Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 48:1
Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, [but] not in truth, nor in righteousness.
1. Hear ye this ] refers to the following oracle, which commences with Isa 48:3 (cf. Isa 46:3 and Isa 48:12). The rest of Isa 48:1 f. is an editorial insertion, in the view of Duhm and Cheyne (see above).
which are called ] Or, which call themselves, as in Isa 48:2 (cf. ch. Isa 44:5). For the remnant of the tribe of Judah, whom the author has in his view, the name “Israel” was really a title of honour.
out of the waters of Judah ] The metaphor can be explained from Psa 68:26 (R.V.), where the ancestor of the nation is compared to a fountain or cistern. It is perhaps better, however, to read (with Secker) mimm‘ for mimm, rendering from the bowels (as Isa 48:19) of Judah.
To swear by the name of the Lord is a profession of allegiance to Him, and as such is enjoined as a religious duty (Deu 6:13; Deu 10:20).
make mention of ] i.e. celebrate; Psa 20:7. The words not in truth, nor in righteousness do not refer specially to false swearing, but mean that the profession is formal and insincere.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1 11. These verses present some peculiar features, both of thought and style, which have been felt by scholars representing widely diverging critical tendencies. The severe judgement on the people goes beyond anything else in the prophecy; and, as has been pointed seems to breathe the spirit of Ezekiel rather than of the second Isaiah. Israel is addressed as a nation of hypocrites, of apostates, and of persistent idolaters. Then the argument of the passage as a whole is very remarkable. The “former things” (i.e. the events that have just taken place) were announced long beforehand, lest Israel should be led to ascribe them to some false god ( Isa 48:3-6 a); but the “new things” (the subject of the present prophecy) have been “hidden” till the last moment, lest the people in their perversity should say they had known of them all along (6 b 8). Duhm and Cheyne agree in assigning these peculiarities to an editor, who has supplied a running commentary on the words of the original author, in the shape of annotations. There is much in the section which would be more intelligible if inserted by a later writer; but the method attributed to the editor is peculiar, and no motive suggests itself for his systematic attempt to correct the tendency of this isolated passage. The difficulties are perhaps exaggerated; the stern attitude towards the nation is not without parallels (see ch. Isa 45:9 ff., and on ch. Isa 46:8), and the special development of the argument from prophecy cannot be shown to involve a radical inconsistency with the prophet’s general conceptions.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Hear ye this – This is an address to the Jews regarded as in Babylon, and is designed to remind them of their origin, and of their privileges as the descendants of Jacob, and having the name of Israel (compare the notes at Isa 43:1).
And are come forth out of the waters of Judah – This metaphor is taken from a fountain which sends forth its streams of water, and the idea is, that they owed their origin to Judah, as the streams flowed from a fountain. A similar figure is used by Balaam in describing the vast increase of the Jews: Num. 34 He shall pour the waters out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters. So in Deu 33:28 : The fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine. So Psa 68:26 :
Bless ye God in the congregations,
Jehovah, ye that are of the fountain of Israel.
Margin
The idea is, that Judah was the fountain, or origin of the people who were then exiled in Babylon. The ten tribes had revolted, and had been carried away, and the name of Benjamin had been absorbed in that of Judah, and this had become the common name of the nation. Perhaps Judah is mentioned here with honor as the fountain of the nation, because it was from him that the Messiah was to descend Gen 49:10 : and this mention of his name would serve to bring that promise to view, and would be an assurance that the nation would not be destroyed, nor the power finally depart until He should come.
Which swear by the name – Who worship Yahweh, and acknowledge him as the only true God (see the notes at Isa 19:18; Isa 45:23; compare Isa 48:1; Isa 65:16).
And make mention – That is, in your prayers and praises. You acknowledge him, and profess to worship him.
But not in truth – In a hypocritical manner; not in sincerity. Compare Jer 5:2 : And though they say, The Lord liveth, surely they swear falsely.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 48:1-2
Hear ye this, O house of Jacob
Gods appeal to Israel
The lessons of Gods method of prophetic revelation which Israel is to lay to heart.
(A. B. Davidson, D. D.)
The waters of Judah
The people, by natural figure, are described as streams from the fountain of Judah (Psa 68:26). (J. A. Alexander.)
Hollow profession
Here is–
I. PRIVILEGE.
II. FORM.
III. PROFESSION.
IV. YET NO REAL RELIGION. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Hear ye this
I. How? Place yourselves in a hearing posture, that the intense application of your minds may be discovered in your attitude and gestures. Listen with diligence and candour.
II. WHAT?
1. To the reproofs I administer.
2. To the arguments I adduce.
3. To the duties I inculcate.
4. To the assurances I give you.
III. WHY ?
1. That your obdurate hearts may be mollified.
2. Your consciences convinced.
3. Your conversion from your evil ways effected. (R. Macculloch.)
A two fold charge against Israel
God chargeth them with hypocrisy in that which is good, and obstinacy in that which is evil (Isa 48:1-8). (M. Henry.)
Religious profession
Observe–
I. HOW HIGH THEIR PROFESSION OF RELIGION SOARED.
II. HOW LOW THEIR PROFESSION OF RELIGION SANK FOR ALL THIS. (M. Henry.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XLVIII
The Jews reproved for their obstinate attachment to idols,
notwithstanding their experience of the Divine providence over
them; and of the Divine prescience that revealed by the
prophets the most remarkable events which concerned them, that
they should not have the least pretext for ascribing any
portion of their success to their idols, 1-8.
The Almighty, after bringing them to the furnace for their
perverseness, asserts his glorious sovereignty, and repeats his
gracious promises of deliverance and consolation, 9-11.
Prophecy concerning that individual (Cyrus) who shall be an
instrument in the hand of God of executing his will on Babylon,
and his power on the Chaldeans; and the idols of the people are
again challenged to give a like proof of their foreknowledge,
12-16.
Tender and passionate exclamation of Jehovah respecting the
hardened condition of the Jewish nation, to which the very
pathetic exclamation of the Divine Saviour when he wept over
Jerusalem may be considered a striking parallel, 17-19.
Notwithstanding the repeated provocations of the house of
Israel, Jehovah will again be merciful to them. They are
commanded to escape from Babylon; and God’s gracious favour
towards them is beautifully represented by images borrowed from
the exodus from Egypt, 20, 21.
Certain perdition of the finally impenitent, 22.
It will be proper here to remark that many passages in this
chapter, and indeed the general strain of these prophecies,
have a plain aspect to a restoration of the Church in the
latter days upon a scale much greater than the world has yet
witnessed, when the very violent fall of Babylon the Great,
mentioned in the Revelation, of which the Chaldean capital was
an expressive type, shall introduce by a most tremendous
political convulsion, (Re 16:17-21,)
that glorious epoch of the Gospel, which forms so conspicuous
a part of the prophecies of the Old Testament, and has been a
subject of the prayers of all saints in all ages.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLVIII
Verse 1. Are come forth out of the waters of Judah – “Ye that flow from the fountain of Judah”] mimmey, “from the waters.” Perhaps mimmeey, “from the bowels,” SO many others have conjectured, or meni yehudah, or meyhudah, “from Judah.” – Secker. But see Michaelis in Praelect, not. 22. And we have eyn yaakob, “the fountain of Jacob,” De 33:28, and mimmekor yishrael, “from the fountain of Israel,” Ps 68:27. Twenty-seven MSS. of Kennicott’s, six of De Rossi’s and two of my own, with six editions, have meymey, “from the days;” which makes no good sense.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Hear ye this, what I am now going to say against thee, that thou mayst be assured that that great deliverance which I have determined and declared to give time is not for thy own sake, but for my names sake.
Which are called by the name of Israel; which are Israelites in name, but not in truth, as it follows.
Out of the waters of Judah; from the lineage of your progenitor, Judah, as waters flow from a fountain, and as the Israelites are said to be
of the fountain of Israel, Psa 68:26. Compare also Deu 33:28; Pro 5:15, &c.
Which swear; which profess the true religion; one act of religion being put for all.
Make mention of the God of Israel; either in oaths or otherwise; that own him and seek to glory in him as their God, and call themselves by his name.
But not in truth, nor in righteousness; which are the two chief ingredients of a lawful oath, Jer 4:2. They are guilty of falsehood and injustice, both in oaths, and in their whole conversation.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. the waters of Judahspringfrom the fountain of Judah (Num 24:7;Deu 33:28; Psa 68:26;Margin). Judah has the “fountain” attributedto it, because it survived the ten tribes, and from it Messiah was tospring.
swear by . . . Lord(Isa 19:18; Isa 45:23;Isa 65:16).
mentionin prayers andpraises.
not in truth (Jer 5:2;Joh 4:24).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Hear ye this, O house of Jacob,…. Who were of the house and family of Jacob, his descendants and posterity; and who were of the house of the God of Jacob, had a name and a place there, at least in profession:
which are called by the name of Israel; a name given to Jacob, because of his prevalence with God in prayer; but these had only the name, not the thing, however not as yet; they were neither praying Jacobs, nor prevailing Israels; they were not Israelites indeed:
and are come forth out of the waters of Judah; that is, were of the seed of Judah, as the Targum, Aben Ezra, and Kimchi interpret it; these were waters out of his buckets, as Jarchi observes from Nu 24:7, so we read of the fountain of Jacob, De 33:28. These were streams from thence; they were of the tribe of Judah, to whom the kingdom belonged; from whence was the chief ruler, the Shiloh, the King Messiah; they were of these waters, though not born again of water and of the Spirit:
which swear by the name of the Lord God; own him for their God, acknowledge him their Lord and King, and solemnly promise to serve him, and yield obedience to him:
and make mention of the God of Israel; or “remember” him z in their religious exercises; invoke his name, sing his praises, ask of him the ordinances of righteousness, honour him with their lips, speak honourably of him, and profess to remember his works of old at their solemn feasts:
but not in truth, nor in righteousness; not according to the will of God, nor truth of things; nor in the integrity of their hearts, but in an hypocritical way, and not in sincerity and uprightness; in word and tongue only, not in deed and in truth; worshippers of God they were externally, but not in spirit and truth.
z “recordantur”, Munster, Vatablus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
This third portion of the trilogy (Isa 46:1-13, Isa 47:1-15, 48) stands in the same relation to Isa 47:1-15, as Isa 46:3. to Isa 46:1-2. The prophecy is addressed to the great body of the captives. “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and have flowed out of the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of Jehovah, and extol the God of Israel, not in truth and not in righteousness! For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel, Jehovah of hosts His name.” The summons to hear is based upon the Israelitish nationality of those who are summoned, to which they still cling, and upon the relation in which they place themselves to the God of Israel. This gives to Jehovah the right to turn to them, and imposes upon them the duty to hearken to Him. The blame, inserted by the way, points at the same time to the reason for the address which follows, and to the form which it necessarily assumes. “The house of Jacob” is not all Israel, as the following words clearly show, but, as in Isa 46:3, the house of Judah, which shared in the honourable name of Israel, but have flowed out of the waters, i.e., the source of Judah. The summons, therefore, is addressed to the Judaean exiles in Babylon, and that inasmuch as they swear by the name of Jehovah, and remember the God of Israel with praise ( hizkr b’ as in Psa 20:8), though not in truth and not in righteousness (1Ki 3:6; Zec 8:8), i.e., without their state of mind (cf., Isa 38:3; Jer 32:41) or mode of action corresponding to their confession, so as to prove that it was sincerely and seriously meant. The praise bestowed upon the persons summoned, which is somewhat spoiled by this, is explained in Isa 48:2; they call themselves after the holy city (this title is applied to Jerusalem both here and in Isa 52:1, as well as in the books of Daniel and Nehemiah). We may easily supply here, that the holiness of the city laid an obligation upon its citizens to be holy in their character and conduct. They also relied upon the God of Israel, whose name is Jehovah Zebaoth ; and therefore He would require of them the fullest confidence and deepest reverence.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| God’s Expostulation with His People. | B. C. 708. |
1 Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness. 2 For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name. 3 I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. 4 Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; 5 I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I showed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. 6 Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. 7 They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. 8 Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb.
We may observe here,
I. The hypocritical profession which many of the Jews made of religion and relation to God. To those who made such a profession the prophet is here ordered to address himself, for their conviction and humiliation, that they might own God’s justice in what he had brought upon them. Now observe here,
1. How high their profession of religion soared, what a fair show they made in the flesh and how far they went towards heaven, what a good livery they wore and what a good face they put upon a very bad heart. (1.) They were the house of Jacob; they had a place and a name in the visible church. Jacob have I loved. Jacob is God’s chosen; and they are not only retainers to his family, but descendants from him. (2.) They were called by the name of Israel, an honourable name; they were of that people to whom pertained both the giving of the law and the promises. Israel signifies a prince with God; and they prided themselves in being of that princely race. (3.) They came forth out of the waters of Judah, and thence were called Jews; they were of the royal tribe, the tribe of which Shiloh was to come, the tribe that adhered to God when the rest revolted. (4.) They swore by the name of the Lord, and thereby owned him to be the true God, and their God, and gave glory to him as the righteous Judge of all. They swore to the name of the Lord (so it may be read); they took an oath of allegiance to him as their King and joined themselves to him in covenant. (5.) They made mention of the God of Israel in their prayers and praises; they often spoke of him, observed his memorials, and pretended to be very mindful of him. (6.) They called themselves of the holy city, and, when they were captives in Babylon, purely from a principle of honour, and jealousy for their native country, they valued themselves upon their interest in it. Many, who are themselves unholy, are proud of their relation to the church, the holy city. (7.) They stayed themselves upon the God of Israel, and boasted of his promises and his covenant with them; they leaned on the Lord, Mic. iii. 11. And, if they were asked concerning their God, they could say, “The Lord of hosts is his name, the Lord of all;” happy are we therefore, and very great, who have relation to him!
2. How low their profession of religion sunk, notwithstanding all this. It was all in vain; for it was all a jest; it was not in truth and righteousness. Their hearts were not true nor right in these professions. Note, All our religious professions avail nothing further than they are made in truth and righteousness. If we be not sincere in them, we do but take the name of the Lord our God in vain.
II. The means God used, and the method he took, to keep them close to himself, and to prevent their turning aside to idolatry. The many excellent laws he gave them, with their sanctions, and the hedges about them, it seems, would not serve to restrain them from that sin which did most easily beset them, and therefore to those God added remarkable prophecies, and remarkable providences in pursuance of those prophecies, which were all designed to convince them that their God was the only true God and that it was therefore both their duty and interest to adhere to him. 1. He both dignified and favoured them with remarkable prophecies (v. 3): I have declared the former things from the beginning. Nothing material happened to their nation from its original which was not prophesied of before–their bondage in Egypt, their deliverance thence, the situation of their tribes in Canaan, c. All these things went forth out of God’s mouth and he showed them. Herein they were honoured above any nation, and even their curiosity was gratified. Their prophecies were such as they could rely upon, and such as concerned themselves and their own nation and they were all verified by the accomplishment of them. I did them suddenly, when they were least expected by themselves or others, and therefore could not be foreseen by any but a divine prescience. I did them and they came to pass; for what God does he does effectually. The very calamities they were now groaning under in Babylon God did from the beginning declare to them by Moses, as the certain consequences of their apostasy from God, Lev 26:31; Deu 28:36; Deu 29:28. He also declared to them their return to God, and to their own land again, Deu 30:4; Lev 26:44; Lev 26:45. Thus he showed them how he would deal with them long before it came to pass. Let them compare their present state together with the deliverance they had now in prospect with what was written in the law, and they would find the scripture exactly fulfilled. 2. He both dignified and favoured them with remarkable providence (v. 6): I have shown thee new things from this time. Besides the general view given from the beginning of God’s proceedings with them, he showed them new things by the prophets of their own day, and created them. They were hidden things, which they could not otherwise know, as the prophecy concerning Cyrus and the exact time of their release out of Babylon. These things God created now, v. 7. Their restoration was in effect their creation, and they had a promise of it not from the beginning, but of late; for to prevent their apostasy from God, or to recover them, prophecy was kept up among them. Yet it was told them when they could not come to the knowledge of it in any other way than by divine revelation. “Consider,” says God, “how much soever it is talked of now among you and expected, it was told you by the prophets, when it was the furthest thing from your thoughts, when you had not heard it, when you had not known it, nor had any reason to expect it, and when your ear was not opened concerning it (Isa 48:7; Isa 48:8), when the thing seemed utterly impossible, and you would scarcely have given any one the hearing who should have told you of it.” God had shown them hidden things which were out of the reach of their knowledge, and done for them great things, out of the reach of their power: “Now,” says he (v. 6), “thou hast heard; see all this. Thou hast heard the prophecy; see the accomplishment of it, and observe whether the word and works of God do not exactly agree; and will you not declare it, that as you have heard so you have seen? Will you not own that the Lord is the true God, the only true God, that he has the knowledge and power which no creature has and which none of the gods of the nations can pretend to? Will you not own that your God has been a good God to you? Declare this to his honour, and your own shame, who have dealt so deceitfully with him and preferred others before him.”
III. The reasons why God would take this method with them.
1. Because he would anticipate their boastings of themselves and their idols. (1.) God by his prophets told them beforehand of their deliverance, lest they should attribute the accomplishment of it to their idols. Thus he saw it necessary to secure the glory of it to himself, which otherwise would have been given by some of them to their graven images: “I spoke of it,” says God, “lest thou shouldst say, My idol has done it or has commanded it to be done,” v. 5. There were those that would be apt to say so, and so would be confirmed in their idolatry by that which was intended to cure them of it. But they would now be for ever precluded from saying this; for, if the idols had done it, the prophets of the idols would have foretold it; but, the prophets of the Lord having foretold it, it was no doubt the power of the Lord that effected it. (2.) God foretold it by his prophets, lest they should assume the foresight of it to themselves. Those that were not so profane as to have ascribed the thing itself to an idol were yet so proud as to have pretended that by their own sagacity they foresaw it, if God had not been beforehand with them and spoken first: Lest thou shouldst say, Behold, I knew them, v. 7. Thus vain men, who would be thought wise, commonly undervalue a thing which is really great and surprising with this suggestion, that it was no more than they expected and they knew it would come to this. To anticipate this, and that this boasting might for ever be excluded, God told them of it before the day, when as yet they dreamed not of it. God has said and done enough to prevent men’s boastings of themselves, and that no flesh may glory in his presence, and, if it have not the intended effect, it will aggravate the sin and ruin of the proud; and, sooner, or later, every mouth shall be stopped, and all flesh shall become silent before God.
2. Because he would leave them inexcusable in their obstinacy. Therefore he took this pains with them, because he knew they were obstinate, v. 4. He knew they were so obstinate and perverse that, if he had not supported the doctrine of providence by prophecy, they would have had the impudence to deny it, and would have said that their idol had done that which God did. He knew very well, (1.) How wilful they would be, and how fully bent they would be upon that which is evil: I knew that thou wast hard; so the word is. There were prophecies as well as precepts which God gave them because of the hardness of their hearts: “Thy neck is an iron sinew, unapt to yield and submit to the yoke of God’ commandments, unapt to turn and look back upon his dealings with thee or look up to his displeasure against thee; not flexible to the will of God, nor pliable to his intentions, nor manageable by his word or providence. Thy brow is brass; thou art impudent and canst not blush, insolent and wilt not fear or give back, but wilt thrust on in the way of thy heart.” God uses means to bring sinners to comply with him, though he knows they are obstinate. (2.) How deceitful they would be and how insincere in that which is good, v. 8. God sent his prophets to them, but they did not hear, they would not know, and it was no more than was expected, considering what they had been. Thou wast called, and not miscalled, a transgressor from the womb. Ever since they were first formed into a people they were prone to idolatry; they brought with them out of Egypt a strange addictedness to that sin; and they were murmurers as soon as ever they began their march to Canaan. They were justly upbraided with it then, Deu 9:7; Deu 9:24. Therefore I knew that thou wouldst deal very treacherously. God foresaw their apostasy, and gave this reason for it, that he had always found them false and fickle, Deu 31:16; Deu 31:27; Deu 31:29. This is applicable to particular persons. We are all born children of disobedience; we were called transgressors from the womb, and therefore it is easy to foresee that we shall deal treacherously, very treacherously. Where original sin is actual sin will follow of course. God knows it, and yet deals not with us according to our deserts.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
ISAIAH – CHAPTER 48
A REBUKE OF JUDAH’S INFIDELITY
Vs. 1-2: A CALL TO HONESTY
1. Though called “Israel” (meaning “ruled by God”), they are, in reality, the “house of Jacob” – having reverted to the devious ways of their ancient father before his meeting with God at Peniel, (Genesis 32).
2. Specifically, the words are addressed to the captives of Judah – the most highly favored of the twelve tribes, (Gen 49:8-12; Psa 60:7; Psa 76:1; Psa 78:68; Psa 114:2; Num 2:3; Heb 7:14).
3. They professed to serve the God of Israel – Jehovah of Hosts -mentioning His name a great deal; but it was not in truth and righteousness, for they were apostates! (Isa 29:13; Zep 1:5-6).
a. They did not view Him as sovereign over their whole beings -to be loved, reverenced, honored and obeyed; their religion was external!
b. They tried to USE God to accomplish their own ends.
4. They could call themselves “of the Holy City” without apparent consciousness of any obligation to BE HOLY!
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. Hear this, O house of Jacob. He now addresses his discourse to the Jews; whom also he had chiefly in his eye, in the whole of the preceding chapter; for he was not sent to the Babylonians, but addresses them in such a manner as to wish that the Jews, to whom he had been especially appointed, should hear him. Accordingly, he foretold the destruction of the Babylonians, that the Jews might calmly wait for deliverance, and at the same time might not be terrified by the greatness and power of their enemies, (234) and that, relying on these promises, they might stand unmoved against all temptations. But because the Jews were obstinate, and did not believe those promises, and because Isaiah foresaw how great would be their hard-heartedness and obstinacy during their captivity, for that reason he reproves them with greater severity. Ezekiel shews still more clearly how inveterate was their unbelief, when they murmured against God, and cast away all confidence, and cared no more about the promises of God than about empty fables. It was not without reason, therefore, that Isaiah made use of such vehement language, in order to shew that they offered the highest insult to God by refusing to rely on his grace.
Who are called by the name of Israel. He addresses “Israel,” but that which was actually spurious, and which at that time had nothing more than the name of “Israel;” for he does not employ this honorable name for the sake of mentioning them in a respectful manner, but rather in order to put to shame their false boasting, because they had no riglit to glory in this empty title, from the truth of which they were widely estranged. Why did God honor Jacob with this name, but because he proved himself to be courageous and invincible in adversity? This appeared from that wrestling in which he contended with God; for when the Lord tries by various afflictions, he enters, as it were, into debate with us. (Gen 32:25.) How, then, did this name apply to his posterity, if they were cast down and threw away all hope in adversity?
Who have come out from the.waters of Judah. He next reproaches them with being descended from the holy fathers, and yet being utterly unlike them. By “the waters of Judah,” he means metaphorically the source and fountain from which the Jews proceeded; for I do not approve of the childish attempt of the Jewish writers to explain the metaphor, which is borrowed in a highly natural manner from waters which flow from a distant place.
Who swear by the name of Jehovah. Having censured them for being the degenerate and wicked children of holy fathers, he adds that they falsely pretend to the worship of God, and to a semblance of piety from which they are widely distant. Now, as “swearing” is a kind of worship of God, he here puts one department for the whole class, by a figure of speech, in which a part is taken for the whole. As idolaters offer an insult to God, when they swear by their idols, in like manner do the sincere worshippers of God render honor to God, by employing his name in oaths; for they acknowledge that they have one God, in whose name they glory. But here he attacks hypocrites who, with open mouth, loudly boasted of the name of God, and frequently mentioned his name, and yet in their hearts were greatly opposed to him. On this account he says, not in truth nor in righteousness, he employs the word “righteousness,” to denote integrity and sincerity of heart, without which nothing can be acceptable to God; or rather “righteousness” and “truth” are synonymous terms; as if he had said, that it was mere pretense and hypocrisy to profess that they were the people of the true God, because their treachery openly proclaimed their falsehood.
(234) “ De leurs ennemis.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
A SAD CONTRAST
Isa. 48:1-2. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, &c.
Here is, I. Privilege. II. Form. III. Profession. IV. Yet no religion.J. Lyth, D.D.: The Homiletical Treasury, Isaiah, p. 65.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
4.
SOVEREIGN IN WISDOM, CHAPTER 48
a.
PROOF
TEXT: Isa. 48:1-8
1
Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah; who swear by the name of Jehovah, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth nor in righteousness.
2
For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; Jehovah of hosts is his name.
3
I have declared the former things from of old; yea, they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them: suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.
4
Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass;
5
therefore I have declared it to thee from of old; before it came to pass I showed it thee; lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.
6
Thou hast heard it; behold all this; and ye, will ye not declare it? I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, which thou hast not known.
7
They are created now, and not from of old; and before this day thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them.
8
Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from of old thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou didst deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb.
QUERIES
a.
What are the waters of Judah?
b.
What are the former things Jehovah showed?
c.
What are the new things being shown?
PARAPHRASE
Listen to this, you descendants of Jacob whom I have called Israel, you who are from the royal tribe of Judah and who take their oaths in the name of Jehovah boasting of your relationship to Him; I know that your relationship is not in truth or righteousness! You boast of your citizenship in the holy city of Jehovah and of your dependence upon Him; but do you not realize He is the Lord God Almighty?!
The Lord says to Israel, For centuries I have been proving to you My sovereignty in wisdom by predicting what would take place; then suddenly I brought it to pass. I knew beforehand that you would be stubborn and unbending and hard-headed. And so I predicted your future long ago, telling you through prophets what was going to happen to you before it happened. I had my prophets predict your future centuries in advance so you would realize I am sovereign in wisdom and not the idols of wood and stone you worship. You have seen all My prophecies come true thus far, but you have refused to confess the truth of it, havent you? Now I am predicting, through My prophets, new revelationsthings impossible for you to know unless I tell you. These are completely new things; nothing like this has taken place in the past. You cannot say of these things, This is no proof of Jehovahs sovereigntywe knew this all along! The reason you never got the message from all My revelations, both present and past, is you deliberately chose to close your ears to My word. I know you, Israel, you have been treacherous and rebellious from the days you became a nation!
COMMENTS
Isa. 48:1-5 PERSEVERANCE OF JEHOVAH: God addresses the people of Isaiahs day sternly. Shama (hear) means to heed and obey. It appears they call themselves Israel but God addresses them as house of Jacob. Whether there is an intended sarcasm on the part of Jehovah or not is not easy to determine. Certainly God permitted writers of the Bible to employ sarcasm in their attempts to call men to repentance. We have discussed the difference between the terms Jacob and Israel earlier. Coming forth out of the waters of Judah simply means the audience of Isaiahs writing are the people of the southern kingdom whose main source is Judah (see Deu. 33:28; Psa. 68:26 for similar phraseology). The main point in citing the three names (Jacob, Israel and Judah) is to emphasize their culpability for not trusting the message Isaiah is giving them about captivity, Cyrus future return of the exiles and the messianic destiny in their future. These are people of Jehovahthey are His specially graced people, but they do not hear. They make mention of Jehovah but not in truth or righteousness. To acknowledge the name of God in truth means to hear and obey what God has revealed for man to obey. Whoever says I know Him but does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him (cf. 1Jn. 2:3-6). They worshipped Jehovah with lip-service but their hearts were far from Him (cf. Isa. 29:13-14). They boasted of their citizenship in the holy city (where the temple of Jehovah was located) and they glibly declared their allegiance to Jehovah but it did not seem to register on their minds that He Is Jehovah-Zevoth (zevoth is Hebrew for armies, hosts, myriads and is also used for war, battle, etc.). In other words, Jehovah is Lord of all! He is Lord of earth and heaven. He is Lord of the inward man as well as the outward man. He knows everything created everything and commands everything.
