Isaiah 47:15 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 47:15
Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee.
properly · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person feminine singular
merchants
סֹחֲרַ֣יִךְso.cha.Ra.yikh
H5503
to travel round (specifically as a pedlar) · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
youth
מִנְּעוּרַ֗יִךְmi.ne.'u.Ra.yikh
H5271
(only in plural collectively or emphatic form) youth · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
wander
תָּע֔וּta.'U
H8582
to vacillate · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
one
אִ֤ישׁ'ish
H376
a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
quarter
לְעֶבְרוֹ֙le.'ev.Ro
H5676
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
save
מוֹשִׁיעֵֽךְmo.shi.'Ekh
H3467
properly · verb, hiphil active participle, masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
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
Isaiah 56:11 Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every…
Jeremiah 51:6-9 Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the LORD’s vengean…
Ezekiel 27:12-25 Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.
Revelation 18:11-19 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 47:7–end
Babylon, now doomed to ruin, is here justly upbraided with her pride, luxury, and security, in the day of her prosperity, and the confidence she had in her own wisdom and forecast, and particularly in the prognostications and counsels of the astrologers. These things are mentioned both to justify God in bringing these judgments upon her and to mortify her, and put her to so much the greater shame, under these judgments; for, when God comes forth to take vengeance, glory belongs to him, but confusion to the sinner.
I. The Babylonians are here upbraided with their pride and haughtiness, and the great conceit they had of themselves, because of their wealth and power, and the vast extent of thei…
Thus, &c.--Such shall be the fate of those astrologers who cost thee such an amount of trouble and money.
thy merchants, from thy youth--that is, with whom thou hast trafficked from thy earliest history, the foreigners sojourning in Babylon for the sake of commerce (Isa 13:14; Jer 51:6, Jer 51:9; Nah 3:16-17) [BARNES]. Rather, the astrologers, with whom Babylon had so many dealings (Isa 47:12-14) [HORSLEY].
to his quarter--literally, "straight before him" (Eze 1:9, Jer 50:16).
Next: Isaiah Chapter 48
John Gill on Isaiah 47:15
Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured,.... In training them up in those arts, and in consulting with them in cases of difficulty; in which they were of no service, and now in time of danger as useless as stubble, or a blaze of straw:
even thy merchants from thy youth; either the above astrologers and diviners, who had been with them from the beginning of their state; and who had made merchandise of them, and were become rich as merchants by telling fortunes, and predicting things to come by the stars; which sense our version leads to by supplying the word "even"; or rather merchants in a literal sense, which Babylon abounded with from the first building of it; it being t…
For I know a cleansing fire that Christ came to send on the earth, and he himself is anagogically called a fire. This Fire takes away whatever is material and of evil habit. This [Christ] desires to kindle with all speed, for he longs for speed in doing us good, since he gives us even coals of fire to help us.
It is known from the writing of Daniel in what manner certain wizards and diviners and potion makers were eminent among those Chaldeans living in Babylon. And they were highly regarded by the king since the kingdom was ordered by them. They did not only dabble with potions and incantations, but through the knowledge of mathematical theorems they thought to understand the heavens, predicting the movement of the stars, their effects on human destiny and their power on the present according to the season, so as to learn to distinguish the things to come. But no mighty person is able to know the future from pondering on these things. Rather, the reward of fire will be received by those who pay too much attention to them.
In the other nations likewise, there are people who choose an iniquitous law, he says, but not all embrace this mode of conduct. For your part, you studied iniquity and you practiced the extreme of impiety as if it were the height of piety; therefore you will not enjoy salvation. As for us, instructed by their punishment, let us procure salvation, and may their destruction turn to our advantage! Seeing what payment is reserved for malice, and taking on the opposite mode of conduct and having as a holy anchor trust in the God of the universe, we will obtain his solicitude during the present life, just as we will enjoy the eternal benefits in the life to come by the grace of Christ our Savior. Glory to the Father, together with him, in the unity of the All-Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
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
Babylon · Predictions respecting: Destruction of — Predictions respecting: Destruction of
Merchant · 10:15,28; — 10:15,28;
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).
John Calvin on Isaiah 47:15–end
So shal they be to thee. After having threatened destruction to those astronomers, he again retums to the Babylonians, and threatens that they must not look for assistance from that quarter from which they expected it, and that they ought not to rely on those vain counsels, with which they had long and eagerly vexed themselves in vain.
He calls them dealers, or, as we commonly say, traffickers; a metaphor taken from merchants, who are skilled in innumerable arts of deceiving, and in impostures of every kind; for the princes do not consult in a manner suitable to their rank, but traffic in disgraceful transactions. [232] Though we may extend this to all the allies by whom the Babylonians wer…
Then follows the concluding strophe, which, like the first, announces to the imperial city in a triumphantly sarcastic tone its inevitable fate; whereas the intermediate strophes refer rather to the sins by which this fate has been brought upon it. "Come near, then, with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy witchcrafts, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth: perhaps thou canst profit, perhaps thou wilt inspire terror. Thou art wearied through the multitude of thy consultations; let the dissectors of the heavens come near, then, and save thee, the star-gazers, they who with every new moon bring things to light that will come upon thee. Behold, they have become like stubble: f…
