17The poor and needy seek water, and there is none. Their tongue fails for thirst. I, Yahweh, will answer them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
18I will open rivers on the bare heights, and springs in the middle of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
19I will put cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oil trees in the wilderness. I will set cypress trees, pine, and box trees together in the desert;
20that they may see, know, consider, and understand together, that Yahweh’s hand has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
17 The poor and needy seek water, and there is none. Their tongue fails for thirst. I, Yahweh, will answer them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers on the bare heights, and springs in the middle of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
19 I will put cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oil trees in the wilderness. I will set cypress trees, pine, and box trees together in the desert;
20 that they may see, know, consider, and understand together, that Yahweh’s hand has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
KJVKing James Version
17 When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together:
20 That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.
Show all 3 translations
JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
17 The poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst; I the LORD will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers on the high hills, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia-tree, and the myrtle, and the oil-tree; I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane-tree, and the larch together;
20 That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.
Isaiah 35:6-7(v18)Then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing; for waters will break out in the wilderness, and streams in…
Psalms 107:35(v18)He turns a desert into a pool of water, and a dry land into water springs.
Isaiah 58:11(v18)and Yahweh will guide you continually, satisfy your soul in dry places, and make your bones strong. You will be like a watered garden, and…
Isaiah 55:1(v17)“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and…
Isaiah 55:13(v19)Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up. It will make a name for Yahweh,…
Show all 73 cross-references
Isaiah 30:25(v18)There will be brooks and streams of water on every lofty mountain and on every high hill in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers…
Isaiah 37:31-32(v19)The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem a remnant will…
Isaiah 30:19(v17)For the people will dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. You will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the voice of your cry. When he…
Isaiah 35:1(v19)The wilderness and the dry land will be glad. The desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.
Isaiah 44:3(vv17–18)For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on…
Isaiah 43:19-20(v18)Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.…
Isaiah 60:13(v19)“The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress tree, the pine, and the box tree together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and…
Ezekiel 47:1-8(v18)He brought me back to the door of the house; and behold, waters flowed out from under the threshold of the house eastward, for the front of…
Revelation 7:17(v18)for the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne shepherds them and leads them to springs of life-giving waters. And God will wipe away…
Isaiah 60:21(v19)Then your people will all be righteous. They will inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be…
Isaiah 61:11(v19)For as the earth produces its bud, and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring up, so the Lord Yahweh will cause…
Matthew 5:6(v17)Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Job 12:9(v20)Who doesn’t know that in all these, Yahweh’s hand has done this,
Isaiah 27:6(v19)In days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bud. They will fill the surface of the world with fruit.
Isaiah 32:2(v18)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…
Isaiah 49:9-10(v18)saying to those who are bound, ‘Come out!’; to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves!’ “They shall feed along the paths, and their…
Ezekiel 17:22-24(v19)“The Lord Yahweh says: ‘I will also take some of the lofty top of the cedar, and will plant it. I will crop off from the topmost of its…
Joel 3:18(v18)It will happen in that day, that the mountains will drop down sweet wine, the hills will flow with milk, all the brooks of Judah will flow…
Revelation 22:1(v18)He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,
Psalms 92:13-14(v19)They are planted in Yahweh’s house. They will flourish in our God’s courts. They will still produce fruit in old age. They will be full of…
Isaiah 12:3(v18)Therefore with joy you will draw water out of the wells of salvation.
Isaiah 32:15(v19)until the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is considered a forest.
Isaiah 51:3(v19)For Yahweh has comforted Zion. He has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden…
Isaiah 61:3(v19)to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give to them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the…
Ezekiel 47:12(v19)By the river on its bank, on this side and on that side, will grow every tree for food, whose leaf won’t wither, neither will its fruit…
Zechariah 14:8(v18)It will happen in that day, that living waters will go out from Jerusalem: half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the…
Psalms 34:6(v17)This poor man cried, and Yahweh heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
Psalms 72:12-13(v17)For he will deliver the needy when he cries; the poor, who has no helper. He will have pity on the poor and needy. He will save the souls…
Psalms 105:41(v18)He opened the rock, and waters gushed out. They ran as a river in the dry places.
Psalms 109:27(v20)that they may know that this is your hand; that you, Yahweh, have done it.
Isaiah 42:16(v17)I will bring the blind by a way that they don’t know. I will lead them in paths that they don’t know. I will make darkness light before…
Isaiah 43:21(v20)the people which I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise.
Isaiah 44:23(v20)Sing, you heavens, for Yahweh has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth! Break out into singing, you mountains, O forest, all of…
Isaiah 48:21(v18)They didn’t thirst when he led them through the deserts. He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them. He also split the rock and…
Isaiah 61:1(v17)The Lord Yahweh’s Spirit is on me, because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble. He has sent me to bind up the broken…
Genesis 28:15(v17)Behold, I am with you, and will keep you, wherever you go, and will bring you again into this land. For I will not leave you, until I have…
Exodus 9:16(v20)but indeed for this cause I have made you stand: to show you my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth,
Psalms 50:15(v17)Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”
Psalms 78:15-16(v18)He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths. He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused…
John 4:10-15(v17)Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would…
Revelation 22:17(v17)The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” He who hears, let him say, “Come!” He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the…
Exodus 17:3(v17)The people were thirsty for water there; so the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill…
Exodus 17:6(v17)Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may…
Judges 15:18-19(v17)He was very thirsty, and called on Yahweh and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die…
Psalms 22:15(v17)My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have brought me into the dust of death.
Psalms 42:2(v17)My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
Psalms 46:4(v18)There is a river, the streams of which make the city of God glad, the holy place of the tents of the Most High.
Psalms 63:1-2(v17)God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no…
Psalms 68:9-10(v17)You, God, sent a plentiful rain. You confirmed your inheritance when it was weary. Your congregation lived therein. You, God, prepared your…
Psalms 94:14(v17)For Yahweh won’t reject his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.
Psalms 102:16-17(v17)For Yahweh has built up Zion. He has appeared in his glory. He has responded to the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their…
Psalms 107:5-6(v17)Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried to Yahweh in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses,
Isaiah 43:7-13(v20)everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made.’ ” Bring out the blind…
Isaiah 43:20(v17)The animals of the field, the jackals and the ostriches, shall honor me, because I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert,…
Isaiah 45:6-8(v20)that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is no one besides me. I am Yahweh, and there is no one else. I…
Isaiah 66:2(v17)For my hand has made all these things, and so all these things came to be,” says Yahweh: “but I will look to this man, even to he who is…
Lamentations 4:4(v17)The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread, and no one breaks it for them.
Amos 8:11-13(v17)Behold, the days come,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of…
Matthew 5:3(v17)“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Luke 16:24(v17)He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue!…
John 7:37-39(v17)Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! He who…
2 Corinthians 12:9(v17)He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in…
2 Thessalonians 1:10(v20)when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who have believed, because our testimony to you…
Hebrews 13:5-6(v17)Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any…
Revelation 21:6(v17)He said to me, “I have become the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring…
Numbers 23:23(v20)Surely there is no enchantment with Jacob; Neither is there any divination with Israel. Now it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘What…
Isaiah 66:18(v20)“For I know their works and their thoughts. The time comes that I will gather all nations and languages, and they will come, and will see…
Ephesians 2:6-10(v20)and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the…
73 distinct cross-references across this passage (74 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (18 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv17, 18, 20That is, they that shall be afflicted in the…
That is, they that shall be afflicted in the captivity of Babylon.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv17–20Isa 41:17 [When] the poor and needy seek water,…
Isa 41:17 [When] the poor and needy seek water, and [there is] none, [and] their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
Ver. 17. When the poor.] When such as are "poor in spirit," sensible of their utter indigence, shall blessedly hunger and thirst after righteousness, showing themselves restless and insatiated without it.
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And there is none.] None to be found in the doctrine of the Pharisees, philosophers, or friars.
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 Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv17–20When my poor people are come to the greatest…
When my poor people are come to the greatest extremity of danger and misery, then will I appear for their relief.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv17–20When the poor and needy seek water, and there…
When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst,.... This is to be understood not literally, but spiritually; not of their outward circumstances, though the people of God are for the most part the poor of the world, and in need of the good things of it, hungry and thirsty, and naked; but of their spiritual estate: as in Christ they need nothing; but in themselves, and at different times, and in different frames, want many things; as larger discoveries of the love of God, fresh supplies of grace from Christ, more spiritual light and liveliness, fresh strength and comfort, fresh views of pardon and righteousness, fresh food for faith, and more grace of every sort to help them in their time of need; and which they seek for at the throne of grace, and in public ordinances, and sometimes they can find none, or it is a long time ere they obtain any: they thirst after doctrine, as the Targum, after the word and ordinances, and sometimes their circumstances are such, they cannot come at them; after communion with God, and spiritual comfort, and cannot enjoy it, being in a place where is no water; and after the blessings of grace, and can have no application of them; see Psa 42:1, this may represent in a great measure the state of the church under the ten persecutions of the Heathen emperors, or when obliged to fly into the wilderness from the wrath of the dragon, Rev 12:6,
I the Lord will hear them; their cries and prayers, and answer them, and supply their wants, who is the Lord God Almighty, and can help them, the Lord that changes not, and therefore they shall not be consumed:
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I the God of Israel will not forsake them; neither their persons, nor his work of grace upon them, but will support them, and provide for them, and carry on his work in them; of which they may be assured, because he is the God of Israel, their covenant God and Father.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv18–19In high places - Upon the mountains where by…
In high places - Upon the mountains where by the course of nature there are no rivers. The dry land - Their people who are like a dry and barren wilderness. I will abundantly water with my blessings.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv19–20Verse 19. I will plant in the wilderness the…
Verse 19. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar] The two preceding verses express God's mercy to them in their passage through the dry deserts, in supplying them with abundant water, when distressed with thirst, in allusion to the exodus. This verse expresses the relief afforded to them, fainting with heat in their journey through that hot country, destitute of shelter, by causing shady trees, and those of the tallest and most beautiful kinds, to spring up for their defense. The apocryphal Baruch, speaking of the return from Babylon, expresses God's protection of his people by the same image: "Even the woods and every sweet-smelling tree shall overshadow Israel by the commandment of God." Isa 5:8.
The oil tree] This, Kimchi says, is not to be understood of the olive tree, for the olive is distinguished, Ne 8:15; but it means the pine or fir, from which pitch is extracted.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn v17Isa 41:17-20. When the poor and needy seek water,…
Isa 41:17-20. When the poor and needy seek water, &c. — When my poor people are come to the greatest extremity of danger and misery, then will I appear for their relief. I will open rivers in high places — Upon the hills and mountains, where, by the course of nature, there are no rivers; and fountains in the midst of valleys — Or, in the valleys, namely, in such of them as are not well watered. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, &c. — Those people who are like a dry and barren wilderness, I will abundantly water with my blessings, and make them fruitful: which may be understood either of the Jews, who were in a wilderness condition, till God brought them out of it; or of the Gentiles converted to the true religion under the gospel. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the myrtle, &c. — Trees which are both useful and pleasant to the eye, and affording a good shadow to the traveller. But what particular trees the Hebrew words here used signify is not certainly known. That they may see — Or, that men may see: that all that see this wonderful change may consider it, and acknowledge that the hand of the Lord hath done this — That it is the work of God. “The many wonderful steps by which the restoration of the Jewish nation shall be brought about, will convince all considering persons that it is the work of God; and his power will still more undeniably discover itself in the propagation of the gospel, and the enlightening of those who sit in darkness with the saving truth of it.” — Lowth.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv17–20When the poor and needy seek water - Water…
When the poor and needy seek water - Water is often used in the Scriptures as an emblem of the provisions of divine mercy. Bursting fountains in a desert, and flowing streams unexpectedly met with in a dry and thirsty land, are often also employed to denote the comfort and refreshment which the gospel furnishes to sinful and suffering man in his journey through this world. The ‘poor and needy’ here, doubtless refer primarily to the afflicted captives in Babylon. But the expression of the prophet is general, and the description is as applicable to his people at all times in similar circumstances as it was to them. The image here is derived from their anticipated return from Babylon to Judea. The journey lay through a vast pathless desert (see the notes at Isa 40:3). In that journey when they were weary, faint and thirsty, God would meet and refresh them as if he should open fountains in their way, and plant trees with far-reaching boughs and thick foliage along the road to produce a grateful shade, and make the whole journey through a pleasant grove. As he met their fathers in their journey from Egypt to the land of Canaan, and had brought water from the flinty rock in the desert (Exo 15:22 ff), so in their journey through the sands of Arabia Deserta, he would again meet them, and provide for all their want.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv18–19Waters. The captives shall be refreshed in the deserts,…
Waters. The captives shall be refreshed in the deserts, chap. xxxv. 6., and xliii. 20. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv17–20poor and needy--primarily, the exiles in Babylon.
poor and needy--primarily, the exiles in Babylon.
water--figuratively, refreshment, prosperity after their affliction. The language is so constructed as only very partially to apply to the local and temporary event of the restoration from Babylon; but fully to be realized in the waters of life and of the Spirit, under the Gospel (Isa 30:25; Isa 44:3; Joh 7:37-39; Joh 4:14). God wrought no miracles that we read of, in any wilderness, during the return from Babylon.
