UIsaya 47:8

Izhibhalo Ezingcwele

8 Kaloku ke yiva oku, wena mxhamli weziyolo, uhleliyo ukholosile, wena uthi entliziyweni yakho, Ndim kwaphela, akukho wumbi; andiyi kuhlala ndingumhlolokazi, andiyi kukwazi ukungabi nabantwana.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

given: Isaiah 21:4, Isaiah 21:5, Isaiah 22:12, Isaiah 22:13, Isaiah 32:9, Judges 18:7, Judges 18:27, Jeremiah 50:11, Daniel 5:1-4, Daniel 5:30, Zephaniah 2:15, Revelation 18:3-8

I am: Isaiah 47:10, Jeremiah 50:31, Jeremiah 50:32, Jeremiah 51:53, Daniel 4:22, Daniel 4:30, Daniel 5:23, Daniel 11:36, Habakkuk 2:5-8, 2 Thessalonians 2:4

I shall not: Psalms 10:5, Psalms 10:6, Nahum 1:10, Luke 12:18-20, Luke 17:27-29, Revelation 18:7

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 7:17 - thou shalt Isaiah 14:14 - I will be Jeremiah 13:22 - if Jeremiah 49:4 - gloriest Jeremiah 49:31 - that Lamentations 1:1 - as a Ezekiel 30:9 - careless Daniel 4:4 - was Obadiah 1:3 - saith Hebrews 11:25 - the pleasures James 4:16 - General James 5:5 - have lived

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures,.... To carnal lusts and pleasures; gratifying her sensual appetite; indulging herself in everything that was agreeable to the senses; abounding in delicacies, and living deliciously; as is said of mystical Babylon, Revelation 18:4, particularly given to venereal pleasures. Curtius says g,

"no city was more corrupt in its manners, or furnished to irritate or allure to immoderate pleasures. Parents and husbands suffered their children and wives to prostitute themselves to strangers, so that they had but a price.''

Yea, every woman was obliged by a law to do this once in life, and that in a public manner, in the temple of Venus; the impurities of which are at large described by Herodotus h and Strabo i:

that dwelleth carelessly; in great confidence and security, being fearless of danger, and insensible of any:

that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else besides me: sole monarch of the world, empress of the whole universe; no competitor with me, none that can rival me. These words are sometimes used by the eternal and unchangeable Jehovah of himself, and indeed they suit with none but him; and it is the height of insolence and blasphemy in a creature to use them of itself; they fitly express that sovereignty, supremacy, infallibility, and even deity, which mystical Babylon assumes and ascribes to her head:

I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children; not be without a head, king, or monarch, which is as a husband to the state; nor without numerous subjects, which are as children. The like mystical Babylon says, "I sit a queen, and am no widow", Revelation 18:7.

g Hist. l. 5. c. 1. sect. 1. h Clio, sive l. 1. c. 199. i Geograph. l. 16. p. 513.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Therefore hear now this - The prophet proceeds, in this verse and the following, to detail more particularly the sins of Babylon, and to state the certainty of the punishment which would come upon her. In the previous verses, the denunciation of punishment had been figurative. It had been represented under the image of a lady delicately trained and nurtured, doomed to the lowest condition of life, and compelled to stoop to the most menial offices. Here the prophet uses language without figure, and states directly her crimes, and her doom.

That art given to pleasures - Devoted to dissipation, and to the effeminate pleasures which luxury engenders (see the notes at Isaiah 47:1). Curtius, in his History of Babylon as it was in the times of Alexander (v. 5. 36), Herodotus (i. 198), and Strabo Georg. xvi.), have given a description of it, all representing it as corrupt, licentious, and dissipated in the extreme. Curtius, in the passage quoted on Isaiah 47:1, says, among other things, that no city was more corrupt in its morals; nowhere were there so many excitements to licentious and guilty pleasures.

That dwellest carelessly - In vain security; without any consciousness of danger, and without alarm (compare Zephaniah 2:15).

I am, and none else besides me - The language of pride. She regarded herself as the principal city of the world, and all others as unworthy to be named in comparison with her (compare the note at Isaiah 45:6). Language remarkably similar to this occurs in Martial’s description of Rome (xii. 8):

Terrarum dea gentiumque, Roma,

Cui par est nihil, et nihil secundum -

Rome, goddess of the earth and of nations, to whom nothing is equal, nothing second.’

I shall not sit as a widow - On the word ‘sit,’ see the note at Isaiah 47:1. The sense is, that she would never be lonely, sad, and afflicted, like a wife deprived of her husband, and a mother of her children. The figure is changed from Isaiah 47:1, where she is represented as a virgin; but the same idea is presented under another form (compare the note at Isaiah 23:4).