Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 44:20
He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, [Is there] not a lie in my right hand?
20. He feedeth on ashes ] lit., “a shepherd of ashes”. Duhm rather fancifully suggests that the image may be that of a man trying to feed his flock on a pasture that has been reduced to ashes: “A shepherd of (or on) ashes is he whom a deceived heart hath turned aside” (from the ways of reason). Another rendering might be: “One who finds satisfaction in ashes is he whom, &c.” For this sense of the verb r‘h see Hos 12:1 (?); Psa 37:3; Pro 15:14, &c. (Gesenius, Lexicon 12 , sub verbo).
and he shall not deliver his soul ] Cf. Isa 44:17.
Is there not a lie ] Am I not cleaving to that which will disappoint my hope?
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He feedeth on ashes – There have been various interpretations of this. Jerome renders it, A part of it is ashes; the Chaldee, Lo! half of the god is reduced to ashes; the Septuagint, Know thou that their heart is ashes. The word rendered here feedeth ( roeh) means properly to feed, graze, pasture; and then, figuratively, to delight, or take pleasure in any person or thing Pro 13:20; Pro 15:14; Pro 28:7; Pro 29:3. In Hos 12:1, Ephraim feedeth on wind, it means to strive after something vain or unprofitable; to seek that which will prove to be vain and unsatisfactory. So here it means, that in their idol-service they would not obtain that which they sought. It would be like a man who sought for food, and found it to be dust or ashes; and the service of an idol compared with what man needed, or compared with the true religion, would be like ashes compared with nutritious and wholesome diet. This graphic description of the effect of idolatry is just as true of the ways of sin, and of the pursuits of the world now. It is true of the frivolous and the fashionable; of those who seek happiness in riches and honors; of all those who make this world their portion, that they are feeding on ashes – they seek that which is vain, unsubstantial, unsatisfactory, and which will yet fill the soul itself with disgust and loathing.
A deceived heart hath turned him aside – This is the true source of the difficulty; this is the fountain of all idolatry and sin. The heart is first wrong, and then the understanding, and the whole conduct is turned aside from the path of truth and duty (compare Rom 1:28).
A lie in my right hand – The right hand is the instrument of action. A lie is a name often given to an idol as being false and delusive. The sense is, that that which they had been making, and on which they were depending, was deceitful and vain. The work of their right hand – the fruit of their skill and toil, was deceptive, and could not save them. The doctrine is, that that which sinners rely on to save their souls; that which has cost their highest efforts as a scheme to save them, is false and delusive. All schemes of religion of human origin are of this description: and all will be alike deceptive and ruinous to the soul.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 44:20
He feedeth on ashes
Earth used as food
One of the most extraordinary examples of depraved or perverted appetite is the use of earth for food.
This propensity is not an occasional freak, but a common custom, and is found among so large a number and variety of tribes that it may be regarded as co-extensive with the human race. From time immemorial the Chinese have been in the habit of using various kinds of edible earth as substitutes for bread in times of scarcity; and their imperial annals have always religiously noticed the discovery of such bread-stones, or stone-meal, as they are called. On the western coast of Africa a yellowish kind of earth, called caouac, is so highly relished, and so constantly consumed by the negroes, that it has become to them a necessary of life. In the island of Java, and in various parts of the hill-country of India, a reddish earth is baked into cakes and sold in the village markets for food; while on the banks of the Orinoco, in South America, Humboldt mentions that the native Indians find a species of unctuous clay, which they knead into balls, and store up in heaps in their huts as a provision for the winter or rainy season. They are not compelled by famine to have recourse to this clay; for even when fish, game, and fruit are plentiful they still eat it after their food as a luxury. This practice of eating earth is not confined solely to the inhabitants of the Tropics. In the north of Norway and in Swedish Lapland a kind of white powdery earth, called mountain-meal, found under beds of decayed moss, is consumed in immense quantities every year. It is mixed by the people with their bread in times of scarcity; and even in Germany it has been frequently used as a means of allaying hunger. All these examples of the use of earth as food are so contrary to our experience that they might seem incredible were it not that they are thoroughly authenticated. Such an unnatural custom must, in the long run, prove injurious to the constitution of those who indulge in it, although it is wonderful how long it can be carried on by some individuals apparently with impunity. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Feeding on ashes:
In the spiritual world there are many who feed upon ashes. The prophet is speaking of the idolater.
I. WHO IS THE IDOLATER–who is the he that is said to feed on ashes? The prophet had a definite audience before him. He was prophesying to the children of Israel. Notwithstanding the purity and sublimity of their own monotheistic creed, and the awful threatenings and sanctions with which it was guarded, we can trace throughout their entire history, as a marked feature of their character, a propensity to blend a theoretical belief in the true God with an accommodating reverence to the idols of the heathen Pantheon. Except when under the immediate spell of some special revelation of Jehovah, they craved for some visible shape or outward sign of the divinity–a craving which was satisfied for a time by the erection of the tabernacle and temple, and the establishment of the worship connected with them, but which soon overleaped barriers thus imposed upon it, and sought for novel sensations in the tabernacle of Moloch and in the star of the god Remphan–figures which they made to worship them. The very priests and Levites, who were most concerned in keeping the worship of Jehovah pure, were the leaders of the various national apostasies. Isaiah deeply deplored this national fickleness and spiritual inconstancy. In the passage under consideration he seeks to overwhelm it with contempt. Were Isaiah addressing us in these days his ideas would be the same, though the form in which he would present them would be different. Material idolatry, in its literal import, has passed away among civilised nations. But the essence of the temptation remains the same. Human society is changed, but human nature is unchanged. The impulse which led to idolatry is therefore as strong at the present day as it was in the time of Isaiah; and images are set up and worshipped now as fantastic as any pagan fetich or joss. The New Testament form of the Second Commandment, Be not conformed to this world, requires to be frequently and urgently enforced. If I were to sum up all spiritual idolatry in these days in one form, I should call it worldliness, for everything else is but a phase of this. And this worldly conformity leads speedily, in most instances, to a low moral standard, and to a weak and corrupt form of religion, and produces the same humiliating results which flowed from the idolatry of ancient times.
II. WHAT IS IDOLATRY? It is a perverted spiritual appetite. In certain diseased states of the brain there is an unnatural craving for the most extraordinary and unwholesome substances. Men and women under such morbid influences have been known to eat cinders and sand with apparent relish, and even to prefer them to the richest dainties. In such cases it is not the appetite that is at fault. The controlling power of the brain, which chooses the proper food, is impaired, and this healthy appetite is set to work upon substances which are altogether unsuitable. In like manner idolatry arises from a natural craving of the soul, which was made for God, for His worship and enjoyment. It finds that it must go out of itself for the blessedness it needs. This spiritual appetite is a God-given instinct of our nature. It is the soul seeking its highest good. It is healthy and natural. But when, under the guidance and power of a deceived heart, it seeks its gratification in earthly things to the exclusion altogether of God, it affords a most melancholy example of a perverted spiritual appetite.
III. WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF IDOLATRY? How does idolatry affect the man guilty of it? There is a very striking and beautiful relation between the food of man and his digestive organs. He is omnivorous. He is the ruler of the world, and therefore the varied life of the world must throb in his veins. But all the varied food which she presents to him must be organic food. Phosphorus literally flames in the brain, that thoughts may breathe and words may burn; lime gives solidity to the bones; the alkaline salts promote the oxidation and removal of the effete materials of the body. Common minerals–iron, sulphur, soda, potash, and others–circulate in the blood, or are garnered in the various tissues. But all these inorganic materials are furnished, not from the earth directly, but in the food; the various vegetable and animal products containing them in varying quantities. Such being the law of mans nutrition, it will be seen at once that if he feeds directly upon ashes, he is feeding upon substances that are altogether incongruous, and unfitted to nourish him. His organs cannot digest or assimilate ashes. And is not the analogy between spiritual and natural things here very clear? If mans spiritual appetite can feed only on God, then if man seeks his portion only in the things of the world, what can you expect but spiritual indigestion and misery? It is true, indeed, that just as the body requires inorganic elements–salt, lime, and iron–as well as organic, for its proper nourishment, so man requires the things of the world as well as the things of faith for his spiritual welfare. But then we are to seek these temporal things, not directly from the world, but through the channel of communion with God. There are natures that, by a long course of feeding upon ashes, have become accustomed to this unnatural diet. Like the clay-eaters of South America, their digestive organs become assimilated to their food, and they are put to little inconvenience by it. We meet with persons who are satisfied with their portion in this world, who mind earthly things, and are contented with the nourishment for their souls which they find in them. But are such persons the truly great and noble ones of our race? How can an infinite hunger be appeased by a finite good? The soul wants organised food; food that has spiritual life in it; food that is redolent of the sunshine and permeated with the light of heaven; food that has drunk in all the impalpable virtues and forces of the things unseen and eternal; food that can gather up in itself these vitalising influences, and transfer them to us to glow within our veins and animate our nerves; and, instead of that, we get ashes out of which all the glow and the virtue have departed. Our sin will become our punishment; our idols our scourges. I have remarked that there are some who are satisfied with their worldly portion–who, though feeding upon clay, are not put to inconvenience by it. Such individuals, in the midst of their contentment, are in reality, if they only knew it, more to be pitied than those whose truer instincts are tortured by the unsuitable food by which they endeavour to appease their spiritual cravings. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Feeding on ashes
