Let heaven and earth hear with amazement Yahweh's complaint. He has reared His people with the kindliest care, and they (pathetic emphasis) have repaid Him with unfilial ingratitude. Ox and ass find their way to their owner's house, but Israel displays no such intelligence (Jeremiah 8:7). With fourfold term of reproach the prophet expostulates with them for their mad folly. Do you wish to be smitten still more severely, to go on revolting more and more? The whole body politic is all wounds from head to foot; its wounds have not been pressed to remove the matter, nor bandaged, nor softened and soothed with oil (Luke 10:34). Their country is devastated, their cities burned, so much they have learnt from the refugees; from the walls they can see for themselves the Assyrians encamped on their fields and devouring the produce. Zion alone remains, frail and lonely, and, but for Yahweh's goodness, their fate had resembled that of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Isaiah 1:4. seed: not descendants, but brood (Matthew 3:7). They are themselves the evildoers. Omit last clause with LXX.
Isaiah 1:5. Most render On what instead of Why, i.e. on what part of the body, none being left untouched by the rod. This suits the next verse; but chastisement does not select the untouched spots, or avoid striking what it has struck before. the whole head: better than mg. Isaiah is thinking of the State not of individuals. as overthrown by strangers: for this feeble repetition read as the overthrow of Sodom. Elsewhere overthrow always refers to the destruction of the Cities of the Plain (Genesis 19*).
Isaiah 1:8. daughter of Zion: Zion is not the mother, but herself the daughter; cities were often personified as women. booth: the watchman's slight shelter; the special point of the illustration is Zion's isolation, but her frailty also is suggested. a besieged city: pointless; perhaps a watch-tower on some lonely elevation.