21Remember these things, Jacob and Israel; for you are my servant. I have formed you. You are my servant. Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
22I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.
23Sing, you heavens, for Yahweh has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth! Break out into singing, you mountains, O forest, all of your trees, for Yahweh has redeemed Jacob, and will glorify himself in Israel.
21 Remember these things, Jacob and Israel; for you are my servant. I have formed you. You are my servant. Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.
23 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 your trees, for Yahweh has redeemed Jacob, and will glorify himself in Israel.
KJVKing James Version
21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.
22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.
23 Sing, O ye heavens; for the LORD hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.
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JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
21 Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for thou art My servant; I have formed thee, thou art Mine own servant; O Israel, thou shouldest not forget Me.
22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins; return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.
23 Sing, O ye heavens, for the LORD hath done it; shout, ye lowest parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein; for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and doth glorify Himself in Israel.
Isaiah 43:25(v22)I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.
1 Corinthians 6:20(v22)for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Acts 3:18-19(v22)But the things which God announced by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled. “Repent therefore, and…
Isaiah 43:1(vv21–22)But now Yahweh who created you, Jacob, and he who formed you, Israel, says: “Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by…
1 Peter 1:18-19(v22)knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your…
Show all 61 cross-references
Psalms 103:12(v22)As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Isaiah 44:1-2(v21)Yet listen now, Jacob my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen. This is what Yahweh who made you, and formed you from the womb, who will…
Isaiah 49:15-16(v21)“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not…
Ephesians 1:6-7(v23)to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved, in whom we have our redemption through his blood,…
Isaiah 55:7(v22)Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him, to our God,…
Jeremiah 33:8(v22)I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have…
Titus 2:12-14(v22)instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we would live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present…
Revelation 5:8-14(v23)Now when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one having a harp, and…
Psalms 51:1(v22)Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
Psalms 51:9(v22)Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all of my iniquities.
Psalms 69:34(v23)Let heaven and earth praise him; the seas, and everything that moves therein!
Isaiah 48:20(v22)Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! With a voice of singing announce this, tell it even to the end of the earth: say, “Yahweh has…
Jeremiah 3:12-14(v22)Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, you backsliding Israel,’ says Yahweh; ‘I will not look in anger on you;…
Psalms 96:11-12(v23)Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar, and its fullness! Let the field and all that is in it exult! Then all…
Psalms 98:7-8(v23)Let the sea roar with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell therein. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the mountains sing for joy…
Isaiah 1:27(v22)Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her converts with righteousness.
Isaiah 43:15(v21)I am Yahweh, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.”
Isaiah 46:8-9(v21)“Remember this, and show yourselves men. Bring it to mind again, you transgressors. Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and…
Isaiah 49:3(v23)He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
Isaiah 59:20-21(v22)“A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from disobedience in Jacob,” says Yahweh. “As for me, this is my covenant with them,”…
Jeremiah 51:48(v23)Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, will sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers will come to her from the…
Hosea 14:1-4(v22)Israel, return to Yahweh your God; for you have fallen because of your sin. Take words with you, and return to Yahweh. Tell him, “Forgive…
Zechariah 10:9(v21)I will sow them among the peoples; and they will remember me in far countries; and they will live with their children, and will return.
Revelation 19:1-6(v23)After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation, power, and glory…
Deuteronomy 4:23(v21)Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of…
Deuteronomy 31:19-21(v21)“Now therefore write this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a…
Deuteronomy 32:18(v21)Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth.
Nehemiah 4:5(v22)Don’t cover their iniquity. Don’t let their sin be blotted out from before you; for they have insulted the builders.”
Job 37:11(v22)Yes, he loads the thick cloud with moisture. He spreads abroad the cloud of his lightning.
Psalms 109:14(v22)Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered by Yahweh. Don’t let the sin of his mother be blotted out.
Isaiah 1:18(v22)“Come now, and let’s reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red…
Isaiah 41:8-9(v21)“But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham my friend, You whom I have taken hold of from the ends of…
Isaiah 42:23(v21)Who is there among you who will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come?
Isaiah 43:7(v21)everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made.’ ”
Isaiah 49:13(v23)Sing, heavens, and be joyful, earth! Break out into singing, mountains, for Yahweh has comforted his people, and will have compassion on…
Isaiah 51:11(v22)Those ransomed by Yahweh will return, and come with singing to Zion. Everlasting joy shall be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and…
Isaiah 55:12-13(v23)For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the…
Lamentations 3:42-44(v22)“We have transgressed and have rebelled. You have not pardoned. “You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have…
Luke 1:73-74(v22)the oath which he swore to Abraham our father, to grant to us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, should serve him…
Romans 11:28-29(v21)Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. For the…
Deuteronomy 4:9(v21)Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all…
Psalms 148:7(v23)Praise Yahweh from the earth, you great sea creatures, and all depths;
Isaiah 26:15(v23)You have increased the nation, O Yahweh. You have increased the nation! You are glorified! You have enlarged all the borders of the land.
Isaiah 42:10-12(v23)Sing to Yahweh a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is therein, the islands and…
Isaiah 60:21(v23)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 61:3(v23)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…
Jeremiah 3:1(v22)“They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that…
Ezekiel 36:1(v23)You, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say, “You mountains of Israel, hear Yahweh’s word.
Ezekiel 36:8(v23)“ ‘ “But you, mountains of Israel, you shall shoot out your branches, and yield your fruit to my people Israel; for they are at hand to…
Luke 2:10-14(v23)The angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people. For there is born…
Ephesians 3:21(v23)to him be the glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
2 Thessalonians 1:10-12(v23)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…
1 Peter 4:11(v23)If anyone speaks, let it be as it were the very words of God. If anyone serves, let it be as of the strength which God supplies, that in…
Revelation 12:12(v23)Therefore rejoice, heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has gone down to you, having…
Revelation 18:20(v23)“Rejoice over her, O heaven, you saints, apostles, and prophets; for God has judged your judgment on her.”
Ezekiel 39:13(v23)Yes, all the people of the land will bury them; and they will become famous in the day that I will be glorified,” says the Lord Yahweh.
61 distinct cross-references across this passage (62 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (21 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv21, 23Showing that man’s heart is most inclined to idolatry,…
Showing that man’s heart is most inclined to idolatry, and therefore he warneth his people by these examples, that they should not cleave to any but to the living God, when they should be among the idolaters.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv21–23Isa 44:21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for…
Isa 44:21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou [art] my servant: I have formed thee; thou [art] my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.
Ver. 21. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel,] i.e., Remember these abominable idolaters, and enjoy their madness: learn wisdom by their folly.
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Thou shalt not be forgotten of me.] Or, Forget me not, as some render it. Scultetus addeth that whereas many sacred sentences are written upon our walls, this ought to be written upon our hearts; O Israel, forget me not.
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 vv21–23Remember these; either these men; or, which comes to…
Remember these; either these men; or, which comes to one, these things, the deep ignorance and stupidity of idolaters; which may be a warning to thee.
Thou shalt not be forgotten of me; I will not forget nor forsake thee; and therefore thou shalt have no need of idols. Or, as the ancient interpreters and divers others render it, do not forget me; what I am, and what I have done, and can and will do, for thee; the forgetting whereof is the ready way to idolatry.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v21In these verses we have,
In these verses we have,
I. The duty which Jacob and Israel, now in captivity, were called to, that they might be qualified and prepared for the deliverance designed them. Our first care must be to get good by our afflictions, and then we may hope to get out of them. The duty is expressed in two words: Remember and return, as in the counsel to Ephesus, Rev 2:4, Rev 2:5. 1. "Remember these, O Jacob! Remember what thou hast been told of the folly of idolatry, and let the convictions thou art now under be ready to thee whenever thou art tempted to that sin. Remember that thou art my servant, and therefore must not serve other masters." 2. Return unto me, Isa 44:22. It is the great concern of those who have backslidden from God to hasten their return to him; and this is that which he calls them to when they are in affliction, and when he is returning to them in a way of mercy.
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II. The favours which Jacob and Israel, now in captivity, were assured of; and what is here promised to them upon their remembering and returning to God is in a spiritual sense promised to all that in like manner return to God. It is a very comfortable word, for more is implied in it than is expressed (Isa 44:21): "O Israel! thou shalt not be forgotten of me, though for the present thou seemest to be so." When we begin to remember God he will begin to remember us; nay, it is he that remembers us first. Now observe here,
1. The grounds upon which God's favourable intentions to his people were built and on which they might build their expectations from him. He will deliver them out of captivity; for, (1.) They are his servants, and therefore he has a just quarrel with those that detain them. Let my people go, that they may serve me. The servants of the King of kings are under special protection. (2.) He formed them into a people, formed them from the womb, Isa 44:24. From the first beginning of their increase into a nation they were under his particular care and government, more than any other people; their national constitution was of his framing, and his covenant with them was the charter by which they were incorporated. They are his, and he will save them. (3.) He has redeemed them formerly, has many a time redeemed them out of great distress, and he is still the same, in the same relation to them, has the same concern for them. "Therefore return unto me, for I have redeemed thee, Isa 44:22. Whither wilt thou go, but to me?" Having redeemed them, as well as formed them, he has acquired a further title to them and propriety in them, which is a good reason why they should dutifully return to him and why he will graciously return to them. The Lord has redeemed Jacob; he is about to do it (Isa 44:23); he has determined to do it; for he is the Lord their Redeemer, Isa 44:24. Note, The work of redemption which God has by his Son wrought for us encourages us to hope for all promised blessings from him. He that has redeemed us at so vast an expense will not lose his purchase. (4.) He has glorified himself in them (Isa 44:23), and therefore will do so still, Joh 12:28. It is matter of comfort to us to see God's glory interested in the deliverances of the church; for therefore he will certainly redeem Jacob, because thus he will glorify himself. And this assures us that he will perfect the redemption of his saints by Jesus Christ, because there is a day set when he will be glorified and admired in them all. (5.) He has pardoned their sins, which were the cause of their calamity and the only obstruction to their deliverance, Isa 44:22. Therefore he will break the yoke of captivity from off their necks, because he has blotted out, as a thick cloud, their transgressions. Note, [1.] Our transgressions and our sins are as a cloud, a thick cloud; they interpose between heaven and earth, and for a time suspend and intercept the correspondence between the upper and lower world (sin separates between us and God, Isa 59:2); they threaten a storm, a deluge of wrath, as thick clouds do, which God will rain upon sinners. Psa 11:6. [2.] When God pardons sin he blots out this cloud, this thick cloud, so that the intercourse with heaven is laid open again. God looks down upon the soul with favour; the soul looks up to him with pleasure. The cloud is scattered by the influence of the Sun of righteousness. It is only through Christ that sin is pardoned. When sin is pardoned, like a cloud that is scattered, it appears no more, it is quite gone. The iniquity of Jacob shall be sought for, and not found, Jer 50:20. And the comforts that flow into the soul when sin is pardoned are like the clear shining after clouds and rain.
2. The universal joy which the deliverance of God's people should bring along with it (Isa 44:23): Sing, O you heavens! This intimates, (1.) That the whole creation shall have cause for joy and rejoicing in the redemption of God's people; to that it is owing that it subsists (that it is rescued from the curse which the sin of man brought upon the ground) and that it is again put into a capacity of answering the ends of its being, and is assured that though now it groans, being burdened, it shall at last be delivered from the bondage of corruption. The greatest establishment of the world is the kingdom of God in it, Psa 96:11-13; Psa 98:7-9. (2.) That the angels shall rejoice in it, and the inhabitants of the upper world. The heavens shall sing, for the Lord has done it. And there is joy in heaven when God and man are reconciled (Luk 15:7), joy when Babylon falls, Rev 18:20. (3.) That those who lay at the greatest distance, even the inhabitants of the Gentile world, should join in these praises, as sharing in these joys. The lower parts of the earth, the forest and the trees there, shall bring in the tribute of thanksgiving for the redemption of Israel.
3. The encouragement we have to hope that though great difficulties, and such as have been thought insuperable, lie in the way of the church's deliverance, yet, when the time for it shall come, they shall all be got over with ease; for thus saith Israel's Redeemer, I am the Lord that maketh all things, did make them at first and am still making them; for providence is a continued creation. All being, power, life, emotion, and perfection, are from God. He stretches forth the heavens alone, has no help nor needs any; and the earth too he spreads abroad by himself, and by his own power. Man was not by him when he did it (Job 38:4), nor did any creature advise or assist; only his own eternal wisdom and Word was by him then as one brought up with him, Pro 8:30. His stretching out the heavens by himself denotes the boundless extent of his power. The strongest man, if he has to stretch a thing out, must get somebody or other to lend a hand; but God stretched out the vast expanse and keeps it still upon the stretch, himself, by his own power. Let not Israel be discouraged then; nothing is too hard for him to do that made the world, Psa 124:8. And, having made all things, he can make what use he pleases of all, and has it in his power to serve his own purposes by them.
4. The confusion which this would put upon the oracles of Babylon, by the confutation it would give them, Isa 44:25. God, by delivering his people out of Babylon, would frustrate the tokens of the liars, of all the lying prophets, that said the Babylonian monarchy had many ages yet to live, and pretended to ground their predictions upon some token, some sign or other, which, according to the rules of their arts, foreboded its prosperity. How mad will these conjurors grow with vexation when they see that their skill fails them, and that the contrary happens to that which they so coveted and were so confident of. Nor would it only baffle their pretended prophets, but their celebrated politicians too: He turns the wise men backward. Finding they cannot go on with their projects, they are forced to quit them; and so he makes the judges fools, and makes their knowledge foolish. Those that are made acquainted with Christ see all the knowledge they had before to be foolishness in comparison with the knowledge of him. And those that are adversaries to him will find all their counsels, like Ahitophel's, turned into foolishness, and themselves taken in their own craftiness, Co1 3:19.
5. The confirmation which this would give to the oracles of God, which the Jews had distrusted and their enemies despised: God confirms the word of his servant (Isa 44:26); he confirms it by accomplishing it in its season; and performs the counsel of the messengers whom he hath many a time sent to his people, to tell them what great blessings he had in store for them. Note, The exact fulfilling of the prophecies of scripture is a confirmation of the truth of the whole book and an incontestable evidence of its divine origin and authority.