I. THE VAIN OBJECTS TO WHICH MAN DIRECTS HIS ENERGIES. He feedeth on ashes.
II. THE REASON OF THIS PERVERTED CHOICE. A deceived heart hath turned him aside. Sin, in its very nature, has a tendency to harden the heart. When it first begins to make advances, there is resistance offered to it. Conscience speaks, expostulates, reproaches; but sin gets the mastery. Conscience becomes by degrees blunted; the heart at length gets callous, that it cannot feel; the eye is altogether darkened, that it cannot see; the ear heavy, that it cannot hear the instruction of wisdom. Thus the heart is in due time thoroughly deceived. It rejoices in evil, instead of in good; it has an exclusive appetite for the bitter instead of the sweet. But there is a diseased state of the heart where the fatal results do not appear so manifest to the eye of man. When the world is keenly loved and followed, when self is worshipped, when God is not supreme in the affection, the root must be looked for in the heart. The heart is deceived. How dangerous is this state of heart! How much does it need of watchfulness in the case of every one of us, so that we may not be ensnared by it.
III. THE DANGER OF THIS STATE, AND THE DIFFICULTY OF ITS REMEDY. He cannot deliver himself. When the heart has been once beguiled by the deceitfulness of sin, and its affections have been riveted and firmly fixed upon earthly things, it is not in man to deliver himself. God, indeed, has provided means whereby those who have banished themselves from Him may be brought home to His fold. In Him there resides power to cut asunder the chain, however firmly it may bind us down to the earth.
IV. SOME PRACTICAL QUESTIONS FOR OUR EXAMINATION. Is there not a lie in my right hand? (H. J. Hastings, M. A.)
I. WHAT THE SOUL PROPERLY REQUIRES. We cannot find food for the body in ourselves; we have to look for it in the animal or vegetable world. Our spiritual part–our intellect, conscience, affections–is every whit as dependent on extraneous supplies as our bodies are.
The deceived heart:
I propose to show–
II. HOW PERILOUSLY FAR SOME ARE FROM GIVING TO THEIR SOULS WHAT THEY REQUIRE. You see this magnificent provision; it is spread before your eyes. But the question is, are you feeding on it? Feeding implies taking it to yourself, appropriating it, masticating it with pleasure, receiving it into your digestion. It then becomes a part of you, and goes into your bones, your blood, your flesh, your marrow. We admit that you come to the feast, that you admire it, and that you intend to eat; but we cannot admit that you are feeding on it thus far. We cannot say you have the Word of God dwelling in you richly in all wisdom. (J. Bolton, B. A.)
A perverted appetite:
Two lessons were learnt by Israel in captivity–the all-sufficiency of God, and the absurdity of idols. It is on the latter of these that we are now to dwell. Why do men act with such inconceivable folly? The prophet knows nothing of the modern theory that men do not worship the stone or wood, but accept the effigy as a help to fixedness of thought and prayer; he would affirm that with the mass of men this is a fiction, and that the worship of the devotee stops short with what he can see and touch. The cause of idolatry lies deeper. He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, &c.
I. THERE IS A HUNGER FOR THE DIVINE IN MAN.
1. It is universal.
2. It is significant. We can tell something of the composition of the human body by the materials which it needs for its sustenance. Similarly the true dignity of man betrays itself in the hunger which perpetually preys upon him. If man is only matter, if thought is only the movement of the grey matter of the brain, if there is no spirit and no beyond, how is it that the material world cannot supply the supreme good?
3. It is inevitable. The functions which food performs in our system are threefold. It is needed to replace the perpetual waste which is always wearing down the natural tissues; to maintain the temperature at some 98; and to provide materials for growth. And each of these has a spiritual analogy. We need God, for the same three reasons as the body needs food.
(1) To replace the perpetual waste of our spiritual forces.
(2) For warmth and heat.
(3) For growth.
II. THIS APPETITE MAY BE PERVERTED. He feedeth on ashes. Men tamper with their natural appetite. But there is a close similarity in their treatment with that wonderful yearning after the unseen and eternal which is part of the very constitution of our being–a hunger after the ideal Food, the ideal Beauty, the ideal Truth, which may be resisted and ignored, but still claims satisfaction; and if it does not get it in God, it will seek it in the ashes of idolatry. Men worship idols yet. The man of the world worships money, rank, high office. The child of fashion worships in the temple of human opinion, and feeds on the ashes of human applause an appetite which was meant to satisfy itself on the Well done! of the Almighty. The student who questions or denies the Being of God, worships in the temple of learning; and feeds with the ashes of human opinion an appetite which was intended to be nourished by eternal truth. And in every case these substitutes for God, with which men try to satisfy themselves, are as incapable of satisfying the heart, as ashes of supporting the physical life.
III. THE TRUE BREAD.
1. It is the gift of God. My Father giveth the true Bread from heaven. God who made thee hunger for bread, made bread to grow for its appeasement. Other vegetables have their peculiar habitat. But the cornplant will make its home in every land, and grow on every soil. He has also provided beauty for our taste, truth for our thought, love for our heart; and has gathered all these and much more into His one Gift, Jesus Christ.
2. Nature yields her provision to man through death. So it is through death that Jesus has become the Food of men. We must assimilate our food. We must receive Jesus into our hearts by an act of spiritual apprehension. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
Feeding on ashes:
I shall speak of three classes of young men who are feeding on ashes.
I. Those who are giving themselves up to SENSUAL PLEASURE. There is no one on earth who has so much right to the pleasures of the world as the believer. I do not believe in asceticism. I do not believe in pious melancholy. But this innocent hilarity, which leaves no ill results behind, is good and healthful, and a very different thing from the emmaddening gaieties of the world.
II. I have a word to say to you who are setting up another idol for your worship. It is neither Venus nor Bacchus, but it is Plutus; it is WORLDLY SUBSTANCE; it is money. There is no sin in desiring to be rich, if your money comes to you honourably, and goes from you usefully. But what is all that, if that is all? Can you feed the immortal soul within you with bank cheques and good investments? Will all the gold in the Bank of England appease the hunger of your deathless spirit? No! But many seem to think it will. Such men are the most hopeless cases to deal with. I should be more sanguine of bringing to the feet of Jesus a poor bloated debauchee, than of doing any good to one of these hardened, wizened, shrivelled-up money-scrapers, who for twenty, thirty, or forty years have no other thought but this–to lay up gain.
III. There is a third class of men who are daily feeding on ashes, because a deceived heart has turned them aside. They have got hold of a lot of INFIDEL LITERATURE, and they are stuffing their souls with as weak and poisonous rubbish as it is possible to meet with. With the prophet, I invite you to something more palatable and nourishing; I bid you to a feast of milk and honey; hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. (J. T. Davidson, D. D.)
Feeding on ashes:
Many to-day feed on the kind of ashes Isaiah has in mind.
1. False conceptions of God.
2. False conceptions of Christ.
3. False conceptions of religion.
4. False conceptions of the Church.
5. False conceptions of morality, life, and happiness.
Application:–
1. Upon the true or false conception of God and His relations to men conduct depends. The Christians conception of God is revealed in the incarnation, life, and atonement of His Son. He only is a true Christian who obeys Christs words, imitates His life, and becomes conformed to His image. He must be our ideal.