Judah should have acknowledged His lordship with their hearts as well as their lips for Jehovah had proven His sovereignty in centuries past by predicting (through the mouths of His messengers) the events of Judahs history long before they came to pass. Jehovah also demonstrated through His prophets that He knew the hidden, secret thoughts of men (e.g., Nathan and David). The nation and individuals often knew years and centuries in advance of the coming of minutely-detailed events. Many of these events came to pass suddenly without any gradual development or advanced signals. Two needs of the Hebrew people are the motivation prompting Jehovah to predict their future; (a) their obstinacy and hardheadedness toward His sovereignty must be broken; (b) they must acknowledge once and for all that idols are not godsthere is only One God, Jehovah. This indicates that Gods primary purpose in predicting the future is not simply to satisfy the curiosity of man about tomorrow. No theology should be built on eschatology! Our theology should be built on the character of the One who knows about tomorrow, not on when and what tomorrow will bring. The only reason God foretells the future is to demonstrate His sovereignty! That is the point! Once man surrenders to His omnipotence and omniscience he does not need to know the future (cf. Mat. 6:25-34; Act. 1:7). Prophecy fulfilled is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end is to believe Gods revelation of Himself and to accept His written word from the hands of the writers as being validated (cf. 2Pe. 1:16-21, etc.).
Isa. 48:6-8 PERVERSITY OF JUDAH: The onus is put squarely upon the perverse people of Judah. You have had opportunities to know all these past predictions and their fulfillments; I remind you to study them again, would be Jehovahs challenge to Judah. The question of verse six is undoubtedly rhetorical: And you, you will not declare it, will you? or, And you, how can you not declare it? The meaning is that what the Lord predicted came to pass and they must acknowledge the factuality of it even if they do not obey the moral implications of it! This shows that unbelief is a moral problem, not an evidential one!
But now, the Lord is predicting new things (things that will have their fulfillment yet in the future). Among these things (so incredible for Judah to accept) were the captivities, release from captivity by a pagan ruler and a coming Messiah who is bringing a way of salvation which is absolutely foreign to their present dispensation. Salvation by grace, through faith in the substitutionary atonement of the Messiah (Isaiah 53, et al.) had to be by revelationit had to be a new prediction because it could never have been thought-up by the human mind (cf. 1Co. 1:18 to 1Co. 2:16). This plan of salvation was created by God and worked out in His sovereign plans (cf. Romans 9, 10, 11) as a mystery to be revealed (cf. Eph. 1:3-10, etc.). God predicted it all and typified it all in the Old Testament dispensation, to be sure (cf. Rom. 3:21-22; see special study, The Righteousness of God As Revealed by The Prophets, page 282), but it was dim and abstruse (cf. Heb. 1:1). The Lord predicts and rules in history toward His goal of redemption. He reveals His will and plan for man; He reveals Himself (His own person, nature, charactereven in the flesh!). Man cannot know Gods plan or Gods nature until God reveals it. Man may not even be able to understand it all when it is revealed. But God revealed enough of it in human language (which is human experience) (cf. 1Co. 2:13) and in human flesh (Jesus Christ; cf. Joh. 1:1-18; 1Jn. 1:1-4, etc.) that man can know His will for salvation and obey His will for salvation.
In verse eight we have the reason God chose to hide these new things from Judah until He was ready to reveal them. The Hebrew syntax would indicate the latter half of the verse should read literally: dealing treacherously you would deal treacherously. . . . God did not let them knowHe did not open their ear to these new things because of their perversity. They were spiritually unprepared to hear them. He had yet to put them through a long period of indignation (the captivities, the return from exile, the centuries of the Greek-Seleucid oppression and the Roman oppression) before the new dispensation could come and be accepted. This verse definitely teaches the sovereign wisdom of God in a gradual revelation from Old Testament times to the New. There were things Jesus could not reveal to the twelve until after He had gone away because they were unable to bear them while He was with them in the flesh (cf. Joh. 16:1-15). Fleshly-mindedness prohibits man from listening to Gods word even when it is being spoken and revealed (cf. 1Co. 2:6; 1Co. 3:1-4; Heb. 5:11-14, etc.). It was difficult for the apostle Peter to accept the revelation of Christ about His atoning death (cf. Mat. 16:21-23) because Peter simply refused to accept the concept of a dying Messiah! So, Isaiah says, until Judah stops its rebellion against Jehovahs sovereignty, she is not going to hear the new things Jehovah wants to reveal.
QUIZ
1.
What is Isaiahs point in mentioning the three names of the covenant people?
2.
Why must one obey the commandments of God to say I know Him?
3.
What two needs of the people prompted the Lord to reveal their future?
4.
Why should a theology not be built on an eschatological system?
5.
Has God revealed enough of His will to man?
6.
Why do most men not know God?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XLVIII.
(1) Are come forth out of the waters of Judah.The words limit the wider terms of Jacob and Israel to the Judan exiles. For the phrase, comp. ye that are of the fountains of Israel (Psa. 68:26). The ideal attributes of Israel, swearing by the name of Jehovah . . . are pressed in contrast with their actual state of hypocrisy and unrighteousness.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1, 2. Hear ye this Not something new, but already reiterated truths.
House of Jacob “Jacob” is the natural name of Isaac’s second son.
Called Israel “Israel” is the spiritual name of the same person. See Gen 32:2; Gen 35:10. Both together is a circumlocution for Israelites or members of the ancient Church.
Waters of Judah After the revolt of the ten tribes there were, as the result of labours by the prophets in the kingdom of Israel, doubtless not a few there who constituted the remnant of the true Israel. (Elijah thought it was not so till it was divinely told him there were seven thousand of them. 1Ki 19:18.) From among these, large numbers must have mingled with the people of Judah, so that in the exile the whole twelve tribes were more or less represented. Though the main body were of Judah, yet all vied with each on their comparative reform in Babylon and in countries thereto belonging.
Which swear by the name of the Lord Because this “swearing” did happen without living faith, such as represents the standard of life called for by Jehovah through his prophet, and explains the words, not in truth, nor in righteousness, herein his people deserved rebuke and warning.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Failure of Israel/Judah And His Intention For Them ( Isa 48:1-11 ).
Isa 48:1-2
“Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel,
And are come forth out of the waters of Judah.
Who swear by the name of Yahweh, and make mention of the God of Israel,
Not in truth nor in righteousness,
When they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel.
Yahweh of hosts is his name.”
God now calls through Isaiah to His sinful people as Jacob/Israel who come forth from the waters of Judah. This unusual description suggest he is speaking to people now living in Judah, not to people abroad. As a whole they make up Jacob and Israel. This distinction confirms that Isaiah is still in Palestine speaking to the remnants of Judah.
They are of the house of Jacob, and they are called by the name of Israel. Their credentials are good. And they have come from the waters of Judah. ‘The waters’ may refer to the waters that break in a woman prior to birth. Or it may see Judah as a spring from which flow his people. They live in Judah and bring forth their children there. Compare the waters of Shiloah that go softly (Isa 8:6).
And they are not only called by the name of Israel, but they swear by the name of Yahweh. This may refer to official oaths taken in court, stating that in such oaths the name of Yahweh is still used. Or it may simply indicate that old traditions die hard, and when they bind themselves with an oath they still do it in Yahweh’s name, just as a modern Atheist may say, ‘By God’. And they make mention of the God of Israel, that is keep Him in remembrance in their outward worship. Thus formally they still declare themselves to be Yahwists.
But there is a fatal flaw. All this is not in truth or in righteousness. It is not a genuine response, nor does it produce obedience to the covenant. In real terms it is a pretence.
‘When they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel.’ (For ki as ‘when’ see Isa 16:12) Even as they call themselves of the holy city and stay themselves on the God of Israel they are not being genuine. They are not holy. They are not really resting in Him. It is not in truth or in righteousness (see also Isa 48:4). In reality they have turned from Yahweh and His ways. Here was irony indeed. They boasted that they were the holy city, and they were anything but holy.
‘Yahweh of hosts is his name.’ This is a reminder to them of Who God is. They speak of Yahweh and the God of Israel, but are they aware of Whom they are speaking? Let them remember that He is Yahweh of hosts and thus God of the hosts of heaven and the hosts of earth.
Isa 48:3-5
“I have declared the former things from of old,
Yes, they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them,
Suddenly I did them and they came about.
Because I knew that you are obstinate,
And your neck is an iron sinew, and your brow bronze,
Therefore I have declared it to you from of old.
Before it came about I showed it to you,
Lest you should say, ‘My idol has done them,
And my graven image and my molten image has commanded them.’ ”
God now tells them why He always tells them and shows them clearly what He is about to do before He does things, and then does them suddenly. It is so that they will not be able to say, ‘My idol has done it’. For He knows that they are obstinate, and that their neck is of iron, totally unbending, and their brow is of bronze, firm and unyielding, so that given half a chance they will credit it to their idols and their images. (The graven image is one of wood, the molten image is one of wood plated in precious metal).
This exemplifies what we have seen in Isa 48:1-2. Outward conformity to Yahweh, but their real interest and concern is for their gods.
What the former things were that had been prophesied we are not told, but there are enough prophecies prior to this time to make a selection. They could include the promises to Abraham about his seed being many, and about the land becoming theirs, and about his descendants being kings. Multiplicity of children, land inheritance and relationships with a king were things that would be important to them. And it could include the deliverance from Egypt and earlier prophecies of Isaiah, some even exact to timing (Isa 16:14; Isa 21:16), and the defeat of Sennacherib (Isa 29:5-8; Isa 30:31-32; Isa 31:5-9; Isa 33:3-4), with many other examples in between. The point is that Yahweh has been able to declare what would happen when an idol could not, simply because it was He Who was going to bring it about. And as they all knew, these things had happened.
Isa 48:6-7
“You have heard it, behold all this,
And you, will you not declare it?
I have shown you new things from this time,
Even hidden things which you have not known,
They are created now and not from old,
And before this day you did not hear them,
Lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them’.”
Then God challenges them as to why they do not declare what they have heard about Him from the past. Why do they not give Him the honour due to Him and reveal it to the world? (That is what they should be doing as His witnesses – Isa 43:10).
But there is not only the past. He has shown them new things, the return of their exiles from all parts of the world, the rise of Cyrus, the destruction of Babylon, the coming of the day of Yahweh, the establishing of the everlasting kingdom in peace and righteousness, the coming of the greater David through Gods powerful and unique working. These are things that God has created now. They will happen because of His word. And they had not been told of these before lest they be self-complacent and self-congratulatory and say, ‘Look, I knew that already’.
Isa 48:8
“Yes, you did not hear. Yes, you did not know,
Yes, from of old your ear was not opened,
For I knew that you dealt very treacherously,
And were called a transgressor from the womb.”
He has just previously told them that they had heard (Isa 48:6) and known (Isa 48:6-7) about what He had declared and done, but now He admits that they had not really heard, they had not really known. Their ears are heavy, their eyes are closed (compare Isa 6:10). They have not allowed it to come home to them. And this is because they are so treacherous, because they are transgressors even from birth. This reference to them as transgressors is constant (Isa 46:8). And there are equally as many transgressors today.
The word for ‘treacherous’ means to do something contrary to the covenant (1Sa 14:33), it is used of a friend who fails in friendship (Job 6:14-15), and of family disloyalty (Jer 12:6), and it signifies a failure to honour one’s word (Isa 33:1). All these were true of Israel. To be a transgressor from birth indicates that they have been set in sin and disobedience right from a young age (compare Psa 51:5-6; Psa 58:3). They were ‘born like it’.
So the truth is that the Servant is in a sad state of disobedience and rebellion.
Isa 48:9-11
“For my name’s sake I will defer my anger,
And for my praise I will refrain for you,
That I do not cut you off.
Behold I have refined you, but not as silver,
I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.
For my own sake, for my own sake I will do it,
For how should it be profaned?
And my glory I will not give to another.”
But God will not allow His purposes to be frustrated like this. Somehow He will yet produce from them a righteous Servant. Let them not think that God is not aware of what they are. It is for His own name’s sake that He defers His anger, not punishing them as they deserve. It is so that He will finally receive the praise due to Him that He refrains from cutting them off, although it is something which is for their benefit too (‘for you’). For He will refine them, not as silver is refined in fire, but in the furnace of affliction (Isa 4:4; compare Deu 4:20; Eze 22:18-22). There His choice will come to fruition. From there will He produce His pure remnant (Isa 6:13). And He will do it for His own name’s sake (repeated for emphasis), so that no one else might receive His glory, and so that His name might not be sullied.
So here we see God’s determination to fulfil His sovereign purpose in spite of what His people have proved to be. And yet He will not do it without purifying them. For then He would deserve no praise. No, He will bring about their purification through affliction (and we learn later especially through the affliction of His own special Servant (Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12)). And then He will accomplish His purpose through them.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Chapter 48 The Unprepared State of Israel/Judah.
Babylon, and its final fate, has just been described, but the very idea has turned Isaiah’s attention on Israel. It has put Israel under the microscope. Is Israel so much better? The only difference is that God has a purpose for Israel.
But that purpose is not for Israel as they are. And God has already constantly revealed what they are. Full of self pity and self-justification (Isa 40:27), deaf and blind and unresponsive (Isa 42:18-25), and culpably so (Isa 43:8), weary of God and not giving Him due honour while failing to honour the covenant (Isa 43:22-28). They are transgressors (Isa 46:8), stubborn and far from righteousness (Isa 46:12). They are miserably sick (Isa 1:5-9). They are a people of unclean lips and hearts (Isa 6:5)
Now He brings it all together to demonstrate their true condition, and to plead with them to flee from all that Babylon represents (Isa 48:20). He begins by describing their condition, ‘not in truth or in righteousness’ (Isa 48:1), and that they are obstinate and hard-headed (Isa 48:4), points out that He has constantly shown them what would happen (Isa 48:3-5), and has even told them of new things (Isa 48:6-7), but concludes that they are so treacherous that they have been unwilling to hear and unwilling to perceive (Isa 48:8). Then He explains that they are as a nation still His chosen (Isa 48:10), still His called ones (Isa 48:12), but only once they have gone through purifying affliction (Isa 48:10) so that a true Servant may come out of them. Compare Isa 51:17-23 where the present Zion is a pale copy of Babylon.
Let them then consider that He is the first and the last, that He is the Creator and sustainer of the Universe (Isa 48:12-13). And that what He will do to Babylon will be for the sake of the one who has declared His truth (the Servant). It is because of His love for him that He will do His pleasure on Babylon and on the Chaldeans (Isa 48:14).
So they are to hear the One Who teaches them to profit and leads them in the way that they should go. If only they had done so previously, then they would have enjoyed abundant peace and righteousness. And their numbers would have been as abundant as the sands (Isa 48:17-19). Let them therefore now flee from Babylon and all it stands for declaring that Yahweh has redeemed His servant Jacob, that he is no more entangled in her ways (Isa 48:20). For Jacob there will be abundance of water in the desert, just as there had been when they travelled in the wilderness from Egypt and Yahweh gave them water from a rock (Isa 48:21). But let them remember, for the wicked there can be no peace (Isa 48:22).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
YAHWEH IS ABOUT TO ACT SO AS TO ESTABLISH HIS PEOPLE AND PREPARE THE WAY FOR HIS SERVANT ( Isa 44:24 to Isa 48:22 ).
As with what has gone before it is necessary for us to determine the viewpoint from which we will see these narratives, and in order to do so we must put ourselves in the shoes of Isaiah. Chapters 1-39 were mainly behind him, Hezekiah was dead, and what lay before him was the future in terms of Manasseh’s reign. That reign had not had a promising beginning. Manasseh had taken the people back to the old ways,and the ways of Assyria, and had thereby defiled the Temple (2Ki 21:2-7; 2Ch 33:2-10). The voice of Isaiah was silent (Isa 1:1). Judah was once more in subjection to Esarhaddon, the King of Assyria (Isa 37:38), who was overseeing Judah from Babylon (2Ch 33:11). The people were corrupted, the Temple was defiled, and Babylon was to be seen by Judah as the great enemy, as, in Isaiah’s eyes, it had always been.
Isaiah had already prophesied something of what the future held. He had informed Hezekiah that his sons would be carried off as trophies to Babylon (Isa 39:6-7), and had declared that God’s punishment must come on the personnel who ran the Temple (Isa 43:27-28), and the miserable fate of those who trusted in idols (Isa 43:27; Isa 44:11). (And this would in fact all actually happen in the near future (2Ch 33:11). For invasion from Babylon would result in Manasseh and his entourage being taken captive to Babylon, the Temple inevitably being sacked, and the people being decimated in the warfare that accompanied it).
But the question now was, how did this fit in with what he had already been saying. How could the Servant whose future had looked so glowing be restored, and what was going to be Yahweh’s response to the situation. These chapters will now deal with that question.
As we have seen the problems were threefold. The first was that the condition of Yahweh’s people was in doubt because of their spiritual position and condition (Isa 42:19-25; Isa 43:22-28), the second was the persistent interference of false gods (Isa 42:17; Isa 44:9-20), especially those of Assyria and Babylon, and the third was that the nations were still preventing His people from coming home (Isa 41:11-12; Isa 42:13-16; Isa 43:1-7). So before the Servant could be restored, and in order that ‘he’ might fulfil his proper function, each of these matters would have to be dealt with. In this section therefore we will discover how Yahweh intends to deal with these questions.
In the case of the first He will rebuild Jerusalem and re-establish (or lay the foundations of) a new Temple (Isa 44:26; Isa 44:28), using the house of Cyrus as His instrument.
In the case of the second He will destroy the daughter of Babylon who is responsible for all the lies and deceit connected with the occult and with false gods (Isa 46:1-2; Isa 47:1-15). But here Cyrus is not mentioned as involved.
In the case of the third He will deal with all the nations whose lands contain exiles, so that His Servant might be restored in order that ‘he’ may begin again (Isa 44:27; Isa 45:1-7) in line with God’s promises to Abraham (Isa 41:8). This section will include prophecies concerning the subjection of Egypt/Ethiopia (Isa 45:14-17), the humbling of Babylon’s gods (Isa 46:1-2), and the destruction of the great enemy Babylon from which all men must flee (47; Isa 48:20).
In the terms of those days the restoration of Jerusalem and the building or restoration of the Temple were prerequisites if the Servant was to be able to do his work, and it had become necessary because the previous Temple had been defiled and those who served in it were rejected (Isa 43:28). Thus it was essential that God should make all things new. Equally important if the gods and the occult were to be dealt a bitter blow was the downfall of Babylon, because from there came all that was deceptive and evil, as it cultivated idolatry and the occult, and thought itself so superior that it could behave as though it was unobserved, even setting itself up against Yahweh (Isa 47:10; compare Isa 14:10-13), as it had always done (Gen 11:1-9). And finally if His people who were exiled all around the world were to return, it would be necessary to find someone who could deal with the nations who held them captive, so that they could be enabled to do so.
These are the matters that the narrative will now look at. The section opens with a declaration of Yahweh’s credentials:
1) He is their Redeemer Who formed them from the womb. Compare for this Isa 43:1 which demonstrates that it is describing Israel, ‘thus says Yahweh Who formed you, O Israel, fear not for I have redeemed you’. For formation from the womb see Isa 44:2 where Yahweh, speaking to ‘Jacob my Servant, and Israel whom I have chosen’ says that He has ‘formed them from the womb and will help them.’ Compare also Isa 49:1 where The Servant, Who is identified as spiritual Israel (Isa 49:3 with 5-6), is ‘called from the womb’, and Isa 49:5 where he is ‘formed from the womb to be His Servant’. Clearly then He is also speaking to His Servant here.
2) He is the One Who, with none around to help, made all things, stretching out the heavens alone, and spreading out the earth when none was with Him. He alone is the Creator of all things.
3) He is the One Who oversets the occult world, frustrating and making fools of deceitful ‘diviners’, and showing up the recognised ‘magicians’, the ‘wise men’, by deliberately acting in order to show up their knowledge as foolish.
4) In contrast He is the One Who confirms the word of His true Servant and performs the counsel of His true messengers, that is He fulfils their prophecies so that all may be aware that they are His true prophets.
So Yahweh, the Creator of all things, Who opposes and countermands the exponents of the occult by making things happen in such a way as to make them look foolish, has chosen His Servant, the true Israel within Israel, from the womb (it is all in His divine sovereignty) in order that He might confirm his teaching and fulfil his prophecies. Whatever the true Servant is and does will be confirmed and carried into effect by Yahweh. He is the one who is to bear God’s message to the world (compare Isa 2:4).
But having done so He must prepare the way before them. And in doing this He will restore the situation for them. At present the nations hold many of them captive, Jerusalem has been laid waste, and the Temple is defiled, all of which prevent His Servant Israel from fulfilling their obligation. So now He declares how He is going to remedy matters.
It will be noted initially how firmly these ideas are introduced, and in each case they are introduced, not as concerned about a catastrophe but as a guarantee of their fulfilment. For above all they are introduced as being the work of Yahweh.
It is first made clear that the source of these actions is the One Who does everything according to His will, in fulfilment of His word.
1) He says to Jerusalem, “You shall be inhabited”, and to the cities of Judah, “You shall be built. And I will build up its waste places.”
2) He says to the deep, “Be dry, and I will dry up your rivers.”
3) He says of Cyrus, “He is My shepherd and will perform all My pleasure.”
4) Even saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built”, and to the Temple, “You shall be established” (or ‘your foundations shall be laid.”
If we see this as a chiasmus with 1). and 4). going together, and 2). and 3). going together, there are two emphases. The first is the important one of the restoration of Jerusalem and Judah after its mauling by Sennacherib, and after its future destruction by Esarhaddon (hinted at in Isa 39:6-7; Isa 43:28), and as it later turns out again by Nebuchadnezzar, because Israel does not take advantage of the opportunity gained by Manasseh’s repentance. The guarantee given by His word is that Jerusalem will be reinhabited after its mauling, the cities of Judah will be rebuilt after their devastation caused by war, the waste places caused by war and famine will be restored (built up), and this will include the re-establishing (and as it later turns out the total rebuilding) of the Temple, all of which have been prepared for previously (Isa 41:17-18; Isa 43:19-20; Isa 44:3; Isa 43:28).
The second is Yahweh’s action in the drying up of the deep and the rivers, through the activities of His shepherd, Cyrus, who will do all His pleasure (further expanded on in Isa 45:1-7). Countries in those days were often defined in terms of their rivers (compare Isa 27:1; Isa 7:18; Isa 7:20; Nah 3:8), which were of such vital importance to them, and their drying up was seen as a judgment on them (Isa 19:45; Isa 42:15; Isa 50:2; Psa 74:15; Jer 50:38; Jer 51:36; Eze 30:12; Zec 10:11). The drying up of the deep and the rivers may well therefore signify the desolation of the land of The River, and therefore of both Assyria and Babylon, in which case this is the promise that both will be dealt with through this instrument whom Yahweh has chosen and anointed. But their drying up also reflects what Yahweh had previously done to Egypt when He dried up their deep (Isa 51:10; Isa 63:13; Jos 2:10), and what He had done when He entered Canaan (Jos 4:23; compare Psa 114:3-5), and on top of that it parallels the boast of Sennacherib that with the sole of his feet he had dried up the rivers of all the places that he besieged (Isa 37:25). As he had done to others, so would be done to Assyria, and their accomplice Babylon. As a result restoration was promised to God’s people, which would include the opportunity of return from exile, the restoration of life in Judah, the reinhabiting of Jerusalem, the restoration of the Temple, and destruction to their enemies.
Noteworthy in this description is the total lack of mention of the enemies that Cyrus will deal with. The house of Cyrus has not been raised up in order to deliver them from the Babylonian empire, but to deliver them from all their enemies (Isa 45:1-7), whoever they may be, and to be God’s instrument as Yahweh fulfils His purpose to restore Judah and the Temple (Isa 44:26-28) in readiness for God’s outpouring of righteousness and salvation (Isa 45:8; compare Isa 44:1-5). Isaiah does not pretend to know the details, and shows no awareness of the activities of Nebuchadnezzar. He still thinks in terms of Assyrian Babylon..
It will be noted that in what follows, describing the activities of Cyrus, it is his destruction of nations and taking of their cities and treasures, ‘for Jacob my Servant’s sake and Israel my chosen’, that is emphasised (Isa 45:1-3). While he would also certainly play his part in giving permission for the building of a new Temple (Isa 44:28 with Ezr 1:1), on our reading of it that is here seen as a by-product of his activity. The raising up of the new Temple was to be the work of Yahweh. That was not, of course, to prevent Cyrus having a part in the process. But no heathen king could establish the Temple of Yahweh. (Apart from the lessons learned however, it actually matters little which view we take for Cyrus II was undoubtedly involved in both). Cyrus’ main assignment was to be the defeat and denuding of the nations for Israel’s sake (Isa 44:27-28 a; Isa 45:1-6).
So as we go into this new section we carefully note God’s promise of a restored Judah, a new or restored Temple, and a new or restored Jerusalem, alongside of which the idolatrous city of Babylon will be destroyed because of all that it represents. This latter is, however, not connected with Cyrus, which from the point of view of accuracy was a good job because Cyrus did not desolate Babylon. Rather having taken it easily, and being welcomed by the priests of Marduk, he restored it to its previous importance within his empire. The final demise of Babylon in fulfilment of Isaiah’s words took place much later.
Isaiah accepts these strands of information without flinching, and without trying to fit them together. He is very much lacking in the full details. What he is aware of are the principles involved. The Temple must be restored, the exiles must return from all over the world, Babylon must be destroyed. But it is important from our point of view to recognise that while Cyrus is very much involved in the general picture, he is not described as being involved with Babylon, and once he has made the world ready for Yahweh’s Servant, he departs immediately from the picture.
So the consequence is that, having in His eternal counsels, brought Abraham to the land like a ‘bird of prey’ (Isa 46:11), He will not allow Abraham’s seed to fail, but will restore them so that they might fulfil their task as His Servant..
This description of Abraham as a ‘bird of prey’ is interesting and significant. There can seem little doubt that in using it he has in mind that having originally, within the eternal purposes of God, arrived in the land, Abraham had, like a great bird of prey, descended on the king of Babylon and had driven him off and spoiled him (Isa 41:2; Genesis 14), just as his seed would later do with the Canaanites. Thus Isaiah is now to see the continued presence of Abraham in the land in his seed (Isa 41:8; Isa 45:4) who are God’s Servant, as a guarantee that Babylon will again suffer through the hand of their Kinsman Redeemer as He acts on behalf of His people, as He did in the days of Abraham. Yahweh too will swoop on Babylon, but this time to destroy it completely.
Further Note on Babylon.
In view of all that he has previously said about Babylon (Isa 44:13-14) it is clear that Isaiah could have expected nothing less than its destruction. Nor could he have doubted that it was necessary. For the shadow of Babylon, the great Anti-God and proponent of the occult, continually hung over the world, and over the people of God, and had to be dealt with. Her evil spiritual influence was known throughout the Near Eastern world, and was affecting the future of Yahweh’s Servant. There was therefore no alternative to her permanent destruction.
And yet that has not been the theme of Isaiah’s message. Indeed Babylon has only been mentioned once, and that almost incidentally, in Isa 43:14. At this stage Isaiah is interested in the work of the Servant, not in Babylon. He does not see Babylon as the threat to Israel’s freedom and independence, (he does not even mention it in chapter 45), only as the centre of all that is devilish.
And this is despite the fact that Babylon had yet to appear in order to loot David’s house and take the errant sons of David to become eunuchs in the house of the king of Babylon as God had already revealed through him (Isa 39:6-7). But that was a different issue dealing with the rejection of the current house of David. It said nothing about the destruction of the Temple or the future of the Servant.
So while, as we have gathered in Isa 43:28, he was becoming more and more aware that the Temple had been profaned and must be replaced, he does not make any claim that he knows how or when it will come about. Nothing is said about the way in which it will come to be in that state. He simply knows that it will necessarily be so because God’s people have defiled it (Isa 43:22-28). But at no stage, when speaking of the restoration of the Temple, does he mention Babylon as involved, or connected with its destruction in any way. Had he known specifically he would surely have said so. But that was something not revealed to him. While he knew that the Temple must be replaced because defiled, and may well have suspected who the culprit might be, he clearly did not see it as part of his message to Israel.
