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Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 65:1 I am sought of them that asked not for me ; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. CHAPTER XXV A LAST INTERCESSION AND THE JUDGMENT Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 66:1-24 WE might well have thought, that with the section we have been considering the prophecy of Israel’s Redemption had reached its summit and its end. The glory of Zion in sight, the full programme of prophecy owned, the arrival of the Divine Saviour hailed in the urgency of His feeling for His people, in the sufficiency of His might to save them, -what more, we ask, can the prophecy have to give us? Why does it not end upon these high notes? The answer is, the salvation is indeed consummate, but the people are not ready for it. On an earlier occasion, let us remember, when our prophet called the nation to their Service of God, he called at first the whole nation, but had then immediately to make a distinction. Seen in the light of their destiny, the mass of Israel proved to be unworthy; tried by its strain, part immediately fell away. But what happened upon that call to Service happens again upon this disclosure of Salvation. The prophet realises that it is only a part of Israel who are worthy of it. He feels again the weight, which has been the hindrance of his hope all through, -the weight of the mass of the nation, sunk in idolatry and wickedness, incapable of appreciating the promises. He will make one more effort to save them-to save them all. He does this in an intercessory prayer, Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 , in which he states the most hopeless aspects of his people’s case, identifies himself with their sin, and yet pleads by the ancient power of God that we all may be saved. He gets his answer in chapter 65, in which God sharply divides Israel into two classes, the faithful and the idolaters, and affirms that, while the nation shall be saved for the sake of the faithful remnant, Jehovah’s faithful servants and the unfaithful can never share the same experience or the same fate. And then the book closes with a discourse in chapter 66, in which this division between the two classes in Israel is pursued to a last terrible emphasis and contrast upon the narrow stage of Jerusalem itself. We are left, not with the realisation of the prophet’s prayer for the salvation of all the nations, but with a last judgment separating its godly and ungodly portions. Thus there are three connected divisions in Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 66:1-24 . First, the prophet’s Intercessory Prayer, Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 ; second, the Answer of Jehovah, chapter 65; and third, the Final Discourse and Judgment, chapter 66. I. THE PRAYER FOR THE WHOLE PEOPLE ( Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 ) There is a good deal of discussion as to both the date and the authorship of this piece, was to whether it comes from the early or the late Exile, and as to whether it comes from our prophet or from another. It must have been written after the destruction and before the rebuilding of the Temple; this is put past all doubt by these verses: "Thy holy people possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down Thy sanctuary." "Thy holy cities are become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. The house of our holiness and of our ornament, wherein our fathers praised Thee, is become for a burning of fire, and all our delights are for ruin." This language has been held to imply that the disaster to Jerusalem was recent, as if the city’s conflagration still flared on the national imagination, which in later years of the Exile was impressed rather by the long cold ruins of the Holy Place, the haunt of wild beasts. But not only is this point inconclusive, but the impression that it leaves is entirely dispelled by other verses, which speak of the Divine anger as having been of long continuance, and as if it had only hardened the people in sin; compare Isaiah 63:17 ; Isaiah 64:6-7 . There is nothing in the prayer to show that the author lived in exile, and accordingly the proposal has been made to date the piece from among the first attempts at rebuilding after the Return. To the present expositor this seems to be certainly wrong. The man who wrote Isaiah 63:11-15 had surely the Return still before him; he would not have written in the way he has done of the Exodus from Egypt unless he had been feeling the need of another exhibition of Divine Power of the same kind. The prayer, therefore, must come from pretty much the same date as the rest of our prophecy, -after the Exile had long continued, but while the Return had not yet taken place. Nor is there any reason against attributing it to the same writer. It is true the style differs from the rest of his work, but this may be accounted for, as in the case of chapter 53, by the change of subject. Most critics, who hold that we still follow the same author, take for granted that some time has elapsed since the prophet’s triumphant strains in chapter 60-62. This is probable; but there is nothing to make it certain. What is certain is the change of mood and conscience. The prophet, who in chapter 60 had been caught away into the glorious future of the people, is here as utterly absorbed in their barren and doubtful present. Although the salvation is certain, as he has seen it, the people are not ready. The fact he has already felt so keenly about them, -see Isaiah 42:24-25 , -that their long discipline in exile has done the mass of them no good, but evil, comes forcibly back upon him. { Isaiah 64:5 b ff.} "Thou wast angry, and we sinned" only the more: "in such a state we have been long, and shall we be saved!" The banished people are thoroughly unclean and rotten, fading as a leaf, the sport of the wind. But the prophet identifies himself with them. He speaks of their sin as ours, of their misery as ours. He takes of them the very saddest view possible, he feels them all as sheer dead weight: "there is none that calleth on Thy name, that stirreth himself up to take hold on Thee: for Thou hast hid Thy face from us, and delivered us into the power of our iniquities." But the prophet thus loads himself with the people in order to secure, if he can. their redemption as a whole. Twice he says in the name of them all, "Doubtless Thou art our Father." His great heart will not have one of them left out; "we all," he says, "are the work of Thy hand, we are all Thy people." But this intention of the prayer will amply account for any change of style we may perceive in the language. No one will deny that it is quite possible for the same man now to fling himself forward into the glorious vision of his people’s future salvation, and again to identify himself with the most hopeless aspects of their present distress and sin; and no one will deny that the same man will certainly write in two different styles with regard to each of these different feelings. Besides which, we have seen in the passage the recurrence of some of our prophecy’s most characteristic thoughts. We feel, therefore, no reason for counting the passage to be by another hand than that which has mainly written "Second Isaiah." It may be at once admitted that he has incorporated in it earlier phrases, reminiscences, and echoes of language about the fall of Jerusalem in use when the Lamentations were written. But this was a natural thing for him to do in a prayer in which he represented the whole people and took upon himself the full burden of their woes. If such be the intention of Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 , then in them we have one of the noblest passages of our prophet’s great work. How like he is to the Servant he pictured for us! How his great heart fulfils the loftiest ideal of Service: not only to be the prophet and the judge of his people, but to make himself one with them in all their sin and sorrow, to carry them all in his heart. Truly, as his last words said of the Servant, he himself "bears the sin of many, and interposes for the transgressors." Before we see the answer he gets, let us make clear some obscure things and appreciate some beautiful ones in his prayer. It opens with a recital of Jehovah’s ancient lovingkindness and mercies to Israel. This is what perhaps gives it connection with the previous section. In chapter 62 the prophet, though sure of the coming glory, wrote before it had come, and "urged" upon "the Lord’s remembrancers to keep no silence, and give Him no silence till He establish and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth." This work of