Isaiah 1

Notes

Ver. 2. Ye heavens and earth, and all that dwell therein, with astonishment know and bear witness that I have marvellously raised up, privileged, preserved, protected, and advanced this Jewish nation; and yet they have, on occasions and in ways unnumbered, perfidiously violated my covenant, and rebelled against my commandments. 3. Brutishly ignorant and inconsiderate of everything important, they scarcely pay me and my ordinances the regard that cattle do to their owners and their stables. 4. Alas! the whole nation is polluted with, and guilty of, the most shocking and multiplied abominations! Unlike to their pious ancestors, they tread in the wicked steps of their immediate parents: they wax worse and worse themselves, and labour to render their posterity still more and more wicked. Revolting more and more from the service and worship of Jehovah their God, they have provoked his fearful indignation against themselves. 5. Further punishment of their sin with temporal calamities would but render them still more outrageous and obstinate in wickedness. Already corruption hath infected all ranks, the rulers and the ruled, without any proper means used to prevent it; and misery and distress have overwhelmed the whole nation. 7-9. The Israelites, Syrians, Assyrians, or others, have already, by fire and sword, desolated the whole country of Judah; and Jerusalem alone remains, and that in great danger and distress: and were it not from regard to a few righteous persons still left among us, the whole nation had been utterly destroyed by God in accordance with just law. 10-15. Be therefore assured, saith God, ye detestable monsters of wickedness, that, while ye indulge yourselves in your sinful courses, all your ceremonial services, however solemn and expensive, and even your prayers, amounting to nothing more than legal dissimulation, are utterly abominable, and do but more and more provoke me to wrath. 16-20. By faith applying the word, the blood, the Spirit of Jesus, for your effectual purification from sin, repent of and turn from your vices; and conscientiously exercise yourselves in the contrary virtues of piety, equity, and kindness.—In so doing, you shall not only find your most grievous iniquities, the murder of the Messiah not excepted, fully and freely forgiven, but enjoy a safe and happy continuance in your country. But if you remain obstinate in your evil ways, your destruction, by the sword of your enemies, is inevitable.—21-24. Jerusalem, once so famed for a faithful adherence to the laws and worship of God, and for the justice and integrity of its magistrates and people, has now apostatized to idolatry and every other form of wickedness, and is filled with murders of innocents, saints, and prophets, and even of the Messiah. The practices of all ranks are quite corrupted and their principles depraved, and even the oracles of God debased, by false glosses and human traditions. Magistrates, and other great men, are ringleaders in wickedness, conniving at, or protecting men in, dishonesty; giving sentence according as they are bribed; and suffering the poor, fatherless, and widows, who have nothing to give, to be oppressed without redress. Therefore shall Jehovah manifest his almighty power, which has been so long employed in acts of mercy to Israel, in utterly destroying these monsters who desperately hate and oppose him, and are a burden to his Spirit. 25-27. Part of the nation shall nevertheless be preserved, and remarkably reformed by his power and grace. Magistrates and ministers, as in the days of Joshua and David, shall be active, upright, and faithful, and the people famed for righteousness in their dealings with men, and for their adherence to the covenant and worship of their God. Thus, through God's righteous execution of judgment upon the wicked and chiefly through the glorious righteousness of his Son, shall his true worshippers, Jews and Gentiles, be delivered from corruption and misery. 28-31. But dreadful and general shall be the ruin of obstinate sinners, who continue in their rebellion against God, and contempt of his worship and Son. Their idols and groves, instead of preserving them, shall add to their confusion and misery.—Deprived of every delight and every enjoyment, they and their idols shall, in the most easy, irresistible, and remediless manner, be destroyed by the sure judgment of God, procured by their sins.

Ver. 2. 'It is Jehovah that speaketh;' 'I have magnified and exalted children,' raised them to eminence in literature, arts, science, agriculture, commerce, and power. C.

Ver. 7. This passage cannot be regarded as literally applicable to any period during the life of Isaiah. It is prophetic rather than historical. It predicts a state of things which must inevitably result from sin and rebellion against God. The judgments are so certain that the prophet speaks of them as if already executed. The language is fearfully graphic, and the curse most terrible and comprehensive.—The country, fields and vineyards, plains and mountains, a desolation. The cities, including every inhabited spot, burned. The land, in all its produce and fruits, eaten up by strangers, and left like a wilderness. P.——Your country is desolation. The period to which this prophecy refers is not stated, but it cannot be referred to the reign of Uzziah, which was prosperous (2 Ch. xxvi.), but may well accord with that of the idolatrous Ahaz, 2 Ch. xxviii. C.

