Miles de Libros Cristianos Gratis. Accede a nuestra Biblioteca Virtual

Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 1:3

Para un estudio avanzado de: “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 1:3” utilice nuestra app.

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: [but] Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

3. Israel’s ingratitude is rebuked by the instinctive fidelity of the dumb animals to their human benefactors (cf. Jer 8:7). Ox and ass are mentioned, not as the most stupid animals, but as the only thoroughly domesticated animals of the Hebrews, lodged probably under the same roof as their owner and his family.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The ox … – The design of this comparison is to show the great stupidity and ingratitude of the Jews. Even the least sagacious and most stupid of the animals, destitute as they are of reason and conscience, evince knowledge anal submission far more than the professed people of God. The ox is a well known domestic animal, remarkable for patient willingness to toil, and for submission to his owner.

Knoweth his owner – Recognizes, or is submissive to him.

The ass – A well known animal, proverbial for dulness and stupidity.

His masters crib – ‘ebus from ‘abas, to heap up, and then to fatten. Hence, it is applied to the stall, barn, or crib, where cattle are fed, or made fat; Job 39:9; Pro 14:4. The donkey has sufficient knowledge to understand that his support is derived from that. The idea is, that the ox was more submissive to laws than the Jews; and that even the most stupid animal better knew from where support was to be derived, than they did the source of their comfort and protection. The donkey would not wander away, and the ox would not rebel as they had done. This comparison was very striking, and very humiliating, and nothing could be more suited to bring down their pride. A similar comparison is used elsewhere. Thus, in Jer 8:7, the Jews are contrasted with the stork: Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle Dove, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord. This idea has been beautifully expressed by Watts:

The brutes obey their God,

And bow their necks to men;

But we more base, more brutish things,

Reject his easy reign.

Compare Hos 11:4.

But Israel – The name Israel, though after the division of the tribes into two kingdoms specifically employed to denote that of the ten tribes, is often used in the more general sense to denote the whole people of the Jews, including the kingdom of Judah. It refers here to the kingdom of Judah, though a name is used which is not inappropriately characteristic of the whole people.

Doth not know – The Latin Vulgate, the Septuagint, and the Arabic, add the word me. The word know is used in the sense of recognizing him as their Lord; of acknowledging him, or submitting to him.

Doth not consider – Hebrew, Do not understand. They have a stupidity greater than the brute.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Isa 1:3

The ox knoweth his owner . . . but Israel doth not know

Isaiahs message

What does Isaiah teach about God?

A prophet of his times had much to do in clearing the minds of the people from the confusion, or something worse, into which, as the history shows, the Jews were only too prone to fall. They were surrounded by idolatrous nations, and there was a danger that they might regard Jehovah as though He were like these gods of the nations. Even when they did not sink to this level they were prone to regard Him as their national God, not as the God of all the earth.

I. What the prophet sought to do was to communicate to them something of that view of the MAJESTY OF HIS GLORY AND THE BEAUTY OF HIS HOLINESS which had impressed itself so deeply on his own mind. He had seen God, and he would fain have them see Him also. And where can we search for more sublime conceptions of the spirituality, the holiness, the majesty of God than those which we find in this book?

II. But the teaching of the prophet includes another conception of God which we should be still less prepared to find in the Old Testament. If the lofty conceptions of the Divine spirituality surprise, still more are we impressed with the revelation of THE DIVINE TENDERNESS AND THOUGHT FOR MAN. This is the basis of all those urgent appeals addressed by Isaiah to his own generation. The first chapter strikes the keynote. Here is not a distant God so absorbed in the care of His vast empire that He has no remembrance of His poor children here, and so far removed that between Him and them there can be no sympathy. The prevailing note is that for which we are least prepared–that of Love. There is no dallying with the sin. The apostasy of the people is set forth in its darkest aspects, and the enormity of the rebellion only serves to make more conspicuous the glory of the grace which is proclaimed to these sinners. All their iniquity, their ingratitude, their pride of heart, their forgetfulness of God have not turned the heart of their God from them. Surely these are wondrous teachings to find in this old world record. Isaiah had them from God Himself. (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)

The inconsiderateness of mankind towards God

I. A SERIOUS FAULT, common, yea, universal. Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider.

1. Men are most inconsiderate towards God. One would pardon them if they forgot many minor things, and neglected many inferior persons, but to be inconsiderate to their Creator, to their Preserver, to Him in whose hand their everlasting destiny is placed, this is a strange folly as well as a great sin. If it were only because He is so great, and therefore we are so dependent upon Him, one would have thought that a rational man would have acquainted himself with God and been at peace; but when we reflect that God is supremely good, kind, tender and gracious, as well as great, the marvel of mans thoughtlessness is much increased.

2. Then, again, man is inconsiderate towards himself in reference to his best interests.

3. Thoughtless man is inconsiderate of the claims of justice and of gratitude, and this makes him appear base as well as foolish. The text says, Israel doth not know. Now, Israel is a name of nobility, it signifies a prince; and there are some here whose position in society, whose condition amongst their fellow men, should oblige them to the service of God. That motto is true, noblesse oblige,–nobility has its obligations; and where the Lord elevates a man into a position of wealth and influence, he ought to feel that he is under peculiar bonds to serve the Lord. I speak also to those who have been trained in the fear of God. To you more is given, and therefore of you more is required.

4. One sad point about this inconsiderateness is, that man lives without consideration upon a matter where nothing but consideration will avail.

5. This inconsideration, also, occurs upon a subject where, by the testimony of tens of thousands, consideration would be abundantly remunerative, and would yield the happiest results.

II. AGGRAVATIONS WHICH ATTEND IT, in many eases.

1. And first, remember that some of these careless persons have had their attention earnestly directed to the topics which still they neglect. Observe in this passage that these people had been summoned by God to consider. The heavens and the earth were called to bear witness that they had been nourished and brought up by the good Father, and in the fourth verse they are rebuked because they continue to be so unmindful of their God. Now, if a person should for a while forget an important thing, we should not be surprised, for the memory is not perfect; but when attention is called to it again and again, when consideration is requested kindly, tenderly, earnestly, and when because the warning is neglected, that attention is demanded with authority, and possibly with a degree of sharpness, one feels that a man who is still unmindful is altogether without excuse, and must be negligent of set purpose and with determined design.

2. The prophet then mentions the second aggravation, namely, that in addition to being called and admonished, these people had been chastened. They had been chastised, indeed, so often and so severely that the Lord wearied of it. He saw no use in smiting them any more. Their whole body was covered with bruises, they had been so sorely smitten. The nation as a nation had been so invaded and trodden down by its enemies that it was utterly desolate, and the Lord says, Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more. I may be addressing someone whose life of late has been a series of sorrows. Know you not that all these are sent to wean you from the world? Will you still cling to it! Must the Lord strike again and again, and again and again, before you will hear Him?

3. It was an additional piece of guiltiness that these people were all the while that they would not consider, very zealous in an outward religion.

4. Yet further, there was an aggravation to Israels forgetfulness of God, because she was most earnestly and affectionately invited to turn to God by gracious promises. Come now, and let us reason together saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. A man might say, Why should I think of God? He is my enemy. O man, you know better.

5. As a last aggravation, note that these very people had ability enough to consider other things, for we find that they considered how to get bribes, and were very shrewd in following after rewards; yet they did not know and did not consider their God. Oh, how quick are some men in the ways of evil, and yet, if you talk to them about religion they say it is mysterious, and beyond their power of apprehension. Those same persons will discuss with you the knottiest points of politics, or unravel the abstrusities of science, and yet they pretend they cannot understand the simplicities of revelation. I am a poor man, saith one, and you cannot expect me to know much; yet, if anybody were to meet that same poor man in the street and tell him he was a fool, he would be indignant at such an accusation, and would zealously prove that he was not inferior in common sense. I cannot, says one, vex my brain about such things as these; yet that very man wears his brain far more in pursuit of wealth or pleasure. If a man has an understanding, and can exercise it well upon minor matters, how shall we apologise for his neglect of his God?

III. THE SECRET CAUSES of human indifference to topics so important.

1. In the case of many thoughtless persons we must lay the blame to the sheer frivolity of their nature.

2. I have no doubt that in every ease, however, the bottom reason is opposition to God Himself.

3. Upon some minds the tendency to delay operates fearfully.

4. Some make an excuse for themselves for not considering eternity, because they are such eminently practical men. I only wish that those who profess to be practical were more truly so, for a practical man always takes more care of his body than of his coat, certainly; then should he not take more care of his soul than of the body, which is but the garment of it? A practical man will be sure to consider matters in due proportion; he will not give all his mind to a cricket match and neglect his business. And yet how often your practical man still more greatly errs; he devotes all his time to money making, and not a minute to the salvation of his soul and its preparation for eternity!

5. I have no doubt with a great many their reason for not thinking about soul matters, is prejudice. They are prejudiced because some Christian professor has not lived up to his profession, or they have heard something which is said to be the doctrine of the Gospel, which they cannot approve of.

6. In most cases men do not like to trouble themselves, and they have an uncomfortable suspicion that if they were to look too narrowly into their affairs they would find things far from healthy. They are like the bankrupt before the court the other day who did not keep books; he did not like his books, for his books did not like him. He was going to the bad, and he therefore tried to forget it. They say of the silly ostrich that when she hides her head in the sand and does not see her pursuers she thinks she is safe; that is the policy of many men.

IV. A few words of EXPOSTULATION. Is not your inconsiderateness very unjustifiable? Can you excuse it in any way? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Instinct compared with reason in its recognition of persons

Adam, previous to his fall, instinctively recognised the relations in which he stood to God, to his only existing fellow creature, and to the beasts of the field. He recognised God as his Creator and Preserver; Eve as partaker of the same nature and the same sympathies with himself,–as one therefore to whom he owed a debt of benevolence and support; the inferior animals as vassals put under his feet. But no sooner did he fall, than his natural acknowledgment of these several relations forsook him. The relations, indeed, themselves existed still; but he lost all sense (or nearly all sense) of the obligations grounded upon them. Of all the three ruptures which took place at the fall, the first was–not only far the most serious, but also–the most total and complete. We do not assert that the natural man has lost all sense of obligation to his fellow creatures and to the beasts of the field. We do not desire to derogate from this amiability, this considerateness, this benevolence;–let them pass for what they are worth. At the same time it should be remembered that such traits of character, however pleasing in themselves, rather aggravate than extenuate the fact of the mans godlessness. What shall we say to mans acknowledgment of his family and dependants, but that it gives point to the insult of withholding acknowledgment from God? Nor, although the brute creation revolted from man in the hour of his fall, and became intractable, was this breach of separation total and complete. The ox knoweth his owner. Even those animals whose instinct is less keen, whose very name has passed into a proverb of stupidity and stubbornness, do not fail to recognise the place in which, and the hand from which, they are in the habit of receiving their daily sustenance. The ass knoweth his masters crib. (Dean Goulburn.)

Man in his relation to God

I. COMPARE THE RELATIONS SUBSISTING BETWEEN AN INFERIOR AND A SUPERIOR CREATURE WITH THOSE SUBSISTING BETWEEN A SUPERIOR AND THE CREATOR. And it will at once suggest itself that, though these relations may be susceptible of comparison, yet there is an insufficiency in the lower relation to type out the higher. The distance, in point of faculties, between man and the inferior creatures, if great, is at least measurable. Man has the superiority over the brutes in respect of his reason,–but in respect of our mortal bodies, the subjects of infirmity and decay, we are both entirely on a par. Whereas the distance between finite man and the Infinite God is, of course, incalculable. This inadequacy of the comparison suggested in our text will become more evident, as we enter into a consideration of its details. The dumb creature recognises the master, whose property he is The ox knoweth his owner. What constitutes mans right of ownership to the ox? Simply the fact that he has given in exchange for it an equivalent in the gold that perisheth. It was not he who created the ox. If he supports its life, it is only by providing it with a due supply of food, not by ministering to it momentarily the breath which it draws. So much for mans ownership of the ox. Turn we now to Gods ownership of man. What constitutes Gods right of ownership in us, His intelligent creatures?

