The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth [it] to heart: and merciful men [are] taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil [to come].
Isa 57:1-2. The most alarming feature of the situation, though the least noticed, is the gradual removal of the righteous members of the community. Comp. Psa 12:1.
merciful men ] lit., men of piety (cf. ch. Isa 55:7, Isa 28:14).
none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come] The idea conveyed by this rendering is that the natural death of many good men was a divine intimation, little heeded by the community, that some great calamity was impending. The translation is perfectly admissible, and the thought is in accordance with the religious sentiment of the O.T. (cf. 2Ki 22:20); yet it is doubtful if we are entitled to read so much into the prophet’s language. There is nothing to indicate that “the evil” is future, nor is it likely that the prophet has in view a future of terror for the righteous. The clause may be equally well rendered that (or for) the righteous is swept away before the evil; and this is probably all that is meant. The “evil” is the prevailing wickedness and oppression caused by the misgovernment described in Isa 56:10-12. The words “none considering” are parallel to “no man layeth it to heart,” and mean that the community takes no note of the fact that its best members are disappearing from its midst.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ch. Isa 56:9 to Isa 57:21. A Protest against the Unworthy Shepherds of God’s Flock, and the arrogant Heathenism by which it is threatened; followed by a Message of Consolation to True Israelites
This sombre and impassioned discourse is composed of three parts:
i. ch. Isa 56:9 to Isa 57:2. The defenceless condition of the community, due to the incompetence of its spiritual leaders.
(1) All the wild beasts of the field and the forest are invited to come and devour the unprotected flock ( Isa 56:9). (2) For its rulers neglect their duty; they are inefficient as dumb dogs, they are slothful, greedy and sensual ( Isa 56:10-12). (3) In consequence of their incapacity the righteous perish, none regarding their fate (Isa 57:1-2).
ii. Isa 57:3-13 a. A bitter tirade against an insolent and aggressive paganising party, animated by a contemptuous hostility towards the true religion.
(1) This party, which is characterised as a bastard and hybrid race, the illegitimate offspring of an adulterer and a harlot, is summoned to the bar to hear the Divine sentence on their career of flagrant idolatry ( Isa 57:3-4). (2) The indictment follows, in the form of a recital of the varied heathen rites to which they were addicted ( Isa 57:5-9), and in which with infatuated perversity they still persist in spite of all the teachings of experience ( Isa 57:10-11). (3) Judgement is then pronounced; Jehovah will unmask the hypocrisy of their pretended righteousness, and leave them to the protection of the false deities whom they have so diligently served, but who shall be unable to save them (Isa 57:12-13).
iii. Isa 57:14-21. The prophet now turns with a message of comfort to the depressed and contrite people of God. The obstacles in the way of their salvation shall be removed ( Isa 57:14); Jehovah, whose condescension brings Him near to the lowly in heart, will at length avert His anger, and bring healing and peace ( Isa 57:15-19); only the wicked who persist in their impenitence are excluded from the promised blessing ( Isa 57:20-21).
Isa 56:9 to Isa 57:2. Denunciation of the worthless rulers of the Jewish community. The difficulty of supposing that this passage refers to the state of things in the Exile is obvious. Israel is compared to a flock in charge of its own shepherds; and these shepherds are responsible both for the internal disorders from which it suffers, and the outward dangers which threaten it. An invitation to the wild beasts (the heathen nations) to come and devour a people already “robbed and spoiled” (Isa 42:22) by foreign conquest, is almost inconceivable. It is of course possible, as many scholars hold, that the verses are extracted from a pre-exilic prophecy; but the description is at least as applicable to the conditions which existed after the return from Babylon. The books of Malachi and Nehemiah reveal incidentally a state of affairs which would go far to account for the dark picture here presented of the ruling classes in the restored community.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The righteous perisheth – This refers, as I suppose, to the time of Manasseh (see the Introduction, Section 3). Grotius supposes, that it refers to king Josiah; Vitringa, that it refers to martyrs in general. But it seems probable to me that the prophet designs to describe the state of stupidity which prevailed in his own time, and to urge as one proof of it, that the pious part of the nation was taken away by violent death, and that the nation was not affected by it. Such was the guilt of Manasseh; so violent was the persecution which he excited against the just, that it is said of him that he shed innocent blood very much, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another 2Ki 22:16. There is evidence (see the Introduction, Section 2), that Isaiah lived to his time, and it is probable that he himself ultimately fell a victim to the race of Manasseh. Though he had, on account of his great age, retired from the public functions of the prophetic office, yet he could not be insensible to the existence of these evils, and his spirit would not suffer him to be silent even though bowed down by age, when the land was filled with abominations, and when the best blood of the nation was poured out like water. The word rendered perisheth ( ‘abad) as well as the word rendered taken away ( ‘asaph) denotes violence, and is indicative of the fact that they were removed by a premature death.
And no man layeth it to heart – No one is aroused by it, or is concerned about it. The sentiment of the passage is, that it is proof of great stupidity and guilt when people see the righteous die without concern. If the pious die by persecution and others are not aroused, it shows that they acquiesce in it, or have no confidence in God, and no desire that his people should be preserved; if they die in the ordinary mode and the people are unaffected, it shows their stupidity. The withdrawment of a pious man from the earth is a public calamity. His prayers, his example, his life, were among the richest blessings of the world, and people should be deeply affected when they are withdrawn; and it shows their guilt and stupidity when they see this with indifference. It increases the evidence of this guilt when, as is sometimes the case, the removal of the righteous by death is an occasion of joy. The wicked hate the secret rebuke which is furnished by a holy life, and they often feel a secret exultation when such people die.
And merciful men – Margin, Men of kindness, or godliness. Lowth and Noyes render it, Pious men. The Septuagint, Andres dikaioi – Just men. The Hebrew word denotes mercy or kindness ( chesed). Here it probably means, Men of mercy; that is, people who are the subjects of mercy; people who are pious, or devoted to God.
Are taken away – Hebrew, Are gathered. That is, they are gathered to their fathers by death.
None considering – They were not anxious to know what was the design of Divine Providence in permitting it.
From the evil to come – Margin, That which is evil. The idea here evidently is, that severe calamities were coming upon the nation. God was about to give them up to foreign invasion (Isa 56:9 ff); and the true reason why the just were removed was, that they may not be subject to the divine wrath which should come upon the nation; they were not to be required to contemplate the painful state of things when an enemy should fire the cities, the palaces, and the temple, and cause the sacred services of religion to cease. It was a less evil for them to be removed by death – even by the painful death of persecution – than to be compelled to participate in these coming sorrows. At the same time this passage may be regarded as inculcating a more general truth still. It is, that the pious are often removed in order that they may not be exposed to evils which they would experience should they live. There might be the pains and sorrows of persecution; there might be long and lingering disease; there might be poverty and want; there might be the prevalence of iniquity and infidelity over which their hearts would bleed; there might be long and painful conflicts with their own evil hearts, or there might be danger that they would fall into sin, and dishonor their high calling. For some or all these reasons the righteous may be withdrawn from the world; and could we see those reasons as God does, nothing more would be necessary to induce us to acquiesce entirely in the justice of his dealings.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 57:1-2
The righteous perisheth
The righteous perishing
In view of this prevailing demoralization and worldliness (Isa 56:9-12), the righteous one succumbs to the grinding weight of external and internal sufferings: he perishes, dies before his time (Ecc 7:15), from the midst of his contemporaries, disappearing from this life (Psa 12:1; Mic 7:2), and no man lays it to heart, i.no one considers the Divine accusation and threatening implied in this early death. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
Merciful men
Literally, men of piety. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Good men die
Righteousness delivereth from the sting of death, but not from the stroke of it. (M. Henry.)
Death of the righteous
1. One reason why, when the righteous dieth, no man layeth it to heart is because the world do not know the righteous.
2. Another reason is, disinclination of all men by nature to lay such things to heart.
3. They do not think it of much importance. But the death of every good man is a loss to the world, a loss to the Church militant–the people of God are the salt of the earth, and the more taken away and the less left, the less likely are we to be blessed as a nation. (James Wells.)
Early death
Such early removals form a problem insoluble by our poor reason. They seem, at first sight, inconsistent alike with the Divine wisdom and power and love. They look almost like the frustration of Gods plans and purposes, a failure in His sovereign designs. It is the architect just completing His work when that work comes with a crash to the ground. It is the sculptor putting the finishing strokes of his chisel on the virgin marble, when the toil of months or years strews the floor of his studio. It is the gardener bringing forth from his conservatory the long-husbanded plants in their freshness and beauty, to bask in early summer sun, when a frost or hailstorm unexpectedly comes, and in one night they have perished! (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
Early death
Why is the young soldier stricken clown just; when the armour of life has been assayed? Wherefore hath God apparently thus made His noblest work in vain? The words of Isaiah give a twofold answer to these questions and mysteries; the one negative, the other positive.
I. THE NEGATIVE ANSWER. The righteous is taken away from the evil to come. It was so in the case of Josiah (2Ki 22:18-20).
II. THE POSITIVE EXPLANATION. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness; or rather, as it has been rendered, each one walking straight before him, or as Bishop Lowth translates it, he that walketh in the straight oath.
1. Josiah, the good, the pious, when he died, entered into peace. It is a beautiful Old Testament evidence of the immediate blessedness of the departed righteous. His body rested in the tomb, as in a bed or couch; his spirit–the spirit that walked so uprightly on earth, with no divergence from the path of duty and piety–continues, in a loftier state of existence, this elevated walk. The work cut short in this lower world is not arrested; it is only transferred. In a higher and loftier sphere he still pursues these active ministries of righteousness. There is an evident contrast between these opening words of the chapter and the terrible refrain with which it closes–There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked; none in life, none in death, none in their limitless future. But the righteous, thus taken away, enter into peace.
2. Another thought, too, is brought out in the original which we miss in our translation, and which suggests the same assurance of immediate bliss. It occurs in the words just quoted–The righteous is taken away, Merciful men are taken away; this in the Hebrew is, The righteous, the merciful, are gathered–gathered to their fathers.
3. One other thought on early death may be suggested by these words. While the spirit is pursuing its onward path of bliss and glory, it has not, in the truest sense, bid farewell to its earthly sphere. The lips are silenced, the music of the voice is hushed, the blank of the absent is too painfully realized. But the righteous survive dissolution even in this world; in their deathless memories of goodness and worth, they continue to walk. The old promise dictated by the sweet singer of Israel (apparently paradoxical) becomes literally true, regarding those prematurely taken away–With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation. For what, after all, is long life? Is it measured and computed by formal arithmetic? counted by days, or weeks, or months, or years? No! the fourscore years of a misspent life is no life at all. It is a bankruptcy of being. It may be a life only sowing and perpetuating baneful influences; an untimely birth would be better. Whereas, that is the truest length of days, where, it may be for a brief but bright and consecrated season, some young life has shone gloriously for God, and which, though now a fallen meteor, has left a trail of light behind it, for which parent and brother and sister will for ever bless Him who gave the transient boon! (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
The death of the good
I. THEIR DEATH IS THE PERISHING OF THE BODY
1. Why, then, pamper the body?
2. Why centre interests on the wants and enjoyments of the body?
II. THEIR DEATH IS GENERALLY DISREGARDED BY MANKIND. How soon the best of men are forgotten. There are two reasons for disregarding the death of the good.
1. The thought of death is repugnant to the heart.
2. The concerns of life are all-absorbing.
III. THEIR DEATH IS A DELIVERANCE FROM ALL THE EVILS THAT ARE COMING ON THE WORLD. Taken away from the evil to come.
IV. THEIR DEATH IS A STEP INTO A HIGHER LIFE. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds.
1. The death of the good as to the body is only sleep–natural, refreshing, temporary.
2. Their souls march on. Each one walking in his uprightness. Endless progress. It doth not yet appear what we shall be. (Homilist.)
The righteous is taken away from the evil to come
Spared future evil
1. It may be from the evil of personal suffering. The prolongation of life to old age often involves an immense amount of bodily ills and pains.
2. It may be to spare the heart of affection sore trials. How often do children grow up, to break the hearts of fond parents.
3. It may be to take His child out of harms way.
4. It may be to shield him from some impending calamity that is coming upon the Church or the world.
5. Or (if we accept the marginal reading) it is to save them from that which is evil. Life itself, under the curse of sin, is evil, even in its best estate, and the God of mercy cuts it short and receives His loved one into His bosom. (Homiletic Review.)
The blessings of short life
We all spend much time in panegyric of longevity. But I propose to preach about the blessings of an abbreviated earthly existence.
I. IT MAKES ONES LIFE WORK VERY COMPACT.
II. MORAL DISASTER MIGHT COME UPON THE MAN IF HE TARRIED LONGER.
III. ONE IS THE SOONER TAKEN OFF FROM THE DEFENSIVE.
IV. ONE ESCAPES SO MANY BEREAVEMENTS.
V. IT PUTS ONE SOONER IN THE CENTRE OF THINGS. (T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER LVII
After mentioning the removal of righteous persons as an awful
symptom of the approach of Divine judgments, 1, 2,
the prophet goes on to charge the nation in general with
idolatry, and with courting the unprofitable alliance of
idolatrous kings, 3-12.
In opposition to such vain confidence, the prophet enjoins
trust in God, with whom the penitent and humble are sure to
find acceptance, and from whom they should obtain temporal and
spiritual deliverances, 13-19.
Awful condition of the wicked and finally impenitent, 20, 21.
NOTES ON CHAP. LVII
I shall give Bishop Lowth’s translation of the two first verses, and give the substance of his criticisms with additional evidence.
Isa 57:1. The righteous man perisheth, and no one considereth;
And pious men are taken away, and no one understandeth,
That the righteous man is taken away because of the
evil.
Isa 57:2. He shall go in peace: he shall rest in his bed;
Even the perfect man: he that walketh in the straight
path.
Verse 1. The righteous perisheth] hatstsadik abad. There is an emphasis here which seems intended to point out a particular person. See below. Perisheth – As the root abad signifies the straying of cattle, their passing away from one pasture to another, I feel inclined to follow the grammatical meaning of the word “perish,” pereo. So the Vulgate, justus periit, from per, BY or THROUGH, and eo, to GO. In his death the righteous man may be said to have passed through life, and to have passed by men, i.e., gone or passed before them into the eternal world. A similar mode of speech is used by our Saxon ancestors to express death: [Anglo-Saxon], he went out of sight; and [A.S.], he went away; and [A.S.], to fare forth, to die.
There are very few places in Isaiah where Jesus Christ is not intended; and I am inclined to think that He is intended here, THAT Just One; and perhaps Stephen had this place in view, when he thus charged the Jews, “Ye denied , that HOLY and JUST One,” Ac 3:14. That his death was not laid to heart by the wicked Jewish people, needs no proof.
Merciful men] If the first refers to Christ, this may well refer to the apostles, and to others of the primitive Christians, who were taken away, some by death and martyrdom, and others by a providential escape from the city that they knew was devoted to destruction.
The evil to come.] That destruction which was to come upon this disobedient people by the Romans.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The righteous; just and holy men, who are the pillars of the place and state in which they live; yea, as the Jews call them, the pillars of the world.
No man; few or none of the people. So he showeth that the corruption was general, in the people no less than in the priests.
Layeth it to heart; is duly affected with this severe stroke and sad sign of Gods displeasure.
Merciful; or, godly; the same whom he now called righteous, whose duty and practice it is to exercise both mercy or kindness, and justice.
From the evil to come; from those dreadful calamities which are coming upon the nation.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. no man layeth it to heartasa public calamity.
merciful menrather,godly men; the subjects of mercy.
none consideringnamely,what was the design of Providence in removing the godly.
from the evilHebrew,from the face of the evil, that is, both from the moral evil on everyside (Isa 56:10-12),and from the evils about to come in punishment of the national sins,foreign invasions, c. (Isa 56:9Isa 57:13). So Ahijah’s death isrepresented as a blessing conferred on him by God for his piety (1Ki14:10-13; see also 2Ki 22:20).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The righteous perisheth,…. Not eternally; he may fear he shall, by reason of sin and temptation; he may say his strength and hope are perished; and his peace and comfort may perish for a time; but he cannot perish everlastingly, because he is one that believes in Christ, and is justified by his righteousness, from whence he is denominated righteous; and such shall never perish, but have everlasting life: but the meaning is, that he perisheth as to his outward man, or dies corporeally, which is called perishing, Ec 7:15 and so the Targum renders it,
“the righteous die.”
Or it may be rendered, “the righteous man is lost” b; not to himself, his death is a gain to him; but to the church, and to the world, which yet is not considered:
and no man layeth it to heart; takes any notice of it, thinks at all about it, far from being concerned or grieved; instead of that, rather rejoice, and are pleased that they are rid of such persons; which will be the case when the witnesses are slain, Re 11:10. The Targum is,
“and no man lays my fear to heart;”
or on his heart; whereas such providences should lead men to fear the Lord, and seek to him, and serve him, as it did David, Ps 12:1:
and merciful men are taken away; or “gathered” c; out of the world, to their own people, to heaven; these are such who obtain mercy of the Lord, and show mercy to others, holy good men: the former character may respect the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, this his grace implanted in them, discovered by acts of mercy and goodness; for one and the same persons are intended:
none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come; that there are evil times coming, great calamities, and sore judgments upon men; and therefore these righteous ones are gathered out of the world, and are gathered home, and safely housed in heaven, that they may escape the evil coming upon a wicked generation; and who yet have no thought about it, nor are they led to observe it as they might, from the removal of good men out of the world; see 2Ki 22:20. All this may be applied to the martyrs of Jesus in times of Popish persecution; or to the removal of good men by an ordinary death before those times came.
b , , Sept. c “colliguntur”, V. L. Munster, Piscator, Cocceius; “congregantur”, Pagninus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Whilst watchmen and shepherds, prophets and rulers, without troubling themselves about the flock which they have to watch and feed, are thus indulging their own selfish desires, and living in debauchery, the righteous man is saved by early death from the judgment, which cannot fail to come with such corruption as this. “The righteous perisheth, and no man taketh it to heart; and pious men are swept away, without any one considering that the righteous is swept away from misfortune. He entereth into peace: they rest upon their beds, whoever has walked straight before him.” With “the righteous” the prophet introduces, in glaring contrast to this luxurious living on the part of the leading men of the nation, the standing figure used to denote the fate of its best men. With this prevailing demoralization and worldliness, the righteous succumbs to the violence of both external and internal sufferings. , he dies before his time (Ecc 7:15); from the midst of the men of his generation he is carried away from this world (Psa 12:2; Mic 7:2), and no one lays it to heart, viz., the divine accusation and threat involved in this early death. Men of piety ( chesed , the love of God and man) are swept away, without there being any one to understand or consider that ( k unfolds the object to be considered and laid to heart, viz., what is involved in this carrying away when regarded as a providential event) the righteous is swept away “from the evil,” i.e., that he may be saved from the approaching punishment (compare 2Ki 22:20). For the prevailing corruption calls for punishment from God; and what is first of all to be expected is severe judgment, through which the coming salvation will force its way. In Isa 57:2 it is intimated that the righteous man and the pious do not lose the blessings of this salvation because they lose this life: for whereas, according to the prophet’s watchword, there is no peace to the wicked, it is true, on the other hand, of the departing righteous man, that “he enters into peace” ( shalom , acc. loci s. status ; Ges. 118, 1); “they rest upon their beds,” viz., the bottom of the grave, which has become their m ishkab (Job 17:13; Job 21:26), “however has walked in that which lay straight before him,” i.e., the one straight plain path which he had set before him ( acc. obj. as in Isa 33:15; Isa 50:10, Ewald, 172, b, from , that which lies straight before a person; whereas with , signifying probably fixedness, steadiness of look, related to Arab. nkh , to pierce, , percutere , is used as a preposition: compare Pro 4:25, , straight or exactly before him). The grave, when compared with the restlessness of this life, is therefore “peace.” He who has died in faith rests in God, to whom he has committed himself and entrusted his future. We have here the glimmering light of the New Testament consolation, that the death of the righteous is better than life in this world, because it is the entrance into peace.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Death of the Righteous. | B. C. 706. |
1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. 2 He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.
The prophet, in the close of the foregoing chapter, had condemned the watchmen for their ignorance and sottishness; here he shows the general stupidity and senselessness of the people likewise. No wonder they were inconsiderate when their watchmen were so, who should have awakened them to consideration. We may observe here,
I. The providence of God removing good men apace out of this world. The righteous, as to this world, perish; they are gone and their place knows them no more. Piety exempts none from the arrests of death, nay, in persecuting times, the most righteous are most exposed to the violences of bloody men. The first that died died a martyr. Righteousness delivers from the sting of death, but not from the stroke of it. They are said to perish because they are utterly removed from us, and to express the great loss which this world sustains by the removal of them, not that their death is their undoing, but it often proves an undoing to the places where they lived and were useful. Nay, even merciful men are taken away, those good men that are distinguished from the righteous, for whom some would even dare to die, Rom. v. 7. Those are often removed that could be worst spared; the fruitful trees are cut down by death and the barren left still to cumber the ground. Merciful men are often taken away by the hands of men’s malice. Many good works they have done, and for some of them they are stoned. Before the captivity in Babylon perhaps there was a more than ordinary mortality of good men, so that there were scarcely any left, Jer. v. 1. The godly ceased, and the faithful failed, Ps. xii. 1.
II. The careless world slighting these providences, and disregarding them: No man lays it to heart, none considers it. There are very few that lament it as a public loss, very few that take notice of it as a public warning. The death of good men is a thing to be laid to heart and considered more than common deaths. Serious enquiries ought to be made, wherefore God contends with us, what good lessons are to be learned by such providences, what we may do to help to make up the breach and to fill up the room of those that are removed. God is justly displeased when such events are not laid to heart, when the voice of the rod is not heard nor the intentions of it answered, much more when it is rejoiced in, as the slaying of the witnesses is, Rev. xi. 10. Some of God’s choicest blessings to mankind, being thus easily parted with, are really undervalued; and it is an evidence of very great incogitancy. Little children, when they are little, least lament the death of their parents, because they know not what a loss it is to them.
III. The happiness of the righteous in their removal.
1. They are taken away from the evil to come, then when it is just coming, (1.) In compassion to them, that they may not see the evil (2 Kings xxii. 20), nor share in it, nor be in temptation by it. When the deluge is coming they are called into the ark, and have a hiding-place and rest in heaven when there was none for them under heaven. (2.) In wrath to the world, to punish them for all the injuries they have done to the righteous and merciful ones; those are taken away that stood in the gap to turn away the judgments of God, and then what can be expected but a deluge of them? It is a sign that God intends war when he calls home his ambassadors.
2. They go to be easy out of the reach of that evil. The righteous man, who while he lived walked in his uprightness, when he dies enters into peace and rests in his bed. Note, (1.) Death is gain, and rest, and bliss, to those only who walked in their uprightness, and who, when they die, can appeal to God concerning it, as Hezekiah (2 Kings xx. 3). Now, Lord, remember it. (2.) Those that practised uprightness, and persevered in it to the end, shall find it well with them when they die. Their souls then enter into peace, into the world of peace, where peace is in perfection and where there is no trouble. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. Their bodies rest in their beds. Note, The grave is a bed of rest to all the Lord’s people; there they rest from all their labours, Rev. xiv. 13. And the more weary they were the more welcome will that rest be to them, Job iii. 17. This bed is made in the darkness, but that makes it the more quiet; it is a bed out of which they shall rise refreshed in the morning of the resurrection.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
ISAIAH – CHAPTER 57
MESSIANIC BLESSINGS CONTINGENT ON RIGHT HEARTS
Vs. 1-2. DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL
1. Such was the blind thoughtlessness in Israel that the righteous man, who was faithful to the covenant, could perish and no one would “lay it to heart”, or really CARE, (Isa 12:1; Mic 7:2).
2. No one ever seemed to consider the divine mercy manifested, in God’s taking away so many of the righteous, before the calamity of divine judgment fell upon the rebellious nation, (Mat 5:7).
3. Having faced oppression, and been distressed by the wickedness of their fellows, they have “dieth in faith” – exalted now to a realm of eternal joy and peace, (Heb 11:13; Php_1:21; Php_1:23; Luk 23:43).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. The righteous man hath perished. Isaiah continues his subject; for, after having shown how fearlessly hypocrites indulge in their luxuries, and with what impudence they despise the word of God, he likewise complains that they do not consider the works of God. We have been placed here, as in a spacious theater, to behold the works of God; and there is no work of God so small that we ought to pass by it; lightly, but all ought to be carefully and diligently observed.
And no man layeth it to heart. The Lord holds out as a mirror this event of his providence, more remarkable than all others, that he takes away good and worthy men out of this life, when he determines to chastise his people severely. But no man considers it, or reflects that it is a token of approaching destruction, that God gathers them, and places them in safety from being distressed by prevailing afflictions. The general meaning is, that wicked men grievously deceive themselves by supposing that there is no greater happiness than to have life continued to a great age, and by thus pluming themselves on their superiority to the servants of God, who die early. Being attached to the world, they likewise harden themselves by this pretense, that, by nothing else than a manifestation of God’s favor towards them, while others die, they continue to be safe and sound.
Men of mercy are gathered. If by “men of mercy” be meant kind or tender-hearted men, this description ought to be carefully studied, by which the Prophet shows what is the true righteousness of the children of God; for hypocrites reckon this to be of no value. But nothing is more acceptable to God than kindness, by which we give evidence of our righteousness, and manifest that our heart is free from all hypocrisy. Yet we may with equal propriety take the phrase “men of mercy” in a passive sense, as meaning those whom the Lord has embraced by his mercy; for it is a phrase of frequent occurrence in Hebrew writings. Nor will it be inappropriate to suppose that there is an implied contrast between the grace of God and the wicked and unfavorable judgments of men; for they are wont to look on those persons as condemned who are taken away in the flower of their age. But, since God, in many passages of Scripture, represents gentleness and kindness as a distinguishing mark of his children, this may be, as I have said, a definition of true righteousness.
Hence we see that the Lord, at that time, gathered many good men, whose death portended some dreadful calamity, and yet that the Jews paid no regard to such forewarnings, and even proceeded to more daring lengths of wickedness; for they thought that all went well with them, when they were the survivors of many excellent men. This doctrine is highly appropriate to every age. It frequently happens that God takes good men out of this world, when he intends to punish severely the iniquities of the ungodly; for the Lord, having a peculiar regard to his own people, takes compassion upon them, and, as it were, snatches them from the burning, that even survivors may perceive in it the wrath of God. And yet this is not an invariable rule; for righteous men are frequently involved, along with the reprobate, in temporal punishments; but it is so frequent that it rarely happens otherwise. (105)
In our own times a remarkable instance of this was given in the death of Luther, who was snatched from the world a short time before that terrible calamity befell Germany, which he had foretold many years before, when he exclaimed loudly against that contempt of the Gospel, and that wickedness and licentiousness which everywhere prevailed. Frequently had he entreated the Lord to call him out of this life before he beheld that dreadful punishment, the anticipation of which filled him with trembling and horror. And he obtained it from the Lord. Soon after his death, lo, a sudden and unforeseen war sprang up, by which Germany was terribly afflicted, when nothing was farther from her thoughts than the dread of such a calamity.
Instances of this kind occur every day; and if men observed them, they would not so heedlessly flatter themselves and their vices. But I thought it right to take special notice of this event, both because it happened lately, (106) and because in so distinguished a preacher of the Gospel and prophet of God it must be more clearly seen. We ought, therefore, to consider diligently the worlds of the Lord, both in the life and in the death of “the righteous,” but especially in their death, by which the Lord calls them away to a better life, that they may be rescued from those afflictions in which the wicked must be plunged.
(105) “This is a beautiful sentiment, that God removes righteous and good men from a world unworthy of them, and takes them to himself, so that they are not stained by the offenses of their time, or mingled with the prevailing corruption that universally devours, and do not consent to it, or connive at it, and thus expose themselves to similar judgments of God, which have been decreed and appointed for the ungodly. It has undoubtedly been remarked by the wise in every age, that the sudden death of good and judicious men is a clear indication of the approaching ruin of a state.” Vitringa.
(106) “ Pource que c’est une chose avenue depuis peu d’annees.” “Because it is an event that happened but a few years ago.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE DEATH OF THE GOOD
(Funeral Sermon.)
Isa. 57:1-2. The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart, &c.
