The vision of Isaiah son of Amotz that he envisioned mainly concerning Judah and Jerusalem, although his prophecies also addressed the independent Kingdom of Israel, as well as other nations, near and far. Isaiah received his prophecies in the days of Uziyahu, Yotam, Ahaz, and Hizkiyahu, who were kings of Judah. Vision is a synonym for prophecy; it expresses the prophet’s ability to see hidden matters.

Hear, heavens, and listen, earth, as the Lord has spoken: I have reared children, the nation of Israel, and raised them up, and they have rebelled against Me.

Even an ox, which is not a particularly perceptive creature, knows the identity of its owner, and a donkey recognizes its master’s trough. Not only is the animal aware that the object is a trough, but it thereby realizes that it has a master. Conversely, Israel does not know; My people does not perceive. They pay no attention to the fact that God is their Master.

The prophet proceeds to describe Israel in a far more severe manner: Woe! Sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, whose sins are heavy, villainous descendants, who perform evil, corrupting children. They forsook the Lord, they scorned God, the Holy One of Israel; they have turned backward. They do not merely fall back; they actively withdraw from God, the source of their sanctity.

For what reason will you be struck, that you continue straying still? The more you are afflicted, the more you rebel. Each head is ill and every heart suffers.

From foot to head, there is nothing whole in it, any person of Israel; a bleeding wound, and bruise, and fresh blow have not been treated and healed, or bandaged or softened with oil for relief. Israel is depicted here as a body that is wholly stricken, wounded, and neglected.

The depiction of the land is correspondingly bleak: Your land is desolation, your cities are burned in fire; as to your land, strangers devour it, its produce, in your presence, before your own eyes, and it itself is desolation like an upheaval by strangers. The invasion of foreigners leads not only to theft and damage, but also to the general disturbance of order and the loss of security and peace of mind, a familiar experience to those whose houses have been burglarized.

The daughter of Zion, the people of Israel, remains neglected, like a guard’s booth in a plundered vineyard, like a shed in a field of gourds, in which a guard lodges, and like a besieged city, where no one enters or exits. Some explain that this means a destroyed city (see 49:6, 65:4).

The people of Israel state: Had not the Lord of hosts left for us a miniscule remnant of survivors, we would have been like Sodom, we would have been comparable to Gomorrah, two cities that were entirely overthrown and which became symbols of devastation and destruction.

The prophet addresses his people with the same terms they used to describe themselves in the previous verse: Hear the word of the Lord, leaders of Sodom! Listen to the Torah of our God, people of Gomorrah! The city of Sodom is used as a symbol for two different concepts: as a place that was completely destroyed, and a wholly wicked city. After the people describe their land as almost as desolate as Sodom, the prophet castigates them by saying that their behavior is likewise similar to that of Sodom. The lives of the inhabitants of Judah at that time, presumably in the early years of Hizkiyahu’s reign, were focused on the Temple, as it was a period of religious awakening. The sacrificial rites were performed properly, and there was little worship of idols. Consequently, the people were satisfied with their own behavior and religious situation. It can be assumed that this feeling was strengthened by a comparison with their neighbors in the Kingdom of Israel, who did not participate in the Temple rites. This is the background to the prophet’s reproof.

Why do I need the multitude of your offerings, says the Lord; I am sated with burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened bulls and I do not desire the blood of bulls and sheep and goats. You bring more and more offerings, and feel elevated and content with yourselves. Do you imagine that I need your gifts?

When you come to the Temple to appear before Me during your festival pilgrimages, pilgrimages that are described as the duty “to appear before the Lord your God,” who sought this from your hand, trampling My courtyards? For what purpose do you tread in the courtyard of God and trample its stones?

Do not continue bringing a vain meal offering. Your meal offering is an empty gift, devoid of content and proper intention. There is no meaning behind it. Likewise, instead of being accepted by Me with favor, the incense that you bring is an abomination to Me. Furthermore, on the days of the New Moon and Sabbath, and on the days of convoking convocations, I cannot abide evil and the gathering of the assembly for public prayer. The blending of evil with a religious assembly is intolerable. Like the offerings, the prayers are recited in accordance with all the formal laws, but this very insistence on the rules of the ritual, when little attention is paid to the duty that lies beyond, is an abomination.

My soul loathes your New Moons and your festivals, days of assembly and celebration, when it was customary to visit the Temple or important personages, such as prophets and Sages; they are a burden for Me and I have wearied of forbearance. You observe all the ceremonies and rituals in a superficial manner, without any effect on your daily lives.

And when you spread your hands upward in prayer, I will avert My eyes from you; even when you increase prayer, I do not listen, I do not respond to it, as your hands that are stretched out to Me pleadingly are full of blood. This does not necessarily refer to actual bloodshed, as in Isaiah’s time murder was not particularly common in Judah, but rather to injustice, extortion, and the abuse of unfortunates.

The prophet calls upon the people: Instead of your current behavior, wash your hands that are full of blood, purify yourselves from wrongdoing, and remove the evil of your actions, which I see continuously, from before My eyes; cease doing evil.

Learn well the way of truth. Alternatively, this means: Learn how to act well with others. Seek justice, bolster the oppressed; adjudicate for the orphan, champion the widow. Perhaps the legal system has not rotted to the core, but it does not give a chance to such people, who are most in need of its assistance and protection.

Let us go now and reason and debate together, says the Lord. God is not simply accusing you; He has suggestions for a remedy as well: If your sins are like scarlet, they will, if you so choose, be whitened as snow. They can be amended by repenting. Similarly, if they are reddened like crimson, they will be like white wool, if you repent.

If you are willing, and you heed the word of God, the goodness of the land you will eat.

But if you refuse and are defiant, you will be devoured, destroyed, by the sword, as the mouth of the Lord has spoken. This is God’s side of the debate: He has specified these conditions and you should choose to fulfill them.

Due to the classical style of this prophecy, the beauty of its phrases, the perfection of its images, and the magnificence of its parallels, one does not always notice its scathing content: How did it become a harlot, the faithful city? Jerusalem, which should be God’s loyal city, has become a metaphorical harlot. The city was once filled with principle, and justice would abide in it, but now its residents are murderers.

Your silver has become pieces of dross, non-precious metal. During the regular process of refining silver, the dross is the waste product, extracted so that the remainder is pure silver. In your case the opposite occurs: Your silver turns into dross, and this is true not only of the financial system. Your liquor, such as wine, is diluted with water. As well as serving as practical examples, the compromised silver and diluted wine are also general metaphors for widespread cheating and corruption.

Your princes are wayward, undisciplined and unfair, and they are cohorts of thieves. They quietly collaborate with robbers. Each member of the ruling class and the judiciary loves bribery and pursues graft. Consequently, they do not provide justice for an orphan, who is unable to pay them, and the cause of a widow does not come to them. If the widow or the orphan complain of harassment, the princes will not bring their cases to the light of justice.

Therefore – the utterance of the Master, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel– Woe! I will be mollified of My adversaries. Once I have punished them I will be able to relax, as it were. And I will be avenged on My enemies. These sinners are considered God’s adversaries and enemies.

I will turn My hand against you to deal with you, and I will refine your pieces of dross as with lye, a caustic cleansing substance, and I will remove all your slag [bedilayikh], which is the common waste matter within silver ore. It was called this perhaps because it was separated [nivdal] from the more valuable metal during the refinement.

I will restore your judges to as they were at first, and your counselors, who fulfilled various leadership roles, to as they were at the beginning. Thereafter, you, Jerusalem, will be called the city of righteousness, just like when justice abided in it, and you will again be termed the faithful city, as in the past.

Zion will be redeemed with the performance of justice, and its returnees will come back to rebuild it with righteousness.

And there will be breaking of transgressors and sinners together, and those others who forsake the Lord will perish with them,

for they, these sinners, will be ashamed of the terebinths used for idolatrous purposes, or of the powerful individuals that you, the people, coveted, and you will be disgraced because of the gardens, used for foreign rituals, or because of the pleasures that you chose. The idea that the world of sin is based on luxuries and worthless matters appears in several places in this book (see, e.g., 5:11–12, 22:13).

For you will be like a terebinth whose leaves are withered. The terebinth is a large, splendid tree which blossoms impressively; however, when it is bare in the winter, having shed its leaves, it looks wretched. This image is repeated elsewhere in the book of Isaiah (see 34:4, 40:7, 64:5). And you will be like a garden that has no water, all of whose growths wither away.

The prophet uses another analogy for the wicked and their deeds: The tough stalks of flax will be tow, thin chaff that falls off the stalks of combed flax. Some make bulbs from this chaff, whose only practical use is for burning. And its maker, the one who works the flax, will be a spark; and since tow is highly flammable, the two of them, the tough stalks and tow, will burn together, and none extinguishes them. In fact, both the tough stalks and the tow catch fire easily, but the phrase “the tough will be tow” further alludes to the subjugation of the hard and powerful.

This second prophecy is introduced in a similar manner to the first (1:1): The matter that Isaiah son of Amotz envisioned concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

It shall be at the end of days that the mountain of the House of the Lord will be established at the top of the mountains and will be elevated above the other hills. The mountain will be raised to further heights in the future, as can be inferred from other prophecies, and all the nations will stream to it. The mountain of the House of the Lord will be the center not only of Judah and Jerusalem, but of the entire world.

Many peoples will go and say: Let us go and ascend to the mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob, and He will instruct us of His ways and we will walk in His paths. Not only will the nations seek to visit the House of God, to look at the magnificent Temple, but they will travel there to accept the Torah upon themselves. For at that time, from Zion will come forth Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. The word of God and the Torah of Israel will not be a matter for a small people alone, as many nations will be drawn to Zion.

Since the nations will come to hear the Torah that emerges from Jerusalem, he, Israel, headed by its king or leader, will adjudicate between the nations and will rebuke many peoples. When Israel has mediated and brought peace between nations, there will be no need for wars, and therefore they will beat the metal of their swords to be refashioned into plowshares, and their spears, generally made of a long wooden pole with a sharp metal edge, will be turned into pruning hooks, smaller implements, after the dangerous heads of the spears have been removed. In sum, nation will not lift sword against nation, and they will not learn war any more.

The prophet addresses the nation of Israel: House of Jacob, go and let us walk by the light of the Lord. We are occupied with matters that distract us from that which truly matters.

For you Israelite renegades forsook your people, the house of Jacob, and their ways; because they, the renegades’ practices, are infused with disciplines, customs, values, and perceptions from the East, and with soothsayers, who deal with various forms of fortune-telling and astrology, like the Philistines, who were apparently renowned for such occupations. And, in general, they content themselves with the children of foreigners. They are satisfied with these preoccupations of foreign peoples. Here the prophet is not accusing the house of Jacob of specific sins, such as idolatry, but of broad spiritual and cultural assimilation. Foreign culture has inundated the land.

Its, the house of Jacob’s, land has become filled with silver and gold, and there is no limit to its treasures; its land became filled with horses, and there is no limit to its chariots. The amassing of a multitude of horses, which is prohibited by the Torah, alludes to King Solomon, who collected them in great numbers. Their dealings with money and horses, and their trade and training, never end.

In addition, its land has become filled with idols; they bow to the work of their hands, to that, the images, which their fingers made.

Ultimately, a person bowed under duress, and a man, symbolizing the people, was forcibly debased; You, God, should not elevate them by forgiving them. The end of days described here does not come about due to war or some external catastrophe, but through God’s revelation and the awakening of human understanding, which lead to shame and awe.

Isaiah addresses the debased man: Go into the crevices of the rock and hide in the furrows of dust, for fear of the approach of the Lord and from the grandeur of His majesty.

The lofty eyes of a person will be debased and the pompous haughtiness of men will be brought down, and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day. When God reveals Himself, all other forms of greatness dissipate.

For it is a day for the Lord of hosts, on which He will reveal Himself, judge sinners, and stand against everyone proud and haughty, and against everyone elevated or lowered. Apparently, even the lowly will be included in the reproof.

The Lord will also stand against all the cedars of the Lebanon that are high and elevated, and against all the oaks of the Bashan, mighty trees that symbolize the powerful people of the world who will stand trial before God.

The Lord will also stand against all the high mountains and against all the elevated hills. Even on the figurative level, this is not referring to people. Rather, all the greatness of nature will shrink before the revelation of God: Massive trees will become small shrubs, and mountains will shrivel up. This description may suit an alternate interpretation of the phrase “and against everyone elevated or lowered” (verse 12), meaning that the exalted will become lowered.

The Lord will stand against every tall tower and against every fortified wall. All such symbols of power will be like mere toys.

And the Lord will also stand against all the large ships of Tarshish, used for long journeys to the edge of the Mediterranean Sea and beyond, and against all precious objects, expensive trinkets and pretty decorations. All these will lose their importance.

The prophet reiterates: The loftiness of humanity will be bowed and the haughtiness of men will be debased, and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day,

and as a result, the false, man-made gods will entirely pass away. They will lose their influence and be destroyed.

They, people, will come into caves in the rocks and into tunnels in the dirt, as stated above: Go into the rock and hide in the dust (verse 10), out of fear of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, upon His arising to dominate [la’arotz] the land. The word la’arotz derives from the root ayin-reish-tzadi, which means rule and government, as does the word aritz.

On that day, humanity will cast away its false gods of silver and its false gods of gold that they made for one to prostrate himself, to the moles and to the bats. All the gold and silver treasures and idols will be thrown away for moles to bury in the ground and for bats to carry to their caves,

come go into the crevices of the rocks and into the cracks of the crags. This expression, which appears several times in the book of Isaiah and only once elsewhere in the Bible, refers to the spaces between the protrusions of larger rocks. They will hide out of fear of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, upon His arising to dominate the land.

Consequently, you should desist from, give up on, humanity, who has breath in his nostrils and is mortal, for how is he accounted? Although at present man seems to be the lord of creation, who controls everything and does whatever he wants, when the glory of God is revealed at the end of days, the various objects of idolization will be diminished and all the things people once considered important and worthy will be abandoned and seen as insignificant, including man himself. Then only the glory of God will remain, when He comes to rule the world.

For behold, the Lord, Lord of hosts, is removing from Jerusalem and from Judah support and stanchion, anything upon which to rely, such as every support of bread, and every support of water. There will not be enough bread and water. People will not necessarily die of starvation, but they will have no assurance that even their most basic needs will be met.

God is also removing the communal leaders of Israel, every valiant one, man of war, judge and prophet, diviner, one who knows or claims to know the future, and every elder, heads of congregations,

leader of fifty, which is an official military position, and esteemed one, person of status, counselor, subtle scholar, one who understands profound and esoteric matters, and insightful expositor, one who can explain ideas calmly and precisely. These various leaders form the basis of a functioning society, despite the fact that they do not necessarily fulfill executive roles. All these will be lost from the people.

