Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 2:6

Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and [are] soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.

6. Therefore thou hast forsaken ] For thou hast rejected a strong word, used twice (Deu 32:15; Jer 15:6) of Israel’s rejection of Jehovah, more frequently as here. This “rejection” is the counterpart of the “rebellion” of ch. Isa 1:2. replenished from the east ] An old and plausible emendation ( mqm for mqdm) gives the sense “filled with sorcery.” Possibly both words were written (“with sorcery from the east”), one having been dropped in copying because of their resemblance. “The east” would include Arabia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, perhaps also Babylonia, “the classic land of magic.”

soothsayers ] It is not certain what particular form of divination is indicated by the name. Some take it as derived from the word for cloud; “cloud-compellers,” i.e. rainmakers. On divination amongst “the Philistines” see 1Sa 6:2; 2Ki 1:2 please themselves in ] Lit. strike hands with (R.V.), i.e. “form alliances with.” The expression is not found elsewhere, and the rendering is somewhat uncertain. Dillmann thinks that “children of strangers” must mean “foreign youths,” who were in request as sorcerers, but the wider sense (= “strangers,” simply) seems preferable. It is probably better (with Hitzig) to read bd (“with the hands of”) instead of byald (“with the children of”), rendering simply: “join hands with strangers.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6 9. The prophet bears witness to Jehovah against Israel. It is very rarely that Isaiah thus addresses himself directly to God.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Therefore – The prophet proceeds in this and the following verses, to state the reasons of their calamities, and of the judgments that had come upon them. Those judgments he traces to the crimes which he enumerates – crimes growing chiefly out of great commercial prosperity, producing pride, luxury, and idolatry.

Thou hast forsaken – The address is changed from the exhortation to the house of Jacob Isa 2:5 to God, as is frequently the case in the writings of Isaiah. It indicates a state where the mind is full of the subject, and where it expresses itself in a rapid and hurried manner.

Hast forsaken – Hast withdrawn thy protection, and given them over to the calamities and judgments which had come upon them.

They be replenished – Hebrew, They are full. That is, these things abound.

From the East – Margin, More than the East. The meaning of the expression it is not easy to determine. The word translated East, qedem denotes also antiquity, or that which is of old, as well as the East. Hence, the Septuagint renders it, their land is, as of old, filled. The Chaldee, their land is filled with idols as at the beginning. Either idea will suit the passage; though our translation more nearly accords with the Hebrew than the others. The East, that is, Arabia, Persia, Chaldea, etc., was the country where astrology, soothsaying, and divination particularly abounded; see Dan 2:2; Deu 18:9-11.

And are soothsayers – Our word soothsayers means foretellers, prognosticators, persons who pretend to predict future events without inspiration, differing in this from true prophets. What the Hebrew word means, it is not so easy to determine. The word on^enym may be derived from anan, a cloud – and then would denote those who augur from the appearance of the clouds, a species of divination from certain changes observed in the sky; compare Lev 19:26 : Neither shall ye – observe times. 2Ki 21:6. This species of divination was expressly forbidden; see Deu 18:10-12 : There shall not be found among you anyone that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, etc. Or the word may be derived from ayin, an eye, and then it will denote those who fascinate, enchant, or bewitch by the eye. It is probable that the word includes augury, necromancy, and witchcraft, in general – all which were expressly forbidden by the law of Moses; Deu 18:10-12.

Like the Philistines – The Philistines occupied the land in the southwest part of Palestine. The Septuagint uses the word foreigners here, as they do generally, instead of the Philistines.

And they please themselves – The word used here – s’aphaq – means literally to clap the hands in token of joy. It may also mean, to join the hands, to shake hands, and then it will signify that they joined hands with foreigners; that is, they made compacts or entered into alliances with them contrary to the law of Moses. The Septuagint seems to understand it of unlawful marriages with the women of surrounding nations – tekna polla allophula egenethe autois; compare Neh 13:23. It means probably, in general, that they entered into improper alliances, whether they were military, matrimonial, or commercial, with the surrounding nations. The words children of strangers may mean, with the descendants of the foreigners with whom Moses forbade any alliances. The Jews were to be a separate and special people, and, in order to this, it was necessary to forbid all such foreign alliances; Exo 23:31-32; Exo 34:12-15; Psa 106:3, Psa 106:5; Ezr 9:1-15,

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Isa 2:6-9

Therefore Thou hast forsaken Thy people

God never forsaken without good reason

Therefore Thou hast forsaken Thy people.

The term is logical God never forsakes His people in any whimsical way: He is not a man, or a son of man, that He should treat His creatures arbitrarily, moodily, renew full of sunshine in relation to them, and now covered with great clouds, without giving any reason for the change. It is a most noticeable feature in Biblical revelation that when God forsakes men He gives the reason for abandoning them. The reason is always moral. God never leaves man because he is little, or weak, or self-distrustful, or friendless, or homeless, or broken hearted; when God forsakes man it is because man has first forsaken Him, broken His laws, defied His sword, challenged His judgment, forsaken with ungrateful abandonment the altar at which the life has received its richest blessing. So, never let us neglect the word therefore in reading concerning Divine judgments. God will never forsake the life that trusts Him. (J. Parker, D. D.)

A forsaken people

Read: for Thou hast cast off . . . they strike hands (make alliances) with the children of strangers. (A. B. Davidson, LL. D.)

God claims the sole sovereignty of the life

When we are forsaken it is because we have forsaken God. Is God to be the companion of idols? Is the Lord to be invited into darkened rooms, that He may be one of the deities of the universe, and take His place in order of seniority or of nominal superiority? Is He to be invited to compete with the fancies of the human brain for the sovereignty of human mind and the arbitrament of human destiny? Herein He is a jealous God. The Lord alone shaft be exalted in that day. If we make gods we must be content with the manufactures which we produce; but we never can persuade the eternal God to sit down with our wooden deities, and hold counsel with the inventions and fictions of a diseased imagination. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. If Baal be God, serve him; if the Lord, serve Him. (J. Parker, D. D.)

God had forsaken them as their Father and Friend

God had forsaken them as their Father and Friend, but He comes to call them to account as their Judge. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

A sad sequence: money leading to idolatry

Observe how the sequence runs: money in abundance: money will buy horses, and horses stand for power: horses will need chariots, and chariots mean dash, speed, ostentation–money, horses, chariots, can men end there? They cannot; and given money, horses, chariots, without a corresponding sanctification, without the inworking of that spirit of self-control which expresses the action of the Holy Ghost, and you compel men to go farther and to Fall their land with idols. The sequence cannot be broken Men may have money, horses, chariots, and the true God; but when men have money, horses, chariots, and no god that is true, they will make gods for themselves, for they must eke out their ostentation by some sort of nominal piety. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Spiritual idolatry

Men will build churches; men must have religious rites and ceremonies; and what can suit the worldly man better than an idol that takes no notice of him, a wooden deity that never troubles him with its disciplinary obligations. (J. Parker, D. D.)

An honoured yet God-forsaken people

I. The house of Jacob is here honoured with the character of THE PEOPLE OF GOD. They were His in a special manner, in consequence of His choosing them for His peculiar people; redeeming them with a strong hand and stretched out arm; and entering into covenant with them, so that they became His property, were called by His name, and professedly devoted to His service.

II. Notwithstanding this intimate connection, GOD HAD FORSAKEN THEM. He took off the restraining influence of His providence, whereby He prevented their enemies from executing their destruction; He removed the hedge of His kind protection, by which they enjoyed the most agreeable safety. He withheld from them His gracious direction, which had attended them In all their fortunes. The Most High hid counsel from them, so that they groped at noon day. He withdrew from them His Divine favour, which had long compassed them as a shield; He denied them His gracious presence and Holy Spirit, which was the beauty and glory of their assemblies, having In reserve for them the most awful temporal calamities. (R. Macculloch.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 6. They be replenished – “And they multiply”] Seven MSS. and one edition, for yaspiku, read yaspichu, “and have joined themselves to the children of strangers;” that is, in marriage or worship. – Dr. JUBB. So Vulg., adhaeserunt. Compare Isa 14:1. But the very learned professor Chevalier Michaelis has explained the word yesupachu, Job 30:7, (German translation, note on the place,) in another manner; which perfectly well agrees with that place, and perhaps will be found to give as good a sense here. saphiach, the noun, means corn springing up, not from the seed regularly sown on cultivated land, but in the untilled field, from the scattered grains of the former harvest. This, by an easy metaphor, is applied to a spurious brood of children irregularly and casually begotten. The Septuagint seem to have understood the verb here in this sense, reading it as the Vulgate seems to have done. This justifies their version, which it is hard to account for in any other manner: . Compare Ho 5:7, and the Septuagint there. But instead of ubeyaldey, “and in the children,” two of Kennicott’s and eight of De Rossi’s MSS. have ucheyaldey, “and as the children.” And they sin impudently as the children of strangers. See De Rossi.

And are soothsayers – “They are filled with diviners”] Heb. “They are filled from the east;” or “more than the east.” The sentence is manifestly imperfect. The Septuagint, Vulgate, and Chaldee, seem to have read kemikkedem; and the latter, with another word before it, signifying idols; “they are filled with idols as from of old.” Houbigant, for mikkedem, reads mikkesem, as Brentius had proposed long ago. I rather think that both words together give us the true reading: mikkedem, mikkesem, “with divination from the east;” and that the first word has been by mistake omitted, from its similitude to the second.

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

Therefore; for the following reasons. Or, but, as this particle is oft used. But why do I persuade the Israelites to receive the light of the gospel? my labour is in vain. I foresee they will refuse it; and God, for their many and great sins, will give them up to apostacy and infidelity.

Thou hast forsaken; wilt certainly forsake and reject. The body of that nation.

They be replenished from the east; their land is full of the impious, and superstitious, and idolatrous manners of the Eastern nations, the Syrians and Chaldeans.

Are soothsayers: these undertook to discover secret things, and to foretell future contingent things, by the superstitious observation of the stars, or clouds, or birds, or other ways of divination, which God had severely forbidden. See Lev 19:26. Like the Philistines, who are infamous for those practices; of which see one instance 1Sa 6:2. They please themselves; they delight in their manners, and company, and conversation, making leagues, and friendships, and marriages with them.

