Category:Book of Isaiah (Chapters 1 - 39)

Note: This page contains Chapters 1 - 39 of the Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40 - 66 can be found here.

 THE PROPHECY OF ISAIAH 

This inspired writer is called by the Holy Spirit, the great prophet, (Sirach 48:25,) from the greatness of his prophetic spirit, by which he has foretold so long before, and in so clear a manner, the coming of Christ, the mysteries of our redemption, the calling of the Gentiles, and the glorious establishment, and perpetual flourishing of the church of Christ: insomuch that he may seem to have been rather an evangelist than a prophet. His very name is not without mystery; for Isaias in Hebrew signifies the salvation of the Lord, or Jesus is the Lord. He was, according to the tradition of the Hebrews, of the blood royal of the kings of Judah: and after a most holy life, ended his days by a glorious martyrdom; being sawed in two, at the command of his wicked son in law, King Manasseh, for reproving his evil ways.



Isaiah Chapter 1
The prophet complains of the sins of Judah and Jerusalem, and exhorts them to a sincere conversion.

1:1. The vision of Isaiah the Son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Joathan, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

'''1:2. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have brought up children, and exalted them: but they have despised me.'''



1:3. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood.

1:4. Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards.

'''1:5. For what shall I strike you any more, you that increase transgression? the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad.'''

1:6. From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores: they are not bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil.

1:7. Your land is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire: your country strangers devour before your face, and it shall be desolate as when wasted by enemies.



1:8. The daughter of Zion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a city that is laid waste.

1:9. Except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrha.

1:10. Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, people of Gomorrha.

'''1:11. To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims, says the Lord? I am full, I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats.'''

1:12. When you came to appear before me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in my courts?



'''1:13. Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked.'''

1:14. My soul hates your new moons, and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them.

1:15. When you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood.

1:16. Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes, cease to do perversely,

1:17. Learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow.



1:18. Then come, and accuse me, says the Lord: if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.

1:19. If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land.

1:20. But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath: the sword shall devour you because the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

'''1:21. How is the faithful city, that was full of judgment, become a harlot? justice dwelt in it, but now murderers.'''

1:22. Your silver is turned into dross: your wine is mingled with water.

'''1:23. Your princes are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, they run after rewards. They judge not for the fatherless: and the widow's cause comes not in to them.'''

'''1:24. Therefore says the Lord the God of hosts, the mighty one of Israel: Ah! I will comfort myself over my adversaries: and I will be revenged of my enemies.'''

1:25. I will turn my hand to you, and I will clean purge away your dross, and I will take away all your tin.

'''1:26. I will restore your judges as they were before, and your counselors as of old. After this you shall be called the city of the just, a faithful city.'''

1:27. Zion shall be redeemed in judgment, and they shall bring her back in justice.

1:28. He shall destroy the wicked, and the sinners together: and they that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed.

1:29. For they shall be confounded for the idols, to which they have sacrificed: and you shall be ashamed of the gardens which you have chosen.



1:30. When you shall be as an oak with the leaves falling off, and as a garden without water.

1:31. Your strength shall be as the ashes of tow, and your work as a spark: and both shall burn together, and there shall be none to quench it.

Isaiah Chapter 2
'All nations shall flow to the church of Christ. The Jews shall be rejected for their sins. Idolatry shall be destroyed.'

2:1. The word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.



2:2. In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.

The last days. . .The whole time of the new law, from the coming of Christ till the end of the world, is called in the scripture the last days; because no other age or time shall come after it, but only eternity.--Ibid. On the top of mountains, etc. .. This shows the perpetual visibility of the church of Christ: for a mountain upon the top of mountains cannot be hid.

2:3. Many people shall go, and say: Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the law shall come forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

2:4. He shall judge the Gentiles, and rebuke many people: and they shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more to war.



2:5. O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

2:6. For you have cast off your people, the house of Jacob: because they are filled as in times past, and have had soothsayers as the Philistines, and have adhered to strange children.

2:7. Their land is filled with silver and gold: and there is no end of their treasures.

'''2:8. Their land is filled with horses: and their chariots are innumerable. Their land also is full of idols: they have adored the work of their own hands, which their own fingers have made.'''

2:9. Man has bowed himself down, and man has been debased: therefore forgive them not.

2:10. Enter you into the rock, and hide in the pit from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty.

2:11. The lofty eyes of man are humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be made to stoop: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

2:12. Because the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and highminded, and upon every one that is arrogant, and he shall be humbled.

2:13. Upon all the tall and lofty cedars of Libanus, and upon all the oaks of Basan.

2:14. Upon all the high mountains and upon all the elevated hills.

2:15. Upon every high tower, and every fenced wall.



2:16. Upon all the ships of Tharsis, and upon all that is fair to behold.

2:17. The loftiness of men shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

2:18. Idols shall be utterly destroyed.

Idols shall be utterly destroyed. . .or utterly pass away. This was verified by the establishment of Christianity. And by this and other texts of the like nature, the wild system of some modern sectaries is abundantly confuted, who charge the whole Christian church with worshipping idols, for many ages.

2:19. They shall go into the holes of rocks, and into the caves of the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he shall rise up to strike the earth.



2:20. In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which he had made for himself to adore, moles and bats.

2:21. He shall go into the clefts of rocks, and into the holes of stones from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he shall rise up to strike the earth.

2:22. Cease you therefore from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is reputed high.

Isaiah Chapter 3
'The confusion and other evils that shall come upon the Jews for their sins. The pride of their women shall be punished.'

3:1. For behold the sovereign Lord of hosts shall take away from Jerusalem, and from Judah the valiant and the strong, the whole strength of bread, and the whole strength of water.



3:2. The strong man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet and the cunning man, and the ancient.

3:3. The captain over fifty, and the honorable in countenance, and the counsellor, and the architect, and the skillful in eloquent speech.

3:4. I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them.

3:5. The people shall rush one upon another, and every man against his neighbor: the child shall make a tumult against the ancient, and the base against the honorable.

3:6. For a man shall take hold of his brother, one of the house of his father, saying: You have a garment, be you our ruler, and let this ruin be under your hand.

3:7. In that day he shall answer, saying: I am no healer, and in my house there is no bread, nor clothing: make me not ruler of the people.

3:8. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue, and their devices are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his majesty.

3:9. The show of their countenance has answered them: and they have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it: woe to their souls, for evils are rendered to them.



3:10. Say to the just man that it is well, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings.

3:11. Woe to the wicked unto evil: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.

'''3:12. As for my people, their oppressors have stripped them, and women have ruled over them. O my people, they that call you blessed, the same deceive you, and destroy the way of your steps.'''

3:13. The Lord stands up to judge, and he stands to judge the people.

3:14. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and its princes: for you have devoured the vineyard, and the spoil of the poor is in your house.

'''3:15. Why do you consume my people, and grind the faces of the poor? says the Lord the God of hosts.'''

3:16. The Lord said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and have walked with stretched out necks, and wanton glances of their eyes, and made a noise as they walked with their feet and moved in a set pace:

3:17. The Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their hair.

3:18. In that day the Lord will take away the ornaments of shoes, and little moons,

3:19. and chains and necklaces, and bracelets, and bonnets,

3:20. and bodkins, and ornaments of the legs, and tablets, and sweet balls, and earrings,

3:21. and rings, and jewels hanging on the forehead,

3:22. and changes of apparel, and short cloaks, and fine linen, and crisping pins,

3:23. and lookingglasses, and lawns, and headbands, and fine veils.

3:24. Instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle, a cord, and instead of curled hair, baldness, and instead of a stomacher, haircloth.

3:25. Your fairest men also shall fall by the sword, and your valiant ones in battle.

3:26. Her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall sit desolate on the ground.

Isaiah Chapter 4
After an extremity of evils that shall fall upon the Jews, a remnant shall be comforted by Christ.



4:1. In that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying: We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by your name, take away our reproach.

4:2. In that day the bud of the Lord shall be in magnificence and glory, and the fruit of the earth shall be high, and a great joy to them that shall have escaped of Israel.

The bud of the Lord. . .That is, Christ.

4:3. It shall come to pass, that every one that shall be left in Zion, and that shall remain in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one that is written in life in Jerusalem.

4:4. If the Lord shall wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall wash away the blood of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.



4:5. The Lord will create upon every place of mount Zion, and where he is called upon, a cloud by day, and a smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire in the night: for over all the glory shall be a protection.

4:6. There shall be a tabernacle for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a security and covert from the whirlwind, and from rain.

Isaiah Chapter 5
'The reprobation of the Jews is foreshown under the parable of a vineyard. A woe is pronounced against sinners: the army of God shall send against them.'

'''5:1. I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill in a fruitful place.'''

My cousin. . .So the prophet calls Christ, as being of his family and kindred, by descending from the house of David. Ibid. On a hill, etc. . .Literally, in the horn, the son of oil.



5:2. He fenced it in, and picked the stones out of it, and planted it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in the midst thereof, and set up a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

5:3. Now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

'''5:4. What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it has brought forth wild grapes?'''

'''5:5. Now I will show you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted: I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.'''



5:6. I will make it desolate: it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be digged: but briers and thorns shall come up: and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it.

5:7. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel: and the man of Judah, his pleasant plant: and I looked that he should do judgment, and behold iniquity: and do justice, and behold a cry.

5:8. Woe to you that join house to house and lay field to field, even to the end of the place: shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth?

5:9. These things are in my ears, says the Lord of hosts: Unless many great and fair houses shall become desolate, without an inhabitant.

5:10. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one little measure, and thirty bushels of seed shall yield three bushels.

5:11. Woe to you that rise up early in the morning to follow drunkenness, and to drink in the evening, to be inflamed with wine.



5:12. The harp, and the lyre, and, the timbrel and the pipe, and wine are in your feasts: and the work of the Lord you regard not, nor do you consider the works of his hands.

5:13. Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge, and their nobles have perished with famine, and their multitude were dried up with thirst.

5:14. Therefore has hell enlarged her soul, and opened her mouth without any bounds, and their strong ones, and their people, and their high and glorious ones shall go down into it.

5:15. Man shall be brought down, and man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be brought low.

5:16. The Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be sanctified in justice.



5:17. The lambs shall feed according to their order, and strangers shall eat the deserts turned into fruitfulness.

5:18. Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as the rope of a cart.

5:19. That say: Let him make haste, and let his work come quickly, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it.

5:20. Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

5:21. Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own conceits.

5:22. Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at drunkenness.

5:23. That justify the wicked for gifts, and take away the justice of the just from him.

5:24. Therefore as the tongue of the fire devours the stubble, and the heat of the flame consumes it: so shall their root be as ashes, and their bud shall go up as dust: for they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel.



5:25. Therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, and he has stretched out his hand upon them, and struck them: and the mountains were troubles ***'''. For after this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.'''

5:26. He will lift up a sign to the nations afar off, and will whistle to them from the ends of the earth: and behold they shall come with speed swiftly.

5:27. There is none that shall faint, nor labor among them: they shall not slumber nor sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken.



'''5:28. Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows are bent. The hoofs of their horses shall be like the flint, and their wheels like the violence of a tempest.'''

5:29. Their roaring like that of a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea they shall roar, and take hold of the prey, and they shall keep fast hold of it, and there shall be none to deliver it.



5:30. They shall make a noise against them that day, like the roaring of the sea; we shall look towards the land, and behold darkness of tribulation, and the light is darkened with the mist thereof.

Isaiah Chapter 6
A glorious vision, in which the prophet's lips are cleansed: he foretells the obstinacy of the Jews.

