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Isaiah Chapter
Twenty-nine
Isaiah 29
Chapter Contents
Judgements on Jerusalem and on its enemies. (1-8) The
senselessness and hypocrisy of the Jews. (9-16) The conversion of the Gentiles,
and future blessings for the Jews. (17-24)
Commentary on Isaiah 29:1-8
(Read Isaiah 29:1-8)
Ariel may signify the altar of burnt-offerings. Let
Jerusalem know that outward religious services will not make men free from
judgements. Hypocrites never can please God, nor make their peace with him. God
had often and long, by a host of angels, encamped round about Jerusalem for
protection and deliverance; but now he fought against it. Proud looks and proud
language shall be brought down by humbling providences. The destruction of
Jerusalem's enemies is foretold. The army of Sennacherib went as a dream; and
thus the multitudes, that through successive ages fight against God's altar and
worship, shall fall. Speedily will sinners awake from their soothing dreams in
the pains of hell.
Commentary on Isaiah 29:9-16
(Read Isaiah 29:9-16)
The security of sinners in sinful ways, is cause for
lamentation and wonder. The learned men, through prejudice, said that the
Divine prophecies were obscure; and the poor urged their want of learning. The
Bible is a sealed book to every man, learned or unlearned, till he begins to
study it with a simple heart and a teachable spirit, that he may thence learn
the truth and the will of God. To worship God, is to approach him. And if the
heart be full of his love and fear, out of the abundance of it the mouth will
speak; but there are many whose religion is lip-labour only. When they pretend
to be speaking to God, they are thinking of a thousand foolish things. They
worship the God of Israel according to their own devices. Numbers are only
formal in worship. And their religion is only to comply with custom, and to
serve their own interest. But the wanderings of mind, and defects in devotion,
which are the believer's burden, are very different from the withdrawing of the
heart from God, so severely blamed. And those who make religion no more than a
pretence, to serve a turn, deceive themselves. And as those that quarrel with
God, so those that think to conceal themselves from him, in effect charge him
with folly. But all their perverse conduct shall be entirely done away.
Commentary on Isaiah 29:17-24
(Read Isaiah 29:17-24)
The wonderful change here foretold, may refer to the
affairs of Judah, though it looks further. When a great harvest of souls was
gathered to Christ from among the Gentiles, then the wilderness was turned into
a fruitful field; and the Jewish church, that had long been a fruitful field,
became as a deserted forest. Those who, when in trouble, can truly rejoice in
God, shall soon have cause greatly to rejoice in him. The grace of meekness
contributes to the increase of our holy joy. The enemies who were powerful
shall become mean and weak. To complete the repose of God's people, the
scorners at home shall be cut off by judgements. All are apt to speak
unadvisedly, and to mistake what they hear, but it is very unfair to make a man
an offender for a word. They did all they could to bring those into trouble who
told them of their faults. But He that redeemed Abraham out of his snares and
troubles, will redeem those who are, by faith, his true seed, out of theirs. It
will be the greatest comfort to godly parents to see their children renewed
creatures, the work of God's grace. May those who now err in spirit, and murmur
against the truth, come to understanding, and learn true doctrine. The Spirit
of truth shall set right their mistakes, and lead them into all truth. This
should encourage us to pray for those that have erred, and are deceived. All who
murmured at the truths of God, as hard sayings, shall learn and be aware what
God designed in all. See the change religion produces in the hearts of men, and
the peace and pleasure of a humble and devout spirit.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 29
Verse 1
[1] Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add
ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.
The city — The royal city, and seat of David and his posterity.
Set them — Go on in killing sacrifices from time to time, one
year after another, whereby you think to appease me, but all shall be in vain.
Verse 4
[4] And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of
the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall
be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech
shall whisper out of the dust.
And thou — Thou who now speakest so loftily, shall be humbled,
and with a low voice, beg the favour of thine enemies.
As one — Who, that they might possess the people with a kind of
reverence and horror, used to deliver their answers with a low voice, from some
cave under the ground.
Verse 5
[5] Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like
small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that
passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.
Strangers — Whom thou hast hired to assist
thee, as indeed they did, when the Chaldeans came against them.
Terrible ones — Thy great commanders, and stout
soldiers.
It — This destruction of thy strangers, and terrible ones
shall come to pass.
Verse 6
[6] Thou shalt be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder,
and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of
devouring fire.
Thou — Thou, O Jerusalem.
Fire — With dreadful judgments, which are frequently
expressed by these metaphors.
Verse 8
[8] It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and,
behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty
man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is
faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations
be, that fight against mount Zion.
His soul — His appetite or desire is unsatisfied.
So — No less unsatisfied and insatiable; they shall be
always thirsting after more of your blood.
Verse 9
[9] Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they
are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
Wonder — At the stupidity of this people.
Cry — Cry out again and again through astonishment.
They stagger — With giddiness or stupidity,
which makes them like drunken men, insensible of their danger.
Verse 10
[10] For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep
sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath
he covered.
Dead sleep — Hardness of heart, and
insensibleness of your danger.
Seers — Your magistrates and ministers.
Covered — With the veil of ignorance and stupidity.
Verse 12
[12] And the book is delivered to him that is not learned,
saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.
Of all — Of all, your prophets.
As a book — In which no man can read, while
it is sealed up, as books then sometimes were, being made in the form of rolls.
Delivered — Unsealed and opened.
Verse 13
[13] Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw
near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed
their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of
men:
Draw near — Namely, in acts of worship.
With lips — With outward devotions.
But — They do not pay me that love, and fear, and obedience,
which I require.
And — They worship me not in such a manner, as I have
prescribed, but according to mens inventions, preferring the devices and
traditions of their false prophets, before my institutions.
Verse 14
[14] Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous
work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of
their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be
hid.
Hid — Shall disappear and vanish.
Verse 15
[15] Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from
the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who
knoweth us?
Seek deep — A metaphor from men, who use to
dig deep into the earth, that they may hide any thing there.
To hide — Vainly imagining, that they can deceive, not only men,
but God, by their external professions.
Who — Neither God nor man can discover us.
Verse 16
[16] Surely your turning of things upside down shall be
esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He
made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no
understanding?
Surely — All your subtle devices, by which you turn yourselves
into all shapes.
As clay — It is no more to me, than the clay is to the potter,
who can alter and dispose it as he sees fit.
Verse 17
[17] Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be
turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest?
As a forest — The forest of Lebanon, which was
a barren mountain, shall by God's providence, become a fruitful and populous
place; and these places which are now fruitful and populous, shall then become
as barren and desolate, as that forest. This is a prophecy of the rejection of
the Jews, and of the calling of the Gentiles.
Verse 18
[18] And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the
book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of
darkness.
Shall see — Being, by God's grace, brought
out of gross, ignorance and wickedness, unto a clear and saving knowledge of
the truth.
Verse 19
[19] The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD, and
the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
Meek — The humble and meek believers.
Poor — Mean and despicable people, such as the Gentiles were
in the opinion of the Jews, and such as the greatest part of the first
Christians were.
Verse 20
[20] For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the
scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off:
That watch — That early and diligently apply
themselves to the practice of wickedness.
Verse 21
[21] That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare
for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of
nought.
That make a man — That condemn a man, as if he was
a great criminal.
For him — For God's faithful prophets and ministers.
The gate — There the people used to assemble, both upon civil and
sacred accounts, and there prophets used to deliver their prophecies.
Turn — From his right.
The just — The faithful ministers of God.
Nought — Not for any great advantage, but for a trifle.
Verse 22
[22] Therefore thus saith the LORD, who redeemed Abraham,
concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall
his face now wax pale.
Redeemed — From manifold dangers, and especially from idolatry.
Jacob — The Israelites or posterity of Jacob, who had great
cause to be ashamed, for their continued infidelity, shall at last be brought
back to the God of their fathers, and to their Messiah.
Pale — Through fear of their enemies.
Verse 23
[23] But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands,
in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of
Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.
He seeth — When the believing seed of Jacob shall see those
children, whom they have begotten to God, by the gospel, even the Gentiles.
The work — The children, not of the flesh, but of the promise,
whom I, by my almighty grace, have regenerated.
In the midst — Incorporated with the Jews, into
one and the same body.
