Isaiah 30:32

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

²⁷Behold, the Name of the LORD comes from afar, with burning anger and dense smoke. His lips are full of fury, and His tongue is like a consuming fire. ²⁸His breath is like a rushing torrent that rises to the neck. He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction; He bridles the jaws of the peoples to lead them astray. ²⁹You will sing as on the night of a holy festival, and your heart will rejoice like one who walks to the music of a flute, going up to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel. ³⁰And the LORD will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm revealed, striking in angry wrath, with a flame of consuming fire, and with cloudburst, storm, and hailstones. ³¹For Assyria will be shattered at the voice of the LORD. He will strike with a rod. ³²And with every stroke of the appointed staff that the LORD brings down, the tambourines and lyres will sound as He battles with weapons brandished.³³For Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it ablaze.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

every place: etc. Heb. every passing of the rod founded, lay. Heb. cause to rest. it shall be. Isaiah 30:29, Isaiah 24:8, Genesis 31:27, 1 Samuel 10:5, Job 21:11, Job 21:12, Psalms 81:1, Psalms 81:2

shaking: Isaiah 2:19, Isaiah 11:15, Isaiah 19:16, Job 16:12, Hebrews 12:26

with it: or, against them

Reciprocal: Isaiah 9:4 - the staff Ezekiel 28:13 - emerald

Cross-References

Genesis 30:35
That very day Laban removed all the streaked or spotted male goats and every speckled or spotted female goat-every one that had any white on it-and every dark-colored lamb, and he placed them under the care of his sons.

Genesis 31:8
If he said, 'The speckled will be your wages,' then the whole flock bore speckled offspring. If he said, 'The streaked will be your wages,' then the whole flock bore streaked offspring.

Genesis 31:10
When the flocks were breeding, I saw in a dream that the streaked, spotted, and speckled males were mating with the females.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And [in] every place where the grounded staff shall pass,.... The storm before mentioned, the wrath and righteous judgment of God, founded upon his unalterable purposes and decrees; and, wherever it came, would fall with great weight, sink deep, stick fast, and remain fixed and sure, like a rod or staff fastened in the earth:

which the Lord shall lay upon him; or, "cause to rest upon him" o; the Lord would lay his rod upon him, the Assyrian, and let it remain there, so that it should be a destroying rod or staff, as before; it should continue until it had done full execution, and utterly destroyed him. The Targum is,

"and there shall be every passage of their princes, and of their mighty ones, on whom the Lord shall cause to rest the vengeance of his power;''

and so the "grounded staff" may be understood of the Assyrian himself, that wherever he should be, this storm of vengeance should follow him, and rest upon him:

[it] shall be with tabrets and harps; the allusion is to the use of these in war; but, instead of these, no other music would be used at this time than what thunder, and rain, and hailstones made; unless this refers to the joy of God's people, upon the destruction of their enemies; so the Targum,

"with tabrets, and harps shall the house of Israel praise, because of the mighty war which shall be made for them among the people:''

see Revelation 15:2:

and in battles of shaking will he fight with it; the Assyrian camp; or as the Keri, or marginal reading, "with them": with the Assyrians, with the men of the camp; the soldiers, as Kimchi explains it; that is, the Lord will fight with them in battles, by shaking his hand over them in a way of judgment, and thereby shaking them to pieces, and utterly destroying them; see Revelation 19:11.

o יניח "requiescere faciet", Pagninus, Montanus; "quiescere faciet", Cocceius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And in every place - Margin, ‘Every passing of the rod founded.’ Lowth renders it, ‘Whenever shall pass the rod of correction.’ The whole design of the passage is evidently to foretell the sudden destruction of the army of the Assyrians, and to show that this would be accomplished by the agency of God. The idea seems to be, that in all those places where the rod of the Assyrian would pass, that is, where he would cause devastation and desolation, there would be the sound of rejoicing with instruments of music when he should be overthrown.

The grounded staff - The word ‘staff’ here, or “rod,” seems to refer to that by which the Assyrian smote the nations Isaiah 30:31; or rather perhaps the Assyrian king himself as a rod of correction in the hand of Yahweh (see Isaiah 10:5). The word rendered ‘grounded’ (מוסדה mûsâdâh) has given great perplexity to commentators. Lowth supposes it should be מוסרח (“correction”), according to a conjecture of Le Clerc. Two manuscripts also read it in the same way. But the authority from the MSS. is not sufficient to justify a change in the present Hebrew text. This word, which is not very intelligibly rendered ‘grounded,’ is derived from יסד yâsad, to “found, to lay the foundation of a building” Ezra 3:12; Isaiah 54:11; then to establish, to appoint, to ordain Psalms 104:8; Habakkuk 1:12. The idea here is, therefore, that the rod referred to had been “appointed, constituted, ordained” by God; that is, that the Assyrian had been designated by him to accomplish important purposes as a rod, or as a means of punishing the nations.

Shall pass - In his march of desolation and conquest.

Which the Lord shall lay upon him - Or rather, as it should be translated, ‘upon which Yahweh should lay,’ that is, the rod, meaning that in all those places where Yahweh should lay this appointed scourge there would be yet rejoicing.

It shall be with tabrets and harps - Those places where he had passed, and which he had scourged, would be filled with joy and rejoicing at his complete overthrow, and at their entire deliverance from the scourge. For a description of the tabret and harp, see the notes at Isaiah 5:12.

And in battles of shaking - In the Hebrew there is an allusion here to what is said in Isaiah 30:28, that he would ‘sift,’ that is, agitate or toss the nations as in a winnowing shovel.

Will he fight with it - Margin, ‘Against them.’ Yahweh would fight against the ‘rod,’ to wit, the Assyrian, and destroy him (see Isaiah 37:36).

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 30:32. The grounded staff - "The rod of his correction"] For מוסדה musadah, the grounded staff, of which no one yet has been able to make any tolerable sense, Le Clerc conjectured מוסרה musarah, of correction; (see Proverbs 22:15;) and so it is in two MSS., (one of them ancient,) and seems to be so in the Bodleian MS. The Syriac has דשוע בדה deshuebedah, virgo domans, vet subjectionis, - "the taming rod, or rod of subjection."

With tabrets and harps — With every demonstration of joy and thanksgiving for the destruction of the enemy in so wonderful a manner: with hymns of praise, accompanied with musical instruments. See Isaiah 30:29.

With it - "Against them."] For בה bah, against her, fifty-two MSS. and five editions read בם bam, against them.