6:1. In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and his train filled the temple.



6:2. Upon it stood the seraphims: the one had six wings, and the other had six wings: with two they covered his face, and with two they covered his feet, and with two they flew.

6:3. They cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory,

6:4. The lintels of the doors were moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

6:5. I said: Woe is me, because I have held my peace; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that has unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King the Lord of hosts.



6:6. One of the seraphims flew to me, and in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar.

6:7. He touched my mouth, and said: Behold this has touched your lips, and your iniquities shall be taken away, and your sin shall be cleansed.

'''6:8. I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me.'''

6:9. He said: Go, and you shall say to this people: Hearing, hear, and understand not: and see the vision, and know it not.

6:10. Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.

'''6:11. I said: How long, O Lord? And he said: Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land shall be left desolate.'''

6:12. The Lord shall remove men far away, and she shall be multiplied that was left in the midst of the earth.

6:13. There shall be still a tithing therein, and she shall turn, and shall be made a show as a turpentine tree, and as an oak that spreads its branches: that which shall stand therein, shall be a holy seed.

Isaiah Chapter 7
The prophet assures king Ahaz that the two kings his enemies shall not take Jerusalem.

7:1. It came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Joathan, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rasin king of Syria and Phacee the son of Romelia king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem, to fight against it: but they could not prevail over it.



7:2. They told the house of David, saying: Syria has rested upon Ephraim, and his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind.

7:3. The Lord said to Isaiah: Go forth to meet Ahaz, you and Jasub your son that is left, to the conduit of the upper pool in the way of the fuller's field.



7:4. You shall say to him: See you be quiet: fear not, and let not your heart be afraid of the two tails of these firebrands, smoking with the wrath of the fury of Rasin king of Syria, and of the son of Romelia.

7:5. Because Syria has taken counsel against you, unto the evil of Ephraim and the son of Romelia, saying:

7:6. Let us go up to Judah, and rouse it up, and draw it away to us, and make the son of Tabeel king in the midst thereof.

7:7. Thus says the Lord God: It shall not stand, and this shall not be.



7:8. But the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rasin: and within threescore and five years, Ephraim shall cease to be a people:

'''7:9. The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Romelia. If you will not believe, you shall not continue.'''

7:10. The Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying:



7:11. Ask you a sign of the Lord your God, either unto the depth of hell, or unto the height above.

7:12. Ahaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord.

7:13. He said: Hear therefore, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God also?

'''7:14. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel.'''



7:15. He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good.

7:16. For before the child know to refuse the evil and to choose the good, the land which you abhorrest shall be forsaken of the face of her two kings.

7:17. The Lord shall bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon the house of your father, days that have not come since the time of the separation of Ephraim from Judah with the king of the Assyrians.

7:18. It shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly, that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.



7:19. They shall come, and shall all of them rest in the torrents of the valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all places set with shrubs, and in all hollow places.

7:20. In that day the Lord shall shave with a razor that is hired by them that are beyond the river, by the king of the Assyrians, the head and the hairs of the feet, and the whole beard.

7:21. It shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep.

7:22. For the abundance of milk he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that shall be left in the midst of the land.



7:23. It shall come to pass in that day, that every place where there were a thousand vines, at a thousand pieces of silver, shall become thorns and briers.

7:24. With arrows and with bows they shall go in thither: for briers and thorns shall be in all the land.

7:25. As for the hills that shall be raked with a rake, the fear of thorns and briers shall not come thither, but they shall be for the ox to feed on, and the lesser cattle to tread upon.

Isaiah Chapter 8
The name of a child that is to be born: many evils shall come upon the Jews for their sins.



'''8:1. The Lord said to me: Take you a great book, and write in it with a man's pen. Take away the spoils with speed, quickly take the prey.'''

8:2. I took unto me faithful witnesses, Urias the priest, and Zacharias the son of Barachias.

'''8:3. I went to the prophetess, and she conceived, and bore a son. And the Lord said to me: Call his name, Hasten to take away the spoils: Make have to take away the prey.'''

8:4. For before the child know to call his father and his mother, the strength of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of the Assyrians.

8:5. The Lord spoke to me again, saying:

8:6. Forasmuch as this people has cast away the waters of Siloe, that go with silence, and has rather taken Rasin, and the son of Romelia:



8:7. Therefore behold the Lord will bring upon them the waters of the river strong and many, the king of the Assyrians, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and shall overflow all his banks.

'''8:8. And shall pass through Judah, overflowing, and going over shall reach even to the neck. The stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of your land, O Emmanuel.'''

8:9. Gather yourselves together, O people, and be overcome, and give ear, all you lands afar off: strengthen yourselves, and be overcome, gird yourselves, and be overcome.

8:10. Take counsel together, and it shall be defeated: speak a word, and it shall not be done: because God is with us.

8:11. For thus says the Lord to me: As he has taught me, with a strong arm, that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying:

8:12. Say not: A conspiracy: for all that this people speaks, is a conspiracy: neither fear their fear, nor be afraid.

8:13. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself: and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.

'''8:14. He shall be a sanctification to you. But for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to the two houses of Israel, for a snare and a ruin to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.'''

8:15. Very many of them shall stumble and fall, and shall be broken in pieces, and shall be snared, and taken.

8:16. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.

8:17. I will wait for the Lord, who has hid his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.

8:18. Behold I and my children, whom the Lord has given me for a sign, and for a wonder in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells in mount Zion.

8:19. When they shall say to you: Seek of pythons, and of diviners, who mutter in their enchantments: should not the people seek of their God, for the living of the dead?

Seek of pythons. . .That is, people pretending to tell future things by a prophesying spirit.--Ibid. Should not the people seek of their God, for the living of the dead?. . .Here is signified, that it is to God we should pray to be directed, and not to seek of the dead, (that is, of fortune-tellers dead in sin,) for the health of the living.

'''8:20. To the law rather, and to the testimony. And if they speak not according to this word, they shall not have the morning light.'''

8:21. They shall pass by it, they shall fall, and be hungry: and when they shall be hungry, they will be angry, and curse their king, and their God, and look upwards.



8:22. They shall look to the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, weakness and distress, and a mist following them, and they cannot fly away from their distress.

Isaiah Chapter 9
'What joy shall come after afflictions by the birth and kingdom of Christ; which shall flourish forever. Judgments upon Israel for their sins.'

9:1. At the first time the land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephtali was lightly touched: and at the last the way of the sea beyond the Jordan of the Galilee of the Gentiles was heavily loaded.



9:2. The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen.

'''9:3. You have multiplied the nation, and have not increased the joy. They shall rejoice before you, as they that rejoice in the harvest, as conquerors rejoice after taking a prey, when they divide the spoils.'''

9:4. For the yoke of their burden, and the rod of their shoulder, and the scepter of their oppressor you have overcome, as in the day of Madian.

9:5. For every violent taking of spoils, with tumult, and garment mingled with blood, shall be burnt, and be fuel for the fire.



9:6. For a CHILD IS BORN to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.

9:7. His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace: he shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and forever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

9:8. The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it has lighted upon Israel.

9:9. All the people of Ephraim shall know, and the inhabitants of Samaria that say in the pride and haughtiness of their heart:

9:10. The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with square stones: they have cut down the sycamores, but we will change them for cedars.

9:11. The Lord shall set up the enemies of Rasin over him, and shall bring on his enemies in a crowd:

'''9:12. The Syrians from the east, and, the Philistines from the west: and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.'''

9:13. The people are not returned to him who has struck them, and have not sought after the Lord of hosts.

9:14. The Lord shall destroy out of Israel the head and the tail, him that bends down, and him that holds back, in one day.

9:15. The aged and honorable, he is the head: and the prophet that teachs lies, he is the tail.

9:16. They that call this people blessed, shall cause them to err: and they that are called blessed, shall be thrown down, headlong.

'''9:17. Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men: neither shall he have mercy on their fatherless, and widows: for every one is a hypocrite and wicked, and every mouth has spoken folly. For all this his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.'''



9:18. For wickedness is kindled as a fire, it shall devour the brier and the thorn: and shall kindle in the thicket of the forest, and it shall be wrapped up in smoke ascending on high.

9:19. By the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is troubled, and the people shall be as fuel for the fire: no man shall spare his brother.

9:20. He shall turn to the right hand, and shall be hungry: and shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be filled: every one shall eat the flesh of his own arm: Manasseh Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh, and they together shall be against Judah.

9:21. After all these things his indignation is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Isaiah Chapter 10
'Woe to the makers of wicked laws. The Assyrian shall be a rod for punishing Israel: but for their pride they shall be destroyed: and a remnant of Israel saved.'

10:1. Woe to them that make wicked laws: and when they write, write injustice:

10:2. To oppress the poor in judgment, and do violence to the cause of the humble of my people: that widows might be their prey, and that they might rob the fatherless.

'''10:3. What will you do in the day of visitation, and of the calamity which comes from afar? to whom will you flee for help? and where will you leave your glory?'''

'''10:4. That you be not bowed down under the bond, and fall with the slain? In all these things his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.'''

10:5. Woe to the Assyrian, he is the rod and the staff of my anger, and my indignation is in their hands.

10:6. I will send him to a deceitful nation, and I will give him a charge against the people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

10:7. But he shall not take it so, and his heart shall not think so: but his heart shall be set to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few.

10:8. For he shall say:

'''10:9. Are not my princes as so many kings? is not Calano as Charcamis: and Emath as Arphad? is not Samaria as Damascus?'''

10:10. As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idol, so also their idols of Jerusalem, and of Samaria.

10:11. Shall I not, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?

10:12. It shall come to pass, that when the Lord shall have performed all his works in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, I will visit the fruit of the proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of the haughtiness of his eyes.

10:13. For he has said: By the strength of my own hand I have done it, and by my own wisdom I have understood: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have taken the spoils of the princes, and as a mighty man has pulled down them that sat on high.



10:14. My hand has found the strength of the people as a nest; and as eggs are gathered, that are left, so have I gathered all the earth: and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or made the least noise.

'''10:15. Shall the axe boast itself against him that cuts with it? or shall the saw exalt itself against him by whom it is drawn? as if a rod should lift itself up against him that lifts it up, and a staff exalt itself, which is but wood.'''

10:16. Therefore the sovereign Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall send leanness among his fat ones: and under his glory shall be kindled a burning, as it were the burning of a fire.

10:17. The light of Israel shall be as a fire, and the Holy One thereof as a flame: and his thorns and his briers shall be set on fire, and shall be devoured in one day.



10:18. The glory of his forest, and of his beautiful hill, shall be consumed from the soul even to the flesh, and he shall run away through fear.

10:19. They that remain of the trees of his forest shall be so few, that they shall easily be numbered, and a child shall write them down.

10:20. It shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and they that shall escape of the house of Jacob, shall lean no more upon him that strikes them: but they shall lean upon the Lord the Holy One of Israel, in truth.

10:21. The remnant shall be converted, the remnant, I say, of Jacob, to the mighty God.



10:22. For if your people, O Israel, shall be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them shall be converted, the consumption abridged shall overflow with justice.

A remnant of them shall be converted. . .This was partly verified in the children of Israel who remained after the devastations of the Assyrians, in the time of king Hezekiah: and partly in the conversion of a remnant of the Jews to the faithful of Christ.--Ibid. The consumption abridged, etc. . .That is, the number of them cut short, and reduced to few, shall flourish in abundance of justice.

10:23. For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, and an abridgment in the midst of all the land.

