Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 2:1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. CHAPTER II THE THREE JERUSALEMS 740-735 B.C. Isaiah 2:1-22 ; Isaiah 3:1-26 ; Isaiah 4:1-6 AFTER the general introduction, in chapter 1, to the prophecies of Isaiah, there comes another portion of the book, of greater length, but nearly as distinct as the first. It covers four chapters, the second to the sixth, all of them dating from the same earliest period of Isaiah’s ministry, before 735 B.C. They deal with exactly the same subjects, but they differ greatly inform. One section (chapters 2-4.) consists of a number of short utterances-evidently not all spoken at the same time, for they conflict with one another-a series of consecutive prophecies, that probably represent the stages of conviction through which Isaiah passed in his prophetic apprenticeship; a second section (chapter 5) is a careful and artistic restatement, in parable and oration, of the truths he has thus attained; while a third section (chapter 6) is narrative, probably written subsequently to the first two, but describing an inspiration and official call, which must have preceded them both. The more one examines chapters 2-6., and finds that they but express the same truths in different forms, the more one is confirmed in some such view of them as this, which, it is believed, the following exposition will justify. chapters 5 and 6 are twin appendices to the long summary in 2-4: chapter 5 a public vindication and enforcement of the results of that summary, chapter 6 a private vindication to the prophet’s heart of the very same truths, by a return to the secret moment of their original inspiration. We may assign 735 B.C., just before or just after the accession of Ahaz, as the date of the latest of these prophecies. The following is their historical setting. For more than half a century the kingdom of Judah, under two powerful and righteous monarchs, had enjoyed the greatest prosperity. Uzziah strengthened the borders, extended the supremacy and vastly increased the resources of his little State, which, it is well to remember, was in its own size not larger than three average Scottish counties. He won back for Judah the port of Elah on the Red Sea, built a navy, and restored the commerce with the far East, which Solomon began. He overcame, in battle or by the mere terror of his name, the neighbouring nations-the Philistines that dwelt in cities, and the wandering tribes of desert Arabs. The Ammonites brought him gifts. With the wealth, which the East by tribute or by commerce poured into his little principality, Uzziah fortified his borders and his capital, undertook large works of husbandry and irrigation, organised a powerful standing army, and supplied it with a siege artillery capable of slinging arrows and stones. "His name spread far abroad, for he was marvellously helped till he was strong." His son Jotham (740-735 B.C.) continued his father s policy with nearly all his father’s success. He built cities and castles, quelled a rebellion among his tributaries, and caused their riches to flow faster still into Jerusalem. But while Jotham bequeathed to his country a sure defence and great wealth, and to his people a strong spirit and prestige among the nations, he left another bequest, which robbed these of their value-the son who succeeded him. In 735 Jotham died and Ahaz became king. He was very young, and stepped to the throne from the hareem. He brought to the direction of the government the petulant will of a spoiled child, the mind of an intriguing and superstitious, woman. It was-when the national policy felt the paralysis consequent on these that Isaiah published at least the later part of the prophecies now marked off as chapters 2-4 of his book. "My people," he cries-"my people! children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah had been born into the flourishing nation while Uzziah was king. The great events of that monarch’s reign were his education, the still grander hopes they prompted the passion of his virgin fancy. He must have absorbed as the very temper of his youth this national consciousness which swelled so proudly in Judah under Uzziah. But the accession of such a king as Ahaz, while it was sure to let loose the passions and follies fostered by a period of rapid increase in luxury, could not fail to afford to Judah’s enemies the long-deferred opportunity of attacking her. It was an hour both of the manifestation of sin and of the judgment of sin-an hour in which, while the majesty of Judah, sustained through two great reigns, was about to disappear in the follies of a third, the majesty of Judah’s God should become more conspicuous than ever. Of this Isaiah had been privately conscious, as we shall see, for five years. "In the year that king Uzziah died," (740), the young Jew "saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up." Startled into prophetic consciousness by the awful contrast between an earthly majesty that had so long fascinated men, but now sank into a leper’s grave, and the heavenly, which rose sovereign and everlasting above it, Isaiah had gone on to receive conviction of his people’s sin and certain punishment. With the accession of Ahaz, five years later, his own political experience was so far developed as to permit of his expressing in their exact historical effects the awful principles of which he had received foreboding when Uzziah died. What we find in chapters 2-4 is a record of the struggle of his mind towards this expression; it is the summary, as we have already said, of Isaiah’s apprenticeship. "The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem." We do not know anything of Isaiah’s family or of the details of his upbringing. He was a member of some family of Jerusalem, and in intimate relations with the Court. It has been believed that he was of royal blood, but it matters little whether this be true or not. A spirit so wise and masterful as his did not need social rank to fit it for that intimacy with princes which has doubtless suggested the legend of his royal descent. What does matter is Isaiah’s citizenship in Jerusalem, for this colours all his prophecy. More than Athens to Demosthenes, Rome to Juvenal, Florence to Dante, is Jerusalem to Isaiah. She is his immediate and ultimate regard, the centre and return of all his thoughts, the hinge of the history of his time, the one thing worth preserving amidst its disasters, the summit of those brilliant hopes with which he fills the future. He has traced for us the main features of her position and some of the lines of her construction, many of the great figures of her streets, the fashions of her women, the arrival of embassies, the effect of rumours. He has painted her aspect in triumph, in siege, in famine, and in earthquake; war filling her valleys with chariots, and again nature rolling tides of fruitfulness up to her gates; her moods of worship and panic and profligacy-till we see them all as clearly as the shadow following the sunshine, and the breeze the breeze, across the cornfields of our own summers. If he takes wider observation of mankind, Jerusalem is his watch-tower. It is for her defence he battles through fifty years of statesmanship, and all his prophecy may be said to travail in anguish for her new birth. He was never away from her walls, but not even the psalms of the captives by the rivers of Babylon, with the desire of exile upon them, exhibit more beauty and pathos than the lamentations which Isaiah poured upon Jerusalem’s sufferings or the visions in which he described her future solemnity and peace. It is not with surprise, therefore, that we find the first prophecies of Isaiah directed upon his mother