Why do you continue to invite punishment? Must you rebel forever? Your head is injured, and your heart is sick.
Parallel translations
- WEB Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
- KJV Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
- BSB Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.
- NKJV Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, And the whole heart faints.
- NASB ¶Where will you be stricken again, As you continue in your rebellion? The entire head is sick And the entire heart is faint.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God asks why they keep inviting further chastening by persistent rebellion, picturing the nation as a body sick from head to heart. It shows that judgment has not yet produced repentance.
Overview
The rhetorical question implies that more blows are pointless if the people will not turn. The whole-body sickness depicts the totality of the nation's moral and spiritual decay. It anticipates the need for a healing that human discipline cannot supply, which Christ alone gives.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Dan 9:8–11Lord, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.
- Ezek 24:13In your filthiness is lewdness: because I have cleansed you and you weren’t cleansed, you shall not be cleansed from your filthiness any more, until I have caused my wrath toward you to rest.
- Rev 16:8–11The fourth poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was given to him to scorch men with fire.
- Jer 5:3O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.
- Isa 31:6Return to him from whom you have deeply revolted, children of Israel.
- Jer 5:31The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?
- Zeph 3:1–4Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city!
- Jer 2:30“I have struck your children in vain. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.
- Jer 9:3“They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood; and they have grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says Yahweh.
- Isa 33:24The inhabitant won’t say, “I am sick.” The people who dwell therein will be forgiven their iniquity.
- Jer 6:28–30They are all grievous rebels, going about with slanders; they are brass and iron: they all of them deal corruptly.
- Heb 12:5–8and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;
- 2 Chr 28:22In the time of his distress, he trespassed yet more against Yahweh, this same king Ahaz.
- Isa 1:23Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards. They don’t judge the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.
- Isa 9:13Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them, neither have they sought Yahweh of Armies.
- Jer 5:5I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of Yahweh, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
- Neh 9:34Also our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law, nor listened to your commandments and your testimonies with which you testified against them.
- Isa 9:21Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh; and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 1:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.