What he did know was that it was through the folly and unbelief of Ahaz that Assyria had come to tread Israel down (Isa 10:5; Isa 52:4). And at this present time he sees that threat as slightly altered in that the direction of the threat now comes from a Babylon, through whom Assyria was operating. This is clear from the fact that later, when Manasseh was arraigned for misbehaviour against Assyria, it was to Babylon that he was carried off in chains to give account (2Ch 33:11). And this involvement of Babylon in the affairs of Israel as acting on behalf of Assyria would chill Isaiah’s heart, for he knew what God had said about Hezekiah’s children and that Babylon was the permanent enemy of God from the beginning. Indeed it was he who had been called upon to demand its permanent destruction, never to be restored (Isa 13:19-20; see also 14; Isa 21:9; Isa 23:13). And he knew that through the folly of Hezekiah Babylon had been awakened to the prosperity of Judah and would one day come for her treasures (Isa 39:6-7). So when it began acting as broker on behalf of Assyria, in Isaiah’s eyes Babylon, the great Anti-God, came to the fore. Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, rebuilt Babylon and appointed one of his sons there as crown representative and prince, and it would seem that Babylon was now the taskmaster acting on behalf of Assyria with regard to Judah. As the primeval rebellious city, and as the great Anti-God, it had even ingratiated itself with Assyria. It had to be destroyed
So that is why Babylon itself, with its encroaching ways, has to be got rid of, and Yahweh will now assure Israel from his own experience that the gods of Babylon, having been humiliated by the Assyrians, had been revealed as what they were (Isa 46:1-2). Babylon herself was thus doomed (47). All men are therefore to turn from any consideration of, or affinity, with Babylon and recognise the triumph of Yahweh in establishing His people (Isa 48:20). So physically Israel’s deliverance from the nations will be by the hand of a Persian king, but spiritually their spiritual life will be saved by the establishment of the new Temple (Isa 44:28) and by the destruction of Babylon (Isa 48:20), the great threat to Yahwism (47; compare Isa 14:13-15).
These then are now the matters with which Isaiah will deal, and the ideas that are mentioned are in huge contrast, and are all important for the work of the Servant, but he does not interconnect them. On the one hand there is to be the full restoration of a pure, new, and undefiled Temple, a place through which the Servant can operate if ‘he’ is willing, and on the other there is to be the destruction of the evil daughter of Babylon with all her false sorceries and idols. For until both these things have occurred the work of the Servant will continue to be hindered. However, this destruction of Babylon is more connected with Assyria (Isa 46:1-2) than with Cyrus.
Cyrus is rather seen as the one whose conquests will prepare the way for Israel by conquering the nations and acting on Israel’s behalf. For what Cyrus will do is to be ‘for Jacob, My servant’s sake, and Israel My elect’ (Isa 45:4). That is the specific reason why Yahweh has called him by name and put His own name on Him (surnamed him), even though he himself does not know Yahweh. It is because he is acting in order that the Servant might benefit. We must not confuse the two activities of preparing the way for the Servant, which was the purpose of raising up Cyrus, and the destruction of Babylon which will occur through the hand of Yahweh. Both were necessary but no connection is identified between them. To Isaiah they represented the good and the bad about the future as stunningly revealed by Yahweh.
There is no thought in these chapters that Isaiah is over-anxious. He is perfectly aware, on his pinnacle of faith and with his magnificent view of God (40), that the situation is no-contest. And once he has introduced the one who will restore the Servant (45), he puts the gods of Babylon firmly in their place as burdens on the backs of beasts which far from helping them can only make the weary beasts stumble (Isa 46:1-2), and proclaims the end of the daughter of the Chaldeans (47). Then, the great enemy having been dealt with, He reintroduces the Servant in his ministry to His people and to the world (49). It is clear that until Babylon is out of the way the Servant cannot finalise his ministry.
It should be noted how little detail is given with regard to these external threats. Isaiah is not necessarily aware of all the full ramifications of them, and is certainly not concerned about them. His whole thought is concentrated on what Yahweh is doing. It is those facts of which he is sure.
End of note.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 48:13 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.
Isa 48:13
Isa 48:18 “I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit” Comments – Prosperity must be taught. Although greed and covetousness come naturally to the carnal man, true prosperity must be learned from the divine principles of sowing and reaping. Jehoshaphat told the children of Israel that if they would believe God’s Word, they would be established and to believe in His prophets and they would prosper (2Ch 20:20). God even placed within the Mosaic Law a tremendous amount of teaching about prosperity because He wants His children to prosper.
2Ch 20:20, “And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.”
Isa 48:18 O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:
Isa 48:22 Isa 48:22
Rom 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
A Testimony Concerning the House of Jacob
v. 1. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, v. 2. For they call themselves of the Holy City, v. 3. I have declared the former things from the beginning, v. 4. Because I knew that thou art obstinate, v. 5. I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I showed it thee, v. 6. Thou hast heard, v. 7. They are created now, v. 8. Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened, v. 9. For My name’s sake will I defer Mine anger, v. 10. Behold, I have refined thee, v. 11. For Mine own sake, even for Mine own sake, will I do it,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
The present chapter, which terminates the second section of Isaiah’s later prophecies, consists of a long address by God to his people, partly in the way of complaint, partly of combined premise and exhortation. The address is divided into three portions, each commencing with a call on Israel to pay attention:
Isa 48:1-11,
“Hear ye this,” etc.; Isa 48:12-15, “Hearken unto me,” etc.; Isa 48:16-22, “Come ye near unto me, hear ye this,” etc.
Isa 48:1-11
THE FIRST ADDRESS consists mainly of expostulation and complaint. Israel has not called on God “in truth and righteousness” (Isa 48:1). They have had “necks of iron” and “brows of brass” (Isa 48:4). God has given them prophecies of different kinds (Isa 48:3-7); yet they have neither “heard” nor “known;” they have “dealt treacherously” and been “transgressors from the womb” (Isa 48:8). God might justly have “cut them off” for their rebellion, but he has “deferred his anger,” and “refrained” himselfnot, however, for Israel’s sake, but for his own honour.
Isa 48:1
Jacob Israel (camp. Isa 40:27; Isa 41:8, Isa 41:14; Isa 43:1, Isa 43:22; Isa 44:1, etc.). “Jacob” is the natural and secular designation; “Israel” is a spiritual or covenant name (Cheyne). Both terms being appropriate to the ten tribes no less than to the two, and the present address being intended especially for the Jewish captives, a further designation is appendedwhich are come forth out of the waters of Judah. Which swear by the Name of the Lord. Swearing “by the Name of the Lord” is an evidence of true religion, to a certain extent (Deu 6:13; Deu 10:20). It indicates that there has been, at any rate, no open apostasy. Still, it does not necessarily prove more than this; and, in the present case, it scarcely showed anything beyond mere outward formal conformity. The bulk of the captives “swore by the Name of Jehovah, and made mention of the God of Israel” (camp. Jos 23:7), but did so not in truth, nor in righteousness; i.e. “without their state of mind or mode of action corresponding to their confession, so as to prove that it was sincerely and seriously meant” (Delitzsch). The condition of the majority of the exiles was that expressed in the words, “This people honoureth me with their lips, but in their hearts are far from me” (Mat 15:8).
Isa 48:2
For they call themselves of the holy city. It is an indication of their real want of truth and righteousness, that they lay such stress upon what is so entirely outward and formal, as the fact of their belonging to” the holy city,” Jerusalem. Compare the boast of the Jews in our Lord’s time, “We be Abraham’s seed” (Joh 8:33). Stay themselves upon the God of Israel. Not resting upon him in real faith and true humble dependence, as those Israelites who are mentioned in Isa 10:20. but trusting to the facts that they were “Israel,” and that God was “the God of Israel,” and therefore bound to protect them. God reminds them that, if he is “the God of Israel,” he is also “the Lord of hosts”a term, as Dr. Kay notes, especially connected with the holiness of God.
Isa 48:3
I have declared the former things from the beginning (comp. Isa 41:26; Isa 43:9, Isa 43:10; Isa 44:7, Isa 44:8, etc.). “Former things” are here contrasted with the “new things” of Isa 48:6. Two cycles of prophecy seem to be intendedone of comparatively ancient date, the other quite freshboth equally showing forth the power of God and his infinite superiority to the idols. It is difficult to determine what the two cycles of prophecy are. Delitzsch suggests that “the former things are the events experienced by the people from the very earliest times down to the times of Cyrus,” while “the new things embrace the redemption of Israel from Babylon, the glorification of the people in the midst of a world of nations converted to the God of Israel, and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth.” Dr. Kay thinks that the “former things” are those mentioned in the prophecies concerning Babylon generally, the “new things those about to be announced in Isaiah 49-56. I did them suddenly; rather, suddenly I wrought.
Isa 48:4
I knew that thou art obstinate; literally, hard, or stiffthe adjective used in the phrase translated in our version “stiff-necked.” The idea is still more forcibly expressed in the following clausethy neck is an iron sinew; or rather, a band of iron, as stiff as if it were made-of the hardest metal. And thy brow brass. The exact simile here used does not occur elsewhere in Scripture. It seems to be the origin of our expressions, “brazen, brazen-faced,” “to brazen a thing out.” The forehead may be hardened for a good or for a bad purpose; in obstinacy or in a determination to resist evil (comp. Isa 1:7 and Eze 3:8 with Jer 5:3; Eze 3:7; Zec 7:12). Here the hardening is evil, marking defiance and self-will.
Isa 48:5
I have even from the beginning declared it (comp. Isa 48:3). The declaration here made is that God rendered his prophecies more than ordinarily marvellous on account of Israel’s obstinacy, not punishing them for it, lint seeking graciously and lovingly to overcome it by adding to the weight of the evidence to which he would fain hare had it yield. Had his prophecies been less astonishing, had they in a less degree transcended ordinary human experience, Israel might conceivably have ascribed them and the accomplishment of them to the false gods. As it was, this was barely possible. Mine idol my molten image. It has been already observed (see the comment on Isa 40:18) that there was a strong tendency to idolatry among the Jews, not only before, but during the Captivity. Ezekiel says that those among whom he lived were “polluted after the manner of their fathers, and committed whoredom after their abominations; made their sons pass through the fire, and polluted themselves with all their idols“ (Eze 20:30, Eze 20:31); nay, went so far as to declare boldly, “We will be as the heathen, as the inhabitants of the countries, to serve wood and stone“ (Eze 20:32). The “prevailing tendency,” as Delitzsch remarks, was “to combine the worship of Jehovah with heathenism, or else to exchange the former altogether for the latter.” We cannot conclude anything concerning the mass of the community from the character of those who returned. Those who returned were the sincere worshippers of Jehovahthe irreligious did not care to return. It is always to be borne in mind that it was “the great mass even of Judah,” no less than of Israel, that “remained behind” (Delitzsch); and these “became absorbed into the heathen, to whom they became more and more assimilated” (ibid.). Hath commanded them; i.e. “hath caused them (the events) to take place” (comp. Psa 33:9).
Isa 48:6
Thou hast heard, see all this; rather, thou didst hear, (now) see it all, i.e. see all the prophecies now fulfilled, which thou heardest in days gone by. Will ye not declare it? Will ye not for very shame make known generally the accordance between the prophecies and the events, which you cannot fail to see? Will ye not become “my witnesses” (Isa 43:10), and turn away from your idols? I have showed thee; rather, I show thee; i.e. “I am about to show thee from this time new things, even hidden things, which thou knowest not”things belonging to the new cycle of prophecy, not previously announced, but reserved for the present crisis (see the comment on Isa 48:3). On the whole, the language used seems most consonant with the view of Dr. Kay, that the “new things” are those about to be revealed in the next section of the prophecy (Isaiah 49-53), things belonging to the coming of Christ, and the “new creation” which it will be the great object of his coming to bring about.
Isa 48:7
They are created now. The revelation to man of what has lain secret in God’s counsels from all eternity is a sort of creation. As Nagelbach well says, it converts the into a and therefore is one step towards actual accomplishment. The mystery of “the Servant of the Lord,” and of atonement and salvation through him, had hitherto been hid away”hid in God” (Eph 3:9), and was now for the first time to be made known to such as had “eyes to see” and “cars to hear” by the teaching of the evangelical prophet. Even before the day when thou heardest them not; rather, and before to-day thou heardest them not. Whatever shadows of evangelic truth are discernible in the Law and in the earlier psalms, they did not constitute a revelation of the way of salvation at all comparable to that contained in Isaiah’s later chapters. Lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. If the “new things” of Isaiah’s prophecy had been revealed many centuries before, they would not have impressed the Jews of Isaiah’s time, or even of the Captivity period, as they did by having been reserved to a comparatively late date. They would have seemed to most of them an old and trite story.
Isa 48:8
Thou heardest not thou knewest not. Again we seem to hear the voice of complaint, as in Isa 48:1, Isa 48:2, Isa 48:4. Israel had not “ears to hear” to any purpose such highly spiritual truths as those of the coming section. They had not profited by what was taught concerning Christ in the Law and the Psalms. From that time that thine ear was not opened; rather, from that time thine ear hath not been open. “From that time” means “from of old,” or “from the beginning.”
Isa 48:9
For my Name’s sake will I defer mine anger. Israel’s insincerity (Isa 48:1), obstinacy (Isa 48:4), addiction to idols (Isa 48:5), blindness (Isa 48:8), and general resistance to God’s will (Isa 48:8), could not but have provoked God’s “anger.” He will, however, “defer” it, “refrain” himself, not “cut Israel off, for his Name‘s sake.” God, having selected one nation out of all the nations of the earth to be his “peculiar people” (Deu 14:2), and having declared this, and supported his people by miracles in their struggles with the other nations and peoples, was, so to speak, committed to protect and defend Israel “for his Name’s sake,” lest his Name should be blasphemed among the Gentiles (see Exo 32:12; Num 14:13; Deu 9:28; Psa 129:1-8 :10; Psa 106:8, etc.). He was also bound by the promises which he had made; and. still more, by the position which Israel occupied in his scheme of salvation, to allow the nation still to exist, and therefore to condone its iniquities and restrain his anger. But the dregs of the cup of vengeance were poured out at last.
Isa 48:10
I have refined thee, but not with silver; rather, but not as silver (Cheyne). or, but not in the manner of silver (Delitzsch); i.e. not with the severity with which silver is refined (see Psa 12:6). I have chosen thee; rather, I have tested thee. The furnace of affliction is here the Babylonian captivity. The object of the Captivity was to “test” and “refine,” or purify God’s people to a certain extentnot with extreme severity, but in such sort as to fit them to “bear his Name before the Gentiles” for another five hundred years.
Isa 48:11
How should my Name be polluted? i.e. how should I allow of its pollution or desecration (see the comment on Isa 48:9)? I will not give my glory unto another (comp. Isa 42:8). God would have ceded his glory to some god of the nations, had he under existing circumstances forsaken Israel.
Isa 48:12-15
THE SECOND ADDRESS. The tone of complaint is now dropped. Israel is invited to reflect seriously on the chief points urged in the preceding chapters.
(1) Their near relation to Jehovah (Isa 48:12);
(2) Jehovah’s eternity and omnipotence (Isa 48:12, Isa 48:13);
(3) the superiority of Jehovah to the gods of the nations, as shown by his prophetic power (Isa 48:14); and
(4) the near approach of deliverance by Cyrus (Isa 48:14, Isa 48:15).
Isa 48:12
O Jacob and Israel (comp. Isa 40:27; Isa 41:8, Isa 41:14; Isa 43:1, Isa 43:22; Isa 44:1, Isa 44:21; Isa 46:3; Isa 48:1). The figure is used which rhetoricians call hendiadys. The two names designate one and the same object. My called. “Called” and “chosen” from of old, out of all the nations of the earth (comp. Isa 41:9; Isa 44:1, Isa 44:2, etc.); therefore bound to “hear“ and to attend. Still more bound, considering who it is by whom they have been calledI AM HEi.e. “I am the absolute and eternally unchangeable One, the Alpha and Omega of all history” (Delitzsch). The first, and also the Last, “from whom and to whom are all things” (Rom 11:36).
Isa 48:13
Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth (comp. Isa 40:12, Isa 40:22, Isa 40:26, Isa 40:28; Isa 42:5; Isa 44:24; Isa 45:12, Isa 45:18). As the Maker of heaven and earth, God is entitled to the attention and obedience of all the dwellers in heaven and earth. My right hand hath spanned the heavens; i.e. measured them, as with a span (Isa 41:12) fixed their limits and dimensions. When I call unto them, they stand up together (comp. Isa 40:26). Heaven and earth, and all things that are in them, except man, are prompt to perform God’s will, and rise up at once at his call to show their readiness. The metaphor is drawn from the conduct of intelligent agents.
Isa 48:14
All ye, assemble yourselves. “Once more the nations are challenged to say which of their deities has foretold the work that the Lord has willed to perform on Babylon” (Kay) (see above, Isa 43:9). If none has done so, will not Israel see and acknowledge the superiority of Jehovah to such blind deities? The Lord hath loved him. It had not been previously declared in so many words that Jehovah “loved” Cyrus; but it had been sufficiently indicated by the way in which he was spoken of in Isa 44:28 and Isa 45:1-5. God “loves” all who “in an honest and good heart” seek according to their lights to do his will and serve him faithfully. Nebuchadnezzar is called his “servant” (Isa 25:9; Isa 27:6; Eze 29:18, Eze 29:20), Cyrus (in Isa 45:1) his “anointed.“ It is but going one step further to call the latter his “loved one.” He will do his pleasure; i.e. “God’s pleasure,” not his own (see Isa 44:28). His arm shall be on the Chaldeans. The Hebrew is very harsh, and perhaps requires emendation; but the meaning can scarcely be other than that expressed in our version.
Isa 48:15
I have called him (comp. Isa 46:11, “Calling a ravenous bird from the east”). Cyrus is represented as raised up by God, “called” by him, and commissioned by him “to do all his pleasure.” God has brought him on his way, and made that way prosperous. According to the account of Herodotus, Cyrus received no check of any kind until the last expedition, in which he lost his life. His “prosperity” was beyond that of almost any other commander.
Isa 48:16-22
THE THIRD ADDRESS. Israel is reminded of God’s merciful teaching and leading in the past (Isa 48:16, Isa 48:17); expostulated with on their disobedience (Isa 48:18, Isa 48:19); exhorted to go forth boldly and joyfully from Babylon (Isa 48:20, Isa 48:21); and finally warned that God’s blessingseven such a blessing as deliveranceare no blessings to any but the righteous (Isa 48:22).
Isa 48:16
I have not spoken in secret from the beginning. God, “from the beginning,” i.e. from his first dealings with Israel, had raised up a succession of prophets, who had declared his will, not “in secret,” or ambiguously, but openly and plainly, so that all who heard might understand (comp. Isa 45:19, and see the comment ad loc.). From the time that it was, there am I; i.e. “from the time that the earth was, there (in the succession of my prophetic messengers) was I.” It was I who spake by their mouth, and thus announced my will publicly. And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me. Dr. Kay supposes that “one Divine Personage is here sent by another”the Second Person of the Holy Trinity by the First and by the Third; but it is against the analogy of faith that the Third Person should send the Second. Probably Mr. Cheyne is right in suggesting that “here a fresh speaker is introduced,” and also right in his supposition that the fresh speaker is “the prophet himself,” who tells us that he is now carrying on the goodly succession which has been “from the beginning,” and is sent to deliver his message by God (the Father) and his (Holy) Spirit. On the tendency of Isaiah to “hypostatize” the Spirit of God, see the comment on Isa 40:13; and compare Mr. Cheyne’s note on the same passage.
Isa 48:17
The Lord which teacheth thee to profit. God’s teachings are all directed to the “profit” of those to whom they are addressed; and, if received in a proper spirit, actually “profit” them more than anything else can do. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable” (2Ti 3:16). Very profitable also are the teachings of God’s providence, which chasten men, warn men, and tend to keep men in the right path.
Isa 48:18
Oh that thou hadst hearkened! (comp. Psa 81:13-16, “Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries,” etc.) Some render, “Oh that thou wouldst hearken!” etc; on the analogy of Isa 64:1; but unnecessarily. Dr. Kay says that God “upbraideth not,” referring to Jas 1:5. But he may expostulate. What is it but expostulation, when our Lord says, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Mat 23:27, Mat 23:28)? To look back on the past, and see what we have missed, is a good lesson for the future. Then had thy peace been as a river; literally, as the river (i.e. the Euphrates), abounding, overflowing, continuous. Thy righteousness. Not “thy prosperity” (Cheyne), but “thy good deeds.” If Israel had clung to God, then God’s blessing would have been poured upon them, and have enabled them to bring forth abundant fruits of righteousness. As the waves of the sea; i.e. innumerable and unceasing.
Isa 48:19
Thy seed also had been as the sand. Israel, at the close of the Captivity, was “a remnant” (Isa 37:31), a “very small remnant” (Isa 1:9); the ten tribes were for the most part absorbed into the heathen among whom they had been scattered; the two tribes had dwindled in number through the hardships of the Captivity, and were scarcely more than a “handful.” Less than fifty thousand returned with Zerubbabel (Ezr 2:64); less than two thousand males with Ezra (Ezr 8:2-20). Had Israel not been disobedient, the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would have been literally fulfilled, and the descendants of Abraham would have been millions upon millions, instead of being one or two hundred thousand. The offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; rather, like the grains thereof; i.e. the grains of the sand. His name; i.e. “Israel’s name.” Should not have been cut off. Israel’s name had not been wholly “cut off” or “destroyed.” But it had been approximately “cut off.” Israel was no more a people, but only a horde of slaves. The restoration to Palestine was a resurrectionthe re-creation of a nation which, humanly speaking, had ceased to be.
Isa 48:20
Go ye forth of Babylon. A sudden transition from expostulation to exhortation. It might have seemed that no exhortation would be needed; that, as soon as the prison-doors were set open, there would be a general rush to escape. But, when the time came, it was not so. Those only availed themselves of the edict of Cyrus “whose spirit God had raised to go up and build his house” (Ezr 1:5). The wealthier classes, Josephus tells us (‘Ant. Jud.,’ Isa 11:1), remained. The very poor, it is probable, could not leave. Motives of various kinds detained others. The result was that probably a larger number elected to continue in the country than to return to Palestine. Hence the exhortation to “go forth from Babylon and flee from the Chaldeans” was far from being superfluous. Flee ye from the Chaldeans. Not “flee before them” (see Isa 52:12), as enemies to be feared; but quit them hastily, as corrupters to be avoided. With a voice of singing; rather, with a voice of shouting (Delitzsch), or with a ridging cry (Cheyne). The cry was to reach even to the end of the earth. All the nations were to be informed of the great event, in which they might not feel, but in which they were, deeply interestedthe deliverance of Israel out of Babylon, which was “the prelude of, and a preparation for, the world’s redemption” (Kay).
Isa 48:21
They thirsted not (comp. Isa 43:19, and the comment ad loc). The literal meaning is not to be altogether excluded. We have no historical account of the journey made by the bulk of the exiles who returned with Zerubbabel; but they must almost certainly have experienced difficulties with respect to water; and it is quite possible that a miraculous supply was vouchsafed to them. Most commentators, however, are content to explain both this and the earlier passage as merely “symbolical.” The Israelitesthey sayhad spiritual refreshment on their homeward journey, by God’s goodness, constantly.
Isa 48:22
There is no peace, etc. This warning phrase occurs again, “in the manner of a refrain” (Cheyne), at the close of what most commentators regard as the second section of this portion of Isaiah’s work (Isa 57:21). The third section closes with a still more solemn warning (Isa 66:24).
HOMILETICS
Isa 48:1
Swearing by the Name of God.
Our Lord’s injunction to his disciples is “Swear not at all;” and in a community where all were true Christians, swearing would be superfluous, and the injunction might be carried out to the letter. But in imperfect conditions of society, such as the old covenant contemplated, and such as alone exist under the new, “swearing by the Name of God” cannot be dispensed with. Life and property would be greatly endangered were courts of justice to decide causes on the unsworn evidence of witnesses, the majority of whom might have a very slight regard for truth. “Swearing by the Name of God” is thus lawful
I. WHEN A WITNESS IS CALLED UPON TO DO SO IN A COURT OF JUSTICE. The Christian Church in all its branches has always allowed and approved of oaths being taken in courts of justice. Only a few sectaries have from time to time so strained our Lord’s words as to consider them prohibitive of oaths of this kind. Such persons “have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge” (Rom 10:2). It is clear from the context that our Lord’s injunction was levelled, not against judicial oaths, but against the habit of strengthening asseverations by oaths in familiar discourse (Mat 5:34-37). And he himself, when adjured, or put upon his oath, did not rebuke the man by whom he was adjured, but gave an answer to his questioner, though previously he had refused to give one (Mat 26:63, Mat 26:64).
II. WHEN THE CIVIL GOVERNOR CALLS UPON US FOR AN OATH OF ALLEGIANCE, OR THE LIKE. The practice of Christian countries in this respect has varied; but where oaths of allegiance are required there would seem to be no reasonable ground for objecting to them. The state is entitled to assure itself of the good will and fidelity of the citizens; and, unless it can be sufficiently assured by a mere affirmation, would seem to be entitled to the better security of an oath.
III. WHEN IN ANY VERY SERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES A VERY SOLEMN ASSURANCE IS REQUISITE, Bandits have captured two friends. One of them is allowed to leave the bandits’ stronghold in order to obtain the ransom for both, but is required to swear that in any case he will return, otherwise both will be put to a lingering death. There would seem to be no sufficient grounds for refusing to make oath in such a case. The bandits will not accept a promise. The oath is a concession to their incredulity. It is given solemnly, seriously, almost judicially; since those who tender it possess, under the circumstances, the power of life and death. It cannot be thought the injunction “Swear not at all,” was given with reference to such a case any more than with reference to oaths in courts of justice.
The great end is to avoid light swearing, unnecessary swearing, profane swearing. Let these forms of swearing be carefully eschewed, and a Christian man’s conscience need not be greatly exercised in respect of the oaths which he is called upon to take as witness, as subject, as friend, as husband, as citizen.
Isa 48:12
God the First and the Last.
It is readily intelligible, though not by finite minds conceivable, that “God is the First.” Something must have existed from all eternity, or nothing could ever have existed. The first existence must either have been matter or spirit, or both. But it could not have been matter alone, since matter could never have produced spirit; and it was not matter and spirit, since the “things that are seen were not made of things that do appear” (Heb 11:3). It was therefore spirit alone; and that primeval Spirit which existed apart from matter, and apart from any created spirit, was God. Thus “God is the First”the First Causebefore all thingsthe Origin of all things”Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things, both visible and invisible.” But how is he “the Last”? Eternal life is promised to all created beings who do not fall from their first sinless estate, and also to all who, having fallen, repent and amend, turning to God, and putting their whole trust in the atonement of Christ. They will live on eternally in his eternal glory. Actually, then, God will not ever be in the future a single solitary Being, as he once was, but will always be a King and Governor of innumerable hosts of happy spirits, created by himself. Actually he will never be “the Last.” But potentially he is “the Last.” He could, if he so pleased, destroy with a word all that he has ever created, and be once more alone, without a second. And further, all things are “to him” and “for him”they exist for his sake; he is their Aim and Object; their sole, final
Isa 48:16
The separate personality and Divine authority of the Holy Spirit.
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, like most of the other great and mysterious doctrines of true religion, was gradually revealed to mankind. In one sense we may call it an exclusively Christian doctrine; but in another we must assign it an antiquity far higher than that of the Christian era. God, in his several revelations to mankind, gradually paved the way for its acceptance. In the revelations which he made to Noah and Abraham (Gen 9:6, Gen 9:16; Gen 17:7, Gen 17:8), God announced himself as Elohima word of plural form. In the revelation which he caused to be put forth by his servant Moses, he distinguished between” God” (Elohim) and “the Spirit of God“ (ruakh Elohim) which moved, or brooded, upon the face of the primeval chaos (Gen 1:2). By David he made it known that there was a “God, whose “throne was for ever and ever,” whom “God, even his God, would anoint with the oil of gladness above his fellows” (Psa 45:6, Psa 45:7; comp. Heb 1:8, Heb 1:9). To the same great saint he revealed it that his Holy Spirit could be given to man and taken from him (Psa 51:11). Isaiah, in the present passage, proclaims that he is sent “by the Lord Jehovah”.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Isa 48:1-11
Lessons from the past to the future.