In the children of strangers; either,

1. In the children begotten by them upon strange women; or rather,

2. In strangers, as this phrase is used, Neh 9:2; Isa 60:10, and elsewhere.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

6. Thereforerather, “For”:reasons why there is the more need of the exhortation in Isa2:5.

thoutransition toJehovah: such rapid transitions are natural, when the mind is full ofa subject.

replenishedrather,filled, namely, with the superstitions of the East, Syria, andChaldea.

soothsayersforbidden(De 18:10-14).

Philistinessouthwestof Palestine: antithesis to “the east.”

please themselvesrather,join hands with, that is, enter into alliances, matrimonial andnational: forbidden (Exo 23:32;Neh 13:23, &c.).

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

Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob,…. These words contain a reason of the divine conduct, in calling the Gentiles, and rejecting the Jews, because of the sins of the latter hereafter mentioned; though some, as the Targum and R. Moses, refer this to the Israelites; and read, “because ye have forsaken”, c. and interpret it of their forsaking the Lord, his worship, and his law. What is hereafter said does not agree with the Jews, literally understood, neither in the times of Isaiah, nor when they returned from Babylon, nor in the times of Christ, nor since the destruction of Jerusalem, or in the latter day, a little before their conversion for after the Babylonish captivity they were not given to idolatry, nor did they abound in riches, and much less since their dispersion among the nations; nor will this be their case in the latter day: wherefore Kimchi applies the whole to the times of Solomon, when the land abounded with gold and silver, with horses and chariots, and with idolatry also, in the latter part of his life: but it seems best to interpret this of antichrist and his followers, who call themselves the people of God, and the house of Jacob, say they are Jews, but are not, and are of the synagogue of Satan; and are therefore rejected of the Lord, and will be given up to utter ruin and destruction, for the evils found in them, hereafter charged with.

Because they be replenished from the east, or “more than the east” s; than the eastern people, the Syrians and Chaldeans; that is, were more filled with witchcrafts and sorceries than they, as Kimchi explains it; of the sorceries of the Romish antichrist, see Re 9:21 the words may be rendered, “because they be full from of old time” t; or, as of old, or more than they were of old; namely, fuller of idols than formerly; so the Targum paraphrases it,

“because your land is full of idols, as of old;”

and so Rome Papal is as full of idols, or fuller, than Rome Pagan was. Some, as Aben Ezra, understand this of their being filled with the wisdom of the children of the east, 1Ki 4:30 and others of the riches of the east:

and [are] soothsayers like the Philistines: who were a people given to divination and soothsaying, 1Sa 6:2 and some of the popes of Rome have studied the black art, and by such wicked means have got into the Papal chair; for under this may be included all evil arts and fallacious methods, by which they have deceived themselves and others:

and they please themselves in the children of strangers; being brought into their convents, monasteries, and nunneries; the priests and nuns vowing celibacy and virginity, and contenting themselves with the children of others: or they love strange flesh, delight in sodomitical practices, and unnatural lusts with boys and men; wherefore Rome is called Sodom and Egypt, Re 11:8 or they content and delight themselves in the laws, customs, rites, ceremonies, and doctrines of other nations; many of the Gentile notions and practices being introduced into the faith and worship of the church of Rome; wherefore the Papists go by the name of Gentiles, Re 11:2. The Targum is,

“and they walk in the laws of the people,”

or study strange sciences, and not the statutes and laws of God; so some interpret it, as Ben Melech observes, and who also mentions another sense some give, that they please themselves in images they renew daily.

s “prae oriente, vel filiis orientis”, Vatablus. t ‘ , Sept.; “ut olim”, Vulg. Lat. Sic Syr. & Ar.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

“For Thou hast rejected Thy people, the house of Jacob; for they are filled with things from the east, and are conjurors like the Philistines; and with the children of foreigners they go hand in hand.” Here again we have “for” ( Chi ) twice in succession; the first giving the reason for the warning cry, the second vindicating the reason assigned. The words are addressed to Jehovah, not to the people. Saad., Gecatilia, and Rashi adopt the rendering, “Thou has given up thy nationality;” and this rendering is supported by J. D. Michaelis, Hitzig, and Luzzatto. But the word means “people,” not “nationality;” and the rendering is inadmissible, and would never have been thought of were it not that there was apparently something strange in so sudden an introduction of an address to God. But in Isa 2:9; Isa 9:2, and other passages, the prophecy takes the form of a prayer. And natash (cast off) with am (people) for its object recals such passages as Psa 94:14 and 1Sa 12:22. Jehovah had put away His people, i.e., rejected them, and left them to themselves, for the following reasons: (1.) Because they were “full from the east” ( mikkedem : min denotes the source from which a person draws and fills himself, Jer 51:34; Eze 32:6), i.e., full of eastern manners and customs, more especially of idolatrous practices. By “the east” ( kedem ) we are to understand Arabia as far as the peninsula of Sinai, and also the Aramaean lands of the Euphrates. Under Uzziah and Jotham, whose sway extended to Elath, the seaport town of the Elanitic Gulf, the influence of the south-east predominated; but under Ahaz and Hezekiah, on account of their relations to Asshur, Aram, and Babylon, that of the north-east. The conjecture of Gesenius, that we should read mikkesem , i.e., of soothsaying, it a very natural one; but it obliterates without any necessity the name of the region from which Judah’s imitative propensities received their impulse and materials. (2.) They were onenim (= meonenim , Mic 5:11, from the poel onen : 2Ki 21:6), probably “cloud-gatherers” or “storm-raisers,”

(Note: There is no force in the explanation “concealing,” i.e., practising secret arts; for the meaning “cover” or “conceal” is arbitrarily transferred to the verb onen , from ganan and Canan , which are supposed to be cognate roots. As a denominative of anan , the cloud, however (on this name for the clouds, see at Isa 4:5), onen might mean “he gathered auguries from the clouds.” Or if we take onen as a synonym of innen in Gen 9:14, it would mean “to raise storms,” which would give the rendering , tempestarii , storm-raisers. The derivation of onen from Ny(i , in the sense of the Arabic ‘ana (impf. ya nu ), as it were to ogle, oculo maligno petere et fascinare , founders on annen , the word used in the Targums, which cannot possibly be traced to Ny(i . From a purely philological standpoint, however, there is still another explanation possible. From the idea of coming to meet we get the transitive meaning to hold back, shut in, or hinder, particularly to hold back a horse by the reins ( inan ), or when applied to sexual relations, ‘unna ( ‘unnina , u’inna ) ) an el – mar’ati , “he is prevented (by magic) from approaching his wife,” Beside the Arabic ‘innn and ma’nun (to render sexually impotent by witchcraft), we find the Syriac ‘anono used in the same sense.)

like the Philistines (the people conquered by Uzziah, and then again by Hezekiah), among whom witchcraft was carried on in guilds, whilst a celebrated oracle of Baal-Zebub existed at Ekron. (3.) And they make common cause with children of foreigners. This is the explanation adopted by Gesenius, Knobel, and others. Saphak with Cappaim signifies to clap hands (Job 27:23). The hiphil followed by Beth is only used here in the sense of striking hands with a person. Luzzatto explains it as meaning, “They find satisfaction in the children of foreigners; it is only through them that they are contented;” but this is contrary to the usage of the language, according to which hispik in post-biblical Hebrew signifies either suppeditare or (like saphak in 1Ki 20:10) sufficere . Jerome renders it pueris alienis adhaeserunt ; but yalde nac’rim does not mean pueri alieni , boys hired for licentious purposes, but the “sons of strangers” generally (Isa 60:10; Isa 61:5), with a strong emphasis upon their unsanctified birth, the heathenism inherited from their mother’s womb. With heathen by birth, the prophet would say, the people of Jehovah made common cause.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

A Charge against the Israelites.

B. C. 758.

      6 Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.   7 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:   8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:   9 And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.

      The calling in of the Gentiles was accompanied with the rejection of the Jews; it was their fall, and the diminishing of them, that was the riches of the Gentiles; and the casting off of them was the reconciling of the world (Rom. xi. 12-15); and it should seem that these verses have reference to that, and are designed to justify God therein, and yet it is probable that they are primarily intended for the convincing and awakening of the men of that generation in which the prophet lived, it being usual with the prophets to speak of the things that then were, both in mercy and judgment, as types of the things that should be hereafter. Here is,

      I. Israel’s doom. This is set forth in two words, the first and the last of this paragraph; but they are two dreadful words, and which speak, 1. Their case sad, very sad (v. 6): Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people. Miserable is the condition of that people whom God has forsaken, and great certainly must the provocation be if he forsake those that have been his own people. This was the deplorable case of the Jewish church after they had rejected Christ. Migremus hinc–Let us go hence. Your house is left unto you desolate, Matt. xxiii. 38. Whenever any sore calamity came upon the Jews thus far the Lord might be said to forsake them that he withdrew his help and succour from them, else they would not have fallen into the hands of their enemies. But God never leaves any till they first leave him. 2. Their case desperate, wholly desperate (v. 9): Therefore forgive them not. This prophetical prayer amounts to a threatening that they should not be forgiven, and some think it may be read: And thou wilt not forgive them. This refers not to particular persons (many of them repented and were pardoned), but to the body of that nation, against whom an irreversible doom was passed, that they should be wholly cut off and their church quite dismantled, never to be formed into such a body again, nor ever to have their old charter restored to them.

      II. Israel’s desert of this doom, and the reasons upon which it is grounded. In general, it is sin that brings destruction upon them; it is this, and nothing but this, that provokes God to forsake his people. The particular sins which the prophet specifies are such as abounded among them at that time, which he makes mention of for the conviction of those to whom he then preached, rather than that which afterwards proved the measure-filling sin, their crucifying Christ and persecuting his followers; for the sins of every age contributed towards the making up of the dreadful account at last. And there was a partial and temporary rejection of them by the captivity in Babylon hastening on, which was a type of their final destruction by the Romans, and which the sins here mentioned brought upon them. Their sins were such as directly contradicted all God’s kind and gracious designs concerning them.

