Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 63:1

Who [is] this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this [that is] glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

1. On Bozrah, a city of Edom, see on ch. Isa 34:6.

with dyed garments ] Better, with bright coloured garments. The word for “dyed” means literally “sharp,” “piercing.”

The mention of Edom as the scene of a judgement which is obviously universal (see Isa 63:3 ; Isa 63:6), including all the enemies of Jehovah and Israel, is a feature common to this prophecy and that of ch. 34. It is partly accounted for by the embittered relations between the two peoples, of which traces are found in post-exilic writings (see the note on ch. 34); and partly perhaps by the ancient conception that Jehovah marches from Edom to the succour of His people (Jdg 5:4). There can hardly be a reference to anticipated resistance on the part of the Edomites to the re-establishment of the Jewish State, for the judgement is not on Edom alone but on all nations; and moreover the prophecy in all probability belongs to a date subsequent to the first return of the exiles from Babylon.

glorious in his apparel ] The word for glorious is lit. “swelling,” being identical with that which is wrongly rendered “crooked” in ch. Isa 45:2 (see the note). It is doubtful what is the exact sense of the expression “swelling in his raiment.” Duhm’s suggestion of loose robes inflated by the wind seems a little fanciful. On the other hand “glorious” or “splendid” (LXX. ) conveys an impression hardly consistent with the image, since the garments of the divine champion are said to be “defiled” by the blood of His enemies ( Isa 63:3).

travelling ] R.V. marching; Vulg. gradiens. This however may represent a variant reading ( ‘d, cf. Jdg 5:4) which is perhaps preferable to the Massoretic text ( ‘eh). The Hebr. word occurs in the difficult passage Isa 51:14 with the sense of “crouching.” Those who retain it here explain it in various ways with the help of the Arabic as a “gesture of proud self-consciousness” (Del.); “swaying to and fro”; “with head thrown back,” &c.

I that speak in righteousness &c. ] i.e. “speak righteously” (cf. Isa 45:19). Jehovah declares Himself to be true in speech, faithfully fulfilling His prophecies, and powerful in deed ( mighty to save).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Who is this – The language of the people who see Yahweh returning as a triumphant conqueror from Idumea. Struck with his stately bearing as a warrior; with his gorgeous apparel; and with the blood on his raiment, they ask who he could be? This is a striking instance of the bold and abrupt manner of Isaiah. He does not describe him as going forth to war nor the preparation for battle; nor the battle itself, nor the conquests of cities and armies; but he introduces at once the returning conqueror having gained the victory – here represented as a solitary warrior, moving along with majestic gait from Idumea to his own capital, Jerusalem. Yahweh is not unfrequently represented as a warrior (see the notes at Isa 42:13).

From Edom – On the situation of Edom, and for the reasons of the animosity between that country and Judea, see the Aanlysis to Isa. 34.

With dyed garments – That is, with garments dyed in blood. The word rendered here dyed ( chamuts), is derived from chamats, to be sharp and pungent, and is usually applied to anything that is sharp or sour. It is applied to color that is bright or dazzling, in the same manner as the Greeks use the phrase chroma oxu – a sharp color – applied to purple or scarlet. Thus the phrase porphurai oxutatai means a brilliant, bright purple (see Bochart, Hieroz. i. 2. 7). It is applied to the military cloak which was worn by a warrior, and may denote here either that it was originally dyed of a scarlet color, or more probably that it was made red by the blood that had been sprinkled on it. Thus in Rev 19:13, the Son of God is represented as clothed in a similar manner: And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood. In Isa 63:3, the answer of Yahweh to the inquiry why his raiment was red, shows that the color was to be attributed to blood.

From Bozrah – On the situation of Bozrah, see the notes at Isa 34:6. It was for a time the principal city of Idumea, though properly lying within the boundaries of Moab. In Isa 34:6, Yahweh is represented as having a great sacrifice in Bozrah; here he is seen as having come from it with his garments red with blood.

This that is glorious in his apparel – Margin, Decked. The Hebrew word ( hadur) means adorned, honorable, or glorious. The idea is, that his military apparel was gorgeous and magnificent – the apparel of an ancient warrior of high rank.

Traveling in the greatness of his strength – Noyes renders this, Proud in the greatness of his strength, in accordance with the signification given by Gesenius. The word used here ( tsaah) means properly to turn to one side, to incline, to be bent, bowed down as a captive in bonds Isa 51:14; then to bend or toss back the head as an indication of pride (Gesenius). According to Taylor (Concord.) the word has relation to the actions, the superb mien or manner of a triumphant warrior returning from battle, in which he has got a complete victory over his enemies. And it may include the pomp and high spirit with which he drives before him the prisoners which he has taken. It occurs only in this place and in Isa 51:14; Jer 2:20; Jer 48:12. The Septuagint omits it in their translation. The sense is doubtless that Yahweh is seen returning with the tread of a triumphant conqueror, flushed with victor, and entirely successful in having destroyed his foes. There is no evidence, however, as Taylor supposes, that he is driving his prisoners before him, for he is seen alone, having destroyed all his foes.

I that speak in righteousness – The answer of the advancing conqueror. The sense is, It is I, Yahweh, who have promised to deliver my people and to destroy their enemies, and who have now returned from accomplishing my purpose. The assurance that he speaks in righteousness, refers here to the promises which he had made that be would rescue and save them.

Mighty to save – The sentiment is, that the fact that he destroys the foes of his people is an argument that he can save those who put their trust in him. The same power that destroys a sinner may save a saint; and the destruction of a sinner may be the means of the salvation of his own people.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Isa 63:1-6

Who is this that cometh from Edom?

—

Jehovahs triumph over His peoples foes

A passage of unique and sublime dramatic power. The impotence of Israels enemies to retard or interfere with their deliverance has been insisted on before (Isa 41:15 f., 49:25, 26, 51:23, 54:17); and it is here developed under a noveland striking figure. The historical fact upon which the representation rests is the long-standing and implacable enmity subsisting between Israel and Edom. The scene depicted is, of course, no event of actual history; it is symbolical; an ideal humiliation of nations, marshalled upon the territory of Israels inveterate foe, is the form under which the thought of Israels triumph is here expressed. The prophet sees in imagination a figure, as of a conqueror, his garments crimsoned with blood, advancing proudly, in the distance from the direction of Edom, and asks, Who is this that cometh? etc. In reply, he hears from afar the words, I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save, i.e. I who have announced (Isa 45:19) a just and righteous purpose of deliverance, and am able to give it effect. The answer is not yet sufficiently explicit, so he repeats the question in a more direct form, Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel? etc. (Isa 63:2-3). Not Edom only, then, but other nations also have been trodden down and subdued (Isa 63:4-6). In the hour when the contest Israel contra mundum was to be decided, no human agent, willingly or consciously, came forward to assist; nevertheless, Gods purposes were not frustrated: Israels opponents were humbled and defeated; but human means, in so far as use was made of them, were the unconscious instruments of Providence. And thus the blood-stained colour of the Victors garments is explained: it is a token of Jehovahs triumph over His peoples foes, primarily, indeed, over those foes who would impede the release of the Jews from Babylon, or molest them when settled again in Palestine, but by implication also, over other foes who might rise up in the future to assail the people of God. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)

The Saviour–God of Israel

The image presented is one of the most impressive and awe-inspiring in the Old Testament, and it is difficult to say which is most to be admired, the dramatic vividness of the vision, or the reticence which conceals the actual work of slaughter and concentrates the attention on the Divine Hero as He emerges victorious from the conflict. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)

Who is the Hero?

It was a serious misapprehension of the spirit of the prophecy which led many of the Fathers to apply it to the passion and death of Christ. Although certain phrases, detached from their context, may suggest that interpretation to a Christian reader, there can be no doubt that the scene depicted is a drama of Divine vengeance (G. A. Smith), into which the idea of propitiation does not enter. The solitary Figure who speaks in Isa 63:3-6 is not the servant of the Lord, or the Messiah, but Jehovah Himself (comp the parallel, Isa 59:16); the blood whichreddens His garments is expressly said to be that of His enemies; and the winepress is no emblem of the spiritual sufferings endured by our Lord, but of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God (Rev 19:15) towards the adversaries of His Kingdom. While it is true that the judgment is the prelude to the redemption of Israel, the passage before us exhibits only the judicial aspect of the Divine dealings, and it is not permissible to soften the terrors of the picture by introducing soteriological conceptions which lie beyond its scope. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)

The Conqueror from Edom

What does it mean–the prophetic Genius waiting, watching, and questioning; the mighty stranger coming fresh from victorious battle, with the robe red as if with the stain of grapes, coming up from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? Edom, remember, was the country where the Israelites most inveterate enemies lived. No other nation pressed on them so constantly or gave them such continual trouble as the Edomites. And Bozrah was the capital city of Edom, the centre of its power. When the conqueror comes from Edom, then, and finds Israel anxious and eager upon the mountain, and shows her his stained robe in sign of the struggle which he has gone through, and then tells her that the victory is complete, that because he saw that she had no defender he has undertaken her defence and trodden Edom under foot for her, we can -,understand something of the power and comfort of such a poetic vision to the Hebrews heart. There may have been some special event which it commemorated. Some special danger may have threatened on the side of the tumultuous Edomites, and some special unexpected deliverer may have appeared who saved the country, and was honoured by this song of praise. But every such special deliverance to the deep religious and patriotic feeling of the Jew had a much wider meaning. Every partial mercy to his nation always pointed to the one great mercy which was to embrace all others, to the coming of the Messiah, whose advent was to be the source of every good, and the cure of every evil. And so these words of Isaiah mount to a higher strain than any that could have greeted an Israelite warrior who aright have made a successful incursion into Edomite soil. The prophet is singing of the victorious Messiah. This Hebrew Messiah has come, and is more than the Hebrew Messiah: He is the Christians Christ, He is our Saviour. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)

Christs struggle and triumph

Very often now this sounds strange and incomprehensible; this absorption of every struggle between the good and the evil that is going on in the world into the one great struggle of the life and death of Jesus Christ; but it follows necessarily from any such full idea as we Christians hold of what Jesus Christ is and of what brought Him to this world. If He be really the Son of God, bringing in an utterly new way the power of God to bear on human life; if He be the natural-Creator-King of humanity, come for the salvation of humanity; then it would seem to follow that the work of salvation must be His, and His alone: and if we see the process of salvation, the struggle of the good against the evil, going on all over the world, we shall be ready still to feel that it is all under His auspices and guidance; that the effort of any benighted soul in any darkest heathen land to get away from its sins, and cast itself upon an assured mercy of its God, is part of His great work, is to the full intelligent faith of the well-taught Christian believer just what the struggle of a blind plant underground to reach the surface is to the free aspiration of the oak-tree, which in the full glory of the sunlight reaches out its eager branches toward the glorious sun–a result of the same power, and a contribution to the same victorious success. All forces strive after simplicity and unity. Operations in nature, in mechanics, in chemistry, which men have long treated as going on under a variety of powers, are gradually showing themselves to be the fruits of one great mightier power, which in many various forms of application is able to produce them all. This is the most beautiful development of our modern science. The Christian belief in Christ holds the same thing of the spiritual world, and unites all partial victories everywhere into one great victory which is the triumph of its Lord. On no other ground can Christianity stand with its exclusive claims, and Christianity is in its very nature exclusive. In the susceptibility of all men to the same influences of the highest sort, there comes out the only valuable proof of the unity of the human race, I think. Demonstrate what you may about the diversity of origin or structure of humanity, so long as the soul capable of the great human struggle and the great human helps is in every man, the human race is one, On the other hand, demonstrate as perfectly as you will the identity of origin and structure of all humanity, yet if you find men so spiritually different in two hemispheres that the same largest obligations do not impress and the same largest loves do not soften them, what does your unity of the human race amount to? Here, it seems to me, Christ in His broad appeal to all men of all races, is the true assorter of the only valuable human unity. If this be so, then wherever there is good at work in the world, we Christians may see the progress of the struggle, and rejoice already in the victory of Christ. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)

The method of Christs salvation

Let us go on and look, as far as we may, into the method of this salvation; first, for the world at large, and then for the single soul. And in both let us follow the story of the old Jewish vision. Who is this that cometh from Edom? Sin hangs on the borders of goodness everywhere, as just across the narrow Jordan valley Edom always lay threateningly upon the skirts of Palestine. How terribly constant it was! How it kept the people on a strain all the while! The moment that a Jew stepped across the border, the Edomites were on him. The moment a flock or beast of his wandered too far, the enemy had seized him. If in the carelessness of a festival the Israelites left the border unguarded, the hated Edomites found it out and came swooping down just when the mirth ran highest and the sentinels were least careful. If a Jews field of wheat was specially rich, the Edomite saw the green signal from his hilltop, and in the morning the field was bare. There was no rest, no safety. They had met the chosen people on their way into the promised land, and tried to keep them out; and now that they were safely in, there they always hovered, wild, implacable, and watchful. There could be no terms of compromise with them. They never slept. They saw the weak point in a moment; they struck it quick as lightning strikes. The constant dread, the nightmare, of Jewish history is this Edom lying there upon the border, like a lion crouched to spring. There cannot be one great fight, or one great war, and then the thing done for ever. It is an endless fight with an undying enemy! Edom upon the borders of Judah!

1. We open any page of human history and what do we see? There is a higher life in man. Imperfect, full of mixture, just like that mottled history of Hebrewdom; yet still it is in human history what Judea was in the old world–the spiritual, the upward, the religious element; something that believes in God and struggles after Him. Not a page can you open but its mark is there. Sometimes it is an aspiration after civilization, sometimes it is a doctrinal movement, sometimes it is a mystical piety that is developed; sometimes it is social; sometimes it is ascetic and purely individual; sometimes it is a Socrates, sometimes it is a St. Francis, sometimes it is a Luther, sometimes it is a Florence Nightingale. It is there in some shape always: this good among the evil, this power of God among the forces of men, this Judah in the midst of Asia. But always right on its border lies the hostile Edom, watchful, indefatigable, inexorable as the redoubtable old foe of the Jews. If progress falters a moment, the whole mass of obstructive ignorance is rolled upon it. If faith leaves a loophole undefended, the quick eye of Atheism sees it from its watch-tower and hurls its quick strength there, If goodness goes to sleep upon its arms, sleepless wickedness is across the valley, and the fields which it has taken months of toil to sow and ripen are swept off in a night. Is not this the impression of the world, of human life, that you get, whether you open the history of any century or unfold your morning newspaper? The record of a struggling charity is crowded by the story of the prison and the court. The world waits at the church door to catch the worshipper as he comes out. The good work of one century relaxes a moment for a breathing spell, and the next century comes in with its licentiousness or its superstition. Always it is the higher life pressed, watched, haunted by the lower: always it is Judah with Edom at its gates. No one great battle comes to settle it for ever: it is an endless fight with an undying enemy.

2. How is it in these little worlds, which we are carrying about? You have your good, your Spirituality, your better life; something that bears witness of God. How evil crowds you! You cannot fight it out at once and have it done. You go on quietly for days, and think the enemy is dead. Just when you are safest, there he is again, more alive than ever. We live a spiritual life like the life that our fathers used to live here in New England, who always took their guns to church with them and smoothed down the graves of their beloved dead in the churchyard that the hostile and watchful Indians might not know how weak they were. This is the great discouraging burden of our experience of sin. We look and there is none to help. We wonder that there is none to uphold. No power of salvation comes out of the good half of the heart to conquer and to kill the bad. We grow not to expect to see the bad half conquered. Every morning we lift up our eyes, and there are the low, black hill-tops across the narrow valley, with the black tents upon their sides, where Edom lies in wait. Who shall deliver us from the bad world and our bad selves? What then? It is time for the sunrise when the night gets as dark as this. It is time for the Saviour when the world and the soul have learnt their helplessness and sin. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength? The whole work of the Saviour has relation to and issues from the fact of sin. If there had been no sin there would have been no Saviour. He comes from the right direction, and He has an attractive majesty of movement as He first appears. This, as to the watcher on the hill-tops of Judea, so to the soul that longs for some solution of the spiritual problem, some release from the spiritual bondage, is the first aspect of the approaching Christ. He comes from the right way, and He seems strong. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)

The righteous Saviour

Let us look at what He says to His anxious questioner; what account of Himself He gives; what He has done to Edom; and especially what mean these blood-stains on His robes.

1. We ask Him, Who is this? and He replies, I that come in righteousness, mighty to save. That reassures us, and is good at the very outset. The Saviour comes in the strength of righteousness. Righteousness is at the bottom of all things. Any reform or salvation of which the power is righteousness must go down to the very root of the trouble; must extenuate and cover over nothing; must expose and convict completely, in order that it may completely heal. And this is the power of the salvation of Christ. Edom must be destroyed, not parleyed with; sin must be beaten down, not conciliated; good must thrive by the defeat, and not merely by the tolerance of evil.

2. The questioner wonders, as the Saviour comes nearer, at the strange signs of battle and agony upon His robes. Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? And the answer is, I have trodden the winepress: I will tread them in Mine anger, etc. It is no holiday monarch coming with a bloodless triumph. It has been no pageant of a day, this strife with sin. The robes have trailed in the blood. The sword is dented with conflict. The power of

God has struggled with the enemy and subdued him only in the agony of strife. What pain may mean to the Infinite and Divine, what difficulty may mean to Omnipotence, I cannot tell. Only I know that all that they could mean they meant here. This symbol of the blood bears this great truth, which has been the power of salvation to millions of hearts, and which must make this Conqueror the Saviour of your heart too, the truth that only in self-sacrifice and suffering could even God conquer sin. Sin is never so dreadful as when we see the Saviour with that blood upon His garments. And the Saviour Himself, surely He is never so dear, never wins so utter and so tender a love, as when we see what it has cost Him to save us. Out of that love born of His suffering comes the new impulse after a holy life; and so when we stand at last purified by the power of grateful obedience, it shall be said of us, binding our holiness and escape from our sin close to our Lords struggle with sin for us, that we have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

3. But He says something more. Not merely He has conquered completely and conquered in suffering: He has conquered alone. He brings out victory in His open hand. From His hand we take it by the power of prayer, and to Him alone we render thanks here and for ever.

4. Yet once more. What was the fruit of this victory over Edom which the Seer of Israel discovered from his mountain-top? It set Israel free from continual harassing and fear, and gave her a chance to develop along the way that God had marked out for her. Freedom! That is the word. It built no cities; it sowed no fields; it only broke off the burden of that hostile presence and bade the chosen nation go free into its destiny. And so what is the fruit of the salvation that the Divine Saviour brings to the souls of men? It does not finish them at once; it does not fill and stock their lives with heavenly richness in a moment. But it does just this. It sets them free; it gives them a new chance.

5. And notice that this Conqueror who comes, comes strong travelling in the greatness of His strength. He has not left His might behind Him in the struggle. He is all ready, with the same strength with which He conquered, to enter in and rule and educate the nation He has saved. And so the Saviour has not done all when He has forgiven you. By the same strength of love and patience which saved you upon Calvary, He will come in, if you will let Him, and train your saved life into perfectness of grace and glory. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)

Mighty to save

I. THE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT CHRIST WAGED IN OUR WORLD AMONG MEN. It was–

1. Voluntary. Christ came joyfully, willingly, and self-forgetfully.

2. Sanguinary. The victory was not achieved without a severe struggle.

3. Substitutionary. The hero was travelling in his strength, and had wrought deliverance from the foe, had saved those for whom he had gone forth to the fray. So our Redeemer came to conquer sin and death, not for Himself, but for us.

II. THE COMPLETENESS OF THE CONQUEST CHRIST ACHIEVED IN THE CONFLICT. The victor from Edom was more than a conqueror.

1. He survived the fight. Many a warrior has won a victory, but has lost his life in winning it. Jesus laid down His life to conquer death, but He took it up again; and behold He is alive for evermore.

2. lie subdued the foe. The hero from Edom was travelling peacefully, for the enemy had been completely vanquished, the conquest finally won of lords.

III. THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE CROWN CHRIST SECURED BY HIS GREAT CONQUEST. The conqueror from Edom appeared clothed in glorious apparel and in great strength; there was a halo of glory around his head. In this aspect we get a picture of our triumphant Lord. He assumed the vestment of our poor humanity, and was as a root out of a dry ground; yet He was clothed with the beautiful garments of grace and righteousness, of spotless purity. His crown of glory consisted in the following facts–

1. That justice was satisfied.

2. That pardon was procured. The full price of redemption was paid.

3. That heaven was opened. (F. W. Brown.)

The second advent

I. The first thing is to determine the just answer to the question, Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? in other words, we have to ascertain who IS THE WARRIOR DELINEATED IN THIS PROPHECY.

1. The only endeavour to refer this prediction to another than Christ, appears to be that which would assign as its subject Judas Maccabeus, because this great Jewish captain who did so valiantly for the Jews in the days of Antiochus, overcame the Idumeans in battle; and if every circumstance favoured that interpretation (and we might, perhaps, suppose that this illustrious deliverer, in common with Moses, and Joshua, and other saviours of Israel, may be regarded as a type of the Messiah), still we could only plead for the accommodation, not for the completion of the prophecy. However splendid the achievements of Judas Maccabeus, there can be no sense, commensurate with the expression, in which the chieftain could describe himself as speaking in righteousness, and assert that the year of his redeemed was come, or affirm that his own arm had brought salvation: so that were it allowed that the prediction had a primary fulfilment in Judas Maccabeus, we should still have to search for another accomplishment. It seems, however, satisfactorily established that Idumea or Edom at the prophets time was a different country from that which Judas conquered. This circumstance excludes Judas Maccabeus from all share in the prophecy before us; and there remains none but the Redeemer of men in whom we can look for its accomplishment.

2. When it is admitted that the prophecy delineates Christ, we have to determine whether it be to an action already achieved or yet to be performed by the Saviour, that so sublime a description refers. It can only have been through inattention or oversight that any have supposed the prediction to relate to the death and passion of the Mediator. You observe that though the Redeemer is introduced as stained with blood, it is with the blood of His enemies, not with His own. There is a little obscurity in the answer arising from our translator having used the future tense instead of the past; and, according to Bishop Lowth, it should be, I trod them in anger, and trampled them in indignation, and their life blood was sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all My apparel. It was not, therefore, the winepress which He trod in His agony at the crucifixion, whence He brought these dyed garments; He must have been engaged in shedding the blood of others rather than pouring forth His own, ere He breaks forth on the seers vision travelling in the greatness of His strength. The only circumstance associated with the first advent of Christ to which the prophecy can be fairly thought to refer, is the destruction of Jerusalem at that terrible visitation in which the Redeemer came down in vengeance, and dealt with His enemies with the strongest retribution. Yet, whatever there might have been in the desolations of Judea answering to the fearful expressions which Christ applies to this act, it certainly was not from Edom and Bozrah that He came, when returning from the overthrow of Jerusalem. Of course it was not from the literal Edom, and the literal Bozrah, but neither was it from the figurative. We believe that Edom and Bozrah are here used to denote nations that have been opposed to Christ and His people, and never was there a fiercer opposition than that of the Jews ere their city was destroyed; still it is quite at variance with the rules of Scripture metaphor, that the posterity of Jacob should be described by terms which belong rightly to the posterity of Esau. We may add that Christs description of vengeance taken is immediately followed by thankful acknowledgments of great good to the house of Israel. If the prophecy have reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, how comes it to be instantly succeeded by a hymn of praise for Gods mercy to the Jews? On these various accounts we do not hesitate to assert that the prediction finds no fulfilment in the events of past days; that the future must be charged with its accomplishment, and that the fearful form on which the prophet looked, the form of a warrior, fresh from the victory, must be that of Christ appearing, as He shall appear, at the close of this dispensation, when He has swept a clear scene for setting up His kingdom, and purged the earth from the pollutions of crime. And to those who are familiar with the prophecies which describe the last times, it will immediately suggest itself, that the sudden transition from the assertion of the destruction of antichristian powers, to the offering up of the thanksgiving of the Jews, is in admirable keeping with the whole tenor of prophecy. It seems clearly the import of yet unfulfilled predictions of Scripture, that the restoration of the Jews to their own laud, that great event on which hangs the conversion of the nations, shall not be accomplished without the opposition and overthrow of the confederated powers of antichrist. If, therefore, we consider the final destruction of the antichristian powers as the slaughter of Idumea, from which Christ is returning, it is quite natural that the praises of the house of Israel should immediately succeed the account of the overthrow.

II. Our business is to show THE JUSTICE OF THE INTERPRETATION which would associate the prophecy with the Saviours second advent.

1. We shall examine what Scripture makes known with regard to the second advent.

2. We shall endeavour to establish the thorough agreement between all we are thus taught, and the prophecy of ore text.

(1) This coming is represented as accompanied by terrific judgements. It appears from the Book of Revelation that immediately before the millennium, the scene that is to be introduced by the coming of Christ, there will be a gathering of the kings of the earth to battle for the great day of God Almighty. This is the confederacy of antichristian powers. We not only find that when Christ appears the second time it will be to take vengeance on His enemies, but we seem to be furnished with a thorough answer to the question, Who is this that cometh from Edom etc.

(2) The only point which seems to need illustration, ere we proceed to fix the meaning of the text, is the use of the terms Edom and Bozrah, to denote the confederated powers of antichrist. It is common in Scripture to take the name belonging to some great foe, and to give it to others whose Isawickedness is the only connection with the parties so called (e.g. 1:10)

. The antichristian power which was allowed for years to persecute and to harass the Church, and is at last to be thrown down with violence, is expressly denominated Babylon. In like manner, names such as Edom and Moab, belonging originally to the declared foes of God and His people, are used for others who imitate these foes in their enmity. If you examine the predictions which relate to these nations you will find prophecy, according to the character which it usually presents, passing on from the past to what we must believe yet to come; or, rather, describing the fall of those that first bore the name in language inappropriate, unless designed to apply to others who by their wickedness should deserve the same punishment. So far as Edom and Bozrah are concerned, the expressions are evidently too strong to refer to those places literally; and it is impossible to read them and not see that they relate to a yet future judgment.

(3) As to the text, we must ascertain the period of the judgment it announces. No sooner has Isaiah asserted that the visited land is given up to Christ, as the avenger, than he breaks out into the exclamation, The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose; and proceeds with a glowing account of the Mediators kingdom. Hence it will appear evident that the judgments described are those which shall introduce the millennium, the thirty-fifth chapter having reference to this scene of blessedness; and, therefore, the thirty-fourth chapter delivering, as it does, a fearful visitation connected with subsequent happiness, must be expected to coincide with other predictions respecting Christs second coming. But why are we anxious to prove that the thirty-fourth chapter of Isaiah predicts the judgment that attends the Redeemers advent? Simply because, if this be proved, we shall also prove that by the names Edom and Bozrah are denoted those antichristian powers that shall be destroyed by the brightness of Christs coming. In the fifth and sixth verses of the thirty-fourth chapter, it is on Idumea and Bozrah that the prophet fastens the calamity which forms the subject of his prophecy. Idumea and Bozrah denote the antichristian powers who shall be confederated when Christ shall appear. It may be contended that the prophecy was fulfilled in the destruction of the literal Edom. We know that Edom was laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, but this event in no degree justifies so high-wrought a description. It cannot be without opposition and convulsions that Satan is driven from his usurped dominion. It is from Edom the warrior advances–the land in which dwelt the enemies of righteousness. We know this Mighty Being; we know the work with which He is busied. It is the Redeemer who was crucified in weakness; and who, after a display of marvellous forbearance, shall come forth to avenge His own elect, and destroy them that destroyed the earth. Therefore, we know what answer to give when the prophet demands, Who is this that cometh from Edom?

(4) We have still to consider the answer in the text, and show its appropriateness as proceeding from Christ at His second appearing. When the prophet asks the name of the being whom he beheld travelling in the greatness of His strength, the reply is, I that speak in righteous This reply is not only characteristic of the Redeemer, but peculiarly appropriate, as the Redeemer returns from the slaughter of His enemies. His actions have just proved Him mighty to destroy, and His words announce Him mighty to save, so that He is able to confound every foe, and uphold every friend. Now it seems to us that in the reply given to the challenge of the prophet, there is a distinct assertion that He who comes with dyed garments from Bozrah maintains those principles of righteousness which cannot be maintained but by an infinite judge. I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. The time at which the answer is made can only be that of Christs second appearing. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Christ has achieved salvation

We behold here a new revelation of a blessed and startling fact. People talk of Christ as though He were going to do something grand for us after a while. He has done it. You might as well talk of Washington as though he were going to achieve our national independence in 1950 as to speak of Christ as though He were going to achieve our salvation in the future. He did it in the year of our Lord 33, on the field of Bozrah, the Captain of our salvation fighting unto death for our emancipation. All we have to do is to accept that fact in our heart of hearts, and we are free for this world, and for the world to come. (T. De W. Talmage, D. D.)

Christs victory

I. TAKE THE WORDS OF THE VICTORY WON ON CALVARY, and how they bring home to us the greatness of our need and of our redemption! Nothing short of a Divine interposition could save us. There was an old rule of the poets art which a heathen has left on record, which said that in the drama the intervention of a god was not to be made use of by the poet, except on an occasion worthy of it. And in the great drama of the worlds redemption, wrought out in the presence of heaven and earth, God Himself may with all reverence be said to have acted upon this rule. God waited while human systems did what they could for the salvation of the world. God waited through the long ages while Edom–the power of the world–seemed to wax mightier and mightier. Each one of the centuries whichrolled on before the Incarnation only added to the hopelessness and despair of humanity. System after system of philosophy was tried. Each in its turn promised much, but performed little; until at length a dull, blank despair seemed to be settling down upon a decaying and dying world. And then, at length, God Himself intervened. And the work which the Son of God undertook in His infinite pity for man was no holiday task, to be entered upon with a light heart.

II. WE MAY TAKE THE VISION AS RECEIVING A FULFILMENT IN OUR OWN LIVES, whenever in the mercy of God we win a victory over the power of evil around us. There are times when we need some such vision as this to comfort and reassure us in the stress of the conflict. There is the Conqueror from Edom. His blood-stained garments are the pledge of His victory over your foe. And that victory which He won for you on Calvary He will repeat in you, if you will only yield yourself up to Him.

III. BUT THE PROPHECY IS NOT EXHAUSTED YET. Victory after victory may be won; but there are gaps in the ranks of those who have fought; and we have sorrowfully to confess that the power of evil still remains in the world. Foiled in one quarter, it is successful in another. And so it goes on from generation to generation. The heart is made sad and the head grows heavy with the thought that, conquer evil in our own person as we may, yet, after all, it will outlive us. It will give our children after us just the same trouble that it has given to us. Yet, here too there is comfort for us in the vision of the prophet, if we only take in its full meaning, for it points forward to a final victory in the future when the power of evil is to be destroyed. (E. C. S. Gibson. M. A.)

The Hero

I. THE HERO HERE IS ONE WHO HAD FOUGHT IN THE MIDST OF ENEMIES. What Edom was to Israel, sin is to the universe. Christ fought in the midst of enemies; entered the very heart of this sinful world, battled with evil in all its forms.

II. THE HERO HERE IS ONE WHO HAS BEEN DEEPLY WOUNDED. He returns from Bozrah with dyed garments. Christ was wounded–

1. In HIS body.

2. In HIS reputation. He was represented as a blasphemer, as a political traitor, ,as the emissary of Beelzebub.

3. In His soul. My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, etc.

III. THE HERO HERE IS ONE RETURNING FROM BATTLE IN GREAT MAGNIFICENCE. Glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength. With what magnificence Christ returned from the battle of earth to the scenes of heaven (Act 1:9-11).

IV. THE HERO HERE IS ONE WHOSE CAREER HAD BEEN DISTINGUISHED BY RIGHTEOUSNESS. I that speak in righteousness. I, the declarer of righteousness (as some render it). Though a warrior, he had invented no stratagems to deceive, and had violated no rights. Christ was righteous in all His conflicts. He taught righteousness, He practised righteousness, He fought for righteousness, He died for righteousness.

V. THE HERO HERE IS ONE, WHOSE STRENGTH IS MIGHTINESS TO SAVE. His form was the very embodiment of strength; but his strength was not to destroy, but to save. (Homilist.)

1. I that speak in righteousness. The very essence and being of Christ is righteousness. But the expression here seems to refer to the fact of His being the incarnate righteousness of God and the imputed righteousness of man. He speaks in our stead. He stands holy in place of our unholiness.

2. Mighty to save. The victory was for man. He is mighty to save–

(1) From the vengeance of Divine justice.

(2) From the malignity of Satan.

(3) From the voice of an accusing conscience.

(4) From the power and fear of death. (Homilist.)

No man may punish Christs enemies, but Himself

1. We have no authority.

2. We have no prescription, or rules authorized by custom.

3. Persecution does no good.

4. Christians are taught to love their enemies.

5. The certainty of the day of judgment deters good men from persecuting. It is not enough to persecute the enemies of Christ; we are bound by every solemn tie to perform every duty, yea more, every kind office of friendship towards them. (B. Robinson.)

This that is glorious in His apparel

The glory of Christ in His humiliation

I. IN WHAT RESPECTS THE GLORY OF OUR REDEEMER WAS APPARENT EVEN IN HIS SUFFERINGS, and shone through the dark cloud that covered Him in His humiliation.

1. From His ready undertaking of the work of our redemption. There can be little honour to any man in submitting to what he cannot avoid, or doing what he dare not refuse; but the humiliation of Christ was perfectly voluntary.

2. From the greatness of those sufferings which He endured. A weak person is crushed by a small weight; but he who is able to endure uncommon sufferings shows himself to be possessed of uncommon strength. Our blessed Lord, in His life in this world, endured the greatest and most dreadful sufferings.

(1) His afflictions began early, with His first entrance into the world.

(2) His afflictions were constant, without interruption.

(3) Of the severest kind.

(4) The afflictions of our Lord not only continued, but increased, through His life, till they at last issued in an extraordinary conflict with the powers of darkness, and an immediate subjection to the wrath of a sin-arching God.

3. From the purity of His carriage, and the perfection of His patience.

4. From the end He had in view in His sufferings, and which He so effectually obtained. The glory of God, and the salvation of sinners.

II. PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT.

1. We are here caned to admire and adore the unsearchable wisdom and unspeakable love of God.

2. The guilt and danger of all who are not reconciled to God.

3. The encouragement of sinners to return to God through Christ.

4. Be is able to uphold the weakest Christian in the midst of the most dangerous temptations, though He often suffers the self-sufficient to fall before His enemies. Wherefore believe in the almighty power of your Redeemer.

5. The comfort of every disconsolate soul. (J. Witherspoon.)

Mighty to save

Might and mercy

Most of our ideas of might are associated with the terrible majesty of God. E.g the deluge; destruction of the cities of the plain; earthquakes, etc. These show might in connection with judgment. The text directs our thoughts to might in connection with mercy.

I. POWER IN THE WORKING OUT OF THE GREAT REDEMPTIVE PLAN.

1. Typical sacrifices.

2. Prophetic ministry.

3. Christs atonement and intercession.

II. POWER IN THE SAVING AGENCY AT WORK IN THE WORLD.

1. The Divine Spirit.

2. The Church of Christ.

III. POWER AS SEEN IN THE LIVES OF THOSE SAVED BY DIVINE MERCY.

1. Their numbers. A great multitude.

2. Their characters. Mary Magdalene; Saul of Tarsus; the

Corinthians (1Co 6:11).

IV. POWER IN THE COMPLETION OF THE WORK OF MERCY. Resurrection of body, and eternal union of body and soul in glory. Conclusion:

1. The divine fight of mercy does not render personal effort unnecessary.

2. The fact that the Divine power and mercy are united in seeking our salvation should lead us to immediate and hearty surrender to God. (Julius Brigg.)

Glorious Almightiness of the Redeemer

The Redeemers mightiness to save may be seen–

I. IN THE NATURE OF THE EVIL FROM WHICH HE saws. So we measure the success of a physician, a statesman, a warrior. Christ saves from sin, the most malignant disease–from sin, the wildest internal revolt–from sin, the strongest aggressive foe. In this saving work this Announcer of Righteousness is almighty in atonement and in redemption. He makes a man right with God, right with self, right with the universe.

II. IN THE BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE HE HAS SAVED. The Christ of the ages has transformed multitudes. His victory on the Cross over the heart of the dying thief is but a pledge and specimen of His victory by the Cross over a million others. Mary, Saul, Augustine, Bunyan, are but conspicuous instances out of a great multitude which no man can number.

III. IN THE WORK HE HAS YET TO ACCOMPLISH. The Divine predictions are, As I live, the whole earth shall be filled with My glory. He must reign, etc. How vast the work of the Redeemer yet to be done! Its vastness is illustrated in–

1. Individual characters yet to be renewed and perfected. Introspection helps us to understand this.

2. The vast area of human lives to be regenerated. The redemptive work is to girdle the entire globe.

3. The ages through which this work will continue. For such stubborn, widely-extended, and long-enduring sinners, only He can be equal who is mighty to save. (U. R. Thomas, B. A.)

A mighty Saviour

I. WHAT ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND BY THE WORDS TO SAVE? Something more than just delivering penitents from going down to hell. By the words to save, I understand the whole of the great work of salvation, from the first holy desire, the first spiritual conviction, onward to complete sanctification. All this done of God through Jesus Christ.

II. HOW CAN WE PROVE THAT CHRIST IS MIGHTY TO SAVE? The argument is, that He has done it. We need no other; it were superfluous to add another. He has saved men in the full extent and meaning of the word, which we have endeavoured to explain. The best proof you can ever have of Gods being mighty to save is, that He saved you.

III. WHY IS CHRIST MIGHTY TO SAVE?

1. Because of the infinite efficacy of his atoning blood.

2. Because of the omnipotent influence of His Divine Spirit.

IV. WHAT ARE THE INFERENCES TO BE DERIVED FROM THE FACT THAT JESUS CHRIST IS MIGHTY TO SAVE ?

1. Ministers should preach in faith.

2. There is encouragement for men and women who are praying to God for their friends.

3. Here is encouragement for the seeking sinner. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Omnipotent to save

I. IN THE DIGNITY OF THE NATURE OF CHRIST, AND THE MYSTERIOUS CONSTITUTION OF HIS PERSON WE HAVE THE BEST OF REASONS FOR CONCLUDING THAT HE IS OMNIPOTENT TO SAVE.

II. IN THE TRIUMPH OF CHRIST OVER ALL HIS AND OUR ENEMIES WE HAVE ANOTHER REASON FOR BELIEVING THAT HE IS OMNIPOTENT TO SAVE.

III. IN THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST FROM THE STATE OF THE DEAD WE HAVE ANOTHER REASON TO BELIEVE THAT HE IS OMNIPOTENT TO SAVE.

IV. IN THE EXALTATION OF CHRIST TO GLORY WE HAVE ANOTHER AND A CONVINCING EVIDENCE THAT HE IS MIGHTY TO SAVE.

V. IN THE POSITIVE DECLARATIONS OF SCRIPTURE ON THIS SUBJECT, AND IN PLAIN MATTERS OF FACT, IN THESE SCRIPTURES RECORDED, WE HAVE THE MOST INTELLIGIBLE EVIDENCE THAT HE IS MIGHTY TO SAVE.

