ISAIAH 50 COMMENTARY

EDITED BY GLENN PEASE

Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s Obedience

1 This is what the Lord says: “Where is your mother’s

certificate of divorce with which I sent her away?

Or to which of my creditors did I sell you?

Because of your sins you were sold; because of your

transgressions your mother was sent away.

1.BARNES, “Thus saith the Lord - To the Jews in Babylon, who were suffering under his hand, and who might be disposed to complain that God had dealt with them with as much caprice and cruelty as a man did with his wife, when he gave her a writing of divorce, and put her away without any just cause.

Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement? - God here speaks of himself as the husband of his people, as having married the church to himself, denoting the tender affection which he had for his people. This figure is frequently used in the Bible. Thus in Isa_62:5 : ‘As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee;’ ‘For thy Maker is thy husband’ Isa_54:5; ‘Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord, for I am married unto you’ Jer_3:14. Thus in Rev_21:9, the church is called ‘the bride, the Lamb’s wife.’ Compare Ezek. 16: See Lowth on Hebrew poetry, Lec. xxxi. The phrase, ‘bill of divorcement.’ refers to the writing or instrument which a husband was by law obliged to give a wife when he chose to put her away. This custom of divorce Moses found probably in existence among the Jews, and also in surrounding nations, and as it was difficult if not impossible at once to remove it, he permitted it on account of the hardness of the hearts of the Jews (Deu_24:1; compare Mat_19:8).

It originated probably from the erroneous views which then prevailed of the nature of the marriage compact. It was extensively regarded as substantially like any other compact, in which the wife became a purchase from her father, and of course as she had been purchased, the husband claimed the right of dismissing her when he pleased. Moses nowhere defines the causes for which a man might put away his wife, but left these to be judged of by the people themselves. But he regulated the way in which it might be done. He ordained a law which was designed to operate as a material check on the hasty feelings, the caprice, and the passions of the husband. He designed that it should be with him, if exercised, not a matter of mere excited feeling, but that he should take time to deliberate upon it; and hence, he ordained that in all cases a formal

instrument of writing should be executed releasing the wife from the marriage tie, and leaving her at liberty to pursue her own inclinations in regard to future marriages Deu_24:2.

It is evident that this would operate very materially in favor of the wife, and in checking and restraining the excited passions of the husband (see Jahn’s Bib. Antiq. Section 160; Michaelis’ Commentary on the Laws of Moses, vol. i. pp. 450-478; ii. 127-40. Ed. Lond. 1814, 8vo.) In the passage before us, God says that he had not rejected his people. He had not been governed by the caprice, sudden passion, or cruelty which husbands often evinced. There was a just cause why he had treated them as he had, and he did not regard them as the children of a divorced wife. The phrase, ‘your mother,’ Here is used to denote the ancestry from whom they were descended. They were not regarded as the children of a disgraced mother.

Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you - Among the Hebrews, a father had the right, by the law of Moses, if he was oppressed with debt, to sell his children Exo_21:7; Neh_5:5. In like manner, if a man had stolen anything, and had nothing to make restitution, he might be sold for the theft Exo_22:3. If a man also was poor and unable to pay his debts, he might be sold Lev_25:39; 2Ki_4:1; Mat_18:25. On the subject of slavery among the Hebrews, and the Mosaic laws in regard to it, see Michaelis’ Commentary on the Laws of Moses, vol. ii. pp. 155, following In this passage, God says that he had not been governed by any such motives in his dealings with his people. He had not dealt with them as a poor parent sometimes felt himself under a necessity of doing, when he sold his children, or as a creditor did when a man was not able to pay him. He had been governed by different motives, and he had punished them only on account of their transgressions.

Ye have sold yourselves - That is, you have gone into captivity only on account of your sins. It has been your own act, and you have thus become bondmen to a foreign power only by your own choice.

Is your mother put away - Retaining the figure respecting divorce. The nation has been rejected, and suffered to go into exile, only on account of its transgressions.

2.CLARKE, “Thus saith the Lord - This chapter has been understood of the prophet himself; but it certainly speaks more clearly about Jesus of Nazareth than of Isaiah, the son of Amos.

Where is the bill “Where is this bill” - Husbands, through moroseness or levity of temper, often sent bills of divorcement to their wives on slight occasions, as they were permitted to do by the law of Moses, Deu_24:1. And fathers, being oppressed with debt, often sold their children, which they might do for a time, till the year of release, Exo_21:7. That this was frequently practiced, appears from many passages of Scripture, and that the persons and the liberty of the children were answerable for the debts of the father. The widow, 2Ki_4:1, complains “that the creditor is come to take unto him her two sons to be bondmen.” And in the parable, Mat_18:25 : “The lord, forasmuch as his servant had not to pay, commands him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.” Sir John Chardin’s MS. note on this place of Isaiah is as follows: En Orient on paye ses dettes avec ses esclaves, car ils sont des principaux meubles; et en plusieurs lieux on les paye aussi de ses enfans. “In the east they pay their debts by giving up their slaves, for these are their chief property of a disposable kind; and in many places they give their children to their creditors.” But this, saith God, cannot be my case, I am not governed by any such motives, neither am I urged by any such necessity. Your captivity therefore and your afflictions are to be imputed to yourselves, and to your own folly and wickedness.

3. GILL, “Thus saith the Lord,.... Here begins a new discourse or prophecy, and therefore thus prefaced, and is continued in the following chapter: where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? these words are directed to the Jews, who stood in the same relation to the Jewish church, or synagogue, as children to a mother; and so the Targum interprets "your mother" by "your congregation", or synagogue; who were rejected from being a church and people; had a "loammi" written upon them, which became very manifest when their city and temple were destroyed by the Romans; and this is signified by a divorce, alluding to the law of divorce among the Jews, Deu_24:1, when a man put away his wife, he gave her a bill of divorce, assigning the causes of his putting her away. Now, the Lord, either as denying that he had put away their mother, the Jewish church, she having departed from him herself, and therefore challenges them to produce any such bill; a bill of divorce being always put into the woman's hands, and so capable of being produced by her; or if there was such an one, see Jer_3:8, he requires it might be looked into, and seen whether the fault was his, or the cause in themselves, which latter would appear: or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? referring to a practice used, that when men were in debt, and could not pay their debts, they sold their children for the payment of them; see Exo_21:7, but this could not be the case here; the Lord has no creditors, not any to whom he is indebted, nor could any advantage possibly accrue to him by the sale of them; it is true they were sold to the Romans, or delivered into their hands, which, though a loss to them, was no gain to him; nor was it he that sold them, but they themselves; he was not the cause of it, but their own sins, as follows: behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves; or, "are sold" (w); they were sold for them, or delivered up into the hands of their enemies on account of them; they had sold themselves to work wickedness, and therefore it was but just that they should be sold, and become slaves: and for your transgressions is your mother put away; and they her children along with her, out of their own land, and from being the church and people of God.

4. HENRY, “Those who have professed to be the people of God, and yet seem to be dealt severely with, are apt to complain of God, and to lay the fault upon him, as if he had been hard with them. But, in answer to their murmurings, we have here,

I. A challenge given them to prove, or produce any evidence, that the quarrel began on God's side, Isa_50:1. They could not say that he had done them any wrong or had acted arbitrarily. 1. He had been a husband to them; and husbands were then allowed a power to put away their wives upon any little disgust: if their wives found not favour in their eyes, they made nothing of giving them a bill of divorce, Deu_24:1; Mat_19:7. But they could not say that God had dealt so with them. It is true they were now separated from him, and had abode many days without ephod, altar, or sacrifice; but whose fault was that? They could not say that God had given their mother a bill of divorce; let them produce it if they can, for a bill of divorce was given into the hand of her that was divorced. 2. He had been a father to them; and fathers had then a power to sell their children for slaves to their creditors, in satisfaction for the debts they were not otherwise able to pay. Now it is true the Jews were sold to the Babylonians then, and afterwards to the Romans; but did God sell them for payment of his debts? No, he was not indebted to any

of those to whom they were sold, or, if he had sold them, he did not increase his wealth by their price, Psa_44:12. When God chastens his children, it is neither for his pleasure (Heb_12:10) nor for his profit. All that are saved are saved by a prerogative of grace, but those that perish are cut off by an act of divine holiness and justice, not of absolute sovereignty.

II. A charge exhibited against them, showing them that they were themselves the authors of their own ruin: “Behold, for your iniquities, for the pleasure of them and the gratification of your own base lusts, you have sold yourselves, for your iniquities you are sold; not as children are sold by their parents, to pay their debts, but as malefactors are sold by the judges, to punish them for their crimes. You sold yourselves to work wickedness, and therefore God justly sold you into the hands of your enemies, 2Ch_12:5, 2Ch_12:8. It is for your transgressions that your mother is put away, for her whoredoms and adulteries,” which were always allowed to be a just cause of divorce. The Jews were sent into Babylon for their idolatry, a sin which broke the marriage covenant, and were at last rejected for crucifying the Lord of glory; these were the iniquities for which they were sold and put away.

5. JAMISON, “Isa_50:1-11. The judgments on Israel were provoked by their crimes, yet they are not finally cast off by God.

Where ... mothers divorcement — Zion is “the mother”; the Jews are the children; and God the Husband and Father (Isa_54:5; Isa_62:5; Jer_3:14). Gesenius thinks that God means by the question to deny that He had given “a bill of divorcement” to her, as was often done on slight pretexts by a husband (Deu_24:1), or that He had “sold” His and her “children,” as a poor parent sometimes did (Exo_21:7; 2Ki_4:1; Neh_5:5) under pressure of his “creditors”; that it was they who sold themselves through their own sins. Maurer explains, “Show the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom ... ; produce the creditors to whom ye have been sold; so it will be seen that it was not from any caprice of Mine, but through your own fault, your mother has been put away, and you sold” (Isa_52:3). Horsley best explains (as the antithesis between “I” and “yourselves” shows, though Lowth translates, “Ye are sold”) I have never given your mother a regular bill of divorcement; I have merely “put her away” for a time, and can, therefore, by right as her husband still take her back on her submission; I have not made you, the children, over to any “creditor” to satisfy a debt; I therefore still have the right of a father over you, and can take you back on repentance, though as rebellious children you have sold yourselves to sin and its penalty (1Ki_21:25).

bill ... whom — rather, “the bill with which I have put her away” [Maurer].

6. K&D, “The words are no longer addressed to Zion, but to her children. “Thus saith Jehovah, Where is your mother's bill of divorce, with which I put her away? Or where is one of my creditors, to whom I sold you? Behold, for your iniquities are ye sold, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.” It was not He who had broken off the relation in which He stood to Zion; for the mother of Israel, whom Jehovah had betrothed to Himself, had no bill of divorce to show, with which Jehovah had put her away and thus renounced for ever the possibility of receiving her again (according to Deu_24:1-4), provided she should in the meantime have married another. Moreover, He had not yielded to outward constraint, and therefore given her up to a foreign power; for where was there on of His creditors (there is not any one) to whom He would have been obliged to relinquish His sons, because unable to pay His debts, and in this way to discharge them? - a harsh demand, which was frequently made by

unfelling creditors of insolvent debtors (Exo_21:7; 2Ki_4:1; Mat_18:25). On no�sheh, a creditor,

see at Isa_24:2. Their present condition was indeed that of being sold and put away; but this was not the effect of despotic caprice, or the result of compulsion on the part of Jehovah. It was Israel itself that had broken off the relation in which it stood to Jehovah; they had been sold through their own faults, and “for your transgressions is your mother put away.” Instead of

This may be because the church, although on the one hand standing .ּוְבִפְׁשֵעיֶכם we have ּוִבְפָׁשֶעיָה�

higher and being older than her children (i.e., her members at any particular time), is yet, on the other hand, orally affected by those to whom she has given birth, who have been trained by her, and recognised by her as her own.

7. CALVIN, “1.Where is that bill of divorcement? There are various interpretations of this passage, but

very few of the commentators have understood the Prophet’ meaning. In order to have a general

understanding of it, we must observe that union by which the Lord everywhere testifies that his people are

bound to him; that is, that he occupies the place of a husband, and that we occupy the place of a wife. It

is a spiritual marriage, which has been consecrated by his eternal doctrine and sealed by the blood of

Christ. In the same manner, therefore, as he takes us under his protection as a early beloved wife, on

condition that we preserve our fidelity to him by chastity; so when we have been false to him, he rejects

us; and then he is said to issue a lawful divorce against us, as when a husband banished from his house

an adulterous wife.

Thus, when the Jews were oppressed by calamities so many and so great, that it was easy to conclude

that God had rejected and divorced them, the cause of the divorce came to be the subject of inquiry.

Now, as men are usually eloquent in apologizing for themselves, and endeavor to throw back the blame

on God, the Jews also complained at that time about their condition, as if the Lord had done wrong in

divorcing them; because they were far from thinking that the promises had been made void, and the

covenant annulled, by their crimes. They even laid the blame on their ancestors, as if they were punished

for the sins of others. Hence those taunts and complaints which Ezekiel relates.

“ fathers ate a sour grape, and our teeth are set on edge.” (Eze_18:2.)

Speeches of this kind being universally current among them, the Lord demands that they shall produce

the “ of divorcement,” by means of which they may prove that they are free from blame and have been

rejected without cause.

Now, a “ of divorcement” was granted to wives who were unjustly divorced; for by it the husband was

constrained to testify that his wife had lived chastely and honorably, so that it was evident that there was

no other ground for the divorce than that she did not please the husband. Thus the woman was at liberty

to go away, and the blame rested solely on the husband, to whose sullenness and bad temper was

ascribed the cause of the divorce. (Deu_24:1.) This law of divorcement, as Ezekiel shews, (Mat_19:8,)

was given by Moses on account of the hard-heartedness of that nation. By a highly appropriate metaphor,

therefore, the Lord shews that he is not the author of the divorce, but that the people went away by their

own fault, and followed their lusts, so that they had utterly broken the bond of marriage. This is the reason

why he asks where is “ bill” of which they boasted; for there is emphasis in the demonstrative

pronoun, זה (zeh), that, by which he intended to expose their idle excuses; as if he had said, that they

throw off the accusation, and lay blame on God, as if they had been provided with a defense, whereas

they had violated the bond of marriage, and could produce nothing to make the divorce lawful.

Or who is the creditor to whom I sold you? By another metaphor he demonstrates the same thing. When

a man was overwhelmed by debt, so that he could not satisfy his creditors, he was compelled to give his

children in payment. The Lord therefore asks, “ he been constrained to do this? Has he sold them, or

given them in payment to another creditor? Is he like spendthrifts or bad managers, who allow

themselves to be overwhelmed by debt?” As if he had said, “ cannot bring this reproach against me; and

therefore it is evident that, on account of your transgressions, you have been sold and reduced to

slavery.”

Lo, for your iniquities ye have been sold. Thus the Lord defends his majesty from all slanders, and refutes

them by this second clause, in which he declares that it is by their own fault that the Jews have been

divorced and “” The same mode of expression is employed by Paul, when he says that we are “ under

sin,” (Rom_7:14,) but in a different sense; in the same manner as the Hebrew writers are wont to speak of

abandoned men, whose wickedness is desperate. But here the Prophet intended merely to charge the

Jews with guilt, because, by their own transgressions, they had brought upon themselves all the evils that

they endured.

If it be asked, “ the Lord divorce his heritage? Did he make void the covenant?” Certainly not; but the Lord

is said to “” as he is elsewhere said to profane, his heritage, (Psa_89:39; Eze_24:21,) because no other

conclusion can be drawn from present appearances; for, when he did not bestow upon them his wonted

favor, it was a kind of divorce or rejection. In a word, we ought to attend to these two contrasts, that the

wife is divorced, either by the husband’ fault, or because she is unchaste and adulterous; and likewise

that children are sold, either for their father’ poverty or by their own fault. And thus the course of argument

in this passage will be manifest.

8. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement? On account of her persistent "backsliding," God had "put away Israel," Judah's sister, and had "given her a bill of divorce" (Isa_3:8). But he had not repudiated Judah; and her children were wrong to suppose themselves altogether cast off (see Isa_49:14). They had, in fact, by their transgressions, especially their idolatries, wilfully divorced themselves, or at any rate separated themselves, from God; but no sentence had gone forth from him to bar reconciliation and return. Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you! Neither has God exercised the right, regarded as inherent in a parent (Exo_21:7; 2Ki_4:11; Neh_6:5, Neh_6:8), of selling his children to a creditor. They are not sold—he has "taken no money for them" (Psa_44:12; Isa_52:3); and the Babylonians are thus not their rightful owners (Isa_49:24)—they are still God's children, his property, and the objects of his care. For your iniquities � for your transgressions; rather, by your iniquities I by your transgressions. The separation, such as it was, between God and his people was caused by their sins, not by any act of his.

9. BI, “Jehovah and unfaithful Israel

These Israelites went to the only kind of law with which they were familiar, and borrowed from it two of its forms, which were not only suggested to them by the relations in which the nation and the nation’s sons respectively stood to Jehovah, as wife and as children, but admirably illustrated the ideas they wished to express.

(1) There was the form of divorce, so expressive of the ideas of absoluteness, deliberateness and finality—of absoluteness, for throughout the East power of divorce rests entirely with the husband; of deliberateness, for in order to prevent hasty divorce the Hebrew law insisted that the husband must make a bill or writing of divorce instead

of only speaking dismissal; and of finality, for such a writing in contrast to the spoken dismissal, set the divorce beyond recall.

(2) The other form which the doubters borrowed from their law, was one which, while it also illustrated the irrevocableness of the act, emphasized the helplessness of the agent—the act of the father who put his children away, not as the husband put his wife in his anger, but in his necessity, selling them to pay his debts and because he was bankrupt.

(3) On such doubts God turns with their own language—“I have indeed put your mother away, but where is the bill that makes her divorce final, beyond recall? You indeed were sold, but was it because I was bankrupt! To which, then, of My creditors (note the scorn of the plural) was it that I sold you? Nay, by means of your iniquities did ye sell yourselves, and by means of your transgressions were ye put away. But I stand here, ready as ever to save, I alone. If there is any difficulty about your restoration it lies in this, that I am alone, with no response or assistance from men.” (Prof. G. A. Smith, D.D.)

The sinner’s responsibility

I. THE SINNER’S MISERABLE CONDITION.

1. Separated from God.

2. Sold under sin.

II. THE OCCASION OF IT. Not the will of God, but his own love of sin, and his consequent disregard of God’s offers of deliverance from sin and sorrow. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

Israel self-ruined

Those who have professed to be the people of God, and yet seem to be severely dealt with, are apt to complain of God, and to lay the fault upon Him, as if He had severely dealt with them. But in answer to their murmurings, we have here—

I. A CHALLENGE TO PRODUCE ANY EVIDENCE THAT THE QUARREL BEGAN ON GOD’S SIDE (Isa_50:1).

II. A CHARGE THAT THEY WERE THEMSELVES THE AUTHOR OF THEIR RUIN. “Behold, for your iniquities,” etc.

III. A CONFIRMATION OF THIS CHALLENGE AND THIS CHARGE (Isa_50:2-3).

1. It Was plain that it was their own fault that they were cast off, for God came and offered them His helping hand, either to prevent their trouble or to deliver them out of it, but they slighted Him and all the tenders of His grace.

2. It was plain that it was not owing to any lack of power in God that they were led into the misery of captivity, and remained in it, for He is almighty. They lacked faith in Him, and so that power was not exerted on their behalf. So it is with sinners still. (M. Henry.)

Isaiah 50:2-6 Wherefore, when I came, was there no man?

The Mediator: Divine and human

These words could have been spoken only by the Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus They place before our thoughts—

I. His DIVINE POWER AND GLORY. Power is naturally calm. The power that sustains the universe is, in fact, most wonderful when, unseen, unfelt, with its Divine silence and infinite ease, it moves on in its ordinary course; but we are often most impressed by it when it strikes against obstructions, and startles the senses by its violence. Knowing our frame, and dealing with us as with children, our Teacher seeks to impress us with a sense of His Divine power, by bidding us think of Him as working by inexorable force certain awful changes and displacements in nature. “I dry up the sea,” etc.

II. HIS HUMAN LIFE AND EDUCATION. “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned,” etc. Gradually, it seems, the Divine Spirit, like a mysterious voice, woke up within Him the consciousness of what He was, and of what He had come on earth to fulfil. Morning by morning, through all the days of His childhood, the voice was ever awakening Him to higher consciousness and more awful knowledge.

III. THE MEDIATORIAL TEACHING FOR WHICH HE HAD BEEN THUS PREPARED.

1. It is personal. If His own personal teaching had not been in view, there would have been no need for all this personal preparation. “The Lord hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak.” This is His own testimony to the great fact that He Himself personally teaches every soul that is saved.

2. It is suitable. Suitable to our weariness.

(1) While we are yet in a state of unregeneracy.

(2) When we are sinking under the burden of guilt.

(3) When fainting under the burden of care.

(4) When burdened under the intellectual mysteries of theology.

(5) When under the burden of mortal infirmity.

3. The teaching of Christ is minutely direct and particular. When I read that He is ordained to speak “to him” that is weary, I understand that He does not speak in a general, impersonal, unrecognizing way to the forlorn crowd of sufferers, but to every man in particular, and to every man apart. (C. Stanford, D. D.)

The Redeemer described by Himself

In my opinion, these verses (2-6) run on without any break, so that you are not to separate them, and ascribe one to the prophet, another to the Messiah, and another to Jehovah Himself; but you must take the whole as the utterance of one Divine Person. That Jehovah-Jesus is the One who is speaking here, is very clear from the last verse of the previous chapter: “I the Lord” (“I, Jehovah,” it is,) “am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.”

I. BEHOLD THE MESSIAH AS GOD. Link Isa_50:3; Isa_6:1-13: “I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering . . . I gave my back to the smiters,” etc. He, then, who suffered thus, and whom we regard as redeeming us by His death, and as saving us by His life, is no less than the Almighty God. I think the first reference, in these words, is to the miracles which were wrought by the plagues in Egypt. It was Jehovah-Jesus who was then plaguing His adversaries. In a later chapter, Isaiah says that “the Angel of His presence saved

them;” and who is that great Angel of His presence but the Angel of the covenant in whom we delight, even Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour? But we must not restrict the text to that which happened in the land of Egypt, for it has a far wider reference. All the great wonders of nature are to be ascribed to Him upon whom we build all our hopes for time and for eternity. The last miracle recorded here, namely, that of covering the heavens with sackcloth, was performed by our Lord even when He was in His death agony. You are not depending for your salvation upon a mere man. He is man, but He is just as truly Divine.

II. BEHOLD THE MESSIAH AS THE INSTRUCTED TEACHER (verse 4). I call your special attention to the condescension of our Lord in coming here on purpose to care for the weak—to speak consoling and sustaining words to them; and also to the fact that, before He performed that service, He learned the sacred art from His Father. For thirty years was He learning much in Joseph’s carpenter’s shop. Little do we know how much He learned there; but this much we do know, “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” And afterwards, when He entered upon His public work among men, He spake with the tongue of the learned, saying to His disciples, “All things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” All through His time of teaching, He was still listening and learning.

III. BEHOLD JESUS CHRIST AS THE SERVANT OF THE LORD (verse 5).

1. He speaks of Himself as being prepared by grace. “The Lord God hath opened Mine ear,” as if there had been a work wrought upon Him to prepare Him for His service. And the same Spirit, which rested upon Christ, must also open our ears.

2. Being thus prepared by grace, He was consecrated in due form, so that He could say to Himself, “The Lord God hath opened Mine ear.” He heard the faintest whispers of His Father’s voice.

3. He not only heard His Father’s voice, but He was obedient to it in all things. “I was not rebellious.” From the day when, as a child, He said to His parents, “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” till the hour when, on the cross, He cried, “It is finished,” He was always obedient to the will of God.

4. In that obedience, He was persevering through all trials. He says that He did not turn away back. Having commenced the work of saving men, He went through with it.

IV. BEHOLD THE MESSIAH AS THE PEERLESS SUFFERER (verse 6). It has been asked, “Did God really die?” No; for God cannot die, yet He who died was God; so, if there be a confusion in your mind, it is the confusion of Holy Scripture itself, for we read, “Feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” In addition to the pain, we are asked, in this verse, to notice particularly the contempt which the Saviour endured. The plucking of His hair was a proof of the malicious contempt of His enemies, yet they went still further, and did spit in His face. Spitting was regarded by Orientals, and, I suppose, by all of us, as the most contemptuous thing which one man could do to another; yet the vile soldiers gathered round Him, and spat upon Him. I must point out the beautiful touch of voluntariness here: “I hid not my face.” Our Saviour did not turn away, or seek to escape. If He had wished to do so, He could readily have done it. Conclusion: Notice three combinations which the verses of my text will make.

(1) Verses 2 and 6. Those verses together show the full ability of Christ to save. Here we have God and the Sufferer.

(2) Verses 4 and 5. Here you have the Teacher and the Servant, and the two together make up this truth—that Christ teaches us, not with words only, but with His life. What a wonderful Teacher He is, who Himself learned the lessons which He would have us learn!

(3) Now put the whole text together, and I think the result will be—at least to God’s people—that they will say, “This God shall be our God for ever and ever; and it shall be our delight to do His bidding at all times.” It is a high honour to serve God; and Christ is God. It is a great thing to be the servant of a wise teacher; and Christ has the tongue of the learned. It is a very sweet thing to walk in the steps of a perfect Exemplar; and Christ is that. And, last and best of all, it is delightful to live for Him who suffered and died on our behalf. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

9. MEYER, “HELP FOR THOSE WHO TRUST IN HIM

Isa_50:1-11

It is impossible for God to put away the soul that clings to Him in penitence and faith. Heaven and earth may be searched, but no bill of divorce can be found. See Deu_24:1. And He sends His great servant, our Lord, of whom this chapter is full, to deliver and assure our trembling faith.

Notice the difference in Isa_50:4, between the Authorized Version and the Revised Version which reads, Jehovah hath given me the tongue of them that are taught, that I may know how to sustain with words him that is weary…. He wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught. This quality of teachableness was primarily true of Jesus. It was the habit of His human life to listen to the secret teaching of the Father, breathed into His heart. See Joh_8:28; Joh_8:40. So also must we allow ourselves to be wakened by Him, each morning, that we also may know how to help men more efficiently and tenderly.

From the first, Jesus knew that He must die. See Mar_10:34. But He did not turn back. See Heb_10:5, etc. Was not His choice abundantly vindicated? The Father who justified Him was always near, Joh_8:29. See Joh_16:22. Let us who may be walking in darkness learn from our King to stay ourselves on God.

2 When I came, why was there no one?

When I called, why was there no one to answer?

Was my arm too short to deliver you?

Do I lack the strength to rescue you?

By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea,

I turn rivers into a desert;

their fish rot for lack of water

and die of thirst.

1.BARNES, “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? - That is, when I came to call you to repentance, why was there no man of the nation to yield obedience? The sense is, that they had not been punished without warning. He had called them to repentance, but no one heard his voice. The Chaldee renders this, ‘Wherefore did I send my prophets, and they did not turn? They prophesied, but they did not attend.’

When I called, was there none to answer? - None obeyed, or regarded my voice. It was not, therefore, by his fault that they had been punished, but it was because they did not listen to the messengers which he had sent unto them.

Is my hand shortened at all? - The meaning of this is, that it was not because God was unable to save, that they had been thus punished. The hand, in the Scriptures, is an emblem of strength, as it is the instrument by which we accomplish our purposes. To shorten the hand, that is, to cut it off, is an emblem of diminishing, or destroying our ability to execute any purpose (see Isa_59:1). So in Num_11:23 : ‘Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?’

That it cannot redeem? - That it cannot rescue or deliver you. The idea is, that it was not because he was less able to save them than he had been in former times, that they were sold into captivity, and sighed in bondage.

Behold, at my rebuke - At my chiding - as a father rebukes a disobedient child, or as a man would rebuke an excited multitude. Similar language is used of the Saviour when he stilled the tempest on the sea of Gennesareth: ‘Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm’ Mat_8:26. The reference here is, undoubtedly, to the fact that God dried up the Red Sea, or made a way for the children of Israel to pass through it. The idea is, that he who had power to perform such a stupendous miracle as that, had power also to deliver his people at any time, and that, therefore, it was for no want of power in him that the Jews were suffering in exile.

I make the rivers a wilderness - I dry up streams at pleasure, and have power even to make the bed of rivers, and all the country watered by them, a pathless, and an unfruitful desert.

Their fish stinketh - The waters leave them, and the fish die, and putrify. It is not uncommon in the East for large streams and even rivers thus to be dried up by the intense heat of the sun, and by being lost in the sand. Thus the river Barrady which flows through the fertile plain on which Damascus is situated, and which is divided into innumerable streams and canals to water the city and the gardens adjacent to it, after flowing to a short distance from the city is wholly lost - partly absorbed in the sands, and partly dried up by the intense rays of the sun (see Jones’ ‘Excursions to Jerusalem, Egypt, etc. ‘) The idea here is, that it was God who had power to dry up those streams, and that he who could do that, could save and vindicate his people.

2.CLARKE, “Their fish stinketh “Their fish is dried up” - For תבאש tibaosh, stinketh,

read תיבש tibash, is dried up; so it stands in the Bodl. MS., and it is confirmed by the Septuagint,

ξηρανθησονται, they shall be dried up.

3. GILL, “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man?.... The Targum is, "why have I sent my prophets, and they are not converted?'' And so Aben Ezra and Kimchi interpret it of the prophets that prophesied unto them, to bring them to repentance: the Lord might be said to come by his prophets, his messengers; but they did not receive them, nor their messages, but despised and rejected them, and therefore were carried captive, 2Ch_36:15, but it is best to understand it of the coming of Christ in the flesh; when there were none that would receive, nor even come to him, but hid their faces from him, nor suffer others to be gathered unto him, or attend his ministry; they would neither go in themselves into the kingdom of the Messiah, nor let others go in that were entering, Joh_1:11, when I called, was there none to answer? he called them to the marriage feast, to his word and ordinances, but they made light of it, and went about their worldly business; many were called externally in his ministry, but few were chosen, and effectually wrought upon; he called, but there was no answer given; for there was no internal principle in them, no grace to answer to the call; he stretched out his hands to a rebellious and gainsaying people, Mat_22:2, is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? they did not know him to be the mighty God; they took him to be a mere man; and being descended from such mean parents, and making such a mean appearance, they could not think he was able to be their Redeemer and Saviour; but that he had sufficient ability appears by what follows: behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea; he was able to do it, and did do it for the children of Israel, and made a passage through the Red sea for them, as on dry land; which was done by a strong east wind he caused to blow, here called his "rebuke", Exo_14:20, of Christ's rebuking the sea, see Mat_8:26. I make the rivers a wilderness; as dry as the wilderness, and parched ground; in which persons may pass as on dry ground, and as travellers pass through a wilderness; so Jordan was made for the Israelites, Jos_3:17, and may be here particularly meant; called "rivers" because of the excellency of it, and the abundance of water in it, which sometimes overflowed its banks; and because other rivers fall into it, as Kimchi observes: their flesh stinketh because there is no water, and dieth for thirst; as they did when the rivers of Egypt were turned into blood, Exo_7:21.

4. HENRY, “The confirmation of this challenge and this charge. 1. It is plain that it was owing to themselves that they were cast off; for God came and offered them his favour, offered them his helping hand, either to prevent their trouble or to deliver them out of it, but they slighted him and all the tenders of his grace. “Do you lay it upon me?” (says God); “tell me, then,

wherefore, when I came, was there no man to meet me, when I called, was there none to answer me?” Isa_50:2. God came to them by his servants the prophets, demanding the fruits of his vineyard (Mat_21:34); he sent them his messengers, rising up betimes and sending them (Jer_35:15); he called to them to leave their sins, and so prevent their own ruin: but was there no man, or next to none, that had any regard to the warnings which the prophets gave them, none that answered the calls of God, or complied with the messages he sent them; and this was it for which they were sold and put away. Because they mocked the messengers of the Lord, therefore, God brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, 2Ch_36:16, 2Ch_36:17. Last of all he sent unto them his Son. He came to his own, but his own received him not; he called them to himself, but there were none that answered; he would have gathered Jerusalem's children together, but they would not; they knew not, because they would not know, the things that belonged to their peace, nor the day of their visitation, and for that transgression it was that they were put away and their house was left desolate, Mat_21:41; Mat_23:37, Mat_23:38; Luk_19:41, Luk_19:42. When God calls men to happiness, and they will not answer, they are justly left to be miserable. 2. It is plain that it was not owing to a want of power in God, for he is almighty, and could have recovered them from so great a death; nor was it owing to a want of power in Christ, for he is able to save to the uttermost. The unbelieving Jews in Babylon thought they were not delivered because their God was not able to deliver them; and those in Christ's time were ready to ask, in scorn, Can this man save us? For himself he cannot save. “But” (says God) “is my hand shortened at all, or is it weakened?” Can any limits be set to Omnipotence? Cannot he redeem who is the great Redeemer? Has he no power to deliver whose all power is? To put to silence, and for ever to put to shame, their doubts concerning his power, he here gives unquestionable proofs of it. (1.) He can, when he pleases, dry up the seas, and make the rivers a wilderness. He did so for Israel when he redeemed them out of Egypt, and he can do so again for their redemption out of Babylon. It is done at his rebuke, as easily as with a word's speaking. He can so dry up the rivers as to leave the fish to die for want of water, and to putrefy. When God turned the waters of Egypt into blood he slew the fish, Psa_105:29. The expression our Saviour sometimes used concerning the power of faith, that it will remove mountains and plant sycamores in the sea, is not unlike this; if their faith could do that, no doubt their faith would save them, and therefore they were inexcusable if they perished in unbelief. (2.) He can, when he pleases, eclipse the lights of heaven, clothe then with blackness, and make sackcloth their covering (Isa_50:3) by thick and dark clouds interposing, which he balances, Job_36:32; Job_37:16.

5. JAMISON, “I — Messiah.

no man — willing to believe in and obey Me (Isa_52:1, Isa_52:3). The same Divine Person had “come” by His prophets in the Old Testament (appealing to them, but in vain, Jer_7:25, Jer_7:26), who was about to come under the New Testament.

hand shortened — the Oriental emblem of weakness, as the long stretched-out hand is of power (Isa_59:1). Notwithstanding your sins, I can still “redeem” you from your bondage and dispersion.

dry up ... sea — (Exo_14:21). The second exodus shall exceed, while it resembles in wonders, the first (Isa_11:11, Isa_11:15; Isa_51:15).

make ... rivers ... wilderness — turn the prosperity of Israel’s foes into adversity.

fish stinketh — the very judgment inflicted on their Egyptian enemies at the first exodus (Exo_7:18, Exo_7:21).

6. K&D, “The radical sin, however, which has lasted from the time of the captivity down to the present time, is disobedience to the word of God. This sin brought upon Zion and her children the judgment of banishment, and it was this which made it last so long. “Why did I come, and there was no one there? Why did I call, and there was no one who answered? Is my hand too short to redeem? or is there no strength in me to deliver? Behold, through my threatening I dry up the sea; turn streams into a plain: their fish rot, because there is no water, and die for thirst. I clothe the heavens in mourning, and make sackcloth their covering.” Jehovah has come, and with what? It follows, from the fact of His bidding them consider, that His hand is not too short to set Israel loose and at liberty, that He is not so powerless as to be unable to draw it out; that He is the Almighty, who by His mere threatening word (Psa_106:9; Psa_104:7) can dry up the sea, and turn streams into a hard and barren soil, so that the fishes

putrefy for want of water (Exo_7:18, etc.), and die from thirst (tha'mo�th a voluntative used as an

indicative, as in Isa_12:1, and very frequently in poetical composition); who can clothe the heavens in mourning, and make sackcloth their (dull, dark) covering (for the expression itself, compare Isa_37:1-2); who therefore, fiat applicatio, can annihilate the girdle of waters behind which Babylon fancies herself concealed (see Isa_42:15; Isa_44:27), and cover the empire, which is now enslaving and torturing Israel, with a sunless and starless night of destruction (Isa_13:10). It follows from all this, that He has come with a gospel of deliverance from sin and punishment; but Israel has given no answer, has not received this message of salvation with faith, since faith is assent to the word of God. And in whom did Jehovah come? Knobel and most of the commentators reply, “in His prophets.” This answer is not wrong, but it does not suffice to show the connection between what follows and what goes before. For there it is one person who speaks; and who is that, but the servant of Jehovah, who is introduced in these prophecies with dramatic directness, as speaking in his own name? Jehovah has come to His people in His servant. We know who was the servant of Jehovah in the historical fulfilment. It was He whom

even the New Testament Scriptures describe as τ)ν�πα+δα�το-�κυρίου, especially in the Acts

(Act_3:13, Act_3:26; Act_4:27, Act_4:30). It was not indeed during the Babylonian captivity that the servant of Jehovah appeared in Israel with the gospel of redemption; but, as we shall never be tired of repeating, this is the human element in these prophecies, that they regard the appearance of the “servant of Jehovah,” the Saviour of Israel and the heathen, as connected with the captivity: the punishment of Israel terminating, according to the law of the perspective foreshortening of prophetic vision, with the termination of the captivity - a connection which we regard as one of the strongest confirmations of the composition of these addresses before the

captivity, as well as of Isaiah's authorship. But this 1νθρώπινον does not destroy the θε+ον in

them, inasmuch as the time at which Jesus appeared was not only similar to that of the Babylonian captivity, but stood in a causal connection with it, since the Roman empire was the continuation of the Babylonian, and the moral state of the people under the iron arm of the Roman rule resembled that of the Babylonian exiles (Eze_2:6-7). At the same time, whatever our opinion on this point may be, it is perfectly certain that it is to the servant of Jehovah, who was seen by the prophet in connection with the Babylonian captivity, that the words “wherefore did I come” refer.

7. SBC, “These words could have been spoken only by the Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. They place before our thoughts:—

I. His Divine power and glory. Power is naturally calm. The power that sustains the universe is, in fact, most wonderful when, unseen, unfelt, with its Divine silence and infinite ease, it moves on in its ordinary course; but we are often most impressed by it when it strikes against obstructions, and startles the senses by its violence. Knowing our frame, and dealing with us as with children, our Teacher seeks to impress us with a sense of His Divine power, by bidding us think of Him as working by inexorable force certain awful changes and displacements in nature. "I dry up the sea; I made the rivers a wilderness," etc.

II. His human life and education. "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned," etc. Gradually, it seems, the Divine Spirit, like a mysterious voice, woke up within Him the consciousness of what He was, and of what He had come on earth to fulfil. Morning by morning, through all the days of His childhood, the voice was ever awakening Him to higher consciousness and more awful knowledge.

III. The mediatorial teaching for which He had been thus prepared. (1) It is personal. If His own personal teaching had not been in view, there would have been no need for all this personal preparation. "The Lord hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak." This is His own testimony to the great fact that He Himself personally teaches every soul that is saved. (2) It is suitable. Suitable to our weariness: (a) while we are yet in a state of unregeneracy; (b) when we are sinking under the burden of guilt; (c) when fainting under the burden of care; (d) when burdened under the intellectual mysteries of theology; (e) when under the burden of mortal infirmity. (3) The teaching of Christ is minutely direct and particular. When I read that He is ordained to speak "to him that is weary," I understand that He does not speak in a general, impersonal, unrecognising way to the forlorn crowd of sufferers, but to every man in particular, and to every man apart.

C. Stanford, Symbols of Christy p. 147.

Reference: Isa_50:2-6.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 243.