      1. God set them apart for himself, as a peculiar people, distinguished from, and dignified above, all other people (Num. xxiii. 9); but they were replenished from the east; they naturalized foreigners, not proselyted, and encouraged them to settle among them, and mingled with them, Hos. vii. 8. Their country was peopled with Syrians and Chaldeans, Moabites and Ammonites, and other eastern nations, and with them they admitted the fashions and customs of those nations, and pleased themselves in the children of strangers, were fond of them, preferred their country before their own, and thought the more they conformed to them the more polite and refined they were; thus did they profane their crown and their covenant. Note, Those are in danger of being estranged from God who please themselves with those who are strangers to him, for we soon learn the ways of those whose company we love.

      2. God gave them his oracles, which they might ask counsel of, not only the scriptures and the seers, but the breast-plate of judgment; but they slighted these, and became soothsayers like the Philistines, introduced their arts of divination, and hearkened to those who by the stars, or the clouds, or the flight of birds, or the entrails of beasts, or other magic superstitions, pretended to discover things secret or foretel things to come. The Philistines were noted for diviners, 1 Sam. vi. 2. Note, Those who slight true divinity are justly given up to lying divinations; and those will certainly be forsaken of God who thus forsake him and their own mercies for lying vanities.

      3. God encouraged them to put their confidence in him, and assured them that he would be their wealth and strength; but, distrusting his power and promise, they made gold their hope, and furnished themselves with horses and chariots, and relied upon them for their safety, v. 7. God had expressly forbidden even their kings to multiply horses to themselves and greatly to multiply silver and gold, because he would have them to depend upon himself only; but they did not think their interest in God made them a match for their neighbours unless they had as full treasures of silver and gold, and as formidable hosts of chariots and horses, as they had. It is not having silver and gold, horses and chariots, that is a provocation to God, but, (1.) Desiring them insatiably, so that there is no end of the treasures, no end of the chariots, no bounds or limits set to the desire of them. Those shall never have enough in God (who alone is all-sufficient) that never know when they have enough of this world, which at the best is insufficient. (2.) Depending upon them, as if we could not be safe, and easy, and happy, without them, and could not but be so with them.

      4. God himself was their God, the sole object of their worship, and he himself instituted ordinances of worship for them; but they slighted both him and his institutions, v. 8. Their land was full of idols; every city had its god (Jer. xi. 13); and, according to the goodness of their lands, they made goodly images, Hos. x. 1. Those that think one God too little will find two too many, and yet hundreds were not sufficient; for those that love idols will multiply them; so sottish were they, and so wretchedly infatuated, that they worshipped the work of their own hands, as if that could be a god to them which was not only a creature, but their creature and that which their own fancies had devised and their own fingers had made. It was an aggravation of their idolatry that God had enriched them with silver and gold, and yet of that silver and gold they made idols; so it was, Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked, see Hos. ii. 8.

      5. God had advanced them, and put honour upon them; but they basely diminished and disparaged themselves (v. 9): The mean man boweth down to his idol, a thing below the meanest that has any spark of reason left. Sin is a disparagement to the poorest and those of the lowest rank. It becomes the mean man to bow down to his superiors, but it ill becomes him to bow down to the stock of a tree, ch. xliv. 19. Nor is it only the illiterate and poor-spirited that do this, but even the great men forgets his grandeur and humbles himself to worship idols, deifies men no better than himself, and consecrates stones so much baser than himself. Idolaters are said to debase themselves even to hell, ch. lvii. 9. What a shame it is that great men think the service of the true God below them and will not stoop to it, and yet will humble themselves to bow down to an idol! Some make this a threatening that the mean men shall be brought down, and the great men humbled, by the judgments of God, when they come with commission.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Verse 6-11: THE RESULT OF FAILURE TO WALK IN THE LIGHT

1. Here are four basic reasons the Lord has rejected this people.

a. Their slavish dependence upon the heathen practices of Assyria and Babylon, and upon the soothsayers of the Philistines, (Verse 6a).

b. Their joining hands and associating in the activities of foreigners, when they were supposed to be a separated people, (Verse 6b).

c. Their trust in material assets (gold, silver, horses and chariots) rather than leaning on the true and living God, (Verse 7).

d. Their worship of idols which their own hands have made, (Verse 8-9).

1) It has been the boast of the Jews, since- the destruction of Jerusalem, that they have been free from idolatry; but, they do not see as God does – Who looks upon their hearts.

2) Isaiah chapter 2 indicates that they will be shamefully ensnared by their idols, at the very time of our Lord’s coming in judgment, (Verse 20; comp. Psa 97:7; Psa 96:5; Hab 2:18; Zec 10:2; Joh 5:43; Rev 9:20).

2. Not only have they lowered themselves in the eyes of the heathen (who once feared them because of God’s presence among them, (Exo 15:11-18); they have also dishonored the name of their covenant-God!

3. Therefore, instead of forgiveness, they may expect judgment! (Verse 10-11).

a. Try as they may to escape the judgment, due their sin, there will be no possible way, (Num 32:23).

b. In the penetrating brilliance of divine holiness and power, nothing will escape the scrutiny of the judge of the whole earth, (Heb 4:12-13; Psa 139:1-12).

c. The pride of man will ultimately be humbled, (Pro 11:2; Pro 16:18; 1Jn 2:16-17); the Lord alone will be exalted in the day of His power.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

6. Surely thou hast forsaken thy people In these words he now plainly charges the people with having a perverse disposition; and he does this not in direct terms, but, as it were, bursting into astonishment, he suddenly breaks off his discourse, and, turning to God, exclaims, “Why should I waste words on a nation grown desperate, which thou, O Lord, hast justly rejected, because, giving itself up to idolatrous practices, it has treacherously departed from thy word?”

It may also be a prediction of punishment still future which he foresaw by the Spirit; as if he had said, That it was not wonderful if ruin and desolation were about to overtake Mount Zion on account of the great crimes of the nation. His design may have been, that so mournful a spectacle might not be the occasion of despair, and that those who were capable of being cured might be moved by repentance, and turn to God ere this calamity arrived. For while the prophets are heralds of God’s judgments, and threaten vengeance against the ungodly, they usually endeavor, at the same time, to bring as many as they can to some kind of repentance. The servants of God ought never to lay aside this disposition, which would lead them to endeavor to do good even to the reprobate, if that were possible. (2Ti 2:25.)

This passage ought to yield abundant consolation to godly teachers; for when we think that we are speaking to the deaf, we become faint, and are tempted to give up all exertion, and to say, “What am I about? I am beating the air.” Yet the Prophet does not cease to exhort those in whom he perceived no ground of comfortable hope; and while he stands like one astonished at this destruction of the people, he nevertheless addresses those whom he sees going to ruin. At the same time we must observe that, however obstinate the ungodly may be, we must pronounce vengeance against them; and though they refuse and gnaw the bridle, yet, that they may be left without excuse, we must always summon them to the judgment-seat of God.

I consider the כי ( ki) to mean surely; (39) for this signification is more suitable, because he breaks off the exhortation which he had begun, and addresses God. And when he again calls them the house of Jacob, this is added for the purpose of imparting greater vehemence, as is usually done in a moving discourse; as if he had said, “This holy nation, which God had chosen, is now forsaken.”

Because they are replenished from the East As the Hebrew word קדם ( kadem) sometimes denotes the east, and sometimes antiquity, it may be interpreted to mean that they were filled with ancient manners; because they had again brought into use those superstitions by which the land of Canaan was formerly infected. For we know that the prophets often reproach the nation of Israel with resembling the Canaanites more than they resembled Abraham and the rest of the holy fathers. And, indeed, because they had been brought into the possession of this land, when the ancient inhabitants had been driven out, in order that it might be cleansed from its pollution, and afterwards devoted to holiness, the refusal to change their wicked customs involved a twofold ingratitude. But as the other meaning — from the East — has been more generally adopted, I have chosen to retain it; though even in this view the commentators differ, for some consider the letter מ ( mem) to denote comparison, and מקדם ( mikkedem) to denote more than the inhabitants of thee East, while others adopt the simpler, and, as I think, the more correct view, that they were filled with the east, that is, with the vices which they had contracted from that quarter; for wicked imitation is amazingly contagious, and nothing is more natural than that corruptions should glide from one place into another more distant.

And with divinations, like the Philistines This clause explains the former more fully; for under divinations he includes, by synecdoche, the impostures of Satan to which heathen nations were addicted. The Prophet therefore means that they now differ in no respect from the Philistines, though God had separated them from that people by the privilege of his adoption; and this was sufficient to bring upon them the severest condemnation, that they had forgotten their calling, and polluted themselves with the corrupted and ungodly customs of the Gentiles. Hence it appears that to sin by the example of another contributes nothing to alleviate the guilt.

And have delighted in the children of strangers The last part of the verse is interpreted in various ways; because the phrase, the children of strangers, is viewed by some metaphorically, as denoting laws and customs; while others regard them as referring to marriages; because, by marrying indiscriminately women of foreign extraction, they had mingled their seed, so that there were many illegitimate children. Jerome gives a harsher exposition, that they polluted themselves by wicked lusts contrary to nature. For my own part, I have no doubt that by the children of strangers are meant foreign nations, and not figuratively the laws themselves. The crime charged against them by the Prophet therefore is, that, by endeavoring to please the Gentiles, they entangled themselves in their vices, and thus preferred not only mortal men, but wicked men, to God. He says that they delighted, because the desire or delight of wicked imitation effaced from their hearts the love of God and of sound doctrine.

(39) In the English Version it is rendered therefore. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

GODS PEOPLE FORSAKEN

Heb. 13:5. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Isa. 2:6. Thou hast forsaken Thy people the house of Jacob.

How comforting is the Apostles assurance! But do not the hope and courage which it inspires die out of us, when we hear this ancient prophet rise and testify, Thou hast forsaken Thy people? No! because before there is any light concerning this question in our understanding, our faith tells us there must be a way of harmonising these seemingly conflicting declarations. God must necessarily be faithful to His promise. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Were God to forsake any of His believing, expecting people, He would do more than forsake themHe would forsake Himself! He would put off His crown and lay aside His sceptre, and become one of ourselves. Then the whole universe would have cause to mourn in sackcloth and ashes; there would no longer be any GOD to whom we could make supplication in our sorrows.