Those addressed are the people “named from Israel and sprung from Judah’s spring;” who swear by Jehovah’s Name and render homage to Israel’s Godnot, alas! so sincerely as they should. Still, they have learned to find their true reliance in Zion and in Jahveh. Let them, then, hear the exhortation of Jehovah.
I. THE ORACLE OF THE PAST. Jehovah has in former times predicted events by the mouth of his prophets which came to pass. Those predictions were disbelieved; the fulfilment was delayed; and yet suddenly the ideal was translated into fact; and the unexpected had come to pass. In general, history is the oracle of the Eternal. An empire founded on force or fraud cannot stand; the kingdom which subsists by righteousness and for righteousness carries with it vitality and enduring dominion. It was said by a great statesman, “The unexpected always happens.” And in truth the purposes of God are not seldom known by their fulfilment in sudden and surprising events. He thinks long, but acts promptly. As in Northern climates, the winter of human discontent breaks as if by magic into spring. Such experiences should tend to subdue the obstinacy of incredulity. God knew that the Israelites were prone to unbelief and hardness of heart, and therefore had plied them with so many proofs of his providence. George Herbert mentions, “Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,” among the means which God employs to bring the soul to himself. The “iron sinew and the brow of brass” are significant of the state of mind which he had to encounter in the people. “Some are so obstinately bad and confirmed in their vice, that judgments and afflictions are but thrown away upon them; and God’s shooting at them is but shooting at a mark, which indeed receives the arrow, but does not at all feel it.”
II. NEW PREDICTIONS. Again, things hidden from human penetration shall be made known by the Divine oracles. The events could no more be anticipated than could an act of creation from the operation of natural causes. And so the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, and the deliverance of the exiles from bondage, could be known by no human foresight or sagacity. But “their ears were not open.” They were infidel and rebellious at heart. The open ear means the affected heart, the awakened understanding, the cherishing memory, the steady, fruitful perseverance in action. If there be defect of these, the soul is no better than if it had not heard at all. Nay, it may be worse (cf. Joh 5:25; Joh 6:45; Act 2:37).
III. THE GREAT DIVINE MOTIVE. Not because the people have deserved it will Jehovah act thus, but for his honour’s sake, because he is not yet known among the Gentiles. And it is through Israel that his purposes to the heathen must be carried out. Yet this people had not been found pure metal after their trial in the furnace of affliction. They were wicked, sinful, and unbelieving. It is his glory, then, in the spread of true religion and justice in the earth, that is the principle and the end of the procedure of Jehovah. As he can swear by no higher, so he can work for no more majestic object, than himself. But he must have instruments, he must have men, however imperfect, to work out his purposes. “God’s glory is the motto inscribed upon every created being; and wheresoever God reads, he owns this superscription. It is all the creature has, under God’s hand and seal, to show for its life. Wherever we are, we are not our own, but his. All men are by nature servants to the interest of his glory.”J.
Isa 48:12-22
The new revelation.
The verses contain a summary of the contents of Isaiah 40-47. God is the First and the Lastthe sole Creator. Prophecy is an evidence of his claims; and so is the mission of Cyrus.
I. THE REVELATION CONCERNING GOD. First Jacob and Israel, the chosen people, are called to listen. Jehovah is the Alpha and the Omega of the universe. The First Cause and Reason of things; he gave the first impulse to their course, the goal of which will still be himself. Before the earth and the heavens were, his was the creative hand, guided by the creative mind. Then the idolatrous nations are summoned to assemble, and challenged to produce a power of prophecy to rival that of Jehovah.
II. CONCERNING CYRUS. “He whom Jehovah hath loved,” to whom he hath spoken, whom he hath called, shall have a prosperous career, performing the Divine pleasure on Babylon and on Chaldea. In verse 20 the prophet sees the destruction of Babylon as an accomplished fact. Thence let a ringing cry go forth to the end of the earth! Jehovah hath redeemed the people! Already they have drunk of the refreshing waters in the desert. And that peace, which is the sum of all blessings, and which can never be the portion of the ungodly, is theirs.
III. APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE AND EXPERIENCE. Let the chosen people draw neat. and commune with their God. From the first he has spoken to them, not in dark and ambiguous oracles, but in words of clearness and unmistakable purport. And now he is to speak again by the mouth of his present servant, and to crown his revelations by the greatest of them all. And what of Israel? Doubly tender is the reproach and the expostulation. Why have the people not walked in the straight way in which he would have led them? He is their “Teacher to their profit;” why have they chosen what is unprofitable? and followed after the “not-profitable” gods (Jer 2:11; cf. Mic 6:8; Psa 23:3)? He would lead them in the straight path, but Israel has forced him, as it were, to lead them by the circuitous path of affliction. The appeal to experience turns upon this pointthe profitableness of godliness, which has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. “Deep down in human nature lies the idea of a covenant between the worshipper and his god. In return for external service, the god gives help and protection. The prophets, with a generous freedom, retain so much of this theory as matches with the truths revealed to them. Jehovah’s protection is still conditional, but the conditions extend to the inner as well as the outer man” (Cheyne). Obedience alone brings peace and prosperity. If men had but hearkened to God, their peace would have been as the great volume of the Euphrates, and their blessedness, reflecting the favour of Jehovah, as the multitudinous waves of the sea; its posterity as the sand of the sea, or as the fishes that swarm in its waters. Its name would have been imperishable. It is, then, the “hearing ear” and the “perceiving heart” which above all are needed as conditions of true temporal and spiritual well-being. To hear so as to be pricked in heart; to hear so as to follow and prosecute the things we hear;this alone is to hear in the Scripture sense. And here we are reminded of the need of the Holy Spirit’s influence, without which we may see and never perceive, and hear and never understand. There must be an aptness between the object and the faculty. Things sensible must be known by sense; things mental by the mind; and things spiritual by some principle infused into the soul from above. “Two sit together and hear the same sermon. One finds a hidden spiritual virtue in the Word, by which he lives and grows and thrives. Another finds no such virtue in it; perhaps it pleases his reason, and there is an end. This proceeds from the want of the spiritual, perceiving heart. Why is it that a man is so affected with music that all his passions are moved by it, while brutes are not at all pleased? Because there is in man a principle of reason concurring with his sense, which discovers the sweetness and harmony of the sounds that bare sense is not able to discern.” And so of the things of God. Open thou mine eyes and mine ears; let my noblest faculties be ever in communion with the noblest, my spiritual nature be awakened by the Spirit, and again respond to his influence!this should be our prayer. We will hearken unto and obey him who hath the words of eternal life: this should be our resolve.J.
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM
Isa 48:4
The revealing truth.
“I knew that thou art obstinate.” We blame this in a child. We sometimes falsely call it firmness in a man. This is a mistake. Firmness is only in a Moral sense such, when it is infused by faith, governed by reason, approved by conscience, and consecrated to some noble and godlike end.
I. HERE IS A REVELATION OF HUMAN POWER. Man can stand out against God. This is marvellous, but it is at the basis of all moral freedom and responsibility. The original Hebrew means “hard”so hard that the tenderest revelations of Divine love cannot melt the heart; so hard that the spectacle of the ruin and misery which rebellion everywhere brings does not create repentance and “returning.”
II. HERE IS A REVELATION OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE. “I knew.” Man cannot see his brother’s inner countenance. God can. “Thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass.” Let not man say that any law of necessity has compelled his defiant course. Let him not say that it has been demanded of him by the idols of fashion and custom. “Before it came to pass I showed it thee, lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.” God knows that the soul has stood out against all Divine warnings, invitations, rebukes, and interpositions. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!”W.M.S.
Isa 48:6
Hidden things.
“Hidden things.” The earth is full of latent forces, These are concealed. Take beat, for instance: how it hides in the secret places more stealthily than the panther! Take electricity: here it is quite close to uswithin us; and what a masterful power it is!how it can rend the rock and lay low the lofty palaces! These are beneficent forces, though, and do their work well, for the security, health, and comfort of man. There are hidden forces that are baneful. The latent seeds of disease lie hidden behind that pearly skinthat pure and radiant complexion. And when we have to speak of sin, what a latent force that is hidden in the breast of a child!concealing itself under the cloak of outward respectability in manhood, and by its manifestations here and there like the volcano, telling us what depths of evil there are in the human heart, which only Christ and his cross can overcome. Men understand much, but they do not understand themselves.
I. WE HAVE HIDDEN FORCES OF JOY IN US. In a human sense it is so. Look at those children, all eager for their own little possession, their own way; they know not now what love will do: how for that bright little maiden yonder, presently, in a few brief years, one human heart will give up time and thought, and all that earnest love can give! What a force! but hidden yet. So in marriage; that young wife cannot be informed, or instructed, or inspired by others to feel what maternal love is; but when the cry is heard, and a child is born into the world, the latent instinct leaps into life in the heart, and she knows for the first time what that slumbering force really is. So rare are in our souls hidden forces. We have latent faculties of faith in us which the Holy Ghost can call forth, whereby we walk in a new world of wonder and hope and joy in God. We have latent faculties of energy in us which, once awakened, will make us emulate the earnest of every age; and when religion sets a man to work, he finds that there is a joy in service which he was unconscious of before; he discerns that, whilst by love he serves others, he is also with each service opening up new joy-fountains in his own heart.
II. WE HAVE HIDDEN FORCES OF PAIN IN US. We know not what they are, it may be, at present; but we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we shall be a surprise unto ourselves in this respect also.
1. There is the sorrow that hides in love. We know not the measure of love save by loss! Then we know. We are tempted to think in our youth that our older friends are too pensive sometimes, too little open to the all-gladdening influences around them. Alas! we know not the bread they eat. There are forces of memory in their hearts that we cannot see.
2. There is the sorrow that hides in sin. It is so bright-presenced at first, so fascinating, so attractive; speaks in such dulcet tones; no memory at work yet; no consciousness of shame yet; no sense yet of the disturbance that sin works in God’s beautifully ordered universe. To-morrow the serpent that hides at the bottom of the cup will have stung!
3. The sorrow that hides in wrong or neglect in relation to others. While they were with us here we did not feel it so much; but now! Oh, the curtain that hides! the silence in which there is no voice! the quivering heart that puts out the untouched hand! Eternal Father, we were not what we wished, or all we wished, to them. But they are gone, and the place which knew them once shall know them no more. Death is not a tidal river; its waters never return.
III. WE HAVE HIDDEN FORCES OF EVIL IN US. Power to sin! Forces which temptation may set fire to, as a spark to the tow! We see this illustrated in nature. The officer who played with his beautiful glossy pair of cub-tigers did not understand his danger till they tasted blood as they licked a little cut in his hand; and then came the surly growl, and with the officer a sword for them or death for himself. We see this in the history of the disciples. How ignorant they were of their own hearts! What latent scepticism in Thomas! what cowardice beneath Peter’s enthusiasm! what pride in those who wanted chief places in Christ’s kingdom! Ah! yes; but they recovered from their folly. But think of Judas; think of Demas; think of Hymenaeus and Philetus. We see this in the warnings of our Saviour. “Watch and pray.” Yes; Mark you, Christ does not say, “Watch and pray in youth,” or “in manhood.“ He says it to us all. He knows the potency of evil, and that there are temptable places in our nature even unto the end. For instance, “When every other passion is old, covetousness is young,” says the proverb. We must be on our guard till the last hour. Then will come release and victory.
IV. WE HAVE HIDDEN FORCES OF IMMORTALITY WITHIN US. Christ revealed these. He “brought life and immortality to light by the gospel.” All men do not equally feel these; but there is a “power of the world to come,” which more or less affects everybody. When outward life pleases, and we have vivacities of friendship, extensive and elaborate functions of duty to fulfil; when we are absorbed in the outward life;we do not always feel the great beatings of the pulses of immortality within us. But in silent meditative hours there comes over us all the consciousness alike of sin and immortality. “How abject, how august, is man!” The great conservative power of religion is the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Let that be ignored or denied, and materialism will make very rapid strides.
1. The sense of immortality alters our estimate of the world. Makes us feel the “tent-like“ character of our homes. “We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” We knew that there remaineth a rest, and that affliction is but for a moment.
2. The sense of immortality alters our estimate of friendship. We long, even in that, to lay hold of the everlasting, to link our love with the immortal yearsto feel that it is of such a character as to survive in glory. Hidden the force may be, but it is real, and the strongest of all the bulwarks against atheism and materialism. When Christ speaks we feel that he spake with authority. Men trembled before a vision of themselves so searching and severe. Not only the “hidden things “of darkness, however, did he reveal; the bright diamond of the mind flashed forth its beauty in the light of his all-revealing words. “Honour all men,” says St. Peter. A beautiful commandment, for the gospel has shown the hidden glory behind the veil of the meanest life. “For I have shown thee hidden things” may therefore suggest to us the reverence which we ought to entertain for the soul. Sin is not a subject for mere scorn; it is a subject for deepest sorrow. “When Jesus came near the city, he beheld it, and wept over it.” Something more magnificent than the marble temple filled his vision; he wept over souls where the altar was overthrown and the love of God cast out. Let preachers, teachers, authors, workers in the field of the Lord, realize once more the Divine grandeur of their work. The sublimest creation of this universe is hidden in the heart of man: “God made man in his own image.”W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Isa 48:1-9
Things worth heeding concerning God and man.
“Hear ye this:” this is something well worth the earnest attention of men; their truest worth and their lasting interests are bound up in the knowledge and regard of it.
I. MAN‘S CRIMINAL INCONSISTENCY WITH HIMSELF. (Isa 48:1, Isa 48:2.) Men may go very far in conduct which is quite at variance with “the spirit which is in them:” they may say or do one thing, and be the very opposite. One might think that though this were so in their dealings with one another, it would never be true in their attitude toward the heart-searching God. Yet in nothing is there more insincerity, more hypocrisy, than in religion. Men “swear by the Name of the Lord but not in truth.” To pretend before God, to affect a piety which is not felt, is not only useless and worthless; it is in the last degree offensive and perilous (see Mat 23:1-39.).
II. MAN‘S HARDENING OF HIMSELF. (Isa 48:4.) Men are obstinate, or hard (marginal reading): they harden their heart before God and against him, so that their neck is “an iron sinew, their brow brass.”
1. They will not be what God requires that they should becomehis children, his servants, his friends, his followers.
2. They will not do what he charges them to dowill not work righteousness, justice, equity; will not refrain from impurity, from intemperance, from dishonesty, etc.
3. They will not hear what he summons them to heed; they turn a deaf ear to his entreaties and his warnings (Pro 1:1-33.). They go so far in obduracy, in hardness, that, though they know that their Divine Father, their gracious Saviour, is speaking to them, they close their souls to his message of truth and love.
III. GOD‘S EVIDENCE CONCERNING HIMSELF. (Isa 48:3, Isa 48:5-8.) God adduces proof from his foreknowledge and revelation that he is unquestionably the true and living Godthat One in whom and in whom alone they should put their trust. It is not only by such proof as this, but by many evidences, that God establishes his claims upon us. He “leaves not himself without witness;” he abundantly confirms his truth: the material universe, with its beauty, its bounty, its order, its magnificence; the spiritual nature of man, including his conscience; the life, the works, the truth of Jesus Christ; the character and design of the gospel of peace and righteousness; its glorious achievements, etc.
IV. GOD‘S REASONS IN HIMSELF. (Isa 48:9.)
1. Ample reasons for Divine beneficence are to be found in the Divine naturethat God is what he is accounts for all the grace and mercy which abound in the earth.
2. In the interests of the universe God must act so that his children shall revere and praise him. Otherwise the most disastrous disbelief would prevail.C.
Isa 48:10, Isa 48:11
The Divine aim in human affliction.
We infer
I. THAT THE AFFLICTIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUS ARE OF GOD‘S SENDING. To the unrighteous they wear the aspect of inflictions, but to the servants of God they are chastisements or refining processes; either way, they are regarded as events which come in consequence of, or (at the least) in accordance with, the ordination of God (see Isa 45:7; Amo 3:6). Jesus Christ has taught us that the smallest incident cannot happen without Divine permission; much less (as he wishes us to infer)any serious trial to the people of God (Luk 12:6).
II. THAT THE DIVINE AIM IS DOUBLY BENEFICENT.
1. Our refinement. “I have refined thee.” God refines its by passing us through the furnace of affliction, and he does this not for his advantage”not for silver “but for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness (see Heb 12:10). By the distresses of the soul the dross of worldliness, of selfishness, of trust in temporal securities or in human alliances, of sensuous indulgence, is purged away, and the pure gold of piety and purity is left. Our heavenly Father resorts to this refining process in one of two cases.
(1) When he sees us falling under the power of temptation, and finds our Christian character becoming alloyed with error and evil.
(2) When he wants agents of the highest kind for the noblest work on earth or in heaven, and knows that no abundance of privilege will purify and perfect as will the refining discipline of his own hand. It is a real and important feature of the Divine beneficence that in parental chastisement God is seeking:
2. His exaltation in the minds of men. “For mine own sake will I do it: for how should my Name be polluted,” etc.? It is to the interest of his creation, in the very highest degree, that God’s Name should be exalted, that the glory which is his due should not be paid to another. For:
(1) False worship shows a constant tendency to decline in the worthiness of its objects. When men abandon the service of the living God, and “go alter Baal,” they pursue a downward course; they go from the high to the less high, from the low to the lower, from the lower to the lowest; until they worship devils.
(2) The character of the Deity men adore is always reflected in that of its devotees: as is the god so is the idolater. We have the highest interest in rendering our homage to the righteous Father of all, and any discipline that weans us from any kind of idolatry renders us priceless service. If God regards the well-being of his creation, he cannot give his glory to another.
III. THAT WE MUST ACTIVELY CO–OPERATE WITH HIM, OR HIS PURPOSE, WILL BE DEFEATED. (See 2Co 7:10.)C.
Isa 48:17-19
Human freedom and Divine regret.
In these fervent and eloquent words of the prophet we learn
I. THAT GOD DESIGNS GOOD AND EVEN GREAT THINGS FOR THE OBEDIENT. If Israel had only been obedient to the Divine commandment, it would have rejoiced in:
1. Abounding prosperity. Its peace (prosperity) would have been “as a river,” flowing on continuously, without break, night and day, generation after generation. Victory in war and fruitfulness in the field would have been their happy heritage (see Psa 81:13-16). This is the offer which Christ makes to his obedient disciples. Not that prosperity always comes to the Christian disciple in the shape of “increase of corn and wine;” but it does come in one form if not in anotheroften in the shape of indwelling peace and overflowing joy when the home is of the humblest and the lot of the hardest kind.
2. Advancing rectitude. Its righteousness would have been “as the waves of the sea,” coming on and coming in with steady, irresistible flow. Righteousness is an incomparably greater blessing than prosperity: To be a “righteous nation” is to be vastly more than a triumphant or wealthy nation. Christ promises to those who are the true subjects of his kingdom that their blest heritage shall be “righteousness as well as peace and joy in the Holy Ghost;” spiritual rectitude; the heart in its true and loyal attitude towards God, towards man, towards truth and life.
3. Abiding influence. (Isa 48:19.)
II. THAT WE ARE LEFT FEARFULLY FREE TO THWART HIS GRACIOUS PURPOSE. Jehovah laments that Israel had forfeited its heritage, had used its freedom to disobey, had cut itself off from his generous design (Isa 48:18). What God would gladly have bestowed, the foolish nation had resolved to refuse. Such power of choice has the Creator given to his creature, man. And what fearful use has man made of this his freedom! It is not Israel alone that has elected to forego splendid opportunities. What might not Rome have been, and Egypt, and those European lands to which the knowledge of the gospel has been carried! It is not too late to askWhat may not England be? The record of her history is not yet complete; her sands are not yet run; her gate of opportunity is not yet closed. She may yet rise to the height of her privilege, as she may yet sink grievously and fatally beneath it. With the same solemn and awful; freedom every individual soul is invested by its Creator. Every one of us is at liberty to thwart his gracious purpose if we choose; at liberty also to realize it, in all its glorious fulness, if we will.
III. THAT OUR DISOBEDIENCE AND DISINHERITANCE ARE A SOURCE OF DIVINE REGRET. Do we not hear an undertone of deep sorrow in this lament? Our heavenly Father, our Divine Friend, regards the sad abuse of our freedom with a sorrow which is all his own. The human parent who has been deeply disappointed in the character and career of his beloved child is likely to have the truest insight into the grief of God when he witnesses our rejection of his truth and grace. But as “God only knows the love of God,” so he only knows the depth and fulness of his grief.
IV. THAT WE MAY RECOVER ALL IF WE LISTEN WHEN GOD SPEAKS AGAIN. The Holy One is our Redeemer: he “teaches us to profit;” he “leads us in the way,” etc. (Isa 48:17). He comes in holy discipline, in fatherly correction, to call us from our folly, to save us from our sin. If we will only know the profitableness of his redeeming truth, we may be restored and reinstated; we may yet wear the robe and the ring of sonship, and sit down at the Father’s board.C.
Isa 48:22
Peace: appearance and reality.
“There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.” We may look at
I. THE ANTECEDENT LIKELIHOOD that there would be none. For the wicked are:
1. In rebellion against the Lord of all righteousness and power; i.e. against one who is bound to visit sin with penalty and who is able to do so.
2. In an element of disturbance and disorder. They are in a wrong and false position; they are in a sphere which is unnatural and unlawful; they stand where storms may be anticipated, where calms are things to be surprised at and suspected.
II. THE DELUSIVE APPEARANCE of peace in the case of the unrighteous. It is continually happening that ungodly men, that unbelieving men, that even vicious men, spend lives of domestic comfort, prosper in the calling in which they are engaged, are untroubled in their conscience for considerable periods of time, die without great alarm or even serious apprehension. It often appears as if there were peace to the wicked. These facts, however, are consistent with
III. THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that guilt and peace are never found together. It is not only true:
1. That crime is almost always attended with a haunting dread of exposure and penalty.
2. That vice and irreligion are commonly associated with a sense of guilt and with the rebukings of conscience. But it is also true:
3. That no guilty soul can possibly have that in his heart which deserves the name of peace. He may have insensibility or false security; but these are not peace. Peace is the blessed calm which belongs to a consciousness of rectitude before God; it is the possession of those alone who are right with God, and who believe that they are so. No hardihood, no delusion, can confer this. A man who is living apart from God, unreconciled to him, unaccepted by him, must be destitute of the peace of God-of the peace which Christ gives to his own.C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Isa 48:1, Isa 48:2
The offence of insincerity.
“Not in truth, nor in righteousness.” The prophet mentions the usual outward marks of the true Israelite; but, in the case of those whom he addressed, these were mere formalities, they were disconnected from a personal and living faith in God. These people said they were Jews, but they were not. Their professions could not stand the examinations of the Heart-searcher. To the good manand how much more to the great and holy God!insincerity is absolutely offensive; we have scarcely even pity for the man who has no reality of life and feeling to match his professions, whose words do not represent his heart. Unspeakably painful to the prophet must have been the condition of the many Jews in his day, and in his pleading the ideal attributes of Israel are pressed in contrast with their actual state of hypocrisy and unrighteousness. “How high their profession soared! what a fair show they made in the flesh! and how far they went towards heaven! what a good livery they wore! and what a good face they put upon a very bad heart!” (Matthew Henry). On the subjects of insincerity and hypocrisy there is much familiar teaching, which needs constant repetition. We only suggest two points.
I. INSINCERITY IS SOMETIMES A DRIFT. We get into it, and it becomes a confirmed condition we scarcely know how; we are not conscious of having exercised any will in the matter. With some there is a great idea of “keeping up appearances,” and the effort to do this tends to nourish insincere habits and ways. And sometimes we are carried into expressions of religious feeling and experience that are quite beyond us, by surroundings of religious excitement; and the pleasure of the insincere fascinates us. We drift into this evil by the use of sensational hymns, and by listening to ecstatic religious experiences; and there is no graver danger besetting the Church of our day than this tendency to nourish the insincere in the expressions of religious life. God’s reproaches fall on many who think themselves very holy, but whose professions are not really matched by heart and life.
II. INSINCERITY IS SOMETIMES A SCHEME. Then it is a shame and disgrace, and brings us under the overwhelming judgments of God. Illustrate by Judas Iscariot. For selfish ends men determine to keep up before the world all the appearances of piety, when they know that the life of piety has died out of their souls. Christ’s sternest words were spoken to conscious and purposed hypocrites, those “whited sepulchres, fall of dead men’s bones.” In view, then, of the danger of drifting into insincerity, and of the sin of scheming to be insincere, every good man will watch and strive and pray against the evil, lest, in some subtle form, it should assail and overcome him.R.T.
Isa 48:4
Obstinacy.
The figures used are the stiff, unbending neck, that will yield to no persuasions; and the hard brow that can resist, as does the brow of the butting animal. The point which may be variously illustrated and enforced is that such obstinacy is a result of previous conduct. The obstinacy that is only a stubbornness of natural disposition can be dealt with efficiently by educational methods. The obstinacy which results from prolonged moral conditions is well-nigh irremediable, and brings a man under crushing Divine judgments.
I. THE BEGINNING OF MORAL OBSTINACY IS A LOSS OF SPIRITUAL SENSIBILITY. The proper attitude before God is one of openness, humility, and self-distrust. The renewed soul is delicately sensitive to every expression of the Divine will, and to everything that is in harmony with the Divine mind. And the maintaining of that sensitiveness is absolutely essential to the keeping of right relations with God. Piety is closely akin to meekness and gentleness. It loves to obey, to follow, to be led. We have no will but God’s will for us. To lose this “sensibility” is grave danger. It is to step on a slippery slide. Therefore should we “keep our heart with all diligence,” and be most jealous over those various spiritual influences that help to make our hearts more tender.
II. SUCH LOST SENSIBILITY MAY BE RECOVERED. At least in the earlier stages of it. But our peril lies precisely in this, that it is a very subtle form of spiritual disease, and, like some forms of bodily disease, it does not plainly show itself until it has gained strength, and gripped us with a firm hold. Our best sign of the presence of the evil is fading pleasure in Christian worship and devotion. We are in danger if we have lost the joy out of our religious duties and associations; and we should seek at once for the recovery of tone and fervour.
III. SUCH LOST SENSIBILITY MAY PASS INTO SELF–RELIANCE. It certainly will if earnest efforts toward recovery are not made. The man who feels he is getting to be alone will try to stand alone. He who looses the hand that steadied him will try to walk steadily by himself. He who refuses to humble himself and recover his lost place will puff himself up with pride and vain confidences.
IV. SUCH SELF–RELIANCE IS IN DANGER OF BECOMING HOPELESS OBSTINACY. The man who persists in forcing his own way finds that ever fresh strength must be put into the forcing, until, like Pharaoh of old, he becomes hardened to resist even God’s judgments.R.T.
Isa 48:9
God’s supreme motive.
“For my Name’s sake I defer mine anger, and for my praise I am temperate towards thee, not to cut thee off” (Cheyne’s translation). It may seem strange that God did not utterly destroy the Jews as a nation, in his just indignation at their unfaithfulness, hypocrisy, and rebellion. God here explains the supreme reason which led him to deal so considerately with them. He was under covenant engagements with them. His Name and honour were pledged to the maintenance of the covenant. Overwhelming severities would have produced wrong impressions concerning God among the nations around. His Name would be dishonoured in their view. And it was of the utmost importance that this should not be, because, in good time, these heathen were to become subjects of the one Divine King. Junius very truly says, “Even legal punishments lose all appearance of justice when too strictly inflicted on men compelled by the last extremity of distress to incur them.” (For God’s Name, see Exo 34:6, Exo 34:7.) For a New Testament plea, drawn from the jealousy for the honour of the Divine Name, recall the sentence, “Though we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.” It may be shown that
I. GOD IS SEVERE, FOR THE SAKE OF HIS HONOUR. That he may not be blasphemed, and represented as indifferent to the obedience offered to his commandments. “Behold the severity of God,” which should be a theme of admiration, and a bulwark of confidence to us.
