Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 33:1
Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou [wast] not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; [and] when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
1. The enemy is described by epithets which recur in ch. Isa 21:2, Isa 24:16. The obscurity of the reference is somewhat unlike Isaiah, who is usually perfectly explicit in his references to the Assyrian.
when thou shalt make an end ] The Heb. verb used is supposed to mean “attain”; but it occurs nowhere else, and the reading is probably at fault. The substitution of a Kaph for the Nun gives the common verb killh, “finish,” which is the exact sense given by the E.V.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wo to thee that spoilest – This description accords entirely with Sennacherib and his army, who had plundered the cities and countries which they had invaded, and who were about to advance to Jerusalem for the same purpose (compare Isa 29:7-8; Isa 37:11).
And thou wast not spoiled – That is, thou hadst not been plundered by the Jews against whom thou art coming. It was because the war was so unprovoked and unjust, that God would bring so signal vengeance on them.
And dealest treacherously – (See the note at Isa 21:2). The treachery of the Assyrians consisted in the fact that when their assistance was asked by the Jews, in order to aid them against the combined forces of Syria and Samaria (see Isa 7:1-2), they had taken occasion from that invitation to bring desolation on Judah (see Isa 7:17, Isa 7:20; Isa 8:6-8, note; Isa 10:6, note). Hezekiah also gave to Sennacherib thirty talents of gold and three hundred talents of silver, evidently with an understanding that this was all that he demanded, and that if this was paid, he would leave the nation in peace. But this implied promise he perfidiously disregarded (see 2Ki 18:14-15).
When thou shalt cease to spoil – This does not relier to his having voluntarily ceased to plunder, but to the fact that God would put an end to it.
Thou shalt be spoiled – This was literally fulfilled. The Assyrian monarchy lost its splendor and power, and was finally merged in the more mighty empire of Babylon. The nation was, of course, subject to the depredation of the conquerors, and compelled to submit to them. When thou shalt make an end. The idea is, that there would be a completion, or a finishing of his acts of treachery toward the Jews, and that would be when God should overthrow him and his army.
They shall deal treacherously with thee – The words they shall, are here equivalent to, thou shalt be dealt With in a treacherous manner. The result was, that Sennacherib was treacherously slain by his own sons as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god Isa 37:38, and thus the prophecy was literally fulfilled. The sense of the whole is, that God would reward their desire of plundering a nation that had not injured them by the desolation of their own land; and would recompense the perfidiousness of the kings of Assyria that had sought to subject Jerusalem to their power, by perfidiousness in the royal family itself.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 33:1
Woe to thee that spoilest
Isa 33:1-24
The most beautiful of Isaiahs discourse [in which] the long conflict of Israels sin with Jehovahs righteousness is left behind, and the dark colours of present and past distress serve only as a foil to the assured felicity that is ready to dawn on Jehovahs land.
(W. Robertson Smith, D. D.)
Treacherous Assyria
The course of Assyria was that of a treacherous dealer–no confidence whatever could be reposed in this people. They were born to spoil, and the moment they ceased spoiling they would be spoiled in turn. (B. Blake, B. D.)
Aggravated sin
The less provocation we have from men to do an ill thing, the more provocation we give to God by it. (M. Henry.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XXXIII
This chapter contains the sequel of the prophecy respecting
Sennacherib. The prophet addresses himself to the Assyrian
monarch, 1-4.
The mercy and power of God acknowledged by the Jews, 5, 6.
Distress and despair of the Jews at the approach of
Sennacherib, 7-9.
Gracious promise of deliverance, 10-13.
Dreadful apprehensions of the wicked, and security of the
righteous, 14-17.
The security of the Jews under the reign of Hezekiah, and the
wretched condition of Sennacherib and his army, 18-24.
The plan of the prophecy continued in this chapter, and which is manifestly distinct from the foregoing, is peculiarly elegant. To set it in a proper light, it will be necessary to mark the transitions from one part of it to another.
In Isa 33:1, the prophet addresses himself to Sennacherib, briefly, but strongly and elegantly, expressing the injustice of his ambitious designs, and the sudden disappointments of them.
In Isa 33:2, the Jews are introduced offering up their earnest supplications to God in their present distressful condition; with expressions of their trust and confidence in his protection.
In Isa 33:3-4 the prophet in the name of God, or rather God himself, is introduced addressing himself to Sennacherib, and threatening him that, notwithstanding the terror which he had occasioned in the invaded countries, yet he should fall, and become an easy prey to those whom he had intended to subdue.
In Isa 33:5-6, a chorus of Jews is introduced, acknowledging the mercy and power of God, who had undertaken to protect them; extolling it with direct opposition to the boasted power of their enemies, and celebrating the wisdom and piety of their king Hezekiah, who had placed his confidence in the favour of God.
Then follows, in Isa 33:7-9, a description of the distress and despair of the Jews, upon the king of Assyria’s marching against Jerusalem, and sending his summons to them to surrender, after the treaty he had made with Hezekiah on the conditions of his paying, as he actually did pay to him, three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 2Kg 18:14-16.
In Isa 33:10, God himself is again introduced, declaring that he will interpose in this critical situation of affairs, and disappoint the vain designs of the enemies of his people, by discomfiting and utterly consuming them.
Then follows, Isa 33:11-22, still in the person of God, which however falls at last into that of the prophet, a description of the dreadful apprehensions of the wicked in those times of distress and imminent danger; finely contrasted with the confidence and security of the righteous, and their trust in the promises of God that he will be their never-failing strength and protector.
The whole concludes, in the person of the prophet, with a description of the security of the Jews under the protection of God, and of the wretched state of Sennacherib and his army, wholly discomfited, and exposed to be plundered even by the weakest of the enemy.
Much of the beauty of this passage depends on the explanation above given of Isa 33:3-4, as addressed by the prophet, or by God himself, to Sennacherib; not as it is usually taken, as addressed by the Jews to God, Isa 33:3, and then Isa 33:4, as addressed to the Assyrians. To set this in a clear light, it may be of use to compare it with a passage of the Prophet Joel; where, speaking of the destruction caused by the locusts, he sets in the same strong light of opposition as Isaiah does here, the power of the enemy, and the power of JEHOVAH, who would destroy that enemy. Thus Isaiah to Sennacherib: –
“When thou didst raise thyself up, the nations were dispersed” –
Isa 33:3.
“But now will I arise, saith JEHOVAH; Now will I be exalted.”
Isa 33:10.
And thus Joel, Joe 2:20-21: –
“His stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall ascend;
Though he hath done great things.
Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice;
For JEHOVAH will do great things.” – L.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIII
Verse 1. And dealest treacherously – “Thou plunderer”] See Clarke on Isa 21:2.
When thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously – “When thou art weary of plundering”] ” cannelothecha, alibi non extat in s. s. nisi f. Job 15:29 – simplicius est legere kechallothecha. Vid. Capell.; nec repugnat Vitringa. Vid. Da 9:24. calah hatim.” – Secker.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Woe to thee that spoilest! to Sennacherib, who wasted the land of Judah.
Thou wast not spoiled; thou didst not meet with any considerable opposition, but wast victorious over all thine enemies; of which the Assyrian boasteth, Isa 10:8,9; 36:18,19.
Dealest treacherously; as Sennacherib did with Hezekiah, 2Ki 18:14,17.
They dealt not treacherously with thee; none of thine enemies could prevail against thee, either by force, of which he speaketh in the former clause, or by treachery, as here. Or, when they dealt not, &c.; when Hezekiah did not deal treacherously with thee. If it be said that Hezekiah dealt treacherously with him, in breaking his faith, and rebel. ling against him, it may be answered, that Hezekiah neither promised nor owed him any service or subjection. What was done in that kind was done by Ahaz only; and he only begged his assistance for a particular work, and paid him well for it, 2Ki 16:7,8, and the king of Assyria did not keep his conditions with him; for he distressed him, but strengthened him not, 2Ch 28:20.
When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; when thou hast performed the work of chastening my people, for which I sent thee, thou also shalt be spoiled by thine enemies.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. and thouthat is, thoughthou wast not spoiledthough thou wast not dealt treacherously with(see on Isa 24:16), thyspoiling and treachery are therefore without excuse, beingunprovoked.
ceaseWhen God has letthee do thy worst, in execution of His plans, thine own turn shallcome (compare Isa 10:12; Isa 14:2;Hab 2:8; Rev 13:10).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou [wast] not spoiled,…. Which some understand of Nebuchadnezzar; others of Sennacherib, which is more probable; it seems best to interpret it of the Romish antichrist. Kimchi thinks that, if it respects the times of Hezekiah, Sennacherib is meant; but if the times of the Messiah, then the king of nations that shall be in those days; and he adds, this is the kingdom of Persia, in the vision of Daniel. Vatringa applies this to Antiochus Epiphanes, and the whole prophecy to the times of the Maccabees; but it best agrees with the beast of Rome, to whom power has been given over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations, the Apollyon, the spoiler and destroyer of the earth, especially of the saints, whom he has made war with and overcome; see Re 9:11 now this spoiler of man, of their substance by confiscation, of their bodies by imprisonment and death, and of their societies and families by his violent persecutions, and of the souls of others by his false doctrine; though he may continue long in prosperity and glory, and not be spoiled, or destroyed, yet not always. The Vulgate Latin version renders the last clause interrogatively, and perhaps not amiss, “shall thou not be spoiled?” verily thou shalt; the same measure he has meted to others shall be measured to him again; the spoiler of others shall be stripped of all himself; he that destroyed the earth shall be destroyed from off the earth; he that leads into captivity shall go into it; and he that kills with the sword shall be slain by it,
Re 11:18:
and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee; or, “shall they not deal treacherously with thee?” so the above version renders it with an interrogation; and both this and the preceding clause are thus paraphrased by the Targum,
“woe to thee that comest to spoil, and shall they not spoil thee? and who comest to oppress, and shall they not oppress thee?”
truly they shall; the kings of the earth that were in confederacy with the beast, and gave their kingdoms to him, shall hate the whore, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire, Re 17:16:
when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shall be spoiled; when the time is come that antichrist shall be suffered no longer to ravage in the earth, and spoil the bodies, souls, and substance of men, then shall he himself be spoiled of his power and authority, riches and grandeur; his plagues shall come upon him at once, fire, famine, and death; for his cessation from spoiling will not be his own option, nor the fruit and effect of repentance and reformation, but will be owing to the sovereign power of God in restraining him:
[and] when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee; for the coming of antichrist was with lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness; he has the appearance of a lamb, but speaks like a dragon; has used many wiles, arts, and stratagems, and treacherous methods to deceive and impose on men, and to ensnare and entrap them; and when the time is come that he will not be permitted to proceed any further and longer in his deceitful practices, the kings of the earth, who have been deceived by him, and brought in subjection to him, will pay him in his own coin; see 2Th 2:9.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
We are now in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign. The threatenings of the first years, which the repentance of the people had delayed, are now so far in force again, and so far actually realized, that the Assyrians are already in Judah, and have not only devastated the land, but are threatening Jerusalem. The element of promise now gains the upper hand, the prophet places himself between Asshur and his own nation with the weapons of prophecy and prayer, and the woe turns from the latter to the former. “Woe, devastator, and thyself not devastated; and thou spoiler, and still not spoiled! Hast thou done with devastating? thou shalt be devastated. Hast thou attained to rob? men rob thee.” Asshur is described as not devastated and not spoiled (which could not be expressed by a participle as with us, since bagad is construed with Beth, and not with the accusative of the person), because it had not yet been visited by any such misfortune as that which had fallen upon other lands and nations. But it would be repaid with like for the like as soon as indicating simultaneousness, as in Isa 30:19 and Isa 18:5, for example) its devastating and spoiling had reached the point determined by Jehovah. Instead of , we find in some codd. and editions the reading , which is equally admissible. In (from ) the radical syllable is lengthened, instead of having dagesh. is equivalent to , a hiphil syncopated for the sake of rhythm (as in Isa 3:8; Deu 1:33, and many other passages), written here with dagesh dirmens, from the verb nalah , which is attested also by Job 15:29. The coincidence in meaning with the Arab. verb nal ( fut. i and u), to acquire or attain (see Comm. on Job, at Job 15:29 and Job 30:24-27), has been admitted by the earliest of the national grammarians, Ben-Koreish, Chayug, etc. The conjecture (in addition to which Cappellus proposed ) is quite unnecessary. The play upon the sound sets forth the punishment of the hitherto unpunished one as the infallible echo of its sin.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Assyria Threatened. | B. C. 710. |
1 Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee. 2 O LORD, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble. 3 At the noise of the tumult the people fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations were scattered. 4 And your spoil shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpillar: as the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them. 5 The LORD is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. 6 And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure. 7 Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without: the ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly. 8 The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man. 9 The earth mourneth and languisheth: Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down: Sharon is like a wilderness; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits. 10 Now will I rise, saith the LORD; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself. 11 Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble: your breath, as fire, shall devour you. 12 And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.
Here we have,
I. The proud and false Assyrian justly reckoned with for all his fraud and violence, and laid under a woe, v. 1. Observe, 1. The sin which the enemy had been guilty of. He had spoiled the people of God, and made a prey of them, and herein had broken his treaty of peace with them, and dealt treacherously. Truth and mercy are two such sacred things, and have so much of God in them, that those cannot but be under the wrath of God that make conscience of neither, but are perfectly lost to both, that care not what mischief they do, what spoil they make, what dissimulations they are guilty of, nor what solemn engagements they violate, to compass their own wicked designs. Bloody and deceitful men are the worst of men. 2. The aggravation of this sin. He spoiled those that had never done him any injury and that he had no pretence to quarrel with, and dealt treacherously with those that had always dealt faithfully with him. Note, The less provocation we have from men to do a wrong thing the more provocation we give to God by doing it. 3. The punishment he should fall under for this sin. He that spoiled the cities of Judah shall have his own army destroyed by an angel and his camp plundered by those whom he had made a prey of. The Chaldeans shall deal treacherously with the Assyrians and revolt from them. Two of Sennacherib’s own sons shall deal treacherously with him and basely murder him at his devotions. Note, The righteous God often pays sinners in their own coin. He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity,Rev 13:10; Rev 18:6. 4. The time when he shall be thus dealt with. When he shall make an end to spoil, and to deal treacherously, not by repentance and reformation, which might prevent his ruin (Dan. iv. 27), but when he shall have done his worst, when he shall have gone as far as God would permit him to go, to the utmost of his tether, then the cup of trembling shall be put into his hand. When he shall have arrived at his full stature in impiety, shall have filled up the measure of his iniquity, then all shall be called over again. When he has done God will begin, for his day is coming.
II. The praying people of God earnest at the throne of grace for mercy for the land now in its distress (v. 2): “O Lord! be merciful to us. Men are cruel; be thou gracious. We have deserved thy wrath, but we entreat thy favour; and, if we may find the propitious to us, we are happy; the trouble we are in cannot hurt us, shall not ruin us. It is in vain to expect relief from creatures; we have no confidence in the Egyptians, but we have waited for thee only, resolving to submit to thee, whatever the issue of the trouble be, and hoping that it shall be a comfortable issue.” Those that by faith humbly wait for God shall certainly find him gracious to them. They prayed, 1. For those that were employed in military services for them: “Be thou their arm every morning. Hezekiah, and his princes, and all the men of war, need continual supplies of strength and courage from thee; supply their need therefore, and be to them a God all-sufficient. Every morning, when they go forth upon the business of the day, and perhaps have new work to do and new difficulties to encounter, let them be afresh animated and invigorated, and, as the day, so let the strength be.” In our spiritual warfare our own hands are not sufficient for us, nor can we bring any thing to pass unless God not only strengthen our arms (Gen. xlix. 24), but be himself our arm; so entirely do we depend upon him as our arm every morning, so constantly do we depend upon his power, as well as his compassions, which are new every morning, Lam. iii. 23. If God leaves us to ourselves any morning, we are undone; we must therefore every morning commit ourselves to him, and go forth in his strength to do the work of the day in its day. 2. For the body of the people: “Be thou our salvation also in the time of trouble, ours who sit still, and do not venture into the high places of the field.” They depend upon God not only as their Saviour, to work deliverance for them, but as their salvation itself; for, whatever becomes of their secular interests, they will reckon themselves safe and saved if they have him for their God. If he undertake to be their Saviour, he will be their salvation; for as for God his work is perfect. Some read it thus: “Thou who wast their arm every morning, who wast the continual strength and help of our fathers before us, be thou our salvation also in time of trouble. Help us as thou helpedst them; they looked unto thee and were lightened (Ps. xxxiv. 5); let us then not walk in darkness.”
III. The Assyrian army ruined and their camp made a rich but cheap and easy prey to Judah and Jerusalem. No sooner is the prayer made (v. 2) than it is answered (v. 3), nay, it is outdone. They prayed that God would save them from their enemies; but he did more than that; he gave them victory over their enemies and abundant cause to triumph; for, 1. The strength of the Assyrian camp was broken (v. 3) when the destroying angel slew so many thousands of them: At the noise of the tumult, of the shrieks of the dying men (who, we may suppose, did not die silently), the rest of the people fled, and shifted every one for his own safety. When God did thus lift up himself the several nations, or clans, of which the army was composed, were scattered. It was time to stir when such an unprecedented plague broke out among them. When God arises his enemies are scattered, Ps. lxviii. 1. 2. The spoil of the Assyrian camp is seized, by way of reprisal, for all the desolations of the defenced cities of Judah (v. 4): Your spoil shall be gathered by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, like the gathering of the caterpillar, and as the running to and fro of locusts, that is, the spoilers shall as easily and as quickly make themselves masters of the riches of the Assyrians as a host of caterpillars, or locusts, make a field, or a tree, bare. Thus the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just and Israel is enriched with the spoil of the Egyptians. Some make the Assyrians to be the caterpillars and locusts, which, when they are killed, are gathered together in heaps, as the frogs of Egypt, and are run upon, and trodden to dirt.
IV. God and his Israel glorified and exalted hereby. When the spoil of the enemy is thus gathered, 1. God will have the praise of it (v. 5): The Lord is exalted. It is his honour thus to abase proud men, and hide them in the dust, together; thus he magnifies his own name, and his people give him the glory of it, as Israel when the Egyptians were drowned, Exo 15:1; Exo 15:2, c. He is exalted as one that dwells on high, out of the reach of their blasphemies, and that has an over-ruling power over them, and wherein they deal proudly delights to show himself above them-that does what he will, and they cannot resist him. 2. His people will have the blessing of it. When God lifts up himself to scatter the nations that are in confederacy against Jerusalem (<i>v. 3) then, as a preparative for that, or as the fruit and product of it, he has filled Zion with judgment and righteousness, not only with a sense of justice, but with a zeal for it and a universal care that it be duly administered. It shall again be called, The city of righteousness, ch. i. 26. In this the grace of God is exalted, as much as his providence was in the destruction of the Assyrian army. We may conclude God has mercy in store for a people when he fills them with judgment and righteousness, when all sorts of people, and all their actions and affairs, are governed by them, and they are so full of them that no other considerations can crowd in to sway them against these. Hezekiah and his people are encouraged (v. 6) with an assurance that God would stand by them in their distress. Here is, (1.) A gracious promise of God for them to stay themselves upon: Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation. Here is a desirable end proposed, and that is the stability of our times, that things be not disturbed and unhinged at home, and the strength of salvation, deliverance from, and success against, enemies abroad. The salvation that God ordains for his people has strength in it; it is a horn of salvation. And here are the way and means for obtaining this end–wisdom and knowledge, not only piety, but prudence. That is it which, by the blessing of God, will be the stability of our times and the strength of salvation, that wisdom which is first pure, then peaceable, and which sacrifices private interests to a public good; such prudence as this will establish truth and peace, and fortify the bulwarks in defence of them. (2.) A pious maxim of state for Hezekiah and his people to govern themselves by: The fear of the Lord is his treasure. It is God’s treasure in the world, from which he receives his tribute; or, rather, it is the prince’s treasure. A good prince accounts it so (that wisdom is better than gold) and he shall find it so. Note, True religion is the true treasure of any prince or people; it denominates them rich. Those places that have plenty of Bibles, and ministers, and serious good people, are really rich; and it contributes to that which makes a nation rich in this world. It is therefore the interest of a people to support religion among them and to take heed of every thing that threatens to hinder it.
V. The great distress that Jerusalem was brought into described, that those who believed the prophet might know beforehand what troubles were coming and might provide accordingly, and that when the foregoing promise of their deliverance should have its accomplishment the remembrance of the extremity of their case might help to magnify God in it and make them the more thankful, v. 7-9. It is here foretold, 1. That the enemy would be very insolent and abusive and there would be no dealing with him, either by treaties of peace (for he has broken the covenant without any hesitation, as if it were below him to be a servant to his word), or by the preparations of war, for he has despised the cities; he scorns to take notice either of their appeals to justice or of their petitions for mercy. He makes himself master of them so easily (though they are called fenced cities), and meets with so little resistance, that he despises them, and has no relentings when he puts all to the sword; for he regards no man, has no pity or concern, no, not for those that he is under particular obligations to. He neither fears God nor regards man, but is haughty and imperious to every one. There are those that take a pride in trampling upon all mankind, and have neither veneration for the honourable nor compassion for the miserable. 2. That therefore he would not be brought to any terms of reconciliation: The valiant ones of Jerusalem, being unable to make their parts good with him, must be contentedly run down with noise and insolence, which will make them cry without, because they cannot serve their country as they might have done against a fair adversary. The ambassadors sent by Hezekiah to treat of peace, finding him so haughty and unmanageable, shall weep bitterly for vexation at the disappointment they had met with in their negotiations; they shall weep like children, as despairing to find out any expedient to pacify him. 3. That the country should be made quite desolate for a time by his army. (1.) No man durst travel the roads; so that a stop was put to trade and commerce, and (which was worse) no man could safely go up to Jerusalem, to keep the solemn feasts: The highways lie waste. While the fields lie waste, trodden like the highways, the highways lie waste, untrodden like the fields, for the traveller ceases. (2.) No man had any profit from the grounds, v. 9. The earth used to rejoice in its own productions for the service of God’s Israel, but now the enemies of Israel eat them up, or tread them down: it mourns and languishes; the country looks melancholy and the country people have misery in their countenances, wanting necessary food for themselves and their families; the wonted joy of harvest is turned into lamentation, so withering and uncertain are all worldly joys. The desolation is universal. That part of the country which belonged to the ten tribes was already laid waste: “Lebanon famed for cedars, Sharon for roses, Bashan for cattle, Carmel for corn, all very fruitful, have now become like wildernesses, are ashamed to be called by their old names, they are so unlike what they were. They shake off their fruits before their time into the hand of the spoiler, which used to be gathered seasonably by the hand of the owner.”
VI. God appearing, at length, in his glory against his proud invader, v. 10-12. When things are brought thus to the last extremity, 1. God will magnify himself. He had seemed to sit by as an unconcerned spectator: “But now will I arise, saith the Lord; now will I appear and act, and therein I will be not only evidenced, but exalted.” He will not only demonstrate that there is a God that judges in the earth, but that he is God over all, and higher than the highest. “Now will I lift up myself, will prepare for action, will act vigorously, and will be glorified in it.” God’s time to appear for his people is when their affairs are reduced to the lowest ebb, when their strength is gone and there is none shut up nor left, Deut. xxxii. 36. When all other helpers fail, then is God’s time to help. 2. He will bring down the Assyrian: “You, O Assyrians! are big with hopes that you shall have all the wealth of Jerusalem for your own, and are in pain till it be so; but all your hopes shall come to nothing: You shall conceive chaff, and bring forth stubble, which is not only worthless and good for nothing, but combustible and proper fuel for the fire, which it cannot escape, when your own breath as fire shall devour you, that is, the breath of God’s wrath, provoked against you by the breath of your sins–your malignant breath, the threatenings and slaughter you breathe out against the people of God, this shall devour you, and your blasphemous breath against God and his name.” God would make their own tongues to fall upon them, and their own breath to blow the fire that should consume them; and then no wonder that the people are as the burnings of lime in a lime-kiln, all on fire together, and as thorns cut up, which are dried and withered, and therefore easily take fire and are soon burnt up. Such was the destruction of the Assyrian army; it was like the burning up of thorns, which can well be spared, or the burning of lime, which makes it good for something. The burning of that army enlightened the world with the knowledge of God’s power and made his name shine brightly.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
ISAIAH – CHAPTER 33
THE ENEMY DESTROYED AND JUDAH RESTORED TO DIVINE FAVOR
Vs. 1-6: ISAIAH’S FINAL PROPHECY CONCERNING ASSYRIA
1. A woe is pronounced against the Assyrian destroyer who has dealt treacherously, (vs. 1a; Isa 10:6; Isa 24:16); as he has sown, so shall he reap, (vs. 1b; Isa 10:12; Isa 14:25; Isa 31:8; comp. Hab 2:8; Jer 25:12-14).
2. Verse 2 is the cry of a faithful remnant of Judah with whom the prophet blends his voice, (Isa 30:18-19; Isa 25:9; Isa 40:10; Isa 51:5; Isa 59:15-16; Isa 37:3).
3. What follows graphically pictures both the sovereignty and providence of God Who, with justice and righteousness, shows Himself strong in behalf of Zion – not only in the days of Hezekiah, but also in the last days, (vs. 3; Isa 10:33; Isa 17:13; Isa 59:16-18; Jer 25:30-31).
4. The spoils of the Assyrian camp are quickly leaped upon and gathered up by the people of Judah, (vs. 4; comp. Joe 1:4).
5. Though the name of Jehovah was truly exalted, because of His judgment upon Assyria, the full picture is one that looks forward to the coming and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, (vs. 5-6; 2Ti 4:1).
a. No deliverer to date has adequately fulfilled this prophecy; it awaits the exaltation of Jehovah, reigning righteously in the midst of His people on Mt Zion.
b. In that day He will be fully recognized as her adequate security, strength and salvation; the fear of the Lord will be Israel’s great treasure, (contr. 2Ki 18:13-16).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. Wo to thee that spoilest. If these words shall be expounded as relating to the Babylonians, the strain will flow easily enough; for, after having promised freedom to the prisoners, (Isa 32:15,) he now appropriately taunts the conquerors. Besides, they needed to be peculiarly confirmed, that they might give credit to a prediction which appeared to be incredible; for they could not think it probable that such vast power would be destroyed and overthrown, and that, the wretched prisoners who were now in a state of despair would speedily be permitted to return to their native country. Amidst such distresses, therefore, they might have fainted and given up all hope of safety, if the Prophet had not met them with these exhortations. Accordingly, he anticipates those doubts which might have tormented their minds and tempted them to despair, after having been carried away by the Babylonians, and reduced to slavery; for they saw none of those things which are here promised, but everything entirely opposite.
Yet, as it is almost universally agreed that this is the beginning of a new discourse, and that it is addressed to Sennacherib and his army, I am not unwilling to believe that the Prophet pronounces against the Assyrians, who unjustly oppressed all their neighbors, a threatening which was intended to alleviate the distresses and anxieties of the people. He therefore means that there will be a wonderful revolution of affairs, which will overthrow the flourishing condition of Nineveh, though it appears to be invincible; for the Babylonians will come in a hostile manner to punish them for that cruelty which they exercised on other nations.
In order to impart greater energy to this discourse, he addresses the Assyrians themselves, “Wo to thee that plunderest; you may now ravage with impunity; no one has power to resist you; but there will one day be those who in their turn shall plunder you, as you have plundered others.” He speaks to them in the singular number, but in a collective sense, which is very customary. Others read it as a question, “Shalt thou not be spoiled? Dost thou think that thou wilt never be punished for that violence? There will one day be those who will render to thee the like.” But we may follow the ordinary exposition, according to which the Prophet exhibits in a striking light the injustice of enemies, who were so eager for plunder that they spared nobody, not even the innocent who had never injured them; for that is a demonstration of the utmost cruelty. I am therefore the more disposed to adopt this exposition, according to which he describes in this first clause what the Assyrians are, shews them to be base and cruel robbers, and gives a strong exhibition of their cruelty in harassing and pillaging harmless and inoffensive persons; so that, when the Jews beheld such unrestrained injustice, they might consider that God is just, and that such proceedings will not always pass unpunished.
When thou shalt have ceased to plunder. This is the second clause of the sentence, by which the Prophet declares that the Assyrians now plunder, because God has given loose reins to them, but that he will one day check them, so that they will have no power to do injury. If we were to understand him to mean, “when they would no longer wish to plunder,” that would be a feeble interpretation; but the Prophet advances higher, and declares that the time will come “when they shall make an end of plundering,” because the Lord will restrain and subdue them. The meaning is therefore the same as if he had said, “When thou shalt have reached the height;” for we see that tyrants have boundaries assigned to them which they cannot pass. Their career is rapid, so long as they keep their course; but as soon as the goal, their utmost limit, has been reached, they must stop.
Let us cheer our hearts with this consolation, when we see tyrants insolently and fiercely attack the Church of God; for the Lord will at length compel them to stop, and the more cruel they have been, the more severely will they be punished. The Lord will destroy them in a moment; for he will raise up against them enemies who will instantly ruin and punish them for their iniquities.
Here we ought also to acknowledge the providence of God in the overthrow of kingdoms; for wicked men imagine that everything moves at random and by the blind violence of fortune; but we ought to take quite another view, for the Lord will repay their deserts, so that they shall be made to know that the cruelty which they exercised against inoffensive persons does not remain unrevenged. And the event shewed the truth of this prediction; for not long afterwards Nineveh was conquered by the Babylonians, and lost the monarchy, and was even so completely destroyed that it lost its name. But as Babylon, who succeeded in her room, was not. less a “spoiler,” the Prophet justly foretells that there will be other robbers to rob her, and that the Babylonians, when their monarchy shall be overthrown, will themselves be plundered of those things which they seized and pillaged from others.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
PROVIDENCE
Isa. 33:1. Woe to thee that spoilest, &c.
Dr. Geikie says: As a nation the Assyrians are branded as treacherous, untruthful, and lawless (Nah. 3:1; Jon. 3:8). No treaty could bind them; might was right; and when interest seemed to demand it, they regarded no man (Isa. 33:8). Their pride was that of a race which looked on all others as their natural inferiors (Zep. 2:15; Eze. 31:10-11; Isa. 10:7-14; Isa. 37:24-28). [1213]
[1213] Some time before the return of the Assyrians, Hezekiah had sought to deprecate the wrath of Sennacherib, of which terrible rumours had reached him from Lachish. For this end he had sent ambassadors, in the hope that they might possibly convince the great king that no treachery was intended, and save the country from a second invasion, or possibly even obtain favourable terms for Lachish itself. The embassy had found him at the city, which was soon after taken by storm, and delivered to the tender mercies of the soldiery. A slab from his palace at Nineveh, now in the British Museum, shows him in state receiving plunder of the town of Lachish. He sits on a throne before his tent, two arrows in one hand and his bow in the other, while prisoners are being brought before him, an officer, attended by a guard, stating the facts respecting them. Two eunuchs stand with feather flaps to wave over him for coolness, and to keep away the flies. Two horses, ready for his use, are behind, soldiers with tall lances attending them. The front rank of prisoners before him kneel to implore mercy, and behind them is a long file of their unfortunate companions. Some whose fate has already been decided have been led a short way off and killed; others may be spared as slaves. A chariot with two horses stands nearperhaps that of Sennacheriband numerous fruit-trees over the whole slab show the fruitfulness of the country. A strong force of horse and foot on the right of the picture guards the king.Geikie.
The text brings before us the doctrine of an overruling Providence.
We see an overruling Providence at work
1. In meting out punishment to the wicked (H. E. I. 4604, 4612).
2. In accomplishing a just retribution. The Assyrian is paid back by the Babylonian (Rev. 13:10); Jacobs treachery is returned to him in his sons deceit (1Ti. 5:24; P. D. 2995).
3. In bringing good out of evil. Wicked men overreach themselves; the devil is outwitted. The short-sighted vengeance of man becomes an instrument of perfecting the higher nature of the people of God, whom they oppress; the fire of mans wrath is transformed into the refining fire of Divine purification (Mal. 3:3).J. Macrae Simcock.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
3. SUBJUGATION
TEXT: Isa. 33:1-12
1
Woe to thee that destroyest, and thou wast not destroyed; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou hast ceased to destroy, thou shalt be destroyed; and when thou hast made an end of dealing treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
2
O Jehovah, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be thou our arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble.
3
At the noise of the tumult the peoples are fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations are scattered.
4
And your spoil shall be gathered as the caterpillar gathereth: as locusts leap shall men leap upon it.
5
Jehovah is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
6
And there shall be stability in thy times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge: the fear of Jehovah is thy treasure.
7
Behold, their valiant ones cry without; the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.
8
The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: the enemy hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth not man.
9
The land mourneth and languisheth; Lebanon is confounded and withereth away; Sharon is like a desert; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
10
Now will I arise, saith Jehovah; now will I lift up myself; now will I be exalted.
11
Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble: your breath is a fire that shall devour you.
12
And the peoples shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.
QUERIES
a.
Who is the destroyer of Isa. 33:1?
b.
Why the prayer Isa. 33:2-9?
c.
What is the answer to the prayer?
