the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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New King James Version
Isaiah 1:22
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Once you were like pure silver, but now you are like the impurities that people throw away when the silver is purified. You are like good wine that has been weakened with water.
Once like pure silver, you have become like worthless slag. Once so pure, you are now like watered-down wine.
Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.
Jerusalem, you have become like the scum left when silver is purified; you are like wine mixed with water.
Your silver has become scum, your beer is diluted with water.
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
Your silver has become dross, Your wine mixed with water.
Your silver has turned to lead, Your wine is diluted with water.
Your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water.
Thi siluer is turned in to dros, ether filthe; thi wyn is medlid with watir.
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.
Your silver has become dross, your fine wine is diluted with water.
Your silver is fake, and your wine is watered down.
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.
Your silver is no longer true metal, your wine is mixed with water.
Your silver is no longer pure, your wine is watered down.
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine is mixed with water:
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.
Thy siluer is become drosse, thy wine mixt with water.
Your silver has lost its worth. Your wine is mixed with water.
Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water.
Thy siluer is become drosse: thy wine is mixt with water.
Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.
Jerusalem, you were once like silver, but now you are worthless; you were like good wine, but now you are only water.
Thy silver, hath become dross, - Thy wine, weakened with water;
Thy silver is turned into dross: thy wine is mingled with water.
Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.
Thy siluer is turned to drosse, and thy wine mixt with water.
Your silver is worthless, thy wine merchants mix the wine with water.
Your silver has become dross to be discarded,your beer is diluted with water.
Your silver has become dross, Your wine mixed with water.
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
Your silver has become as dross; Your wine is diluted with waters.
Your silver has become dross; your wine is diluted with water.
Thy silver hath become dross, Thy drink polluted with water.
Thy Siluer is turned to drosse, and thy wyne myxte wt water.
Your silver has become waste matter, Your drink diluted with water.
Your silver has become dross, Your drink diluted with water.
Your silver has become dross,Your drink diluted with water.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
silver: Jeremiah 6:28-30, Lamentations 4:1, Lamentations 4:2, Ezekiel 22:18-22, Hosea 6:4
wine: Hosea 4:18, 2 Corinthians 2:17
Reciprocal: Psalms 12:1 - godly Isaiah 1:25 - purge Jeremiah 6:30 - Reprobate silver
Cross-References
So the evening and the morning were the third day.
Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;
Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth."
So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. Genesis 1:28">[fn]
And Laban said to him, "Please stay, if I have found favor in your eyes, for I have learned by experience that the LORD has blessed me for your sake."
For what you had before I came was little, and it has increased to a great amount; the LORD has blessed you since my coming. And now, when shall I also provide for my own house?"
Also God said to him: "I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body.
"For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.
"Look now at the behemoth, [fn] which I made along with you;He eats grass like an ox.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
Thy silver is become dross,.... Meaning either that such persons, who had the appearance of goodness, looked like genuine silver, were now become reprobate, and, as the wicked of the earth, like dross, Jeremiah 6:30 or that the word of God, which is as silver purified seven times, was now corrupted with false glosses and human traditions, which were as dross:
thy wine mixed with water m; the wine of the divine word, which was mixed and blended with the inventions of men, as before; so the roof of the church's mouth, which is no other than the ministry of the word, is compared to the best wine, Song of Solomon 7:9.
m It being usual to mix water with wine, and drink it, and this being not at all reproachful, but commendable, Gussetius thinks such a version does not express the sense of the words; he therefore thinks that מהל is the same as מהולל contracted, which signified "infatuated"; and so the words should be rendered, "thy wine is infatuated into water"; is degenerated, and has lost its spirit and sprightliness, and is become insipid and tasteless. So Jarchi mentions a Midrash, which interprets it by the same word in Ecclesiastes 2:2. It is a word only used in this place. Joseph Kimchi says that in the Arabic, language has the signification of mixture, but without giving any instance. Indeed, according to Castel, it is used for the lees of oil.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
Thy silver - The sentiment in this verse, as it is explained by the following, is, thy princes and people have become corrupt, and polluted. Silver is used here to denote what should have been more valuable - virtuous princes.
Dross - This word - סיג sı̂g - means the scoriae, or baser metal, which is separated from the purer in smelting. It is of little or no value; and the expression means, that the rulers had become debased and corrupt, as if pure silver had been converted wholly to dross.
