Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 1

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz: The term “vision,” as descriptive of a prophet’s work (1 Samuel 3:1), is the correlative of the old term “seer,” as applied to the prophet himself (1 Samuel 9:9). The latter fell into disuse, probably because the pretenders to the clairvoyance which it implied brought it into discredit. The prophet, however, did not cease to be a “seer;” and to see visions was still one of the highest forms of the gift of the spirit of Jehovah (Joel 2:28).

It describes the state, more or less ecstatic, in which the prophet sees what others do not see, the things that are yet to come, the unseen working of the eternal laws of God. As compared with “the word of the Lord,” it indicates a higher intensity of the ecstatic state; but the two terms were closely associated, and, as in Isaiah 2:1, a man was said to see “the word of the Lord.” Judah and Jerusalem are named as the centre, though not the limit, of the prophet’s work.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth. —The prophet opens the great indictment by calling the universe to listen to it. The words remind us of Deuteronomy 30:19; Deuteronomy 32:1, but the thought was the common inheritance of Hebrew poets (Psalms 50:4; Jeremiah 6:19; Jeremiah 22:29), and we can draw no inference from the parallelism as to the date of either book.

I have nourished and brought up children. The last word has in the Hebrew the emphasis of position: Sons I have reared and brought up. From those who had thus grown up under a father’s care, filial duty might have been expected; but it was not so. The sons had rebelled against their father’s control. It is significant that the prophet starts from the thought of the fatherhood of God in His relation to Israel. The people might be unworthy of their election, but He had chosen them (Exodus 4:22; Deuteronomy 14:1; Hosea 11:1).

The ox knows his owner ...—As in Exodus 20:17; 1 Samuel 12:3, the ox and the ass, rather than, as with us, the horse and the dog, are the representative instances of the relation of domesticated animals to man. These know that relation, and act according to it; but Israel did not, or rather would not, know. So Jeremiah dwells, turning to a different region of animal life, on the instinct which leads the stork, the swallow, and the crane to fulfill the law of their being (Jeremiah 8:7), while Israel “knew not”—i.e., did not acknowledge—the law of Jehovah.

Ah, sinful nation ...—The Hebrew interjection is, like our English “Ha!” the expression of indignation rather than of pity.

A seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters. —The first phrase in the Hebrew idiom does not mean “the progeny of evil-doers,” but those who, as a seed or brood, are made up of such. (Isaiah 65:23.) The word “children” (better, as in Isaiah 1:2, sons) once more emphasises the guilt of those who ought to have been obedient.

They have forsaken the Lord ...—The three verbs paint the several stages of the growth in evil. Men first forsake, then spurn, then openly apostatise. . In the “Holy One of Israel” we have the Divine name on which Isaiah most delights to dwell, and which had been impressed on his mind by the Trisagion, which accompanied his first call to the office of a prophet (Isaiah 6:3). The thought expressed by the name is that all ideas of consecration, purity, and holiness are gathered up in God. The term occurs fourteen times in the first part of Isaiah, and sixteen times in the second. A corrupt people needed to be reminded ever more and more of the truth which the name asserted.

Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more. —Better, by revolting more and more. The prophet does not predict persistence in rebellion, but pleads against it. (Compare to “Why will ye die?” in Ezekiel 18:31.)

The whole head is sick... —Better, every head... every heart. The sin of the people is painted as a deadly epidemic, spreading everywhere, affecting the noblest organs of the body (see Note on Jeremiah 17:9), and defying all the resources of the healing art.

The description that follows is one of the natural parables of ethics and reminds us of Plato’s description of the souls of tyrants as being full of ulcerous sores (Gorg., c. 80).

The description may have connected itself with the prophet’s personal experience or training in the medicine and surgery of his time, or with the diseases which came as judgments on Jehoram (2 Chronicles 21:18) and Uzziah (2 Chronicles 26:20). We find him in Isaiah 38:21 prescribing for Hezekiah’s boil.

It would seem, indeed, from 2 Chronicles 16:12, that the prophets, as an order, practised the art of healing, and so were rivals of the “physicians,” who depended chiefly on idolatrous charms and incantations.

The picture of the disease reminds us of the language of Deuteronomy 28:22-35 and Job 2:7, and of the descriptions of similar pestilences in the history of Florence and of England. Every part of the body is tainted by the poison.

“We note a certain technical precision in the three terms used: “wounds” (literally, cuts, as inflicted by a sword or knife); “bruises,” or weals, marks of the scourge or rod; and “putrefying sores,” wounds that have festered into ulcers. As the diagnosis is technical, so also are the therapeutic agencies. To “close” or “press” the festering wound was the process tried at first to get rid of the purulent discharge. Then, as in Hezekiah’s case (Isaiah 38:21), it was “bound up” with a poultice. Then, some stimulating oil or unguent was applied (probably oil and wine, as in Luke 10:34) to cleanse the ulcer. No such remedies, the prophet says, had been applied to the spiritual disease of Israel.