Isaiah 28:1

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!

The crown

Isaiah 28:3

Hosea 5:5

Hosea 6:10

Drunkards

Amos 6:6

Whose

General references

Deuteronomy 11:11

Isaiah 17:9

Zechariah 9:6

Bible References

The crown

The splendid crown of the drunkards of Ephraim is trampled by [the foreigners’] feet.

But the pride and self-reliance of Israel testifies against him.
Therefore Israel, and [especially] Ephraim, stumble and fall in their wickedness and guilt;

Judah also has stumbled with them.

I have seen a horrible thing [sins of every kind] in the house of Israel!
Ephraim’s prostitution (idolatry) is there; Israel has defiled itself.

Drunkards

But even these reel with wine and stagger from strong drink:
The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink;
They are confused by wine, they stagger from strong drink;
They reel while seeing visions,
They stagger when pronouncing judgment.

Woe (judgment is coming) to those who rise early in the morning to pursue intoxicating drink,
Who stay up late in the night till wine inflames them!

Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
Who has strife? Who has complaining?
Who has wounds without cause?
Whose eyes are red and dim?

Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away the mind and the [spiritual] understanding.

On the [special] day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine;
The king stretched out his hand [in association] with scoffers (lawless people).

“They stretch out beside every [pagan] altar on clothes taken in pledge [to secure a loan, disregarding God’s command],
And in the house of their God [in contempt of Him] they frivolously drink the wine [which has been] taken from those who have been fined.

Who drink wine from sacrificial bowls
And anoint themselves with the finest oils [reflecting their unrestrained celebration];
Yet they are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph (Israel).

Whose

And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
Which is at the head of the rich valley,
Will be like the early fig before the summer,
Which one sees,
And as soon as it is in his hand
He [greedily] swallows it [and so will the Assyrians rapidly devour Samaria, Israel’s capital].

For the head (capital) of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is [King] Rezin (now within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken to pieces and will no longer be a people).

for before the boy knows how to say, ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the riches of Damascus (Aram’s capital) and the spoil of Samaria (Israel’s capital) will be carried away by the king of Assyria.”

Jeroboam restored Israel’s border from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah (Dead Sea), in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which He spoke through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath-hepher.

In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of [the tribe of] Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Assyria.

At the end of three years they captured it; in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

For Pekah son of Remaliah killed 120,000 in Judah in one day, all courageous men, because they had abandoned (turned away from) the Lord God of their fathers.

So the runners went throughout Israel and Judah with the letters from the hand of the king and his officials, in accordance with the command of the king, saying, “O sons (descendants) of Israel, return to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel (Jacob), so that He will return to those of you who escaped and are left from the hand (power) of the kings of Assyria.

Woe (judgment is coming) to those who are at ease and carefree in Zion (Judah)
And to those on the mountain of Samaria who feel secure,
The distinguished men of the foremost of nations,
To whom the house of Israel comes.

General references

But the land into which you are about to cross to possess, a land of hills and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven,

In that day the strong cities of Aram and Israel will be like deserted places in the forest,
Or like branches which they abandoned before the children of Israel;
And the land will be a desolation.

And a mongrel race will live in Ashdod,
And I will put an end to the pride and arrogance of the Philistines.