II. GOD IS PATIENT, FOR THE SAKE OF HIS HONOUR. In order that he might reveal himself as the Good, and win confidence. “Behold the goodness of God,” into which we may run and find shelter. See the Name of God as revealed to Moses. The most marvellous triumphs over human self-willedness are won by patient mercy, Divine long-suffering. Forbearance and enduring love are some of the sweetest things in the Divine Name.
A more subtle course of thought is indicated by the following two divisions.
I. GOD IS ANXIOUS THAT MEN SHOULD HONOUR HIS NAME. And this anxiety he cherishes for their sakes. It is supremely important that men should have high thoughts of God.
II. GOD IS ANXIOUS TO BE FOUND TRUE TO HIS OWN NAME. And this anxiety he cherishes for his own sake; for his rest involves the sense of being true to himself.R.T.
Isa 48:10
The refining power of affliction.
The likeness of Divine dealings to the refining of metals by fire is somewhat frequent in Scripture. In this passage there is a qualification which is peculiar. God’s message, through his prophet, is, “Behold, I have refined thee, but not as silver.“ There was evidently something unusual about the treatment of silver, and we get some idea as to what it was from an expression of the psalmist (Psa 12:6), “The words of the Lord are pure words” as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.“ In the case of silver great severity and many repetitions were necessary. Had God treated Israel with the severity due to its iniquity, it must have been cut off. He therefore reined in, restrained, qualified his auger, and corrected them only “in measure.” “God would refine them, but not so thoroughly as men refine their silver, which they continue in the furnace till all the dross is separated from it; if God should take that course with them, they would be always in the furnace, for they are all dross, and, as such, might justly be put away, as reprobate silver. He therefore takes them as they are, refined in part only, and not thoroughly.” “The art of smelting ore, which must have been known to the Israelites from the time of their sojourning in Egypt, but had, probably, been brought into fresh prominence through intercourse with the Phoenicians and with Sheba, is here used as an illustration. Wonderful as is the separation of the pure metal from the dross with which it has mingled, there is something yet more wonderful in the Divine discipline which purifies the good that lies hid, like a grain of gold, even in rough and common natures, and frees it from all admixture of evil” (‘Speaker’s Commentary’). Dr. Guthrie says, “It is rough work that polishes. Look at the pebbles on the shore! Far inland, where some arm of the sea thrusts itself deep into the besom of the land, and, expanding into a salt loeb, lies girdled by the mountains, sheltered from the storms that agitate the deep, the pebbles on the beach are rough, not beautiful, angular, not rounded. It is where long white lines of breakers roar, and the rattling shingle is rolled about the strand, that its pebbles are rounded and polished. As in nature, as in the arts, so in grace; it is rough treatment that gives souls as well as stones their lustre; the more the diamond is cut, the brighter it sparkles; and in what seems hard dealing their God has no end in view but to perfect his people’s graces. Our Father, and the kindest of fathers, he afflicts not willingly; he sends tribulations, but hear St. Paul tell their purpose: ‘”Tribulation worketh patience, patience experience, experience hope.'”
I. GOD‘S PURPOSE CONCERNING HIS PEOPLE. This may be expressed in the word “redemption,” which means much more than rescue from peril. It means deliverance from all evil, and more especially from the evil within. The full idea of God’s purpose is best realized through the purpose concerning her child of a saintly mother. She seeks her child’s redemption. She would have him delivered from his various evils, and established in goodness. That supreme purpose gives point and tone to all her dealings with him, and relations to him. As high as God is above the best of mothers, so much higher is God’s purpose concerning us than hers concerning her child. He would have us whiter than snow, whitened so as no earth-fuller can whiten.
II. GOD‘S DEALINGS IN WORKING OUT HIS PURPOSE.
1. His supreme aim is kept in view in his ordinary everyday dealings. This we do not adequately keep in mind. We see God in the few great things, but not in the thousandfold little things. And yet the preciousness of life in God’s lead lies in our confidence that he is working by small and continuing influences, making all work for good.
2. His purpose is wrought through all dealings that are of a satisfactory character. We easily miss observing this. God is in all the good things that please us. He works in and through our joysthrough human love, through beauty, grace, wisdom, society, friendship, success; and makes the pleasant things of life become man’s severest testing.
3. His purpose is further accomplished through disciplinary dealings. This is so familiar a topic that its illustration may be left to the preacher.
III. GOD‘s AGENTS THROUGH WHOM HE WORKS HIS HOLY WILL. They may be things or they may be persons. The point is that they can be presented under the figure of fire, and their influence can be indicated by the action of fire. This may be opened out by showing
(1) that fire causes suffering;
(2) fire separates;
(3) fire finds out what is worthless;
(4) fire cleanses;
(5) fire is a continuing force;
(6) fire can take different degrees of force.
God’s agents may be
(1) men;
(2) things;
(3) circumstances.
Any one, anything, into which God can put a refining force. Each one of us may be one of God’s refining forces, for those with whom we have to do; and at the same time, each one of us is under the refining influence of others for our own purifying.
IV. GOD‘S QUALIFICATIONS IN THE PROCESS OF HIS WORK. This is the point more especially presented in the text. God does not treat Israel in the severe way in which silver is treated by the refiner. He knows his metal; he knows what each can bear. He never suffers us to be tested above that we are able to bear. He damps down the fires when they blaze too high. He never goes beyond our strength. Because we have this conviction so settled into our souls, therefore we can let God undertake for us; refining in his own ways, and securing at last his own pure image in the cleared metal.R.T.
Isa 48:18
The blessings of obedience.
“O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” What might have been! How often we reproach ourselves with thinking over the “might have beens”! How searching it is to find God helping us regretfully to realize what might have been (comp. Psa 81:13-16)! “Peace” and “righteousness” here both stand as terms to express “prosperity,” that best of prosperities which comes as the manifestation of Jehovah’s righteousness or fidelity to his promises. The figures used may be thus explained: if they had been faithful to their covenants their national prosperity would have followed on, age after age, like the ceaseless current, day and night, of a noble river. If they had been obedient, they would have mastered all forms of difficulty and opposition with a resistless power like that which belongs to the waves of the sea. The time of exile in Babylon was a sad break in the national prosperity. There would have been no occasion for it if Israel had been faithful and obedient J.A. Alexander says, “Nothing could well be more appropriate at the close of this division of the prophecies than such an affecting statement of the truth, so frequently propounded in didactic form already, that Israel, although the chosen people of Jehovah, and as such secure from total ruin, was and was to be a sufferer, not from any want of faithfulness or care on God’s part, but as the necessary fruit of its own imperfections and corruptions.” Two of the blessings that always follow on obedience are indicated herethey are permanence and power.
I. PERMANENCE AS A RESULT OF OBEDIENCE. This is one of the most marked impressions made on sensitive minds by the sight of the full-flowing river, especially in Eastern lands, where it is, in such a marked way, contrasted with the mountain wadies that are sometimes dry and at other times roaring with flood. The river flows on for ever. Men come and go. Cities rise and fall into decay on its banks. Commerce now uses and now neglects it. Dynasties last their little while. The river flowed on ages ago just as it flows now; it will flow still, when we have “had our little day and cease to be.” So nothing can occur to stop the current of true prosperity in the obedient. “Patient continuance in well-doing” involves continued conditions of well-being. “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
II. POWER AS A RESULT OF OBEDIENCE. The steady advance of the tide is an impressive illustration of quiet, persistent power. The rush of the wind-driven wave is the illustration of majestic masterful power. He that does the will of God overcomes himself; and he who overcomes himself need never fear that he will meet a mightier foe.R.T.
Isa 48:18
Christ’s peace and righteousness.
Illustrating the meditative and spiritualizing method of treating prophetic Scripture, the following outline, after R. M. McCheyne, is given.
I. THEIR PEACE WOULD HAVE BEEN AS A RIVER.
1. It has a source. It begins at the fountain of Christ’s blood.
2. It is fed from above. Rains and showers feed the rivers. The shower of grace feeds the rivers of peace.
3. It has inundations, as the Nile. An awakening providence often makes it overflow. Afflictions and the consolations under them always, if the sufferings are the sufferings of Christ. Sacramental times also; hence the desirableness of frequency in the administration of the Lord’s Supper.
4. It gets broader and broader to the sea. Illustrate by such a river as the Tay. “The path of the just is like the shining light”
5. It is fertilizing. It conveys nourishment. Egypt owes all its fertility to the Nile. The peace of Christ makes every grace grow. Holiness always grows out of a peaceful breast.
II. THEIR RIGHTEOUSNESS WOULD HAVE BEEN AS THE WAVES OF THE SEA. The righteousness of Christ is compared to the waves of the sea, because:
1. It covers over the highest sins.
2. It covers again and again.
3. It is infinite righteousness.
You cannot count the waves of the sea. Application. God wants men to be saved. God sometimes pleads with men to be saved for his own pleasure; it would be pleasant to him; it would make him glad, as in the parable of the lost sheep. Sometimes he pleads for his own glory (Jer 13:16; Mal 2:1). But here it is for the happiness of sinners themselves (Psa 81:13). And he pleads with men, because unwilling that any should perish (2Pe 3:9).R.T.
Isa 48:22
The unrest of the wicked.
“There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the ungodly.” There may be what the world calls success and prosperity, without peace. Peace is an inward state and condition. It is not a matter of circumstance, but of mood. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.” It is not a specially sent threatening, that there shall be no peace to the wicked; it is the permanently appointed Divine arrangement. By the constitution of things there can be no peace to the wicked”no peace with God, or their own consciences, no real good, whatever is pretended to.” It may be urged that the ungodly have no inward peace, because
I. OF THE DISSATISFACTION WHICH WICKEDNESS BRINGS. Bad men cannot rest in their badness, cannot regard it with pleasure. They want to get away from it to something else. A new excitement alone can clear away the thought of old sins. That is the saddest thing for the wilful and wayward manhe can never be happy in his wrong-doing. Excited he may be, never restful.
II. OF THE SMITINGS WHICH CONSCIENCE GIVES. For though a man may gag and stifle Conscience, she will find her way to speak. The one thing absolutely impossible to the most wilful man is the silencing of Conscience. She has a way of waking up, and looking daggers when we think she is dead. If a man will force his own way against God, he must take into account that, as long as he lives, he shall have no peace; for he shall fight daily against his own conscience. It will lie down with him; it will go forth with him.
III. OF THE FEARS WHICH WICKEDNESS SUGGESTS. There are always consequences to actions. Every act is a cause. Every result is appropriate to its cause. Sow to the flesh, and you must reap corruption. The bad man fears
(1) the circumstances which his wilfulness may create;
(2) the enmities which his wilfulness may excite;
(3) the future in which all the power maynay, mustlie in the hands of the God he insults. Wherever the ungodly man walks he can know no real peace; “fears are in the way.”
IV. OF THE DISTURBANCES OF THE DIVINE ORDER WHICH HIS SELF–WILL OCCASIONS. There is a Divine order; and it involves the very highest well-beingup to its capacityof every creature, great and small. That order is based upon man’s obedient and submissive harmony with God’s will. This the wicked man refuses, and so this order the wicked man breaks. Alas! spoiling the peace, not for himself alone, but for all with whom he has to do. The everlasting peace will come when we are “all righteous,” and not a moment before.R.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Isa 48:1-2. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob These verses contain a just and solemn address to the Jewish people; who, though by their profession and external worship seeming to cultivate the true religion, to call God their God, and to depend upon him, yet were obstinately incredulous, extremely inclined to idolatry, and little regardful of those prophesies which Isaiah and other true prophets delivered to them. The meaning of the phrase, Are come forth out of the waters of Judah, is very evident from Deu 33:28. Num 24:6-7. Numerous nations are frequently compared in Scripture to wide extending rivers, and their progenitors sometimes to a sacred stream bursting out of a rock, and sometimes by prosopopoeia to a river, as if it were a person pouring his waters out of an urn. The attributes of the Jewish people here enumerated, are peculiarly accommodated to the prophet’s main scope and design in this chapter.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
IX.THE NINTH DISCOURSE
Recapitulation and Conclusion
Isaiah 48
This chapter reproduces the chief ingredients of the foregoing discourses from chap. 40. on. By this brief recapitulation, it aims at a mighty effect on the spirits of the hearers by means of a total impression. A glorious redemption, analogous to that wrought by Moses, is presented to the view of the people of the Exile, from whose blessings, of course, the wicked are excluded. The last-named thought recurs like a refrain after nine more chapters, at the close of chap. 57. All this shows that in chap. 48. we have before us the concluding discourse of the first third.
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1. THE ADDRESS GIVING THE MOTIVE
Isa 48:1-2
1Hear ye this, O house of Jacob,
Which are called by the name of Israel,
And are come forth out of the waters of Judah,
Which swear by the name of the Lord,
And make mention of the God of Israel,
But not in truth, nor in righteousness.
2For they call themselves of the holy city,
And stay themselves upon the God of Israel;
The Lord of hosts is his name.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The Prophet begins his recapitulation by designating the object of his address which he describes as that nation which descended from Jacob-Israel, more nearly from Judah, but in respect to religion officially confessed Jehovah as its God (Isa 48:1), for it is the nation that has the holy city of Jehovah for its central point, and all whose permanence is objectively founded on Jehovah (Isa 48:2). With this the Prophet has designated all the particulars that explain the unique interest of Jehovah in precisely this people.
2. Hear ye thishis name.
Isa 48:1-2. comp. Isa 48:16; Isa 47:8; Isa 51:21. Jacob was the natural name of the second son of Isaac, Israel was his spiritual name, according to Gen 32:2 sq.; Isa 35:10. In the same manner, too, house of Jacob will designate the nation according to its natural descent, whereas the same nation bears the name Israel as heir of the spiritual significance of its ancestor. But when the Prophet so addressed the nation it was no longer entire. The Ten Tribes were become the prey of an exile of immeasurable duration, with no hope of immediate deliverance. The promise of deliverance by Cyrus relates only to the people of the kingdom of Judah, thus chiefly only to those who are come forth out of the waters of Judah. The expression is a designation of the semen virile as in (Gen 19:37 comp. on Isa 15:2 and Isa 25:10). In the same sense is used Num 24:7; Psa 68:27; Pro 5:16; Pro 5:18. This people, descended from Jacob and Judah, and thus dear to the Lord for the fathers sakes (Rom 11:28) was bound to Him by still another tie: Israel swore by the name of Jehovah (Deu 6:13; Deu 10:20). That was continually a confession to Jehovah and an acknowledgment of His godhead (Isa 45:23), but it was not necessarily an act of true living faith. Knowledge and approval sufficed for that, to speak dogmatically. The case was similar with making mention of God, i.e., making by means of God (comp. ). Whoever performs an act of remembrance (in praise and acknowledgment), by naming Jehovah (comp. Jos 23:7; Psa 20:8; Amo 6:10), lays down, indeed, a praiseworthy confession to Jehovah, but this may happen in a very outward and lifeless way. Israel ought not to take the names of idols in its mouth even (Exo 23:13). In contrast with this, every honorable mention of Jehovah, indeed every naming of His name that was joined with suitable reverence was a confession to Him, hence it is not necessary to understand by a solemn ascription of praise, though such is not to be excluded. Just because this swearing and mention could and did happen without living faith, the Prophet adds: not in truth and not in righteousness. But how could the people of Judah, though inwardly fallen away, still outwardly confess the name of Jehovah, except they were in a manner stamped with the name of the city in which is the sanctuary of Jehovah? As long as Jerusalem is accounted the worthy dwelling of Jehovahand it is so accounted even in the worst times, as that Jer 7:4 provesso long He is still recognized as God. Hence the Prophet can say, that Israel swears by Jehovah because it calls itself by the name of the city of its sanctuary. It seems to me that the expression common in Jeremiah has its roots in this view. Moreover the expression occurs here for the first time. It occurs beside only Isa 52:1; Neh 11:1; Neh 11:18; Dan 9:24. The Prophet assigns as a second reason for what is said Isa 48:1 b, that those there named are stayed or grounded upon the God of Israel. For may not be taken subjectively=to stay oneself, niti, confidere, for not in truth and not in righteousness directly denies that Israel has the proper confidence. It is Jehovah that objectively raises and bears Israel by His election, and continued protection and support.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa 48:2. Innitebantur Israelitae urbi Hierosolymae et templo, cui Deus se sua cum praesentia gratiosa addixerat (Psa 132:13-14). Huic autem fiduciae propheta opponit ejus vanitatem. Nos inde petimus adversus pontificios, qui papas suos continua successione ex apostolo Petro tanquam fonte perenni profluxisse, Romaeque in cathedra Petri sedisse et adhuc sedere gloriosissime jactitant. Sed hanc jactationem hoc loco confutat propheta. Nos addimus hasce patrum sententias. Nazianzenus in orat. de laudibus Athan.: Qui in pietate succedit, in cathedra vera succedit; qui autem contrariam tenet sententiam, in contraria sedet cathedra. Hieronymus referente Gratiano in jure pontifico part. 1 decr. dist. 40 Song of Solomon 2 : Non est facile stare loco Pauli et tenere gratiam Petri cum Christo in coelis regnantium. Hinc dicitur. sancti non sunt qui tenent loca sanctorum, sed qui faciunt opera sanctorum. Foerster.
2. On Isa 48:7. Create means here to reveal something; what hitherto, so to speak, was still a nothing, or something unconjectured and unknown to all men, but was on the other hand shut up and concealed in Gods knowledge. Starke. Tunc res dicitur fieri, quando incipit manifestius patefieri. Augustinus, referente Lombardo, I. 3, dist. 18. Foerster.
3. On Isa 48:8. Fiunt, non nascuntur Christiani said that same Tertullian, that designates the soul of a man as a naturalitur christiana. There is no contradiction. For one would neither become a Christian, did he not bear in himself the possibility of it, nor would the possibility alone suffice for the becoming. From the grain of corn alone without the fruit-bearing ground, rain and sunshine, there will come no ears; and just as little from the ground, rain and sunshine alone without the grain of corn.
4. On Isa 48:17-18. Est insignis locus, qui nobis verbum commendat et minatur impiis verbi contemtoribus omnia mala. Luther.
5. On Isa 48:20. Babylon has a double meaning: 1) the world; 2) the anti-Christian kingdom. We should go out of the world by not having our walk according to it (1Jn 2:15; 1Pe 4:3; Jam 4:4). So, too, we ought to flee the anti-Christian Babylon according to the voice from heaven, Rev 18:5. Cramer.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa 48:1-2. We, for our part, are also quite fallen into Jewish security. For we take great comfort from this, that we know, that we have Gods word simple and pure, and the same is indeed highly to be praised and valued. But it is not enough for one to have the word. One ought and must live according to it, then will God make account of us. But where one lives without the fear of God and in sin, and hears the word without amendment, there God will punish all the harder, as Christ shows in the parable of the servant that knew his Lords will and did it not. Therefore one should let go such fleshly confidence, and labor to live in the fear of God, and hold faithfully to His word. Then if we fall into distress and pray for deliverance, it will surely be granted to us. But those who brag about God as do the Jews, and yet fear Him not, nor will live according to His word, will boast in vain. God will single them out and punish them as He did the Jews. For these two things must go together: trusting God, and fearing God. Neither can be right without the other. If thou fearest not God, thou becomest proud and presumptuous as the Jews. But if thou believest not, and only fearest, thou wilt become anxious and fall into despair. Therefore the Psalm says: The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy, Psa 147:10. Veit Dietrich.
2. [On Isa 48:3-8. The doctrine of providence supported by prophecy. 1) The method stated Isa 48:3; Isa 48:6; Isa 7:2) The reasons for Gods taking this method with them. a. He knew how obstinate they would be (Isa 48:4). b. How deceitful they would be. c. That they would be giving His glory to idols (Isa 48:5). After M. Henry.].
3. On Isa 47:9-11. The divine discipline of children. 1) Its course of procedure: a. God is patient (Isa 47:9); b. God punishes severely (Isa 47:10). 2) Its aims: a. God is patient a. for the sake of His honor (in order to reveal Himself as the good); . for our sakes (Isa 47:9 b that we may not be exterminated); b. God is severe a. for the sake of His honor (that He may not be blasphemed, Isa 47:11); . for our sakes (that we may be purified and confirmed in the furnace of affliction).
4. On Isa 48:17-19. That is our most blessed knowledge that we know God through His self-witness, and who, as one veiled, speaks from the prophets as the One Eternal Prophet; as the reflected splendor of the invisible Divinity that became flesh and blood in Jesus, and is now as our Brother constantly with us. Yea, blessed and forever safe is he that pays heed to Gods testimony of the very gracious condescension of God to us! God makes such heedful ones forever at peace in Himself, whose peace becomes overflowing and overwhelming as a river, because God in it imparts to us pardon and justification. Our righteousness in God is as waves of the sea, that continually swell up in great abundance, for Gods grace that works in us and accomplishes our righteousness is, in fact, infinite. Dost thou lack peace and righteousness, then believe assuredly that the only reason is that thou hast despised the word of thy God. Yea, whoever stablishes himself in God by believing acceptance of His word, he is forever established, and also has eternal bloom. He belongs to the innumerable family of God, that moves on through all times. How can he ever want for posterity? J. Diedrich.
5. On Isa 48:20. So God is wont to do: when the enemies of the churches pull hardest on the rope, it must break. We should mark this well, and comfort ourselves by it. For else we will become faint-hearted and despond, when matters go so ill. Veit Dietrich.
6. On Isa 48:20-22. Israels Egyptian and Babylonian captivity is a type of the church in the world, and of individual believing souls in the body of this death. But we are to a certain degree ourselves to blame for the pressure of this captivity. There is even very much that holds us back to the flesh-pots of Egypt. We are often wanting in proper love for the one thing needful, in proper faith, in courage, in fidelity, in diligence in good works. Yet the Lord has deprived the devil of his power. The enemy is even really conquered already; ein Woertlein kann ihn faellen. Hence the Christian must be exhorted to depart from Babylon courageously and intrepidly. This the Prophet does in our text. We see in it a warning call to depart out of Babylon. 1) The possibility of going out is a. objectively presented by redemption that is by Jesus Christ; but b. depends subjectively on our love to God and our faith. 2) The return home is difficult, indeed, as it was with Israel. It is through deserts of distress and danger. But God will not forsake His own. The spiritual rock (1Co 10:4) follows along with them. 3) At home, with the Lord, in communion with Him, they find peace, whereas the wicked nowhere and never shall find peace, not even in all the power, splendor and glory of this world.
7. [On Isa 48:22. The wicked, as a matter of sober truth and verity, have no permanent and substantial peace and joy. (1) In the act of wickedness; (2) in the business or the pleasures of life; (3) no peace of conscience; (4) on a death-bed; (5) there is often not only no peace, but the actual reverse, apprehension; despair: (6) beyond the grave, a sinner Can have no peace at the judgment bar of God; he Can have no peace in hell. Abbreviated from Barnes.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
As the foregoing Chapter treated particularly of Babylon, so this hath a peculiar respect to the house of Israel. The Lord, in opening to the house of Jacob a view of their sins, plainly and fully shows, that all the blessings bestowed upon Israel were the pure result of grace.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The Lord opens the Chapter with a call upon his people: He graciously sets forth in what light they stood among the nations. In profession, they were indeed his people, and from the covenant relationship in which they stood to God, they denominated him as their Lord, and themselves as the holy city. But, in the midst of this high profession, and these distinguishing advantages, their hearts were not right with him, they had a name to live, but were virtually dead before God. Reader! think how prone, in all ages, the people of God have been to depart from him. Do you not, in the present hour, feel what Paul felt, and groan as he did? Rom 7:15 , etc.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
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?”
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
XX
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 12
Isaiah 46-48
The general theme of these chapters is the victory over idolatry; the fall of Babylon and its idols. The special theme of Isa 46 is “The Overthrow of the Gods of Babylon.”
There are two of the Babylonian deities named in Isa 46:1-2 , Bel and Nebo. Bel, the local representation of Baal, the Phoenician sun-god, is identified with Merodach and, in the BabyIonian astrology, he is connected with the planet, Jupiter. Bel appears in several names of the Babylonian princes, as in Belshazzar and Belteshazzar. Nebo, the Babylonian god of learning, the son of Merodach, was the messenger of their gods to men. He is thought by some to have been connected with the planet, Mercury. Nebo, appears, also, in the names of their princes, as in Nebopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, and Nebuzaradan. According to Herodotus there was a golden statue of Bel in the temple of Belus, twelve cubits high, which was carried away by Xerxes.
The picture here in these two verses is that of the conquered gods bowing to their victors. Now instead of being borne lightly along in the procession they are borne away on beasts of burden. These gods and their subjects together go into captivity.
In Isa 46:3-7 we have a contrast with the preceding picture of the captives of Babylon bearing their gods away on beasts of burden. Here Jehovah pictures himself bearing his people. They have been borne by him from their birth, and will be borne by him down to old age and to hoary hairs. This reminds us of the stanza in “How Firm a Foundation,” which embodies this truth and the sentiment of which was taken from this passage. Then the prophet follows with another description of the process of making a god. This time it is the process of molding it rather than shaping it out of wood. But the results are the same. They fall down and worship it. They pray unto it but it cannot answer, nor save them out of trouble. So the contrast between Jehovah and idols is this: Jehovah bears his people, but the idols have to be borne by their people; Jehovah saves his people out of their troubles, but the idols cannot save out of trouble.
The exhortation to the transgressors of Israel found in Isa 46:8-10 is an exhortation to remember. The first thing to remember is “this,” which refers to the contrast between Jehovah and idols. Since Jehovah bears Israel, then let Israel show themselves men. The marginal reading here is “stand firm.” This reminds us of the conflict on Mount Carmel between Jehovah and Baal. Elijah said, “Why go limping between two opinions? If Jehovah is God serve him; if Baal, then serve him.” The people here were weak in their conviction and, doubtless, needed Just such an exhortation as this: “Stand firm for Jehovah, for he is the only God.” The prophet here also intimates that to waver between Jehovah and idols was transgression.
Remember the First and Second Commandments: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shall not make unto thee a graven image and bow thyself down to it.” Remember this is transgression. Then remember “the former things of old”: that Jehovah is God, and there is none else: that there is none like him; that he declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done. Remember that he is a God who foreknows all things and tells them beforehand, even things that are yet unfulfilled, O ye Radical Critics. Remember your former experiences, O House of Israel. How ye saw that Jehovah was the great and terrible God. It sounds like the war cry, “O ye Mexicans, Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” or Abraham’s voice across the impassable gulf, “Remember, son, remember that thou in thy lifetime hadst thy good things, and Lazarus, his evil things.” Remember, O remember. If God’s people and the world would only remember! “Remember, too, O Israel, that my counsel never fails and that I will do my pleasure; that I have already told you that I will call that ravenous bird, Cyrus, from the East, to do my counsel, and remember that what I have purposed I will do.”
The prophet closes this chapter with an exhortation to the stubborn in Israel, who were far from righteousness. Jehovah then announces the speedy approach of his righteous judgments upon the godless and his salvation in Zion for Israel.
The special theme of Isa 47 is “the overthrow of Babylon, the mistress of kingdoms.” This chapter is a song of triumph and divides itself into four stanzas, as follows: (1) Isa 47:1-4 ; (2) Isa 47:5-7 ; (3) Isa 47:8-11 ; (4) Isa 47:12-15 the first two commencing with a double imperative and the last two, with a single imperative.
Jehovah is the speaker all the way through except in Isa 47:4 which is a kind of parenthetical ejaculation by Isaiah and his God-given children, or, maybe a chorus in Israel.
There is here a call by Jehovah to Babylon, who boasted that she had never been captured, to come down from her lofty throne and sit in the dust. Babylon had hitherto been one of the chief seats of Oriental luxury, the glory of kingdoms and the beauty of the Chaldean excellency, the golden city. She was given to revelry and feasting, to mirth and drunkenness, to shameless licensed debauchery. All this must now be changed (Isa 47:1 ).
She was now to sit at the mill and grind like a slave. She must remove the veil, strip off the train, and uncover the leg to cross the streams, etc. This, of course, is taken from the figure of the female who had been taken captive, and represents the great humiliation that must come to the proud and luxurious Babylon, in which also no man shall be spared.