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faileth--rather, "is rigid" or parched [HORSLEY].
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. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv17, 1917, 18. Poor and needy — They of the…
17, 18. Poor and needy — They of the now exiled ones, under the figure of crossing the desert toward Jerusalem and Zion, emblemizing all the dark desert journeyings which the good of this evil world are often called to take; but in which water, free, abundant, and flowing — the figure of grace and salvation, and all needed alleviations, to wayfaring ones who humbly trust in God — is provided.
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 Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv17–2017–20. With great pathos the prophet recalls to mind…
17–20. With great pathos the prophet recalls to mind the miserable condition of Israel in the present, and adapts his glorious promise to their sense of need. He is thus led to a glowing description of the marvels of the desert journey, in which, however, a spiritual meaning is not lost sight of.
When the poor …] Better: The afflicted and needy are seeking water where there is none, their tongue is parched with thirst. It may be a question whether such a description applies to all the exiles, or only to those, the true Israel, who were conscious of the religious privations of the Captivity.
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 Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv17–20(17) When the poor and needy . . .—The…
(17) When the poor and needy . . .—The promise may perhaps take as its starting-point the succour given to the return of the exiles, but it rises rapidly into the region of a higher poetry, in which earthly things are the parables of heavenly, and does not call for a literal fulfilment any more than “wines of the lees,” of Isa_25:6.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv17–20Vers. 17-20. The crowning promise is that of spiritual…
Vers. 17-20. The crowning promise is that of spiritual support and refreshment through" the dull and dreary time of the Captivity, during which Israel dwells as it were in a desert, without water, or shade, or the relief to the eye which is furnished by the greenery of trees and shrubs. God was able to make of this "wilderness a standing water, and water-springs of the dry ground", (Psa_107:35) and he promises to do so (ver. 18). The soul that longs for him, that thirsts after him, feeling that it dwells "in a barren and dry land, where no water is", (Psa_63:1) shall be relieved and satisfied by a revelation of God"s presence, and an outpouring of his grace unusually copious and abundant. God"s grace is shadowed out under the two similitudes of water and verdure, as in Isa_35:7, and, to some extent, in Isa_30:23-25.
The poor and needy; i.e. primarily, Israel in captivity; but secondarily, also, the "poor in spirit," and those that feel the need of God"s grace, everywhere and at all times.
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Vers. 17-29. The claims of Jehovah.
The thought seems to resume the thread broken off at the beginning of the chapter. Jehovah appeals to what he has done and to what he is.
I HIS MERCIFUL DEALINGS WITH HIS PEOPLE. The scene and state of exile is brought before us. They are dwelling in the "tents of Kedar." They are in the midst of a flourishing commercial empire; yet it is to them as a desert where no water is. (cf. Psa_63:1) The true desert is the soul without the sense of God"s presence. But God is not limited by place; and why, in lands of exile, should not the spiritual be as near as at home? The mind is its own place, and can be made happy if it only possesses God. This highest happiness is figured as abundance of streams among the bare hills and the highland plains. In the Orient, water is synonymous with relief from intense suffering, deliverance from death in a word, with gladness, salvation, life itself; and the sight of lovely Paradises as they were called, i.e. parks of trees the stately cedar, and the brilliant plane and others. Such scenery enters into pictures of the Greek Elysium, and probably of the happiness of the future life among other nations, and doubtless with a correspondence to the truth. Trees and living water: what more beautiful parable can Nature offer of the eternal energy of the living God? what better hint of the future state reserved for his chosen? The design of all these merciful and wonderful deliverances is that Jehovah"s nature may be unveiled, and that the nations may contemplate it with reverence and joy they may at once see, and acknowledge, and consider, and understand, that Jehovah"s hand hath performed this, and Israel"s Holy One hath created it.
II JEHOVAH"S CHALLENGE. Let the gods of the heathen bring forward their cause; let them point out the bulwarks of argument behind which they entrench themselves. The "King of Jacob" calls these daemonic patrons and kings of other peoples to confront him. Have they insight into the future? Can they predict the coming event? Can they "declare the roots of the future in the past, or give a direct forecast of the future? God alone can reveal the secrets of the past. If the idols can do this, they are Jehovah"s equals, and may be trusted for their ability to predict the future" (according to some, this is the meaning). Or let them do some signal deed, whether of good or evil, and prove at least that they are alive. Some wonder should be performed, at which. mankind may gaze, and by which they may be convinced. But judgment must go by default. The gods "can show no prophecies, cannot so much as speak, are dumb, not gods." (Hab_2:18) And they must be known for what they are in the world.
III SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE. Jehovah raised up Cyrus. When called from the north, he came; and from the east, he shall proclaim Jehovah"s Name, and diffuse his worship. Some see (combining this oracle with that (Isa_65:3-7) the announcement of a spiritual change in Cyrus. He is made to say that Jehovah gave him all the kingdoms of the earth, and charged him to build a house at Jerusalem. (Ezr_1:2) He may have come to believe in the God of the Jews, and so to be their brother. The Persians were monotheists, and held a missionary religion. And the Jews may have recognized such a religion as that of Jehovah. (cf. Act_10:35 Act_17:23) And projecting themselves to the time of the fulfilment of the prediction, Jehovah and his worshippers point to it as evidence of the truth of the religion. And while Jehovah announces the good news of his return to Zion, that is, of Israel"s redemption, the idols are dumb. They have no help, no counsel, to give; for they are vanity, nothingness, wind and chaos. Compare with this nothingness the sentences of Jehovah in Isa_10:12 Jer_25:12. Such is the conclusion of the trial. The idols are utterly destitute of strength to aid their friends or distress their foes. Jehovah alone is worthy of confidence and regard, as the true God, Protector, and Guide. In times of deepest distress be can raise up a deliverer like Cyrus, and in his own way and time rescue his people from all their calamities. J.
Vers. 17-20. The pity and the purpose of Christ and his Church: a missionary sermon.
With what different eyes do we look out on to the world, and how varied a spectacle it presents, according to our views, our spirits, our aims! To the geographer and discoverer it appears in one aspect, to the statesman and the historian in another. The artist sees it in one light, the man of science in a different one. The sportsman and pleasure-hunter has his view of it, the trader has his, etc. But from the standpoint of the sanctuary, and so far as our minds are filled with God"s truth and our hearts with the love of Christ, we shall look at the vast, outlying human world with very different eyes. We shall see before us
I A POOR AND NEEDY WORLD ATHIRST FOR THE TRUTH AND LOVE OF GOD.
1. We think of those multitudes of our race, beneath every sky, of every hue, of every clime and tongue, who are utterly dissatisfied with their life, their creed, or their character; the many millions who are the victims of human oppression, of intolerable tyranny, or of heartless cruelty (social or domestic), or abject slavery; those who are the heirs of grinding poverty, seeking for the bare sufficiency or the comfort or the success which they never gain, which perpetually eludes them; those who are vain seekers after happiness, the voice of whose life is this, "Who will show us any good?" whose experience is one long sad heart-ache; those who are unsuccessful inquirers after God, after truth and righteousness, who say, not in sarcasm, but in sadness, "What is truth?" "Oh that we knew where we might find him!" "What shall we do that we may inherit eternal life?" and to whom no answer comes from the deep void, who have to go groping on in the darkness. These are the poor and needy, seeking water and there is none, "whose tongue faileth for thirst.
2. We include in our view that other multitude who lack the water of life, but who are not conscious of their need. Did it enfeeble the argument for emancipation that so many of the slaves, before their liberty was given them, were content to wear their bonds and to be deprived of the rights of manhood, the claims of womanhood? Or did it not, on the other hand, immeasurably strengthen the case of the emancipators and the cause of the slave? And does it relieve the situation that millions of Chinese are content to live the sordid, selfish, godless lives they are living, and to die the hopeless deaths they are dying? Does it make less pitiful and pathetic the fact that millions of our fellow-subjects in India are content to bow down before images their own hands have carved, and to worship gods and goddesses to honour whom is to be dishonoured and degraded in and by the very act of devotion? Surely this fact only multiplies the reasons for regret and for sympathy. The very muteness of the appeal is the most eloquent plea on their behalf.
II THE PITY AND THE PURPOSE OF CHRIST ON ITS BEHALF. "When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none,... I the Lord will hear them I will not forsake them.! will open rivers... I will plant trees," etc. If this be primarily applicable to the Israelites in captivity (or on their way home), it must be true of all God"s children. He who pitied the thousands of bodily sufferers will much more pity the millions of his sons and daughters who are in the last extremity of spiritual destitution. When Christ "saw the multitude," hungry and weary, he was "moved with compassion" for them. With what profounder pity and intenser feeling does he look down on these far greater multitudes, who are pining and perishing in the famine of the soul! And then does the Church of Christ enter into his spirit and rise toward his stature when it also is stirred to strong, deep sympathy with these poor and needy ones, hungering and athirst for the truth and love of God. And as Christ"s purpose answered to his pity, and he came, by the sacrifice of himself, to put away our sin and to take away our sorrow, so must ours also. Pity must end in provision, in causing the rivers to flow and the fountains to spring and the trees to bear their fruit. Such sources and springs of health and life are our mission Churches. Heathenism is a desert place, a wild waste, where there is no provision for human need. But our Christian Churches, planted in the midst of the ignorant and idolatrous, are rivers in the high places, fountains in the valleys, trees in the desert; there is bread for the hungering, water for those who are perishing with thirst, life for dying souls. C.
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 Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv17–19When the poor and needy seek water
Isa_41:17-18
When the poor and needy seek water
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An image of Gods care
The thought of the caravans returning homewards through the thirsty desert suggests to the prophet an effective image symbolising the Divine care which will attend them: the ground at their side bursts into waterpools, and noble trees cast their shade about them! (Prof.
S. R. Driver, D. D.)
Gods promise to the poor and needy
I. By the POOR AND NEEDY are not meant those who are poor and needy in the things of this world; but in a spiritual point of view.
1. The life of the Christian may be compared to a barren wilderness, leading from this world to that which is to come; in their journey through this wilderness the Lords people often feel themselves to be poor and needy without the cheering presence of their God, destitute of the usual manifestations of His love and the consolations of His Spirit. Water is an emblem frequently employed in Scripture to represent Divine influences, which refresh, gladden, and cleanse the soul, as water does the body. The children of God are sometimes reduced to straits; they seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst. They realise the feeling of David whilst they are constrained to adopt his language in the Forty-second Psalm, As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, etc.
2. But there is another sense in which the Lords people may be represented as poor and needy, seeking water and finding none; it is when they are anxiously desirous of larger measures of grace and knowledge, increasing holiness and spirituality of mind, more complete superiority to the world with the affections and lusts of the flesh, and a growing conformity to the precepts of the Gospel It is a striking feature in the character of every real Christian, that he is never satisfied with present attainments in religion. The real Christian will daily labour to abound yet more and more in the fair and beautiful fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. Here is the difference between nominal Christianity and real Christianity.
II. THE CONSOLATORY PROMISE. The Lord assures His people that they shall not be disappointed in the objects of their desire: in their extremity of distress, and when they are almost without hope, the Lord will hear their cry. Prayer, which is the earnest expression of the desires of the heart, shall never be offered up in vain. Nothing is impossible with God; possessed of infinite power and infinite love, He can and will do for His people more than they ask or think. But further, He is represented as the God of Israel. The history of the saints in all ages will bear testimony to the truth of that Scripture, He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might, He increaseth strength. (C. Rawlings, B. A.)
Water for the needy
The first sense of this passage belongs to Gods ancient people, and was partially accomplished after their return from Babylon, partially when the kingdom of heaven was spiritually set up at Jerusalem, but was to be still more gloriously fulfilled hereafter. But a child of God claims all the promises.
I. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD HERE GIVEN.
1. Poor, and needy. All creatures are poor compared with God--even the pure spirits, the highest angel, yea, archangels themselves. Especially must this be true of a fallen creature, yea, a restored creature.