PARAPHRASE
Woe is coming to you, you who destroy and never feel destruction. Judgment is coming to you, you who deal deceitfully and never seem to suffer being deceived. Your days are numberedyour time to destroy and deceive will soon be over, and you are going to be destroyed and deceived. O Lord, I pray, have mercy upon us. We have been hoping in You. We want You to be our source of strength for every-day life as well as saving us from the great crises of troublous times. We know that at the sound of Your thunder the enemy nations flee and when You stand up to take action your enemies disappear as if scattered. And, Lord, Your people will gather spoil or booty from Your vanquished enemy like the caterpillars and locusts leap upon vegetation and devour it quickly. Jehovah exalts Himself by His omnipotent power to deliver and by His power to fill His covenant people, Zion, with justice and righteousness. And He shall be the source of our constancy in these changing, chaotic times. In fact, He is a treasure for us filled with salvation, wisdom and knowledge. The reverent fear of the Lord is the door to that treasure house. Behold our present circumstances, O Lord; sturdy soldiers, in the anguish of heart, cry out with a loud shriek of pain. Our ambassadors are not ashamed to be seen out on the streets shedding bitter tears. They know how desperate our situation is now. Our highways lie untraveled like deserted wastelands; covenants made with Assyria which so many had hoped in are treacherously broken, and Assyria has shown itself to be an enemy instead of an ally. Our enemy has plundered our cities and human life is cheap to him. The whole land of Gods people is suffering; Lebanon is in a state of confusion and is about to pass out of existence; the territory of Sharon is like a deserted no-mans land; Bashan and Carmel are as barren as trees with all their leaves shaken off. But, says the Lord, I am going to stand up to take action, and when I do My power and might will be demonstrated against My enemies. Assyria, you are pregnant with grandiose plans, but all that shall come of them will be uselessness, and your plans will be blown away like chaff and stubble. The hot breath of war and aggression with which you pant after My people will be the very means of your own destruction. Your nation will be completely destroyed like a body burned down to lime or thorns burned into ashes.
COMMENTS
Isa. 33:1-6 PROSPECTS FOR GODS PEOPLE: This context (ch. 33) is closely connected to Assyrias almost total domination of Judah in Hezekiahs day. Almost all the cities and villages of Judah had been overrun and plundered except Jerusalem. But, in spite of appearances, Gods people had a glorious future. To this Isaiah speaks. He begins by warning Assyria that her time for world conquest will someday come and then she shall be destroyed. One is reminded of Isaiahs earlier prediction of this (Isa. 10:5-34). Assyria was renowned for its destructive cruelty. F. W. Farrar gives a vivid description of Assyrias general character:
Judged from the vaunting inscriptions of her kings, no power more useless, more savage, more terrible, ever cast its gigantic shadow on the page of history as it passed on the way to ruin. The kings of Assyria tormented the miserable world. They exult to record how space failed for corpses; how unsparing a destroyer is their goddess Ishtar; how they flung away the bodies of soldiers like so much clay; how they made pyramids of human heads; how they burned cities; how they filled populous lands with death and devastation; how they reddened broad deserts with carnage of warriors; how they scattered whole countries with the corpses of their defenders as with chaff; how they impaled heaps of men on stakes, and strewed the mountains and choked rivers with dead bones; how they cut off the hands of kings and nailed them on the walls, and left their bodies to rot with bears and dogs on the entrance gates of cities; how they employed nations of captives in making brick in fetters; how they cut down warriors like weeds, or smote them like wild beasts in the forests, and covered pillars with the flayed skins of rival monarchs.
This terrible destroyer, Assyria, was herself destroyed (see Isaiah, Vol. I, pgs. 188190). Isaiah predicts it here again to encourage a faithful remnant of believers in his own day.
In Isa. 33:2-6 Isaiah seems to be voicing the prayer of the remnant. The prayer is interesting because it is more a prayer of praise for what they believe God can and will do than it is a request. The prayer does begin with a request for Gods mercy. Judahs present circumstance is beyond human solution, so the prophet prays for God to act. Judah has no merit to claim Gods action so Isaiah prays for Gods mercy. His prayer is also that God might act to exalt His own name. This prayer is an abbreviated parallel to Daniels great prayer for the exiles (Dan. 9:3-19). The remnant, being represented by Isaiah, waited upon the Lord. This is a word to describe patient, enduring trust. The remnant did not try to take matters into its own hands and seek help from Egypt as did the majority of the people. They patiently waited upon the Lord to accomplish His purposes in His own good time. The remnant occupied themselves with being the kind of people God wanted them to be and left the matter of Assyria to God.
How could the remnant be so patient with God? Because they knew from Gods past deeds, demonstrated in history, when He thundered His enemies were scattered (Isa. 33:3). They knew from their own history when they depended on God to give them victory, eventually they conquered their enemies and gathered the spoils of their conquest to His glory (Isa. 33:4). They knew that when Gods people filled Gods land with justice and righteousnesswhen Jehovah was exalted above allthere was stability. They knew it from past history, and so they prayed that it might come again. They knew the real treasure of Judah, the real and valuable currency of the Chosen was the fear of Jehovah. This brought true salvation, wisdom and knowledge. Perhaps there is a pointed exhortation to Hezekiah here who succumbed to the temptation to boast and show off the worldly treasures of Judah to the Assyrians (cf. Isa. 39:1-8), and even to pay tribute from it to them (2Ki. 18:15-16) as if that kind of treasure would deliver them. When will men ever learn that aggressors and those who would destroy society or enslave people can never be appeased with things, but that trust in God, moral uprightness, justice and self-sacrifice is the only deliverance from evil. In times of political and moral chaos such as those in which Isaiah lived the only stable, constant, secure position is trusting the Lord to exercise His sovereign purposes and actions in His own time, because we have evidence that He has always done so to the glory and victory of His people in the past.
Isa. 33:7-12 PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE PEOPLE: Is Isaiah still praying? Isa. 33:7-9 seem to be the conclusion to his prayer. He is pouring out his heart and the heart of the remnant for their beloved land just as Daniel did (Dan. 9:12; Dan. 9:16; Dan. 9:18) for the pitiful state of the exiles. And their prayers are not so much for the people as for the vindication and exaltation of the name of God!
Apparently the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib had already begun. Judahs valiant ones (probably soldiers) cried out in fear. Her ambassadors, having experienced the total frustration of being deceived by the Assyrians and unable to negotiate a withdrawal of Assyrian troops, weep openly. Every bit of news seeping into the besieged city of Jerusalem tells of death, destruction and desertion in the cities and villages of Judah. The highways of the land are no longer traveled. The Assyrians, after taking Hezekiahs tribute (2Ki. 18:15-16), reneged on their treaty and attacked Judah, plundering its cities and killing its people without regard to human life at all. Thousands are killed, other thousands are taken captive and still other thousands flee. There is nationwide mourning; large sections of the land is in paralyzing fear and confusion; other large sections are so completely deserted they are like vast wastelands; the land is stripped bare of its inhabitants like a tree is completely barren of its leaves in wintertime. Isa. 33:10-12 are Gods prediction that He will stand against Assyria to dissolve and annul its plans against Jerusalem. Assyria apparently made great plans to do away with Judah and Jerusalem, but God says its plans will amount to no more than refusechaff and stubble. Very rarely did a project so auspicious ever turn out as adversely for the planners as did Sennacheribs plans against Jerusalem.
Isaiah predicted, 2Ki. 19:32-34, . . . thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come to this city nor shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast a mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come into this city, says the Lord, for I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.
The Biblical and the Assyrian accounts of Sennacheribs campaign in Palestine are in general agreement. The fact that the Assyrian texts as well as the Bible make it clear that Sennacherib did not occupy Jerusalem is particularly significant. This is the Assyrian account of the Judean campaign:
As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered (them) by means of well-stamped (earth) ramps, and battering-rams brought (thus) near (to the walls) (combined with) the attack by foot soldiers, (using) mines, breeches as well as sapper work. I drove out (of them) 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle, beyond counting, and considered (them) booty. Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were leaving his citys gate . . . Hezekiah himself, . . . did send me later, to Nineveh, my lordly city, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver . . . his (own) daughters, concubines, male and female musicians. In order to deliver the tribute and to do obeisance as a slave he sent his (personal) messenger.
from Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 1955, pg. 288
Biblical history records that 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp perished as a result of Gods intervention on behalf of His people (2Ki. 19:35). Secular history and biblical history both record that Sennacherib returned to Nineveh and was assassinated by two of his sons in 681 B.C. (2Ki. 19:37; Isa. 37:38) and that Esarhaddon, his son, ruled in his place. The last quarter of the seventh century B.C. (625 B.C. 612 B.C.) saw the decline and fall of the Assyrian empire and its subjugation by the Chaldean conquerors of Babylonia, with the Medes. Nineveh was conquered 612 B.C. and in 605 B.C. at Carchemish the Assyrian government-in-exile was finally wiped out forever. So Assyria disappeared from the face of the earth as thorns cut down and burned in the fire. Nineveh, Assyrias capital city, was forgotten so completely that Alexander the Great on his way to conquer the world, walked upon the very earth that covered it without knowing it. It was not unearthed until about 1845, nearly 2400 years after its demise.
QUIZ
1.
Characterize the Assyrians in their methods of conquest.
2.
How does Isaiahs prayer compare to that of Daniels (Dan. 9:19)?
3.
Why could believers in Isaiahs day wait for the Lord?
4.
What is the overriding purpose or end of Isaiahs prayer?
5.
How extensive was the Assyrian occupation of Judah?
6.
How do the Biblical accounts compare with secular accounts of Sennacheribs siege of Jerusalem?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XXXIII.
(1) Woe to thee that spoilest . . .No chapter in the prophets writings presents so little traceable connection. A thought is expressed in one, or it may be two, verses, and then another follows without anything to link it on. This may be, perhaps, explained either by the strong emotion which filled the prophets mind as he looked on the coming perils of his country, or, as I think, more probably, on the assumption that we have a series of rough notes, memoranda for a long discourse, which was afterwards delivered in a more continuous form. They would, perhaps, be more intelligible if they were printed separately, as we print Pascals Penses, the verse arrangement giving a fictitious semblance of continuity. The opening words are addressed to Sennacherib when he entered on his second campaign against Judah, as it seemed to Isaiah, without the slightest provocation. Hezekiah had submitted, and had paid an enormous indemnity for the costs of the war (2Ki. 18:13-16) at the close of the first campaign, and had, in the meantime, taken no aggressive action. The invasion was one of undisguised spoliation and rapacity. (For treacherously, read rapaciously.) Upon such aggressiveness there was sure to come a righteous retribution, and in that thought the prophet finds comfort.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
The Great Deliverance At Jerusalem ( Isa 33:1-6 ).
Assyria is chided for its greed and treachery, and Yahweh’s people plead for deliverance. But the invasion is going forward and the spoil is being gathered rapaciously. However, they are assured that Yahweh, Who dwells on high, will be exalted, and will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, and the promise is therefore that at that time peace will prevail, and there will be stability and deliverance.
But it does not appear that way immediately. Those who have sought to establish peace are in despair because of Assyria’s treachery, and the land mourns and languishes, but then Yahweh declares that He will arise and lift Himself up and be exalted, and the result will be that Assyria conceives chaff and brings forth stubble and brings forth judgment on itself.
Analysis.
a Woe to you who spoil, and you were not spoiled, and deal treacherously, and they did not deal treacherously with you. When you have ceased to spoil, you will be spoiled, and when you have finished dealing treacherously, they will deal treacherously with you (Isa 33:1).
b O Yahweh, be gracious to us. We have waited for you. May you be their arm every morning, our deliverance also in the time of trouble (Isa 33:2).
c At the noise of the tumult, the peoples are fled, at the lifting up of yourself, the nations are scattered, (Isa 33:3).
d And your spoil will be gathered as the caterpillar gathers, as locusts leap men will leap on it (Isa 33:4).
e Yahweh is exalted, for He dwells on high, He has filled Zion with judgment and righteousness (Isa 33:5).
e And there will be stability in your times, abundance of deliverance, wisdom and knowledge. The fear of Yahweh is his treasure (Isa 33:6).
d Behold their valiant ones cry outside, the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly. The highways lie waste, the traveller ceases, he has broken the covenant, he has despised the cities, he does not regard man (Isa 33:7-8).
c The land mourns and languishes. Lebanon is ashamed and withers away. Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves (Isa 33:9).
b “Now will I arise,” says Yahweh, “Now will I lift myself up, now will I be exalted” (Isa 33:10).
a You will conceive chaff, you will bring forth stubble, your breath is a fire that will devour you. And the peoples will be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut down that are burned in the fire (Isa 33:11-12).
In ‘a’ Assyria is chided with its greed and treachery and is warned that it will come back on its own head, and in the parallel that they will conceive chaff and produce stubble and they will be devoured by their own breath. In ‘b’ Yahweh’s people call on Him and Isaiah adds his plea to theirs, and in the parallel Yahweh will arise and act in a way by which He will be exalted. In ‘c’ the people flee at the noise of tumult and the nations are scattered by one who lifts himself up, while in the parallel the land mourns and languishes. In ‘d’ the spoil is gathered with the rapacity of caterpillars and locusts, and in the parallel those who have sued for peace weep because of what is being done to the land through treachery. In ‘e’ Yahweh is seen as exalted, dwelling on high, and filling Zion with justice and righteousness, while in the parallel the result will be stability in their times, and abundance of deliverance, wisdom and knowledge because the fear of Yahweh has become his treasure.
Isa 33:1
‘Woe to you who spoil, and you were not spoiled,
And deal treacherously, and they did not deal treacherously with you.
When you have ceased to spoil, you will be spoiled,
And when you have finished dealing treacherously, they will deal treacherously with you.’
The point behind this woe is that Assyria have gone beyond their remit. God had summoned them to chastise His people, but they are now bent on going further. They have despoliation of the temple treasury, captivity and exile for the people in mind (Isa 36:17). They have no excuse for this. No one has done it to them. But they are greedy and treacherous. Thus their greed and treachery will rebound on their own heads. They in turn will be despoiled by others and they will experience treachery at first hand, just as they have been treacherous. What a man sows he will reap. This is a principle that God has built into creation.
Isa 33:2
‘O Yahweh, be gracious to us.
We have waited for you.
May you be their arm every morning,
Our deliverance also in the time of trouble.’
The plea now goes up to Yahweh for help. His people seek His compassion and undeserved love. They point out that they are trusting Him at last, they have at last ‘waited for Him’. So Isaiah prays that Yahweh will indeed be their arm every morning, their strength and uplifter. Then he includes himself and prays for deliverance for them all in the trouble that they now face, which may well have been the sight of the siege army of Sennacherib surrounding Jerusalem, and the words of the army commander calling on them to surrender (36-37).
Isa 33:3-4
‘At the noise of the tumult, the peoples are fled,
At the lifting up of yourself, the nations are scattered.
And your spoil will be gathered as the caterpillar gathers,
As locusts leap men will leap on it.’
It is not always easy to discern the detailed trend in Isaiah’s prophecies, and some see this as portraying Yahweh’s deliverance and the partial fulfilment of the woe, with Yahweh devastating the camp of the Assyrian international army (Isa 37:36). The tumult that arose as a result of the mysterious deaths is then seen as resulting in speedy departure, for at His lifting up of Himself the nations are scattered, as they were at Babel (Gen 11:1-9). Then the people of Judah are seen as emerging from the city of Jerusalem like caterpillars and locusts, spoiling what remained of the camp, with all the goods and provisions which have been left behind. This results from seeing ‘yourself’ and ‘your’ as signifying the Yahweh of Isa 33:2. The story is then seen as repeated in Isa 33:7-12.
But in Isa 33:11-12 ‘you’ is Assyria and our analysis above suggests that what is rather being described in these verses is the spoliation resulting from the Assyrian’s advance towards Jerusalem and laying siege to Lachish, during which they gather spoil like caterpillars and locusts (compare Joe 1:4). All the peoples who have been in alliance against them have previously fled, all the nations have been scattered, and now Jerusalem is in Sennacherib’s sights. But what he has overlooked is that Yahweh is exalted and dwells on high.
Isa 33:5-6
‘Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high.
He has filled Zion with judgment and righteousness.
And there will be stability in your times,
Abundance of deliverance, wisdom and knowledge.
The fear of Yahweh is his treasure.’
Assurance of the coming victory is now described. His people need not fear. Yahweh is exalted for He dwells on high. And as a result of His action and His deliverance which is about to take place there will be a great renewal of the covenant in Zion, with the result that it will be filled with right judgments and righteousness. And the result will be stability in Hezekiah’s day (compare Isa 39:8). Wisdom and knowledge will grow as men again look to Yahweh. And while Hezekiah’s treasure house has been emptied (2Ki 18:15-16), it will be replaced by a greater treasure, the fear of Yahweh, which is the true treasure which Yahweh gives to His own.
The future therefore would seem bright, but it would not be long before the strains underneath were detected and the people returned to their old ways under Manasseh, and even while Hezekiah was still alive. It would not be long before Isaiah detected the crumbling of the revival.
Yet one importance of this incident for us is not only that it reveals the power of God, but also that it assures us that God does see the treachery against His own people of their enemies and will Himself in His own way deal with it, often in ways that are unexpected, even if not quite so spectacular as at this time. For in all these prophecies Isaiah is not only detailing events, he is enunciating great principles which are true in every age. This is one reason why he keeps so much of it general rather than specific.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Chapter 33 The Sixth Woe Against Those Who Despoil Others and Who Are Treacherous.
The sixth woe seems in context to be directed against Assyria for some treacherous act. We can compare and contrast how the previous list of woes ended with a ‘ho’ (or ‘woe’) towards Assyria (Isa 10:5), but now Assyria has gone beyond the pale and receives ‘woe’ instead. The treacherous act may be seen as occurring in 2Ki 18:13-18 when Sennacherib accepted peace terms and tribute from Hezekiah but then later advanced and besieged Jerusalem. Behind his change of heart may have been news of the gathering of the Egyptian army, possibly supplemented by auxiliaries from Judah. No doubt he persuaded himself that he was justified because of this, but Jerusalem and Isaiah saw it as treachery, for they had had no part in the rebellion since the surrender.
Here the chapter then proceeds with a prayer to Yahweh, followed by a declaration of the victory He achieved, which resulted in an at least temporary transformation in Jerusalem as we would anticipate (Isa 33:2-6). But it would not last for long as the previous chapter has made clear. This is followed by further mourning over the act of treachery, and Yahweh’s promise to respond to it, resulting in a description, as so often in Isaiah, of the triumph of God and the time of final blessing.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Prophecies of the Reign of Christ Isa 28:1 to Isa 35:10 is a collection of prophecies that describe the reign of Christ on earth.
The Punishment Strikes the Adversary
v. 1. Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled, v. 2. O Lord, be gracious unto us! v. 3. At the noise of the tumult, v. 4. And your spoil, v. 5. The Lord is exalted, v. 6. And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times and strength of salvation, v. 7. Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without, v. 8. The highways lie waste, v. 9. The earth mourneth and languisheth, v. 10. Now will I rise, saith the Lord, v. 11. Ye shall conceive chaff, v. 12. And the people shall be as the burnings of lime, SECTION X. A PROPHECY OF JUDGMENT ON ASSYRIA (Isa 33:1-24.).
EXPOSITION
Isa 33:1-6
THE JUDGMENT ON ASSYRIA AND DELIVERANCE OF JERUSALEM, STATED GENERALLY. Events had progressed since the preceding prophecies were delivered. The negotiations carried on with Sennacherib had been futile (Isa 33:7), the heavy fine imposed and paid (2Ki 18:14) had been of no avail (Isa 33:18); the Assyrian monarch was still dissatisfied, and threatened a second siege. Already he was upon his march, spoiling and ravaging (Isa 33:1). The people of the country districts had removed into the town (Isa 33:8)in a little time the vast host might be expected to appear before the walls. All was terror, grief, and confusion. Under these circumstances, Isaiah is once more commissioned to declare the approaching discomfiture of the mighty conqueror, and deliverance of Jerusalem out of his hand (verses 3, 4). The deliverance ushers in a reign of righteousness (Verses 5, 6).
Isa 33:1
Woe to thee that spoilest. The “spoiler” is here, evidently, Assyriathe world-power of this entire group of prophecies (see especially Isa 30:31; Isa 31:8), and the greatest “spoiler” of Isaiah’s time. Thou wast not spoiled; i.e. “that hast not yet been spoiled thyself.” A covert threat is conveyed in the words. And dealest treacherously; rather, usest violence (compare the comment on Isa 21:2). When thou shalt cease to spoil, etc. Conquering nations cannot with safety pause on their career. Their aggressions have roused so many enmities that, let them cease to attack, and at once they are attacked in their turn. Every man’s baud is against the spoiler whose hand has been against every man.
Isa 33:2
O Lord, etc. The mingling of prayer with prophecy is very unusual, and indicative of highly excited feeling. Isaiah realizes fully the danger of his people and nation, and knows that without prayer there is no deliverance. His prayer is at once an outpouring of his own heart, and an example to others. We have waited for thee (comp. Isa 8:17; Isa 26:8). Their Am; i.e. “the Arm of thy people.” Every morning. Continually, day by day, since their need of thy support is continual.
Isa 33:3
At the noise of the tumult the people fled; rather, the peoples; i.e. the contingents from many nations which made up the huge army of Sennacherib. The “noise” is that caused by God “lifting up himself” (comp. Psa 29:3-9).
Isa 33:4
Your spoil shall be gathered. The “spoiling” of Assyria would commence with the discomfiture of the great host. In the historical narrative (2Ki 19:35; Isa 37:36) nothing is said of it; but, beyond a doubt, when the host was to a largo extent destroyed, and the remainder fled, there must have been an enormous booty left behind, which the enemies of the Assyrians would naturally seize. A further spoiling of the fugitives probably followed; and, the prestige of the great king being gone, marauding bands would probably on all sides ravage the Assyrian territory. Like the gathering of the caterpillar. The “caterpillar” (khasil) is probably the grub out of which the locust developsa very destructive insect. Shall he run. It would be better to render, shall they run. The word, indeed, is in the singular; but it is used distributively, of the various spoilers.
Isa 33:5
The Lord is exalted. His destruction of the Assyrian host is an exaltation of God; i.e. it causes him to be exalted in the thoughts of those who have cognizance of the fact (comp. Exo 15:14-16; Psa 96:3-10, etc.). It is an indication to them that he has his dwelling on high, and is the true King of heaven. He hath filled Zion with judgment, etc. (comp. Isa 32:15-17). The destruction is, in part, the result, in part the cause, of the Jews once more turning to God, putting away their iniquities, and establishing the reign of justice and righteousness in the land (see Isa 1:26).
Isa 33:6
Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times; literally, and the stability of thy times shall be (i.e. consist in) a rich store of salvations, wisdom, and knowledge. The prophet here addresses the people of Judah in the second person, though in the next clause he reverts to the third. Such transitions are common in ancient compositions, and especially characterize the writings of Isaiah. The fear of the Lord is his treasure; i.e. the wisdom intended is that which is based upon “the fear of the Lord” (Psa 111:10). This will be at once Judah’s “treasure,” and a guarantee of stability to her government and institutions (compare the Homiletics on Isa 32:15-17).
Isa 33:7-12
THE PROPHET ENTERS FURTHER INTO PARTICULARS. Having “sketched the main outlines of his revelation,” Isaiah proceeds to “fill in and apply the details” (Cheyne). He first describes the despair and low condition of Judah: the men of war wailing aloud; the ambassadors just returned kern Laehish weeping at the ill success of their embassy; all travelling stopped; the land wasted and made a desert; the Assyrians still ravaging and destroying, despite the peace which had been made (2Ki 18:14-16). Then suddenly he sees Jehovah rousing himself (verse 10), and the Assyrians con-stoned, as if with a fire (verses 11, 12).
Isa 33:7
Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without. “Their lion-hearts “(Cheyne); “heroes” (Delitzsch). Literally, lions of God (comp. Isa 29:1). They raise a cry of mourning in the streets, with child-like effusiveness (comp. Herod; 8:99; 9:24). The ambassadors of peace. Hezekiah probably sent several embassies to Sennacherib in the course of the war. One went to Lachish, offering submission, in B.C. 701 (2Ki 18:14); another to Nineveh, with tribute and presents, in the same or the following year. A third probably sought to deprecate Sennacherib’s auger, when he made his second invasion (2Ki 18:17) in B.C. 699 (?). These last would seem to be the “ambassadors” of this verse.
Isa 33:8
The highways lie waste {croup. Jdg 5:6). The meaning is that’ they were unoccupied. Fear of the Assyrians restrained men from travelling. He hath broken the covenant. Sennacherib, when he accepted the sum of money sent him by Hezekiah, must have consented to leave him unmolested for the future. But in a very short time we find him, apparently without any reasonable pretext, sending a fresh expedition against Jerusalem, requiring it to be admitted within the walls, and even threatening the city with destruction (2Ki 18:17-35; 2Ki 19:10-13). Isaiah, therefore, taxes him with having broken his covenant. Despised cities. “Sennacherib,” says Delitzsch, “continued to storm the fortified places of Judah, in violation of his agreement.” Regardeth no man; i.e. “pays no attention to the protests that are made against his infraction of the treatydoes not care what is said or thought of him.”
Isa 33:9
The earth mourneth; rather, the land. Lebanon is hewn down; rather, as in the margin, is withered away (comp. Isa 19:6). Lebanon, Sharon, Carmel, and Bashan are the four most beautiful regions of the Holy Land, taking the word in its widest extent. Lebanon is the northern mountain-range, one hundred and twenty miles in length, clad with cedars and firs, and generally crowned with snow, whence the name (from laban, white). Sharon is “the broad rich tract of land” which stretches southwards from the foot of Carmel, and melts into the Shefelah, noted for its flowers (Son 2:1) and forests (Josephus, ‘Ant. Jud.,’ 14.13, 3). Carmel is the upland dividing Sharon from the Esdraelon plain, famous for its “rocky dells” and “deep jungles of copse.” Finally, Bashan is the trans-Jordanic upland, stretching from the flanks of Hermon to Gilead, celebrated for its “high downs” and “wide-sweeping plains,” for its “forests of oak,” and in ancient times for its herds of wild cattle. All are said to be “waste,” “withered,” and the like, partly on account of the Assyrian ravages, but perhaps still more as sympathizing with the Jewish nation in their distress”ashamed” for them, and clad in mourning on their account. Shake off their fruits; rather, perhaps, shake down their leaves. Mr. Cheyne conjectures that the prophecy was delivered in autumn.
Isa 33:10
Now will I rise. Judah’s extremity is Jehovah’s opportunity. “Now” at length the time is come for God to show himself, tic will rise from his throne, and actively display his power; he will exalt himself above the heathenlift himself up above the nations.
Isa 33:11
Ye shall conceive chaff. The Assyrian plans against Jerusalem shall be mere “chaff” and “stubble.” They shall come to naught. Nay, the fury of the foe against Jerusalem shall be the fire to destroy them.
Isa 33:12
The people; rather, the peoples, as in Isa 33:3; i.e. the nations composing the Assyrian army. As the burnings of lime; as thorns. Things that fire consumes utterly and quickly.
Isa 33:13-24
REFLECTIONS ON ASSYRIA‘S OVERTHROW VIEWED AS ACCOMPLISHED. The prophet’s first thought is, how wonderfully the overthrow has manifested the might of God (Isa 33:13). Next, how it must thrill with fear the hearts of the wicked among his people (Isa 33:14). Thirdly, how the righteous are by it placed in security, and can look back with joy to their escape, and can with confidence look forward to a future of happiness and tranquil lily (Isa 33:15-24). Messianic ideas intermingle with these latter thoughts (Isa 33:17, Isa 33:23), the image of a happy, tranquil Judah melting into that of Messiah’s glorious kingdom.
Isa 33:13
Hear, ye that are far off, etc. Jehovah speaks by the mouth of his prophet, and calls on the nations of the earth, far and near, to consider and acknowledge his might, as shown in his judgment on Assyria (comp. Exo 15:14-16).
Isa 33:14
The sinners in Zion are afraid. The prophet proceeds to speak in his own person. The judgment on Assyria, he says, cannot but strike terror into the hearts of the immoral and irreligious in Zion. They cannot fail to realize their own danger, and to tremble at it. Who among us, they will say, can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? They will recognize God as “a consuming Fire” (Deu 4:24), whose next outbreak may be upon themselves, and will shudder at the prospect.
Isa 33:15
He that walketh righteously, etc. The prophet answers the question which he has supposed to be asked. None can endure the revelation of the presence of God but the holy and the upright”he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully” (Psa 24:4; comp. Psa 15:2-5). Uprightness is then explained as consisting in six things mainly
(1) Just conduct;
(2) righteous speech;
(3) hatred of oppression;
(4) rejection of bribes;
(5) closing the ear against murderous suggestions;
(6) closing the eye against sinful sights.
We may compare with this summa, y those of the Psalms above quoted. No enumeration is complete, or intended to be complete. Isaiah’s has special reference to the favorite sins of the timeinjustice (Isa 3:15; Isa 5:23), oppression (Isa 1:17, Isa 1:23; Isa 3:12, Isa 3:14; Isa 5:7; etc.), the receiving of bribes (Isa 1:23; Hos 4:18; Mic 3:11), and bloodshed (Isa 1:15, Isa 1:21; Isa 59:3).
Isa 33:16
He shall dwell on high; literally, inhabit heightslive, as it were, in the perpetual presence of God. His place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks; rather, strongholds of rocks (i.e. rocky strongholds) shall be his refuge. He shall fly to God, as his “Rock and his Fortress” (Psa 18:2), not from him, as his “Enemy and Avenger” (Pc. Isa 8:2). Bread waters; i.e. all that is necessary for his support and sustenance. Shall be given him shall be sure; rather, is given him is sure. Godliness has “the promise of the life that now is,” as well as that of the life “which is to come” (1Ti 4:8).
Isa 33:17
Thine eyes. Another transition. Here from the third person to the second, the prophet now addressing those righteous ones of whom he has been speaking in the two preceding verses. Shall see the King in his beauty. The Messianic King, whoever he might be, and whenever he might make his appearance. It has been said that beauty is not predicated of the heavenly King (Cheyne); but Zec 9:17; Psa 45:2.; and Canticles, passim, contradict this assertion. “How great is his beauty;” “Thou art fairer than the children of men;” “His mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely.” The land that is very far off; literally, the land of far distances. Bishop Lowth renders, “Thine own land far extended,” and so Delitzsch and Mr. Cheyne. But if “the King” is Messianic, so doubtless is “the land”the world-wide tract over which Messiah will reign (Rev 21:1).
Isa 33:18
Thine heart shall meditate terror; i.e. “thou shalt look back upon the past time of terror, the dreadful period of the siege, and contrast it with thy present happiness.” Mr. Cheyne quotes as an illustration, appositely enough, Virgil’s “Et haec olim meminisse juvabit.” Where is the scribe the receiver? . he that counted the towers? Where now are the Assyrian officialsthe scribe, who registered the amount of the tribute and booty; the receiver, who weighed the gold and silver carefully in a balance; and the engineer officer who surveyed the place to be besieged, estimated its strength, and counted its towers? All have perished or have fled away in dismay.
Isa 33:19
Thou shalt not see a fierce people, etc.; rather, thou shalt see no more that barbarous peoplethe Assyriansa people gruff of speech that thou canst not hear them, stammering of tongue that thee caner not understand them (comp. Isa 28:11). The generation which witnessed the destruction of Sennacherib’s army probably did not see the Assyrians again. It was not till about B.C. 670 that Manasseh was “taken with hooks by the captains of the King of Assyria, and carried to Babylon” (2Ch 33:11).
Isa 33:20
Look upon Zion, etc.; i.e. turn thy thoughts, O Judah, from the past to the presentfrom the time of the siege to the time after the siege terminated. The city of our solemnities; or, of our festal meetings; the city where we celebrate our Passovers, our Feasts of Weeks, our Feasts of Ingathering, and the like. A tent that shall not be taken down. There is, perhaps, a reference to Sennacherib’s threat to remove the entire population from Jerusalem to a far country (Isa 36:19). This threat should not take effect. Not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed. By “the stakes” are meant “the tent-pegs,” to which the ropes are fastened which keep the tent firm (comp. Exo 27:10; Exo 38:18, Exo 38:31; Jdg 4:21). The promise that they shall “never” be removed must be understood either as conditional on the people’s walking uprightly (Isa 33:15), or as a promise of a long continuance merely.
Isa 33:21
But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a Place of broad rivers; rather, there in majesty the Lord is ours; [the Lord who is] a Place of broad rivers, etc. Some critics think that “a place of broad rivers” may be exegetical of sham, “there,” and so apply it to Jerusalem; but the majority regard the phrase as applied directly to Jehovah. As he is “a Place to hide in” (Psa 32:7; Psa 119:114), so he may be “a Place of broad rivers,” full, i.e. of refreshment and spiritual blessing. Wherein shall go no galley. The river of God’s grace, which “makes glad the city of God, “shall bear no enemy on its surface, allow no invader to cross it.
Isa 33:23
Thy tacklings are loosed. The comparing of God to a river has led to the representation of Judah’s enemies as warships (Isa 33:21). This causes Judah herself to be viewed as a shipa badly appointed ship, which has to contend with one whose equipment is perfect. The prophet’s thoughts have traveled back to the existing state of things. They could not well strengthen their mast; rather, they cannot hold firm the lower part of their mast. The mast had its lower extremity inserted into a hole in a cross-beam, and required to be kept in place by the ropes. If they were loose, it might slip out of the hole and fall overboard. They could not spread the sail; rather, they cannot spread the ensign. The ensign would seem to have been attached to the top of the mast. If the mast fell, it would no longer be spread out, so as to be seen. Then is the prey of a great spoil divided. The word “then” is emphatic. Now the disabled ship seems incapable of coping with its enemy. Then (after Assyria’s overthrow) Judah will obtain an immense spoil (see Isa 33:4). Even the lame shall have their portion.
Isa 33:24
And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick. There shall be no sickness in the restored Jerusalem at least, no “sickness unto death.” The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity. Once more the prophet floats off into Messianic anticipations.
HOMILETICS
Isa 33:6
The fear of the Lord, Judah’s treasure.