Isa 47:4 in this song, which is so different from the rest of it, is thought by some to be a marginal note of a sympathetic scribe, which has made its way by accident into the text. It is admittedly different from the rest of the song and its removal would artistically improve it. But it may be consistently retained as an outburst of the chorus upon recognizing their Redeemer, when they exclaim: “Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts, the Holy One of Israel.”
The first part of Isa 47:5 is an entreaty to the fallen people to hide their shame in silence and darkness, as disgraced persons do who shrink from being seen by their fellows.
Babylon was not mistress of the kingdoms in Isaiah’s time, or at any earlier period, unless at a very remote one. She had been subject to Assyria for centuries when Isaiah wrote, and it was ruled under Sennacherib by viceroys of his own appointment. The explanation then is that inspiration and prophetic foresight enabled Isaiah to see Babylon at the height of her glory, as in the days of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, when she had taken to herself the greatness of Assyria and ruled a large part of Western Asia.
The reason assigned for letting Israel go into captivity is that he was wroth with them, and therefore profaned them. They did not receive any mercy at the hand of the Chaldeans but they laid a heavy yoke upon the aged. This God will not tolerate and with man it is a mark of the crudest barbarism. The attitude of Christianity toward the aged is, Be kind to each other The night’s coming on, When friend and when brother Perchance will be gone.
An additional cause cited (Isa 47:7 ) is her pride and boastfulness. Without due consideration she said, “I shall be mistress forever.” This is true to the primary instincts of human nature. We confidently expect the sun to rise tomorrow because it has never failed yet to rise on a single day. Peter tells us that in the last days mockers will come, saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” And so the world goes on. Perhaps Babylon had more excuse for making such a boast than other nations. Her capital was one of the most ancient cities in the world. For two thousands years or more she had maintained a prominent position among the chief peoples of the earth, and had finally risen to a very proud eminence. But she ought to have remembered that all things come to an end, and to have so deported herself as not to have provoked God to anger. If the management and passengers of the Titanic had remembered this, one of the greatest disasters in the world, perhaps, would have been averted. But the boast of the “unsinkable” and the vainglory of the “world-beater” came to nought. “And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto heaven? thou shalt be brought down to hell.”
The characteristics of Babylon are set forth in Isa 47:8-11 as follows:
1. She was given to pleasures. Herodotus says that when. Cyrus invested the city the inhabitants made light of his siege and occupied their time in dancing and revelry.
2. She was self-confident. The evidence goes that, when Cyrus captured the city, very slight and insufficient preparations had been made for the defense of the city.
3. She was boastful. “I am, and there is none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children.”
4. She was conceited. “None seeth me.”
Jehovah made reply to these characteristics of the boastful city, thus:
1. Jehovah warns her that loss of children and widowhood should come upon her in a moment in one day, notwithstanding her multiplied sorceries and enchantments. This was fulfilled when Cyrus took the city 539 B.C. Then “in a moment” Babylon lost the whole of her prestige, ceased to reign, ceased to be an independent power, became a “widow,” had a portion of her population taken away from her, and was brought down in the dust.
2. Jehovah warns her that her wisdom and knowledge had perverted her, and that evil should come upon her unawares; that mischief should fall upon her that she should not be able to put away and that sudden desolation would overtake her unexpectedly.
The import of Isa 47:12-15 is “sorcery cannot remove the impending calamity” and the contest between their sorcery and Jehovah is precipitated by Jehovah’s challenge to the soothsayers and enchanters to the conflict pretty much in the same way that Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. There is a touch of irony in Isa 47:12-13 , which would paraphrase thus: “If Babylon uses all the resources of her magical art, perhaps she may succeed, who knows? Perhaps she may strike terror into the hearts of her assailants.”
The three terms, “astrologers,” “star-gazers,” and “prognosticators” in Isa 47:13 , do not mean three classes of persons, but rather the same class under three designations. “Astrologers” were dividers of the heavens; “star-gazers” were observers of the stars; and “monthly prognosticators” were almanac-makers. The astronomy of the Babylonians consisted (1) of dividing the heavens into constellations for purposes of study and comprehension; (2) of observing the sun, moon, and planets, noting eclipses, occultations, conjunctions, and the like, all of which was legitimate science; (3) of prognostication of events from the changing phenomena of the heavens. Almanacs were prepared and put forth in which these predictions were made and on these much dependence was placed. This phase of their work is called astrology, and is that which the prophet here ridicules.
The result of this contest here as foretold by the prophet is that these men and their means shall be as stubble, i.e., they will offer no more resistance to Jehovah than dry stubble offers to fire. It burns up so clean that there is not left a coal to warm at or sit before. This shall be such a complete desolation that the traders shall flee to their own countries and the commerce of the great and flourishing city shall be destroyed forever. The special theme of Isa 48 is the expostulations with, and exhortations to Israel in view of its stubbornness and impenitence. Its profession is indicated in Isa 48:1-2 by the expressions, “called by the name of Israel,” “swear by the name of Jehovah,” “make mention of the God of Israel,” “call themselves of the holy city,” and “stay themselves upon the God of Israel,” all of which indicate their adherence to the names and formalities of their religion. Their professions were loud but they were “not in truth, nor in righteousness.”
Jehovah here (Isa 48:3-11 ) reveals Israel’s characteristics, as obstinacy, stiff-neckedness, brazen-faced, dull of hearing, treacherous, and transgressing. These characteristics Jehovah endeavored to offset by revelations beforehand, in two cycles of predictions, the earlier and the later being reserved for the emergency of the occasion such as the present crisis in their history.
All these were not sufficient to save Israel, therefore, he, for his name’s sake, deferred the just punishment of destruction and put them in the furnace of affliction that he might purify them, at the same time save his own name from profanation and reserve the glory to himself.
The meaning and application of Isa 46:11 is that God had selected Israel out of all the nations of the earth to be his “peculiar” people, and having declared this he supported them by miracles in their struggles with other nations and peoples. Thus he was committed to protect and defend Israel “for his name’s sake,” lest his name should be blasphemed among the Gentiles. He had rolled away the reproach of Egypt when he landed them safe in Canaan, so that Egypt could never say that he had failed in his promise to Israel to carry them into their Promised Land. So now he must save his name from profanation by deferring his anger and chastising Israel. A great lesson is this. God’s people will not be utterly destroyed nor forsaken, but they cannot escape the Lord’s chastisements if they sin. He takes care of his name and his people at the same time. This is far-reaching in its application. All Jehovah’s promises to Israel, and the world through Israel) were at stake. Israel occupied an important position with respect to the scheme of salvation in its relation to the whole world, and therefore Jehovah could not let Israel go. He must refrain his anger, and preserve Israel through the furnace of affliction or the plan of redemption for the world fails and the name of Jehovah is profaned and his glory given over to another.
The appeal to Israel in Isa 48:12-16 is an appeal to profit from the work of Cyrus. Jehovah asserts his eternity of being and his creative work, and then challenges the nations to match it if they can. Then he introduces Cyrus as the instrument of his pleasure on Babylon and invites them to take notice that this is by the authority of Jehovah, who had sent the prophet, and his Spirit.
The possibilities for Israel here (Isa 48:17-19 ) pointed out are the possibilities of peace, like a river; righteousness, like the waves of the sea; their offspring, like the grains of sand on the shore; and a perpetual name before Jehovah; all this on the one condition that Israel hearken to his commandments. His purpose throughout their existence was to teach them for their profit. Thus he had led them through the many dark valleys of affliction and brought them to their own good land where they had enjoyed his loving favor and protection, with a bright hope for their future. But they sinned and forfeited the divine favor, and now they must hear the sad refrain, “Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea; thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the grains thereof; his name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me,” which is much like the saying of the poet: Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been.”
The exhortation of Isa 48:20-22 was to “go forth from Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans.” At first thought such an exhortation would seem superfluous. It might be reasonably expected that, when the prison doors should fly open, there would be a mighty rush from Babylon back to their native land, but not so. The history of the return shows how poor was the response to the exhortation. So this exhortation, to “go forth from Babylon, and flee from the Chaldeans,” was far from being superfluous.
They were to go in the spirit of joy, singing the song of their redemption, as at the deliverance from the land of Egypt. With a voice of singing they were to recite the history of Jehovah’s gracious dealings with them in the wilderness, which were paralleled here in their deliverance from Babylon.
There was a distinct advance here. The subject of the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah is not merely the return of Judah from Babylon to Jerusalem. Higher themes engage the prophet’s mind, viz: That preparation of the way of Jehovah, and the manifestation of his glory, for all flesh to see it together. All this was in the mind of the prophet, and the deliverance from Babylon was only a prefiguring of the far greater deliverance of the world from the thraldom of sin. As the exodus from Egypt was the high-water mark of God’s grace to his people of the Old Testament dispensation, so is this last mention by Isaiah of the struggle with Babylon. There is joyous victory here like that which it typifies in Revelation where the mystical Babylon falls and God’s people shout their everlasting praises to him who rules over the kingdoms of the earth.
There is a connection between Isa 48:22 , “There is no peace, saith Jehovah to the wicked,” and the fall of Babylon. God’s judgments fell heavily on Egypt at the deliverance of Israel at the Red Sea and his judgments are heavier on Babylon at the deliverance of his people from the captivity. But Egypt and Babylon are types of the great spiritual enemies of God’s kingdom. So when the Babylon of Revelation falls there is fear and trembling because of the judgments on her from Jehovah. When God stretches forth his hand in judgments, there is no peace to the wicked.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the general theme of these three chapters?
2. What is the special theme of Isa 46 ?
3. What is the principal gods of Babylon and what the prophetic picture of Isa 46:1-2 ?
4. What is the contrast found in Isa 46:3-7 ?
5. What is the exhortation to the transgressors of Israel found in Isa 46:8-10 ?
6. How does the prophet close this chapter?
7. What is the special theme of Isa 47 ?
8. What is the nature of the composition and what the divisions of it?
9. Who is the speaker of this song?
10. What is the great change in the position of Babylon to be brought about by its capture?
11. What was to be her new occupation and what the shame of her new condition?
12. How do you account for Isa 47:4 in this song, which is so different from the rest of it?
13. What is the import of Isa 47:5 and how is it that Isaiah saw Babylon as the mistress of kingdoms?
14. What is the reason assigned here for Babylon’s having Israel in captivity and how are they said to have been treated while in captivity?
15. What is the added cause of Babylon’s downfall given in Isa 47:1 ?
16. What are the characteristics of Babylon as set forth in Isa 47:8-11 ?
17. What reply does Jehovah make to these characteristics of the boastful city?
18. What is the import of Isa 47:12-15 ?
19. How is the contest between their sorcery and Jehovah precipitated and what the irony of their passage?
20. What is the meaning of “astrologers,” “star-gazers,” and “prognosticators” in Isa 47:13 , and what the value of the work of these men?
21. What is the result of this contest here as foretold by the prophet?
22. What is the special theme of Isa 48 ?
23. How is Israel’s profession here set forth (Isa 48:1-2 )?
24. What arethe characteristics of Israel herein set forth and what Jehovah’s efforts to counteract this disposition?
25. What is the result of these favors from Jehovah and in view of such result what course did Jehovah take with them?
26. What is the meaning and application of Isa 48:11 ?
27. What is the appeal to Israel in Isa 48:12-16 ?
28. What are the possibilities for Israel here (Isa 48:17-19 ) pointed out and why had it not realized them?
29. What is the exhortation of Isa 48:20-22 and what the special need for such exhortation?
30. In what spirit were they to go from Babylon?
31. How does the exodus here compare with the exodus from Egypt i.e., was there any advance to something greater and higher as one might expect in the work of God?
32. What is the connection between Isa 48:22 , “There is no peace, saith Jehovah to the wicked,” and the fall of Babylon?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Isa 48:1 Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, [but] not in truth, nor in righteousness.
Ver. 1. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob. ] Ye stiffnecked of Israel, and “uncircumcised in heart and ears, who do always resist the Holy Ghost,” Act 7:51 to you be it spoken; for to the “Israelites indeed” enough hath been said of this subject already.
Which are called by the name of Israel
And are come forth out of the waters b of Judah,] i.e., Out of the bowels, as Gen 15:4 as waters out of a spring. Deu 33:28 Psa 68:26 Judah was the tribe royal: hence they so gloried, and remained “ruling with God, and faithful with the saints,” when other tribes revolted.
Which swear by the name of the Lord.
And make mention of the God of Israel.
But not in truth, nor in righteousness,
a Picti estis Israelitae, estis hypocritae.
b Pro videtur hic legendum
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah Chapter 48
Our chapter is a more direct and exclusive appeal to Israel to those that come forth “out of the waters of Judah.” It is a beautiful homily to His people. “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah; who swear by the name of Jehovah, and make mention of the God of Israel, not in truth nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; Jehovah of hosts [is] his name” (vv. 1, 2). It explains why God had long foretold, and then suddenly acted. They could not thus defraud Him of His praise. “I have declared the former things from of old; yea, they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them: suddenly I wrought, and they came to pass. Because I knew that thou [art] obstinate, and thy neck [is] an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; therefore I have declared [them] to thee from of old, before they came to pass I showed thee, lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image hath commanded them. Thou hast heard; behold all this; and ye, will ye not declare [it]? I have shown thee new things from this time, and hidden things, which thou hast not known. They are created now, and not from of old; and before this day thou heardest them not, lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. Yea, thou heardest not, yea, thou knewest not; yea, from of old thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou didst deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb” (vv. 3-8).
In verse 9 Jehovah tells them why He had not cut them off. “For my name’s sake will I defer mine anger, and [for] my praise will I refrain as to thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold, I have refined thee, but not as silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For mine own sake, for mine own sake, will I do [it]: for how should [my name] be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another” (vv. 9-11).
Then (in vv. 12-21) comes a tender expostulation, accomplished in measure at the return from captivity, but to be fulfilled by-and by in all its extent. “Hearken unto me, O Jacob, and Israel my called: I [am] HE, I the first, I also the last. Yea, my hand hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spread out the heavens: I call unto them, they stand up together. Assemble yourselves, all ye, and hear; which among them hath declared these [things]? He whom Jehovah hath loved shall perform his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm [shall be] on the Chaldeans. I, I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and his way shall be prosperous. Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; from the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time that it was, there [am] I and now the Lord Jehovah hath sent me, and his Spirit. Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I [am] Jehovah thy God, who teacheth thee to profit, who leadeth thee in the way thou shouldest go. Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea; thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof: his name should not be cut off nor destroyed from before me. Go ye forth from Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans; with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it to the end of the earth; say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob. And they thirsted not [when] he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them; he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.” Cyrus had not acted without the God Who had called him by name. Nor was it (save judicially) he who had ordered things for Israel. The word is, “Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob.” The moral is, “[There is] no peace, saith Jehovah, unto the wicked.” It is a misconception of Israel’s future to imagine that no future question arises between God and them as to graven images. The Lord Jesus has ruled the contrary, if we understand His intimation in Mat 12:43-45 , with other scriptures of like purport, and even from the prophet before us. We all know how confident the Jews seem that they are proof against idols They were not in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, long after the return from Babylon; and they are destined to fall into the same pit again ere the age closes, as Dan 9:27 ; Dan 11:38 , Dan 11:39 plainly prove. For when has self-righteousness effectually resisted Satan’s wiles? “Even so shall it be unto this wicked generation.” The generation of unbelief has not yet passed away. And as it will be guilty once more of its old love of such abominations, it will also see greater than these, as the next part of our prophet notifies.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 48:1-11
1Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are named Israel
And who came forth from the loins of Judah,
Who swear by the name of the LORD
And invoke the God of Israel,
But not in truth nor in righteousness.
2For they call themselves after the holy city
And lean on the God of Israel;
The LORD of hosts is His name.
3I declared the former things long ago
And they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them.
Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.
4Because I know that you are obstinate,
And your neck is an iron sinew
And your forehead bronze,
5Therefore I declared them to you long ago,
Before they took place I proclaimed them to you,
So that you would not say, ‘My idol has done them,
And my graven image and my molten image have commanded them.’
6You have heard; look at all this.
And you, will you not declare it?
I proclaim to you new things from this time,
Even hidden things which you have not known.
7They are created now and not long ago;
And before today you have not heard them,
So that you will not say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’
8You have not heard, you have not known.
Even from long ago your ear has not been open,
Because I knew that you would deal very treacherously;
And you have been called a rebel from birth.
9For the sake of My name I delay My wrath,
And for My praise I restrain it for you,
In order not to cut you off.
10Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
11For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act;
For how can My name be profaned?
And My glory I will not give to another.
Isa 48:1 Hear This is a common IMPERATIVE (BDB 1033, KB 1570) for Isaiah, as well as Deuteronomy, Kings, Job, Psalm, and Amos, to begin a new section (cf. Isa 1:2; Isa 1:10; Isa 7:13; Isa 28:22; Isa 36:13; Isa 37:17; Isa. 47:18; Isa 46:3; Isa 46:12; Isa 47:8; Isa 48:1; Isa 48:14; Isa 48:16; Isa 49:1; Isa 51:1; Isa 51:7; Isa 55:2; Isa 66:5). YHWH wants His message heard and lived out. Revelation demands obedience! Truth is not only mental but lifestyle!
NASB, NRSVfrom the loins of Judah
NKJVfrom the wellsprings of Judah
TEVyou who are descended from Judah
NJBissued from the waters of Judah
There are three Hebrew words that attempt to explain this text.
1. waters, (the UBS Text Project gives it a B rating, p. 128)
2. loins, (NASB, NRSV, AB)
3. seed,
All of these Hebrew terms are metaphorical of the descendants by natural means of a group, tribe, family.
Notice that all the descendants are designated by
1. Jacob
2. Israel
3. Judah
This implies the returnees (mostly from the southern three tribes called Judah) from exile. Israel now refers to all of Abraham’s seed, as it did before the United Monarchy split in 922 B.C.
Who swear. . .invoke Both of these VERBS refer to worship acts.
1. swear by the name (cf. Isa 19:18; Isa 65:16)
2. invoke (lit. cause to remember, Hiphil, cf. Isa 12:4; Isa 26:13; Isa 62:6)
NASB, NKJV,
LXXBut not in truth nor in righteousness
NRSVBut not in truth or right
TEVBut you don’t mean a word you say
NJBThough not in good faith or uprightness
JPSOAThough not in truth and sincerity
REBBut not with honesty and sincerity
Wow, what a condemning evaluation of Israel’s worship! The term truth is (BDB 54) and means faithfulness. See Special Topic: Believe, Trust, Faith, and Faithfulness in the OT .
For the second word, (BDB 842) see Special Topic below.
SPECIAL TOPIC: RIGHTEOUSNESS
Isa 48:2 The first two lines remind me of Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon in Jeremiah 7, where the Israelites trust in the temple but not in YHWH.
1. call themselves after the holy city (BDB 894, KB 1128, Niphal PERFECT, cf. Isa 48:1)
2. lean on the God of Israel (BDB 701, KB 759, Niphal PERFECT)
Their worship looked orthodox and pious but it was false and directed to the wrong source.
Isa 48:3 YHWH again speaks (notice the number of I’s) of His control of time and history. He uses predictive prophecy to show His people His existence and power.
Isa 48:4 YHWH describes His people as
1. obstinate (cf. Eze 2:4; Eze 3:7)
2. neck is an iron sinew
3. forehead is bronze
know This word (BDB 393, KB 390) is used several times in this chapter (cf. Isa 48:4; Isa 48:6-8 [twice]), where it means knowledge about, but it should mean intimate fellowship with.
Isa 48:6 There is some question about how the VERBS of the first two lines should be translated. I like the NJB’s version, You have heard and seen all this, why won’t you admit it?
The it refers to YHWH’s predictions (cf. Isa 48:5). YHWH proves His existence by His knowledge of and control of future events affecting all nations not just Israel/Judah.
For new things see full note at Isa 62:2.
Isa 48:8 deal very treacherously This intensified grammatical form is a Qal IMPERFECT and a Qal INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE of the same root (BDB 93, KB 108).
a rebel from birth See Deu 9:7. Even in the exit from Egypt, Israel was idolatrous (i.e., Eze 20:8; Eze 20:13; Amo 5:25-26).
Isa 48:9 This is a good summary of YHWH’s problem with Abraham’s seed. He wanted to use them so that the world would know Him and come to Him (cf. Gen 12:3, see Special Topic at Isa 40:15). But they were not faithful. He had declared, the soul that sins it will die (i.e., Gen 2:16-17; Eze 18:4; Eze 18:20). Now God’s word and God’s purpose come into conflict. He will choose to act for the greater good (i.e., salvation of all humans, cf. 1Sa 12:22; Psa 106:8; Jer 14:7; Eze 20:8-9; Eze 20:14; Eze 20:17). The text that describes this so well is Eze 36:22-38! YHWH acts for Israel for His greater purpose! Is this not what Isa 48:11 is affirming? This is the wonderful message of Isaiah. See Special Topic: YHWH’s Eternal Redemptive Plan .
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
waters. Some codices, with three early printed editions, read “days”.
swear by the name, &c. Reference to Pentateuch (Deu 6:13). App-92.
the Lord. Hebrew. Jehovah.
the God of Israel. See note on Isa 29:23.
in truth. See note on Isa 10:20.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Now in chapter 48 God speaks about how that He is going to restore then under the Holy One, Jehovah’s servant. And God is going to restore the house of Jacob.
Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel ( Isa 48:1 ),
You are called by the name of Israel.
The name of Israel literally means governed by God. Beautiful name. A man governed by God, Israel. It was a name that was given to Jacob by the Lord after Jacob had wrestled all evening and finally surrendered weeping and crying. He said, “Please don’t go before You bless me.” And He said, “What is your name?” He said, “Heel catcher.” He said, “You won’t be called heel catcher any more, you’re going to be called, ‘A man governed by God.'” All his life he had been a supplanter. All of his life he had lived by his wits. All of his life he was conniving, living on the border, crooked, scheming. “You’re no longer going to be a schemer, conniver. You’re going to be a man governed by God.” And so the name Israel is a beautiful name because it means a man governed by God. “And so you’ve been called,” He said, “by the name of Israel.”
and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, you have sworn by the name of the LORD, and you make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness ( Isa 48:1 ).
You’ve been called by the name, but not in truth. You’ve sworn by God, but not in righteousness. You haven’t really been governed by God. You’ve only got the name, but it’s not a reality.
This is an unfortunate thing and it exists so prevalently today. There are so many people calling themselves Christians. So many of the Hollywood sect calling themselves Christians. So many of the Washington sects calling themselves Christians. But you read of their activities and it is anything but Christian. So they take the name. You’ve been called by the name of Israel. You’ve taken the name “Governed by God” but God isn’t governing your lives. You’ve not submitted your life to God. You take the name of Christian but you’re not living as Christ. You’re living after the flesh and your moral impurities and in your cesspools and yet you say, “We are Christ-like.” It’s not Christ-like at all. So God is rebuking them for taking the name, when in reality it isn’t taken in righteousness nor in truth.
For they call themselves of the holy city, and they stay themselves on the God of Israel: The LORD of hosts is his name. I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew ( Isa 48:2-4 ),
Or your iron muscles in your neck
and your brow is brass ( Isa 48:4 );
The hardheaded, stiff-necked bunch of people, God is saying. Can’t get anything through your skull. It’s like brass. You’re so stiff-necked.
I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I showed it you: lest you should say, My little idol did this, and my graven, and my molten image, has wiped them out ( Isa 48:5 ).
Now God declared what He was going to do to Babylon and God declared how He was going to bring them from their captivity, lest when this did happen, God told them in advance, lest that when it did happen, they’d hold up their little idol. “Well, my little god, he delivered us. Isn’t that wonderful?” And they start giving credit to their idols again. And so God spoke of the whole thing in advance so that they would know that He was the one who had accomplished it by telling them in advance.
Now you have heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have showed you new things from this time, even hidden things, and you did not know them. They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when you heard them not; lest you should say, Behold, I knew them ( Isa 48:6-7 ).
In other words, I’ve told you things before they happen. Now they are happening, but I’ve told you already lest you should go, “I knew it was going to be. Of course, you can figure that out.” There’s a lot of people that still take this attitude towards the things of God. “Well, it’s obvious it’s going to happen, you know. Does God really know?”
Yea, you did not hear; yea, you did not know; yea, from that time that your ear was not opened: for I knew that you would deal very treacherously, and you were called a transgressor from the womb ( Isa 48:8 ).
I knew you and I knew that this would be.
But for my name’s sake will I defer my anger, and for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I do not cut you off ( Isa 48:9 ).
“Now it’s only my own mercy and grace that I don’t cut you off.” And God could very well say that to each of us. You’ve been stiff-necked. You’ve been hardheaded. And yet God has put up with you and only for His name’s sake He hasn’t cut us off.
Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; but I have chosen for thee the furnace of affliction ( Isa 48:10 ).
So their refining was to come through great affliction. And so that great affliction that they experienced in Babylon was a part of God’s refining process for these people. God chose the furnace of affliction as the refining agent. And tell me, what people of earth have experienced more affliction than the Jews? They are persecuted almost wherever they have gone. They’ve been persecuted. They’ve been hated. And God declares that He has chosen the furnace of affliction.
But for my own sake, even for my own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory to another ( Isa 48:11 ).
You see, the Bible says, “To whom much is given, much is required.” To sin against revealed light is far worse than to sin in total ignorance. “For he who knew the will of God and did it not will suffer many stripes. Yet he who knew not the will of God yet did things worthy of many stripes shall be beaten with few. For unto whom much is given, much is required” ( Luk 12:47-48 ).
Now the greater your knowledge of God, the greater the revelation of God to your life, the greater is the sin if you sin against that knowledge and revelation. And these people have been chosen as God’s instrument to bring light to the world; to bring God’s truth to the world. They had received the oracles of God. They had received the ordinances of God, the statutes, the law. God had committed unto them all of these things. And yet they turned from the true and the living God and they’ve began to worship the gods of the Canaanites. They began to worship Baal and Molech and Mammon. They began to make their idols and bow down to them and worship them. And thus their sin was greater. And thus the judgment more severe as God chose the furnace of affliction to purify these people again as a people unto Himself and for His own sake God said, “I will do it, because you polluted My name; and I will not give My glory to another.”
Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, and the last. My hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together ( Isa 48:12-13 ).
Now God is saying, “Hey now look, you’ve been worshipping these dumb little idols that can’t speak. They can’t hear. They can’t move. You got to carry them around. I am the true and the living God. I have brought the furnace of affliction. I’ve chosen this as a refining instrument. Now listen to Me, listen to Me, for I am God. I’m the first and I’m the last.” In Revelation we read, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end” ( Rev 1:8 ).
“My hand also laid the foundation of the earth, and again My right hand hath spanned the heavens.” What does that mean? That God measured the universe with the span of His right hand.
Now when I was in school, we were taught that the universe was about four billion light years in diameter. By the time I graduated from college, we were taught that the universe was six billion light years in radius. It had increased tremendously in my schooling years. Now there are some scientists who have proclaimed that they have discovered galaxies fifty billion light years away. Now I really don’t know how they know that it’s that far. But that is what the claim is. Of course, you see, there’s a lot of exaggeration and guesswork that is done in the name of science. And just some true fraudulism such as the Piltdown man, the Java man. Absolute frauds. But these things are done in the name of science.
And I was talking with a famous archaeologist and scientist one day about the dating of the age of some of these fragments of skulls and so forth that they had found. And so he said to me, “Well now, Charles,” he was my professor and he was a tutor for a while. He took a great interest in me and I gained much from him, Dr. Albrow. He said, “Now, Charles,” he said, “if we were, say, digging out here in the area of Sabina Canyon, and as we are digging we come upon a skull.” He said, “We are needing money for our further digging and exploration. And so we want this to be an important find. Now they have already found skulls of Indians that they have dated in this area as having been here four thousand years ago. So if we say this skull is two thousand years, it’s not news because they know that Indians have been here for four thousand years because the last guy said his skull was four thousand years old. That’s where he got his headlines. So in order that we might get notoriety and attention for our find, I examine it carefully, I take fragments and send it to the carbon dating laboratories and I send them to enough until I get the age that I want.” And he said, “I make the proclamation, ‘We have found a skull that is five thousand years old, proving that Indians were here five thousand years ago.’ All of a sudden we’ve got the oldest skull that was ever discovered and news, everybody wants to know about it and everybody is interested.” And he said, “then it’s easy to get money for further digging and explorations.” He said that’s how most of the skulls are dated.
