*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water Isaiah speaks metaphorically, and by two comparisons shows here, that though the outward appearance of affairs was not openly overturned, yet their condition was changed and corrupted, so as to be widely different from what it had formerly been: for he says that dross now shines instead of gold, and that the wine, though it retains its color, has lost its flavour. "Though thou still make an empty show," saith the Prophet, "yet nothing pure will be found in thee: that wine which was wont to be Stare in thee is corrupted; and though its color deceive the eye, its taste shows that it has been mixed." All this means nothing more than that the Jews should lay aside hypocrisy, and should begin to confess their sins, and no longer flatter themselves after the manner of hypocrites. The comparisons here employed are exceedingly well adapted to this end, for dross bears some resemblance to gold; and in like manner, the color of wine mixed with water resembles that of pure wine; and yet both are very far from having that purity of which they make an outward show. In like manner hypocrites, by their hypocrisy, may be said to assume a false color of silver, though they are of no more value than dross, and indeed are the more detestable on this account, that, though they are exceedingly wicked, yet, with not less treachery than baseness, they present to God and to men those hollow pretensions by which they cloak their malice.
Thy silver - The sentiment in this verse, as it is explained by the following, is, thy princes and people have become corrupt, and polluted. Silver is used here to denote what should have been more valuable - virtuous princes.
Dross - This word - סיג sı̂g - means the scoriae, or baser metal, which is separated from the purer in smelting. It is of little or no value; and the expression means, that the rulers had become debased and corrupt, as if pure silver had been converted wholly to dross.
Thy wine - Wine was regarded as the most pure and valuable drink among the ancients. It is used, therefore, to express that which should have been most valued and esteemed among them - to wit, their rulers.
Mixed with water - Diluted, made weak. According to Gesenius, the word rendered "mixed" - מהוּל mâhûl - is from מהל mâhal, the same as מוּל mûl, to circumcise; and hence, by a figure common with the Arabians, to adulterate, or dilute wine. The word does not occur in this sense elsewhere in the Scriptures, but the connection evidently requires it to be so understood. Wine mixed with water is that which is weakened, diluted, rendered comparatively useless. So with the rulers and judges. They had lest the strength and purity of their integrity, by intermingling those things which tended to weaken and destroy their virtue, pride, the love of gifts, and bribes, etc. Divested of the figure, the passage means, that the rulers had become wholly corrupt.
Wine mixed with water - An image used for the adulteration of wines, with more propriety than may at first appear, if what Thevenot says of the people of the Levant of late times were true of them formerly. He says, "They never mingle water with their wine to drink; but drink by itself what water they think proper for abating the strength of the wine." "Lorsque les Persans boivent du vin, ils le prennent tout pur, a la facon des Levantins, qui ne le melent jamais avec de l'eua; mais en beuvant du vin, de temps en temps ils prennent un pot d'eau, et en boivent de grand traits." Voyage, part ii., 54 ii., chap. 10. "Ils (les Turcs) n'y meslent jamais d'eau, et se moquent des Chretiens qui en mettent, ce qui leur semble tout a fait ridicule." Ibid. part i., chap. 24. "The Turks never mingle water with their wine, and laugh at the Christians for doing it, which they consider altogether ridiculous."
It is remarkable that whereas the Greeks and Latins by mixed wine always understood wine diluted and lowered with water, the Hebrews on the contrary generally mean by it wine made stronger and more inebriating by the addition of higher and more powerful ingredients, such as honey, spices, defrutum, (or wine inspissated by boiling it down to two-thirds or one-half of the quantity), myrrh, mandragora, opiates, and other strong drugs. Such were the exhilarating, or rather stupefying, ingredients which Helen mixed in the bowl together with the wine for her guests oppressed with grief to raise their spirits, the composition of which she had learned in Egypt: -
Αυτικ' αρ' εις οινον βαλε φαρμακον, ενθεν επινον,
Νηπενθες τ' αχολον τε, κακων επιληθον ἁπαντων.
Homer. Odyss. lib. iv., ver. 220.
"Meanwhile, with genial joy to warm the soul,
Bright Helen mix'd a mirth-inspiring bowl;
Temper'd with drugs of sovereign use, to assuage
The boiling bosom of tumultuous rage:
Charm'd with that virtuous draught, the exalted mind
All sense of wo delivers to the wind."
Pope.
