Isaiah 62:8 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 62:8
The LORD hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured:
to seven oneself · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
hand
בִּֽימִינ֖וֹbi.mi.No
H3225
the right hand or side (leg · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
arm
וּבִזְר֣וֹעַu.viz.Ro.a'
H2220
the arm (as stretched out) · conjunction + preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
strength
עֻזּ֑וֹu.Zo
H5797
strength in various applications (force · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
will
אִם'im-
H518
used very widely as demonstrative · particle
give
אֶתֵּן֩'e.Ten
H5414
to give · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
corn
דְּגָנֵ֨ךְde.ga.Nekh
H1715
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
meat
מַֽאֲכָל֙ma.'a.Khal
H3978
an eatable (includ. provender · noun, common masculine singular absolute
enemies
לְאֹ֣יְבַ֔יִךְle.'O.ye.Va.yikh
H341
hating · preposition + verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
sons
בְנֵֽיve.nei-
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct
stranger
נֵכָר֙ne.Khar
H5236
foreign · noun, common masculine singular absolute
drink
יִשְׁתּ֤וּyish.Tu
H8354
to imbibe (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
wine
תִּֽירוֹשֵׁ֔ךְti.ro.Shekh
H8492
must or fresh grape-juice (as just squeezed out) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
laboured
יָגַ֖עַתְּya.Ga.'at
H3021
properly · verb, qal perfect, 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 65:21-23 And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
Judges 6:3-6 And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up agains…
Deuteronomy 28:31 Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and…
Deuteronomy 28:33 The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway…
Ezekiel 20:5 And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and…
Leviticus 26:16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause…
Deuteronomy 32:40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.
Isaiah 1:7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthro…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 62:6-9
Two things are here promised to Jerusalem: -
I. Plenty of the means of grace - abundance of good preaching and good praying (Isa 62:6, Isa 62:7), and this shows the method God takes when he designs mercy for a people; he first brings them to their duty and pours out a spirit of prayer upon them, and then brings salvation to them. Provision is made,
1. That ministers may do their duty as watchmen. It is here spoken of as a token for good, as a step towards further mercy and an earnest of it, that, in order to what he designed for them, he would set watchmen on their walls who should never hold their peace. Note, (1.) Ministers are watchmen on the church's walls, for it is as a city besieged,…
sworn by . . . right hand--His mighty instrument of accomplishing His will (compare Isa 45:23; Heb 6:13).
sons of . . . stranger--Foreigners shall no more rob thee of the fruit of thy labors (compare Isa 65:21-22).
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 62:6
Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence - The faithful, and in particular the priests and Levites, are exhorted by the prophet to beseech God with unremitted importunity (compare Luk 18:1, etc.) to hasten the redemption of Sion. The image in this place is taken from the temple service; in which there was appointed a constant watch, day and night, by the Levites: and among them this seems to have belonged particularly to the singers, see Ch1 9:33. Now the watches in the east, even to this day, are performed by a loud cry from time to time of the watchmen, to mark the time, and that very frequently, and in order to show that they themselves are constantly attentive to their duty. He…
The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength,.... By Christ, say some, who is the arm of the Lord, the power of God, by whom he made the world, and upholds all things; but though he sometimes is said to swear unto him, and concerning him, yet is never said to swear by him; rather the attribute of omnipotence is here designed; as God is sometimes said to swear by his holiness, so here by his almighty power; the consideration of which itself is a great encouragement to faith, to believe the fulfilment of promises, because God is able; but his swearing by it is a further confirmation of it; it is as if he had said, let me not be thought to be the omnipotent God I am, if…
The Church Fathers
As you battle courageously, I will lead from the front. Since there is no one else better by whom one should swear, then by my own glory and by my own power I swear, since I will guard your harvest for you and stop those who are perpetual thieves, while you will profit from your own labors. Wheat and wine and food, spiritually speaking, signify the harvest of righteousness.
He promises those crying out and who give unceasing praise to the Lord, "While you are still speaking, behold, I am here." … Now to those who will be worthy of the new age and involved in the things the Lord promises, he will no longer give their fruit to their enemies, but they will profit from these themselves. For they are correcting their lives in the direction of virtue and in godly manner are pursuing righteousness and enjoying their own harvest.
