Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
Ver. 4. Ah sinflul notion.] Hoi goi chote. He beginneth his complaint with a sigh, as well he might, when he saw that the better God was to them, the worse they were to him; like springs of water, which are then coldest when the sun is hottest; like the Thracian flint, which is said to burn with water, and to be quenched with oil, or like that country where drought maketh dirt, and rain dust. a Ah gens peccatrix! Oh, thou that art wholly made up of mischief, as Aaron once said of their forefathers in the wilderness, that they were "wholly set upon wickedness," Exo 32:22 and as the prophet saith, "What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?" Mic 1:5
A people laden with iniquity] Great and grievous offenders, b guilty of many and mighty (or long) sins, Amo 5:12 quorum amplitudine praegravanfur, yet not sensible of their burden; not heavyladen, as Mat 11:28 nor labouring to be delivered of that hedgehog that woundeth and teareth them in their tender inside.
A seed of evildoers.] A race of rebels, a seed of serpents: Mali corvi malum ovum: such as were as good at resisting the Holy Ghost as ever their fathers had been; Act 7:51 generation after generation they held it out, and were no changelings then, neither are to this day.
Children that are corrupters.] Or, Destroyers, dingthrifts, ασωτοι quasi ασωστοι, destroy goods, such as the Roman prodigal, who gloried that of a large patrimony left him by his parents, he had now left himself nothing praeter coelum et caenum; or that other in the Gospel, who had drawn much of his portion through his throat, and spent the rest on harlots. Lo! such ill husbands for their souls were these Jews here spoken of, seipsis assidue facti deteriores, while they woefully wasted their time and strength in the pursuit of their lusts: "cursed children." 2Pe 2:14
They have forsaken the Lord.] Which is such a foul enormity, as good Jeremiah thinks the very heaven sweateth at, and the earth groaneth under. Jer 2:12-13
They have provoked unto anger.] As if they had a mind to wrestle a fall, and try masteries with him. The Vulgate rendereth it, They have blasphemed. See Trapp on " Isa 1:2 "
They are gone away backward.] A lienaverunt se retrorsum, certatim exardescentes in apostasiam; as the moon when fullest of light getteth farther off from the sun. They had turned upon God the back and not the face, by a shameful apostasy, even then when they frequently trod his courts, Isa 1:12 and departed not thence, haply, any otherwise than the Jews at this day do, out of their synagogues with their faces still toward the ark, like crabs going backward.
a Siccitas dat lutum, imbres pulverem. - Plin,
b Gens quae non nisi peccare didicit. - Scult. Secura et petulans. - Piscat. Luke 15:30 .