12I will destine you to the sword, and you will all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you didn’t answer. When I spoke, you didn’t listen; but you did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn’t delight.”
13Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, my servants will rejoice, but you will be disappointed;
14Behold, my servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will wail for anguish of spirit.
12 I will destine you to the sword, and you will all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you didn’t answer. When I spoke, you didn’t listen; but you did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn’t delight.”
13 Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, my servants will rejoice, but you will be disappointed;
14 Behold, my servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will wail for anguish of spirit.
KJVKing James Version
12 Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.
13 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed:
14 Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit.
Show all 3 translations
JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
12 I will destine you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, ye did not answer, when I spoke, ye did not hear; but ye did that which was evil in Mine eyes, and chose that wherein I delighted not.
13 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; Behold, My servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty; Behold, My servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed;
14 Behold, My servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall wail for vexation of spirit.
Malachi 3:18(v13)Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who doesn’t serve him.
Jeremiah 7:13(v12)Now, because you have done all these works,” says Yahweh, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I…
Isaiah 66:14(v13)You will see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones will flourish like the tender grass. Yahweh’s hand will be known among his…
2 Chronicles 36:15-16(v12)Yahweh, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending, because he had compassion on his people, and…
Isaiah 61:7(v13)Instead of your shame you will have double. Instead of dishonor, they will rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they will…
Show all 47 cross-references
Luke 16:24-25(v13)He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue!…
Psalms 66:4(v14)All the earth will worship you, and will sing to you; they will sing to your name.”
Isaiah 66:5(v13)Hear Yahweh’s word, you who tremble at his word: “Your brothers who hate you, who cast you out for my name’s sake, have said, ‘Let Yahweh…
Matthew 8:12(v14)but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Isaiah 24:14(v14)These shall lift up their voice. They will shout for the majesty of Yahweh. They cry aloud from the sea.
Isaiah 44:9(v13)Everyone who makes a carved image is vain. The things that they delight in will not profit. Their own witnesses don’t see, nor know, that…
Isaiah 50:2(v12)Why, when I came, was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it can’t redeem? Or…
Isaiah 52:8-9(v14)Your watchmen lift up their voice. Together they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when Yahweh returns to Zion. Break out into joy! Sing…
Jeremiah 31:7(v14)For Yahweh says, “Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations. Publish, praise, and say, ‘Yahweh, save your…
Zechariah 7:11-13(v12)But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear. Yes, they made their hearts as hard…
Matthew 13:42(v14)and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 21:34-43(v12)When the season for the fruit came near, he sent his servants to the farmers, to receive his fruit. The farmers took his servants, beat…
Matthew 22:13(v14)Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness. That is where the…
Luke 13:28(v14)There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in God’s Kingdom, and yourselves being…
Luke 14:23-24(v13)“The lord said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell…
James 5:1(v14)Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.
James 5:13(v14)Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises.
Leviticus 26:25(v12)I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will…
Deuteronomy 32:25(v12)Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.
Psalms 34:10(v13)The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger, but those who seek Yahweh shall not lack any good thing.
Psalms 37:19-20(v13)They shall not be disappointed in the time of evil. In the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish. The enemies…
Proverbs 1:24-33(v12)Because I have called, and you have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no one has paid attention; but you have ignored all my…
Isaiah 1:16(v12)Wash yourselves. Make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.
Isaiah 1:19(v13)If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land;
Isaiah 3:25(v12)Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war.
Isaiah 10:4(v12)They will only bow down under the prisoners, and will fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is…
Isaiah 27:1(v12)In that day, Yahweh with his hard and great and strong sword will punish leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and leviathan the twisted serpent;…
Isaiah 41:28(v12)When I look, there is no man, even among them there is no counselor who, when I ask of them, can answer a word.
Isaiah 65:3(v12)a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens, and burning incense on bricks;
Isaiah 66:3-4(v12)He who kills an ox is as he who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, as he who breaks a dog’s neck; he who offers an offering, as he who…
Jeremiah 16:17(v12)For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes.
Jeremiah 18:21(v12)Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and…
Jeremiah 34:17(v12)Therefore Yahweh says: “You have not listened to me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold,…
Ezekiel 14:17-21(v12)“Or if I bring a sword on that land, and say, ‘Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off from it man and animal;’ though these three…
Zephaniah 1:4-6(v12)I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place:…
Zechariah 7:7(v12)Aren’t these the words which Yahweh proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and its cities…
Matthew 22:3(v12)and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.
Matthew 22:7(v12)When the king heard that, he was angry, and sent his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
John 1:11(v12)He came to his own, and those who were his own didn’t receive him.
Job 29:13(v14)the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
Isaiah 41:17(v13)The poor and needy seek water, and there is none. Their tongue fails for thirst. I, Yahweh, will answer them. I, the God of Israel, will…
Daniel 12:2(v13)Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv12–13By my Prophets, whom ye would not obey.
By my Prophets, whom ye would not obey.
Seeing you cannot number your gods, I will number you with the sword.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv12–14Isa 65:12 Therefore will I number you to the…
Isa 65:12 Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose [that] wherein I delighted not.
Ver. 12. Therefore I will number you to the sword.] Est elegans paronomasia: I will give you up to the sword by number and tale, to the end that none of you may escape. God usually retaliateth, and proportioneth number to number. So, choice to choice; {Isa 66:3-4} jealousy to jealousy, provocation to provocation; {Deu 32:21} device to device; {Mic 2:1; Mic 2:3} frowardness to frowardness. {Psa 18:26}
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And ye shall all bow down to the slaughter.] As you used to bow down to your idols.
Because when I called, ye did not answer.] See on Pro 1:24.
But did evil before mine eyes.] Did evil things as you could; {Jer 3:5} with both hands earnestly. {Mic 7:3}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv12–13You have offended in number, worshipping a multitude, a…
You have offended in number, worshipping a multitude, a troop of idols; there shall be a great number of you perish by the sword; or possibly the term
number may refer to all in the next phrase, to let them know that none of them should escape. God saith he will number them, tell them out one by one to the sword.
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You shall all bow down to the slaughter; as you have bowed down to idols, Isa 44:17, (which are mine enemies,) I will make you bow down to your enemy’s swords. I called you by my prophets, Zec 7:7,11,12; you did not answer by doing the things which I by them spoke to you for; but not considering that I saw you, or if considering it, yet not regarding it, you impudently did evil; yea, you sinned deliberately, choosing sinful courses, the things which I hated, which are (here as often) expressed by it meiosis, and called the things in which God delighteth not. In matters of worship we ought to choose nothing wherein God delighteth not; and reason as well as Scripture will assure us he can delight in nothing of that nature which himself hath not directed. It is observable, that ruin is here threatened to this people, not for their immoralities or lewd lives, but for their errors and superstitions in Divine worship. Other sins provoke God to wrath, but those of this nature alone are enough to ruin souls and nations.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv12–14Therefore will I number you to the sword,.... There…
Therefore will I number you to the sword,.... There is an elegancy in the expression, alluding to Meni, that number, they furnished a drink offering for, or trusted in; and since they did, God would number them, or appoint a number of them to the sword; or suffer them to be slain in great numbers, even from one end of their land to another, Jer 12:12, they should be numbered and told out, or care taken that none of them should escape the sword of the Romans, or not be taken by them:
and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter; be obliged to submit to the conqueror, and lay down their necks to be sacrificed by him:
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because, when I called, ye did not answer; when I spoke, ye did not hear; when Christ called unto them personally, to come and hear him, they turned a deaf ear to this charmer, charming so wisely, and would not attend upon his ministry, Pro 1:24, and when he called to them in the ministry of his apostles, they rejected him and his word with contempt; they put it away from them, contradicting and blaspheming it, Act 13:45. The Targum is,
"because I sent my prophets, and ye turned not; they prophesied, and ye did not receive them:''
but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not; adhered to the traditions of the elders, and taught for doctrines the commandments of men; and which they chose and preferred to the word of God, and the Gospel of Christ; and these were things the Lord delighted not in, yea, abhorred; and their embracing and cleaving to them were evil in his sight; see Mat 15:3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn v12To the sword - A great number of you…
To the sword - A great number of you shall perish by the sword; or possibly the term number may refer to all in the next phrase, so that none of them should escape. God saith he will number them, tell them out one by one to the sword. Bow down - As you have bowed down to idols. I called - By my prophets, you did not answer by doing the things which I enjoined. Chuse - You sinned deliberately chusing sinful courses, the things which I hated.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv12–13Verse 12. Therefore will I number you] Referring to…
Verse 12. Therefore will I number you] Referring to Meni, which signifies number. "Rabbi Eliezar said to his disciples, Turn to God one day before you die. His disciples said, How can a man know the day of his death? He answered, Therefore it is necessary that you should turn to God to-day, for possibly ye may die to-morrow."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv12–13Isa 65:12. Therefore will I number you to the…
Isa 65:12. Therefore will I number you to the sword — “Here the allusion to meni, which signifies number, is obvious.” And you shall all bow down to the slaughter — As you have bowed down to idols, which are my enemies, I will make you bow down to your enemies’ swords; because when I called — Namely, by my prophets, you did not answer by doing the things that I enjoined. But did evil before mine eyes — You sinned deliberately, choosing sinful courses, the things which I hated. It must be observed here, that though the Jews, in the time of Christ and his apostles, (the period, it seems, referred to,) were not guilty of such idolatries as those above mentioned, yet, as they manifested the same spirit of rebellion, perverseness, and enmity to God, he therefore threatens that he would number them to the sword, as criminals ordered for execution, which he accordingly did, sending the Roman armies to desolate their country, lay their cities level with the ground, and almost extirpate their whole nation.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv12–14Therefore will I number you to the sword -…
Therefore will I number you to the sword - There is undoubtedly an allusion here to the idol Meni mentioned in Isa 65:11, and a play upon the name, in accordance with a custom quite common in the sacred Scriptures. The word מניתי mâniytiy, ‘I will number,’ is derived from מנה mânâh, the same word from which מני menı̂y, is derived. The idea is, since they worshipped a god whose name denoted number - perhaps one who was supposed to number or appoint the fates of people - God would number them. He would determine their destiny. It would not be done by any idol that was supposed to preside over the destinies of people; not by blind fate, or by anyone of the heavenly bodies, but it would be by an intelligent and holy God. And thus numbering or determining their lot would not be in accordance with their expectations, imparting to them a happy fortune, but would be devoting them to the sword; that is, to destruction. The allusion is, probably, to the calamities which God afterward brought on them by the invasion of the Chaldeans.
And ye shall all bow down to the slaughter - This is evidently strong, and probably hyperbolic language, meaning that a large portion of the nation would be cut off by the sword. The allusion here is, I think, to the slaughter of the Jewish people in the invasion of the Chaldeans. The evil of idolatry prevailed, in the time of Isaiah, under the reign of Manasseh; and in the time of Zedekiah it had increased so much even in Jerusalem, that it was said, ‘All the chief priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the pagan; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem .... And they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, until there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young people with the sword, in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age; he gave them all into their hand 2Ch 36:14, 2Ch 36:16-17. It is possible, also, that this is intended to express a more general truth, and to intimate that when his people forsake him he will punish them; but the primary reference, it is proable, was to the slaughter caused by the Babylonians when they destroyed Jerusalem.
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Because when I called - When I called you by the prophets to repentance and to my service (see Pro 1:24 ff.)
