Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 59:1
Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
1. Behold the hand of Jehovah is not too short (cf. ch. Isa 50:2) to save,
Nor His ear too heavy (ch. Isa 6:10) to hear.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1, 2. These verses state briefly and forcibly the argument of which the whole chapter is the expansion: not the powerlessness or the indifference of Jehovah, but the sin of the people, is the hindrance to the promised redemption.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Behold, the Lords hand is not shortened – On the meaning of this phrase, see the notes at Isa 50:2.
Neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear – On the meaning of this phrase, see the notes at Isa 6:10.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 59:1-9
Behold, the Lords hand is not shortened
Isa 57:1-21.
and 59.
In the former address, to the dead works on which the people founded their claim to redemption, there were set in contrast the virtues well-pleasing of God, and for which Jehovah promises redemption as a gracious reward; in this discourse, the sins which hinder the accomplishment of redemption are still more directly laid bare. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
Sin and grace
In this chapter we have sin appearing exceeding sinful, and grace appearing exceeding gracious. (M. Henry.)
Why some seekers are not saved
I. THE FACT CONFESSED.
1. The people of whom I am specially thinking have been hearers of the Gospel, and diligent hearers too.
2. They have become men of prayer, after a fashion (Isa 58:2).
3. These people are greatly disappointed with themselves: not altogether so, for they know to a great extent where the blame lies, but yet they had hoped better things of themselves.
II. THE IMPUTATION IMPLIED AND MET. Notice the first word of our text: Behold! This is like our nots bene; mark well, turn your eye this way. If you are not saved, it is not because God is unable to save you, nor is it because He is unwilling to hear your prayers.
III. THE ACCUSATION PRESSED AND EXPLAINED. Your accusation may be turned against you. You thought that Gods hand was shortened, that it could not save; but it is your hand that is shortened, for you have not laid hold upon Christ. The real reason why you have not found peace is sin. It may be–
1. Sin unconfessed.
2. Sin unforsaken.
3. Sin hankered after.
4. Sin of which you are unaware.
5. Some sin of omission.
6. An ugly temper.
7. An intellectual sin.
8. Gross or secret sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Hindrances to the conversion of all nations
1. The lack of deep, earnest sympathy with Christ on the part of His people.
2. An evil heart of unbelief.
3. The unconsecrated wealth of the Church. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)
The sad issues of sin
I. IT BRINGS SEPARATION. Instead of running to God, we flee from Him. His dazzling majesty appals us. His righteousness and purity compel us to hide from Him.
II. IT BRINGS DISENCHANTMENT AND DISILLUSIONMENT. For a little we arc fascinated, beguiled, befooled; but soon there is a rude awakening. Their webs shall not become garments, etc. (Isa 59:6). The mirage fades await and we discover to our dismay that there is nothing around or within us but a desert of sand and thorns.
III. IT BRINGS BEWILDERMENT AND PERPLEXITY (Isa 59:9). We are in doubt regarding the most elementary matters of belief and behaviour. (A. Smellie, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER LIX
This chapter contains a more general reproof of the wickedness
of the Jews, 1-8.
After this they are represented confessing their sins, and
deploring the unhappy consequences of them, 9-15.
On this act of humiliation God, ever ready to pardon the
penitent, promises that he will have mercy on them; that the
Redeemer will come, mighty to save; and that he will deliver
his people, subdue his enemies and establish a new and
everlasting covenant, 16-21.
The foregoing elegant chapter contained a severe reproof of the Jews, in particular for their hypocrisy in pretending to make themselves accepted with God by fasting and outward humiliation without true repentance; while they still continued to oppress the poor, and indulge their own passions and vices; with great promises however of God’s favour on condition of their reformation. This chapter contains a more general reproof of their wickedness, bloodshed, violence, falsehood, injustice. At Isa 59:9 they are introduced as making, themselves, an ample confession of their sins, and deploring their wretched state in consequence of them. On this act of humiliation a promise is given that God, in his mercy and zeal for his people, will rescue them from this miserable condition, that the Redeemer will come like a mighty hero to deliver them; he will destroy his enemies, convert both Jews and Gentiles to himself, and give them a new covenant, and a law which shall never be abolished.
As this chapter is remarkable for the beauty, strength, and variety of the images with which it abounds; so is it peculiarly distinguished by the elegance of the composition, and the exact construction of the sentences. From the first verse to the two last it falls regularly into stanzas of four lines, (see Prelim. Dissert. p. xxi.,) which I have endeavoured to express as nearly as possible in the form of the original. – L.
NOTES ON CHAP. LIX
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The Lords hand is not shortened; he is not grown weaker than in former times, as omnipotent as ever he was: hand is here by a synecdoche put for arm, and so for strength, because the strength of a man doth generally put forth itself in his arm; and thus it is applied to God in his bringing Israel out of Egypt, Psa 136:12.
Neither his ear heavy; or thick of hearing; he is not like your idol gods, that have hands, and cannot help, and ears, and cannot hear. The phrases are much to the same purpose, save only that they seem to be appropriated to the double cavil, or quarrel, that the Jews might have with God; as,
1. Surely if God were not heavy or hard of hearing, he could not but hear those strong cries that we put up in the days of our fast; or,
2. If he did hear, certainly he could not help us; and thus it may have respect to the beginning of the 58th chapter. Or the words may be by way of confirmation and establishment, and so may relate to the close of it, to let them know that if they sought him as they ought, and was before prescribed, he was not inexorable, but willing to hear, and able to make good all those promises that he had made from verse 8 to the end. The sum is, to show that the fault was not in God, that their fasts and cries were not regarded, for his ear was as quick to hear as ever; nor their services rewarded, for his hand was as able to help as ever; but the obstruction lay in their sins, which is positively asserted, Isa 59:2, and a more particular account given of them in the sequel.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. hand . . . shortened(Seeon Isa 50:2).
ear heavy (Isa6:10).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,…. It is not for want of power in the Lord, that he has not as yet destroyed the enemies of his people, antichrist, and the antichristian states, and saved them out of their hands, and made them to triumph over them; or brought on the glorious state of the church, and fulfilled the promises of good things, suggested in the latter part of the preceding chapter. His hand is as long as ever, and as able to reach his and their enemies in the greatest height of power, or at the greatest distance, and to do every good thing for them; his power is as great as ever, and not in the least abridged or curtailed.
Neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: the prayers of his people, their cries unto him on their fast days, of which he seemed to take no notice, complained of Isa 58:3, this is not owing to any want of attention in him, or of readiness to hear prayer made unto him; for he is a God hearing and answering prayer, and is ready to help his people in every time of need, who apply to him in a proper and suitable manner; his eyes are upon them, and his ears are open to their cries. And this is introduced with a “behold”, as requiring attention, and deserving the notice and consideration of his people. The Targum is,
“behold, not through defect of hand (or power) from the Lord ye are not saved; nor because it is heavy to him to hear, that your prayer is not received.”
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
This second prophetic address continues the reproachful theme of the first. In the previous prophecy we found the virtues which are well-pleasing to God, and to which He promises redemption as a reward of grace, set in contrast with those false means, upon which the people rested their claim to redemption. In the prophecy before us the sins which retard redemption are still more directly exposed. “Behold, Jehovah’s hand is not too short to help, nor His ear too heavy to hear; but your iniquities have become a party-wall between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.” The reason why redemption is delayed, is not that the power of Jehovah has not been sufficient for it (cf., Isa 50:2), or that He has not been aware of their desire for it, but that their iniquities ( with the second syllable defective) have become dividers ( , defective), have grown into a party-wall between them and their God, and their sins (cf., Jer 5:25) have hidden panm from them. As the “hand” ( yad ) in Isa 28:2 is the absolute hand; so here the “face” panm ) is that face which sees everything, which is everywhere present, whether uncovered or concealed; which diffuses light when it unveils itself, and leaves darkness when it is veiled; the sight of which is blessedness, and not to see which is damnation. This absolute countenance is never to be seen in this life without a veil; but the rejection and abuse of grace make this veil a perfectly impenetrable covering. And Israel had forfeited in this way the light and sight of this countenance of God, and had raised a party-wall between itself and Him, and that , so that He did not hear, i.e., so that their prayer did not reach Him (Lam 3:44) or bring down an answer from Him.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Prevalence and Effects of Sin. | B. C. 706. |
1 Behold, the LORD‘s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: 2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. 3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. 4 None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. 5 They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. 6 Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. 7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. 8 The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
The prophet here rectifies the mistake of those who had been quarrelling with God because they had not the deliverances wrought for them which they had been often fasting and praying for, ch. lviii. 3. Now here he shows,
I. That it was not owing to God. They had no reason to lay the fault upon him that they were not saved out of the hands of their enemies; for, 1. He was still as able to help as ever: His hand is not shortened, his power is not at all lessened, straitened, or abridged. Whether we consider the extent of his power or the efficacy of it, God can reach as far as ever and with as strong a hand as ever. Note, The church’s salvation comes from the hand of God, and that has not waxed weak nor is it at all shortened. Has the Lord’s hand waxed short? (says God to Moses, Num. xi. 23). No, it has not; he will not have it thought so. Neither length of time nor strength of enemies, no, nor weakness of instruments, can shorten or straiten the power of God, with which it is all one to save by many or by few. 2. He was still as ready and willing to help as ever in answer to prayer: His ear is not heavy, that it cannot hear. Though he has many prayers to hear and answer, and though he has been long hearing prayer, yet he is still as ready to hear prayer as ever. The prayer of the upright is as much his delight as ever it was, and the promises which are pleaded and put in suit in prayer are still yea and amen, inviolably sure. More is implied than is expressed; not only his ear is not heavy, but he is quick of hearing. Even before they call he answers, ch. lxv. 24. If your prayers be not answered, and the salvation we wait for be not wrought for us, it is not because God is weary of hearing prayer, but because we are weary of praying, not because his ear is heavy when we speak to him, but because our ears are heavy when he speaks to us.
II. That it was owing to themselves; they stood in their own light and put a bar in their own door. God was coming towards them in ways of mercy and they hindered him. Your iniquities have kept good things from you, Jer. v. 25.
1. See what mischief sin does. (1.) It hinders God’s mercies from coming down upon us; it is a partition wall that separates between us and God. Notwithstanding the infinite distance that is between God and man by nature, there was a correspondence settled between them, till sin set them at variance, justly provoked God against man and unjustly alienated man from God; thus it separates between them and God. “He is your God, yours in profession, and therefore there is so much the more malignity and mischievousness in sin, which separates between you and him.” Sin hides his face from us (which denotes great displeasure, Deut. xxxi. 17); it provokes him in anger to withdraw his gracious presence, to suspend the tokens of his favour and the instances of his help; he hides his face, as refusing to be seen or spoken with. See here sin in its colours, sin exceedingly sinful, withdrawing the creature from his allegiance to his Creator; and see sin in its consequences, sin exceedingly hurtful, separating us from God, and so separating us not only from all good, but to all evil (Deut. xxix. 21), which is the very quintessence of the curse. (2.) It hinders our prayers from coming up unto God; it provokes him to hide his face, that he will not hear, as he has said, ch. i. 15. If we regard iniquity in our heart, if we indulge it and allow ourselves in it, God will not hear our prayers, Ps. lxvi. 18. We cannot expect that he should countenance us while we go on to affront him.
2. Now, to justify God in hiding his face from them, and proceeding in his controversy with them, the prophet shows very largely, in the following verses, how many and great their iniquities were, according to the charge given him (ch. lviii. 1), to show God’s people their transgressions; and it is a black bill of indictment that is here drawn up against them, consisting of many particulars, any one of which was enough to separate between them and a just and a holy God. Let us endeavour to reduce these articles of impeachment to proper heads.
(1.) We must begin with their thoughts, for there all sin begins, and thence it takes its rise: Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, v. 7. Their imaginations are so, only evil continually. Their projects and designs are so; they are continually contriving some mischief or other, and how to compass the gratification of some base lust (v. 4): They conceive mischief in their fancy, purpose, counsel, and resolution (thus the embryo receives its shape and life), and then they bring forth iniquity, put it in execution when it is ripened for it. Though it is in pain perhaps that the iniquity is brought forth, through the oppositions of Providences and the checks of their own consciences, yet, when they have compassed their wicked purpose, they look upon it with as much pride and pleasure as if it were a man-child born into the world; thus, when lust has conceived, it bringeth forth sin, Jam. i. 15. This is called (v. 5) hatching the cockatrice’ egg and weaving the spider’s web. See how the thoughts and contrivances of wicked men are employed, and about what they set their wits on work. [1.] At the best it is about that which is foolish and frivolous. Their thoughts are vain, like weaving the spider’s web, which the poor silly animal takes a great deal of pains about, and, when all is done, it is a weak insignificant thing, a reproach to the place where it is, and which the besom sweeps away in an instant: such are the thoughts which worldly men entertain themselves with, building castles in the air, and pleasing themselves with imaginary satisfaction, like the spider, which takes hold with her hands very finely (Prov. xxx. 28), but cannot keep her hold. [2.] Too often it is about that which is malicious and spiteful. They hatch the eggs of the cockatrice or adder, which are poisonous and produce venomous creatures; such are the thoughts of the wicked who delight in doing mischief. He that eats of their eggs (that is, he is in danger of having some mischief or other done him), and that which is crushed in order to be eaten of, or which begins to be hatched and you promise yourself some useful fowl from it, breaks out into a viper, which you meddle with at your peril. Happy are those that have least to do with such men. Even the spider’s web which they wove was woven with a spiteful design to catch flies in and make a prey of them; for, rather than not be doing mischief, they will play at small game.
(2.) Out of this abundance of wickedness in the heart their mouth speaks, and yet it does not always speak out the wickedness that is within, but, for the more effectually compassing the mischievous design, it is dissembled and covered with much fair speech (v. 3): Your lips have spoken lies; and again (v. 4), They speak lies, pretending kindness where they intend the greatest mischief; or by slanders and false accusations they blasted the credit and reputation of those they had a spite to and so did them a real mischief unseen, and perhaps by suborning witnesses against them took from them their estates and lives; for a false tongue is sharp arrows, and coals of juniper, and every thing that is mischievous. Your tongue has muttered perverseness. When they could not, for shame, speak their malice against their neighbours aloud, or durst not, for fear of being disproved and put to confusion, they muttered it secretly. Backbiters are called whisperers.
(3.) Their actions were all of a piece with their thoughts and words. They were guilty of shedding innocent blood, a crime of the most heinous nature: Your hands are defiled with blood (v. 3); for blood is defiling; it leaves an indelible stain of guilt upon the conscience, which nothing but the blood of Christ can cleanse it from. Now was this a case of surprise, or one that occurred when there was something of a force put upon them; but (v. 7) their feet ran to this evil, naturally and eagerly, and, hurried on by the impetus of their malice and revenge, they made haste to shed innocent blood, as if they were afraid of losing an opportunity to do a barbarous thing, Pro 1:16; Jer 22:17. Wasting and destruction are in their paths. Wherever they go they carry mischief along with them, and the tendency of their way is to lay waste and destroy, nor do they care what havoc they make. Nor do they only thirst after blood, but with other iniquities are their fingers defiled (v. 3); they wrong people in their estates and make every thing their own that they can lay their hands on. They trust in vanity (v. 4); they depend upon their arts of cozenage to enrich themselves with, which will prove vanity to them, and their deceiving others will but deceive themselves. Their works, which they take so much pains about and have their hearts so much upon, are all works of iniquity; their whole business is one continued course of oppressions and vexations, and the act of violence is in their hands, according to the arts of violence that are in their heads and the thoughts of violence in their hearts.
(4.) No methods are taken to redress these grievances, and reform these abuses (v. 4): None calls for justice, none complains of the violation of the sacred laws of justice, nor seeks to right those that suffer wrong or to get the laws put in execution against vice and profaneness, and those lewd practices which are the shame, and threaten to be the bane, of the nation. Note, When justice is not done there is blame to be laid not only upon the magistrates that should administer justice, but upon the people that should call for it. Private persons ought to contribute to the public good by discovering secret wickedness, and giving those an opportunity to punish it that have the power of doing so in their hands; but it is ill with a state when princes rule ill and the people love to have it so. Truth is opposed, and there is not any that pleads for it, not any that has the conscience and courage to appear in defence of an honest cause, and confront a prosperous fraud and wrong. The way of peace is as little regarded as the way of truth; they know it not, that is, they never study the things that make for peace, no care is taken to prevent or punish the breaches of the peace and to accommodate matters in difference among neighbours; they are utter strangers to every thing that looks quiet and peaceable, and affect that which is blustering and turbulent. There is no judgment in their goings; they have not any sense of justice in their dealings; it is a thing they make no account of at all, but can easily break through all its fences if they stand in the way of their malicious covetous designs.
(5.) In all this they act foolishly, very foolishly, and as much against their interest as against reason and equity. Those that practise iniquity trust in vanity, which will certainly deceive them, v. 4. Their webs, which they weave with so much art and industry, shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves, either for shelter or for ornament, with their works, v. 6. They may do hurt to others with their projects, but can never do any real service or kindness to themselves by them. There is nothing to be got by sin, and so it will appear when profit and loss come to be compared. Those paths of iniquity are crooked paths (v. 8), which will perplex them, but will never bring them to their journey’s end; whoever go therein, though they say that they shall have peace notwithstanding they go on, deceive themselves; for they shall not know peace, as appears by the following verses.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
ISAIAH – CHAPTER 59
THE REDEEMER COMES TO ZION
Redemption has not come to Israel because of her sin. In this chapter Isaiah sees the nation coming to recognize that fact, and acknowledging it before her God. The Lord is ever ready to forgive and redeem such as are of an humble heart and contrite spirit; but, He will fight against all those who continue in their rebellion. In the latter part of this chapter (vs. 17-18) is found the fullest passage in all the Old Testament describing the Lord as a warrior! Yet, He delights in mercy. Thus, He redeems Israel – revealing His glory, His power and His faithful love.
Vs. 1-8: ESTRANGEMENT BECAUSE OF SIN
1. Israel has no one to blame, for her rejection, but herself, (vs. 1-2).
a. The Lord has not lost His power, or His hearing, (vs. 1; Isa 50:2; comp. Num 11:23; Num 11:31-34; Jer 32:17-19; Eze 8:17-18).
b. It is the nation’s SIN that has caused a breach of fellowship between herself and her God, (vs. 2; Isa 1:15; Isa 50:1).
2. They are charged with violence and injustice, (vs. 3-4).
a. Their hands are defiled with blood, (vs. 3; Isa 1:21; Jer 2:30; Jer 2:34; Hos 4:1-2); their lips with wickedness and lies, (vs. 13; Isa 28:15; Isa 30:9-10).
b. None is concerned for righteousness or truth, (vs. 4a; 14-15; Isa 5:7).
c. Trusting in worthlessness, and speaking lies, they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity, (vs. 4b; Isa 30:12; Jer 7:8; comp. Isa 33:11; Psa 7:14); the nation has become alarmingly corrupt!
3. The ruinous effects of their crookedness are set forth in verses 5-6.
a. The figure of their hatching cockatrice eggs may suggest the destructive nature of all their monstrous deeds, (vs. 5; comp. Isa 14:29; Jas 1:15-16).
b. The webs they have woven (in an attempt to cover their wretchedness) do not cover; they only magnify the iniquity and violence that proceed from sinful hearts, (vs. 6; Job 8:14; Pro 28:13).
4. Because they have deliberately chosen, and hasten to follow, the path of violence, bloodshed, crookedness and injustice, they have no peace, (vs: 7-8).
a. Paul, in a free rendering, uses this passage to set forth the universal guilt of mankind, (Rom 3:15-18).
b. Isaiah shows that whoever follows such a path of willful maliciousness and ruin cannot have peace with God or with men.
c. Whoever loves peace will be peaceable; he will also endeavor to be a peacemaker, (Mat 5:9; Pro 12:20; Rom 14:17-19).
d. But those who choose the path of wickedness can have no peace, (contrast Isa 26:3).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. Behold, the hand of Jehovah is not shortened. This discourse closely resembles the preceding one; for, after having torn off the mask from hypocrites, who vainly boasted of themselves, and after having shown that the punishment inflicted on them was just, he now replies to other objections. Hypocrites are wont to accuse God either of weakness or of excessive severity. He shows, therefore, that he does not want either power or will to save his people, but that he is prevented by their wickedness from exercising his kindness towards them; and therefore that they do wrong in blaming God, and in uttering those slanders against him, when they ought, on the contrary, to accuse themselves.
The word הן ( hen) “behold,” is emphatic, as if the Prophet spoke of something actually present, and pointed it out with the finger, for the sake of expressing certainty, in order to cut off a handle from hypocrites, that they might no longer practice evasion. We must also supply the contrasts to the words “shortened” and “benumbed;“ as if he had said, that formerly there were abundant resources in the hand of God to render assistance to his people, and that he always was ready to be reconciled and lent a willing car to prayers, and that now he is not unlike himself, (129) as if either his hand were broken or his ears grown dull, so that he did not hear distinctly.
(129) “ Il n’a point change de nature.” “He has not changed his nature.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE SUPPOSED AND THE REAL CAUSE OF FAILURE IN THE CHURCH
Isa. 59:1-2. Behold the Lords hand is not shortened, &c.
As the Church is essentially an aggressive institution, at some periods her success has been most marked; at other times her energies have seemed paralysed. It behoves us not only to inquire into the conditions of the Churchs growth and expansion, but to be most careful as to our spirit and conduct, lest we by any means should prevent her development. In certain conditions, on the testimony of Gods Word, we may be sure of her growth; in certain others we may be as sure of her failure. Her expansion depends upon her purity, &c.; while her failure is as inseparably associated with her sins. The excuses that are often made for the Churchs non-success would be amusing had they not reference to so very solemn a subject. To us we confess they appear alarming, as they seem in many instances to indicate ignorance in regard to the very fundamental conditions of growth and prosperity. If she does not accomplish her soul-saving work something must be wrong. Excuses for her failure generally reflect more or less on the Divine Being and government, an issue from which thoughtful and devout minds ought at once to recoil. The text rebukes those who would so think or speak. Israel in the days of Isaiah attended to the outward forms of religion; and yet tokens of the Divine favour were withheld; and when these favours did not come as in the olden time, the people blamed God, instead of charging it to their own sins. The text is an answer to their utterances (ch. 58.). Consider
I. THE SUPPOSED CAUSE OF THE CHURCHS NON-SUCCESS. This has reference to the work of the Spirit, and to unanswered prayer. Dwell
1. On the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Upon His grace all prosperity in the Church depends. In some periods God has been pleased to pour out very abundantly His Holy Spirit. At other times He seems strangely to withhold this necessary gift. The all-important question then is: Why is the Divine Spirit withheld? Some affirm
(1.) Because it is Gods will. Is this true? It is contradicted by experience. Church history and observation teach that every great revival in the Church has been preceded by the action of the Church herself. Prayer has become more ferment and constant, &c. It is also contradicted by the clear teaching of Holy Scripture. We are not directed to wait till God shall in His sovereign wisdom determine to send us the Holy Ghost; but we are taught distinctly to pray for Him (Luk. 11:13, with Mat. 7:7; Jas. 4:3).
(2.) We are not to expect any extraordinary manifestations of spiritual power in these days. Though we do not need the cloven tongues, &c., we know of no scripture that would discourage the expectation of the conversion of even three thousand in one day. Pentecost was the type and pledge of something greater and better. We are living in the latter days, and there are many plain indications that we ought now to expect the fulfilment of Joels prophecy. Plainly, then, if the Spirit is withheld it is not because the Lords arm is shortened.
2. The efficacy of prayer in the Church. God is moved by the prayers of His people. Witness Moses, Elijah, &c. (Jas. 5:16). Why then so many prayers unanswered? For the cause we must look into the Church rather than up to God.
II. THE REAL CAUSE. As of oldour sins. Look at this matter of sin in the Church. Though the Church in this age may be innocent of those more flagrant transgressions (ch. 58.), yet are we not guilty before heaven, for stopping in some measure the spread and growth of the Church. Let us particularise a few of the Churchs sins. Think of
1. Her worldly spirit.
2. Her formalism.
3. Her apathy in reference to the masses. It but remains, now that we see the cause of the Churchs small success, that we humble ourselves before God, &c.F. Crozier: The Methodist Recorder, July 14, 1871.
GODS POWER UNDIMINISHED
By the Lords hand His power is intended. By the hand of His power He is in contact with the object on which He designs to operate. The question proposed is this: Is His power diminished? Its present extent is considered in relation to some previously recognised extent of it. It was previously recognised as without limit. Is it now less? The text is really an affirmation in the form of an interrogation. The Lords hand is not shortened: His power is not diminished. This is the answer to the question in Num. 11:23 and Isa. 1:2. Let us consider the truth and some applications of it.
I. THE TRUTH ITSELF (see p. 365).
It is that the Lords power was and is unlimited, and therefore equal to anything it becomes Him to do or which He has undertaken to do.
In creation, providence, and redemption, the Divine power has been displayed, &c.
Omnipotence, then, is an attribute of the Divine nature. We probably regard this as a settled point. But the river of our faith does not exhibit an uninterrupted flow. It encounters obstacles at many points. It sometimes suffers loss. When a new difficulty occurs we debate the whole question. Notwithstanding our clear perception of the greatness of Gods power, the temptation is to measure it by our own. We catch the infection of the worlds atmosphere. We are told that if science declares a thing impossible, and revelation declares it possible, science must win the victory. We lack the courage to reply that science is only the human knowledge of the day, which is continually undergoing change. The wonders of the past were pronounced impossible by the science of the past. And as the divine science of the past has shown itself in advance of the human, it will show its superiority in the future. God is unchangeable. Human power, after being used a given time, becomes feeble, and eventually incapable of exertion. There is no cause of decay or diminution in God. He can neither increase nor diminish; because He is infinite and immutable. Let us mention
II. SOME OF ITS APPLICATIONS (see pp. 365, 366):
1. It should be applied to our temporal anxieties. Moses and the children of Israel (Numbers 11). The disciples and the five thousand people. How frequently in the experience of believers has there been some pressing difficulty, from which extrication seemed impossible, and their customary faith staggered under its weight, when an unexpected way was made by some new turn of affairs, and the difficulty disappeared. It may have happened to some of you. God seemed to ask an answer to the question: Is my hand shortened?
2. It should be applied to spiritual difficulties. Many things clearly revealed in the Gospel as things that may happen. We do not see how they can. Falling into the snare of the devil we measure the Divine power by our own. How can these things be? &c. Do some of you say the difficulty in the way of your salvation is insuperable because of your extreme sinfulness and hardness? You are measuring the Lord by yourself. You are putting a limit to the power of His Spirit and the efficacy of the Saviours blood.
3. It should be applied to the worlds conversion. You look abroad on the world with something like the prophets hopeless scepticism. Can these bones live? It is beyond you. But it is not beyond Him.
4. It should be applied to our intellectual doubts. There are many questions in respect to which we are driven upon the simplest trust in the Divine character. Take only the resurrection from the dead. The apostle throws the whole question back on the Divine power by the analogy of the sowing and the reaping, which to man is impossible and inexplicable (1Co. 15:36; 1Co. 15:38).
