, it is a sin which will certainly lay them open to the wrath and curse of God.
6. Who, as judges, pervert justice, and go counter to all rules of equity, Isa 5:23. This follows upon the former; they drink and forget the law (Pro 31:5), and err through wine (Isa 28:7), and take bribes, that they may have wherewithal to maintain their luxury. They justify the wicked for reward, and find some pretence or other to clear him from his guilt and shelter him from punishment; and they condemn the innocent, and take away their righteousness from them, that is, overrule their pleas, deprive them of the means of clearing up their innocency, and give judgment against them. In causes between man and man, might and money would at any time prevail against right and justice; and he who was ever so plainly in the wrong would with a small bribe carry the cause and recover the costs. In criminal causes, though the prisoner ever so plainly appeared to be guilty, yet for a reward they would acquit him; if he were innocent, yet if he did not fee them well, nay, if they were feed by the malicious prosecutor, or if they themselves had spleen against him, they would condemn him.
II. The judgments described, which these sins would bring upon them. Let not those expect to live easily who live thus wickedly; for the righteous God will take vengeance, Isa 5:24-30. Here we may observe,
1. How complete this ruin will be, and how necessarily and unavoidably it will follow upon their sins. He had compared this people to a vine (Isa 5:7), well fixed, and which, it was hoped, would be flourishing and fruitful; but the grace of God towards it was received in vain, and then the root became rottenness, being dried up from beneath, and the blossom would of course blow off as dust, as a light and worthless thing, Job 18:16. Sin weakens the strength, the root, of a people, so that they are easily rooted up; it defaces the beauty, the blossoms, of a people, and takes away the hopes of fruit. The sin of unfruitfulness is punished with the plague of unfruitfulness. Sinners make themselves as stubble and chaff, combustible matter, proper fuel to the fire of God's wrath, which then of course devours and consumes them, as the fire devours the stubble, and nobody can hinder it, or cares to hinder it. Chaff is consumed, unhelped and unpitied.
2. How just the ruin will be: Because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and would not have him to reign over them; and, as the law of Moses was rejected and thrown off, so the word of the Holy One of Israel by his servants the prophets, putting them in mind of his law and calling them to obedience, was despised and disregarded. God does not reject men for every transgression of his law and word; but, when his word is despised and his law cast away, what can they expect but that God should utterly abandon them?
3. Whence this ruin should come (Isa 5:25): it is destruction from the Almighty. (1.) The justice of God appoints it; for that is the anger of the Lord which is kindled against his people, his necessary vindication of the honour of his holiness and authority. (2.) The power of God effects it: He has stretched forth his hand against them. That hand which had many a time been stretched out for them against their enemies is now stretched out against them at full length and in its full vigour; and who knows the power of his anger? Whether they are sensible of it or no, it is God that has smitten them, has blasted their vine and made it wither.
4. The consequences and continuance of this ruin. When God comes forth in wrath against a people the hills tremble, fear seizes even their great men, who are strong and high, the earth shakes under men and is ready to sink; and as this feels dreadful (what does more so than an earthquake?) so what sight can be more frightful than the carcases of men torn with dogs, or thrown as dung (so the margin reads it) in the midst of the streets? This intimates that great multitudes should be slain, not only soldiers in the field of battle, but the inhabitants of their cities put to the sword in cold blood, and that the survivors should neither have hands nor hearts to bury them. This is very dreadful, and yet such is the merit of sin that, for all this, God's anger is not turned away; that fire will burn as long as there remains any of the stubble and chaff to be fuel for it; and his hand, which he stretched forth against his people to smite them, because they do not by prayer take hold of it, nor by reformation submit themselves to it, is stretched out still.
5. The instruments that should be employed in bringing this ruin upon them: it should be done by the incursions of a foreign enemy, that should lay all waste. No particular enemy is named, and therefore we are to take it as a prediction of all the several judgments of this kind which God brought upon the Jews, Sennacherib's invasion soon after, and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans first and at last by the Romans; and I think it is to be looked upon also as a threatening of the like desolation of those countries which harbour and countenance those sins mentioned in the foregoing verses; it is an exposition of those woes. When God designs the ruin of a provoking people,
(1.) He can send a great way off for instruments to be employed in effecting it; he can raise forces from afar, and summon them from the end of the earth to attend his service, Isa 5:26. Those who know him not are made use of to fulfil his counsel, when, by reason of their distance, they can scarcely be supposed to have any ends of their own to serve. If God set up his standard, he can incline men's hearts to enlist themselves under it, though perhaps they know not why or wherefore. When the Lord of hosts is pleased to make a general muster of the forces he has at his command, he has a great army in an instant, Joe 2:2, Joe 2:11. He needs not sound a trumpet, nor beat a drum, to give them notice or to animate them; no, he does but hiss to them, or rather whistle to them, and that is enough; they hear that, and that puts courage into them. Note, God has all the creatures at his beck.
(2.) He can make them come into the service with incredible expedition: Behold, they shall come with speed swiftly. Note, [1.] Those who will do God's work must not loiter, must not linger, nor shall they when his time has come. [2.] Those who defy God's judgments will be ashamed of their insolence when it is too late; they said scornfully (Isa 5:19), Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, and they shall find, to their terror and confusion, that he will; in one hour has the judgment come.
