Isaiah 3:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 3:14
The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
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
Job 22:4 Will he reprove thee for fear of thee? will he enter with thee into judgment?
Job 24:9 They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor.
Psalms 14:4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
Psalms 143:2 And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.
Isaiah 3:2-3 The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
Isaiah 5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behol…
Jeremiah 5:27 As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.
Amos 4:1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their ma…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 3:9-15
Here God proceeds in his controversy with his people. Observe,
I. The ground of his controversy. It was for sin that God contended with them; if they vex themselves, let them look a little further and they will see that they must thank themselves: Woe unto their souls! For they have rewarded evil unto themselves. Alas for their souls! (so it may be read, in a way of lamentation), for they have procured evil to themselves, Isa 3:9. Note, The condition of sinners is woeful and very deplorable. Note, also, It is the soul that is damaged and endangered by sin. Sinners may prosper in their outward estates, and yet at the same time there may be a woe to their souls. Note, further, Whatever evils b…
ancients--Hence they are spoken of as "taken away" (Isa 3:1-2).
vineyard--the Jewish theocracy (Isa 5:1-7; Psa 80:9-13).
eaten up--"burnt"; namely, by "oppressive exactions" (Isa 3:12). Type of the crowning guilt of the husbandmen in the days of Jesus Christ (Mat 21:34-41).
spoil . . . houses-- (Mat 23:14).
John Gill on Isaiah 3:14
The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof,.... Both civil and ecclesiastical; the princes, chief priests, and elders of the people, who set themselves and took counsel together against the Lord and his Christ; would not suffer the people to be gathered to him; sought his life, and at last took it away.
For ye have eaten up the vineyard, or burnt it (p); the house of Israel, and of Judah compared to a vineyard, in a following chapter; and so the Targum,
"ye have oppressed my people;''
these are the husbandmen our Lord speaks of, that beat the servants that were sent for the fruits of the vineyard, and at last killed the heir, Matthew 21:34.…
The Lord will enter into judgement with the ancients of his people. Formerly he had erected for God a throne from which he might plead. Now he says that he will enter into judgment. How? with the ancients. There might have been a slight allusion to lawful assemblies, in which older men sit as God's deputies; but I assent to the opinion more commonly entertained, that God contends against the ancients of his people. This passage, therefore, corresponds to the saying of David,
God will stand in the assembly of the gods (Psalm 82:1; [64] )
that is, though it may now be thought that princes do everything with impunity, and though there be no one to restrain their caprice and their lawless pass…
The Church Fathers
For not alone he shall come to judgment but with the elders of his people, to whom he has promised that they shall sit upon thrones to judge, who even shall judge angels. These are the clouds Isaiah is speaking of.
Therefore, coming with all angels, together with him he shall have the saints also. For plainly says Isaiah also, "He shall come to judgment with the elders of the people." Those "elders of the people," then, those called "angels" in this passage, those thousands of many people made perfect coming from the whole world, are called "heaven."
But, says someone, "Are these things to be understood of the Lord? Could the Lord be held prisoner by men and dragged to judgment?" Of this also the same prophet shall convince you. For he says, "The Lord himself shall come into judgment with the elders and princes of the people." The Lord is judged then according to the prophet's testimony, and not only judged but scourged and slapped on the face with the palms [of men's hands], and spit on, and suffers every insult and indignity for our sake. And because all who should hear these things preached by the apostles would be perfectly amazed, therefore also the prophet speaking in their person exclaims, "Lord, who has believed our report?" For it is incredible that God, the Son of God, should be spoken of and preached as having suffered these things. For this reason they are foretold by the prophets, lest any doubt should spring up in those who are about to believe.
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
Head-dress — Not in common use among the Hebrews. It is first mentioned in Ex. 28:40 (A.V., “bonnets;” R.V., “head-tires”). It was used especially for purposes of ornament (Job 29:14; Isa. 3:23; 62:3). The Hebrew…
Poor, The · Punishment for: Spoiling — Punishment for: Spoiling
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).
"Jehovah will proceed to judgment with the elders of His people, and its princes. And ye, ye have eaten up the vineyard; prey of the suffering is in your houses. What mean ye that ye crush my people, and grind the face of the suffering? Thus saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts." The words of God Himself commence with "and ye" (v'attem). The sentence to which this (et vos = at vos) is the antithesis is wanting, just as in Psa 2:6, where the words of God commence with "and I" (va'ani, et ego = ast ego). the tacit clause may easily be supplied, viz., I have set you over my vineyard, but he have consumed the vineyard. The only question is, whether the sentence is to be regarded as suppressed by Jeho…
elders and rulers: Wickedness and abuse by ungodly and incompetent leadership thwarts God’s purpose for his people (see also 3:12). Therefore, leaders come under more severe judgment because they bear responsibility for the welfare of those under them. • my vineyard: See the Song of the Vineyard (5:1-7).
Rashi on Isaiah 3:14
The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders of His people For they should have protested (Shabbath 55a), and to the nations He says, And you have ravaged My vineyard. I became slightly incensed [against them,] and you helped to do harm.
the spoils of the poor [of] a poor generation, for they were poor in good deeds. All this is in the Midrash Aggadah, but according to its simple meaning, the entire section deals with Israel, and “stands to judge the peoples,” refers to the tribes.
and you have ravaged the vineyard The elders and the officers ‘ate up’ the rest of the people.