I. Though Gods people are the excellent of the earth, yet they must die. Though righteous and merciful, and on these accounts so precious in Gods eyes, and so useful in His cause, they are not exempted from that sentence of death which is passed upon all men. Were we consulted concerning many of them, we should entreat that they might be spared, and we see not how the cause of truth can be maintained without them. But they are taken away, to show us that though God uses them as instruments, they are not indispensable to Him. It is our want of faith and our selfishness that cause us to wish them not to be removed. They themselves desire to depart, &c.
II. Their death is a great blessing to themselves. They are taken away, but
1. It is to be with Christ. The word here translated taken away is often translated gathered. When saints die, it is merely a gathering to Christ, And will not they account this a blessing? Being gathered to Christ includes, not simply His presence (though this is the choicest part of heaven), but the presence of the angels and of the spirits of the just made perfect. What a varied and glorious company do they form!
2. It is from the evil to come. From calamities and distresses that would otherwise befall them. From Satans temptations. From the persecutions of an ungodly world. From the sad corruptions of their own hearts, which distress them daily. From all the cares, conflicts, and sorrows connected with a mortal existence and a sinful state.
3. It is to rest and peace.
III. It is a grievous, though a common sin, that when men behold the death of the righteous, they do not lay it to heart.
1. As a public loss! When such men die, the Church loses its ornaments, the world its best friends. Well may we mourn individually, when the hallowing influence of a godly character ceases to be exerted upon us.
2. As a public warning!
CONCLUSION.
1. Let us make the best use of our godly relations and friends while they live.
2. When our godly friends are taken away, let us not sorrow as those who have no hope.
3. Let us make sure that we are gathered to Christ now, that we may be gathered to Him hereafter.James Sherman: Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iv. pp. 112.
The characteristics here described are those produced by the operation of Gods grace in human hearts.
I. The prophet notices a familiar fact.
We find it difficult to regard death as other than an enemy. With the exception of Enoch, and Elijah, and perhaps Moses, and those who will be alive when the Lord comes, the reign of death is universal (Ecc. 9:2; Rom. 5:12; H. E. I. 1536, 1537). Gods people do not escape. Here a question arises: Since the redemption in Christ removes their sins, why should they be retained under the bondage of death? We suggest in answer
1. That possibly man was never intended to abide perpetually on the globe, but after a lengthened probation to be removed to a higher existence.
2. The necessity for the removal of one generation to make room for another.
3. The wisdom of the arrangement by which old age is ultimately relieved of the weariness and infirmity incident to it.
4. The danger to the spiritual affections of the saints involved in a perpetuated residence on earth.
5. The exemption of believers from death would be an open declaration of and mark upon them; but such open destruction does not accord with the design of this world as a state of trial and discipline.
6. That by the grace of Christ the aspect of death is entirely changed to believers.
7. That the humiliation and sorrow of death are amply compensated by the glorious resurrection and immortal life.
II. The prophet laments the general indifference with which this familiar fact is treated.
This may refer specially to the time of Manasseh, but it is still true.
1. The world does not love the righteous, because they are such. If they care for them at all, it is for other reasons. So far as what is peculiar to them severally is developed, it is antagonistic.
2. The world is indifferent to the fact that the death of the righteous is a public loss. Godly men in their families, neighbourhoods, the nation, by their character, prayers, public spirit are a preserving influence. Sodom could not be destroyed while Lot was in it.
3. The world does not consider the true import and consequence of the death of the righteous. It is not considered in relation to eternity; but only in relation to time. Such a one is dead, his new life is not considered.
III. The prophet suggests the sufficient consolation. To the righteous death is
1. Exemption from evil. Terrible evil was coming on Israel which those escaped who died at that time. There may be public, domestic, and personal evils impending, from which the Lord snatches His people away.
2. Enjoyment of good. The Gospel does not conduct its votaries to the bed of death, and then leave them there in dark uncertainty. The change that is made by death is their entrance into peace and rest. For there is final and undisturbed security, and the perpetual presence of the objects to which the believers spirit has been most closely united; God in Christ, holy angels, glorified saints, perfect purity.
1. How interesting to those left behind, to think of them thus!
2. See that you are among those of whom such thoughts are suitable.
3. Beware of being among those who are indifferent to the people of God and their fate. The worlds indifference to the Church is the reflection of its indifference to Christ.J. Rawlinson.
The visitations of death are frequently mysterious. Often the most talented, and pious, and useful are cut down, while mere cumberers of the ground are spared, &c. Piety exempts none from the arrests of death; it delivers from the sting of death, but not from its stroke. How affecting the death of a statesman, a minister, an influential Christian, or a pious parent in the meridian of life and usefulness, &c. Isaiah was deeply moved in consequence of the death of good men, and the indifference of his countrymen, &c. It matters little that we cannot accurately determine who these good men were, or the manner of their death. Consider
I. The character of the good as here portrayed.
1. They are righteous. As none are so naturally, a real and radical change in the governing dispositions of the heart is implied, &c. Believing in the Lord Jesus, and being accepted righteous in Him, they come under an obligation to practise universal righteousness, and to present to the world a character of uniform and sustained holiness (Rom. 6:18-19; 1Jn. 3:7). They are men of rectitudemen right in their moral relations and in their principles of actionright in heart, and habit, and life (1Jn. 3:7). Such a man, however, will always feel that his claim to be regarded as a righteous man is not to be traced to what he is in himself, but to what he owes to the grace of God.
2. They are merciful. Not only the subjects of Gods mercy, but merciful in their own dispositionsmen of kindness or godliness (margin); forgiving offenders, compassionating the suffering, helping the weak and needy, and evincing kindness, consideration, and bountifulness towards all (Gen. 32:10; Psa. 119:64; Joe. 2:13; Rom. 12:8; Col. 3:12). In nothing do we imitate God more than in showing mercy. And we have abundant opportunity to do it, for the world is full of sin and misery, which we may help to relieve, &c.
3. They walk in their uprightness. They avoid the crooked path of sin, and pursue the straight line of righteousness (Psa. 125:5; Pro. 2:15; Isa. 59:8; Php. 2:15). The Christian life does not consist in mere sentiment or feeling, &c. Feeling and practice, like twin sisters, must go hand in hand. Christianity is pre-eminently a practical system. The doctrine of the kingdom is, that faith without works is deadthat faith contains a seed of virtue or holy living, so that good works are not an adjunct of faith, but a necessary fruit of faith. Light must shine, and where there are the principles of holiness there will be all the habits of holiness pervading the whole life.
Is this a description of your character? Have you sought and secured the righteousness of faith; are you showing mercy to all men, walking uprightly, &c.?
II. The death of the good as here presented.
1. As the perishing of the body. The soul lives on, and will do for ever; but the mortal body decays, returns to its native dust, &c. The bodies of all the untold myriads of the human race have perished. The mightiest share the same fate as the meanest. Evident to all. Then why pamper the body, &c.
2. As disregarded by the vast majority. Only the few lay it to heartlament it as a public loss, and regard it as a public warning. How soon the best are forgotten! How can we account for this?
(1.) The commonness of the event.
(2.) The thought of death is repugnant.
(3.) The concerns of life engross both the time and attention of the multitude. This general disregard of the death of the good is to be lamented because it implies
(1.) Painful ingratitude. Good men are the worlds greatest benefactors, the salt of the earth, &c.
(2.) Deplorable moral insensibility. Their removal is a public calamity, for they are the strength of a nation and the safeguard of the land, &c. To treat their death with stolid indifference indicates the highest degree of moral blindness and perversity. Of such a state of things there is but one explanationGod is not in all their thoughts. Little children least lament the death of their parents, because they know not what a loss it is to them, &c.
3. As a blessing to themselves.
(1.) They are delivered from the miseries which attend the sins of man. Whatever they are, the good man escapes them by death (1Ki. 14:10-13; 2Ki. 22:20).
(2.) They enter into peacerest Their bodies rest in their beds or graves. The grave is a quiet resting-place, out of which they shall rise refreshed on the morning of the resurrection. No agitations or alarms can disturb their peaceful slumbers (Job. 3:17; Job. 17:16; Psa. 16:6; 2Ch. 11:14; Isa. 14:18). Their souls enter into the rest of heaventhe world of eternal repose, where peace is in perfection. They rest not only from all trouble, but from all sin, and sorrow, and strife, from everything that can create pain and uneasiness, for the former things are done away (Rev. 14:13; Heb. 4:9). No wave of trouble shall roll into that beautiful and peaceful haven, and the sense of past trouble will only add to the intensity of present enjoyment.
Such are the prospects of the good. If they were highly consoling and encouraging to the troubled prophet, they ought to be the more so to us, for we have added the disclosures of the Gospel, by which life and immortality are brought to light. Then let us take encouragement as the rest and recompense opens to the eye of faith, &c. Sweet thought; we are nearing it every Sabbath. But no such prospects gladden those of you who are unconverted. If you would die the death of the righteous, you must live the life of the righteous, &c. (P. D. 1124).A. Tucker.
Isa. 57:5-9. I. The abominable idolatries of Israel. II. A parallel found in the covetousness and worldliness of professing Christians. III. These evils proceed from the same principles of unbelief. IV. Are equally offensive to God and debasing to the human mind. V. Must as certainly occasion final retribution.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
D. WEARINESS TO WICKED WHO BREAK COVENANT WITH THE LORD, CHAPTER 57
1. SORCERY
TEXT: Isa. 57:1-5
1
The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
2
He entereth into peace; they rest in their beds, each one that walketh in his uprightness.
3
But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the harlot.
4
Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and put out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood,
5
ye that inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree; that slay the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?
QUERIES
a.
Who are the sons of the sorceress?
b.
Were the Israelites really slaying children?
PARAPHRASE
These insensitive, indulgent leaders of Israel have produced a whole nation of uncaring people. These are times when good men are being destroyed and dying and no one seems to care or wonder why. Most do not realize that when the good man dies he is being taken away from these calamitous times. When the good man dies he enters in to a peaceful rest from the trials of this life. But you followers of sorcery and idolatry, prepare yourselves to face the wrath of Jehovah. Who are you making fun of? Who are you mocking with your impudent face-making? You are the sinners, arent you? You passionately indulge in the sexual orgies of idol worship in the groves of terebinth trees and let your children be slain as human sacrifices in the rocky valleys of Palestine, do you not?
COMMENTS
Isa. 57:1-2 THE RIGHTEOUS: The problem Isaiah addresses here has been a problem for mankind ever since the Fallwhy is it that the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous suffer? Of course, it is a problem only because of faulty perspective. History looked at from the human perspective (limited to the past and the present; limited to this world and this life only) does seem to substantiate the idea that it does not pay to be good. But history seen from the divine perspective (by faith in the revelation of God about the past, present and future) says quite the opposite. The righteous man may perish (avad in Hebrew which means destroy) and the world evaluates it as something to be shunned. But the prophet of God says when the righteous man dies it is far from a tragedy for he is taken away from the evil to come. That is, the righteous man is delivered from the trials and tribulations of this world (cf. Rev. 7:14-17; Rev. 14:13; Psa. 116:15). Hosea, a contemporary of Isaiah, writes of the social chaos in the northern Ten Tribes (Israel) (cf. Hos. 4:1 ff). No doubt the same kind of injustice and destruction was being directed against the righteous in the southern kingdom (Judah). Micah, also a contemporary of Isaiah, speaks of the ungodliness of Judah (cf. Mic. 2:8-11; Mic. 3:1-3; Mic. 6:6-16; Mic. 7:1-6). Micah agrees with Isaiah that the godly man has perished from the earth . . . (Mic. 7:2). The Hebrew word yanuhu is translated rest and has the connotation of repose (relaxation, ease). It is more precise than the usual Hebrew word for rest which is shavath (sabbath). Isaiah likens this rest unto sleep in the bed. The word shalom at the first of the verse indicates the utter peacefulness which death brings to the man who walks in righteousness (cf. Dan. 12:10-13). Even if the righteous man must walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (cf. Psalms 23). The wicked covenant breakers of Isaiahs day have it all wrong! They are self-deceived. They think the righteous have come to an untimely death because of their stubborn faithfulness to keep Gods covenant. But it is the wicked covenant breakers who shall suffer!
Isa. 57:3-5 THE RIOTOUS REBROBATES: Thus the prophet arraigns the riotous leaders whom he had just characterized as dumb dogs (cf. Isa. 56:9-12). These leaders and their followers (which was the majority) are now characterized as sons of the sorceress. The Hebrew word used here for sorceress is onenah which means literally one who divines by the clouds. All divining, soothsaying, magic, astrology was prohibited by Mosaic law (cf. Exo. 22:18; Deu. 18:9-15). In the passage in Deu. 18:9-15 Moses categorizes the pagan practices as:
1.
meonenone who bewitches with the evil eye; a cloud diviner
2.
menaheshan enchanter; snake-charmer; mesmerist; hypnotist
3.
mekashephmutterer of incantations; ventriloquial whispers as under the influence of the spirits of the dead
4.
khoverone who inflicts a spell by weaving magical knots
5.
ovlit. means bottle indicating something like one who pretends powers over genii
6.
yiddeoniya wizard; one who interprets the ravings of a medium
7.
doresh el-hammethiyma necromancer; one who calls up the spirits of the dead
Moses placed Moloch-worship at the head of his list, probably to show the integral connection between the practice of magic and idolatry. Making their children pass through the fire (human sacrifice) was more intimately connected with soothsaying (delving into the future) and magic than any other practice of idolatry. See Isa. 8:19; Isa. 44:25 and Eze. 21:21 for more on this. Men have, ever since Eden, been possessed with the desire to penetrate the future and to manipulate its course. History clearly demonstrates that such power is not within the realm of the natural abilities of man. Men therefore have always attempted to gain the help of beings (departed dead, demons, Satan, angels, etc.) supposedly possessing such knowledge and power. But this is strictly forbidden by God and His word. By faith in God and obedience to His word men may know all (past, present and future) that pertains to life and godliness (cf. 2Pe. 1:3-4).
The majority of people in Isaiahs day no longer sought the word of God but had turned to wizards (cf. Isa. 8:16 ff), This inevitably led to the other abominable practices of paganism and idolatryadultery, fornication, and human sacrifice. They were an impudent, scornful, profane people (cf. Eze. 2:1-7; Eze. 3:1-11, etc.). They were making malicious sport at someone elses expenseprobably the poor and the righteous; they were making impudent gestures with their faces, sticking out their tongues in derision. This showed their real character. They proved their falseness by these actions. They mocked the righteous man who died an untimely death, but they were really profaning themselves!
Isaiahs generation was as sick as our generation. The Hebrew word hannechamim means literally, violently, passionately, but is translated, inflame yourselves in verse five. They indulged in the violent, passionate, sexual orgies among the terebinth (elim) trees. The terebinth is related to the pistachio trees. In Palestine it grows sometimes as high as 40 feet and spreads its branches, with their thick, dark-green foliage, over a wide area (cf. 2Sa. 18:9 ff). The same Hebrew word is sometimes translated oak and sometimes green tree. It was the tree that provided the groves in which the pagans practiced their idolatry and adultery (cf. Deu. 12:2; 1Ki. 14:23; Jer. 2:20; Jer. 3:6; Jer. 3:13; Jer. 17:2; Hos. 4:13 ff; Eze. 6:13, etc.). The worst of the idolatrous practices was child sacrifice. This was often carried out in the Valley of Hinnom, within sight of the Temple of God (cf. Jer. 32:35; Ezek. 26:2631). In the valleys suggests the many rocky valleys of Palestine walled on each side by clefts of the rocks. Archaeologists have uncovered earthen jars containing the bones of sacrificed infants from various cities and villages of ancient Palestine, confirming the statements of the prophets. Ed. J. Young points out that the description in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks is certainly not applicable to Mesopotamia . . . Another piece of the cumulative evidence that the latter portions of Isaiah were written by the prophet Isaiah who lived in Palestine before the Babylonian captivity, and not by some unknown postexilic Deutero-Isaiah.
QUIZ
1.
What is the problem with the righteous dying Isaiah deals with in this text?
2.
Is it a tragedy when the righteous man dies?
3.
How many different kinds of sorcerers might have practiced in Palestine?
4.
What kind of sorcerer did Isaiah name in verse three?
5.
How were Isaiahs people demonstrating their profaneness?
6.
How intense was their indulgence in idolatry?
7.
What bit of evidence do we have for the authorship of Isaiah here?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
LVII.
(1) The righteous perisheth . . .The words seem written as if in the anticipation or in the actual presence of Manassehs persecution of the true prophets. Even before that persecution burst out in its full violence, the righteous survivors of Hezekiahs rgime may well have vexed their souls even to death with the evils that were around them. The prophet finds comfort in the thought that their death was a deliverance from yet worse evils. The singular number points to the few conspicuous sufferers.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1, 2. The righteous perisheth Under ministrations above described. Moral starvation stares them in their faces. Honest seekers after truth come to disappointment.
Merciful men Men who, amid general discoloration of morals and manners, strive for reformation, find their efforts unavailing. And they pass away are taken from the evil to come Spared from witnessing even worse things.
He shall enter Rather, He entereth. That is, pious men as a class.
They rest in their beds Their quiet is to be found in their graves. Every one that walks “in his uprightness” goes to the grave in peace, with conscious sincerity in seeking, but with failure in finding, the path he desired. This under the influence of false teachers. Nevertheless God receives them, for (Isa 26:19) “Thy dead shall live again.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Sufferings Of The Righteous Under Injustice ( Isa 57:1-2 ).
Isa 57:1-2
‘The righteous man perishes,
And no man lays it to heart,
And the men of covenant love (chesed) are taken away,
None considering that the righteous is taken away from evil (‘from the face of evil’).
He enters into peace.
They rest in their beds,
Each one who walks in his uprightness.’
The sign of the total failure of the leadership of God’s supposed people is that the very people whom they should have been protecting are the ones who are perishing without anyone taking any notice. He who is righteous, and walking in God’s ways, perishes through injustice and communal violence, while the law ignores the situation. Those who love God and obey His covenant are being arrested and are ‘disappearing’, possibly because they protest at what is happening to the true worship of Yahweh and at the false worship of multitudinous gods.
Nor do men consider the fact that this is because evil men have taken control, so that the righteous are taken away ‘from before evil’. The constant lesson of history is the apathy of the ordinary man in the face of what is going on around him. As long as it does not affect him too deeply he lets things slide, only for him to wake up when it is too late.
But Isaiah gives assurance to the righteous. Whatever happens to them externally they will find peace within themselves and peace with God. In the midst of their experiences they enter into peace. At least they can sleep at nights. Their consciences are untroubled. The thought may also include the idea of the sleep of death. Whether alive or dead they rest in Yahweh in perfect content (Psa 16:11; Psa 17:15; Psa 23:6). Their beds of peace are in contrast with the beds of delusion (Isa 56:10) and the beds of adultery (Isa 57:7).
Notice the constant movement between singulars and plurals. What he describes is true of each of the righteous, and of all.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 57:10 Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no hope: thou hast found the life of thine hand; therefore thou wast not grieved.
Isa 57:10
Isa 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
Isa 57:15
“ My ageless purposes are set in Eternity . Time is as a little wheel set within the big wheel of Eternity. The little wheel turneth swiftly and shall one day cease. The big wheel turneth not, but goeth straight forward. Time is thy responsibility Eternity is Mine ! Ye shall move into thy place in the big wheel when the little wheel is left behind. See that now ye redeem the time, making use of it for the purposes of My eternal kingdom, thus investing it with something of quality of the big wheel. As ye do this, thy days shall not be part of that which turneth and dieth, but of that which goeth straight forward and becometh one with My great universe.
“Fill thy days with light and love and testimony. Glorify and honor My Name. Praise and delight thyself in the Lord. So shall eternity inhabit thy heart and thou shalt deliver thy soul from the bondages of time. Thou shalt experience a liberation from the pressures of time and shalt in thine own heart slow down the little wheel. So shall ye find a new kind of rest. Ye shall have a foretaste of the Sabbath rest , into which the whole earth shall enter before long. When this time comes, I Myself will slow down the little wheel of time, and there shall be an adjustment, and it shall be as it was in the beginning.
“The pressures of time have increased as sin has increased, and all too often My children have been found living more in the little wheel than in the big. This happens whenever the flesh is in ascendancy to the Spirit. Whenever the opposite is true, ye have always experienced a fleeting but glorious freedom from the racing little wheel. Is it not true? Ye have found the Spirit always unhurried, and ye have marveled to find how oblivious ye had been to the passage of time whenever ye have been truly in the Spirit.
“Ye can live here as much as ye choose. Ye can enjoy this rest and disengage thyself from the little wheel as often and as long as ye desire. Ye shall lose nothing and gain much. Try it as a therapy for thy physical body. Always it shall most certainly be a tremendous source of energy and vitality for they spiritual life!” [83]
[83] Frances J. Roberts, Come Away My Beloved (Ojai, California: King’s Farspan, Inc., 1973), 31-2.
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
v. 1. The righteous perisheth, v. 2. He shall enter into peace,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Isa 57:1, Isa 57:2
THE EARLY DEATH OF RIGHTEOUS MEN ACCOUNTED FOR. The Hebrews were given to expect that long life should, as a general rule, accompany righteousness (Exo 20:12; 1Ki 3:14; Psa 91:16; Pro 3:1, Pro 3:2, etc.); and under the Mosaical dispensation we must suppose that it did so. But there were exceptions to the rule. Wicked persecutors, like Ahab, Jezebel, and Athaliah, cut off the righteous ere they had seen half their days. So probably did Manasseh (2Ki 24:3, 2Ki 24:4). And God sometimes removed the righteous from earth by a natural death before they had grown old (Ecc 7:15; Ecc 8:14). At the time of which Isaiah is here speaking there had been such removals; and of this he takes note, partly to rebuke those who lightly passed over the phenomenon, partly to justify God’s ways to such as were perplexed by it.
Isa 57:1
The righteous perisheth. The word translated “perisheth” does not imply any violence; but the context implies a premature death. The righteous disappearare taken from the earth before their natural time. Yet no man layeth it to heart; i.e. no one asks what it meansno one is disturbed, no one grieves. The general feeling was either one of indifference, or of relief at the departure of one whose life was a reproach to his neighbours. Merciful men; rather, godly men, or pious men (comp. Mic 7:2). Are taken away; literally, are gathered in. Compare the phrase so frequently used, “gathered to his fathers” (Gen 49:29; Num 27:13; Jdg 2:10; 2Ki 22:20; 2Ch 34:28). From the evil; or, out of the way of the evilin order that he may escape it, in order that he may escape the sight of the evil that was coming on Jerusalem soon after his decease.
Isa 57:2
He shall enter into peace. Not merely into “stillness” or “silence” (Psa 115:17), but into “peace,” or, as the word might be rendered (Cheyne), “a state of peace.” There is, no doubt, primarily, “a contrast to the awful troubles which the survivors will have to encounter” (Hengstenberg); but perhaps this contrast is not all that is meant. The “peace” is positive rather than negative, or it would scarcely be a consolation to any one. They shall rest in their beds; or, upon their beds. This expression seems to imply a consciousness of rest, and so a certain enjoyment of it. Each one walking in his uprightness; rather, whosoever hath walked uprightly, or in a straight path (see Pro 4:25-27). The phrase is an equivalent for “the righteous” of Isa 57:1, and refers to the life on earth of those who have gone down into silence, not to their life after they have reached the silent shore. Of that life the evangelical prophet is not commissioned to give us any information.
Isa 57:3-14
ISRAEL SEVERELY REBUKED FOR IDOLATRY. Though Hezekiah had made a great reformation of religion when he ascended the throne(2Ki 18:4; 2Ch 29:3-19), and had done his best to put down idolatry, yet it was still dear to large numbers among the people, and was easily revived by Manasseh in the earlier portion of his reign (2Ch 33:2-9). Isaiah now rebukes various kinds of idolatrous practices, and shows the vanity of them.
Isa 57:3
Draw near hither. Approach, to hear the reprimand which ye so well deserve. Ye sons of the sorceress; rather, of a sorceress. Judah herself, the nation, is the” sorceress” and “adulteress,” whose individual children are summoned to draw near. She is an adulteress; for she has transgressed against the mystic marriage-tie which bound her to Jehovah (see Isa 54:5, and the comment ad lot.). She is also a “sorceress,” since she has bewitched her children, and given herself up to magical as well as to idolatrous practices (2Ch 33:6). Seed of the adulterer and the whore; rather, seed of an adulteress, and that thyself committest whoredom. The congenital tendency has broken out into act. The Israel addressed is as “adulterous,” i.e. idolatrous, as the Israel of former times.
Isa 57:4
Against whom do ye sport yourselves? The idolatrous Israelites here addressed, no doubt, made a mock of the few righteous who were still living among them, and vexed their souls, as his fellow-towns-men did the soul of “just Lot” (2Pe 2:7). They “made wide the mouth” at them, and “drew out the tongue” in derision (comp. Psa 22:7; Psa 35:21). The prophet asks, “Against whom do ye do this? Is it not rather against God, whose servants these men are, than against them?” Are ye not children of transgression? rather, are ye not, yourselves, children of apostasy? and therefore more truly objects of scorn than they? A seed of falsehood. Idols were viewed by Isaiah as “lies” (Isa 45:20; cf. Rom 1:25; Rev 22:15). Idolaters were therefore “a seed of falsehood”men who put their trust in a lie.
Isa 57:5
Inflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree (comp. Isa 1:29; Isa 65:3; Isa 66:17; and see also 2Ki 16:4; 2Ki 17:10; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6, etc.). The reference is, as Mr. Cheyne says, to the “orgiastic cults’ in the sacred groves of Palestinian heathenism.” The nature of these cults is well stated by Professor Dollinger: “At the spring festival, called by some the ‘brand-feast,’ by others that of torches, which was attended by streams of visitors from every country, huge trees were burnt, with the offerings suspended on them. Even children were sacrificed; they were put into a leathern bag, and thrown the whole height of the temple to the bottom, with the shocking expression that they were calves, and not children. In the fore-court stood two gigantic phalli. To the exciting din of drums, flutes, and inspired songs, the Galli cut themselves on the arms; and the effect of this act, and of the music accompanying it, was so strong upon mere spectators, that all their bodily and mental powers were thrown into a tumult of excitement; and they too, seized by the desire to lacerate themselves, deprived themselves of their manhood by means of potsherds lying ready for the purpose.” Slaying the children in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks. The sacrifice of their children to Moloch was largely practised by the Jews in the later period of the kingdom of Judah. It seems to have been originally introduced by the superstitious Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah, who “made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen” (2Ki 16:3; 2Ch 28:3). Suspended during the reign of Hezekiah, it was renewed under Manasseh, who followed the example of his grandfather in himself sacrificing one of his sons (2Ki 21:6). Under the last three kings it prevailed to a very wide extent, and the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel are loud in their denunciations of it (Jer 7:31, Jer 7:32; Jer 19:2-6; Jer 32:35; Eze 16:20; Eze 20:26; Eze 23:37, etc.). Arguments have been brought forward to prove that the child was merely passed before a fire, or between two fires, and not burnt; but the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. The rite belonged especially to the worship of Chemosh and Moloch by the Moabites and Ammonites (2Ki 3:27; Mic 6:7), from whom it was adopted by the Israelites (2Ki 17:7) and Jews. The sacrifice was supposed to be expiatory (Mic 6:7). In the later times of the Jewish kingdom the place of sacrifice was the valley of Hinnom, west and north of Jerusalem, which is overhung by rugged rocks.
Isa 57:6
Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion. Smooth stones, rounded by water-action, were among the objects worshipped by many Semitic peoples. Such stones were called or Bethels, or “houses of God “and received libations of oil and wine from their worshippers. Stones of this kind, the prophet says, had now become “the portion” of Israel, instead of Jehovah (Psa 119:57; comp. Psa 16:5). To such objects they offered their “meat offerings” and “drink offerings.” Should I receive comfort in these? Can I, Jehovah, be comforted, when my people indulge in such practices?
