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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
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Matthew Henry |
I S A I A H.
CHAP. III.
The prophet, in this chapter, goes on to foretel the desolations that
were coming upon Judah and Jerusalem for their sins, both that by the
Babylonians and that which completed their ruin by the Romans, with
some of the grounds of God’s controversy with them. God threatens,
I. To deprive them of all the supports both of their life and of their
government,
II. To leave them to fall into confusion and disorder,
III. To deny them the blessing of magistracy,
IV. To strip the daughters of Zion of their ornaments,
V. To lay all waste by the sword of war,
The sins that provoked God to deal thus with them were,
1. Their defiance of God,
2. Their impudence,
3. The abuse of power to oppression and tyranny,
4. The pride of the daughters of Zion,
In the midst of the chapter the prophet is directed how to address
particular persons.
(1.) To assure good people that it should be well with them,
notwithstanding those general calamities,
(2.) To assure wicked people that, however God might, in judgment,
remember mercy, yet it should go ill with them,
O that the nations of the earth, at this day, would hearken to rebukes
and warnings which this chapter gives!
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1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from
Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay
of bread, and the whole stay of water,
2 The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the
prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
3 The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the
counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes
shall rule over them.
5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and
every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself
proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
6 When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his
father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and
let this ruin be under thy hand:
7 In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be a healer;
for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a
ruler of the people.
8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their
tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the
eyes of his glory.
The prophet, in the close of the foregoing chapter, had given a
necessary caution to all not to put confidence in man, or any creature;
he had also given a general reason for that caution, taken from the
frailty of human life and the vanity and weakness of human powers. Here
he gives a particular reason for it–God was now about to ruin all their
creature-confidences, so that they should meet with nothing but
disappointments in all their expectations from them
(v. 1):
The stay and the staff shall be taken away, all their supports,
of what kind soever, all the things they trusted to and looked for help
and relief from. Their church and kingdom had now grown old and were
going to decay, and they were (after the manner of aged men,
leaning on a staff: now God threatens to take away their staff, and
then they must fall of course, to take away the stays of both the city
and the country, of Jerusalem and of Judah, which are indeed stays to
one another, and, if one fail, the other feels from it. He that does
this is the Lord, the Lord of hosts–Adon, the Lord that is
himself the stay or foundation; if that stay depart, all other stays
certainly break under us, for he is the strength of them all. He that
is the Lord, the ruler, that has authority to do it, and the Lord of
hosts, that has the ability to do it, he shall take away the stay and
the staff. St. Jerome refers this to the sensible decay of the Jewish
nation after they had crucified our Saviour,
I rather take it as a warning to all nations not to provoke God; for if
they make him their enemy, he can and will thus make them miserable.
Let us view the particulars.
I. Was their plenty a support to them? It is so to any people; bread is
the staff of life: but God can take away the whole stay of bread,
and the whole stay of water; and it is just with him to do so when
fulness of bread becomes an iniquity
and that which was given to be provision for the life is made provision
for the lusts. He can take away the bread and the water by withholding
the rain,
Or, if he allow them, he can take away the stay of bread and the stay
of water by withholding his blessing, by which man lives, and not by
bread only, and which is the staff of bread
(Matt. iv. 4),
and then the bread is not nourishing nor the water refreshing,
Christ is the bread of life and the water of life; if he be our stay,
we shall find that this is a good part not to be taken away,
II. Was their army a support to them–their generals, and commanders,
and military men? These shall be taken away, either cut off by the
sword or so discouraged with the defeats they meet with that they shall
throw up their commissions and resolve to act no more; or they shall be
disabled by sickness, or dispirited, so as to be unfit for business;
The mighty men, and the man of war, and even the inferior
officer, the captain of fifty, shall be removed. It bodes ill
with a people when their valiant men are lost. Let not the strong man
therefore glory in his strength, nor any people trust too much to their
mighty men; but let the strong people glorify God and the
city of the terrible nations fear him, who can make them weak and
despicable,
III. Were their ministers of state a support to them–their learned men,
their politicians, their clergy, their wits and virtuoso? These also
should be taken away–the judges, who were skilled in the laws,
and expert in administering justice,–the prophets, whom they
used to consult in difficult cases,–the prudent, who were
celebrated as men of sense and sagacity above all others and were
assistants to the judges, the diviners (so the word is), those
who used unlawful arts, who, though rotten stays, yet were stayed on,
(but it may be taken, as we read it, in a good sense),–the
ancients, elders in age, in office,–the honourable man, the
gravity of whose aspect commands reverence and whose age and experience
make him fit to be a counsellor. Trade is one great support to a
nation, even manufactures and handicraft trades; and therefore, when
the whole stay is broken, the cunning artificer too shall be
taken away; and the last is the eloquent orator, the man skilful
of speech, who in some cases may do good service, though he be none of
the prudent or the ancient, by putting the sense of others in good
language. Moses cannot speak well, but Aaron can. God threatens to take
these away, that is,
1. To disable them for the service of their country, making judges
fools, taking away the speech of the trusty and the understanding of
the aged,
Job xii. 17,
&c. Every creature is that to us which God makes it to be; and we
cannot be sure that those who have been serviceable to us shall always
be so.