6. The particular favours God designed for his people, that were now in captivity, Isa 44:26-28. These were foretold long before they went into captivity, that they might see reason to expect a correction, but no reason to fear a final destruction. (1.) It is here supposed that Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, should for a time lie in ruins, dispeopled and uninhabited; but it is promised that they shall be rebuilt and repeopled. When Isaiah lived, Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were full of inhabitants; but they will be emptied, burnt, and destroyed. It was then hard to believe that concerning such strong and populous cities. But the justice of God will do that; and, when that is done, it will be hard to believe that ever they will recover themselves again, and yet the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do that to. God has said to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; for, while the world stands, God will have a church in it, and therefore he will raise up those who shall say to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; for, if it be not built, it cannot be inhabited, Psa 69:35, Psa 69:36. When God's time shall have come for the building up of his church, let him alone to find both houses for his people (for they shall not lie exposed) and people for his houses, for they shall not stand empty. The cities of Judah too shall again be built. The Assyrian army under Sennacherib only took them, and then, upon the defeat of that army, they returned undamaged to the right owners; but the Chaldean army demolished them, and by carrying away the inhabitants left them to go to decay of themselves; for, if less judgments prevail not to humble and reform men, God will send greater. Yet these desolations shall not be perpetual. God will raise up the wastes and decayed places thereof; for he will not contend for ever. The city of strangers, when it is ruined, shall never be built (Isa 25:2), but the city of God's own children is but discontinued for a time. (2.) It is here supposed that the temple too should be destroyed, and lie for a time rased to the foundations; but it is promised that the foundation of it shall again be laid, and no doubt built upon. As the desolation of the sanctuary was to all the pious Jews the most mournful part of the destruction, so the restoration and re-establishment of it would be the most joyful part of the deliverance. What joy can they have in the rebuilding of Jerusalem if the temple there be not rebuilt? for it is that which makes it a holy city and truly beautiful. This therefore was the chief thing that the Jews had at heart and had in view in their return; therefore they would go back to Jerusalem, to build the house of the Lord God of Israel there, Ezr 1:3. (3.) It is here supposed that very great difficulties would lie in the way of this deliverance, which it would be impossible for them to wade through; but it is promised that by a divine power they shall all be removed (Isa 44:27): God saith to the deep, Be dry; so he did when he brought Israel out of Egypt, and so he will again when he brings them out of Babylon, if there be occasion. Who art thou, O great mountain? Dost thou stand in the way? Before Zerubbabel, the commander-in-chief of the returning captives, thou shalt become a plain, Zac 4:7. So, Who art thou, O great deep? Dost thou retard their passage and think to block it up? Thou shalt be dry, and thy rivers that supply thee shall be dried up. When Cyrus took Babylon by draining the river Euphrates into many channels, and so making it passable for his army, this was fulfilled. Note, Whatever obstructions lie in the way of Israel's redemption, God can remove them with a word's speaking. (4.) It is here supposed that none of the Jews themselves would be able by might and power to force their way out of Babylon but it is promised that God will raise up a stranger from afar off, that shall fairly open the way for them, and now at length he names the very man, many scores of years before he was born or thought of (Isa 44:28): That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd. Israel is his people, and the sheep of his pasture. These sheep are now in the midst of wolves, in the hands of the thief and robber; they are impounded for trespass. Now Cyrus shall be his shepherd, employed by him to release these sheep, and to take care of their return to their own green pasture again. "In this he shall perform all my pleasure, shall bring about what is purposed by me and will be highly pleasing to me." Note, [1.] The most contingent things are certain to the divine prescience. He knew who was the person, and what was his name, that should be the deliverer of his people, and, when he pleased, he could let his church know it, that, when they heard of such a name beginning to be talked of in the world, they might lift up their heads with joy, knowing that their redemption drew nigh. [2.] It is the greatest honour of the greatest men to be employed for God as instruments of his favour to his people. It was more the praise of Cyrus to be God's shepherd than to be emperor of Persia. [3.] God makes what use he pleases of men, of mighty men, of those that act with the greatest freedom; and, when they think to do as they please, he can overrule them, and make them do as he pleases. Nay, in those very things wherein they are serving themselves, and look no further than that, God is serving his own purposes by them and making them to perform all his pleasure. Rich princes shall do what poor prophets have foretold.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv21–23Remember these, O Jacob, O Israel,.... Remember these persons,…
Remember these, O Jacob, O Israel,.... Remember these persons, these idolaters before spoken of; or these things, the gross idolatries they were guilty of, and loath and abhor them, shun and avoid them, and not imitate them, and do the same things: or remember that this was formerly your case, and admire the distinguishing grace of God, in turning you from idols to serve him: for by Jacob and Israel may be meant the spiritual Israel of God, or those from among the Gentiles called by the grace of God, and incorporated into Christian churches; see Isa 44:5,
for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: and therefore should serve the Lord, and him only, and not idols, for no man can serve two masters; moreover, these were formed by the Spirit and grace of God in regeneration for his service, and therefore ought cheerfully to engage therein, and abide in it, and never serve any other:
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O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me; such as remember the Lord, and remember to serve him, he will remember, and not forget them, his love to them, his covenant with them, and the promises he has made them; he will not forget their persons, nor their service, their work and labour of love, which they have showed to his name. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it, "do not forget me"; and so the Targum paraphrases it,
"do not forget my fears;''
to fear, serve, and worship the Lord, and him only; but Aben Ezra and Kimchi observe, it should be rendered as it is by our translators.
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 vv21–23These - These things, the deep ignorance and stupidity…
These - These things, the deep ignorance and stupidity of idolaters. Forgotten - I will not forget nor forsake thee; therefore thou shalt have no need of idols.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn v22Verse 22. I have blotted out, as a thick…
Verse 22. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins - "I have made thy transgressions vanish away like a cloud, and thy sins like a vapour"] Longinus admired the sublimity of the sentiment, as well as the harmony of the numbers, in the following sentence of Demosthenes: Τουτο το ψηφισμα τον τοτε τῃ πολει τερισταντα κινδυνον παρελθειν εποιησεν ὡσπερ νεφος. "This decree made the danger then hanging over the city pass away like a cloud." Probably Isaiah alludes here to the smoke rising up from the sin-offering, dispersed speedily by the wind. and rendered invisible. He who offered his sacrifice aright was as sure that the sin for which he offered it was blotted out, as that the smoke of the sacrifice was dispersed by the wind, and was no longer discernible.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn v21Isa 44:21-23. Remember these — These things, the deep…
Isa 44:21-23. Remember these — These things, the deep ignorance and stupidity of idolaters. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten — I will not forget nor forsake thee; therefore thou shalt have no need of idols. I have blotted out as a cloud, &c. — As the sun arising disperses the clouds, and causes them to vanish and disappear, so have I, arising for thy salvation, with the light and influence of my grace, scattered and removed thy transgressions, that there is no remnant or appearance of them left: a beautiful and expressive metaphor. Return unto me — From thine idolatry, and other sinful practices. For 1 have redeemed thee — Therefore thou art mine, and obliged to return and adhere to me. Sing, O ye heavens, &c. — “The prophet here, by an elegant apostrophe, calls upon all creatures to glorify God for his singular blessing to his people in delivering them from their captivity in Babylon; which also has a further respect to the great and spiritual deliverance of mankind by the Messiah;” a mercy so transcendent, that, as he intimates, it is sufficient, were it possible, to make even the stones break forth in praises to God.
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 vv21–23Remember these - Remember these things which are now…
Remember these - Remember these things which are now said about the folly of idolatry, and the vanity of worshipping idols. The object of the argument is, to turn their attention to God, and to lead them to put their trust in him.
Thou art my servant - (See the notes at Isa 42:19; Isa 43:1).
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 v22Return from captivity, (Calmet) and from their former errors,…
Return from captivity, (Calmet) and from their former errors, Matthew xi. 26. (Haydock)
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 vv21–23Remember--"Be not like the idolaters who consider not in…
Remember--"Be not like the idolaters who consider not in their heart" (Isa 44:19).
these--things just said as to the folly of idol-worship.
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my servant--not like the idolaters, slaves to the stock of a tree (Isa 44:19). See Isa 44:1-2.
thou . . . not . . . forgotten of me--Therefore thou oughtest to "remember" Me.
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 vv21–2321. This sarcasm he turns into admonition of God’s…
21. This sarcasm he turns into admonition of God’s people. For them chiefly he has drawn the foregoing picture, and from it he turns to the contrast.
Remember these, O Jacob and Israel — Note your own condition in comparison.
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Thou art my servant — That is, one co-operating with me in establishing a kingdom of truth and salvation.
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 vv21–2321, 22. An admonition to Israel to lay these…
21, 22. An admonition to Israel to lay these truths to heart and realise its special relation to the one living and true God.
Remember these] i.e. these things (R.V.), the principles enforced in the preceding passage.
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thou shalt not be forgotten of me] The Heb. construction, a passive verb with accusative suffix, is abnormal. All the ancient versions and many commentators render “thou shalt (or wilt) not forget me”; but this is hardly defensible. The suffix must denote the indirect obj. (dative) as is sometimes the case with intransitive verbs. (See Davidson, Synt. § 73 r. 4.) For the sense, cf. ch. Isa_40:27, Isa_49:14 ff.
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 vv21–23(21) Remember these.—Better, these things—i.e., the whole argument against…
(21) Remember these.—Better, these things—i.e., the whole argument against idolatry. In contrast with the blind worshippers of idols, Israel is addressed in its ideal character as the “servant of Jehovah” with all the emphasis of iteration.
Thou shalt not be forgotten of me.—The LXX., Vulg., and some other versions take the verb as middle, thou shalt not forget, but the evidence for the passive sense preponderates, to say nothing of its greater fitness in connection with the next verse, and its bearing upon complaints like those of Isa_40:27; Isa_49:14.
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 vv21–23Vers. 21-28. ISRAEL ONCE MORE PROMISED DELIVERANCE, AND THE…
Vers. 21-28. ISRAEL ONCE MORE PROMISED DELIVERANCE, AND THE DELIVERER MENTIONED BY NAME. Israel, having been exhorted never to forget the impotency of idols (ver. 21), is promised forgiveness and deliverance (vers. 21, 22). Then, heaven and earth are called upon to join in rejoicing over the announcement (ver. 23). Finally, in a noble burst of poetry, God is represented as solemnly declaring his intention of frustrating all the false sayings of the soothsayers concerning his people, and accomplishing their restoration to their own land, and the rebuilding of their temple through the instrumentality of Cyrus (vers. 24-28).
Remember these; rather, remember these things; i.e. the futility of idols and the folly of the idol-worshippers. For thou art my servant. Therefore bound to worship me, and not the idols. (comp. Isa_41:8; vers. 1, 2) I have formed thee. (so also in Isa_43:1, Isa_43:21; vers. 2, 24) The duty of absolute unquestioning obedience seems contained in the relation of that which is formed to that which has formed it. On the other hand, it may be assumed that he who has formed a thing will have a constant care of it and regard for it that at any rate he will not "forget" it.
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 vv21–23Remember these, O Jacob and Israel
Isa_44:21-22
Remember these, O Jacob and Israel
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Gods Israel not forgotten
This verse, standing in connection with the following, is a call to Jacob and Israel to return to the Lord.
Many are the arguments used to induce them to do so.
1. Remember these idolaters, their follies, their wickednesses, their wretched and miserable condition, and forget not that you were guilty once as they are. It is well to retrace our past history, often to do it, to be reminded of what we once were in the days of our unregeneracy.
2. Miserable and sad as your present condition is, yet I know thee by-name; thou art Mine, return unto Me. Thou art still Jacob, still Israel, still My servant. Is there one who has been departing from the living God? Can anything be more touching than this call to thee? Surely it is like the look which Jesus gave Peter when he went out and wept bitterly.
3. I have formed thee, formed thee with new and spiritual workmanship, formed thee a vessel to honour, formed thee for My glory.
4. Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. Thou hast forgotten Me, the mighty cost at which I redeemed thee. Thou hast forgotten the way by which I led thee in the wilderness, the miracles I wrought for thee, the manna with which I fed thee, the rock of which I made thee drink, the deliverances out of the hands of thine enemies; thou hast forgotten thy high calling, thy holy profession, thy truest happiness; but thou shalt not be forgotten of Me.
I. THE TRUE ISRAEL SOMETIMES THINK THEMSELVES FORGOTTEN OF GOD. Their utter insignificance and the deep consciousness of it lead to this. Sometimes dark and mysterious providences lead to this. Sometimes apparent delays in answers to prayer. What is the consequence? We loathe ourselves; instead of advancing we seem retrograding; instead of mounting we seem to be sinking. Here, too, sense takes too often the seat of judgment, and not only decides on what God is doing, but sometimes on God Himself; and is ready to cry out, My God hath forgotten me. There are seasons too, under a sense of unutterable vileness, when the soul responds to the solemn appeal (Isa_43:22-24), Thou hast not calledupon Me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of Me, O Israel, &c. There are times when a man seems as if he stood alone among his fellow-men, as if he were the very chief of sinners. I will mention one more case--when we have by some wilfulness in disobedience grieved the Holy Spirit.
II. THE PEOPLE OF GOD NEVER ARE FORGOTTEN BY HIM. Tender are the ties that bind us to one another; the tenderest, the closest, the most indestructible of all ties, friends, brothers, relations, parents, even a mother. It is the instance selected (Isa_49:15). There is no tie like this bywhich Jehovah binds Himself to His people. The ties that bind man to man, in their purest actings, are but the ties of human nature in its feebleness, its fickleness.
III. THE MANIFOLD PROOFS THAT GOD HAS CONDESCENDED TO GIVE, THAT HIS ISRAELS SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN. We too easily forget that the true basis of faith is the veracity of God. The believer too often acts, thinks, speaks, as if he did not believe God, though he mean not so. Were Jehovah to forget, He would violate every perfection of His nature. He sees all His in His Son; and when He forgets His Son, then and not till then will He forget His Israel. When Jesus forgets to intercede, when Jesus intercedes in vain, when God Himself changes, then will He forget. Look up then, ye Jacobs, ye Israels of God; let the past encourage you. What do thy reasonings say? What do thy humblings say? What thy upholdings in deep and heavy trouble? Thy special interpositions? Thy perseverance in the ways of God? (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
Gracious mercy:
In the midst of idolaters this chapter speaks of a people who worship, love, serve God. Here is--
I. AN INVITATION. Return unto Me. This implies previous distance, wandering, unworthiness. Return.
1. How? The sinner says, I am bound, sin holds me chained, justly. God answers, I have redeemed thee, paid thy ransom, broken thy chains.
2. To whom? Unto Me. The sinner says, I am polluted, defiled. God answers, I have blotted out thy sins. Thou hast cleansing in the precious blood.
3. In what way? Not towards Me. Many are satisfied with appearance. But unto-into My very presence--to walk, dwell, commune with Me. All trace of former guilt gone.
II. A PRIVILEGE. Thou art My servant.
1. They serve Him. He fits them for this. I have formed thee, fitted by indwelling of the Spirit, giving new tastes, desires, &c. We are not made servants by serving; we are made servants that we may serve.
2. They serve acceptably, cheerfully, continually, purely. None are Christians who do not serve. Notice the repetition in text, also Isa_44:1,
2. God dwells lovingly on it.
3. They serve in hope. Gods servants have a gracious promise--Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. Others may forget, be removed, but God never. We may be in trouble, persecution, danger, weariness, death, never forgotten.
III. A CAUTION. Remember these. Gods people rejoice, but with trembling: walk surely, but not securely (1Co_10:12). Remember these--the world, careless, backsliders, self-seekers, heathens. Remember these--
1. That you may be humbled (Tit_3:3).
2. That you may honour God before them (Mat_5:16).
3. That you may do them good (Gal_6:1). Are your sins blotted out? If so, serve God; remember these. If not, return. (Homilist.)
O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me.--
Gods remembrance of Israel
I. If we turn to some of the evidences of this statement, we may first look to the history of Israel, and to that of ourselves in a PROVIDENTIAL ASPECT.
1. As regards the Israelites in their national and personal relations.
2. But the special evidence of the text lies in the heart of Christian experience.
3. The evidence of this Divine declaration may be further shown by a reference to the works of creation.
II. Consider some of the REASONS which may be assigned for this Divine utterance.
1. One reason is to be found in the fact of mans redemption.
2. Another in the graciousness, in the love and mercy of the Divine purposes with regard to ourselves. (W. D. Horwood.)
Forget thee, I will not:
I. THE TITLE WHICH THE LORD GIVES TO HIS PEOPLE. My servant.
1. Notice what a practical title it is. It has to do with action and service; it has to do with the heart, but also with the hand, with the inner and with the outer life. There is no true Christian but the practical Christian. A servant is not always at work; but a servant is always a servant, and ever ready for work.
2. It is a personal title--Thou.
3. It is an exclusive title--My servant. These other people are servants of Baal or Ashtaroth; but thou art My servant. When a man has a servant, he expects him to serve him, and not to be in the employ of other people. Gods servants must serve God; not idols, not the world, not self, not sin, not Satan.
4. It is an honourable title. It must be so, for God uses the title in this verse twice over. Thou art My servant: I have formed thee; thou art My servant. To serve God, is truly to reign,
5. This is a title of acceptance. As God says, twice over, Thou art My servant, He means, I accept thee as My servant; I own thee as such. One reason why we are Gods servants is that He has forgiven us our trespasses (Isa_44:22).
II. THE PROMISE WHICH HE MAKES TO US. Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. Men forget us. And they turn against us. Those for whom you do the most are often those who will be most unkind, and most bitter against you. But God says, Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. What does this promise mean?
1. That God will never cease to love His servants.
2. That the Lord will never cease to think of His servants. The thoughts of God are wonderful. He can think of every individual saint as much as if there were no other saint in the universe.
III. SOME REASONS WHICH ASSURE US THAT GOD WILL NOT FORGET THOSE WHO ARE TRULY HIS SERVANTS.
1. The very best reason is that He says he will not forget us.
2. God cannot forget us, since He has made us. The former part of the verse says, Thou art My servant: I have formed thee. With His own fingers He has made us into vessels of mercy, so He cannot forget us.
3. He has blessed us; He has blessed us so much already that He cannot forget us now.
4. He has loved us so long already. Was there ever a time when the redeemed of the Lord were not written on the heart of Christ? He loved you before the first star began to dart its golden arrows through the darkness of space. Rest you then secure; love so ancient will never die out.
5. We have cost Him so much.
6. He is too good a Lord to cast us off. He is a wretch of a man who casts off an old servant simply because he is old. The Lord does not turn His old servants adrift; but says, Even to your old age, I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
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 vv21, 23Isa_44:21-22. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel, &c.
THE BLESSEDNESS AND DUTY OF GOD’S PEOPLE
Isa_44:21-22. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel, &c.