remembrancing, the prophet himself takes up in Isaiah 63:7 : "The lovingkindnesses of Jehovah I will record," literally, "cause to be remembered, the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed upon us." And then he beautifully puts all the beginnings of God’s dealings with His people in His trusting of them: "For He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal falsely; so He became their Saviour. In all their affliction He was afflicted, the Angel of His Face saved them." This must be understood, not as an angel of the Presence, who went out from the Presence to save the people, but, as it is in other Scriptures, God’s own Presence, God Himself; and so interpreted, the phrase falls into line with the rest of the verse, which is one of the most vivid expressions that the Bible contains of the personality of God. "In His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and bare them, and carried them all the days of old." Then he tells us how they disappointed and betrayed this trust, ever since the Exodus, the days of old. "But they rebelled and grieved the Spirit of His holiness: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, He Himself fought against them." This refers to their history down to, and especially during, the Exile: compare Isaiah 42:24-25 . Then in their affliction they "remembered the days of old"-the English version obscures the sequence here by translating he remembered- and then follows the glorious account of the Exodus. In Isaiah 63:13 the wilderness is, of course, prairie, flat pasture-land; they were led as smoothly as "a horse in a meadow, that they stumbled not. As cattle that come down into the valley"-cattle coming down from the hillside to pasture and rest on the green, watered plains-"the Spirit of Jehovah caused them to rest: so didst Thou lead Thy people to make Thyself a glorious name." And then having offered such precedents, the prophet’s prayer breaks forth to a God, whom His people fed no longer at their head, but far withdrawn into heaven: "Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and Thy glory: where is Thy zeal and Thy mighty deeds? the surge of Thy bowels and Thy compassions are restrained towards me." Then he pleads God’s fatherhood to the nation, and the rest of the prayer alternates between the hopeless misery and undeserving sin of the people, and, notwithstanding, the power of God to save as He did in times of old; the willingness of God to meet with those who wait for Him and remember Him; and, once more, His fatherhood, and His power over them, as the power of the potter over the clay. Two points stand out from the rest. The Divine Trust, from which all God’s dealing with His people is said to have started, and the Divine Fatherhood, which the prophet pleads. "He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal falsely: so He was their Saviour." The "surely" is not the fiat of sovereignty or foreknowledge: it is the hope and confidence of love. It did not prevail; it was disappointed. This is, of course, a profound acknowledgment of man’s free will. It is implied that men’s conduct must remain an uncertain thing, and that in calling men God cannot adventure upon greater certainty than is implied in the trust of affection. If one asks, What, then, about God’s foreknowledge, who alone knoweth the end of a thing from the beginning, and His sovereign grace, who chooseth whom He will? are you not logically bound to these?-then it can only be asked in return, Is it not better to be without logic for a little, if at the expense of it we obtain so true, so deep a glimpse into God’s heart as this simple verse affords us? Which is better for us to know-that God is Wisdom which knows all, or Love that dares and ventures all? Surely, that God is Love which dares and ventures all with the worst, with the most hopeless of us. This is what makes this single verse of Scripture more powerful to move the heart than all creeds and catechisms. For where these speak of sovereign will, and often mock our affections with the bare and heavy (if legitimate) sceptre they sway, this calls forth our love, honour, and obedience by the heart it betrays in God. Of what unsuspicious trust, of what chivalrous adventure of love, of what fatherly confidence, does it speak! What a religion is this of ours in the power of which a man may every morning rise and feel himself thrilled by the thought that God trusts him enough to work with His will for the day; in the power of which a man may look round and see the sordid, hopeless human life about him glorified by the truth that for the salvation of such God did adventure Himself in a love that laid itself down in death. The attraction and power of such a religion can never die. Requiring no painful thought to argue it into reality, it leaps to light before the natural affection of man’s heart; it takes his instincts immediately captive; it gives him a conscience, an honour, and an obligation. No wonder that our prophet, having such a belief, should once more identify himself with the people, and adventure himself with the weight of their sin before God. The other point of the prayer is the Fatherhood of God, concerning which all that is needful to say here is that the prophet, true to the rest of Old Testament teaching on the subject, applies it only to God’s relation to the nation as a whole. In the Old Testament no one is called the son of God except Israel as a people, or some individual representative and head of Israel. And even of such the term was seldom employed. This was not because the Hebrew was without temptation to imagine his physical descent from the gods, for neighbouring nations indulged in such dreams for themselves and their heroes; nor because he was without appreciation of the intellectual kinship between the human and the Divine, for he knew that in the beginning God had said, "Let us make man in our own image." But the same feeling prevailed with him in regard to this idea, as we have seen prevailed in regard to the kindred idea of God as the husband of His people. The prophets were anxious to emphasise that it was a moral relation, -a moral relation, and one initiated from God’s side by certain historical acts of His free, selecting, redeeming, and adopting love. Israel was not God’s son till God had evidently called and redeemed him. Look at how our prophet uses the word Father, and to what he makes it equivalent. The first time it is equivalent to Redeemer: "Thou, O Lord, art our Father; our Redeemer from old is Thy name". { Isaiah 63:16 b} The second time it is illustrated by the work of the potter: "But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we are all the work of Thy hand". { Isaiah 64:8 } Could it be made plainer in what sense the Bible defines this relation between God and man? It is not a physical, nor is it an intellectual relation. The assurance and the virtue of it do not come to men with their blood or with the birth of their intellect, but in the course of moral experience, with the sense that God claims them from sin and from the world for Himself; with the gift of a calling and a destiny; with the formation of character, the perfecting of obedience, the growth in His knowledge and His grace. And because it is a moral relation time is needed to realise it, and only after long patience and effort may it be unhesitatingly claimed. And that is why Israel was so long in claiming it, and why the clearest, most undoubting cries to God the Father, which rise from the Greek in the earliest period of his history, reach our ears from Jewish lips only near the end of their long progress, only (as we see from our prayer) in a time of trial and affliction. We have a New Testament echo of this Old Testament belief in the Fatherhood of God, as a moral and not a national relation, in Paul’s writings, who in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians { 2 Corinthians 6:17-18 } urges thus: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." On these grounds, then, -that God in His great love had already adventured Himself with this whole people, and already by historical acts of election and redemption proved Himself the Father of the nation as a whole, -does our prophet plead with Him to save them all again. The answer to this pleading he gets in chapter 65. II. GOD’S ANSWER TO THE PROPHET’S INTERCESSION (Chapter 65) God’s answer to His prophet’s intercession is twofold. First, He says that He has already all this time been trying them with love, meeting them with salvation; but they have not turned to Him. The prophet has asked, "Where is Thy zeal? the yearning of Thy bowels and Thy compassions are restrained towards me. Thou hast hid Thy