(3.) He can carry them on in the service with amazing forwardness and fury. This is described here in very elegant and lofty expressions, Isa 5:27-30. [1.] Though their marches be very long, yet none among them shall be weary; so desirous they be to engage that they shall forget their weariness, and make no complaints of it. [2.] Though the way be rough, and perhaps embarrassed by the usual policies of war, yet none among them shall stumble, but all the difficulties in their way shall easily be got over. [3.] Though they be forced to keep constant watch, yet none shall slumber nor sleep, so intent shall they be upon their work, in prospect of having the plunder of the city for their pains. [4.] They shall not desire any rest of relaxation; they shall not put off their clothes, nor loose the girdle of their loins, but shall always have their belts on and swords by their sides. [5.] They shall not meet with the least hindrance to retard their march or oblige them to halt; not a latchet of their shoes shall be broken which they must stay to mend, as Jos 9:13. [6.] Their arms and ammunition shall all be fixed, and in good posture; their arrows sharp, to wound deep, and all their bows bent, none unstrung, for they expect to be soon in action. [7.] Their horses and chariots of war shall all be fit for service; their horses so strong, so hardy, that their hoofs shall be like flint, far from being beaten, or made tender, by their long march; and the wheels of their chariots not broken, or battered, or out of repair, but swift like a whirlwind, turning round so strongly upon their axle-trees. [8.] All the soldiers shall be bold and daring (Isa 5:29): Their roaring, or shouting, before a battle, shall be like a lion, who with his roaring animates himself, and terrifies all about him. Those who would not hear the voice of God speaking to them by his prophets, but stopped their ears against their charms, shall be made to hear the voice of their enemies roaring against them and shall not be able to turn a deaf ear to it. They shall roar like the roaring of the sea in a storm; it roars and threatens to swallow up, as the lion roars and threatens to tear in pieces. [9.] There shall not be the least prospect of relief or succour. The enemy shall come in like a flood, and there shall be none to lift up a standard against him. He shall seize the prey, and none shall deliver it, none shall be able to deliver it, nay, none shall so much as dare to attempt the deliverance of it, but shall give it up for lost. Let the distressed look which way they will, every thing appears dismal; for, if God frowns upon us, how can any creature smile? First, Look round to the earth, to the land, to that land that used to be the land of light and the joy of the whole earth, and behold darkness and sorrow, all frightful, all mournful, nothing hopeful. Secondly, Look up to heaven, and there the light is darkened, where one would expect to have found it. If the light is darkened in the heavens, how great is that darkness! If God hide his face, no marvel the heavens hide theirs and appear gloomy, Job 34:29. It is our wisdom, by keeping a good conscience, to keep all clear between us and heaven, that we may have light from above even when clouds and darkness are round about us.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of…
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity,.... The prophet returns to the wicked again, and goes on with the account of their sin and punishment; and here describes such, not that are drawn into sin unawares, through the prevalence of their own hearts' lusts and corruptions, through the temptations of Satan, the snares of the world, or the persuasions of others; but such who draw it to themselves, seek after it, and willingly commit it; who rush and force themselves into it; who solicit it, and seek and take all occasions and opportunities of doing it; and take a great deal of pains about it; and make use of all arguments, reasonings, and pretences they can devise, to engage themselves and others in the practice of it; which are all cords of vanity, fallacious and deceitful.
And sin as it were with a cart rope; using all diligence, wisdom, policy, and strength; labouring with all might and main to effect it. Some by "iniquity" and "sin" understand punishment, as the words used sometimes signify; and that the sense is, that such persons described by their boldness and impudence in sinning, by their impenitence and hardness of heart, and by adding sin to sin, draw upon themselves swift destruction, and the greater damnation. The Targum interprets it of such that begin with lesser sins, and increase to more ungodliness; paraphrasing it thus,
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"woe to them that begin to sin a little, and they go on and increase until that they are strong, and "their" sins "are" as a cart rope;''
to which agrees that saying in the Talmud (g),
"the evil imagination or corruption of nature at first is like a spider's thread, but at last it is like to cart ropes; as it is said, "woe to them that draw iniquity", &c.''
(g) T. Bab. Succa, fol. 52. 1. & Sanhedrin, fol. 99. 2. Vid. Bereshit Rabba, sect. 22. fol. 19. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain That draw - That are not only drawn to…
That draw - That are not only drawn to sin by the allurements of the world; but are active and illustrious in drawing sin to themselves. Cords - Or, with cords of lying, as the last word frequently signifies, with vain and deceitful arguments and pretenses, whereby sinners generally draw themselves to sin. A rope - With all their might, as beasts commonly do that draw carts with ropes.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 18. With a cart-rope - "As a long…
Verse 18. With a cart-rope - "As a long cable"] The Septuagint, Aquila, Sym., and Theod., for בחבלי bechabley, read כחבלי kechahley, ως σχοινιω, or σχοινιοις; and the Septuagint, instead of שוא shau, read some other word signifying long; ως σχοινιωμακρω; and so likewise the Syriac, אריכא arecha. Houbigant conjectures that the word which the Septuagint had in their copies was שרוע sarua, which is used Le 21:18; Le 22:23, for something in an animal body superfluous, lengthened beyond its natural measure. And he explains it of sin added to sin, and one sin drawing on another, till the whole comes to an enormous length and magnitude; compared to the work of a rope-maker still increasing and lengthening his rope, with the continued addition of new materials. "Eos propheta similes facit homini restiario, qui funem torquet, cannabe addita et contorta, eadem iterans, donec funem in longum duxerit, neque eum liceat protrahi longius." "An evil inclination," says Kimchi on this place, from the ancient rabbins, "is at the beginning like a fine hair-string, but at the finishing like a thick cart-rope." By a long progression in iniquity, and a continued accumulation of sin, men arrive at length to the highest degree of wickedness; bidding open defiance to God, and scoffing at his threatened judgments, as it is finely expressed in the next verse. The Chaldee paraphrast explains it in the same manner, of wickedness increasing from small beginnings, till it arrives to a great magnitude. - L.
I believe neither the rabbins nor Bishop Lowth have hit on the true meaning of this place, the prophet seems to refer to idol sacrifices. The victims they offered were splendidly decked out for the sacrifice. Their horns and hoofs were often gilded, and their heads dressed out with fillets and garlands. The cords of vanity may refer to the silken strings by which they were led to the altar, some of which were unusually thick. The offering for iniquity was adorned with fillets and garlands; the sin-offering with silken cords, like unto cart-ropes. Pride, in their acts of humiliation, had the upper hand.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 5:18-19. Wo unto them that draw iniquity —…
Isa 5:18-19. Wo unto them that draw iniquity — That are not only drawn to sin by the allurements of the world, or by the persuasions of wicked men, but are active and industrious in drawing sin to themselves, or themselves to sin: with cords of vanity — Or, of lying, as the word שׁואfrequently signifies; that is, with vain and deceitful arguments and pretences, whereby sinners generally draw themselves to sin, such as, That God does not regard human affairs; that many of the greatest sinners often go unpunished; that we see no proofs of the divine interposition, &c. See 2Pe 3:3-4. And sin with a cart-rope — With all their might, as beasts that draw carts with ropes. That say, Let him make speed — Namely, God, in whose name thou and other prophets are always reproving and threatening us; and hasten his work, that we may see it — He only thinks to affright us, as if we were fools or children, with bugbears, or pretended evils: he either cannot, or will not, do us any harm. This was the plain language of their actions; they lived as if they were of this opinion. And let the counsel of the Holy One draw nigh — What you have declared to be his counsel, with regard to our going into captivity, and which, you say, his holiness obliges him to execute: they scornfully repeat the title of Holy One, usually given by the prophets to God. And come, that we may know it — We cannot believe that it will ever happen unless we see it with our eyes. Thus, “by a long progression in iniquity, and a continued accumulation of sin, men arrive at length to the highest degree of wickedness; bidding open defiance to God, and scoffing at his threatened judgments;” to which they cannot be persuaded to give any credit till they find them executed upon them.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Wo unto them ... - This is a new…
Wo unto them ... - This is a new denunciation. It introduces another form of sin, and threatens its appropriate punishment.
