Isaiah 3:14

The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:10-15 The rule was certain; however there might be national prosperity or trouble, it would be well with the righteous and ill with the wicked. Blessed be God, there is abundant encouragement to the righteous to trust in him, and for sinners to repent and return to him. It was time for the Lord to show his might. He will call men to a strict account for all the wealth and power intrusted to and abused by them. If it is sinful to disregard the necessities of the poor, how odious and wicked a part do they act, who bring men into poverty, and then oppress them!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

With the ancients ... - With the old men, the counselors.

Ye have eaten up the vineyard - Hebrew 'Ye have burnt up' - that is, you have oonsumed or destroyed it. By the vineyard is represented the Jewish republic or people; Psalm 80:9-13; compare the notes at Isaiah 5:1-7. The princes and rulers had, by their exactions and oppressions, ruined the people, and destroyed the country.

The spoil of the poor - The "plunder" of the poor; or that which you have taken from the poor by exactions and oppressions. The word "spoil" commonly means the plunder or booty which is obtained in war.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. ancients—Hence they are spoken of as "taken away" (Isa 3:1, 2).

vineyard—the Jewish theocracy (Isa 5:1-7; Ps 80:9-13).

eaten up—"burnt"; namely, by "oppressive exactions" (Isa 3:12). Type of the crowning guilt of the husbandmen in the days of Jesus Christ (Mt 21:34-41).

spoil … houses—(Mt 23:14).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The ancients; the princes or rulers, as it is explained in the next clause, who are oft called elders, because such were commonly and fitly chosen out of those who were ripe in years.

Eaten up; destroyed instead of preserving and dressing it, as you should have done.

The vineyard; the church and commonwealth of Israel, which is oft called God’s vineyard, as Psalm 80:8,14,15 Isa 5:1 Jeremiah 2:21, &c., and here the vineyard, by way of eminency; or, the vineyard which was committed to your care to keep.

The spoil of the poor; the goods which you have violently taken away from the poor.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof,.... Both civil and ecclesiastical; the princes, chief priests, and elders of the people, who set themselves and took counsel together against the Lord and his Christ; would not suffer the people to be gathered to him; sought his life, and at last took it away.

For ye have eaten up the vineyard, or burnt it (p); the house of Israel, and of Judah compared to a vineyard, in a following chapter; and so the Targum,

"ye have oppressed my people;''

these are the husbandmen our Lord speaks of, that beat the servants that were sent for the fruits of the vineyard, and at last killed the heir, Matthew 21:34.

The spoil of the poor is in your houses; the Pharisees devoured widows' houses, and filled their own, with the spoil of them, Matthew 23:14.

(p) "succendistis", Vatablus, Montanus.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD will enter into judgment with the {l} elders of his people, and with their princes: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

(l) Meaning that the rulers and governors had destroyed his Church and not preserved it, according to their duty.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. Those immediately arraigned are the “elders and princes,” the authorities responsible for the national welfare.

for ye have eaten up] Rather, And you—ye have eaten up. The indignant remonstrance of Jehovah commences at this point. The image of the vineyard is fully explained in ch. Isaiah 5:1-7. The point of the accusation here is that those who should have kept the vineyard from the intrusion of wild beasts have themselves devoured it.

the spoil … houses] the evidence of their sin.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - The ancients... the princes. These were the chief oppressors. They delivered the judgments, and it was by them that justice was perverted. Jehovah therefore enters specially into judgment with them. For ye have eaten up; rather, So ye have eaten up. Jehovah is supposed to address the unjust judges. He reproaches them with having "eaten up," or rather "scorched up," his vineyard, i.e. Israel (comp. Isaiah 5:1-7), and taxes them with having still their ill-gotten gains in their houses. "So ye," he says, "have thus acted - ye whose duty it was to have acted so differently." Isaiah 3:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Jehovah will proceed to judgment with the elders of His people, and its princes. And ye, ye have eaten up the vineyard; prey of the suffering is in your houses. What mean ye that ye crush my people, and grind the face of the suffering? Thus saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts." The words of God Himself commence with "and ye" (v'attem). The sentence to which this (et vos equals at vos) is the antithesis is wanting, just as in Psalm 2:6, where the words of God commence with "and I" (va'ani, et ego equals ast ego). the tacit clause may easily be supplied, viz., I have set you over my vineyard, but he have consumed the vineyard. The only question is, whether the sentence is to be regarded as suppressed by Jehovah Himself, or by the prophet. Most certainly by Jehovah Himself. The majesty with which He appeared before the rulers of His people as, even without words, a practical and undeniable proof that their majesty was only a shadow of His, and their office His trust. But their office consisted in the fact that Jehovah had committed His people to their care. The vineyard of Jehovah was His people - a self-evident figure, which the prophet dresses up in the form of a parable in chapter 5. Jehovah had appointed them as gardeners and keepers of this vineyard, but they themselves have become the very beasts that they ought to have warded off. בּער is applied to the beasts which completely devour the blades of a corn-field or the grapes of a vineyard (Exodus 22:4). This change was perfectly obvious. The possessions stolen from their unhappy countrymen, which were still in their houses, were the tangible proof of their plundering of the vineyard. "The suffering:" ani (depressus, the crushed) is introduced as explanatory of haccerem, the prey, because depression and misery were the ordinary fate of the congregation which God called His vineyard. It was ecclesia pressa, but woe to the oppressors! In the question "what mean ye?" (mallâcem) the madness and wickedness of their deeds are implied. מה and לכם are fused into one word here, as if it were a prefix (as in Exodus 4:2; Ezekiel 8:6; Malachi 1:13; vid., Ges. 20, 2). The Keri helps to make it clear by resolving the chethibh. The word mallâcem ought, strictly speaking, to be followed by chi: "What is there to you that ye crush my people?" as in Isaiah 22:1, Isaiah 22:16; but the words rush forwards (as in Jonah 1:6), because they are an explosion of wrath. For this reason the expressions relating to the behaviour of the rulers are the strongest that can possibly be employed. דּכּא (crush) is also to be met with in Proverbs 22:22; but "grind the face" (tâchan p'ne) is a strong metaphor without a parallel. The former signifies "to pound," the latter "to grind," as the millstone grinds the corn. They grind the faces of those who are already bowed down, thrusting them back with such unmerciful severity, that they stand as it were annihilated, and their faces become as white as flour, or as the Germans would say, cheese-white, chalk-white, as pale as death, from oppression and despair. Thus the language supplied to a certain extent appropriate figures, with which to describe the conduct of the rulers of Israel; but it contained no words that could exhaust the immeasurable wickedness of their conduct: hence the magnitude of their sin is set before them in the form of a question, "What is to you?" i.e., What indescribable wickedness is this which you are committing? The prophet hears this said by Jehovah, the majestic Judge, whom he here describes as Adonai Elohim Zebaoth (according to the Masoretic pointing). This triplex name of God, which we find in the prophetic books, viz., frequently in Amos and also in Jeremiah 2:19, occurs for the first time in the Elohistic Psalm, Psalm 69:7. This scene of judgment is indeed depicted throughout in the colours of the Psalms, and more especially recals the (Elohistic) Psalm of Asaph (Psalm 82:1-8).