Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in justice.
A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the storm, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a large rock in a weary land.
The eyes of those who see will not be dim, and the ears of those who hear will listen.
The heart of the rash will understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers will be ready to speak plainly.
The fool will no longer be called noble, nor the scoundrel be highly respected.
For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice profanity, and to utter error against Yahweh, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
The ways of the scoundrel are evil. He devises wicked plans to destroy the humble with lying words, even when the needy speaks right.
But the noble devises noble things; and he will continue in noble things.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5 This prophecy is of Hezekiah, who was a figure…
This prophecy is of Hezekiah, who was a figure of Christ, and therefore it ought chiefly to be referred to him.
By judgment and justice is meant an upright government, both in policy, and religion.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–8 Isa 32:1 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness,…
Isa 32:1 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.
Ver. 1. Behold a king.] Hezekiah in the type, Christ in the antitype.
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Shall reign in righteousness.] Regiment without righteousness, is but robbery with authority.
“Eν δε δικαιοσυνη συλληβοην πας αρετ εστι.”
And princes shall rule in judgment.] Not as Shebna, and those others placed in by wicked Ahaz, do now, while the king is young, and not so well able to weed them out. Evil junior rulers are a great mischief to a state. Nerva was a good emperor, and so was Aurelian; but so bought and sold by bad counsellors and inferior magistrates, that the people were in a worse case than when they were under Nero. Hezekiah would see to his princes that they were right; Christ hath none about him but such; "All his people are righteous," {Isa 60:21} his "ministers" and "officers" especially. These are "princes in all lands," {Psa 45:16} yea, they are "kings," because "righteous ones"; {Mat 13:17 Luk 10:24} ministers especially are plenipotentiaries under Christ. {Mat 18:18-19 Joh 20:23}
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 On vv1–8 This seems to me to be a distinct prophecy…
This seems to me to be a distinct prophecy from the former, and delivered at another time, and probably before that which is related in the former chapters. For this is certain, and confessed by all, that the prophecies are not always set down in that order in which the prophets delivered them. The foregoing prophecy seems to have been delivered, not in the time of Ahaz, for he sent to the Assyrian, and not to the Egyptian, for help; but in the days of Hezekiah, who rebelled against the king of Assyria, as is said, 2Ki 18:7, and was too prone to trust upon the staff of Egypt, as the Assyrian expressly chargeth him there, to which course it is likely he was drawn or tempted by some of his wicked princes and counsellors, whom the prophet therefore severely censures and condemns in the two foregoing chapters. And this seems to have been delivered in the time of Ahaz, and to speak of Hezekiah, and of his righteous and happy government. But withal, as Hezekiah and his reign was an eminent type of Christ, and of his kingdom; so this prophecy looks through Hezekiah unto Christ, as many other scriptures in their literal sense do unquestionably concern David, which yet have a mystical sense, and are also meant of Christ, in whom those things were more fully and eminently accomplished.
A king; Hezekiah, a type of Christ, and Christ typified by him.
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Shall reign; therefore Hezekiah was not king when this prophecy was delivered. And whereas some say that he speaks of the good government of Hezekiah after the destruction of Sennacherib, it is easy to observe that his government was as good before that time as afterward; and that in the very beginning of his reign he ruled with righteousness and the fear of God, as the history plainly declareth.
Princes; the ministers of state, and justice, and war under the king. For a wise and good king will take care to have like ministers.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 We have here the description of a flourishing kingdom.…
We have here the description of a flourishing kingdom. "Blessed art thou, O land! when it is thus with thee, when kings, princes, and people, are in their places such as they should be." It may be taken as a directory both to magistrates and subjects, what both ought to do, or as a panegyric to Hezekiah, who ruled well and saw something of the happy effects of his good government, and it was designed to make the people sensible how happy they were under his administration and how careful they should be to improve the advantages of it, and withal to direct them to look for the kingdom of Christ, and the times of reformation which that kingdom should introduce. It is here promised and prescribed, for the comfort of the church,
I. That magistrates should do their duty in their places, and the powers answer the great ends for which they were ordained of God, Isa 32:1, Isa 32:2. 1. There shall be a king and princes that shall reign and rule; for it cannot go well when there is no king in Israel. The princes must have a king, a monarch over them as supreme, in whom they may unite; and the king must have princes under him as officers, by whom he may act, Pe1 2:13, Pe1 2:14. They both shall know their place and fill it up. The king shall reign, and yet, without any diminution to his just prerogative, the princes shall rule in a lower sphere, and all for the public good. 2. They shall use their power according to law, and not against it. They shall reign in righteousness and in judgment, with wisdom and equity, protecting the good and punishing the bad; and those kings and princes Christ owns as reigning by him who decree justice, Pro 8:15. Such a King, such a Prince, Christ himself is; he reigns by rule, and in righteousness will he judge the world, Isa 9:7; Isa 11:4. 3. Thus they shall be great blessings to the people (Isa 32:2): A man, that man, that king that reigns in righteousness, shall be as a hiding-place. When princes are as they should be people are as they would be. (1.) They are sheltered and protected from many mischiefs. This good magistrate is a covert to the subject from the tempest of injury and violence; he defends the poor and fatherless, that they be not made a prey of by the mighty. Whither should oppressed innocency flee, when blasted by reproach or borne down by violence, but to the magistrate as its hiding-place? To him it appeals, and by him it is righted. (2.) They are refreshed and comforted with many blessings. This good magistrate gives such countenance to those that are poor and in distress, and such encouragement to every thing that is praiseworthy, that he is as rivers of water in a dry place, cooling and cherishing the earth and making it fruitful, and as the shadow of a great rock, under which a poor traveller may shelter himself from the scorching heat of the sun in a weary land. It is a great reviving to a good man, who makes conscience of doing his duty, in the midst of contempt and contradiction, at length to be backed, and favoured, and smiled upon in it by a good magistrate. All this, and much more, the man Christ Jesus is to all the willing faithful subjects of his kingdom. When the greatest evils befal us, not only the wind, but the tempest, when storms of guilt and wrath beset us and beat upon us, they drive us to Christ, and in him we are not only safe, but satisfied that we are so; in him we find rivers of water for those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, all the refreshment and comfort that a needy soul can desire, and the shadow, not of a tree, which sun or rain may beat through, but of a rock, of a great rock, which reaches a great way for the shelter of the traveller. Some observe here that as the covert, and the hiding-place, and the rock, do themselves receive the battering of the wind and storm, to save those from it that take shelter in them, so Christ bore the storm himself to keep it off from us.
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II. That subjects should do their duty in their places.
1. They shall be willing to be taught, and to understand things aright. They shall lay aside their prejudices against their rulers and teachers, and submit to the light and power of truth, Isa 32:3. When this blessed work of reformation is set on foot, and men do their parts towards it, God will not be wanting to do his: Then the eyes of those that see, of the prophets, the seers, shall not be dim; but God will bless them with visions, to be by them communicated to the people; and those that read the word written shall no longer have a veil upon their hearts, but shall see things clearly. Then the ears of those that hear the word preached shall hearken diligently and readily receive what they hear, and not be so dull of hearing as they have been. This shall be done by the grace of God, especially gospel-grace; for the hearing ear, and the seeing eyes, the Lord has made, has new-made, even both of them.
2. There shall be a wonderful change wrought in them by that which is taught them, Isa 32:4. (1.) They shall have a clear head, and be able to discern things that differ, and distinguish concerning them. The heart of those that were hasty and rash, and could not take time to digest and consider things, shall now be cured of their precipitation, and shall understand knowledge; for the Spirit of God will open their understanding. This blessed work Christ wrought in his disciples after his resurrection (Luk 24:45), as a specimen of what he would do for all his people, in giving them an understanding, Jo1 5:20. The pious designs of good princes are likely to take effect when their subjects allow themselves liberty to consider, and to think, so freely as to take things right. (2.) They shall have a ready utterance: The tongue of the stammerers, that used to blunder whenever they spoke of the things of God, shall now be ready to speak plainly, as those that understand what they speak of, that believe, and therefore speak. There shall be a great increase of such clear, distinct, and methodical knowledge in the things of God, that those from whom one would not have expected it shall speak intelligently of these things, very much to the honour of God and the edification of others. Their hearts being full of this good matter, their tongues shall be as the pen of a ready writer, Psa 45:1.
3. The differences between good and evil, virtue and vice, shall be kept up, and no more confounded by those who put darkness for light and light for darkness (Isa 32:5): The vile shall no more be called liberal.
(1.) Bad men shall no more be preferred by the prince. When a king reigns in justice he will not put those in places of honour and power that are ill-natured, and of base and sordid spirits, and care not what injury or mischief they do so they may but compass their own ends. Such as vile persons (as Antiochus is called, Dan 11:21); when they are advanced they are called liberal and bountiful; they are called benefactors (Luk 22:25): but it shall not always be thus; when the world grows wiser men shall be preferred according to their merit, and honour (which was never thought seemly for a fool, Pro 26:1) shall no longer be thrown away upon such.
(2.) Bad men shall be no more had in reputation among the people, nor vice disguised with the colours of virtue. It shall no more be said to Nabal, Thou art Nadib (so the words are); such a covetous muck-worm as Nabal was, a fool but for his money, shall not be complimented with the title of a gentleman or a prince; nor shall they call a churl, that minds none but himself, does no good with what he has, but is an unprofitable burden of the earth, My lord; or, rather, they shall not say of him, He is rich; for so the word signifies. Those only are to be reckoned rich that are rich in good works; not those that have abundance, but those that use it well. In short, it is well with a people when men are generally valued by their virtue, and usefulness, and beneficence to mankind, and not by their wealth or titles of honour. Whether this was fulfilled in the reign of Hezekiah, and how far it refers to the kingdom of Christ (in which we are sure men are judged of by what they are, not by what they have, nor is any man's character mistaken), we will not say; but it prescribes an excellent rule both to prince and people, to respect men according to their personal merit. To enforce this rule, here is a description both of the vile person and of the liberal; and by it we shall see such a vast difference between them that we must quite forget ourselves if we pay that respect to the vile person and the churl which is due only to the liberal.
[1.] A vile person and a churl will do mischief, and the more if he be preferred and have power in his hand; his honours will make him worse and not better, Isa 32:6, Isa 32:7. See the character of these base ill-conditioned men. First, They are always plotting some unjust thing or other, designing ill either to particular persons or to the public, and contriving how to bring it about; and so many silly piques they have to gratify, and mean revenges, that there appears not in them the least spark of generosity. Their hearts will be still working some iniquity or other. Observe, There is the work of the heart, as well as the work of the hands. As thoughts are words to God, so designs are works in his account. See what pains sinners take in sin. They labour at it; their hearts are intent upon it, and with a great deal of art and application they work iniquity. They devise wicked devices with all the subtlety of the old serpent and a great deal of deliberation, which makes the sin exceedingly sinful; and the more there is of plot and management in a sin the more there is of Satan in it. Secondly, They carry on their plots by trick and dissimulation. When they are meditating iniquity, they practise hypocrisy, feign themselves just men, Luk 20:20. The most abominable mischiefs shall be disguised with the most plausible pretences of devotion to God, regard to man, and concern for some common good. Those are the vilest of men that intend the worst mischiefs when they speak fair. Thirdly, They speak villainy. When they are in a passion you will see what they are by the base ill language they give to those about them, which no way becomes men of rank and honour; or, in giving verdict or judgment, they villainously put false colours upon things, to pervert justice. Fourthly, They affront God, who is a righteous God and loves righteousness: They utter error against the Lord, and therein they practise profaneness; for so the word which we translate hypocrisy signifies. They give an unjust sentence, and then profanely make use of the name of God for the ratification of it; as if, because the judgment is God's (Deu 1:17), therefore their false and unjust judgment was his. This is uttering error against the Lord, under pretence of uttering truth and justice for him; and nothing can be more impudently done against God than to use his name to patronise wickedness. Fifthly, They abuse mankind, those particularly whom they are bound to protect and relieve. 1. Instead of supplying the wants of the poor, they impoverish them, they make empty the souls of the hungry; either taking away the food they have, or, which is almost equivalent, denying the supply which they want and which they have to give. And they cause the drink of the thirsty to fail; they cut off the relief they used to have, though they need it as much as ever. Those are vile persons indeed that rob the spital. 2. Instead of righting the poor, when they appeal to their judgment, they contrive to destroy the poor, to ruin them in their courts of judicature with lying words in favour of the rich, to whom they are plainly partial; yea, though the needy speak right, though the evidence be ever so full for them to make out the equity of their cause, it is the bribe that governs them, not the right. Sixthly, These churls and vile persons have always had instruments about them, that are ready to serve their villainous purposes: All their servants are wicked. There is no design so palpably unjust but there may be found those that would be employed as tools to put it in execution. The instruments of the churl are evil, and one cannot expect otherwise; but this is our comfort, that they can do no more mischief than God permits them.
[2.] One that is truly liberal, and deserves the honour of being called so, makes it his business to do good to every body according as his sphere is, Isa 32:8. Observe, First, The care he takes, and the contrivances he has, to do good. He devises liberal things. As much as the churl or niggard projects how to save and lay up what he has for himself only, so much the good charitable man projects how to use and lay out what he has in the best manner for the good of others. Charity must be directed by wisdom, and liberal things done prudently and with device, that the good intention of them may be answered, that it may not be charity misplaced. The liberal man, when he has done all the liberal things that are in his own power, devises liberal things for others to do according to their power, and puts them upon doing them. Secondly, the comfort he takes, and the advantage he has, in doing good: By liberal things he shall stand, or be established. The providence of God will reward him for his liberality with a settled prosperity and an established reputation. The grace of God will give him abundance of satisfaction and confirmed peace in his own bosom. What disquiets others shall not disturb him; his heart is fixed. This is the recompence of charity, Psa 112:5, Psa 112:6. Some read it, The prince, or honourable man, will take honourable courses; and by such honourable or ingenuous courses he shall stand or be established. It is well with a land when the honourable of it are indeed men of honour and scorn to do a base thing, when its king is thus the son of nobles.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–8 Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness,.... Not Hezekiah,…
Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness,.... Not Hezekiah, as the Jewish writers; at least only as a type, as some writers interpret it; rather Christ himself, who is "King" not only of the whole world, and of the kings of it in general, but in particular is King of saints; and who "reigns" now in and over his church and people, being set as King by his Father over his holy hill of Zion, and, being exalted at his right hand, is made and declared Lord and Christ; and where he does and will reign until all enemies are put under his feet, and ere long will reign gloriously before his ancients in Jerusalem, Isa 24:23 and his reign is "in righteousness"; in a righteous manner, according to the rules of justice and equity: all his laws are just; his ways and methods of administration are right; his sceptre is a sceptre of righteousness: righteousness is the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins:
and princes shall rule in judgment: the ministers of the Gospel, pastors of churches, who are set over them in the Lord, and have the rule over them; and who rule well, and in judgment, when they rule according to the word of God; when they preach the Gospel, and administer ordinances, and do all the business of Christ's house, according to the instructions, laws, and rules he has given.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Christ's kingdom and its blessings, ver. 1-8. Careless women,…
Christ's kingdom and its blessings, ver. 1-8. Careless women, shall be troubled, ver. 9-11. And the land laid waste, ver. 12-14. Until a restoration, ver. 16-20.
Behold - This seems to be a distinct prophecy from the former, and delivered before that which is related in the former chapters. The prophecies are not always set down in that order, in which the prophets delivered them. The foregoing prophecy was delivered, not in the time of Ahaz for he sent to the Assyrian, not the Egyptian, for help; it was Hezekiah, who rebelled against the king of Assyria, and was too prone to trust upon the staff of Egypt. But this seems to have been delivered in the time of Ahaz. A king - Hezekiah, a type of Christ, and Christ typified by him.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 Prophecy of great prosperity under Hezekiah; but, in its
CHAPTER XXXII
Prophecy of great prosperity under Hezekiah; but, in its
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highest sense, applicable to Christ, 1-8.
