Bible Commentary

Isaiah 5:17

The Pulpit Commentary on Isaiah 5:17

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

Then shall the lambs feed. Dr. Kay takes the "lambs" to be the remnant of Israel that survived the judgment, who will feed freely, cared for by the good Shepherd; but the parallelism so generally affected by Isaiah seems to require a meaning more consonant with the later clause of the verse.

Most commentators, therefore, expound the passage literally, "Then shall lambs feed [on the desolated estates of the covetous]" (see verses 8-10). After their manner; or, after their own guidance; i.e.

at their pleasure, as they list (so Lowth and Rosenmüller). And the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. Goim, i.e. nomad tribes, shall consume the produce of the wasted fields once possessed by the Hebrew grandees.

Ewald proposes to make the verse immediately follow verse 10; but this is not necessary. The occupation of their lands by wandering tribes, Arabs and others, was a part of the punishment that fell on all the nobles, not on those only who accumulated large estates.

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