2. Again, we ask how comes it that men thus feed on ashes? A deceived heart hath turned him aside. (J. B. Nies, Ph. D.)
Feeding on ashes:
To-day we are told by a hundred voices that all religion begins at the bottom, and slowly struggles up to the top. Isaiah says the very opposite. The pure form is the primitive; the secondary form is the gross, which is a corruption. They tell us, too, that all religion pursues a process of evolution, and gradually clears itself of its more imperfect and carnal elements. Isaiah says He cannot deliver his soul, and no religion ever worked itself up, unless under the impulse of a revelation from without. That is Isaiahs philosophy of idolatry, and I expect it will be accepted as the true one some day.
I. A LIFE THAT SUBSTANTIALLY IGNORES GOD IS EMPTY OF ALL TRUE SATISFACTION. He feedeth on ashes. Very little imagination will realise the force of that picture. The gritty cinders will irritate the lips and tongue, will dry up the moisture of the mouth, will interfere with the breathing; and there will be no nourishment in a sackful of them. The underlying truth is this–God only is the food of a mans soul. You pick up the skeleton of a bird upon a moor; and if you know anything about osteology, you will see in the very make of its breast-bone and its wing-bones the declaration that its destiny is to soar into the blue. And written on you, as distinctly as flight on the bird, or swimming on the fish, is this, that you are meant, by your very make, to soar up into the heights of the glory of God, and to plunge deep into the abysses of His infinite love and wisdom. What does your heart want? A perfect, changeless, all-powerful love. And what does your mind want? Reliable, guiding, inexhaustible yet accessible truth. And what does your will want? Commandments which have an authoritative ring in their very utterance, and which will serve for infallible guides for your lives. And what do our weak, sinful natures want? Something that shall free our consciences, and deliver us from the burden of our transgressions, and calm our fears, and quicken and warrant our lofty hopes. And what do men whoso nature is to live for ever want but something that shall go with them through all changes of condition? We want a person to be everything to us. No accumulation of things will satisfy a man. God has not so blundered in making the world that He has surrounded us with things that are all lies, but He has so made it that whosoever flies in the face of the gracious commandment which is also an invitation, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, has not only no security that the other things shall be added unto him, but has the certainty that though they were added to him, in degree beyond his dreams and highest hopes, they would avail nothing to satisfy the hunger of his heart.
II. A LIFE WHICH THUS IGNORES GOD IS TRAGICALLY UNAWARE OF ITS OWN EMPTINESS. A deceived heart hath turned him aside. That explains how the man comes to fancy that ashes are food. His whole nature is perverted, his vision distorted, his power of judgment marred. That explains, too, why men persist in this feeding on ashes after all experience. You will see a dog chasing a sparrow. It has chased hundreds before and never caught one. Yet, when the creature rises from the ground, away it goes after it once more, with eager yelp and rush, to meet the old experience. That is like what a great many of you are doing, and you have not the same excuse that the dog has. And that deceived heart, stronger than experience, is also stronger than conscience. How is it that this hallucination that you have fed full and been satisfied, when all the while your hunger has not been appeased, can continue to act on us? For the very plain reason that every one of us has in himself a higher and a lower self, a set of desires of the grosser, more earthly, and, using the word in its proper sense, worldly sort–that is to say, directed towards material things, and a higher set which look right up to God if they are allowed fair play. And of these two sets–which really are one at bottom, if a man would only see it–the lower gets the upper hand, and suppresses the higher and the nobler.And so in many a man and woman the longing for God is crushed out by the gross delights of sense.
III. A LIFE THUS IGNORING GOD NEEDS A POWER FROM WITHOUT TO SET IT FREE. He cannot deliver his soul. There is nothing more awful in life than the influence of habit. There is something more wanted than yourselves to break this chain. It is the Christ who is the Bread of God that came down from heaven; who can deliver any soul from the most obstinate and long continued grovelling amongst the transitory things of this limited world, and the superficial delights of sense and gratified bodily life; who can bring the forgiveness which is essential, the deliverance from the power of evil which is not less essential, and who can fill our hearts with Himself, the food of the world. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The deceived heart:
I. THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE ENTIRELY DECEIVED IN THEIR RELIGION.
1. The idolater.
2. The Romanist.
3. Freethinkers.
4. False professors.
II. ALTHOUGH THERE ARE MANY PERSONS THUS DECEIVED IN RELIGION, WE ARE NOT TO SUPPOSE THAT ANY OF THEM ARE REALLY CONTENTED IN HEART WITH THEIR RELIGION.
III. IT IS A STRANGE THING THAT ALL THESE PEOPLE SEEM VERY WELL CONTENTED WITH THEIR FALSE RELIGIONS.
IV. I WANT TO SPEAK TO THOSE WHO ARE PROFESSORS OF RELIGION BUT WHO DO NOT POSSESS IT. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The deceitfulness of the heart in embracing false confidences
The heart discovers its deceitfulness–
I. BY ITS STRONG PROPENSITY TO RECEIVE ANY ERROR MORE READILY THAN TRUTH.
II. BY ITS EXTREME RELUCTANCE TO THE ONLY WAY OF SALVATION, AND BY ITS VIOLENT PROPENSITY TO EVERY LYING REFUGE. More particularly we observe–
1. That multitudes betake themselves to the general mercy of God.
2. The heart often disposes one to look into itself for something good.
3. Others found their hope on resolutions of reformation.
4. Partial and outward reformation is the confidence of many.
5. Many confide in a bare profession of religion and observation of the form of duties.
6. Others deceive themselves into a reliance on their Church privileges.
7. Some confide in their gifts, or in their usefulness by means of them.
8. Some may trust to a work of the law, as if it were in itself saving.
9. This principle of deceit is discovered by the sinners endeavours to obtain justification by moral duties.
10. Many trust to their sincerity in religion. But what is this sincerity in which you make your boast before God? Do you not confide in it as the ground of your justification? If so, it must be the sincerity of a person who is not yet justified; that is, of one still under the curse of the law.
11. Another false confidence, which many fly to, is the observance of superstitious rites.
12. Some may rest on their sufferings in the cause of Christ.
13. Others may depend on a notional faith. Some are persuaded of the truth of the Gospel. But they prove that their faith is not Divine, because it is unfruitful.
14. The deceitfulness of the heart operates in others, by making them rest upon supposed attainments in holiness. There is a question the solution of which materially affects every one of us before God. If false professors may have so eminent attainments, and so remarkable a resemblance to true holiness, how may we distinguish between such attainments as are the fruit of the Spirits saving work and those which only flow from natural affections or from a common operation?
(1) These attainments, which are saving, have always a humbling tendency.
(2) Saving attainments are consistent with a godly jealousy.
(3) The fruit of solid Christian attainments is thankfulness to God.
(4) The Christian disclaims all his attainments with respect to justification.
(5) Saving attainments leave a lasting impression on the heart.
(6) The real believer loses not his confidence in God, even under severe afflictions.
(7) The real Christian does not wish to stop short in his attainments.
(8) The believer is equal, or at least consistent, in his attainments. While he makes progress in duty, in the exercise of grace, in liveliness and spirituality of affections, he at the same time advances in the mortification of sin.
(9) All true Christians have a real love to holiness, (J. Jamieson, M. A.)