Description of impending calamities, 9-14.
Rejection of the Jews, and calling of the Gentiles, 15.
The future prosperity of the Church, 16-20.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXII
Verse 1. Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness] If King Hezekiah were a type of Christ, then this prophecy may refer to his time; but otherwise it seems to have Hezekiah primarily in view. It is evident, however, that in the fullest sense these words cannot be applied to any man; GOD alone can do all that is promised here.
And princes] ושרים ve-sarim, without ל lamed, to; so the ancient Versions. An ancient MS. has ושריו vesaraiv, and his princes.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 7 Isa 32:1. Behold, a king — Hezekiah, a type…
Isa 32:1. Behold, a king — Hezekiah, a type of Christ, and Christ typified by him, shall reign in righteousness — Therefore Hezekiah was not king when this prophecy was delivered. And whereas some say that he speaks of the good government of Hezekiah, after the destruction of Sennacherib, it is easy to observe, that his government was as good before that time as afterward; and that in the very beginning of his reign he ruled with righteousness and the fear of God. And princes — The ministers of state, judges, and magistrates under the king, shall rule in judgment — Shall execute their offices with integrity and faithfulness. “Ahaz and his princes had ruled very wickedly, but a king was about to mount the throne who would reign in righteousness, employ upright magistrates, and protect the people, both from internal oppression, by his equitable administration, and from external invaders, by his faith and prayers.” — Scott. But although these expressions are, in some sort, applicable to Hezekiah and his good reign, they are much more true of Christ and his reign, as are also several other expressions here used, especially those in the third and fourth verses, which evidently relate to happier times than Hezekiah lived to see. And therefore we may justly say, “That the reformation which Hezekiah made was but a shadow of those greater improvements in grace and holiness, which properly belong to the times of the gospel. — Lowth.
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 On vv1–8 Behold, a king - That is, Hezekiah. That it…
Behold, a king - That is, Hezekiah. That it refers to him is apparent from the connection. The reign of Ahaz had been one of oppression and idolatry. This was to be succeeded by the reign of one under whom the rights of the people would be secured, and under whom there would be a state of general prosperity. This may have been uttered while Ahaz was on the throne, or it may have been when Hezekiah began to reign. Perhaps the latter is the more probable, as Ahaz might not have tolerated anything that would have looked like a reflection on his own reign; nor, perhaps, while he was on the throne would Isaiah have given a description that would have been a contrast between his reign and that of his successor.
Shall reign in righteousness - That is, a righteous king shall reign; or his administration shall be one of justice, and strongly in contrast with that of his predecessor. This was certainly the general characteristic of the reign of Hezekiah.
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And princes shall rule - Hebrew, ‘For princes, or, ‘as to princes’ (לשׂרים les'ârı̂ym). Lowth proposes to read this without the ל (l), as the ancient versions do. But it is not necessary to change the text. It may be rendered, ‘As to princes, they shall rule’ (compare Psa 16:3). The ‘princes’ here denote the various officers of government, or those to whom the administration was confided.
In judgment - That this is a just description of the reign of Hezekiah is apparent from the history, see 2Ki 18:3-6 : ‘He removed the high places, and broke the images, and cut down the grove. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him, for he clave unto the Lord, and departed not from following him.’
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 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 King. Ezechias or Josias, as figures of Jesus Christ,…
King. Ezechias or Josias, as figures of Jesus Christ, who is meant. (Calmet) --- They and their counsellors only foreshewed the advantages derived from Christ and his apostles in a more abundant manner. (St. Jerome) --- Judgment and justice. These words have a higher meaning than what is assigned to them by philosophers. In God, the former implies the preparation of the means for man’s redemption, as the latter does the execution; and in man, judgment denotes the selection of what is right, and justice implies the putting it willingly in practice. Thus Christ will fulfill all the he has graciously purposed, with the two other divine persons; and the princes, his pastors, shall discern what is good for their own and people’s eternal welfare. (Worthington)
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 On v1 1 Behold, a king shall reign 1 in righteousness.
3. THE FALSE AND THE TRUE NOBILITY
Isa_32:1-8
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1 Behold, a king shall reign 1 in righteousness.
And princes shall rule a in judgment.
2 And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind,
And a covert from the tempest;
As rivers of water in a dry place,
As the shadow of a 2 great rock in a weary land.
3 And the eyes of them that see shall not be 3 dim,
And the ears of them that hear shall hearken.
4 The heart also of the 4 rash shall understand knowledge,
And the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak 5 plainly.
5 The 6 vile person shall no more be called 7 liberal,
Nor 8 the churl said to be bountiful.
6 For the c vile person will speak 9 villany,
And his heart will work iniquity,
To practise 10 hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord,
To make empty the soul of the hungry,
And he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
7 The instruments also of the 11 churl are evil:
He deviseth wicked devices
To destroy the poor with lying words,
Even 12 when the needy speaketh right.
8 But the d liberal deviseth d liberal things;
And by d liberal things shall he 13 stand.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_32:1. לצדק is found only here. לְ here signifies the norm, as in למשׁפט. It is thus=secundum, comp. לְמִשְׁמַע אָזְנַיִם ,לְמַרְאֶה Isa_11:3. [“The use of לְ here may have been intended to suggest, that he would reign not only justly, but for the very purpose of doing justice.” J. A. A.].—לְ before שׂרים=quod attinet ad, comp. Ecc_9:4. Manifestly this unusual construction is for the sake of having the L—sound maintained, which thus occurs consecutively in five words.—–שׂרר, from which the imperfect ישׂרו, Pro_8:16, occurs only here in Isaiah.
Isa_32:2. מַחֲבֵא, “hiding corner, place of hiding,” ἅπ. λεγ., comp. 1Sa_23:23.—סתר comp. Isa_16:4; Isa_28:17.—פלגי מ׳ comp. Isa_30:25.—צָיוֹן comp. Isa_25:5.—צל comp. Isa_4:6; Isa_25:4-5.—ארץ עיפה again only Psa_143:6.
Isa_32:3. תִּשְׁעֶינָה can hardly be derived from שָׁעָה. It comes nearer to take it in the sense of שׁעע “oblinere, to close up; plaster up,” in which sense this latter verb often occurs in Isa_6:10; Isa_29:9.—קָשַׁב, probably kindred to קָצַב “to point, to prick” (the ears), occurs only here in Kal.
Isa_32:4. עִלֵּג, “balbus,” ἅπ. λεγ.—צֲחוֹת (comp. Isa_18:4) are nitentia, clara, clear, plain words.
Isa_32:5. Isaiah uses נבל only here; נבלה again Isa_9:16. כִּילַי written כֵּלַי in Isa_32:7 for the sake of similarity in sound with כֵּלָיו, is to be derived from נָכַל fraudulenter egit (Raschi, Kimchi, Gesen., and others), Gen_37:18; Num_25:18; Psa_105:25; Mal_1:14, so that from נְכִיל, by rejecting the נ, as in שֹׂא ,שֵׂאת ,תֵּת, etc., there results כִּיל with the rare ending ־י- (comp. שַׁדַּי ,גֹבַי ,חֹרַי). See Green, § 194, 2, b.—שׁוֹעַ (from שׁוּעַ “amplus, dives fuit,” kindred to יָשַׁע) is the rich man, independent on account of his means.
Isa_32:6. עָשָׂה אָוֶן occurs only here (comp. Isa_59:6); the idea is always expressed elsewhere by פעל און.—לעשׂות gerundive.——חֹנֶף, ἅπ. λεγ.; comp. הֲנֻפָה Jer_23:15; substantive from חָנֵף Isa_9:16; Isa_10:6; Isa_33:14.—תּועָה “error,” comp. Isa_29:24; again only Neh_4:2.—Hiph. החסיר again only Exo_16:18.—The construction וְ־יַחְסִיר—לְהָרִיק is to be explained as a return of the subordinate form into the principal form.
Isa_32:7. A mutual attraction appears to have happened here: 1) כֵּלִים chosen for the sake of כִּילַי; 2) כִּילַי changed to כֵּלַי for the sake of כֵּלָיו—זִמָּה “consilium” (Job_17:11) then especially consilium pravum. scelus,” occurs only here in Isaiah.—הַבֵּל “to destroy,” comp. Isa_13:5; Isa_54:16.
Isa_32:8. נְדִיבָה occurs again only Job_30:15.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. This passage, which strongly reminds one of Isa_29:18-24, and somewhat also of Isa_30:20 sqq., must necessarily be joined to what precedes, as it can neither stand alone, nor be regarded as belonging to what follows. We see in these verses an amplification of Isa_31:6-7. For the latter passage only presents to view in a negative way the turning back and abandonment of idolatry. But in our passage is set forth what positive forces of blessing will become operative in the entire ethical life of the nation, and especially in the relation of the powerful and nobles to the lowly. It is manifest that the Prophet, in enumerating what shall no more be, has in mind the irregularities of his own time. It is very probable that he even alludes to particular, concrete facts, in a way that his
2. Behold——speak plainly.
Isa_32:1-4. The king that will rule righteously must be the Messiah. For the time when Israel will be cleansed and purified, and live and be ruled according to truth and righteousness, is the Messianic time (comp. Isa_1:24 sqq.; Isa_9:6-7; Isa_11:11 sqq.; Isa_16:5; Isa_28:16 sqq.). Nothing justifies us in assuming that such a condition as our Isa_32:1-8 describe, will intervene before that time. In that time only the Messiah can be king. Of an under-king prophecy knows nothing. One must only say, that, in distinction from passages like Isa_9:6 sq.; Isa_11:1 sqq., the person of the Messianic king appears more in the background, and the Prophet depicts the admirable surrounding of the expected Messiah, rather than His personality. One may suppose that the state of things under Hezekiah furnished the occasion. The king himself was good; but his surroundings did not correspond. Hence the Prophet emphasizes here, that in the Messianic time, the glorious central figure, whom he only briefly names Isa_32:1, will have also a suitable environment. Thus the point of this passage is directed against the magnates that surrounded the king. Instead of oppressing the nation as heretofore (Isa_1:23; Isa_3:15; Isa_10:2; Isa_28:15; Isa_29:20), each of them (the princes) will himself be a protector of the oppressed, like a sheltering, covering place of concealment protects from wind-storm and rain. Yea, they will even afford positive refreshment to the poor and wretched, as water-brooks and dense shade do to the traveller in the hot desert. The eyes of them that see, the ears of them that hear (Isa_32:3), are eyes and ears that can see and hear if they will. It is well-known that there are ways of plastering up such eyes, and of making such ears deaf (Isa_1:23; Isa_5:23; Isa_33:15). The like of that shall not be with these princes.
Delitzsch well remarks that, according to Isa_32:4, Israel shall be delivered also from faults of infirmity.
I would only so modify this remark as to make Isa_32:4, like that which precedes and follows, refer, not to Israel in general, but to the princes. Thus the נמהרים “the rash, reckless,” are such judges as are naturally inclined to judge hastily, and superficially (comp. on Isa_35:4). These will apply a reflecting scrutiny (comp. on Isa_11:2) in order to know what is right. The stammering are such as do not trust themselves to speak openly, because they are afraid of blundering out the truth that is known to them, and so bringing themselves into disfavor. Thus all the conditions for the exercise of right and justice will be fulfilled. The judges will be what they ought to be in respect to eyes, ears, heart and mouth.
3. The vile person—shall he stand.
Isa_32:5-8. From those in office the Prophet passes to the noble apart from office. In this respect there often exists in the present conditions the most glaring contradiction between inward and outward nobility. This contradiction will cease in the Messianic time. For then a fool will no longer be called a noble. A fool, נָבָל, is, according to Old Testament language, not one intellectually deficient, but one that practises gross iniquity; for sin in its essence is perverseness, contradiction, nonsense. The wicked surrenders realities of immeasurable value for a seeming good that is transitory; whereas the pious surrenders the whole world in order to save his soul, and this is at the same time the highest wisdom (comp. Deu_32:6; Jer_17:11; Jdg_19:23 sq.; Isa_20:6; 1Sa_25:25; 2Sa_13:12).—נָדִיב [Eng. Bibl.: “liberal”] undoubtedly involves originally the notion of voluntariness (Exo_25:2; Exo_35:5; Exo_35:21-22; Exo_35:29, etc.). But he that does good from an inward, free impulse is a noble man. Thus gradually נדיב acquires the sense of noble, superior man, and indeed so much without regard to inward nobility, that the word is used with a bad side-meaning (Job_21:28). Isaiah uses it again only Isa_13:2. One will not call a swindler baron, the prophet proceeds to say, Isa_32:5 b.
By the following causal sentence, Isa_32:6, the Prophet proves the sentence “the fool will no more be called noble.” His argument may be represented by the following syllogism: In the Messianic time each will be called what he is. But in that time also there will be people that are fools. Therefore in that time these will also be called fools and not noblemen. [It is not the Prophet’s aim in Isa_32:6, to state what fools will do in that time, as if their doing then will be different from now, which obviously it will not be. He would say there will be fools, and they will be called fools, and nobles and they will be called nobles.—Tr.]. Of course for the Prophet the only important thought is that in the last time falsehood will no longer reign as in the present, and that accordingly a man’s being and name will no longer be in contrast, but in perfect harmony. One sees that it is a point with him to say to the cheats of his day and age how they ought to be called, if every man had his dues. The general thought of Isa_32:6 a, is particularized in what follows. One does and speaks folly when he practises unclean, shameful things (by which the land is defiled before God, Isa_24:5; Jer_3:1), and utters error, (what misleads) against Jehovah. This doing and speaking is for the purpose of enriching one’s self by robbery of the poor and weak (Isa_1:23). This is figuratively expressed: to make empty the soul of the hungry (i. e., to take away what can satisfy the need of the hungry, comp. Isa_29:8) and to “cause the drink,” etc.כלים, Isa_32:7, are properly instrumenta. Not the physical implements are meant here, but the ways and means in general of which the swindler makes use. [“He deviseth plots to destroy the oppressed (or afflicted) with words of falsehood, and (i. e., even) in the poor (man’s) speaking right (i. e., even when the poor-man’s claim is just, or in a more general sense, when the poor-man pleads his cause).”—J. A. Alexander].
In Isa_32:8 we must remark the same in regard to וְנָדִיב that we did in regard to נבל and כילי Isa_32:6-7. The Prophet will not in general give a characteristic of the נדיב, but he would say in what regard the namesנדיב and נבל will be held in the Messianic time. Thus Isa_32:6-8 are proof of Isa_32:5. According to these verses none will be given a name that does not become him. He that is called נבל “fool,” will also speak נבלה, and he that is called נדיב will certainly confirm his claim to this name by having noble thoughts, generosa meditatur.—קום על נדיבות can hardly mean “to stand on noble ground” (Meier), for נדיבּות are generose facta, the exhibitions of generosity, not this generosity as a moral fundamental habit. Otherwise the second נדיבות would have a meaning different from the first. Therefore יקום וגו׳ must mean: and he perseveres in his noble thoughts, i. e., he not only conceives them, but he carries them out. In bestowing the name, men will not be influenced only by the thoughts that proclaim themselves; men will make the name depend on one’s steadily adhering to them his whole life. קום often has this sense of continuing, persevering. Comp. Isa_40:8; Lev_25:30; Lev_27:19.
Footnotes:
[1]according to.
[2]Heb. heavy.
[3]plastered up.
[4]Heb. hasty.
[5]Or, elegantly.
[6]fool.
[7]noble.
[8]the cheat be called baron.
[9]fully.
[10]uncleanness.
[11]cheat.
[12]Or, when he speaketh against the poor in judgment.
[13]Or, be established.