Such was the "spiced wine and the juice of pomegranates," mentioned Song 8:2. And how much the Eastern people to this day deal in artificial liquors of prodigious strength, the use of wine being forbidden, may be seen in a curious chapter of Kempfer upon that subject. Amoen. Exot. Fasc. iii., Obs. 15.
Thus the drunkard is properly described, Proverbs 23:30, as one "that seeketh mixed wine," and "is mighty to mingle strong drink," Isaiah 5:22. And hence the poet took that highly poetical and sublime image of the cup of God's wrath, called by Isaiah 51:17, the "cup of trembling," causing intoxication and stupefaction, (see Chappelow's note on Hariri, p. 33), containing, as St. John expresses in Greek the Hebrew idea with the utmost precision, though with a seeming contradiction in terms, κεκερασμενον ακρατον, merum mixtum, pure wine made yet stronger by a mixture of powerful ingredients; Revelation 14:10. "In the hand of Jehovah," saith the psalmist, Psalm 75:8, "there is a cup, and the wine is turbid: it is full of a mixed liquor, and he poureth out of it," or rather, "he poureth it out of one vessel into another," to mix it perfectly, according to the reading expressed by the ancient versions, ויגר מזה אל זה vaiyagger mizzeh al zeh, and he pours it from this to that, "verily the dregs thereof," the thickest sediment of the strong ingredients mingled with it, "all the ungodly of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them."
R. D. Kimchi says, "The current coin was adulterated with brass, tin, and other metals, and yet was circulated as good money. The wine also was adulterated with water in the taverns, and sold notwithstanding for pure wine."
Thy (f) silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
(f) Whatever was pure in you before, is now corrupt, though you have an outward show.
Thy silver is become dross,.... Meaning either that such persons, who had the appearance of goodness, looked like genuine silver, were now become reprobate, and, as the wicked of the earth, like dross, Jeremiah 6:30 or that the word of God, which is as silver purified seven times, was now corrupted with false glosses and human traditions, which were as dross:
thy wine mixed with water (m); the wine of the divine word, which was mixed and blended with the inventions of men, as before; so the roof of the church's mouth, which is no other than the ministry of the word, is compared to the best wine, Song 7:9.
(m) It being usual to mix water with wine, and drink it, and this being not at all reproachful, but commendable, Gussetius thinks such a version does not express the sense of the words; he therefore thinks that is the same as contracted, which signified "infatuated"; and so the words should be rendered, "thy wine is infatuated into water"; is degenerated, and has lost its spirit and sprightliness, and is become insipid and tasteless. So Jarchi mentions a Midrash, which interprets it by the same word in Ecclesiastes 2:2. It is a word only used in this place. Joseph Kimchi says that in the Arabic, language has the signification of mixture, but without giving any instance. Indeed, according to Castel, it is used for the lees of oil.
Thy princes and people are degenerate in "solid worth," equivalent to "silver" (Jeremiah 6:28, Jeremiah 6:30; Ezekiel 22:18-19), and in their use of the living Word, equivalent to "wine" (Song 7:9).
mixed--literally, "circumcised." So the Arabic, "to murder" wine, equivalent to dilute it.
The complaint now turns from the city generally to the authorities, and first of all figuratively. "Thy silver has become dross, thy drink mutilated with water." It is upon this passage that the figurative language of Jeremiah 6:27. and Ezekiel 22:18-22 is founded. Silver is here a figurative representation of the princes and lords, with special reference to the nobility of character naturally associated with nobility of birth and rank; for silver - refined silver - is an image of all that is noble and pure, light in all its purity being reflected by it (Bhr, Symbolik, i. 284). The princes and lords had once possessed all the virtues which the Latins called unitedly Candor animi, viz., the virtues of magnanimity, affability, impartiality, and superiority to bribes. This silver had now become l'sigim, dross, or base metal separated (thrown off) from silver in the process of refining (sig, pl. sigim, siggim from sug, recedere, refuse left in smelting, or dross: cf., Proverbs 25:4; Proverbs 26:23). A second figure compares the leading men of the older Jerusalem to good wine, such as drinkers like. The word employed here (sobe) must have been used in this sense by the more cultivated classes in Isaiah's time (cf., Nahum 1:10). This pure, strong, and costly wine was now adulterated with water (lit. castratum, according to Pliny's expression in the Natural History: compare the Horatian phrase, jugulare Falernum), and therefore its strength and odour were weakened, and its worth was diminished. The present was nothing but the dross and shadow of the past.
*More commentary available at chapter level.