“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.
Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples.
Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know; and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you, because of Yahweh your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Signifying, that God’s benefits cannot be bought for money.
Signifying, that God’s benefits cannot be bought for money.
By waters, wine, milk and bread, he meaneth all things necessary to the spiritual life, as these are necessary to this corporal life.
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Christ by proposing his graces and gifts to his Church, exempteth the hypocrites which are full with their imagined works, and the Epicureans, which are full with their worldly lusts, and so thirst not after these waters.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Isa 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye…
Isa 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Ver. 1. Ho, every one that thirsteth.] Sitit sitiri Dominus, saith Nazianzen, {a} the Lord even thirsteth to be thirsted after; he "seeketh such to worship him as will worship him in spirit and in truth." {Joh 4:23} Hence this present proclamation, "Ho, every one," of what nation soever, that is duly affected with the preceding discourse of Christ’s all-sufficiency to save, {Isa 53:11-12} and the church’s glory and safety. {Isa 54:11-17}
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That thirsteth.] That, being scorched and parched with the sense of sin and fear of wrath, brayeth and breatheth after true grace and sound comfort, as the hunted hind doth after the waterbrooks; {Psa 42:1-2} {See Trapp on "Psa 42:1"} {See Trapp on "Psa 42:2"} as David did after the water of the well of Bethlehem; {2Sa 23:15-16} as the Lamb of God did when roasted in the fire of his Father’s wrath, he cried aloud, Sitio, I thirst. {Joh 19:28 Psa 22:11; Psa 22:16}
Come.] Non passibus sed affectibus itur ad Christum. Repent, and believe the gospel. {Mar 1:15} Repentance is here set out by a word of activity. "Come, buy," &c. The frame of a true repenting heart is in an active coining posture, fitted for any service, when the wicked "pine away in their sin," {Eze 33:10} and so perish eternally. {Psa 9:17}
To the waters.] To Christ the fountain of living water, upon which you had turned your backs. {Jer 2:13} Ortelius telleth us that in Ireland there is a certain fountain whose water killeth all those beasts that drink thereof, but harms not the people that usually drink it. Christ also is "set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel." {Luk 2:34} His ordinances are a savour of life to some, and of death to others. {2Co 3:16}
And he that hath no money.] Or, Money’s worth. Many would come to Christ, but they would come with their cost; wherefore they run up and down to borrow money from the creatures or from the ordinances, using the means as mediators, and sharking in every bycorner for comfort; but men may be starved before they buy, if they go this way to work; for these in themselves are broken cisterns, empty granaries, and
“ Herrea formicae tendunt ad inania nunquam. ”
In the Lord Christ is all fulness, {Joh 1:16} not of plenty only, but of bounty also. To this fountain, if we bring but our empty vessels well washed, {Jer 4:14} we shall return well refreshed, and replenished with good things, when the proud self-justiciary shall be sent empty away, and shall not once taste of wisdom’s dainties {Pro 9:2-5}
Buy.] Emite, i.e., comparate et comedite, get Christ "with all your gettings"; get him, whatever else you go without; part with all you have to compass this "pearl of price." {Mat 13:44; Mat 13:46; Mat 16:24-25} This gold cannot be too dearly bought. {Rev 3:18} Heus saeculares, comparate vobis Biblia, animae pharmaca, saith Chrysostom by a like expression.
And eat.] That is, believe; hic enim edere, est credere, and this water, this wine, may be eaten also: nec enim rigat tantum sed et cibat. Christ is to his, water to cool them, wine to comfort them, milk to nourish them, bread to strengthen them; he is all that heart can wish or need require. They who have once "tasted how good the Lord is" cannot but thirst after him, and be unsatisfiable. Optima demonstratio est a sensibus. Eat therefore; it is a virtue here to be a holy glutton.
Yea, come.] Heb., And come; come and come; yea come, come, come; linger not, loiter not, frame not excuse, strain not courtesy, hang not off by a sinful bashfulness; it is good manners to fall to your meat.
Buy wine and milk.] Anything, everything that is good and comfortable, for Christ is all and in all. {b} As the worth and value of many pieces of silver is in one piece of gold, so all the petty excellencies scattered abroad in the creatures are united in Christ. Apollonius writeth, that in the court of Aeta, King of Colchis, were three fountains, which flowed, one with milk, another with wine, and a third with honey. {c} Christ is all this, and more, in one. And of believers it may better be said than Justin {d} doth of the Scythians, Lacte et melle vescuntur: nihil alienum concupiscunt, &c.; they feed upon milk and honey; they desire nothing more than what they have; vines they have none, but gods they have, as they use to glory. Nazianzen and Jerome tell us that anciently in some churches they used to give to those proselytes whom they baptized wine and milk, grounding upon this text by a mistake.
Without money and without price.] All things for nothing, gratis. This is doubled and trebled for the comfort of poor trembling consciences. Christ is "rich to all that call upon his name"; {Rom 10:12} none giveth to him; {Rom 11:35} but he to all his freely, {Isa 43:25} for the praise of his glorious grace. {Eph 1:6} It is his good pleasure to do so. {Luk 12:32} And if so, what can man, devil, or any distrustful heart, say against it?
{a} Orat. 40 in S. Baptis.
{b} παντα εν πασιν. {Col 3:11}
{c} Argonaut, lib. iii.
{d} Lib. ii.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Ho, every one; not only Jews, but Gentiles. The…
Ho, every one; not only Jews, but Gentiles. The prophet having largely discoursed of Christ, Isa 53, and of the church of Christ, Isa 54, doth here invite all persons to come to Christ, and to his church.
That thirsteth for the grace of God, and the blessings of the gospel. This thirst implies a vehement, and active, and restless desire after it, not to be satisfied with any thing short of it.
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Come ye to the waters; which are mentioned, either,
1. As the place where they were to buy the following commodities, it being usual to convey provisions to cities’ by rivers. Or rather,
2. As the commodity to be bought, the graces and comforts of God’s Spirit, which are frequently compared to waters, as Isa 12:3; 35:6,7; Joh 7:37,38, and elsewhere, and which are designed by all these metaphorical expressions of waters, wine, milk, and bread. He that hath no money; even those who are most poor in the world, and those who are most worthless and wicked, if they do but thirst, may be welcome.
Buy, i.e. procure or receive that which is freely offered to you, if you do but come for it, and are willing to take it. Thus buying is used Pro 23:23; Rev 3:18. Nor can this be understood of buying properly, because here is no price paid.
Buy wine and milk; which are synecdochically put for all sorts of provisions; which also are to be understood of spiritual and gospel blessings, as is evident from the following words.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Here, I. We are all invited to come and…
Here, I. We are all invited to come and take the benefit of that provision which the grace of God has made for poor souls in the new covenant, of that which is the heritage of the servants of the Lord (Isa 54:17), and not only their heritage hereafter, but their cup now, Isa 55:1. Observe,
1. Who are invited: Ho, every one. Not the Jews only, to whom first the word of salvation was sent, but the Gentiles, the poor and the maimed, the halt and the blind, are called to this marriage supper, whoever can be picked up out of the highways and the hedges. It intimates that in Christ there is enough for all and enough for each, that ministers are to make a general offer of life and salvation to all, that in gospel times the invitation should be more largely made than it had been and should be sent to the Gentiles, and that the gospel covenant excludes none that do not exclude themselves. The invitation is published with an Oyez - Ho, take notice of it. He that has ears to hear let him hear.
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2. What is the qualification required in those that shall be welcome - they must thirst. All shall be welcome to gospel grace upon those terms only that gospel grace be welcome to them. Those that are satisfied with the world and its enjoyments for a portion, and seek not for a happiness in the favour of God, - those that depend upon the merit of their own works for a righteousness, and see no need they have of Christ and his righteousness, - these do not thirst; they have no sense of their need, are in no pain or uneasiness about their souls, and therefore will not condescend so far as to be beholden to Christ. But those that thirst are invited to the waters, as those that labour, and are heavy-laden, are invited to Christ for rest. Note, Where God gives grace he first gives a thirsting after it; and, where he has given a thirsting after it, he will give it, Psa 81:10.
3. Whither they are invited: Come you to the waters. Come to the water-side, to the ports, and quays, and wharfs, on the navigable rivers, into which goods are imported; thither come and buy, for that is the market-place of foreign commodities; and to us they would have been for ever foreign if Christ had not brought in an everlasting righteousness. Come to Christ; for he is the fountain opened; he is the rock smitten. Come to holy ordinances, to those streams that make glad the city of our God; come to them, and though they may seem to you plain and common things, like waters, yet to those who believe in Christ the things signified will be as wine and mile, abundantly refreshing. Come to the healing waters; come to the living waters. Whoever will, let him come, and partake of the waters of life, Rev 22:17. Our Saviour referred to it, Joh 7:37. If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.
4. What they are invited to do. (1.) Come, and buy. Never did any tradesman court customers that he hoped to get by as Christ courts us to that which we only are to be gainers by. "Come and buy, and we can assure you you shall have a good bargain, which you will never repent of nor lose by. Come and buy; make it your own by an application of the grace of the gospel to yourselves; make it your own upon Christ's terms, nay, your own upon any terms, nor deliberating whether you shall agree to them." (2.) "Come, and eat; make it still more your own, as that which we eat is more our own than that which we only buy." We must buy the truth, not that we may lay it by to be looked at, but that we may feed and feast upon it, and that the spiritual life may be nourished and strengthened by it. We must buy necessary provisions for our souls, be willing to part with any thing, though ever so dear to us, so that we may but have Christ and his graces and comforts. We must part with sin, because it is an opposition to Christ, part with all opinion of our own righteousness, as standing in competition with Christ, and part with life itself, and its most necessary supports, rather than quit our interest in Christ. And, when we have bought what we need, let us not deny ourselves the comfortable use of it, but enjoy it, and eat the labour of our hands: Buy, and eat.
5. What is the provision they are invited to: "Come, and buy wine and milk, which will not only quench the thirst" (fair water would do that), "but nourish the body, and revive the spirits." The world comes short of our expectations. We promise ourselves, at least, water in it, but we are disappointed of that, as the troops of Tema, Job 6:19. But Christ outdoes our expectations. We come to the waters, and would be glad of them, but we find there wine and milk, which were the staple commodities of the tribe of Judah, and which the Shiloh of that tribe is furnished with to entertain the gathering of the people to him, Gen 49:10, Gen 49:12. His eyes shall be red with wine and his teeth white with milk. We must come to Christ, to have milk for babes, to nourish and cherish those that are but lately born again; and with him strong men shall find that which will be a cordial to them: they shall have wine to make glad their hearts. We must part with our puddle-water, nay, with our poison, that we may procure this wine and milk.
6. The free communication of this provision: Buy it without money, and without price. A strange way of buying, not only without ready money (that is common enough), but without any money, or the promise of any; yet it seems not so strange to those who have observed Christ's counsel to Laodicea, that was wretchedly poor, to come and buy, Rev 3:17, Rev 3:18. Our buying without money intimates, (1.) That the gifts offered us are invaluable and such as no price can be set upon. Wisdom is that which cannot be gotten for gold. (2.) That he who offers them has no need of us, nor of any returns we can make him. He makes us these proposals, not because he has occasion to sell, but because he has a disposition to give. (3.) That the things offered are already bought and paid for. Christ purchased them at the full value, with price, not with money, but with his own blood, Pe1 1:19. (4.) That we shall be welcome to the benefits of the promise, though we are utterly unworthy of them, and cannot make a tender of any thing that looks like a valuable consideration. We ourselves are not of any value, nor is any thing we have or can do, and we must own it, that, if Christ and heaven be ours, we may see ourselves for ever indebted to free grace.
II. We are earnestly pressed and persuaded (and O that we would be prevailed with!) to accept this invitation, and make this good bargain for ourselves.
1. That which we are persuaded to is to hearken to God and to his proposals: "Hearken diligently unto me, Isa 55:2. Not only give me the hearing, but approve of what I say, and apply it to yourselves (Isa 55:3): Incline your ear, as you do to that which you find yourselves concerned in and pleased with; bow the ear, and let the proud heart stoop to the humbling methods of the gospel; bend the ear this way, that you may hear with attention and remark; hear, and come unto me; not only come and treat with me, but comply with me, come up to my terms;" accept God's offers as very advantageous; answer his demands as very fit and reasonable.
2. The arguments used to persuade us to this are taken,
(1.) From the unspeakable wrong we do to ourselves if we neglect and refuse this invitation: "Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread, which will not yield you, no, not beggar's food, dry bread, when with me you may have wine and milk without money? Wherefore do you spend your labour and toil for that which will not be so much as dry bread to you, for it satisfies not?" See here, [1.] The vanity of the things of this world. They are not bread, not proper food for a soul; they afford no suitable nourishment or refreshment. Bread is the staff of the natural life, but it affords no support at all to the spiritual life. All the wealth and pleasure in the world will not make one meal's meat for a soul. Eternal truth and eternal good are the only food for a rational and immortal soul, the life of which consists in reconciliation and conformity to God, and in union and communion with him, which the things of the world will not at all befriend. They satisfy not; they yield not any solid comfort and content to the soul, nor enable it to say, "Now I have what I would have." Nay, they do not satisfy even the appetites of the body. The more men have the more they would have, Ecc 1:8. Haman was unsatisfied in the midst of his abundance. They flatter, but they do not fill; they please for a while, like the dream of a hungry man, who awakes and his soul is empty. They soon surfeit, but they never satisfy; they cloy a man, but do not content him, or make him truly easy. It is all vanity and vexation. [2.] The folly of the children of this world. They spend their money and labour for these uncertain unsatisfying things. Rich people live by their money, poor people by their labour; but both mistake their truest interest, while the one is trading, the other toiling, for the world, both promising themselves satisfaction and happiness in it, but both miserably disappointed. God vouchsafes compassionately to reason with them: "Wherefore do you thus act against your own interest? Why do you suffer yourselves to be thus imposed upon?" Let us reason with ourselves, and let the result of these reasonings be a holy resolution not to labour for the meat that perishes, but for that which endures to everlasting life, Joh 6:27. Let all the disappointments we meet with in the world help to drive us to Christ, and lead us to seek for satisfaction in him only. This is the way to make sure which will be made sure.
(2.) From the unspeakable kindness we do to ourselves if we accept this invitation and comply with it. [1.] hereby we secure to ourselves present pleasure and satisfaction: "If you hearken to Christ, you eat that which is good, which is both wholesome and pleasant, good in itself and good for you." God's good word and promise, a good conscience, and the comforts of God's good Spirit, are a continual feast to those that hearken diligently and obediently to Christ. Their souls shall delight themselves in fatness, that is, in the riches and most grateful delights. Here the invitation is not, "Come, and buy," lest that should discourage, but, "Come, and eat; come and entertain yourselves with that which will be abundantly pleasing; eat, O friends!" It is sad to think that men should need to be courted thus to their own bliss. [2.] Hereby we secure to ourselves lasting happiness: "Hear, and your soul shall live; you shall not only be saved from perishing eternally, but you shall be eternally blessed:" for less than that cannot be the life of an immortal soul. The words of Christ are spirit and life, life to spirits (Joh 6:33, Joh 6:63), the words of this life, Act 5:20. On what easy terms is happiness offered to us! It is but "Hear, and you shall live." [3.] The great God graciously secures all this to us: "Come to me, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, will put myself into covenant-relations and under covenant-engagements to you, and thereby settle upon you the sure mercies of David." Note, First, If we come to God to serve him, he will covenant with us to do us good and make us happy; such are his condescension to us and concern for us. Secondly, God's covenant with us is an everlasting covenant - its contrivance from everlasting, its continuance to everlasting. Thirdly, The benefits of this covenant are mercies suited to our case, who, being miserable, are the proper objects of mercy. They come from God's mercy, and are ordered every way in kindness to us. Fourthly, They are the mercies of David, such mercies as God promised to David (Psa 89:28, Psa 89:29, etc.), which are called the mercies of David his servant, and are appealed to by Solomon, Ch2 6:42. It shall be a covenant as sure as that with David, Jer 33:25, Jer 33:26. The covenant of royalty was a figure of the covenant of grace, Sa2 23:5. Or, rather, by David here we are to understand the Messiah. Covenant-mercies are all his mercies; they are purchased by him; they are promised in him; they are treasured up in his hand, and out of his hand they are dispensed to us. He is the Mediator and trustee of the covenant; to him this is applied, Act 13:34. They are the ta hosia (the word used there, and by the Septuagint here) - the holy things of David, for they are confirmed by the holiness of God (Psa 89:35) and are intended to advance holiness among men. Fifthly, They are sure mercies. The covenant, being well-ordered in all things, is sure. It is sure in the general proposal of it; God is real and sincere, serious and in earnest, in the offer of these mercies. It is sure in the particular application of it to believers; God's gifts and callings are without repentance. They are the mercies of David, and therefore sure, for in Christ the promises are all yea and amen.
III. Jesus Christ is promised for the making good of all the other promises which we are here invited to accept of, Isa 55:4. He is that David whose sure mercies all the blessings and benefits of the covenant are. "And God has given him in his purpose and promise, has constituted and appointed him, and in the fulness of time will as surely send him as if he had already come, to be all that to us which is necessary to our having the benefit of these preparations." He has given him freely; for what more free than a gift? There was nothing in us to merit such a favour, but Christ is the gift of God. We want one, 1. To attest the truth of the promises which we are invited to take the benefit of; and Christ is given for a witness that God is willing to receive us into his favour upon gospel terms, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, that we may venture our souls upon those promises with entire satisfaction. Christ is a faithful witness, we may take his word - a competent witness, for he lay in the bosom of the Father from eternity, and was perfectly apprised of the whole matter. Christ, as a prophet, testifies the will of God to the world; and to believe is to receive his testimony. 2. To assist us in closing with the invitation, and coming up to the terms of it. We know not how to find the way to the waters where we are to be supplied, but Christ is given to be a leader. We know not what to do that we may be qualified or it, and become sharers in it, but he is given for a commander, to show us what to do and enable us to do it. Much difficulty and opposition lie in our way to Christ; we have spiritual enemies to grapple with, but, to animate us for the conflict, we have a good captain, like Joshua, a leader and commander to tread our enemies under our feet and to put us in possession of the land of promise. Christ is a commander by his precept and a leader by his example; our business is to obey him and follow him.
IV. The Master of the feast being fixed, it is next to be furnished with guests, for the provision shall not be lost, nor made in vain, Isa 55:5. 1. The Gentiles shall be called to this feast, shall be invited out of the highways and the hedges: "Thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, that is, that was not formerly called and owned as thy nation, that thou didst not send prophets to as to Israel, the people whom God knew above all the families of the earth." The Gentiles shall now be favoured as they never were before; their knowing God is said to be rather their being known of God, Gal 4:9. 2. They shall come at the call: Nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee; those that had long been afar off from Christ shall be made nigh; those that had been running from him shall run to him, with the greatest speed and alacrity imaginable. There shall be a concourse of believing Gentiles to Christ, who, being lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to him. Now see the reason, (1.) Why the Gentiles will thus flock to Christ; it is because of the Lord his God, because he is the Son of God, and is declared to be so with power, because they now see his God is one with whom they have to do, and there is no coming to him as their God but by making an interest in his Son. Those that are brought to be acquainted with God, and understand how the concern lies between them and him, cannot but run to Jesus Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, and there is no coming to God but by him. (2.) Why God will bring them to him; it is because he is the Holy One of Israel, true to his promises, and he has promised to glorify him by giving him the heathen for his inheritance. When Greeks began to enquire after Christ he said, The hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified, Joh 12:22, Joh 12:23. And his being glorified in his resurrection and ascension was the great argument by which multitudes were wrought upon to run to him.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,....…
Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,.... These are the words not of the prophet, but of the Lord, as what follows throughout the chapter shows; and are directed to the Gentiles, as Aben Ezra thinks: and indeed their conversion is manifestly spoken of in it; and who, Kimchi says, after the war of Gog and Magog, shall know that the Lord reigns, and shall come and be desirous of learning his judgments and laws. The word "ho" is expressive of calling, as the Jewish commentators rightly observe; and carries in it an invitation, in which there seems to be a commiseration of the case of the persons called and it is delivered in indefinite terms, and very openly and publicly; and has in it the nature of a Gospel call or invitation, to persons described as "thirsty"; not in natural, much less in a sinful sense, but in a spiritual one; thirsting after forgiveness of sin by the blood of Christ; after justification by his righteousness; after salvation by him; after more knowledge of him, more communion with him, and more conformity to him; and after the milk of the word, and breasts of ordinances; being sensible of sin and danger, and having a spiritual appetite, and a desire after spiritual things. Such as these are persons made alive; are in distress, and sensible of it; and have desires formed in them after divine things: and these are invited and encouraged to "come to the waters"; by which are meant not Christ, though he is as "rivers of water"; and sensible sinners are directed to come to him, and that as in a starving and famishing condition, and having nothing to help themselves with; and such things are to be had of him, which like water are refreshing and reviving, as his grace, and the blessings of it; and which serve to extinguish thirst, and free from it; yet not he, nor the grace of the spirit, are intended, which is often signified by water in Scripture; but rather the ordinances of the Gospel, which are the means of conveying grace, and of refreshing and comforting distressed minds; in order to which, such may come and hear the word, come and partake of all ordinances. The allusion seems to be to such places by the waterside, where ships, laden with provisions, come and unlade; and where persons, by a public crier, are informed of it, and are called to come and buy. So water means the water side, Jdg 7:4. Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret them of the law, and the doctrines of it; and so the Targum,
"ho, everyone that would learn, let him come and learn;''
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but the Gospel, and the doctrines and ordinances of that, seem rather designed:
and he that hath no money; not in a natural, but in a spiritual sense: unconverted persons have nothing to support themselves or pay off their debts with, though they fancy they have, and that they are rich, and stand in need of nothing; but sensible souls know they have none, and that they are poor and needy; yet these are invited to come where provisions are to be had, since they are to be had at free cost:
come ye, buy and eat; come to the ordinances, partake of them freely, and feed upon the provisions therein made:
come, buy wine and milk, without money, and without price; by wine and milk are meant the Gospel and its doctrines, compared to good old generous wine, for the antiquity of them, and for their being of a reviving and refreshing nature; and to "milk", for its purity and sweetness, and for its cooling and nourishing nature, and because easy of digestion; these are to be bought, and not to be sold. Pro 23:23, but not in a proper sense; no valuable consideration can be given for them, for they are of more worth than thousands of gold and silver; nor have we anything to give to God for them, and the blessings of grace conveyed by them, which is not his own, or can be profitable to him; but in an improper sense, when something thought valuable is parted with for them, as sinful and righteous self, and even everything in life, when called for, and that itself; these are bought without any money or price on our part; they are freely given and received; and on this basis may men expect them, and have them. The Targum is,
"he that hath no silver, come, hear and learn; come, hear and learn, without price and money, doctrine better than wine and milk.''
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–5 An invitation to seek for spiritual blessings from Christ,…
An invitation to seek for spiritual blessings from Christ, whom the Father sends, ver. 1-5. To come to him speedily and by repentance, ver. 6, 7. His grace infinite, ver. 8, 9. His word powerful, ver. 10, 11. The joy of believers, ver. 12, 13.
Thirsteth - For the grace of God and the blessings of the gospel. This thirst implies a vehement, and active, and restless desire after it. No money - Those who are most worthless and wicked, if they do but thirst may be welcome. Buy - Procure or receive that which is freely offered. Wine and milk - All gospel-blessings; in particular, that peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, which are better than wine, and that love of God which nourishes the soul, as milk does the body.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–3 This chapter first displays the fulness, freeness, excellence,
CHAPTER LV
This chapter first displays the fulness, freeness, excellence,
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and everlasting nature of the blessings of the Gospel, and
foretells again the enlargement of Messiah's kingdom, 1-5.
This view leads the prophet to exhort all to seize the precious
opportunity of sharing in such blessings, which were not,
however, to be expected without repentance and reformation,
6, 7.
And as the things now and formerly predicted were so great as
to appear incredible, the prophet points to the omnipotence of
God, who would infallibly accomplish his word, and bring about
those glorious deliverances which he had promised; the happy
effects of which are again set forth by images beautiful and
poetical in the highest degree, 8-13.
NOTES ON CHAP. LV
Verse 1. Ho, every one that thirsteth] "Water," says Kimchi, "is a metaphor for the law and wisdom: as the world cannot subsist without water, so it is impossible that it can subsist without wisdom. The law is also compared to wine and milk: to wine because wine rejoiceth the heart, as it is written: 'The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart,' Ps 19:8. It is compared also to milk, because milk is the subsistence of the child; so are the words of the law the nourishment of his soul who walks in the Divine teaching, and grows up under it."
