Isaiah 9:13

"Ye the people have not turned to him that smote them, neither have they sought Jehovah of hosts. Therefore Jehovah will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and rush, in one day. The elder and the honorable man, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. For they that lead the people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed. Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men, neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is profane and an evil-doer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still."

Note the repeated sentence in these chapters, "For all this his anger is not turned away; but his hand is stretched out still." This is a kind of refrain, a tragic one, that is repeated over and over as the details of the ruin of Ephraim are recounted. It occurs again in Isaiah 9:12,17,21, and Isaiah 10:4, and also in Isaiah 5:25. There are four stanzas, each ending in this refrain; and They prophecy the Assyrian invasion, the bravado, disdain, and arrogance of Ephraim, the turning of their allies against them, and the total ruin of the nation because of their repeated rebellions against the Lord.

Notice God's promise here to cut off "the head and the tail." This merely means the high and the low, the weak and the mighty. We are shocked that Cheyne thought the crooked priest should have been identified as the "head."[17] However, we truly believe that Isaiah is here exactly right. In every society the crooked exponent of false religion, no matter what might be his exalted position in a wicked society, is truly the "tail" of that society.