Isaiah 5:30

"And it utters a deep roar over it in that day like the roaring of the sea: and it looks to the earth, and behold darkness, tribulation, and light; it becomes night over it in the clouds of heaven." The subject to "roars" is the mass of the enemy; and in the expressions "over it" and "it looks" (nibbat; the niphal, which is only met with here, in the place of the hiphil) the prophet has in his mind the nation of Judah, upon which the enemy falls with the roar of the ocean - that is to say, overwhelming it like a sea. And when the people of Judah look to the earth, i.e., to their own land, darkness alone presents itself, and darkness which has swallowed up all the smiling and joyous aspect which it had before. And what then? The following words, tzar vâ'ōr, have been variously rendered, viz., "moon (= sahar) and sun" by the Jewish expositors, "stone and flash," i.e., hail and thunder-storm, by Drechsler; but such renderings as these, and others of a similar kind, are too far removed from the ordinary usage of the language. And the separation of the two words, so that the one closes a sentence and the other commences a fresh one (e.g., "darkness of tribulation, and the sun becomes dark"), which is adopted by Hitzig, Gesenius, Ewald, and others, is opposed to the impression made by the two monosyllables, and sustained by the pointing, that they are connected together. The simplest explanation is one which takes the word tzar in its ordinary sense of tribulation or oppression, and 'ōr in its ordinary sense of light, and which connects the two words closely together. And this is the case with the rendering given above: tzar vâ'ōr are "tribulation and brightening up," one following the other and passing over into the other, like morning and night (Isa 21:12). This pair o…

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.

5:30 day of destruction (literally that day; see study note on 2:5-22). • In Old Testament prophecy, darkness represents the experience of God’s alienation, wrath, and judgment (see also 8:22), while light stands for his holy presence (see especially 60:2, 19).