city: "The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem." There is little about Judah in these chapters: the country forms but a fringe to the capital. Before we look into the subject of the prophecy, however, a short digression is necessary on the manner in which it is presented to us. It is not a reasoned composition or argument we have here; it is a vision, it is the word which Isaiah saw. The expression is vague, often abused and in need of defining. Vision is not employed here to express any magical display before the eyes of the prophet of the very words which he was to speak to the people, or any communication to his thoughts by dream or ecstasy. They are higher qualities of "vision" which these chapters unfold. There is, first of all, the power of forming an ideal, of seeing and describing a thing in the fulfilment of all the promise that is in it. But these prophecies are much more remarkable for two other powers of inward vision, to which we give the names of insight and intuition-insight into human character, intuition of Divine principles-"clear knowledge of what man is and how God will act"-a keen discrimination of the present state of affairs in Judah, and unreasoned conviction of moral truth and the Divine will. The original meaning of the Hebrew word saw, which is used in the title to this series, is to cleave, or split; then to see into, to see through, to get down beneath the surface of things and discover their real nature. And what characterises the bulk of these visions is penetrativeness, the keenness of a man who will not be deceived by an outward show that he delights to hold up to our scorn, but who has a conscience for the inner worth of things and for their future consequences. To lay stress on the moral meaning of the prophet’s vision is not to grudge, but to emphasise its inspiration by God. Of that inspiration Isaiah was himself assured. It was God’s Spirit that enabled him to see thus keenly; for he saw things keenly, net only as men count moral keenness, but as God Himself sees them, in their value in His sight and in their attractiveness for His love and pity. In this prophecy there occurs a striking expression "the eyes of the glory of God." It was the vision of the Almighty Searcher and Judge, burning through man’s pretence, with which the prophet felt himself endowed. This then was the second element in his vision-to penetrate men’s hearts as God Himself penetrated them, and constantly, without squint or blur, to see right from wrong in their eternal difference. And the third element is the intuition of God’s will, the perception of what line of action He will take. This last, of course, forms the distinct prerogative of Hebrew prophecy, that power of vision which is its climax; the moral situation being clear, to see then how God will act upon it. Under these three powers of vision Jerusalem, the prophet’s city, is presented to us-Jerusalem in three lights, really three Jerusalems. First, there is flashed out { Isaiah 2:2-5 } a vision of the ideal city, Jerusalem idealised and glorified. Then comes { Isaiah 2:6 - Isaiah 4:1 } a very realistic picture, a picture of the actual Jerusalem. And lastly at the close of the prophecy { Isaiah 4:2-6 } we have a vision of Jerusalem as she shall be after God has taken her in hand-very different indeed from the ideal with which the prophet began. Here are three successive motives or phases of prophecy, which, as we have said, in all probability summarise the early ministry of Isaiah, and present him to us first, as the idealist or visionary; second, as the realist or critic; and, third, as the prophet proper or revealer of God’s actual will. I. THE IDEALIST { Isaiah 2:1-5 } All men who have shown our race how great things are possible have had their inspiration in dreaming of the impossible. Reformers, who at death were content to have lived for the moving forward but one inch of some of their fellow-men, began by believing themselves able to lift the whole world at once. Isaiah was no exception to this human fashion. His first vision was that of a Utopia, and his first belief that his countrymen would immediately realise it. He lifts up to us a very grand picture of a vast commonwealth centred in Jerusalem. Some think he borrowed it from an older prophet; Micah has it also; it may have been the ideal of the age. But, at any rate, if we are not to take Isaiah 2:5 in scorn, Isaiah accepted this as his own. "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it." The prophet’s own Jerusalem shall be the light of the world, the school and temple of the earth, the seat of the judgment of the Lord, when He shall reign over the nations, and all mankind shall dwell in peace beneath Him. It is a glorious destiny, and as its light shines from the far-off horizon, the latter days, in which the prophet sees it, what wonder that he is possessed and cries aloud, "O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord!" It seems to the young prophet’s hopeful heart as if at once that ideal would be realised, as if by his own word he could lift his people to its fulfilment. But that is impossible, and Isaiah perceives so as soon as he turns from the far-off horizon to the city at his feet, as soon as he leaves tomorrow alone and deals with today. The next verses of the chapter-from Isaiah 2:6 onwards-stand in strong contrast to those which have described Israel’s ideal. There Zion is full of the law and Jerusalem of the word of the Lord, the one religion flowing over from this centre upon the world. Here into the actual Jerusalem they have brought all sorts of foreign worship and heathen prophets; "they are replenished from the East, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and strike hands with the children of strangers." There all nations come to worship at Jerusalem; here her thought and faith are scattered over the idolatries of all nations. The ideal Jerusalem is full of spiritual blessings; the actual, of the spoils of trade. There the swords are beat into ploughshares and the. spears into pruning-hooks; here are vast and novel armaments, horses and chariots. There the Lord alone is worshipped; here the city is crowded with idols. The real Jerusalem could not possibly be more different from the ideal, nor its inhabitants as they are from what the prophet had confidently called on them to be. II. THE REALIST { Isaiah 2:6 - Isaiah 4:1 } Therefore Isaiah’s attitude and tone suddenly change. The visionary becomes a realist, the enthusiast a cynic, the seer of the glorious city of God the prophet of God’s judgment. The recoil is absolute in style, temper, and thought, down to the very figures of speech which he uses. Before, Isaiah had seen, as it were, a lifting process at work, "Jerusalem in the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills." Now he beholds nothing but depression. "For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and haughty, upon all that is lifted up, and it shall be brought low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." Nothing in the great civilisation, which he had formerly glorified, is worth preserving. The high towers, fenced walls, ships of Tarshish, treasures and armour must all perish; even the hills lifted by his imagination shall be bowed down, and "the Lord alone be exalted in that day." This recoil reaches its extreme in the last verse of the chapter. The prophet, who had believed so much in man as to think possible an immediate commonwealth of nations, believes in man now so little that he does not hold him worth preserving: "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?" Attached to this general denunciation are some satiric descriptions, in the third chapter, of the anarchy to