2. They seek water. This spiritually sets forth the sacred influences of the Holy Spirit. They want refreshing views of Gods love, realising apprehensions of an interest in Christ, more of the real power of religion, more faith, more repentance, more love, more uprightness, more purity of heart, more humility, more true prayer, more gratitude and praise, more brokenness, more joy, more devotedness. They seek this water. Sometimes with great ardour, sometimes, alas! with little. In the means of grace they seek it, and it seems as if there is none. They strive, they fight, but they only find their own weakness, their enemies, darkness, and deadness in their souls.
3. Their tongue faileth for thirst. Few states are so disconsolate. It is vast discouragement. That this is a state into which the soul has brought itself through its own sin, I am led to conclude--
(1) By considering the state in which this promise finds the Jews, to whom it primarily belongs.
(2) By remembering the promise which sets forth Gods usual dealings Mat_7:7-9).
(3) By retracing the history of ones own experience. If this be so, beware of the steps which lead to this desolate region.
II. THE VAST ENCOURAGEMENT. my people are honestly, uprightly seeking Me. Out of Infinite love, Infinite wisdom, Infinite grace and mercy, I have delayed the answer. Their faith is small, their strength little, their souls discouraged. But I have not forgotten. I, the Lord, will hear them. The subject is one of unutterable sweetness and consolation to a true child of God. In few things, perhaps, are we more tried than in prayer. But the words of the text encourage not only persevering prayer, they do more. They encourage expecting prayer. Be not afraid of seasons of need. They are usually seasons of prayer, and these are our greatest seasons of happiness. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
Gods tenderness to the poor and needy
I. GOD HAS LEFT PECULIARLY TENDER AND GRACIOUS PROMISES TO THE POOR AND NEEDY. It is not the healthy and strong,child of the family around whom the fathers love is most closely entwined. Like as a father pitieth his children, etc.
II. GOD HAS PLEDGED HIS ALMIGHTY POWER TO WORK MIRACLES, IF NECESSARY, TO SUPPLY THEIR NEED. I will open rivers in high places, etc. This would be reversing the order of nature. Rivers do not flow in high places; fountains do not spring in the depths of valleys. God simply says that, ere the poor and needy shall lack water, He will reverse the order of nature and turn the world upside down.
III. THE PROMISES ARE MADE ONLY TO THOSE WHO SEEK AND CRY UNTO GOD FOR HIS HELP. Gods unchanging tenderness does not make prayer unnecessary. There must be expectation, desire, and confidence. (Homiletic Review.)
Spiritual thirst
The application is world-wide. Who is there to whom this description, more or less, does not apply--The or and needy seek water--there is none--their tongue faileth for thirst? Is it not the too faithful delineation of weary humanity? It is a commonplace saying, but its truthfulness redeems its triteness, that there is nothing in this world which can satisfy immortal longings. Thirst again, is the too frequent verdict after its sweetest fountains have been drained. Its best joys leave behind them aching voids, unfulfilled aspirations. After the thirst of its votaries has apparently been quenched at their favourite rills, of riches, honours, ambition, glory,--their name is the same as before, Poor and needy; their search is the same as ever, They seek water; the epitaph they write over every fresh grave of their hopes is the same, There is none--their tongue faileth them for thirst. And where, then, is that thirst to be quenched; where else are the wells of water to be had, springing up into everlasting life, but in the grace and promises of God as revealed in His blessed Word? And, like the waters seen by Ezekiel bursting from the threshold of the sanctuary, Everything lives whither the river cometh. (J. R.Macduff, D. D.)
Supply for the poor and needy
This double promise to the poor and needy stands in connection with other great promises which guarantee the gift of wonderful strength and blessing to Gods people. These promises seem to be such as the mightiest servant of God might well desire to have fulfilled in himself. Look, for instance, at the one in Isa_41:15-16. I think that the promise of our text specially comes in, not for you mountain-threshers,--not for you who are made so strong in the Lord, but for some who cannot as yet get a grip of that grand word of His. When the poor and needy are not trying to thresh mountains, but are looking for that which is needful for the supply of their own personal wants,--seeking water; when they are in too low a condition to be able to rise to the dignity of service, but are just like poor Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, seeking water; when they have fallen into such a sad and sorrowful state of heart that, instead of testifying to the goodness of God they cannot testify to anything, for their tongue faileth for thirst;--it is then, in their extremity, that the blessed promises shall come to them: I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Wordless prayers heard in heaven
I. Here is POVERTY OF CONDITION. Poor and needy. This description applies to poverty of spiritual condition.
1. Most of us would take the position of great poverty as to anything like merit.
2. We have poverty as to anything like strength.
3. As to grace, many of the children of God are, to their shame, obliged to confess that they are poor and needy where they ought to be rich, and where they might be rich; poor in patience, in courage, in faith, in hope, in love, in private prayer, in public influence, poor in every way. There axe many of Gods children who seem scarcely to have a penny of spending-money, and they never appear to go to the King s treasury, and dip their hand in, and take out great handfuls of the precious gold of grace.
II. URGENCY OF NEED. When the poor and needy seek--what? Money? No; that is only to be poor and needy. Bread? Ay; that shows a harder poverty than merely being poor and needy. But it is not bread that these poor and needy ones are seeking, but water. Why, that is generally to be had for nothing,--a drink of water. It must be very hard times indeed when poor souls are in such a state that they axe longing for water, and seeking for it afar, as though there were none near at hand. Are any of you in such a condition, sighing after the living water? Though you have drunk of it before, you are still sighing for more of it, and feel as if you could not tell where to find it.
1. This is an urgent necessity, for it touches a vital point. A man can exist without money, he can live without garments, he could live longer without bread than without water.
2. Do I address one in whom this vital necessity has become an agonising thirst?
3. Further, there is an immediate necessity. When a mans tongue faileth for thirst, and he seeks water, he wants it at once.
III. The third step down--and it is a very long one--is this, DISAPPOINTMENT OF HOPE. There is none.
1. There is none even where they have found it before. Have not some of you at times found it so in attending the means of grace?
2. It makes their case even more disappointing when they have, side by side with them, others who are seeking water, and finding it. Have you never been to the Lords table,--say, with your own wife,--and when she has been going home, she has said, Oh, what a precious communion service! Was not the Lord manifestly among His people in the breaking of bread?--and you have hardly liked to tell her that you have not seen the Lordeven in His own ordinance?
3. If you go to places where there is none of the living water, then you have only yourself to blame when you cannot find it.
IV. THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER. And their tongue faileth for thirst.
1. They cannot speak; they cannot tell their fellow-Christians about their trouble. They are ashamed to tell others what they feel If a hymn is given out, they feel as if they must not sing it. If there is a promise quoted, they feel as if they could not appropriate it, and sometimes the prayer of a joyous brother seems to shoot over their head,--they cannot attain to his experience.
2. If they were called upon to state their own feelings and convictions before the living God, it may be that they have become so mournful that they could not describe themselves. I think we have gone about as low as we can. Here is a man who, to begin with, is poor and needy. Here is a man who is wanting water, who has sought it, but who cannot find it. Here is a man whose tongue is so parched with thirst that he cannot now say a single word, he must sit down in sorrowful silence.
V. Yet, strange to say, now is the time that he learns that SALVATION IS OF GOD. I the Lord will hear them. What? Why, they cannot speak: their tongue faileth for thirst.
1. That brings me to this point, that Gods great object in bringing His people down so low as this, is to make them pray directly to Himself; that now they may not seek any water, but just cry to Him who is the Fountain of living waters; that now they may not tell their friends about their need, nor even tell it to themselves, but just, in the very silence of their soul, speak with God, for there is a kind of speech which is perfectly consistent with silence,--the speech of sorrow,--the exhibition of the wounds of misery,--the opening up of the brokenness of the heart,--the setting before God, not in eloquent descriptions, but in indescribable revelation, the intolerable want which lies within the soul. The text does not even say that they pray; because, sometimes, even prayer becomes a mechanical act, and we are apt to rely upon it for comfort, instead of upon our God.
2. The prayer which is hidden away in the text--for although there is no mention of prayer in it, yet it is hidden away there--is the prayer of inward thirst.
3. This is the prayer of one who despairs of all means.
4. This is the prayer of faintness.
5. Now comes the declaration of God. I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. Is it not something that God hears you? I have frequently had to explain this word by speaking of the poor woman who was so pleased to see her minister. She was very poor, and so was her minister; what good, then, did he do her? Did he speak to her a very comforting word? No. The good man did not happen that day to be in much of a mood to do so, yet he did that sister a deal of good, she said. Why? Because he let her talk, and she just told out all her trouble, and he looked sympathetic, for that is how he felt, and that was just what she wanted. She wanted somebody who would listen to her. It is wonderfully condescending on Gods part to listen to us. Many of our complaints are only rubbish, yet He hears them patiently. Sometimes, when people begin groaning and grumbling, I wish I was down the next street; but God is so patient and long-suffering, that He hears all that His people say.
6. You know that you have only to get a hearing from God, and you know what the consequence will be when your Heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Gods faithfulness tested
The late Dr. Parsons, of York, had a tea-caddy which he inherited from his father, who was also a spiritual preacher. Its history was curious. A husband and father, reduced to abject poverty, set out on a Sabbath morning to drown himself, and so escape the agony of looking at starving wife and children. A crowd was entering the Tottenham Court Road Chapel, London, and the man somehow was drawn along with the crowd. Mr. Parsons preached from Isa_41:17, When the poorand needy seek water, etc. He appealed to his hearers needing temporal and spiritual blessings, Have you put the God of Jacob to the test? No, thought the desperate man, I have not. He went back, told his wife, joined in prayer, and all day seemingly in vain. But next morning temporary aid came, with directions as to work, which he found, did faithfully, and rose to comfort and notable prosperity. He offered a large gift to the good preacher, but it was declined. He sent the tea-caddy as a memento of his gratitude, which he felt could not be refused. (J. Hall, LL. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v17Isa_41:17. When the poor and needy seek water, &c.
CONSOLATION FOR THE DESPONDING
Isa_41:17. When the poor and needy seek water, &c.
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I. IN WHAT EXTREMITIES GOD HERE PROMISES TO HELP HIS PEOPLE.
1. In case of outward want. This is a trying exercise to many, though little understood by those who have all things richly to enjoy. It is compared to an armed man carrying tribulation and terror in his looks (Pro_6:11). The body is an essential part of our constitution, and hath wants of its own, numerous and urgent, and to have little or nothing to answer its cravings in a severe trial. But God can easily help us in such a trial, and out of it. Examples: Hagar (Gen_21:15-19); the widow (1Ki_17:12-16). There is no exigency of man beyond the power of God. Though creature succours fail, and all the cisterns of earth should be dried up, there is enough in God to support our faith (Hab_3:17-18).
2. In case of inward trouble and distress from sin. This is still more grievous and insupportable. Though most men think that if they had nothing but sin to trouble them they could be happy, some know that one sin set home upon the conscience by the Spirit of God is a terrible experience (Psa_38:3-4; H. E. I. 1334–1341). But when the poor soul is ready to give up all for God, God comes to His relief (Psa_31:22). In the Gospel He has provided a sovereign cure for the wounded spirit (Psa_130:3-5).
3. In the case of approaching death. A trial from which there, is no escape. Is often very terrible. Yet even here God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. By His presence He not only reconciles us to dying, but makes us wish for it, makes us smile at it, makes us triumph over it (1Co_15:57). Though death be a king with respect to us, he is but God’s servant, and entirely at His command; he comes to us only when and as God pleases. And God knows how to support and comfort while His servant is taking down the earthly house of flesh (H. E. I. 1642, 1643).
I have witnessed only these three cases, but you may apply it to every distress. Whenever the poor and needy cry for help, God engages to hear them. In their misery there is a silent and affecting voice which hath great power with God, and poverty venting itself in prayer hath an amazing force (Psa_106:44).
II. WHY HE HAS MADE THIS GRACIOUS PROMISE.
1. For the glory of His own perfections (Psa_7:15). It is for the honour of His wisdom that He knows how to bring help when the skill and contrivance of all His creatures is nonplussed; of His power, that He is able to deliver the godly out of temptation when the ability of second causes cannot accomplish it; of His mercy and free grace, to afford help when the poor creature is in the worst and least deserving condition. Should God favour us only when we are in prosperity, and there is no difficulty in the way, His hand would not be so visible, nor His perfections so glorious; but to help the poor and needy, and that, too, in their greatest straits and necessities, declares His superlative goodness and excellency, that He can and will do what none else can. He therefore chooses such seemingly desperate cases to appear in, for the manifestation of His own glory (Deu_32:36-39).