1. The fact that we are the work of His hands. This constitutes a claim to our services, a property in all our faculties, whether bodily or mental, which no one creature can have in the faculties of another.

2. But creation is not the only ground on which Gods ownership of man rests. Of all things which we may be said to own, our property is most entire, in those things which, having been once deprived of them by fraud or violence, we have subsequently paid a price to recover. That claim, grounded originally upon the fact of creation, has been confirmed, and extended by the fact of redemption. Ye are not your own, says the apostle Paul; for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are Gods. Where, in the whole realm of nature, shall we seek a claim so overwhelmingly powerful as this, upon the unreserved devotion of our hearts,–of all that we are and all that we have?

3. But our text suggests to us another detail of the claims which our heavenly Owner has upon our allegiance. The ass knoweth his masters crib. He knows the hand that feeds him and the manger at which he is fed. It asks no scintillation of intelligence, no high effort of an almost rational instinct, to recognise this claim. If man seems to ignore those claims of God which are established by creation and redemption, it might haply be pleaded in his behalf that he is a creature of the senses, and that the facts of creation and redemption are not cognisable by the senses. These stupendous facts are transacted and past, and as far as our animal life is concerned, we do not seem to derive any present benefit from them. But is not even this paltry justification entirely cut off by the fact here implied, that man is indebted to his God for his daily maintenance, for the comfort and the continuance even of his animal life? Our every period of refreshment and repose, of ease and relaxation from toil, is from the unseen hand of our heavenly Owner. It is not, then, the brute creation in a savage state, whose relations towards man are here drawn into comparison with the relations of man towards God. The inspired writer has chosen, as best adapted to illustrate his argument, instances from the domestic animals, who are domiciliated with man, who share his daily toils, and live as his dependants in the immediate neighbourhood of his home. He mentions not the wild and untamed buffalo, which ranges in the distant prairie, but the patient ox and ass, accustomed from early youth to the restraints of the yoke, and familiarised by long habit with their masters abode and ways of life. Neither, on the other hand, in drawing out the contrast, does he mention mankind generally; the charge of ingratitude is here brought against a specific portion of the human race. Israel doth not know–My people doth not consider. It were, in some measure, excusable that the Gentiles should refuse acknowledgment to the living God. They possess no revelation of His will. If Israel entertain a secret distaste for the things of God, it is not that such things are strange to him,–jar with his old prejudices or grate upon his early associations. And that which enhances so peculiarly the guilt of Israel enhances yet more the guilt of that Gentile who, by the reception of the first sacrament of the Gospel, has become a fellow citizen with the saints and of the household of God. We might reasonably expect, then, that the baptized at least, whatever others may do, will yield to their Creator, Redeemer, Benefactor, and adopted Father some heartfelt tribute of acknowledgment.

II. A CONTRAST IS DRAWN BETWEEN THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT MADE BY DUMB ANIMALS OF THEIR RELATION TO THEIR OWNERS AND ISRAELS REFUSAL OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO HIS GOD.

1. And first of the dumb animals acknowledgment of his owner. The ox knoweth his owner. I understand the term know in the ordinary sense of recognising. The cattle recognise the voice of their owner. A word, either of menace or of caress, if addressed to them in the well-known accents of their lord, has an instantaneous effect. Not so the menaces or caresses of strangers. What a cutting proof upon the insensibility of Gods people!

2. Israel doth not know The professing members of Gods household, the Church, heed not the calls which He is daily addressing to them by the dealings of His providence without, and the pleadings of His Spirit within them.

(1) They recognise not God in His warnings, whether those warnings be addressed to themselves as individuals, or to the nation of which they are members. Some of them have been stretched upon a sick bed, where death and judgment and eternity have come very nigh unto them.

(2) But, finally, can we allege in his behalf that he habitually acknowledges God in His mercies? Gods blessings of nature and providence are accepted by the great body of His professing people as a matter of course. The ass knoweth his masters crib; but Israel, more senseless than the dumb creature, recognises not the hand which confers his blessings. He doth not consider. Want of consideration is the root and reason of this strange insensibility. It is not that he lacks the faculty of apprehending God, but he will not be at the pains to exercise that faculty. It is not that he lacks a speculative knowledge of the truths we have set forth, but that he does not lay to heart that knowledge, nor allow it its due weight. The want of impressibility proceeds from deliberate and wilful thoughtlessness. (Dean Goulburn.)

The distinction between knowledge and consideration

It would appear, from this verse, that the children of Israel neither knew nor considered–but still there is a distinction suggested by it between these two things. And in the Book of Malachi, we have a similar distinction, when the Lord says to the priests, If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart. It is, in fact, possible for a man to do one of these things, and not to do the other. He may know the truth, and yet he may not consider it. He may hear, and yet not lay it to heart. And thus it is that we may gather the difference which there is between knowledge and wisdom. The one is a speculative acquirement. The other is a practical faculty or habit. By the latter, we turn to its profitable use the former. Thus it is that there may be great folly along with great scholarship; and, on the other hand, may an unlettered mind be illustrious in wisdom. You have perhaps seen when there was great wealth, and yet, from the want of judicious management, great want of comfort in a family; and what stands in beautiful contrast with this, you may have witnessed the union of very humble means, with such consideration in the guidance of them, as to have yielded a respectable appearance, and a decent hospitality, and the sufficiency of a full provision. And so, with the treasures of intellect, the acquisitions of the mind, whereof one may be rich, being possessed of most ample materials in all knowledge, and yet have an ill-conditioned mind notwithstanding; and another destitute of all but the most elementary truths, may yet, by a wise application of them, have attained to the true light and harmony of the soul, and be in sound preparation both for the duties of time and for the delights of eternity. All have so learned to number their days as to know the extreme limit of human life upon earth; yet all have not so learned to number their days as to apply their hearts unto wisdom. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)

Knowledge and wisdom

I. This distinction between knowledge and wisdom is abundantly realised even on THE FIELD OF EARTHLY AND OF SENSIBLE EXPERIENCE. The man of dissipation may have his eyes open to the ruin of character and of fortune that awaits him, yet the tyranny of his evil desires constrains him to a perseverance in the ways of wretchedness. The man of indolence may foresee the coming bankruptcy that will ensue on the slovenly management of his affairs, yet there is a lethargy within that weighs him down to fatal inactivity. The man of headlong irritation may be able to discern the accumulating mischief that he raises against himself, and yet continue as before to be hurried away by the onward violence that seizes him. In all these instances there is no want of knowledge in possession. But there is a want of knowledge in use, or in application. The unhappy man has received the truth, but he does not give heed unto the truth.

II. But what we have affirmed, even of those events and consequences that take place along the journey of this world, is still more strikingly apparent of THAT GREAT EVENT WHICH MAKES ITS TERMINATION. There is not a human creature of most ordinary mind, and who hath overstepped the limits of infancy, that does not know of death, and with whom it does not rank among the most undoubted of the certainties that await him. And it is not only that of which he is most thoroughly assured, but it is that of which, in the course of observation and history, he is most constantly reminded. But how is it truly and experimentally? That death of which we all know so well, is scarcely ever in our thoughts. The momentary touch of grief and of seriousness, wherewith we are at times visited, speedily goeth into utter dissipation. It seems not to work the slightest abatement in the eagerness of man after this worlds interests. It needs no impetuous appetite to overbear the thought of death; for in the calm equanimity of many a sober and aged citizen, you will find him as profoundly asleep to the feeling of his own mortality as he is to any of the feelings or instigations of licentiousness. Death is the stepping stone between the two worlds; and so it somewhat combines the palpable of matter, with the shadowy and the evanescent of spirit. It is the gateway to a land of mystery and of silence, and seems to gather upon it some thing of the visionary character which the things of faith have to the eye of the senses. And so, amid all the varieties of temperament in our species, there is a universal heedlessness of death. It seems against the tendency of nature to think of it. The thing is known, but it is not considered. This might serve to convince us how unavailing is the mere knowledge, even of important truth, if not accompanied by the feeling, or the practical remembrance of it. The knowledge in this case only serves to aggravate our folly. Thus, the irreligion of the world is due not to the want of a satisfying demonstration on Gods part, for this might have excused us; but to the want of right consideration on ours, and this is inexcusable.

III. Let us now pass onwards to THE INVISIBLES OF FAITH–to those things which do not, like death, stand upon the confines of the spiritual region, but are wholly within that region, and which man hath not seen by his eye, or heard by his ear–to the awful realities that will abide in deep and mysterious concealment from us, so long as we are in the body. This character of unseen and spiritual is not confined to things future. There are things present which are spiritual also. There is a present Deity, who dwelleth in light, it is true; but it is light inaccessible. And yet, even of this great Spirit we may be said, in one sense, to know, however little it is that we may consider Him. There are averments about God which we have long recognised and ranked among our admitted propositions, though we seldom recur to them in thought, and are never adequately impressed by them. We know, or think we know, that God is; and that all other existence is suspended upon His will; and that He is a God of inviolable sacredness, in whose presence evil cannot dwell. Now, as a proof how distinct this knowledge of God is from the consideration of Him, we will venture to say that even the first and simplest of all these propositions is, by many unthought of for days and weeks together. In the work that you prosecute, and the comforts that you enjoy, and even the obligations of which you acquit yourselves to relatives and to friends, is there any fear of God before your eyes?–and is not the fear of disgrace from men a far more powerful check upon your licentiousness, than the fear of damnation from Him who is the judge and the discerner of men? This emptiness of a mans heart as to the recognition of God runs throughout the whole of his history. He is engrossed with what is visible and secondary and he thinks no farther. When he enjoys, it is without gratitude. When he enjoys, it is without the impulse of an obedient loyalty. When he admires, it is without carrying the sentiment upwardly unto heaven. Now, this is Gods controversy with man in the text. He there complains of our heedlessness. And this inconsideration of ours is matter of blame, just because it is a matter of wilfulness. Man has a voluntary control over his thoughts.

IV. But the distinction between those who only know and those who also consider, is never more strongly marked than in THE PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF THE GOSPEL. And fearful is the hazard lest knowledge and it alone should satisfy the possessor. The very quantity of debate and of argument that has been expended on theology, leads to a most hurtful misconceiving of this matter. The design of argument is to carry you onward to a set of accurate convictions. And yet, the whole amount of your acquisition may be a mere rational Christianity. There are no topics on which there has been so much of controversy, or that have given rise to so many an elaborate dissertation, as the person and offices of Christ. Yet, let it not be disguised that the knowledge of all these credenda is one thing, and the practical consideration of them is another. First, He is the Apostle of our profession, or we profess Him to be our Apostle. Let us bethink ourselves of all which this title implies. It means one who is sent. How it ought to move us with awe at the approach of such a messenger when we think of the glory and the sacredness of His former habitation! And what ought to fasten upon Him a still more intense regard, He comes with a message to our world–He comes straight from the Divinity Himself, and charged by Him with a special communication. By your daily indifference to the word that is written, you inherit all the guilt, and will come under the very reckoning of those, who, in the days of the Saviour, treated with neglect the word that was spoken. There is one topic which stands connected with the apostleship of Christ, and that stamps a most peculiar interest on the visit which He made to us from on high. He is God manifest in the flesh. In the character of a man hath He pictured forth to us the attributes of the Divinity. And we, by considering this Apostle, learn of God. But this leads us to another topic of consideration, the priesthood of Christ. The atonement that He made for sin has a foremost place in orthodoxy. But, a truth may be acquired, and then,–cast, as it were, into some hidden comer of the mind,–may lie forgotten, as in a dormitory. And therefore would we again bid you consider Him who is the High Priest of your profession we call upon you, ever and anon, to think of His sacrifice; and to ward off the legality of nature from your spirits, by a constant habit of recurrence, upon your part, to the atonement that He hath made, and to the everlasting righteousness that He hath brought in. Without this, the mind is ever lapsing anon into alienation and distrust. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)

Inconsiderateness

It is not a charge brought against the human family in general. The terms are special, My people doth not consider. If, then, the chiefs and leaders of society have fallen into inconsiderateness, what wonder that the nameless multitude should be giddy? The salt has lost its savour and the high city has concealed its beauty. It was not left for unbelievers and scoffers to bring the severest accusations against the Church; God Himself has marked her shortcomings and loudly charged her with sin! Never has He been the special pleader of His people; He never sought to make out a case for them in spite of facts or even appearances; with solemn fidelity and poignant grief He has shown the Church her corruptness and made her ashamed in the presence of her enemies. We shall dwell on the subject of Inconsiderateness as it bears upon the Church and upon men generally. There are two noticeable points common to both. Why do not men consider?