Come, buy wine and milk] In ancient times our forefathers used what is now called the old third person singular, ending in eth, for the imperative mood. We have a fine example of His in the first verses of this chapter. I shall present them as they stand in my old MS. Bible: - Alle gee thirstinge cummeth to wateris: and gee that han not sylver, goth forth and bieth, and etith. Cummeth, bieth without silver, and without eny chaungyng, wyn and mylc. Heerith gee, heering me and etith gode thinge, and deliten schal in fattnesse your soule. Bowith in your eie and cummeth to mee, heerith and liven schal your soule. And I shall smyten with gou, everlastynge covenant, the faithful mercies of David.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4 Isa 55:1. Ho, every one — Not only Jews,…
Isa 55:1. Ho, every one — Not only Jews, but Gentiles; that thirsteth — For the grace of God, and the blessings of the gospel; that desires them sincerely and earnestly, is active and diligent in the pursuit of them, and cannot be satisfied without enjoying them; come ye to the waters — Where you may drink and be refreshed: come and partake of the graces and comforts of God’s Spirit, frequently compared to water in the Scriptures, and here designed by the other metaphorical expressions which occur in the next clause. And he that hath no money — Even those who are most poor in the world, and those who are most worthless and wicked, if they do but thirst, shall be welcome. Come ye, buy and eat — That is, come and receive that which is freely offered to you, and which you shall as freely partake of, and enjoy as your own, as if you had bought and paid the full price for it. Buy wine and milk — Here put for all sorts of provisions, which are also to be understood of spiritual and gospel blessings, as is evident from the following words: as if he had said, These blessings shall not only refresh you, as water refreshes the thirsty, but they shall cheer you like wine, and nourish you like milk.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Ho - (הוי hôy). This word here is designed…
Ho - (הוי hôy). This word here is designed to call attention to the subject as one of importance.
Every one that thirsteth - The word ‘thirst’ often indicates intense desire, and is thus applied to the sense of want which sinners often have, and to their anxious wishes for salvation. It is not improbable that the Savior had this passage in his eye when he pronounced the blessing on those who hunger and thirst after righteousness Mat 5:6. No needs are so keen, none so imperiously demand supply, as those of hunger and thirst. They occur daily; and when long continued, as in the case of those who are shipwrecked, and doomed to wander months or years over burning sands with scarcely any drink or food, nothing is more distressing. Hence, the figure is often used to denote any intense desire for anything, and especially an ardent desire for salvation (see Psa 42:2; Psa 63:1; Psa 143:6; Joh 7:37). The invitation here is made to all. ‘Everyone’ (כל kôl) is entreated to come. It is not offered to the elect only, or to the rich, the great, the noble; but it is made to all. It is impossible to conceive of language more universal in its nature than this; and while this stands in the Word of God, the invitation may be made to all, and should be made to all, and must be made to all. It proves that provision is made for all. Can God invite to a salvation which has not been provided? Can he ask a man to partake of a banquet which has no existence? Can he ask a man to drink of waters when there are none? Can he tantalize the hopes and mock the miseries of people by inviting them to enter a heaven where they would be unwelcome, or to dwell in mansions which have never been provided? (compare Mat 11:28; Mar 16:15; Joh 7:37; Rev 22:17).
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Come ye to the waters - Water, floods, overflowing streams, or copious showers, are often used in the Scriptures to denote abundant blessings from God, and especially the blessings which would exist under the Messiah (see Isa 35:6; Isa 43:20; Isa 44:3).
And he that hath no money - The poor; they who would be unable to purchase salvation if it were to be sold. The idea here is the absolute freeness of the offer of salvation. No man can excuse himself for not being a Christian because he is poor; no man who is rich can ever boast that he has bought salvation, or that he has obtained it on more easy terms because he had property.
Come ye, buy and eat - (Compare Mat 13:44-46). That is, procure it without paying a price. The word rendered here ‘buy’ (שׁבר shâbar), properly means to break, then to purchase etc. (grain), as that which is broken in a mill (Gesenius), or that which breaks hunger; compare Eng. breakfast (Castell.)
Buy wine - (יין yayin). Wine was commonly used in their feasts, and indeed was an article of common drink (see the notes at Isa 25:6). Here it is emblematic of the blessings of salvation spoken of as a feast made for people. Wine is usually spoken of as that which exhilarates, or makes glad the heart Jdg 9:13; 2Sa 13:28; Psa 104:15, and it is possible that the image here may be designed specifically to denote that the blessings of salvation make people happy, or dissipate the sorrows of life, and cheer them in their troubles and woes.
And milk - Milk, in the Scriptures, is used to denote that which nourishes, or is nutritious Deu 32:14; Jdg 4:1; Jdg 5:25; Isa 7:22; 1Co 9:7. It is mentioned as used with wine in Son 5:1, ‘I have drunk my wine with my milk;’ and with honey Son 4:11, ‘Honey and milk are under my tongue.’ The sense here is, that the blessings of the gospel are suited to nourish and support the soul as well as to make it glad and cheerful.
Without money ... - None are so poor that they cannot procure it; none are so rich that they can purchase it with gold. If obtained at all by the poor or the rich, it must be without money and without price. If the poor are willing to accept of it as a gift, they are welcome; and if the rich will not accept of it as a gift, they cannot obtain it. What a debt of gratitude we owe to God, who has thus placed it within the reach of all: How cheerfully and thankfully should we accept float as a gift which no wealth, however princely, could purchase, and which, being purchased by the merits of the Redeemer, is put within the reach of the humblest child of Adam!
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5 Waters, which in that country are very scarce. ---…
Waters, which in that country are very scarce. --- Milk. Septuagint, "fat." (Calmet) --- In the western Churches, wine and honey were given to the new baptized, chap. vii. 15. (St. Jerome) --- Christ invites all to come to him, John iv. 14,. and vii. 37. The establishment of the Church is described under the figure of the return from Babylon. (Calmet) --- Grace is offered to all. But only those are justified who thirst, and do their best, Matthew v. 6. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The New Way of appropriating Salvation
VII.—THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE
The New Way of appropriating Salvation
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Isa_55:1-5
When we contemplate the contents of our chapters, one could almost outdo the modern criticism and exclaim: This was never written in the Exile ! It must have been written after Christ, by a disciple of Paul who read the epistles to the Romans and Galatians! But on closer inspection one observes that our Prophet describes, not what he lived to see and learned to know by experience, but future things that were still enigmatical to himself. A Frenchman would say: il ne voit pas, il entrevoit seulment les chose futures. I can only understand the contents of our chapter in its relation to what precedes, as representing in what a new and hitherto unknown way Israel is to obtain a countless posterity and a salvation extending in every direction. That is, in connection with Isaiah 54, our Isaiah 55. shows, that the mode of subjective appropriation of salvation will be a new one. No longer by doing works, but by believing acceptance shall one put himself in possession of that salvation, which a new David, as a new mediator of a covenant, shall offer to the world, not by force of arms, but by His direct and indirect testimony. But this testimony must meet with a timely acceptance, and sincere repentance must prepare an entrance for the mercy of God. Also no one should regard the new way of salvation as unreasonable and impracticable, for not only Israel, but the entire creation, shall quite certainly partake of this salvation.
The chapter has two parts. The first is positive in its contents. It designates believing acceptance of the word as the essence of the new way of salvation. The second part is negative. It points with warning to the obstacles and scruples that must be set aside in order not to frustrate the new way of salvation.
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1. THE POSITIVE NATURE OF THE NEW WAY OF APPROPRIATING THE SALVATION OF GOD
Isa_55:1-5
1 Ho, every one that thirsteth,
Come ye to the waters,
And he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat;
Yea, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.
2 Wherefore do ye 1spend money for that which is not bread?
And your 2labor for that which satisfieth not?
3Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good,
4And let your soul delight itself in fatness.
3 Incline your ear, and come unto me:
Hear, and your soul shall live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
Even the sure mercies of David.
4 Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people,
A leader and commander to the people.
5 Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not,
And 5nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee
6Because of the Lord thy God,
And 7for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_55:1-2. שָׁבַר is here denom. from שֵׁבֶר annona [from שֶׁבֶר see Fuerst. Lex.—Tr.], (comp. Isa_42:7; Isa_42:10; Isa_47:14, etc..). In Isaiah the word is found in this sense only here.—לוא־לחם is Oxymoron as לא־עָם ,לֹא־אֵל, (Deu_32:21), לֹא־עֵץ (Isa_10:15), לאֹ־אָדָם ,לֹא־אִישׁ, (Isa_31:8).
Isa_55:3. The expression כָּרַת בְּרִית לְ is almost as common in the Old Testament as עִםor כָּרַת בְּרִית אֵת It occurs Exo_23:32; Exo_34:12; Exo_34:15; Deu_7:2; Jos_9:6-7; Jos_9:11; Jos_9:15-16; Jos_24:25; Jdg_2:2; 1Sa_9:1-2; 2Sa_5:3; 1Ki_20:34; 2Ki_11:4; Hos_2:20; Isa_61:8; Jer_32:40; Eze_34:25; Eze_37:26; Job_31:1; Psa_89:4; 1Ch_11:13; 2Ch_7:18 (without ברית); Isa_21:1; Isa_29:10. It is true that the expression is chiefly used in the case of a covenant that a superior concludes with an inferior as a benefaction or imposing a duty for the latter (see e.g. Job_31:1). Once (2Ch_29:10) it is used in the case of a covenant that the man concludes with God. The expression is evidently in its origin a pregnant construction, as the preposition לְ depends on the verb, not according to its verbal meaning, but according to some, latent meaning in the verb This meaning may be that of laying on, assuring, or offering, according to the context—The expression in חַסְדֵי דָוִד is found again 2Ch_6:42 in Solomon’s prayer of consecration. It does not occur its the corresponding passage, 1 Kings 8, as indeed none of 2Ch_6:40-42 does (comp. Zoeckler in loc.). It seems to me that the author of 2 Chron. borrowed the words חסדי דוד from our text, and thereby bears testimony to its having relation to 2 Samuel 7. As regards the construction, it is zeugmatic. For the accusative חסדי ד depends on the latent idea of giving in, אכרתה בדית, and in fact Paul so renders the words Act_13:34 : on ὃτι δώσω ὑμῖν τὰ ὅσια Δαυῖδ.
Isa_55:4. The grammatical construction of נָגִיד וּמְצַוֵּה לאמים is not normal. It ought at least to read נְגיד וגו (comp. Eze_31:16 מִבְחַר וְטוֹב לְבָנוֹן Dan_1:4). The expressions נִבְזֶה וַחֲדַל אִישִׁים Isa_53:3, and נָגוּעַ מֻכֵּה אֱלהִים Isa_53:4, are not at all to be compared as Ewald supposes (Gram., § 339,6; see above the comm. in loc.). This construction is therefore an unicum, if indeed the pointing be correct Moreover מְצַוֶּה in a substantive sense occurs only here. It seems me that the choice of expression was occasioned by the Prophet having in. mind 2Sa_6:21, where David says to Michal: the Lord chose me before thy father לְצַוֹּת אֹתּי נָגִיד עַל־עַם י
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. In chap. 55 the Lord promised Israel a blessing that would extend on every hand. As if in a well supplied market, all these blessed possessions shall be spread out before Israel. Now the people are summoned to come up and buy, but—without money (Isa_55:1)! It is no longer as it once was when one must do a hard work in order to get food, which—still did not satisfy. One sees at once that the Prophet does not mean corporeal nourishment, for he calls on men to hear. By that one shall receive dainty nourishment (Isa_55:2). And that the importance of this hearing may be felt, he repeats his summons to hear twice. By virtue of this hearing the soul shall live and be capable of entering into the everlasting covenant with the Lord, that shall procure the sure mercies of David (Isa_55:3). The David that is to be the mediator of this grace will be first of all a witness, and hearing will be the condition of partaking of His grace. By His testimony to the truth He will however become also prince and commander of nations (Isa_55:4). But the great chief witness will avail himself of Israel in order to bring his testimony to the nations. Israel shall call nations that it did not know, and these nations will hasten to Israel that heretofore remained unknown to them. But they will hasten up in order to come to Jehovah and to the Holy One of Israel, who also glorifies His people in this way (Isa_55:5). Thus the chief emphasis in this section rests upon the inward, believing inclination to the word of the Lord, something high as heaven above outward merit of works. This believing inclination Israel should bring to the word of the Lord that announces to it the glory of David’s kingdom. Then it will itself dare to preach this word, and, by means of the faith that it will find, it will gather the nations to it, which, according to Isa_54:1 sqq., will be its seed, and also the basis of the new, eternal Davidic kingdom.
2. Ho, every one——mercies of David.
Isa_55:1-3. Before the gaze of the Prophet stands Israel, made inwardly and outwardly free from the chains of the world-power by the Servant of God. According to chap. 54. a rich blessing from the Lord is promised to it. But it cannot partake of it without more ado. Like the old Israel it must fulfill a condition. To the old Israel it was said (Deu_28:1 sq.): “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: and all these blessings shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.” Here, therefore, the fulfilment of the law was set up as a condition of obtaining the blessing. It is otherwise in the new kingdom that the Prophet sees from afar with the eye of the spirit. There nothing is demanded but hunger and thirst, and yet, of course, such as is contented with the gratification that the Lord offers. Stier justly calls attention to the fact that our Lord must have had in mind our text when He said: “blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled” (Mat_5:6). Comp. also Mat_11:28; Joh_7:37. הוֹי does not depart here from its fundamental meaning. It must not be taken here as a cry merely summoning together, any more than in Isa_17:1; Isa_18:1, or like Zec_2:10-11, where Koehler appropriately translates “Hui” [“Ho,” “quick”]. In our passage, the cry of woe has reference only to the suffering condition of those addressed. It is an expression of compassion for their lamentable fate, that offers only an illusory satisfaction for their wants. It is as if we were to say: Alas, ye poor needy ones! Thus Maurer, with whom Stier needed not to find fault.—What sort of hunger and thirst the Prophet means first appears from his offering to satisfy it without compensation. The rationalistic expositors will have it that only earthly blessings are meant. Thus they would understand that the exiles are indirectly summoned to return home by painting up the possessions that would follow on that, which were to be had as water for the thirsty and without sacrifice (Gesenius, Hitzig). Others think only of eating and drinking. Canaan would be incomparably more than in former days a land flowing with milk and honey (Seinecke, Knobel). But construed in this way the words contain a disgraceful deception. No emigration agent ever sought to seduce ignorant peasants to emigrate to Brazil or Texas with such lies as this would-be Prophet Isaiah would have used, if these expositors were correct. For did he represent to them “the restoration of the state under the image of refreshing food and drink,” or did he promise them literally “food and drink, and that for nothing,” then both were unblushing lies, as in general the passages that speak of an easy, safe return over a convenient road well supplied with every thing needful (Isa_35:6 sqq.; Isa_41:17 sqq.; Isa_43:18 sqq.; Isa_49:8 sqq.; Isa_51:11; Isa_52:8 sqq.), would contain nothing but fraud, if they are referred in the ordinary sense to the return from the Babylonian captivity. For what ever justified such an agitator in promising to the Israelites splendid political relations, support without cost? The outward relations of the returning exiles were by no means splendid. They continued to be under the Persian rule. In that prayer at their feast recorded in Nehemiah 9 we find them complaining (Neh_9:36): “Behold, we are servants this day, and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are servants in it.” And we see that they were obliged to pay taxes as much as in the land of exile; for Neh_9:37 says: “And it (the land) yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins; also they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.” And the same appears still more clearly from Ezr_4:13, where in the accusing letter of Rehum and Shimshai we read: “Be it known now unto the king, that, if this city be builded, and the walls set up again, then will they (the Israelites) not pay toll, tribute and custom, and so thou shalt endamage the revenue of the kings.” According to Ezr_7:24, King Artasasta [Artaxeres] released only the priests and the other servants of the Temple from all taxes.—From Neh_5:1-5 we see that the returning Israelites, at least the poorer among them, had hunger and distress enough to suffer in the promised land, for the poor among those engaged in building the walls beg for a distribution of grain, because otherwise, in order to keep their numerous families, they must pawn their lands, or even, where that had already been done, surrender their children to servitude. Thus it is seen that the returned exiles experienced neither a restoration of the commonwealth, nor was their daily bread given either in abundance or without cost. And yet we do not find in the historical books of this period a trace of their considering themselves cheated. They themselves certainly did not take the words of our Prophet in the sense in which the rationalistic expounders would understand them. For why then did so many, in fact the majority of the exiles remain in exile? If the taxes in the Exile were so oppressive, as some suppose, and the condition of wages so unfavorable, why did not all return to Palestine? Was then the return more advantageous in every respect? According to Ezr_1:5 only those resolved to return “whose spirit God raised” (aroused). The resolve to return was thus a victory of the spirit over the flesh. Therefore they knew well that they would not find the flesh pots of Egypt in desolate Palestine. Thus they were far from regarding the words of our Prophet as promising these flesh pots. We see, accordingly, that if the Prophet was no enthusiast or cheat, but would say the truth, it was impossible that he could mean to promise to the returning exiles fortunate outward circumstances. Now since, as is well known, the expressions “to thirst, hunger, eat, drink, bread, wine,” are very often used in a spiritual sense (comp. Isa_25:6; Isa_44:3; Isa_65:13; Amo_8:11; Psa_42:3; Psa_63:2; Mat_5:6; Joh_6:35, etc.), so it is manifest that the Prophet means them in this sense. In addition to this the Prophet afterwards in Isa_55:2-3 expressly designates the satisfaction as the fruit of hearing: on which more hereafter, לְכוּ is used three times in Isa_55:1 not meaning “go,” but “come hither,” because the speaker himself has in possession the things he invites others to receive. The word, therefore, stands here, as often elsewhere (comp. Isa_2:3-5) in the sense of a particula excitandi, as age, δεῦρο, δεῦτε “come on, here!”
The second member of the verse contains a completion of the first. It adds, that satisfaction will be given not only to those thirsty ones that have money, but also to those that have none. ואשׁר אין־לו כסף is thus a second subject of לכו and nearer definition of כל־צמא. Vav before אשׁר, therefore, involves the idea of “and indeed.” In the third member come bay and eat a third particular is introduced, namely that of hunger and its correlative bread. The fourth member repeats and intensifies: not only is “for not money” strengthened by the further “for not wages” (מְחִיר comp. Isa_45:13), but wine and milk are named in addition as things to be bought. They are costlier and nobler means of nourishment than water. Milk is the wine of infancy, wine the milk of maturity. Thus not merely bare necessities, but the daintiest, noblest gratification, is offered to those craving it (comp. on Isa_55:2 b).
Isa_55:2. The question: why are you weighing out money? intimates that the man in this case, has a certain inclination to weigh out his money, and that effort is needed to prevent him. And such is actually the fact. The hardest law is easier for a man than the gospel. He would rather put himself to the rack like a fakir or a Trappist, than receive the gift of God for nothing. He will not have any thing for nothing. He does not want grace, but wages, for his merit. And yet what he gets in this way is not bread, not satiety.—For one’s own works are not able to give the true righteousness, and so, too, cannot give true peace. Recall Luther’s monastic life, and then what he found when he had learned to believe. It may at first sight appear objectionable that the Prophet even in Isa_55:1, makes use of the oxymoron (see Text, and Gram.), by saying “buy for not-gold, for not wages,” whereas one expects “buy not for money, not for wages,” as, indeed, before he invited every one אשׁר אין לו כסף to come on. Thus one expects ּלא בכסף ּולא במחיר. But the Prophet would evidently say, that of course they should buy. שׁבְרוּ does not stand before ואכלו to no purpose. There shall indeed be a purchase price paid, but it shall consist of לא־כסף and לא־מחיר. That is, of course, something odd. For לא־לחם explained by לוא לשׂבעה evidently denotes a nourishment that does not deserve the name of bread, that is worse than bread. Therefore לא־לחם is a contemptuous expression. Accordingly לא־כסף and לא־מחיר must designate a price that is worse than money or wages, that does not deserve this name. The sense of שׁברו בלוא־כסף וגו׳ could not be then: “buy, but not with gold, but with a higher, better price.” These words must rather mean: “buy for a price that has not even the value of money or of any other sort material compensation.” Can the Prophet mean to say that? Shall the purchase price that he demands be worse than money, not even money? That cannot possibly be his meaning. Thus we see that we cannot take לא־כסף and לא־לחם in quite the same sense. Now such a negative expression formed by the use of לא may have a various antithesis according to the context; a superius or inferius may be its antithesis. Thus in Isa_10:15 we were obliged to take לֹא־עֵץ = “not wood but something much higher; and just so in Isa_31:8, לא־אישׁ and לא־אדם = “not a man, but something higher,” whereas לא־אָֹדָם ,לאֹ־אֵל designate something that is less than God, less than a nation. The evangelist of the Old Testament gives here (Isa_55:2) a genuine evangelical counsel, whose meaning and long range was certainly concealed from himself. Israel shall no more bring money, and labor (one could construe יְגִיעַž also in the sense of “res labore parta, gains of labor” Isa_45:14). For legal works are as money that one has paid for food that deserves not the name of bread, because it does not satisfy. For legal works a man receives his own deserts! But that is just לא־לחם! It does not satisfy, it gives no peace. It does not procure for us the wedding garment, but only our own clothes, with which one will be cast out (Mat_22:12-13). In contrast with weighing out money, the Prophet now says what Israel should do in order to get satiety. He names therefore now the true purchasing price, the לא־כסף and לא־מחיר. It consists in hearkening to the Lord. There can be no doubt about the sort of hearing that is meant. It must any way be a very significant hearing, for the Prophet exhorts to it three times by saying שמעו שׁמוע, then הטו אזנכם and finally שׁמעו (Isa_55:3). He cannot mean the hearing with the outward ear, for the Lord would not be satisfied with that. Hearing with the inward ear, the receptivety of the heart, faith must be meant. Amo_8:11, to which Kimchi text refers us, is nearly related to ours. It is not impossible that it hovered in the mind of the Prophet. There it is said: “Behold the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.” Receiving the word, the message of salvation, the gospel, such is the price that is better than money and wages (בסף and יגיע). Thus in eat good and your soul shall delight itself in fatness, “eat” and “enjoy itself” are meant in a spiritual sense. טוֹכ. meaning “good” in general has a physical or spiritual sense according to the context (comp. Jer_31:12; Jer_31:14; Pro_19:8; Pro_24:25, etc.). On the expression תתעוג בדשׁן נ׳ comp. Isa_58:14; Isa_66:11; Psa_37:4; Job_22:26; Job_27:10, and with respect to דשׁן Psa_36:4 to Psa_63:6), and תחי נפשׁכם, comp. Eze_18:27; Psa_119:175.
Isa_55:3. The Lord then demands faith in His word. But this word is extraordinary: for it announces the salvation that the Servant of Jehovah acquired by His suffering and death (53). Those to whom the gospel of Jesus Christ is no foolishness, no offence, receive the mercies of David. In the Crucified One David is latent. The inscription above the cross unconsciously spoke the truth. The thief is a type to us of the faith that is demanded here. He saw in the Crucified the king. Therefore he is also promised a participation in the kingly glory. On כָּרַת בְּרִית לְ “to make a covenant,” see Text, and Gram.). Covenant making is an ancient thing in the relation between Jehovah and the people Israel. The Lord foretold to the people salvation and the Saviour in a gradual way, always increasing in definiteness and clearness, until at last He informs the chosen king David that He will found for him an everlasting, all-comprehending kingdom on the basis of the sonship of God (2Sa_7:12 sqq.). This promise is the highest and most glorious of all the promises ever yet made to Abraham and his seed, in this respect, that it comprehends all preceding promises, frees them from their generality, lays them on a definite head, and defines them as a promise of a dominion that shall far excel all others in extent, duration, title and power. This promise is also the foundation of all later promises. For all of them add nothing essentially new. Although they add the nearer definition that Israel itself, and the promised Son of David shall become servants of God, i.e., must pass through suffering to glory, and although they at later periods refine and paint up both these particulars more in detail and in a variety of ways, still that word of the Prophet Nathan continues to be the principal stock around which all later Messianic prophecies are grouped. The mercies of David therefore are those promises of mercy that were given to David in respect to an other, higher David. These mercies of David are also a covenant, as the promises given to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob are called a “covenant” (comp. Gen_15:18; Gen_17:2 sqq.; Exo_2:24; Lev_26:42; 2Ki_13:23, etc.). For in them God not only makes a gift, but requires a corresponding performance. It is true that this covenant has the peculiarity, that it is not broken by single acts of unfaithfulness on the part of men. For it is an everlasting covenant. Such acts of backsliding cause the Lord to use severity, but not to break the covenant Such also is doubtless the meaning of the word נאמנים [“sure”]. At least it should be noted that Psalms 89. after saying in Psa_89:29-30 (Psa_89:28-29): “My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him (נֶֽאֱמֶנֶת לוֹ). His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven,” it proceeds to say Psa_89:31 sqq. (Psa_89:30); “if his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail [lie. Marg.],” etc It is in the highest degree probable that Psalms 89. hovered in the mind of the Prophet as he wrote these words. Koester says in regard to this: “Psalms 89. fere commentarii instar est ad nostrum locum. Similitudo tanta est, ut prophetam nostrum psalmi hujus auetorem esse conjicere liceat” (comp. Stier p. 548, Anm.), Although the latter idea is inadmissible, still the expression חסדי יהיה with which Psalms 89. begins, (and which occurs beside only Psa_107:43; Isa_63:7; Lam_3:22), reminds one of our text, as do also Psa_89:4; Psa_89:29; Psa_89:38; Psa_89:50 (Psa_89:3; Psa_89:27; Psa_89:37; Psa_89:49); and in general the object of the whole Psalm is to hold up to God the promises given to David, and on the ground of them to implore protection in pressing need. Comp. remarks below on Isa_55:4, and Text, and Gram, on Isa_55:3, חסדי דוד.
