king--not Hezekiah, who was already on the throne, whereas a future time is contemplated. If he be meant at all, it can only be as a type of Messiah the King, to whom alone the language is fully applicable (Hos 3:5; Zac 9:9; see on Isa 11:3-5). The kingdom shall be transferred from the world kings, who have exercised their power against God, instead of for God, to the rightful King of kings (Eze 21:27; Dan 7:13-14).
princes--subordinate; referring to all in authority under Christ in the coming kingdom on earth, for example, the apostles, &c. (Luk 22:30; Co1 6:2; Ti2 2:12; Rev 2:26-27; Rev 3:21).
rivers--as refreshing as water and the cool shade are to the heated traveller (Isa 35:6-7; Isa 41:18).
them that hear--the people under instruction (Isa 35:5-6).
stammers--those who speak confusedly on divine things (compare Exo 4:10-12; Jer 1:6; Mat 10:19-20). Or, rather, those drunken scorners who in stammering style imitated Isaiah's warnings to mock them [MAURER] (Isa 28:7-11, Isa 28:13-14, Isa 28:22; Isa 29:20); in this view, translate, "speak uprightly" (agreeably to the divine law); not as English Version, referring to the distinctness of articulation, "plainly."
liberal--rather, "noble-minded."
churl--rather, "fraudulent" [GESENIUS].
bountiful--religiously. The atheistic churl, who envies the believer his hope "full of immortality," shall no longer be held as a patriot struggling for the emancipation of mankind from superstition [HORSLEY].
will speak--rather, "present"; for (so far is the "fool" from deserving the epithet "noble-minded") the fool "speaketh" folly and "worketh," &c.
hypocrisy--rather, "profligacy" [HORSLEY].
error--impiety, perverse arguments.
hungry--spiritually (Mat 5:6).
speaketh right--pleadeth a just cause (Isa 29:21); spiritually, "the poor man's cause" is the divine doctrine, his rule of faith and practice.
stand--shall be approved under the government of the righteous King.
vintage shall fail--through the arrival of the Assyrian invader. As the wheat harvest is omitted, Isaiah must look for the invasion in the summer or autumn of 714 B.C., when the wheat would have been secured already, and the later fruit "gathering," and vintage would be still in danger.
houses of joy--pleasure-houses outside of Jerusalem, not Jerusalem itself, but other cities destroyed by Sennacherib in his march (Isa 7:20-25). However, the prophecy, in its full accomplishment, refers to the utter desolation of Judea and its capital by Rome, and subsequently, previous to the second coming of the King (Psa 118:26; Luk 13:35; Luk 19:38); "the joyous city" is in this view, Jerusalem (Isa 22:2).
multitude . . . left--the noisy din of the city, that is, the city with its noisy multitude shall lie forsaken [MAURER].
forts--rather, "Ophel" (that is, the mound), the term applied specially to the declivity on the east of Zion, surrounded with its own wall (Ch2 27:3; Ch2 33:14; Kg2 5:24), and furnished with "towers" (or watchtowers), perhaps referred to here (Neh 3:26-27).
for ever--limited by thee, "until," &c., Isa 32:15, for a long time.
wilderness . . . fruitful field . . . forest--when Judea, so long waste, shall be populous and fruitful, and the land of the enemies of God shall be desolate. Or, "the field, now fruitful, shall be but as a barren forest in comparison with what it shall be then" (Isa 29:17). The barren shall become fruitful by regeneration; those already regenerate shall bring forth fruits in such abundance that their former life shall seem but as a wilderness where no fruits were.
wilderness--then reclaimed.
fruitful field--then become more fruitful (Isa 32:15); thus "wilderness" and "fruitful field" include the whole land of Judea.
peace--internal and external.
all waters--well-watered places (Isa 30:25). The Hebrew translation, "beside," ought rather to be translated, "upon" (Ecc 11:1), where the meaning is, "Cast thy seed upon the waters when the river overflows its banks; the seed will sink into the mud and will spring up when the waters subside, and you will find it after many days in a rich harvest." Before sowing, they send oxen, &c., into the water to tread the ground for sowing. CASTALIO thinks there is an allusion to the Mosaic precept, not to plough with an ox and ass together, mystically implying that the Jew was to have no intercourse with Gentiles; the Gospel abolishes this distinction (Col 3:11); thus the sense here is, Blessed are ye that sow the gospel seed without distinction of race in the teachers or the taught. But there is no need of supposing that the ox and ass here are yoked together; they are probably "sent forth" separately, as in Isa 30:24.