Stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?
Parallel Translations
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Stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?
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Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
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Cease ye from man, in whose nostrils is a breath; for how little is he to be accounted!
Cross-references (11)
Passages linked to Isaiah 2:22 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 17:5 Yahweh says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from Yahweh.
- Psalms 146:3 Don’t put your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no help.
- James 4:14 Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
- Psalms 144:3-4 Yahweh, what is man, that you care for him? Or the son of man, that you think of him? Man is like a breath. His days are like a shadow that passes away.
- Psalms 8:4 what is man, that you think of him? What is the son of man, that you care for him?
- Genesis 2:7 Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
- Psalms 62:9 Surely men of low degree are just a breath, and men of high degree are a lie. In the balances they will go up. They are together lighter than a breath.
- Isaiah 40:15 Behold, the nations are like a drop in a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on a balance. Behold, he lifts up the islands like a very little thing.
- Genesis 7:22 All on the dry land, in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died.
- Job 27:3 (for the length of my life is still in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils);
- Job 7:15-21 so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones. I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath. What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him, that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle? If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself? Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now will I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I will not be.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Cast off your vain confidence of man, whose life…
Cast off your vain confidence of man, whose life is so frail, that if his nose be stopped, he is dead, and consider that you have to do with God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 2:22 Cease ye from man, whose breath [is]…
Isa 2:22 Cease ye from man, whose breath [is] in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
Ver. 22. Cease ye from man.] Man or means, human helps and creature comforts; think not that these can secure you from an angry God, or moat you up against his fire. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his dust, in that very day his golden thoughts perish. {Psa 146:3-4} {See Trapp on "Psa 146:3"} {See Trapp on "Psa 146:4"}
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Whose breath is in his nostrils.] Every moment ready to puff out, as the Emperor Jovinian’s did; a good emperor, but he reigned only seven months, being stifled, as it is thought, with the smell of his bedchamber newly white-limed, wherein he had commanded a great fire to be made on a cold night. {a} Hence Jerome; - Jovinian, who succeeded Julian the apostate in the empire, whenas yet he had scarce tasted of the goodness of it, faetore prunarum suffocatus interiit, {b} died suffocated with the stench of hot burning coals, declaring to all men what a poor thing man is in his greatest power. The Cardinal of Lorrain was lighted to his lodging and to his long home both at once by a poisoned torch; Pope Adrian IV was choked by a fly getting into his windpipe, A.D. 1159. {c}
For wherein is he to be esteemed?] All his power without God is but weakness, all his wisdom folly, all his plenty poverty. What is man, saith a father, but soul and soil? {d} Breath and body; a puff of wind the one, a pile of dust the other - no solidity in either. Abstinete ergo vos ab ipso homine - nam quanti est? What reckoning is to be made of him?
{a} Eutrop. Oros.
{b} In Epitap. Nepotian.
{c} Bevius, De Vit. Pen.
{d} Nους και χους. - Greg. Naz.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Seeing God will undoubtedly bring down the highest and…
Seeing God will undoubtedly bring down the highest and proudest of the sons of men into so much contempt and misery, from henceforth never admire nor place your trust in man, whose breath, upon which his life and strength depends, is in his nostrils, and therefore is quickly stopped and taken away.
Wherein is he to be accounted of? what one real and valuable excellency is there in him, to wit, considered in himself, and without dependence upon God?
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Cease ye - Never admire or place your trust…
Cease ye - Never admire or place your trust in man. Breath - Whose breath is quickly stopped and taken away. Wherein - What excellency is in him, considered in himself, and without dependence on God?
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 22. Cease ye from man] Trust neither in…
Verse 22. Cease ye from man] Trust neither in him, nor in the gods that he has invented. Neither he, nor they, can either save or destroy.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 2:22. Cease ye from man — “The prophet…
Isa 2:22. Cease ye from man — “The prophet here subjoins an admonitory exhortation to the men of his own and of all times, to dissuade them from placing any confidence in man, however excellent in dignity, or great in power; as his life depends upon the air which he breathes through his nostrils, and which, if it be stopped, he is no more; and therefore, if you abstract from him the providence and grace of God, and consider him as left to himself, he is worthy of very little confidence and regard: see Psa 146:3-4. Vitringa is of opinion, that the prophet here alludes immediately to the kings of Egypt: see Isa 31:3. And he adds, that the mystical interpretation of the period from the twelfth to this verse, may refer also to other days of the divine judgment, of which there are four peculiarly noted in Scripture, as referring to the new economy. 1st, The day of the subversion of the Jewish republic; 2d, The day of vengeance on the governors of the Roman empire, the persecutors of the church, in the time of Constantine; 3d, The future day of judgment hereafter to take place upon Antichrist and his crew; of which the prophets, and St. John in the Revelation particularly, have spoken; and, 4th, The day of general judgment. It is to this third day that he thinks the present period more immediately refers: see 2Th 2:2; Rev 16:14.” — Dodd.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Cease ye from man - That is, cease to…
Cease ye from man - That is, cease to confide in or trust in him. The prophet had just said Isa 2:11, Isa 2:17 that the proud and lofty people would be brought low; that is, the kings, princes, and nobles would be humbled. They in whom the people had been accustomed to confide should show their insufficiency to afford protection. And he calls on the people to cease to put their reliance on any of the devices and refuges of men, implying that trust should be placed in the Lord only; see Psa 146:3-4; Jer 17:5.
Whose breath is in his nostrils - That is, who is weak and short-lived, and who has no control over his life. All his power exists only while he breathes, and his breath is in his nostrils. It may soon cease, and we should not confide in so frail and fragile a thing as the breath of man; see Psa 146:3-5 :
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Put not your trust in princes,
Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish.
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God.
The Chaldee has translated this verse, ‘Be not subject to man when he is terrible, whose breath is in his nostrils; because today he lives, and tomorrow he is not, and shall be reputed as nothing.’ It is remarkable that this verse is omitted by the Septuagint, as Vitringa supposes, because it might seem to exhort people not to put confidence in their rulers.
For wherein ... - That is, he is unable to afford the assistance which is needed. When God shall come to judge people, what can man do, who is weak, and frail, and mortal? Refuge should be sought in God. The exhortation of the prophet here had respect to a particular time, but it may be applied in general to teach us not to confide in weak, frail, and dying man. For life and health, for food and raiment, for home and friends, and especially for salvation, we are dependent on God. He alone can save the sinner; and though we should treat people with all due respect, yet we should remember that God alone can save us from the great day of wrath.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain High. Adhere to Jesus Christ. (Origen) (Menochius) --- Septuagint…
High. Adhere to Jesus Christ. (Origen) (Menochius) --- Septuagint omit this sentence, and St. Jerome thinks they did it perhaps for fear of shocking their brethren. In Jeremias xvii. --- It is supplied from Aquila’s version, "how must he be esteemed?" (Calmet) --- Protestants, "for wherein is he to be accounted of?" Jesus will kill the wicked one with the spirit of his mouth, 2 Thessalonians ii. 8. (Haydock) --- No dependence must be had in man. The Israelites vainly trusted in Egypt. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain b. The judgment against the eminent things in the…
b. The judgment against the eminent things in the human sphere
Isa_2:22 to Isa_4:1
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a. THE JUDGMENT AGAINST GODLESS MEN
Isa_2:22 to Isa_3:15
22 Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils:
For wherein is he to be accounted of?
1 For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts,
Doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah
21The stay and the staff,
22The whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,
2 The mighty man, and the man of war,
The judge, and the prophet, and the 23prudent, and the 24ancient,
3 The captain of fifty, and the 25 26the honorable man,
And the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the 27 28eloquent orator.
4 And I will give children to be their princes,
29And babes shall rule over them.
5 And the people 30shall be oppressed,
Every one by another, and every one by his neighbour:
The child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient,
And the base against the honourable.
6 When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying,
Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler,
And let this ruin be under thy hand:
7 In that day shall he 31 32swear, saying,
I will not be a 33healer;
For in my house is neither bread nor clothing:
Make me not a ruler of the people.
8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen:
Because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord,
To provoke the eyes of his glory.
9 The show of their countenance doth witness against them;
And they declare their sins as Sodom, they hide it not.
Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.
10 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him:
For they shall eat the fruit of their doings.
11 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him;
For the reward of his hands shall be 34given him.
12 As for my people, children are their oppressors,
And women rule over them.
O my people, 35they which lead thee cause thee to err,
And 36destroy the way of thy paths.
13 The Lord standeth up to plead,
And standeth to judge the people.
14 The Lord will enter into judgment
With the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof:
For ye have 37eaten up the vineyard;
The spoil of the poor is in your houses.
15 What mean ye that ye 38beat my people to pieces,
And grind the faces of the poor?
Saith the Lord God of hosts.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_2:22. The verb חָדַל occurs several times in Isa_1:16; Isa_24:8, coll. Isa_53:3. The construction with the dative of the person addressed (Dat. ethicus) has here the meaning that this ceasing is in the interest of the person addressed himself.—חָדַל with מִן: Exo_14:15; Exo_23:5; Job_7:16; Pro_23:4; 1Sa_9:5; 2Ch_35:21.
Chap. III. Isa_3:1. מַשְׁעֵן וּמַשְׁעֵנָה: logically considered there can be no difference between these two words, which moreover occur only here. But the Prophet designs by the words only a rhetorical effect. With sententious brevity he sketches thus the contents of the chapter whose first half treats of the male supports, whose second half of the female.—Examples are not few of concrete nouns which, placed along side of one another, designate the totality by the masculine and feminine endings: Isa_11:12; Isa_43:6; Jer_48:19; Nah_2:13; Zec_9:17. It is doubtful about נְמִבְזָה וְנָמֵם, 1Sa_15:9. But abstract nouns are very few that at the same time differentiate the idea as to gender by the gender endings. The most likely case of comparison is חַצֶּֽאֱצָאִים וְהַצְּפִעוֹת, the male and female branches (Isa_22:24). It is doubtful about נְהִי גִהְיָה Mic_2:4 (comp. Caspari, Micah, p. 117). מִשְעָן found elsewhere only 2Sa_22:19 (Psa_18:19). The feminine form occurs more frequently מִשְׁעֶנֶת: Num_21:19; Psa_23:4; Isa_36:6, etc.
Isa_3:4. תעלולים occurs only here and Isa_66:4. The form is like תַּחֲנוּנִים ,תַּֽעֲנוּנִים, etc. The plural can signify the abstract, and this abstract may possibly stand pro concreto; the plural may also have a simple concrete meaning. All these constructions are grammatically possible and have found their defenders. As regards the meaning of the word, the questions arise, whether the word contains the notion of “child” (comp. מְעוֹלֵל ,עוֹלֵל) or the notion, “inflict, bring upon, mishandle,” (comp. הִתְעַלֵּל, Jdg_19:25; 1Sa_31:4, etc., תַּֽעֲלוּל ,מַֽעֲלָל עֲלִילִיָּה ,עֲלִילָה, Isa_66:4), or both notions, and whether it is to be taken as subject or as acc. adverbialis to designate the manner and means. That the notion “child” lies in the word appears very conclusively from the preceding נְעָרִים and from מְעוֹלֵל, Isa_3:12. But it is not at all necessary to exclude the notion vexatio which is decidedly demanded, Isa_66:4. One may easily unite both by translating as Delitzsch does, “childish appetites,” or “childish tricks, childish follies.” But the personifying of this idea, or construing it as abstr. pro concreto (puerilia = pueri, Gesenius) though grammatically possible, is still hard. I agree therefore with Hitzig, who translates by “with tyranny, arbitrariness.” Comp. פְלָאִים ,נוֹרָאוֹת ,מֵישָׁרִים, etc.
Isa_3:5. (Faustrecht.) Such is the sense of נִגַּשׁ. The word is used of the violent oppression of the Egyptian taskmakers (Exo_3:7; Exo_5:6 sqq.), of the creditor (Deu_15:2-3), of a superior military force of an enemy (1Sa_13:6), also of overpowering fatigue (1Sa_14:24) or of an unsparingly strict judicial process (Isa_53:7). In our passage the Niphal, as one may see from following אישׁ באישׁ וגו, appears intended in a reciprocal sense. Moreover Isaiah uses the word often: Isa_3:12; Isa_9:3; Isa_14:2; Isa_58:3; Isa_60:17. רָהָב tumultuari, insolenter tractare: comp. Isa_30:7; Isa_51:9.—נִקְלֶה contemtus, vilis; comp. Isa_16:14; 1Sa_18:23.
Isa_3:6. כִּי is rendered by many expositors “when”: Vitringa, Hitzig, Ewald, Drechsler, Delitzsch. They therefore take the phrase as protasis to Isa_3:7. The consideration that Isa_3:6-7 evidently portray, not the reason, but rather the consequence of Isa_3:4, determines me also to adopt this view. By כִּי, then, a possibility is signified that may often ensue. מַכְשֵׁלָה occurs again only in the plural, Zep_1:3, where it means offendiculum, σκάνδαλον. Besides it is synonym of מִכְשֹׁל. The present situation therefore is manifestly designated as a scandalous one, as a subject of offence.
