Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Your country is desolate - The description of the ruined and desolate state of the country in these verses does not suit with any part of the prosperous times of Uzziah and Jotham. It very well agrees with the time of Ahaz, when Judea was ravaged by the joint invasion of the Israelites and Syrians, and by the incursions of the Philistines and Edomites. The date of this prophecy is therefore generally fixed to the time of Ahaz. But on the other hand it may be considered whether those instances of idolatry which are urged in Isaiah 1:29 - the worshipping in groves and gardens - having been at all times too commonly practiced, can be supposed to be the only ones which the prophet would insist upon in the time of Ahaz; who spread the grossest idolatry through the whole country, and introduced it even into the temple; and, to complete his abominations, made his son pass through the fire to Molech. It is said, II Kings 15:37, that in Jotham' s time "the Lord began to send against Judah Rezin - and Pekah." If we may suppose any invasion from that quarter to have been actually made at the latter end of Jotham' s reign, I should choose to refer this prophecy to that time.
And your cities are burned. - Nineteen of Dr. Kennicott' s MSS. and twenty-two of De Rossi' s, some of my own, with the Syriac and Arabic, add the conjunction which makes the hemistich more complete.
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