And they shall pass - The people who have been consulting necromancers. This represents the condition of these who have sought for counsel and direction, and who have not found it. They shall be conscious of disappointment, and shall wander perplexed and alarmed through the land.

Through it - Through the land. They shall wander in it from one place to another, seeking direction and relief.

Hardly bestead - Oppressed, borne down, agitated. The meaning is, that the people would wander about, oppressed by the calamities that were coming upon the nation, and unalleviated by all that soothsayers and necromancers could do.

And hungry - Famished; as one effect of the great calamities that would afflict the nation.

They shall fret themselves - They shall be irritated at their own folly and weakness, and shall aggravate their sufferings by self-reproaches for having trusted to false gods.

Their king and their God - The Hebrew interpreters understand this of the false gods which they bad consulted, and in which they had trusted. But their looking upward, and the connection, seem to imply that they would rather curse the true God - the 'king and the God' of the Jewish people. They would be subjected to the proofs of his displeasure, and would vent their malice by reproaches and curses.

And look upward - For relief. This denotes the condition of those in deep distress, instinctively casting their eyes to heaven for aid. Yet it is implied that they would do it with no right feeling, and that they would see there only the tokens of their Creator's displeasure.

Hardly bestead "Distressed" - Instead of נקשה niksheh, distressed, the Vulgate, Chaldee, and Symmachus manifestly read נכשל nichshal, stumbling, tottering through weakness, ready to fall; a sense which suits very well with the place.

And look upward "And he shall cast his eyes upward" - The learned professor Michaelis, treating of this place (Not. in de Sacr. Poes. Hebr. Prael. ix.) refers to a passage in the Koran which is similar to it. As it is a very celebrated passage, and on many accounts remarkable, I shall give it here at large, with the same author's farther remarks upon it in another place of his writings. It must be noted here that the learned professor renders נבט nibbat, הביט hibbit, in this and the parallel place, Isaiah 5:30, which I translate he looketh by it thundereth, from Schultens, Orig. Ling. Hebr. Lib. 1 cap. 2, of the justness of which rendering I much doubt.

This brings the image of Isaiah more near in one circumstance to that of Mohammed than it appears to be in my translation: -

"Labid, contemporary with Mohammed, the last of the seven Arabian poets who had the honor of having their poems, one of each, hung up in the entrance of the temple of Mecca, struck with the sublimity of a passage in the Koran, became a convert to Mohammedism; for he concluded that no man could write in such a manner unless he were Divinely inspired.

"One must have a curiosity to examine a passage which had so great an effect upon Labid. It is, I must own, the finest that I know in the whole Koran: but I do not think it will have a second time the like effect, so as to tempt any one of my readers to submit to circumcision. It is in the second chapter, where he is speaking of certain apostates from the faith. 'They are like,' saith he, 'to a man who kindles a light. As soon as it begins to shine, God takes from them the light, and leaves them in darkness that they see nothing. They are deaf, dumb, and blind; and return not into the right way. Or they fare as when a cloud, full of darkness, thunder, and lightning, covers the heaven. When it bursteth, they stop their ears with their fingers, with deadly fear; and God hath the unbelievers in his power. The lightning almost robbeth them of their eyes: as often as it flasheth they go on by its light; and when it vanisheth in darkness, they stand still. If God pleased, they would retain neither hearing nor sight.' That the thought is beautiful, no one will deny; and Labid, who had probably a mind to flatter Mohammed, was lucky in finding a passage in the Koran so little abounding in poetical beauties, to which his conversion might with any propriety be ascribed. It was well that he went no farther; otherwise his taste for poetry might have made him again an infidel." Michaelis, Erpenii Arabische Grammatik abgekurzt, Vorrede, s. 32.

And they shall pass through it,.... The land, as the Targum and Kimchi supply it; that is, the land of Judea, as Aben Ezra interprets it. Here begins an account of the punishment that should be inflicted on the Jews, for their neglect of the prophecies of the Old Testament, and their rejection of the Messiah:

hardly bestead and hungry; put to the greatest difficulty to get food to eat, and famishing for want of it; which some understand of the time when Sennacherib's army was before Jerusalem, as Aben Ezra; but it seems better, with others, to refer it to the times of Zedekiah, when there was a sore famine, Jeremiah 52:6 though best of all to the besieging of Jerusalem, by the Romans, and the times preceding it, Matthew 24:7 and it may also be applied to the famine of hearing the word before that, when the Gospel, the kingdom of heaven, was taken from them, for their contempt of it:

and it shall come to pass, when they shall be hungry: either in a temporal sense, having no food for their bodies; or in a mystical sense, being hungry often and earnestly desirous of the coming of their vainly expected Messiah, as a temporal Saviour of them:

they shall fret themselves; for want of food for their bodies, to satisfy their hunger; or because their Messiah does not come to help them:

and curse their King, and their God; the true Messiah, who is the King of Israel, and God manifest in the flesh; whom the unbelieving Jews called accursed, and blasphemed:

and look upwards; to heaven, for the coming of another Messiah, but in vain; or for food to eat.