2. Because of the special relation God has to the poor and needy. They that are most neglected and forsaken by men are nearest to God and more particularly taken care of (Psa_68:5). “The poor committeth himself to Thee” (Psa_10:14). But will He stand to their choice and act for them? Yes (Psa_12:5). Which of you, being a father retaining the affections of a parent, if you saw a child in distress, would sit by and take no notice of it? Would you go out of the room and think no more about it? No! You would rather seem fonder of that child than of all the rest, and be more tender of it than ever. So will your Heavenly Father have a special regard to His poor and needy children when they seek water and there is none (Isa_63:8-9).
III. WHAT WE ARE TO DO WITH THIS PROMISE.
1. Let us praise God for making it to us. What amazing condescension that there should ever be any such thing as a promise from God to His creatures! Will earthly kings thus voluntarily bring themselves under obligation to their subjects? But with a kindness and generosity peculiar to Himself, God makes a covenant with His people, by which He binds Himself in the most solemn manner to be a Father to them, that is, to be watchful and tender to them, and keep them from all evil, and to withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly.
2. In the time of affliction let us plead this promise in prayer, for that is the surest and speediest way of procuring relief. It may be the design of God, in blasting earthly comforts, to drive us to our knees. By bringing us into trouble, and showing us the insufficiency of creatures to help us, He may intend to lead our thoughts up to Himself, the fountain of living waters (Psa_142:4-5; H. E. I. 69).
3. However great and prolonged our affliction may be, let us not look upon this promise with doubt or distrust. It is God’s promise; and having passed His word, we must be infidels if we doubt the performance (Num_23:19). To doubt the accomplishment of anything He hath engaged for were to question His wisdom in promising what He had not properly considered; or His love, as if He would not be as good as His word; or His power, as if He had promised more than He was able to perform. An affront this which even a man who values his character would highly resent. Let us take care, then, how we offer it to God.—Samuel Lavington: Sermons, Supplementary Volume, pp. 414–432.
In its primary sense, the text is an encouragement to the Jews to trust in God; in its spiritual meaning it extends to the Church of God in all ages. It describes—
I. A DISTRESSING CASE.
1. The people of God are often in a low and afflicted state. All men, if they knew it, are poor and needy; but very many think themselves “rich and increased with goods.” “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up.” Soul and goods; as if the soul had tongue and teeth! God’s people feel their poverty and need.
2. They strive after holiness and comfort. Water, as cleansing and refreshing, may be understood to mean holiness and comfort. They long to be delivered from the body of sin and death; they desire to walk in the light of God’s countenance. They try hard for these; but,
3. They often seem to labour in vain; they “seek water, and find none.” They strive for victory, but the conflict remains; deadness and darkness return upon them.
4. They become dejected; “their tongue faileth,” &c. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” They turn faint, like disappointed travellers on the outlook for water; they begin to lose confidence in God (Psa_42:1-3; Psa_42:9; Psa_88:14).
II. FITTING CONSOLATION.
1. In the words used about God. God is “the Lord,” i.e., JEHOVAH, the Eternal, Immutable, “will hear them;” He is “the God of Israel, ELOHIM, the Mighty One, with whom nothing is impossible.
2. In the promises made. “I will hear.” Let them be encouraged to continue in prayer. “I will not forsake them.” Have courage, then, fainting soul!
3. Those who continue trusting shall certainly be consoled (Isa_41:18; Psa_34:6; Psa_30:8-11).
APPLICATION.—
1. Most men know but little of spiritual troubles. These are not to be envied. Let them seek to know their spiritual wants and obey Christ’s gracious invitation (Joh_7:37-38; Rev_22:17).
2. Let those who are fainting under their troubles believe that none ever waited upon God in vain. From these promises, as from wells of salvation, you may draw water with joy (Psa_36:8; Psa_16:11).—C. Simeon, M.A.: Skeletons, pp. 318–321).
The poor and needy must ever command the sympathy of those more favourably situated. They will probably never cease to exist. The text primarily encourages the captive Jews in Babylon. But it also represents all human need and Divine help.
I. THE EXIGENCY.
“The poor and the needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth them for thirst.” It is the dryness of the sandy desert which produces distressing thirst. The traveller seeks water in vain. His throat becomes dry; his tongue is disinclined to speech; he sees only a miserable death before him. It is a picture of suffering, destitution, and necessity.
The distress may arise from external causes, as bodily disease or pecuniary privation. Or it may be entirely in the mind. All suffering is really there. It is a matter of personal consciousness. The onlooker may see no adequate cause. Yet the sufferer feels. You look at the outside of a splendid house, and it seems to you that no deep sorrow can be there. Yet within there may be anxieties and cares which make the owner indifferent to his splendid surroundings; and in many cases there is biting poverty and want which cannot be revealed.
The temptations of such a time are serious (Job_1:9; Job_2:9).
1. Impatience. The sufferer does not readily submit to his impoverishment. His spirit may be that which says, “Not Thy will, but mine be done,” rather than the Saviour’s prayer in Gethsemane.
2. Complaining. When privation presses we are tempted to assume that we are wiser than our Father, and therefore to withdraw our trust and criticise His plans.
3. Despair. And when faith and hope are displaced by despair, there will be prayerlessness. We shall ask, “What profit shall we have if we pray unto Him?” There will be sinfulness. Many plunge into sin to rid themselves of care. There will be recklessness. The temptation is to say, “Things cannot be worse, and can never be better, therefore we may as well lie down and discontinue effort.” Some imagine they escape by terminating their lives.
II. THE CRY.
Better than yielding to such temptation is to cry to the Lord when poverty and sorrow appear. It is here supposed that God’s people do so. It is their privilege and duty to lay all their sorrows before Him and to leave them with Him, as children entirely dependent on their fathers (H. E. I. 176–178).
III. THE PROMISE.
Two things are promised.
1. Divine attentiveness. He is not unmindful, even though He may seem so. He listens for and listens to the cry of distress. “I, the Lord, will hear them.” He heard Hagar in the wilderness (Gen_21:17). He heard Israel in Egypt (Exo_3:7). He heard Hezekiah when he spread forth Sennacherib’s letter, and when he was sick. He is the hearer of prayer. Thousands of testimonies to this. Your own experience attests it. Can you not say with the Psalmist (Psa_116:1-5)?
2. Divine helpfulness. “I, the God of Jacob, will not forsake them” (Heb_13:5-6). Sad indeed to be forsaken by a friend when trouble and poverty come. God does not forsake. His love is a guarantee. He is the God of Israel. He is our Father in Christ. He is interested in us. His faithfulness is a guarantee. He has bound Himself by the word of promise. Contrary to His nature to fail. His power is a guarantee. “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” Unbelief says it is impossible to overcome this difficulty. But He provided manna in the wilderness and brought water out of the smitten rock. Often by the most unlikely means and in the most unlikely places (Isa_41:18). “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
IV. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF THIS PRECIOUS PROMISE.
1. There may be some one here who is passing through a season of affliction. God’s children sometimes seem to suffer more than others. You need a message that may help to lift up your drooping spirit. Satan may be pressing his advantage through the depression your trouble has caused. Listen to the declaration of the text. Fall back on the simple representations of the Bible. Repair more confidently to the Lord for help.
2. There may be some one to whom this subject applies as to his spiritual impoverishment and necessity. You have recently discovered that you are spiritually poor. Like a merchant who has imagined that he was accumulating a princely fortune, but who makes the discovery that he is insolvent, you have found out that you are a ruined sinner. But you are not content to perish. Your tongue faileth for thirst. You desire salvation. Now, the Lord pities you in your low estate. He has opened a fountain in the wilderness. Jesus died. In His perfect righteousness, His atoning blood, and His quickening Spirit there is all you need. If you seek your restoration in Him, you cannot be disappointed. If your soul is impoverished, go to His fulness. He invites you. His compassionate love ever looks down on weary and footsore and thirsty travellers in the wilderness of this world, with infinite readiness to supply their wants (Isa_55:1-2; Rev_22:17).—J. Rawlinson.
GOD’S PROMISE TO THE POOR AND NEEDY
Isa_41:17-18. When the poor and needy seek water, &c.
In Isa_41:8 the Lord is declaring the relation in which He stands to His people Israel, and then He proceeds to encourage His people in the prospect of trial and difficulty by an assurance of His presence to strengthen and support them (Isa_41:10; Isa_41:14-15). The Lord’s people are in themselves but feeble; but in the power of God they shall triumph over their most formidable enemies; as a consequence of their triumph, they shall “rejoice in the Lord and glory in the Holy One of Israel.” Then follows the encouraging language of the text. Consider—
I. WHO ARE MEANT BY THE “POOR AND NEEDY.” Not those who are poor and needy in a temporal sense, but in a spiritual,—those who feel themselves to be so in a spiritual sense.
1. The life of the Christian may be compared to a waste and barren wilderness leading from this world to that which is to come. In their journey, the Lord’s people often feel themselves to be “poor and needy,” without the cheering presence of their God, destitute of the usual manifestations of His love and the consolations of His Spirit. Water is an emblem frequently employed in Scripture to represent Divine influences, which refresh, gladden, and cleanse the soul, as water does the body. The children of God are sometimes reduced to straits; they seek water, and there is none, and “their tongue faileth for thirst.” They realise the feeling of David (Psa_42:1-2).
2. The Lord’s believing people may be represented as “poor and needy” when they are anxiously desirous of larger measures of grace and knowledge, increasing holiness and spirituality of mind, more complete superiority to the world with the affections and lusts of the flesh, and a growing conformity to the precepts of the Gospel. Here is the difference between nominal and real Christianity, between the religion of form and outward appearance, and the religion of power and inward experience; between a dead and a living faith. It is impossible to stand still in religion.
II. THE CONSOLATORY PROMISE AFFORDED IN THE TEXT. The Lord assures His people that they shall not be disappointed in the objects of their desire: in their extremity of distress, and when they are almost without hope, He will hear their cry.
1. Prayer, that is, the earnest expression of the desires of the heart, shall never be offered up in vain. He can and will do for His own “far more abundantly than they can either ask or think.”
2. He is represented as the “God of Israel.” Israel was taken into covenant relationship with Him; and on condition of their obedience, He engaged to favour them with His constant presence, to preserve them in danger, to protect them from their enemies, and at length to put them in full and undisputed possession of the earthly Canaan. And so it is with the spiritual Israel of God. They stand in covenant relationship with Him as their “reconciled Father in Christ Jesus.”
III. WHAT ENCOURAGEMENT THERE IS HERE TO PRAYER! God is a God of faithfulness and truth; He will not turn a deaf ear to the supplications of His obedient people (Psa_50:15; Mat_7:7). The history of the saints in all ages will bear testimony to the truth of that Scripture, “He giveth power to the faint,” &c. (Isa_40:29; Isa_40:31). Prayer to God, therefore, is, under all circumtances, a great and solemn duty (Luk_18:1; Php_4:6; 1Th_5:17).
CONCLUSION.—
1. To the unconcerned about the blesssings of salvation.
(1.) Men can be active enough in the prosecution of their worldly schemes of gain, honour, or advantage; they will take any trouble and submit to any sacrifice; but it is usually quite otherwise in the vastly important business of religion; here all is coldness, apathy, and indifference. But “I say unto you, labour not for the meat which perisheth,” &c. (Mat_6:33; Mar_8:36; Luk_10:42; Act_3:19).
(2.) Ignorance of spiritual troubles and necessities is by no means desirable. The pathway to Zion is not always cheered by the sunshine of hope and joy; cloud and tempest will sometimes rest upon it (Act_14:22). If real religion has its peculiar joys, it is not without its peculiar sorrows.
2. To those who are fainting for want of Divine consolations. Remember, and take encouragement from the thought, that “all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus” (Heb_10:23; Heb_13:5; Isa_49:15-16).—Charles Rawlings, B.A.: The Pulpit, vol. xlix. pp. 181–184.
The redemption of our souls is precious; it originated alike in our extreme misery and in God’s great mercy (Isa_59:16). But even the people of God are often reduced to dreadful straits. The ultimate perfection of their natures and the unbounded felicity of their future state are the objects of their firm and delightful hope; but the same Book which reveals what is laid up for them teaches them to expect various troubles and trials by the way (Act_14:22). Yet under all their troubles they shall be well supported; all their wants well supplied. Isaiah received a commission to minister to the consolation of the saints (Isa_40:1). The text alone is sufficient to elevate the souls of true believers with good hope and everlasting consolation.