Ye did not answer - You showed the same disregard and contempt which a child does who suffers a parent to call him, and who pays no attention to it. One of the chief aggravations of human guilt is, that the sinner pays no attention to the calls of God. He pretends not to hear; or he hears to disregard it. No more decided contempt can be shown to the Almighty; no deeper proof of the stupidity and guilt of people can be furnished.
But did evil before mine eyes - (See the notes at Isa 65:3).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv12–13Chosen. Free-will is clearly expressed, as rewards are, ver.…
Chosen. Free-will is clearly expressed, as rewards are, ver. 13. (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 Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v1313 Therefore thus saith the Lord God, [Jehovah]
3. THE TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS GOD GIVES TO EVERY ONE HIS OWN
Isa_65:13-16
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13 Therefore thus saith the Lord God, [Jehovah]
Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry:
Behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty:
Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed:
14 Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart,
But ye shall cry for sorrow of heart,
And shall howl for 12vexation of spirit.
15 And ye shall leave your name for 13a curse unto my chosen:
For the Lord God [Jehovah] shall slay thee,
And call his servants by another name:
16 That he who blesseth himself in the earth
Shall bless himself in the 14God of truth;
And he that sweareth in the earth
Shall swear by the God of truth;
Because the former troubles are forgotten,
And because they are hid from mine eyes.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. [“On the ground of the renewed mention of the offence there is a fresh announcement of punishment, and the different lot of the servants of Jahve, and of those who despised Him, is expressed in five clauses and antithetic clauses.”—Del.] The servants of Jehovah will eat, drink, rejoice (comp. Isa_25:6 sqq.; Isa_55:1; Isa_56:9), the wicked will do the opposite of all this (Isa_65:13-14). The name of the wicked will only remain to serve the servants of Jehovah for an oath; they themselves will be dead, and the Lord will give His servants another name (Isa_65:15). Then will both the promises and the threatenings of Jehovah be fulfilled. Jehovah will have proved Himself as the true One. He who blesses himself and he who swears, will do this henceforward only in the name of this true God. All tribulation of the former time shall be forgotten, and shall have disappeared (Isa_65:16).
2. Therefore, thus saith——mine eyes. Isa_65:13-16. [“These verses merely carry out the general threatening of the one preceding, in a series of poetical antitheses, where hunger, thirst, disgrace and anguish take the place of sword and slaughter, and determine these to be symbolical or emblematic terms.” Alexander.—D. M.] טוּב לֵב recalls טוּב לֵבָבDeu_28:47. The expression does not elsewhere occur. The adjectival construction is found 1Ki_8:66; 2Ch_7:10; Est_1:10; Est_5:9; Pro_15:15. The expression כאב לב (comp. Isa_17:11; Pro_14:13) occurs only here, שֶׁבֶר רוּחַ, too, occurs only here (comp. Psa_51:19). The punishment of the wicked shall not cease with the termination of a wretched life; after death it shall be continued in a memory laden with a curse. This last point the Prophet mentions first as the climax of the punishment, and only parenthetically introduces the threatening of destruction. The threatening: Ye shall leave your name for an oath, supposes the death of those threatened. This matter the Prophet afterwards refers to as a thing of only minor importance. For all men must die. But in the words, the Lord God shall slay thee, there is intimated a death which should be a marked expression of the Divine displeasure. וְ before המיתך is to be taken as causal. The sudden change of number need no more surprise us than the sudden change of person elsewhere. Comp. Isa_1:23; Isa_5:23; Isa_5:26; Isa_17:10; Isa_19:25; Isa_29:13. The singular may perhaps be here employed for a rhetorical reason. It renders the speech more concise and emphatic. The wicked will be destroyed so that nothing will remain of them but a name on which a curse rests. To such a degree will they appear as objects of the curse, that one in swearing will believe that he cannot take a stronger oath than by invoking on himself the curse of those wicked persons, in case of being guilty of falsehood (comp. Num_5:21; Jer_29:22; Psa_102:9). One name originally united the wicked and the godly. For they were both called Israelites. Can the elect of the Lord continue to bear the name which, after the judgments of God, has become accursed? No. The Lord will therefore give His servants another name. He does not say: A new name, as Isa_62:2, but another name. The Prophet’s look surveys rapidly the whole period which embraces thousands of years, from the beginning till the completion of redemption, i. e., from the end of the Exile till the last day. He sees how in this period the separation between the enemies and the friends of Jehovah is accomplished, but he does not distinguish the stages of time, but all events which he beholds present themselves to him on one and the same plane. He sees only a decrease of the Ἰσραὴλ σαρκικός; he sees this carnal Israel endure great pain and distress—a judgment of God resting on it, in consequence of which it appears as accursed. Further, the Prophet beholds a people of God, with another name, in the place of the old Israel. Is not the new covenant, that should come in the place of the old, in this way intimated? It seems to me that Jerome is not altogether wrong in regard to the main point, when he says: “Nomen autem novum sive aliud nullum est, nisi quod ex Christi nomine derivatur, ut nequaquam vocetur populus Dei Jacob et Juda et Israel et Ephraim et Joseph, sed Christianus.” [“According to the usage of the prophecies the promise of another name imports a different character and state, and in this sense the promise has been fully verified. But in addition to this general fulfilment, which no one calls in question, it is matter of history that the Jewish commonwealth or nation is destroyed; that the name of Jew has been for centuries a bye-word and a formula of execration, and that they who have succeeded to the spiritual honors of this once favored race, although they claim historical identity therewith, have never borne its name, but another, which from its very nature could have no existence until Christ had come, and which in the common parlance of the Christian world is treated as the opposite of Jew.” Alexander.—D. M.]. The destruction of the wicked supposes as corresponding to it the salvation of the godly. Through both the veracity of God is attested. Is Jehovah shown to be true by the history of the world, then no one naturally will think of uttering an oath or benediction by another God than by Him. אְַשֶׁר is therefore=quare, quapropter, or in a demonstrative sense=so that (comp. Gen_13:16; Deu_3:24; Deu_28:27; Deu_28:51, et saepe). התברך with בְּ stands here as Jer_4:2, which place seems to refer to ours. The expression אלהי אמן occurs only here. [“A remarkable expression; lit. “the God of Amen,”—of what is firm and true. Vulg. in Deo Amen. The God to whom that quality of covenant-keeping truth essentially belongs, is He in whom all shall bless themselves. A comparison of Gen_22:18 and Psa_72:17 with the present verse shows that ‘the Seed of Abraham’ and ‘the Son of David’ are to be identified with this God of truth:—a mystery completely realized in Him who is the ‘Amen, the Faithful and True Witness’ (Rev_3:14; comp. Isa_19:11). In Him ‘all the promises of God are…Amen’ (2Co_1:20”). Kay.—D. M.]. “When all promises are fulfilled, then, too, all troubles must necessarily be past. For the promises of God have respect not to partial, limited, but to full, complete salvation. In the time, then, when men will swear and bless by none other than the true and veracious God, all troubles will end, so that men will know no more what trouble is. But not only this. There could still be danger of new troubles. But this will not be, for God Himself will with His all-seeing eye perceive no where the trace of a trouble. כִּי־וְכִי is=because—and because (Gen_33:11; Jos_10:2; 1Sa_19:4).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_65:1-2. Our Lord has said, “He that seeketh findeth” (Mat_7:8). How, then, does it come that the Jews do not find what they seek, but the heathen find what they did not seek? The Apostle Paul puts this question and answers it, Rom_9:30 sqq.; Isa_10:19 sqq.; Isa_11:7. [See also Isa_10:3]. All depends on the way in which we seek. Luther says: Quaerere fit dupliciter. Primo, secundum praescriptum verbi Dei, et sic invenitur Deus, Secundo, quaeritur nostris studiis et consiliis, et sic non invenitur.” The Jews, with exception of the ἐκλογή (Rom_11:7), sought only after their own glory and merit. They sought what satisfies the flesh. They did not suffer the spirit in the depths of their heart to speak,—the spirit which can be satisfied only by food fitted for it. The law which was given to them that they might perceive by means of it their own impotence, became a snare to them. For they perverted it, made what was of minor importance the chief matter, and then persuaded themselves that they had fulfilled it and were righteous. But the Gentiles who had not the law, had not this snare. They were not tempted to abuse the pædagogical discipline of the law. They felt simply that they were forsaken by God. Their spirit was hungry. And when for the first time God’s word in the Gospel was presented to them, then they received it the more eagerly in proportion to the poverty, wretchedness and hunger in which they had been. The Jews did not find what they sought, because they had not a spiritual, but a carnal apprehension of the law, and, like the elder brother of the prodigal son, were full, and blind for that which was needful for them. But the Gentiles found what they did not seek, because they were like the prodigal son, who was the more receptive of grace, the more he needed it, and the less claim he had to it. [There is important truth stated in the foregoing remarks. But it does not fully explain why the Lord is found of those who sought Him not. The sinner who has obtained mercy when he asks why? must have recourse to a higher cause, a cause out of himself, even free, sovereign, efficacious grace. “It is of God that showeth mercy,” Rom_9:16. “Though in after-communion God is found of those that seek Him (Pro_8:17), yet in the first conversion He is found of those that seek Him not; for therefore we love Him, because He first loved us.” Henry. D. M.].
2. On Isa_65:2. God’s long-suffering is great. He stretches out His hands the whole day and does not grow weary. What man would do this? The disobedient people contemns Him, as if He knew nothing, and could do nothing.
3. On Isa_65:2. “It is clear from this verse gratiam esse resistibilem. Christ earnestly stretched out His hands to the Jews. He would, but they would not. This doctrine the Remonstrants prove from this place, and rightly too, in Actis Synodi Dodrac. P. 3. p. 76.” Leigh. [The grace of God which is signified by His stretching out His hands can be, and is, resisted. That figurative expression denotes warning, exhorting, entreating, and was never set forth by Reformed theologians as indicating such grace as was necessarily productive of conversion. The power by which God quickens those who were dead in sins (Eph_2:5), by which He gives a new heart (Eze_36:26), by which He draws to the Son (Joh_6:44-45; Joh_6:65), is the grace which is called irresistible. The epithet is admitted on all hands to be faulty; but the grace denoted by it is, from the nature of the case, not resisted. Turrettin in treating De Vocatione et Fide thus replies to this objection, “Aliud est Deo monenti et vocanti externe resistere; Aliud est conversionem intendenti et efficaciter ac interne vocanti. Prius asseritur Isa. lxv. 2, 3. Quum dicit Propheta se expandisse totâ die manus ad populum perversum etc., non posterius. Expansio brachiorum notat quidem blandam et benevolam Dei invitationem, quâ illos extrinsecus sive Verbo, sive beneficiis alliciebat, non semel atque iterum, sed quotidie ministerio servorum suorum eos compellando. Sed non potest designate potentem et efficacem operationem, quâ brachium Domini illis revelatur qui docentur á Deo et trahuntur a Patre, etc.” Locus XV.; Quaestio VI .25.—D. M.].
4. On Isa_65:2. (Who walk after their own thoughts.)
Duc me, nec sine, me per me, Deus optime, duci.
Nam duce me pereo, te duce certus eo.
[“If our guide be our own thoughts, our way is not likely to be good; for every imagination of the thought of our hearts is only evil.” Henry. D. M.].
5. On Isa_65:3 sq. “The sweetest wine is turned into the sourest vinegar; and when God’s people apostatize from God, they are worse than the heathen (Jer_3:11).” Starke.