The night of despair to which the unbelieving nation would be brought, is described in Isaiah 8:21, Isaiah 8:22 : "And it goes about therein hard pressed and hungry: and it comes to pass, when hunger befals it, it frets itself, and curses by its king and by its God, and turns its face upward, and looks to the earth, and beyond distress and darkness, benighting with anguish, and thrust out into darkness." The singulars attach themselves to the לו in Isaiah 8:19, which embraces all the unbelievers in one mass; "therein" (bâh) refers to the self-evident land ('eretz). The people would be brought to such a plight in the approaching Assyrian oppressions, that they would wander about in the land pressed down by their hard fate (niksheh) and hungry (râ'eb), because all provisions would be gone and the fields and vineyards would be laid waste. As often as it experienced hunger afresh, it would work itself into a rage (v'hithkazzaqph with Vav apod. and pathach, according to Ges. 54, Anm.), and curse by its king and God, i.e., by its idol. This is the way in which we must explain the passage, in accordance with 1 Samuel 14:43, where killel bēholim is equivalent to killel b'shēm elohim, and with Zephaniah 1:5, where a distinction is made between an oath layehovâh, and an oath b'malcâm; if we would adhere to the usage of the language, in which we never find a בּ קלל corresponding to the Latin execrari in aliquem (Ges.), but on the contrary the object cursed is always expressed in the accusative. We must therefore give up Psalm 5:3 and Psalm 68:25 as parallels to b'malco and b'lohâi: they curse by the idol, which passes with them for both king and God, curse their wretched fate with this as they suppose the most effectual curse of all, without discerning in it the just punishment of their own apostasy, and humbling themselves penitentially under the almighty hand of Jehovah. Consequently all this reaction of their wrath would avail them nothing: whether they turned upwards, to see if the black sky were not clearing, or looked down to the earth, everywhere there would meet them nothing but distress and darkness, nothing but a night of anguish all around (me‛ūph zūkâh is a kind of summary; mâ‛ūph a complete veiling, or eclipse, written with ū instead of the more usual ō of this substantive form: Ewald, 160, a). The judgment of God does not convert them, but only heightens their wickedness; just as in Revelation 16:11, Revelation 16:21, after the pouring out of the fifth and seventh vials of wrath, men only utter blasphemies, and do not desist from their works. After stating what the people see, whether they turn their eyes upwards or downwards, the closing participial clause of Isaiah 8:22 describes how they see themselves "thrust out into darkness' (in caliginem propulsum). There is no necessity to supply הוּא; but out of the previous hinnēh it is easy to repeat hinno or hinnennu (en ipsum). "Into darkness:" ăphēlâh (acc. loci) is placed emphatically at the head, as in Jeremiah 23:12.

And they shall pass through it, distressed and hungry: and it shall come to {a} pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, {b} and curse their king and their God, and look upward.

(a) That is, in Judah, where they would have had rest, if they had not thus grievously offended God.

(b) In whom before they put their trust.

8:21 It - Their own land. Hungry - Sorely distressed, and destitute of food, and all necessaries. Their king - Either because he doth not relieve them; or because by his foolish counsels, he brought them into these miseries. God - Their idol, to whom they trusted, and whom they now find unable to help them. Look - To heaven for help.

21, 22. More detailed description of the despair, which they shall fall into, who sought necromancy instead of God; Isa 8:20 implies that too late they shall see how much better it would have been for them to have sought "to the law," &c. (De 32:31). But now they are given over to despair. Therefore, while seeing the truth of God, they only "curse their King and God"; foreshadowing the future, like conduct of those belonging to the "kingdom of the beast," when they shall be visited with divine plagues (Re 16:11; compare Jer 18:12).

through it-namely, the land.

hardly bestead-oppressed with anxiety.

hungry-a more grievous famine than the temporary one in Ahaz' time, owing to Assyria; then there was some food, but none now (Isa 7:15, 22; Le 26:3-5, 14-16, 20).

their king . God-Jehovah, King of the Jews (Ps 5:2; 68:24).

look upward . unto the earth-Whether they look up to heaven, or down towards the land of Judea, nothing but despair shall present itself.

dimness of anguish-darkness of distress (Pr 1:27).

driven to darkness-rather, "thick darkness" (Jer 23:12). Driven onward, as by a sweeping storm. The Jewish rejection of "their King and God," Messiah, was followed by all these awful calamities.

8:17-22 The prophet foresaw that the Lord would hide his face; but he would look for his return in favour to them again. Though not miraculous signs, the children's names were memorials from God, suited to excite attention. The unbelieving Jews were prone to seek counsel in difficulties, from diviners of different descriptions, whose foolish and sinful ceremonies are alluded to. Would we know how we may seek to our God, and come to the knowledge of his mind? To the law and to the testimony; for there you will see what is good, and what the Lord requires. We must speak of the things of God in the words which the Holy Ghost teaches, and be ruled by them. To those that seek to familiar spirits, and regard not God's law and testimony, there shall be horror and misery. Those that go away from God, go out of the way of all good; for fretfulness is a sin that is its own punishment. They shall despair, and see no way of relief, when they curse God. And their fears will represent every thing as frightful. Those that shut their eyes against the light of God's word, will justly be left to darkness. All the miseries that ever were felt or witnessed on earth, are as nothing, compared with what will overwhelm those who leave the words of Christ, to follow delusions.