Isaiah 65:8-12

2. Not All Israel Shall Be Cast Off

Isaiah 65:8-12

8     Thus saith the Lord,

As the new wine is found in the cluster,And one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it:

So will I do for my servants’ sakes,That I may not destroy them all.

9     And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob,

And out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains:And mine elect shall inherit it,And my servants shall dwell there.

10     And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks,

And the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in,For my people that have sought me.

11     7But ye are they that forsake the Lord,

That forget my holy mountain,That prepare a table for that 89troop,

And that 10furnish the drink-offering unto that 11 number.

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.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. This section stands to the one which precedes it in the same relation (Isaiah 65:1-7) in which this latter stands to the prayer in 63 and 64. For as the Prophet in Isaiah 65:1 sqq. opposes the expectation [?] that all Israel will be saved (Isaiah 64:7-8), so Isaiah 65:8 sqq. repels the opposite error that all Israel will be cast off. This opinion might have been drawn from Isaiah 65:2 sqq. For there Israel is quite generally designated as a rebellious people to which the Lord spreads out His hands in vain, that provokes Him by defiant idolatry, and therefore will have to bear the whole burden of the guilt accumulated from their fathers. It might accordingly ,be supposed that Israel should be entirely cast off, and their place taken by the Gentiles (Isaiah 65:1). This misunderstanding the Prophet here combats. He compares Israel with a cluster of grapes on which many berries may be rotten. Is the whole cluster, therefore, cast away? No! much of the blessing of God is still therein. So for His servants’ sake the Lord will not destroy all Israel (Isaiah 65:8). He will yet cause to come forth from the remnant a race that will consist of the elect of the Lord, and that will possess the holy land (Isaiah 65:9). This will be fertile in all its parts and be fitted for excellent pasture (Isaiah 65:10). But they who forget the Lord and set their heart on the false gods of the land of the Exile (Isaiah 65:11) shall for their disobedience be extirpated (Isaiah 65:12).

2. Thus saith the Lord——sought me.

Isaiah 65:8-10. The image does not appear to me to be correctly explained when the intended antitheses are supposed to be: only stalk and husks should be destroyed, not the berries; or, only the degenerate vine or vineyard (Isaiah 5:4; Isaiah 18:5) is to be destroyed, not the grapes. For who needs to be told that he should not treat the berries as the stalk and husk, or that he should spare the grapes but destroy the vine or vineyard? Whence are grape-clusters to be had if the latter are destroyed? It seems to me that the Prophet has in his mind a bunch of grapes on which together with many bad and rotten berries, there are some good ones. One is tempted to throw away such a cluster entirely. The Prophet forbids this. [“The image really presented by the Prophet, as Vitringa clearly shows, and most later writers have admitted, is that of a good cluster, in which juice is found, while others are unripe or rotten.”—Alexander.הַתִּירוֹשׁ has the article which the Hebrew was wont to employ in comparisons. See Ges.Gr. § 109. Note 1.—D. M.]. There is a blessing in it seems to be taken in a double sense: 1) Even the smallest quantity of the noble fruit is valuable and not to be despised; 2) God can bless even the smallest quantity, i. e., He can multiply it (John 6:9; John 6:12). [The simple, obvious meaning is: A blessing is in the cluster, because new wine, which was considered a blessing (Judges 9:13; Isaiah 62:8), is in it.—D. M.]. וְאָמַר is used as Isaiah 25:9; Isaiah 45:24; Isaiah 57:14. For His servants’ sake the Lord will not entirely destroy Israel. For these are the true Israelites. They prove that Israel is capable and worthy to continue to exist. There shall, therefore, seed (posterity) yet proceed out of Israel, that shall possess the mountains of Canaan (comp. Isaiah 14:25, and in a wider sense Isaiah 49:11). This shall be a holy seed (Isaiah 6:13). For only the elect of the Lord shall possess it (the land, ארץ which is ideally contained in הרי), and His servants shall dwell therein. [“My mountains is supposed by Vitringa to denote Mount Zion and Moriah, or Jerusalem as built upon them; but the later writers more correctly suppose it to describe the whole of Palestine, as being an uneven, hilly country. See the same use of the plural in Isaiah 14:25, and the analogous phrase, mountains of Israel, repeatedly employed by Ezekiel (Isaiah 36:1; Isaiah 36:8; Isaiah 38:8). … The adverb at the end of the sentence properly means thither, and is never perhaps put for there, except in cases where a change of place is previously mentioned or implied.”—Alexander.—D. M.] Isaiah 65:10. The land shall be fertile and glorious. Sharon shall be pasture for sheep, the valley of Achor a pasture for black cattle. Sharon is the well-known fertile plain in the west of Palestine, stretching from Caesarea northwards to Carmel (comp. on Isaiah 33:9; Isaiah 35:2). Achor is the valley in the east of the tribe of Judah, in which, according to Joshua 7:24-26, Achan was stoned. This valley is further mentioned only in Joshua 15:7; Hosea 2:17. It must have been a stony place, for according to Joshua 7:25 sq., there were there stones enough to stone Achan, together with all belonging to him, and to raise up a great heap of stones. In Hosea 2:17 [E. V. 15] it is said that the valley of Achor will be unto converted and restored Israel a door of hope. This means: When Israel, returning from the Exile, shall pass through the valley of Achor, it shall be to them no more a monument of the wrath of God, which it formerly was, with its heap of stones and its stony ground; but even this valley shall be to them a door of hope, for the place shall be altered. There shall be seen in it the traces of the blessing which, according to Isaiah 65:20 sqq., shall be spread over the whole land. Then, according to this passage, the valley of Achor shall become a fertile pasture, even more fertile than Sharon, for sheep are content with much poorer pasture than neat-cattle (comp. Herzog) R. Enc. VI., p. 150; Si tibi lanitium curae, fuge pabula laeta.VirgilGeorg. III., 384).