Isa_3:7. חֹבֵשׁ part. occurs only here. Other forms of the verb occur in Isaiah in the sense of binding and healing wounds: Isa_1:6; Isa_30:26; Isa_61:1. He repels the allegation that he still has clothing and bread, and declines therefore the honor of becoming judge of his people. קָצִין is principally a poetic word. It occurs only twelve times in the Old Testament; three of these in historical books: Jos_10:24; Jdg_11:6; Jdg_11:11. Isaiah uses it four times, viz., here, Isa_1:10; Isa_20:3.
Isa_3:8. כָּשַל, stumble, totter, fall, Isaiah uses often: Isa_5:27; Isa_8:15; Isa_28:13; Isa_40:30; Isa_59:10; Isa_59:14, etc.—מַֽעֲלָל Isaiah uses only Isa_1:16 and Isa_3:8; Isa_3:10.—אֶל in an inimical sense, as Isa_2:4; Gen_4:8, etc.—The form לַמְרוֹת is syncopated from לְהַמְרוֹת (Ewald, § 244 b). Comp. Isa_1:12; Psa_78:17. מָרָה and Hiph. הִמְרָה occur very often with אֶת־פִּי י׳: Num_20:24; Num_27:14; Deu_1:26; Deu_1:43, etc. Once the Hiph. occurs with the following אֵת רוּחוֹ Psa_106:33, with following דְּבֵר י׳ Psa_105:28 אִמְרֵי אֵל Psa_107:11; once with מִשְׁפָּטַי Eze_5:6. And so here, too, with following עֵנֵי י׳. In Isaiah the construction with the accusative does not again occur: מָרָה alone with the meaning “rebellem, contumacem esse,” occurs again Isa_1:20; Isa_1:5; Isa_63:10.
Isa_3:9. הַכָּרָה, which only occurs here, can, in union with פָּנִים, have no other meaning than the adverbial form of speech הִכִּיר פָּנִים (Deu_1:17; Deu_16:19; Pro_24:23; Pro_28:21), which means “dignoscere facies, distinguish the countenances, i. e., make a partial distinction” (comp. נָשָׂא פָנִים). The notion of partiality indeed does not suit here, although not a few Jewish and Christian expositors understand the words in this sense. The context constrains us rather to go back to the simple fundamental meaning of close observance, particular notice, which is the preliminary of partial distinction. We are the more justified in this as הִכִּיר elsewhere too (Isa_61:9; Isa_63:16; Gen_31:32, etc.) is used in a sense that proceeds from this fundamental meaning. הכרת פ׳ is therefore the magisterial, so to speak, the juristic, exact observance and investigation of countenances. עָנֽתֳה, which is likewise a legal term, also favors this view. For it is used as much of the judge that takes cognizance (Exo_23:2) as of the witness that deposes to the interrogation of the judge: Deu_19:16; 2Sa_1:16 : “thy mouth hath testified (עָנָה) against thee.” גָּמַל occurs in Isaiah again only Isa_63:7. The form of sentence in Isa_3:10 a is owing to the well known attraction, common also in Greek, by means of which the subject of the dependent phrase becomes the object of the principal verb. There is no need, therefore, of taking אָמַר in the sense of prœdicare. But it is simply “say, speak out loud, be not silent, that the righteous is well off.” There is, thus, no need of referring to passages as Psa_40:11; Psa_145:6; Psa_145:11. That טוֹב may mean not only bonus, but also bene habens, well off, is shown beyond contradiction by passages like Amo_6:2; Jer_44:17; Psa_112:5.
Isa_3:11. According to our remarks at Isa_1:4 concerning אוֹי, it is agreeable to usus loquendi to connect it with לְרָשָׁע. Besides in the best editions they are so bound (comp. Delitzsch in loc.). Therefore רַע is to be taken in the same way as טוֹב Isa_3:10. To be sure, there is no passage we can cite in which רַע means infelix, as we can for טוֹב meaning felix. For Psa_106:32, and Gen_47:9 רַע is both times not used of personal subjects. And there are no other places to cite. One must therefore say, that the prophet in respect of the meaning of רַע has in Isa_3:11 a imitated the corresponding part of Isa_3:10.—גְּמוּל is performance, product, desert. Comp. Jdg_9:16; Pro_12:14. The word is found in Isaiah again Isa_35:4; Isa_59:18; Isa_66:6. What the hands of the wicked have themselves produced shall be joined to, put on them.
Isa_3:12. The singular מְּעוֹלֵל has general significance and hence represents an ideal plural. Comp. רעֵה צֹאן עֲכָדֶיךָ Gen_47:3. As regards the form of the word, which occurs here only, מְעוֹלֵל is the root form for עוֹלֵל (1Sa_15:3; Isa_13:16, etc.) or עוֹלָל (Jer_6:11; Jer_9:20).
Isa_3:13. נִצָּב (in Isaiah only again Isa_21:8) expresses the opposite of movement. נִצָּב and עֹמֵד along side of each other occur 1Sa_19:20.—רִיב and דִּין though not seldom interchanged (comp. Isa_1:17), still stand here side by side. But comp. Jer_15:10; Heb_1:3.—The expression בוֹא במשׁפט “enter into judgment” occurs only here in Isaiah. Comp. beside Job_9:32; Job_14:3; Job_22:4; Psa_143:2; Ecc_11:9; Ecc_12:14.
Isa_3:14. The Piel בִּעֵר occurs in this sense in Isaiah only again Isa_5:5; comp. Exo_22:4. It is depascere, grazing of cattle. Elsewhere it is used of fire (Isa_6:13; Isa_40:16; Isa_44:15; Isa_1:11). גזלה only here in Isaiah, גָּזֵל Isa_61:8.
Isa_3:15. דִּכָּא to stamp, trample (Isa_19:10; Isa_53:5; Isa_53:10) is intensified by פּ׳ ע׳ תטחנוis to grind, pound fine, Isa_47:2.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Isaiah 3 connects quite easily and simply with Isaiah 2 so far as it continues the idea of the judgment, and to this effect, that it is now extended to the sphere of human existence. Isa_2:22 makes the appropriate transition. For therein the Prophet warns against trusting in men, who are only weak transitory creatures. Isaiah 3, also, with this fundamental idea, subdivides into two parts, of which the first (Isa_3:1-15) treats of the men, the second (Isa_3:16 to Isa_4:1) of the women. And yet we at once receive the impression that in Isaiah 3 he is treading ground dominated by other sentiments. For while chap. 2 discourses quite evidently of the judgment that in the last time, the great day of Jehovah, shall be passed on sub-human and superhuman creatures, Isaiah 3 seems only to speak of acts of judgment that do not bring the continuation of human kind into question. Moreover, in as much as an ordered government is essential to the very existence of such continuance, the removal of those in power enumerated in Isa_3:2-3 does not appear to be a punishment of these themselves for their loftiness, but of the people. Those authorities appear as a benefit that is withdrawn from the sinful nation, and in their stead they are abandoned to the miseries of anarchy, or of a boy and woman government. If now the removal of these pillars, the great and mighty (Isa_3:2-3), is because they on their part share the blame, still that is not the principal thought. But the chief matter is that from the nation, which (Isa_3:8) had “provoked the eyes of the glory” of the Lord, shall be taken away the indispensable support of its customary and natural rulers. In connection with Isaiah 2 one expects a specifying of the contents, that as the sub-human and superhuman magnates must be humbled so, too, must the human magnates be. But this thought comes up only at Isa_3:13-15. Hence Isa_3:1-21 make on me the impression of a discourse that originally did not belong in this connection, but which was inserted here because it still in some measure suits the context. It is possible that originally these words were directed against the bad government of Ahaz, who came to the throne as a young man of 20 years (2Ki_16:2), although, taken strictly, they portray conditions that really never occurred either under Ahaz or in any other stadium of Jewish history.
Because Isa_3:1, presupposes the destruction of human magnates, that were for themselves and others an object of unjustifiable confidence (Isa_2:22), the discourse as regards its matter fits the context (comp. Isa_2:11). But it fits in also in chronological respects, so far as all acts of divine judgment constitute a unity; consequently all visitations that precede the last judgment belong essentially to it as precursors. But that the Prophet notwithstanding makes a distinction appears from Isa_3:13-15.
The order of thought in our passage, then, is as follows: After the Prophet had signified by Isa_2:22, that now he would proceed to the judgment against every high thing among men, he classifies in advance Isa_3:1 the contents of what he has to say, in that he announces that Judah and Jerusalem shall be deprived of every support, male and female. The male supports he then enumerates Isa_3:2-3. If these are removed, of course only children and women remain as supports of the commonwealth. The misery of boy rule, that gradually degenerates into anarchy, is portrayed Isa_3:4-7 in vigorous lines. This misery is the symptom of prevalent ruin in Judah and Jerusalem, and the consequence of those crimes committed against the Lord (Isa_3:8), that are public and not at all denied. These, therefore, are the self-meriting cause of that misery (Isa_3:9); for as the righteous reap salvation as fruit of their works (Isa_3:10), so the wicked destruction (Isa_3:11). Thus it comes that children and women rule over the nation and that these bad guides lead it into destruction (Isa_3:12). But this self-merited temporal misfortune is only the prelude of that still higher judgment that Jehovah shall conduct in proper person which, according to chap. 2, shall take place at the end of days, and by which the Lord shall finally rescue the pith of the people, but will drag their destroyers to a merited accountability.
2. Cease ye—accounted of ?—Isa_2:22. As, in what precedes, the trust in things falsely eminent, in money, in power, in idolatry, was demonstrated as vanity, so the same occurs here in regard to men. “Cease from men,” says the Prophet. How shall man be an object of trust, how shall he be a support, seeing the principle of his life is the air that he breathes in and out of his nostrils, thus the fugitive quickly disappearing breath? Thence man himself is called so often הֶבֶלbreath;Psa_39:6-7; Psa_39:12; Psa_62:10, etc., comp. Gen_4:2.—The expression “whose breath is in his nostrils” calls to mind Gen_2:7; Gen_7:22; Job_27:3.—“For wherein is he to be accounted of?” Man as such, i. e., as bearer of the divine image in earthly form (אָדָם) is of course of great value before God. Comp. Psa_8:5 sqq.; Job_7:17. In these passages the inquiry “what is man” reminds one very much of the inquiry of our Prophet. But as helper, saviour, defender, support, man counts for little, yea less than nothing, according to Psa_62:10. For as one knows at once from Isa_3:1 sqq., human props may in a twinkling all of them be taken away. The preposition בְּ stands here as elsewhere (comp. Isa_7:2) as sign of the price that is regarded as the means for purchasing the wares or work.
3. For behold—eloquent orator.—Isa_3:1-3. The solemn accumulation of the names of God that occurs here, occurs in like manner Isa_1:24; Isa_10:16; Isa_10:33; Isa_19:4. The subject addressed appears here also the chief city and the chief tribe of the people of Israel. But while, 1 and 2, it is always said “Judah and Jerusalem,” here (Isa_3:8) it is said “Jerusalem and Judah.” This is not without meaning, and we are perhaps justified in finding therein a support for the conjecture expressed above, that our passage did not originate at the same time with what precedes and what follows it, but is inserted here. The following words: “the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water” appear to interrupt the connection. For when, Isa_3:2-3, the different categories of kinds of human callings are enumerated, and Isa_3:16 sqq., the proud, aristocratic, decked out ladies are portrayed, is that not the specification of the ideas משׁען and משׁענה, stay and staff? And what have bread and water to do here, seeing everything impersonal has already been noticed above Isa_2:13-16? It is conceivable that a reader, who did not understand the relation of the two words to what follows, had made a gloss of them in this sense, and that this gloss then had crept into the text. Such is the conjecture of Hitzig, Knobel, Meier, and—though afterwards retracted—of Gesenius and Umbreit. The expression “stay” might call to mind the expression “comfort your hearts with a morsel of bread” (Gen_18:5; Jdg_19:5; Jdg_19:8; Psa_104:15) and the expression “staff of bread” (Lev_26:26; Eze_4:16; Ezekiel 5, 16). That just bread and water are named as corresponding to משׁען and משׁענה might have its reason in this, that they recognized in bread the female principle and in water the male. But it is always doubtful to assume an interpolation only on internal grounds. Ewald and Drechsler understand the words in a figurative sense. The stay of bread and of water signify the supports that are necessary as bread and water. But Knobel justly remarks that this were an unheard of trope. May not all those be called “staffs of bread and water” that provide the state with bread and water, i. e., with all that pertains to daily bread? Call to mind the explanation of the fourth petition in Luther’s catechism, wherein “pious and faithful rulers” and “good government” are reckoned as daily bread too. Staff of bread, etc., would be therefore, not the bread and water themselves as supports for preserving life (Genitive of the subject), but the supports on which bread and water, i. e., the necessities and nourishment of life depend (genitive of the object).