8. CALVIN, “2.Why did I come? This might be a reason assigned, that the people have not only

brought upon themselves all immense mass of evils by provoking God’ anger, but have likewise, by their

obstinacy, cut off the hope of obtaining pardon and salvation. But I think that God proceeds still further.

After having explained that he had good reason for divorcing the people, because they had of their own

accord given themselves up to bondage, when they might have been free, he adds that still it is not he

who prevents them from being immediately set at liberty. As he shewed, in the former verse, that the

whole blame rests with the Jews, so now he declares that it arises from their own fault that they grow old

and rot in their distresses; for the Lord was ready to assist them, if they had not rejected his grace and

kindness. In a word, he shows that both the beginning and the progress of the evil arise from the fault of

the people, in order that he may free God from all blame, and may shew that the Jews act wickedly in

accusing him as the author of evil, or in complaining that he will not assist them.

First, then, the Lord says that he “” and why, but that he might stretch out his hand to the Jews? Whence

it follows that they are justly deprived; for they would not receive his grace. Now, the Lord is said to “”

when he gives any token of his presence. He approaches by the preaching of the Word, and he

approaches also by various benefits which he bestows on us, and by the tokens which he employs for

manifesting his fatherly kindness toward us.

“ there ever any people,” as Moses says, “ saw so many signs, and heard the voice of God speaking, like

this people?” (Deu_4:33.)

Constant invitation having been of no advantage to them, when he held out the hope of pardon and

exhorted them to repentance, it is with good reason that he speaks of it as a monstrous thing, and asks

why there was no man to meet him. They are therefore held to be convicted of ingratitude, because, while

they ought to have sought God, they did not even choose to meet him when he came; for it is an instance

of extreme ingratitude to refuse to accept the grace of God which is freely offered.

Why did I call, and no one answered? In the word call there is a repetition of the same statement in

different words. When God “” we ought to be ready and submissive; for this is the “” which, he complains,

was refused to him; that is, we ought to yield implicitly to his word. But this expression applies strictly to

the matter now in hand; because God, when he offered a termination to their distresses, was obstinately

despised, as if he had spoken to the deaf and dumb. Hence he infers that on themselves lies the blame of

not having been sooner delivered; and he supports this by former proofs, because he had formerly shewn

to the fathers that he possessed abundance of power to assist them. Again, that they may not cavil and

excuse themselves by saying that they had not obtained salvation, though they heartily desired it, he

maintains, on the other hand, that the cause of the change ought to be sought somewhere else than in

him, (for his power was not at all diminished,) and therefore that he would not have delayed to stretch out

his hand to them in distress, if they had not wickedly refused his aid.

By shortening hath my hand been shortened? By this interrogation he expresses greater boldness, as if

he were affirming what could not be called in question; for who would venture to plead against God that

his power was diminished? He therefore relates how powerfully he rescued his people out of Egypt, that

they may not now imagine that he is less powerful, but may acknowledge that their sins were the

hinderance. (14) He says that by his reproof he “ up the sea,” as if he had struck terror by a threatening

word; for by his authority, and at his command, the seas were divided, so that a passage was opened up,

(Exo_14:21,) and Jordan was driven back. (Jos_3:16.) The consequence was, that “ fishes,” being

deprived of water, died and putrified.

(14) “Ains recognoissent que leurs vices empeschent que ceste puissance ne se monstre;” “ may

acknowledge that their sins hinder that power from being manifested.”

9. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? Such being the condition of things; Judah having rejected me, not I them—why, "when I came" and announced deliverance from Babylon, was there no response? Why did no champion appear? Is it that my power was doubted? that it was feared my hand was shortened, so that it could not redeem or deliver? But I am he who has power with his rebuke todry up the sea (Exo_14:21), to make rivers a wilderness (Exo_7:20; Jos_3:16, Jos_3:17); in fact, to change the course of nature as seemeth him good, and accomplish his will against all obstacles. Is myhand shortened? i.e. "is my power less than it was?" Can any one suppose this? Surely what I have once done I can do again. If I delivered from Egypt, I can redeem from Babylon. Their fish stinketh (comp.Exo_7:21). But the object is rather to assert an absolute control over nature than to take the thoughts of the hearers back to any special occasions when control was exercised.

9B. PULPIT, “God's power over nature.

Modern pseudo-science, or "un-science," as it has been called, seems to hold that nature, having been once for all arranged and ordered by God, was thenceforth left to itself, being an automatic machine, bound to work in a certain way, needing no superintendence, and brooking no interference thenceforward. Hence miracles are regarded as impossible, or at any rate as non occurrent; and we are invited to ascribe to the combined influence of priestcraft and credulity all the statements with respect to supernatural interferences with nature which we find in the history of our race. The view of the sacred writers is the direct opposite of this. God is not regarded as having ever left nature to itself'. On the contrary, he is always represented as working with nature and in nature. He" covereth the heaven with clouds, and prepareth rain for the earth, and maketh the grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry He giveth snow like wool, and scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold? He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow" (Psa_147:8-18). He is, in fact, ever in his laws, executing them continually—making the sun to shine, and the moon to give her light, and the stars to sparkle in the canopy of heaven, and the mountains to stand firm, and the winds to blow, and the rain to fall, and the earth to give her increase. The secret of the quasi-unvarying character of nature's laws is his unchangeableness—the fact that "with him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (Jas_1:17). But, as he thus holds nature in his hand, and does not let it go, so he is necessarily at all times omnipotent over nature, and can suspend or change any "law of nature' at his pleasure. In point of fact, he does not do so unless upon emergencies. But, let a fitting occasion come, and it is as easy for him to reverse a law as to maintain it. He can "dry up the sea" in a moment, "make rivers a desert" (Isa_50:2), "clothe the heaven with blackness" (Isa_50:3), cause the stars to fall (Mat_24:29), create a new heaven and a new earth (Rev_21:1), cast death and hell into the lake of fire (Rev_20:14). To regard miracles as impossible is to be an atheist; to say that they are non-occurrent is to fly in the face of history. No doubt many false miracles have been alleged, and an alleged miracle is not to be received without a searching scrutiny. But the summary rejection of all miracles, which modern pseudo-science proclaims, is as little reasonable as the wholesale acceptance of all alleged miracles without exception.

10. BI, The Mediator: Divine and human

These words could have been spoken only by the Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus They place before our thoughts—

I. His DIVINE POWER AND GLORY. Power is naturally calm. The power that sustains the universe is, in fact, most wonderful when, unseen, unfelt, with its Divine silence and infinite ease, it moves on in its ordinary course; but we are often most impressed by it when it strikes against obstructions, and startles the senses by its violence. Knowing our frame, and dealing with us as with children, our Teacher seeks to impress us with a sense of His Divine power, by bidding us think of Him as working by inexorable force certain awful changes and displacements in nature. “I dry up the sea,” etc.

II. HIS HUMAN LIFE AND EDUCATION. “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned,” etc. Gradually, it seems, the Divine Spirit, like a mysterious voice, woke up within Him the consciousness of what He was, and of what He had come on earth to fulfil. Morning by morning, through all the days of His childhood, the voice was ever awakening Him to higher consciousness and more awful knowledge.

III. THE MEDIATORIAL TEACHING FOR WHICH HE HAD BEEN THUS PREPARED.

1. It is personal. If His own personal teaching had not been in view, there would have been no need for all this personal preparation. “The Lord hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak.” This is His own testimony to the great fact that He Himself personally teaches every soul that is saved.

2. It is suitable. Suitable to our weariness.

(1) While we are yet in a state of unregeneracy.

(2) When we are sinking under the burden of guilt.

(3) When fainting under the burden of care.

(4) When burdened under the intellectual mysteries of theology.

(5) When under the burden of mortal infirmity.

3. The teaching of Christ is minutely direct and particular. When I read that He is ordained to speak “to him” that is weary, I understand that He does not speak in a general, impersonal, unrecognizing way to the forlorn crowd of sufferers, but to every man in particular, and to every man apart. (C. Stanford, D. D.)

The Redeemer described by Himself

In my opinion, these verses (2-6) run on without any break, so that you are not to separate them, and ascribe one to the prophet, another to the Messiah, and another to Jehovah Himself; but you must take the whole as the utterance of one Divine Person. That Jehovah-Jesus is the One who is speaking here, is very clear from the last verse of the previous chapter: “I the Lord” (“I, Jehovah,” it is,) “am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.”

I. BEHOLD THE MESSIAH AS GOD. Link Isa_50:3; Isa_6:1-13: “I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering . . . I gave my back to the smiters,” etc. He, then, who suffered thus, and whom we regard as redeeming us by His death, and as saving us by His life, is no less than the Almighty God. I think the first reference, in these words, is to the miracles which were wrought by the plagues in Egypt. It was Jehovah-Jesus who was then plaguing His adversaries. In a later chapter, Isaiah says that “the Angel of His presence saved them;” and who is that great Angel of His presence but the Angel of the covenant in whom we delight, even Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour? But we must not restrict the text to that which happened in the land of Egypt, for it has a far wider reference. All the great wonders of nature are to be ascribed to Him upon whom we build all our hopes for time and for eternity. The last miracle recorded here, namely, that of covering the heavens with sackcloth, was performed by our Lord even when He was in His death agony. You are not depending for your salvation upon a mere man. He is man, but He is just as truly Divine.

II. BEHOLD THE MESSIAH AS THE INSTRUCTED TEACHER (verse 4). I call your special attention to the condescension of our Lord in coming here on purpose to care for the weak—to speak consoling and sustaining words to them; and also to the fact that, before He performed that service, He learned the sacred art from His Father. For thirty years was He learning much in Joseph’s carpenter’s shop. Little do we know how much He learned there; but this much we do know, “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” And afterwards, when He entered upon His public work among men, He spake with the tongue of the learned, saying to His disciples, “All things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” All through His time of teaching, He was still listening and learning.

III. BEHOLD JESUS CHRIST AS THE SERVANT OF THE LORD (verse 5).

1. He speaks of Himself as being prepared by grace. “The Lord God hath opened Mine ear,” as if there had been a work wrought upon Him to prepare Him for His service. And the same Spirit, which rested upon Christ, must also open our ears.

2. Being thus prepared by grace, He was consecrated in due form, so that He could say to Himself, “The Lord God hath opened Mine ear.” He heard the faintest whispers of His Father’s voice.

3. He not only heard His Father’s voice, but He was obedient to it in all things. “I was not rebellious.” From the day when, as a child, He said to His parents, “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” till the hour when, on the cross, He cried, “It is finished,” He was always obedient to the will of God.

4. In that obedience, He was persevering through all trials. He says that He did not turn away back. Having commenced the work of saving men, He went through with it.

IV. BEHOLD THE MESSIAH AS THE PEERLESS SUFFERER (verse 6). It has been asked, “Did God really die?” No; for God cannot die, yet He who died was God; so, if there be a confusion in your mind, it is the confusion of Holy Scripture itself, for we read, “Feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” In addition to the pain, we are asked, in this verse, to notice particularly the contempt which the Saviour endured. The plucking of His hair was a proof of the malicious contempt of His enemies, yet they went still further, and did spit in His face. Spitting was regarded by Orientals, and, I suppose, by all of us, as the most contemptuous thing which one man could do to another; yet the vile soldiers gathered round Him, and spat upon Him. I must point out the beautiful touch of voluntariness here: “I hid not my face.” Our Saviour did not turn away, or seek to escape. If He had wished to do so, He could readily have done it. Conclusion: Notice three combinations which the verses of my text will make.

(1) Verses 2 and 6. Those verses together show the full ability of Christ to save. Here we have God and the Sufferer.

(2) Verses 4 and 5. Here you have the Teacher and the Servant, and the two together make up this truth—that Christ teaches us, not with words only, but with His life. What a wonderful Teacher He is, who Himself learned the lessons which He would have us learn!

(3) Now put the whole text together, and I think the result will be—at least to God’s people—that they will say, “This God shall be our God for ever and ever; and it shall be our delight to do His bidding at all times.” It is a high honour to serve God; and Christ is God. It is a great thing to be the servant of a wise teacher; and Christ has the tongue of the learned. It is a very sweet thing to walk in the steps of a perfect Exemplar; and Christ is that. And, last and best of all, it is delightful to live for Him who suffered and died on our behalf. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Isaiah 50:4-11 The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned

The Lord’s servant made perfect through sufferings

In Isa_50:4-9 the servant is again introduced, speaking of Himself and His work, as in Isa_49:1-6. He describes—

1. The close, intimate, and continuous communion with God through which He has learned the ministry of comfort by the Divine word, and His own complete self-surrender to the voice that guides Him (Isa_49:4-5).

2. His acceptance of the persecution and obloquy which He had to encounter in the discharge of His commission (Isa_49:6).

3. His unwavering confidence in the help of Jehovah, and the victory of His righteous cause, and the discomfiture of all His enemies (Isa_49:7-9). Verses 10, 11 are an appendix to the preceding description, drawing lessons for the encouragement of believers (Isa_49:10) or the warning of unbelievers (Isa_49:11). Although the word “Servant” never occurs in this passage, its resemblance to the three other “Servant-passages” makes it certain that the speaker is none other than the ideal character who comes before us in Isa_42:1-4; Isa_49:1-6; Isa_52:13-15; Isa_53:1-12. The passage, indeed, forms analmost indispensable link of connection between the first two and the last of these. (Prof. J. Skinner, D.D.)

The Messiah an instructed Teacher

After the Messiah had been exhibited in the preceding discourse labouring in vain and spending His strength for nought among the Jews, despised of men and abhorred by the nations, when actually employed in His public ministry, it became necessary to explain this surprising phenomenon. It is, therefore, affirmed that the neglect and contempt which He suffered was not owing to any deficiency on the part of this celebrated Teacher, who was eminently qualified for acquainting men with the Will of God, in the knowledge of which He was perfectly instructed. This important qualification was not imparted to Him by any human teacher, neither did He acquire it in the schools of philosophers and orators, nor was it communicated to Him by the most eminent of the prophets, but by the Spirit of the Lord God, to whom it is here attributed. (R. Macculloch.)

The tongue of the learned

I. THE CHARACTER DESCRIBED AS NEEDING THE SAVIOUR’S GRACE. “Him that is weary.” This description includes a very large class. All may not ascribe their weariness to the same cause, nor may all be sensible of their weariness to the same extent. Yet all are weary.

1. Not in the world of sense only do you complain of weariness. It is impossible for the unrenewed heart to find rest even in things that are Spiritual. Heaven itself would to such a one cease to be heaven. What a weariness do you find in the religion of Jesus Christ! Of prayer, of public worship, of hearing sermons, of religious conversation, of the service and work of the Lord you say, “What a weariness!”

2. The description, certainly, includes those who are truly anxious about the salvation of their souls.

3. The Lord’s weary ones include His own quickened people, who feel the burden of the body of sin, and are cast down because of their difficulties.

4. The assaults of the adversary, too, contribute not a little to the sense of weariness, which often prostrate a child of God.

5. Add to these the numerous and varied trials and afflictions which beset his pathway to heaven, and you have in outline the picture of his case.

II. CHRIST’S QUALIFICATIONS TO MEET THE CASE OF SUCH.

1. His participation of our nature. Absolute Godhead could not of itself have conveyed to us sinners one word of sympathy or comfort. Neither could the angels do it. They are total strangers to the weariness to which sinful children of men are heirs. But, the man Christ Jesus becomes a partaker of the very nature whose burdens He sought to relieve.

“Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also took part in the same.”

2. As He thus took upon Him our nature, so He also endured our sinless though humbling infirmities.

3. In addition to all this, the Lord God had given Him the tongue of the learned in another sense. I refer to the communication of the Divine Spirit Isa_61:1). Never was there a tongue like Christ’s—so learned, soskilled, so practised, and so experienced. “Never man spake like this man.”

4. The purpose for which this tongue of the learned was given Him is thus described—“That He should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.”

(1) A word,

(2) a word in season,

(3) that He should know how to speak.

5. But when Christ speaks to the weary, it is not to the outward ear merely, but to the heart—with almighty power. And the result is rest.

III. THE REST WHICH JESUS IMPARTS, when He speaks the word in season.

1. We are seeking rest by nature everywhere, and in everything but in Jesus. We seek it in the outward world, in the moral world, in the religious world—and we find it not. We seek it in conviction, in ordinances, in doing the works of the law—and still it evades us. We go from place to place, and from means to means, and still the burden presses, and we find no rest. No, and never will, until it is sought and found in Jesus.

2. Yet, in the case of a tried believer, the rest that Jesus imparts does not always imply the removal of the burden from which the sense of weariness proceeds. The burden is permitted to remain, and yet rest is experienced. Wonderful indeed! How is it explained? That burden takes us to Jesus. He pours strength into our souls, life into our spirits, and love into our hearts, and so we find rest. It is also matter of much practical importance, that you take heed not to anticipate or forestall His promised grace. For every possible emergency in which you can be placed, the fulness of Christ and the supplies of the Covenant are provided. But that provision is only meted out as the necessity for which it was intended occurs.

3. There is an hour approaching—the last great crisis of human life—when, we shall all, more than ever, need Him who hath the “tongue of the learned.” It will be of all seasons the most trying and solemn—the season that separates the soul from the body, and ushers the immortal spirit into eternity. Is it not our highest wisdom to know this Saviour now? (C. Ross M. A.)

A word to the weary

I. THE POWER OF SPEAKING TO THE WEARY IS NOTHING LESS THAN A DIVINE GIFT. We may say the right word in a wrong tone.

II. Though the gift itself is Divine, IT IS TO BE EXERCISED SEASONABLY. It is not enough to speak the right word, it must be spoken at the right moment. (J. Parker, D.D.)

Christ speaking a word in season to the weary

I. CONSIDER THE STATE AND CHARACTER OF THOSE THAT ARE WEARY.

II. SHOW, FROM THE CHARACTER AND PERSON OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THAT HE IS A SEASONABLE AND ALL-SUFFICIENT SAVIOUR TO THOSE WHO ARE WEARY. The excellency and glory of Christ may not only be perceived by viewing Him in the whole of His mediatorial character; but, also, by fixing on specific parts of it, and showing that there is a Divine suitability to all the exigencies of ruined men.

1. He can give rest to the mind of the man who is wearied with his researches after human wisdom.

2. He can give rest to those who are oppressed under a sense of guilt.

3. He can speak a word in season to those who have wearied themselves in attempting to establish their own righteousness.

4. He can give rest to those who have wearied themselves in vainly trying to overcome their corruptions in their own strength.

5. He can speak a word in season to those who are weary with the weight of affliction and trouble.

6. He can give rest to those who are oppressed and wearied with the cares of this world.

7. Christ can speak a word in season to those who are weary of living in this world. None of the children of men can enjoy rest, or real peace of mind, but through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. (J. Matheson.)

The ministry of preaching

(with Act_20:27). The first passage is spoken by the Messiah, the second by St. Paul. The one looks forward, the other backward. The one speaks of a preparation and fitness for a work yet to be done; the other is a thankful record of a mission already faithfully accomplished.

I. IN THE FIRST PASSAGE YOU HAVE THE CHIEF MINISTER OF THE CHURCH ANTICIPATING HIS WORK OF TEACHING AND ANNOUNCING HIS FITNESS FOR THE WORK.

1. Observe the gift with which He claims to be endowed as one element of special fitness for His ministry. Speech was the chief instrument employed by Christ for conveying truth to the minds of men. The dispensation under which we live, so emphatically designated the dispensation of the Spirit, was ushered in by two miracles, both of which related to the tongue The Holy Spirit Himself appeared resting upon each one in the form of cloven tongues as of fire. A second miracle was wrought on the uneducated Galilean apostles, enabling them, without learning, to speak intelligently in the dialects of all the nationalities present, so that every man heard them speak in his own language. And why, at the very founding of Christianity, was this twofold miracle wrought in relation to the tongue, if not to indicate that the Holy Spirit purposed to employ speech as the chief instrument in the regeneration of mankind?

2. The purpose for which this gift of speech is to be employed. “To speak a word in season to him that is weary.”

(1) You will have to speak to men suffering, from mental weariness—men who have long searched for truth and failed to find it. See that ye be well furnished with the Spirit, who has promised to guide you into all truth, and who also will help you to guide others into all truth.

(2) You will have others wearied in body, through excessive labour or sore affliction. You may tell them of the illustrious Sufferer of Calvary who, though innocent, suffered for our sins; was in all points tempted like as we are; and who, therefore, is able to succour all those who are tempted.

(3) You will have others wearied in heart, by reason of bereavement. Imitating the Great Teacher in the bereaved family of Bethany, you must direct the thought of the sorrowful to the resurrection power of Christ, when the mortal shall put on immortality, and the corruptible shall put on incorruption.

(4) Others will come to you weary of the vicissitudes, disappointments and reverses of life. With the Master, you may speak to them of the lily, the sparrow, the grass, the flower of the field; how your Heavenly Father careth for these, but how much more He will care for those who have faith in and love towards Him, even to the numbering of every hair on the whitening brow.

(5) Others will come with weary consciences, burdened with sin, fearing the wrath to come, carrying with them, it may be, the dread secret of undiscovered and unconfessed crime. Take solemn heed that the word you speak is a word in season. Do not heal lightly the wounds thus made by the Spirit. Do not attempt to soothe the agony by minifying the guilt, or lessening the condemnation, or diminishing the penalty. Do what the Spirit does. Take of the things of Christ and show them unto the penitent; show them in their preciousness, their efficacy, and their all-sufficiency.

(6) Others may come to you weary of inbred sin. Open your ear to hear what the Lord your God will say unto you; humbly wait with an upward look to your Great Teacher, and He will give you the tongue of the learned.

3. This learning claimed by the Redeemer is set forth as progressive. “He wakeneth Me morning by morning. He wakeneth mine ear that I may hear as disciples do.” If our Lord found it necessary to place Himself in the position of a pupil to receive daily instruction from the Divine Father, how much greater need is there for you who are His ministers? You cannot learn in one lesson all that the Holy Spirit has to communicate. Cultivate a sensibility of soul, a readiness to hear the softest, gentlest tone of God, whether in nature, in providence, in history, in the inspired word, or in the deep secrets of your own heart.

II. THE NOBLE TESTIMONY OF THE NOBLEST APOSTLE AT THE CLOSE OF HIS MINISTRY AT EPHESUS. (R..Roberts.)

The weary world and the refreshing ministry

I. THE WEARY WORLD. It is not one man that is weary, the generation is weary, the world is weary. All sinners are weary. Wearied with fruitless efforts after happiness. There is the ennui yawn, and the groan of depression heard everywhere.

II. THE REFRESHING MINISTRY. “The Lord God hath given me,” etc.

1. The relief comes by speech. No physical, legislative, or ceremonial means will do; it must be by the living voice, charged with sympathy, truth, light.

2. The effective speech comes from God. “The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned.” No man can speak the soul-refreshing thing unless God inspires and teaches him.

3. The speech that comes from God is a “word in season.” It is exactly suited to the mood of the souls addressed. (Homilist.)

A word in season to the weary

(with Mat_11:28-30):—

I. We may name WOUNDED AFFECTIONS as a very frequent cause of weariness. We do not know, until the blow comes, how heavily we have been leaning on the staff of friendly sympathy. Breaking beneath our weight, it leaves us tottering and weary. But amidst all our heart-troubles the voice of the Saviour is heard saying, “Rest! Come unto Me and I will give you rest.”

II. THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF OUR DESIRES is another common antecedent of lassitude. All of us are furnished with larger appetites than we have ability or opportunity for satisfying. Pleasure! Money! Power! Reputation! How seldom do men know when they have enough of that which they most desire. So, as the material of sensuous enjoyment becomes exhausted, the sense of emptiness becomes more painful. But in this mood, too, we are met by the Divine Saviour: “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.” For Christ would fill the soul with the only object of desire that cannot disappear in its grasp: with the Eternal Himself.

III. VACANCY OF MIND AND THE SENSE OF MONOTONY is another common cause of weariness. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” as the old philosophers said. The mind cannot endure its own emptiness. It is so constituted that it must have change and variety of impressions and ideas; otherwise it turns upon itself, and its fine mechanism is worn down with useless friction. But He who comes to reveal the Father meets us, too, in this mood of self-weariness. It is His message to tell us of a new self which it is the will of God to impart to us; a new heart in which it may please God to dwell, and with which He can hold fellowship. The man who yields himself to the Spirit, and is born of the Spirit, need no longer be disgusted with himself, having found his nature anew in God.

IV. But the load of A GUILTY CONSCIENCE is even more fatiguing than that of a vacant mind. Need it be pointed out how profoundly Christ meets this guilty dejection of the human heart?

V. Quite a different cause of weariness is to be found in THE BURDEN OF EARNEST THOUGHT AND NOBLE ENDEAVOUR. For the Christian, it is enough that his Saviour has “suffered in the flesh”—has borne “the weary weight of all this unintelligible world” in uncomplaining meekness. He is to “arm himself likewise with the same mind.” (E. Johnson, M.A.)

Noble gifts for lowly uses

I. GOD’S HIGHEST GIFTS HAVE THEIR DEFINITE END AND PURPOSE. In Nature, for instance, nothing has been created in vain. And so it ought to be in human life, that world of feeling and desire within the breast of man. You see that the prophet looked upon the tongue of the learned as a gift from God, holding it in trust, where many would have counted it as their own. And he saw it was a gift for very plain and apparent purposes—for men are stewards, and not owners of all that is bestowed upon them. This splendid administrative genius of the Anglo-Saxon race, dominant and even imperious, but only because it has seen into the heart of purposes working themselves out in the midst of the ages, the wealth it has acquired, the influence it commands, has this no meaning in the economy of nations? You only need the touch of Christ to consecrate it and turn it into right channels, and the whole world is blessed thereby. “We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.”

II. THIS DEFINITE PURPOSE IS A VERY SIMPLE ONE, AND POSSIBLY AT FIRST SIGHT INSUFFICIENT. Ambition would say so, and ambition is as natural to the human heart as desire

itself. We ask great things, we would be great things, we would do them. It must be confessed, however, that no sin of man has been more constant and apparent than that which has made men look down upon these lowly uses belonging unto lofty gifts. A proud reserve has been considered in all ages as appropriate to commanding talents. The statesman’s wisdom, the orator’s art, the poet’s fire, what are they side by side with all that wondrous wealth lavished upon simple fishermen in Galilee, and carried into the home of Lazarus, and spent among the humble poor. Between the highest born among men and the humblest service henceforward there can be no disparity. “If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet,” He said to His disciples, “ye ought also to wash one another’s feet.” And as with individuals, so with nations. God gives special gifts for His own purposes.

III. THIS PURPOSE IS A VERY URGENT AND APPROPRIATE ONE. After all, the end is not beneath the means. It needs the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to him that is weary, that word fitly spoken which dries the tear from the eye, and banishes sorrow from the heart. To do away with pain and assuage grief, is not that a noble, a Divine thing? And will you see how Christianity has been doing this in lower and yet very important directions, permeating society by its subtle influences for good? And more when you understand Isaiah’s words in their true and spiritual significance, what a field of usefulness unfolds itself! For the great burdens of mankind are not physical, but mental and spiritual. (W. Baxendale.)

Words in season for the weary

I. THE EDUCATION OF THE DIVINE SERVANT. We must notice the difference between the authorized version and the new. In the one, “the Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know.” In the other, “of them that are taught”—or, as the margin reads, “of disciples.” The thought being that the Lord Jesus in His human life was a pupil in the school of human pain, under the tutelage of His Father.

1. His education was by God Himself.

2. It was various. He passed through each class in the school of weariness.

3. It was constant. “Morning by morning” the Father woke Him.

4. It dealt with the season for administering comfort. “That I should know how to speak a word in season.” There are times when the nervous system is so overstrained that it cannot bear even the softest words. It is best then to be silent. A caress, a touch, or the stillness that breathes an atmosphere of calm, will then most quickly soothe and heal. This delicacy of perception can only be acquired in the school of suffering.

5. It embraced the method. “That I should know how.” The manner is as important as the season. A message of good-will may be uttered with so little sympathy, and in tones so gruff and grating, that it will repel. The touch of the comforter must be that of the nurse on the fractured bone—of the mother with the frightened child.

II. HIS RESOLUTION. From the first, Jesus knew that He must die. The Lord God poured the full story into His opened ear. With all other men, death is the close of their life; with Christ it was the object. We die because we were born; Christ was born that He might die. On one occasion, towards the close of His earthly career, when the fingers on the dial-plate were pointing to the near fulfilment of the time, we are told He set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. What heroism was here! Men sometimes speak of Christ as if He were effeminate and weak, remarkable only for passive virtues. But such conceptions are refuted by the indomitable resolution which set its face like a flint, and knew that it would not be ashamed. Note the voluntariness of Christ’s surrender. The martyr dies because he cannot help it; Christ

dies because He chose. It has been thought that the opened ear refers to something more than the pushing back of the flowing Oriental locks in order to utter the secret of coming sorrow. It is supposed to have some reference to the ancient Jewish custom of boring the ear of the slave to the doorpost of the master’s house. Under this metaphor it is held that our Lord chose with keen sympathy the service of the Father, and elected all that it might involve, because He loved Him and would not go out free. The images may be combined. Be it only remembered that He knew and chose all that would come upon Him, and that the fetters which bound Him to the Cross were those of undying love to us and of burning passion for the Father’s glory.

III. HIS VINDICATION. “He is near that justifieth Me.” These are words upon which Jesus may have stayed Himself through those long hours of trial. They said that He was the Friend of publicans and sinners. God has justified Him by showing that if He associates with such, it is to make them martyrs and saints. They said that He was mad. God has justified Him by making His teaching the illumination of the noblest and wisest of the race. They said He had a devil. God has justified Him by giving Him power to cast out the devil and hind him with a mighty chain. They said that He blasphemed when He called Himself the Son of God. God has justified Him by raising Him to the right hand of power, so that He will come in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. They said that He would destroy the temple and the commonwealth of Israel. God has justified Him in shedding the influence of the Hebrew people through all the nations of the world, and making their literature, their history, their conceptions dominant.

IV. HIS APPEAL (verse 16). To obey the Lord’s servant is equivalent to fearing the Lord. He who does the one must do the other. What is this but to proclaim His Deity? (F. B. Meyer, B.A.)

A word in season to him that is weary

A word to the weary

To speak a word is easy, to speak a word in season is difficult; but to speak a word in season to him that is weary is more difficult still; and yet to be able to accomplish this end wisely and successfully is to be one of the greatest benefactors to our race. (E. Mellor, D. D.)

Weariness

Weariness the word reveals its parentage clearly enough. To be weary is to be worn—or worn out—or worn down. One wears his coat until it is worn out; and so you wear your strength until it is worn out, There is a weariness also which is not the result of excessive toil, but of indolence. For no man sighs so much, complains so much, fears so much, as the man who sets himself the task of passing through life doing nothing. Sometimes weariness is a virtue; sometimes it is a sin. But whether it be virtue or sin, there is no man who does not know well what it is to be weary. (E. Mellor, D. D.)

Words to the weary

We have many doors in our nature, and at every one of these weariness may enter.

I. There is—to begin at the lowest door of all—the physical one, THE WEARINESS WHICH COMES TO US FROM BODILY TOIL, or from toil which, whether bodily or not, tells upon the body by wasting for the time its energies. So far as such toil is rendered necessary by the very fundamental conditions of our existence, the weariness which ensues upon it is a Divine appointment, and the most benign provision has been made for meeting and banishing it. You

need no word in season for such weariness as this. There is something better than a word for you. There is night with its soothing darkness. There is your bed with its repose; and there is sleep, “Nature’s soft nurse, that doth knit the ravelled sleeve of care, and steep your senses in forgetfulness.” And there is not merely the night, but the Sabbath. But there is also a weariness which has the nature of a chastisement, because it is produced by excessive and needless toil. While labour is a Divine thing in just measure, yet, when it becomes care, worry, vexation, hot and insatiable ambition, greed, it becomes criminal, and draws after it sooner or later grim consequences, the thought of which ought to make men pause. You cannot run both quickly and long. What is the word in season for such cases as these? The word may not be pleasant, for the words in season which God utters to us are often like thunderclaps to startle us, or like a firm grip of the hand which seems to say, “Stop, or you are undone.” But surely the word in season to many is: Release your strain, moderate your speed, economize your energies, stop up the leak through which your health is trickling already, and may soon be rushing like a stream; what shall it profit you if you gain the whole world, and lose your life?

II. Some men are WEARY WITH PLEASURE. There is no decree of God more stern or more inflexible than that which has determined that misery shall be the constant companion of the man that seeks pleasure. He may be a swift runner, but pleasure runs more swiftly still. Let us accept it as a moral axiom which has no exception, that the fulfilment of duty is the condition of happiness in this world. The word in season, therefore, for those who are weary in pleasure is this: Revise and reverse your whole judgment as to what you are and as to your relation to God, and this world, and the world which is to come.

III. Some men are WEARY WITH WELL-DOING WHICH SEEMS TO COME TO SO POOR AN END. This is so common a tendency that we are warned against it, “Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.” “Be ye steadfast, unmovable,” etc. Men who are working for God in this world have doubtless a heavy task in hand. The soil is uncongenial. It is beaten hard with sin and evil habit; and the ploughshare enters it with difficulty, and with difficulty makes its way. Take any sphere of benevolence you like, whether the lower one of sympathy with the common sufferings of man, or the higher one of concern for their spiritual necessities and sorrows and dangers, and the labour is no holiday play. Well-doing appears so often like building in a quagmire. We sow good seed, and then the enemy sows tares. We root up one evil, and another springs up in its stead. Well-doing in the shape of teaching would not be so wearying if the children were not so listless, so rude, so dull, so forgetful, so disappointing. Well-doing in the shape of charity would not be so wearying if there were not so much of ingratitude and imposture. What is the word in season to those who are weary in such good work? Such as these: Think, before you withdraw from what appears to be unfruitful labour, that God still holds on His Divine purpose, and is kind to the unthankful and the evil; think that He is good and doeth good continually, and that, were He to grow weary in well-doing, He would plunge the world into desolation in a moment. Think, too, that if you grow weary, all others may grow weary too, and that then the world will be left to itself: ignorance, vice, crime, wretchedness spreading with every hour, until the earth will be little better than a suburb of hell itself. Think, to, that in well-doing you do find some results, though they may not be equal to your hope, and that the results, though unseen, may still be there, and will appear some day, and be reaped by another’s hand. And be sure of this, that nothing good is ever lost.

IV. There are those who ARE WEARY OF THE STRIFE WITH SIN. This is emphatically the battle of life and the battle for life. What is the word in season to him who is thus weary? This—that Christ has already vanquished your most powerful foe, and will make you more than conqueror.

V. There is one word more in season for those who ARE WEARY IN SIN, BUT NOT YET WEARY OF IT. Would to God they were weary of it! for to feel it to be a burden and a woe is the

first step to deliverance. (E. Mellor, D. D.)

Weary souls

So far as we can tell, all life is joyous, except that of humanity. Even those creatures which are under the care of man have not the joyousness they might have if they were roaming the fields or hills. Look at the horse on the American prairies; see him in some of the cabs and coal carts at home! Though the life of birds and animals is naturally a happy one, the life of humanity, for the most part, is one of trouble. People who firmly resolve to act rightly and Christianly in this world, shall certainly “have tribulation.” In the Bible, we have the record of many people who knew what it is to have a weary soul. Above all weary souls, let us remember the loving Saviour, who was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

I. YOU MAY BE WEARY WITH THE PARTICULAR BURDEN WHICH WEIGHTS YOUR LIFE. Every one of us has a special burden of our own. The Christian philosophy of burden-bearing is to take things as we find them and make the best of them; not like a vicious horse to kick against the “splinter hoard,” or set up our back rebelliously. Directly we submit to the yoke, and say Thy will he done, our burden becomes lighter. The Divine Word teaches that your life has a Divine purpose.

II. Perhaps, your soul is WEARY BECAUSE OF THE UNKINDNESS OF YOUR FRIENDS. Let your only aim be to please God and do your duty; and then, though the action of friends may grieve you, it shall neither hinder your work nor give you a weary soul.

III. But another may say that his weary soul is caused by HIS SIN. When you behold Jesus on the Cross you will see what He suffered for sin; and when you behold Him risen from the dead, you will see the power at your hand to enable you to flee from every temptation.

IV. Some of you may have weary souls, because YOUR LIFE IS VERY BITTER. But in heaven your sorrow and sighing, like that of the apostle John, shall flee away. (W.Birch.)

A word to the weary

I. Are there any WEARY WORKLINGS here? The soul of man once found its rest in God. Weary, was a word unknown in the language of Eden; for Jehovah was then the spirit’s home. Its affections reposed upon the all-sufficient God. He was a Friend of whose company the soul could never tire, and in whose service it never could grow weary. But now that the soul has taken leave of God, it has never found another rest like Him. Till it comes to live on God Himself, the hungry soul of man never will be satisfied. Ye worldlings, who wander joyless through a godless world, with weary feet and withered hearts, seeking rest and finding none, come to Jesus, and He will give you rest.

II. Are there any WEARY WITH THE BURDEN OF UNPARDONED GUILT? You remember when Christian had panted up the hill, and came in sight of the Cross, how his burden fell off and rolled away down into the sepulchre; and you remember how he wondered that the sight of a cross should instantly relieve him of his load. Come to Christ upon the Cross, and you will understand the pilgrim’s wonder; for your burden will, in like manner, fall off and disappear.

III. Are there any WEARIED WITH THE GREATNESS OF THEIR WAY? You have been long seeking salvation. Suppose that one of those winter evenings you went down into the country on a visit to a friend. It is a dark night when the stage coach stops; the conductor steps down, opens the door, and lets you out. He tells you that your friend’s house is hard by, and if the night were a little clearer, you would see it just over the way. “‘Tis but a step, you cannot miss it.” However,

you contrive to miss it. Your guide springs up into the box—the long train of lamp light is lost in misty gloom, and the distant rumble of the wheels is drowned in the rush of the tempest. You are left alone. The directions you received were quite correct, and if you followed them implicitly, you could not go wrong. But you have a theory of the matter in your own mind. “What did he mean by saying, that it was just a step? He cannot live so very near the highway.” You pass the gate, and plod away up the hill, till at last you become impatient—for there are no symptoms of a dwelling here. You turn aside into this lane, and you climb over that stile, till weary with splashing through miry stubble fields, and all drenched with driving rain, you find yourself, after many a weary round, precisely where you started. Half dead with fatigue and vexation, you lift the latch of a cottage-door, and ask if they know where such-a-one resides. And a little child undertakes to guide you. He opens a wicket, and points to the long lines of light gleaming through a easement a few paces distant. “Do you see the lights in yon window? Well, that is it; knock, and they’ll open the door.” In such a homely instance, you all know what it is to be weary in the greatness of your way—to spend your strength in a long circuit, when a single step might have sufficed. But are you sure that it is not in some such way, that you “labour and find no rest,” whilst there is but a step betwixt you and Christ? That is the wisest and happiest course which the sinner can take—to go at once to the Saviour. (J. Hamilton, D.D.)

The weary

“Weary” denotes a class to which a multitude belong that no man can number, of every nation, kindred, tribe, and people.

1. Physical weariness—of the slave on the march; of the toiler in the sweating den; of the seamstress working far into the night by the wasting taper; of the mother worn with watching her sick child.

2. Mental weariness—when the fancy can no longer summon at will images of beauty; and the intellect refuses to follow another argument, master another page, or cast up another column.

3. Heart weariness—waiting in vain for the word so long expected but unspoken; for the returning step of the prodigal; for the long-delayed letter.

4. The weariness of the inner conflict of striving day by day against the selfishness and waywardness of the soul on which prolonged resistance makes so slight an impression.

