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Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 30:1 Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin: BOOK 3 ORATIONS ON THE EGYPTIAN INTRIGUES AND ORACLES ON FOREIGN NATIONS 705-702 B.C. Isaiah: 29 About 703 30 A little later 31 A little later 32:1-8 Later 32:9-20 Date uncertain ----------------- 14:28-21 736-702 23 About 703 WE now enter the prophecies of Isaiahβs old age, those which he published after 705, when his ministry had lasted for at least thirty-five years. They cover the years between 705, the date of Sennacheribβs accession to the Assyrian throne, and 701, when his army suddenly disappeared from before Jerusalem. They fall into three groups:- 1. Chapters 29-32., dealing with Jewish politics while Sennacherib is still far from Palestine, 704-702, and having Egypt for their chief interest, Assyria lowering in the background. 2. Chapters 14:28-21 and 23, a group of oracles on foreign nations, threatened, like Judah, by Assyria. 3. Chapters 1, 22, and 33, and the historical narrative in 36, and 37., dealing with Sennacheribβs invasion of Judah and siege of Jerusalem in 701; Egypt and every foreign nation now fallen out of sight, and the storm about the Holy City too thick for the prophet to see beyond his immediate neighbourhood. The first and second of these groups-orations on the intrigues with Egypt and oracles on the foreign nations-delivered while Sennacherib was still far from Syria, form the subject of this Third Book of our exposition. The prophecies on the siege of Jerusalem are sufficiently numerous and distinctive to be put by themselves, along with their appendix (38, 39), in our Fourth Book. CHAPTER XIII POLITICS AND FAITH ABOUT 720 B.C. Isaiah 30:1-33 THIS prophecy of Isaiah rises out of circumstances a little more developed than those in which chapter 29 was composed. Sennacherib is still engaged with Babylon, and it seems that it will yet be long before he marches his armies upon Syria. But Isaiahβs warning has at last roused the politicians of Judah from their carelessness. We need not suppose that they believed all that Isaiah predicted about the dire siege which Jerusalem should shortly undergo and her sudden deliverance at the hand of the Lord. Without the two strong religious convictions, in the strength of which, as we have seen, he made the prediction, it was impossible to believe that this siege and deliverance must certainly happen. But the politicians were at least startled into doing something. They did not betake themselves to God, to whom it had been the purpose of Isaiahβs last oration to shut them up. They only flung themselves with more haste into their intrigues with Egypt. But in truth haste and business were all that was in their politics: these were devoid both of intelligence and faith. Where the sole motive of conduct is fear, whether uneasiness or panic, force may be displayed, but neither sagacity nor any moral quality. This was the case with Judahβs Egyptian policy, and Isaiah now spends two chapters in denouncing it. His condemnation is twofold. The negotiations with Egypt, he says, are bad politics and bad religion; but the bad religion is the root and source of the other. Yet while he vents all his scorn on the politics, he uses pity and sweet persuasiveness when he comes to speak of the eternal significance of the religion. The two chapters are also instructive, beyond most others of the Old Testament, in the light they cast on revelation-its scope and methods. Isaiah begins with the bad politics. In order to understand how bad they were, we must turn for a little to this Egypt, with whom Judah was now seeking an alliance. In our late campaign on the Upper Nile we heard a great deal of the Mudir of Dongola. His province covers part of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia; and in Meirawi, the village whose name appeared in so many telegrams, we can still discover Meroe, the capital of Ethiopia. Now in Isaiahβs day the king of Ethiopia was what the Mudir of Dongola was at the time of our war, an ambitious person of no small energy; and the ruler of Egypt proper was, what the Khedive was, a person of little influence or resource. Consequently there happened what might have happened a few years ago but for the presence of the British army in Egypt. The Ethiopian came down the Nile, defeated Pharaoh and burned him alive. But he died, and his son died after him; and before their successor could also come down the Nile, the legitimate heir to Pharaoh had regained part of his power. Some years ensued of uncertainty as to who was the real ruler of Egypt. It was in this time of unsettlement that Judah sought Egyptβs help. The ignorance of the policy was manifest to all who were not blinded by fear of Assyria or party feeling. To Isaiah the Egyptian alliance is a folly and fatality that deserve all his scorn ( Isaiah 30:1-8 ). "Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, executing a policy, but it is not from Me; and weaving a web, but not of My spirit, that they may heap sin upon sin; who set themselves on the way to go down to Egypt, and at My mouth they have not inquired, to flee to the refuge of Pharaoh, and to hide themselves in the shadow of Egypt. But the refuge of Pharaoh shall be unto you for shame, and the hiding in the shadow of Egypt for confusion!" How can a broken Egypt help you? "When his princes are at Zoan, and his ambassadors are come to Hanes, they shall all be ashamed of a people that cannot profit them, that are not for help nor for profit, but for shame, and also for reproach." Then Isaiah pictures the useless caravan which Judah has sent with tribute to Egypt, strings of asses and camels struggling through the desert, "land of trouble and anguish" amid lions and serpents, and all for "a people that shall not profit them" ( Isaiah 30:6 ). What tempted Judah to this profitless expenditure of time and money? Egypt had a great reputation, and was a mighty promiser. Her brilliant antiquity had given her a habit of generous promise, and dazzled other nations into trusting her. Indeed, so full were Egyptian politics of bluster and big language, that the Hebrews had a nickname for Egypt. They called her Rahab -Stormy-speech, Blusterer, Braggart. It was the term also for the crocodile, as being a monster, so that there was a picturesqueness as well as moral aptness in the name. Ay, says Isaiah, catching at the old name and putting to it another which describes Egyptian helplessness and inactivity, I call her Rahab Sit-still , Braggart-that-sitteth-still, Stormy-speech Stay-at-home. "Blustering and inactivity, blustering and sitting still," that is her character; "for Egypt helpeth in vain and to no purpose." Knowing how sometimes the fate of a government is affected by a happy speech or epigram, we can understand the effect of this cry upon the politicians of Jerusalem. But that he might impress it on the popular imagination and memory as well, Isaiah wrote his epigram on a tablet, and put it in a book. We must remind ourselves here of chapter 20, and remember how it tells us that Isaiah had already some years before this endeavoured to impress the popular imagination with the folly of an Egyptian alliance, "walking unfrocked and barefoot three years for a sign and a portent upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia." So that already Isaiah had appealed from politicians to people on this Egyptian question, just as he appealed thirty years ago from court to market-place on the question of Ephraim and Damascus. { Isaiah 8:1 } It is another instance of that prophetic habit of his, on which we remarked in expounding chapter 8; and we must again emphasise the habit, for chapter 30 here swings round upon it. Whatever be the matter committed to him, Isaiah is not allowed to rest till be brings it home to the popular conscience; and however much he may be able to charge national disaster upon the folly of politicians or the obduracy of a king, it is people whom he holds ultimately responsible. To Isaiah a nationβs politics are not arbitrary; they are not dependent on the will of kings or the management of parties. They are the natural outcome of the nationβs character. What the people are, that will their politics be. If you wish to reform the politics, you must first regenerate the people; and it is no use to inveigh against a senseless policy, like this Egyptian one, unless you go farther and expose the national temper which has made it possible. A peopleβs own morals have greater influence on their destinies than their despots or legislators. Statesmen are what the state makes them. No Government will attempt a policy for which the nation behind it has not a conscience; and for the greater number of errors committed by their rulers, the blame must be laid on the peopleβs own want of character or intelligence. This is what Isaiah now drives home. { Isaiah 30:9 ff.