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God contrasts the happy condition of His chosen people with that of the poor blind idolaters whom He had been describing in the verses before.
I. All who have come to Christ are forgiven (Isa_44:22).
1. The completeness of their forgiveness. Shown in many ways in the Bible (H. E. I. 2332–2337).
2. It is present forgiveness. “I have.” Some say, “I hope, &c.; I don’t know, &c.; It is impossible to tell, &c.”
3. It is Divine.
(1.) Some try to blot out their own sins.
(2.) Some hope that Christ will blot out their sins. Speak to unforgiven souls.
II. All that have come to Christ are God’s servants. Two reasons are given:
1. Because redeemed.
2. Because formed by God.
III. Souls in Christ shall not be forgotten of God. His children often think He has forgotten them.
1. So it was with Moses in the land of Midian.
2. So it was with David (Psalms 77, 13, 21)
3. So it was with Hezekiah when God told him he must die (Isa_38:14). But God said, “I have heard thy prayer,” &c.
4. So shall it be with God’s ancient people (Isa_49:14-15).
5. So it is in the text. The world may forget thee—thy friends, &c. Yet “thou shalt not be forgotten of me.” The Lord cannot forget you.
IV. A redeemed soul should return unto God. The sin and misery of every natural soul is in going away from God.
1. Come into the arms of His love.
2. Come into communion with Him.
3. To the backslider. You have done worse than the world, yet He says, “Return,” &c.—R. M. M‘Cheyne: Sermons and Lectures, pp. 60–65.
GOD’S REMEMBRANCE OF ISRAEL
Isa_44:21. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me
1. This promise was addressed, literally and primarily, to the natural descendants of Jacob: a people whom Jehovah had deigned to call into special relation with Himself, and whom He had distinguished by various privileges from all other nations of the earth. But we are abundantly warranted in extending it also to the Christian Church, the spiritual Israel, of which the literal Israel was an instructive type (cf. Exo_19:5-6, and 1Pe_2:9-10). It belongs also to every individual believer in Jesus, as a lively member of that body.
2. More is intended in this declaration than is expressed. “Thou shalt not be forgotten of me;” that is, I will not overlook thy interests, or neglect thy welfare, or withhold anything that will promote thy real and permanent advantage (Isa_49:13-16).
I. Consider this promise as it applies to the ancient Jewish Church. The literal posterity of Jacob were separated from all other nations by a covenant which conferred on them peculiar privileges. But they proved themselves “a foolish people and unwise,” by the manner in which they requited His love. As a just expression of His displeasure, He had determined that they should be carried away into captivity at Babylon (Isa_42:22-25; Isa_43:27-28). But the prophetic denunciations of chastisement and desolation were coupled with assurances of fatherly regard, and with promises of ultimate deliverance. Even among this degenerate people there were some truly pious individuals who mourned over the iniquities of their countrymen and trembled at God’s word. For their support and encouragement Isaiah subjoins to the threatenings he has delivered the comfortable words of our text. To the righteous individuals of the community it gave a pledge that it should be well with them at all times and in all circumstances; and it also conveyed an assurance that in due time the collective Israel should be released from captivity, brought home again, and indulged with another period of national trial (chap. Isa_44:22; Isa_44:24; Isa_44:26-28). The accomplishment of these gracious promises in the actual return from Babylon is recorded in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Though the national independency and prosperity of the Jews suffered occasional suspension and decline, yet they were not finally scattered till the measure of their iniquities was filled up by their murder of the Messiah, and their obstinate rejection of the glorious gospel. Then wrath came upon them to the uttermost (P. D. 2063, 2080, 2082). But, low and degraded as is their present situation, God can yet lift them up. Israel is not yet totally forgotten of God. He remembers His ancient covenant with Abraham His friend. These natural branches, at present cut off and rejected, will be grafted again into their own olive-tree.
II. Consider the promise of our text as it applies to the Christian Church of the present age. God’s Church at large is not and cannot be forgotten of Him. Many have been her afflictions and persecutions, but out of them all He hath delivered her. The attacks of her enemies He has over-ruled for her ultimate increase and establishment. Many are the promises given for her encouragement. They may be arranged under four general classes:—
1. He has promised at all times to afford to His Church the means of grace, and to give His blessing with the means (Isa_30:20-21; Jer_3:15; Isa_12:3; Isa_48:17; Mat_18:20.)
2. He has promised to His Church a great increase of her internal purity, tranquillity, and glory (Isa_11:9; Isa_65:25; Isa_11:13; Isa_60:21; Zec_14:20; Isa_32:15; Isa_4:5).
3. Another class of promises relates to the external peace and victory which God has destined His Church to enjoy in the latter days (Isa_41:11). The prophetical part of the Book of Revelation is sublimely explicit in its declaration on this head.
4. A fourth class relates to the future enlargement and extension of the Church (Isa_2:2; Isa_49:6; Zec_14:9; Mal_1:11).
These promises are an ample comment on the more general and laconic declaration of our text. God is now in the very act of accomplishing these gracious engagements. The interests of the Church are safe, for they are in the hands of God. The cause which lies so near your hearts occupies a distinguished place in His. Tremble not for the ark of God (H. E. I. 1246–1251; P. D. 518).
III. Consider the import of the text in its application to individual Christians. What the Lord says of His Church at large He says to every member of it in particular. Only ascertain your right to the character of “an Israelite indeed,” and then you will also have ascertained your right to be comforted by the assurance that you shall not be forgotten of God.
1. He will not forget those circumstances in your situation which may at any time render necessary His special help and interference. Trust in Him always (H. E. I. 4049–4053).
2. He will not forget the intimate and endearing relations which He bears toward you, nor the claims which these relationships give you on His friendship. He will not forget that He is your Creator, your Redeemer, your God in covenant.
3. He will not forget “the exceeding great and precious promises” by which He is explicitly pledged to help and save you. Men often forget their promises, but God never!
4. He will not forget your prayers. They are all duly filed and registered, ready to be answered in that time, in that way, which will be most for your good and so for His glory (H. E. I. 3884–3886). What a blessed counter-action of those uneasy apprehensions as to our future lot and circumstances, which we are too prone to indulge. We may apply the same consideration as an antidote to our natural dread of dying. Many sincere Christians, though not afraid of what shall be after death, feel considerable apprehension as to the act of dying. They shrink from the prospect of dissolving agonies and parting pangs. But you have unbosomed your feelings and fears on this subject before the Throne. Your prayers will surely be answered to your soul’s comfort when your appointed time shall come (H. E. I. 1642, 1643).
5. God will not forget to confer upon you, if faithful unto death, the reward of glory. He will not forget your services in His righteous cause, your active zeal in doing His will, your patient resignation in suffering it (Heb_6:10; Mat_10:42; Gal_6:7-8; Mat_5:12; Mat_25:23; Mat_25:34-40). THEREFORE, 1Co_15:58.—Jabez Bunting, D.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 438–452.
I. THE EXPERIENCE HERE ADDRESSED. It is that of a soul in doubt of God’s goodness and faithfulness. Few, if any, of God’s people go through life without knowing something of this state of mind (cf. Isa_49:14; Psa_77:7-9).
1. We may feel thus when God is less in our thoughts than is our wont. It very often happens that we attribute to the want of thoughtfulness in a friend what is really due to nothing more nor less than our own forgetfulness of him; and so when we are tempted to think less of God, we fancy He has forgotten us.
2. We may feel thus when we are less active than is our wont in Christ’s service. Work for God keeps the sense of His presence and sympathy alive and strong. When we diminish aught of our work, or do it with less intensity of feeling, we suffer a corresponding loss of God’s presence and favour, &c.
3. When we are unusually tried and afflicted. We find it hard always to persuade ourselves this does not mean a distant, if not an angry God. It is only when sunshine returns that we are able to see love and chastening hand in hand.
4. When our prayers seem unanswered. Nothing so helps the feeling that God has forgotten us as delayed answers to prayer, &c.
5. When we lack the signs of prosperity in our work for Christ. Some natures are exceedingly sensitive on this point, and when the harvest is long coming we think ourselves forgotten, &c.
II. THE PROMISE HERE GIVEN. “O Israel,” &c. Every promise is based on the promiser. This is God’s word to His people.
1. He will not forget our persons. We are not known before God in the aggregate, but as individuals (Isa_49:16). He knew what house and street Peter was in at Joppa. He will not forget our persons.
2. He will not forget our prayers. If not what we ask, He will give us an equivalent good.
3. He will not forget His work in us.
4. He will not forget our work for Him.
Some reasons for thus speaking:
1. His nature will not allow Him to forget us.
2. Nor His promises.
3. Nor His redeeming work in Christ.
4. Nor His honour (see vol. i. p. 267).
CONCLUSION:
1. We forget God. Let this promise rebuke us.
2. When we think God forgets us, let this promise encourage us.—James Hoyle: The Study and Homiletic Monthly, vol. iv. new series, pp. 231, 232.
The bane of friendship, the canker worm of human life, is suspicion and distrust. Confidence in the character and reliance upon the attachment of those we love form principal ingredients in the cup of human happiness; if these be withdrawn, affection has no resting-place. Every one wishes for some firm object on which he may repose his confidence; a mind endued with any portion of proper sensibility feels equal pain at distrusting or being distrusted. Mutual good faith is the cement of society,—the bond which binds man to man (H. E. I. 1882–1888). A willingness to confide, where no cause for hesitation or demur can reasonably be presumed to exist, is a characteristic of a noble mind; a readiness to distrust without sufficient reason marks an uncertain and unstable character.
As suspicion is the bane of human friendship, unbelief is the destruction of religious hope. It is equally dishonourable to God and injurious to ourselves. To guard us against distrust, in regard to God’s providence and grace, is one great design of Holy Scripture. For this purpose God mercifully gives us such promises and assurances as our text.
I. WHAT THIS PROMISE SUPPOSES.
When God says to us, “Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me,” it is implied,
1. That we set a high value upon God’s gracious remembrance. The wicked deem it no sorrow to be forgotten of God; He is not in all their thoughts, and they have no wish to have any share in His. But those who are born of God attach great importance to His gracious remembrance of them; they know it secures happiness in all circumstances, victory over all enemies, support under all trials, a saving interest in all spiritual blessings (Psa_25:7; Psa_106:4, &c.)
2. That we have some apprehensions that it is not extended to us. Thus it was with Israel, and with some apparent reason. Thus it is with ourselves when the promise is very long delayed (Isa_49:14); when Providences wear a frowning aspect (Psa_31:12); when conscience is awake to the number and aggravation of our offences; when our enemies appear to triumph over us (Psa_74:10; Psa_74:22-23); when our religious state is after all doubtful; when we experience a sensible decline of consolation (Psa_77:9).
3. That God is concerned, not only for the safety, but also for the happiness of His people. He anticipates the objection, and answers it. He loves to see the harp taken down. You may be forgotten by your dearest earthly friends; many unexpected things happen (Gen_40:23; Jer_2:32; Isa_49:15), but God will never forget His people, nor leave them long under the delusion that He has forsaken them.
II. ON WHAT GROUND DOES THIS PROMISE REST?
Anxiety would be becoming if the fact were doubtful. Some anxieties concerning men are reasonable; some of the “securities” they put into our hands are worthless. But in this promise we should trust unfalteringly, for it rests—
1. On a perfection that cannot be tarnished. Remember who is the speaker; Him in whom all perfections centre as their birthplace, their residence, their home.
2. On a covenant that cannot be broken. The covenant of grace made with Christ is immutable (2Co_1:20).
3. On a relationship that cannot be destroyed. The union that subsists between Christ and believers is the great guarantee of its fulfilment: “I in them.”
Besides, we have for our encouragement unimpeachable records of the manner in which God has dealt with His other promises to His people (1Ki_8:56).
III. WHAT CORRESPONDING FEELINGS IT DEMANDS.
1. Confidence.
2. Gratitude, which manifests itself in loving remembrance of all His loving-kindness to us, and in cheerful obedience to all His commandments.—Samuel Thodey.
SIN AND MERCY
Isa_44:22. I have blotted out, &c.
There are some representations of the character of God which strike us, when we think of them, only with awe. But there are others infinitely more tender and consoling. Such are the contemplations suggested by this passage.
I. There is the thought of sin. The individuals to whom these words were originally addressed were guilty of crimes of great enormity and aggravation, crimes that had gathered themselves up until they were black and dense as a thick cloud (Isa_1:2-15). But, passing from this particular case to the general application, the substance of these terms applies to us all. “Who can say, I have made my heart clean; I am pure from sin?” Sin is everywhere (Rom_5:12). By pseudo-philosophers and benevolent idealists this doctrine is deemed unpopular and repulsive, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence This fancied exemption from the ruin of the Fall, this clinging to the unaided perfectibility of human nature, is a dangerous error, and must be confronted and exposed. “Man goeth astray even from the womb, and every imagination of the heart is only evil continually.” The gospel proceeds upon the basis of universal depravity, which is so repulsive to human pride. The Scriptures recognise only two varieties of condition. There may be the purest and most beautiful morality without godliness (Joh_5:42). The true minister of Christ must set forth the personal guilt and danger of every member of his charge. There is sin—sin as a cloud, and as a thick cloud.
II. If that were all, this would be a melancholy message; but I now come to the second thought—there is mercy. It might seem strange, and it does seem strange, that after this declaration of apostacy and of impenitence the prophet should not have gone away after pronouncing sentence of doom—gone away without leaving any hope of mercy. Premising that this method of reconciliation must provide somehow for the purity of God, and of the vindication of the honour of His throne, and that all that has come about by the atonement of Jesus, we proceed to observe—
1. That the character of God, as the God of mercy, is the great Bible theme. The whole tale of the Bible is a tale of grace. The last words of the Bible are words of grace (Rev_22:17). Grace is everywhere (Rom_5:18). This gift of grace was not known in the world until the entrance of sin. There had been many attributes of God before; but grace was, so to speak, a new idea, a new fountain struck out of the heart of the Deity. There was no room for grace in a universe where there was no room for sin; but when sin came into the world, grace came into the world. This was the first stoop of the Divinity. “God can be just, and yet,” &c., Christ died for you all.
2. Look at the sufficiency with which the salvation is invested. As aggravated as your sins have been, so abundant is the mercy of the Lord. Men do not sin and finally perish because they are appointed thereunto by an irreversible decree of God. There can be no responsibility where there is no power. There is no barrier to your own present and eternal salvation except the barrier which your own hands have piled. There is mercy for you. Search the Bible through from the beginning to the end, you find frequent, explicit, and continual declarations of mercy. If you are a sinner, not all the morbid ingenuity of human unbelief, and not all the sophistry of the old demon of the pit, can prevent you from entering, if you will, into the charter of liberty wherewith Christ waits to make His people free. You may tell your own tale if you will, I do not care. “Let the wicked,” &c. There is mercy for all, mercy for you.—W. M. Punshon, LL.D.: Penny Pulpit.
FORGIVENESS A PRESENT MERCY
Isa_44:22. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, &c.
I. THE PROPHET’S SIMILE. Our sins may well be likened unto clouds, as to,
1. Their number. Who can count the clouds which chase each other across the winter sky? And has not one of the holiest men who ever lived left upon record the humiliating confession that his sins were not less numerous (Psa_40:12).
2. Their nature. The clouds are all exhalations from the land and sea, the earthly portion of the universe, and our sins are all the produce of our corrupt and earthly nature; they all ascend out of the soil of the natural heart (Mat_15:19).
3. Their effects. The clouds shut out from us the sun’s clear and shining light and the bright blue sky, and when they greatly thicken they augur storms and tempests; so our sins, &c.
4. Their situation. The clouds are hung out in mid-heaven, high above our heads, and although it appears the simplest thing in nature to dissolve and dissipate them, for ofttimes while we look the rays of the sun are melting them away, so that the figure which we have just delighted to trace in them is, even while we gaze, changed, and loosened, and scattered, and then gone for ever, yet they are so placed that, weak and transient as they are, not all the efforts of all the men that ever dwelt upon the wide world’s surface could avail to blot one cloud out of existence. So is it with our sins. Man may punish sin, but he cannot pardon it; he may pardon the crime, that is, the portion of a transgression which affects himself, but he can never pardon the sin. No man can dissipate the smallest sin that hangs between us and our Maker. There is but one Being in the universe who can do this, “I, even I,” &c.
