The Pulpit Commentary on Isaiah 1:5

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Why should ye, etc.? Translate, Why will ye be still smitten, revolting more and more? or, Why will ye persist in rebellion, and so be smitten yet more? The Authorized Version does not express the sense, which is that suffering must follow sin—that if they still revolt, they must still be smitten for it—why, then, will they do so?

Compare Ezekiel's "Why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 18:31). The whole head … the whole heart. Mr. Cheyne translates, "Every head … every heart;" but Lowth, Gesenius, and Ewald agree with the Authorized Version.

The prophet personifies Israel, and means to say that the whole head of the nation is diseased, its whole heart faint, or "prostrate with languor" (Kay). The head and heart represent respectively the intellectual and moral natures.

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