Isaiah 28:3

The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

MacLaren's Expositions

Isaiah

THE JUDGMENT OF DRUNKARDS AND MOCKERS

A CROWN OF PRIDE OR A CROWN OF GLORY

Isaiah 28:3 - Isaiah 28:5.

The reference is probably to Samaria as a chief city of Israel. The image is suggested by the situation of Samaria, high on a hill-side, crowning the valley, and by the rich vegetation and bright flowers which makes it even now one of the few lovely scenes in Palestine; and by the luxurious riot and sensual excess that were always characteristic of the northern kingdom.

The destruction of Samaria and of the kingdom, then, is here prophesied-the garland will fade, the hail will batter all its drooping flowerets, and it shall be trodden under foot. Look at that withered wreath that gleamed yesterday on some fair head, to-day flung into the ashpit or kicked about the street. That is a modern rendering of the prophet’s imagery. But the reference goes further than merely to the city: the whole state of the nation is expressed by the symbol, as doomed to quick decay, fading in itself, and further smitten down by divine judgments.

There is a contrasted picture, that of ‘the residue of the people’ to whom there is an amaranthine crown, a festal diadem glorious and beautiful, which can never fade, even God Himself. To them who love Him He is an ornament, and His presence is the consecration of the true joyful feast. They who are crowned by Him are crowned, not for idle revelry, but for strenuous toil {‘sit in judgment’} and for brave purpose {‘turn the battle to the gate,’} and their coronation day is ever the day when earthly garlands are withered, whether it be the crises and convulsions of nations and institutions, or times of personal trial, or ‘in the hour of death or in the day of judgment.’

Expanding then these thoughts, we have-

I. All godless joys are but fading chaplets.

Of course the first application of such words is to purely sensuous delights.

Men who seek to make life a mere revel and banquet.

Nothing is so short-lived as gratification of appetite. It is not merely that each act lasts but for a moment, but also that past gratifications leave no sort of solace to the appetite behind them; whereas past acquirements or deeds of goodness are a perpetual joy as well as the foundation of the present. There is something essentially isolated in each act of sensuous delight. No man can by so willing recall the taste of eaten food, nor slake his thirst by remembrance of former draughts, or cool himself by thinking of ‘frosty Caucasus.’ But each such gratification is done when it is done, and there is an end of its power to gratify.

Further, the power of enjoyment wanes, though the lust for it waxes. Hence each act has less and less power of satisfying.

One sees blase young men of twenty-five. It was a man of under thirty-five who wrote, ‘Man delights not me, no, nor woman neither.’ It was a used-up roue that was represented as saying, ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ It was of sensuous ‘pleasures’ that poor Burns wrote,-

‘Like the snowfall in the river,

A moment white,-then melts for ever.’

When a people is given over to such excess, late or soon the fate of Samaria comes upon them. Think of the French Revolution or of the fall of Rome, and learn that the prophet was announcing a law for all nations, in his fiery denunciation, and one which holds good to-day as ever.

But we may generalise more widely. Every godless life is essentially transitory; of course, all life is so in one view. But suppose two men, working side by side at the same occupation, passing through the same circumstances. So far as physical changes go, these men are the same. Both lose much. Both leave behind much. Both cease to be interested in much that was dear to them. Both die at last, and leave it all. Is there any difference? The transitoriness is the same, and the eternal consequences are eternal alike in both; and yet there is a very solemn sense in which the one man’s life has utterly perished, and the other’s abides. Suppose a man, educated to be a first-rate man of business, dies. Which of his trained faculties will he have scope for in that new order of things? Or a student, or a lawyer, or a statesman?

Oh, it is not our natural mortality that makes these thoughts so awful; but it is the thought that the man who is doing these things is immortal. The head which wears the fading wreath will live for ever. ‘What will ye do in the end?’

II. Godly life brings unfading joys.

Communion with God yields abiding joys. The law of change remains the same. The law of death remains the same. But the motives which direct and impel the godly man are beyond the reach of change.

The habits which he contracts are for heaven as well as for earth. The treasures which he amasses will always be his.

His life in its essence and his work are one in all worlds. What a grand continuity, then, knits into one a godly life whether it is lived on earth or in heaven!

Communion with God gives beauty and ornament to the whole character. It brings the true refining and perfecting of the soul. No doubt many Christian men, as we see them, are but poor specimens of this effect of godliness; still, it is an effect produced in proportion to the depth and continuity of their communion. We might dwell on the effect on Will, Affections, Understanding, produced by dwelling in God. It is simple fact that the highest conceivable type of beauty is only reached through communion with God.

Communion with God gives power as well as gladness. The life of abiding with God is also one of strenuous effort and real warfare. In the context it is promised that God will be for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.

The luxurious life of self-indulgence ends, as all selfish life must do, in the vanishing of delights. The life of joy in God issues, as all true joy does, in power for work and in power for conflict.

‘God doth anoint thee with His odorous oil, to wrestle, not to reign.’

III. There will be a coronation day.

‘In that day,’ the day when ‘the crown of pride shall be trodden under foot,’ the people of God are crowned with the diadem of beauty which is God Himself. That twofold work of that one day suggests-

The double aspect of trials and sorrows.

The double aspect of death.

The double aspect of final Judgment.

‘Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.’

To be crowned or discrowned ‘in that day’ is the alternative set before each of us. Which of the two do we choose?