That draw iniquity with cords of vanity - The general idea in this verse and the next, is, doubtless, that of plunging deeper and deeper into sin. The word “sin” here, has been sometimes supposed to mean “the punishment” for sin. The word has that meaning sometimes, but it seems here to be taken in its usual sense. The word “cords” means strings of any kind, larger or smaller; and the expression “cords of vanity,” is supposed to mean “small, slender, feeble” strings, like the web of a spider. The word vanity שׁוא shâv', May, perhaps, have the sense here of falsehood or deceit; and the cords of deceit may denote the schemes of evil, the plans for deceiving people, or of bringing them into a snare, as the fowler springs his deceitful snare upon the unsuspecting bird. The Chaldee translates it, ‘Woe to those who begin to sin by little and little, drawing sin by cords of vanity; these sins grow and increase until they are strong, and are like a cart-rope.’ The Septuagint renders it, ‘Woe to those who draw sin with a long cable;’ that is,” one sin is added to another, until it comes to an enormous length, and the whole is drawn along together. Probably the true idea is that of the ancient interpretation of the rabbis, ‘An evil inclination is at first like a fine hair string, but the finishing like a cart-rope.’ At first, they draw sin with a slender cord, then they go on to greater deeds of iniquity that urge them on, and draw them with their main strength, as with a cart-rope. They make a strong “effort” to commit iniquity.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Cart. Fatiguing themselves with iniquity, (Wisdom v. 7.; Calmet)…
Cart. Fatiguing themselves with iniquity, (Wisdom v. 7.; Calmet) and delaying your conversion. (St. Isidore) (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Third Woe--against obstinate perseverance in sin, as if they…
Third Woe--against obstinate perseverance in sin, as if they wished to provoke divine judgments.
iniquity--guilt, incurring punishment [MAURER].
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cords, &c.--cart-rope--Rabbins say, "An evil inclination is at first like a fine hair-string, but the finishing like a cart-rope." The antithesis is between the slender cords of sophistry, like the spider's web (Isa 59:5; Job 8:14), with which one sin draws on another, until they at last bind themselves with great guilt as with a cart-rope. They strain every nerve in sin.
vanity--wickedness.
sin--substantive, not a verb: they draw on themselves "sin" and its penalty recklessly.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 18. Draw iniquity — [The truly muscular sinners, who…
18. Draw iniquity — [The truly muscular sinners, who put their pluck and power into the business of sin: so that they are like very stout pullers who draw the greatest cartloads with the strongest of ropes. Yet the cords that bind them to the huge loads of iniquity they carry are but cords of vanity, of infatuated folly.]
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 18. The figure seems to express two ideas: (1)…
18. The figure seems to express two ideas: (1) the determination with which these men set themselves to work iniquity, and (2) the inevitable connexion between sin and judgment. The idea of punishment is included in the words iniquity (or “guilt”) and sin.
18, 19. The third woe, against the mocking scepticism which leads men to harden themselves in sin. The men addressed do not believe in the prophet’s threats of a day of retribution yet all the while they are unconsciously doing their utmost to bring about their fulfilment.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (18) That draw iniquity with cords of vanity.—The phrase…
(18) That draw iniquity with cords of vanity.—The phrase is boldly figurative. Evil-doers are thought of as harnessing themselves as to the chariot of sin. The “cords of vanity”—i.e., of emptiness or ungodliness—are the habits by which they are thus bound. The “cart ropes,” thicker and stronger than the “cords,” represent the extreme stage, when such habits become irresistibly dominant. Probably the words may point to some idolatrous procession, in which the chariot of Baal or Ashtaroth was thus drawn by their worshippers, like that of Demêter or Cybele in Greece, or Juggernâth in India.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Woe unto them, etc. We come here to the…
Woe unto them, etc. We come here to the third woe, which is pronounced against those who openly pile up sin upon sin, and scoff at God. These men are represented as "drawing iniquity with cords of vanity," i.e. dragging after them a load of sin by cords that seem too weak; and then as "sinning with a cart-rope," which is a mere variant expression of the same idea. Mr. Cheyne quotes from the Rig-Veda, as a parallel metaphor, the phrase, "Undo the rope of sin.
Vers. 18-24. Analysis of sin.
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I THE VAIN AND WANTON MIND. A singular image is used. Men are described as drawing down upon themselves, as with stout and strong ropes, the burden of sin and guilt. Such is the effect of their mocking jests and speeches. Dramatically, the hearers of the prophet are represented as exclaiming defiantly, "Let his wrath hasten, let it speed, let us see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it I" Amos alludes to the same spirit of the time, of scoffing contempt of the signs and omens of a dread future. "Woe unto you that desire the day of Jehovah to what end is it for you? the day of Jehovah will be darkness, and not light". (Amo_5:18) Idly do they dream that thus they put far away the evil day which is close at hand. (Amo_6:3) "The evil day shall not overtake nor prevent us!" they persist in saying. (Amo_9:10) In idle and willful minds superstitions about words are deeply lodged. By insisting that a wished event must take place, they think to bring it about; by repeating of something dreaded, "It shall not happen," to avert it. But mere words have no magic in them. As the incoming tide had no respect for the commands of King Knut"s followers, so neither can the tidal march of moral forces be stayed by defiance or incantations. But our words and wishes have a powerful reflex effect upon our own moods. And this denial in words of God"s truth must in time quite harden the conscience and blind the inner eye for them. We may shake our fist at the growing thundercloud, but it will not disappear. We may try to quell a demand for reform by obstinate clamors of, "It shall not be!" but only the more surely will it proceed to accomplishment.
