Isaiah 33:1 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 33:1
Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
spoiled
שָׁד֔וּדsha.Dud
H7703
properly · verb, qal passive participle, masculine singular absolute
treacherously
וּבוֹגֵ֖דu.vo.Ged
H898
to cover (with a garment) · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
treacherously
בָ֣גְדוּVa.ge.du
H898
to cover (with a garment) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
cease
כַּהֲתִֽמְךָ֤ka.ha.tim.Kha
H8552
to complete · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
spoil
שׁוֹדֵד֙sho.Ded
H7703
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
spoiled
תּוּשַּׁ֔דtu.Shad
H7703
properly · verb, hophal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
end
כַּנְּלֹתְךָ֥ka.ne.lo.te.Kha
H5239
to complete · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
treacherously
לִבְגֹּ֖דliv.God
H898
to cover (with a garment) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
treacherously
יִבְגְּדוּyiv.ge.du-
H898
to cover (with a garment) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd 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
Matthew 7:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
Isaiah 24:16 From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! th…
Isaiah 10:12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit…
Isaiah 21:2 A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Med…
Jeremiah 25:12-14 And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for…
Obadiah 1:10-16 For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever.
Revelation 17:17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fu…
Judges 1:7 And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I h…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 33:1-12
Here we have,
I. The proud and false Assyrian justly reckoned with for all his fraud and violence, and laid under a woe, Isa 33:1. Observe, 1. The sin which the enemy had been guilty of. He had spoiled the people of God, and made a prey of them, and herein had broken his treaty of peace with them, and dealt treacherously. Truth and mercy are two such sacred things, and have so much of God in them, that those cannot but be under the wrath of God that make conscience of neither, but are perfectly lost to both, that care not what mischief they do, what spoil they make, what dissimulations they are guilty of, nor what solemn engagements they violate, to compass their own wicked designs. Bloody a…
Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled,.... Which some understand of Nebuchadnezzar; others of Sennacherib, which is more probable; it seems best to interpret it of the Romish antichrist. Kimchi thinks that, if it respects the times of Hezekiah, Sennacherib is meant; but if the times of the Messiah, then the king of nations that shall be in those days; and he adds, this is the kingdom of Persia, in the vision of Daniel. Vatringa applies this to Antiochus Epiphanes, and the whole prophecy to the times of the Maccabees; but it best agrees with the beast of Rome, to whom power has been given over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations, the Apollyon, the spoiler and destroyer of th…
Wo to thee that spoilest. If these words shall be expounded as relating to the Babylonians, the strain will flow easily enough; for, after having promised freedom to the prisoners, (Isaiah 32:15,) he now appropriately taunts the conquerors. Besides, they needed to be peculiarly confirmed, that they might give credit to a prediction which appeared to be incredible; for they could not think it probable that such vast power would be destroyed and overthrown, and that, the wretched prisoners who were now in a state of despair would speedily be permitted to return to their native country. Amidst such distresses, therefore, they might have fainted and given up all hope of safety, if the Prophet ha…
The Church Fathers
(Chapter XXXIII - Verse 1) Woe to those who plunder: will they not be plundered themselves? And to those who despise: will they not be despised themselves? When you have finished plundering, you will be plundered; when you have grown weary of contempt, you will be scorned. LXX: Woe to those who make you miserable: for no one makes you miserable. And those who condemn you, do not condemn you: they will be condemned, and handed over, and be consumed like moths in clothing. He had spoken about the Apostles, and about the leaders of the churches: Blessed are those who sow over all water, where ox and donkey tread: now he directs his curse against their persecutors; in fact, against their ruler, who possesses the hearts of the wicked, that whatever they do, they may receive; and by his present power, let it be the material of future torments. Wherefore, according to the Septuagint it is said: 'Woe to those who make you miserable; for no one makes you miserable. And the meaning is this: as much as is in them, when they persecute you and afflict you with various tortures, they consider you miserable, killed and tortured. But no one can make you miserable, for they do not have power over your soul, but over your body. And he who reproaches you, does not reproach you, but him who sent you, according to that which the Savior speaks to the disciples: 'He who reproaches you, reproaches me; and he who reproaches me, reproaches him who sent me' (Luke 10:16). Therefore, the persecutors will be captured and handed over to eternal fires. And just as a moth consumes clothing, so will the flame devour them. This is also written in the end of this prophecy. Their worm will not die, and their fire will not be extinguished.
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
Hezekiah — Whom Jehovah has strengthened. (1.) Son of Ahaz (2 Kings 18:1; 2 Chr. 29:1), whom he succeeded on the throne of the kingdom of Judah. He reigned twenty-nine years (B.C. 726-697). The history of this…
Retaliation · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
This was the sixth threat of woe (see study note on 28:1–33:24). • Although the Hebrew text does not specifically name Assyria as the object of the prophecy in this chapter, Isaiah undoubtedly had Assyria in mind; they were the destroyer most immediately at hand when the prophecy was written. The prophecy applies, however, to any who seek to destroy God’s people; this included, but was not limited to, the Babylonians (see chs 13–14). • When you are done betraying: Wicked nations often break political agreements with other nations when these contracts are no longer to their own advantage.
Rashi on Isaiah 33:1
Woe To the enemy, that you constantly spoil, but you are not spoiled, and you constantly deal treacherously, but no man deals treacherously with you or spoils you.
when you finish being a spoiler, when you finish your spoiling of those upon whom it was decreed to be spoiled by you, you shall be spoiled.
when you finish dealing treacherously (כַּנְּלֹתְךָ) Menahem classified כַּנְלֹתְךָ with (Job 15: 29) “And their destruction (מִנְלָם) shall not fall to the earth,” in one group (Machbereth Menahem, p. 123). In the word מִנְלָם, the first ‘mem’ is a radical which sometimes is absent, like the ‘mem’ of מַאֲמָר, a statement, and of מַדָּע, knowledge, and it is possibly an expression of ending…