VI. IN THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE ALL GOOD CHRISTIANS HAVE AN EVIDENCE OF THE FACT THAT CHRIST IS OMNIPOTENT TO SAVE. Conclusion:

1. Let us beware of trusting in any power but that of Christ.

2. Let us rejoice that He is in all points such a Saviour as we require. (W. Craig.)

Christs power to save

I. SHOW THAT THIS IS A PREDICTION OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

II. CONSIDER THAT ATTRIBUTE OF THE LORD JESUS TO WHICH THE TEXT REFERS. Mighty to save.

III. DRAW SOME PRACTICAL INFERENCES. If Christ is mighty to save–

1. Ministers have the best motives to preach the Gospel with unlimited freedom, energy and zeal.

2. Abundant encouragement is provided even for those who are ready to sink in despair.

3. Whatever disastrous events may come, the Church is secure.

4. If you have experienced His might and His mercy, let it be your uniform aim to show forth His praise both by your lips and by your life. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER LXIII

The prophet, (or rather the Church he represents,) sees the

great Deliverer, long promised and expected, making his

appearance, after having crushed his enemies, like grapes in

the wine-vat. The comparison suggests a lively idea of the

wrath of Omnipotence, which its unhappy objects can no more

resist than the grapes can resist the treader. Indeed, there is

so much pathos, energy, and sublimity in this remarkable

passage, as hardly any thing can be conceived to exceed. The

period to which it refers must be the same with that predicted

in the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation, some parts of

which are expressed in the same terms with this, and plainly

enough refer to the very sudden and total overthrow of

Antichrist, and of all his adherents and auxiliaries, of which

the destruction of Babylon, the capital of Chaldea, and of

Bozra, the chief city of the Edomites, was the prototype, 1-6.

At the seventh verse commences a penitential confession and

supplication of the Jews, as uttered in their present

dispersion, 7-19.

The very remarkable passage with which this chapter begins seems to me to be, in a manner, detached from the rest, and to stand singly by itself; having no immediate connexion with what goes before, or with what follows, otherwise than as it may pursue the general design, and stand in its proper place in the order of prophecy. It is by many learned interpreters supposed that Judas Maccabeus and his victories make the subject of it. What claim Judas can have to so great an honour will, I think, be very difficult to make out; or how the attributes of the great person introduced can possibly suit him. Could Judas call himself the announcer of righteousness, mighty to save? Could he talk of the day of vengeance being in his heart, and the year of his redeemed being come? or that his own arm wrought salvation for him? Besides, what were the great exploits of Judas in regard to the Idumeans? He overcame them in battle, and slew twenty thousand of them. And John Hyrcanus, his brother Simon’s son and successor, who is called in to help out the accomplishment of the prophecy, gave them another defeat some time afterward, and compelled them by force to become proselytes to the Jewish religion, and to submit to circumcision: after which they were incorporated with the Jews, and became one people with them. Are these events adequate to the prophet’s lofty prediction? Was it so great an action to win a battle with considerable slaughter of the enemy or to force a whole nation by dint of the sword into Judaism? or was the conversion of the Idumeans, however effected, and their admission into the Church of God, equivalent to a most grievous judgment and destruction, threatened in the severest terms? But here is another very material circumstance to be considered, which, I presume, entirely excludes Judas Maccabeus, and even the Idumeans, properly so called. For the Idumea of the prophet’s time was quite a different country from that which Judas conquered. For during the Babylonish captivity the Nabatheans had driven the Edomites out of their country; who upon that took possession of the southern parts of Judea, and settled themselves there; that is, in the country of the whole tribe of Simeon and in half of that of Judah. See Prideaux, ad. an. 740 and 165. And the metropolis of the Edomites, and of the country thence called Idumea, which Judas took, was Hebron, 1Macc. 5:65, not Bozrah.

I conclude, therefore, that this prophecy has not the least relation to Judas Maccabeus. It may be asked, to whom, and to what event does it relate? I can only answer, that I know of no event in history to which, from its importance and circumstances, it can be applied: unless, perhaps, to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity; which in the Gospel is called the coming of Christ and the days of vengeance, Mt 16:28; Lu 21:22. But though this prophecy must have its accomplishment, there is no necessity for supposing that it has been already accomplished. There are prophecies, which intimate a great slaughter of the enemies of God and his people, which remain to be fulfilled; these in Ezekiel, Eze 38:2, and in the Revelation of St. John, Re 20:8, are called Gog and Magog. This prophecy of Isaiah may possibly refer to the same or the like event. We need not be at a loss to determine the person who is here introduced, as stained with treading the wine-press, if we consider how St. John in the Revelation has applied this image of the prophet, Re 19:13; Re 19:15-16. Compare Isa 34:1-8 – L.

NOTES ON CHAP. LXIII

Verse 1. Who is this that cometh from Edom] Probably both Edom and Bozrah are only figurative expressions, to point out the place in which God should discomfit his enemies. Edom signifies red, and Bozrah, a vintage. Kimchi interprets the whole of the destruction of Rome.

I that speak in righteousness – “I who publish righteousness”] A MS. has hammedabber, with the demonstrative article added with greater force and emphasis: The announcer of righteousness. A MS. has tsedakah, without be prefixed; and so the Septuagint and Vulgate. And thirty-eight MSS. (seven ancient) of Dr. Kennicott’s, and many of De Rossi’s, and one of my own, add the conjunction vau to rab, and mighty; which the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate confirm. – L.

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

In these two verses either the prophet, as in some vision or ecstasy, is put probably upon inquiry by God himself, rather than by Christ, or Michael, or Judas Maccabeeus, as some have thought; and the rather, because this place doth thus suit best with Isa 59:16,17. Or the church makes inquiry, and that with admiration, who it is that appears in such a habit or posture, Isa 63:1, and why, Isa 63:2.

Edom; that is, the country of Idumea, where Esau dwelt, and Esau himself was sometimes called by this name, Gen 25:30; and it is put synecdochically for all the enemies of the church, as Moab is, Isa 25:10; See Poole “Isa 25:10“.

With dyed garments; or, stained: thus Christ is described, Rev 19:13, and so also Isa 63:3; LXX., the redness of garments.

Bozrah; the capital city of Idumea; see further Isa 34:6, a parallel text; and Edom and Bozrah here are mentioned, either,

1. Not as relating to the places so called, but by way of allusion to the garments of this conqueror, Edom signifying red, and Bozrah a vintage; the one relating to his treading the winepress, and the other to the blood sprinkled upon his garments, Isa 63:3; the like manner of speaking you have Psa 120:5. Or rather,

2. Put synecdochically for all the enemies of the church, among whom, though antichrist be not particularly designed, yet may be reckoned, being one of the chief of them; thus typifying Christs victories over all the enemies of the church, Rev 19:19-21; and this is usual. Babylon is put for any detestable city, and Moab for all that are vile and abominable, Isa 25:10; so Edom here for all Gods enemies. And he mentions these Idumeans rather than the Chaldeans, who were the Jews chief and particular enemies,

2. Partly to set forth the greatness of the enmity, being of old standing, and an inbred malignity, Gen 25:22,23, and irreconcilable, and perpetual, Amo 1:11, and particularly put forth when the Babylonians took Jerusalem, Psa 137:7 Partly to comfort the Jews, both because God would take particular revenge upon Edom, as he had threatened, and prophesied by Obadiah, which is the substance of that whole prophecy; and also these being their near neighbours, God doth give them security, that they shall not only be delivered frons the Chaldeans, those remoter enemies, but from the Idumeans also, whose vicinity and neighbourhood might have been troublesome to them.

Glorious in his apparel; such as generals are wont to march before their armies in, or great conquerors, that walk in state and gallantry from their conquests.

In the greatness of his strength; in or according to the majesty of his gait, being an indication of the greatness of his strength, and intimating that he hath thoroughly done his work, and fears no pursuing enemy, as the lion that keepeth his majestic gait without the fear of any other beast, Pro 30:30; this notes the invincibleness of his power, and that it is his own strength, he needeth not the help of armies or other instruments, and thus he will travel through all the countries of his enemies.

I that speak in righteousness: here the Lord Christ gives an answer, wherein he both asserts his fidelity, that he will faithfully perform what he hath promised, and that he will truly execute justice, Rev 19:11; and hereby also he distinguisheth himself from all idol gods, Isa 45:19,20.

Mighty to save; I have power to accomplish salvation as powerful as faithful, Isa 19:20.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. Whothe question of theprophet in prophetic vision.

dyedscarlet with blood(Isa 63:2; Isa 63:3;Rev 19:13).

Bozrah(See on Isa34:6).

travellingrather,stately; literally, “throwing back the head” [GESENIUS].

speak in righteousnessanswerof Messiah. I, who have in faithfulness given a promise ofdeliverance, am now about to fulfil it. Rather, speak ofrighteousness (Isa 45:19;Isa 46:13); salvationbeing meant as the result of His “righteousness” [MAURER].

saveThe same Messiahthat destroys the unbeliever saves the believer.

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

Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?…. These are not the words of the angels at the time of Christ’s ascension to heaven; or of the people of Israel; but rather of the prophet, or of the church he represents; by whom this question is put, not concerning Michael the archangel returning from fighting the king of Persia, for what has Edom and Bozrah to do with Persia? nor concerning Judas Maccabaeus, in whose times it seems a victory was obtained over the Edomites: the description is too grand and august to agree with any mere man; rather therefore it is to be understood of God himself taking vengeance on the wicked, many of the characters agreeing with the description of him in Isa 59:16 though it seems best of all to interpret it of the Messiah. Aben Ezra observes, that there are some that say this is the Messiah; others that it is Michael; but, says he, it is right that it respects the glorious name, that is, Jehovah himself; the first sense he gives is most correct. Several Jewish writers, ancient as well as modern, interpret this of the Messiah, whom they yet expect to come from Rome to the land of Israel, which they suppose is meant by Edom. So says one n of their writers,

“when the King Messiah shall come, he will be clothed in purple, beautiful to look at, which in colour shall be like to wine for the clothing of the King Messiah shall be silk, red as blood; and it shall be worked with the needle in various colours, and he shall be the Head of Israel; and this is what is said in Isa 63:1 “wherefore art thou red in thy apparel?””

And, say others of their ancient writers o, the Ishmaelites or Turks shall fight three battles in the latter day; one in the forest of Arabia; another in the sea; and a third in the great city Rome, which shall be greater than the other two; and from thence shall spring the Messiah, and he shall look upon the destruction of the one and of the other, and from thence shall he come into the land of Israel, as it is said, “who is this that comes from Edom?” c. So Abarbinel p asserts, that the Ishmaelites or Turks shall come against Rome, and destroy it and then shall be revealed the Messiah, the son of David, and shall complete the redemption of the Lord, according to Da 12:1 and then quotes the above passage of their wise men; and upon it observes, that from thence it appears that Messiah, the son of David, shall be of the Jews that are in the captivity of Edom (or Rome), for so they explain

Isa 63:1 “who is this that comes from Edom?” c. and so Kimchi interprets the prophecy of time to come: but though the Messiah is intended, this is to be understood not of his first coming, which was out of Zion, out of the tribe of Judah, and out of Bethlehem Ephratah; nor of his ascension to heaven, after his bloody sufferings and death, and the victory he had obtained over all our spiritual enemies, sin, Satan, the world, death, and hell; for that was from the land of Judea, from Mount Olivet, near to Jerusalem, the place of his sufferings and death; but of his spiritual coming, which is yet future, to take vengeance on antichrist, and all the antichristian powers. It is usual in Scripture for the enemies of the church and people of God in Gospel times to be expressed by such who were the known and implacable enemies of the people of Israel; and such were the Edomites, the inhabitants of Idumea, of which Bozrah was a principal city; see Ps 137:7 and were a lively emblem of antichrist and his followers, for their relation to the people of Christ, their cruelty to them, and contempt of them; from the conquest and slaughter of which Christ is here represented returning as a victorious and triumphant conqueror; see Isa 34:5 hence he is said to come from thence “with dyed garments”, or “stained” q; that is, with the blood of his enemies; so Jarchi interprets it dyed in blood, or dipped in it; to which agrees the apparel of Christ in Re 19:18, where he is said to be clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; which chapter is the best commentary upon this passage, referring to the same time and case: it follows,

this that is glorious in his apparel; for though it was thus stained and discoloured with the blood of his enemies, yet was glorious to himself, having gotten such a complete victory over all his and his church’s enemies, and so was glorious to them to behold; and especially, since on this vesture, and on his thigh, is a name written, “King of kings, and Lord of lords”, Re 19:16:

travelling in the greatness of his strength? marching in great stateliness and majesty at the head of his victorious troops, he nor they having nothing to fear from their enemies, being all vanquished and destroyed. Strength, and the greatness of it, may well be ascribed to Christ, who is the mighty God, yea, the Almighty; the mighty man, made strong by the Lord for himself; and the mighty Mediator, having all power in heaven and earth: he travelled in the greatness of his strength from heaven to earth, by the assumption of our nature; while here he went about continually doing good; with the utmost intrepidity he went forth to meet his foes, and death itself, at the proper time, and without fear passed through the valley of the shadow of death; when raised again, in his ascension to heaven, he marched through the territories of Satan, the air, in great triumph, dragging him and his principalities and powers at his chariot wheels; and when he had poured down his Spirit plentifully, he went forth into the Gentile world in the ministration of the Gospel, conquering and to conquer; and in the latter day he will come and take vengeance on all the antichristian states, and return in triumph, to which this passage refers; see

Re 17:14 the answer to the question follows,

I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save; these are the words of Christ describing himself, by his speech and by his power, by his word and by his works: he “spoke in righteousness”, at the making of the covenant of grace in eternity, some things by way of request for his elect, others by way of promise for them; all which he has faithfully and righteously performed: under the Old Testament dispensation, he spake many things in righteousness by his prophets, and by his Spirit in them; yea, he often appeared in a human form, and spoke to the patriarchs and others: when here on earth, he spoke “in” or “of righteousness” r; of the righteousness of God he came to declare; of his own righteousness he came to bring in; and of the happiness of those who sought it, and were justified by it; and of the insufficiency of man’s righteousness to bring him to heaven: here it seems to have a more especial respect to the promises made to the church, of her salvation from her enemies, and of the destruction of them; which will now be accomplished, and appear to be the true and faithful sayings of Christ, Re 19:9 and that he is “mighty to save” appears from the spiritual salvation of his people he has already wrought out: God laid help on one that is mighty, and he being mighty undertook it, and has accomplished it; and which work required strength, even almighty power, since sin was to be atoned for by bearing it, the law to be fulfilled, justice to be satisfied, the wrath and curse of God to be endured, and innumerable enemies to be engaged with; and of such a nature was that salvation, that neither angels nor men could ever have effected it: and this his power to save will be further manifest, when the beast and false prophet, antichrist, and all the antichristian powers, shall be destroyed by him, and his people entirely delivered out of their hands, Re 11:18. The Targum of the whole is,

“who hath said these things that shall bring the blow upon Edom, the strong vengeance on Bozrah, to execute the vengeance of the judgment of his people, as he hath sworn unto them by his word? he saith, behold I appear as I spake in righteousness, much power is before or with me to save”

see Re 18:8.

n R. Moses Haddarsan in Bereshit Rabba in Gen. xlix. 11. apud Galatia. de Arcan. Cath. Ver. I. 8. c. 13. p. 579. o Pirke Eliezer, c. 30. fol. 32. 1. p Mashmiah Jeshuah, fol. 44. 1, 2. q “contaminatus, maculatus vestibua”, Gataker. r “de justitia”, Piscator, Vitringa; “Ioquor justitiam”, V. L. Sept.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

This is the smallest of all the twenty-seven prophecies. In its dramatic style it resembles Psa 24:1-10; in its visionary and emblematical character it resembles the tetralogy in Isaiah 21:1-22:14. The attention of the seer is attracted by a strange and lofty form coming from Edom, or more strictly from Bozrah; not the place in Auranitis or Hauran (Jer 48:24) which is memorable in church history, but the place in Edomitis or Gebal, between Petra and the Dead Sea, which still exists as a village in ruins under the diminutive name of el-Busaire. “Who is this that cometh from Edom, in deep red clothes from Bozrah? This, glorious in his apparel, bending to and fro in the fulness of his strength?” The verb c hamats means to be sharp or bitter; but here, where it can only refer to colour, it means to be glaring, and as the Syriac shows, in which it is generally applied to blushing from shame or reverential awe, to be a staring red ( ). The question, what is it that makes the clothes of this new-comer so strikingly red? is answered afterwards. But apart from the colour, they are splendid in their general arrangement and character. The person seen approaching is (cf., Arab. hdr and hdr , to rush up, to shoot up luxuriantly, ahdar used for a swollen body), and possibly through the medium of hadar (which may signify primarily a swelling, or pad, , and secondarily pomp or splendour), “to honour or adorn;” so that hadur signifies adorned, grand (as in Gen 24:65; Targ. II lxx ), splendid. The verb tsaah , to bend or stoop, we have already met with in Isa 51:14. Here it is used to denote a gesture of proud self-consciousness, partly with or without the idea of the proud bending back of the head (or bending forward to listen), and partly with that of swaying to and fro, i.e., the walk of a proud man swinging to and fro upon the hips. The latter is the sense in which we understand tsoeh here, viz., as a syn. of the Arabic mutamali , to bend proudly from one side to the other (Vitringa: se huc illuc motitans ). The person seen here produces the impression of great and abundant strength; and his walk indicates the corresponding pride of self-consciousness.

“Who is this?” asks the seer of a third person. But the answer comes from the person himself, though only seen in the distance, and therefore with a voice that could be heard afar off. “I am he that speaketh in righteousness, mighty to aid.” Hitzig, Knobel, and others, take righteousness as the object of the speaking; and this is grammatically possible ( = , e.g., Deu 6:7). But our prophet uses in Isa 42:6; Isa 45:13, and in an adverbial sense: “strictly according to the rule of truth (more especially that of the counsel of mercy or plan of salvation) and right.” The person approaching says that he is great in word and deed (Jer 32:19). He speaks in righteousness; in the zeal of his holiness threatening judgment to the oppressors, and promising salvation to the oppressed; and what he threatens and promises, he carries out with mighty power. He is great ( , not ; S. , Jer. propugnator ) to aid the oppressed against their oppressors. This alone might lead us to surmise, that it is God from whose mouth of righteousness (Isa 45:23) the consolation of redemption proceeds, and whose holy omnipotent arm (Isa 52:10; Isa 59:16) carries out the act of redemption.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

The Triumphs of the Messiah.

B. C. 706.

      1 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.   2 Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat?   3 I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.   4 For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.   5 And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.   6 And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth.

      It is a glorious victory that is here enquired into first and then accounted for. 1. It is a victory obtained by the providence of God over the enemies of Israel; over the Babylonians (say some), whom Cyrus conquered and God by him, and they will have the prophet to make the first discovery of him in his triumphant return when he is in the country of Edom: but this can by no means be admitted, because the country of Babylon is always spoken of as the land of the north, whereas Edom lay south from Jerusalem, so that the conqueror would not return through that country; the victory therefore is obtained over the Edomites themselves, who had triumphed in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (Ps. cxxxvii. 7) and cut off those who, making their way as far as they could from the enemy, escaped to the Edomites (Oba 1:12; Oba 1:13), and were therefore reckoned with when Babylon was; for no doubt that prophecy was accomplished, though we do not meet in history with the accomplishment of it (Jer. xlix. 13), Bozrah shall become a desolation. Yet this victory over Edom is put as an instance or specimen of the like victories obtained over other nations that had been enemies to Israel. This over the Edomites is named for the sake of the old enmity of Esau against Jacob (Gen. xxvii. 41) and perhaps with an allusion to David’s glorious triumphs over the Edomites, by which it should seem, more than by any other of his victories, he got himself a name,Psa 60:1; 2Sa 8:13; 2Sa 8:14. But this is not all: 2. It is a victory obtained by the grace of God in Christ over our spiritual enemies. We find the garments dipped in blood adorning him whose name is called The Word of God, Rev. xix. 13. And who that is we know very well; for it is through him that we are more than conquerors over those principalities and powers which on the cross he spoiled and triumphed over.

      In this representation of the victory we have,

      I. An admiring question put to the conqueror, Isa 63:1; Isa 63:2. It is put by the church, or by the prophet in the name of the church. He sees a mighty hero returning in triumph from a bloody engagement, and makes bold to ask him two questions:– 1. Who he is. He observes him to come from the country of Edom, to come in such apparel as was glorious to a soldier, not embroidered or laced, but besmeared with blood and dirt. He observes that he does not come as one either frightened or fatigued, but that he travels in the greatness of his strength, altogether unbroken.

Triumphant and victorious he appears, And honour in his looks and habit wears.     How strong he treads! how stately doth he go! Pompous and solemn is his pace, And full of majesty, as is his face;     Who is this mighty hero–who?–

MR. NORRIS.

      The question, Who is this? perhaps means the same with that which Joshua put to the same person when he appeared to him with his sword drawn (Josh. v. 13): Art thou for us or for our adversaries? Or, rather, the same with that which Israel put in a way of adoration (Exod. xv. 11): Who is a God like unto thee? 2. The other question it, “Wherefore art thou red in thy apparel? What hard service hast thou been engaged in, that thou carriest with thee these marks of toil and danger?” Is it possible that one who has such majesty and terror in his countenance should be employed in the mean and servile work of treading the wine-press? Surely it is not. That which is really the glory of the Redeemer seems, prim facie–at first, a disparagement to him, as it would be to a mighty prince to do the work of the wine-dressers and husbandmen; for he took upon him the form of a servant, and carried with him the marks of servitude.

      II. An admirable answer returned by him.

      1. He tells who he is: I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. He is the Saviour. God was Israel’s Saviour out of the hand of their oppressors; the Lord Jesus is ours; his name, Jesus, signifies a Saviour, for he saves his people from their sins. In the salvation wrought he will have us to take notice, (1.) Of the truth of his promise, which is therein performed: He speaks in righteousness, and will therefore make good every word that he has spoken with which he will have us to compare what he does, that, setting the word and the work the one over against the other, what he does may ratify what he has said and what he has said may justify what he does. (2.) Of the efficacy of his power, which is therein exerted: He is mighty to save, able to bring about the promised redemption, whatever difficulties and oppositions may lie in the way of it.

‘Tis I who to my promise faithful stand,     I, who the powers of death, hell, and the grave, Have foil’d with this all-conquering hand,     I, who most ready am, and mighty too, to save.

MR. NORRIS.

      2. He tells how he came to appear in this hue (v. 3): I have trodden the wine-press alone. Being compared to one that treads in the wine-fat, such is his condescension, in the midst of his triumphs, that he does not scorn the comparison, but admits it and carries it on. He does indeed tread the wine-press, but it is the great wine-press of the wrath of God (Rev. xiv. 19), in which we sinners deserved to be cast; but Christ was pleased to cast our enemies into it, and to destroy him that had the power of death, that he might deliver us. And of this the bloody work which God sometimes made among the enemies of the Jews, and which is here foretold, was a type and figure. Observe the account the conqueror gives of his victory.

      (1.) He gains the victory purely by his own strength: I have trodden the wine-press alone, v. 3. When God delivered his people and destroyed their enemies, if he made use of instruments, he did not need them. But among his people, for whom the salvation was to be wrought, no assistance offered itself; they were weak and helpless, and had no ability to do any thing for their own relief; they were desponding and listless, and had no heart to do any thing; they were not disposed to give the least stroke or struggle for liberty, neither the captives themselves nor any of their friends for them (v. 5): “I looked, and there was none to help, as one would have expected, nothing of a bold active spirit appeared among them; nay, there was not only none to lead, but, which was more strange, there was none to uphold, none that would come in as a second, that had the courage to join with Cyrus against their oppressors; therefore my arm brought about the salvation; not by created might or power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, my own arm.” Note, God can help when all other helpers fail; nay, that is his time to help, and therefore for that very reason he will put forth his own power so much the more gloriously. But this is most fully applicable to Christ’s victories over our spiritual enemies, which he obtained by a single combat. He trod the wine-press of his Father’s wrath alone, and triumphed over principalities and powers in himself, Col. ii. 15. Of the people there was none with him; for, when he entered the lists with the powers of darkness, all his disciples forsook him and fled. There was non to help, none that could, none that durst; and he might well wonder that among the children of men, whose concern it was, there was not only none to uphold, but that there were so many to oppose and hinder it if they could.

      (2.) He undertakes the war purely out of his own zeal. It is in his anger, it is in his fury, that he treads down his enemies (v. 3), and that fury upholds him and carries him on in this enterprise, v. 5. God wrought salvation for the oppressed Jews purely because he was very angry with the oppressing Babylonians, angry at their idolatries and sorceries, their pride and cruelty, and the injuries they did to his people, and, as they increased their abominations and grew more insolent and outrageous, his anger increased to fury. Our Lord Jesus wrought out our redemption in a holy zeal for the honour of his Father and the happiness of mankind, and a holy indignation at the daring attempts Satan had made upon both; this zeal and indignation upheld him throughout his whole undertaking. Two branches there were of this zeal that animated him:– [1.] He had a zeal against his and his people’s enemies: The day of vengeance is in my heart (v. 4), the day fixed in the eternal counsels for taking vengeance on them; this was written in his heart, so that he could not forget it, could not let it slip; his heart was full of it, and it lay as a charge, as a weight, upon him, which made him push on this holy war with so much vigour. Note, There is a day fixed for divine vengeance, which may be long deferred, but will come at last; and we may be content to wait for it, for the Redeemer himself does so, though his heart is upon it. [2.] He had a zeal for his people, and for all that he designed to make sharers in the intended salvation: “The year of my redeemed has come, the year appointed for their redemption.” There was a year fixed for the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, and God kept time to a day (Exod. xii. 41); so there was for their release out of Babylon (Dan. ix. 2); so there was for Christ’s coming to destroy the works of the devil; so there is for all the deliverances of the church, and the deliverer has an eye to it. Observe, First, With what pleasure he speaks of his people; they are his redeemed; they are his own, dear to him. Though their redemption is not yet wrought out, yet he calls them his redeemed, because it shall as surely be done as if it were done already. Secondly, With what pleasure he speaks of his people’s redemption; how glad he is that the time has come, though he is likely to meet with a sharp encounter. “Now that the year of my redeemed has come, Lo, I come; delay shall be no longer. Now will I arise, saith the Lord. Now thou shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh.” Note, The promised salvation must be patiently waited for till the time appointed comes; yet we must attend the promises with our prayers. Does Christ say, Surely I come quickly; let our hearts reply, Even so come; let the year of the redeemed come.

      (3.) He will obtain a complete victory over them all. [1.] Much is already done; for he now appears red in his apparel; such abundance of blood is shed that the conqueror’s garments are all stained with it. This was predicted, long before, by dying Jacob, concerning Shiloh (that is, Christ), that he should wash his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes, which perhaps this alludes to, Gen. xlix. 11.

With ornamental drops bedeck’d I stood, And wrote my vict’ry with my en’my’s blood.

MR. NORRIS.

      In the destruction of the antichristian powers we meet with abundance of blood shed (Rev 14:20; Rev 19:13), which yet, according to the dialect of prophecy, may be understood spiritually, and doubtless so may this here. [2.] More shall yet be done (v. 6): I will tread down the people that yet stand it out against me, in my anger; for the victorious Redeemer, when the year of the redeemed shall have come, will go on conquering and to conquer, Rev. vi. 2. When he begins he will also make an end. Observe how he will complete his victories over the enemies of his church. First, He will infatuate them; he will make them drunk, so that there shall be neither sense nor steadiness in their counsels; they shall drink of the cup of his fury, and that shall intoxicate them: or he will make them drunk with their own blood, Rev. xvii. 6. Let those that make themselves drunk with the cup of riot (and then they are in their fury) repent and reform, lest God make them drunk with the cup of trembling, the cup of his fury. Secondly, He will enfeeble them; he will bring down their strength, and so bring them down to the earth; for what strength can hold out against Omnipotence?

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

ISAIAH – CHAPTER 63

THE DAY OF GOD’S VENGEANCE

In the first six verses of this chapter is found the culmination of such judgment as has long been foretold in other parts of the prophets. Even Moses testified of the Lord’s coming from Sinai, ‘ Sier and Mt Paran, with ten thousands of His saints to rule in judgment (Deu 33:1-2). In the book of Habakkuk (Hab 3:3) is a similar allusion to God’s coming “from Teman” (or the South) “and the Holy One from Mt Paran”. A comparison of many passages suggests considerable activity in “the wilderness” – where the Theocratic rule is re-inaugurated before the Lord marches forth with His saints to face the international confederation of armies in a mighty slaughter at Bozrah, in Edom, (Isa 35:1; Isa 32:15-16; Isa 35:6; Jer 31:2; Eze 20:35-36; Hos 2:14).

Determined to destroy the people of the covenant, the hosts of wickedness encamp against Jerusalem itself – deterred from the final stroke of destruction only by a perplexing report of activity in Edom. Thus, they are turned aside to face Christ, the Mighty Conqueror, at Bozrah, where He tramples them in His fury, and proceeds forward to the Mt of Olives (Zec 14:3-9) and to the raising up of the throne of David, in Jerusalem – from whence He will rule with absolute authority for one thousand glorious years.

Mention is made (in the above-mentioned references, and others) of the Kings’ route from Mt Sinai to Jerusalem: Paran, the wilderness, Mt Seir, Edom, Teman, Bozrah, etc., northward.

Vs. 1-6: DELIVERANCE THROUGH DIVINE JUDGMENT

1. Isaiah inquires concerning the identity of the One Whom he sees coming from Edom (specifically from Bozrah) in crimson garments: gloriously arrayed, He marches in stately majesty -manifesting the greatness of His strength.

2. For answer, the Mighty Conqueror identifies Himself as the One who SPEAKS in righteousness – mighty to save.

a. Here it is important to consider “the voice of the Lord” as a voice of universal authority and power, by which Gentile nations will be overthrown and Messiah’s kingdom established, (Psa 2:5; Psa 29:1-11).

b. The sword of the Lord, with which He executes righteous judgment, proceeds out of His mouth, (Rev 19:21).

3. The prophet then asks why He wears crimson garments – -is one who treads the winefat.

4. To this the majestic person declares that He HAS INDEED trodden the winefat ALONE, (vs. 3-4).

a. In wrath and fierce anger He tramples upon the nations -sprinkling, and staining His garments with the blood of their strength.

b. The “day of vengeance” is in His heart (Isa 34:8; Isa 35:4; Isa 61:2 b); this is essential to “the year of redemption” that He has come to arrange for His beloved people.

c. Vine has an interesting comment on the geography of Psalms 29, which I think appropriate to submit at this point. He sees the overthrow of the Gentile nations as beginning in Lebanon (vs. 5-6) and sweeping down to the wilderness of Kadesh (vs. 8), the center of which is Bozrah (Num 13:26), in swift and complete destruction. Then he adds: “The distance from Sirion in Lebanon to Bozrah in Edom is 200 miles, or 100 furlongs” (with which compare; Rev 14:17-20; Rev 19:15; Joe 3:9-16).

5. The ultimate deliverance of His people is effected by the Lord’s direct judgment upon His enemies and theirs.

a. Though He looked, He found none of the nations willing, or able, to set His people free.

b. Thus, though normally working through His providences, He directly intervenes at this point – trampling the enemy in the fury of His wrath, and establishing His own righteous rule upon the earth.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. Who is this that cometh from Edom? This chapter has been violently distorted by Christians, as if what is said here related to Christ, whereas the Prophet speaks simply of God himself; and they have imagined that here Christ is red, because he was wet with his own blood which he shed on the cross. But the Prophet meant nothing of that sort. The obvious meaning is, that the Lord comes forth with red garments in the view of his people, that all may know that he is their protector and avenger; for when the people were weighed down by innumerable evils, and at the same time the Edomites and other enemies, as if they had been placed beyond the reach of all danger, freely indulged in wickedness, which remained unpunished, a dangerous temptation might arise, as if these things happened by chance, or as if God did not care for his people, or chastised them too severely. If the Jews were punished for despising God, much more the Edomites, and other avowed enemies of the name of God, ought to have been punished.

The Prophet meets this very serious temptation by representing God the avenger as returning from the slaughter of the Edomites, as if he were drenched with their blood. There is great liveliness and energy in a description of this sort, Who is this? for that question raises the hearts of the hearers into a state of astonishment, and strikes them more forcibly than a plain narrative. On this account the Prophet employed it, in order to arouse the hearts of the Jews from their slumbering and stupefaction.

We know that the Edomites were somewhat related to the Jews by blood; for they were descended from the same ancestors, and derived their name from Esau, who was also called Edom. (Gen 36:1.) Having corrupted the pure worship of God, though they bore the same mark of circumcision, they persecuted the Jews with deadly hatred. They likewise inflamed the rage of other enemies against the Jews, and shewed that they took great pleasure in the ruin of that people, as is evident; from the encouraging words addressed by them to its destroyers.

“

Remember, O Lord, (says the Psalmist,) the children of Edom, who, in the day of the destruction of Jerusalem, said, Raze, raze it even to the foundations.” (Psa 137:7.)

The Prophet, therefore, threatens that judgment shall be passed on the Edomites, that none may imagine that they shall escape punishment for that savage cruelty with which they burned towards their brethren; for God will punish all wicked men and enemies of the Church in such a manner as to shew that the Church is the object of his care.

Beautiful in his raiment. Because spots of blood pollute and stain the conquerors, Isaiah affirms that God will nevertheless be “beautiful in his raiment,” after having taken vengeance on the enemies. In like manner, we have seen in other passages (Isa 34:6) that the slaughter of the wicked is compared to sacrifices, because the glory of God shines brightly in them; for can we conceive of any ornament more lovely than judgment? Thus, in order to impress men with reverence for God’s righteous vengeance, he pronounces the blood with which he was sprinkled, by slaying and destroying the wicked, to be highly beautiful and ornamental. As if he had said, “Think not that God will resemble a person of mean rank. Though he be drenched with blood, yet this will not prevent his glory and majesty from shining brightly.”

Marching in the greatness of his strength. Various expositions of the word צעה ( tzogneh) are given by the Jews. Some view it in a transitive sense, as referring to the people whom the Lord brought back from captivity. Others refer it to the nations whom the Lord will remove to another country, though they appear to have a settled habitation. But I consider it to he more agreeable to the context to give to it an absolute sense as a noun. The Prophet, therefore, describes God’s majestic march and heroic firmness, by which he displays vast power.

I who speak. The Lord himself replies; and this carries much more authority than if the Prophet spoke in his own person. Believers are reminded by him of former predictions, that they may know that in the judgments of God not only his justice and goodness, but likewise his faithfulness is manifested. As if he had said, “Behold, ye now see fulfilled what I have already and frequently testified to you by my servants. This effect of my promises clearly shews that I am true, and that I speak justly and sincerely, and not for the purpose of deceiving you.” The vision would have been little fitted to strike their minds, if the Jews had not remembered those promises which they formerly heard; but since the design of it was, that they should rely on God’s salvation, he at the same time claims for himself no ordinary power to save.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CHRIST A MIGHTY SAVIOUR

Isa. 63:1. Mighty to save.

Our subject is the all-sufficiency of Christ to save. Four points expressed or implied

I. The obstacles to our salvation were very great, arising from the nature and dominion of sin. None but an Almighty Redeemer was equal to the task. The ends to be accomplished every way worthy of the instrumentality employed. There are obstacles arising

1. From the law and government of God.
2. Out of the state and frame of our own minds, considered as guilty wanderers.
3. From the world in which we live.
4. From Satanic influence. Hence it is evident we need the interposition of One who is able to meet all the ruin entailed by sin, and to accomplish all the objects necessary to deliver alike from its bondage and condemnation.

II. The redemption accomplished by Christ is very glorious, commensurate to the entire exigencies of the case. Judge of the benevolence of the object in connection with

1. The dignity and essential glory of His nature. He blends the extremes of being in His own person, &c.
2. The provocations of those He came to redeem.
3. His deep and solitary sufferings.
4. The glory of the conquest He obtained.
5. The great principle involved in it, I that speak in righteousness.

III. The encouragement to seek this great salvation wrought out by Christ is very ample. His willingness is commensurate with His ability. Remember this at all times.

IV. The danger of rejecting this salvation is very imminent.Samuel Thodey.

I. That the ruined condition of man required a mighty Saviour. II. That Christ is mighty to save. He is Divine. Became incarnate that He might suffer, &c. The design of His mission was to save (1Jn. 5:11; Isa. 28:16; Mat. 1:21; Mat. 3:17). He has done all that is necessary to save man (2Co. 8:9; Php. 2:7-8; Heb. 9:24). His power to save is founded on the efficacy of His atonement (Rom. 1:4; Mat. 28:18). He is mighty to save, from

1. The laws curse (Gal. 3:13; Act. 13:39).

2. The defilement of sin (Luk. 13:1; 1Jn. 1:9).

3. The power and malice of Satan (Col. 1:13).

4. The consequences of sin, the fear and sting of death, the dominion of the grave, and the wrath to come.
5. Includes elevation to glorybody raised, &c. III. What is necessary to realise His saving power.

1. A deep conviction of ruinthat we are ready to perish.
2. A knowledge of Christ as the mighty Saviour. Sense of need. Approval of the method in which He saves.

3. The renouncement of all self-dependence, faith, &c. (Act. 20:21; Eph. 1:13). Conclusion. Encouragement to the despairing sinner. How important that all should seek and secure salvation. How great the danger of those who reject it.Helps for the Pulpit, First Series, p. 157.

Isa. 63:3. The solitariness of Christs sufferings.

There is always a certain degree of solitude about a great mind. This, beyond all others, characteristic of the mind of Christ. He was profoundly alone. The measureless inferiority of all other minds to His. His solitariness relates to His entire life and earthly experience, but especially His sorrows. Not simply as being propitiatory, or of unexampled severity, but that there were connected with the nature of this mysterious sufferer certain conditions which rendered His sorrows such as no other of our race could endure, &c.

I. All His sorrows and sufferings were, long ere their actual occurrence, clearly and fully foreseen. II. They were the sorrows of an infinitely pure and perfect mind. The mind that is cast in the finest mould is ever the most susceptible of suffering. Jesus had a capability of suffering, &c., such as no soul of man besides ever felt, &c. III. It was the sorrow of a Creator amid His ruined works. Practical reflections

1. Gratitude for His marvellous self-devotion on our behalf.
2. Warning to the careless. What more awful intimation could be conveyed to us of the evil of sin, and of the infatuation of those who are indifferent to its fatal consequences, than in the grief and sorrow of Jesus?
3. The strongest encouragement to every penitent to rely on the Saviours love.John Caird, M.A.: The Penny Pulpit, Nos. 1925, 1926.

Isa. 63:4-5. I. The helpless condition of man. II. The gracious interposition of the Redeemer. III. The sufficiency of His qualifications.

Isa. 63:6. I. What are we to understand by the anger and fury of the Redeemer? II. Who have reason to apprehend it? III. The impossibility of escape.

Isa. 63:7-14. I. Gods loving-kindness to His people. He acknowledges them. Sympathises with them. Sustains them. Chastises them in mercy. When they inquire after Him restores His favours. II. The duty of making mention of it. With exultationpraisegratitude.J. Lyth, D.D. (See C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 1126.)

Isa. 63:7. Thanksgiving. I. An acknowledgment of great blessings received by the House of Israel.

