Text: Isaiah 4:1
OT Text Referred to: Exodus 21:10
Subject: passing up standard support of concubine
Source: John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1763)
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): None
Significance: Exodus 21:10 specifies three obligations a husband owes his wife: food (שְׁאֵרָהּ, she'erah), clothing (כְּסוּתָהּ, kesutah), and marital rights (עֹנָתָהּ, onatah). Isaiah 4:1 dramatically inverts this by depicting seven women clinging to one man, offering to forgo all three provisions: "We will eat our own bread and provide our own clothes — just let us be called by your name." The desperate reversal of Exodus 21:10's protections reveals the catastrophic scale of war casualties: so many men have fallen that women willingly surrender their legal rights simply to remove the social disgrace (חֶרְפָּה, cherpah) of being unmarried and childless in Israel.
Consolidated 2026-06-09 per the later-text → earlier-text canonical-direction ruling (Full Corpus Audit, Phase 0). The content below is preserved verbatim from the deleted file "Exodus 21.10 to Isaiah 4.1"; fold unique material into the Significance during the Phase 3 IP audit, then remove this section.
Text: Exodus 21:10
OT Text Referred to: Isaiah 4:1
Subject: passing up standard support of concubine
Source: John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1763)
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Contrast
Significance: Exodus 21:10 establishes that a man who takes a second wife must not reduce the first wife's food, clothing, or marital rights (שְׁאֵרָהּ כְּסוּתָהּ וְעֹנָתָהּ, she'erah kesutah ve'onatah). Isaiah 4:1 reverses this expectation: "Seven women will take hold of one man, saying, 'We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes; only let us be called by your name.'" In Isaiah's vision of judgment, the scarcity of men after warfare is so severe that women voluntarily surrender the very protections Exodus 21:10 guarantees—food, clothing, and the dignity of marriage—simply to escape the social reproach of being unmarried. The contrast between Exodus's legal protections and Isaiah's desperate abandonment of those rights measures the severity of the coming judgment.