the Lord (used as a proper name of God only) · proper noun, a title
GOD
יְהוִה֙Yah.weh
H3069
YHWH · proper noun, a title
help
יַֽעֲזָרya.'a.zor-
H5826
to surround · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
condemn
יַרְשִׁיעֵ֑נִיyar.shi.'E.ni
H7561
to be (causatively · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
old
יִבְל֔וּyiv.Lu
H1086
to fail · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
garment
כַּבֶּ֣גֶדka.Be.ged
H899
a covering · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
moth
עָ֖שׁ'ash
H6211
a moth · noun, common masculine singular absolute
up
יֹאכְלֵֽםyo.khe.Lem
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 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
Job 13:28 And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.
Psalms 102:26 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall…
Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee…
Hebrews 1:11-12 They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
Psalms 39:11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
Isaiah 51:6-8 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 50:4-9
Our Lord Jesus, having proved himself able to save, here shows himself as willing as he is able to save, here shows himself as willing as he is able. We suppose the prophet Isaiah to say something of himself in these verses, engaging and encouraging himself to go on in his work as a prophet, notwithstanding the many hardships he met with, not doubting but that God would stand by him and strengthen him; but, like David, he speaks of himself as a type of Christ, who is here prophesied of and promised to be the Saviour.
I. As an acceptable preacher. Isaiah, a a prophet, was qualified for the work to which he was called, so were the rest of God's prophets, and others whom he employed as his mess…
(Compare "deal," or "proper," Isa 52:13, Margin; Isa 53:10; Psa 118:6; Jer 23:5).
as a garment-- (Isa 51:6, Isa 51:8; Psa 102:26). A leading constituent of wealth in the East is change of raiment, which is always liable to the inroads of the moth; hence the frequency of the image in Scripture.
John Gill on Isaiah 50:9
Behold, the Lord God will help me,.... This is repeated from Isaiah 50:7; see Gill on Isaiah 50:7; to show the certainty of it, the strength of his faith in it, and to discourage his enemies:
who is he that shall condemn me? make me out a wicked person (c), prove me guilty, and pass sentence upon me, when thus acquitted and justified by the Lord God? The Apostle Paul seems to have some reference to this passage in Romans 8:33,
lo, they all shall waste old as doth a garment; his enemies, those that accused him, the Scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests; and those that condemned him, the Jewish sanhedrim, and the Roman governor:
the moth shall eat them up; they shall be like a worn out or m…
Who is he that condemmeth me? Paul appears to allude to this passage, in his Epistle to the Romans, when he says, "It is God that justifieth; who shall condemn?" (Romans 8:33, 34.) We may safely have recourse to the judgment-seat of God, when we are well assured that we have obtained his righteousness by free grace through Christ. But here Isaiah handles a different subject; for he does not speak of the universal salvation of men, but of the ministry of the Word, which the Lord will defend against the attacks of wicked men, and will not suffer his people to be overwhelmed by their fraud or violence.
Lo, they shall all wax old as a garment. He now shews more clearly that it is not in the sha…
The Church Fathers
"Behold, you will all like a garment grow old, and something like a worm will devour you." The parable is accurate, for the worm that comes from the clothes destroys them, and sin, which is born from us, ruins those who allow it to grow.
Isaiah also gives the name "moth" to those who devour their conscience in their recklessness.… It might be said that the moths are their sins, which worm their way in among those they inhabit, like moths devouring clothing for food. An attitude that inclines toward having no fear is indicative of a people on their way to this kind of ruin, yet who think they are indestructible. But punishment also clearly awaits them. They will be utterly consumed by misfortune as by a moth.
There is a person who runs down birth, describing it as subject to decay and death, who forces things and suggests that the Savior was speaking about having children in saying that we should not store treasure on earth, where it grows rusty and moth-eaten. And [this person] is not ashamed to set alongside these the prophet's words: "You shall all grow old like clothes, and the moth will feed on you." We do not contradict Scripture. Our bodies are subject to decay and are naturally unstable. Perhaps he might be prophesying decay to his audience because they were sinners. The Savior was not speaking about having children. He was encouraging sharing of resources in those who wanted only to amass vast amounts of wealth rather than offer help to those in need.
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
Moth — Heb. ‘ash, from a root meaning “to fall away,” as moth-eaten garments fall to pieces (Job 4:19; 13:28; Isa. 50:9; 51:8; Hos. 5:12). Gr. ses, thus rendered in Matt. 6:19, 20; Luke 12:33. Allusion is…
Ship — No one writer in the whole range of Greek and Roman literature has supplied us with so much information concerning the merchant-ships of the ancients as St. Luke in the narrative of St. Paul’s voyage…
Insects · Mentioned in scripture: Moth — Mentioned in scripture: Moth
Justification Before God · Under the gospel: Frees from condemnation — Under the gospel: Frees from condemnation
Moth · General references — General references
Moth, The · Illustrative: (Eating a garment,) of God’s judgments — Illustrative: (Eating a garment,) of God’s judgments
Wicked, The, Are Compared To · Moth-eaten garments — Moth-eaten garments
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).
In the midst of his continued sufferings he was still certain of victory, feeling himself exalted above every human accusation, and knowing that Jehovah would acknowledge him; whereas his opponents were on the way to that destruction, the germ of which they already carried with them. "He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me?! We will draw near together! Who is my adversary in judgment?! Let him draw near to me! Behold, the Lord Jehovah will help me; who is he that could condemn me?! Behold, they all shall fall to pieces like a garment; the moth shall eat them up." הצדּיו and הרשׁיע are forensic antitheses: the former signifies to set one forth, both practically and judicially…
Who will declare me guilty? The implied answer to this rhetorical question is, “No one!” This answer foreshadows the New Testament understanding of justification (see Rom 8:31-35).