Isa_55:4. If in Isa_55:1-3, the Prophet has in mind the time when no longer personal works, but the believing acceptance of God’s word is decisive in respect to receiving salvation, then he stands with his thought in the midst of the Messianic period. And, indeed, the further particularpressed upon him, that not Israel alone will receive that salvation, but also the Gentile world. He sees the barriers broken down that separate Israel from the Gentiles. The David that was promised to the first David is made by the Lorda witness of the nations,i.e., one that shall testify salvation to the nations. That the suffix in נְתַתִּיו (“I have given him”) refers to David Isa_55:3, is certain. But the one made a witness cannot possibly be the first David. How would a statement come into this context concerning the task to be fulfilled by the successor of Saul in his time? According to Isa_55:1-3, the Prophet’s thoughts are in the future when the marvellous change will take place, that God will no longer require giving from men but only receiving. Therefore I take the expression “mercies of David” as having a double meaning, viz.: not only the promises given to David, but also pointing to David. This of course assumes that the name David may be applied to the Messiah also. But this assumption is fully justified, since not only later, but also earlier prophets expressly designate the Messiah by the name of David (Hos_3:5; Jer_30:9; Eze_34:23-24; Eze_37:24-25). The expression עִדִ (“witness”) likewise appears to me to be borrowed from Psalms 89. For in Psa_89:38 of this Psalm the author concludes the representation of the promise given to David with the words: וְעֵד בַּשַּׁחַק נֶֽאֱמָן. I share the view of Maurer, Hitzig, Delitzsch, Moll,etc., that by עד בשׁחק we are to understand God Himself (comp. Job_16:19, and regarding the expression שׁחקPsa_89:7). In our text, then, David, who fulfills “the mercies of David,” is called a witness of the nations, because He testifies also to the Gentile world what God had testified to the people Israel, because He carries out to the Gentiles that same gospel to whose believing acceptance Israel was summoned in Isa_55:2-3. In this peaceful way, not by force of arms, shall the other David also become a prince and commander of the nations. To take עֵד in the sense of “lawgiver,” with Hitzig, is altogether arbitrary. On the construction of Isa_55:4 b see Text, and Gram. Any way it would express, that the second David shall be the same in respect to the nations that the first was in respect to the people Israel.
Isa_55:5. But the manner in which the second David will be a witness of God to the nations will be, not that He will personally and directly exercise the office of witness, but He will let it be exercised by His people Israel to whom He immediately belongs. Although I regard the “witness” of Isa_55:4 as being the second and not the first David, still I believe that the Prophet here has in mind those words of the first David in Psa_18:43 sqq. where, speaking primarily of His activity as an earthly conqueror, he also certainly as a “prophet” (Act_2:30), speaks of the call of His kingdom to make spiritual conquests. Especially our words “a nation whom thou knewest not,” recall the words Psa_18:44 (43): “a people whom I have not known shall serve me.” The disciples and Apostles of the Lord, who received the command to preach the gospel to all nations, were, in fact, Israelites. Through them Israel called nations that it previously did not know, and nations, that before knew nothing of Israel hastened to it (Isa_2:2-3). Israel and the Gentile world have even found in the second David a common centre that draws one to the other. This thought is so expressed in Isa_55:5 b, that there Jehovah is designated as the object and goal of this running hither. They came, not for Israel’s sake, but for the sake of Jehovah its God, and not to Israel, but to the Holy One of Israel. But it is nevertheless an honor of a high and unique sort, that Israel is favored with being the instrument of calling the nations to Jehovah. And the honor that the Lord has purposed for Israel, has its root just therein; for this reason it is עֶלְיוֹן עַל כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם (“high above all nations” (Deu_4:6 sqq.; Deu_26:19; Deu_28:1; 2Sa_7:23 sq.) and “servant of Jehovah,” so far as this expression also designates the call of Israel to be the medium of salvation (“salvation is of the Jews,” Joh_4:22, comp. Isa_43:19). And it belongs also to this, that Israel is repeatedly called directly the “witness of Jehovah” (Isa_43:10; Isa_44:8). Besides, this clause of the verse is repeated verbatim Isa_60:9. As Israel is everywhere thought of as masculine (אֱלֹהֶיךָ ,אֵלֶיךָ ,יְדָעוּךָ) the suffix of פֵּאֲרָךְ cannot be a fem. suffix, but is a masculine pausal form, as in עָנָךְ Isa_30:19.
Footnotes:
[1]Heb. weigh.
[2]acquisition.
[3]Hearken, hearken.
[4]And your soul shall.
[5]a nation.
[6]For the sake of.
[7]to.
2. WHAT HINDERANCES AND SCRUPLES ARE TO BE REMOVED, THAT THE NEW WAY OF APPROPRIATING SELVATION MAY OBTAIN
Isa_55:6-13
6 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found,
Call ye upon him while he is near:
7 Let the wicked forsake his way,
And 8the unrighteous man his thoughts:
And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him;
And to our God, for 9he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are my ways higher than your ways,
And my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven,
And returneth not thither,
But watereth the earth,
And maketh it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth:
It shall not return unto me void,
But it shall accomplish that which I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
12 For ye shall go out with joy,
And be led forth with peace:
The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the 10fir tree,
And instead of the 11brier shall come up the myrtle tree:
And it shall be to the Lord for a name,
For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_55:9. Before גבהו the particle of comparison is omitted; comp. Jer_3:20.
Isa_55:10. נתן, subject גשׁם and שׁלג.——The imperf. יֵרֵד designates what happens continuously; יָשׁוּב that which is supposed, not actual; הולידה ,הרוה נתן ,הצמיחה, on the other hand designate simple objective facts.
Isa_55:11. The accusative אֲשׁר before שָׁלַחְתִּי is quite normal. Verbs of teaching, commanding, commissioning, as is well known, stand with a double accusative; comp. Exo_4:28; 1Sa_21:3, etc.
Isa_55:13. היה is to be construed neutrally.——One might take שֵׁם here as meaning “monumentum,” as in 2Sa_8:13, and as Isaiah uses it Isa_56:5. But one does better to take it in the sense of “renown” (comp. Deu_26:19; Zep_3:19); but אות, on account of the addition אשׁר לא יכרת, had better be taken in the sense of “signum, monumentum” that which, as it were, bears and preserves the renown (comp. Isa_19:20; Deu_28:46; Num_17:3, etc.).
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Seek the Lord——abundantly pardon.
Isa_55:6-7. The entire section Isa_55:6-11 deals with the difficulties that actually, or in human opinion, oppose that “hearing” that the Lord has demanded in Isa_55:2-3. The first difficulty is, that so many men are unable to make up their minds to lay hold, i.e., to respond to the Lord’s call, and on their side to desire and seek what offers itself to them. For, of course, the soul must on its part incline to the Lord, who inclines Himself to it. This is the “seeking” and “calling” of which verse 6 speaks. Believing is a hard matter. Hence many hesitate until it is too late. And hence the Prophet’s warning, to turn to the Lord in season, to seek and call on Him. For the Lord is not near and able to be found without limitation. Hast thou suffered thy heart to harden or become callous, or hast thou suffered the time to lapse wherein believing is any way possible, i.e., the period of earthly life, that ends with death and with the world beyond which begins the seeing,—then thou findest the Lord no more, He withdraws. Thou canst then no more believe, even though wishing painfully to do so, as Esau who found no room for repentance though he sought it with tears (Heb_12:17), or as those who have slipped past the fateful “to-day” (comp. Heb_3:7 sqq.; Heb_4:7 and the parables of the invited guests Luk_14:17 sqq., and the laborers in the vineyard Mat_2:1 sqq.). The second and chiefest hinderance to believing is this, that men cleave too much to evil. They love it too much; all their imagining and doing is directed to it. They cannot get rid of sin, they are under the ban and constraint of it. Hence the Prophet warns, that the wicked first of all must forsake his wicked way and the man of iniquity (Pro_6:12; Pro_6:18, which likely was in the Prophet’s mind) his thoughts. This is the negative side of the exhortation. With this is joined the positive; the wicked should turn to Jehovah a. to the end that He may have mercy on him, b. for the reason that Jehovah is (not a strange but) Israel’s (“our”) God, and is inclined and accustomed to pardon abundantly.
2. For My thoughts——whereto I sent it.
Isa_55:8-11. These verses reply to those objections that the natural man opposes to the new way of salvation proposed by God in Isa_55:1-3. The first objection runs: it is inconceivable that man can obtain salvation simply by believing and not by his own works. The Prophet declares that this objection is groundless. For, he says, My thoughts are not your thoughts,etc. What is foolishness with men is wisdom with God, 1Co_1:18 sqq. God is great in littleness, strong in weakness, glorious in lowliness, wise in foolishness. Just for that reason He is approachable. The poor and lowly do not take offence at this form of His appearance. No, just thus He is comprehensible to them. But the wise and prudent are sifted by it as through a sieve. Whoever holds his head so high that he cannot go through the narrow gate, must remain without. He is not fit to be in the kingdom of God. But whoever is not offended at the gospel of the manger and of the cross, will be sensible that there is in it a power and wisdom that is as high as heaven above all the wisdom of both scribes and philosophers. The second objection runs: the sermon that, according to Isa_55:1-3, demands only hearing and accepting must remain without effect. This objection also is groundless. For it is with the word that announces God’s lofty thoughts, as it is with the products of the physical atmosphere that descend to the earth, in order to render the latter capable of unfolding its life forces. Rain and snow do not return without accomplishing their ends, but they fructify (הוליד cause to give birth, comp. Isa_66:9; 1Ch_2:18) the earth, and cause it to bring forthצֶמַח (sprouts comp. on Isa_4:2) and give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. The efficiency of the word should be designated as (see Text and G.) an actual certainty. I translate כי אם simply by “but.” The word of God (and one may think here of all that is called λόγος θεοῦ), does not return empty. Thus it is expressly said of it that it does return. And in fact every thing that goes out from God, also that word spoken or written by men by the power of His Spirit, must, as an eternal, real, divine existence, unite itself again with its original source; or more correctly: what comes out of God remains also eternally in God.
3. For ye shall——not be cut off.
Isa_55:12-13. כִּי, “for”, beginning Isa_55:12, introduces the proof of the statement of Isa_55:11. The word of God shall return, not unsuccessful, but wholly successful. For Israel shall go forth and be led with joy. Such is just the efficiency of that word of God that is meant, Isa_55:1-3. It is clear that. the Prophet cannot mean the future departure out of the Babylonian exile. But he does mean an exodus of which that physical exodus is only the type. For the historical redemption out of the Exile is both a type and a pledge of the redemption out of the exile of sin, out of the bondage of the devil. The same God that would and could redeem “the fleshly Israel” out of the corporeal exile, will by force of the same love and power redeem the spiritual Israel out of the spiritual exile. And in that exodus Israel will rejoice, and be led in peace. And the non-personal creation will share in Israel’s joy: the mountains, and the hills will break forth into singing, and all trees clap their hands. That this could not be on the occasion of the corporeal exodus from Babylon, is clear. It is manifest, then, that the Prophet intends a much higher, a spiritual exodus. But this latter also has its gradations. When once nature itself is penetrated with spirit and glorified (Isa_65:17; Isa_66:22; Rom_8:21), then, what in the word of the Prophet is not merely poetic imagery, but real contents of life, will at last receive its entire accomplishment. In the time the Prophet thinks of, noxious growths will give place to noble growths that bring a blessing with them. Instead of נעצוץ (again only Isa_7:19, therefore a genuine Isaianic word) shall grow up the cypress (comp. on Isa_41:19), instead of the flea-bane (סִרְפָּד, ἅπ. λεγ., its meaning is debated, comp. Gesen.,Thes., and Herz.,R.-Enc. XIV., p. 666. I translate, with Delitzsch, after the LXX., Aqu. Theod.,κόνυζα, flea-wort, flea-bane), the myrtle (see on Isa_41:19). We had similar expressions, Isa_35:1 sqq.; Isa_41:18 sq.; Isa_44:23; Isa_49:13; Isa_52:9. This glorious act of salvation shall redound to the Lord’s everlasting renown, and be an everlasting monument of His love, power, and wisdom.
Footnotes:
[8]Heb. the man of iniquity.
[9]Heb. he will multiply to pardon.
[10]cypress.
[11]flea-wort.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_55:1-3. “Hoc periphrasi allegorica (sitiendi et carendi pecunia) notantur ii, quibus arida est conscientia ex aestu irae divinae propter peccata, quique anxie sitiunt gratiam Dei ac remissionem peccatorum, quam se propriis operibus consequi posse plane desperant.”—Foerster.
2. On Isa_55:1. “It is no legal commanding and ordering, that gives nothing of which it speaks, but an evangelical offer and invitation, that also gives what it demands. He who gives the command to come, also gives the strength to enable one to come, i. e., faith (Mat_11:23; Joh_6:27; Joh_6:44).”—Starke.
3. On Isa_55:1. Robustis, qui tentationibus peccati et mortis exercentur, datur vinum ad consolationem; rudibus autem et infirmis datur lac ad alimentum, quo instituuntur et docentur.”—Luther. “In Proconsular Africa the ancient church had a custom of offering to those baptized milk and honey for the new childhood and childishness. But Jerome informs us that they took also wine and milk.”—Stier: Offering milk and honey was an oriental custom.
4. On Isa_55:1-2. “The salvation of Christ cannot be bought for money, as Peter let Simon know when he offered money for it: ‘Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money’ (Act_8:20). It is not to be obtained by any sort of personal merit or work, trouble, or labor (whoever would have it thus fatigues himself in vain, and can never be satisfied, nor find any comfort for his soul), but by the pure, undeserved divine grace (Rom_3:23 sq.; Eph_2:8).”—Renner.
5. On Isa_55:2. “Est confutatio et abrogatio omnium aliarum, religionum, doctrinarum et operum. Quod omnes religiones, omnes doctrinae et studia omnia extra hanc gratiae doctrinam sint frustranea et tamen laboriosa, quae non tranquillum faciant animum sed affligant. Diligenter autem notabis hoc praedicatum, quod tribuit omnibus justitiis, quae sunt extra gratiam, quod scilicet sint laboriosae et tamen frustraneae, sicut sub papa experti sumus”—Luther.
“The Papists make God a sun shop-keeper, who would sell his heaven.”—Foerster.
6. On Isa_55:3. The peculiarity of “the sure mercies of David” consists in this, that under no circumstances can they be withdrawn from the throne and kingdom of David. Individuals, yea, even whole races and generations, that belonged to those entitled to them, may be excluded on account of their sin. But taking all together, David’s throne and kingdom shall stand and develop, grow and increase to the elevation and extent that God has determined for it. It is to regard the matter from another side when one says: “No man should doubt the grace of God or despair of it. And when we are assaulted by the doubt whether God will even preserve us in the knowledge of Himself, we should oppose to it the sure mercies of David. For mountains and hills may fall away, but His grace shall not remove from us (Isa_54:10).”—Cramer.
7. On Isa_55:3-4. “But what is the contents of the sure mercies promised to David? It is this High, Wonderful One, whom God has set for a Witness to men, in whom they should see the divinity, yea, whom He has made Head of the nations! Therefore a Person? Yes, indeed; the Messiah, the God-man, of whom Isaiah has so long spoken mysteriously, as of the Servant of Jehovah. He is a Person! For I (myself even a person) am surely not to go down beneath myself and find my soul’s contents and life in a thing! That were utterly heathenish. No. A Person is the sure mercy of David, and, indeed, the greatest of all: He in whom God bears witness of Himself to mankind, and in whom God comprehends all mankind as in their Head, Son of God, Son of man, the eternally youthful Lord of mankind, and also her, the Virgin Mary’s, Son. Of such a Lord the virgin mother, and mankind will not have to complain. Since this one must arise in Israel, the true Israel, the Apostle choir, shall draw the remotest heathen to itself, and the latter shall run up with joy because they recognize the almighty, eternal God in His church, as He glorifies it.”—Diedrich.
8. On Isa_55:6. “Quaerite eum, dum estis in corpore, dum datur locus poenitentiae, et quaerite non loco sed fide… … Appropinquat autem appropinquantibus sibi (Jac. 4:8), et filio longo post tempore revertenti laetus occurrit.” Jerome.
9. On Isa_55:7. “That is the only way of salvation. First, for a man to turn away from his own will of evil thoughts, and then conversion to God who is rich in pardon, and His pity will not tarry.” Umbreit.
10. On Isa_55:8. “One of the most sublime passages of Scripture, where more than commonly the נאם יהוה should evince itself as a truth to every conscience… … Whoever in such discourses is unable to hear the speaking Person of God, lacks something in his own personality; he has not yet become a thou that the greatest I may address.” Stier.
11. On Isa_55:8-9. The human heart comprehends with difficulty the doctrine that “God hath concluded all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.” But such as do comprehend it exclaim with Paul: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” (Rom_11:32 sq.).—“Quanto sum sublimior, tanto et clementior.” Grotius in Stier.—“Not merely the thoughts of an adulterer, fornicator, thief, are deep beneath the divine thoughts, but also those that to reason are good, holy human thoughts of reformation, of the way of salvation and righteousness, are not good for anything, until they attain the elevation of compassion and pardon. Especially in respect to justification, God declares all דְּרָכִים [“ways”], i. e. even religions, doctrines and wise ones among men, basely false, because in the best case they ever obstinately wish to bring price and money for His grace! They ever wish to help themselves, though it is before their eyes that even in nature nothing grows on earth without rain from above.” Stier.
12. On Isa_55:10-11. “The prophetic preaching since Deu_32:1 is frequently compared to rain, and the word is also conceived of as a messenger, envoy of God, Isa_9:7 (8); Psa_107:20; Psa_147:15 sqq. The personification assumes that the word is no mere sound or letter. Emitted from the mouth of God, it acquires form, and in this form it conceals divine life by reason of its divine origin, and so it runs, alive of God, endued with divine power, charged with divine commissions, as a swift messenger through nature and the world of men, there for instance to melt the ice, here to protect and save, nor does it come back from its round of errands until it has made the will of its Sender operative. This return of the word of God also presupposes a divine essence in that word. The will of God that is concrete and audible in the word is the expression of His essence, and resolves itself into this again as soon as it is fulfilled. The images chosen are rich with allusions. As snow and rain are the mediate cause of growth, and thus also of the enjoyment of what is harvested, so also by the word of God the ground and soil of the human heart is softened, refreshed and made fertile and vegetative, and this word gives the Prophet, who is like the sower, the seed which he scatters, and it brings with it bread that nourishes the soul; for every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is also bread (Deu_8:3). The particular point of comparison, however, is the energy with which the word converts itself into reality.”—Delitzsch.
13. On Isa_55:12-13. “Away with the base, stale thoughts, as if God the Lord were here only letting lofty words sound through His Prophet, about all the conveniences of the journey for the small number of Jews of that time! This exodus, this return home of the redeemed, is something quite different, extends indeed in the long perspective through much and various till the goal is reached. The first exodus from the world and sin is meant, thus indeed from Israel that has become unholy, into the reproach of Christ—furthermore the whole way of the church since that time, with all its recurring goings forth, presenting themselves in such variety of ways, finally, and indeed in the most perfect sense, the last redemption to the glory of the children. For again Israel’s return out of obduracy will furnish the last prelude that will be the reconciliation of type and reality.” Stier.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_55:1-5. The LORD a merchant. 1) He invites the whole world to buy. 2) The price He demands is not money nor performance, but that men will let Him present His wares to them. 3) His wares; He offers the mercy of David, that gives peace to all the world.
2. On Isa_55:1-5. Missionary Sermon. “God’s invitation to the sure mercies in Christ. 1) We hear in it the call of a love that wills that help be extended to all men. 2) We see in it the law of a wisdom that has resolved to save all nations by a Mediator. 3) We find in it the reminder of a promise that continues still to-day to be fulfilled among the nations”—“Missions the best glorifying of the kingdom of Christ. For 1) They help the constitution of the kingdom to attain its rights. 2) They set the Lord of the kingdom in the full light. 3) They bring the distant members of the kingdom into full course.” Dr. Zapff.
3. On Isa_55:1. “What God does not work in us Himself He does not recognize as His own. Therefore no compelling law is needed here, no command nor prohibition. For faith does all that is to be done in a free spirit. That is, it surrenders itself to God, who works everything in us out of grace. And that, also, is what Isaiah preaches, that we should come to the Lord in order to hear Him and to buy wine and milk for nothing.” Arndt, Wahres Christenthum, III. 2, 4.
4. [On Isa_55:1. “Our buying without money intimates, (1) That the gifts offered us are invaluable and such as no price can be set upon. Wisdom is that which cannot be gotten for gold. (2) That He who offers them has no need of us, nor of any returns we can make Him. He makes us these proposals, not because He has occasion to sell, but because He has a disposition to give. (3) That the things offered are already bought and paid for. Christ purchased them at the full value, with price, not with money, but with His own blood, 1Pe_1:19. (4) That we shall be welcome to the benefits of the promise, though we are utterly unworthy of them, and cannot make a tender of anything that looks like a valuable consideration.” M. Henry].
5. On Isa_55:6. “God has neither time nor place, is ever ready to help and to give, stands every moment before our door (Rev_3:20). His time is all time, but our time is not all time” (Psa_95:8; Heb_3:7; Heb_3:13; Heb_3:15; Heb_4:7). Arndt, ibid. II., 34, 12.
6. [On Isa_55:7. A call to repent. I. What it is to repent. (1) It is to turn from sin; it is to forsake it, and with loathing, “forsake his way.” There must be not only a change of way, but a change of mind, “forsake his thoughts.” Repentance, if it be true, strikes at the root and washes the heart from wickedness. (2)It is to return to the Lord: as to our sovereign Lord against whom we have rebelled; as to the fountain of life-giving waters.—II. The encouragement to repent. (1) God will have mercy. Misery is the object of mercy. Now the consequences of sin, by which we have become truly miserable (Eze_16:5-6), and the nature of repentance, by which we are made sensible of our misery and are brought to bemoan ourselves (Jer_31:18) make us objects of pity, and with God these are tender mercies. (2) He will abundantly pardon. Though our sins have been very great and very many, and oft repeated, and we are still prone to offend. After M. Henry].
7. On Isa_55:8-9. “The consolations afforded by these words. 1) We learn from them self-renunciation. 2) We learn faith from them. 3) We gain from them the right hope.” Ed. Engelhardt, in Manch. Gaben, etc., III. Jahrg., p. 602.
8. On Isa_55:8-11. “The comparison of the divine thoughts and ways with ours. 1) They are different from ours. 2) They are more efficient than ours.” Nesselmann, Ibid., 1870, p. 477.
9. On Isa_55:8-9. “One must take care that an exhortation to repentance with the promise of the gracious forgiveness of sins precede. . . . Thus the meaning is: do not wonder that I say, with God is much forgiveness, and He will have compassion even on the wicked and malicious, if they turn to Him. For ye men are so minded that ye do not willingly forgive and forget, when one has treated you roughly and often offended you. Therefore ye judge me according to your sentiment and thoughts, as if I too were so hard and unwilling to forgive. But my thoughts and my sentiment are in this respect as far from yours as heaven from earth.” Scriver, Seelenschatz, II., Th. 8 Pred. § 13.
10. On Isa_55:10-11. Comparison of the word with rain and snow. 1) Both come down from heaven. 2) Both operate fruitfully upon the earth. 3) Both return to heaven, but not without having successfully done their work on earth.
11. On Isa_55:12-13. The departure of the people of God out of the exile of sin, and evil. 1) That such a thing is to be looked for. 2) When it is to be looked for. 3) How it will be accomplished (in joy which shall be felt not only by redeemed mankind, but also by the impersonal creation).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–5 not bread-- (Hab 2:13). "Bread of deceit" (Pro 20:17).…
not bread-- (Hab 2:13). "Bread of deceit" (Pro 20:17). Contrast this with the "bread of life" (Joh 6:32, Joh 6:35; also Luk 14:16-20).
satisfieth not-- (Ecc 1:8; Ecc 4:8).
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hearken . . . and eat--When two imperatives are joined, the second expresses the consequence of obeying the command in the first (Gen 42:18). By hearkening ye shall eat. So in Isa 55:1, "buy and eat." By buying, and so making it your own, ye shall eat, that is, experimentally enjoy it (Joh 6:53). Compare the invitation (Pro 9:5-6; Mat 22:4).
fatness-- (Psa 36:8; Psa 63:5).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–4 1. Ho — A word summoning quick attention; a…
1. Ho — A word summoning quick attention; a word of sad association and of eager joy: for the summoner is in evident sympathy with long-unquenched thirst in the crowds around. So feels God’s minister who anxiously preaches the everlasting good news.
Waters — This is a subjectively dear word in itself. We scarcely think of it as a thing by itself, but as relieving ourselves when suffering extreme thirst. So is the Gospel to a long-unrelieved penitent soul. Observe three points: 1) It denotes moral forgiveness, and as its consequent, peace of mind; 2) It implies superlative richness by connexion with the terms milk and wine; 3) And its main point is, its freeness and inexhaustible abundance.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–5 1. every one that thirsteth] in a figurative sense,…
1. every one that thirsteth] in a figurative sense, primarily of the weariness and discontent of exile (cf. Isa_41:17, Isa_44:3), but also of conscious need in general.
come (lit. “go” and so throughout) ye to the waters] The image is probably connected with Isa_41:18, the miraculous fountain opened by Jehovah for the relief of His people (“wells of salvation,” ch. Isa_12:3). A reference to the cry of the water-sellers in the streets of an Oriental city is less natural.
