John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 9:15

"The elder and the honorable man, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail." — Isaiah 9:15 (ASV)

The ancient and honorable, he is the head. What he had spoken allegorically about the head and the tail he explains more plainly and without figurative language. He says that the heads are the princes and nobles who were responsible for public affairs and led the commonwealth.

To these he adds the false prophets, and says that they are meant by the tail. But he explains only the first part of the verse and says nothing about the branch and reed. The reason he omitted them is easily explained: it is because he intended to address most forcefully those who were more heinous transgressors and who led others to commit sin, as a result of the influence they obtained from their high rank.

He gives the prophets the name the tail, not because they were inferior and contemptible, as some think, but because he intended to denote the lowest parts of the whole body. By the head he means magistrates and judges, and by the tail he means false prophets, because they deceive and impose upon people with falsehoods and hypocrisy, as if he had compared the one to lions or bears, and the other to foxes.

This passage warns us that we should not slumber in our sins, because wickedness and profligacy abound in all ranks, and no class of people is sound or uninfected. For the more vices abound, the more the wrath of God will be kindled against the highest and the lowest.

We should, especially in the present day, amidst this pestilence of every kind of evil, fear that when the wrath of God has begun to burn, it may consume everything, high and low.