Isaiah 1:14

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) Your new moons and your appointed feasts.—The latter word included the sabbaths (Leviticus 23:3). The words add nothing to what had been said before, but they come with all the emphasis of iteration.

My soul.—The words are in one sense anthropomorphic. With man the “soul” expresses the full intensity of life and consciousness, and so, in the language of the prophets, it does with God.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:10-15 Judea was desolate, and their cities burned. This awakened them to bring sacrifices and offerings, as if they would bribe God to remove the punishment, and give them leave to go on in their sin. Many who will readily part with their sacrifices, will not be persuaded to part with their sins. They relied on the mere form as a service deserving a reward. The most costly devotions of wicked people, without thorough reformation of heart and life, cannot be acceptable to God. He not only did not accept them, but he abhorred them. All this shows that sin is very hateful to God. If we allow ourselves in secret sin, or forbidden indulgences; if we reject the salvation of Christ, our very prayers will become abomination.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Your appointed feasts - That is, your assemblies convened on regular set times - מועד mô‛êd, from יעד yâ‛ad, to fix, to appoint. Hengstenberg (Chris. iii. p. 87) has shown that this word (מועדים mô‛ĕdı̂ym) is applied in the Scriptures only to the sabbath, passover, pentecost, day of atonement, and feast of tabernacles. Prof. Alexander, in loc. It is applied to those festivals, because they were fixed by law to certain periods of the year. This verse is a very impressive repetition of the former, as if the soul was full of the subject, and disposed to dwell upon it.

My soul hateth - I hate. Psalm 11:5. The nouns נפשׁ nephesh, soul, and רוּח rûach, spirit, are often used to denote the person himself, and are to be construed as "I." Thus, Isaiah 26:9 : 'With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early;' that is, 'I myself seek thee; I myself do desire thee.' So the phrase, 'deliver my soul,' - נפשׁי napheshı̂y - that is, deliver me, Psalm 22:20; Psalm 84:3; Psalm 86:13-14; that thy soul may bless me, Genesis 27:19; his soul shall dwell at ease, Psalm 25:13; compare Numbers 11:6; Leviticus 16:29; Isaiah 55:2-3; Job 16:4. So the word spirit: 'Thy watchfulness hath preserved my spirit' - רוּחי rûchı̂y - Job 10:12; compare Psalm 31:6; 1 Kings 21:5. The expression here is emphatic, denoting cordial hatred: odi ex animo.

They are a trouble - טרח ṭôrach. In Deuteronomy 1:12, this word denotes a burden, an oppressive lead that produces weariness in bearing it. It is a strong expression, denoting that their acts of hypocrisy and sin had become so numerous, that they became a heavy, oppressive lead.

I am weary to bear them - This is language which is taken from the act of carrying a burden until a man becomes weary and faint. So, in accordance with human conceptions, God represents himself as burdened with their vain oblations, and evil conduct. There could be no more impressive statement of the evil effects of sin, than that even Omnipotence was exhausted as with a heavy, oppressive burden.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. appointed—the sabbath, passover, pentecost, day of atonement, and feast of tabernacles [Hengstenberg]; they alone were fixed to certain times of the year.

weary—(Isa 43:24).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth,.... The Targum is,

"my Word abhorreth;''

the Messiah, the essential Word. These are the same as before.

They are a trouble unto me; as they were kept and observed, either when they should not, or in a manner unbecoming:

I am weary to bear them; because of the sins with which they made him to serve, Isaiah 43:24.

Geneva Study Bible

Your {u} new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble to me; I am weary of bearing them.

(u) Your sacrifices offered in the new moons and feasts: he condemns by this hypocrites who think to please God with ceremonies and they themselves are void of faith and mercy.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. appointed feasts] the stated festivals dependent on the season of the year; see Genesis 1:14. trouble is literally burden.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - Your new moons. (For the ceremonies to be observed at the opening of each month, see Numbers 28:11-15.) Your appointed feasts. The "appointed feasts" are the great festival-times - the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles. They do not include the sabbath or the "new moon, "with which they are, both here and elsewhere (1 Chronicles 23:31; 2 Chronicles 31:3), contrasted. They are a trouble unto me; literally, an encumbrance (see Deuteronomy 1:12). Isaiah 1:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

He gives a still stronger expression to His repugnance: "Your new-moons and your festive seasons my soul hateth; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them." As the soul (nephesh) of a man, regarded as the band which unites together bodily and spiritual life, though it is not the actual principle of self-consciousness, is yet the place in which he draws, as it were, the circle of self-consciousness, so as to comprehend the whole essence of His being in the single thought of "I;" so, according to a description taken from godlike man, the "soul" (nephesh) of God, as the expression "my soul" indicates, is the centre of His being, regarded as encircled and pervaded (personated) by self-consciousness; and therefore, whatever the soul of God hates (vid., Jeremiah 15:1) or loves (Isaiah 42:1), is hated or loved in the inmost depths and to the utmost bounds of His being (Psychol. p. 218). Thus He hated each and all of the festivals that were kept in Jerusalem, whether the beginnings of the month, or the high feast-days (moadim, in which, according to Leviticus 23, the Sabbath was also included) observed in the course of the month. For a long time past they had become a burden and annoyance to Him: His long-suffering was weary of such worship. "To bear" (נשׂא), in Isaiah, even in Isaiah 18:3, for שׂאת or שׂאת ro , and here for לשׂאת: Ewald, 285, c) has for its object the seasons of worship already mentioned.