II CONFUSION OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS. This is a further step in the climax and progress of evil. It is indeed a serious reflection how far we may succeed, by acts of depraved will, in shutting out the light that would stream in upon the mind, or in quenching the light within. Both are at once involved in the sin against intelligence. This is, indeed, the sin against the Holy Ghost the sin that cannot be forgiven. How solemn are the words of the prophet elsewhere: "It was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged away from you till ye! (Isa_22:14) Another serious question is, how far words may influence thought, and the habit of saying false things disable the mind from seeing the true. South has some powerful sermons from this text, entitled "The fatal force and imposture of words." Though an absolute falsehood cannot live, adulterations of the truth may and do obtain a wide currency, just as adulterations of meat and drink in the half-dishonesties of trade. Every truth comes to us in a certain guise of falsehood; no form of language or other expression is adequate to clothe it. By insisting on the form as if it were the content, the outside as if it were identical with the inside, the part as if it were the whole, we commit ourselves to falsehood rather than to truth. The essence of social falsehoods seems to be in maxims which make the spiritual subordinate to the material. In times of physical comfort and prosperity this is always our danger. We mistake the means of living for the ends. We rest in pleasure, comfort, wealth, instead of making these the temporary standing ground of the spirit, whence it may proceed to higher levels and nobler ends.
III SELF-CONCEITED FOLLY. We never see the full effect of sin, of heart-untruth, until it works itself out in the imagination, filling the mind with a fatuous self-complacency in its own weakness and blindness. The man thinks himself "wise," "intelligent," who, to the piercing gaze of the prophet, is clearly a fool. He thinks himself" a hero, whose best exploit is to shine at a drinking-bout, and a mighty man because he can play his part at the wassail, says the prophet with keen irony. Meanwhile they are deep in bribery. They would rob the poor of his honesty, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from them. There are towns and villages where we may now see on a small scale all those evils which the prophet exposed in Jerusalem. Evil examples, old and bad custom have so long had their way that a true standard of living seems no longer to be visible. Yet the moral tone may be restored, if there be but one man who will live like the prophet, like a Christian, salting the community by a quiet and continuous witness for rectitude, for the truth of God, and the soul.
IV THE END OF THE UNGODLY AND THE SINNER. In a powerful picture the end is depicted as the end to which all that is empty and worthless refuse must come. They are like stubble before the devouring tongue of fire, like blazing hay sinking down in light ashes, like a root struck with decay and rottenness, like flying powdery blossom. Evil is naught, and ends in naught. Those whose honor has been rooted in dishonor" must perish with the perishing of their root. The decline of once great nations and cities historically proves the prophetic truth. A "name and a shade" is left of Assyria, Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Rome. But one thing cannot perish: it is the doctrine of Jehovah, the Word of the Holy One of Israel." And in some "remnant" that Word ever does live, to breed new life in other scenes and ages. The truth, while it slays the rebels, gives immortality to the faithful; "born again, not of corruptible, but of incorruptible seed. J.
Vers. 18, 19. Sin in its strength.
We have here some thoughts about sin.
I ITS EVIL GROWTH. Whatever the precise thought of the prophet, his words (ver. 18) are strongly suggestive of the fact that sin gradually attains a terrible power. Its "pull" may at first be that of a silken thread; presently it becomes that of a strong string; then it is found to be that of a hard wire; finally it reaches that of a "cart-rope." And this, whether we regard the sinner as
(1) the man no whom iniquity acts, or as
(2) the agent through whom its force is exerted on others.
In the one case he is moved only with great difficulty, and often the bond which is thrown about him snaps in twain; but, in time, sin gains strength, and it pulls him as with a rope that cannot be broken. In the other case probably the one here intended he himself hardly succeeds, sometimes fails, in leading men astray; but in course of time he draws his neighbors along the road of wrong-doing with ease; the tie by which he holds and by which he constrains them is stout and strong. He draws sin as it were with a cart-rope.
1. Shun the first overtures of the ungodly; have nothing to do, in the way of friendship, with the enemies of truth and righteousness.
2. If men have acquired a fascinating power over you, there is no deliverance from their evil grasp save by genuine penitence and an earnest appeal to the Almighty Friend; his hand can cut the strongest cords of sin.
II ITS FEARFUL CULMINATION. Sin reaches its summit when it stands on the height of impious defiance of the living God (ver. 19). Reverence shrinks with a holy reluctance from taking such words into its lips, even when it simply quotes the utterance of impiety. Yet men are found in the path of sin who will employ such language without remorse! In the earlier stages of ungodliness men would be shocked at the idea of doing and being that to which a continuance in irreligion naturally leads up. That puny man should positively defy his Maker seems antecedently unlikely, if not impossible. Yet glaring facts too plainly prove that an evil course does not stop short of even this extreme. What awful possibilities of evil reside within a human soul! How unmeasurably wise it is to place ourselves under the guidance of the great Teacher, to have our hearts the residence of the Holy Spirit! Then, but only then, are we safe from moral enormities which are a thousand times more to be dreaded than the extinction of our being.
III ITS RIGHTEOUS DOOM. "Woe unto them!" And they shall have woe! They may say in their shameless arrogance, "Let us break their bands asunder," etc.; but "the Lord shall have them in derision... he shall vex them in his sore displeasure". (Psa_2:3-5) They may set their mouth against the heavens," and may say, "How doth God know?" but "how are they brought into desolation, as in a moment they are utterly consumed with terrors". (Psa_73:9, Psa_73:11, Psa_73:19) God will overturn their purposes; he will scatter their friendships and leave them in helpless loneliness; he will bring them into an intolerable humiliation; he will condemn them at his judgment bar; he will sentence them to eternal exile. C.
Vers. 18, 20, 21, 23. Four grievous sins.