} He tracks the bad politics to their source in bad religion, the Egyptian policy to its roots in the prevailing tempers of the people. The Egyptian policy was doubly stamped. It was disobedience to the word of God; it was satisfaction with falsehood. The statesmen of Judah shut their ears to Godβs spoken word; they allowed themselves to be duped by the Egyptian Pretence. But these, says Isaiah, are precisely the characteristics of the whole Jewish people. "For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the revelation of the Lord." It was these national failings-the want of virtues which are the very substance of a nation: truth and reverence or obedience-that had culminated in the senseless and suicidal alliance with Egypt. Isaiah fastens on their falsehood first: "Which say to the seers, Ye shall not see, and to the prophets, Ye shall not prophesy unto us right things; speak to us smooth things: prophesy deceits." No wonder such a character had been fascinated by " Rahab "! It was a natural nemesis, that a people who desired from their teachers fair speech rather than true vision should be betrayed by the confidence their statesmen placed in the Blusterer, "that blustered and sat still." Truth is what this people first require, and therefore the revelation of the Lord will in the first instance be the revealing of the truth. Men who will strip pretence off the reality of things; men who will call things by their right names, as Isaiah had set himself to do; honest satirists and epigrammatists-these are the bearers of Godβs revelation. For it is one of the means of Divine salvation to call things by their right names, and here in Godβs revelation also epigrams have their place. So much for truth. But reverence is truthβs other self, for reverence is simply loyalty to the supremest truth. And it is against the truth that the Jews have chiefly sinned. They have shut their eyes to Egyptβs real character, but that was a small sin beside this: that they turned their backs on the greatest reality of all-God Himself. "Get you out of the way," they said to the prophets, "turn out of the oath; keep quiet in our presence about the Holy One of Israel!" Isaiahβs effort rises to its culmination when he seeks to restore the sense of this reality to his people. His spirit is kindled at the words "the Holy One of Israel," and to the end of chapter 31 leaps up in a series of brilliant and sometimes scorching descriptions of the name, the majesty, and the love of God. Isaiah is not content to have used his power of revelation to unveil the political truth about Egypt. He will make God Himself visible to this people. Passionately does he proceed to enforce upon the Jews what God thinks about their own condition ( Isaiah 30:12-14 ), then to persuade them to rely upon Him alone, and wait for the working of His reasonable laws ( Isaiah 30:15-18 ). Rising higher, he purges with pity their eyes to see Godβs very presence, their ears to hear His voice, their wounds to feel His touch ( Isaiah 30:19-26 ). Then he remembers the cloud of invasion on the horizon, and bids them spell, in its uncouth masses, the articulate name of the Lord ( Isaiah 30:27-33 ). And he closes with another series of figures by which Godβs wisdom, and His jealousy and His tenderness are made very bright to them (chapter 31). These brilliant prophecies may not have been given all at the same time: each is complete in itself. They do not all mention the negotiations with Egypt, but they are all dark with the shadow of Assyria. Isaiah 30:19-26 almost seem to have been written in a time of actual siege; but Isaiah 30:27-33 represent Assyria still upon the horizon. In this, however, these passages are fitly strung together: that they equally strain to impress a blind and hardened people with the will, the majesty, and the love of God their Saviour. I. THE BULGING WALL ( Isaiah 30:12-14 ) Starting from their unwillingness to listen to the voice of the Lord in their Egyptian policy, Isaiah tells the people that if they refused to hear His word for guidance, they must now listen to it for judgment. Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: Because ye look down on this word, and trust in perverseness and crookedness, and lean thereon, therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, bulging out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. "This iniquity," of course, is the embassy to Egypt. But that, as we have seen, is only the peopleβs own evil character coming to a head; and by the breaking of the wall, we are therefore to suppose that the prophet means the collapse not only of this Egyptian policy, but of the whole estate and substance of the Jewish people. It will not be your enemy that will cause a breach in the nation, but your teeming iniquity shall cause the breach-to wit, this Egyptian folly. Judah will burst her bulwarks from the inside. You may build the strongest form of government round a people, you may buttress it with foreign alliances, but these shall simply prove occasions for the internal wickedness to break forth. Your supposed buttresses will prove real breaches; and of all your social structures there will not be left as much as will make the fragments of a single home, not "a sherd" big enough "to carry fire from the hearth, or to hold water from the cistern." II. NOT ALLIANCES, BUT RELIANCE ( Isaiah 30:15-18 ) At this point, either Isaiah was stung by the demands of the politicians for an alternative to their restless Egyptian policy which he condemned, or more likely he rose, unaided by external influence, on the prophetβs native instinct to find some purely religious ground on which to base his political advice. The result is one of the grandest of all his oracles. "For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; and ye would not. But ye said, No, for upon horses will we flee; wherefore ye shall flee: and upon the swift will we ride; wherefore swift shall be they that pursue you! One thousand at the rebuke of one-at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a bare pole on the top of a mountain, and as a standard on a hill. And therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will He hold aloof that He may have mercy upon you, for a God of judgment is the Lord; blessed are all they that wait for Him." The words of this passage are their own interpretation and enforcement, all but one; and as this one is obscure in its English guise, and the passage really swings from it, we may devote a paragraph to its meaning. "A God of judgment is the Lord" is an unfortunately ambiguous translation. We must not take judgment here in our familiar sense of the word. It is not a sudden deed of doom, but a long process of law. It means manner, method, design, order, system, the ideas, in short, which we sum up under the word "law." Just as we say of a man, "He is a man of judgment," and mean thereby not that by office he is a doomster, but that by character he is a man of discernment and prudence, so simply does Isaiah say here that "Jehovah is a God of Judgment," and mean thereby not that He is one whose habit is sudden and awful deeds of penalty or salvation, but, on the contrary, that, having laid down His lines according to righteousness and established His laws in wisdom, He remains in His dealings with men consistent with these. Now it is a great truth that the All-mighty and All-merciful is the All-methodical too; and no religion is complete in its creed or healthy in its influence, which does not insist equally on all these. It was just the want of this third article of faith which perverted the souls of the Jews in Isaiahβs day, which (as we have seen under chapter 1) allowed them to make their worship so mechanical and material-for how could they have been satisfied with mere forms if they had but once conceived of God as having even ordinary intelligence?