Isaiah 3:1

From Jerusalem and from Judah. Jerusalem and Judah represent the professed people of God, who, in Isaiah’s time, had gone far from God and yet made a loud but vain profession of religion. A similar situation prevails in the world today, and the same message is needed in these last days for a people who worship God with their lips but whose hearts are far from Him. See on Matt. 15:7-9.

The stay and the staff. The Lord is about to remove from Judah the two chief supports of life, bread and water. See Lev. 26:26; Ps. 105:16; Eze. 4:16; 5:16; 14:13, where the expression “staff of bread” is used. Undoubtedly Isaiah here refers to literal famine, but the context seems to apply the figures of literal famine to a dearth of able leaders. The nation would suffer from a lack of leadership as the body does from lack of food. When statesmen were removed, the responsibilities of government rested upon the shoulders of weaklings. The inevitable result was national decline (see vs. 2-5).