5. The weariness of the Christian worker, worn by the perpetual chafe of human sorrow, sin, and need. (F. B. Meyer, B.A.)

The gift of consolation

Nothing so clearly betokens a tongue befitting the disciples of God as the gift of consolation, and such a tongue has He who is the speaker here: “to aid with words him who is exhausted”—through the pain of suffering and mortification of spirit. (F. Delitzsch, D.D.)

He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned

God’s day school

“Morning by morning He openeth mine ear to hear as the scholars.” If we would rightly understand this Divine application of Isaiah’s words, we must first understand the human

application of them, looking through the type to the anti-type, and thus beholding the Servant of Jehovah as “blind” and “deaf, yet “well-pleasing” to God as one “magnifying the law and making it honourable,” and both shadowing forth and preparing the way for the perfect service of the perfect Servant. Taking first then this human view of the text, observe—

I. The closed ears of God s scholars. “He openeth mine ear. In the earlier description of Israel, associated with Isaiah’s call to the prophetic office (a passage more frequently quoted in the New Testament than any other words of the Old), the ear is said to be “heavy,” and the heart “gross,” and the eyes “closed.” Alas! this is the sorrowful condition not only of Israel but of humanity.

II. The closed ears Divinely opened. “He openeth.” The ear is too heavy for the word itself to penetrate tilt He who breathed it comes. By Him it is opened, at a time of spiritual crisis oftentimes, but even then the scholar of God is too often deaf to his Teacher’s voice. His ears need to be often opened anew. “Morning by morning.” We must all be day scholars in the school of God. And we learn “as the scholars.” The double meaning of this word “scholar” suits the meaning of the passage admirably. A “scholar” is one who is learning his alphabet, and a “scholar” is also one that knows much more than his fellow-men, and can teach them with the “tongue of the scholar.” But there must be learning before teaching, and if we are scholars in God’s school we shall know “more than the ancients.” What then are His lessons?

1. The first lesson God teaches is a lesson of obedience (verse 5).

2. The second lesson God teaches is a lesson in patience (verse 6). Morning by morning the Divine voice calls us to suffer as well as to do.

3. The third lesson God teaches is a lesson in boldness (verse 7). Flint-like are the true scholars of God. Omnipotence is on their side and they know it.

4. The fourth lesson God teaches is a lesson in service (verse 4). The ear is opened that the tongue may be loosed to speak for Him who opened it. Every scholar must be a teacher. Look at the application of the text to Jesus Christ. Isaiah was His favourite book, and this text doubtless was often in His mind, as it was once upon His lips.

(1) Do we learn obedience? He also “learned obedience by the things that He suffered,” so that it was “His meat” to do the will of God always, and in Him only was the ideal attitude of obedience realized. “Lo I come: I delight to do Thy will, O My God.”

(2) Do we painfully learn the lesson of patience? Let us “consider Him who endured the contradiction of sinners.”

(3) Do we gain something of His boldness? It was when the persecutors of the earliest disciples marvelled the boldness which they showed that “they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus,” for at His feet they had learned this manly virtue.

(4) Do we attempt service? How did God’s holy Servant fulfil His consoling mission by speaking words in season to the weary? And the old lesson is also the new, “Have faith in God.” The “faith” of the New Testament is the “trust” of the Old. (H. C. Leonard, M.A.)

The inspiration of noble ideas

Where do great men get their noblest ideas? Michael Angelo produced such exquisite faces that Fiesole declared he must have been in paradise to borrow them. A watchful heart will find God furnishing thoughts for such a generous service. One wonders whether Goethe had not been lately reading that verse (Isa_50:4) when he said that his best thoughts always came to him unawares, like birds pecking at his windows, and saying, “Here we are!” (C. S.Robinson, D.D.)

God’s voice heard in stillness

Said the aged Christian lady to Mark Rutherford, “The voice of God, to me at least, hardly ever comes in thunder, but I have to listen in perfect stillness to make it out.”

Morning communion with God

On the 1 st of May, in the olden times, many inhabitants of London used to go into the fields to bathe their faces with the early dew upon the grass under the idea that it would render them beautiful. This may have been superstitious, but to bathe one’s face every morning in the dew of heaven by prayer and communion, is the sure way to obtain true beauty of life and character. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

3 I clothe the heavens with darkness

and make sackcloth its covering.”

1.BARNES, “I clothe the heavens with blackness - With the dark clouds of a tempest - perhaps with an allusion to the remarkable clouds and tempests that encircled the brow of Sinai when he gave the law. Or possibly alluding to the thick darkness which he brought over the land of Egypt (Exo_10:21; Grotius). In the previous verse, he had stated what he did on the earth, and referred to the exhibitions of his great power there. He here refers to the exhibition of his power in the sky; and the argument is, that he who had thus the power to spread darkness over the face of the sky, had power also to deliver his people.

I make sackcloth their covering - Alluding to the clouds. Sackcloth was a coarse and dark cloth which was usually worn as an emblem of mourning (see the note at Isa_3:24). The same image is used in Rev_6:12 : ‘And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair.’ To say, therefore, that the heavens were clothed with sackcloth, is one of the most striking and impressive figures which can be conceived.

2.PULPIT COMMENTARY, “I clothe the heavens with blackness. The Egyptian plague of

darkness (Exo_10:21-23) is not adequate to the expressions here used. God means to assert his power

of leaving all nature in absolute darkness, if he so choose—a power necessarily belonging to him who

said, "Let there be light; and there was light" (Gen_1:3). I make sackcloth their covering (see Rev_6:12,

"The sun became black as sackcloth of hair").

3. GILL, “I clothe the heavens with blackness,.... With gross and thick darkness; perhaps referring to the three days' darkness the Egyptians were in, Exo_10:12, or with thick and black clouds, as in tempestuous weather frequently; or by eclipses of the sun; there was an extraordinary instance of great darkness at the time of Christ's crucifixion, Mat_27:45. and I make sackcloth their covering; that being black, and used in times of mourning; the allusion may be to the tents of Kedar, which were covered with sackcloth, or such like black stuff. The fall of the Pagan empire, through the power of Christ and his Gospel, is signified by the sun becoming black as sackcloth of hair, Rev_6:12. Jarchi interprets this parabolically of the princes of the nations, when the Lord shall come to take vengeance upon them; as Kimchi does the sea, and the rivers, in the preceding verse, of the good things of the nations of the world, which they had in great abundance, and should be destroyed.

4. JAMISON, “heavens ... blackness — another of the judgments on Egypt to be repeated

hereafter on the last enemy of God’s people (Exo_10:21).

sackcloth — (Rev_6:12).

5. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “Explanation of exile.

The Lord would impress on his exiled people that their calamities found their explanation not in him but in

themselves; and we shall find, when we look, that this is the account of our estrangement and distance

from God.

I. WHAT ACCOUNTED FOR ISRAEL'S EXILE?

1. It was not any fickleness in God. He had not acted toward Israel as a husband often acted toward the

wife of whom he was weary; there had been no changeableness on his part.

2. It was not his necessity. The father might sell his son when hard pressed by pecuniary straits; but God

could never, by any supposition, be reduced to such necessities. He who can say, "Every beast of the

forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills," the generous Donor of all gifts, and bountiful Source

of all treasures, cannot be in want of anything.

3. It is not his inability to protect or to redeem. There was abundance of Divine power to preserve from

captivity or to rescue from it. He who could "dry up the [Red] sea," and in whose hand are the storms and

tempests of the sky, could defeat any armies of the invader, or could bring out of bondage, if he chose.

4. It was their own disobedience which accounted for it—their iniquities, their transgressions (Isa_50:1); it

was their heedlessness and disobedience when the voice of the Lord was heard rebuking and inviting

(Isa_50:2).

II. WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR OUR ALIENATION FROM GOD?

1. Nothing in him. He is not unwilling that we should return and be reconciled; he does not weary of his

children; he has been obliged to condemn us, but he "earnestly remembers us still." His attitude is one of

gracious invitation: all the days of our life long he "stretches out his hands" toward us. He is

not unable. The power which God shows in nature, in his control of the elements, in regulating the tides of

the sea, and directing the tempest in the sky, is small and slight in comparison with that he shows in

redeeming a fallen race; mechanical or miraculous power is of a far inferior kind to that which is moral and

spiritual. And the Author of nature is the Redeemer of man; he has completed a glorious work of mercy

and restoration. He has made it possible for the most guilty to be forgiven, for the foulest to be cleansed,

for the most distant to return. There is no obstacle to our restoration in God.

2. Everything in us. We "will not come unto him that we may have life." (l) We do not listen when he

speaks; we go on our way, regardless of the fact that God is speaking in his Word, in the sanctuary by

Jesus Christ, in his providence.

(2) Or we do not reflect when we hear. We may come and listen and understand, but go away" hearers

only, and not doers; "we are the "people that do not consider."

(3) Or we do not decide. We feel and we entertain the question of returning; we may say, "I will arise," but

we do not; conviction loses the name of action; we defer, and remain in exile.—C.

6. CALVIN, “3.I clothe the heavens with blackness. He mentions also that thick darkness which was

spread over all Egypt during the space of three days. (Exo_10:22.) At that time the heaven was clothed

as with a mouming dress; for, as fine weather has a gladdening influence, so blackness and darkness

produce melancholy; and therefore he says, that the heavens were covered as with sackcloth or with a

mouming dress, as if they had been tokens and expressions of mouming, (15) If any one prefer to view

them as general statements, let him enjoy his opinion; but I think it probable that he glances at the history

of the deliverance from Egypt, (16) front which it might easily be inferred that God, who had so

miraculously assisted the fathers, was prevented by their ingratitude from granting relief to the miseries

which now oppressed them.

(15) “ gives a great idea of God’ power. Though the sun shines so bright that no mortal eye can steadily

behold its lustre, I can at pleasure send a thick cloud and intercept its rays, and make the heavens

appear as if they had put on mourning.” — White.

(16) “A l’ de la deliverance d’.”

4 The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed

tongue,

to know the word that sustains the weary.

He wakens me morning by morning,

wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.

1.BARNES, “The Lord God hath given me - This verse commences a new subject, and the deliverer is directly introduced as himself speaking. The reasons why this is supposed to refer to the Messiah, have been given in the analysis to the chapter. Those reasons will be strengthened by the examination of the particular expressions in the passage, and by showing, as we proceed in the exposition, in what way they are applicable to him. It will be assumed that the reference is to the Messiah; and we shall find that it is a most beautiful description of his character, and of some of the principal events of his life. This verse is designed to state how he was suited for the special work to which he was called. The whole endowment is traced to Yahweh. It was he who had called him; he who had given him the tongue of the learned, and he who had carefully and attentively qualified him for his work.

The tongue of the learned - Hebrew, ‘The tongue of those who are instructed;’ that is, of

the eloquent; or the tongue of instruction (παιδείας paideias, Septuagint); that is, he has

qualified me to instruct others. It does not mean human science or learning; nor does it mean that any other had been qualified as he was, or that there were any others who were learned like him. But it means that on the subject of religion he was eminently endowed with intelligence, and with eloquence. In regard to the Redeemer’s power of instruction, the discourses which he delivered, as recorded in the New Testament, and especially his sermon on the mount, may be referred to. None on the subject of religion ever spake like him; none was ever so well qualified to instruct mankind (compare Mat_13:54).

That I should know how to speak a word in season - The Hebrew here is, ‘That I might know how to strengthen with a word the weary;’ that is, that he might sustain, comfort, and refresh them by his promises and his counsels. How eminently he was suited to alleviate those who were heavy laden with sin and to comfort those who were burdened with calamities and trials, may be seen by the slightest reference to the New Testament, and the most partial acquaintance with his instructions and his life. The weary here are those who are burdened with a sense of guilt; who feel that they have no strength to bear up under the mighty load, and who therefore seek relief (see Mat_11:28).

He wakeneth morning by morning - That is, he wakens me every morning early. The language is taken from an instructor who awakens his pupils early, in order that they may receive instruction. The idea is, that the Redeemer would be eminently endowed, under the divine instruction and guidance, for his work. He would be one who was, so to speak, in the school of God; and who would be qualified to impart instruction to others.

He wakeneth mine ear - To awaken the ear is to prepare one to receive instruction. The expressions, to open the ear, to uncover the ear, to awaken the ear, often occur in the Scriptures, in the sense of preparing to receive instruction, or of disposing to receive divine communications. The sense here is plain. The Messiah would be taught of God, and would be inclined to receive all that he imparted.

To hear as the learned - Many translate the phrase here ‘as disciples,’ that is, as those who are learning. So Lowth; ‘With the attention of a learner.’ So Noyes; ‘In the manner of a disciple.’ The Septuagint renders it, ‘He has given me an ear to hear.’ The idea is, probably, that he was attentive as they are who wish to learn; that is, as docile disciples. The figure is taken from a

master who in the morning summons his pupils around him, and imparts instruction to them. And the doctrine which is taught is, that the Messiah would be eminently qualified, by divine teaching, to be the instructor of mankind. The Chaldee paraphrases this, ‘Morning by morning, he anticipates (the dawn), that he may send his prophets, if perhaps they my open the ears of sinners, and receive instruction.’

2.PULPIT COMMENTARY, “A SOLILOQUY OF THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH. The

separateness of this passage has been maintained in the opening paragraph. That it is not of himself that

the prophet here speaks, appears

(1) from the self-assertion (Isa_50:4, Isa_50:5, Isa_50:9);

(2) from the depth of humiliation declared in Isa_50:6, which is beyond anything recorded of Isaiah.

But if he does not speak of himself, he can scarcely speak of any other besides "the Servant," of whom

he has already said much (Isa_42:1-8; Isa_49:1-12), and of whom he has still much more to say

(Isa_52:13-15; Isa_53:1-12).

Isa_50:4

The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned; literally, the tongue of disciples; i.e. a trained

tongue, a well-taught tongue. Christ "did nothing of himself; as the Father had taught him," so he spoke

(Joh_8:28). That I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary; rather, that I shall

know how to sustain by a word him that is weary. Compare, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are

heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mat_11:28). He wakeneth morning by morning � mine ear. God

held immediate and constant communication with the "Servant"—not enlightening him occasionally, as he

did the prophets, by dreams and visions, but continually whispering in his ear. At no time did the Father

"leave him alone" (Joh_8:29) or cease to speak to him. "Morning by morning" is not to be narrowed to the

bare literal meaning, but to be taken in the sense of "un-interruptedly." To hear as the learned; rather, to

hear as disciples hear; i.e. attentively, submissively, gladly.

2B. PULPIT, “Jehovah and his Servant.

The passage is to be compared with Isa_42:1-4; Isa_49:1-9. The manner in which God is referred to is

peculiarly solemn—by his double name, the Lord Jehovah.

I. THE SERVANT'S ENDOWMENTS AND TEMPER. The tongue of disciples. The "facility of well-trained

scholars" (Isa_8:6; Isa_54:13)—"a discipled tongue, speaking nothing but what it has learned from God."

A tongue the object of which is comfort to the weary. Not to astonish, dazzle, bewilder, but to edify and

console. "The wisdom of Heaven does not bespeak man in an unknown tongue; nor design, what would

be more miraculous than all miracles, that men should be saved by what they could not understand." But

true eloquence implies the faculty of listening. "The things we have heard declare we unto you." They are

things imparted to the wakened soul, in the clear conscious hours of calm contemplation, and in the mood

of devout sympathy. "The Servant was not a mechanical organ of revelation, but had a spiritual sympathy

with it, even when it told of suffering for himself. It is not that bare assent to the truth which is seldom

followed by spiritual effects. Nothing is more common than to see men of rare knowledge and raised

speculations in the things of God, who have no relish and savour of them in their hearts and affections.

Their practice bids defiance to their knowledge. They never know God so as to obey him, and therefore

never know him at all. To hear the Word of God, and to hear God speaking in his Word, are things vastly

different" (South). Now, Jehovah had opened an ear to his Servant; and he "had not been defiant, had not

turned back." All our duties as servants of God resolve themselves into faith, obedience, and patience;

and the vital principle of all is submission. Faith, the submission of the understanding; obedience, the

submission of the will to what God bids us to do; and patience, submission to what God bids us suffer. In

contrast to this temper Jonah may be cited; and in exemplification of it, Jeremiah (Jer_17:6; Jer_20:7). in

such a temper humiliation and scorn may be patiently endured.

II. THE DIVINE PRESENCE AND HELP. "Against the crowd of mockers he places the Lord Jehovah."

Jehovah is on his side; and therefore he can (in a good sense) harden his face like a flint against his foes,

be confident, and not be disappointed. A good conscience is a tower of strength. "Near is he that justifieth

me." "To justify," in the Old Testament, almost always means to pronounce a man righteous, or prove him

so in act. The Servant is thinking of a trial through which he is passing, and where God is the Judge. But

"while Job shrinks in terror from the issue, the Servant has no doubt as to a favourable result." The

passage is full of a holy and strong confidence, in the strength of which he can face all his foes. Only he

who has not defied God (verse 5) is able to defy the world, and speak of his enemies as falling to pieces

like a rotten, moth-eaten garment. And thus from personal experience he is able to comfort and to exhort

others. "He that walketh in darkness and hath no light, let him trust in the Name of Jehovah, and rely

upon his God." The opposition is between outward darkness and inward light—in the man's own "clear

breast," where he "may sit in the centre, and enjoy clear day." To have a conscience defiled and

obscured is to be left, in the time of adversity, "wholly in the dark." The man cannot tell whether God is his

enemy or his friend; or rather, has cause to suspect him of being his enemy. Then, "if we would have our

conscience deal clearly with us, we must deal severely with it. Often scouring and cleansing it will make it

bright." We learn from the passage how the habit of submission to the Spirit of God, and hearty

obedience to his will, tends to promote a reasonable confidence in every hour of trial. Not, indeed, one

that is secure against all vicissitudes of wavering and distrust, any more than a strong physical

constitution can be exempt from occasional attacks of disease. But in the will absolutely submitted to the

Divine, vigorously exerted in the cause of right, may be found a confidence—short, indeed, of perfect

assurance, yet "for the purposes of a pious life much more useful."—J.

3. GILL, “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned,.... These are not the words of the prophet, as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and others think; though what is here said is applicable to ministers of the word, who have to do with weary souls, and it is their work to comfort and refresh them; and which work requires knowledge and experience of their case, a good degree of elocution to speak aptly and with propriety, even to have the tongue of the learned, especially in a spiritual sense; as such have who have learned of the Father, and have been taught by the Spirit of God, and are well versed in the Scriptures, and can speak in the taught words of the Holy Ghost, comparing spiritual things with spiritual; and they have need of great prudence to time things right, to speak fitly and opportunely, and give to each their portion in due season, to whom they minister; and also great diligence and assiduity in prayer, reading, and meditation; and such as are teachers of others must be the Lord's hearers, and should be very diligent and attentive ones; all which are gifts from the Lord, and to be ascribed to him. But the words are to be understood of Christ, the same person that is speaking in the preceding verses; who being anointed by the Spirit of the Lord God, as man, whose gifts and graces he received without measure, he was abundantly qualified for the discharge of his prophetic office; and was capable of speaking as never man did, and with such power and authority as the Scribes and Pharisees did not, and with so much wisdom and eloquence as were

surprising to all that heard him; he had the Spirit of wisdom on him, and the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid in him: that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary; not only saints, weary with sin, their own and others, and with troubles from the world, from Satan, and by afflictive providences; but sinners under first awakenings, distressed and uneasy in their minds at a sight of sin, in its exceeding sinfulness; pressed with the guilt of it, filled with a sense of divine wrath on account of it, and terrified with the thoughts of death, and a future judgment; and are weary with labouring for bread which satisfies not, for righteousness and life, and in seeking for resting places, being in want of spiritual rest, peace, and comfort; and who are hungry and thirsting after righteousness, after pardoning grace and mercy, after Christ and salvation by him, after his word and ordinances, after communion with him, and conformity to him; who are weak and without strength, and ready to faint for want of refreshment. The word for "weary" signifies "thirsty", according to Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech; who explain it of persons that thirst after hearing the word of the Lord: the Targum is, "to know how to teach the righteous that weary themselves at the words of the law;'' or, as some render it, that pant after the words of the law: but not the law, but the Gospel, is "the word in season", to be spoken to weary souls; which proclaims pardon, preaches peace, is the word of righteousness and salvation; which directs hungry and thirsty souls to Christ, as the bread and water of life, and invites weary ones to him for rest. That word of his, Mat_11:28 is a word in season to such persons: such a word Christ spoke when he was here on earth in his own person, and now speaks by his ministers in the preaching of the Gospel, and by his Spirit applying it to his people. He wakeneth morning by morning; one after another continually, meaning himself; the allusion is to masters calling their scholars early to their studies; the morning being the fittest season for instruction and learning. He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned; who hear attentively, and with great pleasure and profit. This and the preceding clause seem to denote both the earliness in which Christ entered on his prophetic office, and his attentiveness in hearkening to all that was said in the eternal council and covenant by his divine Father; which he, as the Prophet of his church, makes known unto his people, Joh_15:15.

4. HENRY, “Our Lord Jesus, having proved himself able to save, here shows himself as willing as he is able to save, here shows himself as willing as he is able. We suppose the prophet Isaiah to say something of himself in these verses, engaging and encouraging himself to go on in his work as a prophet, notwithstanding the many hardships he met with, not doubting but that God would stand by him and strengthen him; but, like David, he speaks of himself as a type of Christ, who is here prophesied of and promised to be the Saviour.

I. As an acceptable preacher. Isaiah, a a prophet, was qualified for the work to which he was

called, so were the rest of God's prophets, and others whom he employed as his messengers; but

Christ was anointed with the Spirit above his fellows. To make the man of God perfect, he has, 1.

The tongue of the learned, to know how to give instruction, how to speak a word in season to

him that is weary, Isa_50:4. God, who made man's mouth, gave Moses the tongue of the

learned, to speak for the terror and conviction of Pharaoh, Exo_4:11, Exo_4:12. He gave to

Christ the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season for the comfort of those that are

weary and heavily laden under the burden of sin, Mat_11:28. Grace was poured into his lips,

and they are said to drop sweet-smelling myrrh. See what is the best learning of a minister, to

know how to comfort troubled consciences, and to speak pertinently, properly, and plainly, to

the various cases of poor souls. An ability to do this is God's gift, and it is one of the best gifts,

which we should covet earnestly. Let us repose ourselves in the many comfortable words which

Christ has spoken to the weary. 2. The ear of the learned, to receive instruction. Prophets have

as much need of this as of the tongue of the learned; for they must deliver what they are taught

and no other, must hear the word from God's mouth diligently and attentively, that they may

speak it exactly, Eze_3:17. Christ himself received that he might give. None must undertake to

be teachers who have not first been learners. Christ's apostles were first disciples, scribes

instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, Mat_13:52. Nor is it enough to hear, but we must hear

as the learned, hear and understand, hear and remember, hear as those that would learn by

what we hear. Those that would hear as the learned must be awake, and wakeful; for we are

naturally drowsy and sleepy, and unapt to hear at all, or we hear by the halves, hear and do not

heed. Our ears need to be wakened; we need to have something said to rouse us, to awaken us

out of our spiritual slumbers, that we may hear as for our lives. We need to be awakened

morning by morning, as duly as the day returns, to be awakened to do the work of the day in its

day. Our case calls for continual fresh supplies of divine grace, to free us from the dulness we

contract daily. The morning, when our spirits are most lively, is a proper time for communion

with God; then we are in the best frame both to speak to him (my voice shalt thou hear in the

morning) and to hear from him. The people came early in the morning to hear Christ in the

temple (Luk_21:38), for, it seems, his were morning lectures. And it is God that wakens us

morning by morning. If we do any thing to purpose in his service, it is he who, as our Master,

calls us up; and we should doze perpetually if he did not waken us morning by morning.

5. JAMISON, “Messiah, as “the servant of Jehovah” (Isa_42:1), declares that the office has been assigned to Him of encouraging the “weary” exiles of Israel by “words in season” suited to their case; and that, whatever suffering it is to cost Himself, He does not shrink from it (Isa_50:5, Isa_50:6), for that He knows His cause will triumph at last (Isa_50:7, Isa_50:8).

learned — not in mere human learning, but in divinely taught modes of instruction and eloquence (Isa_49:2; Exo_4:11; Mat_7:28, Mat_7:29; Mat_13:54).

speak a word in season — (Pro_15:23; Pro_25:11). Literally, “to succor by words,” namely, in their season of need, the “weary” dispersed ones of Israel (Deu_28:65-67). Also, the spiritual “weary” (Isa_42:3; Mat_11:28).

wakeneth morning by morning, etc. — Compare “daily rising up early” (Jer_7:25; Mar_1:35). The image is drawn from a master wakening his pupils early for instruction.

wakeneth ... ear — prepares me for receiving His divine instructions.

as the learned — as one taught by Him. He “learned obedience,” experimentally, “by the things which He suffered”; thus gaining that practical learning which adapted Him for “speaking a word in season” to suffering men (Heb_5:8).

6. K&D, “He in whom Jehovah came to His nation, and proclaimed to it, in the midst of its self-induced misery, the way and work of salvation, is He who speaks in Isa_50:4 : “The Lord Jehovah hath given me a disciple's tongue, that I may know how to set up the wearied with

words: He wakeneth every morning; wakeneth mine ear to attend in disciple's manner.” The

word limmu�dı̄m, which is used in the middle of the verse, and which is the older word for the

later talmidı̄m, µαθηταί, as in Isa_8:16; Isa_54:13, is repeated at the close of the verse, according

to the figure of palindromy, which is such a favourite figure in both parts of the book of Isaiah; and the train of thought, “He wakeneth morning by morning, wakeneth mine ear,” recals to mind the parallelism with reservation which is very common in the Psalms, and more especially the custom of a “triolet-like” spinning out of the thoughts, from which the songs of “degrees” (or

ascending steps, shı̄r�hamma‛a<lo�th) have obtained their name. The servant of Jehovah affords us a

deep insight here into His hidden life. The prophets received special revelations from God, for the most part in the night, either in dreams or else in visions, which were shown them in a waking condition, but yet in the more susceptible state of nocturnal quiet and rest. Here, however, the servant of Jehovah receives the divine revelations neither in dreams nor visions of

the night; but every morning (babbo�qer�babbo�qer as in Isa_28:19), i.e., when his sleep is over,

Jehovah comes to him, awakens his ear, by making a sign to him to listen, and then takes him as it were into the school after the manner of a pupil, and teaches him what and how he is to preach. Nothing indicates a tongue befitting the disciples of God, so much as the gift of administering consolation; and such a gift is possessed by the speaker here. “To help with words

him that is exhausted” (with suffering and self-torture): עּות, Arab. ga'tʟ, med. Vav, related to אּוׁש,

signifies to spring to a person with words to help, Aq. Aποστηρίσαι, Jer. sustentare. The ,חּוׁש

Arabic ga'tʟ, med. Je, to rain upon or water (Ewald, Umbreit, etc.), cannot possibly be thought of,

since this has no support in the Hebrew; still less, however, can we take עּות as a denom. from ֵעת, upon which Luther has founded his rendering, “to speak to the weary in due season” (also Eng.

ver.). ָברCָ is an accusative of more precise definition, like ֲאֶׁשר in Isa_50:1 (cf., Isa_42:25;

Isa_43:23). Jerome has given the correct rendering: “that I may know how to sustain him that is weary with a word.”

7. CALVIN, “4.The Lord Jehovah. After having twice convicted them of guilt, he adds a consolation in

his usual manner; for when the Lord covers us with shame, he intends immediately to free us from

shame. Although, therefore, he shewed that the people had been rejected for the best possible reasons,

and had perished by their own fault, because they proved themselves to be even unworthy of

deliverance, yet he promises assistance to them. Again, because in a matter so difficult to be believed

there needed more than ordinary proof, he begins by saying that God has sent and instructed him to

execute his commands. This passage is commonly explained so as to relate to Christ, as if it had not

been applicable to the Prophet, because he afterwards says, that he had been beaten with rods, which

we nowhere read was done to Isaiah. But there is no great force in this argument; for David complains

that his garments were divided, (Psa_22:18,) which applies literally to Christ, (Mat_27:35; Joh_19:24,)

and yet it does not follow that this did not happen to David himself. For my own part, I have no doubt, that

Isaiah comes forward as one who represents all the servants of God, not only those who were from the

beginning, but those who should come afterwards.

Hath given me the tongue of the learned. He says that the Lord hath given him a “” that the promises

bywhieh he cheers the people may have greater weight. Our faith wavers, if we suspect that a man

speaks from himself; and the condition of that people was so wretched that no human arguments could

induce them to entertain the hope of deliverance. It amounts to this, that the message of approaching

salvation is brought to them from heaven; and if any person do not receive it, he must prove himself to be

rebellious and disobedient. Although these words are literally intended by the Prophet to secure the belief

of his statements, yet we may infer from them generally, that no man is fit to teach who has not first been

qualified by God. This reminds all godly teachers to ask from the Spirit of God what otherwise they could

not at all possess. They must indeed study diligently, so as not to ascend the pulpit till they have been

fully prepared; but they must hold by this principle, that all things necessary for discharging their office are

gifts of the Holy Spirit. And, indeed, if they were not organs of the Holy Spirit, it would be extreme

rashness to come forth publicly in the name of God.

That I may know a word in season to the weary. Some verb must be supplied here, such as, “ administer”

or “ utter.” The word “” includes wisdom and skill, which a pastor ought to possess, that the word of God

may be faithfully and profitably administered by him; as if he had said that he has been well instructed in

the school of God, and thus knows well what is suitable to those who are wretched and who groan under

a burden. (17) The term “” is applied to those who are overwhelmed by many afflictions; as we have

formerly seen, “ giveth strength to the weary.” (Isa_40:29.) Thus also Christ speaks, “ to me, all ye that

are weary and heavy laden.” (Mat_11:28.) He therefore means that God has been his teacher and

instructor, that he may be able to soothe wretched men by appropriate consolation, that by means of it

their dejected hearts may be encouraged by feeling the mercy of God.

Hence we infer that the most important duty of the ministers of the word is, to comfort wretched men, who

are oppressed by afflictions, or who bend under their weight, and, in short, to point out what is true rest

and serenity of mind, as we have formerly seen. (Isa_33:20.) We are likewise taught what each of us

ought chiefly to seek in the Scriptures, namely, that we may be fumished with doctrine appropriate and

suitable for relieving our distresses, He who, by seasonable consolation, in afflictive or even desperate

affairs, can cheer and support his heart, ought to know that he has made good proficiency in the Gospel. I

acknowledge that doctrine has indeed various uses; for not only is it useful for comforting the afflicted and

feeble, but it likewise contains severe reproofs and threatenings against the obstinate. (2Ti_3:16.) But

Isaiah shews that the chief duty incumbent on him is, to bring some consolation to the Jews who, in the

present distress, are ready to faint.

He will waken in the morning. The Prophet here testifies that the Lord is so careful about wretched and

oppressed persons that he aids them “ the morning,” that is, seasonably. I do acknowledge that we are

often destitute of consolation; but, although God often permits us to languish, yet he knows every moment

that is suitable for seasonably meeting the necessity by his aid. Besides, if his assistance be somewhat

late, this happens through our own fault; for not only by our indolence, but likewise by rebellion, we

withdraw ourselves from his grace. However that may be, he always watches carefully and runs to give

aid; and even when we fly and resist, he calls us to him, that we may be refreshed by tasting his grace

and kindness.

He twice repeats the phrase, “ the morning,” by which he expresses continuance and earnestness, that

we may not think that he is liable to sudden impulses like men, to cast off or quickly forget those whom he

has once undertaken to guard, whom he continues, on the contrary, to make the objects of his grace till

the end, and never leaves destitute of consolation.

That I may hear as the learned. He means that his ear has not only been pulled or twitched, as for

sluggish and indolent persons, but has been formed and trained. Yet by his example he shews that God

efficaciously teaches all whose ministry he intends to employ for the salvation of his Church; for it would

have been a small matter to be instructed after the manner of men, if they had not within them the Spirit

of God as their instructor. This makes still more evident the truth of what we have formerly said, that none

are good teachers but those who have been good scholars. He calls them “’ “” for they who do not deign

to learn, because they think that they are wise enough, are doubly fools; since they alone, in the judgment

of God, are reckoned to be “” and “” who permit themselves to be taught before discharging the office of

teachers, that they may have clear knowledge of those things which they communicate to others, and

may publicly bring forward nothing but what they can testify to have proceeded from God; and, in a word,

they alone are “” (18) who, by continually learning, do not refuse to make constant progress. Some read

the word in the accusative, meaning, “ I may hear as (hearing) the learned;” but that is harsh and at

variance with the true meaning.

8. MACLAREN, “THE SERVANT'S WORDS TO THE WEARY

In Isa_49:1-6, the beginning of the continuous section of which these verses are part, a transition is made from Israel as collectively the ideal servant of the Lord, to a personal Servant, whose office it is ‘to bring Jacob again to Him.’ We see the ideal in the very act of passing to its highest form, and that in which it is finally fulfilled in history, namely, by the person Jesus. That Jesus was ‘Thy Holy Servant’ was the earliest gospel preached by Peter and John before people and rulers. It is not the most vital conception of our Lord’s nature and work. The prophet does not here pierce to the core, as in his fifty-third chapter with its vision of the Suffering Servant, but this is prelude to that, and the office assigned here to the Servant cannot be fully discharged without that ascribed to Him there, as the prophet begins to discern almost immediately. The text gives us a striking view of the purpose of Messiah’s mission and of His training and preparation for it.

I. The purpose of Christ’s mission.

There is a remarkable contrast between the stately prelude to the section of the prophecy in Isa_49:1-26, and the ideal in this text. There the Servant calls the isles and the distant peoples to listen, and declares that His mouth is ‘like a sharp sword’; here all that is keen and smiting in His word has softened into gentle whispers of comfort to sustain the weary.

A mission addressed to ‘the weary’ is addressed to every man, for who is not ‘weighed upon with sore distress,’ or loaded with the burden and the weight of tasks beyond his power or distasteful to his inclinations, or monotonous to nausea, or prolonged to exhaustion, or toiled at with little hope and less interest? Who is not weary of himself and of his load? What but universal weariness does the universal secret desire for rest betray? We are all ‘pilgrims weary of time,’ and some of us are weary of even prosperity, and some of us are worn out with work, and some of us buffeted to all but exhaustion by sorrow, and all of us long for rest, though many of us do not know where to look for it.

Jesus may have had this word in mind, when He called to Him all them ‘that labour and are heavy laden.’ At all events, the prophet’s ideal and the evangelists’ story accurately correspond. Christ’s words have other characteristics, but are eminently words that sustain the weary and comfort the down-hearted. Who can ever calculate the new strength poured by them into fainting hearts and languid hands, the all but dead hopes that they have reanimated, the sorrows they have comforted, the wounds they have stanched?

What a lesson here as to the noblest use of high endowments! What a contrast to the use that so many of those to whom God has given ‘the tongue of them that are taught’ make of their great gifts! Literature yields but few examples of great writers who have faithfully employed their powers for that purpose, which seems so humble and is so lofty, the help of the weary, the

comfort of the sad. Many pages in famous books would be cancelled if all that had been written without consideration for these classes were obliterated, as it will be one day.

But Christ not only speaks by outward words, but has other ways of lodging sustenance and comfort in souls than by vocables audible to the ear or visible to the eye on the page. ‘The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.’ He spoke by His deeds on earth, and in one and the same set of facts, He ‘began to do and to teach,’ the doing being named first. He ‘now speaketh from Heaven’ by many an inward whisper, by the communication of His own Spirit, on Whom this very office of ministering sustenance and comfort is laid, and whose very name of the Comforter means One who by his being with a man strengthens him.

II. The training and preparation of the Messiah for His mission.

The Messiah is here represented as having the tongue of ‘them that are taught,’ and as having it, because morning by morning He has been wakened to hear God’s lessons. He is thus God’s scholar-a thought of which an unreflecting orthodoxy has been shy, but which it is necessary to admit unhesitatingly and ungrudgingly, if we would not reduce the manhood of Jesus to a mere phantasm. He Himself has said, ‘As the Father taught Me, I speak these things.’ With emphatic repetition, He was continually making that assertion, as, for instance, ‘I have not spoken of Myself, but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak . . . the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak.’

The Gospels tell us of the prayers of Jesus, and of rare occasions in which a voice from heaven spoke to Him. But while these are palpable instances of His communion with God, and precious tokens of His true brotherhood with us in the indispensable characteristics of the life of faith, they are but the salient points on which the light falls, and behind them, all unknown by us, stretches an unbroken chain of like acts of fellowship. In that subordination as of a scholar to teacher, both His divine and His human nature concurred, the former in filial submission, the latter in continual, truly human derivation and reception. The man Jesus was taught and, like the boy Jesus, ‘increased in wisdom.’

But while He learned as truly as we learn from God, and exercised the same communion with the Father, the same submission to Him, which other men have to exercise, and called ‘us brethren, saying, I will put my trust in Him,’ the difference in degree between His close fellowship with God the Father, and our broken and always partial fellowship, between His completeness of reception of God’s words and our imperfect comprehension, between His perfect reproduction of the words He had heard and our faint, and often mistaken echo of them, is so immense as to amount to a difference in kind. His unity of will and being with the Father ensured that all His words were God’s. ‘Never man spake like this man.’ The man who speaks to us once for all God’s words must be more than man. Other men, the highest, give us fragments of that mighty voice; Jesus speaks its whole message, and nothing but its message. Of that perfect reproduction He is calmly conscious, and claims to give it, in words which are at once lowly and instinct with more than human authority: ‘All things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.’ Who besides Him dare make such a claim? Who besides Him could make it without being met by incredulous scorn? His utterance of the Father’s words was unmarred by defect on the one hand, and by additions on the other. It was like pure water which tastes of no soil. His soul was like an open vessel plunged in a stream, filled by the flow and giving forth again its whole contents.

That divine communication to Jesus was no mere impartation of abstractions or ‘truths,’ still less of the poor words of man’s speech, but was the flowing into His spirit of the living Father by whom He lived. And it was unbroken. ‘Morning by morning’ it was going on. The line was

continuous, whereas for the rest of us, at the best, it is a series of points more or less contiguous, but with dark spaces between. ‘God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.’

So, then, let us hold fast by Him, the Son in whom God has spoken to us, and to all voices without and within that would woo us to listen, let us answer with the only wise answer: ‘To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.’

9. BI, “The Lord’s servant made perfect through sufferings

In Isa_50:4-9 the servant is again introduced, speaking of Himself and His work, as in Isa_49:1-6. He describes—

1. The close, intimate, and continuous communion with God through which He has learned the ministry of comfort by the Divine word, and His own complete self-surrender to the voice that guides Him (Isa_49:4-5).

2. His acceptance of the persecution and obloquy which He had to encounter in the discharge of His commission (Isa_49:6).

3. His unwavering confidence in the help of Jehovah, and the victory of His righteous cause, and the discomfiture of all His enemies (Isa_49:7-9). Verses 10, 11 are an appendix to the preceding description, drawing lessons for the encouragement of believers (Isa_49:10) or the warning of unbelievers (Isa_49:11). Although the word “Servant” never occurs in this passage, its resemblance to the three other “Servant-passages” makes it certain that the speaker is none other than the ideal character who comes before us in Isa_42:1-4; Isa_49:1-6; Isa_52:13-15; Isa_53:1-12. The passage, indeed, forms analmost indispensable link of connection between the first two and the last of these. (Prof. J. Skinner, D.D.)