Perverted spiritual appetites:
Drunkenness is a perverted spiritual appetite, a seeking in the creature what God alone can give, the longing of the soul for higher and purer happiness than the hard round of daily life and the weary sorrowful circle of the world can give. So, too, covetousness, if analysed in the same way, will be found to be a perverted spiritual appetite, a misdirected worship. Covetousness is identified in Scripture with idolatry: Covetousness which is idolatry, says St. Paul. No covetous man, who is an idolater, hath an inheritance in the kingdom of God. The love of money, as it has been well said, is the love of God run wild, the diseased action of a spiritual appetite, the aberration of a nature that was made for God. Wealth is the mystic shadow of God, which the soul is unconsciously groping after and craving for. It presents some faint features of resemblance to Him. It seems omnipotent, able to do all things; omnipresent, showing signs of itself everywhere; beneficent, supplying our present wants, providing for our future, procuring for us an endless variety of blessings, and giving us almost all that our hearts can desire. And because it presents these superficial resemblances to God, it becomes a religion to many, a worship loud in praise and aspiration as any that ever filled a church. And so is it with every form of idolatry of which man in these enlightened days can be guilty. It is the soul, in its restless pursuit of happiness, mistaking the true object of which it is in quest. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Arsenical poisoning:
The peasant women of Styria are in the habit of constantly eating a certain quantity of arsenic, in order to enhance their personal charms. It imparts a beautiful bloom to the complexion, and gives a full and rounded appearance to the face and body. For years they persevere in this dangerous practice; but if they intermit it for a single day, they experience all the symptoms of arsenical poisoning. The complexion fades, the features become worn and haggard, and the body loses its plumpness and becomes angular and emaciated. Having once begun, therefore, to use this cosmetic, they must in self-defence go on, constantly increasing the dose in order to keep up the effect. At last the constitution is undermined; the limit of safety is overpassed; and the victim of foolish vanity perishes miserably in the very prime of life. And is it not so with those who feed upon the poison of the worlds idolatries? They may seem to thrive upon this insidious and dangerous diet, but all the time it is permanently impairing their spiritual health, and rendering them unfit for spiritual communion. The more they indulge in it, the more they must surrender themselves to it; and the jaded appetite is stimulated on to greater excesses, until at last every lingering vestige of spiritual vitality is destroyed, and the soul becomes a loathsome moral wreck, poisoned by its own food. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Unsuitable food:
There is such a thing as a wasting of the body from insufficient nutrition, even when the appetite is satisfied and the stomach content. A strange plant, called the nardoo, with clover-like leaves, closely allied to the fern tribe, grows in the deserts of Central Australia. A melancholy interest is connected with it, owing to the fact that its seeds formed for several months almost the sole food of the party of explorers who a few years ago crossed the continent. This nardoo satisfied their hunger; it produced a pleasant feeling of comfort and repletion. The natives were accustomed to eat it in the absence of their usual roots and fruits, not only without injury, but apparently with positive benefit to their health. And yet, day after day, Burke and Wills became weaker and more emaciated upon this diet. Their flesh wasted from their bones, their strength was reduced to an infants feebleness, and they could only crawl painfully a mile or two in a day. At last, when nearing the bourne of their hopes, the explorers perished one by one of starvation; a solitary survivor being found in the last extremity under a tree, where he had laid him down to die, by a party sent out in search of the missing expedition. When analysed, the nardoo bread was ascertained to be destitute of certain nutritious elements indispensable to the support of a European, though an Australian savage might for a while find it beneficial as an alternative. And thus it happened that these poor unfortunate Englishmen perished of starvation, even while feeding fully day by day upon food that seemed to satisfy their hunger. Now, is it not precisely so in the experience of those who are seeking and finding their portion in earthly things? They are contented with it, and yet their hunger is in reality unappeased. Their desires are crowned, and yet they are actually perishing of want. God gives them their request, but sends leanness to their souls. Is it not far more dreadful to perish by slow degrees of this spiritual atrophy, under the delusive belief that all is well, and therefore seeking no change of food, than to be tortured by the indigestion of feeding on ashes, if by this misery the poor victim can be urged to seek for food convenient for him? (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
He feedeth on ashes:
Is not the very term most significant? What are ashes? They are the last solid products of matter that has been used up–the relics that remain after all that is useful and nutritious has been consumed. You burn a piece of wood or a handful of corn, and its grosser particles fall to the ground, while all its ethereal parts–its carbon and hydrogen–mount to the skies and disappear. It is a sad thing to gaze upon the ashes of the commonest fire; for in them there is an image of utter death and ruin–of something that has been bright and beautiful, and is now but dull, cold, barren dust. And what are earthly, created things, upon which so many are feeding the hunger of their immortal souls, but ashes?
They were once bright and beautiful. Gods blessing was upon them, and they were very good. But sin has consumed all their goodness and beauty, has burned up all in them that was capable of ministering to the spiritual wants of men, and left nothing behind but dust and ashes. We can apply this truth to all the world, so far as it is made the portion of the soul. In a moral sense, the whole world, which was once capable of ministering to mans spiritual wants, is now a mere heap of cinders. Its beauty has gone with its goodness, and its sufficing power with its holiness. It has become spiritually oxidised by combination with the all-devouring element of sin. The man that loves the world now feeds on ashes; not upon earth, for there is a degree of nourishment in soil, owing to the remains of former life, and the worm and the plant feed upon it; not upon clay, for the clay which the American-Indians eat is found to consist of microscopic plants with silicious envelopes, called diatoms, containing a small portion of organic matter sufficient to sustain existence;–no, but on dry, white, dusty ashes, utterly destitute of any nutritious element whatever, upon which no creature can live, and upon which almost no plant can grow–the refuse of everything that is good. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Unsuitable food:
Some time ago, I read in the papers of a little boy who for months had been gathering up prune-stones, being fond of the kernel; so, wishing to prepare for himself a great treat, he laid up quite a large store: at last came the day of anticipated enjoyment; he ate them all, and, after hours of agony, died! So I have seen men who have given up their whole life to one aim, to amass wealth; preparing a banquet of enjoyment for the evening of their days; and, when they sat down to the feast, lo! on the table only ashes, ashes! (J. T. Davidson, D. D.)
A deceived heart hath turned him aside
The self-deception of most who affect to be infidels
1. Consider seriously, what was the real origin of your unbelief. A fathers house forsaken, and a fathers instructions soon to be forgotten, you entered on the world. Passions rose within you. Companions encouraged them; religion checked them. Your belief became irksome to your indulgence; and your faith descended to doubts. It was natural and necessary that it should do so, if you meant to continue in your sins.
2. You have had times, no doubt, when you thought your course somewhat wrong; and, partly sated with such enjoyments, had some idea of turning from them. What, then, was the obstacle? Was it the difficulty which you had in accounting for the truth of revelation? Was it not the voice of pleasure whispering, Will you then renounce the joys which were once so dear to you? Here was the fatal obstacle. Not in the difficulties of revelation, but in the timidity and weakness of the heart.
3. If this be not true, go one step farther. Many have met with calamity; a death unexpected among your friends, some great and sudden change of fortune, which showed you the uncertainty of human happiness. In these cases, what was your resource? Did you go to the tables, whither before you had gone for pleasure? Was it in the society of those who make a mock at sin that you expected the gleam of comfort in the hour of sorrow? Your heart will own that, when you were in heaviness, you could think upon God. But religions truth all the time remained the same. If, therefore, you doubted on it under the former situation, why not under the latter? Your heart deceived you. You did not disbelieve. You wished to do so; and passion blinded you. Affliction removed the veil from your heart.
4. But, living as we do in an age of boasted light, this reasoning will probably be considered as carried too far; and it will be urged by many a young man, that, although the passions may have had some influence in biassing his opinions, yet his doubts of the Gospel have arisen, in some measure, from his judgment. Let us, then, meet him on this ground. We expect, therefore, from you some striking argument that is to set aside at once the authority of ages and destroy the best hopes and resources of the human heart. And what do we find? A few common-place phrases and objections–doubts, not created by yourselves, but only received from others, and kept up by you, to preserve a kind of watchword of a party against believers.
5. But if you have not searched very deeply into these things yourself, they with whom you are in the habit of associating are adequate to give you sufficient religious instruction, and you have taken, you say, your creed chiefly from them. Let us, then, repair a moment to them. You profess yourselves general believers in a God, and possessed of some amiable virtues. How often in the assemblies of your friends and instructors is the name of God mentioned without irreverence? How seldom have you heard rigid virtue made the subject of discussion except to be ridiculed? Have you often heard beauty and innocence mentioned without some sentiment of an abandoned passion? (G. Mathew, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 20. He feedeth on ashes] He feedeth on that which affordeth no nourishment; a proverbial expression for using ineffectual means, and bestowing labour to no purpose. In the same sense Hosea says, “Ephraim feedeth on wind.” Ho 12:1.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He feedeth on ashes, which is an unsavoury, unprofitable, and pernicious food, and no less unsatisfying, uncomfortable, and mischievous is the worship of idols.
A deceived heart; a mind corrupted and deceived by long custom, deep prejudice, gross error, and especially by his own lusts.
Hath turned him aside from the way of truth, from the knowledge and worship of the true God, unto this brutish idolatry.
