Isaiah 33:4

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹Woe to you, O destroyer never destroyed, O traitor never betrayed! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed. When you have finished betraying, you will be betrayed. ²O LORD, be gracious to us! We wait for You. Be our strength every morning and our salvation in time of trouble. ³The peoples flee the thunder of Your voice; the nations scatter when You rise. ⁴Your spoil will be gathered as if by locusts; like a swarm of locusts men will pounce on it.⁵The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high; He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. ⁶There will be times of security for you-a storehouse of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the LORD is Zion's treasure. ⁷Behold! Their warriors cry aloud in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly. ⁸The highways are deserted; travel has ceased. The treaty has been broken, the witnesses are despised, and human life is disregarded. ⁹The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is ashamed and decayed. Sharon is like a desert; Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. ¹⁰"Now I will arise," says the LORD. "Now I will lift Myself up. Now I will be exalted.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

your spoil: Isaiah 33:23, 2 Kings 7:15, 2 Kings 7:16, 2 Chronicles 14:13, 2 Chronicles 20:25

the running: Joel 2:9, Joel 2:25

Reciprocal: Psalms 78:46 - the caterpillar Jeremiah 50:10 - all that Joel 1:4 - the caterpillar Amos 7:1 - he Nahum 2:9 - ye Habakkuk 2:8 - thou Revelation 9:3 - locusts

Cross-References

Genesis 32:28
Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men, and you have prevailed."

Genesis 43:30
Joseph hurried out because he was moved to tears for his brother, and he went to a private room to weep.

Genesis 43:34
When the portions were served to them from Joseph's table, Benjamin's portion was five times larger than anyone else's. So they feasted and drank freely with Joseph.

Genesis 45:2
But he wept so loudly that the Egyptians and Pharaoh's household heard him.

Genesis 46:29
Joseph prepared his chariot and went there to meet his father Israel. Joseph presented himself to him, embraced him, and wept profusely.

Nehemiah 1:11
O Lord, may Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and to the prayers of Your servants who delight in reverence of Your name. Give Your servant success this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." (For I was the cupbearer to the king.)

Job 2:12
When they lifted up their eyes from afar, they could barely recognize Job. They began to weep aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air over his head.

Psalms 34:4
I sought the LORD, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.

Proverbs 16:7
When a man's ways please the LORD, He makes even the man's enemies live at peace with him.

Proverbs 21:1
The king's heart is a waterway in the hand of the LORD; He directs it where He pleases.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And your spoil shall be gathered [like] the gathering of the caterpillar,.... This is the answer of the Lord to the prayer of his church, signifying that their enemies should flee, be scattered, and perish, and that they should be victorious, and enjoy the spoils of them; which they should gather as easily as the caterpillar or locust, as some render it, gathers and consumes herbs, and every green thing; or as easily as they are gathered, and laid on heaps, being weak and unable to defend themselves: most understand it of the Jews going into the camp of the Assyrians, after the destruction of them by the angel, and gathering their spoil. The Targum is,

"and the house of Israel shall gather the substance of the people, their enemies, as they gather a locust:''

the antichristian locusts or caterpillars are here meant, whose substance shall fall into the hands of the followers of Christ, when they shall have got the victory of them; this is the flesh of the whore, her worldly substance, which the kings of the earth, the Christian kings, shall eat or enjoy, Revelation 17:16:

as the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them: or "upon it"; the spoil; as these locusts, of which see Revelation 9:3 run to and fro, and pillaged them in times past, as the creatures, to whom they are compared, run to and fro and destroy the fruits of the earth, so now everyone of the followers of Christ shall run and seize upon the spoil of the antichristian states.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And your spoil - The booty that the Assyrian army bad gathered in their march toward Jerusalem, and which would now be left by them to be collected by the Jews.

Shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpillar - The grammatical construction here is such that this may admit of two interpretations. It may either mean, as the caterpillar or the locust is gathered; or it may mean, as the caterpillar gathers its spoil. It often occurred that in countries where the locust was an article of food, they were scraped together in large quantities, and thrown into ditches, or into reservoirs, and retained to be eaten. This is the custom in some parts of Africa. But the meaning here is, undoubtedly, that the plunder of the Assyrian army would be collected by the Jews, as the locust gathered its food. The sense is, that as locusts spread themselves out over a land, as they go to and fro without rule and without molestation, gathering whatever is in their way, and consuming everything, so the Jews in great numbers, and without regular military array, would run to and fro collecting the spoils of the Assyrian army. In a country where such devastation was made by the caterpillar and locust as in Palestine, this was a very striking figure. The word rendered ‘caterpillar’ here חסיל châs^eyl from חסל châsal to cut off, consume), properly denotes the devourer, and is applied usually to a species of locust. So it is understood here by most of the versions. The Septuagint renders it, ‘As if one were gathering locusts, so will they insult you.’