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 On vv2–8 a man--rather, the man Christ [LOWTH]; it is as…
a man--rather, the man Christ [LOWTH]; it is as "the Son of man" He is to reign, as it was as Son of man He suffered (Mat 26:64; Joh 5:27; Joh 19:5). Not as MAURER explains, "every one of the princes shall be," &c.
rivers--as refreshing as water and the cool shade are to the heated traveller (Isa 35:6-7; Isa 41:18).
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 On vv1, 2, 3, 5 1. Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness —…
1. Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness — Who is he? Possibly the good, but yet imperfect, Hezekiah stands in the prophet’s foreground; but more probably he is depicting the surroundings of the expected Messiah.
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 On vv1–8 1. and princes shall rule] Some render emphatically: “and…
1. and princes shall rule] Some render emphatically: “and as for princes—they shall rule,” on account of a preposition in the Hebr.; but this is probably only a copyist’s error. On “righteousness” and “judgment,” see ch. Isa_1:21; cf. Isa_11:4-5.
1, 2. It is characteristic of Isaiah that the renovation of society is represented as commencing at the top, with the king and aristocracy. (Cf. ch. Isa_1:26, Isa_3:1-7) The ideal king has already been described (ch. Isa_9:6-7, Isa_11:1-4) as supernaturally endowed with the virtues of a perfect ruler; here the emphasis lies on the manifestation of these qualities in righteous government; and this, according to the constitutional principles of Isaiah’s time, required an order of state officials animated by the same spirit as the king himself.
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Ch. Isa_32:1-8. The ideal commonwealth of the Messianic Age
This passage, although treated by many expositors as the continuation of ch. 31, bears all the marks of an independent prophecy. Its insertion in the present group of discourses is sufficiently explained by the picture it gives of a reformed upper class, in contrast with the irreligious and unscrupulous nobility against whom the previous chapters have been mainly directed. The time of its actual composition cannot be determined with certainty, but it is perhaps most naturally assigned to the close of Isaiah’s ministry, when his mind was occupied with the hope of the ideal future. Much has been made of the fact that the figure of the Messianic King (Isa_32:1) is less idealised than in the great prophecies of ch. Isa_9:1-6 and Isa_11:1-4. But this circumstance is easily accounted for by the leading idea of the prophecy (which is the transformation of social relationships), and cannot be safely used as a criterion of date. Still less does it furnish an argument against the Isaianic authorship of the passage. It is true, however, that in its somewhat laboured didactic style, and in the terms employed, the passage differs widely from anything else in the acknowledged writings of Isaiah; and the suggestion that it may have owed its final literary form to a later hand cannot be altogether ignored.
The contents of the prophecy are as follows:—
(1) Isa_32:1-2. A perfectly just and beneficent government will be established; king and nobles alike being endowed with the virtues necessary for their office, and yielding protection to the poor.
(2) Isa_32:3-4. Public opinion also will be enlightened and purified; the people will no longer be misled by false and superficial judgments, but even the most ignorant will be gifted with the faculty of sound moral discernment.
(3) Isa_32:5-8. The consequences of this will be that “the aristocracy of birth and wealth will be replaced by an aristocracy of character” (Delitzsch); men will find their proper level and be estimated at their true worth (5). To this is appended an analysis of the two contrasted types, the “churl” and the true nobleman (6–8).
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 On vv1–8 (1) Behold, a king shall reign . . .—More…
XXXII.
(1) Behold, a king shall reign . . .—More accurately, the king. Isa_32:1-8 form a separate section, standing in the same relation to the foregoing chapter that the picture of the ideal king in Isaiah 11 does to the anti-Assyrian prophecy of Isaiah 10 “The king” is accordingly the true Anointed one of the future, not, of course without a reference to the character of Hezekiah as the partial and present embodiment of the idea. The addition of “princes” worthy of their king emphasises this reference. The words are as an echo of Pro_8:15-16.
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 On vv1–8 Vers. 1-8. A PROPHECY OF MESSIAH"S KINGDOM. It is…
Vers. 1-8. A PROPHECY OF MESSIAH"S KINGDOM. It is generally allowed that this prophecy is Messianic; but some critics insist that it is not so "in a narrow sense." They regard Isaiah as expecting Messiah"s kingdom to follow immediately on the discomfiture of Sennacherib, and as looking to Hezekiah to inaugurate it. According to this view, Hezekiah, renovated in character, was to be the Messiah, and might have been so had he been "equal to the demands providentially made upon him." But he was not; and the task of establishing the kingdom fell to "another," at a later date. It is simpler to regard the prophet as looking for a greater than Hezekiah, (Isa_7:14 Isa_9:6) but ignorant how soon, or how late, his coming would be.
A king... princes. Delitzsch and Mr. Cheyne translate, "the king... the princes;" but the Hebrew gives no article. The announcement is vague, and corresponds to those of other prophets, as of Jeremiah, (Jer_23:5) "Behold, the days come that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and prosper;" and of Zechariah, (Zec_9:9) "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion... behold, thy King cometh unto thee." The "princes" of the text are the minor authorities whom the king would set over his kingdom i.e., the apostles and their successors. In righteousness... in judgment. Messiah"s rule will be a rule of strict justice and right, offering the strongest contrast to that under which the Jews have been living since the time of Jehoshaphat. (see Isa_1:15-23 Isa_3:1-12, etc.)
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Ver. 1. Strict justice a characteristic of Messiah"s kingdom.
Whatever may be said, and said with truth, of the Divine mercy, still there is no quality more characteristic of God"s rule over man than his justice. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"; (Gen_18:25) "God is a righteous Judge"; (Psa_7:11) "He shall judge the world in righteousness, and minister judgment to the people in uprightness. (Psa_9:8) If this were not so, the whole foundations of morality would fall. And Messiah"s rule was to be like God"s was, in very truth, to be God"s. It had, therefore, to be strictly just. What is most wonderful in that marvelous scheme of salvation, which infinite wisdom conceived and decreed from everlasting, is that in it a way was contrived whereby "mercy and truth" might "meet together," and "righteousness and peace kiss each other". (Psa_85:10) Attributes of God, seemingly contradictory, obtained a wondrous reconciliation by means of the sacrifice of Christ, which, though its whole import may transcend our faculties, was beyond all doubt an integer in the equation wherein mercy and truth met together, and reconcilement was made between "the wrath of man" and "the righteousness of God." The justice of Messiah"s kingdom was shown
I IN CHRIST"S SEVERE CONDEMNATION OF EVERY FORM OF MORAL EVIL. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!"; (Mat_23:13) "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity"; (Mat_7:23) "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment"; (Mat_12:36) "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts... and these defile a man". (Mat_15:19, Mat_15:20) Christ made no compromise with sin. In his most signal act of mercy his words were, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more". (Joh_8:11)
II IN THE STRICT DISCIPLINE AT FIRST ESTABLISHED IN HIS CHURCH. "Purge out... the old leaven"; (1Co_5:7) "Put away from among yourselves that wicked person"; (1Co_5:13) "Now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat". (1Co_5:11) The apostles "delivered to Satan" those who sinned grievously (1Co_5:5 1Ti_1:20) cut them off from the communion of the faithful, (Gal_5:12) and only restored them after confession and penance. "The princes ruled in judgment". (Isa_32:1)
III IN THE SOLEMN DECLARATIONS MADE OF A FINAL JUDGMENT ACCORDING TO WORKS. "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 the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works". (Rev_20:12, Rev_20:13; comp. Mat_7:23 Mat_12:37 Mat_13:39-43 Mat_25:31-46, etc.)
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-8. An ideal of political good.
When the Divine Spirit has been outpoured, when the idols have been cast away, and the Assyrian yoke has been cast off, happy days will dawn.
I ROYALTY WILL BE SYNONYMOUS WITH RIGHTEOUSNESS. The King will be seen in his beauty not the splendor of purple robes and lofty throne and brilliant court, but that of the equity and justice which imitate Heaven. God will call him by his name, will make him rich with hidden possessions, will go before him to make the crooked ways straight. (Isa_45:1-4) In spite of all the failings of kings, the mass of the people bear a deep reverence and affection to royalty. Even in the counterfeit they recognize some relation to the real thing. "A divinity doth hedge a king;" this is not only poetically, but religiously true, if the king in any sort answer to the truth of his position. In happier days he will so answer.
II THE UPPER CLASSES WILL BE THE SPIRITUAL SUPERIORS OF THE PEOPLE. Aristocracy began with personal worth, and by it only can be maintained. We see from the description what the nobility ought to be in relation to the people. Patrons, protectors; "hiding-places from the wind," a "covert from the rain-storm, rivulets in a parched land, the shadow of a huge cliff in a thirsty land." Noblesse oblige. They should be looked up to; every popular cause should find in them its defenders and active advocates; every philanthropic scheme in them its leaders; every misery of the poor in them its zealous redressers. High place without high qualities is a mockery; lofty station coupled with low manners, a scandal and an abuse. Alas! too often in the history of the "ruling classes" these truths have been forgotten, these relations have been reversed. Again and again God has called them to judgment: "You have eaten up the vineyards, the plunder of the afflicted is in your houses. What mean ye that crush my people, and grind the face of the afflicted?" Notably so at the time of the great French Revolution.
III THE RESULTS OF A SPIRITUAL CHANGE. No reformation of manners, no happy reconciliation of class with class can come about, except by a change of mind and heart. And that change itself can only come whence all changes in the realm of nature and spirit come from the creative, the re-creative energy of God. The body is the organ of the spirit in its manifold activities. Any fresh sensibility of the physical organs is typical, therefore, of an awakened and living conscience. The closed eye is typical of the blindness of those who will not see. To shut the eye to evil, to turn the head away from what disgusts, this may seem for a time equivalent to canceling the evil itself. Not so; and reformation sets in from that hour when men are willing to face the most painful facts, to let the light into the darkest corners of existence. Ears were made to listen, not to be stopped. Let the bitter cry be hearkened to; its tones thrill through every fiber of our sympathetic being; nor let its pleading be dismissed until the question, What can I do? has found some distinct answer. The tongue was made, not to stammer, but to flow with truthful and gracious speech. Silence may mean that we have no help to offer; stuttering accents that we are of a divided mind, of obscure habits of thought. Lucidity is what we need the lucidity of the single eye, the sensitive organism filled through and through with light. And what does our haste and feverish precipitation signify, but want of that deliberate forethought and that circumspection which is a constant duty? "The heart of the hasty shall perceive distinctly." Although we cannot refer all sin, like Socrates, to want of insight, yet no sin but implies that want. God"s deepest, most far-reaching blessings must ever be for the heart, in that large sense in which Scripture uses the word including every mental faculty or activity. Material improvements are not to be neglected. The sanity and weal of the body have a direct bearing on the weal of mind; yet, on the other hand, there will be no material improvements until the improving mind has been awakened and truly educated.
IV THE CONSTITUTION OF THINGS NEEDING REFORMATION. It is a confusion which needs to be removed. It is a world turned upside down which needs to be righted. The foot and the knave may designate the ruling classes of the time. Fool! how weighty the condemnation, how deep-burning the brand, which belongs to the use of the word in Scripture! The world may call him par excellence the fool who minds all business but his own; the prophet calls him the fool who thinks of self, bat forgets his God. The sinner, in short, is the fool. His is the worst and least excusable ignorance. He may be called "noble" in the convention of society, he is contemptible in the judgment of God. The characteristics of the fool are that he speaks folly, and this "out of the abundance" of a wicked heart a forge and workshop where the production of evil is ever going on; that he delights to propagate heresy and atheism as a center of religious darkness. Hungry souls look to those Nabals, and are not fed, but deprived of their sustenance; and the waters they point out prove to be as the mirage of the desert on near approach. The denunciation of such spurious leaders of the people reminds of Milton"s invective"The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed; But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly and foul contagion spread.
And the knave, with his crafty plots and machinations, his insidious lies, drawing into his net the defenseless, honest poor. The age sorely needed true nobles, not of title and rank, but of God"s own mint and stamp men of principle; men as long-headed in their good devices as the others in evil; men of firm and constant heart; no time-serving, truckling, tide-waiting, opportunist, wavering spirits; but steady to their convictions, direct in their aims, consistent with themselves. Every time needs such men. God preserve to us the nobility of the land the kind hearts that are worth more than coronets, the simple faith that is worth more than Norman blood; the holy seed, the vital element of a nation. J.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1. The ideal reign.
There can be no doubt that the first, and historical, reference of this prophecy is to the reign of Hezekiah. Cheyne says, "It describes the happy condition of Judah when idols have been cast away, and the rod of Assyrian tyranny has been removed. A more just and merciful government shall then be enjoyed, the result of a large outpouring of the Divine Spirit. As the consequence of this, moral distinctions shall no longer be confounded men shall be estimated at their true value. When Isaiah wrote he may have had grounds for the charitable belief that his sovereign would really be equal to the demands providentially made upon him." But the prophecy is Messianic. Its anticipations are only fully realized in the kingdom of Christ. Weber says, "The picture which the prophet paints here of the Church of the last time is the picture of every true congregation of Christ. In it the will of the Lord must be the only law according to which men judge, and not any fleshly consideration of any sort. In it there must be open eyes and ears for God"s work and word; and if in some things precedence is really allowed to the children of this world, still in spiritual things the understanding must be right and the speech clear. Finally, in it persons must be valued according to their true Christian, moral worth, not according to advantages that before God are rather a reproach than an honor." It is almost impossible for us to realize the idea of a theocracy, or direct rule of God over a people, as the pious Jew did. Exactly what Isaiah pictures is the theocracy fully established in a spiritual sense; and of this Hezekiah"s reformed kingdom gave good suggestions. To bring the subject home to modern congregations, the leading features of a spiritual theocracy, a real and practical reign of God, in lives and in society, should be shown thus
I GOD"S WILL SHOULD BE THE ONE SUPREME LAW.
II GOD"S WORD SHOULD BE THE PRACTICAL RULE OF CONDUCT.
III GOD"S SON SHOULD BE THE GREAT MODEL OF CHARACTER.
IV GOD-LIKENESS SHOULD BE THE ONE OBJECT OF PURSUIT. Be it heart, be it life, be it Church, or be it society, wherever this is an honest and truthful description, there is the "ideal reign;" there the words of the text are fulfilled, and a "king reigns in righteousness." It is to establish individually and universally just this kingdom, that the Lord Jesus Christ has come. He begins his work by subduing to his obedience single souls. 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 On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness
Isa_32:1-8
Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness
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Asayria and Judah
Such (Isa_31:8-9) will be the ignominious end of the proud battalions of Assyria.
For Judah a happier future immediately begins. There should be no break between the two chapters. The representation which follows (Isa_32:1-8) is the positive complement to Isa_31:6 f., and is parallel to Isa_30:23-26, completing under its ethical and spiritual aspects the picture of which the external material features were there delineated. Society, when the crisis is past, will be regenerated. Kings and nobles will be the devoted guardians of justice, and great men will be what their position demands that they should be--the willing and powerful protectors of the poor. All classes, in other words, will be pervaded by an increased sense of public duty. The spiritual and intellectual blindness (Isa_29:10) will have passed away (Isa_30:3); superficial and precipitate judgments will be replaced by discrimination (Isa_30:4 a); hesitancy and vacillation will give way before the prompt and clear assertion of principle (Isa_30:4 b). The present confusion of moral distinctions will cease; men and actions will be called by their right names. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
A new era
For Judah--sifted, rescued, cleansed--a new era opens.
I. JUST GOVERNMENT IN BLESSING TO THE PEOPLE is the first good fruit (Isa_32:1-2).
II. The second is AN OPEN UNDERSTANDING AFTER THE CURSE OF HARDNESS (Isa_32:3-4).
III. A third good fruit is CALLING AND TREATING EVERYONE ACCORDING TO HIS TRUE CHARACTER (Isa_32:5-8). Nobility of birth and riches will give place to nobility of disposition, so that the former will not be found, nor find recognition without the latter. (F. Delitzsch.)
