Isaiah 5:14

"Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst."

Key Reflection

This verse highlights how a lack of knowledge about God leads to spiritual and physical captivity. The "honorable men" symbolize leaders who should guide the community but instead face spiritual famine, while the "multitude" represents the general population suffering from both moral and material thirst.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

Therefore hell -The word transated “hell,”שׁאולshe'ôl, has not the same meaning that we now attach to that word; its usual signification, among the Hebrews, was “the lower world, the region of departed spirits.” It corresponded to the GreekἅδηςHadēs, “hades,” or place of the dead. This word occurs eleven times in the New TestamentMatthew 11:23;Matthew 16:18;Luke 10:15;Luke 16:23;Acts 2:27,Acts 2:31;1 Corinthians 15:55;Revelation 1:18;Revelation 6:8;Revelation 20:13-14, in all of which places, except1 Corinthians 15:55, it is rendered “hell,” though denoting, in most of those places, as it does in the Old Testament, the abodes of the dead.

More from Isaiah 5

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