face far from us. Wilt Thou refrain Thyself for these things, O Jehovah? Wilt Thou hold Thy peace and afflict us very sore?" And now, "in the beginning of chapter 65, Jehovah answers, not with that confusion of tenses and irrelevancy of words with which the English version makes Him speak; but suitably, relevantly, and convincingly." "I have been to be inquired of those who asked not for Me. I have been to be found of them that sought Me not. I have been saying, I am here, I am here, to a nation that did not call on My name. I have stretched out My hands all the day to a people turning away, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts; a people that have been provoking Me to My face continually,"-and then He details their idolatry. This, then, is the answer of the Lord to the prophet’s appeal. "In this I have not all power. It is wrong to talk of Me as the potter and of man as the clay, as if all the active share in salvation lay with Me. Man is free, - free to withhold himself from My urgent affection; free to turn from My outstretched hands; free to choose before Me the abomination of idolatry. And this the mass of Israel have done, clinging, fanatical and self-satisfied, to their unclean and morbid imaginations of the Divine, all the time that My great prophecy by you has been appealing to them." This is a sufficient answer to the prophet’s prayer. Love is not omnipotent; if men disregard so open an appeal of the Love of God, they are hopeless; nothing else can save them. The sin against such love is like the sin against the Holy Ghost, of which our Lord speaks so hopelessly. Even God cannot help the despisers and abusers of Grace. The rest of God’s answer to His prophet’s intercession emphasises that the nation shall be saved for the sake of a faithful remnant in it ( Isaiah 65:8-10 ). But the idolaters shall perish ( Isaiah 65:11-12 ). They cannot possibly expect the same fare, the same experience, the same fate, as God’s faithful servants ( Isaiah 65:13-15 ). But those who are true and faithful Israelites, surviving and experiencing the promised salvation, shall find that God is true, and shall acknowledge Him as "the God of Amen, because the former troubles are forgotten" (those felt so keenly in the prophet’s prayer in chapter 64) "and because they are hid from Mine eyes." The rest of the answer describes a state of serenity and happiness wherein there shall be no premature death, nor loss of property, nor vain labour, nor miscarriage, nor disappointment of prayer nor delay in its answer, nor strife between man and the beasts, nor any hurt or harm in Jehovah’s Holy Mountain. Truly a prospect worthy of being named as the prophet names it, "a new heaven and a new earth!" Chapter 65 is thus closely connected, both by circumstance and logic, with the long prayer which precedes it. The tendency of recent criticism has been to deny this connection, especially on the line of circumstance. Chapter 65 does not, it is argued, reflect the Babylonish captivity as Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 so clearly does; but, on the contrary, "while some passages presuppose the Exile as past, others refer to circumstances characteristic of Jewish life in Canaan." But this view is only possible through straining some features of the chapter adaptable either to Palestine or Babylon, and overlooking others which are obviously Babylonian. "Sacrificing in gardens and burning incense on tiles" were practices pursued in Jerusalem before the Exile, but the latter was introduced there from Babylon, and the former was universal in heathendom. The practices in Isaiah 65:5 are never attributed to the people before the Exile, were all possible in Babylonia, and some we know to have been actual there. The other charge of idolatry in Isaiah 65:11 "suits Babylonia," Cheyne admits, "as well as (probably) Palestine." But what seems decisive for the exilic origin of chapter 65 is that the possession of Judah and Zion by the seed of Jacob is still implied as future ( Isaiah 65:9 ). Moreover the holy land is alluded to by the name common among the exiles in flat Mesopotamia, My mountains, and in contrast with the idolatry of which the present generation is guilty the idolatry of their fathers is characterised as having been "upon the mountains and upon the hills," and again the people is charged with "forgetting My holy mountain," a phrase reminiscent of Psalm 137:4 , and more appropriate to a time of exile, than when the people were gathered about Zion. All these resemblances in circumstances corroborate the strong logical connection which we have found between chapter 64 and chapter 65, and leave us no reason for taking the latter away from the main author of "Second Isaiah," though he may have worked up into it recollections and remains of an older time. III. THE LAST JUDGMENT (Chapter 66) Whether with the final chapter of our prophecy we at last get footing in the Holy Land is doubtful. It was said that, "in Isaiah 66:1-4 the Temple is still unbuilt, but the building would seem to be already begun." This latter clause should be modified to, "the building would seem to be in immediate prospect." The rest of the chapter, Isaiah 66:6-24 , has features that speak more definitely for the period after the Return; but even they are not conclusive, and their effect is counterbalanced by some other verses. Isaiah 66:6 may imply that the Temple is rebuilt, and Isaiah 66:20 that the sacrifices are resumed; but, on the other hand, these verses may be, like parts of chapter 60, statements of the prophet’s vivid vision of the future. Isaiah 66:7-8 seem to describe a repeopling of Jerusalem that has already taken place; but Isaiah 66:9 says, that while the "bringing to the birth" has already happened, which is, as we must suppose, the deliverance from Babylon, -or is it the actual arrival at Jerusalem?-the "bringing forth from the womb," that is, the complete restoration of the people, has still to take place. Isaiah 66:13 is certainly addressed to those who are not yet in Jerusalem. These few points reveal how difficult, nay, how impossible, it is to decide the question of date, as between the days immediately before the Return and the days immediately after. To the present expositor the balance of evidence seems to be with the later date. But the difference is very small. We are at least sure-and it is really all that we require to know-that the rebuilding of Jerusalem is very near, nearer than it has been felt in any previous chapter. The Temple is, so to speak, within sight, and the prophet is able to talk of the regular round of sacrifices and sacred festivals almost as if they had been resumed. To the people, then, either in the near prospect of Return, or immediately after some of them had arrived in Jerusalem, the prophet addresses a number of oracles, in which he pursues the division that chapter 65 had emphasised between the two parties in Israel. These oracles are so, intricate that we are compelled to take up the chapter verse by verse. The first of them begins by correcting certain false feelings in Israel, excited by former promises of the rebuilding and the glory of the Temple. "Thus saith Jehovah, The heavens are My throne, and earth is My footstool: what is this for a house that ye will build (or, are building) Me, and what is this for a place for My rest? Yea, all these things" (that is, all the visible works of God in heaven and earth) "My hand hath made, and so came to pass all these things, saith Jehovah. But unto this will I look, unto the humble and contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My word." These verses do not run counter to, or even go beyond, anything that our prophet has already said. They do not condemn the building of the Temple: this was not possible for a prophecy which contains chapter 60. They condemn only the kind of temple which those whom they address had in view, -a shrine to which the presence of Jehovah was limited, and on the raising and maintenance of which the religion and righteousness of the people should depend. While the former Temple was standing, the mass of the people had thus misconceived it, imagining that it was enough for national religion to have such a structure standing and honoured in their midst. And now, before it is built again, the exiles are cherishing about it the same formal and materialistic thoughts. Therefore the prophet rebukes them, as his predecessors had rebuked their fathers, and reminds them of a truth he has already uttered, that though the Temple is raised, according to God’s own promise and direction, it wilt not be to its structure, as they conceive of it, that He will have respect, but to the existence among them