6. On Isa_65:5. [I am holier than thou. “A deep insight is here given us into the nature of the mysterious fascination which heathenism exercised on the Jewish people. The law humbled them at every turn with mementoes of their own sin and of God’s unapproachable holiness. Paganism freed them from this, and allowed them (in the midst of moral pollution) to cherish lofty pretensions to sanctity. The man, who had been offering incense on the mountain-top, despised the penitent who went to the temple to present ‘a broken and contrite heart.’ If Pharisaism led to a like result, it was because it, too, had emptied the law of its spiritual import, and turned its provisions into intellectual idols.” Kay. D. M.].
7. On Isa_65:6-7. “The longer God forbears, the harder He punishes at last. The greatness of the punishment compensates for the delay (Psa_50:21).” Starke after Leigh.
8. On Isa_65:8 sqq. [“This is expounded by St. Paul, Rom_11:1-5, where, when upon occasion of the rejection of the Jews, it is asked Hath God then cast away His people? He answers, no; for, at this time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. This prophecy has reference to that distinguished remnant…Our Saviour has told us that for the sake of these elect the days of the destruction of the Jews should be shortened, and a stop put to the desolation, which otherwise would have proceeded to that degree that no flesh should be saved. Mat_24:22. Henry. D. M.].
9. On Isa_65:15. The judgment which came upon Israel by the hand of the Romans, did not altogether destroy the people, but it so destroyed the Old Covenant, i.e., the Mosaic religion, that the Jews can no more observe its precepts in essential points. For no Jew knows to what tribe he belongs. Therefore, they have no priests, and, consequently, no sacrifices. The Old Covenant is now only a ruin. We see here most clearly that the Old Covenant, as it was designed only for one nation, and for one country, was to last only for a certain time. If we consider, moreover, the way in which the judgment was executed, (comp. Josephus), we can truly say that the Jews bear in themselves the mark of a curse. They bear the stamp of the divine judgment. The beginning of the judgment on the world has been executed on them as the house of God. But how comes it that the Jews have become so mighty, so insolent in the present time, and are not satisfied with remaining on the defensive in their attitude toward the Christian church, but have passed over to the offensive? This has arisen solely from Christendom having to a large extent lost the consciousness of its new name. There are many Christians who scoff at the name of Christian, and seek their honor in combating all that is called Christian. This is the preparation for the judgment on Christendom itself. If Christendom would hold fast her jewel, she would remain strong, and no one would dare to mock or to assail her. For she would then partake of the full blessing which lies in the principle of Christianity, and every one would be obliged to show respect for the fruits of this principle. But an apostate Christendom, that is ashamed of her glorious Christian name, is something more miserable than the Jews, judged though they have been, who still esteem highly their name, and what remains to them of their old religion. Thus Christendom, in so far as it denies the worth and significance of its name, is gradually reaching a condition in which it will be so ripe for the second act of the judgment on the world, that this will be longed for as a benefit. For, this apostate Christendom will be the kingdom of Antichrist, as Antichrist will manifest himself in Satanic antagonism to God by sitting in the temple of God, and pretending to be God (2Th_2:3 sqq.). [We do not quite share all the sentiments expressed in this paragraph. We are far from being so despondent as to the prospects of Christendom, and think that there is a more obvious interpretation of the prophecy quoted from 2 Thess., than that indicated.—D. M.].
10. On Isa_65:17. [If we had only the present passage to testify of new heavens and a new earth, we might say, as many good interpreters do, that the language is figurative, and indicates nothing more than a great moral and spiritual revolution. But we cannot thus explain 2Pe_3:10-13. The present earth and heavens shall pass away; (comp. Isa_51:6; Psa_102:25-26). But how can we suppose that our Prophet here refers to the new heavens and new earth, which are to succeed the destruction of the world by fire? In the verses that follow Isa_65:17, a condition of things is described which, although better than the present, is not so good as that perfectly sinless, blessed state of the redeemed, which we look for after the coming of the day of the Lord. Yet the Apostle Peter (2Pe_3:13) evidently regards the promise before us of new heavens and a new earth, as destined to receive its accomplishment after the conflagration which is to take place at the end of the world. If we had not respect to other Scriptures, and if we overlooked the use made by Peter of this passage, we should not take it literally. But we can take it literally, if we suppose that the Prophet brings together future events not according to their order in time. He sees the new heavens and new earth arise. Other scenes are disclosed to his prophetic eye of a grand and joy-inspiring nature. He announces them as future. But these scenes suppose the continued prevalence of death and labor (Isa_65:20 sqq.), which, we know from definite statements of Scripture, will not exist when the new heaven and new earth appear (comp. Rev_21:1-4). The proper view then of Isa_65:17 is to take its prediction literally, and to hold at the same time that in the following description (which is that of the millennium) future things are presented to us which are really prior, and not posterior to the promised complete renovation of heaven and earth. Nor should this surprise us, as Isaiah and the other Prophets place closely together in their pictures future things which belong to different times. They do not draw the line sharply between this world and the next. Compare Isaiah’s prophecy of the abolition of death (Isa_25:8) in connection with other events that must happen long before that state of perfect blessedness.—D. M.].
11. On Isa_65:20. [“The extension of the Gospel every where,—of its pure principles of temperance in eating and drinking, in restraining the passions, in producing calmness of mind, and in arresting war, would greatly lengthen out the life of man. The image here employed by the Prophet is more than mere poetry; it is one that is founded in reality, and is designed to convey most important truth.” Barnes. D. M.].
12. On Isa_65:24. [It occurs to me that an erroneous application is frequently made of the promise, Before they call, etc. This declaration is made in connection with the glory and blessedness of the last days. It belongs specifically to the millennium. There are, indeed, occasions when God even now seems to act according to this law. (Comp. Dan_9:23). But Paul had to pray thrice before he received the answer of the Lord (2Co_12:8). Compare the parable of the importunate widow, Luk_18:1-7. The answer to prayer may be long delayed. This is not only taught in the Bible, but is verified in Christian experience. But the time will come when the Lord will not thus try and exercise the faith of His people.—D. M.].
13. On Isa_65:25. “If the lower animals live in hostility in consequence of the sin of man, a state of peace must be restored to them along with our redemption from sin.” J. G. Mueller in Herz. R.-Encycl. xvi. p. 45. [“By the serpent in this place there seems every reason to believe that Satan, the old seducer and author of discord and misery, is meant. During the millennium he is to be subject to the lowest degradation. Compare for the force of the phrase to lick the dust, Psa_72:9; Mic_7:17. This was the original doom of the tempter, Gen_3:14, and shall be fully carried into execution. Comp. Rev_20:1-3.” Henderson. D. M.].
14. On Isa_66:1. [“Having held up in every point of view the true design, mission and vocation of the church or chosen people, its relation to the natural descendants of Abraham, the causes which required that the latter should be stripped of their peculiar privileges, and the vocation of the Gentiles as a part of the divine plan from its origin, the Prophet now addresses the apostate and unbelieving Jews at the close of the old dispensation, who, instead of preparing for the general extension of the church and the exchange of ceremonial for spiritual worship, were engaged in the rebuilding and costly decoration of the temple at Jerusalem. The pride and interest in this great public work, felt not only by the Herods but by all the Jews, is clear from incidental statements of the Scriptures (Joh_2:20; Mat_24:1), as well as from the ample and direct assertions of Josephus. That the nation should have been thus occupied precisely at the time when the Messiah came, is one of those agreements between prophecy and history, which cannot be accounted for except upon the supposition of a providential and designed assimilation.” Alexander after Vitringa. D. M.].
15. On Isa_66:1-2. What a grand view of the nature of God and of the way in which He is made known lies at the foundation of these words! God made all things. He is so great that it is an absurdity to desire to build a temple for Him. The whole universe cannot contain Him (1Ki_8:27)! But He, who contains all things and can be contained by nothing, has His greatest joy in a poor, humble human heart that fears Him. He holds it worthy of His regard, it pleases Him, He enters into it, He makes His abode in it. The wise and prudent men of science should learn hence what is chiefly necessary in order to know God. We cannot reach Him by applying force, by climbing up to Him, by attempting to take Him by storm. And if science should place ladder upon ladder upwards and downwards, she could not attain His height or His depth. But He enters of His own accord into a child-like, simple heart. He lets Himself be laid hold of by it, kept and known. It is not, therefore, by the intellect [alone] but by the heart that we can know God.
16. On Isa_66:3. He who under the Christian dispensation would retain the forms of worship of the ancient ritual of shadows would violate the fundamental laws of the new time, just as a man by killing would offend against the foundation of the moral law, or as he would by offering the blood of dogs or swine offend against the foundation of the ceremonial law. For when the body, the substance has appeared, the type must vanish. He who would retain the type along with the reality would declare the latter to be insufficient, would, therefore, found his salvation not upon God only, but also in part on his own legal performance. But God will brook no rival. He is either our All, or nothing. Christianity could tolerate animal sacrifices just as little as the Old Testament law could tolerate murder or the offering of abominable things.
17. On Isa_66:5. [“The most malignant and cruel persecutions of the friends of God have been originated under the pretext of great zeal in His service, and with a professed desire to honor His name. So it was with the Jews when they crucified the Lord Jesus. So it is expressly said it would be when His disciples would be excommunicated and put to death, Joh_16:2. So it was in fact in the persecutions excited against the apostles and early Christians. See Act_6:13-14; Act_21:28-31. So it was in all the persecutions of the Waldenses, in all the horrors of the Inquisition, in all the crimes of the Duke of Alva. So it was in the bloody reign of Mary; and so it has ever been in all ages and in all countries where Christians have been persecuted.” Barnes.—D. M.].
18. On Isa_66:10. “The idea which is presented in this verse is, that it is the duty of all who love Zion to sympathize in her joy. The true friends of God should rejoice in every real revival of religion, they should rejoice in all the success which attends the Gospel in heathen lands. And they will rejoice. It is one evidence of piety to rejoice in her joy; and they who have no joy when souls are born into the kingdom of God, when He pours down His Spirit and in a revival of religion produces changes as sudden and transforming as if the earth were suddenly to pass from the desolation of winter to the verdure and bloom of summer, or when the Gospel makes sudden and rapid advances in the heathen world, have no true evidence that they love God and His cause. They have no religion.” Barnes.—D. M.
19. On Isa_66:13. The Prophet is here completely governed by the idea that in the glorious time of the end, love, maternal love will reign. Thus He makes Zion appear as a mother who will bring forth with incredible ease and rapidity innumerable children (Isa_66:7-9). Then the Israelites are depicted as little children who suck the breasts of their mother. Further, the heathen who bring back the Israelites into their home, must do this in the same way in which mothers in the Orient are wont to carry their little children. Lastly, even to the Lord Himself maternal love is ascribed (comp. Isa_42:14; Isa_49:15), and such love as a mother manifests to her adult son. Thus the Israelites will be surrounded in that glorious time on all sides by maternal love. Maternal love will be the characteristic of that period.