Shall sanctify — They shall glorify God, with them
and for them.
Verse 24
[24] They also that erred in spirit shall come to
understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.
That erred — Those Gentiles who erred from
God's truth.
Murmured — They that murmured at God's faithful teachers, shall
now receive God's truth in the love of it.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
29 Chapter 29
Verses 1-24
Verse 1
Woe to Ariel
Ariel
The simplest meaning of “Ariel” is “lion of God”; but it also
signifies “hearth of God” when derived from another root.
In the former sense it comes to mean “a hero,” as in 2 Samuel 23:20; Isaiah 33:7;and in the latter it occurs
in Ezekiel 43:15-16 for the brazen hearth of
the great altar of burnt offerings, thence commonly called “the brazen,” though
the rest of it was of stone. There is no doubt that Jerusalem is pointed out by
this enigmatical name; and the immediate context, as well as the expression in Isaiah 31:9 --“Jehovah, whose fire is in
Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem”--makes it probable that Isaiah intended to
involve both meanings in the word, as though he had said, “Woe to the city of
heroes, woe to the city of sacrifices: it shall now be put to the test what God
and what man think as to both.” (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
Jerusalem, “the lion of God”
David, that lion of God, had first encamped against Jerusalem, and
then made it the abode of his royal house, and the capital of his kingdom; so
that it became itself an Ariel, the lion of God, in the land (Genesis 49:9-10). (Sir E. Strachey,
Bart.)
Jerusalem, “the hearth of God”
By David’s pitching his camp and then bringing the sacred ark
there, Jerusalem became God’s hearth. (F. Delitzsch.)
Ariel
The Rabbins combine the two explanations of the Hebrew word by
supposing that the altar was itself called the lion of God, because it devoured
the victims like a lion, or because the fire on it had the appearance of a
lion, or because the altar (or the temple) was in shape like a lion, that is,
narrow behind and broad in front. (J. A. Alexander.)
Ariel
In either case applied as a symbol of hope. “But she shall be unto
Me as an Ariel,” i.e., in the extremity of her need I will enable her to
verify her name (Cheyne). (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
Woe to Ariel
After the vicissitudes of 300 years, and in the midst of present
dangers, the people of Jerusalem were still confident in the strength of their
“lion of God,” and year by year came up to the public festivals to lay their
accustomed offerings on the “altar of God”; though with little remembrance that
it was not in the altar and the city, but in Jehovah Himself, that David put
trust, and found his strength. Therefore Jehovah will bring Ariel low; the
proud roar of the lion shall be changed for the weak, stridulous voice, which
the art of the ventriloquising necromancer brings out of the ground; and the
enemies of Jehovah shall be sacrificed and consumed on the hearth of this
altar. First, His spiritual enemies among the Jews themselves, but afterwards
the heathen oppressors of His people; and the lion shall recover his
God-derived strength; and thus, both in adversity and in success, “it shall be
unto Me as Ariel.” (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
Woe to Ariel
The prophet has a very startling message to deliver: that God will
besiege His own city, the city of David! Before God can make her in truth His
own, make her verify her name, He will have to beleaguer and reduce her. For so
novel and startling an intimation the prophet pleads a precedent: “City which
David” himself “beleaguered.” Once before in thy history, ere the first time
thou wast made God’s own hearth, thou hadst to be besieged. As then, so now.
Before thou canst again be a true Ari-El I must “beleaguer thee like David.”
This reading and interpretation gives to the enigma a reason and a force which
it does not otherwise possess. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
“The city where David dwelt”
We consider it every way remarkable that David should be mentioned
in connection with the woe about to be uttered. If it had been, “Woe unto
Ariel, the city where flagrant sins are committed, the city which is overrun
with idols, and filled with all kinds of abomination,” we should have seen at
once the force of the sentence, and must have felt the wrath warranted by the
alleged crimes. But why bring it as a chief accusation against
Jerusalem--indeed, as the only charge that was to justify God in pouring out
His vengeance--that it was the city where David had dwelt? We can hardly think
that the definition is meant as nothing more than a statement of fact. David
had long been dead; strange changes had occurred, and it would be making the
essential term too insignificant to suppose it to contain only a historical
reference to an assertion that no one doubted, but which is quite unconnected
with the present message from God. We must rather believe that the city is
characterised, “where David dwelt,” in order to show that it deserved the woe about
to be denounced. This is evidently mentioned as aggravating the guiltiness of
the city. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Good men increase the responsibility of a community
We seem warranted in concluding that, its having been made eminent
by the piety of the servants of God, by their zeal for God, and by their
earnestness in preserving the purity of their worship, entails a weighty
responsibility on a city or country; so that if, in any after time, that city
or country degenerate in godliness, and become, by its sins, obnoxious to
vengeance, it will be one of the heaviest items in the charge brought against
it, that it was dwelt in by saints so distinguished. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
National mercies
I. THE CONNECTION
BETWEEN THE WOE OF JERUSALEM AND JERUSALEM BEING THE CITY WHERE DAVID DWELT.
There are other considerations, over and above the general one of the
responsibility fastened on a people by the having had a king of extraordinary
piety, which go to the explaining why the woe upon Jerusalem should be followed
by a reference to David. David was eminent as a prophet of the Lord; he had
been commissioned to announce, in sundry most remarkable predictions, the
Messiah, of whom, in many respects, he was, moreover, an illustrious type. It
was true, there had been others of whom the prophet might think. There is a
peculiar appositeness in the reference to David, because his writings were the
very best adapted to the fixing themselves on the popular mind. These writings
were the national anthems; they were the songs to be chanted in those daily and
annual solemnities which belonged to the Jews in their political as much as in
their religious capacity, in which the princes were associated with the
priests, so that the civil was hardly to be distinguished from the ecclesiastic.
So beloved as David was of God, he must have bequeathed a blessing to the
nation: for righteous kings, like righteous fathers, entail good on a nation.
Indeed, it is evident, from other parts of Isaiah, that the memory of David was
still a tower of strength at Jerusalem, so that, for his sake, was evil averted
from the city. When Sennacherib and his hosts encamped against the city, and
the heart of Hezekiah was dismayed, it was in terms such as these that God
addressed Israel, “I will defend this city, to save it for Mine own sake, and
for My servant David’s sake.” Was it not like telling the Jews that they were
no longer to be borne with for the sake of David, to pronounce, “Woe to Ariel,
to Ariel, the city where David dwelt”? Was it not declaring, that the period
was drawing to a close, during which the conservatism of the monarch’s piety
could be felt? The prophet might be considered as showing both how just and how
terrible those judgments would be. He showed their justice, because the having
had amongst them such a king and prophet as David, made the Jews inexcusable in
their wickedness: he showed their severity, because it was the city of David
which God was about to punish.
II. MAKE AN
APPLICATION OF THE SUBJECT. We pass at once to the Reformation, and substitute
the reformers for David, and England for Ariel. We must consider what it was
that the reformers did for us; from what they delivered us; and in what they
instructed us. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Ariel
“It will be to Me as an Ariel” (Isaiah 29:2), i.e., through My
help it will prove itself a hearth of God, consuming its enemies like a fiery
furnace, or these enemies finding destruction in Jerusalem, like wood heaped on
an altar and set ablaze. (F. Delitzsch.)
Love and chastisement
The Lord has never spared the elect. Election gives Him rights of
discipline. We may inflict punishment upon those who are ours, when we may not
lay the hand of chastisement upon those who do not belong to us. Love has its
own law court. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Add ye year to year; let
the feasts come round (R.V.)
Links in a golden chain (from R.V.)
Speaking of the gay temper of the Greeks, Quinet describes them as
“a people who count their years by their games.” In a more serious spirit the
Jews counted their years by their religious festivals, We have a Christian year
whose festivals celebrate the great events in the life of our Lord. We are
adding year to year, the feasts come and go, and it behoves us to inquire what
we are doing with them, what they are doing for us.
I. THERE IS AN
UNSATISFACTORY WAY OF SPENDING THE YEARS. The implied complaint of the text is
that the inhabitants of Jerusalem failed to benefit by their recurring
privileges, and that the lapse of time brought them nearer to destruction. The
trumpet of the new year in vain called them to a new life; the day of atonement
passed leaving them with uncancelled sin; the Feast of Tabernacles and that of
Pentecost awoke in them no love, constrained them to no obedience to the Giver
of the harvest. Is this not true of thousands of those over whom pass the
festivals of the Christian year? They are, indeed, all the worse for the
lengthening days and multiplying Opportunities.