-and which turned their political life into such a mass of intrigue, conceit, and falsehood, for how could they have dared to suppose that they would get their own way, or have been so sure of their own cleverness, if only they had had a glimpse of the perception, that God, the Ruler of the world, had also His policy regarding them? They believed He was the Mighty, they believed He was the Merciful, but because they forgot that He was the Wise and the Worker by law, their faith in His might too often turned into superstitious terror, their faith in His mercy oscillated between the sleepy satisfaction that He was an indulgent God and the fretful impatience that He was an indifferent one. Therefore Isaiah persisted from first to last in this: that God worked by law; that He had His plan for Judah, as well as these politicians; and, as we shall shortly find him reminding them when intoxicated with their own cleverness "that He also is wise". { Isaiah 31:2 } Here by the same thought he bids them be at peace, and upon the rushing tides of politics, drawing them to that or the other mad venture, to swing by this anchor: that God has His own law and time for everything. No man could bring the charge of fatalism against such a policy of quietness. For it thrilled with intelligent appreciation of the Divine method. When Isaiah said, "In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength," he did not ask his restless countrymen to yield sullenly to an infinite force or to bow in stupidity beneath the inscrutable will of an arbitrary despot, but to bring their conduct into harmony with a reasonable and gracious plan, which might be read in the historical events of the time, and was vindicated by the loftiest religious convictions. Isaiah preached no submission to fate, but reverence for an all-wise Ruler, whose method was plain to every clear-sighted observer of the fortunes of the nations of the world, and whose purpose could only be love and peace to His own people. III. GODβS TABLE IN THE MIDST OF THE ENEMIES ( Isaiah 30:19-26 ) This patient purpose of God Isaiah now proceeds to describe in its details. Every line of his description has its loveliness, and is to be separately appreciated. There is perhaps no fairer prospect from our prophetβs many windows. It is not argument nor a programme, but a series of rapid glimpses, struck out by language which often wants logical connection, but never fails to make us see. To begin with, one thing is sure: the continuance of the national existence. Isaiah is true to his original vision-the survival of a remnant. "For a people in Zion-there shall be abiding in Jerusalem." So the brief essential is flashed forth. "Thou shalt surely weep no more; surely He will be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy crying; with His hearing of thee He will answer thee." Thus much of general promise had been already given. Now upon the vagueness of the Lordβs delay Isaiah paints realistic details, only, however, that he may make more vivid the real presence of the Lord. The siege shall surely come, with its sorely concrete privations, but the Lord will be there, equally distinct. "And though the Lord give you the bread of penury and the water of tribuation" (perhaps the technical name for siege rations), "yet shall not thy Teacher hide Himself any more, but thine eyes shall ever be seeing thy Teacher; and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way: walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand or when ye turn to the left." Real, concrete sorrows, these are they that make the heavenly Teacher real! It is linguistically possible, and more in harmony with the rest of the passage, to turn "teachers," as the English version has it, into the singular, and to render it by "Revealer." The word is an active participle, "Moreh," from the same verb as the noun "Torah," which is constantly translated "Law" in our version, but is, in the Prophets at least, more nearly equivalent to "instruction," or to our modern term "revelation" (cf. Isaiah 30:9 ). Looking thus to the One Revealer, and hearkening to the One Voice, "the lying and rebellious children" shall at last be restored to that capacity for truth and obedience the loss of which has been their ruin. Devoted to the Holy One of Israel, they shall scatter their idols as loathsome ( Isaiah 30:22 ). But thereupon a wonder is to happen. As the besieged people, conscious of the One Great Presence in the midst of their encompassed city, cast their idols through the gates and over the walls, a marvellous vision of space and light and fulness of fresh food bursts upon their starved and straitened souls ( Isaiah 30:23 ). Promise more sympathetic was never uttered to a besieged and famished city. Mark that all down the passage there is no mention of the noise or instruments of battle. The prophet has not spoken of the besiegers, who they may be, how they may come, nor of the fashion of their war, but only of the effects of the siege on those within: confinement, scant and bitter rations. And now he is almost wholly silent about the breaking up of the investing army and the trail of their slaughter. No battle breaks this siege, but a vision of openness and plenty dawns noiselessly over its famine and closeness. It is not vengeance or blood that an exhausted and penitent people thirst after. But as they have been caged in a fortress, narrow, dark, and stony, so they thirst for the sight of the sower, and the drop of the rain on the broken, brown earth, and the juicy corn, and the meadow for their cribbed cattle, and the noise of brooks and waterfalls, and above and about it all fulness of light. "And He shall give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal, and bread, even the increase of the ground, and it shall be juicy and fat; thy cattle shall feed that day in a broad meadow. And the oxen and the young asses that till the ground shall eat savoury provender, winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. And there shall be upon every lofty mountain and upon every lifted hill rivers, streams of water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the hurt of His people and healeth the stroke of their wound." It is one of Isaiahβs fairest visions, and he is very much to be blamed who forces its beauty of nature into an allegory of spiritual things. Here literally God spreads His people a table in the midst of their enemies. IV. THE NAME OF THE LORD ( Isaiah 30:27-33 ) But Isaiah lays down "the oaten pipe" and lifts again a brazen trumpet to his lips. Between him and that sunny landscape of the future, of whose pastoral details he has so sweetly sung, roll up now the uncouth masses of the Assyrian invasion, not yet fully gathered, far less broken. We are back in the present again, and the whole horizon is clouded. The passage does not look like one from which comfort or edification can be derived, but it is of extreme interest. The first two verses, for instance, only require a little analysis to open a most instructive glimpse into the prophetβs inner thoughts about the Assyrian progress, and show us how they work towards the expression of its full meaning. "Behold, the Name of Jehovah cometh from afar-burning His anger and awful the uplifting smoke; His lips are full of wrath, and His tongue as fire that devoureth; and His breath is as an overflowing torrent-even unto the neck it reacheth-to shake the nations in a sieve of destruction, and a bridle that leadeth astray on the jaws of the peoples." "The Name of Jehovah" is the phrase the prophets use when they wish to tell us of the personal presence of God. When we hear a name cried out, we understand immediately that a person is there. So when the prophet calls, "Behold, the Name of Jehovah," in face of the prodigious advance of Assyria, we understand that he has caught some intuition of Godβs presence in that uplifting of the nations of the north at the word of the great King and their resistless sweep southward upon Palestine. In that movement God is personally present. The Divine presence Isaiah then describes in curiously mingled metaphor, which proves how gradually it was that he struggled to a knowledge of its purpose there. First of all he describes the advance of Assyria as a thunderstorm, heavy clouds and darting, devouring fire. His imagination pictures a great face of wrath. The thick curtains of cloud as they roll over one another suggest the heavy lips, and the lightnings the fiery tongue. Then the figure passes from heaven to earth. The thunderstorm has burst, and becomes the "mountain