I. THE ACCOUNT HERE GIVEN OF THOSE TO WHOM THE PROMISE IS MADE.
1. Their exigencies are very great. They are poor and needy, and even in want of water. Many of the saints of God have been literally poor. Even when the Lord had brought the seed of Jacob where, generally speaking, “there was no lack of anything,” it was still His sovereign pleasure that, in the midst of abundance, some should be in want (Deu_15:11). During the captivity in Babylon the number of such persons must have greatly increased. Under the Christian dispensation, poverty has ever been the lot of many who are dear in God’s sight (Jas_2:5; 1Co_1:26-29; Luk_4:18; Luk_7:22; Mar_12:37, &c.) All the “rich in faith” are still, in one sense, poor, because completely dependent. Knowing and feeling this, they are “poor in spirit.” Unlike the self-righteous Laodiceans, who boasted of being “rich,” they are ever ready to acknowledge that they are in themselves “wretched and miserable and poor,” &c. (Rev_3:17). To begin with, they found themselves in want of the most essential spiritual blessings; and afterwards, in proportion as they even partially forsook “the fountain of living waters,” their spiritual necessities became great.
2. Their consequent sufferings are very distressing. The evils of extreme poverty are great, though God supports His people under them, and gives the sanctified use of them. The people of God are not unfrequently subjected to the severest troubles of a temporal kind (Heb_11:37-38; Heb_12:6; Heb_12:11).
3. They earnestly desire and endeavour to obtain relief. They seek water; they cry to the Lord to give it. They who will not work when it is necessary cannot expect to eat when their wants are great. Spiritual supplies are, in every sense, the gift of God; but they are promised only to such as earnestly desire and diligently seek them from Him (chap. Isa_55:1-3). The case, indeed, appears pitiable, when bread and water are sought and there is none; but faith is only thus put to the test. God has pledged His faithfulness for your ultimate success.
II. THE PROMISE GIVEN FOR THEIR ENCOURAGEMENT. “I, the Lord,” &c. What is the import of this promise? It implies—
1. Great compassion and kindness on the part of the Promise-maker. How tender are His words! Truly in Him compassions flow (Exo_34:6; Jer_31:20; Hos_11:8-9). Not only does He forbear to destroy His people, but He returns to pardon their sins and to load them with benefits (Isa_66:9; 1Jn_4:10; Rom_8:32).
2. That the prayers of God’s people are heard and accepted. “I, the Lord, will hear” (cf. chap. Isa_66:2). One of His names is the Hearer of prayer (Psa_65:2); all who seek shall find (Isa_45:19); as certainly as they pray shall they be heard (Isa_58:9); He Says yet more (Isa_65:24).
3. That all their wants shall be supplied. What else can be meant by the promise, “I the Lord will hear”? (Psa_107:6; Psa_37:19; Joh_14:13; Php_4:19). Can anything be too hard for the Lord? He is the God of Israel, who has pledged Himself, both by His covenanted love and faithfulness greatly to bless His people (1Jn_3:1; Heb_10:23; 1Sa_15:29).
4. That the Lord will be immutably gracious to His people. “I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them” (1Sa_12:22; Heb_13:5; Isa_42:16).
CONCLUSION.—
1. Let not the people of God be discouraged and impatient, though their circumstances be low and their distresses great.
2. Let all their trust be in the Lord (Isa_26:4).
3. Let them distinguish themselves as a praying people (Psa_62:8; Joh_6:68).
4. Let them walk worthy of His kindness (1Co_15:58).
5. Let sinners see their misery and their hope (Isa_29:8; Rev_22:17).—Adam Thompson, D.D.: Outlines, pp. 214–220.
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.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv17, 19General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh speaks of people who are in extreme need as if they are extremely thirsty, and of his provision for them as if he caused water to appear in places where it normally would not appear. (See: Metaphor)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On v1841:18 rivers . . . fountains . . .…
41:18 rivers . . . fountains . . . pools of water . . . springs: These images would strike a responsive chord in an agrarian culture. They also suggest that rescue from the Exile would be a second exodus (cp. Exod 15:27; 17:6).
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv17, 18, 20 That is, they that shall be afflicted in the…
That is, they that shall be afflicted in the captivity of Babylon.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv17–20 Isa 41:17 [When] the poor and needy seek water,…
Isa 41:17 [When] the poor and needy seek water, and [there is] none, [and] their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
Ver. 17. When the poor.] When such as are "poor in spirit," sensible of their utter indigence, shall blessedly hunger and thirst after righteousness, showing themselves restless and insatiated without it.
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And there is none.] None to be found in the doctrine of the Pharisees, philosophers, or friars.
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 vv17–20 When my poor people are come to the greatest…
When my poor people are come to the greatest extremity of danger and misery, then will I appear for their relief.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv17–20 When the poor and needy seek water, and there…
When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst,.... This is to be understood not literally, but spiritually; not of their outward circumstances, though the people of God are for the most part the poor of the world, and in need of the good things of it, hungry and thirsty, and naked; but of their spiritual estate: as in Christ they need nothing; but in themselves, and at different times, and in different frames, want many things; as larger discoveries of the love of God, fresh supplies of grace from Christ, more spiritual light and liveliness, fresh strength and comfort, fresh views of pardon and righteousness, fresh food for faith, and more grace of every sort to help them in their time of need; and which they seek for at the throne of grace, and in public ordinances, and sometimes they can find none, or it is a long time ere they obtain any: they thirst after doctrine, as the Targum, after the word and ordinances, and sometimes their circumstances are such, they cannot come at them; after communion with God, and spiritual comfort, and cannot enjoy it, being in a place where is no water; and after the blessings of grace, and can have no application of them; see Psa 42:1, this may represent in a great measure the state of the church under the ten persecutions of the Heathen emperors, or when obliged to fly into the wilderness from the wrath of the dragon, Rev 12:6,
I the Lord will hear them; their cries and prayers, and answer them, and supply their wants, who is the Lord God Almighty, and can help them, the Lord that changes not, and therefore they shall not be consumed:
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I the God of Israel will not forsake them; neither their persons, nor his work of grace upon them, but will support them, and provide for them, and carry on his work in them; of which they may be assured, because he is the God of Israel, their covenant God and Father.
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 vv18–19 In high places - Upon the mountains where by…
In high places - Upon the mountains where by the course of nature there are no rivers. The dry land - Their people who are like a dry and barren wilderness. I will abundantly water with my blessings.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv19–20 Verse 19. I will plant in the wilderness the…
Verse 19. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar] The two preceding verses express God's mercy to them in their passage through the dry deserts, in supplying them with abundant water, when distressed with thirst, in allusion to the exodus. This verse expresses the relief afforded to them, fainting with heat in their journey through that hot country, destitute of shelter, by causing shady trees, and those of the tallest and most beautiful kinds, to spring up for their defense. The apocryphal Baruch, speaking of the return from Babylon, expresses God's protection of his people by the same image: "Even the woods and every sweet-smelling tree shall overshadow Israel by the commandment of God." Isa 5:8.
The oil tree] This, Kimchi says, is not to be understood of the olive tree, for the olive is distinguished, Ne 8:15; but it means the pine or fir, from which pitch is extracted.
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 v17 Isa 41:17-20. When the poor and needy seek water,…
Isa 41:17-20. When the poor and needy seek water, &c. — When my poor people are come to the greatest extremity of danger and misery, then will I appear for their relief. I will open rivers in high places — Upon the hills and mountains, where, by the course of nature, there are no rivers; and fountains in the midst of valleys — Or, in the valleys, namely, in such of them as are not well watered. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, &c. — Those people who are like a dry and barren wilderness, I will abundantly water with my blessings, and make them fruitful: which may be understood either of the Jews, who were in a wilderness condition, till God brought them out of it; or of the Gentiles converted to the true religion under the gospel. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the myrtle, &c. — Trees which are both useful and pleasant to the eye, and affording a good shadow to the traveller. But what particular trees the Hebrew words here used signify is not certainly known. That they may see — Or, that men may see: that all that see this wonderful change may consider it, and acknowledge that the hand of the Lord hath done this — That it is the work of God. “The many wonderful steps by which the restoration of the Jewish nation shall be brought about, will convince all considering persons that it is the work of God; and his power will still more undeniably discover itself in the propagation of the gospel, and the enlightening of those who sit in darkness with the saving truth of it.” — 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 vv17–20 When the poor and needy seek water - Water…
When the poor and needy seek water - Water is often used in the Scriptures as an emblem of the provisions of divine mercy. Bursting fountains in a desert, and flowing streams unexpectedly met with in a dry and thirsty land, are often also employed to denote the comfort and refreshment which the gospel furnishes to sinful and suffering man in his journey through this world. The ‘poor and needy’ here, doubtless refer primarily to the afflicted captives in Babylon. But the expression of the prophet is general, and the description is as applicable to his people at all times in similar circumstances as it was to them. The image here is derived from their anticipated return from Babylon to Judea. The journey lay through a vast pathless desert (see the notes at Isa 40:3). In that journey when they were weary, faint and thirsty, God would meet and refresh them as if he should open fountains in their way, and plant trees with far-reaching boughs and thick foliage along the road to produce a grateful shade, and make the whole journey through a pleasant grove. As he met their fathers in their journey from Egypt to the land of Canaan, and had brought water from the flinty rock in the desert (Exo 15:22 ff), so in their journey through the sands of Arabia Deserta, he would again meet them, and provide for all their want.
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 vv18–19 Waters. The captives shall be refreshed in the deserts,…
Waters. The captives shall be refreshed in the deserts, chap. xxxv. 6., and xliii. 20. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv17–20 poor and needy--primarily, the exiles in Babylon.
poor and needy--primarily, the exiles in Babylon.
water--figuratively, refreshment, prosperity after their affliction. The language is so constructed as only very partially to apply to the local and temporary event of the restoration from Babylon; but fully to be realized in the waters of life and of the Spirit, under the Gospel (Isa 30:25; Isa 44:3; Joh 7:37-39; Joh 4:14). God wrought no miracles that we read of, in any wilderness, during the return from Babylon.
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faileth--rather, "is rigid" or parched [HORSLEY].
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 vv17, 19 17, 18. Poor and needy — They of the…
17, 18. Poor and needy — They of the now exiled ones, under the figure of crossing the desert toward Jerusalem and Zion, emblemizing all the dark desert journeyings which the good of this evil world are often called to take; but in which water, free, abundant, and flowing — the figure of grace and salvation, and all needed alleviations, to wayfaring ones who humbly trust in God — is provided.
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 vv17–20 17–20. With great pathos the prophet recalls to mind…
17–20. With great pathos the prophet recalls to mind the miserable condition of Israel in the present, and adapts his glorious promise to their sense of need. He is thus led to a glowing description of the marvels of the desert journey, in which, however, a spiritual meaning is not lost sight of.
When the poor …] Better: The afflicted and needy are seeking water where there is none, their tongue is parched with thirst. It may be a question whether such a description applies to all the exiles, or only to those, the true Israel, who were conscious of the religious privations of the Captivity.
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 vv17–20 (17) When the poor and needy . . .—The…
(17) When the poor and needy . . .—The promise may perhaps take as its starting-point the succour given to the return of the exiles, but it rises rapidly into the region of a higher poetry, in which earthly things are the parables of heavenly, and does not call for a literal fulfilment any more than “wines of the lees,” of Isa_25:6.
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 vv17–20 Vers. 17-20. The crowning promise is that of spiritual…
Vers. 17-20. The crowning promise is that of spiritual support and refreshment through" the dull and dreary time of the Captivity, during which Israel dwells as it were in a desert, without water, or shade, or the relief to the eye which is furnished by the greenery of trees and shrubs. God was able to make of this "wilderness a standing water, and water-springs of the dry ground", (Psa_107:35) and he promises to do so (ver. 18). The soul that longs for him, that thirsts after him, feeling that it dwells "in a barren and dry land, where no water is", (Psa_63:1) shall be relieved and satisfied by a revelation of God"s presence, and an outpouring of his grace unusually copious and abundant. God"s grace is shadowed out under the two similitudes of water and verdure, as in Isa_35:7, and, to some extent, in Isa_30:23-25.
The poor and needy; i.e. primarily, Israel in captivity; but secondarily, also, the "poor in spirit," and those that feel the need of God"s grace, everywhere and at all times.
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Vers. 17-29. The claims of Jehovah.
The thought seems to resume the thread broken off at the beginning of the chapter. Jehovah appeals to what he has done and to what he is.
I HIS MERCIFUL DEALINGS WITH HIS PEOPLE. The scene and state of exile is brought before us. They are dwelling in the "tents of Kedar." They are in the midst of a flourishing commercial empire; yet it is to them as a desert where no water is. (cf. Psa_63:1) The true desert is the soul without the sense of God"s presence. But God is not limited by place; and why, in lands of exile, should not the spiritual be as near as at home? The mind is its own place, and can be made happy if it only possesses God. This highest happiness is figured as abundance of streams among the bare hills and the highland plains. In the Orient, water is synonymous with relief from intense suffering, deliverance from death in a word, with gladness, salvation, life itself; and the sight of lovely Paradises as they were called, i.e. parks of trees the stately cedar, and the brilliant plane and others. Such scenery enters into pictures of the Greek Elysium, and probably of the happiness of the future life among other nations, and doubtless with a correspondence to the truth. Trees and living water: what more beautiful parable can Nature offer of the eternal energy of the living God? what better hint of the future state reserved for his chosen? The design of all these merciful and wonderful deliverances is that Jehovah"s nature may be unveiled, and that the nations may contemplate it with reverence and joy they may at once see, and acknowledge, and consider, and understand, that Jehovah"s hand hath performed this, and Israel"s Holy One hath created it.
