a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine singular construct
holiness
קָדְשֶׁ֑ךָkod.She.cha
H6944
a sacred place or thing · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
possessed
יָרְשׁ֖וּya.re.Shu
H3423
to occupy (by driving out previous tenants · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
while
לַמִּצְעָ֕רla.mitz.'Ar
H4705
petty (in size or number) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
adversaries
צָרֵ֕ינוּtza.Rei.nu
H6862
narrow · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
down
בּוֹסְס֖וּbo.Su
H947
to trample (literally or figuratively) · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person common plural
sanctuary
מִקְדָּשֶֽׁךָmik.da.She.cha
H4720
a consecrated thing or place · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine 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
Psalms 74:3-7 Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.
Exodus 19:4-6 Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.
Deuteronomy 7:6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people t…
Deuteronomy 26:19 And to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people un…
Isaiah 62:12 And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.
Isaiah 64:11-12 Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.
Lamentations 1:10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom tho…
Lamentations 4:1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 63:15–end
The foregoing praises were intended as an introduction to this prayer, which is continued to the end of the next chapter, and it is an affectionate, importunate, pleading prayer. It is calculated for the time of the captivity. As they had promises, so they had prayers, prepared for them against that time of need, that they might take with them words in turning to the Lord, and say unto him what he himself taught them to say, in which they might the better hope to prevail, the words being of God's own inditing. Some good interpreters think this prayer looks further, and that it expresses the complaints of the Jews under their last and final rejection from God and destruction by the Romans; fo…
people of . . . holiness--Israel dedicated as holy unto God (Isa 62:12; Deu 7:6).
possessed--namely, the Holy Land, or Thy "sanctuary," taken from the following clause, which is parallel to this (compare Isa 64:10-11; Psa 74:6-8).
thy--an argument why God should help them; their cause is His cause.
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 63:18
The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while "It is little that they have taken possession of thy holy mountain" - The difficulty of the construction in this place is acknowledged on all hands. Vitringa prefers that sense as the least exceptionable which our translation has expressed; in which however there seems to be a great defect; that is, the want of that in the speaker's view must have been the principal part of the proposition, the object of the verb, the land, or it, as our translators supply it, which surely ought to have been expressed, and not to have been left to be supplied by the reader. In a word, I believe there is some mistake in the text; and here the Sep…
The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while,.... Either the land of Canaan, which the Jews, the Lord's holy people, whom he had separated from others, possessed about fourteen hundred years, which was but a little while in comparison of "for ever", as was promised; or they enjoyed it but a little while in peace and quiet, being often disturbed by their neighbours; or else the sanctuary, the temple, as it is to be supplied from the next clause, which stood but little more than four hundred years:
our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary; the temple; the first temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; and the second temple by the Romans; and Antiochus, and Pompey, and…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 18, 19.) Why have you made us err, O Lord, from your ways: you have hardened our heart, so that we would not fear you? Turn again for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your inheritance. Your holy people have possessed nothing: our enemies have trampled upon your sanctuary. We have become like in the beginning: when you did not rule over us, neither was your name invoked upon us. LXX: Why have you led us astray, O Lord, from your holy way: you have hardened our hearts, so that we would not fear you? Convert for the sake of your servants, for the sake of your inheritance, so that we may possess a little of your holy mountain: our adversaries have trampled your sanctuary: we have become as those who were not ruled by you from the beginning: nor has your name been invoked upon us. The letter that Paul writes to the Corinthians, when it is written to the people of a certain city, by reason of the diversity of its inhabitants, that is, of saints and sinners, now praises them, now corrects them, now teaches them, now rebukes them, provokes them to continence; he does not refuse marriage; he refrains from idolatry; he instructs them about the resurrection; he extends his hand to the divorced, so that he does not give a place to fornication. We have said this, so that we may understand that the present chapter, which is entirely covered by the prayer of the people, may be understood either as of the just or of sinners: and now to praise the Lord, now to bring a question to the Lord, and to attribute one's own guilt to God. Hence, even afterwards they speak of this: Why have you made us err, O Lord, from your ways, or have led us astray from your path: you have hardened our heart that we should not fear you? Not that God is the cause of error and hardness, but so that his patience, waiting for our salvation, may seem to be the cause of error and hardness by not punishing the wrongdoers. Being extremely angry with certain people, he refrained from striking them and said: 'I will not visit your daughters when they have committed fornication, and your wives when they have committed adultery' (Hosea IV, 14). He chastises every son whom he receives, and he strikes in order to correct (Hebrews XII). Finally, regarding those who have not lost the title of children but are drawn back to repentance through punishment, he says about them: 'I will visit their…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
For a little time. It is wonderful that the people should call it "a little time;" for fourteen hundred years had elapsed since the people began to possess that land. But we must take into account the promise by which he said that the seed of Abraham should have it as an everlasting inheritance; and therefore that was a short time, when compared with eternity. (Genesis 17:8; Genesis 48:4.) Believers, therefore, represent to God the shortness of that time; not that they accuse him of insincerity, but that he may remember the promise and covenant, and may have more regard to his own goodness than to the chastisements which they justly deserved. Thus the ancient Church complains that
"her stre…
But the existing condition of Israel looks like a withdrawal of this grace; and it is impossible that these contrasts should cease, unless Jehovah comes down from heaven as the deliverer of His people. Isa 63:8, Isa 63:19 (Isa 64:1). "For a little time Thy holy people was in possession. Our adversaries have trodden down Thy sanctuary. We have become such as He who is from everlasting has not ruled over, upon whom Thy name was not called. O that Thou wouldst rend the heaven, come down, the mountains would shake before thy countenance." It is very natural to try whether yâreshū may not have tsârēnū for its subject (cf., Jer 49:2); but all the attempts made to explain the words on this sup…
The people were supposed to be holy, but their lack of holiness had led to destruction. • The holy place was the Temple, which the Babylonians destroyed in 586 BC (64:11; 2 Kgs 25:1-21).
Rashi on Isaiah 63:18
For [but] a short time, Your holy people inherited They had their greatness and their inheritance for a short time.
trampled [The term בוססו denotes] trampled underfoot.