In the following enumeration, as Drechsler remarks, the instructors and military profession are especially represented. Even the entire apparatus of state machinery of that day is mentioned. But as all that are named are designated as those that the Lord takes away, it is seen that they are all regarded as false supports. They may even be that per se in so far as they ought not to exist at all among the people of God; as e. g., the קֹסֵם, diviner and the נְבוֹן לַחַשׁ, expert enchanter, (Deu_18:10-14). לַחַשׁ is the murmuratio (magia murmurata Apul.), the muttered repetition of the magic formulas (Isa_26:16); נַבוֹן occurs again Isa_5:21; Isa_29:14.
Even the נָבִיא may, according to the context and the kindred passage Isa_9:14, be only prophets that prophesy falsely in the name of Jehovah. The use of the rest of the callings named is indeed legally justified, but nevertheless they are subject to abuse. One may indeed cast a doubt on the legality of the נְשׂוּא פָנִים (comp. Isa_9:14) the amicus regis, the preferred favorite, but not on that of the others. Especially the men of war appear to be indispensable, whence each of the verses 2 and 3 begins with the naming of such. גִּבּוֹר seems to mean ‘the warrior proved by deeds; אִישׁ מִלְחָמָה the man of war in general; שַׂר־הֲמִשִּׁים the rank of captain; while the שׁוֹפֵט = state officer and זָקֵן = officer of the congregation. Ahithophel and Hushai (2 Samuel 17) are practical illustrations of יוֹעַץ, counsellor. The חֲכַם חֲרָשִׁים is the engineer, master of the preparation of warlike weapons and military machines (comp. on Jer_24:1).
4. And I will give—a ruler of the people.
Isa_3:4-7. When a state trusts to an arm of flesh, and puts its trust solely in its princes and men of might, in its diplomats and generals, in a word, in the strength of its men, and the Lord takes away these strong ones as false supports, then, of course, a condition must ensue in which weak hands manage the rudder of state. No earthly state has continuously maintained a position strong and flourishing. One need only call to mind the world-monarchies. That gradual weakening of the world-power indicated in Daniel’s image of the monarchies (Daniel 2), takes place also within each individual kingdom. Call to mind the vigorous Assyrian rulers, a Tiglath Pileser, Sargon, Sennacherib, and the inglorious end of the last of their successors, whatever may have been his name: think of Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar, of Cyrus and Darius Codomannus, of Augustus and Romulus Augustulus, etc. In Judah, too, it was not different. Zedekiah was a weakling that perpetually wavered between a fear of Jehovah’s prophet and of his own powerful subjects. It may, therefore, be said that not some quite definite historical fact is prophesied here, but a condition of punishment is threatened such as always and everywhere must ensue where the strength of a national life is exhausted, and the end approaches (comp. Ecc_10:16).
When weak hands hold the reins of government a condition of lawlessness ensues, and of defencelessness for the weak. The strong then do as they wish. They exercise club law. A further consequence of that anarchical condition is that those of lower rank no longer submit to the higher ranks, but, in wicked abuse of their physical strength, lift themselves above them. The misery of that anarchical condition, however, stands out in strongest relief when at last no one will tolerate any government. Although the inhabitants would gladly make a ruler of any one that rises in any degree above the universal wretchedness (say any one that has still a good coat), yet every one on whom they would put this honor will resist it with all his might. “Under thy hand,” comp. Gen_41:35; 2Ki_8:20. With loud voice will the chosen man emphatically protest. This is indicated by the expression יִשָּׂא to which קוֹל must be supplied (Isa_42:2; Isa_42:11). “I will not be surgeon,” he says, by which he calls the state life sick. [“The sick man,” as modern designation for the Turkish Empire.—Tr.].
[On Isa_3:4. “I will give children.” “Some apply this, in a strict sense, to the weak and wicked reign of Ahaz, others in a wider sense to the series of weak kings after Isaiah. But there is no need of restricting it to kings at all. The most probable opinion is that incompetent rulers are called boys or children not in respect to age but character.—J. A. A. Similarly Barnes.
On Isa_3:6. “The government shall go a begging. It is taken for granted that there is no way of redressing all these grievances, and bringing things into order again, but by good magistrates, who shall be invested with power by common consent, and shall exert that power for the good of the community. And it is probable that this was in many places the true origin of government; men found it necessary to unite in a subjection to one who was thought fit for such a trust,—being aware that they must be ruled or ruined.”—M. Henry.
On Isa_3:7. “The last clause does not simply mean do not make me, but you must not or you shall not make me a ruler.”—J. A. A.
“The meaning is, that the state of affairs was so ruinous and calamitous that he would not attempt to restore them—as if in the body, disease should have so far progressed that he would not undertake to restore the person, and have him die under his hands, so as to expose himself to the reproach of being an unsuccessful and unskilful physician.”—Barnes.
On Isa_3:9. “The sense is not that their looks betray them, but that they make no effort at concealment, as appears from the reference to Sodom. The expression of the same idea first in a positive and then in a negative form is not uncommon in Scripture, and is a natural if not an English idiom. Madame D. Arblay, in her memoirs of Dr. Burney, speaks of Omiah, the Tahitian, brought home by Capt. Cook, as uttering first affirmatively, etc., then negatively all the little sentences that he attempted to utter.”—J. A. A.
On Isa_3:10. “The righteous are encouraged by the assurance that the judgments of God shall not be indiscriminate.—The object of address seems to be not the prophets or ministers of God, but the people at large or men indefinitely.”—J. A. A.
“Whatever becomes of the unrighteous nation, let the righteous man know that he shall not be lost in the crowd of sinners: the Judge of all the earth will not slay the righteous with the wicked (Gen_18:25); no, assure him, in God’s name, that it shall be well with him. The property of the trouble shall be altered to him, and he shall be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger.—M. Henry.]
5. For Jerusalem—thy paths.
Isa_3:8-12. Such a condition of anarchy is only a symptom of the outward and inward decay. It is never blameless, but always blameworthy misfortune. As the second hemistich of Isa_3:8, evidently describes the inward decay, the first must consequently be referred to the outward. But hemistich 2 is strung on with כִּי with a chain-like effect. The anarchy is the symptom of the outward decay; but the outward decay is the consequence of that which is inward. With Drechsler I translate by “insult the eyes of his glory.” It is evident, that the Prophet would indicate a direct antithesis between the glory of Jehovah, and the bad tongues and works, as also an antithesis between “the eyes of the loftiness of man” Isa_2:11; Isa_5:15 and “the eyes of the glory of Jehovah.” The eyes of God who is God of light (Isa_60:19; Mic_7:8; 1Jn_1:5) are insulted just by this, that they must see the works of darkness. It seems to me, on this account, clear that the divine majesty is designated as glorious chiefly in respect to its purity and holiness; therefore ethically. That, moreover, the eyes of the glory of God, are not something different from the eyes of God Himself is just as clear as that the eyes of the glory must themselves be glorious. They are here the organ of the manifestation of His glory (comp. Rev_2:18), as in other places it speaks of the arm of His salvation (Isa_40:10), of His holiness, (Isa_52:10) of His strength (Isa_62:8). Besides the expression is only found here, as may be said also of the defective writing of it.
The Prophet had (Isa_3:8) assigned the badness of the words and work as the cause of the fall. But is this accusation well founded? Yes, it is. A double and unexceptionable witness testifies to its truth: 1) the cognitio vultuum, knowledge of countenances. Thus we might translate: “appearance testifies against thee.” (See Text. and Gr.)
2.) Their own declaration, though not made with this intention. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” The godless cannot lock up that of which his heart is full. The mouth, as it were, foams over involuntarily with it. The Sodomites, too, (comp. Isa_1:9-10) spoke out insolently the shameful purpose they had in mind (Gen_19:3). So the Israelites made no concealment of the evil they had in mind. Therefore their ruin is merited (comp. Gen_50:15; Gen_50:17) and just. The sentence: “woe to them, for they have hurt themselves” which, Isa_3:9 b, is especially applied to Israel, is established in what follows, by stating in its double aspect the fundamental and universal truth that underlies it, that a man must reap what he sows. First, the righteous is pronounced blessed because he shall eat the (good) fruits of his (good) works. As that universal truth of the causal connection between works and the fate of men is not expressed, but assumed, so that aspect of it that relates to the righteous is not expressed in doctrinal form, but, vigorous and life like, in the form of a summons to declare the righteous blessed.
The happiness of the righteous will consist in this, that he shall enjoy the fruit of his works (Pro_1:31). To the wicked, on the other hand, a woe is proclaimed. The happiness of the pious is announced to every one; the vengence that shall overtake the wicked is announced to himself alone.
Isa_3:12. Is a resumé. In these words the whole course of thought from Isa_3:1-11, is comprehended again. The two halves of Isa_3:12 begin with עַמִּי“My people” put before absolutely, which shows how much the Lord loves His people, and how much the state of things portrayed makes Him sorry for His people. The word נֹגְשִׂים, oppressors, is used of those whom the people, for want of better, in consequence of that oppression mentioned in Isa_3:5, had been obliged to make chiefs. By this is intimated that these supports of necessity shall themselves be no proper chiefs that merit the name, but only rude oppressors. Comp. Isa_9:3; Isa_14:2; Isa_60:17. They are so, not in spite of, but just because of their being children, boys.
מְאַשֵּׁרqui rectâ ducit, comp. Isa_1:17. The word is meant ironically, for how else could the מאשּר be a מַתְעֶה? Our passage as already remarked stands in evident connection with Isa_9:15. There too the leaders are called misleaders; there, too, the word בלע is used of those who mislead, for they are called מְבֻלָּעִיּם. We see by this that the Prophet has not in mind the same persons in the second half of the verse that he has in the first. He speaks in the second clause of the false prophets, as in Isa_9:14 sq. Like flies in honey, this vermin is ever found where there are bad rulers. For they need false prophets to cover over their doings. These false prophets, however, devour the path of the people. Delitzsch (like Jerome, Theodoret, Luther before him) understands by “the way of their paths” the right way, the way of the law. “The prophets, that ought to preach it, say mum, mum, and retain it swallowed. It has gone into oblivion by false prophetic, errorneous preaching:” But it seems to me as if then it must not read דרך ארחתיך, the way of thy paths. For this is just the way that Israel actually treads, the direction that its life path actually tends. It must then read way of Jehovahדֶּרֶךְ י׳ as Psa_18:22, or ד אֱמוּנָה, or ר׳ מִעְוֹתי׳, as Psa_119:30; Psa_119:32, or אֹרַח משְׁפָּט as Isa_40:14 or ד֝ שָׁלזֹם as Isa_59:8, or such like. I therefore agree with the explanation of those that take בלע in a metaphorical sense like that where this word is elsewhere used of the destruction of a city (2Sa_20:19-20) or of a wall (Lam_2:8). The expression only occurs in this place in relation to a way, but it must mean nothing else than to direct the path of one’s life down into the depths of destruction in which the devourers themselves are. Comp. Job_6:18.
6. The Lord standeth up—the Lord of Hosts.
Isa_3:13-15. At first sight one might think these three verses bring the further explication of one matter of moment in Isa_3:1-12, viz., the more particular laying down of the judgment against the chiefs of the nation which was only indicated in Isa_3:1, by מֵסִיר“taking away” and in Isa_3:12 by the reproach uttered against them.
But we see from the solemnity of Isa_3:13, especially from the antithesis between עַמִּים and עַמּוֹ (עַמִּי Isa_3:14-15), “the people and His people” that we are introduced into quite another moment of time. For evidently Isa_3:13-15 depict again the judgment of the world. “The world’s judgment presents itself anew before his soul,” says Delitzsch. “The people” Isa_3:13, recalls distinctly “the nations” and “many people” of Isa_2:2-4. However, it is not the judging of the nations generally that is portrayed, but only the judging of the people of God as a part of this universal judgment. Moreover, not of the nation in its totality, but of the destroyers of this totality, the princes and elders (Isa_3:14 a). These appear, therefore, as the chief agents of that inward and outward decay that has invaded the nation. If, according to Isa_2:3, all nations are to stream to the mountain of the Lord, because the law shall go forth out of Zion, then, evidently, Jerusalem itself must previously be cleansed and filled with the word of God. This cleansing, according to Isa_9:13 sqq., begins with this, that the Lord will cast off from Israel head and tail. The elders are the head, the false prophets are the tail. Here too, though a briefer, still a comprehensible, hint is given that indicates the sort of purifying that Israel itself must undergo in order to become what, according to Isa_2:3, it ought to become. This hint makes on me the impression that Isa_3:1-12 does, viz., that a word spoken on some other occasion has been applied to this purpose. Comp., the comment on Isa_3:16 sqq. Unmoved and unmovable (comp. Gen_37:7) i.e., as one whom no one can crowd from this place, the Lord conducts the judgment; and that standing, not sitting, therefore ready and prepared for instant execution of the judgment, He exercises the magisterial function, Psa_82:1, which so far resembles our passage that it also describes the judgment upon the magistrates of the people, represents too, the Lord as a judge in standing posture. Elsewhere He is represented as sitting in judgment: Psa_9:5; Psa_29:10; Joel 4:12, etc.
