Commentary on Isaiah Volume 1 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH
16. For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
16. Nam gubernatores populi hujus, sunt seductores; et qui reguntur in eo, perditi.
17. Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evil-doer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
17. Propterea super adolescentibus ejus non gaudebit Dominus; et pupillorum ejus et viduarum non miserebitur. Quoniam omnes sunt hypocritae et scelerati, et omne os loquitur nequitiam. In hoc toto non erit aversus furor ejus, sed adhuc manus ejus extenta.
18. For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briars and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest; and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
18. Quoniam succensa est velut ignis impietas; vepres et spinas devorabit. Postea exardebit in condensa sylvae; et elevabitur fumus ascendentis.
19. Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.
19. Prae ira Iehovae exercituum obscurabitur terra, et fiet populus quasi cibus ignis. Nemo fratri suo parcet.
20. And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:
20. Rapiet quisque ad dexteram, et esuriet; comedet ad sinistram, et non saturabitur: quisque carnem brachii sui devorabit;
21. Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
21. Menasse Ephraim, et Ephraim Menasse; pariter ipsi contra Iudam. Nec in hoc toto aversus erit furor ejus; sed manus ejus adhuc extenta.
1. Yet the darkness shall not be. He begins to comfort the wretched by the hope of alleviation, that they may not be swallowed up by the huge mass of distresses. Many take these words in quite an opposite meaning, that is, as a threatening which denounces against the Jews a heavier affliction than that with which Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 15:29) and Shalmanezer (2 Kings 17:6) afflicted them. The former inflicted a heavy calamity, the latter inflicted one still heavier, for he carried the twelve tribes into captivity, and blotted out the name of the nation. Some think that he now foretells the heaviest calamity of all, for if it be compared with the former two, it exceeds both of them. Though I am not prepared to reject this view, for it does not want plausibility, yet I rather favor a different opinion. The other interpretation is indeed more plausible, that the Prophet intended to deprive hypocrites