1. National mercies.
2. Mercies to the Christian Church. 3. Individual mercies. II. An acknowledgment that all these blessings were undeserved. III. A resolve openly and fully to acknowledge the goodness of God. Not to be thankful is inhuman. Not to be openly thankful is unchristian. True love for God will lead us to seek to glorify Him by a public acknowledgment of His goodness. Thus we shall bless our follow-men.R. A. B.

Isa. 63:7. I. The loving-kindness of God.

1. Free and sovereign.
2. Rich and varied.
3. Constant and perpetual. II. Its claim upon our acknowledgment. Open. Thankful. Consistent. Exultant. Unwearying.

Isa. 63:8. I. Gods anticipations. II. Kindness. III. Disappointment. IV. Unparalleled mercy.

I. What God does for His people. II. What He expects from them.J. Lyth, D.D.

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

CHRISTS CONFLICT AND TRIUMPH

Isa. 63:1-4. Who is this that cometh from Edom, &c.

I. THE UNDERTAKING OF CHRIST FOR THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF OUR REDEMPTION. We have here three leading features of it

1. His deep and solitary suffering.
2. The glorious principles on which He suffered to redeem others. The year of my redeemed is come. Here, then, we distinctly recognise the great doctrine of Atonementa doctrine as full of comfort to the contrite sinner as it is essential to the harmony and perfection of the Christian system.
3. The glory of the conquest He obtained. This the predominant character of the text.

II. THE MOMENTOUS RESULTS FLOWING FROM HIS FINISHED UNDERTAKING. These are threefold

1. The honours of Divine justice secured and rendered compatible with the salvation of man.
2. The judicial division of the human race into two great classesChrists enemies and His redeemed. To one of these we all belong.
3. The certain salvation of the one, and the fearful overthrow of the other, guaranteed by our Lords success and supremacy.Samuel Thodey.

Isa. 63:1. The peculiarities of Eastern imagery. The undertaking of Christ the most striking event in the dispensations of God to our lower world, &c. This great work as the text teaches is the great theme of prophecy. Viewing the text in this light, we select two points for meditation.

I. THE CONFLICT OF CHRIST in sustaining and carrying on the great work of human redemption.

1. This supposes that there were great difficulties and obstacles to be overcome before man could be restored to Gods favour.
2. The text teaches that Christ was every way equal to the undertaking. They were no common resources that He brought into the field, &c.
3. That in the prosecution of this conflict He endured great and overwhelming suffering. Their solitariness.

II. THE TRIUMPH OF CHRIST. It was a triumph of great principles over their opposites. The problem to be solved was whether sin or holiness, with their infinite results, should prevail, &c. This problem was solved on the Cross.

2. Really accomplished in the nature that sinned.
3. Made more illustrious by the seeming humiliation and discomfiture with which it was attended.
4. Effected by the single and unaided influence of the Captain of our salvation.Samuel Thodey.

A great and gloriousI. Person. Jesus Christ (Rev. 19:11-15). II. Work.

1. To save, &c.
2. Performed entirely of Himself.
3. Will bring more glory to God than creation. III. Salvation.Studies for the Pulpit, Part II. pp. 149152.

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

D. RESTLESSNESS OF ZION, CHAPTERS 63 64
1. PREDICTED VINDICATION

TEXT: Isa. 63:1-9

1

Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

2

Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winevat?

3

I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the peoples there was no man with me: yea, I trod them in mine anger, and trampled them in my wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment.

4

For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

5

And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my wrath, it upheld me.

6

And I trod down the peoples in mine anger, and made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.

7

I will make mention of the lovingkindnesses of Jehovah, and the praises of Jehovah according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses.

8

For he said, Surely, they are my people, children that will not deal falsely: so he was their Saviour.

9

In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

QUERIES

a.

Who is the one who speaks in righteousness?

b.

What is the year of my redeemed?

c.

Who is the angel of his presence?

PARAPHRASE

Who is this majestic figure I see approaching Zion from the direction of Edom. He has on royal robes and strides along in a grand and stately march. He answers, I am the One who vindicates Zion, the One who is Zions Saviour. But why are your robes stained all over with red as if you had been tramping grapes in the winevat? He answers, There was no one capable or willing anywhere to do what I have done so I have had to do this mission all by myself. What I have been doing is enforcing My threats of wrath and anger by utterly destroying the enemies of My people. That is the blood of My enemies staining My garments! I have done this because the allotted time for punishment to be meted out has reached its fulfillment in My divine program of redemption. When this time came, I looked for someone to join with Me in this work of judgment but there was no one and I was disturbed. So I did the work of destroying the enemy alone. When I executed My anger upon My enemies, I made them reel and stagger with the destruction. The cup of their wrath which they made others drink, I filled up with My wrath and made them drink until they died of it.
In all of this judgment upon Zions enemies the compassion of Jehovah is manifest toward Israel and I will therefore praise Him and proclaim His lovingkindness with all that is within me. It is also evident in this great deliverance through judgment that Jehovah has saved Zion to make of her a people who will not deal falsely but will be righteous and just. God Himself experienced affliction when His people were afflicted and so He sent Himself to save His people. Personally affected as He was by His love and compassion for them, He personally entered into the salvation and redemption of His people all the years of their past history and He will take a personal hand in their future salvation and redemption.

COMMENTS

Isa. 63:1-6 CONQUEST: The prophet sees Someone coming from the direction of Edom (southeast of the Dead Sea) with dyed garments. The Hebrew word is khamutz and means, highly colored, indicating royalty or affluence. The remainder of verse one indicates the approaching One is majestically divine since He is One that announces vindication (davver tzedakah in Hebrew) and is mighty to save. Later, the prophet praises Jehovah for His lovingkindnesses as expressed in the judgments upon Zions enemeies. The unrecognizable figure coming from Edom is Jehovah. Bozrah was the ancient capital of Edom. For a discussion of Edom and its relation to the Israelites, read our comments in Minor Prophets, pub. College Press, pg. 117118. The Edomites were inveterate enemies of Israel. They rejoiced with spite-filled hearts at any misfortune befalling the Jews. Edom participated in every opportunity that came their way to plunder Jerusalem and Judah, selling Jewish captives into slavery and killing them unmercifully (cf. Oba. 1:1-14; Isa. 34:5-15; Eze. 35:1-15). Many of the prophets predicted the judgment of God upon the Edomites. Edom is often mentioned as typical or representative of all the ungodly powers that oppose Jehovahs redemptive work through Israel. We believe that is the case here also. The picture here is of Jehovahs judgment of all that opposes His messianic program.

The Hebrew word adorn is translated red and is the same word we apparently translate man and Edom. The garments of the One approaching are splattered with red like a man who has just come from tramping in the winevat and has splattered red grape juice all over his clothing. This red is the lifeblood of his enemies (cf. Isa. 63:3). A similar picture is painted by John the apostle as he portrays the judgment of God upon the Roman empire in Rev. 19:13.

Lest someone get the idea that Edom s downfall (and that of any other nation for that matter) is a matter of chance, or that it might have been averted if other circumstances had fallen just right, Jehovah emphasizes that He alone brought it about. The One approaching (the Lord) had trodden the winepress alone. He had no assistance, not only because no one else would be adequate for the task, but also because He needed no one else! The emphasis of this whole passage is that Jehovah is personally involved in and responsible for the deliverance, salvation and redemption of Zioneven to the destruction of her enemies. In a prior statement (Isa. 59:16) the Lord emphasizes the same ideas. The Lord has everything needful for Zions messianic destiny exactly scheduled in history and He carries it out according to His own righteous pleasure. The day of His vengeance was in His own heart and the year of His redeemed comes precisely according to His timetable, (cf. Isa. 61:1). The Lord sets times and seasons (Dan. 2:20-23); He deposes and sets up kings and kingdoms to fit His own plans (Dan. 5:18-21); He has a definite time schedule for the messianic nation to bring forth the Messiah (see comments Dan. 9:24-27). He has the power in His own arm to bring salvation to His people and needs no other assistance (cf. Isa. 40:10; Isa. 51:5; Isa. 52:10; Isa. 53:1 for comments on arm). The Lord made His enemies drunk with His wrath. This is a figure of speech indicating two ideas. First, His enemies have caused the Jews to drink their cup of wrath in plunder and slavery; Jehovah will recompense these enemies with His own cup of wrath filled to the brim. God is not mocked; whatever a nation sows, that shall it reap, double! Second, when Jehovahs enemies are made to drink His cup of wrath, they will stagger and reel under it as drunken men reel (cf. Isa. 29:9; Isa. 49:26; Rev. 17:6; Rev. 18:3-7, etc.). Gods wrath is perfect; it is complete and lacks nothing.

Isa. 63:7-9 CELEBRATION: Zion, through the prophet Isaiah, is led to rejoice in Jehovahs judgment of her enemies. It is not sadistic for those who love righteousness to praise God when He judges and defeats evil. The Bible insists that an Omnipotent, Absolutely Holy and Just God must, by His very nature, ultimately uphold and give complete victory to truth, holiness and justice. He must, on the other hand, bring about complete defeat and incarceration of evil. That is why He made Hell! God intends to accomplish those objectives through two means. First, He will make available an opportunity and a way for all human beings, who so choose, to be declared righteous (by Jesus blood) and to grow into the image of His own righteous nature (through faith and obedience to His revealed New Covenant). These, He will save and give Life everlasting. Second, He creates an everlasting penitentiary (Hell) where He will ultimately defeat and imprison all those who choose against His will and desire to live in rebellion against Him. Now a part of recreating in His own righteous image those who choose that Life by surrender to His will is that they shall also hate evil and love good (cf. Isa. 1:16-17; Pro. 8:13; Amo. 5:15). Heaven and the saints are told to rejoice over the fact that God destroyed the harlot, Babylon (the city of Rome and the Roman empire) with blood, war, pestilence, fire, destruction and torments (cf. Revelation 17-18, esp. Rev. 18:20; Rev. 19:1-8)1 A person who cannot hate evil, cannot love good! The uniqueness of Jesus fleshly nature was that as a man He loved righteousness and hated lawlessness (Heb. 1:9) and thus was the Perfect Man!

Thus in these verses it is a mark of the righteousness and godliness of Zion that she praise God and speak of His loving-kindnesses in response to His wreaking vengeance upon those who despise Him, rebel against Him and oppress His people. He vindicates His holiness, He upholds His absolute justness and He delivers His people and vindicates their faith in Him. If He cannot thus vindicate mans faith in His absolute holiness and justice and righteousness, then His faithfulness is compromised and there is no hope in worshipping Him as opposed to any other god!
God is true! Those who wish to be known as His children must be true. They must rejoice at the defeat of evil and the establishment of righteousness because this is the absolute truth. Those who oppose good and rejoice in evil cannot be His children because that is the ultimate falsehood. In addition, His sons will act upon their choice and do righteousness. Those who claim to be His children will not deal falsely. A citizen of Zion cannot say he stands for righteousness and refuse to do it. That is falseness (cf. 1Jn. 2:3-6; 1Jn. 3:4-10). God cannot save the declared rebel and He cannot save the pretending servant; the pretender is as much a rebel as the declared one!

There is a difficult problem with the opening phrase of verse nine. The modern, vowel-pointed Hebrew text reads, bekal-tzaratham lo tzar, or, In all their affliction he was not afflicted. The ancient Hebrew text was strictly consonantal (without vowel-points). There is a consonantal text known as Kethiv, or, written which acquired a standing of sacredness and prohibited any scribe from tampering with it. It could not be changed. But the Massoretes (cir. 950 A.D.), a group of Hebrew scholars, produced a text which preserved traditional readings in variance with the sacred Kethiv; this was called Qere, or, to be read. The Qere was a text with the traditional variant consonants out in the margin. Because the vowels, being added later, did not have the sacredness of the consonants, the Massoretes felt it was proper to put the vowels for the marginal consonants (Qere) with the old consonants in the text (that is, with the Kethiv). This, of course, resulted in some impossible forms. The problem in verse nine is that the Kethiv text has lo while the Qere text has lo. Young advocates the adoption of the Qere reading which would make the phrase read, In all their affliction, there was affliction to him. Keil and Delitzsch say, The Masora actually does reckon this as one of the fifteen passages in which lo is to be read for lo. The Qere reading of lo certainly fits the context better and suits the concept already expressed concerning the suffering Servant (cf. Isa. 53:4-6; Isa. 53:10-11). The context indicates that when His people suffered affliction from their oppressors, God Himself felt that affliction and acted in judgment. That is no strange teaching in the Bible. The experiences of Hosea were indicative of the feelings God experienced toward a nation of people who had spurned His love (cf. Hos. 1:2-3; Hos. 3:1; Hos. 11:1-4, etc.). Our God feelsHe is not a robot or a stoic, impassive, insensitive Idea. Jesus proved God feels (cf. Joh. 11:33-35).

Another interesting phrase in verse nine is, and the angel of his presence saved them . . . The Hebrew word translated presence is panaym which means literally, face or person. The word malek is angel and means messenger. God promised to send the messenger of His face or person to His people (Exo. 23:20-23) and actually did send to them this messenger (Exo. 14:19; Num. 20:16). He is the Lords messenger (Exo. 33:14-15) and is actually the Lord Jehovah Himself (Exo. 33:12). Keil and Delitzsch say, This mediatorial angel is called the angel of His face, as being the representative of God, for the face of God is His self-revealing presence (even though only revealed to the mental eye); and consequently the presence of God . . . is called directly His face in Deu. 4:37 . . . and my face in Exo. 33:14-15, by the side of my angel in Exo. 32:34, and the angel in Exo. 33:2, appears as something incomparably higher than the presence of God through the mediation of that one angel . . . Young says, The angel of His face is the angel who is His face or in whom His face is made clear. In him the Lord is Himself present. When the Lord said He would send His angel to slay 185,000 Assyrian soldiers (Isa. 37:36) it is reported that the Lord Himself did the deed (cf. Isa. 10:12; Isa. 10:33-34).

The next section (Isa. 63:10-14) indicates the judgments over Zions enemies here declared (Isa. 63:1-9) were past judgments upon which Zion might base her trust in Jehovah for deliverance from the Babylonian captivity which was apparently inescapable as Isaiah was writing these words. But, as the next section indicates, Zion is having difficulty believing that Jehovah will work for her deliverance as He did in days gone by.

QUIZ

1.

Why is the One appearing to Isaiahs vision coming from Edom?

2.

What could be a different translation of the word righteousness in verse one?

3.

Why does this One coming have red on his garments?

4.

Why stress that this One has trodden the winevat alone?

5.

Is it proper for Zion to speak of Gods lovingkindness in connection with judgment and vengeance?

6.

How is God afflicted when His people are afflicted?

7.

What is the relation of this angel to Jehovah?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

LXIII.

(1) Who is this that cometh from Edom? . . .There is no apparent connection between Isa. 63:1-6 and what precedes and follows. They must be dealt with, accordingly, as a separate section, though not, as some critics have suggested, by a different writer. To understand its relation to the prophets mind, we must remember the part which Edom had taken during the history of which Isaiah was cognisant, perhaps also that which he foresaw they would take in the period that was to follow. That part had been one of persistent hostility. They had been allied with the Tyrians against Judah, and had been guilty of ruthless atrocities (Amo. 1:9-11). They had carried off Jewish prisoners as slaves (Oba. 1:10-11). They had been allies of the Assyrian invaders (Psa. 83:6), and had smitten Judah in the days of Ahaz (2Ch. 28:17). If we think of the prophet as seeing in spirit the working of the old enmity at a later period, we may extend the induction to their exultation at the capture of Jerusalem (Psa. 137:7; Lam. 4:21). The memory of these things sank deep into the nation, and the first words of the last of the prophets echo the old hatred (Mal. 1:2-4). In the later days of Judaism, where Rabbis uttered their curses against their oppressors, Edom was substituted for Rome, as St. John substitutes Babylon (Rev. 18:2). Isaiah, possibly starting from the memory of some recent outrages in the reign of Hezekiah, and taking Edom as the representative of all the nearer hereditary enemies of Israel, into an ecstacy of jubilation, and sees the conquering king returning from his work of vengeance. The form is that of a warrior coming from the Idumsean Bozrah (as distinct from that in the Haurn, Jer. 48:24) in bright-red garments. And the colour (as in Rev. 19:13) is not that of the scarlet dress worn by soldiers (Nah. 2:3), but that of blood just shed.

Travelling.The Hebrew verb (bending, or tossing the head) indicates the movement and gestures of a conqueror exulting in his victory.

I that speak . . .The hero-avenger, the righteous king who represents Jehovah, hears the wondering question, and makes answer for himself. Righteousness and salvation, which he claims as his attributes, show that he is none other than the ideal Servant of the Lord of Hosts, sharing His attributes.

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

THE VINTAGE OF JUDGMENT, Isa 63:1-6.

In preceding chapters, (60-62,) the glow of hope was paramount, and the vision of the coming glory was so full with the prophet, (with occasional exceptions,) that in a measure he overlooked the fact of still surviving, though weakening, hostile powers gnashing spite on Zion, by reason of conscious decadence of their own might and dominion. Reference is made to these in Isa 59:18, also in Isa 60:12. Here, in Isa 63:1-6, the reference to them is distinctly pronounced. Edom is here, as in chap. 34, (as it also is in Psa 137:7,) taken to represent a power ever malignant against Israel and against Israel’s religion.

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

1. The scene here introduced is as if Jehovah, in a broken dramatic picture, is returning with the tread of a triumphant conqueror from a complete victory over foes. and the people cry out,

Who is this that cometh from Edom Ever a scornful enemy to the Jews, and even to the latest day of their history a relentless one.

With dyed garments Edom means red; some, from this fact, have needlessly supposed a play upon words, and not a reference to the land of Edom. This coincidence of blood-red with the dazzling garments of the conqueror is, however, quite too fanciful.

Bozrah A town within the limits of Edom, not the Bozrah of the Hauran.

I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save This is the answer of the conqueror, Jehovah.

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

God’s Judgment on Edom, Their Brother Who Rejected The Covenant, And God’s Offer of Redemption to Jacob.

This startling vision of the future prepares for what lies ahead. Isaiah is aware that that includes gloom for Judah/Israel, for he remembers God’s prediction concerning the future rape of the Temple and the removal to Babylon of Hezekiahs’s descendants (Isa 39:6-7). Thus in the face of this huge threat he will plead for his people. But first he must set the scene.

Isa 63:1

‘Who is this who comes from Edom,

With dyed garments from Bozrah,

This who is glorious in his clothing,

Marching in the greatness of his strength?’

“I who speak in righteousness,

Mighty to save.”

With awe the watchmen of Judah gaze across the borders and see a mighty figure approaching across the wilderness, clothed in glorious and expensive clothing, and marching in great strength. He comes from Edom, Jacob/Israel’s brother tribe, and from Bozrah, a city in Edom, wearing garments which appear to be dyed red. But who is He, and why is He coming?

The name Bozrah means ‘vintage’, a suitable name for the whole passage, for it is a picture of the treading of the winepress. Bozrah was on the heights guarding the King’s Highway and was probably concerned in the refusal to allow Israel to pass in the time of Moses. Edom had betrayed his brother.

The reply comes back, “I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” This is significant for the meaning of the passage. It is all about righteousness. It is about salvation. For Edom mercy had ceased to be an option. Their hearts had been constantly hardened and He had had to dealt righteously with Edom, for He is the Righteous One. But He comes to offer deliverance to His people. Yet why, if He is mighty to save, the bloodshed? The only reason can be that their continual and persistent rejection of the offer of the covenant. They had rejected God’s Anointed One once and for all. Thus by His judgment He had spoken righteously. But now He comes to face Judah with their similar choice. For Jacob there is yet hope, for though He speaks in righteousness He is still mighty to save. Because of what the Servant has done (chapter 53) He can save them in righteousness. He is coming to offer salvation. The Bloodstained Judge of Edom will, if they respond, become the Anointed Saviour of Jacob.

Isa 63:2

“Why are you red in your clothing,

And why are your garments like him who treads in the winevat?”

The watchers have now spotted that His clothing is not just dyed, it is stained. It is stained blood-red like someone who has been treading in the winevat. Why, they ask, is He coming in blood-red, wine-stained clothing across the border? They are soon to learn that these are no wine stains.

Isa 63:3

“I have trodden the winepress alone,

And of the peoples there was no man with me,

Yes, I trod them in my anger,

And I trampled them in my fury,

And their lifeblood is sprinkled on my clothing,

And I have stained all my apparel.

For the day of vengeance was in my heart,

And the year of my redeemed has come.’

The reply comes that it is because He will have been treading the winepress, and treading it alone. It will not be an ordinary winepress, it will be the winepress of God’s anger, of God’s supreme aversion to sin, and the trodden grapes will be guilty people who had rejected Him and clung to sin. There will be no one to assist Him, for all will be equally guilty. There will be no one fit to help Him. So He will tread it alone. That is why His clothing will be stained, it will be because it is covered with the life-blood of the guilty. For Edom it will have been the day of vengeance (see chapter 34), a foretaste of the final day of vengeance.

But His purpose is that it should also be the year of His redeemed for those who would hear. The time has come. He is coming out of Edom not to do the same to Jacob/Israel, but in order to redeem. The year of His redeemed ones has come. The picture is twofold. It is a picture of Edom’s coming doom (partly fulfilled prior to the coming of Jesus Christ) and of God’s offer through it of mercy to His people. His people must take warning from it and repent. But it is also an apocalyptic one. It is a picture of God’s offer to the lax world as a whole. They too must decide between the covenant or judgment. In this sense we are not to tie it down to sequences of events or particular timing. It faces the world constantly with a choice. Judgment or mercy?

‘For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come.’ We can compare this with the acceptable year of Yahweh and the day of vengeance of our God in Isa 61:2. The Anointed One and the Bloodstained One are one and the same and He is involved in both those scenarios. The ‘year of my redeemed’ confirms that we are dealing with the Redeemer as well as the Judge (Isa 59:20).

Note the reversal of the order, compared with Isa 61:2, of the day of judgment and the year of redemption. Here Edom is to be judged and cease as a nation before the Anointed One comes. Their judgment as described in chapter 34 will by then have become a reality. But there will be another day of vengeance for others (Isa 61:2), after the coming of the Anointed One, a day or days which would be still future when Jesus came. This confirms that both the day of vengeance and the year of redemption apply over time and not just at one particular point in it. Edom will have had its day of vengeance. Others will yet face it in the future. But always redemption is on offer.

The contrast between the two figures of the Anointed One and the Bloodstained One is deliberate. The Anointed One comes to bring deliverance and salvation, but also to introduce the day of vengeance, the Bloodstained One wreaks judgment and vengeance, but also comes to introduce the year of salvation. Both are two sides of the same assignment, righteousness revealed in judgment on guilty rebels and in salvation for the repentant redeemed. The Anointed One and the Bloodstained One are one and the same in action and motive. He Who Himself endured the winepress for the redeemed (Isa 53:10), will tread it continually to punish the guilty on their day of vengeance. And after each warning will come the offer of deliverance to those who will respond.

So now the stark choice lies before God’s nominal people. Will they submit to His covenant and become His true people, or reject the covenant, link themselves with Edom as brother rebels, and receive full punishment at their day of vengeance? It is the choice between the Anointed Saviour and the Bloodstained Judge.

Isa 63:5

‘And I looked and there was none to help,

And I wondered that there was none to uphold,

Therefore my own arm brought salvation to me,

And my fury it upheld me.

And I trod down the peoples in my anger,

And made them drunk in my fury,

And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.

The fact that He will look and there will be none to help is repeated, stressing its importance (compare Isa 63:3; see also Isa 50:2; Isa 59:16; Isa 41:28). In all the world there will be no one, not even someone like Isaiah, who can stand with Him to carry out His work. No other will be righteous in themselves, no other will be qualified (compare especially here Rev 5:4 where again only One was found worthy to bring forth judgment). The idea of ‘wonder’ is a human expression to bring out the fact of it. So He will have to do it all on His own. It will be the Anointed One having dealings with the world.

‘Therefore my own arm brought salvation to me.’ It will be His own arm that will bring salvation to Him. This is in contrast with Isa 63:14 where Moses was supported by Yahweh’s arm. Here is a greater than Moses. By His own mighty working as the suffering Servant He will shape and fashion ‘salvation’ so that it will be available for Him as the Redeemer to dispense to His own. But in contrast also is His fury. In the very nature of things the Deliverer must also be the Judge of those who reject deliverance.

And it will be His own ‘fury’, His own aversion to sin, that will uphold Him in the carrying out of judgment. He will be Judge and He alone. There will be no other. As He alone is righteous enough to be the Saviour, He alone is righteous enough to be the Judge. And He affirms firmly, and without apology, that He will carry out His judgment faithfully. We may withdraw in horror at the thought expressed here, and it is right that we should do for we are sinners too. But as the righteous Judge of all the world He, and He alone, is in a position to do it and declare it righteously. And it is necessary to declare it in all its awfulness so that men might take note and repent.

‘Made them drunk in my fury.’ That is He will make them drink to the full with the cup of His wrath (Isa 51:17; Isa 51:21-22). The picture will be exacted to the full that it may be a sufficient warning to God’s people.

This apocalyptic imagery depicts things as seen from Heaven. As so often in Scriptural prophecy the vivid detail is to portray an idea. It is describing the seriousness of Yahweh’s judgment. But in fact after many judgments the disappearance of Edom was more mundane. Under John Hyrcanus in 1st century BC they were forced to be circumcised and absorbed among the Jews. The winepress was truly trodden and all traces of Edom vanished. Then followed the coming of the anointed One in Jesus.

This vivid picture then leads into the final chapters. We may see all of this as God saying to His people and to the world, “There were two brothers, one was Edom and the other was Jacob. One rejected God’s covenant and suffered the appalling consequences. And now the choice lies with the other.” What will be Jacob’s response to the coming of this Mighty Saviour and Judge? Isaiah’s response to the picture so presented is to plead for his people. He knows that there will yet be judgments to come but he prays that these judgments will not be final like that portrayed on Edom. He prays that there will at last be mercy, and in the end he receives the promise that it will be so, and further that through the remnant of them receiving salvation it will also become salvation available to the world.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Isa 63:3 I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.

Isa 63:3 “I have trodden the winepress alone” – Comments – In her book Caught Up Into Heaven Marietta Davis comments that this phrase is a reference to the fact that Jesus Christ had to go to the Cross alone. [89]

[89] Marietta Davis, Caught Up Into Heaven (New Kensington, Pennsylvania: Whitaker House, 1982), 143.

Isa 63:4 For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

Isa 63:5  And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.

Isa 63:5 Word Study on “uphold” Strong says the Hebrew word “uphold” ( ) (H5564) means, “to prop, to lean upon. or take hold of.”

Isa 63:5 Comments – The Lord was looking for someone to intercede for the land of Moab so that he would not destroy it. How often the Lord looks for an intercessor to lift up a lost soul that His wrath might not destroy this soul in eternal hell. Since “broad is the way, and wide is the gate that leads to destruction, and may there be that go in thereat,” it must mean that there must be a shortage of intercessors.

Mat 7:13, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:”

Isa 63:5 Scripture Reference – See:

Isa 59:16, “And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Israel’s Redemption – The chapters that follow the prophecy of Christ’s sufferings in Isa 53:1-12 tell the children of God to rejoice; for Christ has given them the victory over sin, death and the grave. However, these chapters speak of Christ’s redemption from the perspective of the nation of Israel rather than from the perspective of the Gentiles; for the book of Isaiah contains prophecies of the future destiny of Israel. Later in redemptive history, the Church will be grafted into these prophecies as members of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Approach Of The Deliverer

v. 1. Who is this, so the prophet, in a burst of triumphant ecstasy, asks, that cometh from Edom, where the scene of the great judgment is laid, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this city being the ancient capital of Idumea. The garments of the Hero are pictured as being brilliant, scarlet, namely, with blood, as the next verses show: this that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength? coming along with proud bearing and stately stride. The Champion Himself answers, I that speak in righteousness, proclaiming the covenant of salvation, mighty to save, He in whom the redemption of the world is personified, He who carried out God’s plan of salvation. Again the prophet asks,

v. 2. Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel and Thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? He was fascinated by the bespattered dress of the Champion and desired to know whence these spots came. The Champion promptly answers:

v. 3. I have trodden the wine-press alone, as the questioner rightly concluded, and of the people there was none with Me, of the entire world of men there was not one to give Him companionship, to stand by His side in the great battle; for I will tread them in Mine anger and trample them in My fury, rather, “I have trodden them in Mine anger and trampled them in My rage”; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon My garments, and I will stain all My raiment, all His clothing was splashed with the blood of the enemies, soiled all over.

v. 4. For the day of vengeance is in Mine heart, He had definitely decided to avenge Himself upon the nations, and the year of My redeemed is come, the time had come when He would deliver those whom He had chosen for His own, an allusion to the great Year of Jubilee with its manifold forms of deliverance. The Champion now explains the excess of His fury in the battle which He fought.

v. 5. And I looked, when He found Himself surrounded by enemies on every hand, and there was none to help; and I wondered, with a feeling akin to horror, that there was none to uphold. Therefore Mine own arm brought salvation unto Me, in overthrowing the enemies, and My fury, it upheld Me, giving Him the assistance He needed to obtain the victory.

v. 6. And I will tread down the people in Mine anger and make them drunk in My fury, His wrath and rage being considered the weapons with which He had waged war so successfully, and I will bring down their strength to the earth. It is a wonderfully poetical description of the last great Judgment of the Lord, the day of His vengeance. Cf. Isa 34:8; Revelation 19, 20.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

SECTION IX.THE JUDGMENT OF GOD ON IDUMAEA (Isa 63:1-6).

EXPOSITION

Isa 63:1-6

A JUDGMENT ON IDUMAEA. Isaiah had already, in the first portion of his prophecy, announced” a great slaughter in the land of Idumaea” as resolved on in the counsels of God (Isa 34:5-10). He now recurs to the subject, and represents Jehovah ,as a warrior with blood-stained garments, fresh from the field of battle in Edom, where he has trodden down his foes and taken a fierce vengeance on them. The Idumaeans probably represent the world-power; and the “day of vengeance” may be one still future, in which the enemies of God will feel the weight of his hand.

The description stands by itself, neither connected with what goes before nor with what follows. It has the appearance of a separate poem, which accident has placed in its present position. In form it is “a lyrico-dramatic dialogue between the prophet as a bystander and a victorious warrior (i.e. Jehovah) returning from battle in Idumaea” (Cheyne).

Isa 63:1

Who is this? The prophet opens the dialogue with an inquiry, “Who is it that presents himself before him suddenly in a strange guise?” He comes from Edom, from Bozraha principal Edomite city (see the comment on Isa 34:6)with dyed garments; or, rather, with blood-red garmentsgarments incarnadined with gore. “Who is this,” again he asks, “that is glorious (or, splendid) in his apparel”the blood-stained vesture of the conqueror was a glory to him (Nah 2:3; Rev 19:13)”as he travels” (or, “bends forward” ) in the greatness of his strengthexhibiting in his movements a mighty indomitable strength? Who is it? The reply is immediateI that speak in righteousness, mighty to save; i.e. I, whose every word is “holy, just, and true,” who alone am able to “save to the uttermost all that come to me” (Heb 7:25). The answer unmistakably indicates that the figure which has appeared to the prophet is that of Jehovah.

Isa 63:2

Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel? The prophet resumes his questioning. What means the redness of thine apparel? Whence the stains? Are they wine-stains consequent on treading the winepress? Among the Hebrews, as among the Egyptians, the juice of the grape was trodden out by the feet of men, who often splashed some upon their garments (Gen 49:11).

Isa 63:3

I have trodden the wine-press. The warrior replies. He accepts the suggestion of the prophet; but metaphorically, not literally. He has indeed been “treading a wine-press,” but it is the wine-press of his fury, in which he has trampled down his enemies; and the stains upon his raiment are, consequently, not wine-stains, but stains of blood (comp. Joe 3:13; Lam 1:15; Rev 14:19, Rev 14:20; Rev 19:15). Alone. In mine own might, with none to aid me. The literal wine-press was always trodden by a band of men. Of the people; rather, of the peoples; i.e. of the neighbouring nations none took part with God against the special enemies of his people, the Idumaeans. All more or less sympathized with his adversaries, and therefore participated in their punishment (see Isa 63:6). For I will tread them trample them; rather, so I trode them trampled them (Lowth, Rosenmuller, Delitzsch, Cheyne, by an alteration of the vowel-points). The whole is a prophecy of the future; but the dramatic form of the narrative requires that the verbs should be in the past. As “the peoples” would not help God, but took the side of his enemies, they too were placed in the winepress, and crushed under his feet. Their blood; literally, their juice. Lowth and Kay translate, “life-blood;” Delitzsch, “life-sap;” Mr. Cheyne, excellently, “life-stream.” Shall be sprinkled will stain; rather, was sprinkled stained.

Isa 63:4

For the day of vengeance is in my heart. Translate, for a day of vengeance was in my heart (comp Isa 34:8; Isa 61:2). “A day” is time enough for God to take vengeance, to kill, and to destroy. He hastens over work that is necessary, but uncongenial. But he lengthens out the time of release and redemption for his loved ones. The “day of vengeance” ushers in the “year of redemption.” Is come; rather, was come. The Divine speaker goes back to the time preceding the actual punishment of the nations.

Isa 63:5

And I looked, and there was none to help (comp. Isa 5:2, “He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes:” also Isa 41:28, “I beheld, and there was no man”). By an anthropomorphism God is represented as looking for and expecting what might reasonably have been expected, and even as surprised when he does not find it (comp. Isa 59:16). Out of all the many nations it was reasonable to suppose that some would have chosen the better part and have been on the Lord’s side. But the fact was otherwise (comp. Isa 63:3). Mine own arm brought salvation unto me; or, mine own arm helped me (comp. Isa 59:16). Nothing more is needed. If God arises, his enemies at once “are scattered” (Psa 68:1). “His own right hand, and his holy arm, get him the victory” (Psa 98:1).

Isa 63:6

I will tread down make drunk bring down; rather, I trode down made drunk brought down. See the comment on Isa 63:3. The destruction was to be utter, overwhelming, absoluteone from which there could be no recovery (comp. Rev 19:11-21, where the simile of the wine-press, and the “vesture dipped in blood,” seem introduced with a special reference to this passage).

Isa 63:7-14

SECTION X.AN ADDRESS OF THE EXILES TO GOD, INCLUDING THANKSGIVING, CONFESSION OF SIN, AND SUPPLICATION (Isa 63:7 -64.).

GOD PRAISED FOR HIS MERCIES. The address opens with pure and simple thanksgiving of the most general kind, God being praised for his loving-kindness, compassion, and sympathy with his people (Isa 63:7-9). An historical survey is then commenced, and Israel’s shortcomings contrasted with God’s mercies, but with a predominantly thankful and even jubilant tone (Isa 63:10-14).

Isa 63:7

I will mention; or, celebrate. The loving-kindnesses; or, mercies (see Isa 55:3; and comp. Psa 89:1).

Isa 63:8

He said, Surely they are my people. Israel was first recognized as “a people” in Egypt, when the creel Pharaoh, probably Sethos I; said, “The people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we “(Exo 1:9). Soon afterwards God acknowledged them as “his people” (Exo 3:7). The exiles probably go back in their thoughts to this time. Children that will not lie; or, deal falsely, as the same word is translated in Psa 44:17. The meaning is, that surely they will be faithful to God, and not fall away from him into idolatry or irreligion.

Isa 63:9

In all their affliction he was afflicted. The “affliction” of Israel began in Egypt (Gen 15:13), probably not long after the death of Joseph. It became an intense oppression, when the king “arose who knew not Joseph” (Exo 1:8). God’s sympathy with Israel’s sufferings at this time is strongly marked in the narrative of Exodus (Exo 2:23, Exo 2:24; Exo 3:7, Exo 3:17). An alternative reading of the Hebrew text gives the sense, “In all their affliction he was not an adversary;” i.e. he did not afflict them for their hurt, but for their benefit. But the reading followed by our translators, and most moderns, is to be preferred. The angel of his presence saved them. “The angel of his presence” occurs nowhere but in this place. It is probably equivalent to “the angel of God” (Exo 14:19; Jdg 15:6; Act 27:23), or “the angel of the Lord” (Gen 16:7; Num 22:23; Jdg 13:3, etc.), and designates either the Second Person of the Trinity, or the highest of the angelic company, who seems to be the archangel Michael. (For the angelic interpositions which “saved” Israel, see Exo 14:19; Jdg 6:11-23; Jdg 13:3-21; 2Ki 19:35, etc.) In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. The “redemption” of this passage is probably that from the bondage of Egypt (Exo 6:6; Exo 15:13; Deu 7:8, etc.), which belonged to “the days of old”not the spiritual redemption from the bondage of sin, which was reserved for the time of the Messiah. Having “redeemed” them, i.e. delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and thereby, as it were, purchased them to be his own, he hare them”Carried them on eagles’ wings” (Exo 19:4), and brought them safely through the wilderness to Palestine (comp. Deu 32:10-12).

Isa 63:10

But they rebelled. The rebellions of Israel against God commenced in the wilderness. They rebelled at Sinai, when they set up the golden calf; at Meribah (Num 20:24); at Shittim, when they consorted with the daughters of Moab (Num 25:6). Under the Judges, their conduct was one long rebellion (Jdg 2:11; Jdg 3:7, Jdg 3:12; Jdg 4:1; Jdg 6:1; Jdg 8:33; Jdg 10:6; Jdg 13:1). They rebelled in Samuel’s time by asking for a king (1Sa 8:5, 1Sa 8:19, 1Sa 8:20). The ten tribes rebelled under Jeroboam, and set up the idolatry of the calves at Dan and Bethel. Worse idolatries followed, and in two centuries and a half had reached such a height, that God was provoked to “remove Israel out of his sight” (2Ki 17:23). Judah remained, but “rebelled” under Manasseh, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, “transgressing very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluting the very house of the Lord at Jerusalem” (2Ch 36:14). These rebellions against God vexed his Holy Spirit“provoked him,” “grieved him,” “moved the Holy One in Israel” (Psa 78:40, Psa 78:41; Psa 106:43). Therefore he was turned to be their enemy (comp. Jer 30:14; Lam 2:4, Lam 2:5). Judah had “filled up the measure of her iniquities,” had gone on “until there was no remedy” (2Ch 36:16). God’s indignation was therefore poured out upon her without let or stint. “He cut oft’ in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he drew back his right hand from before the enemy; he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about. He bent his bow like an enemy; he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion; he poured out his fury like fire. The Lord was as an enemy” (Lam 2:3-5). He fought against them; rather, he himself fought against them. God himself, though they were “his people,” yet fought against them and for the Chaldeans in that final struggle. He “gave the city into the hand of the King of Babylon” (Jer 34:2).

Isa 63:11

Then he remembered the days of old. It is questioned who remembered, God or his people. Gesenius, Hitzig, Ewald, Nagelbach, Delitzsch, Knobel, and Mr. Cheyne are in favour of the people; Bishop Lowth and Dr. Kay of God. The reflections which follow (Isa 63:11-13) seem certainly most appropriate to the people, or to the prophet speaking in their name. Where is he that brought them up out of the sea? i.e. “the Red Sea” (comp. Isa 51:10). What has become of the protecting God who then delivered them? With the shepherd of his flock; or, shepherds, according to another reading. The “shepherd” might be either Moses, or “the angel of his face” (Isa 63:9). The “shepherds”if that reading be preferredmust be Moses, Aaron, and perhaps Miriam (Mic 6:4). Where he that put his Holy Spirit within him? The “him” of this passage undoubtedly refers to “the people” (Rosenmuller, Knobel, Delitzsch, Kay, Cheyne). God gave to the people in the wilderness “his good Spirit to instruct them” (Neh 9:20), and guide them (Hag 2:4, Hag 2:5), and govern them (Num 11:17).