II. THERE IS A TRUE
WAY OF SPENDING THE YEARS, and that is in enjoying and improving this life in
the fear of God and in the light of eternity. Victor Hugo speaks of an old man
as “a thinking ruin.” Paul the aged was such a “ruin,” and he had something
grand to think about. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Verse 7-8
As a dream of a night vision
The visions of sin
There are two grand truths of a most stirring import unfolded in
the text.
1. That wicked men are frequently employed to execute the Divine
purpose. The Almighty determined to humble Jerusalem, and He employed
Sennacherib as the engine of His justice. “He makes” the wrath of man to praise
Him. What a revelation is this of His absolute command over the fiercest and
freest workings of the most depraved and rebellious subjects!
2. That whilst wicked men execute the Divine purpose, they frustrate
their own. Sennacherib worked out the Divine result, but all his own plans and
wishes were like the visions of the famished traveller on the Oriental desert,
who, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, lies down and dreams, under the rays of a
tropical sun, that he is eating and drinking, but awakes and discovers, to his
inexpressible distress, that both his hunger and thirst are but increased. Hell
works out God’s plans and frustrates its own; Heaven works out God’s plans, and
fulfils its own. Let us look at the vision before us as illustrating the
visions of sin.
I. IT IS A DREAMY
VISION. It is “as a dream of a night vision.” There are waking visions. The
orient creations of poetry, the bright prospects of hope, the appalling
apprehensions of fear--these are visions occurring when the reflective powers
of the soul are more or less active, and are, therefore, not entirely
unsubstantial and vain. But the visions which occur in sleep, when the senses
are closed, and the consciousness is torpid, and the reason has resigned her
sway to the hands of a lawless imagination, are generally without reality. Now,
the Scriptures represent the sinner as asleep. But where is the analogy between
the natural sleep of the body and the moral sleep of sin?
1. Natural sleep is the ordination of God, but moral is not.
2. Natural sleep is restorative, but moral is destructive.
3. In both there is the want of activity. The inactivity of the moral
sleep of the sinner is the inactivity of the moral faculty--the conscience.
4. In both there is the want of consciousness. With the sinner in his
moral slumbers--God, Christ, the soul, heaven, hell, are nothing to him.
II. IT IS AN
APPETITIVE VISION. What is the dream of the man whom the Almighty brings under
our notice in the text, who lies down to sleep under the raging desire for food
and water? It is that he was eating and drinking. His imagination creates the
very things for which his appetite was craving. His imagination was the servant
of his strongest appetites. So it is ever with the sinner: the appetite for
animal gratifications will create its visions of sensual pleasure: the appetite
for worldly wealth will create its visions of fortune; the appetite for power
will create its visions of social influence and applause. The sinner’s
imagination is ever the servant of his strongest appetites, and ever pictures
to him in airy but attractive forms the objects he most strongly desires.
III. IT IS AN
ILLUSORY VISION. The food and water were a mirage in the visionary desert,
dissipated into air as his eye opened. All the ideas of happiness entertained
by the sinner are mental illusions. There are many theories of happiness
practically entertained by men that are as manifestly illusive as the wildest
dream.
1. Every notion of happiness is delusive that has not to do more with
the soul than the senses.
2. Every notion of happiness is delusive that has not more to do with
the character than the circumstances.
3. Every notion is delusive that has not more to do with the present
than with the future. He that is preparing intentionally for happiness is not
happy, nor can he be: the selfish motive renders it impossible. “He that
seeketh his life shall lose it.” Heaven is for the man that is now blessed in
his deeds, and for him only. The present is everything to us, because God is in
it, and out of it starts the future
4. Every notion is delusive that has not more to do with the absolute
than the contingent.
IV. IT IS A
TRANSITORY VISION. In the text, the supposed dreamer was led to feel the
illusion which his wayward imagination had practised upon him. “He awaketh, and
his soul is empty.” Every moral sleeper must awake either here or hereafter;
here by disciplinary voices, or hereafter by retributive thunders. (Homilist.)
Dreaming
As the army of Sennacherib were dreaming, literally or
figuratively, of a conquest which had no real existence, so are there
multitudes of persons now dreaming that they are accomplishing the great object
of their existence who are no more doing so than if they lay wrapped in the
slumbers of the night. I propose to speak of them under three heads.
All three are capable of being substituted, and often are
substituted, for the real and proper business of life.
I. PLEASURE.
1. How comes it to pass that people can live such lives, dreaming all
the while that they are fulfilling the true purpose of their existence, or, at
least, without any uneasy sense that they are criminally failing to do so?
2. But it may be said, What is there to show that such a life is only
a dream-like substitute for our real life?
II. WORK. By “work”
is meant some secular occupation by which money, or its equivalent, is gained.
The Bible praises work. Work keeps us from being dependent on others. It tends
to the benefit of those dependent on us.
And work is good as furnishing a man with the means of helping his
neighbours, and of contributing to the support of the great movements in
operation for lessening the suffering and the sin of the world. And work is
good, as giving a man influence by means of the wealth it produces. It is also
in favour of a life of diligent employment, that it keeps from much evil. And
yet neither is work, any more than pleasure, the great end of man; and those
who deem it so are indulging in a baseless dream. The moral value of work is to
be measured by its motive and its influence. A life of excessive devotion to
work is hostile to the higher life of a man. It leaves but little time for
those exercises which are found so essential to a life of godliness. It
indisposes for such employments. It shuts out the other world by the undue
prominence it gives to this. It banishes God from the thoughts. It is a
practical neglect of the soul. Others suffer also. Such a life makes us
indifferent to the interests of others.
III. RELIGION. And
this time, you will perhaps say, they are likely to be right. On the contrary,
there is more danger of their going wrong here than in either of the previous
cases. And for this reason--that the sacred name of religion disposes men to
think all is as it should be if they can persuade themselves that they are
religious. Religion assumes a great variety of forms, and some of them not only
worthless, but pernicious.
1. Can it be questioned that a great deal of the religion of England
now is nothing more than amusement, and often amusement of the most childish
nature?
2. If religion in other cases seems to go deeper, it is too often
only another name for superstition, where chief importance is attached to the
conventional sanctity of the persons who officiate, the garments they wear, the
sacraments they administer, the postures they adopt, the seasons they observe.
3. Then there is the religion of sentiment, of which the chief object
is to awaken certain emotions.
4. There is also a religion in which the intellect performs the
principal function.
5. We might speak of that religion which is hereditary, where a man
adopts a particular faith or worship because his ancestors did so before him.
6. We might speak of the religion of fashion, where the fashionable
gathering forms the great attraction.
7. We might speak of the religious observances in which men engage to
fill up time which they are forbidden by custom to employ in secular pursuits;
or of the religion which is only occasional and spasmodic; or of that which
consists in bustle and superficial activity. These religions all agree in being
good for nothing. Some of them do harm. Religion is a life. Religion has two
sides. On the one it turns toward God, on the other toward man. But all dreams
must come to an end. There is a dread awaking in prospect. Think of the
disappointment that will attend the awaking! Let us not be deceived by the
apparent reality of the life we are leading. What can seem more real than a
dream? yet what more unsubstantial? With the feeling of disappointment will be
mingled one of contempt. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when Thou
awakest, Thou shalt despise their image.” We experience a sort of resentment on
finding that we have been so deceived by that which had no reality. Will there
be nothing like this on awaking from a life wasted in trifling? (D. P.
Pratten, B. A.)
The disappointments of sin
The general truth taught by these words is this: wrong-doing
promises much, but it certainly ends in bitter disappointment. The good to be
gained by sin is seen and tasted and handled only in dream. It is never
actually possessed, and visible disappointment is the bitter fruit of
transgression.
I. THE VERY NATURE
OF SIN SUGGESTS THIS FACT.
1. Sin is a wandering from the way which God has appointed for
us--the way which was in His mind when He made man--the only way which has ever
been in His mind as the right way. There is no adaptation in man’s real nature
to any way but one, and that is obedience to a Father in Heaven, the result and
fruit of true love for that Father.