of humble and sincere personal piety. The Temple is to be raised: "the place of His feet God will make glorious," and men shall gather round it from the whole earth, for instruction, for comfort, and for rejoicing. But. let them not think it to be indispensable either to God or to man, -not to God, who has heaven for His throne and earth for His footstool; nor to man, for God looks direct to man, if only man be humble, penitent, and sensitive to His word. These verses, then, do not go beyond the Old Testament limit; they leave the Temple standing, but they say so much about God’s other sanctuary man, that when His use for the Temple shall be past, His Servant Stephen { Acts 7:49 } shall be able to employ these words to prove why it should disappear. The next verse is extremely difficult. Here it is literally: "A slaughterer of the ox, a slayer of a man; a sacrificer of the lamb, a breaker of a dog’s neck; an offerer of meat-offering, swine’s blood; the maker of a memorial offering of incense, one that blesseth an idol, or vanity." Four legal sacrificial acts are here coupled with four unlawful sacrifices to idols. Does this mean that in the eye of God, impatient even of the ritual He has consecrated, when performed by men who do not tremble at His word, each of these lawful sacrifices is as worthless and odious as the idolatrous practice associated with it, -the slaughter of the ox as the offering of a human sacrifice, and so forth? Or does the verse mean that there are persons in Israel who combine, like the Corinthians blamed by Paul, { 1 Corinthians 10:1-33 } both the true and the idolatrous ritual, both the table of the Lord and the table of devils? Our answer will depend on whether we take the four parallels with Isaiah 66:2 , which precedes them, or with the rest of Isaiah 66:3 , to which they belong, and Isaiah 66:4 . If we take them with Isaiah 66:2 , then we must adopt the first, the alternative meaning; if with Isaiah 66:4 , then the second of these meanings is the right one. Now there is no grammatical connection, nor any transparent logical one, between Isaiah 66:2 and Isaiah 66:3 , but there is a grammatical connection with the rest of Isaiah 66:3 . Immediately after the pairs of lawful and unlawful sacrificial acts, Isaiah 66:3 continues, "yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations." That surely signifies that the unlawful sacrifices in Isaiah 66:3 are things already committed and delighted in, and the meaning of putting them in parallel to the lawful sacrifices of Jehovah’s religion is either that Israelites have committed them instead of the lawful sacrifices, or along with these. In this case, Isaiah 66:3-4 form a separate discourse by themselves, with no relation to the equally distinct oracle in Isaiah 66:1 and Isaiah 66:2 . The subject of Isaiah 66:3-4 is, therefore, the idolatrous Israelites. They are delivered unto Satan, their choice; they shall have no part in the coming Salvation: In Isaiah 66:5 the faithful in Israel, who have obeyed God’s word by the prophet, are comforted under the mocking of their brethren, who shall certainly be put to shame. Already the prophet hears the preparation of the judgment against them ( Isaiah 66:6 ). It comes forth from the city where they had mockingly cried for God’s glory to appear. The mocked city avenges itself on them. "Hark, a roar from the City! Hark, from the Temple! Hark, Jehovah accomplishing vengeance on His enemies!" A new section begins with Isaiah 66:7 , and celebrates to Isaiah 66:9 the sudden re-population of the City by her children, either as already a fact, or, more probably, as a near certainty. Then comes a call to the children, restored, or about to be restored, to congratulate their mother and "to enjoy her. The prophet rewakens the figure, that is ever nearest his heart, of motherhood, -children suckled, borne, and cradled in the lap of their mother fill all his view; nay, finer still, the grown man coming back with wounds and weariness upon him to be comforted of his mother." As a man whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see, and rejoice shall your heart, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass." But this great light shines not to flood all Israel in One, but to cleave the nation in two, like a sword of judgment. "The hand of Jehovah shall be known towards His servants, but He will have indignation against His enemies" (enemies, that is, within Israel. Then comes the fiery judgment) "For by fire will Jehovah plead, and by His sword with, all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah shall be many. Why there should be slain of Jehovah within Israel is then explained. Within Israel there are idolaters: "they that consecrate themselves and practise purification for the gardens, after one in the middle; eaters of swine’s flesh, and the Abomination, and the Mouse. They shall come to an end together, saith Jehovah, for I" (know, or will punish,) "their works and their thoughts." In this eighteenth verse the punctuation is uncertain, and probably the text is corrupt. The first part of the verse should evidently go, as above, with Isaiah 66:17 . Then begins a new subject. "It is coming to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they shall come and shall see My glory; and I will set among them a sign" (a marvellous and mighty act, probably of judgment, for he immediately speaks of their survivors) "and I will send the escaped of them to the nations Tarshish, and Lud, drawers of the bow, to Tubal and Javan" (that is, to far Spain, and the distances of Africa, towards the Black Sea and to "Greece, a full round of the compass) the isles far off that have not heard report of Me, nor have seen My glory; and they shall recount My glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brethren from among all the nations an offering to Jehovah, on horses and in chariots and in litters, and on mules and on dromedaries, up on the Mount of My Holiness, Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, just as when the children of Israel bring the offering in a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah. And also from them will I take to be priests, to be Levites, saith Jehovah. For like as the new heavens and the new earth which I am making shall be standing before Me, saith Jehovah, so shall stand your seed and your name." But again the prophecy swerves from the univ

I am sought of them that asked not for Me. Isaiah 65:1 Jehovah's answer to the prayer of the Church Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. The supplication is ended; and chap. 65. appears to be intended as the answer — an answer, however, in which a distinction is drawn between worthy and unworthy members of Israel, and a different prospect is held out to each. God has ever, He says, been accessible to His people, He has ever been ready to renew intercourse with them: it was they who would not respond, but provoked Him with their idolatries. ( Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. ) A nation that was not called by My name A. B. Davidson, D. D. " A nation that called not on My name." The reference is to those among the people who, after the Restoration, still practised the idolatries of their pre-exilic forefathers. ( A. B. Davidson, D. D. ) The very bold prophecy We learn on inspired authority that this is a very bold passage ( Romans 10:20 ); it required much courage to utter it at the first, and in Paul's day it needed still more to quote it and press it home upon the Jews around him. He who protests against a self-righteous people, and angers them by showing that others whom they despised are saved while they themselves are being lost, will have need of a dauntless spirit. This text has the clear ring of free grace about it; and for this reason it may be called bold. I. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD IN THE WORK OF HIS GRACE. This is remarkably prominent in the work before us. 1. The personality of God comes forth in that He Himself is observant of all that is done. Do any seek him? He saith, "I am sought. De any find him? He saith, "I am found. Is there any preaching of the Gospel? The Lord declares, "Behold Me, behold Me." 2. He Himself in the great object of desire where grace is in operation. When men are savingly aroused, they seek — what? Religion? By no means. They seek God, if they seek aright. The Lord saith, "I am found." If men do not find God they have found nothing. God Himself fills the vision of faith; observe the words, "Behold Me, behold Me." We look to God in Christ, and find all that our soul needs. 