Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land!
In my ears, Yahweh of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.
For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.”
Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them!
The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of Yahweh, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.
Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.
Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it.
So man is brought low, mankind is humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled;
but Yahweh of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.
Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.
Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope,
who say, “Let him make haste, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!”
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink;
who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!
Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Therefore Yahweh’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.
He will lift up a banner to the nations from far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.
No one shall be weary nor stumble among them; no one shall slumber nor sleep, neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the strap of their sandals be broken,
whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.
Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver.
They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30 To wit, for the poor to dwell in.
To wit, for the poor to dwell in.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv8–30 Isa 5:8 Woe unto them that join house to…
Isa 5:8 Woe unto them that join house to house, [that] lay field to field, till [there be] no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
Ver. 8. Woe unto them that join house to house.] The prophet goeth on in the exposition of his parable, showing us some more of those wild or stinking grapes, with the sad effects thereof, to the end of the chapter. He beginneth with covetousness - that "root of all evil," as Paul calleth it, {1Ti 6:10} that metropolis of all wickedness, as Bion - and throweth a woe at it, as do also sundry other prophets. Covetous persons are of the dragon’s temper, who, they say, is so thirsty, that no water can quench his thirst. Covetousness is a dry drunkenness, saith one, an insatiable dropsy, and like hell itself, {Isa 5:14} insatiabiliter cava guttura pandit; its never enough will be once alive with fire enough in the bottom of hell. Here they are brought in "joining house to house," as Shallum did at Jerusalem, {Jer 22:13-14} as Nero did at Rome for the enlarging of his palace to a vast extent: whence that of the poet -
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“ Roma domus fiet, Veios migrate Quirites,
Si non et Veios oecupet ista domus. ” - Martial.
That lay field to field.] Encroaching upon others, and engrossing all to yourselves; as William the Conqueror did at New Forest, wherein forty-six parish churches were demolished, with the removing of all the inhabitants, to make room for beasts or dog’s-game. But in true account -
“ Parva seges satis est: laudato ingentia rura,
Exiguum colito. ”
The holy patriarchs were content to dwell in tents. Abraham’s only purchase was a burying place. David in that Litany of his, as one calleth it, blesseth himself from those "men of God’s hand who have their portion here." {Psa 17:14} Christ biddeth us lay up treasures, and build tabernacles for ourselves in heaven; and having food and raiment, saith the apostle, let us therewith be content. {1Ti 6:8}
“ Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam:
Et quantum natura petat. ”
- Lucan. Phar., lib. iv.
If a man will study rather to satisfy his hunger than his humour, a little will serve. But it is as easy to quench the fire of Etna as the thoughts set on fire by covetousness. Unus Pelaeo iuveni non sufficit orbis. {a}
Till there be no place,] sc., Left unseized upon by you: Usque ad desitionem loci, no place or room for any other.
That they may be placed alone.] Man is a sociable creature, and not born for himself. Aristotle calleth him nature’s good fellow; but the covetous wretch hath put off all humanity, and would have all to himself, be placed alone; and herein, as Ambrose rightly observeth, he is worse than the unreasonable creatures. Avis avibus se associat, saith he, pecus pecori adiungitur, piscis piscibus, Birds, beasts, and fishes sort and shoal together, and account it no loss, but a comfort, to be in company of their own kind. Solus tu homo, consortem excludis, includis feras: struis habitacula bestiarum, destruis hominum ;{ b} Only thou, O sorry man, shuttest out men like thyself, enclosest for cattle, pullest down houses, settest up folds and sheep cotes, &c. And yet thou canst not live without poor labourers; only thou hatest to have them live by thee.
{a} Juvenal.
{b} Lib. de Naboth et Ahab., cap. 3.
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 On vv8–30 That join house to house, that lay field to…
That join house to house, that lay field to field; that add new purchases of houses and lands to their former possessions; not that this was in itself unlawful, but because they did this from an inordinate and insatiable desire of riches, and with the injury of their brethren, as is manifest from the foregoing and following words.
That they may be alone; that they alone may be the lords and owners, all others only their tenants and servants.
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 On vv8, 18 The world and the flesh are the two great…
The world and the flesh are the two great enemies that we are in danger of being overpowered by; yet we are in no danger if we do not ourselves yield to them. Eagerness of the world, and indulgence of the flesh, are the two sins against which the prophet, in God's name, here denounces woes. These were sins which then abounded among the men of Judah, some of the wild grapes they brought forth (Isa 5:4), and for which God threatens to bring ruin upon them. They are sins which we have all need to stand upon our guard against and dread the consequences of.
I. Here is a woe to those who set their hearts upon the wealth of the world, and place their happiness in that, and increase it to themselves by indirect and unlawful means (Isa 5:8), who join house to house and lay field to field, till there be no place, no room for anybody to live by them. If they could succeed, they would be placed alone in the midst of the earth, would monopolize possessions and preferments, and engross all profits and employments to themselves. Not that it is a sin for those who have a house and a field, of they have wherewithal, to purchase another; but
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1. Their fault is, (1.) That they are inordinate in their desires to enrich themselves, and make it their whole care and business to raise an estate, as if they had nothing to mind, nothing to seek, nothing to do, in this world, but that. They never know when they have enough, but the more they have the more they would have; and, like the daughters of the horseleech, they cry, Give, give. They cannot enjoy what they have, nor do good with it, but are constantly contriving and studying to make it more. They must have variety of houses, a winter-house, and a summer-house, and if another man's house or field lie convenient to theirs, as Naboth's vineyard to Ahab's, they must have that too, or they cannot be easy. (2.) That they are herein careless of others, nay, and injurious to them. They would live so as to let nobody live but themselves. So that their insatiable covetings may be gratified, they care not what becomes of all about them, what encroachments they make upon their neighbours' rights, what hardships they put upon those that they have power over or advantage against, nor what base and wicked arts they use to heap up treasure to themselves. They would swell so big as to fill all space, and yet are still unsatisfied (Ecc 5:10), as Alexander, who, when he fancied he had conquered the world, wept because he had not another world to conquer. Deficiente terr, non impletur avaritia - If the whole earth were monopolized, avarice would thirst for more. What! will you be placed alone in the midst of the earth? (so some read it); will you be so foolish as to desire it, when we have so much need of the service of others and so much comfort in their society? Will you be so foolish as to expect that the earth shall be forsaken for us (Job 18:4), when it is by multitudes that the earth is to be replenished? An propter vos solos tanta terra creata est?-Was the wide world created merely for you? Lyra.
2. That which is threatened as the punishment of this sin is that neither the houses nor the fields they were thus greedy of should turn to any account, Isa 5:9, Isa 5:10. God whispered it to the prophet in his ear, as he speaks in a like case (Isa 22:14): It was revealed in my ears by the Lord of hosts (as God told Samuel a thing in his ear, Sa1 9:15); he thought he heard it still sounding in his ears; but he proclaimed it, as he ought, upon the house-tops, Mat 10:27. (1.) That the houses they were so fond of should be untenanted, should stand long empty, and should yield them no rent, and go out of repair: Many houses shall be desolate, the people that should dwell in them, being cut off by sword, famine, or pestilence, or carried into captivity; or trade being dead, and poverty coming upon the country like an armed man, those that had been housekeepers were forced to become lodgers, or shift for themselves elsewhere. Even great and fair houses, that would invite tenants, and (there being a scarcity of tenants) might be taken at low rates, shall stand empty without inhabitants. God created not the earth in vain; he formed it to be inhabited, Isa 45:18. But men's projects are often frustrated, and what they frame answers not the intention. We have a saying, That fools build houses for wise men to live in; but sometimes, as the event proves, they are built for no man to live in. God has many ways to empty the most populous cities. (2.) That the fields they were so fond of should be unfruitful (Isa 5:10): Ten acres of vineyard shall yield only such a quantity of grapes as will make but one bath of wine (which was about eight gallons), and the seed of a homer, a bushel's sowing of ground, shall yield but an ephah, which was the tenth part of a homer; so that through the barrenness of the ground, or the unreasonableness of the weather, they should not have more than a tenth part of their seed again. Note, Those that set their hearts upon the world will justly be disappointed in their expectations from it.