Instead of a social structure where those who are worthy hold leadership positions, I will put children as their princes. Youngsters will take over the government. When the government is unstable, it is often fresh youths who take over. And pranksters will govern them. Those youngsters will subject everyone to their shenanigans; in the best case scenario, they will be mischievous rulers.

The people will be oppressed, each man by another and each man by his neighbor. People will push each other out of the way, or they will subjugate one another; the lad will domineer over the elder, and the base over the honorable. This is not a description of complete anarchy, but of a government that cannot govern. The rulers will be a random group of people who hold positions of leadership even though they are not suited for it.

For in addition, a man will take hold of his brother of his father’s house, someone he knows and upon whom he relies, such as the eldest brother of his father’s house, to whom he will say: You have attire; you are wearing fine clothes, a uniform that signifies that you have a certain status, so be our ruler, and this debacle [makhshela] shall be under your hand. Undertake to remedy the failings of this country, city, or neighborhood. It is possible that the prophet is mocking the people by using the word makhshela instead of memshala, government.

He, that person, will, on that day, take an oath, or raise his voice, saying: I will not be a ruler because I am unable, and in my house, there is neither bread nor attire. Since I have nothing, I cannot hold a governmental post and care for the people. This refusal is not because of poverty alone, but also due to low self-esteem. One who does not own anything, and feels bereft of wisdom and knowledge, does not believe in his ability to fulfill important roles, and therefore he refuses the offer: You will not place me as a ruler of the people. Do not appoint me a communal official. In other words, even when society has people worthy of positions of authority, those worthy ones evade accepting such responsibility.

For Jerusalem stumbled and Judah fell, because their speech and their actions are against the Lord. All their deeds and statements with regard to God are designed only to defy the eyes of His glory, to anger Him.

The expression on their faces speaks against them. One can see from their countenances that they are indifferent to the possibility of improvement, and they recount their sin like Sodom, without dissembling. They are not ashamed of their transgressions. In an orderly society, people will at the very least attempt to deny or conceal their sins. By contrast, in a place of evildoing such as Sodom, they were not afraid of speaking openly of their wickedness. Woe to their soul, for they wrought evil for themselves through their deeds. In this unstable situation, when evil is performed without embarrassment or concern, the people lose all sense of their strength, faith, and destiny.

In sum, say of the righteous that they are good, for they will eat the fruit of their actions. The righteous are nourished by the consequences of their deeds.

Woe to the wicked man that he is evil, for the restitution of his hands will be done to him.

In this situation, people are dragged along and find no leadership. My people, its oppressors, oppressive leaders, are infantile [me’olel]. Alternatively, this means that they are no better than children, olelim. And women, who generally stand to the side, govern them. My people, your leaders [me’asherekha], who are supposed to straighten [m’yasherim] your paths and instruct you, instead mislead you, and the way of your paths they have corrupted and destroyed.

The Lord is poised to dispute, and stands to judge peoples. God has appeared in order to judge the entire world.

The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders of His people and its princes, to whom He will say the following: You devoured the entire vineyard; you did not give from it the designated gifts for the poor and the Levites. Furthermore, the plunder of the poor is in your houses.

What have you, that you oppress My people Israel, and grind the face of the poor into the ground – the utterance of the Lord, God of hosts.

Alongside the prophet’s criticism of the ruling authorities, he harshly reproves the behavior of private individuals and families. Here he castigates the young women. The Lord said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, as they try to appear tall. Similar to the modern style of wearing high heels, these women seek to make themselves seem taller by walking in a particular manner, and they walk with outstretched necks and red and blue painted eyes, and they wink at people. Their eyes look in all directions and survey their surroundings, as though they are saying to all: Look at us. This is not a depiction of licentiousness, but of a superficial society, in which the women are focused on displays of fashion and compete among themselves as to who can wear finer clothing and impress people more. And instead of normal steps, they walk with a mincing gait, with small, dancing steps, as women do in many places in order to arouse men, and they strut their feet by moving them about in various ways.

Since these girls pride themselves on their pretty hair, the Lord will afflict the head of the daughters of Zion with scabs, skin diseases that damage the scalp as well as the hair, and the Lord will bare their private parts. The end result of these fashion processions and displays of beauty will be nakedness, bareness, emptiness, and loss.

On that day of their punishment, the Lord will remove the splendor of the anklets, the bonnets, cloths or decorations worn over the hair, and the crescents, perhaps earrings or other ornaments in the shape of a half-moon. Elsewhere it is stated that crescents were placed on the necks of camels of the kings of Midyan.

The necklaces [netifot],alternatively golden vessels in which nataf, stacte, a type of perfume, is placed, and the bracelets, or rings, and the veils, scarf-like coverings,

and the hats, and the armlets [vehatza’adot], which encompass the entire arm, like large rings. Some maintain that these are ornaments for the feet, as tza’ad means step. And the sashes, threads for tying the hair, or ties of sorts, and the lingerie, similar to modern bras. Some explain that these are not bras, but receptacles for fragrant perfumes. And the amulets, ornaments containing amulets and incantations,

the rings and the nose-rings,

the robes, the shawls, garments with which women would wrap themselves. According to one opinion, these shawls were small cloths for covering the head, and the kerchiefs, and the purses,

and the small hand mirrors,or belts, the linens, the turbans, and the decorative scarves.

Ultimately, nothing will remain of these feminine ornaments:It will be that instead of perfume there will be rot, and instead of a belt, a wound, or a blow. According to the Septuagint, this means a rope. And instead of curls, or styled hair, there will be baldness, and instead of an ornamented belt a sackcloth belt, for these will be what they deserve [ki] instead of beauty. Alternatively, this last phrase means: And a burn [keviya] instead of beauty.

And on a different note, your dead, Zion, will fall by the sword, and your mighty, the strength of your warriors, will fail in war.

The dwellers of its gates, of Zion, will lament and mourn, and it will be emptied [nikkata]. This also alludes to the idea that the city will be cleansed, from the word nikkayon, of sin when it is emptied, similar to the images of cleanliness in 4:4. And then Zion will sit on the ground. Sitting on the ground is an expression of the humiliation over, or the mourning for, the bleak state of Judah and Jerusalem upon the collapse of their splendor.

After the terrible downfall, few men will remain, as most will have been killed in war or by disease. Consequently, at that time, seven women, feeling lonely and vulnerable, will surround and grasp one man on that day, saying: We will eat our bread and we will wear our own clothing. We do not ask for anything from you, neither food nor clothing; just let us be called by your name. They will be prepared to forego entitlements typically due to wives, consenting to marriage under any conditions, just to maintain a reputation as married and respectable, that there will be some man in their lives. Relieve, or conceal, our disgrace. Remove from us the dishonor of such a lonely existence, which has a disgraceful past and offers no future.

The prophet now provides a prophecy of comfort for the remnant of Israel: On that day, the seedling of the Lord, the hope and salvation that God sprouts, will come into magnificence and glory, and the produce of the land, all that grows from the ground, will come into pride and splendor for the refugees of Israel.

It will be that it will be said of the remaining in Zion and the remnant in Jerusalem after its wicked have perished: Holy, for everyone who is written for life in Jerusalem. The reason they are called holy is that God will purify the world at that stage.

The prophet illustrates the above idea with a poetic, albeit harsh, metaphor: When the Lord will have washed away the excrement of the daughters of Zion, an image which has connotations of fatherhood, that God will wash away Israel’s dirt like a father taking care of his young children, and will have rinsed the blood of murder and crime in Jerusalem from its midst, with the spirit of judgment He will wash away the pollution of iniquity from Jerusalem, and with the spirit of eradication. A spirit of evaluative judgment will not suffice; it will also be necessary to eradicate the evil through severe punishments.

The Lord will create a cloud by day, as there was over the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and smoke and a glow of fire by night, just as the Divine Presence appeared to Israel in the wilderness in a pillar of fire. The glory of God will once again be revealed in Jerusalem, similar to when it appeared in the midst of the Israelite camp after the exodus from Egypt, but this time over the entire area of Mount Zion, the Temple Mount, and over all its environs [mikra’eha], the places near Zion, or the places where the nobles, the distinguished [keru’ei] of the congregation, would gather; for over all, honor will cover. The entire honor of Jerusalem will be covered and enwrapped in a canopy of cloud and fire, so that its greatness and importance will be evident to all.

These clouds will shield Jerusalem and it will be a shelter for shade by day from the heat, and for protection and refuge from storm and from rain. This shelter, which is the canopy of the previous verse, will protect Jerusalem by day and night, not only from attackers, but also from adverse weather.

Let me sing now about, or in honor of, my love, a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard. The beloved one is God, an expression of His closeness to man. My love had a vineyard in a fertile corner. Alternatively, this means a fertile mountaintop. Either way, the earth was high quality, although it seems that the vineyard was not particularly large.

The beloved performed all the necessary labors for his vineyard: He dug and tilled it, to rid it of large stones, he cleared it of those stones, and he planted it with a choice vine. Generally, a vineyard is not started by sowing grape seeds, but by planting a branch of a vine. And he built a tower in its midst, a guard post to guard the vineyard from looters, and he also hewed a winepress in it, for the production of wine. When all the work was completed and the preparations of the vineyard finished, he hoped to produce good grapes in the vineyard, but instead it produced debased ones.

The beloved, God, addresses the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah, who are represented in the parable by the vineyard itself: And now, inhabitant of Jerusalem and man of Judah, adjudicate, please, between Me and My disappointing vineyard.

What more is there to do for My vineyard, that I did not yet do in it? After all, I planted it in a choice location and I took care of it properly. It should have produced excellent fruit. Why, when I hoped to produce grapes, did it produce inedible ones?

And now, let Me please tell you what I am doing to My vineyard. You will witness My actions. Since the vineyard does not respond to good treatment, I will neglect it. I will remove its barrier and it will be for pasture, as beasts will enter the vineyard, and damage the vines and eat the fruit. I will breach its fence and it will be for trampling, by the feet of people or animals.

I will render it waste, an area of wild growth: It will not be pruned, a vineyard requires pruning every year for it to grow properly and produce fruit, and it will not be hoed. I will stop taking care of it, and consequently thorn and thistle will rise in it, and I will command the clouds not to pour rain upon it. The beloved, the owner of the vineyard, is not depicted as human in all regards. Rather, He has the power to ensure that no rain will fall on His vineyard.

The verses do not delve into all the details of the parable of the vineyard, but they do enough to illustrate the great disappointment of the beloved in the work of His hands. The prophet now clarifies the basic meaning of the parable. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are the plant of His delight; He hoped for justice [mishpat] from it, but behold, corruption [mispah·] and falsification; likewise, He hoped for righteousness [tzedaka], but behold, He hears only outcry [tze’aka]. Note the strong alliteration in these inverse parallels.

The prophet continues to reprove the inhabitants of Judah for their greed and lust: Woe! Those who join house to house, who would draw field close to field until there is no room. You build grand neighborhoods and fill them with houses, so that you all live in close quarters. Likewise, your fields are adjacent to one another in the best areas, you who are settled by yourselves in the midst of the land. You feel that you alone are worthy of living in the land, as though there is no room for anyone else among your fields and houses, and you act accordingly.

In my ears, I have heard, as it were, the Lord of hosts say: If many houses will not be for desolation. This is an oath, meaning that the houses will be desolate. And the great and excellent houses will be without inhabitant. The prophet describes an avaricious society, steeped in the pursuit of property and status. People are crowded because each one tries to snatch the best place for himself. He informs them that regardless of all their efforts, their end will be desolation and emptiness.

For ten sections of vineyard will yield one flask, a measurement of liquid volume. In other words, a large area of land will produce a relatively minuscule amount of wine. And an area of land fit for sowing a homer of wheat seed will only yield an ephah.

The prophet’s criticism of the people becomes even more scathing: Woe! Those who rise early in the morning, not for any positive pursuit or to study Torah, but rather, to pursue intoxicating drink. They awake from their sleep in order to start drinking early and to seek alcoholic beverages. They are also those who tarry late; wine inflames them. They are only interested in wine, both when they go to bed and when they arise.

Harp and lyre, drum and flute and wine are their banquets. They hold drinking parties with musical accompaniment, but they will not regard the work of the Lord and they did not see the work of His hands, as they care for nothing apart from their revelries, which are at the center of their lives.

Therefore, My people is exiled for lack of knowledge. Eventually, this lustful, covetous people will go into exile, because they are not occupied with the knowledge of God or any useful intellectual pursuit. And its honorable, wealthy men are to be victims of famine, and its multitude is to be parched with thirst.

Therefore, the netherworld has broadened itself. Hell and all forces of darkness and ruin no longer remain confined within their normal boundaries; rather, they are growing and widening. And the netherworld has opened its mouth without measure. In ordinary times, a certain number of people descend to the netherworld, whereas now the extent of the destruction keeps expanding until it swallows everything. This is an unusually forceful image. And down to the netherworld will go its magnificence, of the land or the city, its multitudes of inhabitants and its commotion, and those who rejoice in it, those who once made merry there.

People will bow, a man will be humbled, people will be bent over and humiliated, and the eyes of the haughty will be humbled when they see the surrounding ruin.

But the Lord of hosts will be elevated over all through His imposition of justice, and the Holy God will be sanctified through His righteousness [tzedaka] and strength. The term tzedaka, righteousness, does not refer to charitable giving, as it often does in rabbinic Hebrew. Rather, it is a quality of God, to whom righteousness and power belong. This is the common meaning of the term in Isaiah and elsewhere in the Bible.

When the netherworld rises and destroys the country, its houses and commotion will disappear, and the sheep will graze in the formerly bustling, merry city, as though they are in their pasture, and strangers will eat that which they find in the ruins of the houses of the rich and succulent.

Woe! Those who pull iniquity with cords of the pointlessness of pursuing fleeting pleasures. Such people do not sin unwittingly. They are greedy and lack conscience and a sense of responsibility. The prophet metaphorically depicts them as tying their iniquity with cords, with which they drag it along so that they can continue transgressing. And they draw their sin as with the thick rope of a wagon. Alternatively, their sin thickens and drags them like strong ropes pulling a wagon.

Who say, in cynical mockery: Let Him hurry, let Him hasten His action, so that we will see it. We are waiting to see when this prophecy will finally happen, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel approach and be realized, and then we will know it. They are apathetic and do not believe that the prophecy will come to pass.

Woe! Those who say of evil that it is good, and of good that it is evil; they render darkness into light and light into darkness; they render bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter. They construct a society and culture based on an ideology of reversal of values, of corruption and evil, in which deeds are performed improperly and unnaturally. Instead of good-quality grapes, a society that holds firm to fundamental values, the grapes are sour; society cannot rightly distinguish between good and evil, light and darkness, and bitter and sweet.

Woe! Those who are wise in their own eyes, and who are immensely clever in their own view; in their own opinions, they consider themselves to be illustrious intellectuals.

