Isaiah 32:1-8

Isaiah 32:1-8. The ideal commonwealth of the Messianic Age

This passage, although treated by many expositors as the continuation of ch. 31, bears all the marks of an independent prophecy. Its insertion in the present group of discourses is sufficiently explained by the picture it gives of a reformed upper class, in contrast with the irreligious and unscrupulous nobility against whom the previous Chapter s have been mainly directed. The time of its actual composition cannot be determined with certainty, but it is perhaps most naturally assigned to the close of Isaiah's ministry, when his mind was occupied with the hope of the ideal future. Much has been made of the fact that the figure of the Messianic King (Isaiah 32:1) is less idealised than in the great prophecies of ch. Isaiah 9:1-6 and Isaiah 11:1-4. But this circumstance is easily accounted for by the leading idea of the prophecy (which is the transformation of social relationships), and cannot be safely used as a criterion of date. Still less does it furnish an argument against the Isaianic authorship of the passage. It is true, however, that in its somewhat laboured didactic style, and in the terms employed, the passage differs widely from anything else in the acknowledged writings of Isaiah; and the suggestion that it may have owed its final literary form to a later hand cannot be altogether ignored.

The contents of the prophecy are as follows:

(1) Isaiah 32:1. A perfectly just and beneficent government will be established; king and nobles alike being endowed with the virtues necessary for their office, and yielding protection to the poor.

(2) Isaiah 32:3. Public opinion also will be enlightened and purified; the people will no longer be misled by false and superficial judgments, but even the most ignorant will be gifted with the faculty of sound moral discernment.

(3) Isaiah 32:5. The consequences of this will be that "the aristocracy of birth and wealth will be replaced by an aristocracy of character" (Delitzsch); men will find their proper level and be estimated at their true worth (5). To this is appended an analysis of the two contrasted types, the "churl" and the true nobleman (6 8).