Isaiah 10:1

1 Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees,

Isaiah 10:1 in Other Translations

1 Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;

1 Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression,

1 What sorrow awaits the unjust judges and those who issue unfair laws.

1 Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make victims -

1 Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers that write perverseness;

1 How horrible it will be for those who make unjust laws and who make oppressive regulations.

1 Woe to those enacting crooked statutes and writing oppressive laws

1 How terrible it will be for you who make laws that aren't fair! How terrible for you who write laws that make life hard for others!

Isaiah 10:1 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 10:1

Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees
Or, "O ye that decree" (ywh) being a sign of the vocative case, and an interjection of calling, as Aben Ezra observes; though the Targum and other versions understand it of a threatening denounced; and is to be understood as lying against lawgivers and judges, political rulers and governors of the people, that made unrighteous laws; laws which were not agreeable to the law of God, nor right reason; and were injurious to the persons and properties of men; and which were calculated for the oppression of good men, especially the poor, and for the protection of wicked men, who made no conscience of spoiling them: and that write grievousness [which] they have prescribed;
laws grievous and intolerable being made by them, they wrote them, or ordered them to be written, to be engrossed and promulgated, published them, and obliged the people to be subject to them. This some understand of the scribes of judges, who sat in court, and wrote out the decrees and sentences made by them; but it rather intends the same persons as before; and not ecclesiastical but political governors are meant, and such as lived before the Babylonish captivity; or otherwise the whole is applicable to the Scribes and Pharisees, to the Misnic doctors, the authors of the oral law, the fathers of tradition, whose decisions and decrees were unrighteous and injurious, and contrary to the commands of God; heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and very oppressive of the poor, the fatherless, and the widow; for which they are reproved by Christ, ( Matthew 15:3 Matthew 15:6 Matthew 15:9 ) ( Matthew 23:4 Matthew 23:14 Matthew 23:23 Matthew 23:25 ) Jarchi says it is an Arabic ^F7 word, which signifies scribes.

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 So <arabic> and <arabic> Scriba, Golius, col. 1999; so the word is used in the Chaldee and Syriac languages. See Castel. col. 1828, 1829.

Isaiah 10:1 In-Context

1 Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees,

2 to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

3 What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?

4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.

5 “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath!

Cross References

• 1. S Isaiah 5:8
• 2. S Psalms 58:2