Beware sinful nation,
the people weighed down by evil deeds.
They are offspring who do wrong,
children who do wicked things.
They have abandoned the Lord,
and rejected the Holy One of Israel.
They are alienated from him.
Isaiah 1:4 New English Translation (NET)
Okay, so Isaiah is obviously speaking of the nation of
Israel of his day, but it's easy to see these words in light of some of our
nations today. For me, this means the United States, and the words Isaiah uses
against Israel fit the United States perfectly.
The Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
gives us the following detail, although I would warn that it is technical in
detail, but worth helping us to understand the depths of what Isaiah was
saying:
“Woe upon the sinful nation, the guilt-laden people, the
miscreant race, the children acting corruptly! They have forsaken Jehovah,
blasphemed Israel's Holy One, turned away backwards.” The distinction sometimes
drawn between hoi (with He) and oi (with Aleph) - as equivalent to oh! and woe!
- cannot be sustained. Hoi is an exclamation of pain, with certain doubtful
exceptions; and in the case before us it is not so much a denunciation of woe
(vae genti, as the Vulgate renders it), as a lamentation (vae gentem) filled
with wrath. The epithets which follow point indirectly to that which Israel
ought to have been, according to the choice and determination of God, and
plainly declare what it had become through its own choice and ungodly
self-determination. (1.) According to the choice and determination of God,
Israel was to be a holy nation (goi kadosh, Exo_19:6); but it was a sinful
nation - gens peccatrix, as it is correctly rendered by the Vulgate. חֹטֵא is
not a participle here, but rather a participial adjective in the sense of what
was habitual. It is the singular in common use for the plural חַטָאִי, sinners,
the singular of which was not used. Holy and Sinful are glaring contrasts: for
kadosh, so far as its radical notion is concerned (assuming, that is to say,
that this is to be found in kad and not in dosh: see Psalter, i. 588, 9),
signifies that which is separated from what is common, unclean, or sinful, and
raised above it. The alliteration in hoi goi implies that the nation, as
sinful, was a nation of woe. (2.) In the thorah Israel was called not only “a
holy nation,” but also “the people of Jehovah” (Num_17:6, Eng. ver. Num_16:41),
the people chosen and blessed of Jehovah; but now it had become “a people heavy
with iniquity.” Instead of the most natural expression, a people bearing heavy
sins; the sin, or iniquity, i.e., the weight carried, is attributed to the
people themselves upon whom the weight rested, according to the common
figurative idea, that whoever carries a heavy burden is so much heavier himself
(cf., gravis oneribus, Cicero). עָוֹן (sin regarded as crookedness and
perversity, whereas חטְא suggests the idea of going astray and missing the way)
is the word commonly used wherever the writer intends to describe sin in the
mass (e.g., Isa_33:24; Gen_15:16; Gen_19:15), including the guilt occasioned by
it. The people of Jehovah had grown into a people heavily laden with guilt. So
crushed, so altered into the very opposite, had Israel's true nature become. It
is with deliberate intention that we have rendered גֹּוֹי a nation (Nation),
and עַם(am a people (Volk): for, according to Malbim's correct definition of
the distinction between the two, the former is used to denote the mass, as
linked together by common descent, language, and country; the latter the people
as bound together by unity of government (see, for example, Psa_105:13).
Consequently we always read of the people of the Lord, not the nation of the
Lord; and there are only two instances in which goi is attached to a suffix
relating to the ruler, and then it relates to Jehovah alone (Zep_2:9;
Psa_106:5).
(3.) Israel bore elsewhere the honourable title of the
seed of the patriarch (Isa_41:8; Isa_45:19; cf., Gen_21:12); but in reality it
was a seed of evil-doers (miscreants). This does not mean that it was descended
from evil-doers; but the genitive is used in the sense of a direct apposition
to zera (seed), as in Isa_65:23 (cf., Isa_61:9; Isa_6:13, and Ges. §116, 5),
and the meaning is a seed which consists of evil-doers, and therefore is
apparently descended from evil-doers instead of from patriarchs. This last
thought is not implied in the genitive, but in the idea of “seed;” which is
always a compact unit, having one origin, and bearing the character of its
origin in itself. The rendering brood of evil-doers, however it may accord with
the sense, would be inaccurate; for “seed of evil-doers” is just the same as
“house of evil-doers” in Isa_31:2. The singular of the noun מְרֵעִים is מֵרֵעַ
, with the usual sharpening in the case of gutturals in the verbs (' '(, מרַע
with patach, מרָע with kametz in pause (Isa_9:16, which see) - a noun derived
from the hiphil participle. (4.) Those who were of Israel were “children of
Jehovah” through the act of God (Deu_14:1); but in their own acts they were
“children acting destructively (bânim mashchithim), so that what the thorah
feared and predicted had now occurred (Deu_4:16, Deu_4:25; Deu_31:29). In all
these passages we find the hiphil, and in the parallel passage of the great
song (Deu_32:5) the piel - both of them conjugations which contain within
themselves the object of the action indicated (Ges. §53, 2): to do what is
destructive, i.e., so to act as to become destructive to one's self and to
others. It is evident from Isa_1:2, that the term children is to be understood
as indicating their relation to Jehovah (cf., Isa_30:1, Isa_30:9). The four
interjectional clauses are followed by three declaratory clauses, which
describe Israel's apostasy as total in every respect, and complete the mournful
seven. There was apostasy in heart: “They have forsaken Jehovah.” There was
apostasy in words: “They blaspheme the Holy One of Israel.” The verb literally
means to sting, then to mock or treat scornfully; the use of it to denote
blasphemy is antiquated Mosaic (Deu_31:20; Num_14:11, Num_14:23; Num_16:30). It
is with intention that God is designated here as “the Holy One of Israel,”a
name which constitutes the keynote of all Isaiah's prophecy (see at Isa_6:3).
It was sin to mock at anything holy; it was a double sin to mock at God, the
Holy One; but it was a threefold sin for Israel to mock at God the Holy One,
who had set Himself to be the sanctifier of Israel, and required that as He was
Israel's sanctification, He should also be sanctified by Israel according to
His holiness (Lev_19:2, etc.). And lastly, there was also apostasy in action:
“they have turned away backwards;” or, as the Vulgate renders it, abalienati
sunt. נָזוֹר is the reflective of זוּר, related to נָוַר and סוּר, for which it
is the word commonly used in the Targum. The niphal, which is only met with
here, indicates the deliberate character of their estrangement from God; and
the expression is rendered still more emphatic by the introduction of the word
“backwards” (achor, which is used emphatically in the place of מאחריו). In all
their actions they ought to have followed Jehovah; but they had turned their
backs upon Him, and taken the way selected by themselves.
the people weighed down by evil deeds.
They are offspring who do wrong,
children who do wicked things.
They have abandoned the Lord,
and rejected the Holy One of Israel.
They are alienated from him.
Isaiah 1:4 New English Translation (NET)
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