Isaiah 11:3 - meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 11:3
And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:
fear (also used as infinitive) · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֑הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
judge
יִשְׁפּ֔וֹטyish.Pot
H8199
to judge · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
sight
לְמַרְאֵ֤הle.mar.'Eh
H4758
a view (the act of seeing) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
eyes
עֵינָיו֙'ei.Nav
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
reprove
יוֹכִֽיחַyo.Khi.ach
H3198
to be right (i.e. correct) · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
hearing
לְמִשְׁמַ֥עle.mish.Ma'
H4926
a report · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
ears
אָזְנָ֖יו'a.ze.Nav
H241
broadness. i.e. (concrete) the ear (from its form in ma… · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
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
John 7:24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
Luke 2:52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth…
John 8:15-16 Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
Proverbs 2:5 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
1 Corinthians 2:13-15 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with…
1 Kings 3:28 And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to…
John 2:25 And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 11:1-9
The prophet had before, in this sermon, spoken of a child that should be born, a son that should be given, on whose shoulders the government should be, intending this for the comfort of the people of God in times of trouble, as dying Jacob, many ages before, had intended the prospect of Shiloh for the comfort of his seed in their affliction in Egypt. He had said (Isa 10:27) that the yoke should be destroyed because of the anointing; now here he tells us on whom that anointing should rest. He foretels,
I. That the Messiah should, in due time, arise out of the house of David, as that branch of the Lord which he had said (Isa 4:2) should be excellent and glorious; the word is Netzer, which some…
make him of quick understanding--literally, "quick-scented in the fear of Jehovah"; endowed with a singular sagacity in discerning the genuine principle of religious fear of God, when it lies dormant in the yet unawakened sinner (Mat 12:20; Acts 10:1-48; Act 16:14) [HORSLEY]. But MAURER, "He shall delight in the fear of God." The Hebrew means "to delight in the odors" of anything (Exo 30:38; Amo 5:21); "smell," that is, "delight in."
after . . . sight--according to mere external appearances (Joh 7:24; Joh 8:15; Jam 2:1; Sa1 16:7). Herein Messiah is represented a just Judge and Ruler (Deu 1:16-17).
reprove--"decide," as the parallelism shows.
after . . . ears--by mere plausible hearsays…
And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord,.... Or "cause him to smell the fear of the Lord" (w); that is, to discern in whom it was: this is one effect of the Spirit's resting upon him, and particularly as the spirit of understanding, and of the fear of the Lord, whereby he has a quick and sharp discerning of it; not merely of the grace of fear, so as to know what that is, and what the exercise of it; or so as to make it the rule of his actions, though all this is true; but so as to discern where and in whom it was, and was not; he could distinguish between him that feared God and him that feared him not; he knew Nathanael to be an Israelite indeed, in whom there was…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 3 and following) He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears. But he will judge the poor with justice, and decide with fairness for the humble of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and kill the wicked with the breath of his lips. Righteousness will be his belt, and faithfulness the sash around his waist. These words refer to the first coming of the Savior; the Jews argue about the future at the end of the world. Moreover, they translated: He will not judge according to glory, nor argue according to speech: but he will judge with humble judgment, and argue the humble of the earth. For he shows no partiality in judgment: but he speaks to the scribes, Pharisees and rulers: Woe to you, hypocrites: And, the kingdom of God will be taken from you, and given to the nation producing its fruits (Matthew 23:13, and 21:43). And he does not rebuke according to words and the hearing of the ears. For when they said to Him, 'Master, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth, and do not care about anyone's opinion, for You do not regard the appearance of men' (Matthew 22:16), knowing their malice, He answered, 'Why do you test me, you hypocrites?' and so on with similar things. He judged in righteousness the poor in spirit, to whom belongs the kingdom of God, and he rebuked in fairness the meek and humble of the earth, saying to the Apostles, 'Are you still foolish?' And again: Do you not yet understand or comprehend? And to Peter specifically: O you of little faith, why did you doubt? (Mark 8:17). Or certainly for the humble and meek he argued for others who sought to oppress them (Matthew 14:31). He also struck down all earthly works with a rod, or as the Septuagint translated, with the word of his mouth, speaking in the Gospel: Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. And with the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked (Mat. X, 34, and Luc. XII, 51): of whom we read in the ninth psalm: Thou hast rebuked the Gentiles, and the wicked one hath perished: thou hast put out their name for ever and ever (Ps. IX, 6). And the Apostle Paul writes: Whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth (II Thess. II, 8; Ephes. VI). But when the wicked man is struck, the Lord is girded with justice and truth and…
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
Christ — Anointed, the Greek translation of the Hebrew word rendered “Messiah” (q.v.), the official title of our Lord, occurring five hundred and fourteen times in the New Testament. It denotes that he was…
Gentiles · PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF — PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF
Reproof · Christ sent to give — Christ sent to give
Trinity · THE HOLY — THE HOLY
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).
And will make him sagacious. [180] The verb rych, (riach,) which is here put in the Hiphil conjugation, signifies literally to smell; but may also be explained in an active sense, as meaning to give a keen smell; which agrees better, I think, with this passage, so that this sagacity may be also included among the gifts of the Spirit. And this effect is peculiarly applicable to the person of Christ, namely, that far beyond what the godly are able to conceive, he is endowed with shrewd discernment for governing his people. We ought to attend, first of all, to the metaphor in the verb smell, which means that Christ will be so shrewd that he will not need to learn from what he hears, or from wha…
And His regal conduct is regulated by this His thoroughly spiritual nature."And fear of Jehovah is fragrance to Him; and He judges not according to outward sight, neither does He pass sentence according to outward hearing." We must not render it: His smelling is the smelling of the fear of God, i.e., the penetration of it with a keen judicial insight (as Hengstenberg and Umbreit understand it); for hērı̄ach with the preposition Beth has not merely the signification to smell (as when followed by an accusative, Job 39:25), but to smell with satisfaction (like בּ ראה, to see with satisfaction), Exo 30:38; Lev 26:31; Amo 5:21. The fear of God is that which He smells with satisfaction; it is rē…
obeying the Lord: Literally the fear of the Lord, as in 11:2 (see Prov 1:7).
Rashi on Isaiah 11:3
And he shall be animated by the fear of the Lord He shall be filled with the fear of the Lord. [ed enos mera il luy in O.F., and He shall be enlivened.]
and neither with the sight of his eyes shall he judge For, with the wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He, which is within him, will he know and understand who is innocent and who is guilty.