The ungodly spirit finds very various modes of expression in willful and self-pleasing actions. Men"s sins are repeated over and over again in every age, sometimes taking more open and defiant forms, and sometimes hiding behind a pleasant outward show of delicacy and refinement, but always the "abominable things which God hates." The coarse sins of Eastern peoples seem offensive to our sensitive Western nations; but the sins are here amongst us, only in a disguise which deceives us. Isaiah reproves
I THE SIN OF PRESUMPTION. (Vers. 18, 19.) Evil-doers are thought of as harnessing themselves to the chariot of sin; as bold enough even to scoff at God"s threatened judgments, and taunt him with his merciful delayings, saying, Let Jehovah hasten; let him hurry on his work, that we may see it." Wordsworth paraphrases ver. 18 thus: "Woe to them that harness themselves as brute beasts to iniquity, with cords of falsehood, and drag on the weight of sin, as a wagon, with the ropes of vicious habits." Illustrate by the scoffing thief on the cross; and by the ramble of the man who presumed upon his abundant harvest, and found he was suddenly called away from all his wealth. Presumption is the evil into which men are led through temporary successes. See the effect of prosperity on Nebuchadnezzar. It is a constant effect of luxury and self-indulgence and immorality. It is the brink of utter and irretrievable ruin. For the presumptuous man there is little hope. He must fall, and be bruised and crushed, ere he will learn lessons of humility and trust. David knew human nature well, and he taught us to pray, Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me.
II THE SIN OF CONFUSING MORAL DISTINCTIONS. (Ver. 20.) "Those do a great deal of wrong to God and religion and conscience to their own souls, and to the souls of others who misrepresent "evil and good, and put false colors upon them; who call drunkenness good fellowship, and covetousness good husbandry, and, when they persecute the people of God, think they do him good service; and on the other hand, call seriousness ill nature, and sober singularity ill breeding, and say all manner of evil falsely concerning the ways of godliness "(Matthew Henry).
The text well describes the spirit of our age. In our over-refinements we are losing the sternness of the truth, carefully polishing off every edge and point and corner that might prick conscience into activity. We are toning down moral distinctions until they are becoming quite confused and indistinct; we can hardly tell for certain what is right and what is wrong, what is evil and what is good. One of the most thoughtful of American divines, Dr. J. A. Alexander, writes thus: "Do not we with one breath assert the inviolable sanctity of the truth, but with the next breath make provision for benevolent, business, jocose, or thoughtless falsehood? Do we not, in the abstract, assert the claims of justice, and the obligation to give every man his own, but, in application to specific cases, think it lawful to enrich ourselves at other men"s expense, or take advantage of another"s weakness, ignorance, or error? Do we not admit the paramount importance of religious duties in general, but in detail dissect away the vital parts as superstition, sanctimony, or fanaticism? Do we not approve the requisitions of the Law, and the provisions of the gospel, in so far as they apply to other people, but repudiate or pass them by as applying to ourselves? What is all this but saying of evil, it is good, and of good, it is evil?
III THESIS OF SELF-CONCEIT. (Ver. 21.) The first reference is to counselors, "whose ideal of statesmanship was a series of shifts and expedients, based on no principle of righteousness." This form of sin is too familiar to need much suggestion as to its treatment. God resisteth those who are conceited of their own wisdom and lean to their own understanding. "Seest thou a man wise in his own eyes? there is more hope of a fool than of him.
IV THE SIN OF CORRUPTING JUSTICE. (Ver. 23.) "Who cleat the guilty for a bribe, and take the rights of worthy men from them." The idea is that justice is sacrificed to meet the demands of an expensive luxuriousness. So men now grind the faces of those who work for them to support their own extravagances. No greater evil can come upon a land than the poisoning of the fountains of justice; and there is no more certain source of national discontent hastening to rebellion. The prophet was himself deeply moved by the picture of the evils of his time which rose up before him. Nowhere could he look and gain the relief of a hope. Such an utterly wicked people must suffer. Seaward he looked, but there was not one gleam of light. Landward he looked, but not one gleam of light. Such is the end of wickedness. Bold though it may seem, defiant as it may sound, long as it may appear to hold out, this is the issue of it dark, all dark. The very "light is darkened in the heavens thereof. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of…
Isa_5:18-19
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity.
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Frivolity and profanity
Frivolity, he says, is the herald and handmaid of guilt. The cords are cords of vanity bound about us in mere thoughtlessness in the unguarded hours of recreation, in the giddy whirl of society, when talk is gay and free, and no man weighs his words; the cords of vanity bind us on subtly but surely to the calamitous burden of sin. I submit to you that the prophet in thus linking together frivolity and iniquity, commends himself to us as a close and just observer of human society. Profanity is the last term of a series; it is a stage we reach by the unmarked way of frivolous habit, and that unmarked way is the broad way of the general life. Society itself is unfavourable to thought and gravity and depth of character. It makes us of necessity superficial, light, shallow. At best it ministers to the gracious externals of a mans conduct, and too often it does this at the cost of his character; for the philosopher said truly that custom is the principal magistrate of a mans life; and if, by the ceaseless iteration of frivolous speech and action, we bind upon ourselves the chain of frivolous habit, be sure the mischief penetrates into the very citadel of character. (Canon H. Hensley Henson, B. D.)
Gods woes
Gods woes are better than the devils welcomes. When we get a woe in this book of blessings it is sent as a warning, that we may escape from woe. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Disguises and defiances
Society, for its self-preservation and well-being, provides that virtue should be in the ascendant, should sit on the throne, should hold the empire and make the laws of the world. There have been times when vice has ostentatiously unmasked itself in high places, and with a triumphant audacity has made itself the fashion and the social law. Such was the epoch of the decadence of the old Roman civilisation. Such were the times of the restoration of the English monarchy under Charles II.
