Isaiah 28:8

8 All the tables are covered with vomit; filth overruns the place.

Isaiah 28:8 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 28:8

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:

Isaiah 28:8 In-Context

6 and a spirit of justice for the one who sits in judgment, and a strength for those who repel the assault at the gate.
7 These also stagger from wine and stumble from beer: priest and prophet stagger from beer; they are confused by wine; they stray on account of beer; they err when receiving visions; they stumble when making judgments.
8 All the tables are covered with vomit; filth overruns the place.
9 To whom will God teach knowledge? To whom will he explain the message? To those just weaned from milk? To those who have hardly outgrown the breast?
10 It is "tsav letsav, tsav lestav; qav leqav, qav leqav," a little of this, a little of that.
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