The Messiah an instructed Teacher

After the Messiah had been exhibited in the preceding discourse labouring in vain and spending His strength for nought among the Jews, despised of men and abhorred by the nations, when actually employed in His public ministry, it became necessary to explain this surprising phenomenon. It is, therefore, affirmed that the neglect and contempt which He suffered was not owing to any deficiency on the part of this celebrated Teacher, who was eminently qualified for acquainting men with the Will of God, in the knowledge of which He was perfectly instructed. This important qualification was not imparted to Him by any human teacher, neither did He acquire it in the schools of philosophers and orators, nor was it communicated to Him by the most eminent of the prophets, but by the Spirit of the Lord God, to whom it is here attributed. (R. Macculloch.)

The tongue of the learned

I. THE CHARACTER DESCRIBED AS NEEDING THE SAVIOUR’S GRACE. “Him that is weary.” This description includes a very large class. All may not ascribe their weariness to the same cause, nor may all be sensible of their weariness to the same extent. Yet all are weary.

1. Not in the world of sense only do you complain of weariness. It is impossible for the unrenewed heart to find rest even in things that are Spiritual. Heaven itself would to such a one cease to be heaven. What a weariness do you find in the religion of Jesus Christ! Of

prayer, of public worship, of hearing sermons, of religious conversation, of the service and work of the Lord you say, “What a weariness!”

2. The description, certainly, includes those who are truly anxious about the salvation of their souls.

3. The Lord’s weary ones include His own quickened people, who feel the burden of the body of sin, and are cast down because of their difficulties.

4. The assaults of the adversary, too, contribute not a little to the sense of weariness, which often prostrate a child of God.

5. Add to these the numerous and varied trials and afflictions which beset his pathway to heaven, and you have in outline the picture of his case.

II. CHRIST’S QUALIFICATIONS TO MEET THE CASE OF SUCH.

1. His participation of our nature. Absolute Godhead could not of itself have conveyed to us sinners one word of sympathy or comfort. Neither could the angels do it. They are total strangers to the weariness to which sinful children of men are heirs. But, the man Christ Jesus becomes a partaker of the very nature whose burdens He sought to relieve. “Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also took part in the same.”

2. As He thus took upon Him our nature, so He also endured our sinless though humbling infirmities.

3. In addition to all this, the Lord God had given Him the tongue of the learned in another sense. I refer to the communication of the Divine Spirit Isa_61:1). Never was there a tongue like Christ’s—so learned, soskilled, so practised, and so experienced. “Never man spake like this man.”

4. The purpose for which this tongue of the learned was given Him is thus described—“That He should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.”

(1) A word,

(2) a word in season,

(3) that He should know how to speak.

5. But when Christ speaks to the weary, it is not to the outward ear merely, but to the heart—with almighty power. And the result is rest.

III. THE REST WHICH JESUS IMPARTS, when He speaks the word in season.

1. We are seeking rest by nature everywhere, and in everything but in Jesus. We seek it in the outward world, in the moral world, in the religious world—and we find it not. We seek it in conviction, in ordinances, in doing the works of the law—and still it evades us. We go from place to place, and from means to means, and still the burden presses, and we find no rest. No, and never will, until it is sought and found in Jesus.

2. Yet, in the case of a tried believer, the rest that Jesus imparts does not always imply the removal of the burden from which the sense of weariness proceeds. The burden is permitted to remain, and yet rest is experienced. Wonderful indeed! How is it explained? That burden takes us to Jesus. He pours strength into our souls, life into our spirits, and love into our hearts, and so we find rest. It is also matter of much practical importance, that you take heed not to anticipate or forestall His promised grace. For every possible emergency in which you can be placed, the fulness of Christ and the supplies of the Covenant are provided. But that provision is only meted out as the necessity for which it was intended occurs.

3. There is an hour approaching—the last great crisis of human life—when, we shall all, more than ever, need Him who hath the “tongue of the learned.” It will be of all seasons the most trying and solemn—the season that separates the soul from the body, and ushers the immortal spirit into eternity. Is it not our highest wisdom to know this Saviour now? (C. Ross M. A.)

A word to the weary

I. THE POWER OF SPEAKING TO THE WEARY IS NOTHING LESS THAN A DIVINE GIFT. We may say the right word in a wrong tone.

II. Though the gift itself is Divine, IT IS TO BE EXERCISED SEASONABLY. It is not enough to speak the right word, it must be spoken at the right moment. (J. Parker, D.D.)

Christ speaking a word in season to the weary

I. CONSIDER THE STATE AND CHARACTER OF THOSE THAT ARE WEARY.

II. SHOW, FROM THE CHARACTER AND PERSON OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THAT HE IS A SEASONABLE AND ALL-SUFFICIENT SAVIOUR TO THOSE WHO ARE WEARY. The excellency and glory of Christ may not only be perceived by viewing Him in the whole of His mediatorial character; but, also, by fixing on specific parts of it, and showing that there is a Divine suitability to all the exigencies of ruined men.

1. He can give rest to the mind of the man who is wearied with his researches after human wisdom.

2. He can give rest to those who are oppressed under a sense of guilt.

3. He can speak a word in season to those who have wearied themselves in attempting to establish their own righteousness.

4. He can give rest to those who have wearied themselves in vainly trying to overcome their corruptions in their own strength.

5. He can speak a word in season to those who are weary with the weight of affliction and trouble.

6. He can give rest to those who are oppressed and wearied with the cares of this world.

7. Christ can speak a word in season to those who are weary of living in this world. None of the children of men can enjoy rest, or real peace of mind, but through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. (J. Matheson.)

The ministry of preaching

(with Act_20:27). The first passage is spoken by the Messiah, the second by St. Paul. The one looks forward, the other backward. The one speaks of a preparation and fitness for a work yet to be done; the other is a thankful record of a mission already faithfully accomplished.

I. IN THE FIRST PASSAGE YOU HAVE THE CHIEF MINISTER OF THE CHURCH ANTICIPATING HIS WORK OF TEACHING AND ANNOUNCING HIS FITNESS FOR THE WORK.

1. Observe the gift with which He claims to be endowed as one element of special fitness for His ministry. Speech was the chief instrument employed by Christ for conveying truth to the minds of men. The dispensation under which we live, so emphatically designated the dispensation of the Spirit, was ushered in by two miracles, both of which related to the tongue The Holy Spirit Himself appeared resting upon each one in the form of cloven tongues as of fire. A second miracle was wrought on the uneducated Galilean apostles, enabling them, without learning, to speak intelligently in the dialects of all the nationalities present, so that every man heard them speak in his own language. And why, at the very founding of Christianity, was this twofold miracle wrought in relation to the tongue, if not to indicate that the Holy Spirit purposed to employ speech as the chief instrument in the regeneration of mankind?

2. The purpose for which this gift of speech is to be employed. “To speak a word in season to him that is weary.”

(1) You will have to speak to men suffering, from mental weariness—men who have long searched for truth and failed to find it. See that ye be well furnished with the Spirit, who has promised to guide you into all truth, and who also will help you to guide others into all truth.

(2) You will have others wearied in body, through excessive labour or sore affliction. You may tell them of the illustrious Sufferer of Calvary who, though innocent, suffered for our sins; was in all points tempted like as we are; and who, therefore, is able to succour all those who are tempted.

(3) You will have others wearied in heart, by reason of bereavement. Imitating the Great Teacher in the bereaved family of Bethany, you must direct the thought of the sorrowful to the resurrection power of Christ, when the mortal shall put on immortality, and the corruptible shall put on incorruption.

(4) Others will come to you weary of the vicissitudes, disappointments and reverses of life. With the Master, you may speak to them of the lily, the sparrow, the grass, the flower of the field; how your Heavenly Father careth for these, but how much more He will care for those who have faith in and love towards Him, even to the numbering of every hair on the whitening brow.

(5) Others will come with weary consciences, burdened with sin, fearing the wrath to come, carrying with them, it may be, the dread secret of undiscovered and unconfessed crime. Take solemn heed that the word you speak is a word in season. Do not heal lightly the wounds thus made by the Spirit. Do not attempt to soothe the agony by minifying the guilt, or lessening the condemnation, or diminishing the penalty. Do what the Spirit does. Take of the things of Christ and show them unto the penitent; show them in their preciousness, their efficacy, and their all-sufficiency.

(6) Others may come to you weary of inbred sin. Open your ear to hear what the Lord your God will say unto you; humbly wait with an upward look to your Great Teacher, and He will give you the tongue of the learned.

3. This learning claimed by the Redeemer is set forth as progressive. “He wakeneth Me morning by morning. He wakeneth mine ear that I may hear as disciples do.” If our Lord found it necessary to place Himself in the position of a pupil to receive daily instruction from the Divine Father, how much greater need is there for you who are His ministers? You cannot learn in one lesson all that the Holy Spirit has to communicate. Cultivate a sensibility of soul, a readiness to hear the softest, gentlest tone of God, whether in nature, in providence, in history, in the inspired word, or in the deep secrets of your own heart.

II. THE NOBLE TESTIMONY OF THE NOBLEST APOSTLE AT THE CLOSE OF HIS MINISTRY AT EPHESUS. (R..Roberts.)

The weary world and the refreshing ministry

I. THE WEARY WORLD. It is not one man that is weary, the generation is weary, the world is weary. All sinners are weary. Wearied with fruitless efforts after happiness. There is the ennui yawn, and the groan of depression heard everywhere.

II. THE REFRESHING MINISTRY. “The Lord God hath given me,” etc.

1. The relief comes by speech. No physical, legislative, or ceremonial means will do; it must be by the living voice, charged with sympathy, truth, light.

2. The effective speech comes from God. “The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned.” No man can speak the soul-refreshing thing unless God inspires and teaches him.

3. The speech that comes from God is a “word in season.” It is exactly suited to the mood of the souls addressed. (Homilist.)

A word in season to the weary

(with Mat_11:28-30):—

I. We may name WOUNDED AFFECTIONS as a very frequent cause of weariness. We do not know, until the blow comes, how heavily we have been leaning on the staff of friendly sympathy. Breaking beneath our weight, it leaves us tottering and weary. But amidst all our heart-troubles the voice of the Saviour is heard saying, “Rest! Come unto Me and I will give you rest.”

II. THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF OUR DESIRES is another common antecedent of lassitude. All of us are furnished with larger appetites than we have ability or opportunity for satisfying. Pleasure! Money! Power! Reputation! How seldom do men know when they have enough of that which they most desire. So, as the material of sensuous enjoyment becomes exhausted, the sense of emptiness becomes more painful. But in this mood, too, we are met by the Divine Saviour: “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.” For Christ would fill the soul with the only object of desire that cannot disappear in its grasp: with the Eternal Himself.

III. VACANCY OF MIND AND THE SENSE OF MONOTONY is another common cause of weariness. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” as the old philosophers said. The mind cannot endure its own emptiness. It is so constituted that it must have change and variety of impressions and ideas; otherwise it turns upon itself, and its fine mechanism is worn down with useless friction. But He who comes to reveal the Father meets us, too, in this mood of self-weariness. It is His message to tell us of a new self which it is the will of God to impart to us; a new heart in which it may please God to dwell, and with which He can hold fellowship. The man who yields himself to the Spirit, and is born of the Spirit, need no longer be disgusted with himself, having found his nature anew in God.

IV. But the load of A GUILTY CONSCIENCE is even more fatiguing than that of a vacant mind. Need it be pointed out how profoundly Christ meets this guilty dejection of the human heart?

V. Quite a different cause of weariness is to be found in THE BURDEN OF EARNEST THOUGHT AND NOBLE ENDEAVOUR. For the Christian, it is enough that his Saviour has “suffered in the flesh”—has borne “the weary weight of all this unintelligible world” in uncomplaining meekness. He is to “arm himself likewise with the same mind.” (E. Johnson,

M.A.)

Noble gifts for lowly uses

I. GOD’S HIGHEST GIFTS HAVE THEIR DEFINITE END AND PURPOSE. In Nature, for instance, nothing has been created in vain. And so it ought to be in human life, that world of feeling and desire within the breast of man. You see that the prophet looked upon the tongue of the learned as a gift from God, holding it in trust, where many would have counted it as their own. And he saw it was a gift for very plain and apparent purposes—for men are stewards, and not owners of all that is bestowed upon them. This splendid administrative genius of the Anglo-Saxon race, dominant and even imperious, but only because it has seen into the heart of purposes working themselves out in the midst of the ages, the wealth it has acquired, the influence it commands, has this no meaning in the economy of nations? You only need the touch of Christ to consecrate it and turn it into right channels, and the whole world is blessed thereby. “We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.”

II. THIS DEFINITE PURPOSE IS A VERY SIMPLE ONE, AND POSSIBLY AT FIRST SIGHT INSUFFICIENT. Ambition would say so, and ambition is as natural to the human heart as desire itself. We ask great things, we would be great things, we would do them. It must be confessed, however, that no sin of man has been more constant and apparent than that which has made men look down upon these lowly uses belonging unto lofty gifts. A proud reserve has been considered in all ages as appropriate to commanding talents. The statesman’s wisdom, the orator’s art, the poet’s fire, what are they side by side with all that wondrous wealth lavished upon simple fishermen in Galilee, and carried into the home of Lazarus, and spent among the humble poor. Between the highest born among men and the humblest service henceforward there can be no disparity. “If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet,” He said to His disciples, “ye ought also to wash one another’s feet.” And as with individuals, so with nations. God gives special gifts for His own purposes.

III. THIS PURPOSE IS A VERY URGENT AND APPROPRIATE ONE. After all, the end is not beneath the means. It needs the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to him that is weary, that word fitly spoken which dries the tear from the eye, and banishes sorrow from the heart. To do away with pain and assuage grief, is not that a noble, a Divine thing? And will you see how Christianity has been doing this in lower and yet very important directions, permeating society by its subtle influences for good? And more when you understand Isaiah’s words in their true and spiritual significance, what a field of usefulness unfolds itself! For the great burdens of mankind are not physical, but mental and spiritual. (W. Baxendale.)

Words in season for the weary

I. THE EDUCATION OF THE DIVINE SERVANT. We must notice the difference between the authorized version and the new. In the one, “the Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know.” In the other, “of them that are taught”—or, as the margin reads, “of disciples.” The thought being that the Lord Jesus in His human life was a pupil in the school of human pain, under the tutelage of His Father.

1. His education was by God Himself.

2. It was various. He passed through each class in the school of weariness.

3. It was constant. “Morning by morning” the Father woke Him.

4. It dealt with the season for administering comfort. “That I should know how to speak a word in season.” There are times when the nervous system is so overstrained that it cannot bear even the softest words. It is best then to be silent. A caress, a touch, or the stillness that breathes an atmosphere of calm, will then most quickly soothe and heal. This delicacy of perception can only be acquired in the school of suffering.

5. It embraced the method. “That I should know how.” The manner is as important as the season. A message of good-will may be uttered with so little sympathy, and in tones so gruff and grating, that it will repel. The touch of the comforter must be that of the nurse on the fractured bone—of the mother with the frightened child.

II. HIS RESOLUTION. From the first, Jesus knew that He must die. The Lord God poured the full story into His opened ear. With all other men, death is the close of their life; with Christ it was the object. We die because we were born; Christ was born that He might die. On one occasion, towards the close of His earthly career, when the fingers on the dial-plate were pointing to the near fulfilment of the time, we are told He set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. What heroism was here! Men sometimes speak of Christ as if He were effeminate and weak, remarkable only for passive virtues. But such conceptions are refuted by the indomitable resolution which set its face like a flint, and knew that it would not be ashamed. Note the voluntariness of Christ’s surrender. The martyr dies because he cannot help it; Christ dies because He chose. It has been thought that the opened ear refers to something more than the pushing back of the flowing Oriental locks in order to utter the secret of coming sorrow. It is supposed to have some reference to the ancient Jewish custom of boring the ear of the slave to the doorpost of the master’s house. Under this metaphor it is held that our Lord chose with keen sympathy the service of the Father, and elected all that it might involve, because He loved Him and would not go out free. The images may be combined. Be it only remembered that He knew and chose all that would come upon Him, and that the fetters which bound Him to the Cross were those of undying love to us and of burning passion for the Father’s glory.

III. HIS VINDICATION. “He is near that justifieth Me.” These are words upon which Jesus may have stayed Himself through those long hours of trial. They said that He was the Friend of publicans and sinners. God has justified Him by showing that if He associates with such, it is to make them martyrs and saints. They said that He was mad. God has justified Him by making His teaching the illumination of the noblest and wisest of the race. They said He had a devil. God has justified Him by giving Him power to cast out the devil and hind him with a mighty chain. They said that He blasphemed when He called Himself the Son of God. God has justified Him by raising Him to the right hand of power, so that He will come in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. They said that He would destroy the temple and the commonwealth of Israel. God has justified Him in shedding the influence of the Hebrew people through all the nations of the world, and making their literature, their history, their conceptions dominant.

IV. HIS APPEAL (verse 16). To obey the Lord’s servant is equivalent to fearing the Lord. He who does the one must do the other. What is this but to proclaim His Deity? (F. B. Meyer, B.A.)

A word in season to him that is weary

A word to the weary

To speak a word is easy, to speak a word in season is difficult; but to speak a word in season to him that is weary is more difficult still; and yet to be able to accomplish this end wisely and successfully is to be one of the greatest benefactors to our race. (E. Mellor, D. D.)

Weariness

Weariness the word reveals its parentage clearly enough. To be weary is to be worn—or worn out—or worn down. One wears his coat until it is worn out; and so you wear your strength until it is worn out, There is a weariness also which is not the result of excessive toil, but of indolence. For no man sighs so much, complains so much, fears so much, as the man who sets himself the task of passing through life doing nothing. Sometimes weariness is a virtue; sometimes it is a sin. But whether it be virtue or sin, there is no man who does not know well what it is to be weary. (E. Mellor, D. D.)

Words to the weary

We have many doors in our nature, and at every one of these weariness may enter.

I. There is—to begin at the lowest door of all—the physical one, THE WEARINESS WHICH COMES TO US FROM BODILY TOIL, or from toil which, whether bodily or not, tells upon the body by wasting for the time its energies. So far as such toil is rendered necessary by the very fundamental conditions of our existence, the weariness which ensues upon it is a Divine appointment, and the most benign provision has been made for meeting and banishing it. You need no word in season for such weariness as this. There is something better than a word for you. There is night with its soothing darkness. There is your bed with its repose; and there is sleep, “Nature’s soft nurse, that doth knit the ravelled sleeve of care, and steep your senses in forgetfulness.” And there is not merely the night, but the Sabbath. But there is also a weariness which has the nature of a chastisement, because it is produced by excessive and needless toil. While labour is a Divine thing in just measure, yet, when it becomes care, worry, vexation, hot and insatiable ambition, greed, it becomes criminal, and draws after it sooner or later grim consequences, the thought of which ought to make men pause. You cannot run both quickly and long. What is the word in season for such cases as these? The word may not be pleasant, for the words in season which God utters to us are often like thunderclaps to startle us, or like a firm grip of the hand which seems to say, “Stop, or you are undone.” But surely the word in season to many is: Release your strain, moderate your speed, economize your energies, stop up the leak through which your health is trickling already, and may soon be rushing like a stream; what shall it profit you if you gain the whole world, and lose your life?

II. Some men are WEARY WITH PLEASURE. There is no decree of God more stern or more inflexible than that which has determined that misery shall be the constant companion of the man that seeks pleasure. He may be a swift runner, but pleasure runs more swiftly still. Let us accept it as a moral axiom which has no exception, that the fulfilment of duty is the condition of happiness in this world. The word in season, therefore, for those who are weary in pleasure is this: Revise and reverse your whole judgment as to what you are and as to your relation to God, and this world, and the world which is to come.

III. Some men are WEARY WITH WELL-DOING WHICH SEEMS TO COME TO SO POOR AN END. This is so common a tendency that we are warned against it, “Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.” “Be ye steadfast, unmovable,” etc. Men who are working for God in this world have doubtless a heavy task in hand. The soil is uncongenial. It is beaten hard with sin and evil habit; and the ploughshare enters it with difficulty, and with difficulty makes its way. Take any sphere of benevolence you like, whether the lower one of sympathy with the common sufferings of man, or the higher one of concern for their spiritual necessities and sorrows and dangers, and the labour is no holiday play. Well-doing appears so often like building in a quagmire. We sow good seed, and then the enemy sows tares. We root up one evil, and another springs up in its stead. Well-doing in the shape of teaching would not be so

wearying if the children were not so listless, so rude, so dull, so forgetful, so disappointing. Well-doing in the shape of charity would not be so wearying if there were not so much of ingratitude and imposture. What is the word in season to those who are weary in such good work? Such as these: Think, before you withdraw from what appears to be unfruitful labour, that God still holds on His Divine purpose, and is kind to the unthankful and the evil; think that He is good and doeth good continually, and that, were He to grow weary in well-doing, He would plunge the world into desolation in a moment. Think, too, that if you grow weary, all others may grow weary too, and that then the world will be left to itself: ignorance, vice, crime, wretchedness spreading with every hour, until the earth will be little better than a suburb of hell itself. Think, to, that in well-doing you do find some results, though they may not be equal to your hope, and that the results, though unseen, may still be there, and will appear some day, and be reaped by another’s hand. And be sure of this, that nothing good is ever lost.

IV. There are those who ARE WEARY OF THE STRIFE WITH SIN. This is emphatically the battle of life and the battle for life. What is the word in season to him who is thus weary? This—that Christ has already vanquished your most powerful foe, and will make you more than conqueror.

V. There is one word more in season for those who ARE WEARY IN SIN, BUT NOT YET WEARY OF IT. Would to God they were weary of it! for to feel it to be a burden and a woe is the first step to deliverance. (E. Mellor, D. D.)

Weary souls

So far as we can tell, all life is joyous, except that of humanity. Even those creatures which are under the care of man have not the joyousness they might have if they were roaming the fields or hills. Look at the horse on the American prairies; see him in some of the cabs and coal carts at home! Though the life of birds and animals is naturally a happy one, the life of humanity, for the most part, is one of trouble. People who firmly resolve to act rightly and Christianly in this world, shall certainly “have tribulation.” In the Bible, we have the record of many people who knew what it is to have a weary soul. Above all weary souls, let us remember the loving Saviour, who was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

I. YOU MAY BE WEARY WITH THE PARTICULAR BURDEN WHICH WEIGHTS YOUR LIFE. Every one of us has a special burden of our own. The Christian philosophy of burden-bearing is to take things as we find them and make the best of them; not like a vicious horse to kick against the “splinter hoard,” or set up our back rebelliously. Directly we submit to the yoke, and say Thy will he done, our burden becomes lighter. The Divine Word teaches that your life has a Divine purpose.

II. Perhaps, your soul is WEARY BECAUSE OF THE UNKINDNESS OF YOUR FRIENDS. Let your only aim be to please God and do your duty; and then, though the action of friends may grieve you, it shall neither hinder your work nor give you a weary soul.

III. But another may say that his weary soul is caused by HIS SIN. When you behold Jesus on the Cross you will see what He suffered for sin; and when you behold Him risen from the dead, you will see the power at your hand to enable you to flee from every temptation.

IV. Some of you may have weary souls, because YOUR LIFE IS VERY BITTER. But in heaven your sorrow and sighing, like that of the apostle John, shall flee away. (W.Birch.)

A word to the weary

I. Are there any WEARY WORKLINGS here? The soul of man once found its rest in God. Weary, was a word unknown in the language of Eden; for Jehovah was then the spirit’s home. Its affections reposed upon the all-sufficient God. He was a Friend of whose company the soul could never tire, and in whose service it never could grow weary. But now that the soul has taken leave of God, it has never found another rest like Him. Till it comes to live on God Himself, the hungry soul of man never will be satisfied. Ye worldlings, who wander joyless through a godless world, with weary feet and withered hearts, seeking rest and finding none, come to Jesus, and He will give you rest.

II. Are there any WEARY WITH THE BURDEN OF UNPARDONED GUILT? You remember when Christian had panted up the hill, and came in sight of the Cross, how his burden fell off and rolled away down into the sepulchre; and you remember how he wondered that the sight of a cross should instantly relieve him of his load. Come to Christ upon the Cross, and you will understand the pilgrim’s wonder; for your burden will, in like manner, fall off and disappear.

III. Are there any WEARIED WITH THE GREATNESS OF THEIR WAY? You have been long seeking salvation. Suppose that one of those winter evenings you went down into the country on a visit to a friend. It is a dark night when the stage coach stops; the conductor steps down, opens the door, and lets you out. He tells you that your friend’s house is hard by, and if the night were a little clearer, you would see it just over the way. “‘Tis but a step, you cannot miss it.” However, you contrive to miss it. Your guide springs up into the box—the long train of lamp light is lost in misty gloom, and the distant rumble of the wheels is drowned in the rush of the tempest. You are left alone. The directions you received were quite correct, and if you followed them implicitly, you could not go wrong. But you have a theory of the matter in your own mind. “What did he mean by saying, that it was just a step? He cannot live so very near the highway.” You pass the gate, and plod away up the hill, till at last you become impatient—for there are no symptoms of a dwelling here. You turn aside into this lane, and you climb over that stile, till weary with splashing through miry stubble fields, and all drenched with driving rain, you find yourself, after many a weary round, precisely where you started. Half dead with fatigue and vexation, you lift the latch of a cottage-door, and ask if they know where such-a-one resides. And a little child undertakes to guide you. He opens a wicket, and points to the long lines of light gleaming through a easement a few paces distant. “Do you see the lights in yon window? Well, that is it; knock, and they’ll open the door.” In such a homely instance, you all know what it is to be weary in the greatness of your way—to spend your strength in a long circuit, when a single step might have sufficed. But are you sure that it is not in some such way, that you “labour and find no rest,” whilst there is but a step betwixt you and Christ? That is the wisest and happiest course which the sinner can take—to go at once to the Saviour. (J. Hamilton, D.D.)

The weary

“Weary” denotes a class to which a multitude belong that no man can number, of every nation, kindred, tribe, and people.

1. Physical weariness—of the slave on the march; of the toiler in the sweating den; of the seamstress working far into the night by the wasting taper; of the mother worn with watching her sick child.

2. Mental weariness—when the fancy can no longer summon at will images of beauty; and the intellect refuses to follow another argument, master another page, or cast up another column.

3. Heart weariness—waiting in vain for the word so long expected but unspoken; for the returning step of the prodigal; for the long-delayed letter.

4. The weariness of the inner conflict of striving day by day against the selfishness and waywardness of the soul on which prolonged resistance makes so slight an impression.

5. The weariness of the Christian worker, worn by the perpetual chafe of human sorrow, sin, and need. (F. B. Meyer, B.A.)

The gift of consolation

Nothing so clearly betokens a tongue befitting the disciples of God as the gift of consolation, and such a tongue has He who is the speaker here: “to aid with words him who is exhausted”—through the pain of suffering and mortification of spirit. (F. Delitzsch, D.D.)

He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned

God’s day school

“Morning by morning He openeth mine ear to hear as the scholars.” If we would rightly understand this Divine application of Isaiah’s words, we must first understand the human application of them, looking through the type to the anti-type, and thus beholding the Servant of Jehovah as “blind” and “deaf, yet “well-pleasing” to God as one “magnifying the law and making it honourable,” and both shadowing forth and preparing the way for the perfect service of the perfect Servant. Taking first then this human view of the text, observe—

I. The closed ears of God s scholars. “He openeth mine ear. In the earlier description of Israel, associated with Isaiah’s call to the prophetic office (a passage more frequently quoted in the New Testament than any other words of the Old), the ear is said to be “heavy,” and the heart “gross,” and the eyes “closed.” Alas! this is the sorrowful condition not only of Israel but of humanity.

II. The closed ears Divinely opened. “He openeth.” The ear is too heavy for the word itself to penetrate tilt He who breathed it comes. By Him it is opened, at a time of spiritual crisis oftentimes, but even then the scholar of God is too often deaf to his Teacher’s voice. His ears need to be often opened anew. “Morning by morning.” We must all be day scholars in the school of God. And we learn “as the scholars.” The double meaning of this word “scholar” suits the meaning of the passage admirably. A “scholar” is one who is learning his alphabet, and a “scholar” is also one that knows much more than his fellow-men, and can teach them with the “tongue of the scholar.” But there must be learning before teaching, and if we are scholars in God’s school we shall know “more than the ancients.” What then are His lessons?

1. The first lesson God teaches is a lesson of obedience (verse 5).

2. The second lesson God teaches is a lesson in patience (verse 6). Morning by morning the Divine voice calls us to suffer as well as to do.

3. The third lesson God teaches is a lesson in boldness (verse 7). Flint-like are the true scholars of God. Omnipotence is on their side and they know it.

4. The fourth lesson God teaches is a lesson in service (verse 4). The ear is opened that the tongue may be loosed to speak for Him who opened it. Every scholar must be a teacher. Look at the application of the text to Jesus Christ. Isaiah was His favourite book, and this text doubtless was often in His mind, as it was once upon His lips.

(1) Do we learn obedience? He also “learned obedience by the things that He suffered,” so that it was “His meat” to do the will of God always, and in Him only was the ideal attitude of obedience realized. “Lo I come: I delight to do Thy will, O My God.”

(2) Do we painfully learn the lesson of patience? Let us “consider Him who endured the contradiction of sinners.”

(3) Do we gain something of His boldness? It was when the persecutors of the earliest disciples marvelled the boldness which they showed that “they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus,” for at His feet they had learned this manly virtue.

(4) Do we attempt service? How did God’s holy Servant fulfil His consoling mission by speaking words in season to the weary? And the old lesson is also the new, “Have faith in God.” The “faith” of the New Testament is the “trust” of the Old. (H. C. Leonard, M.A.)

The inspiration of noble ideas

Where do great men get their noblest ideas? Michael Angelo produced such exquisite faces that Fiesole declared he must have been in paradise to borrow them. A watchful heart will find God furnishing thoughts for such a generous service. One wonders whether Goethe had not been lately reading that verse (Isa_50:4) when he said that his best thoughts always came to him unawares, like birds pecking at his windows, and saying, “Here we are!” (C. S.Robinson, D.D.)

God’s voice heard in stillness

Said the aged Christian lady to Mark Rutherford, “The voice of God, to me at least, hardly ever comes in thunder, but I have to listen in perfect stillness to make it out.”

Morning communion with God

On the 1 st of May, in the olden times, many inhabitants of London used to go into the fields to bathe their faces with the early dew upon the grass under the idea that it would render them beautiful. This may have been superstitious, but to bathe one’s face every morning in the dew of heaven by prayer and communion, is the sure way to obtain true beauty of life and character. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Isaiah 50:10-11 Who is among you that feareth the Lord?

The fear of the Lord

The fear of the Lord blends its operations with the exercise of every other grace. It intermixes with faith, and renders it fruitful; it co-operates with love, and prevents it from becoming secure; it unites with hope, and keeps it from swelling into presumption; it mingles with joy, and so moderates it that we rejoice with trembling. It extends its benign influence through every department of Divine worship, and so occupies the mind with awful respect for God as excites to caution and circumspection in every situation and service, whilst it cherishes amiable humility in the Divine presence. (R. Macculloch.)

“Light” and “darkness”

There is no more intelligible image—none more interwoven into the texture of popular thought and popular phraseology—than that by which light is made to express joy and felicity, while darkness, and other kindred terms, are employed to denote misery and discomfort. So commonly are such words applied in a metaphysical sense, that, in the case of some of them (the word gloom, for example) it is hardly possible to say which of the two they are oftenest used to indicate—a certain state of mind, or a certain state of outward nature. (E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.)

The child of light walking in darkness

(1) See how the Lord inquires for His people. In every congregation He asks this question: “Who is among you that feareth the Lord?” These are the wheat upon the threshing-floor.

(2) Observe, how clearly the Lord describes His own people. The description is brief, but remarkably full. Holy reverence within the heart, and careful obedience manifested in the life, these are the two infallible marks of the true man of God.

(3) The Lord not only makes an inquiry for these people, but takes note of their condition.

I. WHAT IS THIS CONDITION INTO WHICH A CHILD OF GOD MAY COME? The person described is one that fears the Lord, and obeys the voice of His servant, yet “walketh in darkness, and hath no light.”

1. To many who know nothing of Christian experience this condition might seem to be a surprising one.

2. This condition is a severe test of grace.

3. It is also very sorrowful.

4. Perhaps the worst feature of this darkness is, that it is so bewildering. You have to walk, and yet your way is hidden from your eyes.

5. Yet this does not absolve us from daily duty. The walk has to be continued, though the light has departed. When it is quite dark, it is safe to sit down till the day dawns. If I cannot sleep, at any rate I can quietly rest, till the sun is up. He that believeth shall not make haste. But what if you cannot stand still? What if you may not remain where you are? Something has to be done, and done at once; and thus you are compelled to walk on, though you cannot see an inch before you. What but a Divine faith can do this?

II. WHAT IS THERE TO TRUST TO WHEN YOU ARE IN SUCH A CONDITION AS THAT?

1. What is there to trust in the name of Jehovah? It is “I Am,” and signifies His self-existence. This is a fine foundation for trust.

2. But we understand by “the name” the revealed character of God. When thou canst not see thy way, then open this Book and try to find out what sort of God it is in whom thou dost trust.

3. By “the name of the Lord” is also meant His dear Son, for it is in Jesus Christ that Jehovah has proclaimed His name.

4. It is also good when you are thinking of the name of the Lord, to remember that to you it signifies what you have seen of God in your own experience. This is His memorial or name to you.

5. But, furthermore, the text says, “Let him stay upon his God.” Let him lean upon his God; make God his stay, his prop, his rest. This is a variation from the former sentence. He was to trust In the name of Jehovah, but now he is to lean upon his God. You have taken God to be your God, have you not? If so, He has also taken you to be His own. There is a covenant between you: lean on that covenant. Treat it as a valid covenant in full force.

III. WHY SHOULD WE TRUST GOD AT SUCH TIMES?

1. If you do not trust Him now, you will have cause to suspect whether you ever did trust Him at all.

2. Because His promises were made for dark hours.

3. Here a permit is especially issued for you, to allow you to trust in God in darkness. Thus saith the Lord, “Let him trust.”

4. More than this, I understand this verse to be a command to trust in the name of the Lord. It is an order to trust in our God up to the hilt, for it bids us “stay” ourselves upon our God. We are not fitfully to trust, and then to fear; but to come to a stay in God, even as ships enter a haven, cast their anchors, and then stay there till the tempest is over-past.

5. If you do not stay upon God in the dark, it would seem as if, after all, you did not trust God, but were trusting to the light, or were relying on your own eyesight.

6. Remember one thing more, our blessed Lord and Master was not spared the blackest midnight that ever fell on human mind.

IV. WHAT WILL COME OF IT IF WE DO TRUST IN GOD IN THE DARK.

1. Such a faith will glorify God. It does not glorify God to trust Him when you have a thousand other props and assistances.

2. It is very likely that through this darkness you will be humbled.

3. If thou wilt trust God in thy trial, thou wilt prove and enjoy the power of prayer.

4. If in your darkness you go to God and trust Him, you will become an established Christian.

5. By and by we shall come out into greater light than we have as yet hoped for. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Light in darkness

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCE expressed by the words “walking in darkness, and having no light.” This description is properly applicable only to circumstances of the deepest distress. In our darkest hours there are generally some rays of light left. If some enjoyments are withdrawn, others remain. If we suffer in one way, we receive pleasure in another. Seldom does it happen that our condition is so deplorable as to be entirely gloomy and wretched. In such circumstances we are necessarily led to look out for comfort.

II. OUR BEST RELIEF IS TRUSTING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD and staying ourselves upon God. Let us turn our thoughts to the Deity, and reflect on His perfect government.

1. In such circumstances we should consider that the Deity is always intimately present with us, and sees all that passes in the world.

2. We should further consider that this Being stands in the nearest relation to us. He is our parent, we are His offspring.

3. To these reflections, let us add that this Being is almighty, all-wise, and all-benevolent.

III. THE RELIEF DERIVED FROM HENCE CAN BE ENJOYED ONLY BY THOSE THAT FEAR THE LORD. It is in well-doing that we are commanded to commit our souls to God. (R. Price, D.D.)

The believer in darkness

I. THE CHARACTER MENTIONED.

II. THE CIRCUMSTANCES STATED. He walks in darkness, etc. No spiritual light? No; he who has Jesus Christ in his heart cannot be ignorant. Nor is he miserable. Nor does he walk in the darkness of sin. The text refers to providential darkness.

III. THE DIRECTIONS GIVEN. Trust in the name of the Lord—in His power, benevolence, fidelity. (J. Summerfield, M.A.)

A day-star for dark hearts

1. If this were the only word Isaiah had ever written, it, would be cherished as a marvel of sweetest wisdom; just as, were there only one star, it would be admired with surpassing interest and wonder. But, one amongst many, the brightest star and the richest text ceases to enkindle the enthusiasm or attract the gaze of men.

2. There are many things about this word strikingly suggestive—

(1) The Old Testament designation of a saint—“One that feareth the Lord.”

(2) By linking this verse (verse 10) to the one that follows, and studying the two as a pair, what lessons do they give—on the superiority of Divine darkness to human light; on the blessedness of rather being under the cloud, patiently waiting God’s appearing, than striking sparks of our own light to lead us in the ways of common life. Heaven-sent darkness—say care or affliction, is better than sparks of one’s own kindling—say gaiety, mirth, delusive theories of life.

3. The text assumes that, although joy in the Holy Ghost ought to mark every saint of God, yet, as a matter of fact, the truest saints have to endure darkness, gloom, and trial. And it requires that all such should not be dispirited by the clouds which cross their sky, but that even when long patience and earnest gazing fail to perceive the presence of God they should still rely on Him. Many would say: If any among you fears the Lord and walks in darkness, let him suspect there is something wrong; be careful to examine himself whether he is in the faith, etc. But where we would say “Examine,” the prophet says “Trust.” (R. Glover, D. D.)

Encouragement

The prophet’s word—

I. BIDS THE PENITENT HOPE.

II. BRINGS COMFORT TO THOSE EMBARRASSED BY HONEST INQUIRY.

III. BRINGS COMFORT TO ALL “ THE TROUBLED.” There are a multitude whose outward or inward troubles produce darkness whatever their character may be. Some, for instance, are troubled by their state of health; it is such as produces a peculiar tendency to gloom. There are

others who are troubled with the course of Providence. Others are troubled in soul. Such temptations beset them! Resisted, these renew their attack. Overcome, they rise up afresh to distress them. (R. Glover, D. D.)

Depression

I suppose that there are very few, if any, who reach old age or even middle life without the painful experience of times of depression of spirits. There come, perhaps, days in the life of every one when all things seem against him. Such times are not foreign to the experience of God’s greatest saints, and Isaiah appears to contemplate them as times to be expected by the servant of God.

1. Isaiah is not alone in this. There are numberless instances in Holy Scripture which show how true it is.

2. But whatever the cause, if the conscience is clear from wilful sin, what is our duty under such a state of depression? The text sets before us two things as needful—

(1) Obedience. The prophet assumes that those to whom he is speaking will, in spite of their perplexity, obey. He would have them acquiesce in the God-permitted darkness, however trying and painful it may be. Better darkness than a light which is not kindled from above. And yet not seldom it is such a time of depression which drives a man to despair, and leads him in the end to give up his faith altogether. In hours of darkness great is the temptation to have recourse to fires of our own kindling—to seek for light elsewhere than from the “Father of Lights;” and so in the verse following that taken as the text, Isaiah turns to those who are yielding to the temptation, and warns them in tones of scornful irony against false lights of their own kindling.

(2) Faith.

