For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls [which] I have made.
16. Hardly less remarkable is the motive here assigned for the Divine clemency, Jehovah’s compassion for the frailty of His creatures (Psa 103:9; Psa 103:13 f., Psa 78:39). The argument somewhat resembles that of ch. Isa 45:18 ff.: it cannot be Jehovah’s purpose to undo His own creation. The continuance of His anger would annihilate the souls which He Himself has made; therefore when chastisement has produced the contrite and humble spirit, He relents and shews mercy.
The word for souls is that which in Gen 2:7 means “breath (of life),” the principle of life in virtue of which man becomes “a living person” (cf. ch. Isa 42:5). The parallel spirit has the same sense; it is the Divine power by which human life is sustained.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For I will not contend for ever – I will not be angry with my people forever, nor always refuse to pardon and comfort them (see Psa 103:9). This is to be regarded as having been primarily addressed to the Jews in their long and painful exile in Babylon. It is, however, couched in general language; and the idea is, that although God would punish his people for their sins, yet his wrath would not be perpetual. If they were his children, he would visit them again in mercy, and would restore to them his favor.
For the spirit should fail before me – Critics have taken a great deal of pains on this part of the verse, which they suppose to be very obscure. The simple meaning seems to be, that if God should continue in anger against people they would be consumed. The human soul could not endure a long-continued controversy with God. Its powers would fail; its strength decay; it must sink to destruction. As God did not intend this in regard to his own people; as he meant that his chastisements should not be for their destruction, but for their salvation; and as he knew how much they could bear, and how much they needed, he would lighten the burden, and restore them to his favor. And the truth taught here is, that if we are his children, we are safe. We may suffer much and long. We may suffer so much that it seems scarcely possible that we should endure more. But he knows how much we can bear; and he will remove the lead, so that we shall not be utterly crushed. A similar sentiment is found in the two following elegant passages of the Psalms, which are evidently parallel to this, and express the same idea:
But he being full of compassion,
Forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not;
Yea many a time burned he his anger away,
And did not stir up all his wrath.
For he remembered that they were but flesh;
A wind that passeth away and returneth not again.
Psa 78:38-39
He will not always chide;
Neither will he keep his anger forever.
Like as a father pitieth his children,
So the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
For he knoweth our frame;
He remembereth that we are dust.
Psa 103:9, Psa 103:13-14
The Hebrew word which is rendered here should fail ( ataph), means properly to cover, as with a garment; or to envelope with anything, as darkness. Then it is used in the sense of having the mind covered or muffled up with sorrow; and means to languish, to be faint or feeble, to fail. Thus it is used in Psa 61:2; Psa 107:5; Psa 142:3; Lam 2:11-12, Lam 2:19; Jon 2:7. Other interpretations of this verse may be seen in Rosenmuller; but the above seems to be the true sense. According to this, it furnishes ground of encouragement and comfort to all the children of God who are afflicted. No sorrow will be sent which they will not be able to endure, no calamity which will not be finally for their own good. At the same time, it is a passage full of alarm to the sinner. How can he contend forever with God? How can he struggle always with the Almighty? And what must be the state in that dreadful world, where God shall contend for ever with the soul, and where all its powers shall be crushed beneath the vengeance of his eternal arm!
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 57:16-18
For I will not contend for ever
Gods contendings with man
I.
LET US ADVERT TO THE CONTROVERSY ITSELF–WHAT IT IS, WHY IT IS, AND HOW IT IS CARRIED ON. What this quarrel is we know. It is a part of that ancient strife for mastery, which has been going on ever since the fall, between truth and error, light and darkness, holiness and sin. The carnal mind is enmity against God. Unconverted men may demur to these representations; they tell us that they merely withhold from the Divine Being the homage which He expects and claims; but repugnance, hatred, enmity towards Him, they have none. But do they not hate the law of God? Would they not, if it were in their power, have Him alter the scheme of His entire moral government, His permissions, His requirements? This, speaking after the manner of men, makes God angry–sometimes the contendings of God with man take a judicial form. They are to condemn the sinner out of his own mouth, in that he did not see, in the bitter experiences of a life of evil, how the goodness of God was leading him to repentance. See a form of this contending with us, in that fixed and universal law of our being, which always makes us unhappy, when we are striving with God, when we reject His counsels, or resist His will, or try to get from under His yoke, or wrestle with all the obstructions of His providence, in order to have our own way. But, further, and more directly, God contends with us by His Word, and Spirit, and outward providences–by powerful awakenings at the heart when we look not for them, or byinterposed checks and barriers when we are bent on the way of sin. There are restraints upon us often from without. And there are restraints upon us from within from the suggestions, and the admonitions, and remonstrances of the Divine Spirit in our hearts. But a more comforting view of our text, and one more in harmony with its general spirit, is that which supposes God to be contending with us, avowedly for the purposes of His own Fatherly correction, and only for the fulfilment of those ends; waiting to remove from us His heavy hand. These contendings of God with His own children take many forms. Chastening is a universal discipline. Very hard to bear is this contending of God with us; there is only one thing harder, and that is, the state in which He should not contend with us at all, but should leave us to ourselves.