10:24. Therefore, thus says the Lord the God of hosts: O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall strike you with his rod, and he shall lift up his staff over you in the way of Egypt.

10:25. For yet a little and a very little while, and my indignation shall cease, and my wrath shall be upon their wickedness.



10:26. The Lord of hosts shall raise up a scourge against him, according to the slaughter of Madian in the rock of Oreb, and his rod over the sea, and he shall lift it up in the way of Egypt.

10:27. It shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off your shoulder, and his yoke from off your neck, and the yoke shall putrefy at the presence of the oil.

At the presence of the oil. . .That is, by the sweet unction of divine mercy.

10:28. He shall come into Aiath, he shall pass into Magron: at Machmas he shall lay up his carriages.

Into Aiath, etc. . .Here the prophet describes the march of the Assyrians under Sennacherib; and the terror they should carry with them; and how they should suddenly be destroyed.

10:29. They have passed in haste, Gaba is our lodging: Rama was astonished, Gabaath of Saul fled away.

10:30. Lift up your voice, O daughter of Gallim, attend, O Laisa, poor Anathoth.

10:31. Medemena is removed: inhabitants of Gabim, take courage.

10:32. It is yet day enough, to remain in Nobe: he shall shake his hand against the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

10:33. Behold the sovereign Lord of hosts shall break the earthen vessel with terror, and the tall of stature shall be cut down, and the lofty shall be humbled.



10:34. The thickets of the forest shall be cut down with iron, and Libanus with its high ones shall fall.

Isaiah Chapter 11
Of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, to which all nations shall repair.



11:1. There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.

11:2. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness.

11:3. He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord, He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears.

11:4. But he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity the meek of the earth: and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.

11:7. The calf and the bear shall feed: their young ones shall rest together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

11:8. The babe shall play on other hole of the asp: and the weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the basilisk.

11:9. They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill in all my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea.

11:10. In that day the root of Jesse, who stands for an ensign of the people, him the Gentiles shall beseech, and his sepulchre shall be glorious.

11:11. It shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand the second time to possess the remnant of his people, which shall be left from the Assyrians, and from Egypt, and from Phetros, and from Ethiopia, and from Elam, and from Sennaar, and from Emath, and from the islands of the sea.

11:12. He shall set up a standard unto the nations, and shall assemble the fugitives of Israel, and shall gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.

11:13. The envy of Ephraim shall be taken away, and the enemies of Judah shall perish: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not fight against Ephraim.

11:14. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines by the sea, they together shall spoil the children of the east: Edom, till Moab shall be under the rule of their hand, and the children of Ammon shall be obedient.



11:15. The Lord shall lay waste the tongue of the sea of Egypt, and shall lift up his hand over the river in the strength of his spirit: and he shall strike it in the seven streams, so that men may pass through it in their shoes.

11:16. There shall be a highway for the remnant of my people, which shall be left from the Assyrians: as there was for Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

Isaiah Chapter 12
A canticle of thanksgiving for the benefits of Christ.

12:1. You shall say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for you were angry with me: Your wrath is turned away, and You have comforted me.

12:2. Behold, God is my Savior, I will deal confidently, and will not fear: because the Lord is my strength, and my praise, and He is my salvation.

12:3. You shall draw waters with joy out of the Savior's fountains:

12:4. You shall say in that day: Praise the Lord, and call upon His name: make His works known among the people: remember that His name is high.

12:5. Sing to the Lord, for He has done great things: show this forth in all the earth.

12:6. Rejoice, and praise, O you habitation of Zion: for great is He that is in the midst of you, the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah Chapter 13
The desolation of Babylon.

13:1. The burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amos saw.

The burden of Babylon. . .That is, a prophecy against Babylon.



13:2. Upon the dark mountain lift up a banner, exalt the voice, lift up the hand, and let the rulers go into the gates.

13:3. I have commanded my sanctified ones, and have called my strong ones in my wrath, them that rejoice in my glory.

13:4. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, as it were of many people, the noise of the sound of kings, of nations gathered together: the Lord of hosts has given charge to the troops of war.

13:5. To them that come from a country afar off, from the end of heaven: the Lord and the instruments of his wrath, to destroy the whole land.

13:6. Howl, for the day of the Lord is near: it shall come as a destruction from the Lord.

13:7. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every heart of man shall melt,

'''13:8. and shall be broken. Gripings and pains, shall take hold of them, they shall be in pain as a woman in labor. Every one shall be amazed at his neighbor, their countenances shall be as faces burnt.'''

13:9. Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it.



13:10. For the stars of heaven, and their brightness shall not display their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with her light.

13:11. I will visit the evils of the world, and against the wicked for their iniquity: and I will make the pride of infidels to cease, and will bring down the arrogancy of the mighty.

13:12. A man shall be more precious than gold, yea a man than the finest of gold.

13:13. For this I will trouble the heaven: and the earth shall be moved out of her place, for the indignation of the Lord of hosts, and for the day of his fierce wrath.



13:14. They shall be as a doe fleeing away, and as a sheep: and there shall be none to gather them together: every man shall turn to his own people, and every one shall flee to his own land.

13:15. Every one that shall be found, shall be slain: and every one that shall come to their aid, shall fall by the sword.

13:16. Their inhabitants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes: their houses shall be pillaged, and their wives shall be taken and abused violently.

13:17. Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not seek silver, nor desire gold:

13:18. But with their arrows they shall kill the children, and shall have no pity upon the babes of the womb, and their eye shall not spare their sons.

13:19. That Babylon, glorious among kingdoms, the famous pride of the Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha.

13:20. It shall no more be inhabited forever, and it shall not be founded unto generation and generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tents there, nor shall shepherds rest there.



13:21. But wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall dance there:

13:22. and owls shall answer one another there, in the houses thereof, and sirens in the temples of pleasure.

Isaiah Chapter 14
'The restoration of Israel after their captivity. The parable or song insulting over the king of Babylon. A prophecy against the Philistines.'

'''14:1. Her time is near at hand, and her days shall not be prolonged. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose out of Israel, and will make them rest upon their own ground: and the stranger shall be joined with them, and shall adhere to the house of Jacob.'''

14:2. The people shall take them, and bring them into their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall make them captives that had taken them, and shall subdue their oppressors.

14:3. It shall come to pass in that day, that when God shall give you rest from your labor, and from your vexation, and from the hard bondage, wherewith you didst serve before,

14:4. You shall take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and shall say: How is the oppressor come to nothing, the tribute has ceased?

14:5. The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers,

14:6. That struck the people in wrath with an incurable wound, that brought nations under in fury, that persecuted in a cruel manner.

14:7. The whole earth is quiet and still, it is glad and has rejoiced.

14:8. The fir trees also have rejoiced over you, and the cedars of Libanus, saying: Since you have slept, there has none come up to cut us down.

'''14:9. Hell below was in an uproar to meet you at your coming, it stirred up the giants for you. All the princes of the earth are risen up from their thrones, all the princes of nations.'''

14:10. All shall answer, and say to you: You also are wounded as well as we, you are become like unto us.

14:11. Your pride is brought down to hell, your carcass is fallen down: under you shall the moth be strewed, and worms shall be your covering.

'''14:12. How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how are you fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations?'''

O Lucifer. . .O day star. All this, according to the letter, is spoken of the king of Babylon. It may also be applied, in a spiritual sense, to Lucifer the prince of devils, who was created a bright angel, but fell by pride and rebellion against God.

14:13. You said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north.



14:14. I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High.

14:15. But yet you shall be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit.

'''14:16. They that shall see you, shall turn toward you, and behold you. Is this the man that troubled the earth, that shook kingdoms,'''

14:17. That made the world a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof, that opened not the prison to his prisoners?

14:18. All the kings of the nations have all of them slept in glory, every one in his own house.

14:19. But you are cast out of your grave, as an unprofitable branch defiled, and wrapped up among them that were slain by the sword, and are gone down to the bottom of the pit, as a rotten carcass.

14:20. You shall not keep company with them, even in burial: for you have destroyed your land, you have slain your people: the seed of the wicked shall not be named forever.

14:21. Prepare his children for slaughter for the iniquity of their fathers: they shall not rise up, nor inherit the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

14:22. I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts: and I will destroy the name of Babylon, and the remains, and the bud, and the offspring, says the Lord.



14:23. I will make it a possession for the ericius and pools of waters, and I will sweep it and wear it out with a besom, says the Lord of hosts.

14:24. The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying: Surely as I have thought, so shall it be: and as I have purposed,



14:25. So shall it fall out: That I will destroy the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: and his yoke shall be taken away from them, and his burden shall be taken off their shoulder.

14:26. This is the counsel, that I have purposed upon all the earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all nations.

'''14:27. For the Lord of hosts has decreed, and who can disannul it? and his hand is stretched out: and who shall turn it away?'''

14:28. In the year that king Ahaz died, was this burden:



14:29. Rejoice not you, whole Philistia, that the rod of him that struck you is broken in pieces: for out of the root of the serpent shall come forth a basilisk, and his seed shall swallow the bird.

14:30. The firstborn of the poor shall be fed, and the poor shall rest with confidence: and I will make your root perish with famine, and I will kill your remnant.

14:31. Howl, O gate; cry, O city: all Philistia is thrown down: for a smoke shall come from the north, and there is none that shall escape his troop.

'''14:32. What shall be answered to the messengers of the nations? That the Lord has founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall hope in him.'''

Isaiah Chapter 15
A prophecy of the desolation of the Moabites.

'''15:1. The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, it is silent: because the wall of Moab is destroyed in the night, it is silent.'''

15:2. The house is gone up, and Dibon to the high places to mourn over Nabo, and over Medaba, Moab has howled: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard shall be shaven.

15:3. In their streets they are girded with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets all shall howl and come down weeping.

'''15:4. Hesebon shall cry, and Eleale, their voice is heard even to Jasa. For this shall the well appointed men of Moab howl, his soul shall howl to itself.'''

15:5. My heart shall cry to Moab, the bars thereof shall flee unto Segor a heifer of three years old: for by the ascent of Luith they shall go up weeping: and in the way of Oronaim they shall lift up a cry of destruction.



15:6. For the waters of Nemrim shall be desolate, for the grass is withered away, the spring is faded, all the greenness is perished.

15:7. According to the greatness of their work, is their visitation also: they shall lead them to the torrent of the willows.

Torrent of the willows. . .That is, as some say, the waters of Babylon: others render it, a valley of the Arabians.

15:8. For the cry is gone round about the border of Moab: the howling thereof unto Gallim, and unto the well of Elim the cry thereof.



15:9. For the waters of Dibon are filled with blood: for I will bring more upon Dibon: the lion upon them that shall flee of Moab, and upon the remnant of the land.

Isaiah Chapter 16
'The prophet prays for Christ's coming. The affliction of the Moabites for their pride.'

16:1. Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Zion.



16:2. It shall come to pass, that as a bird fleeing away, and as young ones flying out of the nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be in the passage of Arnon.

16:3. Take counsel, gather a council: make your shadow as the night in the midday: hide them that flee, and betray not them that wander about.

16:4. My fugitives shall dwell with you: O Moab, be you a covert to them from the face of the destroyer: for the dust is at an end, the wretch is consumed: he has failed, that trod the earth under foot.



16:5. A throne shall be prepared in mercy, and one shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment and quickly rendering that which is just.

16:6. We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is exceeding proud: his pride and his arrogancy, and his indignation is more than his strength.

16:7. Therefore shall Moab howl to Moab, every one shall howl: to them that rejoice upon the brick walls, tell you their stripes.