Isa 57:7
Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed. Instead of reserving thy marriage-bed for me, Jehovah (Isa 54:5), thou hast set it up on those “high places,” with which the hill-tops of Judaea are everywhere crowned (see 1Ki 14:23; 1Ki 16:4; 2Ch 33:17; Eze 15:1-8 :16, etc.). Almost every hill-top is still, in a sense, held sacred in Palestine. Even thither wentest thou up, etc. (On the persistency of the Jews in maintaining the high-place worship, see 1Ki 14:23; 1Ki 15:14; 1Ki 22:43; 2Ki 12:3; 2Ki 14:4; 2Ki 15:4; 2Ki 21:3, etc.) The best kings failed in their attempts to put it down
Isa 57:8
Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance. It has been usual to explain this of a removal from its proper place into an obscure position of the formulae which the Israelites were commanded in the Law to write on their doorposts and on their gates (Deu 6:9; Deu 11:20). But, in the first place, there is no evidence that anciently these passages were understood literally, or that such inscriptions were ever set up; and secondly, as Mr. Cheyne remarks, they would have been more, rather than less, conspicuous in a new place. Probably, therefore, the “memorial” (zikkaron) of this place is some idolatrous symbol or emblem newly adopted by the Jews, and made use of as a sort of talisman. Many commentators think that it was of a phallic character (see Eze 16:17). Discovered thyself; rather, uncovered thyself. Thou hast enlarged thy bed; i.e. multiplied thy idolatries. It is a feature of the idolatry of the time, that it was a mixture adopted from many quarters. It included Baal and Ashtoreth-worship from Phoenicia, Moloch-worship from Moab and Ammos, worship of the Queen of Heaven from Syria, high-place worship from the Canaanites, and stone-worship from their own remote Mesopotamian ancestors. And made thee a covenant with them; i.e. “a bargain for wages,” that aid and protection should be rendered in return for worship and sacrifice. Where thou sawest it. The original is very obscure, but can scarcely have this meaning. It is certainly a distinct clause, and may perhaps be best translated, “thou sawest indecency.”
Isa 57:9
And thou wentest to the king, Delitzsch and Mr. Cheyne understand “the King of Assyria,” and regard the verse as bringing forward a new subject of complaint: “Not only hast thou deserted me tot other gods, but thou trustest for aid, not to me, but to the Assyrian monarch.” But there is no indication of the Jews having put any trust in Assyria after the reign of Ahaz, to which this chapter, by its position in the prophecy, cannot belong. Moreover, the King of Assyria is never called simply” the king.” It is, therefore, better to regard “the king” as Moloch, whom the Jews of Isaiah’s time certainly worshipped (see verse 5), and whose name was a mere dialectic variety of Melech, “king“. Ointment perfumes. Either bearing them as offerings, or herself perfumed with them, as was the practice of lewd women (Pro 7:17). And didst send thy messengers far off; i.e. to distant Moloch-shrines. And didst debase thyself even unto hell; i.e. “didst take on thee the yoke of a mean and grovelling superstition, which debased thee to the lowest point conceivable.” There was nothing lower in religion than the worship of Moloch.
Isa 57:10
Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way. Judah had travelled far from God, seeking aid from all quarters, and might well be “wearied” with her quest; but she would not confess her weariness she would not say. There is no hope; she stirred up her remaining strength, and persisted in her course, not suffering herself to “grieve.”
Isa 57:11
Of whom hast thou been afraid? Judah’s abandonment of Jehovah and devotion to new deities was caused by fearthe fear of man, especially of Assyria. This induced them to seek for help in each new superstition that presented itself, and produced the enlarged syncretism which has been noticed in the comment on Isa 57:8. But how absurd to be driven by fear of man into offending God! That thou hast lied (see the last clause of Isa 57:4, with the comment). Have not I held my peace, etc.? i.e. “Is it not because I have for so long a time held my peace, that thou fearest me not?” God had for a long time suffered them to “go on still in their wickedness”he had not interposed with any severe judgment; therefore they had ceased to fear him, and had feared men instead.
Isa 57:12
I will declare thy righteousness, etc. The Syriac Version has “my righteousness,” which gives a much better sense, and is adopted by Bishop Lowth, Dr. Weir, and Mr. Cheyne. God will be silent no longer. He will” declare,” or show forth, “his righteousness,” by visiting Judah with some righteous punishment. Then it will be seen of what value are those things in which Judah has hitherto trusted. Her workswhether her “idols” are meant (Cheyne, Delitzsch), or her “deeds of iniquity” (Kay)what will they profit? She will “cry” out under the rod of chastisementcry to her false gods to save her.
Isa 57:13
When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee. Then, when she thus cries, let her mixture of gods (Isa 57:8), if they can, deliver her; they will fail utterly to do so. The windor rather, a breathshall carry them all away; vanity shall take them. The idol gods shall be shown to be wholly futile, unable to save, incapable of rendering any the slightest assistance. But he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land. If, however, at that dread hour, there be any among the people who are not idolaters, but “trust in Jehovah,” the crisis shall turn to their advantage. They shall “possess the land,” i.e. have the promised land for their inheritance (Deu 4:1; Deu 5:33; Psa 37:11-29, etc.); and inherit Zion, God’s holy mountain.
Isa 57:14
And shall say; rather, and one said. The prophet hears a voice, saying, Cast ye up, cast ye up; i.e. make a highway to the holy mountain by heaping up material (Isa 62:10); and, having made it, remove every obstruction from the path of my (righteous) people. The voice is, probably, an angelic one.
Isa 57:15-21
A PROMISE OF SALVATION TO THE HUMBLE AND PENITENT, WITH A FURTHER THREAT AGAINST THE WICKED. The prophet, in this portion of his discourse, whereof “comfort” is the key-note (Isa 40:1), can never continue threatening long without relapsing into a tone of tenderness and pity. He now sets against his long denunciation (in Isa 57:3-12) an ample promise (Isa 57:15-19), and against his brief encouragement (in Isa 57:13, Isa 57:14) a short menace (Isa 57:20, Isa 57:21).
Isa 57:15
For. The ground of the promise of salvation in Isa 57:15 is God’s combined might and mercy, which are now set forth. The high and lofty One (comp. Isa 6:1, where the same words are translated “high and lifted up”). In God’s loftiness are included at once his exalted majesty and his almighty power. He is “high” in himself, transcending thought, and “lofty” or “lifted up” in that he is absolute Lord of his creatures, and therefore high above them. That inhabiteth eternity. So the LXX; But the Hebrew is less abstract, and would perhaps be best translated “that liveth eternally.” I dwell in the high and holy place. Solomon’s “heaven of heavens” (1Ki 8:27), which, however, “cannot contain him;” St. Paul’s “light which no man can approach unto” (1Ti 6:16); Zechariah’s “holy habitation” (Zec 2:13). With him also that is of a contriteliterally, crushedand humble spirit. “Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly “(Psa 138:6); “He humbleth himself to consider the things that are in heaven and earth” (Psa 113:6). He is not an Epicurean Deity, too far exalted above man to have any regard for him, or concern himself with man’s welfare (see Job 22:12, Job 22:13). On the contrary, he condescends to “dwell with” man, only let man have a “humble” and “crushed,” or “bruised,” spirit. To revive the spirit of the humble. When God condescends to visit the contrite and humble spirit, the immediate effect is to comfort, console, revive. His presence is a well of life. springing up within the soul to everlasting life (Joh 4:14).
Isa 57:16
I will not contend for ever. God “will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever” (Psa 103:9). If he were “extreme to mark what is done amiss,” none could abide it (Psa 130:3). He remits somewhat, therefore, from the claims of strict justice, and is content to take lower ground. Were it otherwise, man’s spirit should fail before him. Man, i.e; would be utterly unable to justify himself, and would faint and fade away before the Divine fury. The souls which God has made would, one and all, perish. He, however, has not made them for this purpose, but that they should live (Deu 30:19; Eze 18:31); and has therefore devised for them a way of salvation (see Isa 53:5-10).
Isa 57:17
For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth. Among the sins that angered God most against the Jews of the later kingdom of Judah was their covetousnessthat desire of unjust gain which led them continually to oppress their weaker brethren, to remove their neighbours’ landmarks, to harass them with lawsuits, to obtain from the courts corrupt judgments against them, and so to strip them of their inheritances (see Isa 1:15-23; Isa 3:5, Isa 3:14, Isa 3:15; Isa 5:8, Isa 5:23; Jer 6:13; Eze 33:31, etc.). This was far from being their only sin; but it was their besetting sin, and it led on to a number of others. It would seem even to have been the principal cause of those judicial murders with which they are so constantly taxed by the prophets (Isa 1:15, Isa 1:21 : Isa 33:15; Isa 59:3; Jer 2:34; Jer 19:4; Eze 7:23; Eze 11:6; Hos 4:2; Mic 3:10; Mic 7:2, etc.). Isaiah selects the sin of covetousness here, as typical or representative of the entire class of Judah’s besetting sinsthe most striking indication of that alienation of their hearts from God, which constituted their real guilt, and was the true cause of their punishment. And smote him. The form of the verb marks repeated action. God gave Judah many warning’s before the final catastrophe. He punished Judah by the hand of Sargon, by that of Sennacherib (2Ki 18:14-16), by that of Manasseh (2Ch 33:11), by that of Pharaoh-Necho (2Ch 35:20-24), by that of the Syrians, the Moabites and the Ammonites (2Ki 24:2), and others, during the hundred and forty years which intervened between the accession of Hezekiah and the completion of the Captivity. I hid me (comp. Isa 8:17; Isa 54:8).
Isa 57:18
I have seen his ways, and will heal him. God had seen the wanderings of his people in perverse ways, and his heart had been touched with pity thereat. The good Shepherd follows and recalls the wanderers of the flock. When they have suffered hurt he “heals” them. He is willing to “lead” them alsoto go before them, and show them the way that they should walk in (Isa 49:10; Eze 34:11-16), and “restore comforts” to them, especially to such of them as have begun to “mourn” over their perversity.
Isa 57:19
I create the fruit of the lips; literally, creating the fruit of the lips. The clause is best attached to the preceding verse. By his tender treatment of the wanderers, God brings forth fruit from their lips in the shape of praise and thanksgiving. Peace, peace; or, perfect peace, as in Isa 26:3. Judah’s prophets were apt to say to her, “Peace, peace,” when there was no peace (Jer 6:14; Jer 8:11; Eze 13:10). Isaiah is now commissioned to give the promise from the mouth of God (comp. Joh 14:27; Joh 20:21, Joh 20:26). To him that is far off, and to him that is near; i.e. either “to both the Gentiles and the Jews,” or “to both the scattered members of the Jewish body” (Isa 11:11; Isa 43:5, Isa 43:6) “and the collected nation in Canaan.”
Isa 57:20
The wicked are like the troubled sea. A striking metaphor, but one which occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament, and once only in the New (Jud 1:13). The sea’s restless action well expresses the unquiet of the wicked; and the mud and mire that it casts up resembles their evil thoughts and evil deeds. “There is no peace” for such persons, either bodily or spiritual, either in this world or the world to come.
Isa 57:21
Comp. Isa 48:22, where the prophet ends another section of this part of his work with almost the same words.
HOMILETICS
Isa 57:14
The ministry of angels.
Without intruding it on the reader’s attention, Isaiah is continually implying the interest which angels take in all God’s dealings with his Church, and the assistance which they render. Voices fill the heavenly sphere around him and about him, which can only be angelic utterances, and from time to time he records the sayings. Sometimes he records them openly as angelic; e.g. the seraph’s words, when he took the live coal from the altar in the court of heaven, and therewith touched the prophet’s lips (Isa 6:7). But more often he names no speaker, but simply gives the words or introduces them impersonally with the phrase, “and one said” (see Isa 21:11; Isa 26:2; Isa 40:6, etc.). It is sometimes said that the Jews first learnt to believe in the existence of angels from the Babylonians. But Isaiah’s writings furnish a proof, if proof were needed, that this was not so. Isaiah shows us angels
1. AS MINISTRANT TO GOD IS HEAVEN. Above the throne of God in heaven were seen by Isaiah, in vision, a number of seraphim, or winged creatures of the angelic class, attendant upon the great King, and ready at each moment to do his pleasure (Isa 6:2). They “stood,” to show respect and reverence; they had two of their wings outspread, to show readiness to fly at once whithersoever God should send them; they had two others veiling their faces, to indicate a sense of their unworthiness to look on the face of the Almighty. As they stood, they praised God, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa 6:3). The scene drawn reminds us of St. John’s vision in Patmos (Rev 4:1-11), and also, to some extent, of the vision of Miciah the son of Imlah, in the First Book of Kings (1Ki 22:19-22). The teaching of all these passages is consentient. God has always attendant upon him, in the courts of heaven, angelic beings of varied powers and capacities, who stand before him in adoration, and at the same time are eager to go whithersoever he may send them, and carry into effect his purposes.
II. AS DOING SERVICE TO MEN ON EARTH. Angels are represented by Isaiah as interested in the life of God’s faithful ones, as watching God’s dealings with them, and occasionally showing their sympathy. Christians are expressly taught that all angels are “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who are heirs of salvation” (Heb 1:14). Isaiah seems to have divined their functions in this respect. He “sees indeed through a glass darkly,” and not yet “face to face” (1Co 13:12); but still he not obscurely intimates from time to time their close relationship to man.. God places them upon the wails of the new Jerusalem to watch (Isa 62:6). They stand there, and “take no rest.” They are Jehovah’s “remembrancers,” not reminding him of human sin or human shortcomings, but of his promises to his people, and of their need that he should give them succour (see Mr. Cheyne on Isa 62:6). It is, perhaps, a cry of the angels that rings out in the “splendid apostrophe,” “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old” (Isa 51:9). Angels exchange “cries” when the promise of Christ’s coming is given (Isa 40:6-8). Angels are interested in a path being made by which the faithful ones may reach God’s holy city (Isa 57:14). Angels call on their fellows to open to the saints the gates of heaven (Isa 26:2). The dwellers in the empyrean are joined with the believers on earth in the bonds of charity and love, and form with them one community in the city of the living God (Isa 62:6; comp. Heb 12:22-24).
Isa 57:15
The humility of God.
An ancient Jewish writer says, “Wherever the Scripture bears witness to the Divine mightiness, it brings out side by side with it the Divine humbleness” (‘Megilla,’ 31, a); and this is nowhere more strikingly manifested than m the present passage. God “dwells in the high and holy place”in the most exalted sphere to which human thought can possibly mount; and yet at the same time he dwells with the human spirit that is humble and crushed. As Delitzsch says, “The heaven of heavens is not too great for him, and a human heart is not too small for him, to dwell in.” He who sits upon the cherubim, and hears the seraphim praise him with ceaseless voice, does not scorn also to “dwell among the sighs of a poor human soul.” Note, in connection with this theme
I. THAT ALL GOD‘S PROVIDENTIAL DEALINGS WITH THE THINGS THAT HE HAS CREATED ARE A CONDESCENSION. It is necessary that he should “humble himself” even to “behold the things which are in heaven and earth” (Psa 113:5). He is infinitely above these thingstheir “goodness extendeth not to him” (Psa 16:2). All contact with them is contact of the higher with the lower, and involves necessarily the higher stooping from his high estate. The distance between him and the highest of the angels is an infinite distance. His condescending to accept the praises of the angels is an infinite condescension.
II. THAT IT IS A GREATER CONDESCENSION FOR GOD TO HAVE DEALINGS WITH MEN THAN WITH ANGELS. Angels are pure, at any rate, from the taint of sin. God may “tax them with folly” (Job 4:12), but he does not tax them with sin. There is no barrier of iniquity or impurity between God and the lowest angel. But with man the case is different. Man is “very far gone from original righteousness.” He has corrupted his way before God. The best man “has sinned, and come short of God’s glory” (Rom 3:23). “What then is man, that God should be mindful of him? or the son of man, that he should visit him?” (Psa 8:4). It is an extraordinary condescension and humility that God should bring himself down to the level of man, hold communion with him, “dwell” with him, “heal” him. Yet he does this. Although his throne is in heaven, “yet his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men” (Psa 11:4). He “looks down from heaven upon them” (Psa 14:2). “From the place of his habitation he beholdeth all the dwellers on the earth” (Psa 33:14). The gratitude of men should correspond to the condescension of God.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Isa 57:3-10
Pictures of idolatry.
The idolaters are summoned to hear the judgment upon them. They are characterized as “sons of a sorceress, seed of an adulterer.” The source of all idolatry is unfaithfulness to God regarded as the Husband of his people (Eze 16:44, Eze 16:45). Yet, in their pride, these idolaters make sport of and scoff at the true servants of God.
I. THE RITES OF IDOLATRY. There were enthusiastic orgies in the sacred groves of oak and in the gardens (Isa 1:29; Eze 6:13; Hos 4:13). There were sacrifices of children to Moloch. There were fetish-stones, which were anointed with oil, and these continued to be devoted to heathen uses. And Israel, having by covenant a “portion,” or property, so to speak, in God, has exchanged this for the senseless stones; and to these food-offerings are made. The pictures of Phoenician, Israelitish, and Greek superstitions are in this respect much the same. Jehovah, in that jealousy which is the expression of a holy love, is deeply grieved by these things.
II. THE PROFLIGACY OF IDOLATRY. On the high hills shrines were erected, and tombs are still seen upon them, overshadowed by the tree on which votive offerings hang. Saints or prophets have replaced the old gods. Here idolatrous symbols were set up. And idolatry polluting politics, the people negotiated and coquetted with heathen powers, and humbled themselves to the lowest servility. And yet these negotiations and journeys had been in vain. For all that, the attempts had been renewed. “It is a striking illustration of men seeking happiness away from God. They wander from object to object; become weary in the pursuit, yet do not renounce it; still cling to hope, though often repulsed; though the world gives them no permanent comfort, though wealth, ambition, and gaiety, all fail of imparting happiness,yet they do not give up the pursuit in despair. The world is still pursued with just as little success, with continually augmenting evidence that it cannot satisfy the desires of the immortal soul, with just as much reluctance to seek permanent bliss in God.”
III. DIVINE REMONSTRANCE. The tone is one of gentleness and softness. “Who is there so strong and so terrible as to justify thee in thy infidelity to Jehovah? None.” Yet there may be some excuse for them in his long silence. Passed over again and again, it might seem that God had forgotten to be graciousthat they were hidden from him. But now he will draw near again: “The speech of mingled mercy and judgment shall work more effectually on the heart” (cf Isa 46:13; Psa 22:31; Psa 98:2). Or the words may be taken ironicallyit depends on whether we read “my righteousness” or “thy righteousness.” In the coming trial, no help but Jehovah’s will avail thee. “Her medley of gods” will not deliver herthe Pantheon of various divinations set up by her (cf. Mic 1:7). The wind shall carry them off like all dwellings and defences of merely human structure (cf. Mat 7:26, Mat 7:27).
IV. ETERNAL ASSURANCE. “To take refuge in Jehovah,” in the Eternal, is the only safety, the only guarantee of stability and possession, amidst the flux and change of things. To say that they shall “possess the land” is to say, according to the manner of the Hebrew, everything that denotes favour for this life (Isa 49:8; Psa 37:11, Psa 37:29; cf. Mat 5:5; Psa 69:35, Psa 69:36). And to “inherit the holy mountain” is to enter upon all spiritual privileges and joys”as great as if they had possession of a portion of the mount on which the temple was built, and were permitted to dwell there.” And then mysterious voices are heard, hinting that all obstacles shall be removed from the path of those who trust in God. The language is suitable to the return from exile, as if persons should go before them, crying, “Cast up!” So before a pacha the labourers go and remove stones out of the way, with the cry,” Cast up the way; remove the stones!” (cf. Isa 26:7; Isa 35:8; Isa 40:3, Isa 40:4; Isa 62:10). He who places obstacles in the path (Jer 6:21) is he who gives command in his own time for their removal. War and peace, welfare and hindrances to welfare, are from the same hand.J.
Isa 57:15-21
The character of Jehovah
I. HIS EXALTATION. “High and holy:” high because holy, exalted far above the meanness of human thoughts and the impurity of human ways. Far above creatures of all species and all ranks, it is needless further to designate him. He is the Incomparable One. He dwells in eternity (cf. Isa 9:6). His Name is “the Holy One” (Isa 1:4; Isa 30:11; Isa 40:25; Isa 41:14; Isa 43:3, Isa 43:8; Isa 47:4); his place the high and holy place, or temple (Isa 6:1).
II. HIS CONDESCENSION “Wherever the Scripture bears witness to the Divine mightiness, it brings out side by side with it the Divine humbleness (Deu 10:17, Deu 10:18; Isa 57:15; Psa 68:4, Psa 68:5). It is not an Epicurean view of God (Act 17:18), nor the Gnostic view that God had left the world to the management of inferior beings, by himself created. Though illimitable and unapproachable, he delights to make his abode with men. “He cannot direct the affairs of his people from without. He desires to be enthroned in their hearts.” He is with them that are of a contrite, or crushed, spiritsouls bowed down with a sense of sin and unworthiness (Psa 34:18; Psa 138:6), to make alive their spirit, to impart strength and comfort, even as genial rains and dews fall upon the drooping plant. Such a lowly state of mind can only have been produced by affliction (Isa 61:1; Isa 65:14;Isa 66:2; Psa 34:18; Psa 147:2, Psa 147:3).
III. HIS FAITHFULNESS AND LOVE. He will not be angry with his people for ever (Psa 103:9). The soul could not hold out in a prolonged contention with its Maker. Its power must fail; it must sink into destruction. “If we are God’s children, we are safe. We may suffer much and long. We may suffer so much, it may seem scarce possible we should endure more. But he knows how much we can bear, and will lighten the burden and remove the load” (Psa 128:1-6 :38, 39). Why has he smitten them at all? It is because of their sin. Unjust gain is put for sin in general (cf. Jer 6:13; Jer 5:1; Eze 33:31; Psa 119:36), even, as in other places, the shedding of blood, He has seen their ways, both of sin and aberration, of suffering and amendment. Having hidden himself, he will now interpose to heal their wounds, and to guide them by a clearer path (Isa 58:11). (For sin as disease, and pardon as healing, cf. Jer 33:6; 2Ch 7:14; Psa 41:4; Jer 3:22; Jer 17:4; 53: Jer 14:4.) And as the result of all this, he creates the “fruit of the lips” (cf. Hos 14:2), i.e. praise and thanksgiving; of which the subject would be peace (cf. Eph 2:14-17) to the near and remote, Jew and Gentile, or with reference to the holy city; no degree of remoteness was to disqualify true Israelites from the enjoyment of the promise.
IV. THE CONTRAST. The impure and the unpardoned alone shall know no peace. Those who are in a state of alienation from Jehovah shall be, on the contrary, like the restless, ever-shifting sea (Jud 1:13; cf. Ovid, ‘Tristia,’ 1.10. 33). They have no fixed happiness, no substantial peace; a rage of passion ever ferments within them; past guilt casts up its mire in memory; feat’s of the future torment. How different from the scene where “the good man meets his fate, quite in the verge of heaven”!
So fades a summer cloud away;
So sinks the gale when storms are o’er;
So gently shuts the eye of day;
So dies a wave along the shore.
J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Isa 57:1, Isa 57:2
Three pictures of the human.
Our attention is called to
I. A PICTURE OF HUMAN GOODNESS. A good man is represented as “the righteous,” as “the merciful,” as one who “walketh in uprightness.” These characterizations include:
1. The fear of Godreverence for his Name, the worship of his Divine Spirit, the recognition of his righteous claims, a supreme regard for his holy will.
2. The love of mana practical acknowledgment of his claims on our sympathy and our succour, a hearty and practical desire to promote his well-being.
3. The regulation of daily life, in all stations and spheres, by the laws of truth, purity, honesty, sobriety. A righteous, merciful, and upright man is one who will be making an honest and earnest endeavour to realize all this in his character and his career. Nothing less will satisfy his aspiration.
II. A PICTURE OF HUMAN THOUGHTLESSNESS. “The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart.” When a communitynation or Churchhas not been living and walking in the light of the Lord, it becomes dull of apprehension, spiritually blind, incapable of estimating the true character of events.
1. It fails to appreciate the worth of one good man’s life. What an incalculable blessing a single true, pure, and holy life may be, and indeed must be! and what a fountain of good is dried up when one who leads such a life is taken away! It is a bad time, indicative of evil and prophetic of decline and death, when human worth is disregarded.
2. It fails to feel the injury and wrong done by arbitrary violence; it ought to resent it with keenest indignation, and to take vigorous steps to arrest and remove it.
3. It fails to recognize a valuable mitigation: “None considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.” It is natural enough for men to wish to go on into the future, that they may see what is coming, and that they may help to shape the event; but the wise and thoughtful will consider that there may be a future impending from which they would earnestly pray God to save them. It was not a threat, but a promise, sent to Josiah, “I will gather thee to thy fathers neither shall thine eyes see all the evil which I will bring upon this place” (2Ki 22:20). Many are they who have outlived the period of prosperity and peace, to whom an earlier death would have been a happier lot. We cannot be sure that a sudden and even (what we call)a premature death may not be a most merciful removal from intolerable pain, or from overwhelming temptation, or from grievous burdens and sorrows. We sing, “Our times are in thy hand,” and we do well to continue, “O God, we wish them there.”
III. A PICTURE OF HUMAN REPOSE. “He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds.” From the tumult and the strain, from the battle and the burden of life, even the rest of the grave is welcome. But how much more welcome to the weary spirit is that rest which Jesus Christ has revealed, and which remaineth for the people of God!rest in the home, in the likeness, in the glory, in the untiring service of the ascended Saviour.C.
Isa 57:10
Weariness in sinful error.
Whether the guilty error of Israel consisted in its departure into idolatry, or in its having recourse to the arm of flesh instead of to the power of its Divine Redeemer, we reach the same conclusion, viz.
I. THAT SIN GOES TO TEDIOUS LENGTHS IN ITS WANDERING FROM GOD. It is “wearied in the greatness of its way.” Whatever may be the particular course which iniquity may takewhether it moves in the direction of disbelief, or of covetousness, or of any one of the vices, or of worldlinessit goes far enough to find that the path of sinful error is a long and tedious road, that it is one in which the soul finds no lasting satisfaction, that there continually recurs a sense of want and spiritual craving, a hungering of the heart for that which is not supplied. Their name is legion who find their own chosen course of sin a weary round, an unsatisfying pursuit.
II. THAT, SPITE OF ITS OWN WEARINESS, ST PERSISTS IN‘ ITS UNHALLOWED PATH. It is weary enough, yet it “says not, There is no hope.” It finds just enough to maintain some kind of existence”the life of thine hand”to go on without being altogether changed and restored. Are there not multitudes of men who are dragging on a weary life, profoundly dissatisfied with what they are in themselves and what they are accomplishing, and yet allowing themselves to continue in their guilty course? The path of sin is a very pitiable one; it is no wonder
III. THAT IT CALLS DOWN A STRONG DIVINE REPROACH. (Isa 57:11.) God reproaches his erring children:
1. That they have given themselves up to that which is utterly unworthy of their devotion: “Whom hast thou feared?”
2. That they have neglected the strong claims he has on their worship and servicehe who has laid them under such deep obligations and has held out to them such glorious prospects; “Hast not remembered me.” Nor must it be forgotten
IV. THAT GOD‘S SILENCE, AS WELL AS HIS SPEECH, IS AN ARGUMENT FOR RETURN. “Have not 1 held my peace and thou fearest me not?”
1. God’s silence is strangely and grievously misinterpreted (Psalm l. 21).
2. Instead of making it an encouragement to sin, it ought to be employed as an opportunity for repentance. It is a Divine pause, in order that, while it lasts, the guilty may reconsider and return.
3. God’s silence is temporary; it is imposed on himself by a strong and merciful restraint. But it cannot be very long continued; the interests of righteousness demand that it shall be broken. Let not the impenitent presume
“For tho’ mercy be kind and its patience endure,
To the path of repentance it seeks to allure,
And they who are deaf to its voice may be sure
That God will not always be silent.
Oh, Time brings the hourwe shall soon all be there
When the Judge on his judgment-throne shall appear,
And his sentence of mercy or wrath shall declare,
And then win no longer be silent.”
C.
Isa 57:12, Isa 57:13
The fate of folly and the reward of wisdom.
The Divine One whom Israel has so grievously wronged (Isa 57:4-9) intimates (Isa 57:12) that he will make known to his people the results of their apostasy from him; he will tell them “how unprofitable are their works,” how suicidal is their policy; he will tell them also how great is the reward of the wiseof those who abide in his service.