Isa 63:12

That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm; rather, that caused his glorious arm to attend at Moses‘ right handready (as Dr. Weir says) to grasp him if he should stumble. Dividing the water before them; literally, cleaving the waters before their face (comp. Exo 14:21). To make himself an everlasting name (see Exo 15:11-16). It was one of the main purposes of the entire series of miracles wrought in Egypt, “that God’s Name might be declared throughout all the earth” (Exo 9:16).

Isa 63:14

As a beast goeth down into the valley. Bishop Lowth’s version seems the best,” As the herd descendeth to the valley.” Israel’s passage through the Sinaitic peninsula into Canaan is compared to tile movement of a herd of cattle from its summer pastures in the mountains to the valley at their base, where for a time it rests. So God gave his people, after their many trials, “rest” in Canaan (Heb 3:11-18). So didst thou lead thy people. “So” refers, not to the last simile only, but to the entire description contained in Isa 63:11-14. To make thyself a glorious name (comp. Isa 63:12, and see also Eze 36:21-23; Mal 1:2).

Isa 63:15-19

A PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE FROM SIN AND SUFFERING. From thanksgiving and confession, the people betake themselves to prayer, and beseech God to look down from heaven once more, to have compassion on them, to acknowledge them, and to save them alike from themselves (Isa 63:17) and from their adversaries (Isa 63:18, Isa 63:19). “It is difficult to overrate the spiritual beauty of the prayer contained in this passage. We may admit that the most prominent motive urged by the speaker has a nationalistic air; but behind this, and strengthening it, is a sense of the infiniteness of the Divine mercy, and of the strong vitality of the union between Jehovah and his people” (Cheyne).

Isa 63:15

Look down from heaven (comp. Deu 26:15; Psa 80:14; 2Ki 8:1-29 :30). “The Lord’s seat” was “in heaven.” While the temple lay in ruins, the Jews would naturally address their prayers to God in his heavenly abode. From the habitation of thy holiness. Mr. Cheyne translates, from the height of thy holiness,” taking the meaning of the rare word z’bul from the Assyrian. “Height” certainly suits well most of the other places where the word z’bul occurs (1Ki 8:13; 2Ch 6:2; Psa 49:14; Hab 3:11). Where is thy zeal? i.e. What has become of it? Has it ceased altogether, or is it only in abeyance for a time? Will not God “stir it up” once more (Isa 42:13)? And thy strength; rather, and thy great acts (comp. Psa 106:2; Psa 145:4; Psa 150:2). The sounding of thy bowels; i.e. their thrilling or vibrationan indication of sympathy (see Isa 16:11). Jeremiah has a similar expression (Jer 31:20). Are they restrained? rather, they are restrained. They no longer show themselves. There was no room for questioning the fact.

Isa 63:16

Doubtless thou art our Father; rather, for thou art our Father. This is the ground of their appeal to God. As their Father, he must love them, and must be ready to listen to them. Abraham and Isaac, their earthly fathers, were of no service, lent them no aid, seemed to have ceased to feel any interest in them. It cannot be justly argued from this that the Jews looked to Abraham and Isaac as actual “patron saints,” or directed towards them their religious regards. Had this been so, there would have been abundant evidence of it. Thou, O Lord, art our Father (comp. Isa 64:8; and see also Deu 32:6, and Jer 3:4). Though the relationship was revealed under the old covenant, it was practically realized only upon the rarest occasions. Our Redeemer; thy name, etc.; rather, our Redeemer has been thy name from of old. “Redeemer” first appears as a name of God in Job (Job 19:25) and in the Psalms (Psa 19:14; Psa 78:35). It is an epitheton usitatum only in the later portion of Isaiah. There it occurs thirteen times.

Isa 63:17

Why hast thou made us to err from thy ways? Confession is here mingled with a kind of reproach. They have erred and strayed from God’s ways, they ‘ allow; but why has he permitted it? Why has he, the shepherd of his flock (Isa 40:11; Isa 49:10), not restrained his wandering sheep, and kept them in his “ways “or “paths” ? The reproach borders on irreverence, but is kept within the limits of piety by the affection and trust that underlie it. They are like wayward children reproaching a tender mother, not quite believing in the justice of their reproaches, but with a very confident faith in her love and in her power to aid. They entertain no doubt but that God will “return” to them, and acknowledge them as his sheep, and resume their guidance and direction. And hardened our heart (comp. Exo 4:21; Exo 7:3; Exo 9:12; Exo 10:1), “When men have scornfully and obstinately rejected the grace of God, God withdraws it from them judicially, gives them up to their wanderings, dud makes their hearts incapable of faith” (Delitzsch). If the process has not gone very far, God may relent, and “return,” and soften the proud heart, and renew in it “his fear.” This is what Israel now entreats him to do. For thy servants’sake. There was always “a remnant” in the worst times, which had not” bowed the knee to Baal.” This was God’s true “inheritance,” which he might be expected to protect and aid.

Isa 63:18

The people of thy holiness; or, thy holy people (comp. Isa 62:9; Isa 63:15 : Isa 64:11). Some critics read har, “mountain,” instead of ‘am, “people,” and translate, “But for a little while have they” (i.e. thy servants) “had possession of thy holy mountain.” The general meaning is the same in either case. “Israel, God’s people, has held Palestine but for a little while”a few centuriesand now the heathen have been allowed to make themselves masters of it, (comp. Ezr 10:8).

Isa 63:19

We are thine. There is no “thine” in the original, and so important a word cannot possibly be supplied from without. Translate, We are as those over whom thou hast not ruled from of old, as those upon whom thy Name has not been called; i.e. we have lost all our privilegeswe have become in God’s sight no better than the heathenhe has forgotten that we were ever his people.

HOMILETICS

Isa 63:1-6

The Idumaeans a type of God’s enemies.

There was a time when Esau sought to slay his brother Jacob (Gen 27:41); and the same spirit of violence and hatred possessed the Edomite nation during its entire career. Edom strove to debar Israel from entrance into the Holy Land by refusing to give them a passage through her borders (Num 20:14-21). She was always ready to join Israel’s enemies, and sought perpetually to take Israel at a disadvantage (2Ki 16:6; 2Ch 20:10, 2Ch 20:22; 2Ch 28:17; Eze 25:12; Eze 35:5; Amo 1:11; Oba 1:10, etc.). When the Babylonian conquest came she rejoiced, and made a mock of Israel’s distress (Psa 137:7). She was still hostile in the time of the Maccabees, and supported the Syrian monarchs in their endeavours to crush Jewish independence (1 Macc. 5:3; 6:31; 2 Macc. 5:15). Herod the Great, who sought to put our Lord to death in his infancy, was an Idumaean; and so, on the father’s side, was Herod Antipas, who mocked him and set him at nought. The Idumaeans are well selected to represent God’s enemies generally

I. ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR PRIDE. Pride was the sin by which Satan and his evil angels lost heaven; and no sin is more hateful to God or more characteristic of his enemies. Of the Idumaeans it is said, “The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rocks that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?” (Oba 1:3); and again,” Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thy heart” (Jer 49:16). “Pride was the root of Edom’s sin,” says a recent commentator on Obadiahpride of an unnatural kind, since God had assigned to Edom a low estate. Now “a low estate, acquiesced in by the grace of God, is the parent of lowliness; when rebelled against, it generates a greater intensity of pride than greatness, because that pride is against nature itself and God’s appointment. The pride of human greatness, sinful as it is, is allied to a natural nobility of character The conceit of littleness has the hideousness of those monstrous combinations, the more hideous because unnatural, not a corruption only, but a distortion of nature”.

II. ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR UNNATURAL HATRED. All hatred of one race towards another is hated by God, but the hatred of a kindred race is especially displeasing to him. It was one of the special reproaches against Ephraim that he vexed a brother, Judah. Now, Esau and Israel were not only brothers, but twin brothers. They ought to have been drawn closely together by this relationship, and to have supported each ether against the alien races of the neighbourhood. But the tie of blood was not felt. Edom had “a perpetual hatred of Israel” (Eze 35:5). They would gladly have conquered their brethren, and held them in subjection (Eze 35:10); but as this could not be, they rejoiced in their brethren’s destruction (Oba 1:12) and gazed delightedly on their sufferings (Oba 1:13). “Unrelenting, deadly hatred against the whole people of Israel, and a longing for their extermination, were inveterate characteristics of Esau”.

III. ON ACCOUNT OF THE ENVY IN WHICH THEIR HATE WAS ROOTED. Ezekiel, declaring God’s intention to punish Edom: says, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thy envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them” (Eze 35:11). The ground of all Edom’s hatred of Israel was that jealousy and envy roused by the Divine preference which put the younger before the elder, and gave to Israel superior, to Esau inferior, blessings. Edom had much for which to be thankfula good pasture country, a secure capital, commercial advantages, wisdom of a certain kind (Jer 49:7); but these things did not satisfy her. They were all rendered vain, and of no account, by the fact that Israel enjoyed more numerous and greater blessings. She could not forgive this superiority; and hence her hatred and rancour. Hence the joy with which she witnessed the walls breached, and Jerusalem taken by the Babylonians; hence the loud cries to which she gave utterance, of “Down with it, down with it [or, ‘raze it, raze it’ ], even to the ground” (Psa 137:7).

IV. ON ACCOUNT OF THE VIOLENCE AND CRUEL OUTRAGES TO WHICH THE HATRED LED. Edom “shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity” (Eze 35:5). When the Babylonians were besieging Jerusalem, they “stood in the crossway, to cut off those that did escape” (Oba 1:14), shutting them up with the enemy, driving them back on their pursuers. Not only did they rejoice in Judah’s destruction, and speak proudly in the day of her distress (Oba 1:12), but they flew upon the spoil, entering into the gates with the conquerors and laying hands upon the substance of the conquered (Oba 1:13). Such fugitives as escaped and settled among them they slew (Joe 3:19). Such captives as they could induce the Philistines or the Phoenicians to sell to them they also put to death (Amo 1:6, Amo 1:9, Amo 1:11). It was their earnest desire that Israel should be no more a nation, and they therefore made every effort to exterminate it. Next to extermination, they desired complete subjugation. Hence the support which they lent to the Syrians against the heroic Maccabee princes.

Idumaea’s fate should be a warning to the enemies of God. Her reward returned upon her own head. As she had done, so was it done to her (Oba 1:15). By the time of Malachi, Edom’s mountains and heritage had been “laid waste for the jackals of the wilderness” (Mal 1:3). She was “impoverished;” her cities were thrown down; she strove to rebuild them, but was unable (Mal 1:4). A century later her territory, or great part of it, was occupied by the Nabathaeans, who made Petra their capital (Diod. Sic; 19:94-98). After suffering various defeats at the hands of the earlier Maccabee princes, the Edomites were finally conquered, and incorporated into the Jewish nation by John Hyrcanus. The last that we hear of them is in the Roman war, when a body of twenty thousand, admitted into Jerusalem by John of Giscala, filled the city with bloodshed, and ending by pillaging it. Thenceforth they disappear from history. The greater part perished in the terrible siege conducted by Titus. The remainder, confounded with the Jews, were sold into slavery. Idumaea became “a geographical expression.”

Isa 63:9

God afflicted in the afflictions of his people.

It is questioned by some whether God can really feel pain. Doubtless, the inner essence of the Divine nature is so far removed from us, and so inscrutable by us, that answers must be given with extreme hesitation to any questions which touch that inner essence. And in using words of God, which derive their whole meaning from our consciousness of feelings which we experience in ourselves, we must beware of supposing that the terms which we employ are used univocally of God and of men. They are, at best, used analogously. Still, as Delitzsch says, “the question whether God can feel pain seems to be answered by the Scriptures in the affirmative.” Pity, and compassion, and indignation, and anger are ascribed to God in Scripture, and all of them are pains. God’s “soul” is said to have been “grieved for the misery of Israel” (Jdg 10:16). There is nothing derogatory to the Divine greatness in the mere fact of God feeling pain; and certainly the fact is of a nature to raise our conception of the Divine goodness. God seems to be afflicted in the afflictions of his people

I. WHEN THEY SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF WICKED MEN. It was the cruel oppression of the Israelites in Egypt which first called forth the compassion and sympathy of God for his people, and caused him to draw near to them, and to enter into a closer relationship. “The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage; and God heard their groaning” (Exo 2:23, Exo 2:24). “And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows” (Exo 3:7). It was, again, the “sore distress” which Israel suffered at the hands of the children of Ammon that caused “the Lord’s soul to be grieved” in the days of the Judges, and induced him to raise up Jephthah as a deliverer (Jdg 10:9, Jdg 10:16; Jdg 11:1). The oppression of Babylon wrought similarly, and by stirring God’s indignation and compassion induced him to save his people and execute judgment upon Babylon by means of Cyrus (Isa 42:22-25, etc.).

II. WHEN THEY SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF GOD HIMSELF. God “has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.” When he is forced to punish, it is with reluctance and regret that he punishes. Witness his long pleadings with his people before he consents to let judgment go forth against them, his long forbearance, his long endurance of their perversity. “All the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed at Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place; but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, until there was no remedy” (2Ch 36:14-16). As the “fathers of our flesh, which correct us” (Heb 12:9), grieve to do so, suffering often more than those they chasten suffer, so the heavenly Father is himself afflicted as he afflicts; his “heart is turned within him, his repentings are kindled together” (Hos 11:8).

Isa 63:15-19

The right of God’s people to address him with complaint and expostulation.

No doubt the ordinary attitude of God’s people towards their Maker and Ruler should be one of the most profound resignation and submission to his will. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:25). Yet on occasions it is allowed them to “speak with him as a man speaketh with his friend” (Exo 33:11), to plead, expostulate, complain; even, in a certain sense, to reproach. Job pleaded with God at great length, and God was not angered, but “accepted” him (Job 42:9), and testified in his favour that he had “spoken right “(Job 42:8). In the Psalms David pleads, complains, expostulates. “Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?” (Psa 10:1). “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? For ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?” (Psa 13:1, Psa 13:2). “Lord, how long wilt thou look on? rescue my soul from their destructions Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters This thou hast seen, O Lord: keep not silence: O Lord, be not far from me. Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord’ (Psa 35:17-23). “Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way; though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart. Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression? Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies’ sake” (Psa 44:18-26). Such expostulations as these do not anger God, but, on the contrary, arc pleasing and acceptable. They show earnestness, confidence, faith, a trust in his goodness, a conviction that he will surely show himself on the side of truth and righteousness. They are within the limits of the “liberty wherewith Christ has made us free” (Gal 5:1). Caution, however, must be used, lest liberty degenerate into licencelest complaint and expostulation pass into “murmuring.” After all, God best knows what is best for us, and will assuredly do what is best for us. We are safe in his hands. In his own good time he will give us all that we need. Let us not be impatient, or imagine ourselves wiser than he. If he delays to give us that which we desire, we may be sure that there is a reason for the delay. In quietness and confidence should be our strength.

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON

Isa 63:7-9

An outburst of thanksgiving.

A deep heart-effusion, in which all that the religious imagination, inspired by love, can suggest, is projected upon the picture of Jehovah, the redeeming God of Israel.

I. HIS LOVING–KINDNESS. (Cf. Isa 55:3; and the Hebrew word in Isa 63:7; Psa 89:28-49; Psa 107:43; Lam 3:22.) The word () suggests a world of love. When used of men it implies pity, benignity, especially in circumstances of misfortune, as Gen 21:23; 1Sa 10:2; Job 6:14. How fine is the saying in 2Sa 9:3, “I will act kindly toward him like unto God”! So that all human expressions of kindness may be and should be conceived as flowing from the one eternal Fountain. Sometimes, by a figure, God himself is called Favour, Mercy (Psa 144:2; Jon 2:9).

II. HIS GREAT DEEDS. “Renown,” or “deeds of renown.” The divorce of feeling from deed, of sentiment from action, that we so often see in feeble humanity, we do not find in God. With him, heart and head are one. His deeds are daily, world-extended, historical, eternal. Every commotion of the nations, every war, every revolution, must be traced to the influence of his Spirit in the last resort.

III. HIS GENEROUS BESTOWALS. There is an exuberant outflow of thought, feeling, and language here. Jehovah is to be celebrated “according to that which is due for all that he hath bestowed, according to his compassion and his abundant loving-kindnesses.” Were it not that the impression of pain is keener and deeper with us than that of pleasure, it would be seen that at every moment life teems with mercies, gifts from the Giver of all good.

IV. His PROVIDENCE IN HISTORY. They were his people in virtue of the primeval covenant. They were his sons by adoption. The great salvation out of Israel was prototypical of all acts in which Jehovah “became unto them a Saviour. Distinct and strong is the representation of the sympathy of God with their suffering; distressed in all their distresses.” His love and his clemency are again mentioned. He was ever, in that long and strange history of rebellion, “overcoming evil with good “a pardoning God. His care was that of a mother’s heartcarrying the people, as it were, from their birth, promising to carry them even to hoar hairs. “I bare made, and I will bear; I will carry, and I will deliver you” (Isa 46:3, Isa 46:4). Yet it is part of such providential dealing to chastise. There were especially times when the people did evil in the sight of Jehovah (Jdg 2:11; Jdg 3:7). Secretly a Holy Spirit, or Spirit of holiness, was striving with them, and they were constantly resisting it. The great covenant with God was founded on this principle of holiness; this was the distinctive characteristic of the people as of their God. By their untruth to the covenant, they changed him as it were from a friend to an enemy. Thwarted love turns to jealousy (Exo 34:14), and the gracious face of the Father becomes that of the wrathful Judge.J.

Isa 63:10-14

The remembrance of the past.

I. THE MEMORY OF GOD. If God is thought of, as he must be thought of, after the analogy of human experiences, he must be thought of as remembering, calling the past to mind, and as undergoing changes of mind in consequence. These are ways of representing first to thought, then in language, an infinite love, which must be capable of all the scale and gamut of feelinganger, wrath, jealousy, and the revulsion almost to the tenderness of tears. So in the wilderness, he, being full of compassion, forgave the iniquity of the rebels in the wilderness, turning his anger away, because he remembered that they were flesh, or but as the passing wind; he called to mind his covenant; he repented according to the multitude of his mercies (Le 26:45; Psa 78:39; Psa 106:45). In the history of Israel there was nothing more memorable than the coming up out of Egypt, and the leadership of Moses and Aaron.

II. THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL EXPLAINED FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD. The outward wonders, the deeds of might, were but the manifestation of an inward waking of his Spirit in the breast el the people. A Spirit of instruction, of “providential guidance and sagacious government””Thy good Spirit to instruct them” (Neh 9:20). A holy light seemed in the retrospect to rest upon that period. It was said that the people “served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that over-lived Joshua,” for “they had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel.” The next generation knew not the works of the Lord, nor the works he bad done for Israel (Jos 24:31; Jdg 2:6-10). The Spirit of Jehovah appears to mean much the same as the face of Jehovah above (cf. Exo 33:14; Hag 2:4, Hag 2:5; cf. Num 11:10-30). The term “holiness” reminds of the covenant, and the covenant of the obligations of fidelity on the part of the people, in response to the oath-keeping of God. Another image, almost carrying the same meaning, is that of the “arm of Jehovah’s splendour” (Isa 40:10; Isa 45:1), ready to support Moses, to hold him up from falling (Isa 41:10-13). Then the sublime picture of the crossing of the Red Sea rises up in imagination (Exo 14:21; cf. Psa 106:9; Psa 77:16), and the wide and dreary steppe. Finally, as a herd goes down from the mountain-side into the pasture-land of the plain, so, under the same guidance, the people came to their resta beloved word (Exo 33:14; Deu 3:20; Deu 12:9; Jos 1:13; Jos 22:4; Psa 95:11; Jer 31:2; Heb 4:1, Heb 4:9). The spiritual sum and substance of all is, “Thus thou didst guide thy people to make unto thyself a monument of glory.” By his work he became for ever known among the heathen. It was a work not to be executed by any false god, nor by any human arm. “Egypt was at this time the centre of all science, art, and culture; arid what occurred there would be known in other lands. God designed to make a signal demonstration of his existence and power, that should be known in all lands and should never be forgotten.” God’s glory is the grand end of all he does, and consequently ought to be likewise of all that we either do or suffer. And whatever, therefore, befalls any man makes for God’s glory and for his own good, if he be a child of God. We should learn, then, to estimate things by their use and tendency. Poison may enter into the composition of an antidote; and things essentially good may, under certain circumstances, become pernicious. Prosperity may harden and adversity may humble us; the one may prepare us for judgment, the other for mercy.J.

Isa 63:15-19

The Church’s prayer.

One of extreme “spiritual beauty” (Cheyne).

I. THE MAJESTY OF GOD. He is contemplated as in heaven, upon “a height of holiness and splendour:” and here, as in Psa 80:14, is besought to “look down and behold” as if “he had given up caring for his people, and withdrawn into his heavenly palace.” It expresses the thought that he, to interpose for them, must ever condescend. The vastness of the distance between God and the creature is expressedin other words, the sense of the creature‘s lowliness and unworthiness. Yet elsewhere, “He is nigh unto all that call upon him.” The chasm then presented in the imagination may be, and is, bridged over. How? By prayerby calling upon him. “A sigh may bring the blessing down.”

II. THE SEEMING INDIFFERENCE OF GOD. Nevertheless, there are times when the “heavens are ,as brass,” and when the God believed to be “living” stirs not, speaks not, gives no sign that he hearkens. As if callous to his people’s need, his “jealousy” slumbers, and needs to be “stirred.” Then comes the “pain of finite hearts that yearn,” for the sympathy (the “sounding of the bowels,” Isa 16:11; Jer 31:20; Jer 48:36) and the compassion which seem withheld and as if deliberately kept back. Such is the tragedy of religious experiencethe old conflict between the intellect which absolutely affirms the goodness of God, the heart which is denied the present sense of it.

III. FAITH IN THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. “Thou art our Father” is the cry, the confession, and the appeal of the Church. In Isa 64:8 the image is associated with that of the “Potter.” In 1Ch 29:10 it is “Lord God of Israel, our Father.” And with this image again is associated the Maker and Purchaser, or Redeemer (Deu 32:6). The nation is to him as the primitive family is to the father, the head, who enjoys the peculiar patria potestas. The people is “his son, even his firstborn” (Exo 4:22); “beloved, called out of Egypt” (Hos 11:1); “nourished and brought up” by Jehovah (Isa 1:2); as the Guide of its youth (Jer 3:4); who will not disown the tie nor the title (Jer 3:19); Father of Israel, to whom Ephraim is firstborn (Jer 31:9); a Father whose heart is sore troubled for his children’s sake, and who is full of mercy and compassion to them (Jer 31:20); who demands the honour and reverence. due to a father (Mal 1:6; Mal 2:10). And here the name is associated with that of the goel, the avenger and deliverer; for the people’s history was a series of deliverances. If God is a Father, a childlike way of speech is not misbecoming in prayers. And here they ask why Jehovah “makes them to stray,” as if they would throw the blame of their aberrations upon him, and he was the Cause of the hardening of their hearts. “They speak as if it is not they who need to return to Jehovah, but Jehovah who is reluctant to return to them; as if, instead of feeding his flock like a Shepherd (Isa 40:11), he has driven it out of the safe fold into the howling wilderness” (Cheyne). Yet the confidence of the child beats passionately below such language. God looks not at the mere words, but at the heart in the words. And it is true, again, that from the difficult problems of thought, this way of thinking seems a better relict than the dualism of the Orientals. It is better to leave the problem with the confession, “God knows best” (cf. Rom 9:17-22). Jehovah is also King. The other peoples have kings as their gods; but he is the incomparable One. The calling on his Name signifies the union of him with his peoplethe eternal covenant (Isa 43:7; Isa 65:1; Deu 28:10; Jer 14:9). The spiritual life moves between opposite poles. It has been said that in the highest mood of faith there lurks some doubt. So in extreme despondency there is still living the germ of faith and hope. And prayer brings that germ into life and power.J.

HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM

Isa 63:1

The coming Saviour.

“Mighty to save.” The question is asked, Who is this?” and the answer is given in Eastern figures of speech, which represent Christ’s character and work.

I. THE SAVIOUR COMES WITH A GREAT SACRIFICE. With “dyed garments;” for the cross lies at the foundation of the world’s recovery. We are weary of all theories of atonement from Anselm’s day downwards, but the atonement remains as the central truth of our religion. It rests on our Lord’s own authority as well as upon St. Paul’s; for he said himself, “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you for the remission of sins.“

II. THE SAVIOUR COMES IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. He is the express Image of the Father. “Glorious in his apparel,” so that through all the ages men may see truth turned into life. Once in all history we see One who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” Christ was “clothed with light as with a garment,”

III. THE SALVATION IS ATTESTED IN EVERY AGE.

1. Mightyin his own revealed grace and power.

2. Mightyin that every degree of guilt and sin is reached by his infinite arm.

3. Mightyin that he saves right through, which is the meaning of the word “to the uttermost.”W.M.S.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON

Isa 63:1-6

The earlier and the later redemption.

The energetic and graphic language of the text applies only in part to that Messianic kingdom to which the prophet makes such frequent reference. It obviously relates, primarily and principally, to the deliverance wrought by Jehovah in favour of his people Israel, and is concerned with the redressing of their political wrongs. But the expressions used are strongly suggestive of a far greater redemption, in which all the children of men are vitally interested. We look at

I. THOSE FEATURES WHICH CHARACTERIZE THE EARLIER RATHER THAN THE LATER DELIVERANCE.

1. The employment of the outwardly impressive. “This that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength.” Something, if not much, of the stately, the striking, the magnificent, of that which was fitted to awe and overwhelm belonged to the older dispensationto the theocracy and the divinely permitted monarchy. Under Christ it is not so. He himself “came not with observation” (ostentation); he was a “King that came, meek,” devoid of all the shows and trappings of royal state. And it is his will that his Church should shrink from rather than secure the dignities and majesties of the earthly kingdoms (Mat 20:25-28).

2. The use of violence. “With dyed garments Their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments” (Isa 63:1, Isa 63:3). Jesus said, and surely still says in respect of all efforts to advance his kingdom, “Put up thy sword into the sheath” (Joh 18:11).

3. The manifestation of Divine anger. “The day of vengeance is in mine heart” (Isa 63:4). Contrast with this, “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (Joh 3:17; Joh 12:47; Luk 9:56).

II. THE FEATURES WHICH ARE COMMON TO BOTH, but are most strikingly characteristic of the later redemption.

1. The manifestation of Divine power. “Mighty to save.” Great as were the deliverances accomplished in Egypt, in the wilderness, in Canaan, in Assyria, these were small and insignificant compared with “the redemption of the world by Christ Jesus,” the rescue of a guilty and degenerate race and its reinstatement in the favour and the likeness of God. Hence is by far the noblest exhibition of Divine power.

2. The illustration of Divine faithfulness. “I that speak in righteousness.” By his interposition God fulfilled his word of promise, and showed himself a covenant-keeping Lord. But in the granting of his “great salvation,” and in all the outworkings of it, both collectively and individually, there are more abundant reasons for exclaiming, “God is faithful” (1Co 1:9).

3. The completeness of the Divine work. The picture here is, throughout, one of victorious strength. It is the return of a warrior who has thoroughly accomplished his work, by whom his enemies have been utterly subdued. He has “brought down their strength to the earth” (Isa 63:6). The work of Christ was perfected. He finished the work the Father gave him to do (Joh 17:4; Joh 19:30). He offered himself “without spot” to God (Heb 10:14). He has prepared for mankind a “common salvation;” as exquisitely adapted to the most cultured intelligence as it is fitted for the most barbarous and savage peoples. He is working out the redemption of the race, and will not rest until humanity has been redeemed and restored.

4. The single-handedness of the Divine Conqueror. “I have trodden the wine-press alone’ (Isa 63:3 and Isa 63:5). Though God did use the instrumentality of his people, it was the presence of his overcoming arm which made all the difference between victory and defeat. And there were occasions when he thought well to dispense with human agency altogether; e.g. the destruction of the Egyptians under Pharaoh, and of the host under Sennacherib. Although the Lord Jesus Christ did not disdain, and does not refuse to employ his disciples in his cause, yet was there a very deep and real sense in which he was alone in his redemptive work (see Robertson on ‘The Loneliness of Christ’).

(1) He was of such spiritual stature that none could walk with him.

(2) He was engaged in a mission of such deep and lofty character that none could then enter into his great design.

(3) He came to make a sacrifice of himself in the offering of which none could join. Here are reasons why we, as Christian men and as workers with Christ, should

(a) look back with deepest gratitude;

(b) submit under disappointment with ready acquiescence;

(c) anticipate with full assurance the triumph which is in the future.C.

Isa 63:7-9

The greatness of God’s goodness.

There is music in the sound and great comfort in the sense of these exquisite words. They speak to us of

I. THE GREATNESS OF GOD‘S GOODNESS TO US.

1. The bountifulness of his gifts to us. “All that the Lord hath bestowed on us.” “The multitude of his loving-kindnesses.” His gifts night and day, in every season, through every stage of life; all material for the body, all stores of knowledge for the mind, all wealth of affection for the heart.

2. The distinguishing favours he has shown us. His “great goodness toward the house of Israel.” Every “house,” every family, every man, has some special reason to speak of Divine goodness.

3. The love which prompts his bestowals. All his kindnesses are “loving-kindnesses,” prompted by parental affection, granted in a loving spirit.

4. His kindness toward us in affliction (Isa 63:8). He grants us Divine sympathy“In all their afflictions;” and tender succour“He bare them,” etc; as the mother carries her sick child, the shepherd the wounded lamb. His hand may be upon us, but “underneath are the everlasting arms.”

5. His grace in redemption. “The angel of his presence,” etc.

II. OUR WISDOM AND DUTY IN VIEW OF IT. “I will mention.” Here are two parts:

1. Recalling to our own thought.

2. Reminding those around us. This is our duty; for it is the clear will of Christ that we should make known the fulness of his kindness and the riches of his grace. We exist, as his people, that we may be witnesses to the world of all that we have learned of him. This is also our wisdom; for therein is found the one antidote to dissatisfaction, the one unfailing source of gratitude and joy.

III. GOD‘S EXPECTATION CONCERNING US. (Isa 63:8.) As God gave to Israel all the peculiar proofs of his remembrance that they might prove a loyal and faithful people or family, so with us as a Christian Church. He has manifested marvellous love, patience, pity, succour, toward us. And in what expectation? That we should show ourselves loyal to himself and true to our trust; that we should prove ourselves the “people” and “children” of God, by reverence of bearing, by submissiveness of spirit, by integrity of character, by faithfulness in the field of sacred work.C.

Isa 63:10-14

How God feels and why he acts.

The revolt or disobedience of Israel is said to have “vexed [grieved] his Holy Spirit.” We learn from this and from a similar expression in Eph 4:30

I. THE GRIEF TO WHICH GOD IS SUBJECT. Men have argued thus. God is a blessed or happy Being; he is infinite in all his attributes; therefore he is infinitely, perfectly happy; therefore there is no possibility of sorrow in his Divine nature. But such reasoning is very precarious and unreliable. We can argue little from infinity of which we know nothing, and we must not think of weighing any inference thus obtained against plain statements of Scripture. We are there assured that God is capable of grief, and we must believe that he is, our logical conclusions notwithstanding. And, looking from another point of view, we might well conclude that he is and must be so. For is he not a Divine Father? And has he not undutiful, rebellious children? How, then, could he fail to be grieved at heart? The fact of God’s fatherhood is the most certain of all truths established by Divine revelation; no ground is more solid than that. Our human fatherhood is indicative of the Divine; it is the reflection of it; it is immeasurably less than it; its best, its tenderest, its most holy and generous feelings, are hints and shadows of corresponding feelings in the heart of the heavenly Father. If, then, in our thought, we purify, magnify, multiply that parental grief which father feels when his children go astray, we understand something of the grief of God.

1. Our Divine Father has expended on us boundless thought, affection, treasure, training, patiencea “multitude of loving-kindnesses.” He has “given himself for us” in one supreme act of self-sacrificing love.

2. He looks for filial response from us, for eager attention to his voice when he speaks; for the acceptance of his pardoning love, for daily remembrance of him and communion with him; for cheerful obedience to his holy will.

3. He too often finds stubborn and protracted inattention, persistent refusal of his overtures of mercy, forgetfulness and neglect, a painful disregard of his will in our relations with one anotherdisobedience.

4. Then his heart is grieved. He who should be satisfied with us (Isa 53:11) is disappointed in us; looking for fruit, he finds none; his Holy Spirit is vexed, is grieved, in a way and in a degree beyond our human understanding, with a grief which is Divine.

II. THE ACTION WHICH HE TAKES. “Therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.” God’s attitude towards his people, consequent on their guilt, seemed that of an enemy. He was as one who strove with them; he sent them discomfiture, calamity, exile. God may seem to be our enemy, to contend with us. He may send us:

1. Unhappiness of heart, a sense of the insufficiency and uselessness of our life, dreariness and despondency of spirit.

2. Failure of our temporal plans and schemes, and sense of miserable defeat.

3. Bereavement.

4. A wounded heart through the inconstancy or the unfaithfulness of a friend; or some other blow which bends and threatens to break our spirit. God is against us, we feel.

III. THE END HE HAS IN VIEW. However we read Eph 4:11, it is clear that the purpose of God in thus striving with his people was restorative. He meant to give them rest, thus filling their hearts with joy and “making to himself a glorious Name.” This is the meaning of all his adverse action toward us. He seeks our restoration to himself and to his service. There are with us, as with Israel, two strong securities.

1. His past loving-kindnesses. He who had bound his people to his heart as the God of Israel had done (Eph 4:11-14) could not and would not desert them in their distress.

2. The honour of his holy Name. God is establishing a kingdom of peace and righteousness, and he wants us as his loyal citizens. This is the meaning of all we are enduring. It is a summons from God to return to ourselves, to enter on our true heritage, to have fellowship with him.C.

Isa 63:15-17

The unvarying Father.

The habitation of God’s holiness is the habitation of his glory; his glory is in his goodness, in his faithfulness (Exo 33:19). His fatherhood of man remains and may be counted upon most confidently, although there may appear great obstacles in the way of it.

I. OUR INSIGNIFICANCE AMONG MEN is no indication of the absence of God’s interest in us. Abraham might be ignorant of any one of his children; our illustrious ancestors, our honoured contemporaries, may know nothing of us; we may be dwelling in the humblest obscurity; but that need not diminish in the very smallest degree our assurance that God is interesting himself in us. Doubtless he is our Father. “I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.”

II. OUR STANDING AMONG MEN is no measure of God’s regard for us. Israel might not be prepared to acknowledge one of his descendants. Men in high authority may withhold from us the light of their countenance; but if there be integrity in our heart and soundness in our life, that need not greatly move us. It is better to have than to lack the confidence of such men, but we can do without it, if necessary. With God for our Father, with Christ for our Divine Friend, we can dispense with “the honour that cometh from man only.”

III. GOD‘S DISCIPLINE OF US is no disproof of his desire or determination to bless us. God may seem to have forsaken us. He once seemed to have forsaken his well-beloved Son. We may be inclined to use such language as he then used (Mat 27:46), or as that of the text (Isa 63:15; and see Psa 67:7 -9). But we may be reassured. Everything he has done or is doing is consistent with his unchanging love. with a fatherhood that never fails. God is only searching, pruning, purifying us. He smites that he may heal us with a wholeness that wilt make us truly blessed, most excellently established and enriched.

1. Therefore let the voice of prayer be heard in dark and distressing hours. “Look down from heaven.”

2. Therefore let the tried and stricken heart anticipate relief and recovery. God’s Name is, from everlasting, that of “a Redeemer.”C.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK

Isa 63:1

The Conqueror from Edom.

The land of Edom was the country inhabited by the descendants of Esau. The original enmity between Esau and Jacob was kept up by the two races. The Edomites were regarded by the Israelites as their hereditary enemies, and no doubt the feeling was reciprocated. The Edomites had special opportunities for harassing Israel, by reason of the proximity of their country. Bozrah was one of the chief cities, if not the chief city, of Edom. We may try to realize the scene so graphically sketched in this passage. At a time when war had been raging, and enmity was at its height, one of the Israelites is represented as walking on the hill that overlooked the plains of Edom. He heard sounds of triumph; turning to the direction whence the sounds proceeded, he saw in the distance the dust arising from a crowd of people, shouting and rejoicing as they came marching on. They evidently came from the chief city of Edom. Now he discerns one in the very midst of the crowd, all stained with the blood of battle, but crowned with the victor’s crown, and having a mien and attitude that tell of readiness to do and dare even yet greater things. The man glories in the triumph that has been won over the national foe, and hasting down to join the victors, he asks, in admiration rather than in inquiry, “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?’ Quickened spiritual vision sees the Messianic meaning of this prophetic picture. We take our stand in the garden, where was Joseph’s new tomb, on the greatest Sunday morning that ever dawned on sinful earth. Forth from the grave came One, stained indeed with the marks of conflict, but glorious in his victory; able to “speak in righteousness,” able to “save.”

I. WHENCE HE COMES. “From Edom and Bozrah,” the land and chief town of Israel’s enemies, the Champion came. The great enemy of the human family is sin, and the sign of the worst that sin can do is the grave. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Christ came forth from the grave, bursting asunder its bars and gates, as the assurance that he was, once and for ever, Conqueror over sin, and Conqueror for us.

II. HOW HE APPEARS. “With dyed, stained garments.” These indicate that he has waged a fierce, bloody contest. Even in our day, rent and blood-stained garments would tell of a great fight; but these were surer signs in Isaiah’s days, when battles were direct band-to-hand encounters. In the Apocalypse, John saw our Redeemerthe Word of Godand he was “clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.” The greatness, the severity, the seriousness, of our Redeemer’s conflict may be seen by considering

(1) the power and bitterness of the foes he encountered;

(2) the wounds they gave; and

(3) the fact that they actually had him down.

Illustrate this third point by reference to Bunyan’s figure of the fight between the pilgrim Christian and Apollyon, in the Valley of Humiliation.

III. WHAT HE CAN DO. He travels “in the greatness of his strength.” He is “mighty to save.” He is proved to be strong; shown to be “able to save.” He is a proved Samson; a tested David. He is worthy to be trusted with the whole work of redeeming us from sin,

(1) its penalty;

(2) its power;

(3) its consequences.

In conclusion, it may be urged:

1. That Christ is willing to apply to us the full benefits of his redemptive victory.

2. That Christ has, since his resurrection, made some glorious displays of his power to save. Illustrations: St. Paul, the jailor at Philippi, John Newton, Africaner, etc.

3. That there is no limit to the power of his saving grace. Each one of us may say, “He is able to save even me.“R.T.

Isa 63:1

Edom on the skirts of Palestine.

