Isaiah 66

Notes

Ver. 1-4. I do not regard your temple in all its glory, but the law-fulfilling Messiah, and broken-hearted believers in him. Your sacrifices offered up without faith in, nay, in opposition to, his, I esteem as infinitely criminal and detestable. And since ye obstinately cleave to your abominable righteousness and superstitions, I will give you up to the lusts of your hearts, and bring upon you the miseries which ye attempt to avoid. 5-14. And while God shall marvellously protect the Jewish Christians who have been persecuted by their brethren, terrible judgments shall be executed on the Jewish nation, city, and temple. But speedily, and before their destruction, shall multitudes be converted to Christ and his gospel church, particularly from among the Gentiles; and large, abundant, and lasting, especially in the latter days, shall be their comforts, 14-24. And while the obstinate Jews, Heathens, Papists, and Mahometans, shall be, in the most terrible manner, punished by the judgments of God, and set up as distinguished monuments of sin, in time or eternity, the Jewish preachers, and others, shall spread the gospel into all parts of the world, and shall become noted instruments of the enlargement, purification, and lively devotion of the gospel church.

Ver. 1. The Jews were proud of their national descent from Abraham, whose faith they knew not; of the law of Moses, whose precepts they kept not; of the temple, whose services they degraded by their profanity; and of Jehovah their God, whom they associated with idols. Against this false pride and the false security thence arising, the Lord here proceeds to warn them by showing that heaven is his glorious temple, and the humble man the only acceptable worshipper. C.

Ver. 3. This verse is obscured by the italics of the translators, as the object seems to be a description, not of the comparative guilt of the Jews (as if a certain crime were committed), but the actual abominations they had conjoined with the worship of Jehovah: 'He that slayeth an ox' (to offer to God) 'killeth a man' (to satisfy his own malice); 'he that sacrificeth a lamb' (to Jehovah) 'beheadeth a dog' (to a heathen deity); 'he that maketh an oblation' (to the living God) offereth 'swine's flesh' (a sacrifice to the dead); 'he that burneth incense' (emblem of ascending prayer) 'blesseth an idol' that can neither hear nor answer. C.

Ver. 5. The Lord here speaks the word of comfort to his church, anticipating the time when the first Christians were 'cast out of the synagogues,' Jn. 16. 2, and the custom of total excision from family affection and aid, as well as church-fellowship, still practised against every Jew who is converted to the 'truth as it is in Jesus.' C.

Ver. 7. When Christ, as 'a child born, a son given,' came in the flesh, a remnant were doubtless expecting and praying for his appearing; but as a nation and church, the Jews neither expected nor desired such a Redeemer. C.

Ver. 8. For as soon as Zion travailed. 'But as soon as Zion travailed,' &c. Of which see the wonderful conversions produced by a single apostolic address, Ac. 2. 41; 4. 4. And surely what God has effected once he is able to accomplish again.—Note, Let believers pray for that outpouring of the Spirit from on high; for neither by 'might nor by power' of man shall this work be effected, 'but by my Spirit, saith the Lord,' Zec. 4. 6. C.

Ver. 12. Like a river. A river, as distinguished from a cistern, which, however deep, is at length exhausted, while the mountain-fed river is rolling on, and, by aid of its tributaries, ever widening as it flows.—Note, This distinction is forcibly exemplified in the distinction between φρέαρ? and πηγή, Jn. 4. 11, 14. C.

Ver. 14. Your bones. The bones are the emblems of strength and the mechanical instruments of motion. They abide in the grave when the flesh is decayed, as the root of an herb abides in the ground when the flower is faded, the leaf withered, and the stem cut down. The comparison, therefore, seems to refer to the resurrection as exhibited in the vision of dry bones, Eze. 37. 11. C.

Ver. 17. Behind one in the midst. 'Who purify themselves at a fountain in the midst of the gardens,' according to Kimchi. But how could any be said to purify themselves behind a fountain?—'After the rites of Achad' (Lowth). But Achad never elsewhere appears as the name of any idol. The marginal translation, 'one after another,' the literal, 'after one betwixt,' may probably suggest the true meaning, 'successively,' or 'promiscuously.' C.

