Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/5_000_p.lzh/5_061.TXT

Text File | 1995-01-31 | 6KB | 120 lines

brethren; which explains and confirms what is before
said, of no man sparing his brother, and every one eat-
ing the flesh of his own arm. The Targum para-
phrases the words thus, \*"they of the house of %Ma-
"nasseh%, with those of the house of %Ephraim%, and
"they of the house of %Ephraim%, with those of the
"house of %Manasseh%, shall be joined together as
"one, to come against them of the house of Judah;"\*
and so Jarchi interprets them, \*"%Manasseh% shall be
"joined with %Ephraim%, and %Ephraim% shall be
"joined with %Manasseh%, and they together shall be
"joined against Judah;"\* so it follows, \*\\[and] they to-
gether [shall be] against Judah\\; as the ten tribes did
sometimes make war against the two tribes of Judah
and Benjamin, see \\#2Ch 28:6-8\\: KILL \*\\for all this
his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out
still\\; more and sorer judgments were to come upon
this people for their sins. \\See Gill on "Isa 9:12"\\. KILL

\*Ver. 1. \\INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 10\\

\*This chapter contains denunciations of punishment,
first on the governors of the Jewish nation, and then
upon the Assyrians; a woe is denounced on the
makers and imposers of bad laws, whereby the poor
and the needy, the widows and the fatherless, were
deprived of their right, \\#Isa 10:1,2\\ which woe or punish-
ment is explained to be a desolation of their country
by the Assyriaus, that should come afar off, and
which they could not escape; under whom they should
bow and fall; and yet there should not be an end of
their punishment, \\#Isa 10:3,4\\ next follows a prophecy of
the destruction of the Assyrians themselves, for the
comfort of God's people; in which is observed, that
the Assyrian monarch was an instrument in the hand
of the Lord to chastise his people, and therefore is
called the rod and staff of his wrath and indignation,
\\#Isa 10:5\\ the people are described against whom he was
sent, and the end for which is mentioned, \\#Isa 10:6\\
though this was not his intention, nor did he design to
stop here, but to destroy and cut off many other na-
tions, \\#Isa 10:7\\ which he hoped to do from the magni-
ficence of his princes, who were as kings, and from
the conquests he had made of kingdoms, and their
chief cities, \\#Isa 10:8-11\\ wherefore, when the Lord
had done what he designed to do by him among his
people the Jews, he was determined to punish him,
because of the pride of his heart, and the haughtiness
of his looks, and his boasting of his strength and wis-
dom, and of his robberies and plunders, without op-
position; which boasting was as foolish as if an axe, a
saw, a rod, and a staff, should boast, magnify, move,
and lift up themselves against the person that made
use of them, \\#Isa 10:12-15\\ which punishment is
said to come from the Lord, and is expressed by lean-
ness, and by a consuming and devouring fire; for
which reason his army is compared to thorns and
briers, to a forest, and a fruitful field, which should be
destroyed at once; so that what of the trees remained
should be so few as to be numbered by a child,
\\#Isa 10:16-19\\ and, for the further consolation of the
people of God, it is observed, that in the times fol-
lowing the destruction of the Assyrian monarchy, a
remnant of the people of Israel should be converted,
and no more lean upon an arm of flesh, but upon the
Lord Christ, the holy One of Israel; even a remnant
only; for though that people were very numerous,
yet a remnant, according to the election of grace,
should be saved, when it was the determinate counsel
of God, and according to his righteous judgment, to
destroy the far greater part of them, for their perverse-
ness and obstinacy, \\#Isa 10:20-23\\ wherefore the
people of God are exhorted not to be afraid of the
Assyrian, though chastised by him; since in a little
time the anger of the Lord would cease in his destruc-
tion, which should be after the manner of the Egyp-
tians at the Red sea, and as the slaughter of Midian at
the rock of Oreb; whereby they would be free from
his burden and yoke, because of the anointed King
that should reign, or the King Messiah, \\#Isa 10:24-27\\
and then follows a description of the expedition
of the king of Assyria into Judea, by making mention
of the several places through which he should pass
with terror to the inhabitants, until he should come to
Jerusalem, against which he should shake his hand,
\\#Isa 10:28-32\\ and then, under the similes of
lopping a bough, and cutting down the thickets of a
forest, and the trees of Lebanon, is predicted the de-
struction of his army and its generals by an angel,
\\#Isa 10:33,34\\. KILL
\*Ver. 1. \\Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees\\,
&c.] Or, %O ye that decree%, &c. \^ywh\^ being a sign of the
vocative case, and an interjection of calling, as Aben
Ezra observes; though the Targum and other versions
understand it of a threatening denounced; and is to be
understood as lying against lawgivers and judges,
political rulers and governors of the people, that made
unrighteous laws; laws which were not agreeable to
the law of God, nor right reason; and were injurious
to the persons and properties of men; and which were
calculated for the oppression of good men, especially the
poor, and for the protection of wicked men, who made
no conscience of spoiling them: \*\\and that write grievous-
ness [which] they have prescribed\\; laws grievous and
intolerable being made by them, they wrote them,
or ordered them to be written, to be engrossed and
promulgated, published them, and obliged the people
to be subject to them. This some understand of the
scribes of judges, who sat in court, and wrote out the
decrees and sentences made by them; but it rather
intends the same persons as before; and not ecclesias-
tical but political governors are meant, and such as
lived before the Babylonish captivity; or otherwise
the whole is applicable to the Scribes and Pharisees,
to the Misnic doctors, the authors of the oral law, the
fathers of tradition, whose decisions and decrees were
unrighteous and injurious, and contrary to the com-
mands of God; heavy burdens, and grievous to be
borne, and very oppressive of the poor, the fatherless,