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and he that hath no money] In the East access to a well has often to be paid for. According to the Heb. accents this clause should be joined to the preceding,—“even he that hath no money”—in apposition with “thirsty.” The word for buy is connected with a noun meaning “grain” and is only used of buying corn. It should probably be so understood in both cases here, although in the second its government extends over two similar objects. The last clause must then be rendered, buy corn without money, and without price wine and milk.
1, 2. The invitation. The message of the Gospel—its freeness, its appeal to the individual, its answer to the cravings of the heart—is nowhere in the O.T. more clearly foreshadowed than in this truly evangelical passage (cf. Joh_4:10 ff; Joh_6:35 ff; Joh_7:37 f.; Rev_21:6; Rev_22:17; also Pro_9:1 ff.; Sir_15:3). The promises are of course not to be materialised, as if water, bread, wine, milk were meant literally, or merely as symbols of comfortable earthly existence in Palestine. At the same time when we seek to recover the original historical sense of the words, there is a possibility of spiritualising over-much. The images used do, indeed, typify the blessings of salvation; but salvation itself in the O.T. is never without a national and therefore earthly element. Those here addressed are exiles (see Isa_55:12), many of whom had doubtless carried out only too thoroughly the injunction of Jeremiah to “build houses and dwell in them; to plant gardens and eat the fruit of them; to take wives &c.” in Babylon (Jer_29:6). They were in danger of losing their nationality, and with it their religion and their own souls through devotion to selfish and material aims. This is the fate against which the prophet warns them in Isa_55:2; and the salvation he offers is a personal interest in the new covenant, or membership in the kingdom of God. To this they are freely invited, with the assurance that there they shall find the satisfaction and blessedness that a life of worldliness can never yield.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–5 (1) Ho, every one that thirsteth . . .—The…
LV.
(1) Ho, every one that thirsteth . . .—The whole context shows that the water, the wine, the milk are all, symbols of spiritual blessings as distinctly as they are, e.g., in Joh_4:10; Mat_26:29; 1Pe_2:2. The Word “buy” is elsewhere confined to the purchase of corn, and would not rightly have been used of wine and milk. The invitation is addressed, as in a tone of pity, to the bereaved and afflicted one of Isa_54:6-7.
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Without money and without price.—“Literally, For not-money and not-price. The prophet had used the word “buy,” but he feels that that word may be misinterpreted. “No silver or gold can buy the blessing which He offers. Something, indeed, is required, and therefore the word” buy “is still the right word; but the “price” is simply the self-surrender that accepts the blessing. Comp. Pro_3:14-15; Mat_13:45-46,
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Vers. 1-7. AN EXHORTATION TO SPIRITUALITY AND REPENTANCE. The…
Vers. 1-7. AN EXHORTATION TO SPIRITUALITY AND REPENTANCE. The prophet passes from the ideal to the actual, from the glorious future to the unsatisfactory present. The people are not ripe for the blessings of the Messianic kingdom they do not sufficiently value them. Hence a tender exhortation is addressed to them by God himself, inviting them to become more spiritually minded (vers. 1-3), and fresh promises are held out to the obedient (vers. 3-5). The disobedient are then somewhat sternly exhorted to turn from their evil ways and repent (vers. 6, 7).
Ho, every one that thirsteth! Though the mass are gross and carnally minded, there will ever be some who have higher aspirations who hunger and thirst after righteousness", (Mat_5:6) and desire spiritual blessings. These are invited, first of all, to come and partake of the good things provided for them in Messiah"s kingdom. Come ye to the waters. (on the spiritual symbolism of water, see the homiletics on Isa_44:3, Isa_44:4) Here the "peace" and "righteousness" of the Messianic kingdom (Isa_54:13, Isa_54:14) are especially intended. Our Lord"s cry on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:7) is clearly an echo of this. Wine and milk. These are not symbols of temporal blessings, as many have thought. "Wine, water, and milk are," as Delitzsch says, "figurative representations of spiritual revival, re-creation, and nourishment." Without money and without price. God"s spiritual gifts are freely given to men; they cannot be purchased. Being in their own nature "more precious than rubies," their value transcends human means of payment. They cannot even be earned by man"s best works; for man"s best works are comprised in his duty to God, and have, therefore, no purchasing power. God may choose to reward them; but if he does it is of his free grace.
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HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-5. The Messianic blessings.
I THE INVITATION. "Ho!" A cry arousing attention (Isa_1:4) or expressing pity. (Isa_17:12)
1. It is addressed to thirsty ones. The figure occurs in Isa_44:3 also. What more powerful figure can there be for desire, and for the pain of unsatisfied desire? It is especially Oriental. It brings up the image of the hot, sandy waste, and by contrast that of the cool, bubbling fountain. Hunger and thirst are the "eldest of the passions," and it may be added, in a sense, the youngest; for age cannot still them, nor constant satisfaction take off their edge. They are daily, they are recurrent, they are the expression of life itself. Hence they may well symbolize the ardent desire for salvation. (Joh_7:37 Psa_42:2 Psa_63:1 Psa_143:6) And what can better represent salvation than water the well that springs up into everlasting life? Waters, floods, overflowing streams, or copious showers, are often used to denote abundant blessings from God, especially blessings under the rule of the Messiah. (Isa_35:6 Isa_43:20 Isa_44:3)
2. It is addressed to each and all. The invitation is bounded only by the thirst the felt need. Not the rich, the noble, the great; not the select and the few; but those who partake of a common want, and are capable of a common satisfaction. "It proves that provision has been made for all. Can God invite to a salvation which has not been provided? Can he ask a man to partake of a banquet which has no existence? Can he ask a man to drink of waters when there are none? Can he tantalize the hopes and mock the miseries of men by inviting them to enter a heaven where they would be unwelcome, or to dwell in mansions which have never been provided?". (cf. Mat_9:28 Mar_16:15 Joh_7:37 Rev_22:17) It is addressed especially to the poor. "No man can excuse himself for not being a Christian because he is poor; no man who is rich can boast that he has bought salvation.
II THE BLESSINGS DESCRIBED. "Buy." The word is properly used of grain. "Its use here shows that the food referred to can be called equally well "bread" or "wine and milk," i.e. it belongs to the supernatural order of things" (Cheyne). And the buying is to be understood spiritually. The blessings are only to be obtained for "that which is not money and not a price." It is faith, or the hearing of the inner ear (ver. 3), which is meant. In the wine we may find a symbol of gladness. (Jud_1:9:13 Psa_104:15) The blessings of salvation cheer men amidst their sorrows; and one of the firstfruits of the Spirit is joy. Milk, again, is the symbol of nourishment. (Deu_32:14 Jud_1:4:1 5:25 Joh_7:22 1Co_9:7) It is joined with "wine" and with "honey" in Son_4:11 Son_5:1. These blessings are rich and satisfying as compared with the pleasures of the world. The latter may be emphatically described as not-bread less satisfying. Happiness is our being"s aim. But men seek it in erroneous ways. Bread is the support of life, and stands as the symbol of all that conduces to support life in the spiritual sense. "In ambition, vanity, and vice, men are as disappointed as he who should spend his money and procure nothing that would sustain life." Men toil for that which defeats their aim, because it does not satisfy. The blossom of pleasure "goes up as dust;" the fruits are those of the Dead Sea, "turning to ashes on the lips." The desire of the human soul is as insatiable as the grave. Where is the man who has been satisfied with ambition? Alexander wept on the throne of the world, and Charles V came down from the throne to private life, because he had not found royalty to satisfy the soul. In one respect we are all like Alexander our happiness is disproportioned to our appetites. Nature seems scanty, and, though we have never so much, we still long for something or other more. But to those who hearken to God, there is promised a perfect luxuriation (Isa_66:11) in good things. "Fatness" stands for the richest food, (Gen_27:28-39 Job_36:16 Psa_65:11) and hence for the abundance of blessing flowing from the favour of God. (Psa_36:9 Psa_63:5) "Man seems as boundless in his desires as God in his Being: and therefore nothing but God can satisfy him." All else is "love lost is part of "the great lie or cheat that overspreads the world.
III THE EVERLASTING COVENANT. Mention of it is made seven times in Isaiah. The idea of the original covenant, broken by Israel and renewed by Jehovah, is specially characteristic of Jeremiah. (Jer_31:31-33 Jer_32:40 Jer_50:5) The loving-kindnesses shown to David by Jehovah are meant. (Isa_63:7 Psa_89:49 Psa_107:43 Lam_3:22) "David is probably to be understood in a representative sense; he is radiant with the reflected light and spirituality of the Messianic age." These loving-kindnesses are "unfailing". (Psa_89:28) For Jehovah"s word cannot be broken, and the reward of piety extends to the latest posterity. (Exo_20:5, Exo_20:6) David is termed a "witness to the people," apparently in the same representative sense. God, then, binds himself by solemn promises to be their God, their Protector, and their Friend. The promise was not to be revoked, was to remain in force for ever; and he would be their God to all eternity. Let them, then, hear, and their soul shall live. Religion is life. (Joh_6:33 Joh 5:40 Joh_8:13 Joh_20:31 Rom_5:17, 18 6:4 8:6 1Jn_5:12 Rev_2:7-10) Hearing is the means whereby the soul is enlivened. J. (Joh_6:45 Joh_5:25 Act_2:37 Mt 13)
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM Ver. 1. The soul"s thirst satisfied.
"Ho, every one that thirsteth!" This is a Divine invitation, and as such shows us the nature of God, which is in itself a healing and a satisfying nature, finding expression in the incarnation and redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I THE AWAKENING SOUL. "Thirsteth." When the soul is quickened and feels new life, then is consciousness of need need of God. New thirsts are sometimes awakened in human nature thirsts for love and friendship; and in the intellectual nature, thirsts for knowledge and mental light. This is the highest thirst soul-thirst which God by his Spirit alone can satisfy.
II THE RESPONSIBILITY or THE SOUL. "Come ye." We must seek for friendship, seek for knowledge, and so we must be searchers after God. Finding Christ, we must also follow him, and come to the waters of forgiveness, of purity, and of immortal blessedness.
III THE CHARITY OF GOD. "God is love." Amazing, free, boundless love. Having made provision for our salvation, God says, "All things are now ready; come." The marriage-banquet is open to us all. The spread table is God"s own table, and we are to be receivers of his fulness of grace, "without money and without price. W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Ver. 1. The provision which cannot be purchased.
In a country like our own we hardly know what thirst means. Few Englishmen have suffered from intense thirst. A man must live or travel in other latitudes to be exposed to this evil. But judging from the accounts of those who have suffered, we conclude that it is almost, if not absolutely, the severest and most intolerable sensation to which "flesh is heir." It may. very well be taken as a picture of
I THE UNSATISFIED CRAVING OF THE HUMAN SOUL. The hunger and thirst of the human heart must necessarily be more serious by far than the cravings of the body; for they are the longing, the yearning, the keen and imperious demand of our higher and truer self. Man thirsts after God. Spite of all the downward tendencies, the earthward inclinations, the sensuous leanings of our human nature, it remains true that there is a profound, ineradicable crying of our soul after the living God. (see Psa_42:1 Psa_63:1)
1. The intelligence of man thirsts for the ultimate Cause of all things.
2. The immortal spirit which man (not has, but) is, thirsts for the satisfying joy which is only found in his fellowship and his service.
3. The guilty heart of man thirsts for a thorough reconciliation with him. Man knows that he has sinned, that he is condemned, that his guilt stands as an impassable barrier between him and his God, and he earnestly longs to be forgiven and restored, so that he may again lift up his face to his Divine Father in filial confidence and joy. But he asks How? "How shall man be just with God?". (Job_9:2) "Wherewith shall we come beforethe Lord?". (Mic_6:6, Mic_6:7) Beneath all the louder cries that fill the air, deep in the soul of man is the demand What shall we do that we may live before God and with him? There can be no final rest in our heart until this question has been answered in our experience.
II THE PRECIOUS PROVISION WHICH IS OFFERED US. In the truth which God has revealed in his Word, and more particularly in that Son of God who is himself the great Revelation of the Father, we have that which satisfies our spiritual need.
1. It is that which slakes our spiritual thirst. "Come ye to the waters." Water relieves and removes thirst as nothing else will. The forgiveness, the restoration, the reinstatement which is in Jesus Christ perfectly satisfies the intense craving of the soul. It brings a surpassing, transcendent peace.
2. It is that which nourishes the soul in all spiritual strength. "Buy... milk.
3. It is that which gladdens it with true and abiding joy. "Buy wine.
III THE PRICELESSNESS OF THIS DIVINE PROVISION. The prophet may indeed say, "Buy;" for these provisions are worth all the wealth that the most opulent can offer. But he has to add, "without money and without price;" for these blessings cannot be earned or purchased by us. God cannot sell his love, his mercy, his restoration of erring children. He does not meet us on the ground on which a creditor meets his debtors. He is, indeed, a Divine Creditor; we owe him ten thousand talents of reverence and gratitude and service we have never paid. But he does not demand of us some pence in the pound before he certifies that we are free. We frankly confess that we have nothing to pay, and he "frankly forgives us all". (Luk_7:42) God offers us his redeeming love, everlasting life, as the gift of his grace a glorious gift, freely offered on his part, and to be gladly accepted on ours. He necessarily imposes conditions; but these are open to every soul, and none need reject them; they are the turning away of our hearts from sin, and the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Divine Saviour and Lord. C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1. Man"s need and God"s provision.
This well-known and much-used verse is the model of gospel invitations. "Ho!" as to persons at a distance; beyond the pale, according to Jewish thought. "Wine," that cheers; "water," that refreshes; "milk," that nourishes. "Buy without money" impresses the worth, as well as the freeness, of the thing obtained.
I THE CRY OF SOULS IS SO VARIED, THEY NEED LARGE AND COMPREHENSIVE INVITATIONS. So various, so large, so intense, so immediate, so urgent.
1. Think of the cry of creation to God, rising day and night for precise blessings, from the world of vegetable and animal life.
2. Then think of the cry of man"s bodily nature. How complex are its demands if it is to be kept in vigour! But souls are altogether more wonderful, more mysterious, than bodies, and body-needs do but suggest and illustrate soul-needs. What is the cry of all souls? What is the cry of some souls? It is impossible to press the cries of souls into any one mould. There is difference between men"s cry and women"s cry; between the cry of the shallow and of the thoughtful; between the cry of the educated and uneducated; between the cry of the moral and the profligate. And yet there is one word in which the deep want of all men everywhere can be expressed they want God, though so many do not know his Name, or cannot articulate it. If we carefully distinguish the cries of men, we may say,
1. some cry for light amid the dark perplexities of our time;
2. some for guidance amid difficulties;
3. some for earnestness amid frivolities;
4. some for pardon under pressure of the sense of sin;
5. some for truth amid the allurements of error; and
6. some for rest from the weariness of toil and failure; and
7. some for comfort under woes that press heavily.
What a cry that must be which enters into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth!
IX NONE BUT GOD CAN MAKE INVITATIONS LARGE ENOUGH AND VARIED ENOUGH, TO MEET THE CRIES. The cry for happiness is too big for the world to meet; the cry for truth is beyond all the skill of science to satisfy. "The fountains of this earth are dried, and I am thirsty still.
1. Human conscience cries for pardon. In Christ is proclaimed "forgiveness of sins.
2. Human affection cries for love. It may spend its uttermost and best on Christ, and be fully satisfied with his response.
3. Human intellect cries for truth. Jesus, by his Spirit, leads into a truth.
4. Human will cries for a supreme authority. And Christ is Lord. For every want we can translate into a cry, Christ is the Supply. For every want we can feel, but cannot translate into a cry, Christ is still the infinitely adapted and all-satisfying Supply. R.T.
The thirst of the soul quenched.
Compare the assurances and invitations of Christ, in Joh_4:13, 14 6:35 7:37, 38. It is singular to note that the prophet chose a form of speech very common in the East. In Jerusalem the shopkeepers cry to the passers-by, "Ho, every one that hath money, let him come and buy!" "Ho, such a one, come and buy!" They indeed expect to get full value, though they offer for nothing. God intends a free and sovereign gift.
I THIRST. A figure for unresting desire, setting us upon pursuit and effort. Thirsting differs from hungering in this the hungering man will quietly lie down and die; the thirsting man will spend himself in mad strivings. Illustrate from desert scenes. So thirsting is the more impressive figure of a man"s condition. Everybody is eagerly wanting something. Of this there are both painful and pleasing signs. Illustrate how this thirst takes special religious forms at special times, as in opening youth, seasons of sickness, scenes of revival, death of first friend, as in cases of Luther and Norman Macleod. This restless soul-thirsting is
(1) man"s suffering;
(2) man"s glory;
(3) man"s hope.
He may satisfy the thirsting, but it would be a sign of soul-death simply to lose it. The thirst of the soul is ever for one satisfaction it is thirst for God.
II THIRSTING AGAIN. This is the result of all attempts to quench the thirst of the soul by anything earth can offer. There are lines upon which temporary supplies seem to come. Man offers "cups of cold water.
1. Thirst quenched for a time in worldly pleasure. Illustrate from the familiar picture, "The Pursuit of Pleasure." There never were such strivings for sense-gratification as there are now. Life makes a loud noise to drown the soul"s cries.
2. Thirst quenched for a time in the externalities of religion. Satiated with pleasure, men sometimes turn to religion. Illustrate from experience of Ignatius Loyola. Also see confidence in holy wells and shrines. There is a fascination at first in ceremonial religion, but it soon pails. You can soon empty these cups, and then there is nothing for your thirsty soul when you come again.
III THIRSTING NEVERMORE. Christ does not destroy the thirsting, but sets us down close beside the living spring. And all the bitterness is gone, if the supply is close beside us, and we may drink when we please. Apply to the soul"s love. The love of Christ is the satisfying response. To the soul"s trust. The work of Christ is the satisfying response. To the soul"s ideal. The Person of Christ is the satisfying response. To the soul"s anxiety about the future. The promises of Christ are the satisfying response. The soul that has Christ has an upspringing well beside him; he lives close near to the waters of life. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–5 He, every one that thirsteth
Isa_55:1-13
He, every one that thirsteth
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The cries of the water-carriers
Public messages [Isaiah] would, as a matter of course, deliver publicly in the frequented streets and bazaars, and in khans, and in the temple area, frequently using the common cries of the forerunners of the nobles, the morning call of the temple watchmen, who had been waiting to proclaim the striking of the suns first rays upon the pinnacles, the groans of the sabbals (or burden-bearers), the tumult of the buyers and sellers, and the sing-song invitation of the water-carriers, and purveyors of wine and cooling drinks, as his texts,--just such cries and invitations as one may hear to-day in Cairo, Jerusalem, or Damascus.
Standing at a street corner he hears a voice, All ye that arc thirsty, buy my cooling waters, and refresh your hearts, and he forthwith bursts out with his own competitive cry, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, etc. (F. Sessions.)
Water, wine and milk
Hitzig, Hendewerk and Knobel understand water, wine and milk as the rich material enjoyments which the exiles have in prospect on returning to their fatherland, whereas they are now paying tribute in Babylon, and rendering personal service to their masters without deriving any benefit therefrom. But the prophet knows of a water even higher than natural water (Isa_44:3; cf. Isa_41:17), and a higher than the natural wine (Isa_25:6); he knows of an eating and drinking surpassing mere material enjoyment (Isa_65:13). As shown by the very fact that water is placed first, water, wine and milk are not the products of the Holy Land, but figures of spiritual revival, refreshing and nourishment (1Pe_2:2, τὸ λογικὸν ἄδολον γάλα). (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
God eager for sinners
God would have the attention of sinners; He calls for it. Are not sinners eager for God? Oh, no. It is God who is eager for sinners; and so He calleth Ho! Men pass by with their ears full of the worlds tumult; and God calleth, again and again, Ho! ho! (C. H.Spurgeon.)
The Gospel first addressed to human necessity
A great appeal is addressed to those who are athirst. Thus the Lord accommodates His ministry to human necessity. When men are thirsting for water He does not offer them sublime visions of the future, or stately ideas concerning the economies and dominions of time. He would say to men, Let us, in the first place, supply your need; until your thirst is quenched your mind cannot be at rest; until your bodily necessities are supplied your imagination will be unable to exercise itself in high thoughts. The promises of God are addressed to our necessities for more than merely temporary reasons. There is a whole philosophy of government in such appeals. Only at certain points can we profess to understand God, and those points touch our need, our pain, our immediate desire; when we are quite sure that God gives us water for our bodily thirst we may begin at least to feel that there is a possibility that He may not neglect the more burning thirst of the soul. God approaches the spirit through the body. The God who grows corn for our hunger may also have bread for our spirits cry of weakness. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Come! come!
It is Come--come. That is the most familiar word in the Bible! It seems to be a favourite word. The word Come occurs six hundred and forty two times in the Bible. It is Come to the supper; Come to the waters The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. Through all sorrows, through all trials: through all nights of darkness, through all calamities, through all temptations, it rings out, Come! Come!, Come! I remember, when I was a boy in the country, being envious of the old sexton who used to lay hold of the bell-rope, and start the bell that shook the meeting-house, calling the people for miles around to prayer. The poorest man, trudging along the turnpike-road, knew that the bell called him just as much as it called the rich farmer riding behind his prancing and capering pair. And so this Gospel bell calls to palaces and to huts, to robes and to rags, saying, Whosoever will, let him come. When the sexton had struck one stroke, why did he not wind up the rope and stop? The people had all heard it. But no; he kept on ringing, until, besweated and exhausted, he sat down. When he began to ring there were none present. When he concluded ringing, the roads were full of waggons, and the church door was thronged with people who had come to worship God. And so we must keep on ringing this Gospel bell. Though, perhaps, few may now come, we will keep on ringing, until, after a while, men shall come as clouds, and as doves to their windows. (T. De Flirt Talmage, D. D.)
Spiritual Thirst
In a man spiritually athirst there are seven qualities answerable to those in a man naturally athirst.
1. Emptiness.
2. Exquisite sense--a painful sense.
3. Peculiar cares and thoughts. All a mans thoughts, in such a condition, are for water to cool and refresh him (Act_2:37,
16:30).
4. Impatience (Exo_17:3).
5. Vehemeney of desire.
6. Diligent endeavour.
7. Constant languishing. Delay doth but increase the thirst the more. Nothing will put an end to spiritual thirst but Jesus Christ. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
The Jews in exile prosperous yet thirsting
Who are these thirsty souls, panting for a satisfaction which they have not yet found? They are the people of the hill country, now exiled to the plains. They have been bereft of the companionable apocalypse of the heights, and they are now immured in the unsuggestive monotony of the plains. I do not think you will find a single helpful figure in the entire Bible borrowed from the plains. The plains lie prone as a speechless sphinx. The hill country is full of voices, loud in their intimations, prodigal in revelations. Its phenomena are the messengers of the infinite. There towers the rugged height, firm and immovable, standing sure and steadfast through the fickle and varied years. What is its suggestion? Thy righteousness is like the great mountains. Yonder come the treasure-laden clouds, driving in from the great deep. They unburden their wealth upon the shoulders of Carmel, clothing it with a garment of rare and luxuriant beauty. What is their significance? Thy mercy reached even unto the clouds. Here, on these bare, basaltic heights the tired and heated traveller rests in the cool and healing shadow of a friendly rock. What is the speech of the shadow He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. In the hill country all things are but the vestures and vehicles of larger things of spiritual import. The light, soft wind that stirs and breathes in the dawn--it is God who rides upon a cherub, yea, who flies upon the wings of the wind. The gentle, mollifying rain falling upon the parched, bruised, broken stems of grass: He shall come down like rain-upon the mown grass. The end of the drought; the unsealing of the springs among the hills; the gladsome sound of the river as it laughs and dances down the bare and rocky gorge: what is its significance? Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures. It was an expressive, voiceful, suggestive land. Its features interpreted the face and character of God. Land and people were in communion, and their intercourse concerned the nearness and the favour and the providence of the Lord of hosts. But now the land and the people are divorced. The people are borne away into captivity. They leave the hill-country, so rich in interpreting speech, and they pass into the speechless monotony of the plains. Their environment is dumb. Their dwelling-place is no longer a sacrament: it is common, insignificant, speechless. They have passed from nature to art, and from art to artifice. They have left the shepherd and have met the merchant. They have left the work of the labourers in pastures and dressers of vineyards for a swift and feverish civilization. Now, take the people of the bracing, speaking, hill country, and immure them in this sweltering and superficial plain. In all the crowded interests by which they are engirt there is nothing suggestive of God. There was grandeur, but the grandeur had no voice. It was grandeur without revelation, and grandeur without revelation is never creative of awe. Where there is no awe, men step with flippant tread. The exile felt the glamour, felt the power of the grandeur, but in the glamour and grandeur forgot his God. His vision was more and more horizontal, and less and less vertical. Ambition waxed feverish, and aspiration waxed faint. The spirit of the conqueror infected the captive. The babble of Babylon entered into Israel. Success was enthroned in place of holiness, and the soul bowed down and worshipped it. The exile embraced the world, and shut out the infinite. Now, what was the issue of that Y The exile made money. His body revelled in conditions of ease. His carnal appetites delighted themselves in fatness. He climbed into positions of eminence and power. What else? In the fulness of his sufficiency he was in straits. The body luxuriated; the soul languished. He drenched the body with comforts; but he couldnt appease its tenant. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up, eat, drink, and be merry! And still the soul cried out, I thirst, and disturbed him like an unquiet ghost, he spent money and more money, but was never able to buy the appropriate bread. He plunged into increased labours, but his labours reaped only that which satisfied not. The body toiled, the brain schemed, the eyes coveted, and still the soul cried out, I thirst. Now, when there sits in the soul a hungry unrest and a feverish thirst, life will drop into faintness, weariness and despair. All things become stale, flat, and unprofitable. We spend our money for that which is not bread, and we labour for that which satisfieth not. All is vanity and vexation of spirit. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The true imperialism
Has this no pertinency for our own day? Acquisition and expansion are the primary notes of modern life. And is there no thirst, no disquietude of spirit? Our novels and our poetry are full of the drooping leaf. Behind the droop there is the thirst. The literature only reflects the people. Business circles never abounded as they do to-day in faint and weary men. They get and spend, and spend and get, but through it all persists the inward thirst. England is thirsting for life. What we need is the infinitely gracious ministry of the Eternal Son of God. He, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.
