for those who guide this people have been leading them astray, and those who are guided by them are swallowed up.
16. For the rulers of this people are seducers. For the leaders of this people (margin, they that call them blessed) cause them to err. — Eng. Ver. Some render it, they who make thee blessed, or, they who call thee blessed; as if he had said that nothing was more hurtful or destructive to a nation than flatteries, which gave encouragement to unbounded licentiousness.
Here are terrible threatenings, which are directed primarily against Israel, the kingdom of the ten tribes, Ephraim and Samaria, the ruin of which is here foretold, with all the woeful confusions that were the prefaces to that ruin, all which came to pass within a few years after; but they look further, to all the enemies of the throne and kingdom of Christ the Son...
Commenting on Isaiah 9:8-21
For the leaders of this people cause them to err,.... Or, "who bless this people", as the Septuagint and Arabic versions; and so the Targum, "who praise this people;'' that call them blessed, pronounce them happy, see Mal 3:15 and promise them happiness, both in this world and that to come, though guilty of notorious sins, and live a vicious course of life; and so...