20. On Isa_66:19 sqq. The Prophet describes remote things by words which are borrowed from the relations and conceptions of his own time, but which stand in strange contrast to the reality of the future which he beholds. Thus the Prophet speaks of escaped persons who go to Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, and Javan. Here he has rightly seen that a great act of judgment must have taken place. And this act of judgment must have passed on Israel, because they who escape, who go to the Gentiles to declare to them the glory of Jehovah, must plainly be Jews How accurately, in spite of the strange manner of expression, is the fact here stated that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed to the Gentiles exactly at the time when the old theocracy was destroyed! How justly does he indicate that there was a causal connection between these events! He did not, indeed, know that the shattering of the old form was necessary in order that the eternal truth enclosed in it might be set free, and fitted for filling the whole earth. For the Old Covenant cannot exist along with the New, the Law cannot stand with equal dignity beside the Gospel. The Law must be regarded as annulled, in order that the Gospel may come into force. How remarkably strange is it, however, that he calls the Gentile nations Tarshish, Pul, Lud, etc. And how singular it sounds to be told that the Israelites shall be brought by the Gentiles to Jerusalem as an offering for Jehovah! But how accurately has he, notwithstanding, stated the fact, which, indeed, still awaits its fulfilment, that it is the conversion of the heathen world which will induce Israel to acknowledge their Saviour, and that they both shall gather round the Lord as their common centre! How strange it sounds that then priests and Levites shall be taken from the Gentiles also, and that new moon and Sabbath shall be celebrated by all flesh in the old Jewish fashion! But how accurately is the truth thereby stated that in the New Covenant there will be no more the priesthood restricted to the family of Aaron, but a higher spiritual and universal priesthood, and that, instead of the limited local place of worship of the Old Covenant, the whole earth will be a temple of the Lord! Verily the prophecy of the two last chapters of Isaiah attests a genuine prophet of Jehovah. He cannot have been an anonymous unknown person. He can have been none other than Isaiah the son of Amoz!
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_65:1 sq. [I. “It is here foretold that the Gentiles, who had been afar off, should be made nigh, Isa_65:1. II. It is here foretold that the Jews, who had long been a people near to God, should be cast off, and set at a distance, Isa_65:2.” Henry, III. We are informed of the cause of the rejection of the Jews. It was owing to their rebellion, waywardness and flagrant provocations, Isa_65:2 sqq.—D. M.]
2. On Isa_65:1-7. A Fast-Day Sermon. When the Evangelical Church no more holds fast what she has; when apostasy spreads more and more, and modern heathenism (Isa_65:3-5 a) gains the ascendency in her, then it can happen to her as it did to the people of Israel, and as it happened to the Church in the Orient. Her candlestick can be removed out of its place.—[By the Evangelical Church we are not to understand here the Church universal, for her perpetuity is certain. The Evangelical Church is in Germany the Protestant Church, and more particularly the Lutheran branch of it.—D. M.]
3. On Isa_65:8-10. Sermon on behalf of the mission among the Jews. Israel’s hope. 1) On what it is founded (Israel is still a berry in which drops of the divine blessing are contained); 2) To what this hope is directed (Israel’s Restoration).
4. On Isa_65:13-16. [“The blessedness of those that serve God, and the woful condition of those that rebel against him, are here set the one over against the other, that they may serve as a foil to each other. The difference of their states here lies in two things: 1) In point of comfort and satisfaction, a. God’s servants shall eat and drink; they shall have the bread of life to feed, to feast upon continually, and shall want nothing that is good for them. But those who set their hearts upon the world, and place their happiness in it, shall be hungry and thirsty, always empty, always craving. In communion with God and dependence upon Him there is full satisfaction; but in sinful pursuits there is nothing but disappointment. b. God’s servants shall rejoice and sing for joy of heart; they have constant cause for joy, and there is nothing that may be an occasion of grief to them but they have an allay sufficient for it. But, on the other hand, they that forsake the Lord shut themselves out from all true joy, for they shall be ashamed of their vain confidence in themselves, and their own righteousness, and the hopes they had built thereon. When the expectations of bliss, wherewith they had flattered themselves, are frustrated, O what confusion will fill their faces! Then shall they cry for sorrow of heart and howl for vexation of spirit. 2) In point of honor and reputation, Isa_65:15-16. The memory of the just is, and shall be, blessed; but the memory of the wicked shall rot.” Henry.—D. M.]
5. On Isa_66:1-2. Carpzov has a sermon on this text. He places it in parallel with Luk_18:9-14, and considers, 1) The rejection of spiritual pride; 2) The commendation of filial fear.
6. On Isa_66:2 Arndt, in his True Christianity I. cap. 10, comments on this text. He says among other things: “The man who will be something is the material out of which God makes nothing, yea, out of which He makes fools. But a man who will be nothing, and regards himself as nothing, is the material out of which God makes something, even glorious, wise people in His sight.”
7. On Isa_66:3. [Saurin has a sermon on this text entitled “Sur l’ Insuffisance du culte exterieur” in the eighth volume of his sermons.—D. M.]
8. On Isa_66:13. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. “These words stand, let us consider it, 1) In the Old Testament; 2) In the heart of God always; 3) But are they realized in our experience?” Koegel in “Aus dem Vorhof ins Heiligthum, II. Bd., p. 242, 1876.
9. On Isa_66:24. The punishment of sin is twofold—inward and outward. The inward is compared with a worm that dies not; the outward with a fire that is not quenched. This worm and this fire are at work even in this life. He who is alarmed by them and hastens to Christ can now be delivered from them.—[“It is better not to fall into this fire and never to have any experience of this worm, even though, as some imagine, eternity should not be eternal, and the unquenchable fire might be quenched, and the worm that shall never die, should die, and Jesus and His apostles should not have expressed themselves quite in accordance with the compassionate taste of our time. Better, I say, is better. Save thyself and thy neighbor before the fire begins to burn, and the smoke to ascend.” Gossner.—D. M.]
Footnotes:
[12]Heb. breaking.
[13]an oath.
[14]the God of Amen.
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 Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv12–14number--"doom" you. Alluding to the "number," as Meni (Isa…
number--"doom" you. Alluding to the "number," as Meni (Isa 65:11) means. Retribution in kind, the punishment answering to the sin (compare Ch2 36:14-17).
I called, ye . . . not answer--"I called," though "none had called" upon Me (Isa 64:7); yet even then none "answered" (Pro 1:24). Contrast with this God and His people's mutual fellowship in prayer (Isa 65:24).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn v1313, 14. The turn given to idolatrous feastings (Isa_65:11-12)…
13, 14. The turn given to idolatrous feastings (Isa_65:11-12) suggested a course of figures illustrative of the different “fortunes” of the godly and ungodly: their meaning is, “My people shall be satisfied with the rich abundance I shall give, while ye with momentary idolatrous pleasures shall pass into destitution and abandonment. My people, from first to last, shall possess unfailing springs of joy; but ye shall be irredeemably bowed with heart sorrow, despite your cries or howlings for relief, for ever to be unavailing.” This proved true to the bold, bad Jews, down to their final experiences and ineffective struggles with the Romans.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv12–1412. Render with R.V. I will destine you to…
12. Render with R.V. I will destine you to the sword &c. There is a play upon words between the verb for “destine” (mânâh) and Mìnî in Isa_65:11.
because when I called &c.] Cf. Isa_65:1-2.
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but did evil before mine eyes &c.] Exactly as ch. Isa_66:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn v13(13) My servants shall eat . . .—The form…
(13) My servants shall eat . . .—The form of the punishment is apparently determined by that of the sin. That had been the orgy of an idol’s feast; the penalty would be hunger and thirst, while joy and gladness would be the portion of those who had abstained from it. The words present a striking parallelism to Luk_6:20-26.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv12–13Therefore will I number you; or, apportion you (maaithi)a…
Therefore will I number you; or, apportion you (maaithi)a play upon the name of M"ni. The sword... slaughter. Not, perhaps, intended literally. Wicked men are God"s sword, (Psa_17:13) and deliverance into their hand would be deliverance to the sword and slaughter. The exiles suffered grievously at the hands of their Babylonian masters. (Isa_47:6 Isa_49:17, etc.) The character of their sufferings isgiven in the ensuing verses (vers. 13, 14). When I called, ye did not answer. (see 2Ch_36:15, 16 Pro_1:20-25 Isa_66:4)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv12–14Therefore will I number you to the sword.
Isa_65:12-14
Therefore will I number you to the sword.
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The declaration of God against the disobedience of Israel
I. THE ACCUSATION. A guilty inattention to the voice of God.
II. THE THREAT (Isa_65:13-14). (R. G. Buddicomb, M. A.)
Gods call despised
I. THE GRACIOUS CALL OF GOD.
II. THE IMPENITENCE OF MANY.
III. THE INEVITABLE RESULT. (J. Lyth, 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 Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v13Isa_65:13-15. Behold My servants shall eat, but ye shall…
INCENTIVES TO RELIGIOUS DECISION
Isa_65:13-15. Behold My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry, &c.
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The principles of God’s conduct are the same in all ages, &c. No temptation is more common than that which arises from the impression that a life of religion is necessarily a life of gloom, &c. I urge upon the undecided some reasons for religious decision.
I. From the superior advantages of the religious life, beyond all the boasted distinctions or professions of worldly and ungodly men.
1. They have a better Master and portion. God loves to speak of them as His servants. He claims them as His own, and they rejoice in their allegiance to Him (Isa_65:8-15). How greatly God honours His servants! Let Christians rejoice in the Master they serve. Let the impenitent contrast the master they serve, &c. Your master is bad; his service is worse; his wages are worst of all. Abandon Satan’s service. Become servants of Christ—here and now.
2. They have better resources and supplies. They have meat to eat which the world knows not of, and they drink of springs of refreshment which never fail, &c. What has the worldling to put over against the peace which passeth understanding, &c.?
3. They have better enjoyments (Isa_65:14). Religion has its conflicts, &c. But we maintain that the Christian has a large over-balance of joy.
4. They have better prospects. Even now a portion with the people of God is better than the best portion of the wicked, &c. But look at their hereafter.
II. From the peculiar sources of dissatisfaction and wretchedness to which you are exposed.
You have conscious condemnation, ever growing in evidence, &c.—Samuel Thodey.
Isa_65:14. THE JOY OF GOD’S SERVANTS (see vol. i. pp. 234, 320, 321).
There is a striking difference between those who keep and those who forsake God’s commands. The one is the object of His favour, the other of His displeasure. Those who serve God have abundant and constant occasion of rejoicing, whereas those who forsake Him exclude themselves from all true joy (Isa_65:13-15). Consider—
I. THE GROUNDS AND REASONS OF THEIR JOY.
God’s servants have the joy of—
1. Salvation (Psa_51:12). Includes acceptance, adoption, cleansing, &c. (Rom_5:11). What a joy is this!
2. Claiming God as their portion (Lam_3:24, and others). Excites joy even in adversity. The stream may be cut off, but nothing can deprive them of the fountain.
3. God’s abiding presence.
4. Faith. Trusting God’s care, &c. Brings peace and heart-rest.
5. A well founded hope of heaven (Rom_5:2). This animates and sustains amid life’s sorrows. In the experience of such blessings God’s servants have good reason to sing for joy of hearts. And if there is so much joy in the way to heaven, what transports shall they have when they come to Zion with songs, &c. (Isa_51:11).
II. THE DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS OF THEIR JOY.
It is—
1. Pure and spiritual (Rom_14:17; Gal_5:22). A holy feeling, excited by spiritual objects, apprehended by faith. Suited to the noble faculties and sublime hopes of their heaven-born souls. Leaves no bitter sediment.
2. Satisfying. Such we seek. Only God’s servants realise. God has so made us that no worldly joy can satisfy us.
3. Strengthening. For—
(1) Duty. Gives vigour to all the powers of the soul. Not so carnal joys.
(2) Suffering (Rom_5:3, and others).
(3) Christian work. Feeds zeal like oil to the wick of a lamp.
