The Prophet and His Day: Isaiah 1-39 - Free Bible Commentary

8You contended with them by banishing them, by driving them away.With His fierce wind He has expelled them on the day of the east wind.9Therefore through this Jacob's iniquity will be forgiven;And this will be the full price of the pardoning of his sin:When he makes all the altar stones like pulverized chalk stones;When Asherim and incense altars will not stand.10For the fortified city is isolated,A homestead forlorn and forsaken like the desert;There the calf will graze,And there it will lie down and feed on its branches.11When its limbs are dry, they are broken off;Women come and make a fire with them,For they are not a people of discernment,Therefore their Maker will not have compassion on them.And their Creator will not be gracious to them.27:7 This is a very difficult verse. It states that God’s judgment is going to fall on those nations that Hehad used to judge His own people. (cf. 47:6).Repetition of words and phrases is characteristic of this literary unit (see 26:6). Here the NOUN,%,/ (BDB 646, FEMININE, often used of YHWW bringing judgment on His own people, cf. Lev. 26:21;Deut. 28:61; Jer. 30:12), “to wound,” or “to slaughter,” is followed by the repeating of a related VERB,%,1 (BDB 645, KB 697, Hiphil PARTICIPLE and Hiphil PERFECT). Those who YHWH used to punishwill be punished even more severely than they punished God’s people (NET Bible).27:8 “them” The “them” of v. 8 refers to Israel being divorced (i.e., “context,” BDB 936, KB 1224, QalIMPERFECT, cf. Hos. 2:2) by God because she broke the covenant (cf. 50:1). Therefore, God broughtforeign rulers to judge His people (cf. Deut. 28:49-57; i.e., Assyria, Isa. 10:5, and Babylon, Isaiah 14).However, God will judge them also (cf. v. 7; 47:6; 49:25).}NASB “by banishing them”NKJV “in measure”NRSV “by expulsion”NJB “by expelling”LXX “dismiss”Peshitta “in measure by which he has measured”The MT has %!2!2" (found only here), which can be understood as1. %!2 %!2!, “in measure by measure” (BDB 684, KB 738, Pilpel INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT,Targums and Vulgate)2. %!2!2!, by driving her out (see next paragraph)The UBS Hebrew Text Project gives #1 a “B” rating (some doubt), possibly because doubling ofwords and phrases is so common in this literary unit.The next Hebrew word is %(-–" (BDB 1018, KB 1511, Piel INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT), whichmeans “send away by exile.” Several of the translations above simply leave out the first VERBAL andtranslate the second VERBAL.268