3. This week we are watching our Lord in His path through the dark vale of suffering and along the way of sorrows. Our eyes are fixed on but one figure. To-day we contemplate those two points which the Epistle especially brings out—His perfect obedience, and His perfect trust. Let us learn a much-needed lesson—“It is sufficient for the disciple that he be as his Master.” (E. C. S. Gibson, M.A.)

Trust in God

I. THE CHARACTER AND STATE OF THOSE WHO ARE EXHORTED TO TRUST IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.

1. They that fear God may signify—

(1) Those who have a sincere regard to the commandments of God, and have chosen Him as their portion and hope. Those who desire and deserve to be distinguished from the profane despiser, the secure formalist, or the disguised hypocrite. Those, in a word, who are, and who desire to appear upon the Lord’s side in every struggle, and who resolve with Joshua, that whatever others do, they will serve the Lord.

(2) But we may explain the words in a stricter sense, and suppose, that by fearing the Lord is to be understood a due reverence for His infinite majesty, a humble veneration for His sacred authority.

2. The next part of the character is, “and obeyeth the voice of His servant;” that is to say is willing to hearken to the message of God, by the mouth of His servants.

3. “That walketh in darkness, and hath no light.”

(1) Sometimes light signifies knowledge, and darkness signifies ignorance Eph_5:8; Act_26:18; Job_37:19).

(2) Sometimes darkness signifies distress or trouble, and the correspondent signification of light is deliverance and joy (2Sa_22:28-29; Job Psa_97:11; Est_8:16). None of these senses is to be excluded in the passage before us. Believers may walk in darkness, when ignorant or uncertain as to what nearly concerns them, as well as under distress and trouble. They have also a mutual influence upon, produce, and are produced by one another. A good man may walk in darkness—When he is in doubt or uncertainty as to his interest in the Divine favour. When he is under the pressure of outward calamity. When the state of the Church is such, that he cannot understand or explain, in a satisfying manner, the course of Divine providence.

II. THE DUTY OF TRUST IN GOD AND THE FOUNDATION OF IT. Trust is a reliance or confidence in God, that, however discouraging appearances may be for the present time, yet, by His power and wisdom, our desires and expectation shall take place, whether as to deliverance from trouble, or the obtaining of future blessings. Trust rests ultimately on the promise. It is of the greatest moment to understand the nature and tenor of the promises. For this end, it may be proper to distinguish the promises of God, as to futurity, into two heads, absolute and conditional. By absolute promises I understand only those that are so in the most unlimited sense, that is to say, revealed as a part of the fixed plan of Providence, suspended on no terms but what all, of every character, may expect will certainly, come to pass. Conditional promises divide into three different heads

(1) Promises made to persons of such or such a character, or in such or such a state.

(2) Promises, the performance of which is suspended on our compliance with something previously required, as the condition of obtaining them.

(3) Promises, not only suspended on both the preceding terms, but upon the supposition of some circumstances in themselves uncertain, or to us unknown.

III. PRACTICAL APPLICATION.

1. See what judgment you ought to form of inward suggestions, and strong or particular impressions upon your minds. The suggestion of a passage of Scripture of itself gives no title to the immediate application of it, because the great deceiver may undoubtedly suggest Scripture, as we find he could reason from it in our Saviour's temptation. We are, in every such case, to consider the tenor of it, if it be a promise or encouragement, that is, how and in what manner it may be safely applied. If any thing happens to be suggested that expressly suits our present condition, either by setting home the obligation of duty, with particular evidence upon the conscience, or pointing out the grounds of comfort, it ought to be thankfully acknowledged as from the Spirit of God.

2. See what it is that we ought to seek for with the greatest earnestness, and may hope to obtain with the greatest confidence.

3. Adore the wisdom, justice and mercy of God, in the order He hath established, according to the different nature of the promises. That which is of unspeakable value, and radically contains all the rest, is placed first in order, and offered in the most free and gracious manner, without money and without price. Salvation is preached to the chief of sinners, and a Saviour held forth as able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by Him.

4. Learn what is the plainest, the shortest, and indeed, the only sure way to deliverance from distress or calamity of whatever kind. It is to fly to the mercy of God through the blood of Christ, to renew the exercises of faith in Him, and you will perceive every other covenant-blessing flow clear and unmixed from this inexhaustible source. (J. Witherspoon, D.D.)

The want of assurance

I. THE CHARACTER ADDRESSED is distinctly drawn. It is “a child of light walking in darkness.” Poverty, disease, litigation, oppression, perplexity, the loss of intimate friends and relations, doubts, disappointments, errors in religion, actual transgressions, and the temptations of the adversary, working with the corruptions of the human heart, are permitted in the providence of God, to affect Christians in various degrees of perturbation and sorrow, until they “walk in darkness and have no light.”

II. THE DUTY RECOMMENDED. “Let him trust,” etc. (A. McLeod, D.D.)

The duty of those who have not assurance

I. DISTINGUISH DOUBTS OF YOUR OWN PIETY, FROM THE SIN OF UNBELIEF.

1. Doubting respects ourselves; and calls in question our having already become subjects of Divine grace: but unbelief respects the Lord, and calls in question, either the reality of Divine things, or Christ’s willingness and power to save them that believe.

2. Doubting of our safety does no more than reject the evidence which is furnished by our own minds; an evidence which is often very imperfectly delivered and received: but unbelief always rejects the testimony which God has given us of His own Son, and so, by contradicting God, makes him a liar, so far as the sinner has it in his power.

3. Doubting of one’s piety may be at times both reasonable and profitable; for when a man has but a small measure of grace, it may lead him to seek for more: but unbelief, always against the Word and attributes of the God of our salvation, is unreasonable, unprofitable, and impious.

4. Doubting of one’s personal piety often includes, not only anxiety to be saved by Divine grace, but also a sincere desire to attain to an assured interest in the everlasting covenant: but unbelief excludes the idea of love to the true God, rejects the covenant of grace, and distinctly relinquishes the mercy which is offered in the Lord Jesus Christ.

5. Doubts are consistent, not only with sincere piety, but also with progress in sanctification: but unbelief is the exercise of an unregenerate heart.

6. Doubting of one’s holiness humbles under a sense of sin, and produces penitence and sorrow: but unbelief hardens the heart into negligence or despair; or exasperates the sinner more and more against Divine things.

II. ASCERTAIN, WITH ALL DILIGENCE, THE CAUSE OF YOUR OWN DOUBTS AND UNEASINESS: for it is by understanding your disease, you will be qualified to apply the remedy provided in the Gospel of God.

1. Error causes darkness and doubt. Clear views of Divine truth is the preventive and the cure.

2. Indolence, and consequent inattention to the due improvement of our talents, often occasion spiritual decline and despondence. The remedy is found in vigilance and Christian activity.

3. The passions, through the remaining corruptions of the heart, often cause transgressions, and consequent doubts and despondence.

4. Satan is the principal cause of those doubts and fears; and resistance to his exertions is the means of assurance.

5. In pointing out the duty of Christians, who have not the assurance of salvation, I must not omit, Steadfast continuance in practical obedience to all the commandments. (A. McLeod, D. D.)

God’s message to the desponding

When such an experience comes upon the saint, it will not be always safe to say that it is the shadow of some special sin. The security of the saint is rooted in the fact that God has a hold of him, and not at all in his consciousness that he has a hold of God. His comfort may be affected by the latter, but his safety is due entirely to the former. Hence, they who roundly affirm that if a man be walking in darkness and finding no light he cannot be a Christian, are making salvation depend, not on God’s work for a man and in him, but simply and entirely on his Own emotions. Moreover, they are strangely oblivious of some of the best-known passages in the history even of the most eminent saints. But despondency is not a state of mind in which any one desires to remain. And he should be encouraged to get out of it as quickly as possible. For it puts everything about him into shadow. It sets all his songs to a minor key. It gives to all his prayers a wailing pathos. It takes away much of his buoyancy and elasticity for work.

I. THE CAUSES OF SPIRITUAL DESPONDENCY.

1. It may spring from natural temperament. Each of us is born with a certain predisposition to joy or sadness, to irascibility or patience, to quickness of action or deliberateness of conduct, which we call temperament. While conversion may Christianize that temperament, it does not change it.

2. Spiritual despondency may be caused by disease. That which we call lowness of spirits is very often the result of some imprudence in diet, or some local disturbance. See the relief which this affords. It removes from religion the responsibility for the depression of such a man as Cowper, and traces his spiritual gloom to disease of the brain.

3. Spiritual despondency is often the result of trial. Think of Peter’s words: “Ye are in heaviness through manifold trials.” One affliction will not usually becloud our horizon. But when a whole series of distresses comes on us in succession, the effect is terrible. First, it may be, comes sickness, and we are getting round from that when business difficulties overwhelm us. These are scarcely arranged before bereavement comes; and while we are still in the valley, we are set upon by Apollyon in the shape of some scandalous accuser who seeks to rob us of our good name.

4. Spiritual despondency may be caused by mental perplexity. The old beliefs are once more on their trial, and when a youth reaches the age when he must exchange a traditional piety for a personal conviction, he is plunged for the time into the greatest misery. It seems to him almost as if everything were giving way beneath him.

II. THE COUNSELS TO THE DESPONDING which are given or suggested by this text.

1. The oppressed spirit must keep on fearing the Lord and obeying the voice of His servant.

2. To the desponding believer the second thing to be said is, keep on trusting God.

3. Then, let us not fail to note the deep meaning of that word “stay.” It encourages you to lean your whole weight upon God, and to do that continuously. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Desertion

I. THE CHARACTER OF HIM TO WHOM THIS COUNSEL IS ADDRESSED.

II. THE STATE IN WHICH SUCH AN ONE IS SOMETIMES FOUND.

1. He may want the light of direction.

2. He may want the light of knowledge.

3. He may want the light of comfort.

III. WHAT SHALL HE DO IN THIS TRYING HOUR (H. Verschoyle.)

Willing and unwilling unbelief

For practical purposes we may make one broad distinction—that between willing and unwilling unbelievers. I turn to the consideration of that class of unbelievers who would believe if they could; who are neither rebels against moral restraint, nor consumed by a morbid pride: who love good deeds and good men and desire only to know and believe what is true. It is strange that some of them should accuse themselves of unbelief, seeing that the very wish to believe is a sign that they do believe already—a proof of loyalty to their Father in heaven rooted deep down in their inmost souls. Their faith is genuine though not strong enough to bear the fruits of love to God or of hope and consolation. There are those to whom the difficulty of believing in God is all but insuperable owing to the constitution of their minds. To such, every conception, to be a conception at all, must be accurate and sharply defined. Reason stands like a sentinel before the door of the imagination and feelings and will let nothing pass that does not carry the passport of clear and absolute definition. They are, therefore, for the time incapable of realizing any of the joys of belief and can no more be blamed for their unbelief than for not being able to fly. I do not think religion is attainable by the mere exercise of the reason. Another source of difficulty is also constitutional. When people are of a desponding and melancholy temperament, they naturally dwell on the darker side of things; and as this is the exact opposite of faith in God, no wonder it should be so much more difficult for them to believe. It is true, and there are numberless instances to prove it, that many a naturally depressed mind has found its only relief from apprehension and despondency in the sense of God’s abiding friendliness. It has been said to me more than once:—The next best thing to believing for one’s self is to see others believe. So it behoves all who live in the celestial sunshine of faith and hope to reflect by their cheerful and pure lives as much as possible the light that shines on their own souls upon the hearts of others less happy than themselves. (C. Voysey, M.A.)

Spiritual darkness

(with Mic_7:8):—Isaiah describes the experience. Micah besides that describes himself as being, or having been, in the heart of the experience. The Bible is a many-sided book.

I. DARKNESS AS A FACT OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, AND THE CHRISTIAN’S PROPER EXERCISE UNDER IT. In the natural world it is not always light, at least with our planet. The

sun goes down and darkness spreads. So in the higher life. The spiritual heavens are not always bright. Some sun or other that had been shedding its light on the soul goes down, and the man sits in darkness.

1. It may be the light of faith that is darkened. Spiritual realities are withdrawn into shadow.

2. It may be the light of God’s face that is felt to be withdrawn.

3. Darkness may come in the form of the fading away of some Christian hope—personal hopes or hopes for the kingdom of God. This dark experience gives a striking demonstration that God only is man’s Comforter.

II. DARKNESS AS A MEANS OF SPIRITUAL DISCOVERY. Perhaps the best explanation of this darkness, and it is a vindication too, is found in the results which it works. In nature the darkness of night lets us see what we cannot see when the sun is shining. It is the same with spiritual night, or may be. The man of God may then get great enlargement of spiritual information and understanding. There need be no mystery why all this is so. The man that sits in darkness is by the pressure of his position made a more diligent searcher into Divine things.

III. DARKNESS AS A DISCIPLINE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. It may secure for it some of its best graces—the mildest, the most mellowed, the most hallowed. There are plants that grow best in a dim light. Amongst those Christian graces that take deeper root in the dark are:

1. Humility.

2. Trustfulness.

3. Self-surrender.

Conclusion—

1. The painfulness of this discipline must not be forgotten. They only know the horrors of Divine desertion who have relished the joys of Divine communion. If these things are done in the green tree what shall be done in the dry? If God takes such means to improve grace, what means will He take to punish sin?

2. Sympathize with the deserted child of’ God. God is not angry with him. “Behind a frowning providence,” etc. God does earnestly remember him Jer_31:20).

3. Ye who sit in darkness beware of two things—impatience and sullen indifference. (J. Wardrop, D. D.)

Spiritual darkness

I. This DARKNESS may arise possibly—

1. From over-occupation in the affairs of life. The questionable has been acted upon as the admissible.

2. From a disordered state of the body. The brain has not been kept clear by rational living. Late hours, undue excitement have brought on spiritual dyspepsia; or excesses of youth are now demanding their penalty, or an inheritance of evils has caused it.

3. From a non-apprehension of the fulness of the atonement of Christ. We may believe in God’s ability to pardon, but do not realize how He leads us into holiness; or whether we have come to Christ in the right way, or about the uncertainty as to the time of our conversion, or fear lest the past neglect to make progress in the Divine life should cut us off from all hope;

or the gloom comes from neglecting the Bible and prayer for something less profitable, or from over-religious excitement that has given us a distaste for obscurer and quieter work, or disappointment in hopes respecting the coming of Christ’s kingdom, or from seeing much of mystery and pain around, or from trouble how to save the masses, or from the spread of materialistic ideas, and so on.

II. HOW ARE CHRISTIANS TO BE DELIVERED FROM IT? “Trust in the name of the Lord.” We know how a name can cheer men. The mention of the name of Caesar and of Wellington had a wonderful effect upon their men. Trust in Him for pardon and sanctification. You are His friend, and are longing for Him. He will work in you. Trust absolutely in Christ; “stay” upon Him. A sufferer of fourteen years said, “I can bear anything, for Christ is with me.” (F. Hastings.)

A Child of light walking in darkness

I. ONE WHO TRULY FEARS GOD, AND IS OBEDIENT TO HIM, MAY BE IN A CONDITION OF DARKNESS, AND HAVE NO LIGHT; and may walk many days and years in that condition.

1. Walking in darkness is taken (1Jn_1:6) for living in sin and ungodliness. But so it is not to be taken here; for Christ would not have encouraged such to trust in God, who is light, and there can be no fellowship between Him and such darkness, as the apostle tells us. Nay, the Holy Ghost reproves such as do “lean on the Lord” and yet transgress Mic_3:11). And besides, the text speaks of such who for their present condition fear God and are obedient to Him, which if they thus walked in darkness they could not be said to do.

2. Neither is it to be meant of walking in ignorance, as in Joh_12:35. For one that hath no light, in that sense, can never truly fear God nor obey Him.

3. He means it of discomfiture and sorrow, as often we find in Scripture darkness to be taken (Ecc_5:17); as, on the contrary, light, because it is so “ pleasant a thing to behold,” is put for comfort Ecc_11:7), And that so it is taken here is evident by that which is opposed in the next verse, “Walk ye in your light, yet ye shall lie down in sorrow.” But—

4. Of what kind of sorrow and for what?

(1) It is not to be restrained to outward afflictions only, which are called man’s infirmities, as being common to man; which arise from things of this world, or from the men of the world; though to walk in darkness is so Isa_59:9). For, in them also, a man’s best support is to trust inGod. But yet that cannot be the only or principal meaning of it. He adds, “and hath no light,” that is, no comfort. Now, as philosophers say, there is no pure darkness without some mixture of light, so we may say, there is not mere or utter darkness caused by outward afflictions: no outward affliction can so universally environ the mind, as to shut up all the crannies of it, so that a man should have no light. Besides, God’s people, when they walk in the greatest outward darkness, may have most light in their spirits. But here is such an estate spoken of, such a darkness as bath no light in it. Therefore—

(2) It is principally to be understood of the want of inward comfort in their spirits, from something that is between God and them. Because the remedy here provided is faith. In the foregoing verses he had spoken of justification. But because there might be some poor souls who, though truly fearing God, yet might want this assurance, and upon the hearing of this might be the more troubled, because not able to express that confidence which he did, he adds, “Who is among you,” etc. These words have a relation also to the 4 th verse, where he says that God had given him the “tongue of the learned, to minister a

word of comfort in season to him that is weary and heavy laden;” and thereupon, in this verse, he shows the blessed condition of such persons as are most weary through long walking in darkness; and withal he discovereth to them the way of getting out of this darkness, and recovering comfort again.

II. WHAT IS THE CONDITION OF SUCH A ONE WHO IS THUS IN DARKNESS, AND HATH NO LIGHT?

1. He is said to have no light. “Light,” saith the apostle (Eph_5:13), “is that whereby things are made manifest,” i.e., to the sense of sight and as light and faith are here severed, so sight also is (2Co_5:7) distinguished from faith, which is the evidence of things absent and not Heb_11:1). When, therefore, here he saith he hath no light, the meaning is, he wants all present sensible testimonies of God’s favour to him. To understand this, we must know that God, to help our faith, vouchsafeth a threefold light to His people, to add assurance and joy to their faith; which is to faith as a back of steel to a bow.

(1) The immediate light of His countenance.

(2) The sight and comfort of their own graces, unto which so many promises belong. So that often when the sun is set, yet starlight appears.

(3) Though he want the present light of God’s countenance, and the sight of present grace, yet he may have a comfortable remembrance of what once before he had still left.

2. He walks in darkness.

(1) To walk in darkness implies to be in doubt whither to go.

(2) Those in darkness are apt to stumble at everything.

(3) Darkness is exceedingly terrible and full of horror. (T. Goodwin.)

The child of God in darkness

I. THE EFFICIENT CAUSES OF THIS WOEFUL, DESPERATE, DARK CONDITION OF GOD’S CHILD.

1. God’s Spirit. The Spirit is not the direct efficient or positive cause of them. The Spirit of God may concur in this darkness that befalls His child.

(1) Privatively. He may suspend His testimony, and the execution of his office of witnessing adoption.

(2) Positively. He may further proceed to reveal and represent God as angry with His child for such and such sins formerly committed, and make him sensible thereof; not barely by concealing His love, but by making impressions of His wrath upon his conscience immediately, and not by outward crosses only.

2. A man’s own guilty and fearful heart.

3. Satan. He works upon

(1) carnal reason,

(2) guilt of conscience,

(3) jealousies and fears.

II. THE CASES WHEREIN GOD LEAVES HIS CHILDREN UNTO THIS DARKNESS.

1. Extraordinary; as—

(1) Out of His prerogative.

(2) In ease He means to make a man eminently wise, and able to comfort others.

(3) In case of extraordinary comforts and revelations.

2. Ordinary.

(1) In case of carnal confidence.

(2) For neglecting such special opportunities of comforts and refreshings as God hath vouchsafed; as for the neglect of holy duties, wherein God did offer to draw nigh to us.

(3) In case of not exercising the graces which a man hath; when Christians are, as it were, between sleeping and waking.

(4) In case of some gross sin committed against light, unhumbled for, or proving scandalous, or of old sins long forgotten.

(5) In case of a stubborn spirit under outward afflictions.

(6) In case of deserting His truth, and not professing it and appearing for it when He calls us to do it.

(7) In case of unthankfulness, and too common an esteem had of assurance, and of freedom from those terrors and doubtings which others are in.

III. THE ENDS FOR WHICH GOD LEAVETH HIS CHILDREN UNTO THIS DARKNESS.

1. To show His power and faithfulness, in upholding, raising up, and healing such a a spirit again as hath been long and deadly wounded with reward terrors.

2. As to know the power of Christ’s resurrection, so the “fellowship, of His sufferings;” that thereby the soul may be made more “conformable to Him.”

3. To put the greater difference between the estate of God’s children here, and that hereafter in heaven.

4. To let us see whence spiritual comforts and refreshings come: that God alone keeps the keys of that cupboard, and alone dispenseth them how and when He pleaseth.

5. Other ends God hath, to make trial of our graces and a discovery of them. The same end that God had in leading His people through “the great wilderness, where no water was,” where “scorpions stung them,” which was to prove them, etc.; the same ends hath God in suffering His people to go through this desert, barrenness, and darkness, where no light is, and where terrors of the law do sting them—for His dealings then were types of God’s dealings with His people new—to prove them, and to make trial of their hearts.

(1) There is no grace God tries more than the grace of faith.

(2) Of all temptations none try it more than desertion of God’s countenance.

(3) In these conflicts of faith with desertions consisteth the height of our Christian warfare.

6. As it makes for the trial and discovery of graces, so it is a means sanctified to increase them, and to eat out corruptions.

(1) It is a means to destroy the flesh.

(2) To humble.

(3) To bring in more assurance and establishment.

(4) It trains you to fear God more, and to obey Him.

(5) To set believers’ hearts a-work to pray more and more earnestly.

(6) It causeth them to prize the light of God’s countenance the more when they again obtain it, and so set a higher price upon it, and to endeavour by close walking with God, as children of light, to keep it. (T. Goodwin.)

Counsel to those who walk in darkness

1. Take heed of rash, desperate, impatient and unbelieving speeches and wishes.

2. Let the troubled soul make diligent search.

3. Keep and lend one ear, as well to hear and consider what makes for their comfort, as unto what may make against them.

4. Make diligent search into, and call to remembrance what formerly hath been between God and you. The remembrance of former things doth often uphold, when present sense fails.

5. But now if former signs remembered bring thee no comfort in, but the waves that come over thy soul prove so deep that thou canst find no bottom to cast anchor on, the storm and stress so great that no cable will hold, but they snap all asunder, as is often the case of many a poor soul, then renew thy faith and repentance.

6. Then, stand not now disputing it, but be peremptory and resolute m thy faith and turning to God, let the issue be what it will be. Faith is never nonplussed.

7. Let him trust in the name of the Lord.

8. Wait upon God, thus trusting in His name, in the constant use of all ordinances and means of comfort. Waiting is indeed but an act of faith further stretched out.

9. Above all things pray, and get others also to pray for thee.

10. Having done all this, you would not rest in ease of conscience but healing. (T. Goodwin.)

Trust in the name of the Lord

The name of God, that is, God’s attributes, and Christ’s righteousness do sufficiently, and adequately, answer all wants and doubts, all objections and distresses. Whatsoever our want or temptations be, He hath a name to make supply (Exo_34:5-6). Art thou in miser and eat distress “The Lord merciful.” The “Lord,” therefore able to help thee; and “merciful,” therefore willing. Yea, but thou wilt say, I am unworthy; I have nothing in me to move Him to it. Well, He is “gracious;” now grace is to show mercy freely. Yea, but I have sinned against Him for many years; if I had come in when I was young, mercy might have been shown me. To this He says, I am “long-suffering.” But my sins abound in number, and it is impossible to reckon them up, and they abound in heinousness; I have committed the same sins again and again; I have been false to Him, broke promise with Him again and again. His name also answers this objection, He is “abundant in goodness;” He abounds more in grace than thou in sinning. And though thou hast been false again and again to Him, and broke all covenants, yet He is “abundant in truth; “ also better than His Word, for He cannot to our capacities express all that mercy that is in Him for us. But I have committed great sins, aggravated with many and great circumstances. He forgives

“iniquity, transgression, and sin;” sins of all sorts. But there is mercy thus in Him but for a few, and I may be none of the number. Yes, there is mercy for “thousands.” And He “keeps” it; treasures of it lie by Him, and are kept, if men would come and take them. Object what thou canst, His name will answer thee. Needest thou comfort as well as pardon? He is both “Father of mercies” and “God of all comforts” (2Co_1:3). Needest thou peace of conscience, being filled with terrors? He is the “God of peace” (1Th_5:23). But I have a heart empty of grace and holiness, and full of corruptions. He is the “God of all grace” to heal thee, as well as of peace to pardon thee. Needest thou wisdom and direction? He is the “Father of lights,” as the apostle says. Is thy heart inconstant and full of double-mindedness? He is “unchangeable” also. Thus all objections that can be made may be answered out of His name. Therefore it is all-sufficient for faith to rest upon. (T. Goodwin.)

Darkness and, light, and light and darkness

One cannot listen to these words without feeling that one needs to distinguish between the appearance and the reality of things. There are peculiarities in the lot of both the righteous and the wicked which baffle our expectations. The sufferings of the godly and the prosperity of the ungodly have always been a puzzle to thoughtful men. However confusing facts of this order may be, they very plainly constitute a most serious part of our earthly test and discipline.

I. THE DARKNESS AND THE LIGHT OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

1. The character of the righteous.

(1) He is animated by devout and reverential feeling towards God—he “feareth the Lord.” This inward sentiment of reverence is the living root of all practical godliness.

(2) He rules his heart and life by the inspired Word of God—He “obeyeth the voice of His Servant.” “His Servant” is the Servant of prediction, the Messiah of promise.

2. His trials. “That walketh in darkness and hath no light.” It is literally, “darknesses.” The shadows which fall upon our path are not one, but many. It is very startling, that men who revere God Himself, and obey His servants, obey even His chosen Servant of all, should ever “walk in darkness and have no light.” Yet that is sometimes their lot. They may not only be in darkness for a short while, but may be called to “walk” in it. Walking denotes, not what is occasional, but what is habitual. Be thankful that you walk not in the pitch darkness of many a poor soul in our day, to whom nothing exists but matter and motion and force.

3. The consolations of the righteous.

(1) Study the “name of the Lord.” His name declares His nature.

(2) Have faith in God. Trust.

(3) Leave the issue entirely to the Almighty. Let him “stay upon his God.” The word is, “lean upon his God.” The illustration is, a weak person leaning all his feebleness on a strong one,.and being upheld by his strength.

II. THE LIGHT AND THE DARKNESS OF THE WICKED.

1. The illusions of the wicked. Observe their activity.

(1) They “kindle a fire,” The fire is kindled for the sake of its light, not for the sake of its warmth. The righteous often “walk in darkness and have no light;” not so the wicked. They know how to make their own light. They have great confidence in their own resources. They ply their abilities to banish their ills, and to provide themselves with satisfactions. Men must have at

least the semblance of good, if destitute of the reality. The industry of men in the pursuit of imaginary blessings is very noteworthy, very melancholy, and very pitiful. They “compass themselves with sparks.” I am not sure that “sparks” is the exact word that should have been used here. But it seems to be fire in some minute form. The impotence of mail is set forth and the inefficiency of his endeavours. He is very laborious. He surrounds himself with his artificial glimmers, and hopes to compensate their feebleness by their multitude. There are no Divine lights in the firmament of his night, and he fancies that the dim and dusky fiickerings which his own hands have multiplied about him are sufficient for his needs.

2. The seeming success of the, wicked. “Walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks that ye have kindled.” It is as if the Almighty said to wilful and rebellious creatures: “Take your own way. Pursue your dream, and eat the fruits of your folly.” The light of the wicked, like the darkness of the righteous, is not single but manifold. They “walk,” too, amidst these lights, they live and delight themselves in “the light of their” own fires, and surrounded by “the sparks that they have kindled.”

3. The doom of the wicked. “This shall ye have at My hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.’

(1) Men must lie down in sickness. Projects which flashed such alluring brightness grow very pale when health is gone and powers of enjoyment have fled. “Shade me from the lying glare,” cries the defrauded sufferer, when the head is sick and the heart is weary.

(2) Every man must lie down to die. When that solemn hour arrives, the wasted fingers will enkindle no more lights, and the shrunken limbs move no more amidst them. The whole circle of self-deceptions with which you have encompassed your soul, shall sink and vanish together, like the last glimmer forsakes the expiring wick, and leave only a noisome ash behind. How different are the righteous and the wicked in their darkness! The righteous “leans,” the wicked “lies down.” “Leaning” is an act of spiritual power; “lying down” in the languors of dissolution, with chilling perspirations crawling on breast and brow, is impotent endurance. The righteous “leans” on God; the wicked sinks helpless and “lies down” to die. The righteous finds succour and salvation; the wicked, sorrow. “Leaning” is the moment of triumph; “lying down,” of utter overthrow and ruin. (H. Batchelor.)

“The cloud across the sun:”

Contrary to the teaching of those who affirm that religion’s ways are invariably ways of pleasantness and peace, and that the world’s ways are invariably rough and disappointing, it is the religious man who “walketh in darkness, and hath no light,” and it is the worldly man whose pathway is illumined and whose prosperity is assured;

I. THE TWO CONTRASTED TYPES OF CHARACTER.

1. By “the fear of the Lord ‘ in the language of the Old Testament is meant a religious disposition, combining reverence and love. There are two kinds of fear—one wholesome, the other unwholesome; one the offspring of knowledge, the other of ignorance; one which liberates the soul, the other which brings it late bondage. And it is the reverential fear to which the prophet refers as attached to the character under consideration. Then, He obeyeth the voice of His Servant. That is a fuller characterization of the godly man, which takes into account conduct as well as disposition. This twofold description completes the picture. The interior life and the outward walk correspond. The character, then, is not that of an empty religious professor. Nor is he a backslider.

2. The character which comes before us in the second half of the text is not so fully described as is that of the godly man in the preceding verse. Nevertheless, the constrast which is suggested enables us to complete the outline without difficulty. It is not necessary that we should think of one who is outwardly and notoriously immoral. But it is necessary that we should think of one who is uninfluenced by the fear of God, and whose character is lacking in all the root-elements of a sincere piety. And how full of suggestion the words “He kindleth a fire”! That is to say, he warms himself from without rather than from within. He contemplates life on its physical and material side only. He finds himself in a world well suited to his requirements and capable of affording him many pleasurable excitements, and so he proceeds to gather together the materials for a good fire. To the superficial observer the difference between the godly man and the worldly man, especially when the latter happens to be respectable and moral, may not be very striking. Yet the difference is vital. It is a difference in kind as well as degree. They belong to different realms.

II. THE TWO CONTRASTED WALKS—the one in darkness, the other encompassed with sparks. Health and material prosperity are not necessarily signs of the special favour of God. Nor are sickness and adversity any sure indication of the Divine displeasure.

1. It is the portion of a good man sometimes to have to walk in darkness.

(1) There is the darkness of adversity.

(2) There is the darkness of religious doubt. A good man may find himself in this transition period drifting away from the old moorings—drifting away he hardly knows whither. He has to re-make his creed, and during that period of re-making he is compelled to walk, more or less, in darkness.

(3) There is the darkness of spiritual drought. The man whose faith is greatly tried is counselled to exercise a stronger faith.

2. In contrast to all this, there is the “walking” of those who walk in the light of the fires of their own kindling. Is this world, with all its absorbing interests, really empty and unsatisfying? No doubt it is, sooner or later. But for the present the majority of those around us are satisfied with it as a sphere of habitation. And supposing there be no God and no hereafter—then one may almost ask whether the worldly have not the advantage over the unworldly, and whether this life, with all its struggles and efforts, is really worth living. But if there be a God and a hereafter; if the kingdom of the soul is as great a reality as the kingdom of the senses; if character is everything—then we are fools indeed if we accept the creed of the materialist, and live the life of the sensualist. There are only two philosophies of life possible to us; and one of them is not a philosophy. The man who follows the first is he who walks in the light of the Sun—the sun’s Sun, the great source and fountain of all illumination. The man who follows the second is he who walks in the light of Chinese lanterns and all kinds of pyrotechnic devices, and who in consequence never arrives at the goal.

III. THE TWO LIVES WITH THEIR CONTRASTED ENDINGS.

1. There can be no real and lasting success in life apart from God. In the domain of literature, science and art; in the field of material enterprise and industry; in the haunts and abodes of pleasure, how brightly the world’s bonfires are burning! How the flames sparkle, and dance and leap! What crowds, what gaiety, what laughter! Soon, however, the laughter will die away, and all that will be left of that brilliant human assemblage on this side the grave will be a few brief epitaphs and a few handfuls of dust. “He shall lie down in sorrow,” or as Matthew Henry quaintly paraphrases it, “He shall go to bed in the dark.” That is a reminiscence of our childhood. And that is what it all comes to sooner or later, if we read Goethe and Byron instead of our Bible; if we worship the beautiful instead of the holy; if we live the life of the senses instead of the life of the soul.

2. Elsewhere we are told that “to the upright there ariseth a light in the darkness.” And again it is said, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.” (T. Sanderson.)

False and true in character

I. THE DARKNESS OF THE TRUE AND THEIR RELIEF.

1. The true have a distinctive principle and conduct. All character is made up of principles and acts. The principle is “fear,” not of a crouching serf, but of a loving child—filial reverence; the conduct is, obeying the voice of His Servant—Christ. Here is the true spirit and its true development. Piety may listen to the voice of philosophies, but obeys the voice of Christ. His whole life was a voice.

2. The true have their seasons of darkness—“walketh in darkness.” Jacob, Job, Asaph, Jeremiah. The cloud is not spread by a Divine hand over the heart, but rises from the corrupt elements of our moral nature. A dark day is not the sun’s fault; he shines in his own great orbit in November as in June; the darkness arises from the vapours of the earth; so with moral gloom—cause not in God, but in us.

3. The true in seasons of darkness have a sure relief—“they trust in the name of the Lord”—in His disposition, and power to help. Christianity a proof of the former, the universe of the latter.

II. THE LIGHTS OF THE FALSE AND THEIR RUIN. “Walk in the light of your fire,” etc.

1. The false have their lights. Such as general custom, temporal expediency, corrupt religions, pseudo-philosophies lights are their guides and comforts in their relations to both worlds.

2. The false will have their ruin. “This shall ye have at My hand.” The “candle of the wicked shall be put out.” All their lamps, however luminous, shall be quenched in a midnight, without a ray of moon or star. (Homilist.)

Darkness the element of trial

What is it that is tried in us? Even the same which, it has pleased God to promise, shall be rewarded in us, if we bold it fast—our faith in Christ. And this consists of several parts; which, however, may be summed up in three heads—

1. Belief in what He has revealed to us.

2. Belief in what He has promised to us.

3. Belief in what He has required of us. But the text calls our attention particularly to the two latter, as arising out of the former; and in the particular shape of obedience to His commands; and trust in His care of us.

But it is plain, that if we are thus tried, there must be the possibility of a different result. There must be a choice; a choice between doing right and doing wrong; between the things which we see and the things which we do not sea; between acting for ourselves, and trusting in God to act for us. And accordingly, the text goes on to set before us the other class of persons, who find themselves in the same darkness and perplexity, but seek a different way out of it. “Behold, all ye that kindle a fire,” etc. These are the men of the world, the prudent ones; those who will not venture, but will make sure of everything! They will not be kept in the dark! (R. Scott, M.A.)

The prophet’s sublimity and sarcasm

As the holy prophet, here, addresses himself to two very different sorts of men, whom he accordingly describes by two very opposite characters; so he varies his manner of expression, in just proportion to the figure which they make. To the one, his style is serious, and sublime, and full of enlivening encouragement; equal to the dignity of the holy rule they walk by: to the other, like their own way of thinking, disdainful, and sarcastical; laughing at their foolish devices, their unsuccessful projects, and mocking at the bitter calamity, which, with all their conceited wisdom, in the end, they bring upon themselves. (L. Blackburne, D.D.)

Light in darkness: true and false

In every time of distress or doubt, in every dark, perplexed, and gloomy season, it is as reasonable, as it is natural for every man, who is not wholly lost to all sense or foresight, to cast about, and to look out for any glimpse of light that may suffice to guide him through it. This is a turn which every thinking man will find his mind must surely take in any present misery, or visibly approaching danger. But, here, the righteous and the wicked part asunder; and persevering in the different routes they take, they come no more together.

I. THE ONLY TRUE SECURITY, IN TIMES OF AFFLICTION OR DANGER, IS IN THE WAY OF DUTY.

II. THERE IS NO WILFUL DEVIATION FROM IT, THAT DOES NOT LEAD TO DESTRUCTION. (L. Blackburne, D. D.) He who endured the hiding of His Father’s countenance when bearing our sins, bids you “stay” on Him as your God. What an illustration of Isa_42:16! (E. Avriol, M.A.)

Encouragement and warning

I. COMFORT is here spoken to disconsolate saints, and they are encouraged to trust in God’s grace.

II. CONVICTION is here spoken to presuming sinners, and they are warned not to trust in themselves. (M. Henry.)

Unwilling darkness

The peculiarity of the case of those here stated is, that it is an unwilling darkness. (J. R. Macduff, D.D.)

F.W. Robertson’s experience and counsel

Very instructive in this regard is the experience recorded by Frederick W. Robertson, of his striving toward the light, in that terrible spiritual conflict which he fought out among the solitudes of the Tyrol. In one of his letters written there he says: “Some things I am certain of, and these are my Ursachen, which cannot be taken away from me. I have got so far as this: Moral goodness and moral beauty are, realities, lying at the basis and beneath all forms of the

best religious expressions. And, generalizing from his own case, he thus addressed the working-men of Brighton: “It is an awful hour—let him who has passed through it say how awful—when this life has lost its meaning and seems shrivelled into a span; when the grave appears to be the end of all, human goodness nothing but a name, and the sky above this universe a dead expanse, black with the void from which God Himself has disappeared. In that fearful loneliness of spirit, when those who should have been his friends and counsellors only frown upon his misgivings and profanely bid him stifle his doubts, I know but one way in which a man may come forth from his agony scatheless; it is by holding fast to those things which are certain still—the grand, simple landmarks of morality. In the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this, at least, is certain. If there be no God and no future state, yet even then it is better to be generous than selfish; better to be chaste than licentious; better to be true than false; better to be brave than to be a coward. Blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the man who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul, has dared to hold fast these venerable landmarks. Thrice blessed is he who, when all is cheerless within and without, when the teachers terrify him and his friends shrink from him, has obstinately clung to moral good. Thrice blessed, because his night shall pass into clear, bright day.”

Melancholy Christians

Serious Christians are apt to be melancholy ones, and those who fear always to fear too much. (M. Henry.)

Looking Godwards

Believe in God—if only by way of experiment, and for a moment—with all perplexing questions imperially commanded for a time into silence; believe, I mean, in One worthy to be God, the Best conceivable, all that a God ought to be; then remember how such a One has all time and all resources at His command; that He must necessarily be working on a vast scale; and then believe that you, as a living part of one living whole, are necessarily cared for and included in His all-perfect plan. The experiment is, at least, a pleasant one, and quits within our power; and I should not wonder if, in the temporary belief, the idea became as light, which evidences itself, and needs no proof but itself that it is light. (H. H. Dobney.)

God in “the thick darkness:”

Do not fear to draw near, like Moses, even “to the thick darkness,” for God is there. Out of the night is born the morning, and chaos comes before the kosmos. (H. H. Dobney.)

“Polish up the dark side:”

“Look on the bright side,” said a young man to a friend, who was discontented and melancholy. “But there is no bright side,” was his doleful reply. “Very well, then polish up the dark one,” said the young man promptly. (The New Age.)