(4) Spiritual conflict.
4. Enduring (Php_4:4). Does not depend upon uncertain worldly good (Hab_3:17-19). Lives through all the vicissitudes of this mortal life (Joh_15:11; Joh_16:22).
CONCLUSION.—
1. Have you religion enough to make you really happy?
2. Have you to lament that it is much deadened and interrupted. Earnestly seek its increase and fulness (Joh_15:11; Joh_17:13). This joy beautifies, adorns, and renders attractive the Christian character. You are bound to be joyful as a means of honouring your Divine master, and being useful to your fellow-men.—Alfred Tucker.
Isa_65:16. The happy change. I. Trouble forgotten, as a thing past. Excluded. II. Blessing secured, on earth. In God, therefore real. In the God of truth, therefore permanent. By direct appeal to God, as the sole object of prayer.
Isa_65:17-18. I. The regenerated world. Glorious prospect! The feelings it should inspire. II. The power by which it will be effected. III. The blessed results.
Isa_65:19. God’s joy in His people. I. Its occasion. II. Expression. Favour. Fellowship. Blessing. III. The happy consequence—the alleviation of human sorrow.—J. Lyth, D.D.
Isa_65:20. “The sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.” I. The shortness of human life. A man a hundred years old is a wonder. Contrast the age of man with that of the works of nature, art, &c. II. The long-suffering of God. Though He sees all the sins of the sinner, and hates, and is able to punish them, He delays His stroke for a hundred years. His power over Himself. III. The malignity of sin. There is no self-restoring power in the soul as in the body. There are no spontaneous cures of spiritual diseases. The power of habit. Worse and worse. IV. The inexhaustibleness of the curse. It is not exhausted by a century, nor by a millennium, nor by the cycles of eternity. V. The claims of religion upon the old. Depict the dangers of hoary-headed sinners. There is still a method of escape. Accept the Saviour immediately.—G. Brooks: Outlines of Sermons, p. 341.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv12–13General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues speaking to those in Israel who worship idols.
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appoint you for the sword
"The sword" represents various weapons of war that Yahweh will use to punish those who do not respond to Yahweh's call. (See: Synecdoche)
when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen
Both clauses mean the same and are repeated for emphasis. (See: Parallelism)
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv12–13 By my Prophets, whom ye would not obey.
By my Prophets, whom ye would not obey.
Seeing you cannot number your gods, I will number you with the sword.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv12–14 Isa 65:12 Therefore will I number you to the…
Isa 65:12 Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose [that] wherein I delighted not.
Ver. 12. Therefore I will number you to the sword.] Est elegans paronomasia: I will give you up to the sword by number and tale, to the end that none of you may escape. God usually retaliateth, and proportioneth number to number. So, choice to choice; {Isa 66:3-4} jealousy to jealousy, provocation to provocation; {Deu 32:21} device to device; {Mic 2:1; Mic 2:3} frowardness to frowardness. {Psa 18:26}
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And ye shall all bow down to the slaughter.] As you used to bow down to your idols.
Because when I called, ye did not answer.] See on Pro 1:24.
But did evil before mine eyes.] Did evil things as you could; {Jer 3:5} with both hands earnestly. {Mic 7:3}
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 vv12–13 You have offended in number, worshipping a multitude, a…
You have offended in number, worshipping a multitude, a troop of idols; there shall be a great number of you perish by the sword; or possibly the term
number may refer to all in the next phrase, to let them know that none of them should escape. God saith he will number them, tell them out one by one to the sword.
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You shall all bow down to the slaughter; as you have bowed down to idols, Isa 44:17, (which are mine enemies,) I will make you bow down to your enemy’s swords. I called you by my prophets, Zec 7:7,11,12; you did not answer by doing the things which I by them spoke to you for; but not considering that I saw you, or if considering it, yet not regarding it, you impudently did evil; yea, you sinned deliberately, choosing sinful courses, the things which I hated, which are (here as often) expressed by it meiosis, and called the things in which God delighteth not. In matters of worship we ought to choose nothing wherein God delighteth not; and reason as well as Scripture will assure us he can delight in nothing of that nature which himself hath not directed. It is observable, that ruin is here threatened to this people, not for their immoralities or lewd lives, but for their errors and superstitions in Divine worship. Other sins provoke God to wrath, but those of this nature alone are enough to ruin souls and nations.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv12–14 Therefore will I number you to the sword,.... There…
Therefore will I number you to the sword,.... There is an elegancy in the expression, alluding to Meni, that number, they furnished a drink offering for, or trusted in; and since they did, God would number them, or appoint a number of them to the sword; or suffer them to be slain in great numbers, even from one end of their land to another, Jer 12:12, they should be numbered and told out, or care taken that none of them should escape the sword of the Romans, or not be taken by them:
and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter; be obliged to submit to the conqueror, and lay down their necks to be sacrificed by him:
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because, when I called, ye did not answer; when I spoke, ye did not hear; when Christ called unto them personally, to come and hear him, they turned a deaf ear to this charmer, charming so wisely, and would not attend upon his ministry, Pro 1:24, and when he called to them in the ministry of his apostles, they rejected him and his word with contempt; they put it away from them, contradicting and blaspheming it, Act 13:45. The Targum is,
"because I sent my prophets, and ye turned not; they prophesied, and ye did not receive them:''
but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not; adhered to the traditions of the elders, and taught for doctrines the commandments of men; and which they chose and preferred to the word of God, and the Gospel of Christ; and these were things the Lord delighted not in, yea, abhorred; and their embracing and cleaving to them were evil in his sight; see Mat 15:3.
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 v12 To the sword - A great number of you…
To the sword - A great number of you shall perish by the sword; or possibly the term number may refer to all in the next phrase, so that none of them should escape. God saith he will number them, tell them out one by one to the sword. Bow down - As you have bowed down to idols. I called - By my prophets, you did not answer by doing the things which I enjoined. Chuse - You sinned deliberately chusing sinful courses, the things which I hated.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv12–13 Verse 12. Therefore will I number you] Referring to…
Verse 12. Therefore will I number you] Referring to Meni, which signifies number. "Rabbi Eliezar said to his disciples, Turn to God one day before you die. His disciples said, How can a man know the day of his death? He answered, Therefore it is necessary that you should turn to God to-day, for possibly ye may die to-morrow."
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 vv12–13 Isa 65:12. Therefore will I number you to the…
Isa 65:12. Therefore will I number you to the sword — “Here the allusion to meni, which signifies number, is obvious.” And you shall all bow down to the slaughter — As you have bowed down to idols, which are my enemies, I will make you bow down to your enemies’ swords; because when I called — Namely, by my prophets, you did not answer by doing the things that I enjoined. But did evil before mine eyes — You sinned deliberately, choosing sinful courses, the things which I hated. It must be observed here, that though the Jews, in the time of Christ and his apostles, (the period, it seems, referred to,) were not guilty of such idolatries as those above mentioned, yet, as they manifested the same spirit of rebellion, perverseness, and enmity to God, he therefore threatens that he would number them to the sword, as criminals ordered for execution, which he accordingly did, sending the Roman armies to desolate their country, lay their cities level with the ground, and almost extirpate their whole nation.
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 vv12–14 Therefore will I number you to the sword -…
Therefore will I number you to the sword - There is undoubtedly an allusion here to the idol Meni mentioned in Isa 65:11, and a play upon the name, in accordance with a custom quite common in the sacred Scriptures. The word מניתי mâniytiy, ‘I will number,’ is derived from מנה mânâh, the same word from which מני menı̂y, is derived. The idea is, since they worshipped a god whose name denoted number - perhaps one who was supposed to number or appoint the fates of people - God would number them. He would determine their destiny. It would not be done by any idol that was supposed to preside over the destinies of people; not by blind fate, or by anyone of the heavenly bodies, but it would be by an intelligent and holy God. And thus numbering or determining their lot would not be in accordance with their expectations, imparting to them a happy fortune, but would be devoting them to the sword; that is, to destruction. The allusion is, probably, to the calamities which God afterward brought on them by the invasion of the Chaldeans.
And ye shall all bow down to the slaughter - This is evidently strong, and probably hyperbolic language, meaning that a large portion of the nation would be cut off by the sword. The allusion here is, I think, to the slaughter of the Jewish people in the invasion of the Chaldeans. The evil of idolatry prevailed, in the time of Isaiah, under the reign of Manasseh; and in the time of Zedekiah it had increased so much even in Jerusalem, that it was said, ‘All the chief priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the pagan; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem .... And they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, until there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young people with the sword, in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age; he gave them all into their hand 2Ch 36:14, 2Ch 36:16-17. It is possible, also, that this is intended to express a more general truth, and to intimate that when his people forsake him he will punish them; but the primary reference, it is proable, was to the slaughter caused by the Babylonians when they destroyed Jerusalem.
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Because when I called - When I called you by the prophets to repentance and to my service (see Pro 1:24 ff.)
Ye did not answer - You showed the same disregard and contempt which a child does who suffers a parent to call him, and who pays no attention to it. One of the chief aggravations of human guilt is, that the sinner pays no attention to the calls of God. He pretends not to hear; or he hears to disregard it. No more decided contempt can be shown to the Almighty; no deeper proof of the stupidity and guilt of people can be furnished.
But did evil before mine eyes - (See the notes at Isa 65:3).
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 vv12–13 Chosen. Free-will is clearly expressed, as rewards are, ver.…
Chosen. Free-will is clearly expressed, as rewards are, ver. 13. (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 v13 13 Therefore thus saith the Lord God, [Jehovah]
3. THE TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS GOD GIVES TO EVERY ONE HIS OWN
Isa_65:13-16
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13 Therefore thus saith the Lord God, [Jehovah]
Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry:
Behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty:
Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed:
14 Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart,
But ye shall cry for sorrow of heart,
And shall howl for 12vexation of spirit.
15 And ye shall leave your name for 13a curse unto my chosen:
For the Lord God [Jehovah] shall slay thee,
And call his servants by another name:
16 That he who blesseth himself in the earth
Shall bless himself in the 14God of truth;
And he that sweareth in the earth
Shall swear by the God of truth;
Because the former troubles are forgotten,
And because they are hid from mine eyes.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. [“On the ground of the renewed mention of the offence there is a fresh announcement of punishment, and the different lot of the servants of Jahve, and of those who despised Him, is expressed in five clauses and antithetic clauses.”—Del.] The servants of Jehovah will eat, drink, rejoice (comp. Isa_25:6 sqq.; Isa_55:1; Isa_56:9), the wicked will do the opposite of all this (Isa_65:13-14). The name of the wicked will only remain to serve the servants of Jehovah for an oath; they themselves will be dead, and the Lord will give His servants another name (Isa_65:15). Then will both the promises and the threatenings of Jehovah be fulfilled. Jehovah will have proved Himself as the true One. He who blesses himself and he who swears, will do this henceforward only in the name of this true God. All tribulation of the former time shall be forgotten, and shall have disappeared (Isa_65:16).
