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Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Isaiah 9:8-21

Here are terrible threatenings, which are directed primarily against Israel, the kingdom of the ten tribes, Ephraim and Samaria, the ruin of which is here foretold, with all the woeful confusions that were the prefaces to that ruin, all which came to pass within a few years after; but they look further, to all the enemies of the throne and kingdom of Christ the Son of David, and read the doom of all the nations that forget God, and will not have Christ to reign over them. Observe, I. The... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Isaiah 9:8

The Lord sent a word unto Jacob ,.... The prophet, having comforted Judah with the promise of the Messiah, returns to denounce the judgments of God upon the ten tribes, under the names of Jacob and Israel, which signify the same; for the "word" here is not the word of promise, the comfortable word concerning the Messiah before mentioned; but a word of threatening, ruin, and destruction, to the kingdom of Israel, after enlarged upon, which the Lord sent unto them by his prophets before hand,... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Isaiah 9:9

And all the people shall know ,.... The word of the Lord, and that it is his; and by sad experience shall feel the weight of it; or, "the people shall know the whole of it" F25 כלו "totum ejus". ; shall find that the whole of it will be accomplished, every punctilio in it; whatever is said is done, everything predicted by it, the substance of it, and every circumstance relating to it: or they shall be punished, they shall bear, know, and feel the punishment of their sins; in which... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Isaiah 9:10

The bricks are fallen down ,.... Houses made of bricks, which were without the cities besieged and destroyed by the Assyrians; of which the haughty Israelites made no account, looking upon such a desolation as little, or no loss at all: but we will build with hewn stone , so that the houses will be better and stronger, more beautiful, and more durable: the sycamores are cut down ; which grew in the fields, and outer parts of the cities, and were but a mean sort of wood, and which the... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Isaiah 9:11

Therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him ,.... Set them up on high, as the word F1 ישגב "elevabit, sive extollet", Forerius. signifies; exalt them above him, and make them superior to him, and conquerors of him, meaning the Assyrians; who, being sent for by Ahab, went up against Damascus, took it, and carried the people captive, and slew Rezin the king of Syria, the head of which was Damascus, 2 Kings 16:7 this is mentioned, because the Israelites put... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Isaiah 9:12

The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind ,.... Rezin, king of Syria, the confederate of the Israelites, being slain, his people joined the Assyrians against Israel; and they, with others mentioned, beset them on all sides, before and behind, east and west; and so the Targum, Septuagint, and other versions, render it, the Syrians on the east, or from the rising of the sun; and the Philistines on the west, or from the setting of the sun; for, as Kimchi observes, Syria lay east of the... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Isaiah 9:13

For the people turneth not to him that smiteth them ,.... Who was the Lord of hosts, as it is explained in the next clause; it was he that had smote the people with the rod of correction and chastisement, by various afflictions and distresses which he had brought upon them; in order to bring them to a sense of their sin and duty, to reclaim and recover them from their backslidings; but they had not such an effect upon them; they returned not to him by repentance and reformation, from whom... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 9:8

Lord "Jehovah" - For אדני Adonai , thirty MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and three editions, read יהוה Yehovah . read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 9:9

Pride and stoutness of heart "Carry themselves haughtily" - וידעו veyadeu , "and they shall know;" so ours and the Versions in general. But what is it that they shall know? The verb stands destitute of its object; and the sense is imperfect. The Chaldee is the only one, as far as I can find, that expresses it otherwise. He renders the verb in this place by ואתרברבו veithrabrabu , "they exalt themselves, or carry themselves haughtily; the same word by which he renders גבהו gabehu ... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 9:10

The bricks - "The eastern bricks," says Sir John Chardin, (see Harmer's Observ. I., p. 176), "are only clay well moistened with water, and mixed with straw, and dried in the sun." So that their walls are commonly no better than our mud walls; see Maundrell, p. 124. That straw was a necessary part in the composition of this sort of bricks, to make the parts of the clay adhere together, appears from Exodus 5. These bricks are properly opposed to hewn stone, so greatly superior in beauty and... read more

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