The best treasure of a nation is a religious spirit. Judaea had been ravaged by the host of the Assyrians under Sennacherib, had had all her “fenced cities” taken (Isa 36:1), had been stripped of her most precious treasures in silver and gold by the rapacious king, and was left with an empty treasury, down-trodden vineyards, and fields unsown (2Ki 19:19); but her best treasure still remained to hershe was rich in “the fear of the Lord.” The fear of the Lord gave her
(1) wisdom, to direct her steps aright, to keep out of entangling alliances, and abstain from provoking attack;
(2) energy, to throw off her depression and struggle manfully against her misfortunes, to clear and sow her lands, replant her vineyards (2Ki 19:19), and rebuild her villages and country towns; and
(3) complete trust in God, to support her amid all trials and troubles through which she might have to pass, and secure her against the despondency which is the worst foe of declining states. After the deliverance which she had experienced, it must have been plain to her that “God was in the midst of her;” that his power had no limit; and that, so long as she feared him and put her trust in his protection, she was safe from any and every enemy. A nation thus circumstanced is a thousand times richer than one which has countless store of silver and gold laid up in its treasuries, granaries overflowing, lands teeming with crops, magnificent cities full of goodly merchandise, well-stored magazines and arsenals, but no trust in a Divine Protector, nor reliance on him who is alone “mighty to save.”
Isa 33:10
The opportuneness of God’s judgments.
It is characteristic of Divine interpositions that they take place at the moment of greatest need. Isaac is on the point of being sacrificed when the angel calls to Abraham out of heaven (Gen 22:10, Gen 22:11). Elisha is compassed about with horsemen and chariots, and on the point of falling into his enemies’ hands, when they are smitten with blindness (2Ki 6:15-18). The Israelites are hemmed in between the Egyptians and the sea, and must perish on the morrow, when the waters are divided for them, and a way opened to them for escape (Exo 14:10-22). More especially is the appropriateness of the time noticeable, when the interposition is in the shape of a judgment. Judgments are opportune doubly:
(1) with respect to those on whom they fall;
(2) with respect to those whom they relieve.
I. JUDGMENTS ARE OPPORTUNE WITH RESPECT TO THOSE ON WHOM THEY FALL. God is so merciful that he will not judge men “before the time,” or until they have “filled up the measure of their iniquities.” Hence it is the general rule that his enemies are at their greatest height of exaltation, and at the very acm of their haughtiness and pride, when the fatal blow falls upon them. Assyria had reached the zenith of her greatness under Sennacherib in B.C. 700. He himself had reached a pitch of arrogance unknown to former kings (2Ki 19:23, 2Ki 19:24; 2Ki 19:8), when the destroying angel went forth. So Nebuchadnezzar was stricken down at the height of his glory and his glorying (Dan 4:29-33); and Haman had attained to the greatest elevation possible for a subject (Est 5:11) when he was seized and hanged in front of his house. Herod Agrippa (Act 12:21-23) is another instance; and so, perhaps, is Arius.
II. JUDGMENTS ARE OPPORTUNE WITH RESPECT TO THOSE WHOM THEY RELIEVE. Generally, though not always, a deliverance accompanies a judgment. God, when he “putteth down one, setteth up another.” Hezekiah and the Jewish nation were delivered by the destruction of Sennacherib’s host. Mordecai was saved when Haman suffered death. Alexander and the Catholics of Constantinople breathed again when Arius suddenly expired. The Church had rest when Galerius perished miserably. It is in their utmost need especially that God succors men, perhaps because they then turn to him with most sincerity, and offer their supplications to him with most earnestness. When they call to him “out of the depth,” their need and their faith both plead for them, and he “hears their voice” (Psa 130:1, Psa 130:2).
Isa 33:17
The King in his beauty.
When Christ appeared on earth at his first coming, he “had no beauty that men should desire him” (Isa 53:2). Roughly clad and toil-worn, whatever the heavenly expression of his countenance, he did not strike men as beautiful, majestic, or even as “comely” (Isa 53:2). But at his second coming it will be different. St. John the Divine describes him as he saw him in vision: “In the midst of the seven candlesticks was one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength” Rev 1:13-16). The description in Canticles is cast in a more terrene mould, but equally indicates a more than earthly beauty: “My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers; his lips like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely“ (So Son 5:10-16). The following adaptation by Dr. Pusey of the words of an ancient writer says all that can be said by unassisted human pen on a topic transcending man’s power of thought or speech: “If we could ascend from the most beautiful form which the soul could here imagine, to the least glorious body of the beatified, on and on through the countless thousands of glorious bodies, compared wherewith heaven would be dark, and the sun lose its shining; and, yet more, from the most beautiful deified soul, as visible here, to the beauty of the disembodied soul, whose image would scarce be recognized yea, let the God-enlightened soul go on and on, through all those choirs of the heavenly hierarchies, clad with the raiment of Divinity, from choir to choir, from hierarchy to hierarchy, admiring the order and beauty and harmony of the house of God; yea, let it, aided by Divine grace and light, ascend even higher, and reach the bound and term of all created beauty,yet it must know that the Divine power and wisdom could create other creatures, far more perfect and beautiful than all which he hath hitherto created. Nay, let the highest of all the seraphs sum in one all the beauty by nature and grace and glory of all creatures, yet could it not be satisfied with that beauty, but must, because it was not satisfied with it, conceive some higher beauty. Were God forthwith, at every moment, to create that higher beauty at its wish, it could still conceive something beyond; for not being God, its beauty could not satisfy its conception. So let him still, and in hundred thousand, hundred thousand thousand years with swiftest flight of understanding, multiply continually those degrees of beauty, so that each fresh degree should ever double that preceding, and the Divine power should, with like swiftness, concur in creating that beauty, as in the beginning he said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light;’ after all these millions of years he would be again at the beginning, and there would be no comparison between it and the Divine beauty of Jesus Christ, God and Man. For it is the bliss of the finite not to reach the Infinite”.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Isa 33:1-6
Jehovah a Refuge.
It is “Israel’s extremity, but God’s opportunity.” Retribution is about to fall on Assyria; salvation and every resource is to be found in Jehovah.
I. WOE TO ASSYRIA. This land appears under the image of a rapacious spoiler. The time is about B.C. 700, and the allusion is to Sennacherib and his army, who had advanced on a plundering and destroying course. The tables are to be turned, and the greedy conqueror (of. 2Ki 18:14, 2Ki 18:15) was to become the object of other’s greed in turn. Whether the words imply a complaint of unprovoked aggression and of perfidy is not clear. But to the prophetic eye in every age it is clear that empires founded upon force, fraud, and rapacity cannot endure; that they who take the sword will perish by the sword. It was the fate of Assyria to fall beneath the mightier powers of Media and Babylon.
II. THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER AND TRUST. “O Jehovah, be gracious unto us! For thee have we waited.” It is the attitude of calm confidence; it is the mood in which things distant and unseen are realized. Here the prophet sees what is improbable to the eye of worldly calculationthe downfall of the proudest power of the time. It is not less an energetic attitudeall the endeavor of the spirit straining after that highest point of view, where the confusions of the time fall into the unity of the Divine purpose. It is a seeming weak, yet really powerful, attitude; the foe trembles when he sees us on our knees. The arm of Jehovah is the symbol of strength, put forth in time of danger, interposing and delivering (cf. Exo 15:16; Job 40:9; Psa 44:3; Psa 77:15; Psa 89:21; Psa 98:1). Not only in particular emergencies, but “every morning,” i.e. constantly and evermore, may that arm be ours to lean upon, and we shall be strong and know no fear. And such is the effect of this act of prayer and contemplation, that already the symptoms of change are heard in the air. There is a confused sound in the distance, as of the roll of many waters; the people are rushing in flight. Jehovah is seen lifting himself up (cf. Num 10:35; Psa 68:1), and a great rout of the nations ensues; and the conquerors are seen swarming down upon the spoils, as the caterpillars on their food.
III. THE ATTRIBUTES OF JEHOVAH AS THEY ARE REVEALED IN PROPHETIC THOUGHT, AS THEY ARE CONFIRMED BY HISTORIC EVENT.
1. His inviolable strength. He is secure; he is One who dwells in the height (Psa 97:9). The heavens shall rather fall than he be dethroned, his dynasty over all nations come to an end.
2. His abundant resources of good. A chorus seems here to break forth in his praise. He has filled Zion with spiritual treasures, these being ever united with temporal blessings in the theocracy. Justice and righteousness. The effect of the temporal deliverance will be that men will turn to the Deliverer, and will walk in his ways and according to his laws (cf. Isa 30:22, etc.; Isa 31:6; Isa 32:15, etc.). Amidst the vicissitudes of these times, the people will have a principle of constancy. There will be “store of salvations” for every time of need in the religious “wisdom and knowledge” diffused among the people. Compare with this the picture of Hezekiah’s reign (2Ki 18:1-37.). In one word, the “treasure” of the nation wilt be the fear of Jehovah, i.e. true religionin distinction from successful wars or commercial prosperity. Perhaps the love of material treasured on the part of the kings of Judah is indirectly rebuked. The true wealth of a people, as of an individual, must ever be the mass of its available wisdom and piety.J.
Isa 33:7-12
The uprising of Jehovah.
I. HIS UPRISING IS A FIGURE OF PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSITION. There are times when he seems to be still, seated, and looking on, and the course of events to defy his will (Isa 18:4). Men cry, “How long, O Lord? Awake, stir thyself up to deliver!” But he knows his own time; he is not a day too soon, nor too late. When the hour of providence has struck, the scene instantly changes. “Now will I rise; now I will lift up myself!” It is not for us to know the times and the seasons. Our part is to tarry, expect, work, and pray.
II. GOD UPRISES WHEN MAN IS CAST DOWN. The condition of the land seems hopeless and despairing. The lion-hearted heroes break down in weeping and lamentation, and. the messengers, bewailing the hard conditions of peace, keep them company. The scene is Oriental and passionate. The roads are deserted; the land at the mercy of a perfidious conqueror, who holds his promise in contempt. The land languishing in the wane of the year, and the falling leaves of Bashan and Carmel, seem silently to sympathize with human woe. Yet one word from the Eternal suffices to change the whole situation: it is a word of supreme contempt for all the machinations of man. Their conceptions are as “hay,” their pretensions as “stubble,” their furious breath as self-devouring fire; and in a great conflagration the people will perish. Worldly passions and worldly might, he that sitteth in the heavens derides; his word abolishes the proud, while it supports the humble.J.
Isa 33:13-16
Living near to God.
Jehovah has uprisen; he has revealed his might in the destruction of the Assyrian host; he calls through the prophet upon all the nations to acknowledge him.
I. THE AWFULNESS OF GOD. We see it reflected from the horror-struck faces of the ungodly and the profane, He is indeed seen to be a “consuming Fire,” having his “furnace in Jerusalem” (Isa 31:1-9 :19). And all the immoral and the unprincipled, the heedless and the worldly, feel themselves as fuel for his wraththey whom the continual returns of the Word preached do not alter, so that their old sins remain firm, entire, and unbattered, the baseness of their inclinations unchanged, the levity of their discourse and behavior; those whose former distresses and disasters have not laid low in the valleys of humility, nor circumscribed the lashings out of their luxury; they whose past miseries and restraints give only a relish instead of a check to present pride and intemperance; those whom all the caresses of Providence have not been able to win upon, so as to endear them to a virtuous strictness, or deter them from a vicious extravagance;all suchunless the great God be trivial and without concern in his grand transactions with our immortal soulsduring this condition, so far as we can judge, are fashioning for wrath. “He is a probationer for hell, and carries about with him the desperate symptoms and plague-tokens of a person likely to be sworn against by God, and hastening apace to a sad eternity” (South).
II. DWELLING NEAR TO GOD. Who can endure the vicinity of this devouring Fire? Only they who have intrinsic spiritual worth, which when tried by fire will appear unto “praise and glory.” “Only that which yields itself willingly to be God’s organ can abide those flames (cf. on the burning bush, Exo 3:2).” Of all else, like briars and thorns, the “end is to be burned” (Isa 10:17; Isa 30:27). The fire ever burning on the altar (Le Isa 6:13) is the symbol of him in whose nature wrath and love unite; the wrath being the symptom of love, which must ever glow against evil. The answer to the question is given in the picture of the good man which follows; his character positively and negatively, his consequent security.
III. PICTURE OF TRUE PIETY.
1. Its completeness. He walks in “perfect righteousness.” Not so the righteousness of “scribes and Pharisees,” partial and imperfect, but rounded out to the full requirements of the Divine Law. The hypocrite “singles out some certain parts, which best suit his occasions and least thwart his corruptions.” The proud or impure man may be liberal to the poor, may abhor lying and treachery, and may be ready in the fulfillment of duties which do not jostle his darling sin. But it “will not suffice to chop and change one duty for another; he cannot clear his debts by paying part of the great sum he owes” (South). To offend in one is to be guilty of all (Jas 2:10). The chain of duty is broken by the removal of a single link. “Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments” (Psa 119:6). It is not a handsome feature or a handsome limb which makes the handsome man, but the symmetry and proportion of all. So, not the practice of this or that virtue, but an entire complexion of all, can alone render a man righteous in the sight of God.
2. Its leading characteristics. It unites what human corruption is ever tending to dissever, religion and morality. It imitates the Father in heaven in the justice of his perfect Being. It rejects unjust gain, flings the bribe as a thing of pollution from the hand. It is abstinent from the greed of gold, that most downward and degrading vice, making the soul all earth and dirt, burying that noble thing which can never die.” “Thou shalt not take a gift, because a gift blinds the eyes of the wise” (Deu 16:9; cf. 1Sa 12:3; Ecc 7:7). Covetousness is a thing directly contrary to the very spirit of Christianity; which is a free, a large, and an open spiritopen to God and man, and always carrying charity in one hand, and generosity in the other (South). It is exclusive in reference to evil, as inclusive in reference to good. The good man walks with ear and eye shut against the moral contagion around him. As the leaven of disease will not develop save in the unhealthy body, so moral evil will not grow to a head in the soul antipathetic to it. He “seals up the avenues of ill.” By listening and looking come all our best and all our worst inspirations. Dead to sin, he “neither hears nor sees;” alive to God, he is all ears and all eyes, for his words, his inspirations. The chastity of the spirit extends to the senses, and if the mind be full of the love of purity, “each thing of sin and guilt” is driven far from it. Itself remains intact as the sunbeams glancing on the garbage-heap.
3. Its security and satisfaction. The good man dwells on the heights (cf. Psa 15:1-5; Psa 24:3, Psa 24:4), inaccessible to miasmata from the poisonous swamps below, braced by the different air, enlivened by glorious prospects. He will have food, and that in abundance. To “eat and be satisfied” is the simplest and strongest figure for intellectual satisfaction, for a rich inner life; as hunger that of an empty, distressed, self-torturing spirit. But as food is of no service without an appetite for it, so this spiritual satisfaction can only be theirs who hunger and thirst after righteousness, who have fixed their minds upon an Object, which still invites the most boundless and unlimited appetite. The nobler senses are never weary of exercise upon objects which delight them. We do not surfeit upon noble music, nor do rare pictures cloy. The desires of the righteous are so agreeable to the ways of God that they find a continual freshness growing upon them in the performance of duty; like a stream, which, the further it has ran, the more strength and force it has to run further (South).J.
Isa 33:17-24
The reign of Hezekiah.
Amidst all the agitation caused by the invasion of Sennacherib, and his perfidy, “the voices of true prophets were raised with power, pointing to the imperishable elements in the true community, and proclaiming the approach of a great crisis, the crushing weight of which should alight only on the faithless, whether among the Assyrians or in Judah” (Ewald). Here we find a reflection of the excitement of the time.
I. THE GLORY OF THE KING. His beauty is a moral beautythat of a just rule (Isa 32:1); an “ideal beautythe evidence of God’s extraordinary favor.” The picture should be compared with that in Psa 45:1-17. The eyes of the people shall see a land of distances. Looking northward and southward, and eastward and westward, the boundaries of the kingdom shall still be extended, far as eye can reach.
II. VANISHED TERRORS. The Assyrian officials who registered the amounts of the tribute, who tested the silver and the gold, who counted the towers of the city about to fall their prey, shall have vanished. The people themselves shall proudly and thankfully number those intact towers (Psa 48:13). No longer shall the jarring accents of the foreigner’s stammering tongue fall upon their ears.
III. THE STRENGTH AND SPLENDOUR OF ZION. Look upon her! Once more the festive throngs shall gather there. Once more she shall be a house of peace, or dwelling of confidence, a quiet resting-place. She had indeed seemed like the tent of wanderers, the pegs ready to be drawn out, the cords to be rent, at the bidding of the conqueror. The people had been threatened with removal (Isa 36:17). This fear shall have passed away. The majesty of Jehovah, like an all-protecting regis, terrifying to his enemies, assuring to his friends, shall be revealed in Zion’s state. That presence, which is “glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders,” shall have returned thither; that right hand, which is glorious in power, shall again have been stretched forth to deliver and to protect. Jehovah, and he alone, is the Defense of Jerusalem. What though she be unlike “populous No, situate among the rivers, with the waters round about it, and the rampart of the sea” (Nah 3:8), or Babylon, “seated on the waters” (Jer 51:13),he shall be instead of rivers and canals to his holy city. It is the streams of a spiritual river which “shall make glad the city of God” (Psa 46:4).
IV. THE DIVINE RULER. By him kings reign and princes decreed justice. The earthly king is but representative of him who is enthroned in heaven, the “great King.” Hezekiah is but his vicegerent, his inspired servant. The weak political power becomes strong through him. Though Zion be like a dismasted ship, she wilt prevail over the proud, well-rigged ships of her foes. Sin will cease, punishment will be at end, and, with it, bodily suffering and sickness. “A people, humbled by punishment; penitent and therefore pardoned, will dwell in Jerusalem. The strength of Israel and all its salvation rest upon the forgiveness of its sins.”
V. LESSONS.
1. National judgments will only cease with national sins. “Humble repentance is to cure us of our sins and miseries; and there can no cure be wrought unless the plaster be as broad as the sore.”
2. The most effectual way to avert national judgments is the way of personal amendment. Particular sins often bring down general judgments. Sin, like a leprosy, begins in a small compass, yet quickly overspreads the whole.
3. The forsaking of sins begets hope in the mercy of God. Because he has promised upon that condition to remove them; because he actually often has so removed them; because, when men are thus humbled, God has attained the end of his judgments (South).J.
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM
Isa 33:17
The glorious vision.
“Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty,” There is much of beauty in this world. And by Christ Jesus God created the worlds. So that he is the Archetype of all beauty. Everything lovely was first a thought of Christ before it became a fact in life. These eyes of ours have seen glorious spectacles: the sun rising to run his race; the tender greens and purples of the seas; the magnificence of Carmel and Lebanon. How much also have we all seen of moral beauty!the gentleness of pity; the heroism of endurance; the sublimity of sacrifice. Yet these have all been mingled with some elements of worldliness and sin.
I. THIS PROPHECY IS FULFILLED IN CHRIST AS THE TRUE KING. Think of the kings of every age: the Pharaohs; the Caesars. There we see power, pageantry, and, alas! too often criminality and cruelty. Here we see the true King. One whose government is Divine, because it is within, holding in supremacy the conscience and the heart. One who is a King who “reigns in righteousness, mighty to save.”
II. A PROPHECY FULFILLED IN THE BEAUTY OF CHRIST‘S CHARACTER. Beauty lies in symmetry and completeness; he was perfectly holy, without spot or blemish. Beauty lies in subtle harmonies; and in Christ justice, love, and wisdom were all united in one. Beauty lies in conformity with moral law; and he was “harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” Beauty is not to be found in mere sentiment alone. Character is not to be tested simply by exquisite feeling or profound teaching, but by a life where truth felt and truth spoken and truth lived are all embodied in one. He who spake as never man spake could also say, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?”
III. A PROPHECY FULFILLED THROUGH THE POWER OF SPIRITUAL VISION. “Thine eyes shall see.” The beauty of Christ can be seen only through the lens of moral disposition. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” It is distinctly said of the wicked, concerning their view of Christ, “They shall see no beauty in him that they should desire him.” We may have the artistic eye to see the beauty of Grecian capitol and Roman arch, but we may not have the spiritual eye whereby alone we discern spiritual things.
IV. A PROPHECY FULFILLED IN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. “Thine eyes.” Powers of vision cannot be transferred. How we have longed, perhaps, that those we love should see this beauty too! Nor can they be intellectually willed. We must have the spiritual heart before we can enjoy the spiritual eye.
V. A PROPHECY TO BE PERFECTLY FULFILLED IN THE FINAL REVELATION OF HEAVEN. Whatever we may see there of new displays of God’s creative energy and power, however fair and lovely our own beloved ones may be now that they are “without fault before the throne of God,”we may be sure of this, that Christ will be “the Altogether Lovely.” The eye will be perfectly purged from sin, and the soul perfectly alive to God. Then Christ’s own prayer will be fulfilled, “That they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.”W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Isa 33:1
Aggravated evil.
I. THAT SIN IS OFTEN FOUND IN AN AGGRAVATED FORM. It may take the forms of which the prophet here complains.
1. Unprovoked aggression. “Thou spoilest, and (though) thou wast not spoiled.” Men may go so far as to assail their fellow-men without the slightest justification; this may be in the shape of open war, or of brutal individual assault, or of unlawful appropriation, or of shameful slander.
2. Inexcusable treachery. “And dealeth treacherously, and (though) they dealt not,” etc. Men will go so far in iniquity as to deceive, entrap, and even ruinand that not only in a pecuniary, but even in a moral sensethose who are guileless and unsuspicious; they will take a mean and execrable advantage of the innocence which should not appeal in vain for the protection of the strong. Those thus wantonly and heinously guilty may beguile others from the paths of
(1) faith and piety;
(2) virtue;
(3) the practical wisdom on which depend the maintenance and comfort of the home.
II. THAT WHEN THUS FOUND IT EXCITES GOD‘S DEEP DISPLEASURE. The Divine “woe” is pronounced against it. And this “woe“ is only one note in a large and full outpouring of Divine indignation in all parts of the sacred Scriptures. Prophet and psalmist and apostle, yes, and the Lord of love himself (see especially Mat 23:1-39.), unite to utter the awful anger of God “against them who commit such things.” It includes:
1. His holy indignation directed against the evil-doers themselves; not the sin, but the sinner (Psa 7:11; Rom 2:8, Rom 2:9).
2. His boundless hatred of the evil deed; not the agent, but the act (Jer 44:4; Hab 1:13). All sin is a leprous, a loathsome, thing in God’s sight: how much more so those aggravated forms of it in which man wantonly injures and ruins his fellow-man!
III. THAT IT IS CERTAIN TO MEET WITH RETRIBUTION ANSWERING TO THE OFFENSE. We know:
1. That impenitent sin will be followed by the judgments of a righteous God. The Divine “woe” points to severe punishmentto loss, sorrow, ruin, death (Exo 34:7; Pro 11:21; Rom 2:6, etc.).
2. That retribution will be proportionate to the magnitude of the offence (Luk 12:47, Luk 12:48; Joh 9:41; Joh 15:22; Rom 2:12).
3. That retribution is likely to take a form which corresponds to the offence. “When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled,” etc.
(1) Violence provokes violence; they that take the sword do commonly perish with the sword (Mat 26:52).
(2) Craft will be undermined; against the subtle schemer men will combine and use their ingenuity to overturn him.
(3) Avarice finds its own wealth an insupportable burden.
(4) The rejection of the supernatural ends in the acceptance of the superstitious, etc. “With what measure we mete, it is measured to us again.”C.
Isa 33:2
The lesser and the larger mercies.
This prayer includes the striking request, “Be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble.” The words suggest the pertinent and not unprofitable questionAre we laid under greater obligation by the lesser mercies of God which we are continually receiving, or by the larger ones which we occasionally receive at his hands? We look at both
I. THE LESSER MERCIES WE ARE CONTINUALLY RECEIVING. God is to us “our Arm every morning;” he is our support from day to day, from hour to hour; “in him we live and move and have our being.” We may pass many days in which no striking or impressive mercy is bestowed upon us; but we pass no single hour, we spend no fleeting minute, in which some kindnesses do not come from his bountiful hand. Our indebtedness arising from these may be estimated when we consider:
1. Their regularity. The nature of God’s kindnesses is commonly missed by reason of their regularity; they are referred to “law,” as if law had any power, in itself, to originate or to sustain. Consequently, they are not traced, as they certainly should be, to the love and care of a Heavenly Father. But their value is immeasurably enhanced by their regularity. How much more “gracious unto us” is our God in that he is “our arm every morning!” in that we can confidently reckon on the morning light, on the evening shadows, on the incoming and outgoing tides, on the returning seasons, and can arrange and act accordingly, than if the Author of nature gave us his blessings irregularly, spasmodically, at such uncertain intervals that we could make no arrangements, and hold no permanent offices, and be in constant doubt as to whether or when our agency would be required!
2. Their constancy. We are leaning on God’s arm continually. It is not merely a matter of frequency; it is not by a permissible hyperbole that the psalmist says, “the goodness of God endureth continually“ (Psa 52:1); nor is it without reason that he asks of God “that his loving-kindness and his truth may continually preserve him” (Psa 40:11). Every year God is crowning with his goodness; he “daily loadeth us with benefits;” he is our arm every morning of our life; each night he lays his hand upon us in sleep and “restores our soul.” We may well join in singing
“The wings of every hour shall bear For on the wings of every passing hour come many mercies to our hearts and to our homes from the protecting and providing love of God; and we may go yet further and say, or sing, “Minutes came fast, but mercies were more fast and fleet than they.” God’s creative power gives us our life, and his constant visitation preserves our spirit (Job 10:12).
II. THE LARGER MERCIES WE SOMETIMES RECEIVE. God is” our salvation also in the time of trouble.” The greatness of our indebtedness to him for these his larger, his especial and peculiar loving-kindnesses, we may estimate if we consider:
1. Their frequency. Though infrequent as compared with his constant favors, yet they are not infrequent in themselves, if we count them allnational, ecclesiastical, family, individual.
2. Their exceeding preciousness to us who receive them. Who can reckon the worth of one single deliverance from
(1) the gulf of black disbelief; or from
(2) the power of some unholy passionavarice, or lust, or revenge; or from
(3) the misery of some threatened loneliness or (what is far worse than that) some entangling and ruinous alliance; or from
(4) the dark shadow of some false and cruel slander? Only they who have been thus saved in the time of trouble, who have been lifted up and placed on the solid rock of safety, and made to walk again in the sunshine of peace and hope, can say how great is that mercy from the hand of God.
3. Their costliness to the Divine Giver.
(1) If in all human sympathy there is an expenditure of self, which, though most willingly rendered, is yet painful and oppressive to the spirit, shall we not think that there is this element also in him whose sympathy is so much stronger, and whose sensibility is so much finer than ours (see Isa 63:9; Luk 19:41; Joh 11:35; Heb 4:15)?
(2) One great redemptive actthe salvation which is in Christ Jesuswas wrought at the cost of a Divine incarnation, of sorrow, of shame, of death. He gave himself for us. We conclude that,
(a) taking this last thought into account, the special mercies of God do incalculably outweigh the constant ones;
(b) that together they constitute an overwhelming reason for worship, for obedience, for consecration;
(c) that we do well to appeal to God in earnest prayer for the special mercies we need, and to wait expectantly for them. “O Lord, be thou gracious unto us; we have waited for thee.”C.
Isa 33:5, Isa 33:6
A wise nation (Church).
These verses supply us with three features by which a nation or Church that is possessed of true wisdom will be characterized.
I. A PERVADING SENSE OF GODof his greatness, his power, his righteousness. “The Lord is exalted; he dwelleth on high; he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness.” The result of the deliverance wrought by Jehovah would be the creation of this devout sentiment. The holy nation, the Church after the heart of its Divine Author, will strive to maintain this as an abiding, religious sense; it will cherish that feeling of reverential awe which fills the heart when the greatness of the Exalted One is realized, when the power of him that makes his judgments to be known is felt, when the righteousness of him who overturns iniquity is present to the mind. Well does it speak for the community, civil or sacred, when this sacred sense of God “hath filled” it from end to end, from the least to the greatest. This pervading conviction is, indeed, an essential thing; without it the most vehement protestations, the most honored creeds, the most ecstatic fervors, will soon be found to be as “sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.”
II. A DEEP SENSE OF THE TRUE SOURCE OF STABILITY AND STRENGTH. “Wisdom and knowledge,” etc. It has always been the case that communities have imagined that their stability and strength rested in things material and visiblein seas and mountains, in armies and navies, in lands and houses, in large numbers of men and women, in goods and grants. But all these things prove to be of no avail when there is inward rottenness, when disunion has crept into the state or into the Church, when the process of demoralization has set in so that it cannot be arrested. No external resources of any kind, however numerous or strong they may be, will save a society that is giving itself up to that which is false and foul. Its defeat and dissolution are only a question of yearsor days. The true source of stability and of strength is in heavenly wisdomthat “knowledge” of God which means, not only a perception of the truth but a love of it, a delight in it, an acceptance of it as the one thing that will cleanse the heart, and that should regulate the life.
III. A RIGHT ESTIMATE OF PROSPERITY. “The fear of the Lord is his treasure.” What is it that constitutes wealth or prosperity? According to the answer which we give to this question our spiritual position may be well determined. If we are indulging the illusion that our prosperity consists mainly in money, or in stocks, or in mines, or in acres; or if we seek for it in numbers, or in reputations, or in the patronage of the titled, and the strong, we are living in a “paradise of fools.” “Surely our riches are not where we think, and the kind heart is more than all our store.” Yes! and not simply the kind heart, but the pure heart, the heart
(1) that has been purified of the love and tolerance of sin by the truth and by the Spirit of God;
(2) that has been led to hide itself in the Divine mercy, and to lose itself in the love of a Divine Friend and Lord;
(3) that lives to bear witness to his truth, and to magnify his holy Name. That Christian Church that holds itself rich, that finds its treasure in the fear of the Lord, in the consequent and complementary love of Jesus Christ, is the Church that is divinely wise. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning”and a very large part also”of wisdom.”C.
Isa 33:10-16
In the presence of the Holy One.
The great question which, in a somewhat different form from that of the text, Balak proposed to Balaam (Mic 6:6) is one that has always stirred the hearts of men everywhere and in all ages. We must find an answer to it if we are to enjoy any “rest unto our souls.”
I. THE THRICE–HOLY LORD OUR GOD. That which makes God’s intervening purpose (Isa 33:10) so serious to his creatures is that when he arises he will be found to be as “the devouring Fire,” as “everlasting Burnings;” i.e. he will prove himself to be the Holy One of Israel:
(1) Whose Spirit is absolutely intolerant of iniquity, hating it with perfect hatred, to whom it is so abhorrent that he “cannot look” upon it. And
(2) whose action is inflexibly opposed to it;
(a) placing limits to its temporary success (Isa 33:11);
(b) bringing its decrees and its achievements to nothing, as the lime-kiln reduces everything to ashes;
(c) consuming the strength of the impious and the rebellious as easily and as swiftly as the fiery flames burn up the thorns (Isa 33:12). To fallen, guilty man, whose character has been depraved and whose life has been stained by sin, God is obliged to make himself known, and to make himself feared as “the devouring fire,” as “the everlasting [‘the continual’] burnings,” consuming iniquity in the holy ardor of his unquenchable purity.
II. THE PRESENCE OF THE HOLY ONE. Who among us shall dwell with this Holy One, this consuming Fire? Who shall abide in his presence and dwell in his holy hill? (Psa 15:1; Psa 24:3)? There are different senses in which we are before God, or stand in his presence.
1. His observant presence, which is constant, of which we do well to remind ourselves often, with the thought of which our minds and hearts may well be filled.
2. His interposing presence. Those times and occasions in particular when he arises to judgment (Isa 33:10); when he stretches forth his hand in punishment or in reward; when he sends back the Assyrian monarch in humiliating flight, and at the same time lifts up the head of bowed and trembling Jerusalem; when he breaks the arm of the oppressor and the chains of the captive; when he scatters his enemies and redeems his people.
3. His presence in the sanctuary. When he manifests himself to his waiting ones as he does not unto the world.
4. His nearer presence in another world. When in a most solemn sense we shall “stand before” him, and when in a most blessed sense we shall “dwell with” him.
III. THOSE WHO CAN ABIDE IN HIS PRESENCE. The answer is negative and positive.
1. Negative.
(1) Not the guilty ones among the unprivileged. To those who” have not the Law,” but who are guilty of transgressing the unwritten law; to all who act as Assyria did on this occasion, spoiling those who had not spoiled them, etc. (Isa 33:1), God will mete out his indignation (see Isa 33:11).
(2) Not the insincere among the children of privilege. “Fearfulness will surprise the hypocrites” (Isa 33:14). Let all who sing the praises and utter the words of the Redeemer consider whether gratitude and devotedness are in their hearts as well as on their lips.
2. Positive. They can dwell with the Holy One who are possessed of moral because of spiritual integrity. “He that walketh righteously,” etc.; i.e. he that is of sound heart, and therefore of a pure life. With us, in this Christian era, it may be said of spiritual integrity
(1) that its foundation is laid in genuine repentance, in a change of heart towards God;
(2) that it takes the form of a living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ;
(3) that it manifests itself in excellency of character. And this last is seen in the marks, which the prophet here indicates: in upright conduct (walking righteously, refusing bribes); in soundness of speech; in refusing all access to evil (stopping the ears and shutting the eyes from hearing and seeing what is injurious and defiling); in a hearty hatred of injustice (despising the gain of oppression).
IV. THE BLESSEDNESS OF THOSE WHO DWELL WITH GOD. Whether here or hereafter, but in a higher degree and more perfect form hereafter, there are promised these two great blessings.
1. Security. “He shall dwell on high: his place of defense,” etc. Nothing shall harm him, no sin shall have dominion over him; in the arms of God’s protecting care his home shall be impregnable to assault.
2. Sufficiency. “Bread shall be given him,” etc. He may not have all he would desire, but he shall have everything he needs for his real welfare and his true joy.C.
Isa 33:17
The King in his beauty.
“Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty.” Of this we may take
I. THE CONTEMPORARY VIEW. Those who heard these words from Isaiah’s lips or read them from the roll on which he wrote them would naturally think of Hezekiah. But in what aspect would they think of him as clothed on with beauty? Not, surely, as one arrayed in gorgeous royal robes, or as one surrounded with the pomp of a royal court; but as one who wielded the kingly scepter in righteousness and in wisdom. The king in his beauty, to the eye of the man who speaks for God, is that sovereign who
(1) honors God in all his doings and dealings with man;
(2) uses his position and his power to further Divine truth;
(3) lays himself out for the good of others rather than for his own enjoyment or the aggrandizement of his house. And these things, mutatis mutandis, constitute the beauty of all earthly authority and power.
II. THE MESSIANIC VIEW. If we refer the words of the prophet to him to whom, in themselves and apart from the context, they are most appropriateto that Son of man who came to be the Savior-Sovereign of mankind, we have two views brought before us.
1. That of Jesus Christ as he lived on earththe meek King of men (Mat 21:5), he who claimed to be a King even as he stood bound before Pilate (Joh 18:33-36). Here we see the King in his beauty as we see him in his purity of heart, in his devotedness to the work his Father had placed in his hands, in his submissiveness to that Father’s will, in his quick and tender sympathy with the sorrowing and the abandoned, in his inexhaustible patience with the undeserving and the wrong.
2. That of the Divine Redeemer as he reigns in heaven. Thus viewed, we see in him the beauty of one who
(1) once surrendered everything he was and had in order that he might redeem a fallen race,the beauty of the most perfect sacrifice;
(2) now welcomes to his kingdom the worst of all that have rebelled against his will,the beauty of perfect magnanimity;
(3) now bears with his servants in all their manifold infirmities and insufficiencies of service,the beauty of perfect patience;
(4) now dispenses grace and help to every one of his followers according to their individual necessities and requests,the beauty of perfect beneficence.
III. THE DISTANT VIEW. Our eyes will see the King in his beauty when we see “him as he is“the ascended and reigning Lord. Then we shall
(1) behold the glories of his heavenly administration; we shall
(2) dwell upon the transcendent excellence of his Divine character; and we shall then
(3) be drawn towards him in spiritual resemblance (1Jn 3:2), live under his reign in unremitting and untiring service (Rev 7:15; Rev 21:25), dwell with him and reign with him in everlasting joy (2Ti 2:12; Rev 2:26; Rev 3:21; Rev 22:5).C.
Isa 33:17
The breadth of the kingdom.
“They shall behold the land of far distances”. We look at
I. THE BREADTH OF THE HISTORICAL KINGDOM. Judah was to be delivered from her Assyrian oppressor. At present she was beleaguered, shut in on every hand, by the invading army; her citizens had no range of land they could traversethey were confined to the narrow circle made by the besieging hosts of Sennacherib. But soon those boundaries would be removed, the army would be scattered and would disappear. Then the country would be open everywhere; in whatsoever direction they looked they would see hills they might climb and valleys they might cultivate at will; as far as the eye could reach the country would be free to the traveler and to the husbandman. They would behold a “land of far distances,” a broad kingdom they might call their own.
II. THE BREADTH OF THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM. That kingdom of Christ, wherein we stand and in which we so much rejoice, is a “land of far distances,” a region of glorious breadth of view and range of motion and of action. There is nothing in it that is limiting, nothing that confines; everything is on an enlarged scale. There is about it a noble and inviting freedom; the horizon-line recedes perpetually as we advance. This applies in full to its distinguishing features.
1. The grace of God shown to us in Jesus Christ. The breadth, the fullness, of the Divine Father’s love in giving us his Son (Joh 3:16; Rom 8:32); the fullness of the Saviors love in making such a sacrifice of heavenly dignity, glory, and joy (Joh 1:1-14; Php 2:6, Php 2:7; Php 2:1-30 Cur. 8:9), and stooping to such depths of darkness, shame, and woe, humbling himself even unto death: what glorious breadths and depths and heights have we here!
2. The mercy of God now extended to us in Jesus Christ; reaching to those who have gone furthest in presumptuous sin, in vice, in crime, in unspeakable enormities; extending to those who have sinned against the clearest light and the most gracious influences; touching those who have gone to the very verge of human life: what noble breadths, what far distances, have we here!
3. The patience of Christ with his erring and imperfect followers.
4. The usefulness of a devoted and generous Christian life. Who can calculate the extent to which a life of holy love, of self-denying service, stretches out and flows on, out into the remote distance of space, on into the far future of time?
III. THE BREADTH OF THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM. We confidently expect to find in the heavenly country a “land of far distances.”
1. In its spatial dimensions; if, indeed, that can be truly said to have dimensions which is boundless in its lengths and breadths. To no narrow sphere, reckoned in yards or miles, shall we there be limited. Our outlook will be one that is immeasurably large, for the country of the blessed is, “to our heart and to our hoping,” a land of very far distances indeed.
2. In the excellences and glories of the character of its King. When will the time come that we shall have covered all the ground in that great exploration, that we shall have surveyed all the heights and traversed all the breadths of the glorious and beautiful character of the Son of God? There are regions beyond regions, summits beyond summits, there.
3. In the capacities of its subjects. There is something of great interest and of genuine worth in the growth of the human mind from infancy to maturity; something well worthy of being watched and in every way to be desired. But there comes a point beyond which that development may not go; there is a meridian-line, reached at a different age by different men, across which we may not step, at which it is imperative that we return, that we decline. We dare to hope that, in the “land of far distances,” that boundary-line is indefinitely far off; that “age after age, forever,” we shall go on acquiring not only knowledge but power, the horizon-line of spiritual maturity continually receding as we advance in wisdom and strength.
4. In the range of its service. “His servants shall serve him;” and in what varieties of way may we not hope to serve him there? Here the service of God and of man takes many formswe can serve by action and by suffering, by example and by persuasion, in word and deed, in things secular and in things sacred, alone and in company with others. We look for a land, we wait for a life, in which opportunities of serving the Eternal Father and of blessing his children will be far more numerous, far more varied, far greater and nobler in their nature. We hope for a land of such glorious breadth on every hand that, not only in our enlarged capacities, but also in our multiplied and magnified opportunities, we shall find it a “land of great distances.”
(1) Take care to be there.
(2) Be ready to start well on the heavenly course, for according to our beginning will be our progress at every point in all succeeding ages.C.
Isa 33:18-24
Happy times.
A very pleasant picture is this of a nation or of a Church on which the full blessing of God is resting. There are several elements in its prosperity.
I. A SENSE OF THE DIVINE MERCY. “The people shall be forgiven their iniquity” (Isa 33:24). A sense of pardoned sin and of reconciliation to God is at the foundation of all true peace, all sacred joy, and all holy usefulness.
II. THE MAINTENANCE or DEVOTIONAL HABITS. Zion is to be always known as “the city of solemnities” (Isa 33:20). There reverent prayer and grateful praise and earnest inquiry of the Lord are to be continually found.
III. THE ABIDING PRESENCE AND GREAT POWER OF GOD. The word that will most commonly be heard on the lips, because most frequently rising from the soul, will be “the Lord.” “Jehovah is our Judge.” “Jehovah is,” etc. (Isa 33:22). Everything is to suggest him, is to be referred to his will, is to be ascribed to his grace.
IV. A PLEASANT RECOLLECTION OF EVILS THAT ARE OVER. (Isa 33:18.) Happy the Church or the man when the dark days that have been and are gone are sufficiently removed from present experience to make the memory of them a source of joy and not of pain. Such a time does often come, and we may well rejoice and be glad in it. The home is the dearer and the more delightful for the privations that have been passed through on the way.
V. ABUNDANCE FOR EVERY PURE DESIRE. The “glorious Lord” will secure bountiful supplies for every imaginable need, even as the broad river and outstretching streams provide verdure and grain over all the surface of the well-watered land, even as the affrighted and fleeing army leaves prey which even the halt and the lame will be strong enough to take. In the day of God’s blessing there will be nourishment for the thoughtful, and also for those who feel more than they think; truth for the wise and for the simple, for the mature of mind and for the little child; posts of service for the advanced Christian and also for those who have just begun their course; such fullness, even to overflow, of all that meets the wants and cravings of the heart, that the weakest as well as the strongest shall find his place and take his share.
VI. DIVINE GUARDIANSHIP. Prosperity is dangerous, but, with God’s Spirit in the Church, it shall not be harmful. On the broad river of success and satisfaction the sails of the spiritual enemy shall not be seen (Isa 33:21). “The sun shall not smite by day;” it will illumine and warm, but will not scorch and wither. Consequently, there shall be
VII. SOUNDNESS AND SECURITY. The inhabitant will not be sick (Isa 33:24); “Jerusalem will be a quiet habitation,” etc. (Isa 33:20). Spiritual soundness, moral integrity, purity of heart, shall prevail. Anal this abounding, there will be no abatement of prosperity; the stakes will not be removed, the tent will remain; there will be no need for any going into exile; there will be a happy permanence and fixedness of abode. The picture is one that is ideal rather than actual; it is what every Church should aim to present. Only the favor of God can possibly secure it. The vital question isHow is that favor to be won? And that question resolves itself into other questionsIs there occasion for humiliation and a change of spirit and of behavior? Is there need for more internal union (Psa 133:3)? or for more prayer (Luk 18:1; Jas 4:3)? or for more love both of Christ and man (1Co 13:1; Rev 2:4)? or for more zeal (Rev 3:15)?C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Isa 33:2
Constant renewals of Divine help.
“Be thou their Ann every morning.” Prophetic reference is made to that wonderful morning, when the inhabitants of Jerusalem arose, and, looking forth from the walls of the city, beheld the besieging army of Sennacherib a multitude of corpses (Isa 37:36). The prayer is that every morning of life may bring its witness of as real, if not as striking, helpings and deliverings and defendings of God. The reference to the “arm“ is specially appropriate, as keeping in view the soldierly defense of the city. The prophet and others may do what they can with heart and head; but in view of defense against an outward enemy, those that serve with the arm are specially important. Therefore we have the prayer that the Lord himself might be the Arm of those who have devoted their arm to the country. Matthew Henry paraphrases thus: “Hezekiah and his princes and all the men of war need continual supplies of strength and courage from thee; supply their need, therefore, and be to them a God all-sufficient. Every morning, when they go forth upon the business of the day, and perhaps have new work to do, and new difficulties to encounter, let them be afresh animated and invigorated, and, ‘as the day so let the strength be.'” Treating the text as a basis for meditation, we observe that God has been graciously pleased to arrange our life on earth, not as one continuous and unbroken space of time, but as a succession of brief periods, carefully and regularly separated from each other; a series of days, we call them, divided by ever-recurring nights of sleep. A man’s life is not properly a thing of so much length; it is made up of so many days. Looking back over life, the patriarch Jacob says, “Few and evil have the days of the years of the life of my pilgrimage been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the lives of my fathers.” If our life on earth were one continuous, unbroken scene, it would surely be impossible for any of us to become truly good. So much of our hope of ever winning goodness lies in our being able to try again and again, to begin again and again with each returning day. However hopelessly we may end one day, we may step cheerfully forth to new endeavors as each new morning comes. Then how tenderly helpful is the assurance that we can have the “arm of the Lord” for our help every morning! God’s idea of life for us is that it shall be given to us in pieces, separated from each otherpieces shaped and fashioned as he may please, and each piece given to us as fresh as if we were really born again every day. God gives us thus, morning by morning, and day-by-day, in order that our thoughts may be fully concentrated on today. Today is ours. To night is not ours. Tomorrow is not ours. No man has any to-morrow until God gives it to him, and then he must call it today. We cannot grasp a whole life; we can grasp the duties of today. What “grace” is for a long and changeful life we do not know, we cannot know. God offers us grace for just the day that begins with this morning. And the arm of the Lord is precisely what we need day by day. Gathering up the scriptural associations of this figure, especially in the Book of Isaiah, the following points may be illustrated.
I. EVERY MORNING WE NEED ASSURANCE OF GOD‘S ARM TO LEAN ON. The distinction between the godly and the ungodly man cannot be more sharply defined than by saying, “The ungodly man tries to stand by himself, and the godly man loves to lean on another.” The change, the renewal, the new birth of a man, finds its expression in this “loving to lean.” It is but the gracious response of God to this gracious disposition, that he offers his arm afresh every morning for the good man to lean upon. “On my arm shall they trust.”
II. EVERY MORNING WE NEED THE ASSURANCE OF GOD‘S ARM TO GUIDE US. It is the fact of life, but it is much more than thatit is the experience of life, that “it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” So Isaiah, speaking of the journeyings of God’s people, refers to God who “led them with his glorious arm.” That arm is like a signal held out, showing our daily path. It is even the arm and hand that keeps us steadily in the right, the narrow path. The figures of the unknown journey, or voyage, may be used. This journey is taken in stages, and every morning our wise, safe, strong Guide is waiting, ready to give us his good help.
III. EVERY MORNING WE NEED THE ASSURANCE OF GOD‘S ARM TO DEFEND US. “That arm is not shortened, that it cannot save.” How little we realize our day-by-day dependence on Divine providence! “Dangers stand thick and hover round.” By what we call “accidents,” men and women about us are killed or wounded every day. Some one defends us. It would be well for us if we more clearly saw God’s saving arm defending us continually. Then there are our enemies; some are by circumstance enemies, and some are by willfulness enemies. But how little they ever do that really hurts us! Noisily they dwell around us, like the armies of Sennacherib, but our Defender is there every morning, Shield for each new day. But it is more searching to think of our bad selves and how we need defending from them. Every morning wakes the old self, with some of the old frailties, habits, prejudices, passions. Above all else we need, day by day, the presence and the power of him who alone can defend us from ourselves.R.T.
Isa 33:6
The secret of stability for every age.
This is presented by showing what would be the secret of stability in the kingdom of Hezekiah, when safety and peace were again restored. The prophet anticipates the removal of the great and serious national evils, which had brought on the people Divine judgments, and rejoices in the prospect that “righteousness would exalt the nation.” We may well think that, in thought, he passed on to the times of Messiah, when alone his great hopes could be perfectly realized. We have four words given as the great sources of the national security and stability”judgment, righteousness, wisdom, and knowledge.” If we attach precise and appropriate meanings to each of these, we shall learn what are the secrets of stability for all times.
I. JUDGMENT. Not here equivalent to “wise decisions,” “skillful plans,” or “good counsels.” The idea is rather that of strong and vigorous dealing with sin. There is no security for any community or society that is weak in its handling of sin. And this is true also of the individual life; we must be resolute and firm in mastering our own habits and passions, “cutting off right hands, and plucking out right eyes.” If a nation is to prosper it must be strong and firm in its judgments.
II. RIGHTEOUSNESS. Here ordering life and relations by good and wise principles and rules. Unrighteousness is disorderthe chaos which follows when “every man does that which is right in his own eyes.” Righteousness, for a people, is rightness, corn-fortuity to good rules, the copying of good models. And this is a first and important sense of righteousness for the individual. It is the righteousness which a man may attain; but there is the further righteousness which a man may receive from Jehovah Tsidkenu, “the Lord our Righteousness.”
III. WISDOM. This, on its practical side, is the skilful ordering and rule of circumstances, so as to get the most and the best out of them, and resist the evils that may be connected with them. “The wisdom profitable to direct.” The wisdom which may be illustrated for social and political life from the ever-watchful man of business, who seeks to turn everything to good account; or from the anxious housewife, who tries to make the best of everything.
IV. KNOWLEDGE. Which, in this connection, is the careful adjustment of things which men may make on the bases of experience. Knowledge proving a practical help. The knowing man is the opposite of the simple, or inexperienced, man, who is bewildered and endangered by difficult circumstances.R.T.
Isa 33:14
Who can stand the testing fires?
The terms “devouring fire,” “everlasting burnings,” do not mean hell; they mean God in visible, material judgments, such as may be symbolized by the destruction of the Assyrian army; and such as the presence of that army became to the people of Jerusalem. The appeal of Isaiah seems to be this: See the fright into which the people have fallen at the presence of this hostile army. See who has been calm and strong in this hour of national peril. How, then, would it be with men in the more awful times of God’s testing judgments? The man who alone can dwell in the “devouring fire” is the good man. He that is able to abide “the everlasting burnings” is “the man that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly.” Maclaren says; “The prophet has been calling all men, far and near, to behold a great act of Divine judgment, in which God has been manifested in flaming glory, consuming evil; now he represents the” sinners in Zion,” the unworthy members of the nation, as seized with sudden terror, and anxiously asking this question, which in effect means, “Who among us can abide peacefully, joyfully, fed and brightened, not consumed and annihilated, by that flashing brightness and purity?” The prophet’s answer is the answer of common sense: “Like draws to like. A holy God must have holy companions.”
I. THE TESTING FIRES. These are future, but they are not altogether future. Perhaps we shall presently come to see that the passing testings are more serious than the future ones. Every life-work must be tried with fire; it is being tried with fire. Every day we are in the “everlasting burnings.” Life is God’s testing fire. This is illustrated by the influence national calamities have upon nations. Through baptisms of blood and devouring fires nations come forth purified. “Through much tribulation [God’s testing for us] we must all enter the kingdom”
II. THE EFFECT OF THE TESTING FIRES ON THE EVIL–MINDED. Symbolized is the panic of the godless folk in Jerusalem when Sennacherib drew nigh. At the sound of threatening they took alarm, and hurried to Egypt for help. Their vain self-confidences fell about them as soon as the test was applied. Can we face the judicial and punitive action of that Divine Providence which works even here? and how can we face the judicial and punitive action in the future?
III. THE EFFECT OF THE TESTING FIRES ON THE GOOD–MINDED. They cannot escape from the common earthly conditions. The fires try every man’s spirit and every man’s work. There are someshould we not be among them?on whom even the “second death” hath no power.R.T.
Isa 33:16
God’s witness to character.
Connect this verse with the description of the righteous man given in Isa 33:15, observing how very practical is the righteousness which God requires and approves. The good man walks uprightly, speaks worthy things, wants nothing that is his neighbor’s, will neither be bought nor forced to do that which is wrong, refuses to listen to evil, and shuts his eyes that he may not see it. God is on the side of such a good man, and whatever may be the disabilities in which he is placed by his fellow-men, he may be quite sure of safety and provision. “God is a Refuge for him.” “None of them that trust in him shall be desolate.” “The Lord doth provide.”
I. THE GOOD MAN MUST BE IN THE WORLD, BUT HE SHALL BE ABOVE IT. Our Lord prayed thus: “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” Put into Eastern figure, before earthly troubles the good man is as safe as a people hid behind the “munitions of rocks” when the invader is in the land. God makes no new lot, no fresh circumstances, for the good man. He does not promise any man that he will alter his earthly conditions, or altogether relieve him of his troubles. He lifts the good man up above his earth-scenes, by “strengthening him with strength in the soul,” making his soul bigger than his circumstances. A man is not lost until he has lost heart. But if God supplies inward strength we never shall lose heart, and so we never shall be lost. Outwardly, a man may be tossed about, worn, wearied, wounded, almost broken, yet inwardly he may be kept in perfect peace, his mind stayed on God; he may be “strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” He may “dwell on high,” “out of the reach of present troubles, out of the hearing of the noise of them; he shall not be really harmed by them, nay, he shall not be greatly frightened at them.” This is the portion of the good; God’s witness to character.
II. THE GOOD MAN MAY HAVE LITTLE, BUT HE IS SECURE OF ENOUGH “Bread and water” represent his necessities, not his indulgences; a sufficiency, but not a luxury. So good Agur prays, “Feed me with food convenient for me.” The figure here is taken from the limitations of a time of siege. The “necessary,” as distinguished from the “luxurious,” is so difficult to decide. What has become a necessity for one person another still looks upon as luxury. One great evil of our age is the development of fictitious wants. We are called back to simplicity by the promises of God. “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” All that is needful is pledged to us, but for all the rest we are dependent on Divine grace; then what “monuments of grace” we must be!R.T.
Isa 33:17
Visions of the King.
The Targum reads, “Thine eyes shall see the Shechinah of the King of ages.” The idea of the prophet probably is, that the good man shall see, with his soul-eyes, God himself delivering and rescuing the city from its threatening foes. The good man never can be content with agencies and instrumentalities and second causes, lie must recognize the living God, working his work of grace by means of them. He cannot be content unless he can “see the King in his beauty”the beauty of his redemptive workings. Some see a reference to Hezekiah, clothed with an ideal beauty, the evidence of God’s extraordinary favor. But however we may begin with that, it is but a step to the much more satisfying thing, the spiritual vision of God. “Can God be seen? and if so, how? What is the true vision of God? Is it possible to men? By what means can we realize it? It is a question as old as humanity. In a thousand ways of formal interrogation, or unconscious yearning, we are ever putting it. In a thousand ways of ignorance, superstition, or intelligence, we are ever trying to answer it.” We may dwell on
I. THE EYES THAT SEE. Strangely imprisoned by their bodily senses, which are their sole mediums of communication with the world of material things, men overvalue the knowledge which the senses can bring them, and under-value those more real and more important worlds which are revealed only to the eyes of the mind and of the soul. No bodily vision of God can ever be given to dependent creatures; meeting our sense-conditions, Jesus Christ, the Man, is, for us, the” Brightness of his glory, and the express Image of his person.” But souls can have that near sense of God which can only be represented as a vision. Faith, love, purity, holy desire, patient waiting, are the conditions of soul-eyes to which God is revealed. Each of these suggests illustrations and practical applications.
II. THE THINGS THAT ARE SEEN. Three things are indicated.
1. Soul-eyes see the King. They are quick to discern God’s presence. They detect him everywhere and in everything. Life is serious, life is glorious, to them, because God is always “walking in the garden,” always close by.
2. Soul-eyes are keen to detect his beauty or his graciousness; especially as seen in the tenderness and care of his watchings, defendings, and deliverings. Soul-eyes are long-visioned, and can see the future, which they know is in God’s hands, and will surely prove to be the scene of God’s triumph. Whatever men may think and say and feel about the present, this is certainthe future is with the good.R.T.
Isa 33:22
The true theocracy.
It is most difficult for us to realize that idea of Jehovah as the direct Ruler and Governor of a nation, which was the one characteristic thought of the Jews, and the great underlying idea of the Mosaic revelation. But this verse gives us most material help by setting out a threefold relation of God to men in the theocracy.
I. GOD IS THE LAW–MAKER. “The Lord is our Lawgiver.” This is true in two senses.
1. God gave the formal laws from Mount Sinai, which were written down by Moses, and made the basis of the national covenant. Compare and illustrate by the work of Lycurgus and Justinian. God’s laws, as arranged for the Hebrews, were only the adaptations to their national life of the conditions and rules under which God set humanity from the first. This should be made quite clear, lest a notion should prevail that God’s Law to the Jew was his first revelation to men. It was the writing out of essential law for the practical use of one people.
2. God gives revelations of his will, which are law for all who receive them. There is no finality in the revelation of God’s law, for the very reason that God maintains living relations with us, and those relations involve that the expression of his will is law to us at any given time. Illustrate by the prompt and entire obedience of the prophets to God’s will, howsoever it may be revealed to them. Such revelations are made to us, and for us God’s will is law.
II. GOD IS THE LAW–APPLIER. “The Lord is our Judge.” This is precisely the work of the judgeto show how the principle and the comprehensive terms of the law bear on each particular case. Moses, Joshua, David, Samuel, and Hezekiah, referred each case of difficulty directly to the Divine Judge. But in just this Israel so often failed; and this we still find to be our supreme difficulty. We can accept the fact that law is from God, but we want to preside ourselves over all applications of law. What we need is the confirmed habit of referring all things to God our Judge.
III. GOD IS THE LAW–EXECUTOR. “The Lord is our King.” The proper idea of a king is one entrusted with power to carry out the requirements of the national law. The king is the executive. God carries out his own laws. Scripture is full of striking instances which are designed to impress the general truth. Take such cases as Achan, Korah, Uzza, Ananias, and Sapphira. This phase of God’s relation is not so difficult to apprehend as the previous one; and yet in these days we are in some danger of losing our sense of the directness of Divine judgments.R.T.
Isa 33:24
No more sickness.
This is clearly a figure, designed to complete the picture of relief from the strain and pressure and anxiety of the time of invasion. Sickness is the constant attendant on prolonged siege. The point on which we may dwell is that sickness is the sign of the presence of evil, of sin; and so heaven is represented as the place where there is no more sickness, because there is no more sin. This connection between sickness and sin lies at the basis of some of the most important Mosaic regulations. It explains the importance ceremonially attached to the one disease of leprosy. Trench states this very skillfully: “The same principle which made all that had to do with death, a grave, a corpse, the occasions of a ceremonial uncleanness, inasmuch as all these were signs and consequences of sin, might in like manner, and with a perfect consistency, have made every sickness an occasion of uncleanness, each of these being also death beginning, partial death-echoes in the body of that terrible realitysin in the soul. But, instead of this, in a gracious sparing of man, and not pushing the principle to the uttermost, God took but one sickness, one of those visible out comings of a tainted nature, in which to testify that evil was not from him, could not dwell with him; he took but one, with which to link this teaching. Leprosy, which was indeed the sickness of sicknesses, was selected of God to the end that, bearing his testimony against it, he might bear his testimony against that out of which it and all other sicknesses grewagainst sin, as not from him, as grievous in his sight; and against the sickness itself also as grievous, inasmuch as it was a visible manifestation, a direct consequence, of the inner disharmony of man’s spirit, a commencement of the death, which through disobedience to God’s perfect will had found entrance into a nature made by God for immortality.”
I. ALL SICKNESS IS A LITTLE DEATH. It is a beginning of death. Strangely death lurks in the smallest thingsa pin-prick, a slip of the foot, a tiny clot of blood, the bite of a fly, etc.
II. ALL DEATHS ARE THE SIGN OF SIN. “The sting of death is sin.” Sickness and death keep ever before men the fact that they are sinners.
III. SICKNESS AND DEATH WILL GO AWAY WHEN SIN GOES.
IV. AS GOD IS GRACIOUSLY WORKING FOR THE REMOVAL OF SINS, WE KNOW HE IS WORKING ALSO FOR THE REMOVAL OF SUFFERING. The day cometh when he shall be able to “wipe all tears from our eyes.”R.T.
Isa 33:1. Woe to thee that spoilest, &c. The prophet so orders his discourse, as if he had found this great spoiler to whom it is directed, in the very act of spoiling, and face to face denounces the divine judgment upon him. He addresses him therefore with the hateful appellation of perfidious spoiler and robber, and declares to him the decrees of the divine avenging justice, to be inflicted upon him according to the strict laws of retaliation. History abounds with the names of the mighty spoilers, robbers, and murderers of mankind, great heroes and warriors. One of these was Sennacherib, (see chap. Isa 37:18.) to whom this denunciation may with great propriety be applied; but with still greater to Antiochus Epiphanes, the most inveterate enemy of the people of God, who brought a much more extensive and fearful desolation upon them than Sennacherib; and the consequences related in the latter part of this chapter seem to refer most properly to the times succeeding his devastation. See Ezekiel 38. Dan 8:13; Dan 8:24 and Vitringa.
V.THE FIFTH WOE
Isaiah 33
1. THE GLORIUS TURNING POINT: THE WOE UPON ISRAEL BECOMES A WOE UPON ASSYRIA
Isa 33:1
1Woe to thee that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled;
And dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! And when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
and conjoined as in Isa 21:2.The primary meaning of is to cover; hence the cover, garment. Hence the secondary meaning of perfidious, treacherous doing [like the secondary meaning of the English word to cloak.Tr.].On the inf. see Ewald, 114 a, Green, 141, 3. stands for , comp. Isa 3:8; the Dag. f. in the is because of the Masorets assuming a synkope, whereas, properly, there Is an elision.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The season of preparation for withstanding the Assyrian foe, that Israel has spent in so perverse a fashion, is past. The enemy is at hand (comp. Isa 33:7). But now, too, is the time when God will fulfil His word that He would smite the Assyrian (Isa 30:18 sqq.; 31 sqq.; Isa 31:8 sq.). Now, therefore, the Prophet turns the woe against Assyria. This power, hitherto unconquered, will be overthrown (Isa 33:1). This is the principal thought of the chapter, which the Prophet puts at the head Isa 33:1, as a theme. But as a stone thrown into the water makes wave-lines that extend in concentric circles wider and wider, so the Prophet joins on to this primary theme three declarations which, enlarging in extent and contents, state the particulars of the condition, the completion and consequence of that act of deliverance. This woe follows as a fifth those of Isa 28:1; Isa 29:1; Isa 30:1; Isa 31:1. But unlike the preceding, which are directed against Israel, this is against Assyria (comp. Isa 10:1; Isa 10:5). For, according to the contents of the chapter, none but Assyria can be the desolater. This announcement of its destruction is opposed to that audacious presumption that regarded itself as invincible (Isa 10:5-14).
CONTENTS
This Chapter contains a mingled subject of divine judgment and divine mercies, The enemies of God and his Church are threatened, and his people comforted.
Isa 33:1
If this denunciation be directed, as it should seem to be, being personal, to any particular character or nation, the Assyrian must be the one evidently intended. In proof, let the Reader consult 2Ki 18:11 and 2Ki 19:35-36 . And for the full ruin, See Dan 4:28 to the end.
God Is a Consuming Fire
Isa 33:14-16
This passage contains a question, and the reply to the question, and an assurance over and above the reply.
I. Consider the answer here given to the inquiry about dwelling with God. The possession of spiritual life shown to be spiritual life by the external manifestations of walking righteously, and speaking uprightly, and holding aloof from evil is the one thing which enables a man to stand without being consumed in the consuming fire of the presence of God.
II. We advance to consider our second point the question asked by the sinners and hypocrites, or rather the statement involved in their question, that the God with whom we have to do is a consuming or devouring fire.
So long as we are in this world there is a sort of screen or veil interposing itself between our souls and God. God deals with us through the intervention of intermediate agencies, and thus there is no special distress, no very pungent misery experienced, if we are out of harmony with the Divine nature. But in the world of the future this state of things is altered. The screen is dropped, and the soul comes into direct, immediate contact with Deity, is hemmed round, and clasped in every direction, by Him Who is a consuming fire. To the purified soul, then, which has consented willingly, gladly, consented to be detached from its sin, and which, whilst on earth, has been changed into the image of Christ by the operation of the Holy Spirit, such close proximity to the Godhead is the source of indescribable gladness. But to the soul which has clung to its sin, and has identified itself with its sin, and has refused to be disentangled from its sin this plunging into an element for which it is not prepared, and with which it has no affinity, this coming into direct contact with the purity and holiness of God brings intolerable torment.
III. Something is promised us if we be of the number of those who walk righteously, and speak uprightly, and dwell in the presence of God. What is it? We may call it ‘inaccessibility’ the being placed high beyond the reach of anything that can really harm us.
Gordon Calthrop, Penny Pulpit, vol. xvi. No. 926, p. 129.
References. XXXIII. 14. F. Ferguson, Peace With God, p. 1. XXXIII. 14, 15. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 189. XXXIII. 15, 16. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1764. XXXIII. 16. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 199. XXXIII. 16, 17. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Prophets, vol. i. p. 132.
The Invisible Presence of God (Advent)
Isa 33:17
There is a peculiar feeling with which we regard the dead. What does this arise from? that he is absent? No; for we do not feel the same towards one who is merely distant, though he be at the other end of the earth. Is it because in this life we shall never see him again? No, surely not; because we may be perfectly certain we shall never see him when he goes abroad, we may know he is to die abroad, and perhaps he does die abroad; but will anyone say that, when the news of his death comes, our feeling when we think of him is not quite changed? Surely it is the passing into another state which impresses itself upon us, and makes us speak of him as we do I mean, with a sort of awe. We cannot tell what he is now, what his relations to us, what he knows of us. We do not understand him, we do not see him. He is passed into the land ‘that is very far off’; but it is not at all certain that he has not some mysterious hold over us. Thus his not being seen with our bodily eyes, while perchance he is present, makes the thought of him more awful. Apply this to the subject before us, and you will perceive that there is a sense, and a true sense, in which the invisible presence of God is more awful and overpowering than if we saw it. And so again, the presence of Christ, now that it is invisible, brings with it a host of high and mysterious feelings, such as nothing else can inspire. The thought of our Saviour, absent yet present, is like that of a friend taken from us, but, as it were, in dream returned to us, though in this case not in dream, but in reality and truth.
J. H. Newman.
Worship, a Preparation for Christ’s Coming (Advent)
Isa 33:17
Year after year, as it passes, brings us the same warnings again and again, and none perhaps more impressive than those with which it comes to us at this season. The very frost and cold, rain and gloom, which now befell us, forebode the last dreary days of the world, and in religious hearts raise the thought of them. The year is worn out; spring, summer, autumn, each in turn, have brought their gifts and done their utmost; but they are over, and the end is come. All is past and gone, all has failed, all has sated; we are tired of the past; we would not have the seasons longer; and the austere weather which succeeds, though ungrateful to the body, is in tone with our feelings, and acceptable. Such is the frame of mind which befits the end of the year; and such the frame of mind which comes alike on good and bad at the end of life. The days have come in which they have no pleasure; yet they would hardly be young again, could they be so by wishing it. Life is well enough in its way; but it does not satisfy. Thus the soul is cast forward upon the future, and in proportion as its conscience is clear and its perception keen and true, does it rejoice solemnly that ‘the night is far spent, the day is at hand,’ that there are ‘new heavens and a new earth’ to come, though the former are failing; nay, rather that, because they are failing, it will ‘soon see the King in His beauty,’ and ‘behold the land which is very far off’. These are feelings for holy men in winter and in age, waiting, in some dejection perhaps, but with comfort on the whole, and calmly though earnestly, for the Advent of Christ.