II JEHOVAH"S CHALLENGE. Let the gods of the heathen bring forward their cause; let them point out the bulwarks of argument behind which they entrench themselves. The "King of Jacob" calls these daemonic patrons and kings of other peoples to confront him. Have they insight into the future? Can they predict the coming event? Can they "declare the roots of the future in the past, or give a direct forecast of the future? God alone can reveal the secrets of the past. If the idols can do this, they are Jehovah"s equals, and may be trusted for their ability to predict the future" (according to some, this is the meaning). Or let them do some signal deed, whether of good or evil, and prove at least that they are alive. Some wonder should be performed, at which. mankind may gaze, and by which they may be convinced. But judgment must go by default. The gods "can show no prophecies, cannot so much as speak, are dumb, not gods." (Hab_2:18) And they must be known for what they are in the world.
III SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE. Jehovah raised up Cyrus. When called from the north, he came; and from the east, he shall proclaim Jehovah"s Name, and diffuse his worship. Some see (combining this oracle with that (Isa_65:3-7) the announcement of a spiritual change in Cyrus. He is made to say that Jehovah gave him all the kingdoms of the earth, and charged him to build a house at Jerusalem. (Ezr_1:2) He may have come to believe in the God of the Jews, and so to be their brother. The Persians were monotheists, and held a missionary religion. And the Jews may have recognized such a religion as that of Jehovah. (cf. Act_10:35 Act_17:23) And projecting themselves to the time of the fulfilment of the prediction, Jehovah and his worshippers point to it as evidence of the truth of the religion. And while Jehovah announces the good news of his return to Zion, that is, of Israel"s redemption, the idols are dumb. They have no help, no counsel, to give; for they are vanity, nothingness, wind and chaos. Compare with this nothingness the sentences of Jehovah in Isa_10:12 Jer_25:12. Such is the conclusion of the trial. The idols are utterly destitute of strength to aid their friends or distress their foes. Jehovah alone is worthy of confidence and regard, as the true God, Protector, and Guide. In times of deepest distress be can raise up a deliverer like Cyrus, and in his own way and time rescue his people from all their calamities. J.
Vers. 17-20. The pity and the purpose of Christ and his Church: a missionary sermon.
With what different eyes do we look out on to the world, and how varied a spectacle it presents, according to our views, our spirits, our aims! To the geographer and discoverer it appears in one aspect, to the statesman and the historian in another. The artist sees it in one light, the man of science in a different one. The sportsman and pleasure-hunter has his view of it, the trader has his, etc. But from the standpoint of the sanctuary, and so far as our minds are filled with God"s truth and our hearts with the love of Christ, we shall look at the vast, outlying human world with very different eyes. We shall see before us
I A POOR AND NEEDY WORLD ATHIRST FOR THE TRUTH AND LOVE OF GOD.
1. We think of those multitudes of our race, beneath every sky, of every hue, of every clime and tongue, who are utterly dissatisfied with their life, their creed, or their character; the many millions who are the victims of human oppression, of intolerable tyranny, or of heartless cruelty (social or domestic), or abject slavery; those who are the heirs of grinding poverty, seeking for the bare sufficiency or the comfort or the success which they never gain, which perpetually eludes them; those who are vain seekers after happiness, the voice of whose life is this, "Who will show us any good?" whose experience is one long sad heart-ache; those who are unsuccessful inquirers after God, after truth and righteousness, who say, not in sarcasm, but in sadness, "What is truth?" "Oh that we knew where we might find him!" "What shall we do that we may inherit eternal life?" and to whom no answer comes from the deep void, who have to go groping on in the darkness. These are the poor and needy, seeking water and there is none, "whose tongue faileth for thirst.
2. We include in our view that other multitude who lack the water of life, but who are not conscious of their need. Did it enfeeble the argument for emancipation that so many of the slaves, before their liberty was given them, were content to wear their bonds and to be deprived of the rights of manhood, the claims of womanhood? Or did it not, on the other hand, immeasurably strengthen the case of the emancipators and the cause of the slave? And does it relieve the situation that millions of Chinese are content to live the sordid, selfish, godless lives they are living, and to die the hopeless deaths they are dying? Does it make less pitiful and pathetic the fact that millions of our fellow-subjects in India are content to bow down before images their own hands have carved, and to worship gods and goddesses to honour whom is to be dishonoured and degraded in and by the very act of devotion? Surely this fact only multiplies the reasons for regret and for sympathy. The very muteness of the appeal is the most eloquent plea on their behalf.
II THE PITY AND THE PURPOSE OF CHRIST ON ITS BEHALF. "When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none,... I the Lord will hear them I will not forsake them.! will open rivers... I will plant trees," etc. If this be primarily applicable to the Israelites in captivity (or on their way home), it must be true of all God"s children. He who pitied the thousands of bodily sufferers will much more pity the millions of his sons and daughters who are in the last extremity of spiritual destitution. When Christ "saw the multitude," hungry and weary, he was "moved with compassion" for them. With what profounder pity and intenser feeling does he look down on these far greater multitudes, who are pining and perishing in the famine of the soul! And then does the Church of Christ enter into his spirit and rise toward his stature when it also is stirred to strong, deep sympathy with these poor and needy ones, hungering and athirst for the truth and love of God. And as Christ"s purpose answered to his pity, and he came, by the sacrifice of himself, to put away our sin and to take away our sorrow, so must ours also. Pity must end in provision, in causing the rivers to flow and the fountains to spring and the trees to bear their fruit. Such sources and springs of health and life are our mission Churches. Heathenism is a desert place, a wild waste, where there is no provision for human need. But our Christian Churches, planted in the midst of the ignorant and idolatrous, are rivers in the high places, fountains in the valleys, trees in the desert; there is bread for the hungering, water for those who are perishing with thirst, life for dying souls. C.
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 vv17–19 When the poor and needy seek water
Isa_41:17-18
When the poor and needy seek water
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An image of Gods care
The thought of the caravans returning homewards through the thirsty desert suggests to the prophet an effective image symbolising the Divine care which will attend them: the ground at their side bursts into waterpools, and noble trees cast their shade about them! (Prof.
S. R. Driver, D. D.)
Gods promise to the poor and needy
I. By the POOR AND NEEDY are not meant those who are poor and needy in the things of this world; but in a spiritual point of view.
1. The life of the Christian may be compared to a barren wilderness, leading from this world to that which is to come; in their journey through this wilderness the Lords people often feel themselves to be poor and needy without the cheering presence of their God, destitute of the usual manifestations of His love and the consolations of His Spirit. Water is an emblem frequently employed in Scripture to represent Divine influences, which refresh, gladden, and cleanse the soul, as water does the body. The children of God are sometimes reduced to straits; they seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst. They realise the feeling of David whilst they are constrained to adopt his language in the Forty-second Psalm, As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, etc.
2. But there is another sense in which the Lords people may be represented as poor and needy, seeking water and finding none; it is when they are anxiously desirous of larger measures of grace and knowledge, increasing holiness and spirituality of mind, more complete superiority to the world with the affections and lusts of the flesh, and a growing conformity to the precepts of the Gospel It is a striking feature in the character of every real Christian, that he is never satisfied with present attainments in religion. The real Christian will daily labour to abound yet more and more in the fair and beautiful fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. Here is the difference between nominal Christianity and real Christianity.
II. THE CONSOLATORY PROMISE. The Lord assures His people that they shall not be disappointed in the objects of their desire: in their extremity of distress, and when they are almost without hope, the Lord will hear their cry. Prayer, which is the earnest expression of the desires of the heart, shall never be offered up in vain. Nothing is impossible with God; possessed of infinite power and infinite love, He can and will do for His people more than they ask or think. But further, He is represented as the God of Israel. The history of the saints in all ages will bear testimony to the truth of that Scripture, He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might, He increaseth strength. (C. Rawlings, B. A.)
Water for the needy
The first sense of this passage belongs to Gods ancient people, and was partially accomplished after their return from Babylon, partially when the kingdom of heaven was spiritually set up at Jerusalem, but was to be still more gloriously fulfilled hereafter. But a child of God claims all the promises.
I. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD HERE GIVEN.
1. Poor, and needy. All creatures are poor compared with God--even the pure spirits, the highest angel, yea, archangels themselves. Especially must this be true of a fallen creature, yea, a restored creature.
2. They seek water. This spiritually sets forth the sacred influences of the Holy Spirit. They want refreshing views of Gods love, realising apprehensions of an interest in Christ, more of the real power of religion, more faith, more repentance, more love, more uprightness, more purity of heart, more humility, more true prayer, more gratitude and praise, more brokenness, more joy, more devotedness. They seek this water. Sometimes with great ardour, sometimes, alas! with little. In the means of grace they seek it, and it seems as if there is none. They strive, they fight, but they only find their own weakness, their enemies, darkness, and deadness in their souls.
3. Their tongue faileth for thirst. Few states are so disconsolate. It is vast discouragement. That this is a state into which the soul has brought itself through its own sin, I am led to conclude--
(1) By considering the state in which this promise finds the Jews, to whom it primarily belongs.
(2) By remembering the promise which sets forth Gods usual dealings Mat_7:7-9).
(3) By retracing the history of ones own experience. If this be so, beware of the steps which lead to this desolate region.
II. THE VAST ENCOURAGEMENT. my people are honestly, uprightly seeking Me. Out of Infinite love, Infinite wisdom, Infinite grace and mercy, I have delayed the answer. Their faith is small, their strength little, their souls discouraged. But I have not forgotten. I, the Lord, will hear them. The subject is one of unutterable sweetness and consolation to a true child of God. In few things, perhaps, are we more tried than in prayer. But the words of the text encourage not only persevering prayer, they do more. They encourage expecting prayer. Be not afraid of seasons of need. They are usually seasons of prayer, and these are our greatest seasons of happiness. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
Gods tenderness to the poor and needy
I. GOD HAS LEFT PECULIARLY TENDER AND GRACIOUS PROMISES TO THE POOR AND NEEDY. It is not the healthy and strong,child of the family around whom the fathers love is most closely entwined. Like as a father pitieth his children, etc.
II. GOD HAS PLEDGED HIS ALMIGHTY POWER TO WORK MIRACLES, IF NECESSARY, TO SUPPLY THEIR NEED. I will open rivers in high places, etc. This would be reversing the order of nature. Rivers do not flow in high places; fountains do not spring in the depths of valleys. God simply says that, ere the poor and needy shall lack water, He will reverse the order of nature and turn the world upside down.
III. THE PROMISES ARE MADE ONLY TO THOSE WHO SEEK AND CRY UNTO GOD FOR HIS HELP. Gods unchanging tenderness does not make prayer unnecessary. There must be expectation, desire, and confidence. (Homiletic Review.)
Spiritual thirst
The application is world-wide. Who is there to whom this description, more or less, does not apply--The or and needy seek water--there is none--their tongue faileth for thirst? Is it not the too faithful delineation of weary humanity? It is a commonplace saying, but its truthfulness redeems its triteness, that there is nothing in this world which can satisfy immortal longings. Thirst again, is the too frequent verdict after its sweetest fountains have been drained. Its best joys leave behind them aching voids, unfulfilled aspirations. After the thirst of its votaries has apparently been quenched at their favourite rills, of riches, honours, ambition, glory,--their name is the same as before, Poor and needy; their search is the same as ever, They seek water; the epitaph they write over every fresh grave of their hopes is the same, There is none--their tongue faileth them for thirst. And where, then, is that thirst to be quenched; where else are the wells of water to be had, springing up into everlasting life, but in the grace and promises of God as revealed in His blessed Word? And, like the waters seen by Ezekiel bursting from the threshold of the sanctuary, Everything lives whither the river cometh. (J. R.Macduff, D. D.)