I. THE BITTER FATE OF THE UNGODLY. Departing from God, they have no resort but that which they find in their own poor divinities, in those “heaps of idols” whose power is blown away with the first breath of adversity; they may cry to these wretched images, but they will meet with no response. This will prove the portion of the ungodly. in every age: the powers to which, in God’s absence, they have recourse will fail them utterly in their time of need; they may be numerous, they may be “companies,” they may be highly esteemed, but they will certainly tail when the hour of trial arrives. Worldly wealth, a great reputation, troops of friends, high social position, varied attainments, strength of bodily constitution,any one or all of these, or other resources besides these, may be possessed, but they will ignominiously fail in the hour of supreme necessity; they will not, for they cannot, deliver a human soul in its deepest troubles, in its darkest hours; they will be as impotent as “the chaff which the wind driveth away.” “Vain things for safety” are they all. The soul of man has wants which strike deeper and which rise higher than any of them can reach.
II. THE BLESSED HERITAGE OF THE GODLY. “He that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land.” To him may come, will come, hours of darkness, of loss, of trial; but he has a stay and a resource in God his Father, in Jesus Christ his unfailing Friend, which will make him blessed at every point of his pilgrimage, in every stage of his career. For him will be:
1. The rest of heart which comes with a consciousness of spiritual integrity.
2. Growth in all that is good and wise.
3. The happiness of heart which is found in the worship of God: “He shall inherit my holy mountain.”
4. The joy of sacred service, of rendering succour, of imparting strength to the weak and comfort to the sad, of rescuing and reinstating the fallen and despairing.
5. The hope of the heavenly inheritance.C.
Isa 57:15, Isa 57:16
The greatness of God and the hope of the humble.
The prophet presents us with a most noble contrast as he draws for us the surpassing greatness of the infinite God, and then pictures him to us as resident in a humble human soul
I. THE EXCEEDING GREATNESS OF GOD. And this whether we have regard to
(1) the duration of his existence,the fact that he “inhabits eternity,” that he is “from everlasting to everlasting;” or to
(2) his position in the universe,he is the “high and lofty One,” King of kings, Lord of lords, immeasurably removed in his majesty and authority above the highest and mightiest of his creatures; or to
(3) his character,“his Name is Holy.” This name of holiness is indicative of all moral excellence, and reminds us that God is he in whom all goodness of every kind whatsoever has its residence and its source. So surpassingly great, in all respects, is he whom we worship, with whom we have everything to do.
II. THE HOPE OF THE HUMBLE IN REGARD TO HIM. We naturally askWhat hope is there that finite and guilty men can ever be brought into a close relationship with this infinite and holy God? what chance is there of anything like happy fellowship with him? Our text provides the answer.
1. The conclusion to which our philosophy and our experience point usthis is to a hopeless separation from him. Our human thought (see Isa 55:8) would lead, has continually led, to the conclusion that God would dwell apart from man in some remote, select region of illimitable space, not concerning himself with creatures so small and insignificant as we are. Our experience of guilt would lead us to the conclusion that we are hopelessly barred from his presence, and that those who have grieved and wronged him, as we have done, must be content to be banished for ever from his royal presence. But against this reasoning and this instinctive dread we have to place:
2. The fact which Divine revelation establishes; “with him also [does God dwell] who is of a contrite and humble spirit.” It is a well-established fact, built on sure premises, on words which are stronger than the hills and the skies (Mat 24:35), that God abides with all penitent souls, manifesting himself to them as their Father and their Friend, inviting their trust, their love, their joy in himself and in his near presence (see text; Isa 66:2; Psa 34:18; Psa 51:17; Psa 138:6; Mat 5:3; Mat 18:4; 1Pe 5:5).
3. The explanation of this fact lies in two Divine attributes:
(1) His mercy. The merciful Father desires to restore and “to revive” the heart that has been crushed under a weight of sin. He wounds, but it is in order that he may heal. He desires to see, and he promotes both by word and action, the contrition of spirit which appropriately follows a sinful deed or a guilty course; then the gracious and pitiful Lord extends his Divine mercy, and he heals the broken heart, restoring to it “the joy of his salvation,” the blessedness of “the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
(2) His considerateness. “I will not contend for ever for the spirit should fail before me,” etc. We have to do with a considerate Father, who “knows our frame, and who remembers that we are dust;” with a considerate Saviour, who remembers that the spirit is willing though the flesh be weak; with One who has a gracious forbearance in his chiding, lest too severe a sentence should crush the spirit he only means to bend and bless. We can hardly take too humble a view of ourselves, of the heinousness of our guilt and of the imperfection of our service; but our hope is thiswe have to deal with a merciful and considerate Lord, and his friendliness toward us may be measured by the lowliness of the view we are taking of ourselves. Well may the proud of heart be afraid, for the heaviest penalties impend above their head; but let the humble-hearted be full of hope, for God is with them, and he will dwell in them, making their hearts his home.C.
Isa 57:17-21
The course of the soul.
These words of Isaiah indicate the course which the human spirit often takes in its downward and upward path. We have
I. THE ESSENCE OF INIQUITYTHIS IS SELFISHNESS. “The iniquity of his selfishness,” as it may be rendered. Whether it takes the specific form of rapacity, of unholy ambition, of self-indulgence or of any other special sin, you may trace iniquity home to the evil spirit of selfishnessthe withholding from God, for self, of that which is due to him. Those who are transgressing none of the ten commandments in the letter, but are yet living to themselves, are living in iniquity.
II. DIVINE DISPLEASURE AND REBUKE. “I was wroth and smote him: I hid me.” Our wilful departure from God and refusal of our hearts and lives excite his profound displeasure, his sacred griefcall forth his parental wrath and displeasure. In a very solemn sense “God is angry with the wicked;” they abide under his “wrath.” He is compelled to withhold from them the light of his countenance; he rebukes them; he sends the penalty which is due to sin, and Which is appropriate to the particular sin which is being committed. He hides his face; he withdraws his blessing; he causes pain, disappointment, sorrow, to visit the doer, to afflict the heart.
III. HUMAN RESENTMENT AND INCREASED REBELLIOUSNESS OF SPIRIT. “He went on frowardly in the way of his heart.” That which is intended to draw near, sometimes drives away. Godly sorrow works repentance; but sorrow, taken ill and treated wrongly, works death. If the heat does not melt, it hardens.
IV. THE VICTORY OF DIVINE LOVE. Still, in spite of a growing waywardness, the pity of God pursues the wandering soul. And though deceived and led astray, man travels far and wanders long, God “sees his ways;” he stretches forth the hand of power and grace, and he “heals him;” he leads him home and comforts him with the priceless blessings which are under the Father’s roof. These blessings are:
1. Reconciliation: the being spiritually healed, being restored to God after the saddest of all separationsspiritual distance from God.
2. Peace: peace offered and granted to those who were more distant and also to those less far removed from truth and righteousness and puritythe peace of conscious acceptance.
3. Praise: “the fruit of the lips,” joyful ascription unto him that redeemed and restored; the daily song of gratitude that wells up from a heart filled with gratitude and love.
V. A POWERFUL INCENTIVE TO RETURN. Perhaps it may be taken as one “fruit of the lips” that the healed and restored soul now speaks for God to men; now becomes his spokesman; now teaches transgressors his way (Psa 51:12, Psa 51:13). And one convincing and impressive truth which a home-brought wanderer can enforce better than an unfallen angel is the hardness of the transgressor‘s road, the weariness of the way to him who is leaving God for the far country, the restlessness of a heart that is separated from its Divine Source and Friend; the truth that the mirth of unhallowed enjoyment is very shallow and short-lived, that fast on the heels of guilty pleasure come pursuing pain of body and misery of soul; the fact that there is no peace to the wicked, no lasting joy to any one who has abandoned the fountain of living waters for the broken cisterns of earth and time. The plaintive cry which comes from the aching hearts and troubled lives of guilt is answered by one voice aloneby that of him who stands before all generations of men, and says, in the accents of sweet and sovereign pity “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Isa 57:1
Mercy and wrath in the death of the righteous.
Possibly the good king -Josiah is here prophetically referred to. His untimely death seems a strange dispensation of Providence even to us now. Josiah’s case may be taken as illustrating the general truth which is thus stated by Bishop Wordsworth: “Good and merciful men, who are taken away in the midst of their efforts to do good in their generation, and whose endeavours appear to be disowned by God, and to be blighted and withered by him, may perhaps seem to men to be cut off by a violent stroke of Divine indignation, and may be mourned by some as having died an untimely death; but the truth iswhich these Scriptures revealthey are gently gathered by God in love, and are in peace.“ The terms used have precise significations. The “righteous” means “those who walk straight, and stand upright.” An honoured pastor lay upon his dying bed, and a member of his congregation stood beside it, whose business ways were known to be somewhat shifty. Beckoning him to bend down close to him, the pastor solemnly said these few, but searching, words, “William, go straight!“ “Merciful men” are men of kindness; gracious men, who, having themselves felt the loving-kindness of God, deal kindly with their fellow-men.
I. MERCY IS SHOWN IN SPARING THE RIGHTEOUS FROM COMING CALAMITIES. We have often to notice how graciously the death of our friends is timed. At first we wonder why they were taken just then, but the lapse of a few months satisfies us that they were taken “from the evil to come.” The widow is removed before her little estate is wrecked by some inefficient or unfaithful trustee. The honorable business man is gathered in before some wrong-doer brings disgrace on his firm which would have broken his heart. Methuselah died the year before the Flood; Augustine a little before the sacking of Hippo. Pareus just before the taking of Heidelberg; Luther a little before the wars broke out in Germany. We have known beloved ones who all their life long prayed that they might not be spared to become troublesome to anybody, and mercy called them away almost suddenly, ere bodily powers began to decay. Most graciously the time, the place, the manner, of our exit from earth are divinely arranged; and in this matter too we may perfectly trust.
II. WRATH IS SHOWN IN REMOVING THE BARRIERS TO ONCOMING JUDGMENTS. This is one point which the prophet would enforce. The death of good men should be regarded as a sign that calamity is at hand. Righteousness can held back judgment, as is seen in Abraham’s pleading for Sodom. Prayers and intercessions can hold back judgment. Then the removal of the righteous men and the intercessors removes barriers and lets free the flood.R.T.
Isa 57:4
Insult of good men is insult of God.
“The righteous dies, and is at rest; but ye, what will ye make at last of your derision of the righteous, and of the follies and idolatries wherein ye trust? Nothing.” Matthew Henry says, “Mocking the messengers of the Lord was Jerusalem’s measure-filling sin; for what was done to them God took as done to himself. When they were reproved for their sins, and threatened with the judgments of God, they ridiculed the Word of God with the rudest and most indecent gestures and expressions of disdain. They sported themselves and made themselves merry with that which should have made them serious, and under which they should have humbled themselves. They made wry mouths at the prophets, and drew out the tongue, contrary to all the laws of good breeding; nor did they treat God’s servants with the common civility with which they would have treated a gentleman’s servant that had been sent to them on an errand.” Illustrations may be found in the treatment of Isaiah (see Isa 28:7-15); of Jeremiah; and, above all, by the insults offered to the Lord Jesus by the men of Jerusalem. The “wide mouth” and the “drawn-out tongue,” are the natural symbols of derision (see Psa 35:21). We may note some of the conditions under which the messengers of God are likely to be insulted and misunderstood.
I. WHEN THEY DO NOT COME IN THE REGULAR AND RECOGNIZED ORDER. God has his order of ministrants in every age, and his ordinary messages to men may be expected to come through them: patriarchs in one age, priests in another, prophets in yet another, clergy in still another. And all due honour should be put on the Divine order for the particular time. But God has always held the right of sending messengers outside the order, as he sends comets into our solar system, and there is as real a law for the sending of seemingly erratic messengers as of the seemingly erratic comets. But there is always the disposition in those who belong to the order, and the attaches of the order, to reject the outside man. Compare our Lord’s disciples saying to the Master,” We found one teaching in thy Name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us.” The questions concerning any apparent messenger from God, which we ought to ask, are theseWill his work bear the test of God’s revealed Word? And does God seal his work with his Divine benediction? To reject any man’s work which can stand this dual test is to insult God, whose messenger he certainly is.
II. WHEN THERE ARE ODDITIES IN THE MAN HIMSELF OR IN THE MANNER OF DELIVERING HIS MESSAGE. Just as we have established the notion that there must be an “order” through whom Divine messages alone can come, so we have convinced ourselves that there are particular styles and methods in which alone Divine messages do come. So if a message is not to pattern, we think we are right in rejecting it. The personal peculiarities of a messenger may touch the humorous faculty, and so close men’s minds and hearts against the reception of the message. But this is to insult the messenger, and in him the God who chose him and sent him with the message. We have not to ask what a man is; but we have to askIs he of God? If he is, we must hear him.
III. WHEN THE MESSENGER MAKES SEVERE DEMANDS. Illustrate from Jonah at Nineveh. No doubt there were many who scorned him on this ground. Also see the demand of Savonarola which led to the great burning in the market-place of Florence. Many of the wilder spirits of Florence did jeer at him. Men in every age have preferred the prophets who prophesied smooth and soft things; and they have always been disposed to reject the prophets who had to do the nobler and more necessary work of prophesying rough things and hard things. Exactly what our over-civilized generation needs is some prophet of God, who will tell us strongly, plainly, sternly, what God would have us do. But of this we may be quite sure, even in this enlightened nineteenth century, such a prophet and teacher would have a hard time of it.
IV. WHEN THE MESSAGE GOES AGAINST THE FASHION OF THE AGE. For there are fashions in thinking and religion, as well as in manners and dress. And none of us like to be out of the thinking or religious fashion. But Fashions may become slavery to us, and degrade us as slavery always does. Let a man of God come and show us the evils into which fashionsmental and religioushave brought us, and we hate the man; we cry out against him, we are all alarm, because we have deluded ourselves with the notion that fashion is synonymous with truth. Urge that we are bound to test every public witness, and decide for ourselves whether he is of God. If he is, then to neglect his message is to sin against God, and to insult him is to insult God.R.T.
Isa 57:6
The worship of stones.
“In the smooth stones of the valley is thy portion even to them hast thou poured out drink offerings.” A good deal of information is at command on this subject, Illustrative matter will be found in Kitto’s ‘Daily Bible Illustrations,’ vol. ‘Isaiah,’ p. 209. Matthew Arnold sums up the matter in the following note: “The worship of stones is a very early form of idolatry, and originated, probably, in the veneration paid to meteoric stonesstones which, as the people said, ‘fell down from heaven.’ But the worship extended to other stones also. Traces of this worship occur in Genesis, in Jacob’s consecration of the stones in his passage by Bethel (Gen 28:18). The Greeks, too, had this stone-worship. ‘In the earlier times,’ says the Greek traveller Pausanias, ‘all the Greeks worshipped, in place of images of the gods, undressed stones.’ We find the name Baetylia given to these stones, and it has even been conjectured that this name comes from Bethel.” Smooth stones (named salagrams), chiefly from the river Gandaki, are treated as sacred objects by the Vaishnavas all over North India. Dr. Turner writes, “I have several’ smooth stones of the stream’ from the New Hebrides, which were used as idols, and have heard of precisely similar stones being used in other parts of the Pacific.” At Inniskea, off the coast of Mayo, a stone, carefully kept wrapped up in flannel, used to be brought out at certain periods to be adored; and when a storm arises, this god is supplicated to send a wreck on their coast! It is narrated that there is a stone set up to the south of St. Columba’s Church, in the island of Eriska, about eight feet high and two feet broad. It is called by the natives the bowing-stone; for when the inhabitants had the first sight of the church, they set up this stone, and then bowed, and said the Lord’s Prayer. Three points may be illustrated.
I. GOD IS OFFENDED WHEN THINGS ARE PUT IN PLACE OF HIM. This is the coarser form of idolatry. Material things are superstitiously invested with powers, and become actual idols.
II. GOD IS OFFENDED WHEN THINGS ARE USED TO REPRESENT HIM. This is the refined form of idolatry which some thinking and educated persons approve. The thingstone or figurebecomes for them a material representation of the invisible God. This is offensive because of the limitations it puts on men’s conceptions of the Divine Being.
III. GOD IS OFFENDED WHEN THINGS ARE MADE THE MEDIUM FOR GETTING TO HIM. This is one phase of modern idolatry. It is an offence because the essence of the last, the Christian, revelation is that each individual soul can have direct and immediate access to God. There is no place for idol-mediators.R.T.
Isa 57:10
The weariness of sinful ways.
Cheyne thinks the first reference of this verse is to the ceaseless quest of the nation, in this its troublous time, for help and protection, including, of course, embassies to foreign kings, and also every other specimen of untheocratic policy. “Nothing could convince these idolatrous Jews of the folly of their misplaced trust and vain confidence.” Barnes given the following suggestive note on the general application of the passage: “This is a striking illustration of the conduct of men in seeking happiness away from God. They wander from object to object; they become weary in the pursuit, yet they do not abandon it; they still cling to hope though often repulsed, and though the world gives them no permanent comfort, though wealth, ambition, gaiety, and vice all fail in imparting the happiness which they sought, yet they do not give it up in despair. They still feel that it is to be found in some other way than by the disagreeable necessity of returning to God, and they wander from object to object, and from land to land, and become exhausted in the pursuit, and still are not ready to say, ‘ There is no hope; we give it up in despair, and we will now seek happiness in God.'” Matthew Henry keenly, if somewhat quaintly, says, “Prosperity in sin is a great bar to conversion from sin.” Henderson puts in a good sentence the immediate and local association of the verse: “The idolatrous Jews wearied themselves with their unhallowed practices; but finding that they had not entirely exhausted their strength, they would not give up their pursuits as hopeless, but rather emboldened themselves in wickedness.”
I. IT IS A FACTSINFUL WAYS DO WEARY US. Illustrate the pursuit of pleasure by means of self-indulgence. Or the “quest of the chief good” on purely human lines (illustrate this from the Book of Ecclesiastes). Or the mastery of evil by effort of serf-will. Or the effort to get eternal life by our own doings and strivings. In every case we are soon left wearied out and sick at heart.
II. THIS FACT MEN ARE SLOW TO RECOGNIZE. They will not say, “There is no hope.” By all kinds of delusions men persuade themselves to try once again. The last thing men will give up is hope in themselves and their own self-schemes.
III. MAN‘S CHANCE COMES ONLY WHEN HE IS HUMBLE ENOUGH TO RECOGNIZE THIS FACT. He must he willing to say, “Myself I cannot save.” Then, turning to God, he will say, “Thou canst save, and thou alone.”R.T.
Isa 57:11
Wrong thoughts of God keep men from repentance.
God pleads, saying, “Who filled thee with dread, or of whom wast thou afraid, when thou provedst false, and didst not remember me?” Some mental creation of God, or some false teaching concerning God, occupied the thought and the heart, and kept the men of Israel from feeling all those persuasions to repentance which come from the full and the worthy knowledge of him. Compare the expressions, “Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance;” “This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” Some think that the allusion is to the helpless idols in whose aid the people vainly trusted. Matthew Arnold paraphrases thus: “How could thy calamities, and the fear of thy Babylonian tyrant, make thee so superstitious and forgetful?” Illustrating the earlier method of interpreting the verse, it may be shown how wrong and imperfect thoughts of God are still the great hindrances in men’s way. These wrong thoughts come either as
I. CREATIONS OF MEN‘S OWN FEARS. God too often is not to men what he really is, but what he seems to be when seen through their fears and conscience of sin. So a revelation was needed which could assure men of God’s pitying mercy and forgiving love. When men, conscious of transgression and fearing judgment, try to paint God, we cannot wonder that their picture should be untrue and unworthy The thing of which it is so difficult to persuade sinners is that there is forgiveness with God, and that he delighteth in mercy.
II. MISCONCEPTIONS OF THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. There is always the danger to be guarded against that the exigencies of a system make us fashion a suitable God, rather than try to recognize in all simplicity the God who has been revealed. Therefore, in our day, so many resist the teachings that are known as Calvinistic. The hard, legal Deity of that system is felt to represent most imperfectly and unworthily the Father of Jesus, and Saviour of the world. But we must understand that the false representations are more often found in the statements of those who attempt to expound a system than in the system itself.
III. AS ONE–SIDED VISIONS OF TRUTH WHICH NEEDS TO BE SEEN AS A WHOLE. This mistake is often pointed out in connection with the two attributes of “mercy” and “justice.” The modern tendency to dwell on the milder features of the Divine nature, and to exclude the sterner ones, is perilously keeping men from that repentance which is the only open highway to the eternal life.R.T.
Isa 57:15
The new test of religion.
“I dwell also in him that is contrite, and of a lowly spirit.” The earlier test of religion had been formal, and precise obedience to all the claims and conditions of the Jehovah-covenant; the exact keeping of every ritual, social, and national requirement. St. Paul states the old test thus: “The man that doeth them shall live in them.” It was the work of the prophets to introduce the new moral test, and prepare the way for the higher spiritual test of Christianity. The later prophets even venture to be severe on mere ritual obedience, as if, in the sight of God, it had become quite worthless. They intimate that God searches hearts, looks for right motives, asks not for what a man has, save as the man can, through his gifts, give himself to God. The “broken and contrite heart” are especially presented because this stands in most severe contrast with the self-satisfaction and self-will of unregenerate man. If a man is humble, sensible of sin and sorrow for sin, God knows he is such a man as can be made a monument of Divine grace. (Another treatment of this theme will be found under Isa 66:2.) It has been said, “God has three sorts of dwellings: first, in the highest; second, in the sanctuary; third, in humble hearts. The first dwelling is the universalis praesentia, the universal presence, by which he fills all (verse 23:24); but there he is too high and incomprehensible for us. The second is gratiosa, the gracious presence, by which he lets himself be found in the Word and sacraments, and also comes finally to us, and makes his dwelling in our hearts.” And the test is whether our hearts are such as he can make his dwelling in. The three tests are
I. DOES A MAN STRICTLY OBEY AND KEEP ALL RITUAL AND SOCIAL INJUNCTIONS? That test may suffice for children, and child-ages of the world; for we must begin moral education by requiring obedience to formal commands.
II. IS A MAN IN A RIGHT STATE OF MIND AND HEART? Such a state must include reverence before a God so great; thankfulness to a God so kind; humbleness through a sense of shortcoming before a God who makes such claims; and penitence through conviction of sin against a God so holy.
III. DOES A MAN ACCEPT GOD‘S GIFT OF PARDON AND LIFE IN HIS SON CHRIST JESUS? “He that believeth on the Son hath life: he that believeth not on the Son of God hath not life.” We cannot be tested only by the two first tests; the third searches, and perhaps condemns us.R.T.
Isa 57:20, Isa 57:21
The unrest of the wicked.
“But the wicked are like the sea that is tossed up, for it cannot rest, and its waters toss up mire and mud” (Cheyne). Comp. Jud Isa 1:13 for the figure. It is curious to note the marked contrast between our ideas and sentiments concerning the sea, and those of ancient times and Eastern lands. To us it is the beautiful shining sea, and many of us feel that we must see it at least once a year. To us it is the most soothing and calming of Nature’s influences, and we. sympathize with Bonar as he sings
“Summer ocean, how I’ll miss thee,
Miss the thunder of thy roar,
Miss the music of thy ripple,
Miss thy sorrow-soothing shore.
Summer ocean, how I’ll miss thee,
When ‘the sea shall be no more’!”
But to Eastern people generally in ancient times, and to Israelites in particular, the sea was a great dread. It was the separator, the engulpher of life, the restless storm-darkened, storm-tossed, wailing sea; suggestive only of foulness, unrest, and peril. So it was a type of the wicked man in ways, and with applications, which we find it most difficult to realize. But the unresting character of the sea does impress us. There is no peace to the heaving, swirling, wind-driven, tide-drawn sea.
I. THERE IS NO PEACE TO THE WICKED BECAUSE, IN HIS WAY, HE CAN NEVER GET IT. His way is breaking up the Divine order: rest can never come that way. His way is striving with everything that makes fair promises, apart from God: rest can never come that way. His way is to seek for rest in things that he can possess, not in the character which he can be: rest can never come that way. God’s world was made for good men, and it will yield its best treasures to, and satisfy, nobody but the good.
II. THERE IS NO PEACE TO THE WICKED BECAUSE, ON HIS CONDITIONS, GOD WILL NEVER GIVE IT. And peace for man is the gift of God. So, speaking for God, Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” The wicked want to buy it. God does not sell it. The wicked would consume it on their lusts if they obtained it. God will never allow his gifts to be abused. The wicked are not prepared to ear that peace which God calls peace; so he will wait until they come to a right mind. Show, in contrast, that we have “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”a heart-peace that works itself out into all sacred testings of life and relationship.R.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Isa 57:1-2. The righteous perisheth, &c. These words contain a kind of prelude to the distressful scene which is opened immediately after; for the prophet designing to describe the melancholy state of the adulterous church, to be chastised by the severe judgments of God, he beholds the few pious and good men yet remaining in the church, gradually falling off and taken away, either by an immature or a violent death; while there were but few who laid this matter to heart, and observed it as a presage of the judgment threatening the church. This stupidity he sadly deplores; immediately subjoining, however, an alleviation to shew (Isa 57:2.) that this complaint pertained not to the deceased, as having attained a happier lot, and as blessed in this respect, that they were taken from the evils and calamities of their times. The completion of this prophesy, according to Vitringa, is to be sought in the latter end of the ninth, and in the following centuries; when the Papal power greatly prevailed, and the corruption of the church was as great as the persecution and troubles of the pious were many. Rev 6:9.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
IX.THE NINTH DISCOURSE
Concluding Word: The Mournful Present, which will not be Prevented by the Approach of the Glorious Future.
Isa 56:10 to Isa 57:21.
Isaiah is wont to set the present in the light of the future, in order to make an impression on it by the contrast. I appeal to chapters 25, and to my interpretation of Isa 2:5. Jeremiah also imitates Isaiah in this (Jer 3:11 to Jer 4:4). The sudden spring from the remotest, the glorious future into the mournful, immediate present that the Prophet makes between Isa 56:9-10, need not therefore seem strange to us. It is to be admitted that the description of the bad shepherds, Isa 56:10-12, can suit also the period of the Exile. That it at least fits Isaiahs contemporaries very well is undeniably plain from Isaiah 28. That in the exile, prophets of Jehovah were murdered (Isa 57:1) simply for being such, is possible, but not probable, and not proved. That remnants of idolatry continued through the whole exile, is not only possible but also probable. However the time before and after the destruction of Jerusalem must be distinguished. But that all kinds of idolatry even Moloch worship, with its sacrifices of children (Isa 57:5), still occurred in the Exile, is not probable and not proved. It is utterly inconceivable, or, as Hengstenberg says (Christol. II. p. 201, 2 edit.), it has no meaning, that Israel even in exile sent to foreign kings for help (Isa 57:9). The threat: because thou hast not laid to heart my silence , thy works shall be made manifest and thy idols be swept away (Isa 57:11-13), certainly suits better the time before than the time after the Exile. For this reason even the opponents of the genuineness have been obliged to admit that the authorship of our section dates before the Exile (comp. Kleinert, Echth. D. jes. Weiss. p. 305 sqq.; Stier in his Comm.; Hengstenberg, l.c.). They do so partly by forced interpretations; partly by assuming that the whole passage Isa 56:10 to Isa 57:21 (Eichhorn), or at least Isa 56:9 to Isa 57:11 (Ewald) is repeated from older prophets. I am for this reason of the opinion (with Kleinert, Stier, Hengstenberg) that the grounds already given are opposed to the idea that in writing our passage, too, Isaiahs view-point was that of the Exile (Del.).
The section divides into three parts. In the First the Prophet contrasts the conduct and the fate of the bad and of the good shepherds of the present (Isa 56:10; Isa 57:2). In the Second he describes the mournful signs of the present, the idolatrous doings of the nation (Isa 57:3-14). In the Third he returns to promising salvation, and announces that Gods love will still bring salvation and healing to those that let themselves be healed (Isa 57:15-21).
_______________
1.THE MOURNFUL PRESENT MARKED BY THE CONTRAST OF THE BAD AND GOOD SHEPHERDS
Isa 56:10 to Isa 57:2
10His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant,
They are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark;
9Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.
11Yea, they are 10greedy dogs which 11can never have enough,
12And they are shepherds that cannot understand:
They all look to their own way,
Every one for his gain, 13from his quarter.
12Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine,
And we will fill ourselves with strong drink;
And to-morrow shall be as this day,
And much more abundant.
57 1The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart:
And 14merciful men are taken away, none considering
15That the righteous is taken away 16from the evil to come.
217He shall 18enter into peace:
They shall rest in their beds,
Each one walking 19in his uprightness.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See List for the recurrence of the words: Isa 56:10. . Verse 12. ; Isa 57:1. ; Isa 57:2. .
Isa 56:10. The suffix in undoubtedly refers to Israel.