J. H. Newman.
Far Off, Yet Nigh
Isa 33:17
Heaven is shown as a land of glory and peace and joy and rest. There is no darkness, no parting, no pain, and no sorrow. And yet we are given to understand from the words of the text that it is a land from which we are far off. A shadow of disappointment passes over us, a feeling of pain when we remember that the life of the blessed ones is far off, and we have a lone, hard road to travel before we can be safe safe and sure in the presence of the King. That long road which we have to travel is life, and there is no cutting the distance short Although this life contains many comforts, luxuries, and pleasures, the beauty of the vision of the King outshines them all. And to us, even with the vision of that far-off land, there comes a feeling of disappointment. We want safety and happiness now. Why does God keep it all for that land which is so far off? It is we that are making a mistake.
I. God Does not Keep it for that Far-off Distant Land. We are far too ready to think of God as a far-off God; we are teaching our children to believe in Him as such. We teach them that God’s angels spread their wings around them as they sleep, that He hears them and He loves them. Yet when the child asks, Where is God? we answer, Up there, above the sky. Are we not teaching the child wrongly? Are we not teaching him just that which we should not teach him, just that which we should not let ourselves think or believe that God is a distant God? We think of God as One Who will meet us face to face in a distant world. Would it not be better to teach our children that God is always with them; that He is with them in their room; that if they go into another room He is there also; and that if they go out into the street He is with them still.
II. It is only by God’s Help that our Soul’s Enemies can be Overcome. God sends us temptations to see what metal we are made of. Scientific men will not trust an untested instrument, and so it is that God would have us perfect. Perhaps never at any time in the history of Christianity has the study of faith in the face of difficulties been more wanted than now. Men are using their intellects and their physical powers more than ever before. Men require and want an answer where perhaps an answer cannot be given. God does not always see fit to tell us everything. Not till we get to the next world shall we see things clearly. The mysteries of life and death are mysteries still, and we are to wait for the far-off land before we can have all things clear.
References. XXXIII. 17. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii. No. 752. D. MacGregor, The Dundee Pulpit, 1872, p. 74. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches (2nd Series), p. 23. B. J. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. li. 1897, p. 106. H. D. Rawnsley, ibid. vol. lxvii. 1905, p. 379. J. Hamilton, Faith in God, p. 213. J. W. Horsley, Church Times, vol. xlvi. 12 July, 1901. H. E. Manning, Sermons, p. 431. F. Ferguson, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. ii. p. 249; Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiv. 1908, p. 101. XXXIII. 20-23. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 489. XXXIII. 21. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 206.
The Lord Our Judge (Advent)
Isa 33:22
These four sentences seem to sum up all the great lessons of Advent
I. The Lord is our Judge. That is the beginning, and the condition of all spiritual progress lies in realizing the absolute and everlasting distinction between good and bad the absolute importance of being on the side of good. Christ tells us of the everlasting distinction between those on the right hand and those on the left. Yes, in spite of the vice and wickedness of the good, in spite of the virtues of the bad, there runs a line, invisible, but as profound as can be conceived, in amongst us as we gather together, that distinguishes between those who at the bottom of their wickedness are serving God, and those who, at the bottom, in spite of all their attractiveness, are serving their own flesh, their own lusts, and their own selfishness.
The answer to the question ‘Who among us shall dwell in the everlasting fire’? is, He that walks uprightly; he who has done no wrong; for him this consuming and awful fire of the Divine presence shall be a vision of beauty and of the land that is very far off. But for those who have done wrong, what punishment must it be to simply find themselves in God’s presence unfit! They will find nothing else but the everlasting burning and devouring fire, with no other fate than weeping and gnashing of teeth. Those will be the horrible consequences of making the one irretrievable mistake. ‘The Lord is our judge.’ That is the beginning to believe it in our hearts.
II. The Lord is our Lawgiver. Surely if God loves us, He must have given us some guidance as to how we should walk, be able to know His character, and to come at last into His presence to behold the King in His beauty. We know God legislated for the people of the old covenant. He was their lawgiver. He gave them their ceremonial law to know how to approach Him, their social law that they might regulate their social life agreeably to God and for their own well-being. All that has been deepened and sterilized for us into those great moral laws illustrated in the writings of the Bible from our Lord’s own character. We know what is right and what is wrong conduct. More than that, the Lord has given us the laws of the Church, the requirements and ordinances whereby those who need education are taught and trained for God. ‘The Lord is our lawgiver.’
III. The Lord is our King. That means He requires our deliberate service. In all things, and in all parts of life the kingdom of God is to be promoted. All members of society should realize that because they belong to Christ they are to work for Christ, because they belong to society they are to work for society. ‘The Lord is our King.’
IV. He will Come to Save Us. If you search into your consciences you know that you want something which your own nature cannot supply, a cleansing profound, which reaches into the very roots of your being. You must be delivered not from the results, but from the very power of sin. ‘He shall save His people from their sins’ the same Lawgiver, the same King, He is our Saviour ‘He will come to save us’. He gave not only His love, but Himself.
Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxiii. 1903, p. 72.
References. XXXIII. 22. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 213. C. Gore, Church Times, vol. xliv. 1900, p. 743; see also Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix. 1901, p. 36. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Prophets, vol. i. p. 144; see also Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 266.
Victorious Crippledness
Isa 33:23
This is a proverb amply verified in history and experience, ‘The lame take the prey’.
I. This is Seen in the Overcoming of Disadvantages. ‘The survival of the fittest’ is man’s motto, but the Lord often disproves our mottoes; He shows how unaxiomatic our axioms are, for frequently it is the survival of what we deem unfittest which we are called to witness.
No man need make his disadvantages a reason of despondency, nor need any make them an excuse for spiritual ineffectiveness. Disadvantages become advantages at the transfiguring touch of Jesus.
II. This is True of Providential Supply. Your course in life may be sadly hedged in, but God shall clear it. Your lot may be a barren one, but God shall fertilize it. ‘Have faith in God.’ Cry, oft as the day dawns, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ and it shall be given.
III. This is Illustrated in Triumph Over Temptation and Sin. We are all lame spiritually. The tragedy of many lives is their temptations, but the Lord turns the tragedy into glory.
So in respect of our besetting sin. It has ofttimes laid us low. And we never feel our humiliating lameness as we do in its presence. But how many have received superhuman power so that they have taken the prey! Look to the exalted Christ Think less of your lameness and more, far more, of His power.
IV. In Christian Service we see this Verified. How lame we all are who minister for Christ! But the ministry of lame men need not be a lame ministry. Power Divine is an overmatch for human crippledness. This has been signally demonstrated in the history of the Church of Christ. ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings’ God has perfected praise.
V. This is Discernible in the Spiritual Blessings which Abound Amid Trials. One of Lord Lytton’s most celebrated characters said, ‘Pain does not conquer me,’ but what Eugene Aram vainly said the Christian truly declares. Pain does not conquer Christ’s people. They conquer their pain, and they often conquer by their pain. Think of all maiming as an opportunity of winning a great prize.
VI. This is a Parable of the Winning of Eternal Blessedness. By human merit heaven was never won. Those crowned victors were all lame on a time. They thought that with their cruel limitations they would never gain that glory. But they overcame ‘because of the blood of the Lamb’. The lame who trust their Saviour shall all at length shout with the shouting of them that take the prey.
VII. This is a Gospel of Individual Salvation.
Dinsdale T. Young, The Travels of the Heart , p. 193.
Isa 33:23
I. The Lame. It is clear that Israel, in her cleansed and forgiven remnant, is here indicated by this word lame. Impoverished in captivity, she had not regained her strength; but since God has wrought on her behalf there is to be no waiting; but, lame as she is, she may enter into the full enjoyment of that deliverance which, by the strong hand of God, has been accomplished.
Are we not here introduced to one of God’s great principles? The deliverances of life have been conspicuously of God. He has gotten unto Himself the victory. ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.’ And the victories of God have so often been won, not merely for the lame, but through the lame, as to constitute a law of God in human affairs.
II. The Lame Take the Prey. May we not inquire concerning the prey which they take. ‘Then is the prey of a great spoil divided,’ says the Prophet. It was, in the first instance, the prey of their conqueror Sennacherib and the Assyrian power.
( a ) It was the prey of conquest. These people had been for many years in captivity. Now, though so feeble, so weak, so impoverished, they have taken the prey of conquest, even their liberty.
St. Paul speaks about our deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Christ said: ‘If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed’. It is given unto us, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to possess the prey of conquest, the freedom of the ‘law of liberty’. And in this respect it is the lame who take the prey. It is the man who is lamed by sin and who knows it: beaten by his temptations, and tempest-tossed with his many difficulties, who, relying upon the finished work of Jesus Christ, through love to Him, gets the mastery over the sin which doth so easily beset, and enters into the liberty of God, while many another, seemingly stronger, but often self-righteous, remains still in bondage.
( b ) It is the prey of a rich experience. A bitter one ’tis true, but a rich one nevertheless. We think that there is nothing like the sunshine, nothing like prosperity. But it is often the intervening cloud which makes the shining of the sun more precious, and the period of adversity which makes us value all the more prosperity. ‘I have got the sunshine on the sensitive plate,’ says the photographer. ‘Shut out the light now, close the door, blot out the sun, let me remain in darkness. What light I must have for to see at all must be subdued, broken up.’
See, in the darkness, how the form develops, how the impressions of the sunlight are revealed! God has shone forth, in the face of Jesus Christ, upon the soul of man, and away into the darkness, like St. Paul, that soul is driven that Christ may be formed, developed within. It may be that all along the sorrowful way that soul must pass in the shadows. But in that day, when the clouds and the mists will all have been dissolved, what a prey, a spoil, of rich experiences that soul will have taken.
J. Gay, Common Truths from Queer Texts, p. 122.
References. XXXIII. 23. F. B. Cowl, Straight Tracks, p. 18. XXXIII. 23, 24. F. B. Meyer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. 1898, p. 4. XXXIII. 24. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii. No. 1905. XXXIV. 5. W. D. Ross, The Sword Bathed in Heaven, p. 5. XXXV. 1. A. G. Mortimer, The Church’s Lessons for the Christian Year, part i. p. 69. XXXV. 3. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No. 243. XXXV. 4. W. M. Taylor, Outlines of Sermons on the Old Testament, p. 196. F. Hastings, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. 1908, p. 38. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlix. No. 2815. XXXV. 5. S. A. Barnett, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxi. 1907, p. 52. XXXV. 5, 6. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 215. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlv. No. 2635. J. Keble, Sermons for Advent to Christmas Eve, p. 90. XXXV. 6, 7. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 221. XXXV. 6-10. C. Voysey, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. 1894, p. 4.
Prophetic Warnings
Isaiah 31-33
Remember that. If on hearing that you choose to trust to Egypt, so be it; only, walk in the light, understand your position, make your choice deliberately, and abide by it. All that the Bible, a revelation from God, can do is to make distinctions, announce issues, address appeals to reason and to conscience, and there even an inspired volume ends its labour. The people imagined that Egypt was a sanctuary: the prophet said, It is so, in a very temporary and partial sense; it is a sanctuary of straw: if you care to seek protection in so frail a pavilion, so be it You are delighted when you see the strong horses of Egypt; they are strong for horses, but they are only horses of flesh, they are not steeds of fire, horses of spirit, those mighty flying horses stabled in the sanctuary of the skies, and sent forth with swift messengers to the ends of the universe. Understand what you are buying: it is a horse of flesh; it will sicken, and die; it may be crippled, or poisoned; it may throw you: but if after hearing these things you choose to elect the horses of Egypt in preference to the steeds of God, so be it; you must answer for it all. The fool cannot come in like the wise man at the last, and say, Pray excuse me: I was mistaken. No! you were not mistaken; you were perverse, headstrong, self-determined; there was no mere mistake about it. Understand the terms, and then proceed. The Bible is the finest book of reason. It appeals to the understanding, to the judgment, asking that judgment to reserve itself until the light is perfectly clear and all the evidence is before it, and then saying, Now decide.
The Lord reveals himself under a vivid figure as the protector of those who put their trust in him. Egyptian horses cannot fly, but “as birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem” ( Isa 31:5 ). The image is clear and impressive. There lies the fair city, more a thought than a thing, a poem in architecture God’s poetry set forth in types and letters of stone, and the Lord himself is as a thousand birds, curling, circling, watching, protecting his loved Zion. No figure is to be driven to its furthest issues; we are to take out of it that which is substantial in reason and in truth: and from this figure we extract the doctrine that God hovers about his people, cares for them, watches them, sometimes sends a raven, it may be, to help them when they come out of their dream-sleep, wondering in daze and bewilderment what the universe was made for, and what they themselves can do. Any image that brings God nearer to us is an image that the memory should treasure. Hang up the picture in the halls of your imagination, and look upon it when your heart is sore and faint. The Lord knows what the issue of trusting in Egyptian horses will be, and what the end of all idolatry will be.
“For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you for a sin” ( Isa 31:7 ).
There is to be a day of awakening, a day memorable for its religious penetration; men are to see that they have been making idols where they thought they were making deities. When men become ashamed of their religion, and pray that its very name may not be mentioned to them; when they seek out of their secret places idols of silver and idols of gold, and say, Throw them anywhere but let it be out of sight! then has come to pass the realisation of divinest prophecy. Who would have all his old ideas named to him? Though they be innocent, yet they be so imperfect, so poor, so shallow, so wanting in insight and sagacity, their own thinker would not hear of them any more, but would say with somewhat of penitence and shamefacedness, but with no sense of guilt, When I was a child, I thought as a child: I am a man now, and I have seized a wider philosophy: spare me the recollection of infantile thinking. But a man may become ashamed of his religion; he may have to say in plain terms: I have been a fool herein, for I have been bowing the knee to gold and silver, and fame and influence and office and position, and now they cannot help me one whit: when I am ill they never call to see me, and if they did call their comfort would be cold and their touch would be death: where is the true God, the living Spirit call it by what name you may God or Holy Ghost or dying Christ or truth, complete and eternal? Where is the true deity, that knows me and can come into my heart and make it warm with love, that can come into my barren spirit, and make it grow with trees that bloom and blossom and fructify for the soul’s satisfaction? Preach to me the true gospel, that is as much a gospel in the darkness as in the light, in the winter as in the summer, the gospel that will sit up with me all night, see my last friend depart, and then say, Now they have all gone, let us talk it out in the music of absolute confidence. Do not be distressed about the living God. All the issue is mapped out. God himself is in no agitation; by right of eternity he is eternally calm. They who have the truth can wait until the lies all take fire, and burn themselves: meanwhile, all they have to do is to speak the truth, and deliver divine comfort to souls that want to be right; though they may have a thousand intellectual errors, still their supreme desire is to be right and good and true, and therein they shall conquer, though at the last their poor understanding be thickly sown with innumerable weeds. Herein is the mercy of God, that it recognises the supreme motive and purpose of life, and has an infinite charity for all intellectual aberration that is not inspired by moral obstinacy or moral selfishness.
Then the true king is predicted. We have had judgment upon judgment, great shocks of thunder; we have seen the horizon red as blood with the gathering storm, and we have heard God’s voice breaking out into ten thousand tones severe and awful: it is time we had a little music, somewhat of benediction, a hint of tenderness; the sky is never so blue as after the storm, the tempest seems to have cleared all the atmosphere, and dear, sweet, beautiful heaven looks down upon us like a smile that wants to come all the way if it could, and cover our lips with love. Isaiah has been dispensing woes; he has not done with maledictions yet: but who can always be comminatory, denunciatory? Who can be severe all the day? The prophet breaks down in tenderness, but rises in intellectual majesty when he says
“Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly” (Isa 32:1-4 .)
The war is now over: Asher has been crushed like a serpent, and this sweet voice is heard when the enemy has been driven out of the land
“Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass” ( Isa 32:20 ).
What wondrous music, then, we have heard in all these prophecies! Yet, as we have just pointed out, the maledictions have not altogether ceased. The prophet resumes his threnody in the thirty-third chapter; there he mourns, and in the course of his deliverance he uses one of those ironical expressions which come upon us again and again in Holy Writ. In the fourteenth verse he talks about “the sinners in Zion.” What a contradiction in terms! what a shock to the fancy! Zion! fair Zion, a dewdrop, a glittering star, a garden of beauty, a sweet flower, porcelain without a flaw, honey without wax Zion! Then, “sinners in Zion” sinners out of place; they spoil the situation; they are an evil blot in the fair landscape. Sinners in the wilderness, sinners in polluted cities, sinners in hell, there you have a kind of music that has an accord and consonance of its own; but sinners in Zion! And the sinners in Zion are afraid “fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites.” Yesterday their faces were bright, and their voices glad, and their feasts were merry; but in the nighttime something has happened that has struck the whole horde with fear and shame and distress. Now the question comes “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” How often have preachers preached everlasting hell from these words! They have no relation whatever to the future life. We must keep to the meaning of the speakers and writers in Holy Writ, and not import into their words significations and dogmas of our own. The question is an awful one “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?” when God comes to judge the city, when he comes to judge Assyria or Jerusalem, or any land. “Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” when God tries man by fire. The fire shall not only try every man’s work, but shall try every man’s self. Our quality must be tested by flame. From these words how easy to dilate upon the horrors of the lost, the agonies of the damned! But the words were local, and they constitute a question to which a noble reply was made. The question is in the fourteenth verse, the answer is in the fifteenth. Read the question
“Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil; he shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure” ( Isa 33:14-16 ).
XXVII
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IN ISAIAH
The relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy is that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. To him give all the prophets witness. All the scriptures, the law, the prophets, and the psalms, testify of him. And we are fools, and slow of heart to credit adequate testimony when we distrust any part of the inspired evidence.
Of the ancient prophets Isaiah was perhaps the most notable witness of the coming Messiah. An orderly combination of his many messianic utterances amounts to more than a mere sketch, indeed, rather to a series of almost life-sized portraits. As a striking background for these successive portraits the prophet discloses the world’s need of a Saviour, and across this horrible background of gloom the prophet sketches in startling strokes of light the image of a coming Redeemer.
In Isa 2:2-4 we have the first picture of him in Isaiah, that of the effect of his work, rather than of the Messiah himself. This is the establishment of the mountain of the Lord’s house on the top of the mountains, the coming of the nations to it and the resultant millennial glory.
In Isa 4:2-6 is another gleam from the messianic age in which the person of the Messiah comes more into view in the figure of a branch of Jehovah, beautiful and glorious. In sketching the effects of his work here the prophet adds a few strokes of millennial glory as a consummation of his ministry.
In Isa 7:14 he delineates him as a little child born of a virgin, whose coming is the light of the world. He is outlined on the canvas in lowest humanity and highest divinity, “God with us.” In this incarnation he is the seed of the woman and not of the man.
The prophet sees him as a child upon whom the government shall rest and whose name is “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6 ). This passage shows the divinity of Christ and the universal peace he is to bring to the world. In these names we have the divine wisdom, the divine power, the divine fatherhood, and the divine peace.
In Isa 11:1-9 the prophet sees the Messiah as a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, i.e., of lowly origin, but possessing the Holy Spirit without measure who equips him for his work, and his administration wrought with skill and justice, the result of which is the introduction of universal and perfect peace. Here the child is presented as a teacher. And such a teacher! On him rests the seven spirits of God. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. He judges not according to appearances and reproves not according to rumors. With righteousness he judges the poor and reproves with equality in behalf of the meek. His words smite a guilty world like thunderbolts and his very breath slays iniquity. Righteousness and faithfulness are his girdle. He uplifts an infallible standard of morals.
In Isa 40:3-8 appears John the Baptist, whom Isaiah saw as a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the coming King.
In Isa 11:2 ; Isa 42:1 ; Isa 61:1-3 the prophet saw the Messiah as a worker in the power of the Spirit, in whom he was anointed at his baptism. This was the beginning of his ministry which was wrought through the power of the Holy Spirit. At no time in his ministry did our Lord claim that he wrought except in the power of the Holy Spirit who was given to him without measure.
In Isa 35:1-10 the Messiah is described as a miracle worker. In his presence the desert blossoms as a rose and springs burst out of dry ground. The banks of the Jordan rejoice. The lame man leaps like a hart, the dumb sing and the blind behold visions. The New Testament abounds in illustrations of fulfilment. These signs Christ presented to John the Baptist as his messianic credentials (Mat 11:1-4 ).
The passage (Isa 42:1-4 ) gives us a flashlight on the character of the Messiah. In the New Testament it is expressly applied to Christ whom the prophet sees as the meek and lowly Saviour, dealing gently with the blacksliding child of his grace. In Isa 22:22 we have him presented as bearing the key of the house of David, with full power to open and shut. This refers to his authority over all things in heaven and upon earth. By this authority he gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter one for the Jews and the other for the Gentiles who used one on the day of Pentecost and the other at the house of Cornelius, declaring in each case the terms of entrance into the kingdom of God. This authority of the Messiah is referred to again in Revelation:
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying. Fear not: I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Rev 7:17
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphis write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and shutteth and none openeth. Rev 3:7
In Isa 32:1-8 we have a great messianic passage portraying the work of Christ as a king ruling in righteousness, in whom men find a hiding place from the wind and the tempest. He is a stream in a dry place and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
In Isa 28:14-18 the Messiah is presented to w as a foundation stone in a threefold idea:
1. A tried foundation stone. This is the work of the master mason and indicates the preparation of the atone for its particular function.
2. An elect or precious foundation stone. This indicates that the stone was selected and appointed. It was not self-appointed but divinely appointed and is therefore safe.
3. A cornerstone, or sure foundation stone. Here it is a foundation of salvation, as presented in Mat 16:18 . It is Christ the Rock, and not Peter. See Paul’s foundation in 1 Corinthians:
According to the grace of God which was given unto me; as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1Co 3:10-11 .
In Isa 49:1-6 he is presented as a polished shaft, kept close in the quiver. The idea is that he is a mighty sword. In Revelation, Christ is presented to John as having a sharp, twoedged sword proceeding out of his mouth.
In Isa 50:2 ; Isa 52:9 f.; Isa 59:16-21 ; Isa 62:11 we have the idea of the salvation of Jehovah. The idea is that salvation originated with God and that man in his impotency could neither devise the plan of salvation nor aid in securing it. These passages are expressions of the pity with which God looks down on a lost world. The redemption, or salvation, here means both temporal and spiritual salvation salvation from enemies and salvation from sin.
In Isa 9:1 f. we have him presented as a great light to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. In Isa 49:6 we have him presented as a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the end of the earth: “Yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
In Isa 8:14-15 Isaiah presents him as a stone of stumbling: “And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.”
The prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection are found in Isa 50:4-9 ; Isa 52:13-53:12 . In this we have the vision of him giving his “back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” We see a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His visage is so marred it startled all nations. He is a vicarious sacrifice. The chastisement of the peace of others is on him. The iniquity of others is put on him. It pleases the Father to bruise him until he has poured out his soul unto death as an offering for sin.
The teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews is his teaching concerning the “holy remnant,” a favorite expression of the prophet. See Isa 1:9 ; Isa 10:20-22 ; Isa 11:11 ; Isa 11:16 ; Isa 37:4 ; Isa 37:31-32 ; Isa 46:3 . This coincides with Paul’s teaching in Romans 9-11.
In Isa 32:15 we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit: “Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be esteemed as a forest,” and in Isa 44:3 : “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.”
In Isa 11:10 he is said to be the ensign of the nations: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples unto him shall the nations seek; and his resting place shall be glorious.”
Isa 19:18-25 ; Isa 54:1-3 ; Isa 60:1-22 teach the enlargement of the church. The great invitation and promise are found in Isa 55 .
The Messiah in judgments is found in Isa 63:1-6 . Here we behold an avenger. He comes up out of Edom with dyed garments from Bozra. All his raiment is stained with the blood of his enemies whom he has trampled in his vengeance as grapes are crushed in the winevat and the restoration of the Jews is set forth in Isa 11:11-12 ; Isa 60:9-15 ; Isa 66:20 . Under the prophet’s graphic pencil or glowing brush we behold the establishment and growth of his kingdom unlike all other kingdoms, a kingdom within men, a kingdom whose principles are justice, righteousness, and equity and whose graces are faith, hope, love, and joy, an undying and ever-growing kingdom. Its prevalence is like the rising waters of Noah’s flood; “And the waters prevailed and increased mightily upon the earth. And the water prevailed mightily, mightily upon the earth; and all the high mountains, that are under the whole heavens, were covered.”
So this kingdom grows under the brush of the prophetic limner until its shores are illimitable. War ceases. Gannenta rolled in the blood of battle become fuel for fire. Conflagration is quenched. Famine outlawed. Pestilence banished. None are left to molest or make afraid. Peace flows like a river. The wolf dwells with the lamb. The leopard lies down with the kid. The calf and the young lion walk forth together and a little child is leading them. The cow and the bear feed in one pasture and their young ones are bedfellows. The sucking child safely plays over the hole of the asp, and weaned children put their hands in the adder’s den. In all the holy realms none hurt nor destroy, because the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the fathomless ocean is full of water. Rapturous vision! Sublime and ineffable consummation! Was it only a dream?
In many passages the prophet turns in the gleams from the millennial age, but one of the clearest and best on the millennium, which is in line with the preceding paragraph, Isa 11:6-9 : “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”
The prophet’s vision of the destruction of death is given in Isa 25:8 : “He hath swallowed up death for ever; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it,” and in Isa 26:19 : “Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.”
The clearest outlines of the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained” are to be found in Isa 25:8 , and in two passages in chapter Isa 66 : Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn over her; that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream: and ye shall suck thereof; ye shall be borne upon the side, and shall be dandled upon the knees, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass: and the hands of Jehovah shall be known toward his servants ; and he will have indignation against his enemies. Isa 66:10-14
For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. Isa 66:22-23
QUESTIONS
1. What is the relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy?
2. What can you say of Isaiah as a witness of the Messiah?
3. What can you say of Isaiah’s pictures of the Messiah and their background?
4. Following in the order of Christ’s manifestation, what is the first picture of him in Isaiah?
5. What is the second messianic glimpse in Isaiah?
6. What is Isaiah’s picture of the incarnation?
7. What is Isaiah’s picture of the divine child?
8. What is Isaiah’s vision of his descent, his relation to the Holy Spirit, his administration of justice, and the results of his reign?
9. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah’s herald?
10. What is the prophet’s vision of his anointing?
11. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a miracle worker?
12. What is the prophet’s vision of the character of the Messiah?
13. What is the prophet’s vision of him as the key bearer?
14. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a king and a hiding place?
15. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah as a foundation stone?
16. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a polished shaft?
17. In what passages do we find the idea of the salvation of Jehovah, and what the significance of the idea?
18. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah as a light?
19. Where does Isaiah present him as a stone of stumbling?
20. What is the prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection?
21. What is the teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews?
22. Where do we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit?
23. Where is he said to be the ensign of the nations?
24. What passages teach the enlargement of the church?
25. Where is the great invitation and promise?
26. Where is the Messiah in judgment?
27. What passages show the restoration of the Jews?
28. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah’s kingdom?
29. What is the prophet’s vision of the millennium?
30. What is the prophet’s vision of the destruction of death?
31. What is the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained?”
XVI
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 8
Isaiah 28-33
“This section, Isaiah 28-33, is called “The Book of Zion,” or “The Book of Woes.” The time of this prophecy is the reign of Hezekiah. In the preceding section the prophet contemplated the judgments which were to come in the course of the ages, upon the nations of the world, but in this section he is brought back to his own time and people.
Quite a long time has elapsed since the prophet first foretold the destruction of Samaria (Isa 7:17 ; Isa 8:4-8 ), but the crisis is now close at hand. The northern invaders who have been held back by the divine order so long, are now ready to be let loose, and the “crown of Ephraim’s pride” is about to be buried to the ground. At this solemn period a most important work must be accomplished in Judah, if Jerusalem is to be saved from Assyria. This must be a religious and moral preparation for a divine intervention, which was necessary for her salvation. This indeed had been begun by Hezekiah but it would not prove permanent unless followed up by a steady culture and patient discipline. This was now the task of Isaiah, the prophet. In order to do this he must alarm the “sinners of Zion,” reprove the infidel, stir up the worldly and careless to repentance, assure the men of Judah, who trusted in their political schemes of alliance with Egypt, that God would bring their schemes to nought, all this without unduly disheartening the poor and the meek. On the other hand, the faithful disciples were to be cheered. They were to be told that their hope was in the stone which Jehovah had laid in Zion; that Jehovah himself would defend Jerusalem; that the Holy City should be as & tabernacle whose stakes should be secure, and all this without fostering a reliance upon external privileges. This was no mean task, but the prophet rose to the demand of the hour. The prophetic word went forth, giving warning to the rebellious, confirming and establishing the true hearts, and putting all on probation.
The word which determines the natural divisions of this section is “Woe,” which occurs at Isa 28:1 ; Isa 29:1 ; Isa 29:15 ; Isa 30:1 ; Isa 31:1 and Isa 33:1 . The divisions are as follows:
1. Woe unto Samaria (Isa 28 )
2. Woe unto Ariel [Jerusalem] (Isa 29:1-14 )
3. Woe unto the worldly-wise (Isa 29:15-24 )
4. Woe unto the rebellious (Isa 30 )
5. Woe unto them that go down to Egypt (Isaiah 31-32)
6. Woe unto the destroyer (Isa 33 )
This outline does not coincide with Dr. Sampey’s, but it has the merit of following the author’s divisions rather than the chapter divisions.
In Isa 28:1-6 we have the woe unto Samaria, “the crown of the pride of the drunkards of Ephraim.” This is a solemn warning to Samaria of her speedy downfall. Then the prophet turns to Judah and pronounces the woe upon Jerusalem because she has followed the example of Samaria. This he gives in a series of pictures: In Isa 28:7-8 we have the drunken priests and prophets, revelling in their self-indulgence and failing in their visions and judgments. In Isa 28:9-10 we hear them mocking Isaiah in his message, saying, “His words are but repetitions, suited to sucking babes.” “For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little.” Then in Isa 28:11-13 the prophet retorts that God would speak to them by men of strange lips, the Assyrians, because he had offered them rest and they would not hear. So now the words of Jehovah would be to them, “precept upon precept,” etc., that they might be broken, snared, and taken. In Isa 28:14-22 there is a severe arraignment of the rulers of Jerusalem, who had made, or were about to make, secret arrangements with Egypt which, as they thought, would secure Judah against injury at the hands of the Assyrians. This the prophet calls a covenant with death and an agreement with Sheol, and instructs them that their boasted arrangements would fail completely in the time of trial; that Egypt, their refuge would be a refuge of lies and Assyria, the overflowing scourge, would pass through the land and carry all before it; that only those resting on the precious cornerstone would be secure; that in the time of this vexation of the land, their bed which they made would not suffice, for the decree of destruction had already gone forth. In Isa 28:23-29 is a parable to comfort believers, to the end that God’s wisdom in dispensing judgment and mercy may be inferred from the skill which he gives to the husbandman. But this he left to their spiritual insight to discover.
Two passages of this chapter are quoted in the New Testament:
1.Isa 28:11 is quoted by Paul in 1Co 14:21 to show that the gifts of the baptism of the Spirit, just as the work and message of the prophet, were for a sign.
2.Isa 28:16 is quoted in several places in the New Testament and applied to Christ, as the stone of stumbling for the Jews in all ages.
Isa 28:20 may be used in accordance with the context here to show how futile it is for a man to turn away from God’s plan, in the matters of salvation, to the devices of men. When the testing time comes, the bed is found to be too short and the covering too narrow.
In Isa 29:1-4 we have the prophet’s address to Ariel (Jerusalem) in which he predicts her siege by a terrible army and her great humiliation during that siege. In Isa 29:5-8 is the vivid description of this vast host coming up against Jerusalem, but just as the enemy expects to capture her, the host of them is scattered. As it is with one who dreams, so shall it be with this multitude of besiegers. In Isa 29:9-12 is a description of Israel’s awful judicial blindness visited upon them by Jehovah because of their sins. All prophecy is to them as a sealed book. In their blindness they cannot read the message. What a picture of the effects of sin! This reminds us of the picture of Jerusalem which was drawn by Christ. The natural man cannot understand divine revelation. The educated and the uneducated are alike helpless. Over against this stands the contrast of Isa 29:18 . In Isa 29:13-14 we have the cause stated. They are in this state because of the condition of their hearts. With the lips they honored God, but their hearts were not with him. How significant is the application of this truth to all our worship and service! In Isa 29:17-21 is the prophecy that this condition shall not always pertain to them. The day will come when this condition shall be reversed. The deaf shall hear the words out of the book and the blind shall see. To many this was fulfilled in the days of Christ, but we look ahead of us for the full fruitage of this great promise. In Isa 29:22-24 is the climax of the vision in which the marvels of God’s grace upon the sons of Jacob are exhibited. God speed the day of its realization!
The prophetic description here (Isa 29:1-8 ) fits well the historical events of Sennacherib’s siege and the poem, “The Destruction of Sennacherib” by Byron is the best poetic description of this event. Two passages from this chapter are quoted in the New Testament:
1.Isa 29:10 is quoted by Paul in Rom 11:8 where it is used to show the judicial hardening of Israel which lasted to Paul’s day and will continue till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
2.Isa 29:13 is quoted by our Lord in Mat 15:8-9 to upbraid the Jews for their hypocrisy and following the commandments of men, showing that the conditions which existed in Isaiah’s time existed also in Christ’s time.
Isa 30 consists of an exposure of the alliance with Egypt. In Isa 30:1-5 we have the plain prediction that the alliance with Egypt, then forming, would be of no assistance to Judah. The prophet in Isa 30:6-17 states the oracle with great power, showing the sin and evil effects of trusting in Egypt rather than in Jehovah. In Isa 30:18-26 there is set forth the hope of the future success of God’s people when he shall be gracious to them and confer upon them marvelous prosperity. In Isa 30:27-33 we have another vision of the supernatural overthrow of the Assyrians.
