Isaiah 28:1 - Exposition

Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkard ; rather, of the drunkards , The "drunkards of Ephraim," or of the ten tribes, were at once intoxicated with wine ( Amos 4:1 ; Amos 6:6 ) and with pride ( Amos 6:13 ). As the external aspect of affairs grew mere and more threatening through the advances of Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser, they gave themselves up more and more to self-indulgence and luxury, lay upon beds of ivory, drank wine from bowls, feasted to the sound of the viol, and even invented fresh instruments of music ( Amos 6:4 , Amos 6:5 ). At the same time, they said in their hearts, "Have we not taken by our own strength?" ( Amos 6:13 ). They persisted in regarding themselves as secure, when even ordinary political foresight might have seen that their end was approaching. Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower ; rather, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty . The "glorious beauty" of Samaria was a beauty of magnificent luxury. "Summer" and "winter houses," distinct each from the other ( Amos 3:15 ); "ivory palaces" ( 1 Kings 22:39 ; Amos 3:15 ); a wealth of "gardens, vineyards, fig-orchards, and olive yards" ( Amos 4:9 ); residences of "hewn stone" ( Amos 5:11 ); feasts enlivened with "the melody of viols" ( Amos 5:23 ); "beds of ivory" ( Amos 6:4 ); "wine in bowls" ( Amos 6:6 ); "chief ointments" ( Amos 6:6 ); constituted a total of luxurious refinement beyond which few had proceeded at the time, and which Isaiah was fain to recognize, in a worldly point of view, as "glorious" and "beautiful." But the beauty was of a kind liable to fade, and it was already fading under the sirocco of Assyrian invasion. Which are on the head of the fat valleys ; rather, which is on the head of the rich valley . Samaria was built on a hill of an oval form, which rose up in the midst of a fertile valley shut in by mountains. The prophet identifies the valley with the kingdom itself, and then personifies it, and regards its head as crowned by the fading flower of Samaria's beauty.