2. To put an end to their days; for the reason why princes are not to
be trusted in is because their breath goeth forth,
Ps. cxlvi. 3, 4.
Note, The removal of useful men by death, in the midst of their
usefulness, is a very threatening symptom to any people.
IV. Was their government a support to them? It ought to have been so;
it is the business of the sovereign to bear up the pillars of the land,
But it is here threatened that this stay should fail them. When the
mighty men and the prudent are removed children shall be their
princes–children in age, who must be under tutors and governors,
who will be clashing with one another and making a prey of the young
king and his kingdom-children in understanding and disposition,
childish men, such as are babes in knowledge, no more fit to rule than
a child in the cradle. These shall rule over them, with all the folly,
fickleness, and frowardness, of a child. And woe unto thee, O land!
when thy king is such a one!
V. Was the union of the subjects among themselves, their good order and
the good understanding and correspondence that they kept with one
another, a stay to them? Where this is the case a people may do better
for it, though their princes be not such as they should be; but it is
here threatened that God would send an evil spirit among them too (as
which would make them,
1. Injurious and unneighbourly one towards another
(v. 5):
“The people shall be oppressed every one by his neighbour,” and
their princes, being children, will take no care to restrain the
oppressors or relieve the oppressed, nor is it to any purpose to appeal
to them (which is a temptation to every man to be his own avenger), and
therefore they bite and devour one another and will soon be consumed
one of another. Then homo homini lupus–man becomes a wolf to man;
jusque datum sceleri–wickedness receives the stamp of law; nec hospes
ab hospite tutus–the guest and the host are in danger from each
other.
2. Insolent and disorderly towards their superiors. It is as ill an
omen to a people as can be when the rising generation among them are
generally untractable, rude, and ungovernable, when the child
behaves himself proudly against the ancient, whereas he should
rise up before the hoary head and honour the face of the old
man,
Lev. xix. 32.
When young people are conceited and pert, and behave scornfully towards
their superiors, their conduct is not only a reproach to themselves,
but of ill consequence to the public; it slackens the reins of
government and weakens the hands that hold them. It is likewise ill
with a people when persons of honour cannot support their authority,
but are affronted by the base and beggarly, when judges are insulted
and their powers set at defiance by the mob. Those have a great deal to
answer for who do this.
VI. It is some stay, some support, to hope that, though matters may be
now ill-managed, yet other may be raised up, who may manage better? Yet
this expectation also shall be frustrated, for the case shall be so
desperate that no man of sense or substance will meddle with it.
1. The government shall go a begging,
v. 6.
Here,
(1.) It is taken for granted that there is no way of redressing all
these grievances, and bringing things into order again, but by good
magistrates, who shall be invested with power by common consent, and
shall exert that power for the good of the community. And it is
probable that this was, in many places, the true origin of government;
men found it necessary to unite in a subjection to one who was thought
fit for such a trust, in order to the welfare and safety of them all,
being aware that they must either be ruled or ruined. Here therefore is
the original contract: “Be thou our ruler, and we will be
subject to thee, and let this ruin be under thy hand, to be
repaired and restored, and then to be preserved and established, and
the interests of it advanced,
Take care to protect us by the sword of war from being injured from
abroad, and by the sword of justice from being injurious to another,
and we will bear faith and true allegiance to thee.”
(2.) The case is represented as very deplorable, and things as having
come to a sad pass; for,
[1.] Children being their princes, every man will think himself fit to
prescribe who shall be a magistrate, and will be for preferring his own
relations; whereas, if the princes were as they should be, it would be
left entirely to them to nominate the rulers, as it ought to be.
[2.] Men will find themselves under a necessity even of forcing power
into the hands of those that are thought to be fit for it: A man
shall take hold by violence of one to make him a ruler, perceiving
him ready to resist the motion: nay, he shall urge it upon his brother;
whereas, commonly, men are not willing that their equals should be
their superiors, witness the envy of Joseph’s brethren.