2. Therefore, thus saith——mine eyes. Isa_65:13-16. [“These verses merely carry out the general threatening of the one preceding, in a series of poetical antitheses, where hunger, thirst, disgrace and anguish take the place of sword and slaughter, and determine these to be symbolical or emblematic terms.” Alexander.—D. M.] טוּב לֵב recalls טוּב לֵבָבDeu_28:47. The expression does not elsewhere occur. The adjectival construction is found 1Ki_8:66; 2Ch_7:10; Est_1:10; Est_5:9; Pro_15:15. The expression כאב לב (comp. Isa_17:11; Pro_14:13) occurs only here, שֶׁבֶר רוּחַ, too, occurs only here (comp. Psa_51:19). The punishment of the wicked shall not cease with the termination of a wretched life; after death it shall be continued in a memory laden with a curse. This last point the Prophet mentions first as the climax of the punishment, and only parenthetically introduces the threatening of destruction. The threatening: Ye shall leave your name for an oath, supposes the death of those threatened. This matter the Prophet afterwards refers to as a thing of only minor importance. For all men must die. But in the words, the Lord God shall slay thee, there is intimated a death which should be a marked expression of the Divine displeasure. וְ before המיתך is to be taken as causal. The sudden change of number need no more surprise us than the sudden change of person elsewhere. Comp. Isa_1:23; Isa_5:23; Isa_5:26; Isa_17:10; Isa_19:25; Isa_29:13. The singular may perhaps be here employed for a rhetorical reason. It renders the speech more concise and emphatic. The wicked will be destroyed so that nothing will remain of them but a name on which a curse rests. To such a degree will they appear as objects of the curse, that one in swearing will believe that he cannot take a stronger oath than by invoking on himself the curse of those wicked persons, in case of being guilty of falsehood (comp. Num_5:21; Jer_29:22; Psa_102:9). One name originally united the wicked and the godly. For they were both called Israelites. Can the elect of the Lord continue to bear the name which, after the judgments of God, has become accursed? No. The Lord will therefore give His servants another name. He does not say: A new name, as Isa_62:2, but another name. The Prophet’s look surveys rapidly the whole period which embraces thousands of years, from the beginning till the completion of redemption, i. e., from the end of the Exile till the last day. He sees how in this period the separation between the enemies and the friends of Jehovah is accomplished, but he does not distinguish the stages of time, but all events which he beholds present themselves to him on one and the same plane. He sees only a decrease of the Ἰσραὴλ σαρκικός; he sees this carnal Israel endure great pain and distress—a judgment of God resting on it, in consequence of which it appears as accursed. Further, the Prophet beholds a people of God, with another name, in the place of the old Israel. Is not the new covenant, that should come in the place of the old, in this way intimated? It seems to me that Jerome is not altogether wrong in regard to the main point, when he says: “Nomen autem novum sive aliud nullum est, nisi quod ex Christi nomine derivatur, ut nequaquam vocetur populus Dei Jacob et Juda et Israel et Ephraim et Joseph, sed Christianus.” [“According to the usage of the prophecies the promise of another name imports a different character and state, and in this sense the promise has been fully verified. But in addition to this general fulfilment, which no one calls in question, it is matter of history that the Jewish commonwealth or nation is destroyed; that the name of Jew has been for centuries a bye-word and a formula of execration, and that they who have succeeded to the spiritual honors of this once favored race, although they claim historical identity therewith, have never borne its name, but another, which from its very nature could have no existence until Christ had come, and which in the common parlance of the Christian world is treated as the opposite of Jew.” Alexander.—D. M.]. The destruction of the wicked supposes as corresponding to it the salvation of the godly. Through both the veracity of God is attested. Is Jehovah shown to be true by the history of the world, then no one naturally will think of uttering an oath or benediction by another God than by Him. אְַשֶׁר is therefore=quare, quapropter, or in a demonstrative sense=so that (comp. Gen_13:16; Deu_3:24; Deu_28:27; Deu_28:51, et saepe). התברך with בְּ stands here as Jer_4:2, which place seems to refer to ours. The expression אלהי אמן occurs only here. [“A remarkable expression; lit. “the God of Amen,”—of what is firm and true. Vulg. in Deo Amen. The God to whom that quality of covenant-keeping truth essentially belongs, is He in whom all shall bless themselves. A comparison of Gen_22:18 and Psa_72:17 with the present verse shows that ‘the Seed of Abraham’ and ‘the Son of David’ are to be identified with this God of truth:—a mystery completely realized in Him who is the ‘Amen, the Faithful and True Witness’ (Rev_3:14; comp. Isa_19:11). In Him ‘all the promises of God are…Amen’ (2Co_1:20”). Kay.—D. M.]. “When all promises are fulfilled, then, too, all troubles must necessarily be past. For the promises of God have respect not to partial, limited, but to full, complete salvation. In the time, then, when men will swear and bless by none other than the true and veracious God, all troubles will end, so that men will know no more what trouble is. But not only this. There could still be danger of new troubles. But this will not be, for God Himself will with His all-seeing eye perceive no where the trace of a trouble. כִּי־וְכִי is=because—and because (Gen_33:11; Jos_10:2; 1Sa_19:4).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_65:1-2. Our Lord has said, “He that seeketh findeth” (Mat_7:8). How, then, does it come that the Jews do not find what they seek, but the heathen find what they did not seek? The Apostle Paul puts this question and answers it, Rom_9:30 sqq.; Isa_10:19 sqq.; Isa_11:7. [See also Isa_10:3]. All depends on the way in which we seek. Luther says: Quaerere fit dupliciter. Primo, secundum praescriptum verbi Dei, et sic invenitur Deus, Secundo, quaeritur nostris studiis et consiliis, et sic non invenitur.” The Jews, with exception of the ἐκλογή (Rom_11:7), sought only after their own glory and merit. They sought what satisfies the flesh. They did not suffer the spirit in the depths of their heart to speak,—the spirit which can be satisfied only by food fitted for it. The law which was given to them that they might perceive by means of it their own impotence, became a snare to them. For they perverted it, made what was of minor importance the chief matter, and then persuaded themselves that they had fulfilled it and were righteous. But the Gentiles who had not the law, had not this snare. They were not tempted to abuse the pædagogical discipline of the law. They felt simply that they were forsaken by God. Their spirit was hungry. And when for the first time God’s word in the Gospel was presented to them, then they received it the more eagerly in proportion to the poverty, wretchedness and hunger in which they had been. The Jews did not find what they sought, because they had not a spiritual, but a carnal apprehension of the law, and, like the elder brother of the prodigal son, were full, and blind for that which was needful for them. But the Gentiles found what they did not seek, because they were like the prodigal son, who was the more receptive of grace, the more he needed it, and the less claim he had to it. [There is important truth stated in the foregoing remarks. But it does not fully explain why the Lord is found of those who sought Him not. The sinner who has obtained mercy when he asks why? must have recourse to a higher cause, a cause out of himself, even free, sovereign, efficacious grace. “It is of God that showeth mercy,” Rom_9:16. “Though in after-communion God is found of those that seek Him (Pro_8:17), yet in the first conversion He is found of those that seek Him not; for therefore we love Him, because He first loved us.” Henry. D. M.].
2. On Isa_65:2. God’s long-suffering is great. He stretches out His hands the whole day and does not grow weary. What man would do this? The disobedient people contemns Him, as if He knew nothing, and could do nothing.
3. On Isa_65:2. “It is clear from this verse gratiam esse resistibilem. Christ earnestly stretched out His hands to the Jews. He would, but they would not. This doctrine the Remonstrants prove from this place, and rightly too, in Actis Synodi Dodrac. P. 3. p. 76.” Leigh. [The grace of God which is signified by His stretching out His hands can be, and is, resisted. That figurative expression denotes warning, exhorting, entreating, and was never set forth by Reformed theologians as indicating such grace as was necessarily productive of conversion. The power by which God quickens those who were dead in sins (Eph_2:5), by which He gives a new heart (Eze_36:26), by which He draws to the Son (Joh_6:44-45; Joh_6:65), is the grace which is called irresistible. The epithet is admitted on all hands to be faulty; but the grace denoted by it is, from the nature of the case, not resisted. Turrettin in treating De Vocatione et Fide thus replies to this objection, “Aliud est Deo monenti et vocanti externe resistere; Aliud est conversionem intendenti et efficaciter ac interne vocanti. Prius asseritur Isa. lxv. 2, 3. Quum dicit Propheta se expandisse totâ die manus ad populum perversum etc., non posterius. Expansio brachiorum notat quidem blandam et benevolam Dei invitationem, quâ illos extrinsecus sive Verbo, sive beneficiis alliciebat, non semel atque iterum, sed quotidie ministerio servorum suorum eos compellando. Sed non potest designate potentem et efficacem operationem, quâ brachium Domini illis revelatur qui docentur á Deo et trahuntur a Patre, etc.” Locus XV.; Quaestio VI .25.—D. M.].
4. On Isa_65:2. (Who walk after their own thoughts.)
Duc me, nec sine, me per me, Deus optime, duci.
Nam duce me pereo, te duce certus eo.
[“If our guide be our own thoughts, our way is not likely to be good; for every imagination of the thought of our hearts is only evil.” Henry. D. M.].
5. On Isa_65:3 sq. “The sweetest wine is turned into the sourest vinegar; and when God’s people apostatize from God, they are worse than the heathen (Jer_3:11).” Starke.
6. On Isa_65:5. [I am holier than thou. “A deep insight is here given us into the nature of the mysterious fascination which heathenism exercised on the Jewish people. The law humbled them at every turn with mementoes of their own sin and of God’s unapproachable holiness. Paganism freed them from this, and allowed them (in the midst of moral pollution) to cherish lofty pretensions to sanctity. The man, who had been offering incense on the mountain-top, despised the penitent who went to the temple to present ‘a broken and contrite heart.’ If Pharisaism led to a like result, it was because it, too, had emptied the law of its spiritual import, and turned its provisions into intellectual idols.” Kay. D. M.].
7. On Isa_65:6-7. “The longer God forbears, the harder He punishes at last. The greatness of the punishment compensates for the delay (Psa_50:21).” Starke after Leigh.
8. On Isa_65:8 sqq. [“This is expounded by St. Paul, Rom_11:1-5, where, when upon occasion of the rejection of the Jews, it is asked Hath God then cast away His people? He answers, no; for, at this time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. This prophecy has reference to that distinguished remnant…Our Saviour has told us that for the sake of these elect the days of the destruction of the Jews should be shortened, and a stop put to the desolation, which otherwise would have proceeded to that degree that no flesh should be saved. Mat_24:22. Henry. D. M.].
9. On Isa_65:15. The judgment which came upon Israel by the hand of the Romans, did not altogether destroy the people, but it so destroyed the Old Covenant, i.e., the Mosaic religion, that the Jews can no more observe its precepts in essential points. For no Jew knows to what tribe he belongs. Therefore, they have no priests, and, consequently, no sacrifices. The Old Covenant is now only a ruin. We see here most clearly that the Old Covenant, as it was designed only for one nation, and for one country, was to last only for a certain time. If we consider, moreover, the way in which the judgment was executed, (comp. Josephus), we can truly say that the Jews bear in themselves the mark of a curse. They bear the stamp of the divine judgment. The beginning of the judgment on the world has been executed on them as the house of God. But how comes it that the Jews have become so mighty, so insolent in the present time, and are not satisfied with remaining on the defensive in their attitude toward the Christian church, but have passed over to the offensive? This has arisen solely from Christendom having to a large extent lost the consciousness of its new name. There are many Christians who scoff at the name of Christian, and seek their honor in combating all that is called Christian. This is the preparation for the judgment on Christendom itself. If Christendom would hold fast her jewel, she would remain strong, and no one would dare to mock or to assail her. For she would then partake of the full blessing which lies in the principle of Christianity, and every one would be obliged to show respect for the fruits of this principle. But an apostate Christendom, that is ashamed of her glorious Christian name, is something more miserable than the Jews, judged though they have been, who still esteem highly their name, and what remains to them of their old religion. Thus Christendom, in so far as it denies the worth and significance of its name, is gradually reaching a condition in which it will be so ripe for the second act of the judgment on the world, that this will be longed for as a benefit. For, this apostate Christendom will be the kingdom of Antichrist, as Antichrist will manifest himself in Satanic antagonism to God by sitting in the temple of God, and pretending to be God (2Th_2:3 sqq.). [We do not quite share all the sentiments expressed in this paragraph. We are far from being so despondent as to the prospects of Christendom, and think that there is a more obvious interpretation of the prophecy quoted from 2 Thess., than that indicated.—D. M.].