The grand lesson from this subject is the cheerful acceptance of our Divinely appointed lot. Cease to measure Him by ourselves. Simply trust.J. Rawlinson.
Isaiah condemns the sins of ancient Israel, and justifies the judgments of God. Observe
I. WHAT SIN HAS DONE.
1. Mark its tendency to separate the soul from God. It estranged man from God at the very beginning. It does the same still, and if unforgiven will separate from Him to all eternity.
2. It has obscured and withdrawn from us the tokens of His favour.
3. It fearfully indisposes you to return: you refuse His overtures, &c.
II. WHAT GRACE CAN DO.
1. There is no deficiency in Gods power to save. We are prone to limit the Holy One of Israel. Satan, who labours to diminish the evil of sin before its commission, equally loves to aggravate and enhance the difficulties of reconciliation. All obstacles to the sinners restoration removed by Christ.
2. There is an infinite willingness in the heart of God to rescue and to save (Isa. 55:6-9), &c. God has shown His mercy to the chief of sinners. Heaven itself is a colony of saved souls. Christ describes Himself as more deeply wounded by the rejection of His mercy than He was by the agonies of the cross.
III. THE VAST IMPORTANCE OF SEEKING MERCYmercy to pardon sin, and grace to subdue it.
1. Seek Him in the full faith of His unbounded grace.
2. Labour to acquire a just sense and apprehension of the magnitude and aggravation of your rebellion. You cannot be united to Christ unless you be divorced from sin.
3. Own and accept Christ in all His relations and offices.
4. Be diligent and earnest in prayer.
5. Honour the work of the Spirit.
6. Keep Heaven and Eternity full in view.Samuel Thodey.
I. A lamentable stateseparation from God. Loss of His favour. No access to Him. II. The cause of it. Much of all knowledge lies in the knowledge of causes.
1. Not in GodHe is able and willing to save.
2. But in ourselvesour sins.Archbishop Leighton: Works (1868 edition), pp. 428432.
Mans miseriesI. May not be charged upon God. He is able to save. Willing to save. II. Must be referred to mans wickedness. Actualin thought, word, deed; negligent; infatuated.Dr. Lyth.
SIN SEPARATING FROM GOD
Isa. 59:2. But your iniquities have separated, &c.
Present separation supposes previous union and capacity for it. Man is capable of communion with God. God is capable of communion with man. There was a time when they were in full communionwhen man was pure. When he fell he lost, not the capacity, but the privilege. How great a loss it was! Why are these two, so fitted to each other, one of them absolutely needing the other, separated? Sin has effected the separation. It produced it at first It is the only hindrance in the way of friendly intercourse. This is the doctrine of our text.
I. Sin unfits man for communion with God
Unrepented, unforsaken, unforgiven sin. Such sin is utterly contrary to Gods holy nature. If you have been at any time guilty of sin which you are unwilling to renounce, you have felt that intercourse between God and you was incongruous and presumptuous. Do we not all know this by experience?
II. Sin disinclines man for communion with God
It is enmity against God. He who wrongs another will avoid his society if he thinks the wrong is known. The presence of the victim is a rebuke to his conscience and an excitement of his fears. The passage to dislike and hatred will probably not be slow. Is not this the course of the human heart in relation to God? Why do the great majority of men around us seem to live without any conscious thought of God, &c.? He is avoided because there is a deep consciousness of sin. God, instead of being the object of supreme love, has become, through mans conduct toward Him, the object of fear. Examine your own experience. Does a life of willing sin incline you to pray?
III. Sin excludes man from communion with God
It is possible not only for us to separate ourselves from God, but for Him to separate Himself from us. It is conceivable that a man, while unwilling to forsake his sin, might desire the advantage of intercourse with God in prayer and religious services. Many have imagined that by these they would compensate the Divine Being for sin. This notion seems to have been entertained in the time of Isaiah. The religious services and the flagrant iniquities of the Jewish people are described together. God declines to accept the services because of the iniquities (ch. 58, 59.). No multitude of prayers or religious observances can be set against the holiness of heart and life which are required in those that come into any association with God. The spotless holiness of His nature forbids. Thus then the case stands.
CONCLUSION.What, then, have God and man cut each other off from all possibility of happy intercourse, &c.? We owe it to Gods mercy that the breach can be repaired. A qualified Mediator has appeared, &c., has bridged over the distance sin had made between God and man. Repenting of your sins, casting yourselves at the footstool of mercy through the cross, friendship is restored. He becomes accessible. The call is addressed to every sinner. His Spirit will be given to help.
This subject teaches the great evil and danger of sin as the separater.J. Rawlinson.
Isa. 59:3-4. A sad picture of depravity. I. In the bauds and fingers. II. The lips and tongue. III. Desires and motives. IV. Heart and imagination. V. Life and conduct.
Isa. 59:4. I. Actions proceed from thoughts. II. Correspond to the thoughts which produce them. III. Hence, when mischief is conceived iniquity is the produce.J. Lyth, D.D.
Isa. 59:5-6. I. The devices of the wicked. Like eggsproductive. Like cockatrices eggsinjurious, (.) Like spiders websfrail, useless. (.) II. Their effect. Upon othersmischief, death. Upon themselvesdisappointment, retribution.Dr. Lyth.
See the spiders web, behold in it a most suggestive picture of the hypocrites religion.
1. It is meant to catch his prey; the spider fattens himself on flies, and the Pharisee has his reward. Foolish persons are easily entrapped by the loud professions of pretenders, and even the more judicious cannot always escape. Philip baptized Simon Magus, whose guileful declaration of faith was so soon exploded by the stern rebuke of Peter. Custom, reputation, praise, advancement, and other flies, are the small game which hypocrites take in their nets.
2. A spiders web is a marvel of skill; look at it and admire the cunning hunters wiles. Is not a deceivers religion equally wonderful. How does he make so barefaced a lie appear to be a truth? How can he make his tinsel answer so well the purpose of gold?
3. A spiders web comes all from the creatures own bowels. The bee gathers her wax from flowers; the spider sucks no flowers, and yet she spins out her material to any length. Even so hypocrites find their hope and trust within themselves; their anchor was forged on their own anvil, and their cable twisted by their own hands. They lay their own foundation, and hew out the pillars of their own house, disdaining to be debtors to the sovereign grace of God.
4. But a spiders web is very frail. It is curiously wrought, but not enduringly manufactured. It is no match for the servants broom, or the travellers staff. The hypocrite needs no battery of Armstrongs to blow his hopes to pieces, a mere puff of wind will do it. Hypocritical cobwebs will soon come down when the broom of destruction begins its purifying work.
5. Which reminds us of one more thought, viz., that such cobwebs are not to be endured in the Lords house. He will see to it that they and those who spin them shall be destroyed for ever. O my soul, be thou resting on something better than a spiders web. Be the Lord Jesus thine eternal hiding-place.C. H. Spurgeon.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
F. WRATH OF THE LORD UPON COVENANT DESPISERS, CHAPTER 59
1. THEIR CRIMES
TEXT: Isa. 59:1-8
1
Behold, Jehovahs hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
2
but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear.
3
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue muttereth wickedness.
4
None sueth in righteousness, and none pleadeth in truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
5
They hatch adders eggs, and weave the spiders web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth; and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.
6
Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.
7
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths.
8
The way of peace they know not; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whosoever goeth therein doth not know peace.
QUERIES
a.
Why bring up the subject of the peoples salvation here?
b.
With what webs did the people hope to cover themselves?
c.
Why do they not know the way of peace?
PARAPHRASE
Look! The reason My great redemptive plan has to be delayed by a period of chastening for you is not because My power or My willingness is. insufficient. You are the reason, O Israel. You are in rebellion against all I want to do for you and through you. Your rebellion and sin has built a wall of unwillingness and rejection. As long as you are determined to continue in your wickedness, you will not see Me as I am. Yes, it is because you have your hands in every conceivable practice of wickedness there is (murder, thievery, covenant-breaking, slander) that you cannot receive My purpose for you. No one practices justice in legal suits or tries cases honestly. People are building this society on moral impotence and falsehood. They spend most of their time plotting wickedness and their plots produce violence. Poisonous seed is produced by these snakes like the eggs of a viper. They build traps for one another like a spider weaving webs. They produce poisonous offspring and everyone who partakes of their wickedness is poisoned also. They think that their subtle webs will provide a covering or escape, but the evil of their hearts is clearly seen in what their lives produce. They do not merely stumble into sin, they eagerly race one another to kill and maim the innocent. They dream and think and plan wickedness all day and all night. They havent the slightest desire for real peace in this society. They prefer to live crooked and devious lives and when anyone prefers that he is an enemy of justice and peace.
COMMENTS
Isa. 59:1-4 BARRICADED: In chapter 58 Jehovah tells the people the virtues which would prepare them to be covenant-keepers and to carry out His messianic plans. But these people are so thoroughly entrenched in sin and rebellion against Gods program of righteousness and holiness they must be repeatedly warned of the wrath that comes to those who despise His covenant. These first verses of chapter 59 are a graphic description of Judahs adamant hostility against Gods way and her passionate wantonness for wickedness. Isaiah is describing here the conditions during the reign of the most wicked king Judah ever hadManasseh. Manasseh came to the throne in 687 B.C. as a boy of 12 and was seduced by a powerful group of priests, noblemen and false prophets to reintroduce the idolatry of his ancestors (Ahaz, et al). Judahs prophets (Isaiah and Micah) predicted the wrath of Jehovah which had earlier fallen (722 B.C.) upon Israel. Manasseh outstripped all his ancestors in wickedness, (cf. 2Ki. 21:1-17; 2Ki. 23:11-14; 2Ch. 33:1-20). He instituted a reign of terror and persecution against Jehovahs true prophets unequaled in the history of all Israel (cf. O.T. History, Smith and Fields, College Press, pg. 647650). Isaiah was probably executed during that persecution.
Judah and Jerusalem had been saved from her enemies when Hezekiah paid heed to Isaiahs message from the Lord (cf. chapters 3639). But now she has, through the leadership of the vilest king she has ever had, committed herself to a path of rebellion which will lead inexorably to captivity. Undoubtedly, there were plain indications to the nation that it was in danger of foreign invasion and captivity. Manasseh was taken captive and imprisoned by Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, in 673 B.C. It appeared that the whole nation would soon suffer the same fate. Whether the people were asking for Isaiahs advice or not, he was giving it. He states unequivocally that they had barricaded themselves from God and He could not help them. The Lord has the power to save them from their enemies if they will turn to Him and trust Him. But as long as they choose paganism, depend upon themselves and heathen allies, He cannot and will not help them. God made man and gave man the sovereignty of his own will. He gave man the awesome freedom to make his own sovereign choices with the attendant responsibility of the consequences of those choices. When man chooses to rebel against the revealed will of God, man willingly separates himself from Gods redeeming, saving power. Of course, man is never able to separate himself from Gods judgmental power. Men perish because they refuse to love the truth (2Th. 2:9-12). Men scoff and follow their own passions because they deliberately ignore Gods truths (cf. 2Pe. 3:1-7). Men will not come to the light because they love darkness (Joh. 3:19-21). Men do not come to God because they do not want to be shepherded by Him (Joh. 10:1-39). Men do not come to God because He tells them the truth and they had rather listen to the devil (Joh. 8:39-47). When men build such walls of their own between themselves and God. His only alternative (in the light of mans freedom to exercise his own sovereign will) is to give man up to a base mind and improper conduct (cf. Rom. 1:18-32). When God is forced to give rebelling man up, man must save himself and man cannot do that! Man cannot save himself from nature, from death, from men more powerful than he, and last, but most important, man cannot save himself from his own conscience!
The prophets of God (Isaiah and his contemporaries, Amos, Hosea and Micah) have promised a glorious salvation for Gods people and an even more glorious messianic future. Recent circumstances (the wickedness, increased tribute to Assyria, Manassehs capture, etc.) have brought on fear, chaos and bitterness. Judah is complaining with sarcasm that the God of Isaiah is not fulfilling His promise. They are apparently preaching that Jehovah has no power to save them (advocating at the same time that power for rescue will come from their idols and alliances with the heathen). The nation is in a mess. The easiest explanation is to blame God for it (cf. comments Isa. 50:1-3).
God is not to blame. Their hands are filled with blood. Their lips have spouted lies. They have destroyed themselves. God has never lied to them. He has never defaulted on one of His promises. He has not cheated them, robbed them, murdered them. He can save them, but not in their condition. Should God save them, allowing them to continue in wickedness, He would be a partner in their wickedness and thus dishonest, unjust, unholy, unrighteous reducing Himself to moral impotency and consigning Himself and these people to an endless hell! God cannot be God and condone a kingdom in rebellion. If He is to rule in perfect righteousness and holiness He must rule a kingdom of citizens who have willingly surrendered to His sovereign will.
Isaiahs description of the depravity of society in Judah is similar to Hoseas description of Israels wicked anarchy in an earlier day (before 722 B.C.) (cf. Hos. 4:1 to Hos. 5:15). There was no truth, no justice, no goodness in the land. There was murder, lying, slander, robbery, vain revelry and adultery. Manasseh was eventually returned to Judah. His imprisonment in the city of Babylon apparently caused him to repent, and he instituted a religious reform in the land. Gods judgment of Judah was postponed for about a hundred years (until 606586 B.C.). Manassehs reform was only superficial. Underneath a veneer of orthodoxy was a deep-seated wickedness sown by Manasseh when he was a younger man. Eventually, Judah returned to this wickedness and Gods word says it was because of Manassehs earlier seduction of the nation (cf. 2Ki. 24:3; Jer. 15:4). The student should read the first 23 chapters of Jeremiahs prophecy as a record of the consequences of Manassehs leading Judah into idolatry and sin.
Isa. 59:5-8 BARBAROUS: The adder is tzipheoni in Hebrew and describes the most poisonous of all serpents, or fiery serpent. The Hebrew word for viper is epheeh and is from the root word which means whisperer or hisser. Isaiah is emphasizing to his disciples the lethal danger of flirting with the majority of people in his day. Most men in the prophets generation were like deadly poisonous snakes. He also likened them unto cunning spiders. Poisonous snakes lay eggs which incubate poisonous embryonic snakes. Anyone who eats of the fruit (eggs) of that poisonous society will die of the same poison. Even those who try to crush what that society produces shall be slain by the snake that comes from the egg. Most spiders use their webs as snares and hiding places (cover). This evil generation will be trapped by their own webs and instead of being able to hide in their webs will be exposed by them. The violent consequences of their deeds are plain to everyone. The decadence of that generation is manifested in the fact that no one really cared. It is difficult to believe that people would run with haste to shed innocent blood. But even among Gods people there were syndicates or mobs of organized criminals, incredibly enough, among the priests (cf. Hos. 6:9). There is no restraint in the doing of evil. Jeremiah said they trooped to the houses of harlots (Jer. 5:7-8); they lurked like trappers lying in wait to ensnare men and women (Jer. 5:2528). They gave their minds to dreaming, thinking, planning, plotting and preparing for wickedness all day and all night (cf. Hos. 7:4-7). They were like the wicked people of Noahs day whose every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually . . . (Gen. 6:5).
They did not know the way of peace. The Hebrew word shalom is translated peace but means primarily, soundness, wholeness, well-being, prosperity, health, goodness. In all of the following scriptures the word shalom is in the original text: (Psa. 122:7; Psa. 35:27; Psa. 73:3; Job. 9:4; Job. 22:21; 1Ki. 9:25; Deu. 27:6; Jos. 8:31; Gen. 29:6; Gen. 37:14; Gen. 43:27; 2Sa. 18:28; 2Ki. 4:23; 2Ki. 4:26; 2Ki. 5:21-22; 2Ki. 9:11). In 2Sa. 11:7, David asked Uriah concerning the shalom of Joab and the shalom of the people and the shalom (peace?) of the war. In each instance here we have a graphic illustration of the usage of the word shalom being primarily, well-being, prosperity, wholeness, integrated-goodness. In Deu. 27:6 and Jos. 8:31 the word shalom is translated uncut stones. Only whole, sound, perfect (in the sense of uncut) stones were to be used for altars. The people of Isaiahs day did not know the way to soundness, wholeness, prosperity, (shalom). They thought they did! Apparently they believed security, well-being, prosperity would result from copying their pagan neighbors and worshipping in the fertility cults of idolatry. They felt secure in allying themselves politically, militarily and economically with pagan empires. Moral crookedness, social injustice and exploitation, compromise with pagan unbelief always leads to spiritual, moral, physical and social disintegration. Sin fractures; it does not produce wholeness. Man was not made for sin; he was made for righteousness. Falsehood disorients, divides, alienates, deranges; truth solidifies, integrates, consolidates and frees. Faith in God and Christ makes whole (Mat. 9:12; Mar. 2:17; Luk. 5:31; Mar. 5:34; Luk. 8:48; Luk. 17:19; Joh. 5:6; Joh. 5:14). Peace (shalom) is a prominent feature of the messianic kingdom according to the prophets (cf. Isa. 2:4; Isa. 9:6; Isa. 11:6; Eze. 34:25; Mic. 4:2-4; Zec. 9:10, etc.). Eph. 2:11-22 is a vivid illustration that the eirene (peace) of the New Testament church is of the same essence as the shalom of the Old Testament; that is, wholeness, integration, unification, well-being, soundness.
Materialism, sensuality, carnality and idolatry leads to foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness and ruthlessness. It leads to barbarity! (cf. Rom. 1:30).
QUIZ
1.
Who was primarily responsible for the wickedness described by Isaiah here?
2.
How does man separate himself from Gods saving power?
3.
Why cannot God save men in rebellion?
4.
Why liken the majority of his generation to snakes?
5.
What is peace?
6.
What is the way of peace?
7.
What does all this indicate about the meaning of peace in the N.T.?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
LIX.
(1) Behold, the Lords hand . . .The declaration is an implied answer to the complaint, like that of Isa. 58:3, that the glorious promises had not as yet been fulfilled. The murmurera are told that the hindrance is on their side.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1, 2. Behold An ellipsis, as if omitting a short parley. And the prophet impliedly answers with emphasis, “No! Far from it.”
The Lord’s hand is not shortened ear heavy The shortening the hand is here a figure indicative of the loss of vital energy, as heaviness of the ear is of lessening in quickness of mental perception. Neither of these can apply to “the Lord,” who is the same “yesterday, to-day, and forever,” in the perfection of all his attributes. The fault, if any, must therefore be elsewhere. Your iniquities your sins, have made it impossible for Jehovah to save you.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Judah/Jacob In Its Sin ( Isa 59:1-15 a).
Isa 59:1
‘Behold Yahweh’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save,
Nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear,
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God,
And your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.’
‘Why does God not fulfil His promises by making sure to them their inheritance?’ they ask. ‘Why does He not act with a mighty hand?’ It is not because He cannot save. It is not that the strength and ability of His hand is in any way diminished. It is not because He is not willing, under the right conditions, to hear. For there is no want of power in Him. He has not become incapable or deaf. He is still the same powerful Deliverer that He was in ancient times. He still has the same willingness to respond as He has always had.
It is rather their behaviour which is the problem. It is their iniquities, the outward expression of their deep inward sinfulness, that have brought this great gulf of separation between them and God. It is their sins, the things that they do and fail to do, contrary to His demands, that have made Him turn away His face and not listen to them. And these will shortly be described in full. That is why He is alienated from them, why He is angry with them, why the relationship between them has been destroyed. Let these be put right and then things will change.
Isa 59:3-4
‘For your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with iniquity,
Your lips have spoken lies,
Your tongue utters wickedness.
None calls in righteousness,
And none pleads in truth,
They trust in what is empty and speak lies,
They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.’
In the last chapter they had claimed that they sought justice along God-given paths. Here is Isaiah’s verdict on their claims. It was true that they appeared to use the outward means that suggested that they wanted to be righteous, but it was all based on deceit. Like all ancient societies Judah/Jacob had lines of authority going right down from the king to the parents of a household. Each would in its own way hold its courts and tribunals and reach its verdicts, whether formally or informally. (‘Leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of tens’ – compare Deu 1:15). Thus the forensic language must not make us think of just major crime. All lived under restrictions and could be called to account, from the highest to the lowest. And all those with authority, from king to parent, were called on to decide justly.
The truth was that the hands of the people were morally dirty, they were defiled. They were bloodstained with the blood of the innocent. How many had died or been scourged under false accusation? How many deaths and injuries had resulted from their careless attitudes, behaviour, indifference, and neglect? How many had died of hunger and poverty while they feasted? How many had been beaten and left bleeding, or even bleeding in heart, beyond what was reasonable?
And their fingers were stained with the sins which resulted from a wicked heart, and the consequences of the failures too numerous to mention. For every act of selfishness had its consequences, every sin of neglect, every failure to do what was right, every lack in consideration for others.
‘Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue utters wickedness.’ For the majority deceit is one of the foundation stones of life. It avoids responsibility, it turns suspicion on others, it blackens other’s reputations, it gets one’s own way by false methods. It is the epitome of a selfishness which has no thought for others.
‘None calls in righteousness, and none pleads in truth.’ Here the plea for judicial enquiry is in mind, whether to the highest court in the land, the smallest court of the sub-tribes, or the close family tribunal. All suffer from the same trouble. Righteousness is ignored, truth is outlawed. What matters for the appellants is to get what they want by any means without regard for the facts.
‘They trust in what is empty and speak lies, they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.’ They produce false evidence, empty arguments, untrue accusations. They plan so that others will be harmed, or to obtain things by false evidence. They make the tribunal which should be producing justice, produce instead what is basically iniquitous and unfair. They ‘bring forth iniquity’. (Note the change to the third person. This continues in the next section. Possibly the idea is to apply it to a wider audience, considering mankind as a whole, for the later vengeance comes on them as well (‘the islands’ – Isa 59:18) or possibly Isaiah turns to speak to God, see ‘you’ in Isa 59:12).
Isa 59:5-8
‘They hatch the eggs of adders,
And weave spider’s webs,
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And what is crushed breaks out into a viper.
Their webs will not become clothing,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works,
Their works are works of iniquity,
And the act of violence is in their hands.
Their feet run to do evil,
And they hurry to shed innocent blood,
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity,
Desolation and destruction are in their paths (or ‘highways’).
They do not know the way of peace,
And in their goings there is no judgment,
They have made them crooked paths,
Whoever goes in them does not know peace.’
When Paul was looking for a catalogue of sinfulness by which to describe the human race he chose extracts from this passage among others (Rom 3:15-17). It is a full description of the heart of man. Not all of them were like it all the time, any more than we are, but there are few of us who cannot recognise here what is sometimes in our thoughts. Not possibly as violently in our enlightened age, but certainly as truly.
‘‘They hatch the eggs of adders, and weave spider’s webs. He who eats of their eggs dies, and what is crushed breaks out into a viper.’ In other words they encourage evil, using it for their own benefit, (as a man might collect and hatch adders’ eggs in order to do mischief), and scheme how to entrap others and catch them in their web. If anyone tries to benefit from what is theirs (equivalent to eating their adders’ eggs) the threat of death or some kind of harm is the result, and if others try to prevent what they are doing (the equivalent of crushing adders’ eggs) their efforts result in even more poisonous snakes to destroy them. Thus these men are treacherous, scheming, and hurtful to all who come in contact with them. (Note that translators use common modern snakes as examples. We are not always sure which actual types of snakes are being referred to).
‘Their webs will not become clothing, nor will they cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.’ All their efforts to achieve what they are seeking at the expense of others will in the end come to nothing. All their scheming and their weaving of webs will not become clothing. This may have in mind the day when God clothed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). Then their nakedness was covered. But the scheming of these people will leave them naked and bare. All their efforts and all their workings will not protect them. They will be open to the judgment of God whether in this world or the next. They will not be able to hide themselves from His gaze.
Or the thought may have been of the flimsiness of the web, totally unsuitable for clothing, with the assurance that all their schemes are similarly flimsy and will come to nothing.
And this is because of what their works are. They are works which reveal the sinfulness of their very hearts, which will include violence at their hands, whether by their own act or through intermediaries. They are evil men.
‘Their feet run to do evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction are in their paths (or ‘highways’).’ Here the thought is that they are so evil that they not only sin but hurry to get to it. They run to do evil, not wanting to lose time. They are in a hurry to commit violence. They are enflamed with sin and driven along by it. And their special aim is to destroy the innocent, those who are not of their ilk. They cannot stand those namby-pamby do-gooders, those weak meek believers who simply look to God. Their thoughts are such that they lead to deep-dyed sin, to desolation, wreaking havoc among men, and to destruction, the breaking up of all that is ordered and settled. They are not builders but destroyers (contrast Isa 58:12).
‘In their paths’ may mean that they and their grouping actually commit highway robbery, so that no highway is safe anywhere in Judah, or simply that the path they tread leads to these things described.
‘They do not know the way of peace, and in their goings there is no judgment. They have made them crooked paths. Whoever goes in any of them (literally ‘it’) does not know peace.’ The thought of their ‘ways’ continues. Whenever Isaiah speaks of ‘ways’ he mainly has in mind the way of righteousness and unrighteousness. Note the emphasis on peace. This begins and ends these phrases. These are people who have never found peace with God. Thus they do not know the way of peace. They are sad specimens, for they do not have any inkling of a life of peace. They have little common sense, or sensible thought, for in all their ways they do not use sound judgment. They are both without knowledge of peace and unwise. Instead the paths they make for themselves, their very ways of life, are crooked. This is in contrast to the highway of holiness (Isa 35:8), and to the great highway of God (Isa 40:4), and to the way in the wilderness where they find water (Isa 43:19). They seek neither and go in neither. And both they and their fellow travellers find no peace in their ways. Nor do they appreciate peace, for in the end only those who truly come to know God find and understand peace.
Isa 59:9-10
‘Therefore is judgment far from us,
Nor does righteousness overtake us,
We look for light but behold darkness,
For brightness but we walk in obscurity.
We grope for the walls like the blind,
Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes,
We stumble at noonday as at the twilight,
Among those who are strongly active we are as dead men.’
The switch of person from the third person to the first indicates Isaiah’s application of his general thoughts to his particular hearers. He has spoken generally and now suddenly he applies it. It becomes the admission by the people of their sin. His words are now directed towards God (see Isa 59:12 – ‘you’). They confess that it is because of these things that have been described that the promised coming of true justice and righteous deliverance is far from them. Note again the active role given to righteousness (compare Isa 58:8). It is the righteousness of the Righteous God approaching in order to come on them and count them as righteous (Isa 53:11) and then make them righteous. But it does not overtake such as have been described, for they are deadened by sin.
They admit that it is as a result of their sins that they look for light but only find darkness. That while God’s light may shine out, they are blind in their sin. They look for brightness and illumination and only achieve obscurity. As Jesus said, it is he who wills to do His will, who will know what teaching is of God (Joh 7:17). But they do not will to do His will. Indeed they are like blind men with no eyes, reaching blindly for the wall to act as their guide because they have nothing better. They have refused to trust Yahweh, now they must trust as blind men to a groped for wall as their only guide.