[3.] It will be looked upon as ground sufficient for the preferring of
a man to be a ruler that he has clothing better than his neighbours–a
very poor qualification to recommend a man to a place of trust in the
government. It was a sign that the country was much impoverished when
it was a rare thing to find a man that had good clothes, or could
afford to buy himself an alderman’s gown or a judge’s robes; and it was
proof enough that the people were very unthinking when they had so much
respect to a man in gay clothing, with a gold ring
Jam. ii. 2, 3),
that, for the sake thereof, they would make him their ruler. It would
have been some sense to have said, “Thou hast wisdom, integrity,
experience; be thou our ruler.” But it was a jest to say, Thou hast
clothing; be thou our ruler. A poor wise man, though in vile
raiment, delivered a city,
Eccl. ix. 15.
We may allude to this to show how desperate the case of fallen man was
when our Lord Jesus was pleased to become our brother, and, though he
was not courted, offered himself to be our ruler and Saviour, and to
take this ruin under his hand.
2. Those who are thus pressed to come into office will swear themselves
off, because, though they are taken to be men of some substance, yet
they know themselves unable to bear the charges of the office and to
answer the expectations of those that choose them
(v. 7):
He shall swear (shall lift up the hand, the ancient ceremony
used in taking the oath) I will not be a healer; make not me a
ruler. Note, Rulers must be healers, and good rulers will be so;
they must study to unite their subjects, and not to widen the
differences that are among them. Those only are fit for government that
are of a meek, quiet, healing, spirit. They must also heal the wounds
that are given to any of the interests of their people, by suitable
applications. But why will he not be a ruler? Because in my house is
neither bread nor clothing.
(1.) If he said true, it was a sign that men’s estates were sadly
ruined when even those who made the best appearance really wanted
necessaries–a common case, and a piteous one. Some who, having lived
fashionably, are willing to put the best side outwards, are yet, if the
truth were known, in great straits, and go with heavy hearts for want
of bread and clothing.
(2.) If he did not speak truth, it was a sign that men’s consciences
were sadly debauched, when, to avoid the expense of an office, they
would load themselves with the guilt of perjury, and (which is the
greatest madness in the world) would damn their souls to save their
money,
(3.) However it was, it was a sign that the case of the nation was very
bad when nobody was willing to accept a place in the government of it,
as despairing to have either credit or profit by it, which are the two
things aimed at in men’s common ambition of preferment.
3. The reason why God brought things to this sad pass, even among his
own people (which is given either by the prophet or by him that refused
to be a ruler); it was not for want of good will to his country, but
because he saw the case desperate and past relief, and it would be to
no purpose to attempt it
(v. 8):
Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen; and they may
thank themselves. They have brought their destruction upon their own
heads, for their tongue and their doings are against the Lord;
in word and action they broke the law of God and therein designed an
affront to him; they wilfully intended to offend him, in contempt of
his authority and defiance of his justice. Their tongue was against the
Lord, for they contradicted his prophets; and their doings were no
better, for they acted as they talked. It was an aggravation of their
sin that God’s eye was upon them, and that his glory was manifested
among them; but they provoked him to his face, as if the more they knew
of his glory the greater pride they took in slighting it, and turning
it into shame. And this, this, is it for which Jerusalem is ruined.
Note, The ruin both of persons and people is owing to their sins. If
they did not provoke God, he would do them no hurt,
Jer. xxv. 6.
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9 The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and
they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto
their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.
10 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him:
for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.
11 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the
reward of his hands shall be given him.
12 As for my people, children are their oppressors, and
women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause
thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.
13 The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the
people.
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.
15 What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind
the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts.
Here God proceeds in his controversy with his people. Observe,
I. The ground of his controversy. It was for sin that God contended
with them; if they vex themselves, let them look a little further and
they will see that they must thank themselves: Woe unto their
souls! For they have rewarded evil unto themselves. Alas for their
souls! (so it may be read, in a way of lamentation), for they
have procured evil to themselves,
v. 9.
Note, The condition of sinners is woeful and very deplorable. Note,
also, It is the soul that is damaged and endangered by sin. Sinners may
prosper in their outward estates, and yet at the same time there may be
a woe to their souls. Note, further, Whatever evils befals sinners it
is of their own procuring,
That which is here charged upon then is,
1. That the shame which should have restrained them from their sins was
quite thrown off and they had grown impudent,
v. 9.