The moral collapse at the Restoration was the inevitable unbending of the bow after the rigours of the Puritan regime. England was tired of unmelodious psalm singing and endless homilies on the sin of eating Christmas pies and dancing around May poles. It welcomed with a strange alacrity and a strange forgetfulness the exiled prince, whose morals, none too good to begin with, had been debauched in foreign courts, and who brought back to the palace of his fathers nothing of royalty, except enchanting manners, graceful wit, and an insatiable thirst for pleasure. But the enthronement of vice was only for a day. Men on the morrow smote it on the face, and hurled it from the seat which gave it power and lustre. This is the history of fashionable and jewelled vice in every age. When those who inherit wealth and polite culture and the accumulated embellishments of life conspicuously trample on the laws of righteousness the insulted world calls them to account, and in self-defence consigns them to social outlawry. So plainly is Virtue the eldest born and the fairest of the daughters of God. If our Lord uttered woe on the heartless and pretentious morality of His day, the prophet uttered woe on the confessed and ostentatious immorality of his time. Isaiahs words, as well as Christs, have a bearing on our modern life: Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope. Men hate hypocrisy. A profitable virtue that is not real, or a formal virtue that is not large and loving, moves us to scorn or pity. But, strange to say, the hatred of hypocrisy is not always in the interests of virtue I will not be a hypocrite, says one, and in his horror of hypocrisy he rushes into an open and shameless evil life. This is what the prophet means in his graphic picture, Woe unto them that draw iniquity, etc. He depicts a class of men who have deliberately harnessed themselves to evil, as a horse or mule is harnessed, to a loaded waggon. There are forms of iniquity which are difficult and laborious. Those who get over any ground with them must pull them with a cart rope. It is grievous business, but some men choose it, and take more trouble to be bad than actually is necessary to be good. And they prosecute ostentatiously the business that they have chosen. They take no care to conceal the evil industry of their life. It is the instinct of sin to disguise itself. It usually skulks behind an assumed goodness. It takes to itself virtuous names. It puts on masks to hide itself, not only from the eyes of men, but also from the eyes of conscience. But the man who drags sin with a cart rope boasts only one virtue, and that is a real one: he is no hypocrite. He has thrown appearances to the winds. He drags his iniquity conspicuously on the highway, in the daylight. He does not care to conceal the coat of arms on the carriage, or the livery of the driver who holds the reins and snaps over him the whip. Perhaps no one ever fully commits himself to this sort of life until he has, or thinks that he has, arrived at the conclusion that all goodness in the world is a sham; that the virtue to which men sing praises is simply a convenient fiction, which they affect to believe, and pretend to possess; that, as there is no real righteousness on the earth, so there is no sovereign righteousness in the heavens; that God is simply a dumb force, without moral quality, and indifferent to the moral quality of His creatures. Hence the prophet makes such a one say, in presumptuous taunt and irony: Let Him make speed, etc. Is this rude picture, culled from the page of the old Hebrew prophet, unsuited to these smooth times and this Christianised civilisation? Do none of you ever say: I know it is wrong. It is an offence against God, against myself, against my neighbour. It is an unquestionable violation of what is pure and honest. I can See the harm that it works; but I do not disguise it. I do not pretend to be other than I am. I am at least frank. I do not affect a virtue which I do not possess? Well, this is one alternative to hypocrisy. Did you ever think that there is another,--to recognise the evil in your nature and the sin in your life; to look at it with keen, brave eyes, illumined by the study of Gods law to guard against it day by day and moment by moment; and resolutely to fight it, in its first impulses, in its fiercest assaults, by the help of Gods grace? Is not this a possible alternative? It is not demanded of you that you be sinless; but you need not be the liveried slave of sin. It is not required of you that you be perfect; but you can enlist and do battle on the side of right. (W. W. Battershall, D. D.)
Cords and cart-ropes
I. Explain the singular description. Here are persons harnessed to the waggon of sin--harnessed to it by many cords, all light as vanity and yet strong as cart ropes.
1. Let me give you a picture. Here is a man who, as a young man, heard the Gospel and grew up under the influence of it. He is an intelligent man, a Bible reader, and somewhat of a theologian. He attended a Bible class, was an apt pupil, and could explain much of Scripture, but he took to lightness and frothiness. He made an amusement of religion and a sport of serious things. He came under the bond of this religious trifling, but it was a cord of vanity small as a packthread. Years ago he began to be bound to his sin by this kind of trifling, and at the present moment I am not sure that he ever cares to go and hear the Gospel or to read the Word of God, for he has grown to despise that which he sported with. The wanton witling has degenerated into a malicious scoffer: his cord has become a cart rope. His life is all trifling now.
2. I have seen the same thing take another shape, and then it appeared as captious questioning. How can he believe in Christ when he requires Him, first of all, to be put through a catechism and to be made to answer cavils? Oh, take heed of tying up your soul with cart ropes of scepticism.
3. Some have a natural dislike to religious things and cannot be brought to attend to them. Let me qualify the statement. They are quite prepared to attend a place of worship and to hear sermons, and occasionally to read the Scriptures, and to give their money to help on some benevolent cause; but this is the point at which they draw the line--they do not want to think, to pray, to repent, to believe, or to make heart work of the matter. If you indulge in demurs and delays and prejudices in the first days of your conviction, the time may come when those little packthreads will be so intertwisted with each other that they will make a great cart rope, and you will become an opposer of everything that is good, determined to abide forever harnessed to the great Juggernaut car of your iniquities, and so to perish.
4. I have known some men get harnessed to that ear in another way, and that is by deference to companions. There is no doubt that many people go to hell for the love of being respectable. It is not to be doubted that multitudes pawn their souls, and lose their God and heaven, merely for the sake of standing well in the estimation of a profligate. He that would be free forever must break the cords ere yet they harden into chains.
5. Some men are getting into bondage in another way; they are forming gradual habits of evil.
6. I fear that not a few are under the delusive notion that they are safe as they are. Carnal security is made up of cords of vanity.
II. THERE IS A WOE ABOUT REMAINING HARNESSED TO THE CART OF SIN, and that woe is expressed in our text.
1. It has been hard work already to tug at sins load.
2. But, if you remain harnessed to this car of sin, the weight increases. You are like a horse that has to go a journey, and pick up parcels at every quarter of a mile: you are increasing the heavy luggage and baggage that you have to drag behind you.
3. Further, I want you to notice that as the load grows heavier, so the road becomes worse, the ruts are deeper, the hills are steeper, and the sloughs are more full of mire. An old man with his bones filled with the sin of his youth is a dreadful sight to look upon; he is a curse to others, and a burden to himself.
4. The day will come when the load will crush the horse.
5. I am sure that there is nobody here who desires to be eternally a sinner: let him then beware, for each hour of sin brings its hardness and its difficulty of change. When the moral brakes are taken off, and the engine is on the downgrade, and must run on at a perpetually quickening rate forever, then is the soul lost indeed.
III. Now I want to offer some ENCOURAGEMENT FOR BREAKING LOOSE.
1. There is hope for every harnessed slave of Satan. Jesus Christ has come into the world to rescue those who are bound with chains.
2. You are bound with the cords of sin, and in order that all this sin of yours might effectually be put away, the Lord Jesus, the Son of the Highest, was Himself bound.