16:8. For the suburbs of Hesebon are desolate, and the lords of the nations have destroyed the vineyard of Sabama: the branches thereof have reached even to Jazer: they have wandered in the wilderness, the branches thereof are left, they are gone over the sea.



16:9. Therefore I will lament with the weeping of Jazer the vineyard of Sabama: I will water you with my tears, O Hesebon, and Eleale: for the voice of the treaders has rushed in upon your vintage, and upon your harvest.

'''16:10. Gladness and joy shall be taken away from Carmel, and there shall be no rejoicing nor shouting in the vineyards. He shall not tread out wine in the press that was wont to tread it out: the voice of the treaders I have taken away.'''

Carmel. . .This name is often taken to signify a fair and fruitful hill or field, such as mount Carmel is.



16:11. Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for the brick wall.

16:12. It shall come to pass, when it is seen that Moab is wearied on his high places, that he shall go in to his sanctuaries to pray, and shall not prevail.

16:13. This is the word, that the Lord spoke to Moab from that time:

16:14. Now the Lord has spoken, saying: In three years, as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be taken away for all the multitude of the people, and it shall be left small and feeble, not many.

Isaiah Chapter 17
'Judgments upon Damascus and Samaria. The overthrow of the Assyrians.'

'''17:1. The burden of Damascus. Behold Damascus shall cease to be a city, and shall be as a ruinous heap of stones.'''



17:2. The cities of Aroer shall be left for flocks, and they shall rest there, and there shall be none to make them afraid.

17:3. Aid shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: and the remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of Israel: says the Lord of hosts.

17:4. It shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean.

17:5. It shall be as when one gathers in the harvest that which remains, and his arm shall gather the ears of corn: and it shall be as he that seeks ears in the vale of Raphaim.



17:6. The fruit thereof that shall be left upon it, shall be as one cluster of grapes, and as the shaking of the olive tree, two or three berries in the top of a bough, or four or five upon the top of the tree, says the Lord the God of Israel.

17:7. In that day man shall bow down himself to his Maker, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.

17:8. He shall not look to the altars which his hands made; and he shall not have respect to the things that his fingers wrought, such as groves and temples.

17:9. In that day his strong cities shall be forsaken, as the ploughs, and the corn that were left before the face of the children of Israel, and you shall be desolate.

That were left. . .Viz., by the Chanaanites, when the children of Israel came into their land.

17:10. Because you have forgotten God your savior, and have not remembered your strong helper: therefore shall you plant good plants, and shall sow strange seed.

17:11. In the day of your planting shall be the wild grape, and in the morning your seed shall flourish: the harvest is taken away in the day of inheritance, and shall grieve you much.



17:12. Woe to the multitude of many people, like the multitude of the roaring sea: and the tumult of crowds, like the noise of many waters.

The multitude, etc. . .This and all that follows to the end of the chapter, relates to the Assyrian army under Sennacherib.

17:13. Nations shall make a noise like the noise of waters overflowing, but he shall rebuke him, and he shall flee far off: and he shall be carried away as the dust of the mountains before the wind, and as a whirlwind before a tempest.

17:14. In the time of the evening, behold there shall be trouble: the morning shall come, and he shall not be: this is the portion of them that have wasted us, and the lot of them that spoiled us.

Isaiah Chapter 18
A woe to the Ethiopians, who fed Israel with vain hopes, their future conversion.



18:1. Woe to the land, the winged cymbal, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,

'''18:2. That sends ambassadors by the sea, and in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. Go, swift angels, to a nation rent and torn in pieces: to a terrible people, after which there is no other: to a nation expecting and trodden underfoot, whose land the rivers have spoiled.'''

Angels. . .Or messengers.

18:3. All you inhabitants of the world, who dwell on the earth, when the sign shall be lifted up on the mountains, you shall see, and you shall hear the sound of the trumpet.



18:4. For thus says the Lord to me: I will take my rest, and consider in my place, as the noon light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest.

18:5. For before the harvest it was all flourishing, and it shall bud without perfect ripeness, and the sprigs thereof shall be cut off with pruning hooks: and what is left shall be cut away and shaken out.

18:6. They shall be left together to the birds of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall be upon them all the summer, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.



18:7. At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts, from a people rent and torn in pieces: from a terrible people, after which there has been no other: from a nation expecting, expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to mount Zion.

Isaiah Chapter 19
The punishment of Egypt: their call to the church.



'''19:1. The burden of Egypt. Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud, and will enter into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst thereof.'''

19:2. I will set the Egyptians to fight against the Egyptians: and they shall fight brother against brother, and friend against friend, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.

19:3. The spirit of Egypt shall be broken, and I will cast down their counsel: and they shall consult their idols, and their diviners, and their wizards, and soothsayers.

19:4. I will deliver Egypt into the hand of cruel masters, and a strong king shall rule over them, says the Lord the God of hosts.

19:5. The water of the sea shall be dried up, and the river shall be wasted and dry.



'''19:6. The rivers shall fail: the streams of the banks shall be diminished, and be dried up. The reed and the bulrush shall wither away.'''

19:7. The channel of the river shall be laid bare from its fountain, and every thing sown by the water shall be dried up, it shall wither away, and shall be no more.

19:8. The fishers also shall mourn, and all that cast a hook into the river shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish away.

19:9. They shall be confounded that wrought in flax, combing and weaving fine linen.



19:10. Its watery places shall be dry, all they shall mourn that made pools to take fishes.

19:11. The princes of Tanis are become fools, the wise counselors of Pharaoh have given foolish counsel: how will you say to Pharaoh: I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?

'''19:12. Where are now your wise men? let them tell you, and show what the Lord of hosts has purposed upon Egypt.'''

19:13. The princes of Tanis are become fools, the princes of Memphis are gone astray, they have deceived Egypt, the stay of the people thereof.

19:14. The Lord has mingled in the midst thereof the spirit of giddiness: and they have caused Egypt to err in all its works, as a drunken man staggers and regurgitates.

19:15. There shall be no work for Egypt, to make head or tail, him that bends down, or that holds back.

19:16. In that day Egypt shall be like unto women, and they shall be amazed, and afraid, because of the moving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which he shall move over it.

19:17. The land of Judah shall be a terror to Egypt: everyone that shall remember it shall tremble because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts, which he has determined concerning it.

19:18. In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt, speaking the language of Chanaan, and swearing by the Lord of hosts: one shall be called the city of the sun.

19:19. In that day there shall be an altar of the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a monument of the Lord at the borders thereof:

'''19:20. It shall be for a sign, and for a testimony to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. For they shall cry to the Lord because of the oppressor, and he shall send them a Savior and a defender to deliver them.'''

19:21. The Lord shall be known by Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and shall worship him with sacrifices and offerings: and they shall make vows to the Lord, and perform them.



19:22. The Lord shall strike Egypt with a scourge, and shall heal it, and they shall return to the Lord, and he shall be pacified towards them, and heal them.

19:23. In that day there shall be a way from Egypt to the Assyrians, and the Assyrian shall enter into Egypt, and the Egyptian to the Assyrians, and the Egyptians shall serve the Assyrian.

19:24. In that day shall Israel be the third to the Egyptian and the Assyrian: a blessing in the midst of the land,

19:25. Which the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying: Blessed be my people of Egypt, and the work of my hands to the Assyrian: but Israel is my inheritance.

Isaiah Chapter 20
The ignominious captivity of the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians.

20:1. In the year that Tharthan entered into Azotus, when Sargon the king of the Assyrians had sent him, and he had fought against Azotus, and had taken it:

'''20:2. At that same time the Lord spoke by the hand of Isaiah the son of Amos, saying Go, and loose the sackcloth from off your loins, and take off your shoes from your feet. And he did so, and went ungarbed, and barefoot.'''



20:3. The Lord said: As my servant Isaiah has walked, ungarbed and barefoot, it shall be a sign and a wonder of three years upon Egypt, and upon Ethiopia,

20:4. So shall the king of the Assyrians lead away the prisoners of Egypt, and the captivity of Ethiopia, young and old, ungarbed and barefoot, uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

20:5. They shall be afraid, and ashamed of Ethiopia their hope, and of Egypt their glory.

20:6. The inhabitants of this isle shall say in that day: Lo this was our hope, to whom we fled for help, to deliver us from the face of the king of the Assyrians: and how shall we be able to escape?

Isaiah Chapter 21
The destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians: a prophecy against the Edomites and the Arabians.



'''21:1. The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds come from the south, it comes from the desert from a terrible land.'''

The desert of the sea. . .So Babylon is here called, because from a city as full of people as the sea is with water, it was become a desert.

'''21:2. A grievous vision is told me: he that is unfaithful deals unfaithfully: and he that is a spoiler, spoils. Go up, O Elam, besiege, O Mede: I have made all the mourning thereof to cease.'''

O Elam. . .That is, O Persia.

21:3. Therefore are my loins filled with pain, anguish has taken hold of me, as the anguish of a woman in labor: I fell down at the hearing of it, I was troubled at the seeing of it.

21:4. My heart failed, darkness amazed me: Babylon my beloved is become a wonder to me.



21:5. Prepare the table, behold in the watchtower them that eat and drink: arise, princes, take up the shield.

21:6. For thus has the Lord said to me: Go, and set a watchman: and whatsoever he shall see, let him tell.

21:7. He saw a chariot with two horsemen, a rider upon an ass, and a rider upon a camel: and he beheld them diligently with much heed.

A rider upon an ass, etc. . .These two riders are the kings of the Persians and Medes.



21:8. A lion cried out: I am upon the watchtower of the Lord, standing continually by day: and I am upon my ward, standing whole nights.

And a lion cried out. . .That is, I Isaiah seeing the approaching ruin of Babylon, have cried out as a lion roaring.

21:9. Behold this man comes, the rider upon the chariot with two horsemen, and he answered, and said: Babylon is fallen, she is fallen, and all the graven gods thereof are broken unto the ground.

21:10. O my thrashing, and the children of my floor, that which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared unto you.

'''21:11. The burden of Duma calls to me out of Seir: Watchman, what of the night? watchman, what of the night?'''

Duma. . .That is, Idumea, or Edom.

21:12. The watchman said: The morning comes, also the night: if you seek, seek: return, come.

'''21:13. The burden in Arabia. In the forest at evening you shall sleep, in the paths of Dedanim.'''

21:14. Meeting the thirsty bring him water, you that inhabit the land of the south, meet with bread him that flees.

21:15. For they are fled from before the swords, from the sword that hung over them, from the bent bow, from the face of a grievous battle.

21:16. For thus says the Lord to me: Within a year, according to the years of a hireling, all the glory of Cedar shall be taken away.

Cedar. . .Arabia.

21:17. The residue of the number of strong archers of the children of Cedar shall be diminished: for the Lord the God of Israel has spoken it.

Isaiah Chapter 22
'The prophet laments the devastation of Judah. He foretells the deprivation of Sobna, and the substitution of Eliacim.'

'''22:1. The burden of the valley of vision. What ails you also, that you too are wholly gone up to the housetops?'''

The valley of vision. . .Jerusalem. The temple of Jerusalem was built upon Mount Moria, or the mountain of vision. But the city is here called the valley of vision; either because it was lower than the temple, or because of the low condition to which it was to be reduced.



22:2. Full of clamor, a populous city, a joyous city: your slain are not slain by the sword, nor dead in battle.

22:3. All the princes have fled together, and are bound hard: all that were found, are bound together, they have fled far off.

22:4. Therefore have I said: Depart from me, I will weep bitterly: labor not to comfort me, for the devastation of the daughter of my people.



