Isaiah 30:13

13 calamity will come upon you suddenly— like a bulging wall that bursts and falls. In an instant it will collapse and come crashing down.

Isaiah 30:13 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 30:13

Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready
to fall
Or, "as a falling breach" ^F13; contempt of the word of God, and trusting in wickedness, rejecting the counsel of God, and placing confidence in the creature, these would be the cause of ruin; which ruin is signified by the breach of a falling wall, or by a breach in a wall, by reason of which it is in danger of falling, and is just ready to fall: swelling out in a high wall;
like a wall that bellies out and bulges, and which, when it once begins to do, suddenly falls; and the higher it is, it comes with more force, and the greater is the fall: whose breaking cometh suddenly, at an instant;
and so it is suggested, should be the ruin of this people; the high towering confidence they had in Egypt would fall with its own weight, and they with it, and be broken to pieces in a moment; and which is further illustrated by another simile.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F13 (lpwn Urpk) "sicut ruptura cadens", Montanus, Cocceius, De Dieu. Ben Melech observes, that a breach is after the building is fallen; for the breach does not fall, but it is said on account of the end of it, or what it is at last, as in Isa. xlvii. 2. "grind meal" or "flour".

Isaiah 30:13 In-Context

11 Forget all this gloom. Get off your narrow path. Stop telling us about your ‘Holy One of Israel.’”

12 This is the reply of the Holy One of Israel: “Because you despise what I tell you and trust instead in oppression and lies,

13 calamity will come upon you suddenly— like a bulging wall that bursts and falls. In an instant it will collapse and come crashing down.

14 You will be smashed like a piece of pottery— shattered so completely that there won’t be a piece big enough to carry coals from a fireplace or a little water from the well.”

15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it.