2. Sin is a practical withdrawing from the protection of Divine
providence. It thus wounds, sometimes instantly, and always eventually, the
transgressor himself. It is as when a hungry man dreameth, and awaketh, and
behold, he is faint.
II. LOOK AT A FEW
RECOGNISED FACTS ABOUT SIN.
1. The angels who kept not their first estate left their own
habitation. So far as we can understand the matter they sought freedom, but
they found chains. They sought light; they found darkness. They sought
happiness; they found misery,--as when a hungry man dreameth and eateth, and awaketh
and finds himself famishing.
2. Our first parents, in yielding to the first temptation, soughs
equality with God; but they soon found themselves fallen below the natural
human level
3. The general history of sin is found in epitome in the life of
every sinner. In families and Churches and nations, in societies of all kinds,
we see illustrated the truth that sin everywhere, by whomsoever committed, is
the occasion of most bitter disappointment. (S. Martin.)
Life a dream
Lord Brougham relates an occurrence which strikingly shows how
short a thing a dream is. A person who had asked a friend to call him early in
the morning, dreamed that he was taken ill, and that, after remedies had been
tried in vain by those about him, a medical man was sent for who lived some
miles away, and who did not arrive before some hours had elapsed. On his
arrival he threw some cold water upon the face of the patient. Thereupon the
sleeper awoke. The water was, in fact, applied by his friend, for the purpose
of awaking him. The inference is that this apparent dream of hours was the
affair of a moment. Such is human life. (D. P.Pratten, B. A.)
A dream
The figure of the dream is applied in two ways.
1. Objectively, to the vanishing of the enemy.
2. Subjectively, to his disappointment. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Disenchantment
(Isaiah 29:8):--A more vivid
representation of utter disenchantment than this verse gives can scarcely be
conceived. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Disappointing fancies
No sooner had I shut my eyes than fancy would convey me to the
streams and rivers of my native land. There, as I wandered along the verdant
bank, I surveyed the clear stream with transport, and hastened to swallow the
delightful draught; but alas! disappointment awakened me, and I found myself a
lonely captive, perishing of thirst amid the wilds of Africa. (Mungo Park’s
Journal.)
Verses 9-12
Stay yourselves, and wonder, they are drunken, but not with wine
Spiritual drunkenness
By spiritual drunkenness (Isaiah 29:9) we are probably to
understand unsteadiness of conduct and a want of spiritual discernment.
(J. A. Alexander.)
Spiritual drunkenness worse than bodily, and more prevalent
Drunkenness in itself is a horrible vice, and it is the mother of
innumerable more. But besides this there is a spiritual drunkenness.
I. This worse
drunkenness, says the text, is SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS, SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY, OR
INSANITY. In this respect it resembles the other drunkenness. The man who is
drunk has eyes, but he cannot see; ears, but he cannot hear; a heart that has
not ceased to beat, but he cannot understand. He mistakes one person and thing
fur another. So it is with the spiritual sort in regard to the spiritual world.
Look at a few of the varieties. Drunkenness--
1. From ignorance of the truth.
2. From perversion or profanation of the truth.
3. From rejection of the truth.
II. WHAT IS THE
QUALITY OR CURSE OF THIS SPIRITUAL DRUNKENNESS, compared with the other?
Compare it--
1. In regard to the drunkard’s intelligence or powers of perception.
2. In regard to the drunkard’s life, affections, passions, habits.
3. In regard to the drunkard’s state before God, the salvation of
soul and body. What shall we say, if we discover the terrific truth?
Judicial blindness
The Jews are represented as given over by God to a judicial
blindness. Now, we regard it as a fixed principle in the interpretation of
Scripture that God never does more than leave men to themselves; doing nothing
directly to harden them in wickedness, or to place them out of the reach of
forgiveness. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Drunken, but not with wine
Are there, then, other forms of insobriety and resultant
demoralisation distinct from that of the familiar cup? The phrases which
suggest this abnormal state are continually in our mouths. Thus, we speak of
people being intoxicated with delight, with fanaticism, with political
excitement, or with the spirit of gambling. Wendell Holmes speaks of people who
become intoxicated with music, with poetry, with love, with religious
enthusiasm. He remarks how convalescents are sometimes made tipsy by a beef
steak. It is said of one that he was too intoxicated with certain good news to
be able to imbibe anything else. Indeed, it is told of certain company that it
was so intoxicating that some of the circle were compelled to drink to keep
themselves sober. (J. J.Ingram.)
Intoxication
What are the main characteristics of intoxication? The drunken man
is one who has lost his power of self-control, one to whose eye and thought the
proportions and relationships of life have become disordered, one whose vigour,
both physically and mentally, has become enfeebled and inefficient. He is a man
who for the time being loses his true relation to the things of outer life. He
is abnormal. His appetites are deranged, his engrossments disproportionate, his
views beclouded or oblique. (J. J. Ingram.)
For the Lord hath poured
out upon you the spirit of deep sleep
The spirit of a deep sleep
“The Lord hath poured out,” etc. That is an appalling judgment.
What have been the steps which have led up to so terrible a consummation? Men
do not lose their moral sensitiveness by a stroke; it is the ultimate issue of
a process. Drowsiness precedes sleep; the twilight ushers in the night. We do
not reach moral abysses by a precipice; we reach them by a gradient. We do not
drop into bondage; we walk into it.
1. Here are the men of my text; what was the first step in the
degradation? We have it clearly indicated in the thirteenth verse. If we take
the thirteenth verse, and place it before Isaiah 29:9, we have unfolded before us
the process of degeneracy, which is re-enacted in multitudes of lives in every
succeeding age. The first step towards moral benumbment is the evisceration of
religious worship. Take the heart out of worship, and you will take the life
out of morals. “And their fear of Me is a commandment of men which has been
taught them.” What does that mean? The man-made has supplanted the God-born.
And what does that further mean but the intrusion of the casuist into religion?
The casuist is he who turns a shining principle into a dull maxim, who makes
breaches and loopholes of escape in the great moral law, who changes the
searching inwardness of religion into an easy external ordinance, who removes
the fearful sense of the eternal, and makes us feel perilously at home in the
small demands of his own commandments.
2. Now let us mark the progress of the degeneracy. Religious
formalism issues in moral laxity. Note the analysis of the process which is
given in the ninth verse. First there is dimness of moral vision. “Tarry ye and
wonder.” The figure is that of a man who pulls himself up in bewilderment. He
does not remember quite clearly whether this is the way, or whether he should
take the next turning. Moral law does not stand out in clear bold relief. His
conscience does not act readily. There is hesitancy. He “tarries”! There is
confusion He “wonders”! “Take your pleasure and be blind.” With dimness there
comes wilfulness. The little truth they saw they resented. The people liked the
restfulness of the dulness. There was nothing searching or self-revealing in
the adulterated light. They preferred the twilight in which they can partially
hide. Let us go on with the analysis. Moral dimness; moral wilfulness; what is
the next step in the degeneracy? Moral stupor. “They are drunk, but not with
wine. They stagger, but not with strong drink.”
3. Now let us proceed to the third step in the appalling gradient.
When a man has eviscerated his religion, changing its inwardness to a thin
superficialness, and from this proceeds to moral laxity, I am told by the words
of my text that by a judicial act of God his stupor becomes fixed. If a man
will not, he shall not! Ye have taken the cup of wilfulness, and drugged
yourselves into sin, and “the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep
sleep.”
4. What is the next step in the awful gradient? “And all vision is
become to you as a book that is sealed.” The great writings of the great books
have no illuminating message. The books are sealed! What books? There is the
book of conscience. “Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is
the way, walk ye in it.” That book is sealed. There is the book of experience,
the teachings of yesterday, the witness of history. “Ask now of the days that
are past.” That book is sealed. There is the book of nature. The book of nature
began to be read by William Wordsworth when the atmosphere of English life had
been warmed by the evangelical revival. When the evangelical is dead nature’s
inner significance is concealed. Let us therefore watch, with intensest
vigilance, against the intrusion of all insincerity into our worship. (J. H.
Jowett, M. A.)