Ver. 19. I will set a sign. A sign of God's power, faithfulness, holiness, and grace, such as appeared in the incarnation (Lu. 2. 34), preaching (Jn. 7. 46), and miracles of our Lord, and in the endowments, self-denial, and miracles of his apostles, Ac. 2. 19, 22, 43; 4. 30; 14. 3; Ro. 15. 19; 2 Co. 12. 12; He. 2. 4.—My glory. The real demonstration of the 'glory of God' is 'the face of Jesus Christ,' whether marked by the look of tenderness, the tear of pity, the elevation of prayer, the bloody sweat of agony in the garden, or the hand of the smiter in the hall; above all, in his face when he rose from the dead, and brought life and immortality to light from the darkness of the grave, 2 Co. 4. 6. C.

Ver. 23. 'From one new-moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another (that is, perpetually), shall all flesh come to worship before me,' not necessarily in Jerusalem—for that were physically impossible—but 'in spirit and in truth,' where the eye of faith seeth him in the temple of his universal presence, Jn. 4. 20-24; He. 11. 1. C.

Reflections.—Let my care be to have my heart right with God, and a meet habitation for him through the Spirit. And making Jesus my pattern, let me, with a contrite heart, tremble at his word. God forbid that I should ever value myself on account of external performances in religion, which may be so detestable to him; or that ever he should abandon me to the power and rage of my own lusts, and the fearful suffering attending the same. Hypocrites and church-rulers are frequently the most cruel persecutors. But saints may bear injuries with patience when God will so quickly overbalance them with deliverance and comfort. And the church's remarkable deliverances, enlargements, and joys, are ordinarily introduced or attended by the most tremendous judgments on hypocritical professors and open enemies. All labour and suffering are well bestowed that issue in the conversion of men to Christ. And notwithstanding all that the wicked can do, the word of the Lord hath had, and will have, free course, and be glorified. The ends of the earth shall be made to remember and turn to the Lord. And the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, shall teach men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this world. But what dreadful spectacles of divine judgment have been the Jewish and Roman, and shall be the Popish and Turkish, persecutors of the church! Let, therefore, the British nation stand in awe and tremble!

Concluding Remarks on the Book of Isaiah.

Isaiah is placed at the head of the glorious prophetic company, not because his prophecy was first in point of time—for he was preceded by Jonah, Amos, and Hosea, and was contemporary with Joel and Micah—but because of the overwhelming importance of his subject, and his frequent references to the coming and kingdom of Christ. Upon this account Isaiah has been distinguished by the title of 'the evangelical prophet.' Concerning his family nothing certain is known, though some suppose him to have been of the blood-royal, and that his father was the son of Joash, and brother of Uzziah. There is a tradition among the Jews, and it has been adopted by many Christian writers, that Isaiah lived till the time of Manasseh, by whom he was sawn asunder. That some one of the prophets so suffered, the apostle affirms, He. 11. 37; but of the individual we are uncertain. If Isaiah lived till the time of Manasseh, he must have exercised the prophetic office during at least sixty-one years—a period by no means improbable, when compared with that during which many ministers of the gospel have continued to discharge the most laborious duties of their offices. It is however certain that he lived till after the fifteenth year of Hezekiah, which makes the continuance of his office beyond all question—calculating from the first of Uzziah—to have been not under forty-eight years.

The name of Isaiah, when interpreted, is, in some measure, descriptive of the nature of his divine message. It signifies 'the salvation of Jehovah;' and was bestowed with singular prophetic propriety upon him who was commissioned to foretell and describe, so vividly and impressively, the glorious advent of Messiah, through whom 'all flesh shall see the salvation of God.' See Is. 40. 5, comp. with Lu. 3. 6; Ac. 4. 12.

Called into office during a period of great national declension from truth, purity, and godliness, one great object of the prophet was to establish beyond controversy the divine origin of the Jewish institutions. This he effects by foretelling some events nigh at hand, 'coming home to men's own lives and bosoms,' and which the living witnesses of his own generation must have been able either to falsify or verify by their own observation. The verification of the prediction, including events most improbable at the time, fulfilled the Mosaic test of the divine commission of a prophet, and left unbelieving idolaters and apostates totally without excuse (see De. 18. 21, 22); while others of his prophecies, stretching far into futurity, have continued to receive an exact but progressive fulfilment during centuries; and others look forward still, and give assurance, by the experience of the past, that all that remain will be accomplished. C.