Isaiah 1:22

Literal Standard Version

Your silver has become dross, || Your drink defiled with water.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Your silver has become dross to be discarded,your beer is diluted with water.

Hebrew Names Version
Your silver has become dross, Your wine mixed with water.

King James Version
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:

English Standard Version
Your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water.

New American Standard Bible
Your silver has become waste matter, Your drink diluted with water.

New Century Version
Jerusalem, you have become like the scum left when silver is purified; you are like wine mixed with water.

Amplified Bible
Your silver has turned to lead, Your wine is diluted with water.

World English Bible
Your silver has become dross, Your wine mixed with water.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Thy siluer is become drosse: thy wine is mixt with water.

Legacy Standard Bible
Your silver has become dross,Your drink diluted with water.

Berean Standard Bible
Your silver has become dross, your fine wine is diluted with water.

Contemporary English Version
Your silver is fake, and your wine is watered down.

Complete Jewish Bible
Your silver is no longer pure, your wine is watered down.

Darby Translation
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine is mixed with water:

Easy-to-Read Version
Once you were like pure silver, but now you are like the impurities that people throw away when the silver is purified. You are like good wine that has been weakened with water.

George Lamsa Translation
Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.

Good News Translation
Jerusalem, you were once like silver, but now you are worthless; you were like good wine, but now you are only water.

Lexham English Bible
Your silver has become as dross; Your wine is diluted with waters.

Literal Translation
Your silver has become dross; your wine is diluted with water.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Thy Siluer is turned to drosse, and thy wyne myxte wt water.

American Standard Version
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.

Bible in Basic English
Your silver is no longer true metal, your wine is mixed with water.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.

King James Version (1611)
Thy siluer is become drosse, thy wine mixt with water.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Thy siluer is turned to drosse, and thy wine mixt with water.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Your silver is worthless, thy wine merchants mix the wine with water.

English Revised Version
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thi siluer is turned in to dros, ether filthe; thi wyn is medlid with watir.

Update Bible Version
Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.

Webster's Bible Translation
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:

New English Translation
Your silver has become scum, your beer is diluted with water.

New King James Version
Your silver has become dross, Your wine mixed with water.

New Living Translation
Once like pure silver, you have become like worthless slag. Once so pure, you are now like watered-down wine.

New Life Bible
Your silver has lost its worth. Your wine is mixed with water.

New Revised Standard
Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Thy silver, hath become dross, - Thy wine, weakened with water;

Douay-Rheims Bible
Thy silver is turned into dross: thy wine is mingled with water.

Revised Standard Version
Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.

Young's Literal Translation
Thy silver hath become dross, Thy drink polluted with water.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Your silver has become dross, Your drink diluted with water.

Contextual Overview

²¹How has a faithful city become a harlot? I have filled it [with] judgment, || Righteousness lodges in it—now murderers. ²²Your silver has become dross, || Your drink defiled with water.²³Your princes [are] apostates, and companions of thieves, || Everyone loving a bribe, and pursuing rewards, || They do not judge the fatherless, || And the plea of the widow does not come to them. ²⁴Therefore—a declaration of the Lord—YHWH of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: "Oh, I relieve Myself from My adversaries, || And avenge Myself against My enemies, ²⁵And I turn back My hand on you, || And I refine your dross as purity, || And I turn aside all your tin, ²⁶And I give back your judges as at the first, || And your counselors as in the beginning, || After this you are called, A city of righteousness—a faithful city." ²⁷Zion is redeemed in judgment, || And her captivity in righteousness. ²⁸And the destruction of transgressors and sinners [is] together, || And those forsaking YHWH are consumed. ²⁹For [men] are ashamed because of the oaks || That you have desired, || And you are confounded because of the gardens || That you have chosen. ³⁰For you are as an oak whose leaf is fading, || And as a garden that has no water.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

silver: Jeremiah 6:28-30, Lamentations 4:1, Lamentations 4:2, Ezekiel 22:18-22, Hosea 6:4

wine: Hosea 4:18, 2 Corinthians 2:17

Reciprocal: Psalms 12:1 - godly Isaiah 1:25 - purge Jeremiah 6:30 - Reprobate silver

Cross-References

Genesis 1:13
and there is an evening, and there is a morning—[the] third day.

Genesis 1:14
And God says, "Let luminaries be in the expanse of the heavens, to make a separation between the day and the night, then they have been for signs, and for appointed times, and for days and years,

Genesis 1:28
And God blesses them, and God says to them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over [the] fish of the sea, and over [the] bird of the heavens, and over every living thing that is creeping on the earth."

Genesis 8:17
and they have teemed in the earth, and been fruitful, and have multiplied on the earth."

Genesis 9:1
And God blesses Noah and his sons, and says to them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth;

Genesis 30:27
And Laban says to him, "Now if I have found grace in your eyes—I have observed diligently that YHWH blesses me for your sake."

Genesis 30:30
for [it is] little which you have had at my appearance, and it breaks forth into a multitude, and YHWH blesses you at my coming; and now, when do I make, I also, for my own house?"