3. But ye are they——delighted not. Isaiah 65:11-12. What in verse 8 had been denied in reference to all Israel is here affirmed in reference to a part. The wicked Israelites shall certainly perish. These are described as those that forsake Jehovah (comp. on Isaiah 1:28. The expression occurs further only Isaiah 1:24; Isaiah 1:28), that forget the holy mountain of Jehovah. The writer has here evidently exiles in his eye, who in a heathen land were seduced to worship the local gods of the heathen, and so forgot the worship that prevailed in their own country, and the place where their fathers worshipped God. Such forgetting must often have happened in the Exile, and have been for the faithful Israelites a subject of great grief and vexation. We see this from Psalms 137:5-6 [?]. In what follows the Prophet specifies more particularly the idolatry of those apostates, while he describes them as those who “prepare a table for Gad, and fill for Meni mixed drink.” The Prophet here speaks of a cultus of which there is no mention in the history of the people before the Exile. He has evidently in his mind the so-called lectisternia. That these lectisternia were observed by the Babylonians is proved from Bar 6:26, and from Bel and the Dragon, Isaiah 65:11 sqq. What Herodotus (I. 181) relates of the golden table, which stood in the highest room of the temple-tower beside the κλίνημεγάλη εὖ ἐστρωμένη, seems to have reference to such a lectisternium (comp. Leyrer in Herz.R. E. 13, p. 470). As an appellative noun, גַד means fortune, good luck. As the name of a divinity, it denotes the star of fortune, of which the Babylonians had two, Jupiter and Venus (comp. DunckerGesch. des Alterth., Vol. I, p. 117; Plutarch de Is. et Osir, § 48). The Arabs named the former “Great Fortune,” and the latter “Little Fortune.” Many are disposed to connect מְנִי, which is found only here, with Μήν, Μήνη, and to understand it of the moon (comp. especially Knobelin loc.). The matter is not yet decided. מִמְסָךְ (comp. Proverbs 23:30, and in reference to the verb, Isaiah 5:22; Isaiah 19:14) is mixed wine, spiced wine (see on Isaiah 5:22). With allusion to the name מְנִי, the Lord threatens these sinners that He will number (Isaiah 53:12) them to the sword, and they all must bow down (Isaiah 10:4; Isaiah 44:1-2,) to be slaughtered, because they did not answer to the call of the Lord, yea, did not even hearken to His word, but did that which the Lord regarded as evil, and chose what displeased Him. For recurring expressions see Isaiah 66:4; Isaiah 56:4. The expression עשׂה הרע בעיני ו׳ occurs first in Numbers 32:13, then frequently in Deut, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chron. It is found once in the Psalms (Isaiah 51:6), three times in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:30; Jeremiah 18:10; Jeremiah 32:30). It occurs in Isaiah only here and Isaiah 66:4 (comp. Isaiah 38:3). What was remarked in regard to Isaiah 65:3-5 a applies to Isaiah 65:11-12. If they portray an idolatry specifically Babylonian which the Jews practised in exile, the verses are an interpolation. [Delitzsch, who is inclined to identify גַּד with Jupiter, confesses that it is only from this place in Isaiah that we know that Gad was worshipped by the Babylonians. The Babylonian Pantheon, in Rawlinson’sMonarchies, does not contain this name. The application of the name Meni is admitted to be doubtful. We could as easily connect the worship and the divinities mentioned here with Egypt, Syria, or Arabia, as with Babylonia. The Jews that fled to Egypt had their Lectisternia there (Jeremiah 44:17-19), and the destruction with which Isaiah threatens the apostates that he has in mind, is denounced by Jeremiah against the idolatrous Jews in Egypt. Jeremiah 44:12-14. Moreover, the Jews had their Lectistenia in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem before the captivity (Jeremiah 7:17-18) But suppose that the worship here described by Isaiah could be proved to be distinctively and exclusively Babylonian, must the real Isaiah be supposed to be ignorant of it? Knowing the disposition of the Jews to follow the ways of the heathen around them, he could anticipate, even without Divine inspiration, that many of the captive Jews would practise the peculiar religious rites of the Babylonians. Even an anti-supernaturalist could defend the genuineness of Isaiah 65:11-12; much more one who believes that a true Prophet of God could utter a definite prediction. We may add that verse 13 supposes the sins mentioned in Isaiah 65:11-12 as the ground of the threatening which it contains, and cannot be connected immediately with Isaiah 65:10. Henderson, who thinks that the terms in Isaiah 65:11 may have been borrowed from the nomenclature of idolaters, takes Gad as meaning Fortune and Meni Fate, and applies the passage to the impenitent and worldly Jews of the restoration, who had no god but riches, and regarded human affairs as governed by fortune.—D. M.].

