Isaiah 28:19

From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you.—The words that follow remind us of Deuteronomy 28:66-67. Day by day would come the dread rumours of the Assyrian march. Then the “report” would no longer be unintelligible. Instead of the “line upon line, precept upon precept,” there would be “mourning upon mourning,” “day and night,” each with its sad burden of alarming tidings. To understand those tidings would be a vexation and a terror. The word for “report” is the same as the “doctrine” of Isaiah 28:9, and stands, in each case, for the deride “message” of the prophet.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

28:16-22 Here is a promise of Christ, as the only foundation of hope for escaping the wrath to come. This foundation was laid in Zion, in the eternal counsels of God. This foundation is a stone, firm and able to support his church. It is a tried stone, a chosen stone, approved of God, and never failed any who made trial of it. A corner stone, binding together the whole building, and bearing the whole weight; precious in the sight of the Lord, and of every believer; a sure foundation on which to build. And he who in any age or nation shall believe this testimony, and rest all his hopes, and his never-dying soul on this foundation, shall never be confounded. The right effect of faith in Christ is, to quiet and calm the soul, till events shall be timed by Him, who has all times in his own hand and power. Whatever men trust to for justification, except the righteousness of Christ; or for wisdom, strength, and holiness, except the influences of the Holy Ghost; or for happiness, except the favour of God; that protection in which they thought to shelter themselves, will prove not enough to answer the intention. Those who rest in a righteousness of their own, will have deceived themselves: the bed is too short, the covering too narrow. God will be glorified in the fulfilling of his counsels. If those that profess to be members of God's church, make themselves like Philistines and Canaanites, they must expect to be dealt with as such. Then dare not to ridicule the reproofs of God's word, or the approaches of judgements.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you - It shall not delay, or be hindered, or put back. As soon as the judgment is sent forth from God it shall come upon you.

For morning by morning - Continually; without intermission. It shall be like floods and tempests that have no intermission; that are repeated every day, and continued every night, until everything is swept before them.

And it shall be a vexation - It shall be an object of alarm, of agitation, of distress - זועה zevâ‛âh from זוע zûa‛, "to move oneself;" to tremble with alarm; to be troubled Ecclesiastes 12:3; Daniel 5:19; Daniel 6:27; Hebrews 2:7. Here it means that the calamity would be so great that it would fill the mind with horror only to hear of it. For similar expressions denoting the effect of hearing a report of the judgments of God, see 1 Samuel 3:11; 2 Kings 21:12; Jeremiah 19:3.

The report - Margin, 'Doctrine' (see the note at Isaiah 28:9).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19. From the time, &c.—rather, "As often as it comes over (that is, passes through), it shall overtake you" [Horsley]; like a flood returning from time to time, frequent hostile invasions shall assail Judah, after the deportation of the ten tribes.

vexation … understand … report—rather, "It shall be a terror even to hear the mere report of it" [Maurer], (1Sa 3:11). But G. V. Smith, "Hard treatment (Horsley, 'dispersion') only shall make you to understand instruction"; they scorned at the simple way in which the prophet offered it (Isa 28:9); therefore, they must be taught by the severe teachings of adversity.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you; as soon as this overflowing scourge or judgment shall go forth from me into the land, it shall assuredly, and with the first, take or seize upon you scoffers, or carry you away, which agrees well, both with the Hebrew word, which is frequently taken in that sense, and with the metaphor of a flood, which is here used. Morning by morning it shall pass over; it shall not only come to you, contrary to your presumption, Isaiah 28:15, but it shall abide upon you; and when it hath passed over you, it shall return again to you, morning after morning; and shall follow you day and night, without giving you the least respite.

It shall be a vexation only to understand the report; so dreadful shall the judgment be, that it shall strike you with great honor when you only hear the rumour of its approach, or of the sad effects of it upon other persons or parts of the land.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

From the time that it goeth forth, it shall take you,.... Or, "as soon as it passeth through" (z), "it shall take you away"; as soon as it begins to overflow, and as it goes along, it shall make clear work, and carry you away with it; you will not be able to resist it, to withstand its motion, and stop its progress; but will be borne down by it, and carried away with it, either destroyed by it at once, or carried into captivity; so the Targum,

"in the time of its passing over, it shall carry you captive:''

for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night; signifying that it should come very early, before they were aware of it and prepared for it, and should be constant and incessant, day after day, day and night, continually, until it had done its work thoroughly, in the utter destruction of them; which was true of the Assyrian, but especially of the Roman army:

and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report; the fame, the rumour of the enemy's coming, of his invasion of the land, of the devastation he makes everywhere, and of his progress and near approach to Jerusalem; the bare report of this only being made and confirmed, so that there was reason to believe it, would produce anguish and distress of mind, cause a commotion, a fear and trembling, and shaking of the joints, as the word (a) signifies; and therefore, how dreadful must the calamity itself be! or else this may be meant of the report of the prophecy of the Lord, which before they would not believe; but now the judgments threatened coming upon them, they would be made to understand it; so the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "and only vexation alone shall give understanding to the report"; and to this sense the Targum,

"and it shall be, before the time of the curse comes, that ye shall understand the words of the prophets;''

and, when it was come, should know to their sorrow, and by sad experience, the truth of what they had said.

(z) "mox ut pertransierit", Tigurine version. (a) "commotio", Montanus, Piscator; "terror", Calvin; "pavor", Pagninus.

