From the early Church Fathers to now.
1 Patristic · 2 Jewish · 2 Reformed · 1 Lutheran
“When you shall be as an oak with the leaves falling off, and as a garden without water.”
“In the beginning of his whole book, the prophet saw the "vision against Judah and against Jerusalem." After listing all the many transgressions of the Jewish people and warning them about the complete destruction of Jerusalem, he brought to an end the spiritual sayings concerning them.”
“whose leaves wilt Its leaf ([Other editions read:] whose leaf) wilts, becomes wilted [flatisant in O. F.]. When heat or cold comes upon it, it wilts and its moisture is lost and destroyed. [The word] נבל is not an expression of decay like בלה, for no ‘nun’ is found in that expression, but נבל [is an expression of something that becomes fatigued and its strength is curtailed, from the root of] נָבֹל תִּבֹּל (Exod. 18: 18), which Onkelos renders: You will surely be exhausted. that has no water to water its seeds; to the thing with which they sin, he compares their punishment.”
“For he shall be as an oak tree, etc. After having said that they shall be ashamed of the oak trees they have coveted and stolen, the prophet compares them to an oak tree whose leaves have withered. נובלת עליה Whose leaf fadeth. Literally, which is withering with regard to its leaves; comp. ותאבדו דרך, And you shall perish with regard to the way (Ps. 2:12); similarly we say in the Confession, (קשינו ערף (ודוי We are stiff with regard to our neck. כאלה As an oak. This proves that מאי לים(ver. 29) is the plural of אלה oak, especially since this is likewise followed by and as a garden, etc.”
“For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth,.... Shall be stripped of all their dependencies and self confidence, and be as naked and as bare as an oak that has cast its leaves; or thus, in a way of just retaliation, since they have desired oaks, and sacrificed under them, they shall be like them as in the wintertime, stripped of all their riches, honour, substance, and desirable things; see Rev 18:12. and as a garden that hath no water; in which the herbs and plants are dried up and withered: it signifies the uncomfortable condition such shall be in, as before.”
“oak--Ye shall be like the "oaks," the object of your "desire" (Isa 1:29). People become like the gods they worship; they never rise above their level (Psa 135:18). So men's sins become their own scourges (Jer 2:9). The leaf of the idol oak fades by a law of necessary consequence, having no living sap or "water" from God. So "garden" answers to "gardens" (Isa 1:29).”
“He still continues in the same excitement, piling a second explanatory sentence upon the first, and commencing this also with "for" (Chi); and then, carried away by the association of ideas, he takes terebinths and gardens as the future figures of the idolatrous people themselves. "For ye shall become like a terebinth with withered leaves, and like a garden that hath no water." Their prosperity is distroyed, so that they resemble a terebinth withered as to its leaves, which in other cases are always green (nobleth ‛aleah, genitives connection according to (Ges. 112, 2). Their sources of help are dried up, so that they are like a garden without water, and therefore waste. In this withered state terebinths and gardens, to which the idolatrous are compared, are easily set on fire. All that is wanted is a spark to kindle them, when they are immediately in flames.”
The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.