22:5. For it is a day of slaughter and of treading down, and of weeping to the Lord the God of hosts in the valley of vision, searching the wall, and magnificent upon the mountain.

22:6. Elam took the quiver, the chariot of the horseman, and the shield was taken down from the wall.

22:7. Your choice valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen shall place themselves in the gate.

22:8. The covering of Judah shall be discovered, and you shall see in that day the armory of the house of the forest.



22:9. You shall see the breaches of the city of David, that they are many: and you have gathered together the waters of the lower pool,

22:10. and have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and broken down houses to fortify the wall.

22:11. You made a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: and you have not looked up to the maker thereof, nor regarded him even at a distance, that wrought it long ago.

22:12. The Lord, the God of hosts, in that day shall call to weeping, and to mourning, to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:



22:13. Behold joy and gladness, killing calves, and slaying rams, eating flesh, and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die.

22:14. The voice of the Lord of Hosts was revealed in my ears: Surely this iniquity shall not be forgiven you till you die, says the Lord God of Hosts.

22:15. Thus says the Lord God of Hosts: Go, get you in to him that dwells in the tabernacle, to Sobna who is over the temple: and you shall say to him:

'''22:16. What do you here, or as if you were somebody here? for you have hewed you out a sepulchre here, you have hewed out a monument carefully in a high place, a dwelling for yourself in a rock.'''

22:17. Behold the Lord will cause you to be carried away, as a cock is carried away, and he will lift you up as a garment.

22:18. He will crown you with a crown of tribulation, he will toss you like a ball into a large and spacious country: there shall you die, and there shall the chariot of your glory be, the shame of the house of your Lord.

22:19. I will drive you out from your station, and depose you from your ministry.

22:20. It shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliacim the son of Helcias,

22:21. I will clothe him with your robe, and will strengthen him with your girdle, and will give your power into his hand: and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.



'''22:22. I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open.

22:23. I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to the house of his father.



22:24. They shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, diverse kinds of vessels, every little vessel, from the vessels of cups even to every instrument of music.

22:25. In that day, says the Lord of Hosts, shall the peg be removed, that was fastened in the sure place: and it shall be broken and shall fall: and that which hung thereon, shall perish, because the Lord has spoken it.

Isaiah Chapter 23
'The destruction of Tyre. It shall be repaired again after seventy years.'

'''23:1. The burden of Tyre. Howl, ships of the sea, for the house is destroyed, from whence they were wont to come: from the land of Cethim it is revealed to them.'''

23:2. Be silent, you that dwell in the island: the merchants of Sidon passing over the sea, have filled you.

23:3. The seed of the Nile in many waters, the harvest of the river is her revenue: and she is become the mart of the nations.

23:4. Be you ashamed, O Sidon: for the sea speaks, even the strength of the sea, saying: I have not been in labor, nor have I brought forth, nor have I nourished up young men, nor brought up virgins.

23:5. When it shall be heard in Egypt, they will be sorry when they shall hear of Tyre:



23:6. Pass over the seas, howl, inhabitants of the island.

'''23:7. Is not this your city, which gloried from of old in her antiquity? her feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.'''

23:8. Who has taken this counsel against Tyre, that was formerly crowned, whose merchants were princes, and her traders the nobles of the earth?

23:9. The Lord of hosts has designed it, to pull down the pride of all glory, and bring to disgrace all the glorious ones of the earth.



23:10. Pass your land as a river, O daughter of the sea, you have a girdle no more.

23:11. He stretched out his hand over the sea, he troubled kingdoms: the Lord has given a charge against Chanaan, to destroy the strong ones thereof.

23:12. He said: You shall glory no more, O virgin daughter of Sidon, who are oppressed: arise and sail over to Cethim, there also you shall have no rest.

23:13. Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was not such a people, the Assyrians founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof into captivity, they have destroyed the houses thereof, they have, brought it to ruin.



23:14. Howl, O ships of the sea, for your strength is laid waste.

23:15. It shall come to pass in that day that you, O Tyre, shall be forgotten, seventy years, according to the days of one king: but after seventy years, there shall be unto Tyre as the song of a harlot.

23:16. Take a harp, go about the city, harlot that has been forgotten: sing well, sing many a song, that you may be remembered.

23:17. It shall come to pass after seventy years, that the Lord will visit Tyre, and will bring her back again to her traffic: and she shall commit her evil again with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.

23:18. Her merchandise and her hire shall be sanctified to the Lord: they shall not be kept in store, nor laid up: for her merchandise shall be for them that shall dwell before the Lord, that they may eat unto fullness, and be clothed for a continuance.

Sanctified to the Lord. . .This alludes to the conversion of the Gentiles.

Isaiah Chapter 24
'The judgments of God upon all the sinners of the world. A remnant shall joyfully praise him.'

24:1. Behold the Lord shall lay waste the earth, and shall strip it, and shall afflict the face thereof, and scatter abroad the inhabitants thereof.

24:2. It shall be as with the people, so with the priest: and as with the servant so with his master: as with the handmaid, so with her mistress: as with the buyer, so with the seller: as with the lender, so with the borrower: as with him that calls for his money, so with him that owes.

24:3. With desolation shall the earth be laid waste, and it shall be utterly spoiled: for the Lord has spoken this word.

24:4. The earth mourned, and faded away, and is weakened: the world faded away, the height of the people of the earth is weakened.

24:5. The earth is infected by the inhabitants thereof: because they have transgressed the laws, they have changed the ordinance, they have broken the everlasting covenant.

24:6. Therefore shall a curse devour the earth, and the inhabitants thereof shall sin: and therefore they that dwell therein shall be mad, and few men shall be left.

24:7. The vintage has mourned, the vine has languished away, all the merry have sighed.



24:8. The mirth of timbrels has ceased, the noise of them that rejoice is ended, the melody of the harp is silent.

24:9. They shall not drink wine with a song: the drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.

24:10. The city of vanity is broken down, every house is shut up, no man comes in.

24:11. There shall be a crying for wine in the streets: all mirth is forsaken: the joy of the earth is gone away.

24:12. Desolation is left in the city, and calamity shall oppress the gates.



24:13. For it shall be thus in the midst of the earth, in the midst of the people, as if a few olives, that remain, should be shaken out of the olive tree: or grapes, when the vintage is ended.

24:14. These shall lift up their voice, and shall give praise: when the Lord shall be glorified, they shall make a joyful noise from the sea.

24:15. Therefore glorify the Lord in instruction: the name of the Lord God of Israel in the islands of the sea.

'''24:16. From the ends of the earth we have heard praises, the glory of the just one. And I said: My secret to myself, my secret to myself, woe is me: the prevaricators have prevaricated, and with the prevarication of transgressors they have prevaricated.'''

24:17. Fear, and the pit, and the snare are upon you, O you inhabitant of the earth.

24:18. It shall come to pass, that he that shall flee from the noise of the fear, shall fall into the pit: and he that shall rid himself out of the pit, shall be taken in the snare: for the flood-gates from on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken.

24:19. With breaking shall the earth be broken, with crushing shall the earth be crushed, with trembling shall the earth be moved.



24:20. With shaking shall the earth be shaken as a drunken man, and shall be removed as the tent of one night: and the iniquity thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again.

24:21. It shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall visit upon the host of heaven on high, and upon the kings of the earth, on the earth.

The host of heaven on high. . .The stars, which in many places of the Scripture are so called. Some commentators explain that these words here signify the demons of the air.

24:22. They shall be gathered together as in the gathering of one bundle into the pit, and they shall be shut up there in prison: and after many days they shall be visited.



24:23. The moon shall blush, and the sun shall be ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and shall be glorified in the sight of his ancients.

Isaiah Chapter 25
A canticle of thanksgiving for God's judgments and benefits.

25:1. O Lord, you are my God, I will exalt O you, and give glory to your name: for you have done wonderful things, your designs of old faithful, amen.

25:2. For you have reduced the city to a heap, the strong city to ruin, the house of strangers, to be no city, and to be no more built up forever.



25:3. Therefore shall a strong people praise you, the city of mighty nations shall fear you.

'''25:4. Because you have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress: a refuge from the whirlwind, a shadow from the heat. For the blast of the mighty is like a whirlwind beating against a wall.'''

25:5. You shall bring down the tumult of strangers, as heat in thirst: and as with heat under a burning cloud, you shall make the branch of the mighty to wither away.

25:6. The Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this mountain, a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of wine purified from the lees.

25:7. He shall destroy in this mountain the face of the bond with which all people were tied, and the web that he began over all nations.

25:8. He shall cast death down headlong forever: and the Lord God shall wipe away tears from every face, and the reproach of his people he shall take away from off the whole earth: for the Lord has spoken it.

25:9. They shall say in that day: Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord, we have patiently waited for him, we shall rejoice and be joyful in his salvation.



25:10. For the hand of the Lord shall rest in this mountain: and Moab shall be trodden down under him, as straw is broken in pieces with the wain.

Moab. . .That is, the reprobate, whose eternal punishment, from which they can no way escape, is described under these figures.

25:11. He shall stretch forth his hands under him, as he that swims stretches forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down his glory with the dashing of his hands.

25:12. The bulwarks of your high walls shall fall, and be brought low, and shall be pulled down to the ground, even to the dust.

Isaiah Chapter 26
A canticle of thanks for the deliverance of God's people.

'''26:1. In that day shall this canticle be sung in the land of Judah. Zion the city of our strength a savior, a wall and a bulwark shall be set therein.'''

26:2. Open the gates, and let the just nation, that keeps the truth, enter in.

26:3. The old error is passed away: you will keep peace: peace, because we have hoped in you.

26:4. You have hoped in the Lord forevermore, in the Lord God mighty forever.

'''26:5. For he shall bring down them that dwell on high, the high city he shall lay low. He shall bring it down even to the ground, he shall pull it down even to the dust.'''

26:6. The foot shall tread it down, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.

26:7. The way of the just is right, the path of the just is right to walk in.

26:8. In the way of your judgments, O Lord, we have patiently waited for you: your name, and your remembrance are the desire of the soul.

'''26:9. My soul has desired you in the night: yea, and with my spirit within me in the morning early I will watch to you. When you shall do your judgments on the earth, the inhabitants of the world shall learn justice.'''



26:10. Let us have pity on the wicked, but he will not learn justice: in the land of the saints he has done wicked things, and he shall not see the glory of the Lord.

26:11. Lord, let your hand be exalted, and let them not see: let the envious people see, and be confounded: and let fire devour your enemies.

26:12. Lord, you will give us peace: for you have wrought all our works for us.

'''26:13. O Lord our God, other lords besides you have had dominion over us, only in you let us remember your name. '''

26:14. Let not the dead live, let not the giants rise again: therefore have visited and destroyed them, and have destroyed all their memory.

'''26:15. You have been favorable to the nation, O Lord, you have been favorable to the nation: are you glorified? you have removed all the ends of the earth far off.'''

26:16. Lord, they have sought after you in distress, in the tribulation of murmuring your instruction was with them.

26:17. As a woman with child, when she draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and cries out in her pangs: so are we become in your presence, O Lord.

26:18. We have conceived, and been as it were in labor, and have brought forth wind: we have not wrought salvation on the earth, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen.

26:19. Your dead men shall live, my slain shall rise again: awake, and give praise, you that dwell in the dust: for your dew is the dew of the light: and the land of the giants you shall pull down into ruin.

26:20. Go, my people, enter into your chambers, shut your doors upon you, hide thyself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away.

