A Society Runs Out of Supports

“The stay and the staff” is mash’en umash’enah, the masculine and feminine forms of one word for support, a Hebrew way of saying every kind of support there is. “The whole stay of bread” recalls the curse of Leviticus 26:26, “when I have broken the staff of your bread”.

“The prudent” is qosem, which elsewhere always means a diviner, a practice Deuteronomy 18:10 forbids. The King James softened the word. Isaiah lists the soothsayer among the pillars of Judah’s society without comment, which is its own comment on what Judah leaned on.

A “captain of fifty” is an army rank as old as Exodus 18:21. “The honourable man” is literally “lifted of face”, a man of standing. “Cunning artificer” and “eloquent orator” may both refer to magic: charash can mean a craftsman or a sorcerer, and lachash is the whisper of a charm.

“Babes” is ta’alulim, which may mean children or caprice, whims; the same word is rendered “delusions” in Isaiah 66:4. Later history gave the line an edge: Ahaz came to the throne at twenty and Manasseh at twelve (2 Kings 16:2, 21:1).

“Oppressed” is niggas, the verb for the taskmasters of Egypt (Exodus 5:6). Judah now does to itself what Pharaoh did to Israel. “The base against the honourable” is a play on weight: the light one against the heavy one, the despised against the respected.

The “ruin” is makhshelah, a heap of stumbling, from the verb that verse 8 uses when it says Judah “is fallen”. The request is made within the family, “his brother of the house of his father”, because there is nowhere else to find a candidate.

“Healer” is chovesh, one who binds up wounds, the verb of 1:6, where Judah’s wounds had “not been... bound up”. Asked to become the nation’s bandager, the man swears he has no bread and no cloak, and no power to bind anything.

Tongue and doings together cover word and deed, everything a people does. “To provoke” is to defy, and “the eyes of his glory” is an unusual phrase: the rebellion happens in full view of the presence that dwelt in the temple.

“The shew of their countenance” can be read as their partiality: hakkir panim, “to recognise faces”, is the idiom for favouritism in court, forbidden in Deuteronomy 1:17, “Ye shall not respect persons in judgment.” Either their looks or their bias gives them away.

The Hebrew is terse: say of the righteous, it is good. Proverbs 1:31 threatens fools that they will “eat of the fruit of their own way”; the same image is turned here to blessing. What people do is what they will live on.

“The reward of his hands” is gemul, what his hands dealt out, from the verb of verse 9, “they have rewarded evil unto themselves”. Obadiah 15 puts it the same way: “thy reward shall return upon thine own head.”

The Greek translation read nosim, “creditors”, instead of nashim, “women”, and rendered the line as exactors and creditors ruling the people, which fits the grinding of the poor in verse 15. “They which lead thee” are the ones who call you happy, flatterers who swallow up the road.

“Standeth up” is nitsav, taking a position as accuser in court, and “plead” is riv, a lawsuit. Micah 6:2 uses the same word: “the LORD hath a controversy with his people.” The Greek reads “his people” here too.

“Eaten up” is bi’er, the verb for letting animals graze a field bare. Exodus 22:5 makes a man pay restitution if his beast grazes another man’s vineyard. Here the elders, set to judge such cases at the gate, have grazed the vineyard themselves.

“Grind” is tachan, the verb of the handmill; the blinded Samson was set to grind in the prison house at Gaza (Judges 16:21). The poor are the grain. “Lord GOD of hosts” gathers three titles for the one who calls the beaten “my people”.

“Wanton eyes” is a verb found only here, darting or ogling glances. “Mincing” is short, tripping steps, and “tinkling” comes from akhasim, ankle bangles. Short steps may have been enforced by fine chains joining the anklets, heard before the wearer was seen.

“Smite with a scab” is to make scabby or bald, the loss of hair that verse 24 names. “Discover their secret parts” may also be read “lay bare their foreheads”; either way it is the stripping of captives, as Isaiah 20:4 describes Egyptian prisoners led away.

“Cauls” may be small sun-disc ornaments, and “round tires like the moon” are saharonim, crescent pendants, the “ornaments” Gideon took from the necks of the Midianite camels (Judges 8:21). The catalogue opens with sun and moon worn as jewellery.

“Chains” are netiphot, drops, pendant earrings; the same word is among the Midianite spoil in Judges 8:26. “Mufflers” is re’alot, a word found only here, probably fluttering veils. The verse is three words long in Hebrew, one for each ornament.

“Tablets” is batte hannephesh, “houses of the soul”, probably perfume boxes. “Earrings” is lechashim, amulets, from lachash, the whisper of a charm. “Headbands” is kishshurim, sashes, the bridal attire of Jeremiah 2:32: “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?”

The rings are tabba’ot, signet rings. “Nose jewels” are nizme ha’aph, nose rings, the jewellery Abraham’s servant put on Rebekah’s face at the well (Genesis 24:47). A single short verse of two items.

“Changeable suits” are festal robes kept for occasions and taken off afterwards, like the “change of raiment” put on the high priest in Zechariah 3:4. “Wimples” is mitpachot, the shawl Boaz filled with six measures of barley (Ruth 3:15). “Crisping pins” are charitim, purses, the bags that held Naaman’s silver (2 Kings 5:23).

“Glasses” are mirrors of polished bronze; the laver of the tabernacle was cast from the mirrors of the serving women (Exodus 38:8). “Fine linen” is sedinim, the linen garments the capable wife makes and sells in Proverbs 31:24. The last item, redidim, is the veil the watchmen tore from the woman in Song of Solomon 5:7.

“Well set hair” is literally hammered work, an elaborate styled coiffure; baldness was the mourner’s shaven head (Micah 1:16). “Stomacher” is petigil, a rich robe, found only here. The Great Isaiah Scroll ends the verse with an extra word: instead of beauty, shame.

“Men” is metim, an old poetic word for mortals, the one found inside the name Methuselah. The pronoun is feminine: the city herself is addressed, and told that her husbands and sons will fall.

The gates were the city’s public room, where elders sat and business was done; here they mourn. To sit on the ground was the posture of mourning, as the elders of Zion do in Lamentations 2:10. Roman coins struck after 70 AD showed Judaea as a woman sitting under a palm, weeping.