Isaiahchapter 4
6 verses · Isaiah · 8th century BC · The Prophets
On that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of Israel’s survivors.
Introduction
Isaiah, The Prophets, Isaiah Overview.
This short chapter closes the oracle the book began at chapter 2, and it was spoken to Judeans who had just heard their city stripped. Its first hearers knew what war did to a population and how it left households without men. It turns from judgment to what remains on the far side of it. Listen for the change of tone after the first verse, and for the words that describe those who are left. Notice the old signs of God's presence from the wilderness years that reappear over the city. The chapter tells the reader that God's purpose runs through judgment to cleansing.
Context
- Who
- Judeans hearing what would be left of them on the other side
- What
- A prophecy that after the judgment the Branch of the LORD will be glorious, the survivors in Zion will be holy, and God will shelter the city.
- Where
- Jerusalem and Mount Zion after a war, with its assemblies gathered under God's covering.
- When
- The same years as chapters 2 and 3, about 740 to 730 BC.
- Why
- To give the hearers of judgment a promise that God would wash and keep a remnant, and dwell over Zion again.
Historical context
Seven women taking hold of one man is a war statistic, not a joke. Battle killed men; deportation took men. A woman without a husband in that society had no share in the land, no protection in a lawsuit, and no future, since inheritance ran through sons. That is why the seven offer to pay their own way, we will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, and ask for nothing but the name. They want the shame of childlessness taken away.
Show the rest of the historical context, 2 more paragraphs
The Branch is an agricultural word before it is a royal one. When a tree is cut down, a fresh green shoot can push up out of the stump. Isaiah will use the picture again at chapter 11, of the stump of Jesse.
The last picture is a wedding canopy. At a Jewish marriage the couple stood under a covering, and the word here is the same one later used for that canopy. Over it, Isaiah puts the cloud by day and the fire by night, the pillar that had stood over Israel in the wilderness. God is described as moving back in over the city and, quite literally, throwing a wedding canopy over the whole of Mount Zion.
Significance
After three chapters of stripping, this told the first hearers that God's aim was never demolition. What comes through the fire is a small, washed, recorded remnant, everyone written down among the living in Jerusalem.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
And the shelter language mattered. A booth for shade from the heat and cover from the storm was what a farmer built for himself; here God builds it, over the city, and stays.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
No part of this chapter is read in the synagogue. Probed for this lane, the site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot 0 and haftarah uses 0 for Isaiah 4, and no festival reading for the book. Across chapters 1 to 22 of Isaiah the same probe found a Haftarah only in chapters 1, 6, 7 and 9.
How it is read
This short chapter is the one in these twenty-two where the corpus keeps little English. Of its twenty-four commentary entries, nineteen notes of Rashi carry no text because the licence Sefaria reports for that version is none, and the corpus marks them linked.
What the corpus keeps is four entries. Ibn Ezra is quoted from the Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah, translated by M. Friedlander in 1873, which Sefaria reports as Public Domain. On the seven women of the first verse he reads the number as "many", explaining that seven is used "because it is the number of the days of the week" (Ibn Ezra on Isaiah 4:1:1). On those written for life in the third verse he points forward to his note on Malachi 3:16 (Ibn Ezra on Isaiah 4:3:1).
Rashi's note on the fifth verse is quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. He counts the coverings of the verse as "Seven chupoth [shelters or canopies]" and names them: cloud, smoke, splendor, fire, flame, shelter and Shechinah (Rashi on Isaiah 4:5:3). One further note of Rashi on the first verse is kept in the Sefaria Community Translation, which Sefaria reports as CC0 (Rashi on Isaiah 4:1:1).
