Isa. 3. Great confusion on both people and rulers for their sin and impudence in it, Isa. 3:1–9. Peace to the righteous, and misery to the wicked, Isa. 3:10–11. The oppression and covetousness of the rulers, Isa. 3:12–15. The pride of women, and its judgments, Isa. 3:16–26.

Behold; look upon it as a thing as certain as if it were already done. The stay and the staff; all the supports of their state and church. The whole stay of bread, called elsewhere the staff of bread; whereby is understood either, 1.

The mighty man; strong and valiant men. The judge; the civil magistrates. The prophet; either strictly so called, the want of whom is matter of grief; see Ps. 74:9; or largely, so as to include all skilful and faithful teachers.

The captain of fifty; there shall not be a man left able to command and manage fifty soldiers, and much less such as could command hundreds or thousands, which yet were necessary. The honourable man; men of high birth, and place, and power, and reputation.

Children; either, 1. In age, whose minority corrupt ministers of state commonly abuse to great mischiefs; or, 2. In understanding, experience, and manners; foolish, froward, unteachable, &c.

The people shall be oppressed, by the command or connivance of such childish rulers. The child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable; foolish and unworthy men shall by wicked arts gain the favour and abuse the power of the prince, and thereby behave…

A man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father; whereas envy ordinarily reigns in near relations, when one brother is advanced far above all the rest.

He shall swear, Heb. he shall lift up; understand either, 1. His voice; he shall cry aloud, to show his earnestness in refusing the offer; or, 2. His hand, which was the usual gesture in swearing, Gen. 14:22, Deut. 32:40;c., to show his resolvedness. An healer; a repairer of the ruins of the state.

Of his glorious majesty, whom they ought to reverence and adore.

The show of their countenance doth witness against them; their pride, and wantonness, and impiety manifestly shows itself in their very looks and carriages, and will be swift witness against them both before God and men.

Say ye: God hath said it, and doth now by me say it; and you, O ye priests and Levites, say it in your sermons to the people. They shall eat the fruit of their doings; let not them fear, for God will be their safeguard and portion in the common calamity.

Woe unto the wicked! these heavy judgments are designed against them, and shall certainly find them out, though here they be mixed with the righteous.

Women; either, 1. Properly so called, by their favour and power with the rulers; or, 2. Weak and effeminate rulers, such being called women both in sacred and profane writings. They which lead thee; thy rulers, civil and ecclesiastical, whose duty it is to show thee the right way.

The Lord standeth up; he will shortly and certainly stand up as a judge, to inquire into the cause, and to give sentence. To judge the people, i.e. to defend and deliver them, or to judge for them, as this phrase is oft used.

The ancients; the princes or rulers, as it is explained in the next clause, who are oft called elders, because such were commonly and fitly chosen out of those who were ripe in years. Eaten up; destroyed instead of preserving and dressing it, as you should have done.

What mean ye? what warrant have ye for it? how durst you presume to do it? Grind, or batter, as the word is used, Ex. 32:20; smite them cruelly: see Isa. 58:4.

The daughters of Zion; the women; as hitherto he reproved the men. Walk with stretched forth necks; affecting stateliness, Ps. 75:5, and to seem tall. Wanton eyes; or, as others, twinkling with their eyes in a lascivious manner.

Will smite with a scab the crown of the head; will by sending scabs, or by other ways, take off the hair of their head, which is a woman’s glory, 1 Cor. 11:15, and which doubtless ministered to their pride and wantonness. Others render it, he will make bald, &c.

Cauls: as for this and the other Hebrew words here following, I judge it unnecessary and improper to trouble the English reader with the differing interpretations given of them by learned men, which the curious may find in my Latin Synopsis.

The bonnets: these were ornaments to cover the head, common both to men, as Ex. 39:28, and to women, as here. The tablets, Heb. the houses of the soul, or of life, or of breath; whereby he seems to mean boxes of excellent perfumes, which are of great efficacy to revive our drooping spirits, and to…

Which were fastened to the head, and hung down upon the forehead to the beginning of the nose; of which see Gen. 24:22, Gen. 24:47, Judg. 8:24;c.

Of silver or gold, either used to curl the hair, or rather fastened and worn in the hair; which custom is not altogether disused at this day.

The glasses; the looking-glasses, as we call them, though in truth they were not made of glass, but of bright and burnished brass.

Instead of sweet smell, those perfumes mentioned Isa. 3:20, there shall be stink, from their scabs, mentioned Isa. 3:17, or from other ill usages of their enemies.

Her gates; the gates of Zion or Jerusalem, which, by a figure very usual in sacred Scripture and all authors, are said to lament, to imply the great desolation of the place, that there should be no people to go out and come in by the gates, or to meet together in the gates, as they used to do.