1. Not for want of opportunity. There are the great heavens which David considered; there are the lilies which Jesus Christ charged men to consider; there are the signs of the times, full of significance; a thousand objects, indeed, daily challenge our thoughtfulness.

2. Not for want of reproof or encouragement. Failures, disappointments, blunders, beyond numbering, have shown us the mischief of inconsiderateness. On the other hand, consideration has always rewarded us with the quietness of a good conscience; yet again and again we cease to be thoughtful. Let us look upon inconsiderateness–

I. IN ITS REASONS.

1. Inconsiderateness saves intellectual trouble. Men do not like to think deeply. They prefer to skim the surface, and instead of working steadily for results, they choose to snatch at anything which may serve them for the passing moment. A decline of thoughtfulness is also a decline of moral strength! The Church thinks but little. Nearly all its propositions have been accepted on trust. Observe! Jesus Christ always challenged the thought of those who beard Him. He never discouraged honest and devout inquiry. He never said a word in praise of ignorance. No authority of His can be quoted for intellectual indolence. Christianity vivifies the intellect.

2. Inconsiderateness mitigates moral compunction. It does this by concealing a man from himself. Men, in many instances, dare not consider themselves. One look at their own hearts would affright them! We may think well of ourselves simply because we do not know ourselves. Pain comes with self-knowledge; but if pain drive men to the Healer, it will be to them as the angel of God.

3. Inconsiderateness escapes social obligation. There is ignorance to be taught; but we dont go into the question! There is misery to be alleviated; but we think nothing about it! There is a man dying in the road; but we pass by on the other side! (Pro 24:12.)

II. IT ITS RESULTS.

1. Practical atheism. God is acknowledged with the lips, but He hath no place in the heart. Things are viewed from the outside, and secondary causes are looked upon as primary and original.

2. Spiritual feebleness. Without consideration no man can be strong. He has no abiding convictions. There is nothing about him or within him which he is unprepared to cast off under pressure.

3. Needless alarm. The man who has spent no time in quiet thinking mistakes the bearing of unusual circumstances. A shadow frightens him. He has no grasp of history. Having eyes, he sees not.

4. Self-deprivation. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Fatal inconsideration

I shall treat of the charge here brought against the ancient Jews in a double view–

I. AS IT MORE ESPECIALLY CONCERNS IMPENITENT SINNERS. It is the proper character of all the impenitent, that they do not and will not consider. This is the ground of their guilt, and the fatal cause of their ruin. Consideration is the same as attentively applying the mind to things, according to their respective nature and importance, in order to our having the clearer apprehension of them, and knowing how we ought to act in relation to them. And, forasmuch as the things of religion are of the highest nature, and the utmost conceivable importance, our considering these things must imply our looking into them, and pondering them with the greatest care, and seriousness, and impartiality; and this with a view of our being able to form a truer and more distinct judgment concerning them, and concerning the manner in which they ought to influence our actions; to the end we may be effectually led and determined to act as we ought, and as the nature and importance of the things should persuade us to do. We must attend carefully, examine impartially, think and reflect seriously, that we may judge, and resolve, and act rightly. I shall–1. Instance some particulars in which it is manifest the persons I am now speaking of do not consider.

(1) They do not consider what their own reason and the Holy Scripture would instruct them in concerning God, His being and providence, His attributes and works. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts (Psa 10:4).

(2) They do not consider the end for which they were made, and what is their true interest and highest happiness. This is a most important question, of absolute necessity to regulate human life; for as our end is, such will the course of our actions be in pursuance of it.

(3) They do not consider the infinite obligations they are under to that God whose commands they disobey. This is the particular ground and instance of the allegation against the people of Judah.

(4) They do not consider the vast importance of salvation and what the indispensable terms of it are.

(5) The same persons do not consider the nature and tendency of their present course of life. They do not reflect upon their actions and weigh and ponder their steps. They have not the caution of common travellers, to think whether they are right or wrong.

(6) They do not consider the uncertainty of life.

(7) Or, the certainty of a world to come.

2. Set before you the deplorable consequences of this neglect of serious consideration.

(1) Men do not consider, and therefore do not know.

(2) Men do not consider, and therefore are without all awakening apprehensions of the guilt and misery of a vicious course of life.

(3) Persons engaged in a vicious course do not consider, and are therefore little solicitous to make their peace with God, and to secure an interest in the Saviour, and the salvation proposed to them in the Gospel.

(4) They do not consider, and therefore resign themselves to the conduct of appetite and lust and passion.

(5) Men do not consider, and for that reason it is the temptations to sin are so invincible.

(6) Men will not consider, and therefore support themselves with false and dangerous props, such as these: God is merciful; Christ died for sinners; and it will be time to repent hereafter.

Application–

(1) How inexcusable must all those appear who perish in their sins! They perish because they will not consider.

(2) Here you see, in case you have any purposes of leading a holy life, where you must begin. You must sit down and consider. I thought on my ways, etc. (Psa 119:59).

(3) Let me therefore exhort you to practise a duty so necessary and of such infinite advantage.

II. AS IN A LESSER DEGREE IT TOO FREQUENTLY AFFECTS PERSONS OF SINCERE PIETY. All that consideration which is necessary to the essence of virtue and piety, they practise; but not always that which is requisite to a state of greater perfection. There are several things which too plainly prove their want of consideration.

1. The errors and failings of which they are too often guilty. I do not mean those which are so incident to human nature in the present state, that it is next to impossible to preserve ourselves entirely free from them; but those which, with due care and circumspection, we might easily enough avoid.

2. Sloth and inactivity in a virtuous and religious course of life is another argument of a defective consideration, even in good men. Akin to this is–

3. That indevotion in the exercises of religious worship, which Christians are too apt to slide into, and which too visibly argues their disuse of that consideration which would be of admirable service to fan the sacred fire, when it began to grow dull and languid. While I was musing, saith the Psalmist, the fire burned.

4. The love of the world, which has too much the ascendant over some pious minds, and their being so greatly moved, if not unhinged, by the shocks and changes of it, must often be ascribed to the same cause.

5. A misplaced and misconducted zeal; a zeal for opinions and practices we know not why, and this zeal under so little government, as to occasion bitter strife and animosity among Christians, and raise such disturbances in the Church of God, as hinder its flourishing state; this likewise shews that men do not consider.

6. It is many times because they do not consider that they who are religious do not enjoy their religion. (H. Grove, M. A.)

Reasons for consideration

1. Consideration is the proper character of reasonable beings: this faculty is the main distinction of the man from the beast; and the exercise of it, of the wise man from the fool

2. We show that we can consider in the things of this life; and why not then in the things of religion?

3. Do your part, and God will not with hold His grace, by which you shall be enabled to do all required of you.

4. By time and use this exercise, however ungrateful at first, will become more easy and pleasant.

5. Consideration is further recommended by its most blessed effects. As, to mention only two of a more general nature: the first, our being converted from the error of our ways; the other, our constant perseverance in the practice of holiness.

6. Were there nothing else but this one motive to engage you to consider, this one should be irresistible, that it is absolutely necessary: it cannot be dispensed with; the consequence of neglecting it is fatal, and never to be retrieved. (H. Grove, M. A.)

Man shamed by the lower animals

A fine pass man is come to when he is shamed even in knowledge and understanding by these silly animals; and is not only sent to school to them (Pro 6:6-7), but set in a form below them (Jer 8:7); taught more than the beasts of the earthJob 35:11), and yet knowing less. (M. Henry.)

Inconsideration

Inconsideration of what we do know is as great an enemy to us in religion as ignorance of what we should know. (M. Henry.)

Gods grief became His children do not know Him

An ancestor of mine was once imprisoned for righteousness sake, and among the tenderest traditions which have been handed down to me is this, that when that strong man entered gaol not a nerve quivered, and not a look of sorrow was seen upon his countenance. Again, when he was released and met his friends, he bore up heroically; the joy of deliverance did not break him down: but when he entered his home, and when the little child on the mothers knee, that a month or so before had known its father, did not know him, but turned away from him, the strong man wept as a child. He burst into tears and sobs. The grief of God here is that His own children did not know Him. (David Davies.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 3. The ox knoweth] An amplification of the gross insensibility of the disobedient Jews, by comparing them with the most heavy and stupid of all animals, yet not so insensible as they. Bochart has well illustrated the comparison, and shown the peculiar force of it. “He sets them lower than the beasts, and even than the most stupid of all beasts, for there is scarcely any more so than the ox and the ass. Yet these acknowledge their master; they know the manger of their lord; by whom they are fed, not for their own, but for his good; neither are they looked upon as children, but as beasts of burden; neither are they advanced to honours, but oppressed with great and daily labours. While the Israelites, chosen by the mere favour of God, adopted as sons, promoted to the highest dignity, yet acknowledged not their Lord and their God; but despised his commandments, though in the highest degree equitable and just.” Hieroz. i., col. 409.

Jeremiah’s comparison to the same purpose is equally elegant, but has not so much spirit and severity as this of Isaiah.

“Even the stork in the heavens knoweth her season;

And the turtle, and the swallow, and the crane, observe

the time of their coming:

But my people doth not know the judgment of JEHOVAH.

Jer 8:7.

Hosea has given a very elegant turn to the same image, in the way of metaphor or allegory: –

“I drew them with human cords, with the bands of love:

And I was to them as he that lifteth up the yoke upon

their cheek;

And I laid down their fodder before them.”

Ho 11:4.

Salomo ben Melech thus explains the middle part of the verse, which is somewhat obscure: “I was to them at their desire as they that have compassion on a heifer, lest she be overworked in ploughing; and that lift up the yoke from off her neck, and rest it upon her cheek that she may not still draw, but rest from her labour an hour or two in the day.”

But Israel] The Septuagint, Syriac, Aquila, Theodotion, and Vulgate, read veyisrael, BUT Israel, adding the conjunction, which being rendered as an adversative, sets the opposition in a stronger light.

Doth not know] The same ancient versions agree in adding ME, which very properly answers, and indeed is almost necessarily required to answer, the words possessor and lord preceding. ; Sept. “Israel autem ME non cognovit,” Vulg. ; Aquil., Theod. The testimony of so scrupulous an interpreter as Aquila is of great weight in this case. And both his and Theodotion’s rendering is such as shows plainly that they did not add the word to help out the sense, for it only embarrasses it. It also clearly determines what was the original reading in the old copies from which they translated. It could not be yedani, which most obviously answers to the version of the Septuagint and Vulgate, for it does not accord with that of Aquila and Theodotion. The version of these latter interpreters, however injudicious, clearly ascertains both the phrase, and the order of the words of the original Hebrew; it was veyisrael othi lo yada. The word othi has been lost out of the text. The very same phrase is used by Jeremiah, Jer 4:22, ammi othi lo yadau. And the order of the words must have been as above represented; for they have joined yisrael, with othi, as in regimine; they could not have taken it in this sense, Israel MEUS non cognovit, had either this phrase or the order of the words been different. I have endeavoured to set this matter in a clear light, as it is the first example of a whole word lost out of the text, of which the reader will find many other plain examples in the course of these notes. But Rosenmuller contends that this is unnecessary, as the passage may be translated, “Israel knows nothing: my people have no understanding.”

The Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate, read veammi, “and my people;” and so likewise sixteen MSS. of Kennicott, and fourteen of De Rossi.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his masters crib; the most stupid brute beasts acknowledge and obey their Lord and Benefactor, as experience showeth.

Israel doth not know, to wit, me, their Owner and Master, which is easily and necessarily understood out of the former clause.

Knowing is here taken practically, as it is usually in Scripture, and includes reverence and obedience.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

3. (Jer8:7).

cribthe stall where itis fed (Pr 14:4). Spirituallythe word and ordinances.

IsraelThe wholenation, Judah as well as Israel, in the restricted sense. God regardsHis covenant-people in their designed unity.

not knownamely, hisOwner, as the parallelism requires; that is, not recognize Himas such (Ex 19:5, equivalent to”my people,” Joh 1:10;Joh 1:11).

considerattend tohis Master (Isa 41:8),notwithstanding the spiritual food which He provides(answering to “crib” in the parallel clause).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

The ox knoweth his owner,…. Knows his voice, when he calls him, and follows him where he leads him, whether to plough in the field, or feed in the meadows;

and the ass his masters crib, or “manger”; where he is fed, and to which he goes when he wants food, and at the usual times. Gussetius w interprets the words; the ass knows the floor where he treads out the corn, and willingly goes to it, though it is to labour, as well as to eat; and so puts Israel to shame, who were weary of the worship of God in the temple, where spiritual food was provided for them, but chose not to go for it, because of labour there.

[But] Israel doth not know; his Maker and Owner, his King, Lord, and Master, his Father, Saviour, and Redeemer; he does not own and acknowledge him, but rejects him; see Joh 1:10.

My people doth not consider; the Jews, who were the people of God by profession, did not stir themselves up to consider, nor make use of means of knowing and understanding, divine and spiritual things, as the word used x signifies; they would not attend to the word and ordinances, which answer to the crib or manger; they would not hear nor regard the ministry of the word by Christ and his apostles, nor suffer others, but hindered them as much as in them lay; see Mt 23:13. The Targum is,

“Israel does not learn to know my fear, my people do not understand to turn to my law.”

In like manner the more than brutal stupidity of this people is exposed in Jer 8:7.

w Comment. Ling. Ebr. p. 13, 14. x a “intellexit”. So Gussetius says it signifies a spontaneous application, by which you stir up yourself to understand; which is an action leading to wisdom, and without which no man can be wise, Comment. Ling. Ebr. p. 121.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Jehovah then complains that the rebellion with which His children have rewarded Him is not only inhuman, but even worse than that of the brutes: “An ox knoweth its owner, and an ass its master’s crib: Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” An ox has a certain knowledge of its buyer and owner, to whom it willingly submits; and an ass has at least a knowledge of the crib of its master (the noun for “master” is in the plural: this is not to be understood in a numerical, but in an amplifying sense, “the authority over it,” as in Exo 21:29: vid., Ges. 108, 2, b, and Dietrich’s Heb. Gram. p. 45), i.e., it knows that it is its master who fills its crib or manger with fodder ( evus , the crib, from avas , to feed, is radically associated with , vulgar , Dor. and Lac. , and is applied in the Talmud to the large common porringer used by labourers).

(Note: Nedarim iv 4 jer. Demai viii. The stable is called repheth Even in jer. Shebuoth viii. 1, where cattle are spoken of as standing b’evus , the word signifies a crib or manger, not a stable. Luzzatto tries to prove that evus signifies a threshing-floor, and indeed an enclosed place, in distinction from geren ; but he is mistaken.)

Israel had no such knowledge, neither instinctive and direct, nor acquired by reflection ( hithbonan , the reflective conjugation, with a pausal change of the e4 into a long a, according to Ges. 54, note). The expressions “doth not know” and “doth not consider” must not be taken here in an objectless sense – as, for example, in Isa 56:10 and Psa 82:5 -viz. as signifying they were destitute of all knowledge and reflection; but the object is to be supplied from what goes before: they knew not, and did not consider what answered in their case to the owner and to the crib which the master fills,” – namely, that they were the children and possession of Jehovah, and that their existence and prosperity were dependent upon the grace of Jehovah alone. The parallel, with its striking contrasts, is self-drawn, like that in Jer 8:7, where animals are referred to again, and is clearly indicated in the words “Israel” and “my people.” Those who were so far surpassed in knowledge and perception even by animals, and so thoroughly put to shame by them, were not merely a nation, like any other nation on the earth, but were “Israel,” descendants of Jacob, the wrestler with God, who wrestled down the wrath of God, and wrestled out a blessing for himself and his descendants; and “my people,” the nation which Jehovah had chosen out of all other nations to be the nation of His possession, and His own peculiar government. This nation, bearing as it did the God-given title of a hero of faith and prayer, this favourite nation of Jehovah, had let itself down far below the level of the brutes. This is the complaint which the exalted speaker pours out in Isa 1:2 and Isa 1:3 before heaven and earth. The words of God, together with the introduction, consist of two tetrastichs, the measure and rhythm of which are determined by the meaning of the words and the emotion of the speaker. There is nothing strained in it at all. Prophecy lives and moves amidst the thoughts of God, which prevail above the evil reality: and for that very reason, as a reflection of the glory of God, which is the ideal of beauty (Psa 50:1), it is through and through poetical. That of Isaiah is especially so. There was no art of oratory practised in Israel, which Isaiah did not master, and which did not serve as the vehicle of the word of God, after it had taken shape in the prophet’s mind.

With Isa 1:4 there commences a totally different rhythm. The words of Jehovah are ended. The piercing lamentation of the deeply grieved Father is also the severest accusation. The cause of God, however, is to the prophet the cause of a friend, who feels an injury done to his friend quite as much as if it were done to himself (Isa 5:1). The lamentation of God, therefore, is changed now into violent scolding and threatening on the part of the prophet; and in accordance with the deep wrathful pain with which he is moved, his words pour out with violent rapidity, like flash after flash, in climactic clauses having no outward connection, and each consisting of only two or three words.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

3. The ox knoweth his owner This comparison marks the more strongly the criminality of the revolt; for the Lord might have compared his people to the Gentiles; but he is still more severe when he compares them to dumb beasts, and pronounces them to be more stupid than the beasts are. Though beasts are destitute of reason and understanding, still they are capable of being taught; to such an extent, at least, as to recognize those who feed them. Since, therefore, God had not only fed this people at a stall, but had nourished them with all the kindness which is wont to be exercised by a father towards his sons, and had not only filled their bellies, but supplied them daily with spiritual food; having perceived them to be so exceedingly sluggish, he justly considers that they deserve to be taught in the school of beasts, and not of men; and therefore he sends them to the oven and asses to learn from them what is their duty. Nor ought we to wonder at this; for the beasts frequently observe the order of nature more correctly, and display greater kindness, than men themselves.

Not to multiply instances, it will be sufficient to notice that which is here mentioned by Isaiah, that the beasts, though they are exceedingly dull and stupid, do, notwithstanding, obey their masters and those who have the charge of them. But if we choose to attend to other points in which they excel men, how many shall we discover? What is the reason why scarcely any animal is cruel to its own species, and that it recognizes in another its own likeness? What is the reason why all animals commonly bestow so much care in rearing their young, while it frequently happens that mothers, forgetful of the voice of nature and of humanity, forsake their children? What is the reason why they are accustomed to take no more meat and drink than what is sufficient for sustaining their life and their strength, while men gorge themselves, and utterly ruin their constitutions? In a word, What is the reason why they do not, in any respect, transgress the laws which nature has prescribed to them?

The papists, who are accustomed to set aside the true meaning of the Scriptures, and to spoil all the mysteries of God by their own fooleries, have here contrived an absurd fable; for they have falsely alleged that the oxen and asses in the stall worshipped Christ when he was born; by which they show themselves to be egregious asses. (And indeed I wish that they would imitate the ass which they have invented; for then they should be asses worshipping Christ, and not lifting up the heel against his divine authority.) For here the Prophet does not speak of miracles, but of the order of nature, and declares, that those who overturn that order may be regarded as monsters. We must not contrive new miracles for the purpose of adding to the authority of Christ; for, by mingling the false with the true, there is danger lest both should be disbelieved; nor can there be any doubt but that, if such a miracle had been wrought, the Evangelists would have committed it to writing.

Israel doth not know. The name Israel, which he contrasts with those beasts, is emphatic. We know how honorable it was for the posterity of Abraham to be known by this name, which God had bestowed on the holy patriarch, because he had vanquished the angel in wrestling. (Gen 32:28.) So much the more dishonorable was it for bastard and rebellious children to make false boasting of that honor. First, there is an implied reproof, not only because those who do not at all resemble the holy mall do wrong in assuming his name, but because they are ungrateful to God, from whom they had received most valuable blessings. Secondly, there is also conveyed an indirect comparison; for the higher their rank was in being far exalted above all other nations, so much the greater disgrace is flow intended to be expressed by separating them from other nations under the honorable designation of Israel

The Greek translators have added the word me (13); but I prefer to repeat what he had said before, Israel doth not know His Owner, that is, God; nor his crib, that is, the Church, in which he had been brought up, and to which he ought to be attracted; while those beasts, on the other hand, recognize the master by whom they are nourished, and willingly return to the place where they have been fed.

(13) ‘ Ἰσραὴλ δέ με οὐκ ἔγνω, καὶ ὁ λαός με ού συνὢκεν — But Israel doth not know me, and the people doth not understand me

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THOUGHTLESSNESS

Isa. 1:3. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his masters crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

It is clear from this chapter that the Lord views the sin of mankind with intense regret. Israel in this case is not so much a type of believers as a representative of sinners in general. The greatest difficulty in the world is to make men think. Consider

I. The common but serious fault here condemned. Men are most inconsiderate

1. Towards God [153]

2. towards their own best interests [156]

3. towards the claims of justice and gratitude [159]

[153] One would pardon them if they forgot many minor things, and neglected many inferior persons; but to be inconsiderate to their Creator, to their Preserver, to Him in whose hand their everlasting destiny is placed, this is a strange folly as well as a great sin. Whoever a courtier may neglect, he is sure to consider his king. Men when they start their sons in business will bid them mind the main chance, and attend to the principal point, and especially take care to stand well with such a man who has the power to help or to ruin them. Men, as a general rule, are far too ready to seek the assistance of those who are in power, and this makes it all the more strange that the all-powerful God, who lifteth up and casteth down, should be altogether forgotten, or, where remembered, should still be dishonoured by mankind. If it were only because He is great, and we are so dependent upon Him, one would have thought that a rational man would have acquainted himself with God, and been at peace; but when we reflect that God is supremely good, kind, tender, and gracious, as well as great, the marvel of mans thoughtlessness is much increased. Every good man desires to be on good terms with the good; unusual goodness wins admiration, and an invitation to associate with the eminently excellent is usually accepted with pleasure; yet in the case of the thrice holy God, whose name is love, it is not so. All attractions are in the character of God, and yet man shuns his Maker. If God were a demon, man could hardly be more cold towards Him.Spurgeon.

