Isaiah 5:17

And when we consider that the Holy Land is at the present time an extensive pasture-ground for Arab shepherds, and that the modern Jerusalem which has arisen from the dust is a Mohammedan city, we may see in this also a literal fulfilment of Isa 5:17 : "And lambs feed as upon their pasture, and nomad shepherds eat the waste places of the fat ones." There is no necessity to supply an object to the verb ורעוּ, as Knobel and others assume, viz., the waste lands mentioned in the second clause; nor is Cedâbrâm to be taken as the object, as Caspari supposes; but the place referred to is determined by the context: in the place where Jerusalem is sunken, there lambs feed after the manner of their own pasture-ground, i.e., just as if they were in their old accustomed pasture (dober, as in Mic 2:12, from dâbar, to drive). The lambs intended are those of the gârim mentioned in the second clause. The gârim themselves are men leading an unsettled, nomad, or pilgrim life; as distinguished from gêrim, strangers visiting, or even settled at a place. The lxx have ἄρνες, so that they must have read either Cârim or gedâim, which Ewald, Knobel, and others adopt. But one feature of the prophecy, which is sustained by the historical fulfilment, is thereby obliterated. Chârboth mêchim are the lands of those that were formerly marrowy, i.e., fat and strutting about in their fulness; which lands had now become waste places. Knobel's statement, that âcăl is out of place in connection with gârim, is overthrown by Isa 1:7, to which he himself refers, though he makes he-goats the subject instead of men. The second woe closes with Isa 5:17. It is the longest of all. This also serves to confirm the fact that luxury was the leading vice of Judah in the time of Uzziah-Jotham, as it was t…

In this chapter the prophet, in God's name, shows the people of God their transgressions, even the house of Jacob their sins, and the judgments which were likely to be brought upon them for their sins, I. By a parable, under the similitude of an unfruitful vineyard, representing the great favours God had bestowed upon them, their disappointing his expectations from them, and the ruin they had thereby deserved (Isa 5:1-7). II. By an enumeration of the sins that did abound among them, with a threatening of punishments that should answer to the sins. 1. Covetousness, and greediness of worldly wealth, which shall be punished with famine (Isa 5:8-10) 2. Rioting, revelling, and drunkenness (Isa 5:11, Isa 5:12, Isa 5:22, Isa 5:23), which shall be punished with captivity and all the miseries that attend it (Isa 5:13-17). 3. Presumption in sin, and defying the justice of God (Isa 5:18, Isa 5:19). 4. Confounding the distinctions between virtue and vice, and so undermining the principles of religion (Isa 5:20). 5. Self-conceit (Isa 5:21). 6. Perverting justice, for which, and the other instances of reigning wickedness among them, a great and general desolation in threatened, which should lay all waste (Isa 5:24, Isa 5:25), and which should be effected by a foreign invasion (Isa 5:26-30), referring perhaps to the havoc made not long after by Sennacherib's army.