Isaiah 3:8

The prophet then proceeds, in Isa 3:8-12, to describe this deep, tragical misery as a just retribution."For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah fallen; because their tongue and their doings (are) against Jehovah, to defy the eyes of His glory." Jerusalem as a city is feminine, according to the usual personification; Judah as a people is regarded as masculine. (Note: As a rule, the name of a people (apart from the personification of the people as beth, a house) is only used as a feminine, when the name of the land stands for the nation itself (see Gesenius, Lehrbegr. p. 469).) The two preterites Câs'lah and nâphal express the general fact, which occasioned such scenes of misery as the one just described. The second clause, beginning with "because" (Chi), is a substantive clause, and attributes the coming judgment not to future sin, but to sin already existing. "Again Jehovah:" אל is used to denote a hostile attitude, as in Isa 2:4; Gen 4:8; Num 32:14; Jos 10:6. The capital and the land are against Jehovah both in word and deed, "to defy the eyes of His glory" (lamroth ‛ēnē Chebodo). עני is equivalent to עיני; and lamroth is a syncopated hiphil, as in Isa 23:11, and like the niphal in Isa 1:12 : we find the same form of the same word in Psa 78:17. The kal mârâh, which is also frequently construed with the accusative, signifies to thrust away in a refractory manner; the hiphil himrâh, to treat refractorily, literally to set one's self rigidly in opposition, obniti; mar, stringere, to draw tightly, with which unquestionably the meaning bitter as an astringent is connected, though it does not follow that mârâh, himrâh, and hemar (Exo 23:21) can be rendered παραπικραίνειν, as they have been in the Septuagint, since the idea of opposing, resisting, fighting in opposition,…

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!

3:8-9 The failure of human strength and societal organization can be a form of divine judgment. • to his face: The people of Judah had become bold in their wickedness like the people of Sodom (3:9; see also 1:9-10).