Isaiah 28:8

For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

28:5-15 The prophet next turns to Judah, whom he calls the residue of his people. Happy are those alone, who glory in the Lord of hosts himself. Hence his people get wisdom and strength for every service and every conflict. But it is only in Christ Jesus that the holy God communicates with sinful man. And whether those that teach are drunk with wine, or intoxicated with false doctrines and notions concerning the kingdom and salvation of the Messiah, they not only err themselves, but lead multitudes astray. All places where such persons have taught are filled with errors. For our instruction in the things of God, it is needful that the same precept and the same line should be often repeated to us, that we may the better understand them. God, by his word, calls us to what is really for our advantage; the service of God is the only true rest for those weary of the service of sin, and there is no refreshment but under the easy yoke of the Lord Jesus. All this had little effect upon the people. Those who will not understand what is plain, but scorn and despise it as mean and trifling, are justly punished. If we are at peace with God, we have, in effect, made a covenant with death; whenever it comes, it cannot do us any real damage, if we are Christ's. But to think of making death our friend, while by sin we are making God our enemy, is absurd. And do not they make lies their refuge who trust in their own righteousness, or to a death-bed repentance? which is a resolution to sin no more, when it is no longer in their power to do so.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For all tables ... - The tables at which they sit long in the use of wine (see the note at Isaiah 5:11). There was no place in their houses which was free from the disgusting and loathsome pollution produced by the use of wine.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. Though Judah is to survive the fall of Ephraim, yet "they also" (the men of Judah) have perpetrated like sins to those of Samaria (Isa 5:3, 11), which must be chastised by God.

erred … are out of the way—"stagger … reel." Repeated, to express the frequency of the vice.

priest … prophet—If the ministers of religion sin so grievously, how much more the other rulers (Isa 56:10, 12)!

vision—even in that most sacred function of the prophet to declare God's will revealed to them.

judgment—The priests had the administration of the law committed to them (De 17:9; 19:17). It was against the law for the priests to take wine before entering the tabernacle (Le 10:9; Eze 44:21).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

All tables; at which the priests, and prophets, and other Jews did eat and drink. They hardly made one sober meal; drunkenness was their daily practice.

No place; no table, or no part of the table; no, not so much as the holy places, in which the priests did frequently eat their meals.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness,.... The one signifies what is spued out of a man's mouth, his stomach being overcharged, and the other his excrements; and both give a just, though nauseous, idea of a drunken man. This vice was very common; men of all ranks and degrees were infected with it, rulers and people; and no wonder that the common people ran into it, when such examples were set them; the tables of the priests, who ate of the holy things in the holy place, and the tables of the prophets, who pretended to see visions, and to prophesy of things to come, were all defiled through this prevailing sin;

so that there is no place clean or free from vomit and filthiness, no table, or part of one, of prince, prophet, priest, and people; the Targum adds,

"pure from rapine or violence.''

R. Simeon, as De Dieu observes, makes "beli Makom" to signify "without God", seeing God is sometimes with the Jews called Makom, "place", because he fills all places; and as if the sense was, their tables were without God, no mention being made of him at their table, or in their table talk, or while eating and drinking; but this does not seem to be the sense of the passage. Vitringa interprets this of schools and public auditoriums, where false doctrines were taught, comparable to vomit for filthiness; hence it follows:

Geneva Study Bible

For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. For vomit and filthiness, read filthy vomit.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - So that there is no place clean. This is probably the true meaning, though the prophet simply says, "There is no place" (comp. Isaiah 5:8). Isaiah 28:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With the words, "and they also," the prophet commences the second half of the address, and passes from Ephraim to Judah. "And they also reel with wine, and are giddy with meth; priest and prophet reel with meth, are swallowed up by wine: they are giddy with meth, reel when seeing visions, stagger when pronouncing judgment. For all tables are full of filthy vomit, without any more place." The Judaeans are not less overcome with wine than the Ephraimites, and especially the rulers of Judah. In wicked violation of the law of God, which prohibited the priests from drinking strong drink when performing priestly service, and that on pain of death (Leviticus 10:9, cf., Ezekiel 44:21), they were intoxicated even in the midst of their prophetic visions (הראה, literally "the thing seeing," then the act of seeing; equivalent to ראי, like חזה in Isaiah 28:15 equals חזוּת; Olshausen, 176, c), and when passing judicial sentences. In the same way Micah also charges the prophets and priests with being drunkards (Micah 3:1., cf., Isaiah 2:11). Isaiah's indignation is manifested in the fact, that in the words which he uses he imitates the staggering and stumbling of the topers; like the well-known passage, Sta pes sta mi pes stas pes ne labere mi pes. Observe, for example, the threefold repetition of shâgu - tâghu, shâgu - tâghu, shâgu - pâqu. The hereditary priests and the four prophets represent the whole of the official personages. The preterites imply that drunkenness had become the fixed habit of the holders of these offices. The preposition בּ indicates the cause ("through," as in 2 Samuel 13:28 and Esther 1:10), and min the effect proceeding from the cause (in consequence of wine). In v. 8 we can hear them vomit. We have the same combination of the and צ in the verb kotzen, Gothic kozan. All the tables of the carousal are full, without there being any further room (cf., Isaiah 5:8); everything swims with vomit. The prophet paints from nature, here without idealizing. He receives their conduct as it were in a mirror, and then in the severest tones holds up this mirror before them, adults though they were.