A flourishing kingdom
It may be taken as a directory both to magistrates and subjects, what both ought to do. It is here promised and prescribed--
I. THAT MAGISTRATES SHOULD DO THEIR DUTY IN THEIR PLACES, and the powers answer the great ends for which they were ordained of God (Isa_32:1-2).
1. There shall be a king and princes that shall reign and rule; for it cannot go well when there is no king in Israel.
2. They shall use their power according to law, and not against it.
3. Thus they shall be great blessings to the people (Isa_32:2). A man--that man, that king that reigns in righteousness--shall be as a hiding-place.
II. THAT SUBJECTS SHALL DO THEIR DUTY IN THEIR PLACES.
1. They shall be willing to be taught, and to understand things aright (Isa_32:3). When this blessed work of reformation is set on foot, and men do their part towards it, God will not be wanting to do His. Then the eyes of them that see--of the prophets, the seers--shall not be dim, &c.
2. There shall be a wonderful change wrought in them by that which is taught them (Isa_32:4).
(1) They shall have a clear head, and be able to discern things that differ, and distinguish concerning them.
(2) They shall have a ready utterance.
3. The differences between good and evil, virtue and vice, shall be kept up and no more confounded by those who put darkness for light, and light, for darkness (Isa_32:5). (Matthew Henry.)
Reformed society
Though Isaiah s words are only perfectly ful-filled in Jesus Christ, it was not concerning Christ that they were spoken. The prophet is speaking of the religious future and social progress of his people. He is presenting a picture of regenerated Judah. He points to the essential elements of all national stability and greatness. He speaks first of the righteousness that shall be exalted, and exemplified in the government of king and rulers; and then he goes on to speak of the moral conditions of real blessedness and progress, as they shall appear among the people. Great characters are the outstanding feature in the reformed society that he anticipates. Through them the progress of the nation is secured; in them the greatness of the nation will consist. But great characters can only exercise their full and proper influence when they move among those who are able to discern their greatness. Hence Isaiah declares that in that glorious time for which he confidently looks the moral blindness of the people, over which he had so often and so deeply mourned, the moral insensibility dulness, with all the confusion and false judgment it occasioned, shall have ceased (verse 3). Men shall know true manhood when they see it, and honour the manhood that they see. They shall no longer debase the moral currency, and make false use of terms denoting moral qualities. The great men shall be seen in all their greatness, and shall raise others to a moral elevation like their own. They shall protect the weak, and encourage the faint-hearted; they shall foster the growth of all goodness, and be an unfailing source of noblest inspiration. As they stand there in all their moral grandeur, rooted and grounded in the eternal righteoushess, they are indeed--and they are known to be--as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rook in a weary land. (E. A. Lawrence.)
Isaiahs Utopia
The first eight verses of this chapter are like the sudden opening of a window. The hall behind you resounds with the clamour of fierce contentions; the window before you frames in the prospect of a fair country, all bathed in rosy light, a land of corn and wine and oil, a land of plenty and peace. Isaiah is not the only politician who has found relief from the anxieties of a stormy time in a Utopia of his own imagining. The air was full of the noise of change, the Reformation was in full career on the Continent, and the ground-swell of the great movement already trembling on the shores of England, when Sir Thomas More wrote his description of the ideal state. When, as they think, everything is going wrong, men often have brightest visions of what the world would be if everything were going right. Isaiahs Utopia has three grand characteristics:
1. The triumph of righteousness in government. His programme for the ruling power is this: A king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.
2. The new state shall be broad-based, not upon the peoples will, but upon the peoples character. Men shall not be, as they have been, weak and unstable, and ungenerous; but, rock-like and river-like, they shall be strong and bountiful.
3. The ideal Israel, themselves judged justly, shall be just judges of others. They shall be able to discriminate character, and to recognise and honour the truly good. The quack and the dupe, says Carlyle, are upper and under side of the same substance. So, in the kingdom of the future, the vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. There will be no quacks, because there will be no dupes. Those who are liberal themselves are not likely to err in what constitutes liberality in others. (W. B. Dalby.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
CHAPTER XV
A MAN: CHARACTER AND THE CAPACITY TO DISCRIMINATE CHARACTER
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ABOUT 720 B.C.
Isa_32:1-8
THE Assyrians being thus disposed of, Isaiah turns to a prospect, on which we have scarcely heard him speak these twenty years, since Assyria appeared on the frontier of Judah-the religious future and social progress of his own people. This he paints in a small prophecy of eight verses, the first eight of chapter 32- Isa_32:9-20 of that chapter apparently springing from somewhat different conditions.
The first eight verses of chapter 32 (Isa_32:1-8) belong to a class of prophecies which we may call Isaiahs "escapes." Like St. Paul, Isaiah, when he has finished some exposition of Gods dealings with His people or argument with the sinners among them, bursts upon an unencumbered vision of the future, and with roused conscience, and voice resonant from long debate, takes his loftiest flights of eloquence. In Isaiahs book we have several of these visions, and each bears a character of its own, according to the sort of sinners from whom the prophet shook himself loose to describe it and the kind of indignation that filled his heart at the time. We have already seen how in some of Isaiahs visions the Messiah has the chief place, while from others He is altogether absent. But here we come upon another inconsistency. Sometimes, as in chapter 11, Isaiah is content with nothing but a new dispensation-the entire transformation of nature, when there shall be no more desert or storm, but to the wild animals docility shall come, and among men an end to sorrow, fraud, and war. But again he limits his prophetic soul and promises less. As if, overcome by the spectacle of the more clamant needs and horrible vices of society, he had said, we must first get rid of these, we must supply those, before we can begin to dream of heaven. Such is Isaiahs feeling here. This prophecy is not a vision of society glorified, but of society established and reformed, with its foundation firmly settled (Isa_32:1), with its fountain forces in full operation (Isa_32:2), and with an absolute check laid upon its worst habits, as, for instance, the moral grossness, lying, and pretence which the prophet has been denouncing for several chapters (Isa_32:3-8). This moderation of the prophecy brings it within the range of practical morals; while the humanity of it, its freedom from Jewish or Oriental peculiarities, renders it thoroughly modern. If every unfulfilled prophecy ought to be an accusing conscience in the breast of the Christian Church, there will be none more clamant and practical than this one. Its demands are essential to the social interests of today.
In Isa_32:1 we have the presupposition of the whole prophecy: "Behold, in righteousness shall a king reign, and princes-according to justice shall they rule." A just government is always the basis of Isaiahs vision of the future. Here he defines it with greater abstractness than he has been wont to do. It is remarkable, that a writer, whose pen has already described the figure of the coming King so concretely and with so much detail, should here content himself with a general promise of a righteous government, regarding, as he seems to do, rather the office of kinghood, than any single eminent occupier of it. That the prophet of Immanuel, and still more the prophet of the Prince-of-the-Four-Names, {Isa_9:7} and of the Son of Jesse, {Isa_11:1} should be able to paint the ideal future, and speak of the just government that was to prevail in it, without at the same time referring to his previous very explicit promises of a royal Individual, is a fact which we cannot overlook in support of the opinion we have expressed in Isa_10:1 concerning the object of Isaiahs Messianic hopes.
Nor is the vagueness of the first verse corrected by the terms of the second: "And a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind," etc. We have already spoken of this verse as an ethical advance upon Isaiahs previous picture of the Messiah. But while, of course, the Messiah was to Isaiah the ideal of human character, and therefore shared whatsoever features he might foresee in its perfect development, it is evident that in this verse Isaiah is not thinking of the Messiah alone or particularly. When he says with such simplicity a man, he means any man, he means the ideal for every man. Having in Isa_32:1 laid down the foundation for social life, he tells us in Isa_32:2 what the shelter and fountain force of society are to be: not science nor material wealth, but personal influence, the strength and freshness of the human personality. "A man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." After just government (Isa_32:1) great characters are the prophets first demand (Isa_32:2), and then (Isa_32:3-8) he will ask for the capacity to discriminate character. "Character and the capacity to discriminate character" indeed summarises this prophecy.
I. A MAN
(Isa_32:2)
Isaiah has described personal influence on so grand a scale that it is not surprising that the Church has leapt to his words as a direct prophecy of Jesus Christ. They are indeed a description of Him, out of whose shadow advancing time has not been able to carry the children of men, who has been the shelter and fertility of every generation since He was lifted up, and to whom the affections of individual hearts never rise higher than when they sing-
"Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee."
Such a rock was Christ indeed; but, in accordance with what we have said above, the prophet here has no individual specially in his view, but is rather laying down a general description of the influence of individual character, of which Christ Jesus was the highest instance. Taken in this sense, his famous words present us, first, with a philosophy of history, at the heart of which there is, secondly, a great gospel, and in the application of which there is, thirdly, a great ideal and duty for ourselves.
1. Isaiah gives us in this verse a philosophy of history. Great men are not the whole of life, but they are the condition of all the rest; if it were not for the big men, the little ones could scarcely live. The first requisites of religion and civilisation are outstanding characters.
In the East the following phenomenon is often observed. Where the desert touches a river-valley or oasis, the sand is in a continual state of drift from the wind, and it is this drift which is the real cause of the barrenness of such portions of the desert at least as abut upon the fertile land. For under the rain, or by infiltration of the river, plants often spring up through the sand, and there is sometimes promise of considerable fertility. It never lasts. Down comes the periodic drift, and life is stunted or choked out. But set down a rock on the sand, and see the difference its presence makes. After a few showers, to the leeward side of this some blades will spring up; if you have patience, you will see in time a garden. How has the boulder produced this? Simply by arresting the drift.
Now that is exactly how great men benefit human life. A great man serves his generation, serves the whole race, by arresting the drift. Deadly forces, blind and fatal as the desert wind, sweep down human history. In the beginning it was the dread of Nature, the cold blast which blows from every quarter on the barbarian, and might have stunted men to animals. But into some soul God breathed a great breath of freedom, and the man defied Nature. Nature has had her revenge by burying the rebel in oblivion. On the distant horizon of history we can see, merely in some old legend, the evidence of his audacity. But the drift was arrested; behind the event men took shelter, in the shelter grew free, and learned to think out what the first great resister felt.
When history had left this rock behind, and the drift had again space to grow, the same thing happened; and the hero this time was Abraham. He laid his back to the practice of his forefathers, and lifting his brow to heaven, was the first to worship the One Unseen God. Abraham believed; and in the shadow of his faith, and sheltered by his example, his descendants learned to believe too. Today from within the three great spiritual religions men look back to him as the father of the faithful.
When Isaiah, while all his countrymen were rushing down the mad, steep ways of politics, carried off by the only powers that were as yet known in these ways, fear of death and greed to be on the side of the strongest-when Isaiah stood still amid that panic rush, and uttered the memorable words, "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; in returning and rest shall ye be saved," he stopped one of the most dangerous drifts in history, and created in its despite a shelter for those spiritual graces, which have always been the beauty of the state, and are now coming to be recognised as its strength.
When in the early critical days of the Church, that dark drift of Jewish custom, which had overflown the barriers set to the old dispensation, threatened to spread its barrenness upon the fields of the Gentile world, already white to the harvest of Christ, and Peter and Barnabas and all the Apostles were carried away by it, what was it that saved Christianity? Under God, it was this: that Paul got up and, as he tells us, withstood Peter to the face.
And, again, when the powers of the Roman Church and the Roman Empire, checked for a little by the efforts which began the Reformation, gathered themselves together and rose in one awful front of emperor, cardinals, and princes at the Diet of Worms, what was it that stood fast against that drift of centuries, and proved the rock, under whose shelter men dared to read Gods pure word again, and preach His Gospel? It was the word of a lonely monk: "Here stand I. I cannot otherwise. So help me, God."
So that Isaiah is right. A single man has been as "a hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest." History is swept by drifts: superstition, error, poisonous custom, dust-laden controversy. What has saved humanity has been the upraising of some great man to resist those drifts, to set his will, strong through faith, against the prevailing tendency, and be the shelter of the weaker, but not less desirous, souls of his brethren. "The history of what man has accomplished in the world is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked there." Under God, personal human power is the highest force, and God has ever used it as His chief instrument.
2. But in this philosophy of history there is a Gospel. Isaiahs words are not only mans ideal; they are Gods promise, and that promise has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the most conspicuous example-none others are near Him-of this personal influence in which Isaiah places all the shelter and revival of society. God has set His seal to the truth, that the greatest power in shaping human destiny is man himself, by becoming one with man, by using a human soul to be the Saviour of the race. "A man," says Isaiah, "shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land"; and the Rock of Ages was a Man. The world indeed knew that personal character could go higher than all else in the world, but they never knew how high till they saw Jesus Christ, or how often till they numbered His followers.
This figure of a rock, a rock resisting drift, gives us some idea, not only of the commanding influence of Christs person, but of that special office from which all the glory of His person and of His name arises: that "He saves His people from their sins."
For what is sin? Sin is simply the longest, heaviest drift in human history. It arose in the beginning, and has carried everything before it since. "The oldest custom of the race," it is the most powerful habit of the individual. Men have reared against it government, education, philosophy, system after system of religion. But sin overwhelmed them all.
Only Christ resisted, and His resistance saves the world: Alone among human lives presented to our view, that of Christ is sinless. What is so prevalent in human nature that we cannot think of a human individual without it never stained Christs life. Sin was about Him; it was not that He belonged to another sphere of things which lay above it. Sin was about Him. He rose from its midst with the same frailty as other men, encompassed by the same temptations; but where they rose to fall, He rose to stand, and standing he became the worlds Saviour. The great tradition was broken; the drift was arrested. Sin never could be the same again after the sinless manhood of Christ. The old worlds sins and cruel customs were shut out from the world that came after. Some of them ceased so absolutely as scarcely to be afterwards named; and the rest were so curbed that no civilised society suffered them to pass from its constraint, and no public conscience tolerated them as natural or necessary evils.
What the surface of the worlds life bears so deeply, that does every individual, who puts his trust in Jesus, feel to the core. Of Jesus the believer can truly say that life on this side of Him is very different from life on that. Temptations keep far away from the heart that keeps near to Christ. Under the shadow of our Rock, for us the evil of the present loses all its suggestiveness, the evil of the past its awful surge of habit and guilty fear.
3. But there is not only a philosophy of history and a gospel in this promise of a man. There is a great duty and ideal for every one. If this prophecy distinctly reaches forward to Jesus Christ as its only perfect fulfilment, the vagueness of its expression permits of its application to all, and through Him its fulfilment by all becomes a possibility. Now each of us may be a rock, a shelter, and a source of fertility to the life around him in three modes of constant influence. We can be like Christ, the Rock, in shutting out from our neighbours the knowledge and infection of sin, in keeping our conversation so unsuggestive and unprovocative of evil, that, though sin drift upon us, it shall never drift through us. And we may be like Christ, the Rock, in shutting out blame from other men; in sheltering them from the east wind of pitiless prejudice, quarrel, or controversy; in stopping the unclean and bitter drifts of scandal and gossip. How many lives have lost their fertility for the want of a little silence and a little shadow! Some righteous people have a terribly northeastern exposure; children do not play about their doors, nor the prodigal stop there. And again, as there are a number of men and women who fall in struggling for virtue simply because they never see it successful in others, and the spectacle of one pure, heroic character would be their salvation, here is another way in which each servant of God may be a rock. Of the late Clerk Maxwell it was said, "He made faith in goodness easy to other men." "A man shall be as streams of water in a desert place."
II. CAPACITY TO DISTINGUISH CHARACTER
(Isa_32:3-8)
But after the coming of this ideal, it is not paradise that is regained. Paradise is farther off. We must have truth to begin with: truth and the capacity to distinguish character The sternness with which Isaiah thus postpones his earlier vision shows us how sore his heart was about the "lying" temper of his people. We have heard him deploring the fascination of their false minds by the Egyptian Pretence. Their falseness, however, had not only shown itself in their foreign politics, but in their treatment of one another, in their social fashions, judgments, and worships. In society there prevailed a want of moral insight and of moral courage. At home also the Jews had failed to call things by their right names. Therefore next in their future Isaiah desires the cure of moral blindness, haste, and cowardice (Isa_32:3-4), with the explosion of all social lies (Isa_32:5). Men shall stand out for what they are, whether they be bad-for the bad shall not be wanting (Isa_32:6-7)-or good (Isa_32:8). On righteous government (Isa_32:1) and influence of strong men (Isa_32:2) must follow social truthfulness (Isa_32:3-8). Such is the line of the prophets demands. The details of Isa_32:3-8 are exceedingly interesting.
