Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Isaiah 5:14
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The threat of punishment commences again with "therefore;" it has not yet satisfied itself, and therefore grasps deeper still. "Therefore the under-world opens its jaws wide, and stretches open its mouth immeasurably wide; and the glory of Jerusalem descends, and its tumult, and noise, and those who rejoice within it." The verbs which follow lâcēn (therefore) are prophetic preterites, as in Isa 5:13. The feminine suffixes attached to what the lower world swallows up do not refer to sheol (though this is construed more frequently, no doubt, as a feminine than as a masculine, as it is in Job 26:6), but, as expressed in the translation, to Jerusalem itself, which is also necessarily required by the last clause, "those who rejoice within it." The withdrawal of the tone from ועלז to the penultimate (cf., Châphētz in Psa 18:20; Psa 22:9) is intentionally omitted, to cause the rolling and swallowing up to be heard as it were. A mouth is ascribed to the under-world, also a nephesh, i.e., a greedy soul, in which sense nephesh is then applied metonymically sometimes to a thirst for blood ( Psa 27:12), and sometimes to simple greediness ( Isa 56:11), and even, as in the present passage and Hab 2:5, to the throat or swallow which the soul opens "without measure," when its craving knows no bounds (Psychol. p. 204). It has become a common thing now to drop entirely the notion which formerly prevailed, that the noun sheol was derived from the verb shâal in the sense in which it was generally employed, viz., to ask or demand; but Caspari, who has revived it again, is certainly so far correct, that the derivation of the word which the prophet had in his mind was this and no other. The word sheol (an infinitive form, like pekōd) signifies primarily the irresistible and inexorable demand made upon every earthly thing; and then secondarily, in a local sense, the place of the abode of shades, to which everything on the surface of the earth is summoned; or essentially the divinely appointed curse which demands and swallows up everything upon the earth. We simply maintain, however, that the word sheol, as generally sued, was associated in thought with shâal, to ask or demand. Originally, no doubt, it may have been derived from the primary and more material idea of the verb שׁאל, possibly from the meaning "to be hollow," which is also assumed to be the primary meaning of שׁעל. (Note: The meaning "to be hollow" is not very firmly established, however; as the primary meaning of שׁעל, and the analogy sometimes adduced of hell = hollow (Hlle = Hhle), is a deceptive one, as Hlle (hell), to which Luther always gives the more correct form Helle, does not mean a hollow, but a hidden place (or a place which renders invisible: from hln, to conceal), Lat. celans (see Jtting, Bibl. Wrterbuch, 1864, pp. 85, 86). It is much more probable that the meaning of sheol is not the hollow place, but the depression or depth, from של, which corresponds precisely to the Greek χαλᾶν so far as its primary meaning is concerned (compare the talmudic shilshêl, to let down; shilshul, sinking or depression, Erubin 83b; shul, the foundation, fundus): see Hupfeld on Psa 6:6. Luzzatto on this passage also explains sheol as signifying depth, and compares the talmudic hishchil = hēshil, to let down (or, according to others, to draw up - two meanings which may easily be combined in the same word, starting from its radical idea, which indicates in a general a loosening of the previous…
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