Isa 56:11. The suffix in is related to the ideal totality to which the belongs.
Isa 57:1. I cannot approve the view that is an objective clause depending on . For how could then the wicked know that the pious by their death only escape the impending evil? And must it not then read, as Vitringa has said, or at least ? I believe that we must construe as causal, as in countless instances beside.
Isa 57:2. This verse is very difficult on grammatical and lexical grounds. For if one take as the subject of , then this insertion of a clause whose subject is identical with that of the principal clause, but expressed in the plural, is very violent, and, so far as I see, unexampled, notwithstanding the great freedom usual in Hebrew in respect to the change of person and number. It is also very questionable whether can mean burying place, and whether with can mean rest in the grave. For is only twice beside this used of a bed prepared for a dead person. In 2Ch 16:14 it designates the bed of state on which king Asa was laid before his burial ( and are expressly distinguished). Also in Eze 32:25 there is prepared for Elam a in the under-world, around about which are the of his adherents. Thus it appears that can indeed designate the place of repose of a dead person, but that is not then the grave in which he lies, but a distinguished elevated couch, on which he lies. But here nothing else is meant to be said of the righteous than that he, as one who has walked uprightly, finds rest in his grave. For this reason I am unable also to agree with the explanation, grammatically admissible, that treats as a clause by itself, and as the subject of . Then the participle is regarded as collective: the upright walking, i. e., the total of those walking uprightly. But here remains an oddity. For this reason I am of the opinion, that is to be treated as clause thrown in, expressive of the situation (comp. Jer 13:21): comes to peacewhile they rest on their bedswho walks uprightly. In this way is made prominent the contrast between the fleshly rest on soft pillows (comp. Isa 66:10. ) that the bad shepherds enjoy, and the rest of everlasting peace of God enjoyed by the righteous whom the world persecutes (comp. Luk 16:22). It is true one looks for before . Still Vav. in such clauses is not unfrequently omitted (comp. e. g., Psa 57:4; ; Ewald, 311, a), and the omission of finds compensation in the striking prominence of the plural.The plural is found beside here in Hos 7:14; Mic 2:1; Psa 149:5. It is also perhaps not unimportant to remark that this plural only occurs with , and that both the singular and the plural with never mean anything else than the bed on which the living repose. The passages with in the singular with : 2Sa 4:11; 2Sa 11:2; 2Sa 13:6; 1Ki 1:47; Psa 4:5; Psa 36:5; Job 33:19; Son 3:1. For the use of both sing. and plur. in Isaiah, see List. is , ex adverso positum, that which lies directly opposite, directly before a man. Hence is he that goes the way lying directly before him. with the accusative as in Isa 33:15; Isa 50:10.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The Prophet stands at the conclusion of the task he proposed for the second Ennead. He has pursued the word of the Servant of God through all its alternations to its glorious goal. From the light of the final glorification he turns his eye back and observes with pain the contrast between the glorious future and the mournful present. As we notice in Isa 48:6 that the Prophet by no means becomes unconscious of the present in his contemplation of the future, so we see here, too, that he cannot avoid instituting a comparison between that hereafter and the now. The difference is so great, that one does not comprehend how from the now the hereafter can ever come to be. But nothing is impossible with God. Spite of the heinousness of the present, the word of the Lord stands fast, that the people of God (those of course excepted that persistently resist the drawings of the Spirit) shall come to the peace and refreshment on the mount of God. The Prophet describes first the heinousness of the present. His eye falls chiefly on those that ought to be leaders and exemplars to the nation in the good way. But these are blind watchmen, and dumb, lazy dogs (Isa 56:10) and insatiably greedy. They are shepherds without knowledge, only keen for their own interest (Isa 56:11), and carousers that each day carry on worse than the day before (Isa 56:12). Where such men rule, of course the lot of the righteous is outwardly mournful; unregarded by the crowd they are borne away by the evil (Isa 57:1). But happily for them! For while others on their luxurious pillows surrender themselves to a fatal repose, the righteous go in to everlasting peace (Isa 57:2).
2. His watchmenmore abundant.Isa 56:10-12. Although in general the transition here is sharp from the future to the immediate present, still the figure used in Isa 56:9 prepares the transition in a very artistic way. For, although I do not think that there the Prophet summons the wild beasts to devour Israel, because they may easily do this on account of the bad watch that is kept, still I think it likely, that the Prophet, by the mention of the future of the beasts, is led to think of the beasts of the present, and of the way in which Israel is given over to them. (Isa 21:5-6; Isa 52:7), which means primarily spies, sentinels on guard, we are to understand here as meaning those whose duty it is, on account of their office, to warn the community of evil, and with it to contend against wickedness. Such, first of all, are the prophets. But also the priests (Mal 2:7) and worldly superiors, in short all that are entrusted with the shepherd office ( 56:11) are included. But what sort of watchmen are those that cannot see? In the ordinary sense there are none such. But in a spiritual sense there are. For there are, alas, those spiritually blind, whose spiritual eye is plastered up, and who consequently do not know, i. e., have no knowledge, no understanding of what they ought to know, in this absolute sense we had already Isa 44:9; Isa 44:18; Isa 45:20. Changing his figure, the Prophet further compares those bad shepherds to dogs that should watch the flock, and which though not blind, indeed, are yet dumb. But a protector that sees the enemy and gives no notice, is just as bad as one that does not see him at all (indeed worse subjectively). Thus the second figure intensifies the charge; for it adds a bad will to incapacity. Why they do not bark is said in the following words (added in the form of apposition): snarling in sleep, lying down, loving to slumber., . . seems to designate the sounds a dog utters in sleep, and therefore the meanings to sleep, dream, snore, to be delirious are ascribed to the word; comp. Bochart, Hieroz. ed. Lips. I. p. 781 sqq. With the Arabs the dog passes for a sleepy beast (comp. Hitzigin loc.), while, on the contrary, in the Occident it is the type of watchfulness (see Bochart, l. c.). The Prophet would say of the bad shepherds under all circumstances, that they cannot bark because they love their comfort and advantage beyond everything. Hence they get off nothing more than a snarl or a growl, such as a dog utters in slumber. Bochartl.c. adduces several passages from the ancients that show that they regarded these sounds in sleep as a characteristic peculiarity of dogs. They are lazy, yet insatiably greedy dogs ( strong in greed, Isa 5:14; Isa 29:8; Isa 55:2); they do not know what it is to be satisfied. And they are shepherds! adds the Prophet indignantly, with reference to his watchmen, etc., Isa 57:10 init. Then, as is his manner, Isaiah proceeds, in what follows, to explain the figure: answering to the ignorance of what is enough, is a worse ignorance with respect to , to distinguish (comp. the reverse of this Isa 32:4). They are strangers to true wisdom. They let selfishness essentially determine the direction of their efforts (comp. Isa 58:6), and especially greediness for gain. is that cut off, the cutting, gain (Isa 33:15; Isa 57:17), is the end in the sense of the periphery (comp. Gen 19:4; Jer 50:26). Thus the idea is: from the utmost periphery in to the very centre every one of this fine fellowship turns only to gain. Accordingly they all do so without exception.
And what good does their money do them? Isa 57:12 shows this by examples. Such a blind, dumb watchman, who can open eye and mouth well enough when it concerns his belly, calls out to the passer-by, or a visitor: Come ye, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with intoxicating drink ( comp. on Isa 5:11). This friendly host, however, does not invite to merely a short banquet, but, (answering to they know not satiety Isa 57:10), also to one that the following day will be continued in grander style. The words are both a nearer definition and also intensify the meaning. The next day is to be like the first only as a drunken day in general, but distinguished as to species by being of a much higher quality. Who does not think here of what the Prophet says Isa 28:7 sqq. of the vice of drunkenness that invaded both Judah and Israel? At all events, this moral aberration agrees very well with the religious degeneracy spoken of in Isa 57:3 sqq.
3. The righteous perishuprightness, Isa 57:1-2. If Isa 56:10-12 describes the doings of the bad shepherds, especially of false prophets, then by the righteous man here must be understood also a prophet. And and cannot mean a natural death, for that would be much more an encouragement than a warning to the bad. Rather the context seems to me to demand that the mournful fate of the true and righteous servants of Jehovah be contrasted with the lazy, jovial doings of the dumb dogs. Therefore (with Umbreit and others) I understand and to denote a violent death. I cannot avoid the impression that the Prophet here alludes to circumstances that he sees quite near, and as perhaps personally threatening to himself. Of course, precise proof of this cannot be offered; and I will only offer the view as a conjecture. The flood of unbelief had only swelled to greater magnitude under the idolatrous Manasseh. The apostacy was universal. It was much as in the days of Elijah (1Ki 19:10). It is also expressly said of Manasseh, that he shed very much innocent blood, and filled Jerusalem with it from one end to the other (2Ki 21:16); and tradition (handed down by Josephus,Antiq. X. 3, 1) refers that bloodshed especially to execution of numerous prophets. Even though Isaiah himself may not so have perished, and though the tradition to that effect be unfounded (see Introduction, pp. 3, 4), still Isaiah, while writing this, may have had this atrocious period in mind, and even have regarded it as threatening himself with destruction. That no man laid it to heart, if again a Jehovah-prophet was slain, is perfectly explained by the frequency of such events and by the apostacy being so universal and intense. The expression might in parallelism have a general meaning. Yet history justifies our construing it in a particular sense. is pietas, piety. is said as , Isa 55:6. On , see Text. and Gram. It was said before only, that the pious are taken away without any one regarding it. Now the reason of this is given. It is the , the universally prevalent wickedness. That explains that the righteous are not only taken away, but that it is done without opposition, yea, even without causing any disturbance.
Isa 57:2. But that is only a seeming misfortune for the righteous. In fact in this way he enters into peace, while they, the wicked, are fatally reposing on their beds of luxury (see Text. and Gram.).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa 56:11. (Every one looks to his own way). Potest intelligi de externis criminibus, sed magis placet, ut accipiatur de speciosis viis, in quibus ambulant hypocritae. Sic Franciscanus Francisci regulam sequitur, decalogum et evangelii doctrinam negligit tanquam rem vulgarem, quae ad vulgus pertirneant.Luther.
2. On Isa 56:12. In the Alexandrian and Vatican texts of the LXX., the words from Isa 56:11 to the end of Isa 56:12 are wanting, which even Jerome remarks on. He adds: denique hos versiculos nullus ecclesiasticorum interpretum disseruit, sed quasi patentem in medio foveam transiliunt atque transmittunt.That the Fathers, unacquainted as they were with Hebrew, pass the words by, is simply explained by the LXX. omitting them. Jerome, because he knew Hebrew, as he himself says, added them ex hebraico. But why the Greek translator left them out is doubtful: Theodotion (see Hexapla Orig. ed. Montfaucon II., p. 179) has them.Ab hoc vitio (ebrietatis) abstinere debent pii ecclesiae ministri memores interdicti apostolici 1Ti 3:2-3, considerantes secum, nullam horulam ipsis esse adeo liberam ac vacuam, qua non ad officia functionis suis possint avocari.Foerster.Let one point the rough figure for himself for the more delicate spiritual form also, quite as Mat 24:49; Eph 5:18, and the like are meant. For there is a drunkenness and voluptuousness in all kinds of wine and intoxication, which only the eye of the Spirit beholds in many an honorable Bishop, General-superintendent or Superior-court-preacher. Stier. Vita concionatoris optimus syllogismus. Chrysostom.
3. On Isa 57:1. Against the heedlessness of the world, that regards the life and death of men alike. For because Pharaoh and Moses, Saul and Jonathan, Judas and Peter, must temporally die, the one as the other, they suppose it is as much to one as to the other. But on the contrary, one should lay it to heart when useful and pious men fall, because, first, one must miss them afterwards, especially their prayers by which they stand in the breach and run to the walls (Eze 22:30); second, because the destruction of such people is wont to be an evil omen of a great impending misfortune and change, [It is a sign that God intends war when He calls home His ambassadors.M. Henry]. Examples: When Noah turns his back on the world and shuts himself in the ark, the deluge comes (Gen 7:17). When Lot goes out of Sodom and Gomorrah, fire from heaven falls on them (Gen 19:24). When Joseph dies in Egypt, the bondage of the children of Israel begins, together with the murder of their infant boys (Exo 1:8). When Hezekiah died, then followed the tyranny of Manasseh (2 Kings 20, 21) When Christ and His disciples were made way with, then began the destruction of Jerusalem.Cramer.Sicut ad Josiam dicit: tolleris, ne videant occuli tui hoc malum, etc. (2Ki 22:18-20). Sic excidio Hierosolymitano erepti sunt apostoli et reliqui Sancti. Idem nobis accidet. Vivunt adhuc passim quidam pii homines, propter iliis Deus differt poenam. Sublatis autem iis sequetur Germaniae ruina.Luther.Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord, for they rest from their labor (Rev 14:13). And hellish enemies, as little as human, can do them any harm.It is a misfortune for the whole country when distinguished and deserving people are taken out of the midst by temporal death. For them, indeed, it is well; but God have mercy on those that are left. For as in a great storm, when the heavens are overcast with clouds, the shepherd leads in the sheep, the husbandman hastily gathers his sheaves, the parents call in the children from the streets, so our dear God calls His dearest children together, that the calamity may not touch them.Cramer.The men of grace or mercy are receivers and distributers, thus also the mediators of the grace of God for their people; the men of grace, that atoningly represent the land by intercessions and conduct, postpone its judgment (Gen 18:24; Eze 22:30). Stier.The mere presence of an honest man is still a, restraint on the unbridledness of blasphemers. G. Mueller in Stier.
4. On Isa 57:2. Against the idle fancy of the fire of purgatory. For here it is said of those who have walked uprightly, not that they get into trouble, unrest, pain and torment, by which they must be purged; but that, with respect to their souls, they come to peace. But as to their bodies, they rest in their sleeping chamber. They are not on this account driven about; they seek also no mass or soul baths, as the Papists pretend.Cramer.
Nam stultum est mortem matrem timuisse quietis,
Quam fugiunt morbi, moestaque pauperies.
(Attributed to Cornelius Gallus, the friend of Virgil).
5. On Isa 52:4. It should be a wreath of honor to all faithful teachers and preachers, that they are regarded as monsters and are lampooned by the wise of this world. For if the great Prophet Isaiah in this passage, item, Jeremiah (Jer 20:8), Elijah (2Ki 2:24), Ezekiel (Eze 33:31), Job (Job 17:6), yea, even Christ Himself had to suffer this, what wonder is it if the scoffing birds sharpen their beaks on us and chatter like the storks? Cramer.
6. [On Isa 52:8. When a people forget God, the memorials of their apostacy will be found in every part of their habitations. The shrines of idol gods may not be there; the beautiful images of the Greek and Roman mythology, or the clumsy devices of less refined heathens may not be there; but the furniture, the style of living will reveal from behind every door and the posts of the house that God is forgotten, and that they are influenced by other principles than a regard for His name. The sofa, the carpet, the chandelier, the centre-table, the instruments of music, the splendid mirror, may be of such workmanship as to show, as clearly as the image of a heathen god, that Jehovah is not honored in the dwelling, and that His law does not control the domestic arrangements. Barnes].
7. [On Isa 57:10. Thou art weariedno hope. This is a striking illustration of the conduct of men in seeking happiness away from God. They wander from object to object; they become weary in the pursuit, yet they do not abandon it; they still cling to hope though often repulsedand though the world gives them no permanent comfortthough wealth, ambition, gayety, and vice all fail in imparting the happiness which they sought, yet they do not give it up in despair. They still feel that it is to be found in some other way, than by the disagreeable necessity of returning to God, and they wander from object to object, and from land to land, and become exhausted in the pursuit, and still are not ready to say there is no hope, we give it up in despair, and we will now seek happiness in God. Barnes.
Note.Despair of happiness in the creature, and of satisfaction in the service of sin, is the first step toward a well-grounded hope of happiness in God, and a well-fixed resolution to keep to His service; and those are inexcusable who have had sensible convictions of the vanity of the creature, and yet will not be brought to say, There is no hope to be happy short of the Creator.Note.Prosperity in sin (Thou hast found the life of thy hand) is a great bar to conversion from sin. M. Henry].
8. On Isa 57:11. God keeps silence only for a while, but yet not for ever and continually, with respect to mens sins; but the longer He has kept silence, the harder He punishes afterwards.Starke.
9. On Isa 57:12. Tuam justitiam. Est emphasis in pronomine tuam. Quasi dicat: mea justitia firma et perpetua est, tua non item. In calamitate nihil desperatius est justitiariis, cum secundis rebus nihil quoque iis sit confidentius.Luther.
10. On Isa 57:15 sq. God has three sorts of dwellings: first in the highest, second in the sanctuary, third in humble hearts. The first dwelling is the universalis praesentia, the universal presence, by which He fills all (Jer 23:24); but there He is too high and incomprehensible for us. The other is gratiosa, the gracious presence, by which He lets Himself be found in the word and sacraments, and also comes finally to us and makes His dwelling in our hearts (Joh 14:23). Cramer, comp. Renner, p. 199.Humilis anima est Dei sessio et delectabile cubile. Excelsus es Domine, sed humiles corde sunt domus tua (Psa 113:6; Psa 138:6). Augustin.Fluenta gratiae deorsum non sursum fluunt. Bernhard.Here is a principal passage beaming with evidence, that holy means not merely the tremenda majestas, but essentially comprehends the self-communicating condescension of love. Stier.Comp. His Reden Jesu V., p. 499, and the essays of Schoeberlein and Achelis in Stud. and Krit. 1847, I., IV.
11. On Isa 57:18. Here again we have one of those words in which Isaiah shows Himself to be the Evangelist of the Old Testament. For in the old covenant God does not yet heal men, else the new were superfluous. The law only effects knowledge of sin, but it does not give the power to overcome sin. One fancies here again that he hears the Apostle that wrote Romans 8.
12. On Isa 57:19-21. The gospel in a sermon of peace to the heathen that were far off, and to the Jews that were near. For by it we both have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph 2:18). But the wicked quakes all his life and what he hears terrifies him (Job 15:20; Isa 48:22). And especially in conflicts, and notably in the last hour, and when they see Gods judgment near, one sees this in them, that they not only therefore often spit out blasphemies, but that for great anguish they have laid hands on themselves. Examples: Saul, Ahithophel, Judas, Franciscus Spiera. For because such peace is not to be brought about with works, they must ever stick in anger, resentment, discontent and disfavor with and before God. And it is only pure folly to wish to give the terrified hearts rest by their own expiation, merit and self-elected holiness. Much less will there be rest if one teaches such people to doubt the forgiveness of sins. Cramer.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa 56:10 to Isa 57:2. These words may be used as the text of a sermon for a fast-day, or also for a synodical sermon. One might then regard the Prophets words as a mirror, or as a measure whereby to measure the condition of the church (of the country, of the times). From this would then come 1) earnest warning to those that belong to the wicked here described, or who do not oppose their doings; 2) comfort for those that have walked straight before them, for, though hated and persecuted by men, they shall still come to peace.
2. On Isa 57:1-2. These words (also a Jewish formula solennis for the pious dead, Stier) have very often been used as texts for funeral discourses for celebrated men.
3. On Isa 57:2. Those that have walked in their uprightness, i. e., who during their lives have served the Lord in a living faith, need not fear death. It is to them a bringer of joy. For it brings 1) eternal peace to their soul, 2) rest to their body in the chamber of the grave, till the day of the blessed resurrection.
4. On Isa 57:3-10. A description of the coarse idolatry, to which in our day correspond only too many appearances of the modern and subtile heathenism. Only too many have sucked in with their mothers milk superstition and unbelief, which as a rule go together. As Ishmael, who was begotten after the flesh, mocked and persecuted Isaac that was born according to the promise (Gal 4:28 sqq.), so also now. The false seed, i. e., those that are not born of the Spirit of the church, although by their fleshly birth they belong to it, mock and persecute the genuine children of the church. With insatiable greed people run daily, but especially on the Lords day, under all green trees, i. e., to the places of worldly pleasure-seeking, where the idols of the belly and of mammon are served! And how many children are from their earliest youth led away to the service of these idols! Are not thereby their immortal souls spiritually slain? And is not that, in the end, a worse sacrifice of children than that ancient sort? All that puts men in mind of the service of God, men get out of their sight (pious customs, Sunday, feast days, church acts, as baptism, marriage, burial), in order to be able to surrender themselves undisturbed and wholly to the modern idols. Men no longer seek their strength in the covenant with the Lord, but among men in associations of every kind. And, because that does not instantly reveal its ruinous effects, but often seems to have a good effect, men never weary of this conduct, but confirm themselves in it more and more.
5. On Isa 57:12. Many men will not by any means believe that their good works are wholly insufficient to obtain the righteousness that is of avail with God. Now God will, indeed, not suffer to go unrewarded the cup of water that we give to the thirsty in the proper spirit (Mat 10:42; Mar 9:41). But could we point to ever so many such cups, still they do not suffice to pay our ten thousand talents (Mat 18:24 sqq.). One must therefore remind his charge of the great reckoning that the Lord will one day have with us. In this 1) will be had a complete and perfectly correct investigation into our indebtedness and assets. 2) Then it will appear that our assets will be too defective to be of any use whatever against our indebtedness.
6. On Isa 57:13-14. It depends very much on the sort of spirit with which one turns to God for help. If one does it in order to make a trial also with the dear God, then one will certainly be denied. But if one does it because one knows no other helper, and wishes to know no other, then one may confidently count on being heard. How differently the answers sound that God gives to the cries for help that reach Him. 1) To the one it is said: let thy gatherings help thee. 2) But to the others is called out: a. make a road, clear the way, take up the stumbling-block out of the way of my people; b. inherit the land, possess my holy mountain.
7. On Isa 57:15-16. I know that these sayings speak especially of penitent sinners and aroused consciences; but I do not see why they may not with good right be applied also to other alarmed and anxious people. One has here to look also at the examples of the dear children of God who are presented to us in the Holy Scriptures full of fear and alarm. Think of Job (Job 9:34; Job 13:21), David (Psa 25:17; Psa 55:5 sqq.), Daniel (Dan 8:17 sq.), Paul (1Co 2:3; 2Co 7:5), yea, of Jesus Christ Himself (Mat 26:37; Mar 14:33; Luk 22:44). From this thou seest clearly, thou lover of God, but timid and frightened soul, that thou art not the first among the children of God, that suffer His terrors and must go about with an anxious heart. It is also therewith sufficiently shown that such an event is not a reminder of anger, but rather of the grace of the kind and gracious God.Scriver.
8. On Isa 57:15-16. A holy shudder goes through my soul when, in receiving Thy body and blood, I think of who they are to whom Thou so communicatest Thyself! That is Thy way, Thou wonderful Lord, that Thou utterly humblest and castest down to the ground before Thou raisest up. Thou sayest: I who dwell in the high and holy place am with those that are of a contrite and humble spirit. Has the greatness of my sin already melted my heart, it melts still more at the greatness of Thy grace.Tholuck.
9 On Isa 57:15-16. Sermon for Whitsun week: Wherein do we behold the greatest glory of the God of grace? 1) Therein, that He does not despise a poor sinners heart for a dwelling. 2) Therein, that He manifests Himself in it not as a judge, but as a comforter. Taube, in Gottes Bruenl. hat Wassers die Fuelle. Hamburg, 1872.
10. On Isa 57:17-18. One is reminded here of 1Ki 19:11 sq. God is not in the tempest, nor in the earthquake, but He is in the still, gentle breeze. The gospel goes more to the hearts of men, and lays deeper hold on them than the law. The conversion of men. 1) It is prepared by being angry and smiting (Isa 57:17). 2. It is accomplished by Gods inwardly healing the heart.
11. On Isa 57:19. Missionary Sermon. The work of missions: 1) By whom is it accomplished? 2) On whom is it accomplished? 3) What end does it serve?
12. On Isa 57:20. The whole Scripture testifies that what it says of the grace of God, of the forgiveness of sins and of the assurance of bliss belongs to the penitent. For those that are ever stirred up and driven on by their malignant desires (like the sea by the winds), and commit one sin after another (like the sea casts out all sorts of dirt), are wicked men, and have no peace to expect.Scriver.
Footnotes:
[9]Or, Draming, or, talking in their sleep.
[10]Heb. strong of appetite.
[11]Heb. know not to be satisfied.
[12]And they are shepherds! They know not how to distinguish.
[13]without exception.
[14]Heb. men of kindness, or, godliness.
[15]For.
[16]Or, from that which is evil.
[17]He enters into peace (while they rest on their beds) who walks straight before him.
[18]Or, go in peace.
[19]Or, before him.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The subject of this Chapter is not unsimilar to the former. The Holy Ghost, by his servant the Prophet, is reproving the unfaithfulness of the people. The close of the Chapter contains one of the most sublime and consolatory representations of Jehovah, in the greatness and graciousness of his character, that can be conceived.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The chapter open, with remarking the inattention of the world to the operations of God in his providence’s. God’s faithful servants die, and the breach is not lamented as it ought; none considering that by so much grace as they possessed, that portion is taken from among men. Their prayers for Zion, those graces they exercised, and the supplications they put up for poor perishing sinners, cease with them. Here is cause for lamentation; for then it may be said, as by the Church of old, Abraham is ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledgeth us not, Isa 63:16 . But for them no tears need fall: could they speak to us, they would say, in language somewhat like that of Jesus, If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I go to my Father, Joh 14:28 . Reader! cherish the sweet thought! Hast thou thy friends departed, who left a blessed testimony behind them, that they are gone to be with Jesus? Think where they now are, entered into rest! Jesus is their rest, and their refreshing; Isa 28:12 ; Mat 11:28-30 ; Psa 116:7 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Wearied in the Greatness of the Way
Isa 57:10
Weariness spiritual weariness that is our subject tonight. It seems that in this chapter, as so often, the language of the Prophet is suggested by the incidents of national history. The memorable journey of Israel through the wilderness, in the passage from Egypt to Canaan, was fraught with many lessons concerning human infirmity and concerning Divine righteousness and grace. In this passage, where Isaiah laments the sinful defections of the nation, he makes use of the wanderings of the wilderness to illustrate the experience of rebellious and apostate Israel. The people wander and wander, and know no repose; they are ‘wearied in the greatness of their way’.
I. Causes of Spiritual Weariness. These are mainly two:
a. Abandonment to error and sin. ‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.’ They who are led by Satan are led in a devious, an aimless, and altogether unsatisfactory and wretched road.
b. The deceitfulness of false religion. Men, feeling their spiritual need and misery, strive to make out a way of safety and of peace for themselves. They sometimes submit to many sufferings in the hope of propitiating the Deity and of appeasing their own conscience. The self-imposed penances and pilgrimages and privations of the religious who yield themselves to the devices of human religions are chargeable with no small part of the misery of mankind. Men following the lead of such delusive lights grow ‘wearied in the greatness of their way’.
II. Signs of Spiritual Weariness. These are:
a. Dissatisfaction. The journey is too ‘great’ for human strength. They who undertake it find no peace.
b. Distress. This is natural enough when effort has been put forth and sacrifices have been made, and all in vain.
c. Despondency. They who journey for long, and who find themselves in no way advanced towards their goal, or who return to the point whence they set out, are likely enough to abandon themselves to despair.
III. Remedy for Spiritual Weariness.
a. Confess the error and folly of the past. If the whole course has been a mistake, it is well to find out that it has been so, to cease deluding self, to acknowledge that the weariness of the spirit is owing to having ‘followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts’.
b. Abandon the ways which have brought only to weariness and to misery.
c. Accept Divine guidance, that the feet which have so long and so often erred may be led into the way of peace.
References. Lev 10 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii. No. 684.Lev 14 . Ibid. vol. xxvii. No. 1579. H. Ward Beecher, ibid. (4th Series), p. 90. G. W. McCree, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxix. 1891, p. 275. J. H. Jowett, ibid. vol. xlvi. 1894, p. 35. F. Hastings, ibid. vol. 1. 1896, p. 403.
The Eternal and His Habitations
Isa 57:15
I. The first great theme of meditation the text brings before us is God’s inhabitation of infinite time. In all eternity past there is no vacant century, no unpeopled epoch, no barren, unillumined, God-lacking millennium. He fills immeasurable time to its utmost dimension, every moment of the vast eternity, past and to be, pulsating with God’s conscious presence.
II. We are reminded of God’s inhabitation of selected space. ‘I dwell in the high and holy place.’ God presents Himself to us in these words as a being who brings His noblest attributes within space-limits because the dwellers in the high and holy place with whom He communes are beings to whom space-limits attach.
