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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Isaiah 8:21 - 8:21
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More detailed description of the despair, which they shall fall into, who sought necromancy instead of God; Isa 8:20 implies that too late they shall see how much better it would have been for them to have sought “to the law,” etc. (Deu 32:31). But now they are given over to despair. Therefore, while seeing the truth of God, they only “curse their King and God”; foreshadowing the future, like conduct of those belonging to the “kingdom of the beast,” when they shall be visited with divine plagues (Rev 16:11; compare Jer 18:12).
through it - namely, the land.
hardly bestead - oppressed with anxiety.
hungry - a more grievous famine than the temporary one in Ahaz’ time, owing to Assyria; then there was some food, but none now (Isa 7:15, Isa 7:22; Lev 26:3-5, Lev 26:14-16, Lev 26:20).
their king ... God - Jehovah, King of the Jews (Psa 5:2; Psa 68:24).
look upward ... unto the earth - Whether they look up to heaven, or down towards the land of Judea, nothing but despair shall present itself.
dimness of anguish - darkness of distress (Pro 1:27).
driven to darkness - rather, “thick darkness” (Jer 23:12). Driven onward, as by a sweeping storm. The Jewish rejection of “their King and God,” Messiah, was followed by all these awful calamities.