Supply for the poor and needy
This double promise to the poor and needy stands in connection with other great promises which guarantee the gift of wonderful strength and blessing to Gods people. These promises seem to be such as the mightiest servant of God might well desire to have fulfilled in himself. Look, for instance, at the one in Isa_41:15-16. I think that the promise of our text specially comes in, not for you mountain-threshers,--not for you who are made so strong in the Lord, but for some who cannot as yet get a grip of that grand word of His. When the poor and needy are not trying to thresh mountains, but are looking for that which is needful for the supply of their own personal wants,--seeking water; when they are in too low a condition to be able to rise to the dignity of service, but are just like poor Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, seeking water; when they have fallen into such a sad and sorrowful state of heart that, instead of testifying to the goodness of God they cannot testify to anything, for their tongue faileth for thirst;--it is then, in their extremity, that the blessed promises shall come to them: I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Wordless prayers heard in heaven
I. Here is POVERTY OF CONDITION. Poor and needy. This description applies to poverty of spiritual condition.
1. Most of us would take the position of great poverty as to anything like merit.
2. We have poverty as to anything like strength.
3. As to grace, many of the children of God are, to their shame, obliged to confess that they are poor and needy where they ought to be rich, and where they might be rich; poor in patience, in courage, in faith, in hope, in love, in private prayer, in public influence, poor in every way. There axe many of Gods children who seem scarcely to have a penny of spending-money, and they never appear to go to the King s treasury, and dip their hand in, and take out great handfuls of the precious gold of grace.
II. URGENCY OF NEED. When the poor and needy seek--what? Money? No; that is only to be poor and needy. Bread? Ay; that shows a harder poverty than merely being poor and needy. But it is not bread that these poor and needy ones are seeking, but water. Why, that is generally to be had for nothing,--a drink of water. It must be very hard times indeed when poor souls are in such a state that they axe longing for water, and seeking for it afar, as though there were none near at hand. Are any of you in such a condition, sighing after the living water? Though you have drunk of it before, you are still sighing for more of it, and feel as if you could not tell where to find it.
1. This is an urgent necessity, for it touches a vital point. A man can exist without money, he can live without garments, he could live longer without bread than without water.
2. Do I address one in whom this vital necessity has become an agonising thirst?
3. Further, there is an immediate necessity. When a mans tongue faileth for thirst, and he seeks water, he wants it at once.
III. The third step down--and it is a very long one--is this, DISAPPOINTMENT OF HOPE. There is none.
1. There is none even where they have found it before. Have not some of you at times found it so in attending the means of grace?
2. It makes their case even more disappointing when they have, side by side with them, others who are seeking water, and finding it. Have you never been to the Lords table,--say, with your own wife,--and when she has been going home, she has said, Oh, what a precious communion service! Was not the Lord manifestly among His people in the breaking of bread?--and you have hardly liked to tell her that you have not seen the Lordeven in His own ordinance?
3. If you go to places where there is none of the living water, then you have only yourself to blame when you cannot find it.
IV. THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER. And their tongue faileth for thirst.
1. They cannot speak; they cannot tell their fellow-Christians about their trouble. They are ashamed to tell others what they feel If a hymn is given out, they feel as if they must not sing it. If there is a promise quoted, they feel as if they could not appropriate it, and sometimes the prayer of a joyous brother seems to shoot over their head,--they cannot attain to his experience.
2. If they were called upon to state their own feelings and convictions before the living God, it may be that they have become so mournful that they could not describe themselves. I think we have gone about as low as we can. Here is a man who, to begin with, is poor and needy. Here is a man who is wanting water, who has sought it, but who cannot find it. Here is a man whose tongue is so parched with thirst that he cannot now say a single word, he must sit down in sorrowful silence.
V. Yet, strange to say, now is the time that he learns that SALVATION IS OF GOD. I the Lord will hear them. What? Why, they cannot speak: their tongue faileth for thirst.
1. That brings me to this point, that Gods great object in bringing His people down so low as this, is to make them pray directly to Himself; that now they may not seek any water, but just cry to Him who is the Fountain of living waters; that now they may not tell their friends about their need, nor even tell it to themselves, but just, in the very silence of their soul, speak with God, for there is a kind of speech which is perfectly consistent with silence,--the speech of sorrow,--the exhibition of the wounds of misery,--the opening up of the brokenness of the heart,--the setting before God, not in eloquent descriptions, but in indescribable revelation, the intolerable want which lies within the soul. The text does not even say that they pray; because, sometimes, even prayer becomes a mechanical act, and we are apt to rely upon it for comfort, instead of upon our God.
2. The prayer which is hidden away in the text--for although there is no mention of prayer in it, yet it is hidden away there--is the prayer of inward thirst.
3. This is the prayer of one who despairs of all means.
4. This is the prayer of faintness.
5. Now comes the declaration of God. I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. Is it not something that God hears you? I have frequently had to explain this word by speaking of the poor woman who was so pleased to see her minister. She was very poor, and so was her minister; what good, then, did he do her? Did he speak to her a very comforting word? No. The good man did not happen that day to be in much of a mood to do so, yet he did that sister a deal of good, she said. Why? Because he let her talk, and she just told out all her trouble, and he looked sympathetic, for that is how he felt, and that was just what she wanted. She wanted somebody who would listen to her. It is wonderfully condescending on Gods part to listen to us. Many of our complaints are only rubbish, yet He hears them patiently. Sometimes, when people begin groaning and grumbling, I wish I was down the next street; but God is so patient and long-suffering, that He hears all that His people say.
6. You know that you have only to get a hearing from God, and you know what the consequence will be when your Heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Gods faithfulness tested
The late Dr. Parsons, of York, had a tea-caddy which he inherited from his father, who was also a spiritual preacher. Its history was curious. A husband and father, reduced to abject poverty, set out on a Sabbath morning to drown himself, and so escape the agony of looking at starving wife and children. A crowd was entering the Tottenham Court Road Chapel, London, and the man somehow was drawn along with the crowd. Mr. Parsons preached from Isa_41:17, When the poorand needy seek water, etc. He appealed to his hearers needing temporal and spiritual blessings, Have you put the God of Jacob to the test? No, thought the desperate man, I have not. He went back, told his wife, joined in prayer, and all day seemingly in vain. But next morning temporary aid came, with directions as to work, which he found, did faithfully, and rose to comfort and notable prosperity. He offered a large gift to the good preacher, but it was declined. He sent the tea-caddy as a memento of his gratitude, which he felt could not be refused. (J. Hall, LL. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v17 Isa_41:17. When the poor and needy seek water, &c.
CONSOLATION FOR THE DESPONDING
Isa_41:17. When the poor and needy seek water, &c.
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I. IN WHAT EXTREMITIES GOD HERE PROMISES TO HELP HIS PEOPLE.
1. In case of outward want. This is a trying exercise to many, though little understood by those who have all things richly to enjoy. It is compared to an armed man carrying tribulation and terror in his looks (Pro_6:11). The body is an essential part of our constitution, and hath wants of its own, numerous and urgent, and to have little or nothing to answer its cravings in a severe trial. But God can easily help us in such a trial, and out of it. Examples: Hagar (Gen_21:15-19); the widow (1Ki_17:12-16). There is no exigency of man beyond the power of God. Though creature succours fail, and all the cisterns of earth should be dried up, there is enough in God to support our faith (Hab_3:17-18).
2. In case of inward trouble and distress from sin. This is still more grievous and insupportable. Though most men think that if they had nothing but sin to trouble them they could be happy, some know that one sin set home upon the conscience by the Spirit of God is a terrible experience (Psa_38:3-4; H. E. I. 1334–1341). But when the poor soul is ready to give up all for God, God comes to His relief (Psa_31:22). In the Gospel He has provided a sovereign cure for the wounded spirit (Psa_130:3-5).
3. In the case of approaching death. A trial from which there, is no escape. Is often very terrible. Yet even here God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. By His presence He not only reconciles us to dying, but makes us wish for it, makes us smile at it, makes us triumph over it (1Co_15:57). Though death be a king with respect to us, he is but God’s servant, and entirely at His command; he comes to us only when and as God pleases. And God knows how to support and comfort while His servant is taking down the earthly house of flesh (H. E. I. 1642, 1643).
I have witnessed only these three cases, but you may apply it to every distress. Whenever the poor and needy cry for help, God engages to hear them. In their misery there is a silent and affecting voice which hath great power with God, and poverty venting itself in prayer hath an amazing force (Psa_106:44).
II. WHY HE HAS MADE THIS GRACIOUS PROMISE.
1. For the glory of His own perfections (Psa_7:15). It is for the honour of His wisdom that He knows how to bring help when the skill and contrivance of all His creatures is nonplussed; of His power, that He is able to deliver the godly out of temptation when the ability of second causes cannot accomplish it; of His mercy and free grace, to afford help when the poor creature is in the worst and least deserving condition. Should God favour us only when we are in prosperity, and there is no difficulty in the way, His hand would not be so visible, nor His perfections so glorious; but to help the poor and needy, and that, too, in their greatest straits and necessities, declares His superlative goodness and excellency, that He can and will do what none else can. He therefore chooses such seemingly desperate cases to appear in, for the manifestation of His own glory (Deu_32:36-39).
2. Because of the special relation God has to the poor and needy. They that are most neglected and forsaken by men are nearest to God and more particularly taken care of (Psa_68:5). “The poor committeth himself to Thee” (Psa_10:14). But will He stand to their choice and act for them? Yes (Psa_12:5). Which of you, being a father retaining the affections of a parent, if you saw a child in distress, would sit by and take no notice of it? Would you go out of the room and think no more about it? No! You would rather seem fonder of that child than of all the rest, and be more tender of it than ever. So will your Heavenly Father have a special regard to His poor and needy children when they seek water and there is none (Isa_63:8-9).
III. WHAT WE ARE TO DO WITH THIS PROMISE.
1. Let us praise God for making it to us. What amazing condescension that there should ever be any such thing as a promise from God to His creatures! Will earthly kings thus voluntarily bring themselves under obligation to their subjects? But with a kindness and generosity peculiar to Himself, God makes a covenant with His people, by which He binds Himself in the most solemn manner to be a Father to them, that is, to be watchful and tender to them, and keep them from all evil, and to withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly.
2. In the time of affliction let us plead this promise in prayer, for that is the surest and speediest way of procuring relief. It may be the design of God, in blasting earthly comforts, to drive us to our knees. By bringing us into trouble, and showing us the insufficiency of creatures to help us, He may intend to lead our thoughts up to Himself, the fountain of living waters (Psa_142:4-5; H. E. I. 69).
3. However great and prolonged our affliction may be, let us not look upon this promise with doubt or distrust. It is God’s promise; and having passed His word, we must be infidels if we doubt the performance (Num_23:19). To doubt the accomplishment of anything He hath engaged for were to question His wisdom in promising what He had not properly considered; or His love, as if He would not be as good as His word; or His power, as if He had promised more than He was able to perform. An affront this which even a man who values his character would highly resent. Let us take care, then, how we offer it to God.—Samuel Lavington: Sermons, Supplementary Volume, pp. 414–432.
In its primary sense, the text is an encouragement to the Jews to trust in God; in its spiritual meaning it extends to the Church of God in all ages. It describes—
I. A DISTRESSING CASE.
1. The people of God are often in a low and afflicted state. All men, if they knew it, are poor and needy; but very many think themselves “rich and increased with goods.” “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up.” Soul and goods; as if the soul had tongue and teeth! God’s people feel their poverty and need.
2. They strive after holiness and comfort. Water, as cleansing and refreshing, may be understood to mean holiness and comfort. They long to be delivered from the body of sin and death; they desire to walk in the light of God’s countenance. They try hard for these; but,
3. They often seem to labour in vain; they “seek water, and find none.” They strive for victory, but the conflict remains; deadness and darkness return upon them.
4. They become dejected; “their tongue faileth,” &c. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” They turn faint, like disappointed travellers on the outlook for water; they begin to lose confidence in God (Psa_42:1-3; Psa_42:9; Psa_88:14).
II. FITTING CONSOLATION.
1. In the words used about God. God is “the Lord,” i.e., JEHOVAH, the Eternal, Immutable, “will hear them;” He is “the God of Israel, ELOHIM, the Mighty One, with whom nothing is impossible.
2. In the promises made. “I will hear.” Let them be encouraged to continue in prayer. “I will not forsake them.” Have courage, then, fainting soul!
3. Those who continue trusting shall certainly be consoled (Isa_41:18; Psa_34:6; Psa_30:8-11).
APPLICATION.—
1. Most men know but little of spiritual troubles. These are not to be envied. Let them seek to know their spiritual wants and obey Christ’s gracious invitation (Joh_7:37-38; Rev_22:17).
2. Let those who are fainting under their troubles believe that none ever waited upon God in vain. From these promises, as from wells of salvation, you may draw water with joy (Psa_36:8; Psa_16:11).—C. Simeon, M.A.: Skeletons, pp. 318–321).
