Isaiah 33:23

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹³You who are far off, hear what I have done; you who are near, acknowledge My might." ¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling grips the ungodly: "Who of us can dwell with a consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting flames?" ¹⁵He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, who refuses gain from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears against murderous plots and shuts his eyes tightly against evil- ¹⁶he will dwell on the heights; his refuge will be the mountain fortress; his food will be provided and his water assured. ¹⁷Your eyes will see the King in His beauty and behold a land that stretches afar. ¹⁸Your mind will ponder the former terror: "Where is he who tallies? Where is he who weighs? Where is he who counts the towers?" ¹⁹You will no longer see the insolent, a people whose speech is unintelligible, who stammer in a language that is not understood. ²⁰Look upon Zion, the city of our festivals. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander; its tent pegs will not be pulled up, nor will any of its cords be loosened. ²¹But there the Majestic One, our LORD, will be for us a place of rivers and wide canals, where no galley with oars will go, and majestic vessels will not pass. ²²For the LORD is our Judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our King. He will save us.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Thy tacklings are loosed: or, they have forsaken thy tacklings, Isaiah 33:21, Ezekiel 27:26-34, Acts 27:19, Acts 27:30-32, Acts 27:40, Acts 27:41

then: Isaiah 33:1, Isaiah 33:4, 2 Chronicles 20:25

the lame: 1 Samuel 30:10, 1 Samuel 30:22-24, 2 Kings 7:8, Psalms 68:12, 1 Corinthians 1:27

Reciprocal: 2 Kings 7:16 - spoiled the tents 2 Chronicles 14:14 - exceeding Jeremiah 50:10 - all that Zechariah 2:9 - and they Luke 14:21 - the halt

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Thy tacklings are loosed,.... Or "are left" h; forsaken by the mariners, as being of no use and service:

they could not well strengthen their mast; with ropes to make it stand upright:

they could not spread the sail; upon the mast, without which they could not proceed. This is spoken to and of the enemies of the church; most interpreters understand it of the Assyrians, who are compared to a ship in great distress at sea, when its tacklings are shattered, the mast is split, and the sails cannot be spread. The metaphor is taken and carried on from Isaiah 33:21, where mention is made of a galley with oars, and a gallant ship. Tyrannical governments are thought by some to be compared to ships; a king to the mast; princes to ropes, cords, and tackling; and their army in battle array to sails spread; but here all is in confusion, distress, and unavoidable ruin: this may very well be applied to the antichristian states, when the vials of God's wrath shall be poured out upon them; especially when the second vial shall be poured out upon the sea, and all shipping will suffer, as under the second trumpet the third part of ships were destroyed, there being a correspondence between the trumpets and the seals, Revelation 8:8:

then is the prey of a great spoil divided: as the spoil of the Assyrian camp was by the Israelites, so will the spoil of the Papists by the Protestants; particularly when the kings of the earth shall be filled with an aversion to the whore of Rome, and shall destroy her, and make her bare and desolate of all her riches, and shall "eat her flesh", or seize upon her substance, which will become the prey of a great spoil unto them:

the lame take the prey; which denotes both how easily it shall be taken, and what a plenty there shall be, that even such, and who come late, shall have a share in it. The Targum of the whole is,

"at that time (when vengeance shall be taken on Gog) the people shall be broken with their own strength, and they shall be like to a ship whose ropes are broken; and there is no strength in their mast, which is cut down, that it is not possible to spread a sail on it; then shall the house of Israel divide the substance of the people, the multitude of a prey and spoil; and although the blind and the lame are left among them, they also shall divide the multitude of the prey and spoil.''

h So the word is interpreted by Kimchi and Ben Melech.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thy tacklings - This is evidently an address to Sennacherib. The mention of the war-galley and the ship seems to have suggested the application of the figure to the enemies of the Jews, and particularly to Sennacherib. The prophet, therefore, compares the Assyrian to a ship that was rendered unserviceable; whose sails were unfastened, and whose mast could not be made firm, and which was therefore at the mercy of winds and waves. The Hebrew which is rendered here ‘thy tacklings are loosed,’ means ‘thy cords are let go;’ that is, the cords or ropes that fastened the sails, the masts, and the rudder, were loosened. In such a condition the ship would, of course, go to ruin.

They could not well strengthen their mast - They could not fix it firm or secure. It is evident that if the mast cannot be made firm, it is impossible to navigate a ship. It is to be observed here, however, that the word which our translators have rendered ‘well’ (כן kên), not only signifies ‘well’ as an adverb, but is also used as a noun, and means a stand or station Genesis 40:13; Genesis 41:13; Daniel 11:20-21; and also a base or pedestal (Exodus 30:18, Exodus 30:28; Exodus 31:9; Exodus 35:16; Exodus 38:8; Leviticus 8:11; 1 Kings 7:31. It may be used here to denote the socket or base of the ship’s mast; or the cross beam which the mast passed through, and which held it firm. This was called by the Greeks ἱστοπέδη histopedē (Odyssey xii. 51), or μεσόδμη, ἱστοδόκη mesodmē, histodokē. The translation, therefore, ‘They could not make fast the base of their mast,’ would better express the sense of the Hebrew. The Septuagint renders it: ‘Thy mast gave way.’

They could not spread the sail - Of course, as the ropes were all loosened, and the mast could not be made firm, it Would be in vain to attempt to spread a sail. The sense is, that the plan of the Assyrian would be disconcerted, his scheme discomfited, and his enterprise would come to naught. He and his army would be like a vessel at sea without sails.

Then is the prey of a great spoil divided - The word ‘divided’ here means shall be distributed or apportioned, as plunder was usually among victors. The sense is, that much booty would be taken from the army of the Assyrian and distributed among the Jews (see the note at Isaiah 33:4). It is certain that Hezekiah had given to Sennacherib three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold, and had stripped the temple, and given the gold that was on the temple to him 2 Kings 18:14-16, and tiffs treasure was doubtless in the camp of the Assyrians. And it is certain that after this invasion of Sennacherib, the treasures of Hezekiah were replenished, and his wealth so much abounded, that he made an improper and ostentatious display of it to the ambassadors that came from Babylon 2 Kings 20:13-15; and there is every presumption, therefore, that a great amount of spoil was collected from the camp of the Assyrian.

The lame take the prey - It shall be so abundant, and shall be so entirely abandoned by the Assyrians, that even the feeble and the defenseless shall go forth to the camp and take the spoil that is left.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 33:23. Thy tacklings are loosed — Here the Assyrians are represented under the figure of a ship wrecked by a violent storm; and the people on the beach, young, old, feeble, and diseased, gathering the spoil without any to hinder them. Kimchi, who understands the whole of this chapter of Hezekiah and the king of Assyria, says, "There are others of our rabbins who apply it all to the days of the Messiah."

Their mast - "Thy mast"] For תרנם tornam, "their mast," the Syriac reads תרניך torneycha, "thy mast;" the Septuagint and Vulgate, תרנך tornecha, ὁ ἱστος σου εκλινεν, "thy mast is fallen aside." - Septuagint. They seem to have read נטה natah or פנה panah, תרנך tornecha, or rather, לא כן lo con, "is not firm," the negative having been omitted in the present text by mistake. However, I have followed their sense, which seems very probable, as the present reading is to me extremely obscure.