26:21. For behold the Lord will come out of his place, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him: and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall cover her slain no more.

Shall cover her slain no more. . .This is said with relation to the martyrs, and their happy resurrection.

Isaiah Chapter 27
'The punishment of the oppressors of God's people. The Lord's favor to his church.'



27:1. In that day the Lord with his hard, and great, and strong sword shall visit leviathan the bar serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent, and shall slay the whale that is in the sea.

Leviathan. . .That is, the devil, the great enemy of the people of God. He is called the bar serpent from his strength, and the crooked serpent from his wiles; and the whale of the sea, from the tyranny he exercises in the sea of this world. He was spiritually slain by the death of Christ, when his power was destroyed.

27:2. In that day there shall be singing to the vineyard of pure wine.

The vineyard, etc. . .The church of Christ.

27:3. I am the Lord that keep it, I will suddenly give it drink: lest any hurt come to it, I keep it night and day.

I will suddenly give it drink. . .Or, as the Hebrew may also be rendered, I will continually water it.

27:4. There is no indignation in me: who shall make me a thorn and a brier in battle: shall I march against it, shall, I set it on fire together?

No indignation in me, etc. . .Viz., against the church: nor shall I become as a thorn or brier in its regard; or march against it, or set it on fire: but it shall always take fast hold of me, and keep an everlasting peace with me.

27:5. Or rather shall it take hold of my strength, shall it make peace with me, shall it make peace with me?



27:6. When they shall rush in unto Jacob, Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with seed.

When they shall rush in, etc. . .Some understand this of the enemies of the true Israel, that shall invade it in vain. Others of the spiritual invasion made by the apostles of Christ.

'''27:7. Has he struck him according to the stroke of him that struck him? or is he slain, as he killed them that were slain by him?'''

Has he struck him, etc. . .Has God punished the carnal persecuting Jews, in proportion to their doings against Christ and his saints?

'''27:8. In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, you shall judge it. He has meditated with his severe spirit in the day of heat.'''

When it shall be cast off, etc. . .When the synagogue shall be cast off, you shall judge it in measure, and in proportion to its crimes.--Ibid. He has meditated, etc. . .God has designed severe punishments in the day of his wrath.

27:9. Therefore upon this shall the iniquity of the house of Jacob be forgiven: and this is all the fruit, that the sin thereof should be taken away, when he shall have made all the stones of the altar, as burnt stones broken in pieces, the groves and temples shall not stand.

Of the house of Jacob. . .Viz., of such of them as shall be converted.

27:10. For the strong city shall be desolate, the beautiful city shall be forsaken, and shall be left as a wilderness: there the calf shall feed, and there shall he lie down, and shall consume its branches.

The strong city. . .Jerusalem.

27:11. Its harvest shall be destroyed with drought, women shall come and teach it: for it is not a wise people, therefore he that made it, shall not have mercy on it: and he that formed it, shall not spare it.

27:12. It shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord will strike from the channel of the river even to the torrent of Egypt, and you shall be gathered together one by one, O children of Israel.



27:13. It shall come to pass, that in that day a noise shall be made with a great trumpet, and they that were lost, shall come from the land of the Assyrians, and they that were outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall adore the Lord in the holy mount in Jerusalem.

A great trumpet. . .The preaching of the gospel for the conversion of the Jews.

Isaiah Chapter 28
'The punishment of the Israelites, for their pride, intemperance, and contempt of religion. Christ the cornerstone.'



28:1. Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower the glory his joy, who were on the head of the fat valley, staggering with wine. '''

Ephraim. . .That is, the kingdom of the ten tribes.--Ibid. The head of the fat valley. . .Samaria, situate on a hill, having under it a most fertile valley.

'''28:2. Behold the Lord is mighty and strong, as a storm of hail: a destroying whirlwind, as the violence of many waters overflowing, and sent forth upon a spacious land.

28:3. The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under feet.



28:4. The fading tower the glory of his joy, who is on the head of the fat valley, shall be as a hasty fruit before the ripeness of autumn: which when he that sees it shall behold, as soon as he takes it in his hand, he will eat it up.

28:5. In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the residue of his people:

28:6. A spirit of judgment to him that sits in judgment, and strength to them that return out of the battle to the gate.

28:7. But these also have been ignorant through wine, and through drunkenness have erred: the priest and the prophet have been ignorant through drunkenness, they are swallowed up with wine, they have gone astray in drunkenness, they have not known him that sees, they have been ignorant of judgment.

These also. . .The kingdom of Judah.

28:8. For all the tables were full of vomit and filth, so that there was no more place.

'''28:9. Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand the hearing? Them that are weaned from the milk, that are drawn away from the food of their mothers?'''

28:10. For command, command again; command, command again; expect, expect again; a little there, a little there.

Command, command again, etc. . .This is said in the person of the Jews, resisting the repeated commands of God, and still putting Him off.

28:11. For with the speech of lips, and with another tongue He will speak to this people.

28:12. To whom He said: This is My rest, refresh the weary, and this is My refreshing: and they would not hear.

28:13. The word of the Lord shall be to them: Command, command again; command, command again; expect, expect again; a little there, a little there: that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

28:14. Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, scornful men, who rule over my people that is in Jerusalem.



'''28:15. For you have said: We have entered into a league with death, and we have made a covenant with hell. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come upon us: for we have placed our hope in lies, and by falsehood we are protected.'''

'''28:16. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Zion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation. He that believes, let him not hasten.'''

A stone in the foundations. . .Viz., Christ.--Ibid. Let him not hasten, etc. . .Let him expect his coming with patience.

28:17. I will set judgment in weight, and justice in measure: and hail shall overturn the hope of falsehood: and waters shall overflow its protection.

28:18. Your league with death shall be abolished, and your covenant with hell shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge shall pass, you shall be trodden down by it.

28:19. Whensoever it shall pass through, it shall take you away: because in the morning early it shall pass through, in the day and in the night, and vexation alone shall make you understand what you hear.

28:20. For the bed is straitened, so that one must fall out, and a short covering cannot cover both.

The bed is straitened, etc. . .It is too narrow to hold two: God will have the bed of our heart all to himself.



28:21. For the Lord shall stand up as in the mountain of divisions: he shall be angry as in the valley which is in Gabaon: that he may do his work, his strange work: that he may perform his work, his work is strange to him.

As in the mountain, etc. . .As the Lord fought against the Philistines in Baal Pharasim, 2 Kings 5., and against the Chanaanites, in the valley of Gabaon, Jos. 10.

'''28:22. Now do not mock, lest your bonds be tied strait. For I have heard of the Lord the God of hosts a consumption and a cutting short upon all the earth.'''

28:23. Give ear, and hear my voice, hearken, and hear my speech.



28:24. Shall the ploughman plough all the day to sow, shall he open and harrow his ground?

28:25. Will he not, when he has made plain the surface thereof, sow gith, and scatter cummin, and put wheat in order, and barley, and millet, and vetches in their bounds?

28:26. For he will instruct him in judgment: his God will teach him.

28:27. For gith shall not be thrashed with saws, neither shall the cart wheel turn about upon cummin: but gith shall be beaten out with a rod, and cumin with a staff.

28:28. But breadcorn shall be broken small: but the thrasher shall not thrash it forever, neither shall the cart wheel hurt it, nor break it with its teeth.

28:29. This also is come forth from the Lord God of hosts, to make his counsel wonderful, and magnify justice.

This also, etc. . .Such also is the proceeding of the Lord with his land, and the diverse seeds he throws therein.

Isaiah Chapter 29
God's heavy judgments upon Jerusalem, for their obstinacy: with a prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles.



'''29:1. Woe to Ariel, to Ariel the city which David took: year is added to year. the solemnities are at an end.'''

Ariel. . .This word signifies, the lion of God, and here is taken for the strong city of Jerusalem.

29:2. I will make a trench about Ariel, and it shall be in sorrow and mourning, and it shall be to me as Ariel.

29:3. I will make a circle round about you, and I will cast up a rampart against you, and raise up bulwarks to besiege you.

29:4. You shall be brought down, you shall speak out of the earth, and your speech shall be heard out of the ground: and your voice shall be from the earth like that of the python, and out of the earth your speech shall mutter.

29:5. The multitude of them that fan you, shall be like small dust: and as ashes passing away, the multitude of them that have prevailed against you.

'''29:6. It shall be at an instant suddenly. A visitation shall come from the Lord of hosts in thunder, and with earthquake, and with a great noise of whirlwind and tempest; and with the flame of devouring fire.'''

29:7. The multitude of all nations that have fought against Ariel, shall be as the dream of a vision by night, and all that have fought, and besieged and prevailed against it.

29:8. As he that is hungry dreams, and eats, but when he is awake, his soul is empty: and as he that is thirsty dreams, and drinks and after he is awake, is yet faint with thirst, and his soul is empty: so shall be the multitude of all the Gentiles, that have fought against mount Zion.

29:9. Be astonished, and wonder, waver, and stagger: be drunk, and not with wine: stagger, and not with drunkenness.

29:10. For the Lord has mingled for you the spirit of a deep sleep, he will shut up your eyes, he will cover your prophets and princes, that see visions.



29:11. The vision of all shall be unto you as the words of a book that is sealed which when they shall deliver to one that is learned, they shall say: Read this: and he shall answer: I cannot, for it is sealed.

29:12. The book shall be given to one that knows no letters, and it shall be said to him: Read: and he shall answer: I know no letters.

29:13. The Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me, and they have feared me with the commandment and doctrines of men:

29:14. Therefore behold I will proceed to cause an admiration in this people, by a great and wonderful miracle: for wisdom shall perish from their wise men, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.

29:15. Woe to you that are deep of heart, to hide your counsel from the Lord: and their works are in the dark, and they say: Who sees us, and who knows us?

29:16. This thought of yours is perverse: as if the clay should think against the potter, and the work should say to the maker thereof: You madest me not: or the thing framed should say to him that fashioned it: You understandest not.



29:17. Is it not yet a very little while, and Libanus shall be turned into charmel, and charmel shall be esteemed as a forest?

Charmel. . .This word signifies a fruitful field.

29:18. In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and out of darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see.

29:19. The meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

29:20. For he that did prevail has failed, the scorner is consumed, and they are all cut off that watched for iniquity:

29:21. That made men sin by word, and supplanted him that reproved them in the gate, and declined in vain from the just.



29:22. Therefore thus says the Lord to the house of Jacob, he that redeemed Abraham: Jacob shall not now be confounded, neither shall his countenance now be ashamed:

29:23. But when he shall see his children, the work of my hands in the midst of him sanctifying my name, and they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall glorify the God of Israel:

29:24. They that erred in spirit, shall know understanding, and they that murmured, shall learn the law.

Isaiah Chapter 30
'The people are blamed for their confidence in Egypt. God's mercies towards his church. The punishment of sinners.'

30:1. Woe to you, apostate children, says the Lord, that you would take counsel, and not of me: and would begin a web, and not by my spirit, that you might add sin upon sin:



30:2. Who walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth, hoping for help in the strength of Pharaoh, and trusting in the shadow of Egypt.

30:3. The strength of Pharaoh shall be to your confusion, and the confidence of the shadow of Egypt to your shame.

30:4. For your princes were in Tanis, and your messengers came even to Hanes.

30:5. They were all confounded at a people that could not profit them: they were no help, nor to any profit, but to confusion and to reproach.



'''30:6. The burden of the beasts of the south. In a land of trouble and distress, from whence come the lioness, and the lion, the viper and the flying basilisk, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of beasts, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels to a people that shall not be able to profit them.'''