Security in the darkness of life

I remember once hearing a devout engine-driver relate his religious experience. He said: “The other night when I was on duty there was a dense fog; we could not see a yard before us, but I knew that the permanent way was under us, and every now and then we caught a glimpse of

some signal or other, and in time came safely to the journey’s end; so,” he said, “I know if I am true to the great commandments and promises, God will guide and bring me through.” In the darkest hours, when reason and experience utterly fail, remember that the permanent way is there; be true to the line of trust on one side, and obedience on the other, and God will vouchsafe you comforting signals, and in due season bring you to the appointed rest. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Spiritual darkness

The tree that waves its branches so freely in the great expanse and spreads out its leafy surface towards heaven, so eager for light and for heat, struck its root in secret underground, in great darkness and bondage. Take heed that you do not undervalue your time of spiritual darkness and conflict. The joy of eternity often strikes its root in very bitterness of spirit. Meekly fulfil all your groaning and patiently abide your time in darkness, “looking unto Jesus.” Do you know that you would not so painfully feel your darkness if the Holy Sunlight did not underlie it?

The diviner the sunlight at centre, the pain-fuller is the encompassing night. (J. Pulsford, D.D.)

Faith useful in dark days

On ancient churches we see the dial, the quaint invention of our fathers; but this is the pathetic failure of the dial, it is of use only as long as the sun shines. But what we want is the faith that helps us when it is dark, when disappointment lacerates the soul, when the grave is being dug, when trials lay us low, and when guilt darkens the day and puts the shutters up on the windows of the heart. (J. A. Davies, B. D.)

Facing Godwards

In the old myth, Orion whose eyes had been put out whilst he slept on the sea shore, recovered sight by gazing toward the rising sun. If our inner vision has been blinded, and all the grand truths and hopes of life lost to sight, let us turn our blind face toward heaven and keep it there, until He who looseth the bands of Orion turns for us the shadow of death into the morning. (W.L. Watkinson.)

Isaiah 50:11 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire

A child of darkness walking in light

By the “fire” and “the light of their fire” which wicked men are said to walk in, two things must be meant.

I. THEIR OWN NATURAL RIGHTEOUSNESS and the sparks and acts thereof.

II. THE LIGHT OF OUTWARD COMFORTS from the creatures, which in this world they enjoy, and the sparkling pleasures thereof which they walk in, and content themselves with, neglecting

communion with God, being estranged from the life of God, and living without Him in the world. (T. Goodwin, D.D.)

Sparks of our own kindling

Our mistake is, not that we seek happiness (for to do so is inherent in the constitution of our nature), but that we seek it from fictitious and artificial sources, which are not naturally calculated to yield it. The many fictitious sources, from which men seek to derive happiness, are compared to a fire kindled, and sparks struck out, by way of relieving the darkness of the night. It is, of course, implied in the metaphor, that true happiness, the real and adequate complement of man’s nature, resembles the Divinely-created and golden sunlight.

I. THIS COMPARISON DOES NOT LEAD US TO DENY THAT PLEASURE AND GRATIFICATION OF A CERTAIN KIND ARE DERIVABLE FROM WORLDLY SOURCES. Just as man can relieve himself in great measure from the discomfort and inconvenience of natural darkness, by kindling a fire and surrounding himself with sparks, so can he alleviate, to a certain extent, the instinctive sense of disquietude and dissatisfaction, so irksome to him at intervals of leisure, by the various enjoyments which life has to offer.

II. THE DRAWBACKS OF WORLDLY ENJOYMENTS.

1. Unsatisfactoriness inheres in their very nature, inasmuch as they are all more or less artificial. They are miserable substitutes, which man has set up to stand him in stead of that true happiness, which is congenial to his nature, and adapted to his wants. The light of the sun is nature’s provision for man. That light answers all the purposes for which light is required, far more beautifully, as well as far more simply, than the most splendid artificial illumination. But the shedding abroad of the golden sunlight is not dependent on man’s will, or within the compass of his ability. Effectually to remove the pall of darkness from the face of nature, and to spread the morning upon the mountains, is the prerogative of the Divine Being. Whereas in the alleviation of the darkness, man has a share. He can kindle a fire, and compass himself about with sparks. During the period of the sun’s absence, he can replace his light, by the sorry substitute of torch and taper. The glare, however, which these shed around, is not like the genial, cheering, cherishing light, which proceeds from the great luminary which rules the day. It exercises no quickening influence on vegetable life,—its clear shining brings not out the bloom and perfume of the flower, nor the verdure of the tender grass, nor sends a thrill of joy through the whole realm of nature. Now, every fact which has here been stated, in regard to things natural, finds its counterpart in things spiritual.

2. The fitful character of the enjoyment derived from worldly sources renders it comparable to a fire and sparks struck out. The glow of a kindled fire is not equable. It casts a flickering and uncertain light, now smouldering beneath the fuel which feeds it, now bursting forth into bright and vivid flashes. Thus it presents us with a lively emblem of worldly joy, which is subject to repeated alternations of revival and decay, and whose high pitch can be sustained, only for a very short period of time. Not so the peace and pleasantness derived from walking with God. If it be not a light so dazzling as that which is sometimes shed abroad by the kindled firebrands of worldly joys, it is at least subject to no such variations of lustre.

3. A fire requires continually to be fed with fresh fuel, if its brilliancy and warmth are to be maintained. Hence it becomes an apt emblem of the delusive joy of this world, falsely called happiness, which is only kept alive in the worldling’s heart by the fuel of excitement.

4. But perhaps the chief drawback of the worldling’s so-called happiness is that it is consistent with so much anxiety—that it is subject to frequent intrusions from alarm,

whenever a glimpse of the future untowardly breaks in upon the mind. And possibly this feature of it too is symbolized in the prophetic imagery, which is here employed to denote it. It is in the night-time, when the kindled fire glows upon the hearth, and man pursues his employments by the light of torch and taper, that apprehensions visit his mind, and phantom forms are conjured up which scare the ignorant and the superstitious. Would that the forebodings of the worldling were equally groundless with the fears of the superstitious! What makes the Christian’s joy so intrinsically preferable to his, is that it can endure the survey of the hour of death, and of the day of judgment. (E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.)

False religions

I. MAN CREATES THEM. “Ye have kindled the fires.” What are they? There are at least five false religions that prevail in Christendom, and under the name of Christianity.

1. The religion of creed. A sound creed is essential to a sound religion, but is not itself a sound religion.

2. The religion of moods. Desires for heaven, dread of hell, sensuous sympathy with Christ’s sufferings, these are the religious “sparks.”

3. The religion of ordinance.

4. The religion of proxyism. Many are depending upon services.

5. The religion of merit. All these are false religions prevalent amongst us, as man is the creator of them.

II. HEAVEN ALLOWS THEM. “Walk in the light,” etc.

1. The permission is strange.

2. The permission is significant.

(1) It shows God’s respect for that freedom with which He has endowed human nature.

(2) It suggests that in giving the Gospel, He has given all that is necessary for man to get the right religion.

III. MISERY FOLLOWS THEM. “This shall ye have at My hands,” etc Death will put out all false light from the soul. Who shall imagine the “sorrow” that follows the extinction of all the religious lights of the soul!

1. There is the sorrow of bitter disappointment;

2. of poignant remorse;

3. of black despair. All hopes of improvement gone. No religion will beam on with increased radiance up to and beyond the grave for ever, but the religion of Christ. (Homilist.).

5 The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears;

I have not been rebellious,

I have not turned away.

1.BARNES, “The Lord God hath opened mine ear - This is another expression denoting that he was attentive to the import of the divine commission (see Psa_40:6).

And I was not rebellious - I willingly undertook the task of communicating the divine will to mankind. The statement here is in accordance with all that is said of the Messiah, that he was willing to come and do the will of God, and that whatever trials the work involved he was prepared to meet them (see Psa_40:6-8; compare Heb_10:4-10).

2.CLARKE, “Neither turned away back “Neither did I withdraw myself

backward” - Eleven MSS. and the oldest edition prefix the conjunction ו vau; and so also the

Septuagint and Syriac.

3. GILL, “The Lord God hath opened mine ear,.... To hear most freely, and receive most fully, what is said by him, and to observe and do it: the allusion seems to be to the servant that had his ears bored, being willing to serve his master for ever, Exo_21:5 which phrase of boring or opening the ear is used of Christ, Psa_40:6. It is expressive of his voluntary obedience, as Mediator, to his divine Father, engaging in, and performing with the greatest readiness and cheerfulness, the great work of man's redemption and salvation. And I was not rebellious; not to his earthly parents, to whom he was subject; nor to civil magistrates, to whom he paid tribute; nor to God, he always did the things that pleased him: he was obedient to the precepts of the moral law, and to the penalty of it, death itself, and readily submitted to the will of God in suffering for his people; which obedience of his was entirely free and voluntary, full, complete, and perfect, done in the room and stead of his people; is the measure of their righteousness, and by which they become righteous; is well pleasing to God, and infinitely preferable to the obedience of men and angels: neither turned away back; he did not decline the work proposed to him, but readily engaged in it; he never stopped in it, or desisted from it, until he had finished it; he did not hesitate about it, as Moses and Jeremy; or flee from it, as Jonah.

4. HENRY, “As a patient sufferer, Isa_50:5, Isa_50:6. One would think that he who was commissioned and qualified to speak comfort to the weary should meet with no difficulty in his work, but universal acceptance. It is however quite otherwise; he has both hard work to do and hard usage to undergo; and here he tells us with what undaunted constancy he went through with it. We have no reason to question but that the prophet Isaiah went on resolutely in the work to which God had called him, though we read not of his undergoing any such hardships as are here supposed; but we are sure that the prediction was abundantly verified in Jesus Christ: and here we have, 1. His patient obedience in his doing work. “The Lord God has not only wakened my ear to hear what he says, but has opened my ear to receive it, and comply with it” (Psa_40:6, Psa_40:7, My ear hast thou opened; then said I, Lo, I come); for when he adds, I was not rebellious, neither turned away back, more is implied than expressed - that he was willing, that though he foresaw a great deal of difficulty and discouragement, though he was to take pains and give constant attendance as a servant, though he was to empty himself of that which was very great and humble himself to that which was very mean, yet he did not fly off, did not fail, nor was discouraged. He continued very free and forward to his work even when he came to the hardest part of it. Note, As a good understanding in the truths of God, so a good will to the work and service of God, is from the grace of God. 2. His obedient patience in his suffering work. I call it obedient patience because he was patient with an eye to his Father's will, thus pleading with himself, This commandment have I received of my Father, and thus submitting to God, Not as I will, but as thou wilt. In this submission he resigned himself, (1.) To be scourged: I gave my back to the smiters; and that not only by submitting to the indignity when he was smitten, but by permitting it (or admitting it rather) among the other instances of pain and shame which he would voluntarily undergo for us. (2.) To be buffeted: I gave my cheeks to those that not only smote them, but plucked off the hair of the beard, which was a greater degree both of pain and of ignominy. (3.) To be spit upon: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. He could have hidden his face from it, could have avoided it, but he would not, because he was made a reproach of men, and thus he would answer to the type of Job, that man of sorrows, of whom it is said that they smote him on the cheek reproachfully (Job_16:10), which was an expression not only of contempt, but of abhorrence and indignation. All this Christ underwent for us, and voluntarily, to convince us of his willingness to save us.

5. JAMISON, “opened ... ear — (See on Isa_42:20; Isa_48:8); that is, hath made me obediently attentive (but Maurer, “hath informed me of my duty”), as a servant to his master (compare Psa_40:6-8, with Phi_2:7; Isa_42:1; Isa_49:3, Isa_49:6; Isa_52:13; Isa_53:11; Mat_20:28; Luk_22:27).

not rebellious — but, on the contrary, most willing to do the Father’s will in proclaiming and procuring salvation for man, at the cost of His own sufferings (Heb_10:5-10).

6. K&D, “His calling is to save, not to destroy; and for this calling he has Jehovah as a teacher, and to Him he has submitted himself in docile susceptibility and immoveable obedience. Isa_50:5 “The Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear; and I, I was not rebellious, and did not turn back.” He put him into a position inwardly to discern His will, that he might

become the mediator of divine revelation; and he did not set himself against this calling (ma'ra'h,

according to its radical meaning stringere, to make one's self rigid against any one, 1ντιτείνειν), and did not draw back from obeying the call, which, as he well knew, would not bring him

earthly honour and gain, but rather shame and ill-treatment. Ever since he had taken the path of his calling, he had not drawn timidly back from the sufferings with which it was connected, but had rather cheerfully taken them upon him. V.6 “I offered my back to smiters, and my cheeks to them that pluck off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” He offered his back to

such as smote it, his cheeks to such as plucked out the hair of his beard (ma'rat as in Neh_13:25).

He did not hide his face, to cover it up from actual insults, or from being spit upon (on kelimmo�th

with ro�q, smiting on the cheek, κολαφίζειν, strokes with rods, Kαπίζειν, blows upon the head, τύπ

τειν�εMς�τNν�κεφαλήν with Pµπτύειν, compare Mat_26:67; Mat_27:30; Joh_18:22). The way of his

calling leads through a shameful condition of humiliation. What was typified in Job (see Isa_30:10; Isa_17:6), and prefigured typically and prophetically in the Psalms of David (see Psa_22:7; Psa_69:8), finds in him its perfect antitypical fulfilment.

7. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “The Lord hath opened mine ear. Some understand this of the boring

of the ear for perpetual service (Psa_40:6; Exo_21:6); but it is perhaps better to regard it as intended to

mark a contrast between the true Servant and the professed servants, or children of Israel. They "did not

hear; their ear was not opened; they were treacherous and rebellious from the womb" (Isa_48:8). His ear

was opened to receive God's word perpetually; he was not rebellious, did not turn away back. Even when

most tried, his final word was, "Not my will, but thine, be done" (Luk_22:42).

8. CALVIN, “5.The Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear. He again repeats what he had formerly said,

and here includes everything that belongs to the office of a teacher; for the “ of the ear” must be

understood to refer not only to doctrine, but to the whole calling; that is, when he takes one to be his

servant, and intbrms of his duty him whom he has determined to send, when he gives commands, and

enjoins him to execute what he commands. But the Lord “ the ear,” not only when he declares what is his

will, but when he powerfully affects a man’ heart and moves him to render obedience, as it is said,

“ hast bored mine ear.” (Psa_40:6.)

And Christ says,

“ hath heard and learned from the Father cometh to me.”

(Joh_6:45.)

Such is also the import of the second clause, And I was not rebellious, the meaning of which may be thus

summed up: “ undertakes nothing at random, but, being fully convinced of God’ calling, he discharges the

office of a teacher, though it is laborious and difficult, because he is ready to obey.”

9. CHARLES SIMEON, “MESSIAH’S SUFFERINGS AND SUPPORT

Isa_50:5-9. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I

gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from

shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I

set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifieth me; who will

contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me. Behold, the

Lord God will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth

shall eat them up.

IN considering the prophecies, we often find, that the mystical or prophetical sense is in reality the most

literal; and that on some occasions, however the prophets may appear to speak of themselves, their

words have little, if any, reference to themselves, and must be understood in reference to the Messiah

alone. This is particularly observable in the passage before us. We may indeed suppose the prophet very

remotely to speak of his own ministry, and to hint at his own trials and consolations: but it is obvious, that

the expressions cannot with any propriety be applied in their stricter sense to any but the Messiah, in

whom they were most literally fulfilled. The prophet Isaiah, it is true, was more fully instructed in divine

truth than any other of the prophets; and he abounds more in consolatory promises to the weary and

heavy-laden [Note: ver. 4.]: but still we are constrained to pass him over, as having no sufficient ground to

be noticed in the words before us; and we must fix our attention conclusively on the Messiah, of whom

they speak. We notice in them,

I. His sufferings—

These were indeed both great and various—

[Not to enter into the consideration of them at large, we shall notice only those which are here brought to

our view.

“He gave his back to the smiters.” Scourging was no part of the punishment of those who were crucified.

The thieves who were crucified with our Lord, were not scourged: and he was scourged in order to

prevent his crucifixion [Note: Joh_19:1; Joh_19:4-6; Joh_19:10; Joh_19:12; Joh_19:15.]. But a great

variety of things which had no necessary connexion with each other, yea, and some which could not,

except by a miraculous interposition, be combined together, were to meet in him: though therefore he was

to be crucified, (which yet was not a Jewish, but a Roman punishment,) he was also to be scourged: and

most cruelly, as another prophecy declares, was this punishment inflicted on him, “the plowers plowing

upon his back, and making long furrows there [Note: Psa_129:3.].”

“He gave his cheeks also to them that plucked off the hair.” When the ambassadors of David were, by the

command of the king of Ammon, deprived of half their beards, they considered it as so great an indignity,

that they were quite ashamed; and they were ordered to tarry at Jericho till their beards were grown

[Note: 2Sa_10:4-5.]. But the indignity offered to our Lord was united with much cruelty: for they

blindfolded him, and smote him with their hands, and plucked off the hair from his face, and insultingly

asked, “Prophesy, thou Christ; Who is it that smote thee [Note: Luk_22:63-64.]?”

But besides the scourging, and plucking off his hair, we are told, They spat in his face; “He hid not his

face from shame and spitting.” Now in Eastern countries it is deemed an insult even to spit upon the

ground in the presence of another: what then must it be to spit in his face? If a person would be so

degraded by it as to be rendered fit to be excluded from the camp of Israel [Note: Num_12:14.], what an

inconceivable humiliation was it to the Son of God to be so treated! Yet thus he was treated, both in the

palace of the high priest, and in Pilate’s judgment-hall, and that too by the lowest of the populace. How

amazing it is, that, when Uzzah had been struck dead upon the spot for only touching the ark, which was

a symbol of the Deity, such during offenders as these, who so insulted the incarnate Deity himself, should

escape, as it were, with impunity! But such were the sufferings which, as our Surety, Jesus was ordained

to bear; and they all came upon him in due season.]

But he willingly undertook to sustain them all—

[Because in the verse preceding our text the “wakening of his car” is mentioned, it is generally supposed

that the expression of “opening his ear” is of exactly the same import. But we apprehend that the former

expression refers to his preparation for his great office, and the latter to the engagement which he

made to sustain and execute it. In this view there is a peculiar importance in it, especially as introducing

the account of all his sufferings; and it is exactly parallel to a passage in the Psalms, where the same

subject is treated of [Note: Compare Psa_40:6-8 and Heb_10:5-7. with Exo_21:6.]. David, beyond a

doubt, refers to the appointment of God, that the slave, who, instead of claiming his liberty at the sabbatic

year, should choose to continue in his master’s service, should have his ear bored to the door-post with

an awl by his master, and should never afterwards be free. Thus our blessed Lord undertook to execute

all that was necessary for our redemption; and submitted, as it were, to have “his ear opened,” in token

that he would never recede from his engagements. Accordingly we find, that, in the most trying

circumstances, he “never turned back;” but, on the contrary, when the time for enduring them was arrived,

“he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem [Note: Luk_9:51.].” It is true, he prayed for the removal of

the bitter cup, if men could possibly be saved without his drinking it: but at the same time he submitted to

drink it, saying, “Not my will, but thine, be done [Note: Mat_26:39.].” And again, when so oppressed in

spirit that he knew not what to do, he said, “And now, Father, what shall I say? Save me from this hour?

No: for this cause came I unto this hour: Father, glorify thy name [Note: Joh_12:27-28.].” At the time of his

apprehension in the garden, he proved, by striking all his enemies to the ground with a word, that he

could, it he chose, deliver himself from them: but he then meekly gave himself up into their hands,

requiring only the peaceful dismission of his servants [Note: Joh_18:4-8.]. Thus manifestly did he shew

that all his sufferings were voluntary, and that he endured them all in obedience to his Father’s will

[Note: Php_2:8.].] But in this same prophecy we have occasion to notice,

II. His supports—

In the whole of his Mediatorial work he acted as the servant of the Father [Note: Isa_49:3. Joh_14:31.]; in

whom he confided, and by whom he was assured of,

1. Effectual succour—

[The Father had promised to uphold him under all his sufferings [Note: Isa_42:1; Isa_42:6 and at

large: Psa_89:19-29.] — — — and on this promise he relied. Behold, how repeatedly, and with what

assurance he asserts, “The Lord God will help me!” and with what triumph he defies his bitterest enemies;

“Who will contend with me? let us stand together: Who is mine adversary? let him come near to me:” I

fear none of their accusations; for “He is near that justifieth me.” I dread not any sentence of theirs; for I

know that they cannot finally prevail against me; “I know that I shall not be ashamed or confounded:” My

“strength shall be according to my day;” and therefore, “I set my face as a flint” against all the powers

both of earth and hell. Yes, this assurance comforted and strengthened him, under all his trials; “I have

set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved [Note: Psa_16:8.].”

Hence arose that calmness and composure which so astonished Pilate: “How is it that thou wilt not

answer me a word: knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and power to release thee?” No,

says our Lord; “thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above.”]

2. A triumphant issue—

[Already did he see his enemies vanquished, even when they supposed themselves to have triumphed

over him: he saw that in every conflict he should be victorious: and that even his deepest humiliations

should be attended with unquestionable demonstrations of his righteous character. In the midst of his

trial, his very Judge was constrained to proclaim his innocence: and, whilst he yet hanged upon the cross,

both heaven and earth bare testimony to him as a suffering God. At the appointed season, after his

dissolution, he was “proved to be the Son of God with power, by his resurrection from the dead.” His

ascension also to the right hand of God in the presence of his disciples, and his sending down the Holy

Ghost to testify of him, effectually removed the scandal of his cross, and proved him to be the true

Messiah, the Saviour of the world. All this he foresaw; and the foresight of it enabled him to sustain the

accumulated load of all his sufferings. He foresaw that his enemies would all “wax old as a garment, and

that the very moth should eat them up;” whilst he and his cause should live for ever. And what now is

become of the chief priests and elders, or of Pilate his judge? Yea, what is become of the Jewish nation

itself, and of the whole Roman empire? They are all vanished: but “Christ liveth, and is alive for

evermore;” and his kingdom is established in the world, and shall shortly be extended over the face of the

whole earth. The prospect of this, I say, supported our adorable Emmanuel through all his sufferings; as

an inspired Apostle also has informed us: it was “for the joy that was set before him,” of ransoming and

saving a ruined world, “he endured the cross, and despised the shame;” and “he is now set down on the

right hand of the throne of God [Note: Heb_12:2.].”]

Let us now pause, and contemplate this holy sufferer,

1. As the predicted Saviour of the world—

[What was there in the whole book of prophecy which he did not fulfil? However contradictory in

appearance the predictions were, every, the minutest of them, has been accomplished in him. He did not

give up the ghost till he could say, in reference to them all, “It is finished.” The particulars mentioned in

our text we see recorded in the Gospels: we see also the steadfastness with which he pursued his

course, and the complete triumph of his cause in the world. Let us look to him then as the appointed

Saviour: let us assure ourselves that he is able to save us to the uttermost. Let our confidence be in him,

as his was in his Father: “let us live by him, as he lived by his Father:” and let us not doubt, but that,

through the merit of his blood and the efficacy of his grace, we shall triumph even as he has triumphed,

and be partakers of his kingdom and glory for evermore.]

2. As the great pattern of all holy obedience—

[In the whole of his life, and especially in his sufferings, he was intended to be a pattern and example to

us [Note: 1Pe_2:21. Heb_12:3.]. What if we be not treated precisely as he was, in scourging, and smiting,

and spitting, we may be assured that we shall in some respect or other have both shame and suffering to

endure for him. All his followers are, and must be, cross-bearers: “if men called the Master Beelzebub,

much more will they those of his household.” Let us therefore “arm ourselves with the mind that was in

him [Note: 1Pe_4:1.]:” and especially let us maintain the same holy confidence in our God. This is

assuredly both our duty and our privilege [Note: Rom_8:33-39. Mark the peculiar correspondence of this

passage with the text, both in spirit and expression.]; and we may comfort ourselves with this reflection,

that, “if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified together.”]

6 I offered my back to those who beat me,

my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;

I did not hide my face

from mocking and spitting.

1.BARNES, “I gave my back to the smiters - I submitted willingly to be scourged, or whipped. This is one of the parts of this chapter which can be applied to no other one but the Messiah. There is not the slightest evidence, whatever may be supposed to have been the probability, that Isaiah was subjected to any such trial as this, or that he was scourged in a public manner. Yet it was literally fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ (Mat_27:26; compare Luk_18:33).

And my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair - literally, ‘My cheeks to hose who

pluck, or pull.’ The word used here (מרט ma�ratʖ) means properly to polish, to sharpen, to make

smooth; then to make smooth the head, to make bald; that is, to pluck out the hair, or the beard. To do this was to offer the highest insult that could be imagined among the Orientals. The beard is suffered to grow long, and is regarded as a mark of honor. Nothing is regarded as more infamous than to cut it off (see 2Sa_10:4), or to pluck it out; and there is nothing which an Oriental will sooner resent than an insult offered to his beard. ‘It is a custom among the Orientals, as well among the Greeks as among other nations, to cultivate the beard with the utmost care and solicitude, so that they regard it as the highest possible insult if a single hair of the beard is taken away by violence.’ (William of Tyre, an eastern archbishop, Gesta Dei, p. 802, quoted in Harmer, vol. ii. p. 359.) It is customary to beg by the beard, and to swear by the beard. ‘By your beard; by the life of your beard; God preserve your beard; God pour his blessings on your beard,’ - are common expressions there. The Mahometans have such a respect for the board that they think it criminal to shave (Harmer, vol. ii. p. 360). The Septuagint renders this,

‘I gave my cheeks to buffering’ (εMς�Kαπίσµα eis rapisma); that is, to being smitten with the open

hand, which was literally fulfilled in the case of the Redeemer Mat_26:67; Mar_14:65. The general sense of this expression is, that he would be treated with the highest insult.

I hid not my face from shame and spitting - To spit on anyone was regarded among the Orientals, as it is everywhere else, as an expression of the highest insult and indignity Deu_25:9; Num_12:14; Job_30:10. Among the Orientals also it was regarded as an insult - as it should be everywhere - to spit in the presence of any person. Thus among the Medes, Herodotus (i. 99) says that Deioces ordained that, ‘to spit in the king’s presence, or in the presence of each other, was an act of indecency.’ So also among the Arabians, it is regarded as an offence (Niebuhr’s

Travels, i. 57). Thus Monsieur d’Arvieux tells us (Voydans la Pal. p. 140) ‘the Arabs are sometimes disposed to think, that when a person spits, it is done out of contempt; and that they never do it before their superiors’ (Harmer, iv. 439). This act of the highest indignity was performed in reference to the Redeemer Mat_26:67; Mat_27:30; and this expression of their contempt he bore with the utmost meekness. This expression is one of the proofs that this entire passage refers to the Messiah. It is said Luk_17:32 that the prophecies should be fulfilled by his being spit upon, and yet there is no other prophecy of the Old Testament but this which contains such a prediction.

2.CLARKE, “And my cheeks to them that plunked off the hair - The greatest indignity that could possibly be offered. See the note on Isa_7:20 (note).

I hid not my face from shame and spitting - Another instance of the utmost contempt and detestation. It was ordered by the law of Moses as a severe punishment, carrying with it a lasting disgrace; Deu_25:9. Among the Medes it was highly offensive to spit in any one’s presence, Herod. 1:99; and so likewise among the Persians, Xenophon, Cyrop. Lib. i., p. 18.

“They abhor me; they flee far from me; They forbear not to spit in my face.”

Job_30:10.

“And Jehovah said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days?” Num_22:14. On which place Sir John Chardin remarks, that “spitting before any one, or spitting upon the ground in speaking of any one’s actions, is through the east an expression of extreme detestation.” - Harmer’s Observ. 2:509. See also, of the same notions of the Arabs in this respect, Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 26. It so evidently appears that in those countries spitting has ever been an expression of the utmost detestation, that the learned doubt whether in the passages of Scripture above quoted any thing more is meant than spitting, - not in the face, which perhaps the words do not necessarily imply, - but only in the presence of the person affronted. But in this place it certainly means spitting in the face; so it is understood in St. Luke, where our Lord plainly refers to this prophecy: “All things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished; for he shall be

delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated, and spitted on, εµπτυσθη

σεται, “Luk_18:31, Luk_18:32, which was in fact fulfilled; και�ηρξεαντο�τινες�εµπτυειν�αυτT, “and

some began to spit on him,” Mar_14:65, Mar_15:19. If spitting in a person’s presence was such an indignity, how much more spitting in his face?

3. GILL, “I gave my back to the smiters,.... To Pontius Pilate, and those he ordered to scourge him, Mat_27:26. and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; of the beard; which, is painful, so a

great indignity and affront. The Septuagint renders it, "and my cheeks to blows"; εις�ραπισµατα, a word used by the evangelists when they speak of Christ being smitten and stricken with the palms of men's hands, and seem to refer to this passage, Mar_14:65,

I hid not my face from shame and spitting; or from shameful spitting; they spit in his face, and exposed him to shame, and which was a shameful usage of him, and yet he took it patiently, Mat_26:67, these are all instances of great shame and reproach; as what is more reproachful among us, or more exposes a man, than to be stripped of his clothes, receive lashes on his bare back, and that in public? in which ignominious manner Christ was used: or what reckoned more scandalous, than for a man to have his beard plucked by a mob? which used to be done by rude and wanton boys, to such as were accounted idiots, and little better than brutes (x); and nothing is more affronting than to spit in a man's face. So Job was used, which he mentions as a great indignity done to him, Job_30:10. With some people, and in some countries, particular places, that were mean and despicable, were appointed for that use particularly to spit in. Hence Aristippus the philosopher, being shown a fine room in a house, beautifully and richly paved, spat in the face of the owner of it; at which he being angry, and resenting it, the philosopher replied, that he had not a fitter place to spit in (y).

4. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “I gave my back to the smiters (see Isa_53:5, ad fin.; and

comp. Mat_26:67; Mat_27:26; Joh_19:1). My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. This is a detail

not historically recorded by the evangelists; but it may have had a literal fulfilment. Plucking off the hair

was not unknown to the Jews as a punishment (see Neh_13:25). I hid not my face from shame and

spitting (see Mat_26:67; Mat_27:30). Spitting in the East marked at once contempt and abhorrence. It is

a practice which continues to the present day.

4B. PULPIT, “Contumely endured in God's service.

This is part of a soliloquy of Messiah, and in it he dwells upon the sufferings which would attend his effort

to carry out obediently his Divine mission; and upon his confidence that God would uphold his Servant

through all the suffering and shame. This passage should be compared with Psa_22:1-31 and Psa_53:1-

6. The point more especially presented in this verse is the insult offered to Christ in the closing scenes of

his life. This insult seems the strangest part of our Lord's life-experience; but, if he had not known it, he

could not have been "in all points tempted like us." The scenes here prophesied are narrated

in Mat_26:67, Mat_26:68; Mat_27:26-30; Mar_14:65; Mar_15:15-20; Luk_22:63-

65; Luk_23:11; Joh_18:22, Joh_18:23; Joh_19:1-3. Three forms of indignity are mentioned—smiting, or

scourging; plucking of hair; and spitting. Each must be estimated in the light of historical descriptions and

Eastern sentiments.

I. SCOURGING. The severity and barbarity of a Roman scourging has been brought out by Dr. C. Geikie,

who says," Jesus was now seized by some of the soldiers standing near, and, after being stripped to the

waist, was bound in a stooping posture, his hands behind his back to a post, or low pillar, near the

tribunal. He was then beaten till the soldiers chose to stop, with knots of rope or plaited leather thongs,

armed at the ends with acorn-shaped drops of lead, or small sharp-pointed bones. In many cases, not

only was the back of the person scourged cut open in all directions; even the eyes, the face, and the

breast were tern and cut, and the teeth not seldom knocked out. The judge stood by, to stimulate the

sinewy executioners by cries of 'Give it him!' but we may trust that Pilate, though his office required his

presence, spared himself this crime. Under the fury of the countless stripes, the victims sometimes sank,

amidst screams, convulsive leaps, and distortions, into a senseless heap; sometimes died on the spot;

sometimes were taken away, an unrecognizable mass of bleeding flesh, to find deliverance in death, from

the inflammation and fever, sickness and shame." Few New Testament readers duly appreciate the

sufferings which Messiah endured in the judgment-hall. The cross so fills their vision that they fail to see

how much he endured before the cross and its final strain and agony were reached.

II. PLUCKING THE HAIR. Easterns have great respect for the beard, and plucking it was as extremely

insulting as it was extremely painful. Eastern sentiment on this matter may be illustrated by the treatment

of David's ambassadors, one-half of whose beards were shaven off (2Sa_10:5). See also David's action

when he would feign madness.

III. SPITTING. This was the Eastern expression of contemptuous abhorrence; and so Job poetically

expresses his sense of the treatment he had received, by saying, "They abhor me, they flee far from me,

and spare not to spit in my face" (Job_30:10). Hanway, in his book of travels, says, "This instance of

contempt and reproach offered to Christ was at the same time an expression of malice and a compliance

with custom. The practice has descended to later generations; for in the year 1744, when a rebel prisoner

was laid before Nadir Shah's general, the soldiers were ordered to spit in his face—an indignity of great

antiquity in the East." And Gadsby tells us that "spitting in the face is still practised as a mark of contempt.

An officer in Cairo had two Circassian concubines who died suddenly. He charged his wife with being the

cause of their death, when she spat in his face. He drew his sabre and killed her. Mehemet All once spat

in the face of one of his officers, because he used his wife badly."

The practical application of the fact that Messiah bore such insults in doing his work may be made on the

following lines.

1. God's message, sent by us, may be an offence to men.

2. If it is, they will be very likely to persuade themselves that we are the offence.

3. And when they take up that notion, they will be sure to vent on us the feeling which they have against

the message. But this is apostolic consolation: "If ye be reproached for the Name of Christ, happy are ye;

for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you."—R.T.

5. JAMISON, “smiters — with scourges and with the open hand (Isa_52:14; Mar_14:65). Literally fulfilled (Mat_27:26; Mat_26:27; Luk_18:33). To “pluck the hair” is the highest insult that can be offered an Oriental (2Sa_10:4; Lam_3:30). “I gave” implies the voluntary nature of His sufferings; His example corresponds to His precept (Mat_5:39).

spitting — To spit in another’s presence is an insult in the East, much more on one; most of all in the face (Job_30:10; Mat_27:30; Luk_18:32).

6. MACLAREN, “THE SERVANT'S VOLUNTARY SUFFERINGS

Such words are not to be dealt with coldly. Unless they be grasped by the heart they are not grasped at all. We do not think of analysing in the presence of a great sorrow. There can be no greater dishonour to the name of Christ than an unemotional consideration of His sufferings for us. The hindrances to a due consideration of these are manifold; some arising from intellectual, and some from moral, causes. Most men have difficulty in vivifying any historical event so as to feel its reality. There is no nobler use of the historical imagination than to direct it to that great life and death on which the salvation of the world depends.

The prophet here has advanced from the first general conception of the Servant of the Lord as recipient of divine commission, and submissive to the divine voice, to thoughts of the sufferings which He would meet with on His path, and of how He bore them.

I. The sufferings of the Servant.

The minute particularity is very noteworthy, scourging, plucking the beard, shame, all sorts of taunts and buffets on the face, and the last indignity of spitting. Clearly, then, He is not only to suffer persecution, but is to be treated with insult and to endure that strange blending, so often seen, of grim infernal laughter with grim infernal fury, the hyena’s laugh and its ferocity. Wherever it occurs, it implies not only fell hate and cruelty, but also contempt and a horrible delight in triumphing over an enemy. It is found in all corrupt periods, and especially in religious persecutions. Here it implies the rejection of the Servant.

The prophecy was literally fulfilled, but not in all its traits. This may give a hint as to the general interpretation of prophecy and may teach that external fulfilment only points to a deeper correspondence. The most salient instance is in Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem riding on an ass, which was but a finger-post to guide men’s thoughts to His fulfilling the ideal of the Messianic King. And yet, the minute correspondences are worth noticing. What a strange, solemn glimpse they give into that awful divine omniscience, and into the mystery of the play of the vilest passions as being yet under control in their extremest rage!

We must note the remarkable prominence in the narratives of the Passion, of signs of contempt and mockery; Judas’ kiss, the purple robe, the crown of thorns, ‘wagging their heads,’ ‘let be, let Elias come,’ etc.

Think of the exquisite pain of this to Christ. That He was sinless and full of love made it all the worse to bear. Not the physical pain, but the consciousness that He was encompassed by such an atmosphere of evil, was the sharpest pang. We should think with reverent sympathy of His perfect discernment of the sinful malignant hearts from which the sufferings came, of His pained and rejected love thrown back on itself, of His clear sight of what their heartless infliction of tortures would end in for the inflicters, of His true human feeling which shrank from being the object of contempt and execration.

II. His patient submission.

‘I gave,’-purely voluntary. That word originally expressed the patient submission with which He endured at the moment, when the lash scored His back, but it may be widened out to express Christ’s perfect voluntariness in all His passion. At any moment He could have abandoned His work if His filial obedience and His love to men had let Him do so. His would-be captors fell to the ground before one momentary flash of His majesty, and they could have laid no hand on Him, if His will had not consented to His capture. Fra Angelico has grasped the thought which the prophet here uttered, and which the evangelists emphasise, that all His suffering was voluntary, and that His love to us restrained His power, and led Him to the slaughter, silent as a sheep before her shearers. For he has pourtrayed the majestic figure seated in passive endurance, with eyes blindfolded but yet wide open behind the bandage, all-seeing, wistful, sad, and patient, while around are fragments of rods, and smiting hands, and a cruel face blowing spittle on the unshrinking cheeks. He seems to be saying: ‘These things hast thou done, and I kept silence.’ ‘Thou couldest have no power at all against Me unless it were given thee.’

III. His submission to suffering in obedience to the Father’s Will.

The context connects His opened ear and His not being rebellious with His giving His back to the smiters. That involves the idea that these indignities and insults were part of the divine counsel in reference to Him. That same combination of ideas is strongly presented in the early addresses of Peter, recorded in the first chapters of Acts, of which this is a specimen: ‘Him,

being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye with wicked hands have crucified and slain.’ The full significance of Christ’s passion as that of the atoning sacrifice was not yet clear to the apostle, any more than the Servant’s sufferings were to the prophet, but both prophet and apostle were carried on by fuller experience and reflection on what they already saw clearly, to discern the inwardness and depth of these. The one soon came to see that ‘by His stripes we are healed,’ and the other finally wrote: ‘Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.’ And whoever deeply ponders the startling fact that ‘it pleased the Lord to bruise Him,’ sinless and ever obedient as He was, will be borne, sooner or later, into the full sunlight of the blessed belief that when Jesus suffered and died, ‘He died for all.’ His sufferings were those of a martyr for truth, who is willing to die rather than cease to witness for it; but they were more. They were the sufferings of a lover of mankind who will face the extremest wrong that can be inflicted, rather than abandon His mission; but they were more. They were not merely the penalty which He had to pay for faithfulness to His work; they were themselves the crown and climax of His work. The Son of Man came, indeed, ‘not to be ministered to but to minister,’ but that, taken alone, is but a maimed view of what He came for, and we must whole-heartedly go on to say as He said, ‘and to give His life a ransom for many,’ if we would know the whole truth as to the sufferings of Jesus.

Again, since Christ suffers according to the will of God, it is clear that all representations of the scope of His atoning death, which represent it as moving the will of the Father to love and pardon, are travesties of the truth and turn cause into effect. God does not love, because Jesus died, but Jesus died because God loved.