Sin hangs on the borders of goodness everywhere, as just across her southern boundary-line Edom always lay threateningly upon the skirts of Palestine. We open any page of human history and what do we see? There is a higher life in man. It is imperfect, full of mixture, just like that mottled history of Hebrewdom. But always right on its border lies the hostile Edom, watchful, indefatigable, inexorable, as the redoubtable old foe of the Jews. Always it is the higher life pressed, watched, haunted by the lower; always it is Judah with Edom at its gates. No one great battle comes to settle it for ever; it is an endless fight with an undying enemy. But “who is this that cometh from Edom?” Is it possible that this One that we see coming, this One on whose step. as he moves through history, the eyes of all the ages are fastenedis it possible that he is the Conqueror of the enemy and the Deliverer of the soul? He comes out of the enemy’s direction. The whole work of the Saviour has relation to and issues from the fact of sin. If there had been no sin there would have been no Saviour. He comes from the right direction, and he has an attractive majesty of movement as he appears. He seems strong. What does he say to the anxious questioner; what account of himself does he give; what has he done to Edom; and what mean those blood-stains on his robes?

I. He replies to the question, “Who is this?” by saying, “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” This reassures us. The Saviour comes in the strength of righteousness. Any reform or salvation of which the power is righteousness must go down to the very root of the trouble.

II. He replies to the question, “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel?” by saying, “I have trodden the wine-press.” It is no holiday monarch coming with a bloodless triumph. It has been no pageant of a day, this strife with sin. The power of God has struggled with the enemy and subdued him only in the agony of strife. What pain may mean to the Infinite and Divine, what difficulty may mean to Omnipotence, I cannot tell. Only I know that all they could mean they meant here. “This symbol of the bloodand by-and-by, when we turn from the Old Testament to the New, from the prophecy to the fulfilment, we find that it was not only the enemy’s blood, but his own blood too, that stained the victorious Deliverer’s robesthis symbol of the blood bears this great truth, which has been the power of salvation to millions of hearts, and which must make this Conqueror the Saviour of your heart too, the truth that only in self-sacrifice and suffering could even God conquer sin. Sin is never so dreadful as when we see the Saviour with that blood upon his garments. And the Saviour himself, surely he is never so dear, never wins so utter and so tender a love, as when we see what it has cost him to save us. Out of that love born of his suffering comes the new impulse after a holy life; and so when we stand at last purified by the power of a grateful obedience, it shall be said of us, binding our holiness and escape from sin close to our Lord’s struggle with sin for us, that we ‘ have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ “(condensed from Phillips Brooks).R.T.

Isa 63:7

The Lord’s loving-kindnesses.

The great goodness seen in the return of the exiles from Babylon helped to a right apprehension of the goodness of God ‘ to his people all down through the long ages. Dean Stanley eloquently describes the return. “The restoration was an event which, unlikely and remote as it might have seemed, was deemed almost a certainty in the expectation of the exiles. The confidence of Jeremiah and Ezekiel never flagged that within two generations from the beginning of the captivity their countrymen would return. The patriotic sentiment, which had existed as it were unconsciously before, found its first definite expression at this period And when the day at last arrived which was to see their expectations fulfilled, the burst of joy was such as has no parallel in the sacred volume; it is, indeed, the revival, the second birth, the second Exodus, of the nation. There was now ‘ a new song,’ of which the burden was that the Eternal again reigned over the earth, and that the gigantic idolatries which surrounded them had received a deadly shock; that the waters of oppression had rolled back in which they had been struggling like drowning men; that the snare was broken in which they had been entangled like a caged bird. It was like a dream, too good to be true. The gaiety, the laughter of their poetry, resounded far and wide. The surrounding nations could not but confess what great things had been done for them. It was like the sudden rush of the waters into the dry torrent-beds of the south of Palestine, or of the yet extremer south, of which they may have heard, in far Ethiopia. It was like the reaper bearing on his shoulder the go]den sheaves in summer which he had sown amongst the tears of winter. So full were their hearts that all nature was called to join in their thankfulness. The vast rivers of their new Mesopotamian home, and the waves of the Indian Ocean, are to take part in the chorus, and clap their foaming crests like living hands. The mountains of their own native land are invited to express their joy; each tree in the forest that clothed the hills, or that cast their shade over the field, is to have a tongue for the occasion.” The point impressed is that, being so deeply impressed with one great blessing received from God, the whole course of God’s dealings with his people came freshly to their view. In the light of one loving-kindness they gained clearer views of the many and various loving-kindnesses which had so constantly been showered upon them. “I will remember the loving-kindnesses of the Lord.” That appears to be God’s gracious way of dealing with us all. Our lives are, in fact, full of his tender mercies, but they pass by us unheeded. We need something at times which may call our attention to them. So God gives us occasional great mercies as reminders of the thousand lesser ones. A special gift from an earthly friend has something of this power; it makes us feel afresh how good and kind and tender he long has been.

I. THE LORD‘S LOVING–KINDNESSES READ IN THE LIGHT OF THE REDEMPTION FROM BABYLON. This deliverance altered all their feeling about the past. It gave them a key to the meaning of their very captivity. It set them upon searching for signs of God’s goodness in the national story. And what a story of mercy that long record of the Jewish Church had been! What we can see in it everywhere, those returned exiles saw in the light of their exceeding joyforbearances, long-sufferings, provisions, bestowments, loving-kindnesses, defendings, redeemingsthe good hand of their God ever on them for good.

II. THE LORD‘S LOVING–KINDNESSES READ IN THE LIGHT OF THE REDEMPTION FROM SIN. St. Paul expresses this idea in the words, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” The “all things” come to his mind when he thinks of the great things. He who gives eternal life will be sure to nourish and feed all the life he gives. He who holds before us the hope of an exceeding and eternal weight of glory will be sure to keep us unto it, and fit us for it. We may be quite confident that he who gives glory will give grace, withholding no good thing from them that walk uprightly. This is the usual form of Christian meditations. We unconsciously follow the returned exiles’ way, and begin with the greatest loving-kindness. We tune our souls to their noblest song over redemption-love manifested in Christ Jesus. We dwell on his condescension and his suffering until our souls say, “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable Gift!” But in the quietness after the song, there seems to be a light left on our whole life-story, which, as we watch it, grows brighter and brighter; falling here and there and yonder, showing up mercy after mercy, goodness upon goodness, we also begin to say, “We will remember the loving-kindnesses of the Lord.”R.T.

Isa 63:8

God the Saviour.

The Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, uses this figure for God, but expresses it more comprehensively and suggestively. “The living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe” (1Ti 4:10).

I. WHAT IS IT TO SAVE A MAN? What does the word “save” mean when we apply it to a man? A while ago five heavy boat-loads of saved ones from midnight wreck were landed at Dover. The poor, ragged city waif is taken from the streets into the kindly refuge, and saved from vice and degradation. The man who has embezzled money, and is in peril of the judgment, finds a friend who pays the claim, and he is saved from prison. But these are cases of saving men in only an imperfect and limited sense. What is it to save a moral being; one who has will and affections; the sense of right and wrong, and the possibility of gracious relations with God? That depends upon what disabilities and perils men may have fallen into. If we may read other men by ourselves, then they are wrong in life-principleheart-wrong; wrong in conductbodily wrong; wrong in relationssocially wrong; and wrong in life-issuesunder Divine penalties. To save a man must be to save him from all this. Too often salvation is represented as saving from hell. That is but a part of it. It is saving me, and saving me now. To change the ruling principle of the life is the hopeful beginning of salvation; but the work must be carried on. There must be the regeneration of the life and conduct, the purifying of all motive, and sanctifying of all thought, and touching of all the relationships with tender grace. So to save a man is a very large and comprehensive thing. A bit of it is saving man from overhanging penalty; most of it is saving him from sin and from self. Self-willed men arc only saved when they are brought to God in trust and love.

II. WHAT IS IT FOR GOD TO SAVE A MAN? Three points.

1. God’s salvation must go to the central necessity of man, cleansing his heart-wrong.

2. God’s salvation must be a gracious persuasion of man’s mind and will and heart.

3. In this gracious persuasion the Trinity is now engaged. God’s salvation for man is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, gaining entrance with regenerating power into a man’s heart and life.

III. WHAT IS IT FOR GOD TO SAVE ALL MEN? The full and final salvation of all men seems to be declared in Scripture to be the Divine purpose. All men were placed under disability by Adam’s sin; no man has any standing before God. Now, in the second Adam’s righteousness and acceptance, that state of disability is removed for the whole race, and all men stand in restored relations. Humanity is relieved from its curse by Christ’s perfect obedience, and all men are in that sense saved. But this is only such a salvation as there can be apart from man’s will, and it is but the beginning of God’s salvation. A nation may be pardoned for its rebellion as a nation, but the king may very properly require the oath of allegiance to be taken by each individual.

IV. WHAT IS IT FOR GOD SPECIALLY TO SAVE SOME? It is to have some coming voluntarily into gracious relations with him; and to make such his agents for the winning and persuasion of others. We may all of us be sons, but some of us may be sons at home, in the full joy of accepted and gracious relations. And sons at home are ever ready, waiting to do their Father’s will.R.T.

Isa 63:9

God’s suffering sympathy.

There is a verbal difficulty connected with the first clause of this verse. A little Hebrew word that is employed, if pronounced in one way, means “to him;” but, if pronounced in another way, it means “not.” According to the one mode the clause wilt read, “In all their affliction there was affliction to him;” or, as in our English version, “He was afflicted.” According to the other mode the clause will read, “In all their affliction there was no affliction;” that is, nothing worth calling affliction, because his presence and help were so near to them in their time of need. Both give good meanings, but the spirit of the passage leads us, with Luther and other expositors, to prefer the former one.

I. GOD CAN FEEL. It may be said that this needs no proof. But the God sometimes presented in theological systems, preached from our pulpits, and addressed in our prayers, does not really feel as we do. It is said that “he is complete in himself, infinitely full, infinitely happy, infinitely satisfied. Nothing can add one jot to his happiness, nothing can diminish his bliss. He, as a King, recognizes and punishes sin and rebellion, but he does not feel hurt by it himself. No waves heave and toss on the quiet ocean of God.” But is the impression left on our minds by all this concerning God quite true? And is that the God we are asked to lovethat immovable statue? We want a God whose bosom heaves with feeling, whose face beams with smiles, who can pity us as a father pities. Too often the impression left on us is, that it is only Christ who can suffer, since he was a man. God cannot feel; Christ feels. Christ is in self-sacrifice, not God. But we must be far from the truth when we divide our vision, and with one eye see Christ, and with the other see God. Look with both eyes, and we shall see Christ in God, and God in Christ. This is trueGod cannot be physically affected. We must not think of him as a body, capable of feeling bodily pain. He cannot be struck. He cannot be subject to disease. God is a Spirit. But he is a real Being. tie is what we understand by a moral beinga moral being who can sustain relations to other beings, and can be affected by the conditions and doings of other beings. Our deepest feelingsjoys or sorrowsdo not come from our bodies, but from our minds. And when we say that God can feel, we mean that his moral being can be affected, and that his precise glory lies in thishe does feel rightly, suitably, adequately, divinely, in every case.

1. God must feel if he can be said to have a perfect character. We should take no impressions from the wrongs or the goodnesses around us if we bad no power of feeling, and so there could be no culture of character. If God cannot feel it is no longer intelligible to us to say that he is “good.” that he is “love.”

2. That God can feel is taught by the imagery of Old Testament Scriptures. Constantly he is represented as though he were a man. We read of his feet, his breath, his hand, his arm, etc. “He is represented as blessed according to the merit and beauty of whatever is done that is right. He smelled a sweet savour in Noah’s sacrifice. He has pleasure in them that hope in his mercy. He is affected with joy over his people, as a prophet represents, even to singing in the day of their restored peace. He is tender in his feeling to the obedient, pitying them that fear him as a father pitieth his children. His very love is partly passive; that is, it is a Being affected with compassion by the bitter and hard lot of those under sin. On the other hand, by how many unpleasant varieties or pains of feeling does he profess to suffer in his relation to scenes of human wrong and ingratitude! The sighing of the prisoner comes before him to command his sympathy. He calls after his people as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit. He testifies, ‘I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves.’ His repentings are kindled together in view of the sins of his people. He is said to be exercised by all manner of disagreeable and unpleasant sentiments in relation to all manner of evil doings: displeased; sore displeased; wroth; angry; loathing; abhorring; despising; hating; weary; filled with abomination; wounded; hurt; grieved; and he even protests, like one sorrowing, that he could do nothing more to his vineyard than he had done for it” (Dr. H. Bushnell). There must be deep moral meanings in these anthropomorphic expressions.

3. Rightly regarding the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, it becomes a proof that God can feel. It is said that Christ felt because he was human; the feeling was part of the humanity. But if there had been no human nature, would not he have felt and borne our sorrows and our sins just the same? ‘The great thing about Christ is that he manifests God to us in these our human spheres, and under these our human conditions. And in him we see not only the glory of God’s holiness and claims, but the glory also of his pitying feeling. When God makes himself most evident to usas he does in the person of his Sonthen we behold a loving, pitying, suffering God.

II. GOD DOES FEEL IN THE PARTICULAR WAY OF SYMPATHY WITH THE SUFFERING. “In all their affliction he is afflicted.” The prophet is reviewing the Divine dealings with his forefathers; recalling more especially that deliverance from Egypt, and guidance to the promised land, which was the dearest of memories to every Jew. God’s interest, he declares, had been bound up with that of his people. He suffered in their suffering. Sorrows came upon that people from outward circumstances; and worse sorrows came through their wilfulness and sin. We are to understand that God sympathized with them under both kinds of sorrow. The text is as true for us as for Israel of old. Our human troubles are so overwhelming because we persist in. bearing them alone; we will not let God bear them with us, much less will we let him bear them for us. We even try to persuade ourselves that he does not feel for us under certain of our sorrows, because the sin whence they come is so abhorrent to him. Yes, the sin is, but the sinner is notespecially the stricken, suffering sinner is not.

III. WE ARE GOD–LIKE ONLY AS WE ARE AFFLICTED IN OTHERS‘ AFFLICTIONS. Pity for the suffering is a natural emotion. Some of us cannot bear to see even the meanest creature suffering pain. There is much of this “milk of human kindness” left in the sinful, sorrowful world, where man is “horn to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” But we can only be rightly “afflicted with others’ afflictions” when:

1. Like God, we can see sin at the root of the affliction, and yet feel drawn to the afflicted. Mere human feeling is not strong enough to draw us to the sinner.

2. When we can discern God working out through them his purposes of grace. As mere sufferings they must be borne alone. We cannot share the feeling of pain; but as chastisements, as discipline, we may bear troubles with others; and it is in these religious aspects of human suffering that a God-like sympathy becomes possible.

3. As we ourselves are led through experiences of trouble, as life passes on, it ought to make the brotherhood of souls perfect. Nothing brings hearts together like a common trouble. Send a woman who has a child in heaven to comfort the mother who looks into a newly emptied cradle. God touches us alltouches us to the quick sometimesand helps us thus to feel for others’ infirmities. God’s power on us is his fellow-feeling of our infirmities. Our power on each other must be just thisin closeness of sympathy we bear one another’s burdens.R.T.

Isa 63:10

Grieving the Spirit.

“But they rebelled, and grieved his Holy Spirit.” Dean Plumptre says, “Here we may note a foreshadowing of the truth of the trinal personality of the unity of the Godhead, which was afterwards to be revealed. That which “vexed” the Holy Spirit was, in the nature of the case, the unholiness of the people, and this involved a change in the manifestation of the Divine love, which was now compelled to show itself as wrath.”

I. THE SPIRIT IS HOLY; EVERYTHING IMPURE WILL GRIEVE HIM. The Bible refers to him as the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, as though to suggest to us that it is this attribute of his character which bears special relation to us, and his work in us. His aim is our sanctification. All the overcomings of sin, all the removals of hindrances and evils, all the bestowments of peace, are intended to help us toward that great end. When we first go forth into life from a pure home, how grieved we feel at the association of the scoffer, the swearer, the vicious! To a chaste mind how grievous indelicacy is! So our impurities must grieve the pure Spirit. Our besetting sins must, be they pride, or selfishness, or conceit, or unchartiableness, or the cherishing of foul thoughts, be a grief and a vexation to him.

II. THE SPIRIT URGES TO ACTIVE WORK FOR GOD; WHERE THERE IS APATHY, INDOLENCE, OR REBELLIOUSNESS, HE IS GRIEVED. Among the weapons of the spiritual warfare we read of the “sword of the Spirit,” as though the activity of the Christian depended on the Spirit. The highest attainments of Christian life have been made, not by quiet folk, who set themselves only on personal culture, but by active folk, who have gone forth to witness for God, taking their lives in their hands. Wherever there is shrinking back from active servicewhich is virtual rebellionthe Spirit is grieved. We are grieved when we see a man with great powers abusing or neglecting to use them. The Spirit would act through our energies, and is checked if we hold our powers hack from him. And we suffer ourselves. The spiritual sluggard’s garden will surely be like the natural sluggard’s. Thorns and thistles will spring up and riot there. If he would but toil, and sow, and weed, and train, the dews and rains and sunshine would help on his work. This is the reason of our barrenness, not that we have had no dews from heaven, no Spirit of God with us, but that we have neglected our part of the work, and, withholding our loving obedience and active service, have grieved his Holy Spirit.R.T.

Isa 63:12-14

The Spirit of God in Moses.

“Where is he that put his Holy Spirit in the midst of them?” The shepherds of the flock are Moses, Aaron, and Miriam; but the chief reference must be to Moses. “God gave Moses his Holy. Spirit, and with him the gift of performing miracles, and leading and teaching the people.” The images of these verses may be thus explained. “One might suppose that Israel would have trodden with trembling, uncertain steps, the strange way over the bottom of the sea on which human foot was never set. But it was not so. Rapidly and surely, as the desert horse goes over the flat smooth desert without tottering, so did they march over that strange, perilous road. The image of the cattle descending into the valley is very appropriate for marking the arrival of the Israelites in the promised land after journeying in the desert. The prophet thinks of the herds of nomads that must cross a mountain range or plateau in order to reach regions rich in pasture.” The point to which attention may be profitably directed is, that we usually fix our thoughts on the outward revelations given to Moses, and the actual material things which he was required and strengthened to do. And yet there is a secret mystery in Moses which is full of suggestion for us, and makes him a model for us of the Divine dealings with us also. God was in Moses, dwelling in him by his Spirit, the impulse and inspiration of all good, true, wise, and loving things. We may, therefore, illustrate from Moses

I. THE SPIRIT OF GOD FOR US; OUR GUARANTEE OF SAFETY.

II. THE SPIRIT OF GOD WITH US; OUR CONFIDENCE OF SUFFICIENCY,

III. THE SPIRIT OF GOD IN US; OUR INSPIRATION TO ALL GOODNESS.

As materials of illustration the following emblems of the Spirit may be helpful Water: cleansing, fertilizing, refreshing, abundant, freely given. Fire: purifying, illuminating, searching. Wind: independent, powerful, sensible in its effects, reviving. Oil: healing, comforting, illuminating, consecrating. Rain and dew: fertilizing, refreshing, abundant, imperceptible, penetrating. A dove: gentle, meek, innocent, forgiving. A voice: speaking, guiding, warning, teaching. A seal: impressing, securing, authenticating.R.T.

Isa 63:16

Good news concerning God.

“Doubtless thou art our Father.” The Jews were the children of God. But they had been for a long time so neglecting him that they had lost all the nearer and dearer thoughts of him; and imaged him to themselves through the bleared and blinded vision of their own indulgences, wickedness, and sin. He became to them only a God to be feared, in the sense of “frightened at.” Then the prophet’s message of a merciful God, fatherly still, recovering and saving even the guilty, was indeed good news from heaven to such a people. But that which is true of many Jews in the times of the later monarchy, is, in measure, true also of us. We have let our practical neglect of God set him far from us, and darken our thoughts concerning him. We think of God as hard, severe, or indifferent, and let the bitterness of orphans enter into our souls. Then it is good news indeed concerning God which is brought to us when it can be said, “Doubtless he is our Father.” Two consequences of this assurance about God may be illustrated.

I. HE WANTS US TO BE HIS RESTORED, OBEDIENT CHILDREN. True children, worthy children, of the heavenly Father. But this is a more difficult matter than we at first: suppose. For what sort of children are we now? And what changes must we go through before we can become the children we should be? But God’s interest follows the prodigals. He can have no rest until they come home. Shepherds never willingly lose their sheep. Mothers cannot bear to lose a child. Our Father’s seeking, saving mercy reaches even to the height of the sacrifice on the cross. It restores; it fills with the home-feeling; it prepares us for the eternal home-place. “Now are we the sons of God,” etc.

II. HE WANTS US TO LEARN OF HIM HOW TO BE GOOD FATHERS AND MOTHERS TO OUR CHILDREN. Good sons and daughters make the best fathers and mothers. We may learn of the great Father:

1. The power of a sustained example of purity.

2. The influence of the spirit of self-denial.

3. The value of strictness to that which is truthful and righteous.

4. The gracious triumph of long-suffering patience.

These are just the things we need for our human fatherhood and motherhood.R.T.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Isa 63:1. Who is this, &c. Or, Who is this that cometh from Edom, with purple garments from Bozrah? This, who is solemn, or venerable in his attire, marching on in the greatness of his strength? I that speak of deliverance, [doing right,] mighty to save. See chap. Isa 34:5-6. The Idumeans joined with the enemies of the Jews in bringing on the destruction of Jerusalem in the time of the captivity, for which they were severely reproved by the prophets, and threatened with utter destruction, which accordingly came to pass: the prophets, therefore, generally apply the names of these people to signify any inveterate and cruel enemy, as in this place; but the words Edom and Bozrah may be taken in the appellative sense, to denote in general a field of blood, or a place of slaughter; the word Edom signifying red, and Bozrah, a vintage, according to some; which in the prophetical idiom, import God’s vengeance upon the wicked. The Messiah is said to be solemn or venerable in his attire; that is to say, like a general marching at the head of his army, and carrying the token of victory on his raiment; or, according to others, clothed in such a manner as to command reverence and respect. The frequent transitions from one person to another, observed in the Hebrew poetry, is a strong indication of a mind hurried away by the impulse of inspiration; and sometimes, as in the present case, is as strong a mark of a dramatic form of composition. See Lowth’s Prelections, and Vitringa.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

B. The negative side of the revelation of Salvation. The judgment on the heathen

Isa 63:1-6

1Who is this that cometh from Edom,

With dyed garments from Bozrah?
This that Isaiah 1 glorious in his apparel,

2Travelling in the greatness of his strength?

I that speak in righteousness,
Mighty to save.

2Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel,

And thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine fat?

3I have trodden the winepress alone:

And of the people there was none with me:

For I will tread them in mine anger,
And trample them in my fury;
And their 3blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments,

And I will stain all my raiment.

4For the day of vengeance is in mine heart,

And the year of my redeemed is come.

5And I looked, and there was none to help;

And I wondered that there was none to uphold:

Therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me;
And my fury, it upheld me.

6And I will tread down the people in mine anger,

And make them drunk in my fury,
And I will bring down their 4strength to the earth.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Isa 63:2. [The Masoretic note marks as abnormal the Pattach in though the word is in Pause. But pattach when pausal is commonly not lengthened in monosyllabic words. See Delitzsch in loc.D. M.].

Isa 63:3. apocopated future Kal from , to sprinkle. is, beside the Niphal , the only form of the verb , impurum esse, which occurs in Isaiah. It is a Hiphil form imitating the Aramaic, and has possibly been chosen in order to give to the thing a corresponding expression in bad Hebrew, in a word taken from the common language current in conversation.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Chapters 6063 are most closely connected. In 6062 there was described the positive work of Gods Anointed which brings blessing and salvation to Israel. Chapter 63 shows how He will accomplish the negative side of His mission by punishing the heathen. With dramatic effect the Prophet pictures a person of commanding appearance approaching from Edom in magnificent but blood-stained raiment. To the question who He is, the person asked replies that He is He to whom it belongs to hold judgment, and to bring salvation (Isa 63:1). And to the further question why His garment is so red, (Isa 63:2), He answers that He has trodden the wine-press alone, with no man of the nations with Him, (which He will requite by the execution of the same judgment on them), and thus He has soiled His garment (Isa 63:3). The hero comes therefore from executing judgment on Edom, and He sets forth in prospect a second judgment embracing all nations. This second judgment, which was only parenthetically mentioned in Isa 63:3, is treated of more fully in Isa 63:4-6. First, it is marked in Isa 63:4 as a long-purposed day of vengeance, with which at the same time a year of salvation will begin. Then it is again prominently stated, that the hero sees Himself isolated, but trusts notwithstanding in the strength of His own arm, and of His fury (Isa 63:5), and is confident that He will tread down the nations, and shed their vital juice (Isa 63:6).

2. Who is this thatto the earth.

Isa 63:1-6. The Fathers (Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Ambrose, Augustine,etc.), apply this passage directly to the sufferings and ascension of Christ. Origen, in particular, and after Him Jerome and Theodoret put the question: Who is this that cometh,etc., into the mouth of the angels who guard the gates of heaven. Thereupon the foremost of the procession accompanying the Lord answer in the words of Psalms 24. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Athanasitius makes the question proceed from the mouth of fallen angels. Under Edom the Fathers understand the (red) earth. Another group of interpreters, with Luther at their head, understand under Edom the Synagogue of the Jews, under Bozrah urbem munitam privilegiis divinis, i.e., Jerusalem. The blood is the blood of the Jews. The hero comes from inflicting judgment on Jerusalem. Calvin disputes any reference to Christ. He finds in the passage simply the announcement of a judgment on the Edomites which is still future. This view is more definitely set forth by Grotius and others, as they see here a prophecy of that devastation of Edom which was effected by Judas Maccabaeus (Maccab. Isa 5:3 sqq. 65; 2 Maccab. Isa 10:15 sqq. Jos. Antiqq. xii. 11, 12). Eichhorn and Koppe regard Nebuchadnezzar as the accomplisher of this threatening. Cocceius, and many others after him put a spiritual sense on the passage, and understand under the trampling down the crucifixionem veteris hominis et abolitionem omnis impietatis per crucifixionem Christi. Vitringa, who here follows in general the rabbinical interpretation, understands under Bozrah Rome, and under Edom the countries subdued by the Romans. The conculcare he refers here as in chapter 34 to the liberation of the Christians from the power of Rome. But he does not, as many others, think of the elevation of Christianity to be the religion of the State by Constantine, nor of the general judgment (Rev 20:11 sqq.), but of the extermination of Antichrist by the warrior who rides on the white horse, Rev 19:11 sqq. Among modern interpreters Gesenius, Hitzig, Umbreit, Beck, Seinecke, see in this prophecy a threatening against Edom expressed in the form of a vision representing an act of vengeance as completed; while Knobel, according to his peculiar way of judging, thinks that he can discern here the battle of Sardis (Herod, 1:80; Cyrop. Isa 7:1) depicted in prophetic colors. Stier is of the opinion that the one who is seen as coming is Christ, coming from the fulfilment of what is related Rev 14:20; Rev 19:18; Rev 19:21. Delitzsch finds the historical fulfilment of our prophecy in what befel the Edomites at the hands of the Maccabean princes and of Simon of Gerasa (Jos. Bell. jud. iv. 9, 7), while its final fulfilment is the destruction of Antichrist and his hosts (Rev 19:11 sqq.). [The destruction of Antichrist is regarded by Delitzsch simply as the New Testament counterparty this piece.D. M.]. The Catholic interpreters Rohling and Neteler do not exclude the historical fulfilment (through Simon of Gerasa; so Rohling), but yet regard as the fulfiller of our prophecy the Servant of Jehovah, who, according to chapter 53 should give His life as an offering for sin, and who is, on the other hand, the destroyer of Antichrist, and is thus sprinkled both with His own blood and that of others. [Dr. Naegelsbach regards the victory of Amaziah, king of Judah, over the Edomites (2Ch 25:5-12) as furnishing the historical foundation for this prophecy. Amaziah returning from the slaughter of the Edomites is the type of the Anointed of the Lord who here appears as redeeming Israel by executing judgment on Israels enemies. But this is an opinion which is quite peculiar to our Author, and which no one before him has ventured to express. It is strange that any one should think of finding in this glorious Conqueror, who comes travelling in the greatness of His strength, who speaks in righteousness and is mighty to save, the antitype of that Amaziah who set up for worship the gods of the vanquished Edomites, and was afterwards completely overcome by Joash, king of Israel. Edom is a representative people. It is not an emblematic name of the great world-power, in its violence and tyranny, for which Babylon is made to stand. But Edom, the inveterate enemy of Israel, and occupying a bad pre-eminence in hatred against Israel, is the representative of the world that hates the people of God. So Delitzsch, who remarks the emblematizing tendency which Isaiah here, as in chaps, 2122:14, manifests. The name Edom is made an emblem of its future doom. The apparel of Jehovah, the avenger, is seen to be , red, with the blood of Edom. The name Bozrah, too, readily suggests , to gather the vintage of grapes. The image of treading grapes is here used to picture the Lords crushing of the inhabitants of Bozrah, who are as the vintage in the wine-press. We cannot study the picture without recognizing the emblematic significance of the names Edom and Bozrah. The question arises: Are we, in the interpretation of this prophecy, to think of Judas Maccabeus, Hyrcanus, and Simon of Gerasa, or even of the proper Edomites? The answer depends on the way in which we must answer another question. Did Judas, or either of the other Jewish chiefs mentioned, return in triumph from the Idumean city Bozrah specified by Isaiah? Of this there is no evidence. Lowth has called attention to a very important point which, in his view, excludes from this prophecy Judas Maccabeus, and even the Idumeans properly so called. The Idumea of the Prophets time was quite a different country from that which Judas conquered. For during the Babylonish captivity the Nabatheans had driven the Edomites out of their country, who upon that took possession of the southern parts of Judea, and settled themselves there; that is, in the country of the whole tribe of Simeon, and in half of that of Judah. And the metropolis of the Edomites, and of the country which Judas took, was Hebron, 1Ma 5:63, not Botsra (Bozrah). This consideration is fatal to all attempts of the literalizing school to interpret this prophecy.D. M.]. The question, Who is this? is purely rhetorical. The Prophet well knows who He is whom he sees. The question is put to awaken and direct our attention to Him who is seen coming by the Prophet. (Comp. Isa 60:8; Son 3:6). Many are inclined to understand not of the color of blood, but of the red (purple) color of the garments, as kings and warriors frequently wore red garments (comp. Knobel on this place; Jdg 8:26; Justin Isa 20:3), and, as they say, the soiling with blood would be incompatible with . But it is just the being sprinkled with blood which is the most prominent and important mark in the appearance of the hero; and while this doubtless stains His garments it is glorious to Himself. Bozrah (comp. Isa 34:6; Amo 1:12) was after Petra one of the most important cities of Edom (comp. Jer 49:13; Jer 49:22). It lay north of Petra. Beside this Edomite Bozrah, there was a city of this name in Moabitis (Jer 48:24), and another in Auranitis, which latter is not mentioned in the Holy Scriptures (see Comment, on Jer 48:24). The Prophet has of the Edomite cities made mention of Bozrah, because (although the name of the city probably denotes Septum, munimentum) on account of the signification vindemiavit belonging to the verb from which it is derived, admirably suits the comparison with a treader of the wine-press. as depends on . Observe the gradation. In the first member the Prophet mentions simply the coming from Edom, then he specifies the red garments in the second member, and then in the third, which begins with a repetition of , he speaks of the glorious apparel and the proud bearing. [ properly means swollen, inflated, but is here metaphorically used in the sense of adorned, or, as Vitringa thinks, terrible, inspiring awe. Alexander.D. M.]. I take in the sense of resupinus. The root occurs five times in the Old Testament, and has the signification of bending, inclining. It here characterizes one who protrudes the breast, and proudly throws back the head. [Delitzsch agrees with Vitringa in understanding to mean se huc illuc motitans.D.M.]. To the question the Person seen Himself answers. His answer is first of a general character. He does not mention at first the act of judgment which He has just executed on Edom, but, as if He would remove the impression that He is a worldly prince given to deeds of violence, who, as a beast of prey, unjustly makes an incursion for plunder and slaughter, fie declares His nature in general to be that of One who works righteousness and salvation. He says not . By this participle He designates as His permanent property the speaking, i. e., acting, transacting in righteousness. The context requires us to understand not of the mere speaking or teaching with words which should have righteousness for their subject, or should be spoken in righteousness. But relates here to a judicial speaking or transacting. [Better Delitzsch, who compares Isa 42:6; Isa 45:13 : He speaks in righteousness, while He in the zeal of His holiness threatens judgment to oppressors, and promises salvation to the oppressed, and also carries out by His power what He threatens and promises. Comp. further Isa 45:23; Isa 59:16, which places show that the speaker is no one less than Jehovah. Henderson justly remarks that the I name The Word given to the Warrior, Rev 19:13, exactly corresponds to , by which He here characterizes Himself. The description, too, Rev 19:13, He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood is manifestly drawn from this place in Isaiah. The Logos is faithful and true (Rev 19:11). He is One who speaks in righteousness. It is unwarranted to say with Dr. Naegelsbach that I that speak in righteousness marks the heros relation to His enemies as a strict judge; and that the words mighty to save tell what He is for Israel.D. M.]. is not to be confounded with propugnator, Isa 19:20. After the hero has answered the question who is this? more in the sense of qualis? than of quis? the Prophet further inquires: Why is it red in thine apparel? The intimates that the redness is not something inherent in the raiment, but something that has come to it from without. This is more clearly expressed by the second part of Isa 63:2. The spots that have arisen through spurting recall to mind the dress of one who treads in the wine-press ( with as Isa 59:8). It is not yet intimated that these are spots of blood. The pith of the matter is ingeniously and gradually reached. [It is a slight but effective stroke in this fine picture, that the first verse seems to speak of the stranger as still at a distance, whereas in the second He has come so near as to be addressed directly. Alexander.D. M.]. The hero accepts the comparison drawn from treading in the wine-press. It is true, says He, I have in a certain sense trodden in the wine-vat, and that alone, by Myself. (from =fregit, only here and Hag 2:16) is synonymous with , but is to be distinguished from (comp. on Isa 5:2; Isa 16:10), for or is the upper vat, out of which the juice flows off into the lower trough or from which it is drawn (comp. Leyrer in Herz.R.-Enc. 7. p. 509). The hero, therefore, compares the bloody judgment which He has executed on Edom with treading in the winepress. He falls back on an older prophetic utterance, Joel 4:13; while John had both these passages before him; in Rev 14:14-20 chiefly the words of Joel; but in Rev 19:13-15 chiefly this passage of Isaiah. The hero whom the Prophet beholds, states emphatically that He trod the wine-press alone, as of the nations there was not a man with Him. The statement indicates the universal antichristian spirit of the nations. [When He adds that of the nations there was no one with Him, it follows that the wine-vat was so great that He could have used the cooperation of whole nations. And when He continues: And I trod them in mine anger,etc., the riddle in this declaration is explained. To the people themselves the knife has been applied. They were cut off as grape-clusters and cast into the wine-vat.Delitzsch. The reader can judge whether the lofty terms of this prediction are satisfied by the exposition of Henderson, which I subjoin: When the victor declares that none [no man] of the peoples or nations rendered Him any assistance in the attack on Edom, he refers to the fact, that vengeance had not been taken upon that nation, as it had been upon Tyre, Moab, Egypt, etc., through foreign intervention. Identifying the Jews under the Maccabees and Hyrcanus with Himself by whom they were employed as native instruments, He vindicates the glory of the deed from all aid obtained from an extraneous source. But it would be difficult to suppose Jehovah identifying Himself with Simon of Gerasa and his lawless followers who inflicted the sorest judgment on the Edomites. Besides, , peoples in general (see Isa 63:6), and not the Edomites only are the objects of Gods crushing judgment. We append here Delitzschs remarks on Isa 63:5-6 : The meaning is that no one, in conscious willingness to assist the God of judgment and salvation in His purpose, associated himself with Him. The church devoted to Him was the object of redemption; the mass of those alienated from God was the object of judgment. He saw Himself alone; neither human co-operation, nor the natural course of things aided the execution of His design; therefore He renounced human assistance, and interrupted the natural course of things by a wonderful deed of His own.Delitzsch. D. M.]. The words to are to be taken as a parenthesis. The guilt of the nations, of whom no one was with Him, presses so forcibly on the mind of the speaker that He, immediately interrupting His speech, sees Himself compelled to declare their punishment also. Because they, when He trod the wine-press in Edom, were not to be found on His side, He will tread and trample them to pieces, so that their juice squirts upon His clothes. [But the assumption of this parenthesis is very unnatural. Many interpreters, as Henderson and Delitzsch, translate And I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my fury,etc. On the whole this is the easiest construction which regards the future tense as used for the past in this animated discourse. Comp. etc., in Isa 63:5. D. M.]. , from = fudit, therefore effusum, humor, succus, only here and Isa 63:6 : the word is chosen, because not merely the blood, but also other fluids, especially the matter of the brain, are to be denoted. Isa 63:4. [If we render Isa 63:3 in the past tense, then we must consistently employ the past tense in Isa 63:4. For a day of vengeance (was) in my heart,etc.] We have in Isa 63:4 a repetition of words in Isa 61:2 a [comp. also Isa 34:8]. But the clauses are transposed, and instead of we have the word that does not elsewhere occur, . [Dr. Naegelsb. takes manifestly, , as many other interpreters do, in the sense of my redemptions, making an abstract noun of the plural of the passive participle. But the obvious and natural rendering is that of the E.V., my redeemed. There is a year appointed for the redeemed of Jehovah, comp. Isa 62:12. D. M.] Isa 63:5-6. It will happen again as it did in the day of Edom. The Lord will see none of the peoples of the world on His side. He expresses this thought twice in parallel members, and the second time emphasizes it by saying that He will perceive His standing alone with astonishment. For there is only a little flock that will follow Him (Isa 6:13). Many are called, but few chosen. The astonishment which is ascribed to the Lord is an anthropopathic expression which has only rhetorical significance. Comp. Isa 59:16. The second part of Isa 63:5 passes over into the language of narration. The expression (the Targum and some codd. and editions read , which is appropriate, but unnecessary, and insufficiently attested) involves a bold turn of thought: the judged are not only objects, but also vessels of wrath; they are not merely grapes that spurt their juice, but are themselves full of the wine of the wrath of God (comp. Isa 29:9; Isa 49:26; Isa 51:21).

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. On 63. 16. Till the time of Calvin it was the prevailing opinion that the treader in the wine-press is Christ, not as judging the nations, but as Himself suffering death, and by His death depriving the devil of his power. Christ, as He contends mightily in His suffering, and after His suffering triumphs gloriously, was regarded as the theme of this prophecy. The blood on His garment was accordingly to be understood of the blood of demons. Jerome remarks on I have trodden the wine-press alone: Neque enim angelus, aut archangelus, throni, dominationes, aut ulla coelestium potestatum humanum corpus assumsit et pro nobis passus est et conculcavit adversarias fortitudines atque contrivit. But the blood of the demons is to be understood . A synopsis of the old expositions of the passage in this sense is found in a dissertation by Leyrer on this place, published in 1648. (It is reprinted in Exercitationum philologico-historicarum fasces quinque by Thomas Crenius, Ludg. Bat., 1697 and 1700). Calvin pronounces this interpretation a perversion of Scripture (hoc caput violenter torserunt in Christum). His view was adopted especially by Reformed interpreters, as Wolfg. Musculus, Abr. Scultetus (Idea concionum in Jes. hab. p. 844), Vitringa and others. Vitringa makes these points prominent. The hero is not set forth as suffering, but as acting, not as sprinkled with His own blood, but with the blood of enemies, not as satisfying the justice of God for sins, but as executing the justice of God in punishing enemies. However, even Lutheran theologians, as Joh. Tarnov (in the Exercitt. bibl. Libri 4, Rostock, 1627, p. 118, Num de Christo patiente hic agatur), and the anonymous author of a Disputatio de Victore Idumaeorum Jes. lxiii. maintained substantially the view of Calvin. Since the old interpreters, as Foerster says, applied the place to the passion of Christ, we can understand how Isaiah 63 was a very favorite Lesson in Holy Week.