Now the same is true if the scientist would say, “We’ve discovered a new galaxy. It’s six billion lights out.” Go away. They’ve already discovered them twelve billion light-years out there. So some guy really went out on the string the other day. He found one fifty billion. It’s going to take something to beat him now. But supposing he is correct. Now from his find, fifty billion light-years, they have developed a whole new theory of the universe. And that is that the universe is continually and constantly expanding clear on out. In other words, the present theory, the Big Bang, everything went out and as it finally reaches the effigy it will start to pull back together and finally, all of the stars and the black hole will be drawn and sucked into this big gravitational black hole that’s here in the universe. The reason why it’s a black hole, because the gravitational pull is so strong the light can’t escape from it. And so everything’s going to be gobbled up by this big black hole until the atoms will be compacted so tightly in this gravitational pull. The big black hole, something will go wrong and it’ll explode again and the whole thing can start over and out on one little planet under ideal conditions an amoeba may develop in the ooze. And in billions of years a new man may again stand upon a new planet in this whole new universe, you know. And start guessing how old are the fossils that he found.
Now if indeed the man found a galaxy fifty billion light years away, all he did was make God that much bigger. I thought He was big when He could span the universe of twelve billion light-years with His right hand. God said, “I spanned it with my right hand.” That is, He measured… How big is God? “Now God, I’ve got this horrible problem. It’s so big. I don’t know if even You can work this one out, God. I need to lift this trunk. It’s so heavy.” Oh, if we’d only realize the greatness of our God. “Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, I am the first, and the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spanned the heavens. When I call, they stand. I say, ‘Hey,’ and they come to attention.” My, it’s going to be glorious to be in heaven and watch God order things around.
All of ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them hath declared these things? The LORD hath loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans ( Isa 48:14 ).
I’ve loved My people. I will do My pleasure, but I will bring out on the Chaldeans and the Babylonians My judgment.
I, even I, have spoken it; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous ( Isa 48:15 ).
Now verse Isa 48:16 , one that really jumped out at me.
Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there I am: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me ( Isa 48:16 ).
Who is this speaking? It would have to be Jesus. You remember when Jesus was talking with the Pharisees? And they said, “We are Abraham’s children.” He said, “If you were the children of Abraham then would you believe Me? Because Abraham rejoiced to see My day and he saw it.” They said, “What are You talking about? You’re not even fifty years old and You say that Abraham saw You?” And Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am” ( Joh 8:56-58 ). Now you have much the same here. “From the beginning, from the time that it was, I am. There I am. And now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent Me.”
Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel ( Isa 48:17 );
None other than Jesus Christ.
I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that you should go. O that you would have hearkened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea ( Isa 48:17-18 ):
“If you only had listened,” the Lord said. “I’m the One who has taught you to prosper.” God has put it in them that uncanny ability to prosper. “I have led you in the way that you should go. Oh, if you’d only have hearkened to My commandments! Then your peace would have been as a river.” The people, it is interesting, many of them are angry with God because of that furnace of affliction that they have gone through. But that has only come as the result of their not obeying the commandments of God. Had they only obeyed.
Now, even today, they are seeking to affect before God a righteousness not of the covenant of the law but of their own making, a righteousness of works. As on Yom Kippur they balance their good deeds with their evil and offer their good works unto God for an atonement for their sins. And yet, God’s covenant said, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” ( Heb 9:22 ). And so God says, “Hey, if you’d only listened, if you’d only obeyed My commandments, your peace would have been as a river.”
Thy seed also had been as the sand, and your offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me. Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob. And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out. There is no peace, saith the LORD, for the wicked ( Isa 48:19-22 ).
Now if you’d only obeyed the commandments, your peace would have been like a river. But there is no peace for the wicked.
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Isa 48:1. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.
There always were false professors, and I suppose there always will be till Christ comes. A Judas was among the twelve apostles, and we cannot wonder that we find such in every church, but what a dreadful thing it is to wear the name of God, and yet not really to serve him, to be called Christians, and yet not to be like Christ! It must be a very God-provoking thing to be called by his name, and then insult it by not being true to it.
Isa 48:2. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name.
They profess to trust him, but they do not love him; they call themselves of the holy city, but they certainly are not holy citizens. Ah me that God should have to speak to men upon such a matter as this! It is self-evidently wicked, but they will not see it.
Isa 48:3. I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.
There is no better proof that God is God than that his prophecies have been fulfilled. Only the eternal can see into the future. He has done so, and every word of his either has been fulfilled, or will yet be fulfilled.
Isa 48:4-5. Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; I have even from the beginning declared it to thee: before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.
See the care of God towards the most obstinate of men. He knows that they will pervert things, so he prevents them as far as it is possible to do so. He tells them what is to happen, that they may not afterwards say that their idol gods have done it. Ah, dear friends, God has taken great interest in many of us! He has, as it were, laid his plans to keep us out of sin; and yet often we have broken out, and have gone over hedge and ditch in the ways of sin. We have seemed resolved to do evil; we have been desperately set on mischief; hence he speaks of us as being obstinate. Thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass. Will God ever speak in mercy to such people as these? We shall see as we read on.
Isa 48:6-8. Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. They are created now, and not from the beginning, even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb.
What a description! Treacherous, false, yea, very treacherous, beyond the usual degree of treachery; transgressors from our very birth, inured in sin. The very heart is wrong, and all that comes out of us is, therefore, wrong. And now, what follows?
Isa 48:9. For my names sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off.
I cannot spare thee for thine own sake; but I will spare thee for my names sake. I cannot spare thee because of anything good in thee; but I will spare thee because of good in myself. If God can glorify himself by your salvation, he finds a blessed motive for saving you, and, since there is no desert in you, he will fall back upon his own glory, and save you for his own names sake.
Isa 48:10. Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
Thou sinful one, yet one of his own children, he will refine thee again and again, and he will glorify himself by saving thee.
Isa 48:11. For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.
This verse ought to ring like music in the ear of one who is seeking mercy, and who cannot find out how mercy can come to him.
Isa 48:12-13. Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.
What a great God is he whose right hand spanned the heavens, making the arch of the sky, as it were, with the span of his hand!
Isa 48:14. All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear, which among them hath declared these things?
He still dwells upon prophecy. God claims that he is God because he foretold all that happened, which the idol gods could not do.
Isa 48:14-15. The LORD hath loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans. I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous. Come ye near unto me, hear ye this, I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me. Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments!
God again breaks out in lamentations over his wandering people! Not only is he ready to forgive them; but he grieves to think that they should have brought so much sorrow on themselves.
Isa 48:18-19. Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea: thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.
All manner of possible good would have been yours had you not rebelled against God; and as you have lost it, God grieves that it should be so.
Isa 48:20. Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth, say ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob.
What a grand message for anyone to tell! Tell it, tell it, tell it everywhere, that Jehovah hath redeemed his people.
Isa 48:21. And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts:
Neither shall you thirst, O redeemed one, when you are in the desert!
Isa 48:21. He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them:
Most unlikely places shall yield you succor.
Isa 48:21. He clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.
And yet, to finish up the chapter, stands this remarkable sentence:
Isa 48:22. There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked.
O God, have mercy upon us, and let us not be numbered with them!
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Isa 48:1-5
Isa 48:1-2
“Here we have a recapitulation of the preceding eight chapters, closing with a summons to flee Babylon, and a solemn declaration excluding the ungodly from a share in the promises. The chapter falls into three divisions: “Each commencing with a call on Israel to pay attention: (1) `Hear ye this …’ (Isa 48:1-11); (2) `Hearken unto me …’ (Isa 48:12-15), and (3) `Come ye near unto me, hear ye this …’ (Isa 48:16-22).
The chapter is definitely addressed to two classes of people, namely the true believers, referred to here as “Israel,” and the wicked and rebellious majority, called Jacob. The student will at once see this as a departure from what many of the commentators say, namely that Jacob and Israel are two words for the same people in a rhetorical device known as a hendiadys. As we view it, this is simply not the case at all. In Babylon, there were the fleshly descendants of Jacob (the fleshly Israel), and also there was the true Israel of God, those who believed the promises and faithfully waited for the Lord’s deliverance. “Jacob was their secular and natural designation, and Israel was their spiritual or covenant name.” See my note under Isa 40:27.
That both of these groups are addressed in this chapter is certain, because there are wonderful promises for the covenant people and terrible denunciations for the hypocritical majority.
The first division (Isa 40:1-11) is clearly directed at the wicked and rebellious majority:
Isa 48:1-2
“Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah; who swear by the name of Jehovah, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth nor in righteousness (for they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel, Jehovah of hosts is his name).”
The captive Jews addressed in these words were consummate hypocrites, supposing that they were the darlings of heaven merely because they were literally descended through Abraham and Jacob. They were the Old Testament examples of those same vicious murderers of the Son of God who bragged about being “Abraham’s seed” in Joh 8:33 ff. O yes, they felt very secure because they frequently used the name of Jehovah and claimed as their very own the God of Israel, the prophecy here reminded them that the God of Israel was none other than Jehovah of hosts, a term “especially connected with the holiness of God.”
Isa 48:3-5
“I have declared the former things from of old; yea they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them: suddenly I did them, and they came to pass. Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thou brow brass; therefore I have declared it to thee from of old; before it came to pass I showed it thee; lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.”
“Things from of old …” (Isa 48:3). What were these? They number in the hundreds, or even more. God prophesied the multiplication of Abraham’s children through Isaac, at a time long before Isaac was even born; he prophesied the four hundred year period of Israel’s “sojourn” in Egypt; he prophesied their delivery out of Egypt; he prophesied that they would leave Egypt with “great riches.” He prophesied that they would indeed inherit the land of Canaan. Could such prophecies have been “after the event”? Preposterous! Why should Abraham have bought a tomb in Canaan many centuries before his people were scheduled to inherit Canaan? Furthermore, God prophesied that if Israel rebelled against his law, he would pluck them off the land, carry them far away, and scatter them all over the world. Did God “miss it” on any of these prophecies? They are mentioned here in order to convince Israel of the truth of God’s Word. It is a measure of their obstinate “brazen faced” hypocrisy that they still needed convincing!
The tendency of Israel to idolatry was one of the principal characteristics of the chosen people. Their unbelief is indeed a marvel. It is a measure of their perversity that, “The argument from the fulfillment of prophecy, hitherto directed against the heathen (Isa 41:21 ff), must now be directed against God’s own people, now become determined skeptics.”
Isa 48:1-5 PERSEVERANCE OF JEHOVAH: God addresses the people of Isaiahs day sternly. Shama (hear) means to heed and obey. It appears they call themselves Israel but God addresses them as house of Jacob. Whether there is an intended sarcasm on the part of Jehovah or not is not easy to determine. Certainly God permitted writers of the Bible to employ sarcasm in their attempts to call men to repentance. We have discussed the difference between the terms Jacob and Israel earlier. Coming forth out of the waters of Judah simply means the audience of Isaiahs writing are the people of the southern kingdom whose main source is Judah (see Deu 33:28; Psa 68:26 for similar phraseology). The main point in citing the three names (Jacob, Israel and Judah) is to emphasize their culpability for not trusting the message Isaiah is giving them about captivity, Cyrus future return of the exiles and the messianic destiny in their future. These are people of Jehovah-they are His specially graced people, but they do not hear. They make mention of Jehovah but not in truth or righteousness. To acknowledge the name of God in truth means to hear and obey what God has revealed for man to obey. Whoever says I know Him but does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him (cf. 1Jn 2:3-6). They worshipped Jehovah with lip-service but their hearts were far from Him (cf. Isa 29:13-14). They boasted of their citizenship in the holy city (where the temple of Jehovah was located) and they glibly declared their allegiance to Jehovah but it did not seem to register on their minds that He Is Jehovah-Zevoth (zevoth is Hebrew for armies, hosts, myriads and is also used for war, battle, etc.). In other words, Jehovah is Lord of all! He is Lord of earth and heaven. He is Lord of the inward man as well as the outward man. He knows everything created everything and commands everything.
Judah should have acknowledged His lordship with their hearts as well as their lips for Jehovah had proven His sovereignty in centuries past by predicting (through the mouths of His messengers) the events of Judahs history long before they came to pass. Jehovah also demonstrated through His prophets that He knew the hidden, secret thoughts of men (e.g., Nathan and David). The nation and individuals often knew years and centuries in advance of the coming of minutely-detailed events. Many of these events came to pass suddenly without any gradual development or advanced signals. Two needs of the Hebrew people are the motivation prompting Jehovah to predict their future; (a) their obstinacy and hardheadedness toward His sovereignty must be broken; (b) they must acknowledge once and for all that idols are not gods-there is only One God, Jehovah. This indicates that Gods primary purpose in predicting the future is not simply to satisfy the curiosity of man about tomorrow. No theology should be built on eschatology! Our theology should be built on the character of the One who knows about tomorrow, not on when and what tomorrow will bring. The only reason God foretells the future is to demonstrate His sovereignty! That is the point! Once man surrenders to His omnipotence and omniscience he does not need to know the future (cf. Mat 6:25-34; Act 1:7). Prophecy fulfilled is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end is to believe Gods revelation of Himself and to accept His written word from the hands of the writers as being validated (cf. 2Pe 1:16-21, etc.).
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
This chapter constitutes the last section of the division dealing with the purpose of peace. It is a great appeal to the people. It first describes Jehovah’s methods (verses Isa 48:1-11). He has had to do with a failing people, a people mentioning His name, but not in truth. His method has been that of prophecy and swift performance on account of their obstinacy, and to prevent them attributing to idols the things wrought by Jehovah. All this He has done for His own name’s sake.
This method is illustrated in the calling and coming of the great Servant. The purpose of God is finally set forth. He teaches the people to profit, and the ultimate intention of His teaching is their peace and the abounding of their righteousness. Moreover, notwithstanding their failure, He is the God of redemption, and the prophecy reminds them of how He had led them through deserts, and out of rock had provided waters. The section ends with the declaration: “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.” While His purpose is peace, they are thus solemnly warned that it cannot be realized in their experience while they persist in wickedness.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
the Obstinate and Insincere Rebuked
Isa 48:1-16
We are meant to be for Gods praise and glory; but we may delay the realization of His high purpose. Our neck iron, our brow brass, we trust in idols and refuse to open our ear. It is necessary, therefore, to send us to Babylon, where, as in a furnace for silver, the dross and alloy are purged away. Many of us are in furnaces which have been rendered needful through our evil ways.
Notwithstanding our sins, God comes to the furnace mouth and chooses us there. For His own sake, His own sake, He does it that His name may not be polluted. He cannot give His glory to another. You cannot account for Gods grace to you personally. He must have known all, from the first. Then dare to believe that the reason that prompted Him at the first will suffice to the end. He is not the son of man that He should repent. He who was the first will be the last. Jesus is Omega as well as Alpha; the end as well as the beginning! Fear not! Rev 1:17.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
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 FORTY-EIGHT
GOD’S CONTROVERSY WITH ISRAEL
“Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The Lord of hosts is his name” (verses 1, 2).
THIS chapter covers GOD’s dealings with the children of Israel. No other nation has suffered like them, yet they remain nationally intact to this day, and will do so to the very end. When at last they have passed through all the afflictions and tribulations and troubles, they will understand the meaning of verse 10. GOD will refine Israel by their troubles and tribulations, eventually to be to the praise of His glory, a royal diadem upon His brow, throughout the generations to come.
“Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction . . . Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea . . . Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob. . . And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out. There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked” (verses 10, 17, 18, 20-22).
Just as in the past GOD has undertaken for Israel, so He will do also in the days to come. It is He who will refine them by their very sorrows. And those who turn to Him, in repentance, those who receive the Saviour He has provided will be brought into fullness of blessing.
The section ends with the solemn words: “There is no peace, saith the Lord, to the wicked.” Here it is “the Lord,” JEHOVAH, for He speaks to His people whose peace might have been as
a river (verse 18) if they had been obedient.
“The Lord” stands out in vivid contrast with the idols to whom they have turned for succor and help, and who have failed them utterly. At the end of the next section it is “my God,” for all who are of a contrite and humble heart are included in the promise, “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near” (chapter 57:19).
The promise and the warning there come to all the hearers, whether of Israel or not.
Now we come to a very precious and important part of the book of Isaiah. The Apostle Peter speaks of “exceeding great and precious promises.” Everything in GOD’s Word is precious, even though at first sight it may not always seem so. And it is all important, for “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable,” but certain parts of GOD’s Word speak to us more loudly, perhaps, than others. And the portion upon which we now enter has a very loud voice for all those who know and love the Lord JESUS CHRIST, because it brings Him personally before us in such a clear, definite way. We have concluded the first subdivision of the last half of Isaiah.
In this great third division of the book are three subdivisions. First, as we have already had, the Lord’s controversy with Israel concerning their idolatry, in chapters 40-48, ending, “There is no peace, saith the Lord, to the wicked.”
The Lord’s controversy with Israel concerning their treatment of the Messiah begins with chapter forty-nine and ends with chapter fifty-seven, concluding with the words, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” See how aptly these endings come in. There is no peace to the one who substitutes anything else for the One True and Living GOD. When one turns to any substitute for the true GOD he can never find peace. Then on the other hand, there is no peace for the one who rejects the Saviour whom GOD has provided. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”
~ end of chapter 48 ~
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Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Isa 48:17
It is not only the commercial world which has to make its calculations of profit and loss. All life is made up of profit and loss. And if there is not profit, there is loss; and if there is not loss, there is profit.
I. I understand the text to mean, not that God teaches us in a profitable way, but that He instructs us how to get the profit in all things; that He gives that faculty-the power to take the good and refuse the evil; to imbibe the honey and reject the poison.
II. Consider how God does “teach to profit.” (1) The first thing which God will probably teach and which we must receive is a general confidence that there is a profit, however imperceptible it may be at the time to us, in the thing which He is sending to us. (2) This faith given, the next thing that God puts into our hearts is to seek that good; eternal profit, profit both to ourselves and to Him, in that He is glorified in His own work. We are to look for that profit, not on the surface, but in certain deeper, hidden meanings and intentions which lie underneath. Into those deeper meanings God will lead and admit you. But not without three things: a reverent acceptance of His teaching, hard work, and a good life. These are God’s three conditions in all His teaching, from which He never departs. You must love the teaching; you must work the teaching out with great pains and at any cost; and you must do His will.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 13th series, p. 21.
References: Isa 48:17.-W. J. Mayers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 228. Isa 48:17, Isa 48:18.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ix., p. 47. Isa 48:18.-A. Raleigh, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 369 (see also Old Testament Outlines, p. 208); Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 610; W. Steadman, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 152; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 553; J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve, p. 414; J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 401.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 48
The Divine Restatement Concerning His People, Their Condition and Future
1. Their condition and Jehovahs predictions (Isa 48:1-8) 2. Jehovah acts for His Names sake (Isa 48:9-11) 3. I am He (Isa 48:12-16) 4. Israels future blessing (Isa 48:17-21) 5. No peace for the wicked (Isa 48:22) This chapter touches once more upon the different phases of Jehovahs messages from chapters 40-47. Israels apostate condition, Jehovahs sovereign grace and mercy towards them, Cyrus (Isa 48:14-15), the blessings of the future for a converted remnant of His people, are all mentioned again. Solemn is the declaration that whatever Jehovah does, whatever comfort and peace He bestows, however grand and glorious the blessings of the future are, the wicked are forever excluded. There is no peace unto the wicked.
This chapter closes the first section of the second part of Isaiah. Babylon, Cyrus and Jehovahs majesty and glory, revealed in predicting future things, the helplessness of idols and Jehovahs mercy and power manifested in the restoration and blessing of His people are the leading features of this section.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
which are: Gen 32:28, Gen 35:10, 2Ki 17:34, Joh 1:47, Rom 2:17, Rom 2:28, Rom 2:29, Rom 9:6, Rom 9:8, Rev 2:9, Rev 3:9
come: Num 24:7, Deu 33:28, Psa 68:26, Pro 5:16
which swear: Isa 44:5, Isa 45:23, Isa 65:16, Deu 5:28, Deu 6:13, Deu 10:20, Psa 63:11, Zep 1:5
make mention: Isa 26:13, Isa 62:8, Exo 23:13
not in truth: Isa 1:10-14, Lev 19:12, Psa 50:16-20, Psa 66:3, *marg. Jer 4:2, Jer 5:2, Jer 7:9, Jer 7:10, Mal 3:5, Mat 15:8, Mat 15:9, Mat 23:14, Joh 4:24, 1Ti 4:2, 2Ti 3:2-5
Reciprocal: Gen 4:26 – Enos Gen 24:3 – swear 1Sa 14:36 – Then said the priest 1Ki 18:31 – saying Isa 10:20 – but shall stay Isa 29:13 – Forasmuch Isa 46:3 – Hearken Isa 58:2 – they seek Isa 59:15 – truth Jer 42:1 – came Jer 44:26 – The Lord God Eze 16:15 – thou didst Hos 4:2 – swearing Hos 4:15 – nor Hos 8:2 – General Amo 5:14 – as Mic 2:7 – named Zep 3:11 – that rejoice Zec 5:3 – sweareth Mat 7:21 – shall Mat 25:3 – foolish Mat 26:72 – with Luk 3:8 – We Joh 4:23 – true Joh 8:54 – ye say Act 13:26 – children 2Ti 3:5 – a form Tit 1:16 – profess
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 48:1-2. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob For your conviction and humiliation; that, acknowledging God to be just, and even merciful, in what he has brought upon you, you may give glory to him, and take shame to yourselves; which are called by the name of Israel Who are Israelites in name, but not in truth; and are come out of the waters of Judah From the lineage of your progenitor, Judah, as waters flow from a fountain; which swear by the name of the Lord Who profess the true religion, one act thereof being put for all; that own him to be the true God and your God, and give glory to him as the righteous judge of all. Or, that swear to the name of the Lord, as the words may be rendered; that take an oath of allegiance to him as your king, and join yourselves to him in covenant. And make mention of the God of Israel In your prayers and praises, who often speak of, seem to glory in, and call yourselves by his name; but not in truth nor in righteousness Which are the two chief ingredients of a lawful oath, and of a sincere profession of religion. Observe, reader, our religious professions avail nothing unless they be made in truth and righteousness. If we be not sincere in them, we do but take the name of the Lord our God in vain. For Or, as the Hebrew particle often signifies, Though, they call themselves the holy city Though they glory in this, that they are citizens of Jerusalem, a city sanctified by God himself to be the only place of his true worship and gracious presence, which, as it was a great privilege, so it laid a great obligation upon them to walk more holily than they did. And stay themselves upon the God of Israel Not by a true and well-grounded faith, but by a vain and presumptuous confidence, flattering themselves, as that people commonly did, that they should enjoy peace and safety, notwithstanding all their wickedness, because they were the Lords people, and had his temple and ordinances among them; which disposition the prophets frequently notice, and sharply censure in them.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 48:1. Which swear by the name of the Lord, who resents all false swearing to his covenant.
Isa 48:3. I have declared the former things. The Messiah continues here to be the speaker, and the hopes of the church repose solely upon his word. In the next verses he declares the future; he puts his name to it; his favourite name with the Jews, the Lord of Hosts.
Isa 48:5. I have even from the beginning declared the fall of Babylon, and all other important circumstances connected with it, lest thou shouldst say, my idol hath showed it.
Isa 48:8. I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously. How lamentable it is to find this text cited by the antinomians of our own age, to promise pardon and eternal glory to the elect, even before they commit the grossest acts of apostasy; and that because the Lord is here supposed to promise the Hebrews a plenary pardon before they killed the prophets, before they gave their children to Moloch, and before they danced at Baals feasts! Is this treating the secret things of Moses, and the unsearchable depths of St. Paul with becoming reverence? Is this dealing honestly with the loose professors of the age, who live in full conformity to the world? Is it not far safer for ministers, like Isaiah, to threaten the gross apostates with the fire of Tophet. The false prophets among the Jews never cried, peace, peace, as those teachers do, and altogether without the authority of ancient comments. The text refers to the riches of grace promised to the church in the gospel, as the elder critics agree with common consent.
Isa 48:10. I have refined thee, but not with silver. The LXX read, I have sold thee, but not for silver. This however is an obvious deviation from the Hebrew, which seems to import that God had refined them as silver, but had not made them pure like silver.
Isa 48:13. My hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth. The Messiah is here introduced as the speaker. I, even I have spoken. The Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me: Isa 48:16. Here then is the doctrine of the adorable Trinity, or of a plurality in the Godhead; and the same ineffable mystery is declared in other passages of this enlightened and evangelical prophet. Isa 63:7-10; Isa 49:4-6.
Isa 48:16. Come ye near to me, hear ye this. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning, from the time that I said, Let there be light, and there was light. I spake to your fathers; my covenant was open and clear. My ministry, says the Messiah, has no disguise, nothing of ambiguity in it, like the pretended oracles of the heathen. I speak in my Fathers name: I speak by his Spirit. All these epithets, characteristic of the Messiahs ministry, prepare the mind for something great and decisive, with regard to the longsuffering of God towards a rebellious people.
What can be more preposterous, and in the face of all ancient theology, than for the Arians to make Isaiah the speaker here? Was Isaiah a prophet from the beginning of the world, as in the ninth verse? Did Isaiah call Jacob and Israel, as in Isa 48:12. Was he the first and the last? Lowth is perfectly silent here, as in all other places, about the real Godhead of Christ. There is nothing for the soul in all our new versions of the prophets. The traitors are better paid in this world than Judas; but how it will be in the next, the Lord himself only is the judge.
Isa 48:17. Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer; thy Goel, as in Job 19:25. The Lord who says, I have found a ransom. Jehovah hath made his soul an offering for sin.The Holy One of Israel: Isa 12:6. The Holy One of God. The Just and Holy One, as St. Peter calls him, that teacheth thee by his word, and by all the leadings of his providence, ever delighting, oh Israel, to do thee good.
Isa 48:18. Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments, to the whole of my will, and the requirements of my righteous law, as stated at large in the beginning of the hundred and nineteenth psalm.
Then had thy peace been as a river, overflowing like the Euphrates, or more still, like the Tigris in the time of the new fruits. Sir 24:25. How full of tenderness is the commiseration of God towards his sinful and erring people, mourning over their departures from him, and the irreparable loss their backsliding had occasioned. Oh that thou hadst hearkened unto me.
And thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. By righteousness may be understood covenant blessings, as in Psalms 72. He shall come down as rain upon the mown grass. Also Isa 45:8 : Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. On the deliverance from Babylon, specially referred to in this chapter, the Lord loaded the Jews with righteousness. To these texts we may add, the righteousness and the salvation of the Lord, which shall never be abolished: Isa 51:6. The nation also, walking in the paths of holy obedience, shall become dense in population; shall be blessed with luxuriant harvests, and vintages flowing with the richest wine, like rivers abounding with water.
REFLECTIONS.
We now come to the last chapter which speaks expressly of the Babylonian captivity, a most ungracious subject in the ears of the Israelites. They are addressed as the descendants of Jacob, and consequently as heirs of the promises; for they themselves had sworn to keep their fathers covenant. But mark, as they did not swear to the Lord with true hearts, and confirm the oath with righteous lives, so he had no pleasure in their sacrifices. They are therefore called to hear the sermon on the fall of Babylon, which adumbrated the predictions of their own fall.
The wise and equitable principles of the divine government towards the Israelites had been fully developed by the prophets; yea, all the circumstances of their apostasy and punishment had been fully declared. Moses had done this at large, in Deuteronomy 28. All the circumstances of Sennacheribs invasion had been foretold by Isaiah, that they might not say their idols had done it. Hence we may infer the never-ceasing care of providence over the church, and learn not to fear terrific conquerors, for their commission is limited, and their cruelties are restrained within the bounds of divine controul. The Lord, for his names sake, chose rather to refine than to destroy an ungrateful nation, whose ear was not open to instruction and obedience.