The corpus carries twenty notes on this chapter without an English text, marked linked. The notes of Rashi at 4:1:2, 4:1:3, 4:2:1, 4:2:2, 4:2:3 and 4:2:4 stand cited and unquoted because the licence Sefaria reports for the version is none, which does not permit keeping the text. So do his notes at 4:3:1, 4:3:2, 4:3:3, 4:4:1, 4:4:2 and 4:4:3. So do his notes at 4:4:4, 4:5:1, 4:5:2, 4:6:1, 4:6:2 and 4:6:3. So does his note at 4:6:4. The note of Radak at 4:5:1 stands cited and unquoted because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 38 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 7 in the Talmud and 31 in the Midrash. It carries the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and never quoted or paraphrased. The verse numbers are the Hebrew ones the corpus prints.
On verse 1 it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 31:3, Eikhah Rabbah 5:11 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Taanit 1:21. It also holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shoftim 10:1 and Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Yelamdeinu, Last Composition from Midrash Yelamdenu 17. On verse 3 it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 34:11, Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 43:24 and Bamidbar Rabbah 13:20. It also holds Bamidbar Rabbah 13:5, Bava Batra 75b:4 and Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Bereshit 17. It also holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 5:29, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:16 and Ein Yaakov, Bava Batra 5:20. On verse 4 it holds Aggadat Bereshit 20:4, Aggadat Bereshit 68:2 and Bamidbar Rabbah 14:2. It also holds Bereshit Rabbah 48:10, Eikhah Rabbah 1:23 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:42. It also holds Ein Yaakov, Sotah 1:49 and Kohelet Rabbah 11:1:1. On verse 5 it holds Aggadat Bereshit 67:3, Aggadat Bereshit 68:1 and Bamidbar Rabbah 21:22. It also holds Bava Batra 75a:14, Bava Batra 75b:2 and Bereshit Rabbah 44:22. It also holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Bereshit 21 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 5:28. On verse 6 it holds Bereshit Rabbah 1:6, Jerusalem Talmud Sukkah 1:1:9 and Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 23:40:11. It also holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 18:4:3, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 19:35:9 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Beshalach 15:4. It also holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Emor 30:2 and Midrash Tanchuma, Emor 22:1.
The corpus file also carries two locators anchored to verses this chapter does not have, and they are left out of the list above. Pesikta Rabbati 4:1 is anchored at Isaiah 4:11. Sifrei Bamidbar 40:1 is anchored at Isaiah 4:31. The chapter has 6 verses in the Berean Standard Bible as the store holds it.
What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Isaiah 4:1:1 to 4:3:1, Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873, reported Public Domain; Rashi, Rashi on Isaiah 4:1:1, Sefaria Community Translation, reported CC0; Rashi, Rashi on Isaiah 4:5:3, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Rashi, Rashi on Isaiah 4:1:2, 4:1:3, 4:2:1, 4:2:2, 4:2:3, 4:2:4, 4:3:1, 4:3:2, 4:3:3, 4:4:1, 4:4:2, 4:4:3, 4:4:4, 4:5:1, 4:5:2, 4:6:1, 4:6:2, 4:6:3 and 4:6:4, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Isaiah 4:5:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/isaiah/4.json, the 38 Talmud and Midrash locators on the verses of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Isaiah 4: parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, and no festival reading for the book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Seven Women Take Hold of One Manv. 1
In that day seven women: The seven women who seize one man close the war-emptied Jerusalem of chapter 3. They waive a husband's duty to support them, asking only his name to remove the disgrace of childlessness. Barnes and Henry take the verse as the low point from which the chapter rises into promise.
Isaiah 4:1
“One man - Because few men shall survive that dreadful stroke. Only - Own us for thy wives. Our reproach - Virginity was esteemed a reproach; children, the usual fruit of marriage, being both an honour to their parents, and a blessing of God, especially to that people, from some of whose loins the Messiah was to spring.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The Branch, and a Canopy of Cloud and Fire
Isaiah 4:2-3
On that day the Branch: This is the first of several branch texts. Its parallel with "the fruit of the land" allows the produce of the land, and its title form allows a messianic title. Either way the promise attaches to a remnant, "Whoever remains in Zion," called holy and "recorded among the living."