Their looking for light may refer to their looking for that deliverance which is coming when those who walk in darkness will see a great light (Isa 9:2). But for them there will be no sign of deliverance (Isa 59:9). For them there will be no light.
‘We stumble at noonday as at the twilight. Among those who are strongly active (lusty) we are as dead men.’ They are a pale reflection of what life should be. They cannot benefit from God’s light, pictured as the noonday sun, for they do not have the spiritual faculties enabling them to benefit from it, thus they stumble along even when the light is brightest. And in a forceful and active world they are lacking in lustiness, indeed appear so listless that they seem almost dead to such forceful people. Having deserted Yahweh even the world looks on them as lifeless.
Isa 59:11-13
‘We all growl (or ‘roar’) like bears,
And mourn sore like doves,
We look for judgment but there is none,
For deliverance but it is far off from us.
For our transgressions are multiplied before you,
And our sins testify against us,
For our transgressions are with us,
And as for our iniquities, we know them,
In transgressing and denying Yahweh,
And turning away from following our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.’
In Isa 37:14 mourning like a dove indicates not looking upward but being in grief at one’s predicament. The idea of growling like a bear and mourning like a dove therefore suggests anger and dissatisfaction with their lot expressed in both growling and mourning. They long for the promised coming of justice and deliverance, a common theme earlier, but they do not come to the Deliverer. They still seem far away. And why? Because they themselves are unjust, and if there is to be deliverance they themselves must be transformed. But they do not want to be transformed. They want God’s blessing while they continue on in the old way.
And Isaiah puts into their mouths the reason why. It is because their transgressions, their moral failures, are multiplied before Him. It is because their sins witness against them. Nor can they hide from the fact of them, for they are well aware of them, they are with them, accompanying them, and they ‘know’ them.
But worse. They are revealed in their transgressing as denying Yahweh by their behaviour and attitudes, and in their turning away from following Him to other things that grip their hearts. They are in constant rebellion against Him. They are revealed as what they are when they discuss together, and officially decide on, oppression of their fellow countrymen, when they lie to get their own way. To revolt means to get their own way and enhance their own wealth when they revolt against God’s covenant and against His requirements, when they dig deep into themselves to bring out and utter falsehood.
Isa 59:14-15
‘And judgment is turned away backwards,
And righteousness stands afar off,
For truth is fallen in the street,
And uprightness cannot enter.
Yes, truth is lacking,
And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.’
The coming of the justice and righteousness that they should be looking for (a combination found in Isa 1:27; Isa 5:16; Isa 16:5; Isa 28:17; Isa 32:1; Isa 32:16; Isa 33:5), rather than being imminent, has turned round and retreated, and is standing a long way off. Justice and righteousness will not approach because they know what will happen to them. This is because they have seen that truth has become a street victim, it has been ‘mugged’. There is no place here for truth, for honesty, for God’s Law. It has been flung into the gutter. Deceit and lying rule. There is no place for uprightness. It is refused entry. So truth is lacking, and things are so bad that those who believe in the truth, those who seek to walk in His ways, find themselves simply a prey to the sinners who take advantage of them. They become a prey to selfish sinners.
All is thus doom and gloom. Man’s deserts are such that there seems no hope. Deceit and iniquity and sin have conquered and men are trapped under their heel.
Here then His people are seen as admitting the dreadful state into which they have fallen, and that in themselves there is no hope. But, as regularly in Isaiah, it is often when things are at their darkest that God steps in to act.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 59:1 Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
Isa 59:1
[86] Joyce Meyer, Praise the Lord (Santa Ana, California: Trinity Broadcasting Network), 17 February 2006, television program.
Isa 59:1 Scripture References – Note other uses of the Lord’s hand and arms. There are many such examples in Scripture:
Psa 77:15, “Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.”
Psa 89:10, “Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm.”
Psa 89:13, “Thou hast a mighty arm: strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand.”
Isa 40:10, “Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.”
Isa 53:1, “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?”
Isa 59:16 And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.
Isa 59:16
Isa 59:16 “therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him” – Scripture References – Note a similar verse:
Psa 98:1, “O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.”
Isa 59:16 Comments – God saw no one who was righteous enough to deliver His people from their sins. Therefore, Go will provide His own salvation. This prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Isa 59:17). Jesus triumphed over the enemy at Calvary and His resurrection (Isa 59:18), so that the Lord’s name will be glorified throughout the world (Isa 59:19). Jesus will come and rescue those who will repent (Isa 59:20) and God will pour His spirit into His redeemed people and He will give them a new heart, wherein dwells God’s Word (Isa 59:21).
Scripture References – Note a similar verse:
Isa 63:5, “And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.”
Isa 59:18 According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.
Isa 59:18
Isa 59:19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
Isa 59:20 Isa 59:20
Isa 59:21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
Isa 59:21
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Israel’s Redemption – The chapters that follow the prophecy of Christ’s sufferings in Isa 53:1-12 tell the children of God to rejoice; for Christ has given them the victory over sin, death and the grave. However, these chapters speak of Christ’s redemption from the perspective of the nation of Israel rather than from the perspective of the Gentiles; for the book of Isaiah contains prophecies of the future destiny of Israel. Later in redemptive history, the Church will be grafted into these prophecies as members of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Sin of Zion (Isa 59:1-21
The Confession of Zion (Isa 59:9-15 b)
The Redemption of Zion (Isa 59:15 c-21)
The Glory of Zion (Isa 60:1-22)
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Iniquities Separate from God
v. 1. Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, v. 2. but your iniquities, v. 3. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity, v. 4. None calleth for justice, v. 5. They hatch cockatrice’s eggs, v. 6. Their webs shall not become garments, v. 7. Their feet, v. 8. The way of peace they know not,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Isa 59:1-8
A GENERAL REBUKE OF ISRAEL FOR ITS MANIFOLD SINS, The command given to the prophet in Isa 58:1 to “show God’s people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins “partly executed in Isa 58:4-7 and Isa 58:13is now further carried out by a scathing denunciation of various forms of wickedness, more or less prevalent in Israel, the effect of which has been to separate between Israel and God, to “shorten God’s hand” and “make his ears heavy.” The passage has many analogies with Isa 1:2-23.
Isa 59:1
The Lord’s hand is not shortened; i.e. God is not less able to help than of old; his “hand” has lost none of its power. That he does not help is owing to the iniquities of his people, which have separated between him and them (Isa 59:2). It is the same fact which has made his ear heavy. He cannot hear prayers that are not sincerenot from the heart.
Isa 59:2
Have separated; literally, have been separating. The force of the form used is continuous, and implies that Israel had now for a long time been heaping up a barrier between itself and Jehovah. Your sins have hid his face; literally, your sins have caused his face to be hidden from you, i.e. “have made him avert it.”
Isa 59:3
Your hands are defiled with blood (comp. Isa 1:15, Isa 1:21). (On the “innocent blood” shed by the Jews of the later Judaean kingdom, see 2Ki 21:6, 2Ki 21:16; 2Ki 24:4; 2Ki 25:25; 2Ch 24:21; 2Ch 28:3; 2Ch 33:6; 2Ch 36:16, etc.) It consisted in
(1) sacrifices of children to Moloch;
(2) persecution of prophets; and
(3) judicial murders, either actual (like that of Naboth, in Israel) or virtual, i.e. such perversion of justice as produced general poverty and misery, and tended to shorten men’s lives (see the comment on Isa 1:15). Your lips have spoken lies (comp. Isa 32:7). The wicked oppressors “devised wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words.”
Isa 59:4
None calleth for justice; rather, none preferreth his suit in justice (so Lowth, Gesenius, Ewald, Knobel, and Mr. Cheyne). “No one,” that is, “who engaged in a suit, limited himself to just pleas and honest courses in his prosecution of it.” Nor any pleadeth for truth; rather, none pleadeth in truthfulness. They trust in vanity; literally, in chaos; i.e. “in a mass of false and vain statements.” The whole basis of the dealings between man and man was unsound, corrupt, chaotic. Where truth and plain dealing are set aside, all shortly becomes ruin and confusion. They conceive mischief, etc. (comp. Psa 7:14).
Isa 59:5
They hatch cockatrice’ eggs. (On the cockatrice, see the comment upon Isa 11:8.) The meaning here is that the people gave themselves to brooding on and hatching purposes which were as pernicious and destructive as the eggs of venomous serpents. And weave the spider’s web; i.e. “their purposes were as flimsy and unsubstantial as the web of the spider.” He that eateth, etc. If a man partake of their plans, he becomes morally as bad as they, and is smitten with spiritual death. If an attempt be made to “crush” and destroy their plans, the only result is the premature birth of a viper.
Isa 59:6
Their webs shall not become garments. The unsubstantial fabrics which they weave shall not serve them in any way as garments, or be of any real value or utility. Their devices shall not take objective shape in such sort as to afford them “cover” or protection. Their works are works of iniquity; rather, works of nothingness, works that make a mere pretence of being works at all, and are in reality mere shams, impotent and delusive. And the act of violence is in their hands; rather, and it is an act of violence that is in their hands. Violence creates nothing. At the best, it destroys.
Isa 59:7
Their feet run to evil. It is, however, only too true that they have a power to work evil. They cannot construct, their devices fall through, their “spinning” is to no purpose; but they can, in a rough and blind way, do enormous mischief. “Their feet run to evil”rush to it at full speedbrook no delay, but hurry on into act. It is an easy thing to shed innocent blood; and those who are conscious of constructive impotence are very apt to seek compensation by doing destructive work, which at least shows that they have a power of some kind. Hence “Reigns of Terror” when revolutions are at the last gasp. The strong expressions with respect to shedding innocent blood, used here and in 2Ki 21:16 and 2Ki 24:4, seem to imply something like a massacre of the more godly Israelites by the ungodly in Manasseh’s time. Wasting and destruction (compare the “destruction and misery” of Rom 3:16, which is a quotation of the present passage).
Isa 59:8
The way of peace they know not. They have no desire for “peace,” and neither “seek” it nor “ensue” it (1Pe 3:11). Peace can only be obtained through righteousness (Isa 32:17). There is no judgment in their goings; rather, no justiceno recognition of other men’s rights, no endeavour to observe right in their own acts and proceedings (comp. Isa 59:4; and see also Isa 1:17, Isa 1:21, Isa 1:23; Isa 3:14, Isa 3:15, etc.). They have made them crooked paths (comp. Pro 2:15; Pro 10:9; Pro 28:6). The way that leadeth to life is straight. They have wandered from it, and made for themselves “crooked” paths, which can only lead to destruction. In such paths there neither is nor can be “peace.”
Isa 59:9-15
ISRAEL HUMBLY CONFESSES ITS SIN‘S TO GOD. Isaiah, anxious to bring the people to confession and amendment, makes humble confession in their name, joining himself with them, as if he had been a participator in their iniquities.
Isa 59:9
Thereforei.e. on account of these sinsis judgment far from us; i.e. “does God refrain from judging our enemies.” Neither doth justicei.e. the righting of the wrongs which we suffer at the hands of the heathenovertake us. We are left by God unavenged, and our enemies are left unpunished on account of our many transgressions. We wait for light. We look for a bright dawn to succeed the night of our trouble; but we wait in vainthe obscurity continues.
Isa 59:10
We grope for the wall; rather, we grope along the wall (comp. Deu 28:29; and for the “blindness that had happened unto Israel” see above, Isa 29:10, Isa 29:18; Isa 35:5; Isa 42:16, etc.). We stumble at noonday. It was not that light was really wanting, but they had no eyes to behold it. We are in desolate places; rather, in dark places (Vulgate, Rodiger, Kay, Knobel). The word occurs only in this place, and is of doubtful signification.
Isa 59:11
We roar all like bears; rather, we growl. The verb is used commonly of the “roaring” of the sea (Isa 17:12; Isa 51:15; Jer 6:23; Jer 31:1-40 :45; Jer 50:42; Jer 51:55); but is applied also to the noise made by a dog (Psa 59:6, Psa 59:14). Here it represents the deep murmur of discontent, which alternates with the mournful tones of Israel’s despondencythe latter being compared to the melancholy cooing of the dove (see Isa 38:14). We look for judgment, but there is none, etc. The same complaint as in Isa 59:9, clause 1.
Isa 59:12
Our transgressions are multiplied before thee; i.e. they are very numerous; and they come “before God,” so as to attract his attention and call for his animadversion. Our sins testify against us; i.e. “rise up against us as witnesses, whose evidence we cannot disprove, and have not even the face to dispute.” Our transgressions are with usi.e. “constantly haunt us”and as for our iniquities, we know them; i.e. we are aware of them, we acknowledge them, we have them continually in our memories. It is one of the most certain phenomena of consciousness that grievous sins, deadly sins, haunt the mind, and cannot in this life be wiped out from the memory.
Isa 59:13
An enumeration of special sins. First, sins of the heart. Transgressing and lying against the Lord; or rather, treason and unfaithfulness to Jehovah (Cheyne); followed by departing away from God, or the secret act of apostasy. Next, sins of the tongue: Speaking oppression and revolt; or, oppression and wrongthe “wrong,” probably, of false accusation (comp. Deu 19:16); and, lastly, conceiving and uttering words of falsehood generally.
Isa 59:14
Judgment is turned away backward. In conclusion, the crying sin of perversion of justice is admitted with much amplification.
(1) Right judgment is exactly invertedthe innocent are condemned, the guilty acquitted.
(2) Justice standeth afar offtoo far off to be able to hear those who make appeal to it.
(3) Truth is fallen in the street; i.e. false witness prevails over true in the courts of justice.
(4) Equity cannot enteris not admitted inside the courts, but waits without.
Isa 59:15
Yea, truth faileth. Truth itself is altogether gone, is missing, not forthcoming. “Tetras Astraea reliquit.” This is the worst of all. For truth is the basis of the social fabric, the groundwork of all morality. Once let there be no regard for truth in a state, no discredit attaching to lying, and all virtue is undermined, all soundness is vanishednothing remains but “wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores” (Isa 1:6). He that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. Evil-doers prosper. The man who “eschews evil,” and declines to employ (as others do) the weapons of fraud and violence, simply gives himself over as a prey to those who are less scrupulous than himself.
Isa 59:15-21
A PROMISE OF DELIVERANCE. TO OPPRESSED ISRAEL. The godly in Israel were suffering a double oppression:
(1) at the hand of their ungodly brethren;
(2) at the hand of the heathen.
The prophet promises a deliverance from both. The deliverance will be followed by the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom, which will continue for ever.
Isa 59:15
And the Lord saw it. The division of the verses here requires alteration. The opening clause of Isa 59:15 belongs to what precedes; the second clause to what follows. “The Lord saw” that condition of things in Israel which is described in Isa 59:3-15; and it displeased him; literally, it was evil in his eyes, especially in that there was no judgment. Justice was not done between man and man; no one thought of pronouncing just judgments. The circumstances were such as to invite a Divine interposition.
Isa 59:16
He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; i.e. God looked for some champion of the oppressed to arise; it was to be expected under the circumstances. But, alas! “there was no man.” None stood up to resist the unrighteous and protect the innocent; much less did any stand up to deliver Israel from its heathen adversaries. When it is said that God “wondered“ at no champion appearing, we must understand the expression as an anthropomorphism Therefore his arm brought salvation unto him. As them was no human champion, it became necessary that God should arise in his own Person, and show himself. “His arm” and “his righteousness” were enough; no human aid was needed, or could have added anything to the resistless strength of his might (comp. Isa 63:5).
Isa 59:17
He put on righteousness as a breastplate. The Isaiah anthropomorphism is far less gross than the Homeric. The gods in Homer put on actual armour, and take sword and shield. Jehovah arms himself for the battle in a way that is manifestly metaphoric. He puts on a “Divine panoply”righteousness as his breastplate, salvation as his helmet, vengeance for garments, and zeal, or jealousy, for a cloak. He takes no offensive weapons”the out-breathing of his Spirit (verse 19) is enough” (Kay).
Isa 59:18
According to their deeds; rather, according to their deserts (comp. Psa 28:4, ad fin.). He will repay. The ordinary future here, and in the remainder of the prophecy, replaces the “perfect of prophetic certitude,” which has been employed in Isa 59:16, Isa 59:17. Fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies. God’s “adversaries” are those of his own householdhis people, the ungodly Israelites; his “enemies” are the heathen that oppress his people (comp. Isa 1:24, which is very similar). To the islands; i.e. the maritime lands, which, under Assyria, and afterwards under Babylon, took part in the oppression of his people.
Isa 59:19
So shall they fear; rather, and they shall fear. The result of the triumphant exhibition of God’s might will be a conversion of the Gentiles, who will flock in both from the westthe quarter of “the islands”and from the east, to do reverence to the name and to the glory of the Lord. When the enemy shall come in (rather, come on) like a flood; literally, like the river; i.e. the Euphrates (comp. Isa 8:7, “The Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the King of Assyria and all his glory,” etc.). When this shall be the case, then the Spirit of the Lordhypostasized or nearly soshall lift up a standard against him (comp. Isa 10:18; Zec 9:16), and easily vanquish him. The metaphor of “lifting a standard” for making an armed resistance is common in Isaiah (Isa 5:26; Isa 13:2; Isa 18:3; Isa 31:9, etc.).
Isa 59:20
And the Redeemer shall come to Zion; rather, and there shall come a Redeemer for Zion, and for those who turn, etc. When the “adversaries “and the “enemies” shall have been punished, repentant Israel shall be saved by the coming of Messiah. As usual, the prophet does not note, or perhaps see, intervals of time, but blends events of various periods into one glorious vision of triumphant deliverance, redemption, and prolonged spiritual life in the Redeemer’s kingdom.
Isa 59:21
As for me; literally, and I. The prophet begins with one construction, and then checks himself, and introduces another. This is my covenant (comp. Jer 31:31-34; and see the comment on Isa 53:3). The new covenant involved the giving of God’s Spirit to his people (Joe 2:28); and this Spirit, it is here promised, shall not depart from God’s people while time endures. The Spirit will be accompanied with certain “words” which will be put into the Church’s mouth; and these words will remain unchanged and pass on from mouth to mouth, age after age, for ever. The “words” intended are probably those of the entire Bible”all God’s revelations” (Cheyne)which the Church will maintain as inspired truth through all ages. Upon thee; i.e. upon Israel. The change of number and person (“with them upon thee”) is not unusual in Isaiah (Isa 1:29; Isa 33:2; Isa 49:5; Isa 62:11, Isa 62:12, etc.).
HOMILETICS
Isa 59:2-8
The unsatisfactoriness of sinful courses.
“What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye now are ashamed?” asks the apostle of those whom he had converted from a life of sin to a life of righteousness (Rom 6:21). What good did the life of sin seem to do you? Of course, if the life of sin had no pleasures at all to offer, it would have no attractiveness, and would not be led by any. But what, after all, are the attractions, compared with the counterbalancing disadvantages?
I. THE PLEASURES OF SIN ARE SLIGHT, EVEN WHILE THEY LAST, No doubt there is a gratification in the satisfaction of every desire, in the venting of every passion, in the full indulgence of every lust and appetite. There is a pleasure also in the mere indulgence of self-will, the setting aside of every restraint, and the determination to be free and do exactly what we choose. But put all these things together; and to what do they amount? What is their value? Is the game worth the candle? Are not the pleasures themselves always mixed with pains, which detract from them? Do they not generally involve as their consequences worse pains, so that mere selfishness should make us decide to decline the pleasures? Does not conscience offer a continual protest against the life of sin? and is not that protest painfuloften severely painful? Again, are not those who lead a life of sin, even while they lead it, always more or less ashamed of it? And is not that shame a very bitter feeling? Is not the disapproval of the life by friends and relatives, especially the nearest, who should be the dearest, a very substantial set-off against any balance of pleasure that might otherwise remain? Do the wicked ever “know peace”? Can they ever calmly review their lives, and derive from the review any feeling of satisfaction? Can they even boast in all their life of a moment’s perfect restfulness, content, calm, quiet, sense of ease?
II. THE PLEASURES OF SIN ARE FLEETING; THEY DIE OUT AS TIME GOES ON. The great pleasure-seekers have always acknowledged that the end of all indulgence is satiety. The cry of the sensualist is for “a new pleasure;” but the cry is vain. New pleasures are not forthcoming. Sensualists tread the same weary round over and over again, with’ less of satisfaction each time it is traversed, and with a growing feeling that they are slaves, compelled to grind perpetually on the same futile treadmill. Almost every passion dies out after a time. If any one remains, it is avarice, which reduces its victim to the most miserable condition possible.
III. THE PLEASURES OF SIN SEPARATE FROM GOD. If God is, as even the heathen acknowledged, the supreme good; and if man’s highest good is, as some of them also allowed, communion with him,then anything whatsoever that separates from him is weighted with a disadvantage which must necessarily overbalance all possible good that it can possess. Were the pleasures of sin ten thousand times greater than they are, and were they absolutely permanent, instead of being, as they are, fleeting and evanescent, the single fact, here mentioned by Isaiah (verse 2), that they erect a barrier between man and God, should render them utterly unsatisfactory to a reasonable being. To be cut off from God is to be cut off from the source of all joy and peace and happiness; it is to be shut out from light, to lose contact with the Life which sustains all other life, and to be left to our own miserable selves for the remainder of our existence. Nothing could possibly be a compensation to man for such losses.
Isa 59:14, Isa 59:15
Truth the foundation of morality.
Surprise is sometimes expressed at there being no distinct prohibition of all lying in the ten commandments. “False witness” alone is forbidden. But the reason may be that truth is assumed as too fundamentally necessary for any one to suppose that it could possibly be dispensed with. Similarly, piety is assumed as a duty in the commandments, where men are not bidden to worship God, but warned against worshipping more than one God, and against worshipping him in an improper way. Truth throughout Scripture appears as a quality assumed to be possessed by men, rather than as a virtue which they are to be exhorted to “put on.” It lies, in fact, at the root of all real goodness.
I. TRUTH LIES AT THE ROOT OF JUSTICE. The administration of justice consists primarily in a series of efforts to find out the truth. There is always a question before the court, and the first question is one of fact, “Has the thing charged been done or no?” What is the truth of the matter? When this has been decided, if decided on the affirmative side, then a second question arises, “What is the degree of the guilt?” It is essential for the judge to have the most earnest desire to discover the truth, and the highest power of eliciting the truth. Nor is this all. To every one concerned in a causewhether prosecutor, defendant, witness, counsel, or attorneythe sole object ought to be the discovery of the truth. The importance of veracity in the witnesses is universally admitted; but veracity is really incumbent on all concerned. A prisoner who knows himself guilty would do best to confess his guilt. It is no real benefit to him to be acquitted unless he is innocent. Truth ought to govern all the utterances of counsel, who are not entitled to make any suggestions but such as they think may be true. Chicanery, quibbles, special pleading, are unworthy of those who take part in the administration of justice and exercise what is really a sacred function. The first requisite of all those who bear part in the solemn work of “doing justice” is that they should be “men of truth” (Exo 18:21).
II. TRUTH LIES AT THE ROOT OF KINDNESS. The desire to be kind is independent of truth; but the moment that the desire has to pass into action, considerations of truth come in. Am I prompted to praise a person? But if I praise him when he is deserving of blame, I am doing him the greatest unkindness. If I even overpraise him when he deserves praise, I am doing him an unkindness to a certain extentan unkindness and a wrong. I am helping him to content himself with a low standard of goodness. Again, suppose that I am prompted to relieve a person who appears to me poor and distressed. To decide aright whether I ought to relieve him at all, and, if so, to what extent, I require a true knowledge of his circumstances. I do him an injury if I allow him to impose upon me. I do him an injury if I repress efforts that he would otherwise have made to help himself. In all the kindly acts that we seek to do to others there is always room for, and generally much need of, careful consideration of facts, discovery of the exactly true state of the case, before we allow ourselves to follow our impulses. Otherwise we may make great blunders, and, while striving to be kind, be guilty of many an unkindness.
III. TRUTH LIES AT THE ROOT OF PIETY. Piety is a feeling of love and reverence towards some being, or beings, whom we feel to be superior to ourselves, and believe to afford us help and protection. It is impossible to say that many of the heathen, many even of the grossest idolaters, were not, in a certain sense, pious. But for piety to attain its full proportions, and to be the virtue that it was intended to be, it needs to rest upon a basis of truth. We need to have true conceptions of the nature of that which is the object of our love and reverence. Until we conceive of that “eternal something outside us that makes for righteousness” as One, as a Person, as the Creator of all things, as omnipotent, as omniscient, as beneficent, and as perfectly good, we cannot have the feelings towards him that we ought to have, or worship him acceptably. True piety is the worship of the true God. The votaries of false religions possess only a semblance of pietya dwarfed and cramped, sometimes a distorted, imitation of it.
Isa 59:20, Isa 59:21
The Church indefectible.
The Church of God, being a body of men and women, each one of whom is weak, fallible, and liable to fall from the truth, ay, even to apostasy, must, by the nature of things, be of itself and in itself detectible. A weakness which attaches to all the individuals of a body must attach to the body which those individuals make up. The Church, therefore, is not, per se, indefectible. If indefectible in fact, it can only be so by the will of God, and can only be by us known to be so if God had declared to us his will. But this has been done
I. GOD DECLARED BY THE PSALMISTS AND THE PROPHETS THAT HE WOULD SET UP ON EARTH AN IMPERISHABLE KINGDOM, CITY, OR COMMUNITY OF MEN. A promise to this effect was first given to David. God said to him, by the mouth of :Nathan, “I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever“ (2Sa 7:12, 2Sa 7:13); and again, “Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever“ (2Sa 7:16). Hence David himself spake of “the city of the Lord of hosts, which God would establish for ever“ (Psa 48:8). And Ethan the Ezrahite spoke of the promise as a “covenant” to which God had “sworn:” “His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven” (Psa 89:34-37). Isaiah’s declarations as to a coming kingdom are to the same effect. “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever“ (Isa 9:6, Isa 9:7). And the declaration of the present chapter: “My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed from henceforth and for ever.“
II. God ATTACHED THESE PROMISES, THROUGH THE DECLARATIONS OF HIS SON, TO THE PARTICULAR COMMUNITY WHICH HE CALLED HIS CHURCH. “Thou art Peter,” said our blessed Lord, “and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it“ (Mat 16:18); “Go, teach all nations,” our Lord said again, “and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world“ (Mat 28:19, Mat 28:20). The apostles are confident, therefore, that the Church will always continue. St. Paul, in his directions concerning the Eucharist, declares that, through their partaking of it, Christians “do show the Lord’s death till he come“ (1Co 11:26). And he speaks of the members of the Church who are living at the last day as “caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (1Th 4:17). St. John traces the fortunes of the Church from his own time to the consummation of all things, and finds a remnant of faithful ones upon the earth to the last, who give testimony for Jesus (Rev 2:21.). Christians are therefore justified in believing that the Church of Christ is practically, if not ideally, indefectiblethat in point of fact, it will never fail, but will continue to the end of the world Christ’s great witness upon earth, testifying to his Godhead, to his redeeming love, and to the sufficiency of his one sacrifice.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Isa 59:1-15
The separation of the soul from God.