The discourse of the Lord begins with the second clause of Isa_3:14, with ואתם, “but ye,” thus with a conclusion to which the premise must be supplied. It is the same construction as Psa_2:6. The premise to be supplied must be to this effect: “I have made you commanders that ye might administer justice. But ye,” etc. The princes have regarded the nation as their domain which they might use up as they pleased. They have, therefore, themselves become the cattle from which they ought to have protected the vineyard. The he-goat had become gardener (Delitzsch). Comp. Isa_1:23; Mic_3:1-3. The image of the devoured vineyard is at once explained; robbery, plunder wrested from the poor is found in their houses. To the “but you” of Isa_3:14 corresponds an equally emphatic “what mean ye” that begins Isa_3:15. The flow of words is so fast that even the כִּיfor, that otherwise would follow the question (comp. Isa_22:1; Isa_22:16) is wanting (comp. Jon_1:6, where, however, the construction is somewhat different). To grind to pieces the face of a man appears to me to be the expression for beating to pieces the face (1Ki_22:24; Mich. 4:14) in the intensest degree. The expression is exactly the opposite of permuclere faciemחלה פּ׳Psa_45:13; Pro_19:6. The high significance of the declaration is, in conclusion, evidenced by the reference of it to “the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth,” concerning which see the comment at Isa_1:9; Isa_1:24.
[On Isa_3:13. “Nations here as often elsewhere means the tribes of Israel. See Gen_49:10; Deu_32:8; Deu_33:3; Deu_33:19; 1Ki_22:28; Mic_1:2.”—J. A. A.
On Isa_3:15. “Grind the faces of the poor. The simplest and most natural interpretation is that which applies it to the act of grinding the face upon the ground by trampling on the body, thus giving the noun and verb their proper meaning and making the parallelism more exact.”—J. A. A.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_2:2. Domus Dei, etc. “The house of God is built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, who, themselves, too, are mountains, quasi imitators of Christ. (They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, Psa_125:1) Whence, also, upon one of the mountains Christ founded the Church and said: Thou art Peter, etc., Mat_16:18.” Jerome.——“We can understand Jerusalem by the mountain of God, for we see how the believing run thither, and how those that have accepted the testimony come thither and seize the blessing that proceeds thence. But we may also by the house of God understand the churches spread over land and sea, as we believe St. Paul, who says, ‘we are the house of God,’ Heb_3:6. And so we may recognize the truth of the prophecy. For the Church of God stands shining forth, and the nations, forsaking wickedness that has long had dominion over them, hasten to her and are enlightened by her.” Theodoret.——Ecclesia est, etc. “The church is a mountain exalted and established above all other mountains, but in spirit. For if you regard the external look of the church from the beginning of the world, then in New Testament times, you will see it oppressed, contemned, and in despair. Yet, notwithstanding, in that contempt it is exalted above all mountains. For all kingdoms and all dominions that have ever been in the world have perished. The church alone endures and triumphs over heresies, tyrants, Satan, sin, death and hell, and that by the word only, by this despised and feeble speech alone. Moreover it is a great comfort that the bodily place, whence first the spiritual kingdom should arise, was so expressly predicted, that consciences are assured of that being the true word, that began first to be preached in that corner of Judea, that it may be for us a mount Zion, or rule for judging of all religions and all doctrines. The Turkish Alcoran did not begin in Zion—therefore it is wicked doctrine. The various Popish rites, laws, traditions began not in Zion—therefore they are wicked, and the very doctrines of devils. So we may hold ourselves upright against all other religions, and comfort our hearts with this being the only true religion which we profess. Therefore, too, in two psalms, Psalms 2, 110, mount Zion is expressly signified: “I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion;” likewise: “The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion.” Luther.
2. On Isa_2:2. Luther makes emphatic, as something pertaining to “the wonderful nature of this kingdom,” that “other kingdoms are established and administered by force and arms. But here, because the mountain is lifted up, the nation shall flow (fluent), i.e., they shall come voluntarily, attracted by the virtues of the church. For what is there sweeter or lovelier than the preaching of the gospel? Whereas Moses frightens weak souls away. Thus the prophet by the word fluent, “flow,” has inlaid a silent description of the kingdom of Christ, which Christ gives more amply when He says: Mat_11:12, “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force,” i.e. “they are not compelled, but they compel themselves.” “Morever rivers do not flow up mountains, but down them; but here is such an unheard-of thing in the kingdom of Christ.”—Starke.
3. Luther remarks on “and shall say: come,” etc. “Here thou seest the worship, works and efforts and sacrifices of Christians. For they do only the one work, that they go to hear and to learn. All the rest of the members must serve their neighbors. These two, ears and heart, must serve God only. For the kingdom rests on the word alone. Sectaries and heretics, when they have heard the gospel once, instantly become masters, and pervert the Prophet’s word, in that they say: Come let us go up that we may teach him his way and walk in our paths. They despise, therefore, the word as a familiar thing and seek new disputations by which they may display their spirit and commend themselves to the crowd. But Christians know that the words of the Holy Ghost can never be perfectly learned as long as we are in the flesh. For Christianity does not consist in knowing, but in the disposition. This disposition can never perfectly believe the word on account of the weakness of the sinful flesh. Hence they ever remain disciples and ruminate the word, in order that the heart, from time to time, may flame up anew. It is all over with us if we do not continue in the constant use of the word, in order to oppose it to Satan in temptation (Matthew 4). For immediately after sinning ensues an evil conscience, that can be raised up by nothing but the word. Others that forsake the word sink gradually from one sin into another, until they are ruined. Therefore Christianity must be held to consist in hearing the word, and those that are overcome by temptations, whether of the heart or body, may know that their hearts are empty of the word.”
4. Vitringa remarks on the words, “Out of Zion goes forth the law,” Isa_5:3. “If strife springs up among the disciples concerning doctrine or discipline, one must return to the pattern of the doctrine and discipline of the school at Jerusalem. For יָצָא “shall go forth,” stands here only as in Luk_2:1, “There went forth a decree from Cæsar Augustus.” In this sense, too, Paul says, 1Co_14:36, “What? came the word of God out from you?” The word of God did not go forth from Corinth, Athens, Rome, Ephesus, but from Jerusalem, a fact that bishops assembled in Antioch opposed to Julius I. (Sozom. hist. eccl. III. 8, “the orientals acknowledged that the Church of Rome was entitled to universal honor—although those who first propagated a knowledge of Christian doctrine in that city came from the East”). Cyril took יָצָא in the false sense of κατελἐλοιπε τὴν Σιών, “has forsaken Zion.” When the Lord opened the understandings of the disciples at Emmaus, to understand the Scriptures and see in the events they had experienced the fulfilment of what was written concerning Him in the law, Prophets and Psalms, He cannot have forgotten the present passage. Of this we may be the more assured since the words: “Thus it is written and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem.” Luk_24:46-47, point clearly to Isa_2:2-3 of our passage. Therefore too, Justin Martyr Apol. i. (commonly ii.), § 49, says: “But where the prophetic spirit predicts the future, he says: from Zion shall go forth the law, etc. And that this finally came to pass in fact, you may credibly assure yourselves. For from Jerusalem have men gone forth into the world, twelve in number, and these were unlearned, that knew not how to speak. But by the might of God they have proclaimed to all mankind that they were sent by Christ in order to teach all the word of God.”
“Zion is contrasted here with Mount Sinai, whence the law came, which in the Old Testament was the foundation of all true doctrine: But in the New Testament Mount Zion or Jerusalem has the privilege to announce that now a more perfect law would be given and a new Covenant of God with men would be established. Thus Zion and Jerusalem are, so to speak, the nursery and the mother of all churches and congregations of the New Testament.”—Starke.
5. Förster remarks on the end of Isa_2:3, that the gospel is the sceptre of Jesus Christ, according to Psa_110:2; Psa_45:7 (the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre). “For by the word Christ rules His church (Rom_10:14 sqq.).”
6. On Isa_2:4. “Pax optima rerum.” Foerster. The same author finds this prophecy fulfilled by Christ, who is our peace, who has made of both one, and broken down the partition that was between, in that by His flesh He took away the enmity (Eph_2:14). Foerster, moreover, combats the Anabaptists, who would prove from this passage that waging war is not permitted to Christians. For our passage speaks only against the privata Christianorum discordia. But waging war belongs to the publicum magistratus officium. Waging war, therefore, is not forbidden, if only the war is a just one. To be such, however, there must appear according to Thomas, part. 2 th. quœst. 40. 1) auctoritatis principis, 2) causa justa, 3) intentio bellantium justa, or ut allii efferunt: 1) jurisdictio indicentis, 2) offensio patientis, 3) intentio finem (?) convenientis.
7. On Isa_2:4. Jerome regarded the time of Augustus, after his victory at Actium, as the fulfilling of this prophecy. Others, as Cocceius, refer the words, “they shall turn their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks,” to the time of Constantine the Great; and the words “nation shall not lift up sword against nation” to the period of the restoration of religious peace in Germany,—finally the words: “they shall no more learn war,” to a future time that is to be hoped for. Such interpretations are, however, just as one-sided as those that look only for a spiritual fulfilment of prophecy. For how is an inward fulfilment of this promise of peace to be thought of which would not have the outward effects as its consequence? Or how is an outward fulfilment, especially such as would deserve the name, conceivable without the basis of the inward? Or must this peaceful time be looked for only in heaven? Why then does the promise stand here? It is a matter of course that there is peace in heaven: for where there is no peace there can be no heaven. The promise has sense only if its fulfilment is to be looked for on earth. The fulfilment will take place when the first three petitions of the Lord’s prayer are fulfilled, i.e. when God’s name shall be held holy by us as it in itself is holy, when the kingdom of God is come to everything, without and within, and rules alone over all, when the will of God is done on earth as in heaven. Christendom makes this prayer quite as much with the consciousness that it cannot remain unfulfilled, as with the consciousness that it must find its fulfilment on earth. For, if referred to heaven, these petitions are without meaning. Therefore there is a time of universal inward and outward peace to be looked for on earth. “It is not every day’s evening,” i.e. one must await the event, and our earth, without the least saltus in cogitando, can yet experience a state of things that shall be related to the present, as the present to the period of trilobites and saurians. If one could only keep himself free from the tyranny of the present moment! But our entire, great public, that has made itself at home in Philistia, lives in the sweet confidence that there is no world beside that of which we take notice on the surface of the earth, nor ever was one, nor ever will be.
8. On Isa_2:4. Poets reverse the figure to portray the transition from peaceful to warlike conditions. Thus Virgil, Georg. I. 2:506 sq.:
Non ullus aratro
Dignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis.
Et curvæ rigidum falces conflantur in ensem.
Aeneide VII. 2:635 sq.:
Vomeris huc et falcis honos, huc omnis aratri
Cessit amor; recoquunt patrios fornacibus enses.
Ovid, Fast. I. 2:697 sqq.:
Bella diu tenuere viros. Erat aptior ensis
Vomere, cedebat taurus arator equo.
Sarcula cessabant, versique in pila ligones.
Factaque de rastri pondere cassia erat.
9. On Isa_2:5. As Isaiah puts the glorious prophecy of his fellow prophet Micah at the head, he illuminates the future with a splendid, shining, comforting light. Once this light is set up, it of itself suggests comparisons. The questions arise: how does the present stand related to that shining future? What difference obtains? What must happen for that condition of holiness and glory to be brought about? The Christian Church, too, and even each individual Christian must put himself in the light of that prophetic statement. On the one hand that will humiliate us, for we must confess with the motto of Charles V.: nondum! And long still will we need to cry: Watchman what of the night (Isa_21:11)? On the other hand the Prophet’s word will also spur us up and cheer us. For what stronger impulse can be imagined than the certainty that one does not contend in vain, but may hope for a reward more glorious than all that ever came into a man’s heart? (Isa_64:4; 1Co_2:9).
In the time of the second temple, in the evenings of the first days of the feast of Tabernacles, great candelabras were lighted in the forecourt of the temple, each having four golden branches, and their light was so strong that it was nearly as light as day in Jerusalem. That might be for Jerusalem a symbol of that “let us walk in the light of the Lord.” But Jerusalem rejoiced in this light, and carried on all sorts of pastime, yet it was not able to learn to know itself in this light, and by this self-knowledge to come to true repentance and conversion.