3. He Himself is the Speaker of that call by which men are saved. Here are the words: "I said, Behold Me, behold Me." The Lord Himself speaks the effectual word. 4. He Himself is the director of the message., "I said, Behold Me, behold Me, unto a nation that was not called by My name. ' Not only does God speak the Gospel, but He speaks it home to those whom He appoints to hear it. This surrounds the Gospel with a strange solemnity: if the Gospel blesses us, it is not it, but God that blesses: God Himself has come unto us. This fact has another aspect to it; for if the Gospel be rejected, it is God that is rejected. Read the next verse: "I have spread out My hands all the day unto a rebellious people. II. THE DELIGHT WHICH GOD TAKES IN THE WORK OF GRACE. God is glad to be sought and found by those who once were negligent of Him. 1. It is evident that He rejoices in contrast to the complaint of the next verse. 2. The Lord rejoices in each step of the process. There is a poor soul beginning to cry,, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" and lo the Lord says, "I am sought. A man has only just begun to attend the House of Prayer; he has only lately commenced the earnest study of the Bible; the Lord sees it, and He says, "I am sought. As when a fisherman smiles because a fish has begun to nibble at the bait, so the Lord notes the first movings of the heart towards Himself, and He says, "I am sought." The very next sentence is, "I am found." 3. The Lord also rejoices in the persons who seek Him. He says, "I am sought of them that asked not for Me. He will be glad for any heart to keep on seeking that has begun to seek; but He is best pleased when non-seekers become seekers. 4. The Lord rejoices in the numbers who seek and find Him. "I said, Behold Me, behold Me, unto a nation." When shall the day come that nations shall be born at once? III. THE DESCRIPTION WHICH GOD HIMSELF GIVES OF THE WORK OF GRACE. 1. The Lord tells us where He finds the objects of His grace. He says, "They asked not for Me; they sought Me not; they were not called by My name." What a mercy it is that He comes to us in our sin and misery; for assuredly we should not else come to Him. 2. He next describes that Gospel which comes to them as the power of God. Here are His own words: "I said, Behold Me, behold Me." The way of salvation is, "Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." 3. Then the Lord goes on to mention the converts which the Gospel makes. The careless become seekers, the ungodly finders, the prayerless behold their God and live. 4. The Lord also describes the experience of the saved. God comes to us that we may come to Him. IV. THE USE WHICH GOD MAKES OF ALL THIS. The Lord here took care that when He said, "I am sought of them that asked not for Me," His words should be written down, and that they should be made known to us. It is not everything that God may say to Himself that He will afterwards repeat to us; but here these private utterances of the Divine heart are spoken out to us by Isaiah, and left on record in this inspired Book. To what end d-o you think it is so? 1. That he may excite in us wonder and admiration. 2. To destroy pride and self-esteem. 3. To encourage you who are seeking Him: for if those who do not seek Him often find Him, why, you that do seek Him are sure to find Him. 4. To encourage workers. Go to work among the worst of the worst; for since God is found of those who seek Him not, there is hope for the vilest. 5. That he may convict those who do not come to Him of the greatness of their sin. Look, saith He, those who never heard of Me before have found salvation, while you who have been instructed, and invited, and impressed, have still held out and resisted My Spirit. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) A people that provoked Me to anger. Isaiah 65:3-5 Obstinacy provokes God's wrath F. Delitzsch, D. D. By rejecting His love with stiff-necked obstinacy, they have incurred wrath, which, though long and patiently restrained, now bursts out with uncontrolled violence. "The people that continually provokes Me to My face, sacrificing in the gardens, and burning incense on the tiles, who sit in vaults and pass the night in retired places, who eat flesh of swine, and broken pieces of abominable things are in their dishes, who say: Halt: Come not too near me! For I am holy to thee, — these are a smoke in My nose, a fire blazing continually." ( F. Delitzsch, D. D. ) Illegal and superstitious cults A. B. Davidson, D. D. The reference to "bricks" remains unexplained; sitting in the graves was for the purpose of obtaining oracles or dreams from the dead - the so-called "incubation." ( A. B. Davidson, D. D. ) "Broth of abominable things W. Robertson Smith, Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. Such creatures as are enumerated in Isaiah 66:17 . The "sacrifices are boiled and yield a magical hell-broth" ( W. Robertson Smith ). ( Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. ) Which may, Stand by thyself. Isaiah 65:5 "I am holier than thou A. B. Davidson, D. D., Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. For "I am holier read, probably, else I will make thee holy." The practices referred to were "mysteries," and the initiated would communicate his "holiness" to others by contact with them, and so unfit them for all the ordinary uses of life (cp. Ezekiel 44:19 ). ( A. B. Davidson, D. D. )Ver. 5 alludes to those who claimed superior sanctity in virtue of certain rites into which they had been initiated. ( Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. ) Self.righteousness, -- a smouldering heap of rubbish The application of the passage to Israel is just thus. Year after year God dealt with great patience towards His chosen people, but they seemed to be desperately set upon idolatry in one form or another. Sometimes they worshipped Jehovah, but then they did it under figure and symbol, whereas He has expressly forbidden that even His own worship should be thus celebrated. At other times they altogether rejected Jehovah, and worshipped Baal and Ashtaroth, and whole troops of the gods of the heathen, and thus they provoked the Lord exceedingly. They also practised necromancy, or pretended communion with the dead, and witchcraft and sorcery, and all manner of abominable rites, like the depraved nations around them. When this open rebellion was given up, as it was after the captivity — for the Jews have never been guilty of idolatry since that day — they fell into another form of the same evil, namely, self-righteousness: so that when our Lord came He found self-righteousness to be the crying sin of Israel, the Pharisees carrying it to such a pitch as to render it utterly ridiculous. They reckoned that the touch of a common person polluted their sacredness, so that they needed to wash after walking down a street. When they traversed the ways they took the edge of the pavement, so that they might not brush against the garments of the passers-by, and even in the temple in prayer they stood by themselves lest they should be defiled. Their whole spirit is expressed in the words of the text — "Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou." This God declares to be as obnoxious to Him as smoke in a man's nose. Self-righteousness is rampant in our own day. I. THE SIN OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS GROWS UP AMONG RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. It is not always the sin of the outside world, for many outsiders do not pretend to any righteousness at all, and I fancy they think all the better of themselves for that. This is an idle plea which it needs not many words to expose. "I make no profession," says one. This is about as honour-able a confession as if a thief should, boast when caught at picking pockets, "I do not make any pretence to be honest,' or a liar when detected should turn round and cry, "I never professed to speak the truth." Among those who profess to be religious, self-righteousness very frequently comes in, because they have not truly received the religion of Jesus Christ; if they were true believers they would be humble and contrite, for self-righteousness and faith in Christ are diametrically opposed. Many who mingle with Christians, and are religious in a certain sense because they practise the forms of religion, are wont to put the form into the place of the spirit. These persons, too, even when they do not join the Christian Church, but only worship or seem to worship with Christians, are very apt to think that they must be better than other people because they do so. It is the danger of outwardly religious people, who are not savingly converted, to dream that they are somewhat advantaged by a mere attendance on the means of grace. Should an Egyptian rub his shoulders