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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 27:7 - 27:7
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The prophet does not return even now to his own actual times; but, with the certainty that Israel will not be exalted until it has been deeply humbled on account of its sins, he placed himself in the midst of this state of punishment. And there, in the face of the glorious future which awaited Israel, the fact shines out brightly before his eyes, that the punishment which God inflicts upon Israel is a very different thing from that inflicted upon the world. “Hath He smitten it like the smiting of its smiter, or is it slain like the slaying of those slain by Him? Thou punishedst it with measures, when thou didst thrust it away, sifting with violent breath in the day of the east wind.” “Its smiter” (maccēhū) is the imperial power by which Israel had been attacked (Isa 10:20); and “those slain by Him” (הַרֻגָיו) are the slain of the empire who had fallen under the strokes of Jehovah. The former smote unmercifully, and its slain ones now lay without hope (Isa 26:14). Jehovah smites differently, and it is very different with the church, which has succumbed in the persons of its righteous members. For the double play upon words, see Isa 24:16; Isa 22:18; Isa 10:16. When Jehovah put Israel away (as if by means of a “bill of divorcement,” Isa 50:1), He strove against it (Isa 49:25), i.e., punished it, “in measure,” i.e., determining the measure very exactly, that it might not exceed the enduring power of Israel, not endanger the existence of Israel as a nation (cf., bemishpât in Jer 10:24; Jer 30:11; Jer 46:28). On the other hand, Hitzig, Ewald, and Knobel read בְּסַאְסְאָה, from a word סִאסֵא,
(Note: Böttcher refers to a Talmudic word, הסיא (to remove), but this is to be pronounced הִסִּיא (= הִסִּיע), and is moreover, very uncertain.)
related to זִעְזֵעַ, or even טִאטֵא, “when thou didst disturb (or drive forth);” but the traditional text does not indicate any various reading with ה mappic., and the ancient versions and expositors all take the word as a reduplication of סְאָה, which stands here as the third of an ephah to denote a moderately large measure. The clause hâgâh berūchō is probably regarded as an elliptical relative clause, in which case the transition to the third person can be best explained: “thou, who siftedst with violent breath.” Hâgâh, which only occurs again in Pro 25:4, signifies to separate, e.g., the dross from silver (Isa 1:25). Jehovah sifted Israel (compare the figure of the threshing-floor in Isa 21:10), at the time when, by suspending captivity over it, He blew as violently upon it as if the east wind had raged (vid., Job 2:1-13 :19). But He only sifted, He did not destroy.