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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 32:9 - 32:9
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This short address, although rounded off well, is something more than a fragment complete in itself, like the short parabolic piece in Isa 28:23-29, which commences in a similar manner. It is the last part of the fourth woe, just as that was the last part of the first. It is a side piece to the threatening prophecy of the time of Uzziah-Jotham (Isa 3:16.), and chastises the frivolous self-security of the women of Jerusalem, just as the former chastises their vain and luxurious love of finery. The prophet has now uttered many a woe upon Jerusalem, which is bringing itself to the verge of destruction; but notwithstanding the fact that women are by nature more delicate, and more easily affected and alarmed, than men, he has made no impression upon the women of Jerusalem, to whom he now foretells a terrible undeceiving of their carnal ease, whilst he holds out before them the ease secured by God, which can only be realized on the ruins of the former.
The first part of the address proclaims the annihilation of their false ease. “Ye contented women, rise up, hear my voice; ye confident daughters, hearken to my speech! Days to the year: then will ye tremble, confident ones! for it is all over with the vintage, the fruit harvest comes to nought. Tremble, contented ones! Quake, ye confident ones! Strip, make yourselves bare, and gird your loins with sackcloth! They smite upon their breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. On the land of my people there come up weeds, briers; yea, upon all joyous houses of the rejoicing city. For the palace is made solitary; the crowd of the city is left desolate; the ofel and watch-tower serve as caves for ever, for the delight of wild asses, for the tending of flocks.” The summons is the same as in Gen 4:23 and Jer 9:19 (comp. Isa 28:23); the attributes the same as in Amo 6:1 (cf., Isa 4:1, where Isaiah apostrophizes the women of Samaria). שַׁאֲנָןָ, lively, of good cheer; and בֹּטֵחַ, trusting, namely to nothing. They are to rise up (qōmnâh), because the word of God must be heard standing (Jdg 3:20). The definition of the time “days for a year” (yâmı̄m ‛al-shânâh) appears to indicate the length of time that the desolation would last, as the word tirgaznâh is without any Vav apod. (cf., Isa 65:24; Job 1:16-18); but Isa 29:1 shows us differently, and the Vav is omitted, just as it is, for example, in Dan 4:28. Shânâh is the current year. In an undefined number of days, at the most a year from the present time (which is sometimes the meaning of yâmı̄m), the trembling would begin, and there would be neither grapes nor fruit to gather. Hence the spring harvest of corn is supposed to be over when the devastation begins. יָמִים is an acc. temporis; it stands here (as in Isa 27:6, for example; vid., Ewald, §293, 1) to indicate the starting point, not the period of duration. The milel-forms פְּשֹׁטָה, עֹֽרָה, חֲגרֹה ,עֹֽרָה , are explained by Ewald, Drechsler, and Luzzatto, as plur. fem. imper. with the Nun of the termination nâh dropped - an elision that is certainly never heard of. Others regard it as inf. with He femin. (Credner, Joel, p. 151); but קְטֹלָה for the infinitive קָטְלָה is unexampled; and equally unexampled would be the inf. with He indicating the summons, as suggested by Böttcher, “to the shaking!” “to the stripping!” They are sing. masc. imper., such as occur elsewhere apart from the pause, e.g., מְלוֹכָה (for which the keri has מָלְכָה) in Jdg 9:8; and the singular in the place of the plural is the strongest form of command. The masculine instead of the feminine appears already in הִרְדוּ, which is used in the place of חֲרַדְנָה. The prophet then proceeds in the singular number, comprehending the women as a mass, and using the most massive expression. The He introduced into the summons required that the feminine forms, רִגְזִי, etc., should be given up. עֹרָה, from עָרַר, to be naked, to strip one's self. חָגֹרָה absolute, as in Joe 1:13 (cf., Isa 3:24), signifies to gird one's self with sackcloth (saq). We meet with the same remarkable enall. generis in Isa 32:12. Men have no breasts (shâdaim), and yet the masculine sōphedı̄m is employed, inasmuch as the prophet had the whole nation in his mind, throughout which there would be such a plangere ubera on account of the utter destruction of the hopeful harvest of corn and wine. Shâdaim (breasts) and שְׂדֵי (construct to sâdōth) have the same common ring as ubera and ubertas frugum. In Isa 32:13 ta‛ăleh points back to qōts shâmı̄r, which is condensed into one neuter idea. The ki in Isa 32:13 has the sense of the Latin imo (Ewald, §330, b). The genitive connection of עַלִּיזָה קִרְיָה with מָשׂוֹשׂ בָּתֵּי (joy-houses of the jubilant city) is the same as in Isa 28:1. The whole is grammatically strange, just as in the Psalms the language becomes all the more complicated, disjointed, and difficult, the greater the wrath and indignation of the poet. Hence the short shrill sentences in Isa 32:14 : palace given up (cf., Isa 13:22); city bustle forsaken (i.e., the city generally so full of bustle, Isa 22:2). The use of בְּעַד is the same as in Pro 6:26; Job 2:4. ‛Ofel, i.e., the south-eastern fortified slope of the temple mountain, and the bachan (i.e., the watch-tower, possibly the flock-tower which is mentioned in Mic 4:8 along with ‛ofel), would be pro speluncis, i.e., would be considered and serve as such. And in the very place where the women of Jerusalem had once led their life of gaiety, wild asses would now have their delight, and flocks their pasture (on the wild asses, perâ'ı̄m, that fine animal of the woodless steppe, see at Job 24:5; Job 39:5-8). Thus would Jerusalem, with its strongest, proudest places, be laid in ruins, and that in a single year, or ever less than a year.