Verse 11-12
The vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that
is sealed
The universality of spiritual blindness
What is affirmed in these verses holds so strikingly true of God’s
general revelation to the world, that we deem the lesson contained in them to
be not of partial, but permanent application.
I. There is A
COMPLAINT uttered in these verses
1. If a book be closed down by a material seal, then, till that seal
be broken, there lies a material obstacle even in the way of him who is able to
read the contents of it. Is there any hindrance in virtue of which the critics,
and the grammarians, and the accomplished theologians of our age, are unable to
reach the real and effective understanding of the words of this prophecy? Yes,
and it is wonderful to tell, how little the mere erudition of Scripture helps
the real discernment of Scripture. The learned just labour as helplessly under
a want of an impression of the reality of this whole matter, as the unlearned;
and if this be true of many a priest and theologian, with whom Christianity is
a science, and the study of the Bible the business of their profession, what
can we expect of those among the learned, who, in the pursuits of a secular
philosophy, never enter into contact with the Bible, either in its doctrine or
in its language, except when it is obtruded on them? To make the wisdom of the
New Testament his wisdom, and its spirit his spirit, and its language his
best-loved and best-understood language, there must be a higher influence upon
the mind, than what lies in human art, or in human explanation. And till this
is brought to pass, the doctrines of the atonement and of regeneration, and of
fellowship with the Father and the Son, and of a believer’s progressive
holiness, under the moral and spiritual power of the truth as it is in Jesus,
will, as to his own personal experience of its meaning, remain so many empty
sounds, or so many deep and hidden mysteries: and just as effectually, as if
the book were held together by an iron clasp, which he has not strength to
unclose, may he say of the same book lying open and legible before him, that he
cannot read it, because it is sealed.
2. As for the complaint of the unlearned, it happily, in the literal
sense of it, is not applicable to the great majority of our immediate
countrymen, even in the very humblest walks of society. They can read the book.
There may remain a seal upon its meaning to him, who, in the ordinary sense of
the term, is learned, while the seal may be removed, and the meaning lie open
as the light of day to him, who in the same sense is unlearned. In pressing
home the truths and overtures of Christianity on the poor, we often meet with
the very answer of the text, “I am not learned.” They think that there is an
ignorance which necessity attaches to their condition, and that this should
alleviate the burden of their condemnation, in that they know not God. Now we
refuse this apology altogether. The Word of the Lord is in your hands, and you
can at least read it. The Gospel is preached unto you as well as unto
others--and you can, at least, attend to it.
II. Let us now
proceed to EXPLAIN A CIRCUMSTANCE which stands associated in our text with the
incapacity both of learned and unlearned to discover the meaning of God’s
communications--that is the spirit of deep sleep which had closed the eyes of
the people, and buried in darkness and insensibility the prophets, the rulers,
and the seers, as well as the humblest and most ignorant of the land. The
connection between the one circumstance and the other is quite palpable. If a
peasant and a philosopher were both literally asleep before me--and that so
profoundly, as that no voice of mine could awaken them--then they are just in
the same circumstances, with regard to any demonstration which I addressed to
their understandings. Neither would it at all help the conveyance of my meaning
to their mind, that while dead to all perception of the argument which issued
from my lips, or even of the sound which is its vehicle, the minds of both of
them were most busily alive and active amongst the imagery of a dream--the one
dreaming too, perhaps, in the style of some high intellectual pursuit, and the
other dreaming in the style of some common and illiterate occupation. Such, it
is possible to conceive, may be the profoundness of this lethargy, as to be
unmoved by the most loud and terrifying intimations. That the vast majority of
the world are, in truth, asleep to all those realities which constitute the
great materials of religion, may be abundantly proved by experience. Now, the
question comes to be, how is this sleep dissipated? Not, we affirm, and all
experience will go with us, by the power of natural argument--not by the
demonstrations of human learning, for these are just as powerless with him who
understands them, as with him who makes his want of learning the pretence for
putting them away. There must be a something equivalent to the communication of
a new sense, ere a reality comes to be seen in those eternal things. It is
true, that along the course of our ordinary existence, we are awake to the
concerns of our ordinary existence. But this is not a wakefulness which goes to
disturb the profoundness of our insensibility as to the concerns of a higher
existence. We are in one sense awake; but in another most entirely, and, to all
human appearance, most hopelessly and irrecoverably asleep. We are just in the
same condition with a man who is dreaming, and so moves for the time in a
pictured world of his own. And the transition is not greater from the sleeping
fancies of the night to the waking certainties of our daily business, than is
the transition from the daydreams of a passing world to those substantial
considerations which wield s presiding authority over the conduct of him who
walketh not by the sight of that which is around him, but by the faith of the
unseen things that are above him, and before him. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
The voices of life
Here, we find the picture of the two great classes of excuses men
make today, when duties are urged upon them.
I. The first great
answer of human nature to the call of duty--the first and readiest excuse which
the easy-going, self-indulgent life has to offer--is this first excuse of the
men of Jerusalem to the unpleasant vision of the future. It is as a book which
is sealed, and he who is able to read it does not read it, simply because it is
closed, or sealed. Here we have a definite excuse given, which looks plausible
enough, but which only means, after all, the lack of will power, which so
frequently lodges behind some prominent excuse. POWERLESSNESS OF WILL! Who does
not make this excuse in life?
II. The other great
excuse which is so freely given is the LACK OF OPPORTUNITY. He who has the will
has not the one requisite, the one condition of success, the longed for
opportunity. The poor man with his tastes envies the rich their command over
the forces of life. The struggling student by his midnight lamp, with his book
borrowed from the library, sighs as he sees the elegantly bound but unopened
volumes of those who have abundant opportunities but no appreciation of their
hidden treasures, or will to read them. The invalid upon the bed of pain, whose
life is a dream of impossible realities, cherishing noble yearnings for the strife,
sees life passing by, padlocked and bound, with every aspiration chained and
fettered by the hopeless impossibility of ever achieving anything. Practical
lessons--
1. This very incompleteness of our nature shows us the soul’s
rightful demand for another life without these limiting human conditions.
2. Right in the midst of these voices of life, these excuses for our
failure, from whatever source these excuses come, the religion of Jesus Christ
appears as a new creation of power.
3. Just when we feel that our motive power is failing us, or that we
are helpless in our surroundings, and are lacking an opportunity for the
exercise of our suppressed faculties, the Spirit of God, who is the Comforter
of the sanctified heart of man and the Inspirer of his better nature, appears
with His Divine mission, and opens the way out of dead levels and land-locked
vistas, into new and unforeseen stretches of existence. What a power there is
in this thought of the soul’s higher deliverance by the interposing hand of the
Spirit of God, lifting us out of our poor everyday life! (W. W. Newton.)
Bible neglect reproved
The general division of “the learned” and “the unlearned” is
introduced as offering an excuse for the not understanding the revelation of
God. There is diversity, indeed, in the excuse itself, but there is thorough
agreement upon the point, that, from some reason or another, the Bible is
unintelligible; the one class taking refuge in the alleged obscurity of
Scripture, and the other in their own defective education. None are represented
as actually throwing scorn upon the book, but all render it a kind of
involuntary homage. And we believe that no truer description could be given of
the great body of men, considered relative to the light in which they view
Scripture. If there were anything like a general suspicion that the Bible is
not what it professes itself--a revelation from God, there would be nothing to
surprise us in the general neglect with which it is treated; we should quite
expect that if there were doubt as to the origin there would, for the most
part, be indifference as to the contents; but with the great body of men its
origin is no more brought into question than is the duty of preparing for
eternity. And here we have a manifest inconsistency, to be accounted for only
on the supposition that men have provided themselves with some specious
apology.
I. We shall
consider, therefore, THE CASE AND APOLOGY OF THE LEARNED. There is something of
truth in the representation that the Bible is a sealed book. We always regard
it as a standing proof of the divinity of the volume, that it is not to be
unfolded by the processes which we apply to a mere human composition, and that
every attempt to enter deeply into its meaning, without the assistance of its
Author, issues in nothing but conjecture and confusion. But in all these
excuses, however specious, and however, in a certain sense, grounded on a
truth, there is nothing to warrant that refusal to examine Holy Writ which they
are invented to justify. We know of no conclusion which can be fairly drawn
from the confessed mysteriousness of Scripture, and the consequent need of a
superhuman interpreter, but that the volume should never be approached in our
own wisdom, and never without prayer for the teaching of God’s Spirit. If it
would be our duty to study the volume were it not sealed, it must be equally
our duty to study it when, though sealed, the way is prescribed in which it may
be opened. We have only to bring this consideration into the account, and there
is an end of all arguing from the obscurity of the study of Scripture.