Woe! The valiant to drink wine, their might is expressed in their ability to imbibe wine, and through being capable men to mix intoxicating drink properly.

Alongside their material ambitions and enthusiasm for cuisine, in the social realm these are people who vindicate the wicked following a bribe they have received, and remove the innocence of the righteous from him. The upright suffer from the obtuseness of such authority figures.

Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw and as a flame destroys chaff and the husks of produce, so will their root will be as rot, and their blossom, that which should have blossomed and grown, will rise and vanish as dust, for they spurned the Torah of the Lord of hosts and scorned the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore this entire country will be punished, as the wrath of the Lord was enflamed against His people, and He outstretched His hand against it and smote it, and the mountains quaked from that strike. Their corpses were thrown like refuse in the middle of the streets of the city. Nevertheless, His wrath is not withdrawn and His hand remains outstretched to punish them further.

The next punishment will come from a distant place: He will raise a standard, a banner, to the nations to gather from afar, and will whistle to him, the enemy, from the ends of the earth, and behold, he will come quickly and speedily, with ease and alacrity.

None are weary or stumbling among him; he does not slumber or sleep, and the belt on his waist is not opened and the lace of his shoes is not severed. The enemy army will be organized and professional.

Furthermore, it will be an active army, whose arrows are sharpened and all his bows drawn and ready. Even the hooves of his horses are accounted an enemy, as the horses are trained to kick and crush people. This ability renders their hooves an enemy in their own right. And his wheels of his war chariots will be fast and strong, capable of trampling, and inflicting harm like a storm.

He has a roar like a lion; he roars like young lions; he will roar and seize prey and let it escape [yaflit]. Alternatively, yaflit means that he will eject. Even if something or someone is ejected from the lion’s mouth, that is a chance occurrence, but generally there is no rescuer, nothing will escape its clutches.

He will roar against it on that day like the roar of the sea. The enemy will wash away everything like the waves of the sea. One will look to the land and behold, darkness, distress, and the light darkened in its skies [arifeha]. Arifeha is similar to aravot, which is a name for heaven. Alternatively, arifeha means “its clouds,” like arafel, “fog.”

In the year of the death of King Uziyahu, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, and His mantle’s hem filled the Sanctuary. Isaiah may have seen God’s Presence residing in the Temple, or possibly the Sanctuary appeared in the vision as part of the background, with the divine throne rising above it.

Seraphim were standing above Him to serve Him, each seraph had six wings; with two wings it would cover its face so it would not be able to see, with two wings it would cover its legs so that they would not be seen, and with two wings it would fly to perform its mission.

And this one seraph called to that other one, and the latter said after him: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; that which fills the entire world is His glory. Each one called out in a manner unique to him, and all of them joined together in harmony.

The doorposts of the Sanctuary’s entrance moved and shook at the voice of the caller and the house filled with smoke, representing the Divine Presence,

and when I saw this, I said: Woe is me, for I am silenced, or: I am doomed, for I am a man of impure lips and I live in the midst of a people of impure lips, and I am unworthy to see visions of God; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. As a prophet, Isaiah was keenly aware of his own imperfection and felt unworthy to speak of God or to speak in His name, all the more so to experience such an explicit vision of Him.

One of the seraphim attending God in the Temple flew to me, and in his hand there was a coal; he took it from upon the altar in the Temple Courtyard with tongs.

He touched it, the coal, to my mouth, and he said: Behold, this has touched your lips, and by its extreme heat, it has purified you: Your iniquity is removed and your sin atoned.

I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom will I send, and who will go to speak the words of the prophecy to the people for us? I said: Here I am, ready for the mission. Send me.

He said: Go, tell this people: You may be able to hear a message, but it does not matter because you do not understand it; perhaps you can see a sight, but it does not matter because you do not comprehend its meaning. Rather, the people were warned so that they would recall the warning sometime later.

Speak, and bloat the heart of this people, so that it will be imperceptive to nuances; encumber its ears, so that it will not absorb the message; and stop up its eyes so that it will not see correctly, lest it see with its eyes and hear with its ears, and then its heart will understand, and then, in turn, it will repent and be healed. It is necessary to ensure that the prophecy will not have any effect on them, lest they all be spiritually healed.

I said: Until when must I warn them of the terrible future without anyone heeding my words, my Lord? He answered: Until the cities are devastated without remaining inhabitant, houses will lie empty without a person, and the land itself will be devastated to desolation,

and the Lord will banish man from his abode, and the forsaken will be many in the midst of the land.

And after all of this, there will still be a tenth of the population remaining in it, the land, who will be willing to listen. Some interpret this statement as a prophecy concerning the situation in Judah during the days of King Hizkiyahu, when Sennacherib conquered all the cities of Judah except Jerusalem, and the majority of the Judean population was wiped out. And it, the remainder of the population, shall continue to be subject to elimination, like the mighty terebinth and like the leafy oak,when their leaves fall in the autumn and only their bare trunk remains. The prophecy concludes on an encouraging note: The holy descendants will be its trunk. The people who will ultimately survive will be holy. They will have endured everything that was necessary, and they will not fall into decline again.

It was in the days of Ahaz, son of Yotam, son of Uziyahu, king of Judah, by which time Isaiah had already been a prophet for years, since his career began during Uziyahu’s reign, that Retzin king of Aram, and Pekah son of Remalyahu, the last powerful king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem in war against it, but he could not conquer it. Pekah sought to overturn the Davidic dynasty in Judah and allied himself with Israel’s traditional enemy, Aram.

It was told to the house of David, the Judean royal family, saying: Aram has allied [naha] with Ephraim. This was an unusual and threatening turn of events, for even without the addition of the large Aramean army, the Kingdom of Israel, which was larger than the Kingdom of Judah in both size and population, could itself muster an army greater than Judah’s. Therefore, when the king of Judah heard this, his heart and his people’s heart trembled, like the trembling of the trees of the forest from the wind.

The Lord said to Isaiah: Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and She’ar Yashuv your son. This She’ar Yashuv, whose name literally means “a remnant will return,” was probably Isaiah’s actual son, and not one of his disciples. Go to the end of the channel of the upper pool, on the path of the launderer’s [koves] field.

Say to him: Take care and be calm in the knowledge that you are safe; do not fear, and let your heart not be faint from the threat of these two smoldering butts of wooden firebrands used to stoke the fire, from the enflamed wrath of Retzin and the armies of Aram, and Pekah the son of Remalyahu. They may appear to you as flaming torches, but they are no more than stubs whose flame is about to go out and whose smoke is harmless.

Because Aram plotted evil against you, along with Ephraim and the son of Remalyahu, saying:

Let us go up against Judah, sunder it, and breach it for ourselves. We will crown a king in its midst, the son of Tave’al.Pekah attempted to depose the Davidic dynasty, something which had not been attempted for many generations, and to this end, he made a pact with Aram, the perpetual enemy of Israel.

So said the Lord God: It, their plot, will not stand and it will not be. You should not fear them or their plans, as they are out of touch with reality.

The prophet describes the future without regard to results of the current war: For at the head of the kingdom of Aram is Damascus and at the head of Damascus is King Retzin, and in sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken, no longer being a people, and Damascus will no longer hold any power.

And at the head of Ephraim is the city of Samaria, and at the head of Samaria is Pekah the son of Remalyahu. Isaiah addressed the people, saying: If you do not have faith in this prophecy, it is because you yourselves are not faithful,nd you make yourselves untrustworthy.

The Lord continued speaking to Ahaz, by means of Isaiah, saying:

Request a miraculous sign for yourself from the Lord your God in order to prove the truth of this prophecy. Deepen your request, or raise it above by asking for something truly unpredictable and unlikely.

Ahaz said: I will not ask and I will not try the Lord.

He, Isaiah, said: Hear now, house of David: Is it not enough for you to weary people, that you weary my God as well? Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, in the manner of one who does not wish to burden his friend. Isaiah therefore responded mockingly: You act like a well-mannered person who does not wish to burden God; do not be afraid do so.

Therefore, since you will not ask for a sign, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the young woman [alma], the prophet’s wife, will conceive and bear a son, and she will symbolically call his name Imanuel, which means “God is with us,” the plural indicating that the child represents the entire Kingdom of Judah.

He will eat butter and honey, to teach him to spurn the bad and choose the good, having reached an age when he can differentiate between them. Very young children put everything they can into their mouths, and only when they are somewhat older do they learn to discriminate. The description of these specific foods may indicate that the child will grow up surrounded by opulence (see verse 22).

For before the newborn child will be able to grow and begin to eat of the land’s goodness and know to spurn the bad and choose the good, the land that you abhor will be abandoned due to its two kings.

Moreover, while the kings of Israel and Aram appear at the moment to be mighty and intimidating, a far greater threat looms in the near future. The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house days of trouble that have not come since the day of the secession of Ephraim and the other northern tribes from the Kingdom of Judah: the arrival of the king of Assyria and his hordes. This time, however, Ephraim’s kingdom will be overcome.

It shall be on that day that the Lord will whistle for the fly that is at the edge of the rivers of Egypt, which possibly alludes to a certain division of the Egyptian army, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.The armies of these great empires will be summoned to the Land of Israel.

They will all come and alight in the partially desolate ravines and in the crevices in the rocks, and on all the thorns and on all the wild bushes. They will fill the entire land.

Despite the fact that the Assyrians will arrive with a mighty army, on that day the Lord will shave with the great razor, or with a rented razor, which was kept extremely sharp by its owners, those people from across the Euphrates River, together with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the legs, and it will also remove the beard. The king of Assyria will depart from the land shorn of those who accompanied him, as his forces will be completely decimated.

It shall be on that day, the situation will not appear to be one of prosperity: each man will maintain a young cow and two sheep, but no other possessions.

Nevertheless, it will be that from the abundance of milk production, he will eat butter, even though butter production requires large quantities of milk, since the butterfat is separated from the rest of the milk. For everyone who remains in the midst of the land will eat butter and honey and enjoy the bounty.

It shall be on that day, every place where there had been a thousand vines worth a thousand silver pieces will be transformed into a place for the thorn and for the thistle.

Armed with arrows and with a bow one will come there, as the entire land will become thorn and thistle and he will need to protect himself from all of the wild animals that will inhabit the deserted areas.

And yet in all the hills that are hoed with a hoe, the fear of thorn and thistle will not come there. Vines are usually cultivated in the plains or on low hills, where it is possible to plow. Higher, steeper rocky hills cannot be plowed and their soil needs to be tilled with a hoe. Consequently, thorns do not grow there, and therefore it, the steep rocky land, will be a pasture for oxen and a range for sheep.

The Lord said to me: Take for yourself a large scroll, and write a cryptic inscription on it with a common stylus used to engrave stone or metals or, a scribe’s pen. Alternatively, the prophet was told to write very clearly on a broad surface: To hasten spoils; quicken loot. Spoils will be taken hastily, and loot will be taken quickly and with ease.

I had trustworthy witnesses testify for me: Uriya the priest and Zekharyahu son of Yeverekhyahu. They were apparently the witnesses to Isaiah’s marriage. Alternatively, this is a continuation of God’s instruction, namely that He calls upon these men to sign on the writing of the previous verse. Although the midrashim identify these witnesses with men who lived in later generations, Uriya the priest being Uriya the prophet mentioned in the book of Jeremiah, and Zekharyahu being Zechariah the prophet of the early Second Temple period, according to the plain meaning of the text, this seems unlikely.

I intimately approached the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. The Lord said to me: Call his name Maher Shalal Hash Baz, which means “hasten spoils, quicken loot.” Like his brother Imanuel (7:14), this child was named in anticipation of a future event. According to Rashi, however, this is the same child, and the mother was to name him Imanuel, while Isaiah was to give him this name.

For before the child knows to call: My father and my mother, which are usually among a child’s first words, he, the looter, will carry away and present the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of Assyria, fulfilling the prophecy encoded in the child’s name.

Isaiah returns to address the threat posed by the alliance between Aram and the Kingdom of Israel: The Lord continued speaking to me again concerning political matters, saying:

Because this people spurned the waters of the Shilo’ah that flow slowly, symbolizing the calm and patience that were characteristic of the kings of Judah, and they rejoice with Retzin and with the son of Remalyahu, desiring their reign,

therefore, behold, instead of allowing them to be flooded by the small rivers of Amana and Parpar that flow near Damascus, symbolizing the rule of Retzin, the Lord is raising the mighty and abundant waters of the Tigris River upon them, symbolizing the king of Assyria and all his glory, and it will rise over all its figurative channels and flow over all its banks.

He, the Assyrian king, will traverse also through Judah, surge and pass through; he, his floodwaters will reach the people’s neck.Having likened the Assyrian king’s armies to the floodwaters of the Tigris, the prophet now likens them to a predatory bird: His wingspan will be the full breadth of your land, Imanuel. Isaiah turns to his young son, whose name symbolizes hope, saying: The Assyrian army will spread throughout the breadth of the land.

Tremble and founder, peoples, like an unstable building, and be dismayed; listen, all distant lands. Gird yourselves with valor and be dismayed, gird yourselves and be dismayed. Even if you endeavor to be brave, you will break down in fear, as for the first time you will be confronted with a threat far greater than one posed by local raiders: The conquering forces of an empire. Your resistance will be futile.

Take counsel and it will be negated; speak a matter and it will not stand, as God is with us [ki imanu El]. The prophet alludes to a further implication of the first child’s name, Imanuel: By the time he grows up, the land will be free from its enemies and perhaps he will see better days.

For so said the Lord to me with a strong hand, with harsh words, and unlike other divine messages received until then. According to a tradition of the Sages, Isaiah was of royal birth and was close to the royal court, and had political influence. The verse here therefore presents an exceptional prohibition: God spoke harshly, admonishing me to not walk in the path of this people and get involved in their politics, saying:

Do not say: Conspiracy, about anything that this people say is a conspiracy. Do not endorse any organized attempt among the people to rebel against the king. It is possible that this prophecy refers to Reztin and Pekah’s attempts to topple the leadership of Judah and to set others on its throne. And do not fear what it is that they fear, and do not deem it powerful. Stay out of their petty politics.

Rather, the Lord of hosts, Him you shall sanctify and He you shall revere, and He provides you with power, causing you to be fearsome in the eyes of others.

He will be a Sanctuary and a refuge for you, and conversely, He will be a striking stone and a rocky obstruction for the two houses of Israel, the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, to trip over. He will be a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The relationship with God can go both ways.

Many will stumble over them, over the snare and trap. They will fall and be broken, and they will be trapped and captured.

A prophet is not meant to concern himself with insignificant politics but with God’s Temple. He is therefore commanded: Bind up the testimony and protect it; seal the words of the Torah and your prophecies in the hearts of My disciples.