God dwells here with an express and intentional manifestation wanting in those extensions of His wisdom and power which touch every part of the universe alike. God is present, but not equally present and unveiled in all the orbs of the firmament. There are elect realms in which He vouchsafes peculiar epiphanies of His majesty and spiritual perfection.
III. God’s inhabitation of the individual hearts of His contrite ones is declared. This rests upon His pure compassion. Not only does He stoop to the finite that is holy but also to the finite that is frail.
That He Who inhabits eternity and receives the homage of the high and holy place should seek this latest enshrinement is a mystery, but it is a self-consistent mystery. In making the humbled heart sensible of His presence He appeals more directly to man’s consciousness than would be possible by any other method. He must deal with us first in the sphere of the affections. His opening revelations are revelations of healing tenderness to that part of man’s nature which is most susceptible to His influence. ‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.’ That truth gets into the affections and puts mystic fire at their source.
IV. This is a mystery of condescension, but it is a self-consistent mystery. The revival and homeward return of the life that came from God is the clue to this enigma of pity and gentleness. It is no slight thing to recover and restore that life. By this inhabitation of contrite hearts the Eternal will add at last a new kingdom to the high and holy place where He is enshrined. From those to whom He so strangely bows Himself He will attract a devotion of which those never needing a Saviour may be incapable. ‘We love Him because He first loved us,’ true for angels, but uniquely true for us.
T. G. Selby, The Lesson of a Dilemma, p. 165.
References. Lev 15 . G. McHardy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. li. 1897, p. 134. R. J. Campbell, City Temple Sermons, p. 199. F. W. Robertson, Sermons Preached at Brighton (3rd Series), p. 230.
God’s Two Homes
Isa 57:15-16
We know and believe separately the doctrines of the majesty and of the mercy of God, but it probably seldom occurs to a Christian to think of one as a result of the other. It would not occur to us to say that God sent His Son into the world because He is almighty and infinite, and all-glorious, or that Jesus came to save us because He is the eternal God. Yet this or something very like it is what Isaiah does say in the text.
I. Isaiah, who says so much elsewhere, both before and after this chapter, of the work and the sufferings of Jesus, here does not mention Him; he speaks of the dwelling of God with the humble, of the mercy of God to the contrite, not as fruits of the Incarnation or of the sacrifice of Christ, but as results of the glory of the Eternal Father, the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity. The special truth that seems set forth in these verses is, that the Incarnation and the Sacrifice of Christ, while they are to us the cause and the source of all blessing, of all pardon, of all grace, of all holiness, of all salvation, are themselves not the cause but the effect of the mercy and the love of God the Father; as Jesus says Himself, ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son’.
II. The reason why God is so eager to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones, is simply His own majesty, His greatness, before which they are so little. This is a great and glorious thought if only we can bring our minds to the effort of grasping it. Our creation, our preservation, our redemption, and all the mercies of the Gospel, are not merely acts of God, things that He has been pleased to do, and which we may rejoice that He has done, but which might have been otherwise; they are all the overflow of the fullness of God’s own nature. Because He is what He is, He has done what He has done. The time will come when the world and all the works therein shall be burned up, even the works of God Himself. The time will come when there will be no Holy Bible, no Christian Church, no faith in Christ; but those who now know and trust in the redeeming work of God know that their salvation rests, not on the Bible, not on the Church, nor on their own faith, but on Him who is the same yesterday, Today, and for ever; that it can never fail until there be no God, or not the same God as our God.
III. Thus then God’s promises are made surer than certainty; we know and more than know that He is ready to dwell with us. Only let us be such as those with whom He dwells: ‘With him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the spirit of the contrite ones’. Do not think that this is said only of the beginning of the Christian’s conversion: that though he must have a contrite and humble spirit before God will come to dwell with him, yet his heart is healed and his spirit exalted as soon as God comes. It is with the heart that is not only that has been humble and contrite, that God will dwell; it is with the spirit that does not forget its own sin, even when it feels and knows and rejoices in God’s grace. We have not to do anything that we cannot do, only what our own nature requires of itself. Being weak, we ought to be humble; being sinful we ought to be contrite, even though we had nothing to hope for by it. To this simple confession of the truth a thing that has no merit, that ought to require no effort to this God promises His presence.
W. H. Simcox, The Cessation of Prophecy, p. 48.
References. LVII. 16-18. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv. No. 1490. Lev 18 . Ibid. vol. xxii. No. 1279. Lev 19 . Ibid. vol. xxvi. No. 1558. LVII. 20-21. Ibid. vol. 1. No. 2886. LVIII. A. Rowland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxvii. 1890, p. 321. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xli. No. 2411.
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
XXIII
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 15
Isaiah 55-57
The special theme of this section is the kingly office of the Servant. This appears expressly in Isa 55:3-5 . Though the title “Servant of Jehovah” never occurs in the singular after Isa 53:11 again and again his presence is manifest to the reader, so, throughout these three chapters the glorious king of Israel lives and acts.
The first kingly work of the Servant is providing for the needs of his people (Isa 55 ). The two thoughts of this chapter are the gracious invitation to the royal feast of the Servant (Isa 55:1-5 ) and a call to repentance and remission of sins, and the happy consequences.
The invitation is to “every one that thirsteth.” This is very much like our Lord’s gracious invitation: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink;” “Thirst” is used here and elsewhere in the ‘Scriptures to symbolize the longing of the human heart for its counterpart which is God. “Water” symbolizes salvation, the satisfying portion that comes to the thirsty soul when brought to realize its famishing condition. This corresponds to Zechariah’s “fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness,” and to our Lord’s “water of life” which he offered to the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar, and to every thirsty soul, thus: “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” Upon this thought are built the many hymns which use this symbolism, such as, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood” and “The Fountain that Never Runs Dry.”
”Wine” here symbolizes spiritual joy, or gladness, while “milk” symbolizes the nourishment of the soul. So the invitation here is to salvation, gladness, and nourishment, or the complete satisfaction of the spiritual needs of man. The terms, or conditions, of this invitation are simple: “Come, buy, eat,” but “Without money and without price,” i.e., you may call it “buying” if you wish, but it does not cost anything. It is, as the preacher said once, “free gratis, for nothing.” It is an offer of “salvation by grace,” purely the gift of God.
But what the import and application of Isaiah’s double question, “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not?” These questions contrast the value of spiritual and worldly things. “Not bread” means that which has no real value; that which does not sustain, or that which does no good. “Bread” here includes every necessity of life, as food, clothing, and shelter. But these necessaries are only incidental and should be made tributary to the higher things of life, things that contribute to the culture of the mind and heart. The affections of the great mass of Israelites were set on worldly things, on enriching themselves by “adding field to field and house to house” (Isa 5:8 ), and they cared nothing for spiritual blessings, much less to “hunger and thirst” after them.
Then he says that these things do not satisfy. Worldly things cannot satisfy the heart, not even the heart of the worldly. These thoughts are emphasized in the exhortation which follows: “Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” The highest aim in life should be soul growth, and the food that makes for “soul fatness” is found with Jehovah, and not in worldly things. Worldly things tend to soul poverty rather than soul prosperity. In this connection John’s language to Gaius should be kept in mind: “Beloved, I pray that in all things thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” So it is that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” But it will be noted that all this is concerning right expenditure and not right acquiring of wealth. There is much discussion about the methods of getting wealth, but little on the right expenditure of wealth. There is some conscience on how to make money, but not very much on how to spend it. Often the distribution of wealth is more hurtful than the accumulation of it. No man has the right to waste his money or to spend it for “that which is not bread,” nor has he the right to labor and spend his life on the pleasures of the world, which do not satisfy.
The “everlasting covenant” here (Isa 55:3 ) refers to the covenant of grace, as amplified in the New Testament, and the “sure mercies of David” refers to Christ, the surety of that covenant, as Paul shows in Act 13:34 : “And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he hath spoken on this wise, I will give you the holy and sure mercies of David,” i.e., the blessings promised to David.
So Isa 55:4 , by New Testament interpretation (Act 13:34 ), refers to the risen and exalted Christ, who was and is a witness, a leader, and a commander of the peoples. This involves his kingly office.
In Isa 55:5 the Messiah is addressed, and there is a promise made to him similar to the promise in Psa 2:8 : “Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Here is it said to him, “Thou shalt call a nation that thou knewest not; and a nation that knew not thee shall run unto thee,” the chief attraction being the glory of the risen and exalted Lord. “Nation” here is used distributively and means all the Gentile world, as included in Psa 2:8 .
In Isa 55:6-7 we have a specific direction for seeking salvation. First, it must be sought in the right person “Jehovah,” or Jesus Christ who is Jehovah manifested. Second, it must be sought at the right time “while be may be found.” Third, it must be sought by prayer “call ye upon him.” Fourth, it must be sought when he is near, or at the moment when his Spirit is moving upon the heart. “Today if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts,” for that is the day of salvation to that person. Fourth, it must be sought in the right way by repentance and faith: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.” Repentance is a change of outward life and inward thought. It means a change of mind toward God with respect to sin, but the inward change of mind works the outward change of life, i.e., the outward change is the “fruits meet for repentance.” “And let him return unto Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” Faith is throwing oneself upon Jehovah (Christ) for his mercy and his pardon. The publican prayed, “God, be propitiated toward me, the sinner,” i.e., let thy mercy abound toward me because of the sacrifice of expiation.
In Isa 55:8-9 we have the wisdom of Jehovah magnified in this plan over against what the foolishness of man would have devised. His thoughts and ways are as high as the heavens above man’s thoughts and ways.
The instrument used in this great plan of salvation is the word of God (Isa 55:10-11 ). As the rain from heaven refreshes the earth and makes it produce the seed, so shall the word of God, sent out from Jehovah, accomplish its work in the salvation of the people.
The manifestations of the new life imparted in conversion, or regeneration, are joy and peace, the results of the impartation of new life by the Spirit. All nature reflects the joy also. Many a time has a soul fresh from the hand of God, imagined that the mountains were singing, and that the trees were clapping their hands. What a view of one’s environments this new life gives to its recipient! The world about him seems to be clad in the garments of gladness and all nature responds to his song of joy.
The language of Isa 55:13 is highly figurative, picturing the blessed state of the reign of righteousness in the earth. All this chapter has a primary reference to Israel and her deliverance from the captivity through their seeking Jehovah and their repentance, but as the deliverance of Israel from Egypt was a type of the individual deliverance from sin, so is the deliverance from Babylon, a type of individual deliverance from sin, which is the basis of the New Testament evangelism. God no longer delivers nations from sin as a whole but deals directly with the individual. So we go on with the work of evangelization of the individual until the nations, which are composed of individuals are converted and then will we see this ideal here realized. The “thorn” and the “brier” symbolize the curse of wickedness, and the “fir tree” and the “myrtle tree,” the blessings of righteousness. The promise here is that the “thorn” and the “brier” shall give way to the “fir tree” and the “myrtle tree,” which cannot be fully realized until that blessed ideal of the millennium shall come in to bless the world.
The second work of the Servant king is fresh legislation, or fulfilling the law and declaring the relations of all the heirs of the kingdom. The new law for the various subjects of the kingdom (Isa 56:1-5 ) is as follows: To keep justice and to do righteousness. This has a fulfilment in Christ’s exposition of the law, found in the Sermon on the Mount. The equality in the privileges of the covenant here described finds fulfilment only in the privileges of the new covenant, of which Paul says, “There is neither bond nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female.” Then the proselytes and eunuchs need not fear, for they shall have honorable mention in the new covenant.
In this new order of things provision is made for the foreigners. They shall have all the privileges of the sanctuary the privilege of sacrifice and prayer. They shall be brought to the holy mountain of Jehovah to share the joys of his house. Not only will he gather the outcasts of Israel, but he will gather others besides. Thus said Jesus, “Other sheep I have, which are not of this flock; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and they shall become one flock, one shepherd.” The house of Jehovah was to be “a house of prayer for all peoples.” This looks forward to the time when the temple should be emphatically a place of prayer, the legal sacrifices having received their fulfilment and being thenceforth superflous and out of place. But the Jews did not recognize the fulfilment when it came, and thus they held on to the sacrificial ritual until Jehovah destroyed their “house and city.” So the larger fulfilment of this passage is found in the spiritual house, the church, which succeeded the tabernacle and temple. In this house all people have the same privileges. The holy of holies is open to all who come in the name of him who entered within the veil, there to intercede for those who come to God by faith in him.
The third work of the Servant king is judgment in the interest of righteousness and mercy (Isa 56:9-12 ). This is the picture of the judgment upon the guilty heads of the community. The beasts of the field are summoned to come and devour these ungodly, selfish shepherds, because they are blind, without knowledge, dumb, greedy, without understanding, and drunken. Their philosophy of life was, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry; for to-morrow we die.” This picture of the hireling shepherds corresponds exactly with Christ’s description of them in Joh 10 . The judgment on them here corresponds to his judgment upon the religious leaders of his time, which found its consummation in the destruction of Jerusalem.
Here we see the Lord’s favor to the righteous in view of the judgment upon the evil. He takes them away before the judgment comes. This has always been God’s method. When he was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah he took Lot and his family out; before the final destruction of Jerusalem they were warned by our Lord to flee, and before his final judgment upon the world he will take all his people out of it. So the prophet explains here that Jehovah took his righteous prematurely because of the coming judgment upon the evil. The removing of some of the faithful in Israel before the judgment came upon them was to them a blessing, since they were in quiet rest and peace. This must have in it the foreshadowing of the final destruction of Jerusalem when the wrath of God fell so heavily upon the Jewish leaders.
The charge against the people in Isa 57:3-10 is the charge of idolatry and its accompanying sins. To itemize them, they were sorcery, adultery, harlotry, mockery, transgression, falsehood, worshiping in the high places, Molech worship, stone worship, enlarging the bed for others, making covenant with them and forgetting Jehovah.
The penalty pronounced upon them in Isa 57:11-13 is that their righteousness and works should not profit them, and their refuge of lies should be swept away. Most modern interpreters think that the Jews are addressed here and that the time is the latter part of Hezekiah’s reign. If this be true, then evidently the prophet comes back in his vision to the time in which he lived. This is not at all impossible, but it is probable, as some of the older commentators think, that, with the condition of Israel in the time of the prophet as a background, this is a forecast of the church with its corrupt priesthood and idolatry in the Dark Ages. The hopeful note in this paragraph is the inner circle of the faithful who take refuge in Jehovah and who shall possess the land and inherit his holy mountain. It is consoling to find that this remnant is never lost but runs all the way from Abel down to the present. It matters not how dark the hour in the history of the world the “salt of the earth” is in evidence.
This section closes (Isa 57:14-21 ) with a promise to the humble and a curse upon the wicked. This is a fine prescription for a revival. There is, first, an order to prepare the way, so that the people can go to the “holy mountain” of Jehovah. Second, there is a magnifying of the eternity and holiness of Jehovah and his transcendence above the universe. Third, there is the condescension of God, who is the source of all true revivals, to dwell in the hearts of men. Fourth, there are the conditions set forth, viz: humility and contrition. Fifth, there is also the purpose of Jehovah’s condescension, viz: “to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Then the prophet gives Jehovah’s promise to heal backsliding Israel and to comfort the mourners, announcing peace to his people, but eternal unrest and sorrow to the wicked.
QUESTIONS
1. What the special theme of this section?
2. What the first kingly work of the Servant?
3. What the two thoughts of this chapter?
4. Who are invited to their feast, what the symbolism here and upon what terms are they invited?
5. What the import and application of Isaiah’s double question, “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not?”
6. What the meaning-of the “everlasting covenant,” and the “sure mercies of David” in Isa 55:3 ?
7. Who is spoken of in Isa 55:4 , and what office is there given him?
8. In Isa 55:5 who is addressed and what the meaning of the verse?
9. Expound Isa 55:6-7 .
10. By whose wisdom was such a plan of salvation wrought out?
11. What the instrument used in this great plan of salvation?
12. What the manifestations of the new life imparted in conversion, or regeneration?
13. What the interpretation of Isa 55:13 , and when will the prophecy here be realized?
14. What the second work of the Servant king?
15. What the new law for the various subjects of the kingdom (Isa 56:1-5 )?
16. In this new order of things what provision is made for the foreigners?
17. What the third work of the Servant king?
18. What the picture of Isa 56:9-12 ?
19. What the Lord’s favor to the righteous in view of the judgment upon the evil?
20. What the charge against the people in Isa 57:3-10 ?
21. What the penalty pronounced upon them in Isa 57:11-13 ?
22. Who are the people here addressed?
23. What hopeful note in this paragraph?
24. How does this section close (Isa 57:14-21 )?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Isa 57:1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth [it] to heart: and merciful men [are] taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil [to come].
Ver. 1. The righteous perisheth. ] So the world deemeth, but not rightly, for “the righteous hath hope in his death,” when “the wicked dying is driven away in his wickedness” Pro 14:32 – by “him that had the power of death, even the devil” Heb 2:14 – having been “through fear of death all their lifetime subject to bondage.” The Lacedaemonians all the time of their life adored death. The righteous can defy death, with Paul, and sing, Death, where is thy sting? hell, where is thy victory? He is not “killed with death,” as Jezebel’s children were; Rev 2:23 but dieth in peace, though he die in battle, as Josiah did, of whom some interpret this text.
And no man layeth it to heart.
And merciful men.
Are taken away.
No man considering.
That the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
a Calvin, in hunc locum,
b Dion., Prus. Orat. 28.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah Chapter 57
On the other hand the Shepherd of Israel neither slumbered nor slept, and if the righteous perished without a soul’s laying it to heart, it was but His hand after all taking the righteous away from the evil to come.
The growing apostasy of Judah made it no longer a desirable thing to live long on the earth, though normally it was a special promise for those obedient to the law. Now says the prophet, “The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth [it] to heart; and merciful (or, godly) men [are] taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from before the evil. He entereth into peace: they rest in their beds, [each] that hath walked [in] his uprightness” (vv. 1, 2).
Next, the prophet under various figures of uncleanness arraigns the idolatrous Jews. “But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore. Against whom do ye sport yourselves? Against whom make ye a wide mouth, [and] draw out the tongue? [Are] ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood, inflaming yourselves among the oaks (or, with idols) under every green tree; slaying the children in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks? Among the smooth [stones] of the valley [is] thy portion; they, they [are] thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink-offering, thou hast offered an oblation. Shall I be appeased for these things? Upon a high and lofty mountain hast thou set thy bed: thither also wentest thou up to offer sacrifice. And behind the doors and the posts hast thou set up thy memorial: for thou hast uncovered [thyself] apart from me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee [a covenant] with them; thou lovedst their bed, thou sawest their nakedness. And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thine ambassadors far off, and didst debase [thyself] unto Sheol” (vv. 3-9).
The sketch is most energetic, and the general scope is plain. The only allusion which strikes one as calling for particular notice is found in verse 9, “And thou wentest to the king with ointment.” This will be the climax of Israel’s heartless desertion of Jehovah, and rejection of the Messiah. They received not Him Who came in His Father’s name; they will receive another who is to come in his own name. The spirit of this has been often verified, doubtless; but it awaits its full final signature in the Antichrist of the last days. He is “the king,” as abruptly (but so much the more strikingly) brought in here as he is in Dan 11:36-40 . Unbelief as blindly acquiesces in the false and evil, as it ignores the truth and hates righteousness and grace. “The king” is not “the woman,” “the great whore,” but with those that work the destruction of Babylon, though only the more audaciously opposed to God and the Lamb. The Jew will play a solemn part during this last struggle in the end of the age. “The king” will be in Judah and Jerusalem, the land and city destined for the Messiah; the centre of the Babylonish system is the great city of the west, Rome: but God will destroy the one, and the Lamb vanquish the other. The Beast and the false prophet, or “the king,” perish together.
As the Jews are thus shown persevering in wickedness and going from bad to worse, only destruction awaits them he alone should inherit the land who put his trust in Jehovah; for a remnant there ever is. “Thou wast wearied with the length of thy way; thou saidst not, There is no hope. Thou didst find a quickening of thy strength; therefore thou wast not faint. And of whom hast thou been afraid and in fear, that thou hast lied and not remembered me, nor laid [it] to thy heart? Have not I held my peace even of long time, and thou fearest me not? I will declare thy righteousness; and as for thy works, they shall not profit thee. When thou criest, let them whom thou hast gathered deliver thee; but the wind shall take them, a breath shall carry [them] all away: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain” (vv. 10-13).
Thus in the midst of this harrowing description of coming wickedness and woe Jehovah contrasts, with the hopeless destruction of the apostate, him that trusts in Himself as destined to possess the land (so long the prey of one usurping stranger after another) and to inherit His holy mountain (even to this day the boasted spoil of the Gentile infidel). “And it shall be said, Cast up, cast up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling-block out of the way of my people. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name [is] Holy, I dwell in the high and holy [place], with him also [that is] of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth; for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls [which] I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways and will heal him; and I will lead him, and will restore comforts to him and to those of his that mourn. I create the fruit of the lips: peace, peace, to [him that is] afar off and to [him that is] near, saith Jehovah, and I will heal him. But the wicked [are] like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, and whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (vv. 14-21).
“Except those days should be shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Mat 24:22 ). Yea, Jehovah will heal, lead, and comfort. He creates thankful praise. Peace is His word, peace to him that is far off and to him that is near; but as for the wicked, like the troubled sea that casts up mire and dirt, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Let the Jew take heed. Certainly the wicked of that people shall not escape. Of all nations, none then so favoured, and therefore were they beyond all responsible; and as they failed to the uttermost, who so guilty? Christendom, favoured much more than the Jew, then, is of all conditions of mankind far the most guilty. Before its eyes Jesus Christ is openly set forth crucified. Yet has it fallen from grace, and gone under law, and turned back again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto they desire once more to be in bondage. Nay, the spirit of the apostasy sets in rapidly, and antichrists multiply far and wide. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” But the Lord is at hand. Behold, the Judge standeth before the doors.
Let it be observed that it was “saith Jehovah” as against idols. Now that the deeper evil of rejecting God in Christ is discussed, the word is “saith my God.” Fancied Elohist or Jehovistic authors have nothing to do with it here or anywhere else. It depends on the nature of what is conveyed by the same writer. This principle of underlying purpose superficial and unbelieving readers failed to see, and betook themselves to the hypothesis of distinct authorship, partly out of their own lack of intelligence, and partly to unsettle and lower the scriptures. Familiar as we are with the rationalistic craze which denies to Isaiah the deep, lofty, and tender closing volume of his prophecy (Isa. 40-66), it would be hard to find a respectable name bold enough to demand an author for Isa 57 different from him who wrote Isa 48 . In truth the hypothesis is everywhere a baseless dream, mischievous to a high degree, and shutting out the divine light afforded by an intelligent discrimination of those instructive names.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 57:1-10
1The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart;
And devout men are taken away, while no one understands.
For the righteous man is taken away from evil,
2He enters into peace;
They rest in their beds,
Each one who walked in his upright way.
3But come here, you sons of a sorceress,
Offspring of an adulterer and a prostitute.
4Against whom do you jest?
Against whom do you open wide your mouth
And stick out your tongue?
Are you not children of rebellion,
Offspring of deceit,
5Who inflame yourselves among the oaks,
Under every luxuriant tree,
Who slaughter the children in the ravines,
Under the clefts of the crags?
6Among the smooth stones of the ravine
Is your portion, they are your lot;
Even to them you have poured out a drink offering,
You have made a grain offering.
Shall I relent concerning these things?
7Upon a high and lofty mountain
You have made your bed.
You also went up there to offer sacrifice.
8Behind the door and the doorpost
You have set up your sign;
Indeed, far removed from Me, you have uncovered yourself,
And have gone up and made your bed wide.
And you have made an agreement for yourself with them,
You have loved their bed,
You have looked on their manhood.
9You have journeyed to the king with oil
And increased your perfumes;
You have sent your envoys a great distance
And made them go down to Sheol.
10You were tired out by the length of your road,
Yet you did not say, ‘It is hopeless.’
You found renewed strength,
Therefore you did not faint.
Isa 57:1 Evil triumphs when the righteous are persecuted and murdered, and no one seems to care!
1. no man takes it to heart
2. no one understands
is taken away from evil As the wicked seek self and sin, the righteous are delivered from the terrible influence of the Fall (cf. Genesis 3; Gen 6:5; Gen 6:11-12). See Special Topic: The Fall .
Isa 57:2 This verse describes the spiritual condition of the righteous man.
1. enters into peace (because of Isa 57:1 this must be mental)
2. rest in their beds (BDB 1012). There is a word play on this word used here of the righteous, but in Isa 57:7-8, of the wicked.
a. bed for sleep
b. bed for sex
c. the grave
3. walked in his upright way (i.e., lifestyle faithfulness)
Isa 57:3-4 These verses describe the wicked ones mentioned in Isa 57:1. They are characterized as
1. sons of a sorcerer (BDB 778 II)
2. offspring of an adulterer (BDB 610)
3. offspring of a prostitute (BDB 275)
YHWH calls them to approach (Qal IMPERATIVE, BDB 897, KB 1132) His presence for judgment.
4. offspring of deceit (BDB 833)
a. against whom do you jest
b. against whom do you open wide your mouth
c. against whom do you stick out your tongue (these described their accusations against the righteous)
5. children of rebellion (BDB 1055)
Isa 57:5-6 The idolatry is described as
1. inflame yourself among the oaks (Niphal PARTICIPLE, BDB 328, KB 328, this refers to the fertility worship of Ba’al and Asherah, i.e., Jer 2:23-27)
2. slaughter the children (Qal PARTICIPLE, BDB 1006, KB 1458, this refers to the worship of Molech)
3. pour out a libation (Qal PERFECT, BB 1049, KB 1629)
4. make a grain offering (Hiphil PERFECT, BDB 748, KB 828)
SPECIAL TOPIC: FERTILITY WORSHIP OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
SPECIAL TOPIC: MOLECH
Isa 57:6 e
NASBShall I relent concerning these things
NKJVShould I receive comfort in these
NRSVShall I be appeased for these things
TEVDo you think I am pleased with all this
The Israelites’ fertility worship, even if done in YHWH’s name, was unacceptable!
Isa 57:7 This refers to the Ba’al and Asherah altars which were placed on the tops of hills (cf. Deu 12:2; 2Ki 17:10; Jer 3:6; Jer 17:2; Hos 4:13). The phrase made their bed refers to the ritual sexual activities offerred for the fertility of the land, herds, and human population (cf. Isa 57:8 -d).
Isa 57:8 The first two lines are ambiguous. This could refer to an idolatrous image set up
1. in their homes
2. on their village walls
3. in the temple itself (cf. Ezekiel 8-10)
One wonders if this is somehow related to political/military alliances with pagan nations who demanded the worship of foreign gods (cf. Isa 57:8 -e, 9).
NASByou have looked on their manhood
NKJVwhere you saw their hand
TEVthere you satisfy your lust
NJBwith your eyes on the sacred symbol
JPSOAyou have chosen lust
NRSV, NIV,
PESHITTAwhere you saw their nakedness
NET Biblegaze longingly on their genitals
The problem is (BDB 388, KB 386) which is literally hand. In Ugaritic means love; in Arabic means penis (cf. NIDOTTE, vol 2, p. 56). It could refer to strength here in a fertility worship sense. There are several euphemisms used by Hebrew authors to refer to the sex organs (another example is feet, BDB 919, cf. Exo 4:25; Deu 28:57; Jdg 3:24; Rth 3:8; 1Sa 24:3; Eze 16:25).
Isa 57:9-10 This seems to refer to the political rituals to assure their safety against foreign invasion.
Isa 57:9 king This could be understood as referring to the fertility god Molech, whose name has the same consonants as king in Hebrew. The UBS Text Project gives king a B rating (some doubt), p.150.
Sheol See Special Topic: Where Are the Dead? .
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
merciful = kind.
from the evil to come = from the presence of the calamity.
evil = calamity. Hebrew. ra’a’. App-44: i.e. the calamity referred to in Jer 22:10. See 2Ki 22:16-20.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 57
The righteous man perishes, and no man lays it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, and none is considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come ( Isa 57:1 ).
There are many who see this verse as a description of what happens at the rapture of the church. As the merciful are taken away and no man considering the fact that they have been taken away from the evil that is to come, from the period of the Great Tribulation that is coming.