[156] When we ask men to attend to matters which do not concern them, we are not astonished if they plead that they have no time, and little thought to spare. If I were to address you upon a matter which affected the interests of the dwellers in the Dog-star, or had some relation to the inhabitants of the moon, i should not marvel if you were to say, Go to those whom it may concern, and talk to them; but as for us, the matter is so remote, that we take no interest in it. But how shall we account for it that man will not know about himself, and will not consider about his own soul? Any trifle will attract him, but he will not consider his own immortality, or meditate upon the joy or the misery that must be his portion. It is in very truth a miracle of human depravitywhat if I say insanitythat man should be unmindful of his best self.Spurgeon.

[159] I have known men who have said, Let the heavens fall, but let justice be done; and they have scorned in their dealings with their fellow-men to take any unrighteous advantage, even though it were as little as the turning of a hair. I have known some also who, if they were called ungrateful, would indignantly spurn the charge. They would count themselves utterly loathsome if they did not return good to those who have done them good; and yet it may be these very same persons have been throughout life unjust towards God, and ungrateful towards Him to whom they owe their being, and all that makes it endurable. The service, the thankfulness, the love which are due to Him, they have withheld.Spurgeon.

II. Some things that make the commonness of this fault surprising.

1. Men live without consideration upon a matter in regard to which nothing but consideration will avail. Nothing can stand in lieu of thoughtfulness in religion. In regard to other matters we. can employ others to think for us. But in this matter we must think for ourselves. Religion is a spiritual business, and if a man lives and dies refusing to consider, he has put away from him all hope of being saved; for grace comes not into us by mechanical process, but the Holy Spirit works upon the mind and soul.
2. This inconsideration is practised in regard to a subject the consideration of which would be abundantly remunerative, and would lead to the happiest results [162]

[162] We should not marvel at men if they would not think upon topics which made them unhappy; but albeit there are some who have suffered frightful depression of spirits in connection with true religion, yet its general and ultimate fruit has ever been peace and joy through believing in Christ Jesus, and even the exceptions could be easily accounted for. In some melancholy spirits their godliness is too shallow to make them happy; they breathe so little of the heavenly air that they are distressed for want of more. In others the sorrow occasioned by gracious reflection is but a preliminary and passing stage of grace; there must be ploughing before there can be a harvest; there must be medicine for the disease before health returns, and the newly-awakened are just in the stage and the condition of drinking bitter medicine. This will soon be over, and the results will be most admirable. A great cloud of witnesses, among whom we joyfully take our place, bear witness to the fact that the ways of the Lord are ways of pleasantness. Our deepest joy lies now in knowing God, and considering Him.Spurgeon.

III. Some of the aggravations which attend it.

1. It is fallen into by those of whom better things might reasonably have been expected. Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. It is not the heathen who act more stupidly than the brutes, but those whom God has called to Himself, on whom He has conferred light and knowledge, &c.

2. They have had their attention earnestly directed to the topics which they still neglect.
3. They have also been chastised, in the gracious endeavour to arouse them from their thoughtlessness.
4. Many of them are very zealous in regard to outward religion, as were those whom the prophet rebuked.

5. They have been most earnestly and affectionately invited to turn to God by gracious promises (such as Isa. 1:18).

6. They have ability enough to consider other things.

IV. Some of the secret causes of this widespread fault.

1. In the case of many thoughtless persons we must lay the blame to the sheer frivolity of their nature.

2. In every case the bottom reason is opposition to God Himself.

3. Upon some minds the tendency to delay operates fearfully.

4. Some make an excuse for themselves for not considering eternity, because they are such eminently practical men. They are living for realities of the nature of hard cash, and will not be induced to indulge in fancies and notions [165]

5. Many are prejudiced, because some Christian professor has not lived up to his profession, or they have heard something which is said to be the doctrine of the gospel of which they cannot approve.

6. In most cases men do not like to trouble themselves, and they have an uncomfortable suspicion that if they were to look too narrowly into their affairs, they would find things far from healthy [168]C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. xviii. pp. 373384.

[165] I only wish that those who profess to be practical were more nearly so, for a practical man will always take more care of his body than of his coat, certainly; then should he not take more care of his soul than of the body, which is but the garment of it? If he were a truly practical man, he would do that. A practical man will always consider matters in due proportion; he will not give all his mind to a cricket-match and neglect his business. And yet how often your practical man still more greatly errs; he devotes all his time to money-making, and not a minute to the salvation of his soul, and its preparation for eternity! Is this practical? Why, sir, Bedlam itself is guilty of no worse madness than that! There is not in all your wards a single maniac who commits a more manifest act of insanity than a man who spends all his force upon this fleeting life, and lets the eternal future go by the board.Spurgeon.

[168] They are like the bankrupt before the court the other day who did not keep books. Not he. He did not know how his affairs stood, and, moreover, he did not want to know; he did not like his books, and his books did not like him. He was going to the bad, and he therefore tried to forget it. They say of the silly ostrich that when she hides her head in the sand, and does not see her pursuers, she thinks she is safe; that is the policy of many men. They spread their sails, and get up the steam, and go with double speed straight ahead. What, not look at the chart! No, they do not want to know whether there are rocks and breakers ahead. Arrest that captain, put him in irons, and find a sane man to take charge of the vessel. Oh for grace to arrest that folly which is the captain of your bark, and put sound sense in command, or else a spiritual shipwreck is certain.Spurgeon.

INCONSIDERATENESS

Isa. 1:3. My people doth not consider.

I. Inconsiderateness is one of the commonest of all human characteristics [171]

[171] Silly man is like the foolish chickens; though the kite comes and takes away many of their fellows, yet the rest continue pecking the ground, never heeding their owner, never minding their shelter. Death comes and snatches away one man here, a second there; one before them, another behind them, and they are killed by death, undone for ever; yet they who survive take no warning, but persist in their wicked, ungodly ways (Job. 4:20-21).Swinnock, 1673.

A plough is coming from the far end of a long field, and a daisy stands nodding, and full of dew-dimples. That furrow is sure to strike the daisy. It casts its shadow as gaily, and exhales its gentle breath as freely, and stands as simple and radiant and expectant as ever; and yet that crushing furrow, which is turning and turning others in its course, is drawing near, and in a moment it whirls the heedless flower with sudden reversal under the sod! And as is the daisy, with no power of thought, so are ten thousand thinking sentient flowers of life, blossoming in places of peril, and yet thinking that no furrow of disaster is running in toward themthat no iron plough of trouble is about to overturn them. Sometimes it dimly dawns upon us, when we see other mens mischiefs and wrongs, that we are in the same category with them, and that perhaps the storms which have overtaken them will overtake us also. But it is only for a moment, for we are artful to cover the ear, and not listen to the voice that warns us of danger.Beecher.

II. While apparently a comparatively harmless thing, it is the source of nearly all the evils by which man is afflicted, and of the sins by which God is grieved and made angry.

1. Presumptuous sins are comparatively rare.
2. Look at some of the evils to which a want of consideration leads in the various spheres of life: educational, domestic, social, commercial, political, religious [174]

[174] The wounds I might have healed!
The human sorrow and smart!
And yet it never was in my soul
To play so ill a part:
But evil is wrought by want of thought,

As well as want of heart!

Hood.

APPLICATION.

1. Cultivate the habit of considering the issues of various courses of conduct. We should regard our thoughts, words, and actions as the farmer regards his seedsas the germs of a future harvest; and we should remember that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. This will lead to a wise caution in regard to the seeds we sow.

2. Consider the relations in which you now stand to Almighty God. You must be either a rebel, exposed to His vengeance, or a pardoned child, shielded by His love. Which is it?

THINGS TO BE CONSIDERED

Isa. 1:3. My people doth not consider.

The universe is regulated by fixed laws, by which God preserves and governs all things. Man is endowed with rational powers, intellectual faculties, capable of apprehending these laws, whether they become known to him by revelation or by his own discoveries, and of using them as his guides. His well-being depends upon his harmony with them, and his dignity and bliss on the right application of his mental powers. One of Satans main stratagems is to endeavour to hinder him from using them aright; to induce him to act without forethought or reflection, and to incite him to act merely on impulse, feeling, or passion [177] As a result of these artifices, the great mass of mankind live without thought, and are borne in stupid insensibility to the eternal world. Thus God complains of the infatuation of Israel, My people doth not consider. To consider is to think deliberately, to reflect maturely. There are many subjects to which our consideration should be attentively and diligently given. We should consider

[177] Satan doth his utmost, that sinners may not have any serious thoughts of the miserable state they are in while they are under his rule, or hear of anything from others which might the least unsettle their minds from his service. Consideration, he knows, is the first step to repentance. He that doth not consider his ways what they are, and whither they lead him, is not likely to change them in haste. Israel stirred not until Moses came, and had some discourse with them about their woful slavery and the gracious thoughts of God towards them, and then they begin to desire to be gone. Pharaoh soon bethought him what consequence might follow upon this, and cunningly labours to prevent it by doubling their task. Ye are idle, ye are idle, therefore ye say, Let us go, and do sacrifice unto the Lord. Go therefore and work. Thus Satan is very jealous of the sinner, afraid every Christian that speaks to him, or ordinance that he hears, will inveigle him. By his good-will he should come at neither; no, nor have a thought of heaven or hell from one end of the week to the other, and that he may have as few as may be, he keeps him full-handed with work. The sinner grinds, and he is filling the hopper that the mill may not stand still. Ah, poor wretch! was ever slave so looked to? As long as the devil can keep thee thus, thou art his own sure enough. The prodigal came to himself before he came to his father. He considered with himself what a starving condition he was in; his husks were poor meat, and yet he had not enough of them; and how easily he might mend his commons if he had but grace to go home and humble himself to his father! Now, and not till now, he goes.Gurnall, 16171679.

I. The character and will of God. His works should lead us to this. If you see a beautiful picture, or piece of sculpture or mechanism, you naturally direct your thoughts to the artist or mechanist who has produced it. The grandeur of the divine works surrounds you, and ought you not to consider the wondrous Architect of the whole? His relationship to you should induce it. Your existence is derived from Him, and He fashioned you, and bestowed on you all your endowments. He is your Father, your bountiful Preserver. Besides, you are ever in His hand, ever before His eyes, He surrounds you. And He is great, wise, powerful, holy, and just. His love and favour are heaven; His anger and frowns are hell.

II. Ourselves. What are we? What our powers? our capabilities? our end and destination? the claims of God? our duties to others? the improvement we should make of the present? the preparation we should make for the future? Are we answering the end of our being? &c.

III. Our spiritual state before God. Is it one of ignorance, or of knowledge? folly, or wisdom? guilt, or pardon? condemnation or acceptance? alienation, or sonship and adoption? safety, or imminent peril? Are we heirs of wrath or perdition, or of God and salvation?

IV. The importance of life. Life is the seedtime for eternity, the period of probation, the only opportunity of securing eternal blessedness. How short it is, how fragile, how uncertain! How criminal to waste it, to pervert it! &c.

V. The solemnities of death (Deu. 32:29). Consider its certainty, its probable nearness, its truly awful character. Try to realise it. Consider if you were now dying, &c. [180]

[180] The sand of life
Ebbs fastly to its finish. Yet a little,
And the last fleeting particle will fall
Silent, unseen, unnoticed, unlamented. Come, then, sad thought, and let us meditate, While meditate we may. We have now But a small portion of what men call time To hold communion.H. K. White.

VI. The great concerns of eternity. The judgment-day. Heaven, with its eternal glories; hell, with its everlasting horrors. Eternity itself, how solemn, how overwhelming! How blissful to the saint! how terrific to the sinner! ETERNITY!

VII. That salvation which will fit us for living, dying, and for eternity. Provided by the mercy of God, obtained by the Lord Jesus Christ, revealed in the gospel, offered to every sinner, received by simple faith, and which delivers from guilt, pollution, fear, and everlasting wrath.

VIII. Our present duty and interest. Men are supposed to care naturally for these. But their care usually relates merely to the body, and the things of time. Consider whether it is not your duty to obey and serve God; whether it is not your interest (1Ti. 4:8).