Before God inflicted the heavy strokes of his hand, he lamented, most feelingly lamented their disobedience; and in doing this he enumerates his gracious and relative characters. He is their Redeemer, their Holy One, who had taught them to profit. Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! So Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and so St. Paul wished even to be an execration, if Israel might but be saved. Our salvation is therefore of the Lord, and our destruction wholly of ourselves. Providence had been so mindful of their temporal interests, that their harvests and vintages should flow as plentifully as the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Jordan, when they overflowed their banks; and all these temporal mercies were only shadows of the far richer spiritual blessings of the covenant. So it is with the believer: while obedient, his peace flows abundantly from the rock, even Christ: and as a river is constantly encreased by tributary streams, so divine peace flows anew in all the means of grace. Rivers are noisy among the mountains, falling in cascades from the rocks; but when they reach the plains they become deep and silent, flowing with a broad and majestic stream. Grace also is somewhat loud and noisy in the young convert; but it becomes more deep and silent in age, as it approaches the ocean of eternal love.
The chapter closes with an assurance of deliverance. Go ye forth of Babylon; flee with singing, as was said in chap. 35. Flee, flee from the Chaldeans, where you have been corrupter with marriages, with idols, and with sins. Flee, flee, for there is no peace to the wicked, whether jew or gentile. How very remarkable then is the difference between the penitent and the impenitent in their afflictions. The former have a cheering hope which shall chase away the dark scenes of their misery, while the latter are all despondency and gloom, and fall from bad to worse.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 48:1-11. A Recapitulation of the Argument from Prophecy.To the original text a redactor has added a commentary (bracketed below) from a different standpoint. Whereas the prophet regarded Israel as having more than paid the penalty of her sins, the additions represent her as obstinately and inveterately sinful, and long addicted to the worship of images.
Hearken, says Yahweh to His people [proud of their nationality and attached to His cultus]. Long ago I predicted what later I suddenly accomplished. [Knowing thine inveterate obstinacy, Isa 48:4] I announced beforehand my intentions [lest thou shouldst attribute the events to thine idols, Isa 48:5 b]. Thou hast heard . . . wilt thou not admit it? Now I announce things hitherto unrevealed [lest thou shouldst say, I knew them, Isa 48:7 c] unheard and unknown by thee [because I knew that thou hast ever been a traitor. For My own sake I am not destroying thee. I have refined thee in a furnace, but no silver did I gain, Isa 48:8 b Isa 48:10]. For My names sake I do it [how it is profaned!] and share My glory with none other.
Isa 48:1 f. All after Jacob is from the redactor: note the change from 2nd to 3rd person.waters: read loins.
Isa 48:6. Render, I am showing (cf. mg.).
Isa 48:8. Read, thine ear have I not opened (LXX).
Isa 48:9. Yahweh will not extirpate His people because then His cultus would come to an end.Read, and for my praise do I spare thee.
Isa 48:10. Render, but not with gain of silver.Read perhaps, I have tried (mg.) thee in the furnace in vain.
Isa 48:11 a. Read simply, For my names sake will I do it.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
48:1 Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, who are {a} called by the name of Israel, and have come forth out of {b} the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, [but] not in truth, nor in righteousness.
(a) He detects their hypocrisy who claimed to be Israelites, but were not so.
(b) Meaning, the fountain and stock.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The former failure 48:1-11
This section recapitulates the revelation that Yahweh predicts the future, so that when the event He predicts happens, people will recognize that He is the only true God. He can cause new things to happen because He alone is the Creator. This prophecy has been the source of much critical attack on Isaiah. [Note: See Oswalt, The Book . . . 40-66, pp. 270-72, for discussion.] Again, the critics’ disbelief in God’s ability to predict the future and then bring it into being is the problem.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Israel’s inveterate unbelief 48:1-5
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The Lord called on His people to pay attention to what He had to say to them and to respond appropriately (cf. Isa 42:18; Isa 46:12). The many descriptions of the Israelites in these verses reminded them of their origins and their identity, their commitments to and their appreciation for Yahweh, and their present relationship with Him. In view of all this, they needed to heed what He said. They had not done that as they should have in the past.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22
CHAPTER IX
FOUR POINTS OF A TRUE RELIGION
Isa 43:1-28 – Isa 48:1-22
WE have now surveyed the governing truths of Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22 : the One God, omnipotent and righteous; the One People, His servants and witnesses to the world; the nothingness of all other gods and idols before Him; the vanity and ignorance of their diviners, compared with His power, who, because He has a purpose working through all history, and is both faithful to it and almighty to bring it to pass, can inspire His prophets to declare beforehand the facts that shall be. He has brought His people into captivity for a set time, the end of which is now near. Cyrus the Persian, already upon the horizon, and threatening Babylon, is to be their deliverer. But whomever He raises up on Israels behalf, God is always Himself their foremost champion. Not only is His word upon them, but His heart is among them. He bears the brunt of their battle, and their deliverance, political and spiritual, is His own travail and agony. Whomever else He summons on the stage, He remains the true hero of the drama.
Now, chapters 43-48 are simply the elaboration and more urgent offer of all these truths, under the sense of the rapid approach of Cyrus upon Babylon. They declare again Gods unity, omnipotence, and righteousness, they confirm His forgiveness of His people, they repeat the laughter at the idols, they give us nearer views of Cyrus, they answer the doubts that many orthodox Israelites felt about this Gentile Messiah; chapters 46 and 47 describe Babylon as if on the eve of her fall, and chapter 48, after Jehovah more urgently than ever presses upon reluctant Israel to show the results of her discipline in Babylon, closes with a call to leave the accursed city, as if the way were at last open. This call has been taken as the mark of a definite division of our prophecy. But too much must not be put upon it. It is indeed the first call to depart from Babylon; but it is not the last. And although chapter 49, and the chapters following, speak more of Zions Restoration and less of the Captivity, yet chapter 49 is closely connected with chapter 48, and we do not finally leave Babylon behind till Isa 52:12. Nevertheless, in the meantime chapter 48 will form a convenient point on which to keep our eyes.
Cyrus, when we last saw him, was upon the banks of the Halys, 546 B.C., startling Croesus and the Lydian Empire into extraordinary efforts, both of a religious and political kind, to avert his attack. He had just come from an unsuccessful attempt upon the northern frontier of Babylon, and at first it appeared as if he were to find no better fortune on the western border of Lydia. In spite of his superior numbers, the Lydian army kept the ground on which he met them in battle. But Croesus, thinking that the war was over for the season, fell back soon afterwards on Sardis, and Cyrus, following him up by forced marches, surprised him under the walls of the city, routed the famous Lydian cavalry by the novel terror of his camels, and after a siege of fourteen days sent a few soldiers to scale a side of the citadel too steep to be guarded by the defenders; and so Sardis, its king and its empire, lay at his feet. This Lydian campaign of Cyrus, which is related by Herodotus, is worth noting here for the light it throws on the character of the man, whom according to our prophecy, God chose to be His chief instrument in that generation. If his turning back from Babylonia, eight years before he was granted an easy entrance to her capital, shows how patiently Cyrus could wait upon fortune, his quick march upon Sardis is the brilliant evidence that when fortune showed the way, she found this Persian an obedient and punctual follower. The Lydian campaign forms as good an illustration as we shall find of these texts of our prophet: “He pursueth them, he passeth in safety; by a way he (almost) treads not with his feet. He cometh upon satraps as on mortar, and as the potter treadeth upon clay. {Isa 12:3} I have holden his right hand to bring down before him nations, and the loins of kings will I loosen,” (poor ungirt Croesus, for instance, relaxing so foolishly after his victory!) “to open before him doors, and gates shall not be shut” (so was Sardis unready for him), “I go before thee, and will level the ridges; doors of brass I will shiver, and bolts of iron cut in sunder. And I will give to thee treasures of darkness, hidden riches of secret places.” {Isa 45:1-3} Some have found in this an allusion to the immense hoards of Croesus, which fell to Cyrus with Sardis.
With Lydia, the rest of Asia Minor, including the cities of the Greeks, who held the coast of the Aegean, was bound to come into the Persians hands. But the process of subjection turned out to be a tong one. The Greeks got no help from Greece. Sparta sent to Cyrus an embassy with a threat, but the Persian laughed at it and it came to nothing. Indeed, Spartas message was only a temptation to this irresistible warrior to carry his fortunate arms into Europe. His own presence, however, was required in the East, and his lieutenants found the thorough subjection of Asia Minor a task requiring several years. It cannot have well been concluded before 540, and while it was in progress we understand why Cyrus did not again attack Babylonia. Meantime, he was occupied with lesser tribes to the north of Media.
Cyrus second campaign against Babylonia opened in 539. This time he avoided the northern wall from which he had been repulsed in 546. Attacking Babylonia from the east, he crossed the Tigris, beat the Babylonian king into Borsippa, laid siege to that fortress and marched on Babylon, which was held by the kings son, Belshazzar, Bil-sarussur. All the world knows the supreme generalship by which Cyrus is said to have captured Babylon without assaulting the walls, from whose impregnable height their defenders showered ridicule upon him; how he made himself master of Nebuchadrezzars great bason at Sepharvaim, and turned the Euphrates into it; and how, before the Babylonians had time to notice the dwindling of the waters in their midst, his soldiers waded down the river bed, and by the river gates surprised the careless citizens upon a night of festival. But recent research makes it more probable that her inhabitants themselves surrendered Babylon to Cyrus.
Now it was during the course of the events just sketched, but before their culmination in the fall of Babylon, that chapters 43-48 were composed. That, at least, is what they themselves suggest. In three passages, which deal with Cyrus or with Babylon, some of the verbs are in the past, some in the future. Those in the past tense describe the calling and full career of Cyrus or the beginning of preparations against Babylon. Those in the. future tense promise Babylons fall or Cyrus completion of the liberation of the Jews. Thus, in Isa 43:14 it is written: “For your sakes I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down as fugitives all of them, and the Chaldeans in the ships of their rejoicing.” Surely these words announce that BabyIons fate was already on the way to her, but not yet arrived. Again, in the verses which deal with Cyrus himself, Isa 45:1-6, which we have partly quoted, the Persian is already “grasped by his right hand by God, and called”; but his career is not over, for God promises to do various things for him. The third passage is Isa 45:13 of the same chapter, where Jehovah says, “I have stirred him up in righteousness, and” changing to the future tense, “all his ways will I level; he shall build My city, and My captivity shall he send away.” What could be more precise than the tenor of all these passages? If people would only take our prophet at his word; if with all their belief in the inspiration of the text of Scripture, they would only pay attention to its grammar, which surely, on their own theory, is also thoroughly sacred, then there would be today no question about the date of Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22. As plainly as grammar can enable it to do, this prophecy speaks of Cyrus campaign against Babylon as already begun, but of its completion as still future. Chapter 48, it is true, assumes events as still farther developed, but we will come to it afterwards.
During Cyrus preparations, then, for invading Babylonia, and in prospect of her certain fall, chapters 43-48 repeat with greater detail and impetuosity the truths, which we have already gathered from chapters 40-42.
1. And first of these comes naturally the omnipotence, righteousness, and personal urgency of Jehovah Himself. Everything is again assured by His power and purpose; everything starts from His initiative. To illustrate this we could quote from almost every verse in the chapters under consideration. “I, I Jehovah, and there is none beside Me a Saviour. I am God”-El. “Also from today on I am He. I will work, and who shall let it? I am Jehovah. I, I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions. I First, and I Last; and beside Me there is no God”-Elohim. “Is there a God,” Eloah, “beside Me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any. I Jehovah, Maker of all things. I am Jehovah, and there is none else; beside Me there is no God. I am Jehovah, and there is none else. Former of light and Creator of darkness, Maker of peace and Creator of evil, I am Jehovah, Maker of all these. I am Jehovah, and there is none else, God,” Elohini, “beside Me, God-Righteous,” El Ssaddiq, “and a Saviour: there is none except: Me. Face Me, and be saved all ends of the earth; for I am God,” El, “and there is none else. Only in Jehovah-of Me shall they say-are righteousnesses and strength. I am God,” El, “and there is none else; God,” Elohim, “and there is none like Me. I am He; I am First, yea, I am Last. I, I have spoken. I have declared it.”
It is of advantage to gather together so many passages-and they might have been increased-from chapters 43-48. They let us see at a glance what a part the first personal pronoun plays in the Divine revelation. Beneath every religious truth is the unity of God. Behind every great movement is the personal initiative, and urgency of God. And revelation is, in its essence, not the mere publication of truths about God, but the personal presence and communication to men of God Himself. Three words are used for Deity-El, Eloah, Elohim-exhausting the Divine terminology. But besides these, there is a formula which puts the point even more sharply: “I am He.” It was the habit of the Hebrew nation, and indeed of all Semitic peoples, who shared their reverent unwillingness to name the Deity, to speak of Him simply by the third personal pronoun. The Book of Job is full of instances of the habit, and it also appears in many proper names, as Eli-hu, “My God-is-He,” Abi-hu, “My-Father-is-He.” Renan adduces the practice as evidence that the Semites were “naturally monotheistic,”-as evidence for what was never the case! But if there was no original Semitic monotheism for this practice to prove, we may yet take the practice as evidence for the personality of the Hebrew God. The God of the prophets is not the it, which Mr. Matthew Arnold so strangely thought he had identified in their writings, and which, in philosophic language, that unsophisticated Orientals would never have understood, he so cumbrously named “a tendency not ourselves that makes for righteousness.” Not anything like this is the God, who here urges His self-consciousness upon men. He says, “I am He,”-the unseen Power, who was too awful and too dark to be named, but about whom, when in their terror and ignorance His worshippers sought to describe Him, they assumed that He was a Person, and called Him, as they would have called one of themselves, by a personal pronoun. By the mouth of His prophet this vague and awful He declares Himself as I, I, I, – no mere tendency, but a living Heart and urgent Will, personal character and force of initiative, from which all tendencies move and take their direction and strength. “I am He.”
History is strewn with the errors of those who have sought from God something else than Himself. All the degradation, even of the highest religions, has sprung from this, that their votaries forgot that religion was a communion with God Himself, a life in the power of His character and will, and employed it as the mere communication either of material benefits or of intellectual ideas. It has been the mistake of millions to see in revelation nothing but the telling of fortunes, the recovery of lost things, decision in quarrels, direction in war, or the bestowal of some personal favour. Such are like the person, of whom St. Luke tells us, who saw nothing in Christ but the recoverer of a bad debt: “Master, speak unto my brother that he divide the inheritance with me”; and their superstition is as far from true faith as the prodigals old heart, when he said, “Give me the portion of goods that falleth unto me,” was from the other heart, when, in his poverty and woe, he cast himself utterly upon his Father: “I will arise and go to my Father.” But no less a mistake do those make, who seek from God not Himself, but only intellectual information. The first Reformers did well, who brought the common soul to the personal grace of God; but many of their successors, in a controversy, whose dust obscured the sun and allowed them to see but the length of their own weapons, used Scripture chiefly as a store of proofs for separate doctrines of the faith, and forgot that God Himself was there at all. And though in these days we seek from the Bible many desirable things, such as history, philosophy, morals, formulas of assurance of salvation, the forgiveness of sins, maxims for conduct, yet all these will avail us little, until we have found behind them the living Character, the Will, the Grace, the Urgency, the Almighty Power, by trust in whom and communion with whom alone they are added unto us.
Now the deity, who claims in these chapters to be the One, Sovereign God, was the deity of a little tribe. “I am Jehovah, I Jehovah am God, I Jehovah am He.” We cannot too much impress ourselves with the historical wonder of this. In a world, which contained Babylon and Egypt with their large empires, Lydia with all her wealth, and the Medes with all their force; which was already feeling the possibilities of the great Greek life, and had the Persians, the masters of the future, upon its threshold, -it was the god of none of these, but of the obscurest tribe of their bondsmen, who claimed the Divine Sovereignty for Himself; it was the pride of none of these, but the faith of the most despised and, at its heart, most mournful religion of the time, which offered an explanation of history, claimed the future, and was assured that the biggest forces of the world were working for its ends. “Thus saith Jehovah, King of Israel, and his Redeemer Jehovah of Hosts, I First, and I Last; and beside Me there is no God. Is there a God beside Me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any.”
By itself this were a cheap claim, and might have been made by any idol among them, were it not for the additional proofs by which it is supported. We may summarise these additional proofs as threefold: Laughter, Gospel, and Control of History, -three marvels in the experience of exiles. People, mournfullest and most despised, their mouths were to be filled with the laughter of truths scorn upon the idols of their conquerors. Men, most tormented by conscience and filled with the sense of sin, they were to hear the gospel of forgiveness. Nation, against whom all fact seemed to be working, their God told them, alone of all nations of the world, that He controlled for their sake the facts of today and the issues of tomorrow.
2. A burst of laughter comes very weirdly out of the Exile. But we have already seen the intellectual right to scorn which these crushed captives had. They were monotheists and their enemies were image worshippers. Monotheism, even in its rudest forms, raises men intellectually, -it is difficult to say by how many degrees. Indeed, degrees do not measure the mental difference between an idolater and him who serves with his mind, as well as with all his heart and it not for the additional proofs by which it is a difference that is absolute. Israel in captivity was conscious of this, and therefore, although the souls of those sad men were filled beyond any in the world with the heaviness of sorrow and the humility of guilt, their proud faces carried a scorn they had every right to wear, as the servants of the One God. See how this scorn breaks forth in the following passage. Its text is corrupt, and its rhythm, at this distance from the voices that utter it, is hardly perceptible; but thoroughly evident is its tone of intellectual superiority, and the scorn of it gushes forth in impetuous, unequal verse, the force of which the smoothness and dignity of our Authorised Version has unfortunately disguised.
1.
Formers of an idol are all of them waste,
And their darlings are utterly worthless!
And their confessors – they! they see not and know not
Enough to feel shame.
Who has fashioned a god, or an image has cast?
Tis to be utterly worthless.
Lo! all that depend ont are shamed,
And the gravers are less than men:
Let all of them gather and stand.
They quake and are shamed in the lump.
2.
Iron-graver-he takes a chisel,
And works with hot coals,
And with hammers he moulds;
And has done it with the arm of his strength. –
Anon hungers, and strength goes;
Drinks no water, and wearies!
3.
Wood-graver-he draws a line,
Marks it with pencil,
Makes it with planes,
And with compasses marks it.
So has made it the build of a man,
To a grace that is human-
To inhabit a house, cutting it cedars.
4.
Or one takes an ilex or oak,
And picks for himself from the trees of the wood
One has planted a pine, and the rain makes it big,
And tis there for a man to burn.
And one has taken of it, and been warmed;
Yea, kindles and bakes bread, –
Yea, works out a god, and has worshipped it!
Has made it an idol, and bows down before it!
Part of it burns he with fire,
Upon part eats flesh,
Roasts roast and is full;
Yea, warms him and saith,
“Aha, I am warm, have seen fire!”
And the rest of it-to a god he has made-to his image!
He bows to it, worships it, prays to it,
And says, “Save me, for my god art thou!”
5.
They know not and deem not!
For He hath bedaubed, past seeing, their eyes
Past thinking, their hearts.
And none takes to heart,
Neither has knowledge nor sense to say,
“Part of it burned I in fire-
Yea, have baked bread on its coals,
Do roast flesh that I eat, –
And the rest ot, to a
Disgust should I make it?
The trunk of a tree should I worship?”
Herder of ashes, a duped heart has sent him astray,
That he cannot deliver his soul. neither say,
“Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
Is not the prevailing note in these verses surprise at the mental condition of an idol-worshipper? “They see not and know not enough to feel shame. None takes it to heart, neither has knowledge nor sense to say, Part of it I have burned in fire and the rest, should I make it a god?” This intellectual confidence, breaking out into scorn, is the second great token of truth, which distinguishes the religion of this poor slave of a people.
3. The third token is its moral character. The intellectual truth of a religion would go for little, had the religion nothing to say to mans moral sense-did it not concern itself with his sins, had it no redemption for his guilt. Now, the chapters before us are full of judgment and mercy. If they have scorn for the idols, they have doom for sin, and grace for the sinner. They are no mere political manifesto for the occasion, declaring how Israel shall be liberated from Babylon. They are a gospel for sinners in all time. By this they farther accredit themselves as a universal religion.
God is omnipotent, yet He can do nothing for Israel till Israel put away their sins. Those sins, and not the peoples captivity, are the Deitys chief concern. Sin has been at the bottom of their whole adversity. This is brought out with all the versatility of conscience itself. Israel and their God have been at variance; their sin has been, what conscience feels the most, a sin against love. “Yet not upon Me hast thou called, O Jacob; how hast thou been wearied with Me, O Israel I have not made thee to slave with offerings, nor weaned thee with incense but thou hast made Me to slave with thy sins, thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities”. {Isa 43:22-24} So God sets their sins, where men most see the blackness of their guilt, in the face of His love. And now He challenges conscience. “Put Me in remembrance; let us come to judgment together; indict, that thou mayest be justified” (Isa 43:26). But it had been age long and original sin. “Thy father, the first had sinned; yea, thy representative men”-literally “interpreters, mediators-had transgressed against Me. Therefore did I profane consecrated princes, and gave Jacob to the ban, and Israel to reviling” (Isa 43:27-28). The Exile itself was but an episode in a tragedy, which began far back with Israels history. And so chapter 48 repeats: “I knew that thou dost deal very treacherously, and Transgressor-from-the-womb do they call thee” (Isa 48:8). And then there comes the sad note of what might have been. “O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as the river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea” (Isa 48:18). As broad Euphrates thou shouldst have lavishly rolled, and flashed to the sun like a summer sea. But now, hear what is left. “There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked” (Isa 48:22).
Ah, it is no dusty stretch of ancient history, no; long-extinct volcano upon the far waste of Asian politics, to which we are led by the writings of the Exile. But they treat of mans perennial trouble; and conscience, that never dies, speaks through their old-fashioned letters and figures with words we feel like swords. And therefore, still, whether they be psalms or prophecies, they stand like some ancient minster in the modern world, -where, on each new soiled day, till time ends, the heavy heart of man may be helped to read itself, and lift up its guilt for mercy.
They are the confessional of the world, but they are also its gospel, and the altar where forgiveness is sealed. “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; turn unto Me, for I have redeemed, thee. Israel shall be saved by Jehovah with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.” {Isa 43:25; Isa 44:21-22; Isa 45:17} Now, when we remember who the God is, who thus speaks, -not merely One who flings the word of pardon from the sublime height of His holiness, but, as we saw, speaks it from the midst of all His own passion and struggle under His peoples sins, -then with what assurance does His word come home to the heart. What honour and obligation to righteousness does the pardon of such a God put upon our hearts. One understands why Ambrose sent Augustine, after his conversion, first to these prophecies.
4. The fourth token, which these chapters offer for the religion of Jehovah, is the claim they make for it to interpret and to control history. There are two verbs, which are frequently repeated throughout the chapters, and which are given together in Isa 43:12 : “I have published and I have saved.” These are the two acts by which Jehovah proves His solitary divinity over against the idols.
The “publishing,” of course, is the same prediction, of which chapter 41 spoke. It is “publishing” in former times things happening now; it is “publishing” now things that are still to happen. “And who, like Me, calls out and publishes it, and sets it in order for Me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and that shall come, let them publish. Tremble not, nor fear: did I not long ago cause thee to hear? and I published, and ye are My witnesses. Is there a God beside Me? nay, there is no Rock; I know none”. {Isa 44:7-8}
The two go together, the doing of wonderful and saving acts for His people and the publishing of them before they come to pass. Israels past is full of such acts. Chapter 43, instances the delivery from Egypt (Isa 43:16-17), but immediately proceeds (Isa 43:18-19): “Remember ye not the former things”-here our old friend rishonoth occurs again, but this time means simply “previous events”-“neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; even now it springs forth. Shall ye not know it? Yea, I will set in the wilderness a way, in the desert rivers.” And of this new event of the Return, and of others which will follow from it, like the building of Jerusalem, the chapters insist over and over again, that they are the work of Jehovah, who is therefore a Saviour God. But what better proof can be given, that these saving facts are indeed His own and part of His counsel, than that He foretold them by His messengers and prophets to Israel, -of which previous “publication” His people are the witnesses. “Who among the peoples can publish thus, and let us hear predictions?-again rishonoth, “things ahead-let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, and let them hear and say, Truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah,” to Israel. {Isa 43:9-10} “I have published, and I have saved, and I have shewed, and there was no strange god among you; therefore”-because Jehovah was notoriously the only God who had to do with them during all this prediction and fulfilment of prediction” ye are witnesses for Me, saith Jehovah, that I am God” (id. Isa 43:12). The meaning of all this is plain. Jehovah is God alone, because He is directly effective in history for the salvation of His people, and because He has published beforehand what He will do. The great instance of this, which the prophecy adduces, is the present movement towards the liberation of the people, of which movement Cyrus is the most conspicuous factor. Of this Isa 45:19 ff. says: “Not in a place of the land of in Secret have I spoken, darkness. I have not said to the seed of Jacob, In vanity seek ye Me. I Jehovah am a speaker of righteousness, a publisher of things that are straight. Be gathered and come in; draw together, ye survivors of the nations: they have no knowledge that carry about the log of their image, and are suppliants to a god that cannot save. Publish, and bring it here; nay, let them advise together; who made this to be heard,”-that is, “who published this, -of ancient time?” Who published this of old? I Jehovah, and there is none God beside Me: a God righteous,”-that is, consistent, true to His published word, -“and a Saviour, there is none beside Me.” “Here we have joined together the same ideas as in Isa 43:12.” There “I have declared and saved” is equivalent to “a God righteous and a Saviour” here. “Only in Jehovah are righteousnesses,” that is, fidelity to His anciently published purposes; “and strength,” that is, capacity to carry these purposes out in history. God is righteous because, according to another verse in the same prophecy, {Isa 44:26} “He confirmeth the word of His servant, and the advice of His messengers He fulfilleth.”
Now the question has been asked, To what predictions does the prophecy allude as being fulfilled in those days when Cyrus was so evidently advancing to the overthrow of Babylon? Before answering this question it is well to note, that, for the most part, the prophet speaks in general terms. He gives no hint to justify that unfounded belief, to which so many think it necessary to cling, that Cyrus was actually named by a prophet of Jehovah years before he appeared. Had such a prediction existed, we can have no doubt that our prophet would now have appealed to it. No: he evidently refers only to those numerous and notorious predictions by Isaiah, and by Jeremiah, of the return of Israel from exile after a certain and fixed period. Those were now coming to pass.
But from this new day Jehovah also predicts for the days to come, and He does this very particularly, Isa 44:26, “Who is saying of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited; and of the cities of Judah, They shall be built; and of her waste places, I will raise them up. Who saith to the deep, Be dry, and thy rivers I will dry up. Who saith of Koresh, My Shepherd, and all My pleasure he shall fulfil: even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built, and the Temple shall be founded.”
Thus, backward and forward, yesterday, today and for ever, Jehovahs hand is upon history. He controls it: it is the fulfilment of His ancient purpose. By predictions made long ago and fulfilled today, by the readiness to predict today what will happen tomorrow, He is surely God and God alone. Singular fact, that in that day of great empires, confident in their resources, and with the future so near their grasp, it should be the God of a little people, cut off from their history, servile and seemingly spent, who should take the big things of earth-Egypt, Ethiopia, Seba-and speak of them as counters to be given in exchange for His people; who should speak of such a people as the chief heirs of the future, the indispensable ministers of mankind. The claim has two Divine features. It is unique, and history has vindicated it. It is unique: no other religion, in that or in any other time, has so rationally explained past history or laid out the ages to come upon the lines of a purpose so definite, so rational, so beneficent-a purpose so worthy of the One God and Creator of all. And it has been vindicated: Israel returned to their own land, resumed the development of their calling, and, after the centuries came and went, fulfilled the promise that they should be the religious teachers of mankind. The long delay of this fulfilment surely but testifies the more to the Divine foresight of the promise; to the patience, which nature, as well as history, reveals to be, as much as omnipotence, a mark of Deity.
These, then, are the four points, upon which the religion of Israel offers itself. First, it is the force of the character and grace of a personal God; second, it speaks with a high intellectual confidence, whereof its scorn is here the chief mark; third, it is intensely moral, making mans sin its chief concern; and fourth, it claims the control of history, and history has justified the claim.