II. Here is a woe to those that dote upon the pleasures and delights of sense, Isa 5:11, Isa 5:12. Sensuality ruins men as certainly as worldliness and oppression. As Christ pronounces a woe against those that are rich, so also against those that laugh now and are full (Luk 6:24, Luk 6:25), and fare sumptuously, Luk 16:19. Observe,
1. Who the sinners are against whom this woe is denounced. (1.) They are such as are given to drink; they make their drinking their business, have their hearts upon it, and overcharge themselves with it. They rise early to follow strong drink, as husbandmen and tradesmen do to follow their employments; as if they were afraid of losing time from that which is the greatest misspending of time. Whereas commonly those that are drunken are drunken in the night, when they have despatched the business of the day, these neglect business, abandon it, and give up themselves to the service of the flesh; for they sit at their cups all day, and continue till night, till wine inflame them - inflame their lusts (chambering and wantonness follow upon rioting and drunkenness) - inflame their passions; for who but such have contentions and wounds without cause? Pro 23:29-35. They make a perfect trade of drinking; nor do they seek the shelter of the night for this work of darkness, as men ashamed of it, but count it a pleasure to riot in the day-time. See Pe2 2:13. (2.) They are such as are given to mirth. They have their feasts, and they are so merrily disposed that they cannot dine or sup without music, musical instruments of all sorts, like David (Amo 6:5), like Solomon (Ecc 2:8); the harp and the viol, the tarbet and pipe, must accompany the wine, that every sense may be gratified to a nicety; they take the timbrel and harp, Job 21:12. The use of music is lawful in itself; but when it is excessive, when we set our hearts upon it, misspend time in it, so that it crowds our spiritual and divine pleasures and draws away the heart from God, then it turns into sin for us. (3.) They are such as never give their mind to any thing that is serious: They regard not the work of the Lord; they observe not his power, wisdom, and goodness, in those creatures which they abuse and subject to vanity, nor the bounty of his providence in giving them those good things which they make the food and fuel of their lusts. God's judgments have already seized them, and they are under the tokens of his displeasure, but they regard not; they consider not the hand of God in all these things; his hand is lifted up, but they will not see, because they will not disturb themselves in their pleasures nor think what God is doing with them.
2. What the judgments are which are denounced against them, and in part executed. It is here foretold, (1.) that they should be dislodged; the land should spue out these drunkards (Isa 5:13): My people (so they call themselves, and were proud of it) have therefore gone into captivity, are as sure to go as if they were gone already, because they have no knowledge; how should they have knowledge when by their excessive drinking they make sots and fools of themselves? They set up for wits; but because they regard not God's controversy with them, nor take any care to make their peace with him, they may truly be said to have no knowledge; and the reason is because they will have none; they are inconsiderate and wilful, and are therefore destroyed for lack of knowledge. (2.) That they should be impoverished, and come to want that which they had wasted and abused to excess: Even their glory are men of famine, subject to it and slain by it; and their multitude are dried up with thirst. Both the great men and the common people are ready to perish for want of bread and water. This is the effect of the failure of the corn (Isa 5:10), for the king himself is served of the field, Ecc 5:9. And when the vintage fails the drunkards are called upon to weep, because the new wine is cut off from their mouth (Joe 1:5), and not so much because now they want it as because when they had it they abused it. It is just with God to make men want that for necessity which they have abused to excess. (3.) What multitudes should be cut off by famine and sword (Isa 5:14): Therefore hell has enlarged herself. Tophet, the common burying-place, proves too little; so many are there to be buried that they shall be forced to enlarge it. The grave has opened her mouth without measure, never saying, It is enough, Pro 30:15, Pro 30:16. It may be understood of the place of the damned; luxury and sensuality fill these regions of darkness and horror; there those are tormented who made a god of their belly, Luk 16:25; Phi 3:19. (4.) That they should be humbled and abased, and all their honours laid in the dust. This will be done effectually by death and the grave: Their glory shall descend, not only to the earth, but into it; it shall not descend after them (Psa 49:17), to stand them in any stead on the other side death, but it shall die and be buried with them - poor glory, which will thus wither! Did they glory in their numbers? Their multitude shall go down to the pit, Eze 31:18; Eze 32:32. Did they glory in the figure they made? Their pomp shall be at an end; their shouts with which they triumphed, and were attended. Did they glory in their mirth? Death will turn it into mourning; he that rejoices and revels, and never knows what it is to be serious, shall go thither where there are weeping and wailing. Thus the mean man and the mighty man meet together in the grave and under mortifying judgments. Let a man be ever so high, death will bring him low - ever so mean, death will bring him lower, in the prospect of which the eyes of the lofty should now be humbled, Isa 5:15. It becomes those to look low that must shortly be laid low.
3. What the fruit of these judgments shall be.
(1.) God shall be glorified, Isa 5:16. He that is the Lord of hosts, and the holy God, shall be exalted and sanctified in the judgment and righteousness of these dispensations. His justice must be owned in bringing those low what exalted themselves; and herein he is glorified, [1.] As a God is irresistible power. He will herein be exalted as the Lord of hosts, that is able to break the strongest, humble the proudest, and tame the most unruly. Power is not exalted but in judgment. It is the honour of God that, though he has a mighty arm, yet judgment and justice are always the habitation of his throne, Psa 89:13, Psa 89:14. [2.] As a God of unspotted purity. He that is holy, infinitely holy, shall be sanctified (that is, shall be owned and declared to be holy) in the righteous punishment of proud men. Note, When proud men are humbled the great God is honoured, and ought to be honoured by us.
(2.) Good people shall be relieved and succoured (Isa 5:17): Then shall the lambs feed after their manner; the meek ones of the earth, who followed the Lamb, who were persecuted, and put into fear by those proud oppressors, shall feed quietly, feed in the green pastures, and there shall be none to make them afraid. See Eze 34:14. When the enemies of the church are cut off then have the churches rest. They shall feed at their pleasure; so some read it. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, and delight themselves in abundant peace. They shall feed according to their order or capacity (so others read it), as they are able to hear the word, that bread of life.
(3.) The country shall be laid waste, and become a prey to the neighbours: The waste places of the fats ones, the possessions of those rich men that lived at their ease, shall be eaten by strangers that were nothing akin to them. In the captivity the poor of the land were left for vine-dressers and husbandmen (Kg2 25:12); these were the lambs that fed in the pastures of the fats ones, which were laid in common for strangers to eat. When the church of the Jews, those fat ones, was laid waste, their privileges were transferred to the Gentiles, who had been long strangers, and the lambs of Christ's flock were welcome to them.
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 On vv8–30 Woe unto them that join house to house,.... Or…
Woe unto them that join house to house,.... Or "O ye that join", &c.; for, as Aben Ezra observes, it signifies calling, as in Isa 55:1 though Jarchi takes it to be expressive of crying and groaning, on account of future punishments; and he observes, that as there are twenty two blessings pronounced in the book of Psalms, on those that keep the law, so there are twenty two woes pronounced by Isaiah upon the wicked:
that lay field to field; the sin of covetousness is exposed and condemned in these words; not that it is unlawful in itself for a man that has a house or field of his own to purchase another that is next unto it; but when he is insatiable, and not content with his houses and lands, but is always coveting more, this is his sin, and especially if he seeks to get them by fraud or force:
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till there be no place; for others to dwell in and possess; and so the Targum,
"and say, until we possess every place;''
or "unto the end of the place" (x), city, or field; till they have got all the houses in the town or city, and all the pieces of ground in the field, in their own possession:
that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth, or land; that is, of Judea; wholly inhabit it themselves, and have the sole power and jurisdiction over it. It is in the Hebrew text (y) "that ye may be placed", &c.; the Targum is,
"and they think they shall dwell alone in the midst of the land.''
(x) "usque ad terminum loci", V. L. (y) "constituamini", Vatablus, Forerius, Montanus; "colloeemini", Calvin.
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 On vv8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 Alone - That they alone may be the lords…
Alone - That they alone may be the lords and owners, and all others only their tenants and servants.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 11, 13, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30 Verse 8. Wo unto them that - lay field…
Verse 8. Wo unto them that - lay field to field - "You who lay field unto field" ] Read תקריבו takribu, in the second person; to answer to the verb following. So Vulgate.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv8, 11, 13, 15, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30 Isa 5:8-10. Wo unto them, &c. — The unfolding…
Isa 5:8-10. Wo unto them, &c. — The unfolding of the parable, after the general key in the preceding verse, comprehends two things, according to the argument of the parable; the crimes of this ungrateful people, and the punishment decreed to their crimes. That join house to house — That add new purchases of houses and lands to their former possessions. Not that this was in itself absolutely unlawful, but because they did it from an inordinate desire of riches, and with the injury of their brethren. That they may be placed alone — That they alone may be the lords and owners, and all others only their tenants and servants. Thus, “the first crime condemned is avarice and rapacity; which is strongly described in this verse, and which prevailed remarkably among the Jews. Its punishment, even the desolation of those houses which they coveted, and the devastation of those fields which they obtained so rapaciously, is set forth in the two following verses.” See Vitringa. In mine ears, said the Lord — That is, It was revealed in mine ears: or, I heard God speak what I am now about to utter. Of a truth many houses shall be desolate — “In vain are ye so intent upon joining house to house, and field to field; your houses shall be left uninhabited, and your fields shall become desolate and barren: so that a vineyard of ten acres shall produce but one bath (not eight gallons) of wine, and the husbandman shall reap but a tenth part of the seed which he has sown.” — Bishop Lowth. Thus it is predicted that a fruitful land should be made barren for their wickedness, according to God’s threatening, (Psa 107:34,) and they would have as little comfort in their lands as in their houses.
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 On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 Wo unto them ... - The prophet now proceeds…
Wo unto them ... - The prophet now proceeds to “specify” some of the crimes to which he had referred in the parable of the vineyard, of which the Jews had been guilty. The first is “avarice.”