The prophet responds to the command to guard the Torah: I will wait for the Lord, who currently conceals His face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope for Him.

Behold, I and the children with symbolic names whom the Lord gave me, Imanuel, She’ar Yashuv, and Maher Shalal Hash Baz, are to become signs and wonders in Israel, from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion and who brings the prophecy to fulfillment. As each child comes of age, another prophetic milestone will be reached.

And when they will say to you: If you wish to know the future, seek the mediums and the oracles who claim to be able to speak to the dead, and who chirp and coo, speaking in unnatural ways to convey the impression that they are in contact with another plane, then shouldn’t a chosen people seek their true and living God? Instead, you set out, on behalf of the living, to seek the dead! The inhabitants of Judah heard their enemies’ threats, but did not seek comfort and solace from the prophets, because they did not trust them, and instead turned to sorcerers, which exacerbated their distress.

The prophet takes an oath: By the Torah and by the testimony! Surely, they will talk of this matter of heeding the counsel of the mediums, a meaningless notion that has no dawning and arises only from a vague and unclear perception of reality.

The prophet continues to describe the future events in the land of Judah: The troubled and the hungry will pass through it, and it shall be, when he is hungry, he will become angry, and he will curse his king and his false gods for not fulfilling his requests. Faith in false gods depends on results. When a person turns to them and they naturally are no help, he will then turn to Above.

If instead of looking heavenward he will look to the land, and behold, trouble and darkness, the weariness of distress, and he will be driven into blackness. He will find that the land is entirely a place of suffering, distress, and darkness.

For there is no weariness for he, the enemy, who distresses it, the land. The first time the Assyrian conqueror invaded, he was lenient to the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the territories he managed to subdue, but in the latter invasion he dealt severely to the way of the sea, the coastal route from the north of Syria to Egypt known as the Via Maris, to the land beyond the Jordan, and to the district of the nations.

The people that walk in darkness have seen a great light; inhabitants of the land of the shadow of death, light shone upon them.

You elevated the nation; You increased its joy. Success and fortune do not always bring greater joy, but in this case, they rejoiced before You like during the harvest celebration. In contrast to the time of sowing, which is accompanied by worry and uncertainty, the harvest of the crop is accompanied by joy and song. The harvest is like when they, the nation, would revel in their division of the spoils of war.

For those who were to Judah as the yoke of its burden and the bar on its shoulder, treating Judah as a beast of burden, and those who are like the rod that oppresses it, You have broken them like You broke the enemy on the day of Gideon’s victory over Midyan.

For every boot [se’on] stamps noisily, and a person’s upper garment is rolled, covered, in the blood of war, and it will become a conflagration, fuel for a fire. The victors will burn all their battle gear that will be unfit for further use.

For a child is born to us, a son is given to us, and the authority will be placed on his shoulders. This may refer to yet another auspiciously named son who would be born to Isaiah, or it may refer to a son who would be born to the royal family. Alternatively, this prophecy may apply to the distant future. He will call his name a long string of honorific titles befitting a great leader and hero: Wondrous Advisor, Mighty One, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

His task will be to make potent the authority of his office and for there to be unending peace when a new king sits on the throne of David and in his kingdom, to establish it, the kingdom, and to support it with justice and with righteousness from now and forever; the zealotry of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this, as He will exact revenge from those who demean Zion.

This is a prophecy that was more pertinent to Isaiah’s era: The Lord sent a word of prophecy in Jacob, and it was received and became known in Israel.

The entire people will know, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say with pride and with arrogance of heart:

Structures made of bricks have fallen and yet we will build new houses with hewn stone; sycamores, which were relatively cheap, have been felled and we will replace them with cedars.

The Lord elevated and strengthened the adversaries of Retzin over him, and He will rouse his, Retzin’s, enemies against him. Alternatively, this latter phrase means that God will rouse Israel’s enemies against Israel. The Kingdom of Israel relied on Retzin’s aid to stand up to its enemies, but Retzin would be occupied with his own enemies and unable to send aid to Israel.

Aram came from the north-east, and the Philistines came from the west, and they consumed Israel with each mouth. Nevertheless, His wrath is not withdrawn, and His hand is still outstretched to smite them. The calamities and defeats have not ended.

But the people of Israel did not respond appropriately to what befell them: They did not return to the One who smites them, and they did not seek the Lord of hosts. They should have considered that these were not chance occurrences, but acts of divine providence, and that it was God who smote them so that they should repent.

The Lord eliminated both the head, the leaders, and the tail, the common people, compared to the treetop and bulrush, respectively, from Israel. They will all perish in one day.

The prophet explains the metaphors: The elder and esteemed, he is the head, and a prophet teaching falsehood, he is the tail. Both the sages, the leaders of the people, and the false prophets will perish.

The leaders of this people, who are supposed to guide them on the right and true path, mislead, and those whom they lead are confused and corrupted.

Therefore, the Lord will not rejoice over their young men; rather, He will punish them, and He will not pity their orphans and their widows, as it is all hypocrisy and evildoing, and every mouth speaks depravity. The calamities that will befall Israel and Judah will come as punishment for their sins. Nevertheless, His wrath is not withdrawn and His hand is still outstretched, as the people do not take these matters to heart.

For wickedness burns like a destructive fire: It first consumes thorn and thistle, but subsequently it ignites the thickets of the forest, and ultimately they will all be burned and rise in a column of smoke.

In the anger of the Lord of hosts, the land is displaced, the people are as the fuel of fire; no one will have compassion for his brother.

One snatches and devours people on the right, and still he is hungry; one eats on the left, but even when the people smite each other left and right and devour each other, they are still not sated. Ultimately, each man will eat the flesh of his own arm.

Concerning the political situation, Manasseh is against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manasseh; together, they are against Judah. Even before the king of Assyria invaded the land, it was mired in strife and internal battles. The kingdom of Samaria was swiftly falling into decline, and Judah was punished together with it. People felt that their actions were improper but they continued in their ways. Nevertheless, His wrath is not withdrawn and His hand is still outstretched. God has not finished reckoning with them.

Woe! The engravers of evil inscriptions and writers who write suffering. Laws and statues were often engraved on stone tablets which could endure for a long period of time. The prophet laments the fact that the laws and statutes engraved and recorded in other ways perpetuated crimes and iniquities.

These laws served to divert the destitute from equity, and to rob the poor of My people of their justice. Theft, robbery, and exploitation were performed not by forcefully taking others’ property, but by means of legislation that sanctioned despicable actions. Widows would be their spoils, and they would plunder orphans. The neediest ended up losing the most due the corrupt system of laws.

And what will you do on the day of reckoning, when God will reckon with you for your sins, and when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your glory, your property or your lives? You act out of the assumption that there is no judge and that no judgment will be meted out. What will you do when the time of judgment arrives?

You can only kneel under the yoke of the prisoners who will rule over you, and they, your lives, will fall beneath the slain. Nevertheless, His wrath is not withdrawn and His hand is still outstretched. Despite suffering punishment after punishment, they continue on their evil path, and therefore their punishment will also continue.

God addresses the enemy: Woe! Assyria is the rod of My wrath, and My fury is a staff in their hand. God administers judgment through the actions of Assyria’s king.

Against a hypocritical and lying nation, I will send him, the king of Assyria, and against the people of My wrath I will command him, to plunder spoils and to take loot, and to set them to be tread upon like the mire of the streets.

However, he, the king of Assyria, does not imagine so and his heart does not think so, that he is God’s emissary to punish the sinners, for it is in his heart to destroy, and to eliminate not a few nations. He believes he engages in warfare for the sake of his own greatness.

For he, the king of Assyria, says: Are not all my princes together, kings? Each prince was sent to a different district, where he ruled with the authority of a local king.

Is Kalno, elsewhere called Kalne, not like Karkemish,a city in northern Syria that was conquered by the Assyrians? Is Hamat, in the northernmost region of the Land of Israel, not like Arpad, another city in northern Syria that was conquered by the Assyrians? Is Samaria not like Damascus, which had already been conquered?

For my hand has reached the kingdoms of the gods and their idols are more numerous and greater than those of Jerusalem and greater than Samaria’s. Assyria conquered one kingdom after another and the gods of each one did not avail them. A similar boast was made by the emissary of the king of Assyria (36:13–20).

Will it not be the case that just as I did to Samaria and its gods, so I will do to Jerusalem and its effigies? The Assyrian king does not refer to the One God of Israel and assumes that the inhabitants of Jerusalem are also idol worshippers, even if in private and only partially.

God responds: It will be that when the Lord implements His entire work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem by punishing the inhabitants of Jerusalem for their transgressions, I will reckon with the fruit of the arrogance of the heart of the king of Assyria and the splendor of his haughty eyes, and he will be punished for his arrogant perception of himself as the world’s overlord.

For he, the king of Assyria, said: I have succeeded in all this with the strength of my hand and with my wisdom, as I have been clever; I have removed the borders of the peoples and plundered their treasures, and I have taken down mighty inhabitants.

My hand has found the riches of the peoples like a nest, and like gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered the entire world. The Assyrians easily conquered numerous cities, collecting conquests as though they were eggs clustered in a nest or abandoned, and there was no one mother bird showing her objection by flapping a wing, or opening a mouth, or chirping. No one could stand against the Assyrian juggernaut.

The prophet chastises Assyria: Does the axe boast over he who chops with it? Does the saw exalt itself over he who wields it? It is as though a rod would wield itself and those who lift it; as though a staff would lift itself like it was not wood. Assyria is but a tool in God’s hands, yet its king ascribes all of his success to himself.

Therefore, the Lord, Lord of hosts, will send leanness among his fattened ones, and instead of his glory, a burning will ignite like the burning of fire.

And the Light of Israel, its God, shall be a fire and his Holy One will be a flame, and it will burn and consume his, the Assyrian king’s, thorn and thistle, all that he has, very quickly and in one day.

The glory of his forest and his farmland, from soul to flesh, will be annihilated, and it shall be as if it was consumed by a worm.

The remaining trees of his forest will be numbered, and they will be so few that even a child will be able to record them.

The prophecy contains a modicum of consolation: It shall be on that day that the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer continue to rely on their attacker and place their trust in the superpower that oppresses them, but they will rely upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.

A remnant will return [she’ar yashuv], the remnant of Jacob, to God the Mighty [El Gibor]. This prophecy once again references the portentous names of the prophet’s sons (see 7:3, 9:5).

For even if your people, Israel, will be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of it will return [she’ar yashuv], as annihilation is decreed for them, and the bulk of the people will be swept away in justice. Alternatively, the verse may mean not that a remnant will return, but that even the remnant of Israel will perish, as the prophet states elsewhere (see 6:13).

For annihilation that is decreed, the Lord, God of hosts, enacts in the midst of the entire land.

Therefore, so said the Lord, God of hosts: Do not fear Assyria, My people that inhabits Zion; with the rod he, Assyria, will strike you, and he will raise his staff against you to assault you, in the manner of Egypt. Assyria was striking Judah as the Egyptians had. Alternatively, the verse may be rendered: He will raise his staff against you on the way to Egypt. The Assyrians were en route to attack Egypt, but on their way they passed through the Land of Israel and attacked Judah.

For in a very little while, the time of My fury against you will cease, and then My wrath will be turned against the Assyrians for their depravity and their immoral actions.

The Lord of hosts will goad him with a whip, as at the smiting of Midyan at the rock of Orev when Gideon fought them; His staff is over the sea, like it had been set over the Red Sea following the Exodus, and He will bear him in the manner of Egypt. God will agitate Assyria and destroy its might, as He did to Egypt.

It shall be on that day, that his burden will depart from upon your shoulder, Judah, and his yoke will be removed from upon your neck; and the yoke will be damaged from the fat of those on whom it had rested, in contrary to the natural way, where the fat of the neck is damaged by the yoke.

Before Sennacherib sent his army to Jerusalem he first had them subdue the surrounding cities. The prophet describes the towns north of Jerusalem taken easily by the Assyrian king: He came to Ayat; he passed through Migron. At Mikhmashe deposits his baggage.

They passed over [averu] the pass [ma’bara]. Alternately, this is the name of a place, Ma’bara, and the previous verb, averu, is a play on words. Geva, south of Mikhmas, is a lodging place where they stayed. Ramatrembled before the Assyrians; Givat Shaul fled.

Raise your voice in warning, daughter of Galim. Listen, Layish; poor Anatot!The inhabitants of these places fled from the Assyrians.

Madmenah wandered [nadeda] away. Once again, the prophet utilizes alliteration, relating the place’s name with its misfortune. The inhabitants of Gevim gathered their flocks and fled to safety. The exact locations of these towns are unknown to us.

Even today he, the king of Assyria, will come and stand at Nov; having conquered all these cities, he will wave his hand at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

Behold, the Master, the Lord of hosts, will lop off the boughs with a saw, and those of elevated stature will be felled, and the lofty will be lowered.

The thickets of the forest will be cut with iron, and the Lebanon will fall by a mighty one.The entire forest, which represents the might of the Assyrians, will swiftly be trampled and destroyed.

A branch will emerge from the trunk of Yishai, and a shoot will grow from its roots. This description relates to a tree such as a date palm, whose branches and shoots are used to propagate new trees. Israel’s redeemer will belong to the house of David, but he will not necessarily be a direct descendant of the monarch who reigned in Isaiah’s time.

He will be a remarkable man, as the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, with the following qualities: A spirit of wisdom and understanding, intellectual ability, a spirit of counsel and valor, more practical virtues, like leadership and the courage to face his enemies; a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, the proper attitude toward worldly matters.

He will be infused [vaharih]· with the fear of the Lord. The word vahariĥo can mean he will smell. Some explain that by virtue of his fear of God, he will be able to metaphorically smell whether one is innocent or guilty; that is, to intuit the truth. Not by the sight of his eyes will he judge, and not by the hearing of his ears will he decide; he will not require testimony or deliberation, as he will immediately know with whom lies the truth.

He will provide justice for the impoverished and downtrodden, and with probity will guide the meek of the land. Nevertheless, he will smite the land with the rod of his mouth. Should it become necessary to impose punishment or wage war, he will be able to smite the land with his mouth alone, and with only the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. He will need no weapons; the strength of his spirit will suffice.

Justice will be the belt of his waist, and faith the belt of his loins. A belt was typically one of the royal garments. Metaphorically, the Messiah will gird himself with justice and faith, and they will be the source of his strength.

The Messianic Era will be characterized by universal peace and tranquility: The wolf will reside with the sheep, and the leopard will lie down with the kid; calf, young lion, and fatling, a large and fattened bull, will be together. Predators will live peacefully alongside their prey, and even a small lad will be able to lead them, as the handling of lions and leopards will require no more competence than the tending of sheep.

Cow and bear will graze alongside one another; together their young, the calves and the cubs, will lie down. A lion will cease to prey on other animals, and like the ox, will eat straw and grass.