Cannot deliver his soul from the snares. and dangers of idolatry. This cannot is to be understood morally, so as to note the great difficulty, but not the utter impossibility of it; for if idolaters would consider things, they might be convinced of and turned from that gross way of wickedness, as is implied from the foregoing verse.
Is there not a lie in my right hand? what is this idol, which I have made with my right hand, i.e. with all my strength? as was said before; the right hand being the strongest and the chief instrument of this and other actions: which I set at my right hand, as the true God is said in Scripture to be at the right hand of his people, Psa 16:8; 109:31; 121:5; which I highly honour; for the most honourable place was on the right hand, as is known: to which I look and trust for relief and assistance, which God in Scripture is said to afford to his people, by being at and holding of their right hand; Psa 73:23; 110:5. What, I say, is this idol Is it not a lie, which though it seems and pretends to be something, and to be a god, yet in truth is nothing but vanity and falsehood, deceiving all that put their trust in it?
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
20. feedeth on ashesfiguratively,for the idolater delights in what is vain (Pro 15:14;Hos 12:1). “Feedeth onwind.” There is an allusion, perhaps, also, to the god beingmade of a tree, the half of which was reduced to ashes by fire(Isa 44:15-17); theidol, it is implied, was no better, and could, and ought, to havebeen reduced to ashes like the other half.
deceived heartTheheart and will first go astray, then the intellect and life (Rom 1:28;Eph 4:18).
lie in . . . right handIsnot my handiwork (the idol) a self-deceit?
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He feedeth of ashes,…. That is, the idolater delights in his idol, pleases himself with seeks comfort and satisfaction from it, fills and feeds himself with hopes and expectations of being helped and delivered by it; but this is all vain hope, a mere delusion; it is as if a man fed on ashes instead of food; it is feeding on that which has no savour nor substance, can yield no nourishment, but, on the contrary, is pernicious and hurtful; and it is like Ephraim’s feeding on wind, Ho 12:1 or on chaff instead of wheat, Jer 23:28 and so such who feed upon and delight themselves in sinful lusts, or false doctrines, may be said to feed on the same sort of food: and here it may be true of the idol in a literal sense; part of the wood of which it was made being reduced to ashes, to which some respect may be had, Isa 44:15, and that itself was capable of the same fate. The Targum is,
“behold his god, part of it is ashes;”
so the Vulgate Latin version: “a deceived heart hath turned him aside” from the true God, and the right worship of him, unto idolatry; the heart of man is deceitful, and desperately wicked; a man needs no other to entice him, and draw him away into any sin, and from the living God, than his own evil heart; which, being deceived itself, deceives him, and leads him to the commission of such things as are contrary to reason and common sense: and he is so infatuated with them, and possessed with a strong belief of them,
that he cannot deliver his soul: divest himself of his erroneous and wicked principles, and leave his idolatrous practices, or be persuaded that he is in the wrong:
nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand? that the idol, which his right hand has made, is a lie, a mere vanity, not to be depended upon and trusted in: or which is in, or “at his right hand” m; and worshipped by him, and is highly esteemed and loved as his right hand; this he cannot be persuaded to believe, and say that it is a falsehood and a work of errors; such is the force and fascination of idolatry, when once persons are ensnared and entangled with it.
m “[quod est] in dextera mea”, Piscator; “ad dexteram meam”, Junius & Tremellius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
This exposure of the infatuation of idolatry closes with an epiphonem in the form of a gnome (cf., Isa 26:7, Isa 26:10). “He who striveth after ashes, a befooled heart has led him astray, and he does not deliver his soul, and does not think, Is there not a lie in my right hand?” We have here a complete and self-contained sentence, which must not be broken up in the manner proposed by Knobel, “He hunts after ashes; his heart is deceived,” etc. He who makes ashes, i.e., things easily scattered, perishable, and worthless, the object of his effort and striving (compare ruach in Hos 12:2), has bee led astray from the path of truth and salvation by a heart overpowered by delusion; he is so certain, that he does not think of saving his soul, and it never occurs to him to say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” All that belongs to idolatry is sheqer – a fabrication and a lie. means primarily to pasture or tend, hence to be concerned about, to strive after. is an attributive, from talal – hatal , ludere , ludificare (see at Isa 30:10).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
20. He feedeth on ashes. This verse also confirms the preceding statement. To “feed on ashes” is the same thing as “to be fed with ashes,” just as “to feed on wind” is the same thing as “to be fed with wind.” (Hos 12:1.) Both expressions are used, as on the other hand, “Thou shalt feed on truth,” is put for “Thou shalt be fed with truth,” that is, “Thou shalt be satisfied.” (Psa 37:3.) Others interpret that passage, “Thou shalt administer spiritual provision,” and others, “Thou shalt feed faithfully;” but I choose rather to adopt the former interpretation. (185) But here he means that men are haughty and puffed up, but yet that they are empty and worthless, because they are merely full of deceptions, which have nothing solid or lasting. With such pride men will rather burst than be satisfied.
A deceived heart disposes him. Next, he again includes both statements, that they are blinded by deceitful lusts, so as to see nothing, and yet that they voluntarily and willingly surrender themselves to vain delusions. The Prophet dwells largely on this, in order to shew that nothing drives men to false and wicked worship but this, that they are led to it of their own accord; and therefore there is no ground for imputing this vice to others, since they find in themselves the fountain which they earnestly nourish and defend. With strange presumption they rise up against God, are puffed up with a false opinion of their superstitions, and, in a word, are swollen and ready to burst with pride But let us feed on the solid food of truth, and not allow ourselves to be led astray by any delusions.
Not to deliver his soul. He heightens the picture by saying that they flatter themselves in a matter so important; for who would forgive negligence in that which relates to salvation? We see how eagerly every person labors for this transitory life; and when the eternal salvation of the soul is in danger, what is more intolerable than that men should indolently slumber, when they might save it by making exertion? A man is said. to deliver his own soul, who by repentance rescues himself from the snares of the devil, in the same manner as some men are said to save others, when by holy warnings they bring back wanderers into the right way. (Jas 5:20.) How comes it then that idolaters rush headlong to their own destruction? It is because they hasten to it at full gallop, harden their hearts, and do not permit themselves to be drawn back.
Is there not a lie (186) in my right hand? Thus he briefly points out the method by which men may deliver themselves from destruction. It is by examining their actions and not flattering themselves; for whoever is delighted with his error, and does not inquire if his manner of life be right, will never “deliver his soul.” In like manner the Papists refuse to inquire into the reasons for their worship, and disguise that stupidity under the name of simplicity; as if God wished us to be beasts, and did not enjoin us to distinguish between the worship which he approves and that which he rejects, and to inquire diligently what is his will, so as not to approve of everything without distinction. Everything ought to be tried by the standard which he has laid down for us. If that be done, we shall easily avoid danger; but if not, let us lay the blame of our destruction on ourselves, because of our own accord we wish to perish, and do not allow ourselves to receive any warning, or to be brought back into the right path.
(185) The Author’s exposition of Psa 37:3, and the Editor’s note, may be consulted with advantage. — Commentary on the Psalms, vol. 2, p. 19. — Ed.
(186) שקר (sheker) denotes in general ‘anything that deceives, a vain or deceitful thing,’ which does not correspond to a man’s opinion and expectation, but deceives and imposes upon him. Hence also (in Jer 10:14) an idol is called שקר (sheker). — Rosenmuller.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(20) He feedeth on ashes.The verb passes readily through the meanings feeding, pasturing, following after, and the last is commonly accepted. The first, however, has the merit of greater vividness. (Comp. Hos. 12:1.) The ashes of the smiths furnace become the symbols of the vanity of his work (Ecc. 7:6), and yet he has not even the germ of truth which lies in the questions of the sceptic.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
DISCOURSE: 936
THE FOLLY OF SPIRITUAL IDOLATRY
Isa 44:20. He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?