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. On Isaiah 65:1-2. Our Lord has said, “He that seeketh findeth” (Matthew 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, Romans 9:30 sqq.; Isaiah 10:19 sqq.; Isaiah 11:7. [See also Isaiah 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 (Romans 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,” Romans 9:16. “Though in after-communion God is found of those that seek Him (Proverbs 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 Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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 (Ephesians 2:5), by which He gives a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), by which He draws to the Son (John 6:44-45; John 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 Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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 (Jeremiah 3:11).” Starke.

6. On Isaiah 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 Isaiah 65:6-7. “The longer God forbears, the harder He punishes at last. The greatness of the punishment compensates for the delay (Psalms 50:21).” Starke after Leigh.

8. On Isaiah 65:8 sqq. [“This is expounded by St. Paul, Romans 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. Matthew 24:22. Henry. D. M.].

9. On Isaiah 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 (2 Thessalonians 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 Isaiah 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 2 Peter 3:10-13. The present earth and heavens shall pass away; (comp. Isaiah 51:6; Psalms 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 Isaiah 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 (2 Peter 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 (Isaiah 65:20 sqq.), which, we know from definite statements of Scripture, will not exist when the new heaven and new earth appear (comp. Revelation 21:1-4). The proper view then of Isaiah 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 (Isaiah 25:8) in connection with other events that must happen long before that state of perfect blessedness.—D. M.].

11. On Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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. Daniel 9:23). But Paul had to pray thrice before he received the answer of the Lord (2 Corinthians 12:8). Compare the parable of the importunate widow, Luke 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 Isaiah 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, Psalms 72:9; Micah 7:17. This was the original doom of the tempter, Genesis 3:14, and shall be fully carried into execution. Comp. Revelation 20:1-3.” Henderson. D. M.].

14. On Isaiah 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 (John 2:20; Matthew 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 Isaiah 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 (1 Kings 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 Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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, John 16:2. So it was in fact in the persecutions excited against the apostles and early Christians. See Acts 6:13-14; Acts 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 Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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 (Isaiah 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. Isaiah 42:14; Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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 Isaiah 65:1 sq. [I. “It is here foretold that the Gentiles, who had been afar off, should be made nigh, Isaiah 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, Isaiah 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, Isaiah 65:2 sqq.—D. M.]

2. On Isaiah 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 (Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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, Isaiah 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 Isaiah 66:1-2. Carpzov has a sermon on this text. He places it in parallel with Luke 18:9-14, and considers, 1) The rejection of spiritual pride; 2) The commendation of filial fear.

6. On Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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 Isaiah 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:

[7]But ye who forsake Jehovah.

[8]Gad.

[9]Gad.

[10]fill for the goddess of fortune a mingled drink.

[11]Meni.