"And not closed shall be the eyes of them that see, and the ears of them that hear shall be pricked up." The context makes it clear that this is spoken, not of intellectual, but of moral, insight and alertness. "And the heart of the hasty shall learn how to know, and the tongue of the stammerer be quick" (the verb is the same as the "hasty" of the previous clause) "to speak plain things. Startlingly plain things"-for the word literally means "blinding-white" and is so used of the sun-"startlingly plain," like that scorching epigram upon Egypt. The morally rash and the morally timid are equal fathers of lies.
In illustration Isaiah takes the conventional abuse of certain moral terms, exposes it and declares it shall cease: "The vile person shall no more be called liberal, nor the Churl said to be bountiful." "Liberal" and "bountiful" were conventional names. The Hebrew word for "liberal" originally meant exactly that-"openhearted, generous, magnanimous." In the East it is the character which above all they call princely. So like our words "noble" and "nobility," it became a term of rank, lord or prince, and was often applied to men who were not at all great-hearted, but the very opposite-even to the "vile person." "Vile person" is literally the "faded" or the "exhausted," whether mentally or morally-the last kind of character that could be princely. The other conventional terms used by Isaiah refers to wealth rather than rank. The Hebrew for "bountiful" literally means "abundant," a man blessed with plenty, and is used in the Old Testament both for the rich and the fortunate. Its nearest English equivalent is perhaps "the successful man." To this Isaiah fitly opposes a name, wrongly rendered in our version "churl," but corrected in the margin to "crafty"-the "fraudulent," "the knave." When moral discrimination comes, says Isaiah, men will not apply the term "princely" to "worn-out" characters, nor grant them the social respect implied by the term. They will not call the "fraudulent" the "fortunate," nor canonise him as successful, who has gotten his wealth by underhand means. "The worthless character shall no more be called princely, nor the knave hailed as the successful." But mens characters shall stand out true in their actions, and by their fruits ye shall know them. In those magic days the heart shall come to the lips, and its effects be unmistakable. "For the worthless person, worthlessness shall he speak"-what else can he?-"and his heart shall do iniquity, to practise profaneness and to utter against the Lord rank error, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. The tools, too, of the knave" (a play upon words here-"Keli Kelav"-the knave his knives) "are evil; low tricks he deviseth to destroy the poor with words of falsehood, even when the poor speaks justice "(that is, has justice as well as poverty to plead for him). "But the princely princely things deviseth, and he upon princely things shall stand"-not upon conventional titles or rank, or the respect of insincere hearts, but upon actual deeds of generosity and sacrifice.
After great characters, then, what society needs is capacity to discern character, and the chief obstacle in the way of this discernment is the substitution of a conventional morality for a true morality, and of some distinction of mans making for the eternal difference which God has set between right and wrong.
Human progress consists, according to Isaiah, of getting rid of these conventions; and in this history bears him out. The abolition of slavery, the recognition of the essential nobility of labour, the abolition of infanticide, the emancipation of woman-all these are due to the release of mens minds from purely conventional notions, and the courageous application in their place of the fundamental laws of righteousness and love. If progress is still to continue, it must be by the same method. In many directions it is still a false conventionalism, -sometimes the relic of barbarism, sometimes the fruit of civilisation, -that blocks the way. The savage notions which obstruct the enforcement of masculine purity have to be exposed. Nor shall we ever get true commercial prosperity, or the sense of security which is indispensable to that, till men begin to cease calling transactions all right merely because they are the customs of the trade and the means to which its. members look for profits.
But, above all, as Isaiah tells us, we need to look to our use of language. It is one of the standing necessities of pure science to revise the terminology, to reserve for each object a special name, and see that all men understand the same object by the same name. Otherwise confusion comes m, and science is impossible. The necessity, though not so faithfully recognised, is as imperative in morals. If we consider the disgraceful mistakes in popular morals which have been produced by the transference and degradation of names, we shall feel it to be a religious duty to preserve for these their proper meaning. In the interests of morality, we must not be careless in our use of moral terms. As Socrates says in the Phaedo: "To use words wrongly and indefinitely is not merely an error in itself; it also creates evil in the soul" What noxious misconceptions, what mistaken ideals of life, are due to the abuse of these four words alone: "noble," "gentleman," "honour" and "Christian"! By applying these, in flattery or deceit, to persons unworthy of them, men have not only deprived them of the virtue which originally the mere utterance of them was enough to instil into the heart, but have sent forth to the world under their attractiveness second-rate types of character and ideals. The word "gentleman"! How the heart sickens as it thinks what a number of people have been satisfied to aim at a shoddy and superficial life because it was labelled with this gracious name. Conventionalism has deprived the English language of some of its most powerful sermons by devoting terms of singular moral expressiveness to do duty as mere labels upon characters that are dead, or on ranks and offices, for the designation of which mere cyphers might have sufficed.
We must not forget, however, Isaiahs chief means for the abolition of this conventionalism and the substitution of a true moral vision and terminology. These results are to follow from the presence of the great character, "A Man," whom he has already lifted up. Conventionalism is another of the drifts which that Rock has to arrest. Setting ourselves to revise our dictionaries or to restore to our words their original meanings out of our memories is never enough. The rising of a conspicuous character alone can dissipate the moral haze; the sense of his influence will alone fill emptied forms with meaning. So Christ Jesus judged and judges the world by His simple presence; men fall to His right hand and to His left. He calls things by their right names, and restores to each term of religion and morals its original ideal, which the vulgar use of the world has worn away.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv2, 8 Isa_32:2. “A man shall be as an hiding-place,” &c.
THE PRECIOUSNESS OF CHRIST
Isa_32:2. “A man shall be as an hiding-place,” &c.
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These figures all coincide in setting forth one great and blessed truth—the truth that in Christ there is suitable and complete relief under every circumstance of distress: in distress arising—
1. from temporal sufferings;
2. from conviction of sin;
3. from strong temptation;
4. from the near approach of death.—John Watt, B.D.: Sermons, pp. 92–108.
Jesus Christ—I. The refuge from all dangers; II. The fruition of all desires; III. The rest and refreshment in all trials.—A. Maclaren, B.A.: Sermons, Third Series, p. 135.
This prediction, uttered in the days of Ahaz, had a primary reference to Hezekiah, and to the relief from wicked magistrates which would be experienced in his reign. But its ultimate reference was to the Lord Jesus Christ. Here are three separate figures, very striking to an Eastern ear, which admit of distinct illustration:—
I. “A hiding—place from the wind and a covert from the tempest.” [1165] This is but one figure, for the latter clause, as is common in Eastern poetry, is only the echo of the former. Jesus is found to be the best hiding-place and covert:—
1. From the winds and tempests of affliction.
2. From the tempest of an agitated conscience.
3. He is the only hiding-place from the tempest of divine wrath.
[1165] We arose with the sun, and went out to saddle our dromedaries, when we found to our great surprise that their heads were buried in the sand; and it was not possible for us to draw them out. We called the Bedouins of the tribe to our aid, who informed us that the instinct of the camels led them to conceal their heads thus, in order to escape the simoom; that their doing so was an infallible presage of that terrible tempest of the desert, which would not be long in breaking loose; and that we could not proceed on the journey without meeting a certain death. The camels, who perceive the approach of this fearful storm two or three hours before it bursts, turn themselves to the side opposed to the wind, and dig into the sand. It is impossible to make them stir from that position either to eat or drink during the whole tempest, were it to last for several days. Providence has endowed them with this instinct of preservation, which never deceives them. When we learned with what we were threatened, we partook the general consternation, and hastened to take all the precautions which they pointed out to us. It is not sufficient to put the horses under shelter; it is requisite also to cover their heads and stop up their ears, otherwise they will be suffocated by the whirlwinds of fine impalpable sand, which the storm sweeps furiously before it. The men collect under their tents, block up the crevices with the greatest care, and provide a supply of water, which they keep within reach; they then lie down on the ground, their heads covered with the mashlas, and thus remain all the time that the tornado continues.
The camp was thrown into the greatest hustle, each bent on providing safety for his cattle, and afterwards withdrawing precipitately under his tent. We had scarcely got our beautiful Negde mares under cover ere the tempest burst. Impetuous blasts of wind hurled clouds of red and burning sand in eddies, and overthrew all upon whom their fury fell; or, heaping up hills, they buried all that had strength to resist being carried away. If, at this period, any part of the body be exposed, the flesh is scorched as if a hot iron had touched it. The water, which was intended to cool us, began to boil, and the temperature of the tent exceeded that of a Turkish bath. The hurricane blew in all its fury for six hours, and gradually subsided during six more; an hour longer, and I believe we had all been stifled. When we ventured to leave the tents, a frightful spectacle presented itself; five children, two women, and a man were lying dead on the still burning sand, and several Bedouins had their faces blackened and entirely calcined, as if by a blast from a fiery furnace. When the wind of the simoom strikes an unfortunate wretch on the head, the blood gushes in streams from his mouth and nostrils, his face swells, becomes black, and he shortly dies of suffocation.—Lamartine: Travels in the East, p. 213.
“A hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest.” Soon Red Sea and all were lost in a sand-storm, which lasted the whole day. Imagine all distant objects entirely lost to view,—the sheets of sand fleeting along the surface of the desert like streams of water; the whole air filled, though invisibly, with a tempest of sand, driving in your face like sleet. Imagine the caravan toiling against. this—the Bedouins each with his shawl thrown completely over his head, half of the riders sitting backwards,—the camels, meantime, thus virtually left without guidance, though, from time to time, throwing their long necks sideways to avoid the blast, yet moving straight onwards with a painful sense of duty truly edifying to behold.… Through the tempest, this roaring and driving tempest, which sometimes made me think that this must be the real meaning of ‘a howling wilderness,’ we rode on the whole day.—Dean Stanley: Sinai and Palestine, pp. 68, 69.
II. “As rivers of water in a dry place,”—that is, Jesus conveys satisfaction and refreshment to those who can find them nowhere else. He alone satisfies the heart’s thirst—
1. for happiness;
2. for consolation;
3. for reconciliation with God.
III. “As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” [1168] Such a retreat does our Redeemer afford to those who are fainting under the labours and discouragements of this wearisome life (Isaiah 1-4, Jer_31:25).
1. Let us thank God for such a Saviour—the very Saviour we need.
2. Let us abide in Him—we always need Him.—E. Griffin, D.D.: Fifty-nine Plain Practical Sermons, pp. 261–270.
[1168] I was reading, a day or two ago, one of our last books of travels in the wilderness of the Exodus, in which the writer told how, after toiling for hours under a scorching sun, over the hot white marly flat, seeing nothing but a beetle or two on the way, and finding no shelter anywhere from the pitiless beating of the sunshine, the three travellers came at last to a little Retem bush only a few feet high, and flung themselves down and tried to hide at least their heads from those ‘sunbeams like swords,’ even beneath its ragged shade. And my text tells of a great rock, with blue dimness in its shadow, with haply a fern or or two in the moist places of its crevices, where there is rest and a man can lie down and be cool, while all outside is burning sun, and burning sand, and dancing mirage.—A. Madaren.
I. There underlies this prophecy a very sad, a very true conception of human life. The three promises imply three diverse aspects of man’s need and misery. The “covert” and the “hiding-place” imply tempest and storm and danger; the “rivers of water” imply drought and thirst; “the shadow of a great rock” implies lassitude and languor, fatigue and weariness. Sad this is, but how true! Do we not need a “covert” from the tempests of adverse circumstances, of temptations, of God’s anger kindled by our sins!
II. There shines through these words a mysterious hope—the hope that one of ourselves shall deliver us from all this evil in life. “A man,” &c. Such an expectation seems to be right in the teeth of all experience, and far too high pitched even to be fulfilled. It appears to demand in him who should bring it to pass powers which are more than human, and which must in some inexplicable way be wide as the range of humanity and enduring as the succession of the ages. All experience seems to teach that no human arm or heart can be to another soul what these words promise, and what we need.
III. This mysterious hope is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That which seemed impossible is real. The forebodings of experience have not fathomed the powers of Divine Love. There is a man, our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, who can be to all human souls the adequate object of their perfect trust, the abiding home of their deepest love, the unfailing supply for their profoundest wants. Behind His protection they are safe, by His grace they are satisfied, beneath His shelter they have rest.—A. Maclaren, B.A.: Sermons, Third Series, pp. 136–147.
I. We have here AN INSTRUMENT OF CONSOLATION [1171]
1. It was an instrument of consolation to those who first heard it. The prophecy in which it occurs was given in the time of Ahaz, when justice was perverted, and the government, which should have been for the protection of the people, was organised for their oppression. Terrible are the sufferings of men at such a time, and precious was the hope which this prophecy held out of “a man”—a ruler—who should be a defence and blessing to the poor of the nation.
2. It was an instrument of consolation to devout men in all the centuries which intervened between its utterance and the coming of Christ. In due time Hezekiah ascended the throne, and in him this prophecy had a partial fulfilment. But he passed away, and Israel needed such “a man” as much as ever. Devout men learned to look for him in the Messiah for whom they and their fathers had waited. In the midst of national and personal humiliation and sufferings, they were sustained and cheered by the hope of His advent.
3. In due time He appeared. Whether in Him this prophecy was completely or only partially fulfilled, let any reader of the Gospels testify. And since the days when Christ went about Judæa, solacing human woes, and ministering to human necessities, this declaration has been still more full of consolation to generation after generation down to our own day. It has taught men to whom to flee in their distresses, and fleeing to Him they have found that it was with no vain hope that it had cheered them. When you think what it has been to men ever since it was uttered, can you help looking upon it with love?
[1171] When I was at Nuremberg, among the scenes of interest, I visited the tower where are preserved some of the instruments of torture which were used both by the Inquisition and the Municipality in the Middle Ages. As one looked at them, the heart grew sick at the thought of the pain which by means of them had been inflicted upon countless victims; and as instruments by which human beings had been tortured, they were hateful. On the other hand, when one thinks what this verse has been to countless human souls, what consolation and courage it has ministered to those who were sick at heart in many generations, it is impossible not to look upon it with love.
II. OF THIS INSTRUMENT OF CONSOLATION ALL MEN HAVE NEED. There are some portions of Scripture which have only a limited interest, because they are for special classes (e.g., kings, subjects, parents, children, &c.;) but this is a portion for every one. The needs of which it speaks will be felt by all men; and all men, at some time or other, will long for the blessings which it promises. Hence—
1. It should be stored up in the memory of the young. [1174]
2. The aged should count it one of their chief treasures. [1177]
[1174] It is one of a large number of passages which I like to think of as Scripture lamps. Starting at mid-day from a railway terminus, you wonder to see that the lamps in the carriages are lighted; but very soon the train plunges into a tunnel, and you perceive that they were not lighted a moment too soon. So with these lamps of Scripture: get them hung up in your soul at the outset of your journey in life. Sooner than you think you will find yourself in some dark tunnel of trial. It will be too late then to think of furnishing yourself with them. Blessed are those then in whom they are brightly shining!