A nursing child will play on the hole of a venomous cobra, and on the lair of a viper the weanling will extend his hand, because in messianic times, these snakes will cease to be dangerous.

They will not cause harm and they will not destroy throughout My sacred mountain, for the earth will be filled with knowledge of the Lord, as the water covers the floor of the sea. Just as water covers the seabed and fills its depressions and hollows, so too, the knowledge of God will fill the world and all its creatures. This will effect dramatic change in the world, which will be expressed as perfect harmony.

It shall be on that day: The one who will descend from the familial root of Yishai, which stands as a banner of the peoples, to him will nations appeal. The nations will seek him out on their own and obey him; he will not have to impose his views on them (see 42:4, 51:5). And his resting place will be glorious.

It shall be on that day that the Lord will continue, setting His mighty hand a second time to acquire for Himself the remnant of His people, by gathering together those that will remain from Assyria, from Egypt, from Patros, from Kush, from Elam, from Shinar, and from Hamat, and from the islands of the sea.The people of Israel will be gathered from the four corners of the earth.

He will raise a banner for the nations, and He will gather the outcasts of Israel. The nations will acknowledge the raising of the redeemer’s banner, which will be a call for the ingathering of Israel from among the nations. He will assemble the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

The jealousy of those who fight against Ephraim will cease and the enemies and persecutors of Judah, from within and without, will be eliminated. Ephraim will not envy Judah and Judah will not persecute Ephraim. The discord that prevailed between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel for so long will ultimately transform into friendship.

Ephraim and Judah will defeat their common enemies together: They will fly shoulder to shoulder to fight against their common enemy, the Philistines, to the west. Such cooperation was rare between the two kingdoms. Together they will plunder the people of the East. Edom and Moav will be in their power, to do with them as they please; and they will impose their discipline over the children of Amon.

Moreover, the Lord will destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and He will wave His hand over the river, the Euphrates, with the power and might of His wind. He will strike the river so that it will split into seven streams, and this will effectively dry it up so that it will be passable in shoes, that is, on foot.

There will be a highway for the remnant of His people that will remain from Assyria, as there was for Israel on the day of its ascent from the land of Egypt. Just as Israel’s path out of Egypt was smooth and free of all hindrances, so will be the path taken by the redeemed of Israel when they return from the lands to which Assyria has exiled them.

You will say on that day, the day of the Redemption: I thank You, Lord, although You were angry with me and You poured Your wrath upon me in the past. Now, let Your wrath subside, and may You comfort me. Alternatively, on that day, Israel will thank God that He was angry with them, as they will recognize that even their suffering throughout the generations was for the good.

Here is the God of my salvation, and therefore I will trust and will not fear, as my strength and song [zimerat] is God the Lord; alternatively, strength and the pruning away [zemira] of evil are God’s, and He has been my salvation. Almost identical and equally unclear verses appears in Exodus (15:2) and in Psalms (118:14).

You will draw water with gladness from the springs of salvation. Whether the reference here is to material blessing and prosperity, or to knowledge of God and His Torah, salvation will reach the returnees like flowing water, and they will rejoice at this.

You will say on that day: Thank the Lord, proclaim His name, announce among all the peoples His actions; declare that His name is exalted and strengthened in the world.

Sing to the Lord, as He has performed grandeur. His actions demonstrate His strength and greatness over all, and this is known in the entire land.

Shout and sing, inhabitant of Zion, as the Holy One of Israel is great in your midst. God is coming to you, and His glory and praise will become enhanced through you.

The prophecy [masa] of Babylon that Isaiah son of Amotz envisioned. The term masa, literally “burden,” expresses the seriousness with which the prophet related to his prophecy.

Hoist a banner or some other sign on a steep and pointed mountain; raise a voice to them, the Babylonians. Wave a hand, and have them enter through the entrances of the nobles. The prophet employs an ironic scenario of invitation and reception: Prepare for their arrival, as they are soon to stand at your gates. Perhaps you have not invited them willingly, nor will they come on particularly friendly terms, but they are nevertheless approaching.

I have commanded My consecrated ones, the Babylonians, whom I appointed for this task; I have also called My mighty ones for the purpose of pouring out My anger, and I called to the revelers who rejoice in My grandeur, the grandeur that they acquired because of Me.

The sound of a horde is on the mountains, resembling a great number of people that will arrive here; the din of kingdoms of the nations, gathering. The Lord of hosts commands an army in war. Although the kingdom of Assyria was known and recognized as a great military power, the Babylonian forces that will arrive after them will be even stronger and better organized.

Other nations will join them: They will come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the Lord and the weapons of His fury. These nations that will come from distant lands are the manifestation of God’s fury, and they are coming to destroy the entire earth.

Wail, all you conquered nations, as the day of the Lord is near; like depredation from the awesome power of the Almighty it will come.

Therefore, all hands will slacken when the enemy arrives, and every mortal heart will melt.

They will all panic; pangs and throes will seize them; they will tremble like a woman in childbirth. Each man will wonder to his neighbor: Their faces, of these enemies, are faces of flames.

Behold, the day of the Lord is coming; it is cruel, with anger and enflamed wrath. It will render the earth desolation, and will destroy its sinners from upon it, the land.

For the stars of the heavens and their constellations, their light will not glow; the sun will be darkened at its rising, and the moon will not shine its light. Darkness is another image for the terrifying and all-encompassing war that is approaching.

I will reckon with the world all its evil that it has performed, and upon the wicked I will reckon their iniquity; and thereby I will eliminate the pride of the criminals and I will humble the arrogance of the powerful.

I will make man more valuable than fine gold, and people more than the pure gold of Ofir. After the wicked are punished, those who remain will be exceedingly precious. The true spirit of man comes to the fore during difficult times of war and crisis. When the world stands on the brink of collapse, man has an exceedingly significant role to play.

Therefore, I will agitate the heavens, and the earth will quake from its place because of the anger of the Lord of hosts and the day of His enflamed wrath.

He, each person, shall be like a pursued gazelle, and as scattered sheep with no gatherer; each man will turn to his people and each man will flee to his land. Foreign armies will be recruited for the war effort; when they are defeated, the foreigners will flee to their respective lands.

Anyone found will be stabbed, and anyone who joins them, or who is gathered into the city, will fall by the sword.

Their babies will be cleaved before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives will be raped.

The prophet’s vision continues farther into the future: Behold, I will rouse Media against them. When Babylon was at its height, they made use of Median auxiliaries. Many years later, the army of Persia and Media would conquer Babylon. They, the Medes, were said to be soldiers who do not appreciate silver and do not desire gold. The Medes were originally savage nomads who could not be bribed.

And bows will cleave youths, and they will not have mercy on the fruit of the womb. Their eye will not pity children.

And Babylon, the magnificent of kingdoms, the splendor of the pride of the Chaldeans, and for some years considered the capital of the world, will ultimately be like God’s upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah. The glory of Babylon will not last forever; it will eventually be completely destroyed.

It will be unsettled forever, and none will dwell in it from generation to generation; Babylon will be left in so desolate a state that no Arabian will pitch tent there, and shepherds will not have flocks lie there for fear of death. The prophet foresees both Babylon’s ascent to world domination, and its ultimate downfall and total destruction.

But desert beasts [tziyyim] will lie there. Some commentaries explain that the word tzi refers specifically to the mongoose. And their houses will be full of night birds, and ostriches will live there, and scops owls will dance there.

Wildcats [iyyim] will howl in their mansions; some identify the iy with the golden jackal, known in Egyptian as an ow. And jackals will howl in the halls of delight; its, Babylon’s, time is near to come, and its days will not be prolonged. Indeed, the Babylonian Empire lasted for only about seventy years before its rapid and total collapse.

The fall of Babylon will free the exiled members of Israel living there; some of these exiles will return to their homeland: For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and He will place them on their land; the stranger will accompany them, and they will be appended to the house of Jacob.

The peoples will take them, Israel, and bring them to their place. Nations will help Israel return to their land. The house of Israel will inherit them, other nations that have settled on the land of the Lord, as slaves and as maidservants. Then, after returning to inhabit their land, they, Israel, will be the captors of their former captors, and they will subjugate their erstwhile oppressors and render them servants and second-class citizens.

It shall be on the day that the Lord gives you relief from your pain and from your trembling and from the hard work with which you were made to work, then it will be possible to summarize the period of your suffering, and you will then be able to sing a new song.

You will then deliver this parable about the king of Babylon, and you will say: How has the oppressor ceased, how has the yoke of the golden kingdom ceased?

The Lord broke the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers. The staff or rod fills a double role: It is a club which strikes and punishes the people, and also the scepter of royal authority.

It is the king’s rod that smites peoples in ire, an incessant blow; it subjugates nations in wrath, who are pursued without relief. It is as though the king cannot rest. He pursues war and is thus afflicted by constant warfare.

Now, at his death, the entire earth rests, and is tranquil; they all broke out into song.

Also junipers rejoice over you, over your death, as well as cedars of Lebanon, as though saying: Since you lie down, the woodcutter does not come against us. The king of Babylon felled many large trees in order to build extravagant palaces and to besiege cities. Thus, even the trees rejoice over his death.

At the same time, the netherworld from below trembles for you in anticipation of your arrival; ghosts are roused for you, all the prominent ones of the earth who were prominent in their lifetimes; they are raised from their thrones in the netherworld, all the kings of the nations.

All of them would respond and would say to you: You too, the great king who ruled by force, who was treated as an eternal and immovable force of nature, have been weakened like us? You have become likened to us! You are also dead!

Your pride is brought down to the netherworld, the strains of your lyres. The melodies that were always played before you have been silenced. Now, after once gloriously presiding over the entire world, you lie still in the ground and beneath you are spread maggots, and your cover is worms.

The prophet now addresses the king himself: How have you fallen from the heavens, shining morning star [heilel ben shah]·? This refers to the planet Venus, which is the brightest star in the early morning sky. Some explain that heilel ben shaĥar is actually the name of a Babylonian general. In any case, the prophet asks: You once shone like a bright star; how have you been felled to the ground, you, who were once controller of nations?

You said in your heart while you were still alive: I will ascend to the heavens; above the stars of God I will elevate my throne, and I will sit on the mountain of meeting at the ends of the North where the sun does not shine, a place that you believe is fit for a gathering of the gods.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.

However, despite your desire to rise to the heavens, to the netherworld you will be lowered, to the depths of the pit, where you will be buried.

Those who see you will peer at you, will scrutinize you, and say: Is this the corpse of the man who caused the entire earth to tremble, who caused kingdoms to quake?

Is this the king who rendered the world like a wilderness through his wars, and destroyed its cities? Is this the king who did not release his prisoners homeward?

All the kings of the nations are dead, but they all lie in honor, each in his own house, as they did not generate such opposition, even after their deaths.

But you were cast from your grave like a detested shoot that is uprooted because it does not grow properly, dressed in the tattered clothing of corpses stabbed with a sword, those lowered to the stones of a pit like a trampled carcass. Your fate will be like those who fall in battle and are left on the battlefield, and whose bodies are tossed into unmarked graves. Unlike the kings of the other nations, who die peacefully in their beds and are honorably interred, you will not be buried in a magnificent grave.

You will not join with them, the other kings, in burial, because you destroyed your land; you killed your people. Therefore, the descendants of evildoers, your descendants, will never be mentioned or remembered.

They will say: Prepare a slaughter for his sons, kill them for the iniquity of their fathers; may they, the sons, not rise and inherit the earth and fill the face of the earth with destruction or enemies.

I will rise against them – the utterance of the Lord of hosts. I will eliminate from Babylon name and remnant, or relative, and son, or descendant, and grandson – the utterance of the Lord.

I will render it, Babylon, a possession of the fish owl and pools of water; I will sweep it with the broom of destruction– the utterance of the Lord of hosts. Babylonia shall be utterly destroyed; nothing will remain of it except destroyed cities, swamps, and desolation.

The Lord of hosts took an oath, saying: Surely, as I have imagined, so it will be; just as I devised, so it will stand.

My plan will be realized: To break Assyria in My land, and on My mountains, I will crush him. His, the Assyrian king’s, yoke will be removed from upon them, My land and mountains, and his, Israel’s, burden will be removed from upon his shoulder.

This is the plan that is devised against the entire earth, and this is the hand that is outstretched over all the nations. The hand of God, which rules over the entire world, will not allow this injustice to continue.

For the Lord of hosts has devised, and who will revoke? His outstretched hand – who will turn it back?

Like the prophecy above (6:1), but unlike many other prophecies, this prophecy is dated: In the year of the death of King Ahaz, there was this prophecy. The Philistines, who were dealt a severe blow by King Ahaz, celebrated his death. The prophet therefore says to them:

Do not rejoice, all of you, Philistia, because the rod of he who beat you, King Ahaz, is broken; the king has died. For from the root of the snake will emerge an adder, far more dangerous than a typical snake, and its offspring will be a flying, venomous, serpent.In place of the dead King Ahaz, there will arise a king who will strike the Philistines even harder.

Even the firstborn of the impoverished of Israel, the poorest of the people, will graze and be sustained in tranquility, and even the indigent will lie in security, and at the same time I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant he will slay. The Philistines will suffer severe famine and be beaten to the ground, and whoever survives will be slain by the king.

Wail, until the gate of your city shakes; cry out, city. Philistia, all of you is melted; all of Philistia will eventually be destroyed. For the smoke of war comes from the North, and there is no straggler in his ranks; the enemy’s entire army will gather together to attack you.

What, then, will the messengers of the nation pronounce? For the Lord has established Zion, and within it will be sheltered the poor of His people. The poor of Israel will find shelter in the rebuilt Jerusalem, as their enemies, the Philistines, will have been dealt a decisive blow.

A prophecy of Moav: For on the night that Ar, one of the major cities of Moav, was plundered, it was smitten and obliterated; for on the night that Kir, another important city of Moav, was plundered, it was obliterated. The collapse of these two cities caused the inhabitants of Moav to feel as if their entire land had been destroyed.

He, a man of Moav, went up to the house of the king, or to a Moavite temple, and to the shrines of Divon, to weep; for Nevo and for Medeva, Moav wails, as these cities were destroyed. Therefore, on all his heads is baldness; every beard is sparse. The profound mourning of Moav was expressed through the prevalent practice of removing the hair of one’s head and one’s beard as an act of mourning. Israel is prohibited from practicing this behavior.

In its, Moav’s, streets they donned sackcloth; those who donned sackcloth assembled on their rooftops and in their plazas; all are wailing and overcome with weeping.

Heshbon and Elaleh cry out. Elaleh was another Moavite city. Their voice is heard until Yahatz, yet another Moavite city mentioned in the Torah. Therefore the soldiers of Moav will shout out with a wail of grief and sorrow and not a battle cry. His soul will shout out [yar’a] in bitterness for him. Yar’a is a combination of teruah, “shouting” and ra’ah, “evil.”

