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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 30:12 - 30:12
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Thus do they fall out with Jehovah and the bearers of His word. “Therefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye dislike this word, and put your trust in force and shufflings, and rely upon this; therefore will this iniquity be to you like a falling breach, bent forwards in a high-towering wall, which falls to ruin suddenly, very suddenly. And He smites it to pieces, as a potter's vessel falls to pieces, when they smash it without sparing, and of which, when it lies smashed to pieces there, you cannot find a sherd to fetch fire with from the hearth, or to take water with out of a cistern.” The “word” towards which they cherished me'ōs (read mo'oskhem), was the word of Jehovah through His prophet, which was directed against their untheocratic policy of reckoning upon Egypt. Nâlōz, bent out or twisted, is the term used to denote this very policy, which was ever resorting to bypaths and secret ways; whilst ‛ōsheq denotes the squeezing out of the money required to carry on the war of freedom, and to purchase the help of Egypt (compare 2Ki 15:20). The guilt of Judah is compared to the broken and overhanging part of a high wall (nibh‛eh, bent forwards; compare (בַּעְבַּע, a term applied to a diseased swelling). Just as such a broken piece brings down the whole of the injured wall along with it, so would the sinful conduct of Judah immediately ruin the whole of its existing constitution. Israel, which would not recognise itself as the image of Jehovah, even when there was yet time (Isa 29:16), would be like a vessel smashed into the smallest fragments. It is the captivity which is here figuratively threatened by the prophet; for the smashing had regard to Israel as a state. The subject to וּשְׁבָרָהּ in Isa 30:14 is Jehovah, who would make use of the hostile power of man to destroy the wall, and break up the kingdom of Judah into such a diaspora of broken sherds. The reading is not וְשִׁהִבְרָהּ (lxx, Targum), but וּשְׁבָרָהּ, et franget eam. Kâthōth is an infinitive statement of the mode; the participle kâthūth, which is adopted by the Targum, Kimchi, Norzi, and others, is less suitable. It was necessary to proceed with יַחְמֹל לֹא (without his sparing), simply because the infinitive absolute cannot be connected with לֹא (Ewald, §350, a). לַחְשּׂוֹף (to be written thus with dagesh both here and Hag 2:16) passes from the primary meaning nudare to that of scooping up, as עֵרָה does to that of pouring out.