[1177] It is not to be expected that the young will fully appreciate it. They have not had the experience necessary to enable them to do so. At the outset of a voyage, passengers are apt to think most about those things in a ship which are comparatively unimportant—the size of their berths, the elegant decorations of the cabin, &c.; but before it is ended, especially if the voyage is a stormy one, they come to think more about the staunchness of the vessel, the strength of the rigging, the seamanship of the captain, rather than of his fitness or unfitness for a drawing-room. So in dealing with the Bible: at the outset of life, we are apt to give our whole attention to things comparatively unimportant, such as the possibility of reconciling the first chapter of Genesis with the teaching of modern science, &c.; but, by and by, trouble teaches us to value the Scriptures as our only sure guide amidst life’s moral perplexities, as our only true comforter amidst life’s sorrows. It is trouble that teaches us that the promises are “precious promises;” and therefore I may fairly expect that the promise of our text will be prized by the aged.
III. TO THE PRESENT AND PERMANENT VALUE OF THIS INSTRUMENT OF CONSOLATION THERE ARE MILLIONS OF LIVING WITNESSES. The declarations of our text are very beautiful, but the important question is, Are they true? Is Christ to His people all that He is here said to be?
1. Our text says that Christ is a refuge for His people. “As a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest.” Remember what kind of storms sometimes sweep across the Eastern deserts. [See outline: The Christian’s Refuge, section I.] As you have pursued the pilgrimage of human life, have any such storms burst upon you?—the storm of adversity? of persecution? of an awakened conscience? of temptations? The worst storms are those which rage within a man! In such storms where did you find shelter? what did you find Christ to be to you?
2. Our text says that Christ will satisfy the thirst of His people. Picture the scene at Rephidim. To the multitudes who had almost died of thirst, how welcome were the streams that burst from the smitten rock! All men thirst for happiness; the distressed for consolation, the penitent for reconciliation with God. In these respects, has Christ been to you “as rivers of water in a dry place?”
3. Our text says that Christ will give rest to His people. [1180]
[1180] One day—one of the most beautiful and happy days I have ever known—I and some friends visited the Valley of Rocks, at Lynton, in North Devon. We had selected for our dining-place the shaded side of one of the largest of the rocks which have made that valley famous. Just as we were finishing our repast, an aged gentleman approached us, and asked to be permitted to share our resting-place. “I should not have intruded upon you,” he said, “but I am very weary.” Instantly my text recurred to my memory, and I saw somewhat of its power and beauty: “As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” In such a land, on such a day, how welcome is the sight of a great rock! How sweet and refreshing to rest in its cooling shade! Amid the toils and troubles of life we often need rest and refreshment. Have you found them in Christ? Are the declarations of our text true?
IV. Every truth is a call to duty. TO WHAT DUTIES DOES OUR TEXT CALL US? If we have had a personal experience of the truth of its declarations, it says—
1. PRAISE GOD. Would not a storm-driven traveller give thanks for “a covert,” the thirst-consumed for “rivers of water,” the faint and weary for “the shadow of a great rock?” Let us remember what Christ has been to us, and give “thanks unto God for His unspeakable gift!”
2. TAKE COURAGE, Usually as years increase troubles multiply: but what Christ has been to you in the past, He will be in the future—an all-sufficient Saviour!
3. To those who have not yet had a personal experience of the truth of its declarations, my text says, COME TO JESUS. Its promises are invitations. Is not a well of water in itself an invitation to a thirsty man? You need all that the text promises; and in the experience of millions of men living now, you have abundant evidence that its promises are worthy of your trust. Familiarise yourself with the “hiding-place” before the tempests of life burst upon you, that in the day of storm you may know whither to flee. Blessed are they who have made the Man of whom our text speaks their friend. According to His word (Matthew 28), He is with them “always,” “as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”
THE CHRISTIAN’S REFUGE
(For Christmas Day.)
Isa_32:2. A man shall be as an hiding place, &c.
This is a very remarkable prophecy and promise, and at first sight most strikingly at variance with almost every other declaration of the Word of God, e.g., Isa_2:22; Psa_146:3; Psa_62:8-9; Jer_17:5. “A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind!” A poor, weak, helpless mortal, unable to protect himself from the wind and tempest, shall he be our refuge? Shall God’s own Word command us to leave the living Fountain, and betake ourselves in our necessities to the broken cisterns of earth? Strange inconsistency, astonishing contradiction to every other portion of God’s word? But who is this Man? He of whom it is also written (Zec_13:7; Php_2:6); and who is thus spoken of by the Spirit of God Himself, when predicting the event of this day (Isa_9:6). It is the Lord Jesus Christ, then, who reveals Himself in the words before us under two striking similitudes; the first of which regards His people’s safety, and the second their consolations.
I. As regards their safety: “hiding place from the wind, covert from the tempest.” Picture to yourself one of those scenes which Eastern travellers paint, when they describe the passage of a caravan across some dreary desert, where, throughout the long day’s journey, there is no house, no rock, no tree to afford a moment’s shade or shelter. The wind suddenly rises, the lightning glares, and in the distance are beheld gigantic columns of sand, raised and kept together in such vast masses by the whirlwind that drives them towards the poor bewildered travellers, who behold in them at once their destruction and their grave. In vain do they attempt to fly; as vain were all thoughts of resistance. Before the shortest prayer is finished, that multitude that was just now full of life and animation, is hushed in silence; every heart has ceased to beat; the simoom of the desert has passed over them, and the place they occupied is scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding plain. This is no flight of the imagination, but a simple statement of a fact of not unfrequent occurrence. Now imagine in such a scene with what feelings these alarmed and flying travellers would greet “a hiding-place” and “a covert.” If a rock of adamant, a barrier which neither sand, nor wind, nor tempest could beat down or overleap, should suddenly spring up between them and those swiftly advancing columns of death, what would be their feelings of joy, their thoughts of gratitude, their language of praise! Who can imagine the heartfelt cry of thanksgiving to God which would arise from that vast multitude at so complete, so merciful, so unhoped-for a deliverance? With such feelings should we “behold the Man” of whom I speak to-day. We stood in as great a danger. Our sins had raised a tempest of the wrath of God, against which the whole created host of heaven would in vain have attempted to erect a barrier. But our Lord has wrought a deliverance for us as much needed, as unexpected, as complete. He has interposed between us and the mighty “wind,” the appalling “tempest,” which justly threatened our destruction.
1. Let us who have found shelter in Christ rejoice in Him, and be glad this day because of the quietness we enjoy. Let those who are still outside the great “Hiding-Place,” the wondrous “Covert” which God’s mercy has provided, remember that an unapplied Saviour is no Saviour. Their peril has been in no sense lessened by His advent. In the gladness of this day they can have no share.
II. His people’s consolation. “As rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Before we had symbols of safety; here we have symbols of consolation.
1. God’s people often feel that this world is “a dry and barren place, and thirst for consolation and succour.” That which they thirst for, they may find in Christ. He is not merely a river, but (so abundant are His consolations) “rivers of water” to them that are fainting under the trials, anxieties, or distresses of the world. But it is not enough that the river is running at your feet; you must know it is there, you must drink of its waters, or they will not assuage their thirst. In Hagar sitting down in utter hopelessness and helplessness, when near her there was an abundant supply of water for herself and her child (Gen_21:15-19), we have an emblem of too many distressed and sorrowful Christians. “Rivers of water” are flowing past you: arise, and drink! (Rev_22:17).
2. God’s people are often faint and weary as they pursue their earthly pilgrimage. But during every stage of it they may “renew their strength,” and so be enabled to persevere until at length “they stand in Zion before God,” for Christ is “as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Don’t be satisfied with just coming within the range of the shadow of the Rock; there are in the Rock recesses where you may find a complete shelter and a sweeter rest. Enter into them. Cultivate a closer fellowship with Christ. So in every stage of your journey you shall have not only strength, but joy (Isa_35:10).—H. Blunt, A.M.: Posthumous Sermons, pp. 23–42.
The “Man” here referred to is the Divine Redeemer—the one theme of the Bible. “Hiding-place” and “covert” express substantially the same idea—shelter, defence, safety, deliverance both from actual and impending evil. Jesus Christ in this broad and comprehensive sense is the Refuge of His people. Fleeing to Him, men find protection, &c.
I. Christ is a refuge in the day of earthly disappointment. Human life full of disappointments. Few of our anticipations of good realised. Our fondest and most sacredly cherished hopes blighted. The world deceives men: it is not what it seems to be, it does not satisfy the desires it awakens. The god of this world is the master spirit of lying and deception, and he so manages the shifting scenes as to keep up the deception until the last. So with (a) the man of business, (b) those who aspire to earthly honour, fame, power, (c) the student, (d) the pleasure-seeker. To these children of disappointment, Christ is a refuge; He has Himself felt the ills of life (Heb_4:15-16). There is a “hiding-place” where the fury of life’s storms never comes; the God of mercy offers eternal life in the Gospel. Forsaken, disheartened, disappointed men may still be accepted of Christ, and find peace and rest in Him.
II. Christ is a Refuge in time of affliction. This is a world of sorrow and suffering; men turn from it in disgust and anguish to seek relief elsewhere, or to weep life away in sadness and darkness. Now Christ alone is available in just such an hour. When the world turns its back upon us, there is a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother—one born for adversity—a shield and a deliverer in the day of affliction. We may not be able to explain the philosophy of the thing, but the soul that looks to Christ is so sustained as to rejoice in tribulation, and the heaviest burden is lightened and made a blessing.
III. Christ is a Refuge in the day of trial It pleases the Lord to make full proof of His people. He puts their love, fidelity, and integrity to the test. God tries (a) our faith, (b) hope, (c) patience, (d) principles. And in His day of fiery trial our only safety is in the “hiding-place” of Divine mercy—we need the “covert” of the Almighty wings. None but Christ is able to give the soul confidence in such days and hours.
IV. Christ is a Refuge in the day of fear. Sin is darkness, and hence wherever there is sin there is gloom and fear. The wicked man is a slave to fear, and even the Christian at times suffers greatly because of it. The remedy for this gloomy experience is in Christ; and there is a power in the Gospel to lift the soul into a region of perpetual sunshine. In Christian experience, peace, joy, and hope are the ministering angels (Hab_3:17-18).
V. Christ is a Refuge from the torments of an accusing conscience. The day of self-convicted guilt always a day of memorable experiences. Conscience upbraids, justice demands satisfaction; the soul is ready to sink into hell. Whose arm can save in such an hour? where shall he seek refuge? In that hour none but Christ can save.
VI. Christ is a Refuge in the day of final wrath. The wrath to come—the just, final, and eternal wrath of God—a reality, a fixed fact in thought and experience. Jesus Christ is a refuge from this impending evil. The Cross lifted up on Calvary has received the thunder; God and the believer in Jesus Christ are reconciled. What, then, have they to fear whose life is hid in Christ? Death cannot harm, the judgment-day need not terrify.
Glorious Refuge! it never fails—is never shut against the penitent soul—has never been shaken—and will yet resist the fire and deluge of the great day of wrath. This is the Ark, and they are eternally safe who are therein.—J. M. Sherwood: National Preacher, 1859, p. 217.
RIVERS OF WATER IN A DRY PLACE
Isa_32:2. As rivers of water in a dry place.
The surface sense of this passage may refer to Hezekiah and to other good kings who were a means of great blessing to the declining kingdom of Judah; but its declarations are too full of meaning to be applied solely or primarily to any mere man. They are never fully understood until they are applied to Christ, the true King of righteousness, who confers the highest blessings upon His people. In Him there is a fulness and variety of blessing such as the varied metaphors of this passage fail to set forth. He is the true Man of whom Isaiah speaks; the man in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and who therefore can be, and is, “as rivers of water in a dry place.”
I. THE METAPHOR. This implies,
1. Great excellence of blessing. How valuable is a river to the land through which it flows! So Christ is the source and the sustenance of the fertility, fruitfulness, and beauty of His people.
2. Abundance of blessing. Think of the vast floods that flow through the Amazon, the Ganges, the Indus, the Orinoco. So in Christ there is grace sufficient for all mankind.
3. Freshness of blessing [1183]
4. Freeness of blessing. Though individuals may claim peculiar rights in rivers, all creatures drink of them freely, the dog as well as the swan. So may all, however vile, partake of the grace that is in Christ.
5. Constancy of blessing. Pools and cisterns dry up, but the river goes on for ever. So it is with Jesus; the grace to pardon and the power to heal are not spasmodic powers in Him, they abide in Him unabated for evermore.
[1183] In a river we see not only excellence and abundance, but freshness. A pool is the same thing over again, and gradually it becomes a stagnant pond, breeding corrupt life and pestilential gases. A river is always the same, yet never the same; it is ever in its place, yet always moving on. Filled to the brim with living water, even as in ages long gone by, and yet flowing fresh from the spring, it is an ancient novelty. We call our own beautiful river, “Father Thames,” yet he wears no furrows on his brows, but leaps in all the freshness of youth. You shall live by the banks of a river for years, and yet each morning its stream shall be as fresh as though its fountain had been unsealed but an hour ago when the birds began to awake the morning and the sun to sip the dews. Is it not so with our Lord Jesus Christ! Is He not evermore as bright and fresh as when first you met with Him?—Spurgeon.
II. A SPECIAL EXCELLENCE which the text mentions. “Rivers of water in a dry place.” Only the residents in a tropical country can fully appreciate that phrase. But Christ came to such a place when He came to our race. So He does when with His salvation He visits the individual soul. Were it not for Him, the souls, even of His people, under the influence of wealth or of poverty, of the cares or of the pleasures of life, would be always dry. But He refreshes, sustains, and fertilises those who otherwise would utterly faint and fail.
III. PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. See the goings out of God’s heart to man, and man’s way of communing with God. God’s heart is an infinite ocean of goodness, and it flows forth to us through Jesus Christ, not in streams and driblets, but in rivers of grace and mercy. These streams we cannot purchase or merit, we have only to receive them; when we drink of the stream, we partake of God.
2. See what a misery it is that men should be perishing and dying of soul thirst when there are these rivers so near. Some have never heard of them; therefore help to the utmost the Missionary Society. Others who have heard of them are smitten with a strange insanity that leads them to turn away from them.
3. Let us learn where, if we are suffering from spiritual drought and barrenness, the blame lies. It cannot lie in Christ.
4. If Christ is ready to be to us as rivers, drink of Him, all of you [1186] Live near Him. Live in Him [1189]C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 1243.
[1186] Is Christ a river? then drink of Him, all of you. To be carried along on the surface of Christianity, like a man in a boat, is not enough, you must drink or die. Many are influenced by the externals of religion, but Christ is not in them; they are on the water, but the water is not in them; and if they continue as they are they will be lost. A man may be in a boat on a river and yet die of thirst if he refuses to drink; and so you may be carried along and excited by a revival, but unless you receive the Lord Jesus into your soul by faith, you will perish after all.—Spurgeon.
[1189] If Christ be like a river, let us be like the fishes, live in it. The fish is an ancient Christian emblem for Jesus and His people. I sat under a beech-tree some months ago in the New Forest; I gazed op into it, measured it, and marked the architecture of its branches, but suddenly I saw a little squirrel leap from bough to bough, and I thought, “After all, this beech-tree is far more to you than to me, for you live in it. It delights me, it instructs me, and it affords me shade, but you live in it and upon it.” So we know something about rivers, and they are very useful to us, but to the fish the river is its element, its life, its all. So, my brethren, let us not merely read about Christ, and think of Him, and speak of Him, but let us live on Him, and in Him, as the squirrel in the tree and the fish in the river. Live by Him, and live for Him: you will do both if you live in Him.—Spurgeon.
[See also Outlines, RIVERS OF WATERS, Isa_30:25-26, and ENRICHING RIVERS, Isa_33:21.]
COMFORT IN CHRIST
Isa_32:2. As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
This chapter begins with a prophecy of the Messiah, and of the happiness which the godly should enjoy under His reign (Isa_32:1). True as well as beautiful are its descriptions of Christ.
I. To the children of God this world is often “a weary land.”
1. Because of the labours they have to undergo. This is a laborious world (Ecc_1:8). Employment is in itself a blessing; it was provided for man in Eden; but every day the sun sets upon millions who are faint and weary, who are overwrought, and for whom there will be no sufficient rest until they lie down in the grave. To God’s children it is a special cause of weariness that they are compelled to devote so much time in labouring for “the meat which perisheth,” and that they have so little time for meditation and for communion with God.