WE who have lived under the light of revelation, and have been instructed in the knowledge of the one true God, are amazed at the stupidity of the Heathen, who form idols of wood and stone, and worship gods which they themselves have made. But we do not consider, that it is not the forming of these images, but the trusting in them, that makes them gods: and that we ourselves are guilty of idolatry as much as the heathen themselves, if in any respect we love and serve the creature more than the Creator [Note: Rom 1:25.]. This is the essence of idolatry; as the Apostle tells us; Beware of covetousness, which is idolatry [Note: Col 3:5.]. And of persons addicted to sensual enjoyments, he says, they make a god of their belly [Note: Php 3:19.]: and Christians universally, being in danger of indulging an undue confidence in, or attachment to, the creature, are guarded against those evils in these very expressive terms, Little children, keep yourselves from idols [Note: Joh 5:21.]. In speaking therefore of idolaters, it is not necessary that we carry you back to the prophets days, or that we take you amongst Pagans of the present day: the language in our text is quite as applicable to us at this time as to any of them. With a view therefore to spiritual idolaters amongst ourselves, I will shew you,
I.
The folly of their ways
Of every one amongst them it may truly be said, He feedeth on ashes: for, whatever the things be with which he seeks to satisfy his desires, they are,
1.
Unsuitable
[It is needless to say, how unsuitable ashes are for the food of the body: but they are not a whit less so than the things of this world are for the nourishment of the soul. The soul is a spiritual substance, and must be fed with that which is spiritual. It was formed for God: and nothing but what comes from God, and leads to God, can support it. The word of God, for instance, is food on which it may subsist: and hence the new-born babe desires the unadulterated milk of the word, that he may grow thereby [Note: 1Pe 2:2.]. On this the saints of old subsisted: Thy words were found, and I did eat them: and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart [Note: Jer 15:16. Psa 119:103.]. The presence of God also is that which strengthens the believing soul: for that it hungers and thirsts, even to see his power and glory, as they are revealed in the sanctuary: and, when a sense of his loving-kindness is imparted to it, the soul is filled as with marrow and fatness, and praiseth him with joyful lips [Note: Psa 63:1-5.]. In a more particular manner the Christian is nourished by the flesh of Christ and the blood of Christ; on which he feeds continually, and which he finds to be meat indeed, and drink indeed [Note: Joh 6:53-55.]. As for the things of time and sense, they are but as husks which the swine eat of: and to attempt to feed on them, is only to feed upon the wind [Note: Hos 12:1.], and to fill the belly with the east wind [Note: Job 15:2.].]
2.
Unsatisfying
[To all who go to the creature for happiness, the prophet says, Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [Note: Isa 55:1-2.]. In confirmation of the reproof here given, I will venture to appeal to all, even to those who have drunk deepest of the cup of pleasure, and feasted themselves most largely with carnal delights; Has any thing that you have ever enjoyed, afforded you permanent satisfaction? Was your eye ever satisfied with seeing, or your cur with hearing? or, Was any man that loved silver, ever satisfied with silver [Note: Ecc 5:10.]? There is but one testimony on this head, from every child of man. Vanity is written upon all human enjoyments; and vexation invariably follows in the pursuit of them.]
3.
Injurious
[As ashes, if taken into the stomach, would soon injure the constitution of the body, so all endeavours to satisfy the soul with carnal enjoyments will of necessity deprave and vitiate all its faculties. Such food will indispose the soul for every thing that is spiritual and divine: it will weaken all its energies; and debase all its powers; and reduce it to the lowest possible state of degradation, causing it to nauseate every thing which God has ordained for its good, and to affect every thing which will tend to its destruction. Every day that a man lives to himself and to this present world, he departs farther and farther from God, and renders himself more and more incapable of heavenly pursuits and heavenly enjoyments. He is a sinner against his own soul [Note: Num 16:38.]; and is fitly represented as wronging his own soul, and loving death [Note: Pro 8:35-36.].]
But to what shall we look as,
II.
The source of their errors
It is not from any radical defect in their understanding that this idolatry proceeds: it comes from their heart: a deceived heart hath turned them aside. This is a point which is by no means duly considered. If the subject of idolatry be brought fairly before a heathen, he sees at once that his god cannot help itself, and consequently can much less afford any help to him. And in like manner the spiritual idolater, if only he will candidly examine the matter, must see, and be convinced, that a vain world can never satisfy an immortal soul. But,
1.
His heart is deceived by Satan
[Satan is the great deceiver of mankind, He puts a gloss on every thing; representing as desirable that which is in itself evil; and hiding the deformity of it; and assuring us, that no painful consequences will follow a compliance with his suggestions. Thus he beguiled Eve in Paradise: and thus he still deceives the children of men, over the face of the whole earth. He was a lying spirit in all the prophets of Ahab [Note: 1Ki 22:22.]: and he has his agents in every place, who are ready by every possible means to forward his delusions. He can, and often does, assume the form of an angel of light [Note: 2Co 11:13-15.]: and not unfrequently urges his temptations in so specious a way, as to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect [Note: Mat 24:24.]. In a word, so subtle are his devices, that to know them, and be aware of them, is a science which scarcely any human being is able to attain [Note: 2Co 2:11.]; so innumerable are his wiles, and so unsearchable his deceits.]
2.
His deceived heart turns aside his whole man
[The heart, beguiled thus, and vitiated with evil propensities, blinds his understanding, biasses his will, and carries him forward in ways, which a more dispassionate view of things would lead him to condemn. This distinction clearly appears in the two verses preceding our text: They have not known nor understood: for God hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see, and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire, &c and shall I make the remains thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? Then it is added, He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside. The blindness in his understanding arises from a want of due and unbiassed consideration in the heart. And, in fact, all evil will be found to originate here. The heart of the sons of men is full of evil [Note: Ecc 9:3.]; and it is deceitful above all things, as well as desperately wicked [Note: Jer 17:9.]: and, like a bias in a bowl, even when under any strong impulse a man has been going for a season in u right direction, it draws him gradually aside, and causes him to rest in a situation far distant from that at which he aimed. Who amongst us has not had abundant experience of this in his own soul? Who amongst us has not been drawn from complying with the dictates of a better principle, by the more powerful influence of an evil principle within him; and thus followed the less proper course, at the very time that he beheld and approved the better [Note: Rom 7:23.]? Thus it is with all the votaries of this world: they have an internal consciousness that their ways and their doings are not good: they therefore will not bring them to the test of Gods revealed will: they are afraid of coming to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved [Note: Joh 3:19-20.]: yet, through the deceits of Satan and their own hearts, they say, We shall have peace, notwithstanding we walk in the imagination of our own hearts [Note: Deu 29:19.]. Thus, I say, it is with them: they are carried away by a spirit of whoredom [Note: Hos 4:12.]: they are drawn away of their own lust, and enticed. Then, when their lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death [Note: Jam 1:14-15.].]
Hence we may easily account for,
III.
The strength of their delusions
They cannot deliver their souls
[Truly, as our Liturgy well expresses it, they are tied and bound with the chain of their sins. The whole generation of ungodly men are led captive by the devil, at his will [Note: 2Ti 2:26.], and are carried away to their idols, even as they are led [Note: 1Co 12:2.]. Amongst them all there are few, if any, who have not felt at times some desire to liberate themselves from their thraldom, and formed some purpose to turn unto their God. But they have not been able to effect it; their inward lusts have been too strong for them, and their deep-rooted habits too inveterate; so that they could no more change their course of life, than an Ethiopian could change his skin, or a leopard his spots [Note: Jer 13:23.]. Their good desires have perhaps been renewed from time to time; but have soon vanished again; their goodness being only as a morning cloud, or as the early dew that passeth away [Note: Hos 6:4.]. In a time of sickness possibly, and at the expected approach of death, they may appear to have gained the victory over their corruptions. But no resolutions of theirs have been found sufficient. Returning health has brought with it renewed temptations; and these have borne down all their purposes, which have snapped asunder, as the cords or withs with which Sampson was bound: and the poor devotees of this world have returned again to their idols, as a dog to his vomit, and as a sow that is washed to her wallowing in the mire.]
They cannot even say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?