II. THE PROPHET’S DOCTRINE: that forgiveness is a present mercy. “I have blotted out,” &c. The idea of blotting out a cloud seems to be an allusion to that dissolving of these vapours which is continually taking place in the atmosphere, when the heat of the summer sun draws up the moisture of the cloud, and renders it completely invisible. As completely does God dissipate the sins of the believing penitent. It is as impossible to bring them forth again to judgment as it would be to reconstruct the clouds, with all their varied shapes and hues and tints which we looked upon last summer, and which never outlived the day we gazed upon them. Blessed consideration for the souls of God’s believing and pardoned people. It is the teaching of Scripture, not that God will forgive the penitent at the day of judgment, nor even in the hour of death, but in the very moment that they turn to Him. The forgiveness which He bestows is full and free, and it is bestowed at once and for ever. The Scriptures abound with instances of men who could rejoice in a present pardon (2Sa_12:13; Isa_6:7; Isa_38:17; Mat_9:2; Eph_4:32; 1Jn_2:12; Psa_32:1-2).
III. THE DIVINE ARGUMENT. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.” God’s method of dealing with His fallen and rebellious creatures is the very reverse of what we would naturally expect. The great argument which He employs to bring them back to Himself is, not what He will do for them, but what He has done for them (Rom_5:8; Rom_12:1; 2Co_5:18-21). So here, He does not encourage the penitent by telling them that if they attain to a sufficiently deep and poignant repentance He will forgive them, but by assuring them that they are already forgiven; that in the very first moment when sorrow for sin sprang up within them, He blotted out their sins. Surely this argument should prevail to turn us from our iniquities, to encourage us to accept the offers of Divine mercy, and to begin to serve God with that holy devotedness which can be inspired only by grateful love.
Lastly, if we yield to this Divine argument, and grasp firmly the prophet’s doctrine, the firmament that bends above us will speak to us evermore of the abounding grace of God. If in the clouds that pass over it we behold symbols of our many, our daily, our dark, our desperate sins, the blue vault of heaven through which they sail will speak to us still more eloquently of the Divine mercy—immeasurable in height, and length, and depth, and breadth, all infinite in love. Sinner as I am, why should I despond? why should I fear? why should I for a moment doubt? As easy that one vast cloud should shroud both hemispheres, should shut out for ever sun, moon, and stars, as that my sins, however great, however numerous, should surpass in magnitude God’s pardoning love, that abounding grace, that infinite forgiveness which is treasured up for me in Christ Jesus my Lord.—H. Blunt, M.A.: Sermons, pp. 22–39.
Sin and iniquity are represented here under the figure of clouds. True, in some respects they are not like clouds. Clouds do good service. They are reservoirs to store up the excessive moisture of the earth, and in due season to return it to the earth for refreshment and fertility (Psa_65:2.) They serve as conductors of the electric fluid from one part of heaven to another. They are sometimes welcome as screens to moderate the excessive heat of a burning sun. But sin and iniquity produce nothing but evil; no good either to man’s interest or happiness. Yet there are points of resemblance between clouds and human sin. Clouds veil the sun, and sins hide from us the face of God, and darken our view of heaven. Clouds narrow our prospect, and sin prevents us from looking clearly and cheerfully into the great future world, blinding us to everything except the lower things in the world that now is. Clouds, when they are fully charged, bring down the fury of the storm; and sin, when it is finished, brings upon the sinner the tempest of God’s righteous anger, in full and just retribution for every evil word and deed. Lastly, clouds are quite beyond our control; the power to disperse cloud, or blot out sin, rests with God alone.
1. Carefully consider this last point of likeness. God removes the clouds, and He alone. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins.” Man can make many changes and removals; in the physical world in which he lives, in the world of humanity of which he forms part. But not one sin can he blot out. God has reserved to Himself that power and and prerogative:
(1.) Because the dispensing of pardon is too precious to be entrusted either to men or angels. Not having the power of omniscience to read the heart, they might not dispense it wisely. What mistakes they might make!
(2.) All sin, whoever may be injured by it, is ultimately against God (H. E. I. 4480). Therefore all punishment is in His hands, and the dispensation of pardon is His prerogative.
2. It is a great thing we do when we ask Him to exercise it on our behalf. This appears when we consider a further point of likeness between wickedness and clouds. Clouds are used in Bible language to express a vast number (Heb_12:1; Isa_60:8). Can we deny that in this respect this figure is sadly applicable to us? How terribly all our life long—every day!—our sins have been massing themselves into thick clouds, which are only awaiting the word to come down in the storms of retribution (Psa_11:6).
3. For some God has done this great thing. To them He has said plainly, “I have blotted out,” &c. To whom has He said this? To those who have obeyed the latter part of the text: “Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.” These have found that God has provided a full and perfect redemption. Clouds, be they ever so thick, ever so fully charged with the wrath of future punishment, are blotted out: and the forgiven soul stands before God, and looks up into the cloudless sky of His love.
4. For any one whose conscience is not stone-dead, such a change as this must appear of all things most desirable and full of blessing. It is so, but it can never be yours, until you get rid of that thick cloud of unrepented, unforgiven sin which always abides between you and the Father of Mercies. How to get rid of it you know.
5. The sins which form that cloud are yours—“Thy sins, thy transgressions.” You cannot shift them from your own shoulders to some one else; they belong to you, and you only. You may shut your eyes to them: but there they are, like a heavy cloud. You can no more drive them away than you can disperse it. You may try so to colour this or that evil deed as to give it a better look; just as the thunder-cloud sometimes gets touched by a transient light, till the skirts of the terrible thing look bright with crimson and gold. But it is a terrible thing, in spite of all that fleeting brightness which does not belong to it. God looks through all the gay colouring you would lay upon your sins, and sees them as they are. They are the cause of your separation from Him now, and will be the cause of your separation from Him in eternity, if they be not blotted out while you are on this side of the grave.—Edward Baines, M.A.: Sermons, pp. 13–25.
What becomes of the believer’s sins?
1. They are forgiven (Eph_4:32; 1Jn_2:12).
2. Not to be even mentioned unto him (Eze_33:16).
3. Blotted out (“I have blotted out,” &c., and chap. Isa_43:25).
4. Covered (Psa_85:2; Psa_32:1).
5. Removed (Psa_103:12).
6. Cast into the sea (Mic_7:19).
7. Hid (Hos_13:12).
8. Behind God’s back (Isa_38:17, see vol. i. p. 438).
9. Forgotten (Isa_43:25; Heb_10:17).
Believer, ponder these precious figures. If they do not teach full, perfect, complete, and present salvation, what language can teach it?
CONCLUSION: Isa_1:18.—Bible Readings, edited by Briggs & Elliott.
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.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn v22
Isaiah
WRITING BLOTTED OUT AND MIST MELTED
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Isa 44:22.
Isaiah has often and well been called the Evangelical Prophet. Many parts of this second half of his prophecies referring to the Messiah read like history rather than prediction. But it is not only from the clearness with which the great figure of the future king of Israel stands out on his page that he deserves that title. Other thoughts belonging to the very substance of the gospel appear in him with a vividness and a frequency which well warrants its application to him. He speaks much of the characteristically Christian conceptions of sin, forgiveness, and redemption. The whole of the latter parts of this book are laden with that burden. They are gathered up in the extraordinarily pregnant and blessed words of my text, in which metaphors are blended with much disregard to oratorical propriety, in order to bring out the whole fulness of the prophet’s meaning. ‘I have blotted out’-that suggests a book. ‘I have blotted out as a cloud’-that suggests the thinning away of morning mists. The prophet blends the two thoughts together, and on that great revelation of a forgiveness granted before it has been asked, and given, not only to one penitent soul wailing out like the abased king of Israel in his deep contrition, ‘according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions,’ but promised to a whole people, is rested the great invitation, ‘Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.’
Let me try and bring out, as simply and earnestly as I can, the great teaching that is condensed into these words.
I. Observe here the penetrating glance into the very essential characteristics of all sin.
There are two words, as you see, employed in my text, ‘transgressions’ and ‘sins.’ They apply to the same kind of actions, but they look at them from different angles and points of view. They are partially synonymous, but they cover very various conceptions, and if we take note of the original significations of the two words, we get two very important and often forgotten thoughts.
For that expression rendered in my text, and rendered correctly enough -transgressions-means at bottom, ‘rebellion,’ the rising up of a disobedient will, not only against a law, but against a lawgiver. There we have a deepening of that solemn fact of a man’s wrongdoing, which brings it into immediate connection with God, and marks its foulness by reason of that connection.
Ah! brethren, it makes all the difference to a man’s notions of right and wrong, whether he stops on the surface or goes down to the depths; whether he says to himself, ‘The thing is a vice; it is wrong; it is contrary to what I ought to be’; or whether he gets down to the darker, deeper, and truer thought, and says, ‘The damnable thing about every little evil that I do is this, that in it I-poor puny I-perk myself up against God, and say to Him, “Thou wilt; wilt thou? I shall not!”‘ Sin is rebellion.
And so what becomes of the hazy distinction between great sins and little ones? An overt act of rebellion is of the same gravity, whatsoever may be its form. The man that lifts his sword against the sovereign, and the man behind him that holds his horse, are equally criminal. And when once you let in the notion that in all our actions we have to do with a Person, to whom we are bound to be obedient, then the distinction which sophisticates so many people’s consciences, and does such infinite harm in so many lives, between great and small transgressions, disappears altogether. Sin is rebellion.
Then the other word of my text is equally profound and significant. For it, literally taken, means-as the words for ‘sin’ do in other languages besides the Hebrew-missing a mark. Every wrong thing that any man does is beside the mark, at which he, by virtue of his manhood, and his very make and nature, ought to aim. It is beside the mark in another sense than that. As some one says, ‘A rogue is a roundabout fool.’ No man ever secures that, and only that, which he aims at by any departure from the straight path of imperative duty. For if he gets some vulgar and transient titillation of appetite, or satisfaction of desire, he gets along with it something that takes all the gilt off the gingerbread, and all the sweetness out of the satisfaction. So that it is always a blunder to be bad, and every arrow that is drawn by a sinful hand misses the target to which all our arrows should be pointed, and misses even the poor mark that we think we are aiming at. Take these two thoughts with you-I will not dwell on them, but I desire to lay them upon all your hearts-all evil is sin, and every sin is rebellion against God, and a blunder in regard to myself.
II. And now I come to the second point of our text, and ask you to note the permanent record which every sin leaves.
I explained in the earlier part of my remarks that we have a case here of the thing that horrifies rhetoricians, but does not matter a bit to a prophet, the blending or confusing of two metaphors. The first of them-’I have blotted out’-suggests a piece of writing, a book, or manuscript of some sort. And the plain English of what lies behind that metaphor is this solemn thought, which I would might blaze before each of us, in all our lives, that God’s calm and all-comprehensive knowledge and remembrance takes and keeps filed, and ready for reference, the whole story of our whole acts. There is a book. It is a violent metaphor, no doubt, but there is a solemn truth underlying it which we are too apt to forget. The world is groaning nowadays with two-volume memoirs of men that nobody wants to know anything more about. But every man is ever writing his autobiography with invisible but indelible ink. You have seen those old-fashioned ‘manifold writers’ in your places of business, and the construction of them is this: a flimsy sheet of tissue paper, a bit of black to be put in below it, and then another sheet on the other side; and the pen that writes on the flimsy top surface makes an impression that is carried through the black to the sheet below, and there is a duplicate which the writer keeps. You and I, upon the flimsinesses of this fleeting-sometimes, we think, futile-life, are penning what is neither flimsy nor futile, which goes through the opaque dark, and is reproduced and docketed yonder. That is what we are doing every day and every minute, writing, writing, writing our own biography. And who is going to read it? Well, God does read it now, and you will have to read it out one day, and how will you like that?
This metaphor will bear a little further expansion. Scripture tells us, and conscience tells us, what manner of manuscript it is that we are each so busy adding line upon line to. It is a ledger; it is an indictment. Our own handwriting puts down in the ledger our own debts, and we cannot deny our own handwriting when we are confronted with it. It is an indictment, and our own hand draws it, and we have to plead ‘guilty,’ or ‘not guilty,’ to it. Which, being translated into plain fact, is this-that there goes with all our deeds some sense and reality of responsibility for them, and that all our rebellions against God, and our blunders against self, be they great or small, carry with them a sense of guilt and a reality of guilt whether we have the sense of it or not. God has a judgment at this moment about every man and woman, based upon the facts of the unfinished biography which they are writing.
Mystical and awful, yet blessed and elevating, is the thought that nothing-nothing, ever dies; and that what was, is now, and always will be.
Amongst the specimens from the coal measures in a museum you will find slabs upon which the tiniest fronds of ferns that grew nobody knows how many millenniums since are preserved for ever. Our lives, when the blow of the last hammer lays them open, will, in like manner, bear the impress of the minutest filament of every deed that we have ever done.
But my metaphor will bear yet further expansion, for this autobiographical record which we are busy preparing, which is at once ledger and indictment, is to be read out one day. There is a great scene in the last book of Scripture, the whole solemn significance of which, I suppose, we shall not understand till we have learned it by experience, but the truth of which we have sufficient premonitions to assure us of, which declares that at a given time, on the confines of Eternity, the Great White Throne is to be set, and the books are to be opened, and the dead are judged ‘out of the books,’ which, the seer goes on to explain, is ‘according to their works.’ The story of Esther tells us how the sleepless monarch in the night-watches sent for the records of the kingdom and had them read to him. The King who never slumbers nor sleeps, in that dawning of heaven’s eternal morning, will have the books opened before Him, and my deeds will be read out. He and I will hear them, whether any else may hear or no. That is my second lesson.
III. The third is, that we have here suggested the darkening power of sin.
The prophet, as I said, mixes metaphors. ‘I have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions.’ He uses two words for ‘cloud’ here; both of them mean substantially the same thing, and both suggest the same idea. When cloud fills the sky it darkens the earth, and shuts out the sunshine and the blue, it closes the petals of the little flowers, it hushes the songs of the birds. Sin makes for the sinning man ‘an under-roof of doleful grey,’ which shuts out all the glories above. Put that metaphor into plain English, and it is just this, ‘Your sins have separated between you and your God, and your iniquities have hid His face from you that He will not hear.’ It is impossible for a man that has his heart all stiffened by the rebellion of his will against God’s, or all seething with unrestrained passions, or perturbed with worldly longings and desires, to enter into calm fellowship with God or to keep the thought of God clear before his mind. For we know Him, not by sense nor by reason, but by sympathy and by feeling. And whatsoever comes in to disturb a man’s purity, comes in to hinder his vision of God. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they’-and they only-’shall see God.’ Whenever from the undrained swamps of my own passions and sensualities, or from the as malarious though loftier grounds of my own self-regard, be I student or thinker, or moral man, there rise up these light mists, they will fill the sky and hide the sun. On a winter’s night you will see the Pleiades, or other bright constellations, varying in brilliancy from moment to moment as some invisible cloud-wrack floats across the heavens. So, brother, every evil thing that we do rises up and gets diffused through our atmosphere, and blots out from our vision the face of God Himself, the blessed Son.
Not only by reason of dimming and darkening my thoughts of Him is my sin rightly compared to an obscuring cloud; but the comparison also holds good because, just as the blanket of a wet mist swathing the wintry fields prevents the sunshine from falling upon them in blessing, so the accumulated effect of my evil doings and evil designings and thinkings and willings comes between me and all spiritual blessings which God can bestow, so that the very light of light, the highest blessings that He yearns to give, and we faint for want of possessing, are impossible even to His love to communicate until the cloud is swept away. So my sin darkens my soul, and separates me from the light of life.
But the metaphor carries with it, too, a suggestion of the limitations of the power of sin. For when the cloud is thickest and most obscuring it only hugs the earth, and rises but a little way Into the heavens; and far above it the blue is as blue, and the sunshine as bright, as if there were no mist or fog in the lower regions. Therefore, let us remember that, while the cloud must veil us from the light, the light is above it, and ‘every cloud that veileth love’ may some day be thinned away by the love it veils.
IV. That brings me to the last word of my text,-viz. the prophet’s teaching as to the removal of the sin.
We have to carry both the metaphors together with us here. ‘I have blotted out’-that is, as erasing from a book. ‘I have blotted out as a cloud’-that is, the thinning away of the mist. The blurred and stained page can be cancelled. Chemicals will take the ink out. ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin’; and it, passed over all that foul record, makes it pure and clean. ‘What I have written, I have written,’ said Pilate in his obstinacy. ‘What I have written, I have written,’ wails many a man in the sense of the irrevocableness of his past. Brother! be not afraid. Christ can take away all that stained record, and give you back the page ready to receive holier words.
