Isaiah 28:13

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 28:9-13

The prophet here complains of the wretched stupidity of this people, that they were unteachable and made no improvement of the means of grace which they possessed; they still continued as they were, their mistakes not rectified, their hearts not renewed, nor their lives reformed. Observe, I. What it was that their prophets and ministers designed and aimed at. It was to teach them knowledge, the knowledge of God and his will, and to make them understand doctrine, Isa 28:9. This is God's way of dealing with men, to enlighten men's minds first with the knowledge of his truth, and thus to gain their affections, and bring their wills into a compliance with his laws; thus he enters in by the door,…

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 28:13

But--rather, "Therefore," namely, because "they would not hear" (Isa 28:12). that they might go--the designed result to those who, from a defect of the will, so far from profiting by God's mode of instructing, "precept upon precept," &c., made it into a stumbling-block (Hos 6:5; Hos 8:12; Mat 13:14). go, and fall--image appropriately from "drunkards" (Isa 28:7-8, which they were) who in trying to "go forward fall backward."

John Gill on Isaiah 28:13

But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept,.... Was despised and derided by them; they took the prophet's words out of his mouth, and in a scoffing manner repeated them; which, in the Hebrew text, is in a rhyming form, and were sung and drawled out by them, "Tsau lotsau, Tsau lotsau, Kau lakau, Kau lakau": this is all he can say to us, and we have from him: precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; or the words may be rendered, "and the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept", &c.; as it had been, so it still was; the same method was continued to be taken with them, and they still treated as children; and it is sug…

John Calvin on Isaiah 28:13