against an Israelite, would it turn him into an Israelite? Will living near a rich man make you rich? Do you forget that cry of our Lord, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin. Woe unto thee, Bethsaida? II. THIS IS A SIN WHICH FLOURISHES WHERE OTHER SINS ABOUND. We read of these people that they did evil before the eyes of God, and chose that wherein He delighted not. They blasphemed God, and polluted themselves with unhallowed rites, communing with demons and the powers of darkness, and pretending to speak with departed spirits; and yet for all that they said — "Stand by thyself, I am holier than thou." Self-righteousness is never more ridiculous than in persons whose conduct would not bear scrutiny for a moment. Self-righteous men, like foxes, have many tricks and schemes. They condemn in other people what they consider to be very excusable in themselves. These people will make a righteousness this way — they plead that if they do wrong yet there are some points in which they are splendid fellows. Some one thing in which the unconverted man may excel is put in to make up for his deficiencies in a hundred other ways. By hook or by crook a man will make out that he is not so bad as he seems to be; the inventiveness of self-esteem is prodigious. No heap of rubbish is too rotten for the accursed toadstool of proud self to grow upon. III. IT IS IN ITSELF A GREAT SIN. One is almost startled to find self-esteem placed after such a list of sins as this chapter records. To the Jew the eating of swine's flesh and broth of abominable things was a great pollution, but self-righteousness is classed with it; it is even placed with necromancy and witchcraft. Drunkenness and swearing are sin in rags, but self-righteousness is sin in a respectable black coat. It is an aristocratic sin, and does not like to be put down with the common Tuck; and if we call it sin, yet many will plead that it is only so in a very refined sense. But God does not think so; He classes it with the very worst, and He does so because it is one of the worst. For a man to be self-righteous is in itself a sin of sins. For, first, it is blasphemy. God is holy. Here comes this base impostor and boasts, "And I am holy too. Is not that a ludicrous and contemptible form of blasphemy? It is profanity in its very essence. More, this self-righteousness is idolatry, for the man who counts himself to be righteous by his own works worships himself. Practically, the object of his adoration is his own dear, delectable, excellent self. Then, again, it is profanity, for it gives God the distinct lie. The Lord declares that no man is righteous. IV. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE FRUIT OF MAN'S OWN THOUGHTS. Look at ver. 2. Those who have high thoughts of themselves do not walk according to God's commandments, but according to their own notions. If any man thinketh himself to be righteous in himself, he has never derived that idea from God's law, and certainly not from the Gospel, for the Gospel knows no man after the flesh as righteous, but it regards all men as sinners, and comes to them with pardon; it treats men as lost and comes to save them. Self-righteous people are not much inclined to search the Scriptures, they do not read them with an understanding heart, so as to get the meaning; they rather make the Bible say their own meaning, and twist it to support their own pleasing dream. V. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS HAS THIS VICE ABOUT IT, THAT IT ALWAYS LEADS TO DESPISING OTHERS. That is the pith of the text. VI. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IS MOST ABOMINABLE IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. What does He compare it to? He says, "It is a smoke in My nose, a fire that burneth all the day. At the bottom of the garden we gather together the dead leaves, and all the rubbish of the garden, and the heap is lighted, and it keeps on burning and smouldering all the day; and if you go and stand in the eye of the wind your eyes will smart, your nose will be offended, and you will feel that you cannot bear it. We do not wonder that He thus scorns and abhors proud selfrighteousness, for God is a God of truth, and truth cannot bear a lie, and selfrighteousness is a mass of lies. Moreover, self-righteousness is such a proud thing. God is always provoked with pride. Self-righteousness also denies the wisdom of God's plan, and is utterly opposed to it. God's present plan of working in the world goes upon the theory that we are guilty; being guilty, He provides a Saviour for us, and sends us a Gospel full of grace. VII. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS MOST EFFECTUALLY BARS A MAN FROM ALL HOPE OF SALVATION. We cannot be saved unless we become truly holy, but no man ever becomes truly holy who is content with a false holiness. Self-righteousness prevents repentance. You will never believe in Jesus Christ while you believe in yourself. What is the remedy for all this? God saith, "Behold Me"; that is to say, He bids thee cease from doting upon thine own fancied beauties and worshipping thine own foolish image. Look first to the holy God and tremble. Canst thou, of thyself, ever be like Him, pure, spotless, glorious? Look to Him and despair. Then comes the second, "Behold Me. See Jesus Christ on the cross dying, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. As thou seest Him dying thy self-righteousness will die. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) False grounds of superiority in holiness John Foster. The disposition to arrogate the dignity of religious worth and excellence has never become extinct among men, nor the quite consistent disposition to turn it to the use of pride. 1. In some instances, an assumption of superior holiness has been made upon the ground of belonging to a certain division or class of mankind; a class having its distinction in the circumstance of descent and nativity, or in some artificial constitution of society. Thus the ancient Jews, — in virtue merely of being Jews. Imagine the worst Jew comparing himself with Aristides, Phocion or Socrates. The Brahmins, in virtue of a pretended pre-eminently holy descent; an emanation from the head of their creating god. In popish countries, the numerous ecclesiastical class. Something of this even in protestant England. In these instances there has been an assumption of holiness independently of individual personal character. What an infamy to perverted human reason, that anything which might leave the individual evidently bad, in heart and life, could yet be taken as constituting him the reverse of bad, that is, holy! 2. In many periods and places men have reputed themselves "holy" on the ground of a punctilious observance of religious forms and ceremonies whether of Divine appointment or human invention. This took the place of the true religious sanctity among the Jews. It is a grand characteristic of paganism. It actually stands instead of religion and morality among the far greater part of the people under the dominion of the Romish Church. It is to be feared there are some among us who venture a delusive assumption on the ground of a regular attention to the external services of religion. But we have cause to know that all this may be, and yet no vital transforming prevalence of religion in the heart. 3. Another ground of such assumption is general rectitude of practical conduct, separate from the true religious principle of moral excellence. 