That join house to house - That seek to possess many houses; or perhaps that seek to live in large and magnificent palaces. A similar denunciation of this sin is recorded in Mic 2:2; Neh 5:1-8. This, together with what follows, was contrary to the law of Moses. He provided that when the children of Israel should enter the land of Canaan, the land should be equitably divided; and in order to prevent avarice, he ordained the “jubilee,” occurring once in fifty years, by which every man and every family should be restored to their former possession; Lev. 25. Perhaps there could have been no law so well framed to prevent the existence, and avoid the evils of covetousness. Yet, in defiance of the obvious requirements and spirit of that law, the people in the time of Isaiah had beome generally covetous.
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That lay field to field - That purchase one farm after another. The words ‘that lay,’ mean “to cause to approach;” that is, they “join” on one farm after another.
Till there be no place - Until they reach the “outer limit” of the land; until they possess all.
That they may be placed alone - That they may displace all others; that they may drive off from their lands all others, and take possession of them themselves.
In the midst of the earth - Or rather, in the midst of the “land.” They seek to obtain the whole of it, and to expel all the present owners. Never was there a more correct description of avarice. It is satisfied with no present possessions, and would be satisfied only if all the earth were in its possession. Nor would the covetous man be satisfied then. He would sit down and weep that there was nothing more which he could desire. How different this from that “contentment” which is produced by religion, and the love of the happiness of others!
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 On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 Even. Septuagint, "to take from your neighbour: shall," &c.…
Even. Septuagint, "to take from your neighbour: shall," &c. (Haydock)
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 On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 SIX DISTINCT WOES AGAINST CRIMES. (Isa. 5:8-23)
SIX DISTINCT WOES AGAINST CRIMES. (Isa. 5:8-23)
(Lev 25:13; Mic 2:2). The jubilee restoration of possessions was intended as a guard against avarice.
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till there be no place--left for any one else.
that they may be--rather, and ye be.
the earth--the land.
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 On vv8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26 First woe — upon great land monopoly, Isa_5:8-10.
First woe — upon great land monopoly, Isa_5:8-10.
8. Join house to house… field to field — The building of long city blocks, and forming immense estates, by monopolizing landholders.
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No place — Between the vast landed estates the small farmer was crowded out, “no place” being left for him, and he was turned adrift or reduced to serfdom. Tendencies to such concentration of estates in the hands of great landlords arise in times of great prosperity both in England and America.
Alone… earth — Or, rather, land. The great feudal mansions would dot the whole of Judea, each in solitary grandeur. For a similar picture in the Roman empire consult our note on Jas_5:6. Mic_2:2 contemporaneously with Isaiah confirms his description. The woe on this landed aristocracy was decay and desolation.]
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 On vv8–30 8. that they may be … earth] Render with…
8. that they may be … earth] Render with R.V., and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land; i.e. so that only the few have residential rights.
8–10. The first woe, against the absorption of small properties by the wealthy landowners. Cruel evictions, by which the smaller peasant proprietors lost not only their homes but the rights of citizenship, were common in the age of Isaiah, both in Judah and Israel. Cf. Mic_2:2; Mic_2:9; Amo_2:6 f. “The old Israelite state was so entirely based on the participation of every freeman in the common soil, and so little recognised the mere possession of capital, that men were in danger of losing civil rights along with house and fields, and becoming mere hirelings or even slaves” (Duhm). An instance of the tenacity with which the Hebrew yeoman clung to his land may be seen in 1 Kings 21. For legal checks to this evil, see Lev_25:8 ff.; Num. 27:1–11, 36; Deu_27:17.
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8–24. Denunciation of the Social Evils which call down God’s Judgment on the Nation
The indictment contains six counts, each introduced by the word “Woe,” and is addressed exclusively to the upper classes, although the punishment of their sin falls on the nation as a whole. The prophet sets before us a vivid picture of a debased aristocracy, in whom public virtue has been eaten out by avarice and sensuality; and he traces with remarkable insight the effect of these sins in the religious insensibility and perversion of the moral sentiments which characterised the nobles of Judah at this time.
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 On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30 (8) Woe unto them that join house to house.—The…
(8) Woe unto them that join house to house.—The series of “Woes” which follows has no precedent in the teaching of earlier prophets. The form of Luk_6:24-26 seems based upon it. The general indictment of Isaiah 1 is followed by special counts. That which leads off the list was the destruction of the old village life of Palestine. The original ideal of the nation had been that it should consist of small proprietors; and the Jubilee (Lev_25:13; Lev_27:24), and the law of the marriage of heiresses (Num_27:1-11, Numbers 36, Num_33:54) were intended as safeguards for the maintenance of that ideal. In practice it had broken down, and might had taken the place of right. Landmarks were removed (Deu_19:14; Deu_27:17; Pro_22:28), the owners of small estates forcibly expelled (Mic_2:2) or murdered as Naboth had been (1Ki_21:16); the law of debt pressed against the impoverished debtor (Neh_5:5), and the law of the Jubilee was practically set aside. In place of the small freeholders there rose up a class of large proprietors, often the novi homines of the state (e.g., Shebna in Isa_22:16), while the original owners sank into slavery (Neh_5:5) or became tenants at will, paying exorbitant rents in kind or money, and liable at any moment to be evicted. Isaiah’s complaint recalls the agrarian laws by which first Licinius and then the Gracchi sought to restrain the extension of the latifundia of the Roman patricians, and Latimer’s bold protest against the enclosure of commons in the sixteenth century. The evil had been denounced before by Micah (Mic_2:2), and in a psalm probably contemporary with Isaiah (Psa_49:11). The fact that the last year of Uzziah coincided with the Jubilee may have given a special point to Isaiah’s protest.
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 On vv8–30 Vers. 8-24. THE SIX WOES. After the general warning…
Vers. 8-24. THE SIX WOES. After the general warning conveyed to Israel by the parable of the vineyard, six sins are particularized as those which have especially provoked God to give the warning. On each of these woe is denounced. Two have special punishments assigned to them (vers. 8-17); the remainder are joined in one general threat of retribution (vers. 18-24).
Woe unto them that join house to house. This is the first woe. It is pronounced on the greed which leads men to continually enlarge their estates, without regard to their neighbors" convenience. Nothing is said of any use of unfair means, much less of violence in dispossessing the former proprietors. What is denounced is the selfishness of vast accumulations of land in single bands, to the detriment of the rest of the community. The Jewish law was peculiarly inimical to this practice; (Num_27:1-11 Num_33:54 1Ki_21:4) but perhaps it is not without reason that many writers of our own time object to it on general grounds. Till there be no place; literally, till want of place; i.e. till there is no room for others. A hyperbole, doubtless, but marking a real national inconvenience. That they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth; rather, that ye may dwell by yourselves in the midst of the land. The great landlords wished to isolate themselves; they disliked neighbors; they would fain "dwell by themselves," without neighbors to trouble them. Uzziah seems, by what is said of his possessions, (2Ch_26:10) to have been one of the greatest sinners in respect of the accumulation of land.
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Vers. 8-17. The appropriateness of God"s punishments.
Many of the punishments of sin follow in the way of natural consequence, and these are generally acknowledged to be fitting and appropriate; e.g.
I IDLENESS IS PUNISHED BY WANT. "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat". (2Th_3:10) Labor naturally produces wealth, or at any rate value of some kind; and those who work the hardest naturally acquire the most. The idle cannot complain if they have few of this world"s goods, since they have made no efforts to obtain them. They are fitly punished for their waste of time in sloth by the want of those good things which they might have procured by diligence in toil. The wise man will not give indiscriminate relief to the poor and needy. There is much poverty which is the simple natural result and suitable punishment of idle "loafing" habits.
II DRUNKENNESS IS PUNISHED BY LOSS OF MENTAL POWER, AND IN SOME CASES BY A TERRIBLE MALADY. The drunkard voluntarily confuses his mental faculties, and suspends their healthy operation, each time that he indulges in the sin whereto he is addicted. What can be more appropriate than that he should be punished by a permanent diminution of his intellectual vigor, a loss of nerve, promptitude, and decision? He also deranges his bodily functions by causing an undue flow of blood to the brain, and an undue excitement of the nerves whose connection is so close with the cerebral tissues. It is most natural and most fitting that such ill treatment of these delicate tissues should result in permanent injury to them, and cause the dreadful malady known to medical science as delirium tremens. The drunkard "receives within himself" a most appropriate "recompense of his error". (Rom_1:27)
III LUST IS PUNISHED BY A LOATHSOME DISEASE. The nature of the subject here is such as to preclude much illustration. But what can be more appropriate than the punishment of the most foul and filthy of sins by a disease which is foul and filthy and loathsome, alike to others and to the object of it? The body marred and scarred, the blood infected, the whole constitution undermined, form not only a just, but a most fitting, punishment of one, the peculiarity of whose sin is that he "sins against his own body". (1Co_6:18)
In the case of Israel special national sins were punished by special judgments, also peculiarly appropriate; e.g.
