Isaiah 3:26

What the prophet here foretells to the daughter of Zion he sees in Isa 3:26 fulfilled upon her: "Then will her gates lament and mourn, and desolate is she, sits down upon the ground." The gates, where the husbands of the daughters of Zion, who have now fallen in war, sued at one time to gather together in such numbers, are turned into a state of desolation, in which they may, as it were, be heard complaining, and seen to mourn (Isa 14:31; Jer 14:2; Lam 1:4); and the daughter of Zion herself is utterly vacated, thoroughly emptied, completely deprived of all her former population; and in this state of the most mournful widowhood or orphanage, brought down from her lofty seat (Isa 47:1) and princely glory (Jer 13:18), she sits down upon the ground, just as Judaea is represented as doing upon Roman medals that were struck after the destruction of Jerusalem, where she is introduced as a woman thoroughly broken down, and sitting under a palm-tree in an attitude of despair, with a warrior standing in front of her, the inscription upon the medal being Judaea capta, or devicta. The Septuagint rendering is quite in accordance with the sense, viz., καὶ καταλειφθἠση μόνη καὶ εἰς την̀ γῆν ἐδαφισθήση (cf., Luk 19:44), except that תּשׁב is not the second person, but the third, and נקּתה the third pers. pret. niph. for נקּתה - a pausal form which is frequently met with in connection with the smaller distinctive accents, such as silluk and athnach (here it occurs with tiphchah, as, for example, in Amo 3:8). The clause "sits down upon the ground" is appended ἀσυνδἔτως - a frequent construction in cases where one of two verbs defines the other in a manner which is generally expressed adverbially (vid., Ch1 13:2, and the inverted order of the words in Jer 4:5; cf., Isa 12:6): Zi…

The prophet, in this chapter, goes on to foretel the desolations that were coming upon Judah and Jerusalem for their sins, both that by the Babylonians and that which completed their ruin by the Romans, with some of the grounds of God's controversy with them. God threatens, I. To deprive them of all the supports both of their life and of their government (Isa 3:1-3). II. To leave them to fall into confusion and disorder (Isa 3:4, Isa 3:5, Isa 3:12). III. To deny them the blessing of magistracy (Isa 3:6-8). IV. To strip the daughters of Zion of their ornaments (Isa 3:17-24). V. To lay all waste by the sword of war (Isa 3:25, Isa 3:26). The sins that provoked God to deal thus with them were, 1. Their defiance of God (Isa 3:8). 2. Their impudence (Isa 3:9). 3. The abuse of power to oppression and tyranny (Isa 3:12-15). 4. The pride of the daughters of Zion (Isa 3:16). In the midst of the chapter the prophet is directed how to address particular persons. (1.) To assure good people that it should be well with them, notwithstanding those general calamities (Isa 3:10). (2.) To assure wicked people that, however God might, in judgment, remember mercy, yet it should go ill with them (Isa 3:11). O that the nations of the earth, at this day, would hearken to rebukes and warnings which this chapter gives!