9 By this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit of the taking away of his sin: when he shall make all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are crumbled in pieces, -- the Asherahs and the sun-images shall not stand.
And this is the covenant from me to them, when I shall have taken away their sins.
And [some] of the wise shall fall, to try them, and to purge and to make them white, to the time of the end: for it shall yet be for the time appointed.
And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, nor have regard to what his fingers have made, neither the Asherahs nor the sun-images.
And they shall come thither, and they shall take away from thence all its detestable things and all its abominations.
Moreover we have had the fathers of our flesh as chasteners, and we reverenced [them]; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed chastened for a few days, as seemed good to them; but he for profit, in order to the partaking of his holiness. But no chastening at the time seems to be [matter] of joy, but of grief; but afterwards yields [the] peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised by it.
for whom [the] Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.
But being judged, we are disciplined of [the] Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
But who shall endure the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he will be like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' lye. And he shall sit [as] a refiner and purifier of silver; and he will purify the children of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto Jehovah an oblation in righteousness.
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith Jehovah of hosts, [that] I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered; and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.
Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy statues out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more bow down to the work of thy hands. And I will pluck up thine Asherahs out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy cities.
Then set it empty upon its coals, that it may be hot, and the brass of it may burn, and that its filthiness may be molten in it, [and] that its rust may be consumed. She hath exhausted [her] labours, yet her great rust goeth not forth out of her: let her rust be in the fire. In thy filthiness is lewdness, for I have purged thee, and thou art not pure. Thou shalt no more be purged from thy filthiness, till I have satisfied my fury upon thee. I Jehovah have spoken [it]: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, nor will I repent. According to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord Jehovah.
And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me; I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, but they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I [am] Jehovah.
when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have scoured out the blood of Jerusalem from its midst, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.
For there shall be a day of Jehovah of hosts upon everything proud and lofty, and upon everything lifted up, and it shall be brought low; and upon all the cedars of Lebanon, high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan; and upon all the lofty mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up; and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall; and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant works of art. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low; and Jehovah alone shall be exalted in that day: and the idols shall utterly pass away. And they shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of Jehovah, and from the glory of his majesty, when he shall arise to terrify the earth. In that day men shall cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made [each] for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the fissures of the cliffs, from before the terror of Jehovah, and from the glory of his majesty, when he shall arise to terrify the earth.
Therefore saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: Ah! I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies. And I will turn my hand upon thee, and will thoroughly purge away thy dross, and take away all thine alloy;
Wounding stripes purge away evil, and strokes [purge] the inner parts of the belly.
Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep thy ùword.
Then stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer up burnt-offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God. And they set the altar on its base; for fear was upon them because of the people of the countries; and they offered up burnt-offerings on it to Jehovah, the morning and evening burnt-offerings.
And they broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; and the sun-pillars that were on high above them he cut down; and the Asherahs and the graven images and the molten images he broke in pieces, and made dust [of them] and strewed it upon the graves of those that had sacrificed to them;
And he removed out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the sun-images; and the kingdom was quiet before him.