4. The pride of self-estimation for holiness is apt to be betrayed by persons who have preserved a character substantially free from reproach, against those who have, in some known instance, fallen into great sin. It might have been a case in which they were encountered by sudden, or complicated, or very extraordinary temptation, such as all should pray earnestly to be saved from. The delinquent may have penitently deplored the transgression through many subsequent years. But it has been often enough seen that another person, who has been happy enough not to incur any such marked blemish on his character, will assume a tone of high superiority against him, though he may never have had the same strength of temptation to combat with; may never think of ascribing his exemption to any higher cause than his own good principles; and may be quite destitute of some valuable qualities the other possesses. The whole life of this self-applauder may have been little better than a series of negatives. His faulty, penitent brother may have done much good. 5. A man may have had his mind directed to a speculative knowledge of religious doctrine; and we will suppose that it is valuable knowledge that he has gained. All this ma be, and yet the man feel little or nothing of the sanctifying power of religious truth. Yet, so ready is the speculatist to take to himself all the dignity and excellence of his subject and his cause, that this man may take up a lofty pretension — if not strictly and formally to "holiness," yet to some meritorious relation to truth and religion; something which authorizes him in a high contempt, — not only of those who know nothing about religion, but also of those who feel its genuine influence and power, when they are feeble in the speculative intelligence of it. He accounts himself to be, as it were, in the confidence of religion, and that he must be invested with something of its venerable character, when he can so authentically declare its mind. 6. There is such a thing as a factitious zeal in the active service of religion; and that forms a ground of high pretension. Men in restless activity; hill of scheme, and expedient, and experiment, and ostentatious enterprise. But an attentive observer could easily descry that the cause of God was a very secondary concern with them, even at the best interpretation. Their grand object (whether they were conscious of it or not) was their own notoriety; and the cause of religion happened to be that which would most effectually serve this purpose. 7. There are a number of persons among professing Christians whose minds are almost ever dwelling on certain high points of doctrine, sought chiefly in the book of God's eternal decrees. And it is on these doctrines that they found, in some manner, an absolute assurance of their being in the Divine favour. God forbid that we should deny or doubt that there is a firm and rational assurance of salvation attainable in this life. But such persons as we are referring to betray that their assurance, which takes its stand on so lofty a position, independent of a faithful estimate of the heart and life, has an unsanctifying effect; it slackens and narrows the force and compass of the jurisdiction of conscience; and, especially, cherishes in them the spirit of our text. 8. We may name as one of the things made a ground of pretension and pride, the experience of elated, ardent, enthusiastic feelings, in some semblance of connection with religion, bat not really of its genuine inspiration. ( John Foster. ) Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster. Isaiah 65:8 God's regard far the faithful remnant of His people Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. As one does not destroy a cluster consisting of good and bad berries, because one would also destroy the Divine blessing contained in it, so Jehovah for His servants' sake will not annihilate Israel. He will not destroy all indiscriminately; the sense is not" the sap along with husk and shell (Knobel, Hahn), but: the berries having good sap along with the preponderant bad berries (J. H. Michaelis, Seinecke). (F. Delitzsch, D.D. ) It is an application to new circumstances of Isaiah's doctrine of the remnant (Isaiah 6:18). ( Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. ) Destroy it not. "Destroy it not J. G. Pearsall. View the passage in reference to — I. GOD'S ANCIENT PEOPLE, THE JEWS. II. CITIES AND NATIONS GENERALLY. III. THE STATE OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. IV. PENITENT BACK SLIDERS. V. YOUNG INQUIRERS. VI. THOSE WHO ARE CALLED MOST UNPROMISING CHARACTERS. ( J. G. Pearsall. ) Little things J. Bolton. Here we have four lessons taught us by a bunch of grapes. I. THAT GREAT GOOD MAY BE STORED IN LITTLE THINGS. A bunch of grapes is a little thing, and yet there is a blessing in it. With a heart given to Jesus, a child is a sun which cannot but shine, a fountain which cannot but send out streams, a flower which cannot but fill the air with sweetness. II. GOD ALONE PUTS THE BLESSING INTO LITTLE THINGS. In this He displays — 1. His wisdom. 2. His omnipotence 3. His condescension and compassion. III. LITTLE THINGS ARE TO BE SPARED FOR THIS BLESSING IN THEM. There are plenty of little things which you are apt to despise because they are little, and yet, destroy them not, says God, for a blessing is in them. 1. Your vows and resolutions. 2. Your principles. 3. Your habits. 4. Your character. 5. Your friendships. 6. Your interest in the heathen. IV. IF THE BLESSING IS LACKING IN THEM THEY WILL BE UNDONE FOP. EVER. " Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it." As if it were said, If there were no blessing in it, then it might be destroyed. It is the blessing which delivers. If there is no blessing in us, we are doomed. The unprofitable servant hid his talent in the napkin, but he could not hide himself from his master's indignation. ( J. Bolton. ) That prepare a table for that troop. Isaiah 65:11, 12 Luck and Fortune Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. Among Orientals the planets Jupiter and Venus were worshipped as the Larger and the Lesser Luck. They were worshipped as Merodach and Istar among the Babylonians. Merodach was worshipped for prosperity. It may be Merodach and Istar to whom are here given the names Gad (or Luck) and Meni, or Fate, Fortune. There was in the Babylonian Pantheon a " Manu the Great, who presided over fate." ( Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. ) The "lectisternia Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. The rites described are the lectisternia, well known throughout the ancient world, in which a table was spread, furnished with meats and drinks as a meal for the gods. ( Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. ) God or chance F. W. Farrar, D. D. Let us give the passage its true rendering, and it may convey to us a very solemn lesson. It is, " That as for you that forsake His service, that prepare a table for fortune, and pour out the wine for destiny, I have destined you for the slaughter. Behold, My servants shall eat; but ye who prepare a table for fortune shall be hungry. Behold, My servants shall drink; but ye who pour out libations to destiny shall be thirsty. Behold, My servants shall rejoice; but ye who believe in luck shall be ashamed. Ye shall leave your name for a curse. My servants shall bless themselves, and shall swear by the God of Amen — that is, the God of verity and of faithfulness. The apostate Jews were beginning to trust in the gods of the nations, to make banquets to the planet Jupiter, which they regarded as the star of fortune, and to pour libations to the planet Venus, which they regarded as the star of luck. Therefore God tells them that not these stars, not these idols, not these imaginary entities; but that He would be their destiny, and that He would deliver them, because fortune and destiny which they worshipped could guide them only to hunger and thirst, and ruin; but His servants, they who trusted in Him, should never be ashamed; they should find Him to be their God, a God of blessing, a God of amen — yea, a faithful witness. ( F. W. Farrar, D. D. ) The temptation to ignore God F. W. Farrar, D. . D., F. W. Farrar, D. . D. Have we no similar temptation? The passage is full of the deepest lessons. It touches upon the very first commandment - "Thou shalt have none other gods but Me." It emphasizes the very first chapter o Genesis - "It is God that hath mad us, and not we ourselves." It is nothing short of a whole philosophy of history and a whole philosophy of life. The terms, "accident," "fortune," "luck," play a vast part in the customs and literature of the world, but no part at all in Scripture. The very word "chance," properly speaking, is entirely absent alike from the Old and New Testament. It is, I suppose, belief in chance that gives its terrible fascination to that pestilent folly of gambling which has ruined so many thousands of Englishmen. But let us look at this subject of the supposed government of life by chance from far wider points of view than these. 1. For instance, it very closely affects our human history. The ancient nations believed in chance. They called it "chance," or "fortune, if one man got a crown as the prize of his wickedness and the other got a gibblet; they called it "chance" if a battle lost, which raised one ruler from a dungeon to a throne, cut down another form the throne to a dungeon. In this way they, as the prophet says, raised a table to fortune. Do you look at the history of mankind in this way or not? What is history to you? Is it a mere ghastly phantasmagoria of human passions struggling together, or is it the unfolding of a great Divine drama to a merciful issue? Neither in national life nor individual life can we pretend to understand the dealings of God. We cannot tell why the career of a great man is cut short just when he might seem to have been most able to save his country, and why the life of a villain is not cut short before he has done thousands into misery and ruin. We are like a deaf man watching the angers of the harpist as they dance over the strings. 