Isaiah 1:26 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 1:26
And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.
to call out to (i.e. properly · verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
city
עִ֣יר'ir
H5892
a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the wi… · noun, common feminine singular construct
righteousness
הַצֶּ֔דֶקha.Tze.dek
H6664
the right (natural · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
faithful
נֶאֱמָנָֽהne.'e.ma.Nah
H539
properly · verb, niphal active participle, feminine singular absolute
city
קִרְיָ֖הkir.Yah
H7151
building · noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 33:7 And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first.
Zechariah 8:3 Thus saith the LORD; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and t…
Isaiah 62:1-2 For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness,…
Numbers 12:3 (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)
Isaiah 1:21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.
Isaiah 32:1-2 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.
Isaiah 33:5 The LORD is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness.
Isaiah 60:14 The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the sol…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 1:21–end
Here, I. The woeful degeneracy of Judah and Jerusalem is sadly lamented. See, 1. What the royal city had been, a faithful city, faithful to God and the interests of his kingdom among men, faithful to the nation and its public interests. It was full of judgment; justice was duly administered upon the thrones of judgment which were set there, the thrones of the house of David, Psa 122:5. Men were generally honest in their dealings, and abhorred to do an unjust thing. Righteousness lodged in it, was constantly resident in their palaces and in all their dwellings, not called in now and then to serve a turn, but at home there. Note, Neither holy cities nor royal ones, neither places where religio…
As the degeneracy had shown itself most in the magistrates (Isa 1:17-23), so, at the "restoration," these shall be such as the theocracy "at the first" had contemplated, namely, after the Babylonish restoration in part and typically, but fully and antitypically under Messiah (Isa 32:1; Isa 52:8; Jer 33:7; Mat 19:28).
faithful--no longer "an harlot."
John Gill on Isaiah 1:26
And I will restore thy judges as at the first,.... This refers not to the times after the Babylonish, captivity, when the Jews had judges and rulers, such as Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, as they had in the times of Moses, Joshua, and the judges, or as in the times of David and Solomon; but it refers, as Kimchi observes, to the times of the Messiah; and is true of the apostles of Christ, who were set on twelve thrones, had power and authority from Christ to preach his Gospel, and to judge the twelve tribes of Israel in a doctrinal way, Matthew 19:28 for which they were abundantly qualified, having the spirit of counsel and of judgment resting upon them, as the prophets of old; and will be again v…
And I will restore thy judges as at the first He now speaks without a figure; and having said that the source and origin of the evils was in the princes, he shows that a divine hand will purify that rank, when the Lord shall be pleased to restore the Church to perfect health. And, indeed, when they who rule are good and holy men, public order is maintained; for when wicked men have power, everything goes to ruin. By judges and counsellors are evidently meant any kind of magistrates; and when he promises that they will be such as they were at the beginning, he brings to their remembrance the extraordinary goodness of God, of which they had been deprived. God had graciously raised up the thron…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 26.) And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her penitents with righteousness. But rebels and sinners shall be broken together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks that you desired, and you shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen. For you shall be like an oak whose leaf withers, and like a garden without water. And the strong shall become tinder, and his work a spark, and both of them shall burn together, with none to quench them. Your chosen trees shall become fuel for the fire, and the people shall labor in vain, and the nations shall weary themselves for nothing. The Lord's hand shall be raised against Mount Zion, and he will lay it waste; its fields shall become a desolation, and its cities a ruin. Then will the Lord cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones. The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, when he strikes with his rod. And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them. For a burning place has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it. Therefore, it will restore the likeness of the Judges: either after the Babylonian captivity, as the Jews desire, Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the other leaders who governed the people until Hircanus, whom Herod succeeded in the kingdom; or certainly, more truly and rightly, the Apostles, and those who believed through the Apostles, and were established as leaders of the Church, as we have said at the beginning of this vision, that both the warning and the promise pertain to the time of the Lord's passion, and to the faith which he founded the Church after his passion. After this you shall be called the city of the just, the faithful city. These things clearly pertain to the Church, which will believe in the Lord, both concerning the Jews and the Gentiles, as the prophetic…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Isaiah, The Book of — Consists of prophecies delivered (Isa. 1) in the reign of Uzziah (1-5), (2) of Jotham (6), (3) Ahaz (7-14:28), (4) the first half of Hezekiah’s reign (14:28-35), (5) the second half of Hezekiah’s…
Afflictions Made Beneficial · In purifying us — In purifying us
Jerusalem · Called: City of righteousness — Called: City of righteousness
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
As the threat couched in the previous figure does not point to the destruction, but simply to the smelting of Jerusalem, there is nothing strange in the fact that in Isa 1:26 it should pass over into a pure promise; the meltingly soft and yearningly mournful termination of the clauses with ayich, the keynote of the later songs of Zion, being still continued. "And I will bring back thy judges as in the olden time, and thy counsellors as in the beginning; afterwards thou wilt be called city of righteousness, faithful citadel." The threat itself was, indeed, relatively a promise, inasmuch as whatever could stand the fire would survive the judgment; and the distinct object of this was to bring b…
The restoration of the community would be marked by new leaders who uphold justice rather than perverting it (see 1:23). Jerusalem would again be pure silver (see 1:22), the Home of Justice and the Faithful City.
Rashi on Isaiah 1:26
as at first I will appoint for you pious judges.
City of Righteousness As in the beginning, righteousness will lodge therein.