II. THE CASE AND
APOLOGY OF THE UNLEARNED MAN. Here, again, the excuse is based on a truth, but
nevertheless, it in no degree justifies neglect. It is of vast importance that
the poor be set right in this matter, and that they be taught that there is no
necessary connection, as they seem to suppose, between scholarship and
salvation. It is easier for the educated man to become, what is called a
skilful divine, but it is not one jot easier for him to discover and follow the
narrow path of life. Indeed, if there be advantage at all, it is on the side of
the unlearned. If the understanding the Bible, so as to become morally
advantaged by its statements, depend on the influences of the Holy Ghost, it is
clear that the learned may read much and gain no spiritual benefit, and the
unlearned read little and yet be mightily profited. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Learned and unlearned
The passage is interesting as illustrating the diffusion of
literary education in Isaiah’s time (Jeremiah 5:4-5).(Prof. J. Skinner, D.
D.)
Gradual revelation
Sir Joshua Reynolds says that when he first visited Italy to make
the acquaintance of the celebrated masterpieces of art he was much cast down.
The renowned masters maintained towards him quiet and dignified silence; they
refused to confide to him their thoughts. He gazed steadfastly at the wondrous
pictures whose fame had filled the world, and could not behold their glory.
Persevering, however, in his studies, the pictures gradually began, one after
another, to raise their veils and permit him to have an occasional peep at
their rare beauty; they softly whispered to him a few of their secrets; and as
he continued unwavering in his devotion, they at last flung away their reserve,
showed themselves with an open face, and revealed to him the wealth of
beautiful ideas that was lodged in them. (J. C. Jones.)
The Holy Spirit the Illuminator
I remember to have heard from one who was a spectator at the time,
of his having once seen a little child playing upon a headland over the sea,
who took a telescope from the hand of one near him, and handed it to a blind
old sailor who was sitting on the cliff, and the child asked the blind man to
sweep the far horizon and tell him with the glass what ships were them. The old
man, however, could only turn bitterly towards the child with those sightless
eyes of his; and, it seems to me, that you might as well give a telescope to a sightless
man as to give the Bible to a man whom you do not suppose to possess the
guidance of the Spirit. (Bp. W. Alexander.)
Verse 13-14
This people draw near Me with their mouth
Ritualism
When any form so obtrudes itself as to be a hindrance instead of a
help to the worshipper, that is ritualism.
(Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone.)
Formalism
All vice is said to be an abuse of virtue; all evil, good run mad.
Generosity may become extravagance. So formalism really consists in the abuse
of that which, up to a certain point, is absolutely necessary, which, up to a
further point, may be helpful, but which, carried to an extreme, becomes a
snare and a sin. (D. Jones Hamar.)
Formalism in doctrine and life
That we may see clearly who the formalist is, think of this truth:
that there are formalism of doctrine, and formalism of life and practice,
distinguishable and yet connected.
1. Formalism of doctrine--what is that? In one of its lowest phases
we frequently meet with it. Have you not come across men who say “Yes” to every
assertion of truth that you make; men who make you almost angry by their
persistency in declaration of agreement? There are very few of all the
thousands who are not, and know they are not, servants of Christ, who take the
pains to deny what they nevertheless do not really accept. What can you say to
such men? You cannot argue, for they agree with you already. You cannot appeal
to them, for their creed seems to compass all that you hold as true.
2. There is such a thing as formality of worship and life. Just as
truth must be put into words, but the word is not the truth, so worship has to
be put into some expression, but the expression is not the worship. Isaiah’s
great charge against the people was that they had reversed the thing entirely.
(D. JonesHamar.)
Formalism unsatisfying
What must be the creed of the formalist in worship and in life!
This: that what is said to be the means of grace is grace itself; that the
mechanical reading of the Bible, without any reverent, hungering spirit,
communicates in some mysterious fashion heavenly truth; that the prostration of
the body, while another offers prayer, brings blessing; that to sing a hymn, be
its meaning felt or not, is an expression of praise; that these things, with
the enduring of the infliction of half an hour’s sermon, constitute
Christianity. There is too much of formalism in the best of us. What is the
creed of the formal worshipper This: “God doth not know, neither is there
knowledge in the Meet High”; that He who receives the humble adorations of
archangels will accept from men not only the imperfect praises they can render,
not only the scarce articulate waiting of the troubled spirit, panting forth its
prayer for help, but the sound of song without the spirit, the utterance of
petition without desire; that He who searches all hearts is deceived, as men
prostrate their bodies, and accepts that as homage; or that He cares for
nothing, and to mock His presence is no insult. Does that creed shape itself in
accordance with your ideas of God? Yet it is just an interpretation of the
practice of the man whose worship is nothing more than a form. And as it
affects yourself is it satisfactory? Does it do you any good? The sin in the
heart is not to be cured by any sort of outward observance. The truth of God is
not to be reached by any sort of mechanical contrivance. This Book has no
mysterious sanctity in its paper and print, or in the sound of its words. It is
the meaning and the spirit that alone are valuable. Our faith passes on the
wings of the things that are seen and temporal, up to the things that are
unseen and eternal, through the word to catch the revelation, through prayer
and praise to hold communion with God. Why trifle with your nature’s deepest
wants? Why mock the everlasting love? There is a reality in prayer. There is an
expression of gratitude which Inspires praise. There is a Saviour of sinners.
Come to Him. He only, appearing and speaking through the means He has
appointed, can take away the burden and the sting of sin, and give to the weary
rest. (D. Jones Hamar.)
The danger of formal worship
The best commentary on our text is just the history of the reigns
during which Isaiah prophesied.
I. IT WAS NO
SLIGHT CRIME WITH WHICH THE PEOPLE OF JUDAH WERE ACTUALLY CHARGEABLE--it Was,
indeed, a denial of God’s sovereignty, although by that very sovereignty it was
that they and their fathers had for seven hundred years been in possession of
the land of Canaan. Though they might make an outward profession of respect for
the ordinances of God, yet the spirit by which they were actuated was
essentially an atheistical spirit, inasmuch as with all the outward observance
of Divine ordinances they looked for continued prosperity or deliverance from
adversity, not to the wisdom of God, but to their own counsels, and the help
promised to them by their idolatrous allies.
II. THE JUDGMENT
THREATENED. Was in accordance with the nature and manifestation of their sin.
They were not to be overwhelmed with irresistible calamity, in order to punish
their flagrant idolatry; but they were to be left to the effect of their own
devices. They were to work by their own skill, and in so doing to be working
their own ruin: and when all their plans were brought to their completion, the
effect was to be to bring utter desolation on the land (verse 14).
III. MANKIND, WITH
ALL THEIR VARIETIES OF CHARACTER, ARE ESSENTIALLY SO MUCH THE SAME IN ALL AGES,
and the Scriptures do, on the one hand, so graphically portray the leading
features of human nature, and, on the other, set forth so clearly the great
unchangeable principles of the Divine administration, that none who read that
book with soberness and attention, and look around them on the world with
ordinary observation, can fail to see that the sins of individuals or of
nations there reproved are, with some modifications it may be, the same sins
which are still prevalent, and that, if unrepented of and unforgiven, their
consequences must in the end be the same. No nation, it is true, is precisely
in the same circumstances with the kingdom of Judah, but still the great
principles of the Divine government are unchangeable and eternal. It is one of
these, that sin is the reproach of any people. If there be among us, possessing
as we do a full revelation of the will of God, a disposition to deny or
overlook His supremacy as Sovereign Disposer of all events, and to trust to the
wisdom of human counsels for national deliverance or prosperity, without any
devout recognition of absolute dependence upon Him, are we not chargeable with
the very sin with which Judah of old was charged, and which was the source of
all their multiplied offences? And if, along with this, there be a profession
of faith--an external compliance with the ordinances of the Gospel, are we not
in the condition of drawing near to God with our months, and honouring Him with
our lips, while our heart is far removed from Him? (R. Gordon, D. D.)
