Isaiah 24:6 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 24:6
Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
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
Malachi 4:1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day tha…
Zechariah 5:3-4 Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as o…
Matthew 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Leviticus 26:22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your…
Ezekiel 5:3 Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts.
Malachi 4:6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth…
Romans 9:27 Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
Deuteronomy 4:27 And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 24:1-12
It is a very dark and melancholy scene that this prophecy presents to our view; turn our eyes which way we will, every thing looks dismal. The threatened desolations are here described in a great variety of expressions to the same purport, and all aggravating.
I. The earth is stripped of all its ornaments and looks as if it were taken off its basis; it is made empty and waste (Isa 24:1), as if it were reduced to its first chaos, Tohu and Bohu, nothing but confusion and emptiness again (Gen 1:2), without form and void. It is true earth sometimes signifies the land, and so the same word eretz is here translated (Isa 24:3): The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled; but I see not wh…
earth--the land.
burned--namely, with the consuming wrath of heaven: either internally, as in Job 30:30 [ROSENMULLER]; or externally, the prophet has before his eyes the people being consumed with the withering dryness of their doomed land (so Joe 1:10, Joe 1:12), [MAURER].
John Gill on Isaiah 24:6
Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth,.... The inhabitants of it, and the fruits upon it, alluding to the earth being cursed for the sin of man, when it brought forth briers and thorns; this may denote the seven vials of God's wrath poured upon the earth, or the antichristian states. Some, by the curse, understand perjury or false swearing; so the Targum,
"therefore, because of perjury (or a false oath) the earth is become a desert;''
of which popes, and Popish princes, cardinals, priests, Jesuits, &c. have been notoriously guilty:
and they that dwell therein are desolate: for want of houses, cities and towns being destroyed by war; or through famine, for want of provisions, the ear…
Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth. Some render it perjury, [124] but as 'lh (alah) signifies also a "curse," I have no doubt that here he employs it to denote a "curse," and alludes to those curses which Moses in the law threatens against wicked men and transgressors of the law, (Leviticus 26:16; Deuteronomy 28:15.) We know that the earth was cursed on account of the transgression of our first parent, so that it brought forth thorns and thistles instead of fruits. (Genesis 3:17, 18.) The Lord mitigated this curse, so that, although men were ungrateful and unworthy, still it yielded them food. But when we do not cease to sin, and when we add sin to sin, is it not in the highest degr…
The Church Fathers
After he rebukes those of the circumcision who have trespassed the law of the covenant of God and warns them with what he has written, he prophesies that only a small number of them will be saved. These few are those whom the apostle calls "the remnant according to the election of grace."
(Verse 6.) Because they have transgressed the law, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse devours the earth, and those who dwell in it are held guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left. LXX: Because they have transgressed the law, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse devours the earth, because its inhabitants have sinned. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth shall be poor, and few men shall be left. Let the Jews listen, who boast that they alone have received the law of the Lord, that the whole world and all nations first received the natural law, and therefore the law was later given through Moses, because the first law was dispersed. Concerning this, the Apostle says: For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they, not having the law, are a law to themselves; who show the work of the law written on their hearts (Rom. II, 14). Therefore, those who observe these laws will receive rewards: but those who neglect them will suffer the punishments that the prophetic word now pronounces. And just as at the beginning God blessed all the creatures He had made (Genesis 1): so at the end of the world He will curse those who are earthly and have not been pilgrims, but residents of the earth, and have sinned in it; those who have forgotten their condition and have raged against each other in mutual fury. And only a few will remain who have the image of the heavenly: or, according to the Septuagint, the poor will be the inhabitants of the earth, because they have lost the spiritual riches.
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
Sennacherib — Sin (the god) sends many brothers, son of Sargon, whom he succeeded on the throne of Assyria (B.C. 705), in the 23rd year of Hezekiah. “Like the Persian Xerxes, he was weak and vainglorious, cowardly…
Jews, The · Punished for: Transgressing the law — Punished for: Transgressing the law
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).
That this is the case is evident from Isa 24:4-9, where the accursed state into which the earth is brought is more fully described, and the cause thereof is given. "Smitten down, withered up is the earth; pined away, wasted away is the world; pined away have they, the foremost of the people of the earth. And the earth has become wicked among its inhabitants; for they transgressed revelations, set at nought the ordinance, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they who dwelt in it make expiation: therefore are the inhabitants of the earth withered up, and there are very few mortals left. New wine mourneth, vine is parched, all the merry-hearted groan.…
The effect of sin is so great that no earthly thing or action can adequately atone for it. Hope ultimately lies in God himself. God has reconciled the world to himself in Christ (Col 1:19-20).
Rashi on Isaiah 24:6
Therefore, an oath For the sin of vain oaths. ([Manuscripts read:] Because of the sin of false oaths.)
were dried up (חָרוּ) an expression of dryness and thirst through the heat of dryness. Comp. (Jer. 6: 29) “The bellows are dried (נִחַר).”
