Isaiah 57:13 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 57:13
When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;
to shriek (from anguish or danger) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
companies
קִבּוּצַ֔יִךְki.bu.Tza.yikh
H6899
a throng · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
deliver
יַצִּילֻ֣ךְya.tzi.Lukh
H5337
to snatch away · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
wind
ר֖וּחַRu.ach
H7307
wind · noun, common feminine singular absolute
away
יִשָּׂאyi.sa'-
H5375
to lift · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
vanity
הָ֑בֶלHa.vel
H1892
emptiness or vanity · noun, common masculine singular absolute
take
יִקַּחyi.kach-
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
trust
וְהַחוֹסֶ֥הve.ha.cho.Seh
H2620
to flee for protection · conjunction + definite article + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
possess
יִנְחַלyin.chal-
H5157
to inherit (as a (figurative) mode of descent) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
land
אֶ֔רֶץ'E.retz
H776
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular absolute
inherit
וְיִירַ֖שׁve.yi.Rash
H3423
to occupy (by driving out previous tenants · conjunction + verb, qal, 3rd person masculine singular
holy
קָדְשִֽׁיkod.shi
H6944
a sacred place or thing · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
mountain
הַרhar-
H2022
a mountain or range of hills (sometimes used figurative… · noun, common masculine singular construct
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
Psalms 37:9 For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.
Psalms 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
Isaiah 56:7 Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be…
Isaiah 65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall n…
Judges 10:14 Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.
Psalms 125:1 They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.
Isaiah 11:9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the s…
Isaiah 65:9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 57:13-16
Here, I. God shows how insufficient idols and creatures were to relieve and succour those that worshipped them and confided in them (Isa 57:13): "When thou criest in thy distress and anguish, lamentest thy misery and callest for help, let thy companies deliver thee, thy idol-gods which thou hast heaped to thyself companies of, the troops of the confederate forces which thou hast relied so much upon, let them deliver thee if they can; expect no other relief than what they can give." Thus God said to Israel, when in their trouble they called upon him (Jdg 10:14), Go, and cry to the gods which you have chosen, let them deliver you. But in vain is salvation hoped for from them: The wind shall ca…
When thou criest--In the time of thy trouble.
companies--namely, of idols, collected by thee from every quarter; or else, of foreigners, summoned to thy aid.
wind . . . carry . . . away-- (Job 21:18; Mat 7:27).
vanity--rather, "a breath" [LOWTH].
possess . . . land . . . inherit--that is, the literal land of Judea and Mount Zion; the believing remnant of Israel shall return and inherit the land. Secondarily, the heavenly inheritance, and the spiritual Zion (Isa 49:8; Psa 37:9, Psa 37:11; Psa 69:35-36; Mat 5:5; Heb 12:22). "He that putteth his trust in Me," of whatever extraction, shall succeed to the spiritual patrimony of the apostate Jew [HORSLEY].
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 57:13
Let thy companies deliver thee "Let thine associates deliver thee" - Thirty-nine MSS. (ten ancient) of Dr. Kennicott's, and two of my own, and the two oldest editions have יצילכו yatstsiluchu, plural.
John Gill on Isaiah 57:13
When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee,.... From distress and impending ruin, if they can; meaning not the allies and auxiliaries of the Jews, the Egyptians and Assyrians, they sent to for help, as Kimchi, and others; rather, as Jarchi, their idols and graven images they worshipped, angels and saints departed, the Papists pray unto; let them now, in the time of Rome's ruin, renew their addresses to them for help and deliverance, if they can give it: or, "thy gathered ones" (z); the kings of the earth the whore of Rome has gathered unto her to commit fornication with her: and who, by her emissaries, will be gathered together to the battle of the Lord God Almighty, and to make war wi…
The Church Fathers
This, as I have said, is obscure: "shall possess the land and inhabit my holy mountain." After all, if we take it literally and materialistically, we won't be cleansing ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit; and God will have procured for us to no purpose the conjunction of the end of the reading from the prophet with the beginning of the reading from the apostle, if to possess some earthly mountain we start getting ourselves ready for avarice, not for godliness. Well, but what should we understand by the mountain? It is obscure what [Isaiah] meant by "mountain."Yes, but if God had really let us down, he would nowhere say what mountain means. Where he does tell us openly, that is where you must love the mountain. Where he openly recommends a mountain to you, and Scripture opens itself up to say what mountain means, that is where you must love it. Yes, wherever you hear such a mountain promised you, set your sights on it.… What sort of mountain really has been promised us?… The church itself is the mountain … we are going to rise again, and we shall be the holy mountain of God. On this mountain dwells whoever has given himself to God. "But those who have given themselves to me shall possess the land and inhabit my holy mountain."