3. There is in this world a mysterious Being whom thou knowest not, but whom some of us know, who is able to work thy liberty. Wherever there is a soul that would be free from sin this free Spirit waits to help him.
4. Our experience should be a great encouragement to you. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Spiritual cart ropes
Cart ropes are composed of several small cords firmly twisted together, which serve to connect the beasts of burden with the draught they pull after them. These represent a complication of means closely united, whereby a people here described continue to join them selves to the most wearisome of all burdens. They consist of false reasonings, foolish pretexts, and corrupt maxims, by which obstinate transgressors become firmly united to their sins, and persist in dragging after them their iniquities. Of this sort the following are a few specimens: God is merciful, and His goodness will not suffer any of His creatures to be completely and everlastingly miserable. Others, as well as they, are transgressors. Repentance will be time enough upon a death bed or in old age. The greatest of sinners often pass unpunished. A future state of retribution is uncertain. Unite these, and such like cords, and, I suppose, you have the cart ropes whereby the persons mentioned draw after them much sin and iniquity. All these pretexts, however, are light as vanity. (R. Macculloch.)
The cord of sin
These words are at all times, and among every people, of especial interest, were it only on two accounts--
(1) The easy thoughtlessness with which men begin their acquaintance with sin, and
(2) The hardness of heart in which they are confirmed by its habits. These are represented under a very lively figure in the former of these two verses; and the desperate rebelliousness of spirit to which they are brought, so as to utter defiance against the judgment of the Almighty, is expressed to the life in the latter.
I. THE FIGURE under which the sinner is represented in the former of these verses is that of a rope-maker. He begins with a slight slender thread of flax or hemp, which he can break almost with as much ease as a spiders web; but the end of his work is a cart rope, thick and strong enough to bind the strongest man or beast upon earth. So a man begins and ends with sin. He begins with drawing iniquity with cords of vanity. The iniquity upon which he is tempted to enter seems to him a mere trifle at first, to which, if not good, he thinks that he gives a hard name to call it downright had; and if it even do smite his conscience with some evil signs of its real nature, which he can hardly mistake, he is vain enough, in the notion of his own strength, to think, that when he has gone into it he can as easily come out of it again. It is but as flax or tow (he says); it is but a cord of vanity and not of substance. He needs not to go on spinning and drawing it out (he thinks); but he will stop short as soon as he has gone as far as he wants, and that is not far. Alas! how many can fix the beginning of their ruin in this world, and imminent peril of the judgment of the next, on the day when they said in foolish security, and in face of a warning conscience, It is but for this once! Alas! they never said so again. It proved to them to be now and forever.
II. The text informs us in the next verse that these men, who, beginning with drawing iniquity with cords of vanity, had ended with drawing sin, as it were, with a cart rope, WENT ON TO MOCK AT JUDGMENT TO COME. The thoughts of judgment to come re, of course, very unpleasant to him who knows that he shall have to suffer from it when it does come. His sin, therefore, hardens him into a disbelief of it. (R. W. Evans, B.D.)
The growth of sin
Sin grows as naturally and as fast as the fire, which lays a city in ruins, comes out of a single spark in some solitary obscure corner; as surely as the rains, which bury a whole country in a flood, begin with a few sprinkled drops, which were not worth talking about; as surely as the river, which must be crossed with ships, begins with a well which you might empty almost with the scoop of your hand; as certainly as the strong thick cart rope begins with a few weak flaxen or hempen threads. (R. W.Evans, B. D.)
Strength of habit
The surgeon of a regiment in India relates the following incident: A soldier rushed into the tent, to inform me that one of his comrades was drowning in a pond close by, and nobody could attempt to save him in consequence of the dense weeds which covered the surface. On repairing to the spot, we found the poor fellow in his last struggle, manfully attempting to extricate himself from the meshes of rope-like grass that encircled his body; but, to all appearance, the more he laboured to escape, the more firmly they became coiled round his limbs. At last he sank, and the floating plants closed in, and left not a trace of the disaster. After some delay, a raft was made, and we put off to the spot, and sinking a pole some twelve feet, a native dived, holding on by the stake, and brought the body to the surface. I shall never forget the expression of the dead mans face--the clenched teeth, and fearful distortion of the countenance, while coils of long trailing weeds clung round his body and limbs, the muscles of which stood out stiff and rigid, whilst his hands grasped thick masses, showing how bravely he had struggled for life. This heart-rending picture is a terribly accurate representation era man with a conscience alarmed by remorse, struggling with his sinful habits, but finding them too strong for him. Divine grace can save the wretch from his unhappy condition, but if he be destitute of that, his remorseful agonies will but make him more hopelessly the slave of his passions. Laocoon, in vain endeavouring to tear off the serpents coils from himself and children, aptly portrays the long-enslaved sinner contending with sin in his own strength. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Insidious nature of sin
In the gardens of Hampton Court you will see many trees entirely vanquished and well-nigh strangled by huge coils of ivy, which are wound about them like the snakes around the unhappy Laocoon: there is no untwisting the folds, they are too giant-like, and fast fixed, and every hour the rootlets of the climber are sucking the life out of the unhappy tree. Yet there was a day when the ivy was a tiny aspirant, only asking a little aid in climbing; had it been denied then, the tree had never become its victim, but by degrees the humble weakling grew in strength and arrogance, and at last it assumed the mastery, and the tall tree became the prey of the creeping, insinuating destroyer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Moral slavery
James II on his death bed thus addressed his son, There is no slavery like sin and no liberty like Gods service. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Isa_5:18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords…
CORDS OF VANITY
Isa_5:18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope.
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“ ‘Sin’ in the last clause is parallel with iniquity in the first—a noun and not a verb. Both are said to be ‘drawn.’ The style of sinning here contemplated is fully given in the next verse.”—Cowles.
“They were proud of their unbelief; but this unbelief was like a halter with which, like beasts of burden, they were harnessed to sin, and therefore to the punishment of sin, which they went on drawing further and further, in utter ignorance of the waggon behind them.”—Delitsch.