10. On Isa_65:17. [If we had only the present passage to testify of new heavens and a new earth, we might say, as many good interpreters do, that the language is figurative, and indicates nothing more than a great moral and spiritual revolution. But we cannot thus explain 2Pe_3:10-13. The present earth and heavens shall pass away; (comp. Isa_51:6; Psa_102:25-26). But how can we suppose that our Prophet here refers to the new heavens and new earth, which are to succeed the destruction of the world by fire? In the verses that follow Isa_65:17, a condition of things is described which, although better than the present, is not so good as that perfectly sinless, blessed state of the redeemed, which we look for after the coming of the day of the Lord. Yet the Apostle Peter (2Pe_3:13) evidently regards the promise before us of new heavens and a new earth, as destined to receive its accomplishment after the conflagration which is to take place at the end of the world. If we had not respect to other Scriptures, and if we overlooked the use made by Peter of this passage, we should not take it literally. But we can take it literally, if we suppose that the Prophet brings together future events not according to their order in time. He sees the new heavens and new earth arise. Other scenes are disclosed to his prophetic eye of a grand and joy-inspiring nature. He announces them as future. But these scenes suppose the continued prevalence of death and labor (Isa_65:20 sqq.), which, we know from definite statements of Scripture, will not exist when the new heaven and new earth appear (comp. Rev_21:1-4). The proper view then of Isa_65:17 is to take its prediction literally, and to hold at the same time that in the following description (which is that of the millennium) future things are presented to us which are really prior, and not posterior to the promised complete renovation of heaven and earth. Nor should this surprise us, as Isaiah and the other Prophets place closely together in their pictures future things which belong to different times. They do not draw the line sharply between this world and the next. Compare Isaiah’s prophecy of the abolition of death (Isa_25:8) in connection with other events that must happen long before that state of perfect blessedness.—D. M.].
11. On Isa_65:20. [“The extension of the Gospel every where,—of its pure principles of temperance in eating and drinking, in restraining the passions, in producing calmness of mind, and in arresting war, would greatly lengthen out the life of man. The image here employed by the Prophet is more than mere poetry; it is one that is founded in reality, and is designed to convey most important truth.” Barnes. D. M.].
12. On Isa_65:24. [It occurs to me that an erroneous application is frequently made of the promise, Before they call, etc. This declaration is made in connection with the glory and blessedness of the last days. It belongs specifically to the millennium. There are, indeed, occasions when God even now seems to act according to this law. (Comp. Dan_9:23). But Paul had to pray thrice before he received the answer of the Lord (2Co_12:8). Compare the parable of the importunate widow, Luk_18:1-7. The answer to prayer may be long delayed. This is not only taught in the Bible, but is verified in Christian experience. But the time will come when the Lord will not thus try and exercise the faith of His people.—D. M.].
13. On Isa_65:25. “If the lower animals live in hostility in consequence of the sin of man, a state of peace must be restored to them along with our redemption from sin.” J. G. Mueller in Herz. R.-Encycl. xvi. p. 45. [“By the serpent in this place there seems every reason to believe that Satan, the old seducer and author of discord and misery, is meant. During the millennium he is to be subject to the lowest degradation. Compare for the force of the phrase to lick the dust, Psa_72:9; Mic_7:17. This was the original doom of the tempter, Gen_3:14, and shall be fully carried into execution. Comp. Rev_20:1-3.” Henderson. D. M.].
14. On Isa_66:1. [“Having held up in every point of view the true design, mission and vocation of the church or chosen people, its relation to the natural descendants of Abraham, the causes which required that the latter should be stripped of their peculiar privileges, and the vocation of the Gentiles as a part of the divine plan from its origin, the Prophet now addresses the apostate and unbelieving Jews at the close of the old dispensation, who, instead of preparing for the general extension of the church and the exchange of ceremonial for spiritual worship, were engaged in the rebuilding and costly decoration of the temple at Jerusalem. The pride and interest in this great public work, felt not only by the Herods but by all the Jews, is clear from incidental statements of the Scriptures (Joh_2:20; Mat_24:1), as well as from the ample and direct assertions of Josephus. That the nation should have been thus occupied precisely at the time when the Messiah came, is one of those agreements between prophecy and history, which cannot be accounted for except upon the supposition of a providential and designed assimilation.” Alexander after Vitringa. D. M.].
15. On Isa_66:1-2. What a grand view of the nature of God and of the way in which He is made known lies at the foundation of these words! God made all things. He is so great that it is an absurdity to desire to build a temple for Him. The whole universe cannot contain Him (1Ki_8:27)! But He, who contains all things and can be contained by nothing, has His greatest joy in a poor, humble human heart that fears Him. He holds it worthy of His regard, it pleases Him, He enters into it, He makes His abode in it. The wise and prudent men of science should learn hence what is chiefly necessary in order to know God. We cannot reach Him by applying force, by climbing up to Him, by attempting to take Him by storm. And if science should place ladder upon ladder upwards and downwards, she could not attain His height or His depth. But He enters of His own accord into a child-like, simple heart. He lets Himself be laid hold of by it, kept and known. It is not, therefore, by the intellect [alone] but by the heart that we can know God.
16. On Isa_66:3. He who under the Christian dispensation would retain the forms of worship of the ancient ritual of shadows would violate the fundamental laws of the new time, just as a man by killing would offend against the foundation of the moral law, or as he would by offering the blood of dogs or swine offend against the foundation of the ceremonial law. For when the body, the substance has appeared, the type must vanish. He who would retain the type along with the reality would declare the latter to be insufficient, would, therefore, found his salvation not upon God only, but also in part on his own legal performance. But God will brook no rival. He is either our All, or nothing. Christianity could tolerate animal sacrifices just as little as the Old Testament law could tolerate murder or the offering of abominable things.
17. On Isa_66:5. [“The most malignant and cruel persecutions of the friends of God have been originated under the pretext of great zeal in His service, and with a professed desire to honor His name. So it was with the Jews when they crucified the Lord Jesus. So it is expressly said it would be when His disciples would be excommunicated and put to death, Joh_16:2. So it was in fact in the persecutions excited against the apostles and early Christians. See Act_6:13-14; Act_21:28-31. So it was in all the persecutions of the Waldenses, in all the horrors of the Inquisition, in all the crimes of the Duke of Alva. So it was in the bloody reign of Mary; and so it has ever been in all ages and in all countries where Christians have been persecuted.” Barnes.—D. M.].
18. On Isa_66:10. “The idea which is presented in this verse is, that it is the duty of all who love Zion to sympathize in her joy. The true friends of God should rejoice in every real revival of religion, they should rejoice in all the success which attends the Gospel in heathen lands. And they will rejoice. It is one evidence of piety to rejoice in her joy; and they who have no joy when souls are born into the kingdom of God, when He pours down His Spirit and in a revival of religion produces changes as sudden and transforming as if the earth were suddenly to pass from the desolation of winter to the verdure and bloom of summer, or when the Gospel makes sudden and rapid advances in the heathen world, have no true evidence that they love God and His cause. They have no religion.” Barnes.—D. M.
19. On Isa_66:13. The Prophet is here completely governed by the idea that in the glorious time of the end, love, maternal love will reign. Thus He makes Zion appear as a mother who will bring forth with incredible ease and rapidity innumerable children (Isa_66:7-9). Then the Israelites are depicted as little children who suck the breasts of their mother. Further, the heathen who bring back the Israelites into their home, must do this in the same way in which mothers in the Orient are wont to carry their little children. Lastly, even to the Lord Himself maternal love is ascribed (comp. Isa_42:14; Isa_49:15), and such love as a mother manifests to her adult son. Thus the Israelites will be surrounded in that glorious time on all sides by maternal love. Maternal love will be the characteristic of that period.
20. On Isa_66:19 sqq. The Prophet describes remote things by words which are borrowed from the relations and conceptions of his own time, but which stand in strange contrast to the reality of the future which he beholds. Thus the Prophet speaks of escaped persons who go to Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, and Javan. Here he has rightly seen that a great act of judgment must have taken place. And this act of judgment must have passed on Israel, because they who escape, who go to the Gentiles to declare to them the glory of Jehovah, must plainly be Jews How accurately, in spite of the strange manner of expression, is the fact here stated that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed to the Gentiles exactly at the time when the old theocracy was destroyed! How justly does he indicate that there was a causal connection between these events! He did not, indeed, know that the shattering of the old form was necessary in order that the eternal truth enclosed in it might be set free, and fitted for filling the whole earth. For the Old Covenant cannot exist along with the New, the Law cannot stand with equal dignity beside the Gospel. The Law must be regarded as annulled, in order that the Gospel may come into force. How remarkably strange is it, however, that he calls the Gentile nations Tarshish, Pul, Lud, etc. And how singular it sounds to be told that the Israelites shall be brought by the Gentiles to Jerusalem as an offering for Jehovah! But how accurately has he, notwithstanding, stated the fact, which, indeed, still awaits its fulfilment, that it is the conversion of the heathen world which will induce Israel to acknowledge their Saviour, and that they both shall gather round the Lord as their common centre! How strange it sounds that then priests and Levites shall be taken from the Gentiles also, and that new moon and Sabbath shall be celebrated by all flesh in the old Jewish fashion! But how accurately is the truth thereby stated that in the New Covenant there will be no more the priesthood restricted to the family of Aaron, but a higher spiritual and universal priesthood, and that, instead of the limited local place of worship of the Old Covenant, the whole earth will be a temple of the Lord! Verily the prophecy of the two last chapters of Isaiah attests a genuine prophet of Jehovah. He cannot have been an anonymous unknown person. He can have been none other than Isaiah the son of Amoz!
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_65:1 sq. [I. “It is here foretold that the Gentiles, who had been afar off, should be made nigh, Isa_65:1. II. It is here foretold that the Jews, who had long been a people near to God, should be cast off, and set at a distance, Isa_65:2.” Henry, III. We are informed of the cause of the rejection of the Jews. It was owing to their rebellion, waywardness and flagrant provocations, Isa_65:2 sqq.—D. M.]
2. On Isa_65:1-7. A Fast-Day Sermon. When the Evangelical Church no more holds fast what she has; when apostasy spreads more and more, and modern heathenism (Isa_65:3-5 a) gains the ascendency in her, then it can happen to her as it did to the people of Israel, and as it happened to the Church in the Orient. Her candlestick can be removed out of its place.—[By the Evangelical Church we are not to understand here the Church universal, for her perpetuity is certain. The Evangelical Church is in Germany the Protestant Church, and more particularly the Lutheran branch of it.—D. M.]
3. On Isa_65:8-10. Sermon on behalf of the mission among the Jews. Israel’s hope. 1) On what it is founded (Israel is still a berry in which drops of the divine blessing are contained); 2) To what this hope is directed (Israel’s Restoration).