The cloud is thinned away. What thins the cloud? As I have said, the light which the cloud obscures, shining on the upper surface of it, dissipates it layer by layer till it gets down at last to the lowermost, and then rends a gap in it, and sends the shaft of the sunbeam through on to the green earth. And that is only a highly imaginative way of saying that it is the love against which we transgress that thins away the cloud of transgression, and at last, as the placid moon, by simply shining silently on, will sweep the whole sky clear of its clouds, dissipates them all, and leaves the calm blue. God forgives. The ledger account-if I may use so grossly commercial a figure-is settled in full; the indictment is endorsed, ‘acquitted.’ He remembers the sins only to breathe into the child’s heart the assurance of pardon, and no obstacle rises by reason of forgiven transgression between the sinning man and the reconciled God.
Now, all this preaching of Isaiah’s is enlarged and confirmed, and to some extent the rationale of it is set before us in the great Gospel truth of forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ. Unless we know that truth, we may well stand amazed and questioning as to whether a righteous God, administering a rigorous universe, can ever pardon sin. And unless we know that by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, granted to our spirits, our whole nature may be remade and moulded, we might well be tempted to say, Ah! the Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the leopard his spots. But Jesus Christ can change more than skin, even the heart and spirit, the inmost depths of the nature.
Now, brother, my text speaks of this great blotting out as a past fact. It is so in the divine mind with regard to each of us, because Christ’s great work has made reconciliation and atonement for all the sins of all the world. And on the fact that it is past is based the exhortation, ‘Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.’ God does not say, ‘Come back and I will forgive’; He does not say, ‘Return and I will blot out’; but He says, ‘Return, for I have blotted out.’ Though accomplished, the forgiveness has to be appropriated by individual faith. The sins of the world have been borne, and borne away, by the Lamb of God, but your sins are not borne away unless your hand is laid on this head.
If it is, then you do not need to say, ‘What I have written is written, and it cannot be blotted out.’ But as in the old days a monk would take some manuscript upon which filthy stories about heathen gods and foolish fables were written, and erase these to write the legends of saints, or perhaps the words of the Gospels themselves; so on our hearts, which have been scribbled all over with obscenities and follies, He will write His new best name of Love, and we may be epistles of Christ, written with the Spirit of the living God.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn vv22–23Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
redeemed
Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv21, 23General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues speaking.
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Jacob, and Israel
This refers to people descended from Jacob, Israel. AT: "you descendants of Israel" (See: Metonymy and Doublet)
you will not be forgotten by me
This can be stated in active form. AT: "I will not forget you" (See: Active or Passive)
I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your rebellious deeds, and like a cloud, your sins
Both of these statements mean the same thing. God has removed their sins as quickly and easily as a wind can blow away a cloud. (See: Parallelism and Simile)
like a cloud, your sins
The verb may be supplied from the previous phrase. AT: "like a cloud, I have blotted out your sins" (See: Ellipsis)
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv21, 23 Showing that man’s heart is most inclined to idolatry,…
Showing that man’s heart is most inclined to idolatry, and therefore he warneth his people by these examples, that they should not cleave to any but to the living God, when they should be among the idolaters.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv21–23 Isa 44:21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for…
Isa 44:21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou [art] my servant: I have formed thee; thou [art] my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.
Ver. 21. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel,] i.e., Remember these abominable idolaters, and enjoy their madness: learn wisdom by their folly.
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Thou shalt not be forgotten of me.] Or, Forget me not, as some render it. Scultetus addeth that whereas many sacred sentences are written upon our walls, this ought to be written upon our hearts; O Israel, forget me not.
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 vv21–23 Remember these; either these men; or, which comes to…
Remember these; either these men; or, which comes to one, these things, the deep ignorance and stupidity of idolaters; which may be a warning to thee.
Thou shalt not be forgotten of me; I will not forget nor forsake thee; and therefore thou shalt have no need of idols. Or, as the ancient interpreters and divers others render it, do not forget me; what I am, and what I have done, and can and will do, for thee; the forgetting whereof is the ready way to idolatry.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v21 In these verses we have,
In these verses we have,
I. The duty which Jacob and Israel, now in captivity, were called to, that they might be qualified and prepared for the deliverance designed them. Our first care must be to get good by our afflictions, and then we may hope to get out of them. The duty is expressed in two words: Remember and return, as in the counsel to Ephesus, Rev 2:4, Rev 2:5. 1. "Remember these, O Jacob! Remember what thou hast been told of the folly of idolatry, and let the convictions thou art now under be ready to thee whenever thou art tempted to that sin. Remember that thou art my servant, and therefore must not serve other masters." 2. Return unto me, Isa 44:22. It is the great concern of those who have backslidden from God to hasten their return to him; and this is that which he calls them to when they are in affliction, and when he is returning to them in a way of mercy.
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II. The favours which Jacob and Israel, now in captivity, were assured of; and what is here promised to them upon their remembering and returning to God is in a spiritual sense promised to all that in like manner return to God. It is a very comfortable word, for more is implied in it than is expressed (Isa 44:21): "O Israel! thou shalt not be forgotten of me, though for the present thou seemest to be so." When we begin to remember God he will begin to remember us; nay, it is he that remembers us first. Now observe here,
1. The grounds upon which God's favourable intentions to his people were built and on which they might build their expectations from him. He will deliver them out of captivity; for, (1.) They are his servants, and therefore he has a just quarrel with those that detain them. Let my people go, that they may serve me. The servants of the King of kings are under special protection. (2.) He formed them into a people, formed them from the womb, Isa 44:24. From the first beginning of their increase into a nation they were under his particular care and government, more than any other people; their national constitution was of his framing, and his covenant with them was the charter by which they were incorporated. They are his, and he will save them. (3.) He has redeemed them formerly, has many a time redeemed them out of great distress, and he is still the same, in the same relation to them, has the same concern for them. "Therefore return unto me, for I have redeemed thee, Isa 44:22. Whither wilt thou go, but to me?" Having redeemed them, as well as formed them, he has acquired a further title to them and propriety in them, which is a good reason why they should dutifully return to him and why he will graciously return to them. The Lord has redeemed Jacob; he is about to do it (Isa 44:23); he has determined to do it; for he is the Lord their Redeemer, Isa 44:24. Note, The work of redemption which God has by his Son wrought for us encourages us to hope for all promised blessings from him. He that has redeemed us at so vast an expense will not lose his purchase. (4.) He has glorified himself in them (Isa 44:23), and therefore will do so still, Joh 12:28. It is matter of comfort to us to see God's glory interested in the deliverances of the church; for therefore he will certainly redeem Jacob, because thus he will glorify himself. And this assures us that he will perfect the redemption of his saints by Jesus Christ, because there is a day set when he will be glorified and admired in them all. (5.) He has pardoned their sins, which were the cause of their calamity and the only obstruction to their deliverance, Isa 44:22. Therefore he will break the yoke of captivity from off their necks, because he has blotted out, as a thick cloud, their transgressions. Note, [1.] Our transgressions and our sins are as a cloud, a thick cloud; they interpose between heaven and earth, and for a time suspend and intercept the correspondence between the upper and lower world (sin separates between us and God, Isa 59:2); they threaten a storm, a deluge of wrath, as thick clouds do, which God will rain upon sinners. Psa 11:6. [2.] When God pardons sin he blots out this cloud, this thick cloud, so that the intercourse with heaven is laid open again. God looks down upon the soul with favour; the soul looks up to him with pleasure. The cloud is scattered by the influence of the Sun of righteousness. It is only through Christ that sin is pardoned. When sin is pardoned, like a cloud that is scattered, it appears no more, it is quite gone. The iniquity of Jacob shall be sought for, and not found, Jer 50:20. And the comforts that flow into the soul when sin is pardoned are like the clear shining after clouds and rain.
2. The universal joy which the deliverance of God's people should bring along with it (Isa 44:23): Sing, O you heavens! This intimates, (1.) That the whole creation shall have cause for joy and rejoicing in the redemption of God's people; to that it is owing that it subsists (that it is rescued from the curse which the sin of man brought upon the ground) and that it is again put into a capacity of answering the ends of its being, and is assured that though now it groans, being burdened, it shall at last be delivered from the bondage of corruption. The greatest establishment of the world is the kingdom of God in it, Psa 96:11-13; Psa 98:7-9. (2.) That the angels shall rejoice in it, and the inhabitants of the upper world. The heavens shall sing, for the Lord has done it. And there is joy in heaven when God and man are reconciled (Luk 15:7), joy when Babylon falls, Rev 18:20. (3.) That those who lay at the greatest distance, even the inhabitants of the Gentile world, should join in these praises, as sharing in these joys. The lower parts of the earth, the forest and the trees there, shall bring in the tribute of thanksgiving for the redemption of Israel.
3. The encouragement we have to hope that though great difficulties, and such as have been thought insuperable, lie in the way of the church's deliverance, yet, when the time for it shall come, they shall all be got over with ease; for thus saith Israel's Redeemer, I am the Lord that maketh all things, did make them at first and am still making them; for providence is a continued creation. All being, power, life, emotion, and perfection, are from God. He stretches forth the heavens alone, has no help nor needs any; and the earth too he spreads abroad by himself, and by his own power. Man was not by him when he did it (Job 38:4), nor did any creature advise or assist; only his own eternal wisdom and Word was by him then as one brought up with him, Pro 8:30. His stretching out the heavens by himself denotes the boundless extent of his power. The strongest man, if he has to stretch a thing out, must get somebody or other to lend a hand; but God stretched out the vast expanse and keeps it still upon the stretch, himself, by his own power. Let not Israel be discouraged then; nothing is too hard for him to do that made the world, Psa 124:8. And, having made all things, he can make what use he pleases of all, and has it in his power to serve his own purposes by them.
4. The confusion which this would put upon the oracles of Babylon, by the confutation it would give them, Isa 44:25. God, by delivering his people out of Babylon, would frustrate the tokens of the liars, of all the lying prophets, that said the Babylonian monarchy had many ages yet to live, and pretended to ground their predictions upon some token, some sign or other, which, according to the rules of their arts, foreboded its prosperity. How mad will these conjurors grow with vexation when they see that their skill fails them, and that the contrary happens to that which they so coveted and were so confident of. Nor would it only baffle their pretended prophets, but their celebrated politicians too: He turns the wise men backward. Finding they cannot go on with their projects, they are forced to quit them; and so he makes the judges fools, and makes their knowledge foolish. Those that are made acquainted with Christ see all the knowledge they had before to be foolishness in comparison with the knowledge of him. And those that are adversaries to him will find all their counsels, like Ahitophel's, turned into foolishness, and themselves taken in their own craftiness, Co1 3:19.
5. The confirmation which this would give to the oracles of God, which the Jews had distrusted and their enemies despised: God confirms the word of his servant (Isa 44:26); he confirms it by accomplishing it in its season; and performs the counsel of the messengers whom he hath many a time sent to his people, to tell them what great blessings he had in store for them. Note, The exact fulfilling of the prophecies of scripture is a confirmation of the truth of the whole book and an incontestable evidence of its divine origin and authority.
6. The particular favours God designed for his people, that were now in captivity, Isa 44:26-28. These were foretold long before they went into captivity, that they might see reason to expect a correction, but no reason to fear a final destruction. (1.) It is here supposed that Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, should for a time lie in ruins, dispeopled and uninhabited; but it is promised that they shall be rebuilt and repeopled. When Isaiah lived, Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were full of inhabitants; but they will be emptied, burnt, and destroyed. It was then hard to believe that concerning such strong and populous cities. But the justice of God will do that; and, when that is done, it will be hard to believe that ever they will recover themselves again, and yet the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do that to. God has said to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; for, while the world stands, God will have a church in it, and therefore he will raise up those who shall say to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; for, if it be not built, it cannot be inhabited, Psa 69:35, Psa 69:36. When God's time shall have come for the building up of his church, let him alone to find both houses for his people (for they shall not lie exposed) and people for his houses, for they shall not stand empty. The cities of Judah too shall again be built. The Assyrian army under Sennacherib only took them, and then, upon the defeat of that army, they returned undamaged to the right owners; but the Chaldean army demolished them, and by carrying away the inhabitants left them to go to decay of themselves; for, if less judgments prevail not to humble and reform men, God will send greater. Yet these desolations shall not be perpetual. God will raise up the wastes and decayed places thereof; for he will not contend for ever. The city of strangers, when it is ruined, shall never be built (Isa 25:2), but the city of God's own children is but discontinued for a time. (2.) It is here supposed that the temple too should be destroyed, and lie for a time rased to the foundations; but it is promised that the foundation of it shall again be laid, and no doubt built upon. As the desolation of the sanctuary was to all the pious Jews the most mournful part of the destruction, so the restoration and re-establishment of it would be the most joyful part of the deliverance. What joy can they have in the rebuilding of Jerusalem if the temple there be not rebuilt? for it is that which makes it a holy city and truly beautiful. This therefore was the chief thing that the Jews had at heart and had in view in their return; therefore they would go back to Jerusalem, to build the house of the Lord God of Israel there, Ezr 1:3. (3.) It is here supposed that very great difficulties would lie in the way of this deliverance, which it would be impossible for them to wade through; but it is promised that by a divine power they shall all be removed (Isa 44:27): God saith to the deep, Be dry; so he did when he brought Israel out of Egypt, and so he will again when he brings them out of Babylon, if there be occasion. Who art thou, O great mountain? Dost thou stand in the way? Before Zerubbabel, the commander-in-chief of the returning captives, thou shalt become a plain, Zac 4:7. So, Who art thou, O great deep? Dost thou retard their passage and think to block it up? Thou shalt be dry, and thy rivers that supply thee shall be dried up. When Cyrus took Babylon by draining the river Euphrates into many channels, and so making it passable for his army, this was fulfilled. Note, Whatever obstructions lie in the way of Israel's redemption, God can remove them with a word's speaking. (4.) It is here supposed that none of the Jews themselves would be able by might and power to force their way out of Babylon but it is promised that God will raise up a stranger from afar off, that shall fairly open the way for them, and now at length he names the very man, many scores of years before he was born or thought of (Isa 44:28): That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd. Israel is his people, and the sheep of his pasture. These sheep are now in the midst of wolves, in the hands of the thief and robber; they are impounded for trespass. Now Cyrus shall be his shepherd, employed by him to release these sheep, and to take care of their return to their own green pasture again. "In this he shall perform all my pleasure, shall bring about what is purposed by me and will be highly pleasing to me." Note, [1.] The most contingent things are certain to the divine prescience. He knew who was the person, and what was his name, that should be the deliverer of his people, and, when he pleased, he could let his church know it, that, when they heard of such a name beginning to be talked of in the world, they might lift up their heads with joy, knowing that their redemption drew nigh. [2.] It is the greatest honour of the greatest men to be employed for God as instruments of his favour to his people. It was more the praise of Cyrus to be God's shepherd than to be emperor of Persia. [3.] God makes what use he pleases of men, of mighty men, of those that act with the greatest freedom; and, when they think to do as they please, he can overrule them, and make them do as he pleases. Nay, in those very things wherein they are serving themselves, and look no further than that, God is serving his own purposes by them and making them to perform all his pleasure. Rich princes shall do what poor prophets have foretold.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv21–23 Remember these, O Jacob, O Israel,.... Remember these persons,…
Remember these, O Jacob, O Israel,.... Remember these persons, these idolaters before spoken of; or these things, the gross idolatries they were guilty of, and loath and abhor them, shun and avoid them, and not imitate them, and do the same things: or remember that this was formerly your case, and admire the distinguishing grace of God, in turning you from idols to serve him: for by Jacob and Israel may be meant the spiritual Israel of God, or those from among the Gentiles called by the grace of God, and incorporated into Christian churches; see Isa 44:5,
for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: and therefore should serve the Lord, and him only, and not idols, for no man can serve two masters; moreover, these were formed by the Spirit and grace of God in regeneration for his service, and therefore ought cheerfully to engage therein, and abide in it, and never serve any other:
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O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me; such as remember the Lord, and remember to serve him, he will remember, and not forget them, his love to them, his covenant with them, and the promises he has made them; he will not forget their persons, nor their service, their work and labour of love, which they have showed to his name. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it, "do not forget me"; and so the Targum paraphrases it,
"do not forget my fears;''
to fear, serve, and worship the Lord, and him only; but Aben Ezra and Kimchi observe, it should be rendered as it is by our translators.