10. On Isa_2:8, “their land is full of idols.” “Not only images and pictures are idols, but every notion concerning God that the godless heart forms out of itself without the authority of the Scripture. The notion that the Mass is effective ex opere operato, is an idol. The notion that works are demanded for justification with God, is an idol. The notion that God takes delight in fasts, peculiar clothes, a special order of life, is an idol. God wills not that we should set up out of our own thoughts a fashion of worshipping Him; but He says: “In all places where I record My name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee,” Exo_20:24—Luther.
11. On Isa_2:9-21. When men have brought an idol into existence, that is just to their mind, whether it be an idolum manu factum, or an idolum mente excogitatum, there they are all wonder, all worship. “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” Then the idol has a time of great prosperity and glory. But sooner or later there comes a time when the judgment of God overtakes the idol and its servants. God suffers sin to become ripe like men let a conspiracy, like they let fruit ripen. But when the right time comes then He steps forth in such a fashion that they creep into mouse-holes to hide themselves, if it were possible, from the lightning of His eye and His hand. Where then are the turned-up noses, the big mouths, the impudent tongues? Thus it has often happened since the world began. But this being brought to confession shall happen in the highest degree to the puffed-up world at that day when they shall see that one whom they pierced, and whom they thought they might despise as the crucified One, coming in His glory to judge the world. Then they shall have anguish and sorrow, then shall they lament and faint away with apprehension of the things that draw nigh. But those that believed on the Lord in His holiness, shall then lift up their heads for that their redemption draws nigh. At that time, indeed, shall the Lord alone be high, and before Him shall bow the knees of all in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and all tongues must confess that Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12. On Isa_2:22. Of what do men not make idols! The great industrial expositions of modern times often fill me with dismay, when I have seen how men carry on an actual idolatrous worship with these products of human science and art, as if that all were not, in the end, God’s work, too, but human genius were alone the creator of these wonders of civilization. How wickedly this so-called worship of genius demeans itself ! How loathsome is the still more common cultus of power, mammon and the belly!
13. On Isa_3:1 sqq. Causa σωστική, etc. “The saving cause of the commonwealth is the possession of men of the sort here mentioned, which Plato also knew, and Cicero from Plato, each of whom judge, commonwealths would be blessed if philosophers, i.e., wise and adept men were to administer them.”—Foerster. The same writer cites among the causes why the loss of such men is ruinous, the changes that thence ensue. All changes in the commonwealth are hurtful. Xenoph. Hellen. Isaiah 2 : “εἰσὶ μὲν πᾶσαι μεταβολαὶ πολιτειῶν θανατηΦόροι.” Aristot. Metaph. Isaiah 2 : “ᾱἱμεταβολαὶ πάντων ταραχώδεις.”
14. On Isa_3:1. “The stay of bread,” etc. Vitringa cites Horat. Satir. L. II., 3 5:153 sq.:
Deficient inopem venœ te, ni cibus atque
Ingens accedit stomacho fultura ruenti.
And on Isa_3:2 sq. he cites Cicero, who, De Nat. Deorum III., calls these “prœsidia humana,” “firmamenta reipublicœ.” On Isa_3:6 sq. the same author cites the following passage from Livy (26 chap. 6): “Cum fame ferroque (Capuani) urgerentur, nec ulla spes superesset iis, qui nati in spem honorum erant, honores detrectantibus, Lesius querendo desertam et proditam a primoribus Capuam summum magistratum ultimus omnium Campanorum cepit!” On Isa_3:9 he quotes Seneca: De vita beata, chap. xii.: “Itaque quod unum habebant in peccatis bonum perdunt peccandi verecundiam. Laudant enim ea, quibus erubescant, et vitio gloriantur.”
15. On Isa_3:4; Isa_3:12. Foerster remarks: Pueri, etc. “Boys are of two sorts. Some are so in respect to age, others in respect to moral qualifications. So, too, on the contrary there is an old age of two sorts: “For honorable age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the true gray hair unto men, and an unspotted life is the true old age.” Wis_4:8-9. Examples of young and therefore foolish kings of Israel are Rehoboam (“the young fool gambled away ten whole tribes at one bet” 1 Kings 12). Ahaz, who was twenty years of age when he began to reign (2Ki_16:2). Manasseh who was twelve years (2Ki_21:1,) and Amon who was twenty-two years (2Ki_21:19).
16. On Isa_3:7. Foerster remarks: Nemo se, etc. “Let no one intrude himself into office, especially when he knows he is not fit for it,” and then cites: “Seek not of the Lord pre-eminence, neither of the king the seat of honor. Justify not thyself before the Lord; and boast not of thy wisdom before the king. Seek not to be judge, being not able to take away iniquity.” Sir_7:4-6.”—“Wen aber Gott schickt, den macht er auch geschickt.”
17. On Isa_3:8. “Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord.” Duplici modo, etc. “God may be honored by us in two outward ways: by word and deed, just as in the same way others come short; “to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” Judges 15.—Vitringa.
18. On Isa_3:9. “They hide not their sin.” Secunda post, etc. “The next plank after shipwreck, and solace of miseries is to hide one’s impiety.”—Jerome.
19. On Isa_3:10. “Now He comforts the pious as in Psalms 2. His anger will soon kindle, but it shall be well with all that trust in Him. So Abraham, so Lot was delivered; so the apostles and the remnant of Judah when Jerusalem was besieged. For the Lord helps the righteous (Psa_37:17; Psa_37:39).”—Luther.
20. On Isa_3:13-14.
“Judicabit judices judex generalis,
Neque quidquam proderit dignitas papalis,
Sive sit episcopus, sive cardinalis,
Reus condemnabitur, nec dicetur qualis.”
“Rhythmi vulgo noti,” quoted byFoerster.
21. On Isa_3:16 sq. Usus vestium, etc. “Clothes have a four-fold use: 1) they are the badge of guilt, or souvenir of the fall (Gen_3:7; Gen_3:10; Gen_3:21); 2) they should be coverings against the weather; 3) they may be ornaments for the body, (Pro_31:22; Pro_31:25); 4) they may serve as a mark of rank (2Sa_13:18).—The abuse of clothes is three-fold; 1) in regard to the material, they may be costlier or more splendid than one’s wealth or rank admits of; 2) in respect of form, they may betray buffoonery and levity; 3) in respect to their object, they may be worn more for the display of luxury and pride than for protection and modest adornment.”—Foerster.
22. On Isa_4:2. “Germen Jehovae est nomen Messiœ mysticum, a nemine intellectum, quam qui tenet mysterium Patris et Christi. Idem valet quod filius propago Patris naturalis, in quo patris sui imago et gloria perfectissime splendet, Jessaiae in seqq. (Isa_9:5) בן ,ילד, filius, Joanni ὁ λόγενής τοῦ θεοῦ,ὁυἱὸς πρωὀτοκος μονογενής, processio Patris naturaλis. Est hic eruditi cujusdam viri elegans observatio, quae eodem tendit, quam non licet intactam praetermittere. Comparat ille inter se nomina Messiœ צמח דוד (Jer_23:5) et צמח יהוה in hoc loco. Cum autem prior appellatio absque dubitatione innuat, Messiam fore filium Davidis, docet posteriorem ἀναλογικῶς non posse aliud significare quam filium Jehovae, quod nomen Christi Jesu est μυστικώτερον, omni alio nomine excellentius. Addit non minus docte, personam, quae hic germen Jehovae dicitur, deinceps a propheta nostro appellari Jehovam (Isa_28:5).”—Vitringa. This exposition, which is retained by most Christian and orthodox commentators, ignores too much the fundamental meaning of the word צֶמַח, “Branch.” It is, nevertheless, not incorrect so far as the broader meaning includes the narrower concentrically. If “Branch of Jehovah” signifies all that is the personal offshoot of God, then, of course, that one must be included who is such in the highest and most perfect sense, and in so far the passage Isa_28:5 does not conflict with exposition given by us above.
[J. A. Alexander joins with Vitringa and Hengstenberg in regarding “the fruit of the earth,” as referring to the same subject as “the branch of the Lord,” viz.: the Messiah; and thus, while the latter term signifies the divine nature of the Messiah, the former signifies His human origin and nature; or if we translate “land” instead of earth, it points to his Jewish human origin. Thus appears an exact correspondence to the two parts of Paul’s description, Rom_1:3-4, and to the two titles used in the New Testament in reference to Christ’s two natures, Son of God and Son of Man.—Tr.].
23. On Isa_4:3-4. Great storms and upheavals, therefore, are needful, in order to make the fulfilment of this prophecy possible. There must first come the breath of God from above, and the flame of God from beneath over the earth, and the human race must first be tossed and sifted. The earth and mankind must first be cleansed by great judgments from all the leaven of evil. [J. A. Alexander, with Luther, Calvin, Ewald, maintains concerning the word Spirit in Isa_4:4, that “the safest and most satisfactory interpretation is that which understands by it a personal spirit, or as Luther expresses it, the Spirit who shall judge and burn.”—Tr.]. What survives these judgments is the remnant of which Isaiah speaks. This shall be holy. In it alone shall the Lord live and rule. This remnant is one with the new humanity which in every part, both as respects body and soul, will represent the image of Christ the second Adam. This remnant, at the same time, comprehends those whose names are written in the book of life. What sort of a divine book this may be, with what sort of corporal, heavenly reality, of course we know not. For Himself God needs no book. Yet if we compare the statements of the Revelation of John regarding the way in which the last judgment shall be held, with certain other New Testament passages, I think we obtain some explanation. We read Mat_19:28, that on the day of the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, the twelve apostles, too, shall sit on twelve thrones to judge the generations of Israel. And 1Co_5:2, we read that the saints shall judge the world. But, Rev_20:11, we find again the great white throne, whereon sits the great Judge of the living and the dead, after that, just before (Rev_4:4), it was said: “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them.” Afterwards it reads (Rev4:12): “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” And (Rev 4:15). “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” From this description there seems to me to result that the books necessarily are meant for those who are, by the Supreme Judge charged with the judgment of particular ones. To this end they need, in the first place, many books that contain the works of individuals. God has a book-keeping for the life of every man. This divine record will be produced to every single one at the day of judgment. Is he a Jew? by one of the twelve Apostles. Is he a heathen? by some other saint. No man shall be able to remonstrate against this account for it will carry the evidence of truth in itself, and in the consciences of those to be judged. Should such a protest occur, the arraigned will be referred to the book of life. This is only one. For it contains only names. After this manner will the separation be accomplished, spoken of in Mat_25:32 sq. For those whose names are found in the book of life go to the right side; the rest to the left. Then the great Judge Himself takes up the Word in the manner described in Mat_25:34 sqq., and calls the righteous to Himself, that they may inherit the kingdom that is prepared for them. But the wicked He repulses from Him into everlasting fire, that is prepared for the devil and his angels, in regard to which the account of the judgment in Matthew 25, as far as the end is concerned, harmonizes entirely with Rev_20:15.
24. On Isa_4:5-6. “The pillar of fire and cloud belongs to the miraculous graces by which the founding of the Old Testament kingdom of God was glorified just as the New Testament kingdom was by the signs that Jesus did, and by the charismata of the Apostolic time. But that appearance was quite appropriate to the state of developed revelation of that time. This had not reached the New Testament level, and not even the prophetic elevation that was possible under the Old Testament, but only the legal in which the divine stands outwardly opposed to the human. God is present among His people, but still in the most outward way; He does not walk in a human way among men; there is, too, no inward leading of the congregation by the Holy Spirit, but an outward conducting by a visible heavenly appearance. And, for these revelations to the whole people, God makes use entirely of nature, and, when it concerns His personal manifestation, of the elements. He does so, not merely in distinction from the patriarchal theophanies, …, but, particularly in contrast with heathenism, in order to accustom the Israelitish consciousness from the first not to deify the visible world, but to penetrate through it to the living, holy God, who has all the elements of nature at command as the medium of His revelation.”—Auberlen.
As at the close of John’s Revelation (chaps. 21, 22) we see the manifestation of the Godhead to humanity return to its beginning (Genesis 2, 3, 4), in as much as that end restores just that with which the beginning began, i.e. the dwelling of God with men, so, too, we see in Isa_4:5-6, a special manifestation of the (relative) beginning time recur again in the end time; the pillar of fire and cloud. But what in the beginning was an outward and therefore enigmatical and unenduring appearance, shall at last be a necessary and abiding factor of the mutual relation between God and mankind, that shall be established for ever in its full glory. There shall come a time wherein Israel shall expand to humanity and humanity receive power to become Israel, wherein, therefore, the entire humanity shall be Israel. Then is the tabernacle of God with men no more a pitiful tent, made of mats, but the holy congregation is itself the living abode of God; and the gracious presence of Almighty God, whose glory compares with the old pillar of fire and cloud, like the new, eternal house of God, with the old perishable tabernacle, is then itself the light and defence of His house.