2. Because of the troubles to which they are exposed (Job_5:7). Troubles attend every stage and condition of life. They are national, domestic, personal. The pains and evils of life commonly increase as its length is protracted. And there, is nothing more wearisome than troubles. Many who can endure labour cannot endure trouble. This makes the heart stoop, and weakens the mind as well as the body. A troublesome world must be a wearisome world.
3. Because of the perplexities by which they are harassed. This is a dark world. What is past, what is present, as well as what is to come, lies involved in darkness. Life is full of mystery. Strange and unexpected events are continually happening, which disappoint the hopes and frustrate the designs of the wisest. Providence often baffles the interpretation and tries the faith even of the most devout. Wickedness is often triumphant, and virtue trampled under foot. Good men are often tired of living in a world which subjects them to continual anxiety and suspense.
4. Because of the sin by which they are surrounded. The moral atmosphere in which they live is uncongenial The practices and principles with which they are daily brought into contact fill them with disgust, with indignation, and with grief (2Pe_2:7-8; Psa_119:139; Psa_119:156; Psa_119:158; Act_17:16; Eze_9:4).
II. Whensoever God’s children are weary of the world, they may find comfort in Christ. They may always find comfort.
1. In the compassion of Christ. He knows what it is to be faint and weary. He knows the heart of a pilgrim and stranger. And He has the tenderest compassion for His friends in distress or want. He is as pitiful to-day as He was when He tabernacled on earth. He feels all that His followers feel (Act_9:2; Heb_4:14-16).
2. In the intercession of Christ. As He prayed for Peter (Luk_12:32) and for all His disciples before His crucifixion (John 17), so He still makes intercession for His followers according to their necessities. And His intercession is always prevalent (Joh_11:42).
3. In the strength of Christ. Weakness is the cause of weariness, and the weary may always find the strength they want in Christ (Php_4:13; 2Co_12:7-10).
4. In the government of Christ. He sits as King in Zion. He has absolute control over the darkness, tumults, and confusions of the world. He governs all things for the benefit of His Church. Nothing can hurt it (Zec_2:8; Isa_27:3; Psa_2:1-5; Psa_2:9).
5. In the promises of Christ. He has promised to give them peace even in this world (Joh_14:27; Joh_16:33; Joh_14:2-3). These are great and precious promises, because they are sure promises.
APPLICATION.—Since the friends of Christ, when they are weary of the world, may always find comfort in Him—
1. They should not regard the things which make them weary of it as curses but as blessings. It is a good thing to have our hold of the world loosened. It is a good thing to be driven to Christ. All their trials and sufferings are suited to prepare them to enjoy more peace and rest in Christ, than they could otherwise enjoy. When a man finds a covert in a great storm, he finds more pleasure in it than he does on a fine fair day. So Christians enjoy more real satisfaction and happiness in adversity than in prosperity, because while prosperity leads them to the enjoyment of the world, adversity leads to the enjoyment of Christ.
2. They enjoy more happiness even in this life than sinners do. Sinners often seem happier than saints, but theirs is a loud and transient mirth, whereas God’s people have a deep and lasting joy. Autumn is oftener a pleasanter season than spring, but it deepens into the gloom and vigour of winter; whereas after the storms of March and the rain of April come the bright joyous days of summer. The life of the sinner is at best an autumn life, with autumn prospects, but the life of God’s children is a spring life. And even here and now they (and they only) are filled with that peace of God which passeth all understanding, affords joy in sorrow, and gives rest to the weary.
3. They ought never to be heard murmuring or complaining under any troubles or afflictions in which they may be involved. This world is full of murmuring; and when God’s people complain, it is highly offensive to God (Psa_106:25-26). But why should they complain? (Heb_12:11). And they have a present refuge, even Christ, in whom they may find “strong consolation.”
4. They ought never to be found depressed with anxiety as to the future (Php_4:6-7).—Dr. Emmons: Works, vol. iii. 352–365.
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.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. The prophets spoke of things to come, but…
Isa 32:13
I. The prophets spoke of things to come, but they spoke of things present also; they held up a light in a dark place, imperfectly understood in their own days, but bright and clear when the full day arose, of which they had obscurely spoken; but they also held up a light, a broad blazing light, to the men of their own times, which would never become clearer than it then was, and would be hardly ever again so clear. That is, they were teachers of righteousness to their own people; the sins which they reproved were the sins which they saw daily committed; the judgments which they threatened were the judgments which these sins would draw down.
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II. Our times and our own nation more closely resemble the time of Isaiah’s preaching, and the nation of Israel to whom he preached, than any other time or nation that could be named. The worship of God was established by law amongst the Israelites as it is amongst us. Israel, in the days of Isaiah, was full of great riches and great poverty,—great covetousness and luxury on one side, great misery and carelessness of God on the other. Who can look through this land at this moment and not see the same state of things here? Israel, in the days of Isaiah, had too many of those who scorned at God’s word and His promises; and of this, too, they who know what is the present state of England, know that there is too much amongst us. The prophets, then, are in a most remarkable manner the mirror or glass in which we may see our own likeness. To us, God’s Christian Israel, a promise is made of a state of overwhelming blessing after a time of fearful judgments—judgments for the punishment of the tares, and for the cleansing and perfecting of the good seed; till at last, when all that do evil or that tempt to evil shall be gathered out of the kingdom of God, the righteous may shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 222.
Reference: Isa 32:15.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 273.
Isa 32:17
I. Isaiah was a true patriot; he was a man of the purest moral character, and of the most absolute faith in God. It broke his heart to see the degradation of his countrymen; he saw that if there was a God in heaven who governed the world on principles of justice, such a social condition of a nation as marked Israel then must draw down what men in his day called judgment. He saw the ruthless Assyrian massing his troops together, and from that quarter the desolation threatened to come; they would be a trouble for many days and many years, till the nation was regenerated by a new and better spirit poured out upon them from on high; till men were estimated at their true value; till the frivolities of fashionable life had given place to earnestness of purpose, and the work of righteousness brought peace, and the effects of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.
II. Every one who has read the utterances of these old Hebrew prophets with any attention can hardly have failed to be struck with what we may call, in the highest sense of the word, their political tone and character. They desired to purify the nation’s moral life at its source. They tried to awaken their age from soothing but false dreams, that to-morrow would be as today, and much more abundant.
III. There are three things of which when the Spirit came He was to reprove the world—of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. My faith is that national sins bring what the old Hebrew prophets call national judgments, not in the way of miracle, but as a natural and necessary consequence; and, on the other hand, that national righteousness averts them. The deadliest atheism is that which denies the supremacy of the principle of righteousness in the government of the world.
D. Fraser, Penny Pulpit, No. 2436.
Reference: Isa 32:17.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 348.
Isa 32:20
I. Notice, first, the characters here described. They are sowers. Of course a sower implies seed, and it will be well for us to acknowledge at the outset that there is only one granary, so to speak, in which the living seed of the kingdom is treasured, viz., the Bible. (1) The true spiritual sower, having first of all received himself the seed, will manifest a real love for the work. He will go forth willingly, conscientiously, and lovingly to scatter broadcast the precious treasure, not merely on well-cultivated patches of human soil, but "beside all waters," finding very often his chiefest joy in sowing the unlikeliest patches. (2) The true spiritual sower will not only have an ardent love for, but he will also have faith in, his work. This is eminently the case with the earthly husbandman. You see him yonder on the eastern hill-slope with seed-basket in one hand, and the other employed in casting forth the seed. And think you that he would be at all that trouble unless he firmly and in his deepest soul believed, nay, was certain, that the glad harvest-home would crown at length his efforts? If the earthly sower has such faith in the vitality of his seed, how much more should we in that seed of the Word which liveth, abideth for ever. (3) The true spiritual sower will not only have faith in the seed, but also in the soil. The farmer who does not believe the soil capable of producing fruit will certainly not waste time in its cultivation. If we did not to-night believe that between every human heart and the Gospel seed there was such affinity that it could not help taking root therein, we should most certainly give up our toil. (4) The true spiritual sower will often encounter difficulty in his work. (5) The spiritual sower is earth’s truest philanthropist.
II. Consider our sphere of operation—"beside all waters." Wherever there is a solitary spot capable of receiving the good and living seed—whether at home or abroad, in dens of squalor or palaces of luxury and ease, in the crowded city or the rural village—we are commanded to go and plant it there.
III. Consider the benediction here pronounced. "Blessed are they that sow beside all waters." (1) The work itself is its own reward. (2) The spiritual sower enjoys the benediction of others. (3) He has the smile and benediction of Him in whose service he is engaged.
J. W. Atkinson, Penny Pulpit, No. 940.
Reference: Isa 32:20.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 497.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v2
Isaiah
THE HIDING-PLACE
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Isa 32:2.
We may well say, Of whom speaketh the prophet this? Here are distinctly attributed to one of ourselves, if we take the words in their simplicity and fulness, functions and powers which universal experience has taught us not to look for in humanity. And there have been a great many attempts-as it seems to me, altogether futile and baseless ones-to break the force of these words as a distinct prophecy of Jesus Christ. Surely the language is far too wide to have application to any real or ideal Jewish monarch, except one whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom? Surely the experience of a hundred centuries might teach men that there is one man, and one alone, who is the refuge from all dangers, the fruition of all desires, the rest and refreshment in all toils.
And I, for my part, have no hesitation in saying that the only reference of these words which gives full value to their wealth of blessing, is to regard them as a prophecy of the man-Christ Jesus; hiding in whom we are safe, ‘coming’ to whom we ‘never thirst,’ guarded and blest by whom no weariness can befall us, and dwelling in whom this weary world shall be full of refreshment and peace!
I do not need to point out the exquisite beauty of the imagery or the pathos and peace that breathe in the majestic rhythm of the words. There is something more than poetical beauty or rhetorical amplification of a single thought in those three clauses. The ‘hiding-place’ and ‘covert’ refer to one class of wants; the ‘rivers of water in a dry place’ to yet another; and ‘the shadow of a great rock in a weary land’ to yet a third. And, though they are tinged and dyed in Eastern imagery, the realities of life in Western lands, and in all ages, give them a deeper beauty than that of lovely imagery, and are the true keys to understanding their meaning. We shall, perhaps, best grasp the whole depth of that meaning according to the Messianic reference which we give to the text, if we consider the sad and solemn conception of man’s life that underlies it; the enigmatical and obstinate hope which it holds out in the teeth of all experience-’A man shall be a refuge’; and the solution of the riddle in the man Christ Jesus.
I. First, there underlies this prophecy a very sad but a very true conception of human life.
The three classes of promises have correlative with them three phases of man’s condition, three diverse aspects of his need and misery. The ‘covert’ and the ‘hiding-place’ imply tempest, storm, and danger; the ‘river of water’ implies drought and thirst; ‘the shadow of a great rock’ implies lassitude and languor, fatigue and weariness. The view of life that arises from the combination of these three bears upon its front the signature of truth in the very fact that it is a sad view.
For, I suppose, notwithstanding all that we may say concerning the beauty and the blessedness scattered broadcast round about us; notwithstanding that we believe, and hold as for our lives the happy ‘faith that all which we behold is full of blessing,’ it needs but a very short experience of this life, and but a superficial examination of our own histories and our own hearts, in order to come to the conclusion that the world is full of strange and terrible sadness, that every life has dark tracts and long stretches of sombre tint, and that no representation is true to fact which dips its pencil only in light and flings no shadows on the canvas. There is no depth in a Chinese picture, because there is no shade. It is the wrinkles and marks of tear and wear that make the expression in a man’s portrait. ‘Life’s sternest painter “is” its best.’ The gloomy thoughts which are charged against Scripture are the true thoughts about man and the world as man has made it. Not, indeed, that life needs to be so, but that by reason of our own evil and departure from God there have come in as a disturbing element the retributive consequences of our own godlessness, and these have made danger where else were safety, thirst where else were rivers of water, and weariness and lassitude where else were strength and bounding hope.
So then, look for a moment at these three points that come out of my text, in order to lay the foundation for subsequent considerations.
We live a life defenceless and exposed to many a storm and tempest. I need but remind you of the adverse circumstances-the wild winds that go sweeping across the flat level, the biting blasts that come down from the snow-clad mountains of destiny that lie round the low plain upon which we live. I need but remind you of the dangers that are lodged for our spiritual life in the temptations to evil that are round us. I need but remind you of that creeping and clinging consciousness of being exposed to a divinely commissioned retribution and punishment, which perverts the Name that ought to be the basis of all our blessedness into a Name unwelcome and terrible, because threatening judgment. I need but remind you how men’s sins have made it needful that when the mighty God, even the Lord, appears before them, ‘it shall be very tempestuous round about him.’ Men fear and ought to fear ‘the blast of the breath of His nostrils,’ which must burn up all that is evil. And I need but remind you of that last wild wind of Death that whirls the sin-faded leaves into dark corners where they lie and rot.
My brother, you have not lived thus long without learning how defenceless you are against the storm of adverse circumstances. You have not lived thus long without learning that though, blessed be God! there do come in all our lives long periods of halcyon rest, when ‘birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave,’ and the heavens above are clear as sapphire, and the sea around is transparent as opal-yet the little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, may rise on the horizon, and may thicken and blacken and grow greater and nearer till all the sky is dark, and burst in lightning and rain and fierceness of wind, till ‘through the torn sail the wild tempest is streaming,’ and the white crests of the waves are like the mane of Death’s pale horse leaping upon the broken ship. We have all learnt in how profound a sense, by reason of outward adverse circumstances and inward temptations, by reason of the fears of a Justice which we know is throned at the centre of the creation, by reason of a death which to us is a terror, and by reason of that universal fear of ‘after death the judgment,’ storm and tempest swoop upon our paths. God made the sunshine, and we have made it a storm. God made life blessed and full of safety and peace, and we have wrenched ourselves from Him and stand defenceless amidst its dangers.
Then, there is another aspect and conception of life which underlies these words of my text. The image of the desert was before the prophet’s rapt vision. He saw the sand whirled into mad dancing columns before the blast which swept across the unsheltered flat, with nothing, for a day’s march, to check its force. But the wilderness is not only shelterless, it is waterless too-a place in which wild and ravening thirst finds no refreshing draughts, and the tongue cleaves to the blackening gums.
‘Rivers of water in a dry place’; and what is the prose fact of that? That you and I live in the midst of a world which has no correspondence with, nor power of satisfying, our truest and deepest selves-that we bear about with us a whole set of longings and needs and weaknesses and strengths and capacities, all of which, like the climbing tendrils of some creeping plant, go feeling and putting out their green fingers to lay hold of some prop and stay-that man is so made that for his rest and blessedness he must have an external object round which his spirit may cling, on which his desires may fasten and rest, by which his heart may be blessed, which shall be authority for his will, peace for his fears, sprinkling and cleansing for his conscience, light for his understanding, shall be in complete correspondence with his inward nature-be water for his thirst, and bread for his hunger.
And as thus, on the very nature which each of us carries, there is stamped the signature of dependence, and the necessity of finding an external object on which to rest; and as, further, men will not be tutored even by their own miseries or by the voice of their own wants, and ever confound their wishes with their wants and their whims with their needs, therefore it comes to pass that the appetite which was only meant to direct us to God, and to be as a wholesome hunger in order to secure our partaking with relish and delight of the divine food that is provided for it, becomes unsatisfied, a torture, and unslaked, a ravening madness; and men’s needs become men’s misery; and men’s hunger becomes men’s famine; and men’s thirst becomes men’s death. We do dwell in a dry land where no water is.