2. The prophecy which is here directed against Edom is to be regarded as a prophecy of the judgment which will befall the antichristian, persecuting world in the last days. On this account the Seer of the New Testament, John, has described the Lord as coming to judge the world after the model of Isaiah 63. (Revelation 19).Weber.

3. On Isa 63:3. When at other times the Lord holds judgment, nations who will execute it stand at His disposal. He hisses for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. He calls the mighty of Egypt and Babylon to serve Him (Isa 7:18-19). Why is no people ready to help Him in His judgment on Edom? This is a hint that the judgment on Edom must be at the same time that judgment in which the Lord judges all nations. Only in this way can we understand that none of them can here help Him, as they themselves are all objects of the judgment.Weber.

4. Hector Pintus says, in his Commentary, on this passage: Non sine causa dicit: non est virmecum, ne scilicet excludat Mariam virginem, quae usque ad mortem ei comes fuit, et cui gladius doloris cor pertransivit. This reminds one of what the Jansenist, Antoine Arnaud, in the treatise Difficults proposes Mr. Steyaert, etc.: Cologne. 1691, relates of various preachers who publicly declared, that if the foolish virgins instead of saying, Domine, domine aperi nobis, had said, Domina aperi nobis, they certainly would have found an open door.

HOMILETICAL HINTS

On Isa 63:1-6. [Messiah is the conqueror of Edom, as Balaam of old predicted (Num 24:17-18). Not till He raises up the fallen tabernacle of David, is possession in the highest sense taken of Edom and of all the heathen (Amo 9:11-12. As we understand the Lords work of destruction depicted in Psa 110:5-6, so must we understand the judgment on Edom here described. Who are the enemies that Messiah is commissioned to subdue? How does He destroy His foes? This last question admits of a two-fold answer.D. M.].

2. On Isa 63:1-6. When Christ was suffering in Gethsemane, was bleeding before Pilate and dying on the cross, He did not look like a Judge and Conqueror. And yet He was such. Just then it was that He took from the devil his might (Heb 2:14), and spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly (Col 2:15). It is only on the basis of this judgment, which He the one seemingly judged, performed upon the cross, that He will be hereafter able to hold the last judgment in His state of exaltation.

3. On Isa 63:1-6. Our text bids us 1) To look to the Man of Sorrows, who redeemed us; 2) To contemplate in faith the great work which He has accomplished for us; 3) For this to render to Him the thank-offering which we owe Him.Ziethe, Manch. Gaben. und Ein Geist, 1870. [It is strange that an eminent modern preacher should so misrepresent the teaching of this passage. If we wish to lead men to contemplate Christ as the Man of Sorrows, by whose blood we are redeemed, we should choose a passage of Scripture that exhibits Him in this character. But it is either culpable ignorance, or something worse, to affirm that the Scripture before us contains the lessons set forth in the above-mentioned heads of a sermon.D. M.].

Footnotes:

[1]Heb. decked,

[2]marching proudly.

[3]juice.

[4]vital juice.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 1012
MESSIAHS TRIUMPHS

Isa 63:1. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

TO us who are accustomed to view the whole plan of Christianity accomplished, the tidings of our Lords resurrection are heard without any particular emotion. The subversion of a dynasty that has spread desolation and misery through one charter of the globe, is occupying every mind and every tongue [Note: Preached April 10th, 1814, the morning that the news of Buonapartes abdication of the throne of France was announced at Cambridge.]: but the subversion of Satans empire over the whole world, and the destruction of sin and Satan, death and hell, by the resurrection of Christ, is regarded as an old uninteresting tale. It was not however so uninteresting to the first disciples: when they were mourning under the most grievous disappointment, and were informed that their Lord was risen from the dead, they could not believe it: and when some who had ascertained the fact, went to inform the others, they were considered as visionaries, who were either deceiving or deceived: but when the point was fully established, nothing could exceed the joy that pervaded every breast. Somewhat of that holy feeling was expressed by the prophet, in the words before us. Certain it is, that our Church so understands the passage; because it is appointed to be read, instead of an Epistle, on the Monday preceding Easter. Nor can there be any doubt but that this is its real import. It is to Jesus that the questions in our text refer; and he it is who gives the answer to them. Let us consider then our text,

I.

In a way of solemn inquiry

There are those who think the person spoken of was Judas Maccabeus; because he gained a great victory over the Edomites, who were afterwards compelled to embrace the Jewish religion. But it is evident, that the words cannot refer to him, because he could not possibly speak of himself in such terms, as are used both in our text and in the following verses [Note: ver. 4.]. It is to the Lord Jesus Christ alone that the words can with any propriety be applied.

The Edomites, as being the most bitter enemies of the Jews [Note: Amo 1:11-12.], were types and figures of the Churchs enemies, on whom God has decreed to take signal vengeance [Note: Isa 34:5-6.]: and it is probable that the full accomplishment of this prophecy in its literal sense is yet to come. But in its mystical and spiritual sense it has already been fulfilled, by the triumphs of our Lord Jesus Christ over all his spiritual enemies.

He triumphed over them upon his cross
[It seemed as if his enemies then triumphed over him: but he never triumphed more than in the hour when he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. It is true, that Satan then bruised his heel; but he bruised Satans head, and inflicted a wound that will issue in his everlasting destruction [Note: Gen 3:15.]. Previous to this final combat he proclaimed the certain conquest [Note: Joh 12:31; Joh 16:11.]; and in it he gained the victory. He entered, as it were, into the very palace of the god of this world, and spoiled his goods [Note: Luk 11:21-22.]; yea, he spoiled all the principalities and powers of hell, triumphing over them openly on the cross [Note: Col 2:15.]. It was by making an atonement for sin that he effected reconciliation between God and man and thus by his death he destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and delivered from their sore bondage the countless millions of his redeemed [Note: Heb 2:14-15.].]

He triumphed over them still more in his resurrection and ascension
[If in his death he discharged our debt, in his resurrection he was liberated from the prison of the grave, and declared to have fulfilled every thing that was necessary for mans salvation. Hence he is represented as a mighty Conqueror, surrounded by myriads of the heavenly host, and leading captivity itself captive, dragging, as it were, at his chariot wheels, the vanquished powers of darkness [Note: Col 2:15.], In his death the victory was gained; but in his resurrection and ascension the triumph was celebrated, and proclaimed. Hence to these the Apostle Peter refers us, as unquestionable evidences of his Messiahship, and as demonstrations that he is the only Saviour of the world [Note: Act 2:32-36.].]

He has carried on, and will ere long complete, his triumphs in the gathering together of his elect people from every quarter of the globe
[On the day of Pentecost he rescued three thousand vassals from Satans tyrannic sway: and from that day has he set at liberty multitudes both of Jews and Gentiles, by the operation of his grace upon their hearts. Yet daily too is he still gaining more and more ground on the dominions of the wicked one; and ere long will his triumphs be complete, when all the kingdoms of the world shall acknowledge him as their Sovereign, their Saviour, and their God.]
Let us now view the words of our text,

II.

In a way of devout reflection

The mode of expression used by the prophet, naturally leads us to this, as indeed the most appropriate view. When he asks, Who is this? he intends to express his admiration of the object; just as the prophet Micah does of Jehovah, Who is a God like unto thee [Note: Mic 7:18.]? Let us then contemplate our adorable Saviour, as exhibited to us in our text: let us contemplate,

1.

The representation given of him

[Commentators who interpret this passage of the Saviour, as having his garments dyed with his own blood, quite mistake its meaning: it is with the blood of his enemies that he is covered, just as a warrior may be supposed to be, when returning from the slaughter of his enemies. And this is the view frequently given of him in the Holy Scriptures. His garments previous to the battle [Note: Isa 59:16-17.] , together with his going forth to the engagement [Note: Psa 45:3-5.] , and the slaughter consequent upon it [Note: Rev 19:11-18; Rev 19:21. Mark especially ver. 13, 16.] , are described in other parts of Holy Writ; and by them is our interpretation of this passage elucidated and confirmed. Let us then behold with admiration this mighty Conqueror, now so glorious in his apparel, and travelling in the greatness of his strength. He appears not as one exhausted with fatigue, but as one whom no enemy can resist. Let us ascribe to him the honour due unto his name; and let the song by which the typical victory of Jehovah at the Red Sea was celebrated, be sung by us; for our Jesus hath triumphed gloriously: Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders [Note: Exo 15:1; Exo 15:3-11.]?]

2.

The description given of himself

[In his reply to the question, Who is this? he informs us who he is; I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Not only does he speak in righteousness, as the true and faithful witness, but he speaks of righteousness, and is the great Herald that proclaims it to a ruined world. He himself has by his death brought in an everlasting righteousness [Note: Dan 9:24.], which shall be unto all, and upon all, that believe in him [Note: Rom 3:22.]. Hear with what extreme earnestness he proclaims it to the whole world [Note: Isa 51:4-6.]: and shall we not adore such a Benefactor as He? Shall sinners, who have no righteousness of their own, be made the righteousness of God in him [Note: 2Co 5:21.], and not exult? Shall they not glory in him as The Lord their righteousness [Note: Jer 23:6.], and boast, each one for himself, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength [Note: Isa 45:24-25.]?

But consider further how mighty he is to save: he is a Saviour and a Great One [Note: Isa 19:20.], even a Prince and a Saviour [Note: Act 5:31.]; or rather as he is called by an inspired Apostle, The great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ [Note: Tit 2:13.]. This is the great argument whereby he encourages us all to trust in him; Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God [Note: Isa 45:22.]! and this is the view in which all his Ministers are commanded to hold him forth: we must lift up our voice with strength, and say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God [Note: Isa 40:9-10.]!

Whilst then from his garments dyed in blood we discern how able he is to destroy, let us remember, that he is able also to save [Note: Jam 4:12.], yea, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him [Note: Heb 7:25.].]

Address
1.

Those who believe in him

[Keep your eyes steadily fixed on this glorious Saviour: and remember, that he trod the wine-press alone [Note: ver. 3.]; there was none with him in the conflict he sustained; nor must any one presume to claim a share in the honour of his victories: his was the power; his must be the glory. So indeed must be the glory of all that is wrought in us; for it is by his grace alone that we can do even the smallest good. Let him then be gratefully acknowledged as the Author and the finisher of your whole salvation.]

2.

Those who entertain no admiring thoughts of him

[O that you would reflect how terrible it will be to be found amongst his enemies! Let it suffice that his garments are dyed with the blood of others; and let them not be dyed with your blood. In the very passage before us, he tells us how insupportable his wrath will be [Note: ver. 6.]: O provoke it not! but humble yourselves before him, whilst yet the day of mercy lasts: for God has set him upon his holy hill of Zion, and has engaged to make all his enemies his footstool. And be assured that if you will not bow before the sceptre of his grace, he will break you in pieces as a potters vessel [Note: Psa 2:6; Psa 2:9.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

CONTENTS

This is a most blessed Chapter, descriptive of the victories of the Lord Jesus Christ over his enemies, and the triumphs of his love and grace in redemption.

Isa 63:1

I cannot enter upon this Chapter, without first looking up, to bless God for it. Never surely was there a more glorious description of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ; than what is here given to the Church, in the language of prophecy, so many years before the coming of Christ. Some writers, in order to lessen the force of the precious things, as referring to Christ, would tell us, that the writing is no more than an account of the triumph of Israel over Babylon, when, by the destruction of that kingdom, Israel was delivered from bondage. But this is altogether impossible. The mighty Conqueror here described, is said to come from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah. Now these places lay to the south of Jerusalem: whereas Babylon is always spoken of, through the Scripture, as the North Country. See Jer 31:8 . Nothing, therefore, can be more plain, than that the victory here spoken of, is Christ’s personal conquest of salvation, in which, as the scripture saith, of the people, there was none with him. Edom and Bozrah, are mentioned, probably in allusion to the ancient enmity of Esau, the head of the house of Edom, against Jacob, his brother. For from Abel and Cain, uniformly down through the whole race, in the separate and distinct seed, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, Gal 4:29 . But I pray the Reader to look over all lesser considerations, and to follow the Prophet in what is here said, with an eye to Christ alone. And may He that guided the Prophet’s pen, guide the heart both of the writer and the Reader of this Commentary, that we may behold Jesus blessedly represented through the whole. The prophet opens the Chapter with a question, as one surprised at what he beheld. He sees one coming towards him, under a character that he could not explain to himself. He beholds him coming up as from war, not tired, nor weary, but travelling in great strength; and yet his garments are like those of the most menial servant, who had come up from the wine-press, an office always performed by the lowest of the people. The Prophet, struck with the view, asketh, who is this? To which the Lord, in great grace, instantly gives answer, It is I, mighty to save; and speaking in righteousness. The Prophet could not but perfectly understand, by those characters, who it was. None but Jesus, the promised Saviour, could be mighty to save; for salvation is in no other. And this became the fulfillment of God’s covenant in his promises, and manifested Jehovah’s faithfulness, Deu 7:9 . Reader! how blessed is it to see, in one and the same scripture, the faithfulness of God the Father, and the perfect righteousness and complete salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Isa 63:1

How is this free salvation to be appropriated so that it shall have a practical influence on our hearts and lives? How are we to lay hold of it individually?

I. Grasp the Meaning of Your Baptism. God Almighty applied this free salvation to each of us at our baptism.

God chose you: He elected you into Jesus Christ at your baptism. He gave you His Holy Word, and He gave you the Holy Spirit to dwell in your heart and to reveal to you clearly what is taught in that Bible about your Saviour.

II. Submit Your Will to God. As soon as you understand your position, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Act on what is revealed. Having learnt that God has given you a Saviour, and that this Lord Jesus Christ has broken down every barrier, and that, having been baptized into Him, your debt has been paid by Him, go on to the next step. In the dark, with but very imperfect knowledge as yet, and with no eye upon you, it may be, but His, make up your mind, though without feeling any improvement in yourself, without love, without any power to pray make up your mind to trust Him, as a child in the dark trusts its mother.

III. Seek to be Filled with the Peace and Joy of Believing. Having first trusted Him, instead of waiting to trust Him till you have found peace, try to obtain, in God’s way, the peace which passeth understanding. Seek for it as God has taught us to seek; not, at this stage, by hard struggling self-examination, although that is most useful afterwards; but by simply looking up to the Brazen Serpent. Read about Jesus. Try to realize His presence. Speak to Him, if only by a few short words such as ‘Lord help me! Open mine eyes! If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.’

IV. Seek, if Need Be, the Help of God’s Ministers. If you are not able alone to realize your acceptance in Christ, use the other help that God has provided for you. Go to one of His ministers. He has ordained them for this very work to lead you to Christ.

Whether by the help of others or alone, this step must be taken. Until we know something of the peace of God which passeth all understanding, true progress is impossible. Till we have realized the forgiveness of sins, the very earnestness which might have raised us into the rank of saints will only drive us into the depths of a morbid superstition, or of a hopeless despair.

Forgiveness is the beginning, and not the end, of the Christian life. We are set free at once from the burden of guilt, in order that we may run in the way of God’s commandments with a heart at liberty; that we may live in Him and for Him; that, being nourished by the Body and Blood of our Lord, we may grow in grace, and bring forth fruit unto holiness, to the praise of the glory of His grace who hath made us accepted in the Beloved.

G. H. Wilkinson, The Invisible Glory, p. 70.

References. LXIII. 1. S. R. Driver, Sermons on Subjects Connected with the Old Testament, p. 178. J. B. Lightfoot, Cambridge Sermons, p. 19. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah XLIX.-LXVI. p. 217. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No. 111; vol. xxx. No. 1947. LXIII. 1-4. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Prophets, vol. i. p. 266. LXIII. 2, 3. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah XLIX.-LXVI. p. 221. LXIII. 3. Cosmo Gordon Lang, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. 1899, p. 244. C. Vince, The Unchanging Saviour, p. 137. F. D. Huntington, Christian Believing and Living, p. 202. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xliv. No. 2567. LXIII. 7. Ibid. vol. xix. No. 1126.

The Sympathy of God (Passiontide)

Isa 63:9

I. There are two great afflictions in which our Saviour may be said to have been afflicted. There is, in the first place, the affliction of sin. It is a wondrous and overwhelming truth that God in the person of Christ chose to learn by a personal experience the power of evil. And so ever more and more He, the sinless One, bears the sins of men upon His own heart, feels them even as if they were His own, until at last they seem even to obscure the Father’s Face…. What else is the meaning of that cry, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’… What does it mean except that, in that darkest hour, the Son of God had so completely identified Himself with His sinful brethren that ‘in all their affliction He was afflicted ‘.

And it is this which gives Him His power Today; the fact that He stooped to learn by a personal experience all the strength of evil, that He descended to enter into the common human struggle, and in issuing victorious to be the leader against the forces of evil everywhere. He can save because He has conquered. And in our own private and personal struggles against evil, is it not the sense of Christ’s victory and Christ’s sympathy which is our chief encouragement in what might seem a hopeless battle?

II. The other great affliction of which I am thinking is the affliction of suffering. Do we not feel the suffering of the world to be one of our great difficulties in the way of believing in the goodness of God the undeserved suffering of the world?

The mystery of pain may be insoluble, but at least it is illuminated by the truth which Passiontide proclaims, that by pain was the world redeemed; that He Who was ‘in the form of God,’ Himself entered into the bitterness of our human experiences made them all His own and became ‘obedient to death, even the death of the cross’.

H. R. Gamble, The Ten Virgins, p. 115.

The Passion of God

Isa 63:9

I. Hebrew piety has taught us two truths regarding God which are not always united in human thought, but which are necessary to the perfect idea, and the first is not His sympathy but His spirituality. With travail of soul the saints of the Old Testament extricated the Being of God from the phenomena of nature and safeguarded His personality from the abstractions of philosophy. God who made the clouds His chariot and rode upon the wings of the wind was the creator of the ends of the earth, and He Who was the source of righteousness and power dwelt with the contrite and humble heart.

Surely it was enough for one school of religious thinkers to bequeath this heritage to the world! But it was an even greater achievement when the prophets of Israel infused that pure spirituality with a most intimate sympathy and convinced many generations that the Holy One of Israel is the most gracious Deity who has ever entered into the heart of man. There is no emotion of the human heart they did not assign to God, no tender relation of life they did not use to illustrate His love.

Is not the Incarnation of Christ the convincing climax of the Divine sympathy? Jesus born of the Virgin Mary and crucified upon the Cross of Calvary is God with us, baptized into the very depths of human suffering. When Jesus came and lived among us the heart of God was laid bare, and every one can see in the Gospel that patient wistful love which inhabits the secret place of the universe. The cross is not only in the heart of human life, it is also in the heart of God. He is the chief of all sufferers, because He is the chief of all lovers.

II. One does not forget, while insisting on the fellow-suffering of God, that there is a certain danger in analogies between the human and Divine, and one lays to heart the warnings against Anthropomorphism. But we must not allow ourselves to be beaten by big words, and we can surely distinguish between what is real and unreal. Has it not been the religious expert the saints, the mystics, and the prophets who have most loved to dwell upon this likeness between God and man? When we make a sacrifice for those whom we love and stand upon the height of our heart, may we not be sure that our love is the outcome of the passion of God, and that if we deal kindly by our flesh and blood He will be ten times more kind to us all?

III. With this glimpse into the heart of God we gather riches for our creed because we learn the idea of a lovable God. It is possible to think correctly about God, but not kindly. Master thinkers miss their footing when they speculate on the Being of God, but the simplest can hide himself in God’s protecting love, who is perfect father and mother, perfect husband and friend.

With this glimpse into the Divine heart we also gather riches for the struggle of life, because we have a sympathetic God. It is hard enough in any case to pray unto one whom we cannot see, and it is beyond our power if we imagine Him untouched by this world’s agony, which breaks beneath His feet as spray upon the base of a cliff.

J. Watson

(Ian Maclaren), The Inspiration of Our Faith, p. 85. Illustration.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,

And thy Maker is not by;

Thinkest thou canst weep a tear

And thy Maker is not near.

O He gives to us His joy

That our grief He may destroy,

Till our grief is fled and gone

He doth sit by us and moan.

William Blake.

References. LXI1I. 9. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah XLIX.-LXVI. p. 226. J. Baines, Twenty Sermons, p. 15. C. Kingsley, Sermons on National Subjects, p. 59. T. B. Dover, Some Quiet Lenten Thoughts, p. 23. E. A. Draper, The Gift of Strength, p. 37. R. W. Church, Village Sermons (2nd Series), p. 84. LXIII. 10. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvi. No. 2179. LXIII. 11-14. Ibid. vol. xxxviii. No. 2258. LXIII. 12-14. Ibid. vol. xxxvii. No. 2229. LXIII. 13. T. G. Rooke, The Church in the Wilderness, p. 158. LXIII. 14. G. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, p. 76.

Jehovah Our Redeemer

Isa 63:16

If we wish to learn the full content of these terms ‘Redeemer,’ ‘redemption,’ as descriptive of Christ’s salvation, we must go back to their earliest use in the Old Testament revelation. For Isaiah, we must not forget, was a Jew, and his prophecy in the first instance was delivered to Jews. And when he used this word ‘Redeemer,’ and told the Jews that ‘Goel’ or ‘Redeemer ‘was Jehovah’s name from of old, the ideas which both he and his hearers would attach to the word would be the ideas which were attached to it in its common use in their law.

I. The law concerning the redeemer thus involved these particulars as belonging to his office.

(1) The redeemer must be near of kin. (2) The duties of the kinsman-redeemer were three. If any of his brethren had through poverty been dispossessed of his inheritance, the redeemer was to buy it back with a price, and reinstate his poor brother therein. If, worse yet, any of his poor brethren had through stress of poverty sold himself into slavery, the kinsman-redeemer was to buy him out of his slavery by giving a price to the master, and set him free again. If, finally, any of his brethren should be maliciously slain, it was his duty to ‘redeem his brother’s blood,’ as the phrase was; to redeem his brother’s blood by slaying the murderer.

II. And now, in the light of this history, we come back to the text, ‘”Our Redeemer” from everlasting is Thy Name!’

The word plainly contains a prediction of the Incarnation. For to Hebrew thought there was no such thing known as that a redeemer should be other than a kinsman. They also teach the voluntariness, and thus the grace of the great salvation. For while the avenging of blood was a command laid on the next of kin, it was not so with the redemption of persons or possessions. The word is not ‘he shall,’ but ‘he may’.

Further, the text shows what is included in Christ’s work as Redeemer.

We are reminded, then, that Christ’s work as Redeemer involves first of all the redemption of our persons. That the sinner is, by reason of his sin, fallen into bondage is one of the most familiar thoughts of Scripture. The Scripture represents this bondage as fourfold. There is a bondage to the law. There is also a bondage to sin, in which we have been bound. We are in bondage to the power of sin, and from this Christ came to set us free. We have also been redeemed by Christ from the bondage to death in which we were aforetime. But there is also a bondage to Satan, and from this bondage also Christ’s work as our Kinsman-Redeemer has freed us.

III. He was also to redeem his brother’s inheritance, and reinstate him in it.

This word Redeemer, illumined by that old Mosaic law, manifestly bears in its bosom the promise of resurrection from the dead. For the Levitical goel did not buy back the lost estate of his impoverished brother that he might himself enter into it and enjoy it. No: he bought it back for that poor brother. So it follows from this text that those whom Jehovah Jesus redeems must be reinstated in the inheritance from which they have been cast out.

IV. The redeemer was, in virtue of his office, the avenger of blood. Christ, then, not although Redeemer, but because He is Redeemer, must be the Avenger of blood. It is, therefore, just because Christ is Redeemer that He will yet destroy as it is written that He shall destroy him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil, and cast him into the lake of fire.

S. H. Kellogg, The Past a Prophecy of the Future, p. 116.

Optimism

Isa 63:16

This grand challenge of Isaiah represents the final appeal of the spirit of man baffled, confounded, heartbroken with the ‘riddle of this painful earth’. It is the standpoint of the optimist, who, in spite of the difficulties and horrors and failures in a world wet with tears, persists in enthroning a good God behind all phenomena, an infinite and responsible Love Spirit behind all visible things, and challenging Him in the words: ‘Doubtless Thou art our Father, though the pessimist be ignorant of us, and the facts of life seem against us’.

I. Practically, there are only three possible conceptions of God’s relation to that which we, in our limited comprehension, call evil. The first is that evil exists independently of God’s will; that He was, as it were, taken by surprise and His will thwarted. To believe this, however you may deck your thought in Christian phrases, is to be a dualist. If God, and God alone, has not existed from all eternity, He does not exist at all. The reflections of the really thoughtful will not entertain the conception for a moment.

Secondly, that moral evil and its consequences are self-engendered. That God is one, and irresistibly omnipotent, and therefore could have prevented evil if He would, but did not. This is worse than Atheism, inasmuch as it is Bad-Godism, and that, practically, is devil worship. It predicates that God is the sole supreme power, and yet not good; that man at his best is better, far better, than God. And so this conception, though it may be enshrined in tradition, is a reductio ad absurdum . There remains the third conception. That God is the Infinite, Eternal, Universal Spirit; the one self-existing substance expressing Himself in all visible things; perfectly conscious everywhere; with an individuality higher than what we mean by personality. That whatever is, is not in spite of, but because of, a ‘determinate counsel and foreknowledge’.

II. Now, consider, is not this the conclusion to which St. Paul had arrived?

1. He lays emphasis on the magnitude and universality of the mystery of evil. ‘The whole creation,’ he says, ‘groaneth and travaileth together in pain’. There is no minimizing or ignoring of facts.

2. He absolutely fearlessly attributes it to its one only possible elemental source. ‘The creation,’ he says, ‘was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who subjected it.’ That is the supreme ruler, God.

3. He positively and dogmatically affirms that evil is only temporary; only a passing incident of the present; only a means to an end. ‘The creation,’ he says, ‘shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption ‘.

He deliberately estimates the sum total of the agony as establishing a direct claim upon the justice of the Creator for abundant compensation, who, he declares, will liquidate the debt, with accumulated interest, when the purpose of the infliction is fulfilled. He does not explain, but he declares that the future shall redeem the present. ‘I reckon,’ he says, ‘that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed.’

III. There is, however, one profounder thought than this. St. Paul has taught us that one Life is immanent in the universe, and that this one Life realizes itself specially in man. He said, at Athens, ‘in Him we live, and move, and have our being’. Therefore, in us He lives, and moves, and has His being. This is not Pantheism. St. Paul does not teach that God has no being apart from the universe. He never says or implies that the universe is God. He does imply that all visible things are an expression of God, a clothing of God, a mode of God’s thinking; and that humanity is the highest expression, the highest mode of God’s thinking; and that Jesus is the climax, the epitome of this expression, this mode of God’s thinking. Thus he teaches the inseverability of God and man. Now the conclusion from this underlying principle is almost confusing in its grandeur. If God is not external to His universe, but the central evolving life in all, then there is not a pang in this suffering universe that does not pierce the heart of God before it reaches man, and God is suffering in and with His world. The Divine self-sacrifice is creation, not Calvary alone.

Basil Wilberforce, Feeling After Him, p. 159.

References. LXIII. 16. B. Wilberforce, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. 1894, p. 321. D. Macrae, ibid. vol. lii. 1897, p. 363. Lyman Abbott, ibid. vol. liv. 1898, p. 68. C. Stanford, Outlines of Sermons on the Old Testament, p. 240. LXIV. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxviii. No. 2258; vol. xl. No. 2391. LXIV. 1. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in a Religious House, vol. i. p. 139.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

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

XXV

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 17

Isa 61:1-63:8

The threefold theme of this section (Isa 61:1-63:6 ) is the mission of the Servant of Jehovah, a new picture of Zion’s glory, and the judgments of the Servant upon his enemies. The speaker in Isa 61:1-3 is the Messiah and the positive proof of it is the testimony of our Lord himself:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, Today hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears: Luk 4:16-21 .

This short paragraph sets forth, in general, the preparation of the Messiah for his special mission. There are several items of information in this passage. We are told here that the Messiah had a special anointing for his work. This took place at his baptism when the Holy Spirit came upon him and abode with him ever afterward without measure. There follows in this passage the several offices that the Messiah filled. In the Old Testament we have the special anointing of prophets, priests, and kings for their respective offices. This anointing was performed by the use of the holy anointing oil for which we have the specific recipe in Exo 30:22-23 . All these offices of the Old Testament prophet, priest, and king were combined in the one person of the Messiah. He was prophet, priest, and king, and in Jesus Christ we have all these functions performed.

In this commission of our Lord here we have these functions distinctly indicated. His prophetic office is signified in the special commission to preach the good tidings unto the meek; his priestly work is indicated in his commission to bind up the brokenhearted; and his kingly office, in his commission to set free the captives. Then he was to proclaim the Jubilee year in which all captives were set free and all oppression of debt was removed, and there was a time of general rejoicing. All this has a distinct fulfilment in the gospel dispensation through Christ and his heralds. The picture here is one of joy and gladness, just such as comes to a people who have been freed from the bonds of slavery, of which the greatest is the slavery of sin. This is the mission of the Messiah and amply fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The results of such a ministry are pictured in Isa 61:4-9 . In the preceding paragraph the recipients of the blessings of the Messiah are called “trees of righteousness, the planting of Jehovah.” In this passage the prophet takes as his starting point the captivity, then pictures in glowing terms their return and rebuilding of the waste places, and then sweeps out into the future where he sees the Jews and the Gentiles in the kingdom together and the Jews holding a prominent place in the great plan of God for the salvation of the world. At that time instead of their shame they shall have double honor and instead of their dishonor they shall have rejoicing. One of the results of his work is the establishing of justice and the meting out of rewards in truth, and he makes an everlasting covenant with them.

Then in Isa 61:9 we have a striking prophecy. Here we are told that the seed of the’ Jews shall be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples; that they should be acknowledged by all who see them, as “seed whom Jehovah hath blessed.” This marvelous prophecy is being fulfilled in every nation of the world where the Jew has migrated. No man fails to recognize the shrewd Jew in the affairs of the governments and in the great commercial and financial interests of the marts of the world. He has figured largely at all the great courts of the earth ever since Joseph was prime minister at the court of Pharaoh and Daniel, at the court of Nebuchadnezzar. He is a success everywhere, so much so that the world points the finger at him and says, “There is the one whom Jehovah hath blessed.”

The speaker in Isa 61:10-11 is Zion, responding to the gracious promises of the preceding parts of this section. This was a great time for rejoicing. The good tidings, their healing and their liberty brought by the Messiah now finds a hearty response in heartfelt joy and rejoicing.

The things here mentioned for which God’s people rejoice and are joyful in him are as follows: The first thing mentioned is the garment of salvation, or the robe of righteousness. This, of course, is the imputed righteousness of Christ, and Dressed in his righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before his throne, God’s people may go on rejoicing as a bridegroom or as a bride adorned for the marriage. There is here also the strong assurance of the final triumph of righteousness in all nations. The whole world is to become an Eden, reclaimed forever out of the hand of the unrighteous spoiler. In this year of Jubilee the earth will be restored to its proper heirs, the righteous seed. For all the preceding weary ages of wrong, compensation shall be made. All God’s saints, who have long been shame-stricken, shall then become “kings and priests unto God,” and thus their joy shall be made full.

Some regard the speaker in Isa 62 as Jehovah; some, the prophet himself or the prophetic order, while others regard him as the Servant of Jehovah. The last supposition is by far the most logical and the best. The close connection with the preceding chapter is evident. In that chapter we have a soliloquy of the Servant and a response upon the part of Zion. Here the Servant takes up the soliloquy and goes on through this chapter.

The Servant in Isa 62:1-5 declared that he would not hold his peace any longer for the time had come for the publishing of Zion’s righteousness and salvation; that this should be evident to the nations; that she should have a new name and should be a crown of beauty and a royal diadem in the hand of God; that her new name should be expressive of her new relation, i.e., “not forsaken,” but Hephzibah, “My delight is in her,” and Beulah, which means “married”; that thenceforth Zion should be a delight and that God would rejoice over her. All this has its realization in the ministry of Christ and the Holy Spirit.

There has been a great controversy over the name, “Hephzibah.” Our Campbellite brethren claim that the new name here given Zion is the name, Christian, which the disciples received at Antioch (Act 11:26 ). They insist that the church should have that name and that to wear that name is essential to salvation. Just what that new name is, it is not easy to decide. Two names are given here “Hephzibah” and “Beulah.” Why we should select the first rather than the second, is not evident. These names are expressive of a new condition and of a new relation, one meaning, “My delight is in her” and the other, “married.” Then, it will be noted here that this new name shall be the “name, which the mouth of Jehovah shall name.” But the name “Christian” was given the disciples by the heathen and in derision. Then the name Christian occurs but three times in the New Testament and in each case it is applied to the individual disciple and nowhere is it applied to the church. Another mystery about it all is that if the church of Jesus Christ should be called “The Christian Church,” why was it so long receiving this name? Not until 1827 was the name suggested at all, and then several other names were tried before they hit upon this name. According to this passage in Isaiah, if we find this new name in the New Testament, we must expect to find it given by Christ himself or by some one of his inspired apostles. But we look in vain for such name in their ministry and writings.

It seems better to consider these names in the light of the historical background of Zion at this time and in the light of the specific meaning of the words here used. The two names, “Hephzibah” and “Beulah,” have their corresponding application in the history of Israel, expressing a condition and a relation at the time the prophet wrote. “Azubah,” forsaken, was the name of Jehoshaphat’s mother (2Ch 20:31 ) and Hephzibah, “my delight is in her,” was the name of Hezekiah’s wife (2Ki 21:1 ). So here he says, “Thou shall no more be termed forsaken [Azubah]; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and the land Beulah; for Jehovah delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.” This explains that these names are expressive of Zion’s new condition and relation, which she was to maintain in the gospel dispensation under the new covenant. We find some New Testament expressions that correspond to these, indicating the relations under the new covenant, such as “the honorable name,” by James and the “new name” of Rev 2:17 ; Rev 3:12 , which will be given to individual saints in the heavenly kingdom.

Further interest in Zion is expressed by the Servant in Isa 62:6-9 . The interest here is in the setting of the watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem, who are to watch Jerusalem with an everlasting vigilance. Some think that the watchmen here are the prophets and priests; others, that they are angels who keep perpetual watch and ward over Zion. That these watchmen here are angelic beings appears from their personal vigilance and that they are reminders to Jehovah of his oath and covenant to bless Zion. This corresponds to the watchers in Dan 4:13 ; Dan 4:17 ; Dan 4:23 which are admitted, generally, to be angels. In the New Testament this idea of angel ministrations is emphatic. Our Lord refers to the angels that have charge of the “little ones” and angels ministered unto him on different occasions. Paul tells us that the angels are present and watching over the assemblies in the churches, and in Heb 1:14 he defines their work in particular, thus: “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation?”

Their special mission has already been intimated in the preceding paragraph. But as this passage here sets forth, they are to be Jehovah’s remembrancers, reminding him of his covenant with them and his promises to them. They are not to let Jehovah rest until “He establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” This thought of importunity is also expressed in Luk 11:5-13 ; Luk 18:1-8 . Here is also set forth the oath of Jehovah respecting Zion, that the enemies of Zion shall no more triumph over her but that Zion shall enjoy the full blessing of her fruitage.

The proclamation of Isa 62:10-12 is a proclamation for all to go up to Jerusalem. A highway must be prepared, the stones must be gathered out and an ensign for the peoples be lifted up. The prophet here starts again with the Babylonian captivity, delineates the parts the several peoples perform in the return and restoration of the Holy City and its institutions. Then he announces the proclamation of Jehovah to the end of the earth that the salvation of the daughter of Zion cometh. Then stretching forward in his vision, he sees the Holy City called “Sought out, a city not forsaken.” This was not fully realized after the return and so we keep our faces toward the future in anticipation of this glorious day when the Jews everywhere shall receive with joy in their hearts this proclamation to go up to their own land and to the Holy City, never again to be forsaken.

The prophet’s vision in Isa 63:1-6 is a vision of someone coming from Edom, with crimsoned garments from Bozrah. His apparel is glorious, and his step is characteristic of a conqueror. But who is this conqueror from Edom? He here announces himself to be one speaking in righteousness and mighty to save. This is fulfilled only in our Lord Jesus Christ. We see him here in the capacity of an avenger, coming in judgments.

There is no idea of expiation in this passage whatever. It is the idea of vengeance upon the enemies of Zion that stands out prominent here. He explains that he had trampled the peoples in his wrath and that alone. There was no one with him and his own arm brought salvation to him.

Edom here, as in other places in Isaiah, refers to the worst enemies of Zion. The day of vengeance is yet future. It is the day when our Lord shall vindicate his people against all their enemies, who shall feel the weight of his mighty hand.

The whole of this prophecy is future and the verbs here are claimed by some to be in the future tense, but the dramatic form of the narrative demands that the verbs be in the past. So often the prophet sees the events, yet future, as already accomplished. This emphasized the certainty of their fulfilment, just as the tense of the verbs in Rom 8:29-30 which present the work of our salvation as if it had already been accomplished.

We find the parallel of this passage in Rev 19:1-21 . There we have the man on the white horse going forth to battle and winning his victor over the nations, stained also with their blood. This great conflict is a precursor of the millennium.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the threefold theme of this section (Isa 61:1-63:6 )?

2. Who is the speaker in Isa 61:1-3 and what the proof?

3. What are the things set forth in Isa 61:1-3 and what their fulfilment?

4. What are the results of such a ministry as pictured in Isa 61:4-9 ?

5. Who is the speaker in Isa 61:10-11 ?

6. What are the things here mentioned for which God’s people rejoice and are joyful in him?

7. Who is the speaker in Isa 62 ?

8. What interest expressed for Zion by the Servant in. Isa 62:1-5 ?

9. What is the controversy over the name, “Hephzibah,” and what the new name given to Zion?

10. What further interest in Zion is expressed by the Servant in Isa 62:6-9 ?

11. What are these watchmen set by the Servant and what the corresponding New Testament teaching?

12. What is their special mission and what Jehovah’s oath here concerning Zion?

13. What is the proclamation of Isa 62:10-12 and what will be its fulfilment?

14. What is the prophet’s vision in Isa 63:1-6 ?

15. Who is this conqueror from Edom?

16. In what capacity do we here see him?

17. Is there any idea of expiation in this passage, and what his own explanation of his crimsoned garments?

18. What does Edom here represent and when the “day of vengeance” here spoken of?

19. What can you say of the tense of the verbs in Isa 63:3-6 ?

20. Where do we find the parallel of this passage in Revelation?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Isa 63:1 Who [is] this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this [that is] glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

Ver. 1. Who is this that cometh from Edom? ] It had been said, in Isa 62:11 , “Behold, thy salvation (thy Saviour) cometh.” Here, therefore, by an elegant hypotyposis, a the Sionidae, or saints, are brought in wondering at his coming in such a garb, and asking, Who is this? What gallant conqueror have we here? Edom, or Idumaea, signifieth red; Bozrah, (the chief city of Idumaea), a vintage. compare Isa 63:2 It may very well be also that this prophecy was uttered in vintage time, and therehence haply might grow the comparison here used. John the divine, representing to us Christ’s coming to judgment, useth the same simile. Rev 19:13 Some also of good note, do understand this prophecy of Christ’s triumphing over all his and our enemies (the Romish Edomites especially), at the last day.