II. THE LIMITS WHICH GOD HAS HIMSELF ASSIGNED TO THIS CONTROVERSY WITH THE SOULS OF MEN, AND THE REASONS MOVING HIM THERETO,
Contend with us He must, and be wroth with us He must. It is a necessity forced upon Him by the circumstances of our fallen nature; but He will not contend for ever. Wisdom and goodness have decreed the bounds of this flooding wave and it shall go no farther. Now, in the case of the obstinately wicked and impenitent, we have seen why God will not contend for ever. They have their day of visitation and they outlive it; their accepted time and they sin on. The Judge wastes not scourges up, on them; they will make scourges enough for themselves. Hell itself is but Heavens assisting grace withdrawn, and man left to the evil of his own heart. But in His own children, the limits of Gods chastening are merciful limits. He for our profit–here is the universal law of the scourge; it will cease whenever our souls profit ceases. I will not contend for ever; nor longer than may be necessary to try our faith, to prove our repentance, to see what there is in our hearts, whether we will keep the Divine commandments or not. These seasons of sadness are sometimes permitted to take us off from a false theology and a false rest. For the spirit should fail before Me. Very instructive are those Scriptures, and very comforting, which tell us how largely the thought of our mortal frailness enters into the considerate care of Heaven. The uppermost thought which our subject should leave upon the mind, and which the heart should cleave to with all the energies of a loving faith is, that it goes very hard with God to afflict man at all; and that He has in some mysterious sense to wrestle with the conflicting powers of the Godhead before He can give up a soul altogether. It seems as if God could take every step towards the sinners condemnation but the last. He can admonish, rebuke, threaten; but when it comes to smiting, then comes the hesitation, then begins Gods strange work. (D. Moore, M. A.)
Contention ended and grace reigning
The Lord is holding high soliloquy. He allows His prophet to stand where he can hear the sacred soliloquy of the great Supreme; and he does hear it, and then under the dictate of the Divine Spirit he records it in the inspired book, where it remains to this day for our instruction.
I. GOD CONTENDS WITH MEN, AND THE DIVINE CONTENTION IS WELL DESERVED ON THEIR PART. He says, I will not contend for ever, in which it is implied that He does contend sometimes. Smiting comes before saving.
1. I would speak of this to the seeking sinner. Anything is better than the horrible calm of the dead sea of spiritual indifference. The Lords design in contending with you is to convince you of your sin. The next reason for the
Lords contending with you will begin to operate when the first purpose has been accomplished. You will, in your self-abasement, be driven to look to the grace of God. It is hard to part a man from his sin, it is still harder to divorce him from his self-righteousness: and this is a part of the Lords contention with awakened souls. Moreover, no one can be surprised that the Lord lets forth a measure of His wrath upon seeking sinners when we see how they behave, even while they are seeking. We have known them red hot one day and icy cold another, and albeit that they long for mercy, you will see them at certain seasons acting as if they despised it.
2. But now I turn to the people of God. Sometimes our Lord hath a contention with us. This is not at all wonderful when we consider how unworthily we often live towards His sacred name; indeed, it is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed. His contention with us will show itself occasionally in adverse providences. Even more severe are His blows when it comes to be a controversy carried on by His Spirit within the mind.
