John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 3:14

"Jehovah will enter into judgment with the elders of his people, and the princes thereof: It is ye that have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses:" — Isaiah 3:14 (ASV)

The Lord will enter into judgement with the ancients of his people. Previously, he had established for God a throne from which He might plead. Now he says that He will enter into judgment. How? With the ancients. There might have been a slight allusion to lawful assemblies, in which older men sit as God’s deputies; but I agree with the opinion more commonly held, that God contends against the ancients of His people. This passage, therefore, corresponds to the saying of David:

God will stand in the assembly of the gods (Psalms 82:1).

That is, though it may now be thought that princes do everything with impunity, and though there is no one to restrain their caprice and their lawless passions, yet one day they will feel that God is above them, and they will render an account to Him of all their actions.

Undoubtedly, the judges of that time were very unwilling to hear these reproofs. They had no desire, and did not think it right, for anyone to treat them with such sharpness and severity.

For they wished that everything should be at their disposal, that their will should be regarded as law, and that they should be allowed to do whatever they chose. They expected all people to flatter and applaud them, and to approve of their very worst actions.

They thought that no one was a judge of their actions, and they did not yield submission even to God Himself. Therefore, since they were so unrestrained that they would endure neither any advice nor any threats, the Prophet summons them to the judgment seat of God.

And with their princes. They are honorably described, by way of acknowledgment, as the chosen princes of the people. This also deserves attention, for they thought that because of their rank, they enjoyed a kind of privilege that set them free from the restraints of law.

They believed that while heathen kings and princes might have to give an account of their actions, they, on the contrary, were sacred persons. Therefore, they thought they were beyond the reach of all reproof and ought not to be addressed with threats and terrors, like heathen people.

For this reason, Isaiah expressly declares that the Lord will not only call every kind of prince to account, but especially the proud hypocrites to whose care He had committed His people.

And you have destroyed the vineyard. The metaphor of a vine is very common when a nation, and especially the nation of Israel, is the subject (Psalms 80:8; Jeremiah 2:21). And by this statement, the Prophet now shows their crime to be double, because they paid no more regard to the people whom God had loved with extraordinary affection than if they had ruled over a heathen nation.

The pronoun you is likewise emphatic, for he addresses the vinedressers themselves, who, instead of devoting themselves to the cultivation of the vine as they should have done, devoured it like wild beasts. Accordingly, he represents this as a great aggravation of their cruelty. For how treacherous was it to destroy what they ought to have preserved and protected?

By this comparison, the Lord shows how great care He takes of His own people and how warmly He loves them—not only because the Church is called His vine and inheritance, but also by declaring that He will not endure the treachery and wickedness of those who have ruled over it tyrannically.

The spoil of the poor is in your houses. He adds one circumstance by which the other parts of their life might be known: that they had in their houses the prey and spoil of the poor. Now, the palace of princes ought to resemble a sanctuary, for they occupy the dwelling place of God, which should be sacred to all.

It is, therefore, the grossest sacrilege to turn a sanctuary into a den of thieves. He represents their criminality still more strongly by adding of the poor, for it is the most wicked of all acts of cruelty to plunder a poor and needy man, who cannot defend himself and who ought instead to have been protected.