With dyed garments. ] Heb., Leavened, i.e., drenched, b besmeared.

This that is glorious in his apparel. ] Which is the more glorious, because laced or embroidered with the blood of his enemies.

Walking in the greatness of his strength. ] Fortiter grassans, walking and stalking, going in state, gressu grallatorio, emperor like, so as Epaminondas marched before his army; which, when Agesilaus, king of Spartans beheld, he cried out, O virum magnificum! c O that is a gallant man! “Ye shall see the Son of man coming with great power!” saith Christ.

I that speak in righteousness. ] Christ’s answer, q.d., ” Fear not, little flock”; this strange garb and gait of mine portendeth no hurt but good to you; to whom whatsoever I have faithfully promised, I will powerfully perform. As King of Zion, I will

“ Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos. ”

At the last day also I will “come to be glorified in my saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.” 2Th 1:10 See Rev 19:11 .

Mighty to save. ] Suficiens ad salvandum, sive Magister ad salvandum, a Master to save. This those lepers had learned, and therefore cried, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Luk 17:13

a Vivid description of a scene, event, or situation, bringing it, as it were, before the eyes of the hearer or reader.

b Metaph. a massa conspersa.

c Plutarch. in Epam.

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

Isaiah Chapter 63

Isa 63:1-6

These verses connect themselves with the close of Isa 62 , following up the coming of the Messiah (as the Deliverer of Zion no longer forsaken but sought out, and all her dispersed children now gathered in) with a most vivid sight, as it were, of His return from executing vengeance on their Gentile foes. The scene of the slaughter is laid in the land of Edom and the city of Bozrah. Horsley seems inconsistent in denying any mention of these places here, while admitting them in Isa 34:5 , Isa 34:6 . He would translate the proper names as appellatives thus: “Who [is] this that approacheth all in scarlet, with garments stained from the vintage? This [that is] glorious,” etc. But that able man had overlooked the chapter just referred to, where the scene demands the proper names. This consideration, in my judgement, gives conclusive support to the ordinary translation.

But commentators in general contradict each other without being able to discern the divine light in the words of the prophet. Thus Origen and Theodoret, Tertullian and Jerome, may illustrate views which have too long prevailed, so far as to lead the compilers of the English Common Prayer Book to read it for the Epistle on the Monday before Easter. They actually regard the scene as prophetic of the Saviour suffering for our sins, instead of seeing in it the Avenger of His long-oppressed Israel; as a pledge of mercy, not as a threat of judgement. Hence the good Bishop of Cyrrhus thinks the prophet here points out Jehovah’s ascent to heaven, lays stress on Edom as the red land, connects the pierced side and blood and water with the blood-stained garments, and sees the destruction of the devil and all his host in the treading of the winepress.

Calvin justly objects to such a perversion of the prophecy; but he is quite as far from the true mark as any when he proceeds to apply it not to Christ, but simply to God Himself as such in His dealings of old with the Edomites, and other enemies of His people, when He broke them by the Assyrians of old. This is to make the word of private or isolated interpretation, dislocating it from its true aim and scope in the illustration of the glory of the Lord Jesus, not at His first advent, but when He comes again.

Luther’s notion is strange enough: he regards it as a prediction of the punishment of the Jews or Synagogue, not an infliction on their enemies for their rescue in the latter day. The Jew, as is commonly known, conceives that the divine wrath which impends over Rome, as the full meaning of the enemy here named Edom, is the real thought. Bishop Lowth rightly combats Grotius’ hypothesis that Judas Maccabeus and his victories make the subject of it; or the subsequent exploits of John Hyreanus, his brother Simon’s son. “It may be asked [he adds], to whom, and to what event, does it relate? I can only answer, that I know of no event in history to which, from its importance and circumstances, it can be applied, unless perhaps to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity; which in the Gospel is called the coming of Christ and the days of vengeance. Mat 16:28 ; Luk 21:22 .”

This suffices to prove the bewilderment of Christian writers down to our times, which is yet more confessed by some, like the last, owning that “there is no necessity of supposing that it has been already accomplished.”

Vitringa, as usual, is more erudite than the mass; but there seems to be no good reason for treating, as he does, the local references as mystical. For when the great day arrives, the world will behold a wonderful reappearance, not of Israel only, but of their ancient rivals and enemies, whom, like the ten tribes, men of the world assume to be for ever extinct. It will be the day of reckoning for the nations, and the end will righteously answer to the beginning. At any rate there is nothing valid enough to set aside the plain mention of these localities, nor the fact of an utter overthrow of the Gentile enemies of Israel there.

But the great fact, overlooked by almost all, is that it is here no question of the heavenly church, but of the earthly people, Israel. The church is removed from the scene by grace to meet the Lord, and be with Him in the Father’s house, though surely also to appear with Him in glory and to reign with Him over the earth. But not such is the character of the deliverance of Israel; and of this Isaiah treats, like the Old Testament in general. It is by the execution on earth of judgements, which have for their object the salvation of the Jews and the destruction of their enemies. This object accordingly accounts for terms, which are hard indeed to be explained when men think of the church in these verses. Believe that Israel is there, and what more proper than such a description of their Deliverer, as “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save,” or “The day of vengeance is in my heart”? Is this the way we think of His love to us, or His attitude even to the world while we are passing through? How can vers. 5, 6 apply to Him as Head of the church? Bring in the question of Israel delivered for His kingdom here below, and all is consistent and clear.

It is then the Lord, Jehovah-Messiah, Who is here seen in the prophetic vision, returning victorious from the spot which more than one prophecy declares to be the theatre of the wrath which shall be poured out unsparingly on the foes of His people. “Who [is] this,” asks the prophet identifying himself with the people, “that cometh from Edom, with deep-red garments from Bozrah, this [that is] glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?” His answer (for it assumes the form of a dialogue) is, “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” “Wherefore,” asks Isaiah again, “[art thou] red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-vat?” “I have trodden,” answers He, “the wine-press alone: and of the peoples not a man was with me; and I have trodden them in mine anger, and trampled them in my fury; and their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance [is] in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: and mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I have trodden down the peoples in mine anger, and made them drunk in my fury, and I have brought down their strength (lit. juice) to the earth” (vv. 1-6).

Manifestly it is no picture of Christ forsaken of God nor even rejected of man, but of His treading down the opposed nations, as grapes in a wine-press. It is not infinite love suffering infinitely that sin might be judged, and God glorified about it, and thence able to justify the believer from all things. It is One trampling down in wrath, and the blood of His enemies sprinkling His garments, not His blood washing them in divine grace. It is not the day of grace but of vengeance, though along with it the year of His redeemed is come when the scattered and peeled people shall be brought to Zion with everlasting joy on their heads. Now it is the day of salvation for the Gentiles who believe, while wrath to the uttermost is come on the Jews who believe not.

The reference is plain to Isa 61:2 with the notable difference that here “the day of vengeance” precedes “the year of my redeemed”; whereas in the previous chapter “the acceptable year of Jehovah” takes precedence of “the day of vengeance of our God.” And this latter order had a beautiful propriety in the Lord’s own application of that part only which illustrated His first advent. For if we have eyes to see according to God, we shall not fail to discern the admirable way in which the Holy Spirit, while looking onward to the day of manifested glory even for Israel and the earth, does not omit to prepare for the grace and humiliation on which that glory is based, that it should have the deepest moral grounds, not mere power or even wisdom. God must intervene for the heart to know Him; and man, believing man, must be cleansed from every sin and all unrighteousness.

Here however it is Jehovah-Messiah executing unsparing judgement on earth, treading the peoples in His anger and trampling them in His wrath. Those who cavil at this as inconsistent with His holy goodness betray their own rebelliousness and the bad conscience which dreads His day at length, when He summarily puts down the iniquity which has so long destroyed the earth. When divine vengeance has done its necessary and righteous work with the peoples and enemies of Israel, the ways of God succeed in goodness, and the godly remnant, His people, testify to them with praise, as we shall next hear.

Far different is the gospel era. It is truly a time of acceptance, and a day of salvation, quite apart from judgements on either Jew or Gentile. It is based on an incomparably deeper and more mysterious judgement, when God availed Himself of the rejection of the Messiah by both Jews and Gentiles, and wrought the amazing work of His grace toward ungodly and lost man in the sacrifice of His Son, the Lord Jesus, for our sins, and for the redemption of all who believe. In the gospel there is no difference: all sinned; and the same Lord of all is rich toward all that call upon Him (Rom 3:23 ; Rom 10:12 ). In the kingdom there will be a difference, at least in honour; Zion and Israel shall have a position beyond every other place and people under their King, Jehovah of hosts. The church glorified has at that very time a still higher and nearer relationship beyond question; as we are now called to walk in faith and hope. For it is always the special and proper revelation for any given time which is intended of God to act on souls, not merely the general principles of divine truth which apply necessarily from first to last. The coming of our Lord brought this out in the strongest relief as He personally was the truth in all its fullness, His finished work removed all impediments and led to the revelation of the light of God’s glory in His face, and the Holy Spirit was thereon sent forth to be in the believer and in the church a spirit of communion, such as never could be before, and never is nor can be again.

Isa 63:7-19

The last section brought together at its beginning the Lord’s first advent, at its end His second advent, with Jerusalem as the special object here contemplated in His earthly plans. We now enter on the closing part of this great and varied prophecy. There are two divisions in it. The first, that which affords us our present theme (from Isa 63:7 to the end of chapter Isa 64 ), consists of a most urgent intercession by the Spirit in the mouth of the prophet on behalf of Israel with Jehovah, after recalling His grace toward them. The second is His answer, which carries us to the end of the book.

Even the least enlightened of modern commentators admits that we open with what seems designed as a formulary of grateful recognition of Jehovah’s loving-kindness and tender mercy, but also of humiliation for the Israelites in order to their restoration. “I will record the loving-kindnesses of Jehovah, the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses. And he said, Surely they [are] my people, children [that] will not lie; and he became their Saviour. In all their affliction he was afflicted and the Angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bore them and carried them all the days of old” (vv. 7-9).

Nothing is more suitable than this exordium, whether one thinks of Jehovah first or of His people next. Mercies acknowledged lead to fresh mercy. He was not changed in His loving-kindness, nor they in their deep need of it, as only He could show it to them. Hitherto His love had received no return, nothing but bitter disappointment.* Yet what could exceed His tender care? “But they rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit: and he turned to be their enemy, himself, he fought against them. But he remembered the days of old, Moses [and] his people, [saying], Where [is] he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? where [is] he that put his holy Spirit in the midst of him, his glorious arm leading [them] by the hand of Moses, dividing the waters before them, to make himself an everlasting name, who led them through the depths; as a horse in the wilderness [that] they stumbled not? As cattle go down into the valley, the Spirit of Jehovah gave them rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a name of glory” (vv. 10-14)

*It may be well to remark that verse 9 is by no means certain for the reading or sense. Our translation followed the Keri, others (as the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Targum of Jonathan, etc., and of moderns, Houbigant, Rosenmller, Horsley, De Wette, etc.) follow the Ketib. This would give properly, one may suppose, “in all their straits he was not straitened.” The Septuagint, followed by the Arabic, contrasts His personal interest and action. “It was not an ambassador nor an angel, but He Himself saved them,” etc.

It is evident then that God will work morally in Israel. No external deliverances for themselves nor execution of vengeance on His and their foes will suffice for His great purposes, any more than for His own glory or their real good. Hence the Spirit will exercise them in confession and in supplication before Him. As the verses already looked at set out their ingratitude and self-will in presence of His unmerited goodness, so the next take the form of prayer. “Look down from the heavens, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory. Where [is] thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies? Are they restrained toward me? For thou [art] our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Jehovah, [art] our father; our Redeemer, from everlasting [is] thy name. O Jehovah, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways – hast thou hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. The people of thy holiness have possessed [it] but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. We have become of old [like those] thou never ruledst, those not called by thy name” (vv.15-19).

They are broken in heart and turn in affiance or trustfulness of spirit to Jehovah. Had He of old said, Surely they are My people, children that will not lie? Now they say, Surely Thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Yet do they own that there had been judicial hardening over them as erst over Pharaoh and his people.

How deep and persevering the sins that could turn Jehovah against His own people as against their enemies of old! and this too how long! for Israel had enjoyed their inheritance but a little while. Long, long had their adversaries trodden down Jehovah’s sanctuary, and Israel had been as those on whom His name was not called, who knew not His rule.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

Isaiah

MIGHTY TO SAVE

Isa 63:1 .

We have here a singularly vivid and dramatic prophecy, thrown into the form of a dialogue between the prophet and a stranger whom he sees from afar striding along from the mountains of Edom, with elastic step, and dyed garments. The prophet does not recognise him, and asks who he is. The Unknown answers, ‘I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.’ Another question follows, seeking explanation of the splashed crimson garments of the stranger, and its answer tells of a tremendous act of retributive destruction which he has recently launched at the nations hostile to ‘My redeemed.’

Now we note that this prophecy follows, both in the order of the book and in the evolution of events, on those in Isa 61:1 – Isa 61:11 , which referred to our Lord’s work on earth, and inIsaiah 62:1 – Isa 62:12 , which has for part of its theme His intercession in heaven. And we are entitled to take the view that the place as well as the substance of this prophecy referred to the solemn act of final Judgment in which the returning Lord will manifest Himself. Very significant is it that the prophet does not recognise in this Conqueror, with blood-bespattered robes, the meek sufferer of Isa 53:1 – Isa 53:12 , or Him who in Isa 62:1 – Isa 62:12 came to bind up the broken-hearted. And very instructive is it that the title in our text comes from the stranger’s own lips, as relevant to the tremendous act of judgment from which He is seen returning. The title might seem rather to look back to the former manifestation of Him as bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows. It does indeed, thank God, look back to that never-to-be-forgotten miracle of mercy and power, but it also brings within the sweep of His saving might the judgment still to come.

I. The mighty Saviour as made known in the past and present.

We think much of the meek and gentle side of Christ’s character. Perhaps we do not think enough of the strength of it. We trace His great sacrifice to His love, and we can never sufficiently adore that incomparable manifestation of a love deeper than our plummets can fathom. But probably we do not sufficiently realise what gigantic strength went to the completion of that sacrifice. We know the solemn imagining of a great artist who has painted a colossal Death overbearing the weak resistance of a puny Love; but here love is the giant, and his sovereign command brings Death obedient to it, to do his work. Yes, that weak man hanging on the Cross is therein revealed as ‘the power of God.’ Strange clothing of weakness which yet cannot hide the mighty limbs that wear it!

And if we think of our Lord’s life we see the same combination of gentleness and power. His very name rings with memories of the captain whose one commanded duty was to ‘be strong and of a good courage.’

In Him was all strength of manhood-inflexible, iron will, unchanging purpose, strength from consecration, strength from righteousness. In Him was the heroism of prophets and martyrs in supreme degree.

In Him was the strength of indwelling Divinity. He fought and conquered all man’s enemies, routed sin, and triumphed over Death.

In the Cross we see divine power in operation in its noblest form, in its intensest energy, in its widest sweep, in its most magnificent result. He is able to save, to save all, to save any.

He is mighty to save, and is able to save unto the uttermost, because He lives for ever, and His power is eternal as Himself.

II. The mighty Saviour as to be manifested in the future.

Clearly the imagery of the context describes a tremendous act of judgment. And as clearly the Apocalyptic Seer understood this prophecy as not only pointing to Christ, but as to be fulfilled in the final act of judgment. He quotes its words when he paints his magnificent vision of the Conqueror riding forth on his white horse, with garments sprinkled with blood and treading the ‘winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.’ And the vision is interpreted unmistakably when we read that, though this Conqueror had a name unknown to any but Himself, ‘His name is called the Word of God.’ So the unity of person in the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, full of grace and of this Mighty One girt for battle, is taught.

Keeping fast hold of this clue, the contrast between the characteristics of the historical Jesus and of the rider on the white horse becomes solemn and full of warning. And the contrast between the errand of the historical Jesus and that of the Conqueror bids us ponder on the possibilities that may sleep in perfect love. We have to widen our conceptions, if we have thought of our Jesus only as love, and have thought of love as shallow, as most men do. We are sometimes told that these two pictures, that of the Christ of the Gospels and that of the Christ of the Apocalypse, are incapable of being fused together in one original. But they can be stereoscoped, if we may say so. And they must be, if we are ever to understand the greatness of His love or the terribleness of His judgments. ‘The wrath of the Lamb’ sounds an impossibility, but if we ponder it, we shall find depths of graciousness as well as of awe in it.

Let us learn that the righteous Judge is logically and chronologically the completion of the picture of the merciful Saviour. In this age there is a tendency to treat sin with too much pity and too little condemnation. And there is not a sufficiently firm grasp of the truth that divine love must be in irreconcilable antagonism with human sin, and can do nothing but chastise and smite it.

III. The saving purpose of even that destructive might.

Through the whole Old Testament runs the longing that God would ‘awake’ to smite evil.

The tragedy of the drowned hosts in the Red Sea, and Miriam and her maidens standing with their timbrels and shrill song of triumph on the bank, is a prophecy of what shall be. ‘Ye shall have a song as in the night a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart as when one goeth with a pipe to come unto the mountain of the Lord.’ And at the thought of that solemn act of judgment they who love the Judge, and have long known Him, ‘may lift up their heads’ in the confidence that ‘their redemption draweth nigh.’ That is the last, and in some sense the mightiest, greatest act by which He shows Himself ‘mighty to save His redeemed.’

So we may, like the prophet, see that swift form striding nearer and nearer, but, unlike the prophet, we need not to ask, ‘Who is this that cometh?’ for we have known Him from of old, and we remember the voice that said, ‘This same Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.’ ‘Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness before Him in the day of judgment.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 63:1-6

1Who is this who comes from Edom,

With garments of glowing colors from Bozrah,

This One who is majestic in His apparel,

Marching in the greatness of His strength?

It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

2Why is Your apparel red,

And Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press?

3I have trodden the wine trough alone,

And from the peoples there was no man with Me.

I also trod them in My anger

And trampled them in My wrath;

And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments,

And I stained all My raiment.

4For the day of vengeance was in My heart,

And My year of redemption has come.

5I looked, and there was no one to help,

And I was astonished and there was no one to uphold;

So My own arm brought salvation to Me,

And My wrath upheld Me.

6I trod down the peoples in My anger

And made them drunk in My wrath,

And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.

Isa 63:1-6 This is a dialogue or diatribe (question-answer) between the prophet/Servant and YHWH.

1. Prophet asks the first question, Isa 63:1 – YHWH is described as coming from Edom in majestic apparel, Isa 63:1 -d,2

2. YHWH speaks, Isa 63:1 e

a. speak in righteousness

b. mighty to save

3. Prophet asks a second question, Isa 63:2

4. YHWH answers, Isa 63:3-6

a. trodden the wine trough alone (i.e., judgment)

b. no one from the peoples with Him (cf. Isa 63:5; Isa 59:16)

Isa 63:1 Edom This neighboring nation is often a symbol for all Gentile nations (cf. Isa 34:5-15) that are judged by YHWH.

SPECIAL TOPIC: EDOM AND ISRAEL

Bozrah This was a major city in Edom, often its capital. It is mentioned often in the Woe oracles of judgment (cf. Isa 34:6; Isa 63:1; Jer 49:13; Jer 49:22; Amo 1:12).

NASB, NRSV,

TEV, NJBmarching

NKJVtraveling

JPSOApressing forward

REBstriding along

In Isa 51:14 the word (, BDB 858, KB 1040) is understood as stooping, but here that connotation does not fit. Some suggest an emendation to the root, (KB 1040), which means marching or striding. The UBS Text Project gives stooping a B rating (some doubt), p.157, but it does not fit the parallelism.

Isa 63:3 the wine trough This imagery of judgment is also found in Lam 1:15; Joe 3:13; Rev 14:19-20; Rev 19:15. This is God/Messiah as the Divine Warrior.

Isa 63:4 Notice how the day of vengeance (cf. Isa 34:8; Isa 35:4; Isa 35:8; Isa 61:2) is a necessary precursor to the day (year) of redemption!

The Day of the Lord and the day of salvation are two sides of one coming! For the faithful God’s coming is a great reunion of fellowship; for those who are unfaithful His coming is the final act of separation and rejection (cf. Mat 25:31-46; Rev 20:11-15)!

Isa 63:5 So My own arm brought salvation to Me,

And My wrath upheld Me This is related to lines 1-2. YHWH could depend on no human help in bringing salvation. He and He alone could do it (cf. Eze 36:22-38). This text may be the imagery the Apostle John used in Revelation 5, only one is worthy to open the book, only one, the crucified, risen Lamb of God/Messiah/Servant!

Isa 63:6 YHWH’s judgment is described by the use of three metaphors (i.e., YHWH as the Divine Warrior, cf. Isa 59:17; Exo 15:3).

1. trod down – Qal IMPERFECT, BDB 100, KB 115 (parallel to tread, used three times in Isa 63:2-3)

2. made them drunk – Piel IMPERFECT, BDB 1016, KB 1500 (judgment as drunkenness, cf. Isa 51:22-23; Psa 75:8)

3. poured out (lit. brought down their juice to the earth) – Hiphil IMPERFECT, BDB 432, KB 434 (people lying dead on the ground)

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Who . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. The prophet’s question. App-6.

This: i.e. Messiah in the execution of His vengeance in judgment.

Edom = red. Compare Isa 34:5.

Bozrah = vintage. Compare Isa 34:5.

traveling = bending forward, as in marching.

strength . . . mighty = strength (for endurance). Hebrew. koah. Not referring to His death, which was in weakness.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

By Chuck Smith

Now before the restoration, the day of God’s wrath is coming, the Great Tribulation. This must precede it. And chapter 63, the first six verses go into the Great Tribulation period. And there are two questions that are asked and they are answered by the Lord.

Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? ( Isa 63:1 )

The question: who is this that is coming from Edom with the dyed garment from Bozrah? And the answer:

this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness ( Isa 63:1 )

Or, this is still the question:

this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength? ( Isa 63:1 )

The answer:

I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save ( Isa 63:1 ).

Who is this that is coming from Edom who is so glorious in his apparel? Traveling in the greatness of his strength? The answer: I that speak in righteousness, or the Lord, mighty to save.

The question:

Why are you red in your apparel, and why are your garments like him who has been treading in the winevat? ( Isa 63:2 )

Why are your garments all stained? It looks like you’ve been treading in the winevat. Looks like you’re covered with grape juice.

The answer:

I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come ( Isa 63:3-4 ).

So the answer to the garments that are stained: it’s the blood. He’s been treading the winepress of the fierceness of the anger of God upon the earth.

If you’ll turn to Revelation, chapter 14, you will read here a corresponding passage of scripture beginning with verse Isa 63:14 . Actually, let’s go back to verse Isa 63:10 , “The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, in the presence of the Lamb” ( Rev 14:10 ). Who? Whoever worships the beast and the image and receives his mark in his forehead or in his hand.

This week you’re going to learn some very fascinating things about the image of the beast as they’ll be dealing with genetic engineering. And some of the things that are now being proposed by those scientists who are involved in genetic engineering, and you’ll begin to understand a little bit about the beast making an image and giving power to it to speak and the whole world being governed and worshipping this image of the beast. You’ll find some very fascinating things this week in these lectures that are coming up.

But whoever worships the beast or his image or receives his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same is going to drink of the wine of the wrath of God poured out without mixture. Then in verse Isa 63:14 , “And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, ‘Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap. For the time is come for Thee to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire, and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, ‘Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.’ And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horses’ bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs” ( Rev 14:14-20 ).

And then also in the nineteenth chapter of the book of Revelation, beginning with verse Isa 63:11 , “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse. And He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. And He had a name written, that no man knew, but He Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture that is dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were with Him in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.” The church–go back to verse Isa 63:7-8. “And out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He will tread the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God” ( Rev 19:15 ).

So tied in with this in Isaiah. The question: who is this that is coming from Edom with these dyed robes and so forth? I who speak in righteousness who are mighty to save. How come your garments are all stained? For I have been treading the winepress alone, trampling them in the fury. Their blood shall be sprinkled upon My garments and I will stain all My raiment. It’s going to be a fierce day when God’s wrath is poured out upon the earth.

“He that despised Moses’ law died in the mouth of two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, he to be counted worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace? For we know Him that hath said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ saith the Lord. And again, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” ( Heb 10:28-31 ).

We talk about being saved. A person says, “What do you mean saved?” Well, I’ll tell you what we mean saved. We mean being saved from that wrath of God that is going to be poured out upon the earth. Salvation has both a negative and a positive effect, actually. It’s being saved from and it’s being saved for–a glorious eternity with Him. But I am going to be saved from “the wrath of God that is going to be poured out against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth of God in unrighteousness” ( Rom 1:18 ).

Now, because God has been slow in judgment we so often think that God is weak, and men mistake the longsuffering of God for weakness. And that’s a tragic mistake to make. For the day of vengeance and His wrath shall surely come. He has promised it. He said, “I’m not going to bring things to birth and then quit there.” God speaks about surely I’m going to fulfill My word and My purposes. And the fact that God has fulfilled it up to this point, you’re only fooling yourself if you think God’s going to stop now. Surely the rest of the prophecy shall be fulfilled and we’re right on the border once again of God’s intervening in the history of man in judgment.

Now people are willfully ignorant of this fact that God has intervened in past history. Peter said that they’re willfully ignorant, the fact that God destroyed the world already once in judgment. People don’t like to think about that. They like to think that things are uniform. All things have continued as they were from the beginning. Not so! God has intervened in the past and He’s going to intervene again in the future. But this intervention that is going to take place in the future is going to usher in then the glorious Kingdom Age and God’s new kingdom and age upon the earth of which we really look forward to.

Now, “The day of the vengeance is in my heart. The year of the redeemed is come.”

And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the eaRuth ( Isa 63:5-6 ).

God’s judgment that is coming here upon the earth.

Now as we get into verse Isa 63:7 and all through chapter 64, we have a very beautiful prayer as Isaiah representing the remnant prays unto the Lord.

I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD ( Isa 63:7 ),

Isn’t this interesting? Right at the time that the Lord declares the day of His wrath and vengeance and judgment, the prophet then prays, “I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord.”

and the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses ( Isa 63:7 ).

Looking around and seeing what God has done. He has been so kind, lovingly kind to us.

For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour. In all their afflictions he was afflicted ( Isa 63:8-9 ),

Now that to me is a very beautiful scripture. “In all of their afflictions, He was afflicted.” The early disciples recognized their close identity with Jesus Christ. And they recognized that those persecutions that they faced, they were actually facing and receiving for Jesus Christ. “In all of their afflictions, He was afflicted.” So when they were beaten and commanded not to preach anymore in the name of Jesus, they went their way praising the Lord that they were accounted worthy to suffer persecution for Jesus’ sake. Because the Lord identifies with His child in the persecution or in the suffering. Whenever you go through any persecution for the name of the Lord, in all of your afflictions He is afflicted. He bares our sorrow. He shares with us the afflictions, the tribulations, the persecutions.

and the Angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old ( Isa 63:9 ).

And yet, though God was so loving to them and so good to them,

They rebelled, they vexed his Holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old, when Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he that put his Holy Spirit within him? That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name? That led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble? As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name. Look down from heaven [their prayer unto God], and behold from thy habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of the mercies towards me? are they restrained? Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting ( Isa 63:10-16 ).

And so recognizing God as the Father, the Redeemer.

O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. We are thine: thou never bearest rule over them; they were not called by thy name ( Isa 63:17-19 ).

“

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Isa 63:1-6. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me; for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them into my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth.

It is a dark and terrible time; no one at Gods side, his people discouraged, Edom triumphant. Then comes the one great Hero of the gospel, the Christ of God; and by his own unaided strength he wins for his people a glorious victory. He is as terrible to his foes as he is precious to his friends. He stands before us as the one hope of his ancient church. There is a picture Isaiah was inspired to paint. Now the prophet goes on to say:

Isa 63:7. I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord,

Are you, dear friends, mentioning the lovingkindnesses of the Lord; or are you silent about them? Learn a lesson from the prophet Isaiah. Talk about what God has done for you, and for his people in all time: I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord. Let this be the resolve of every one of us who has tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Awake, my soul, in joyful lays,

And sing thy great Redeemers praise:

He justly claims a song from me,

His lovingkindness, oh, how free !

He saw me ruind in the fall,

Yet loved me, notwithstanding all;

He saved me from my lost estate,

His lovingkindness, oh, how great!

Isa 63:7. And the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses.

This is a verse full of sweets; but I must not dwell upon it. My object at this time is to read much, and to say little by way of comments; so I cannot stay to pick out the sweetnesses here. There are very many. This passage is a piece of a honeycomb. Read it when you get home; pray over it, suck the honey out of it, and praise the Lord for it.

Isa 63:8. For he said,

In the old time, when God called his people out of Egypt, he said this.

Isa 63:8. Surely they are my people, children that will not lie:

Or, children that will not act deceitfully; or, will not deal falsely.

Isa 63:8. So he was their Saviour.

He thought well of them. He treated them as though they were trustworthy. He took them into his confidence. He said, Surely they will not deceive me. This is speaking after the manner of men, of course; for God knows us, and is never deceived in us. We may deceive others; we may even deceive ourselves; but we can never deceive him.

Isa 63:9. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

Happy Israel! These were her golden days, when she was faithful to God, and God communed very closely with her. Then God was very near to his people, so near that he is represented as carrying them in his arms. He could be seen in a bush; he could be seen in a cloud; he could be seen working with a rod; he was so familiar with his people.

Isa 63:10. But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

This was a great change in dispensation, though there was no change in the heart of God. He deals roughly with his people when they rebel against him. They would not be improved by tenderness, so now they must be scourged by his rod, and come under his displeasure. When men turn from God, he is turned to be their enemy.

Isa 63:11. Then he remembered the days of old,

His people were never out of his mind, even when they wandered away from him. He remembered the love of their espousals, when they went after him into the wilderness. He remembered the days of old, the happier days, when his people walked closely with him. They also remembered these days. It is strange that they should ever have forgotten them.

Isa 63:11. Moses, and his people, saying. Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he that put his holy Spirit within him? That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name? That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble? As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name.

Now comes a prayer suggested by their condition of sorrow and desertion.

Isa 63:15. Look down from heaven,

Thou art still there, though we have wandered. Look down upon us from heaven, O, Lord!

Isa 63:15-16. And behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? Are they restrained? Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not; thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.

That last sentence may be read, Thy name is, our Redeemer, from everlasting. This is a sweet plea with God: We have offended thee; but we are still thy children. We have wandered from thee; but we are still thine own, bought with a price. Thy name of Redeemer is not a temporary one; it is from everlasting to everlasting, therefore look on thy poor children again. Leave us not to perish.

Isa 63:17. O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. The people of thy holiness.

Or, Thy holy people.

Isa 63:18-19. Have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. We are thine: thou never barest rule over them; they were no called by thy name.

Thou didst give us the land by an everlasting covenant; but we have had it only a little while. Lo, the enemy has come in, and driven thine Israel away from her heritage! Can it be so, always, O Lord? Happy times seem very short when they are over; and when they are succeeded by dark trials, we say, The people of thy holiness, thy holy people have possessed it but a little while. Our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. We are now become (for this is the true rendering of the passage) like those over whom thou hast never borne rule, those who were never called by thy name. That is a sad condition for the church of God to be in; and I am afraid that it is getting into that condition now, sinking to a level with the world, leaving its high calling, quitting the path of the separated people, and becoming just like those whom God never knew, and who were never called by his name. It is a pitiful case; and here comes a prayer like the bursting out of a volcano, as though the hearts of gracious men could hold in the agonizing cry no longer:

This exposition consisted of readings from Isaiah 63-64

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Isa 63:1-6

Isa 63:1-6

This chapter is particularly distinguished by a brief, cameo-like description of the final judgement in the first six verses. As we should have expected, the critical writers, who have never yet found a description of the judgment day that they thought was not out of place, have declared this one to be, “Isolated from the context, and as, “Having no immediate connection with what goes before or what follows. Some have even supposed the passage to be, “A mere fragment that, by mistake, found its way into this portion of the book, a view which, however, the same author rejected, admitting that, “There is great propriety in the paragraph’s appearance where it is. Barnes also wrote that the chapter belongs where it is, and that, “It should not have been separated from Isaiah 64.

The interpretation of the first six verses has taken a number of directions. As Lowth pointed out, “Many interpreters suppose that Judas Maccabeus is prophesied here”; but he concluded. “This prophecy has not the slightest relation to Judas Maccabeus.”

Many others have understood these verses as a reference to Jesus Christ, a position maintained by the late, illustrious G. C. Brewer. Douglas, Archer, Lowth and others have subscribed to the same view; and Jamieson, quoting Gesenius, gives the answer as to “Who” this mighty one is, as “The Messiah.” We accept this as the only valid interpretation.

We deeply respect this interpretation and are able to accept it, because we construe the paragraph as a prophetic picture of the final judgment, depicted in terms of God’s summary destruction of the Edomites. The apostle John’s unmistakable references to this passage in Revelation lend convincing proof of the accuracy of this view.

See the notes below for difficulties attending this interpretation.

Isa 63:1-6

“Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winevat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the peoples there was no one with me: yea, I trod them in mine anger, and trampled them in my wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my wrath, it upheld me. And I trod down the peoples in mine anger, and made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”

The first objection to our interpretation is that Christ did not come from Edom. Very well, he did not. However, Edom in this passage does not stand for any literal place on earth; but Edom and its peoples are a symbol of the whole earth and its sinful enemies of God’s people. “They are a type of the last and bitterest foes of God’s people, as revealed in Isa 34:5 f.” See my introduction to Isaiah 34, where the propriety of choosing the Edomites as typical of all of God’s enemies is discussed. Rawlinson was doubtless correct when he wrote that, “The Edomites represent the world-power; and the `day of vengeance’ may be one still future.”

Cheyne represented the “victorious warrior” here as “Jehovah”; and, of course, Isa 63:2 of the text shuts us up to just two options. The “mighty one,” traveling in the greatness of his strength, must positively be one or the other, either Jehovah himself, or the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Only one of these could have declared, “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” Note too that this is, by definition, a judgment scene; and, from the New Testament we learn that, “God hath committed judgment unto the Son of God” (Joh 5:22; Joh 9:39). This of course, drives us squarely back to the proposition that the mighty warrior here is none other than Christ.

Another objection is that, in this scene, Christ’s garments are red with blood, but not his own blood. It is the blood of God’s enemies that stains them here. Oh yes, as Kidner said, “The garments red with blood may indeed remind the Christian of Calvary, but the meaning is given in Rev 19:15.”

“And I saw the heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon called Faithful and True; and in righteousness, he doth judge and make war. And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems; and he hath a name written which no one knoweth but he himself. And he is arrayed with a garment sprinkled in blood: and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and pure. And out of his mouth proceeded a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty. And he hath on his garment and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS; AND LORD OF LORDS” (Rev 19:11-16).

Here, of course, is the key to the proper interpretation. The passage (Isa 63:1-6) is a prophecy of the final judgment of mankind, a judgment in which the Mighty Warrior with the garment red with the blood of his enemies, shall be the chief executive. This is one of the noblest and most astounding of all the prophecies in Isaiah. No vocabulary is rich enough adequately to describe the wonders and glory of this passage.

Ewald, as quoted by Cheyne, stated that, “This highly dramatic description unites depth of emotion with artistic perfection. What wonderful force of phraseology and pictorial power! It is impossible to read it without shuddering with reverence. No wonder the Seer on Patmos interwove some of these striking phrases into one of the most sublime, but most awful, passages of the Apocalypse!

The terrible slaughter of the race of Adam, (that is, the vast majority of them) that awaits our rebellious race, now on a collision course with disaster, is frequently mentioned, but not always in such terminology as we have here. The blood shedding is not often mentioned in that terminology; but it is mentioned often enough. The Great Supper metaphor is used in Rev 19:17-18, where dead bodies are represented as covering the earth. The treading of the winepress of God’s wrath, mentioned in Rev 14:17-20, speaks of the blood reaching to the horses’ bridles and extending two hundred miles. The fall of Babylon the Great, identified with the so-called Battle of Har-Magedon (Rev 16:16) is also understood as an occasion of great destruction of Adam’s race.

In view of all these consideration, Gleason Archer’s interpretation of these verses appears to be trustworthy:

“Divine judgment will be executed upon the world-power. Edom here, as in Isa 34:5 f, typifies the rebellious world as implacably hostile to God’s people. Christ’s garments stained with blood are red by the blood of God’s enemies to be slain at Armageddon (Rev 19:13) … The scene here is the same as in Rev 14:18-19. A Christ-rejecting, Gospel-spurning world leaves the Lord no other alternative but to send terrible and fearful destruction when the time of his longsuffering is past.”

Isa 63:1-6 CONQUEST: The prophet sees Someone coming from the direction of Edom (southeast of the Dead Sea) with dyed garments. The Hebrew word is khamutz and means, highly colored, indicating royalty or affluence. The remainder of verse one indicates the approaching One is majestically divine since He is One that announces vindication (davver tzedakah in Hebrew) and is mighty to save. Later, the prophet praises Jehovah for His lovingkindnesses as expressed in the judgments upon Zions enemeies. The unrecognizable figure coming from Edom is Jehovah. Bozrah was the ancient capital of Edom. The Edomites were inveterate enemies of Israel. They rejoiced with spite-filled hearts at any misfortune befalling the Jews. Edom participated in every opportunity that came their way to plunder Jerusalem and Judah, selling Jewish captives into slavery and killing them unmercifully (cf. Oba 1:1-14; Isa 34:5-15; Eze 35:1-15). Many of the prophets predicted the judgment of God upon the Edomites. Edom is often mentioned as typical or representative of all the ungodly powers that oppose Jehovahs redemptive work through Israel. We believe that is the case here also. The picture here is of Jehovahs judgment of all that opposes His messianic program.

The Hebrew word adorn is translated red and is the same word we apparently translate man and Edom. The garments of the One approaching are splattered with red like a man who has just come from tramping in the winevat and has splattered red grape juice all over his clothing. This red is the lifeblood of his enemies (cf. Isa 63:3). A similar picture is painted by John the apostle as he portrays the judgment of God upon the Roman empire in Rev 19:13.