I. There is to be THE DISCIPLINE OF THE EAR. There is to be a determined, resolute effort to listen to God. When I turn over the pages of the New Testament, and the Old Testament as well, I am greatly surprised at the emphasis with which is given the injunction to hear. Hear, ye deaf. Every page sends out the cry of the herald--Hearken, listen, incline your ear. It is wonderful how often the Master repeated the injunction, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. That is not a kind of mild, kindly counsel, but an urgent, strenuous appeal to men and women in imminent peril. As though they were disinclined, or did it lazily and easily. He seems to say, Put work into hearing, make it a business, put some intenseness into it. The voices of the world are so clamorous, so fascinating, so easily enticing, that you are in great danger of being allured unless you set yourself resolutely to attend to God. Hearken diligently unto Me; put work into listening to Me, in the Parliament, in the Council House, on the Exchange, in the shop and the warehouse, and in the pulpit. There are many clamorous voices around you, those of Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, Mr. Pliable, Mr. Time-Server, Mr. Love-of-the-World. Then pull yourself together, says the Master and the prophet; engage yourself with such intenseness amidst all the bustling clamour, that you may catch the upward calling of your God.
II. The discipline of the ear is accompanied by THE DISCIPLINE OF THE HEART. Listen and then yield. Let the wicked forsake his way (and then something infinitely harder), and the unrighteous man his thoughts. I find it a comparatively easy thing to forsake a way; but I find it almost insuperably difficult to forsake a thought. Hear the Highest and then uncompromisingly obey. You say impossible! Idleness creates the impossible, says Robert South. I think perhaps one of the great needs of our time in personal and national life, is that some nation should resolutely address itself to listen to the voice of God, and when she has resolutely listened and confidently heard, then to resolutely and deliberately attempt the impossible. Let her begin by forsaking her own wicked ways. Let her hearken diligently to the Divine voice and then definitely and unwaveringly follow in pursuit, even though the way lead apparently to an impassable height. Let her return to the Lord, and let there be no longer a democracy, an aristocracy, a plutocracy, but a Theocracy willing gladly to be counselled by Jehovah.
III. WHAT IS THE ISSUE OF THIS OBEDIENCE? Suppose the thirsty nation oppressed, turned herself to listen to Jehovah and began to interpret the voice Divine, and suppose she addressed herself with all the majesty of Divine power to the pursuit of the ideal discerned, what would happen? The issue of-such a demeanour is portrayed for us with wonderful prodigality in the chapter.
1. There is the assured promise of fuller life. Hear, and your soul shall live. Hitherto life had been a thin existence, a mere surface glittering, a superficial movement. Now there shall be vitality, awakening and stirring in undreamed-of depths. Life shall be no longer confined to the channels of the appetites; life shall no longer be a mere matter of senses and sensations confined to the outer courts and corridors of the life, but you shall begin to live in the innermost self. The unused shall be aroused and exercised;, the unevolved shall be unpacked; benumbed instincts shall be liberated; buried powers of discernment shall come trooping from the grave; new intelligence shall be born, and the sea of iniquity shall ebb, and the sea shall give up its dead. Life shall be no longer scant and scrimpy. You shall delight yourself, not in leanness but in fatness, every tissue of yourself shall be fed, and the outer life shall bear all manner of fruit, and the leaves of the tree shall be for the healing of the nations.
2. Mark the succession, and we get an exceedingly pregnant suggestion. We have got a nation listening, we have got a nation doing, we have got a nation now living, with its powers evolved, and in active exercise. What next? Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not. What is that? It means that a true and glorified national life is to be followed by a true and glorified imperialism. Nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God. That is the true imperialism--empire by moral and spiritual sovereignty, allurement of dominion by the fascinating radiance of a pure and satisfied life. Gentiles shall come to the light, and kings to the brightness of the rising. It is empire not merely by the aid of Maxim guns, but by great heartening: Gospels proclaimed by a great redeemed, glorified people. This is to be the shining goal of true national ambition. The mission of the great people, according to this chapter, is to be this: We are to be witnesses to the people, leaders and commanders of the people, witnesses ceaselessly reiterating the truths of the heartening Gospel, proving in the power of our own redemption our fitness to be leaders of the people, going out as path-finders amongst the benighted peoples. They shall be called (I want no more glorious title for the country) the restorer of paths to dwell in.
3. Now, mark further the issue. A true imperialism, I will not say is to be succeeded, but is to be accompanied by a splendid magnanimity. When the nation has hearkened diligently unto God, and follows determinedly in the pursuit of His will, all little-mindedness has to pass away in the great spacious ambitions. The pure and the exalted people are to share the spacious thought of God, and this I take to be the meaning of the word, My thoughts are not your thoughts. What are Thy thoughts like? As the heavens are higher than the earth. Gods thoughts are lofty, spacious, broad; so our thoughts must be comprehensive, full of an all-inclusive sympathy which vibrates to the interest of each, as though each contained the welfare of the other. The truly imperial people are to share this largeness of idea and ideal and all inclusive sympathy. All parochial peddling and sterile individualism shall yield to a pregnant altruism, and mean patriotism is to be supplanted by a generous fructifying cosmopolitanism. The annexation of territory will be regarded as infinitely inferior to the salvation of the world. Influence shall not be measured by mileage, but by magnanimity. Empire will not be computed by so many leagues of earth, but by the multitude of redeemed and liberated souls. And the outskirts of sovereignty will not be contained by bristling guns, but They shall call her walls salvation and her gates praise.
4. We have an exalted, glorified empire, and according to this prophet, there is to be nothing wavering or uncertain about the moral empire of such a people. For them a help-giving ministry,, will be inevitable. As the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, etc. The rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, the bringers of the spring time; and the nation truly imperial, and filled with the living Spirit of the living God, shall be the spring-time maker amongst the children of men, and the creator of gladness and music and song. The prophet himself bursts into song: The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. That is to be the ministry of the nation. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree. The thorn with the sharp-piercing, pain-giving spikes: instead of that shall come up the fir tree--from which were made the musical instruments, and especially the framework of the harp; instead of the thorn, the pain-making thing, shall come up the fir tree, the music-making thing; the glorified people shall move among the scattered peoples, and shall exercise the beautiful ministry of changing the creators of pain into the makers of melody and praise. Instead of the briar, with its bitter, poisonous sting, shall come up the myrtle tree, with its glossy leaves, and white flowers and grateful perfume. The redeemed and consecrated nation shall exult in a missionary enterprise which shall change the poisonous enmities and jealousies of the people into the perfume of sweet and gracious sentiments, and the chastened delights of a holy and blameless life. Is not this an ambition worthy of the English people of our own day? (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The gracious invitation
I. THE INVITATION ITSELF.
1. The universality of the offer.
2. The freeness of the gift. He that hath no money --he that is in spiritual bankruptcy.
3. The fulness of the blessings which this salvation contains. They are represented by the three terms, water, wine and milk.
II. THE ENCOURAGEMENTS TO ACCEPT THE INVITATION. These are manifold and various.
1. There is, the contrast between the blessings offered and those for which men are now so laboriously toiling.
2. The character of Him through whom the blessings are to be obtained.
3. The present nearness of God to us and His abundant willingness to pardon.
4. The fact that Gods ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts. He pardons like a God.
5. Gods Word shall not return unto Him void. There is profound encouragement in the thought that back of these agencies of the Gospel, which seem so weak as compared with those powers of depravity in the soul with which they must contend, lies the changeless purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.
6. The profound interest felt by all holy beings everywhere in the salvation of the sinner. That profound sympathy with man in his efforts for salvation which our Lord so beautifully represents by the joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, the inspired prophet; here represents by the joy of inanimate nature over this return of the sinner to Him who is the Fountain of life.
7. The beneficent results of the acceptance of this invitation. Instead of the thorn, etc. Divine grace works a complete transformation in the heart into which it comes. It roots out the thorns and briars of selfishness, of pride, of avarice, of unbelief and every hurtful lust. It implants in their room all the graces that adorn the Christian character. (T. D.Witherspoon, D. D.)
Gospel invitation without restriction
Man may erect his barriers around that fountain, God erects none. It is not, Come by laboured preparation--by penance and fasting, by pilgrimage and mortification, It is not, Come--but you must come by dogma and rubric, by sect and shibboleth.Neither is it, Come--but you must come with some golden or jewelled bucket to fetch up the water; you must come like Naaman of old, laden with, costly offerings, talents of silver and gold, and changes of raiment. But, Come, just as you are, without money and without price; without distinction, whether natural or spiritual, of class or rank or caste, birth or blood or pedigree. Come, though you may have but an earthen pitcher to draw with; come, though you can only lave up the water in the rough palm of your hands. (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
Come to the waters
The Lord even thirsteth to be thirsted after. (J. Trapp.)
Mans misery and Gods call
I. SIN IS MISERY, FAILURE, KEEN AND URGENT WANT. Isaiah draws a picture which Orientals would appreciate far more vividly than we, whose utmost pain from thirst only means that on some holiday excursion we have felt the heat inconvenient, and have not; happened immediately upon a fountain. He speaks, not of one thirsty man, but of a number, evidently a caravan of travellers. No one who heard him would fail to think of the burnt and sandy plains, a little to the south, on which sometimes a whole company of travellers might wander from their way, and exhaust their provisions, and grow feeble and gaunt and desperate. The hot breeze whirls the burning sand around them. The simoom wind wails in the distance. Phantom waters gleam with a cruel mockery on this side or that. Their own fever creates illusions which distract them. The skeletons of others, lost like themselves, glare upon them. Their steps are feeble, and their tongues cleave to their mouths, when suddenly all that they could not find finds them, and a glad voice calls, He, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters! This fountain is deep enough for all, and here, in our tents, is Oriental hospitality besides; buy and eat, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Our own countrymen, exploring the deserts of Australia even now, would understand it well. Many a brave man has sunk down there and died.. One band of early explorers survived to tell how in their extremity they climbed a hill and saw below them a rolling water, right into which with one consent; they rushed, and eagerly drank, only to find that it was salt as brine. O mockery, like the mockery of earthly pleasure when the heart is athirst!
II. GOD CALLS THE DISAPPOINTED, the fevered, the men and women who have found the world desolate and dry; whose very wishes give them not their wish, who succeed perhaps, and are all the more unhappy because they know that success also is vanity; whose affection prospers, only to teach them that, after all, there are depths in every heart which resound to no human voice. You may not as yet feel any more than this burning, secret want; but this is enough, if only it leads you to the fountain. Does not the very word come imply the leaving of something, as well as approach to something else? And this purchasing is not entirely defined in the words, Let the wicked man forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, for much more than sin must be surrendered. St. Paul tells us of the price he himself paid when, having reckoned up his advantages, and how, as touching the righteousness that is by the law, he was blameless, he adds, What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ, etc. Yes, for Christ. For it is He who interprets this verse of Himself, though it is plainly spoken of Jehovah. He, on the great day of the feast, stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. Here, then, is the one test of earnestness: Will you, at the bidding of your God, renounce what has failed to quench your thirst, for the sake of the waters of life? (G.A. Chadwick, D.D.)
The great proclamation
I. TO WHOM THIS OFFER IS MAKE. It is to every one thirsty and penniless. That is a melancholy combination, to be needing something infinitely, and to have not a farthing to get it with. But that is the condition in which we all stand, in regard of the highest and best things.
1. Every one that thirsteth. That means desire. But it means need also. And what is every man but a great bundle of yearnings and necessities? There are thirsts which infallibly point to their true objects. If a man is hungry, he knows that it is food that he wants. We have social instincts; we need love; we need friendship; we need somebody to lean upon; we thirst for some breast to rest our heads upon, for hands to clasp ours; and we know where the creatures and the objects are that will satisfy these desires. And there are higher thirsts of the spirit, and a man knows where and how to gratify the impulse that drives him to seek aider some forms of knowledge and wisdom. But besides all these there come in a whole set of other thirsts that do not in themselves carry the intimation of the place where they can be slaked. And so you get men restless, dissatisfied, feeling that there is something wanting, yet not knowing what. You remember the old story in the Arabian Nights, of the man who had a grand palace, and lived in it quite contentedly, until somebody told him that he needed a rocs egg hanging from the roof to make it complete, and he did not know where to get that, and was miserable accordingly. We build our houses, we fancy that we are satisfied; and then there comes the stinging thought that it is not all complete yet, and we go groping in the dark, to find out what it is. Do you know what it is that you want? It is God! Nothing else, nothing less. There are dormant thirsts. It is no proof of superiority that a savage has fewer wants than you and I have, for the want is the open mouth into which supply comes. And it is no proof that you have not, deep in your nature, desires which unless they are awakened and settled, you will never be blessed, that these desires are all unconscious to yourselves. And yet there are no desires--that is to say, consciousness of necessities--so dormant but that their being ungratified makes a man restless. You do not want forgiveness, but you will never be happy till you get it. You do not want to be good and true and holy men, but you will never be blessed till you are. You do not want God, but you will be restless till you find Him.
2. And he that hath no money. Who has any? Notice that the persons represented in our text as penniless are, in the next verse, remonstrated with for spending money. So then the penniless man had some pence away in some corner of his pocket which he could spend. He had the money that would buy shams, that which is not bread, but he had no money for the true thing. Which, being translated out of parable into fact, is simply this, that our efforts may win, and do win, for us the lower satisfactions which meet the transitory and superficial necessities, but that no effort of ours can secure for us the loftier blessings which slake the diviner thirsts of immortal souls.
II. IN WHAT IT CONSISTS. They tell an old story about the rejoicings at the coronation of some great king, when there was set up in the market-place a triple fountain, from each of whose three lips flowed a different kind of rare liquor which any man who chose to bring a pitcher might fill from, at his choice. Notice my text, come ye to the waters. . . buy wine and milk. The great fountain is set up in the market-place of the world, and every man may come; and whichever of this glorious trinity of effluents he needs most, there his lip ,may glue itself and there it may drink, be it water that refreshes, or wine that gladdens, or milk that nourishes. They are all contained in this one great gift that flows out from the deep heart of God to the thirsty lips of parched humanity. And what does that mean? We may say salvation; or we may use many other words to define the nature of the gifts. I venture to take a shorter one, and say, it means Christ. He is the all-sufficient supply of every thirst of every human soul.
III. HOW DO WE GET THE GIFTS? The paradox of my text needs little explanation. Buy without money and without price. The contradiction on the surface is but intended to make emphatic this blessed truth theft the only conditions are a sense of need and a willingness to take--nothing else and nothing more. (A. Mallard, D. D.)
Soul thirst
Men know what bodily hunger is, some have felt it to an agony, but there is a soul hunger far more distressing than this. It is depicted on the countenances of those whose bodies fare sumptuously every day. Men also know what bodily thirst is. But there is a soul thirst infinitely worse than that which was ever felt by the most parched of Oriental travellers. That all unregenerate souls are thirsting, with more or less intensity, for that which they have not, will neither be debated nor denied. Christianity is a provision for such, and as a provision it is marked by three things.
I. IT IS EFFICACIOUS. It is water. The Gospel is to the thirsty soul what the cool refreshing stream is to a thirsty body. It satisfies--
1. The guilty conscience,
2. The longing heart,
3. The worshipping spirit of man. All who have truly received the Gospel give this testimony.
II. IT IS GRATUITOUS. Without money and without price. Water is one of the freest things in the world. It is a ubiquitous element; it not only floats in the cloud, descends in the showers, and rolls in the rivers, but bubbles up at our feet and oozes out in all the things around us.
III. IT IS UNRESTRICTED. Ho, every one that thirsteth. The Gospel is not for any type of mind, any class of character, any condition of society, any tribe of men. Like the light of heaven, it is for all. (Homilist.)
The spiritual appetite and its gratification
I. The spiritual appetite.
1. It results from the constitution of our nature. We cannot go deeper than nature. We cannot go behind or beyond it, for nature is what has been born (Latin natura), born out of Gods thought by Gods power. When we speak of nature we must pass in thought from her to her parent God, and find a sufficient answer to all questions and difficulties by saying: God has so willed it, therefore it is as it is. All the strong basal instincts of human nature must be traced back to the make of our moral being as it was planned by almighty wisdom, and wrought by infinite power. We hunger and thirst, because our physical nature has been so created that it must needs go out of itself for its supplies of nutriment. Similarly, God made our souls for Himself. Deep within us, lie has put necessities and desires, that crave for satisfaction from the Unseen, Eterual, and Divine.
2. It produces pain. There are many sources of pain; but perhaps primarily God has instituted it to compel us to take measures for our health and salvation. The pain of hunger and thirst in designed to force us to take food, without which the body would become exhausted and die. So, in the moral sphere, we should be thankful when we are discontented with ourselves, when in self-abhorrence we cry out for Gods unsullied righteousness, when we go about smitten with infinite unrest.
3. It is universal. As we have never met man or woman incapable of hunger or thirst, so there is no human soul which is not capable of possessing God, and does not need Him for a complete life. Often the spiritual appetite is dormant. The invalid, who has long suffered under the pressure of a wasting illness, may have no appetite, but at any moment it may awake. Thus with the hunger of the soul for God.
II. THE NURTURE OF SPIRITUAL APPETITE.
III. THE CERTAIN GRATIFICATION OF THIS APPETITE. God never sends mouths, the old proverb says, but He sends with them the food to fill them. Young lions never seek that which His hand does not open to give. The fish, and the fly at which it snatches; the bird, and the berries on the hawthorn bush; the babe, and the milk stored in its mothers breast, are perfectly adapted to each other. Whatever you and I have longed for in our best and holiest moments may have its consummation and bliss, because God has prepared for our perfect satisfaction. (Lira of Faith.)
A gracious invitation
I. THE STATE OF THE PERSONS ADDRESSED. II. THE NATURE OF THE PROVISION PREPARED.
III. THE FORCE OF THE INVITATION OFFERED. What is it to corals? coming signifies believing. Observe how this invitation is reiterated. It corrals in with a shout; then it is plainly stated--then it is repeated--and a third time it is urged.
1. Let the extent of the call induce you to come.
2. Let the freeness of the supply induce you to come.
3. Let the sufficiency of the provision induce you to come.
4. Let the impossibility of finding redemption elsewhere induce you to come.
Conclusion:
1. Some of you have heard in a spirit of levity.
2. Some in a spirit of neglect.
3. Some in a spirit of doubt and despondency. (J. Parsons.)
Water for the thirsty
I. WHAT THESE WATERS ARE WHICH ARE PROVIDED FOR THIRSTY SINNERS.
II. EVERY THIRSTY SINNER MAY AND OUGHT TO COME TO THEM. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
True satisfaction in Christ
There are eight things which thirsty sinners should set together.
1. All their sins and Christs merits.
2. All their distresses and Christs compassions,
3. All their wants and Christs fulness.
4. All their unworthiness and Christs fresness.
5. Their desires and Christs invitations.
6. Their thirstings and the promises of Christ.
7. Their own weakness and Christs strength.
8. Satans objections and Christs answers. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
The best bargain
Dr. Faustus was very dear to legend in the Middle Ages. He burned with desire to drink his fill of all the pleasures of this life; but he could not gain them by his own unaided skill. He therefore made a contract with Satan. It was drawn out in the most lawyer-like style, and Faustus signed it with his own blood. It was stipulated that during the next twenty years he should have the run of all earths pleasures, and then his soul and body were to be given over to Satan. He began with the sweets of knowledge, but soon he forsook them in disgust, and plunged into the fiercer and coarser excitements of the senses. Amid many horrors the body and soul of Faustus were seized by Satan just as the clock struck twelve at night on the last day of the specified period. These legends hold some of the most solemn secrets of life. They teach that every man has a soul to dispose of; that men, like the fallen angels, may ruin themselves with their eyes open; and that the greatest transactions of the soul may be likened to buying and bargaining.
I. WHEN I BUY, I DESIRE. And I desire what I must fetch from without. Were I entirely self-supporting, had I everything I, need within myself, as the saying is, I should never go to any market. Isaiahs words for buy means to buy provisions. Lost in the desert, parched by thirst, gnawed by hunger, duped by the mirage, ready to perish--that is the standing biblical picture of a sinful man when he realizes his souls needs. It is he who is urged to come to the waters, and to buy wine and milk. But I have no heart, no desire for these things: what am I to do? That is the great trouble; indifference or downright indolence of soul the most common obstacle. But Gods appeal is, Come now, and let us reason together. He sets forth the alternatives as to a reasonable being. Water, wine, milk, good, fatness, life, covenant-mercy--all these are freely offered instead of starvation and death. How unreasonable you must be if anything on earth can keep you from what you know to be your highest good!
II. WHEN I BUY, I CHOOSE The essence of a bargain is an act of choice. Choose I the Bible keeps that word ever ringing in our ears. And so does profane literature. Hercules, the greatest hero of heathendom, was made by his deliberate choice of virtue and rejection of vice. Pythagoras put this great truth into one of the most popular of object-lessons. He compared life to the letter y. The parting of the ways is symbolized by the two limbs of the letter. A man must go forward; and he must go left or right; he must walk in the way of evil or in the way of good. This choosing is the biggest thing you can do in this world. When I buy I consent to the price. Buying is simply avowed consent in action. Come buy . . . without money and without price. By this double phrase the prophet assails the deep-seated self-righteousness of the heat. And he assails it wits its own favourite ideas and phrases. You will buy. Well, then, let him buy who has no money, and let him buy without money and without price. Buying has a legal suggestion; but buying without money more than neutralizes every such suggestion. The most capacious mind, the liveliest imagination, could not suggest a more effective way of setting forth the utter freeness of Gods grace.
III. WHAT I BUY, I OWN. The Gospel is here staten in the language of the market-place, so that all may perfectly understand it. All just laws and our moral instincts make me the undoubted possessor of that which I have fairly bought and paid for. It is my very own. This buying is all you need. The goods are yours in offer; and they are yours in full possession n you accept them.
IV. WHAT I BUY, I USE. Unused milk and flesh are of no value to me. The bread of life, which Christ is and offers, is ours only in so far as we appropriate and assimilate it. Buy and eat. The buying is useless without the eating. Eating is the most vital, personal, and experimental thing in the world. The bread eaten becomes part and parcel of myself. (Monthly Visitor.)
The proclamation and expostulation of mercy
I. THE PROCLAMATION OF MERCY.
1. The blessings offered.
(1) Waters. Men need cleansing and refreshing. The word is waters, not water. Some waters are good for domestic purposes only, others for medicinal purposes, and others again for purposes of cleansing. Thus, the water that may be suitable for one purpose may be unsuitable for other purposes. Not so the blessings of the Gospel; not so Christ, who is the Gospel. He meets all the needs of the soul. He pleases the imagination, satisfies the affections, calms the conscience, purifies the heart.
(2) Wine. Christ is like wine, in that He gladdens the heart. He is unlike wine in this--while we may have too much wine, we can never have too much of Christ.
(3) Milk. Milk is nourishing food; milk is natural food. A taste for milk is possibly the only taste we have by nature. All our other likings are more or less acquired. But, we refuse Christ, because what we popularly can a state of nature, is not a state of nature. To live naturally we must feed naturally. He only, so lives who feeds on Christ.
2. The terms propounded.
(1) We must thirst for Christ. We shall be blessed as soon as we wish to be. We are welcome to Christ when He is welcome to us.
(2) We must come to Christ.
II. THE GLORIOUS RESULTS which accrue from compliance with these conditions. Men are invited to buy, etc., so, of those who comply it may be said--
1. They buy soul-food, i.e they appropriate as verily their own the blessings purchased by Christ.
2. They eat, i.e they have experimental knowledge of Christianity.
3. Their soul delights itself in fatness. The more of Christ men have, the more they desire
III. THE LORDS GRACIOUS EXPOSTULATION. It is an appeal to their reason and their experience. God knows what man is, and what he feels. It is as if God had said: I know your case entirely; you are toiling for happiness and toiling in vain, and you know it. You are always pursuing some ideal good, with which, when you get it, you are satiated. Why go on thus, when peace and rest may be had? The argument used by God teaches that sin is--
1. Costly. Wherefore do ye spend money, etc. Sin is costly.--
(1) A pecuniary sense.
(2) A mental sense.
(3) A moral sense.
(4) A spiritual sense. It costs money, health, mental quiet, character, heaven.
2. Laborious.
(1) Men labour to accomplish their evil purposes.
(2) Men labour to conceal their evil deeds, etc.
3. Unsatisfying. (J. S. Swan.)
Invitation; expostulation; entreaty
I. AN EVANGELICAL INVITATION. Come ye.
1. The persons invited.
2. The matter of the invitation. Jesus Christ is an only good, and He is an universal good. Waters; bread; milk; wine.
3. The manner of the invitation.
(1) Earnest. Ho!