The poor and needy must ever command the sympathy of those more favourably situated. They will probably never cease to exist. The text primarily encourages the captive Jews in Babylon. But it also represents all human need and Divine help.
I. THE EXIGENCY.
“The poor and the needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth them for thirst.” It is the dryness of the sandy desert which produces distressing thirst. The traveller seeks water in vain. His throat becomes dry; his tongue is disinclined to speech; he sees only a miserable death before him. It is a picture of suffering, destitution, and necessity.
The distress may arise from external causes, as bodily disease or pecuniary privation. Or it may be entirely in the mind. All suffering is really there. It is a matter of personal consciousness. The onlooker may see no adequate cause. Yet the sufferer feels. You look at the outside of a splendid house, and it seems to you that no deep sorrow can be there. Yet within there may be anxieties and cares which make the owner indifferent to his splendid surroundings; and in many cases there is biting poverty and want which cannot be revealed.
The temptations of such a time are serious (Job_1:9; Job_2:9).
1. Impatience. The sufferer does not readily submit to his impoverishment. His spirit may be that which says, “Not Thy will, but mine be done,” rather than the Saviour’s prayer in Gethsemane.
2. Complaining. When privation presses we are tempted to assume that we are wiser than our Father, and therefore to withdraw our trust and criticise His plans.
3. Despair. And when faith and hope are displaced by despair, there will be prayerlessness. We shall ask, “What profit shall we have if we pray unto Him?” There will be sinfulness. Many plunge into sin to rid themselves of care. There will be recklessness. The temptation is to say, “Things cannot be worse, and can never be better, therefore we may as well lie down and discontinue effort.” Some imagine they escape by terminating their lives.
II. THE CRY.
Better than yielding to such temptation is to cry to the Lord when poverty and sorrow appear. It is here supposed that God’s people do so. It is their privilege and duty to lay all their sorrows before Him and to leave them with Him, as children entirely dependent on their fathers (H. E. I. 176–178).
III. THE PROMISE.
Two things are promised.
1. Divine attentiveness. He is not unmindful, even though He may seem so. He listens for and listens to the cry of distress. “I, the Lord, will hear them.” He heard Hagar in the wilderness (Gen_21:17). He heard Israel in Egypt (Exo_3:7). He heard Hezekiah when he spread forth Sennacherib’s letter, and when he was sick. He is the hearer of prayer. Thousands of testimonies to this. Your own experience attests it. Can you not say with the Psalmist (Psa_116:1-5)?
2. Divine helpfulness. “I, the God of Jacob, will not forsake them” (Heb_13:5-6). Sad indeed to be forsaken by a friend when trouble and poverty come. God does not forsake. His love is a guarantee. He is the God of Israel. He is our Father in Christ. He is interested in us. His faithfulness is a guarantee. He has bound Himself by the word of promise. Contrary to His nature to fail. His power is a guarantee. “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” Unbelief says it is impossible to overcome this difficulty. But He provided manna in the wilderness and brought water out of the smitten rock. Often by the most unlikely means and in the most unlikely places (Isa_41:18). “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
IV. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF THIS PRECIOUS PROMISE.
1. There may be some one here who is passing through a season of affliction. God’s children sometimes seem to suffer more than others. You need a message that may help to lift up your drooping spirit. Satan may be pressing his advantage through the depression your trouble has caused. Listen to the declaration of the text. Fall back on the simple representations of the Bible. Repair more confidently to the Lord for help.
2. There may be some one to whom this subject applies as to his spiritual impoverishment and necessity. You have recently discovered that you are spiritually poor. Like a merchant who has imagined that he was accumulating a princely fortune, but who makes the discovery that he is insolvent, you have found out that you are a ruined sinner. But you are not content to perish. Your tongue faileth for thirst. You desire salvation. Now, the Lord pities you in your low estate. He has opened a fountain in the wilderness. Jesus died. In His perfect righteousness, His atoning blood, and His quickening Spirit there is all you need. If you seek your restoration in Him, you cannot be disappointed. If your soul is impoverished, go to His fulness. He invites you. His compassionate love ever looks down on weary and footsore and thirsty travellers in the wilderness of this world, with infinite readiness to supply their wants (Isa_55:1-2; Rev_22:17).—J. Rawlinson.
GOD’S PROMISE TO THE POOR AND NEEDY
Isa_41:17-18. When the poor and needy seek water, &c.
In Isa_41:8 the Lord is declaring the relation in which He stands to His people Israel, and then He proceeds to encourage His people in the prospect of trial and difficulty by an assurance of His presence to strengthen and support them (Isa_41:10; Isa_41:14-15). The Lord’s people are in themselves but feeble; but in the power of God they shall triumph over their most formidable enemies; as a consequence of their triumph, they shall “rejoice in the Lord and glory in the Holy One of Israel.” Then follows the encouraging language of the text. Consider—
I. WHO ARE MEANT BY THE “POOR AND NEEDY.” Not those who are poor and needy in a temporal sense, but in a spiritual,—those who feel themselves to be so in a spiritual sense.
1. The life of the Christian may be compared to a waste and barren wilderness leading from this world to that which is to come. In their journey, the Lord’s people often feel themselves to be “poor and needy,” without the cheering presence of their God, destitute of the usual manifestations of His love and the consolations of His Spirit. Water is an emblem frequently employed in Scripture to represent Divine influences, which refresh, gladden, and cleanse the soul, as water does the body. The children of God are sometimes reduced to straits; they seek water, and there is none, and “their tongue faileth for thirst.” They realise the feeling of David (Psa_42:1-2).
2. The Lord’s believing people may be represented as “poor and needy” when they are anxiously desirous of larger measures of grace and knowledge, increasing holiness and spirituality of mind, more complete superiority to the world with the affections and lusts of the flesh, and a growing conformity to the precepts of the Gospel. Here is the difference between nominal and real Christianity, between the religion of form and outward appearance, and the religion of power and inward experience; between a dead and a living faith. It is impossible to stand still in religion.
II. THE CONSOLATORY PROMISE AFFORDED IN THE TEXT. The Lord assures His people that they shall not be disappointed in the objects of their desire: in their extremity of distress, and when they are almost without hope, He will hear their cry.
1. Prayer, that is, the earnest expression of the desires of the heart, shall never be offered up in vain. He can and will do for His own “far more abundantly than they can either ask or think.”
2. He is represented as the “God of Israel.” Israel was taken into covenant relationship with Him; and on condition of their obedience, He engaged to favour them with His constant presence, to preserve them in danger, to protect them from their enemies, and at length to put them in full and undisputed possession of the earthly Canaan. And so it is with the spiritual Israel of God. They stand in covenant relationship with Him as their “reconciled Father in Christ Jesus.”
III. WHAT ENCOURAGEMENT THERE IS HERE TO PRAYER! God is a God of faithfulness and truth; He will not turn a deaf ear to the supplications of His obedient people (Psa_50:15; Mat_7:7). The history of the saints in all ages will bear testimony to the truth of that Scripture, “He giveth power to the faint,” &c. (Isa_40:29; Isa_40:31). Prayer to God, therefore, is, under all circumtances, a great and solemn duty (Luk_18:1; Php_4:6; 1Th_5:17).
CONCLUSION.—
1. To the unconcerned about the blesssings of salvation.
(1.) Men can be active enough in the prosecution of their worldly schemes of gain, honour, or advantage; they will take any trouble and submit to any sacrifice; but it is usually quite otherwise in the vastly important business of religion; here all is coldness, apathy, and indifference. But “I say unto you, labour not for the meat which perisheth,” &c. (Mat_6:33; Mar_8:36; Luk_10:42; Act_3:19).
(2.) Ignorance of spiritual troubles and necessities is by no means desirable. The pathway to Zion is not always cheered by the sunshine of hope and joy; cloud and tempest will sometimes rest upon it (Act_14:22). If real religion has its peculiar joys, it is not without its peculiar sorrows.
2. To those who are fainting for want of Divine consolations. Remember, and take encouragement from the thought, that “all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus” (Heb_10:23; Heb_13:5; Isa_49:15-16).—Charles Rawlings, B.A.: The Pulpit, vol. xlix. pp. 181–184.
The redemption of our souls is precious; it originated alike in our extreme misery and in God’s great mercy (Isa_59:16). But even the people of God are often reduced to dreadful straits. The ultimate perfection of their natures and the unbounded felicity of their future state are the objects of their firm and delightful hope; but the same Book which reveals what is laid up for them teaches them to expect various troubles and trials by the way (Act_14:22). Yet under all their troubles they shall be well supported; all their wants well supplied. Isaiah received a commission to minister to the consolation of the saints (Isa_40:1). The text alone is sufficient to elevate the souls of true believers with good hope and everlasting consolation.
I. THE ACCOUNT HERE GIVEN OF THOSE TO WHOM THE PROMISE IS MADE.
1. Their exigencies are very great. They are poor and needy, and even in want of water. Many of the saints of God have been literally poor. Even when the Lord had brought the seed of Jacob where, generally speaking, “there was no lack of anything,” it was still His sovereign pleasure that, in the midst of abundance, some should be in want (Deu_15:11). During the captivity in Babylon the number of such persons must have greatly increased. Under the Christian dispensation, poverty has ever been the lot of many who are dear in God’s sight (Jas_2:5; 1Co_1:26-29; Luk_4:18; Luk_7:22; Mar_12:37, &c.) All the “rich in faith” are still, in one sense, poor, because completely dependent. Knowing and feeling this, they are “poor in spirit.” Unlike the self-righteous Laodiceans, who boasted of being “rich,” they are ever ready to acknowledge that they are in themselves “wretched and miserable and poor,” &c. (Rev_3:17). To begin with, they found themselves in want of the most essential spiritual blessings; and afterwards, in proportion as they even partially forsook “the fountain of living waters,” their spiritual necessities became great.
2. Their consequent sufferings are very distressing. The evils of extreme poverty are great, though God supports His people under them, and gives the sanctified use of them. The people of God are not unfrequently subjected to the severest troubles of a temporal kind (Heb_11:37-38; Heb_12:6; Heb_12:11).
3. They earnestly desire and endeavour to obtain relief. They seek water; they cry to the Lord to give it. They who will not work when it is necessary cannot expect to eat when their wants are great. Spiritual supplies are, in every sense, the gift of God; but they are promised only to such as earnestly desire and diligently seek them from Him (chap. Isa_55:1-3). The case, indeed, appears pitiable, when bread and water are sought and there is none; but faith is only thus put to the test. God has pledged His faithfulness for your ultimate success.
II. THE PROMISE GIVEN FOR THEIR ENCOURAGEMENT. “I, the Lord,” &c. What is the import of this promise? It implies—
1. Great compassion and kindness on the part of the Promise-maker. How tender are His words! Truly in Him compassions flow (Exo_34:6; Jer_31:20; Hos_11:8-9). Not only does He forbear to destroy His people, but He returns to pardon their sins and to load them with benefits (Isa_66:9; 1Jn_4:10; Rom_8:32).
2. That the prayers of God’s people are heard and accepted. “I, the Lord, will hear” (cf. chap. Isa_66:2). One of His names is the Hearer of prayer (Psa_65:2); all who seek shall find (Isa_45:19); as certainly as they pray shall they be heard (Isa_58:9); He Says yet more (Isa_65:24).
3. That all their wants shall be supplied. What else can be meant by the promise, “I the Lord will hear”? (Psa_107:6; Psa_37:19; Joh_14:13; Php_4:19). Can anything be too hard for the Lord? He is the God of Israel, who has pledged Himself, both by His covenanted love and faithfulness greatly to bless His people (1Jn_3:1; Heb_10:23; 1Sa_15:29).
4. That the Lord will be immutably gracious to His people. “I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them” (1Sa_12:22; Heb_13:5; Isa_42:16).
CONCLUSION.—
1. Let not the people of God be discouraged and impatient, though their circumstances be low and their distresses great.
2. Let all their trust be in the Lord (Isa_26:4).
3. Let them distinguish themselves as a praying people (Psa_62:8; Joh_6:68).
4. Let them walk worthy of His kindness (1Co_15:58).
5. Let sinners see their misery and their hope (Isa_29:8; Rev_22:17).—Adam Thompson, D.D.: Outlines, pp. 214–220.
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.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv17, 19 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh speaks of people who are in extreme need as if they are extremely thirsty, and of his provision for them as if he caused water to appear in places where it normally would not appear. (See: Metaphor)
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translationWords
oppress
Yahweh
pray
God
Israel
forsake
desert
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 v18 41:18 rivers . . . fountains . . .…
41:18 rivers . . . fountains . . . pools of water . . . springs: These images would strike a responsive chord in an agrarian culture. They also suggest that rescue from the Exile would be a second exodus (cp. Exod 15:27; 17:6).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.