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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Isaiah 32:9 - 32:20
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Desolation and Restoration
v. 9. Rise up, ye women that are at ease, who lived a life of self-indulgence, without regarding the dangers of their times; hear my voice, ye careless daughters, heedless of the larger issues of life; give ear unto my speech.
v. 10. Many days and years shall ye be troubled, literally, "days upon a year," that is, an indefinite number of days, at the most a year, ye careless women; for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come, there would be no harvest of fruit, since the enemy would occupy all the land about Jerusalem.
v. 11. Tremble, ye women that are at ease, resting in smug self-satisfaction; be troubled, ye careless ones, who fondly imagined that the circumstances to which they were accustomed would never change; strip you and make you bare, laying aside the costly garments in which they delighted, and gird sackcloth upon your loins, as a sign of trouble, sorrow, and mourning.
v. 12. They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, rather, "Upon their breasts they will strike over the fields of pleasantness or desire, over the vine of fruitfulness," deeply grieving on account of the desolation which had come upon their fertile land.
v. 13. Upon the land of my people, which formerly had been a type of unexampled fruitfulness, shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy, which were so abundant in the capital city, in the joyous city. The Prophet, as in chapter 3, has in mind women who have never known any want, but have continually lived in abundance and luxury. His purpose was to frighten them out of their secure amid proud repose and to make them realize the condition in which their land was on account of tire sins of its inhabitants.
v. 14. Because the palaces, in which the rich were then living, shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left, the noisy din of the large city, that is, the city with its noisy multitude, forsaken; the forts and towers, Ophel, the rocky prominence of Moriah with its watchtower, shall be for dens forever, homes of wild animals, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks, all this being a picture and type of spiritual desolation which had taken hold of the Jewish people,
v. 15. until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, in the time of the Messiah, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest, that is, men now barren of true religion would become fruitful as a result of the regeneration wrought in them, while those already converted would bring forth fruit in such rich abundance as to make their former life seem like a wilderness by comparison.
v. 16. Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, the justice of God being acknowledged where it was formerly unknown, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field, since the believers grow both in tire knowledge of the Lord and in good works.
v. 17. And the work of righteousness, the condition which is produced by the application of the Lord's righteousness in all the affairs of the Church, shall be peace, a security resting upon the foundation of God's protection; and the effect of righteousness, its reward, quietness and assurance forever, a firm reliance upon the mercy and grace of the Lord.
v. 18. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, from which all strife would be far removed, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places, dwelling in the most fortunate and desirable circumstances of peace and security;
v. 19. when it shall hail, coming down on the forest, when the forest shall fall under a storm of hail, and the city shall be low in a low place, the reference being to the overthrow of all hostile world-powers as the Church of the Messiah is established.
v. 20. Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, scattering their seeds in the fertile lowlands everywhere, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass, letting their beasts of burden roam freely on account of the great abundance of the harvest. This is again a picture of the prosperity and security of the Church under the blessing of the Lord in the New Testament: the world-powers, all spiritual enemies vanquished and the city of God with the fields of His Word happy and prosperous.