In Isa 30:33 we have the image of a funeral pyre on which the king of Assyria is to be consumed. Topheth was a place in the valley of Hinnom, that was desecrated by idolatrous human sacrifices (Jer 7:31 ; 2Ki 23:10 ). This was fulfilled, not by the death of Sennacherib in Judah, but by the destruction of his army there, and his own death at home twenty years later (881 B.C).
Chapter 31 is a brief summary of what has been so frequently set forth about Samaria, Jerusalem, and Assyria. The points are as follows: (1) Those who trust in the Egyptian alliance shall fall; ‘(2) Jerusalem shall be protected by divine love; (3) the Assyrian shall be driven away in terror. In verses 4-5 Jehovah represents himself as a lion and a mother bird, a picture of his power and tenderness.
By all scholars Isa 32 is accounted messianic. It must be considered as a whole in order to understand its parts. It tells us under what king justice shall be rendered in human government, and what influences shall bring about an appreciation of this justice in the hearts of the people, and what shall be the effects of the righteousness rendered by this government and appreciated by these people under this divine influence.
The righteous King is our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Governor of this world. “A king shall reign in righteousness.” We have never yet on this earth been blessed with a perfect human government. We do not know experimentally what a genuinely good government is, whose ruler rules according to principles of exact righteousness and uses his office for the benefit of the governed, and to subserve the ends of justice; nor have we ever seen a people whose hearts would properly appreciate that kind of a government, who really desire it or who are willing to work for it and willing to submit to it. The conditions call for a righteous King and righteous subjects. Granted these two and the effect is righteousness, peace, and confidence forever.
We may conceive in our minds of an ideal king whose scepter is a righteous scepter, who loves righteousness and hates iniquity, who holds an even balance when he administers justice, who has no respect to men’s persons, who is a terror to evildoers and as the shadow of a high rock in a weary land to the oppressed. We may conceive of such a ruler, but in earthly governments, we have never known him. We may conceive of a people in their hearts desiring such a government, voting for it, supporting it, on demand sacrificing whatever they have to its maintenance, and then joyfully resting under its benign influence. What a sweet picture to the contemplative mind! Such a king, such a people, and peace and quiet throughout the land, perfect confidence, no doors locked at night, no hired policemen, no standing armies, no dread of burglars or assassins, no distrust in business, engagements, perfect confidence! It is a charming conception. God’s Word declares that this conception shall be realized on this earth; that “a king shall reign in righteousness, and all of the rulers shall rule in judgment.”
The influence that prepares the people for that kind of a government is here distinctly set forth. It is said that “thorns and briers shall come up on the land of my people until the spirit be poured out from on high.” Without the influence of God’s Spirit the people themselves are not prepared for a righteous administration of affairs. They have what they want. If they wish to promote the wicked they promote them. If they wish to be placed in bondage to the covetous they yield their necks to the yoke. The people are not prepared for good government. And what things disqualify them for living and working for such a government? We get at the disqualifications by ascertaining from this chapter what the blessings are which the Spirit confers by way of preparation.
The first blessing specified is that under the influence of the Spirit they shall see clearly: “the eyes of them that see shall not be dim.” This refers to the moral perceptions. Where there are no clear perceptions of right or wrong, where the vision is clouded, everything else will be wrong. If the moral sense of the people be distorted in vision, it will see light as if it were darkness, and darkness as if it were light; it will call a churl a liberal man, and a liberal man a churl; it will label things contrary to their essence and nature. If the eye be not single our very light is darkness, and how great is that darkness! So that we have as the first effect of the Spirit poured out on the people, that they shall see clearly.
It is now painful and humiliating, distressingly so, to get any ten or twelve men or women together and submit for their consideration a question involving morals, and see how variously they look at it. They do not see clearly. And particularly they do not see clearly with reference to the outcome of things. They look at immediate results. They look at present effects. They judge of things by what may immediately follow their performance. They do not project their vision far enough, and they are unable to do it on account of their moral blindness. So the prophet in the middle of this chapter calls on the women to hear his discussion. We do well to recall the words of the apostle Peter concerning the Christian graces, the fruits of the Spirit:
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins” 2Pe 1:8-9 .
Yes, he that lacketh these things is dim-eyed. His vision will be blurred. He cannot see things afar off. First of all, therefore the outpoured Spirit enlightens the eye, the moral eye. It makes us see things as they are in the sight of God. If a man is a miser, a covetous man, a churl, we see him to be that way. He appears so to us. He does not seem to be a liberal man. Oh, when the Spirit is poured out then no longer will the liberal man be called a churl and the churl a liberal man. There are examples that may be known and read of all men in every community, of those whose hearts are as hard as a millstone, hearts that have never been melted, never known any mercy, never felt one heartthrob of joy in ministering to the necessities of the distressed, and yet the community stands off and bows before them, and calls them the liberal men of the community. When the Spirit of God is poured out, clearness of vision will be given, and men will see a soul just as easily as they can see a body and the soul that is black will look black, the soul that is shriveled and miserly will look so, and the soul that is slimy and obscene and foul will appear to be so. That is the first effect. Now if people have not that vision, how can they love a righteous king? How can they love a righteous government? How can they desire evenhanded justice? How can they wish to be rid of favoritism, nepotism, and every other form of mischief in government, seeing their eyes are dim and their vision distorted? Clear vision distorted! Clear vision, that is first. They shall see clearly.
The second effect of the out-poured Spirit is, “The ears of them that hear shall hearken.” They shall hear distinctly and see clearly. To hear distinctly! You know there is such a thing as hearing and not hearing, “having ears to hear and hearing not,” what is called in the Bible an “uncircumcised ear.” An ear that does not hearken to what? To the divine voices, to the voice of wisdom speaking on the streets, speaking in places of business, speaking in places of pleasure, speaking in the family circle, speaking in the church and in the Sunday school, the voice of God. The whole earth is filled with the voices of God. As the psalmist says: There is no speech nor language; Where their voice is not heard. There line is gone out through all the earth; And their words to the end of the world. Psa 19:3-4 .
But if the people have not a hearing ear what matters it about a voice? “Incline your ear and come unto me. Hear and your soul shall live,” exhorts the prophet. The giving heed to the monitions of God’s Spirit, to the declarations of his Word, the submitting to the voice of God as the end of controversy, we must have that, to see clearly, to hear distinctly. The right kind of a conscience will hear the faintest whisper of God. God will not have to speak aloud. God will not have to send storms and earthquakes and pestilence and famine and blasting and mildew and other judgments to secure attention. If they have the hearing ear, though God speaks in the stillness of the night, that ear hears his whisper, and like a little Samuel rising up from his bed, saying, “Speak Lord, thy servant heareth.”
Oh, for the ear that will hearken to God’s Word, to righteousness. The evil-minded may devise a most mischievous falsehood, a shameful, sensational scandal, without the shadow of foundation in fact, and then with tongue set on fire of hell whisper his story of malice and, behold, the whole earth hears it. They have the ear set for hearing such things. But the good deed has no sound, seems to create no air waves, attains to no publicity. No wonder Paul said, “Whatsoever things are good, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are of good report, think on these things.” But they do not hear them. To get an audience, to come within the range of the ear of the world, speech must have a different character.
The third effect of the Spirit is “the heart of the rash [the hasty] shall understand.” That means to choose wisely. And what a blundering world this is, as to the choices made! All the time going to the forks of the road, so many times taking the wrong road, so many times preferring the worse to better things, so many times electing that which will bring shame instead of that which will bring honor. Every day there are put out before men and women multitudes of things from which to make a selection. Which will you take? And just see how they do take the poisons, how they take the rubbish, and the degraded, and that which tends downward, and that which debases. Oh, for choice God-guided! And that must come to the people. The hasty! Yes, when Spirit-guided the hasty need never apologize, thus: “I beg your pardon. I was inconsiderate. I acted unthoughtedly. I was indiscreet in that.” If we had the clear vision, if we had the hearing ear, then could we decide quickly on a moral question, and decide right. Even the heart of the hasty would be able to understand.
The fourth blessing is to speak plainly. What does the record say? “The tongue of the stammerer shall speak plainly.” Now, it is a somewhat ludicrous conception, and yet it does present the truth in a very striking manner. In a time or urgency, where one needs an utterance at once, and clean-cut, how a sharp question confounds a stammering man! It throws him into a fit of agitation. He tries to say something and stammers and stutters, and every kind of an answer seems hanging on the end of his tongue, and he cannot say anything. So there are moral stammerers. Ask him, “How do you stand on this question?” and he begins to stammer at once. It distresses one to listen. We feel like crying out: “Oh, speak plainly! Tell where you are. Don’t stutter all over a world of morals. Do gay one plain, straight-out word.” We are cursed with moral stuttering.
The church is cursed with it. Try some time to find out the attitude of even God’s people on a perfectly plain question of morals, or of doctrine, or of practical righteousness, and hear them begin to answer, “Well, I don’t know. Some people think it is this, and some people think it is that.” And thus they go limping around, stuttering over it. Do we not know that if the Spirit of God was poured out to give us clear moral vision, so that we could see things as they are, and the hearkening ear, so that God’s whisper would be louder to us than the devil’s thunder do not we know that if we had that wiseness of heart to choose as quick as lightning between good and evil, that there would not be any stuttering speech? A man would speak right up and Bay: “Here is where I stand; let there be no mistake about it.”
We have found the effects of the outpoured Spirit to be clear vision, acute hearing, wise choice, and plain talk. But work follows qualification. The outpoured Spirit exhorts: “Sow beside all waters.” The “sowing beside the waters” refers to that planting of rice and wheat in the overflowed waters, as in the overflow of the Nile. They go out in boats when the water covers the whole surface of the country, and they sow it down “cast your bread upon the waters,” i.e., your bread seed. And then they bring the cattle, and drive them up and down, tramping the seed down in the slime so that when the waters recede it has been plowed under by the feet of the stock.
“Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, driving thither the feet of the ox and of the ass.” That simply means covering it under. “Cast your bread upon the waters.” A distant blessing then that cornea from the outpouring of the Spirit in this ideal government set forth in this prophecy will be that every piece of land fertile enough to grow grain will be sowed down with grain. “Sow beside all waters,” that is, cast your seed on every spot of earth that can sprout the seed and make it bear a crop.
To bring the thought a little more closely: Where we have a righteous king, and a people who are endowed with clear vision, hearing distinctly, choosing wisely, and speaking plainly, these people will occupy every foot of ground which God commands them to occupy. They will let no spot of earth remain without a crop, if it can bear a crop.
But look at society as it stands, even Christian societies! You say, “Here is water out here. God has sent the overflow laden with rich soil in solution, which the receding waves deposit. Come, let us sow seed by that water.” “No, no; I have my little pond here at home. I must sow in this home pond, this and this only. I will not sow out yonder. Let the waves come and deposit the fertile soil, and the earth wait expectantly for seed to be deposited in its glowing bosom, ready of itself to make it send up the ripening grain that shall bless the earth with bread, all in vain. I won’t sow out there.”
What a miserable Christian! What an infinitesimal soul that man has! God brings soil for bread seed, and says, “Go forth, bearing precious seed; go forth casting your bread seed upon the waters; sow beside all waters,” and the delinquent church says, “I cannot hear that; I cannot hear that now. We have heathen at home the Greeks are at our door. I don’t believe in sowing in waters that are far off.” No, and he doesn’t believe in sowing in them at home. That is nearer the truth. He does not believe in any sowing at all. The root -of the matter is not in him. The spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t reign in his soul; for where the spirit is poured out from on high, and they have the vision of clearness, and the hearkening ear, the wise choice, and the unstammering tongue, they will not stop to consider the clouds. They will not stop to ask whether this or that shall prosper. They will not stop to talk about the narrow circumference of their own field, but they will say, “Lord God, let me send out thy word wherever hearts are hungering and souls are in bondage; wherever the devil throws his black pall of midnight and superstition over the hearts and souls of the people. Oh, God, let me by thy grace send them light to shine in the darkness! Oh, let me hold up my light higher and throw its radiance farther.” That is the spirit of the Christian. “Sow beside all waters.”
A final fruit of the spirit is: The liberal deviseth liberal things, and in liberal things shall he continue. “Ye did run well for a season,” says Paul. What hindered you? Why did you stop? What warranted it? Has God’s plan been modified? Have Christ’s desires abated? Is heaven full? Is the ground of salvation all pre-empted? Are the corridors of deliverance crowded so that there is no room for another one? Is Jesus Christ satisfied? Has he seen all of the travail of his soul that he wanted to see? No. There is room yet; the desire of God for human salvation is unabated; the needs of the lost are increased; the hell that threatens them is nearer to them. Oh, it is near. The damnation is not lingering. It is coming stealthily as the footfall of a tiger, or the spread of a pestilence, but coming nearer and deadlier than before, and we say, “Let us call a halt in liberal things.”
“Thorns and briers shall come up on the land of my people until the spirit be poured out from on high.” But if the spirit be poured out from on high, and we see clearly, and hear distinctly and choose wisely and speak plainly and sow beside all waters and devise liberal things and continue in liberal things, then that is heaven on earth. The kingdom of heaven has come. Christ is reigning whenever that has come to pass. And the nearer we approach it the nearer we are to heaven. Louder than the big guns of our battleships, louder than the voice of many waters, louder than mighty thunder should be the acclaim of God’s people, saying, “Hosanna to the Iambi Hallelujah! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth, and let the earth rejoice.”
Isa 33 is a woe against the Assyrian invaders. The prophet, after the great messianic ecstasy in the preceding chapter, comes back to his own times again to take another start. At first he deals with the local situation picturing the invading army of Assyrians, the desolation of the land by them and the awful distress in Jerusalem. Then follows the prediction of the miraculous deliverance of the city and the destruction of the enemy, upon which sinners are made to tremble and the inhabitants of Zion rejoice in quiet confidence by reason of Jehovah’s protecting presence. There are several messianic gleams in this chapter, as “the king in his beauty,” “Zion, . . . Jerusalem . . . a quiet habitation, . . . a place of broad rivers and streams,” where there is no sickness and the “iniquity of the people is forgiven”
The historical background for this prophecy is the invasion of Sennacherib’s host, the desolation of the land, and the threat of Jerusalem, all of which is described in 2Ki 18:13-19 ; 2Ki 18:37 . The essential items of this history are as follows: Sennacherib received at Lachish the stipulated tribute from Hezekiah, but then he demanded the unconditional surrender of Jerusalem. He captured many cities and had broken up all travel. Hezekiah’s ambassadors came home weeping. Then Sennacherib sent an army against Jerusalem to enforce his demands, but Rabshakeh, though skilful in speech, failed to get the keys to Jerusalem. He returned to Sennacherib whose army was visited by Jehovah and destroyed. Sennacherib returned to his own land and was smitten while worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god.
In Isa 33:1-6 we have the woe pronounced against the destroyer, showing his destruction, at which he would cease dealing treacherously. Then follows a prayer by the prophet to Jehovah in which he exalts Jehovah as the God of their salvation and the destroyer of the enemy. In this exaltation of Jehovah the prophet gets a glimpse of glorified Zion, filled with righteousness and justice, a city of stability and abounding in salvation, wisdom, knowledge, and the fear of Jehovah. Thus be gives the general outlines of the things which are to follow. In Isa 33:7-12 we have the particulars of what the prophet has just stated in general, viz: the shouting of the enemy without, the weeping of Hezekiah’s ambassadors, the waste and desertion of the highways, Sennacherib’s disregard of his covenant and his spoiling of the cities, the languishing of the land, specifying the destructive work of the Assyrian army, at which point he presents Jehovah as rousing himself, delivering his people and disposing of the enemy, as thorns cast into the fire.
In Isa 33:13-16 is a description of the effects of this intervention of Jehovah, upon the sinners and the citizens of Zion in which the prophet again leaps upon the messianic heights to show us the characteristics of a true citizen of the New Jerusalem, whose everlasting dwelling place is with Jehovah.
In Isa 33:17-24 the prophet assures us that, in that glorious state, we shall see the King in his beauty, we shall behold a universal kingdom, whose inhabitants shall muse on the days of terror and their triumphs over their many adversaries. Then he invites them to look upon Zion and contemplate her security, her king, her broad streams, her feasts and her inhabitants, who are never sick, but are in the joy of the fellowship of their majestic Lord, who reigns forever and ever.
The characteristics here given by the prophet of a true citizen of Zion are very similar to those given by the psalmist in Psa 15 . This true citizen is herein described as righteous, upright in speech, hating oppression, rejecting bribes, stopping his ear to murderous suggestions, and closing his eyes to sinful sights, a blessed ideal yet to be realized. How different now! We are vexed in our righteous souls to behold the unrighteousness, the prevarication, the oppression, the graft, the murders and sinful sights in the present order of things. But this must give way to the principles of the majestic and beautiful king who will reign forever in justice and righteousness.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the section, Isaiah 28-33, called in our outline and what the date?
2. What is the difference in the character of this and the preceding section?
3. What arethe conditions under which this prophecy was delivered, what Isaiah’s task and how did he meet it?
4. What is the key word which marks the natural divisions of this section and what the divisions thus marked?
5. Give a brief synopsis of Isa 28 , showing its interpretation.
6. What are two passages of this chapter are quoted in the New Testament, what use made of them in each case and what use may be made of verse 20 as touching the plan of salvation?
7. Give a brief synopsis of Isa 29 , showing its interpretation.
8. What is the fulfilment of Isa 29:1-8 and what the best poetic description of the destruction of Sennacherib’s army?
9. What two passages quoted from this chapter in the New Testament, and what use made of them there?
10. Give a brief statement of Isa 30 with the important points of interpretation.
11. What is the meaning of Isa 30:33 ?
12. What is the nature of Isa 31 and what the points contained therein?
13. What is the nature of Isa 32 , what in genera] its contents, how does the ideal set forth correspond with present conditions and what the ideal state herein contemplated?
14. What is the influence that prepares for this ideal and what its importance?
15. What is the first blessing of the Spirit herein specified?
16. What is the general condition now respecting moral and spiritual vision and the lesson of Peter on this point?
17. What is the second effect of the outpoured Spirit and what the importance of it? Illustrate.
18. What is the third blessing of the Spirit and what its importance? Illustrate.
19. What is the fourth blessing of the Spirit and what its importance? Illustrate.
20. What is the fifth blessing of the Spirit? Explain and illustrate.
21. What is the sixth blessing of the Spirit and what its importance?
22. What is the nature and contents of Isa 33 ?
23. What is the historical setting of this chapter?
24. Show the progress of this prophecy from the local conditions to the broader mesaianic phases of the kingdom.
25. What are the characteristics, here given by the prophet, of a true citizen of Zion?
Isa 33:1 Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou [wast] not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; [and] when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
Ver. 1. Woe to thee that spoilest. ] Minatur vastationem vastatori Sennacherib, vel Antichristo, quem praesignat. a Sennacherib and Antichrist are here threatened.
And thou wast not spoiled.
And dealest treacherously.
Thou shalt be spoiled. “ Siquis quod fecit patitur, iustissima lex est. ”
See Jdg 7:11 . See Trapp on “ Jdg 7:11 “ And fear thou God, who loveth to retaliate, to pay wicked men home in their own coin, to fill them with their own ways, to overshoot them in their own bow, &c. Vae ergo vastatoribus: one time or other God will be even with such.
a Oecolam.
b Ibid.
Isaiah Chapter 33
The Spirit of God, having given us a blessed picture of the King-Messiah reigning in righteousness, here contrasts with it a certain spoiler who is not expressly named by our prophet. But we need not find much difficulty in identifying him, if we remember the last prophecy of Ezekiel that describes a hostile Gentile power. It is remarkable that he there describes Gog as one who had been predicted before. Hence it is certain that this marauding power is not peculiar to the later prophet, who tells us in Isa 38:8-13 , “After many days thou shalt be visited . . . at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought, and thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will come to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, to seize a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thy hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon a people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to seize a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?” The next chapter comes in to show in detail that, if there be that which might seem inconsistent with their security, if God permits that there should be a dark cloud gathering for a while over Palestine, it at length falls on their foes themselves, not on Israel. This appears to be the same enemy who is here introduced by Isaiah. It is the last effort of the great coalition against Israel, which leads to the overwhelming destruction of the assembled nations, especially of the East. Then Israel will help themselves to their arms; and their mere burial will occupy the conquerors, still more the spoiling of their arms and appurtenances.
One need not doubt that the policy of the Assyrian, or king of the north, at the end is thus described. Gog will presumably have then accomplished his long-cherished designs on Constantinople and the Turkish empire in its chief dominions. Now “the Assyrian” is a familiar subject of prophecy. This may account for the statement that they were known before. There must clearly have been predictions of him previously to Ezekiel’s time, though some may have prophesied things not committed to writing.
By the way, some have been too anxious to show that the apostles never wrote anything but what we have got. It is quite enough to know that all intended to be of permanent use to the church and for God’s glory is preserved. Certainly apostles taught (2Th 2:15 ), and it is possible they may have written, things which were not meant of God to be preserved as part of the scriptures. But there is a character of perfectness about what we have, which to my mind precludes more. That this is not at all an exorbitant idea is evident from the fact that the apostles preached many discourses that are not recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Of course we have only a very small part of what the apostles preached, as the evangelists were led only to select from what our Lord did. To have added more would have been rather to encumber scripture. Had more communications even of the apostles been added, it would have marred the perfectness of God’s written word. We must have confidence in Him. He manifested His will in that all, which He designed for the permanent instruction of the church, was kept by His power in the midst of thousands and myriads of enemies who would have gladly destroyed the scriptures if they could. Never more in Christendom has this dislike of the word of God betrayed itself than now. But the efforts of the enemy only bring out God’s power, wisdom, and goodness for all who love Him, as they will to the ruin of those who hate and despise Him.
To return, however: it is only Isa 33 which plainly connects itself in character with the northern leader of Ezekiel, unless we identify the Assyrian also with that power, which seems perhaps within certain limits to be true at the close. However that may be, the moral traits of this foe are sufficiently plain. “Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou [wast] not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee” (v. 1). This covetous foe appears to be the last which comes up, and so far distinct from “the king of the north,” which title is not limited to the end. But assuredly it is a ruler of the same sort, insatiable and treacherous.
The Spirit now draws out the prophet, as personifying the godly in Israel, to supplicate, “Jehovah, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble. At the noise of the tumult the peoples fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations were scattered. And your spoil shall be gathered [like] the gathering of the caterpillar: as the running of locusts shall they run upon them (or, it)” (vv. 2 4). How blessed to have Jehovah as the arm to lean on and do valiantly for us! How complete the reversal when the proud and countless foes yield their spoil to be gathered like that of the caterpillars or locusts! It is Jehovah’s doing, and may well be marvellous in our eyes. “Jehovah is exalted, for he dwelleth on high; he hath filled Zion with judgement and righteousness. And the riches of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times: the fear of Jehovah [shall be] his treasure” (vv. 5, 6). Thus Jehovah Himself has taken them in hand, and all becomes a spoil for Israel, and their proud hopes are blasted for ever. Note that at this very time Zion shall be filled with righteousness and judgement. The doom which swallowed up the Beast and the false prophet, with the chivalry of Europe, is a lesson heard in vain. Blinded by superstition as well as the lust of universal empire, Gog dreams of destroying Israel, not believing in the presence of Christ, or thinking Him a mere human king. Thus they too will come to their own destruction.
The next verses portray the straits of the people of God and their despair before deliverance appears; nor is danger ever apt to be more felt than when blessing, that seemed to be ours, is once more in jeopardy. “Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without; the ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly. The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth. He hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man. The land mourneth, it languisheth; Lebanon is ashamed, is withered, the Sharon is become as a wilderness, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped” (vv. 7-9). But man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, as they say; and so will the Jews then prove. “Now will I arise, saith Jehovah; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself” (v. 10). Had He chastened His people sore, and should the insolent foe be unpunished? “Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble; your breath [as] fire shall devour [not Israel, but] you, and the peoples shall be [as] the burnings of lime; [as] thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire” (vv. 11, 12). It is Jehovah Who undertakes to dispose of their enemies and thus addresses them. Lime may be hard, but fire ere long reduces it to powder; and thorns, let them be ever so troublesome to those with whom they come into collision, are notorious, when cut up, for burning with singular rapidity.
Next, attention is drawn (v. 13) to the notable display of God’s ways, as well as to the effects of these trials in showing out the true character of men even in Zion. “Hear, ye [that are] far off, what I have done; and ye [that are] near, acknowledge my might,” followed by the most animated description of the alarm of the ungodly, and of the divine assurances to those that fear His name and walk in righteousness. “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from taking hold of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil: he shall dwell on high, his high retreat [shall be] the fortresses of the rocks; bread shall be given him; his waters [shall be] sure” (vv. 14-16).
Then follows (vv. 17-22) a sublime picture of Israel in their conscious blessedness. They should behold the King in His beauty, no longer cooped up within the beleaguered city, but free to look at the most distant part of the land or the earth. Their hearts should meditate on terror, now happily and for ever past; but then it is the more sweet to look back and think of the never-to-be-forgotten rescue, when every expert failed in his calculations, the scribe, or the receiver. The wisest were at fault – at fault in counting up human resources, as if they could avail – at fault in overlooking the only sure Deliverer, though He be not far from every one of us. On the other hand they should see no more and hear no more the foreign foe, but look upon Zion, the Mount Zion, which Jehovah loved. “Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold a far stretching land. Thy heart shall muse on the terror: where [is] he that counted, where [is] he that weighed [the tribute? where [is] he that counted the towers? Thou shalt no more see the fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive, of a stammering tongue that cannot be understood. Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tent [that] shall not be removed, the stakes whereof shall never be plucked up, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there Jehovah [will be] with us in majesty, a place of rivers, of broad streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For Jehovah [is] our judge, Jehovah [is] our lawgiver, Jehovah his] our King; he will save us” (vv. 17-22).
Is it not utterly vain to apply words like these to the days of Hezekiah with some ancients and of the Maccabees with others, or to gospel times with thoughtless moderns? Even supposing that the rest of the circumstances of the Jews at either of these epochs approached the strength of the prophet’s language, which is not at all admitted, who, in the face of approaching captivity, of a continual servitude to the Gentile powers, of a still more calamitous dispersion under the Romans, the effects of which last to this day – who can affirm that Jerusalem has been seen a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down? How can one hitherto apply to that city, yet trodden down of the Gentiles, the precise and most precious declaration, “Not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be pulled up, neither shall any of its cords be broken”?
Let in the light of the future for that people and place, and all is changed: the difficulty is at an end, and no wonder; for indeed “there Jehovah is unto us glorious; a place of rivers, of broad streams.” And thus there is not the smallest necessity for dislocating the prophecy from all connection with its historic basis, or diverting its consolations from those whose sorrows it was given to assuage and dispel in proportion to their simplicity or strength of faith. No, whatever of comfort we justly glean, whatever hopes of future triumph from its bright anticipations we may gather, let us rejoice that God is here speaking of afflicted tempest-tossed Israel, who in that day will find in Jesus of Nazareth their long-estranged Lord Jehovah of hosts, Who will prove Himself to be a better safeguard than those rivers and streams, of which Babylon or Nineveh might boast against Jerusalem. But even a river has its dangers as well as its beauty, facilities, and sources of protection: so both these cities proved in opposite ways to their cost. Jerusalem has all these privileges without the perils, has incomparably more, in Jehovah. What if no galley with oars went there, what if no gallant ship passed by, will not Jehovah be their judge, Jehovah their lawgiver, Jehovah their king, and so save them pre-eminently of all nations on the earth? And why should we weaken their claim to advance our own – we who are called into heavenly seats of glory, the object of the Saviour’s love as His bride on high?
To Jerusalem the King then will be their delight and boast and tower of strength. Had not the mightiest of old been broken when but a typical son of David was there, looking onward to Him Who will surely reign in Zion ere long? And what will it be when the Assyrian in his last phase – when Gog – essays to take Zion at the close of this age? “Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not strengthen the socket of their mast; they could not spread the sail: then was the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame took the prey.” The triumph of Israel is complete, and the more so because it is Jehovah’s hand for them, more than their own. “And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick; the people that dwell therein [shall be] forgiven [their] iniquity” (vv. 23, 24). Happy the people that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is Jehovah! Thrice happy are they who now can rejoice in Israel’s prospect, conscious themselves of a still higher portion in Christ, and in a still better country, that is, a heavenly! May we be content meanwhile to share His rejection, glorying in His cross, not as in an idol or vanity, but by faith graven on our hearts, and therefore proving it by the Spirit in our ways, each crucified to the world and the world crucified to each! For if we be dead together, we shall also live together; if we suffer, we shall also reign together. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 33:1-12
1Woe to you, O destroyer,
While you were not destroyed;
And he who is treacherous, while others did not deal treacherously with him.
As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed;
As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you.
2O LORD, be gracious to us; we have waited for You.
Be their strength every morning,
Our salvation also in the time of distress.
3At the sound of the tumult peoples flee;
At the lifting up of Yourself nations disperse.
4Your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers;
As locusts rushing about men rush about on it.
5The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high;
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
6And He will be the stability of your times,
A wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge;
The fear of the LORD is his treasure.
7Behold, their brave men cry in the streets,
The ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.
8The highways are desolate, the traveler has ceased,
He has broken the covenant, he has despised the cities,
He has no regard for man.
9The land mourns and pines away,
Lebanon is shamed and withers;
Sharon is like a desert plain,
And Bashan and Carmel lose their foliage.
10Now I will arise, says the LORD,
Now I will be exalted, now I will be lifted up.
11You have conceived chaff, you will give birth to stubble;
My breath will consume you like a fire.
12The peoples will be burned to lime,
Like cut thorns which are burned in the fire.
Isa 33:1 Woe Isaiah 28-33 forms a unit often called the Unit of Doom because of the recurrent use of the term woe, (cf. Isa 28:1; Isa 29:1; Isa 29:15; Isa 30:1; Isa 31:1; Isa 33:1). See note on Woe at Isa 5:8.
O destroyer Isa 33:1 speaks of Assyria, as does Isa 33:3-4; Isa 33:7-9; Isa 33:11-12; Isa 33:17-19; Isa 33:23; even Isa 33:21 may refer to the cities located on the Tigris and Euphrates. This chapter follows a common theme pattern of Isaiah.
1. the current rebellious state of God’s people
2. God’s judgment by foreign powers
3. God’s judgment of these foreign powers (here Assyria)
4. the future glorious conditions of His people through the righteous king (cf. Isa 32:1)
Both destroyed (BDB 994, KB 1418 twice, Qal ACTIVE PARTICIPLE, NEGATED Qal PASSIVE PARTICIPLE) and treacherous (lit. act faithlessly, BDB 93, KB 108 twice, Qal ACTIVE PARTICIPLE, NEGATED Qal PERFECT) are also used in Isa 21:2 about the fall of old Babylon. In a theological sense Isaiah’s ambiguity is purposeful. He intentionally makes the identity of Israel/Judah’s aggressors fuzzy so that his poems can function as multiple-fulfillment prophecies. Enemies come and go by YHWH’s hand and purpose, but YHWH Himself and His eternal redemptive purpose, using Abraham’s seed, does not!
Isa 33:2 The content of Judah’s prayer is listed.
1. be gracious to us, BDB 335, KB 334, Qal IMPERATIVE, cf. Isa 30:18-19
2. we have waited for You, BDB 875 I, KB 1082, Piel PERFECT, cf. Isa 8:17; Isa 25:9; Isa 26:8; Isa 40:31; Isa 49:23; Isa 51:5; Isa 60:9
3. be our strength (lit. arm) every morning, BDB 224, KB 243, Qal IMPERATIVE
4. be our salvation in time of distress (be VERB assumed)
YHWH is Judah’s only hope (cf. Isa 59:16; Isa 63:1; Isa 63:5), not Assyria (alliance) and not Egypt (alliance), only YHWH. Humans tend to panic and lose trust in times of crisis and uncertainty. They try to save themselves using their resources or the resources of other humans, to no avail!
strength It is literally arm (BDB 283). This is a biblical anthropomorphic metaphor to describe God’s presence and power on a daily basis.
salvation This term (BDB 447) is used in the OT for physical deliverance (cf. Isa 12:2 [twice], 3; Isa 25:9; Isa 26:1; Isa 26:18; Isa 33:6).
SPECIAL TOPIC: SALVATION (OLD TESTAMENT TERM)
Isa 33:4 In this verse spoil(BDB 1021) is a metaphor which denotes the destruction of YHWH’s enemies.
The VERB gathered (BDB 62, KB 74, Pual PERFECT) is also used in Isa 32:10 to describe the judgment of Jerusalem. It is also used in Isa 24:22 (same stem) to denote world-wide eschatological judgment. Humans gather for self, greed, and power, but God gathers for judgment. The NT describes the end-time gathering of
1. the redeemed, Mat 13:48; Mat 24:31
2. the wicked, Mat 13:40-41
locusts Locust invasions were common in the ANE. They are often compared to an invading army (cf. Deu 28:38; Deu 28:42; Joe 1:4; Joe 2:25; Amo 7:1-2). God directs armies as He directs all things! These locusts gather the ill-gotten spoils of Assyria.
There are many Semitic words for this insect which apparently denote (1) different species or (2) different stages of growth.
Isa 33:5 He dwells on high This phrase is a metaphor for heaven (cf. Isa 32:15; Job 16:19; Job 31:2). The ANE viewed heaven as above. For the Israelites the smoke from their sacrifices rose to God, therefore, He must be up. There was also the theological contrast with down as a metaphor for death. Sheol was down, but heaven was up. In our modern era these spacial metaphors seem inaccurate, but remember they are ancient metaphors never intended to carry a literalness. The language of the OT is phenomenological, which means the language of description using the five human senses. The Bible is not anti-scientific, it is pre-scientific! Taking ancient metaphors literally is not a sign of biblical conservatism, but of missing the intended meaning of the original historical setting of inspired authors.
justice and righteousness See note at Isa 32:16.