Ver. 8. Cucumbers of various kinds are in great repute in the East as articles of food, and consequently liable to depredations. Zion, in her ruined state, is compared to those temporary huts provided to protect the watchmen of the gardens, either in the heat of the day or dews of the night.—Note, Even the most prosperous countries have many ruins—objects of continual attraction to the traveller, the painter, or the poet. But there is scarcely a ruin in any land that is not a memorial of God's judgments against the kings and nobles, and churches and people, of other days—and a warning to those of present days to 'flee from the wrath to come.' C.

Ver. 10. In all countries, and in all ages of degeneracy, there has been a constant effort at mutual recrimination between 'rulers and people;' the rulers charging the people with insubordination and want of economy, the people charging the rulers with misgovernment and extravagance. Under the ominous names of rulers of Sodom, and people of Gomorrah, God rebukes and threatens both. C.

Ver. 12. Who hath required this? He does not mean, Who has required sacrifice; but, Who has required sacrifices from such impure worshippers? C.

Ver. 16. Wash you, make you clean. That is, 'in the blood of the Lamb,' Re. 7. 14. Neither is there cleansing or salvation in any other. C.

Ver. 18. White as snow that fell from heaven and never was trodden on or stained. White as wool that has been cleansed in water from all impurity. C.

Ver. 23. Gifts. 'Bribes.' The common and abiding curse of all eastern despotisms, in which justice is bought and sold as a common article of traffic; and one of the most portentous symptoms of degeneracy and signs of judgment that can ever infect any individual church or nation. C.

Ver. 25. The meaning is, that God himself, by his judgments, and the sanctifying power of his Spirit, would thoroughly purify his people, removing evil rulers, corrupt judges, and false principles, and developing righteousness and purity in heart, intellect, and social life. P.

Ver. 26. Spiritually this prediction has certainly been fulfilled, for the apostle expressly says, 1 Co. 5. 12: 'Do not ye judge them that are within?' See also 1 Co. 6. 1-5. But as the judgments were temporal, is there not reason to conclude that the blessing will also be temporal; and that Israel restored may yet literally have 'judges as at the first, and counsellors as at the beginning?' Lord, remember thy covenant, and hasten the time! C.

Ver. 30. 'The mention of trees and gardens, as places of idolatrous worship, suggests a beautiful comparison, under which the destruction of the idolaters is again set forth. They who choose trees and gardens, in preference to God's appointed place of worship, shall themselves be like trees and gardens, but in the most alarming sense. For, in answer to the tacit question why they should be ashamed and confounded for their oaks and gardens, ye yourselves shall be like an oak fading, decaying in its leaf, and like a garden which has no water,—a lively emblem, to an oriental reader, of entire desolation' (Alexander). P.

Reflections.—Prophets and ministers must always declare that will of God which themselves have seen and believed: and God often much diversifies the opportunities which he gives them to declare it. In the most awful manner both heaven and earth attest the importance of what he speaks, and the equity of what he inflicts. How horrid is ingratitude, notwithstanding mercies innumerable received! And shocking is the ignorance and thoughtlessness which are sometimes found among professors of the truth. When heinous corruptions become universal, inveterate, and highly aggravated, what can be expected but ruinous judgments, in which every act and form of wickedness will be resented! But desperate is their case who are hardened by both mercies and judgments, and to whom God ceases to be a reprover. It is a great mercy for a nation, universally ripe for ruin, to have yet a small number of eminent saints. Thrice happy are they who are of the number, and are by true faith preserved from going to hell with the multitude. The greatest enemies to the power of godliness are often the most rigid observers of the form; and men will flee to their most costly devotions for relief, while they cleave to the sins which are the cause of their misery. But nothing is more abominable to God than indulged hypocrisy in our devotions. Indulged sin is so odious to him, that it renders all our prayers hateful in his sight.—What an extensive and laborious work is the real exercise of godliness! God, by the most gracious pardons, and the most full though merciful rewards, encourages us to it: and graciously he warns men before he strikes them with his judgments. But, alas! nothing is too horrid for apostate professors to commit. And injustice to men, especially the poor, marks magistrates and others as the detested enemies of God, whom he can easily destroy. Reformation and redemption are truly the work of God through the blood of his Son. In his great mercy he redeems believers, when the bulk by their choice perish in their sin. And no ruin is more certain and dreadful than of those who obstinately refuse and apostatize from Christ.