30:7. For Egypt shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this: It is pride only, sit still.

30:8. Now therefore go in and write for them upon a tablet, and note it diligently in a book, and it shall be in the latter days for a testimony forever.



30:9. For it is a people that provokes to wrath, and lying children that will not hear the law of God.

30:10. Who say to the seers: See not: and to them that behold: Behold not for us those things that are right: speak unto us pleasant things, see errors for us.

30:11. Take away from me the way, turn away the path from me, let the Holy One of Israel cease from before us.

30:12. Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel: Because you have rejected this word, and have trusted in oppression and tumult, and have leaned upon it:

30:13. Therefore shall this iniquity be to you as a breach that falls, and is found wanting in a high wall, for the destruction thereof shall come on a sudden, when it is not looked for.

30:14. It shall be broken small, as the potter's vessel is broken all to pieces with mighty breaking, and there shall not a sherd be found of the pieces thereof, wherein a little fire may be carried from the hearth, or a little water be drawn out of the pit.

'''30:15. For thus says the Lord God the Holy One of Israel: If you return and be quiet, you shall be saved: in silence and in hope shall your strength be. And you would not:'''



'''30:16. But have said: No, but we will flee to horses: therefore shall you flee. And we will mount upon swift ones: therefore shall they be swifter that shall pursue after you.'''

30:17. A thousand men shall flee for fear of one: and for fear of five shall you flee, till you be left as the mast of ship on the top of a mountain, and as an ensign upon a hill.

30:18. Therefore the Lord waits that he may have mercy on you: and therefore shall he be exalted sparing you: because the Lord is the God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.

30:19. For the people of Zion shall dwell in Jerusalem: weeping you shall not weep, he will surely have pity on you: at the voice of your cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer you.

30:20. The Lord will give you spare bread, and short water: and will not cause your teacher to flee away from you any more, and your eyes shall see your teacher.

30:21. Your ears shall hear the word of one admonishing you behind your back: This is the way, walk in it: and go not aside neither to the right hand, nor to the left.

30:22. And you shall defile the plates of your graven things of silver, and the garment of your molten things of gold, and shall cast them away ***'''. You shall say to it: Get you hence.'''



'''30:23. Rain shall be given to your seed, wheresoever you shall sow in the land: and the bread of the corn of the land shall be most plentiful, and fat. The lamb in that day shall feed at large in your possession:'''

30:24. Your oxen, and the ass colts that till the ground, shall eat mingled provender as it was winnowed in the floor.

30:25. There shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every elevated hill rivers of running waters in the day of the slaughter of many, when the tower shall fall.



30:26. The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days: in the day when the Lord shall bind up the wound of his people, and shall heal the stroke of their wound.

30:27. Behold the name of the Lord comes from afar, his wrath burns, and is heavy to bear: his lips are filled with indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire.

30:28. His breath as a torrent overflowing even to the midst of the neck, to destroy the nations unto nothing, and the bridle of error that was in the jaws of the people.

30:29. You shall have a song as in the night of the sanctified solemnity, and joy of heart, as where one goes with a pipe, to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the Mighty One of Israel.



30:30. The Lord shall make the glory of his voice to be heard, and shall show the terror of his arm, in the threatening of wrath, and the flame of devouring fire: he shall crush to pieces with whirlwind, and hailstones.

30:31. For at the voice of the Lord the Assyrian shall fear being struck with the rod.



30:32. The passage of the rod shall be strongly grounded, which the Lord shall make to rest upon him with timbrels and harps, and in great battles he shall overthrow them.

'''30:33. For Topheth is prepared from yesterday, prepared by the king, deep, and wide. The nourishment thereof is fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord as a torrent of brimstone kindling it.'''

Topheth. . .It is the same as Gehenna, and is taken for hell.

Isaiah Chapter 31
'The folly of trusting to Egypt, and forgetting God. He will fight for his people against the Assyrians.'



31:1. Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, trusting in horses, and putting their confidence in chariots, because they are many: and in horsemen, because they are very strong: and have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel, and have not sought after the Lord.

31:2. But he that is the wise one has brought evil, and has not removed his words: and he will rise up against the house of the wicked, and against the aid of them that work iniquity.

31:3. Egypt is man, and not God: and their horses, flesh, and not spirit: and the Lord shall put down his hand, and the helper shall fall, and he that is helped shall fall, and they shall all be confounded together.



31:4. For thus says the Lord to me: Like as the lion roars, and the lions whelp upon his prey, and when a multitude of shepherds shall come against him, he will not fear at their voice, nor be afraid of their multitude: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight upon mount Zion, and upon the hill thereof.

31:5. As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem, protecting and delivering, passing over and saving.

31:6. Return as you had deeply revolted, O children of Israel.

31:7. For in that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your hands have made for you to sin.

31:8. The Assyrian shall fall by the sword not of a man, and the sword not of a man shall devour him, and he shall flee not at the face of the sword, and his young men shall be tributaries.

31:9. His strength shall pass away with dread, and his princes fleeing shall be afraid: the Lord has said it, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.

Isaiah Chapter 32
'The blessings of the reign of Christ. The desolation of the Jews, and prosperity of the church of Christ.'

32:1. Behold a king shall reign in justice, and princes shall rule in judgment.



32:2. A man shall be as when one is hid from the wind, and hides himself from a storm, as rivers of waters in drought, and the shadow of a rock that stands out in a desert land.

32:3. The eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken diligently.

32:4. The heart of fools shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of stammerers shall speak readily and plain.

32:5. The fool shall no more be called prince: neither shall the deceitful be called great:

32:6. For the fool will speak foolish things, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice hypocrisy, and speak to the Lord deceitfully, and to make empty the soul of the hungry, and take away drink from the thirsty.

32:7. The vessels of the deceitful are most wicked: for he has framed devices to destroy the meek, with lying words, when the poor man speaks judgment.

32:8. But the prince will devise such things as are worthy of a prince, and he shall stand above the rulers.

32:9. Rise up, rich women, and hear my voice: confident daughters, give ear to my speech.

32:10. For after days and a year, you that are confident shall be troubled: for the vintage is at an end, the gathering shall come no more.

32:11. Be astonished, rich women, be troubled, confident ones: be confounded, gird your loins.

32:12. Mourn for the delightful country, for the fruitful vineyard.

32:13. Upon the land of my people shall thorns and briers come up: how much more upon all the houses of joy, of the city that rejoiced?

'''32:14. For the house is forsaken, the multitude of the city is left, darkness and obscurity are come upon its dens forever. A joy of wild asses, the pastures of flocks.'''



32:15. Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high: and the desert shall be as a charmel, and charmel shall be counted for a forest.

32:16. An judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and justice shall sit in charmel.

32:17. The work of justice shall be peace, and the service of justice quietness, and security forever.

32:18. My people shall sit in the beauty of peace, and in the tabernacles of confidence, and in wealthy rest.

32:19. But hail shall be in the descent of the forest, and the city shall be made very low.



32:20. Blessed are you that sow upon all waters, sending thither the foot of the ox and the ass.

Isaiah Chapter 33
'God's revenge against the enemies of his church. The happiness of the heavenly Jerusalem.'

'''33:1. Woe to you that spoilest, shall not you thyself also be spoiled? and you that despisest, shall not thyself also be despised? when you shall have made an end of spoiling, you shall be spoiled: when being wearied you shall cease to despise, you shall be despised.'''

That spoilest, etc. . .This is particularly directed to Sennacherib.

33:2. O Lord, have mercy on us: for we have waited for you: be you our arm in the morning, and our salvation in the time of trouble.



33:3. At the voice of the angel the people fled, and at the lifting up thyself the nations are scattered.

33:4. Your spoils shall be gathered together as the locusts are gathered, as when the ditches are full of them.

33:5. The Lord is magnified, for he has dwelt on high: he has filled Zion with judgment and justice.

33:6. There shall be faith in your times: riches of salvation, wisdom and knowledge: the fear of the Lord is his treasure.



33:7. Behold they that see shall cry outside in the streets, the messengers of peace shall weep bitterly.

33:8. The ways are made desolate, no one passes by the road, the covenant is made void, he has rejected the cities, he has not regarded the men.

33:9. The land has mourned, and languished: Libanus is confounded, and become foul, and Saron is become as a desert: and Basan and Carmel are shaken.

33:10. Now will I rise up, says the Lord: now will I be exalted, now will I lift up myself.

33:11. You shall conceive heat, you shall bring forth stubble: your breath as fire shall devour you.

33:12. The people shall be as ashes after a fire, as a bundle of thorns they shall be burnt with fire.

33:13. Hear, you that are far off, what I have done, and you that are near know my strength.

'''33:14. The sinners in Zion are afraid, trembling has seized upon the hypocrites. Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?'''

33:15. He that walks in justices, and speaks truth, that casts away avarice by oppression, and shakes his hands from all bribes, that stops his ears lest he hear blood, and shuts his eyes that he may see no evil.

33:16. He shall dwell on high, the fortifications of rocks shall be his highness: bread is given him, his waters are sure.

33:17. His eyes shall see the king in his beauty, they shall see the land far off.

'''33:18. Your heart shall meditate fear: where is the learned? where is he that pondered the words of the law? where is the teacher of little ones?'''

33:19. The shameless people you shall not see, the people of profound speech: so that you canst not understand the eloquence of his tongue, in whom there is no wisdom.

33:20. Look upon Zion the city of our solemnity: your eyes shall see Jerusalem, a rich habitation, a tabernacle that cannot be removed: neither shall the nails thereof be taken away forever, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.



33:21. Because only there our Lord is magnificent: a place of rivers, very broad and spacious streams: no ship with oars shall pass by it, neither shall the great galley pass through it.

Of rivers. . .He speaks of the rivers of endless joys that flow from the throne of God to water the heavenly Jerusalem, where no enemy's ship can come, etc.

33:22. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king: he will save us.

'''33:23. Your tacklings are loosed, and they shall be of no strength: your mast shall be in such condition, that you shall not be able to spread the flag. Then shall the spoils of much prey be divided: the lame shall take the spoil.'''

Your tacklings. . .He speaks of the enemies of the church, under the allegory of a ship that is disabled.

'''33:24. Neither shall he that is near, say: I am feeble. The people that dwell therein, shall have their iniquity taken away from them.'''

Isaiah Chapter 34
The general judgment of the wicked.



34:1. Come near, Gentiles, and hear, and hearken, you people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein, the world, and every thing that comes forth of it.

34:2. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he has killed them, and delivered them to slaughter.



34:3. Their slain shall be cast forth, and out of their carcasses shall rise a stink: the mountains shall be melted with their blood.

34:4. All the host of the heavens shall pine away, and the heavens shall be folded together as a book: and all their host shall fall down as the leaf falls from the vine, and from the fig tree.

And all the host of the heavens. . .That is, the sun, moon, and stars.

34:5. For my sword is inebriated in heaven: behold it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my slaughter unto judgment.

Idumea. . .Under the name of Idumea, or Edom a people that were enemies of the Jews, are here understood the wicked in general, the enemies of God and his church.



34:6. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made thick with the blood of lambs and buck goats, with the blood of rams full of marrow: for there is a victim of the Lord in Bosra and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

34:7. The unicorns shall go down with them, and the bulls with the mighty: their land shall be soaked with blood, and their ground with the fat of fat ones.

The unicorns. . .That is, the great and mighty.

34:8. For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of recompenses of the judgment of Zion.

The year of recompenses, etc. . .When the persecutors of Zion, that is, of the church, shall receive their reward.



34:9. The streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.