Further, it is to be noted that His sufferings are the great means by which He sustains the weary. The word to which His ears were opened, morning by morning, was the word to which He was docile when He gave His back to the smiters. It is His passion, regarded as the sacrifice for a world’s sin, from which flow the most powerful stimulants to service and tonics for weary souls, the tenderest comfortings for sorrow. He sustains and comforts by the example of His life, but far more, and more sweetly, more mightily, by that which flows to us through His death. His sufferings are powerful to sustain, when thought of as our example, but they are a tenfold stronger source of patience and strength, when laid on our hearts as the price of our redemption. The Cross is, in all senses of the expression, the tree of life.

Wonder, reverence, love, gratitude, should well forth from our hearts, when we think of these cruel sufferings, but the deepest fountains in them will not be unsealed, unless we see in the suffering Servant the atoning Son.

7. CALVIN, “6.I exposed my body to the smiters. With the reproaches, jeers, and insolence of wicked

men, he contrasts the unshaken courage which he possesses; as if he had said that, “ resistancemay be

attempted by the despisers of God, yet he will baffle all their insults, so that he will never repent of the

labors which he has undertaken.” Yet this passage plainly shows that the ministers of the word cannot

perform their office faithfully without being exposed to a contest with the world, and even without being

fiercely assailed on all sides; for as soon as Isaiah says that he has obeyed the command of God, he

likewise adds that “ has exposed his body to the smiters.” The faithful servants of God, when they

administer the doctrine of the word, cannot escape from this condition, but must endure fights,

reproaches, hatred, slanders, and various attacks from adversaries, who loathe that liberty of advising

and reproving which it is necessary for them to use. Let them, therefore, arm themselves with

steadfastness and faith; for a dreadful battle is prepared for them. And not only does he describe the

persecutions of wicked men, but the reproach of the world; because wicked men desire to be thought to

have good cause for opposing the ministers of the word and persecuting their doctrine, and wish that

those ministers should be regarded as criminals and malefactors, and held up to universal hatred and

abhorrence. For these reasons they lead them with various slanders, and do not refrain from any kind of

reproach, as we know well enough by experience in the present day, when our adversaries call us

heretics, deceivers, seditious persons, and assail us with other slanders, which were also directed against

Christ and the Apostles. (Mat_27:63; Joh_7:12; Act_16:20.)

My face I did not hide from shame and spitting. He not only says that open and outward foes spat and

inflicted blows on him, but glances at the slanders which he is compelled to bear from foes who are within

and belong to the household; for out of the very bosom of the Church there always spring up wicked men

and despisers of God, who insolently attack the prophets. They who wish to serve God must be prepared

to endure all these things calmly, that they may walk through evil report and through good report,

(2Co_6:8,) and may despise not only banishment, stripes, imprisonment, and death, but likewise

reproaches and disgrace, though they may sometimes appear harder to endure than death itself. While

this doctrine belongs to all believers, it belongs especially to the teachers of the word, who ought to go

before others, and to be, as it were, standard-bearers.

7 Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,

I will not be disgraced.

Therefore have I set my face like flint,

and I know I will not be put to shame.

1.BARNES, “For the Lord God will help me - That is, he will sustain me amidst all these expressions of contempt and scorn.

Shall I not be confounded - Hebrew, ‘I shall not be ashamed;’ that is, I will bear all this with the assurance of his favor and protection, and I will not blush to be thus treated in a cause so glorious, and which must finally triumph and prevail.

Therefore have I set my face like a flint - To harden the face, the brow, the forehead, might be used either in a bad or a good sense - in the former as denoting shamelessness or haughtiness (see the note at Isa_48:4); in the latter denoting courage, firmness, resolution. It is used in this sense here; and it means that the Messiah would be firm and resolute amidst all the contempt and scorn which he would meet, and would not shrink from any kind or degree of

suffering which should be necessary to accomplish the great work in which he was engaged. A similar expression occurs in Eze_3:8-9 : ‘Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant, harder than a flint, have I made thy forehead; fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks.’

2.CLARKE, “Therefore have I set my face like a flint - The Prophet Ezekiel, Eze_2:8, Eze_2:9, has expressed this with great force in his bold and vehement manner:

“Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, And thy forehead strong against their foreheads: As an adamant, harder than a rock, have I made thy forehead; Fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, Though they be a rebellious house.”

3. GILL, “For the Lord God will help me,.... As he promised he would, and did, Psa_89:21, which is no contradiction to the deity of Christ, nor any suggestion of weakness in him; for he is the true God, and has all divine perfections in him; is equal to his Father in power, as well as in glory, and therefore equal to the work of redemption, as his other works show him to be; but this is to be understood of him as man, and expresses his strong faith and confidence in God, and in his promises as such; and in his human nature he was weak, and was crucified through weakness, and in it he was made strong by the Lord, and was held and upheld by him: and this shows the greatness of the work of man's redemption, that it was such that no mere creature could effect; even Christ as man needed help and assistance in it; and also the concern that all the divine Persons had in it: therefore shall I not be confounded; or "made ashamed" (z); though shamefully used, yet not confounded; so as to have nothing to say for himself, or so as to be ashamed of his work; which is perfect in itself, and well pleasing to God: therefore have I set my face like a flint: or like "steel" (a); or as an adamant stone, as some (b) render it; hardened against all opposition; resolute and undaunted; constant and unmoved by the words and blows of men; not to be browbeaten, or put out of countenance, by anything they can say or do. He was not dismayed at his enemies who came to apprehend him, though they came to him as a thief, with swords and staves; nor in the high priest's palace, nor in Pilate's hall, in both which places he was roughly used; nor at Satan, and his principalities and powers; nor at death itself, with all its terrors. And I know that I shall not be ashamed, neither of his ministry, which was with power and authority; nor of his miracles, which were proofs of his deity and Messiahship; nor of his obedience, which was pure, and perfect, and pleasing to God; nor of his sufferings, which were for the sake of his people; nor of the work of redemption and salvation, in which he was not frustrated nor disappointed of his end.

4. HENRY, “As a courageous champion, Isa_50:7-9. The Redeemer is as famous for his boldness as for his humility and patience, and, though he yields, yet he is more than a conqueror. Observe, 1. The dependence he has upon God. What was the prophet Isaiah's support was the support of Christ himself (v. 7): The Lord God will help me; and again, v. 9. Those whom God employs he will assist, and will take care they want not any help that they or their work call for. God, having laid help upon his Son for us, gave help to him, and his hand was all along with the man of his right hand. Nor will he only assist him in his work, but accept of him (v. 8): He is near that justifieth. Isaiah, no doubt, was falsely accused and loaded with reproach and calumny, as other prophets were; but he despised the reproach, knowing that God would roll it away and bring forth his righteousness as the light, perhaps in this world (Psa_37:6), at furthest in the great day, when there will be a resurrection of names as well as bodies, and the righteous shall shine forth as the morning sun. And so it was verified in Christ; by his resurrection he was proved to be not the man that he was represented, not a blasphemer, not a deceiver, not an enemy to Caesar. The judge that condemned him owned he found no fault in him; the centurion, or sheriff, that had charge of his execution, declared him a righteous man: so near was he that justified him. But it was true of him in a further and more peculiar sense: the Father justified him when he accepted the satisfaction he made for the sin of man, and constituted him the Lord our righteousness, who was made sin for us. He was justified in the Spirit, 1Ti_3:16. He was near who did it; for his resurrection, by which he was justified, soon followed his condemnation and crucifixion. He was straightway glorified, Joh_13:32. 2. The confidence he thereupon has of success in his undertaking: “If God will help me, if he will justify me, will stand by me and bear me out, I shall not be confounded, as those are that come short of the end they aimed at and the satisfaction they promised themselves: I know that I shall not be ashamed.” Though his enemies did all they could to put him to shame, yet he kept his ground, he kept his countenance, and was not ashamed of the work he had undertaken. Note, Work for God is work that we should not be ashamed of; and hope in God is hope that we shall not be ashamed of. Those that trust in God for help shall not be disappointed; they know whom they have trusted, and therefore know they shall not be ashamed. 3. The defiance which in this confidence he bids to all opposers and opposition: “God will help me, and therefore have I set my face like a flint.” The prophet did so; he was bold in reproving sin, in warning sinners (Eze_3:8, Eze_3:9), and in asserting the truth of his predictions. Christ did so; he went on in his work, as Mediator, with unshaken constancy and undaunted resolution; he did not fail nor was discouraged; and here he challenges all his opposers, (1.) To enter the lists with him: Who will contend with me, either in law or by the sword? Let us stand together as combatants, or as the plaintiff and defendant. Who is my adversary? Who is the master of my cause? so the word is, “Who will pretend to enter an action against me? Let him appear, and come near to me, for I will not abscond.” Many offered to dispute with Christ, but he put them to silence. The prophet speaks this in the name of all faithful ministers; those who keep close to the pure word of God, in delivering their message, need not fear contradiction; the scriptures will bear them out, whoever contends with them. Great is the truth and will prevail. Christ speaks this in the name of all believers, speaks it as their champion. Who dares be an enemy to those whom he is a friend to, or contend with those for whom he is an advocate? Thus St. Paul applies it (Rom_8:33): Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? (2.) He challenges them to prove any crime upon him (Isa_50:9): Who is he that shall condemn me? The prophet perhaps was condemned to die; Christ we are sure was; and yet both could say, Who is he that shall condemn? For there is no condemnation to those whom God justifies. There were those that did condemn them, but what became of them? They all shall wax old as a garment. The righteous cause of Christ and his prophets shall outlive all opposition. The moth shall eat them up silently and insensibly; a little thing will serve to destroy them. But the roaring lion himself shall not prevail against God's witnesses. All believers are enabled to make this challenge, Who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ that died.

5. JAMISON, “Sample of His not being “discouraged” (Isa_42:4; Isa_49:5).

set ... face like ... flint — set Myself resolutely, not to be daunted from My work of love by shame or suffering (Eze_3:8, Eze_3:9).

6. K&D, “But no shame makes him faint-hearted; he trusts in Him who hath called him, and looks to the end. “But the Lord Jehovah will help me; therefore have I not suffered myself to be overcome by mockery: therefore did I make my face like the flint, and knew that I should not

be put to shame.” The �ַו introduces the thought with which his soul was filled amidst all his

sufferings. In יVִלּא ִנְכָלְמ he affirms, that he did not suffer himself to be inwardly overcome and

overpowered by kelimma'h. The consciousness of his high calling remained undisturbed; he was

never ashamed of that, nor did he turn away from it. The two ַעל־ֵ]ן stand side by side upon the

same line. He made his face kachalla'mı̄sh (from cha'lam, related to ga'lam in Isa_49:21, with the

substantive termination ı̄sh: see Jeshurun, p. 229), i.e., he made it as unfelling as a flint-stone to

the attacks of his foes (cf., Eze_3:8-9). The lxx renders this ^θηκα�τ)�πρόσωπον�µου�aς�στερεbν�πέτ

ραν; but Pστήριξα�τ)�πρός, which is the rendering given to ׂשים פני in Jer_21:10, would have been

just the proper rendering here (see Luk_9:51). In “holy hardness of endurance,” as Stier says, he turned his face to his antagonists, without being subdued or frightened away, and was well assured that He whose cause he represented would never leave him in the lurch.

7. CALVIN, “7.For the Lord Jehovah will help me. The Prophet declares whence comes so great

courage, which he and the other servants of God need to possess, in order to withstand courageously the

attacks of every one. It comes from God’ assistance, by relying on whom he declares that he is fortified

against all the attacks of the world. After having, with lofty fortitude, looked down contemptuously on all

that was opposed to him, he exhorts others also to maintain the same firmness, and gives what may be

called a picture of the condition of all the ministers of the word; that, by tuming aside from the world, they

may tum wholly to God and have their eyes entirely fixed upon him. There never will be a contest so

arduous that they shall not gain the victory by trusting to such a leader.

Therefore I have set my face as a flint. By the metaphor of “ flint” he shews that, whatever may happen,

he will not be afraid; for terror or alarm, like other passions, makes itself visible in the face. The

countenance itself speaks, and shews what are our feelings. The servants of God, being so shamefully

treated, must inevitably have sunk under such attacks, had they not withstood them with a forehead of

stone or of iron. In this sense of the term, Jeremiah also is said to have been “ for a fortified city, an iron

pillar, and a brazen wall, against the kings of Judah, and the princes, and the people,” (Jer_1:18;) and to

Ezekiel is said to have been given “strong forehead, and even one of adamant, and harder than that, that

he might not be dismayed at the obstinacy of the people.” (Eze_3:9.)

Therefore I was not ashamed. The word “” is twice used in this verse, but in different senses; for in the

former clause it relates to the feeling, and in the latter to the thing itself or the effect. Accordingly, in the

beginning of the verse, where he boasts that he is not confounded with shame, because God is on his

side, he means that it is not enough that God is willing to help us, if we do not also feel it; for of what

advantage to us will the promises of God be, if we distrust him? Confidence, therefore, is demanded, that

we may be supported by it, and may assuredly know that we enjoy God’ favor.

I shall not be confounded. In the conclusion of the verse he boldly declares his conviction that the end will

be prosperous. Thus “ be confounded” means “ be disappointed;” for they who had entertained a vain and

deceitful hope are liable to be mocked. Here we see that some special assistance is promised to godly

teachers and ministers of the word; so that the fiercer the attacks of Satan, and the stronger the hostility

of the world, so much the more does the Lord defend and guard them by extraordinary protection. And

hence we ought to conclude, that all those who, when they come to the contest, tremble and lose

courage, have never been duly qualified for discharging their office; for he who knows not how to strive

knows not how to serve God and the Church, and is not fitted for administering the doctrine of the word.

8. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “God's help in time of need.

"For the Lord God will help me." This one assurance suffices, and gives the Servant of Jehovah an

indomitable strength. "Against the crowd of mockers he places Adonai Jehovah." "Those whom God

employs he will assist, and will take care they want not any help that they or their work call for. God,

having laid help upon his Son for us, gave help to him, and his hand was all along with the Man of his

right hand" (Matthew Henry). "Greater is he who is with us than all that can be against us."

"God is my strong Salvation:

What foe have I to fear?"

John Ashworth, in his 'Strange Tales,' dwells on the satisfying fulness of the short and simple prayer,

"Lord, help me!" It will fit in everywhere and to everything. It stuns up all our need. It appropriately meets

us whatever may be our circumstances. In the text, the special need of Divine help is felt in the doing of

God's work. If we are resolutely set, as Christ was, upon doing and finishing just that which God has

given us to do, then—

I. WE MAY MEET WITH INDIFFERENCE. And this is often harder to bear than opposition. Men pass us

by. We are not interesting. We are a "voice crying in the wilderness.'' Sometimes we are behind our age,

and God has bidden us remind men of things they ought not to have lost; and then they pass us by as

old-fashioned. Sometimes we are called to be critics of the age in which we live; and then men pass us by

because we annoy them by showing up their faults. And sometimes we are before our age, and prepare

for the changes that are to come; and then men pass us by, with a smile at our unpractical talk, and call

us "foolish dreamers." But we must witness on, whether men will or will not hear; and God will be sure to

keep us cheerful.

II. WE MAY MEET WITH OPPOSITION. Messengers for God usually do. It is a bad sign when all men

speak well of them. God's messages are always likely to offend self-seeking men, and, as a

consequence, God's messengers have to stiffer. But God's help will tide us over all times of trial. We only

have to learn the holy lesson "how great things we must suffer for his sake." God's help is our unfailing

support—a "rock that cannot move." The help of God stands always waiting for us as promise. It never

actually comes to us until the need has arrived for it. Then we find it is always ready. The grace is there,

for the day, for every day. "We can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us."—R.T.

8 He who vindicates me is near.

Who then will bring charges against me?

Let us face each other!

Who is my accuser?

Let him confront me!

1.BARNES, “He is near that justifieth me - That is, God, who will vindicate my character, and who approves what I do, does not leave nor forsake me, and I can with confidence commit myself and my cause to him (see the note at Isa_49:4). The word justify here is not used in the sense in which it is often in the Scriptures, to denote the act by which a sinner is justified before God, but in the proper, judicial sense, that he would declare him to be righteous; he would vindicate his character, and show him to be innocent. This was done by all the testimonies of God in his favor - by the voice which spake from heaven at his baptism - by the miracles which he performed, showing that he was commissioned and approved by God - by the fact that even Pilate was constrained to declare him innocent - by the wonders that attended his crucifixion, showing that ‘he was a righteous man,’ even in the view of the Roman centurion Luk_23:47, and by the fact that he was raised from the dead, and was taken to heaven, and placed at the right hand of the Father - thus showing that his whole work was approved by God, and furnishing the most ample vindication of his character from all the accusations of his foes.

Who will contend with me? - This question indicates confidence in God, and in the integrity of his own character. The language is taken from transactions in the courts of justice; and it is a solemn call, on any who would dare to oppose him, to enter into a trial, and allege the accusations against him before the tribunal of a holy God.

Let us stand together - Before the seat of judgment as in a court (compare the note at Isa_41:1).

Who is mine adversary? - Margin, ‘Who is the master of my cause?’ The Hebrew is ‘Lord

of judgment.’ The expression means not merely one who has a lawsuit, or a cause, but (ba‛al בעל)

one who is ‘lord of the judgment,’ i. e, possessor of the cause, or one who has a claim, and can demand that the judgment should be in his favor. And the call here is on any who should have such a claim to prefer against the Messiah; who should have any real ground of accusation against him; that is, it is an assertion of innocence.

Let him come near to me - Let him come and make his charges, and enter on the trial.

2.CLARKE, “Who will contend with me - The Bodleian MS. and another add the word

יריב�הוא�מי ;hu הוא mi�hu�yarib, as in the like phrase in the next verse; and in the very same phrase

Job_13:19, and so likewise in many other places, Job_17:3; Job_41:1. Sometimes on the like

occasions it is זה�מי mi�zeh, and זה�הוא�מי mi�hu�zeh, “Who is this one?” The word has probably

been lost out of the present text; and the reading of the MSS. above mentioned seems to be genuine.

3. GILL, “He is near that justifieth me,.... His Father was "near" him in his whole state of humiliation; he left him not alone; he was at his right hand, and therefore he was not moved; and "justified" him from all the calumnies of his enemies, or the false charges they brought against him, and from all the sins of his people that were upon him; these he took upon him, and bore them, and made satisfaction for them, upon which he was acquitted; and which is evident by his resurrection from the dead, by his ascension to heaven, and session at the right hand of God; and by the gifts of the Spirit, extraordinary and ordinary, he received for men, and gave unto them; see 1Ti_3:16. Who will contend with me? being thus acquitted; will the law and justice of God litigate the point with him? they are both satisfied; will Satan dispute the matter with him? he is foiled, conquered, and destroyed; or will the wicked Jews enter the argument with him? wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. Let us stand together; face to face, if they dare; let them face me, if they can: who is mine adversary? let him appear, that he may be known: let him come near to me: and engage with me, if he has courage or skill. This is bidding defiance to all his enemies, and triumphing over them.

4. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “He is near that justifieth me. God, who knows his innocence, is near

at hand, and will shortly "make his righteousness clear as the noonday." This was done when God raised

up from the dead "the Holy One and the Just" (Act_3:14). whom cruel men "by wicked hands had

crucified and slain" (Act_2:23). By the resurrection God acquitted Christ of the charge of blasphemy on

which he had been condemned, and proclaimed him "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners"

(Heb_7:26). Who will contend with me? (compare St. Paul's words in Rom_8:33, Rom_8:34, "It is God

that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?"). God is the sole Judge of all men—of the "Servant" in his

human capacity, no less than of others. If he acquits, it is idle for any accuser to stand forth and

"contend" or "condemn" (Isa_50:9). God will help the innocent, whom he has acquitted, and will destroy

the accuser by a secret but most sure destruction. The moth shall eat them up (comp. Psa_39:11,

and infra, Isa_51:8).

4B. PULPIT, “The Justifier's protection.

"Near is he that justifieth me." Reference is to the Servant of Jehovah, whom we identify as the Messiah.

The associations of our Lord's trial and death may suggest that he was a malefactor. God allows no such

impression to remain. He justifies him, by raising him from the dead and granting him full acceptance. He

declares him to have been innocent and righteous. The security of those who have a standing in Christ

lies in the plea made for them by their Justifier (see Rom_8:33, Rom_8:34). (For the earlier form of appeal

to God as Justifier, see Job and David: Job_27:5; Psa_28:1-9 :20, etc.) Compare the expressions, "It is

God that justifieth;" "Raised again for our justification;" "Justified in the Spirit." "The Father justified him

when he accepted the satisfaction he made for the sin of man, and constituted him 'the Lord our

Righteousness,' who was made sin for us." It is not, however, the doctrine of justification which is first

suggested by the text. Its reference is to the confidence which a wronged, slandered, persecuted 'good

man may have, that God will stand by him, and in due time justify him, bringing forth his righteousness as

the light. Our Lord and his servants may say, with misrepresented Job, "I know that" God, my Goel, "my

Redeemer, liveth."

I. GOD JUSTIFIES BY GIVING THE INWARD WITNESS OF HIS ACCEPTANCE. It is plain that he gave

such witness to Christ in his last hours. Even in the dreadful sense of "being forsaken," our Lord could

say, "My God, my God," add commit himself into the Father's hands. Before Pilate he held such

confidence in God's approval that he could calmly reply to him, "Thou couldest have no power at all

against me unless it were given thee from above." A divinely whispered "Fear not," from our Justifier,

enables us to bear all things.

II. GOD JUSTIFIES BY THE LASTING IMPRESSION THE GOOD MAN PRODUCES. Illustrate from the

exclamation of the centurion, "Truly this was the Son of God." A careful estimate of the inward struggles

of Saul of Tarsus brings to view a deep feeling that the claims of Jesus of Nazareth possibly might be

true. The good man only gains more power when his goodness is shown on a background of

persecutions.

III. GOD JUSTIFIES BY THE FINAL RESULTS OF THE GOOD MAN'S WORK. The slandering and the

suffering pass, but the work a man does, and the witness a man makes, abide. Men mistook the Christ.

We know the results of his work, and they become the fullest justification of him.—R.T.

5. JAMISON, “ (Isa_49:4). The believer, by virtue of his oneness with Christ, uses the same language

(Psa_138:8; Rom_8:32-34). But “justify” in His case, is God’s judicial acceptance and vindication of Him on the ground of His own righteousness (Luk_23:44-47; Rom_1:4; 1Ti_3:16, with which compare 1Pe_3:18); in their case, on the ground of His righteousness and meritorious death imputed to them (Rom_5:19).

stand together — in judgment, to try the issue.

adversary — literally, “master of my cause,” that is, who has real ground of accusation against me, so that he can demand judgment to be given in his favor (compare Zec_3:1, etc. Rev_12:10).

6. K&D, “In the midst of his continued sufferings he was still certain of victory, feeling himself exalted above every human accusation, and knowing that Jehovah would acknowledge him; whereas his opponents were on the way to that destruction, the germ of which they already carried with them. “He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me?! We will draw near together! Who is my adversary in judgment?! Let him draw near to me! Behold, the Lord Jehovah will help me; who is he that could condemn me?! Behold, they all shall fall to pieces

like a garment; the moth shall eat them up.” יוCִִהְצ and ִהְרִׁשיַע� are forensic antitheses: the former

signifies to set one forth, both practically and judicially, as righteous (2Sa_15:4; Psa_82:3); the

latter as guilty, ָרָׁשע (Deu_25:1; Psa_109:7). ַנַעְמָדה, which has lost the principal tone on account of

the following ָיַחד (ַהדjָ), has munach instead of metheg in the antepenultimate. Ba‛al mishpa'tı̄ means, “he who has a judicial cause of lawsuit against me,” just as in Roman law the dominus litis is distinguished from the procurator, i.e., from the person who represents him in court (syn.

ba‛al debha'rı̄m, Exo_24:14, and 'ı̄sh rı̄bhı̄ in Job_31:35; compare Isa_41:11). ִמי־הּוא are connected,

and form an emphatic τίς, Rom_8:34 (Ewald §325, a). “All of them” (kulla'm): this refers to all

who are hostile to him. They fall to pieces like a worn-out garment, and fall a prey to the moth which they already carry within them - a figure which we meet with again in Isa_51:8 (cf., Job_13:28; Hos_5:12), and one which, although apparently insignificant, is yet really a terrible one, inasmuch as it points to a power of destruction working imperceptibly and slowly, but yet effecting the destruction of the object selected with all the greater certainty.

7. CALVIN, “8.He is near that justifieth me. We ought always to keep in remembrance that the Prophet

mentions nothing that is peculiar to himself, but testifies what the Lord chooses to be, and will always be,

towards faithful ministers, that whosoever has this testimony, that God has sent him, and knows that he

discharges his office faithfully, may boldly despise all adversaries, and may not be moved by their

reproaches, for he is “” by the Lord; and, in like manner, the Lord always is, and will be, near to defend

and maintain his truth. Besides, that any one may be able to make this protestation, it is necessary that

his conscience be pure; for, if any man thrust himself rashly into the office, and have no testimony of his

calling, or bring forward his dreams publicly, in vain will he boast of this promise, which belongs only to

those who have been called by God, and who sincerely and uprightly perform their duty. Now, although

either hypocrites or despisers never cease to annoy the servants of God, yet Isaiah advances to meet

them, as if none would venture to pick a quarrel or utter a slander; not that he can keep them in

check, (19) but because they will gain nothing by all their attempts. He therefore declares, that he looks

down with utter contempt on the false accusations which the enemies of sound doctrine pour out against

its teachers. There is no crime with which they do not upbraid them; but their efforts are fruitless; for the

Judge, by whom their integrity is maintained, is not far off. They may, therefore, as Paul did, boldly appeal

from the wicked and unjust judgments of men to “ day of the Lord,” by whom their innocence will be made

manifest. (1Co_4:4.)

Let us stand together. Godly teachers ought to have so great confidence as not to hesitate to give a bold

defiance to adversaries. Satan, with his agents, does not always venture to attack openly, especially

when he fights by falsehoods, but by ambuscade, and by burrowing under ground, endeavors to take

them by surprise; but the servants of God are not afraid to “ up” openly, and enter into contest with the

enemy, and contend by arguments, provided that adversaries are willing to enter into the lists. So great is

the force of truth that it does not dread the light of day, as we say that Isaiah here attacks boldly those

whom he perceives to be plotting against him; and therefore he repeats, —

Let him draw near to me. Godly ministers ought to be ready to assign a reason for their doctrine. But

where is the man that is willing to hear them patiently, and to consider what is the nature of that doctrine

which they publicly declare? True indeed, adversaries will approach, but it is to draw their swords to slay

them; to sharpen their tongues, that by every kind of slander they may tear them in pieces. In short, their

whole defense consists in arms or deceitful stratagems; for they do not venture to contend by scriptural

arguments. Relying, therefore, on the justice of our cause, we may freely defy them to the conflict.

Though they condemn us without listening to our vindication, and though they have many that support the

sentence which they have pronounced, we have no reason to be afraid; for God, whose cause we plead,

is our Judge, and will at length acquit us.

(19) “Non pas qu’ puisse tenir les meschans en bride;” “ that he can keep wicked men in check.”

9 It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.

Who will condemn me?

They will all wear out like a garment;

the moths will eat them up.

1.BARNES, “The Lord God will help me - (See Isa_50:7). In the Hebrew this is, ‘The Lord Jehovah,’ as it is in Isa_50:7 also, and these are among the places where our translators

have improperly rendered the word יהוה yehova'h (Jehovah) by the word ‘God.’

Who is he that shall condemn me? - If Yahweh is my advocate and friend, my cause must be right. Similar language is used by the apostle Paul: ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’ Rom_8:31; and in Psa_118:6 :

Jehovah is on my side; I will not fear: What can man do unto me?

They all shall wax old - All my enemies shall pass away, as a garment is worn out and cast aside. The idea is, that the Messiah would survive all their attacks; his cause, his truth and his reputation would live, while all the power, the influence, the reputation of his adversaries, would

vanish as a garment that is worn out and then thrown away. The same image respecting his enemies is used again in Isa_51:8.

The moth shall eat them up - The moth is a well known insect attached particularly to woolen clothes, and which soon consumes them (see the note at Job_4:19). In eastern countries, where wealth consisted much in changes of raiment, the depredations of the moth would be particularly to be feared, and hence, it is frequently referred to in the Bible. The sense here is, that the adversaries of the Messiah would be wholly destroyed.

2.CALVIN, “9.Who is he that condemmeth me? Paul appears to allude to this passage, in his Epistle

to the Romans, when he says, “ is God that justifieth; who shall condemn?” (Rom_8:33.) We may safely

have recourse to the judgment-seat of God, when we are well assured that we have obtained his

righteousness by free grace through Christ. But here Isaiah handles a different subject; for he does not

speak of the universal salvation of men, but of the ministry of the Word, which the Lord will defend against

the attacks of wicked men, and will not suffer his people to be overwhelmed by their fraud or violence.

Lo, they shall all wax old as a garment. He now shews more clearly that it is not in the shade or at case

that he boasts of his courage, as if none were giving him any disturbance; but he declares that, though he

is assailed by deadly foes, still he boldly maintains his position; because all who fight with the Word of

God shall fall and vanish away through their own frailty. In order to place the matter before their own

eyes, he employs a demonstrative particle, “ like garments shall they perish, being consumed by worms.”

The Psalmist makes use of the same metaphor, when he compares the men of this world to the children

of God. (Psa_49:14.) The former, though they make a show and shine like dazzling garments, shall

perish; but believers, who now are covered with filth, shall at length obtain new brightness and shine

brilliantly like the stars. Here he speaks literally of fierce dogs that attack and bark at godly teachers.

Though such persons are held in high estimation by men, and possess very high authority among them,

yet their lustre shall perish and fade away, like that of garments which are eaten by worms.

3. GILL, “Behold, the Lord God will help me,.... This is repeated from Isa 50:7; see Gill on Isa_50:7; to show the certainty of it, the strength of his faith in it, and to discourage his enemies: who is he that shall condemn me? make me out a wicked person (c), prove me guilty, and pass sentence upon me, when thus acquitted and justified by the Lord God? The Apostle Paul seems to have some reference to this passage in Rom_8:33, lo, they all shall waste old as doth a garment; his enemies, those that accused him, the Scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests; and those that condemned him, the Jewish sanhedrim, and the Roman governor: the moth shall eat them up; they shall be like a worn out or motheaten garment, that can never be used more. The phrases denote how secret, insensible, and irrecoverable, their ruin should be, both in their civil and church state, all being abolished and done away.

4. JAMISON, “(Compare “deal,” or “proper,” Isa_52:13, Margin; Isa_53:10; Psa_118:6;

Jer_23:5).

as a garment — (Isa_51:6, Isa_51:8; Psa_102:26). A leading constituent of wealth in the East is change of raiment, which is always liable to the inroads of the moth; hence the frequency of the image in Scripture.

10 Who among you fears the Lord

and obeys the word of his servant?

Let the one who walks in the dark,

who has no light,

trust in the name of the Lord

and rely on their God.

1.BARNES, “Who is among you that feareth the Lord? - This whole prophecy is concluded with an address made in this verse to the friends of God, and in the next to his enemies. It is the language of the Messiah, calling on the one class to put their trust in Yahweh, and threatening the other with displeasure and wrath. The exhortation in this verse is made in view of what is said in the previous verses. It is the entreaty of the Redeemer to all who love and fear God, and who may be placed in circumstances of trial and darkness as he was. to imitate his example, and not to rely on their own power, but to put their trust in the arm of Yahweh. he had done this Isa_50:7-9. He had been afflicted, persecuted, forsaken, by people Isa_50:6, and he had at that time confided in God and committed his cause to him; and he had never left or forsaken him. Encouraged by his example, he exhorts all others to cast themselves on the care of him who would defend a righteous cause.

That feareth the Lord - Who are worshippers of Yahweh.

That obeyeth the voice of his servant - The Messiah (see the note at Isa_42:1). This is another characteristic of piety. They who fear the Lord will also obey the voice of the Redeemer Joh_5:23.

That walketh in darkness - In a manner similar to the Messiah Isa_50:6. God’s true people experience afflictions like others, and have often trials especially their own. They are sometimes in deep darkness of mind, and see no light. Comfort has forsaken them, and their days and nights are passed in gloom.

Let him trust in the name of the Lord - The Messiah had done this Isa_50:8-9, and he exhorts all others to do it. Doing this they would obtain divine assistance, and would find that he would never leave nor forsake them.

And stay upon his God - Lean upon him, as one does on a staff or other support. This may be regarded still as the language of the merciful Redeemer, appealing to his own example, and entreating all who are in like circumstances, to put their trust in God.

2.CLARKE, “Who is among you that feareth the Lord - I believe this passage has been generally, if not dangerously, misunderstood. It has been quoted, and preached upon, to prove that “a man might conscientiously fear God, and be obedient to the words of the law and the prophets; obey the voice of his servant-of Jesus Christ himself, that is, be sincerely and regularly obedient to the moral law and the commands of our blessed Lord, and yet walk in darkness and have no light, no sense of God’s approbation, and no evidence of the safety of his state. “This is utterly impossible; for Jesus hath said, “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” If there be some religious persons who, under the influence of morbid melancholy, are continually writing bitter things against themselves, the word of God should not be bent down to their state. There are other modes of spiritual and Scriptural comfort. But does not the text speak of such a case? And are not the words precise in reference to it? I think not: and Bishop Lowth’s translation has set the whole in the clearest light, though he does not appear to have been apprehensive that the bad use I mention had been made of the text as it stands in our common Version. The text contains two questions, to each of which a particular answer is given: -

Q. 1. “Who is there among you that feareth Jehovah? Ans. Let him hearken unto the voice of his servant.

Q. 2. Who that walketh in darkness and hath no light? Ans. Let him trust in the name of Jehovah; And lean himself (prop himself) upon his God.”

Now, a man awakened to a sense of his sin and misery, may have a dread of Jehovah, and tremble at his word, and what should such a person do? Why he should hear what God’s servant saith: “Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden; and I will give you rest.” There may be a sincere penitent, walking in darkness, having no light of salvation; for this is the case of all when they first begin to turn to God. What should such do? They should trust, believe on, the Lord Jesus, who died for them, and lean upon his all-sufficient merits for the light of salvation which God has promised. Thus acting, they will soon have a sure trust and confidence that God for Christ’s sake has forgiven them their sin, and thus they shall have the light of life.

Isaiah 50:10 That obeyeth the voice of his servant “Let him hearken unto the voice of his

servant” - For שמע shomea, pointed as the participle, the Septuagint and Syriac read ישמע

yishma, future or imperative. This gives a much more elegant turn and distribution to the

sentence.

3. GILL, “Who is among you that feareth the Lord?.... Not with a slavish fear of the awful majesty of God, or of his tremendous judgments, or of wrath to come, but with a filial fear, a fear of the Lord, and his goodness, which is an internal principle in the heart, a reverential affection for God, a godly fear of him; is attended with faith in him, and joy of him; which makes holy, and keeps humble, and takes in the whole worship of God: of men of this character there are but few, and especially there were but few among the Jews at this time which the prophecy refers to; the greatest part were rejecters of Christ, before spoken of, and to; and from whom the Lord turns himself, and addresses these few. There are none that naturally fear the Lord, only such who have the grace bestowed on them; their number is but small, but there are always some in the worst of times, and these are taken notice of by the Lord, Mal_3:16, that obeyeth the voice of his servant: not the prophet, as the Targum adds, and as it is commonly interpreted by the Jewish writers, and others; though some of them say (d) this is "Metatron", a name of the Messiah with them; and indeed he is meant, before spoken of as the Lord's servant, and represented as an obedient one, and afterwards as righteous; see Isa_49:3 and by his "voice" is meant either his Gospel, which is a soul quickening and comforting voice, a charming and alluring one; and which is obeyed, heard, and hearkened to, by his people, externally and internally, when they receive it by faith, and in the love of it; or else his commands, precepts, and ordinances, which love constrains his people to an obedience unto; and where there is the fear of God, there will be hearing of his word, and submission to his ordinances: that walketh in darkness: not the Lord's servant, but the man that fears the Lord, and obeys his servant's voice, such an one may be in darkness, and walk in it; or "in darknesses" (e), as in the original; not only in affliction and misery, often expressed by darkness in Scripture, but in desertion, under the hidings of God's face; and which may continue for a while: and hath no light? or "shining" (f): not without the light of nature, nor without the light of grace, but without the light of God's countenance shining upon him; without the light of spiritual joy and comfort shining in his heart; and this must be a very distressing case indeed. Let him trust in the name of the Lord; not in himself, nor in any creature, but in the Lord himself; in the perfections of his nature, his mercy, grace, and goodness; in the name of the Lord, which is a strong tower, and in whom is salvation; in Christ, in whom the name of the Lord is, and whose name is the Lord our Righteousness; and to trust in him, when in the dark, is a glorious act of faith; this is believing in hope against hope. And stay upon his God; covenant interest continues in the darkest dispensation; God is the believer's God still; and faith is a staying or leaning upon him, as such; a dependence upon his power to protect, on his wisdom to guide, and on his grace, goodness, and all sufficiency, to supply.

4. HENRY, “The prophet, having the tongue of the learned given him, that he might give to every one his portion, here makes use of it, rightly dividing the word of truth. It is the summary of the gospel. He that believes shall be saved (he that trusts in the name of the Lord shall be comforted, though for a while he walk in darkness and have no light), but he that believes not shall be damned; though for a while he walk in the light of his own fire, yet he shall lie down in sorrow.

I. Comfort is here spoken to disconsolate saints, and they are encouraged to trust in God's grace, Isa_50:10. Here observe, 1. What is always the character of a child of God. He is one that

fears the Lord with a filial fear, that stands in awe of his majesty and is afraid of incurring his displeasure. This is a grace that usually appears most in good people when they walk in darkness, when other graces appear not. They then tremble at his word (Isa_66:2) and are afraid of his judgments, Psa_119:120. He is one that obeys the voice of God's servant, is willing to be ruled by the Lord Jesus, as God's servant in the great work of man's redemption, one that yields a sincere obedience to the law of Christ and cheerfully comes up to the terms of his covenant. Those that truly fear God will obey the voice of Christ. 2. What is sometimes the case of a child of God. It is supposed that though he has in his heart the fear of God, and faith in Christ, yet for a time he walks in darkness and has no light, is disquieted and has little or no comfort. Who is there that does so? This intimates that it is a case which sometimes happens among the professors of religion, yet not very often; but, whenever it happens, God takes notice of it. It is no new thing for the children and heirs of light sometimes to walk in darkness, and for a time not to have any glimpse or gleam of light. This is not meant so much of the comforts of this life (those that fear God, when they have ever so great an abundance of them, do not walk in them as their light) as of their spiritual comforts, which relate to their souls. They walk in darkness when their evidences for heaven are clouded, their joy in God is interrupted, the testimony of the Spirit is suspended, and the light of God's countenance is eclipsed. Pensive Christians are apt to be melancholy, and those who fear always are apt to fear too much. 3. What is likely to be an effectual cure in this sad case. He that is thus in the dark, (1.) Let him trust in the name of the Lord, in the goodness of his nature, and that which he has made known of himself, his wisdom, power, and goodness. The name of the Lord is a strong tower, let his run into that. Let him depend upon it that if he walk before God, which a man may do though he walk in the dark, he shall find God all-sufficient to him. (2.) Let him stay himself upon his God, his in covenant; let him keep hold of his covenant-relation to God, and call God his God, as Christ on the cross, My God, My God. Let him stay himself upon the promises of the covenant, and build his hopes on them. When a child of God is ready to sink he will find enough in God to stay himself upon. Let him trust in Christ, for God's name is in him (Exo_23:21), trust in that name of his, The Lord our righteousness, and stay himself upon God as his God, in and through a Mediator.