which society in Jerusalem is fast being reduced under its childish and effeminate king. The scorn of these passages is scathing; "the eyes of the glory of God" burn through every rank, fashion, and ornament in the town. King and court are not spared; the elders and princes are rigorously denounced. But by far the most striking effort of the prophet’s boldness is his prediction of the overthrow of Jerusalem itself ( Isaiah 3:8 ). What it cost Isaiah to utter and the people to hear we can only partly measure. To his own passionate patriotism it must have felt like treason, to the blind optimism of the popular religion it doubtless appeared the rankest heresy-to aver that the holy city, inviolate and almost unthreatened since the day David brought to her the ark of the Lord, and destined by the voice of her prophets, including Isaiah himself, to be established upon the tops of the mountains, was now to fall into ruin. But Isaiah’s conscience overcomes his sense of consistency, and he who has just proclaimed the eternal glory of Jerusalem is provoked by his knowledge of her citizens’ sins to recall his words and intimate her destruction. It may have been that Isaiah was partly emboldened to so novel a threat, by his knowledge of the preparations which Syria and Israel were already making for the invasion of Judah. The prospect of Jerusalem, as the centre of a vast empire subject to Jehovah, however natural it was under a successful ruler like Uzziah, became, of course, unreal when every one of Uzziah’s and Jotham’s tributaries had risen in revolt against their successor, Ahaz. But of these outward movements Isaiah tells us nothing. He is wholly engrossed with Judah’s sin. It is his growing acquaintance with the corruption of his fellow countrymen that has turned his back on the ideal city of his opening ministry, and changed him into a prophet of Jerusalem’s ruin. "Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His glory." Judge, prophet, and elder, all the upper ranks and useful guides of the people, must perish. It is a sign of the degradation to which society shall be reduced, when Isaiah with keen sarcasm pictures the despairing people choosing a certain man to be their ruler because he alone has a coat to his back! { Isaiah 3:6 } With increased scorn Isaiah turns lastly upon the women of Jerusalem, { Isaiah 3:16-26 ; Isaiah 4:1-2 } and here perhaps the change which has passed over him since his opening prophecy is most striking. One likes to think of how the citizens of Jerusalem took this alteration in their prophet’s temper. We know how popular so optimist a prophecy as that of the mountain of the Lord’s house must have been, and can imagine how men and women loved the young face, bright with a far-off light, and the dream of an ideal that had no quarrel with the present. "But what a change is this that has come over him, who speaks not of tomorrow, but of today, who has brought his gaze from those distant horizons to our streets, who stares every man in the face, { Isaiah 3:9 } and makes the women feel that no pin and trimming, no ring and bracelet, escape his notice! Our loved prophet has become an impudent scorner!" Ah, men and women of Jerusalem, beware of those eyes! "The glory of God" is burning in them; they see you through and through, and they tell us that all your armour and the "show of your countenance," and your foreign fashions are as nothing, for there are corrupt hearts below. This is your judgment, that "instead of sweet spices there shall be rottenness, and instead of a girdle a rope, and instead of well-set hair baldness, and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth, and branding instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall be desolate and sit upon the ground!" This was the climax of the prophet’s judgment. If the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot. If the women are corrupt the state is moribund. III. THE PROPHET OF THE LORD { Isaiah 4:2-6 } IS there, then, no hope for Jerusalem? Yes, but not where the prophet sought it at first, in herself, and not in the way he offered it-by the mere presentation of an ideal. There is hope, there is more-there is certain salvation in the Lord, but it only comes after judgment. Contrast that opening picture of the new Jerusalem with this closing one, and we shall find their difference to lie in two things. There the city is more prominent than the Lord, here the Lord is more prominent than the city; there no word of judgment, here judgment sternly emphasised as the indispensable way towards the blessed future. A more vivid sense of the Person of Jehovah Himself, a deep conviction of the necessity of chastisement: these are what Isaiah has gained during his early ministry, without losing hope or heart for the future. The bliss shall come only when the Lord shall "have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning." It is a corollary of all this that the participants of that future shall be many fewer than in the first vision of the prophet. The process of judgment must weed men out, and in place of all nations coming to Jerusalem, to share its peace and glory, the prophet can speak now only of Israel-and only of a remnant of Israel. "The escaped of Israel, the left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem." This is a great change in Isaiah’s ideal, from the supremacy of Israel over all nations to the bare survival of a remnant of his people. Is there not in this threefold vision a parallel and example for our own civilisation and our thoughts about it? All work and wisdom begin in dreams. We must see our Utopias before we start to build our stone and lime cities. "It takes a soul To move a body; it takes a high-souled man To move the masses even to a cleaner stye; It takes the ideal to blow an inch inside The dust of the actual." But the light of our ideals dawns upon us only to show how poor by nature are the mortals who are called to accomplish them. The ideal rises still as to Isaiah only to exhibit the poverty of the real. When we lift our eyes from the hills of vision, and rest them on our fellow-men, hope and enthusiasm die out of us. Isaiah’s disappointment is that of every one who brings down his gaze from the clouds to the streets. Be our ideal ever so desirable, be we ever so persuaded of its facility, the moment we attempt to apply it we shall be undeceived. Society cannot be regenerated all at once. There is an expression which Isaiah emphasises in his moment of cynicism: "The show of their countenance doth witness against them." It tells us that when he called his countrymen to turn to the light he lifted upon them he saw nothing but the exhibition of their sin made plain. When we bring light to a cavern whose inhabitants have lost their eyes by the darkness, the light does not make them see; we have to give them eyes again. Even so no vision or theory of a perfect state-the mistake which all young reformers make- can regenerate society. It will only reveal social corruption, and sicken the heart of the reformer himself. For the possession of a great ideal does not mean, as so many fondly imagine, work accomplished; it means work revealed-work revealed so vast, often so impossible, that faith and hope die down, and the enthusiast of yesterday becomes the cynic of tomorrow. "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted?" In this despair, through which every worker for God and man must pass, many a warm heart has grown cold, many an intellect become paralysed. There is but one way of escape, and that is Isaiah’s. It is to believe in God Himself; it is to believe that He is at work, that His purposes to man are saving purposes, and that with Him there is an inexhaustible source