Why in the hour of need is there no deliverance? Why are prayers for aid unanswered? A theory might obtain, or an objection might be raised, that Divine power was not sufficient, that the Divine sensibility was dulled. And yet this cannot be. The simplest knowledge of what God is must contradict an assumption so foolish. There must be another explanation; and that, the conscience says, is to be found on the human side of the relation.
I. THE CHANNEL OF DIVINE COMMUNICATION CLOSED. Only to the upright does Jehovah show himself upright, only pure to the pure. There is a state of the soul in which men see God, because his face is therein reflected; but those addressed have long been “belying their professions by their acts, and thus precluding an answer to their prayers” (Isa 58:2-4). The face is “the self-manifesting side of the Divine nature” (cf. Isa 63:9;Isa 1:12; Isa 40:10). Where that is not given, there must be darkness in the mind, and bitterness in the heart.
II. SINFUL OBSTACLES TO BE BEHOVED. The defilement of the hands. With the guilt of blood. But probably this stands, by a strong figure, for sin in general. The lips are lying, and the tongue depraved. Here the organs of the body, ministers of the mind, express and set forth the state of the latter. There is a certain correspondence between cleanliness of the person and truthfulness and honesty of the soul. And it is just this which is wanting. Society is resting on a foundation of chaos. Men weave their schemes, vain and brittle as spiders’ webs, or hatch policies pernicious as the eggs of basilisks. They tread with swiftness the paths of mischief; their thoughts are full of hate and destruction. They ignore the way of peace and the track of justice, and follow crooked paths of their own (Pro 10:9; Pro 28:18; Pro 2:15). It is a picture of extreme social demoralization.
III. PENITENCE AND CONFESSION OF SINS. The prophet speaks in the name of the people. And here all the true elements of repentance and confession may be found.
1. The connection of sin with Divine disfavour. The first thing is to see that the curse does not “causeless come;” the next to fix upon the true cause. It is not because of want of will or want of power in God (Isa 59:12). They were entitled to expect his help, according to the covenant, but not apart from conditions on their side to be fulfilled. If, then, the judicial interference of Jehovah on their behalf was not witnessed, the cause must lie in the breach of those conditionsin “our sins.”
2. Human darkness and bewilderment without God. “Jehovah shall be thy Light and thy Salvation.” That light withdrawn,what can there be groping and stumbling in the thick darkness? (Deu 28:29). How extreme the contrast of the “way which Jehovah knows,” of the “path of the just, shining to the perfect day;” and the “knowing not whither he goeth,” the “staggering as at noonday,” the groping and stumbling of the man God-abandoned and left to himself.
3. Human sorrow and despair without God. Compared to the growling or moaning of beast or bird. Men long to have their own will and way, and find that to be “lords of themselves” is a “heritage of woe.” Sooner or later they must find that their passionate autonomy means “rebellion” before God and in their own consciousness. And peace cannot be where they know that they are thus “kicking against the goads.” The passage strongly shows how a violated conscience must be a tormenting conscience. God will not let us sin and forget. “As for our iniquities, we know them.”
4. Human shame and self-contempt without God. It is contempt that “pierces through the shell of the tortoise;” above all, one’s own contempt. The worst is when we look into the mirror held up, not by hand of enemy or critic, but by our own, and see the lineaments of the traitor, the expression of the infidel at heart, the base attitude of the deserter and backslider from the Holy One, the downcast mien of the convicted liar. There has been no truth, no rectitude, no justice. These, as fair spirits, have been banished from a polluted earth. And if one would live an innocent life, he is but game for any rude spoiler. In all this there is the deepest sense of the evil of sin, and of the need of humiliation. It is felt that humiliation cannot remove the evil, unless it first remove the sin. Misery is the natural effect of iniquity; and he that seeks to rid himself of the one before he is freed from the other would hinder the stream before he has stopped the fountain. “‘Rend your hearts, and not your garments.” If the heart be not torn off from sin, to rend only the garment further provokes God, and makes the breach wider. There is no religious duty attains its end, but when it weakens our sin.” True fasting draws down, as here seen, the pity and invites the help of the Almighty.J.
Isa 59:15-21
Jehovah as Champion of the people.
I. HE IS THE INTERESTED SPECTATOR OF HUMAN AFFAIRS. He “considers in his dwelling-place” (Isa 18:4). He “causes his ear to hear”to judge the fatherless and oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress (Psa 10:18). He is not like the gods of the Epicureans, “sitting apart, careless of mankind.” He is a God who can feel pleasure in goodness and the good, displeasure in the prevalence of wrong and injustice. To doubt it is to doubt of the existence of God himself.
II. HE TAKES UPON HIMSELF THE CAUSE OF THE OPPRESSED. He saw that there was “no man,” no champion, and was “stupefied,” or in “consternation” (cf. Jer 14:9), that none was at baud to interpose in battle on behalf of his own. He therefore armed himself with sword and bow, with coat of mail and helmet, and the garments of zeal and vengeance. A great world-struggle is coming on, in which he will inflict retribution upon his foes.
III. THE REVERENCE OF THE NATIONS FOR HIM. The Gentiles who are spared are imagined as hastening from their distant abodes in tremulous anxiety to meet Jehovah. His Name (cf. Deu 28:58; Mic 6:9; Neh 1:11; Psa 86:11; Psa 102:15) shall be universally feared. His advance will be like that of a rushing stream, driven by the might of the wind, and so as a Goel he will come to Zion, and to all the obedientthose that have “turned from rebellion.” The effect of his coming will be the turning of men from their sins, and only to such regenerate ones will he come.
IV. HIS COVENANT. He makes solemn promises to men conditional on their compliance with his terms. To the repentant his Spirit will be imparted, as a continuous gift. His words, or revelations, shall be in their mouth, therefore in their minds and hearts, for everflowing on, a holy stream of tradition, from generation to generation (cf. Deu 7:9; Deu 4:37; Deu 5:29; Psa 89:24-36; Jer 32:39, Jer 32:40). The majority of religious people are descendants of those who were the friends of God. A large proportion of American piety has descended from the Pilgrim Fathers. Barnes says “I am acquainted with the descendants of John Rogers, the first martyr in Queen Mary’s reign, of the tenth and eleventh generations. With a single exception, the eldest son in the family has been a clergymansome of them eminently distinguished for learning and piety.”J.
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM
Isa 59:1
The Divine ability.
“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save.” We note here something that awakens surprise. Behold!” Let Israel know where her help lies. There has been wrong looking, viz. to self.
I. GOD STILL WORKS IN THE WORLD. It is “his hand.” He “formed” us, and he “redeems” us.
II. WE MAY MAKE MISTAKES CONCERNING HUMAN HISTORY. His “hand is not shortened.” It can always reach to every length, and raise from every depth. The future must be, therefore, in ourselves.
III. SALVATION IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE ON EARTH.
1. In all forms of sin.
2. In all degrees of sin.
3. In all depths of distress and despair, human as well as spiritual.W.M.S.
Isa 59:2
Attention from God.
“Your iniquities have separated between you and your God.” Here is the secret. We can resist God’s arm. Until the “iniquities” be confessed, deplored, and forsaken, there can be no salvation. God is ready to forgive; but are we ready to be forgiven? God has provided a Saviour; but it may be true of us, “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” Man is not a heart only; he is a will. And here lies our condemnation, not that we are not sometimes ashamed and even sorry, but that we will not repent, return, and believe.
I. THE TERM GIVEN TO SIN. “Iniquities;” that is, “inequities.” Read the fourth verse, “None calleth for justice;” and the sixth verse, “The act of violence is in their hands.” Unless we are willing to forgive and love and do justice to our brother, it is idle to talk about turning to God. Such religion is a sentiment, not a salvation. Then there are “inequities” in relation to God. We have been:
1. Unjust to his government.
2. We have robbed him of ourselves.
3. We have aided the forces of rebellion.
4. We have, in one word, done iniquity.
II. THE DISTANCE CREATED BY SIN. The separation is moral. He is near to usclose, indeed, to us as the air we breathe. But we are at opposite poles of the moral universe.
1. Separated in nature. We are not renewed in his image.
2. Separated in purpose. Our will is set against his will. All separations are painful. We see them in the family and in the nation. Wars and feuds abound on every side. So’ we are alienated from the life of God. Christ, and he alone, can break down the middle wall of partition, and through faith in him we may be reconciled by one Spirit unto the Father.W.M.S.
Isa 59:16
Salvation, not in man.
“And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor.” It seemed a dark hour for the world. Evidently a dead nation cannot arise of itself, any more than a dead man. It is a time of wonderment. Great men often arise for great occasions; but there is no man, that is, no mere man, equal to this occasion. But
I. “GOD IS HIS OWN INTERPRETER.” He makes plain his own mysteries alike in providence and in redemption. There is silence everywhere, that he himself may be heard, There is no other hand, that his own may be made bare before the nations.
II. GOD IS THE WORLD‘S ONLY SAVIOUR AND INTERCESSOR. in the Person of his Son, he fulfils all the evangelic strains of Isaiah. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.”
1. It is still wonderful. “Lo! I come to do thy will, O God!” “Behold the Lamb of God!” Angels cannot see into the depths of such a mystery as this.
2. It is true as wonderful. “His arm brought salvation.” Look and see. Christianity can be tested as a history as well as a prophecy. When we see that dark degraded Roman world, with its lust and licence, its cruelties and pageantries, its very worship turned to aids to vice, and then read, “Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified,” we exclaim, “What hath God wrought?”W.M.S.
Isa 59:19
The successful standard.
“When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” The standard is highly prized in war. On it are engraven the names of special victories and the fields of old renowned. It is the last disgrace to lose the standard, and in many a foray and fierce campaign men have fallen in heaps around the standard-bearer. Think
I. OF THE VICTORIES ENGRAVEN ON THE STANDARD OF THE LORD. Of truth over error; righteousness over injustice; purity over lust; God over mammon.
II. OF THE SPECIAL SEASONS IN WHICH INIQUITY COMES IN LIKE A FLOOD. Times such as those of the profligate Stuarts, when the sabbath was desecrated and debasing plays were acted. Times when the pride of priestcraft and power drove out the faithful from the land. Times when the Bible itself was put under a ban, and the flood-gates of evil were left open. Nothing then withstood, and nothing will ever withstand, the tides of sin, but the Word of God. Utility, expediency, propriety,these are but thin “withes” that the giant snaps; these are but gossamer gates through which the torrent roars. Nothing is strong but the Spirit of the Lord working in us and with us.W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Isa 59:1, Isa 59:2
The true and the false account of Divine inactivity.
How comes it to pass that the people of the Lord are in such distress? How do we account for the fact that the cause of Christ makes such slow progress or even shows symptoms of decline and failure? Where is the Lord God of Israel? Is the Spirit of God present in the midst of the Churches?
I. THE APPARENTLY INEXHAUSTIBLE FORCES AT OUR COMMAND. For our resources we have:
1. The fulness of Divine pity. The ear of God is open to the cry of destitution, of pain, of sorrow, of spiritual yearning. His heart of tenderness is touched by the miseries and necessities of his children.
2. The almightiness of Divine power. The “right hand of the Lord” is on all the springs and forces of the universe; he can compel all things to serve him, to minister to his people and to establish his kingdom.
3. The perfectness of Divine wisdom. Who shall measure “the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God”?
II. THE POVERTY OF SPIRITUAL RESULTS. In how many instances have we occasion to be profoundly discontented with the condition of things, spiritually considered! It is so in regard to:
1. Individual character. Considering the resources at command, men do not make the progress in spiritual growth, in moral attainment, or in excellency of behaviour, which might be expected of them; they remain where they were, or move backward and forward, making no substantial progress toward “the mark [goal] which is set before them.”
2. Christian Churches. Taking into account the number of privileges which are theirs, and the variety of opportunities which are within reach, there is a very considerable proportion of Churches compelled to acknowledge retrogression rather than advancement, defeat rather than success.
3. Missionary operations. After all that has been done through the centuries, by all societies of Christian men, how much land “remains to be possessed”!
III. THE FALSE AND THE TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE MATTER. It is not Divine negligence that explains our position. It is not that God’s hand is shortened or that his ear is heavy; it is not that his power is diminished or that his pity has failed in the very smallest degree. He abideth faithful and omnipotent. We are not straitened in him, but in ourselves. It is sin that has come between our praying lip and his hearing ear between our pressing need and his opened hand.
1. Refusal of his righteousness makes our prayer ineffectual, his interposition impossible. If we “regard iniquity in our heart, he will not hear us;” i.e. if we decline to enter his service, if we “will not have him to reign” over us, if we stubbornly and haughtily reject the salvation which he offers us in Jesus Christ (Rom 10:3), we take an attitude in which we have no right to expect any answer to our petitions. The first thing, the only right and acceptable thing, for one that has not yet returned to God in self-surrender, is to “arise and go to the Father” in penitent submission; then he may call, and the Lord will answer.
2. Special sins may prove a stumbling-block; some are specified in the following versescruel violence, falsehood, litigiousness. We are expressly told in the later revelation that some particular sins are absolutely inconsistent with personal piety, and therefore with the efficacy of prayerimpurity (Eph 5:5); strife (Gal 5:20); drunkenness; lying (Rev 21:8).
3. The absence of essential Christian graces will account for the nonintervention of God on behalf of a Christian Church: of unity (Psa 133:3); of faith (Heb 11:6; Mat 13:58); of zeal (Rev 2:4; Rev 3:15, Rev 3:16); of fidelity to the truth (Rev 2:14). The true account of our failure is not in Divine indifference, but in human shortcoming.C.
Isa 59:6
Webs that will not make garments.
It is the virtue of a garment that it covers. The ideas of covering and of atoning were very closely allied in Hebrew thought. The prophet intimates that there were webs of their own spinning which would never hide their sin from the sight of God. Such are there now. We look at
I. THE SOUL‘S SUPREME NECESSITY. The presence of sin is the sternest of all facts; the mark which it has made on our manhood is by far the deepest and darkest of any; all others are mere touches, mere scratches in comparison. This is true of the individual as well as of the community. The thing that we have done, more serious and of greater consequence than any other, is that we have sinned against the Lord and come beneath his condemnation. What we most urgently want is a covering for our soul. Our naked and guilty soul imperatively and sorely needs that under which it may appear before God without shame and shrinking, and take its place, in this world or in any other, among the pure, the holy, the righteous. The question isWhat is that garment which will cover the sinful human soul?
II. THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PROVISION WHICH SOME MEN ARE MAKING. Many are providing for themselves that which is utterly inadequate; they are spinning webspoor, thin, gossamer productionswhich “will not become garments” available for this purpose. There is:
1. The web of Christian profession. Some find comfort and complacency of soul in the fact that they are acknowledged members of a Church, ancient, or catholic, or established, or scriptural. Desirable, in many ways, as is an avowal of attachment to Christ, it is not a thing in which to put any trust; a man may be a member of the most scriptural Church, and yet be destitute of that which is vital and essential. “He is not a Jew who is one outwardly,” etc. Christian profession is a poor thing for a soul to hide in; it is no true refuge for the human heart; it is a “web that will not make a garment.”
2. The web of ceremony and ordinance. Many have an undefined but strong confidence in having passed through Christian ceremonies (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper), or in having been constant in attendance on Divine worship, or in having taken on their lips apostolic and evangelical language; but to trust in these things as garments of salvation is to put “confidence in the flesh” (Php 3:1): they may exist without any faith or love prompting and vitalizing them.
3. The web of correct behaviourabstinence from impurity, inebriety, untruthfulness, trickery, profanity. This is altogether and in every way desirable, and it may be eminently praiseworthy from a human standpoint; but it will not atone for the supreme omissionthe failure to respond to a heavenly Father’s love, to subject the will to the will of the Creator, to dedicate the life to the service of God. It, too, is a web that will not make a garment with which to cover a sinful soul.
III. THE ONE GARMENT TEAT SUFFICES. What did Christ mean by that “wedding garment” without which the guest might not sit down to the marriage-feast (Mat 22:11)? May it not have been the abounding mercy of God unto eternal life, received through faith in a Divine Saviour (Rom 5:1; Rom 8:1; Php 3:7-9)? Men will be just with God, their sins wilt be covered and hidden for evermore, when, in the spirit of penitence and faith, they accept the Saviour of mankind as the Lord in whom they hide and to whom they yield themselves in glad surrender.C.
Isa 59:9, Isa 59:10
The goal of guilt.
A course of conduct or a principle of action is rightly judged by the issue to which it tends. All is well that ends well, and all is ill that ends ill. If we look far enough and deep enough in our estimate of consequences, we shall always find that the goal of guilt is wretchedness and ruin. It ends in
I. A SENSE OF WRONG. The nation feels that “judgment and justice” are lacking and the enemy is triumphant; the individual feels that he is injured, that his rights are withheld from him, and he goes on his way dispirited and complaining.
II. DEEP DISAPPOINTMENT. “We wait for light, and behold obscurity,” etc. Men who seek not their refuge and their portion in God and in his service are always subject to a profound dissatisfaction. Life does not yield the good they crave. They look for success, and behold failure; for joy, and behold weariness, heartache, ennui; for sweet communion, and behold isolation and loneliness; for laughter, and behold disgust.
III. AGGRAVATED BLINDNESS. “We grope like the blind we stumble at noonday,” etc. It is one of the saddest consequences of sin that the power of spiritual perception continually lessens; the “eyesight” of the soul becomes weaker and weaker. Great truths are less clearly apprehended. Confusion takes the place of distinctness, until at length good is mistaken for evil, and evil for good: “the light that is in us becomes darkness;” the very organ of spiritual understanding misleads us. And the aggravating circumstance is that this failure of the soul’s sight takes place “at noonday,” when others are walking and rejoicing in the light of the Lord.
IV. DEATHFULNESS. “In desolate places [or perhaps rather, ‘in luxuriant fields,’] we are as the dead.” The thought of Christ and of his apostles is that to live in selfishness, in ungodly pleasure, is death in life. To exist apart from God; to be severed from him in thought and feeling, in speech and act; to be utterly regardless of his will and then defiantly antagonistic to his cause;this is death indeed, and it is consummated in the death which is eternal.C.
Isa 59:15-17
Human hopelessness and Divine redemption.
This vivid picture of the nation’s demoralization, and of its incapacity to produce a citizen who could regenerate and reform, may appropriately suggest
I. THE HOPELESS CONDITION OF THE HUMAN RACE UNDER THE LONG TYRANNY OF SIN. Man had fallen so far that there was not the smallest prospect of redemption from anything he could originate. The all-seeing eye of God rested on “no man, no intercessor.” Reformer there might be, but Redeemer there was none. No human arm could uplift a sin-slain and fallen race from its degradation and ruin. Hence came
II. THE REDEEMING POWER OF ALMIGHTY GOD. “It displeased the Lord;” the iniquity of the world pained, grieved, distressed, his pure and pitiful heart. And his compassion found fitting utterance in redemption. “His arm brought salvation.” The redemption of the world by Jesus Christ was indeed a work wrought; it was a putting forth of Divine power; it was the mighty act of God’s righteous “arm.” The work of the strong brute is to carry great weights, of the human giant to deal mighty blows, of the trained intellect to solve subtle problems or make intricate calculations; but the work of the holy and merciful Spirit of God is by self-sacrifice to redeem and to restore. Here is the exercise of the truest, noblest, most beneficent power. In comparison with this all other power is weakness itself.
III. THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE DIVINE REDEEMER.
1. A sense of perfect rectitude. “His righteousness, it sustained him.” It was much, it was everything to the aspersed and incriminated Saviour to know that he was absolutely right in the sight of the holy Father.
2. Compassion. “The helmet of salvation.”
3. Holy indignation. “He put on the garments of vengeance.” Hatred of sin is quite as indispensable to a Saviour as pity for its victim (vide Mat 23:1-39.).
4. Consecration. “Clad with zeal as a cloak;” with that utter and entire devotedness which led him to drink quite up that bitter cup which the Father placed in his hands.C.
Isa 59:21
The hope of the rued.
Wherein shall we find the true hope of the human race? It would be but a sorry prospect if man had nothing better to build upon than the results of physical science, or political economy, or mental and moral philosophy. These are helpful handmaids, but they have shown themselves inefficient regenerators of mankind. We build our hope ultimately on
I. THE FULFILMENT OF THE DIVINE PROMISE. God has “covenanted” or promised to do great things for us. Our hope is in him: it was in his Divine pity, unpledged, unexpressed. It is in his promise to befriend, to illumine, to renew. The world went utterly wrong, and in the greatness of his compassion he interposed with a marvellous redemption. The Church became utterly corrupt, and in the fulness o[ his faithfulness he did not desert it, but cleansed and raised it.
II. THE PLANTING OF DIVINE TRUTH. We may have a good hope for mankind if “God’s words are in the mouth” of men. Not enactments on the statute-book, nor institutions in society, nor the sword in the magistrate’s hand, but God‘s truth in the mind, is the source of strength, the criterion of advancement, and the condition of security. When God’s thoughts are precious (Psa 139:17), and God’s words are loved, the people are in the way of wisdom and of life.
III. THE OUTPOURING OF HIS SPIRIT. “My Spirit is upon thee.” The indwelling, illuminating, transforming Spirit will make all holy truth effectual and mighty.
IV. THE TRANSMISSION OF GODLINESS FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION. “Nor out of the mouth of thy seed,” etc. The “promise is to us and to our children.” Far more than to evangelistic efforts or missionary labours do we look to the upgrowing in godly homes of a devout and holy generation. The future of the world is in the hands of Christian fathers and mothers! Let them be what they should be, and their sons and daughters will strengthen the cause of God and fulfil the hope of mankind.C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Isa 59:1
Misconceptions of the Divine delay.
This is a plea with the murmurers, who doubtingly askedWhere are the signs of the fulfilment of these great Divine promises? Things looked black and hopeless right up to the time of Cyrus. The Lord appeared to be delaying his coming, and it was easy for unbelievers to say that God delayed because “his hand was too short to deliver, and his ear too heavy to hear” Keble renders the text thus
“Wake, arm Divine! awake,
Eye of the only Wise!
Now for thy glory’s sake,
Saviour and God, arise,
And may thine ear, that sealed seems,
In pity mark our mournful themes!
“Thus in her lonely hour
Thy Church is fain to cry
As if thy love and power
Were vanish’d from her sky;
Yet God is there, and at his side
He triumphs who for sinners died.”
It may suffice to answer the murmurers who remind us of the Divine delayings, and would have us misunderstand them, and join them in doubtings of the Divine power or the Divine good will, that there are high and gracious ends served by this particular method of Divine dealing. These things at least we can see
I. IT INCREASES OUR DEPENDENCE ON GOD. It teaches us that we have not just to “ask and have,” but “ask and have” in accordance with God’s will, in dependence on God’s wisdom, and in agreement with God’s time and way. We should never learn that, if we were not sometimes made to wait. We teach our children to trust us by making them wait until we think best.
II. IT ENHANCES THE VALUE OF THE EXPECTED BLESSING. What we wait long for becomes increasingly valuable in our eyes. What is obtained easily and at once is sure to be under-estimated. The value of a gift very constantly depends on the moral preparation of those who receive it; and delay is a cultivator of moral preparation.
III. IT PRODUCES A MORE EARNEST WATCHFULNESS AND MORE BELIEVING PRAYERFULNESS FOR THE DESIRED BLESSING. It does, if we regard the delay aright. It does not, if we persist in misconceiving the purpose of the delay. Then delay will weary us, and we shall leave off to watch and be sober. Delay may be borne wisely and cheerfully when we recognize it as only the hush, the stillness, the breathlessness that ushers in the glorious showers of Divine awakening and Divine comforting.R.T.
Isa 59:2
Sin-clouds between us and God.
In a former homily it has been shown how, in judgment, and in order to awaken us to a sense of our sin, God may pass a cloud across between us and him, hiding from us his smiling face, and leaving us in the dark and the chill. Now we see how, in our heedlessness and wilfulness, we may put clouds, even little clouds, into our own sky, and hide his face. The reference of the text is to the doubting ones, the unfaithful ones, in Babylon, who let their own sinfulness spoil their vision, and either hide God from them or distort their view of him. The prophet reminds them that they had put the clouds, and in reminding them thus he calls on them to put the clouds away. These are our two divisions.
I. MEN PUT THE SIN–CLOUDS BETWEEN THEM AND GOD.
1. They may be very small clouds, yet suffice to hide. Often a cloud no bigger than a hand will keep the light and warmth from us. Illustration: David Rittenhouse, of Pennsylvania, was a great astronomer. He was skilful in measuring the size of planets, and determining the position of the stars. But he found that, such was the distance of the stars, a silk thread stretched across the glass of his telescope would entirely cover a star; and, moreover, that a silk fibre, however small, placed upon the same glass, would cover so much of the heavens that the star, if a small one and near the pole, would remain obscured behind that silk fibre several seconds. So small faults, secret sins, little doubtings, can become effective fibres, dark clouds, obscuring veils, that hide the “face.” “Little foxes spoil the grapes.” The psalmist puts a passion of holy feeling into his prayer, “Cleanse thou me from secret faults.”
2. They may be very big clouds, and mean long hiding and deep misery for us under the darkness, and in the chill. Illustrate from David’s open and shameless iniquity. It was right that “his bones should wax old through his roaring all the day long,” while the black storm-clouds of passion, and its consequences, hid away his God. We cannot negligently sin, and hope to keep the smile; if we openly and wilfully sin we shall not even care to keep the smile, but we shall gladly put our clouds across, and hide the “face.”
II. MEN MUST PUT AWAY THE SIN–CLOUDS THAT ARE BETWEEN THEM AND GOD. And there is only one way of doing this. Men must put away the sins that make the clouds. God will not burst through such clouds. He will not dispel such clouds, until men turn from their iniquities, their big or little sins; but then he will breathe on the cloud, as the hot Eastern sun breathes on the clouds of morning, and they shall fade away from the sky, and we shall see the face, and live in that heaven which is the “shining of the face upon us.”R.T.
Isa 59:7
Sin in thoughts.
“Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity.”
I. THE IMPORTANCE OF A MAN‘S THOUGHTS. A man is as his thoughts. This is the fact and truth on which we may dwell. Any one who would truly judge his fellow-mart must know his secrets and judge his thoughts. Therefore man’s judgment of his fellowman is always imperfect and uncertain. God alone can judge perfectly, because he is the “Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” There is an impression resting on the minds of many religious persons that they have no control over the suggestions that are made to their minds, and no responsibility for the contents of their thoughts, only for the cherishing of the thought and dwelling upon it, and letting it take shape in action; or, as the Apostle James puts it, only when “lust is allowed to conceive, and bring forth sin.” This, however, is true only within very narrow limits, and it is altogether healthier for us to accept a large measure of responsibility, even for the contents of our minds; for only then shall we be likely to watch over what goes in as over what goes out. The importance that attaches to our thoughts may be seen:
1. In our observation of men. We misjudge because we cannot read thoughts.
2. In the experiences of friendship. We trust our friend more than outsiders can do, because, in some measure, we do know his thoughts.