Isa 33:6
NASB, NKJV,
NRSVHe will be the stability of your times
NJBYou can count on this all your days
PESHITTAFaith shall be the stability of your times
REBher strength will be in your unchanging stability
YHWH brings stability, lit. faithful, BDB 53, cf. Isa 25:1. Judah’s hope and stability is the faithful character of her God (cf. Deu 32:4; Psa 36:5; Psa 89:1-2; Psa 89:5; Psa 89:24; Psa 89:33; Psa 89:49; Psa 88:11; Psa 92:2; Psa 143:1). This is the answer to the prayer of Isa 33:2. Because of His faithful character He gives to His wayward people
1. a wealth (BDB 340) of
a. salvation (BDB 447)
b. wisdom (BDB 315 with change of final consonant from to , cf. Isa 11:2)
c. knowledge (BDB 395, cf. Isa 11:2)
2. the fear (BDB 432, in the sense of reverential awe, cf. Isa 11:2; Pro 1:7; Pro 1:29; Pro 2:5) of YHWH is his treasure (BDB 69, in the sense of a full storehouse, cf. 1Ch 27:27-28; 2Ch 11:11)
Isa 33:7-9 This reflects the sad state of the impending siege because negotiations have failed (cf. 2Ki 18:13-16).
Isa 33:7 These two poetic lines are not synonymous. Biblical scholars have been influenced by Robert Lowth, who tried to fit all Hebrew parallelism into three or four categories. Today scholars are understanding the multiplicity of poetic parallelism. Currently it is best to say that the second line adds something or goes beyond (Adele Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism: Revised and Expanded, p. 64).
Two different groups are addressed.
1. line one – soldiers of Jerusalem
2. line two – the ambassador of peace sent to Egypt by Hezekiah (cf. Isa 33:8)
They do similar/parallel things
– cry, BDB 858
– weep, BDB 113
Parallelism is one of the main keys in interpreting Hebrew poetry, but we must recognize it is used in many forms and at many literary levels.
brave men This is possibly related to the root ariel, (NJB, cf. Isa 29:1-2; Isa 29:7; Isa 31:9).
Isa 33:8
NASB, NKJV,
PESHITTAcities
NRSV, DSSoaths
NJB, RSVwitnesses
REBtreaties
TEVagreements
The MT has cities (, BDB 746), but because of the parallelism, witnesses (, BDB 729) fits better. This could be another R – D confusion. The UBS Hebrew Text Project gives witness a C rating (i.e., considerable doubt).
Isa 33:9 This verse uses agricultural metaphors for the problems involved in the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C. These types of agricultural metaphors are common in Isaiah (cf. Isa 16:8; Isa 24:4; Isa 24:7). YHWH controls the weather for His purposes (cf. Deuteronomy 27-28). There is no distinction between the natural and supernatural in the Bible, as in the ANE. Deity is intimately involved in His creation. Be careful of your modern, scientific worldview placing a theological grid over Scripture!
Isa 33:10-12 These possibly relate to Assyria as in Isa 33:1.
Isa 33:11-12 The imagery of chaff and fire are common in Isaiah (cf. Isa 1:7; Isa 5:24; Isa 9:18-19; Isa 10:16-19; Isa 26:11; Isa 29:6; Isa 30:27-28; Isa 33:11-14; Isa 47:14, also Joe 2:3). See Special Topic: FIRE .
Isaiah uses imagery from human reproduction.
1. here, conception, BDB 247 I, KB 255, Qal IMPERFECT, Isa 8:3; Isa 26:18; Isa 59:4; Isa 59:13
2. giving birth, Isa 9:6; Isa 13:8; Isa 21:3; Isa 23:4; Isa 26:17-18; Isa 39:7; Isa 51:18; Isa 54:1; Isa 59:4; Isa 66:7; Isa 66:9
My breath This is the term ruah (BDB 924) used as an anthropomorphic metaphor for the wind of judgment from YHWH’s nostrils (see Special Topic at Isa 6:1). It is obviously a metaphor of YHWH’s personal participation (cf. Exo 15:18; 2Sa 22:16; Psa 18:15) in judgment (cf. Isa 11:4; Isa 30:28; Isa 40:7). See Special Topic: Breath, Wind, Spirit .
Woe. The fifth of the six Woes. The Structure, above, will make this section quite clear, and show that the verses are not “out of place”, or “disarranged”.
that spoilest = thou plunderer.
dealest treacherously = thou traitor.
Chapter 33
Now chapter 33 begins with a warning to the Assyrians.
Woe unto thee that spoilest, and you have not been spoiled; you that deal treacherously, you’ve not been dealt treacherously with! ( Isa 33:1 )
The Assyrians were extremely treacherous people. They often would mutilate their prisoners of war. Physically mutilate them. They would pull out their tongues. They would gouge out their eyes. They would physically mutilate their prisoners of war. They were extremely cruel. History records that many times cities when surrounded by the Assyrian army the inhabitants would commit suicide rather than be taken captive. So fearful were they of the Assyrians because of their barbarity, that rather than being taken captives by the Assyrians and be exposed to the torture that the Assyrians gave to their captives, they would just commit suicide. So Masada is not an isolated case in history. At the time of the Assyrian might, there were many records of cities-entire cities-that, rather than being captives of the Assyrians, committed suicide. So, “Woe unto you who deal so treacherously.”
when you shall cease to spoil, you will be spoiled; and when you shall make an end to deal treacherously, they will deal treacherously with you. O LORD, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble. At the noise of the tumult the people fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations were scattered. And your spoil shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpillar: as the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them. The LORD is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure. Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without: the ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly. The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regards no man ( Isa 33:1-8 ).
He’s talking about how the Assyrians have come and taken many of the cities already of Judah. And how the highways of Judah lie waste.
The earth mourns and languishes: Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down: Sharon is like a wilderness; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits. Now will I arise, saith the LORD; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself. You shall conceive chaff, you shall bring forth stubble: your breath, as fire, shall devour you. And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire. Hear, ye that are far off, what I have done; and, ye that are near, acknowledge my might ( Isa 33:9-13 ).
God said, “I’m going to burn them in my fire.” Like thorns are going to be cut up and burned in the fire. And so at the destruction of the Assyrians, the effect upon those in Jerusalem:
The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? ( Isa 33:14 )
If the fire of God has wiped out the Assyrian army, this highly vaunted Assyrian army, who amongst us can dwell in that kind of fire? The sinners become fearful, afraid. The hypocrites filled with terror. When they see the effect of God’s fire against the Assyrians.
In Hebrews we read, “Our God is a consuming fire” ( Heb 12:29 ). In Hebrews we read that, “If we sin wilfully after we come to the knowledge of truth, there remains no further sacrifice for our sins, only that fearful looking forward to the fiery indignation of God’s wrath which will devour His adversaries” ( Heb 10:26-27 ). The fire of God.
Now the fire of God to us as children of God is not something that we fear. “Beloved, consider it not strange concerning the fiery trials which are to try you as though some strange thing has happened unto you” ( 1Pe 4:12 ). God puts us through the fire but it is the refining fire whereby God is purging out from our lives the dross in order that we might be pure.
When we come to Jesus Christ we have all of our hang-ups. We have all kinds of impurities within our lives. And so God puts us through the fire in order that He might burn out these impurities. We go through the testing. We go through trials, but God has a purpose in the testings and trials of refining us and making us pure, even as He is pure. And so I am in the fire of God. But because I am a child of God, the fire of God is only refining me and taking away the impurity from my life. You are in the fire of God. Whoever you may be-sinner, Christian alike. If you are a sinner, the fire of God is devouring and destroying and will ultimately destroy you. Where if you are a child of God, then that same refining process of God’s fire is bringing about the purity in your life.
“Who amongst us can dwell in the devouring fire?” The answer:
He that walks righteously, he that speaks uprightly; he that despises the profit off of other people’s ills or oppressions, he that refuses to take bribes, who will not listen to evil, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil; For he shall dwell on high; his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty ( Isa 33:15-17 ):
Oh, how I long to see the King in His beauty and in His glory. Jesus prayed, “Father, I pray for these that have been with Me that they might see Me with the glory that I had with Thee before the world ever existed. And not only for these do I pray, but for all of those that will believe upon Me through their witness” ( Joh 17:20 , Joh 17:24 ). What is the Lord’s desire? That you might see Him in His glory and see the King in His beauty. We have seen Him in His humiliation. We have seen Him as He was despised and rejected. But His desire is that we might also see Him in the glory that He had with the Father before the world ever existed. And they shall see the King in His beauty.
they shall behold the land ( Isa 33:17 )
The promised land, the kingdom of God.
that was very far off. Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? where is the receiver? where is he that counted the towers? Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand. Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious LORD will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our King; he will save us ( Isa 33:17-22 ).
It speaks of that glorious day when Jesus will come and establish the kingdom of God upon the earth and He will reign there in mount Zion. And when Jesus comes, actually there’s going to be a tremendous earthquake that will split the Mount of Olives in two. It is going to open up a subterranean river that will flow out from Jerusalem. Out from the throne of Jesus Christ there in Jerusalem. The subterranean river which will break into two rivers-one flowing to the Mediterranean and the other flowing down to the Dead Sea. And when the river flows into the waters of the Dead Sea, the waters of the Dead Sea will be healed so that it will no longer be a dead sea but it will become a center of fishing industry as they dry their nets around the area of Engedi.
And so Ezekiel prophesied of this river that flowed forth from the throne of God and how he measured the river and the depth that was so deep he couldn’t walk across as it made its way down towards the Dead Sea. Isaiah also in another prophecy speaks of this same river. “The glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers,” not where ships navigate. Not like the river Euphrates or the Tigris where the ships navigated on it.
But, “The Lord is the judge, He is the lawgiver, He is our King; and He will save us.”
Thy tacklings ( Isa 33:23 )
Speaking in terms of shipping now.
are loosed; they could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey. And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity ( Isa 33:23-24 ).
“Oh how happy is the man whose sins are covered. Whose transgressions are forgiven” ( Psa 32:1 ).
But before the great day of the Lord comes, before Jesus sets up His kingdom, before He reigns there in Jerusalem, the nations of the earth are going to experience the most horrible bloodbath that has ever taken place in the history of man. And so chapter 34 he sees now this horrible bloodbath of the nations before the reign of Christ. “
Isa 33:1-6
Isa 33:1
This chapter is described by Jamieson as the final prophecy of Isaiah relative to the destruction of Sennacherib’s army encamped before Jerusalem. The date of the prophecy is just prior to 701 B.C., when the death of the Assyrian army occurred. Unbelieving, critical scholars as a general rule date the prophecy “after the Babylonian captivity,” but it is refreshing that one of their number raised a flag of caution on the blind acceptance of such speculations regarding the date of Isaiah’s prophecies, and commented that it is “very precarious.” He even mentioned, “Our almost complete ignorance” of vast stretches of the pre-Christian history. He declared that, “If the prophecy is Isaiah’s, the date Isaiah 701 B.C.”
With regard to “whose prophecy this is,” it can only belong to Isaiah. That great mythical scholar and most famous writer of a thousand years, the imaginary redactor and editor of Isaiah who was recently invented by critics and is falsely alleged by them to have existed in later ages and who managed to impose his personal writings as having been produced by the great eighth century prophet, Isaiah, – that character is simply a hoax. He never existed anywhere on earth except in the imaginations of critics; and Christians who are willing to believe in such “phantoms” need to rely upon their own God-given intelligence for just a few minutes to behold the fraud in such postulations as those of destructive critics trying to discredit the Bible. Christ himself found no problems with Isaiah’s prophecy and frequently quoted from every section in it.
Not even the unbelieving hypocrites of Jesus’ day would have denied that all of Isaiah was written by Isaiah. It is incredible that critics could have supposed that “some unknown author” could be substituted by the critics for the real author.
We like the way certain scholars (and remember that these scholars already knew all of the critical arguments, this being true simply because there has been no new argument in centuries) have stated unequivocally the date of this prophecy. Cheyne said, “The date is the 27th year of the reign of Hezekiah, in 701 B.C.” Barnes, Hailey, Lowth, Rawlinson, Gleason, and literally hundreds of other scholars long ago rejected the forced and illogical arguments resorted to by critics in their vain efforts to destroy the Bible. As Barnes noted, the historical, political, and geographical situation in Isaiah, “Agree far better with the times of Sennacherib’s invasion (701 B.C.) than with: (1) either the Babylonian period, or (2) with the judgments that came upon the Syrians in the Maccabean period.”
Isa 33:1
“Woe to thee that destroyest, and thou wast not destroyed, and that dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou hast ceased to destroy, thou shalt be destroyed; and when thou hast made an end of dealing treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.”
The historical situation here is reflected in every line of the verse. Sennacherib had already destroyed the outlying cities of Judah, and he had lyingly promised Hezekiah that for a tribute of 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold, he would spare Jerusalem. At great cost and hardship Hezekiah had complied with the demand, even cutting off the gold decorations of the temple doors in order to meet the tremendous burden of the tribute. But no sooner was the tribute received than Sennacherib demanded the surrender of the city; and this prophecy was uttered, probably from the walls of Jerusalem and was addressed to Rabshakeh or to Sennacherib himself by Isaiah, who fearlessly denounced the invader and prophesied his ruin and destruction.
“Thou that destroyest, and thou wast not destroyed … dealt treacherously, etc. …” (Isa 33:1). Sennacherib had brutally betrayed and devastated all of the cities of Judah, and no harm had as yet come to him; but God sent him a message through Isaiah: “Thou shalt be destroyed … They shall deal treacherously with thee!” Was this fulfilled? It was literally fulfilled when God put his hook in the nose of that evil pagan ruler and dragged him back to Nineveh. His army had perished in a night, and on the way back home, “they” despoiled him, taking advantage of him at every post on the way back. Who were the “they”? They were the remnants of those betrayed and mined cities. He even lost all of that gold and silver tribute, because, as Lowth explained, “Hezekiah, after the destruction of the Assyrian army, had exceeding much riches, and that he made himself treasuries for silver, and for gold, and for precious stones. He was so rich that, out of pride and vanity, he displayed his wealth before the ambassadors from Babylon. This cannot be otherwise accounted for, than by the prodigious spoil that was taken upon the destruction of Sennacherib’s army.” See 2Ch 32:27.
And we may ask, who was it that “dealt treacherously” with Sennacherib? It was his own sons. “And it came to pass when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhadon his son reigned in his stead” (2Ki 19:36-37).
Not only is all of this remarkable; but there is also absolutely nothing that corresponds with any of this in any of the erroneous dates proposed by critics.
Isa 33:2-3
“O Jehovah, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be thou our arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble. At the noise of the tumult the people are fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations are scattered.”
This mingling of prayer and prophecy is somewhat strange; but the situation was one of great emergency and extremely high levels of emotion. The first verse of this alone may be properly understood as the prayer of Isaiah and the Jews to Jehovah for his help. Isa 33:3 is a reference to Sennacherib’s lifting up of himself with the consequential fear and scattering of the nations; and according to Lowth, Isa 33:3 is actually answered in Isa 33:10, where God lifts himself up with doleful consequences for Sennacherib.
Isa 33:4-6
“And your spoil shall be gathered as the caterpillar gathereth: as locusts leap shall men leap upon it. Jehovah is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with justice and righteousness. And there shall be stability in thy times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge: the fear of Jehovah is thy treasure.”
In these verses, God addresses Sennacherib directly in Isa 33:4, sentencing him to the same brutal treatment he had imposed upon others and promising particularly that all of his spoils would be taken from him in a manner comparable to the devastation caused by a swarm of locusts. Isa 33:5-6 promise stability in “thy times,” that is, the times of Hezekiah, his treasures being the fear of the Lord.
The prophecy turned at once from the contemplation of victory and stability foreseen in the future to the disastrous situation revealed in Isa 33:7-9.
Isa 33:1-6 PROSPECTS FOR GODS PEOPLE: This context (ch. 33) is closely connected to Assyrias almost total domination of Judah in Hezekiahs day. Almost all the cities and villages of Judah had been overrun and plundered except Jerusalem. But, in spite of appearances, Gods people had a glorious future. To this Isaiah speaks. He begins by warning Assyria that her time for world conquest will someday come and then she shall be destroyed. One is reminded of Isaiahs earlier prediction of this (Isa 10:5-34). Assyria was renowned for its destructive cruelty. F. W. Farrar gives a vivid description of Assyrias general character:
Judged from the vaunting inscriptions of her kings, no power more useless, more savage, more terrible, ever cast its gigantic shadow on the page of history as it passed on the way to ruin. The kings of Assyria tormented the miserable world. They exult to record how space failed for corpses; how unsparing a destroyer is their goddess Ishtar; how they flung away the bodies of soldiers like so much clay; how they made pyramids of human heads; how they burned cities; how they filled populous lands with death and devastation; how they reddened broad deserts with carnage of warriors; how they scattered whole countries with the corpses of their defenders as with chaff; how they impaled heaps of men on stakes, and strewed the mountains and choked rivers with dead bones; how they cut off the hands of kings and nailed them on the walls, and left their bodies to rot with bears and dogs on the entrance gates of cities; how they employed nations of captives in making brick in fetters; how they cut down warriors like weeds, or smote them like wild beasts in the forests, and covered pillars with the flayed skins of rival monarchs.
This terrible destroyer, Assyria, was herself destroyed. Isaiah predicts it here again to encourage a faithful remnant of believers in his own day.
In Isa 33:2-6 Isaiah seems to be voicing the prayer of the remnant. The prayer is interesting because it is more a prayer of praise for what they believe God can and will do than it is a request. The prayer does begin with a request for Gods mercy. Judahs present circumstance is beyond human solution, so the prophet prays for God to act. Judah has no merit to claim Gods action so Isaiah prays for Gods mercy. His prayer is also that God might act to exalt His own name. This prayer is an abbreviated parallel to Daniels great prayer for the exiles (Dan 9:3-19). The remnant, being represented by Isaiah, waited upon the Lord. This is a word to describe patient, enduring trust. The remnant did not try to take matters into its own hands and seek help from Egypt as did the majority of the people. They patiently waited upon the Lord to accomplish His purposes in His own good time. The remnant occupied themselves with being the kind of people God wanted them to be and left the matter of Assyria to God.
How could the remnant be so patient with God? Because they knew from Gods past deeds, demonstrated in history, when He thundered His enemies were scattered (Isa 33:3). They knew from their own history when they depended on God to give them victory, eventually they conquered their enemies and gathered the spoils of their conquest to His glory (Isa 33:4). They knew that when Gods people filled Gods land with justice and righteousness-when Jehovah was exalted above all-there was stability. They knew it from past history, and so they prayed that it might come again. They knew the real treasure of Judah, the real and valuable currency of the Chosen was the fear of Jehovah. This brought true salvation, wisdom and knowledge. Perhaps there is a pointed exhortation to Hezekiah here who succumbed to the temptation to boast and show off the worldly treasures of Judah to the Assyrians (cf. Isa 39:1-8), and even to pay tribute from it to them (2Ki 18:15-16) as if that kind of treasure would deliver them. When will men ever learn that aggressors and those who would destroy society or enslave people can never be appeased with things, but that trust in God, moral uprightness, justice and self-sacrifice is the only deliverance from evil. In times of political and moral chaos such as those in which Isaiah lived the only stable, constant, secure position is trusting the Lord to exercise His sovereign purposes and actions in His own time, because we have evidence that He has always done so to the glory and victory of His people in the past.
This chapter celebrates a great victory, and is prophetic of the method of the final triumph. In the first thirteen verses we have the prophet’s appeal, in which there are two movements. In the first he describes the foe, lifts his cry to God, and declares his confidence in God. In the second he makes his appeal, describes the need, and announces the divine answer.
Following this is a graphic description of the effect produced by the consciousness of the presence of God as of a fire. The sinners are afraid. The righteous dwell in safety in the midst of its burning. In the rest of the chapter we have in detail the answer of Jehovah to the appeal of His servant. It is the vision of the King and of the land. The coming of the King will mean the safety of such as put their trust in Him. They will muse on the terror, but it will have departed, and the city will be quiet and full of peace.
The prophet then breaks out into an exceedingly beautiful description of the safety of the city, God-delivered and God-governed. Jehovah will be to it a river of defense. In the midst of it He will administer its affairs in justice. With such a God, all the attempts of the enemy to overcome the city are useless. Everywhere there is healing for the people, both physically and spiritually.
God Exalted in Judgment
Isa 33:1-12
Here we have the final prediction against Sennacherib. He had dealt very treacherously by returning against Jerusalem, though he had taken a heavy ransom to leave it unmolested, 2Ki 18:16. In Isa 33:2 Isaiah recalls the daily prayer offered by the priests in the Temple, when they heard of the steady advance of the foe. It was quite true that nations had fled before the dreaded Assyrian, Isa 33:3; but in this case those precedents would be reversed, Isa 33:4, because the Lord would appear for His people, Isa 33:5. That was a sweet assurance that the prophet gave to Hezekiah in Isa 33:6 -to sustain his spirit through the strain of the invasion described in Isa 33:7-8. God always gives us a promise on the eve of trial. He victuals His ships ere He exposes them to the storm. Though God sometimes seems to sleep yet when the hour strikes for the deliverance of His people, He will not tarry for a single moment. Be of good cheer; He will ride upon the wings of the wind to succor you!
EXPOSITORY NOTES ON
THE PROPHET ISAIAH
By
Harry A. Ironside, Litt.D.
Copyright @ 1952
edited for 3BSB by Baptist Bible Believer in the spirit of the Colportage ministry of a century ago
ISAIAH CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE SIXTH WOE AND PROMISES OF BLESSING
WE NOW COME to the last of the series of six woes, and this one is pronounced upon the enemies of the people of GOD, primarily Assyria, but also including the other nations that have sought to destroy Israel and Judah.
“Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee”
(verse 1).
In all GOD’s ways with men the principle abides true that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”. This applies to nations as well as to individuals. The powers that have wreaked their vengeance upon Israel unprovoked must in turn be visited with judgment after GOD has used them for the chastening of His people. As we look back over the pages of history we can see how these words have been fulfilled many times In connection with the different nations under whom the Jews have suffered so terribly. One need only instance Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and the Roman Empire of old, as well as more modern nations like Spain, Poland, Russia, and Germany. Those who in future days will rise up to oppress the covenant people will be permitted to go only as far as GOD in His infinite wisdom and justice deems well, then they in turn will be destroyed and Israel delivered.
“O Lord, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble” (verse 2).
This is the cry of the remnant both in the past and as it will be in the future in the days of the Beast and the Antichrist. They are devoted to destruction but find deliverance as they look up to the GOD of their fathers and turn to Him in repentance. Then He will intervene on their behalf, stretching forth His hand of power to save and comfort.
“At the noise of the tumult the people fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations were scattered. And your spoil shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpiller: as the
running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them” (verses 3, 4).
Faith counts on GOD, and looks at the things that are not as though they are. It is still the voice of the remnant, declaring the might of the Lord and His interference on their behalf.
“The Lord is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the Lord is his treasure” (verses 5, 6).
The hearts of those who confide in Him are moved to worship and thanksgiving as they see by faith His kingdom established over all the earth. It is surely a grievous misapplication of the scope of the prophetic Scriptures to spiritualize all this and to make Zion mean the Church, the Body of CHRIST. Throughout all these chapters every sober expositor recognizes the fact that the judgments predicted have fallen or are yet to fall upon the Jews or their oppressors.
Surely then, it is very inconsistent to apply the blessings to the Church of the present age. Certainly the same people who have suffered at the hands of the Gentiles because of their disobedience to the Word of GOD are identical, nationally, with those who will participate in the privileges of the kingdom of GOD when it is set up in this world and Mount Zion will be the center of blessing for the whole earth.
“Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without: the ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly. The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man. The earth mourneth and languisheth: Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down: Sharon is like a wilderness; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits” (verses 7-9).
The covenant referred to here doubtless was that which the Jews attempted to make with Egypt in order, as we have seen, to strengthen themselves against the Assyrian; a covenant which was to prove absolutely valueless. But we may also see in these verses a picture of the desolation that shall come in the last days when the covenant made between the Beast and the head of the Jewish State for seven years, as foretold in Daniel 9, will be broken in the midst of the week, and almost incredible sufferings will fall upon the remnant who, in that day, will refuse to worship the abomination of desolation, as predicted by our Lord in Matthew 24. Other scriptures have shown us something of the desolation that will come upon the land because of the apostasy of the mass when the day of the Lord begins.
“Now will I rise, saith the Lord; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself. Ye shall conceive chaft, ye shall bring forth stubble: your breath, as tire, shall devour you. And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire” (verses 10-12).
No machinations of the apostate mass, the enemies of the Lord in the last days, will avail to turn away the judgments of the Lord. When He arises to shake terribly the earth, His power will brook no attempted interference on the part of men who deny His name. On those also who honor His name with their lips but in works deny Him, His judgments will surely fall.
“Hear, ye that are far oft, what I have done; and, ye that are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” (verses 13, 14).
The sinners in Zion are those referred to above who, while professing reverence for the name of the Lord, manifest their unbelief by the godlessness of their lives. When GOD arises to deal with them, their religious pretensions will fail them and they will learn at last that the hypocrite’s hope shall perish. Only that which is real can abide the Day of the Lord.
The questions of verse 14 have, I think, often been misunderstood. The prophet is not speaking here of that which Scripture clearly teaches elsewhere, namely, the everlasting punishment of the finally impenitent. The “everlasting burnings” are not the fires of hell but the holiness of GOD, before which no unrighteous man can stand, whatever his pretensions to piety may be. The verses that follow give the answer to the passage. “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29).
They only can abide before Him who have judged themselves in His holy presence and are seeking now to walk before Him in truth and uprightness.
“He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil; He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far oft” (verses 16-17).
Here we have the only possible answer to the question of the verses above. This is in full accord with Psa 15:1-3. While in every dispensation all who are saved will owe everything for eternity to the propitiatory work of our Lord JESUS CHRIST, yet the proof that one has really been born of GOD and justified before His face is seen in a righteous life and in humble submission to His holy will.
To the remnant, who will be characterized by subjection to GOD and integrity in their dealings with their fellows, these promises will be made real. These shall behold the King in all His beauty and glory when He returns to fulfill prophetic scripture. They shall behold the land, that is, the land promised by GOD of old to Abraham’s seed, far extended. From the River of Egypt to the Euphrates, all will be the inheritance of Israel when restored to GOD.
“Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? where Is the receiver? where is he that counted the towers? Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand” (verses 18, 19).
It will be remembered that the Apostle Paul quotes part of these words when he is expressing the
limitations of the human mind in regard to divine ministries (1Co 1:20). Who, unaided by the Spirit of GOD, would ever have understood His purpose of blessing for that nation which refused His Son and called down upon their own heads the awful malediction, “His blood be on us, and on our children”?
In spite of all their waywardness, His counsels shall stand and He will bring them at last into blessing, not only for the millennial age but throughout eternity.
No matter what they may be called upon to suffer in the interim through the fierceness and hatred of the persecuting nations, they will emerge at last triumphant over all their foes and be brought into fullness of blessing when the Lord JESUS descends to vindicate every promise that GOD has given. No longer will those who revere His name be called upon to endure reproach and suffering because of their faithfulness to Himself.
“Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us. Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey. And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity” (verses 20-24).
Glorious is the prospect here presented. Jerusalem, so long a city of strife and warfare, will become a peaceful habitation, for the Prince of Peace will dwell there and His law go forth to all the world. Isolated as Jerusalem has been, with no close seaport, in that day the Lord Himself will be its defense and will be to the people of the Holy City as a broad river, but a river wherein no enemy ship shall ever sail but where GOD will be the protector of His people.
Sorrow and sickness will flee away and the weakest of the children of GOD will be stronger than the most powerful foes of the past. It is those who recognize their own lameness and insufficiency who overcome, because of their reliance on almighty power.
While we should be careful not to take such a passage as this out of its setting and give it direct application to the Church of the present age, nevertheless, it has spiritual lessons for us from which we may well profit. It tells us what Scripture elsewhere ever emphasizes, that vain is the help of man but that he who relies upon the living GOD need fear no foe, whether human or demonic. Faith is ever the victory that overcomes the world, the flesh, and the devil.
~ end of chapter 33 ~
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Isa 33:6
I. It is a pity, and a thing greatly to be regretted, that the tree of which Adam and Eve were ordered not to eat, and did eat, is so often called “the tree of knowledge.” It is not its scriptural name. It was not knowledge at all, as we generally use the word “knowledge.” It was moral or rather immoral knowledge,-“the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God would not have made “knowledge” a part of the prophecy of the future good and happiness of Jerusalem, if knowledge were not a great national as well as a great personal blessing.
II. But right knowledge may be put in wrong proportions, or knowledge may be separated from wisdom. If that divorce takes place between two things which God has joined together, no wonder if it brings a curse and not a blessing. Knowledge which has not the fear of the Lord is not knowledge at all. And here lies the error of the day, which says “knowledge,” leaving out wisdom. “Knowledge is the stability of the times.”
III. But what is wisdom? Either you must take it thus, which is the right application “to use knowledge;” or it is when a sound judgment sits at the helm of the feelings; or; better still, it is a great principle ruling the intellect,-the Eternal in His proper place among the things of time; or, truer still, as we learn from the Proverbs, it is the Lord Jesus Christ, the fountain, the embodiment, the concentration, the essence of wisdom. The degree of a man’s union with Christ is the real measure of his wisdom. Wisdom is the preparative; it is a state of mind preceding knowledge; therefore the order, wisdom first, knowledge next;-“wisdom and knowledge.”
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 197.
Isa 33:14-15
(with 1Jn 4:16)
I. The world’s question. I need only remind you how frequently in the Old Testament the emblem of fire is employed to express the Divine nature. (1) In many places the prominent idea in the emblem is that of the purity of the Divine nature, which flashes and flames as against all that is evil and sinful. (2) The fire, which is the destructive fire of perfect purity, is also the fire that quickens and blesses. “God is love,” says John; and love is fire, too. God’s wrath is a form of God’s love; God hates because He loves. To “dwell with everlasting burnings” means two things. (1) It means to hold a familiar intercourse and communion with God. (2) It means to bear the action of the fire, the judgment of the present and the judgment of the future. The question for each of us is, can we face that judicial and punitive action of that Divine providence which works even here? and how can we face the judicial and punitive action in the future?
II. Look next at the prophet’s answer. It is simple. He says that if a man is to hold fellowship with, or to face the judgment of, the pure and righteous God, the plainest dictates of reason and common sense are that he himself must be pure and righteous to match. The details into which his answer to the question runs out are all very homely, prosaic, pedestrian kind of virtues, nothing at all out of the way, nothing that people would call splendid or heroic. Righteous action, righteous speech, inward hatred of possessions gotten at my neighbour’s cost, and a vehement resistance to all the seductions of sense,-there is the outline of a homely, everyday sort of morality, which is to mark the man who, as Isaiah says, can “dwell amongst the everlasting fires.”
III. Let us take the Apostle’s answer. “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.” The declaration of the first text lies at the very foundation of the second. What then is the difference between them? (1) Isaiah tells us that we must be righteousness: John tells us how we may be. Love is the productive germ of all righteousness; it is the fulfilling of the law. (2) Isaiah says “Righteousness:” John says “Love,” which makes righteousness. And then he tells us how we may get love. We love Him because He first loved us. We can contemplate the cross on which the great Lover of our souls died, and thereby we can come to love Him. The first step of the ladder is faith; the second, love; the third, righteousness.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 2nd series, p. 87.
References: Isa 33:15, Isa 33:16.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1764. Isa 33:16.-Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 316.
Isa 33:17
These words plainly promise to every follower of Christ, if he shall persevere unto the end, that in the resurrection he shall see the Lord Jesus Christ in His beauty, and in the glory of His kingdom. What then is this beauty which shall be revealed to all who attain that world and the resurrection of the holy dead?
I. First, it would seem to be the beauty of His heavenly court. About Him and before Him are the companies of heaven, the hosts and hierarchies of the blessed, the nine orders of seraphic and angelic ministers, and the saintly multitude of God’s new creation. Armies of martyrs, companies of prophets, the majesty of patriarchs, the glory of apostles, each one in the full transfigured beauty of his own perfect spirit, and all revealing the warfare of faith, the triumph of the Church, the power of the Cross, the election of God,-these are the degrees and ascents leading upward to the throne of bliss.
II. But if such be the beauty of the King’s court, what is the beauty of the King Himself? of His glorious person as very God and very man? We shall not be dangerously out of the way, if we believe that He who is the brightness of His Father’s glory and the express image of His person, did take unto Himself our manhood as His revealed presence for ever, in its most perfect image and likeness; that in Him two natures were united and both were perfect, both were beautiful. Our minds are full of lights and hues, with which we array the objects of our hearts. Let each do as he will. Only let us first love Him, and then weigh these thoughts. Till then, it is all too soon. But be this as it may, there is a beauty we know Him to possess in fulness-the beauty of perfect love. In His face will be revealed all the love of His holy incarnation, of His life of sorrow, of His agony and passion, of His cross and death. The wounds of His hands and feet and of His pierced side are eternal seals and countersigns of the love which has redeemed us for Himself. (1) The King whose beauty is the bliss of heaven is ever drawing and preparing us for His presence by all the mysteries of His Church. (2) By a special and particular discipline, varied and measured for the necessities of every faithful soul, He is making us ready for the vision of His presence.
H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 431.
The sensibility of Christ’s character. Sensibility includes sensitiveness. Sensitiveness is the power of receiving impressions, whether from nature or man, vividly, intensely, and yet delicately. Sensibility is this passive quality of sensitiveness with activity of soul in addition exercised upon the impressions received. The more perfect the manhood, the more perfect is this sensibility. When we talk of the perfect manhood of Christ, and never consider this side of His nature, we must be making a grave omission-an omission which removes from our view half of the more subtle beauty of His character.