My heart will cry for Moav, its refugees reach until Tzo’ar;alternatively: The city’s bolts were broken until Tzo’ar and Eglat Shelishiya, apparently the name of another place. For those who flee the war via the ascent of Luhit, they will ascend it with weeping, for they will raise an outcry of ruin on the way of Horonayim.

For the Waters of Nimrim, the name of either a spring or a stream, will be desolate; for hay has withered, vegetation ceased, there was no greenery.

Therefore, he, the enemy, did more than what has been stated; alternatively: Moav did more than what has been stated, and they, the enemy despoilers, will carry away their property to the ravine of the willows,where they will destroy it.

For the outcry of pain over the defeat has circled the borders of Moav; its wailing reaches until Eglayim and its wailing reaches to Be’er Eilim. The locations of Eglayim and Be’er Eilim are unknown.

For the waters of the Dimon River are filled with blood, as I will wreak more blood upon Dimon. The people will flee from city to city; they will die by the sword and of starvation, and many a lion will be for chasing the refugees of Moav and to the remnant of the land. At the time, lions were common in the lower Jordan Valley.

Moav will require assistance, and to that end will turn to the government on Mount Zion: Send a flock, or send a gift, for the ruler of the land, from Sela Midbara, a place in Moav, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.

It shall be that like a wandering bird driven from a nest, so will be the daughters of Moav when they flee, arriving at the fords of the Arnon Stream.

The prophet presents the people of Moav addressing their land: Provide counsel; execute justice; set your shadow like night during noon. This is a metaphor for one who seeks the cover of night when he feels most exposed. Hide outcasts; do not reveal the wanderer. Make sure that the wandering exiles are not discovered. While the land of Moav is not flat, it lacks high mountains where its people can hide.

Let my outcasts reside with you, Moav; be a cover for them, the refugees, from before the plunderer. Some commentaries explain the phrase “Let my outcasts reside with you,” as an appeal addressed by the prophet to Moav that it should offer refuge to Israel when they flee the Assyrians. Others interpret the phrase as a request on the part of an emissary of Moav that Zion should offer refuge to those fleeing from Moav. For it, all of Moav’s wealth, is no more, sucked dry; succulence is eliminated by the enemy. The trampling animals, the herds of sheep, have ceased from the land.

Ultimately, a stable and proper government and judiciary will be established in the house of David: A royal throne will be established with grace, and he will sit upon it in truth, with loyalty and integrity, in the tent of David, adjudicating and seeking justice, and prompt to act with righteousness.

In contrast to the fate of Zion, Moav will be destroyed: We heard of the pride of Moav, very proud: his haughtiness, his pride, and his anger toward surrounding nations. The Moavites portrayed themselves as exceedingly important; however, not so are his pretensions [lo khen baddav]: their accomplishments did not match their immense pride. Alternatively, the arrogant words that Moav fabricated [badda] were incorrect [lo khen].

Therefore, following the overwhelming defeat of the proud Moavites, the surviving members of Moav will wail for Moav; they will all wail. For the foundations of the great city of Kir Hareset you will yearn, even lament with words of sorrow over the destroyed city.

For the fields of Heshbon are ravaged, the vine of the city of Sivma, the nobles of nations beat its branches which reached to Yazer, which wandered in the wilderness; its offshoots spread, crossing the sea.

Therefore, I will weep with the weeping of Yazer, vine of Sivma; I will soak you with my tears, Heshbon and Elaleh, for upon your summer fruits and your harvest, the hurrah has fallen off. The typical joy and celebration of the summer and the harvest have been suspended. Alternatively, the verse refers to the celebratory cries of Moav’s conquerors.

Joy and happiness will be taken away from the farmland, and in the vineyards there shall be no singing, no cheer; the treader will not tread wine from grapes in the winepresses; I have stopped the joyous shouts of hurrah.

Therefore, my innards will moan for Moav like a harp, and my insides for Kir Heres, the Kir Hareset mentioned above in verse 7. The prophet commiserates with Moav over its pitiful losses and downfall.

It, this disaster, will be when it is seen that Moav has wearied of worshipping its deities on the shrine, or has wearied of waging war, and comes to his temple to pray, but is unable. Overcome by hopelessness and despair, the Moavites will lose the ability to organize worship, and they will not be able to recover from their plight.

This is the matter that the Lord spoke with regard to Moav in time past, in an earlier prophecy.

But now the Lord has spoken a new prophecy, saying: In another three years, like the years of a hired laborer, the honor of Moav will be demeaned in the whole great tumult, and will remain miniscule, of no importance. Just as a hired laborer does not work beyond a previously agreed-upon time, so too, the honor of Moav will be demeaned in exactly three years.

A prophecy of Damascus: Behold, Damascus is removed from being a city and it will be a heap of ruins.

Abandoned are the cities of Aroer to the east of the Jordan River; they will be for flocks, and they, those flocks, will lie therein and none will threaten them, as the cities will be emptied of their inhabitants and left as pastureland.

The Kingdom of Israel in the North will collapse: The fortress will cease from Ephraim and the kingdom will cease from Damascus, and the status of the remnant of Aram will fall to the lowest possible level, and it will be like the glory of the children of Israel at this time, nonexistent – the utterance of the Lord of hosts.

It will be on that day, when this prophecy is fulfilled, that the glory of Jacob will diminish, and the corpulence of his flesh will grow lean. Israel is described here as an individual who will grow lean and lose his strength, his resources, and his influence. So shall be the diminished figure of Ephraim:

It will be like when the harvester grasps the standing grain and, with his arm, holds and reaps the stalks, taking hold of only a small quantity of grain. Alternatively, the harvest is used here as a metaphor for the destruction wrought by the enemy. It shall be like when one collects ears in the Valley of Refaim, perhaps an infertile area. Accordingly, not only will the manner of harvesting yield small quantities, the fields themselves will not issue plentiful crops. Alternatively, the Valley of Refaim was a fertile area that yielded an abundance of crops, and the verse refers to the enemy’s actions, not the poverty of Israel.

Gleanings will remain of it, in Jacob, like the beating of an olive tree, where only two or three berries remain on the treetop, four or five on the branches of a flourishing tree – the utterance of the Lord, God of Israel. If even four or five olives remain on the branch, it will be considered a flourishing tree. Aside from the literal meaning of the verse, these branches symbolize the general poverty and degradation that will befall the people.

On that day, when these tragedies will occur, a man will turn to his Maker, and his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.

And he will not turn to the altars, his handiwork, whether they were erected for the service of the God of Israel, like the golden calves in Beit El and Dan, or they were meant for the worship of other gods, and that which his fingers made he will not see, the sacred trees and the sun pillars. In their dire situation, Israel will cease to rely on that which they had previously relied upon, and had taken pride in.

On that day, his fortified cities will be like the abandoned forest and the treetop that they, the land’s former inhabitants, abandoned due to the children of Israel. Just as the previous inhabitants of the land fled and left behind destruction when Israel’s conquest of the land began, so will the land of Ephraim remain, and it will be a desolation.

All this shall befall you for you have forgotten the God of your salvation, instead seeking your salvation from man, and you did not remember the Rock of your fortification. Therefore, your fortified cities will be abandoned, and your efforts will be met with failure. You will plant pleasant saplings, but judging from the results, it will be as if a wild and useless branch you will sow. Such branches are elsewhere referred to as surim.

On the day of your planting you will make it flourish, and in a similar manner, in the morning immediately after the sowing you will make your seed blossom; your plantings will yield their fruit too quickly, causing the produce to be of inferior quality. The harvest will be lost on a day of trouble [nah]·; according to some commentaries, the day of naĥala refers to the day on which the crop is gathered. And all that shall remain is terrible pain.

Woe, the uproar [hamon] of many peoples; alternatively, the large assembly of many peoples, who come from all directions to conquer the land, like the roar [kahamot] of the seas will they roar [yehemayun], and the din [sha’on] of nations will thunder [yisha’un] like the din [sha’on] of a surging current of great waters. Here, the prophet once again employs alliteration for effect, in this case to emphasize the great noise created by the nations.

Nations will thunder like the din of torrential water, but He, God, will admonish them, the threatening armies, and they will flee to a distance. They will be pursued like the chaff of mountains which is swept great distances before the wind, and like tumbleweed before the storm. The prophet depicts a scene of utter desolation.

At evening time and behold, everyone is gripped with terror at the approaching enemy, but it is not yet morning, and they, the enemies, are not. This is the portion of our attackers and the lot of our plunderers.

Woe! The land of the shadow of wings, a land with wings that form a shadow, or: The land with wings that make a sound. The significance of this image is unclear, but since the coming verses indicate that this prophecy relates to a nation of seafarers, perhaps the wings are the sails of the boats. It is a land which is beyond the rivers of Kush, the great rivers of Egypt.

This land belongs to a nation that sends emissaries by sea, messengers who travel in ships and in light papyrusvessels on the water. Perhaps this nation resided near the sources of the Nile. In any case, the senders give the following instruction to the seamen: Go, swift messengers, to a nation that has been dragged and plucked, to a people who has undergone awful experiences, from its inception onward, a nation of laws and regulations, and which has suffered defeat, that rivers divide [bazu] its land. Many commentaries explain that this verse compares the plundering invaders [bozezim] to rivers flowing through the raided country.

These emissaries will come from the ends of the earth to announce forthcoming events: All inhabitants of the world and dwellers of the earth: When a banner is raised on the top of the mountains, so that it can be observed from a great distance, you will see; and with the sounding of the shofar you will hear.

For so the Lord said to me: I will be calm, and I will look alone, quietly on My abode, observing the unfolding events, which are like clear light during the heat that comes after rain, or like a dew cloud in the heat of harvest. Heat and light together with clouds and rain during the harvest period are unusual phenomena, signifying a reversal that brings about repair.

For before harvest arrives, when the blossoming is over, and the bud becomes a ripening grape, as it develops in anticipation of the ripening of the fruit, before the growth is complete, He will cut off the thin branches with pruning hooks, and remove and lop off the long, thick branches. In other words, a great slaughter will occur quickly.

The verse turns from metaphor to a concrete description of impending events. They, the numerous dead, will be left together for the raptors of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth, which will eat the corpses. And the raptor will summer upon them, and all the animals of the earth will winter upon them. There will be so many corpses that birds of prey will be able to eat from them for an entire summer, and animals throughout the winter.

At that time, a present will be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people dragged and plucked, from a people awful from its inception onward, a nation of laws and defeat, that rivers divide its land. Those nations that were cleansed by suffering, that had maintained a framework of laws, and that had experienced appalling downfalls, will then come to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, which they will know is Mount Zion, and there they will bring their gifts to the Lord.

A prophecy of Egypt: Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud, and is coming quickly to Egypt, as the events described in this prophecy will occur in the near future. The gods of Egypt will tremble from His presence, and the heart of Egypt will melt within it.

On the political level, I will provoke Egypt against Egypt, and each man will fight against his brother and each man against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.

Furthermore, the spirit of Egypt will be broken [novka] within it. Rav Yosef Caspi, understands the word novka to be related to the word bokek, meaning broken. Alternatively, Egypt will be emptied of its wisdom or that its goals and plans will be stymied. And I will thwart its counsel, so that it will not come to pass. They, the Egyptians, will seek the gods, the ghosts, or the magical forces that communicate through murmurs, the mediums, and the oracles, but they will receive no counsel from them.

I will deliver, or constrict and bring, the Egyptians into the hand of a harsh master [adonim]. This word appears here in the honorific plural form, masters, even though one master is meant. And a strong foreign king will rule over them – the utterance of the Master, the Lord of hosts.

Water will disappear from the sea of Egypt, and the river will desiccate and become dry.

The rivers will be abandoned, or will decrease; the streams of Egypt will be diminished and desiccated; the reeds and bulrushes that grow around them will also wither.

All that which is on the river and on the bank of the river will disintegrate and be drained, and all the vegetation that is sown near the Nile will dry out, be blown away, and be no more.

As a result of the drying out of the river, the fish will disappear. The fishermen will lament their loss, and all who cast a rod in the river will mourn; spreaders of large nets on the surface of the water will be miserable.

The workers of the combed flax, which will no longer grow, and the weavers of linen, who make types of cloth used, among other things, for fishermen’s nets, will be ashamed.

Its, Egypt’s, foundations will be crushed, with all those who make dams and pools to store water that provide life, meaning for people’s livelihoods. Alternatively, this means standing pools, or pools containing living creatures. Some explain the verse as a play on words: All who are currently makers of dams and pools for the soul [agmei nefesh] will become depressed souls [agumei nefesh], which is spelled and pronounced similarly.

The princes of Tzo’an, the capital of Egypt, are mere fools, while the wise of the counselors of Pharaoh give him senseless and illogical counsel; how can you say to Pharaoh to say about himself: I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings? Pharaoh did not represent himself merely as a king, but a kind of god who was, among other things, the god of wisdom. This notion of the god-king was accepted by the Egyptians.

If in fact Pharaoh and his counselors are so wise, where are they, then, your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what the Lord of hosts devised for the future of Egypt.

The princes of Tzo’an became fools and they have no solutions. The princes of Nof, another major Egyptian city, were beguiled and distracted; instead of helping Egypt, they led Egypt astray, by misleading the cornerstone of her tribes, the officers appointed over the tribes of Egypt.

All this has come about because the Lord poured in its midst a spirit of confusion, delusions, and they, the aforementioned officials, led Egypt astray in all its actions. The wisdom that Egypt ascribes to itself will disappear, and instead the Egyptians will repeatedly fall victim to their previous mistakes, as a drunk staggers and wallows in his own vomit.

Egypt will not have any action that it can perform, head and tail, a properly and viably planned action with a clear beginning and end. The Egyptians will be unable to distinguish between treetop and reed, between important matters and trivial ones.

On that day, the warriors of Egypt will be like women, terrified by the ongoing catastrophe, and trembling and fearing from the wave of the hand of the Lord of hosts that He waves over it.

The land of Judah will become a terror for Egypt. Judah, which in Isaiah’s time was a small state, will threaten Egypt in the future. Anyone who mentions it, the name of Judah, to himself, will fear, because of the ominous devising of the Lord of hosts that He devises against it, Egypt.

On that day, when Egypt will collapse, many changes will occur there: There will be five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the language of Canaan and taking oaths to the Lord of hosts. The inhabitants of those cities will speak Hebrew and believe in the God of Israel, because there the Israelites will be the rulers and those who set the cultural tone; some will even settle in those cities. Of one of those places it will be said: The city of destruction [heres].thers explain that this means the city of the sun, ĥeres. Indeed, there was a city in Egypt known by this name.

On that day, there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border.