A wrong religious attitude
This spiritual insensibility of the people is the outcome of its
whole religious attitude, which is insincere, formal, and traditional. (J.
Skinner, D. D.)
Plain speaking
Let us use these words (Isaiah 29:13) as Jesus Christ used them
in Matthew (Matthew 15:7). There are three points--
1. The importance of plain speaking on all questions affecting the
interests of truth. Jesus Christ was preeminently a plain speaker.
2. The far-seeing spirit of prophecy. Jesus Christ said to the men of
His day, “Esaias prophesied of you.” Observe the unity of the moral world;
observe the unchangeableness of God’s laws; see how right is ever right and
wrong is ever wrong; how the centuries make no difference in the quality of
righteousness, and fail to work any improvement in the deformity of evil. If
any man would see himself as he really is, let him look into the mirror of Holy
Scripture. God’s book never gets out of date, because it deals with eternal
principles and covers the necessities of all mankind let us then study the Word
of God more closely. No man can truly know human nature who does not read two
Bibles,--namely, the Bible of God as written in the Holy Scriptures, and the
Bible of God as written in his own heart and conscience. Human nature was never
so expounded as it is expounded in holy writ.
3. The high authority of the righteous censor. When Jesus Christ
spoke in this case He did not speak altogether in His own name. He used the
name of Esaias. All time is on the side of the righteous man; all history puts
weapons into the hands of the man who would be valiant for truth. The righteous
man does not draw his authority from yesterday. The credentials of the
righteous man are not written with ink that is hardly dry yet. It draws from
all the past. (J. Parlor, D. D.)
True prayer
The power of a petition is not in the roof of the mouth, but in
the root of the heart. (J. Trapp.)
Lip service
Panchcowrie, a Hindu convert, thus spoke one day in the market:
“Some think they will avert God’s displeasure by frequently taking His name on
their lips, and saying, ‘O excellent God!’ ‘O Ocean of Wisdom!’ ‘O Sea of
Love!’ and so on. To be sure, God is all this; but who ever heard of a debt
being paid in words instead of rupees!” (Sunday at Home.)
The best treasure
A rabbi, who lived nearly twenty years before Christ was born, set
his pupils thinking by asking them, “What is the best thing for a man to
possess?” One of them replied, “A kind nature”; another, “A good companion”;
another, “A good neighbour.” But one of them, named Eleazer, said, “A good
heart.” “I like your answer best, Eleazer,” said the master, “for it includes
all the rest.” (Christian Age.)
Heartless prayers
“I met in India an intelligent Sikh from the Punjab, and asked him
about his religion. He replied, ‘I believe in one God, and I repeat my prayers,
called Japji every morning and evening. These prayers occupy six pages of
print, but I can get through them in little more than ten minutes.’ He seemed
to pride himself on this rapid recitation as a work of increased merit.”
Fashionable church going
M. went to church because it was the right thing to do: God was
one of the heads of society, and His drawing rooms had to be attended. (G.
Macdonald, LL. D.)
Their fear toward Me is
taught by the precept of men
A fear of God taught by the precept of men
I. THERE IS A FEAR
TOWARDS GOD WHICH IS TAUGHT BY THE PRECEPT OF MEN. It is unquestionable that,
although it is nothing but the recklessness of infidelity which would speak of
religion as an engine of state policy, still no state policy can be effective
which looks not to religion as an auxiliary. If there could be taken off from a
community those restraints which are imposed on it by the doctrine of the
soul’s immortality, and of a future dispensation of rewards and punishments,
there would be done more towards the introduction of a universal lawlessness
and profligacy than if the statute books of the land were torn up and the
courts of justice levelled with the ground. But if religion be thus susceptible
of being employed with advantage as an auxiliary, there is a corresponding risk
of its being resorted to as a human engine and not as a Divine. All
inculcations of religion which are dictated by the consciousness that it is
politic to stand by religion would turn into inculcations of infidelity the
moment it should appear that it would be politic to stand by infidelity. It is
a possible case that rulers might do on the political principle what Hezekiah
did on the God-fearing principle--they might busy themselves with exacting from
their subjects attention to the laws of the Almighty, and so might bring round
great outward conformity to many commands of the Bible. The result in the two
eases might be similar: the tokens of the absence of God’s fear might be swept
from the land; and there might, on the contrary, be seen on the whole outspread
of the population, appearances of the maintenance of that fear. What is to be
said of that fear of God which seems to discover itself in its attention to
ordinances, but which is only dictated by habit--or respect for appearances--or
concern for religion as an engine of state! If we could mark each individual,
as he enters the house, who is only brought hither by custom--by the feeling
that it is decorous to come--by the sense that it is right that old
institutions should be upheld, why, since in the whole assemblage of such
motives there is no real recognition of the authority of Jehovah, we should be
bound to say of all those who thus render to God a spurious and inferior
homage, that their fear towards Him was “taught by the precept of men.” The
motive or sentiment which is the prime energy in producing that fear towards
God which is not according to His word is the opinion of merit, the attachment
of worth to this or that action, which is ordinarily described as
self-righteousness. The cases of the fear towards God, which is taught by the
Precept of men, might be further multiplied. If you went the round of even the
religious world you would find much of a restless endeavour to bring down
godliness to something of the human standard.
II. THE FEAR
TOWARDS GOD, TAUGHT BY MAN’S PRECEPT, IS MOST OFFENSIVE IN THE SIGHT OF THE
ALMIGHTY. We conclude the fact of the offensiveness from God’s express
determination of punishing the Jews with a signal punishment. Our simple
business is therefore to search after the reason of this offensiveness.
1. The fear must be a defective fear. If you take your standard from
aught else than the Bible, you will necessarily have a standard which is low
and imperfect; and although you may act unflinchingly up to this standard,
where it is the standard of other men’s opinions or long practice or custom,
you stand accountable for the adoption of the standard.
2. This fear involves a contempt of revelation; and on this account
as well as on the former most peculiarly incurs the wrath of Jehovah. (H.
Melvill, B. D.)
“Their fear toward Me” R.V.
“Their fear of Me,” i.e., their piety, religion. “Is taught
by the precept of men.” Better as R.V. “is (or, “has become”) a commandment of
men which hath been taught”;--a human ordinance learned by rote (Matthew 15:1-9). This pregnant criticism
expresses with epigrammatic force the fundamental difference between the pagan
and the biblical conceptions of religion. Religion, being personal fellowship
with God, cannot be “learned” from men, but only by revelation Matthew 16:17). (Prof. J. Skinner, D.
D.)
Verse 15-16
Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord
The folly of acting separately from God
I.
THEIR
POLITICS DESCRIBED (Isaiah 29:15). The consultations they had
about their own safety they kept to themselves, and never asked God’s advice
concerning them. See what foolish, fruitless pains sinners take in their sinful
ways; they seek deep, they sink deep, to hide their counsel from the Lord, who
sits in heaven and laughs at them. A practical disbelief of God’s omniscience
is at the bottom both of the carnal worship and carnal confidences of the
hypocrites (Psalms 94:7; Ezekiel 8:12; Ezekiel 9:9).
II. THE ABSURDITY
OF THEIR POLITICS DEMONSTRATED (Isaiah 29:16). Your inverting the order
of things, and thinking to make God’s providence give attendance on your
projects, and that God must know no more than you think fit, which is perfectly
“turning things upside down,” and beginning at the wrong end,--“it shall be
esteemed as the potter’s clay”; i.e., God will turn and manage you, and
all your counsels, with as much ease, and as absolute a power, as the potter
forms and fashions his clay. They that think to hide their counsels from God--
1. In effect deny Him to be their Creator.
2. Or, which comes to the same thing, deny Him to be a wise
Creator. (M. Henry.)
Verses 17-19
Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field
The fruitful field and the forest
The comparison is evidently not between the high and the low, but
between the cultivated and the wild, the field and the forest.
(J. A. Alexander.)
The first last and the last first
The only natural interpretation of the verse is that which regards
it as prophetic of a mutual change of condition, the first becoming last and
the last first. If the previous context has respect to the Jews under the old
dispensation, nothing can be more appropriate or natural than to understand the
verse before us as foretelling the excision of the unbelieving Jews and the
admission of the Gentiles to the Church. (J. A. Alexander.)