torrent" which speedily "reaches the necks" of those who are caught in its bed. But then the prophetβs conscience suggests something more than sudden and sheer force in this invasion, and the "tossing" of the torrent naturally leads him to express this new element in the figure of "a sieve." His thought about the Assyrian flood thus passes from one of simple force and rush to one of judgment and being well kept in hand. He sees its ultimate check at Jerusalem, and so his last figure of it is the figure of "a bridle," or "lasso," such as is thrown upon the jaws of a wild animal when you wish to catch and tame him. This gradual progress from the sense of sheer wild force, through that of personal wrath, to discipline and sparing is very interesting. Vague and chaotic that disaster rolled up the horizon upon Judah. "It cometh from afar." The politicians fled from it to their refuge behind the Egyptian Pretence. But Isaiah bids them face it. The longer they look, the more will conscience tell them that the unavoidable wrath of God is in it; no blustering Rahab will be able to hide them from the anger of the face that lowers there. But let them look longer still, and the unrelieved features of destruction will change to a hand that sifts and checks, the torrent will become a sieve, and the disaster show itself well held in by the power of their own God. So wildly and impersonally still do the storms of sorrow and disaster roll up the horizon on menβs eyes, and we fly in vague terror from them to our Egyptian refuges. So still does conscience tell us it is futile to flee from the anger of God, and we crouch hopeless beneath the rush of imaginations of unchecked wrath, blackening the heavens and turning every path of life to a tossing torrent. May it then be granted us to have some prophet at our side to bid us face our disaster once more, and see the discipline and judgment of the Lord, the tossing only of His careful sieve, in the wild and cruel waves! We may not be poets like Isaiah nor able to put the processes of our faith into such splendid metaphors as he, but faith is given us to follow the same course as his thoughts did, and to struggle till she arrives at the consciousness of God in the most uncouth judgments that darken her horizon-the consciousness of God present not only to smite, but to sift, and in the end to spare. Of the angel who led Israel to the land of promise, God said, "My Name is in him." Our faith is not perfect till we can, like Isaiah, feel the same of the blackest angel, the heaviest disaster, God can send us, and be able to spell it out articulately: "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth." For delivery, says Isaiah, shall come to the people of God in the crisis, as sudden and as startling into song as the delivery from Egypt was. "Ye shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the Lord; to the Rock of Israel." After this interval of solemn gladness, the storm and fire break out afresh, and rage again through the passage. But their direction is reversed, and whereas they had been shown rolling up the horizon as towards Judah, they are now shown rolling down the horizon in pursuit of the baffled Assyrian. The music of the verses is crashing. "And the Lord shall cause the peal of His voice to be heard, and the lighting down of His arm to be seen in the fury of anger, yea flame of devouring fire-bursting and torrent and hailstones. For from the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be scattered when He shall smite with the rod. And every passage of the rod of fate which the Lord bringeth down upon him shall be with tabrets and harps, and in battles of waving shall he be fought against." The meaning is obscure but palpable. Probably the verse describes the ritual of the sacrifice to Moloch, to which there is no doubt the next verse alludes. To sympathise with the prophetβs figure, we need of course an amount of information about the details of that ritual which we are very far from possessing. But Isaiahβs meaning is evidently this: The destruction of the Assyrian host will be liker a holocaust than a battle, like one of those fatal sacrifices to Moloch which are directed by the solemn waving of a staff, and accompanied by the music, not of war, but of festival. "Battles of waving" is a very obscure phrase, but the word translated "waving" is the technical term for the waving of the victim before the sacrifice to signify its dedication to the deity; "and these βbattles of wavingβ may perhaps have taken place in the fashion in which single victims were thrown from one spear to another till death ensued." At all events, it is evident that Isaiah means to suggest that the Assyrian dispersion is a religious act, a solemn holocaust rather than one of this earthβs ordinary battles, and directed by Jehovah Himself from heaven. This becomes clear enough in the next verse: "For a Topheth hath been set in order beforehand; yea, for Moloch is it arranged; He hath made it deep and broad; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, shall kindle it." So the Assyrian power was in the end to go up in flame. We postpone remarks on Isaiahβs sense of the fierceness of the Divine righteousness till we reach his even finer expression of it in chapter 33. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.
Illustrator
Woe to the rebellious children. Isaiah 30:1-3 A foolish mission Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. In chapter 30 the negotiations with Egypt are represented as having reached a further stage: an embassy, despatched for the purpose of concluding a treaty, is already on its way to the court of the Pharaohs. Isaiah takes the opportunity of reiterating his sense of the fruitlessness of the mission, and derides the folly of those who expect from it any substantial result. ( Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. ) The only Counsellor J. C. Hare, M. A. These words contain a most important lesson for all such as have anything to do with managing the affairs of nations: and it would be well for the world if its rulers would give heed to that lesson, and keep guard against the sins on account of which the prophet here denounces woe against the rulers of Judah. They entered into an alliance with Pharaoh, with the view of gaining assistance from him which might enable them to cope with Sennacherib in the field. This is just what a statesman, who plumed himself on his wisdom in these days, would do. Yet it is for doing this very thing that the prophet Isaiah in the text denounces woe against them. Their conduct therefore must have been sinful. Let us try to discover in what their sin lay. 1. They were making use of human means to ward off the danger which threatened them. Not that thins in itself is altogether wrong in God's eyes. On the contrary, we are so placed here on earth, in the midst of so many wants and necessities, and so helpless by ourselves, that we are compelled to be forever making use of human and earthly means. Only, we ought to make use of these means with the conviction that they are merely instruments in the hands of Him who can alone endow them with the power of being of use to us. This is what the rulers of Judah forgot and entirely lost sight of. They trusted in Pharaoh. We are all apt to take counsel of ourselves, of our own understandings, our own wishes, our own convenience, our passions, our interest, our sloth, our purses, our appetites. Or we take counsel of our friends, of our neighbours, of such men as are esteemed to be quick and far-sighted, of every person, and of every thing, except of God. His counsel is the last we seek. Therefore does the prophet's woe fall upon us also. And why is it that we are so loth to take counsel of God? Our unwillingness can only proceed from an evil heart of unbelief; from that unbelief which loses sight of the Ruler and Lawgiver of the world, and which is prone to worship whatever dazzles the senses and flatters our carnal nature. 