(Vers. 8, 9.) The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by the strength of his arm: If I give your wheat beyond food to your enemies, and if the sons of aliens drink your wine, in which you have labored: for those who gather it will eat it and praise the Lord, and those who carry it will drink it in my holy courts. LXX: The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by the strength of his arm: If I give my wheat beyond food to your enemies, and if the sons of aliens drink your wine, in which you have labored: but those who gather it will eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it will drink it in my holy courts. Almighty God, who said to the Church, 'I have set watchmen on your walls who shall never hold their peace day nor night. You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent, and give Him no rest till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.' Now He swears by His right hand and by the arm of His strength. Concerning whom we frequently say that He is our Lord and Savior, who, according to the Apostle, is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1). He swears that the grain and wine of Jerusalem shall never be given as food to the enemies, nor shall aliens devour the labor of it; but those who sow in tears shall reap in joy, and those who reap, with joyful shouting, and with the chaff removed, they shall gather the pure grain into the barns. They themselves shall eat the labor of their hands, and shall lift up the Lord with eternal praise, and shall drink wine in His holy courts. Because either we understand many dwellings with the Father, if we accept them as the future blessedness in the kingdom of heaven, or certainly the Churches divided throughout the whole world, in which we are planted, and afterwards we will flourish in the house of the Lord. But when He says: I will no longer give your wheat to your enemies, and foreigners will not drink your wine, in which you have labored, He shows the previous labor of the Jews, and that all their works were possessed by demons when they were wavering between God and idols, when Elijah said to them: How long will you limp with both feet? if the Lord is God, follow him (III Kings XVIII, 21). And according to the typical history narrated in the book of Judges, the Midianites came and devastated their crops as far as Gaza, so that the food of men was turned into fodder…
Dictionary and topics
Anthropomorphisms · .Oaths — .Oaths
Arm · FIGURATIVE USE OF — FIGURATIVE USE OF
Hand · Right hand lifted up in swearing — Right hand lifted up in swearing
Hands, The · The right hand: Sworn by — The right hand: Sworn by
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).
Jehovah hath sworn. He proceeds with the metaphors which he formerly used; for since, owing to the corruption of our nature, the kingdom of Christ cannot be described so as to be level to our capacity; it was necessary to represent it under figures. In the same manner as he promised, first, an abundance of all things, and next, faithful guardianship, that the condition of believers may be safe; so here he promises tranquillity and repose, that they may peacefully enjoy their blessings, and may not in future be defrauded of them. As if he had said, "Whatever thou hadst formerly in thy hands was exposed to plunder and robbery; but now thou shalt have everything well secured, and shall freely p…
The following strophe expresses one side of the divine promise, on which the hope of that lofty and universally acknowledged glory of Jerusalem, for whose completion the watchers upon its walls so ceaselessly exert themselves, is founded. "Jehovah hath sworn by His right hand, and by His powerful arm, Surely I no more give thy corn for food to thine enemies; and foreigners will to drink thy must, for which thou hast laboured hard. No, they that gather it in shall eat it, and praise Jehovah; and they that store it, shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary." The church will no more succumb to the tyranny of a worldly power. Peace undisturbed, and unrestricted freedom, reign there. With pra…
The Lord swore an oath just as he did when he had sworn an oath to Noah (Gen 8:20–9:17), to Abraham (Gen 22:16; see also Luke 1:73; Heb 6:13), and to David (Ps 89:3). • I will never again hand you over: In order to punish and purge a remnant from his people, God had intentionally brought in the Assyrians and Babylonians to decimate them (see Isa 6:12-13). He would never do this again.
Rashi on Isaiah 62:6
On your walls, O Jerusalem Our Rabbis expounded it according to its apparent meaning as referring to the angels who remind the Lord concerning its destruction, to build it. What do they say? (Ps. 102:14) “You shall rise, You shall have mercy on Zion”; (ibid. 132:13) “For the Lord has chosen Zion.” As is found in the Tractate Menahoth (87a, Rashi ad loc.). Jonathan, [however,] renders “your walls,” the early forefathers, who protect us like a wall.
I have appointed watchmen to inscribe a book of remembrances, that their merit be not forgotten from before Me.
they shall never be silent not to mention their merit before Me.
those who remind the Lord of the merit of the forefathers.
be not s…