(2) Serious. Come, come, come; buy, buy.
(3) General. Every one.
(4) Gracious. Buy wine and milk, without money and without price.
There is much good to be had, and at a very easy rate. Jesus Christ, and the things of Christ, are above price and without price.
II. A COMPLAINING EXPOSTULATION. Wherefore, etc. Here we have charged on sinners--
1. Their neglect.
2. Their folly.
III. A RENEWED SOLICITATION OR ENTREATY. How patient is God, even to sinners who neglect the offers of His grace! This renewed entreaty is--
1. Very vehement. Hearken diligently; incline your ears; hear.
2. Very persuasive.
3. Very satisfactory. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, etc.
I will give My bond for it; all this shall be as surely made good as the mercies which I performed to My servant, David. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
Food a supreme need
What does the hungry man want? Money? Not at all. Fame? No. Good clothes? Not a bit. He wants food. What does the thirsty man want? Reputation? Bonds and stocks? No! He wants water. When we are dead in earnest, and want the bread of heaven and the water of life, we shall not stop till we get them. (Sunday School Chronicle.)
He that hath no money; come ye, buy, and sat
Buying without money
We have before us the figure of a merchant selling his wares, and crying like a chapman in the market, He! To attract attention he calls aloud, Come! Come! Come! three several times; and he adds to this the cry of Buy! Buy! Shall the Great King thus liken Himself to a trader in the market earnest to dispose of his goods? It is even so, and I therefore call upon you to admire the mercy of the Lord. In the fifty-third and fifty-fourth chapters this Divine Merchantman has been spreading out His wares. What treasures they are!
I. A DESCRIPTION OF THE BUYER. It is the portrait of a poor, penniless, broken-down creature reduced to the extremity of want: He that hath no money. Of course, by this is meant the man who literally has no money. Having nothing, you may yet possess all things. But we understand the reference of the text to be mainly spiritual, and so the portrait here is that of a man who has no spiritual money, no gold of goodness, no silver of sanctity.
1. His fancied stock of natural innocence is spent.
2. He thought that he had accumulated some little savings of good works; but his imaginary righteousness turns out to be counterfeit.
3. He is in a still worse plight, for he is also too poor to get anything; the procuring power is gone, for he has no money that is to say, nothing wherewith he can procure those good things which are necessary to salvation and eternal life.
4. Moreover, his stock with which to trade is gone. Money makes money, and he that has a little to begin with may soon have more; but this man, having no stock to start with, cannot hope to be rich towards God in and by himself. No money!
(1) Then, he cannot pay his old debts. His sins rise up before him, but he cannot make amends for them.
(2) Moreover, he cannot meet his present expenses.
(3) He cannot face the future.
(4) The only hope for a man who has no money must he outside himself.
II. THE SELECTION OF THE BUYER. It is a strange choice, and it leads to a singular invitation, He that hath no money; come, buy, and eat. What is the reason?
1. These need mercy most.
2. This character is chosen because he is such a one as will exhibit in his own person the power of Divine grace.
3. The Lord Jesus delights to make evident the freeness of His grace.
4. He is the kind of man that will listen. A wretched sinner jumps at mercy like a hungry fish leaping at the bait.
5. Such an empty, penniless soul, when he does get mercy, will prize it and praise it. He that has been shut up in the dark for years values the light of the sun. He that has been a prisoner for months, how happy he is when the prison doors are opened, and he is at liberty again! Let a man once get Christ, who has bitterly known and felt his need of Him, and he will prize Him beyond all things.
III. THE INVITATION. The man who has no money is to come, buy, and eat. It looks odd to tell a penniless man to come and buy, does it not? and yet what other word could be used? Come and buy, has a meaning of its own not to be otherwise expressed. In buying there are three or four stages.
1. Desiring to have the thing which is exhibited.
2. This means next, to agree to terms.
3. When the terms are carried out, the buyer appropriates the goods to himself.
4. But the text says, Buy, and eat, as much as to say, make it yours in the most complete sense. If a man buys a loaf of bread it is his: but if he eats it, then all the lawyers in the world cannot dispute him out of it--he has it by a possession which is not only nine points of the law, but all the law. Christ fed upon IS ours beyond all question.
IV. By way of ASSURANCE, to show that this is all real and true, and no make-believe.
1. It is not Gods way to mock men. He hath Himself declared, I said not unto the seed of Jacob, seek ye My face in vain.
2. God is under no necessity to sell His benefits. He is not impoverished: He is so rich that none can add anything to His wealth.
3. There is no adequate price that we could bring to God for His mercy.
4. Remember that Jesus must be meant for sinners, for if sinners had not existed there never would have been a saviour.
5. It must be true that God will give these blessings to men who have no merits, and will bestow them as gifts, because Jesus Himself is a gift.
6. Beside that, Christ is all.
7. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is blessedly free from all clogging conditions, because all supposed conditions are supplied in Christ Jesus. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Gospel blessings to be bought
You may have seen persons in a shop who, when they have been shown almost all the contents of the shop,--when article after article has been brought down from the shelves for their inspection, have at last, to the no small disappointment of the shopkeeper, gone out without buying anything. And we who have the Gospel wares to dispose of, are subject to like disappointments. We also have customers who, when they have looked at, and turned over, so to speak, again and again, the goods which we offer them, as though they would make an offer for them, content themselves with the looking at them, hear and listen to the Gospel, that you would think they were going to embrace it, yet go out of Church, ah! and out of the world, without embracing it. (W. Cleaves, M. A.)
Buyers will show that they possess
It will be seen whether we have been indeed buyers, or like those who content themselves with looking at what is to be sold without buying. If a man has been buying clothes, for instance, he will be seen wearing the clothes; if he has been buying cattle, he will stock his land with the cattle; if he has been buying provisions, his table will be supplied with the provisions; if he has been buying furniture, his house will be furnished with it; and if we have been buying of Christ, the heart and mind will be furnished, we shall be clothed, we shall be adorned with what Christ has for those who buy of Him. (W. Cleaves, M. A.)
The fulness of Christ offered to the needy sinner
1. In Christ there is very good fare to be had for poor sinners.
2. The enjoyment of it is limited by their coming to Christ and buying of Him.
3. Upon their coming to Christ all that good doth certainly come to them. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
Willingness to buy of Christ
He that is willing to buy--
1. Will go to the market.
2. Doth like the wares which are to be bought.
3. Will come up to the price at which they are to be bought.
4. Will watch the time, and take the time of buying.
5. Is willing to sell that he may compass the things he is very desirous to buy (Gen_47:17-19; Mat_13:44).
There are three alls which a poor sinner is willing to sell that he may have Christ.
(1) All his sinful lusts and his former sinful courses of life.
(2) All his worldly estimations and advantages (Heb_11:24-26).
(3) All his serf. His serf-wisdom, his serf-will, his serf-righteousness, his self-sufficiencies and his serf-confidence, his self-seekings and his self-advantages (Php_3:8). (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
Buying of Christ
You may know that you have indeed bought of Christ by something in yourselves.
1. Your hearts will be much endeared to Christ for what He hath sold unto you.
2. You will spend what you have bought of Christ, upon Christ.
3. You will so like the bargain that Christ shall have your custom as long as you live.
4. You will not sell what you have bought. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
Driving a trade with Christ
There are seven arguments to persuade poor sinners to come and buy of Christ.
I. THE EXCELLENCE OF THE WARES.
II. THE NECESSITY OF THE PURCHASE.
III. THE GOODNESS OF THE SELLER.
IV. THE EASINESS OF THE PRICE.
V. THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE MARKET.
VI. THE BENEFIT OF THE BARGAIN.
VII. THE LOSS BY NEGLECT.( O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
The benefit of trading with Christ
By buying of Christ you gain--
1. Losses. It is no gain to lose a soul, yet it is an exceeding gain for a soul to lose some things--the dominion of sin, the love of sin, a condemning conscience, our corrupt vices, etc.
2. Yourselves. We never come to enjoy ourselves until we come to enjoy Christ.
3. Your own souls--they are safe and secured for ever.
4. All. All the purchase of Christ, all the good of all the offers of Christ, all the fruits of the Spirit of Christ, all the promises of God in Christ, all the revealings of the ordinances of Christ, all the immunities and privileges of Christ, all the hopes by Christ. You gain all the good which concerns soul and body in this life, and all the good which concerns them in the life to come. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
Spiritual merchandise
Those who have bought of Christ are--
I. THE WISEST MERCHANTS.
II. THE SUREST POSSESSORS. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
Buy and eat:
It is a virtue here to be a holy glutton. (J. Trapp.)
Yea, come, buy wins and milk
Wine and milk
As water, on account of its commonness and abundance, is often apt to be despised, the prophet farther speaks of the blessings of salvation under the symbols of wine and milk. (R. Jones, M. A.)
A free salvation
I. I have to preach WINE AND MILK. The Gospel is like wine which makes us glad. Let a man truly know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he will be a happy man, and the deeper he drinks into the spirit of Christ, the more happy will he become. The Gospel is like milk too, for there is everything in it that you want, Do you want something to bear you up in trouble? It is in the Gospel--a very present help in time of trouble. Do you need something to nerve you for duty? There is grace all-sufficient for everything that God calls you to undergo or to accomplish. Do you need something to light up the eye of your hope? There are joy-flashes in the Gospel that may make your eye flash back again the immortal fires of bliss. Do you want something to make you stand steadfast in the midst of temptation? In the Gospel there is that that can make you immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. The Gospel was evidently meant for manhood; it is adapted to it in its every part. There is knowledge for the head; there is love for the heart; there is guidance for the foot. And I think there is another meaning in the two words wine and milk. Wine is a rich thing, something that requires much time to manufacture. There has to be vintage and fermentation and preservation before wine can come to its full flavour. The Gospel is like that; it is an extraordinary thing for feast days; it gives a man power to use a vintage of thought, a fermentation of action, and a preservation of experience, till a mans piety comes forth like the sparkling wine that makes the heart leap with gladness. But milk is an ordinary thing; you get it every day, anywhere. So is it with the Gospel: it is a thing for every day.
II. Having thus exhibited the article, my next business is to BRING THE BIDDERS UP TO THE AUCTION BOX AND SELL IT. My difficulty is to bring you down to my price. Here comes some one up to the sacred desk, transformed for the moment into an auction-box, and he cries, I want to buy. What will you give for it? He holds out his hands, and he has such a handful; he has to lift up his very lap with more, for he can hardly hold all his good works. He has Ave-Marius and Paternosters without number, and all kinds of crossings with holy water, and bendings of the knee, and prostrations before the altar, and reverence of the host, and attending at the mass, and so on. And so, Sir Romanist, you are coming to get salvation are you? and you have brought all this with you lava sorry for thee, but thou must go away from the box with all thy performances, for it is without money and without price, and until thou art prepared to come empty-handed thou canst never have it. Then another comes up and says, I am glad you have served the Romanist like, that I hate the Church of Rome; I am a true Protestant, and desire to be saved. What have you brought, sir? Oh I have brought no Ave-Marias, no Paternosters. But I say the collect every Sunday; I am very attentive to my prayers. I got to church almost as soon as the doors are open, or I go to chapel three times on the Sabbath and I attend the prayer-meetings; and beside that, I pay everybody twenty shillings in the pound; I would not like to hurt anybody; I am always liberal, and assist the poor when! can. I may make a little slip just now and then. Still, if I am mot saved I do not know who will be. I am as good as my neighbours, and I think I certainly ought to be saved, for I have very few sins, and what few there are do not hurt other people; they hurt me more than any one else. Besides, they are mere trifles. I will send you away; there is no salvation for you, for it is without money and without price; and as long as you bring these fine good works of yours, you cannot have it. Mark, I do not find any fault with them, they are good enough in their place, but they wont do here, but they wont do at the judgment bar of God. Suppose I see a man building a house, and he were fool enough to lay the foundation with chimney-pots. If I should say, My dear man, I do not like these chimney-pots to be put into the foundation, you would not say I found fault with the chimney-pots, but that I found fault with the man for putting them in the wrong place. So with good works and ceremonies; they will not do for a foundation. The foundation must be built of more solid stuff. But see another man. He is a long way off, and he says, Sir, I am afraid to come; I could not come and make a bid for the salvation. Sir, Ive got no larnin, Im no scholard, I cant read a book, I wish I could. My children go to Sunday-school; I wish there was such a thing in my time; I cant read, and its no use my hoping to go to heaven. I goes to church sometimes, but oh dear I its no good; the man uses such long words I cant understand em, and I goes to chapel sometimes, but I cant make it out. It wants no scholarship to go to heaven. Now, I see a man come up to the stall, and he says, Well, I will have salvation, sir; I have made in my will provisions for the building of a church or two, and a few almshouses; I always devote a part of my substance to the cause of God; I always receive the poor, and such-like; I have a pretty good share of money, and I take care not to hoard it up; I am generous and liberal. Wont that carry me to heaven? Well, I like you very much, and I wish there were more of your sort. But if you bring these things as your hope of heaven, I must undeceive you. You cannot buy heaven with gold. Why, they pave the streets up there with it. Wealth makes distinction on earth, but no distinction at the Cross of Christ. You must all come alike to the footstool of Jesus, or else not come at all. I knew a minister who told me he was once sent for to the dying bed of a woman who was very well to do in the world, and she said, Mr. Baxter, do you think when I get to heaven Betsy my servant will be there? Well, he said, I dont know much about you, but Betsy will be there; for if I know any one who is a pious girl, it is she. Well, said the lady, dont you think there will be a little distinction? for I never could find it in my heart to sit down with a girl of that sort; she has no taste, no education, and I could not endure it. I think there ought to be a little difference. Ah I you need not trouble yourself, madam, he said, there will be a great distinction between you and Betsy, if you die in the temper in which you now are; but the distinction will be on the wrong side; for you see her in Abrahams bosom, but you yourself will be cast out. As long as you have such pride in your heart, yon can never enter into the kingdom of heaven. The highway is as much for the poor man as the rich man; so is the kingdom of heaven--without money and without price.
III. I have to use A FEW ARGUMENTS with you.
1. I would speak to you who never think about these things at all.
2. I have now the pleasing task of addressing men of another character. You do feel your need of a Saviour. Remember, Christ died for you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The desire to bring something to Christ
I dare say in this congregation I have a hundred different phases of this singular fatuity of man--the desire to bring something to Christ. Oh, says one, I would come to Christ, but I have been too great a sinner. Self again, sir, your being a great sinner has nothing to do with that. Christ is a great Saviour, and however great your sin, His mercy is greater than that. He invites you simply as a sinner. Another says, Ah, but I do not feel it enough. Self again. He does not ask yon about your feelings; He simply says, Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. But, sir, I cannot pray. Self again. You are not to be saved by your prayers; you are to be saved by Christ, and your business is simply to look to Christ; tie will help you to pray afterwards. But, says another, if I felt as So-and-so did. Self again. Yes, you say, I think He would receive anybody but me. Please, who gave you any leave to think at all in the matter? Does He not say, Him that cometh unto Me I will in nowise cast out? Give up thinking, and believe. Are your thoughts as Gods thoughts, But, says one, I have sought Him, but I have not found Him. Can you truly say that you have come to Christ with nothing in your hand, and have looked alone to Him, and yet He has cast you away T Do you dare to say that? No: if Gods Word be true, and you are true, you cannot say that. If you will come down to this prince, and take Christ for nothing, just as He is, without, money and without price, you shall not find Him a hard Master. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Without money and without price
I. THE SURPRISING NATURE OF THIS FACT, for it is very surprising to mankind to hear that salvation is without money and without price. It is so surprising to them that the plainest terms cannot make them understand it; and, though you tell them a thousand times a day, yet they persist in thinking that you mean some thing else. Why is it when man does see it he is surprised at it?
1. Because of mans relation to God, and his wrong judgment of Him. Man thinks that God is a hard master.
2. No doubt, also, the condition of man under the fall makes it more difficult for him to comprehend that the gifts of God are without money and without price, for he finds that he is doomed to toil for almost everything he needs.
3. Again man recollects the general rule of men towards each other, for in this world what is to be had for nothing except that which is worth nothing?
4. Another matter helps man into this difficulty, namely, his natural pride. He does not like to be a pauper before God.
5. Once more, all religions that ever have been in the world of mans making teach that the gifts of God are to be purchased or merited. Though I have thus shown grounds for our surprise, yet if men would think a little they might not be quite so unbelievingly amazed as they are; for, after all, the best blessings we have come to us freely. What price have you paid for your lives? and yet they are very precious. What price do you pay for the air you breathe? What price does a man pay for the sunlight? Life and air and light come to us without money and without price. And our faculties, too--who pays for eyesight? The ear which hears the song of the bird at dawn, what price is given for it? The senses are freely bestowed on us by God, and so is the sleep which rests them. It is clear then that some of the best blessings we possess come to us by the way of free gift; and come to the undeserving, too, for the dew shall sparkle to-morrow upon the grass in the misers field, and the rain shall fall in due season upon the rising corn of the wretch who blasphemes his God.
II. THE NECESSITY OF THE FACT mentioned in our text.
1. From the character of the Donor. It is God that gives. Would you have Him sell His pardons?
2. Because of the value of the boon. As one has well said, it is without price because it is priceless.
3. From the extremity of human destitution. The blessings of grace must be given without money and without price, for we have no money or price to bring.
III. THE SALUTARY INFLUENCE. OF THIS FACT. If it be without money and without price, what then?
1. That enables us to preach the gospel to every creature.
2. This fact has the salutary effect of excluding all pride. If it be without money and without price, you rich people have not a halfpennyworth of advantage above the poorest of the poor in this matter.
3. It forbids despair.
4. It inspires with gratitude, and that gratitude becomes the basis of holiness.
5. It engenders in the soul the generous virtues. The man who is saved for nothing feels first with regard to his fellow-men that he must deal lovingly with them. Has God forgiven me? Then I can freely forgive those who have trespassed against me. He longs to see others saved, and therefore he lays himself out to bring them to Jesus Christ. If he had bought his salvation I dare say he might be proud of it, and wish to keep it to himself Then the free gifts of grace, working by the power and energy of the Holy Spirit, create in us the generous virtues towards God.
6. I cannot think of anything that will make more devout worshippers in heaven than this. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Come"
Linger not, loiter not, frame not excuse, strain not courtesy, hang not off by sinful bashfulness: it is good manners to fall to your meat. (J. Trapp.)
Without money and without price"
1. This gracious way of a sinners full enjoyment of Christ stands not in opposition to praying, attendance upon the ministry of the Word, or believing.
2. This is to be understood in an opposition to the price and value of our works. You can lay down nothing that hath merit or recompense in it; that hath answerable value, or any value in it. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
Christs gracious terms
All that poor sinners need may be bought of Christ upon gracious terms. Six things demonstrate it.
1. The sinners insufficiency.
2. His unworthiness.
3. The inconsistency of any other way of trading with Christ Rom_4:4; Rom_11:6).
4. The invaluableness of the commodities.
5. The quality of the contract. Ask. Believe.
6. The work of the Seller.
(1) He is to find all that poor sinners need.
(2) Upon His own proper costs and charge.
(3) He is to give all to them. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)
Trying to buy salvation
Mr. Webb-Peploe tells of a wealthy man whom he had never known to give five farthings a year in charity, who sent for him once when ill with paralysis. The man said to the minister, I am afraid [ may die. I have sent for you that I may do what is right before God; I want to go to heaven, and I want you to take a hundred pounds for the poor. The man of God looked the sinner straight in the face and said, Do you think you are going to buy your souls way to glory with a dirty hundred pounds? Give your money where you like, I will not touch it. That was bitter medicine, but some diseases require sharp treatment. The man lived, and learned that salvation is not to be bought with money. (Christian Budget.)
Without money and without price
Roland Hill was once preaching at a fair within earshot of the rival gongs of the vagrant merchantmen. Pointing to them, he said, They and I are both offering goods for sale. But their difficulty is to get you up to their price; my difficulty is to get you down to mine. I offer you goods without money and without price. (Christian Budget.)
Too valuable to be bought
Zeuxis gave his pictures to his native city for nothing, because they were too good to be bought with gold. To offer money for them was to undervalue them. Can I buy pardon with anything I can call mine? (Christian Budget.)
No coinage can buy spiritual good
A man lands in a far country with English shillings in his pocket, but he finds that no coins go there but thalers, or francs, or dollars, or the like; and his money is only current in his own land, and he has got to get it changed before he can make his purchases. So with a pocketful of it he may as well be penniless. And, in like fashion, you and I, with all our strenuous efforts, which we are bound to make and which there is joy in making, after these lower things that correspond to our efforts, find that we have no coinage that will buy the good things of the kingdom of heaven, without which we faint and die. (A. Maclaran, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5 Isa_55:1-2. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to…
THE DIVINE PROVISION FOR HUMAN NEED
Isa_55:1-2. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, &c.
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The world owes much to the Hebrew mind, and the fine foreshadowings of the ancient prophets. Isaiah touches a chord to which all hearts vibrate, speaking of the birth of Christ, &c. And like a true friend of our suffering race, he sympathises with those who hunger, with those who are weary, and with those who are athirst, No wonder that this old book should still be welcome to man, should never exhaust itself, never grow old, because there is so much in it which appeals to the living heart of humanity. Take the text as an instance, which exhibits the blessings of the Gospel under the most delightful aspects. Consider—
I. How DEEPLY THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL ARE NEEDED.
1. They are not blessings which we can do very well with, or very well without, but they are absolutely vital to our existence. The Gospel is one thing in all ages, and it is the one thing needful for sinful, suffering, dying man—needful to youth and age, &c.
2. But besides this, the thirst of the soul for something greater or nobler than earth can give, is universal
3. The text especially addresses those who thirst after the blessings of pardon and salvation, who feel their destitution of grace, &c. How precious are Gospel blessings to those who feel their need of them!
II. HOW EMINENTLY ADAPTED THEY ARE TO OUR NEED.
Water, milk, wine, bread, are not more suited to the wants of the body, than Christ and salvation are to the deeper wants of the immortal mind. The real ground of the adaptation of the Gospel to man’s need, arises from its power to meet the twofold difficulty under which we labour—the guilt of past sin, and the present love of sin. The Gospel experimentally received, acts with the fixedness and certainty of a general law, and becomes “the power of God unto salvation,” &c.
III. HOW FREELY THEY ARE PROCLAIMED.
Our encouragement to seek these blessings is as ample as our need is great. “Come ye to the waters,” &c. There can be no contrariety between the absolute freeness of Divine grace, and the appeals and invitations to sinners in the Gospel. The doctrine of the Scripture is that all are welcome to Gospel grace to whom Gospel grace is welcome, &c. The invitation is very free and full, designed to meet all the discouragements of grace-wanting spirits. Come, and come NOW.
IV. HOW FEARFUL ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NEGLECTING THEM.
An eternal famine must be the result. The greatest guilt must be involved in the rejection of the greatest mercy; and by the grandeur of the blessedness of the saved, you may calculate the depth of the misery of the lost. This ruin is aggravated—
1. By the thought that it is self-caused.
2. By the thought of the worthlessness of the objects for which it is resigned. “Wherefore do ye spend,” &c. Though the Gospel is absolutely free and gratuitous, yet its blessings must be sought.—Samuel Thodey.
We may term these words the Gospel summons, the trumpet call from Heaven to man, bidding him to the great fulness of God’s redeeming love. The call reminds us—
I. That the religious wants of man are imperious, and they are universal. By their being imperious we mean that they have a power to assert themselves in such a way that we must feel them, however we may explain them. The opening verses of this chapter supply us with the strongest illustration of the religious feeling in man, for they describe it as a hunger and a thirst—a view of the matter very familiar to us in the Scriptures. And what more imperious feelings does the body experience than those of hunger and thirst? So is it with the soul. It hungers and thirsts quite as truly, quite as deeply, as the body. No thirst was ever more real than that described by the psalmist (Psa_42:1-2).
The religious need is also universal, i.e., it is involved in the life of every human soul. It may be more or less developed, but the spiritual capacity is there, and will in due time assert its strength. We may say that the spiritual craving is—
1. Conscious, i.e., has become distinctly intelligible to the soul who is alive with yearnings after God. This is the state of which our Lord speaks (Mat_5:6).
2. Or, it may be said to be unconscious, i.e., all the elements of yearning and dissatisfaction may be there, though the soul does not recognise their true meaning and treat them in the right way. Hence we may trace the hunger and thirst of the spirit in the very perversions of life, such as the following:—Undue eagerness after earthly possessions; vices, by which men seek spurious happiness; tyrannies, by which they seek undue mastery, &c. These very disorders witness to the active spirit within, and the facts are everywhere present: “that religious instincts are as truly a part of our nature as are our appetites and our nerves, is a fact which all history establishes, and which forms one of the strongest proofs of the reality of that unseen world to which the soul of man continually tends.”
II. Our text announces that these spiritual wants are provided for. “Come ye to the waters: come and eat.” This is a great secret of the Gospel message, that it not only describes our need, but also offers the supply. The former without the latter would prove a cruel mockery. “The waters” here spoken of set forth the fitting and overflowing provisions of God for our wants. When we rightly know our need, we shall eagerly respond to His message:—e.g., the Gospel declares—
1. God’s love for human souls. We are not Fatherless. With a deep and infinite love far beyond expression or thought, He cares for us (Joh_3:16).