Geneva Study Bible

From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a {y} vexation only to understand the report.

(y) Terror and destruction will make you learn that which exhortations and gentleness could not bring you to.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. From the time that it goeth forth] Render as R.V. As often as it passeth through (1 Samuel 18:30). it shall take you away] The judgment will be a protracted visitation (like the repeated blows of a “scourge”) and will continue till ever yone of the conspirators has been carried away.

it shall be a vexation … report] Perhaps: it shall be sheer vexation to interpret audition (the same word as Isaiah 28:9). That is, all prophetic oracles shall then be so uniformly and unambiguously terrible, that the prophet will shrink from the unwelcome task of communicating their import.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you; rather, as often as it passes along, it shall take you away; i.e. as often as the flood of Assyrian invasion sweeps through Palestine, it shall thin the population by death and captivity. We know of at least eight passages of the flood through Judaea - one under Sargon, two under Sennacherib, three or four under Esarhaddon, and two under Asshur-bani-pal. There may have been more. Morning by morning; i.e. frequently - time after time. Shall it pass over; rather, pass along, or pass through. It shall be a vexation only to understand the report; rather, it will be sheer terror to understand the doctrine. There is an allusion to ver. 9. They had thought scorn of Isaiah's "doctrine," when he taught it them by word of mouth; they will understand it but too well, and find it" nothing but a terror," when it is impressed on them by the preaching of facts. Isaiah 28:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

And the whip which Jehovah swings will not be satisfied with one stroke, but will rain strokes. "And your covenant with death is struck out, and your agreement with Hades will not stand; the swelling scourge, when it comes, ye will become a thing trodden down to it. As often as it passes it takes you: for every morning it passes, by day and by night; and it is nothing but shuddering to hear such preaching. For the bed is too short to stretch in, and the covering too tight when a man wraps himself in it." Although berı̄th is feminine, the predicate to it is placed before it in the masculine form (Ges. 144). The covenant is thought of as a document; for khuppar (for obliterari (just as the kal is used in Genesis 6:14 in the sense of oblinere; or in Proverbs 30:20, the Targum, and the Syriac, in the sense of abstergere; and in the Talmud frequently in the sense of wiping off equals qinnēăch, or wiping out equals mâchaq - which meanings all go back, along with the meaning negare, to the primary meaning, tegere, obducere). The covenant will be "struck out," as you strike out a wrong word, by crossing it over with ink and rendering it illegible. They fancy that they have fortified themselves against death and Hades; but Jehovah gives to both of these unlimited power over them. When the swelling scourge shall come, they will become to it as mirmâs, i.e., they will be overwhelmed by it, and their corpses become like dirt of the streets (Isaiah 10:6; Isaiah 5:5); והייתם has the mercha upon the penult., according to the older editions and the smaller Masora on Leviticus 8:26, the tone being drawn back on account of the following לו. The strokes of the scourge come incessantly, and every stroke sweeps them, i.e., many of them, away. מדּי (from דּי, construct דּי, sufficiency, abundance) followed by the infinitive, quotiescunque irruet; lâqach, auferre, as in Jeremiah 15:15, and in the idiom lâqach nephesh. These scourgings without end - what a painful lecture Jehovah is reading them! This is the thought expressed in the concluding words: for the meaning cannot be, that "even (raq as in Psalm 32:6) the report (of such a fate) is alarming," as Grotius and others explain it; or the report is nothing but alarming, as Gussetius and others interpret it, since in that case שׁמועה שׁמע (cf., Isaiah 23:5) would have been quite sufficient, instead of שׁמוּעה הבין. There is no doubt that the expression points back to the scornful question addressed by the debauchees to the prophet in Isaiah 28:9, "To whom will he make preaching intelligible?" i.e., to whom will he preach the word of God in an intelligible manner? (as if they did not possess bı̄nâh without this; שׁמוּעה, ἀκοή, as in Isaiah 53:1). As Isaiah 28:11 affirmed that Jehovah would take up the word against them, the drunken stammerers, through a stammering people; so here the scourging without end is called the shemū‛âh, or sermon, which Jehovah preaches to them. At the same time, the word hâbhı̄n is not causative here, as in Isaiah 28:9, viz., "to give to understand," but signifies simply "to understand," or have an inward perception. To receive into one's comprehension such a sermon as that which was now being delivered to them, was raq-zevâ‛âh, nothing but shaking or shuddering (raq as in Genesis 6:5); זוּע (from which comes זועה, or by transposition זעוה) is applied to inward shaking as well as to outward tossing to and fro. Jerome renders it "tantummodo sola vexatio intellectum dabit auditui," and Luther follows him thus: "but the vexation teaches to take heed to the word," as if the reading were תּבין. The alarming character of the lecture is depicted in Isaiah 28:20, in a figure which was probably proverbial. The situation into which they are brought is like a bed too short for a man to stretch himself in (min as in 2 Kings 6:1), and like a covering which, according to the measure of the man who covers himself up in it (or perhaps still better in a temporal sense, "when a man covers or wraps himself up in it," cf., Isaiah 18:4), is too narrow or too tight. So would it be in their case with the Egyptian treaty, in which they fancied that there were rest and safety for them. They would have to acknowledge its insufficiency. They had made themselves a bed, and procured bed-clothes; but how mistaken they had been in the measure, how miserably and ridiculously they had miscalculated!