Genesis 35:11
And God says to him, "I [am] God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply, a nation and an assembly of nations is from you, and kings from your loins go out;

Leviticus 26:9
And I have turned to you, and have made you fruitful, and have multiplied you, and have established My covenant with you;

Job 40:15
Now behold, behemoth, || That I made with you: He eats grass as an ox.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Thy silver is become dross,.... Meaning either that such persons, who had the appearance of goodness, looked like genuine silver, were now become reprobate, and, as the wicked of the earth, like dross, Jeremiah 6:30 or that the word of God, which is as silver purified seven times, was now corrupted with false glosses and human traditions, which were as dross:

thy wine mixed with water m; the wine of the divine word, which was mixed and blended with the inventions of men, as before; so the roof of the church's mouth, which is no other than the ministry of the word, is compared to the best wine, Song of Solomon 7:9.

m It being usual to mix water with wine, and drink it, and this being not at all reproachful, but commendable, Gussetius thinks such a version does not express the sense of the words; he therefore thinks that מהל is the same as מהולל contracted, which signified "infatuated"; and so the words should be rendered, "thy wine is infatuated into water"; is degenerated, and has lost its spirit and sprightliness, and is become insipid and tasteless. So Jarchi mentions a Midrash, which interprets it by the same word in Ecclesiastes 2:2. It is a word only used in this place. Joseph Kimchi says that in the Arabic, language has the signification of mixture, but without giving any instance. Indeed, according to Castel, it is used for the lees of oil.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thy silver - The sentiment in this verse, as it is explained by the following, is, thy princes and people have become corrupt, and polluted. Silver is used here to denote what should have been more valuable - virtuous princes.

Dross - This word - סיג sı̂g - means the scoriae, or baser metal, which is separated from the purer in smelting. It is of little or no value; and the expression means, that the rulers had become debased and corrupt, as if pure silver had been converted wholly to dross.

Thy wine - Wine was regarded as the most pure and valuable drink among the ancients. It is used, therefore, to express that which should have been most valued and esteemed among them - to wit, their rulers.

Mixed with water - Diluted, made weak. According to Gesenius, the word rendered “mixed” - מהוּל mâhûl - is from מהל mâhal, the same as מוּל mûl, to circumcise; and hence, by a figure common with the Arabians, to adulterate, or dilute wine. The word does not occur in this sense elsewhere in the Scriptures, but the connection evidently requires it to be so understood. Wine mixed with water is that which is weakened, diluted, rendered comparatively useless. So with the rulers and judges. They had lest the strength and purity of their integrity, by intermingling those things which tended to weaken and destroy their virtue, pride, the love of gifts, and bribes, etc. Divested of the figure, the passage means, that the rulers had become wholly corrupt.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 1:22. Wine mixed with water — An image used for the adulteration of wines, with more propriety than may at first appear, if what Thevenot says of the people of the Levant of late times were true of them formerly. He says, "They never mingle water with their wine to drink; but drink by itself what water they think proper for abating the strength of the wine." "Lorsque les Persans boivent du vin, ils le prennent tout pur, a la facon des Levantins, qui ne le melent jamais avec de l'eua; mais en beuvant du vin, de temps en temps ils prennent un pot d'eau, et en boivent de grand traits." Voyage, part ii., liv. ii., chap. x. "Ils (les Turcs) n'y meslent jamais d'eau, et se moquent des Chretiens qui en mettent, ce qui leur semble tout a fait ridicule." Ibid. part i., chap. 24. "The Turks never mingle water with their wine, and laugh at the Christians for doing it, which they consider altogether ridiculous."

It is remarkable that whereas the Greeks and Latins by mixed wine always understood wine diluted and lowered with water, the Hebrews on the contrary generally mean by it wine made stronger and more inebriating by the addition of higher and more powerful ingredients, such as honey, spices, defrutum, (or wine inspissated by boiling it down to two-thirds or one-half of the quantity,) myrrh, mandragora, opiates, and other strong drugs. Such were the exhilarating, or rather stupifying, ingredients which Helen mixed in the bowl together with the wine for her guests oppressed with grief to raise their spirits, the composition of which she had learned in Egypt: -

Αυτικ' αρ' εις οινον βαλε φαρμακον, ενθεν επινον,

Νηπενθες τ' αχολον τε, κακων επιληθον ἁπαντων.αντων

HOMER. Odyss. lib. iv., ver. 220.

"Meanwhile, with genial joy to warm the soul,

Bright Helen mix'd a mirth-inspiring bowl;

Temper'd with drugs of sovereign use, to assuage

The boiling bosom of tumultuous rage:

Charm'd with that virtuous draught, the exalted mind

All sense of wo delivers to the wind."

POPE.

Such was the "spiced wine and the juice of pomegranates," mentioned Isaiah 8:2. And how much the Eastern people to this day deal in artificial liquors of prodigious strength, the use of wine being forbidden, may be seen in a curious chapter of Kempfer upon that subject. Amoen. Exot. Fasc. iii., Obs. 15.

Thus the drunkard is properly described, Proverbs 23:30, as one "that seeketh mixed wine," and "is mighty to mingle strong drink," Isaiah 5:22. And hence the poet took that highly poetical and sublime image of the cup of God's wrath, called by Isaiah, Isaiah 51:17, the "cup of trembling," causing intoxication and stupefaction, (see Chappelow's note on Hariri, p. 33,) containing, as St. John expresses in Greek the Hebrew idea with the utmost precision, though with a seeming contradiction in terms, κεκερασμενον ακρατον, merum mixtum, pure wine made yet stronger by a mixture of powerful ingredients; Revelation 14:10. "In the hand of JEHOVAH," saith the psalmist, Psalms 75:8, "there is a cup, and the wine is turbid: it is full of a mixed liquor, and he poureth out of it," or rather, "he poureth it out of one vessel into another," to mix it perfectly, according to the reading expressed by the ancient versions, ויגר מזה אל זה vaiyagger mizzeh al zeh, and he pours it from this to that, "verily the dregs thereof," the thickest sediment of the strong ingredients mingled with it, "all the ungodly of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them."

R. D. Kimchi says, "The current coin was adulterated with brass, tin, and other metals, and yet was circulated as good money. The wine also was adulterated with water in the taverns, and sold notwithstanding for pure wine."