I THE GREED WHICH JOINED HOUSE TO HOUSE AND FIELD TO FIELD was punished by an invasion which caused the destruction and ruin of the annexed houses (ver. 9), and the desolation of the annexed estates. The ruin of the vineyards was such that it was scarcely worth while to gather the produce, the continued devastation of the corn lands such that the harvest did not nearly equal the seed corn. Nomad tribes pastured their flocks on the over-large estates, and the so-called owners derived little or no benefit from their acquisitions (vers. 10, 17).
II DRUNKEN REVELRY was punished by the captivity of the revelers, who were carried off as slaves into a strange land, and there experienced the usual fate of slaves, which included bitter experience of hunger and thirst (ver. 13). The dole allowed the slave was seldom more than sufficient to keep body and soul together. His drink was water. Kept to hard labor on imperial palaces and other "great works," he lost all cheerfulness, all lightness of heart, all love of song or music. Asked by his taskmasters to "sing them one of the songs of Zion," he declined sadly; the harp of his revels was "hung upon the willows" of Babylon. (Psa_137:2-4) God"s judgments upon other nations have often had the same character of appropriateness. Egypt, whose great sin had been pride, (Eze_29:4) was condemned to be "the basest of the kingdoms" (ver. 15); never destroyed, but always subject to one people or another Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks. Rome, the most cruel and bloody of conquering states, was made a prey, first to bloody tyrants of her own race, and then to a succession of fierce and savage northern hordes Goths, Huns, Vandals, Burgundians, Heruli, Lombards who spared neither age nor sex, and delighted in carnage and massacre. Macedonia, raised to greatness by her military system, and using it unsparingly to crush all her rivals, is ruined by being brought into contact with a military system superior to her own. Spain, elevated to the first position in Europe by her colonial greatness, is corrupted by her colonial wealth, and sinks faster than she had risen. States formed by conquest usually perish by conquest; governments founded on revolution are, for the most part, destroyed by revolution. The retributive justice which shows itself in the world"s history does not consist in the mere fact that sin is punished, but rather in the remarkable adaptation of the punishment which is dealt out to the sin that has provoked it.
Vers. 8-10. Woe to the covetous.
To understand this passage we should bear in mind the truths connected with real property as a condition of national well-being.
I THE INSTITUTION OF LANDED PROPERTY IN ISRAEL. According to the Law, each of the twelve tribes was to have its landed possessions, and each particular household was to have its definite portion of the land belonging to the tribe; and this was to be an inalienable heritage. Among an agricultural people it is most necessary that each family should thus have a fixed foothold on the land, a home, a center of toil and acquisition; and that thus its members should be firmly bound to their native land and to their fellow-countrymen. In a conquered land, again, it was equitable that the fields should be divided among those who took part in the burdens of war, and who desired to cultivate the conquered land in peace. In many passages of the Law we find the impress of this institution of real property. In the year of jubilee every man was to be restored to his patrimony. (Lev_25:13) The land was never to be sold, because in fact it belonged to Jehovah (ver. 23), and the people were but his stewards. In the interesting case of the daughters of Zelophehad, (Num_27:1-11) who had died in the desert, we find it laid down that the children, or nearest relatives of one who had died without coming into his portion, were to possess it in his stead. Again, the men of Reuben and of Gad refused to go to war until every man of them had received his inheritance. (Num_32:16, sqq.) And Moses agreed to their conditions. In the same book we read the direction, "Ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance". (Num_33:54) The land, it will be seen, was considered as in tenure from Jehovah himself, the only landlord. And how attached an Israelite would become to his ancestral estate, is seen from the story of Naboth, who will not give up his even for a better one, and at the king"s request. (1Ki_21:3, sqq.; 2Ki_9:10, 2Ki_9:25, sqq.) The virtues of patriotism struck deep root in this relation to the soil of Palestine. These facts help us to understand the moral and national evils springing from selfish greed, which threatened this institution of property, of which the prophet here complains.
II THE VICE OF COVETOUSNESS. The root of the vice is a thoroughgoing selfishness. The rich men use the means at their command unjustly to absorb the land into their own possession. The result must be the hopeless misery and degradation of the mass of the people. An instructive parallel to the state of things described by the prophet is to be found in the history of Sparta, at the time of the great lawgiver, Lycurgus. Plutarch tells us that the disorders which he found existing in the state arose in great measure from the gross inequality of property, and from the long avarice and rapacity of the rich, who had thus added house to house and field to field. The lawgiver, therefore, redistributed the whole territory of Sparta. In Roman letters we-read allusions to the habit of forming latifundia, or "broad farms," with its unsocial consequences. "How far," indignantly exclaims Seneca, "will ye extend the bounds of your possessions; not content to circumscribe the area of your estates by the sowing of provinces? The broad acres own one lord; the people crowd into a narrow field. The courses of bright streams flow through private estates; great rivers, bounds of great nations, from the source to the mouth, all are yours. And this is nothing unless you have girdled your broad farms with seas; unless across the Hadriatic, the Ionian, and the Aegean your bailiff reigns; unless islands, domiciles of great dukes, are reckoned amongst the commonest of things. Shall there be no lake over which the roofs of your villas hang not? no stream whose banks are not covered by your buildings?" (Ep. 88.). In his beautiful "Deserted Village," Goldsmith says"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
Too well we know what inappeasable discontent and seeming incurable misery has been begotten in Ireland of past selfishness and injustice of the few. Surely it is the part of every patriotic Christian man to forward all legislation which throws open God"s land to tillage, and breaks up selfish monopolies.
III THE PUNISHMENT OF COVETOUSNESS.
1. Its folly is exposed. One would think, from their conduct, that these grasping men desired to dwell alone amidst a waste! But, as the old agricultural poet of Greece says, "The man who frames ills against another frames them against himself, and ill counsel turns out worst for him who devised it. The all-seeing eye of Zeus looks upon these things, and they escape him not" (Hesiod, "Works and Days," 265, 266). Judgment gets the better of injustice when it comes to the final issue, and the fool who suffers from his avarice knows it to his cost. Like a wronged woman, she passes through the city, bewailing the manners of the people, clothed in mist; for men see not her approach, and know not that she is the cause of their calamities, who have driven her forth by her unjust deeds. Those, continues the poet, who do right by the strangers and the natives of the land their city flourishes, the people blossom therein; and peace, the nourisher of youths, prevails through the land. To them far-seeing Zeus appoints no bitter war; famine and curse are unknown. The earth produces abundance, the trees drop fruit and honey, the fleeces are heavy on the sheep; and mothers bear a noble offspring. But often a whole city suffers from an evil man, who is a sinner and devises haughty plans. Pestilence and famine come from the hands of the Supreme upon men; the houses are thinned and the people perish (ibid., 55. 217, etc.). These are close analogies to the great thoughts of our prophet.
2. The appropriate punishment. Those who have grasped at more than their right will find the coveted good dwindling in their hands, or, like a Dead Sea fruit, turning to ashes on their lips. One bucket only will be obtained from the "yoke" of vineyard; one bushel of corn from a quarter"s seed. Thus may we find in nature a profound Scripture, a record and a testimony of Divine law not to be gainsaid. In this day of science perhaps we fix our thought too exclusively on the dependence of man on Nature. There is another side of truth equally important the dependence of Nature on man. In moral energy, in compliance with the laws of right, we become more and more the masters of Nature, and she smiles back upon us with an aspect of recognition and blessing. In the sloth of our spirit and its corruption from truth we can no longer win the sympathy of the earth; and her groaning aspect reflects and represents a guilty decline of the soul These troths are general; only experience can teach where and how they must be modified in their application. J.
Vers. 8-10. The character and the doom of covetousness.
The judgment denounced against those that joined house to house and field to field bring into view the nature of the sin of covetousness, and the desolation in which it ends.
I THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF THE SIN. It is an immoderate ambition. To secure a house or a piece of land, or to extend that which has been acquired, may be not only lawful but positively commendable; it may, indeed, be highly honorable. But there are bounds beyond which this ambition may not pass, the transgression of which is wrong and soon becomes perilously evil. In the case of the Jews this limitation was defined by their statutes by that Law which they had received direct from God himself, and to which they owed a strict and cheerful obedience. In our case ambition becomes covetousness when it is indulged either at our own expense or at the expense of our brother. If we are indulging a purpose which cannot be executed without moral or spiritual injury to ourselves, or without doing injustice or rendering unkindness to our neighbor, we are guilty of the sin of covetousness. To some men the transgression assumes the one form, to others the other. To some, covetousness is the craving for property or money which becomes engrossing, absorbing, positively devouring all the higher and purer aspirations; to others it is the desire and determination to secure the neighbor"s good, however serious the loss they may thereby inflict. Solomon coveted many wives, greatly to his own injury; Ahab coveted Naboth"s vineyard, shamefully disregarding his neighbor"s rights.
II ITS INSATIABLENESS. The prophet uses the language of hyperbole when he says, "Till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth" (ver. 8); but his words clearly point to the fact that when men allow their ambition to pass beyond moderate and reasonable bounds they permit it to carry everything before it, so that their earth-hunger, or house-hunger, or their thirst for money is never satisfied. However much they gain, they still crave and strive for more; it is not only gold itself but that which it will bring which is "Hugged by the old To the very verge of the churchyard mould.