I. The first of these inspired declarations make it plain that God has a people whom He will never forsake. In every distress and tribulation He will be with them. Though all other friends may fail them, God will continue faithful to them. When the most devoted of human friends could not be of any avail, God will be their succourwhen bereavement has broken their heart; when persecution or temptations are threatening to sweep them away; in the hour of death.

II. The second of these inspired declarations makes it plain that those who have been accounted the people of God may be forsaken by Him. This is a declaration that would smite us with dismay, and plunge us into saddest confusion, were we to put a full stop where the prophet has put a comma. Why had God forsaken His people, the house of Jacob? Because they had first forsaken Him: they had first voluntarily ceased to be His people. The truth in this matter may perhaps be best apprehended by means of a Scriptural symbol. God compares the union that exists between Him and His people to that which exists between a man and his wife. Will a good husband ever forsake his faithful wife? The bloom and beauty of her youth may have gone; a wasting sickness may have rendered her positively unlovely, but will he forsake her? Never! Her misfortunes will only cause him to cherish her with a tenderer love. But if she be unfaithful to him, what then? Why, then, the whole case may be altered. If he be a merciful as well as a just man, he may seek to reclaim her; but if she be joined to her lovers, and persistently heedless of all his claims and her duties, the time will come when he will leave her to her fate. To him she will be as if she were dead. So God is wondrous in His forbearance towards His backsliding people; but if they persist in their apostacy, He will leave them to the gods whom they have chosen (Jdg. 10:13-14; Jer. 2:28). We see now that between these apostolic and prophetic utterances there is the most perfect harmony. Our discussion of this subject should teach us

1. Not to found conclusions upon fragments of Gods sayings or doings. His words and His works are mutually explanatory; but we must not cut the explanations short! If we put periods where God has only put commas, we shall be plunged into frightful perplexities; with the words of Scripture on our lips, we shall have most damnable heresies in our hearts. Our study of Gods word must be comprehensive. So also must our study of Gods providence. Let us not be in a hurry to come to conclusions. Wait, and we shall have more light, because we shall not be looking at parts, but at wholes. Our life is being written in clauses, and not till the last is completed shall we be able to interpret the first aright [520]

2. Not to build too much upon past submissions to the Divine will and past enjoyments of the Divine favour Once in grace always in grace is an ignis fatuus which has lighted many a soul down to hell. If after being fenced around as a garden of the Lord, and tilled by the great Husbandman, and watered by dews and rains from heaven, we relapse into mere desert ground, we may be sure we are nigh unto cursing (Heb. 6:4-8).

3. That those who are humbly and loyally faithful to their Heavenly Friend cannot be too confident of His faithfulness to them. Assuredly He will never forsake them (Isa. 43:2). And His presence is all they need. Having Him they have all things (Psa. 84:11-12).

[520] The Lord has reasons far beyond our ken for opening a wide door, while he stops the mouth of a useful preacher. John Bunyan would not have done half the good he did, if he had remained preaching in Bedford, instead of being shut up in Bedford prison.Newton, 17251807.

However contradictory the designs of Providence at first appear to be, if we set ourselves to watch God in His works and ways, with care, we shall soon discover that He acts according to some certain scheme or plan.
Were a person altogether unacquainted with architecture to visit some splendid temple in the process of erection, and observe the huge rough stones, and boards and timbers, iron castings, bricks, lime, mortar, lying scattered in confusion all around; were he to see one group of workmen cutting up material here, another digging trenches there; one party raising a staging on this side, another nailing on some boards on that: were he to observe the blocks, the fragments, dust, and rubbish, tools and instruments, all lying in disorder round about him, he might truly say that he could see no plan or system in the business; nor would he be likely to conceive or dream that out of such a chaotic mass of raw material, out of such contradictory labour, there could ever rise a magnificent temple, to reflect undying honour on the architect, and beautify the world!
But let the observer stop, and set himself to watch from day to day the busy work as it goes on; let him patiently examine, not only the minutest details, but also try to obtain a view of the general scope and bearing of the whole, and he will not be long in finding out that some superior mind controls and regulates the movements in accordance with some preconceived plan or system, which is constantly developing itself; and that every stroke of every workman is conducive to the same ultimate effect.
And when he comes to see the beau ideal of the builder realised in the fair proportions, in the classic beauty of the noble structure, he then perceives how inconsiderate, how unfair it was in him to decide upon a work in its incipient state, without some knowledge of the plan and the design of it.
God is building up the Christian in accordance with a perfect plan into a majestic temple for the decoration of the eternal city. And though His dealings sometimes seem to be mysterious; though He seems to cut down here and to raise up there, to let the light into this part and to leave it dark in that; though it is hard to tell at times what such material is designed for, what this or that work means, or to conceive how the structure when completed will appear; it is nevertheless quite certain that God acts according to a fixed and unalterable plan; that every stroke we bear, or loss we mourn, is made subservient to the end; and although it is given us here to see only in part, whoever will take the pains to watch with care the course of Providence, will be convinced that it does not move along by chance, but that everything is done by a prospective plan.E. Nason.

FORSAKEN OF GOD

Isa. 2:6. Therefore Thou host forsaken Thy people, &c.

The doctrine of this verse is, that when men forsake God, God forsakes them. There is nothing arbitrary in such divine withdrawals [523] they have always a moral cause; and no man has any right to complain of them (Hos. 13:7). Consider

[523] In common conversation, we frequently speak of solar eclipses. But what is called an eclipse of the sun is, in fact, an eclipse of the earth, occasioned by the moons transit between the sun and us. This circumstance makes no alteration in the sun itself, but only intercepts our view of it for a time. From whence does darkness of soul, even darkness that may be felt, usually originate? Never from any changeableness in our covenant God, the glory of whose unvarying faithfulness and love shines the same, and can suffer no eclipse. It is when the world gets between our Lord and us, that the light of His countenance is obstructed, and our rejoicing in Him suffers a temporary eclipse.Salter.

I. When men forsake God. Men forsake God

(1) when they set their affection on forbidden things;
(2) when they cease to seek Him in prayer and the other means of grace;
(3) when they give themselves up to the practice of sin.

II. When men are forsaken of God. This doom befalls them

(1) when they are left without that aid of the Holy Spirit, without which they cannot vividly apprehend the truth;
(2) when they are left without the comfort of Gods mercy;
(3) when they are left without earnest desires after God, and consequently a prey to all the evil within and around them.

III. Men may be forsaken of God in the midst of temporal prosperity. There may be a terrible contrast between their spiritual and material condition (Isa. 2:6-7). Temporal prosperity is from God; it is designed to lead men to repentance (Rom. 2:4); failing to accomplish this, it drives them further from God (Deu. 8:11-14); Pro. 30:9; Neh. 9:25); and when it has this effect upon them, the doom of which our text speaks to us is not far off (Deu. 28:48) [526]

[526] When the king removes, the court and all the carriages follow after, and when they are gone, the hangings are taken down; nothing is left behind but bare walls, dust, and rubbish. So, if God removes from a man or a nation, where He kept His court, His graces will not stay behind; and if they be gone, farewell peace, farewell comfort: down goes the hangings of all prosperity; nothing is left behind but confusion and disorder.Staughton, 1628.

IV. No man need remain thus forsaken of God.

1. God desires to bring all men into fellowship with Himself (Isa. 2:3-4).

2. All are invited to come to Him (Isa. 2:5).

3. The light of Gods countenance is offered them, especially in Christ, who is the light of the world.John Johnston.

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

THE MATERIAL AND THE MORAL

Isa. 2:6-9. They be replenished from the east, &c.

We have here the indictment which the prophet brings against Israel. It consists of three counts:

1. That the people had adopted the superstitions of the surrounding nations.

2. That the government had accumulated treasure and organised a cavalry force, in direct disobedience to well-known Divine injunctions (Deu. 17:16-17).

3. That rich and poor alike had abandoned themselves to idolatry. But these verses may be taken also as Isaiahs description of Juda in his day; and so regarding them, we find in them an instructive combination of the material and the moral. According to modern ideas, so far as the description concerns the material, it is exceedingly bright. An observer who regarded only the materialsuch a man as we can conceive of as being sent out as a Special Commissioner by the Daily Telegraph or the New York Heraldwould have given a glowing account of Juda at that period: an overflowing exchequer, a powerful army, evidences of wealth and prosperity on every hand, &c. But the prophet, looking only at what is moral, gives an account that is lurid and dark in the extreme: he sees only cause for lamentation and foreboding, So we reach the first of the lessons on which I intend to insist to-day, viz.,

I. That the most diverse reports may be made truly concerning the same community. St. Paul visited Athens, and we have a touching account of the effect of that city upon him (Act. 17:16); to him it presented a pitiable spectacle; but what a different effect would have been produced upon a mere man of culture, and what a different account he would have given of that metropolis of art! What very different accounts might be given of our own country from these two standpoints, the material and the moral!

II. When two reports of a community are givenone materially bright and the other morally darkit is the latter only that a wise man will regard as important. For

1. It is on the moral condition of a nation, and not on its material prosperity, that its happiness depends. Increase of wealth does not necessarily mean increase of happiness. Frequently it means destruction of happiness; it always does so, when wealth increases faster than intellectual culture and moral restraint. In the absence of this moral restraint wealth is not a blessing, but a curse.

2. The material disassociated from the moral is transient. Vicious prosperity is short-lived. By the luxury born of prosperity the virtues of industry, foresight, and self-denial, on which prosperity depends, are sapped. The health of the nation is lowered. Commerce becomes a gigantic system of gambling. Ruin is soon reached. Hence,

III. Our chief concern as patriots should be to promote the moral well-being of our nation. Those who uplift it in virtue are its true benefactors. All who minister to its material, intellectual, and artistic progress are worthy of gratitude; but most deserving of gratitude are those who inspire it with the fear of God, and with love for His laws. Hence,

IV. Our chief concern as individuals should be for the moral and not for the material. It is a very small matter to add house to house, and field to field: it is a very great thing to add virtue to virtue until we have succeeded in building up a symmetrical and noble moral character. A mans lifehis true well-being depends not upon what he has, but upon what he is [529] And upon this, too, depends his eternal destiny. How childish, therefore, is the almost universal concern for mere material improvement! And how little have those to complain of who find themselves unable to accumulate wealth! The millionaire has soon to leave all his stores, and he speedily reaches a point at which all his bonds and notes become wastepaper. What a contrast between his experience, and that of the man who, having employed his life in a humble and diligent cultivation of virtue, finds that all unconsciously he has been laying all up for himself treasures in heaven! These two courses are open to usto live for the material, or to live for the moral: which will you choose?