IX. That there is no substitute for religion (Jer. 2:13).

Application.Urge consideration upon all present.

1. Some have never considered. Now begin. Retire and reflect; weigh and consider these things.

2. Some have considered occasionallyin church, or when sick, in the house of bereavement, &c. Cultivate the habit of consideration [183] and carry into effect the conclusions to which you will inevitably come.

3. There is hope for all who will consider.

4. They are hopeless who will not consider [186] Burns, D.D., Pulpit Cyclopdia, vol. ii. pp. 3437.

[183] He sat within a silent cave, apart
[186] No man is in so much danger as he who thinks there is no danger. Why, when the bell rings, when the watchmen rends the air with cries of Fire! Fire! FIRE! when in every direction there is the pattering of feet on the sidewalk, and when the engines come rattling up to the burning house, one after another the inmates are awakened, and they rush out; and they are safest that are most terrified, and that suffer most from a sense of danger. One only remains behind. He hears the tumult, but it weaves itself into the shape of dreams, and he seems to be listening to some parade, and soon the sounds begin to be indistinct in his ear, and at length they cease to make any impression upon him. During all this time he is inhaling the deadly gas with which his apartment has become filled, gradually his senses are benumbed, and finally he is rendered unconscious by suffocation. And, in the midst of peril, and the thunder of excitement, that man who is the least awake, and the least frightened, is the very man that is the most likely to be burned up.Beecher.

From men, upon a chair of diamond stone;
Words he had not, companions he had none,
But steadfastly pursued his thoughtful art;
And as he mused he pulled a slender string
Which evermore within his hand he held;
And the dim curtain rose which had concealed
His thoughts, the city of the immortal king:
There, pictured in its solemn pomp, it lay
A glorious country stretching round about,
And through its golden gates passed in and out
Men of all nations, on their heavenly way.
On this he mused, and mused the whole day long,
Feeding his feeble faith till it grew strong.
George Croly.

RELIGIOUS CONSIDERATION

Isa. 1:3. My people doth not consider.

In a former discourse we noticed that one of Satans chief devices was to keep men from consideration, and we referred to a variety of subjects upon which it is important that we should reflect. We now call your attention to the true character of religious consideration.

I. It should be serious and earnest. The subjects are too solemn and weighty to be hastily dismissed. It must not be a mere cursory survey, a rapid glance at these great concerns, but a careful, deliberate contemplation of them; just as a prisoner about to be tried for a capital offence would consider his defence, or a wrecked mariner how he shall escape a watery grave, or a traveller how to accomplish some momentous journey or voyage. If it be done lightly and hastily, it will not profit us or please God.

II. It should be prayerful. The exercise will be irksome to the natural heart. We shall be disposed to give it up, or do it slightingly. The grace of God alone can give the spirit necessary for the right discharge of it. Therefore begin, continue, and follow it out with prayer.

III. It should be pursued in connection with a diligent use of the public means of grace. Hearken to the Divine Word as it is read in the sanctuary, and to the preaching of the gospel, Christian conversation, &c. Consideration will not profit us if Gods means and ordinances are neglected. All are needful to the soul, as wind, sun, rain, and dew are all needful to the ripening of fruit.

IV. It should be continued and persevering. Not too much to devote a portion of every day to it. The first and last moments would be thus profitably exercised [189] and it must be followed out [192]

[189] Make up your spiritual accounts daily; see how matters stand between God and your souls (Psa. 77:6). Often reckonings keep God and conscience friends. Do with your heart as you do with your watchwind it up every morning by prayer, and at night examine whether it has gone true all that day, whether the wheels of your affections have moved swiftly toward heaven. Oh call yourself often to account; keep your reckonings even, and that is the way to keep your peace.Watson, 1696.

[192] The end of all arts and sciences is the practice of them. And as this is to be confessed in all other arts, so it cannot be denied in divinity and religion, the practice whereof doth in excellency surmount the knowledge and theory, as being the main end whereunto it tends. For to what purpose do men spend their spirits and tire their wits in discerning the light of truth, if they do not use the benefit of it to direct them in all their ways? (Psa. 119:59.)Downame. 1642.

In conclusion, notice some reasons why you should consider.

1. Because you have powers to do so. God made you for this end, that you should consider. In neglecting this, you despise your own souls, you sink to below the level of the brute creation. They do answer the end of their existence, and obey their several instincts. The ox knoweth his owner. Nearly every creature disposes of its time and means wisely; but an inconsiderate man defaces the faculties within him.

2. Because it is your duty. God enjoins itHe urges, expostulates. To neglect it is, therefore, to despise God and rebel against Him.

3. It is essential to the possession of true religion. Various are the ways in which God brings men to Himself; by a variety of instruments and means, but none without consideration. Manasseh in prisonJonah in the belly of the whalethe prodigal in his misery, &c. It is the first great step towards saving religion.

4. By prudent men, it is never neglected in worldly things. In entering upon any contract, in buying and selling, in all business engagements, in all secular pursuits. We consider, in reference to the body, our houses, food, and raiment, our families, &c. Are the souls eternal concerns the only things not deserving of it?

5. God may compel you to consider. By bereaving you of the dearest objects of your hearts, by afflicting your bodies, by embittering all earthly good. Is it not better to avoid these corrections, sorrows, and griefs?

6. You may consider when it is too late. Perhaps on the verge of eternity, if not in eternity itself. The foolish virgins considered when the cry was heard; the rich man considered too late; the wicked will consider in the great day of Christs wrath, when they cry to the rocks and hills, &c. The consideration of the lost in eternity will be in vainwill be bitter beyond descriptionwill be everlasting, and as horrible as it is durable. Therefore consider now, while consideration may yet profit you.Jabez Burns, D.D., Pulpit Cyclopdia, vol. ii. pp. 3739.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

ADDITIONAL OUTLINES
INSTINCT FOLLOWEDREASON DISREGARDED

Isa. 1:3. The ox knoweth his owner, &c.

We are wise. So spake the Greek of old in the pride of his intellectual powers, and so speak many in our own day who have imbibed the spirit of the Greek. Reason is a wonderful faculty, and there have not been wanting, in any age of the world, those who have felt elated by their successful exercise of it. It can look before and after, deriving experience from the past and suggesting provision against the future. It can explore the hidden secrets of Nature and render the world of matter subservient to man; it can turn in upon itself and speculate upon its own processes; nay, it can teach us something of the existence and attributes of the Most High. Such being the triumphs of reason, it can hardly be matter of wonder that the wise men of this world plume themselves on the attainment of those triumphs.

The vainglorying of men, however, whatever form it may assume, is abomination in the sight of God. In the scheme of salvation which God has devised there is no room for boasting either of our moral or intellectual endowments: It is excluded. That scheme is essentially humbling in its character; it is so constructed as to shut out pride at every cranny where it could possibly insinuate itself; it is such as to stop every mouth and bring in all the world guilty before God. And not only guilty, but blind also. He will have all the world convicted in the court of Conscience of folly, no less than of sin. In order to bring His people to this conviction, he expostulates with them in many passages of His Word on the vainglorious boasts they were in the habit of uttering, shows their utter emptiness, and exhibits the inconsistency of mans moral conduct with his pretensions to wisdom and enlightenment (cf. Jer. 8:7-8).

Our text implies two things

1. That the relation subsisting between the brute creation and man is in some measure similar to that which subsists between man and God; and,
2. That the acknowledgment made by dumb animals of their relation to mankind strangely contrasts with the natural mans refusal of acknowledgment to God.

I. We are to compare the relations subsisting between an inferior and a superior creature with those subsisting between a superior and the Creator. Note, though these relations may be susceptible of comparison, and may be used to lift up our minds to apprehension of the truth, there is an insufficiency in the lower relation to type out the higher. The distance between man and the inferior creatures, if great, is measurable; whereas the distance between finite man and the Infinite God is incalculable.

The dumb creature recognises the master whose property it is: The ox knoweth his owner. What constitutes mans right of ownership in the ox? Simply the fact that he bought it. He did not create it. If he supports its life, it is only by providing it with a due supply of food, not by ministering to it momentarily the breath which it draws, nor by regulating the springs of its animal economy. That is the sum of his ownership. But what constitutes Gods right of ownership in us, His intelligent and rational creatures?

1. We are the work of His hands. Creation constitutes a property in all our faculties and a claim to our services which no creature hath or can have in another.

2. Our property is most entire, our claim of right most indisputable, in those things which, having been once deprived of them by fraud or violence, we have subsequently paid a price to recover. The flocks and herds in the possession of civilised European settlers in uncivilised countries are often swept away by a barbarous horde of native freebooters. Imagine, then, a case in which, it being impossible to bring the offenders to justice (by reason of their numbers and strength), the owners of the cattle should effect a ransom of their property by laying down a sum equivalent to its value. Is it not thenceforth theirs by a double claimthe claim of original ownership and the claim of subsequent ransom? Such is the claim which God has over us. That claim, grounded originally upon the fact of creation, has been confirmed, enlarged, extended a thousand fold by the fact of redemption (1Co. 6:20; 1Pe. 1:18-19).

3. Our text suggests another detail of the claims which our Heavenly Owner has upon our allegiance: The ass knoweth his masters crib. He knows the manger at which he is fed and the hand that feeds him. Here is a palpable claim upon regard, although by no means so high as those previously advanced. It is a claim appreciable by the senses, capable of being understood and responded to by the mere animal nature. In palliation of mans neglect of those claims of God which are established by creation and redemption, it might haply be pleaded that he is a creature of the senses, and that the facts of creation and redemption are not cognisable by them. These stupendous facts are transacted and past. But even this paltry justification is entirely cut off by the fact here implied, that man is indebted to God for his daily maintenance, for the comfort and the convenience even of his animal life [1276]

[1276] Of this fact a strongly figurative but very beautiful statement is contained in a passage of Hoseaa passage remarkably illustrative of that before us, inasmuch as there also the imagery is drawn from mans dealings with the cattle. I drew them, says God, with the cords of a man, with bonds of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. I was to them, as they that take off the yoke on their jaws. The owner of the ox does not overtask his strength, does not cause him to toil in the furrow without intermission. At the approach of evening the faithful animal is driven homewards, and freed from the shackles of the galling and burdensome yoke. An image this of Gods dealing with His human children. Our every period of refreshment and repose, of ease and relaxation from toil, is from the unseen hand of our heavenly Owner. Those many fractions of comfort and happiness which lighten the load of lifethose numerous (although momentary) glimpses of sunshine which relieve the plodding routine of our daily careerthose flowers with which the path of the great majority is more or less strewed: the innocent sally of mirth, the smile of affection, the expression of sympathy, the cheering word of encouragement from those whose encouragement is justly valuedthese, like all other mercies, are from God, and (though these be but a small part of what we have to be thankful for) are designed to draw us towards Him in bonds of gratitude and love.

And I laid meat unto them. By those who avail themeelves of their services, the cattle are supplied with provender. God not only called us into being, but maintains us in being. He it is who gives us our daily bread, and spreads our board with food convenient for us; for food, for health, for continuance of life our dependence upon Him is absolute. By means of these and similar mercies it is that God establishes a claim to the gratitude and devotedness even of those among His rational creatures who have most deeply buried themselves in the things of time and sense, and whose hearts seem to be stirred by no breath of spiritual aspiration, and troubled by no prospect of eternity.Goulburn.

Observe, also, that it is not the brute creation in a savage state whose relations towards man are here drawn into comparison with the relations of man towards God. To illustrate his argument the inspired writer has chosen instances from the domestic animals, who share mans daily toils, live as his dependants, and are familiarised by long habit with their masters abode and ways of life. In drawing out the contrast, he does not mention mankind generally, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. It were in some measure excusable that the heathens should refuse acknowledgment to the living God, whom they know not. But what shall we urge in extenuation of the indifference of Israel, who from his very infancy has been of the household of God, domesticated by the hearth of the Universal Parent, and furnished with every means of access to His presence?

