Isaiah 8:21 - Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

Isaiah 8:21

19 And when they say to you, ^a“Seek those who are mediums and wizards, ^bwho whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they ^cseek the dead on behalf of the living?

20 ^aTo the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because ^bthere is no light in them.

21 They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry; and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and ^acurse their king and their God, and look upward.

22 Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness.

Commentaries:

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

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Isaiah 8:21-22

More detailed description of the despair, which they shall fall into, who sought necromancy instead of God; Isaiah 8:20 implies that too late they shall see how much better it would have been for them to have sought "to the law," etc. (Deuteronomy 32:31). But now they are given over to despair. Therefore, while seeing the truth of God, they only "curse their King and God"; foreshadowing the future, like conduct of those belonging to the "kingdom of the beast," when they shall be visited with divine plagues (Revelation 16:11; compare Jeremiah 18:12).

through it—namely, the land.

hardly bestead—oppressed with anxiety.

hungry—a more grievous famine than the temporary one in Ahaz' time, owing to Assyria; then there was some food, but none now (Isaiah 7:15, Isaiah 7:22; Leviticus 26:3-5, Leviticus 26:14-16, Leviticus 26:20).

their king . . . God—Jehovah, King of the Jews (Psalms 5:2; Psalms 68:24).

look upward . . . unto the earth—Whether they look up to heaven, or down towards the land of Judea, nothing but despair shall present itself.

dimness of anguish—darkness of distress (Proverbs 1:27).

driven to darkness—rather, "thick darkness" (Jeremiah 23:12). Driven onward, as by a sweeping storm. The Jewish rejection of "their King and God," Messiah, was followed by all these awful calamities.

Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Isaiah 8:21:

Isaiah 7:25

<< Isaiah 8:20

Isaiah 8:22 >>

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