[529] A wise man looks upon men as he does upon horses; and considers their comparisons of title, wealth, and place, but as harness.Newton, 17251807.

In the library of the world, men have hitherto been ranged according to the form, the size, and the binding. The time is coming when they will take rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits.E. Cook.

A man may be outwardly successful all his life long, and die hollow and worthless as a puff-ball; and a man may be externally defeated all his life long, and die in the royalty of a kingdom established within him. That man is a pauper who has only outward success; and that man may be a prince who dies in rags, untended, and unknown in his physical relations to this world. And we ought to take the ideal in the beginning that a mans true estate of power and riches is to be in himself: not in his dwelling; not in his position; not in his external relations, but in his own essential character. That is the realm in which a man must live, if he is to live as a Christian man.Beecher.

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

A TERRIBLE PICTURE

Isa. 2:6-22

Here is the word (vision) which Isaiah saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem (Isa. 2:1). The prophet has been enraptured by the wondrous prospect of the distant future, when religion shall be the supreme force of life (Isa. 2:2), and all men (Isa. 2:2-3), walking in the light of the Lord, shall be at peace with each other (Isa. 2:4): now he looks down to the present, and how dark and terrible is the picture which he sees before him! He sees

I. A nation forsaken of God (Isa. 2:6). One of the most awful of all spectacles: an engine of tremendous power, without a driver, rushing down a steep incline!

II. A nation pursuing childish superstitions (Isa. 2:6): They be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines. When a nation forsakes God, this is a common result (Rom. 1:21-22). Witness the rapid spread in our own day of spiritualism among the sceptical and irreligious classes of England and America.

III. A nation seeking strength and safety in alliances with the enemies of God, allying itself with the very powers which Omnipotent Righteousness was pledged to crush! Instead of dwelling apart, as God intended (Num. 23:9; Deu. 33:28, &c.), and in dependence upon His protection, the Israelites sought to strengthen themselves by alliances with surrounding nations. They please themselves with the children of strangers. The same sin is repeated in these days, when Gods people mix with worldly society for the sake of its advantages.

IV. A nation blinded by external prosperity to its real condition and peril (Isa. 2:7). Abounding with every evidence of prosperity, how could they suspect that they were forsaken of God, and that a terrible doom was hanging over them? What is our condition, and what are our prospects as a nation? Let us not lay too much stress upon our great national wealth?

V. A nation given over to a debasing idolatry (Isa. 2:8; Rom. 1:23). A moral degradation extending to all classes (Isa. 2:9). Just what we behold in Roman Catholic and Ritualistic churches, where rich and poor alike prostrate themselves before the wheaten wafer which their priest has transformed into a god! The prophet himself now becomes part of the picture, and we have

VI. The awful spectacle of a good man invoking the vengeance of Heaven upon the nation to which he belongs (Isa. 2:10): Therefore forgive them not. This was the natural cry of the prophets soul, filled with horror and indignation at what he saw. The imprecations of Scripture are the natural (and fitting) utterance of righteousness in view of wickedness. It is only because the tone of our own spiritual life is so low that we are offended at them. From whom, among ourselves, does the cry for the uplifting of the strong arm of human law against the perpetrators of crimes of violence come? Not from the classes most likely to suffer from them, but from the refined and gentle, who, just because of their refinement and gentleness, are inspired by them with disgust and anger. So it is those who are most in sympathy with God who are most likely to burn with holy indignation against such things as the prophet saw. The men who offer such prayers as this, Forgive them not, would be the first to reverse it did the offenders give any sign of repentance.

VII. A crushing doom impending over an unsuspecting nation. No sooner has the prophet uttered his prayer, than he sees it was needless, and that the thunderclouds of the Divine anger were already thickly massed over the guilty nation; without any visible sign there was gathering over them a storm that would suddenly break forth with destructive force. Therefore he breaks out into a strain of impassioned warning and appeal to the very men for whose punishment he had prayed (Isa. 2:10, &c.)

What lessons shall we learn from our survey of this dark picture?

1. Not to judge of the relations of nations, individuals, or ourselves to God by the test of temporal circumstances. It is an old but gross fallacy that temporal prosperity is a sure sign of the Divine favour (Ecc. 9:1-3; Job. 21:7-15, &c.) [517] Let us not ask what our circumstances are, but what our character is, and what our conduct has been. If we are unrighteous, temporal prosperity should alarm us, as a sign that God has forsaken us (Heb. 12:8).

2. Not to be hasty to impute the temporal prosperity of the wicked to a slumbering of the Divine justice. We need scarcely trouble ourselves to pray for a doom upon the ungodly (Exo. 34:7; 2Pe. 2:3; Job. 21:17-18; Psa. 73:18-19; Isa. 3:11).

3. Let us remember that we ourselves, as sinners, are exposed to the Divine judgments, and let us enter into the Rockthe Rock of Ages, that, sheltered in Him, we may be safe when the storms of the final judgment shall burst upon our guilty world.

[517] When the Lord hath set thee up as high as Haman in the court of Ahasuerus, or promoted thee to ride with Joseph in the second chariot of Egypt; were thy stock of cattle exceeding Jobs, seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen; did thy wardrobe put down Solomons, and thy cupboard of plate Belshazzars when the vessels of Gods temple were the ornature,yet all these are but the gifts of Wisdoms left hand, and the possessors may be under the malediction of God, and go down to damnation.Adams, 1654.

The eagles and lions seek their meat of God. But though all the sons of Jacob have good cheer from Joseph, yet Benjamins mess exceeds. Esau shall have the prosperity of the earth, but Jacob goes away with the blessing. Ishmael may have outward favours, but the inheritance belongs to Isaac.Adams, 1654.

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

(6) Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people . . .Better, For Thou hast . . . This was the sad, dark present, in contrast with the bright future. Jehovah went not forth with the armies of Judah (Psa. 68:7); and the Syrians, Edomites, and Philistines, possibly the Assyrians also (2Ki. 16:9; 2Ch. 28:17-20), were laying the lands waste.

Because they be replenished from the east.The disasters of the time are viewed as chastisements for sin, and the sin consisted in casting off their national allegiance to Jehovah. The east, from which they were replenished, with which they filled their thoughts and life, was Syria and Mesopotamia, to whose influence they had yielded, and whose cultus Ahaz had adopted (2Ki. 16:10-12).

And are soothsayers like the Philistines.Literally, cloud-diviners. The word points to the claim of being storm-raisers, which has been in all ages one of the boasts of sorcerers. The conquests of Uzziah (2Ch. 26:6) had brought Judah into contact with the Philistines, and the oracles at Ekron and elsewhere (2Ki. 1:2) attracted the people of Judah. There was, as it were, a mania for divination, and the diviners of Philistia (1Sa. 6:2) found imitators among the people of Jehovah.

They please themselves in the children of strangers.Literally, they strike hands with, as meaning, (1) they enter into contracts with, or (2) they make common cause with. The commerce of the people with foreign nations, which had expanded under Uzziah (2Ki. 14:22), was, from the prophets point of view, the cause of much evil. It was probably conducted, as at an earlier date, chiefly by Phoenician sailors and merchants (1Ki. 9:27), and thus opened the way to their impurity of worship and of life (Jon. 1:5). The sense of being a peculiar and separate people wore away. The pictures of the strange woman and the foreign money-lender of Pro. 5:3; Pro. 6:1, present two aspects of this evil.

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

A PRAYERFUL SIGH, Isa 2:6-9.

6. Therefore , not “therefore,” but for, or because, as if a sad ellipsis precedes, like this: “Well may I earnestly exhort this people.”

Thou hast forsaken the house of Jacob This God had before often done, yet with hope, as perhaps he now had hope, of their reform. Rom 2:5. “The house of Jacob” is the family or nation of Israel. In later days, after the first deportations to Assyria of the Israelites, the names Israel and Judah, as now the names Israel and Jacob, were used interchangeably.

Replenished Or, abound in.

From the east From Syria, and Chaldea, and Persia, and Arabia. To speak generally, any or all these regions may explain the phrase “from the east.” , mikkedem, may be rendered “from the east,” or, “more than the east,” or, “from of old time.” A marginal reading has the second, and the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and other Versions, have the last. This meaning is plausible. Then the thought is, They abound, as in old time, in soothsayers; or, have become themselves “soothsayers,” like those in old time.

Like the Philistines Foreigners in the southwestern part of Palestine, who, by contiguity and association, corrupted the people of Israel.

And they please themselves They clap their hands in joy of such association; or, they join or strike hands (Gesenius and Delitzsch) with these corrupting neighbours, and form compacts with them.

The question is of much interest how idolatry, under kings so hostile to it as were Uzziah and Jotham, should have had such hold on the people. Doubtless the evil was not legally tolerated, but it pandered to natural passions; and unregenerate individuals, among whom were many men in court circles, were involved in it. Prophets zealously inveighed against the evil, as do preachers of this day against intemperance and licentiousness, because both are certain death to all true religion and political morality.

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

His Recognition Before Yahweh Of Israel’s Position ( Isa 2:6-9 ).

However, Isaiah is really in no doubt about their true position. There are no scales before his eyes. He now turns to God and outlines the position of the people, for he knows that he is seeking to call them out from the dreadful darkness in which they live, which has resulted in their being forsaken by God, into His marvellous light, and that unless God acts there is little hope for them.

Isa 2:6-9

‘For you have forsaken your people,

The house of Jacob,

Because they are filled from the east,

And are soothsayers like the Philistines,

And they clap (strike) hands with the children of strangers.

Their land also is full of silver and gold,

Nor is there any end of their treasures.

Their land also is full of horses,

Nor is there any end of their chariots.

Their land also is full of idols.

They worship the work, each of his own hands,

That which his own fingers have made.

And the mean man is bowed down,

And the great man is humbled.

Therefore forgive them not (or ‘therefore there is no way that they can be forgiven’).’