25. On Isa_4:5-6. “But give diligence to learn this, that the Prophet calls to mind, that Christ alone is destined to be the defence and shade of those that suffer from heat and rain. Fasten your eyes upon Him, hang upon Him as ye are exhorted to do by the divine voice, ‘Him shall ye hear!’ Whoever hearkens to another, whoever looks to any other flesh than this, it is all over with him. For He alone shelters us from the heat, that comes from contemplating the majesty (i.e. from the terror that God’s holiness and righteousness inspire), He alone covers us from the rain and the power of Satan. This shade affords us a coolness, so that the dread of wrath gives way. For wrath cannot be there where thou seest the Son of God given to death for thee, that thou mightest live. Therefore I commend to you that name of Christ, wherewith the Prophet adorns Him, that He is a tabernacle for shade against the heat, a refuge and place of concealment from rain and tempest.”—Luther.—With some modification, we may apply here the comprehensive turn Foerster gives to our passage: 1) The dwelling of Mount Zion is the church; 2) the heat is the flaming wrath of God, and the heat of temptation (1Pe_4:12; Sir_2:4-5); 3) tempest and rain are the punishments of sins, or rather the inward and outward trials (Psalms 2.; Isa_57:20); 4) the defence or the pillar of cloud and fire is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 10).
26. On Isa_5:1-7. This parable has a brother in the New Testament that looks very much like it. I might say: the head is almost the same. For the beginning of that New Testament parable (Mat_21:33; Mar_12:1), “A man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a wine-fat and built a tower,” is manifestly imitated after our passage. But here it is the vineyard that is bad, while there, in the New Testament, the husbandmen are good for nothing. Here the Lord appears as at once owner and cultivator of the vineyard; there the owner and cultivators are distinguished. This arises from the fact that the Lord Jesus apparently had in His mind the chiefs of the people, “the high-priests and elders” (Mat_21:23-24). From this it is manifest that here as there the vineyard is the nation. In Isaiah, however, the vineyard, that is to say the vine itself is accused. The whole people is represented as having equally gone to destruction. In the Synoptists, on the other hand, it is the chiefs and leaders that come between the Lord and His vineyard, and would exclude Him from His property, in order to be able to obtain it wholly for themselves, and divide it amongst them. Therefore there it is more the wicked greed of power and gain in the great that is reproved; here the common falling away of the whole nation.
27. Isa_5:8. Here the Prophet denounces the rich, the aristocracy, and capital. Thus he takes the part of the poor and lowly. That grasping of the rich and noble, which they display sometimes like beasts of prey, at other times gratify in a more crafty and legal fashion, the Prophet rebukes here in the sharpest manner. God’s work is opposed to every sin, and ever stands on the side of those that suffer oppression, no matter what may be their rank. God is no respecter of persons (Deu_10:17 sq.).
28. Isa_5:11-17. The morning hour, the hour when light triumphs over darkness, ought to be consecrated to works of light, as it is said: Aurora Musis amica, ἡώς τοι προΦέρει μἑυ, προφέρει δὲκαὶ ἕργου (Hesiod. ἑργ. κ. ήμ. 540) Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund. “It was,” says Foerster, “a laudable custom among the Persians, that the chamberlains entering in to their kings early in the morning, cried out with a loud voice: ‘Arise, O king, attend to business, as Mesoromastes commands.” On the other hand, “they that be drunken are drunken in the night,” 1Th_5:7 sq. So much the worse, then, when men do the works of night even in the early hour, and dare to abuse the light. “Plenus venter despumat in libidines,” says Augustine. In vino ἀσωτία (Eph_5:18). Corpus, opes, animam luxu Germania perdit. Melancthon. On Isa_5:15 Foerster cites the expression of Augustin: “God would not suffer any evil to be done in the world unless some good might thence be elicited.”
29. Isa_5:18. “Cords of vanity are false prejudices and erroneous conclusions. For example: no one is without sin, not even the holiest; God does not take notice of small sins; he that is among wolves must howl with them; a man cannot get along in the world with a scrupulous, tender conscience; the Lord is merciful, the flesh is weak, etc. By such like a man draws sin to him, binds his conscience fast, and resists the good motions of preventing grace. Thick cart-ropes signify a high degree of wickedness, the coarsest and most revolting prejudices. For example: God has no concern about human affairs; godliness delivers no one from misery and makes no one blessed; the threatenings of the prophets are not to be feared; there is no divine providence, no heaven, no hell (Deu_29:17-19). Out of such a man twists and knots a stout rope, with which he draws to him manifest blasphemy, entangles himself in it, so that often he cannot get loose, but is sold as a servant under sin (Rom_6:16; 1Ki_21:20; 1Ki_21:25).” Starke.
30. Isa_5:19. “The wicked mock at the patience and long-suffering of God, as if He did not see or care for their godless existence, but forgot them, and cast them out of mind (Psa_10:11), so that the threatened punishment would be omitted. They would say: there has been much threatening, but nothing will come of it; if God is in earnest, let Him, etc.; we don’t mind threats; let God come on if He will! Comp. Isa_22:12-13; Isa_28:21-22; Amo_5:18; Jer_5:12; Jer_8:11; Jer_17:15; Eze_12:21 sqq.” Starke.
31. Isa_5:20. “To make darkness of light, means to smother in oneself the fundamental truths that may be proved from the light of nature, and the correct conclusions inferred from them, but especially revealed truths that concern religion, and to pronounce them in others to be prejudices and errors. Bitter and sweet have reference to constitution, how it is known and experienced. To make sweet of bitter means, to recommend as sweet, pleasant and useful, what is bad and belongs to darkness, and is in fact bitter and distasteful, after one himself believes he possesses in the greatest evil the highest good.” Starke.
32. Isa_5:21. “Quotquot mortales” etc. As many as, taking counsel of flesh, pursue salvation with confidence of any sort of merit of their own or external privilege, a thing to which human nature is much inclined, oppose their own device to the wisdom of God, and, according to the prophet, are called wise in their own eyes (Isa_28:15; Isa_30:1-2; Jer_8:8-9; Jer_9:23 sq.; Jer_18:18). Vitringa.
33. Isa_5:26 sqq. The Prophet here expresses in a general way the thought that the Lord will call distant nations to execute judgment on Jerusalem, without having in mind any particular nation. Vitringa quotes a remarkable passage from the excerpts of John Antiochenus in Valesius (p. 816), where it is said, that immediately after Titus had taken Jerusalem, ambassadors from all the neighboring nations came to him to salute him as victor and present him crowns of honor. Titus refused these crowns, “saying that it was not he that had effected these things, but that they were done by God in the display of His wrath, and who had prospered his hands.” Comp. also the address of Titus to his soldiers after the taking of Jerusalem in Joseph. B. Jud. VII. 19.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. Isa_2:6-11. Idolatry. 1) What occasions it (alienation from God, Isa_2:6 a); 2) The different kinds: a. a coarse kind (Isa_2:6 b, Isa_2:8), b. a more refined kind (Isa_2:7); 3) Its present appearance (great honor of the idols and of their worshippers, Isa_2:9); 4) Its fate at last (deepest humiliation before the revelation of the majesty of God of all that do not give glory to Him (Isa_2:10; Isa_2:18).
2. Isa_2:12-22. The false and the true eminence. 1) False eminence is that which at first appears high, but at last turns out to be low (to this belongs impersonal as well as supersensuous creatures, which at present appear as the highest in the world, but at last, in the day of the Lord of Hosts, shall turn out to be nothing); 2) The real eminence is that which at first is inconspicuous and inferior, but which at last turns out to be the highest, in fact the only high one.
3. Isa_3:1-9. Sin is the destruction of a people. 1) What is sin? Resisting the Lord: a. with the tongue, b. with deeds, c. with the interior being (Isa_3:8-9); 2) In what does the destruction consist (or the fall according to Isa_3:8 a)? a. in the loss of every thing that constitutes the necessary and sure support of the commonwealth (Isa_3:1-3); b. in insecure and weak props rising up (Isa_3:4); c. in the condition that follows of being without a Master (Isa_3:5); d. in the impossibility of finding any person that will take the governance of such a ruinous state (Isa_3:6-7).
4. Isa_3:4. Insurrection is forbidden by God in express words, who says to Moses “that which is altogether just thou shalt follow,” Deu_16:20. Why may not God permit an intolerable and often unjust authority to rule a land for the same reason that He suffers children to have bad and unjust parents, and the wife a hard and intolerable husband, whose violence they cannot resist? Is it not expressly said by the Prophet “I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them?” “I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath,” Hos_13:11. Tholuck.
5. Isa_3:10-13. “Let us learn to distinguish between false and real comfort.” 1) False comfort deals in illusion: the real deals in truth; 2) The false produces a present effect; the real a lasting one; 3) The false injures the one comforted; the real is health to him.” Harms.
6. Isa_4:2-6. The holiness of God’s Church on earth that is to be looked for in the future. 1) Its preliminary: the judgment of cleansing and purifying (Isa_4:4); 2) What is requisite to becoming a partaker? a. belonging to the remnant (Isa_4:2-3); b. being written in the book of life (Isa_4:3); 3) The surety of its permanence: the gracious presence of the Lord (Isa_4:5-6).
7. Isa_5:21. The ruin of trusting in one’s own Wisdom 1) Those that have such confidence set themselves above God, which is: a. the greatest wickedness, b. the greatest folly; 2) They challenge the Divine Majesty to maintain its right (Isa_5:24).
Footnotes:
[21]Supporter and supportress.
[22]every supporter.
[23]diviner.
[24]elder.
[25]Heb. a man eminent in countenance.
[26]the favorits.
[27]Or, skilful in speech.
[28]expert enchanter.
[29]and childishly shall they rule.
[30]shall use club law.
[31]Heb. lift up the hand.
[32]lift up his voice
[33]Heb. binder up.
[34]Heb. done to him.
[35]Or, they which call thee blessed.
[36]Heb. swallow up.
[37]Or, burnt.
[38]trample.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The high ones (Isa 2:11, Isa 2:13) on whom…
The high ones (Isa 2:11, Isa 2:13) on whom the people trust, shall be "brought low" (Isa 3:2); therefore "cease from" depending on them, instead of on the Lord (Psa 146:3-5).
Next: Isaiah Chapter 3
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 22. Thus far the warning has been Abjure idols:…
22. Thus far the warning has been Abjure idols: now it is, Depend not on man.
Cease… from — Let him alone. Human strength is impotent.
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Whose breath is in his nostrils — Gen_2:7. Whose life is transitory, precarious.
Wherein — On what grounds, or, At what rates.
Is he to be accounted of — That is, to be valued? No protection from man can be relied on. He is an entity, it is true, yet for actual source of help he is of but little more avail than senseless idols.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 22. whose breath … nostrils] A translation both weak…
22. whose breath … nostrils] A translation both weak and ungrammatical, although retained in R.V. Render: in whose nostrils is a breath. The breath of the nostrils symbolises the divinely imparted principle of life in man (Gen_2:7); and the meaning of the clause is that man’s life is frail and perishable as a breath (cf. Job_7:7).
This verse is not found in the LXX., and is regarded by many as a later insertion in Isaiah’s prophecy.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (22) Cease ye from man . . .—The verse…
(22) Cease ye from man . . .—The verse is wanting in some MSS. of the LXX. version, and is rejected by some critics, as of the nature of a marginal comment, and as not in harmony with the context. The first fact is the most weighty argument against it, but is not decisive. The other objection does not count for much. To “cease from man” as well as from “idols” is surely the natural close of the great discourse which had begun with proclaiming that men of all classes and conditions should be brought low. The words “whose breath is in his nostrils” emphasise the frailty of human life (Gen_2:7; Gen_7:22; Psa_146:3-4). Looking to that frailty, the prophet asks, as the psalmist had asked, “What is man? (Psa_8:1). What is he to be valued at?” If it could be proved that the verse was not Isaiah’s, it is at least the reflection of a devout mind in harmony with his.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Cease ye from man. This verse is regarded by…
Cease ye from man. This verse is regarded by many as a late marginal note, which has accidentally crept into the text (Diestel, Studer, Cheyne). It is omitted in the Septuagint, and interrupts the sequence of Isaiah 3. on Isaiah 2. somewhat awkwardly. If retained, it must be regarded as an appeal to Israel on the part of the prophet to give up their trust in man, whence had flowed all their other errors. Whose breath is in his nostrils; i.e. "whose life is a mere breath; who, if he ceases to breathe, ceases to live." For wherein is he to be accounted of? or, for of what account is he? Surely, of no account at all.
Trusting in man.
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I OUR STRONG TEMPTATION. We are very strongly tempted to "put our trust in man," to "make flesh our arm;" for:
1. We see signs of strength in man. And that which is visible has most influence on our human nature. "If a man loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?". (1Jn_4:20) In like manner we far more readily trust the man who is before us with visible signs of health, riches, power about him, than any unseen force which may really be more reliable.