This hardens men against repentance, and ripens them for ruin, as much
as anything: The show of their countenance doth witness against
them that their minds are vain, and lewd, and malicious; their eyes
declare plainly that they cannot cease from sin,
2 Pet. ii. 14.
One may look them in the face and guess at the desperate wickedness
that there is in their hearts: They declare their sin as Sodom,
so impetuous, so imperious, are their lusts, and so impatient of the
least check, and so perfectly are all the remaining sparks of virtue
extinguished in them. The Sodomites declared their sin, not only by the
exceeding greatness of it
so that it cried to heaven
but by their shameless owning of that which was most shameful
(Gen. xix. 5);
and thus Judah and Jerusalem did: they were so far from hiding it that
they gloried in it, in the bold attempts they made upon virtue, and the
victory they gained over their own convictions. They had a whore’s
forehead
and could not blush,
Note, Those that have grown impudent in sin are ripe for ruin. Those
that are past shame (we say) are past grace, and then past hope.
2. That their guides, who should direct them in the right way, put them
out of the way
(v. 12):
“Those who lead thee (the princes, priests, and prophets)
mislead thee; they cause thee to err.” Either they preached to
them that which was false and corrupt, or, if they preached that which
was true and good, they contradicted it by their practices, and the
people would soon follow a bad example than a good exhortation. Thus
they destroyed the ways of their paths, pulling down with one
hand what they built up with the other. Que te beatificant–Those
that call thee blessed cause thee to err; so some read it. Their
priests applauded them, as if nothing were amiss among them, cried
Peace, peace, to them, as if they were in no danger; and thus
they caused them to go on in their errors.
3. That their judges, who should have patronized and protected the
oppressed, were themselves the greatest oppressors,
The elders of the people, and the princes, who had learning and could
not but know better things, who had great estates and were not under
the temptation of necessity to encroach upon those about them, and who
were men of honour and should have scorned to do a base thing, yet
they have eaten up the vineyard. God’s vineyard, which they were
appointed to be the dressers and keepers of, they burnt (so the word
signifies); they did as ill by it as its worst enemies could do,
Or the vineyards of the poor they wrested out of their possession, as
Jezebel did Naboth’s, or devoured the fruits of them, fed their lusts
with that which should have been the necessary food of indigent
families; the spoil of the poor was hoarded up in their houses; when
God came to search for stolen goods there he found it, and it was a
witness against them. It was to be had, and they might have made
restitution, but would not. God reasons with these great men
(v. 15):
“What mean you, that you beat my people into pieces? What cause
have you for it? What good does it do you?” Or, “What hurt have they
done you? Do you think you had power given you for such a purpose as
this?” Note, There is nothing more unaccountable, and yet nothing which
must more certainly be accounted for, than the injuries and abuses that
are done to God’s people by their persecutors and oppressors. “You
grind the faces of the poor; you put them to as much pain and
terror as if they were ground in a mill, and as certainly reduce them
to dust by one act of oppression after another.” Or, “Their faces are
bruised and crushed with the blows you have given them; you have not
only ruined their estates, but have given them personal abuses.” Our
Lord Jesus was smitten on the face,
Matt. xxvi. 67.
II. The management of this controversy.
1. God himself is the prosecutor
(v. 13):
The Lord stands up to plead, or he sets himself to debate the
matter, and he stands to judge the people, to judge for those
that were oppressed and abused; and he will enter into judgment with
the princes,
v. 14.
Note, The greatest of men cannot exempt or secure themselves from the
scrutiny and sentence of God’s judgment, nor demur to the jurisdiction
of the court of heaven.
2. The indictment is proved by the notorious evidence of the fact:
“Look upon the oppressors, and the show of their countenance
witnesses against them
(v. 9);
look upon the oppressed, and you see how their faces are battered and
abused,”
3. The controversy is already begun in the change of the ministry. To
punish those that had abused their power to bad purposes God sets those
over them that had not sense to use their power to any good purposes:
Children are their oppressors, and women rule over them
(v. 12),
men that have as weak judgments and strong passions as women and
children: this was their sin, that their rulers were such, and it
became a judgment upon them.
III. The distinction that shall be made between particular persons, in
the prosecution of this controversy
(v. 10, 11):
Say to the righteous, It shall be well with thee. Woe to the wicked;
it shall be ill with him. He had said
(v. 9),
they have rewarded evil to themselves, in proof of which he here
shows that God will render to every man according to his works.