In nothing but death can the greedy eye be closed, and the grasping hand relaxed.
III ITS HEEDLESSNESS. The concluding clause of the eighth verse not only intimates the extent to which covetousness urges its victim to go in search of a satisfaction which it does not find, but it suggests the heartlessness to which it leads. No matter who or how many are disturbed and displaced, it goes on its devouring way, even though it finds itself "alone in the midst of the land (earth)." Every vice tends to hardness of heart, to pitilessness of spirit; and covetousness not the least. Self is magnified in importance more and more, and the rights and feelings of others become of less and less consideration until they are made of no account whatever.
IV ITS DOOM. The end of the covetous man was to be desolation (ver. 9) and poverty (ver. 10). Sin perpetually overreaches itself; and, of all particular sins, ambition "o"ervaults itself and comes down on th" other side." So far is covetousness from happiness that there is probably no more miserable man to be found in any spiritual region than is the victim of this vice.
1. He is desolate, friendless; hated by those whom he has injured; unloved, disregarded, or even despised, by those who watch his course.
2. He is destitute. Often, very often, avarice blinds the judgment, and the false move is made that ends in overthrow and ruin; always, covetousness shuts out those true treasures which make the heart rich and the life wealthy those possessions which death cannot touch, which immortality secures forever. C.
The covetous spirit, and its judgment.
The picture presented in this verse can be matched by the conduct of our English king, who destroyed the villages to make the New Forest; or by the makers of deer-forests in North Britain, who have driven away the natives. In Isaiah"s time the wealthy men were buying up the houses and estates, and destroying the old village life of Palestine. "In the place of the small freeholders, there rose up a class of large proprietors, while the original holders sank into slavery, or tenants-at-will, paying exorbitant rents in kind or money, and liable at any moment to be evicted" (Dean Plump, re). Bishop Latimer, in the sixteenth century, makes a bold protest against the enclosure of commons. Grasping after property is almost always connected with a neglect of charitable duties and a willingness to sacrifice the good of others. Such accumulation of landed property was fundamentally opposed to the Mosaic regulations. Illustrate by the law of jubilee, which made all land in Palestine purchaseable only on lease. (comp. Num_27:1-11 1Ki_21:4 Lev_25:8-17)
I LIVING TO GET. There are three ways of looking at life; three things which we may supremely aim at in life.
1. We may live to get. South says, "The covetous person lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world; to take in everything and part. with nothing." Austin defines covetousness as a dishonest and insatiable desire of gain." The Prophet Micah describes such persons," They covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage." The tenth commandment wholly forbids our making any personal gain the end and aim of life. Show under what self-deceiving forms this covetous desire to get ensnares men nowadays.
2. We may live to be. That is, to culture ourselves, and win the worship of men for what we are, in talent, skill, and virtue. This is nobler; and this is, in measure, right and good; yet it has this exceeding moral peril, that it keeps us in the self-spheres. It may easily pass into the degrading thing covetousness for fame.
3. We may live to serve. This is the Divine idea of life for us. This is the Christ-like pattern of life for us. This is the kind of life that suffering, sinning humanity asks for from us. They who can live to serve are, with Christ, after Christ, and in his strength, the world"s saviors, and the God-glorifiers.
II GOD"S JUDGMENTS ON HIM WHO LIVES TO GET. Those judgments will come as natural agencies, as fixed results of ever-working law, and as circumstances for which men may think to find easy explanation; but they are none the less direct Divine judgments. Such judgments on the covetous take two forms.
1. Character is debased by the constant getting and grasping. This may be effectively illustrated in the case of the apostate Judas. No moral deterioration is so serious or so certain as that of the covetous man. Hardening against his fellow-men, he is hardening against God. Crushing out all considerateness and all charity, he loses men"s love and God"s smile, and is wretched indeed when he has got all, and is "placed alone in the midst of the land." If any poor creature of our humanity calls for our supremest pity, it is surely the man who tins lived to get, and made his immortal soul grovel among mere possessions. "Take heed, and beware of covetousness; for a man"s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth.
2. The calamities of life will prove utterly ruinous to the covetous. Because they will touch them at their tenderest point, destroying their gains. The picture presented in the verses is a most affecting one. By the insecurity of the land the fine mansions are uninhabited, and the fields are neglected. Travelers tells us of the humiliating sight of decayed mansions in the East. War and civil commotion, often the natural result of the masterful ruling of covetous men, make property valueless, and so the evil brings round its own judgment. The law works universally, sometimes quickly, at other times slowly, so that men presume on its delaying, that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Apply by inquiring what is the end and aim of life to the hearers. Jacob would get, and he got years of homelessness, hard toil, and care. Achan would get, and he got an early and dreadful death. Gehazi would get, and he got the leprosy. Ananias and Sapphira would get, and they got a sudden destruction. Woe earth cries for it, and heaven sends it woe, sooner or later, for very one who liveth that he may get, and is utterly unworthy of him who, showing God to us, went about among his fellows as "One that serveth. 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 On vv8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25 Woe unto them that join house to house, that…
Isa_5:8-10
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field
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The selfish landowner
Selfishness, or the making self the centre to which all things are to tend, is the great sin in all ages and peoples.
As soon as national institutions have awakened the sense of personality and the feeling of self-respect, the desire of accumulating wealth grows with them. And in no form is it more liable to abuse than in connection with the possession of land. Men desire, by an almost universal instinct, to possess property in land, with its healthy occupations and interests, so varied and multiplied by the living powers of nature, and with its important political and social rights which grow up with the duties which are specially connected with it; for this kind of property demands the fulfilment of more, and more obvious duties than any other, while it confers corresponding rights and powers by bringing a man into more complete personal relationship with his neighbours than is possible in the crowd of cities and the whirl of city trades. Yet, since the land cannot be increased in quantity, its possession by one man is the exclusion of another, and the Hebrew laws endeavoured to meet this difficulty by special provisions, the breach or evasion of which the prophet now denounces in his first woe on the selfish landowner. He who can join house to house and lay field to field when he knows, and long has known, face to face, the very man, wife and child whom he has dispossessed, and can drive out by his own simple act his fellow men to be desolate in their poverty, in order that he may be alone in his riches, may expect a punishment proportioned to his crime. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
Nemesis
The prophet heard, ringing in his ears, the declaration of Jehovah, the King of the land, that the great and fair palaces should become as desolate as the peasants and yeomens cottages which had made place for them--the vineyard of ten acres yield but eight gallons of wine, and the cornfield shall give back but a tenth part of the seed sown in it. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
The Mosaic legislation
Moses directed as equal a division of the land as possible, in the first instance, among the 600,000 families who originally formed the nation; and provided against the permanent alienation of any estate by giving a right of repurchase to the seller and his relations, and of repossession without purchase at the Jubilee. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
Land laws
In the Channel Islands the acreage to be owned by one individual is limited. In Norway the law provides that the heirs of anyone who has parted with his property may buy that property back at sale price within a term of five years. (F. Sessions.)
Hebrew land laws
The Hebrew legislation further prevented the exhaustion of the soil and the fruit trees, by enforcing fallow and rest during every seventh year. The offerings of first fruits really constituted a kind of land tax, payable to Jehovah as Over-Lord, and tending to prevent the conversion of folk land into thanes land, or kings land. The legislation placed Jehovahs tenants under a poor law, which compelled cultivators to leave the gleanings of the crops, and all that the fallows of the seventh year Sabbaths produced spontaneously in those prolific fields, for the support of the needy. By the limitations of the right of private ownership,--a right that was not denied, and was frequently exercised,--every man was taught his responsibilities to his fellows. The theory was, as someone has written: Brotherhood in the enjoyment of a Fathers bounty. (F. Sessions.)
Land grabbing
Land grabbingand evictions may be new terms, but they are century-old sins. (F. Sessions.)
The land question
The land question is as old as history. The Hebrews were hardly out of the wilderness before laws were enacted to prevent the strong from getting more land than anyone ought to possess. The land laws of Moses occupy a large place in his legislation. The prevention of monopoly in land was clearly in the mind of the Hebrew lawgiver. In Isaiahs time the nation had recovered from poverty and grown rich, and the wealthy and ruling classes had begun to grasp the earth. They would have tried to fence in the air and pack the sunlight in barrels, if they could have done so. The spirit that would monopolise land would monopolise light if it could. Against this awful wrong the voice of the Lord rings its condemnation. Four things belong to man as man, and anyone who tries to prevent their being used for the service of humanity is a sinner against the universe and against God. Those four things are: the earth, the air, the water, and the light. Every man has a right to live, and no one can live as he ought without free access to earth, air, water, and light. Isaiah brought the people to this one point--this land belongs to God, and you are using it as if it were yours to do with as you please. And that is all that need be said today. The land, like the air, belongs to God; and if to God, then to humanity; and it is our business to find out, as all easily can if they will, how the great Owner of all the earth would have men use that which must be the home of all His creatures. Of one thing, however, we may be sure. He never intended that a few big lions should get possession of all the forests, so that there should be no comfortable places left for the rabbits, the sheep, and the cattle, except in holes in the ground; and He never intended that a few strong men should get possession of all the fertile, healthful, and beautiful ]portions of earth, so that the rest of humanity--the artists, the artisans, the literary men, and those who work with their hands--should be obliged to live in cellars and attics and hardly know what is meant by that great and dear word home. (Amory H. Bradford, D. D.)