4. On Isa_65:13-16. [“The blessedness of those that serve God, and the woful condition of those that rebel against him, are here set the one over against the other, that they may serve as a foil to each other. The difference of their states here lies in two things: 1) In point of comfort and satisfaction, a. God’s servants shall eat and drink; they shall have the bread of life to feed, to feast upon continually, and shall want nothing that is good for them. But those who set their hearts upon the world, and place their happiness in it, shall be hungry and thirsty, always empty, always craving. In communion with God and dependence upon Him there is full satisfaction; but in sinful pursuits there is nothing but disappointment. b. God’s servants shall rejoice and sing for joy of heart; they have constant cause for joy, and there is nothing that may be an occasion of grief to them but they have an allay sufficient for it. But, on the other hand, they that forsake the Lord shut themselves out from all true joy, for they shall be ashamed of their vain confidence in themselves, and their own righteousness, and the hopes they had built thereon. When the expectations of bliss, wherewith they had flattered themselves, are frustrated, O what confusion will fill their faces! Then shall they cry for sorrow of heart and howl for vexation of spirit. 2) In point of honor and reputation, Isa_65:15-16. The memory of the just is, and shall be, blessed; but the memory of the wicked shall rot.” Henry.—D. M.]
5. On Isa_66:1-2. Carpzov has a sermon on this text. He places it in parallel with Luk_18:9-14, and considers, 1) The rejection of spiritual pride; 2) The commendation of filial fear.
6. On Isa_66:2 Arndt, in his True Christianity I. cap. 10, comments on this text. He says among other things: “The man who will be something is the material out of which God makes nothing, yea, out of which He makes fools. But a man who will be nothing, and regards himself as nothing, is the material out of which God makes something, even glorious, wise people in His sight.”
7. On Isa_66:3. [Saurin has a sermon on this text entitled “Sur l’ Insuffisance du culte exterieur” in the eighth volume of his sermons.—D. M.]
8. On Isa_66:13. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. “These words stand, let us consider it, 1) In the Old Testament; 2) In the heart of God always; 3) But are they realized in our experience?” Koegel in “Aus dem Vorhof ins Heiligthum, II. Bd., p. 242, 1876.
9. On Isa_66:24. The punishment of sin is twofold—inward and outward. The inward is compared with a worm that dies not; the outward with a fire that is not quenched. This worm and this fire are at work even in this life. He who is alarmed by them and hastens to Christ can now be delivered from them.—[“It is better not to fall into this fire and never to have any experience of this worm, even though, as some imagine, eternity should not be eternal, and the unquenchable fire might be quenched, and the worm that shall never die, should die, and Jesus and His apostles should not have expressed themselves quite in accordance with the compassionate taste of our time. Better, I say, is better. Save thyself and thy neighbor before the fire begins to burn, and the smoke to ascend.” Gossner.—D. M.]
Footnotes:
[12]Heb. breaking.
[13]an oath.
[14]the God of Amen.
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 vv12–14 number--"doom" you. Alluding to the "number," as Meni (Isa…
number--"doom" you. Alluding to the "number," as Meni (Isa 65:11) means. Retribution in kind, the punishment answering to the sin (compare Ch2 36:14-17).
I called, ye . . . not answer--"I called," though "none had called" upon Me (Isa 64:7); yet even then none "answered" (Pro 1:24). Contrast with this God and His people's mutual fellowship in prayer (Isa 65:24).
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 v13 13, 14. The turn given to idolatrous feastings (Isa_65:11-12)…
13, 14. The turn given to idolatrous feastings (Isa_65:11-12) suggested a course of figures illustrative of the different “fortunes” of the godly and ungodly: their meaning is, “My people shall be satisfied with the rich abundance I shall give, while ye with momentary idolatrous pleasures shall pass into destitution and abandonment. My people, from first to last, shall possess unfailing springs of joy; but ye shall be irredeemably bowed with heart sorrow, despite your cries or howlings for relief, for ever to be unavailing.” This proved true to the bold, bad Jews, down to their final experiences and ineffective struggles with the Romans.
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 vv12–14 12. Render with R.V. I will destine you to…
12. Render with R.V. I will destine you to the sword &c. There is a play upon words between the verb for “destine” (mânâh) and Mìnî in Isa_65:11.
because when I called &c.] Cf. Isa_65:1-2.
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but did evil before mine eyes &c.] Exactly as ch. Isa_66:4.
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 v13 (13) My servants shall eat . . .—The form…
(13) My servants shall eat . . .—The form of the punishment is apparently determined by that of the sin. That had been the orgy of an idol’s feast; the penalty would be hunger and thirst, while joy and gladness would be the portion of those who had abstained from it. The words present a striking parallelism to Luk_6:20-26.
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 vv12–13 Therefore will I number you; or, apportion you (maaithi)a…
Therefore will I number you; or, apportion you (maaithi)a play upon the name of M"ni. The sword... slaughter. Not, perhaps, intended literally. Wicked men are God"s sword, (Psa_17:13) and deliverance into their hand would be deliverance to the sword and slaughter. The exiles suffered grievously at the hands of their Babylonian masters. (Isa_47:6 Isa_49:17, etc.) The character of their sufferings isgiven in the ensuing verses (vers. 13, 14). When I called, ye did not answer. (see 2Ch_36:15, 16 Pro_1:20-25 Isa_66:4)
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 vv12–14 Therefore will I number you to the sword.
Isa_65:12-14
Therefore will I number you to the sword.
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-
The declaration of God against the disobedience of Israel
I. THE ACCUSATION. A guilty inattention to the voice of God.
II. THE THREAT (Isa_65:13-14). (R. G. Buddicomb, M. A.)
Gods call despised
I. THE GRACIOUS CALL OF GOD.
II. THE IMPENITENCE OF MANY.
III. THE INEVITABLE RESULT. (J. Lyth, 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 v13 Isa_65:13-15. Behold My servants shall eat, but ye shall…
INCENTIVES TO RELIGIOUS DECISION
Isa_65:13-15. Behold My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry, &c.
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The principles of God’s conduct are the same in all ages, &c. No temptation is more common than that which arises from the impression that a life of religion is necessarily a life of gloom, &c. I urge upon the undecided some reasons for religious decision.
I. From the superior advantages of the religious life, beyond all the boasted distinctions or professions of worldly and ungodly men.
1. They have a better Master and portion. God loves to speak of them as His servants. He claims them as His own, and they rejoice in their allegiance to Him (Isa_65:8-15). How greatly God honours His servants! Let Christians rejoice in the Master they serve. Let the impenitent contrast the master they serve, &c. Your master is bad; his service is worse; his wages are worst of all. Abandon Satan’s service. Become servants of Christ—here and now.
2. They have better resources and supplies. They have meat to eat which the world knows not of, and they drink of springs of refreshment which never fail, &c. What has the worldling to put over against the peace which passeth understanding, &c.?
3. They have better enjoyments (Isa_65:14). Religion has its conflicts, &c. But we maintain that the Christian has a large over-balance of joy.
4. They have better prospects. Even now a portion with the people of God is better than the best portion of the wicked, &c. But look at their hereafter.
II. From the peculiar sources of dissatisfaction and wretchedness to which you are exposed.
You have conscious condemnation, ever growing in evidence, &c.—Samuel Thodey.
Isa_65:14. THE JOY OF GOD’S SERVANTS (see vol. i. pp. 234, 320, 321).
There is a striking difference between those who keep and those who forsake God’s commands. The one is the object of His favour, the other of His displeasure. Those who serve God have abundant and constant occasion of rejoicing, whereas those who forsake Him exclude themselves from all true joy (Isa_65:13-15). Consider—
I. THE GROUNDS AND REASONS OF THEIR JOY.
God’s servants have the joy of—
1. Salvation (Psa_51:12). Includes acceptance, adoption, cleansing, &c. (Rom_5:11). What a joy is this!
2. Claiming God as their portion (Lam_3:24, and others). Excites joy even in adversity. The stream may be cut off, but nothing can deprive them of the fountain.
3. God’s abiding presence.
4. Faith. Trusting God’s care, &c. Brings peace and heart-rest.
5. A well founded hope of heaven (Rom_5:2). This animates and sustains amid life’s sorrows. In the experience of such blessings God’s servants have good reason to sing for joy of hearts. And if there is so much joy in the way to heaven, what transports shall they have when they come to Zion with songs, &c. (Isa_51:11).
II. THE DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS OF THEIR JOY.
It is—
1. Pure and spiritual (Rom_14:17; Gal_5:22). A holy feeling, excited by spiritual objects, apprehended by faith. Suited to the noble faculties and sublime hopes of their heaven-born souls. Leaves no bitter sediment.
2. Satisfying. Such we seek. Only God’s servants realise. God has so made us that no worldly joy can satisfy us.
3. Strengthening. For—
(1) Duty. Gives vigour to all the powers of the soul. Not so carnal joys.
(2) Suffering (Rom_5:3, and others).
(3) Christian work. Feeds zeal like oil to the wick of a lamp.
(4) Spiritual conflict.
4. Enduring (Php_4:4). Does not depend upon uncertain worldly good (Hab_3:17-19). Lives through all the vicissitudes of this mortal life (Joh_15:11; Joh_16:22).
CONCLUSION.—
1. Have you religion enough to make you really happy?
2. Have you to lament that it is much deadened and interrupted. Earnestly seek its increase and fulness (Joh_15:11; Joh_17:13). This joy beautifies, adorns, and renders attractive the Christian character. You are bound to be joyful as a means of honouring your Divine master, and being useful to your fellow-men.—Alfred Tucker.
Isa_65:16. The happy change. I. Trouble forgotten, as a thing past. Excluded. II. Blessing secured, on earth. In God, therefore real. In the God of truth, therefore permanent. By direct appeal to God, as the sole object of prayer.
Isa_65:17-18. I. The regenerated world. Glorious prospect! The feelings it should inspire. II. The power by which it will be effected. III. The blessed results.
Isa_65:19. God’s joy in His people. I. Its occasion. II. Expression. Favour. Fellowship. Blessing. III. The happy consequence—the alleviation of human sorrow.—J. Lyth, D.D.
Isa_65:20. “The sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.” I. The shortness of human life. A man a hundred years old is a wonder. Contrast the age of man with that of the works of nature, art, &c. II. The long-suffering of God. Though He sees all the sins of the sinner, and hates, and is able to punish them, He delays His stroke for a hundred years. His power over Himself. III. The malignity of sin. There is no self-restoring power in the soul as in the body. There are no spontaneous cures of spiritual diseases. The power of habit. Worse and worse. IV. The inexhaustibleness of the curse. It is not exhausted by a century, nor by a millennium, nor by the cycles of eternity. V. The claims of religion upon the old. Depict the dangers of hoary-headed sinners. There is still a method of escape. Accept the Saviour immediately.—G. Brooks: Outlines of Sermons, p. 341.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12–13 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues speaking to those in Israel who worship idols.
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appoint you for the sword
"The sword" represents various weapons of war that Yahweh will use to punish those who do not respond to Yahweh's call. (See: Synecdoche)
when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen
Both clauses mean the same and are repeated for emphasis. (See: Parallelism)
translationWords
destine
sword
bow
call
evil
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 vv12–13 65:12 ‘destine’: This verb (Hebrew manithi) is a wordplay…
65:12 ‘destine’: This verb (Hebrew manithi) is a wordplay on Meni (see study note on 65:11). God alone controls human and national destinies.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.