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 vv21–23 These - These things, the deep ignorance and stupidity…
These - These things, the deep ignorance and stupidity of idolaters. Forgotten - I will not forget nor forsake thee; therefore thou shalt have no need of idols.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On v22 Verse 22. I have blotted out, as a thick…
Verse 22. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins - "I have made thy transgressions vanish away like a cloud, and thy sins like a vapour"] Longinus admired the sublimity of the sentiment, as well as the harmony of the numbers, in the following sentence of Demosthenes: Τουτο το ψηφισμα τον τοτε τῃ πολει τερισταντα κινδυνον παρελθειν εποιησεν ὡσπερ νεφος. "This decree made the danger then hanging over the city pass away like a cloud." Probably Isaiah alludes here to the smoke rising up from the sin-offering, dispersed speedily by the wind. and rendered invisible. He who offered his sacrifice aright was as sure that the sin for which he offered it was blotted out, as that the smoke of the sacrifice was dispersed by the wind, and was no longer discernible.
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 v21 Isa 44:21-23. Remember these — These things, the deep…
Isa 44:21-23. Remember these — These things, the deep ignorance and stupidity of idolaters. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten — I will not forget nor forsake thee; therefore thou shalt have no need of idols. I have blotted out as a cloud, &c. — As the sun arising disperses the clouds, and causes them to vanish and disappear, so have I, arising for thy salvation, with the light and influence of my grace, scattered and removed thy transgressions, that there is no remnant or appearance of them left: a beautiful and expressive metaphor. Return unto me — From thine idolatry, and other sinful practices. For 1 have redeemed thee — Therefore thou art mine, and obliged to return and adhere to me. Sing, O ye heavens, &c. — “The prophet here, by an elegant apostrophe, calls upon all creatures to glorify God for his singular blessing to his people in delivering them from their captivity in Babylon; which also has a further respect to the great and spiritual deliverance of mankind by the Messiah;” a mercy so transcendent, that, as he intimates, it is sufficient, were it possible, to make even the stones break forth in praises to God.
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 vv21–23 Remember these - Remember these things which are now…
Remember these - Remember these things which are now said about the folly of idolatry, and the vanity of worshipping idols. The object of the argument is, to turn their attention to God, and to lead them to put their trust in him.
Thou art my servant - (See the notes at Isa 42:19; Isa 43:1).
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 v22 Return from captivity, (Calmet) and from their former errors,…
Return from captivity, (Calmet) and from their former errors, Matthew xi. 26. (Haydock)
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 vv21–23 Remember--"Be not like the idolaters who consider not in…
Remember--"Be not like the idolaters who consider not in their heart" (Isa 44:19).
these--things just said as to the folly of idol-worship.
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my servant--not like the idolaters, slaves to the stock of a tree (Isa 44:19). See Isa 44:1-2.
thou . . . not . . . forgotten of me--Therefore thou oughtest to "remember" Me.
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 vv21–23 21. This sarcasm he turns into admonition of God’s…
21. This sarcasm he turns into admonition of God’s people. For them chiefly he has drawn the foregoing picture, and from it he turns to the contrast.
Remember these, O Jacob and Israel — Note your own condition in comparison.
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Thou art my servant — That is, one co-operating with me in establishing a kingdom of truth and salvation.
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 vv21–23 21, 22. An admonition to Israel to lay these…
21, 22. An admonition to Israel to lay these truths to heart and realise its special relation to the one living and true God.
Remember these] i.e. these things (R.V.), the principles enforced in the preceding passage.
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thou shalt not be forgotten of me] The Heb. construction, a passive verb with accusative suffix, is abnormal. All the ancient versions and many commentators render “thou shalt (or wilt) not forget me”; but this is hardly defensible. The suffix must denote the indirect obj. (dative) as is sometimes the case with intransitive verbs. (See Davidson, Synt. § 73 r. 4.) For the sense, cf. ch. Isa_40:27, Isa_49:14 ff.
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 vv21–23 (21) Remember these.—Better, these things—i.e., the whole argument against…
(21) Remember these.—Better, these things—i.e., the whole argument against idolatry. In contrast with the blind worshippers of idols, Israel is addressed in its ideal character as the “servant of Jehovah” with all the emphasis of iteration.
Thou shalt not be forgotten of me.—The LXX., Vulg., and some other versions take the verb as middle, thou shalt not forget, but the evidence for the passive sense preponderates, to say nothing of its greater fitness in connection with the next verse, and its bearing upon complaints like those of Isa_40:27; Isa_49:14.
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 vv21–23 Vers. 21-28. ISRAEL ONCE MORE PROMISED DELIVERANCE, AND THE…
Vers. 21-28. ISRAEL ONCE MORE PROMISED DELIVERANCE, AND THE DELIVERER MENTIONED BY NAME. Israel, having been exhorted never to forget the impotency of idols (ver. 21), is promised forgiveness and deliverance (vers. 21, 22). Then, heaven and earth are called upon to join in rejoicing over the announcement (ver. 23). Finally, in a noble burst of poetry, God is represented as solemnly declaring his intention of frustrating all the false sayings of the soothsayers concerning his people, and accomplishing their restoration to their own land, and the rebuilding of their temple through the instrumentality of Cyrus (vers. 24-28).
Remember these; rather, remember these things; i.e. the futility of idols and the folly of the idol-worshippers. For thou art my servant. Therefore bound to worship me, and not the idols. (comp. Isa_41:8; vers. 1, 2) I have formed thee. (so also in Isa_43:1, Isa_43:21; vers. 2, 24) The duty of absolute unquestioning obedience seems contained in the relation of that which is formed to that which has formed it. On the other hand, it may be assumed that he who has formed a thing will have a constant care of it and regard for it that at any rate he will not "forget" it.
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 vv21–23 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel
Isa_44:21-22
Remember these, O Jacob and Israel
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Gods Israel not forgotten
This verse, standing in connection with the following, is a call to Jacob and Israel to return to the Lord.
Many are the arguments used to induce them to do so.
1. Remember these idolaters, their follies, their wickednesses, their wretched and miserable condition, and forget not that you were guilty once as they are. It is well to retrace our past history, often to do it, to be reminded of what we once were in the days of our unregeneracy.
2. Miserable and sad as your present condition is, yet I know thee by-name; thou art Mine, return unto Me. Thou art still Jacob, still Israel, still My servant. Is there one who has been departing from the living God? Can anything be more touching than this call to thee? Surely it is like the look which Jesus gave Peter when he went out and wept bitterly.
3. I have formed thee, formed thee with new and spiritual workmanship, formed thee a vessel to honour, formed thee for My glory.
4. Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. Thou hast forgotten Me, the mighty cost at which I redeemed thee. Thou hast forgotten the way by which I led thee in the wilderness, the miracles I wrought for thee, the manna with which I fed thee, the rock of which I made thee drink, the deliverances out of the hands of thine enemies; thou hast forgotten thy high calling, thy holy profession, thy truest happiness; but thou shalt not be forgotten of Me.
I. THE TRUE ISRAEL SOMETIMES THINK THEMSELVES FORGOTTEN OF GOD. Their utter insignificance and the deep consciousness of it lead to this. Sometimes dark and mysterious providences lead to this. Sometimes apparent delays in answers to prayer. What is the consequence? We loathe ourselves; instead of advancing we seem retrograding; instead of mounting we seem to be sinking. Here, too, sense takes too often the seat of judgment, and not only decides on what God is doing, but sometimes on God Himself; and is ready to cry out, My God hath forgotten me. There are seasons too, under a sense of unutterable vileness, when the soul responds to the solemn appeal (Isa_43:22-24), Thou hast not calledupon Me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of Me, O Israel, &c. There are times when a man seems as if he stood alone among his fellow-men, as if he were the very chief of sinners. I will mention one more case--when we have by some wilfulness in disobedience grieved the Holy Spirit.
II. THE PEOPLE OF GOD NEVER ARE FORGOTTEN BY HIM. Tender are the ties that bind us to one another; the tenderest, the closest, the most indestructible of all ties, friends, brothers, relations, parents, even a mother. It is the instance selected (Isa_49:15). There is no tie like this bywhich Jehovah binds Himself to His people. The ties that bind man to man, in their purest actings, are but the ties of human nature in its feebleness, its fickleness.
III. THE MANIFOLD PROOFS THAT GOD HAS CONDESCENDED TO GIVE, THAT HIS ISRAELS SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN. We too easily forget that the true basis of faith is the veracity of God. The believer too often acts, thinks, speaks, as if he did not believe God, though he mean not so. Were Jehovah to forget, He would violate every perfection of His nature. He sees all His in His Son; and when He forgets His Son, then and not till then will He forget His Israel. When Jesus forgets to intercede, when Jesus intercedes in vain, when God Himself changes, then will He forget. Look up then, ye Jacobs, ye Israels of God; let the past encourage you. What do thy reasonings say? What do thy humblings say? What thy upholdings in deep and heavy trouble? Thy special interpositions? Thy perseverance in the ways of God? (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
Gracious mercy:
In the midst of idolaters this chapter speaks of a people who worship, love, serve God. Here is--
I. AN INVITATION. Return unto Me. This implies previous distance, wandering, unworthiness. Return.
1. How? The sinner says, I am bound, sin holds me chained, justly. God answers, I have redeemed thee, paid thy ransom, broken thy chains.
2. To whom? Unto Me. The sinner says, I am polluted, defiled. God answers, I have blotted out thy sins. Thou hast cleansing in the precious blood.
3. In what way? Not towards Me. Many are satisfied with appearance. But unto-into My very presence--to walk, dwell, commune with Me. All trace of former guilt gone.
II. A PRIVILEGE. Thou art My servant.
1. They serve Him. He fits them for this. I have formed thee, fitted by indwelling of the Spirit, giving new tastes, desires, &c. We are not made servants by serving; we are made servants that we may serve.
2. They serve acceptably, cheerfully, continually, purely. None are Christians who do not serve. Notice the repetition in text, also Isa_44:1,
2. God dwells lovingly on it.
3. They serve in hope. Gods servants have a gracious promise--Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. Others may forget, be removed, but God never. We may be in trouble, persecution, danger, weariness, death, never forgotten.
III. A CAUTION. Remember these. Gods people rejoice, but with trembling: walk surely, but not securely (1Co_10:12). Remember these--the world, careless, backsliders, self-seekers, heathens. Remember these--
1. That you may be humbled (Tit_3:3).
2. That you may honour God before them (Mat_5:16).
3. That you may do them good (Gal_6:1). Are your sins blotted out? If so, serve God; remember these. If not, return. (Homilist.)
O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me.--
Gods remembrance of Israel
I. If we turn to some of the evidences of this statement, we may first look to the history of Israel, and to that of ourselves in a PROVIDENTIAL ASPECT.
1. As regards the Israelites in their national and personal relations.
2. But the special evidence of the text lies in the heart of Christian experience.
3. The evidence of this Divine declaration may be further shown by a reference to the works of creation.
II. Consider some of the REASONS which may be assigned for this Divine utterance.
1. One reason is to be found in the fact of mans redemption.
2. Another in the graciousness, in the love and mercy of the Divine purposes with regard to ourselves. (W. D. Horwood.)
Forget thee, I will not:
I. THE TITLE WHICH THE LORD GIVES TO HIS PEOPLE. My servant.
1. Notice what a practical title it is. It has to do with action and service; it has to do with the heart, but also with the hand, with the inner and with the outer life. There is no true Christian but the practical Christian. A servant is not always at work; but a servant is always a servant, and ever ready for work.
2. It is a personal title--Thou.
3. It is an exclusive title--My servant. These other people are servants of Baal or Ashtaroth; but thou art My servant. When a man has a servant, he expects him to serve him, and not to be in the employ of other people. Gods servants must serve God; not idols, not the world, not self, not sin, not Satan.
4. It is an honourable title. It must be so, for God uses the title in this verse twice over. Thou art My servant: I have formed thee; thou art My servant. To serve God, is truly to reign,
5. This is a title of acceptance. As God says, twice over, Thou art My servant, He means, I accept thee as My servant; I own thee as such. One reason why we are Gods servants is that He has forgiven us our trespasses (Isa_44:22).
II. THE PROMISE WHICH HE MAKES TO US. Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. Men forget us. And they turn against us. Those for whom you do the most are often those who will be most unkind, and most bitter against you. But God says, Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. What does this promise mean?
1. That God will never cease to love His servants.
2. That the Lord will never cease to think of His servants. The thoughts of God are wonderful. He can think of every individual saint as much as if there were no other saint in the universe.
III. SOME REASONS WHICH ASSURE US THAT GOD WILL NOT FORGET THOSE WHO ARE TRULY HIS SERVANTS.
1. The very best reason is that He says he will not forget us.
2. God cannot forget us, since He has made us. The former part of the verse says, Thou art My servant: I have formed thee. With His own fingers He has made us into vessels of mercy, so He cannot forget us.
3. He has blessed us; He has blessed us so much already that He cannot forget us now.
4. He has loved us so long already. Was there ever a time when the redeemed of the Lord were not written on the heart of Christ? He loved you before the first star began to dart its golden arrows through the darkness of space. Rest you then secure; love so ancient will never die out.
5. We have cost Him so much.
6. He is too good a Lord to cast us off. He is a wretch of a man who casts off an old servant simply because he is old. The Lord does not turn His old servants adrift; but says, Even to your old age, I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
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 vv21, 23 Isa_44:21-22. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel, &c.
THE BLESSEDNESS AND DUTY OF GOD’S PEOPLE
Isa_44:21-22. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel, &c.
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God contrasts the happy condition of His chosen people with that of the poor blind idolaters whom He had been describing in the verses before.
I. All who have come to Christ are forgiven (Isa_44:22).
1. The completeness of their forgiveness. Shown in many ways in the Bible (H. E. I. 2332–2337).
2. It is present forgiveness. “I have.” Some say, “I hope, &c.; I don’t know, &c.; It is impossible to tell, &c.”
3. It is Divine.
(1.) Some try to blot out their own sins.
(2.) Some hope that Christ will blot out their sins. Speak to unforgiven souls.
II. All that have come to Christ are God’s servants. Two reasons are given:
1. Because redeemed.
2. Because formed by God.
III. Souls in Christ shall not be forgotten of God. His children often think He has forgotten them.
1. So it was with Moses in the land of Midian.
2. So it was with David (Psalms 77, 13, 21)
3. So it was with Hezekiah when God told him he must die (Isa_38:14). But God said, “I have heard thy prayer,” &c.
4. So shall it be with God’s ancient people (Isa_49:14-15).
5. So it is in the text. The world may forget thee—thy friends, &c. Yet “thou shalt not be forgotten of me.” The Lord cannot forget you.
IV. A redeemed soul should return unto God. The sin and misery of every natural soul is in going away from God.
1. Come into the arms of His love.
2. Come into communion with Him.
3. To the backslider. You have done worse than the world, yet He says, “Return,” &c.—R. M. M‘Cheyne: Sermons and Lectures, pp. 60–65.
GOD’S REMEMBRANCE OF ISRAEL
Isa_44:21. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me
1. This promise was addressed, literally and primarily, to the natural descendants of Jacob: a people whom Jehovah had deigned to call into special relation with Himself, and whom He had distinguished by various privileges from all other nations of the earth. But we are abundantly warranted in extending it also to the Christian Church, the spiritual Israel, of which the literal Israel was an instructive type (cf. Exo_19:5-6, and 1Pe_2:9-10). It belongs also to every individual believer in Jesus, as a lively member of that body.
2. More is intended in this declaration than is expressed. “Thou shalt not be forgotten of me;” that is, I will not overlook thy interests, or neglect thy welfare, or withhold anything that will promote thy real and permanent advantage (Isa_49:13-16).
I. Consider this promise as it applies to the ancient Jewish Church. The literal posterity of Jacob were separated from all other nations by a covenant which conferred on them peculiar privileges. But they proved themselves “a foolish people and unwise,” by the manner in which they requited His love. As a just expression of His displeasure, He had determined that they should be carried away into captivity at Babylon (Isa_42:22-25; Isa_43:27-28). But the prophetic denunciations of chastisement and desolation were coupled with assurances of fatherly regard, and with promises of ultimate deliverance. Even among this degenerate people there were some truly pious individuals who mourned over the iniquities of their countrymen and trembled at God’s word. For their support and encouragement Isaiah subjoins to the threatenings he has delivered the comfortable words of our text. To the righteous individuals of the community it gave a pledge that it should be well with them at all times and in all circumstances; and it also conveyed an assurance that in due time the collective Israel should be released from captivity, brought home again, and indulged with another period of national trial (chap. Isa_44:22; Isa_44:24; Isa_44:26-28). The accomplishment of these gracious promises in the actual return from Babylon is recorded in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Though the national independency and prosperity of the Jews suffered occasional suspension and decline, yet they were not finally scattered till the measure of their iniquities was filled up by their murder of the Messiah, and their obstinate rejection of the glorious gospel. Then wrath came upon them to the uttermost (P. D. 2063, 2080, 2082). But, low and degraded as is their present situation, God can yet lift them up. Israel is not yet totally forgotten of God. He remembers His ancient covenant with Abraham His friend. These natural branches, at present cut off and rejected, will be grafted again into their own olive-tree.