3. In view of the heart-searching claims of God, who desires “truth in the inward parts.” Sin does not consist in mere act; it really lies at the back of the actionin the thought, the intention, and the motive that inspire it.
4. In consideration of the work of Divine redemption; which is really a heart-regeneration, a purifying of the very springs of thought and feeling. It seeks out the fountains and cleanses them.
II. THE CONTROL A MAN MAY HAVE OVER HIS THOUGHTS.
1. He has control over the materials of thought. Thought is really the comparison, selection, and association of the actual contents of our minds, under the guidance of our wills. All that has impressed us during our lives, by the eye, the ear, or the feeling, has passed into our mental treasury. Then we may take some care as to what goes in. We need not go into scenes or read books which will leave behind bad impressions.
2. We have control over the processes of thought. We can deliberately choose to think about evil things; we can start such thoughts, we can dwell on them, we can follow them on their foul way, we can collect from our associations things that match them. And, in a similar way, we can dwell upon and encourage the good. If our will is a renewed and sanctified will, then we shall find it may gain presidency over our thoughts, so that we may choose and follow only that which is good.R.T.
Isa 59:15, Isa 59:16
Salvation by God through man.
This text contains, in part, the confession of social iniquity. “Truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil is accounted mad. There is no judgment”that is, no social righteousness, no sense of the “right” manifestly ruling in the common relations of life. God looked down upon this degenerate and hopeless condition. He knew how far the evil spread, until the whole people was corrupted, and there was no man able to plead against the prevailing evil; no days-man to stand up for righteousness and truth; no intercessor to check the on-coming judgments, and plead for their withdrawalnone such as Moses, or as Aaron, or as Phinehas. As no human intercessor could be found among the exiles, God himself wrought salvation; “his arm brought salvation unto him.” The point suggested is this: Social and moral evils, being but inadequately dealt with by man, demand Divine intervention; but the Divine operations for redemption from evil are committed to men, as agents, to apply and carry out.
I. MAN CANNOT SAVE MAN. In every age the experiment has been tried. In every form of the trial it has proved a failure. There have been a great variety of religions in the world; they were all just thisman trying to save man. Great teachers and reformers have appearedthey were men trying to save man. There have been philosophical, and moral, and educational, and scientific, and ceremonial, and artistic systems, but no one of them was ever anything more than thisman trying to save man. The issue of nineteenth-century humanity schemes will exactly repeat the old story; it has been proved, over and over again, until we wonder that any one should be foolish enough to try a fresh experiment, that man cannot save man.
II. GOD ALONE CAN SAVE MAN. This is stating the truth again, with an important addition. It is entirely a question between man saving himself, and God saving him. There is no third party to the question. And God can save man. He has always been ridding out man’s extremity, and making it his gracious opportunity; ever saving tribes, saving cities, saving societies, saving families, saving individuals. God, the Redeemer, is the name for God that is blazoned on the history of every age and clime. “God can save man” is the great truth written in the large record of the whole human race. Spared for four thousand years that he might try to save himself, man ]earned at last to put away the schemes in which he had trusted, and then, when the fulness of the times had come, God sent forth his Son, and called his name Jesus Immanuel, because he was to be in the world, “God himself saving men from their sins.”
III. GOD ONLY SAVES MAN BY MAN. One of the most difficult truths for which to get men’s acceptance is the truth that man’s salvation is a moral miracle, for the accomplishment of which man is made the agent. God’s salvation for moral beings is not a display of august force, as is his correction of disorder in his world of created things; it is the exertion of moral power upon them through moral influences and moral agents. The great deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian bondage was manifestly God’s redemption, altogether God’s; and yet even in that case God only saved man by man. He found an instrument and agent by whom to carry out his purposes. The man Moses is prominent throughout the whole scene, and yet he never stands before God; he is only the agent. Illustrate further by the salvation from Babylon. In that case too a man was found. Cyrus was the Divine agent. The law is working in all the society around us. God is in the midst of men, saving still. But he is only saving men through human agencies. Social and moral evils cannot lie mastered by merely human forces, since man cannot, of himself, reach those deeper religious evils that lie at the root of the social ones. God is saving men. This is the glory of our present-day life, with all its seeming failures and oppressive burdens and amazing self-will. He is saving men, and we are to be his witnesses, co-workers together with him. As we preach Christ to men, we have no power to save men; but as we lift Christ up in sight of men, we become God’s agents, and through our words of faith and persuasion God moves and sways careless hearts, and wins sinners unto himself. This is our honour, our trust, our sacred burden. God would save this country, but he will only save it by usby the Christian people in it. We must prophesy and preach to these dry bones, and then only will the breath of Heaven give them life. We must spend the strength of our manhood in giving, preaching, visiting, pleading, and then only will the ends of the land see the salvation of the Lord.R.T.
Isa 59:19
The standard of the Spirit.
Cheyne’s translation is, “For he shall come like a rushing stream, which the breath of Jehovah driveth.” The prophet regards the impending deliverance of the Jews as an act in the great drama of the world-judgment. Henderson translates, “The breath of Jehovah shall raise a standard against him;” and he treats the passage as prophetic of the resistance offered to the evil schemes of the enemies of the gospel. Probably the historical figure in the mind of the prophet, which gave the form to his expression, was the check given to Sennacherib, in his schemes against Jerusalem, by the plague-breath of Jehovah, which destroyed his host. Cheyne’s translation is supported by the Revised Version, and the person referred to appears to be Cyrus, the deliverer, regarded as urged to his work by Jehovah. These two historical references suggest different ways of applying the figure.
I. THE FIGURE OF JEHOVAH‘S BREATH. The same Hebrew word means “breath,” “wind,” “spirit.“ Distinguish between the anthropomorphic figures of the Lord’s hand or arm, and the anthropopathie figures of the Lord’s “anger” or “repentance.” Distinguish between the “arm” or “hand,” which indicates God’s active working in the sphere of things, and his “breath,” as his secret working on the springs of life and motive. Sometime God works openly, and all can see his doings. But even more frequently he silently works at the heart of things, and only men of faith can trace his doings.
II. THE FIGURE OF THE BREATH AS A RESISTANCE. Take the allusion to Sennacherib as illustration. Show how in life we constantly meet with difficulties that seem insoluble, and enemies that cannot be overcome. And yet presently the difficulties go out of the way, and the enemies can proceed no further. There are no evident reasons for these things, in any circumstances that we can observe. All that we can say is, “The Spirit of the Lord has lifted up a standard against them.” Further illustrate from the way in which the plans of the Apostle Paul and his companions were blocked. “They assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not.“ We seldom feel as we ought how graciously God helps us by shutting doors which we fain would enter.
III. THE FIGURE OF THE BREATH AS AN IMPULSE. Take the allusion to Cyrus; and further illustrate from the impulse given to Philip to go and join the eunuch of Queen Candace. Open souls are ready and willing to be moved by the indwelling breath or spirit. Such open souls surely prove what it is to be led into all truth, strengthened for all duty, and sanctified through all fellowships.R.T.
Isa 59:21
The gospel-covenant.
The recipient of this covenant is the spiritual Israel. The old Jewish covenant is to provide figures that may help us to understand the spiritual covenant which we make with God and God makes with us, through Jesus Christ, the covenant-Negotiator. Here God’s side of covenant-pledge is that he will always be the inner life and inspiration of his people. And it is assumed that his people’s covenant-pledge is that they hold themselves as fully consecrated unto him, and in all holy and earnest activities seek to serve him.
I. THE NEW COVENANT ON GOD‘S SIDE. Compare the pledge in the older Jewish covenantpreservation of bodily life, with all that this might demand of providing, guiding, and preservingeverything needed for the life that now is. In the new covenant the pledge is of preservation of that Divine life, spiritual life, which in us has been divinely quickened, with all that this higher life may demand of sustenance, guidance, protection, and inspiration. God will be sure to supply all the needs of our soul-life, and put his Spirit in us and keep his Spirit with us, to be the life of our life, our security, our guarantee, our sanctification. Cramer says, “Does the Spirit of God remain? then also does his Word; does the Word remain? then preachers also remain; do preachers remain? then also hearers do; do hearers remain? then also remain believers; and therefore the Christian Church remains also.” Too seldom do we take the comforting and strengthening assurance that our God is actually under pledge to us to carry on to its completion the work of grace in us which he has begun. “Though we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.” Matthew Henry says, “In the Redeemer there was a new covenant made with us, a covenant of promises; and this is the great and comprehensive promise of that covenant, that God will give and continue his Word and Spirit to his Church and people throughout all generations.” Dean Plumptre says, “The new covenant is to involve the gift of the Spirit, that writes the law of God inwardly in the heart, as distinct from the Law, which is thought of as outside the conscience, doing its work as an accuser and a judge.”
II. THE NEW COVENANT ON MAN‘S SIDE. Find what is the spiritual counterpart of the old Jewish covenant-conditions on man’s side. Then he pledged loyalty to Jehovah, strict and prompt obedience to the will of Jehovah. The answering spiritual pledge may be found in Rom 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”R.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Isa 59:1-2. Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened The prophet here teaches, that the reason why God does not exert his power for the avenging of his people, is not because his hand is shortened, but because he doth not hear their prayers; that he does not hear, not because his ear is grown heavy, but because an intermediate cloud, namely, of their sins, hinders his face from being seen by them in favour, or their prayers from being heard or regarded by him: as much as to say, “The reason of the continuance of your calamities is not want either of power in God to deliver you, or of goodness to hear your prayers; but your iniquities render him a stranger to you, and stop the course of his blessings.” See Vitringa.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
b) To the complaint of the people concerning Jehovahs inability is opposed the charge of moral corruption
Isa 59:1-8
1Behold, the Lords hand is not 1shortened, that it cannot save;
Neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
2But your iniquities have separated between you and your God
And your sins 2have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.
3For your hands are defiled with blood
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue 3hath muttered perverseness.
4None 4calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth:
They trust in vanity, and speak lies;
They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
5They hatch 56cockatrice eggs
And weave the spiders web:
He that eateth of their eggs dieth,
And 7that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.
6 Their webs shall not become garments,
Neither shall they cover themselves with their works
Their works are works of iniquity,
And the act of violence is in their hands.
7Their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed innocent blood:
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
Wasting and 8destruction are in their paths.
8The way of peace they know not;
And there is no 9judgment in their 10goings:
They have made them crooked paths:
Whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Ver.8. direct causative Hiph. with as e. g., in Gen 1:6; Eze 22:26; Eze 42:20. also direct causative Hiph.; comp. moreover, as regards the expression, Isa 54:8.
Ver.3. The word is found only here and Lam 4:14, where the words are evidently taken from our text. The form is irregular. The prefix denotes a Niphal form, whereas appears as a Pual or passive of Poel. The root (kindred to fastidivit) occurs again in the sense of impurum, profanum esse, in the Hiph. in Isa 63:3, on the other hand often in later writers: Zep 3:1; Mal 1:7; Mal 1:12; Ezr 2:62; Neh 7:64; Dan 1:8.Thus is bad Hebrew both materially and formally. It seems to me that the expression was purposely taken by the Prophet from popular language, in order, by the bad word, to designate the more graphically the bad thing. The root, which originally belongs more to the Aramaic dialect, only penetrated into the Hebrew Scripture language at a later date, as the passages quoted show.one may not render to murmur, which would make nonsense where the same word occurs in Psa 35:28; Psa 71:24; Job 27:4; Pro 8:9. The tongue (or palate) in all these passages is personified, and treated as the inner source of what the lips outwardly express aloud. Gesenius (Thes. p. 364) quotes with approval the words of Gussetius, that non reperitur cum parte magis extrinseca, nompe , et sic aliquam servat intrinsecitatem. And that is correct. By the same thing is affirmed of the tongue that is elsewhere ascribed to it when it is said of it, that a high song of praise Psa 66:17), honey and milk (Son 4:11), malignity (Job 20:12), pain and wickedness (Psa 10:7) are under the tongue, or that pleasant doctrine is on the tongue (Pro 31:26), or that wickedness is in the tongue (Job 6:30). All these expressions must be regarded as metaphors, because in all of them the outward, irrational organ is substituted for the inward rational organ.
Ver.5. .., comp. Isa 1:6, from to press together; it is a passive participial form, as e. g. , with the rare feminine ending .
Isa 59:8. the totality of the ways, comp. e. g., Isa 22:11; Isa 37:4.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Beholdnot hear.
Vers.1, 2. Ver.1 implies a double reproach which Israel lets fall beside that in Isa 52:2-3. In the latter they had reproached Him with injustice. Here they let it be understood that Jehovah either lacks the necessary strength of hand ( comp. on Isa 50:2) or else hearing. The expression does not signify unwillingness to hear, but inability to hear, deafness, as in Gen 48:10 the eyes of Israel were heavy from age signifies the physical weakness of the eyes, wherefore it is added he could not see. The expression used of the ear occurs again only Isa 6:10;and in Zec 7:11 as a quotation from our text (comp. on Isa 58:6 sqq.). In ver.2 is given the real reason for Israels mournful fate. It is their sins that raise a partition-wall between them and their God, and make Him hide His face from them so that He does not hear.
2. For your handsnot know peace.
Vers.38. In this section the Prophet specifies the sins of Israel, showing that it is wholly penetrated by sin, and that the outward manifestation exactly corresponds to the corrupt interior. He first points to the hands spotted with blood. Then he says that guilt, offence clings to their fingers, by which he would only express, that this blood came not on their fingers by accident, but by actual trespass. He distributes the notion blood-guiltiness to the palms and fingers according to the law of parallelism. The lips speak lies loud and audibly, while the tongue devises wickedness, which is set in operation by means of the lies. There prevails here, too, the antithesis between what is outward and what is inward. In ver.4 there underlies the same antithesis. I have no doubt that designates the judicial invocatio (in jus vocare, ); so Coccejus, Gesen., Maurer, Knobel. For first, in this way the two clauses of the half of the verse most beautifully correspond. The first treats of the complainant, and the second of the fate his complaint has with the Judge. Moreover Job 13:22 seems to me to prove that the general sense to call may, according to the context, acquire the meaning of a forensic act, as that of the call proceeding from the complainant to appear at the bar of judgment and to justification. If we take in the sense of , as Delitzsch does (no one gives public testimony with righteousness), it would be giving too much meaning to and to . If one were to take it with Stier in the sense no one calls (appeals) to righteousness, raises his voice for it, i.e., in order to it and for it, that would be to attach too much meaning to the prefix . I translate: there is no one that appeals with righteousness, and there is no one that is judged with faithfulness (impartially). One could, as most do, translate also by who conducts his cause. But the Niph. primarily means to be judged (Psa 9:20; Psa 37:33; Psa 109:7); and this meaning seems to me to suit better here, since (as in Job 13:28) would better answer to in the sense denoted before, and does not mean to defend ones self but to go to law, litigare, and thus includes the complainant. According to our meaning the complainants aim at wrong is judged, but also the judges treat the cause with no fidelity or love of truth. answers here to the idea as, e. g., Psa 96:13; Pro 12:17; 1Sa 26:23 etc. Now where such things come to light, there must be something lacking within. There, instead of the living God, emptiness, vanity, nothingness must be the refuge in which trust is placed; there, too, lies must serve as indispensable aids ( see Isa 58:9). In general the natural law is observed: as the seed, so the fruit. What is conceived within as the germ of the (weary trouble with the secondary notion of what is baneful, a curse, especially in Ecc 1:3; Ecc 2:10 sqq., etc., comp. Job 5:6-7; Psa 7:17) comes to light in an aggravated form as (vanum, malum in the double sense of the word). The notion is stronger than , since it expresses more strongly both the idea of vanity, illusiveness, as well as that of moral wickedness. Moreover both conceptions ( and ) are often conjoined, not only in passages that more or less literally coincide with ours (Job 15:35; Psa 7:15), but elsewhere also (Psa 10:7; Psa 90:10; Psa 55:11).
In vers.5, 6, by a double image, the Prophet expresses the thought that the inward corruption of the people reveals itself outwardly by corresponding works. He compares the Israelites to poisonous serpents that produce poisonous eggs, and to poisonous spiders that draw out of their body a baneful web. In Isa 59:5 a the comparisons stand side by side in their general import. But Isa 59:5 b there is mentioned first a double destructive use of the basilisks egg. Either one eats it, and dies of it; or the broken egg divides itself as an adder, i. e., lets slip out through the crack the poisonous adder, that is dangerous to the foot of him that treads on it (Gen 3:15). Thus the works of the Israelites are on the one hand positively ruinous, on the other hand they appear as useless, unreliable, consequently also as indirectly ruinous. That is, so far as the Israelites are thought of as spiders that produce a web, there their products prove useless for protecting garments. Consequently the conduct of the Israelites is altogether the product of an inward corruption, and in every respect, in part useless and thus indirectly pernicious (), in part directly and positively ruinous ( ).
Isa 59:7-8 continue the effort to hold up to Israel the manifoldness of its sinful ways. It is as if the Prophet, having in Isa 59:6 spoken of the sinful works of the hands, would now describe the participation of the feet in these works. This he does by means of a citation. For the entire first half of Isa 59:7 is taken from Pro 1:16 (as on the other hand Paul in Rom 3:15-17 gives a free citation of our Isa 59:7-8 a). Also the words their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity are the more to be regarded as a reminiscence of Pro 6:18 since the expression occurs only in these two passages, and also the second half of Pro 6:18 is only a variation of the first half of Isa 1:16. In the last number of Isa 59:7 as also in Isa 59:8, the Prophet appears to have intended to show how Israel had by its sins polluted everything even that was called a way. Hence it is said at the close of Isa 59:7 that wasting and destruction (Isa 51:19; Isa 60:18) is in their paths ( the beaten road; notice the antithesis to ); then Isa 59:8 the way and the wagon tracks, orbitae, are described as devoid of peace and judgment, and the the footpaths are made crooked by them (in their interest ). The way of peace is an expression that occurs only here, and as a citation from this text in Luk 1:79 and Rom 3:17. Also in writing these clauses the Prophet had undoubtedly in mind passages in Proverbs like Pro 2:8-9; Pro 2:15. The concluding clause of Isa 59:8 : whosoever goeth therein,etc., corresponds to the beginning of the verse, and is a sort of recapitulation of all that was said concerning the ways of the Israelites. That is, the result is that every one that goes thereon learns not to know peace (viz. practically, Isa 47:8; Jer. 20:20).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa 58:2-3. There are also to-day many men that hold up their good works to God (Luk 18:11 sqq.), and who, out aloud or silently, reproach Him for not adequately rewarding them for them. But one can distinguish here two classes: those that boast of having done works of undoubted moral worth; and such as found their pretensions essentially on works that are morally indifferent, as ceremonies of worship and the like. Of course there is a difference between these, for the former can, under some circumstances, really deserve praise; whereas the latter under all circumstances accomplish something more or less morally worthless, yea, possibly, as miserable hypocrites, directly provoke the wrath of God. But never has the creature the right to accuse God. It may be debated whether such accusation is more folly or wickedness. It is tinder all circumstances a presumptuous judgment. For, as long as we live, results are not assured, and we lack ability to see all. Only the day will make it clear what is the relation between Gods doing and ours, and that He has not let the just recompense be wanting (Isa 1:18; Isa 43:26).
2. On Isa 58:4 sqq. The Prophet finds fault with the fasting of the Jews in two respects. First, because they combined them with works of unrighteousness. Second, because they held the bodily exercise to be the chief thing. Perhaps in the Sermon on the mount our Lord had our text in mind when He said: When ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance. Mat 6:11. He makes prominent one particular that probably hovered before our Prophet also. For it is possible that he saw in the hanging the head an artificial, affected, and so hypocritical expression of a piety that did not exist inwardly; although it is not absolutely necessary that this letting the head hang and making ones bed in sand and ashes took place with hypocritical intent. But our Lord expressly demands that one do not let appear the harassed, sickly look, that was the perhaps quite natural consequence of fasting. He says (Mat 6:17): but thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father, which is in secret. One sees, therefore, that in the Sermon on the mount the Lord by no means rejects corporeal fasting. He only shows abhorrence of mens hypocritically abusing fasting for the gratification of pride. But the Prophet also does not reject fasting. But he would have corporeal fasting be the faithful expression of a simultaneous moral doing of penitent self-denial and compassionating love.
3. On Isa 58:6-9. As the apostle James pressingly urges against dead works, that even Abrahams faith was in itself a grand moral act, so here, too, the Prophet insists on right works as opposed to false works. But neither declares essentially anything concerning the true ground and origin of the works that they mean, because the context of their discourses does not call for it. We are to supply this from passages that professedly speak to this point, which they silently take for granted, according to the measure of intelligence given to them. For even Isaiah knows right well that that which satisfies and strengthens is not to be obtained by ones own labor and effort (55).
4. On Isa 58:7. Flesh denotes here in this context something more still, which J. von Mueller has remarked: The remembrance of universal brotherhood, and how we are all exposed to like thingsas . Verily flesh has need of covering. When therefore thou seest the naked, then see and feel therein the need of thine own flesh, and do not, proudly selfish, conceal or cover only thyself with thy garment that belongs to the other as also being thy flesh. Stier.
5. On Isa 58:7. Concerning the expression see Doctrinal and Ethical on Jer 16:7.
6. [On Isa 58:13-14. From the closing portion of this chapter we may derive the following important inferences respecting the Sabbath. (1) It is to be of perpetual obligation. The whole chapter occurs in the midst of statements that relate to the times of the Messiah. There is no intimation that the Sabbath was to be abolished, but it is fairly implied that its observance was to be attended with most happy results in those future times…. (2) We may see the manner in which the Sabbath is to be observed. In no place in the Bible is there a more full account of the proper mode of keeping that holy day. We are to refrain from ordinary travelling and employments; we are not to engage in doing our own pleasure; we are to regard it with delight, and to esteem it a day worthy to be honored. And we are to show respect to it by not performing our own ordinary works, or pursuing pleasures, or engaging in the common topics of conversation. In this description there occurs nothing of peculiar Jewish ceremony, and nothing which indicates that it is not to be observed in this manner at all times. Under the gospel assuredly, it is as proper to celebrate the Sabbath in this way as it was in the times of Isaiah, and God doubtless intended that it should be perpetually observed in this manner. (3) Important benefits result from the right observance of the Sabbath. In the passage before us these are said to be, that they who thus observed it would find pleasure in Jehovah, and would be signally prospered and be safe. But those benefits are by no means confined to the Jewish people. It is as true now as it was then, and they who observe the Sabbath in a proper manner find happiness in the Lordin His existence, perfections, promises, law, and in communion with Himwhich is to be found no where else… And it is as true that the proper observance of the Sabbath contributes to the prosperity and safety of a nation now as it ever did among the Jewish people. It is not merely from the fact that God promises to bless the people who keep His holy daythough this is of more value to a nation than all its armies and fleets; but it is that there is in the institution itself much that tends to the welfare and prosperity of a country…. Any one may be convinced of this who will be at the pains to compare a neighborhood, a village, or a city where the Sabbath is not observed with one where it is; and the difference will convince him at once that society owes more to the Sabbath than to any single institution beside. Barnes.]
7. On Isa 59:2. Quia quotidie apud nos crescit culpa, cur non et simul crescat poena? Augustine. The public sins are compared to a thick cloud, that sets itself between heaven and earth, and as it were hinders prayers from passing through (Lam 3:44). Starke. There is great power in sin, for it separates God and us from one another. Cramer. There are times when the hand of the Lord lies long and heavy on His children. One feels that God has withdrawn from him and hidden His countenance. But one does not sufficiently investigate the cause. One seeks it in God, and it lies in us, who, by sins unacknowledged and not repented of, make it impossible to God to turn to us in grace. Weber.
8. On Isa 59:3-8. The register of sins that Isaiah here holds up to the Jews is a mirror in which many a Christian, many a nation, many a time may recognize its own image. The Prophet declares here very plainly the poison nature, the serpent origin of sin. Sin is the poison that the old serpent knew how to bring into our nature. He that has stolen a taste of a product of this poison, as Eve did of the tree of knowledge, supposing that he will thereby receive some good, will go to ruin by it. But he that would be no lover of sin, but would stand forth as its opponent, may count upon it that the reptile will press its malignant fang in his heel, as was even held in prospect to the great trampler of the serpents head Himself (Gen 3:15).
9. On Isa 59:9-15 a. Here is for once an honest and thorough confession of sins. Nothing is palliated here, nothing excused. It is freely confessed that Israel is itself to blame for all its wretchedness, and this guilt is acknowledged to be the consequence of the apostacy from Jehovah and of the workings of a depraved heart, whose malignant fruits have become manifest in words and works. Comp. Jer 3:21 sqq.Here therefore is given a model for all who would know wherein true repentance must consist.
10. On Isa 59:15 b sqq. Si tu recordaberis peccatorum tuorum, Dominus non recordabitur. Augustine. God wonders that men let sin become so great and His righteousness so small. Oetinger in Stier.It is a divine privilege to need no helper. With God there is no difference between willing and being able. With Him the being able follows the willing ad nutum. And there is nothing to which God, when He wills, has not also the right. We men, when we have the will and the power, are often without the right, and this takes the foundation from under our feet.
Isa 59:17. This is the original source of the Apostle Pauls extended description of the spiritual armor, Eph 6:14; Eph 6:17. Also in 1Th 5:8 there underlies the same representation of the equipment required by Christians. On the other hand God is conceived of as an equipped warrior, e.g., Psa 7:13-14; Psa 35:2-3. In Exo 15:4 He is directly called a man of war.
11. On Isa 59:18-20. Regarding the time of the fulfilment of this prophecy, the honorable and thorough confession of sin in Isa 59:9-15 a, assumes the conclusion of the judgments against Israel and the conversion of the Gentiles. So Paul understood our passage, who cites it, Rom 11:26, to prove that only then will the Jews partake of the salvation when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in. Therefore the Prophet distinguishes three great periods of time. The first comprehends all the stages of time in which Israel will be impenitent, and hence deprived of its theocratic rights. This period will conclude with a condition wherein Israels scale, as too light, hurries upwards to the highest elevation, while the scale of the Gentiles, by reason of its weight, will sink deep down. Just this situation will bring about the turning of the scale. Israel will repent; but those Gentiles and those Israelites that will not have repented will be overtaken by the judgment (Isa 59:18; Isa 59:20 ). For neither the fulness of the Gentiles, nor all Israel excludes there being still unconverted Gentiles and Jews. The third period is then the period of salvation, when the Goel [Redeemer] will come to Zion and raise up the covenant (Isa 59:21).
12. On Isa 59:21 Does the Spirit of God remain, then does also His word; does the word remain, then preachers also remain; do preachers remain, then also hearers do; do hearers remain, then there remain also believers, and therefore the Christian church remains also, to which ever some still will be gathered out of the Jews (Rom 11:26).Although in general God has promised that His word and Spirit shall not depart from the church of God, still no one must become so secure about that (comp. Jer 18:18) as if it were impossible that this or that particular church (and even the Romish church is nothing more) could err. Cramer.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa 58:1. Penitential Sermon. The text teaches us two things: 1) What one ought to preach on a day of repentance [fast-day]; viz., hold up to the people their sins. 2) How one should preach: a. boldly, b. without sparing, loud as a trumpet.