of mercy and virtue. So from the blackest pessimism shall arise new hope and faith, as from beneath Isaiah’s darkest verses that glorious passage suddenly bursts like uncontrollable spring from the very feet of winter. "For that day shall the spring of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel." This is all it is possible to say. There must be a future for man, because God loves him, and God reigns. That future can be reached only through judgment, because God is righteous. To put it another way: All of us who live to work for our fellow-men or who hope to lift them higher by our word begin with our own visions of a great future. These visions, though our youth lends to them an original generosity and enthusiasm, are, like Isaiah’s, largely borrowed. The progressive instincts of the age into which we are born and the mellow skies of prosperity combine with our own ardour to make our ideal one of splendour. Persuaded of its facility, we turn to real life to apply it. A few years pass. We not only find mankind too stubborn to be forced into our moulds, but we gradually become aware of Another Moulder at work upon our subject, and we stand aside in awe to watch His operations. Human desires and national ideals are not always fulfilled; philosophic theories are discredited by the evolution of fact. Uzziah does not reign for ever; the sceptre falls to Ahaz: progress is checked, and the summer of prosperity draws to an end. Under duller skies ungilded judgment comes to view, cruel and inexorable, crushing even the peaks on which we built our future, yet purifying men and giving earnest of a better future, too. And so life, that mocked the control of our puny fingers, bends groaning to the weight of an Almighty Hand. God also, we perceive as we face facts honestly, has His ideal for men; and though He works so slowly towards His end that our restless eyes are too impatient to follow His order, He yet reveals all that shall be to the humbled heart and the soul emptied of its own visions. Awed and chastened, we look back from His Presence to our old ideals. We are still able to recognise their grandeur and generous hope for men. But we see now how utterly unconnected they are with the present-castles in the air, with no ladders to them from the earth. And even if they were accessible, still to our eyes, purged by gazing on God’s own ways, they would no more appear desirable. Look back on Isaiah’s early ideal from the light of his second vision of the future. For all its grandeur, that picture of Jerusalem is not wholly attractive. Is there not much national arrogance in it? Is it not just the imperfectly idealised reflection of an age of material prosperity such as that of Uzziah’s was? Pride is in it, a false optimism, the highest good to be reached without moral conflict. But here is the language of pity, rescue with difficulty, rest only after sore struggle and stripping, salvation by the bare arm of God. So do our imaginations for our own future or for that of the race always contrast with what He Himself has in store for us, promised freely out of His great grace to our unworthy hearts, yet granted in the end only to those who pass towards it through discipline, tribulation, and fire. This, then, was Isaiah’s apprenticeship, and its net result was to leave him with the remnant for his ideal: the remnant and Jerusalem secured as its rallying-point. 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The word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Isaiah 2:1 Heading to a small collection A. B. Davidson, LL. D. (chaps. 2-4), the contents of which are — 1. ( Isaiah 2:1-4 ) All nations shall yet acknowledge the God of Israel. 2. ( Isaiah 2:5-4:1 ) Through great judgments shall both Israel and the nations be brought to the knowledge of Jehovah 3. ( Isaiah 4:2-6 ) When these judgments are overpast, all Zion's citizens shall be holy. ( A. B. Davidson, LL. D. ) A general view of the chapter Prof . S. R. Driver, D. D. The verses 2-4, it should be premised, recur with slight variations in the fourth chapter of Micah, and are supposed by many to have been borrowed by both writers from some older source. The prophet appears before an assembly of the people, perhaps on a Sabbath, and recites this passage, depicting in beautiful and effective imagery the spiritual preeminence to be accorded in the future to the religion of Zion He would dwell upon the subject further; but scarcely has he begun to speak when the disheartening spectacle meets his eye of a crowd of soothsayers, of gold and silver ornaments and finery, of horses and idols; his tone immediately changes, and he bursts into a diatribe against the foreign and idolatrous fashions, the devotion to wealth and glitter, which he sees about him, and which extorts from him in the end the terrible wish, "Therefore forgive them not" (vers. 5-9). And then, in one of his stateliest periods, Isaiah declares the judgment about to fall upon all that is "tall and lofty," upon Uzziah's towers and fortified walls, upon the great merchant ships at Elath, upon every object of human satisfaction and pride, when wealth and rank will be impotent to save, when idols will be cast despairingly aside, and when all classes alike will be glad to find a hiding place, as in the old days of Midianite invasion or Philistine oppression ( Judges 6:2 ; 1 Samuel 13:6 ), in the clefts and caves of the rocks. ( Prof . S. R. Driver, D. D. ) Isaiah's citizenship in Jerusalem Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. colours all his prophecy. More than Athens to Demosthenes, Rome to Juvenal, Florence to Dante, is Jerusalem to Isaiah. She is his immediate and ultimate regard, the centre and return of all his thoughts, the hinge of the history of his time, the one thing worth preserving amidst its disasters, the summit of those brilliant hopes with which he fills the future. He has traced for us the main features of her position and some of the lines of her construction, many of the great figures of her streets, the fashions of her women, the arrival of embassies, the effect of rumours. He has painted her aspect in triumph, in siege, in famine, and in earthquake; war filling her valleys with chariots, and again nature rolling tides of fruitfulness up to her gates; her moods of worship and panic and profligacy — till we see them all as clearly as the shadow following the sunshine and the breeze across the cornfields of our own summers. ( Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. ) Judah and Jerusalem Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. There is little about Judah in these chapters: the country forms but a fringe to the capital. ( Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. ) The Word of the Lord "seen F. Delitzsch. Though the spirit of man has neither eyes nor ears, yet when enabled to perceive the supersensuous, it is altogether eye. ( F. Delitzsch. ) And it shall come to pass in the last days. Isaiah 2:2-4 Isaiah's description of the last days Sir E. Strachey, Bart. The description of "the last days" — which in the Hebrew begins, "And it hath come to pass...the mountain of Jehovah's house shall be established," etc. — is an instance of the use of the perfect tense to express the certain future. Its explanation seems to be that the structure of such a passage as that before us is imaginative, not logical — a picture, not a statement. The speaker completely projects himself into "the last days"; he is there, he finds them come; he looks about him to see what is actually going on, and sees that the mountain of Jehovah's house is about to be — still in process of being — established at the head of the mountains; he looks again, and the nations have already arrived