“Cart ropes, you know, are composed of several small cords firmly twisted together, which serve to connect the beasts of burden with the draught they pull after them. These represent a complication of means closely united, whereby the people here described continue to join themselves to the most wearisome of all burdens. They consist of false reasonings, foolish pretexts, and corrupt maxims, by which obstinate transgressors become firmly united to their sins, and persist in dragging after them their iniquities. Of this sort the following are a few specimens: God is merciful, and His goodness will not suffer any of His creatures to be completely and everlastingly miserable. Others, as well as they, are transgressors. Repentance will be time enough upon a deathbed, or in old age. The greatest of sinners often pass unpunished. A future state of retribution is uncertain. Unite these, and such like cords, and, I suppose, you have the cart ropes, whereby the persons mentioned draw after them much sin and iniquity. All these pretexts, however, are light as vanity.”—Maculloch.
CORDS AND CART-ROPES
Isa_5:18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope [658]
[658] See Notes on pp. 121, 122.
There is a certain oddity and grotesqueness in these words as they stand. It disappears as soon as we perceive that we have here an instance of Hebrew parallelism. (Compare chap. Isa_1:18.) “Sin” is a noun, not a verb, and is a synonym for iniquity; to sin men yoke themselves as it were with “cords of vanity” or as with “a cart-rope.” “Cords of vanity” are such as have no substance in them, that will not stand any real strain; “a cart-rope” will stand an immense strain. Where, then, is the propriety of describing that by which the sinner binds himself to his sin by such opposite terms? In this, that in the first clause these bands are regarded from the point of view of a sound judgment, in the second from the point of view of the sinner’s experience. Subjected to a real examination they are seen to be of no strength at all, and yet they suffice to bind the sinner to his sin as thoroughly as if they were strong as “a cart-rope.”
What are these “cords of vanity”? They are false ideas—of God, of truth, of duty. This is plain from Isa_5:19, which is an explanation of this one. There we have an illustrative case. Certain men are represented as bound to their iniquity by the false idea that God will not fulfil His threatenings against iniquity.
Our text furnishes the solution of a mystery which often perplexes us in daily life. We see men cleaving to ruinous iniquities, and cleaving to them in spite of the remonstrances and entreaties of their friends and of God’s servants. We who have felt “the powers of the world to come” wonder that men do not repent and believe, and so escape from “the wrath to come.” Here is the explanation: they are bound to their ungodly practices as it were with a cart-rope; and yet they are thus enslaved by what, when rightly tested, are only cords of vanity. They are like a horse tied to a post by a bridle-rein: it could snap the rein in an instant, but it does not attempt to do so because it has no suspicion of the weakness of the rein. Look at some of the “cords of vanity” by which men are bound to their iniquities; the exposure of their essential weakness may excite some who are now fettered and bound to make an effort to attain to moral freedom.
I. One prevalent “cord of vanity” is unbelief in God’s threatenings against iniquity. That God has threatened to do certain terrible things to impenitent sinners is admitted, but there lurks in the sinner’s heart the idea that God is like certain foolish parents who threaten their children with punishments which they are much too good-natured ever to inflict. But whence did you derive this idea of God? Certainly not from His Word. He there distinctly forewarns us, that, though He is merciful and gracious, He will “by no means clear the guilty” (Exo_34:7). Not from any intelligent examination of His dealings in providence. There neglect or infraction of law is invariably followed by punishment. If a whole nation were to neglect to sow its fields, would God be too good-natured to permit it to starve? But if God invariably punishes men for their infractions of His material laws, what reason can we have for hoping that He will not fulfil His threatenings against those who despise His spiritual ordinances? And why should we hope this? What reverence could we have for, what trust could we repose in, a God who did not fulfil His threatenings? How could we then trust in His promises? Surely this is a “cord of vanity!” and yet how many are bound by it as if it were “a cart-rope”!
II. Another cord is the reflection, “We are no worse than others.” Men compare themselves with others, perhaps even more iniquitous than themselves, and so arrive at the conclusion that they are not in any great danger. They do this even in temporal things,—e.g., in the matter of drainage. The authorities of a country village or town will listen with the most complete indifference to the warnings of a Government inspector, that they are inviting an outbreak of fever or cholera; and the ground of their indifference is that they know of other villages or towns as badly drained as their own. But does that afford them any protection against the dangers of which they are warned? Men act as foolishly in spiritual matters. Because there are so many sinners they close their eyes to their own dangers or sins. Will God be either unable or afraid to punish transgressors because they are so numerous? Surely this also is a “cord of vanity;” and yet thousands are bound by it to their eternal destruction!
III. “We shall be able to shake ourselves loose from our evil habits by and by.” They imagine that they can repent and reform at any time, and they are firmly resolved to do so before death. Perhaps there could not be found a single sinner who does not secretly cherish in his breast wicked Balaam’s desire, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” But this idea that men can repent and reform at any time is a delusion. As men continue in sin
(1) The power to reform decays.
(2) The desire to reform dies out. The love of sin takes entire possession of the man. It enwraps him as ivy unchecked will enwrap a tree; at first with no more strength than a child’s finger, in the end with the strength of a thousand giants. It is the oldest sinners who cling to their vices most desperately, who are bound by them as by cart-ropes.
(3.) The opportunities for reform rapidly diminish and often end unexpectedly (Pro_29:1; 1Th_5:3).
Inquire by what cords of vanity you are bound. Break them! (Dan_4:27.) Look to Jesus, who came into the world for the very purpose of setting at liberty them that are bound.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Woe to those who pull along iniquity with useless…
Woe to those who pull along iniquity with useless cords and who pull along sin as if it were with a cart rope
These phrases mean basically the same thing. They speak of people who continue to sin on purpose as if they were using all their strength to pull a heavy cart along. God will punish them for their sin. AT: "Woe to those who work hard to sin as a person who drags a cart by a rope" (See: Parallelism and Metaphor)
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those who say
This refers to those who continue to sin (verse 18) and then mockingly challenge God to stop them. AT: "those mockers who say" (See: Irony)
let the plans of the Holy One of Israel come
God's plans are spoken of as if they were objects that could come by themselves. AT: "let the Holy One of Israel accomplish his plans" (See: Metaphor)
the Holy One of Israel
Translate "the Holy One" as in Isaiah 5:16.
translationWords
woe
iniquity
sin
Holy One
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 5:18-19 What sorrow: The third threat of judgment was…
5:18-19 What sorrow: The third threat of judgment was against mockers, who openly treated God’s authority with contempt.
5:18 God’s ropes were “ropes of kindness and love” for Israel (Hos 11:4).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.