Isaiah Chapter 10 verse 1 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 1-4. - The prophecy begun in Isaiah 9:8 terminates with this stanza, which contains a warning against injustice and oppression, addressed to Israel and Judah equally, and accompanied by the threat of a "day of desolation," when those who have refused to make God their Refuge will have no resource, but to go into captivity with the "prisoners," or to perish with the "slain." A foreign conquest, accompanied by slaughter, and the deportation of captives, is not obscurely intimated. Verse 1. - Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees (comp. Isaiah 1:17, 20, 26; Isaiah 5:23, etc.). The perversion of judgment from the judgment-seat is the sin rebuked. It was certainly prevalent in Judah, it may also have been practiced in Israel. And that write grievousness, etc. Translate, and unto the writers that enregister oppression. The decrees of courts were, it is clear, carefully engrossed by the officials, probably upon parchment, every outward formality being observed, while justice itself was set at naught.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English ReadersX.(1) Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees . . .--The division of the chapters is again misleading. Isaiah 10:1-4 continue the discourse of Isaiah 9, and end with the final knell, "For all this . . ." With Isaiah 10:5 a new section begins, and is carried on to Isaiah 12:6, which deals, for the first time in the collection of Isaiah's writings, exclusively with Assyria, and is followed in its turn by utterances that deal with Babylon and other nations. The formula with which the section opens reminds us of that of Isaiah 5:8; Isaiah 5:11; Isaiah 5:18; Isaiah 5:22, and suggests the thought that the prophet is speaking not only or chiefly of the northern kingdom, as in Isaiah 9:21, but of Israel as including Judah. The evils the prophet denounces are, it will be noted, identical with those in Isaiah 1:23; Isaiah 5:23. For the second clause of the verse, read, "and the scribes who register oppression." All the formalities of justice were observed punctiliously. The decision of the unjust judge was duly given and recorded, but the outcome of it all was that the poor, the widow, and the fatherless got no redress. The words for "prey" and "rob" are those used in the mysterious name of Isaiah 8:1. They occur again in Isaiah 10:6. It would seem as if the prophet sought in this way to impress the thought of the great law of divine retribution. Men were reaping as they had sown. . . .