at the place prepared for them, yet so freshly that they are still calling one another on; and as they come up they find that the King they seek is already there, and has effected some of His judgments and decisions before they arrive for their, turn. ( Sir E. Strachey, Bart. ) An epitome of Isaiah's vision Sir E. Strachey, Bart. (vers. 2-4): — Isaiah, "rapt into future times," sees the throne of the Lord of Israel established in sovereignty over all the nations of the earth, and they becoming willing subjects to Him, and friendly citizens to each other. The nations attain to true liberty, for they come to submit themselves to the righteous laws and institutions, and to the wise and gracious word and direction of that King whose service is perfect freedom; and to true brotherhood, for they leave their old enmities and conflicts, and make the same Lord their Judge and Umpire and Reconciler. And all this, not by some newly invented device of the nations, some new result of their own civilisation, but by the carrying out of the old original purpose and plan of God, that His chosen people of the Jews should be the ministers of these good things, and that in them should all nations of the earth be blessed, — that "out of Zion should go forth the law, and the Word of Jehovah from Jerusalem." This is the vocation of the Hebrew people. This, says the prophet, is the key to all our duties as a nation, this is the master light to guide us to right action. ( Sir E. Strachey, Bart. ) The supremacy of Mount Zion Transport yourselves for a moment to the foot of Mount Zion. As you stand there, you observe that it is but a very little hill. Bashan is far loftier, and Carmel and Sharon outvie it. As for Lebanon, Zion is but a little hillock compared with it. If you think for a moment of the Alps, or of the loftier Andes, or of the yet mightier Himalayas, this Mount Zion seems to be a very little hill, a mere molehill, insignificant, despicable, and obscure. Stand there for a moment, until the Spirit of God touches your eye, and you shall see this hill begin to grow. Up it mounts, with the temple on its summit, till it outreaches Tabor. Onward it grows, till Carmel, with its perpetual green, is left behind, and Salmon, with its everlasting snow sinks before it. Onward still it grows, till the snowy peaks of Lebanon are eclipsed. Still onward mounts the hill, drawing with its mighty roots other mountains and hills into its fabric; and onward it rises, till piercing the clouds it reaches above the Alps; and onwards still, till the Himalayas seem to be sucked into its bowels, and the greatest mountains of the earth appear to be but as the roots that strike out from the side of the eternal hill; and there it rises till you can scarcely see the top, as infinitely above all the higher mountains of the world as they are above the valleys Have you caught the idea, and do you see there afar off upon the lofty top, not everlasting snows, but a pure crystal table land, crowned with a gorgeous city, the metropolis of God, the royal palace of Jesus the King? The sun is eclipsed by the light which shines from the top of this mountain; the moon ceases from her brightness, for there is now no night: but this one hill, lifted up on high, illuminates the atmosphere, and the nations of them that are saved are walking in the light thereof. The hill of Zion hath now outsoared all others, and all the mountains and hills of the earth are become as nothing before her. This is the magnificent picture of the text. I do not know that in all the compass of poetry there is an idea so massive and stupendous as this — a mountain heaving, expanding, swelling, growing, till all the high hills become absorbed, and that which was but a little rising ground before, becomes a hill the top whereof teacheth to the seventh heavens. Now we have here a picture of what the Church is to be. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) A vision of the latter day glories Of old, the Church was like Mount Zion, a very little hill. What saw the nations of the earth when they looked upon it? A humble Man with twelve disciples. But that little hill grew, and some thousands were baptized in the name of Christ; it grew again and became mighty. But still, compared with the colossal systems of idolatry, she is but small. The Hindoo and the Chinese turn to our religion, and say, "It is an infant of yesterday; ours is the religion of ages." The Easterns compare Christianity to some miasma that creeps along the fenny lowlands, but their systems they imagine to be like me Alps, outsoaring the heavens in height. Ah, but we reply to this, "Your mountain crumbles and your hill dissolves, but our hill of Zion has been growing, and strange to say, it has life within its bowels, and grow on it shall, grow on it must, till all the systems of idolatry shall become less than nothing before it." Such is the destiny of our Church, she is to be an all-conquering Church, rising above every competitor. The Church will be like a high mountain, for she will be — 1. Preeminently conspicuous. 2. Awful and venerable in her grandeur. 3. The day is coming when the Church of God shall have absolute supremacy.The Church of Christ now has to fight for her existence; but the day shall come when she shall be so mighty that there shall be nought left to compote with her. How is this to be done? There are three things which will ensure the growth of the Church. 1. The individual exertion of every Christian. 2. We may expect more.The fact is, that the Church, though a mountain, is a volcano — not one that spouts fire, but that hath fire within her; and this inward fire of living truth, and living grace, expands her side, and lifts her crest, and upwards she must tower, for truth is mighty, and it must prevail — grace is mighty, and must conquer — Christ is mighty, and He must be King of kings. Thus there is something more than the individual exertions of the Church; there is a something within her that must make her grow, till she overtops the highest mountains. 3. But the great hope of the Church is the second advent of Christ. When He shall come, then shall the mountain of the Lord's house be exalted above the hills. We must fight on day by day and hour by hour; and when we think the battle is almost decided against us, He shall come, the Prince of the kings of the earth. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) "All nations shall flow unto it Observe the figure. It does not say they shall come to it, but they shall flow unto it. 1. It implies, first, their number. Now it is but the pouring out of water from the bucket; then it shall be as the rolling of the cataract from the hillside. 2. Their spontaneity. They are to come willingly to Christ; not to be driven, not to be pumped up, not to be forced to it, but to be brought up by the Word of the Lord, to pay Him willing homage. Just as the river naturally flows downhill by no other force than that which is its nature, so shall the grace of God be so mightily given to the sons of men, that no acts of parliament, no state churches, no armies will be used to make a forced conversion. 3. But yet again, this represents the power of the work of conversion. They "shall flow to it." Imagine an idiot endeavouring to stop the river Thames. The secularist may rise up and say, "Oh, why be converted to this fanatical religion? Look to the things of time." ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) The mountain of the Lord's house Richard Watson. The text calls our attention — I. TO A PERIOD OF TIME WHEN THE EVENTS OF WHICH IT SPEAKS ARE TO OCCUR. "The last days." The phrase means, generally, the age of the Messiah; and is thus understood by both Jewish and Christian commentators. The apostle has put this meaning beyond all doubt. "God, who spake in times past unto the fathers, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." 