2. But there was another feature in the conduct of the princes of Judah which deepened their sin. They were not merely putting their trust in an arm of flesh, β they who had been so strongly forbidden to trust in such vanities, and who had the living God to trust in such vanities, and who had the living God to trust in: but the arm they were trusting to was the arm of Egypt. Egypt had from the first been the deadly enemy of the Israelites, and of their God. Egypt was the source from which all manner of idolatrous abominations had flowed in upon them: out of Egypt they had been called; and they were no longer to hold any intercourse with it. Therefore the prophet goes on to cry, "Woe to those who walk to go down into Egypt, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt:" and he declares that, because they do so, "the strength of Pharaoh shall be their shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt their confusion." Nor will it be otherwise with us. If we are guilty of their sin we shall not escape their woe. And alas! how often in moments of fear, of distress, β when some danger starts up suddenly in our path, when the enemy seems to be hard at hand, and just ready to overwhelm us, β do we feel tempted to go down into Egypt, in the hope of strengthening ourselves with the strength of Pharaoh, and of sheltering ourselves with the shadow of Egypt! Satan at such moments is always close at our ear, whispering to us, that, if we will but take counsel of him, and do as he bids us, he will help us out of our difficulty. It should be borne in mind that, every time we sin we weaken our souls, we cripple our good feelings, we blunt our conscience, we drive away the Spirit of God from our hearts. Therefore, instead of our being better able to meet the next temptation, the odds against us are increased. ( J. C. Hare, M. A. ) The Jews' dependence on Egypt W. Reading, M. A. The advantages which the Jews promised themselves from their alliance with Egypt were these β 1. The Egyptians abounded in chariots and horses, which the Jews were destitute of. For Palestine, being a country full of steep hills and narrow difficult ways, was in many places impassable by horses, and therefore their beasts of burden were camels, asses, and mules, which are not apt to start, but tread sure in dangerous ways. These served them very commodiously in times of peace. But when they were invaded by armies of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, who had troops of horse, and multitudes of chariots, they wanted the like forces to oppose them; and such the Egyptians could very well supply them with. 2. Besides, the Assyrians and Chaldeans were at that time the most formidable Powers of the East, ambitious of universal monarchy, and threatening to subdue Egypt as well as other rich kingdoms. On which account the Egyptians were jealous of them, and therefore were most easily prevailed upon, and more cheaply engaged to assist the Jews, or any other people in their wars against them. ( W. Reading, M. A. ) God's prohibition of alliance with Egypt W. Reading, M. A. The reasons why God prohibited His people to confederate with the Egyptians, are these β 1. He had delivered their forefathers out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, stretched out from Heaven, and unassisted by any human means. He had manifested Himself to be far above all their gods, in that He triumphed over them in the ten plagues, and drowned their king and army in the Red Sea. Notwithstanding all which sufficient convictions, the Egyptians still persisted in their gross idolatry; which might justly provoke God to forbid His people any dealing with them. 2. Their applying to Egypt for aid against their enemies, was derogatory to the honour of God, who having anciently demonstrated His ability to save His people, and having promised still to vouchsafe them His protection in proportion to their obedience, these idolaters might be apt to conclude that His former power was now decayed, and .that their gods had gained the ascendant over Him, since they were called in to the protection of His people. 3. An Egyptian had proved fatal to Israel in their happiest state; I mean the daughter of an Egyptian king, who was one of the wives of King Solomon, and helped with other strange women to entice him to idolatry. The immediate consequence of which, by the just judgment of God, was the division of the twelve tribes into two kingdoms, who often waged unnatural wars one with another. 4. God had, in general, forbidden His people to make confederacies with any of the nations round about them, lest they should defile themselves with their idolatrous principles and abominable practices; or lest they should put their trust in man and make flesh their arm, and their heart depart from the Lord. ( W. Reading, M. A. ) "Cover with a covering A. B. Davidson, LL. D., J. Skinner, D. D. Perhaps, "weave a web," hatch a scheme. ( A. B. Davidson, LL. D. ) R.V. marg. gives two translations between which it is difficult to choose. The latter is perhaps preferable, although the noun does not occur elsewhere in the sense of "libation." The allusion would be to drink offerings accompanying the conclusion of a treaty. ( J. Skinner, D. D. ) Adding sin to sin W. Day, M. A. The sin of forsaking God, and trusting in the arm of flesh, to their sin of drunkenness ( Isaiah 28:8 ), and their other sins. ( W. Day, M. A. ) Their strength is to sit still. Isaiah 30:7 A policy in an epigram J. Parker, D. D. Sometimes a policy is summed up in an epigram, or in an easily quotable sentence; and it can be used as a war cry or as an election cry; it can be adapted to political uses of many sorts. Thus it was said of the Bourbons that "they forgot nothing, and remembered nothing." It was said of an illustrious statesman in Europe that his policy was "blood and iron." In relation to many persons we are recommended to use "masterly inactivity" β to be appearing capable of doing miracles, and yet to take infinite care not to attempt the performance of one of them. This is precisely the spirit of the text. The peoples to whom the words were addressed were mocked, and the paraphrase which the spirit of the text would justify is this: β They have great mouths, but say nothing; the hippopotamus cannot make his voice heard; the ox mouth is closed: their energy is inaction; when they are about to come forward to do wonders they shrink back and do nothing. It is a taunt β an exclamation wholly ironical thrown in the face of a detested enemy, or an absconding friend, or one who has great appearance of energy, and yet is unable to move the tiniest of his fingers. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) "Rahab, that sitteth still Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. So full were Egyptian politics of bluster and big language, that the Hebrews had a nickname for Egypt. They called her Rahab β "Stormy speech," "Blusterer," "Braggart." It was the term also for the crocodile, as being a "monster," so that there was a picturesqueness as well as moral aptness in the name. Ay, says Isaiah, catching at the old name, and putting to it another which describes Egyptian helplessness and inactivity, I call her "Rahab sit-still," "Braggart-that-sitteth-still," "Stormy-speech stay-at-home." Blustering and inactivity, blustering and sitting still, that is her character. "For Egypt helpeth in vain and to no purpose." ( Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. ) Strength and stillness Homilist. The context reveals two things.(1) A great national danger.(2) A great national sin. Wherein is the truth of the statement, that man's strength is in sitting still? or, rather, what is meant by sitting still? It is not the stillness of indolence. Indolence is weakness β is ruin. Activity is the condition of strength. Industry is essential to progress in all that is great and happy. What, then, is the stillness? It is the stillness of unbounded trust in God. I. STILLNESS OF CONFIDENCE IN RELATION TO GOD'S REDEMPTIVE PROVISION IS STRENGTH. The sacrifice of Christ is all-sufficient. II. STILLNESS OF CONFIDENCE IN RELATION TO YOUR FUTURE HISTORY IS STRENGTH. "Take no thought for the morrow," etc. III. STILLNESS OF CONFIDENCE IN RELATION TO PRESENT PROVIDENTIAL TRIALS IS STRENGTH. The Israelites, with piled mountains on each side of them, the sea rolling before them, and Pharaoh and his host approaching them, were exhorted by their leader to "stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord." Peter slept between two soldiers; and Paul said, "None of these things move me." ( Homilist. ) Strength in sitting still J. Straiten. I. SOME THINGS TO WHICH THE SENTENCE OF THE TEXT WILL NOT APPLY. 1. It will not apply when we have to get our daily bread. We are to be diligent in business, as well as fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Neither do we say so when learning is to be acquired. This is to be sought by application, and earned by incessant toil. Neither is our preaching by sitting still. If any think to enter the ministry that they may sit still, and spend a life of ease, they utterly mistake the office. 