Had they been righteous, it would have been well with them; but, if it
be ill with them, it is because they are wicked and will be so. Thus
God stated the matter to Cain, to convince him that he had no reason to
be angry,
Or it may be taken thus: God is threatening national judgments, which
will ruin the public interests. Now,
1. Some good people might fear that they should be involved in that
ruin, and therefore God bids the prophets comfort them against those
fears: “Whatever becomes of the unrighteous nation, let the
righteous man know that he shall not be lost in the crowd of
sinners; the Judge of all the earth will not slay the righteous with
the wicked
no, assure him, in God’s name, that it shall be well with him.
The property of the trouble shall be altered to him, and he shall be
hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger. He shall have divine
supports and comforts, which shall abound as afflictions abound, and so
it shall be well with him.” When the whole stay of bread is taken
away, yet in the day of famine the righteous shall be
satisfied; they shall eat the fruit of their doings–they
shall have the testimony of their consciences for them that they kept
themselves pure from the common iniquity, and therefore the common
calamity is not the same thing to them that it is to others; they
brought no fuel to the flame, and therefore are not themselves fuel for
it.
2. Some wicked people might hope that they should escape that ruin, and
therefore God bids the prophets shake their vain hopes: “Woe to the
wicked; it shall be ill with him,
v. 11.
To him the judgments shall have sting, and there shall be wormwood
and gall in the affliction and misery.” There is a woe to
wicked people, and, though they may think to shelter themselves from
public judgments, yet it shall be ill with them; it will grow worse and
worse with them if they repent not, and the worst of all will be at
last; for the reward of their hands shall be given them, in the
day when every man shall receive according to the things done in the
body.
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16 Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are
haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes,
walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with
their feet:
17 Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the
head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their
secret parts.
18 In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their
tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and
their round tires like the moon,
19 The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers,
20 The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the
headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings,
21 The rings, and nose jewels,
22 The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the
wimples, and the crisping pins,
23 The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the
veils.
24 And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell
there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead
of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding
of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.
25 Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.
26 And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being
desolate shall sit upon the ground.
The prophet’s business was to show all sorts of people what they had
contributed to the national guilt and what share they must expect in
the national judgments that were coming. Here he reproves and warns the
daughters of Zion, tells the ladies of their faults; and Moses, in the
law, having denounced God’s wrath against the tender and delicate
woman (the prophets being a comment upon the law,
he here tells them how they shall smart by the calamities that are
coming upon them. Observe,
I. The sin charged upon the daughters of Zion,
The prophet expressly vouches God’s authority for what he said, lest it
should be thought it was unbecoming in him to take notice of such
things, and should be resented by the ladies: The Lord saith it.
“Whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, let them know
that God takes notice of, and is much displeased with, the folly and
vanity of proud women, and his law takes cognizance even of their
dress.” Two things that here stand indicted for–haughtiness and
wantonness, directly contrary to that modesty, shamefacedness, and
sobriety, with which women ought to adorn themselves,
1 Tim. ii. 9.
They discovered the disposition of their mind by their gait and
gesture, and the lightness of their carriage. They are haughty, for
they walk with stretched-forth necks, that they may seem tall,
or, as thinking nobody good enough to speak to them or to receive a
look or a smile from them. Their eyes are wanton, deceiving (so
the word is); with their amorous glances they draw men into their
snares. They affect a formal starched way of going, that people may
look at them, and admire them, and know they have been at the
dancing-school, and have learned the minuet-step. They go
mincing, or nicely tripping, not willing to set so much as the
sole of their foot to the ground, for tenderness and delicacy. They
make a tinkling with their feet, having, as some think, chains,
or little bells, upon their shoes, that made a noise: they go as if
they were fettered (so some read it), like a horse tramelled, that
he may learn to pace. Thus Agag came delicately,
Such a nice affected mien is not only a force upon that which is
natural, and ridiculous before men, men of sense; but as it is an
evidence of a vain mind, it is offensive to God. And two things
aggravated it here:
1. That these were the daughters of Zion, the holy mountain, who should
have behaved with the gravity that becomes women professing godliness.
2. That it should seem, by the connexion, they were the wives and
daughters of the princes who spoiled and oppressed the poor
that they might maintain the pride and luxury of their families.
II. The punishments threatened for this sin; and they answer the sin as
face answers to face in a glass,
1. They walked with stretched-forth necks, but God will smite
with a scab the crown of their head, which shall lower their
crests, and make them ashamed to show their heads, being obliged by it
to cut off their hair. Note, Loathsome diseases are often sent as the
just punishment of pride, and are sometimes the immediate effect of
lewdness, the flesh and the body being consumed by it.
