Isaiah 28:6

Isaiah THE JUDGMENT OF DRUNKARDS AND MOCKERSIsaiah 28:1 - Isaiah 28:13 . This prophecy probably falls in the first years of Hezekiah, when Samaria still stood, and the storm of war was gathering black in the north. The portion included in the text predicts the fall of Samaria { Isaiah 28:1 - Isaiah 28:6 } and then turns to Judah, which is guilty of the same sins as the northern capital, and adds to them mockery of the prophet’s message. Isaiah speaks with fiery indignation and sharp sarcasm. His words are aflame with loathing of the moral corruption of both kingdoms, and he fastens on the one common vice of drunkenness-not as if it were the only sin, but because it shows in the grossest form the rottenness underlying the apparent beauty. I. The woe on Samaria { Isaiah 28:1 - Isaiah 28:6 }. Travellers are unanimous in their raptures over the fertility and beauty of the valley in which Samaria stood, perched on its sunny, fruitful hill, amid its vineyards. The situation of the city naturally suggests the figure which regards it as a sparkling coronet or flowery wreath, twined round the brows of the hill; and that poetical metaphor is the more natural, since revellers were wont to twist garlands in their hair, when they reclined at their orgies. The city is ‘the crown of pride’-that is, the object of boasting and foolish confidence-and is also ‘the fading flower of his sparkling ornament’; that is, the flower which is the ornament of Ephraim, but is destined to fade.

The picture of the city passes into that of the drunken debauch, where the chief men of Samaria sprawl, ‘smitten down’ by wine, and with the innocent flowers on their hot temples drooping in the fumes of the feast. But bright and sunny as the valley is, glittering in the light as the city sits on her hill, careless and confident as the revellers are, a black cloud lies on the horizon, and one of the terrible sudden storms which such lands know comes driving up the valley. ‘The Lord hath a mighty and strong one’-the conqueror from the north, who is God’s instrument, though he knows it not. The swift, sudden, irresistible onslaught of the Assyrian is described, in harmony with the figure of the flowery coronal, as a tempest which beats down the flowers and flings the sodden crown to the ground. The word rendered ‘tempest’ is graphic, meaning literally a ‘downpour.’ First comes hail, which batters the flowers to shreds; then the effect of the storm is described as ‘destruction,’ and then the hurrying words turn back to paint the downpour of rain, ‘mighty’ from its force in falling, and ‘overflowing’ from its abundance, which soon sets all the fields swimming with flood water. What chance has a poor twist of flowers in such a storm? Its beauty will be marred, and all the petals beaten off, and nothing remains but that it should be trampled into mud.

He explains how, or wherein, God would glorify and beautify them, even by giving wisdom to their rulers, and courage to their soldiers; which two things contribute much to the strength, and safety, and glory of a nation. To them that turn the battle to the gate; to their warriors; whom he describeth by this phrase, to intimate that their valour should be crowned with success, and that they should not only drive their enemies from their own gates and land, but should pursue them into their own lands, and besiege them in their own cities, which Hezekiah did; 2 Kings 18:8 .

6 . Jehovah is not only the beauty of the redeemed nation, but the source of all civic and martial virtues. a spirit of judgment ] The same phrase (but with a different meaning) occurs in ch. Isaiah 4:4 . “Spirit” is used here as in ch. Isaiah 11:2 . to him that sitteth in judgment ] (or “over the judgment[-seat]”)—the king or the judge (cf. ch. Isaiah 32:1 ). for strength (or, valour ) to them that … gate ] Better, at the gate , not the gate of the enemy, but of the city or land ( Nahum 3:13 ) into which the enemy have penetrated. The promise is somewhat remarkable for Isaiah (cf. Micah 5:5 ff.). 7, 8 form the literary introduction to the dramatic incident represented in Isaiah 28:9-13 ; they are not part of Isaiah’s spoken discourse on that occasion. The opening words But these also (R.V.) connect this section with the preceding, but the connexion is due to similarity of subject, and not to coincidence of date. There are obvious reasons why the prediction of the fall of Samaria should be republished in the time of Sennacherib. The magnates of Jerusalem were following the lead of Samaria, both in their dissolute habits and in their foolish trust in an Egyptian alliance; Samaria is a mirror in which they may read their own character and their own doom. On intemperance among the Judæan nobility see ch. Isaiah 5:11 f., 22.