Isaiah 4:2
“The branch of the Lord “the branch of Jehovah” - The Messiah of Jehovah, says the Chaldee. And Kimchi says, The Messiah, the Son of David. The branch is an appropriate title of the Messiah; and the fruit of the land means the great Person to spring from the house of Judah, and is only a parallel expression signifying the same; or perhaps the blessings consequent upon the redemption procured by him. Compare Isa 45:8 (note), where the same great event is set forth under similar images, and see the note there.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 4:2
“In that day - About that time: when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of Zion, by those dreadful judgments now described. The branch - The Messiah. The earth - The land which for the sins of the people was made barren, upon their return to Christ shall recover its fertility.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
recorded among the living—: Those left in Zion are written in the register of the living, the roll of Israel's families. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown saw in it the book of life of Philippians 4:3. Henry called them a remnant under grace.
Isaiah 4:3
“It is a remnant under the dominion of grace; for every one that is written among the living, and is accordingly left, shall be called holy, shall be holy, and shall be accepted of God accordingly. Those only that are holy shall be left when the Son of man shall gather out of his kingdom every thing that offends; and all that are chosen to salvation are chosen to sanctification.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 4:3
“He that is left in Zion - This “properly” refers to the remnant that should remain after the mass of the people should be cut off by wars, or be borne into captivity. If it refer to the few that would come back from Babylon, it means that they would be reformed, and would be a generation different from their fathers - which was undoubtedly true.”
Isaiah 4:4-6
when the Lord has washed away: The washing of Zion "by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire" is a work only the Lord does. The older writers set it against the washings of the law. Over Zion the exodus canopy returns, the double sign that led Israel out of Egypt, covering her assemblies.
Isaiah 4:4
“The spirit of burning - Means the fire of God’s wrath, by which he will prove and purify his people; gathering them into his furnace, in order to separate the dross from the silver, the bad from the good. The severity of God’s judgments, the fiery trial of his servants, Ezekiel (Eze 22:18-22) has set forth at large, after his manner, with great boldness of imagery and force of expression. God threatens to gather them into the midst of Jerusalem, as into the furnace; to blow the fire upon them, and to melt them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 4:4
“When - This shall be accomplished when God hath throughly cleansed the Jewish nation from their sins. The blood - The blood- guiltiness, and especially that of killing the Lord of life. Burning - This is opposed to the former legal way of purification, which was by water.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
a cloud of smoke by day: The cloud of smoke by day and fire by night recall the pillar that led Israel out of Egypt at Exodus 13:21. Now it rests over every assembly on Mount Zion. The word for canopy is used for a bridal chamber at Psalm 19:5 and Joel 2:16.
Isaiah 4:5
“A cloud - A pillar of cloud and fire, like that wherewith he directed the Israelites, when they came out of Egypt: whereby he implies, that God would be their protector, and their glory. The glory - Upon all that church and people, which God will make so glorious; upon all holy assemblies of sincere Christians.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 4:5
“And the Lord will create - The meaning of this verse and the next is, that God would take his people into his holy care and protection. The idea is expressed by images drawn, in this verse, from the protection which he afforded to the Israelites in their journeying from Egypt. The word “create” means here, he will afford, or furnish, such a defense. Upon every dwelling-place ... - Upon all the habitations of his people; that is, they shall be secure, and regarded as under his protection.”
a refuge and hiding place from the storm: The canopy of verse 5 now gives shade in the heat of day and refuge from the storm and the rain. The word for shelter is sukkah, the booth of Leviticus 23:42. Barnes saw the tabernacle of Moses behind it.
Isaiah 4:6
“A tabernacle - In countries subject to violent tempests, as well as to intolerable heat, a portable tent is a necessary part of a traveller’s baggage, for defense and shelter. And to such tents the words of the text make evident allusion. They are to be met with in every part of Arabia and Egypt, and in various other places in the East.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 4:6
“God's tabernacle was a pavilion to the saints ( Ps. xxvii. 5 ); but, when that is taken down, they shall not want a covert: the divine power and goodness shall be a tabernacle to all the saints.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.