II. THIS DIVINE CONTENTION WILL COME TO AN END WITH THE CONTRITE, I will not contend for ever, etc. The question arises: When may we expect that this promise will be fulfilled? Notice the verse which precedes the text, for that assures us that God hath no controversy with the humble and the contrite. This is self-evident, for He declares Chat with such He will dwell, and the God of grace will not dwell in a house that is full of contention. He contends where He does not abide, but where He abides there is peace. It is wonderful how the pity of God has in some cases been excited, even by a temporary repentance. When wicked Ahab rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon himself, the Lord took note of it and said, Seest thou how Ahab humbled himself before Me? Because he humbled himself before Me I will not bring the evil in his days. When the Ninevites repented, though probably there was very little that was spiritual about their humbling, the Lord turned from His fierce anger and there was a reprieve for the wicked city. He has given a promise of grace which runs thus, Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up. He cannot spurn those who submit themselves before Him, for it is written, Though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly. Condescension to the lowly is His glory, as the blessed Virgin sang of old, and as many fainting ones may sing at this moment if they will: He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree: He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich He hath sent empty away. Lowly roofs attract the Deity. He comes to those who are broken in heart, and when He comes the contention is over. And what else doth the Lord promise to do? He says He will dwell with the humble, and He adds that He will revive them.
III. GOD HIMSELF FINDS REASONS FOR ENDING THE CONTENTION. We could not have found any, for in ourselves there is much cause for the Lords anger, but none for His grace.
1. The first is found in human weakness, and its inability to bear the Divine contention.
2. His second reason is, to my mind, even more extraordinary. It is given in the next verse: For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him: I hid Me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. This argument is founded on the inoperativeness of the Divine contention upon the heart which is to be won. If wrath will not humble us the Lord may yet in His grace try what love can do. He will love us to a better mind.
IV. God Himself having found a reason why He should cease from contention, nay, two reasons,. HE HIMSELF INVENTS AND PROPOSES ANOTHER METHOD FOR ENDING HIS CONTENTIONS and making us right with Himself.
1. It is an astonishing method. I have seen his ways, and will heal him.
2. It is an effectual method. I will heal him,–not I will smite him again, but I will treat his sin as if it were a disease. It is true that sin is much more than a disease, and God might treat us altogether and only from its criminal side, but still it is a disease, and therefore He resolves to treat it as such.
3. It is a tender way. I will lead him also.
4. Observe, how complete is this method. As if all that went before were not enough, it is added, I will restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. He will take away the sorrow as well as the sin, the killing grief as well as the killing disease. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. For I will not contend for ever] The learned have taken a great deal of pains to little purpose on the latter part of this verses which they suppose to be very obscure. After all their labours upon it, I think the best and easiest explication of it is given in the two following elegant passages of the Psalms, which I presume are exactly parallel to it, and very clearly express the same sentiment.
“But he in his tender mercy will forgive their sin
And will not destroy them;
Yea, oftentimes will he turn away his wrath,
And will not rouse up his indignation:
For he remembereth that they are but flesh,
A breath that passeth, and returneth not.”
Ps 78:38-39.
“He will not always contend
Neither will he for ever hold his wrath:
As a father yearneth towards his children,
So is JEHOVAH tenderly compassionate towards them
that fear him:
For he knoweth our frame;
He remembereth that we are but dust.”
Ps 103:9; Ps 103:13-14.
In the former of these two passages the second line seems to be defective both in measure and sense. I suppose the word otham, them, is lost at the end; which seems to be acknowledged by the Chaldee and Vulgate, who render as if they had read velo yaschith otham. – L.
For the spirit] ruach, the animal life.
And the souls] neshamoth, the immortal spirits. The Targum understands this of the resurrection. I will restore the souls of the dead, i.e., to their bodies.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I will not contend for ever; I will not constantly proceed to the utmost severity with sinful men in this life, and therefore I will put an end to the miseries of the Jews, and turn their captivity.
For the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made; for then their spirits would sink and die under my stroke, and I should do nothing else but destroy the works of mine own hands. Therefore I consider their infirmity, and spare them. Compare Psa 78:38,39; 103:13,14.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. Forreferring to thepromise in Isa 57:14; Isa 57:15,of restoring Israel when “contrite” (Gen 6:3;Gen 8:21; Psa 78:38;Psa 78:39; Psa 85:5;Psa 103:9; Psa 103:13;Psa 103:14; Mic 7:18).God “will not contend for ever” with His people, fortheir human spirit would thereby be utterly crushed, whereas God’sobject is to chasten, not to destroy them (Lam 3:33;Lam 3:34; Mic 7:8;Mic 7:9). With the ungodlyHe is “angry every day” (Psa 7:11;Rev 14:11).