He has to recognise and acknowledge that in fact God’s people are far from the light. God has forsaken them even though they are of the house of Jacob with all that that could have meant for the world. Six reasons are given for their forsakenness, divided into two sets of three.

The first set of three relates to unfaithfulness to Yahweh. They are filled or satiated from the east, they are soothsayers like the Philistines, they strike hands with the children of strangers.

‘Filled (satiated) from the east.’ Contact with the east has introduced new gods, and new ideas connected with them, and these are now taking up all their time and worship, and leading them morally downwards. It is ironic that while the aim was that the nations would flow to Yahweh (Isa 2:2), in the meantime Yahweh’s supposed own people were being ‘filled from the east’. They were, as it were, flowing away from Yahweh.

‘Soothsayers like the Philistines.’ The Philistines were always seen as somehow not quite the thing. Israel had always looked down on them as ‘the uncircumcised Philistines’. And yet they are now making themselves parallel with them in seeking similar methods of divination to them, and prying into the future by false, occult methods, thus aping their ways and their religious degradation, something always forbidden by Yahweh (Isa 8:19; Lev 19:31; Lev 20:6; Lev 20:27; Deu 18:11; 2Ki 21:6).

‘Clap hands with the children of strangers.’ They partake with aliens to the covenant in alien ‘joyous ceremonies’, often celebrated in drunken abandon and sexual perversity, which can only lead them into sin and idolatry and further away from Yahweh. Alternately the idea may be of striking the hand in bargains, suggesting idolatrous treaties and agreements.

The world changes little. The Western world still looks to the East because it wants religious titillation without the necessity of yielding to God’s demands, it still looks to divination and the occult because it is spiritually bankrupt, it still indulges in sexually stimulating activities for the wrong reason. Here we have God’s stern warning that His people should avoid the occult. It leads into darkness.

The second three references relate more to their ambitions in life. The building up of wealth, the building up of military strength, and the multiplying of man-made idols. A man is after all known by his ambitions. They were also the three things that they trusted in. They thought that it was their wealth which would cushion them from adversity, their armaments which would be their protection against the enemy, and their idols which would ensure their food supply. Thus they no longer felt that they needed Yahweh.

‘Their land is full of silver and gold, nor is there any end of their treasures.’ It was clearly a prosperous time. It is the paradox of life, and the indication of man’s sinfulness, that when he has most cause to be grateful he is most unwilling to give God praise. He sees God as only there for his time of need. Mammon, the deceitfulness of riches (Mar 4:19), had gripped their lives and they had no time for Him.

‘Their land also is full of horses, nor is there any end of their chariots.’ What irony is here. They trusted in their own strength. They were proud of their full arsenals, their mighty weapons. They no longer needed Yahweh of hosts. These words were no doubt spoken well before the Assyrian invasion.

But those who have full arsenals tend to use them and to feel powerful through having them. They no doubt helped to contribute to injustice as they made the princes feel strong and invulnerable. And yet it was because these finally failed them, and they could not defend themselves from their enemies among their neighbours, that they finally sealed their own fate by calling in the Assyrian aliens, whose power they never even comprehended in their wildest dreams, and who would finally tread them down (2Ki 16:7). They called in what they hoped would be a helping hand, and it turned out to be a jackboot. Unwise associations can destroy the soul.

‘Their land also is full of idols. They worship the work, each of his own hands, which his own fingers have made.’ They had not dispensed with religion, just inconvenient religion. Indeed they were more religious than ever. The land was full of their gods. And they had made them themselves! Isaiah is being deliberately sarcastic. They worshipped the work of their own hands, each producing his own ‘god’ (compare Isa 46:1-2 for similar sarcasm). But proliferation of idols signalled a deterioration in morality. The two went together. The word for idols is ‘elilim’, meaning also ‘nonentities’, a parody of ‘elohim’ (‘God’) and regularly used by Isaiah.

Idolatry is a means of making the idea of God manageable. A means of making Him earthly. A means by which He can be manipulated by priests. By representing Him in some earthly shape such as a perfection of manhood, or a brute beast, or a serpent, or a statue, He becomes more like ourselves and thus less demanding, less morally different (compare Rom 1:18-23). And we can then walk away and leave Him behind in His Temple. But in Israel it was made clear that God was not open to manipulation, was not restricted to His Temple, was not in any form known to earth, did not think like an earthly creature and did not act like one. He was the invisible God. His throne was among them but He travelled the heavens and did His will wherever He would. And His demands were totally unconnected with earth, they dealt with the heart and morality of man.

‘And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled. Therefore forgive them not.’ Literally ‘adam (man from the generality of men) is bowed down and ’ish (the important man) is humbled.’ Both prostrate themselves before the work of their own hands. All are involved from the lowest to the highest. Almost the whole nation grovelling before nonentities. They have basically lost their true humanity.

‘Therefore forgive them not.’ This gives an appearance of being harsh, but the Hebrew negative imperative sometimes indicates certainty that something will not happen rather than a strict plea or command (compare Psa 34:5 b; Isa 41:2 b. See Isa 6:10; Isa 7:4; Isa 8:9 for the imperative used to indicate certainty of outcome). Therefore here we should translate ‘there is no way that they can be forgiven’ rather than seeing it as being a plea that they should not be forgiven. Their behaviour has been so appalling that judgment is inevitable (compare on the whole passage Mic 5:10-15).

The effects of the desire for power and wealth, and the making of idols of what they admire, are the constant cause of the downfall of men’s spirituality. We need to be constantly on the watch lest it happen to us. No man, however spiritual, is immune.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Awful Situation of His People Before Yahweh And Its Future Consequences ( Isa 2:6-22 ).

In contrast with the glorious vision that we have just seen, of Yahweh’s triumph and people flocking to God, is the contrasting scene that follows. It is a scene of unrelieved gloom although still pointing to Yahweh’s triumph.

Analysis of Isa 2:6-22:

a For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they clap (strike) hands with the children of strangers (Isa 2:6).

b Their land also is full of silver and gold, nor is there any end of their treasures. Their land also is full of horses, nor is there any end of their chariots. They worship the work, each of his own hands, that which his own fingers have made. And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled. Therefore there is no way that they can be forgiven (Isa 2:8-9).

c Enter into the rock, and hide yourself in the dust, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glorious splendour of his majesty. The lofty looks of man will be brought low, and the haughtiness of men will be bowed down, and Yahweh alone will be exalted in that day (Isa 2:10-11).

d For there will be a day of Yahweh of hosts, against all that is proud and haughty, and against all that is lifted up, and it will be brought low (Isa 2:12).

e And against all the cedars of Lebanon, which are high and lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan (Isa 2:13).

f And against all the high mountains, and against all the hills that are lifted up (Isa 2:14).

f And against every lofty tower, and against every fenced wall (Isa 2:15).

e And against all the ships of Tarshish, and against every object gazed upon (Isa 2:16).

d And the loftiness of man will be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men will be brought low, and Yahweh alone will be exalted in that day (Isa 2:17).

c And the idols will utterly pass away, and men will go into the caves of the rocks, and into the dust of the earth, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake mightily the earth (Isa 2:18-19).

b In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made for him to worship, to the moles (‘rodents’) and to the bats, to go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty, when He arises to shake mightily the earth (Isa 2:20-21).

a Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for in what way is he to be accounted of? (Isa 2:22).

Note the powerful contrasts and comparisons. In ‘a’ Israel (the house of Jacob) are totally taken up with their relationships with men so that God has ceased having dealings with them, and in the parallel He tells them to cease from men who only have a noseful of breath. In ‘b’ they are taken up with silver and gold, and all worship the work of their own hands, and in the parallel they cast away their idols of silver and gold and hide ‘from the terror of Yahweh and from the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake mightily the earth’. Note how this last phrase is repeated from ‘c’, a typical chiastic construction, compare for example Exo 18:21-22 a with Exo 18:25-26 a; Num 18:4 with Num 18:7; Num 18:23 with Num 7:24; Deu 2:21 with Deu 22:22; Deu 31:6 with Deu 31:7.

In ‘c’ they are to enter into the rocks and hide themselves from the terror of Yahweh and the glorious splendour of His majesty, and men will be humbled before Him (rather than before idols as in Isa 2:9), and in the parallel they will do so. In ‘d’ Yahweh’s day is against all that is proud and haughty, and all that is lifted up and it will be brought low, and in the parallel that is what happens so that Yahweh, Whose day it is, will be exalted. In ‘e’ He is against all the trees of Lebanon and Bashan which are high and lifted up, and in the parallel against the great ships made from those trees for trading purposes. And in ‘g’ He is against their mountains and hills (on which they worship idols) and in the parallel against their lofty towers and fenced walls (in which they trust).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Isa 2:6. Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people The prophet here begins his complaint of the present state of the Jewish nation; which contains, First, His proposition of its present state, as forsaken by God;in this verse. Secondly, A demonstration of it from the vices which reigned in this nation; which were, a desire of foreign instructions, Isa 2:6. Pride and covetousness, Isa 2:7. Idolatry, Isa 2:8. The proposition is a kind of apostrophe, or complaint,the prophet turning his discourse to God,to teach, that God’s forsaking them was a consequence of the vices reigning among them. Vitringa. It is well known how much sooth-saying prevailed in the east.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Divine Accusations

Isa 2:6-16

This paragraph is charged with the old complaint against the nominal people of God. They could not live within their appointed boundaries; it seemed to be impossible for them to be content with the divinely-erected altar; they must needs enter into foreign alliances, and into relations with strangers whose religion was calculated to debase the intellect and to deprave the heart. This is the charge of the sixth verse: The people of God were replenished from the east, and had become soothsayers like the Philistines; they pleased themselves in the children of strangers. They were cloud-diviners; they were looking about for sights, omens, signs, wonders; they were trying to make revelations as we should say, Bibles for themselves, and their inventions brought upon them coldness of heart and forsakenness by the divine Father. This is no ancient lapse; we are not exhuming the history of the world whilst dwelling upon such apostasies: who is content with his own religion? Who is there into whose heart there does not come now and again a subtle suggestion that he can enlarge the revelation he has, that he can find out something for himself, that if he continues to peruse the clouds he may see there some omens which he may dignify with the name of divine appearances? We cannot be content with the book; we want to write a second volume, to add something, at least a footnote of our own, that we may see the work of our own inventiveness and ingenuity.

