Verse 1
This chapter carries an extensive denunciation of the apostate and hardened Israel's reprobate society, regarding that of the rulers and judges of the nation and also that of the vain and artificial women of the nation; and with all this, there is also a formal statement of the ultimate judgment against the whole nation, uttered in the present perfect tense as prophecy certain to be fulfilled.
"Here is a study in disintegration."[1] It is a sad picture of a society which has forsaken its moral values, turned from God to a philosophy of humanism, and adopted the customs, idols, and value-judgments of paganism, inevitably culminating in the bitter predictive prophecy of Isaiah 3:8, "Jerusalem is mined!" The fulfillment of this, no doubt, had already become evident in the great Assyrian invasion that occurred in the times of Isaiah (702 B.C.); "But the real fulfillment waited a century till Nebuchadrezzar's removal of the ablest citizens, leaving behind an utterly weak and irresponsible regime."[2]
"For behold, the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem stay and staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water."
"Doth take away ..." "The present is used here for the future, so certain is the fulfillment."[3] The use of both masculine and feminine forms in staff and stay seems to identify this reference as an idiom meaning "every kind of support, great or small, strong or weak."[4]
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