He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness. But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress ( Isa 57:2-3 ),
And so God speaks about the merciful being taken away, but now His dealings with those who were worshipping false gods, false idols. “Draw near,” He’s going to lay it upon them now, “ye sons of the sorceress.”
the seed of the adulterer and the whore ( Isa 57:3 ).
Now this is, of course, talking in spiritual terms. The adulteress, the whore-that would be pagan religious system, pagan worship, the worship of Baal, Molech. You see, these people were to be married unto God. They were looked upon as the wife of God. God said, “I’ve joined Myself unto you.” And He uses the figure of a husband and a wife. And their love was to be to God exclusively. Their devotion unto God exclusively. But they were worshipping other gods. They were worshipping the gods of the pagans, the gods of Baal and Molech and Ashtoreth and all. And they were worshipping all of these other gods. And so God said, “Look, you’re supposed to be married to Me. If you’re out there cavorting and worshipping with these other gods, then that’s adultery.” And so God speaks of it in a spiritual sense. The worship of the idols, the worship of the other gods were looked upon by God as they’re following after adultery or whoredom.
Against whom do you sport yourselves? ( Isa 57:4 )
And that is, again, a term that is used of intimate relationship. And thus they were having, in a sense, intimate relationships with these other gods.
against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, the seed of falsehood, inflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks? ( Isa 57:4-5 )
It seems unthinkable to us in this age in which we live-I guess it doesn’t-that parents would take their little babies and throw them into the fire, which was a part of the worship of Baal and of Molech. If you go over to Jerusalem to the Museum of Natural History, in one area they have a case filled with little idols that have been uncovered in the land. I saw one of the idols of Baal, a little iron figure with arms out and hands in an upturned position like this. And in their worship of this idol, they would heat it until it would turn a glowing red-hot color from the heat, and then they would place their live babies in these little outstretched arms. And they would be consumed in the fire as they worship the god. These are the things that God is speaking out against. Practices that His people followed as they thought so little of life that they were willing to sacrifice their own babies unto their gods.
In the archaeological diggings they have found in the jars that were built into the walls of the homes, skeletons of babies that were buried alive as you would build a house for an offering unto the god. These were the practices that God said were an abomination unto Him. The things that God was forbidding, these were common practices of the people around them. You say, “Well, Chuck, I am abhorred by that thought, a sacrifice of baby. Who could ever think of killing a baby?” Well, I’m afraid that unfortunately here in the United States a million of them are being sacrificed every year. When does life begin?
So God speaks out against them. How they had “inflamed themselves with their idols under every green tree, slaying your children in the valleys under the cleft of the rocks.”
Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these? Upon a lofty and high mountain you have set up your bed ( Isa 57:6-7 ):
That is, a bed for an adultery, because they would make the places of worship up on the tops of the mountains like the pagans.
even thither you went to offer your sacrifices. Behind the doors also and the posts have you set up your remembrances: for you have discovered yourself to another ( Isa 57:7-8 ),
That is, you’ve uncovered yourself. You’ve made yourself naked, in a sense, before other gods.
you’ve gone up; you have enlarged your bed, you’ve made a covenant with them; and you loved their bed where you saw it. And you went to the king with ointment, and did increase your perfumes, and did send your messengers far off, and you did debase yourself even to hell ( Isa 57:8-9 ).
And so God is speaking out against the fact that these people had turned away from Him and had turned unto the practices of the heathen around them in the worship, in the developing of other little idols and gods and their worship of them.
Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet you said not, There is no hope: thou hast found the life of thine hand; therefore you were not grieved. And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that you have lied, and have not remembered me, nor laid it to your heart? have not I held my peace even of old, and you have not feared me? I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee. And when you cry, let your companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them ( Isa 57:10-13 ):
And so God speaks out against the people. And when you cry, your gods will not be able to deliver you. They will be carried away themselves by the wind. They are empty.
But now in sharp contrast,
he that puts his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain; And he shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones ( Isa 57:13-15 ).
So God declares now His dwelling place. It is high. It is holy. Those that will dwell with Him are those that are humble and those of a contrite heart.
For I will not contend for ever, neither will I always be angry: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I angry, and I smote him: I hid, and I was angry, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him ( Isa 57:16-19 ).
So even though they had forsaken God and gone in these abominable practices of the heathen, yet God promises His restoration.
But to the wicked, they are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up the mire and the dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked ( Isa 57:20-21 ).
A person who lives in wickedness, his life is like a stormy sea. Just casting up dirt and filth. No rest. Constant turmoil. Constant troubling of the man who has set his heart against the Lord. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
A lament for the death of the righteous many of them put to death by persecution.
Isa 57:1-2. The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.
When there is a storm coming on, you may see the shepherds among the hills, gathering their sheep and taking them home, and when good men die in large numbers, and the Churchs ranks are thinned, it is sometimes a token that bad times are coming on, and so God takes away the righteous from the evil to come. Oh! did men know what the world loses when a good man dies, they would regret it far more than the death of emperors and kings who fear not God. But as for those who are made righteous by the grace of God, they need not fear to die. To them it will be a rest a sleep with Jesus till the trump of the resurrection, and all the evil that will come upon the world will not touch them. They shall rest till the Master comes. Now, the rest of the chapter is a very terrible description of the sin of the people of Isaiahs day. And at last it contains a very brilliant display of the grace of God.
Isa 57:3-4. But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore. Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood.
Because this people so exalted against God and his gospel, God would not allow that they were the true seed of Israel at all. He makes them out to be a false, degenerate breed- and he asks them how they dare to sport against his prophets, and draw out the tongue, and make a wide mouth against those who spoke for the God of Israel.
Isa 57:5. Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?
The Lord had said that they should offer sacrifice only on one altar at Jerusalem, and this to him alone, but they had set up altars under all the ancient oaks to worship all sorts of gods. In addition to this, they had gone so far after the cruel way of the Pagans, that they offered their own children in sacrifice in the valleys, under the cliffs and the rocks.
Isa 57:6. Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these?
They had set up the smooth stones which they had found in the brook, and made them into altars nay made gods of them, for when man wants to make a god, anything will do, whether it is the fetish of the cannibal, or the round robin of the ritualist. It little matters which. A piece of bread will do for a god, as well as a piece of stone. Anything will man worship, sooner than worship the great, invisible, eternal God.
Isa 57:7-8. Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice. Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance:
Where they ought to have put up texts of Scripture and the remembrance of Gods law, they had set up memorials of their false gods everywhere, for when men become superstitious and worship falsely, they seem to be far more eager about it than those who worship the true God. They go on all fours at it, and give themselves wholly up to their superstitions.
Isa 57:8-9. For thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it. And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.
When they were in trouble, instead of going to God they went to the king of Egypt, that he might come and help them against the king of Assyria; but they would never turn to God. They loved idols, and so they trusted in an arm of flesh. They forgot the invincible arm which had overthrown Pharaoh at the Red Sea, and wrought such wondrous miracles for the deliverance of his people; and they made gods of the kings of the earth and trusted in them, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.
Isa 57:10. Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way;
They did so much, and they were so superstitious, that they even wearied themselves with it.
Isa 57:10. Yet saidst thou not, There is no hope: thou hast found the life of thine hand; therefore thou wast not grieved.
So long as they did but live they did not think that there was any hope of anything better, and so they were not grieved for all their sin and all their trouble.
Isa 57:11. And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied, and hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart? have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fearest me not?
This is the old trouble that because God does not smite down sinners there and then they take liberties with him. They do not know that his patience his slackness, as they call it is long-suffering, because he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, and so he puts up his sword. Yet he says, Have not I held my peace, even of old, and thou fearest me not?
Isa 57:12. I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.
They said, Why, we are very righteous. Have not we got a god in every corner? As for our works, we have plenty of them. Have not we temples built everywhere, and altars set up on every hill and in every valley? Yes, says God, such is your righteousness. They shall not profit thee.
Isa 57:13. When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;
Oh! what a sarcasm! but how just. You that love not God, when you are in trouble, let your sins deliver you if they can. Let your pleasures comfort you.
Isa 57:14-15. And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
We dwell in time, and by and by we are hurried into eternity but God always dwells in eternity. It is a very beautiful thought that he should have two dwelling-places. A blasphemer once met a humble Christian man, and he said, Pray, is yours a great God or a little God? Well, said he, he is so great a God that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, but he condescends to make himself so little that he can dwell in my poor humble heart. God has two temples. The one is the high and holy place: the other is the lowly and the humble place. May we have him in our hearts, and then shall we be in his heaven ere long.
Isa 57:16. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth:
God does not like being angry, and though sin provokes him, yet he feels not at ease when he is wrathful.
Isa 57:16. For the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.
It would destroy them. Man could not bear Gods anger ever more.
Isa 57:17-19. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips;
God teaches men how to speak words of penitence, and faith, and prayer, and praise.
Isa 57:19. Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.
He puts it twice over, because it is such a prodigy of grace that God should heal sinners that are so polluted with sin. He puts it over again. I will heal him.
Isa 57:20. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
Work up such is the word whose waters work up mire and dirt continually, as it were, in a work, and bringing up its filthiness from the bottom bringing it to the shore taking away the brightness from every wave and the crystal blue from every drop. Its waters cast up mire and dirt.
Isa 57:21. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Isa 57:1-2
Isa 57:1-2
This is the final chapter (the 9th) in Section B of Division VI of Isaiah’s prophecy; and it is composed principally of a series of severe warnings to God’s people (the Jews) that nothing but disaster awaits them because of their turning away from God, their unspeakable ungodliness, idolatry, and hypocritical wickedness.
There is no doubt whatever of its having been authored by Isaiah, and the time envisioned in the chapter is that of the times of Isaiah himself, and the times immediately afterward and reaching down to the captivity, all of the sins and idolatries mentioned here being historically identified with that particular period, and to no other. This was not written by some later Isaiah in Babylon, because the geographical features (the high mountain in Isa 57:7) and the trees mentioned were not in Babylon, but in Judah.
The critical allegations that began in the eighteenth century to the effect that the things condemned here pertained to the post-exilic period are ridiculous and unintelligent, because only the times of Manasseh exhibit the sacrifices of children to Molech, and the gross, sensuous worship of the Canaanite Baals, with their shameless fertility rites. It has been an axiom of Biblical interpretation for ages that, The Jews never again resorted to idolatry, after their return from Babylon.
We are positively certain, therefore, that such postulations as those of Wardle that, “This chapter is an invective against the pro-Samaritan party,” after the return from Babylon, are absolutely untenable and incorrect, being unsupported by any evidence whatever, and contrary to the known facts of history. It is distressing to see alleged “scholars” of our own times still parroting such old, discredited, and ridiculous shibboleths of the critical community of perverters of God’s Word.
In this chapter, “The prophet proceeds to describe the national character of the Jews in his own day, and down to the time of the captivity.” The chapter may be divided thus: (1) the public indifference to the death of the righteous (Isa 57:1-2); (2) their mockery of God (Isa 57:3-4); (3) the practice of the grossest idolatry (Isa 57:5-8); (4) the extent of their seeking self-gratification (Isa 57:9-10); (5) Jehovah’s warning to them (Isa 57:11-12); (6) deliverance promised to the penitent (Isa 57:13-18); (7) announcement of the Gospel to be preached in the Messianic age (Isa 57:19); (8) obstinate transgressors to be deprived of every blessing (Isa 57:20-21).
Isa 57:1-2
“The righteous perisheth, and no man lays it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He entereth into peace; they rest in their beds, each one that walketh in his uprightness.”
These verses refer to the fact that from the times of Isaiah and afterward to the captivity, “Most of the few godly persons left, perished, partly through vexation at the prevailing ungodliness, partly by the horrible persecutions under Manasseh,” of whom the Scriptures say, “Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem one end to another; besides his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin in doing that which is evil in the sight of Jehovah” (2Ki 21:16). We call on the critics to produce anything whatever that fits these words in that post-exilic period which they vainly assert was described by these verses!
“The righteous is taken away from the evil to come …” (Isa 57:1). God here gave the reason why many of the righteous perished during those dreadful years. By their death, the righteous would escape the temptations of their godless environment, and they would not have to witness the awful punishment that would fall upon the godless nation. Thus, “Abijah’s death is represented as a blessing conferred upon him by God for his piety (1Ki 14:10-14)”; and the prophetess Huldah likewise promised Josiah that, “Thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eye see all the evil which I will bring upon this place” (2Ki 22:20).
“Those martyrs in the times of Manasseh were actually saved from the horrors of Judah’s approaching siege and captivity; and they entered into the peace of `Abraham’s bosom’ (Luk 16:22), there to await Christ’s resurrection.
Isa 57:1-2 THE RIGHTEOUS: The problem Isaiah addresses here has been a problem for mankind ever since the Fall-why is it that the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous suffer? Of course, it is a problem only because of faulty perspective. History looked at from the human perspective (limited to the past and the present; limited to this world and this life only) does seem to substantiate the idea that it does not pay to be good. But history seen from the divine perspective (by faith in the revelation of God about the past, present and future) says quite the opposite. The righteous man may perish (avad in Hebrew which means destroy) and the world evaluates it as something to be shunned. But the prophet of God says when the righteous man dies it is far from a tragedy for he is taken away from the evil to come. That is, the righteous man is delivered from the trials and tribulations of this world (cf. Rev 7:14-17; Rev 14:13; Psa 116:15). Hosea, a contemporary of Isaiah, writes of the social chaos in the northern Ten Tribes (Israel) (cf. Hos 4:1 ff). No doubt the same kind of injustice and destruction was being directed against the righteous in the southern kingdom (Judah). Micah, also a contemporary of Isaiah, speaks of the ungodliness of Judah (cf. Mic 2:8-11; Mic 3:1-3; Mic 6:6-16; Mic 7:1-6). Micah agrees with Isaiah that the godly man has perished from the earth . . . (Mic 7:2). The Hebrew word yanuhu is translated rest and has the connotation of repose (relaxation, ease). It is more precise than the usual Hebrew word for rest which is shavath (sabbath). Isaiah likens this rest unto sleep in the bed. The word shalom at the first of the verse indicates the utter peacefulness which death brings to the man who walks in righteousness (cf. Dan 12:10-13). Even if the righteous man must walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (cf. Psalms 23). The wicked covenant breakers of Isaiahs day have it all wrong! They are self-deceived. They think the righteous have come to an untimely death because of their stubborn faithfulness to keep Gods covenant. But it is the wicked covenant breakers who shall suffer!
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Because of the failure of these blind watchmen and drunken leaders, righteous men perish, while none lay it to heart. Moreover, the people have yielded to the evil influences of such leaders; “sons of the sorceress” are summoned to judgment. Their sin has been exalted and manifest, and their judgment is to be conspicuous and complete.
Yet again the declaration turns to such as are contrite and penitent. Jehovah declares Himself to be the One inhabiting eternity, and yet dwelling with the contrite and humble in spirit. In the case of such His judgment is turned into a ministry of healing. All this again follows, and is dependent on, the suffering Servant as described in the previous section. Again, the division ends with solemn warning against wickedness. Although in the economy of God the Prince is to be sustained and finally victorious, yet there is no peace to the wicked.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
No Peace to the Wicked
Isa 57:1-21
A terrible portrayal is given here of the idolatries and impurities into which the Chosen People had fallen. These scenes under the oaks (r.v.) and in the valleys remind us of the invariable evils associated with idolatry which the great Apostle has recorded in Rom 1:23-28. They refused to retain God in their knowledge, and He gave them over to a reprobate mind; that is, He ceased to restrain them.
But amid the degenerate nation, there was a handful of elect souls; God is always careful against rooting up the tares, lest one stalk of wheat perish. Amid the destruction that must overtake the guilty land they that trusted in Him, would not be overlooked. See Isa 57:13-14.
With what comfort the chapter closes! Isa 57:15, etc. We may have been covetous and froward, and have deserved wrath and chastisement, but God will not always chide. Only return to Him! He will revive your heart, and restore comfort to you. He will heal where He has wounded, and will bring you near, through the blood of the Cross. See Eph 2:16-17.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
EXPOSITORY NOTES ON
THE PROPHET ISAIAH
By
Harry A. Ironside, Litt.D.
Copyright @ 1952
edited for 3BSB by Baptist Bible Believer in the spirit of the Colportage ministry of a century ago
ISAIAH CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
STRANGERS AND OUTCASTS GATHERED
CHAPTER fifty-seven begins with special comfort for those who while seeking to be faithful to the Lord suffer at the hands of others even unto death.
“The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness” (verses 1,2).
There is always a danger of thinking of those who die before the fulfillment of promises of future blessing as having lost them. The Thessalonians too were concerned that some of their number died before the Second Coming of CHRIST. So Paul wrote: “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope” (1Th 4:13). He went on to show that they would have their part in the rapture with the rest and would share in the glory when the Lord JESUS CHRIST descended to take the kingdom.
So here, there were those in Israel who would think the promises are for the future, and as one after another died their fellow believers feared they would not enter into their blessing. When times of persecution came and many were put to death, they would feel they had missed so much, and would not be here for the kingdom at all. But “the righteous are taken away from the evil to come,” and though taken away from here, GOD has provided something for them. Everyone shall rest in his uprightness before GOD – they will have their place of blessing.
There is no need to grieve for those who have gone before; they are under the care of the blessed Lord; they have gone Home to be with Him.
Then he goes on to stress again the importance of godliness.
“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (verse 15).
This is the only place in our Authorized Version where we get the word “eternity.” The Hebrew word here so rendered is found in many other places, but here alone our English translators have used the word.
“Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity,” that inhabiteth the ages. In Psalm 90 we read, “From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.” It could just as easily be read, “From eternity to eternity, Thou art God,” because it is the same word, but here we have the word standing out clearly and definitely, “Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.”
GOD dwells in all the ages, for that is what eternity is, a succession of ages. Sometimes in trying to picture eternity, preachers speak of it as an unchanging period. In one sense that is true. They use the expression in Rev 10:6, “There shall be time no longer,” and think of this as embracing the ages through which mankind goes on earth. And then when at last men leave this world or the ages of time expire, suddenly they go out into time where there are no more ages. But that is not true. Ages past, before this world came into existence – and there have been the ages of time since – there will be the age of the ages and ages of ages throughout the great day of GOD, the eternal day of GOD.
Throughout eternity one great age after another unfolds, manifesting even more wonderful things in connection with the wisdom, grace, love, and power of our wonderful GOD. And He inhabits all the ages, He is the GOD of eternity, and yet He dwells in the heart of him that is humble and of a contrite spirit and that trembleth at His Word. That is why prophetic truths should be borne home to the conscience – it is one thing that often makes men tremble – it ought to exercise people before GOD.
The truth of the Coming of the Lord for His Church surely ought to exercise every Christian heart and lead to the question, “Am I so living that I would be happy and glad and ready to welcome the Lord JESUS at any moment?” Many of us make plans and have associations of which we would be ashamed if the Lord should suddenly come.
Years ago, before the First World War, Professor Stroeter, a well-known prophetic teacher in Germany, used to go through the country giving lectures, and using charts to unfold the dispensations. His lectures attracted the attention of the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm, who in spite of his many idiosyncrasies, was quite a Bible student, and used to preach in the palace chapel on many occasions.
The Kaiser invited Professor Stroeter to his palace to give him an idea of what he was lecturing upon. The professor was taken into the library and spread a roll of his charts out on the table. The Kaiser followed him as he pointed out various things in the dispensations until the Second Coming of the Lord. After a lengthy conversation the Kaiser said, “Do I understand you aright? Do you mean to say that JESUS CHRIST is coming back literally, and that when He returns all the kingdoms of the world are going to be destroyed and He will set up His kingdom on the ruins of them all?”
And Professor Stroeter said, “Exactly, your Majesty, exactly.”
“Oh, no,” said the Kaiser, “I can’t have that! Why that would interfere with all my plans!”
The Kaiser’s plans were interfered with. And there are many who, if honest, would have to say, “The Coming of the Lord would interfere with all my plans.” But if we are walking with GOD as we should be, if we are of a contrite heart and we tremble at the Word, then we shall be in that attitude of soul where we can welcome the return of the blessed Lord. So Isaiah impresses the importance of this spirit of waiting and readiness upon the people of this day.
This chapter fifty-seven ends with, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”
In the previous section, that from 40-48, was GOD’s controversy with Israel concerning idolatry. That ends with, “There is no peace, saith the Lord, to the wicked.”
Then chapters forty-nine through fifty-seven give GOD’s controversy with Israel concerning the Messiah. And that ends with, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”
~ end of chapter 57 ~
http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/
***
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Isa 57:15-21
I. A contrite heart does not merely mean a broken heart; it means more. It means literally a heart crushed, a heart ground to powder. You can have no stronger word. It was this heart which God wished to breed in these rebellious Jews. A heart like Isaiah’s, when he said, after having seen God’s glory, “Woe is me! for I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell among a people of unclean lips.” A heart like Jeremiah’s, when he said, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears.” A heart like Daniel’s, when he confessed before God that to him and all his people belonged shame and confusion of face.
II. With God one day is as a thousand years. In one day of bitter misery He can teach us lessons which we could not teach ourselves in a thousand years of reading and studying, or even of praying. In sorrow, He is making short work with our spirits. He grinds hearts to powder, that they may be broken and contrite before Him; but only that He may heal them; that out of the broken fragments of the hard, proud, self-deceiving heart of stone He may create a new heart of flesh, human and gentle, humble and simple. And then He will return and have mercy. He will show that He does not wish our spirits to fail before Him, but to grow and flourish before Him to everlasting life. He will show us that He was nearest when He seemed farthest off; and that just because He is the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, for that very reason He dwells also with the humble and contrite heart, because that heart alone can confess His height and its own lowliness-confess its own sin and His holiness; and so can cling to His majesty by faith, and partake of His holiness by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit.
C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 302.
References: Isa 57:15.-J. Oswald Dykes, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 52 (see also Old Testament Outlines, p. 237; C. Kingsley, The Good News of God, p. 370; Pulpit Analyst, vol. iii., p. 592; C. Molyneux, Penny Pulpit, Nos. 280, 281; G. Brooks. Outlines of Sermons, pp. 43, 142; E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, 1st series, p. 74; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 147. Isa 57:16.-D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3087; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 142. Isa 57:16-18.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1490. Isa 57:18.-Ibid., vol. xxii., No. 1279; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 245. Isa 57:19.-Ibid., Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1558; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 143. Isa 58:2.-Ibid., p. 262.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
righteous: 2Ch 32:33, 2Ch 35:24
no man: Isa 57:11, Isa 42:25, Isa 47:7, Mal 2:2
merciful men: Heb. men of kindness, or godliness, Psa 12:1, Mic 7:2
the righteous: 1Ki 14:13, 2Ki 22:20, 2Ch 34:28
the evil to come: or, that which is evil
Reciprocal: Gen 15:15 – in peace Gen 18:25 – that the Gen 49:33 – and yielded Num 23:10 – the death Deu 34:8 – wept for Moses Jos 24:33 – died 1Sa 28:3 – Samuel 2Ki 2:12 – rent them 2Ki 13:14 – he died 2Ki 23:29 – slew him 1Ch 10:2 – Jonathan Job 3:17 – at rest Job 14:13 – hide me Job 23:17 – cut off Psa 18:25 – With the Pro 11:17 – merciful Ecc 7:1 – the day Ecc 10:15 – labour Son 6:2 – and to Jer 12:11 – layeth Jer 22:10 – Weep ye Dan 12:13 – rest Hos 7:9 – devoured Mic 6:8 – love Mat 5:7 – are Mat 22:29 – not Mar 4:29 – he putteth Luk 2:29 – now Luk 16:22 – that Joh 17:15 – take Act 8:2 – made 2Co 4:16 – though Eph 4:32 – kind Phi 1:21 – to die Heb 11:38 – whom 2Pe 1:6 – godliness Rev 14:13 – Blessed
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 57:1-2. These two verses contain a kind of prelude to the distressful scene which is opened immediately after: for the prophet, designing to describe the melancholy state of the adulterous church, to be chastised by the severe judgments of God, beholds, as it were in an ecstasy, the few pious and good men yet remaining in the church gradually falling off, and taken away, either by an immature or violent death: while there were but few who laid this matter to heart, and observed it as a presage of the judgment threatening the church. This stupidity he sadly deplores; immediately subjoining, however: an alleviation, to show that this complaint pertained not to the deceased, as having attained a happier lot, and as blessed in this respect, that they were taken away from the evils and calamities of their times. Vitringa. The following short paraphrase on the words will render their sense more apparent. The righteous perisheth Just and holy men, who are the pillars of the place and state in which they live. And no man layeth it to heart Few or none of the people are duly affected with this severe stroke and sign of Gods displeasure. Thus he shows that the corruption was general in the people no less than in the priests. And merciful men Hebrew, , men of benignity, or beneficence, the same whom he before called righteous: those whose practice it was, not only to exercise piety and justice, but also mercy and kindness; none considering None reflecting within himself, and laying it to heart; that the righteous is taken away from the evil That dreadful calamities are coming on the church and nation, and that the righteous are taken away before they come. He shall enter into peace The righteous man shall be received into rest and safety, where he shall be out of the reach of the approaching miseries. They The merciful men; shall rest in their beds In their graves, not unfitly called their beds, or sleeping- places, death being commonly called sleep in Scripture; each one walking in his uprightness That walked, that is, lived, in a sincere and faithful discharge of his duties to God and men. Vitringa thinks the completion of this prophecy is to be sought in the latter end of the ninth, and in the following centuries; when the papal power greatly prevailed, and the corruption of the church was as great as the persecutions and troubles of the pious were many.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 57:1. The righteous perisheth. This was written as a tribute, it would seem, to the memory of king Hezekiah, who was recently called from an earthly to a heavenly crown. He entered into peace, beyond the reach of all the calamities impending over his country. The nation at large did not know their loss, and therefore sorrowed not as the prophet would have them do.
Isa 57:4. Against whom do ye sport yourselves? The idolaters, finding the young king Manasseh decidedly in favour of heathen gods, could not contain their joy. Those awful characters, called the seed of adulterers, that is, born of idolatrous parents, or morally, children of the Amorite and the Hittite, as in Ezekiel 16., wantoned the more in idolatrous festivity, nor saw the calamities which in a few years more would desolate the temple, and the land.
Isa 57:6. Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion. It was a general practice of the gentiles to worship near fountains and rivers, and in groves. Criminals were also put to death near rivers, as when Elijah slew the priests and prophets of Baal at the brook. 1 Kings 18.
Isa 57:8. Behind the doors alsohast thou set up thy remembrance. The penates, or houshold gods, were placed there as a memorial of their abominable superstition. Our missionaries in the island of Madagascar often found idols concealed in cupboards.
Isa 57:9. Thou wentest to the king with ointment. To the king of Egypt, or Damascus, or Babylon, to tell him the joy of thy having adopted his altar and his worship. It is also a rebuke for their going to a foreign prince to ask counsel, as though the Lord was not sufficient.
Isa 57:12. I will declare thy righteousness; ironically, thy hypocrisy, thy wickedness, by publicly delivering thee into the hands of thine enemies; who in a short time carried the king in chains to Babylon.
REFLECTIONS.
The loss of a great and good man, whether prince or prophet, is a serious calamity when viewed in itself. The church and the nation lose a father who directed them by his counsel, governed them by his prudence, and awed the wicked by his influence. They lose the great patron of piety, and the model of virtue; and the loss is irreparable when no man is raised up in the like spirit, and with rising influence, to take the helm, and faithfully discharge his duty, totally disregarding party opinions.
It is a most unnatural crime and a sure omen of the destruction of the age, when no one laments the fall of a great and good man. Blindness and infatuation have seized a people, so circumstanced, when they neither perceive that the righteous are taken from the evil to come, nor that their own lives are in jeopardy, because no successor is provided; which provision God has usually made for his church and people. Moses consecrated Joshua, Elijah threw his mantle on Elisha, and St. Paul trained up Timothy and others to succeed him among the gentiles.