II. A contrast is drawn between the acknowledgment made by dumb animals of their relation to their owners and Israels refusal of acknowledgment to his God.

The cattle know or recognise the voice of their owner; his call they heed, in his steps they follow; irrational creatures though they be, they are not insensible to their benefactors fond caress. What a cutting reproof of the insensibility of Gods people!

1. They recognise not God in His warnings, whether they be addressed to them as individuals or to the nation of which they are members. Afflictions arrest them not in their career of vanity and sin. Judgments stir them not out of their lethargy of indifference. They hear not, see not, God in them.
2. They do not acknowledge God in His mercies. Gods blessings of Nature and Providence are accepted by them as a matter of course. If regarded at all, they are traced no higher than to secondary causes. The continual experience of them renders them not one whit more submissive to the yoke of Gods service. As to the higher blessings of forgiveness and grace, they feel no need of them, and evince no gratitude for them.
Want of consideration is the root and reason of this strange insensibility. It is not that Israel lacks the faculty of apprehending God, but he will not be at pains to exercise that faculty. It is not that he lacks a speculative knowledge of the truths now set forth, but that he does not lay to heart that knowledge, nor allow it its due weight.E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.: Sermons, pp. 153181.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(3) The ox knoweth his owner . . .As in Exo. 20:17; 1Sa. 12:3, the ox and the ass rather than, as with us, the horse and the dog, are the representative instances of the relation of domesticated animals to man. These know that relation, and act according to it; but Israel did not, or rather would not, know. So Jeremiah dwells, turning to a different region of animal life, on the instinct which leads the stork, the swallow, and the crane to fulfil the law of their being (Jer. 8:7), while Israel knew noti.e., did not acknowledgethe law of Jehovah.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

3. Rebelling thus they virtually declared God’s proprietorship in them is at an end. So they stand in poor contrast with the stupidest animals. Jer 8:7.

The ox the ass Dr. Thomson, ( The Land and the Book, vol. ii, p. 97,) describing a scene at the close of a day in Tiberias, says: “No sooner had we got within the walls, than the drove began to disperse. Every ox knew perfectly well his owner, his house, and the way to it, nor did he become bewildered for a moment in the mazes of narrow and crooked alleys. As for the asses, they walked straight to the door, and up to the master’s crib. I followed one company clear into the habitation, and saw each take his appropriate manger, and begin his evening meal.”

Israel The whole nation, Judah as well as Israel. As a covenant people, both were included in a designed unity.

Not know Do not recognise God as their rightful owner.

Not consider The parallelism here is explanatory. My people have lost knowledge of me, and do not attend to the spiritual food which, as their Lord, I fain would give them: just as the master of the “ox” and the “ass” is known, and these stupid animals are fed by him. A comparison the more striking for its homeliness.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 1:3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: [but] Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

Ver. 3. The ox knoweth his owner. ] Yea, helpeth him; whence these creatures are called iumenta a iuvando, and the ass hath his name in Greek a from his usefulness. Yea, the most savage creatures will be at the beck and check of those that feed them. Disobedience, therefore, is against the principles of nature, and God’s rebels fall below the stirrup of reason, yea, of sense, so great cause was there that our prophet, tantas tragoedias ageret, should begin his sermon with such a solemn contestation, “Hear, O heavens,” &c. O coelum, O terram! “But Israel doth not know” – quo est stupore. He needeth to he set to school to these dullest of creatures to learn the knowledge of God and of his will, of himself and his duty. Oh, the brutish ignorance of many profligate professors! “They are a people of no understanding.” Psa 53:4 So Isa 44:18 .

My people doth not consider. ] Though “them only have I known of all the families of the earth,” Amo 3:2 culling and calling them, owning and honouring them, adopting and accepting them for my people, when I had all the world before me to choose in, Deu 10:14-15 yet they value not my benefits; they stir not up themselves, as the Hebrew word signifieth, to apprehend them, and to be affected with them. All is lost that I have laid out upon them. Unthankfulness is as a grave, which receiveth dead bodies, but rendereth them not up again without a miracle. But “should ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?” Deu 32:6 See Trapp on “ Deu 32:6 “

a from .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Isaiah

THE GREAT SUIT: JEHOVAH VERSUS JUDAH

THE STUPIDITY OF GODLESSNESS

Isa 1:3 .

This is primarily an indictment against Israel, but it touches us all. ‘Doth not know’ i.e. has no familiar acquaintance with; ‘doth not consider,’ i.e. frivolously ignores, never meditates on.

I. This is a common attitude of mind towards God.

Blank indifference towards Him is far more frequent than conscious hostility. Take a hundred men at random as they hurry through the streets, and how many of them would have to acknowledge that no thought of God had crossed their minds for days or months? So far as they are concerned, either in regard to their thoughts or actions, He is ‘a superfluous hypothesis.’ Most men are not conscious of rebellion against Him, and to charge them with it does not rouse conscience, but they cannot but plead guilty to this indictment, ‘God is not in all their thoughts.’

II. This attitude is strange and unnatural.

That a man should be able to forget God, and live as if there were no such Being, is strange. It is one instance of that awful power of ignoring the most important subjects, of which every life affords so many and tragic instances. It seems as if we had above us an opium sky which rains down soporifics, go that we are fast asleep to all that it most concerns us to wake to. But still stranger is it that, having that power of attending or not attending to subjects, we should so commonly exercise it on this subject. For, as the ox that knows the hand that feeds him, and the ass that makes for his ‘master’s crib’ where he is sure of fodder and straw, might teach us, the stupidest brute has sense enough to recognise who is kind to him, or has authority over him, and where he can find what he needs. The godless man descends below the animals’ level. And to ignore Him is intensely stupid. But it is worse than foolish, for III. This attitude is voluntary and criminal.

Though there is not conscious hostility in it, the root of it is a subconscious sense of discordance with God and of antagonism between His will and the man’s When we are quite sure that we love another, and that hearts beat in accord and wills go out towards the same things, we do not need to make efforts to think of that other, but our minds turn towards him or her as to a home, whenever released from the holding-back force of necessary occupations. If we love God, and have our will set to do His will, our thoughts will fly to Him, ‘as doves to their windows.’

It is fed by preoccupation of thought with other things. We have but a certain limited amount of energy of thought or attention, and if we waste it, as much as most of us do, on ‘things seen and temporal,’ there is none left for the unseen realities and the God who is ‘eternal, invisible.’ It is often reinforced by theoretical uncertainty, sometimes real, often largely unreal. But after all, the true basis of it is, what Paul gives as its cause, ‘they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.’

The criminality of this indifference! It is heartlessly ungrateful. Dogs lick the hand that feeds them; ox and ass in their dull way recognise something almost like obligation arising from benefits and care. No ingratitude is meaner and baser than that of which we are guilty, if we do not requite Him ‘in whose hands our breath is, and whose are all our ways,’ by even one thankful heart-throb or one word shaped out of the breath that He gives.

IV. This attitude is fatal.

It separates us from God, and separation from Him is the very definition of Death. A God of whom we never think is all the same to us as a God who does not exist. Strike God out of a life, and you strike the sun out of the system, and wrap all in darkness and weltering chaos. ‘This is life eternal, to know Thee’; but if ‘Israel doth not know,’ Israel has slain itself.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

Isa 1:3-9

“The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that deal corruptly! they have forsaken Jehovah, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are estranged and gone backward. Why will ye be still stricken, that ye revolt more and more? the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and fresh stripes: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with oil. Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except Jehovah of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”

One of the interesting things in this passage is the number of different words used to describe the sins of Israel. They are called rebellion (Isa 1:2), ignorance, lack of consideration (Isa 1:3), sin, iniquity, evil-doing, corruption, forsaking God, estrangement from God, backsliding (Isa 1:4), revolt, transgression, disobedience, sickness, (Isa 1:5) and unsoundness (Isa 1:6). The wounds and bruises of Israel mentioned here should not be viewed as resulting from the hostile attacks of her enemies but as the result of the stripes of punishment laid upon the sinful nation by the hand of her God.

The picture in Isa 1:5-6 is not of a sick man but of someone who has been flogged in an inch of his life, yet asking for more. Therefore sores in Isa 1:6 are actually weals.

The mention of the ox and the ass (Isa 1:3) stresses the truth that even domesticated animals of the type usually cited for their lack of intelligence exhibited desirable qualities that were absent in the behavior of Israel, which seemed to be totally ignorant of the signal blessings they had received from God and his amazing deliverance of them from slavery and oppression.

We entertain a strong objection to receiving the desolation depicted in these verses as an actual historical picture of conditions in Palestine following some invasion, either that of the earlier reign .of Josiah or, of that when Sennacherib shut up Hezekiah “like a bird in a cage”. We are aware that many commentators offer this explanation; but to us it seems clear enough that what we have here is a master prophecy outlining the whole history of Israel in advance, not only covering the invasions mentioned here but the final overthrow of Israel by Babylon with the resulting captivity, and the return of “the remnant,” significantly mentioned here as all that would be left of the chosen people. Rawlinson believed that the “remnant” here was “the few godly people left in Jerusalem!” However, such interpretations of this prophecy would make it necessary to accept the godless Manasseh as a part of that “righteous remnant.” No! The very fact of the “remnant” being introduced in this opening passage unerringly points to the remnant of Israel that would form the nucleus of the “New Israel” of God. that is, the church, or kingdom, of Messiah! Furthermore, is not this chapter introduced as a part of the vision of Isaiah? The very word means a supernatural revelation of events to take place in the future from the time of the vision; and if this chapter is nothing more than Isaiah’s observations on the current state of the land of Palestine, it is not entitled to any place whatever in Isaiah’s prophecy. No! The commentators are merely deceived by the liberal canard that predictive prophecy is not found in the Bible. As we shall see, this chapter is really a summary of the whole Book of Isaiah.

There is no agreement whatever among scholars as to which of two principal invasions Isaiah referred to in this description of the devastated land. Archer stated that some scholars understand the whole passage as a description of Sennacherib’s invasion of 701 B.C., rather than the usual habit of applying it to the invasion of the Edomites and the Philistines in 734-733 B.C. All of the uncertainty is cleared up by understanding the passage as an extended prophecy of what was in store for Israel in a far more general sense. No other understanding of the place takes care of the question about who constituted that “righteous remnant.”

Isa 1:8 refers to Jerusalem, “the daughter of Zion,” as totally deserted like a “booth in a vineyard,” or a “lodge in a garden of cucumbers.” Jerusalem was never deserted throughout the life of Isaiah, nor until more than half a century later; therefore, this passage simply cannot be a description of conditions that Isaiah saw. This is a prophecy of the going of Israel into the Babylonian captivity.

Isa 1:3 This sin on the part of Israel is unnatural. It is animalistic, brutish, unreasoning. They behave worse than the most unintelligent, instinctive brute, for even the ass and the ox know enough to know who feeds them. Men often allow sin to degrade them; they behave worse than animals (Cf. Hos 10:11-12; Jer 5:8; 2Pe 2:12; Psa 73:22; Isa 56:9-12; Rom 1:18-32). When men exchange the truth of God for a lie and serve the creature rather than the Creator they live in the passions of their flesh, following the (animal) desires of body and mind (Cf. Eph 2:1-3). Evolutionism as a philosophy teaches that man has no Creator and such a philosophy is responsible for much of the animalistic behavior of men and women in our age.