2. God’s help for human souls. In order to attain to our true life, we need—light in our mind: cleansing of the heart: redemption from the power of all sin. All these things are meant by the one word salvation, and they are comprised in the saving work of Christ (1Co_1:30). Salvation, then, is a great word, and it means a great provision. “Come ye to the waters.” The provision is as wide as the need—“Every one.”
III. The terms are within the reach of all. In this matter of salvation there is no privilege of aristocracy, or money, or position, or power. It is not a question of purchasing. What can I offer to God for what He gives me? All that I have, worth possessing, first came from Him: I have nothing of my own. In this respect we all stand upon equal footing before God. The richest has nothing to give, and the poorest is not kept back by his poverty.
And yet there is a condition in the matter which we must all face. There is one thing we have to do—we have to come to the waters. This indicates the personal trust and the voluntary surrender that God requires of us, and this is what we mean by faith. The condition upon which God saves us may be fulfilled by any and all of us.
IV. From all this it follows, that those who come short of the blessings of God’s redemption, are themselves to blame.—W. Manning.
Here are plain words, in which plain facts and truths are stated, for the instruction and encouragement of plain people. The prophet uses figures drawn from the common experience of common life to set forth the promises of Divine revelation.
I. MAN’S WANT. As hunger and thirst are primary and universal facts of human nature, so has man’s soul appetites which call for satisfaction. We experience desire and need for true happiness, for the favour of God, for joy and peace of heart, for a law of life, for comfort under trials, for a hope, an assurance of immortality. Man’s wants are real, numerous, and pressing.
II. MAN’S VAIN ENDEAVOUR TO SATISFY THE WANTS OF THE SOUL. As the miserable inhabitants of a besieged city buy the vilest carrion to stay their hunger, as wretched slaves toil beneath the sun for long hours with no wages in prospect, so the irreligious, in their folly and delusion, seek to satisfy the needs of the soul with the vain things of this perishing world; so the misguided and superstitious strive to appease the conscience with unprofitable observances (H. E. I. 2378–2387, 4627–4630).
III. GOD’S SUPPLY IS PROVIDED FOR MAN’S WANTS. In contradistinction from the foul carrion and the polluted waters of the world, we have here set before us the wholesome bread, the new milk, the pure wine of the Gospel of Divine grace. Here you may find in Christ a provision of salvation; in the gift of the Holy Spirit all spiritual help and guidance. The fact that the Gospel is from God is a guarantee that it is adapted to the necessities of men; and He has caused it to be published from His fatherly desire that our hunger and thirst should no longer distress and torment our spirits.
IV. THE GRACIOUS TERMS UPON WHICH THE GOSPEL OFFERS TO SUPPLY HUMAN WANTS.
1. The blessings of Divine love are offered to every one who both needs and desires them—to every one who will receive them by faith.
2. They are offered without any demand for payment, without money, and without price. In fact, it is impossible for us to give anything which can purchase them; and it is impossible for the Giver to accept any recompense save that of love and obedience.—The Homiletical Library, vol. ii., p. 117, 118.
THE GOSPEL INVITATION.
Men seek happiness. But they usually seek happiness in some wrong way. There is in many men a craving for religious peace and satisfaction. The soul’s craving is met by this Gospel. Here is—
I. THE DESCRIPTION OF A PRICELESS BLESSING.
“Water,” “wine,” “milk.” The metaphors come from the East. We must place ourselves in the circumstances of Oriental life. Wine, such as was commonly used in Palestine. Milk, so precious everywhere. Water Travellers in the desert know the value of water when the supply is exhausted and no stream appears. Also those who have climbed a mountain on a hot summer’s day. Suppose the case of a great city, with the supply of water completely exhausted. Suppose, by some change in the course of nature, water was entirely withdrawn from the earth. It would be speedily reduced to a dreary waste, where desolation and death would reign supreme. But this is man’s condition when destitute of the Gospel of Christ.
II. THE TERMS OF A GRACIOUS INVITATION.
1. The act which it contemplates. “Come.” “Buy.” “Eat.” This is the attitude of the Gospel towards mankind as distinguished from other religions. They say to poor, helpless, fallen humanity, “Go and do something.” The Gospel says, “Come.” It is the attitude of the loving Father toward His wandering child; of the wealthy friend who says to the needy one in whom he is interested, “Come to me;” of the strong and gracious Saviour, Who bids the weary and heavy laden come. Can anything be simpler than to come and take what you need? To come to Jesus is to believe in Him, &c.
2. The condition it specifies. In many parts of our cities benevolent individuals have placed drinking fountains where men and cattle may quench their thirst freely by simply coming and taking the water as it flows. It is a good emblem of the Gospel, and of the terms on which sinners are invited to partake its blessings. When God provided salvation in Christ, He provided it on terms that illustrate its derivation from His love. He does not demand, and will not accept a price at our hands. What price could we bring? Our righteousness is an inadequate price. Self-righteous pride must be abandoned when we come to Jesus. He has paid the price. We hold our empty hands and take the gift. The condition of absolute spiritual impoverishment to which man is reduced, demands that the salvation be free.
3. The characters it comprehends. The consciousness of need is the only qualification. Have you seen the emptiness of the world, and are you reaching forth, even blindly, towards something better? He invites you to Himself, where you will find what you need, and more than you at present think of. Do you desire salvation? Desire is a prominent element of thirst (Mat_5:6). Is there in your heart such a consciousness of sin as disturbs your comfort in it, produces distress, excites desire of mercy? Your case is described in the invitation. You are “one that thirsteth.” Are you sensible of your inability to save yourself—your utter spiritual impoverishment? The invitation includes him that hath no money. It is addressed to every one. No need to hesitate because of unworthiness, or the greatness of your sin. This “every one” is equivalent to Christ’s “whosoever.” Do not exclude yourself from it.
Let me urge the acceptance of this gracious invitation (Rev_22:17).
1. God’s Spirit says “Come.”
2. God’s Church says “Come.” Those who have accepted the invitation are bound to pass it on.
3. Your urgent need says “Come.”—J. Rawlinson.
By these emblems are set forth—I. THE OVERFLOWING FULNESS OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. “Come ye”—not merely to the water, but—“to the waters.” “The waters”—
1. Of forgiveness, in which all our sins are buried out of sight (Mic_7:19).
2. Of purification, by which every trace of defilement shall be washed away.
3. Of refreshment. II. THE DELIGHTFUL PLEASANTNESS, &c. The blessings of the Gospel cheer and satisfy like wine and milk. III. THE ATTRACTIVE FREENESS, &c.
1. The blessings of the Gospel are offered to all. “Ho!”—a call to arrest the attention of the travellers along life’s highway, whoever they may be—“every one that thirsteth.”
2. They are offered to all freely. IV. THE MARVELLOUS ADAPTATION OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL. “Without money and without price.” APPLICATION.
1. To man’s needs.
2. To man’s condition—morally bankrupt.
(1.) God’s invitations are not mere complimentary words, such as are sometimes current in society—invitations made with a secret fear least they should be accepted. God is in earnest.
(2.) Sincere invitations cannot be slighted without offence. This is true of invitations addressed by men to their equals; much more, of invitations addressed by men to their inferiors. The Queen’s “invitation” is a “command.” What excuse then shall we offer if we slight the invitations addressed to us by Almighty God?
(3.) If we slight the gracious invitations which He has addressed to us, where shall we obtain the “waters” needed to satisfy our spiritual thirst, the “wine and milk” needed to sustain our soul’s life? The alternative before us is to turn to Him and live, or to turn away from Him and die!—J. H. Stewart: Lectures on Isaiah lv., pp. 1–24.
I. The moral condition of the persons invited. The description implies—
1. A conviction of the need of spiritual blessings.
2. A discovery of the abundant fulness in Christ for salvation and enjoyment.
3. An ardent desire for the blessings of His grace. Are you thus thirsting, &c?
II. The benefits they are invited to share. Figurative expressions, pointing to the blessings of the New Covenant procured for us by the Atonement and resurrection of Christ. The phraseology refers—
1. To their variety and fulness.
2. To their perfect adaptation.
3. To their gracious freeness.
III. The nature of the invitation addressed to them.
1. You are to “come.” But where, and to whom? You are to come to the appointed source.
2. You are to come and purchase covenant blessings. They are invaluable. They have been procured by the Saviour.
They are to be obtained as free undeserved gifts.
3. You are to participate in the blessings of the Gospel.
CONCLUSION.—What response do you give to this invitation? Some perhaps will make light of it—postpone compliance—begin to make excuse, &c. See what you reject None need despair.—George Smith, D.D.
The benefits of the Gospel are offered to the perishing.
I. The fulness of the offered gift.
II. The freeness of the offered gift.
III. The universality of the offer.
1. Offered to all nations of mankind.
2. To men of every state, class, and character.
3. The salvation is free to the chief of sinners.
4. The offer of life ought, therefore, to be considered by each individual hearer as addressed personally to himself.—J. W. Alexander, D.D.: The Preachers’ Monthly, New Series, vol. vii. pp. 41–44.
THE WAY TO TRUE HAPPINESS
Isa_55:2-5. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, &c.?
Having set forth in Isa_55:1 the perfect freeness of the grace offered in the Gospel, and its adaptation to the wants of sinners, the prophet now expostulates with those who are unwilling to receive it, and exposes the absurdity of thus refusing to embrace the only real good, while at the same time they are toiling in pursuit of that which is imaginary. The question presupposes that the soul is hungry, that it must be hungry until it is fed, that the gnawings of hunger will constrain it to seek food, and that the instinct of self-preservation, no less than the desire of enjoyment, will induce it to give anything it has in exchange for the necessary means of its subsistence and enjoyment; that the fatal error lies not in the seeking after something to sustain it and to make it happy, but in imagining that this end can be answered by the pleasures, gains, and honours of the world, which are not only brief in their duration, but unsuited in their nature to satisfy the wants of an immortal spirit. It is this view of man’s natural condition upon which the invitations of the Gospel are all founded. Observe, then—
I. THE PROPHET MAKES THE INSUFFICIENCY OF EARTHLY GOOD AN ARGUMENT FOR FIXING THE DESIRES ON OBJECTS ADAPTED TO OUR NATURE. He assures the disappointed soul that happiness is really attainable. But is this indefinite assurance that there is a good sufficient and attainable, the highest and best offer that the Gospel makes to sinners? If this were all, the tender mercies of the Gospel would be cruel. The voice of God has no such “uncertain sound,” for—
II. THE DIRECTION OF THE SOUL TO A SPECIFIC AND EXCLUSIVE OBJECT AS ITS ONLY GROUND OF HOPE AND TRUST IS A DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF THE GOSPEL. God stands at the fountain of life, and cries, “Ho, every one that thirsteth,” &c. Annexed to this gracious invitation is the specific promise of a sure salvation, “And I will make,” &c. (2Sa_7:16; cf. Luk_1:32-33; Jer_23:5-6, and others).
1. The offer of salvation is specific. It is not mercy in general that is offered, but the mercies of David—purchased by the second David—promised to the ancient David, which he hoped for, which he trusted in, and of which he could say, “This is all my salvation,” &c.
2. It is sure. It is a covenanted blessing, and it therefore cannot fail; it is a permanent blessing, and can undergo no change; it is a durable blessing, and shall last for ever.
III. ALL, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, ARE ENCOURAGED TO CONFIDE IN THE SAME ALL-SUFFICIENT SAVIOUR (Isa_55:4-5). The connection leaves no doubt that Christ is here the subject of discourse. To the nations generally He reveals the Father, and brings life and immortality to light (Isa_55:5). In addition to the doctrinal instructions of this passage, we may learn from it a lesson in the art of invitation.
1. We must not address our invitations to a nature of which man is not possessed, but to his actual capacities and wants, admitting or assuming their reality and strength, and striving to convince him that they never can be satisfied by anything but that which is so freely offered in the Gospel [1689]
2. Let us see to it, that this great offer of the Gospel be distinctly and specifically held up to the sinner’s view, instead of suffering his mind to rest in a mere negative conviction that the world is not a satisfying portion, or allowing it to roam at large in search of untried sources of enjoyment.
3. Let no man be invited to a general, indefinite reliance upon mercy as an attribute of God, without regard to that particular and only way in which it can and will be exercised to fallen man; but let him be invited to a share in the provisions of that everlasting covenant which God has promised to bestow upon him.—J. A. Alexander: Gospel of Jesus Christ, pp. 345–356.
[1689] A strange plant, called the nardoo, closely allied to the fern tribe, grows in the deserts of Central Australia. A peculiarly melancholy interest is connected with it, owing to the fact that its seeds formed for months together almost the sole food of the party of explorers who a few years ago crossed the continent. The nardoo satisfied their hunger; it produced a pleasant feeling of comfort and repletion. The natives were accustomed to eat it in the absence of their usual roots and fruits, not only without injury, but actually with positive benefit to their health. And yet day after day King and his friends became weaker and more emaciated upon this diet. Their flesh wasted from their bones, their strength was reduced to an infant’s feebleness, and they could only crawl painfully a mile or two a day. At last, when nearing the bourne of their hopes, they perished one by one of starvation, a solitary survivor being found in the last extremity under a tree, where he had laid him down to die, by a party sent out in search of the missing expedition. When analysed, the nardoo bread was ascertained to be destitute of certain nutritious elements indispensable to the support of a European, though an Australian savage might for a while find it beneficial as an alterative. And thus it happened that these poor unfortunate Englishmen perished of starvation, even while feeding fully day by day upon food that served to satisfy their hunger.
Is it not precisely so in the experience of those who are seeking and finding their portion in earthly things? They are contented with it, and yet their hunger is in reality unappeased. Their desires are crowned, and yet they are actually perishing of want. God gives them their request, but sends leanness to their souls.—H. Macmillan.
We are reminded—
I. OF THE SINNER’S MISTAKE. He seeks happiness in the riches, honours, and pleasures of the world; sustenance for his soul in mere confectionery, which may allure the eye and gratify the palate, but which leaves the appetite craving, and the frame unrefreshed.
II. OF THE SINNER’S DISTANCE FROM GOD, implied in the invitation, “Come unto me.” Considered as a fact, how astonishing it is—that the younger and well-beloved son should be found in this “far country;” how sorrowful—that he should be a swine-herd, and be hungrily devouring husks which cannot satisfy; how perilful—what must he the end of this alienation from God, and this vain attempt to satisfy the hunger of the soul with “carobs”?
III. OF THE SINNER’S DISLIKE TO THE GOSPEL, implied in the exhortation, “Incline your ear.” The evidences of this fact are all around us; what are its causes?
1. Unbelief—unbelief in the great fact that true happiness is only to be found in the service of God.
2. Pride, which rebels against the humbling declarations of the Gospel as to man’s natural condition, and his entire inability to do anything to merit salvation.
3. Love of the world and fear of man. These things go together. Men shrink from the necessity which the Gospel imposes of adopting a standard differing from that acknowledged by “society,” and fear that by doing so they will hinder their worldly advancement.
4. Desire for self-indulgence. The fact that the Gospel will make no compromise with sin renders it offensive to vast multitudes.
IV. OF THE GREATNESS OF THE BLESSINGS WHICH GOD OFFERS TO THE PENITENT AND BELIEVING SINNER. These are—
1. True satisfaction.
2. True and eternal life.—J. H. Stewart, M.A.: Lectures on Isaiah lv., pp. 25–40.
We have already considered the hunger and thirst which men feel in the way of spiritual cravings. Our text expostulates with those who resort to unhealthy and unnatural ways to satisfy those cravings in the pursuit of sin. It reminds us that—
I. Godless effort is misdirected, and therefore foolish expenditure. It is spending money for that which is not bread. Picture the folly which this would be in the case of famine and starvation. In spiritual matters this is being continually done. E.g.—
1. The mammon-worshipper is doing it. He spends all his energies upon the tasks of gain. What does he get? (Luk_12:20.)
2. The voluptuary is doing it. When the round of “pleasures” is exhausted, what is his reward? Vanity and vexation of spirit.
3. The merely religious formalist is doing it. Isaiah 1 clearly suggests what is to be got by the hollow pretences of religion. (See also Mat_7:22-23.)
II. All this involves not merely expenditure, but spiritual loss. “You labour for that which satisfieth not.” Not only money, but strength also goes; and therefore the loss is not external to ourselves, but a part of ourselves. Labour wears men down physically, &c. So here: the supreme matter of concern is the soul-loss that results. Consider our Lord’s question on this point: “What shall a man gain,” &c. Even suppose we get the little all that we seek in the realm of mere materialism, what then? Think of the soul degraded, impoverished, helpless, hopeless. What can compensate for a soul in ruins? The life of the soul is everything to us.
III. This is a matter for reflection and decision. “Hearken,” &c. Observe—
1. One of the delusions of sin is that it throws men into a state of indifference.
2. The Gospel requires a man’s whole judgment and thought (Isa_1:18).
3. The Gospel also requires our voluntary surrender and obedience to God.
IV. The foundation of the Gospel offer. “I will make,” &c. Much is said of this Davidic covenant, and the brief interpretation of it is, that David’s history runs in the line of God’s saving purpose, begun in Abraham and fulfilled in Christ. Love is at the root of it all (chap. Isa_54:8; Psa_89:28). Christ is the real David of our faith. In Him we see the sureness of God’s infinite love (Rom_8:31-32). All else is fickle, transitory, perishing. The one hope of the world that abides amidst all change is God’s love. Here only can our enduring satisfaction be found, therefore give heed to Christ’s own word (Joh_7:27).—W. Manning.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 We have here an exhortation from Almighty God to…
Isa 55:1.
We have here an exhortation from Almighty God to those who have sinned against Him, and the principle of the exhortation is so clear that it is impossible not to believe that it is the general principle of all God’s exhortations to sinners; and the principle is this, that whoever feels his need of pardon can find pardon, that the sense of thirst is a sufficient warrant that God will give to the thirsty the water of life freely, that to be sensible of our poverty and to acknowledge it is a certain means of obtaining the supply of all our needs.
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I. No simple-hearted man reading the life of our Lord Jesus Christ could have any doubt as to His extreme love to mankind and deep desire that all men should be saved; but unfortunately this simple view of the Gospel has been obscured by the theories of ingenious men, and a system of theology has been framed depending upon what is called the doctrine of election. It is held that, in the eternal councils of God, certain persons have been chosen by His mercy as heirs of eternal salvation; these are the elect; these are they for whom the Lord Jesus Christ died. When the ministers of Christ preach His gospel, the great end of their preaching is to call out and separate from the rest of mankind these chosen vessels of God’s mercy.
II. This doctrine not only seems to modify the Gospel, but utterly to abolish and destroy it. Grant that there are millions upon millions of the race of mankind saved by this discriminating electing grace of God, still, so long as there is one human being who misses eternal life for want of such election, salvation must be that which no noble heart could desire; the notion of salvation being rendered valuable in a man’s eyes because it is a free gift to him and is denied to his brother, is one which implies that the man so saved is a creature full of base selfishness, one who can rejoice because he is better off than his brother,—one who could pretend to love a Being of infinite power, who, according to this showing, is also a Being of infinite injustice.
III. The difficulty arising from the consideration of the freedom of man’s will on the one hand, and the omnipotence of God’s grace on the other, is one which is philosophical rather than religious, and with which the religion of Christ as such has nothing whatever to do. It is enough for us to know that Christ did die for all, to know that God’s offers of mercy through Him are free, and that when the thirsty are invited to drink freely the invitation is to be taken in its simplest and fullest meaning.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 3rd series, p. 153.
I. The state of the persons addressed: (1) a state of want and privation; (2) a state which man has no power to rectify or remove.
II. The provision prepared. (1) Its nature. Food. The benefits of salvation through Christ. (2) The persons for whom it is intended. Of all ages, of all nations.
III. We are induced to come: (1) by the extent of the call; (2) by the freeness of the supply; (3) by the sufficiency of the provision; (4) by the impossibility of finding redemption elsewhere.
G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 140.
References: Isa 55:1.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. 1., p. 9; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 140; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 199, vol. xx., No. 1161, vol. xxix., No. 1726; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 41. Isa 55:1, Isa 55:2.—D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3278. Isa 55:1-4.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xviii., p. 19. Isa 55:1-5.—C. Short, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 141.
Isa 55:2
Consider what are some of the good investments in life, which bring in solid advantages.
I. First among the gains of life is peace of mind, and for that the investment is simply and alone acts of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You must commit your whole self, as a poor, miserable sinner, absolutely to His grace and power. Do it fearlessly, and the result is sure; there will come back a sense of pardon; and the interest of that pardon, if I may so call it, pays you every day and every moment. And peace is that "meat to eat which the world knows not of;" it satisfies.
II. The next thing which you will do well to traffic in is truth, the clear knowledge of God’s truth. I do not say that any man can get truth without labour. It is the wages of severe work. And you will have your recompense in that delightful feeling of the discovery of new truth.
III. Next to peace and truth as the gains of life, I have to place the affections of our fellow-creatures. Every affection is a real possession, and well worth the purchase, cost it what it may, so we do not barter truth. That you may have much-love, you must go out of yourself, you must cultivate and show sympathy. Christ’s sympathy did more than Christ’s miracles. If you feel, not for a person, but with a person, it is astonishing how it will make itself felt in a way you cannot trace. There will be a knitting together of your common manhood, and to have it is a very pleasant thing, and it makes life’s food.
IV. Everything which we give or do for God is actually laying up for us in heaven, transferred from this insecure and bankrupt world to the high places of that safe bank, and it is gone before and awaits us there against the time we come; every day we may increase that hidden treasure within the veil, and we shall receive it all back again at last a hundredfold.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 192.
Isa 55:2-3
I. We have here an invitation, addressed to us by Jehovah Himself, to hearken diligently unto Him, to incline our ear, and to come to Him. There is something peculiarly touching in the invitations of the Word of God, which, if men would but pause and reflect, could not fail to make an impression upon their hearts. "Hearken diligently unto Me," God says; "incline your ear." He would take you, as it were, each one separately by himself, and reason and counsel with you. The matters of which He would treat with you are too important to be handled in a crowd, too sacred to be discussed amid the noise and bustle of worldly avocations. The Lord will have sinners come to Him; He will have all distance annihilated between your souls and Him; He will have you brought into the closest relationship and communion with Himself; He will have you not only within hearing of His voice, but in His very embrace.
II. The reasons for our closing with this invitation are two, and each of them is very weighty. (1) You will be vast gainers if you follow the leadings of the Divine Spirit, and go into conference with God, and embrace His terms. "Hear, and your soul shall delight itself in fatness; hear, and your soul shall live." The life of the believer is the only life of real enjoyment upon earth. What will it be when he dwells with God Himself? (2) To refuse the offer is to lose the soul. "He that sowed to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption," and that for ever. He who will not embrace Christ must stand before God with all his guilt upon his head—guilt that cannot then be pardoned; for there remaineth now no more sacrifice for sin.
A. D. Davidson, Lectures and Sermons, p. 472.
References: Isa 55:4.—H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1507; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 144.
Isa 55:6
I. Consider what we are to understand by seeking the Lord. It is in His double aspect, combined but not contradictory character, as at once just and the justifier of them that believe in Jesus, as a God of justice to punish sin in the surety, and as a God of mercy to pardon it in the sinner, that we are to seek the Lord, and all the blessings which in that gracious character He has and He promises to bestow. Thus, to seek the Lord is just to approach Him by faith.
II. Inquire when the Lord is to be found, and we remark, (1) that the Lord, as bestowing the pardon of sin and salvation on the soul, is to be found in this world, not in another; (2) that the Lord is not to be found on a deathbed; (3) that the Lord is more likely to be found now than at any future time.
III. The shortness and uncertainty of life are strong reasons for seeking pardon and salvation now.
T. Guthrie, The Way to Life, p. 78.
Reference: Isa 55:6.—Bishop Walsham How, Plain Words, 2nd series, p. 47.
Isa 55:6-7
I. Observe the order of the steps of grace. You are first to feel after God in your own heart, "if haply you may find Him;" and when this has brought you a little near, then you are to call out—then you are to pray; then you are to give up some known sin—every wicked way, and every wrong thought. That is an indispensable condition. Then comes the meeting of a pardoned soul with God, and next the appreciation of the Lord as our own covenanted God; and then the sweetness of that perfect love and forgiveness of the Father.
II. Notice, further, that at each step there is an opportunity of finding God, and these opportunities are limited. We are to expect answers to prayer as we give up outward sins, which it is easy to do, and inward sin, which is the more difficult. What is nearness? Is God always near? The Holy Ghost makes nearness. He unites us to God. That presence of the Holy Ghost in the soul is nearness. If the Holy Ghost were to leave you, you would never find God—the life in the Spirit would be over. Hence the tremendous emphasis of the words, "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found."
III. How can the wicked forsake his way? By prayer, by occupation, by filling the mind with what is good, by having more of the Holy Spirit, by new and better pleasures, higher objects, worthier influences, more fixed motives, by loving constant thoughts of Jesus—this leads on to the end.
IV. There are crises in life. Whatever account you have to settle with God, settle it now. There are two "nows" in the Bible which ought never to be separated. One stands out in the brightest rays, the other retires into the deepest shadows. "Now is the accepted time." "Now they are hid from thine eyes."
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 11th series, p. 29.
References: Isa 55:6, Isa 55:7.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 38. Isa 55:6-9.—C. Short, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 158.