2. On Isa 58:2-9 This text contains the outlines of a popular theodicy. First we hear, Isa 58:2-3 a, the popular complaint that the divine Providence that guides the affairs of the world is unjust, and that He is not fair to the claims of reward that each individual fancies he has. Then in Isa 58:3 b9, we hear the divine justification. It consists of two parts. In the first part God shows that the claims of men are unfounded in two respects. First for this reason, because they do not do good purely, but along with the good have still room in their hearts for evil, consequently imagine that they can serve two masters (Isa 58:3 a., 4). Second, their claims are unfounded, because founded in the illusion that it is sufficient to fulfil the divine commands in a rude, outward manner. Thus men suppose, e.g., that they can satisfy the divine command to fast by harassing the body by hunger, and lying on sack-cloth and ashes (Isa 58:5). In the second part God shows what must be the nature of the performances that would satisfy the demand of His holiness, and give a claim on His righteousness for reward. That is to say, men must first of all, by practical repentance, make restoration for all injustice done by them, and make manifest by works of mercy their love to God and their neighbor (Isa 58:7). Then divine salvation and divine blessing will be constantly with them, and in every necessity their prayer for help will find certain hearing (Isa 58:8-9 a).
3. [On Isa 58:3. Having gone about to put a cheat on God by their external services, here they go about to pick a quarrel with God for not being pleased with their services, as if He had not done justly or fairly by them. M. Henry.]
4. [On Isa 58:4. Behold, you fast for strife and debate. When they proclaimed a fast to deprecate Gods judgments, they pretended to search for those sins that provoked God to threaten them with His judgments, and under that pretence, perhaps, particular persons were falsely accused, as Naboth in the day of Jezebels fast, 1Ki 21:12. Or the contending parties among them upon those occasions were bitter and severe in their reflections one upon another, one side crying out, It is owing to you, and the other, It is owing to you, that our deliverance is not wrought. Thus, instead of judging themselves, which is the proper work of a fast-day, they condemned one another. M. Henry.]
5. [On Isa 58:5; Isa 58:7. Plain instructions given concerning the true nature of a religious fast. 1. In general a fast is intended: (1) For the honoring and pleasing of God (Isa 58:5, a fast that I have chosen, an acceptable day to the Lord). (2) For the humbling and abasing of ourselves, Lev 16:29. That must be done on a fast-day which is a real affliction to the soul, as far as it is unregenerate and unsanctified, though a real pleasure and advantage to the soul as far as it is itself. II. What will be acceptable to God and afflict our corrupt nature to its mortification. (1) Negatively, what does neither of these, a. To look demure, put on a melancholy aspect and bow the head like a bulrush, Mat 6:16. Though that were well enough so far, Luk 18:13. b. It is not enough to mortify the body a little, while the body of sin is untouched. (2) Positively, a. That we be just to those with whom we have dealt hardly (Isa 58:6). b. That we be charitable to those that stand in need of charity (Isa 58:7). After M. Henry.]
6. On Isa 58:7. The compassionate love of the Samaritan. 1) What does it give? a. food, b. housing, c. clothing. 2) To whom does it give? To its flesh, i. e., to its neighbor in the sense of Luk 10:29 sqq.
7. On Isa 58:9. What if the Lord were to make us priests, and if He were to give us the light and righteousness that Aaron bore on his heart as often as he went in unto the Lord, and by which the Lord gave him answer when He inquired,if He were to give all of us that in our hearts, who are priests of the new covenant? And assuredly I believe that He will also do this. What He has already promised by the Prophets, He will much more fulfil in us: Thou shalt call, and the Lord shall answer thee; when thou shalt cry, He will say: here I am. Tholuck.
8. On Isa 58:7-9. O God, our great, sore, horrible blindness, that we so disregard such a glorious promise! To whom are we harsh, when we do not help poor people? Are they not our flesh and blood? As in heaven and earth there is no creature so nearly related to us, it ought to be our way: what we would that men should do to us in like case, that let us do to others. But there that detestable Satan holds our eyes, so that we withdraw from our own flesh and become tyrants and blood-hounds to our neighbors. But what do we accomplish by that? What do we enjoy? We load ourselves with Gods disfavor, curse and all misfortune, who might otherwise have temporal and eternal blessing. For he that takes on him the distress of his neighbor, his light shall break forth like the morning dawn, i.e., he shall find consolation and help in time of need. His recovery shall progress rapidly, i.e., God will again bless him, and replace what he has given away. His righteousness shall go before him, i.e., he shall not only have a good name with every one, but God will shelter him from evil, and ward off from him temporal misfortune, as one may see that God wonderfully protects His own when common punishments go about. And the glory of the Lord will take him to itself, i. e., God will interest Himself for him, [as follows Isa 58:9]. Lo, of such great mercy as this does greed rob us, when we do not gladly and kindly help the poor! Veit Dietrich.
9. [On Isa 58:12. Thou shalt be called (and it shall be to thy honor) the repairer of the breach, the breach made by the enemy in the wall of a besieged city, which whoso has courage and dexterity to make up, or make good, gains great applause. Happy are those who make up the breach at which virtue is running out, and judgments are breaking in. M. Henry].
10. On Isa 59:1-2. It is often in human life as if heaven were shut up. No prayer seems to penetrate through to it. To all our cries, no answer. Then people murmur (Isa 8:21 sq.; Lam 3:39) and accuse God, as if He were lame or deaf. But they ought rather to seek the blame in themselves. There still exists a wall of partition between them and God, a guilt unatoned for, the sight of which still continuously provokes the anger of God, and hinders the appearance of His mercy (Isa 1:15 sqq.; Isa 64:5 sqq.; Dan 9:5 sqq.: Pro 1:24 sqq.). Hence Christians must be pointed to what they must guard against in seasons of long-continued visitation and what they should strive after at such times before all things. As they would avoid great harm to soul and body, they must beware of laying any blame on God, as if He were wanting in willingness or ability. Rather, by sincere repentance, their endeavor should be that heaven may be pure and clear, that their guilt may be forgiven for Christs sake, and that, as children of God, with the testimony of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:16) in their hearts, they may have free access to the heart of their heavenly Father.
11. On Isa 59:3-8. The description the Prophet gives here of the depraved moral condition of Israel is also a description of human sinfulness generally. And the Apostle Paul has adopted parts of it in the portrait he gives of the condition of the natural man (comp. Isa 59:7 with Rom 3:15). Therefore, where one would draw the picture of the natural man, he may make good use of this text.
12. [On Isa 59:13. Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. They were words of falsehood, and yet they were said to be uttered from the heart, because though they differed from the real sentiments of the heart, and therefore were words of falsehood, yet they agreed with the malice and wickedness of the heart, and were the natural language of that; it was a double heart, Psa 12:2. M. Henry.]
13. On Isa 59:15 b21. One may preach on this text in times of great distress and conflict for the Church. The Lord the protection of His Church. 1) The distress of the Church does not remain concealed from Him, for He sees: a. that the Church encounters injustice (Isa 59:15 b), b. that no one on earth takes its part (Isa 59:16) 2) He stirs Himself (Isa 59:16 b; Isa 59:17 a, Isa 59:19 b): a. to judgment against the enemy (Isa 59:17 b, Isa 59:18), b. to salvation for the Church (Isa 59:17 helmet of salvation): a. with reference to its deliverance from outward distress (Isa 59:20), . with reference to inward preservation and quickening of the Church (Isa 59:20 b, 21), c. to rescue the honor of His own name (Isa 59:19 a), because the Church is even His kingdom, the theatre for the realization of His decrees of salvation. Comp. Homil. Hints on Isa 49:1-6.
14. [On Isa 59:16 sqq. How sin abounded we have read, to our great amazement, in the former part of the chapter; how grace does much more abound we read in these verses. And as sin took occasion from the commandment to become more exceedingly sinful, so grace took occasion from the transgression to appear more exceedingly gracious. M. Henry.]
Footnotes:
[1]too short to save, too dull to hear.
[2]Or, have made him hide.
[3]deviseth wickedness.
[4]appeals with justice, there is no one that would judge impartially.
[5]Or adders
[6]basilisk.
[7]Or, that which is sprinkled is as if there brake out a viper,
[8]Heb. breaking.
[9]Or right.
[10]tracks.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
This Chapter opens with describing the nature and consequence of sin. The gracious interposition of Jesus, as a Surety and Intercessor, then follows. And the Chapter closeth with some sweet and precious promises, in consequence of the rich covenant of God in Christ.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
What a blessed assurance does this Chapter open with; and, as if the Lord would have it particularly taken notice of, it is prefaced with a Behold! Very often, I believe, the people of God have found comfort from this scripture; and as it hath refreshed and sustained souls under sharp exercises; so will it continue to do, in all the remaining ages of the Church. And Reader! do not overlook the gracious revelation as it concerns yourself: If at any time the Lord hides his face, and his glory be for the moment eclipsed to our view, look diligently for the cause, and it will be found to originate in ourselves. It is our iniquities, our shyness to come to the Lord, and our deadness in coming, which makes a veil of separation. See Son 5:2-3 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Sin As Separation From God
Isa 59:2
We cannot fathom the mystery of sin; we may not even ask the questions, How? and Why? But we may contemplate the terrible fact, and remind ourselves of what it is.
All sin, in its degree, separates the soul from God: and whatever separates from God is sin.
I. All sin in its degree separates the soul from God, ‘and sin, when it is perfected, bringeth forth death’. For as the separation of the body from the soul is the death of the body, so the utter separation of the soul from God is the death of the soul. Absolute separation from God must be eternal death. Every hope of restoration, every prayer for pardon, every upward glance to God as the soul’s true good, is based on, and is the proof of, the fact that the soul is not yet altogether separated from God.
II. Sin is the great separation of the sou! from Him Who is our Life. We talk of degrees of sin, of little sins and great ones, of sins mortal and sins venial. And though there is a sense in which all sins are mortal and all sins are venial, yet the distinction is a real one. Some sins tend more directly than others to widen the breach between the soul and God. We call them mortal because they have more power to weaken the will, and to blind the conscience; or because they imply a greater rejection of God’s love, or estrange us more entirely from holy things, or bow us down more closely to the earth. And yet the little sins play a more terrible part than we know in the soul’s tragedy. A great sin often brings its own visible punishment, its own recoil. We see its loathsomeness. But the little sins are so little we hardly notice them. They are like the drizzling rain which wets us through before we think of taking shelter.
III. And as sin is primarily the act by which the soul turns away from God, so the revelation of God’s Love in Christ is primarily a Reconciliation, an Atonement; in the old sense of that word, an At-one-ment. Christ healed us, paid our debt, bought us with a price, satisfied the Law all that He did; but they were all parts of the work of reconciliation. And that reconciliation is always in the Bible, a reconciliation of man to God. In the Incarnation the restoration of human nature is begun. On Calvary the work of Atonement is complete.
God in creation willed that man should serve Him with a willing love, and man refused. God wills that all should be reconciled to Him in Christ, and men reject His love.
IV. Sin is the unutterable mystery of our lives. We cannot solve it; but this we know it is man’s work, not God’s. Not one soul shall be separated from Heaven which has not rejected the appeal of love: ‘Ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life’.
Aubrey L. Moore, Some Aspects of Sin, p. 65.
The Tragic Schism
Isa 59:2
It is said that sometimes the ridge of rock or the sand-bank separating the island from the mainland to which it was once joined may be walked across at low tide, or at least traversed by one who will consent to wade. And so when the floods of passion ebb we may see traces of connecting pathways between ourselves and God and prove that converse with His presence is not a lost possibility of our history.
I. It was thus with Israel in the days of humiliation and reproach. Its people could look back to times of memorable intimacy with the Most High when God seemed to be very near and the prayers of prophets and righteous men possessed an efficacy that had perished from the formal service of recent years. There may possibly be in us and in the communities to which we belong a like experience of decline. Restraints and reservations, which we call the spirit of the age, have wedged themselves in between our souls and God. There was once a union that seemed to be vital, but much has come between us. God’s resources can never verge on exhaustion. It is only a moral impediment of the most portentous character that can keep God and the children of His household apart. Sin is the tragic schism, the great divide, parting off worlds in which God hides His face from those in which He reveals the glory of His loving kindness. And this is the paramount condemnation of sin; it bereaves the human spirit of God its one essential good.
II. The conditions of modern business life are sometimes adduced as an excuse for the waning spirit of prayer and the outfading consciousness of Divine help. God, however, can make Himself known to men under all conditions but those of wilful sin, and if He has fixed your vocation and there is something in it that puts God far from you, that barrier is what you have perversely built up, and not what God has placed there by the determinative act of His Providence.
III. We are sometimes ready to put down this tragic schism to the progress of scientific thought. God is desiccated, systematized into a scheme of mechanics, turned into an ingenious automaton conditioned by His own methods. Perhaps we may one day see that the modern argument against prayer is the cast-off garment of the old theological fatalism, turned and remade with a few scraps of science to trim it into the fashion.
IV. The inscrutable methods of God’s sovereignty are sometimes adduced to explain away this ominous separation referred to by the Prophet. More often than not it is sin which veils God and His goodness from the sad breaking, woebegone heart, and we shall not get out of the gloom by closing our eyes to the explanation and assuming that this terrible silence of the Most High, this apparent indisposition to help at the mere thought of which the heart sickens ana faints, is one of the decrees of His unsearchable sovereignty. This separation is often veiled from us by the illusion of the senses and the pomps of this present evil world. If sin is ignored, unconfessed, unforsaken, if unflattering truths are obstinately disguised, we shall find at last that our capacity for communion with God is lost and our doom is an abyss from which there can be no uplifting.
T. G. Selby, The Unheeded God, p. 24.
Hopeless Weaving
Isa 59:6
The Prophet Isaiah has laid hold on the idea, now a commonplace of our thought, that all character is a web. And from our text we wish to look at one or two methods of character-weaving which are doomed to miserable failure when the web of life is spun.
I. Half-done Duties. To find a man who confesses that he does not do his duty is as rare as to find one who admits he has not got common sense. But experience shows us that multitudes perform their duty in such a way that it is but half-done. In the ordinary routine of life they are always a little late, and consequently have to work with haste a small thing in itself did we not consider that this habit forms itself into a character which is discounted in the eyes of God and man. Or take the higher duty of man to love God and keep His commandments. There are moments of Pisgah vision, but what weary leagues of plain are there unredeemed by any thought of God! This half-done duty is life’s shuttle plied with a palsied hand, and the fabric of character is such as in the end will put the weaver to the blush.
II. Half-conquered Temptations. Many a man is conquered who does not fall. Such grace may be given that a man is able to stand, but if Satan can leave behind one little thought of evil he reckons it as a triumph. Our Saviour was tempted as other men, but when the tempter was gone there was not one spot of evil upon the pure lustre of our Redeemer’s mind.
III. What is the Secret of Duties half-done, of Temptation half-conquered? The secret is half-consecrated lives. If all the provinces of the soul do not obey the Divine mandate, we need not be astonished if rebellion sometimes shows its head. What we want is enthusiastic piety. The enthusiast spares no pains, counts no cost, deems no labour too much. Once let a soul be fired with the love of God, and body, soul, and spirit will be laid on the altar, a living sacrifice.
IV. When we have done our best to weave, we are not to go to heaven in our own garments. Christ has provided raiment for His people, woven on the cross and dyed there in colours more enduring than Tyrian purple. We have to weave as those who have to prove their calling, not win it.
J. Wallace, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. 1899, p. 279.
References. LIX. 6. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah XLIX.-LXVI. p. 174. J. S. Maver, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. 1899, p. 157. H. W. Morrow, ibid. vol. lxx. 1906, p. 381. LIX. 9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv. No. 884. LIX. 16-21. Ibid. vol. xlv. No. 2617. LIX 17. Ibid. vol. xiv. No. 832. LIX. 19. Ibid. vol. xii. No. 718. G. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, p. 71. F. B. Meyer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. 1895, p. 407.
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
XXIV
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 16
Isaiah 58-60
This division (Isaiah 58-66) is eschatological and consists of promises and warnings for the future. The special theme of Isaiah 58-60 is Israel’s sin, Jehovah’s salvation, and Zion’s glory. Israel’s sin, as stated in Isa 58 , was a heartless ritualism.
The prophet’s special commission in Isa 58:1 was to cry aloud, to sound forth like a trumpet against the transgressions and sin of Jacob.
The people complained (Isa 58:2-7 ) that Jehovah had not regarded their religious services; that he had not dealt with them in righteous judgments. To this Jehovah replied that their fasting was nothing more than a form; that while they fasted they, at the same time, did their own pleasure and oppressed all their laborers; that while they fasted they also fought and did not fast so as to be heard when they prayed; that fasting was not merely bowing the head like a bulrush and sitting in sackcloth and ashes; that such fasting was not regarded by Jehovah at all, but rather the fasting that put away wickedness, set the captives free, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and aided their own countrymen generally.
The promises to Jacob in this connection and the conditions upon which they were made are as follows:
1. On the condition that they fast in reality, as Just described, he promised that light should break forth upon them; that they should be healed speedily; that righteousness should be in front of them and the glory of Jehovah should be their reward; and then their cries to Jehovah should be answered by him.
2. On the condition that they take away oppression, scorning, wicked speaking, feed and sympathize with the hungry and afflicted, he promised that their light should become as bright as the noonday; that Jehovah would guide them; that they should be like a watered garden; and that the land should be restored to its former blessings.
3. On the condition that they keep his holy sabbath, doing the Lord’s pleasure therein, he promised that they should have delight in Jehovah and he would exalt them in the high places of the earth and would supply their every need.
This chapter has for its historical background the great atonement day, the only time when Israel was required to fast as herein pictured. The voice of the prophet here corresponds to the trumpet which announced the atonement day. His announcing their transgressions, sins, and iniquities, all of which cluster about this day corresponds to the reminding of their sins on the atonement day, on which also was announced the Jubilee, when there was the breaking of all yokes, and ita provisions for those who had come to be broken down and oppressed. But they had only kept the outward form of this ritual and had not observed it in heart. So the prophet issues a call to repentance, very much like that of John the Baptist before he announced the Lamb of God that took away the sin of the world. The great atonement was just ahead and it was necessary that they be afflicted in their souls on account of their sins.
This thought is carried on in the next chapter (Isa 58:1-8 ). Here the sins are pointed out more particularly. The prophet begins by announcing that the difficulty is not with Jehovah but with the people. Their sins had separated between them and God. The sins here recited cover the whole catalogue. Their hands, their fingers, their lips, their tongues, their feet, and their minds were all involved. Their state was most despicable and called for the severest Judgments. They were all gone out of the way.
There follows (Isa 58:9-14 a) a most wonderful confession of sin. In this confession they state their awful condition and lament their sins and hopelessness. This is very much like the condition of Israel when John the Baptist lifted his voice in the wilderness of Judea at which they repented confessing their sins.
But relief comes in this state of hopelessness and despair. Jehovah intervened in the power of his grace and wrought out their salvation (Isa 59:15-21 ). When Jehovah looked on he saw that there was no justice; that there was not a righteous man; that there was no one, like Moses or Aaron, to intercede. Just such a condition existed when our Lord came. There was none good, no, not one. So he was moved with compassion and stretched forth his arm and brought deliverance to his people.
When he came to contend like a mighty warrior for his people he put on righteousness as a breastplate, salvation for a helmet upon his head, garments of vengeance for clothing, and zeal as a mantle. Thus panoplied he waged a spiritual conflict with his adversaries and he recompensed to his enemies their dues.
The marginal reading of Isa 59:19 is to be preferred for this verse: “So shall they fear the name of Jehovah from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for when the adversary shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of Jehovah will lift up a standard against him.” The first part of this verse teaches us that the true religion will be spread over the whole earth. The latter part seems to have its analogue in the past deliverance of Israel, as in the case with Sennacherib, but it connects directly here with the Messiah who is the standard which Jehovah has set up against the adversary, and for the whole world. He is the ensign for all peoples.
The Redeemer in Isa 59:20-21 is unmistakably the Messiah. This passage is highly messianic and reveals the salvation of Christ. The covenant here is the new covenant, or the covenant of grace, so much amplified in the New Testament. The Spirit here is the Holy Spirit who inspired the prophet and inspired the New Testament writers giving them words that would never depart from the mouths of God’s people. This is a promise of inspiration for all the word of God and that there will always be a seed who will contend for that inspiration. As surely as the church of Jesus Christ, which is the habitat of the ‘Spirit, shall be perpetuated, just that surely there will always be a contention in that church for the word which was inspired by that same Spirit. A good sign of apostasy upon the part of a church is for it to deny the inspiration of the word of God. This is exactly in line with the New Testament teaching on the Holy Spirit. The new covenant herein spoken of involves the giving of God’s Holy Spirit to his people (Joe 2:28 and Act 2 ), and this Spirit was promised by Christ as the Paraclete of the church forever. He shall not depart from God’s people while time endures, and his office work in the hearts of men and women will continue until the Lord, for whom he must bear witness, shall come back to this earth without a sin offering unto salvation.
The theme of Isa 60 is the transcendent glory of Zion and it is in the nature of a song of triumph, a poem which is the counterpart, perhaps, of Isa 47 , describing the fall and ruin of Babylon. The theme of this song appears in verse Isa 60:14 : “The city of Jehovah, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.”
The connection between Isa 60 and Isa 59 is very close. They are closely bound together, the relation between them being, for the most part, that of contrast. There are five of these points of contrast as follows:
1. In Isa 59 the people were waiting in “dark places for the light”; now the “light” has come.
2. In Isa 59 “righteousness and peace” stood at a distance; now they govern the Holy City.
3. In Isa 59 “salvation” was far off; now the walls of the city are called salvation.
4. In Isa 59 reverence for the “name of Jehovah” and “his glory” was promised; now it is realized.
5. In Isaiah 59 a “redeemer” was foreseen; now his work is accomplished.
The imagery of this poem seems to be borrowed from the account of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, found in 1Ki 10:1-10 . This song consists of five stanzas, of nearly equal length, as follows:
1.Isa 60:1-4 , Zion’s light and inhabitants
2.Isa 60:5-9 , Zion’s wealth
3.Isa 60:10-14 , Zion’s reconstruction
4.Isa 60:15-18 , Zion’s prosperity
5.Isa 60:19-22 , Zion’s crowning glories
The light of Zion is the reflected light of the glory of Jehovah, just as the light of the disciples of Jesus was his reflected light. He is the “Sun of Righteousness” and “the Light of the World”; primarily, while his disciples are “suns of righteousness” and “the light of the world,” secondarily. Here Zion is exhorted to arise and shine, just as Christ said to his disciples, “Ye are the light of the world . . . let your light so shine, etc.” The “promise” is that, notwithstanding gross darkness should cover the earth and its peoples, Zion should have the light of Jehovah, and it should be so attractive that the nations of the earth and the kings of the world should come to her brightness.
The inhabitants of Zion shall come from far, i.e., from all parts of the world, as Jesus said, “They shall come from the east, and from the west; from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God.” They shall be Jews and Gentiles, Greek and Roman, Chinese and Japanese, Malayan and Australian, Indian and African, European and American. Yea they shall be Oriental, Occidental, Septentrional, and Austral, but all radiant with one life, one light, and one love.
The very best of everything in the material world is here mentioned as coming to Zion, illustrating both the temporal and spiritual blessings of Zion, the temporal being used to transport Zion’s sons and daughters, i.e., for missionary purposes. This is literally fulfilled in every material thing that is consecrated to the service of the king of this splendid city. The ships, the lower animals) the gold and the silver the best of it all has been made to serve the purposes of Christianity from the time of Paul to the present day.
The reconstructors of this city are here called foreigners which may refer primarily to Cyrus and Artaxerxes Longimanus but the passage has a meaning far beyond the literal one. “Strangers” of all kinds, Greeks, Romans, Africans, Gauls, Spaniards, and others, are building the walls of Zion today. The promises here remind us of those concerning the New Jerusalem of Revelation. The gates are open continually, and kings and conquerors bring their trophies into it. The nation that will not serve this one shall perish. Many of them have come and gone according to this promise. The final and complete victory of this glorious institution over its enemies is one of the most encouraging promises of this passage.
But what of her prosperity? Whereas Zion has been down and trodden under foot, now she stands erect with an eternal excellency, and becomes the joy of many generations. Her nourishment comes through the means of the Gentiles. Righteousness and peace shall be its rulers, and no more violence shall be heard in the land. The entire cessation of war and violence is one of the most characteristic features of the “last times,” when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks. The Prince of Peace shall ultimately establish peace. Many men of earnest religious feeling have thought, at various times, that they saw the actual commencement of the reign of peace upon the earth, so distinctly promised, so earnestly longed for, and so necessary for the happiness of mankind. But a calm dispassionate observer of the twentieth century is shaken from every confidence of its approach when he witnesses such disastrous wars as the recent terrific struggles for the championship of the world. Yet just such conflicts as these must precede the coming in of the reign of peace and who can tell but that these are the last great struggles which shall introduce this blessed reign of the Prince of Peace? (See the author’s discussion of this in his Interpretation of Revelation, pp. 225-267.)
This description (Isa 60:19-22 ) of the crowning glories of this city of Jehovah parallels John’s description of the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. Here the redeemed are basking in a light whose radiance eclipses the light of the sun and moon, which streams down upon them from God the Father of lights in whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. This light shall be everlasting and there shall be no mourning. All her people shall be righteous and the saying shall come to pass that “the meek shall inherit the earth.” The little flock shall become the strong nation, the multitude that no man can number. All this must come in its own time, the time fixed in God’s counsels for the final and glorious triumph of his everlasting kingdom.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the theme of Isaiah 58-66?
