In the next three vv. the hoi is expanded. "Behold, the Lord holds a strong and mighty thing like a hailstorm, a pestilent tempest; like a storm of mighty overflowing waters, He casts down to the earth with almighty hand. With feet they tread down the proud crown of the drunken of Ephraim. And it happens to the fading flower of its splendid ornament, which is upon the head of the luxuriant valley, as to an early fig before it is harvest, which whoever sees it looks at, and it is no sooner in his hand than he swallows it." "A strong and mighty thing:" ואמּי חזק we have rendered in the neuter (with the lxx and Targum) rather than in the masculine, as Luther does, although the strong and mighty thing which the Lord holds in readiness is no doubt the Assyrian. He is simply the medium of punishment in the hand of the Lord, which is called yâd absolutely, because it is absolute in power - as it were, the hand of all hands. This hand hurls Samaria to the ground (on the expression itself, compare Isaiah 25:12; Isaiah 26:5), so that they tread the proud crown to pieces with their feet (tērâmasnâh, the more pathetic plural form, instead of the singular tērâmēs; Ges. 47, Anm. 3, and Caspari on Obadiah 1:13). The noun sa‛ar, which is used elsewhere in the sense of shuddering, signifies here, like סערה, an awful tempest; and when connected with קטב, a tempest accompanied with a pestilential blast, spreading miasma. Such destructive power is held by the absolute hand. It is soon all over then with the splendid flower that has already begun to fade נבל ציצת, like הקּטן כּלי in Isaiah 22:24). It happens to it as to a bikkūrâh (according to the Masora, written with mappik here, as distinguished from Hosea 9:10, equivalent to kebhikkūrâthâh; see Job 11:9, "like an early fig of this valley;" according to others, it is simply euphonic). The gathering of figs takes place about August. Now, if any one sees a fig as early as June, he fixes his eyes upon it, and hardly touches it with his hand before he swallows it, and that without waiting to masticate it long. Like such a dainty bit will the luxuriant Samaria vanish. The fact that Shalmanassar, or his successor Sargon, did not conquer Samaria till after the lapse of three years (2 Kings 18:10), does not detract from the truth of the prophecy; it is enough that both the thirst of the conqueror and the utter destruction of Samaria answered to it.

Isaiah 28:10 Parallel Commentaries

for precept

Isaiah 28:13 But the word of the LORD was to them precept on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a little...

Isaiah 5:4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? why, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes...

Deuteronomy 6:1-6 Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you...

2 Chronicles 36:15,16 And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending...

Nehemiah 9:29,30 And testified against them, that you might bring them again to your law: yet they dealt proudly, and listened not to your commandments...

Jeremiah 11:7 For I earnestly protested to your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even to this day...

Jeremiah 25:3-7 From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even to this day, that is the three and twentieth year...

Matthew 21:34-41 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the farmers, that they might receive the fruits of it...

Philippians 3:1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.

2 Timothy 3:7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Hebrews 5:12 For when for the time you ought to be teachers...

must be. or, hath been