Isaiah 28:7-11
7. Though Judah is to survive the fall of Ephraim, yet "they also" (the men of Judah) have perpetrated like sins to those of Samaria (Isa 5:3, 11), which must be chastised by God.
erred . . . are out of the way—"stagger . . . reel." Repeated, to express the frequency of the vice. priest . . . prophet—If the ministers of religion sin so grievously, how much more the other rulers (Isa 56:10, 12)! vision—even in that most sacred function of the prophet to declare God's will revealed to them. judgment—The priests had the administration of the law committed to them (De 17:9; 19:17). It was against the law for the priests to take wine before entering the tabernacle (Le 10:9; Eze 44:21).5-13. The prophet now turns to Judah; a gracious promise to the remnant ("residue"); a warning lest through like sins Judah should share the fate of Samaria.
crown—in antithesis to the "fading crown" of Ephraim (Isa 28:1, 3). the residue—primarily, Judah, in the prosperous reign of Hezekiah (2Ki 18:7), antitypically, the elect of God; as He here is called their "crown and diadem," so are they called His (Isa 62:3); a beautiful reciprocity.9, 10. Here the drunkards are introduced as scoffingly commenting on Isaiah's warnings: "Whom will he (does Isaiah presume to) teach knowledge? And whom will He make to understand instruction? Is it those (that is, does he take us to be) just weaned, &c.? For (he is constantly repeating, as if to little children) precept upon precept," &c.
line—a rule or law. [MAURER]. The repetition of sounds in Hebrew tzav latzav, tzav latzav, qav laqav, qav laquav, expresses the scorn of the imitators of Isaiah's speaking; he spoke stammering (Isa 28:11). God's mode of teaching offends by its simplicity the pride of sinners (2Ki 5:11, 12; 1Co 1:23). Stammerers as they were by drunkenness, and children in knowledge of God, they needed to be spoken to in the language of children, and "with stammering lips" (compare Mt 13:13). A just and merciful retribution.11. For—rather, "Truly." This is Isaiah's reply to the scoffers: Your drunken questions shall be answered by the severe lessons from God conveyed through the Assyrians and Babylonians; the dialect of these, though Semitic, like the Hebrew, was so far different as to sound to the Jews like the speech of stammerers (compare Isa 33:19; 36:11). To them who will not understand God will speak still more unintelligibly.
Isaiah 28:13-14
13. But—rather, "Therefore," namely, because "they would not hear" (Isa 28:12).
that they might go—the designed result to those who, from a defect of the will, so far from profiting by God's mode of instructing, "precept upon precept," &c., made it into a stumbling-block (Ho 6:5; 8:12; Mt 13:14). go, and fall—image appropriately from "drunkards" (Isa 28:7, 8, which they were) who in trying to "go forward fall backward."14. scornful—(See on Isa 28:9).
Isaiah 28:22
22. mockers—a sin which they had committed (Isa 28:9, 10).
bands—their Assyrian bondage (Isa 10:27); Judah was then tributary to Assyria; or, "lest your punishment be made still more severe" (Isa 24:22). consumption—destruction (Isa 10:22, 23; Da 9:27).Isaiah 29:20
20. terrible—namely, the persecutors among the Jewish nobles.
scorner— (Isa 28:14, 22). watch for—not only commit iniquity, but watch for opportunities of committing it, and make it their whole study (see Mic 2:1; Mt 26:59; 27:1).