2. What is the special theme of Isaiah 58-60?
3. What, in general, was Israel’s sin, as stated in Isa 58 ?
4. What is the prophet’s special commission in Isa 58:1 ?
5. What complaint do the people of Jacob make against Jehovah and what his reply?
6. What are the promises of Jacob in this connection and upon what conditions?
7. What the historical background of this chapter and what time in the history of Israel does it foreshadow?
8. How is this thought carried on in the next chapter?
9. What the effect of this cry of the prophet against their sin?
10. What relief comes in this state of hopelessness and despair?
11. When Jehovah looked on what did he see and how did it affect him?
12. What were his weapons for this mighty conflict?
13. What is the meaning of Isa 59:19 ?
14. Who is the Redeemer, what the covenant and what the mission of the Holy Spirit as set forth in Isa 59:20-21 ?
15. What is the special theme and what the nature of Isa 60 ?
16. Where in this chapter do we find the subject, or theme, of this address?
17. What is the connection between this chapter and the preceding chapter?
18. What is the imagery of this poem and where found?
19. Give an analysis of this song, showing its parts and their several
20. What is the light of Zion and what the promise concerning it (Isa 60:1-22 ?
21. Who are to be the inhabitants of Zion?
22. What shall be the wealth of this glorious city and what use shall be made of it?
23. Who the reconstructors of this city and what the promises connected with the reconstruction?
24. What of her prosperity?
25. Describe the crowning glories of this city of Jehovah, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Isa 59:1 Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
Ver. 1. Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened.] That their fasts were not regarded, their Sabbath keeping rewarded, Isa 58:3 ; Isa 58:14 their prayers answered, Isa 59:1-2 according to expectation, the fault is not at all in God, saith the prophet, as if he were now grown old, impotent, deafish, or bison, as they were apt to conceit it, but merely in themselves, as appeareth by the following catalogue of sins, which he therefore also, in his own and their names, confesseth to God, and assigneth for the cause of their so long lasting calamity.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah Chapter 59
“Behold, Jehovah’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid [his] face from you, that he doth not hear” (vv. 1, 2). And what a picture follows in verses 3-15! “For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips are speaking lies, your tongue muttereth wickedness. None sueth in righteousness, none pleadeth in truthfulness. They trust in vanity, and speak falsehood; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch serpents’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works; their works [are] works of iniquity, and the act of violence [is] in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts [are] thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction [are] in their paths. The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgement in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whosoever goeth therein knoweth not peace. Therefore is judgement far from us, neither doth righteousness overtake us: we look for light, but behold darkness; for brightness, [but] we walk in obscurity. We grope for the wall like the blind, yea, we grope as having no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the twilight; among the flourishing we [are] as dead [men]. We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgement, and there is none; for salvation, [but] it is far off from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions [are] with us, and our iniquities, we know them: in transgressing and lying against Jehovah, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgement is turned away backward, and righteousness standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and uprightness cannot enter. And truth is lacking; and he [that] departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. And Jehovah saw, and it displeased him that there was no judgement.” Hands and fingers, lips and tongues, all polluted and perverse; justice not called for, truth unpleaded; vanities and lies, mischief and iniquities; subtlety of evil and ever-increasing virulence; active but vain corruption and violence. What sanguinary feet! what iniquitous thoughts! What wasting and destruction in the crooked paths where peace is unknown! Hence, without judgement, they walk in darkness, grope like the blind, and are (? in desolate places) as dead men, whether raging as bears or mourning as doves. Salvation is far off, because of multiplied transgressions and departure from God, with truth fallen in the street, and equity unable to enter, and the godly a prey, so that Jehovah held it evil in His sight that there was no judgement. The Spirit guides into confession and hides nothing.
But such utter moral chaos, hopeless for man, was the call for Jehovah’s intervention. “And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; and his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. And he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on garments of vengeance [for] clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. According to deeds, accordingly he will repay: fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompense” (vv. 16-18). It is the picture of the mighty intervention of God for His people in the last days, though not at all resembling what He will do for the heavenly saints. These He will remove from the scene of their pilgrimage to heaven, His earthly people He will deliver from their enemies by judgement in that day. Thereby He will teach the nations wisdom, or at least the beginning of it in His fear. “And they shall fear the name of Jehovah from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the adversary shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of Jehovah shall lift up a standard against him” (v. 19). It is not by the gospel, but by the execution of judgement on the Gentiles. Can any conclusion be plainer? Our translation to heaven is purely of grace.
It is not, on the one hand, a mere outward interference, but the power of the Spirit will accompany it. On the other hand, here is not the action of the Spirit in the absence of the Lord, as now in Christianity. “And the Redeemer will come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith Jehovah” (v. 20). The apostle (Rom 11:26 ) cites it* as His coming out of Zion. Doubtless both are true and each appropriate in its place. The Redeemer must come to that mountain of royalty in the Holy Land in order to come out thence; and He will come to the righteous remnant, the Israel of God, even to such as turn from transgression in Jacob, as He will also turn away ungodliness from Jacob. There will be conversion of heart before Jehovah appears in the extremity of their distress and to the destruction of their foes; but that appearing will deepen all their feelings toward Himself and bring them into peace and blessing fully and for ever. “And as for me, this [is] my covenant with them, saith Jehovah, My spirit that [is] upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith Jehovah, from henceforth and for ever” (v. 21).
*In the LXX it is different again from both the Hebrew and the apostle, and runs thus: And the deliverer will come on account of Zion. This also appears to be correct enough. The Holy Spirit in modifying the words by the apostle, seems to have had in view Psa 14:7 ; Psa 53:6 , so that it is absolutely true. Comp Psa 110:2 .
Now when the same apostle was opening out to the saints in Rome the gospel of God, he cites weighty and withering words from the early verses of our chapter to convict of sin and ruin, and thus to prove the abject need of grace (Rom 3:15-17 , Rom 3:19 , Rom 3:20 ). But this he follows up with God’s justifying freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God set forth as a mercy-seat through faith in His blood. This is truly good news to the sinner, Jew or Gentile. But the prophet follows up his unveiling of the sins of the people with the intervention of Jehovah in garments of vengeance, rendering fury to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies. This is not what He is doing now, nor is it in any way the gospel of grace. It is His coming in the displayed kingdom. Then indeed will the Redeemer come to Zion, as He will identify Himself with His people Israel; and He will come out of Zion, as manifestly espousing their cause, to tread down their foes.
The Epistle to the Galatians gives no countenance to the prevalent error that all believers now, the church, are the Israel of God. The apostle does apply the phrase only to such Jews as now confess Jesus to be the Christ. They and they only are now acknowledged as the Israel of God; but they are distinguished in the same verse from the general mass of the saints, “as many as walk according to this rule” – the rule not of circumcision or of uncircumcision, but of a new creation in Christ Jesus. And the Epistle to the Romans adds, to the full assertion of the gospel and its effects, the distinct intimation that, when the fullness of the nations, now being called out, shall have come in, all Israel shall be saved. The teaching of the apostle is largely lost by those who do not see the present indiscriminate grace shown to the Gentiles as well as Jews, and the future recall of Israel which shall be “life from the dead.”
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Behold. Figure of speech Asterismos.
hand. Figure of speech Anthropopatheia.
not shortened. Reference to Pentateuch (Num 11:23). Compare Isa 50:2. The phrase occurs nowhere else in the O.T.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 59
Now in fifty-nine:
Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear ( Isa 59:1 ):
“Lord, why aren’t You hearing us when we fast? Why aren’t You acknowledging it? Why aren’t You recognizing it?” Now the Lord’s saying, “Hey, look, there’s nothing. I don’t have any hearing problem. The Lord’s hand is not short that He cannot save; neither is His ear heavy that He cannot hear.” If you’re not getting answers to prayer, it isn’t really God’s fault. The fault lies within us. And the Lord declares, “My hand is not short, that I cannot save.”
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear ( Isa 59:2 ).
David said, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me when I pray” ( Psa 66:18 ). God says, “Look, My hand is not short, My ear isn’t heavy that I cannot save, I cannot hear.” But your sins have broken the connection between you and God. Sin can hinder your prayers. For sin breaks your relationship with God. And at that point, prayer is totally meaningless. In fact, it’s perhaps a little worse. Prayer is deceitful, because though you know that you are wrong and you are doing wrong, so many times a person passes it off by saying, “Well, I know that I am not living as I should but I still pray. I know that this is wrong. I know that this is sin and all but I still pray.” But wait a minute. Your prayers are totally meaningless. You’re being deceived by them because God says that He will not hear. Your sin has separated between you and God. So the fact that you still pray is totally meaningless, because you’ve allowed this sin in your life. And thus you are deceived by your prayer life itself thinking, “Well, I’m not too bad, I still pray.”
God declares,
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness ( Isa 59:3 ).
So one of the manners of praying was often to lift up their hands to the Lord. But God says, “You’re lifting up your hands to Me but they’re full of blood, full of iniquity.” In that sense, prayer is an insult to God. If I hold up hands before God that are full of blood, full of iniquity, that’s insulting God. Surely God will not honor nor hear.
Now God said,
None is calling for justice, no one is pleading for truth: they are trusting in vanity, they are speaking lies; they conceive mischief, and they bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and they weave the spider’s web: and he that eats the eggs will die, and those eggs which are crushed will break out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold there is obscurity; we wait for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men. We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them; In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice stands afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departs from evil makes himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment ( Isa 59:4-15 ).
The tragic condition of man and it is expressed, of course, in an extremely poetic way. And this portion of Isaiah is actually Hebrew poetry. And we see the thoughts are expressed in very picturesque ways: crooked paths, groping like a blind man, like a person with no eyes, stumbling at noontime as though it were midnight, desolate as the grave, men who dwell in the grave or in places as dead men. And God looking on the whole thing, seeing the whole perversity of man, seeing the greed of man. Ruling his heart as no one is really seeking to be fair or honest or just. No one calling for justice. Everybody getting by with whatever they can.
And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor ( Isa 59:16 ):
No one to cry out against it. People just allowing it to go on.
therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head ( Isa 59:16-17 );
It reminds you of Ephesians chapter 6 where we are told to put on the whole armor of God, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation.
and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; and to the coasts he will pay to recompense ( Isa 59:17-18 ).
In Hebrews it says that “it is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of a living God” ( Heb 10:31 ). For we know Him who has declared, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” ( Rom 12:19 ). And God here speaks of this day of judgment.
So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood ( Isa 59:19 ),
And He has spoken of that which has taken place here. The enemy is just come in like a flood. There doesn’t seem to be any intercessor, anyone who is really seeking for righteousness, anyone who is really seeking for the right thing. No intercessor, and God wonders at it. And the enemy is just come in like a flood. If a person seeks to live righteous, he is sort of isolated. “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, then the Spirit,” because there is no intercessor, there is no man to do it.
the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him ( Isa 59:19 ).
God intervenes and begins to work.
And the Redeemer [Jesus Christ] shall come to Zion [to Jerusalem], and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever ( Isa 59:20-21 ).
For God in spite of all things is yet going to show forth His mercy and His grace upon these people. Paul the apostle said, “that blindness is happened to Israel in part until the fullness of the Gentiles come in. But then all of Israel shall be saved, as saith the scripture, for the Lord shall come to Zion” ( Rom 11:25-26 ). And so Paul is making a reference really to this particular prophecy of Isaiah of that glorious day when Jesus comes and establishes His kingdom. And from the covenant of God with the people that shall be a perpetual covenant forever. And so the deliverance of Zion, the glorious day of the Lord. Paul said the cutting off brought salvation to the Gentiles. What do you think the grafting of them back in is going to be? If the cutting off of Israel brought such glory to the world, how much more when God restores them and restores His work with these people will the glory of the Lord fill the earth. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Isa 59:1-8
Isa 59:1-8
Kelley stated that this chapter “can be best understood when it is seen in its post-exilic setting!” For once we wholly agree with the critical community that the prophecies of the chapter belong completely to the post-exilic community of the Jewish nation, a long, long time post-exilic, even to the times of the Son of God, the great intercessor mentioned in the closing part of this chapter standing for Jesus Christ our Lord, and impossible of any intelligent identification with anyone else. Of course, only the great eighth century prophet Isaiah was capable of writing such a marvelous description of the times of Jesus.
And it doesn’t make the slightest difference, in one sense, who actually wrote this. Even if the critics could prove some Second Isaiah, or some Fourth Isaiah, wrote it (which of course is an outright impossibility); we are absolutely certain that it was written and published in the LXX, 250 B.C.; and that fact alone makes this chapter predictive prophecy at its best. We believe, of course, that Isaiah wrote it nearly eight hundred years before these conditions described here appeared in their full extent.
Isa 59:1-8 describe the discouragement and dissatisfaction which the Jews of the first century felt because of their economic and political situation. They were slaves of the Romans, not actually, of course, but politically dominated by the powerful Caesars on the Tiber River. They could not even appoint their own High Priest. Powerful units of the Imperial Roman Armies were stationed in Jerusalem itself, Capernaum, Caesarea, and other strategic locations in Palestine. They did not have their own governors, these being appointed from Rome; and the vassal kings who were the titular rulers, such as Herod the Great, all held their offices under the permission of Imperial Rome. The foreign despots who ruled the Jews were often bloody and cruel tyrants; and, as the New Testament mentioned, Pilate put down an uprising in Jerusalem, mingling the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices (Luk 13:1-3).
In that dreadful situation, the Jewish leaders wanted nothing either in heaven or on earth as passionately as they wanted the restoration of that scandalous old Solomonic empire; and they had dreams that when Messiah came he would mount a white horse and chase the Romans out of the country.
If they had had the slightest understanding of Isaiah, they would have known better, of course; but they remained in darkness. When they found that Jesus did not correspond to their idea of a Messiah, they contrived his crucifixion.
Many of the people had lost heart; and, “They had begun to doubt both the goodness and the power of God. They openly complained that God’s hand was shortened, so that he could not save, and that his ear was dull so that it could not hear” (Isa 59:1; Isa 50:2).”
The wretched condition of the hardened Israel had at this point ripened into the total and complete apostasy of the Jewish nation. Paul drew upon the description in these first 8 verses in Rom 3:10-18, describing the universal sinfulness of mankind. The parables of Jesus in some instances stress the gross wickedness of the Jewish nation. The unjust Steward, the unjust Judge, and Wheat and the Tares may be cited as examples.
Isa 59:1-8
Isa 59:1-2 here give the Lord’s answer to the complaining Jews; and the next six verses (Isa 59:3-8) give Jehovah’s indictment of the hardened nation, then nearing the time of their destruction under the judgment of God.
“Behold, Jehovah’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue muttereth wickedness. None sueth in righteousness, and none pleadeth in truth; they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch adders’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth; and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their web shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whosoever goeth therein doth not know peace.”
No better description was ever written of the Jewish leaders in their devices against the Lord Jesus Christ than is this one. First, the Lord gave Israel the reasons why the nation was not being blessed, why they were under the heel of the Romans, and all the rest of it. It was simply the diabolical wickedness of the Jewish nation itself.
But look at the way they treated Jesus: (1) they told many lies against him; (2) they suborned liars to swear against him in his trials; (3) they made haste to shed the innocent blood of Jesus whom their governor declared to be innocent; (4) they wove a web of intrigue to get Jesus murdered clandestinely (Matthew 26); (5) they bribed the soldiers who witnessed Jesus’ resurrection to lie about it; (6) they pressed false charges against him before Pilate; (7) through their friend Herod Agrippa II, they planned the murder of the apostles (Acts 12); (8) their High Priest (of all people) conspired with forty murderers determined to murder Paul, all of the chief priests and elders taking part in it (Act 23:11-15); (9) once, they even attempted to stone Jesus. This paragraph is a perfect picture of that wicked generation.
McGuiggan described the condition of the Jewish nation at the time prophesied here: “They think and act swiftly to do evil. The innocent seem to be their special target. They have crooked minds, practice crooked actions on crooked roads of their own crooked making; and anyone foolish enough to walk with them on that crooked path finds only restlessness and destruction (Isa 59:7-8).” The apostle Paul’s description of the same people at that same period agrees perfectly with this (Rom 2:17-29; Rom 3:1-19), the topic sentence of that entire portion of Romans is the declaration that, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you (the Jews)” (Rom 2:24).
The wickedness of the people of Israel had already been frequently mentioned by Isaiah; but God had commanded Isaiah to use a loud voice like a trumpet to reveal the sins of the house of Jacob; and this outline of their gross wickedness goes beyond other references to it. Here the final climax of the judicial hardening prophesied in Isa 6:6-12 seems to be in focus. As Henderson said. “The awful picture is applicable to that period of history immediately preceding the destruction of the Jewish polity by the Romans.” This is surely true, but the same conditions had prevailed for a half a millennium already when Vespasian and Titus destroyed the Jewish nation in 70 A.D. God indeed waited an additional forty years, thus giving the hardened Israel a chance to repent; but the nation had deserved that destruction for many years already when the blow finally fell.
Back in Isa 53:8, there is the question, “Who can describe his generation?” that is, the generation that crucified the Son of God. Indeed, it was an almost indescribable generation! The total corruption of the people took place; and even the Holy of Holies in the Temple itself was stacked full of dead bodies! Josephus devoted twenty full pages (beginning on p. 744) to a detailed description of the unbelievable wickedness that overwhelmed Judah and Jerusalem prior to the fall of the city to the Romans.
In the next paragraph Isaiah identified himself with the sinful nation and confessed their sinfulness and depravity, thus, in effect, admitting that all of the hardships and disasters that had come upon Israel were fully deserved by them, due to their excessive wickedness.
Isa 59:1-4 BARRICADED: In chapter 58 Jehovah tells the people the virtues which would prepare them to be covenant-keepers and to carry out His messianic plans. But these people are so thoroughly entrenched in sin and rebellion against Gods program of righteousness and holiness they must be repeatedly warned of the wrath that comes to those who despise His covenant. These first verses of chapter 59 are a graphic description of Judahs adamant hostility against Gods way and her passionate wantonness for wickedness. Isaiah is describing here the conditions during the reign of the most wicked king Judah ever had-Manasseh. Manasseh came to the throne in 687 B.C. as a boy of 12 and was seduced by a powerful group of priests, noblemen and false prophets to reintroduce the idolatry of his ancestors (Ahaz, et al). Judahs prophets (Isaiah and Micah) predicted the wrath of Jehovah which had earlier fallen (722 B.C.) upon Israel. Manasseh outstripped all his ancestors in wickedness, (cf. 2Ki 21:1-17; 2Ki 23:11-14; 2Ch 33:1-20). He instituted a reign of terror and persecution against Jehovahs true prophets unequaled in the history of all Israel. Isaiah was probably executed during that persecution.
Judah and Jerusalem had been saved from her enemies when Hezekiah paid heed to Isaiahs message from the Lord (cf. chapters 36-39). But now she has, through the leadership of the vilest king she has ever had, committed herself to a path of rebellion which will lead inexorably to captivity. Undoubtedly, there were plain indications to the nation that it was in danger of foreign invasion and captivity. Manasseh was taken captive and imprisoned by Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, in 673 B.C. It appeared that the whole nation would soon suffer the same fate. Whether the people were asking for Isaiahs advice or not, he was giving it. He states unequivocally that they had barricaded themselves from God and He could not help them. The Lord has the power to save them from their enemies if they will turn to Him and trust Him. But as long as they choose paganism, depend upon themselves and heathen allies, He cannot and will not help them. God made man and gave man the sovereignty of his own will. He gave man the awesome freedom to make his own sovereign choices with the attendant responsibility of the consequences of those choices. When man chooses to rebel against the revealed will of God, man willingly separates himself from Gods redeeming, saving power. Of course, man is never able to separate himself from Gods judgmental power. Men perish because they refuse to love the truth (2Th 2:9-12). Men scoff and follow their own passions because they deliberately ignore Gods truths (cf. 2Pe 3:1-7). Men will not come to the light because they love darkness (Joh 3:19-21). Men do not come to God because they do not want to be shepherded by Him (Joh 10:1-39). Men do not come to God because He tells them the truth and they had rather listen to the devil (Joh 8:39-47). When men build such walls of their own between themselves and God. His only alternative (in the light of mans freedom to exercise his own sovereign will) is to give man up to a base mind and improper conduct (cf. Rom 1:18-32). When God is forced to give rebelling man up, man must save himself and man cannot do that! Man cannot save himself from nature, from death, from men more powerful than he, and last, but most important, man cannot save himself from his own conscience!
The prophets of God (Isaiah and his contemporaries, Amos, Hosea and Micah) have promised a glorious salvation for Gods people and an even more glorious messianic future. Recent circumstances (the wickedness, increased tribute to Assyria, Manassehs capture, etc.) have brought on fear, chaos and bitterness. Judah is complaining with sarcasm that the God of Isaiah is not fulfilling His promise. They are apparently preaching that Jehovah has no power to save them (advocating at the same time that power for rescue will come from their idols and alliances with the heathen). The nation is in a mess. The easiest explanation is to blame God for it (cf. comments Isa 50:1-3).
God is not to blame. Their hands are filled with blood. Their lips have spouted lies. They have destroyed themselves. God has never lied to them. He has never defaulted on one of His promises. He has not cheated them, robbed them, murdered them. He can save them, but not in their condition. Should God save them, allowing them to continue in wickedness, He would be a partner in their wickedness and thus dishonest, unjust, unholy, unrighteous reducing Himself to moral impotency and consigning Himself and these people to an endless hell! God cannot be God and condone a kingdom in rebellion. If He is to rule in perfect righteousness and holiness He must rule a kingdom of citizens who have willingly surrendered to His sovereign will.
Isaiahs description of the depravity of society in Judah is similar to Hoseas description of Israels wicked anarchy in an earlier day (before 722 B.C.) (cf. Hos 4:1 to Hos 5:15). There was no truth, no justice, no goodness in the land. There was murder, lying, slander, robbery, vain revelry and adultery. Manasseh was eventually returned to Judah. His imprisonment in the city of Babylon apparently caused him to repent, and he instituted a religious reform in the land. Gods judgment of Judah was postponed for about a hundred years (until 606-586 B.C.). Manassehs reform was only superficial. Underneath a veneer of orthodoxy was a deep-seated wickedness sown by Manasseh when he was a younger man. Eventually, Judah returned to this wickedness and Gods word says it was because of Manassehs earlier seduction of the nation (cf. 2Ki 24:3; Jer 15:4). The student should read the first 23 chapters of Jeremiahs prophecy as a record of the consequences of Manassehs leading Judah into idolatry and sin.
Isa 59:5-8 BARBAROUS: The adder is tzipheoni in Hebrew and describes the most poisonous of all serpents, or fiery serpent. The Hebrew word for viper is epheeh and is from the root word which means whisperer or hisser. Isaiah is emphasizing to his disciples the lethal danger of flirting with the majority of people in his day. Most men in the prophets generation were like deadly poisonous snakes. He also likened them unto cunning spiders. Poisonous snakes lay eggs which incubate poisonous embryonic snakes. Anyone who eats of the fruit (eggs) of that poisonous society will die of the same poison. Even those who try to crush what that society produces shall be slain by the snake that comes from the egg. Most spiders use their webs as snares and hiding places (cover). This evil generation will be trapped by their own webs and instead of being able to hide in their webs will be exposed by them. The violent consequences of their deeds are plain to everyone. The decadence of that generation is manifested in the fact that no one really cared. It is difficult to believe that people would run with haste to shed innocent blood. But even among Gods people there were syndicates or mobs of organized criminals, incredibly enough, among the priests (cf. Hos 6:9). There is no restraint in the doing of evil. Jeremiah said they trooped to the houses of harlots (Jer 5:7-8); they lurked like trappers lying in wait to ensnare men and women (Jer. 5:25-28). They gave their minds to dreaming, thinking, planning, plotting and preparing for wickedness all day and all night (cf. Hos 7:4-7). They were like the wicked people of Noahs day whose every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually . . . (Gen 6:5).
They did not know the way of peace. The Hebrew word shalom is translated peace but means primarily, soundness, wholeness, well-being, prosperity, health, goodness. In all of the following scriptures the word shalom is in the original text: (Psa 122:7; Psa 35:27; Psa 73:3; Job 9:4; Job 22:21; 1Ki 9:25; Deu 27:6; Jos 8:31; Gen 29:6; Gen 37:14; Gen 43:27; 2Sa 18:28; 2Ki 4:23; 2Ki 4:26; 2Ki 5:21-22; 2Ki 9:11). In 2Sa 11:7, David asked Uriah concerning the shalom of Joab and the shalom of the people and the shalom (peace?) of the war. In each instance here we have a graphic illustration of the usage of the word shalom being primarily, well-being, prosperity, wholeness, integrated-goodness. In Deu 27:6 and Jos 8:31 the word shalom is translated uncut stones. Only whole, sound, perfect (in the sense of uncut) stones were to be used for altars. The people of Isaiahs day did not know the way to soundness, wholeness, prosperity, (shalom). They thought they did! Apparently they believed security, well-being, prosperity would result from copying their pagan neighbors and worshipping in the fertility cults of idolatry. They felt secure in allying themselves politically, militarily and economically with pagan empires. Moral crookedness, social injustice and exploitation, compromise with pagan unbelief always leads to spiritual, moral, physical and social disintegration. Sin fractures; it does not produce wholeness. Man was not made for sin; he was made for righteousness. Falsehood disorients, divides, alienates, deranges; truth solidifies, integrates, consolidates and frees. Faith in God and Christ makes whole (Mat 9:12; Mar 2:17; Luk 5:31; Mar 5:34; Luk 8:48; Luk 17:19; Joh 5:6; Joh 5:14). Peace (shalom) is a prominent feature of the messianic kingdom according to the prophets (cf. Isa 2:4; Isa 9:6; Isa 11:6; Eze 34:25; Mic 4:2-4; Zec 9:10, etc.). Eph 2:11-22 is a vivid illustration that the eirene (peace) of the New Testament church is of the same essence as the shalom of the Old Testament; that is, wholeness, integration, unification, well-being, soundness.
Materialism, sensuality, carnality and idolatry leads to foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness and ruthlessness. It leads to barbarity! (cf. Rom 1:30).
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Continuing, the prophet makes confession of moral failure. This he does first by declaring the reason for national suffering. It is not to be found in Jehovah’s inability, nor in His unwillingness. The iniquities of the people have separated them and their God.
In a terrible passage, the prophet confesses the appalling corruption, and immediately describes the suffering which followed, the groping in the dark, even though it is noonday; the longing for a salvation which does not come, all of which results from the people’s own transgression, as the prophet clearly declares.
Having thus shown that all the suffering of the people resulted from their own sin, and made it evident there must be a return to God if there is to be a return to peace, the prophet now describes how restoration will come. It is to be wholly a victory by Jehovah. It is based on His knowledge of the people’s sin, and on the fact that they are unable to provide an intercessor. It is the result of His own action. His arm brings salvation, and necessarily His first work is judgment. Finally, a “Redeemer shall come to Zion,” and the results shall be the creation of a new spiritual covenant.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Iniquities Separate from God
Isa 59:1-15
Israels sins, Isa 59:1-8. Much of our suffering in life results from our sins, which cut off Gods health and help. Let us not blame Providence, but set ourselves to discover the cause of controversy. When the law courts-the fountains of justice-are demoralized, the community is in a hopeless condition, Isa 59:3-4. Instead of stamping out evil in the egg, the sinful heart hatches it out, and it yields the poison of vipers, Isa 59:5. Ah, the hapless state of the ungodly! Their feet, and their thoughts, and their paths, are fatal to the peace of others and to their own. The way of peace can be entered only at the Cross, and maintained only by constant watchfulness. See Luk 1:79.
Israels confession, Isa 59:9-15. Here the stricken people pour out their complaint before God, confessing, first, the bitterness of their sufferings and then the blackness of their sins. The roar of the hungry bear for food and the doves mourning for her mate, Isa 59:11, are apt descriptions of the complaint of the penitent soul. It is a good sign when a man cannot lift up his eyes to heaven and beats upon his breast, Luk 18:13.
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-NINE
ADDERS’ EGGS AND SPIDERS’ WEBS
HERE we have a very solemn word, GOD calling the people to repentance and then giving wonderful promises of blessings that are to take place under Messiah’s reign. He begins:
“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear-heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness” (verses 1-3).