(Verse 13, 14.) And the wind will carry them away: the breeze will lift them. But those who have confidence in me will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain. And I will say, Make a way, offer a path, turn aside from the path, remove stumbling blocks from my people's way. LXX: For the wind will carry away all of them, and the tempest will take them away. But those who hope in me will possess the land and inherit my holy mountain, and they will say: Make his ways clean and remove stumbling blocks from my people's way. The Jews of Babylon assert that these things are prophesied: that, by the power of God, after overcoming their enemies, the people will return to Judah and possess Mount Zion, and all obstacles of the journey will be removed, and they will not suffer any ambush from any nation, because the Lord will make a straight path for His people. And they claim that these things were fulfilled under Zerubbabel and Ezra. But we, joining what has been said before, assert that the wind and storm will remove all the idols that could not save them, and they will be like dust that the wind blows away from the face of the earth. But those who have trust in the Lord will possess the land which we will read about in this same Prophet: He will exalt you to the good things of the land. From which it is clear that this land is not below, but above. To which the holy one, lifted up by the Lord, will ascend, of which we have often said: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land (Matthew 5:4); and I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living (Psalm 27:13). But the holy mountain of God, that is to be understood, is the one about which he speaks to the Hebrews, who wrote the Letter: You have come to Mount Zion and to the heavenly city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the countless angels and the assembly of the firstborn who are written in heaven (Hebrews 12:22). We can understand the land and mountain of the Lord, which the saints will possess, and the holy Scriptures, which were to be carried from the Jews, the Lord threatens, saying: The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing its fruits (Matt. XXI, 43); so that they may find in them that same mountain, of which we read in this same Prophet (Isaiah II), and in Micah: In the last days, the mountain of the Lord will be made…
Dictionary and topics
Confidence · FALSE — FALSE
Vanity · The wicked: Judicially given up to — The wicked: Judicially given up to
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).
When thou shalt cry, let thy troops deliver thee. He states more fully what he had slightly touched in the former verse, that, when they shall come to close quarters, they shall be ashamed; for the potential mood, "Let them deliver," amounts to saying, "They will not do it." He alludes to what he had formerly said, (verse 9) "Thou wentest to the king with ointments." And accordingly he gives the name of "troops" to all the means of defense by which the Jews thought that they would be safe; for, by trusting to them, they abandoned themselves to every kind of vices, as if they should be certain of escaping punishment, because they were guarded and fortified on every side. But the Lord shows ho…
But this silence would not last for ever. "I will proclaim thy righteousness; and thy works, they will not profit thee. When thou criest, let thy heaps of idols save thee: but a wind carries them all away; a breath takes them off; and whoever putteth trust in me will inherit the land, and take possession of my holy mountain." According to the context, צדקתך cannot be a synonym of ישׁוּעה f here. It is neither salvation nor the way of salvation that is intended; nor is this even included, as Stier supposes. But the simple reference is to what Israel in its blindness regarded as righteousness; whereas, if it had known itself, it would have seen that it was the most glaring opposite. This lying…
your idols . . . fall over: See study note on 40:18. • inherit the land: The Hebrew word translated land can also signify the whole earth (see Pss 25:13; 37:9, 11, 22, 29, 34; Matt 5:5). • my holy mountain: God’s servants will enjoy God’s presence in Zion (see Isa 2:2; 56:7).
Rashi on Isaiah 57:13
When you cry out, let your collections save you Let the collection of your idols and your graven images [and those who deny the Torah] that you collected, rise and save you when you cry out from your distress. Indeed, wind will carry all of them off, and they will not rise, neither will they be able to save.
