Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
4. Ah sinful nation! This comes very near the rendering of the Septuagint, οὐαὶ ἔθνος ἁμαρτωλὸν Though he held already reproved their crime with sufficient severity, yet, for the purpose of exposing it still more, he adds an exclamation, by which he expresses still more strongly his abhorrence of such base ingratitude and wickedness.
The inanimate creatures, the lights of heaven, the fruitfulness of the earth, shame this stupid, senseless people into silence; they obey their Creator while Israel rebels. This is ingratitude of the highest kind: God nourished and exalted them as His children, and they turned against Him.
AI summary
Commenting on Isaiah 1:2-9
Ah sinful nation,..... Or "sinning nation" (y); that was continually sinning, doing nothing else but sin, the reverse of what they were chosen to be, Deu 7:6. These words are said, either as calling and crying to them, to cause them to hear and hearken to what is said, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi observe, and as is used in Isa 55:1 or by way...