He goes on to explain why when they sought the Lord, He did not seem to answer or hear, for there was unjudged sin that needed to be dealt with. The Psalmist had written long before, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” They were covering up their sins and hoping to please GOD by observance of outward form and attendance to ritual, but he says of them “They hatch cockatrice’ (or the adder’s) eggs and weave the spider’s web.”
“None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. they hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths” (verses 4-8). This portion is taken up in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: “Their feet are swift to shed blood.”
Here is pictured a people who professedly are the Lord’s. They go on with all the outward forms of religion, attending the service of the temple, offering their sacrifices, fasting before men, hoping thus to provide a righteousness which will be satisfactory to GOD. But He says it is just like hatching out adders’ eggs – the preachings, the teachings were false, they were poisonous.
“He that eateth of their eggs dieth.” When people took up with this false teaching, it brought
eternal ruin to them. “They weave the spider’s web,” but he says, “Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works.”
The spider’s web is just foam, and proceeds from the spider himself. It looks very beautiful. Many preachers like those spiders spin the webs out of themselves, out of their own heads. They do not bring them from the Word of GOD. And people who try to clothe themselves with their own righteousness are like those who might try to make garments out of spiders’ webs. It has been tried, but found impossible. What a contrast there is between a spider’s web and a silk cocoon, though both come out of the creature itself, one from the spider and one from the silkworm. Yet the cocoon furnishes the material that makes the most beautiful and lasting clothing for kings and princes while the other is a bit of foam that soon disappears.
Some years ago there came to Los Angeles, the great metropolis of Southern California, a so-called “human fly.” It was announced that on a given day he would climb up the face of one of the large department store buildings, and long before the appointed time thousands of eager spectators were gathered to see him perform the seemingly impossible feat.
Slowly and carefully he mounted aloft, now clinging to a window ledge, anon to a jutting brick, again to a cornice. Up and up he went, against apparently insurmountable difficulties. At last he was nearing the top. He was seen to feel to right and left and above his head for something firm enough to support his weight, to carry him further. And soon he seemed to spy what looked like a grey bit of stone or discolored brick protruding from the smooth wall. He reached for it, but it was just beyond him. He ventured all on a spring-like movement, grasped the protuberance and, before the horrified eyes of the spectators, fell to the ground and was broken to pieces.
In his dead hand was found a spider’s web!
What he evidently mistook for solid stone or brick turned out to be nothing but dried froth!
Alas, how many are thinking to climb to heaven by effort of their own, only to find at last that they have ventured all on a spider’s web, and so are lost forever.
CHRIST, and CHRIST alone, can save. His Gospel is unfailing and peace-giving. It is no adder’s egg nor spider’s web, but the “power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.”
Here you have the “garment of salvation,” “the best robe,” “the robe of righteousness,” provided by GOD Himself through the death of His Son for all who own their guilt and trust His grace. “He gives the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”
How futile are human efforts to fit the ungodly for the divine Presence. Spiders’ webs will not avail to cover the moral nakedness of Christ-rejecting sinners. “Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works.” Whoever heard of a dress woven from the web of the spider?
But how different is the produce of another tiny creature, the silkworm!
This marvelous little being spins a thread of such strength that it is readily woven into cloth of the utmost beauty and made up into garments of glory. But the silkworm must die that the floss may thus be utilized. Is it too much to say that here we have in nature more than a hint of Him who in the depth of His humiliation could exclaim, “I am a worm and no man,” and who gave His life that we might be clothed in glory?
Then we have the omniscient One giving deliverance.
“And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him . . . And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever” (verses 16, 20, 21).
Yes, “the Redeemer shall come,” for all hope for guilty man, for Israel as well as for the nations, is in the Man at GOD’s right hand.
It is the Lord JESUS CHRIST who speaks here. There was no intercessor, no deliverer, so “His own arm brought salvation.” It is for His coming the people will wait. He came in grace the first time to settle the sin question on the Cross. He is coming again to bring in the glory.
~ end of chapter 59 ~
http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/
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Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Isa 59:1
I. The case of the Jews, to whom these words were first addressed, does not shake our confidence in God’s willingness or power to save. They have been oppressed, persecuted, trodden under foot; and, like the grass which grows thickest when trodden on, they have thriven under oppression-bearing a charmed life-the true sons of their fathers in the land of Egypt; of whom it was said, the more they were afflicted, the more they grew. Living, multiplying, flourishing, amid circumstances that by all the common laws of existence should have been fatal to their existence, they illustrate my text-proving the unchanging and unchangeable power of God as plainly as Daniel safe among hungry lions, or the bush that burned and, burning, was not consumed.
II. Consider the truths expressed in these words. (1) God’s power to save is neither lost nor lessened. (2) The Lord’s power to hear and answer prayer is neither lost nor lessened; His ear is not heavy, that it cannot hear.
III. This truth is full of comfort and encouragement (1) to God’s people; (2) to sinners.
T. Guthrie, Speaking to the Heart, p. 38.
References: Isa 59:1, Isa 59:2.-Bishop Walsham How, Plain Words, 2nd series, p. 57. Isa 59:2.-J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 4th series, p. 6; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 66. Isa 59:5.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 221. Isa 59:9.-Ibid., Sermons, vol. xv., No. 884. Isa 59:15, Isa 59:16.-R. Tuck, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 344. Isa 59:17.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 832. Isa 59:19.-Ibid., vol. xii., No. 718.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 59
Apostasy and Confession, Jehovahs Intervention and the Coming of the Redeemer
1. The deplorable condition of the people (Isa 59:1-8) 2. The confession (Isa 59:9-15) 3. Jehovahs intervention (Isa 59:16-19) 4. The coming of the Redeemer (Isa 59:20-21) The corruption of the people during the end time is first described. But grace is at work and a part of the people confess their sins. They confess that they are in darkness, that they are blind, that they stumble and are like dead men. They confess that salvation is far from them. They confess their lying, their departure from God and their revolt. It is their future repentance. Then Jehovah sees and intervenes. He answers the confession in person. He comes to repay the adversaries. He comes in mighty judgment power. As a result they will fear His name. The Redeemer then comes to Zion and appears for the salvation of them that turn from transgression. Compare this with Rom 11:25-32.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
the Lord’s: Isa 50:2, Gen 18:14, Num 11:23, Jer 32:17
that it cannot save: Isa 63:1, Heb 7:25
his ear: Isa 6:10, Mat 13:15
Reciprocal: Gen 48:10 – dim Num 32:23 – be sure your sin Deu 1:42 – for I am not Jdg 6:13 – why then Jdg 16:20 – the Lord Jdg 20:27 – the ark Ezr 5:12 – But after Ezr 7:6 – according to Psa 18:41 – General Isa 24:5 – because Isa 40:28 – the ends Isa 42:24 – General Isa 50:1 – for your iniquities Jer 7:9 – steal Jer 14:9 – cannot Jer 21:2 – according Jer 29:4 – whom Jer 30:15 – for the Mic 1:5 – the transgression of Jacob Mic 2:7 – is Mic 3:4 – he will even Mar 6:5 – General Act 11:21 – the hand
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
The glorious promises contained in the closing verses of Isa 58:1-14, may have sounded idealistic and visionary even in Isaiah’s day, and more so in our day, when in spite of every effort the problem of Israel and its land seems insoluble. What has delayed, and still delays, the realization of such promises? The opening verses of Isa 59:1-21 give the answer.
Unbelieving men would make Israel’s plight a ground of complaint and reproach against God. Either He was indifferent so that His ear never caught their cries, or He was impotent and unable to deliver them. The true state of the case was that their sins had driven a wedge of separation between them and God. They were utterly alienated from Him.
This is a matter that some of us are inclined to overlook. In considering the havoc sin has wrought we are apt to think mainly of the guilt of our sins and the judgment they will incur; perhaps also thinking of the enslaving power exerted by sin in our lives, while giving but little thought to the way in which it has separated us from God. But none of the effects of sin is more disastrous than this – alienation.
If any desire proof of this, let them read Rom 3:10-12. The whole human race having fallen under the power of sin, there is none righteous; and, worse still, sin has darkened the understanding, so that by nature men do not realize the seriousness of their plight. Worst of all, sin has undermined and alienated their beings so that none seek after God. That being so God must seek after man, if ever he is to be blessed: in other words, God must take the initiative. We fall back therefore upon the sovereignty of God. To the recognition of His sovereignty God was leading the people through Isaiah, as we shall see before we reach the end of this chapter.
But before that is reached Isaiah has to speak to the people again in the plainest and most detailed fashion about their manifold sins. This is ever God’s way. He never glosses over sin, but exposes it before men’s eyes, that they may be brought to repentance. The preacher of the Gospel today had better recognize this fact. The deeper the work of repentance in the soul the more solid the conversion-work that follows.
Verses Isa 59:3-8 give in full and terrible detail the sins that had separated them from their God, and we note that the indictments of verses Isa 59:7-8 are quoted in Rom 3:1-31, in support of the sweeping statements of man’s utter ruin, to which we have already referred. And further, having quoted these verses and others from the Old Testament, the Apostle Paul observes that these things were said, “to them who are under the law,” that is, the denunciations are against not Gentiles but Jews, who were the picked sample of the human race. If true of them, true of all.
If in verses Isa 59:3-8, the prophet speaks on God’s behalf, denouncing the sins of the people, he turns in verses Isa 59:9-15 to make confessions on behalf of the people, such as well might be made by those in their midst who feared God. He owns the miseries that existed on every hand: – no justice, obscurity and darkness just as if they had no eyes, desolation and mourning; every kind of oppression, falsehood and injustice rampant. Anything like truth utterly failing. A darker picture can hardly be imagined.
And one further feature of a very grievous sort was to be seen. There were some, however few they might be who walked in the fear of God and hence departed from all these evils and walked in separation from them. Such came under judgment from the mass who went on with the evils; for, “he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.” It was a very unpopular thing to do, since it cast a discredit and rebuke on the mass who indulged in the sins. The same thing may be seen today, though the injunction to depart is far clearer and more definite: – “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ [or, the Lord] depart from iniquity” (2Ti 2:19). Such departing is no more popular today than it was then, but it is the clear command of the Lord to the saint of today.
Such being the state of things in the Israel of those days, and more or less so ever since those days, what will God do about it? The answer begins in verse Isa 59:16. As we indicated a little earlier, God falls back upon His sovereignty in mercy. He indicates that though there was no hope in man, His mighty “Arm” would act and bring salvation. So here we have prophesied that which the Apostle expounds more fully in the closing verses of Rom 11:1-36. Through the Gospel at the present moment salvation is being brought to Gentiles in the mercy of God, but when “the fulness of the Gentiles be come in,” God will revert to His promises to Israel, and they will be saved; but not as the fruit of law-keeping. It will be altogether as the fruit of His sovereign mercy. The contemplation of this wonderful mercy to Israel, as well as to us, moved the Apostle to the magnificent doxology with which he closed that chapter.
In the closing verses of our chapter the “Arm” of verse Isa 59:16 is to be identified with the “Redeemer” of verse Isa 59:20 and this verse is referred to in Rom 11:26 and the verbal differences we notice between the two passages are instructive. The Redeemer is now referred to as the Deliverer, for the Arm of the Lord will prove to be both. When He came as the humbled Servant of the Lord He accomplished redemption’s mighty work. When He comes to Zion in His glory, He will bring the deliverance, made righteously possible by the redemption.
Then, according to Isaiah, He will come “unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob;” whereas in Romans we read that He ” hall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” This again is what He will do in His delivering might, while Isaiah shows us rather how He will do it. He will come unto the God-fearing in Jacob, when judgment falls upon the evil-doers.
Verses Isa 59:17-18 of our chapter speak of the judgment that must be executed by the Arm of the Lord. There is “no man” who can act and be an intercessor, just as earlier we saw that “none calleth for justice.” No man has any merit, and no man is able to act to put things right. This latter fact we meet with again in very striking form in Rev 5:1-14, where “no man” was found worthy to take the book of judgment and break its seals, save the Lamb that had been slain. What is so plainly shown in the Revelation is indicated in our verses. The Arm of the Lord will be clothed in righteousness and salvation. The salvation will reach His people, but His righteousness will bring fury and recompence to His adversaries, so that from west to east the name of the Lord will be feared and His glory known.
But how does it come to pass, we may ask, that there will be found the God-fearing remnant in Jacob when this tremendous hour is reached?” This is answered for us in verse Isa 59:19. The testimony of Scripture is clear that just before the Redeemer comes to Zion, the enemy will have “come in like a flood.” This will be the case in a double sense. According to Psa 2:1-12, the kings of the earth and the rulers will have set themselves against the Lord and His Anointed, and Jerusalem will be the target for antagonistic nations; but also, Satan having been cast down to earth, as related in Rev 12:1-17, spiritual wickedness will reach its climax. But just then, the enemy coming in like a flood, the Spirit of God will act, to raise up a “standard,” or “banner,” against him.
The meaning of this is clear. Another scripture says, “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth” (Psa 60:4). Just when the enemy’s action reaches flood-tide height, there will be the counter-action of the Spirit of God, and true servants of God will be raised up, men who will “turn from transgression,” and welcome the delivering might of the Arm of the Lord. Then at last the ungodliness of Jacob will be turned away for ever.
The permanence of this delivering work is stated in the last verse of the chapter, in which the Lord addresses the prophet as the representative of the nation. In that day they will possess two things: – “My Spirit ” and “My words.” When the sons of poor, failing Jacob shall be dominated by the Spirit of the Lord, so that they walk in obedience to the words of the Lord, their full blessing will have come.
And the same thing in principle stands true for us today, while we wait for the coming of our Lord. We have the Holy Spirit not only “upon” us but actually indwelling us, and we have not merely certain words put in the prophet’s mouth, but the completed word of the Lord, bringing us the full revelation of His purpose for us and of His mind and will for our earthly pathway. We may note also that through Haggai the prophet, God encouraged the remnant who had returned to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel in a similar way. In Hag 2:5 we have, “the word that I covenanted with you,” and “My Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. “May similar encouragement be ours today. No matter what disastrous things have transpired in the history of Christendom, the Spirit of God and the word of God still remain.
Isa 60:1-22 opens with a note of jubilation and triumph. The Redeemer having come to Zion, according to this prophetic strain, and God’s covenant, connected with His Spirit and His words, being established, what else could we expect? Two things will then mark the people of Israel. They will “arise,” since they have been sleeping in the dust of spiritual death among the nations. Further they will at last, “shine,” as a testimony for God, and their light be seen among the nations. This hitherto has never been the case. And, why not? Because the law of Moses, under which they have always lived, has only proved that they have no light in themselves. They will only shine when the light of God, concentrated as it is in their once-rejected Messiah, shines through them.
At His first advent Jesus came as the dawning of a new day, bringing light to those sitting in darkness, as we see in Luk 1:78, Luk 1:79. But the Jew rejected the light and as far as they were concerned they put it out. Consequently, as we saw in Isa 49:1-26, He was given, for “a light to the Gentiles” to be “My salvation unto the end of the earth.” His second advent will be in “the day of Thy power” when, “Thy people shall be willing,” according to Psa 110:1-7. Then at last they will come into the full blaze of that light and reflect it, as the moon reflects the light of the sun.
This thought, that of reflected light, is clearly in the verses that open Isa 60:1-22. The earth will be filled with darkness of a very gross sort at the time when Christ comes again. This He Himself indicated when He said, “Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” (Luk 18:8). It will be rare and but little in evidence. During His absence there is no light save that connected with faith. When He comes, the glory of the Lord will be manifested, and it will be seen upon Israel, and so reflected on them and in them that the Gentiles shall come to the light that shines through them, and “kings to the brightness of thy rising.”
Again we have to say that in principle this applies to us who are of the church while we wait for Him. To Christians of Jewish extraction it is said that they had been brought out of darkness, “into His marvellous light” (1Pe 2:9); and to those who were brought in from among the Gentiles it was said, “ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord” (Eph 5:8). To them the word was added, “walk as children of light;” that is, their light was to shine out as a testimony to all around. Spiritual light is to shine forth from the saints of today, who form the church, while we wait for the shining forth of the glory in a fashion that all can see.
In an earlier chapter we have read what God’s purpose as to the people of Israel was: “This people have I formed for Myself: they shall show forth My praise (Isa 43:21). They have never yet done so in any proper sense, but in this coming day they will, and therefore they will become a centre of attraction upon earth. First of all the attraction will be felt by those who are truly of the Israel of God. Those who can be called, “thy sons” will come to Zion from afar, and those who are “thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.” This will be a re-gathering of the true Israel in the land of God’s choice that will altogether eclipse the migration of Jews to Palestine that we see still proceeding today. God will be behind the movement and the revelation of His glory in the once-rejected Servant, but now the mighty delivering Arm, will be the attractive force.
The effect of the revelation of the glory upon redeemed Israel is further shown in verse Isa 59:5. True, it will not be essentially a matter of faith as it is with us today, for, says the prophet “then thou shalt see.” The thing will be manifest before every eye, and the result will be threefold. They will “flow together;” so the drift will be in the direction of unity, and the old divisions that have marred the nation will disappear. Then they will fear, and experience how true it is that, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Pro 9:10). As a result of this they will “be enlarged.”
We venture to think that this enlargement will take place not only in material things but also in mind and heart. It will take place in a material way, as the rest of verse Isa 59:5 indicates, but the enlargement is clearly stated to be of the heart. The verse mentions the “abundance of the sea;” and frequently that figure is used to indicate the masses of mankind. The statement does not mean that Israel will be well supplied with fish, but rather that though evil men, far away from God, are like the troubled sea that cannot rest, in the coming age the spared nations will be like a placid sea, yielding its abundant treasures and converting them more especially toward Israel. This is further emphasised by the words that close the verse, which according to the marginal reading would be “the wealth of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.”
And all this blessing, both material and spiritual, will be poured upon Israel when the Arm of the Lord is revealed in power and glory, and those who “turn from transgression in Jacob;” that is, the true Israel, born again and in the presence of their Redeemer, stand in the virtue of His work. That work He wrought when He was despised and rejected of their forefathers and being led as a lamb to the slaughter, He was wounded for their transgressions and bruised for their iniquities.
As Christians we are today blessed with “all spiritual blessings,” and that, “in heavenly places in Christ.” When Israel is blessed in this way on earth, we shall be in the fulness of blessing in heaven.
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
Isa 59:1-2. Behold, the Lords hand is not shortened He is not grown weaker than informer times, but is as omnipotent as ever he was; neither his ear heavy Or dull of hearing: he is not like your idol gods, that have hands and cannot help, and ears and cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated Have been as a thick wall, between you and your God And have set him at a distance from you, Pro 15:29. The reason of the continuance of your calamities is not any want either of power in God to deliver you, or of goodness to hear your prayers: but your own iniquities make him a stranger to you, interrupt the correspondence that used to be between God and his people, and stop the course of his blessings. Lowth.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 59:1. Behold, the Lords hand is not shortened, that it cannot save. The failure of your fast is not with the Lord; he sees, and he can hear. Neither is the fault in the promises announced by his prophets; for you have not obeyed their voice. Your hands are defiled with blood; the nation is loaded with all its sins, and all its unrelenting cruelty to the poor.
Isa 59:3. Your hands are defiled with blood. This expression is of great importance in determining the time of this prophecy. It was delivered unquestionably in the early part of Manassehs reign, when unoffending infants were sacrificed to Tophet and Moloch; and when much innocent blood was shed in Jerusalem by a factious administration of justice. Among the rest, Isaiahs hallowed blood sprinkled the dust of his country.
Isa 59:5. They hatch cockatrice eggs. See Pro 23:32. These eggs and figures designate the fertile wickedness of the human heart, and that all its pleas for vice are futile and weak as the spiders web.
Isa 59:7. They make haste to shed innocent blood, So much blood was shed in the beginning of Manassehs reign, that it cannot be doubted but those dark shades of character refer to that time, when Isaiah must have been more than ninety years of age. See Rom 3:10-18, where a view of those times was in the mind of Paul.
Isa 59:14. Judgment is turned away backward. The cardinal virtues are here personified, but the wicked citizens drove them from the bench. Justice, on seeing this, stood afar off, expecting no better treatment. Truth was trodden down of the populace in the streets, for they covered their crimes with falsehoods. Equity was so appalled at those proceedings that she durst not enter the city. The health of the public body was so far vitiated as to baffle the aids of medicine.
Isa 59:15. He that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. He is discarded from the parties, he loses his caste, and is regarded as a traitor, a deserter from the ranks. Now is the moral test of the state of the heart; whether he will go to hell for the sake of company, or be a decided character for religion; for no man can serve two masters. This crime of ridiculing revelation, and persecuting the saints, fills up the measure of iniquity.
Isa 59:16. The Lord saw that there was no intercessortherefore his arm brought salvation. This prophecy cannot therefore, with truth and justice, be restricted to Isaiahs time; for there were then many intercessors. He himself prophesied in four reigns, and was contemporary with several of the great prophets; yet there was no salvation in his time. Neither can this text be applied to the time when God delivered the Israelites from the Babylonian captivity, for Daniel was then one of the most eminent intercessors, having fasted and prayed for twenty three days; and Cyrus was their great patron. This text must therefore be understood of our redemption by Christ, and of the ultimate deliverance of the church from the antichristian dominion. St. Paul thus applied the twentieth verse: the Redeemer, or deliverer, shall come to Zion. Rom 9:26, Isa 63:1, is understood in the same manner.
Isa 59:19. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. So it has often happened. When a hundred thousand Midianites invaded the land, the Spirit of the Lord moved Gideon to blow with his trumpets. The holy apostles likewise, moved by the divine impetus, resisted the overspreading of idolatry and wickedness. Constantine displayed the banner of the cross, and drove all his enemies before him. In this way the Lord has moved the hearts of good men in every age, to lift up their banners in his name. The humblest christian may therefore do great things in the strength of the Lord; and even the day of small and feeble things shall not be despised.
REFLECTIONS.
This chapter, like the cloud at the Red sea, has a double aspect; a dark side with regard to the Jews, and a bright one with regard to Zion, or the new- testament church, in the glory of the latter day, when the nations from the rising of the sun shall fear the Lord; and when his covenant shall no more depart out of their mouth, nor out of the mouth of their seed. The prophet, in a style of great sublimity and strength, here continues his efforts to save his country from destruction, after having made the most awakening appeals in several of the preseding chapters. His object was glorious, and his zeal and ministry were worthy of the cause. If the people could be brought to genuine repentance, notwithstanding the growing power of Babylon, whose armies were about to take Manasseh as a prisoner, he declares that the Lords arm was not shortened. He could still save as at the Red sea, as at Mizpeh, and as he overthrew the bloody Assyrians. The miseries of the Israelites originated in themselves. Their heart was as the vipers nest, brooding venom and mischief. Their sins and iniquities formed the barrier of separation between them and the salvation which had been promised. The catalogue of their sins is a criminal calendar of the foulest enormities. It exhibits a total loss of morals and religion; public justice was sacrificed to bribery, interest, and faction. It exhibits a portrait of a people totally and religiously profligate, who instead of seeking help in God, were forming plots of wickedness, as the hatching of the vipers eggs.Haste, haste then, ye Babylonians: fly with eagles wings, for the carcase is carrion, and ready to be devoured. In Britain also we have infidels, we have drunkards, and learned seducers; yea, hypocrites in religion, who would soon make our morals like those of the Hebrews in the last stage of corruption. What a mercy that justice is impartially administered in our courts, that benevolence distinguishes our nation, and that there is yet a seed to serve the Lord!
The few in Israel who had light, did most heartily bewail the morals of their country. Judgment, said they, is far from us. We roar like bears, we mourn sore like doves. Here is the true spirit of piety; but alas, the salt was not sufficient to preserve the body from putrefaction. Their prayers however came up into the ears of the Lord, and their faith embraced the promises of personal deliverance, while it imperceptibly launched forth into the redemption of Christ, and into the present and final destruction of the wicked.
The only hope and refuge of the church is to fly into the arms of the Redeemer, who shall come to Zion, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And as there was no man to deliver the oppressed, when they cried out of wrong, so neither was there man or angel to help a fallen world; for no man was found worthy to unloose the seals of Gods counsel, of vengeance and of love. Jesus had indeed three disciples in the garden; but they slept instead of comforting their master. So his own arm brought salvation and glory to his people.
In this great work of vengeance, after the rejection of grace, his righteousness sustained him, for he put it on as a breastplate, pouring fury on his adversaries, and recompense on his enemies. This refers to the destruction of the last enemies of the church, as described in Isa 63:3. Ezekiel 38, 39. Revelation 19. The Redeemer shall ultimately come to Zion, and crown her for ever with the glory of righteousness; a glory which shall never be obscured by any future fall, but remain from father to son, as the prophet next describes.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 59:1-8. Solely the Sins of the People Delay Yahwehs Intervention.
Isa 59:5-8, with their fantastic metaphors and bitter invective, are probably a later addition made in even gloomier times. Note the third person, and the good connexion between Isa 59:4 and Isa 59:9. Not the waning of Yahwehs power, nor His deafness, explains His failure to aid His people. Their sins are like a wall between them and the Divine Presence. In act and word they are cruel and false. In the law-courts false dealing and speaking rule; a just cause counts for less than lying words. (Isa 59:5-8 pictures the schemes of the wicked under two figures. They hatch out poisonous serpents eggs; anyone who eats the eggs dies, and if an egg is broken a young viper is disclosed. They weave spiders webs; but these are useless to cover their iniquity. They haste eagerly to accomplish their wicked purposes. In their pathway they leave ruin. The path of peace they pursue not, and no right-dealing marks their tracks, for they choose crooked ways.)
Isa 59:2. his face: literally, face, probably a proper noun used for the Divine Presence, the Shekinah.
Isa 59:4. pleadeth: in the legal sense.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
What Israel did 59:1-15a
As mentioned above, this second segment of the section dealing with the relationship of righteousness and ritual (chs. 58-59) deals with the inability of God’s redeemed people to produce righteous behavior in their own strength. Chapter 57 dealt with their inability to break with idolatry in their own strength.
"In chapter 57 he [Isaiah] condemned adulterous paganism, in chapter 58 hypocritical fasting, while here it is chiefly injustice that calls forth his condemnation. Each of these chapters speaks about prayer. In chapter 57 it was not answered because it was not addressed to the true God (Isa 57:13); in chapter 58 because the petitioners are hypocrites (Isa 58:4); while here in Isa 59:1-2, it is because of their sins and particularly, as later verses indicate, their injustice." [Note: Grogan, p. 325.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah’s evidence 59:1-8
"This passage describes the appalling moral breakdown of Jewish society-which perfectly accords with what we know of the degeneracy of Manasseh’s reign." [Note: Archer, p. 650.]
The prophet resumed his accusations against God’s people (cf. Isa 58:1-5).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The people were complaining that God was not answering their prayers (cf. Isa 58:1-3). Isaiah assured them that His silence was not due to His inability to help them (a shortened hand) or to His disinterest in them (an insensitive ear).
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.”