5. JAMISON, “Messiah exhorts the godly after His example (Isa_49:4, Isa_49:5; Isa_42:4) when in circumstances of trial (“darkness,” Isa_47:5), to trust in the arm of Jehovah alone.

Who is, etc. — that is, Whosoever (Jdg_7:3).

obeyeth ... servant — namely, Messiah. The godly “honor the Son, even as they honor the Father” (Joh_5:23).

darkness — (Mic_7:8, Mic_7:9). God never had a son who was not sometimes in the dark. For even Christ, His only Son, cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

light — rather, “splendor”; bright sunshine; for the servant of God is never wholly without “light” [Vitringa]. A godly man’s way may be dark, but his end shall be peace and light. A wicked man’s way may be bright, but his end shall be utter darkness (Psa_112:4; Psa_97:11; Psa_37:24).

let him trust in the name of the Lord — as Messiah did (Isa_50:8, Isa_50:9).

6. K&D, “Thus far we have the words of the servant. The prophecy opened with words of Jehovah (Isa_50:1-3), and with such words it closes, as we may see from the expression, “this shall ye have at my hand,” in Isa_50:11. The first word of Jehovah is addressed to those who

fear Him, and hearken to the voice of His servant. Isa_50:10“Who among you is fearing Jehovah, hearkening to the voice of His servant? He that walketh in darkness, and without a ray of light, let him trust in the name of Jehovah, and stay himself upon his God.” The question is asked for the purpose of showing to any one who could reply, “I am one, or wish to be such an one,” what his duty and his privileges are. In the midst of the apparent hopelessness of his

situation (cha<she�khı̄m the accusative of the object, and plural to cha<she�kha'h, Isa_8:22), and of his

consequent despondency of mind, he is to trust in the name of Jehovah, that firmest and surest of all grounds of trust, and to stay himself upon his God, who cannot forsake or deceive him. He

is to believe (Isa_7:9; Isa_28:16; Hab_2:4) in God and the word of salvation, for בטח and נׁשען are terms applied to that fiducia fidei which is the essence of faith. The second word of Jehovah is addressed to the despisers of His word, of which His servant is the bearer. Isa_50:11 “Behold, all ye that kindle fire, that equip yourselves with burning darts, away into the glow of your fire, and into the burning darts that ye have kindled! This comes to you from my hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.” The fire is not the fire of divine wrath (Jer_17:4), but the fire of wickedness

(rish‛a'h, Isa_9:17), more especially that hellish fire with which an evil tongue is set on fire

(Jam_3:6); for the zı̄qo�th (equivalent to ziqqo�th, from ze�q = zinq, from za'naq, to spring, to let fly, Syr. to shoot or hurl), i.e., shots, and indeed burning arrows (Psa_7:14), are figurative, and stand for the blasphemies and anathemas which they cast at the servant of Jehovah. It is quite

unnecessary to read ְמאִיִרי instead of ֵריmְnְמ, as Hitzig, Ewald, and Knobel propose, or even,

contrary to all usage of speech, ְוֵריnְמ. The former is the more pictorial: they gird burning darts,

accingunt malleolos, i.e., they equip or arm themselves with them for the purpose of attack (Isa_45:5). But the destruction which they prepare for the servant of Jehovah becomes their own. They themselves have to go into the midst of the burning fire and the burning darts, that they have set on fire. The hand of Jehovah suddenly inverts the position; the fire of wrath becomes the fire of divine judgment, and this fire becomes their bed of torment. The lxx has it

correctly, Pν�λύπo�κοιµηθήσεσθε. The Lamed indicates the situation (Ewald, §217, d). ְׁשָ]בּוןVִ with

the tone upon the last syllable gives a dictatorial conclusion. It has a terrible sound, but still more terrible (apart from the future state) is the historical fulfilment that presents itself to the eye.

7. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “That obeyeth the voice of his servant; that is, of "his servant" for the

time being, whether Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or "the Servant" κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν That walketh in darkness. Not

clearly seeing his way or knowing what his duty is, and so inclined to despond and doubt. Every such

person is bidden to put aside his doubts, and trust wholly in the Name of the Lord, and stay upon his

God. Hence light will shine in upon him, and his doubts will be resolved, and sufficient light will be

granted him to direct his paths.

7B. PULPIT, “A searching query.

"Who is among you," etc.? What wonderful discrimination of character there is in Scripture! It is "a

discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." And it is ever associated with the Divine remedies. Go

to a physician, and you often fear the worst. That never is so with the great Physician. Beautiful idea of

trust! We cannot force either conviction or feeling.

1. The position described.

2. The remedy proposed.

I. THE POSITION DESCRIBED. Human life has its terrible side. So has nature. You see the broad Sea in

her bewitching and entrancing beauty, and you forget how many boats have been lost in the wild tempest.

This is said of a devout man: "one who fears God." Not, of course, strange that a man who does not fear

God should feel like this. We may be children, knowing God's will, trying in our poor way to do it.

1. A season of deep distress. Other griefs are great; but we feel the religious life cold and indifferent! Not

only at times do we feel weakened confidence in man, but in God! Light is so beautiful. It quickens life- It

stirs the pulses of joy. It keeps the home in view.

2. A season of weak faith. Not so much in a Providence as in the ability to lay hold on the promises. To

doubt our sincerity. To doubt our love. Given a man of exceeding faith: he will minimize his troubles,

according to the extent of his faith.

3. A season of pilgrimage. Still has to walk on. Avocations call him forth. Relationships to others must be

sustained. Opportunities must be made use of. Life is a continual forthgoing; and we walk on. What

meditations! What regrets!

II. THE REMEDY PROPOSED.

1. A Name. How simple! God is not merely everlasting, or almighty: he is known to us by a Name. Christ

has shown us the Father. Well, we cannot understand God apart from intuitions and relationships. I thank

God for the lexicon of the family.

2. A trust. Not trying to hurry events. Refusing to judge by appearances. Why should I? Did the Old

Testament heroes? Appearances have deceived. Even untoward health and untoward fortune.

3. A stay. This is an old English word. I cannot stay myself on myself—cannot anchor a boat to itself. I

can and do stay upon that which I see not. I can rely upon a God whose promise invites me. I may refuse

to give up that rest, and say, amid human disappointments, "Beautiful tree, under whose shadow I

pasture! Blessed rock, where I have refuge from the heat!" We love to feel that we are in him that is

"true."—W.M.S.

7C. PULPIT, “Counsel for those who walk in the dark.

"Let him trust in the Name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." Christians "walk in darkness when their

evidences for heaven are clouded, their joy in God is interrupted, the testimony of the Spirit is suspended,

and the light of God's countenance is eclipsed." The first reference of this passage is to the anxieties of

the latter part of Hezekiah's reign, when national dangers were great, and many political parties existed,

one recommending one course, and one another. It was very difficult to decide what course to take. Good

men, who wanted to do right, "walked in darkness." Use the figure of going an unknown path on a dark

night. We only feel safe as we hold some one's hand, and let him guide us. God is the true Guide, and

darkness and light are both alike to him. There is a sense in which one must always be walking in the

dark. "We are not sufficient of ourselves even to think anything as of ourselves." "It is not in man that

walketh to direct his steps." We can never see more than one step at a time. The future is altogether

unknown. If we were sure of ourselves, we can never be sure of others. There is no possibility of our

knowing how they wilt act under given circumstances. Only in vague and uncertain ways can we ever

plan, for all our plans are formed in the dark. It is God's law for us that we shall walk through life in the

dark. The question is—Must we walk alone? That question our text answers. No; we may stay ourselves

on our God. Illustrate by the artistic conception of Noel Paton concerning the guide through the death-

valley, in his 'Mors Janua Vitae' picture. God would have us cherish the spirit which says—

"I'd rather walk in the dark with God

Than go alone in the light."

The "Name of God," in which we are to trust, is the name of a safe Guide—so the ages say, so the saints

of all the ages say. He is the Great-Heart for pilgrims, whether they walk on the hill-ridges of prosperity in

the light, or along the valleys of fear and trouble, where the shadows lie thick and heavy.—R.T.

8. CALVIN, “10.Who is among you that feareth the Lord? After having spoken of God’ invincible aid,

by which all prophets are protected, he directs his discourse to believers, that they may suffer themselves

to be guided by the Word of God, and may become obedient. Hence we may infer how far a holy boasting

raised him above his slanderers; for, in consequence of wicked men, through their vast numbers,

possessing at that time great influence among the Jews, there was a risk of overwhelming the faith of the

small minority. (20) When he asks, “ are they that fear God?” he points out that their number is small. Yet

he addresses them separately, that they may detach themselves from the mixed crowd, and not take part

in counsels which are wicked, and which God has condemned. In like manner we have formerly met with

these words, “ ye not, A confederacy.” (Isa_8:12.) Although therefore the enemies of God are so

numerous as to constitute a vast army, yet Isaiah does not hesitate to say that there are some left who

shall profit by his doctrine.

He speaks to those who “ God;” for, wherever there is no religion and no fear of God, there can be also

no entrance for doctrine. We see how audaciously doctrine is rejected by those who, in other respects,

wish to be reckoned acute and sagacious; for, in consequence of being swelled with pride, they detest

modesty and humility, and are exceedingly stupid in this wisdom of God. It is not without good reason,

therefore, that he lays this foundation, namely, the fear of God, that his Word may be attentively and

diligently heard. Hence also it is evident that true fear of God is nowhere to be found, unless where men

listen to his Word; for hypocrites do proudly and haughtily boast of piety and the fear of God, but they

manifest rebellious contempt, when they reject the doctrine of the Gospel and all godly exhortations. The

clear proof of such persons is, that the mask which they desire to wear is torn off.

Let him hear the voice of his servant. He might have simply said, “ voice of God,” but he expressly says, “

his servant;” for God does not wish to be heard but by the voice of his ministers, whom he employs to

instruct us. Isaiah speaks first of himself, and next of all others who have been invested with the same

office; and there is an implied contrast between that “” which he demands and that wicked eagerness to

despise doctrine in which irreligious men indulge, while they also, by their insolence, encourage many idle

and foolish persons to practice similar contempt.

He who hath walked in darkness. Believers might have brought it as an objection, that the fruit of their

piety was not visible, but that they were miserably afflicted, as if they had lived a life of abandoned

wickedness; and therefore the Prophet anticipates and sets aside this complaint, by affirming that

believers, though hitherto they have been harshly treated, yet do not in vain obey God and his Word; for,

if they “ walked in darkness,” they shall at length enjoy the light of the Lord. By “” the Prophet here means

not the ignorance or blindness of the human understanding, but the afflictions by which the children of

God are almost always overwhelmed. And this is the consolation which he formerly mentioned, when he

declared that “ tongue of the learned had been given to him, that he might speak a word to one who was

faint.” (Ver. 4.) Thus he promises that they who have hitherto been discouraged and almost overwhelmed

by so many distresses shall receive consolation.

(20) “Le danger estoit qu’ n’ estaignissent la foy d’ petite troupe de fideles;” “ danger was that they would

extinguish the faith of a small body of believers.”

9. CHARLES SIMEON. “A WORD IN SEASON

Isa_50:10-11. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh

in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Behold, all

ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the

sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow.

OUR blessed Lord was thoroughly furnished for the great work he had undertaken: he had “the tongue of

the learned to speak a word in season” to every character. In the days of his flesh he encouraged the

weary and heavy-laden with most affectionate invitations: but against the proud and persecuting

Pharisees he denounced the heaviest woes. Thus also he did in the passage before us. It is in his name

that the prophet speaks; it was he who “gave his back to the smiters,” and encountered all his enemies

with a full assurance of final success: and he it is who, in the text, proclaims,

I. Comfort to the desponding—

There are some of God’s people, who, notwithstanding their integrity, walk in a disconsolate and

desponding frame—

[For the most part, the ways of religion are ways of pleasantness and peace; though there may be found

some exceptions to this general rule. Not but that real and unmixt religion must of necessity make men

happy: but there are some, whose views of divine truth are clouded, whose souls are harassed with the

temptations of Satan, and who are at the same time too much under the influence of unbelief, who

therefore, as might well be expected, are not happy: notwithstanding they truly “fear God, and

conscientiously obey his voice, they are in darkness and have no light;” at least, their hope is so faint and

glimmering, that it scarcely affords them any support at all. If we were not able to assign any reason for

the divine conduct in this particular, it would be quite sufficient for us to know, that God never suffers his

people to be “in heaviness through manifold temptations,” except when ho sees some peculiar “necessity”

for such a dispensation towards them [Note: 1Pe_1:6.].]

But to them is directed the most encouraging advice—

[Let not such persons say, “The Lord hath forsaken and forgotten me [Note: Isa_49:14.]:” let them not

conclude, that because their hemisphere is dark, it shall never be light; (for “light is sown for the righteous

[Note: Psa_97:11.],” though it may not instantly spring up) but “let them trust in the name of the Lord, and

stay upon their God.” The name of the Lord is a strong tower, whither they may run, and in which they

may find safety [Note: Pro_18:10.]. By “the name of the Lord” we may understand all by which he has

revealed himself to man, and especially that adorable Saviour “in whom his name is,” and “in whom all his

promises are yea and amen:” in him let them trust as a reconciled God and Father: yes, under the most

distressing circumstances let them “encourage themselves in the Lord their God [Note:1Sa_30:6.]:” and

if he appear to frown, still let them say with Job, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him

[Note: Job_13:15.]. And whenever disquieting thoughts arise, let them chide their unbelief, as David did

[Note: Psa_42:11.]; and determine, if they perish, to perish at the foot of the cross, pleading for mercy in

the name of Jesus.]

To persons, however, of a different description, the Lord changes his voice; and speaks,

II. Terror to the secure—

While some are disquieted without a cause, there are others causelessly secure—

[To “kindle a fire and compass ourselves with its sparks” seems a natural and obvious expression for

seeking our own ease and pleasure: and this may be done, either by self-pleasing endeavours to

“establish a righteousness of our own, instead of submitting to the righteousness of God;” or by giving up

ourselves to worldly occupations and carnal enjoyments. Now they, who find all their satisfaction in one or

other of these ways, are very numerous; while they who serve God in sincerity, but walk in darkness, are

comparatively very few [Note: This is strongly intimated in the text, “Who is, &c.? Behold, all ye, &c.”]: and

so persuaded are they, for the most part, of the happy issue of their conduct, that they will scarcely listen

to any thing which may be spoken to undeceive them. But, how numerous or confident soever they may

be, their state is widely different from what they apprehend.]

To them God addresses a most solemn warning—

[Sometimes, when the obstinacy of men renders them almost incorrigible, God speaks to them in a way of

irony. Here he bids them go on in their own way, and get all the comfort they can; but warns them withal

what doom they must assuredly expect at his hands. Precisely similar to this is his warning to the same

description of persons in the book of Ecclesiastes [Note: Ecc_11:9.] — And how often is it awfully realized

in a dying hour! When they are lying on a bed of “sickness, how much wrath and sorrow” are mixed in

their cup [Note: Ecc_5:17.]! And, the very instant they depart out of the body, what “tribulation and

anguish” seize hold upon them! Alas! who can conceive what it is to lie down in everlasting burnings? Yet

thus shall their lamp be extinguished; and their sparks of created comfort be succeeded by a fire that

shall never be quenched [Note: Job_18:5-6.].]

We cannot conclude this subject better than by directing the attention of all to two important truths

connected with it:

1. To believe God’s word is our truest wisdom—

[What advice can be given to a disconsolate soul better than that administered in the text? We may “offer

thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil: yea, we may give our first-born for our transgression,

the fruit of our body for the sin of our soul;” but we can never attain comfort in any other way than by an

humble trust in the promises of God: we must “even against hope, believe in hope [Note: Rom_4:18.]:”

our “joy and peace must come by believing.” Nor is there less folly in arguing against the threatenings of

God, than in questioning his promises. If God say respecting those who rest in self-righteous

observances, or carnal enjoyments, that they shall lie down in sorrow, our disbelief of it will not make void

his word: it will come to pass, even if the whole creation should unite to oppose it. Though men therefore

may account it folly to believe the word of God, let us remember, that it is our truest wisdom; and that

without an humble affiance in it, we cannot be happy either in time or eternity.]

2. To obey God’s word is our truest happiness—

[We cannot have a more unfavourable picture of religion, nor a more favourable view of a carnal state,

than in the text: yet who would hesitate which state to prefer? Who would not rather be “altogether such

as Paul,” notwithstanding his chain, than be like Festus or Agrippa on their thrones [Note: Act_16:29.]?

Who would not rather be in the destitute condition of Lazarus, and attain his end, than live as Dives for a

little time, and then want a drop of water to cool his tongue [Note: Luk_16:19-24.]? Yes, the most afflictive

circumstances of a religious man are infinitely preferable, all things considered, to the most prosperous

state which an ungodly man can enjoy: the one sows in tears to reap in joy; and the other sows the wind

to reap the whirlwind [Note: Hos_8:7.]. Let us then be persuaded that to serve God is to consult our truest

happiness, and that in keeping his commandments there is great reward [Note: Psa_19:11.].]

11 But now, all you who light fires

and provide yourselves with flaming torches,

go, walk in the light of your fires

and of the torches you have set ablaze.

This is what you shall receive from my hand:

You will lie down in torment.

1.BARNES, “Behold, all ye that kindle a fire - This verse refers to the wicked. In the previous verse, the Messiah had called upon all the pious to put their trust in God, and it is there implied that they would do so. But it would not be so with the wicked. In times of darkness and calamity, instead of trusting in God they would confide in their own resources, and endeavor to kindle a light for themselves in which they might walk. But the result would be, that they would find no comfort, and would ultimately under his hand lie down in sorrow. The figure is continued from the previous verse. The pious who are in darkness wait patiently for the light which Yahweh shall kindle for them But not so with the wicked. They attempt to kindle a light for themselves, and to walk in that. The phrase, ‘that kindle a fire,’ refers to all the plans which people form with reference to their own salvation; all which they rely upon to guide them through the darkness of this world. It may include, therefore, all the schemes of human philosophy, of false religion, of paganism, of infidelity, deism, and self-righteousness; all dependence on our good works, our charities ties, and our prayers. All these are false lights which people enkindle, in order to guide themselves when they resolve to cast off God, to renounce his revelation, and to resist his spirit. It may have had a primary reference to the Jews, who so often rejected the divine guidance, and who relied so much on themselves; but it also includes all the plans which people devise to conduct themselves to heaven. The confidence of the pious Isa_50:10 is in the light of God; that of the wicked is in the light of people.

That compass yourselves about with sparks - There has been considerable variety in

the interpretation of the word rendered here sparks (זיקות ziyqo'th). It occurs nowhere else in the

Bible, though the word זקים ziqqiym occurs in Pro_26:18, where it is rendered in the text

‘firebrands,’ and in the margin ‘flames,’ or ‘sparks.’ Gesenius supposes that these are different forms at the same word, and renders the word here, ‘burning arrows, fiery darts.’ The Vulgate

renders it ‘flames.’ The Septuagint, φλογr phlogi - ‘flame.’ In the Syriac the word has the sense of

lightning. Vitringa supposes it means ‘faggots,’ and that the sense is, that they encompass themselves with faggots, in order to make a great conflagration. Lowth renders it, very loosely, ‘Who heap the fuel round about.’ But it is probable that the common version has given the true sense, and that the reference is to human devices, which give no steady and clear light, but which may be compared with a spark struck from a flint. The idea probably is, that all human devices for salvation bear the same resemblance to the true plan proposed by God, which a momentary spark in the dark does to the clear shining of a bright light like that of the sun. If this is the sense, it is a most graphic and striking description of the nature of all the schemes by which the sinner hopes to save himself.

Walk in the light of your fire - That is, you will walk in that light. It is not a command as if he wished them to do it, but it is a declaration which is intended to direct their attention to the fact that if they did this they would lie down in sorrow. It is language such as we often use, as when we say to a young man, ‘go on a little further in a career of dissipation, and you will bring yourself to poverty and shame and death.’ Or as if we should say to a man near a precipice, ‘go on a little further, and you wilt fall down and be dashed in pieces.’ The essential idea is, that this course would lead to ruin. It is implied that they would walk on in this way, and be destroyed.

This shall ye have - As the result of this, you shall lie down in sorrow. Herder renders this:

One movement of my hand upon you, And ye shall lie down in sorrow.

How simple and yet how sublime an expression is this! The Messiah but lifts his hand and the lights are quenched. His foes lie down sad and dejected, in darkness and sorrow. The idea is, that they would receive their doom from his hand, and that it would he as easy for him as is the

uplifting or waving of the hand, to quench all their lights, and consign them to grief (compare Matt. 25)

2.CLARKE, “Ye that kindle a fire - The fire of their own kindling, by the light of which they walk with security and satisfaction, is an image designed to express, in general, human devices and mere worldly policy, exclusive of faith, and trust in God; which, though they flatter themselves for a while with pleasing expectations and some appearance of success, shall in the end turn to the confusion of the authors. Or more particularly, as Vitringa explains it, it may mean the designs of the turbulent and factious Jews in the times succeeding those of Christ, who, in pursuit of their own desperate schemes, stirred up the war against the Romans, and kindled a fire which consumed their city and nation.

That compass yourselves about with sparks “Who heap the fuel round about” -

meirey; nam מאירי meazzerey מאזרי megozeley, accendentes, Syr.; forte leperunt pro מגוזלי“

sequitur אור ur.” - Secker. Lud. Capellus, in his criticism on this place, thinks it should be מאזרי

meazzerey, from the Septuagint, κατισχυοντες.

There are others who are widely different from those already described. Without faith, repentance, or a holy life, they are bold in their professed confidence in God - presumptuous in their trust in the mercy of God; and, while destitute of all preparation for and right to the kingdom of heaven, would think it criminal to doubt their final salvation! Living in this way, what can they have at the hand of God but an endless bed of sorrow! Ye shall lie down in sorrow.

But there is a general sense, and accordant to the design of the prophecy, in which these words may be understood and paraphrased: Behold, all ye that kindle a fire - provoke war and contention; compass yourselves about with sparks - stirring up seditions and rebellions: walk in the light of your fire - go on in your lust of power and restless ambition. Ye shall lie down in sorrow - it will turn to your own perdition. See the Targum. This seems to refer to the restless spirit of the Jews, always stirring up confusion and strife; rebelling against and provoking the Romans, till at last their city was taken, their temple burnt to the ground, and upwards of a million of themselves destroyed, and the rest led into captivity!

3. GILL, “Behold, all ye that kindle a fire,.... To enlighten and warm yourselves; who, rejecting Christ the Light of the world, and despising the glorious light of his Gospel, and loving darkness rather than light, set up the light of nature and reason as the rule of faith and practice; or the traditions and doctrines of men to be guided by; or their own righteousness for their justification before God, and acceptance with him: that compass yourselves about with sparks, that fly out of the fire kindled, or are struck out of a flint, which have little light and no heat, and are soon out; which may denote the short lived pleasures and comforts which are had from the creature, or from anything of a man's own: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled; an ironical expression, bidding them take all the comfort and satisfaction they could in their own works and doings, and get all the light and heat they could from thence:

this shall ye have of mine hand; which you may depend upon receiving from me, for rejecting me and my righteousness, and trusting in your own: ye shall lie down in sorrow; instead of being justified hereby, and having peace with God, and entering into heaven, ye shall be pressed down with sore distress, die in your sins, and enter into an everlasting state of condemnation and death; see Mar_16:16. This was the case and state of the Jews, Rom_9:31. This is one of the passages the Jews (g) say is repeated by the company of angels, which meet a wicked man at death.

4. HENRY, “II. Conviction is here spoken to presuming sinners, and they are warned not to trust in themselves, Isa_50:11. Observe, 1. The description given of them. They kindle a fire, and walk in the light of that fire. They depend upon their own righteousness, offer all their sacrifices, and burn all their incense, with that fire (as Nadab and Abihu) and not with the fire from heaven. In their hope of acceptance with God they have no regard to the righteousness of Christ. They refresh and please themselves with a conceit of their own merit and sufficiency, and warm themselves with that. It is both light and heat to them. They compass themselves about with sparks of their own kindling. As they trust in their own righteousness, and not in the righteousness of Christ, so they place their happiness in their worldly possessions and enjoyments, and not in the favour of God. Creature-comforts are as sparks, short-lived and soon gone; yet the children of this world, while they last, warm themselves by them, and walk with pride and pleasure in the light of them. 2. The doom passed upon them. They are ironically told to walk in the light of their own fire. “Make your best of it, while it lasts. But what will be in the end thereof, what will it come to at last? This shall you have of my hand (says Christ, for to him the judgment is committed), you shall lie down in sorrow, shall go to bed in the dark.” See Job_18:5, Job_18:6. His candle shall be put out with him. Those that make the world their comfort, and their own righteousness their confidence, will certainly meet with a fatal disappointment, which will be bitterness in the end. A godly man's way may be melancholy, but his end shall be peace and everlasting light. A wicked man's way may be pleasant, but his end and endless abode will be utter darkness.

5. JAMISON, “In contrast to the godly (Isa_50:10), the wicked, in times of darkness, instead of trusting in God, trust in themselves (kindle a light for themselves to walk by) (Ecc_11:9). The image is continued from Isa_50:10, “darkness”; human devices for salvation (Pro_19:21; Pro_16:9, Pro_16:25) are like the spark that goes out in an instant in darkness (compare Job_18:6; Job_21:17, with Psa_18:28).

sparks — not a steady light, but blazing sparks extinguished in a moment.

walk — not a command, but implying that as surely as they would do so, they should lie down in sorrow (Jer_3:25). In exact proportion to mystic Babylon’s previous “glorifying” of herself shall be her sorrow (Mat_25:30; Mat_8:12; Rev_18:7).

6. MACLAREN, DYING FIRES

The scene brought before us in these words is that of a company of belated travellers in some desert, lighting a little fire that glimmers ineffectual in the darkness of the eerie waste. They

huddle round its dying embers for a little warmth and company, and they hope it will scare wolf and jackal, but their fuel is all burned, and they have to go to sleep without its solace and security. The prophet’s imaginative picture is painted from life, and is a sad reality in the cases of all who seek to warm themselves at any fire that they kindle for themselves, apart from God.

I. A sad, true picture of human life.

It does not cover, nor is presented by the prophet as covering, all the facts of experience. Every man has his share of sunshine, but still it is true of all who are not living in dependence on and communion with God, that they are but travellers in the dark.

Scripture uses the image of darkness as symbolic of three sad facts of our experience: ignorance, sin, sorrow. Are not all these the characteristics of godless lives?

As for ignorance-a godless man has no key to the awful problems that front him. He knows not God, who is to him a dread, a name, a mystery. He knows not himself, the depths of his nature, its possibilities for good or evil, whence it cometh nor whither it goeth. He has no solution for the riddle of the universe. It is to him a chaos, and darkness is upon the face of the deep.

As to sin, the darkness of ignorance is largely due to the darkness of sin. In every heart comes sometimes the consciousness that it is thus darkened by sin. The sense of sin is with all men more or less-much perverted, often wrong in its judgments, feeble, easily silenced, but for all that it is there-and it is great part of the cold obstruction that shuts out the light. Sin weaves the pall that shrouds the world.

As for darkness of sorrow-we must beware that we do not exaggerate. God makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and there is gladness in every life, much that arises from fulfilled desires, from accomplished purposes, from gratified affections. But when all this has been freely admitted, still sadness crouches somewhere in all hearts, and over every life the storm sometimes stoops.

We need nothing beyond our own experience and the slightest knowledge of other hearts to know how shallow and one-sided a view of life that is which sees only the joy and forgets the sorrow, which ignores the night and thinks only of the day; which, looking out on nature, is blind to the pain and agony, the horror and the death, which are as real parts of it as brightness and beauty, love and life. Every little valley that lies in lovely loneliness has its scenes of desolation, and tempest has broken over the fairest scenes. Every river has drowned its man. Over every inch of blue sky the thunder cloud has rolled. Every summer has its winter, every day its night, every life its death. All stars set, all moons wane. ‘Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang’ come after every leafy June.

Sorrow is as deeply embedded in the necessity and constitution of things as joy. ‘God hath set one over against another, and hath made all things double.’

II. The vain attempts at light.

There is bitter irony in the prophet’s description of the poor flickering spot of light in the black waste and of its swift dying out. The travellers without a watch-fire are defenceless from midnight prowlers. How full of solemn truth about godless lives the vivid outline picture is!

Men try to free themselves from the miseries of ignorance, sin, and sorrow.

Think of the insufficiency of all such attempts, the feeble flicker which glimmers for an hour, and then fuel fails and it goes out. Then the travellers can journey no further, but ‘lie down in sorrow,’ and without a watchfire they become a prey to all the beasts of the field. It is a little picture taken from the life.

It vividly paints how men will try to free themselves from the miseries of their condition, how insufficient all their attempts are, how transient the relief, and how bitter and black the end.

We may apply these thoughts to-

1. Men-made grounds of hope before God.

2. Men-made attempts to read the mysteries.

We do not say this of all human learning, but of that which, apart from God’s revelation, deals with the subjects of that revelation.

3. Men-made efforts at self-reformation.

4. Men-made attempts at alleviating sorrow.

Scripture abounds in other metaphors for the same solemn spiritual facts as are set before us in this picture of the dying watchfire and the sad men watching its decline. Godless lives draw from broken cisterns out of which the water runs. They build with untempered mortar. They lean on broken reeds that wound the hand pressed on them. They spend money for that which is not bread. But all these metaphors put together do not tell all the vanity, disappointments, and final failure and ruin of such a life. That last glimpse given in the text of the sorrowful sleeper stretched by the black ashes, with darkness round and hopeless heaviness within, points to an issue too awful to be dwelt on by a preacher, and too awful not to be gravely considered by each of us for himself.

III. The light from God.

What would the dead fire and the ring of ashes on the sand matter when morning dawned? Jesus is our Sun. He rises, and the spectres of the night melt into thin air, and ‘joy cometh in the morning.’ He floods our ignorance with knowledge of the Father whose name He declares, with knowledge of ourselves, of the world, of our destiny and our duty, our hopes and our home. He takes away the sin of the world. He gives the oil of joy for mourning. For every human necessity He is enough. Follow Him and your life’s pilgrimage shall not be a midnight one, but accomplished in sunshine. ‘I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’

7. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “All ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks;

or, with firebrands. The persons intended seem to be those whose "tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity"

(Jas_3:6), and who by means of it are employed in "stirring up strife all the day long." They are

condemned to be scorched by the fire which they have themselves kindled, to be made wretched by the

strife which they have themselves caused to spring up. Their end, moreover, will be to lie down in sorrow;

or, in torture (Cheyne). God will punish them in the next world for the misery which they have brought

about in this, and will thus exercise retributive justice upon the wicked ones, whose main object in life has

been to embitter the lives of their fellow-men

7B. PULPIT, “Ineffectual light and guilty darkness.

These words are not applicable to those who have had no special privileges, and to whom there has been

no alternative but that of groping their way in such light as they could gain from their own reason and from

the conclusions of other men. They apply to those only who will not walk in the light which is offered them.

There are—

I. THOSE WHO SEEK NO DIRECT ILLUMINATION IN THEIR CHRISTIAN COURSE. If we would order

our Christian life according to the will of our Divine Master, we must not content ourselves with regulating

our daily conduct by the rules and maxims which are current in the circles in which we move, or by the

notions of propriety we happen to have formed from our elders and associates. We are bound to ask and

to consider what the will of Christ is, as revealed in his Word and as illustrated in his life; and we are

bound to seek the illumination of his Divine Spirit. Otherwise, we shall walk along a very much lower level

than our Lord intended us to take. And though we be not finally condemned, yet will the time come when

we shall awake to our grievous error, and be afflicted with a profound regret.

II. THOSE WHO PERSIST IN CONSTRUCTING THEIR OWN THEOLOGY. God has revealed himself to

us in Jesus Christ; in him and through him we know his nature, his disposition, his will concerning us; we

know the way by which we can regain his favour, return to his likeness, ascend to his home in heaven.

But there are those who will not learn and live; who proudly turn away from the Teacher that came from

God to tell us of the holy Father of man. They prefer to construct their own theology; it is an utterly

unsatisfying one; it is not the Bread of life, but the ashes of disappointment. And they pay, in a great and

awful privation, the penalty of their folly and their sin.

III. THOSE WHO WILL NOT LEARN FROM GOD THE MEANING AND THE WORTH OF HUMAN LIFE.

What are we here for? Can anything be made of the mortal life we are living? Is everything vanity? May

we treat our life as a game to be played out; or as a mart where all things can be turned into money; or as

a selfish scramble in which the strongest and swiftest secure the best prizes? There are many that say,

"Who will show us any good? Life is not worth living." They walk in the light of the poor sparks their own

wit has kindled. They will "lie down in sorrow;" they will come to mourn their great mistake, to reproach

themselves for the greatness of their folly, the seriousness of their sin. For all the while that they were

cynically dismissing their opportunities, there was shining on their life the light that comes from heaven.

Christ was inviting them to make of their earthly life a holy sacrifice unto the living God, a noble and

valuable service to their fellow-men, a time of pure and sacred joy, a discipline that would train the docile

and obedient spirit for a broader sphere and a brighter life in a higher kingdom.—C.

7C. PULPIT, “Disappointed self-trust.

Various interpretations of the fire here referred to have been given. Probably the allusion is to the ordinary

domestic fire, taken as a figure for the various comforts and supports which men can find for themselves.

A self-kindled fire contrasts with divinely given light. Matthew Henry says, "They place their happiness in

their worldly possessions and enjoyments, and not in the favour of God. Creature-comforts are as sparks,

short-lived and soon gone; yet the children of this world, while they last, warm themselves by them, and

walk with pride and pleasure in the light of them. Those that make the world their comfort, and their own

righteousness their confidence, will certainly meet with a fatal disappointment, which will be bitterness in

the end." The figures of the verse may receive explanation from the Eastern fires made with grass, which,

while burning, emits many a dancing spark, that, after a vain promise to enliven the surrounding gloom for

a moment, suddenly sink into darkness. The wet and shivering inmates of the hovel seek for light and

heat by crowding close to the blazing hearth, but after many fruitless attempts, and the consumption of

their stock, they are compelled to retire to their ill-covered pallets—"they lie down in sorrow." Let the

subject be self-confidence.

I. THE SHOW IT MAKES. A man in the power of it starts out bravely; defies the darkness; and easily

overcomes first difficulties. The early efforts of self-reliant people attract attention and excite hope. We

like to see the working of energy and strong will.

II. THE PLEASURE IT BRINGS. To feel power; to find that men yield to our resoluteness, and that

circumstances are mastered by our energy.

III. THE BREVITY OF ITS SUCCESSES. For our strength does not endure. The strain of life steadily

increases. Circumstances at last prove greater than we are. We cannot do the things that we would.

Peters, who for a while can gird themselves, by-and-by find that another must gird them. Do what we

may, we cannot keep the fire of self-trust steadily burning.

IV. THE MISERY WHEN SUCCESS CHANGES TO FAILURE. As it surely does when God puts his hand

upon us, damps the fire, puts out the light we have made, keeps away his light, and leaves us alone, cold,

smitten: to feel with such a one as Byron—

"The worm, the canker, and the grief are mine alone."

Impress the folly and the danger of self-trust by the figures given in Jer_17:5-8.—R.T.

8. CALVIN, “11.Lo, all of you kindle a fire. He upbraids the Jews with choosing to kindle for

themselves their own light, instead of drawing near to the light of God. This passage has been badly

expounded; and if we wish to understand its true meaning, we must attend to the contrast between the

light of God and the light of men; that is, between the consolation which is brought to us by the Word of

God and the empty words of comfort uttered by men, when by idle and useless things they attempt and

toil to alleviate their distresses. Having formerly spoken of “” and “” and having promised light to believers,

who hear the voice of the Lord, he shews that the Jews had rejected this light, in order to kindle another

light for themselves, and threatens that ultimately they shall be consumed by this light, as by a

conflagration. Thus Christ upbraids the Jews with “ in John’ light,” (Joh_5:35,) because they made a

wrong use of his official character, in order to obscure or rather to extinguish the glory of Christ. To bring

forward John’ official character, in order to cover with darkness the glory of Christ, was nothing else than

to extinguish the light of God shining in a mortal man, in order to kindle another light for themselves, not

that it might guide them by pointing out the road, but that, by foolishly rejoicing in it, they might be driven

about in every direction.

When he says that they are surrounded by sparks, he glances at their various thoughts, by which they

were agitated and carried about in uncertainty sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another; and

in this way he mocks at their folly, because they willingly and eagerly ran wheresoever their foolish

pleasures drew them.

Walk in the light of your fire. As if he had said, “ shall know by experience how useless and transitory is

your light, when your unwarranted hopes shall have deceived you.” The ironical permission denotes

disappointment. Others explain it, that wicked men kindle against themselves the fire of God’ wrath; but

the Prophet looked higher, and that sentiment appears not to agree with this passage.

From my hand. Because wicked men, being intoxicated by false confidence, think that they are placed

beyond the reach of all danger, and, viewing the future with reckless disregard, trust to “ own light,” that

is, to the means of defense with which they imagine themselves to be very abundantly provided; the Lord

declares, that they shall lie down in sorrow, and that this shall proceed “ his hand;” and, in a word, that

men who have forsaken the light of the Word, and who seek consolation from some other quarter, shall

miserably perish.

9. SBC, “In this text the many fictitious sources from which men seek to derive happiness are compared to a fire kindled, and sparks struck out by way of relieving the darkness of the night. It is of course implied in the metaphor, that true happiness, the real and adequate complement of man’s nature, resembles the divinely created and golden sunlight.

I. This comparison does not lead us to deny that pleasure and gratification of a certain kind are derivable from worldly sources. Just as man can relieve himself in great measure from the discomfort and inconvenience of natural darkness, by kindling a fire and surrounding himself with sparks, so can he alleviate, to a certain extent, the instinctive sense of disquietude and dissatisfaction, so irksome to him at intervals of leisure, by the various enjoyments which life has to offer. These are lights which gleam brightly for a moment, but will fade and die down beneath the sobering dawn of eternity.

II. Consider the drawbacks of worldly enjoyments. (1) Unsatisfactoriness adheres in their very nature, inasmuch as they are all (more or less) artificial. They are miserable substitutes, which man has set up to stand him in stead of that true happiness, which is congenial to his nature, and adapted to his wants. (2) The fitful character of the enjoyment derived from worldly sources renders it comparable to a fire and sparks struck out. (3) A fire requires constantly to be fed with fresh fuel, if its brilliancy and warmth are to be maintained. Hence it becomes an apt emblem of the delusive joy of the world, falsely called happiness, which is only kept alive in the worldling’s heart by the fuel of excitement. (4) But perhaps the chief drawback of the worldling’s so-called happiness is that it is consistent with so much anxiety—that it is subject to frequent intrusions from alarm, whenever a glimpse of the future untowardly breaks in upon his mind. It is in the night-time, when the kindled fire glows upon the hearth, and man pursues his employments by the light of torch and taper, that apprehensions visit his mind, and phantom forms are conjured up which scare the ignorant and the superstitious. It is the dim foreboding of evil that cankers effectually the worldling’s joy.

E. M. Goulburn, Sermons in the Parish Church of Holywell, p. 429.

New International Version (NIV)

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