Lest someone get the idea that Edom s downfall (and that of any other nation for that matter) is a matter of chance, or that it might have been averted if other circumstances had fallen just right, Jehovah emphasizes that He alone brought it about. The One approaching (the Lord) had trodden the winepress alone. He had no assistance, not only because no one else would be adequate for the task, but also because He needed no one else! The emphasis of this whole passage is that Jehovah is personally involved in and responsible for the deliverance, salvation and redemption of Zion-even to the destruction of her enemies. In a prior statement (Isa 59:16) the Lord emphasizes the same ideas. The Lord has everything needful for Zions messianic destiny exactly scheduled in history and He carries it out according to His own righteous pleasure. The day of His vengeance was in His own heart and the year of His redeemed comes precisely according to His timetable, (cf. Isa 61:1). The Lord sets times and seasons (Dan 2:20-23); He deposes and sets up kings and kingdoms to fit His own plans (Dan 5:18-21); He has a definite time schedule for the messianic nation to bring forth the Messiah (see comments Dan 9:24-27). He has the power in His own arm to bring salvation to His people and needs no other assistance (cf. Isa 40:10; Isa 51:5; Isa 52:10; Isa 53:1 for comments on arm). The Lord made His enemies drunk with His wrath. This is a figure of speech indicating two ideas. First, His enemies have caused the Jews to drink their cup of wrath in plunder and slavery; Jehovah will recompense these enemies with His own cup of wrath filled to the brim. God is not mocked; whatever a nation sows, that shall it reap, double! Second, when Jehovahs enemies are made to drink His cup of wrath, they will stagger and reel under it as drunken men reel (cf. Isa 29:9; Isa 49:26; Rev 17:6; Rev 18:3-7, etc.). Gods wrath is perfect; it is complete and lacks nothing.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The last section of Isaiah (63-66) sets forth anew the operation of the principle of discrimination. All the blessing which has been described can result only from holiness, and ere that can be established there must be the period of judgment.

In the first section the prophet describes the Warrior returning from the conflict. While that conflict is described, it is from the standpoint of its completion. One is seen returning with crimson garments, marching in the greatness of His strength. In answer to the prophet’s inquiry as to who this is, the Warrior declares, “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” This answer reveals the method and the purpose. Again the prophet asks for explanation, and then the conflict is described. It has been one of vengeance, in which all opposing forces have been swept away in order to establish righteousness and bring salvation.

The prophet’s sense of the absolute justice of the judgment described is manifest in that he immediately breaks forth into praise of the loving-kindnesses of the Lord. In language full of beauty he describes Jehovah’s faithfulness to His people. His description looks back to the days in which, in spite of their rebellion and their grieving of His Holy Spirit, through which He was necessarily made their enemy, He nevertheless carried them, and remembered them, and delivered them.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Mighty Savior

Isa 63:1-9

For long years there had been virulent hostility between Israel and Edom. It began when Esau and Jacob were lads. It broke out in bitterness when Edom denied Israel the right of passage, Num 20:20-21. When Babylon had triumphed over Jerusalem, Edom urged that her walls should be leveled to the ground, Psa 137:7.

How great the change pictured here! The prophet stands at the division of the two countries, looking south, from the foothills of Judah across the sandy waste. In the distance he beholds the mighty Warrior coming up from Edom, His garments wet, not with His own blood, but with Edoms; henceforth to stand as sentinel between Edom and Israel, so that nevermore need Israel fear invasion.

If Edom stands for sins of passion or for the hatred of unscrupulous foes, see how safe and blessed you are. Jesus, the Mighty to save, stands between you and your besetting sins, between you and your fears, between you and the power of the adversary, Psa 63:9. Mention the lovingkindness of the Lord!

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 SIXTY-TWO

PROCLAMATION TO THE REMNANT

“For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God” (verses 1-3).

How PRECIOUS this is! These words, even today, would naturally fill the heart of every redeemed Hebrew as he thinks of his people still wandering in the darkness of unbelief, and he prays for the peace of Jerusalem and looks forward to the day when all will be brought into this knowledge. So at the very beginning of the tribulation period a remnant will be called out to carry this message to all their brethren and be an intercession to GOD, looking to Him to hasten the day when Jerusalem will be made a praise throughout all the earth.

The chapter goes on to tell of the Lord in His grace restoring Israel to Himself and bringing them into all the blessing of the Abrahamic Covenant.

“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night; ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured: But they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness. Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. And they shall call them The holy people, The redeemed of the Lord: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken” (verses 6-12).

The days shall be when all this will be fulfilled. The words hardly need comment – they are so clear, so plain.

~ end of chapter 62 ~

http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/

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Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Isa 63:1

The victory of Christ; the destruction of evil by good; the conquest over the devil by the Son of God, at cost, with pain, so that as He comes forth His robes are red with blood, the redemption of mankind from sin by the Divine and human Saviour,-this is the largest and completest meaning of the ancient vision. Wherever there is good at work in the world, we Christians may see the progress of the struggle, and rejoice already in the victory of Christ. It does us good. It enlarges and simplifies our thought of Christ’s religion. We shall conquer. But when we say that, we are driven home to Him and Him alone, as our religion. Look at the method of His salvation, first, for the world at large, and then for the single soul.

I. “Who is this that cometh from Edom?” Sin hangs on the borders of goodness everywhere, as just across the narrow Jordan valley Edom always lay threatening upon the skirts of Palestine. So right on the border of man’s higher life lies the hostile Edom, watchful, indefatigable, inexorable, as the old foe of the Jews. Every morning we lift up our eyes, and there are the low black hill-tops across the narrow valley, with the black tents upon their sides, where Edom lies in wait. Who shall deliver us from the bad world and our bad selves? The Saviour comes out of the enemy’s direction. His whole work had relation to and issues from the fact of sin. If there had been no sin, there would have been no Saviour.

II. Look next what He says to His anxious questioner. (1) We ask Him, “Who is this?” and He replies, “I that come in righteousness, mighty to save.” The Saviour comes in the strength of righteousness. He will be the negotiator of no low compromise. He wants to set up the standard of absolute holiness in the midst of a nature all conquered and totally possessed by Him. (2) It is no holiday monarch coming with a bloodless triumph. The power of God has struggled with the enemy, and subdued him only in the agony of strife. Only in self-sacrifice and suffering could even God conquer sin. (3) He has conquered alone. He had fellow-workers, but they only handed round the broken bread and fishes in the miracle, or ordered the guest-chamber on the Passover night. They never came into the deepest work of His life. With the mysterious suffering that saved the world they had nothing to do. (4) What was the fruit of this victory over Edom which the seer of Israel discovered from his mountain-top? It set Israel free from continual harassing and fear, and gave her a chance to develop along the way that God had marked out for her. Christ’s salvation sets men free; it takes off the load of sin; it gives us a new chance; and says to the poor soul that has been thinking there was no use of trying to stagger on with such a load, Go on; your burden is removed. Go on; go up to the home that you were made for, and the life in God.

Phillips Brooks, Sermons, p. 37.

References: Isa 63:1.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 150; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 292; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii., No. 3; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 14; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ix., p. 129.

Isa 63:3

Consider one or two circumstances which rendered Jesus solitary in His sufferings.

I. One of the most obvious of these is, that all His sorrowings and sufferings were, long ere their actual occurrence, clearly and fully foreseen. They were anticipated sorrows. The ignorance of futurity, which mercifully tempers the severity of all human ills, was an alleviation of sorrow unknown to Jesus. Even the smiles of infancy, may we not almost say, were darkened by the anticipated anguish of death, and in the very slumbers of the cradle, He already in fancy hung upon the cross. From the very dawn of his earthly ministry, Jesus looked forward to its dreadful close.

II. Another circumstance which distinguishes the sorrows of Jesus from those of all ordinary men, and which gives to this greatest of sufferers an aspect of solitariness in their endurance, is this-that they were the sorrows of an infinitely pure and perfect mind. No ordinary human being could ever suffer as Jesus did, for His soul was greater than all other souls; and the mind that is of largest compass, or that is cast in the finest mould, is ever the most susceptible of suffering. A little, narrow, selfish, uncultured mind is liable to comparatively few troubles. The range alike of its joys and sorrows is limited and contracted. It presents but a narrow target to the arrows of misfortune, and it escapes uninjured where a broader spirit would be “pierced through with many sorrows.”

III. But the feelings of Jesus in contemplating the sin and wretchedness of humanity, the mournful prevalence of evil in the world, were not those merely of a most holy and tenderhearted human being. His sorrow was the sorrow of a Creator amid His ruined works. (1) Such views of the sufferings of Jesus are suggestive of gratitude for His marvellous self-devotion on our behalf. (2) The subject is fraught with a most solemn warning to all who are living in carelessness or indifference to the spiritual interests of themselves and others. (3) Such views of the sufferings of Jesus afford to every penitent soul the strongest encouragement to rely on the Saviour’s love.

J. Caird, Sermons, p. 134.

There is a loneliness in death for all men. There is a mysterious something which makes the bystanders feel that before the last breath the embarkation has begun. There is a silence of the soul to earth and earth’s thoughts which seems to enter its protest alike against sobs and words-seems to bespeak the forbearance of the surviving towards the solemn, the mysterious act of stepping across the threshold of sense, into the very presence of the invisible God. There was this loneliness then, as of course, in the death, of our Lord. In Him it was deepened and aggravated by the foregoing loneliness of His life. But we have not reached the loneliness yet. The context will give us one clue.

I. “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with Me.” There could not be. “I looked, and there was none to help.” If there had been, this particular death had not been died. Christ was doing something in which He could have no assistance. His was a death not with sinners, but for sin; a death, therefore, which none else could die, in that which made it what it was in its truth and in its essence.

II. The divinity, the deity of Christ was another cause of the loneliness. Deity is loneliness, not in heaven, but on earth. If Christ was very God, He must live alone and He must die alone upon earth. It accounts for everything. His Divine Spirit, His soul indwelt of the Holy Ghost, must have been a solitude.

III. Loneliness often is isolation. Lonely men and women-lonely by circumstance or by disposition or by choice-are commonly selfish. Neither atonement nor deity made a solitary, in this sense, of Jesus Christ. He died that we might never be lonely-no, not in death. Though He trod the winepress alone, yet He was not alone in this sense. He trod it for us. The loneliness was His; the sympathy is ours. The cross was His desolation: it is our comfort; it is our ornament; it is our “joy and hope and crown of rejoicing.”

C. J. Vaughan, Temple Sermons, p. 176.

Loneliness has many senses, inward and outward.

I. There is first the loneliness of simple solitude. Solitude which is, first, voluntary, and, secondly, occasional, is but half solitude. Solitude which we fly to as a rest, and can exchange at will for society which we love, is a widely different thing from that solitude which is either the consequence of bereavement or the punishment of crime-that solitude from which we cannot escape, and which is perhaps associated with bitter, remorseful recollections. Solitude reveals to us, as in a moment, what manner of spirit we are of; whether we have any root, any vitality in ourselves, or are only the creatures of society and of circumstance, found out and convicted by the application of the individual touchstone.

II. Again, there is the loneliness of sorrow. Is not loneliness the prominent feeling in all deep sorrow? Is it not this which deprives all after-joy of its chief zest, and reduces life itself to a colourless and level landscape?

III. Again, there is the loneliness of a sense of sin. Whatever duties may lie upon us towards other men, in our innermost relations to God we are and must be alone. Repentance is loneliness; remorse is desolation. Repentance makes us lonely towards man; remorse makes us desolate towards God.

IV. There is the loneliness of death. We all speak of death familiarly, as if we knew what it was, as if we had taken its measure and weighed its import. But who amongst the living can tell us what it is? In death we shall be alone, and shall feel ourselves to be so.

V. In the judgment we shall be alone. Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

VI. There are two senses in which we ought all to practise being alone. (1) One of these is being alone in prayer. (2) If we are to die alone and be judged alone, do not let us be afraid to think alone, and, if necessary, to act alone.

C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays, p. 197.

Isa 63:3

I. Consider what Scripture reveals to us in regard to Christ’s second advent. There is a time appointed in the history of our world, when that very Jesus who appeared on earth, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” shall reappear with all the circumstances of majesty and power, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” We are led to expect a day when Christ shall find a home in the remotest hearts and families, and the earth in all its circumference be covered with the knowledge and the power of the Lord. In effecting this sublime revolution, we are taught that the Jews shall be God’s mightiest instruments. But it shall not be without opposition, nor without convulsion, that Satan is driven from his usurped dominion. Previously to this great consummation, and in order to the production of this, is to be what Scripture calls the second advent of Christ; and the judgments with which this second coming shall be attended and followed constitute that tremendous visitation which prophecy associates with the last times, and delineates under every figure of woe, of terror, and of wrath.

II. The Redeemer, as exhibited in our text, is returning from the slaughter of His enemies, and He describes Himself as “speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.” His actions have just proved Him mighty to destroy, and His words now announce Him mighty to save; so that He is able to confound every foe and uphold every friend. The two grand principles which we expect to see maintained in every righteous government are that none of the guilty shall escape, and that none of the innocent shall perish. And in the reply given to the challenge of the prophet there is a distinct assertion that He who comes with the dyed garments from Bozrah maintains these principles of government, which cannot be maintained but by an Infinite Judge. This agrees admirably with Christ’s second advent; for that is the only season at which men living on the earth shall be accurately divided into the evil and the good-into those who are to be consumed, and those who are to be untouched by the visitations of wrath.

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1817.

References: Isa 63:3.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 92. Isa 63:7.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix., No. 1126; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 25; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 144. Isa 63:7-10.-Ibid., vol. xvi., p. 141.

Isa 63:9

These words occur in the course of a most affecting and pathetic prayer which the prophet utters. In the course of his prayer he recalls the wonderful love of Jehovah for His people during their early afflictions,-His patience with their waywardness, and His surpassing gentleness and care while on their way to Palestine. He is the same mighty Helper as of old, and His mercy is not restrained. It is an argument from God’s own past, an argument which never fails to sustain His suffering saints, and it is no less cheering to us than to the captive Jews; nay, more so, all the records of His dealings with His ancient people are still witnesses to us, and from them we can gather with what manner of Saviour we have to do. The mediatorial office of Christ did not begin in the manger. It travels back to the door of history before the birth of human souls. It is one Person all along the line, and one character of patient lovingkindness and mercy which is revealed to us in both Testaments.

I. Was there not to be between the Son of God and the sons of men some close relationship, which should exist from the very first? Man was made in the image of God; but already there existed an eternal, uncreated image and only begotten Son, in whose likeness ours found reflection. Between that adorable and everlasting Son of God in heaven, and the new-made son of God on earth, there might be some tie of sympathy and condescension on the part of the great Son, and aspiration and trust on the part of the little son.

II. The Son is the face of God through whom God is visible. Of all creatures He is the immediate Head. It follows that whatever of a gracious nature might pass between new-made man and his Maker, must have passed through the Son of God. His was the nature that touched man’s spirit. He it was whom the first man heard walking amid primeval woods.

III. Nor is this relationship of God to man upset by man’s fall; on the contrary, it grew closer still. What strange meaning does it not shadow back through every page of man’s long troubled history, to know that while these countless generations passed along, their condescending Lord, with His mighty hands, touched all life, and said that their sorrow touched His mighty heart, who was one day to be amongst them a simple Child. Scarcely has God made a new covenant than Jehovah, in the guise of man, is found in Abraham’s tent, and the Judge of all the earth was there. From that day we grow familiar, as we read, with a form which seems, as it were, to haunt the world, and a form like unto the Son of man-a form which comes and goes in fitful glimpses, speaks in Jehovah’s name, expects the worship due to the Most High, and yet calls himself the angel of the presence of God. The Messiah, the Messenger, the Angel of the Lord spoken of in the Old Testament, was none other than the Eternal Son, who Himself was keeping up a personal intercourse with humanity, never losing touch of that race of which He was to become the Saviour, and who directed the closer revelation which enlightens all prophecy, and which was irradiated by the wonders of the Cross.

IV. There is instruction to be gleaned from this revelation of Divine love. (1) Such as the Son of God proved Himself to be to Abraham, Moses, and David, such He will prove Himself under His new revealed name of Jesus to those who trust Him. If we serve Him He will bear us and carry us, as He did His people in the days of old. (2) Does not the view of the Old Testament which we have been recording relieve the great fact of the Incarnation from being an isolated event? The Eternal Son had been resident among men from the beginning, had seen His glory reflected in His people, dimmed by human sin before He was born at Bethlehem. He was afflicted in their afflictions, and was the life of their life, before He assumed their form.

J. Oswald Dykes, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 111.

References: Isa 63:9.-Forsyth and Hamilton, Pulpit Parables, p. 126; T. B. Dover, A Lent Manual, p. 23; R. Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 49.

Isa 63:10

Note:-

I. Some of the ways in which men may be said to vex the Holy Spirit. (1) This sin is committed, when the all-important office executed by the Spirit in the Church, as sent by Christ to quicken, convert, and sanctify the soul, is not duly recognised and honoured. (2) The sin of vexing the Spirit is committed, when the means and instruments by which He carries on His work are despised or abused. (3) The sin of vexing the Spirit is committed by the unwarrantable doubts and fears which sometimes depress the minds of the people of God. (4) The sin of vexing the Holy Spirit is committed, when any good motions or purposes which He excites in the heart are suppressed, or not followed out. (5) The sin of vexing the Holy Spirit is committed when the grace and energy which He imparts are not actively and faithfully exercised.

II. Consider the dangerous consequences of vexing the Holy Spirit. (1) One result of the Spirit’s “turning against” any one would be His withdrawing altogether the instruments, and means, and opportunities of grace which men have despised or abused; and as they sought not to arrive at the knowledge of the truth, leaving them to perish in the darkness which they have loved. (2) Another thing obviously implied in the Spirit’s turning against any one, is His ceasing to work, and to make the means of grace effectual for conviction and conversion.

A. D. Davidson, Lectures and Sermons, p. 211.

Isa 63:16

I. These words express a deep longing of the human heart. With all its folly, and frivolity, and sin, the heart of man has been made to feel after these words: “Our Father-our Father which art in heaven.” When we look at the length and breadth of man’s history, it tells us that this cry constantly returns, sometimes exceeding great and bitter, sometimes sinking to a low moan or a suppressed whisper. “O that I knew where I might find Him.”

II. And yet it is often difficult to speak these words with full assurance. The struggle to reach them is evident in the men who use them here, and is felt in the very word “doubtless” with which they begin their claim. The mind, the heart, the conscience, all find difficulties.

III. But, with all these difficulties, it is a feeling which can be, and has been, reached. We could never believe that such a deep longing had been implanted in man, to be for ever unanswered-a cry pressed from his heart to be mocked with endless disappointment. In view of all the difficulties of mind, and heart, and conscience, there have been men who could look up and say, “Doubtless Thou art our Father.”

IV. But this full sense of God’s Fatherhood is not generally gained at once. There are three chambers by which we advance to the assurance of Fatherhood in God. The first is the upper chamber of Jerusalem, which comes to us ever and again in the Lord’s table, with its offer of pardon and peace. The second is the chamber of the heart, to which we give him admission in love and obedience. The third is the home, where the Holy Spirit teaches us to cry, “Abba, Father.”

V. To use these words truly is a matter of infinite moment to us all.

J. Ker, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 176.

Reference: Isa 63:16.-Old Testament Outlines, p. 240.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 63

The Executor of the Day of Vengeance

1. The glorious appearing (Isa 63:1) 2. The day of vengeance (Isa 63:2-6 Rev 19:11-21 corresponds to this marvelous description of the coming King. Before in this section we read of the day of vengeance, the Lords intervention in behalf of His people and the overthrow of their enemies. The day of vengeance is now beheld by the prophet. The acceptable year is closed and judgment sweeps the earth. Often this chapter is quoted as meaning the salvation work of Christ. It has nothing to do with that. It is His judgment work. It is unfortunate that the sixty-third chapter is not ended in our Bibles with the sixth Isa 63:7-19 belong to chapter 64.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

redeemed

Heb. “goel,” Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield “Isa 59:20”)

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

is this: Psa 24:7-10, Son 3:6, Son 6:10, Son 8:5, Mat 21:10

from Edom: Isa 34:5, Isa 34:6, Psa 137:7

dyed: Isa 63:2, Isa 63:3, Isa 9:5, Rev 19:13

Bozrah: Amo 1:11, Amo 1:12

glorious: Heb. decked

travelling: Psa 45:3, Psa 45:4, Rev 11:17, Rev 11:18

speak: Isa 45:19, Isa 45:23, Num 23:19

mighty: Joh 10:28-30, Heb 7:25, 1Pe 1:5, Jud 1:24, Jud 1:25

Reciprocal: Gen 25:23 – the elder Gen 27:29 – be lord Gen 36:1 – General Gen 36:33 – Bozrah Gen 49:11 – his foal Num 4:23 – to perform the service Num 24:18 – General Jdg 16:3 – took 1Ch 1:44 – Bozrah 2Ch 6:24 – pray Psa 18:37 – General Psa 21:5 – glory Psa 24:8 – The Lord strong Psa 68:23 – dipped Psa 93:1 – he is Psa 103:2 – forget not Psa 108:10 – who will lead Pro 8:8 – All Isa 21:11 – me out Isa 26:4 – in the Isa 30:25 – in the day Isa 42:13 – as a mighty Isa 45:21 – a just Isa 59:1 – that it cannot save Isa 61:2 – and Jer 3:23 – in the Lord Jer 25:21 – Edom Jer 30:21 – for Jer 46:7 – Who Jer 49:7 – Edom Jer 49:13 – Bozrah Jer 51:24 – General Lam 4:21 – the cup Eze 25:8 – Seir Eze 25:13 – I will also Eze 25:14 – by the hand Eze 32:29 – Edom Eze 35:2 – and prophesy Eze 36:5 – against all Eze 38:17 – whom Joe 3:14 – multitudes Joe 3:19 – Edom Oba 1:1 – concerning Oba 1:9 – every Nah 2:3 – made Zec 1:8 – behold Zec 14:3 – General Mal 1:4 – The people Mat 22:44 – till Luk 1:49 – he Luk 11:22 – General Joh 20:21 – as Rev 6:10 – dost Rev 14:20 – the winepress Rev 16:14 – to gather Rev 19:11 – and in

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE WARRIOR MESSIAH

Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?

Isa 63:1

I. Who is this that cometh from Edom?Sin hangs on the borders of goodness everywhere, as just across the narrow Jordan valley Edom always lay threatening upon the skirts of Palestine.

II. Look next what He says to His anxious questioner.(1) We ask Him, Who is this? and He replies, I that come in righteousness, mighty to save. (2) It is no holiday monarch coming with a bloodless triumph. Only in self-sacrifice and suffering could even God conquer sin. (3) He has conquered alone. (4) What was the fruit of this victory over Edom which the seer of Israel discovered from his mountain-top? It set Israel free from continual harassing and fear, and gave her a chance to develop along the way that God had marked out for her. Christs salvation sets men free.

Bishop Phillips Brooks.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Isa 63:1. The very remarkable passage, says Bishop Lowth, with which this chapter begins, seems to be in a manner detached from the rest, and to stand singly by itself; having no immediate connection with what goes before, or with what follows, otherwise than as it may pursue the general design, and stand in its proper place in the order of prophecy. It is by many learned interpreters supposed, that Judas Maccabeus and his victories make the subject of it. What claim Judas can have to so great an honour will, I think, be very difficult to make out; or how the attributes of the great person introduced can possibly suit him. Could Judas call himself the Announcer of righteousness, mighty to save? Could he talk of the day of vengeance being in his heart, and the year of his redeemed being come? or that his own arm wrought salvation for him? Besides, what were the great exploits of Judas in regard to the Idumeans? He overcame them in battle, and slew twenty thousand of them. And John Hyrcanus, his brother Simons son and successor, who is called in to help out the accomplishment of the prophecy, gave them another defeat some time afterward, and compelled them, by force, to become proselytes to the Jewish religion, and to submit to circumcision: after which they were incorporated with the Jews, and became one people with them. Are these events adequate to the prophets lofty prediction? Was it so great an action to win a battle with considerable slaughter of the enemy; or to force a whole nation, by dint of the sword, into Judaism? Or was the conversion of the Idumeans, however effected, and their admission into the church of God, equivalent to a most grievous judgment and destruction, threatened in the severest terms?

I conclude that this prophecy has not the least relation to Judas Maccabeus. It may be asked, to whom, and to what event, does it relate? I can only answer, that I know of no event in history to which, from its importance and circumstances, it can be applied; unless, perhaps, to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity; which, in the gospel, is called, the coming of Christ, and the days of vengeance, Mat 24:16-28; Luk 21:22. But, though this prophecy must have its accomplishment, there is no necessity of supposing that it has been already accomplished. There are prophecies which intimate a great slaughter of the enemies of God and his people, which remain to be fulfilled; these in Ezekiel, chap. 38., and in the Revelation of St. John, chap. 20., are called Gog and Magog. This prophecy of Isaiah may possibly refer to the same or the like event. We need not be at a loss to determine the person who is here introduced, as stained with treading the wine-press, if we consider how St. John, in the Revelation, has applied this image of the prophet, Rev 19:13; Rev 19:15-16. Compare chap. 34.

Who is this, &c. Either the prophet, as in some vision or ecstasy, or the church, makes inquiry, and that with admiration, who it is that appears in such a habit or posture, Isa 63:1, and why, Isa 63:2; that cometh from Edom That is, Idumea, the country where Esau, sometimes called Edom, dwelt. It is here put for all the enemies of Gods church, as it is also Isa 34:5-6, where see the notes. The Idumeans, it must be observed, joined with the enemies of the Jews in bringing on the destruction of Jerusalem, in the time of the captivity, for which they were severely reproved by the prophets, and threatened with utter destruction, which accordingly came to pass; the prophets, therefore, generally apply the name of this people to signify any inveterate and cruel enemy, as in this place. But the words Edom and Bozrah may be taken in the appellative sense, to denote in general, a field of blood, or a place of slaughter; the word Edom signifying red, and Bozrah a vintage, which, in the prophetical idiom, imports Gods vengeance upon the wicked. Lowth. With dyed or stained garments Thus Christ is described Rev 19:13, where also he is represented as taking vengeance on his enemies. The LXX. render it , redness of garments. This that is glorious Or magnificent, as Bishop Lowth renders it; in his apparel, travelling Marching on, in the greatness of his strength Like a general marching in triumph at the head of his army, and carrying tokens of victory upon his raiment. I that speak in righteousness I the Messiah, who never promise any thing but what I will faithfully perform, and who do and will always truly execute justice: mighty to save Perfectly able to effect the promised redemption of my people, whatever difficulties and oppositions may lie in the way of it, and to accomplish their full salvation. Bishop Lowth renders the clause, I who publish, or announce righteousness, and am mighty to save, observing, that a MS. has , with the demonstrative article added, giving greater force and emphasis to the expression, The Announcer of righteousness.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 63:1. With dyed garments from Bozrah. Not the Bozrah in Moab, but Bozrah, the capital of Idumea. Perhaps it was because Judas Maccabeus slaughtered twenty thousand of them in one battle, that certain Jews, followed by many Christians, have erroneously understood this passage of that prince. But there was a gate in Jerusalem called the gate of Bozrah, through which the Saviour might pass when sent by Pilate to Herod.

The answer to the question is given by the Messiah. I that speak in righteousness, who am mighty to save. Now, no one but the Messiah published righteousness. He commissioned the king of Assyria, the rod of his anger, to punish the Jews: chap. 10.

Isa 63:2. The church asks, Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine vat?

Isa 63:3. The Messiah answers, I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me. Isa 59:11; Isa 59:16, is much the same, where it is said, there being no intercessor, his own arm brought salvation. These words are not applicable to conquerors at the head of armies; but in the garden of Gethsemane the Saviour interceded alone, the disciples being heavy with sleep.

To the second question, Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, he answers, I will tread them in mine angerI will stain all my raiment with their blood. The Lord did this when he sent the Romans against Jerusalem, and he will do it more fully when he shall destroy the last enemies of the church. Rev 19:15.

Isa 63:7. I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, in a new song, after the victory obtained by his own arm. To memorialize the gracious cares of providence, and the particular instances of his mercy, would form the most elevated subject of sacred song. Every age, every year, every morning open with mercies ever new.

Isa 63:8. He said, surely they are my people. Not feigning, not denying, not degenerating, as the Versions read; so he was their Father, pitying them as a father pitieth his children. In all their afflictions he was afflicted. He was with their fathers in their pilgrimage; he saw them in Egypt, he marched with them through the sea. The cloud of his chariot was seen by Ezekiel, in the oriental lands of their captivity.

Isa 63:9. The Angel of his Presence, panaiv, of his face, saved them. The Arians teach in succession that this angel was Michael, or one of the seven angels who stand before the throne. To follow those guides is to make shipwreck of faith. The old rabbins regard this angel as Shaddai, the strong, because he possesses the power of God. The angel named here, is no other than he who led the Hebrews in the desert. Behold, I send an angel before thee. Num 23:20. This angel is called the face of God, for he is the brightness of his glory. Heb 1:3.

The marvellous works he effectuated demonstrate the glory of his person; he saved and redeemed his servants from all evil and mischief. Gen 48:16. It was against his Holy Spirit that the Hebrews revolted, and vexed him by their sins. His names equally designate who he is, for this Angel is called Jehovah. Exo 33:2; Exo 13:21; Exo 14:10; Exo 14:24. Nec alius is erat qum Christus. Neither, says Poole, was this Angel any other than Christ, as appears by comparing Acts 8:48, with 1Co 10:4; 1Co 10:9. He is also called the angel of the covenant. Mal 3:1. He is given for a covenant to the people, and is the Mediator of the new covenant. Heb 8:3. He is the face of God, for he who has seen the Son, hath seen the Father also. Joh 14:9. He is the image of the invisible God. Col 1:15. For our sakes he appears in the presence of God, and makes intercession for the transgressors. The general council held at Constantinople in the year 381, confirms the above exposition.

To the scripture testimonies that this angel was the Christ, we may superadd those of the christian fathers. The Latin works of bishop Bull are before me. Ed. London, 1721. Defensio fidei Nicaen, &c. He proves, and with common consent, that the angel who appeared to the patriarchs, to Moses at the burning bush, and to the parents of Samson, was the Christ; which appears by his names, by his acts, and by the sacrifices and worship which he received. I will translate his words and extracts.

Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, contends that he who appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre; the Jehovah who from Jehovah in heaven, , that is, from the universal parent, rained down fire and sulphur on Sodom; that he who appeared to Jacob in a dream, and afterwards wrestled with him in human form, to console him in his exile; and lastly, that he who appeared to Moses at the burning bush, was the Christ.Ed. Paris, 1615. pp. 275, 277.

Of him who appeared to Abraham, and to Moses, Irenus gives the same sense as Justin. Adv. Hres. 50, 4. c. 11. Ed. Paris, 1639. The living God therefore, adored by the prophets, even the living God, and his Word [] who spake to Moses, and who confounded the sadducees by expounding the resurrection of the dead, is the same Jehovah.

Theophilus Antiochenus, writing to Autolycus, asserts that he who appeared to Adam immediately alter the fall was the Son of God, assuming the person of the Father and universal Lord; that he came into paradise in the person of God, and talked with Adam.

Tertullian, in his book against the Jews, asserts that he who spake to Moses was the Son of God; but more openly and fully against Praxeas, caput 16. The Son who was the Judge from the beginning, overthrew the proud tower, deluged the whole earth with violent waters, rained on Sodom and Gomorrah fire and sulphur, Jehovah from Jehovah. He it was who always descended to talk with men, from Adam to the patriarchs and prophets, in visions and dreams, in shadows and figures, and guided their affairs from the beginning, everywhere following and instructing them. God conversing with men, could be no other than the WORD, which was made flesh.

For a superabundance of other short testimonies, bishop Bull refers the student to Origen, to Cyprian, Novatius, and other fathers, which assert that this Angel was the Christ, the Word, the Son of God. In those fathers Christ, and his holy apostles, still speak to us.

How appalling on this head to find Lowth arranged on the opposite side to Bull. It is bishops opposing bishops, and on a vital article of faith. The contamination is general among the dignitaries of the church. Dr. Enfield has published The English Preacher, in nine volumes of sermons, so low in sentiment as to give no offence to the Unitarian reader!

Isa 63:10. They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit. They did so at the waters of Meribah, and at Kadesh-barnea. Num 14:11. Psa 95:10. It was against the Jehovah Elohim that they revolted. This whole passage is therefore properly adduced to prove the doctrine of the adorable Trinity, by the fathers and divines of every succeeding age. Vide Turrentines Latin work, an excellent compendium of Theology, Ed. Amsterdam, 1695, pp. 35, 36. Vide Mellificium Theologicum, a Latin commonplace book, containing a hundred thousand heads of theology. The only edition of this invaluable work was printed at Amsterdam, 1658.

Isa 63:11; Isa 63:14. Then he remembered the days of old, Moses and his people. How he forgave their sins on imperfect acts of repentance; how he led them through the deep, as a horse is led into the water; how he caused them, like a herd of cattle, to go down into the vallies, and feed in peaceful pastures, giving them rest in the promised land. How many are his tender mercies!

Isa 63:16. Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us. A just avowal that God was more their Father than the holy patriarchs. In trouble, those fathers could not save them; but the Messiah was ever their Saviour, as in Isa 62:11; and their Redeemer, as in Job 19:25. Why then do the papists pray to dead men?

Thy name is from everlasting, me-lam, verbatim, from everlasting. So is the liberal reading of Psa 90:2. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God. The same word occurs in Mic 5:2. The Messiah, born in Bethlehem Judah, whose goings forth were of old from everlasting. This agrees with Psa 110:3. From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. Pro 8:22. Dr. Lowths note here is, But instead of me-lam, from everlasting, an ancient manuscript has le-man, for the sake of, which gives a much better sense. Thus, to deprive the Redeemer of a text which literally designates his eternity, one solitary Hebrew manuscript must supersede the wide world of Hebrew Bibles! From such comments, Animus luctu refugit, the mind revolts with sorrow. Surely, my friend, Dr. Adam Clarke, in reprinting the whole of Lowth, did not weigh the consequences of such futile criticisms, being himself, on Isa 9:6, unto us a Son is given, very explicit on the divine nature of Christ. No paternity can be added to the Father, nor filiation to the Son.

Isa 63:19. We are thine: thou never barest rule over them. The LXX read, We are as we were at first, when thou didst not rule over us, and when we were not called by thy name. DR. WALL.

REFLECTIONS.

Isaiah, foreseeing the ruin of the Jewish church and nation, looks solely for help and hope to the Redeemer, clothed with a high coloured vesture, baptized and besprinkled with blood. Vengeance he saw would overtake the enemies of the church, and a new Israel would be gathered when this victorious Sovereign should publish righteousness to the heathen, and show himself mighty to save.

His names, his titles, and his offices embolden the confidence of the church. Jehovah, the Elohim, the Divinity, the great Angel of the covenant, who did great and marvellous things for the fathers, is made the only hope of the children. Though they had rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit, anger soon gave way to paternal love. Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, that passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage; he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. Mic 7:18.

Zion therefore sings a new song in the time of sorrow. I will memorialize the lovingkindness of the Lord in all ages past, as arguments and pledges of hope for future years. The Lord will return for his servants sake, and pity the ruins and walls of his desecrated Zion, and cause his light and glory to return.

Assuredly, the gift of prophecy to the favoured few, was luminous in the ancient church; they saw the consolations, as well as the sorrows of the saints. And those holy seers always placed the flock under shelter, before the ruder blasts devastated the land. May the same Lord ever hide us in the clefts of the rock.

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

Isa 63:1-6. The Triumph of Yahweh.In this poem, isolated from its context, the poet, looking into the future, sees a solitary but majestic warrior striding along, his splendid garments all bloodstained. Who, he asks, is this? To which Yahweh Himself, for it is He, makes answer, I, resplendent in triumph, mighty to deliver. Why, asks the poet, is Thine apparel stained red like the garments of the grape-treader? Yahweh answers, A wine-trough indeed have I trodden and the nations lent Me no aid. In fury I trampled them, so that their juice spurted out and I stained all My garments. This terrible figure is explained in Isa 63:4-6. Yahwehs day of vengeance on the nations that oppressed His people, the year (cf. Isa 61:2) of ransom (cf. mg.) was come. He sought an ally among the nationsbut to His astonishment found none to support Him. So His own strength and fury wrought deliverance for Him. The nations in passion He trampled and smashed (so read with some MSS for made drunk) in His fury, spilling their life-blood (literally juice, the same word as in Isa 63:3) on the ground. The poem ends abruptly; the end of it seems to have been lost.

Isa 63:1. Edom, Bozrah: if the text is right Edom, and its chief city Bozrah, are used as typical of the nations. Cf. Isaiah 34. But with the slightest change we might translate cometh all crimsoned, his garments redder than a vintager. We might read in the last clause: I resplendent in righteousness (i.e. triumph), mighty to save.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

63:1 Who [is] this that cometh {a} from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this [that is] glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? {b} I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

(a) This prophecy is against the Idumeans and enemies who persecuted the Church, on whom God will take vengeance, and is here set forth all bloody after he has destroyed them in Bozrah, the chief city of the Idumeans: for these were their greatest enemies,and under the title of circumcision and the kindred of Abraham.

(b) God answers them that asked this question, “Who is this?” etc. and says “You see now performed in deed the vengeance which my prophets threatened.”

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

1. God’s faithfulness in spite of Israel’s unfaithfulness 63:1-65:16

Isaiah proceeded to glorify the faithfulness of God by painting it against the dark background of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Even though people cannot attain righteousness on their own, God makes it available to them through the work of His Servant.

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

The solitary Warrior 63:1-6

The Lord explained how Israel could possibly rejoice in the repossession of its homeland, even if such malicious neighbors as the Edomites still surrounded it.

"Having described the exaltation of Zion and her enlargement through the influx of the Gentiles, the prophet turns to describe the destruction of Zion’s enemies." [Note: Young, 3:475.]

"The oracle is most dramatic. The only OT passage that in any way resembles it is the account of Joshua’s encounter with the angelic captain of the Lord’s host (Jos 5:13 to Jos 6:5). There too, as here, there are two questions and two answers; and there is a similar anxious inquiry: ’Are you for us or for our enemies?’" [Note: Grogan, p. 339.]

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

Isaiah described a watchman observing a Warrior coming from the southeast, the direction of Edom (red) and its capital Bozrah (vintage; cf. Isa 52:8). Edom was Israel’s perennial enemy, but here it quite clearly represents, by synecdoche, all of Israel’s enemies.

"Babylon and Edom are always to be taken literally, so far as the primary meaning of the prophecy is concerned; but they are also representative, Babylon standing for the violent and tyrannical world-power, and Edom for the world as cherishing hostility and manifesting hostility to Israel as Israel, i.e. as the people of God." [Note: Delitzsch, 2:444.]

This Warrior was coming to Israel, having defeated Israel’s enemies. He was a mighty man, strong and majestic, wearing vivid garments. The Warrior identified Himself as someone who speaks (cf. Joh 1:1-2; Joh 1:14). This is the outstanding characteristic of God from Gen 1:3 to Rev 21:5. His words were right and His strength was for salvation. Watts viewed this warrior as follows.

He is "a symbol of Persian imperial power fighting Jerusalem’s and Yahweh’s battles for them. Perhaps he is best thought of as Megabyzus, the redoubtable Persian general who served as satrap of Beyond the River during this period [i.e., the post-exilic period] . . ." [Note: Watts, Isaiah 34-66, p. 321.]

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

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