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

28:1-4 What men are proud of, be it ever so mean, is to them as a crown; but pride is the forerunner of destruction. How foolishly drunkards act! Those who are overcome with wine are overcome by Satan; and there is not greater drudgery in the world than hard drinking. Their health is ruined; men are broken in their callings and estates, and their families are ruined by it. Their souls are in danger of being undone for ever, and all merely to gratify a base lust. In God's professing people, like Israel, it is worse than in any other. And he is just in taking away the plenty they thus abuse. The plenty they were proud of, is but a fading flower. Like the early fruit, which, as soon as discovered, is plucked and eaten.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one - The Hebrew of this passage is, 'Lo! there is to the Lord (לאדני la'donāy) mighty and strong.' Lowth renders it,

'Behold the mighty one, the exceedingly strong one,'

And supposes that it means the Lord himself. It is evident, however, that something must be understood as being that which the Lord 'hath,' for the Hebrew properly implies that there is something strong and mighty which is under his control, and with which, as with a tempest, he will sweep away and destroy Ephraim. Jarchi supposes that רוח rûach ("wind") is understood; Kimchi thinks that the word is יום yôm ("day"); others believe that חיל chayil ("an army") is understood. But I think the obvious interpretation is to refer it to the Assyrian king, as the agent by which Yahweh would destroy Samaria 2 Kings 17:3-6. This power was entirely under the direction of Yahweh, and would be employed by him in accomplishing his purpose on that guilty people (compare the notes at Isaiah 10:5-6).

As a tempest of hail - A storm of hail is a most striking representation of the desolation that is produced by the ravages of an invading army (compare Job 27:21; the note at Isaiah 30:30; also Hosea 13:15).

A flood of mighty waters - This is also a striking description of the devastating effects of an invading army (compare Psalm 90:5; Jeremiah 46:7-8)

Shall cast down to the earth - To cast it to the earth means that it should be entirely humbled and destroyed (see the note at Isaiah 25:12).

With the hand - Septuagint: βίᾳ bia - 'Force,' 'violence.' This is its meaning here; as if it were taken in the hand, like a cup, and dashed indignantly to the ground.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. crown … the drunkards—rather, "the crown of the drunkards."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The expression is emphatical; the crown which was upon their own heads shall be trodden under the feet of others; and they, whose drunkenness made them stagger and fall to the ground, shall be trodden down there.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet. Not only cast down with the hand, but trampled upon with the feet; showing their utter destruction, and the contempt with which they should be used; which, with their character, is repeated, to point out their sins, the cause of it, to denote the certainty of it, and that it might be taken notice of.

Geneva Study Bible

The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. The verb shall be trodden is in the plural number. Apparently the prophet intended to include in its subject both the images of Isaiah 28:1; but his thoughts were diverted by the other figure which is developed in Isaiah 28:4. In the Hebr. the order is: With the feet shall be trodden down the proud crown of the, &c. (as Isaiah 28:1).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - The crown of pride, the drunkards; rather, of the drunkards (comp. ver. 1). The "crown of pride" is scarcely "Samaria," as Delitzsch supposes, it is rather the self-complacent and boastful spirit of the Israelite people, which will be "trodden under foot" by the Assyrians. Isaiah 28:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In the next three vv. the hoi is expanded. "Behold, the Lord holds a strong and mighty thing like a hailstorm, a pestilent tempest; like a storm of mighty overflowing waters, He casts down to the earth with almighty hand. With feet they tread down the proud crown of the drunken of Ephraim. And it happens to the fading flower of its splendid ornament, which is upon the head of the luxuriant valley, as to an early fig before it is harvest, which whoever sees it looks at, and it is no sooner in his hand than he swallows it." "A strong and mighty thing:" ואמּי חזק we have rendered in the neuter (with the lxx and Targum) rather than in the masculine, as Luther does, although the strong and mighty thing which the Lord holds in readiness is no doubt the Assyrian. He is simply the medium of punishment in the hand of the Lord, which is called yâd absolutely, because it is absolute in power - as it were, the hand of all hands. This hand hurls Samaria to the ground (on the expression itself, compare Isaiah 25:12; Isaiah 26:5), so that they tread the proud crown to pieces with their feet (tērâmasnâh, the more pathetic plural form, instead of the singular tērâmēs; Ges. 47, Anm. 3, and Caspari on Obadiah 1:13). The noun sa‛ar, which is used elsewhere in the sense of shuddering, signifies here, like סערה, an awful tempest; and when connected with קטב, a tempest accompanied with a pestilential blast, spreading miasma. Such destructive power is held by the absolute hand. It is soon all over then with the splendid flower that has already begun to fade נבל ציצת, like הקּטן כּלי in Isaiah 22:24). It happens to it as to a bikkūrâh (according to the Masora, written with mappik here, as distinguished from Hosea 9:10, equivalent to kebhikkūrâthâh; see Job 11:9, "like an early fig of this valley;" according to others, it is simply euphonic). The gathering of figs takes place about August. Now, if any one sees a fig as early as June, he fixes his eyes upon it, and hardly touches it with his hand before he swallows it, and that without waiting to masticate it long. Like such a dainty bit will the luxuriant Samaria vanish. The fact that Shalmanassar, or his successor Sargon, did not conquer Samaria till after the lapse of three years (2 Kings 18:10), does not detract from the truth of the prophecy; it is enough that both the thirst of the conqueror and the utter destruction of Samaria answered to it.