2. They cared not what they laid out in furnishing themselves with
great variety of fine clothes; but God will reduce them to such poverty
and distress that they shall not have clothes sufficient to cover their
nakedness, but their uncomeliness shall be exposed through their rags.
3. They were extremely fond and proud of their ornaments; but God will
strip them of those ornaments, when their houses shall be plundered,
their treasures rifled, and they themselves led into captivity. The
prophet here specifies many of the ornaments which they used as
particularly as if he had been the keeper of their wardrobe or had
attended them in their dressing-room. It is not at all material to
enquire what sort of ornaments these respectively were and whether the
translations rightly express the original words; perhaps 100 years
hence the names of some of the ornaments that are now in use in our own
land will be as little understood as some of those here mentioned now
are. Fashions alter, and so do the names of them; and yet the mention
of them is not in vain, but is designed to expose the folly of the
daughters of Zion; for,
(1.) Many of these things, we may suppose, were very odd and
ridiculous, and, if they had not been in fashion, would have been
hooted at. They were fitter to be toys for children to play with than
ornaments for grown people to go to Mount Zion in.
(2.) Those things that were decent and convenient, as the linen, the
hoods, and the veils, needed not be provided in such abundance and
variety. It is necessary to have apparel and proper that all should
have it according to their rank; but what occasion was there for so
many changeable suits of apparel
(v. 22),
that they might not be seen two days together in the same suit? “They
must have (as the homily against excess of apparel speaks) one gown for
the day, another for the night–one long, another short–one for the
working day, another for the holy-day–one of this colour, another of
that colour–one of cloth, another of silk or damask–one dress afore
dinner, another after–one of the Spanish fashion, another Turkey–and
never content with sufficient.” All this, as it is an evidence of pride
and vain curiosity, so must needs spend a great deal in gratifying a
base lust that ought to be laid out in works of piety and charity; and
it is well if poor tenants be not racked, or poor creditors defrauded
to support it.
(3.) The enumeration of these things intimates what care they were in
about them, how much their hearts were upon them, what an exact account
they kept of them, how nice and critical they were about them, how
insatiable their desire was of them, and how much of their comfort was
bound up in them. A maid could forget none of these ornaments, though
they were ever so many
(Jer. ii. 32),
but they would report them as readily, and talk of them with as much
pleasure, as if they had been things of the greatest moment. The
prophet did not speak of these things as in themselves sinful (they
might lawfully be had and used), but as things which they were proud of
and should therefore be deprived of.
III. They were very nice and curious about their clothes; but God would
make those bodies of theirs, which were at such expense to beautify and
make easy, a reproach and burden to them
(v. 24):
Instead of sweet smell (those tablets, or boxes, of perfume,
houses of the soul or breath, as they are called,
margin) there shall be stink, garments grown filthy with
being long worn, or from some loathsome disease or plasters for the
cure of it. Instead of a rich embroidered girdle used to
make the clothes sit tight, there shall be a rent, a rending of
the clothes for grief, or old rotten clothes rent into rags. Instead
of well-set hair, curiously plaited and powdered, there shall be
baldness, the hair being plucked off or shaven, as was usual in
times of great affliction
or in great servitude,
Instead of a stomacher, or a scarf or sash, there shall be a
girding of sackcloth, in token of deep humiliation; and burning
instead of beauty. Those that had a good complexion, and were proud
of it, when they are carried into captivity shall be tanned and
sun-burnt; and it is observed that the best faces are soonest injured
by the weather. From all this let us learn,
1. Not to be nice and curious about our apparel, not to affect that
which is gay and costly, nor to be proud of it.
2. Not to be secure in the enjoyment of any of the delights of sense,
because we know not how soon we may be stripped of them, nor what
straits we may be reduced to.
IV. They designed by these ornaments to charm the gentlemen, and win
their affections
but there shall be none to be charmed by them
(v. 25):
Thy men shall fall by the sword, and the mighty in the war, The
fire shall consume them, and then the maidens shall
not be given in marriage; as it is,
When the sword comes with commission the mighty commonly fall first by
it, because they are most forward to venture. And, when Zion’s guards
are cut off, no marvel that Zion’s gates lament and mourn
(v. 26),
the enemies having made themselves masters of them; and the city
itself, being desolate, being emptied or swept, shall sit upon the
ground like a disconsolate widow. If sin be harboured with in the
walls, lamentation and mourning are near the gates.
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