A woe on monopolists
I. THE SIN. Their fault is--
1. That they are inordinate in their desires to enrich themselves, and make it their whole care and business to raise an estate, as if they had nothing to mind, nothing to seek, nothing to do in this world but that. They never know when they have enough, but the more they have the more they would have. They cannot enjoy what they have, nor do good with it, for contriving and studying to make it more. They must have variety of houses, a winter house and a summer house; and if another mans house or field lie convenient to theirs, as Naboths vineyard to Ahabs, they must have that too, or they cannot be easy.
2. They are herein careless of others; nay, and injurious to them. They would live so as to let nobody live but themselves. They would swell so big as to fill all space and yet are still unsatisfied (Ecc_5:10).
II. THE PUNISHMENT. That which is threatened as the punishment of this sin is--
1. That the houses they were so fond of should be untenanted, should stand long empty, and so should yield them no rent, and go out of repair. Mens projects are often frustrated, and what they frame answers not the intention.
2. That the fields they were so fond of should be unfruitful. (M. Henry.)
Unpatriotic monopolies
In 1650, while Cromwell was prosecuting his campaign against Charles II in Scotland, he wrote the Speaker of the Parliament, urging the reformation of many abuses and added, If there be anyone that makes many poor to make a few rich, that suits not a commonwealth. (C. Knights England.)
Greed pauperises the soul
A farmer said he should like to have all the land that joined his own. Bonaparte, who had the same appetite, endeavoured to make the Mediterranean a French lake. Czar Alexander was more expansive, and wished to call the Pacific my ocean; and the Americans were obliged to resist his attempts to make it a close sea. But if he had the earth for his pasture, and the sea for his pond, he would be a pauper still. He only is rich who owns the day. (R. W. Emerson.)
Covetous persons are
Covetous persons are like sponges, which greedily drink in water, but return very little, until they are squeezed. A covetous person wants what he has, as well as what he has not, because he is never satisfied with it. (G. S. Bowes.)
Folly of covetousness
If you should see a man that had a large pond of water yet living in continual thirst, not suffering himself to drink half a draught for fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and strength in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late to catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running greedily into every mire and mud in hopes of water, and always studying how to make every ditch empty itself into the pond; if you should see him grow grey in these anxious labours, and at last end a careful thirsty life by falling into his own pond, would you not say that such a one was not only the author of his own disquiet, but was foolish enough to be reckoned among madmen? But foolish and absurd as this character is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd disquiets of the covetous man. (Laws Serious Call.)
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 On vv8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24 Isa_5:8-10. Woe unto them that join house to house,…
COVETOUSNESS
Isa_5:8-10. Woe unto them that join house to house, &c.
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Covetousness is—I. Ruinous to the individual [601] II. Mischievous to society. III. Offensive to God. IV. Certain to be punished.
1. Here, by disappointment and loss (Pro_3:33) [604]
2. Hereafter, by exclusion from heaven (1Co_6:10; Eph_5:5) [607]J. Lyth, D.D.
[601] The love of money can never keep good quarter with honesty; there is a mint of fraud in the worldly breast, and it can coin lies as fast as utterance.—Adams, 1653.
[604] As Moses only saw the land of Canaan, but for his sin was not permitted to have any share or portion in it, so misers have, for their miserable covetousness, this punishment by God inflicted on them, that they shall only see their goods with eyes, but never enjoy them for their comfort; and that they shall toil and moil for their successor, oftentimes not knowing who he shall be, and receive no manner of benefit by their own labour. But as pipes keep none of the water to themselves that runs through them, but convey it all to their cisterns, so they are not able to retain any of the goods which they possess, for their own benefit and comfort, but only serve as overseers to convey them to their heirs.—Downame, 1642.
[607] If a man, sick on his bed, burning of a fever, fetching his breath with straitness and shortness, looking like earth, says he is well in health, we do not believe him: so if we see men swelling with pride, flaming with lust, looking earthy with covetousness, and yet flattering themselves with hope of salvation, we cannot credit them, all the world cannot save them.—Adams, 1654.
The covetous is like a camel, with a great hunch on his back; heaven-gate must be made higher and broader, or he will hardly get in.—Adams, 1653.
The avaricious man is like a pig, which seeks its food in the mud, without caring where it comes from.—Vianney.
GOD’S CURSE ON THE COVETOUS
Isa_5:8. Woe unto them that join house to house, &c.
God’s curse is in the habitation of the wicked.
1. Sometimes the curse enters into their hearts, and prevents them from enjoying comfort in their estates, and perplexes them with fears and cares about their possessions [610]
2. At other times it wastes and consumes them like a moth, or suddenly devours them by fire and sword.
3. In some existences they are suddenly and unexpectedly snatched away from their enjoyments by death [613]Macculloch, Lectures on Isaiah, i. 275.
[610] The covetous man pines in plenty, like Tantalus, up to the chin.—Adams, 1693.
[613] What can be more miserable, than for a man to toil and labour his whole life, and to have no power to enjoy any fruit of his labours? to bear like an ass a golden burden all the day, and, without any further use of it, at night to have it taken away, reserving nothing to himself but a galled conscience?—Downame, 1644.
I doubt not many covetous men take a great deal of pleasure in ruminating upon their wealth, and in recounting what they have; but they have a great deal of tormenting care and fear about it; and if they had not, it is very hard to understand where the reasonable pleasure and happiness lies of having things to no end. It is, at the best, like that of some foolish birds, which, they say, take pleasure in stealing money, that they may hide it; as if it were worth the while for men to take pains to dig silver out of the earth, for no other purpose but to melt it down and stamp it, and bury it there again.—Tillotson, 1630–1694.
WILD GRAPES
Isa_5:8-23. Woe unto them that join house to house, &c.
It is important to remember that this whole chapter constitutes one prophecy. Much of the power of its teaching will be lost, if this fact be overlooked. In Isa_5:1-7, we have the astonishing declaration that in “the vineyard of the Lord of hosts” He has discovered, not the excellent fruit He had a right to expect, but “wild grapes.” In Isa_5:8-23; some of these “wild grapes” are specified and denounced. Surveying His vineyard the Husbandman beheld—
I. Not the gracious fruit of generosity, but the evil fruits of GREED and PRIDE. He saw men, not content with the possessions which Providence had conferred upon them, nor those which honest industry would enable them to secure, but coveting their neighbour’s possessions, and hesitating at no means that would enable them to gratify their desires (Mic_2:1-2); beating down their equals, that they themselves might dwell in solitary grandeur (Isa_5:8). Note, 1, that the aggregation of landed property here denounced was directly contrary to most explicit Divine ordinances (Num_36:7; Lev_25:23-24) [592]
2. The conduct here denounced has its counterparts to-day—in the matter of land, great landowners buying up all the little farms adjoining their estates, and turning fruitful valleys into deer-runs; in trade, great capitalists subjecting their less wealthy rivals to ruinous competition, &c., &c., [595]
3. That it is not merely particular manifestations of the spirit of greed and pride, but the spirit itself, that provokes the indignation of the bountiful Giver of all good. Covetousness and arrogance are not confined to any particular class. The tenth commandment exists for the poor as well as for the rich.
[592] Political philosophy has much to say in favour of laws and institutions, at certain periods of a nation’s growth, for encouraging, or at least permitting, the disposition of its members to found families, to be maintained by hereditary possessions in land. Yet, if this disposition be not kept within bounds, those who are influenced by it will “join house to house, and field to field, till there be no place;” till the race of small landholders, yeomen, and partly independent tenants, is swallowed up by a few rich despots. To prevent this evil among the Hebrews, Moses directed as equal a division of the land as possible in the first instance, among the 600,000 families who originally formed the nation; and provided against the permanent alienation of any estate, by giving a right of repurchase to the seller and his relations, and of repossession without purchase at the Jubilee. The story of Naboth illustrates the effect of these laws in forming an order of sturdy, independent yeomen; but it must also be taken as an instance of the habitual breach of the same laws by the rich and powerful (cf. Micah 2; Neh_5:1-13; 2Ch_36:21); as they in like manner disobeyed that respecting the liberation of slaves at the Jubilee (Jer_34:8-16). In England, where the Norman conquest accumulated all the land in the hands of a few nobles, the like accumulation has been opposed—however imperfectly—by laws in their form exactly opposite to those of Moses; by the permission to cut off old entails, and the prohibition to make new ones except for one generation, and by allowing land to be bought and sold like other commodities.—Strachey, pp. 65, 66.
[595] The covetous man is like a spider. As in this, that he does nothing but lay his nets to catch every fly, gaping only for a booty of gain. So yet more, in that while he makes nets for these flies, he consumes his own bowels; so that which is his life is his death. If there be any creature miserable, it is he; and yet he is least to be pitied, because he makes himself miserable. Such as he is I will account him; and will therefore sweep down his webs, and hate his poison.—Hall, 1574–1656.