3. Nor when any temptation is to be resisted, or any evil overcome. You are to resist the tempter. And you are to maintain that particular virtue, which is in direct defiance of the particular temptation. If you are tempted, there is another thing which you can do. You can flee. Safety is often in flight. Joseph fled. "Flee youthful lusts." 4. Nor does the text apply when duties of any kind are to be done. Idleness is a base condition. Better dig a hole and fall it up again. Better roll a stone up and down a hill, than pass your time in listlessness and languor. There are duties belonging to every state of life. Let them be attended to in promptitude and despatch. 5. Nor is the text applicable when good works are to be undertaken. We have many instructions in Scripture on this subject. "Be not weary in well-doing," etc. "Be steadfast, unmovable," etc. "These things," says St. Paul, "I will that ye affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God, may be careful to maintain good works." 6. We do not say it when the heavenly prize of eternal life is to be contended for. II. STATE THE CONDITION OF THINGS TO WHICH THE AXIOM DOES APPLY. 1. It will apply to many important questions concerning the salvation of the soul. It will apply to the expiation of guilt. So respecting regeneration. "Ye must be born again." There must be wrought an inward change. It will be wrought of God. And the Spirit of God works when, how, and where He pleases. 2. There are some matters belonging to our daily and nightly life, in which the principle is likewise of great value and importance. For example, the evening is come. The day's labour is finished. It is time to cease. God says to you, Lie down; go to sleep. And when you sleep, "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." Be not afraid. God will keep both the city and the watchman. Then, here is God's own day. This is the day when God emphatically says, "Sit still"; and in quietness and rest is your strength. Be not afraid. Commerce will be uninjured, and none the worse for your being quiet on this day. You will return to your occupations with augmented might and vigour on the morrow. 3. Then, again, there are providential conjunctures, in which we can do nothing, in which every effort and interference of ours is of no avail. And now the end of all this is manifest. Man's chief wisdom is β(1) To be active and diligent in all his appointed fields of labour and exertion.(2) To be tranquil, and resigned, and passive in matters over which he has no control.(3) To trust God, and acquiesce in the Divine will in everything. ( J. Straiten. ) Passive hours W. L. Watkinson. I. The ATTITUDE enjoined by the text. What is it to "sit still"? 1. It indicates a condition of silence. Times occur for silence before men β when it is best to refrain from all vindications touching our character and doings. There are seasons for silence before God β times when our lips are neither opened in complaint nor importunity. "Rest in the Lord (be silent to the Lord), and wait patiently for Him." 2. A condition of resting is suggested. We must resign our opinions, anxieties, merit, strength, and resources, looking simply into heaven. 3. It is also the attitude of waiting. "I bide my time," is the motto of one of our noble families, and he who can bide his time, or, to speak more accurately, can bide God's time, is perfect in the sublime art of sitting still. 4. The text also sets forth a condition of expectation. Sir Thomas Lawrence painted the portrait of the Duke of Wellington, and when the portrait was half finished, the Duke was represented as holding a watch in his hand, waiting for the Prussians at Waterloo. When the great soldier understood what the watch was intended to indicate, he observed, "That will never do. I was not waiting for the Prussians at Waterloo. Put a telescope in my hand, if you please, but no watch." The temper here enjoined is very different to stoicism, involving no sacrifice of sensibility; it is distinct from fatalism, because it recognises the good and righteous God freely acting in all the government of the world; and it cannot be confounded with despair, for its inspiration is faith and hope. II. The SEVERAL OCCASIONS when the admonition before us is specially applicable. 1. In the development of our religious life we may sometimes remember the text with advantage. Spiritual life commences in the passive mood. 2. But "justified by faith" "we often forget we must "live by faith," and by pure and simple faith pass into the highest stages of spiritual life. 3. There are two sides to a complete Christian life β the contemplative and enterprising, the hearkening and speaking, the receptive and communicative and it is of prime importance that both sides receive full attention. 4. Distressed by the problems and tribulations of life we may justly rest in the passive mood. Sometimes we are bitterly bereaved. In these days when our eyes are full of heartbreak let us not go down into the Egypt of carnal reason for light or help β only be still. God does not even expect us to say big words in such crises β only to be still. Sometimes we are prostrated by extreme physical suffering. Said a poor afflicted woman, "All that God requires from me now is to lie here and cough." Yes; simple suffering and quiet confidence β that, and nothing more. Sometimes we are defamed. When our reputation is unjustly eclipsed, are we to agitate and worry ourselves? Let us rather exemplify the maxim of Lavater: "I can wait"; let there be no impatience, no fretfulness, no bitterness. In the days of sorrowful surprise, of overwhelming misfortune, of sore dilemma, let us not go down into Egypt for wisdom to explain, or strength to bear, or consolation to soothe, but looking up to the everlasting Love, a whole army of fiery cars and coursers shall shelter and deliver us. 5. The counsel of the text is applicable to us when oppressed by spiritual conflict and darkness. "Who is there among you that feareth the Lord," etc. ( Isaiah 50:10 ). 6. This monition is applicable to us also when we are discouraged in our evangelistic enterprises. The Indian juggler is said to contrive to make a flower grow from a seed to maturity before the eyes of the spectators in a few moments; and thus we expect the truth we sow to spring forth speedily bearing its rich crown of beauty and fruit. But alas! we wait, wait long, and sometimes sink into a state very like despair. Then again, when the triumph of the truth is delayed, workers are tempted to alloy it, with a view to its speedier popularity; hoping that in its debased form it may secure an entrance denied to pure doctrine. And yet once more, when the faith of Christ has not forthwith run and been glorified, the Church has been tempted to form political, artistic, and worldly alliances, which in the end only betray and mock. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is a grand thing for workers to "sit still"; having with both hands toiled for God, calmly and confidently to wait the issue ( James 5:7, 8 ). The difficulty of rendering obedience to this injunction is really great. There is a sitting still easy enough and common enough, but to rest in God with an absolute faith is neither easy nor common. ( W. L. Watkinson. ) Over-solicitude injurious W. L. Watkinson. Our solicitudes, intermeddlings, overdoings ruin us, or, at least, bring us into many and sore distresses. 1. They do in regard to our character. When shall we understand we are clay in the Potter's hand, and our grand business the simple yielding of ourselves to the fashioning of God's sovereign Spirit? How often our overweening care, our intrusive curiosity, our vanity and self-will have spoiled God's grand handiwork, and arrested the growing completeness of our spirit! 