Jew and Gentile
I. I shall show
HOW THE LORD HAS BEEN PLEASED TO VERIFY THIS SCRIPTURE GENERALLY.
II. THE SIGNS THAT
MUST ACCOMPANY THE WORK IN THESE LATTER DAYS.
1. The deaf shall hear the words of the book.
2. The blind shall see out of obscurity and darkness.
3. “The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord,” etc.
III. IMPROVE THE
SUBJECT. (F. G. Crossman.)
Verse 18-19
The deaf . . . the blind . . . the meek . . . the poor
The Gospel day
I.
We
may regard these words as containing A DESCRIPTION OF THE STATE IN WHICH THE
GOSPEL FINDS THOSE TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED. The epithets are designed to be
descriptive of their spiritual character.
II. THE PLEASING
INTIMATION WHICH THE TEXT CONTAINS OF THEIR RECOVERY TO A BETTER AND HAPPIER
CONDITION. “In that day the deaf shall hear, and the blind shall see.” That is,
the spiritual ignorance and insensibility of men shall be subdued, and the
delusion and stupidity of idolatrous Gentiles in particular, shall be succeeded
by a clear and saving knowledge of the truth.
1. This prophecy may be considered as receiving its fulfilment,
impart in every instance in which an individual is savingly converted to God.
2. But the prophecy refers to something on a more extensive and
general scale.
3. The words, besides intimating the fact of their recovery, appear
also to intimate the means by which their recovery shall be effected. “They
shall hear the words of the book.” What is “the book” the hearing of whose
“words” is connected with results so wondrous and delightful?
III. These latter
words we may suppose to be descriptive of CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES WITH WHICH THE
SPIRITUAL RECOVERY OF MEN IS FOUND TO BE CONNECTED.
1. As well as the preceding words, they are applicable to cases of
individual conversion. In this view they remind us of the state to which the
sinner’s heart is humbled when, having heard “the words of the book,” he is
made to tremble under the threatenings which it thunders forth against the
guilty and impenitent; and when, having begun to “see out of obscurity and out
of darkness,” he discovers the tremendous ruin on the brink of which he has
been standing.
2. But then, besides describing the state to which the sinner’s mind
is humbled in the first instance, these words remind us also of the blessedness
of that state to which, when he is once made truly meek and poor in spirit, he
is designed to be exalted. For the “meek shall increase their joy in the Lord.”
At first, indeed, this joy may not be anything beyond the joy of hope. But this
joy he “shall increase.” It shall grow “brighter and brighter to that perfect
day” in which it shall become a “fulness of joy” at God’s right hand for
evermore.
3. If these words be more extensively applied, as having reference to
those nations and communities of men amongst whom the Gospel is already known,
or as having reference to the whole of that world throughout whose wide extent
it must ultimately be proclaimed, they still point out the circumstances under
which this Gospel shall be “the power of God unto salvation,” and the
delightful effects which shall ensue on its reception, in the increase of human
happiness, and in the turning of men from a vain confidence in “lying
vanities,” to faith in the one living and eternal God.
4. It would appear also to be intimated, that these delightful
results of evangelical instruction should be especially exemplified in the case
of the most despised and degraded of mankind. For they are “the poor amongst
men,” who shall especially “rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”
5. These things are delightful to contemplate; but let us not forget,
in the pleasure of such contemplations, the personal and practical interest
which we are called to take in them. (J. Crowther.)
Verse 19
The poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel
Reasons why the poor may rejoice in God
One of the most striking proofs of the Divine origin of
Christianity is its universal adaptation to the condition and the wants of the
whole family of men.
It is not designed to be the religion of a sect or an age, but the religion of
the whole world. The universality of its character proves that it comes from
Him who sustains all, preserves all, feeds and blesses all. We propose to assign
reasons why the poor may well “rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”
I. BECAUSE CHRIST
IN HIS HUMILIATION CONDESCENDED TO BE POOR AND THUS HONOURED AND HALLOWED THE
CONDITION OF THE POOR. Who of all the legislators, moralists, and teachers that
have appeared in the world ever conferred such honour on humanity, or displayed
such regard for the poor? Who, after this, shall dare to look down upon honest
poverty! Who, after this, shall dare to convert want into a crime? Let the
poor, then, “rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” He can enter into your
sorrows, and feel for your wretchedness.
II. BECAUSE THE
BLESSINGS OF CHRIST’S SALVATION ARE PROVIDED AND BESTOWED GRATUITOUSLY, AND ARE
THUS PECULIARLY ADAPTED TO THE CONDITION OF THE POOR.
1. Money has been paid down for the imperial purple of Rome,--the
empire of the Caesars has been sold to the highest bidder; but were salvation
only to be purchased with money, or did it require resources in man himself,
black despair might seize and petrify the heart of every poor man.
2. Or were salvation a work that required expensive and tedious
elaboration at home,--were it like the erection of a palace, or the building of
a pyramid, or the construction of such vast works as those by which you cross a
gulf or span a sea,--alas for the poor! for then their souls must perish. But
let the poor among men rejoice, for the salvation which the
Holy One of Israel provides and bestows is a salvation “without
money and without price.”
3. There is another circumstance which ought mightily to enhance
these Gospel blessings in the estimation of the poor; namely, the exclusion
from many earthly privileges to which poverty subjects them. It is very true
that many of the simpler, purer, and more exquisite pleasures of life are as
free to the poor as to the rich. But in this world poverty does exclude from
some privileges. But, oh! how does my heart, as that of a poor man, exult in
the free salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ! Here, in the Gospel of Jesus, is
full compensation for all the contumely and scorn cast on humble poverty.
III. BECAUSE, IN
ADDITION TO ALL THAT HE HIMSELF HAS DONE FOR THEM, HIS AUTHORITY, AS A
LAWGIVER, ENJOINS SPECIAL ATTENTION, CHARITY, AND SYMPATHY TOWARDS THE POOR.
IV. BECAUSE THE
CONDITION OF POVERTY IS MORE FAVOURABLE THAN THAT OF RICHES TO THE RECEPTION OF
CHRIST AND TO THE DISPLAY OF RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE. The Saviour’s language seems
fully to warrant this sentiment when He says, “How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God!”--and again: “It is easier for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom
of heaven.” Poverty seems to be the favourite element in which religious
principle k produced and nurtured. It is in the atmosphere of the Poor that the
light and heat of Divine truth love to radiate. (J. French.)
Verse 20-21
For the terrible one is brought to nought
Scorners and their punishment
Observe what had been the wickedness of these scorners, for which
they should be cut off.
1. They ridiculed the prophets and the serious professors of
religion. They despised them, and did their utmost to bring them into contempt;
they were scorners, and sat in the seat of the scornful.
2. They lay at catch for an occasion against them. By their spies
they watch for iniquity, to see if they can lay hold on anything that is said
or done that may be called an iniquity. Or, they themselves watch for an
opportunity to do mischief, as Judas did to betray our Lord Jesus.
3. They took advantage against them for the least slip of the tongue;
and if anything were never so little said amiss, it served them to ground an
indictment upon. They made a man, though he were never so wise and good a man,
though he were a man of God, an offender for a word, a word mischosen or
misplaced, when they could not but know that it was well meant. They cavilled
at every word that the prophets spoke to them by way of administration, though
never so innocently spoken, and without any design to affront them. They put
the worst construction upon what was said, and made it criminal by strained
innuendos.
4. They did all they could to bring those into trouble that dealt
faithfully with them and told them of their faults. Those that reprove in the
gates, namely, reprovers by office, that were bound by the duty of their place
as prophets, as judges, and magistrates to show people their transgressions,
they hated these, and laid snares for them. It is next to impossible for the
most cautious to place their words so warily as to escape such snares.
5. They pervert judgment, and will never let an honest man carry an
honest cause; they “turn aside the just for a thing of nought,” i.e., they
condemn him, or give the cause against him upon no evidence, no colour or
pretence whatsoever. They run a man down, and misrepresent him by all the
little acts and tricks they can devise, as they did our Saviour. But wait a
while, and God will not only bring forth their righteousness, but cut off and
consume these scorners. (M. Henry.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》