King Hezekiah, and perhaps many other good men, having died about this time, Isaiah was the more desirous to magnify his ministry by pointed attacks on the idolaters, who seemed rather to rejoice at than to lament the death of the saints. He bids the children of the idolaters draw near, whose ancestors had departed from the Lord, as an adulteress departs from her husband. He prescribes the characters of their superstition, and drags into open day the dark scenes which revolt the heart. They looked on the form of their immodest idols till they approached a state not less wicked than the men of Sodom before they were burned. They slew their children in the valley of Hinnom, where Tophet and Moloch were adored. 2Ki 23:10. They built their altars with smooth stones taken out of the brook Kidron, and in contempt of the law which enjoined altars to be made of unhewn stones. Under every green tree, and in caverns whose jaws were portentous of hell, they practised the mysteries of Satan. At home there was not a house but had its god placed behind the door to guard it from danger. God therefore resolved to declare his righteousness in punishing them as he had threatened; and with this highest mark of anger, that he would not deliver them in the day when they cried to him. Oh that the pleasure-takers, the drunkards, and the profligates of this age, would see their own portrait, in the men who brought ruin on the Hebrew nation.
When the idolaters, though they cast up a causey for their allies, had none to deliver them, hear what the Lord says to his weeping people. He calls himself the High and Lofty One who inhabiteth eternity; consequently he existed before his enemies, and shall outlive them all; for in the chaste language of scripture there is always a close connection between the perfections God assumes, and the parties addressed. The Lord dwells in the temple, his high and holy place; therefore the wicked shall not prevail over the church. This glorious God, who mocks at the impious in trouble, will dwell with the man who is poor, of a contrite heart, and who trembles at his word: yea, he prefers this heart before all temples. Hence the prophet, as is usual, now launches into evangelical times; for we must either maintain that holy men worshipped with the Messiah in view, or give up the new testament. He would comfort with peace and protection the Jews who were nigh or afar off: and ultimately send the gospel of peace to the gentiles who were far from God.
We have next the awful character of the wicked: they are like the troubled sea, spending its foaming rage on the shore. They resemble the unclean spirit, travelling through dry places, seeking rest and finding none. Hurried by impetuous passions they fly to pleasure, and find disappointment; they indulge in every concupiscence of the heart, and when mortification follows they foam with rage, blaspheme with revenge, and destroy the repose of life in faction, intrigue, and restless ambition; just and worthy preparatives for weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 56:9 to Isa 57:2. A Denunciation of the Rulers of the Community.This oracle seems not to be connected with the preceding, though, it arises out of the same circumstances.
Yahweh bids the beasts of prey (cf. Jer 12:9), hostile nations, ravage the flock, since the watchdogs are not alert, but crouched in the slumber of gluttons. Vividly then one of the rulers is introduced, inviting his fellows to a drunken orgy (cf. Amo 6:6), and gloating over a like prospect for the morrow. But, while the rulers gorge and swill, the man who keeps the law and is godly (mg.) perishes through these evils (mg.), unnoticed: his only rest is that of the funeral bier (beds).
Isa 56:10. his: read, my.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
57:1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth [it] to heart: and merciful men [are] taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away {a} from the evil [to come].
(a) From the plague that is at hand, and also because God will punish the wicked.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
As the leadership of the nation grew worse, the number of righteous people shrank, without people perceiving what was happening. God allowed this disappearance of the devout to spare them the judgment He would bring on the evil nation and its ungodly rulers. Few people in the nation, however, understood this reason for the depletion of the righteous.
"Such deaths are not understood by the godless, for they do not realize that God in His goodness often takes righteous men to Himself to deliver them from some impending catastrophe." [Note: Ibid., 3:399-400.]
God will do this when He removes the church from the earth before He brings the Tribulation on it. He did it in the past when he removed Lot before He destroyed Sodom.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER XXIII
THE REKINDLING OF THE CIVIC CONSCIENCE
Isa 56:9-12; Isa 57:1-21; Isa 58:1-14; Isa 59:1-21
IT was inevitable, as soon as their city was again fairly in sight, that there should re-awaken in the exiles the civic conscience; that recollections of those besetting sins of their public life, for which their city and their independence were destroyed, should throng back upon them; that in prospect of their again becoming responsible for the discharge of justice and other political duties, they should be reminded by the prophet of their national faults in these respects, and of Gods eternal laws concerning them. If we keep this in mind, we shall understand the presence in “Second Isaiah” of the group of prophecies at which we have now arrived, Isa 56:9-12; Isa 57:1-21; Isa 58:1-14; Isa 59:1-21. Hitherto our prophet, in marked contrast to Isaiah himself, has said almost nothing of the social righteousness of his people. Israels righteousness, as we saw in our fourteenth chapter, has had the very different meaning for our prophet of her pardon and restoration to her rights. But in Isa 56:9-12; Isa 57:1-21; Isa 58:1-14; Isa 59:1-21 we shall find the blame of civic wrong, and of other kinds of sin of which Israel could only have been guilty in her own land; we shall listen to exhortations to social justice and mercy like those we heard from Isaiah to his generation. Yet these are mingled with voices, and concluded with promises, which speak of the Return as imminent. Undoubtedly exilic elements reveal themselves. And the total impression is that some prophet of the late Exile, and probably the one whom we have been following, collected these reminiscences of his peoples sin in the days of their freedom, in order to remind them, before they went back again to political responsibility, why it was they were punished and how apt they were to go astray. Believing this to be the true solution of a somewhat difficult problem, we have ventured to gather this mixed group of prophecies under the title of the Rekindling of the Civic Conscience. They fall into three groups: first, Isa 56:9-12; Isa 57:1-21; second, chapter 58; third, chapter 59. We shall see that, while there is no reason to doubt the exilic origin of the whole of the second, the first and third of these are mainly occupied with the description of a state of things that prevailed only before the Exile, but they contain also exilic observations and conclusions.
I. A CONSCIENCE BUT NO GOD
Isa 56:9-12; Isa 57:1-21
This is one of the sections which almost decisively place the literary unity of “Second Isaiah” past possibility of belief. If Isa 56:1-8 flushes with the dawn of restoration, Isa 56:9-12; Isa 57:1-21 is very dark with the coming of the night, which preceded that dawn. Almost none dispute that the greater part of this prophecy must have been composed before the people left Palestine for exile. The state of Israel, which it pictures, recalls the descriptions of Hosea, and of the eleventh chapter of Zechariah. Gods flock are still in charge of their own shepherds, {Isa 56:9-12} -a description inapplicable to Israel in exile. The shepherds are sleepy, greedy, sensual, drunkards, -victims to the curse against which Amos and Isaiah hurled their strongest woes. That sots like them should be spared while the righteous die unnoticed deaths {Isa 57:1} can only be explained by the approaching judgment. “No man considereth that the righteous is taken away from the Evil.” The Evil cannot mean, as some have thought, persecution, -for while the righteous are to escape it and enter into peace, the wicked are spared for it. It must be a Divine judgment, -the Exile. But “he entereth peace, they rest in their beds, each one that hath walked straight before him,”-for the righteous there is the peace of death and the undisturbed tomb of his fathers. What an enviable fate when emigration, and dispersion through foreign lands, are the prospect of the nation! Israel shall find her pious dead when she returns! The verse recalls that summons in Isa 26:1-21, in which we heard the Mother Nation calling upon the dead she had left in Palestine to rise and increase her returned numbers.
Then the prophet indicts the nation for a religious and political unfaithfulness, which we know was their besetting sin in the days before they left the Holy Land. The scenery, in whose natural objects he describes them seeking their worship, is the scenery of Palestine, not of Mesopotamia, – terebinths and wadies, and clerts of the rocks, and smooth stones of the wadies. The unchaste and bloody sacrifices with which he charges them bear the appearance more of Canaanite than of Babylonian idolatry. The humiliating political suits which they paid-“thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thine ambassadors afar off, and didst debase thyself even unto Sheol” (Isa 57:9)-could not be attributed to a captive people, but were the sort of degrading diplomacy that Israel earned from Ahaz. While the painful pursuit of strength (Isa 57:10), the shabby political cowardice (Isa 57:11), the fanatic sacrifice of manhoods purity and childhoods life (Isa 57:5), and especially the evil conscience which drove their blind hearts through such pain and passion in a sincere quest for righteousness (Isa 57:12), betray the age of idolatrous reaction from the great Puritan victory of 701, -a generation exaggerating all the old falsehood and fear, against which Isaiah had inveighed, with the new conscience of sin which his preaching had created. The dark streak of blood and lust that runs through the condemned idolatry, and the stern conscience which only deepens its darkness, are sufficient reasons for dating the prophecy after 700. The very phrases of Isaiah, which it contains, have tempted some to attribute it to himself. But it certainly does not date from such troubles as brought his old age to the grave. The evil, which it portends, is, as we have seen, no persecution of the righteous, but a Divine judgment upon the whole nation,- presumably the Exile. We may date it, therefore, some time after Isaiahs death, but certainly-and this is the important point-before the Exile. This, then, is an unmistakably pre-exilic constituent of “Second Isaiah.”
Another feature corroborates this prophecys original independence of its context. Its style is immediately and extremely rugged. The reader of the original feels the difference at once. It is the difference between travel on the level roads of Mesopotamia, with their unchanging horizons, and the jolting carriage of the stony paths of Higher Palestine, with their glimpses rapidly shifting from gorge to peak. But the remarkable thing is that the usual style of “Second Isaiah” is resumed before the end of the prophecy. One cannot always be sure of the exact verse at which such a literary change takes place. In this case some feel it as soon as the middle of Isa 57:11, with the words, “Have not I held My peace even of long time, and thou fearest Me not?” It is surely more sensible, however, after ver. 14, in which we are arrested in any case by an alteration of standpoint. In ver. 14 we are on in the Exile again-before Isa 57:14 I cannot recognise any exilic symptom-and the way of return is before us. “And one said,”-it is the repetition to the letter of the strange anonymous voice of Isa 40:6, -” and one said, Cast ye up, Cast ye up, open up,” or “sweep open, a way, lift the stumbling block from the way of My people.” And now the rhythm has certainly returned to the prevailing style of “Second Isaiah,” and the temper is again that of promise and comfort.
These sudden shiftings of circumstance and of prospect are enough to show the thoughtful reader of Scripture how hard is the problem of the unity of “Second Isaiah.” On which we make here no further remark, but pass at once to the more congenial task of studying the great prophecy, Isa 57:14-21, which rises one and simple from these fragments as does some homogeneous rock from the confusing debris of several geological epochs.
For let the date and original purpose of the fragments we have considered be what they may, this prophecy has been placed as their conclusion with at least some rational, not to say spiritual intention. As it suddenly issues here, it gathers up, in the usual habit of Scripture, Gods moral indictment of an evil generation, by a great manifesto of the Divine nature, and a sharp distinction of the characters and fate of men. Now, of what kind is the generation to whose indictment this prophecy comes as a conclusion? It is a generation which has lost its God, but kept its conscience. This sums up the national character which is sketched in Isa 57:3-13. These Israelites had lost Jehovah and His pure law. But the religion into which they fell back was not, therefore, easy or cold. On the contrary, it was very intense and very stern. The people put energy in it, and passion, and sacrifice that went to cruel lengths. Belief, too, in its practical results kept the people from fainting under the weariness in which its fanaticism reacted. “In the length of thy way thou wast wearied, yet thou didst not say, It is hopeless; life for thy hand”-that is, real, practical strength-“didst thou find: wherefore thou didst not break down.”
And they practised their painful and passionate idolatry with a real conscience. They were seeking to work out righteousness for themselves (Isa 57:12 should be rendered: “I will expose your righteousness,” the caricature of righteousness which you attempt). The most worldly statesman among them had his sincere ideal for Israel, and intended to enable her, in the possession of her land and holy mountain, to fulfil her destiny (Isa 57:13). The most gross idolater had a hunger and thirst after righteousness, and burnt his children or sacrificed his purity to satisfy the vague promptings of his unenlightened conscience.
It was indeed a generation which had kept its conscience, but lost its God; and what we have in Isa 57:15-21 is just the lost and forgotten God speaking of His Nature and His Will. They have been worshipping idols, creatures of their own fears and cruel passions. But He is the “high and lofty one”-two of the simplest adjectives in the language, yet sufficient to lift Him they describe above the distorting mists of human imagination. They thought of the Deity as sheer wrath and force, scarcely to be appeased by men even through the most bloody rites and passionate self-sacrifice. But He says, “The high and the holy I dwell in, yet with him also that is contrite and humble of spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” The rest of the chapter is to the darkened consciences a plain statement of the moral character of Gods working. God always punishes sin, and yet the sinner is not abandoned. Though he go in his own way, God “watches his ways in order to heal him. I create the fruit of the lips,” that is, “thanksgivings: Peace, peace, to him that is far off and him that is near, saith Jehovah, and I will heal him.” But, as in chapter 48, and chapter 50, a warning comes last, and behind the clear, forward picture of the comforted and restored of Jehovah we see the weird background of gloomy, restless wickedness.
II. SOCIAL SERVICE AND THE SABBATH
(chapter 58)
Several critics (including Professor Cheyne) regard chapter 58 as post-exilic, because of its declarations against formal fasting and the neglect of social charity, which are akin to those of post-exilic prophets like Zechariah and Joel, and seem to imply that the people addressed are again independent and responsible for the conduct of their social duties. The question largely turns on the amount of social responsibility we conceive the Jews to have had during the Exile. Now we have seen that many of them enjoyed considerable freedom: they had their houses and households; they had their slaves; they traded and were possessed of wealth. They were, therefore, in a position to be chargeable with the duties to which chapter 58 calls them. The addresses of Ezekiel to his fellow-exiles have many features in common with chapter 58, although they do not mention fasting; and fasting itself was a characteristic habit of the exiles, in regard to which it is quite likely they should err just as is described in chapter 58. Moreover, there is a resemblance between this chapters comments upon the peoples enquiries of God (Isa 58:2) and Ezekiels reply when certain of the elders of Israel came to enquire of Jehovah. (Eze 21:1-32, cf. Eze 33:30 f.) And again Isa 58:11-12 are evidently addressed to people in prospect of return to their own land and restoration of their city. We accordingly date chapter 53 from the Exile. But we see no reason to put it as early as Ewald does, who assigns it to a younger contemporary of Ezekiel. There is no linguistic evidence that it is an insertion, or from another hand than that of our prophet. Surely there were room and occasion for it in those years which followed the actual deliverance of the Jews by Cyrus, but preceded the restoration of Jerusalem, -those years in which there were no longer political problems in the way of the peoples return for our prophet to discuss, and therefore their moral defects were all the more thrust upon his attention; and especially, when in the near prospect of their political independence, their social sins roused his apprehensions.
Those who have never heard an angry Oriental speak have no idea of what power of denunciation lies in the human throat. In the East, where a dry climate and large leisure bestow upon the voice a depth and suppleness prevented by our vulgar haste of life and teasing weather, men have elaborated their throat-letters to a number unknown in any Western alphabet; and upon the lowest notes they have put an edge, that comes up shrill and keen through the roar of the upper gutturals, till you feel their wrath cut as well as sweep you before it. In the Oriental throat, speech goes down deep enough to echo all the breadth of the inner man; while the possibility of expressing within so supple an organ nearly every tone of scorn or surprise preserves anger from that suspicion of spite or of exhaustion, which is conveyed by too liberal a use of the nasal or palatal letters. Hence in the Hebrew language “to call with the throat” means to call with vehemence, but with self-command; with passion, yet as a man; using every figure of satire, but earnestly; neither forgetting wrath for mere arts sake, nor allowing wrath to escape the grip of the stronger muscles of the voice. It is “to lift the voice like a trumpet,”-an instrument, which, with whatever variety of music its upper notes may indulge our ears, never suffers its main tone of authority to drop, never slacks its imperative appeal to the wills of the hearers.
This is the style of the chapter before us, which opens with the words, “Call with the throat, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.” Perhaps no subject more readily provokes to satire and sneers than the subject of the chapter, -the union of formal religion and unlovely life. And yet in the chapter there is not a sneer from first to last. The speaker suppresses the temptation to use his nasal tones, and utters, not as the satirist, but as the prophet. For his purpose is not to sport with his peoples hypocrisy, but to sweep them out of it. Before he has done, his urgent speech, that has not lingered to sneer nor exhausted itself in screaming, passes forth to spend its unchecked impetus upon final promise and gospel. It is a wise lesson from a master preacher, and half of the fruitlessness of modern preaching is clue to the neglect of it. The pulpit tempts men to be either too bold or too timid about sin; either to whisper or to scold; to euphemise or to exaggerate; to be conventional or hysterical. But two things are necessary, the facts must be stated, and the whole manhood of the preacher, and not only his scorn or only his anger or only an official temper, brought to bear upon them. “Call with the throat, spare not, like a trumpet lift up thy voice, and publish to My people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sin.”
The subject of the chapter is the habits of a religious people, -the earnestness and regularity of their religious performance contrasted with the neglect of their social relations. The second verse, “the descriptions in which are evidently drawn from life,” tells us that “the people sought God daily, and had a zeal to know His ways, as a nation that had done righteousness,”-fulfilled the legal worship, -“and had not forsaken the of their God: they ask of Me laws of righteousness,”-that is, a legal worship, the performance of which might make them righteous, -“and in drawing near to God they take delight.” They had, in fact, a great greed for ordinances and functions, -for the revival of such forms as they had been accustomed to of old. Like some poor prostrate rose, whose tendrils miss the props by which they were wont to rise to the sun, the religious conscience and affections of Israel, violently torn from their immemorial supports, lay limp and wind-swept on a bare land, and longed for God to raise some substitute for those altars of Zion by which, in the dear days of old, they had lifted themselves to the light of His face. In the absence of anything better, they turned to the chill and shadowed forms of the fasts they had instituted. But they did not thereby reach the face of God. “Wherefore have we fasted,” say they, “and Thou hast not seen? we have humbled our souls, and Thou takest no notice?” The answer comes swiftly: Because your fasting is a mere form! “Lo, in the very day of your fast ye find a business to do, and all your workmen you overtask.” So formal is your fasting that your ordinary eager, selfish, cruel life goes on beside it just the same. Nay, it is worse than usual, for your worthless, wearisome fast but puts a sharper edge upon your temper: “Lo, for strife and contention ye fast, to smite with the fist of tyranny.” And it has no religious value: “Ye fast not” like “as” you are fasting “today so as to make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, -a day for a man to afflict himself? Is it to droop his head like a rush, and grovel on sackcloth and ashes? Is it this thou wilt call a fast and a day acceptable to Jehovah?” One of the great surprises of the human heart is that self-denial does not win merit or peace. But assuredly it does not, if love be not with it. Though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Self-denial without love is self-indulgence. “Is not this the fast that I choose? to loosen the bonds of tyranny, to shatter the joints of the yoke, to let the crushed go free, and that ye burst every yoke. Is it not to break to the hungry thy bread, and that thou bring home wandering poor? when thou seest one naked that thou cover him, and that from thine own flesh thou hide not thyself? Then shall break forth like the morning thy light, and thy health shall immediately spring. Yea, go before thee shall thy righteousness, the glory of Jehovah shall sweep thee on,” literally, “gather thee up. Then thou shalt call, and Jehovah shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here am I If thou shalt put from thy midst the yoke, and the putting forth of the finger, and the speaking of naughtiness”-three degrees of the subtlety of selfishness, which when forced back from violent oppression will retreat to scorn and from open scorn to backbiting, -“and if thou draw out to the hungry thy soul,”-tear out what is dear to thee in order to fill his need, the strongest expression for self-denial which the Old Testament contains, -“and satisfy the soul that is afflicted, then shall uprise in the darkness thy light, and thy gloom shall be as the noonday. And guide thee shall Jehovah continually, and satisfy thy soul in droughts, and thy limbs make lissom; and thou shalt be like a garden well-watered, {Jer 31:12} and like a spring of water whose waters fail not. And they that are of thee shall build the ancient ruins; the foundations of generation upon generation thou shalt raise up, and they shall be calling thee Repairer-of-the-Breach, Restorer-of-Paths-for-habitation.” {Cf. Job 24:13} Thus their “righteousness” in the sense of external vindication and stability, which so prevails with our prophet, shall be due to their “righteousness” in that inward moral sense in which Amos and Isaiah use the word. And so concludes a passage which fills the earliest, if not the highest, place in the glorious succession of Scriptures of Practical Love, to which belong the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, the twenty-fifth of Matthew and the thirteenth of First Corinthians. Its lesson is, -to go back to the figure of the draggled rose, -that no mere forms of religion, however divinely prescribed or conscientiously observed, can of themselves lift the distraught and trailing affections of man to the light and peace of Heaven; but that our fellow men, if we cling to them with love and with arms of help, are ever the strongest props by which we may rise to God; that character grows rich and life joyful, not by the performance of ordinances with the cold conscience of duty, but by acts of service with the warm heart of love.
And yet such a prophecy concludes with an exhortation to the observance of one religious form, and places the keeping of the Sabbath on a level with the practice of love. “If thou turn from the Sabbath thy foot,” from “doing thine own business on My holy day; {Amo 8:5} and tallest the Sabbath Pleasure,”-the word is a strong one, “Delight, Delicacy, Luxury, -Holy of Jehovah, Honourable; and dost honour it so as not to do thine own ways, or find thine own business, or keep making talk: then thou shalt find thy pleasure,” or “thy delight, in Jehovah,”-note the parallel of pleasure in the Sabbath and pleasure in Jehovah, -“and He shall cause thee to ride on the high places of the land, and make thee to feel upon the portion of Jacob thy father: yea, the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken.”
Our prophet, then, while exalting the practical Service of Man at the expense of certain religious forms, equally exalts the observance of Sabbath; his scorn for their formalism changes when he comes to it into a strenuous enthusiasm of defence. This remarkable fact, which is strictly analogous to the appearance of the Fourth Commandment in a code otherwise consisting of purely moral and religious laws, is easily explained. Observe that our prophet bases his plea for Sabbath-keeping, and his assurance that it must lead to prosperity, not on its physical, moral, or social benefits, but simply upon its acknowledgment of God. Not only is the Sabbath to be honoured because it is the “Holy of Jehovah” and “Honourable,” but “making it ones pleasure” is equivalent to “finding ones pleasure in Him.” The parallel between these two phrases in Isa 58:13 and Isa 58:14 is evident, and means really this: Inasmuch as ye do it unto the Sabbath, ye do it unto Me. The prophet, then, enforces the Sabbath simply on account of its religious and Godward aspect. Now, let us remember the truth, which he so often enforces, that the Service of Man, however, ardently and widely pursued, can never lead or sum up our duty; that the Service of God has, logically and practically, a prior claim, for without it the Service of Man must suffer both in obligation and in resource. God must be our first resort-must have our first homage, affection, and obedience. But this cannot well take place without some amount of definite and regular and frequent devotion to Him. In the most spiritual religion there is an irreducible minimum of formal observance. Now, in that wholesale destruction of religious forms, which took place at the overthrow of Jerusalem, there was only one institution, which was not necessarily involved. The Sabbath did not fall with the Temple and the Altar: the Sabbath was independent of all locality; the Sabbath was possible even in exile. It was the one solemn, public, and frequently regular form in which the nation could turn to God, glorify Him, and enjoy Him. Perhaps, too, through the Babylonian fashion of solemnising the seventh day, our prophet realised again the primitive institution of the Sabbath, and was reminded that, since seven days is a regular part of the natural year, the Sabbath is, so to speak, sanctioned by the statutes of Creation.
An institution, which is so primitive, which is so independent of locality, which forms so natural a part of the course of time, but which, above all, has twice-in the Jewish Exile and in the passage of Judaism to Christianity-survived the abrogation and disappearance of all other forms of the religion with which it was connected, and has twice been affirmed by prophecy or practice to be an essential part of spiritual religion and the equal of social morality, -has amply proved its Divine origin and its indispensableness to man.
III. SOCIAL CRIMES
(Chapter 59)
Chapter 59 is, at first sight, the most difficult of all of “Second Isaiah” to assign to a date. For it evidently contains both pre-exilic and exilic elements. On the one hand, its charges of guilt imply that the people addressed by it are responsible for civic justice to a degree which could hardly be imputed to the Jews in Babylon. We saw that the Jews in the Exile had an amount of social freedom and domestic responsibility which amply accounts for the kind of sins they are charged with in chapter 58. But ver. 14 of chapter 59 (Isa 59:14) reproaches them with the collapse of justice in the very seat and public office of justice, of which it was not possible they could have been guilty except in their own land and in the days of their independence. On the other hand, the promises of deliverance in chapter 59 read very much as if they were exilic. “Judgment” and “righteousness” are employed in Isa 59:9 in their exilic sense, and God is pictured exactly as we have seen Him in other chapters of our prophet.
Are we then left with a mystery? On the contrary, the solution is clear. Israel is followed into exile by her old conscience. The charges of Isaiah and Ezekiel against Jerusalem, while Jerusalem was still a “civitas,” ring in her memory. She repeats the very words. With truth she says that her present state, so vividly described in Isa 59:9-11, is due to sins of old, of which, though perhaps she can no longer commit them, she still feels the guilt. Conscience always crowds the years together; there is no difference of time in the eyes of God the Judge. And it was natural, as we have said already, that the nation should remember her besetting sins at this time; that her civic conscience should awake again, just as she was again about to become a civitas.
The whole of this chapter is simply the expansion and enforcement of the first two verses, that keep clanging like the clangour of a great high bell: “Behold, Jehovahs hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is His ear heavy that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have been separators between you and your God, and your sins have hidden” His “face from you, that He will not hear.” There is but one thing that comes between the human heart and the Real Presence and Infinite Power of God; and that one thing is Sin. The chapter labours to show how real God is. Its opening verses talk of “His Hand, His Ear, His Face.” And the closing verses paint Him with the passions and the armour of a man, -a Hero in such solitude and with such forward force, that no imagination can fail to see the Vivid, Lonely Figure. “And He saw that there was no man, and He wondered that there was none to interpose; therefore His own right arm brought salvation unto Him, and His righteousness it upheld Him. And He put on righteousness like a breastplate and salvation” for “a helmet upon His head; and He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped Himself in zeal like a robe.” Do not let us suppose this is mere poetry. Conceive what inspires it, -the great truth that in the Infinite there is a heart to throb for men and a will to strike for them. This is what the writer desires to proclaim, and what we believe the Spirit of God moved his poor human lips to give their own shape to, -the simple truth that there is One, however hidden He may be to mens eyes, who feels for men, who feels hotly for men, and whose will is quick and urgent to save them. Such a One tells His people that the only thing which prevents them from knowing how real His heart and will are-the only thing which prevents them from seeing His work in their midst-is their sin.
The roll of sins to which the prophet attributes the delay of the peoples deliverance is an awful one; and the man who reads it with conscience asleep might conclude that it was meant only for a period of extraordinary violence and bloodshed. Yet the chapter implies that society exists, and that at least the forms of civilisation are in force. Men sue one another before the usual courts. But none “sueth in righteousness or goeth to the law in truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies.” All these charges might be true of a society as outwardly respectable as our own. Nor is the charge of bloodshed to be taken literally. The Old Testament has so great a regard for the spiritual nature of man, that to deny the individual his rights or to take away the peace of God from his heart, it calls the shedding of innocent blood. Isaiah reminds us of many kinds of this moral murder when he says, “your hands are full of blood: seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” Ezekiel reminds us of others when he tells how God spake to him, that if he “warn not the wicked, and the same wicked shall die in his iniquity, his blood will I require at thy hand.” And again a Psalm reminds us of the time “when the Lord maketh inquisition for blood, He forgetteth not the cry of the poor.” {Isa 1:17; Psa 9:12} This is what the Bible calls murder and lays its burning words upon, -not such acts of bloody violence as now and then make all humanity thrill to discover that in the heart of civilisation there exist men with the passions of the ape and the tiger, but such oppression of the poor, such cowardice to rebuke evil, such negligence to restore the falling, such abuse of the characters of the young and innocent, such fraud and oppression of the weak, as often exist under the most respectable life, and employ the weapons of a Christian civilisation in order to fulfil themselves. We have need to take the bold, violent standards of the prophets and lay them to our own lives, -the prophets that call the man who sells his honesty for gain, “a harlot,” and hold him “blood-guilty” who has wronged, tempted, or neglected his brother. Do not let us suppose that these crimson verses of the Bible may be passed over by us as not applicable to ourselves. They do not refer to murderers or maniacs: they refer to social crimes, to which we all are in perpetual temptation, and of which we all are more or less guilty, -the neglect of the weak, the exploitation of the poor for our own profit, the soiling of childrens minds, the multiplying of temptation in the way of Gods little ones, the malice that leads us to blast anothers character, or to impute to his action evil motives for which we have absolutely no grounds save the envy and sordidness of our own hearts. Do not let us fail to read all such verses in the clear light which John the Apostle throws on them when he says: “He that loveth not abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.”