Charles Spurgeon Commentary Isaiah 5:18

"Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and sin as it were with a cart rope;" — Isaiah 5:18 (ASV)

"Woe unto them." When we encounter a woe in this Book of Blessings, it is sent as a warning, so that we may escape from woe. God's woes are better than the devil's welcomes. God always intends humanity's good, and only sets harm before us so that we may turn from the dangers of a mistaken way, and so escape the harm that lies at the end of it.

Perhaps "Woe, woe, woe," though it may sound with a dreadful din in our ears, can be the means of leading us to seek and find our Saviour; then, throughout eternity, no woe shall ever come near to us.

"That draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope." This is a very remarkable passage. It is not very easy to understand at first sight. Some are described here as drawing sin with "cords of vanity," which are slender enough, and yet they also draw it "as with a cart rope," which is thick enough.

They are harnessed to sin, and the traces appear to be fragile, insignificant, and easily broken. You can hardly touch them, for they are a mere sham, a fiction—vanity. What can be thinner and weaker than cobweb-cords of vanity? Yet, when you attempt to break or remove them, they turn out to be cart ropes or wagon traces, strong enough to bear the pull of a horse or bullock.

Motives that have no logical force, and would not bind a reasonable person for a moment, are, nevertheless, quite sufficient to hold most people in bondage.

Such a slave is humankind to iniquity that unworthy motives and indefensible reasons, which appear no stronger than little cords, nevertheless hold us as with bonds of steel; and we are fastened to the loaded wagon of our iniquity, just as a horse is fastened by a cart rope.