Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 27:8

"In measure, when thou sendest them away, thou dost contend with them; he hath removed [them] with his rough blast in the day of the east wind." — Isaiah 27:8 (ASV)

In measure ... —Literally, with the force of repetition, with measure and measure. The verse continues the thought of the preceding one. The word for “measure” is strictly definite: the seah, or third part of an ephah , and therefore used proverbially for its smallness, to express the extreme moderation of God’s chastisements.

When it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate With it. —Better, When thou didst put her away, thou didst plead with her. The prophet falls back on the thought of Hosea 1–3, that Israel was the adulterous wife to whom Jehovah had given, as it were, a bill of divorcement, but against whom He did not carry the pleadings to the furthest point that the rigor of the law allowed. Compare for this meaning Isaiah 1:1; Deuteronomy 24:1; Malachi 2:16.

He stayeth his rough wind ... —The words have become familiar, expressing the loving-kindness that will not heap chastisement on chastisement, lest a man should be swallowed up by overmuch sorrow, which keeps the “rough wind” from completing the devastation already wrought by the scorching “east wind.” That rendering, however, can scarcely be maintained.

The word translated “stay” is found elsewhere in Proverbs 25:4–5, and there has the sense of “separating,” or “sifting.” And this is its sense here also, as the expressed thought asserts, though in a different form than the traditional rendering, the compassion of Jehovah, in that He sifts with his rough wind in the day of east wind; though punishment comes on punishment, it is reformatory, and not simply penal, to sift, and not to destroy. A rendering accepted by some critics gives, He sigheth with His rough wind, as though with a sorrowing pity mingled with the chastisement.