II. Consider the promise of our text as it applies to the Christian Church of the present age. God’s Church at large is not and cannot be forgotten of Him. Many have been her afflictions and persecutions, but out of them all He hath delivered her. The attacks of her enemies He has over-ruled for her ultimate increase and establishment. Many are the promises given for her encouragement. They may be arranged under four general classes:—
1. He has promised at all times to afford to His Church the means of grace, and to give His blessing with the means (Isa_30:20-21; Jer_3:15; Isa_12:3; Isa_48:17; Mat_18:20.)
2. He has promised to His Church a great increase of her internal purity, tranquillity, and glory (Isa_11:9; Isa_65:25; Isa_11:13; Isa_60:21; Zec_14:20; Isa_32:15; Isa_4:5).
3. Another class of promises relates to the external peace and victory which God has destined His Church to enjoy in the latter days (Isa_41:11). The prophetical part of the Book of Revelation is sublimely explicit in its declaration on this head.
4. A fourth class relates to the future enlargement and extension of the Church (Isa_2:2; Isa_49:6; Zec_14:9; Mal_1:11).
These promises are an ample comment on the more general and laconic declaration of our text. God is now in the very act of accomplishing these gracious engagements. The interests of the Church are safe, for they are in the hands of God. The cause which lies so near your hearts occupies a distinguished place in His. Tremble not for the ark of God (H. E. I. 1246–1251; P. D. 518).
III. Consider the import of the text in its application to individual Christians. What the Lord says of His Church at large He says to every member of it in particular. Only ascertain your right to the character of “an Israelite indeed,” and then you will also have ascertained your right to be comforted by the assurance that you shall not be forgotten of God.
1. He will not forget those circumstances in your situation which may at any time render necessary His special help and interference. Trust in Him always (H. E. I. 4049–4053).
2. He will not forget the intimate and endearing relations which He bears toward you, nor the claims which these relationships give you on His friendship. He will not forget that He is your Creator, your Redeemer, your God in covenant.
3. He will not forget “the exceeding great and precious promises” by which He is explicitly pledged to help and save you. Men often forget their promises, but God never!
4. He will not forget your prayers. They are all duly filed and registered, ready to be answered in that time, in that way, which will be most for your good and so for His glory (H. E. I. 3884–3886). What a blessed counter-action of those uneasy apprehensions as to our future lot and circumstances, which we are too prone to indulge. We may apply the same consideration as an antidote to our natural dread of dying. Many sincere Christians, though not afraid of what shall be after death, feel considerable apprehension as to the act of dying. They shrink from the prospect of dissolving agonies and parting pangs. But you have unbosomed your feelings and fears on this subject before the Throne. Your prayers will surely be answered to your soul’s comfort when your appointed time shall come (H. E. I. 1642, 1643).
5. God will not forget to confer upon you, if faithful unto death, the reward of glory. He will not forget your services in His righteous cause, your active zeal in doing His will, your patient resignation in suffering it (Heb_6:10; Mat_10:42; Gal_6:7-8; Mat_5:12; Mat_25:23; Mat_25:34-40). THEREFORE, 1Co_15:58.—Jabez Bunting, D.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 438–452.
I. THE EXPERIENCE HERE ADDRESSED. It is that of a soul in doubt of God’s goodness and faithfulness. Few, if any, of God’s people go through life without knowing something of this state of mind (cf. Isa_49:14; Psa_77:7-9).
1. We may feel thus when God is less in our thoughts than is our wont. It very often happens that we attribute to the want of thoughtfulness in a friend what is really due to nothing more nor less than our own forgetfulness of him; and so when we are tempted to think less of God, we fancy He has forgotten us.
2. We may feel thus when we are less active than is our wont in Christ’s service. Work for God keeps the sense of His presence and sympathy alive and strong. When we diminish aught of our work, or do it with less intensity of feeling, we suffer a corresponding loss of God’s presence and favour, &c.
3. When we are unusually tried and afflicted. We find it hard always to persuade ourselves this does not mean a distant, if not an angry God. It is only when sunshine returns that we are able to see love and chastening hand in hand.
4. When our prayers seem unanswered. Nothing so helps the feeling that God has forgotten us as delayed answers to prayer, &c.
5. When we lack the signs of prosperity in our work for Christ. Some natures are exceedingly sensitive on this point, and when the harvest is long coming we think ourselves forgotten, &c.
II. THE PROMISE HERE GIVEN. “O Israel,” &c. Every promise is based on the promiser. This is God’s word to His people.
1. He will not forget our persons. We are not known before God in the aggregate, but as individuals (Isa_49:16). He knew what house and street Peter was in at Joppa. He will not forget our persons.
2. He will not forget our prayers. If not what we ask, He will give us an equivalent good.
3. He will not forget His work in us.
4. He will not forget our work for Him.
Some reasons for thus speaking:
1. His nature will not allow Him to forget us.
2. Nor His promises.
3. Nor His redeeming work in Christ.
4. Nor His honour (see vol. i. p. 267).
CONCLUSION:
1. We forget God. Let this promise rebuke us.
2. When we think God forgets us, let this promise encourage us.—James Hoyle: The Study and Homiletic Monthly, vol. iv. new series, pp. 231, 232.
The bane of friendship, the canker worm of human life, is suspicion and distrust. Confidence in the character and reliance upon the attachment of those we love form principal ingredients in the cup of human happiness; if these be withdrawn, affection has no resting-place. Every one wishes for some firm object on which he may repose his confidence; a mind endued with any portion of proper sensibility feels equal pain at distrusting or being distrusted. Mutual good faith is the cement of society,—the bond which binds man to man (H. E. I. 1882–1888). A willingness to confide, where no cause for hesitation or demur can reasonably be presumed to exist, is a characteristic of a noble mind; a readiness to distrust without sufficient reason marks an uncertain and unstable character.
As suspicion is the bane of human friendship, unbelief is the destruction of religious hope. It is equally dishonourable to God and injurious to ourselves. To guard us against distrust, in regard to God’s providence and grace, is one great design of Holy Scripture. For this purpose God mercifully gives us such promises and assurances as our text.
I. WHAT THIS PROMISE SUPPOSES.
When God says to us, “Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me,” it is implied,
1. That we set a high value upon God’s gracious remembrance. The wicked deem it no sorrow to be forgotten of God; He is not in all their thoughts, and they have no wish to have any share in His. But those who are born of God attach great importance to His gracious remembrance of them; they know it secures happiness in all circumstances, victory over all enemies, support under all trials, a saving interest in all spiritual blessings (Psa_25:7; Psa_106:4, &c.)
2. That we have some apprehensions that it is not extended to us. Thus it was with Israel, and with some apparent reason. Thus it is with ourselves when the promise is very long delayed (Isa_49:14); when Providences wear a frowning aspect (Psa_31:12); when conscience is awake to the number and aggravation of our offences; when our enemies appear to triumph over us (Psa_74:10; Psa_74:22-23); when our religious state is after all doubtful; when we experience a sensible decline of consolation (Psa_77:9).
3. That God is concerned, not only for the safety, but also for the happiness of His people. He anticipates the objection, and answers it. He loves to see the harp taken down. You may be forgotten by your dearest earthly friends; many unexpected things happen (Gen_40:23; Jer_2:32; Isa_49:15), but God will never forget His people, nor leave them long under the delusion that He has forsaken them.
II. ON WHAT GROUND DOES THIS PROMISE REST?
Anxiety would be becoming if the fact were doubtful. Some anxieties concerning men are reasonable; some of the “securities” they put into our hands are worthless. But in this promise we should trust unfalteringly, for it rests—
1. On a perfection that cannot be tarnished. Remember who is the speaker; Him in whom all perfections centre as their birthplace, their residence, their home.
2. On a covenant that cannot be broken. The covenant of grace made with Christ is immutable (2Co_1:20).
3. On a relationship that cannot be destroyed. The union that subsists between Christ and believers is the great guarantee of its fulfilment: “I in them.”
Besides, we have for our encouragement unimpeachable records of the manner in which God has dealt with His other promises to His people (1Ki_8:56).
III. WHAT CORRESPONDING FEELINGS IT DEMANDS.
1. Confidence.
2. Gratitude, which manifests itself in loving remembrance of all His loving-kindness to us, and in cheerful obedience to all His commandments.—Samuel Thodey.
SIN AND MERCY
Isa_44:22. I have blotted out, &c.
There are some representations of the character of God which strike us, when we think of them, only with awe. But there are others infinitely more tender and consoling. Such are the contemplations suggested by this passage.
I. There is the thought of sin. The individuals to whom these words were originally addressed were guilty of crimes of great enormity and aggravation, crimes that had gathered themselves up until they were black and dense as a thick cloud (Isa_1:2-15). But, passing from this particular case to the general application, the substance of these terms applies to us all. “Who can say, I have made my heart clean; I am pure from sin?” Sin is everywhere (Rom_5:12). By pseudo-philosophers and benevolent idealists this doctrine is deemed unpopular and repulsive, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence This fancied exemption from the ruin of the Fall, this clinging to the unaided perfectibility of human nature, is a dangerous error, and must be confronted and exposed. “Man goeth astray even from the womb, and every imagination of the heart is only evil continually.” The gospel proceeds upon the basis of universal depravity, which is so repulsive to human pride. The Scriptures recognise only two varieties of condition. There may be the purest and most beautiful morality without godliness (Joh_5:42). The true minister of Christ must set forth the personal guilt and danger of every member of his charge. There is sin—sin as a cloud, and as a thick cloud.
II. If that were all, this would be a melancholy message; but I now come to the second thought—there is mercy. It might seem strange, and it does seem strange, that after this declaration of apostacy and of impenitence the prophet should not have gone away after pronouncing sentence of doom—gone away without leaving any hope of mercy. Premising that this method of reconciliation must provide somehow for the purity of God, and of the vindication of the honour of His throne, and that all that has come about by the atonement of Jesus, we proceed to observe—
1. That the character of God, as the God of mercy, is the great Bible theme. The whole tale of the Bible is a tale of grace. The last words of the Bible are words of grace (Rev_22:17). Grace is everywhere (Rom_5:18). This gift of grace was not known in the world until the entrance of sin. There had been many attributes of God before; but grace was, so to speak, a new idea, a new fountain struck out of the heart of the Deity. There was no room for grace in a universe where there was no room for sin; but when sin came into the world, grace came into the world. This was the first stoop of the Divinity. “God can be just, and yet,” &c., Christ died for you all.
2. Look at the sufficiency with which the salvation is invested. As aggravated as your sins have been, so abundant is the mercy of the Lord. Men do not sin and finally perish because they are appointed thereunto by an irreversible decree of God. There can be no responsibility where there is no power. There is no barrier to your own present and eternal salvation except the barrier which your own hands have piled. There is mercy for you. Search the Bible through from the beginning to the end, you find frequent, explicit, and continual declarations of mercy. If you are a sinner, not all the morbid ingenuity of human unbelief, and not all the sophistry of the old demon of the pit, can prevent you from entering, if you will, into the charter of liberty wherewith Christ waits to make His people free. You may tell your own tale if you will, I do not care. “Let the wicked,” &c. There is mercy for all, mercy for you.—W. M. Punshon, LL.D.: Penny Pulpit.
FORGIVENESS A PRESENT MERCY
Isa_44:22. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, &c.
I. THE PROPHET’S SIMILE. Our sins may well be likened unto clouds, as to,
1. Their number. Who can count the clouds which chase each other across the winter sky? And has not one of the holiest men who ever lived left upon record the humiliating confession that his sins were not less numerous (Psa_40:12).
2. Their nature. The clouds are all exhalations from the land and sea, the earthly portion of the universe, and our sins are all the produce of our corrupt and earthly nature; they all ascend out of the soil of the natural heart (Mat_15:19).
3. Their effects. The clouds shut out from us the sun’s clear and shining light and the bright blue sky, and when they greatly thicken they augur storms and tempests; so our sins, &c.
4. Their situation. The clouds are hung out in mid-heaven, high above our heads, and although it appears the simplest thing in nature to dissolve and dissipate them, for ofttimes while we look the rays of the sun are melting them away, so that the figure which we have just delighted to trace in them is, even while we gaze, changed, and loosened, and scattered, and then gone for ever, yet they are so placed that, weak and transient as they are, not all the efforts of all the men that ever dwelt upon the wide world’s surface could avail to blot one cloud out of existence. So is it with our sins. Man may punish sin, but he cannot pardon it; he may pardon the crime, that is, the portion of a transgression which affects himself, but he can never pardon the sin. No man can dissipate the smallest sin that hangs between us and our Maker. There is but one Being in the universe who can do this, “I, even I,” &c.
II. THE PROPHET’S DOCTRINE: that forgiveness is a present mercy. “I have blotted out,” &c. The idea of blotting out a cloud seems to be an allusion to that dissolving of these vapours which is continually taking place in the atmosphere, when the heat of the summer sun draws up the moisture of the cloud, and renders it completely invisible. As completely does God dissipate the sins of the believing penitent. It is as impossible to bring them forth again to judgment as it would be to reconstruct the clouds, with all their varied shapes and hues and tints which we looked upon last summer, and which never outlived the day we gazed upon them. Blessed consideration for the souls of God’s believing and pardoned people. It is the teaching of Scripture, not that God will forgive the penitent at the day of judgment, nor even in the hour of death, but in the very moment that they turn to Him. The forgiveness which He bestows is full and free, and it is bestowed at once and for ever. The Scriptures abound with instances of men who could rejoice in a present pardon (2Sa_12:13; Isa_6:7; Isa_38:17; Mat_9:2; Eph_4:32; 1Jn_2:12; Psa_32:1-2).
III. THE DIVINE ARGUMENT. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.” God’s method of dealing with His fallen and rebellious creatures is the very reverse of what we would naturally expect. The great argument which He employs to bring them back to Himself is, not what He will do for them, but what He has done for them (Rom_5:8; Rom_12:1; 2Co_5:18-21). So here, He does not encourage the penitent by telling them that if they attain to a sufficiently deep and poignant repentance He will forgive them, but by assuring them that they are already forgiven; that in the very first moment when sorrow for sin sprang up within them, He blotted out their sins. Surely this argument should prevail to turn us from our iniquities, to encourage us to accept the offers of Divine mercy, and to begin to serve God with that holy devotedness which can be inspired only by grateful love.
Lastly, if we yield to this Divine argument, and grasp firmly the prophet’s doctrine, the firmament that bends above us will speak to us evermore of the abounding grace of God. If in the clouds that pass over it we behold symbols of our many, our daily, our dark, our desperate sins, the blue vault of heaven through which they sail will speak to us still more eloquently of the Divine mercy—immeasurable in height, and length, and depth, and breadth, all infinite in love. Sinner as I am, why should I despond? why should I fear? why should I for a moment doubt? As easy that one vast cloud should shroud both hemispheres, should shut out for ever sun, moon, and stars, as that my sins, however great, however numerous, should surpass in magnitude God’s pardoning love, that abounding grace, that infinite forgiveness which is treasured up for me in Christ Jesus my Lord.—H. Blunt, M.A.: Sermons, pp. 22–39.
Sin and iniquity are represented here under the figure of clouds. True, in some respects they are not like clouds. Clouds do good service. They are reservoirs to store up the excessive moisture of the earth, and in due season to return it to the earth for refreshment and fertility (Psa_65:2.) They serve as conductors of the electric fluid from one part of heaven to another. They are sometimes welcome as screens to moderate the excessive heat of a burning sun. But sin and iniquity produce nothing but evil; no good either to man’s interest or happiness. Yet there are points of resemblance between clouds and human sin. Clouds veil the sun, and sins hide from us the face of God, and darken our view of heaven. Clouds narrow our prospect, and sin prevents us from looking clearly and cheerfully into the great future world, blinding us to everything except the lower things in the world that now is. Clouds, when they are fully charged, bring down the fury of the storm; and sin, when it is finished, brings upon the sinner the tempest of God’s righteous anger, in full and just retribution for every evil word and deed. Lastly, clouds are quite beyond our control; the power to disperse cloud, or blot out sin, rests with God alone.