Isa 55:7
I. Look, first, at the Counsellor. (1) He who speaks to the wicked man, and to the unrighteous man, is He who made all things. The Father of the wicked is here speaking to the wicked. (2) He who speaks knows every wicked man and unrighteous man. (3) He who speaks hates evil. (4) He who speaks has power to destroy the wicked in hell. (5) It is the redeeming God who here addresses the wicked man.
II. Look, secondly, at His counsel. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him come back. The advice requires (1) self-inspection; (2) the admission of truth as to the character of the way, and as to the nature of the thoughts; (3) the resistance of an inclination to go on; (4) submission to the conviction that the way is evil, and the abandonment of every unrighteous purpose, with actual departure from the path of open and actual transgression; (5) appeal to God’s mercy, and for help and reconciliation.
III. The counselled. The wicked and the unrighteous man. God has singled out particularly three classes: (1) the thirsty; (2) the impoverished; (3) the disappointed.
IV. The promise. "He will abundantly pardon." (1) The promise is conditional, yet it is sure. (2) The promise is made to characters. There is, therefore, an indefiniteness which may well encourage us. I may address these words to every wicked man, no matter what his wickedness consists of; and to every unrighteous man, no matter what his evil purposes may be.
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 2nd series, No. 16.
References: Isa 55:7.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 40; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, pp. 256, 259; Ibid., Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1195; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 141; D. L. Moody, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 341. Isa 55:8.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 23; W. M. Taylor, Old Testament Outlines, p. 231.
Isa 55:8-9
I. The errors, in opposition to which the doctrine of the text is to be asserted, are those connected with what has been technically termed anthropomorphism.
II. The testimony of the text is not to be overstrained. There are qualifications and limitations that must be practically observed in applying it. (1) We are expressly taught to judge of the heart of God by what is in the heart of man. "Like as a father pitieth his children," etc. (2) But for such a liberty and warrant as we now contend for some of the most affecting of the inspired pleadings and promises of the Bible would be cold and heartless. (3) There is a great truth to be brought out here, that the perfection of God, in respect of which He is to be contrasted with man, consists not in the absence of sensibility, but in its very intensity and purity and power.
II. The applications of this truth are as manifold as are the exigencies of human experience. (1) It is because His thoughts are not your thoughts that God justifies freely. (2) For the same reason the pardon He dispenses is very free, unreserved, as well as unconditional. (3) But most peremptory, authoritative, sovereign, is the Gospel call, as a call to repentance as well as to reconciliation. (4) The promises of God are and must be most faithful, because His thoughts are not our thoughts.
R. S. Candlish, The Gospel of Forgiveness, p. 264.
I. The mystery of Christ’s birth and of our new birth. As in many other places of the prophet Isaiah, so here in the text, the Almighty commends to us this thought, that we should learn from the very sight of the heaven above us, not to lose, in our sense of God’s mercy, the deep trembling awe and reverence with which we ought to regard all His doings; not to dream that we understand them; nor to conclude that they fail because we do not yet see the fruit of them,—but to labour diligently in the way of our duty, and for the rest to be silent before Him, and wait on Him with adoring patience.
II. This same lesson, which the very height of the heaven was intended to teach all mankind, seems to be brought before us Christians in a wonderful, unspeakable way, when we are called on to remember our Lord’s nativity. The very thing by itself, God Incarnate, was the wonder of all wonders—a matter surely as much above the thoughts and conjectures of man as the heaven is higher than the earth: that the Creator should become a creature; that the Lord most holy and true should join Himself to a sinful race and become one of them, to deliver them from the evil consequences of their sin. But even suppose the thought of God’s becoming man had entered into any man’s heart, the circumstances of His coming into the world were far unlike what we should have imagined. Consider the quietness of this great event. How in the silence of the night, in a town of no great size or wealth, in an outhouse of an inn, the great God came visibly among His creatures, as it had been prophesied concerning Him. How poor and lowly was everything around Him who was come to bring us all the treasures of heaven!
III. From this great event we learn: (1) Not to doubt that God’s purposes, however to us unlikely, will be one way or another accomplished. (2) Not only in the great concerns of the world and of the kingdom of God, but also in what relates to each of us particularly, we are to be quite sure that the Almighty has His own purpose concerning us, and that He is working around us and within us even in the most ordinary things. (3) The Collect for Christmas Day teaches that our Lord’s taking our nature upon Him, and His birth on this day of a pure virgin, answers in some remarkable way to our being regenerate and made His children by adoption and grace, i.e., our baptism. As Christ at His nativity showed Himself in our human nature, so we at our new birth, St. Peter tells us, are made partakers of His Divine nature.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times" vol. iv., p. 302.
References: Isa 55:8, Isa 55:9.—J. Keble, Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany, p. 27; C. Morris, Preacher’s Lantern, vol. ii., p. 60; J. Foster, Lectures, 2nd series, p. 129. Isa 55:8-10.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 13; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 676, vol. xxiii., No. 1387. Isa 55:10, Isa 55:11.—T. P. Boulver, Old Testament Outlines, p. 232; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 272; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 201; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 204; Ibid., Sermons, 1870, p. 149. Isa 55:10-13.—C. Short, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 173. Isa 55:11.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 162; D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 349.
Isa 55:12
To the Jew in Isaiah’s time this promise doubtless bore reference to three things: the return from the seventy years’ captivity; their ultimate restoration, first to their own land, and then to Christ; and God’s way of dealing with each individual’s own soul. To us it stands only in the last reference; to us the words are simply spiritual.
I. The "going out" appears to relate to that great moral exodus when a man emerges from a state of nature into a state of grace, from bondage to liberty, from darkness to light, from the world to Christ. This is indeed to be with joy. The being led forth denotes the further experiences of the Christian,—God’s conduct of him by the way; his future courses, and especially the manner in which he is brought out at last—out of this life into a better; and all this is to be "with peace."
II. What is joy? (1) Novelty of perception. It is a wonderfully new feeling when a soul first tastes the promises and grasps its own interest in Christ. (2) Keenness of perception. Keen is the first sense of sin to a penitent, and keen is the first sense of pardon to a believer. In that early dawn the soul’s atmosphere is so clear that every object stands out in its distinctness. (3) Sweetness of perception. Sweeter are those perceptions than they are keen. Are they not the touches of the Holy Ghost? They are all about beautiful things—saints and angels, a holy heaven, and a perfect Jesus.
III. "And be led forth with peace." As we go on in the spiritual life the sense of sin grows deeper and deeper; and a deep sense of weakness, nothingness, and guilt, combining with a fuller sense of pardon and love, makes joy peace. To a mind led and taught of God all the changes and chances of life lend themselves to peace. A great affliction is a deep fountain of peace; the very agitation hushes, and it makes all troubles afterwards so very small. Another and another promise fulfilled every day is always enlarging the rock underneath our feet. Another and another answer to prayer is always strengthening the arguments for the future. Another and another new drop of the knowledge of Christ is always swelling the tide, till the "peace flows like a river," because we see the "righteousness of Christ" as the waves of the sea.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 281.
References: Isa 55:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 833; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 20.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1–2
Isaiah
THE CALL TO THE THIRSTY
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THE GREAT PROCLAMATION
Isa 55:1.
The meaning of the word preach is ‘proclaim like a herald’; or, what is perhaps more familiar to most of us, like a town-crier; with a loud voice, clearly and plainly delivering the message. Now, there are other notions of a sermon than that; and there is other work which ministers have to do, of an educational kind. But my business now is to preach. We have ventured to ask others than the members of our own congregation to join us in this service; and I should be ashamed of myself, and have good reason to be so, if I had asked you to come to hear me talk, or to entertain you with more or less eloquent and thoughtful discourses. There is a time for everything; and what this is the time for is to ring out like a bellman the message which I believe God has given me for you. It cannot but suffer in passing through human lips; but I pray that my poor words may not be all unworthy of its stringency, and of the greatness of its blessing. My text is God’s proclamation, and all that the best of us can do is but to reiterate that, more feebly alas, but still earnestly.
Suppose there was an advertisement in to-morrow morning’s papers that any one that liked to go to a certain place might get a fortune for going, what a queue of waiting suppliants there would be at the door! Here is God’s greatest gift going a-begging; and there are no doubt some among you who listen to my text with only the thought, ‘Oh, the old threadbare story is what we have been asked to come and hear!’ Brethren, have you taken the offer? If not, it needs to be pressed upon you once more. So my purpose in this sermon is a very simple one. I wish, as a brother to a brother, to put before you these three things: to whom this offer is made; what it consists of; and how it may be ours.
I. To whom this offer is made.
It is to every one thirsty and penniless. That is a melancholy combination, to be needing something infinitely, and to have not a farthing to get it with. But that is the condition in which we all stand, in regard to the highest and best things. This invitation of my text is as universal as if it had stopped with its third word. ‘Ho, every one’ would have been no broader than is the offer as it stands. For the characteristics named are those which belong, necessarily and universally, to human experience. If my text had said, ‘Ho, every one that breathes human breath,’ it would not have more completely covered the whole race, and enfolded thee and me, and all our brethren, in the amplitude of its promise, than it does when it sets up as the sole qualifications thirst and penury-that we infinitely need, and that we are absolutely unable to acquire, the blessings that it offers.
‘Every one that thirsteth’-that means desire. Yes; but it means need also. And what is every man but a great bundle of yearnings and necessities? None of us carry within ourselves that which suffices for ourselves. We are all dependent upon external things for being and for wellbeing.
There are thirsts which infallibly point to their true objects. If a man is hungry he knows that it is food that he wants. And just as the necessities of the animal life are incapable of being misunderstood, and the objects which will satisfy them incapable of being confused or mistaken, so there are other nobler thirsts, which, in like manner, work automatically, and point to the thing that they need. We have social instincts; we need love; we need friendship; we need somebody to lean upon; we thirst for some heart to rest our heads upon, for hands to clasp ours; and we know where the creatures and the objects are that will satisfy these desires. And there are the higher thirsts of the spirit, that ‘follows knowledge, like a sinking star, beyond the furthest bounds of human thought’; and a man knows where and how to gratify the impulse that drives him to seek after the many forms of knowledge and wisdom.
But besides all these, besides sense, besides affection, besides emotions, besides the intellectual spur of which we are all more or less conscious, there come in a whole set of other thirsts that do not in themselves carry the intimation of the place where they can be slaked. And so you get men restless, as some of you are; always dissatisfied, as some of you are; feeling that there is something wanting, yet not knowing what, as some of you are. You remember the old story in the Arabian Nights, of the man who had a grand palace, and lived in it quite contentedly, until some one told him that it needed a roc’s egg hanging from the roof to make it complete, and he did not know where to get that, and was miserable accordingly. We build our houses, we fancy that we are satisfied; and then there comes the stinging thought that it is not all complete yet, and we go groping, groping in the dark, to find out where the lacking thing is. Shipwrecked sailors sometimes, in their desperation, drink salt water, and that makes them thirstier than ever, and brings on madness and death. Some publicans drug the vile liquors which they sell, so that they increase thirst. We may make no mistake about how to satisfy the desires of sense or of earthly affections; we may be quite certain that ‘money answereth all things,’ and that it is good to get on in business in Manchester; or may have found a pure and enduring satisfaction in study and in books-yet we have thirsts that some of us know not where to satisfy; and so we have parched lips and swollen tongues, and raging desire that earth can give nothing to fill.
My brother, do you know what it is that you want?
It is God. Nothing else, nothing less. ‘My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.’ The man that knows what it is of which he is in such sore need, is blessed. The man who only feels dimly that he needs something, and does not know that it is God whom he does need, is condemned to wander in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, and where his heart gapes, parched and cracked like the soil upon which he treads. Understand your thirst. Interpret your desires aright. Open your eyes to your need; and be sure of this, that mountains of money and the clearest insight into intellectual problems, and fame, and love, and wife, and children, and a happy home, and abundance of all things that you can desire, will leave a central aching emptiness that nothing and no person but God can ever fill. Oh, that we all knew what these yearnings of our hearts mean!
Aye! but there are dormant thirsts too. It is no proof of superiority that a savage has fewer wants than you and I have, for the want is the open mouth into which supply comes. And it is no proof that you have not, deep in your nature, desires which, unless they are satisfied, will prevent your being blessed, that these desires are all unconscious to yourselves. The business of us preachers is, very largely, to get the people who will listen to us, to recognise the fact that they do want things which they do not wish; and that, for the perfection of their natures, the cherishing of noble longings and thirstings is needful, and that to be without this sense of need is to be without one of the loftiest prerogatives of humanity.
Some of you do not wish forgiveness. Many of you would much rather not have holiness. You do not want to have God. The promises of the Gospel go clean over your heads, and are as impotent to influence you as the wind whistling through a keyhole, because you have never been aware of the wants to which these promises correspond, and do not understand what it is that you truly require.
And yet there is no desire-that is to say, consciousness of necessities-so dormant but that its being un-gratified makes a man restless. You do not wish forgiveness, but you will never be happy till you get it. You do not wish to be good and true and holy men, but you will never be blessed till you are. You do not want to have God, some of you, but you will be restless till you find Him. You fancy you wish heaven when you are dead; you do not want it while you are living. But until your earthly life is like the life of Jesus Christ in heaven, though in an inferior degree, whilst it is on earth, you will never be at rest. You are thirsty enough after these things to be ill at ease without them, when you bethink yourselves and pass out of the region of mere mechanical and habitual existence; but until you get these things that you do not desire, be sure of this: that you will be tortured with vain unrest, and will find that the satisfactions which you do seek turn to ashes in your mouth. ‘Bread of deceit,’ says the Book, ‘is sweet to a man.’ The writer meant by that that there were people to whom it was pleasant to tell profitable lies. But we might widen the meaning, and say that all these lower satisfactions, apart from the loftier ones of forgiveness, acceptance, reconciliation with God, the conscious possession of Him, a well-grounded hope of immortality, the power to live a noble life and to look forward to a glorious heaven, are ‘bread of deceit,’ which promises nourishment and does not give it, but breaks the teeth that try to masticate it; ‘it turneth to gravel.’
‘Ho, every one that thirsteth.’ That designation includes us all. ‘And he that hath no money.’ Who has any? Notice that the persons represented in our text as penniless are, in the next verse, remonstrated with for spending ‘money.’ So then the penniless man had some pence away in some corner of his pocket which he could spend. He had the money that would buy shams, ‘that which is not bread’ but a stone though it looks like a loaf, but he had no money for the true food. Which being translated out of parable into fact, is simply this, that our efforts may and do win for us the lower satisfactions which meet our transitory and superficial necessities, but that no effort of ours can secure for us the loftier blessings which slake the diviner thirsts of immortal souls. A man lands in a far country with English shillings in his pocket, but he finds that no coins go there but thalers, or francs, or dollars, or the like; and his money is only current in his own land, and he must have it changed before he can make his purchases. So though he has a pocketful of it he may as well be penniless.
And, in like fashion, you and I, with all our strenuous efforts, which we are bound to make, and which there is joy in making, after these lower good things that correspond to our efforts, find that we have no coinage that will buy the good things of the kingdom of heaven, without which we faint and die. For them our efforts are useless. Can a man by his penitence, by his tears, by his amendment, make it possible for the consequences of his past to be obliterated, or all changed in their character into fatherly chastisement? No! A thousand times, no! The superficial notions of Christianity, which are only too common amongst both educated and uneducated, may say to a man, ‘You need no divine intervention, if only you will get up from the dust, and do your best to keep up when you are up.’ But those who realise more deeply what the significance of sin is, and what the eternal operation of its consequences upon the soul is, and what the awful majesty of a divine righteousness is, learn that the man who has sinned can, by nothing that he can do, obliterate that awful fact, or reduce it to insignificance, in regard to the divine relations to him. It is only God who can do that. We have no money.
So we stand thirsty and penniless-a desperate condition! Ay! brother, it is desperate, and it is the condition of every one of us. I wish I could turn the generalities of my text into the individuality of a personal address. I wish I could bring its wide-flowing beneficence to a sharp point that might touch your conscience, heart, and will. I cannot do that; you must do it for yourself.
‘Ho, every one that thirsteth.’ Will you pause for a moment, and say to yourself, ‘That is I’? ‘And he that hath no money’-that is I. ‘Come ye to the waters’-that is I. The proclamation is for thine ear and for thy heart; and the gift is for thy hand and thy lips.
II. In what this offer consists.
They tell an old story about the rejoicings at the coronation of some great king, when there was set up in the market-place a triple fountain, from each of whose three lips flowed a different kind of rare liquor which any man who chose to bring a pitcher might fill it with, at his choice. Notice my text, ‘come ye to the waters’ . . . ‘buy wine and milk.’ The great fountain is set up in the market-place of the world, and every man may come; and whichever of this glorious triad of effluents he needs most, there his lip may glue itself and there it may drink, be it ‘water’ that refreshes, or ‘wine’ that gladdens, or ‘milk’ that nourishes. They are all contained in this one great gift that flows out from the deep heart of God to the thirsty lips of parched humanity.
And what is that gift? Well, we may say, salvation; or we may use many other words to define the nature of the gifts. I venture to take a shorter one, and say, it means Christ. He, and not merely some truth about Him and His work; He Himself, in the fulness of His being, in the all-sufficiency of His love, in the reality of His presence, in the power of His sacrifice, in the daily derivation, into the heart that waits upon Him, of His life and His spirit, He is the all-sufficient supply of every thirst of every human soul. Do we want happiness? Christ gives us His joy, abiding and full, and not as the world gives. Do we want love? He gathers us to His heart, in which ‘there is no variableness, neither shadow cast by turning,’ and binds us to Himself by bonds that death, the separator, vainly attempts to untie, and which no unworthiness, ingratitude or coldness of ours will ever be able to unloose. Do we want wisdom? He will dwell with us as our light. Do our hearts yearn for companionship? With Him we shall never be solitary. Do we long for a bright hope which shall light up the dark future, and spread a rainbow span over the great gorge and gulf of death? Jesus Christ spans the void, and gives us unfailing and undeceiving hope. For everything that you and I need here or yonder, in heart, in will, in practical life, Jesus Christ Himself is the all-sufficient supply.
‘My life in death, my all in all.’ What is offered in Him may be described by all the glorious and blessed names which men have invented to designate the various aspects of the Good. These are the goodly pearls that men seek, but there is one of great price which is worth them all, and gathers into itself all their clouded and fragmentary splendours. Christ is all, and the soul that has Him shall never thirst.
‘Thou of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee.’
III. Lastly, how do we obtain the offered gifts?
The paradox of my text needs little explanation, ‘Buy without money and without price.’ The contradiction on the surface is but intended to make emphatic this blessed truth, which I pray may reach your memories and hearts, that the only conditions are a sense of need, and a willingness to take-nothing less and nothing more. We must recognise our penury and must abandon self, and put away all ideas of having a finger in our own salvation, and be willing-which, strangely and sadly enough, many of us are not-to be under obligations to God’s unhelped and undeserved love for all.
Cheap things are seldom valued. Ask a high price and people think that the commodity is precious. A man goes into a fair, for a wager, and he carries with him a try full of gold watches and offers to sell them for a farthing apiece, and nobody will buy them. It does not, I hope, degrade the subject, if I say Jesus Christ comes into the market-place of the world with His hands full of the gifts which His pierced hands have bought, that He may give them away. He says, ‘Will you take them?’ And you, and you, and you, pass by on the other side, and go away to another merchant, and buy dearly things that are not worth the having.
‘My father, my father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it?’ Would you not? Swing at the end of a pole, with hooks in your back; measure all the way from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, lying down on your face and rising at each length; do a hundred things which heathens and Roman Catholics and unspiritual Protestants think to be the way to get salvation; deny yourselves things that you would like to do; do things that you do not want to do; give money that you would like to keep; avoid habits that are very sweet, go to church or chapel when you have no heart for worship; and so try to balance the account. If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, thou wouldst have done it. How much rather when he says, ‘Wash, and be clean.’ ‘Nothing in my heart I bring.’ You do not bring anything. ‘Simply to Thy Cross I cling.’ Do you? Do you? Jesus Christ catches up the ‘comes’ of my text, and He says, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.’ Brethren, I lay it on your hearts and consciences to answer Him-never mind about me-to answer Him: ‘Sir, give me this water that I thirst not.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 1. Waters.. wine.. milk] These stand figuratively, as the…
1. Waters.. wine.. milk] These stand figuratively, as the whole context shows, for spiritual blessings.
2. Wherefore, etc.] refers to the assiduous practice of idolatry, which had been Israel's besetting sin.
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3. Mercies] loving-kindnesses. The meaning is that Jehovah will, without fail, fulfil for His people the promises of loving-kindness made to David (Psa_89:35).
4. Read, 'I gave him,' i.e. David. People] RV 'peoples.' David's successes gave him a position which made his religion known in the world, and thus he witnessed for Jehovah.
5. Israel shall similarly so testify that the nations shall turn to Jehovah.
6, 7. The exhortation shows that the promises given are conditional.
8, 9. These vv. are especially addressed to those of the Israelites who were incredulous as to the possibility of restoration to their own land.
10, 11. As certainly as the elements fulfil their purposes, so will Jehovah fulfil His promise.
12. With joy.. peace] not in haste or flight, as from Egypt. The passage describes the exodus from Babylon. All nature rejoices with God's people.
13. Cp. Isa_35:1; Isa_41:19. And it shall be, etc.] These words form an assurance that the state of things foretold in the clauses preceding shall surely come to pass and shall be permanent.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 55 Salvation’s Offer and Provision
CHAPTER 55 Salvation’s Offer and Provision
1. The invitation to everyone and the promise (Isa 55:1-2) 2. The sure mercies of David (Isa 55:3-5) 3. The exhortation to seek and to forsake (Isa 55:6-7) 4. God’s thoughts and God’s ways (Isa 55:8-11) 5. The joy, peace and glory of the future (Isa 55:12-13) The scope and application of this chapter must not be limited. While Israel eventually will break forth in singing as the result of believing on Him, whom they once despised, the invitation to a free and full salvation goes forth to every one. It is the great gospel invitation in this book. But the national promises to Israel are in evidence in Isa 55:3-5. And when Israel is redeemed the invitation to salvation will go forth as never before. Now individuals are saved. Then nations will be brought into the kingdom. “Nations that knew not thee shall come unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for He hath glorified thee.”
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Heathen Invited to te Banquet of Grace
The Heathen Invited to te Banquet of Grace
v. 1. Ho, every one that thirsteth, the earnest attention of all who feel their need being solicited, come ye to the waters! And he that hath no money, nothing of real value to offer in exchange, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. The Hebrew text brings out even more strongly than can be done in an English translation the idea of a gracious giving on the part of the Lord. The rich nourishment, the refreshing sweetness of His spiritual blessings are offered in the Gospel altogether free and for nothing. Everything else in the world costs something, must be paid for in money or labor, or in some act representing compensation for value received; only the mercies of David, the salvation in Christ, cost absolutely nothing. The substance of this verse is contained in Mat 11:28-30.
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v. 2. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? exerting themselves in a vain effort to gain the true, lasting peace of mind by acts of their own righteousness, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? All the efforts of men to find true satisfaction and happiness in things which this world has to offer are vain and useless. Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. The spiritual eating of the believers is done through their hearing of the Word, for God has placed His whole salvation in His Word, in the Gospel, and the highest consolation, joy, and bliss is to be found in Him.
v. 3. Incline your ear, in the attitude of eager attention, and come unto Me, the invitation being issued time and again to emphasize its urgency; hear, with a willing acceptance, and your soul shall live, by and in the life in the Lord; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, unlike the temporal covenant made on Sinai, even the sure mercies of David, the Messianic promises given to David and his descendants, culminating in the great Son of David, Jesus Christ. Cf Psa 89:34-37.
v. 4. Behold, I have given Him for a Witness to the people, the Messiah Himself testifying of the grace of God, a Leader and Commander to the people, the exalted Ruler, with endless authority and power. This King is now directly addressed,
v. 5. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, namely, into His kingdom, to be included in His government of peace, and nations that knew not thee, Gentiles of the farthermost parts of the earth, shall run unto thee because of the Lord, thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for the purpose of carrying out the counsel of God and therefore for His glorification, since He is zealous for His kingdom; for He hath glorified thee. The purpose of God in sending the Messiah as His witness is to procure for Him the honor and glory due Him as the King of this great, blessed, and eternal God. In giving to others the honor and beauty provided for them through the work of the Messiah, the Lord glorifies the Messiah Himself. The fact that the believers are saved redounds to His glory.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 5 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Yahweh continues speaking to the people of Jerusalem in exile through Isaiah.
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General Information:
Yahweh speaks of blessing the people freely as if he were selling food and drink to needy people for free. (See: Metaphor)
Come ... Come
The repetition of this word four times adds a sense of urgency to the invitation.
buy wine and milk without money and without cost
There is a sense of irony in this statement since a person usually has to use money to buy something. This emphasizes Yahweh's amazing grace in giving these things freely. (See: Irony)
translationWords
wine
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–3 55:1-13 This final chapter of the prophecies of comfort…
55:1-13 This final chapter of the prophecies of comfort (chs 40–55) summarizes the section’s prominent themes: blessing, covenant, witness, word, nations, glory, forgiveness, and joy.
55:1 thirsty . . . wine or milk: The invitation to eat and drink is similar to Wisdom’s call in Prov 9:5. The image promises the slaking of thirst not only by water but also by more costly items such as wine and milk. John applied a similar theme to Jesus Christ (John 4:14; 6:27, 35; 7:37; Rev 21:6; 22:17). • it’s all free: Reconciliation with God is for anyone and has no cost.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.