“Harlot” is unfaithful wife. In Isaiah “unfaithfulness” is declension from social and civil righteousness. (A. B. Davidson, LL. D.)
Spiritual harlotry
It is not merely gross outward idolatry, that makes the Church of God a “harlot,” but the defection of the heart, however this may, at any time, express itself; for which reason Jesus also could call the generation of His time
ãåíåá̀ ìïé÷áëé́ò
, in spite of the strict worship of Jehovah carried on in the Pharisaic spirit. For, as shown by the verse before us, the basis of that marriage-relation was justice and righteousness in the widest sense. (F. Delitzsch.)
An aggravation of guilt
It is a great aggravation of the wickedness of any family or people that their ancestors were famed for virtue and probity; and commonly those that thus degenerate prove the most wicked of all other. “Corruptio optimi est pessima”--that which was originally the best becomes, when corrupted, the worst (Luk_11:26; Jer_22:15-17). (M. Henry.)
Righteousness lodged in it
Jerusalem, the righteous city
Righteousness was not merely like a passing guest in the city, but she who came down from above had there fixed her permanent abode; there she used to tarry day and night, as if it were her home. When the prophet refers to former days, he has in his mind the times of David and Solomon, but especially those of Jehoshaphat, who (about 150 years before Isaiah appeared) restored the administration of justice which had fallen into neglect since the latter years of Solomon and the days of Rehoboam and Abijah,--a point to which the reformation of Asa had not extended,--and who reorganised all in the spirit of the law. (F. Delitzsch.)
