John Gill Commentary Isaiah 10:1

John Gill Commentary

Isaiah 10:1

1697–1771
Reformed Baptist
John Gill
John Gill

John Gill Commentary

Isaiah 10:1

1697–1771
Reformed Baptist
SCRIPTURE

"Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers that write perverseness;" — Isaiah 10:1 (ASV)

Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees
Or, "O you that decree" (ywh) being a sign of the vocative case, and an interjection of calling, as Aben Ezra observes; though the Targum and other versions understand it of a threatening denounced; and applies to lawgivers and judges, political rulers and governors of the people, that made unrighteous laws; laws which were not agreeable to the law of God, nor right reason; and were injurious to the persons and properties of men; and which were calculated for the oppression of good men, especially the poor, and for the protection of wicked men, who had no conscience about spoiling them.

and that write grievous laws which they have prescribed;
laws grievous and intolerable being made by them, they wrote them, or ordered them to be written, engrossed, and promulgated, published them, and obliged the people to be subject to them. This some understand of the scribes of judges, who sat in court, and wrote out the decrees and sentences made by them; but it rather intends the same persons as before; and not ecclesiastical but political governors are meant, and such as lived before the Babylonian captivity; otherwise, the whole applies to the Scribes and Pharisees, to the Misnic doctors, the authors of the oral law, the fathers of tradition, whose decisions and decrees were unrighteous and injurious, and contrary to the commands of God; heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and very oppressive of the poor, the fatherless, and the widow; for which they are reproved by Christ, (Matthew 15:3Matthew 15:6Matthew 15:9) (Matthew 23:4Matthew 23:14Matthew 23:23Matthew 23:25).

Jarchi says it is an Arabic F7 word which signifies scribes.


FOOTNOTES:

  • F7: So and Scriba, Golius, col. 1999; so the word is used in the Chaldee and Syriac languages. See Castel. col. 1828, 1829.