I. It does not seem wrong to say that there was in Him the sensibility to natural beauty. We know that He had watched the tall lilies arrayed more gloriously than Solomon; that He had marked the reed shaken in the wind, and the tender green of the first shoot of the fig-tree. We find His common teaching employed about the vineyard and the wandering sheep, the whitening corn and the living well, the summer rain and the wintry flood and storm. These and many more would not have been so often connected with His action and so ready on His lips had not He loved them well, and received their impressions vividly.
II. But still higher in Him was that intense sensibility to human feeling, which made Him by instinct know, without the necessity of speech, the feelings of those He met. He saw Nathanael in the early days coming to Him from the garden and the fig-tree. He looked upon the simple and earnest face, and recognised the long effort of the man to be true. In a moment He frankly granted the meed of praise: “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.” A few words more, in which Christ went home to the secret trials of the man, and Nathaneal was His for ever. Men, women, and children, all who were natural, unconventional, simple in love and powerful in faith, ran to Him as a child to its mother. They felt the beauty of character which was born of sensibility to human feeling and spiritual wants, and they were bound to Him for ever.
S. A. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life, p. 89.
I. Consider how the sensibility of Christ to the beauty of nature became active as sympathy with nature. (1) You remember that passage when, as He walked silently along, He suddenly lifted up His eyes and saw the fields whitening already to harvest. He received the impression in a passive mood. It changed the whole current of His thoughts, and the whole state of his soul. Immediately thought seized on the change worked within Him by the impression, and expressed it in words. It marks a beautiful character to be so rapidly and delicately impressed; but the beauty of the character becomes vital beauty when the man, through utter sympathy with and love of what he feels, becomes himself creative of new thought. (2) The poet’s sensibility to nature becomes active as personal sympathy with the living soul of nature. This also we find in the character of Christ [cf. parable of the sower]. All the impressions were carried into the spiritual mould. They were shaped into a picture of human life, with its temptations and its struggle and its end. (3) The true sensibility, becoming sympathy, sympathises with the distinct nature of each thing it feels, divides each thing from all the rest, gives to each a different praise, feels for each a different feeling, and harmonises itself with the tone of each impression. This is to be found in the character of Christ, and it gives to it a peculiar and delicate beauty. We find it suggested (a) in the perfect appositeness of the illustrations He drew from nature to the thoughts He desired to illustrate (b) in the choice of certain places for certain moods of the mind.
II. If it be true that sensibility to natural impressions ceases to be a beautiful thing unless it become active through sympathy, it is still more plainly true of sensibility to human feeling. The extraordinary sensibility of Christ to human feeling became operative at once as sympathy, was at once translated into action. His sympathy was given to all the world; but it was not given in a like manner to all, nor at all times. Christ sanctified distinctiveness in friendship and love.
S. A. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life, p. 102.
There are human lives which are poems, as there are lives which are prose. They give pleasure as poetry gives it, by the expression of the beautiful. Such a life, at its very highest range, was the life of Christ. We seek its poetry today, and we weave our thoughts of it round that profound phrase of Milton’s, that poetry must be simple, sensuous, and passionate.
I. That which is simplicity in art is purity in a perfect character. The beauty of Christ’s purity was (1) in this, that those who saw it saw in it the glory of moral victory. (2) From this purity, so tried and so victorious, arose two other elements of moral beauty-perfect justice and perfect mercy.
II. The word “sensuousness,” in Milton’s sense of it, was entirely noble in meaning. Of its representative in a character I have already spoken in speaking of the sensibility of the character of the Saviour to impressions received from nature and from man. But I may add that as the poet produces beautiful work out of the multitudinous world of images and things which he has received, so the exquisiteness of the parables and of the words of Christ, both in form and expression, was the direct result of the knowledge He had gained from this quality of sensibility.
III. The third element of great poetry is passion. We may transfer it directly to a character as an element of beauty. It is best defined as the power of intense feeling capable of perfect expression. It was intense feeling of the weakness and sin of man, and intense joy in His Father’s power to redeem, which produced the story of the “Prodigal Son,” where every word is on fire with tender passion. See how it comes home, even now, to men; see how its profound humanity has made it universal! “Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” How that goes home to the deepest want of the race; how deep the passion which generalised that want into a single sentence; how intense, yet how pathetic, the expression of it; how noble the temperance which stayed at the single sentence and felt that it was enough!
S. A. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life, p. 117.
Shrinking from Christ’s coming.
Before Christ came, the faithful remnant of Israel were consoled with the promise that their eyes should see Him who was to be their salvation. Yet it is observable that the prophecy, though cheering and encouraging, had with it something of an awful character too. “Who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth? “We too are looking out for Christ’s coming,-we are bid look out, we are bid pray for it; and yet it is to be a time of judgment. If it is to be the deliverance of the saints from sin and sorrow for ever, yet they, every one of them, must undergo an awful trial. How then can any look forward to it with joy, not knowing (for no one knows) the certainty of his own salvation? It is a seeming inconsistency how we can pray for Christ’s coming, yet wish then to “work out our own salvation,” and “make our calling and election sure.” It was a seeming contradiction how good men were to desire His first coming, yet be unable to abide it; how the Apostles feared, yet rejoiced after His resurrection. Such seeming contradictions arise from the want of depth in our minds to master the whole truth. We have not eyes keen enough to follow out the lines of God’s providence and will, which meet at length, though at first sight they seem parallel. Consider how we can pray for the coming of Christ with sincerity.
I. Though we could not at all reconcile our feelings about ourselves with the command given us, still it is our duty to obey the latter on faith. If Abraham could lift up his knife to slay his son, we may well so far subdue our fears as to pray for what nevertheless is terrible.
II. When we pray for the coming of Christ, we do but pray, in the Church’s words, that He would “accomplish the number of His elect, and would hasten His kingdom.” When then we pray that He would come, we pray also that we may be ready; that all things may converge and meet in Him; that He may draw us while He draws near us, and make us the holier the closer He comes.
III. You dare not pray for Christ’s presence now;-would you pray for it had you lived Methuselah’s years? I trow not, You will never be good enough to desire it; no one in the whole Church prays for it except on conditions implied. What Christ asks of you is not sinlessness, but diligence.
IV. Consider what you mean by praying, and you will see that at that very time that you are asking for the coming of His kingdom, you are anticipating that coming, and accomplishing the thing you fear. We shall come before Him at last, as now we come to pray-with profound abasement, with awe, with self-renunciation, still as relying upon the spirit He has given us, with our faculties about us, with a collected and determined mind, and with hope. He who cannot pray for Christ’s coming, ought not in consistency to pray at all.
V. In that solemn hour we shall have, if we be His, the inward support of His Spirit, carrying us on towards Him, and “witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God.”
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. v., p. 46.
Unreal words.
I. The prophet tells us that, under the Gospel covenant, God’s servants will have the privilege of seeing those heavenly sights which were but shadowed out in the law. Before Christ came was the time of shadows; but when He came He brought truth as welt as grace; and as He who is the truth has come to us, so does He in return require that we should be true and sincere in our dealings with Him. To be true and sincere is really to see with our minds those great wonders which He has wrought in order that we might see them. And yet it need scarcely be said nothing is so rare as honesty and singleness of mind; so much so, that a person who is really honest is already perfect. Insincerity was an evil which sprang up within the Church from the first. Ananias and Simon were not open opposers of the Apostles, but false brethren. And as foreseeing what was to be, our Saviour is remarkable in His ministry for nothing more than the earnestness of the dissuasions which He addressed to those who came to Him, against taking up religion lightly, or making promises which they were likely to break.
II. And what is said of discipleship applies undoubtedly in its degree to all profession. To make professions is to play with edged tools, unless we attend to what we are saying. Words have a meaning, whether we mean that meaning or not; and they are imputed to us in their real meaning, when our not meaning it is our own fault. This consideration needs especially to be pressed upon Christians at this day; for this is especially a day of professions. This is a day in which there is (rightly or wrongly) so much of private judgment, so much of separation and difference, so much of preaching and teaching, so much of authorship, that it involves individual profession, responsibility, and recompense in a way peculiarly its own.
III. The mere fact of our saying more than we feel is not necessarily sinful. We ever promise things greater than we master, and we wait on God to enable us to perform them. Our promising involves a prayer for light and strength. Persons are culpably unreal in their way of speaking, not when they say more than they feel, but when they say things different from what they feel. Be in earnest, and you will speak of religion where and when and how you should. Aim at things, and your words will be right without aiming. Aim at looking at this life as God looks at it. Aim at looking at the life to come and the world unseen as God does. Aim at “seeing the King in His beauty.” All things that we see are but shadows to us and delusions, unless we mean what we say.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. v., p. 29.
Reverence, a belief in God’s presence.
I. It is scarcely too much to say that awe and fear are at the present day all but discarded from religion. There are two classes of men who are deficient in this respect: (1) those who think that they never were greatly under God’s displeasure; (2) those who think that, though they were once, they are not at all now, for all sin has been forgiven them;-those, on the one hand, who consider that sin is no great evil in itself; those, on the other, who consider that it is no great evil in them, because their persons are accepted in Christ for their faith’s sake. What they agree in is this: in considering God as simply a God of love, not of awe and reverence also-the one meaning by love benevolence, and the other mercy; and in consequence neither the one nor the other regard Almighty God with fear.
II. The signs of want of fear in such are the following: (1) They have no scruple or misgiving in speaking freely of Almighty God. (2) They speak boldly of the Holy Trinity and the mystery of the Divine nature. (3) They speak confidently of their having been converted, pardoned, and sanctified, as if they knew their own state as well as God knows it. (4) Another sign of irreverence is the familiarity with which many persons address our Lord in prayer, applying epithets to Him and adopting a strain of language which does not beseem creatures, not to say sinners.
III. In proportion as we believe that God is present, we shall have feelings of awe and fear; and not to have them is not to realise, not to believe, that He is present. There is a peculiar feeling with which we regard the dead. What does this arise from-that he is absent? No; for we do not feel the same towards one who is merely distant, though he be at the other end of the earth. Surely it is the passing into another state which impresses itself upon us, and makes us speak of him as we do,-I mean, with a sort of awe. We cannot tell what he is now-what his relations to us-what he knows of us. We do not understand him; we do not see him. He is passed into the land that is very far off; but it is not at all certain that he has not some mysterious hold over us. Apply this to the subject before us, and you will perceive that there is a sense, and a true sense, in which the invisible presence of God is more awful and overpowering than if we saw it. The thought of our Saviour, absent yet present, is like that of a friend taken from us, but, as it were, in dream returned to us, though in this case not in dreams, but in reality and truth. As some precious fruits of the earth are said to taste like all others at once, not as not being really distinct from all others, but as being thus best described, so the state of mind which they are in who believe that the Son of God is here, yet away-is at the right hand of God, yet in His very flesh and blood among us-is one both of joy and praise, or rather one far above either; a feeling of awe, wonder, and praise, which cannot be more suitably expressed than by the Scripture word “fear.”
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. v., p. 13.
Worship, a preparation for Christ’s coming.
I. What may be the destiny of other orders of being we know not; but this we know to be our own fearful lot-that before us lies a time when we must have the sight of our Lord and Maker face to face. We know not what is reserved for other beings; there may be some which, knowing nothing of their Maker, are never to be brought before Him. For what we can tell, this may be the case with the brute creation. It may be the law of their nature that they should live and die, or live on an indefinite period, upon the very outskirts of His government, sustained by Him, but never permitted to know or approach Him. But this is not our case. We are destined to come before Him; nay, and to come before Him in judgment, and that on our first meeting; and suddenly we have to stand before His righteous presence, and that one by one. At present we are in a world of shadows. What we see is not substantial. Suddenly it will be rent in twain and vanish away, and our Maker will appear. And then that first appearance will be nothing less than a personal intercourse between the Creator and every creature. He will look on us, while we look on Him.
II. Surely it is our plain wisdom, our bounden duty, to prepare for this great change; and if so, are any directions, hints, or rules given us how we are to prepare? Scripture tells us that the Gospel covenant is intended, among its other purposes, to prepare us for this future glorious and wonderful destiny-the sight of God; a destiny which, if not most glorious, will be most terrible. And in the worship and service of Almighty God, which Christ and His Apostles have left to us, we are vouchsafed means, both moral and mystical, of approaching God, and gradually learning to bear the sight of Him. Religious service is “going out to meet the Bridegroom,” who, if not “seen in His beauty,” will appear in consuming fire.
III. When Moses came down from the mount, and the people were dazzled at his countenance, he put a veil over it. That veil is so far removed in the Gospel, that we are in a state of preparation for its being altogether removed. He who is Judge to us prepares us to be judged,-He who is to glorify us prepares us to be glorified, that He may not take us unawares; but that, when the voice of the archangel sounds, and we are called to meet the Bridegroom, we may be ready.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. v., p. 1.
References: Isa 33:17.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii., No. 752; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 323. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 325.
Isa 33:20-21
To our Zion, to the Church of Christ, are promised explicitly such gifts as those of the text-unity, truth, success. Of which of them, it may be asked, can we make our boast?
I. The unity of the Church was to be one chief note of its Divine origin. What is our state? Visible unity seems to be no more a mark of the Church of Christ. Of those whose faces are all turned one way, to the place where Jesus the crucified sits on the right hand of God, the east and west have been rent asunder, so that none can re-knit the torn garment of the Lord. And west and east are again divided, each within itself; and we, that are but a section of the Western Church, are torn and torn again. Where is the one fold, whose sheep in one flock follow the leading footsteps of the one Shepherd into green pastures that never fail? God’s promise cannot have been in vain. Man must have hindered it; God hath not forgotten it.
II. But if unity has been lost, truth has been preserved to us. And this is our consolation. If the Church be not the great ocean-vast, bright, fresh, a counterpart of the blue heaven above it-still she is like the hundred lakes that nestle among the sheltering hills; they know not each other, but every one of them reflects, and truly, the firmament above. So far as salvation by Christ is brought home to men by the teaching of the churches, so long there is an underlying bond of agreement which outward misunderstanding cannot cancel.
III. Humiliating to us are those promises of great success which are a part of our charter. The power of the truth we teach, the presence of the Holy Ghost, to turn the outward word into an inward life, seem to assure us of great success in gathering in souls to Christ. If, instead of conquering evil in the heathen nations round us, our missions are almost standing still, and round about our doors at home much heathen ignorance prevails, here is one more disappointment, one more source of perplexity in understanding the ways of God. But God is very good to us. We are broken; our lips stammer over the truth; we labour feebly for the good of souls. Yet God is with us still. If we have refused to be blessed according to His plan, He has blessed us in another. There is much love amongst us, even with our strife; there is a warm and growing zeal in works of good. Without the presence of the Spirit these things could not be.
Archbishop Thomson, Life in the Light of God’s Word, p. 3.
References: Isa 33:20-23.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., No. 489. Isa 33:21.-Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 329. Isa 33:22.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xi., p. 330. Isa 33:23.-Forsyth and Hamilton, Pulpit Parables, p. 217.
Isa 33:24
I. First, let us speak of “those ills that flesh is heir to.” Wherever man exists in this world, the cry is heard, “I am sick.” It is so because, wherever man exists, there is sin. Disease has been sent to reprove the sins of men, and to correct them with salutary pain. We are not competent of ourselves to decide what specific connection there is between disease and sin in the case of our fellow-men. We may know it in our own ease, but we are not to pronounce positively in regard to others. Indeed, the most cursory observation of daily facts may teach us, that while sickness is in the world, because sin is in the world, the measure of sickness which an individual suffers is no index to the measure of sin which he has committed. Endurance of sickness is more often a mark of God’s good will than of his severe displeasure. (1) Pain removes us out of the way of temptation, gives us time for reflection, when we were hastily running into danger. (2) How much a formidable sickness has helped a believer in drawing out his thoughts to the heavenly country and the passage into glory!
II. But these considerations, however soothing and comforting they may be, do not remove this original and humbling fact, that sickness is a disorder in God’s world, and that it is connected with that moral disorder which we call sin. Consider, secondly, the removal of both these. As sickness and sin entered together, so they shall depart together. When the former things are passed away, then come order, health, perfection, blessedness. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as Saviour of men, coped with both moral and physical evils, and bestowed the double blessing of forgiveness and healing. His skill was never baffled by any form or virulence of disease. He healed all that came unto Him: the blind received their sight, the lame man walked, the deaf heard, and to the poor the Gospel was preached. At the same time, our Lord always dealt with sin as the fundamental disease and disorder of the human race. “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” “I am come to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
D. Fraser, Penny Pulpit, No. 559.
Reference: Isa 33:24.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii., No. 1905.
CHAPTER 33
Sixth Woe Against the Assyrian and What Is to Follow
1. The judgment announced (Isa 33:1) 2. The prayer of the faithful remnant (Isa 33:2-6) 3. The judgment executed (Isa 33:7-13) 4. The judge in the midst of Zion (Isa 33:14-16) 5. The King beheld in His beauty (Isa 33:17-23) 6. Healing and forgiveness the result of the coming of the King (Isa 33:24) This is the last mention which is made of the Assyrian apart from the historical chapters. Here again the judgment of the final Assyrian is in view. When the Lord arises and is exalted the judgment of the last great enemy of Israel will be executed. This judgment scene is described in Isa 33:9-13. The prayer of the faithful remnant is recorded in Isa 33:2-6. The remnant is that portion of the nation which holds to Jehovah and His word in the last days. Their prayer will be answered by the King, whom they shall see in His beauty. What Zion will be then and what the Lord will be to His earthly people is seen in the rest of the chapter.
thee that: Isa 10:5, Isa 10:6, Isa 17:14, Isa 24:16, 2Ki 18:13-17, 2Ch 28:16-21, Hab 2:5-8
when thou shalt cease: Isa 10:12, Isa 21:2, Isa 37:36-38, Jdg 1:7, Jer 25:12-14, Oba 1:10-16, Zec 14:1-3, Mat 7:2, Rev 13:10, Rev 16:6, Rev 17:12-14, Rev 17:17
Reciprocal: Exo 3:22 – spoil Lev 6:2 – in fellowship Jdg 5:12 – lead Jdg 9:23 – dealt 1Sa 4:9 – as they have 2Ki 7:16 – spoiled the tents 2Ki 8:15 – so that he died Pro 22:23 – spoil Isa 11:14 – spoil Isa 14:6 – who smote Isa 16:4 – for Isa 17:13 – but Isa 33:23 – then Jer 25:34 – the days of your Jer 30:16 – General Eze 28:26 – despise Eze 39:10 – shall spoil Mic 5:6 – they Nah 2:9 – ye Nah 2:13 – I will cut Hab 1:13 – deal Hab 2:8 – thou Zec 2:9 – and they Act 9:16 – I will Rev 11:9 – and shall not
Isa 33:1. Wo to thee that spoilest To Sennacherib, who wasted the land of Judah. The prophet speaks as if he had found this great spoiler, to whom he addresses himself, in the very act of spoiling, and was face to face denouncing the divine judgment upon him. And thou wast not spoiled Hadst not received the like injuries. It is the practice of the great oppressors of the world to make war upon their neighbours without any just provocation, or having received any real injury from them; and it is against such practices that this wo is denounced. Lowth. And dealest treacherously So Sennacherib dealt with Hezekiah, 2Ki 18:14; 2Ki 18:17. And, or when, they dealt not treacherously with thee Hezekiah and the Jews did not. We read, indeed, (2Ki 18:7,) that Hezekiah rebelled against the king of Assyria; but the meaning is no more than that he would not stand to those dishonourable terms of slavery, to which his father Ahaz had submitted, when he professed himself the servant of the king of Assyria, (2Ki 16:7,) begging his assistance against the Syrians and Ephraimites, for which he paid him well; but the king of Assyria did not keep his agreement with him, for he distressed him, but strengthened him not, 2Ch 28:20. When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled When thou hast performed the work of chastising my people, to which I have sent thee, thou also shalt be spoiled by thine enemies. The further meaning of this prediction may be, that when the Assyrians, glutted, as it were, with their conquests, should cease to make any further conquests, and give themselves up to luxury and pleasure, then other nations, either mindful of the injuries which they had received from them, or out of rapacity, would attack them in their turn, and spoil them, as they had spoiled others: which came to pass accordingly. Their calamities seem to have begun from the times that Dejoces, king of the Medes, shook off their yoke, about seven hundred years before Christ: for other nations soon followed his example.
Isa 33:1. Woe to thee, thou spoiler, who hast not been spoiled;
And thou plunderer, who hast not been plundered.
When thou hast ceased to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled;
When thou art weary of plundering, they shall plunder thee.LOWTH.
Here is a very remarkable sentence against Assyria, in four striking forms. The apostrophes are full of beauty, and the figures most impressive. the connection between the crimes and the punishment being of long continuance, the sentence is against the empire, rather than against any one of the oppressors.
It is very remarkable, that the time of her visitation is fixed to the time when she should cease to spoil, and be weary of plundering. After her conquests had been circumscribed by the four surrounding seas, the Indian, the Caspian, the Euxine, and the Mediterranean. After Babylon had become the golden and the rejoicing city, and the martial spirit had subsided into the effeminacy super-induced by immensity of opulence; then the helpless became a prey to the nations she had oppressed. A guilty people revelling in luxury, like cattle before the time of slaughter. God sent upon them a spirit of slumber; they had no effective army; they had allowed Dejoces king of Media to throw off the yoke; they had never opposed Cyrus till he actually arrived on the plains of Babylon, and then her armies marched out for slaughter rather than for battle.
Isa 33:4. Your spoil shall be gathered, and carried away as clean as the caterpillar and the locust eat up all the vegetation of the fields. This was the case with regard to the spoil left behind by Sennacheribs army, and with regard to Babylon; the allied nations under Cyrus seized the treasures of Babylon as the reward of their service.
Isa 33:5. The Lord is exaltedhe hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. The invasion caused the people to learn righteousness: Isa 26:20. They left their sins, they crouded the temple and the synagogues; they scattered alms among the poor. The terrors of the Lord developed the hearts of the people.
Isa 33:7. The valiant ones cry without. Hezekiah sent out his first generals to treat with Rabshakeh; but nothing would do. The unconditional surrender of the city was required, and the removal of the inhabitants to distant lands. On hearing this, the ambassadors of peace wept bitterly. Hezekiah rent his robe and wept also. Isaiah, like St. Paul in the tempest, seemed the only man that had a soul: while they were weeping, he was composing a song of triumph for the virgins.
Isa 33:8-9. The highways lie waste. Torpor is on the whole land. Lebanon falls by the invaders axe; the beauty of Sharon fades away; the bulls of Bashan, and the sheep of Carmel, are seen no more. Gloom, like a mantle, covers the land, and despair is seen on every face.
Isa 33:10. Now will I arise, saith the Lord. The cries of the people, the tears and prayers of the king, who rent his robe at blasphemy, and spread the letter of Sennacherib before the Lord, moved at length the divine compassion: the Lord will not chide for ever.
Isa 33:12. The people shall be as the burnings of lime. Some understand this of the anger of God against Jerusalem, burning them as lime to dust and death. Others consider it as referring to the appearance of the bodies of the Chaldeans, as though their breath had scorched their throats and tongues with fire, and have therefore thought they were destroyed by the sirocco or hotwind, as described in Job 27:21. Psa 48:7. Be that as it may, the stroke was immediately inflicted by the angel of the Lord, and in answer to prayer.
Isa 33:13. Hear, ye that are far off, wide as the nations which compose the Assyrian empire, and far as the winds shall blow the ships of Tarshish. The Lord hath made bare his arm; his enemies have slept the sleep of death. In the morning they had armour, but no hands.
Isa 33:14. The sinners in Zion are afraid. They lose all their strength, the spirit of fortitude departs, the consciousness of guilt under the more tremendous visitations of heaven deprives them of energy. Those were the men that mocked the prophets while danger was at a distance.
Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Tremour and shaking seize them; they are not only wicked, but as the LXX and the Chaldaic read, impious. They said in the terrors of their conscience, who can dwell with devouring fire? God is angry with us; he is a consuming fire. And if such be his present wrath, who can dwell in Gehenna with everlasting burnings? Such were the sentiments of men who had gone to daring lengths of crime, and had offered, or joined with those who had offered, children to Molech. Their guilty fears said, we shall soon see Jerusalem in flames, like the conquered cities of neighbouring nations.
Isa 33:15. He that walketh righteously. The obedience of the law is here summed up in six precepts; but no man could obtain the righteousness of God, without faith in the promised Messiah.
Isa 33:17. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty, in the peaceable worship of the temple restored. This was the one thing that David desired, that he might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and enquire in his temple. But the intervals of Israels peace were only glimmerings of that day, when the sun of Zion should set no more. The prophet Ezekiel saw a glory come and fix his throne in the sanctuary; then the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and he will dwell with them for ever. Ezekiel 43. Till that happy time we must pray, saying, Isa 33:20. Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities. Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, an unshaken tabernacle, whose stakes shall not be plucked up for ever, and whose cords shall not be broken. These promises are applied to the multitude of gentile nations converted to the crucified Redeemer: chap. 53, 54. There is no age, nor state of the church, to which they can otherwise be applied. Then the Lord, the glorious Lord, will be to us a place of confluent streams, of broad rivers, where no ship with oars, fitted for war, shall pass. Then Messiah will break the bow of Ephraim, and publish peace to the heathen. Then the inhabitants shall not say, I am sick; for the people that dwell there shall be forgiven their iniquities, with the full remission of all chastisements.
REFLECTIONS.
The first object which strikes us here is, the retributive character of divine justice on Babylon: her punishment came in kind, the strokes were the reaction of her own rod. The spoiler must be spoiled, the robber robbed. The feasting city must fall at a feast, and her nocturnal revellings must be the very hour, as stated in Ezra 1., when God would inflict the blow. She had led nations to captivity, now she must go into captivity. She had left their cities in ruins, now the queen of the earth must subside as into her own morass, and be utterly forsaken. Surely there is a God that judgeth in the earth.
We see also the awful visitations of the sword. The land mourns, the high ways are forsaken, the cattle are carried off from the pastures, and the flocks from the hills; torpor and despair seize the people. David was wise in preferring the pestilence to the sword. At the same time, it should be known, that the Chaldeans had their commission signed and sealed in heaven; the Lord had said to the sword, Go through the land.
But though past ages have been cut down, and punished for their long reign of crimes, and the new generations have become as wicked as their fathers, yet we have the hope and the promise of better times from the Lord. We expect rivers of grace to wash, to change, and regenerate the heart. We expect in some more glorious manner than the Jews ever knew, to see the king in his beauty, and for wars to cease to the ends of the earth. The wars in past ages punished crimes, but applied no remedy to the heart. But in the happier ages to come, we expect the leaves of the tree of life to heal the nations; to see the earth full of people, and the christian Zion crowned with all the glory of the latter day.
Isaiah 33. Denunciation of the Treacherous Foe. Zions Extremity, Yahwehs Opportunity.If Isaiahs, the date is apparently 701, and the situation presupposed is Sennacheribs demand for unconditional surrender of Jerusalem after he had received an enormous tribute from Hezekiah. This breach of faith would cause the weeping of the ambassadors (Isa 33:7). But the chapter is now usually regarded as post-exilic. The parallels in language are with late Psalms, and the list of non-Isaianic words and senses of words is considerable. Nor is it clear that the historical allusions suit the actual circumstances of Isaiahs time. But it would be very precarious in our almost complete ignorance of great stretches of the later history to argue that it must be Maccabean, even if we have reconciled ourselves to the belief that there are Maccabean elements in the Canon of the prophets (p. 425). We must accordingly leave the date indeterminate.
Isa 33:1-6. Woe to the oppressor, retribution awaits him; let Yahweh be gracious to His waiting people in the daily renewal of their trouble. When He arises, the nations flee in dismay, the spoil shall be gathered as locusts gather it. Yahweh is exalted, He has brought about judgment and righteousness in Zion. In true religion the people is strong.
Isa 33:2. their arm: it is simpler to read our arm (mg.) than to suppose that a line has dropped out containing an antecedent to their.
Isa 33:6. A verse of quite uncertain meaning.
Isa 33:7-13. The ambassadors weep bitterly, for the foe has treacherously broken the agreement, despised the witnesses (so read for cities); travelling has become unsafe (Jdg 5:6), Nature mourns. Now Yahweh will exalt Himself, the futile plots of the enemy will prove their destruction, their furious rage will devour them, burning them as if to lime.
Isa 33:7. valiant ones: perhaps their Ariels (Isa 29:1*) or Gods lions, i.e. picked warriors, but the meaning is quite uncertain.
Isa 33:14-24. Sinners in Zion are terrified at Yahwehs judgment, and wonder who can dwell as a guest (Psa 15:1*) with the consuming flame (Isa 31:9), the inextinguishable wrath. The answer is parallel to Psalms 15 and Psa 26:3-6, and contains a beautiful description of the morality which will win the favour of Yahweh, and secure the safety of the pure and upright. He will be in an impregnable fortress amply provisioned. In that blessed future they will see their king in his splendour, his dominion stretching far and wide. They will think on the time of terror, now for ever passed. Where are the enemys officials, those who collected the taxes and weighed the gold and silver and counted the towers? No longer will they see the foreigner and listen to his unintelligible speech. Zion is at peace, firm as an immovable tent. The river of Yahweh will take the place of the broad rivers and streams which protect other cities; no fleet will attack it, none be needed for defence. The ship of State is disabled, the slack ropes could not support the mast or spread the sail, but the Jews, all incapable of fighting as they seem, divide a great prey. Sickness shall be no more, sin shall be forgiven.
Isa 33:18. counted the towers: perhaps to estimate the strength needed for an attack, perhaps to see which ought to be destroyed. The latter is preferable, since the verse deals not with invaders, but with foreign officials governing the country. Neither is satisfactory. Cheyne reads, Where are the tablet writers, where are the measuring clerks.
Isa 33:21 a. Text uncertain; read perhaps, But there the river of Yahweh will be with us instead of broad streams.
Isa 33:23. This hardly suits the context, and may be a gloss.
33:1 Woe to thee that {a} layest waste, and thou [wast] not laid waste; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt {b} cease to lay waste, thou shalt be wasted; [and] when thou shalt make an end of dealing treacherously, {c} they shall deal treacherously with thee.
(a) Meaning, the enemies of the Church, as were the Chaldeans and Assyrians, but chiefly of Sennacherib, but not only.
(b) When your appointed time will come that God will take away your power: and that which you have wrongfully gained, will be given to others, as in Amo 5:11 .
(c) The Chaldeans will do the same to the Assyrians, as the Assyrians did to Israel, and the Medes and Persians will do the same to the Chaldeans.
The hope of the Judahites 33:1-6
The destroyer and treacherous one in view is Assyria. So far Assyria had practiced destruction and treachery without having them come back on her, but eventually they would (cf. Deu 19:18-19). Sennacherib accepted a large sum of money that King Hezekiah sent to him so he would not besiege Jerusalem, but Sennacherib accepted the money and attacked Jerusalem anyway (2Ki 18:13-17). That is treachery. Yahweh was the opposite of the Assyrian king. He was always true to His promises, and the Davidic kings were to follow His example as His vice-regents. To behave the opposite from how God behaves is to court divine discipline.
"As the royal annals demonstrate, Assyria took great pride in her capacity to destroy anyone who had the temerity to stand against her. By the same token, she had no qualms about breaking agreements which were not to her advantage, all the while punishing with great severity any who broke agreements with her." [Note: Oswalt, p. 592.]
BOOK 4
JERUSALEM AND SENNACHERIB
701 B.C.
INTO this fourth book we put all the rest of the prophecies of the Book of Isaiah, that have to do with the prophets own time: chapters 1, 22 and 33, with the narrative in 36, 37. All these refer to the only Assyrian invasion of Judah and siege of Jerusalem: that undertaken by Sennacherib in 701.
It is, however, right to remember once more, that many authorities maintain that there were two Assyrian invasions of Judah-one by Sargon in 711, the other by Sennacherib in 701-and that chapters 1 and 22 (as well as Isa 10:5-34) belong to the former of these. The theory is ingenious and tempting; but, in the silence of the Assyrian annals about any invasion of Judah by Sargon, it is impossible to adopt it. And although Chapters 1 and 22 differ very greatly in tone from chapter 33, yet to account for the difference it is not necessary to suppose two different invasions, with a considerable period between them. Virtually, as will appear in the course of our exposition, Sennacheribs invasion of Judah was a double one.
1. The first time Sennacheribs army invaded Judah they took all the fenced cities, and probably invested Jerusalem, but withdrew on payment of tribute and the surrender of the casus belli, the Assyrian Vassal Padi, whom the Ekronites had deposed and given over to the keeping of Hezekiah. To this invasion refer Isa 1:1-31; Isa 22:1-25. and the first verse of 36.: “Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them.” This verse is the same as 2Ki 18:13, to which, however, there is added in 2Ki 18:14-16 an account of the tribute sent by Hezekiah to Sennacherib at Lachish, that is not included in the narrative in Isaiah. Compare 2Ch 32:1.
2. But scarcely had the tribute been paid when Sennacherib, himself advancing to meet Egypt, sent back upon Jerusalem a second army of investment, with which was the Rabshakeh; and this was the army that so mysteriously disappeared from the eyes of the besieged. To the treacherous return of the Assyrians and the sudden deliverance of Jerusalem from their grasp refer Isa 33:1-24, Isa 36:2-22, with the fuller and evidently original narrative in 2Ki 18:17-19. Compare 2Ch 32:9-23.
To the history of this double attempt upon Jerusalem in 701-chapters 36 and 37 – there has been appended in 38 and 3 an account of Hezekiahs illness and of an embassy to him from Babylon. These events probably happened some years before Sennacheribs invasion. But it will be most convenient for us to take them in the order in which they stand in the canon. They wilt naturally lead us up to a question that it is necessary we should discuss before taking leave of Isaiah-whether this great prophet of the endurance of the kingdom of God upon earth had any gospel for the individual who dropped away from it into death.
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Some thankful tribute to thine ear.”
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When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled;
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