Covetous worldlings will hardly spare the poor some of their fire to warm them, some of their water to drink, some of their ground to lodge on, though it were no more hurt to them than the lighting of a candle at their torch.—Adams, 1653.
II. Not the excellent fruit of temperance, but the evil fruit of SENSUAL INDULGENCE (Isa_5:11-12). He saw men living for mere pleasure, without any recognition of the “work” which He had wrought for them as a nation, without any acknowledgment of His goodness to them as individuals, without any remembrance of the purpose of their being [598]
[598] Let us remember that it will be to small purpose to enjoy these worldly pleasures of sin for a season, and in the end plunge ourselves into everlasting death;—that the world’s music is but the syren’s song, which allures us to make shipwreck of our souls on the rocks of sin, and while it tickles the ear it wounds us to the very heart;—that though the cup which it offers be of gold, and the drink sweet in taste, yet it is deadly poison in operation; for they that drink thereof are so lulled asleep in pleasures and security, that they never awaken out of their spiritual lethargy; or if they do, yet like Sampson, without strength to resist the spiritual Philistines, after the world (like Delilah) has lulled them awhile in her lap of carnal pleasures.—Downame, 1642.
III. Not the excellent fruit of reverence for God’s Word, but the evil fruit of SCOFFING. The messengers whom He sent to recall them to duty, they scorned; the warnings which He mercifully sent to them of the judgments impending over them, they turned into merriment. Instead of forsaking their sins, they yoked themselves to them with renewed determination (Isa_5:18-19).
IV. Not the noble fruit of a recognition of the truth, but the evil fruit of INFIDELITY—that intellectual scepticism which seeks to destroy the very foundations of morality, and which prepares men for vice of all kinds, and hardens them therein, by confounding vice with virtue, and denying man’s moral accountability.
V. Not the befitting fruit of humility and desire for Divine guidance, but the evil fruit of SELF-SUFFICIENCY (Isa_5:21). Clever and successful “men of the world,” they resented the idea of their needing counsel and help as an insult. They were their own gods. Trusting in themselves with unfaltering confidence, they excluded from their minds all thought of Him in whom they lived and moved and had their being. Conceiving that they owed all their prosperity to their own wisdom and prudence, how could they give Him thanks? Confident that they would be equal to every emergency of life, how could they lift up to Him one real prayer?
VI. Not the indispensable fruit of righteousness in those who are called to rule, but that evil fruit which always excites His hottest indignation, DENIAL OF JUSTICE TO THE POOR. He saw the judges taking their seats on the judicial bench, not with clear intellects and the love of righteousness enthroned in their hearts, but besotted and brutalised by strong drink; not dispensing justice, but selling their verdict to those who could furnish them most amply with the means of gratifying their sensual lusts (Isa_5:22-23). Than the denial of justice there is no more cruel wrong.
These were the “wild grapes” which God saw when He looked down upon His ancient vineyard. Was it any vonder that He brake down the wall thereof, and gave it over to destruction? These are the “wild grapes” which He sees brought forth only too abundantly when He looks down upon this land. Is it not a wonder that He spares the nation to which we belong?
1. Let us beseech Him still to spare as, for the sake of the “ten righteous” who dwell among us.
2. Let us recognise that the most urgent duty to which we are called as patriots is the abatement of those iniquities which justly kindle God’s indignation against us.
3. Let us as individuals search and see what fruits are being brought forth in the vineyard of our own souls, lest while we are deploring the iniquities of our land and time, and, it may be, are labouring to lessen them, there grow up within us “wild grapes” which will bring down upon us the Divine condemnation.
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.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v8 Isa 5:8 - Isa 5:30.
Isaiah
A PROPHET’S WOES
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Isa 5:8 - Isa 5:30.
Drunkenness is, in this text, one of a ring of plague-spots on the body politic of Judah. The prophet six times proclaims ‘woe’ as the inevitable end of these; such ‘sickness’ is ‘unto death’ unless repentance and another course of conduct bring healing. But drunkenness appears twice in this grim catalogue, and the longest paragraph of denunciation {Isa 5:11 - Isa 5:17} is devoted to it. Its connection with the other vices attacked is loose, but it is worth noting that all these have an inner kinship, and tend to appear together. They are ‘all in a string,’ and where a community is cursed with one, the others will not be far away. They are a knot of serpents intertwined. We touch but slightly on the other vices denounced by the prophet’s burning words, but we must premise the general observation that the same uncompromising plainness and boldness in speaking out as to social sins ought to characterise Christian teachers to-day. The prophet’s office is not extinct in the church.
The first plague-spot is the accumulation of wealth in few hands, and the selfish withdrawal of its possessors from the life of the community. In an agricultural society like that of Judah, that clotting of wealth took the shape of ‘land-grabbing,’ and of evicting the small proprietors. We see it in more virulent forms in our great commercial centres, where the big men often become big by crushing out the little ones, and denude themselves of responsibility to the community in proportion as they clothe themselves with wealth. Wherever wealth is thus congested, and its obligations ignored by selfish indulgence, the seeds are sown which will spring up one day in ‘anarchism.’ A man need not be a prophet to have it whispered in his ear, as Isaiah had, that the end of selfish capitalism is a convulsion in which ‘many houses shall be desolate,’ and many fields barren. England needs the warning as much as Isaiah’s Judah did.
Such selfish wealth leads, among other curses, to indolence and drunkenness, as the next woe shows. The people described make drinking the business of their lives, beginning early and sitting late. They have a varnish of art over their swinishness, and must have music as well as wine. So, in many a drink-shop in England, a piano or a band adds to the attractions, and gives a false air of aestheticism to pure animalism. Isaiah feels the incongruity that music should be so prostituted, and expresses it by adding to his list of musical instruments ‘and wine’ as if he would underscore the degradation of the great art to be the cupbearer of sots. Such revellers are blind to the manifest tokens of God’s working, and the ‘operation of His hands’ excites only the tipsy gaze which sees nothing. That is one of the curses which dog the drunkard-that he takes no warning from the plain results of his vice as seen in others. He knows that it means shattered health, ruined prospects, broken hearts, but nothing rouses him from his fancy of impunity. High, serious thoughts of God and His government of the world and of each life are strange to him. His sin compels him to be godless, if he is not to go mad. But sometimes he wakes to a moment’s sight of realities, and then he is miserable till his next bout buys fatal forgetfulness.
The prophet forces the end of a drunken nation on the unwilling attention of the roisterers, in Isa 5:13 - Isa 5:17, which throb with vehemence of warning and gloomy eloquence. What can such a people come to but destruction? Knowledge must languish, hunger and thirst must follow. Like some monster’s gaping mouth, the pit yawns for them; and, drawn as by irresistible attraction, the pomp and the wicked, senseless jollity elide down into it. In the universal catastrophe, one thing alone stands upright, and is lifted higher, because all else has sunk so far,-the righteous judgment of the forgotten God. The grim picture is as true for individuals and their deaths as for a nation and its decay. And modern nations cannot afford to have this ulcer of drunkenness draining away their strength any more than Judah could. ‘By the soul only are the nations great and free,’ and a people can be neither where the drink fiend has his way.
Three woes follow which are closely connected. That pronounced on daring evil-doers, who not only let sin draw them to itself, but go more than halfway to meet it, needing no temptation, but drawing it to them eagerly, and scoffing at the merciful warnings of fatal consequences, comes first. Next is a woe on those who play fast and loose with plain morality, sophisticating conscience, and sapping the foundations of law. Such juggling follows sensual indulgence such as drunkenness, when it becomes habitual and audacious, as in the preceding woe. Loose or perverted codes of morality generally spring from bad living, seeking to shelter itself. Vicious principles are an afterthought to screen vicious practices. The last subject of the triple woes is self-conceit and pretence to superior illumination. Such very superior persons are emancipated from the rules which bind the common herd. They are so very clever that they have far outgrown the creeping moralities, which may do for old women and children. Do we not know the sort of people? Have we none of them surviving to-day?
Then Isaiah comes back to his theme of drunkenness, but in a new connection. It poisons the fountain of justice. There is a world of indignant contempt in the prophet’s scathing picture of those who are ‘mighty’ and ‘men of strength,’-but how is their strength shown? They can stand any quantity of wine, and can ‘mix their drinks,’ and yet look sober! What a noble use to put a good constitution to! These valiant topers are in authority as judges, and they sell their judgments to get money for their debauches. We do not see much of such scandals among us, but yet we have heard of leagues between liquor-sellers and municipal authorities, which certainly do not ‘make for righteousness.’ When shall we learn and practise the lesson that Isaiah was reading his countrymen,-that it is fatal to a nation when the private character of public men is regarded as of no account in political and civic life? The prophet had no doubt as to what must be the end of a state of things in which the very courts of law were honeycombed with corruption, and demoralised by the power of drink. His tremendous image of a fierce fire raging across a dry prairie, and burning the grass to its very roots, while the air is stifling with the thick ‘dust’ of the conflagration, proclaims the sure fate, sooner or later, of every community and individual that ‘rejects the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despises the word of the Holy One of Israel.’ Change the name, and the tale is told of us; for it is ‘righteousness that exalteth a nation,’ and no single vice drags after it more infallibly such a multitude of attendant demons as the vice of drunkenness, which is a crying sin of England to-day.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v14 hell Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5").
hell Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v8 A Sixfold Woe upon the Jewish Transgressors
A Sixfold Woe upon the Jewish Transgressors
v. 8. Woe unto them that join house to house, in a greed for wealth which is never satisfied, that lay field to field, their covetousness causing them to add one piece of property to another, till there be no place, no room for any one else, that they, literally, "ye," for the prophet here turns directly to the Jews, may be placed alone in the midst of the earth, thus violating the statutes both concerning the inheritance of real estate and the year of jubilee, Num 27:9-11; Lev 25:10-13.