2. And so in regard to our circumstances β our safety is in quietness. In days of tempest the helm is safest in charge of the pilot; in moments of alarm the reins are best in the driver's skilful grasp; and if the man overboard will only be still all the Waves of the sea shall not drown him. Oh! when shall we learn the blessedness of resignation, the power of passivity, the victory of faith? ( W. L. Watkinson. ) The secret of spiritual power W. Baxendale. I. REST IN ANOTHER NECESSARILY IMPLIES THAT WE MUST LEARN TO REST IN OURSELVES. No man has a right to say that he is living the Divine life, without faith, without patience, without trust in God, without that spirit of waiting upon God, to which all the Scriptures exhort and encourage us. The patient places himself in the hands of a physician, but he will keep meddling with the physician's prescriptions; he will keep taking nostrums of his own. And the physician says very properly, "Not so; this must not be. I can do nothing for you if it is so." And men who put their salvation into God's hands, as Israel ought to have done, must stand by that β stand by it always. II. As arising from this, WE ARE STRONG IN LIFE JUST AS WE LAY HOLD OF THIS PRINCIPLE and learn to restrain ourselves. ( W. Baxendale. ) The stillness of faith A. L. R. Foote. (with ver. 15): β Does this expression embody a universal principle β one applicable under all possible circumstances? The least consideration will convince us that this cannot be the case. 1. You are naturally, it may be, somewhat apathetic. I fear we all are so in religion β in the concerns of the soul. And this natural indolence is sometimes greatly strengthened by a false theology, a one-sided, overstrained evangeliser, which, by forever insisting on the one point of human inability, has a tendency to lull men asleep. And thus it is that multitudes sit down with folded hands, in an attitude of waiting, as they say, for I know not what mysterious influence from on high to visit their souls. The error is a very grievous one. Scripture bids us awake out of sleep, it bids us flee from the coming wrath, it bids us turn from sin unto God, avoid temptation, resist Satan, restrain our own evil tendencies; it bids us repent, and believe, and pray, and use the means of grace. 2. There is another class, however, who are likely to fall into an opposite error. They are not apathetic, their natural constitution of mind is the very reverse of this. These are your active, bustling, restless people. There is no quietness about them, no repose, no calmness. You read their character in their very look. There is an uneasy air, a feverishness, a fretfulness, characterising them and all their actions, which distinguish them from others, and place them in a class by themselves. When the Gospel comes to one of this class, saying, Cease from all efforts of your own for acceptance; β "your strength is to sit still, to rest in God, to believe in Jesus; in returning and rest thou shalt be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength," β is there no risk that there be a temporary recoil from a system that thus comes so directly into collision with his individualism of character? His first prompting is to something quite different. Let him have his own way, then; it is humbling he needs. It is not necessary we should follow him in his efforts; they are the same as the efforts of those who "go about to establish their own righteousness." We know what the result must be; nor are we mistaken, for by and by we find him by the Cross β he has sunk down there exhausted. Yet there are other occasions on which his natural constitution β strong, because deeply rooted β will rise up, and place itself in antagonism with the dealings of God; and chiefly, perhaps, in these two ways β duty and suffering.(1) Suffering. He is now a child of God, but not on that account exempt from chastisement; nay, rather on that very account exposed to it as part of that salutary discipline by which he is training up for Heaven. Perhaps such a man as he needs a severer discipline than that of a more quiet, subdued, restful disposition, to humble him, and wean him from all vain confidences; and so affliction comes in some shape or other β such as will touch him most acutely. We need not think it strange if he go down to Egypt for help; if he have recourse to false physicians; if, instead of looking to God, he trust in an arm of flesh to deliver him; if he weary under God's chastening hand, and wish it removed ere the end in view has been answered. He finds no rest till he returns to God, and says, He hath put me into the furnace, and here will I lie quietly till He take me out again.(2) Passing now from the sphere of suffering to that of duty, we find him maintaining the same conflict between the Divine authority and his own will. Remember he is essentially active. He loves a conspicuous position. It is not exactly that he is vain or ambitious, but something within him stimulates him to come forward; he feels as if he were formed for a position of usefulness and eminence; and perhaps he is right. Only he must wait God's time for this; he must suffer God to choose for him; and this is what he is rather unwilling to do. ( A. L. R. Foote. ) The strength of the Church in troublous times James Patrick. I. NEGATIVELY. 1. The strength of the Church in troublous times is not in listening to carnal counsel. 2. Nor in trusting in carnal confidences. II. POSITIVELY. 1. The strength of the Church in troublous times is to sit still in the way of seeking and obeying Divine direction. 2. To sit still in the way of exercising a humble dependence upon Divine aid (ver. 15). 3. To sit still in the way of holding fast all her scriptural attainments. 4. To return to the Lord in those respects in which she has departed from Him. 5. To go forward in the performance of whatever work God is laying to her hand. ( James Patrick. ) Strength perfected in weakness W. L. Watkinson. When we sit down, God stands up; when we are silent, He speaks; when we have laid down our reeds, He Himself becomes our shield and salvation. ( W. L. Watkinson. ) Difficulty of spiritual passivity W. L. Watkinson. Theatrical performers affirm that to play at statues, which, of course, require perfect motionlessness, is the hardest trial of human nature; and all who have sat for their photograph know something of this experience. The difficulty of physical stillness may serve to represent the extreme difficulty of spiritual passivity under the truth and discipline of God. ( W. L. Watkinson. ) The albatross a symbol of power W. L. Watkinson. The albatross sailing over the sea with vast unstirring wings is a symbol of power, not of weakness; and the soul which sustains its flight in the empyrean without noise or flutter, does so in the fulness of power, in the perfection of life. ( W. L. Watkinson. ) Waiting may contribute to victory W. L. Watkinson. The Duke at Waterloo ordered certain regiments to form and wait. For many hours this order remained in force, and only late in the day were the obedient warriors led to victory. We may be sure those hours of waiting were the hardest hours in those soldiers' lives. In that space of anxious suspense the Duke was winning the battle for them, but they would much rather have been doing something to the winning of it for themselves. So is it frequently with us in the strife of life. ( W. L. Watkinson. ) Note it in a book. Isaiah 30:8 Keeping a journal S. E. Keeble. (for children): β I. THE JOURNAL YOU MAY KEEP. You may spend your pocket money in a book, pen and ink, and set up a journal. If so β 1. Its nature.(1) Not about self. Do not write much about yourself, your own thoughts and feelings. Let there be but few capital I's.(2) Not a dreary, lifeless chronicle. If you can do no better than the following, day after day, do not keep a journal at all: "Got on all right through the day, went for a walk at night, came home and went to bed at nine," which was the constant entry in the diary of a boy I know.(3) But a record of facts and events. Do as did Doyle and Dickens when lads β record in a journal fresh places seen and persons men β the substance of new books read, things heard new to you, sights and scenes in town and country. 2. Its use.(1) It assists observation and expression. Two most important things to you. Develops faculties of attention, memory, reproduction. Prepares you for science, poetry, writing, and speech.(2) It is helpful in afterlife. Not only from above considerations, but also because it will awaken tender and pleasant memories, evoke gratitude to God, and keep you in touch with boys when a man. II. THE JOURNAL YOU MUST KEEP. 1. For yourself. Your brain is a self-acting journal. In its cell lies hidden, all unknown to you, a register of all your past deeds, words, and thoughts. Sometimes the door of recollection flies open, and you see this record of the past. The record is written in invisible ink, but the fire of memory brings it out. And if sometimes now, how much more at the last! 2. And partly for others. Every day you also write something down in the brain β journals of others, of parents, brothers and sisters, playfellows, teachers. The words and deeds which they hear and see. Be careful to write down for them good and pleasant things β things sweet and helpful. III. THE JOURNAL GOD KEEPS. 