2. Human affection invites trust in man. There are loving hearts around us, enclosing our spirits in the embrace of their affection; it is natural to us to respond to their kindness, and to offer them the full confidence of our souls. We love those who love us; and whom we love we trust.
3. Confidence is often directly offered to us and urged upon us. Those who wish perhaps for their own purposes to secure our confidence in them know how to employ successful arts to win our assurance. They virtually say to us, "Trust me, I will ensure your good, I will lead you in the path of honor, of enjoyment, of prosperity;" and it is all too likely that their blandishments or their importunity will prevail.
4. Trust in man is contagious. We find our fellows on every hand, in every circle, leaning the whole weight of their well-being upon the arm of men, confiding wholly in their friends and neighbors, risking everything on their integrity; and what others do we are tempted to do also. The frosts may have been very few and the ice may seem very thin, but many are skating on its surface, and we think that where they have gone we also may go with impunity.
II OUR WISDOM IN ITS PRESENCE.
1. We should never trust man absolutely. We are to "cease from man;" he is "not to be accounted of" in such way as to be worthy of our implicit trust. Of this we may assure ourselves if we will remember:
(1) His liability to mistake. The cleverest, the most learned, the most thoughtful, the most esteemed, are wrong in some things, are often found wrong in great and grave things; there is no man whose judgment is always sound.
(2) His spiritual insecurity. The man who is held in highest regard may be overtaken by a storm of temptation in which even he will make shipwreck. Men have fallen on whose security their companions counted with unbounded certainty. Before the friend whom we honor above all others, there may prove to be a course which will end in spiritual declension, or even in moral degradation. The painful facts of life pierce our theories while they break our hearts.
(3) His physical fragility. "Man, whose breath is in his nostrils." Hale, strong, capable of noble work to-day, he may be brought down to utter weakness and incapacity to-morrow; nay, before the sun goes down he may have drawn the last breath of life!
2. We should trust the only One who is trustworthy even him who is the "Truth," who is the "Holy One," who is the "Immortal One. C.
The unreliableness of man.
Some think this verse should commence Isaiah 3.; but it is an exhortation naturally following on the humbling of all human pride and the destruction of all human glory. Man at his best estate is altogether vanity, therefore do not rely upon man. God is from everlasting to everlasting, therefore trust him. The counsel is elsewhere given in Scripture, "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited". (Jer_17:5, Jer_17:6) "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Quick-passing breath is the symbol of fleeting life; (Gen_2:7 Gen_7:22) and the sentence of the text would better read, "Cease from man, in whose nostrils is a breath." Trusting man was the sin of Isaiah"s age. Compare, later on, the afflicted nation Booking succor from Egypt rather than from God, and therefore coming under the prophet"s reproach. But man-trusting is a characteristic sin of our age; and we also need to learn that there is
I NO TRUSTING IN MAN"S POWER. That is within very narrow limits. "Let not your eye be to the power of man, for it is finite and limited, derived and depending; it is not from him your judgment proceeds. Let not him be your fear, let not him be your hope; but look up to the power of God, to which all the powers of men are subject and subordinate." There is so much that man can do, we fail to realize, as we should, that he fails us just at the points of our extremest need, at the times when trouble overwhelms, heart fails, and fears are on every side. The man came to Christ with confidence that he could help, but doubting his will. We may seek our fellow-men in our troubles, confident of their good will, but full of fears as to their ability.
II NO TRUSTING IN MAN"S KNOWLEDGE. That, indeed, is vast and wonderful; and it is ever-increasing. And yet it is uncertain; we cannot make any foundations of it. What men call facts of knowledge are again and again disproved by the discovery of other facts; and what men call theories give place to new theories, as fresh minds work upon the old data, and gather new. Apart from revelation men have never found out reliable truth respecting God, man, sin, redemption, or the future.
III NO TRUST IN MAN"S CHARACTER. The most humiliating thing in human life is the failure from righteousness of those whom we have admired, trusted, and loved. Character, built on self, is uncertain, and in peril whenever temptation draws nigh. In middle life the honorable man so often fails from either
(1) drink,
(2) dishonesty, or
(3) sensuality,
that we have sometimes felt we could say, in a moment of excitement, as David did, "All men are liars.
IV NO TRUST IN MAN"S EXAMPLE. It is always imperfect; it never can be an absolute model. Only one man set us an example that we should follow his steps, and he was the Divine man. We can follow no other man wholly. We can only follow one of our fellows so far as he follows Christ, and so we really only follow the Christ in him.
Where, then, are we to trust? "Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." "None of them that trust in him shall be desolate. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Cease ye from man.
Isa_2:22
Cease ye from man.
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The Septuagint omits this verse. (R. V. margin.)
Mans insignificance and Gods supremacy
Two things are indispensable to undisturbed tranquillity of mind, namely, humble and distrustful views of ourselves, and supreme and unfaltering reliance on God. So long as a man depends on his own wisdom, power, and goodness, he must be disquieted and unhappy. We can attain to substantial quiet only when we feel that our dependence is on a Being omnipotent, independent, and supreme, as well as abundant in truth and love (Isa_26:3). To produce in us this two-fold feeling is the constant aim of Holy Scripture. The grand scheme of redemption is founded on the principle here laid down. Man is sinful, ignorant, impotent to good, and of himself inclined only to evil, and that continually. God, in His infinite mercy, wisdom, and power, hath provided the only means by which he can be restored to holiness, to the favour of his God, and to life everlasting. But while there is in all religiously instructed people a readiness to concede to Christ the merit of salvation, there is too much disposition to rely upon ourselves and our own arrangements for success in temporal and physical things, and to claim the merit of it if we do succeed. There are various things that have a tendency to produce within us a feeling of self-dependence, and lead to the ignoring of the Divine power and efficiency. There is in us too often an idolatry of human agency and natural or artificial instrumentalities, and too often these occupy in our souls the place of God. In the order of nature causes produce their legitimate effects, so that if we can secure certain antecedents we feel confident of corresponding results. To use all wisdom and discretion in the use of means is a plain duty. But the difficulty with us is, that in our reliance on secondary agencies we too often leave God out of the account. We forget that He is above all means, that He can work without them, or He can frustrate all our means and all our best-concerted plans. There is nothing that men are more disposed to confide in than superiority of intellect. Yet God has given us reasons sufficient to abate our idolatry of human talent. For--
1. The largest capacity of man is really very small. Knowledge with all men is very limited, even in those that know the most.
2. Men of great capacity and uncommon attainments seldom, perhaps never, bear to be examined very closely. If one excel in one thing he is deficient in another. Sir Isaac Newton, great as he was in science and philosophy, failed in the common affairs of life. Laplace, whose extensive range of thought took in the whole mechanism of the planetary universe, did not at all justify the high opinion formed of him by Napoleon, when he, at the emperors invitation, undertook the business of the statesman.
3. Men of the largest pretensions to mind have been and are still guilty of the puerile, the absurd, the degrading crime of idolatry. E.g., Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, modern Hindoos.
4. The comparatively few specimens of unsullied, religious character.
5. We see in the record which God has given of His dealings with our race, a series of illustrations of mans inefficiency and Gods supremacy. He has seldom used the means to accomplish an end that man would have selected or supposed. Egypt saved from perishing by a seven years famine by a young, falsely accused slave, wrongfully cast into prison. Naaman. Deliverance of Israel from the Midianites (Jdg_7:1-25). Destruction of Spanish Armada, Waterloo, etc., Lessons--
(1) Because means sometimes fail, that is no good reason why we should expect the end without them God ordinarily works by means.
(2) We should not rely on the means as being effectual in and of themselves.
(3) After having used all the agencies and all the discretion which wisdom and sagacity prescribe, we must still rely upon God for the issue.
(4) Apply the same rule to spiritual things. We are to use all prescribed and prudential means; frequent the means of grace, etc. But these are only the means which bring us to God. (J. Holdich, D. D.)
Ceasing from man
I. CEASE YE FROM EXPECTING TOO GREAT PERFECTION IN MAN. Many are sadly mistaken on this point. They have higher ideas of the excellency of human nature than the Word of God warrants. It is sad that our experience of life should chill its generous sympathies, and that the heart should become cold and selfish as our knowledge of mankind increases. We ought so to live that the more we become acquainted with human wickedness, the more our compassionate feelings should be enlarged; and that person has a Christian spirit whose experience of mans depravity and love for man have increased in the same ratio.
II. THE RULE OF OUR TEXT WILL APPLY ALSO TO CHRISTIANS. Cease from expecting perfection in them.
1. The Bible teaches us to regard a Christian as different from others only as the man recovering from disease differs from one who is still under its full power, not as one in perfect health and strength.
2. As Christians we may learn to cease from expecting too much from our fellow Christians.
3. We should cease, too, from making any fellow Christian our model, or measuring our faith by his faithfulness.
4. And let us cease from expecting too much from Christian friendship. Christ was forsaken by the twelve, and at St. Pauls first answer before the Roman emperor, no man stood with him, but all forsook him.
III. CEASE YE FROM THE FEAR OF MAN is another appropriate application of the text.
1. The Word of God warns us against this. Who can say that he pursues just that path which conscience approves without being drawn aside by the fear of man? And how strong is the antidote to such a fear which the text presents! His breath is in his nostrils!
2. We should be careful, however, that our ceasing from man be not attended with evil feelings towards him. If a poor man is fearless in the presence of the rich because he scorns them, that is wrong. If we go forward in the path of duty, undeterred by the opinion of the world, because we are self-opinionated, and care nothing for any conclusions except our own, that is wrong.
IV. CEASE YE FROM MAN AS A SOURCE OF HAPPINESS. We build our enjoyments on relatives and friends. We gather around us those who are worthy of our love; our hearts begin to knit with theirs, and we say, This is comfort, here is happiness. But one touch of death crumbles all to the dust, and leaves us to mourn over our disappointed expectations. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.)
God mans only dependence
Our text speaks in a two-fold manner: there is in it warning pointedly expressed; also instruction indirectly conveyed--
I. REGARDING THE CONDITION OF MAN.
II. REGARDING MANS DELIVERANCE AND SALVATION.
III. REGARDING THE CONVERSION OF EVERY SAVED SINNER. Man cannot save you, whatever he may pretend to do.
IV. REGARDING THE CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL. Such is man that he will hold the truth with the head, and think he can be saved whilst his heart is in the world.
V. REGARDING THE MAINTENANCE AND PROMULGATION OF DIVINE TRUTH
IN THE EARTH. How frequently the necessity of this warning is seen in missionary enterprises! Oh, say some, you have got the right missionaries now; their heads are full of learning; they have very strong bodies, able to stand any climate; there is plenty of money in the missionary exchequer; and away they go. Ah, let not the rich man glory in his riches; let not the strong man glory in his strength; let not the wise man glory in his wisdom; but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, saith the Lord God Almighty. And then, there is not only work to do abroad, but at home too. If you speak to some men about the infidelity and superstition at home, they will say, the government should do so and so, and make such and such an act of parliament. Do you think that men can be converted by acts of parliament? Oh! cease ye from man. The text does not mean--
1. That any unconverted person is to say, I will wait till God thinks proper to convert me.
2. That there is no necessity for men to preach the Gospel. Preaching is necessary, because God has ordained it.
3. That it is wrong for rulers or governments to give their legitimate aid to
Gods truth. Finally, we are taught the great duty of prayer to God. (Hugh Allen, M. A.)
Ceasing from man
I. WHAT THE EXHORTATION DOES NOT IMPLY.
1. That God wills our seclusion from the society of man.
2. That we are not to give any confidence to man.
3. That we are to withdraw from the appointed means of grace as being superior to them, or standing in no need of them.
II. WHAT THE EXHORTATION DOES IMPLY.
1. That we should cease from all that vain admiration of the external appearance in the character and condition of men in which we are so prone to indulge.
2. That we should not indulge the desire of applause from man.
3. That we should not envy man--his popularity, prosperity, etc.
4. That we should cease from all such confidence in man as would supersede confidence in God.
5. That we should cease from the fear of man.
6. That we should cease from all expectations of perfection in the character of men, even of those who profess religion.
7. That we should cease from all inordinate attachment to creatures.
III. THE ARGUMENT BY WHICH THIS EXHORTATION IS ENFORCED. Cease from man--
1. Because he is a depraved creature, subject to violent and dangerous passions.
2. Because he is a deceitful creature, often deceiving himself as well as others.
3. Because he is a fickle and changeable creature.
4. Because he is a weak and helpless creature.
5. Because he is a dying creature. (E. Parsons.)
Man, soul and soil
Man is made up, as the old writers used to say, of soul and soil. Alas, the soil terribly soils his soul! My soul cleaveth to the dust might be the confession of every man in one sense or another. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Man, whose breath is in his nostrils
One consequence of the prevailing materialism of our corrupt nature is our craving for something tangible, audible, visible, as the object of our confidence. Man is, by nature, an idolater. The people of Isaiahs day were like the rest of their race: they showed their unspiritualness and their inability to walk in the light of the Lord by making their own wealth their chief confidence (verse 7). Nations also, like the Israelitish people, are apt to idolise power; even power in the form of brute force. We read: Their land also is full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots. These people, in the heat of their idolatry, set up many idols. Idolatry is common even here. May we not easily make idols of ourselves? There is nothing more absurd in the history of human nature than the fact that man is apt to trust in man. The sin is none the less accursed because of its commonness.