How difficult is discipline in every department of life! How hard is it to keep to the strict and well-defined line, and to subdue the energy of invention, and to say to that curious and marvellous power within us which would do something on its own account to amend the ways of providence, and enlarge the scope of revelation, Sit down: speak not: withdraw from the front, and study lessons of humility. This apostasy takes various forms; but every age has its own form of apostasy, or withdrawal from God. The Philistines are dead, old soothsaying is probably forgotten, the days of witchcraft and magic are cleared out of the immediate history of the time, but there may be a witchcraft of the higher sort, a magic of another quality and range altogether; after all it may be only the name we have got rid of, the quality and the energy of the thing abandoned may still be amongst us, working in new ways and under new conditions all its mischief in the heart. It would seem as if men must knock at doors for themselves, and not be content with the wide-open gate which God has sent, through which men may evermore go straight up to himself without priestly medium or official intervention of any kind. Who has not thought that he might see a spirit or feel one? Who has not, even under some reluctance and protestation, put himself within conditions supposed to be favourable to manifestations, the movement of an article of furniture, a shadow passing before the vision, a touch in the darkness, who has not thought, even whilst repudiating the idea in its broader aspects, that he might somehow increase the revelation which God has given to man, and find some back-stair way into the sanctuary of the heavens, into the innermost place of the invisible, where the lightnings are, where the spiritual electricity resides, and where even God himself dwells as in a chosen tabernacle? We have various forms, therefore, of cloud-reading, and divination, and calculation, and geometrical figures, and drawing of lots; but the whole thing means that we want to break another door into the eternal, and find another passage into the invisible and infinite. God always has rebuked this inventiveness and this audacity. Nothing good has ever come of it It has troubled the Church for a time; it has divided families; it has appeared to bring with it great benefits, but all such machinery, magic, divination has left the world without having conferred upon it any solid and valuable benefit: men have come back to the old book and the familiar story, and they have found in the eternal fountain of the Bible all that was needful for the fertilisation of the soul, and the comfort of life under all the stress and storm of sorrow, darkness, and temptation’s most furious assaults.

In the case before us we read: “Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people.” The term is logical. God never forsakes his people in any whimsical way: he is not a man, or a son of man, that he should treat his creatures arbitrarily, moodily, now full of sunshine in relation to them, and now covered with great clouds, without giving any reason for the change. It is a most noticeable feature in Biblical revelation that when God forsakes men he gives the reason for abandoning them. The reason is always moral. God never leaves man because he is little, or weak, or self-distrustful, or friendless, or homeless, or brokenhearted; when God forsakes man it is because man has first forsaken him, broken his laws, defied his sword, challenged his judgment, forsaken with ungrateful abandonment the altar at which the life has received its richest blessing. So, never let us neglect the word “therefore” in reading concerning divine judgments. God will never forsake the life that trusts him. If we are conscious of being divinely forsaken, let us hold severe inquest into moral actions or moral dispositions: sometimes the apostasy is inward, it is a spiritual declension, almost without a name, certainly without a shape, a shaking of thought, a disturbing of confidence, a flaw all but invisible, except to God’s eye, in the constancy of love: sometimes the apostasy is external; it writes itself in unholy action; it makes itself vivid even to terribleness in the down-going of our whole nature and our whole attitude towards man and towards God. But the point to be remembered is this when we are forsaken it is because we have forsaken God. Is God to be the companion of idols? Is the Lord to be invited into darkened rooms, that he may be one of the deities of the universe, and take his place in order of seniority or of nominal superiority? Is he to be invited to compete with the fancies of the human brain for the sovereignty of human mind and the arbitrament of human destiny? Herein he is a jealous God. “The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.” If we make gods we must be content with the manufactures which we produce; but we never can persuade the eternal God to sit down with our wooden deities, and hold counsel with the inventions and fictions of a diseased imagination. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Again: “If Baal be God, serve him; if the Lord, serve him.” If you are going to read the universe by the aid of Planchette, read it, and abide by the issue; but do not mix things that have no congeniality separate one from another, and having chosen your idols stand up for them, and prove yourselves worthy of the dehumanising and debasing relation. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon,” ye cannot read a Bible and pursue the clouds with any hope of finding in them an additional revelation; you cannot have the Cross of Christ and some wooden image of your own manufacture. When we are real in our religion we shall blessedly and helpfully assist the world.

Now we come upon another logical course:

“Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots: their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made” ( Isa 2:7-8 ).

Observe how the sequence runs: money in abundance: money will buy horses, and horses stand for power: horses will need chariots, and chariots mean dash, speed, ostentation money, horses, chariots, can men end there? They cannot; and given money, horses, chariots, without a corresponding sanctification, without the inworking of that spirit of self-control which expresses the action of the Holy Ghost, and you compel men to go farther and to fill their land with idols. The sequence cannot be broken. Men may have money, horses, chariots, and the true God; but when men have money, horses, chariots, and no god that is true, they will make gods for themselves, for they must eke out their ostentation by some sort of nominal piety. Men will build churches; men must have religious rites and ceremonies; and what can suit the worldly man better than an idol that takes no notice of him, a wooden deity that never troubles him with its disciplinary obligations? What is worse for any land than unsanctified prosperity? Who can trust himself beyond a given point with the riches and honours of this world? How they enkindle evil fires! how they madden human ambition! how they cause the man to become boastful, imperious, overbearing, and oppressive! Who has not had some little experience of this? Some men can carry more of the world’s riches than others, and yet retain their modesty; but wherever money, horses, chariots come, without corresponding moral discipline and chastening, there must be an issue in idolatry. Who can be quite content without some form of religion? Strangely and inexplicably, some men’s religion is unbelief. They protest so much against belief that they are obliged to make a kind of deity of their unbelief. They are proud of it, and yet they are conscious of the weakness of their position; they fill up with hollow laughter that which is wanting in solidity and continuity of argument. Somewhere, somehow, in some form, every man will have a religion beyond himself, and that religion will either be faith, or unbelief; God, or mammon; the living Father, or the deaf and dumb idols of man’s own making.

What then comes? Universal apostasy in the land:

“And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself” ( Isa 2:9 ).

Apostasy is not partial, it is universal. That is the case with the world as God views it. When the world left him, according to the evangelical conception, it went altogether. God looked from heaven to see if there were any righteous, and he said, There is none righteous, no, not one: they are altogether corrupt: they have turned out of the way: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. A marvellous action is this of moral apostasy! It drags down whole worlds with it; it troubles every section of every province in God’s empire; it troubles the judgment, the conscience, the imagination, the will; it makes every appetite an open mouth which devours things that are good, and destroys qualities that are holy. So it is with the individual character. You do not find a man recognised by the divine judgment as good in parts, that is to say, good in his judgment, but bad in his will; excellent in taste, but avaricious and worldly and self-promoting. The Lord does not adopt that species of criticism; the judgment of God is not eclectic, taking an excellence here and pointing out a default there; the Lord looketh on the heart, and when the heart goes it goes altogether, in one tremendous swing, in one awful plunge. Pray for the heart; say, Lord, save my poor heart! Sometimes it wants to turn away from the light and to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; sometimes it is weary with the paradise of thy grace and love, and it yearns to spend a night in the wilderness of its own passions: Lord, pity me, for the very atmosphere weighs upon me like a burden, and life is a mystery of pain. It takes all such prayer to save a man in the extremities of temptation. Sometimes he must be nothing but prayer; he must be an embodied supplication, an incarnate cry. Only they know this who have felt the devil’s grip, who have felt the nearness of hell’s burning, and who know how terrific a thing it is for the heart to be set on fire from below. One man cannot set himself against another in this matter. “The mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself:” the great man cannot stand aside, and say, I am not as others; the mean man cannot say, This is the lot only of those who are weak, and I must blame my circumstances for my apostasy. The mean man and the great man, the strong life and the weak life, the king and the fair woman and the little child are all involved in a common collapse. We must not speak of human nature in these separate details, but must regard it in its solidarity, and when Adam fell all men fell in him. But if this be the dark side of the picture, is there not a corresponding brightness? Is there not a second Adam greater than the first, a new humanity, a redeeming revelation, a saving, atoning personage? Hear the great solemn bell of history tolling out these words: “In Adam all die”; and then hear the silver trumpets of the sky delivering this gracious message, this hopeful, animating, eternal word: “In Christ shall all be made alive.” The sentence is thus balanced: there is a universality on the one hand, and an impartiality on the other. The ways of the Lord are equal.

From the tenth verse we come upon the description of an earthquake. This is indeed an Old Testament passage. God is going now to judge the earth, and shake it terribly. Who can stand when he cometh?

“The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low’ ( Isa 2:11-12 ).

How poor is man when he is contrasted with that right quality! How great when compared with himself! Some men tall, others short of stature; some men wise, others not wise; some rich, others poor; some very great, and others obscure and insignificant and nothing accounted of; judged amongst themselves, all these comparisons are legitimate and are significant, but when man is set side by side with the God that made him, how are the lofty crushed down, how are the mighty brought into conscious weakness, how are all inequalities levelled in one pitiable and impotent monotony! That is the right standard of judgment. Comparing ourselves amongst ourselves we become wise; but comparing ourselves with the righteousness of God we are ashamed of our morality, and we even withdraw our prayers from divine attention. When the Lord ariseth to shake terribly the earth, what can men do? We have had such visitations, call them natural phenomena if you like, the argument still remains intact what can man do even in the hour of the manifestation of “natural phenomena,” if we like that phrase better than “the visitation of God”? Is the situation eased by describing an earthquake as a natural phenomenon? What can the judges do then, robed and seated in elevated positions, reading with piercing eyes the law of the country what can they say when the court rocks to and fro because of the upheaval of the earth? What can the soldier do when the earth trembles under his feet? Helmeted with shield and spear, and all the panoply of war upon him, what can he do? Where is the sword that can strike an earthquake? where is the spear that can affright a natural phenomenon, and make it an obedient slave? What is the difference between a military commander and the frailest life that flutters at the grave’s edge, even under the visitation of a “natural phenomenon”? By eliminating the word “God” you do not get rid of the natural phenomenon; by seizing that word and turning it to its finest uses, you may have peace and comfort even when the mountains are removed into the midst of the sea; but you do not get rid of the pain, peril, mystery, and whole possibility of ruin simply by taking the word “God” out of the tragic mystery of nature.

