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…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 33:9
(Isa 24:4).
Lebanon--personified; the allusion may be to the Assyrian cutting down its choice trees (Isa 14:8; Isa 37:24).
Sharon--south of Carmel, along the Mediterranean, proverbial for fertility (Isa 35:2).
Bashan--afterwards called Batanea (Isa 2:13).
fruits--rather, understand "leaves"; they lie as desolate as in winter.
John Gill on Isaiah 33:9
The earth mourneth and languisheth,.... All Christendom, being now under the power, dominion, and tyranny of antichrist, and the church's faithful witnesses slain, and a stop put to all Gospel ministrations; and therefore the church must be in a very languishing condition, and great reason for mourning:
Lebanon is ashamed, and hewn down; being stripped of its stately cedars; as now the church of Christ, comparable to that goodly mountain Lebanon, will be deprived of its able ministers, which were like tall and spreading Cedars, for their gifts, grace, strength, and usefulness:
Sharon is like a wilderness; such parts, as Great Britain, which have been most fruitful (as Sharon was a very fru…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Isaiah 33:9
The earth hath mourned and languished. Here he describes more fully how wretched and desperate the Jews would perceive their condition to be, that their confidence might nevertheless come forth out of a deep gulf. The places are also specified by him, Lebanon, Bashan, and Carmel, which are widely distant from each other, and which form almost the farthest boundaries of the holy land, in order to shew that no part of it; will remain safe or uninjured. He describes this calamity in such a manner as to assign to each place what peculiarly belongs to it. To "Lebanon" he assigns confusion, because it is elsewhere mentioned as beautiful and glorious, in consequence of having been covered with loft…