Isa 1:4 Notice the sins of which they were guilty: Inconsiderateness; Sins of their forefathers (grumbling, idolatry, etc.); Crooked dealing; Forsaking the Lord; Going backward (backsliding); Reducing their worship to a mere formality; Despising the Holy One of Israel. Unbelief usually first manifests itself in the sin of Ingratitude (Inconsiderateness) (Rom 1:21; Deu 8:11-20; 1Co 10:1-10).

Isa 1:5 It amazes the Lord that in spite of the afflictions He has allowed to come upon them, they persist in the hard way of the transgressor. (Cf. Eze 33:10-11) So useless, uncalled for, but as long as they continue in sin they will be stricken. Jesus marvelled at the unbelief of the people of His home town (Mar 6:6). With all the advantages, liberties, and blessings of people in countries where the Gospel has been preached for centuries, it is nothing short of amazing to behold the unbelief, ingratitude and despising of the Holy God.

Isa 1:6 What is the explanation? The head is sick and diseased. The intellectual and moral life of the nation is diseased. They think wrong, because they love sin (Cf. Joh 3:18-20). Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people, (Pro 14:34). You cannot think wrong and be right! As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, (Pro 23:7). The malignant cancer of sin is in all four receptacles of the heart (intellect; emotions; will; conscience). The whole man is diseased! The immortal heart pours its poison to every facet of life.

Isa 1:7 Note the use of both figurative and literal language. The country is desolate and literally burned with fire because of the spiritual conditions described figuratively. Desolation-burned cities-foreigners occupying their farms. Who the invaders were we do not know for certain. Possibilities: Edomites and Philistines who invaded Judea in the time of Ahaz; Israelites under Amaziah; Assyrians under Sargon.

Isa 1:8 Because of this condition Jerusalem is left humiliated like a frail, lonely, neglected watchmans shack in a vineyard or a cucumber patch. She was surrounded by her enemies and cut off from the rest of the nations like a besieged city.

Isa 1:9 But there is one hope-a remnant, literally, a very small number which remains righteous and thus saved from the coming judgment. Only a few thousand remained faithful through the captivity and returned to restore the commonwealth of the covenant people with Ezra, Nehemiah, et al. Had it not been for this faithful remnant, Judah and Jerusalem would have been utterly obliterated like Sodom and Gomorrah. Ed. J. Young says, Whereas, however, the delay of judgment also involves postponement of blessing, nevertheless the fact of the choice of the remnant is evidence that God is fulfilling His purposes in history. Here, then, is the true philosophy of history. It is because of the righteous remnant that the world remains. The wickedness of the world is permitted to continue until, in the counsel of Gods infinite wisdom, the time of punishment has come. That time is delayed for God is truly the God of the heathen also, a God of longsuffering and mercy. At the same time, in that delay, the delay of the full accomplishment of the blessing is also involved. The preserving of a remnant, however, is a step toward the fulfillment of the promise of blessing. This applies to the blessings of redemption fulfilled in the First Coming of Christ and applies to the redemption and ultimate salvation to be fulfilled in the Second Coming of Christ.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The Unnatural Children

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his masters crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.Isa 1:3.

The first chapter of Isaiah has been called by Ewald the great arraignment. It contains four leading ideas. They are the ideas, says Skinner, which run through the whole of Isaiahs teaching, and through the teaching of all the pre-Exilic prophets. These ideas are(1) the breach between Jehovah and Israel; (2) the inefficiency of mere ritual; (3) the call to national repentance; (4) the certainty of a sweeping judgment.

Ewalds title suggests a court of justice; and it has often been pointed out that God is both Judge and Plaintiff, Israel the defendant, heaven and earth the jury, while the prophet is both principal witness and prosecuting attorney. But all this is apt to withdraw the attention from the real pathos of the scene. No doubt there is a judge, and judgment is pronounced. But the Judge is a Father. The paraphernalia of the court-room pass into insignificance when there is heard the exceeding bitter cry, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

The third verse is an illustration. It shows the ignorance of the children in contrast to the knowledge of the domestic animals.

The Knowledge of the Domestic Animals

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his masters crib.

1. It is knowledge of their owner. They both know and acknowledge him. He on his part not only owns but takes care of them. He rears them, tames them, houses them, and heals them. In return they serve him.

True to the life, no sooner had the drove got within the walls than it began to disperse. Every ox knew perfectly well his owner, and the way to his house; nor did it get bewildered for a moment in the mazes of the narrow and crooked alleys. As for the ass, he walked straight to the door, and up to his masters crib, without turning to bid good-night to his companions of the field. I followed some into their habitation, and saw each take his appropriate manger, and begin his evening meal of dry tibn.1 [Note: 1 Thomson, The Land and the Book, ii. 387.]

2. Their service brings them into fellowshipsuch fellowship as is possible between man and the lower animals. There is some sense of mutual dependence. There is affection and sometimes self-sacrifice. The prophet speaks of the domestic animals of his own people. We should see his point more clearly if we thought of the horse and the dog.

It is not an uncommon thing in the Argentine pampasI have on two occasions witnessed it myselffor a riding horse to come home to die. I am speaking of horses that live out in the open, and have to be hunted to the corral or enclosure, or roughly captured with a lasso as they run, when they are required. On going out one summer eveningI was only a boy at the timeI saw one of the horses of the establishment standing unsaddled and unbridled leaning his head over the gate. Going to the spot I stroked his nose, and turning to an old native who happened to be standing near, asked him what could be the meaning of such a thing. I think he is going to die, he answered; horses often come to the house to die. And next morning the poor beast was found lying dead not twenty yards from the gate.

I now believe that the sensations of sickness and approaching death in the riding horse of the pampas resemble or simulate the pains, so often experienced, of hunger, thirst, and fatigue, combined together with the oppressive sensations caused by the ponderous native saddle, with its huge surcingle of raw hide, drawn up so tightly as to hinder free respiration. The suffering animal remembers how at the last relief invariably came when the twelve or fifteen hours torture was over, and when the great iron bridle and ponderous gear were removed, and he had freedom and food and drink and rest. At the gate or at the door of his masters house the sudden relief had always come to him, and there does he go in his sickness to find it again.2 [Note: W. H. Hudson, The Naturalist in La Plata.]

The Ignorance of the Children

Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

God has been as a Father to Israel. Now, a father has the right to obedience, service, and especially affection. But Israel had come short. Of the two great commandments of the Law they failed especially in the second. So was it with Israel always. The first commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and there was at least much outward appearance of devotion to God. But the second commandment is, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The failure was here. Of what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me Relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. The scribe who came to Jesus had no doubt of his duty to God. But, willing to justify himself, he asked, Who is my neighbour?

1. Their ignorance consisted in not knowing what God had done for themIsrael doth not know. What had He done?

1. He calls heaven and earth to witness. For He had created them and preserved them, and been their bountiful benefactor. They were not ignorant of the wonders of their world. The psalmists were accustomed to consider the heavens (Psa 8:3). And they found that the heavens declared the glory of God (Psa 19:1).

2. But God had chosen Israel to be His peculiar people. He had been as a Father to them and had done great things for them, as Samuel reminded them that day upon which He consented to give them a king. It was even a commonplace among the heathen. Then said they among the nations, the Lord hath done great things for them. And they admitted it when they consideredThe Lord hath done great things for us (Psa 126:2-3).

3. Above all, God had shown them the care involved in training them to become a blessing to all the nations of the earth. Thou shalt consider in thine heart, said Moses, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee (Deu 8:5). It was this, above all, that they were ignorant of. They mistook the chastening of a father for the wounds of an enemy.

2. Their ignorance was due also to want of considerationMy people doth not consider. (1) He would have them stop and think. When the rich young ruler came running to JesusMaster, what shall I do?He stopped him. Why callest thou me good? Stop and think. When the Pharisees spoke glibly about the Messiah being Davids son, He recalled the 110th Psalm, where David calls the Messiah his Lord. How can he be both son and Lord? He said. Stop and think. (2) It is want of consideration that makes men miss Christ. For the most part they simply pass Him by, they do not consider Him. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? (Lam 1:12). (3) It is want of consideration that makes men lose life itself. They do not know what life is. They do not know that they have lost it. (4) But consideration of God brings considerateness for man. The two great commandments must always be kept in their right order: first, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, next, Thy neighbour as thyself. It was because Israel rebelled against God that they neglected the poor and the fatherless. It is to those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious that St. Paul writes: Let your considerateness be known unto all men (Php 4:5).

It was Israels lack of perception that was at the root of her sins. Ibsen, in the study of the tragedy of a lost soul in Peer Gynt, teaches that God meant something when He made each one of us, and that it is our duty to find out what He did mean. The devils staunchest ally is lack of perception.

When at the end of his career Peer Gynt, who is the type of a compromising self-seeker, meets the button-moulder, who tells him it is his fate to be cast into the melting-pot, this dialogue ensues. (Peer Gynt, Act 5:9.)

Peer. One question only: What is it, at bottom, this being oneself?

Button-Moulder. A singular question, most odd in the mouth of a man who just now

Peer. Come, a straightforward answer.

Button-Moulder. To be oneself is: to slay oneself. But on you that answer is doubtless lost, and therefore well say: to stand forth everywhere with Masters intention displayed like a signboard.

Peer. But suppose a man never has come to know what Master meant with him?

Button-Moulder. He must divine it.

Peer. But how often are divinings beside the markthen one is carried ad undas in middle career.

Button-Moulder. That is certain, Peer Gynt; in default of divining, the cloven-hoofed gentleman finds his best hook.

Literature

Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women, and Children, 5th Ser., 493.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions, Isaiah i.xlviii. 7.

Macmillan (H.), The Gate Beautiful, 155.

Momerie (A. W.), Inspiration, 211.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xviii. No. 1059.

Christian World Pulpit, xxxv. 58 (Rogers).

Church Pulpit Year Book, ii. (1905) 44.

Expository Times, iv. 432 (Robertson).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

ox: Pro 6:6, Jer 8:7

but Israel: Isa 5:12, Isa 27:11, Isa 44:18, Deu 32:28, Deu 32:29, Psa 94:8, Jer 4:22, Jer 9:3-6, Jer 10:8, Jer 10:14, Mat 13:13-15, Mat 13:19, Rom 1:28, 2Pe 3:5

Reciprocal: Deu 4:39 – and consider Deu 8:5 – consider Job 12:7 – But ask Job 34:27 – would Job 39:9 – or Psa 73:22 – as a Psa 92:6 – A brutish Pro 1:17 – in vain Pro 12:1 – he that Isa 5:13 – because Isa 42:20 – Seeing Jer 2:13 – For my Jer 35:16 – General Eze 16:30 – weak Hos 2:8 – she Hos 4:6 – My people Hos 7:2 – consider not in Mar 11:33 – We Mar 14:45 – Master 2Ti 2:7 – Consider Heb 3:1 – consider

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Isa 1:3. The ox knoweth his owner, &c. In these words the prophet amplifies the gross insensibility of the disobedient Jews, by comparing them with the most heavy and stupid of all animals, yet not so insensible as they. Bochart has well illustrated the comparison, and shown the peculiar force of it. He sets them lower than the beasts, and even than the stupidest of all beasts; for there is scarce any more so than the ox and the ass. Yet these acknowledge their master; they know the manger of their lord; by whom they are fed, not for their own, but his good; neither are they looked upon as children, but as beasts of burden; neither are they advanced to honours, but oppressed with great and daily labours. While the Israelites, chosen by the mere favour of God, adopted as sons, promoted to the highest dignity, yet acknowledged not their Lord and their God, but despised his commandments, though in the highest degree equitable and just. See a comparison of Jer 8:7, to the same purpose, equally elegant; but not so forcible and severe as this of Isaiah.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1:3 The {f} ox knoweth his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib: [but] Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

(f) The most dull and brute beasts acknowledge their duty more toward their masters, than my people do toward me, of whom they have received benefits without comparison.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Disfruta de miles de canciones cristianas en exclusiva sólo en Bibles