34:10. Night and day it shall not be quenched, the smoke thereof shall go up forever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it forever and ever.

34:11. The bittern and ericius shall possess it: and the ibis and the raven shall dwell in it: and a line shall be stretched out upon it, to bring it to nothing, and a plummet, unto desolation.

34:12. The nobles thereof shall not be there: they shall call rather upon the king, and all the princes thereof shall be nothing.



34:13. Thorns and nettles shall grow up in its houses, and the thistle in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be the habitation of dragons, and the pasture of ostriches.

34:14. Demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another, there has the lamia lain down, and found rest for herself.

34:15. There has the ericius had its hole, and brought up its young ones, and has dug round about, and cherished them in the shadow thereof: thither are the kites gathered together one to another.

34:16. Search diligently in the book of the Lord, and read: not one of them was wanting, one has not sought for the other: for that which proceeds out of my mouth, he has commanded, and his spirit it has gathered them.



34:17. He has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them by line: they shall possess it forever, from generation to generation they shall dwell therein.

Isaiah Chapter 35
The joyful flourishing of Christ's kingdom: in his church shall be a holy and secure way.

'''35:1. The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily. '''

35:2. It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise: the glory of Libanus is given to it: the beauty of Carmel, and Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God.

35:3. Strengthen the feeble hands, and confirm the weak knees.

'''35:7. That which was dry land, shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the dens where dragons dwelt before, shall rise up the verdure of the reed and the bulrush.'''

35:8. A path and a way shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way: the unclean shall not pass over it, and this shall be unto you a straight way, so that fools shall not err therein.



35:9. No lion shall be there, nor shall any mischievous beast go up by it, nor be found there: but they shall walk there that shall be delivered.

35:10. The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and shall come into Zion with praise, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

Isaiah Chapter 36
Sennacherib invades Judah: his blasphemies.

36:1. It came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of the Assyrians came up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.

36:2. The king of the Assyrians sent Rabsaces from Lachis to Jerusalem, to king Hezekiah with a great army, and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the way of the fuller's field.

36:3. There went out to him Eliacim the son of Helcias, who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the recorder.

36:4. Rabsaces said to them: Tell Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of the Assyrians: What is this confidence wherein you trust?

'''36:5. Or with what counsel or strength do you prepare for war? on whom do you trust, that you are revolted from me?'''

36:6. Lo you trustest upon this broken staff of a reed, upon Egypt: upon which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.

36:7. But if you will answer me: We trust in the Lord our God: is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar?



36:8. Now deliver yourself up to my lord the king of the Assyrians, and I will give you two thousand horses, and you will not be able on your part to find riders for them.

'''36:9. How will you stand against the face of the judge of one place, of the least of my master's servants? But if you trust in Egypt, in chariots and in horsemen:'''

'''36:10. and am I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me: Go up against this land, and destroy it.'''

36:11. Eliacim, and Sobna, and Joahe said to Rabsaces: Speak to your servants in the Syrian tongue: for we understand it: speak not to us in the Jews' language in the hearing of the people, that are upon the wall.

36:12. Rabsaces said to them: Has my master sent me to your master and to you, to speak all these words; and not rather to the men that sit on the wall; that they may eat and drink their own bodily excretions with you?

36:13. Then Rabsaces stood, and cried out with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said: Hear the words of the great king, the king of the Assyrians.

36:14. Thus says the king: Let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you.

36:15. Let not Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying: The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.



36:16. Do not hearken to Hezekiah: for thus said the king of the Assyrians: Do with me that which is for your advantage, and come out to me, and eat you every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink you every one the water of his cistern,

36:17. until I come and take you away to a land, like to your own, a land of corn and of wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

'''36:18. Neither let Hezekiah trouble you, saying: The Lord will deliver us. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians?'''

'''36:19. Where is the god of Emath and of Arphad? where is the god of Sepharvaim? have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?'''

36:20. Who is there among all the gods of these lands, that has delivered his country out of my hand, that the Lord may deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

'''36:21. They held their peace, and answered him not a word. For the king had commanded, saying: Answer him not.'''

36:22. Eliacim the son of Helcias, that was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the recorder, went in to Hezekiah with their garments rent, and told him the words of Rabsaces.

Isaiah Chapter 37
'Hezekiah, his mourning and prayer. God's promise of protection. The Assyrian army is destroyed. Sennacherib is slain.'

37:1. It came to pass, when king Hezekiah had heard it, that he rent his garments and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.



37:2. He sent Eliacim who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and the ancients of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the son of Amos the prophet.

37:3. They said to him: Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

37:4. It may be the Lord your God will hear the words of Rabsaces, whom the king of the Assyrians his master has sent to blaspheme the living God, and to reproach with words which the Lord your God has heard: wherefore lift up by prayer for the remnant that is left.

37:5. The servants of Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

37:6. Isaiah said to them: Thus shall you say to your master: Thus says the Lord: Be not afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me.

37:7. Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a message, and shall return to his own country, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own country.

'''37:8. Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Lobna. For he had heard that he was departed from Lachis.'''

'''37:9. He heard say about Tharaca the king of Ethiopia: He is come forth to fight against you. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying:'''

37:10. Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah the king of Judah, saying: Let not your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying: Jerusalem shall not be given into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.

37:11. Behold you have heard all that the kings of the Assyrians have done to all countries which they have destroyed, and can you be delivered?

37:12. Have the gods of the nations delivered them whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozam, and Haram, and Reseph, and the children of Eden, that were in Thalassar?

37:13. Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Ana, and of Ava?

37:14. Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it, and went up to the house of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread it before the Lord.

37:15. Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying:

37:16. Lord of hosts, God of Israel who sits upon the cherubims, you alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth.

37:17. Incline, O Lord, your ear, and hear: open, O Lord, your eyes, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to blaspheme the living God.

37:18. For of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have laid waste lands, and their countries.

37:19. They have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the works of men's hands, of wood and stone: and they broke them in pieces.

37:20. Now, O Lord our God, save us out of his hand: and let all the kingdoms of the earth know, that you only are the Lord.

37:21. Isaiah the son of Amos sent to Hezekiah, saying: Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: For the prayer you have made to me concerning Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians:

37:22. This is the word which the Lord has spoken of him: The virgin the daughter of Zion has despised you, and laughed you to scorn: the daughter of Jerusalem has wagged the head after you.

'''37:23. Whom have you reproached, and whom have you blasphemed, and against whom have you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.'''

37:24. By the hand of your servants you have reproached the Lord: and have said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus: and I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees, and will enter to the top of its height, to the forest of its Carmel.

Carmel. . .See these figurative expressions explained in the annotations on the nineteenth chapter of the fourth book of Kings.

37:25. I have dug, and drunk water, and have dried up with the sole of my foot, all the rivers shut up in banks.

'''37:26. Have you not heard what I have done to him of old? from the days of old I have formed it: and now I have brought it to effect: and it has come to pass that hills fighting together, and fenced cities should be destroyed.'''



37:27. The inhabitants of them were weak of hand, they trembled, and were confounded: they became like the grass of the field, and the herb of the pasture, and like the grass of the housetops, which withered before it was ripe.

37:28. I know your dwelling, and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against me.

37:29. When you wast mad against me, your pride came up to my ears: therefore I will put a ring in your nose, and a bit between your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you camest.



37:30. But to you this shall be a sign: Eat this year the things that spring of themselves, and in the second year eat fruits: but in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.

37:31. That which shall be saved of the house of Judah, and which is left, shall take root downward, and shall bear fruit upward:

37:32. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and salvation from mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

37:33. Wherefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it.

37:34. By the way that he came, he shall return, and into this city he shall not come, says the Lord.



37:35. I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake, and for the sake of David my servant.

'''37:36. The angel of the Lord went out and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they arose in the morning, and behold they were all dead corpses.'''

37:37. Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians went out and departed, and returned, and dwelt in Ninive.

37:38. It came to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, that Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword: and they fled into the land of Ararat, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

Isaiah Chapter 38
'Hezekiah being made aware that he shall die, obtains by prayer a prolongation of his life: in confirmation of which the sun goes back. The canticle of Hezekiah.'

38:1. In those days Hezekiah was sick even to death, and Isaiah the son of Amos the prophet cane unto him, and said to him: Thus says the Lord: Take order with your house, for you shall die, and not live.

38:2. Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord,

'''38:3. and said: I beseech you, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept with great weeping.'''

38:4. The word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying:

38:5. Go and say to Hezekiah: Thus says the Lord the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, and I have seen your tears: behold I will add to your days fifteen years:

38:6. and I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians, and I will protect it.

38:7. This shall be a sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this word which he has spoken:



'''38:8. Behold I will bring again the shadow of the lines, by which it is now gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz with the sun, ten lines backward. And the sun returned ten lines by the degrees by which it was gone down.'''

38:9. The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness.

38:10. I said: In the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell: I sought for the residue of my years.

Hell. . .Sheol, or Hades, the region of the dead.

'''38:11. I said: I shall not see the Lord God in the land of the living. I shall behold man no more, nor the inhabitant of rest.'''

'''38:12. My generation is at an end, and it is rolled away from me, as a shepherd's tent. My life is cut off, as by a weaver: while I was yet but beginning, he cut me off: from morning even to night you will make an end of me.'''



38:13. I hoped until morning, as a lion so has he broken all my bones: from morning even to night you will make an end of me.

38:14. I will cry like a young swallow, I will meditate like a dove: my eyes are weakened looking upward: Lord, I suffer violence, answer you for me.

'''38:15. What shall I say, or what shall he answer for me, whereas he himself has done it? I will recount to you all my years in the bitterness of my soul.'''

38:16. O Lord, if man's life be such, and the life of my spirit be in such things as these, you shall correct me, and make me to live.

38:17. Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter: but you have delivered my soul that it should not perish, you have cast all my sins behind your back.

38:18. For hell shall not confess to you, neither shall death praise you: nor shall they that go down into the pit, look for your truth.

38:19. The living, the living, he shall give praise to you, as I do this day: the father shall make the truth known to the children.

38:20. O Lord, save me, and we will sing our psalms all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.

38:21. Now Isaiah had ordered that they should take a lump of figs, and lay it as a plaster upon the wound, and that he should be healed.

38:22. Hezekiah had said: What shall be the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?

Isaiah Chapter 39
Hezekiah shows all his treasures to the ambassadors of Babylon: upon which Isaiah foretells the Babylonish captivity.

39:1. At that time Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, sent letters and presents to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick and was recovered.



'''39:2. Hezekiah rejoiced at their coming, and he showed them the storehouses of his aromatical spices, and of the silver, and of the gold, and of the sweet odors, and of the precious ointment, and all the storehouses of his furniture, and all things that were found in his treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah showed them not.'''

'''39:3. Then Isaiah the prophet came to king Hezekiah, and said to him: What said these men, and from whence came they to you? And Hezekiah said: From a far country they came to me, from Babylon.'''

'''39:4. He said: What saw they in your house? And Hezekiah said: All things that are in my house have they seen, there was not any thing which I have not shown them in my treasures.'''

39:5. Isaiah said to Hezekiah: Hear the word of the Lord of hosts.

39:6. Behold the days shall come that all that is in your house, and that your fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried away into Babylon: there shall not any thing be left, says the Lord.

39:7. Of your children, that shall issue from you, whom you shall beget, they shall take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.



'''39:8. Hezekiah said to Isaiah: The word of the Lord, which he has spoken, is good. He said: Only let peace and truth be in my days.'''

Click here for Chapters 40-66 of the Book of Isaiah