Isa 1:23

“rebellious Deviating from the straight path. and runs after payments This word is similar to the Talmudic תַּשְׁלוּמִין. Jonathan paraphrases: One man says to another, Do me a favor in my case, and I will repay you in your case. This refers to a judge who was a robber, and the robbery victim complains about him before another judge. This one says to him, Declare me innocent today, and I will repay you when they complain about you before me. This is the meaning of running after payments. and the quarrel of the widow does not come to them The widow comes to complain, and the orphan is coming out, when this one meets him and asks him, What did you accomplish in your case? He replies, All day long I toiled at work, but I did not accomplish anything. And this one turns around and says, If this one, who is a man, did not accomplish anything, surely I will not. This is the meaning of, “the orphan they do not judge, and the quarrel of the widow does not come to them” at all.”

“שלמנים Rewards. (Comp. Exod. 22:5). They perverted judgment; the judge said, Give me such and such a sum, and it shall stand thee in good part in thy lawsuit with thy neighbour. To the orphan—of whom they are not afraid. They judge not. That is, they do not render justice. The cause of the widow—which she has to bring forward. Doth not come unto them: they do not like to hear her cause, therefore it does not come before them.”

“Thy princes are rebellious,.... Stubborn and obstinate, refused to receive and acknowledge the Messiah; such were the Jewish rulers, civil and ecclesiastical, in the times of Christ. And companions of thieves: who devoured widows' houses; made the temple, which was a house of prayer, a den of thieves; and took away the key of knowledge from the people, and would not suffer them to attend the ministry of the Gospel, Mat 21:13. everyone loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards. The Targum paraphrases it, "everyone says to his neighbour, do me a favour in my cause, I will return "it" to thee in thy cause;'' and so justice was perverted: they judge not the fatherless; that is, either they do not take their cause in hand at all, or, if they do, do not do them justice, but wrong them of their goods and estates, which, of right, belong to them: neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them; there being no money to be got by undertaking it; see the case of the unjust judge, a picture of judges in those times, Luk 18:2.”

“In Isa 1:23 the prophet says this without a figure: "Thy rulers are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth presents, and hunteth after payment; the orphan they right not, and the cause of the widow has no access to them." In two words the prophet depicts the contemptible baseness of the national rulers (sârim). He describes first of all their baseness in relation to God, with the alliterative sorerim: rebellious, refractory; and then, in relation to men, companions of thieves, inasmuch as they allowed themselves to be bribed by presents of stolen goods to acts of injustice towards those who had been robbed. They not only willingly accepted such bribes, and that not merely a few of them, but every individual belonging to the rank of princes (Cullo, equivalent to haccol, the whole: every one loveth gifts); but they went eagerly in pursuit of them (rodeph). It was not peace (shâlom) that they hunted after (Psa 34:16), but shalmonimshalmonim, things that would pacify their avarice; not what was good, but compensation for their partiality. - This was the existing state of Jerusalem, and therefore it would hardly be likely to take the way of mercy opened before it in Isa 1:18; consequently Jehovah would avail himself of other means of setting it right.”