spirit . . . before methatis, the human spirit which went forth from Me (Nu16:22), answering to “which I have made” in theparallel clause.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For I will not contend for ever,…. By afflictive providences; with the humble and contrite, the end being in a great measure answered by their humiliation and contrition; when God afflicts his people, it shows that he has a controversy with them, for their good, and his own glory; and when these ends are obtained, he will carry it on no longer:
neither will I be always wroth; as he seems to be in the apprehensions of his people, when he either hides his face from them, or chastises them with a rod of affliction:
for the spirit should fail before me; the spirit of the afflicted, which not being able to bear up any longer under the affliction, would sink and faint, or be “overwhelmed”, as the word c signifies:
and the souls which I have made; which are of God’s immediate creation, and which are also renewed by his grace, and made new creatures. The proselytes Abraham made are called the souls he made in Haran,
Ge 12:5, much more may this be said of the Father of spirits, the author both of the old and new creation. The Lord knowing the weakness of the human frame, therefore restrains his hand, or moderates or removes the affliction; see a like reason in Ps 78:38, the last days of trouble to God’s people, which will be the time of the slaying of the witnesses, will be such that if they are not shortened, no flesh can be saved, but for the elect’s sake they will be shortened,
Mt 24:22.
c “obrueretur”, Junius Tremellius, Vitriuga “in deliquium incideret”, Piscator, Gataker.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The compassion, by virtue of which God has His abode and His work of grace in the spirit and heart of the penitent, is founded in that free anticipating love which called man and his self-conscious spirit-soul into being at the first. “For I do not contend for ever, and I am not angry for ever: for the spirit would pine away before me, and the souls of men which I have created.” The early translators (lxx, Syr., Jer., possibly also the Targum) give to the meaning egredietur , which certainly cannot be established. And so also does Stier, so far as the thought is concerned, when he adopts the rendering, “A spirit from me will cover over, and breath of life will I make;” and so Hahn, “When the spirit pines away before me, I create breath in abundance.” But in both cases the writer would at any rate have used the perf. consec. , and the last clause of the v. has not the syntactic form of an apodosis. The rendering given above is the only one that is unassailable both grammatically and in fact. introduces the reason for the self-limitation of the divine wrath, just as in Psa 78:38-39 (cf., Psa 103:14): if God should put no restraint upon His wrath, the consequence would be the entire destruction of human life, which was His creative work at first. The verb , from its primary meaning to bend round ( Comm. on Job, at Job 23:9), has sometimes the transitive meaning to cover, and sometimes the meaning to wrap one’s self round, i.e., to become faint or weak (compare , fainted away, Lam 2:19; and in Psa 142:4, which is applied to the spirit, like the kal here). is equivalent to “in consequence of the wrath proceeding from me.” (a plural only met with here) signifies, according to the fixed usage of the Old Testament (Isa 2:22; Isa 42:5), the souls of men, the origin of which is described as a creation in the attributive clause (with an emphatic ), just as in Jer 38:16 (cf., Zec 12:1). Whether the accents are intended to take in this attributive sense or not, cannot be decided from the tiphchah attached to . The prophet, who refers to the flood in other passages also (e.g., Isa 54:9), had probably in his mind the promise given after the flood, according to which God would not make the existing and inherited moral depravity an occasion for utterly destroying the human race.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
16. Because not for ever will I strive. He continues the same doctrine; for it was difficult to persuade them of this, seeing that during that painful captivity they perceived that God was their enemy, and could scarcely obtain any taste of the grace of God, by which their hearts might be encouraged or relieved. The Prophet therefore meets this doubt, and shows that the punishments which they shall endure will be for a short time, and that God will not always be angry with them; that God has indeed very good reason to be angry, but yet that he will relinquish his right, and will make abatement of that which he might have demanded. Thus he connects the wrath of God with that moderation by which he soothes believers, that they may not be discouraged; for, although he draws an argument from the nature of God, yet this promise is especially directed to the Church.
This sentence, therefore, ought always to be remembered by us amidst our sorest afflictions, lest we should think that God is our enemy, or that he will always contend with us. When he says that God is angry, he speaks as if he made an admission, and in accordance with the feelings of our flesh; for we cannot form any other conception of God during our afflictions, than that he is angry with us. It is even profitable to be moved by this feeling, that it may instruct us to repentance; and therefore this form of expression must be viewed as referring exclusively to our capacity, and not to God.