And it, referring either to the structure mentioned in the previous verse or the matter stated below, will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt, as they will cry out to the Lord due to oppressors, and He will send them a savior and a leader [rav], a great person, or one who will fight [yariv] on their behalf, and he will deliver them.

The Lord will become known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know the Lord on that day; they will worship Him with a feast offering and a meal offering, and will take a vow to the Lord and fulfill it.

The Lord will afflict Egypt; He will keep afflicting and healing them. The purpose of the repeated strikes is to correct their behaviors, not to destroy them. They will return to the Lord, and He will acquiesce to them and heal them.

On that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria, and Egypt will serve the Lord together with Assyria.

On that day, after the Assyrians conquer Egypt, and after Assyria and Egypt have both accepted upon themselves the yoke of the kingdom of God, Israel will be a triad with Egypt and with Assyria. Together they will form an alliance of three forces, which will be a blessing in the midst of the land

that the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying: Blessed is My people Egypt, Assyria is the work of My hands, and My inheritance is Israel. In that new world order, peace will reign among these three kingdoms.

The content of this next prophecy is similar to that of the previous one. In the year of the arrival of the tartan, the title of the Assyrian commander-in-chief, tartanu in Assyrian, to the city of Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, he waged war against Ashdod and captured it. Although the date of this prophecy cannot be established with certainty, it comes from the early period of Isaiah’s career, as when the Assyrian army returned in the days of King Hizkiya, it was headed by Sennacherib.

At that time, the Lord spoke by means of Isaiah son of Amotz, saying: Go and loosen and remove the sackcloth from around your waist, and remove your shoe from upon your foot. He did so, walking relatively naked, without the upper garment of sackcloth that he had been wearing, and barefoot.

The chapter turns to the content of the prophecy. The Lord said: Just as My servant Isaiah went naked and barefoot for three years, as a sign and a wonder for Egypt and for Kush,

so will the king of Assyria lead the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Kush, youths and elders, naked and barefoot and bared of buttocks, so that the nakedness of Egypt will be visible to all. The Assyrians will overcome Egypt, whose inhabitants will be taken captive and left bereft of protection or dignity.

They, those Israelites who sought to rely on Egypt and Kush, will be disheartened and ashamed; their gaze was to Kush and their splendor was from Egypt.

The inhabitant of this island, the Land of Israel, will say on that day: Behold, this is where we looked. Alternatively, this is what happened to those in whom we set our hopes, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria. Now that Egypt and Kush have been conquered by the Assyrians, how will we escape?

A prophecy of the western wilderness: Like massive, daunting storms sweeping in the flat and exposed South, it is coming from the wilderness, from a terrible land. The verse does not refer to rainstorms, as these are uncommon in desert regions, but rather, to windstorms and sandstorms. The prophet uses these sandstorms as a metaphor for the mighty enemy coming from afar. It is difficult to identify the actual events and time period to which this prophecy relates, or the identity of the enemy.

The prophet declares: A harsh vision was told to me: The traitor betrays and the plunderer plunders. This is a terrible and dangerous combination: An enemy that resembles a gang of bandits without, and traitors within. In such a situation, nobody can be trusted. Go up, Elam, to war; besiege, Media. All its present sighing, I have ended. The quantity and frequency of new calamities will render irrelevant Babylon’s previous sighing. Alternatively, Babylon’s sighs will not be heard because no one will have sympathy for its plight. It could also mean that Babylon’s troubles will provide relief to her enemies, who will no longer sigh due to Babylon’s oppression.

The invaded nation declares: Therefore, my loins are filled with trembling; pains have overcome me, like the pains of a woman in childbirth, psychosomatic symptoms caused by great anxiety. I am twisted from hearing; I am frightened from seeing the unfolding events.

My heart is bewildered, my mind unsettled; terror has frightened me. The evening of my desire, the desirable night, he has made for me into anxiety. The threat of enemy attack has ruined my drinking parties.

When it is the time to set the table for a banquet, set the lookout to watch from a tower, to see whether the enemy is approaching. Even at the party itself, the worries do not abate: Eat, drink; but when called upon, arise, princes; anoint, smooth, a shield. Even while preparing for balls and celebrations, the residents remain very tense, in fear of the impending danger, and they actively prepare for war.

For so the Lord said to me: Go, post the lookout at the top of the wall or the tower; that which he sees, he will tell.

He will see a chariot, a pair of horsemen, a donkey chariot, or a camel chariot. The sentry must watch all of the regular movements of vehicles on the roads, whether these are drawn by horses or other animals. The danger of the approaching enemy is real, and therefore everything must be observed closely, in case their men are scouting the place, spying, or preparing for an advance. He will listen very attentively. The sentry must be on the lookout for the distant steps of the enemy, as the time, manner, and direction of his approach are all unknown.

A lion will call, roar: On the lookout, Lord, I stand continually during the day, and I stand on my watch every night. The speaker could be the person in charge of the sentry, or, more likely, the prophet himself.

The prophet describes what he saw next in his vision: Behold, it comes, a chariot with a man inside and a pair of horses. This chariot was sent to convey a message; it would not be a war chariot, as these typically contained two or three men. And he spoke aloud and said: Fallen, fallen is Babylon, and all the idols of its gods are smashed on the ground.

It, Babylon, is My threshing floor and it is like the mere corner of My grain pile. Babylon has become a wasteland. That which I heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I told you. The prophet fills the role of the sentry, who sees and reports on all these events from afar.

This verse begins another vision: A prophecy of Duma, the name of one of the sons of Ishmael, whose descendants dwelled in the wilderness surrounding the land of Canaan: To me, the prophet, one calls from Seir, in the South: Sentry, what of the night? Sentry, what of the night? People who went to sleep inquire: What happened during the night? Upon awaking, they ask the sentry for news. As in the previous prophecy, where the prophet served as a sentry who receives reports of shocking political events, here too he stands watch in a place dominated by fear of the future. In this case, however, he will announce that the approaching threat has yet to arrive.

The sentry said: The morning comes, and also night; if you ask, ask; come again. In other words, there is nothing new yet; if you wish, you may return and ask a second time. The verbs in this verse are all Aramaic.

A prophecy of Arabia, which is probably a general name for the nomadic peoples or tribes living in the East: In the forest in Arabia you will stay the night, caravans of Dedanites, tribes who inhabit the southern wilderness.

Bring water to the thirsty. You can rest in a relatively tranquil spot, in the woods, as the war is being fought elsewhere. However, refugees fleeing from the battle will come to you asking for water. The inhabitants of the land of Tema, far to the southeast of the Land of Israel, greeted the wanderer with his bread. Alternatively, this can be understood as a command: Give bread to the wanderers.

For they, the refugees, wandered due to swords: Due to the drawn sword, or the sharpened swords, due to the bent bow, and due to the weight of war.

For so said the Lord to me: In another year, measured precisely to the day like the years of a hired laborer, all the glory of Kedar will end. The tribes of Kedar will suffer a terrible downfall.

And the few remaining archers, the valiant of the children of Kedar, will diminish. The army of Kedar will decrease, as the Lord, God of Israel, who determines the fate of all the nations of the world, has spoken.

A prophecy of the Valley of Vision, a symbolic name for Jerusalem, which was a place of inspiration for visions, including ominous ones: What, indeed, is with you, that you all went up to the roofs, to spot approaching enemies? Alternatively, perhaps the prophet was criticizing those who ascended to the roofs in order to enjoy parties there, as there is usually more open space on roofs than inside houses.

It is a boisterous city full of revelry, a merry, tumultuous town, bustling with excitement. Up to this point, your slain are not victims of the sword, and not dead from war; previous incidents of tragic deaths in Jerusalem had not been caused by external enemies. It is possible that this expression alludes to the destructive results of debauchery and drunkenness.

All of your military officers wandered together, seeking to flee from the city; from the bow they were bound, as though they were tied up and unable to shoot with their bows. All those found among you were bound together, as if they had been handed over to the enemy, while the military officers, who were charged with leading the defense of the people, fled to a great distance to seek refuge (see also 23:7, 59:14).

Therefore I said: Turn from me; I will weep bitterly. Do not rush to comfort me over the tragic depredation of the daughter of my people.

For it is a day of panic, rout, and confusion, from the Lord, God of hosts, in the Valley of Vision. Over the course of the past few centuries, Jerusalem had been besieged on only a few rare occasions, and was therefore not accustomed to preparations for military conflict, and would be gripped with panic, chaos, and bewilderment as the enemy surrounded the city, undermining its walls [m’karkar kir], or making noise like that of falling walls, and turning to the mountain [v’shoa el hahar] in order to prepare for the attack.

The mighty Assyrian army incorporated other, smaller forces, including that of Elam, whose warriors were mainly archers who carried the quiver, among chariots of men and horsemen. And Kir, the name of a northern nation, bore a shield. Alternatively, this means: Kir built a siege wall opposite the city.

Your choicest valleys, a reference to Jerusalem, were filled with chariots, and the horsemen directed themselves to the city’s gate in preparation for battle.

He uncovered the proverbial screen of the Kingdom of Judah which had concealed its vulnerability. After many years during which Judah did not have to test its military capabilities, the time had arrived when they needed to be exposed and examined. And you looked on that day to inspect and assess the arms of the House of the Forest, the main weapons depot, elsewhere known as “The House of the Forest of Lebanon.”

Those of you who examined the walls saw that the breaches in the walls of the City of David were many, and you also collected the water of the lower pool to bring it into the city.

You counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you demolished some of the houses in order to use their stones to fortify the wall and fill in the breaches you had found.

You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. Like other cities, Jerusalem was protected by a double wall in some sections. You performed all these preparations for the siege, but despite the flurry of activity to fortify the city, you did not look to its Maker, and you did not look to its Fashioner in the distant past.

The Lord, God of hosts, called, on that day, for weeping, for lamentation, for making a bald patch, and for donning sackcloth, all expressions of mourning. A great danger hung over Jerusalem, and it appeared that the end of the kingdom was approaching.

And behold, the people’s reaction was the opposite of what was necessary: Gladness and joy in the city, and killing of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, and eating meat and drinking wine. The prevailing attitude in these dire circumstances was: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die!

Thus says the Lord of hosts: This matter was revealed in my ears. This iniquity of your apathy and obtuseness shall not be atoned for until you die, said the Lord, God of hosts.

So said the Lord God of hosts: Go, come to this official, to Shevna, who is over the house. This title refers to a position that also existed under other kings of Judah and Israel. He was not only in charge of all the requirements of the king’s household, but also over the various other government officials; he functioned as a kind of prime minister. In the medieval Carolingian Empire there was a similar title: The most powerful person in the state was called the majordomus, head of the house.

Say to him: What do you have here and whom do you have here, that you have hewn a grave here for yourself? Amongst his other dealings, Shevna had exerted efforts to prepare a burial place that would fit his exalted status. The prophet elaborates: He who hews his grave on high, he who carves in rock to make an abode for himself. By selecting a grand burial spot for himself, Shevna was signaling that although he was not the king, he was actually the one who wielded power in the kingdom.

Behold, the Lord will hurl you violently, and He will wrap you up, like a mourner or a leper.

For He will wind you, wrap you up, and roll you like a toy ball kicked away (see also 29:3) to an expansive land, the great kingdom of Assyria. There you will die, and there your chariots of glory will be thrown down, as they are the shame of your master’s house.

I will expel you from your current position, and from your lofty status will you fall and meet disaster.

It will be on that day that I will call upon My servant Elyakim son of Hilkiyahu, to take over your position. Later on, Elyakim is mentioned with the title: Who is over the house (36:3), indicating that he did indeed replace Shevna.

I will clothe him with your tunic and gird him with your sash, as your ceremonial garments will be transferred to him, and I will deliver your government into his hand, and he will be a father, a guide and head of the community, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. As opposed to you, he will be faithful and dedicated to the people, and he will not betray them by seeking his own personal benefit.

I will place the key of the house of David on his shoulder, as ministers in charge of the king’s house would typically carry large keys as a symbol of their authority. In general, keys and locks in those times were far bigger than they are today. He will open and no one will close; he will close and no one will open. He will be exclusively responsible for the matters of government.

I will affix him as a peg in a secure place, where it will hold strong, and he will become a throne of honor for the house of his father. His family will take pride in him.

Continuing with the image of a peg affixed securely in the wall: They will hang upon him all the honor of the house of his father, the sons and the daughters, as he will be like a father to the house of Judah, and all the small vessels, from the earthenware cups or mugs to all the earthenware flasks, or musical instruments. Everyone will rely on Elyakim, the secure peg, and even small matters will depend on him.

However, even Shevna’s replacement, who will feel secure in his role, will eventually fall. On that day – the utterance of the Lord of hosts – the peg that is affixed in a secure place will give way. It will be severed and it will fall, and the burden that was on it, all the earthenware vessels that were hung upon the peg, will be entirely eliminated, for the Lord has spoken.

A prophecy of Tyre: Wail, ships of Tarshish, which traded with Tyre, for it, Tyre, is sacked, no longer a house of ships. As a result of the capture and plunder of Tyre, it will cease to function as a port city for ships or anyone carrying or seeking merchandise to enter. From the land of Kitim it was revealed [nigla] to them. The raiding invader appeared from the land of the Kitim to attack the inhabitants of Tyre. Or: Tyre’s catastrophic fall became known due to ships from the land of Kitim. Another interpretation is: The residents of Tyre were to be exiled [niglu] via the land of Kitim (see verse 12).

Be silent, you island dwellers. Tyre was originally located on an island, although at a later point a causeway was built connecting it to the mainland. Be silent, even though the merchants of Sidon, a port city nearby and subordinate to Tyre also known for its seafarers, had previously filled you with people and wealth.

The seed, grain of Shihor, a branch of the Nile, was transported to Tyre through much water, via the sea.The harvest of the Nile of Egypt was its, Tyre’s, produce, and it, Tyre, was the market of nations.

Be ashamed, Sidon, as the sea has said, the stronghold of the sea, saying in rebuke: I have not gone into labor and suffered birth pangs, and I did not give birth; I did not raise young men or bring up virgins. In this image, the sea denies the children it fostered, those who derived all their strength from it. Tyre and Sidon will be emptied as though they never existed. According to most commentaries, the term “stronghold of the sea” refers to Tyre, as the sea is speaking in Tyre’s name.

When the report reaches Egypt, they will tremble at the arrival of the report of Tyre, which had both natural defenses and man-made fortifications. Egypt will become frightened when Tyre is conquered, as it will realize that there will be nothing to prevent the northern enemy from continuing its advance toward their land.

Move to Tarshish. Wail, inhabitants of the island, over its destruction.

Is this for you, jovial one, whose antiquity is from ancient days? Tyre, who had been full of life for as long as anyone could remember, whose legs, those of all her inhabitants, will lead her afar to reside? The exiled residents will be forced to wander far from Tyre, as refugees.