1. Instance in the text. Prophet to write that Jews were "lying children β children that will not hear the Word of the Lord" (ver. 9), and to write it "that it may be for the time to come, forever and ever" (ver. 8). A terrible entry in God's journal. May no such entry be written concerning us! 2. God's journal complete. He makes no omissions. He puts all in, good and bad. We make selections to our own advantage. We may deceive ourselves β we may hide much from our friends, but not from Him. "Thou God seest me"; and when at the judgment "God's books are opened," His will be a check diary to supply all our omissions. Therefore, let us wisely number our days, and see that our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. ( S. E. Keeble. ) This is a rebellious people. Isaiah 30:9-11 Dislike to ministerial fidelity J. A. James. The Jews have very many followers under the Christian dispensation. I. STATE THE TRUTHS WHICH ARE USUALLY OBNOXIOUS TO SUCH PERSONS. There are many doctrines to which every faithful preacher of God's Word feels bound to give ample room in his stated ministry, that are by no means welcome to many of his hearers; such, for instance, as the spirituality and unbending strictness of the Divine law, the deep depravity of human nature, the exceeding sinfulness of man's conduct, the universal necessity of regeneration, the inefficacy of works for justification, and the indispensable obligation to a separation from the world. The Scriptures, not only of the Old Testament, but of the New, abound with the most appalling descriptions of the Divine displeasure against sin. It is a striking fact, that He who was love incarnate β who was named Jesus, because He was to be the Saviour of His people β delivered, during the course of His personal ministry, more fearful descriptions of Divine justice and the punishment of the wicked, than are to be found in any other part of the Word of God. No man can fulfil his ministry, therefore, without frequently alluding to the justice of God in the punishment of sin. But such a subject frequently calm up all the enmity of the carnal mind. II. THE CAUSES TO WHICH WE MUST TRACE THIS DISLIKE OF MINISTERIAL FIDELITY, and this love of smooth and delusive preaching. 1. In some cases it is occasioned by absolute unbelief. Multitudes who admit in gross the authority of the Bible, deny it in detail. 2. The refinements of modern society and taste lead many to ask for smooth things. There is no respect of persons with God; before Him the distinctions of society have no place. 3. Wounded pride is with some the cause of a dislike of faithful preaching. They hate the doctrine which disturbs their self-complacency, and revile the man who attempts to sink them in their own esteem. 4. But in by far the greater number of instances, this dislike of the truth, and this love of smooth things, is the result of painful forebodings of future misery. III. THE FOLLY, THE SIN, AND THE DANGER OF A DESIRE TO SUPPRESS THE FAITHFUL VOICE OF TRUTH, and to be flattered with the soothing language of deceit. 1. Its folly is apparent from the consideration that no concealment of the situation of the sinner can alter his condition in the sight of God, or change the relation in which he stands to eternity. 2. The sin of this disposition is equal to its folly. It is sinful alike in its origin, its nature, and its consequences. Why does a person wish to have a false representation of his state? For this one reason, that as he is determined to go on in sin, he may be left to sin with less reluctance and remorse. As it is sinful in its origin, it is manifestly so in its nature, for it is the love of falsehood; a desire to confound the distinction between sin and holiness. Nor is this all; in aiming to suppress the voice of warning and the note of alarm, he acts
Matthew Henry
30:1-7 It was often the fault and folly of the Jews, that when troubled by their neighbours on one side, they sought for succour from others, instead of looking up to God. Nor can we avoid the dreadful consequences of adding sin to sin, but by making the righteousness of Christ our refuge, and seeking for the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Men have always been prone to lean to their own understandings, but this will end in their shame and misery. They would not trust in God. They took much pains to gain the Egyptians. The riches so spent turned to a bad account. See what dangers men run into who forsake God to follow their carnal confidences. The Creator is the Rock of ages, the creature a broken reed; we cannot expect too little from man, or too much from God. Our strength is to sit still, in humble dependence upon God and his goodness, and quiet submission to his will. 30:8-18 The Jews were the only professing people God then had in the world, yet many among them were rebellious. They had the light, but they loved darkness rather. The prophets checked them in their sinful pursuits, so that they could not proceed without fear; this they took amiss. But faithful ministers will not be driven from seeking to awaken sinners. God is the Holy One of Israel, and so they shall find him. They did not like to hear of his holy commandments and his hatred of sin; they desired that they might no more be reminded of these things. But as they despised the word of God, their sins undermined their safety. Their state would be dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel. Let us return from our evil ways, and settle in the way of duty; that is the way to be saved. Would we be strengthened, it must be in quietness and in confidence, keeping peace in our own minds, and relying upon God. They think themselves wiser than God; but the project by which they thought to save themselves was their ruin. Only here and there one shall escape, as a warning to others. If men will not repent, turn to God, and seek happiness in his favour and service, their desires will but hasten their ruin. Those who make God alone their confidence, will have comfort. God ever waits to be gracious to all that come to him by faith in Christ, and happy are those who wait for him. 30:19-26 God's people will soon arrive at the Zion above, and then they will weep no more for ever. Even now they would have more comfort, as well as holiness, if they were more constant in prayer. A famine of bread is not so great a judgment as a famine of the word of God. There are right-hand and left-hand errors; the tempter is busy courting us into by-paths. It is happy if, by the counsels of a faithful minister or friend, or the checks of conscience, and the strivings of God the Spirit, we are set right when doubting, and prevented from going wrong. They shall be cured of their idolatry. To all true penitents sin becomes very hateful. This is shown daily in the conversion of souls, by the power of Divine grace, to the fear and love of God. Abundant means of grace, with the influences of the Holy Spirit, would be extended to places destitute of them. The effect of this should be comfort and joy to the people of God. Light, that is, knowledge, shall increase. This is the light which the gospel brought into the world, and which proclaims healing to the broken-hearted. 30:27-33 God curbs and restrains from doing mischief. With a word he guides his people into the right way, but with a bridle he turns his enemies upon their own ruin. Here, in threatening the ruin of Sennacherib's army, the prophet points at the final and everlasting destruction of all impenitent sinners. Tophet was a valley near Jerusalem, where fires were continually burning to destroy things that were hurtful and offensive, and there the idolatrous Jews caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch. This denotes the certainty of the destruction, as an awful emblem of the place of torment in the other world. No oppressor shall escape the Divine wrath. Let sinners then flee to Christ, seeking to be reconciled to Him, that they may be safe and happy, when destruction from the Almighty shall sweep away all the workers of iniquity.
Benson