For the spirit shall be clothed, (or, shall be concealed, or, shall fail.) He assigns the reason why he will not always strive. There are various interpretations of this passage. Among others this appears to me to be the more appropriate; that “the spirit is clothed” with the body, as with a garment. Hence also the body is called the tabernacle, and, as it were, the habitation of the spirit. If we adopt this signification of the word, there will be two modes of interpreting this clause. Some explain it as referring to the last resurrection: “the spirit shall be clothed;“ that is, after having gone out of the body, will again return to it as to its habitation. Thus there will be an argument from the greater to the less: “I will raise up dead bodies; why then shall I not restore you, though halfdead, to a better life?” Another meaning, which is also adopted by some, will be simpler and better; for the interpretation of the clause, as referring to the last resurrection, is too remote from the context. “I surrounded the spirit with a body;” as if he had said, “I created men, and therefore will take care of them.”
But for my own part, I think that the Prophet rises higher; for he shows that the Lord deals so gently and kindly with us, because he perceives how weak and feeble we are; as is also pointed out in other passages of Scripture, such as Psa 103:13. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. He knoweth our condition, remembering that we are dust. The age of man is like grass, and flourisheth as a flower in the field.” The same thing is said in Psa 78:38. “Yet being inclined to mercy, he was gracious to their iniquity, and did not destroy them, and often recalled his anger, and did not stir up all his indignation, remembering that they were flesh, and a wind that passeth away and returneth not again.” Here the Prophet appears to me to mean the same thing; as if the Lord had said, “I am unwilling to try my strength with breath or wind, which would be as if with grass or a leaf, that shall suddenly vanish away when they have felt the heat of the sun.” יעטוף ( yagnatoph) is explained by some to mean “Shall fail;“ which agrees very well with this passage; for our spirit shall fail, when the Lord puts forth his power against us. Leaving the signification of the words as somewhat doubtful, we sufficiently understand the Prophet’s design. He shows that God deals gently with us, and acts with little severity in correcting our sins, because he takes into account our weakness, and wishes to support and relieve it.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(16) I will not contend for ever . . .The words come as a message of comfort to the penitent who is still bearing the chastisement of his sins. The time during which God contends with him as an accuser and a judge has its limits. Were it not so. the souls which he had made would be utterly consumed, and His purpose in creation would be frustrated. The words seem like an echo of Gen. 6:3; Gen. 8:21. (Comp. Psa. 103:9-10).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. I will not contend for ever The prophet speaks for Jehovah in anthropopathic terms; that is, in terms as if He, the Infinite One, does actually think and feel human thoughts and emotions, and so does sympathize, as no being else can, with man’s spiritual needs, woes, and joys. He is able, in truth, so to represent the deity; but in doing so, the prophet’s object is to make divine relations to human wants the more vividly felt. God deals trial to his people for necessary discipline. “But he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever, for he knoweth our frame.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 57:16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls [which] I have made.
Ver. 16. For I will not contend for ever. ] It soon repenteth the Lord concerning his servants. Et pro magno peccato parum supplicii satis est patti. a See Psa 103:9 .
For the spirit would fail before me.
a Terent.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
souls = breathing things. Hebrew. neshamah. App-16. See note on Isa 2:22 (“breath”).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I will not: Psa 78:38, Psa 78:39, Psa 85:5, Psa 103:9-16, Jer 10:24, Mic 7:18
the souls: Isa 42:5, Num 16:22, Job 34:14, Job 34:15, Ecc 12:7, Jer 38:16, Zec 12:1, Heb 12:9
Reciprocal: Gen 41:51 – Manasseh Num 17:12 – Behold 2Sa 24:16 – It is enough 2Ch 20:6 – God in heaven Job 9:3 – he will contend Job 17:1 – my days Job 23:16 – For God Psa 6:1 – rebuke Psa 30:5 – For Psa 138:7 – Though I walk Psa 143:7 – my spirit Son 5:6 – my soul Isa 19:3 – the spirit Isa 27:8 – measure Isa 54:8 – a little Jer 3:5 – he reserve Jer 31:20 – for Lam 3:31 – General Amo 1:11 – kept Mar 2:21 – seweth Mar 7:29 – General Luk 6:20 – Blessed Luk 16:9 – when Act 17:25 – seeing
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
57:16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always angry: {s} for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls [which] I have made.
(s) I will not use my power against frail man, whose life is but a blast.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
God will not always be angry with sinners; His anger will come to an end because He has made provision for human sin through the Servant. He becomes angry, but He is love (cf. Psa 30:5). If God remained angry with sin, humanity could not endure His wrath and everyone would perish (cf. Gen 6:3). Obviously God remains angry with sinners who refuse His grace, but He does not need to remain angry with the humble who accept His provision for their sins.