Isaiah 30:27-28

27, 28. The transition here is sudden.

The name The “name” of Jehovah is Jehovah himself, that is, Jehovah in absolute and distinctive personality as revealed in word and act.

Cometh from far The revelation of God’s righteousness cometh from all his works and providences. Manifestations of divine judgments are everywhere. God is judge. Nations are brought before him. Evil doing is condemned, and monuments thereof cover the world. The judgments now to be rendered are upon Assyria, the persecutor of Judah. The storm, ready to burst, is hovering over the world-power, but the description applies in principle to all judgment scenes. Jehovah comes in deliverance to all his trusting people through awful but necessary calamities to his enemies.

His anger His felt moral outrage against defiant independence of him.

Burden… is heavy Literally, Grievous is the flame. Possibly this means, “Tremendous is the bursting lightning which darts from the blackened heavens.”

And his breath His Spirit moving, now gently, now in tornado force, as occasion calls; in this action it is violent, destructive.

As an overflowing stream Rushing forth as such a stream rushes.

Neck Or, divides at the neck. Only the head is yet out of peril. Perhaps meaning Assyria, not yet completely doomed.

Sieve of vanity Divine judgment sifts the nations, and what remains is emptiness, nothingness, destruction. Lowth calls it the winnowing fan of destruction.

Bridle In the jaws of unwilling nations, leading them into ways they did not intend. See Assyrian inscriptions.

Here are metaphors jumbled, but of striking force and of clear meaning. The figures melt into each other. A storm is conceived rising from the farthest horizon; the black cloud is turned into a sea of fire, or lightnings consuming where they strike, and raising volumes (burden) of smoke, all of which symbolizes the divine wrath, swelling as it were into a stream, covering men up to the neck, the same as in chap. Isaiah 8:8, which see. The judicial effect is the same as sifting chaff to the winds by the winnowing fan, common to this day in Palestine. All that is worth saving is left, the rest cast utterly away. Nations are destroyed, or diminished and held as by a “bridle” from pursuing and compassing their utterly selfish ends.