Bible Commentaries

Isaiah 32. This chapter is regarded by some scholars as non-Isaianic on the ground of phraseology and ideas, but while it may have been interpolated, it is probably in the main Isaiah's work. It falls into two parts: (a) Isaiah 32:1-8, (b) Isaiah 32:9-20. The date of the former is uncertain. It may belong to the same period as Isaiah 28-31. The address to the women which follows recalls the denunciation in Isaiah 3:16-24, but it does not necessarily belong to the same period. And it too may belong to the same period as Isaiah 28-31. There is no need to detach the Messianic passage, Isaiah 32:15-20, from it.

Isaiah 32:1-8. The Blessedness of the Messianic Age.—A description of the Messianic time, though the figure of the Messiah is probably not present in the passage. King and princes will reign in righteousness, each of them a source of shelter and refreshment. The present failure in moral insight and responsiveness will be removed, the inconsiderate will gain judgment, the halting speaker the faculty of lucid expression. Men will be designated in harmony with their true character; the fool (pp. 344, 398) shall no longer be called noble (mg.), nor the swindler an aristocrat. For fool and swindler will act in accordance with their nature, but the noble will resolve on noble schemes and persist in their execution.

Isaiah 32:1. a king: i.e. whatever king is on the throne.

Isaiah 32:2. a man: render "each."

Isaiah 32:6-8. Probably a later insertion.

Isaiah 32:9-20. Startling Rebuke to the Women for their Indifference. Sore Calamity is at Hand, Ending only with the Coming of the Messianic Age.—This passage was perhaps spoken at a vintage festival, for Isaiah lays special stress on the failure of the vintage and the fruit. He addresses the women of the upper classes, who show an ostentatious indifference to his words; cf. Isaiah 3:16 to Isaiah 4:1. He startles them with the prediction that in little more than a year they will have cause for trouble; next year's vintage will not come. Let them put on mourning attire and lament for the failure of the fruit, for there will be an irremediable desolation of Jerusalem. Yet the desolation will not be permanent; the life-giving energy of God will be poured out, the wilderness will become fruitful, and what is now a fruitful field regarded as no better than woodland (Isaiah 29:17). Not only will the face of Nature be changed, but justice and righteousness, peace and confidence, will abound. Happy the people who can plant beside all waters, without fear that any will run dry or that the foe will reap what they have sown, and can let ox and ass roam at large, since there is danger neither of cattle-raiders nor of dearth.

Isaiah 32:14. Ophel (mg.): the southern side of the Temple hill.

Isaiah 32:19. Generally regarded as an insertion.