[Even to consider their ways with any seriousness, is an effort beyond their power. I mean not that they are under any natural incapacity for this; but such is their moral weakness, and such the strength of their corrupt nature, that they cannot do what their better judgment would dictate. If they attempt to read or pray, their minds start aside from the employment, even as a deceitful bow [Note: Psa 78:57. Hos 7:16.]: and their thoughts quickly rove to the very ends of the earth. It is said of Satan, that, as a strong man armed, he keepeth his palace, and his goods are in peace [Note: Luk 11:21.]. And this is verified in experience: for he keepeth his vassals from considering their bondage; he suggests to them that they will have some more convenient season for such unwelcome reflections; and he thus induces them to think only of peace and safety, till sudden destruction come upon them [Note: 1Th 5:3.], and they perish without a remedy [Note: Pro 29:1.]. One would indeed scarcely conceive it possible that rational and immortal beings should be so insensible in the midst of their dangers, and against all the dictates of their better judgment: but so it is: they are willingly deceived, and are therefore given over to a delusion to believe their own lie [Note: 2Th 2:11.]: and so vain are they in their imaginations, and so darkened in their foolish hearts [Note: Rom 1:21.], that to bid them examine whether they have not a lie in their right hand, is as great an offence to them, as it would be to a poor, blind, infatuated heathen.]
Infer
1.
How thankful should we be for a Saviour!
[If God had not laid help for us upon One that is mighty, who amongst us could ever be saved? Blessed be God, if there is a strong man armed that has enslaved us, there is a stronger than he, that has overcome him, and taken from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divided his spoils [Note: Luk 11:21-22.]; and at this moment sends his servants to proclaim, in his name, liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound [Note: Isa 49:9.]. The very first sermon which he himself ever preached on earth was to this effect [Note: Luk 4:18-19.]. In his name therefore I now preach the acceptable year of the Lord, even the year of Jubilee, wherein every slave may assert his liberty, and claim the possession of his forfeited inheritance. Rejoice then, Brethen, in these glad tidings: and now cast your idols to the moles and to the bats. Feed no more on ashes: let not a deceived heart any longer turn you aside: but deliver your souls; and come forth into the light and liberty of the children of God. If your cast idolatries have involved your souls in guilt, there is a sufficiency in the blood of Christ to cleanse you from it [Note: 1Jn 1:7.]: if your corruptions appear so inveterate that you cannot hope to subdue them, the grace of Christ shall be sufficient for you [Note: 2Co 12:9.]. Only seek henceforth your all in him, and you shall be saved by him with an everlasting salvation: you shall not be ashamed or confounded, world without end [Note: Isa 45:17.].]
2.
How watchful should we be against the remains of our corrupt nature!
[Whilst we are in this world, we still carry about with us a body of sin and death, and many corrupt propensities, against which we must be ever on our guard. We are but in part renewed. The flesh still lusteth against the Spirit, as well as the Spirit against the flesh [Note: Gal 5:17.]. And Satan has still power to tempt us, yea, and will sift us all as wheat, if our blessed Lord do not interpose for our help. We see in Demas, how prone the carnal heart is to relapse into the love of earthly things; and we know very little of ourselves, if we have not learned, by our own manifold backslidings, that we are yet in danger of turning back unto perdition [Note: Heb 10:38-39.], and of losing all the things which we have wrought [Note: 2 John, ver. 8.]. I would say then, Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation [Note: Mat 26:41.]: and take to you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand [Note: Eph 6:12-13.] ]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 44:20 He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, [Is there] not a lie in my right hand?
Ver. 20. He feedeth on ashes, ] i.e, He seeketh comfort of his idol, but findeth as little as he doth nourishment who feedeth upon ashes.
A seduced heart hath turned him aside.
Is there not a lie in my right hand?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah
FEEDING ON ASHES
Isa 44:20
The prophet has been pouring fierce scorn on idolaters. They make, he says, the gods they worship. They take a tree and saw it up: one log serves for a fire to cook their food, and with compass and pencil and plane they carve the figure of a man, and then they bow down to it and say, ‘Deliver me, for thou art my god!’ He sums up the whole in this sentence of my text, in which the tone changes from bitter irony to astonished pity. Now, if this were the time and the place, one would like to expand and illustrate the deep thoughts in these words in reference to idolatry; thoughts which go dead in the teeth of a great deal that is now supposed to be scientifically established, but which may be none the more true for all that. He asserts that idolatry is empty, a feeding on ashes. He declares, in opposition to modern ideas, that the low, gross forms of polytheism and idol-worship are a departure from a previous higher stage, whereas to-day we are told by a hundred voices that all religion begins at the bottom, and slowly struggles up to the top. Isaiah says the very opposite. The pure form is the primitive; the secondary form is the gross, which is a corruption. They tell us too, nowadays, that all religion pursues a process of evolution, and gradually clears itself of its more imperfect and carnal elements. Isaiah says, ‘he cannot deliver his soul’; and no religion ever worked itself up, unless under the impulse of a revelation from without. That is Isaiah’s philosophy of idolatry, and I expect it will be accepted as the true one some day.
But my text has a wider bearing. It not only describes, in pathetic language, the condition of the idolater, but it is true about all lives, which are really idolatrous in so far as they make anything else than God their aim and their joy. Every word of this text applies to such lives-that is to say, to the lives of a good many people listening to me now. And I would fain try to lay the truths here on some hearts. Let me just take them as they lie in the words before me.
I. A life that substantially ignores God is empty of all true satisfaction.
Dear brethren, the underlying truth is this-God is the only food of a man’s soul. You pick up the skeleton of a bird upon a moor; and if you know anything about osteology-the science of bones-you will see, in the very make of its breast-bone and its wing-bones, the declaration that its destiny was to soar into the blue. You pick up the skeleton of a fish lying on the beach, and you will see in its very form and characteristics that its destiny is to expatiate in the depths of the sea. And, written on you, as distinctly as flight on the bird, or swimming on the fish, is this, that you are meant, by your very make, to soar up into the heights of the glory of God, and to plunge deep into the abysses of His infinite love and wisdom. Man is made for God. ‘Whose image and superscription hath it?’ said Christ. The coin belongs to the king whose head and titles are displayed upon it; and on your heart, friend, though a usurper has tried to recoin the piece, and put his own foul image on the top of the original one, is stamped deep that you belong to the King of kings, to God Himself.
For what does our heart want? A perfect, changeless, all-powerful love. And what does our mind want? Reliable, guiding, inexhaustible, and yet accessible truth. And what does our will want? Commandments which have an authoritative ring in their very utterance, and which will serve for infallible guides for our lives. And what do our weak, sinful natures want? Something that shall free our consciences, and shall deliver us from the burden of our transgressions, and shall calm our fears, and shall quicken and warrant our lofty hopes. And what do men whose destiny is to live for ever want but something that shall go with them through all changes of condition, and, like a light in the midst of the darkest tunnel, shall burn in the passage between this and the other world, and shall never be taken away from them? We want a Person to be everything to us. No accumulation of things will satisfy a man. And we want all our treasures to be in one Person, and we need that that Person shall live as long as we live, and as long as we need shall be sufficient to supply us. And all this is only the spelling in many letters of the one name-God. That is what we want, that, and nothing less.
Then the next step that I suggest to you is, that where a man will take God for the food of his spirit, and turn love and mind and will and conscience and practical life to Him, seeing Him in everything, and seeing all things in Him; saturating, as it were, the universe with the thought of God, and recreating his own spirit with communion of friendship to Him; to that man lower goods do first disclose their real sweetness, their most poignant delight, and their most solid satisfaction. To say of a world where God has set us, that it is all ‘vanity and vexation of spirit,’ goes in flat contradiction to what He said when, creation finished, He looked upon His world, and proclaimed to the waiting seraphim around that ‘it was very good.’ There is a view of the world which calls itself pious, but is really an insult to God; and the irreligious pessimism that is fashionable nowadays, as if human life were a great mistake, and everything were mean and poor and insufficient, is contrary to the facts and to the consciousness of every man. But if you make things first which were meant to be second, then you make what was meant to be food ‘ashes.’ They are all good in their place. Wealth is good; wisdom is good; success is good; love is good. And all these things may be enjoyed without God, and will each of them yield their proportional satisfaction to the part of our nature to which they belong. But if you put them first you degrade them; a change passes over them at once. A long row of cyphers means nothing; put a significant digit in front of it, and it means millions. Take away the digit, and it goes back to nothing again. The world, and all its fading sweets, if you put God in the forefront of it, and begin the series with Him, is sweet, though it may be fleeting, and is meant to be felt by us as such. But if you take away Him, it is a row of cyphers signifying nothing, and able to contribute nothing to the real, deepest necessities of the human soul. And so the old question comes-’Why do ye spend your money for that which is not bread?’ It is bread, if only you will remember first that God is the food of your souls. But if you try to nourish yourselves on it alone, then, as I said, a sackful of such ashes will not stay your appetite. Oh! brethren, God has not so blundered in making the world that He has surrounded us with things that are all lies, but He has so made it that whosoever flies in the face of the gracious commandment which is also an invitation, ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,’ has not only no security that the ‘other things’ shall ‘be added unto him,’ but has the certainty that though they were added to him, in degree beyond his dreams and highest hopes, they would avail nothing to satisfy the hunger of his heart. As George Herbert puts it-
‘Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career,
Embroidered lies, nothing between two dishes,
These are the pleasures here.’