Will God, then, alone be great in relation to man? No, his greatness will show itself everywhere: not only shall men be put down in their pride, but nature shall be dwarfed:

“And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, and upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up” ( Isa 2:13-14 ).

Nature shall be dwarfed when the Lord ariseth to shake terribly the earth. All the worlds are in the hollow of his hand; all the constellations are but flecks of light; all the marvels of the stellar presences that enrich the sky and make a mystery of it are but as a drop of the bucket So man shall be brought low, and nature shall be humbled, and civilisation itself shall be abased:

“And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures” ( Isa 2:15-16 ).

All shall go down in the tremendous cataclysm! Then shall men hold their idols in contempt “The idols he shall utterly abolish.” What! Will he not spare one of them? Not one. Not the golden ones? No. Not the proofs of human ingenuity and invention? No: he shall utterly abolish: he shall blow with his mouth, and they shall flee away; he shall shake his hand at them, and they shall appear no more. All this is not prophecy, but history. Here we have a case set forth in high religious terms, in almost poetic imagery; but the kernel is solid and true, and is part of our own experience to-day. Let us waive for a moment the idea of literal earthquakes. There are earthquakes of another kind, if we may so accommodate the expression. There have been times in our experience when mighty men have gone down, and lofty men have been brought low, and when cedar and oak were of no consequence to us, and when the idols we have praised and trusted the most we have the most detested: we have hidden them; we have put them out of the way; we have turned to look in some kind of cowardly manner for a fire into which we might thrust them; we have been ashamed of our false religions and our false confidences. We claim, therefore, that this is not a romantic passage, ancient Hebrew poetry, but that in the sub-tone of it it is historical, experimental, as modern as our own consciousness and the facts of our own life. What visitations we have had! What tremendous commercial upheavals! What shaking of social confidences! What distrust has been created in us regarding even the highest in the land! How we have seen the very props of society rotting before our vision, and how sometimes have we been inclined to pronounce all men vanity and lies! Again and again in history we have been made to see that man at his best estate is not to be trusted. “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?” In the midst of all this tempest of wrath and elemental shock and social dismay man will turn from man, cease from him, be conscious of his littleness and helplessness, and shall cry to the living God. The paint will be taken off, and the natural hideousness will be made to appear; the cloak will be torn from the shoulders, and the deformity will be revealed; and men shall be made to know that there is no solidity of character except in co-operation with God, identification with the living God, and the cultivation of the righteousness which Christ revealed, embodied, and made possible. Do not let us be content with promises, social arrangements, appearances, simulations; this is the fact, and the pulpit must declare it, and the Christian Church must affirm it, that there is no character that can stand pressure for a moment but the character that is inspired by the living One, and sustained by the Eternal. Nominal professors will often go wrong; not a living man but has done wrong in numberless instances, and will probably repeat all his wickedness and all his faults; but human shortcomings do not alter the reality of the internal argument, which is, that no man can be right except he is first right with God, and no man can be made right with God except through him who is the Way, the Truth, the Life the blood-stained way, the way of sacrifice, atonement, and propitiation. When men are in the Son of God they are safe. When they are out of him they are not only unsafe they are lost!

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

Isa 2:6 Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and [are] soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.

Ver. 6. Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people. ] Or, But thou hast, &c. By a sad apostrophe a to God, he sets forth the Jews’ dereliction and destruction irrecoverable, together with the causes of it, their impiety, cruelty, &c., but especially their contempt of Christ and his kingdom. Let us beware and be warned by their example. Rom 11:7-10 To be forsaken of God is the greatest mischief. Lay hold upon him, therefore, with Mary Magdalene, and say, Nobiscum, Christe, maneto: Extingui lucem nec patiare tuam.

Because they be replenished from the East. ] Or, They are fuller than the East – that is, more superstitious than the Syrians and Mesopotamians, Balaam’s countrymen. Ethnicismum illis improperat. Josephus b tells us, that a little before Christ came in the flesh, Herod had brought into Judea many superstitions of the Gentiles; and it appeareth by the first of Maccabees, that the Greeks had their schools at Jerusalem; and by the gospel, that the Pharisees held Pythagoras’s transanimation, and many other pagan traditions.

And are soothsayers like the Philistines. ] These were west of Judea. Isa 9:12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind. These were great soothsayers and sorcerers, and the Jews were tainted with that contagion, as sin is more catching than the plague. The vanity of this practice Cicero saw when he said, potest augur augurem c videre et non ridere?

And they please themselves d in the children of strangers.] They applaud and approve of their customs and commerces. Some think they are there taxed of paederasty, or sodomy, and that they boasted of it, as that odious Johannes a Casa did in print.

a D est in apostrophe.

b Antiq., lib. xvi. cap. 10.

c Augurium, quasi avigerium.

d Adhaeserunt. – Vulg. In usu habent. – Chald.

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

Therefore. Or, For.

replenished: or, full of divinations.

from the east. Especially diviners and mediums from an evil spirit (an ob). Compare Lev 19:31; Lev 20:6. Deu 18:11. 1Sa 28:3-7; and below, Isa 8:9; Isa 19:3; Isa 29:4, where ob occurs.

soothsayers. Reference to Pentateuch Lev 19:26 (observe times). Deu 18:10, Deu 18:14 (observers of times). Same word in all four cases. Hebrew. ‘anan. Occurs only here in the “former” portion, and only in Isa 57:3 (sorceress) in the “latter” portion.

please themselves = join hands with.

children = young children.

strangers. Hebrew. nakar = unknown persons; hence, foreigners.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Isa 2:6. Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.

It was Gods command that they should keep themselves separate, and worship him only; but, in the reign of this man Ahaz, they began to practice all the foul arts of the nations round about them. They had soothsayers like the Philistines, men who pretended to divine future events from the flights of birds, or from the entrails of victims, and a thousand other things; they went into witchcraft, and the unhallowed arts of the heathen.

Isa 2:7-9. Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots: Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.

The poor men worshipped these idols, and the rich did the same. All over the country the people were bowing before some symbol or other, instead of worshipping the unseen God in spirit and in truth. Therefore the prophet foretold that something terrible would happen to them: –

Isa 2:10-16. Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, And upon all the oaks of Bashan, And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.

These people were wealthy through the natural riches of their land, and through commerce with other nations; they were the vetaries of art according to the fashion of the times: and now God declares that, because they were proud, all their treasures should be destroyed and the things wherein they boasted should be taken away from them.

Isa 2:17-18. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols he shall utterly abolish.

They set them up at every street corner, they put them even before the house of God itself. On every green hill, and in every grove, they worshipped with filthy rites that can scarcely be thought of without a blush; but God declared that he would sweep them all away, and so he did when he visited the land in his fierce anger.

Isa 2:19-22. And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?

Extracted from an exposition covering 2Ch 28:1-5; 2Ch 28:16-27 and Isa 2:6-22.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Therefore: Deu 31:16, Deu 31:17, 2Ch 15:2, 2Ch 24:20, Lam 5:20, Rom 11:1, Rom 11:2, Rom 11:20

from the east: or, more than the east, Num 23:7

and are: Isa 8:19, Isa 47:12, Isa 47:13, Exo 22:18, Lev 19:31, Lev 20:6, Deu 18:10-14, 1Ch 10:13

and they: Exo 34:16, Num 25:1, Num 25:2, Deu 21:11-13, 1Ki 11:1, 1Ki 11:2, Neh 13:23, Psa 106:35, Jer 10:2

please themselves in: or, abound with, etc

Reciprocal: 2Ki 16:15 – for me to inquire by Neh 9:2 – strangers Jer 2:25 – for I have Jer 12:7 – have forsaken Mic 5:12 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Isa 2:6. Therefore For the following causes; thou hast forsaken thy people Or, wilt certainly forsake and reject them. The house of Jacob The body of that nation. The prophet here begins his complaint of the state of the Jewish nation, and assigns the reason of Gods withdrawing his kindness from those of the present age, (as there would be a more remarkable rejection of them under the gospel,) because of their following the corrupt manners of the idolatrous nations round about them, in seeking to soothsayers and wizards, which God had solemnly and expressly forbidden, Deu 18:14. Lowth. Because they are replenished from the east Or, as the margin reads it, more than the east, which Dr. Waterland interprets, They are fuller of sorceries than the east; and Bishop Lowth, They are filled with divination from the east. The general meaning seems to be, that their land was full of the impious, superstitious, and idolatrous manners of the eastern nations, the Syrians and Chaldeans, and perhaps also they had encouraged these heathen to settle among them, that they might learn their customs. And are soothsayers Undertaking to discover secret things, and to foretel future, contingent events, by observing the stars, or the clouds, or the flight of birds, and in other ways of divination; like the Philistines Who were infamous for those practices; of which see one instance, 1Sa 6:2. They please themselves in the children of strangers They delight in their company and conversation, making leagues, and friendships, and marriages with them. Dr. Waterland renders the clause, They please themselves in the conceptions, or productions, of strangers.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

2:6 Therefore thou {m} hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they are {n} filled [with customs] from the east, and [are] soothsayers like the Philistines, {o} and they please themselves in the children of foreigners.

(m) The prophet seeing the small hope that the Jews would convert, complains to God as though he had utterly forsaken them for their sins.

(n) Full of the corruptions that reigned chiefly in the east parts.

(o) They altogether gave themselves to the fashions of other nations.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The cause of the problem: self-sufficiency 2:6-9

Several facets of Israel’s national life, all evidences of self-sufficiency rather than trust in Yahweh, invited judgment (cf. Mic 5:10-14).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Israel must walk in Yahweh’s light because God had forsaken her in her present condition for departing from Him. Contrast the nations that will seek the Lord in the future (Isa 2:2). Israel had stopped living as a distinct people in the world, had adopted the ways of other nations, and had relied on them rather than on the Lord. She had looked to the east (first Assyria and then Babylonia) for light rather than to the Lord, and had become like her despised enemies, the uncircumcised Philistines.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Disfruta de miles de canciones cristianas en exclusiva sólo en Bibles