That make a man an offender for a word... — The words indicate that Isaiah had been accused, as Jeremiah was afterwards (Jeremiah 37:13), of being unpatriotic, because he had rebuked the sins of Israel and its rulers. Another interpretation gives, “that make men sinners in word,” i.e., suborn false witnesses against him. The former seems preferable, but the general drift of the passage is the same. The “snare” was laid for the “righteous man,” precisely because he “reproved in the gate:” i.e., preached in the open air in the places of public concourse, even in the presence of the rulers and judges as they sat there.
Turn aside the just. — The phrase is used in Exodus 23:6; Amos 5:12; Malachi 3:5, for the deliberate perversion of justice.
A thing of nought. — The Hebrew word is once more the tohu (“without form”) of Genesis 1:1. The accusations brought against the prophet were, as we say, incoherent, absolutely chaotic in their falsehood.