And the brazen pillars that were in the house of Jehovah, and the bases, and the brazen sea that was in the house of Jehovah, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the brass thereof to Babylon. The cauldrons also and the shovels and the knives and the cups, and all the vessels of copper wherewith they ministered, they took away. And the censers and the bowls, that which was of gold in gold, and that which was of silver in silver, the captain of the body-guard took away. The two pillars, the one sea, and the bases which Solomon had made for the house of Jehovah: for the brass of all these vessels there was no weight. The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and the capital upon it was brass, and the height of the capital three cubits; and the network and the pomegranates, upon the capital round about, all of brass: and similarly for the second pillar with the network.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 27
Commentary on Isaiah 27 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Upon whom the judgment of Jehovah particularly falls, is described in figurative and enigmatical words in Isaiah 27:1 : “In that day will Jehovah visit with His sword, with the hard, and the great, and the strong, leviathan the fleet serpent, and leviathan the twisted serpent, and slay the dragon in the sea.” No doubt the three animals are emblems of three imperial powers. The assertion that there are no more three animals than there are three swords, is a mistake. If the preposition were repeated in the case of the swords, as it is in the case of the animals, we should have to understand the passage as referring to three swords as well as three animals. But this is not the case. We have therefore to inquire what the three world-powers are; and this question is quite a justifiable one: for we have no reason to rest satisfied with the opinion held by Drechsler, that the three emblems are symbols of ungodly powers in general, of every kind and every sphere, unless the question itself is absolutely unanswerable. Now the tannin (the stretched-out aquatic animal) is the standing emblem of Egypt (Isaiah 51:9; Psalms 74:13; Ezekiel 29:3; Ezekiel 32:2). And as the Euphrates-land and Asshur are mentioned in Isaiah 27:12, Isaiah 27:13 in connection with Egypt, it is immediately probable that the other two animals signify the kingdom of the Tigris, i.e., Assyria, with its capital Nineveh which stood on the Tigris, and the kingdom of the Euphrates, i.e., Chaldea, with its capital Babylon which stood upon the Euphrates. Moreover, the application of the same epithet Leviathan to both the kingdoms, with simply a difference in the attributes, is suggestive of two kingdoms that were related to each other. We must not be misled by the fact that nâchâsh bâriach is a constellation in Job 26:13; we have no bammarōm (on high) here, as in Isaiah 24:21, and therefore are evidently still upon the surface of the globe. The epithet employed was primarily suggested by the situation of the two cities. Nineveh was on the Tigris, which was called Chiddekel ,
(Note: In point of fact, not only does Arab. tyr signify both an arrow and the Tigris, according to the Neo-Persian lexicons, but the old explanation “Tigris, swift as a dart, since the Medes call the Tigris toxeuma ” (the shot or shot arrow; Eustath, on Dion Perieg. v. 984), is confirmed by the Zendic tighri , which has been proved to be used in the sense of arrow or shot ( Yesht 8, 6, yatha tighris mainyavacâo ), i.e., like a heavenly arrow.)
on account of the swiftness of its course and its terrible rapids; hence Asshur is compared to a serpent moving along in a rapid, impetuous, long, extended course ( bâriach , as in Isaiah 43:14, is equivalent to barriach, a noun of the same form as עלּיז , and a different word from berriach , a bolt, Isaiah 15:5). Babylon, on the other hand, is compared to a twisted serpent, i.e., to one twisting about in serpentine curves, because it was situated on the very winding Euphrates, the windings of which are especially labyrinthine in the immediate vicinity of Babylon. The river did indeed flow straight away at one time, but by artificial cuttings it was made so serpentine that it passed the same place, viz., Arderikka, no less than three times; and according to the declaration of Herodotus in his own time, when any one sailed down the river, he had to pass it three times in three days (Ritter, x. p. 8). The real meaning of the emblem, however, is no more exhausted by this allusion to the geographical situation, than it was in the case of “the desert of the sea” (Isaiah 21:1). The attribute of winding is also a symbol of the longer duration of one empire than of the other, and of the more numerous complications into which Israel would be drawn by it. The world-power on the Tigris fires with rapidity upon Israel, so that the fate of Israel is very quickly decided. But the world-power on the Euphrates advances by many windings, and encircles its prey in many folds. And these windings are all the more numerous, because in the prophet's view Babylon is the final form assumed by the empire of the world, and therefore Israel remains encircled by this serpent until the last days. The judgment upon Asshur, Babylon, and Egypt, is the judgment upon the world-powers universally.
The prophecy here passes for the fourth time into the tone of a song. The church recognises itself in the judgments upon the world, as Jehovah's well-protected and beloved vineyard.
In that day a merry vineyard - sing it!
I, Jehovah, its keeper,
Every moment I water it.
That nothing may come near it,
I watch it night and day.
Wrath have I none;
O, had I thorns, thistles before me!
I would make up to them in battle,
Burn them all together.
Men would then have to grasp at my protection,
Make peace with me,
Make peace with me.