2. But now, turning from history in general to the individual lives of each of us, I can hardly exaggerate the difference which it will make to us whether we regard our lives as being guided by God or as being guided by accident. Nominally, I suppose, we all profess that it is God who is weaving the pattern of our little clay; but do we truly believe it, and do we behave as if we did? Take, for instance, the events of which we habitually speak as the accidents of life. If we can think that these things happen simply by chance, what misery it may cause us! How do men and women thus painfully stricken sometimes curse the day of their life I But what a difference when they have the grace to recognize that this may be in their own life but bitter aloes from the gentle hand of God! As this thought, that it is God and not chance who "shapes our ends," touches even the most imperfect characters with the glory of resignation, how may it give to the whole course of our daily, life the grace of contentment! ( F. W. Farrar, D. . D. )I wish to emphasize the prophet's warning against the counter sin of pouring out spiced wine for destiny — in other words, of regarding all life as though we were the helpless victims of blind necessity, of irreversible laws, of passionless and adamantine forces, which we can neither modify nor resist. The forms taken by this view of destiny are sometimes religious and sometimes irreligious. 1. One of them pro-Ceases to be very religious indeed — it is Calvinism. 2. Another form of this worship of destiny is fatalism — the notion that as God has decreed everything in this life, nothing will happen except what He has decreed, and therefore that it is quite useless for men to stir. When, in the conquest of Mexico, the unhappy emperor, Montezuma, was .crushed with blow after blow of disaster, he made use of this proverb, "We are born; let that come which must come." Fatalism, like Calvinism, is founded on misapprehended truths, and issues in deplorable results; and it, too, must be flung away as being, for all practical purposes, absurd and false. 3. But there is one more form of "preparing a table for fortune, and pouring out spiced wine for destiny." It is materialism, which denies the existence of God altogether, or treats Him, at the best, as an unproved hypothesis. It makes its God of science, of nature, of material laws, of man himself. It makes man a mere machine. It destroys at a touch all responsibility. It makes suicide a perfectly permissible resource. It says, to quote its own votaries, that nothing is worthy our efforts, our struggles, or our energies — that the world is a bankrupt in all quarters, and life a business which does not pay its expenses, and annihilation preferable to existence, and the world fundamentally something which ought not to exist. Well, as long as there is such a thing as Christianity, we must brand the insolent, aspiring brow of these spurious notions. ( F. W. Farrar, D. . D. ) Therefore will I number you to the sword. - Isaiah 65:12-14 The declaration of God against the disobedience of Israel R. G. Buddicomb, M. A. I. THE ACCUSATION. A guilty inattention to the voice of God. II. THE THREAT (vers. 13, 14). ( R. G. Buddicomb, M. A. ) God's call despised J. Lyth, D. D. I. THE GRACIOUS CALL OF GOD. II. THE IMPENITENCE OF MANY. III. THE INEVITABLE RESULT. ( J. Lyth, D. D. ) Behold, My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry. Isaiah 65:13-14 The better feast W. Mudge. It is observable how frequently in Holy Scripture mankind are divided into two classes. In the text, the Lord God Himself clearly distinguishes between His servants and others. The one shall eat, drink, and rejoice; the other shall hunger, thirst, and be sorrowful. I. THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE LORD'S SERVANTS. II. THE MISERY OF THOSE WHO DISOBEY HIM. ( W. Mudge. ) Incentives to religious decision S. Thodey. I. FROM THE SUPERIOR ADVANTAGES OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE BEYOND ALL THE BOASTED DISTINCTIONS OR PROFESSION OF WORLDLY AND UNGODLY MEN. 1. They have a better Master and portion. 2. They have better resources and supplies. 3. They have better enjoyments. 4. They have better prospects. II. FROM THE PECULIAR SOURCES OF DISSATISFACTION AND WRETCHEDNESS TO WHICH YOU ARE EXPOSED. ( S. Thodey. ) Behold, My servants shall sing. Isaiah 65:14 Joys W. Birch. Heathenism knows nothing of the gladness described in oar text, But in this life every man may sing for joy of heart. 1. God makes His servants sing for joy of heart. There was once a famous musician who could bring out the most charming music from one string of a violin. Like that violin, many of us have only one string, and that a cracked one; but our God can

65:1-7 The Gentiles came to seek God, and find him, because they were first sought and found of him. Often he meets some thoughtless trifler or profligate opposer, and says to him, Behold me; and a speedy change takes place. All the gospel day, Christ waited to be gracious. The Jews were bidden, but would not come. It is not without cause they are rejected of God. They would do what most pleased them. They grieved, they vexed the Holy Spirit. They forsook God's temple, and sacrificed in groves. They cared not for the distinction between clean and unclean meats, before it was taken away by the gospel. Perhaps this is put for all forbidden pleasures, and all that is thought to be gotten by sin, that abominable thing which the Lord hates. Christ denounced many woes against the pride and hypocrisy of the Jews. The proof against them is plain. And let us watch against pride and self-preference, remembering that every sin, and the most secret thoughts of man's heart, are known and will be judged by God. 65:8-10 In the bunch of unripe grapes, at present of no value, the new wine is contained. The Jews have been kept a distinct people, that all may witness the fulfilment of ancient prophecies and promises. God's chosen, the spiritual seed of praying Jacob, shall inherit his mountains of bliss and joy, and be carried safe to them through the vale of tears. All things are for the display of God's glory in the redemption of sinners. 65:11-16 Here the different states of the godly and wicked, of the Jews who believed, and of those who persisted in unbelief, are set against one another. They prepared a table for that troop of deities which the heathen worship, and poured out drink-offerings to that countless number. Their worshippers spared no cost to honour them, which should shame the worshippers of the true God. See the malignity of sin; it is doing by choice what we know will displease God. In every age and nation, the Lord leaves those who persist in doing evil, and despise the call of the gospel. God's servants shall have the bread of life, and shall want nothing good for them. But those who forsake the Lord, shall be ashamed of vain confidence in their own righteousness, and the hopes they built thereon. Wordly people bless themselves in the abundance of this world's goods; but God's servants bless themselves in him. He is their strength and portion. They shall honour him as the God of truth. And it was promised that in him should all the families of the earth be blessed. They shall think themselves happy in having him for their God, who made them forget their troubles. 65:17-25 In the grace and comfort believers have in and from Christ, we are to look for this new heaven and new earth. The former confusions, sins and miseries of the human race, shall be no more remembered or renewed. The approaching happy state of the church is described under a variety of images. He shall be thought to die in his youth, and for his sins, who only lives to the age of a hundred years. The event alone can determine what is meant; but it is plain that Christianity, if universal, would so do away violence and evil, as greatly to lengthen life. In those happy days, all God's people shall enjoy the fruit of their labours. Nor will children then be the trouble of their parents, or suffer trouble themselves. The evil dispositions of sinners shall be completely moritified; all shall live in harmony. Thus the church on earth shall be full of happiness, like heaven. This prophecy assures the servants of Christ, that the time approaches, wherein they shall be blessed with the undisturbed enjoyment of all that is needful for their happiness. As workers together with God, let us attend his ordinances, and obey his commands.