1. The expression intimates, that the dispensations which the prophets of the Old Testament lived, were but preparatory to one of complete perfection. To the future all these ancient holy men were ever looking. The patriarchal was succeeded by the Mosaic age. Prophet came after prophet; but all were looking forward. All things around them, and before them, were typical shadowy. 2. The emphasis which the of last days, intimates, also, the views they had of the complete efficiency of that religious system which the Messiah was to introduce. On that age all their hopes of the recovery of a world they saw sinking around them rested; and in the contemplation of this efficient plan of redeeming love, they mitigated their sorrows. They felt that the world needed a more efficient system, and they saw it descend with Messiah from heaven. 3. The days of the Messiah were regarded by the ancient Church as "the last days," because in them all the great purposes of God were to be developed and completed. II. TO THE STATE OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF GOD IN THE LAST DAYS. "The mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it." Some have considered this as a prediction of the actual rebuilding of the temple, and the restoration of the political and church-state of the Jews, in the close of the latter days of the times of the Messiah. Such an interpretation, if allowed, would not at all interfere with that in which all agree, that, whatever else the prediction may signify, it sets forth, under figures taken from the Levitical institutions, the future state of the general Church of Christ. For the principle which leads to such an interpretation, we have no less authority than that of the apostle Paul, who uniformly considers the temple, its priests, and its ritual, as types of heavenly things; and in one well-known passage, makes use of them to characterise the true Church of Christ. "But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city" of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. The mountain of the Lord's house is no longer covered with ruins, but established in the top of the hills. We learn from it — 1. That the Church shall be restored to evangelical order and beauty: it shall be as Mount Zion.(1) Zion was the place of sacrifice. And in the last days the true sacrifice shall be exhibited here.(2) Mount Zion was the throne of majesty. And in coming to the evangelical Zion we come to God as the universal Sovereign and Judge. In the latter days Gospel law will shine there as brightly as Gospel grace.(3) Zion was the mountain of holiness. And in these glorious clays holy shall all they be who name the name of Christ.(4) Zion was the special residence of God. On the day of Pentecost He took possession of the Church; but in the latter days there shall be special manifestations of His presence in richer displays of vital power. To this state we are ever to labour to bring the Church, avoiding, ourselves, all that is inconsistent with truth in doctrine and holiness in life. For the richer effusions of grace we are earnestly to pray. 2. In this state the Church shall be distinguished by its zeal. "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem." So it was in the best estate of the Jewish Church. The Gospel is to be preached in all nations; and till you send forth the law they will not say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord." We thus see the connection between the best state of the Church and this holy zeal. All history proves it. III. TO CERTAIN SPECIAL OPERATIONS OF GOD BY WHICH THE EFFORTS OF HIS RESTORED CHURCH TO BLESS AND SAVE THE WORLD SHALL BE RENDERED EFFECTUAL. Without God, not all the efforts of the Church, even in her best state, can be effectual. 1. He shall judge among the nations. The word "judge" is not always used in its purely judicial sense, but in that of government, — the exercise of regal power both in mercy and judgment; and in this sense we here take it. He shall so order the affairs of the world, that opportunities shall be afforded to His Church to exert herself for its benefit. And thus is He judging among the nations in our own day. 2. It is a part of the regal office to show mercy; and thus, too, shall He "judge among the nations." This He shall do by taking off those judicial desertions which, as a punishment for unfaithfulness, He has inflicted. "He shall judge among the nations." He shall do this judicially, yet not for destruction, but correction. Then are two sorts of judgments; judgments of wrath, and judgments of mercy. When grace is given with judgments, then do they become corrective and salutary. 3. It is, therefore, added, "and shall rebuke many people"; or, according to Lowth's translation, "work conviction among them." And may we not hope that this is approaching? Even while waiting for the glorious period described and promised in the preceding prophecy, the Church is called to "walk in the light of the Lord" (ver. 5). 1. Walk by this light of truth yourselves. 2. Set the glory of these splendid scenes before you, and let them encourage you to increasing exertions for the spread of truth, holiness, and love throughout the earth. ( Richard Watson. ) The glorious exaltation and enlargement of Church J. Mede, B. D. I. THE GLORY AND EXALTATION. "The mountain of the Lord's house shall be established," etc. II. THE ENLARGEMENT. "All nations shall flow unto it." III. THE PROSPERITY of the Church begins to be described in ver. 4. ( J. Mede, B. D. ) The Church's visibility and glory J. Mede, B. D. There are — I. TIMES WHEN THE CHURCH IS VISIBLE BUT NOT GLORIOUS. II. TIMES WHEN IT IS NEITHER VISIBLE NOR GLORIOUS. III. TIMES WHEN IT IS TO BE BOTH VISIBLE AND GLORIOUS. ( J. Mede, B. D. ) The mountain of the Lord's house Anon. I. THE PERIOD REFERRED TO. The reference is not to the Gospel era as a whole, but to an advanced period of it, even the time of the great millennial prosperity. The golden age of the Greeks and Romans was the past, but our golden age is yet to come. II. THE CHEERING TRUTH DECLARED. "The mountain," etc. Often has Zion languished, but she is to become a praise in the whole earth. In this striking figure two things are embraced — 1. Elevated position. 2. Permanent duration. III. THE GENERAL INTEREST AWAKENED. We have here — 1. The invitation given. "And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob." 2. The considerations by which it is enforced. "And He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem." It is the seat of Divine instruction on the one hand, and the centre of holy influence on the other. IV. THE HAPPY RESULTS DECLARED (ver. 4). This is — 1. A consummation most devoutly to be desired. 2. Absolutely certain in its realisation. "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares." 3. The means whereby it win be accomplished. By God judging or ruling among the nations, and rebuking or working conviction among them. ( Anon. ) The future glory and amplitude of the Church S. Ramsey, M. A. 1. The Gospel dispensation was designed to supersede that which was given by the hand of Moses; it was to be exalted above this hill. 2. The Gospel also was destined to triumph over all those corrupt systems of religion which have ever been received among men. 3. The assertion before us is also understood as a prophecy relative to the fulness of the Church when the Jews shall be called in. This important event is foretold by the sacred writers. ( S. Ramsey, M. A. ) Isaiah's wideness of view J. Parker, D. D. Consider what that prediction meant in Isaiah's time. He lived within well-defined boundaries and limitations: the Jew was not a great man in the sense of including within his personal aspirations all classes, conditions, and estates of men; left to himself he could allow the Gentiles to die by thousands daily without shedding a tear upon their fallen bodies; he lived amongst his own people; it was enough for him that the Jews were happy, for the Gentiles were but dogs. Here is a new view of human nature, great enlargement of spiritual boundaries. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) The Church of the future -- Goethe and Isaiah Washington Gladden, D. D. It is quite the fashion in these days for those who do not believe in the Christian religion to bestow on it their patronage. The Bible is full of delusion and falsehood, but they regard it, on the whole, as a book that deserves notice; parts of it are almost as good as the Rig-Veda. The Church has been the handmaid of bigotry and superstition, yet they find in the history of the Church some passages that are inspiring. Jesus of Nazareth was a teacher in whose doctrine they find many things to set right; yet, so rich were His contributions to ethical science that they feel themselves justified in bestowing on Him a qualified approval. This fashion of patronising Christianity may have been set by Goethe. Into that temple of the future which he describes in his Tale, the little hut of the fisherman, by which he symbolises Christianity, was graciously admitted. "This little hut had, indeed, been wonderfully transfigured. By virtue of the Lamp locked up in it [the light of reason] the hut had been converted from the inside to the outside into solid silver. Ere long, too, its form changed; for the noble metal shook aside the accidental shape of planks, posts and beams, and stretched itself out into a noble case of beaten, ornamented workmanship. Thus a fair little temple stood erected in the middle of the large one; or, if you will, an altar worthy of the temple." This is Goethe's view of the Church of the future. He has been magnanimous enough to provide a niche for it in the perfected temple of the Great Hereafter; it is to serve as a pretty decoration of that grand structure, as a dainty bit of bric-a-brac. About twenty. five centuries before Goethe's day another poet, dwelling somewhere in the fastnesses of Syria, had visions of the future in form and colour quite unlike this of the German philosopher. In Isaiah's sight of the latter day, the Church of God is not merely a feature — it furnishes the outline, it fills the whole field of vision. It is not merely a trait of the picture — it is the picture. Instead of putting the Church into a niche in the temple of the future, to be kept there as a kind of heirloom — a well-preserved antique curiosity — Isaiah insists that the Church in the temple, and that all stores and forces of good are to be gathered into it, to celebrate its empire and to decorate its triumph. The mountain of the Lord's house, the typical Zion on which the spiritual Church is builded, is to be exalted above all other eminences. Toward that all eyes shall turn; toward that all paths shall lead; toward that shall journey with joy all pilgrim feet. For the heralds of its progress, for the missionaries of its glad tidings it shall have many nations; it shall give to all the world the ruling law and the informing word. This is Isaiah's view of the Church of the future. When twenty-five centuries more shall have passed it will be easier to tell whether the Hebrew or the German was the better seer. ( Washington Gladden, D. D. ) The Church of the future Washington Gladden, D. D. Isaiah shows us the Church of the future only in outline; the great fact which he gives us is that in the last days the spiritual Jerusalem shall gather into itself all the kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them. It may be possible for us in some indistinct way to fill in this outline; to imagine, if we cannot prophesy, what the scope and character of the future Church shall be. I. WILL IT HAVE A CREED? A creed is only a statement, more or less elaborate, of the facts and principles of religion accepted by those who adhere to it. Religion is not wholly an affair of the emotions; it involves the apprehension of truth. In the future, as in the past, this truth must be stated, in order to be apprehended. A man's creed is what he believes; and there must be creeds as long as there are believers. It is probable, however, that the creeds may be considerably modified as the years pass. Certainly they have been undergoing modifications, continually, through the centuries gone by. It must be remembered, however, that the changes through which theological science has been passing have been changes of spirit rather than of substance, of form more than of fact. The essential truth remains. The great changes in theology are moral changes. Theology is constantly becoming less materialistic and more ethical. This progress will continue through the future. The creed of the future will contain, I have no doubt, the same essential truth that is found in the creeds of the present; but there may be considerable difference in the phrasing of it, and in the point of view from which it is approached. 1. Men will believe in the future in an infinite personal God, the Creator, the Ruler, the Father of men. The abstract, impersonal Force to which Agnosticism leads us has no relation to that which is deepest in man, and can have none. Christ bade us love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul. Can any man ever be perfectly happy until he has found some Being whom he can love in this way? Must not the Being who is worthy to be loved in this way be both perfect and infinite? And is it possible for a man to love with heart and mind and soul, any being, however vast or powerful, that has neither heart nor mind nor soul? 2. Concerning the mode of the Divine existence, men will learn in the future to speak more modestly than they have spoken in the past. It will become more and more evident that it is not possible to put the infinite into terms of the finite. There is the doctrine of the Trinity; there is truth in it, or under it; but can anyone put that truth into propositions that shall be definite and not contradictory? 3. II one may judge the future by the past there is no reason to fear that the person of Jesus Christ will be less commanding in the Church of the future than it is in the Church of the present. 4. The fact of sin will not be denied by the Church of the future. Doubtless organisation and circumstance will be taken into the account in estimating human conduct; but the power of the human will to control the natural tendencies, to release itself from entangling circumstances, and to lay hold on the Divine grace by which it may overcome sin, will also be clearly understood. The supremacy of the moral nature will be vindicated. 