Thy wine - Wine was regarded as the most pure and valuable drink among the ancients. It is used, therefore, to express that which should have been most valued and esteemed among them - to wit, their rulers.
Mixed with water - Diluted, made weak. According to Gesenius, the word rendered “mixed” - מהוּל mâhûl - is from מהל mâhal, the same as מוּל mûl, to circumcise; and hence, by a figure common with the Arabians, to adulterate, or dilute wine. The word does not occur in this sense elsewhere in the Scriptures, but the connection evidently requires it to be so understood. Wine mixed with water is that which is weakened, diluted, rendered comparatively useless. So with the rulers and judges. They had lest the strength and purity of their integrity, by intermingling those things which tended to weaken and destroy their virtue, pride, the love of gifts, and bribes, etc. Divested of the figure, the passage means, that the rulers had become wholly corrupt.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Isaiah 1:22. Wine mixed with water — An image used for the adulteration of wines, with more propriety than may at first appear, if what Thevenot says of the people of the Levant of late times were true of them formerly. He says, "They never mingle water with their wine to drink; but drink by itself what water they think proper for abating the strength of the wine." "Lorsque les Persans boivent du vin, ils le prennent tout pur, a la facon des Levantins, qui ne le melent jamais avec de l'eua; mais en beuvant du vin, de temps en temps ils prennent un pot d'eau, et en boivent de grand traits." Voyage, part ii., liv. ii., chap. x. "Ils (les Turcs) n'y meslent jamais d'eau, et se moquent des Chretiens qui en mettent, ce qui leur semble tout a fait ridicule." Ibid. part i., chap. 24. "The Turks never mingle water with their wine, and laugh at the Christians for doing it, which they consider altogether ridiculous."
It is remarkable that whereas the Greeks and Latins by mixed wine always understood wine diluted and lowered with water, the Hebrews on the contrary generally mean by it wine made stronger and more inebriating by the addition of higher and more powerful ingredients, such as honey, spices, defrutum, (or wine inspissated by boiling it down to two-thirds or one-half of the quantity,) myrrh, mandragora, opiates, and other strong drugs. Such were the exhilarating, or rather stupifying, ingredients which Helen mixed in the bowl together with the wine for her guests oppressed with grief to raise their spirits, the composition of which she had learned in Egypt: -
Αυτικ' αρ' εις οινον βαλε φαρμακον, ενθεν επινον,
Νηπενθες τ' αχολον τε, κακων επιληθον ἁπαντων.αντων
HOMER. Odyss. lib. iv., ver. 220.
"Meanwhile, with genial joy to warm the soul,
Bright Helen mix'd a mirth-inspiring bowl;
Temper'd with drugs of sovereign use, to assuage
The boiling bosom of tumultuous rage:
Charm'd with that virtuous draught, the exalted mind
All sense of wo delivers to the wind."
POPE.
Such was the "spiced wine and the juice of pomegranates," mentioned Isaiah 8:2. And how much the Eastern people to this day deal in artificial liquors of prodigious strength, the use of wine being forbidden, may be seen in a curious chapter of Kempfer upon that subject. Amoen. Exot. Fasc. iii., Obs. 15.
Thus the drunkard is properly described, Proverbs 23:30, as one "that seeketh mixed wine," and "is mighty to mingle strong drink," Isaiah 5:22. And hence the poet took that highly poetical and sublime image of the cup of God's wrath, called by Isaiah, Isaiah 51:17, the "cup of trembling," causing intoxication and stupefaction, (see Chappelow's note on Hariri, p. 33,) containing, as St. John expresses in Greek the Hebrew idea with the utmost precision, though with a seeming contradiction in terms, κεκερασμενον ακρατον, merum mixtum, pure wine made yet stronger by a mixture of powerful ingredients; Revelation 14:10. "In the hand of JEHOVAH," saith the psalmist, Psalms 75:8, "there is a cup, and the wine is turbid: it is full of a mixed liquor, and he poureth out of it," or rather, "he poureth it out of one vessel into another," to mix it perfectly, according to the reading expressed by the ancient versions, ויגר מזה אל זה vaiyagger mizzeh al zeh, and he pours it from this to that, "verily the dregs thereof," the thickest sediment of the strong ingredients mingled with it, "all the ungodly of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them."
R. D. Kimchi says, "The current coin was adulterated with brass, tin, and other metals, and yet was circulated as good money. The wine also was adulterated with water in the taverns, and sold notwithstanding for pure wine."