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v. 9. In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, the great Ruler of the universe Himself making it known to His prophet, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, the beautiful homes of the rich, without inhabitant, as a punishment upon their greed.
v. 10. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one hath, one bucket of wine, about seven and one half gallons, and the seed of an homer, about eight bushels, shall yield an ephah, a little more than three pecks, the land thus producing only about one-tenth of the amount of seed sown in the spring, that is, a starvation harvest.
v. 11. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may follow, eagerly pursue, strong drink, a kind of brandy prepared from dates, apples, pomegranates, honey, and barley; that continue until night, protracting their session of debauchery until the cool of the evening and beyond, till wine inflame them, putting them into a condition where they are ready for all the works of darkness. Note that the moderate use of even intoxicating beverages is not in itself condemned, but every form of excess, as the further description shows.
v. 12. And the harp, or zither, and the viol, a guitar-like instrument, the tabret, the tambourine, and pipe, a kind of flute, and wine are in their feasts, of these their banquets consist, this is all they have in mind in planning and executing their drinking-bouts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, they were deaf to the message of Jehovah in nature, in history, especially in the preaching of His prophets, neither consider the operation of His hands, in preparing the punishment of righteousness for all the guilty.
v. 13. Therefore My people, as the Lord still affectionately calls them, are gone into captivity, the visitation of the Babylonian captivity being pictured as already taking place, because they have no knowledge, not only because they hardened their hearts against all understanding, but because the calamity, for this reason, also caught them unawares; and their honorable men are famished, literally, "become starvelings," people suffering hunger, and their multitude dried up with thirst, a vivid description of Israel as it was driven into exile. Such is ever the consequence when the luxury-loving people of this world deliberately exclude the understanding of spiritual things from their hearts.
v. 14. Therefore hell, in this case the realm of death in so far as they were subject to punishment in the place reserved for the wicked, hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure, to receive the great number of victims; and their glory, the splendor of their wickedness, and their multitude, and their pomp, the tumult and noise of their drunken shouting, and he that rejoiceth, those finding their enjoyment in the excesses of this world, shall descend into it. Then all the laughter and shouting of the children of this world will be changed to cries of woe, accompanied by weeping and gnashing of teeth.
v. 15. And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, men of every rank and station being included in the Lord’s condemnation, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled, so that they are no longer lifted up in pride;
v. 16. but the Lord of hosts, He who exerts unlimited authority over the world and all its fortunes, shall be exalted in judgment, the very overthrow of the wicked redounding to His glory, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness, give evidence of His holiness in exercising justice upon the ungodly.
v. 17. Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, as on their usual pasturage, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat, the nomad tribes of the desert again occupying the land which had been held by similar people in ancient days. Thus the land of Canaan would become a monument of God’s punitive justice, as a result of Israel’s apostasy.
v. 18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, their first excuses to themselves being like hair-strings, but their increasing callousness finally causing them boldly to draw their guilt to them as with heavy cords, and sin, as it were, with a cart-rope, they hitch it to them like draft-horses dragging a heavy wagon, laying themselves to the traces with all their might, utterly ignoring the thought of a day of vengeance;
v. 19. that say, Let Him make speed and hasten His work that we may see it, that is, the threatened retribution, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come that we may know it! Their blasphemous mockery is like that of which the Apostle Peter writes, 2Pe 3:3-13, and will surely draw down upon them the punishment of the Lord. And so far as the mockers of our day are concerned, the time will come when they, overcome with terror at the revelation of God’s judgment upon them, will call upon the mountains to fall upon them and to the hills to cover them.
v. 20. Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, thus reversing all principles of true morality; that put darkness for light and light for darkness, particularly in palliating the wickedness of sin, in representing avarice, luxury, the lust of the flesh as harmless faults; that put bitter for sweet, by condemning the godly, the children of God, as enemies of mankind, and sweet for bitter, by glossing over transgression and thus leading men into everlasting destruction.
v. 21. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, arrogant in their self-conceit, an offense which is rebuked also by St. Paul, Rom 12:16, and prudent in their own sight, such people being beyond the necessity of learning, their lack of humility causing them to reject all instruction that is brought to their notice, especially the message of the Lord’s servants.
v. 22. Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink, champions of dissolute living, selling justice in order to obtain the means to indulge in the service of mammon and luxury;
v. 23. which justify the wicked for reward, openly seeking bribes, and, in fulfilling the promises made on the strength of such gifts, take away the righteousness of the righteous from him, deciding against him in court and thus frustrating the ends of justice. Note that all the sins which are here condemned with such harsh words are found in our day and age and will surely be subject to the Lord’s punishment, as in the days of Isaiah.
v. 24. Therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, in a sudden and thorough destruction, so their root, the supposed firm hold of these transgressors, shall be as rottenness, moldy and decayed, and their blossom, their outward prosperous appearance, shall go up as dust, flying away like small particles, because they have cast away the Law of the Lord of hosts, in a deliberate, blasphemous rejection, and despised the Word of the Holy One in Israel, through which He wanted to call them to repentance.
v. 25. Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against His people, and He hath stretched forth His hand against them and hath smitten them, the scene again being painted before the eyes of the people, in order to urge them to repentance; and the hills did tremble, under the blow delivered by Jehovah, as from a mighty earthquake, and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets, lying there as dung, even as it had happened before, 2Ch 28:6. For all this, although the punishment of the Lord has repeatedly gone forth, His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still. So great was the apostasy in Israel that the wrath of the Lord was not yet appeased, especially since the nation showed no signs of true repentance; it was the wrath of the final Judgment.
v. 26. And He, in delivering the last great blow, will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, as a signal and invitation for them to attack Israel, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth, the figure being taken from the work of the bee-keeper, who coaxes the bees from their hives by a hissing sound; and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly, most eager to carry out the Lord’s will upon Israel.
v. 27. None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, to retard their movements, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken, all this being descriptive of their tireless activity, their unwearied zeal, and their readiness for battle;
v. 28. whose arrows are sharp and all their bows bent, ready to send the arrows to their mark; their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, a most important attribute for a campaign of war carried to such distances, and their wheels like a whirlwind, for their rolling resembled the sound of an advancing tempest;
v. 29. their roaring shall be like a lion, a fearful battle-cry, they shall roar like young lions, eager for their prey; yea, they shall roar and lay hold of the prey, Israel becoming an easy victim, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it, no one being strong enough to come to Israel’s aid in this emergency laid upon it by the Lord.
v. 30. And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea, the surf breaking on the precipitous shore with a fearful thunder; and if one look unto the land, seeking a firm foothold, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof, literally, "darkness—distress and light—night in the clouds of heaven above," that is, tribulation and relief would change off quickly in the fate of Israel; but the final result would be the blackest night, shutting out all light. That, in brief, is the outline of Israel’s history until the exile, not only the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar, but that of the Romans in the year 70 A. D. as well.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv8, 11, 13, 15, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29 General Information:
General Information:
Isaiah announces God's judgment.
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to those who join house to house, who join field to field
"to those who take more and more houses, and who take more and more fields." Isaiah assumes that his audience knows that the law forbids someone from taking land from a family permanently. The full meaning of this statement can be made clear. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
Yahweh of hosts
See how you translated this in Isaiah 1:9.
without any inhabitant
"without anyone living in it"
a ten-yoke vineyard
The size of the vineyard is represented by the number of pairs of oxen that could plow it in one day. Each pair of oxen would be connected by a yoke. AT: "a vineyard that is large enough for ten pairs of oxen to plow it" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
one bath
"one bath of wine" or "22 liters of wine" (See: Biblical Volume)
one homer of seed will yield only an ephah
"220 liters of seed will produce only 22 liters of grain." One homer equals ten ephahs. (See: Biblical Volume)
translationWords
woe
Yahweh of hosts
vineyard
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 On vv8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 30 5:8-23 This section contains six pronouncements of sorrow—six threats…
5:8-23 This section contains six pronouncements of sorrow—six threats of dreadful judgment (5:8, 11, 18, 20, 21, 22). The sorrows identify some of the “bitter grapes” produced by the vineyard of Israel (5:1-7).
5:8-10 What sorrow: The first threat of judgment was against oppressive greed. Properties (house and field) were being taken by illegal means. The new owners were thugs who used every avenue to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor (see 1 Kgs 21:1-29; Amos 2:6-7).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.