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Social Evils Denounced

Alas for those who devise wickedness

and evil deeds on their beds!

When the morning dawns, they perform it,

because it is in their power.

They covet fields, and seize them;

houses, and take them away;

they oppress householder and house,

people and their inheritance.

Therefore thus says the L ord:

Now, I am devising against this family an evil

from which you cannot remove your necks;

and you shall not walk haughtily,

for it will be an evil time.

On that day they shall take up a taunt song against you,

and wail with bitter lamentation,

and say, “We are utterly ruined;

the L ord alters the inheritance of my people;

how he removes it from me!

Among our captors he parcels out our fields.”

Therefore you will have no one to cast the line by lot

in the assembly of the L ord.

“Do not preach”—thus they preach—

“one should not preach of such things;

disgrace will not overtake us.”

Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

Is the L ord’s patience exhausted?

Are these his doings?

Do not my words do good

to one who walks uprightly?

But you rise up against my people as an enemy;

you strip the robe from the peaceful,

from those who pass by trustingly

with no thought of war.

The women of my people you drive out

from their pleasant houses;

from their young children you take away

my glory forever.

Arise and go;

for this is no place to rest,

because of uncleanness that destroys

with a grievous destruction.

If someone were to go about uttering empty falsehoods,

saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

such a one would be the preacher for this people!

A Promise for the Remnant of Israel

I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob,

I will gather the survivors of Israel;

I will set them together

like sheep in a fold,

like a flock in its pasture;

it will resound with people.

The one who breaks out will go up before them;

they will break through and pass the gate,

going out by it.

Their king will pass on before them,

the L ord at their head.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

He proceeds with the same subject, that they refrained from no acts of injustice. It was indeed a proof of extreme barbarity not to spare women and children, for they are both weak and helpless. Their sex exempts women from violence, and their age, children. ⁸⁸⁸⁸     This verse presents several anomalies. We have “women” and the verbs in the plural, and then “house,” “her delights,” and “her children.” It may be thus rendered, —
   The women of my people ye drive away,
Each from the house of her delights;
From off her children ye take away my ornament forever.
   The word rendered in our version “flory,” is הדר, which means ornament, beauty. Piscator says, pulchras vestes quas Deus illis donavit — “the beautiful garments which God gave them.” God claimed the land of Canaan and all its blessings as his own. They took these away without restoring them according to the law. Henderson justly observes, that “ornament” is to be taken “collectively for the ornamental clothes which they wore, and with which they had been provided by Jehovah.” — Ed. Even in wars, women, and also children, escape in safety. We hence see that the Prophet, by stating a part for the whole, proves here that the people had addicted themselves to cruelty really barbarous; they were not restrained from exercising it, no, not even on women and children. Since it was so, it follows, that their boast of being the chosen people was vain and fallacious.

House of delights he ascribes to the women who, being the weaker sex, prefer being at home and in the shade, rather than going abroad. The more necessary it was that their recesses should remain safe to them. Now, what was taken away from the children, God calls it his ornament; for his blessing, poured forth on children, is the mirror of his glory: he therefore condemns this plunder as a sacrilege. The word לעולם, laoulam, designates the continuance of their crimes, as though he had said, that they were cruel without ever showing any repentance. Now it follows —

⁸⁸ This verse presents several anomalies. We have “women” and the verbs in the plural, and then “house,” “her delights,” and “her children.” It may be thus rendered, — The women of my people ye drive away, Each from the house of her delights; From off her children ye take away my ornament forever. The word rendered in our version “flory,” is הדר, which means ornament, beauty. Piscator says, pulchras vestes quas Deus illis donavit — “the beautiful garments which God gave them.” God claimed the land of Canaan and all its blessings as his own. They took these away without restoring them according to the law. Henderson justly observes, that “ornament” is to be taken “collectively for the ornamental clothes which they wore, and with which they had been provided by Jehovah.” — Ed.