Who devised this against Tyre, the city glorified with wealth and honor, whose merchants are princes, her peddlers, the eminent of the land? Due to Tyre’s wealth and its preference to remain neutral in military conflicts, no one thought it would ever fall.

The Lord of hosts devised it, to profane the pride of all the magnificent and humiliate them, to demean all the eminent of the land.

You can pass through your land like the river, daughter of Tarshish, because there is no wharf, or barrier to protect the port city anymore. It is defenseless and entirely exposed.

He, God, stretched out His hand over the sea; He provoked the kingdoms to come against it; the Lord commanded concerning Canaan, to destroy its strongholds. Canaan can also mean merchant. Here Tyre is called Canaan not only because it was a commercial city, but also because its inhabitants were from Canaanite extraction.

He said: You will not continue to rejoice anymore; oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon, a symbolic name for the city. Similar expressions are used in reference to other areas, such as “Virgin daughter of Zion,” referring to Jerusalem, “Daughter of Babylon,” “Daughter of the Chaldeans” (47:1), and “Daughter of Egypt.” Arise, Sidon, and let your inhabitants wander and cross the sea to Kitim and other distant coasts. There too, there will be no rest for you, as the enemy will continue to pursue you there.

Behold, the land of the Chaldeans, the Babylonians who will destroy Tyre, this people that was not a significant nation until this time, as Babylon had been dominated by Assyria until recently and would only now begin to become a world power. Assyria, it, Babylon, rendered wastelands. They, the Babylonians, have established towers against it, Tyre, and undermined its palaces, and ultimately they rendered it a ruin.

The prophet returns to his opening statement: Wail, ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is sacked. The great port city in which you placed your trust has been plundered and is lost.

It shall be on that day that Tyre will be forgotten and forsaken for a period of seventy years, like the days of one king. The kingdom of Babylonia, in all its glory, would last for only seventy years, after which time Tyre would begin to recover. Nevertheless, at the end of seventy years, it will be for Tyre like the song of the harlot. Tyre will have to go around begging for sustenance, like a harlot who goes around singing in order to attract solicitors of her service. The prophet mocks the miserable, forgotten Tyre.

Take a harp, circle the city, forgotten harlot; play well, sing much, so that you will be remembered.

It shall be that at the end of seventy years the Lord will remember Tyre and she will return for her harlot’s fee [le’etnana], a derisive reference to Tyre’s profits from commerce. The prophet uses this reference as a play on words instead of the expected term: “will return to its strength [le’eitana].” She will whore with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth once again. After it will have been forgotten, Tyre will again be established as a commercial city.

Ultimately, though, there will come a time when all of her merchandise and her fee will be sacred to the Lord. It will not be stored and will not be accumulated in treasuries or warehouses, for her merchandise will be for those who dwell before the Lord. The righteous and the upright, and those who study His Torah will be the ones to benefit from Tyre’s wealth. It will provide them with food to eat to satiation and for acquiring fine garments for them to wear. The Sages homiletically interpret this phrase as referring to those who preserve the secrets of Torah, as if covering them with garments, or to those who reveal its hidden messages that had previously been covered.

Behold, the Lord empties the earth (see commentary on 19:3) and crushes it; He will skew its face, the face of the earth, and scatter its inhabitants, who will flee in fear.

All people will share the same fate, with no distinction between individuals of different social strata: As with the simple people, so it will be with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the maidservant, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor.

The land will empty, collapse, and be plundered, for the Lord has spoken this matter.

The land is desolate, withered; it is broken [umlala], or crushed, from lemolel, which means to crush an object with one’s fingers. Alternatively this means the inhabitants of the land are miserable. Withered is the world; and correspondingly, broken, or crushed, are the lofty people of the land.

The earth is corrupted because of its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statute, and breached an eternal covenant with God.

Therefore, a curse consumed the land, and its inhabitants bore their guilt. Alternately, they were astonished. Therefore, the inhabitants of the land are seared and shriveled, and few people remain there.

The new wine is desolate and the vine is broken; therefore all the joyous of heart, the wine drinkers, sigh. Or: The wine and vines are low in quality as a result of the prevailing sadness. If people are too upset to drink they neglect cultivating vines, leaving them desolate.

The gladness of drums has ceased, the din of the jovial has ended, the gladness of the harp has ceased.

They will not drink wine with song. Even when they drink, it will not be in a state of happiness, but in order to drown their sorrows. Intoxicating drink will be bitter for its drinkers.

Broken is the city of emptiness; every house is closed to entry.

There is a cry heard for the lack of wine in the streets; all joy is negated, the gladness of the land has been expelled.

Desolation remains in the city, and the gate is stricken with devastation. The language of the prophet treats desolation and destruction like anthropomorphic agents, forces of evil that roam the earth, destroying everything they encounter.

For so it, Israel, will be left in the midst of the land, among the peoples, like the few olives remaining after the beating of an olive tree to harvest its fruit, like leftover grapes when the harvest has ended.

Despite the desolation of the earth, they, the survivors, will raise their voice, they will sing; at the revelation of the Lord’s majesty, they will revel from the islands of the sea, or alternatively, from the lands of the west. Another explanation is that the song of the survivors will be even greater than that of the children of Israel after they passed through the Red Sea.

Therefore, honor the Lord with the lighting of large, ceremonial fires; on the distant islands of the sea honor the name of the Lord, God of Israel, who performed all these actions. However, the mainland will be desolate.

The prophet reiterates his previous statement in brief form: From the edge of the earth we heard songs: Give magnificence to the righteous of the world, God; alternatively, the righteous survivors. But I say: My secret [razi] is for me, my secret is for me. The details of how these events will transpire are a secret. Some say razi means: My gauntness, and the prophet is crying that he is wasting away. Woe is me; the betrayers betrayed, and they betrayed the betrayal of the betrayers. Everyone will betray each other, and even the betrayers will betray one another, leading to widespread distrust and a cycle of societal breakdown and corruption.

Terror, a pit, and a trap are upon you, inhabitant of the land. The world will become full of obstacles and pitfalls.

It shall be that the one who flees from the sound of the cries of those experiencing terror will fall into the pit, and the one who comes up from the pit will be ensnared in the trap, for windows on high, through which troubles flow into the world, have opened, and the foundations of the earth quake.

The land is undermined and shaken, the land has crumbled, the land has collapsed. Nothing will remain stable, as even the terra firma will give way under people’s feet.

The land will totter like a drunk and sway like a watchman’s hut in the wind; its transgression will weigh it down, and it will fall and will not rise again.

The judgment will visit all of creation within heaven and earth: It will be on that day that the Lord will reckon with the host of the heavens in the heavens and with the kings of the earth on the earth.

They, the kings of the earth, will be gathered in a gathering like a prisoner in a dungeon, and they will be imprisoned in prison, and after many days they will have their reckoning. This will not be an isolated event, but a continuous state of instability.

Even the heavenly lights will dim: The moon will be disgraced and the sun will be ashamed, for all other kingdoms will disappear, but the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, the only remaining refuge, and there, glory shall be placed before His elders.

In response to the divine reckoning with the whole world and God’s revealing His glory in Zion, the prophet offers a song of thanks: You are my Lord God; I will exalt You; I will give thanks to Your name, for You performed wonders; distant counsels, prophecies that You declared long ago and in which I always believed, have been fulfilled.

For You made a city into a heap, a fortified city, a ruin, as described in the previous chapter. You made a palace of strangers out of a city You destroyed; it will never be rebuilt.

Therefore, since everyone saw how You destroyed entire cities and fortresses, a mighty people will honor You, after witnessing Your power in action; a city of powerful nations will fear You.

For in addition to destroying the stronghold of the wicked, You have also been a stronghold, a haven, for the poor, a stronghold for the destitute in his distress, refuge from the torrent, and shade from the heat, as the fury of the powerful is like a torrent upon a wall, threatening to knock it down. You protected the poor from this deluge of troubles.

Like heat in a wasteland, the desert which dries and withers all, so You will subdue the din of strangers; like heat dissipated in the shade of a cloud, so too He will respond with the pruning, overcoming, of the powerful. Alternatively, God will respond to the song of the powerful.

The prophet continues to describe the wonders of the redemption: The Lord of hosts will make for all the peoples on this mountain, Mount Zion (24:23), a feast of fats, a feast of lees, a feast with rich foods and old wine, fats with marrow, refined lees. Some have understood the juxtaposition of fats to lees as a description of the nations’ downfall: They imagine that they are coming to Zion to conquer it, to feast on fats, but God will ensure that they are defeated and only feast on lees. Others understand the reference to lees as indicative of high-quality wine which will be consumed with rich foods by all seekers of truth due to the outporing of blessing from God’s revelation in Zion.

He, God, will eliminate on this mountain the surface of the veil that veils all the peoples, and the mask that is woven over all nations. The covering and the mask represent God’s presence being hidden from His creatures by His allowing the existence of evil, suffering, and destruction in the world. The redemption is characterized by a global revolution, the elimination of all forms of evil.

He will eliminate death, which threatens all, forever, and the Lord God will wipe tears from all faces. And in addition to physical pain, the psychological aspects of suffering will be eliminated as well: He will remove the disgrace of His people from upon the entire earth, for the Lord has spoken.

He, Israel, will say on that day: Behold, this is our God, who has now revealed Himself to us; we have always hoped for Him and anticipated that He will save us. This is the Lord; we have hoped for Him for some time. Let us exult and rejoice in His salvation.

The prophet adds a comment with regard to Moav: For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain, Mount Zion, and Moav will be trampled under it, its neighbor Israel, as straw is trampled into mortar in the process of brickmaking. This will be the fate of the Moavites.

He, God, will spread His hands in its, Moav’s, midst, as the swimmer spreads out his hands their full length to swim, and He will lower its pride with His forearms, as a swimmer with his stroke pushes aside anything in range.

The prophet addresses Moav: He will reduce the supposedly dependable fortification of your towering walls, lowering it, reaching the ground, to dust. Israel’s future salvation will transform the entire world, and its minor enemies will be eradicated, but not through war. After God’s revelation on earth, nothing will remain of the honor of these enemies.

The prophet returns to the song of the future redemption. On that day of the redemption, this song will be sung in the land of Judah: Ours is a mighty city; He will place salvation in walls and rampart. Alternatively, the salvation that God will bring to the city will provide protection like the walls and rampart.

The prophet addresses the redeemed city of Jerusalem: Prayer and praise to God will be recited in your midst. Therefore, open your gates, and a righteous nation, the keeper of unwavering faith in God, will enter.

This nation possesses a will of reliance in You; You will guard peace, its peace, for it is trusting in You.

Trust in the Lord forever, for God the Lord is an everlasting rock.He is the source of all and the strength of all.

For on the one hand, He bowed the dwellers on high. He will lower the exalted, large, and glorious city, lower it to the ground, bring it to dust.

A foot will trample it, this lowered city: the feet of the poor, the feet of the impoverished. The poor, oppressed by the upper class which lived in the lofty quarters of the city, will step on its houses and ruins.

On the other hand, the proper path for the righteous is uprightness; You will level straight the course of the righteous.

Like the righteous, even we, in the path of Your judgments, Lord, we hoped for You to lead us along the path of Your justice. The desire of the people’s soul is for Your name and for Your appellation.

The prophet says about himself: With my soul (see, e.g., 44:20), I desired You at night, even at those times not dedicated to prayer, Torah, or toil. While my spirit is within me, as long as I live, I will seek You, for when Your judgments, Your reward and punishment, are revealed on the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn of the righteousness, justice, and truth with which You govern the world.

Conversely, will the wicked, who did not learn righteousness, who in the land of the upright will perform evil and will not see the majesty of the Lord, receive grace?

Lord, Your hand is raised to perform Your lofty actions, but they, the wicked, do not see it; they will see Israel’s success and as a result will be ashamed at the sight of the zealousness You display for the people. Even the fire of Your enemies, which they themselves kindled, will consume them.

Lord, You will establish peace for us, for indeed, You have performed all our actions for us. You are behind all our actions.

Lord our God, masters besides You have dominated us. We have not always lived under Your sole authority, as we submitted to other nations, politically and even spiritually. But ultimately, it is You alone whose name we invoke; only You are our haven.

The masters who once dominated us are already considered dead, and they will not live again; they are disembodied spirits [refa’im], or: They are terminally weak [rafim], and they will not rise again. Therefore, You reckoned and destroyed them, and You eradicated all memory of them.

You added to the nation of Israel, Lord, and the more You added to the nation, the more You are honored; You expanded the borders of Your people’s land, the land in which Your glory is revealed, to all the ends of the earth.

Lord, they, Your people, invoked You in times of trouble, pouring out their hearts in silent prayer when Your rebuke was upon them.

Like a pregnant woman approaching childbirth trembles and cries out in her pangs, so were we before You, Lord.

We conceived, we were in pain, but it was as though we gave birth to wind rather than a viable child. Salvations were not realized in the land, and if only salvations will transpire, the inhabitants of the world will not fall.

Your dead, the dead of Your nation Israel, will live; my corpses will rise. Awaken and sing, dwellers of the dust, for the dew of light, or the dew of the fields, is Your dew, which will cause the dead to arise at the end of days, and You will cause the spirits, those who lack physical or spiritual vitality, to fall to the earth. You will destroy the existing world of evil and build a new world.

In the meantime, until that great day arrives, go, my people, enter your chambers and close your door after you; hide for a brief moment, daughter of Zion, until fury will pass.

For behold, the Lord emerges from His place, reveals Himself, in order to reckon the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth against them; the earth will reveal its blood, and it will no longer conceal its slain. The murdered and their blood will no longer be covered by the earth, and the murderers will be punished. In this period of chaos, God’s nation must hide.

On that day, the Great Day of Judgment, the Lord will reckon, judge and punish, with His harsh, great, and powerful sword against leviathan the bar-serpent and leviathan the twisted serpent. The leviathan serpent is described as a bar, as in the bar of a door or the bar joining the part of a wall together. This description refers to its strength, its shape, or its central role. And He will kill the great serpent that is in the sea.

The prophet returns to the song of praise that will be recited when God reveals Himself in the land at the time of the redemption: On that day, sing about it: A vineyard of wine. Vineyards and vines are common metaphors for Israel in the Bible.

I, the Lord, guard it; every moment I water it, lest it lack anything, or lest the enemy harm it; night and day, I guard it.

I have no fury at the vineyard, and therefore I will cultivate and protect it tirelessly, and I will not allow thorns and weeds, which represent Israel’s internal and external enemies, to ruin it. If anyone were to set against Me, My vine, which is identified with me, thorn and thistle in war, by attacking it, I would trample upon the enemy in it, on the battlefield, and ignite it altogether. After the forces of evil were likened to the primordial leviathan, here they are depicted through a far more prosaic metaphor: They are likened to thorns in a vineyard that are trampled and then burned.