II. So, secondly, notice that a life which thus ignores God is tragically unaware of its own emptiness.
That explains, too, why men persist in this feeding on ashes after all experience. There is no fact stranger or more tragical in our histories than that we do not learn by a thousand failures that the world will not avail to make us restful and blessed. You will see a dog chasing a sparrow,-it has chased hundreds before and never caught one. Yet, when the bird rises from the ground, away it goes after it once more, with eager yelp and rush, to renew the old experience. Ah! that is like what a great many of you are doing, and you have not the same excuse that the dog has. You have been trying all your lives-and some of you have grey hairs on your heads-to slake your thirst by dipping leaky buckets into empty wells, and you are at it yet. As some one says, ‘experience throws a light on the wave behind us,’ but it does very little to fling a light on the sea before us. Experience confirms my text, for I venture to put it to the experience of every man-how many moments of complete satisfaction and rest can you summon up in your memory as having been yours in the past? ‘He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase.’ Appetite always grows faster than supply. And so, though we have tried them in vain so often, we turn again to the old discredited sources, and fancy we shall do better this time. Is it not strange? Is there any explanation of it, other than that of my text? ‘A deceived heart hath turned him aside.’
And that deceived heart, stronger than experience, is also stronger than conscience. Do you not know that you ought to be Christians? Do you not know that it is both wrong and foolish of you to ignore God? Do you not know that you will have to answer for it? Have you not had moments of illumination when there has risen up before you the whole vanity of your past lives, and when you have felt ‘I have played the fool, and erred exceedingly’? And yet, what has come of it all with some of you? Why, what comes of it with the drunkard in the Book of Proverbs, who, as soon as he has got over the bruises and the sickness of his last debauch, says, ‘I will seek it yet again.’ ‘A deceived heart hath turned him aside.’
And how is it that this hallucination that you have fed full and been satisfied, when all the while your hunger has not been appeased, can continue to act on us? For the very plain reason that every one of us has in himself a higher and a lower self, a set of desires for the grosser, more earthly, and, using the word in its proper sense, worldly sort-that is to say, directed towards material things, and a higher set which look right up to God if they were allowed fair play. And of these two sets-which really are one at bottom, if a man would only see it-the lower gets the upper hand, and suppresses the higher and the nobler. And so in many a man and woman the longing for God is crushed out by the grosser delights of sense.
One sometimes hears of cowardly, unmanly sailors, who in shipwreck push the women and children aside, and struggle to the boats. And there are in all of us groups of sturdy mendicants, so to speak, who elbow their way to the front, and will have their wants satisfied. What becomes of the gentler group that stand behind, unnoticed and silent? It is an awful thing when men and women do, as so many of us do, pervert the tastes that are meant to lead them to God, in order to stifle the consciousness that they need a God at all. There are tribes of low savages who are known as ‘clay-eaters.’ That is what a great many of us are; we feed upon the serpent’s meat, the dust of the earth, and let all the higher heavenly food, which addresses itself first to loftier desires, but also satisfies these lower ones, stand unnoticed, unsought for, unpartaken of. Dear friends, do not be befooled by that treacherous heart of yours, but let the deepest voices in your soul be heard. Understand, I beseech you, that their cry is for no created person or thing, and that only God Himself can satisfy them.
III. And now, lastly, notice that a life thus ignoring God needs a power from without to set it free.
Dear brethren, there is something more wanted than yourselves to break this chain. You have tried, I have no doubt, in the course of your lives, more and more resolutely, to cure yourselves of some more or less unworthy habits. They may be but mere slight tricks of attitude or intonation, or movement. Has your success been such as to encourage you to think that you can revolutionise your lives, and dethrone the despots that have ruled over you in the past? I leave the question to yourselves. To me it seems that the world of men is certain to go on ignoring God, and seeking its delight only in the world of creatures, unless there comes in an outside power into the heart of the world and revolutionises all things.
It is that power that I have to preach, the Christ who is the ‘Bread of God that came down from Heaven,’ who can lift up any soul from the most obstinate and long-continued grovelling amongst the transitory things of this limited world, and the superficial delights of sense and a gratified bodily life; who can bring the forgiveness which is essential, the deliverance from the power of evil which is not less essential, and who can fill our hearts with Himself the food of the world. He comes to each of us; He comes to you, with the old unanswerable question upon His lips, ‘Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?’ It is unanswerable, for you can give no reason sufficient for such madness. All that you could say, and you durst not say it to Him, is, ‘a deceived heart hath turned me aside.’ He comes with the old gracious word upon His lips, ‘Take! eat! this is My body which is broken for you.’ He offers us Himself. He can stay all the hungers of all mankind. He can feed your heart with love, your mind with truth which is Himself, your will with His sweet commands.
As of old He made the thousands sit down upon the grass, and they did all eat and were filled, so He stands before the world to-day and says, ‘I am the Bread of Life; He that cometh to Me shall never hunger.’ And if you will only come to Him-that is to say, will trust yourselves altogether to the merits of His sacrifice, and the might of His indwelling Spirit-He will take away all the taste for the leeks and onions and garlic, and will give you the appetite for heavenly food. He will spread for you a table in the wilderness, and what would else be ashes will become sweet, wholesome, and nourishing. Nor will He cease there, for in His own good time He will call us to the banqueting house above, where He will make us to sit down to meat, and come forth Himself and serve us. Here, hunger often brings pain, and eating is followed by repletion. But there, appetite and satisfaction will produce each other perpetually, and the blessed ones who then hunger will not hunger so as to feel faintness or emptiness, nor be so filled as to cease to desire larger portions of the Bread of God. I beseech you, cry, ‘Lord, ever more give us this bread!’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
soul. Hebrew. nephesh. App-13.
a lie: i.e. the maker’s vain fancy.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
feedeth: Job 15:2, Psa 102:9, Pro 15:14, Hos 12:1, Luk 15:16
a deceived: 1Ki 22:20-23, Job 15:31, Hos 4:12, Rom 1:20-22, Rom 1:28, 2Th 2:11, 2Ti 2:13, Rev 12:9, Rev 13:14, Rev 18:23, Rev 20:3
Is there: Isa 28:15-17, Jer 16:19, Hab 2:18, 2Th 2:9-11, 1Ti 4:2
Reciprocal: Deu 11:16 – your heart Jdg 17:13 – General 1Ki 22:23 – the Lord Job 31:27 – my heart Psa 14:4 – Have Psa 119:29 – Remove Psa 119:118 – their deceit Psa 144:8 – their right hand Ecc 4:8 – For Isa 17:8 – the work Isa 27:11 – therefore Isa 40:21 – General Isa 44:9 – their own Isa 44:18 – have not Isa 55:2 – do ye Jer 8:5 – they hold Eze 16:17 – and didst Hos 11:12 – compasseth Amo 2:4 – and their Hab 2:6 – ladeth Mat 13:15 – their eyes Act 14:15 – from Rom 1:25 – into a lie Rom 7:11 – deceived 1Co 3:18 – deceive 2Ti 3:13 – being Tit 3:3 – deceived Heb 3:13 – the deceitfulness Jam 1:14 – when Jam 1:22 – deceiving Jam 1:26 – but
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
44:20 He feedeth {z} on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, [Is there] not a lie in my right hand?
(z) He is abused as one that would eat ashes, thinking to satisfy his hunger.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Pursuing idols is like feeding on ashes. No satisfaction, but instead eventual disgust and death, follow. The idol is good for nothing but burning (Isa 44:15), and the person who worships an idol will finally find himself with nothing but ashes instead of an idol. The person who pursues this path to satisfaction has been deceived by his own heart. He cannot deliver himself out of such a trap. He has become addicted. He must cry out for deliverance to Another-who has the power to enlighten the blind.