5. Punishment, as conceived and represented by the Church of the future, will not be an arbitrary infliction of suffering, but the natural and inevitable consequence of disobedience to law. It will be discovered that the moral law is incorporated into the natural order, and that its sanctions are found in that order; while, in the work of redemption, God interposes by His personal and supernatural grace to save men from the consequences of their own disobedience and folly. Law is natural; grace is supernatural Transgressors will be made to see, what they now so dimly apprehend, that no effect can be more closely joined to its cause than penalty to sin. 6. Whatever the creed of the future may be, however, it will not be put to the kind of use which the creed of the present is made to serve. It will not be laid down as the doctrinal plank over which everybody must walk who comes into the communion of the Church. The Church, like every other organism, has an organic idea, and that is simple loyalty to Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church. There will be but one door into that Church — Christ will be the door. II. WHAT WILL BE THE POLITY OF THE FUTURE CHURCH? It is likely that, of the various sorts of ecclesiastical machinery, each of the several religious bodies will freely choose that which it likes best. Doubtless the Church will have some form of government: it will not be a holy mob; lawlessness will not be regarded as the supreme good, in Church or in State. In whatever ecclesiastical mould the Church of the future may be cast, there will be no mean sectarianism in existence then. The various families of Christians will dwell as happily together as well-bred families now do in society. Though there be diversities of form in the future, there will be real and thorough intercommunion and cooperation among Christians of all names, and nothing will be permitted to hold apart those who follow the same Leader and travel the same road. III. WHAT KIND OF WORK WILL BE DONE BY THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE? It will have many ways of working that the Church of the present has not dreamed of. "The field is the world," Christ has told us; and in that better day the Church will have learned to occupy the field. 1. Paul said that as a preacher of the Gospel he magnified his office. There is no office more honourable. But it must not be inferred that there is no other Way of preaching the Gospel except the formal utterance of religious truth, in the presence of a congregation. The truth will be disseminated, in that time, in many other ways. For though the living voice is the best instrument for the proclamation of the truth, so far as it will reach, it cannot reach very far. The art of printing has been given to the world since that day; and by that invention the whole business of instructing and influencing men has been revolutionised. The Church has already appropriated this agency; and it is doubtless true that it will be employed in the future more effectively than in the past. Neither will the range of teaching be so narrow as it has sometimes been in the past. To apply the ethical rule of the New Testament to the conduct of individuals, and to the relations of men in society, will be the constant obligation of the pulpit. Out of Zion must go forth the law by which parents, children, neighbours, citizens, workmen, masters, teachers, pupils, benefactors, beneficiaries, shall guide their behaviour. Science, long the nightmare of the theologians, will no more trouble their dreams; it will be understood that there can be no conflict between truths; that physical science has its facts and laws, and spiritual science its facts and laws; that these are diverse but not contradictory, and that the one is just as positive and knowable as the other. The unfriendliness now existing between the scientists and the theologians will exist no longer, because both parties will have learned wisdom. 2. But the work of teaching will not be the only work to which the Church of the future will address itself. Large and wise enterprises for the welfare of men will be set on foot; many of the instrumentalities now in use will continue to be employed, under modified forms, and many new ones will be devised. It will be understood that the law of the Church is simply this, "Let us do good to all men as we have opportunity." ( Washington Gladden, D. D. ) The magnet which draws the nations Bp. M. Simpson, D. D. The Church is established on the top of the mountain, and all nations are flowing unto it. Yes, flowing up hill! Yes, up the mountain side! When I was a boy I said, "That is false rhetoric, a mistake — flowing to the top of the mountain; it cannot be." I went to the workshop of a friend, and I saw in the dust a parcel of steel filings. And he had a magnet, and, as he drew it near to the steel filings, they were attracted to it and kissed the magnet. Then I said, Give me a magnet large enough, place it on the mountain top, and it will draw all the nations unto it. That magnet is the Lord Jesus Christ, for He said, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Me." ( Bp. M. Simpson, D. D. ) Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. Isaiah 2:3 "Many people A. B. Davidson, LL. D. For "people" read "peoples." So ver. 4. ( A. B. Davidson, LL. D. ) Desire for spiritual instruction R. Boyle. What I intend is to make use of the words as they express a sincere desire in many people of being better informed in the mind and will of God, by some particular revelation from Himself than they could be by the mere natural light of their own minds, reflecting only upon the general works of creation and providence. I. EVERY RATIONAL MAN, WHO BELIEVES A GOD AND A PROVIDENCE GOVERNING THE WORLD, IS UNDER A NATURAL OBLIGATION TO INQUIRE WHETHER GOD HAS MADE ANY PARTICULAR REVELATION OF HIS WILL TO MEN, WHICH THEY ARE ANY WAY CONCERNED TO TAKE NOTICE OF. II. WHOEVER SERIOUSLY

2:1-9 The calling of the Gentiles, the spread of the gospel, and that far more extensive preaching of it yet to come, are foretold. Let Christians strengthen one another, and support one another. It is God who teaches his people, by his word and Spirit. Christ promotes peace, as well as holiness. If all men were real Christians, there could be no war; but nothing answering to these expressions has yet taken place on the earth. Whatever others do, let us walk in the light of this peace. Let us remember that when true religion flourishes, men delight in going up to the house of the Lord, and in urging others to accompany them. Those are in danger who please themselves with strangers to God; for we soon learn to follow the ways of persons whose company we keep. It is not having silver and gold, horses and chariots, that displeases God, but depending upon them, as if we could not be safe, and easy, and happy without them, and could not but be so with them. Sin is a disgrace to the poorest and the lowest. And though lands called Christian are not full of idols, in the literal sense, are they not full of idolized riches? and are not men so busy about their gains and indulgences, that the Lord, his truths, and precepts, are forgotten or despised? 2:10-22 The taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans seems first meant here, when idolatry among the Jews was done away; but our thoughts are led forward to the destruction of all the enemies of Christ. It is folly for those who are pursued by the wrath of God, to think to hide or shelter themselves from it. The shaking of the earth will be terrible to those who set their affections on things of the earth. Men's haughtiness will be brought down, either by the grace of God convincing them of the evil of pride, or by the providence of God depriving them of all the things they were proud of. The day of the Lord shall be upon those things in which they put their confidence. Those who will not be reasoned out of their sins, sooner or later shall be frightened out of them. Covetous men make money their god; but the time will come when they will feel it as much their burden. This whole passage may be applied to the case of an awakened sinner, ready to leave all that his soul may be saved. The Jews were prone to rely on their heathen neighbours; but they are here called upon to cease from depending on mortal man. We are all prone to the same sin. Then let not man be your fear, let not him be your hope; but let your hope be in the Lord your God. Let us make this our great concern.