Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 64:5

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 64:5 - 64:5

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 64:5 - 64:5

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The people who ask the question in Isa 64:5 do not regard themselves as worthy of redemption, as their self-righteousness has been so thoroughly put to shame. “We all became like the unclean thing, and all our virtues like a garment soiled with blood; and we all faded away together like the leaves; and our iniquities, like the storm they carried us away.” The whole nation is like one whom the law pronounces unclean, like a leper, who has to cry “tâmē, tâmē “as he goes along, that men may get out of his way (Lev 13:45). Doing right in all its manifold forms (tsedâqōth, like Isa 33:15, used elsewhere of the manifestations of divine righteousness), which once made Israel well-pleasing to God (Isa 1:21), has disappeared and become like a garment stained with menstruous discharge (cf., Eze 36:17); (lxx ὡς ῥάκος ἀποκαθημένης = dâvâ, Isa 30:22; niddâh, Lam 1:17; temē'âh, Lev 15:33). ‛Iddı̄m (used thus in the plural in the Talmud also) signifies the monthly period (menstrua). In the third figure, that of fading falling foliage, the form vannâbhel is not kal (= vannibbōl or vannibbal; Ewald, §232, b), which would be an impossibility according to the laws of inflexion; still less is it niphal = vanninnâbhel (which Kimchi suggests as an alternative); but certainly a hiphil. It is not, however, from nâbhēl = vannabbel, “with the reduplication dropped to express the idea of something gradual,” as Böttcher proposes (a new and arbitrary explanation in the place of one founded upon the simple laws of inflexion), but either from bâlal (compare the remarks on belı̄l in Isa 30:24, which hardly signifies “ripe barley” however), after the form וַיָּגֶל (from גָּלַל) וַיָּסַךְ (from סָכַךְ), or from būl, after the form וַיָּקֶם, etc. In any case, therefore, it is a metaplastic formation, whether from bâlal or būl = nâbhēl, like וַיָּשַׂר (in 1Ch 20:3, after the form וַיָּסַר, from שּׂוֹר = נָשַׂר, or after the form וַיָּרַע, from שָׂרַר = נָשַׂר (compare the rabbinical explanation of the name of the month Bul from the falling of the leaves, in Buxtorf, Lex. talm. col. 271). The hiphil הֵבֵל or הֵבִיל is to be compared to הֶאֱדִים, to stream out red (= to be red); הֶאֱרִיךְ, to make an extension (= to be long); הִשְׁרִישׁ, to strike root (= to root), etc., and signifies literally to produce a fading (= to fade away). In the fourth figure, עֲוֹנֵנוּ (as it is also written in Isa 64:6 according to correct codices) is a defective plural (as in Jer 14:7; Eze 28:18; Dan 9:13) for the more usual עֲוֹנֹתֵינוּ (Isa 59:12). עָוֹן is the usual term applied to sin regarded as guilt, which produces punishment of itself. The people were robbed by their sins of all vital strength and energy, like dry leaves, which the guilt and punishment springing from sin carried off as a very easy prey.