1. Carefully consider this last point of likeness. God removes the clouds, and He alone. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins.” Man can make many changes and removals; in the physical world in which he lives, in the world of humanity of which he forms part. But not one sin can he blot out. God has reserved to Himself that power and and prerogative:
(1.) Because the dispensing of pardon is too precious to be entrusted either to men or angels. Not having the power of omniscience to read the heart, they might not dispense it wisely. What mistakes they might make!
(2.) All sin, whoever may be injured by it, is ultimately against God (H. E. I. 4480). Therefore all punishment is in His hands, and the dispensation of pardon is His prerogative.
2. It is a great thing we do when we ask Him to exercise it on our behalf. This appears when we consider a further point of likeness between wickedness and clouds. Clouds are used in Bible language to express a vast number (Heb_12:1; Isa_60:8). Can we deny that in this respect this figure is sadly applicable to us? How terribly all our life long—every day!—our sins have been massing themselves into thick clouds, which are only awaiting the word to come down in the storms of retribution (Psa_11:6).
3. For some God has done this great thing. To them He has said plainly, “I have blotted out,” &c. To whom has He said this? To those who have obeyed the latter part of the text: “Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.” These have found that God has provided a full and perfect redemption. Clouds, be they ever so thick, ever so fully charged with the wrath of future punishment, are blotted out: and the forgiven soul stands before God, and looks up into the cloudless sky of His love.
4. For any one whose conscience is not stone-dead, such a change as this must appear of all things most desirable and full of blessing. It is so, but it can never be yours, until you get rid of that thick cloud of unrepented, unforgiven sin which always abides between you and the Father of Mercies. How to get rid of it you know.
5. The sins which form that cloud are yours—“Thy sins, thy transgressions.” You cannot shift them from your own shoulders to some one else; they belong to you, and you only. You may shut your eyes to them: but there they are, like a heavy cloud. You can no more drive them away than you can disperse it. You may try so to colour this or that evil deed as to give it a better look; just as the thunder-cloud sometimes gets touched by a transient light, till the skirts of the terrible thing look bright with crimson and gold. But it is a terrible thing, in spite of all that fleeting brightness which does not belong to it. God looks through all the gay colouring you would lay upon your sins, and sees them as they are. They are the cause of your separation from Him now, and will be the cause of your separation from Him in eternity, if they be not blotted out while you are on this side of the grave.—Edward Baines, M.A.: Sermons, pp. 13–25.
What becomes of the believer’s sins?
1. They are forgiven (Eph_4:32; 1Jn_2:12).
2. Not to be even mentioned unto him (Eze_33:16).
3. Blotted out (“I have blotted out,” &c., and chap. Isa_43:25).
4. Covered (Psa_85:2; Psa_32:1).
5. Removed (Psa_103:12).
6. Cast into the sea (Mic_7:19).
7. Hid (Hos_13:12).
8. Behind God’s back (Isa_38:17, see vol. i. p. 438).
9. Forgotten (Isa_43:25; Heb_10:17).
Believer, ponder these precious figures. If they do not teach full, perfect, complete, and present salvation, what language can teach it?
CONCLUSION: Isa_1:18.—Bible Readings, edited by Briggs & Elliott.
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.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v22
Isaiah
WRITING BLOTTED OUT AND MIST MELTED
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Isa 44:22.
Isaiah has often and well been called the Evangelical Prophet. Many parts of this second half of his prophecies referring to the Messiah read like history rather than prediction. But it is not only from the clearness with which the great figure of the future king of Israel stands out on his page that he deserves that title. Other thoughts belonging to the very substance of the gospel appear in him with a vividness and a frequency which well warrants its application to him. He speaks much of the characteristically Christian conceptions of sin, forgiveness, and redemption. The whole of the latter parts of this book are laden with that burden. They are gathered up in the extraordinarily pregnant and blessed words of my text, in which metaphors are blended with much disregard to oratorical propriety, in order to bring out the whole fulness of the prophet’s meaning. ‘I have blotted out’-that suggests a book. ‘I have blotted out as a cloud’-that suggests the thinning away of morning mists. The prophet blends the two thoughts together, and on that great revelation of a forgiveness granted before it has been asked, and given, not only to one penitent soul wailing out like the abased king of Israel in his deep contrition, ‘according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions,’ but promised to a whole people, is rested the great invitation, ‘Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.’
Let me try and bring out, as simply and earnestly as I can, the great teaching that is condensed into these words.
I. Observe here the penetrating glance into the very essential characteristics of all sin.
There are two words, as you see, employed in my text, ‘transgressions’ and ‘sins.’ They apply to the same kind of actions, but they look at them from different angles and points of view. They are partially synonymous, but they cover very various conceptions, and if we take note of the original significations of the two words, we get two very important and often forgotten thoughts.
For that expression rendered in my text, and rendered correctly enough -transgressions-means at bottom, ‘rebellion,’ the rising up of a disobedient will, not only against a law, but against a lawgiver. There we have a deepening of that solemn fact of a man’s wrongdoing, which brings it into immediate connection with God, and marks its foulness by reason of that connection.
Ah! brethren, it makes all the difference to a man’s notions of right and wrong, whether he stops on the surface or goes down to the depths; whether he says to himself, ‘The thing is a vice; it is wrong; it is contrary to what I ought to be’; or whether he gets down to the darker, deeper, and truer thought, and says, ‘The damnable thing about every little evil that I do is this, that in it I-poor puny I-perk myself up against God, and say to Him, “Thou wilt; wilt thou? I shall not!”‘ Sin is rebellion.
And so what becomes of the hazy distinction between great sins and little ones? An overt act of rebellion is of the same gravity, whatsoever may be its form. The man that lifts his sword against the sovereign, and the man behind him that holds his horse, are equally criminal. And when once you let in the notion that in all our actions we have to do with a Person, to whom we are bound to be obedient, then the distinction which sophisticates so many people’s consciences, and does such infinite harm in so many lives, between great and small transgressions, disappears altogether. Sin is rebellion.
Then the other word of my text is equally profound and significant. For it, literally taken, means-as the words for ‘sin’ do in other languages besides the Hebrew-missing a mark. Every wrong thing that any man does is beside the mark, at which he, by virtue of his manhood, and his very make and nature, ought to aim. It is beside the mark in another sense than that. As some one says, ‘A rogue is a roundabout fool.’ No man ever secures that, and only that, which he aims at by any departure from the straight path of imperative duty. For if he gets some vulgar and transient titillation of appetite, or satisfaction of desire, he gets along with it something that takes all the gilt off the gingerbread, and all the sweetness out of the satisfaction. So that it is always a blunder to be bad, and every arrow that is drawn by a sinful hand misses the target to which all our arrows should be pointed, and misses even the poor mark that we think we are aiming at. Take these two thoughts with you-I will not dwell on them, but I desire to lay them upon all your hearts-all evil is sin, and every sin is rebellion against God, and a blunder in regard to myself.
II. And now I come to the second point of our text, and ask you to note the permanent record which every sin leaves.
I explained in the earlier part of my remarks that we have a case here of the thing that horrifies rhetoricians, but does not matter a bit to a prophet, the blending or confusing of two metaphors. The first of them-’I have blotted out’-suggests a piece of writing, a book, or manuscript of some sort. And the plain English of what lies behind that metaphor is this solemn thought, which I would might blaze before each of us, in all our lives, that God’s calm and all-comprehensive knowledge and remembrance takes and keeps filed, and ready for reference, the whole story of our whole acts. There is a book. It is a violent metaphor, no doubt, but there is a solemn truth underlying it which we are too apt to forget. The world is groaning nowadays with two-volume memoirs of men that nobody wants to know anything more about. But every man is ever writing his autobiography with invisible but indelible ink. You have seen those old-fashioned ‘manifold writers’ in your places of business, and the construction of them is this: a flimsy sheet of tissue paper, a bit of black to be put in below it, and then another sheet on the other side; and the pen that writes on the flimsy top surface makes an impression that is carried through the black to the sheet below, and there is a duplicate which the writer keeps. You and I, upon the flimsinesses of this fleeting-sometimes, we think, futile-life, are penning what is neither flimsy nor futile, which goes through the opaque dark, and is reproduced and docketed yonder. That is what we are doing every day and every minute, writing, writing, writing our own biography. And who is going to read it? Well, God does read it now, and you will have to read it out one day, and how will you like that?
This metaphor will bear a little further expansion. Scripture tells us, and conscience tells us, what manner of manuscript it is that we are each so busy adding line upon line to. It is a ledger; it is an indictment. Our own handwriting puts down in the ledger our own debts, and we cannot deny our own handwriting when we are confronted with it. It is an indictment, and our own hand draws it, and we have to plead ‘guilty,’ or ‘not guilty,’ to it. Which, being translated into plain fact, is this-that there goes with all our deeds some sense and reality of responsibility for them, and that all our rebellions against God, and our blunders against self, be they great or small, carry with them a sense of guilt and a reality of guilt whether we have the sense of it or not. God has a judgment at this moment about every man and woman, based upon the facts of the unfinished biography which they are writing.
Mystical and awful, yet blessed and elevating, is the thought that nothing-nothing, ever dies; and that what was, is now, and always will be.
Amongst the specimens from the coal measures in a museum you will find slabs upon which the tiniest fronds of ferns that grew nobody knows how many millenniums since are preserved for ever. Our lives, when the blow of the last hammer lays them open, will, in like manner, bear the impress of the minutest filament of every deed that we have ever done.
But my metaphor will bear yet further expansion, for this autobiographical record which we are busy preparing, which is at once ledger and indictment, is to be read out one day. There is a great scene in the last book of Scripture, the whole solemn significance of which, I suppose, we shall not understand till we have learned it by experience, but the truth of which we have sufficient premonitions to assure us of, which declares that at a given time, on the confines of Eternity, the Great White Throne is to be set, and the books are to be opened, and the dead are judged ‘out of the books,’ which, the seer goes on to explain, is ‘according to their works.’ The story of Esther tells us how the sleepless monarch in the night-watches sent for the records of the kingdom and had them read to him. The King who never slumbers nor sleeps, in that dawning of heaven’s eternal morning, will have the books opened before Him, and my deeds will be read out. He and I will hear them, whether any else may hear or no. That is my second lesson.
III. The third is, that we have here suggested the darkening power of sin.
The prophet, as I said, mixes metaphors. ‘I have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions.’ He uses two words for ‘cloud’ here; both of them mean substantially the same thing, and both suggest the same idea. When cloud fills the sky it darkens the earth, and shuts out the sunshine and the blue, it closes the petals of the little flowers, it hushes the songs of the birds. Sin makes for the sinning man ‘an under-roof of doleful grey,’ which shuts out all the glories above. Put that metaphor into plain English, and it is just this, ‘Your sins have separated between you and your God, and your iniquities have hid His face from you that He will not hear.’ It is impossible for a man that has his heart all stiffened by the rebellion of his will against God’s, or all seething with unrestrained passions, or perturbed with worldly longings and desires, to enter into calm fellowship with God or to keep the thought of God clear before his mind. For we know Him, not by sense nor by reason, but by sympathy and by feeling. And whatsoever comes in to disturb a man’s purity, comes in to hinder his vision of God. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they’-and they only-’shall see God.’ Whenever from the undrained swamps of my own passions and sensualities, or from the as malarious though loftier grounds of my own self-regard, be I student or thinker, or moral man, there rise up these light mists, they will fill the sky and hide the sun. On a winter’s night you will see the Pleiades, or other bright constellations, varying in brilliancy from moment to moment as some invisible cloud-wrack floats across the heavens. So, brother, every evil thing that we do rises up and gets diffused through our atmosphere, and blots out from our vision the face of God Himself, the blessed Son.
Not only by reason of dimming and darkening my thoughts of Him is my sin rightly compared to an obscuring cloud; but the comparison also holds good because, just as the blanket of a wet mist swathing the wintry fields prevents the sunshine from falling upon them in blessing, so the accumulated effect of my evil doings and evil designings and thinkings and willings comes between me and all spiritual blessings which God can bestow, so that the very light of light, the highest blessings that He yearns to give, and we faint for want of possessing, are impossible even to His love to communicate until the cloud is swept away. So my sin darkens my soul, and separates me from the light of life.
But the metaphor carries with it, too, a suggestion of the limitations of the power of sin. For when the cloud is thickest and most obscuring it only hugs the earth, and rises but a little way Into the heavens; and far above it the blue is as blue, and the sunshine as bright, as if there were no mist or fog in the lower regions. Therefore, let us remember that, while the cloud must veil us from the light, the light is above it, and ‘every cloud that veileth love’ may some day be thinned away by the love it veils.
IV. That brings me to the last word of my text,-viz. the prophet’s teaching as to the removal of the sin.
We have to carry both the metaphors together with us here. ‘I have blotted out’-that is, as erasing from a book. ‘I have blotted out as a cloud’-that is, the thinning away of the mist. The blurred and stained page can be cancelled. Chemicals will take the ink out. ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin’; and it, passed over all that foul record, makes it pure and clean. ‘What I have written, I have written,’ said Pilate in his obstinacy. ‘What I have written, I have written,’ wails many a man in the sense of the irrevocableness of his past. Brother! be not afraid. Christ can take away all that stained record, and give you back the page ready to receive holier words.
The cloud is thinned away. What thins the cloud? As I have said, the light which the cloud obscures, shining on the upper surface of it, dissipates it layer by layer till it gets down at last to the lowermost, and then rends a gap in it, and sends the shaft of the sunbeam through on to the green earth. And that is only a highly imaginative way of saying that it is the love against which we transgress that thins away the cloud of transgression, and at last, as the placid moon, by simply shining silently on, will sweep the whole sky clear of its clouds, dissipates them all, and leaves the calm blue. God forgives. The ledger account-if I may use so grossly commercial a figure-is settled in full; the indictment is endorsed, ‘acquitted.’ He remembers the sins only to breathe into the child’s heart the assurance of pardon, and no obstacle rises by reason of forgiven transgression between the sinning man and the reconciled God.
Now, all this preaching of Isaiah’s is enlarged and confirmed, and to some extent the rationale of it is set before us in the great Gospel truth of forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ. Unless we know that truth, we may well stand amazed and questioning as to whether a righteous God, administering a rigorous universe, can ever pardon sin. And unless we know that by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, granted to our spirits, our whole nature may be remade and moulded, we might well be tempted to say, Ah! the Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the leopard his spots. But Jesus Christ can change more than skin, even the heart and spirit, the inmost depths of the nature.
Now, brother, my text speaks of this great blotting out as a past fact. It is so in the divine mind with regard to each of us, because Christ’s great work has made reconciliation and atonement for all the sins of all the world. And on the fact that it is past is based the exhortation, ‘Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.’ God does not say, ‘Come back and I will forgive’; He does not say, ‘Return and I will blot out’; but He says, ‘Return, for I have blotted out.’ Though accomplished, the forgiveness has to be appropriated by individual faith. The sins of the world have been borne, and borne away, by the Lamb of God, but your sins are not borne away unless your hand is laid on this head.
If it is, then you do not need to say, ‘What I have written is written, and it cannot be blotted out.’ But as in the old days a monk would take some manuscript upon which filthy stories about heathen gods and foolish fables were written, and erase these to write the legends of saints, or perhaps the words of the Gospels themselves; so on our hearts, which have been scribbled all over with obscenities and follies, He will write His new best name of Love, and we may be epistles of Christ, written with the Spirit of the living God.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv22–23 Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
redeemed
Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv21, 23 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues speaking.
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Jacob, and Israel
This refers to people descended from Jacob, Israel. AT: "you descendants of Israel" (See: Metonymy and Doublet)
you will not be forgotten by me
This can be stated in active form. AT: "I will not forget you" (See: Active or Passive)
I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your rebellious deeds, and like a cloud, your sins
Both of these statements mean the same thing. God has removed their sins as quickly and easily as a wind can blow away a cloud. (See: Parallelism and Simile)
like a cloud, your sins
The verb may be supplied from the previous phrase. AT: "like a cloud, I have blotted out your sins" (See: Ellipsis)
translationWords
Jacob
servant
blot out
rebel
works
sin
redeem
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 vv21, 23 44:21-22 The Lord promised to forgive Israel’s sins.
44:21-22 The Lord promised to forgive Israel’s sins.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.