I. Our first inquiry is, WHAT IS MAN? This question is asked many times in Scripture, end it has been frequently answered with a copiousness of instruction.
1. What is man? He is assuredly a very feeble creature. He must be weak, for his breath is in his nostrils. We measure the strength of a chain by its weakest link. See, then, how weak man is, for he is weakness itself in a vital point.
2. Man, moreover, is a frail creature. It seems as though his life in his breath stood at the gates, ready to be gone, since it is in his nostrils.
3. Man is also a dying creature. Contemplate the dead! What think you now of your idol?
4. The text also reminds us that man is a very fickle creature. His breath is in his nostrils. As his breath is affected by his health, so is he changed. Today he loves, and tomorrow he hates; he promises fair, but he forgets his words.
5. If you read the chapter through, you will also find that man is a trembling creature, cowardly creature, a creature, indeed, who, if he were not cowardly, yet has abundant reason to fear. (Read from verse 19.) They shall go into the holes of the rocks, etc. Think of the days of Divine wrath, and especially of the last dread day of Judgment, and of the dismay which will then seize upon many of the proud and great. Are you going to make these your confidants?
II. WHAT IS TO BE OUR RELATION TO MAN, or what does the text mean when it says, Cease ye from man? It implies, that we very probably have too much to do with this poor creature man already. We may even require to reverse our present conduct, break up unions, cancel alliances, and alter the whole tenor of our conduct.
1. Cease ye from man means, first, cease to idolise him in your love. It is very common to idolise children. A mother who had lost her babe fretted and rebelled about it. She happened to be in a meeting of the Society of
Friends, and there was nothing spoken that morning except this word by one female Friend who was moved, I doubt not, by the Spirit of God to say, Verily, I perceive that children are idols. She did not know the condition of that mourners mind, but it was the right word, and she to whom God applied it knew how true it was. She submitted her rebellious will, and at once was comforted. Cease ye from these little men and women; for their breath is in their nostrils, and indeed it is but feebly there in childhood. A proper and right love of children should be cultivated; but to carry this beyond its due measure is to grieve the Spirit of God. You can idolise a minister, you can idolise a poet, you can idolise a patron; but in so doing you break the first and greatest of the commandments, and you anger the Most High.
2. Cease ye from man : cease to idolise him in your trust.
3. Cease to idolise any man by giving him undue honour. Honour all men. A measure of courtesy and respect is to be paid to every person, and peculiarly to those whose offices demand it; therefore is it written, Honour the king. Some also, by their character, deserve much respect from their fellow men; but there is a limit to this, or we shall become sycophants and slaves, and, what is worse, idolaters. It grieves one to see how certain persons dare not even think, much less speak, till they have asked how other people think. The bulk of people are like a flock of sheep; there is a gap, and if one sheep goes through, all will follow. Gods people should scorn such grovelling. If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed.
4. Equally does the text bid us cease from the fear of man.
5. Once more, cease from being worried about men. We ought to do all we can for our fellow men to set them right and keep them right, both by teaching and by example; but certain folks think that everything must go according to their wishes, and if we cannot see eye to eye with them, they worry themselves and us. Let us not be unduly cast down if we cannot set everybody right. The body politic, common society, and especially the Church, may cause us great anxiety; but still the Lord reigneth, and we are not to let ourselves die of grief. He only requires of us what He enables us to do.
6. But they say. What do they say? Let them say. It will not hurt you if you can only gird up the loins of your mind, and cease from man. Oh, but they have accused me of this and that. Is it true? No, sir, it is not true, and that is why it grieves me. If it were true it ought to trouble you; but if it is not true let it alone. Nine times out of ten if a boy makes a blot in his copy book and borrows a knife to take it out, he makes the mess ten times worse; and as in your case there is no blot after all, you need not make one by attempting to remove what is not there. All the dirt that falls upon a good man will brush off when it is dry: but let him wait till it is dry, and not dirty his hands with wet mud. Let us think more of God and less of man. Come, let the Lord our God fill the whole horizon of our thoughts. Let our love go forth to Him; let us delight ourselves in Him. Let us trust in Him that liveth forever, in Him whose promise never faileth. Cease ye from man because you have come to know the best of men, who is more than man, even the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has so fully become the beloved of your souls, that none can compare with Him. Rest also in the great Father as to your providential cares: why rest in men when He careth for you? Rest in the Holy Spirit as to your spiritual needs; why need to depend on man? Yea, throw yourself entirely upon the God all-sufficient, El Shaddai, as Scripture calls Him.
III. WHY ARE WE TO CEASE FROM MAN? The answer is, because he is nothing to be accounted of. Every man must cease from himself first, and then from all men, as his hope and his trust, because neither ourselves nor others are worthy of such confidence. Wherein is he to be accounted of? Compared with God man is less than nothing and vanity. Reckon him so, and act upon the reckoning. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
God, the Verity of verities
Care nothing for the vanity of vanities, but trust in the Verity of verities. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Mans morality
His breath is in his nostrils, puffed out every moment, soon gone for good and all. Man is a dying creature, and may die quickly; our nostrils, in which our breath is, are of the outward parts of the body; what is there is like one standing at the door ready to depart. Nay, the doors of the nostrils are always open; the breath in them may slip away, ere we are aware, in a moment; wherein then is man to be accounted of? Alas, no reckoning is to be made of him; for he is not what he seems to be,--what he pretends to be, what we fancy him to be.(M. Henry.)
Insignificance of men
A Sultan, amusing himself with walking, observed a dervish sitting with human skull in his lap, and appearing to be in a profound reverie. His attitude and manner surprised the Sultan, who demanded the cause of his being so deeply engaged in reflection Sire, said the dervish, this skull was presented to me this morning, and I have from that moment been endeavouring, in vain, to discover whether it is the skull of a powerful monarch like your Majesty, or of a poor dervish like myself. (Baxendales Anecdotes.)
Folly of man
It was once remarked to Lord Chesterfield that man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter. True, said the peer; and you may add, perhaps, that he is the only creature that deserves to be laughed at. (Timba.)
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Outline of chapter
The first part opens with a general prediction of the loss of what they trusted in, beginning with the necessary means of subsistence (Isa_3:1). We have then an enumeration of the public men who were about to be removed, including civil, military, and religious functionaries, with the practitioners of certain arts (Isa_3:2-3). As the effect of this removal, the government falls into incompetent hands (Isa_3:4). This is followed by insubordination and confusion (Isa_3:5). At length, no one is willing to accept public office, the people are wretched, and the commonwealth a ruin (Isa_3:6-7). This ruin is declared to be the consequence of sin, and the people represented as their own destroyers (Isa_3:8-9). Gods judgments, it is true, are not indiscriminate. The innocent shall not perish with the guilty, but the guilty must suffer (Isa_3:10-11). Incompetent and faithless rulers must especially be punished, who instead of being the guardians are the spoilers of the vineyard, instead of protectors the oppressors of the poor (Isa_3:12-15). As a principal cause of these prevailing evils, the prophet now denounces female luxury, and threatens it with condign punishment, privation, and disgrace (Isa_3:16-17). This general denunciation is then amplified at great length, in a detailed enumeration of the ornaments which were about to be taken from them and succeeded by the badges of captivity and mourning (Isa_3:18-24). The agency to be employed in this retribution is a disastrous war, by which the men are to be swept off, and the country left desolate (Isa_3:25-26). The extent of this calamity is represented by a lively exhibition of the disproportion between the male survivors and the other sex, suggesting at the time the forlorn condition of the widows of the slain (Isa_4:1). (J. A. Alexander.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Isa_2:22. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in…
MAN’S INSIGNIFICANCE AND GOD’S SUPREMACY
Isa_2:22. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
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In this verse the whole Bible is summed up. The folly of trusting in man, and the necessity of trusting in God alone, is its great lesson, from its commencement to its close. This is what we are taught—
I. By its record of God’s providential dealings with the Jews and other nations. Continually He has accomplished His ends by very different means than man would have selected. Egypt saved from perishing by famine through the instrumentality of a young slave; Naaman delivered from his leprosy through the ministration of a little maid; Israel rescued by Gideon and his three hundred soldiers; the boastful Philistines defeated by a young shepherd, &c.
II. By the grand scheme of human redemption which it discloses. In it God is everything, and man nothing. The only means by which man can be restored to holiness, to the Divine favour and life everlasting, were provided by God; man contributed nothing either to its completeness or efficiency. The benefit is man’s, the glory all belongs to God. Nor in appropriating it does he do anything that is meritorious. In repentance there is no merit: it is simply that state of mind which is required of us in view of the sins we have committed. Nor in faith; it is simply the recognition of the ability of another, and the consequent entrustment of ourselves to Him, to do that for us which we confess our inability to do for ourselves.—Blessed is the man, and he only, who has learned these two things. So long as a man depends on his own wisdom, power, and goodness, or on the wisdom, power and goodness of other men, he must be disquieted and unhappy. We can attain to substantial quiet and an abiding satisfying peace only when we feel that our dependence is on a Being omnipotent, independent, and supreme, as well as abundant in truth and love (Isa_26:3).—Joseph Holdech, D.D., American National Preacher, 36:255–265.
LESSONS FROM A NATIONAL BEREAVEMENT
(Sermon preached on the Sunday after the death of President Harrison.)
Isa_2:22. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
The event which has just befallen us as a nation is fitted to teach—
I. The vanity of human dependence. The atheism of the human heart displays itself in a disposition to confide entirely in an arm of flesh. This is so in the family, the church, the nation. In various ways God endeavours to teach nations their real dependence upon Himself—by famine, by pestilence, by commercial disasters, by the death of their rulers. What “fools” we must be, and how “brutish” must be our understanding, if we do not lay to heart the lesson which He has now given us (Psa_146:3).
II. The pettiness of party strife. How much of selfishness, unkindness, anger, and untruthfulness does the spirit of party give birth to! How seldom politicians of opposite parties do each other common justice! How fierce are there rivalries! But how mean, how worthless, how unworthy appear the objects of their strife when death enters the arenas and waves his skeleton arm! What a great calm falls upon the agitated spirits of men! How noise is hushed and excitement subdued! How like do the flushed and eager politicians seem then to silly children quarrelling for the possession of a bubble that has just been blown into the air, and that will disappear the moment it is grasped! [535]
[535] Here, like a shepherd gazing from his hut,
Touching his reed, or leaning on his staff,
Eager Ambition’s fiery chase I see;
I see the circling hunt of noisy men
Burst law’s enclosure, leap the mounds of right,
Pursuing and pursued, each other’s prey;
As wolves for rapine; as the fox for wiles;
Till Death, that mighty hunter, earths them all.
Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?
What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame?
Earth’s highest station ends in “Here he lies”—
And “Dust to dust” concludes her noblest song.—Young.
III. The vanity of the world, the certainty of death, and the nearness of eternity. These lessons are taught when a beggar dies, but are more likely to be laid to heart when a prince is laid low [538]
[538] The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate:
Death lays his icy hand on kings;
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield:
They tame but one another still;
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow;
Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon death’s purple altar, now,
See where the victor victim bleeds!
All heads must come
To the cold tomb!
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
—Shirley.
IV. The supreme importance of a right moral character. Most instructive is the interest felt by survivors in the moral character of the departed, in the evidences of his preparation for death, in the manner in which the great summons affected him. This is the testimony of the human conscience, that in comparison with a fitness to appear before the tribunal of God, everything else loses its importance. When was the amount of a man’s possessions inscribed on his tombstone? The bare suggestion of such a thing would be construed as a mockery of death, under whose denuding hand the rich man leaves the world naked as he entered it. But if, in all his life, there was one virtue in his moral character, one trait which can afford satisfactory evidence of God’s approval, this, be sure, you will find sculptured in conspicuous characters on his monumental marble. One thing alone can prepare any for their last account—the belief and the practice of the Gospel of God. Have you the great calm which is inspired by the confidence of being thus prepared for the great change?—W. Adams, American National Preacher, 15:97–105.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:22 The judgment prophecy of 2:6-21 is set between…
2:22 The judgment prophecy of 2:6-21 is set between two related exhortations: to trust the Lord (2:5) and not to put trust in human beings (2:22). • Human strength is temporary, frail as breath (see Ps 90).
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