All about us there are these creatures of God, bright and blessed and beautiful, fit for their functions and meant to minister to our gladness. They are meant to be held in subordination. It is not meant that we should find in them the food for our souls. Wealth and honour and wisdom and love and gratified ambition and successful purpose, and whatsoever other good things a man may gather about him and achieve-he may have them all, and yet in spite of them all there will be a great aching, longing vacuity in his soul. His true and inmost being will be groping through the darkness, like a plant growing in a cellar, for the light which alone can tinge its pale petals and swell its shrivelling blossoms to ripeness and fruit.
A dry place, as well as a dangerous place-have not you found it so? I believe that every soul of man has, if he will be honest with himself, and that there is not one among us who would not, if he were to look into the deepest facts and real governing experience of his life, confess-I thirst: ‘my soul thirsteth.’ And oh, brethren, why not go on with the quotation, and make that which is else a pain, a condition of blessedness? Why not recognise the meaning of all this restless disquiet, and say ‘My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God’?
And then there is the other idea also underlying these words, yet another phase of this sad life of ours-not only danger and drought, but also weariness and languor. The desert stretches before us again, where there is no shelter from the blast and no trickling stream amid the yellowing sand; where the fierce ball above beats down cruelly, and its hot rays are flung up cruelly into our faces, and the glare blinds us, and the stifling heat wearies us, and work is a torture and motion is misery, and we long for nothing so much as to be quiet and to hide our heads in some shade.
I was reading recently one of our last books of travel in the wilderness of the Exodus, in which the writer told how, after toiling for hours under a scorching sun, over the hot, white, marly flat, seeing nothing but a beetle or two on the way, and finding no shelter anywhere from the pitiless beating of the sunshine, the weary travellers came at last to a little Retem bush only a few feet high, and flung themselves down and tried to hide, at least, their heads, from those ‘sunbeams like swords,’ even beneath its ragged shade. And my text tells of a great rock, with blue dimness in its shadow, with haply a fern or two in the moist places of its crevices, where there is rest, and a man can lie down and be cool, while all outside is burning sun, and burning sand, and dancing mirage.
Oh! the weariness felt by us all, of plod, plod, plodding across the sand! That fatal monotony into which every man’s life stiffens, as far as outward circumstances, outward joys and pleasures go! the depressing influence of custom which takes the edge off all gladness and adds a burden to every duty! the weariness of all that tugging up the hill, of all that collar-work which we have to do! Who is there that has not his mood, and that by no means the least worthy and man-like of his moods, wherein he feels not, perhaps, that all is vanity, but-’how infinitely wearisome it all is.’
And so every race of man that ever has lived has managed out of two miseries to make a kind of shadowy gladness; and, knowing the weariness of life and the blackness of death, has somewhat lightened the latter by throwing upon it the thought of the former, and has said, ‘Well, at any rate, if the grave be narrow and dark, and if outside “the warm precincts of the cheerful day” there be that ambiguous night, at least it is the place for sleep; and, if we cannot be sure of anything more, we shall rest then, at any rate.’ So the hope of ‘long disquiet merged in rest’ becomes almost bright, and man’s weariness finds most pathetic expression in his thinking of the grave as a bed where he can stretch himself and be still. Life is hard, life is dry, life is dangerous.
II. But another thought suggested by these words is-The Mysterious Hope which shines through them.
One of ourselves shall deliver us from all this evil in life. ‘A man shall be a refuge, rivers of water, the shadow of a great rock.’ Such an expectation seems to be right in the teeth of all experience and far too high-pitched ever to be fulfilled. It appears to demand in him who should bring it to pass powers which are more than human, and which must in some inexplicable way be wide as the range of humanity and enduring as the succession of the ages.
It is worth while to realise to ourselves these two points which seem to make such words as these of our text a blank impossibility. Experience contradicts them, and common-sense demands for their fulfilment an apparently impossible human character.
All experience seems to teach-does it not?-that no human arm or heart can be to another soul what these words promise, and what we need. And yet the men who have been disappointed and disenchanted a thousand times do still look among their fellows for what their fellows, too, are looking for, and none have ever found. Have we found what we seek among men? Have we ever known amongst the dearest that we have clung to, one arm that was strong enough to keep us in all danger? Has there ever been a human love to which we can run with the security that there is a strong tower where no evil can touch us? There have been many delights in all our lives mediated and ministered to us by those that we loved. They have taught us, and helped us, and strengthened us in a thousand ways. We have received from them draughts of wisdom, of love, of joy, of guidance, of impulse, of comfort, which have been, as water in the desert is, more precious than gold. Our fellow-travellers have shared their store with us, ‘letting down their pitchers upon their hand,’ and giving us drink; but has the draught ever slaked the thirst? They carry but a pitcher, and a pitcher is not a fountain. Have there been any in all the round of those that we have loved and trusted, to whom we have trusted absolutely, without having been disappointed? They, like us, are hemmed in by human limitations. They each bear a burdened and thirsty spirit, itself needing such supplies. And to the truest, happiest, most soul-sufficing companionship, there comes at last that dread hour which ends all sweet commerce of giving and receiving, and makes the rest of life, for some of us, one monotonous ashen-grey wilderness where no water is. These things make it impossible for us to find anywhere amongst men our refuge and our fruition.
And yet how strange, how pathetic, is the fact that after all disappointments, men still obstinately continue to look among their fellows for guidance and for light, for consolation, for defence, and for strength! After a thousand failures they still hope. Does not the search at once confess that hitherto they have not found, else why be seeking still?-and that they yet believe they will yet find, else why not cease the vain quest? And surely He who made us, made us not in vain, nor cursed us with immortal hopes which are only persistent lies. Surely there is some living Person who will vindicate these unquenchable hopes of humanity, and receive and requite our love and trust, and satisfy our longings, and explain the riddle of our lives. If there be not, nor ever has been, nor ever can be a man who shall satisfy us with his love, and defend us with his power, and be our all-sufficient satisfaction and our rest in weariness, then much of man’s noblest nature is a mistake, and many of his purest and profoundest hopes are an illusion, a mockery, and a snare. The obstinate hope that, within the limits of humanity, we shall find what we need is a mystery, except on one hypothesis, that it, too, belongs to ‘the unconscious prophecies’ that God has lodged in all men’s hearts.
Nor need I remind you, I suppose, how such functions as those of which my text speaks not only seem to be contradicted by all experience, but manifestly and obviously to transcend the possibilities of human nature. A man to defend me; and he himself-does he need no defence? A man to supply my wants; and is his spirit, then, other than mine, that it can become the all-sufficient fulness for my emptiness? He that can do this for one spirit must be greater than the spirit for which he doeth it. He that can do it for the whole race of man, through all ages, in all circumstances, down to the end of time, in every latitude, under every condition of civilisation-who must he be who, for the whole world, evermore and always, is their defence, their gladness, their shelter, and their rest?
The function requires a divine power, and the application of the power requires a human hand. It is not enough that I should be pointed to a far-off heaven, where there dwells an infinite loving God-I believe that we need more than that. We need both of the truths: ‘God is my refuge and my strength,’ and ‘A man shall be a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest.’
III. That brings me to the last point to be noticed, namely:-The solution of the mystery in the person of Jesus Christ.
That which seemed impossible is real. The forebodings of humanity have not fathomed the powers of Divine Love. There is a man, our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, who can be to single souls the adequate object of their perfect trust, the abiding home of their deepest love, the unfailing supply for their profoundest wants. There is one man to whom it is wise and blessed to look as the exclusive source of all our peace, the absolute ruler of all our lives. There is a man in whom we find all that we have vainly sought in men. There is a man, who can be to all ages and to the whole race their refuge, their satisfaction, their rest. ‘It behoved Him to be made in all points like unto His brethren,’ that His succour might be ever near, and His sympathy sure. The man Christ Jesus who, being man, is God manifest in the flesh, exercises in one and the same act the offices of divine pity and human compassion, of divine and human guardianship, of divine and human love.
‘And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought.’
The dreams of weary hearts that have longed for an impossible perfection are all below the reality. The fact surpasses all expectation. It is more than all prophecies, it is more than all hopes, it is more than all praise. It is God’s unspeakable gift. Well might an angel voice proclaim the mystery of love, ‘Unto you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’ The ancient promise of our text is history now. A man has been and is all these things for us.
A refuge and a hiding-place from every storm-adverse circumstances sweep upon us, and His mighty hand is put down there as a buckler, behind which we may hide and be safe. Temptations to evil storm upon us, but if we are enclosed within Him they never touch us. The fears of our own hearts swirl like a river in flood against the walls of our fortress home, and we can laugh at them, for it is founded upon a rock! The day of judgment rises before us solemn and certain, and we can await it without fear, and approach it with calm joy. I call upon no mountains and hills to cover me.
‘Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.’
‘Rivers of water in a dry place,’-hungry and thirsty, my soul fainted within me. I longed for light, and behold darkness. I longed for help, and there was none that could come close to my spirit to succour and to give me drink in the desert. My conscience cried in all its wounds for cleansing and stanching, and no comforter nor any balm was there. My heart, weary of limited loves and mortal affections, howsoever sweet and precious, yearned and bled for one to rest upon all-sufficient and eternal. I thirsted with a thirst that was more than desire, that was pain, and was coming to be death, and I heard a voice which said, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.’
‘The shadow of a great rock in a weary land,’-and my heart was weary by reason of the greatness of the way, and duties and tasks seemed toils and burdens, and I was ready to say, ‘Wherefore has Thou made me and all men in vain? Surely all this is vanity and vexation of spirit,’ and I heard One that laid His hand upon me and said, ‘Come unto Me, and I will give thee rest.’ I come to Thee, O Christ, faint and perishing, defenceless and needy, with many a sin and many a fear; to Thee I turn for Thou hast died for me, and for me thou dost live. Be Thou my shelter and strong tower. Give me to drink of living water. Let me rest in Thee while in this weary land, and let Thy sweet love, my Brother and my Lord, be mine all on earth and the heaven of my heaven!
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 1-8. Characteristics of the future age.
1-8. Characteristics of the future age.
9-14. A warning of coming desolation to the over-confident people.
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15-20. Afterwards shall be a peaceful and prosperous future.
1. The ideal future.
2. Men will defend and protect their inferiors instead of oppressing them.
3. Cp. Isa_29:18.
5f. Moral confusion shall cease; men shall be taken at their true value, their character being clearly seen in their actions.
6. Hypocrisy] RV 'profaneness.'
8. By.. stand] RV 'in liberal things shall he continue.'
9-14. Cp. Isa_3:16-26.
10. Many.. years] RM 'Days above a year,' i.e. in little more than a year.
12. Lament.. teats] RV 'smite upon the breasts,' a gesture of despairing lamentation over the desolated vineyards.
14. Multitude.. city] RV 'populous city.'
15. A limit is set to the desolation. A bright future is in store, when the outward transformation of the country will correspond with the moral reformation (Isa_32:16). This change alike in man and in nature is attributed,' to an outpouring of the divine and life-giving spirit.
19. When] RV 'but': a judgment is to precede the time of peace just described.
Coming, etc.] RV 'in the downfall of the forest,' i.e. of the Assyrian. The city] Jerusalem too must be humbled.
20. Refers to the bright future again, when the land shortly to be desolate (Isa_32:13-14) shall be fully cultivated. Beside all waters] for the land will be everywhere irrigated (Isa_30:25).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 (See Scofield "Isa 29:3").
king
(See Scofield "Isa 29:3").
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In chapters 32-35. the same blended meanings of near and far fulfilments are found. The near view is still of Sennacherib’s invasion, the far view of the day of the Lord. Isa 2:10-22; Rev 19:11-21 and the kingdom blessing to follow.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 32 The Coming King and His Kingdom
CHAPTER 32 The Coming King and His Kingdom
1. The King and His rule (Isa 32:1-8) 2. The careless women addressed (Isa 32:9-12) 3. The judgment of the land and the city (Isa 32:13-14) 4. The hope of the future (Isa 32:15-20)The connection with the previous chapter is obvious. In Isa 31:4-9 the coming of the Lord for the deliverance of His people and the punishment of their enemies is predicted. “So shall the Lord of Hosts come down to fight Mount Zion and the hill thereof.” And now in the beginning of chapter 32 the coming King and His righteous reign is revealed. The King is the Man Christ Jesus, “a hiding place from the wind and a cover from the tempest.”
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Isa 32:13-14 describe once more the judgment which rested upon the land and the city. But it is not permanent. “Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high.” This great outpouring of the Spirit connected with the restoration of Israel’s land has not yet taken place. It comes in that day. Read Joe 2:1-32.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 A Government of Righteousness
A Government of Righteousness
v. 1. Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness, namely, He who is Himself the Lord, our Righteousness, Jer 23:6, and princes, all those who hold positions of authority in the kingdom of Christ, in His Church, shall rule in judgment, applying justice in accordance with the will of the Lord.
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v. 2. And a Man, or the Man, namely, the great Son of Man, Jesus Christ, shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, a Shelter against wind-storms, and a Covert from the tempest, a Protector against oppression; as rivers of water in a dry place, giving refreshment to the souls of the poor and wretched, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, where dense shade brings welcome relief to the heated traveler. This sounds the merciful invitation of the Savior, extended to all those that are heavy laden, to come unto Him and find rest for their souls, Mat 11:28-30.
v. 3. And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken, that is, the spiritual understanding of the Lord’s people will he in proper order for realizing and appreciating the blessings of God’s mercy.
v. 4. The heart also of the rash, such as judge hastily and superficially concerning the great facts of man’s redemption, shall understand knowledge, so as to weigh religious truth aright, and the tongue of the stammerers, those who do not think and speak clearly on divine matters, but are always confused, shall be ready to speak plainly, in proper agreement with the Word of God.
v. 5. The vile person shall be no more called liberal, a fool, given to wickedness as he is, will no longer be called noble, nor the churl said to be bountiful, the swindler will no longer be called a baron. In the outward, visible form of the kingdom of Christ the fraudulent person, the hypocrite, may deceive himself and others, but in the estimation of Christ such a person will be given the position which his hypocrisy deserves.
v. 6. For the vile person will speak villainy, the wicked mocker cannot but give expression to the mockery of his heart, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice hypocrisy, profligacy and malice, and to utter error against the Lord, arguments of unbelief and impiety, which are intended to mislead, to make empty the soul of the hungry, taking away the foundation of belief which will satisfy the needs of the spiritually hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail, namely, of him who hungers and thirsts after the righteousness of the Lord.
v. 7. The instruments also of the churl, of the fraudulent, of the hypocrite, are evil; he deviseth wicked devices, plots of every kind, to destroy the poor with lying words, to bring destruction upon the afflicted with words of falsehood, even when the needy speaketh right, when he pleads with full justice, when his claims are just.
v. 8. But the liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand, that is, a person of noble mind and of high moral character will not only conceive noble things, but will also persevere in them, will carry them out, with the approval of the righteous King.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7 This word is used here to draw peoples' attention…
Look
This word is used here to draw peoples' attention to what is said next. AT: "Listen"
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Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm
This compares the king and princes who protect the people to a shelter. AT: "the rulers will protect the people like a shelter does in a storm" (See: Simile)
like streams of water in a dry place
This is another comparison that means that the rulers will provide for the needs of the people. AT: "they will provide for the people like streams of water in a dry place" (See: Simile)
like the shade of a great rock in a land of weariness
This is another comparison that means that the rulers will provide comfort and rest for the people. AT: "they will provide rest for the people like a huge rock gives shade to weary people" (See: Simile)
Then the eyes ... attentively
Both of these phrases emphasize that the leaders will enable the people to understand God's truth. (See: Metaphor)
will not be dim
"will see clearly"
translationWords
king
reign
righteous
prince
just
refuge
water
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 7 32:1 a righteous king: The Messiah (11:1); the emphasis…
32:1 a righteous king: The Messiah (11:1); the emphasis now is on righteous and wise leadership (Prov 8:20). • In Isaiah’s day, honest princes were few and far between (see Isa 3:1-6; 28:7-19).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.